announcement the college music society is undertaking the publication of a new series, bibliographies in american music, which will initially concentrate on the subject areas of composers, regional studies, and special topics. the first group of projects planned for publication includes: george gershwin by charles schwartz (hunter college); louis moreau gottschalk by john g. doyle (mansfield state college, pa.); charles lues by frederick freedman (vassar college); john knowles paine by kenneth c. roberts, jr. (williams college); and horatio parker by william kearns (university of colorado). other projects are also in the planning stage. anyone interested in submitting a project for consideration should contact frederick freedman (chairman, publications committee, college music society) at the music library, vassar college, poughkeepsie, n.y. 12601. 55 special project musicology and the musical composition part ll, the musical composition cherrl seltzer, editor in the preceding issue current musicology initiated a special project, "musicology and the musical composition." the purpose of this symposium is to increase our understanding of the musical work in western tradition by evaluating modes of musicological description and explanation. patricia carpenter and richard crocker explored, from different points of view, the notion of a musical composition. they considered, in historical context; such questions as the conceptualization and apprehension of music, the nature and criteria of a musical entity, music as object and music as process, and our assumptions about musical form. commentaries on these papers were solicited from individuals representing the field of music and other relevant disciplines. leo treitler, ruth halle rowen, edward cone, david burrows, psychologist rudolf arnheim, and bernard stambler, from the field of literature and cultural history, contributed the first group of responses. in the present issue saul novack, responding to professor crocker's question, what is a musical piece, investigates the cohesion ofmuiti-movement compositions and the criteria of musical structure. maria rika maniates evaluates miss carpenter's distinction between music as object and music as process and sketches the historical factors which have conditioned our conceptualization and apprehension of music. in regard to miss carpenter's discussion of the historical emergence of the objectified musical work, architect kenneth kaiser considers analogous developments in the conceptualization of an architectural entity. treating the apprehension and description of the musical work, philosopher arnold berleant proposes a distinction between experiential and conceptual realms of musical perception. the nature of music in its relation to man's emotional experiencing of his world is discussed in a historical context by philosopher robert hall. finally, we present professor crocker's reply to the initial group of papers and miss carpenter's response to the discussion as a whole. further exploration of this topic will follow, and current musicology's readers are invited to participate with their letters. (for a comment on the project, see the letters section of this issue.) 85 dissertations from. abroad the research chronicle no.3 of the royal musical association has published a list compiled by paul doe, detailing all postgraduate theses written at british universities since 1945; the list will be up-dated in subsequent issues. to avoid duplication of effort, current musicology will cease with this issue its own listing of theses written at british universities. dissertations written at the rijksuniversiteit in utrecht and published from 1938 to 1958 can be found in music in holland (ed. e. reeser, amsterdam 1959), p. 116. 198 cambridge university the style and structure of frescobaldi's keyboard ricercari and fantasias, with reference to the related instrumental forms of his predecessors. a. p. lessem. 1966. erik satie: his studies, notebooks, and critics. w. p. gowers. 1966. thomas linley, juniorhis life, work, and times. g. e. beechey. 1965. the songs of william byrd. p. brett. 1965. la querelle des bouffons. a. m. whittall. 1964. eustache deschamps: his life and his contribution to the development of the rondeau, the virelai, and the ballade. 1. s. laurie. 1963. english organ music and the english organ under the first four georges. p. f. williams. 1963. purcell's stage works. a. m. laurie. 1963. in progress the early history of the english chapel royal. 1. d. bent. old hall manuscript. m. h. bent. a critical edition of the keyboard music of william byrd. a. m. brown. the evolution of english opera from 1656 to 1695, a reinvestigation. j. m. buttrey. the operas of francesco cavalli. d. k. elcombe. berlioz and the romantic movement. h. j. macdonald. a critical edition of the keyboard works of giles and robert farnaby, with a discussion of giles farnaby's music and a new account of his life. r. k. marlow. the technique and performance of plainsong during the 15th and 16th centuries. mother thomas more. sources of english cathedral music ca. 1600-1640. .i. m. morehen. musical notation in the 20th century. r. h. ortoc';. religious music in northern italy in the early 17th century. .i. l. a. roche. .. shorter notices harold brook porter an integrated course in music literature, theory, and ensemble performance for talented high school students ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-10,462), 1964 (cniversity of arizona diss.) cortland hultberg in an age in whieh one is too often assailed by educational panaceas to offset or destroy the sins of our stumbling forebears, it is refreshing indeed to read a fully-baked plan that makes a good deal of sense and offers some very practical advice to music educators. mr. porter's dissertation is commendable not only for its knowledgeable appraisal of the problems inherent to the high school music program but also for a well-conceived, scholarly, and thorough plan of action which could do much to foster, at long last, musicianship in the school program. well aware of the almost insurmountable difficulties in curriculum changes and scheduling, mr. porter plans to inject already existing high school ensembles with a good dose of music history, practical theory, and performance practices. although not completely original with mr. porter, the idea of integrating literature, theory, and performance on a chronological basis appears to be a very useful approach. it provides musical materials in an easily assimilated form; and running as it does from gregorian chant through the renaissance, baroque, and classic periods, it gives the student an opportunity to identify with some of the most important contributions to the musical art of the western world. mr. porter lists nine works from this period to be listened to, studied, taken apart, synthesized, rehearsed, and finally, performed in a sort of secondary-level collegium musicum lecture-recital. like all good educational schemes, mr. porter's is dependent upon a rare ingredient: effective and dedicated teaching. the instructional staff is, in mr. porter's words, the "single most important factor to be considered" in implementing his program. the lack of suitable teachers for such a program is quite understandable when one considers the number of graduates each year from our institutions of higher learning who are really not prepared to enter into any program of integrated study, since such integration is almost unknown on the university campus. "splinter" courses in theory, ear-training, solfeggio, keyboard harmony, period history courses, and isolated performance ensembles have actually discouraged students from viewing their university experience as an integrated whole. if we believe in the ultimate effectiveness of mr. porter's plan for the high school music program, then we must take steps to provide this type of instruction at the college and university level. however, the state of music at the north american university is not as abysmally black as might be inferred from the preceding. a few signs of change 192 away from the "traditional" splintered program are in growing evidence. the trend which now seems to be asserting itself is towards exactly that which .mr. porter urges, a plan which integrates music theory, history, and performance. universities that are starting or have already begun such programs will be producing a brand of high school music teacher who will more easily be able to fully implement the "laboratory in musicianship" that harold brook porter describes. at institutions such as the university of british columbia, evidence of the superiority of an integrated program is already at hand after only two years of operation. through its chronological organization from ancient greece to the present, students in this comprehensive plan arc well aware of historical development. as an important adjunct, especially in the light of mr. porter's dissertation, they can take with them into their subsequent teaching a better understanding of a wealth of musical literature. cortland hultberg is professor of music at the university of british columbia, vancouver, canada. john malcom tait the significance of musical understanding in music education columbia university ed.d., 1963 gary m. martin the purpose of john tait's study is to examine authoritative views regarding musical understanding and to propose a definition of the same. he then attempts to relate this definition to the educational process of the public schools. musical understanding is defined as a process in which a person re-creates the sounds he hears in terms of his own feelings, knowledge, and imagination. five areas of musical understanding are identified as follows: (a) hearing music: aural recognition of the components of music, such as, rhythm, melody, harmony, form, and so forth. (b) seeing music: visual recognition of musical relationships when they are presented in a musical score. (c) imagining music: (sec below) (d) feeling music: imagining and feeling music are the most intangible of the five aspects of musical understanding. music elements suggest to individuals concepts which may form a bridge between the music and life itself. these concepts (or bridges) are formed by individuals as an out-growth of the interaction between music and their feelings and background. (e) knowing music: knowledge of music history, music theory, musical instruments, and musical forms. tait acknowledges that, in the opinions of some musicians, more than one 193 report: the current status of the copyright revision bill rose rosengard although it is unlikely that the present congress will act on the 1"1 new copyright bill, significant progress has been made this session towards the bill's completion and ultimate passage. the sub-committee of the house judiciary committee has now completed its work and made its report to the full judiciary committee, which in tum has approved the report. if a bill were written and introduced in the house this session, however, the senate would not have time to consider a companion bill at the same time; moreover, in addition to reading the house report, the senate may wish to hold its own hearings on the subject. thus, since without senate action the house would have to reintroduce the bill next session in any case, it will probably refrain from acting this session. the senate notwithstanding, it is questionable whether the house could resolve certain controversial issues with sufficient speed to allow presentation of the final bill this session. in fact, only one portion of the bill seems to have been completely settled at the present moment: it is reasonably certain that congress will extend the present copyright term to include the life of the author plus fifty years thereafter. the problems of copying, duplication, storage, and retrieval with computer and photo-copying devices, on the contrary, will have to be settled by a compromise which will undoubtedly prove less than satisfactory to all parties concerned. this situation is hardly surprising, considering the disparate objectives of writers and publishers on the one hand and copying interests in the educational world on the other. in addition to research needs of scholars, the "fair-use" section of the bill involves the desire of educational television interests to obtain broad exemptions from payment of fees for the use of copyrighted works. writers and publishers seem willing to make certain concessions to these interests, but the educational broadcasters apparently want more. the matter is still being negotiated and some compromise is likely. telecasts by the community antenna television systems (catv), which are judged to serve only as supplements to local coverage, will probably be exempted from royalty payments, but payment will almost certainly be exacted for broadcasts in areas not otherwise covered by local stations at the same time. this too is still under negotiation. the jukebox industry opposes the latest provision calling for a payment of 3 cents every three months for use of a work in a machine. while the matter is still being negotiated, it seems clear that the exemption currently enjoyed by rose rosengard is a doctoral candidate in the department of music, columbia university. 175 tht' industry will be repealed and that some royalty payment will be required. it is t'qually clear that whatever the industry does pay will be provided for in the statute. \vhether provision will also be made to renegotiate an increase in tht' statutory rate at some later time is not yet known. if it is not and if the history of the 1909 statute is considered as precedent, it could mean that no increase in the jukebox statutory rate will be effected until the copyright law is again revised that is, perhaps not for another sixty years. the fee of2 cents a side required by the 1909 law for every recording made of a work will be increased to 2.5 cents or one-half cent per minute, whichever is greater. the recording industry has raised little opposition to the increase, but writers and publishers are very much dissatisfied by the %-cent increase, which they feel bears no relationship to the rise in the cost ofliving since 1909 and is inadequate in comparison with the high salaries earned by recording artists. the rate is a ceiling; therefore, negotiation of a higher rate is forbidden, although there is nothing to prevent recording companies from negotiating lower rates. in effect, the recording company is being protected, although it is the copyright owner whom congress is charged to protect. information about the present state of the so-called manufacturer's clause (requiring manufacture of an item in the u.s.a. in return for full copyright protection) is now available. thus while the relevant material has been collected from all interested parties, further compromises will have to be reached before the house committee is ready to report out its bill. assuming that the new congress does not differ significantly from the old in its attitude towards copyright practice, a new law will in all likelihood be passed during the coming session. 176 eddie covington bass-thematic procedures in the symphonies of berlioz ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 65-3988, 1964. (673 pp., university of north carolina diss.) charles suttoni considering the amount of prose that has been given over to berlioz the man and the composer, relatively little has been devoted to an analysis of the music itself. eddie covington bass's thematic procedures in the symphonies of berlioz is a welcome sign of growing interest in the music, and though its analytical approach is too limited to provide a truly satisfactory account of berlioz's thematic structure, it does offer a thoroughly documented study of one method of constructing a melody. bass opens his study with a brief, but adequate, historical account of the four works involved: the symphonie fantastique, harold in italy, romeo and juliet, and the funeral and triumphal symphony. the justification for considering these works as a group is the fact that berlioz, himself, called them "symphonies" and, given berlioz's great familiarity with beethoven's compositions, "it is not likely that there could have been any confusion of genre" (p. 2). this statement implies that there is some feature of berlioz's symphonic writing that sets it apart from his other works. the implication is misleading, because the author is well aware that berlioz often mixed genres and that he transferred music originally written for overtures, operas, and cantatas to the symphonies; the symphonie fantastique and harold in italy are prime examples. bass, however, skirts the point and makes no attempt to differentiate the themes of the symphonies from those of other works. the "symphonies" of the dissertation's title is merely a means of limiting the analysis to the four works named. beethoven's eroica and liszt's faust symphony are also included in the study to provide some degree of historical perspective for the berlioz works. as the study is basically analytical, however, little is made of the historical comparison between berlioz and beethoven or liszt. the heart of the dissertation consists of separate analyses of berlioz's initial statement of themes and his later development of them. the analysis adopts a method employed by edgar alden in an earlier dissertation ("the role of the motive in musical structure," university of north carolina, 1956). this method deals almost exclusively with repetition within the melodic lineeither exact or modified-as a thematic procedure. for all the value such an analytical method may have in the study of motives, it presents an unbalanced view of berlioz's themes because it shunts aside such other essential characteristics as phrase length, cadence patterns, harmonic direction, and chromatic alteration. in essence, it would appear that bass started with the method and applied it to berlioz, rather than starting with berlioz and working toward an analytical approach that would best explain the material. in 109 the end, the analysis falters in its attempt to elucidate berlioz's melodic structure. given this major limitation in the ·basic method, the analysis presented is orderly and comprehensive. in the chapter on initial thematic statements, for example, bass distinguishes seven different forms of repetition: exact transposed, but non-sequential modified pitch contour modified rhythmic contour minor modifications of pitch and rhythm sequential thematic transformation. his review of the extent to which each form of repetition can be found in the symphonies is further subdivided by the size of the musical unit involved (short motive, long motive, phrase) and by whether the repetition is successive or not. the chapter on thematic development repeats the same group of categories and adds several other alternatives for handling thematic material, such as fragmentation of a theme before or after its first appearance, motivic relationships between themes, the transfer of a theme from one context to another (the idee fixe and the "harold" theme), and contrapuntal combinations of thematic material. again, each section of the chapter is subdivided by the size of the musical unit and the various forms each procedure may take. with this analytical approach, bass is able to highlight those types of repetition the composer favored and those he rarely used. berlioz, for example, "characteristically made minor modifications in phrases of the same theme" (p. 70). berlioz also employed transposed repetition relatively often because it "provided a means of thematic continuity between phrases" of a modulating theme (p. 46). observations such as these-and there are many in the study-have some value, but tend to fall short of defining the major characteristic of a typical berlioz theme: continuous and subtle modification of all elements. the analytical method can identify a point of chromatic alteration but ,does not go far enough with the harmonic implications of the change or with the nature of the alteration that propels the melodic line forward. in the end, bass himself concludes that the themes are "essentially non-repetitive," and that for all the rigorous analysis the study presents, "berlioz's melody remains elusive" (p. 211). bass clearly knows these works wen. he has diligently searched out each instance of each procedure he discusses and gathered them conveniently into an appendix. there are many musical examples, and each aptly illustrates the point under discussion, a virtue not to be taken for granted. as it stands, the work is a thorough study of one rather limited aspect of berlioz's melodic lines. 110 reply to michael kassler matt c. hughes i wish to thank you and mr. michael kassler for the review [current musicology 1966: 82-86] of my unpublished thesis, tonal orientation in skriabin's preludes: an analjsis on the basis of information theory. there are, however, several inaccuracies and many sections of the review that i feel are unnecessarily complicated-all of which warrant comment. my thesis makes no claim that this type of analysis would either partially or fully chronologically organize any group of compositions. the purpose of this type of analysis, as devised in my thesis" is to pinpoint varying degrees of tonal complexity. it can readily show differences in this regard (if there are any) among any given group of compositions notated in "primitive symbols of current common musical notation" (p. 82). the fact that they should fall in exact chronological order would appear j.nlikely, although not impossible, depending upon the sampling. as every analytical tool has its limitations, those of quantitative musicological research are obvious and should warrant no comment. mr. kassler writes: "however, as will be evident, hughes's characterization of his treatment of the skriabin preludes as information-theoretic in the shannon tradition is mistaken" (p. 83). indeed, it would be mistaken, and at no time do i make such a claim. my procedure was not only inspired by a basic idea proposed by the esteemed wilhelm fucks but extends it as given by f. winckel in "die informationstheoretische analyse musikalischer struckturen", (die musikforschung 17: 1-14, 1964). i think dr. fucks's name should have been mentioned in the review, as his idea was certainly an important factor in the development of this technique. in a footnote mr. kassler states: "i have made no attempt to check hughes's numerical calculations in general, though ... i did find some errors. occasionally decisions were required by the calculator that are not included in the calculation procedures hughes presents. for example, in the left-hand part of the antepenultimate measure of op. 11, no.1, hughes apparently assigned to each note the bit value of 1/3, whereas the bit value 2/5 seems to me correct" (p. 83). mr. kassler is correct in assuming that the bit value in question is 1/3. although the rather unorthodox arrangement of the beat offers an interesting performance problem, it does not mathematically. since op. 11, no.1 contains nearly six measures of this type of unconventional arrangement at the end of the composition, and if performance were possible according to mr. kassler's calculations, i find that the right hand would finish approximately one measure before the left. "because some of hughes's verbal constructions are idiolectal and unkeyed to standard english, i am unsure that i have reproduced always the meaning he would convey" (p. 83). likewise, this statement may also serve as a characterization of mr. kassler's writing style. i wonder whether his terms 'note-type' and 'note-type-type' are an essential contribution to musicological terminology. "hughes writes that tonal orientation 'is meant to be the occurrence of each note and its durational value' (p. 15). but this is not of much help" 143 (p. 85). assuredly, one sentence is of little value; but perhaps the rest of the paragraph from which the quotation was lifted would elucidate matters, particularly since i continue after the above quote that this would be discussed later. "we find that hughes neither articulates any specific hypotheses about skriabin's preludes nor puts the data to any significant use" (p. 86). the hypotheses concerning my thesis are clearly stated on p. 14. the question arises as to what mr. kassler expected my thesis to prove. i intended it to show concise amounts of what i call and define as tonal complexity. "and surely hughes deserves criticism for having become engaged in a data-collection procedure ... without justification of the unconventional measurement criteria" (p. 86). apparently, mr. kassler is undecided in this criticism. mter having stated my main concern, namely, "tonal orientation" versus "tonal organization", mr. kassler continues: " ... the necessity for unusual measurements should cause no surprise" (p. 85). " ... and with hardly any comment on the results other than 'they are here'" (p. 86). any analysis can only show what is there. the question, however, is what is there? reply to matt c. hughes michael kassler matt c. hughes austin, texas mr. hughes's reply accuses me ofinaccuracies, but the accusation appears to be gratuitous, for he mentions none. some comments by way of surrebuttal: 1. the phrase 'information theory' has come to mean specifically the field whose development stems from the classical shannon articles and whose current state is illustrated by the content of such journals as the ieee transactions on information theory. to speak today of information theory not in the shannon tradition is oxymoronic. 2. re opus 11, no.1: footnote 2 of my review indicated the presence of a rhythmic problem caused by the composition's being noted not in the current common musical notation (ccmn). hughes has interpreted (for instance) the measures excerpted in ex. 1 as if ex. 2 were their ccmn equivalent; in my review, i said that "the bar placement seems to disallow hughes's 'fiveagainst-three' interpretation"-if the bar had been placed after the second note of the left-hand group of three notes, rather than before, i would have left hughes's interpretation unquestioned. example 3 is the ccmn equivalent of ex. 1 i would tentatively propose (based only on consultation of the edward b. marks reprinted edition). since my version clearly does not have the right hand finishing befqre the left and does have a left-hand note 'bit value' of2/5, hughes's finding of an error in my commentary must be 'lost'. 3. hughes apparently believes that merely by naming the results of his internal-evidential procedures a 'measure of tonal complexity' he has 144 i8th-century music and the problems of its history gerald abraham i t is arguable that the first important step 'in the direction of a comprehensive history of the music of the 18th century was taken the year after paul henry lang's birth, when in 1902 hugo riemann published a volume of mannheim symphonies in the second (bavarian) series of denkmiiler deutscher tonkunst. up to then the 18th century had seemed to consist musically of "the age of bach and handel" and "the age of haydn and mozart," with .little but gluck and c. p. e. bach in between; that, at any rate, was the impression given not only by late 19th-century histories like naumann's but also by the original oxford history of music (1901-05). even the heroes who exelusivelyfilled the stage were seen neither whole nor correctly in detail, neither in perspective nor in relation to each other and the period as a whole. bach was just being wrongly re-drawn as a pre-romantic; handel's operas were regarded as dead; gluck was the reformer of opera (and his non-reformed operas of all periods were conveniently forgotten); c. p. e. bach was mainly interesting as a forerunner of haydn and beethoven; haydn himself was known almost ex:elusively by his last symphonies and quartets and the two great oratorios; and 'mozart, like haydn, was a "forerunner" of beethoven who composed music that was divinely innocent and beautiful but lacked emotional depth. it was riemann's discovery of the mannheimers, followed some years later by guido adler's discovery of the viennese symphonists, which first obliged thinking musicians to recognize that the baroque wave exhausted itself by mid-century, that a new wave-of rococo or sentimentality, two aspects of the same style-was all the while forming itself to mount and break in turn. and this recognition led in turn to the perception that gluck's dramatic reforms, the elements of sturm und drang that came to light in c. p. e. bach and haydn the more one studied them, and the element of the diimonisch in mozart to which hermann abert first drew attention in 1919, were the symptoms of yet another wave that was to pile up in beethoven and then curl over and break in the flurry of romanticism. unfortunately, so far as the concert and opera repertories are concerned, we are still hardly out of the pre-riemann conception of the 18th century. 49 delimitation by centuries is an arbitrary way of measuring off history, but all ways of delimiting historical periods are arbitrary; the frontiers, even the seemingly natural ones, like 1600, always cut across something vital. but the 18th century with its two great "ages"-or, as we now see it, its three great stylistic waves-baroque/rococo/pre-romantic-iooks temptingly neat. too neat. these are still only the convenient abstractions of the historian's mind, and before we can hope to write a really valid account of the century's music as it really was, we need to get further behind these abstractions, find a great many more facts and ask a great many questions about them. the facts are mostly purely musical ones, the questions are also partly musical but also generally cultural, social, even economic or political. the number ofimportant 18th:..century composers whose work we still know only in part is enormous. all but a few of the operas of even such a key figure as alessandro scarlatti are terra incognita to all but a few scholars. vivaldi's vast corpus of instrumental music has been well studied and a large proportion of it is now readily available in modern editions, but his nearly fifty operas remain virtually unknown even to specialists. and alessandro scarlatti and vivaldi are not secondary figures. the position with minor but not negligible composers is naturally just as bad; it could hardly be worse. and attention is still much too firmly focused on italy, the german-speaking lands, and france. they are central, of course, but even if we knew all we need to know about their music our picture of the 18th century would still be very incomplete. british and american scholars do not forget england-though the british sometimes forget america-and the scholars of every peripheral country can be relied on to remember their own cultural heritage; but no one takes a grand synoptic view for the very sound reason that no one yet is in a position to take it. it is only a few years since barry brook moved the french symphony into our line of vision, but a truly synoptic view of the symphony in the 18th century would have to take into account also the really peripheral, almost domestic symphonies written in poland during the second half of the century and only now unearthed in any quantity and published and studied. it is the peripheral countries-scandinavian, slav, iberian-that should fill in the background. and like the celebrated incident of the dog that didn't bark in the night, the weakness or absence of some particular form of 50 musical culture in a particular environment may guide us to the true reasons for its flourishing in another. these reasons are often non-musical, sometimes even non-cultural. however as an art music may appear to be, it is seldom to appreciate accurately and sympathetically the music of any country or period in detachment from its social and general cultural background. we must beware of detecting superficial, and sometimes absurd, pseudo-parallels with other atts, and instead trace the noumenal origins of the phenomena. i myself once described the young mozart's church music as "the precise musical equivalent of such rococo churches as balthasar neumann's vierzehnheiligen"; i think this is so-but the question the musical historian must ask is "why?" what was the essence of the religious nature that found expression in such music and such churches? of course all 18th-century :church music, like that of other centuries, must be explained in terms of religion itself-in the protestant field alone, in terms of german pietism, anglican latitudinarianism, and anglo-american nonconformist "enthusiasm." . to observe and collect facts about compositions, and test evidence for this or that manner of performance, is basic but it is not enough. far too much contemporary musicology is devoted to this kind of labor for its own sake. it is indispensable groundwork and, as i have already observed, much remains to be done. but it is only groundwork, the raw material' of history, not true history itself. why the decline of solo song in italy during the century, the gradual death of the solo concerto? we must first establish by research that solo song really did die out, that our assumption rests on something more than our ignorance of the sources in which 18th-century italian solo song is preserved; but before we can go on to write the true history of 18th-century italian music, we must make at least a determined attempt to explain why solo song died. perhaps if we could make up our minds as to what are the grand problems of musical history in the 18th century, we'could profitably reorientate and provisionally delimit the dire1ctions and scope of our basic research. 51 paul henry lang: an enlightened critic of the enlightenr.nent otis 17ellows voltaire, with a touch of awe usually reserved for the illustrious dead, once called his very much alive contemporary and fellow encyclopedist, denis diderot, a pantophile, this is to say, one who knows about and is interested in everything. with the appearance of music in western civilization in 1941, it became apparent that paul henry lang was also such a man. on that occasion virgil thomson wrote, "it is really a history of music adorned with constant references to the other arts, to political events, to social conditions and to those customs both local and general that are nowadays referred to as cultural patterns." warren d. allen noted, "not since the appearance of two great histories of music by dr. charles burney and sir john hawkins, back in 1776, has there been anything in the english language which can compare with lang's colossal achievement." and eric blom stated, " ... a vast and impressive book ... enormously large and rich .... to have planned such a work at all is to be acclaimed a man of rare intellectual courage and zeal; to have carried it out so well is to take a high place among contemporary musical scholars." recently lang's wide-ranging intellect has borne new fruit: a remarkable biography of the great master handel. lang's interests, his appreciation, and his authority seem to lie everywhere. for those like myself who are primarily interested in the french 18th century, it is manifest that he excels in the so-called age of enlightenment. his judgments are sure, his insights brilliant. among dr. lang's investigations of themes related to music in 18th-century france, there immediately comes to mind a host of topics: la q,uerelle des bouifons, music of the french rococo, j eanphilippe rameau's squabbles with the philosophes, the encyclopedists' forays into the history, science, and aesthetics of music, and, more explicitly, the concern of such figures as d' alembert, grimm, d'holback, rousseau, and diderot with musical theory and practice. all of this is indeed part and parcel of the french enlightenment. the term "enlightenment," it will be recalled, commonly 84 designates a revolution in the history of ideas and especially in 18th-century france. this includes, on the one hand, the popularization and dissemination in literary form of scientific knowledge and, on the other, an all-pervasive philosophical and critical spirit. those in the forefront of the movement were generally referred to as philosophes, although most of them shunned the construction and elaboration of systems of philosophy. they believed that human progress was a distinct possibility through the use of the experimental method in science and the free exercise of god-given reason in all matters pertaining to man. moreover, most of them were encyclopedists as well, in other words, contributors to the encyclopedic, that stupendous intellectual and publishing enterprise of the age. specialists in this area-an area with intricacies of thought and feeling and with the darkness of still insufficiently explored corners-are brought up short by the spectacle of a musicologist adroitly overcoming the difficulties of its topography, and penetrating its recesses with consummate ease. but the musicologist is paul lang and, as the french would say, c'est tout dire! scattered throughout his writings is evidence of his masterful understanding of the age. two recent articles clearly demonstrate their author's comprehension of and insights into the period in question. the first of these is "diderot as musician,"l and the second, "the enlightenment and music."2 professor lang's vast erudition, ,which he wears so lightly, is everywhere apparent in these pages. he has that singular gift of being at once lucid, interesting, and challenging to enlightenment specialists and cultured lay readers alike. in "diderot as musician," the author effortlessly seizes the various facets of denis diderot's exceptional mind. he traces the evolution of the philosophe's thoughts and speculations on music in all their manifestations. the reader is afforded a crisp account of diderot, a highly knowledgeable amateur of music who was drawn into the field first as a musical scientist, a mathematical acoustician, then as a lover of music as a purely artistic expression. professor lang reminds us that diderot arrived reasonably late at the conclusion that music is the most violent of all the arts. we also see the impact of diderot, as editor-in-chief of the encyclopedic, on the aesthetics of music and, more specifically, the role he played in bringing about operatic reform. it is here that professor lang renders no mean service to students· of the '85 enlightenment by setting them straight in a few, carefully choaen words on the thorny problem of rameau's relations with diderot, rousseau, d' alembert, and others of the encyclopedic group. lang tells us "i dwelt on this unhappy episode at some length because music historians are too ready to put all the blame on the philosophes who wronged a great composer, while the literary historians cannot fathom rameau's exceptional qualities as composer-scholar." professor lang's "the enlightenment and music" is-for those concerned with french 18th-century history, science, philosophy, and literature-a most useful pendant to the preceding article, and a veritable treasure-trove of information. we are properly convinced that music-dealing as it does with mathematics and art, physics and aesthetics, tied up as it is with the human mind and human emotions-is heir to a hundred definitions, all more or less true, none wholly so. we are, in consequence, led to believe that it is perhaps the most complex of all man-made disciplines. furthermore, we are duly persuaded that, with the enlightenment, the regarding the origin and growth of the involved phenomenon that is 'music are abandoned in favor of concrete theories. music is now viewed or conceived as a rational discipline with melody as its essence, and leibnitz's definition is called to mind that music is "a hidden mathematical exercise of the spirit unaware of its counting while making music." in short, its double functionthat of a science and that of an art-becomes strikingly clear. even the layman is at last able to see in music, as in other disciplines, a serious attempt being made to bring reason and nature into some sort of unison; such an effort is, as professor lang points out, characteristic of the enlightenment. in all this, precisely what was accomplished in the age under scrutiny? before entering into specifics, professor lang has this to say: the desire to understand and explain the world of appearances was as strong in music as in the other fields during the enlightenment, but since music without the conceptual associations does not express anything but itself, the philosophers and musical theorists hit upon a formidable obstacle. they explored the scientific properties of music, and here the achievements of the enlightenment are extraordinary. these achievements, as well as the mote technical aspects of 86 the article itself, might befittingly summarized by lang's concluding sentence: "the enlightenment gave us all our modern theories and concepts of music; it codified tonality, it created the system of harmony by recognizing the dualism of major and minor, and, above all, it created musical logic." the men of the french enlightenment knew full well that the performing arts as a whole and music in particular were an ennobling "means of addressing mankind" (mussorgsky). of this too, both in the above-mentioned articles and in his writings in general, paul henry lang has been eminently successful in convincing the interested reader. notes 1 diderot studies 10:95-107 (1968). 2 eighteenth-century studies 1 :93-103 (september 1967). 87 introduction and overview leonie rosenstiel, project editor in 1968, at an informal gathering of musicologists and performers, a casual discussion revealed to me that there were serious misunderstandings and, in some instances, tensions between the two groups. there was neither a consensus of opinion on the functions and interrelationships of musicologyl and performance, nor a clear conception of the functions and interrelationships of composition, criticism, and pedagogy. previously, while i had been studying violin and chamber music with louis persinger,2 he had used some of the concepts of musicology (though not under that name) as an integral part of his pedagogical method. he had, therefore, been giving me a simultaneous exposure to both musicology and performance. in fact, these two branches of music were so closely interwoven in his teaching that i did not even realize they were considered separate fields. when i entered graduate school, however, the term "musicology" began to be applied to a certain aspect of my work, and i found that many performers were skeptical of its value and meaning. conversely, many musicologists tended to harbor negative stereotypes of performers. further discussions on this subject convinced me that a genuine need existed for open and honest communication among specialists in all aspects of music. some experts actually believed that they had nothing to say to those in other branches of the discipline! i felt that this situation was impeding the free interchange of ideas so necessary to the health and growth of music as a whole, and that, ifit were to continue unchecked, it could lead to the isolation of each specialty and would ultimately be detrimental to all. the need to develop a more effective means of improved mutual comprehension was urgent. when, early in 1971, the editorial board of current musicology began to consider proposals for special projects for the 1972 and 1973 issues, i submitted a plan to provide a forum for composers, performers, musicologists, critics, and pedagogues. the main goal was to discover how, in each contributor's opinion, based on his own experience and training, the various specialties are interrelated. i hoped that those who contributed articles to this project would discuss the functions of these specialties and the ideal balance among them.3 the suggestion was approved by the board, members of the staff were asked to submit the names of those they felt would make meaningful contributions, and efforts were made to contact a representative crosssection of the musical community in the united states, europe, and latin america. the response to our invitations to contribute articles was so overwhelming that the project itself, originally planned for this issue alone, has had to be expanded to include the following issue as well. our editorial policy in this symposium has been not to include any previously published material. 81 all such offers, whether they were of articles or excerpts from books, were, therefore, declined. in attempting to give our contributors freedom to express their thoughts, we have tried to impose as few restrictions as possible, of either format or content. some authors chose to discuss one specific problem or question in depth, others to survey the general musical scene. still others requested and were given a list of questions, and were invited to discuss any or all of them in their articles. the staff felt that this diversity of approach would, ultimately, reveal what each contributor considered most important, and that one article might pose a problem to which another might suggest a solution. this is, indeed, what has happened. some articles illuminate, comment, and expand upon subjects that others have treated in a more summary fashion. thus this collection has become an intricate mosaic which must be considered as a whole rather than a series of independent parts. concern for the present state of music, the history of communication (or lack of it) among specialists in different areas of music and related fields, and the assessment of the effects of such communication today occupied every author in this project. not all approached these subjects from the same point of view, nor did they necessarily arrive at the same conclusions. nevertheless, such an emphasis on these topics is, in itself, significant. another major trend which manifested itself was a deep concern for the scope and quality of music education, not only as it affects the specialized musician, but also as it helps to form the attitudes and tastes of the general public. over two-thirds of the authors who contributed articles to this issue chose to discuss one or more aspects of the problem (anderson, arlt, cazeaux, doris, hedges, koston, lesure, little, loeb, rabin, stevens, and tureck). performance practice was another area treated by composers as well as musicologists and performers. although more authors discussed the place of musicology in preparing performances of early music (arlt, cazeaux, doris, fuchs, hedges, little, menuhin, stevens, and tureck), its uses in later repertoire were also mentioned (fuchs, hedges, landau, loeb, menuhin, and rabin). even its potential misuses were not ignored (fuchs, landau, menuhin, rabin, and stevens). the philosophy and psychology of various aspects of music and the assumptions of their practitioners were also scrutinized. some articles examined the philosophical and psychological components of more than one branch of the discipline and the different psyches and general philosophies of musicians of the past as well as the present (anderson, arlt, cazeaux, fuchs, gonzalez, hedges, landau, lesure, little, menuhin, newman, rabin, stevens, and tureck). many of the contributors to this issue have included in their articles predictions of the direction which their particular specialty (or specialties) may take in the future. some have also singled out various current and potential problems and made specific suggestions for their resolution 82 (anderson, cazeaux, hedges, koston, lesure, little, loeb, menuhin, rabin, stevens, and tureck). three authors also chose to discuss music criticism (cazeaux, landau, and rabin). based on this evidence, it would appear that musicians in all aspects of the discipline, as well as in different parts of the world, share common concerns. an interest in communication, the present and future of music as both art and science, education, performance practice, philosophy and psychology, and a self-critical approach are apparent throughout the entire collection. this is certainly a hopeful sign. in our age of specialization, it has become increasingly difficult even for those working in different branches of the same discipline to communicate with each other. when people cannot communicate, or when they simply believe that they have nothing to say to one another, each group is likely to develop derogatory stereotypes of the others. this situation, in turn, creates artificial, psychological barriers which impede communication. in this respect, music has been no exception. the first step toward reestablishing and improving lines of communication is to reassess the entire field. once the groups directly involved (or, in this case, a representative sample thereof) have considered their interrelationships and decided what they now expect from themselves and from each other, they can consider what their ideal relationships should be. in this process existing prejudices may be unearthed and examined, so that any unwarranted negative feelings can be eliminated, while at the same time any legitimate grievances may also be aired. it is my hope that this symposium will help to pinpoint the problems and open the way for further meaningful communication among members of the music world. notes 1 it has been the policy of current musicology to consider as musicology "all serious speech communications about music of high and low cultures, of the east or of the west, whether their bias is historical, esthetical, ethnomusicological, meta-theoretical, psycho-acoustical, or interdisciplinary in other possible ways." see current musicology (spring 1965), i: 42-43. 2 louis persinger (1887-1966), from 1930 until his death master teacher of violin and chamber music at the juilliard graduate school of music, was, in addition, a concert violinist and pianist as well as an arranger and conductor. 3 current musicology had already prepared for publication a short report on an english regional conference devoted to a consideration of some aspects of this problem. see anthony hedges, "report from sheffield," current musicology (1971) 11: 65-66. 83 serial procedures in schoenberg's opus 23 john graziano the decade that began with 1915 was critical to the history and development of twelve-tone music. it should be clear to anyone who thinks about this subject that the twelve-tone method of composing could not have appeared, as it were, full-blown from schoenberg's head. there must have been many experiments before schoenberg reached the point where he felt that the technique was sufficient for him. it would appear that when all the sketches become available for study, some determination of the order of events leading to the twelve-tone row will be possible'! until that time, one can at least examine and classify the kinds of techniques schoenberg was using in his various works. toward that end, one can note that the five pieces of opus 23 provide a compendium of four of the procedures which led to the twelve-tone row. this article is primarily an exposition of the technique used in the first piece of this opus.2 however, in order to understand the piece in its larger context, we will briefly summarize the techniques used in the other pieces of opus 23. the approach will be to proceed from the simpler to the more complex techniques. the simplest procedure contained in these five pieces provides the basis for the third piece. schoenberg introduces in m. 1 a five-pitch motive, which, in various inversions and transpositions, generates a large portion of the remainder of the piece.3 in the fourth piece schoenberg extends this concept to include more than one basic cell,4 the various cells (see ex. la5) are used both at their original pitch level and at transpositional levels to form new combinations throughout the piece. an example of a new grouping of the cells at po level can be observed in mm. 20-21 (ex. ib). the divisions given in example la are as they appear in maegaard. example 1 a. 58 b. p the second piece utilizes two rows; because of their length and the way in which they are used, one can no longer refer to them as cells. in this movement schoenberg experiments with the concept of repeating an extended series of pitches.6 opus 23, no.1, develops this last-mentioned concept more fully. here schoenberg introduces three different rows, which are, however, intervallically related.7 all three rows are presented simultaneously here, whereas, in the second piece, the two rows are used consecutively. example 2 presents the three rows, labelled rows a, b, and c, respectively. example 2 row a rowb rowe a few brief comments regarding these rows are in order at this point. row a is constructed from twenty-one pitches. however, only ten pitches of the chromatic scale are presented. the pitches and bb are missing. row b contains twenty pitches. once again, only ten discrete pitches are presented. the missing pitches andf:lt. row c is somewhat shorter; it is constructed from thirteen pitches. in this last row there are only eight discrete pitches, the missing ones and g:lt. it will be observed that in each row the missing pitches are chromatically consecutive, and that in both rows b and andf:lt are among the missing pitches. beyond that point, it can be observed that when the missing pitches from all three rows are combined, they comprise all the pitches of the chromatic scale through bb. it would appear, then, that schoenberg was aware of the peculiar construction of his rows and that the omission of these pitches was not accidental. at this time, however, without a thorough examination of the sketches, his purposes cannot be clearly understood. as hypothesized in maegaard,8 there seems to have been a lapse of time at one point during the composition of this piece. the break appears to occur at m. 22. this hypothesis seems to be well-founded if one examines the piece in detail. 59 example 3 following the presentation of the three rows (mm. 1-6), shown in example 3, there is a free section (mm. 7-12) based on the opening material. most prominent is the melodic cell which commences row b; it can be observed in the middle voice (m. 7) and the upper voice (mm. 9 and 11). there is also some use oftransposition and retrograde, though not with any apparent system. see, for example, pitches seven through sixteen of row a, at p 3 transposition, in mm. 9-10, or the retrograde of row c in m. 7, at pu transposition. a middle section follows (mm. 13-21), in which a simple accompaniment (possibly derived from the sixth through ninth pitches or the seventeenth through twenty-first pitches of row a) first complements pitches one through seven of row a, and then pitches one through nine of row c. at the end of m. 21 there is a short pause, after which the opening material is tentatively reintroduced. it is at this point that schoenberg is thought to have stopped. the closing bars of this piece (mm. 23-35) are composed quite differently from those which precede them. the three rows again move simultaneously, and pitches not connected with any of the rows are added only when schoenberg finds it absolutely necessary for his purposes. in mm. 23-25, the three rows are presented in their entirety. as may be observed in example 4, there example 4 60 are only three pitches (on line 4) which are not attached to one of the three rows. it is interesting to note that these added pitches (m. 24) continue the series of alternating sevenths and thirds that develop from row b, which, in turn, links this final section with the middle section through its accompaniment figuration. by his reintroduction ofthe accompaniment figuration from the middle section in this final section, schoenberg has provided a link which unifies the entire piece. in m. 25 schoenberg also reorders pitches 15 and 16 of row a, to maintain the figuration. example 5 measures 26-28 (ex. 5) present the three rows once more. the added pitches again complement the rows to provide the accompaniment figuration mentioned above. in mm. 26 and 27 these free pitches are combined first with row c and then with row a. (the completed figuration is given on line 5 of ex. 5.) in the second eighth-note beat of m. 28, the added pitches are combined with row b to complete the figuration; however, those added in the last half of the measure do not serve a similar function. schoenberg's treatment of the rows themselves in m. 28 also deserves some discussion. since the three rows are not constructed to be complementary with regard to the ordering of the pitches, there is some overlapping in this measure. in other words, at this point some pitches are functional in two rows at the same time. for example, pitch 10 of row c (shown in parentheses in ex. 5) is not directly stated as part of that row but rather as pitch 13 of row a. other similarly functioning pitches are also shown in parentheses. in this same measure schoenberg uses one pitch (the sixteenth) to function also as the first pitch of that row. thus, this pitch provides the link to the remainder of the piece, since it starts row a once again, even as that row is being completed. the final sections (mm. 29-31 and mm. 31-35) use incomplete versions of the rows. in the first of these sections (ex. 6), schoenberg uses the first thirteen pitches of row a (while at the same time presenting a retrograde of the first seven), the first fifteen pitches of row b, and the first six pitches of row c. in terms of intervals, the added pitches complement row a to produce 61 example 6 i it : ; the middle section figuration. two pitches in this section function in dual capacities. both occur in m. 30. the first pitch is a d# shared by rows a and b. the second is an eq (the thirty-second note in row a at the end of the measure), which starts the retrograde (shown in brackets) and at the same time continues the row as its tenth pitch. example 7 i , i j i :@ i , in the section which follows (ex. 7), schoenberg uses the first ten pitches of row a, the first three pitches of row b, and the first ten pitches of row c. the free pitches are again complementary (see line five of ex. 7). at the last eighth-note beat ofm. 33, schoenberg skips from the tenth pitch of row a to its last three pitches. however, pitch 21 is again used to function as pitch 3 (see mm. 28-29). by this substitution, schoenberg can return to the beginning of row a once again (m. 34). pitches 19-21, as a unit, also provide the basis of the free pitches used in m. 34. the final measure starts the three rows once again. 62 in the final piece of this opus, schoenberg uses a twelve-note row as the basis of the entire movement. while this is not the first piece completed in the dodecaphonic technique,9 its inclusion in this set of pieces brings schoenberg's circle of experimentation to a close. notes 1 in the article "a study in the chronology of op. 23-26 by arnold schoenberg" by jan maegaard in dansk aarbog for musik forskning (1962), pp. 93-115, there is a preliminary attempt to date chronologically all the movements of these works. while maegaard's attempts clarify certain relationships among the various pieces, a detailed examination of opus 23 seems to contradict a number of his conclusions. 2 the earliest analysis of this piece is contained in musikbliitter des anbruch, 13 september 1924, in the article "neue formprinzipien" by erwin stein. on p. 295 he states that the piece is really a three-voice invention. there follows a brief summary of the larger formal divisions of the piece. 3 a detailed exposition of this piece appears in josef rufer's composition with 12 notes (london, 1954), pp. 71-75. 4 maegaard, op. cit., p. 96. 5 musical examples in this article are by the author. 6 a discussion of this piece appears in george perle's serial composition and atonaliry (berkeley, 1968), pp. 49-51. 7 for a discussion of the intervallic relationship between the rows in the opening measures of this piece, see perle, op. cit., p. 10. s maegaard, op. cit., p. 96. 9 n. slonimsky, music since 1900 (new york, 1949), pp. 580-81. maegaard quotes portions of the letter referred to by sionimsky. 63 would also have been interesting. as the study stands, there is no consideration of any given antiphon as a musico-liturgical entity. in summation, dr. bailey treats the ceremonies of the processions of the sarum rite very well. the treatment of the ceremonies of the whole western church, though more cursory, is still useful. however, the discussion of the chants provides only a tantalizing introduction to a very large and interesting repertory. jay weldon wilkey-certain aspects oj form zn the vocal music oj alban berg ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 65-10,911, 1965. 281 pp., indiana university diss.) fred hauptman the music of alban berg presents an unusual challenge to the analyst. berg's eclecticism and stylistic freedom prevent a totally systematic approach and lead writers to unfounded generalizations. most of the writing on berg is by authors who are not theoreticians, and real weaknesses in the older analyses have been exposed by recent critical works, such as that of george perle. therefore, extended theoretical studies, such as that undertaken in this dissertation, are necessary if the elements of berg's expressive but elusive style are to be finally clarified. the purpose of the study is "to trace the development of two formal phenomena in the vocal music of alban berg, namely his use of serial technique and his use of traditional forms" (p. iii). dr. wilkey examines all of berg's published music with voice, including der wein and the two operas. after introductory chapters on the schoenberg school in general and on the basically romantic nature of berg's early works, there are five chapters that attempt to show a clear line of serial development from the sieben friihe lieder to lulu. the "phenomenon" of "traditional form" is then discussed in two chapters, one on "contrapuntal procedures," the second on "sectional forms." these are followed by a summary and bibliography. the topics discussed in the dissertation are important ones. indeed, each of the "aspects" chosen could profitably be the subject ofa separate volume, and their alliance here seems somewhat arbitrary, causing the author to discuss most works twice in order to maintain his two-part organization. this would be a minor inconvenience to the reader if the study achieved its aims. unfortunately, despite some insights, it leaves a great many questions unanswered. the first chapter teaches us nothing new about the relationship of the 112 schoenberg school with the past. after making the assertion that atonality (!) and serial composition were the "innovations" of schoenberg and his followers, dr. wilkey states that "analogies can be seen between concentrated thematic development and serial composition" (p. 6). this is to be the main thrust of his attempt to show that the earlier works of berg have serial tendencies. the chapter discussing berg's early romanticism makes valid reference to the influences of brahms, schumann, and wolf without ever being detailed enough for this type of ostensibly exhaustive study. what is there about schliesse mir die augen beide that reminds one of "robert schumann or a young johannes brahms?" in this section the author comes to grips with the question of french impressionist influence on berg. there are many aspects of berg's music that seem to bear out the relationship-whole-tone melodies and harmonies, parallel chords, instrumental refinements, etc. yet berg apparently had little interest in french music. in his published lecture on wozzeck (reprinted in redlich's biography) berg speaks of the "vague and bottomless sonorities" of the impressionists. dr. wilkey hypothesizes that berg was influenced instead by franz schrecker and refers to berg's piano reduction of schrecker's der ferne klang for universal edition, as well as the friendship of the two composers. this is an interesting idea which is left hanging, perhaps because it does not bear upon the central premises of the dissertation. again, some specific reference to der ferne klang, a score explicitly cited by dr. wilkey, would have been most useful. the analyses of berg's early songs contained in the next chapter constitute the most valuable part of the dissertation. each of the sieben fruhe lieder and the vier lieder, op. 2, is discussed from the point of view ofmotivic organization. these discussions make it amply clear that schoenberg's principle of "continuous variation" was thoroughly applied by berg and that op. 2 is harmonically unified in a manner similar to that employed in many schoenberg works, such as erwartung. errors do creep in: there is an f minor triad in schilflied (bar 17); and the opening of traumgekront is not tonally "obscure" but clearly an elaboration of the dominant ofg minor, with an augmentedsixth impression that strengthens rather than weakens the tonal pull. however, since there has been no comparable study of these songs published, students and performers would do well to seek out dr. wilkey's explications of the complex motivic manipulations so characteristic of berg. the applicability of these analyses to the theory that the early songs show serial tendencies is less certain. the idea that motivic economy is a precursor of the twelve-tone technique inevitably leads to a tiresome search through music history for precedents of dubious relevance. on page 31 bach and mozart (why those two?) are cited as showing the historical roots of serial thinking, and on page 3 isorhythmic motets are marshalled as evidence. if there are any uniquefy pre-serial devices in the early berg songs, they are not uncovered in the dissertation. the example of "octave-displacement" found at the end of nacht is irrelevant-the repetition of a 113 cadential figure in a different octave is hardly evidence of serial thought. the analyses of berg's song are valuable although they do not prove wilkey's thesis. the fourth chapter deals with the altenburg lieder, op. 4. in light of the availability of leibowitz's analysis of these songs in the musical quarterly xxxiv (1948), as well as a dissertation by mark devoto on op. 4, the material in this chapter does not contribute much that is new. dr. wilkey admits that leibowitz was a "great aid" to him, and, in fact, his analysis is basically an extended rewriting of the leibowitz article. however, a few new points are made, and some of leibowitz's errors are corrected (for example, his misreading of the final pedal chord of the fourth song). n evertheless, dr. wilkey's approach is too derivative to be valuable as original work. the chapter on wozzeck is divided into three parts: thematic usage, harmonic practice, and specific serial techniques. the first two sections add little to the sum of our knowledge of the opera, but the final portion includes, among other things, a detailed study of the passacaglia in act i, scene 4, and a good analysis of act iii, scene 1. there are some weaknesses-the derivation of the passacaglia theme from the harmonic series of act i, scene 2, is unconvincing owing to the confusion over transpositions; the top brace of example iii is accidentally left untransposed (it should be a minor third higher); and the note b, although absent from the actual canon beginning in bar 97 of act iii, is present as a pedal throughout its duration. despite these flaws the chapter does succeed in throwing some new light upon a much discussed score. der wein, on the other hand, has been scantily treated by writers on berg; published analyses are limited to discussions of the formal structure and sketchy descriptions of the serial techniques. dr. wilkey fills this lacuna with some success, especially in providing examples of serially derived harmony. he is unfortunately prone to vagueness here, and blanket statements such as "the vocal line consists primarily of various presentations of the basic set" (p. 160) are surprising in the context of this dissertation, in which the author was most careful with the early songs. one would have hoped to find a closely worked study of melodic material in der wein as a means of uniting berg's pre-serial and serial works. similarly, since dr. wilkey is later revealed as a defender of reich, it is curious that he does not discuss the pertinent section of the reich book, with its printed facsimile of berg's hand showing a different form of the row as prime (actually 19 of the prime given by other analysts and dr. wilkey, himself). lulu is the most complex and controversial of berg's serial compositions. dr. wilkey's views on the work are somewhat perplexing. in a summary of the published literature on lulu, he defends reich's statement, ostensibly derived from berg himself, that the opera is based on a single twelve-tone row. george perle's article in jams (1959) is exhaustively paraphrased, but perle's argument that the secondary sets were not derived by the obtusely numerical means reported by reich but chosen for "compositional" reasons 114 (such as partial identity or similarity with each other and the basic series) is apparently rejected. the second part of the chapter presents analyses of three sections of the opera: the prologue, the closing theme of the sonata in act i, and the "lied der lulu." in this section dr. wilkey purports to supplant perle's "new analysis" by producing a "newer" one. however, his description of the opera's serial structure seems to be merely a combination of reich and perle. reich's set derivations are faithfully followed. the sets not discussed by reich (athlete, schoolboy, casti-piani) are derived in a similarly numerical fashion, drawing on a passage in perle in which these three sets are derived "after the manner of reich, for those who prefer the authorized analysis" (perle, p. 196). the authority for all this is apparently berg, with reich as his mouthpiece (dr. wilkey thinks that berg "perhaps forgot" about the sets omitted by reich), yet berg's other form of the der wein set was not mentioned. the choice of the prologue for analysis was unfortunate, as that section is treated in some detail by perle (it is the only section perle discusses fully) and there is little left for dr. wilkey to add. the material in the other two analyses is worthwhile in that it presents some examples of serially derived harmony in a work not noted for its strictness. the reader expecting a "newer analysis," however, will be disappointed. the two chapters on form seem to be a sort of appendage, belying the original double purpose of the dissertation, as they consist of unconvincing attempts to connect the use of a "traditional form" with textual interpretation. the conclusions are occasionally convincing, but these chapters are serviceable only as a catalogue offorms in berg's vocal music. as usual in the dissertation, when original analyses-in-depth are present, they are much more interesting than the contextual material. the analysis of dr. schoen's strophic aria in act ii of lulu is a case in point. in general, dr. wilkey's dissertation is weakened by its duality of purpose. furthermore, such important questions as the use of pitch or "tonal" relations in berg's larger forms (the sonata form in lulu, for example), are virtually ignored. nevertheless, the berg student searching for information will find some of the analyses quite useful. 115 au brey s. garlingtonthe concept oj the marvelous zn french and german opera) 1770-1840 ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 66-4182,1965. 571 pp., university of illinois diss.) james d. freeman this is a careful and accurate study of the principal volcanic eruptions, magical rites, dei ex machina, snowstorms, ghosts, floods, battles, and other manifestations of "ie merveilleux" in opera from gluck and mozart to meyerbeer and marschner. garlington shows the marvelous (which in his discussion includes any sort of spectacular stage effect, natural or supernatural) to have been a consistently dominant trait in the history of french opera in addition to having provided the motivating force in the development of german romantic opera. in accord with august von schlegel and e. t. a. hoffmann, he feels that fantasy, as much as music itself, lies at the heart of the nature of opera of all countries. garlington's thesis is that the marvelous as a dramatic idea changes very little in these seventy years but that composers' concepts of its musical significance are continually changing. his method is to trace the occurrences of the marvelous in the most successful operas of the era and to examine the developing relationship between music and the fantastic events on the stage. he produces a survey that treats some areas more conclusively than others. late 18th-century france, for instance, receives very thorough coverage, while the same period in germany, though teeming with singspiel subjects on magic and fantasy, is largely brushed aside in deference to the importance of zauberjiote. 1 his nearly complete abstinence from any discussion of italian opera and its relationship to the north (idomeneo and don giovanni are treated as examples of mozartean rather than italian opera) is partly to be expected in a dissertation dealing specifically with france and germany. yet italian opera was still flourishing in paris, vienna, dresden, and munich and was, thus, an influential part of the operatic scene in both frenchand german-speaking countries. moreover, the rossini craze that held northern europe in a decade-long trance from 1820 on had a much greater effect on non-italian music of all types than berlioz, for one, would have liked; and even he was not entirely untouched by it.2 garlington does deal briefly with rossini's french operas and revisions, of course; but such important italian contributions to the concept of the marvelous as carafa's gabriella di vergy (1816), pacini's l'ultimo giorno di 115 pompei (1825), salvatore vigano's spectacular milan ballets, as well as rossini's own mose in egitto (the earlier version of the french moise) and semiramide, go unmentioned. concerning late 18th-century italy, both opera seria and opera buffa had tended to avoid fantasy as an integral part of a dramatic work, the one because its best librettists most often treated fantastic events as off-stage occurrences to be pondered later in recitative and aria, the other because its subject matter was more often concerned with the intrigue of everyday life than with cataclysmic events. but italian stage design had remained justifiably famous for its aesthetic as well as spectacular qualities.3 italian audiences were certainly not unaccustomed to spectacular scenery when j. s. mayr and some of his contemporaries around 1800 began to make use of french subjects that incorporated the marvelous directly and emphatically into the drama. mayr's elisa (1801) and his second setting of lodoiska (1800), for example, were based on earlier texts used by cherubini and kreutzer in paris. stefano pucitta's vestale (1809) seems to have relied heavily on spontini's opera of 1807. some twenty years later, donizetti and bellini were often still borrowing from french sources but had begun to have their own special success with a type of spectacle that was peculiarly human and needed few stage accessories: the mad woman. as garlington notes, however, the effectiveness of the stage apparatus was usually at least as much responsible for an opera's success as was the music, whether in france, italy, germany, or anywhere else. in order to assure the most realistic and impressive sets, theaters sometimes went so far as to send their stage designers abroad to familiarize themselves with the machinery that other theaters had used for similar subjects or to acquire a first-hand acquaintance with the actual locale of a particular subject. ciceri, the opera's decorateur for auber's la muette de portici (1828), for instance, was sent on such a mission in order to prepare for the opera's final scene, an eruption of vesuvius.4 yet garlington derives most of his information concerning stage action only from the plots of operas and from stage descriptions included in published scores. he does not concern himself with a systematic review of stage design and spectacle within the period he covers. he includes no pictorial examples of sets or machinery, very little discussion of development and change within the area of stage design, and most disappointingly, no attempt to unravel the relation of composer, librettist, designer, and impresario to each other and to the creation of the marvelous. garlington points out a continually growing tendency throughout this period for the composer to write more exciting music for spectacular stage events in order to achieve a more immediate connection between stage and orchestra. he rightly considers an undramatic musical treatment of a fantastic event to be old-fashioned after 1780. unfortunately, his natural preoccupation with the marvelous often leads him to judge an entire opera on the basis of its use of the marvelous, even though such use sometimes consists of a page or less of music. some serious exaggerations result. carafa's masaniello (1827), for instance, on the same subject as auber's 116 la muette and produced only two months prior to auber's opera, is dismissed by garlington as "a complete failure" (p. 192). yet loewenberg claims 136 performances for carafa's work, hardly a sign of a failure;5 and the revue musicale of 1828 mentions several times that the opera was having a long and quite brilliant success.6 in a similar comparison between cherubini's lodoi'ska and rudolphe kreutzer's opera on the same subject, garlington condemns the kreutzer work because of its less interesting battle music. he adds that "since this opera was performed scarcely a month following cherubini's triumph, kreutzer obviously had little time to piece the work together if he intended to capitalize on public sympathy for this type of story" (p. 93) and that the attempt to compete with cherubini's opera "was as foolhardy an act as can be found in the annals of operatic history" (p. 86). actually, the two operas were produced exactly fifteen days apart, surely too little time for kreutzer, librettist, and stage designer to compose an imitation opera that also still needed rehearsal time. much more likely, the two productions were prepared more or less simultaneously. moreover, fetis states that kreutzer's lodoi'ska was received with enthusiasm;7 and, in fact, it would seem that kreutzer's work actually enjoyed a greater success than cherubini's, at least in france.s in any case, its production was clearly far from being a foolhardy venture. garlington's analyses of the music for stage spectacles often tend to be overly simple, sometimes naive. for example, the music for the marvelous in cherubini's lodoiska and elisa, rossini's tell, and marschner's vampyr, as well as the storm in beethoven's pastoral symphony, is each in turn described as being nothing more than an extremely involved development section that has neither exposition nor recapitulation. there are some good reasons why descriptive music for battles, storms, floods, etc., tend to be continuous rather than periodic, but garlington does not state them. despite the occasional oversimplification and exaggeration, however, garlington has written a basically sound, scholarly, and useful work. there are a few obvious errors of dates and attributions, but these seem to be proofreading slips in a work otherwise well written and carefully prepared. the majority of his ideas are well taken; there is some very thoughtful consideration of the relation of fantasy to romanticism; and the author is obviously quite familiar with the thorough bibliography he presents. finally, garlington makes it clear that a study of "ie merveilleux" does, indeed, provide a valid and effective perspective on the rapidly changing ideas and styles of emergent romanticism. notes 1 garlington discusses dittersdorf's hieronymous knicker and mentions hiller's die jagd, andre's das wiitende heer, neefe's zemire und az;or, winter's unterhrochene 0pierfest, and wranitsky's oberon. unmentioned but among the most successful works dealing with fantasy 117 or the marvelous are benda's melodramas ariadne auf naxos and medea, \vinter's das labyrinth, zumsteeg's geisterinsel, and siissmayr's spiegel von arkadien. 2 for an opinion on this see edward dent, "the romantic spirit in music," proceedings qf the musical association (1932-33) 59: 92. 3 see edward o. d. downes, "the operas of johann christian bach as a reflection of the dominant trends in opera seria," unpublished ph.d. dissertation (harvard university, 1958), p. 115. 4 revue musicale (1827) 1: 574. 5 alfred loewenberg, annals of opera (cambridge, 1943), col. 710. 6 2: 548, 565, 605. there was clearly a certain amount of competition between the opiracomique (carafa) and the opera (auber) concerning the production of these two operas. auber's work had been scheduled for performance early in 1827 but was continually delayed by the lack of progress of the dicorateurs. reports on their progress in 1827 refer to the opera as "mazzaniello," but after it becomes known that carafa is producing an opera with the same title, auber's opera becomes la muette. 7 biographie universelle des musiciens, 2nd ed. (paris, 1860-65), v, 106. 8 loewenberg, op. cit., col. 491. roger jacques kamien-the opening sonata-allegro movements in a randomly selected sample oj solo kryboard sonatas published in the years i742-i774 ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-9458, 1964.310 pp. in 2 vols., princeton university diss.) thomas warburton roger kamien has contributed a valuable service to musicology by showing how one might apply statistical methods to a study of sonata-allegro movements. in his dissertation he has methodically observed specific qualities in a random sample of seventy works. these have been drawn from a total population of 1090 works published between 1742 and 1774. many previous studies of sonata-allegro movements have involved either the historical evolution of the concept of the sonata in general or the tonal dispersion of musical materials in particular. kamien, by contrast, has attempted to bridge the gap between the specific and the general. having surveyed previous discussions of sonata movements, kamien observes a lack of objectivity among writers in their descriptions of sonata form. he deplores the inexactness of such terms as "rarely found" or "not uncommon" or "frequently appear" to qualify the occurrence of musical properties. he even refrains from using the term "sonata form" past his second chapter. through an application of statistical methods, he hopes to determine and describe the incidence of musical events in a more precise language. (in appendix ii he describes the specific technical procedures he has employed.) further, he attempts to attain a frame of reference with 118 all 38,000 music educators of the menc be questioned on "what basic philosophies and attitudes music educators should hold." before marching over the precipice of that objective, mr. johnson should learn that sampling procedures are designed expressly to avoid having to deal with entire populations and that you can't discover what music edu-:ators should believe by finding out what they do believe. one can only hope that this dissertation is not typical of music education doctoral studies. arthur daniels is assistant professor of music at oakland university. josiah darnell an evaluation of the bachelor of music education curriculum at murray state college through an analysis of the opinions of its teaching graduates ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-2257), 1963. (indiana university, ed.d.) james mckinnon this dissertation is an evaluation of a particular curriculum, and logically enough the author begins by explaining why one undertakes an educational evaluation. he does so by quoting what various authorities have to say on the subject. for example, troyer and pace write: \vhat are some of the purposes and values of evaluation? why do we evaluate? one very clear reason is in order to judge the effectiveness of an educational program.l and leonhard informs us that: evaluation enables the teacher to ascertain the effect of the learning experiences of his students and the validity of his teaching methods. 2 thus we learn that the purpose of evaluation is evaluation, and in case the lesson is not grasped it is repeated later in a paragraph which defines educational evaluation: ... the process of judging the effectiveness of educational experience. it includes gathering and summarizing evidence on the extent to which educational values lmaurice e. troyer and c. robert pace, evaluation in teacher education, washington, d.c. 1944, p. 2. 2charles leonhard, "evaluation in music education," basic concepts in music education, fifty-seventh yearbook of the national society for the study of education, part i, chicago 1958, p. 313. 186 are being attained. such evaluation seeks to answer the question: "what success is our educational program?" one cannot argue with the truth of these statements; after all one does evaluate in order to evaluate. yet certainly they are so obvious as to be meaningless. while written in language which gives the impression of saying something serious, they are without content. in all fairness, however, it should be pointed out that the first authority went on to present another reason for evaluation: we undertake to evaluate the program because we hope thereby to improve it. by knowing its strengths and weaknesses we are enabled to plan more intelligently for its improvements. but how much does this add? do we really need to be told in formal language that we evaluate something so that we can improve it? perhaps there is a danger that the layman, unless informed by expert opinion, will think that one undertakes an evaluation of something in order to make it worse. one turns to the body of this study with the hope that it is more substantial than its platitudinous introduction. the idea behind it is certainly sound. mr. darnell proposed to evaluate the bachelor of music education curriculum at murray state college, kentucky, where he is a faculty member. his first step was to draw up a list of what he calls competencies, that is, any skills, proficiencies, or knowledge a music teacher ought to bring to his work, such as, the ability to conduct with a baton or a familiarity with easy music for chorus. a list of 222 "competencies" was compiled and sent to all graduates of murray from 1947 to 1959 who were actively engaged in teaching music. the graduates were to evaluate each "competency" (1) as to its importance in actual teaching and (2) as to the effectiveness of the murray state teacher-training curriculum in inculcating it. the task of the author was then to compare the first of these evaluations with the second and draw the proper conclusions about the improvement of the murray state curriculum. an example of the finished product is that the "competency" to develop music reading ability in the elementary grades was rated 2.8 (on a scale of 0.0 to 3.0) as to its importance and 2.0 as to the effectiveness of the murray state preparation. the implication is that murray state must improve its program in this respect. mr. darnell has done an effective and orderly job in the preparation of this questionnaire and the tabulation of its results. his idea of making the opinion of the graduates the basis of his results strikes me as particularly sound. moreover, the subject of the survey is an important one, and the replies present a wealth of raw material for music educators to ponder. unfortunately, his interpretation of the data is singularly lacking in penetration, and the formalistic character which marks the introduction prevails throughout the entire project. mr. darnell does not really interpret the data at all. he first presents it in approximately 100 pages of tables, and then in nearly 200 pages of commentary he simply summarizes verbally what appears in the tables graphically. certainly with his experience as an educator he must have interesting and relevant reactions to the statistics he presents, but he never expresses them. particularly disappointing is what he offers under the heading "some implications of the findings." he does no more than compare 187 the importance rating with the effectiveness rating; and if the latter does not measure up to the former, he concludes that improvement is indicated. anyone could simply glance at his columns of figures and draw similar conclusions. that this passivity in the face of statistics is inadequate and that the insight of an active interpreter is necessary can be seen in the following examples. "the techniques and attitudes necessary for successful work with" "parents of your students," "local townspeople," and "music merchants" were given importance ratings of 2.9, 2.8, and 2.6, respectively, while the effectiveness ratings were much lower-2.2, 2.2, and 2.1. the author concludes that "the difference ... between the importance and effectiveness scores would seem sufficient cause for foc·using more attention on this area of teacher training at murray." this example, which can be parallelled by dozens of others, constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of his method. the fallacy involved becomes clear when one takes the reductio a step further and invents a fictitious example. if "the ability to find one's classroom in the morning" were listed as a "competence," it would have to be given the top rating of 3.0 because it is utterly essential that a teacher reach the classroom. yet murray's effectiveness rating might be quite low, say 1.1, since it neglected this item in the curriculum. the implication would be that murray must improve its training in this respect. what is wrong with my example, is that it deals with a skill which, while essential, is not amenable to treatment in a college curriculum. if a teacher does not have a knack for finding his classroom in the morning, even graduate work in the subject would probably be wasted. this is, admittedly, an outrageous example, one for which mr. darnell is in no way responsible. yet the fallacy it illustrates is present to a greater or lesser degree in his own example of "the techniques and attitudes necessary for successful work with music merchants" and in literally dozens of others, such as, "arranging for the stage lighting of public performances," or the "ability to select band uniforms.' , another question which cries out for discussion concerns value judgments. what would strike many people as trivia are treated with great solemnity. mr. darnell writes: the sharp contrast between the importance and effectiveness scores of2.5 and 1.4 for 'drum majoring classes' suggest a definite need for more attention to this phase of the training at murray state college. indeed the graduates give significantly higher importance ratings to "the ability to select and evaluate football show materials" and "the ability to organize and teach baton twirling classes" than to "understanding of and familiarity with" the music of the romantic, classic, and baroque periods. the implication is that baton twirling is more important than the music of 1vlozart and bach. more important also are "the business aspects of music teaching" and "costuming casts for public performances," not to speak of the ability to deal successfully with music merchants. i cannot understand how mr. darnell accepts these implications at face value. it would seem to me that he should call upon his insight and judgment as an educator to question these patent absurdities instead of simply bowing to the statistics before him. there are any number of questions that should be asked. foremost among them is whether the statistical results really reflect the teachers' value judg188 ments. if questioned directly would they actually say that selecting band uniforms is more important than familiarity with mozart's music? or is it possible that the typical murray graduate in the field has no notion of influencing public taste but rather looks upon his task as one of conformity to popular standards? perhaps this is so. perhaps he values conformity above all else as evidenced by the extremely high importance rating of 2.9 he gives to "the techniques and attitudes necessary for successful work with your administrators." i would hope not, but what is mr. darnell's opinion? unfortunately, we have no way of sharing his thoughts on this and on many other interesting questions raised by his survey. james mckinnon is assistant professor of music at the state university of new york at buffalo. peter meyer bela bartok) s ady-lieder) op. 16 winterthur: verlag p g. keller, 1965. (95p., price not given; university of zurich diss.) halsey stevens in this country dissertations dealing with music of the 20th century are still relatively infrequent, and when they appear at all, are likely to take a life-and-works form or to deal with a substantial segment of a composer's work. not so with that of peter meyer, who chose for examination the ady songs of bela bart6k, offering a restricted view of the composer's achievements. the songs composed by bart6k playa rather minor part in his catalogue. aside from a number of songs from his student years composed to german texts (heine, siebel, ruckert) and a few more in hungarian (p6sa, peres, havas, stank6), there are only two sets of "composed" songs: opus 15 (1915-16) on unidentified hungarian texts and opus 16 (february-april, 1916) on texts by endre adyl by far the greater contribution or bart6k to song literature is the large number of folksong transcriptions, ranging from the relatively literal harmonizations of 1906 to the highly imaginative settings of 1929. in his preface dr. meyer (working under the supervision of dr. kurt von fischer at the university of zurich) considers the place of the song in bart6k's creative work, dealing first of all with folksong itself and folksong transcription and briefly cataloguing the "original" songs. in this context he 'points out that one must not confuse the german words original and originell as often happens, though they arc not equivalent. idr. meyer. lists the liebeslieder of 1900 "for two-part chorus (with piano accompaniment?) ," these liebeslieder, on poems by ruckert, are for solo voice with piano; they have been published in der junge bartok (1962). 189 handel and keiser: further borrowings winton dean reinhard keiser's opera die riimische unruhe, oder die edelmiithige octavia, produced at hamburg on august 5, 1705, has long been known as a source of handel borrowings. chrysander prepared the score as the sixth supplement to his handel edition, but died before it appeared, with a preface by max seiffert, in 1902. seiffert identified ten passages used by handel, all in early works. eight of them occur in music composed during the italian period (i.e., before 1710), the other two in the opera silla, produced at burlington house in june 1713. several turn up in more than one context, and six found their way, mostly via other works, into the score of agrippina (1709). handel had appropriated all ten within eight years of the production of keiser's opera, which he undoubtedly heard at hamburg and in which he probably played (he was a member of the theater orchestra). he had another reason for remembering it: the subject was identical with that of his own second opera, die durch blut und mord erlangete liebe, oder nero. this had been staged six months before octavia, on february 25, 1705, and unlike his first opera, almira, was a failure; the music is lost. it seems probable that keiser, who brought out his own almira in 1706, was deliberately challenging his young rival. a recent inspection of the score of octavia revealed two further borrowings of much later date, which seem never to have been noted. they show that nearly thirty years after the hamburg production handel was still drawing sustenance from this old source. 1 early in act i nero's mistress ormoena, who plays a part not unlike that of poppea, addresses him in a love song, "vaghi lumi del mio bene," of which this is the opening ritornello: ex. 1 affettuoso . violins, violas unison r 6 73 handel used this in act ii scene 5 of ariodante (composed between august and november 1734), where polinesso's aria "se l'inganno sortisce felice" begins as follows: ex. 2 " ,...." i i i i v -,j4;j. ""'-f -...... pp -: the initial phrase (two bars in keiser, four in handel) is almost identical except for a slight change in rhythm, and both composers give it to the voice (keiser after a long-held d); but in other respects the two arias could scarcely be more different. keiser's is a love song for high soprano, handel's a cynical mockery of virtue for contralto (one of the many male parts in his operas composed for a woman). the greater richness of handel's aria in invention and development emerges with the introduction of contrasted material (and su btler harmony) in the second half of the ritornello, and still more in the aria itself, a superb delineation of po lines so's envious and vicious character. it may be 74 thought too that the downward creeping motive is more suited to express the emotion handel injected into it than that which evoked it in the first place. the second borrowing is a sententious little aria about the unpredictability of fortune, "chi non sa della fortuna," sung by nero in the final scene of octavia, which begins: ex. 3 1 ;rdzi:: 1 :i: i; 6· 6 this was to inspire one of the noblest arias in orlando, completed in november 1732. soon after the start of the opera the hero, urged by the magician zoroastro to follow mars instead of cupid, decides to gain his glory in the service oflove. mter all, hercules and achilles were no less brave for their enjoyment of the softer pleasures ("non fit gia men forte alcide"). this is the ritornello: ex. 4 3* 75 ------again there is no parallel in the words or the dramatic situation. keiser's aria is for bass voice, handel's for alto castrato. again only the first phrase is common ground (four bars of 3/8 in keiser, two of 6/8 in handel), though this time the key is the same and the notes (apart from a modification to the bass) identical. keiser does almost nothing with his motive except give a simplified variant of it to the voice. handel also bestows it on the voice, but he spins a whole aria, of considerable length and consummate beauty, from keiser's germ. once more the beginning of this process can be glimpsed by comparing the continuation of the two ritornellos, bare and commonplace in keiser, pregnant and rhythmically flexible-and sensuously scored for two horns, two oboes, and four-part strings-in handel. both examples conform to the dominant pattern of handel's borrowings, whether from his own work or other people's. he . takes a short incipit and uses it as a basis for new development, in the manner of an improvisation. he draws from it possibilities that cannot have been suspected by its creator, much as a great sculptor releases the secret life in a block of stone. the borrowing is repaid at compound interest. another remarkable detail emerges from a study ?f handel's dealings with octavia. one of the passages to which sieffert draws attention is livia's aria "kehre wieder!" a love song in act i scene 7, used by handel in the cantata aminta e fillide (fillide's aria "fiamma bella!") and act ii of agrippina (agrippina's aria "ogni vento"). here again handel takes keiser's first two bars, changing nothing but the key, and continues quite differently, with an irresistible phrase in the rhythm of a waltz that completely transforms the piece. but there is a second borrowing here, which appears not only in the two arias mentioned by seiffert but in at least four other works spread over the whole extent of handel's career, a period of a full halfcentury. towards the end of the first half of "kehre wieder!" 76 keiser sets the words "meine seele seufzt nach dir" to a striking phrase based on the interval of a ninth: ex. 5 andante ?f if::;:-;; ::::s:: 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 2 . e::=:::;::; t if;:: 6 this seems to have haunted handel's imagination, for he reproduced it again and again, in different keys and time signatures, and not always in contexts associated with keiser's incipit. there are a number of minor variants, but the essential phrase remains unaltered. the passages are worth quotation for the light they throw on the ,hidden processes of creation.2 interior borrowings of this kind, which are not uncommon in handel, are not a matter of improvisation but of the sudden precipitation into consciousness of a musical idea stored in the memory. aminta e fillide (1708), "fiamma bella!": ex. 6 77 agrippina (1709), "ogni vento": ex. 7 all fr i""""r-. fr gli span -de il noc chier, span .... aii ?vns. unls. fr r-fr ... w· -.. -: ..... '-'-i all ,....,...,. w· -de .... /111 ,....,..., ... . ... -: ..... rodelinda (1725), act ii, eduige's aria "de' miei scherni" (second part) : ex. 8 78 allegro del em pio fa ro, del em pio fa rci fie 6 6 2 ro_· _ scem 76 n berenice (1736-37), act ii, selene's aria "si poco e forte": ex. 9 andante solomon (1748), act i, queen's aria "with thee the unshelter'd moor i'd tread": ex. 10 all larghetto ., v v thy love -ly form a lone_ i prize, 'tis_ thou_ thal canst im part i ,,.....,. i ,---i ... 1 r r r,\ v ,r r r f\ i 1 i strings '\.j ji \j jj .j/ r j j j .d .d : ..." io,jl i i r the triumph of time and truth (1758), act i, deceit's aria "happy beauty": ex.11 ' a fr fr . ... still ... ""--'= 4-' joys the sweet_ a -pril of life, "a vn. i r-r-., 4-' ... .r: -... .-:-.. "' 79 ii -. ... , ... still en joys ___ the_sweet a-pril of life._ en (joys) "'" ei .. .. .-.fi• :.-"' this last aria was added to the triumph of time and truth in the last year of handel's life, and although it is to some extent a conscious reworking of earlier material3 its enormous length (293 bars) and sumptuous orchestration (two horns, two oboes, independent bassoons, violins in three parts, viola, and bass) entitle it to consideration on its merits. it was presumably dictated to]. c. smith and must be one of the very last products of handel's brain. of these six ari'as, keiser's incipit launches examples 6, 7, and 11, and (less conspicuously, abbreviated and in a minor key) example 8, and plays a subsidiary part in example 9, but does not occur at all in example 10. only in example 9 is the quoted phrase anticipated in the initial ritornello. it is difficult to say what specific emotion, if any, handel associated with it. the texts offer no common denominator, though some (notably example 10, where alone the passage is fully harmonized) seem more appropriate than others. but there is a peculiar aptness in the fact that in extreme old age he set the words "still enjoys the sweet april of life" to music he first encountered 53 years before in the dawn of his career. even if he had long forgotten its origin, he never ceased to repay his debt to reinhard keiser. notes' 1 these are not the latest keiser borrowings. the minuet in the overture to samson (1742) is based on a movement in keiser's claudius (1703), though it may have appeared in another handel work in the interval. it is a safe assumption that the unpublished or lost operas of keiser (and others) contain material that handel at some time gathered into his net. 2 three of them are quoted in my book handel's dramatic oratorios and masques (1959), pp' 519-20. i was not then aware of the other three, nor of their source in keiser. . 3 not only the keiser incipit used in "fiamma bella!" and "ognivento" but an aria ("piacer che non si dona") in the unpublished cantata 'amarilli ve;;;;;;osa' on which he drew for another agrippina aria, "col peso del tuo amor" (rudolfewerhart, "die handel-handschriften der santini-bibliothek in miinster," in handel-jahrbuch 1960, pp. 125-26). it will be seen that example 11 returns closely to' handel's earliest form (examples 6 and 7); 80 musicians donna k. anderson in the vast and complex discipline of music, there are, to be sure, many areas of specialization, such as musicology, composition, performance, and music education, all of which require detailed study. each has its unique problems, each its unique solutions, and each makes a unique contribution to the enhancement of musical experience and understanding. yet these specialized areas are only segments of a larger whole-music. on the one hand, these areas are separated by their uniqueness. on the other hand, they are irrevocably interrelated and inseparable, because music as an art and as a discipline does not exist except as the sum total of all its parts. therefore, we are first and foremost musicians, who specialize in such areas as musicology, composition, performance, or music education. there must be a very close relationship among all specialists-an "informational-inspirational exchange," as it were. for example, the musicologist can contribute a great deal to a performer's understanding of musical style; a composer can directly or indirectly provide compositions to aid the music educator in his work; the performer can contribute to the composer by bringing his works before an audience; through his teaching, the music educator can contribute to all by making music a vital part of the cultural environment. all musicians, be they musicologists, composers, performers, or music educators, should share a common bond and, one would hope, a common goal-to enhance musical experience and understanding, and to do this not merely among their colleagues but among all those who share an interest in and a love for music. musicology is perhaps the least understood area of musical activity. musicians have long viewed it with suspicion because of its connotations of stuffiness and "nit-picking scholarship." traditionally, there has also existed a sentiment that music is a mysterious phenomenon, with its own truth that can be neither fathomed nor demonstrated (in contrast to that of science, for instance). therefore, some musicians have feared that the scholarly approach to music would somehow rob it of its romantic, veiled image. fortunately, these ideas are losing popularity, since today's musicologist is generally a competent performer as well as a scholar, and most musicians now realize that musicology has contributed a tremendous amount of exciting, viable information and useful performing editions to the world of music. one of the most valuable tasks that the musicologist performs is to make available to the "practical" musician compositions which for one reason or another have been lost to the musical marketplace. notation is the special language of the composer, and it is the language of the composer which the musicologist must be able to understand. he, more than any other musician, must comprehend the notations of the past and the present. one cannot expect today's performer or general music teacher to be expert in such fields as medieval or renaissance notation, for example. it is the musicologist, 84 therefore, who must transcribe unfamiliar notation into a notation which the performing musician can readily understand. the activities of musicology have made the public aware of and interested in music that has been "buried" for hundreds of years-music that would have remained lost if scholars had not discovered its existence, studied its relationship to the artistic, political, social, economic, religious, and even geographic conditions of its time, and then made the music available to the performer (who in turn awakened the interest of the concert-going public). thus, everyone cooperates and gains: the composer, who started it all by writing the music, but who must have an audience if his music is to have meaning; the musicologist, who has had the great satisfaction of "reviving" the music and learning to "know" the composer and his era; the music educator, who can apply this knowledge and music in his teaching; and the performer, who also comes to know the composer and his era and then presents the music to the public. this cooperative venture brings to all participants the ultimate satisfaction and, i think, the ultimate purpose of all musical creativity and research-the hearing and experiencing of the music itself. the recent, highly successful international josquin festival-conference illustrates my point most forcefully.l it is obvious that scholarly research and performance must be closely related and that it is as important for the musicologist to be a competent performing musician as it is for the performer to have an interest in research. scholarship enhances the performance of music, and the musician who bases his performance on deep and careful study is the one whose art is ultimately the most convincing. and, of course, playing and experiencing music is absolutely essential to the scholar if he is to infuse factual knowledge with excitement and meaning. performing musicologists (musicians) are no longer rarities in the music world. today one can seldom accuse the musicologist of dealing with all aspects of music except the music itself. and the old myth of the "dumb singer" or the "athletic performer," who relies more on muscle than heart and brain, has been shattered by a considerable number of today's performers. the notion that scholarship and creativity are incompatible should no longer exist in the world of music. the composer occupies a rather special position in the music world. it is he who provides the materials which occupy and nurture the rest of his fellow musicians, materials which, i feel, must ultimately reach and nurture the audience. in some instances, however, composers in the 20th century have adopted an attitude of "artistic freedom," which is concerned only with the artist's self-expression. in search of this freedom the composer often ignores not only his audience but also his fellow musicians. a composer who writes only for himself, no matter what his motivations, seems to me to be as illogical and misguided as a performer who plays to an empty hall, a teacher who lectures to an empty classroom, or a musicologist who commits his research to the wind. certainly there must be individuality, experimentation, and innovation in all areas of music. freedom and individuality are basic 85 requirements for creativity, but no one can enjoy absolute liberty. freedom depends on the circumstances of the moment; it is an adjustment to or a consideration of the freedom of others. unfortunately, the world no longer allows anyone the serene isolationism permitted in the past. the composer cannot exist in isolation any more than can his fellow musicians. each must make a viable connection between music and the life about him. to the musicologist, the composer, the performer, and the educator, the enhancement of musical experience and understanding should mean a knowledge of music not as an entity in itself, separated from the broad ebb and flow of culture and history, but as an integral part of the history of mankind and as an important factor contributing to the evolution of man's ideas and progress. i would think that every musician wants music to become a vital part of man's cultural environment, not only to provide him with a pleasing aesthetic experience-for we know that pleasure is as vital to man as food and shelter-but also, even more importantly, to give him a stimulating intellectual experience which can increase his understanding of all human activity. the enormous task of making music an integral part of every man's environment must be shared by all musicians, or it will be forever unattainable. a large part of the responsibility lies with the music educator, who deserves and can rightfully expect help from all his colleagues in the other specialized areas of music. in a general education, music most often takes the form of some group activity in which the social aspect looms large. in these groups the spirit of fair play, cooperation, and united effort are all stressed. this is not a good reason for including music in a curriculum and cannot lead to a truly musically literate man. any idea that music in the curriculum should be justified essentially for nonmusical reasons is not only foolish but dangerous as well, for it can only divert the student from a true understanding of the music itself. musicology has made available to the music educator a vast amount of material that should be utilized to broaden the scope of music which is taught at all levels of education. the play of daniel, for example, could be made just as meaningful and entertaining for elementary school pupils as bobby goes to the zoo. a recent publication called the juilliard repertory library2 represents a cooperative venture among composers, musicologists, performers, and educators to provide a repertoire offolk and pre-renaissancethrough-contemporary music for the elementary school (but it is certainly appropriate through high school and represents an important step forward in music education). at the earliest stages, music may be introduced at a level which involves cursory listening, often with cxtramusical perceptions. this must be the beginning of the musical experience, but it is absolutely essential that we do not remain at this level for long. in essence, what the music educator must do is widen his student's musical horizons and equip him with the proper skills for acquiring an understanding of and a liking for music. a major goal 86 should be musical growth in which taste and intelligent listening are ultimately shaped by the individual's own knowledge and judgment. musical growth depends upon the study of and experience with music itself-all kinds of music, whether "classical," "folk," or "popular"-not only with its sounds but also with its symbols, its historical evolution, and its relationship to the society which nurtured it. this approach would make it unnecessary to bastardize such works as mozart's symphony no. 40 and beethoven's ninth in order for them to become popular and meaningful in american culture. whether we like to admit it or not, the future of music, its position in our culture, and its place in the lives of all our citizens, lies mainly in the hands of the elementary and high school music teachers. these music educators will ultimately guide and form the early attitudes of future concert-goers and can either help to make music an integral part of our environment or inadvertently create a cultural void in which music is a superfluous luxury for a small minority. if the music educator is not aware of what specialists in his own field can offer him, music education will face a crisis. moreover, it seems a shame that certain specialists who are well qualified musically for the task rarely have an opportunity to teach in the public schools. often they are not welcome; often they teach their specialty only to graduate students and tend to ignore the problems and needs of the music educator. this situation widens the serious gap between such specialists in music and the general music teacher in our public schools, a gap that ought certainly to be eliminated if we are to guarantee music its rightful place in our environment. i think it is imperative that all specialists in the various areas of music develop a close, cooperative working relationship. each of the areas is obviously important in its own right. however, they are far more important as they interrelate and contribute to one another and as they together promote a widespread understanding and enhancement of the art and discipline of music. notes 1 see the report in this issue, pp. 47-64. 2 cincinnati: canyon press inc., 1970, preface. "the juilliard repertory project began through a grant from the united states office of education to thejuilliard school of music to research and collect music suitable for use in grades kindergarten through six. the research consultants collected works that were generally unavailable to the classroom teacher. the purpose was to enrich existing materials and to provide works of greater variety relative to historical era, ethnic validity and musical scope." 87 toward a rapprochement of musicoloey and music education: some practical considerations frederick d. mayer and jack sacher i t is most u,fortunate axo more tha:-; a little straxge that those who consider themselves primarily scholars and those who consider themselves primarily teachers should consider each other little short of mortal enemies. in american education, the musicologist rarely regards the practicing teacher or professor of music education as his colleagw", much less his ally; indeed, at many schools (auburn and columbia universitics, for example) the departments of music cducation and musicology are completely removed from each other. .making matters worse are the stereotypes of the musicologist as a denizen of the world of ivory-towered intellectualism, and of the "educationist" as a nai\'e performer totally ignorant of music history, structure, and style. ':\;lusical study, of course, is a healthy blend of theory and practice. both the educator and the musicologist work within the same basic frame of reference but with different emphases. it is significant that both have the same ultimate goal: for professionals, the cultivation and refinement of a comprehensive musicianship; for amateurs, the cultivation and refinement of taste through knowledge and understanding. why, then, the hostility and distrust? why should the two national organizations (the music educators ;\'ational conference and the american musicological society) continue to regard each other with thinly-veiled dislike? why, indeed, the unfortunate breakdown of communication between two professions deeply concerned with the condition of our musical culture? perhaps the most important factor in creating the schism is the frustration which must result from the mistaken idea that both have the same immediate goals, and the equally mistaken idea that there is little difference in how these goals are to be reached. 1\lusic education is committed to three fundamental concepts: music is a means of affecting the attitudes and behavioral patterns in people; music education in the public schools is designed to benefit every child; a vital musical culture will exist in america only when many creative people dedicate themsehts to music through study, composition, and performance. musicology, for its part, is yitally important in providing the knowledge and skills needed to understand music. frederick d. mayer is currently on kave from his post as assistant professor of voice and choral music, teachers college, columbia university. during his leavc he will be singing with the chicago lyric opera. j.\ck sacher, assistant professor of music at montclair state college, was director of music for the public schools of north bergen prior to assuming his present position in the fall of 1964. 140 .. before discussing the ways in which musicologists and music educators might recognize their interdependence and benefit from each other's work, let us examine some of the unique qualities of public school music education and of the training of its teachers. perhaps the most important cause of the musicologist's distrust is his failure to recognize the enormous scope of music education in america and the special problems which teachers-and those who teach teachers-have to solve. even though music occupies a very small portion of the typical public school curriculum, there arc still too few musicians available who have devoted themselves to public school education. literally hundreds of jobs go begging every year because vast numbers of children swell the schools and only a minute number of musically-trained college graduates choose to teach them. schools of education arc therefore faced with the incredibly difficult problem of training the general classroom teacher to do a job which cries out for a trained specialist. if the teacher-training institutions with departments of music were to admit only students with thorough musical and humanistic training, the number of music educators would be lessened tremendously, and the problem of staffing schools with music teachers would become insuperable. the teachers college, therefore, must not only train the music specialist, but must also provide the general classroom teacher with musical skills and musical confidence, since both specialist and teacher arc needed if music is to be adequately taught. another factor overlooked by those who lament the state of music education is the variety of situations which teachers must face throughout the country and even withii,l the confines of a single school system. some students come from homes with the worst possible musical environment, while others listen to opera on the radio every saturday. some administrators arc forced to schedule music classes in boiler rooms, while others provide deluxe suites with professional equipment. in spite of great differences in the quality of individual schools and in the abilities of students, we must make every effort to meet the demands of our youngsters, whatever their talents, for to organize our music curricula around the needs of the intellectually-gifted alone would directly oppose one of the overriding commitments of american education. to carry this point a step further, it should be realized that the typical high school must offer two types of courses: the required and the elective. students who take elective courses will usually have both the prerequisites and the motivation for undertaking more advanced work. on the other hand, students in required courses usually titled "general music" or "music appreciation" must be accepted regardless of background, attitude, and ability. this course must not only provide basic information, but also present material in such a way that the child will recognize the intrinsic worth of the subject and want to learn more. music, therefore, is often "sold" to students. the introductory course in music must be especially well-taught and attractive, as it is usually the last such course the average high school students will take. teaching music in the public school is quite a different cup of tea from teaching literature, history, or mathematics, all of which have a hallowed-place in the curriculum. the great diversity of standards and situations affects not only the role music plays in the curriculum as a whole, but also the knowledge, techniques, and skills required to teach it. music teachers must have an exceptional range 141 of attainments in order to function effectively in a given school community. musicians and musicologists are especially ignorant of the different procedures required for teaching music at, say, the third-grade, junior high, and eleventh-grade levels. one challenge, for instance, is the selecting and editing of materials to suit the abilities of students of various ages, yet many critics take music educators to task for using materials which have been altered to meet the specific needs of different groups of children. for example, many choral masterpieces make demands of stamina and tessitura which boys in junior high can meet only at the risk of damaging their voices. faced with the choice of either performing fine compositions or not performing them at all, we think it far better to perform the music, even if altered. \\'hile it seems to us not at all improper to arrange compositions to suit the ages, backgrounds, and abilities of the children who will use them, therc are those who insist that there is enough great music in its original form for the musical education of all children. of particular interest in this connection is the juilliard repertory project, which has the avowed goal of "revising the curriculum and repertory of the schools in america." the work of this panel, which is made up of some of our most distinguished musicologists, is eagerly awaited by all music educators for, if successful, it will have produced a series of books for grades one to six suitable for every intellectual background and ability, and organized to promote consistent musical growth. since the compositions included in these books will be untouched by the arranger's pen, it will be interesting to see how effective they will be in comparison to arranged materials. at any rate, the j uilliard project can only be constructive, for every public school teacher of music should be grateful for the revelation of un hackneyed compositions. the problem of materials is but one concern of music education in the schools. equally important is the music teacher himself, who is presented with a breadth of tasks unique in the teaching profession. the school teacher of general music, for example, must not only know music literature with respect to history, structure, and style, he must also be competent in such areas as the learning process, the psychology of the adolescent, and the use of teaching aids. if the teacher is to meet the needs of the school, it is essential that he play the piano. to teach instrumental music, he must be able to play at least seven or eight instruments, and teach the basic techniques of the four classes of instruments. if he teaches vocal music, he must sing well himself and also be able to analyze the vocal problems of various age groups. as a conductor of choral and instrumental ensembles, he must master baton technique, be armed with effective rehearsal procedures, be temperamentally equipped to handle discipline problems without dampening the enthusiasm of his charges, and be familiar with a wide repertory of compositions suitable not only for the stimulation of musical growth and for concert performance, but also for the irritating series of pep rallies, sports events, and rotary club luncheons which continually intrude upon the conduct of school music activitit's. admittedly, there is much curricular clap-trap, duplication, and timewasting in many of our liberal arts and teacher-training colleges. to sweep catalogues clean of methods courses, however, is as dangerous and pointless as to avoid any teaching of subject matter. teaching music is a skill which 142 requires not only a knowledge and love of music, but also an understanding of the best ways to reach children and a mastery of teaching and performing techniques. even if every teacher of music were versed in musicology as well as in music education, another factor bars the way to the establishment of a musical elysium. that is the prevailing attitude toward the arts of boards of education, school administrators, college deans of admissions, guidance counselors, the general short, of everyone who has a voice in determining curriculum. this attitude is accompanied by others which hold the arts to be either european (hence, worthy of suspicion), the playthings of the moneyed few (hence, undemocratic, irrelevant to the general good, or both), or effeminate (hence, to be contemptuously ignored). the american public school curriculum has stressed the basic tools of business and citizenship, with the result that music, art, and drama have been squeezed into the curriculum only when time is left from "more important" studies. a particularly insidious example of this occurs in california, where state legislators have limited the number of class periods per day in such a manner that there is no room for courses other than english, foreign languages, science, history, mathematics, and physical education. since all students must take each of these courses every year, it is impossible for them to elect courses in the arts. compounding this curricular imbalance is the typical list of courses that liberal arts colleges require for admission. few, indeed, are those colleges which recommend or approve the study of the fine arts as part of a high school curriculum preparatory for college. whether colleges will not accept high school courses in music because the courses are given too little time and attention, or the courses are weak because the colleges will not accept music courses is a case of the chicken and the egg. it is dismaying to find that the best students in high schools shun music because it is granted no status by desirable colleges; that high schools continually upgrade literature, science, and mathematics at the expense of courses in art and music; and, perhaps worst of all, that music educators are forced to justify the place of music in the educational scheme of things. because of this monstrous predicament, school music has taken a disastrous turn in the last decade or so. we have already mentioned the need for "selling" music to students. music teachers, too, have often been forced to dress up the music program in the outlandish garb of the marching band, simply to persuade the community to support the music program. it often happens, then, that music educators find themselves as much in the entertainment as in the education business, a hapless condition resorted to for reasons of survival. let us turn, finally, to a brief discussion of the mutual interest educators and musicologists have in each other's work. those teaching in the public schools are desperately in need of accurate, in teresting books wri tten specifically for children of varying ages. such books can only be written by those who are free of the papa-haydn-the-jollypeasant syndrome. it is most important, however, that authors consult with educators about the problems of vocabulary, motivation, background, and ability found at the various age levels for which these books are to be written. most of all, books intended for youngsters in the schools must take into ac143 count the nature of public school education, particularly its universality. in the realm of performance practice, it would be a boon to music educators if more musicologists would contribute articles to the music educators journal on, for instance, how to add modern instruments to voices in the performance of renaissance choral music. teachers would be grateful if editions of choral, band, and orchestral music included clear indications of performance practice. musicologists might find it rewarding to cooperate with school performing groups by suggesting repertoire, visiting rehearsals, or attending clinics to learn the particular condi tions of teaching music to children of various ages. an especially potent way in which musicologists may help educators is to further the acceptance of music as a curricular study in the schools. it would be most beneficial to teachers, children, and eventually to musicologists themselves, if colleges and schools could jointly agree on the characteristics of a good program of music education so that colleges would then accept music as a course of study as valid as a course in mathematics. the stress here must be on "jointly agree." neither educators nor musicologists are so omniscient as to be able separately to dictate on these matters. however, it is not enough to communicate with those already persuaded of one's own view. the essential traits of a sound course of studies in the arts, and the justification for it, must be communicated to deans of admission, members of the american association of school administrators, the national parent-teachers association, in short, to those who pay the bills and make the decisions. music education may also be of direct assistance to musicology. a broad program of music education reinforced by creative experience in composition and performance will eventually produce outstanding recruits for the field of musicology, provided that our schools and colleges add the background in language, history, and philosophy necessary for musicological study. a more immediate benefit of a well-planned and well-taught program of music education is the creation of a larger, more sophisticated music community able to assimilate the fruits of musical research, and an increasing body of composers and performers willing to cultivate them. 144 .. report from fairfield: the committee for jesuits in the fine arts raoul orceyre from august 15 to 19, 1966 a group of jesuit artists and scholars met at fairfield university in connecticut to discuss jesuit involvement in the fine arts. thc group, known as the eastern committee for jesuits in the fine arts, is one product of a renaissance of both the scholarly and practical cultivation of the arts in the american jesuit community. the committee includes composers, musicologists, and performers whose influence will be of the greatest importance in shaping the future role of musical education in jesuit high schools and colleges. father clement mcnaspy (ph.d., toronto, 1948) did post-doctoral work at oxford under professors westrup, wellesz, and rubbra, subsequently became dean of the college of music at loyola in new orleans, and has taught periodically at solesmes abbey. through his numerous articles and books he is now a familiar figure in the forum of the liturgical arts. father thomas culley completed his doctoral work at harvard two years ago; his dissertation discussed the jesuit german college in rome during the 17th century. other musicians on the committee are studying at the peabody conservatory and at columbia, yale, and ncw york universities. leslie]. schnierer, a harpsichordist at peabody, presented a paper entitled "some prospects for the jesuit musician." it did not attempt to be exhaustivc, but merely outlined what schnierer considers to be major questions facing the jesuit musician in the realms of scholarship, performance, and education. he emphasized the need for broadly-based sources of information and for energy and ideas in attacking the problems of catholic liturgical musicians in an era of renewal, as well as the practical difficulties faced by the individual musician in attempting to inaugurate a musical program in an educational institution. subsidiary aspects of the paper concerned performance prospects, some specifically christian aspects of musical education, and the field of popular religious music. the paper clearly pointed out that the difficulties confronting the jesuit community are on a level quite different from those facing established musical institutions. they are problems not of continuing or strengthening but of beginning. one of schnierer's ideas is especially worthy of note in this regard. he proposed that the high school and college musical life be centered on an artistin-residence rather than on an expensive and problematic curriculum. schnierer cites the example of the city of flint, michigan, which engaged the pianist coleman blumfield, a student of vladimir horowitz, as artist-inresidence. he suggested that the concerts and workshops which bcnefit the city are easily extended to the college community. schnierer hopes such an raoul orceyre, s.]., is a jesuit seminarian and a student ofmusieology in the department ofmusie, columbia university. 173 approach would stimulate vital interest in the arts and thereby lead to more specialized study. the realization of this goal and the emphasis which it would lend to the active musical experience would, according to schnierer, be most welcome innovations on the] esuit campus. schnierer's artist-in-residence proposal does not, however, solve the problems of education in the arts faced by large institutions. instead, it satisfies only one aspect of musical education: instruction in performance through close contact with a professional artist. but music education cannot stop there; it must proceed to reflective inquiry into the musical experience and into music itself. a meaningful and responsible music program requires the facilities of any rigorous discipline and so must have a faculty of musically-trained and literate teachers and a comprehensive library of scores, sound recordings, periodicals, and historical, theoretical, and critical literature. a music department also requires musical instruments, considerable electronic equipment for public and private listening, and acoustically-designed classrooms. but it is unlikely that an artist-in-residence plan would bring such facilities in its train. despite the re-awakening concern the vast majority of] esuit faculties in this country are still only remotely engaged with the fine arts. the financial load of providing the requisite material and personnel for an adequate music program is considerable and is a major stumbling block. some jesuit schools have avoided these costs by affiliation with other institutions, but this solution leaves the great majority of students untouched. it provides little or no basic undergraduate education in music but only advanced study for those already musically -trained. ifthe]esuits are to attain their limited goals, it would appear that they must undertake a thoroughgoing review of the fine arts and make better use of their own creative talents. more musician-musicologists are needed in music, men whose musical and intellectual abilities would instill a genuine understanding and love of music in their students. the problem offacilities cannot be resolved quickly, but the problem of trained personnel needs to be resolutely approached at once. we may conclude that an educational community with long experience and a modicum of creative talent is awakening to the pressing need of a practical cultural life. the success of its endeavor is dependent on the study, concern, and support of those experienced in educational problems of the arts in general. 174 marvin c. genuchi-the life and music of jacob french (1754-1817), colonial american composer. volume l' background, biography, style study. . volume il' music supplement of anthems, psalm tunes, and hymn tunes ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-7918), 1964. (state university of iowa diss.) charles h. kaufman the weaving of a fachliteratur that treats of american music (and music in america) proceeds at slow shuttle speed. it is indeed pleasurable, however, to report that dr. genuchi's dissertation has patched one of the many holes that weaken the fabric of biographical studies of our native composers. one regrets that his work has not done an equivalent service in the field of style analysis. the dissertation is organized with an eye toward making its use a comfortable experience. in the foreword, genuchi explains that he has placed his text and french's music in separate volumes in order to make it possible for readers who are mainly interested in one to be unencumbered by the other. he alerts the reader to " ... one significant fact [that] is apparent in the music of jacob french: william billings may have had less influence on his contemporaries than has previously been surmised" (p. iii). it is hardly significant that billings "may" have had less influence-he "may" have had the same amount or more. genuchi bases this claim solely on the fact that french, in his middle years, dissociated his musical style from that of billings and. aligned it with the music of the english school of psalmodists. this well-taken observation proves that billings' influence on french was not permanent, but hardly provides sufficient evidence for as sweeping a statement as the author chooses to make. it is unjust to contend that, barring the discovery of another "free spirit" like william billings, the puritan music of colonial america probably "can be expected to produce mediocrity" (p. v). one must begin by treating history accurately. jacob french is specifically not a "colonial american composer." dr. genuchi tells us that french's first composition " ... was written for the 1783 publication of oliver brownson's select harmony" (p. 44). this date is seven years after the dissolution of our colonial status. french retired from teaching and composition at the age of sixty-one (1815). therefore, his first composition was published after we had fought one war to establish the republic, and he retired the year after the peace of ghent ended a second war (the war of 1812) that was fought in order to preserve it. since dr. genuchi refers to french as a "colonial american composer," one assumes that he considers the colonial period to encompass the years from 1783 iii though 1815. if so, his dismissal of sacred music written by post-revolution american composers as merely an imitation of mediocre british models is tantamount to denying the existence of what is probably the most individual indigenous body of music in our heritage. one cannot ignore the distinctively american character of tunes such as supply belcher's ''jubilant,'' jacob kimball's "marblehead," and timothy swan's curiously attractive "china," with their predilection for open fourths, fifths, and octaves (particularly at cadences), their tendency toward parallelism that tints the music with an organum-like cast, and their frequent use of hexatonic modes. the numerous notational systems developed during the federal period reveal earlyamerican leanings toward "tinkering" and inventiveness, and also demonstrate an independence from old world procedures. some of these systems are still used in rural areas as are a number of late 18thand early 19thcentury tunes. a hasty survey of the 1966 edition of the original sacred harp (cullman, ala.) reveals that no less than thirty american psalm settings and \ hymn tunes of this genre (dated 1817 or before) are still in the contemporary repertory. "mediocrity" does not describe this persistent american idiom. the music is of its own time and culture and should be judged in terms of both. chapter i, "the evolution of church music in new england between 1620 and 1800 ... ," is as good a survey of this subject as can be found in any current study. genuchi evidences sensitivity to the changes undergone by the music he discusses and good sense in the choice of composers and tune books that make up the frame of his structure. although this section contains more than one-quarter of the total text, it is well worth the space devoted to it. one would have liked a few more words relative to social aspects of the singing schools. gottlieb graupner is mentioned simply as "a boston publisher" (p. 31), despite the fact that, between 1800 and 1836, he founded the boston philharmonic society, was co-founder of the handel and haydn society, and led boston's active musical life as teacher, conductor, performer, publisher. in the highly pertinent list of definitions from william billings' new england psalm singer (1770) the spelling of the straightforward italian term "pieno," correctly defined by billings as "full, or all together," is questioned by genuchi thus: "[biene ?]" (p. 19). chapter ii, french's biography, is short, but again dr. genuchi has done his work well. the terse directness of this section is complemented by a lengthy, succulent quotation from a pertinent document of the period. this document (designated w16578d by genuchi) contains information provided by french's widow in an effort to establish her late husband's revol utionary war record. she found this necessary in obtaining the pension to which she was entitled. in her deposition mrs. french allows us the few personal glimpses of her husband that we have: we read how french, dangerously ill after the battle of ticonderoga, despaired of ever returning home. genuchi assumed that his readers would find useful a survey of musical development in new england, and he thoughtfully provided an excellent 112 one. the years encompassed by french's life were among the most yeasty in american history; yet, however well genuchi has treated their musical aspects, his treatment of them, from the standpoint of social and political history, is unleavened. french, as a musician and as a man, appears to have existed in a cultural should dr. genuchi consider revision of his text for publication, he would do well to provide a historical framework for french's life similar to the one he provided for french's music in chapter i. chapter iii presents the "general characteristics of the anthems, psalm tunes, and hymn tunes of jacob french." under the headings of poetic meter, length, form, tonality, melody, and musical evaluation, the stuff of french's music receives broad descriptive treatment. quotations that delineate various characteristics of the english anthem have been extracted from daniel's the anthem in new england before 1800 (1966), and they lead into paragraphs that demonstrate how french's anthems fit (or do not fit) daniel's matrix. genuchi's treatment is quite accurate. more could be made of the fact that in this music the texts are a prime element of control, particularly since many of them are rhymed and metrical. occasionally the author uses descriptive terms that he neither explains nor clarifies through example. the expression "adjunct (limited angularity) melodies" (pp. 59 and 63) is not clear, nor can one be certain bfwhat dr. genuchi intends by declaring that certain psalm and hymn tunes are "capsular versions" of anthems (p. 64). unfortunately one must lower the lance at the disappointing fourth chapter: "analysis of twelve anthems and fifty representative psalm and hymn tunes." dr. genuchi discusses aspects of each piece under the following formal headings: text, length, form, tonality, melody, meter and rhythm, and musical evaluation. the material presented under all but the last heading is understandably more descriptive than analytical and frequently shows that dr. genuchi is a keen observer of his subject matter. but the hoped-for analytical amalgam in musical evaluation rarely arrives, and in its place one finds an application of subjective standards that are not fully clarified. the foreword offers some elucidation of the procedures followed in musical evaluation. the author states that these evaluations are his alone "and afford a possibility for wide difference of opinion" (p. iii). they are, according to him, reached on a comparative basis: i.e., french's music is compared to that of his contemporaries. the evaluations are "an earnest attempt to assign some sort of standard to colonial american music, with the understanding that the composers who wrote it (french in this case) were basically self-trained" (p. iii). dr. genuchi is correct. his evaluations afford the possibility for a considerable difference of opinion, owing to the fact that they are highly subjective. he assigns the following values to french's works: excellent, very good, good, fair, and poor. one is reminded of the questionable value in a similar approach taken by lomax in his cantometrics project. unfortunately the reader is not given an overview of how french did relate to his contemporaries, and there are only rare explanations of the standards 113 being applied by dr. genuchi in order to elicit a judgment of "excellent," "fair," etc. there is no question about the earnestness of the author's attempt; perusal of this study reveals that a great deal of painstaking research went into its compilation, but there are no standards established here-only personal value judgments that are frequently free-standing without styleanalytical buttressing. here are a few examples taken from "musical evaluation," except for the first and excerpts which are drawn from "meter and rhythm" and "melody," respectively. "i beheld and lo" [this is one of french's most popular anthems and is generally known as "the heavenly vision." perhaps it would have been advisable to list it under the more familiar title.] · .. the dotted half-notes used in ! meter on the words "holy, holy." this gives the music a pleading, plaintive expression ... (p. 80). i beheld and lo begins to show traces of english influence, through the passing-note ornaments of the melody and through rhythmic patterns associated with the english school. ... [dr. genuchi provides a catalogue of these english influences (p. 63): dotted rhythmic patterns and ornamentation of the melody by melisma, passing notes, and neighboring notes. inspection ofthe score (vol. ii, p. 4) reveals few dotted patterns and only one melisma fittingly applied to the word "flying." thismelisma carries through only one measure. auxiliary tones are present but not to the degree that one's attention is drawn to them. might these not be the composer's attempt to offer a little relief from a heavily syllabic setting and not necessarily the assumption of a foreign style?] "righteous art thou" the melody has less tendency toward scalewise movement than did the first two anthems; leaps of thirds, fourths, and fifths are common throughout the work ... (p.83). [but] .the melody has more interest in it than has that of any of the other anthems of this period, attributable no doubt, to the scalewise nature of its progression ... (p. 84). "why dost thou sit solitary, 0 jersualem" · .. could be classed as a very good, though not excellent anthem · .. (p. 87). [how does one establish the border between the two categories ?] "now mter these things" 114 · .. which might be classed as only good,'. . (p. 89). [does dr. genuchi mean "nothing more than good" or that there is nothing bad about the piece?] "athens" · .. has strong modal tendencies ... (p. 11 0). [is this good or bad, typical or atypical?] "abysina" · .. a fair hymn tune ... (p. ill). [why?] "providence" · ... the melody is weak and the rhythms are not effective enough to carry the melodic weakness (p. 153). "coventry" · .. is an excellent hymn tune. the melody is strong, the harmonies are effective and the meter is especially well chosen for this particular setting (p. 143). "retribution" the melody is strong and the harmonies and rhythms are effective ... (p. 155). "sabbath" the melody is strong and the harmonies and rhythms are effective ... (p. 156). "babylon" · .. is an excellent psalm tune. the melody is strong, the harmonies are effective, and the rhythms carry the mood of the melody very well ... (p. 138). "winthrop" · .. is a very good tune. the melody is strong ... (p. 158). the appearance of "hedging" words, such as "might" and "could," dilutes one's confidence in the firmness of dr. genuchi's conclusions, and the adjectives "weak," "strong," and "effective" should have been utilized only if the author had made clear his interpretation of them. many of the author's analyses are satisfactory, but too many fall short of fulfilling the basic requirements of sound, style-analytical technique. after analysis of the music, one looks for general conclusions drawn from the numerous specific investgations. here they are presented first in chapter iii. a more logical order would result from reversing the positions of chapters iii and iv. french's new american melody (1789) provides most of the material for chapter v: "performance practice of the french compositions." this material is helpful and well presented. it will serve admirably as a companion to the volume of transcriptions, particularly for choir directors who wish to have french's music performed. the bibliography of primary sources, listed chronologically, is a comprehensive reference tool. one can attribute the slimness of the secondarysource bibliography to the fact that genuchi's study is basically analytical and that his historical references are mainly primary sources. 115 j' the transcriptions contained in volume ii are clear and well organized. the author drew them from the psalmodist's companion, new american melodji, and the harmony rif harmony. the few that this reviewer checked were accurate. a title index indicates the source of each selection. in the foreword to volume i dr. genuchi describes volume ii as containing french's anthems and " ... a majority of his published psalm tunes and hymn tunes" (p. iii). the author is entitled to make selections, but he does owe his readers a complete list of french's works with at least one primary source for each. it might be of interest to have a transcript of the "corrections suggested by french in his own errata lists" (p. ii), since the author incorporated them in his copies of the music. dr. genuchi does not inform the reader whether these were corrections of errors or compositional changes suggested by french. there is a disagreement between dr. genuchi and professor robert stevenson relative to the anthem "0 sing unto the lord." in his protestant church music in america (p. 72) professor stevenson, citing the same source as dr. genuchi, finds an italian augmented-sixth chord in measure five .of this piece, whereas dr. genuchi copies out only the outer voices descending in quarter-note parallel tenths (inner voices are silent). was this changed by dr. genuchi as a result of suggestions in french's errata list, of which professor stevenson was not aware? despite lapses in analytical technique, this dissertation is a felicitous addition to the historiography of american music. one hopes that it will be part of a rapidly growing literature that serves to illuminate our indigenous musical culture. the viennese classical school: a challenge to musicology . jens peter larsen it seems unlikely that there is any other important period of western music for which a common basis of real knowledge is still lacking so much as in the case of the viennese school of the second half of the 18th century. of course i do not mean to say that there has, not been much written about it,including many valuable' books and articles, especially about the leading composers, mozart and haydn. nevertheless, i do think that so much remains to be done that my statement retains its validity. i should like to sum up in this article some of the points which i consider essential to forming an opinion on this matter. a few remarks on the general approach to this period and the present stage of development of research in its music may help to make my point of view clear. first of all, since we are still so close in time to this music, it is a rather common belief that we are able to evaluate it unbiasedly from a normal concert-goers' point of view-but that is certainly not the case!l performing traditions have changed so much in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries that we more often than not hear performances which tend to modernize 18th-century music. a brilliant performance is not necessarily a performance which brings us closer to the spirit of the music and of the composer. in short, if we wish to study the music of the classical period seriously, we must try to adjust ourselves better to its music. we must approach it as we do medieval or renaissance music, as a style in its own right, complying with laws which we must discover in as unbiased a manner as possible. in this respect musicology has not yet made very much progress. in contrast with an unbroken research tradition for medieval and renaissancemusic-with three or four generations' of scholars like bellerman, jacobsthal, wolf, ludwig, besseler, bukofzer, reese, and others-no similar research traditions in our field exist. what has been done until now is mainly the work of single scholars, and mostly about problems in special fields. ifwe wish to give an outline of what might be done to establish a similar research tradition within the realm of viennese classical music, we may sum up our considerations primarily under three 105 headings: source foundations, historical background, and musical analysis. source foundations obviously the primary problem in investigating the viennese period, as with any other period, is to compile the sources-the manuscripts and printed editions of music which form basic material for any reconstruction of the original version (and possible later versions) of any single composition. though this might seem self-evident, we are far from having arrived at even an inventory of sources. how much has to be done is revealed by admirable single efforts, such as barry brook's la symphonie franfaise, william newman's the sonata in the classic era, or warren kirkendale's fuge und fugato in der kammermusik des rokoko und der klassik. jan· larue has laid the foundation for a real repertorium of the classical'symphony, which will be of central importance. but even when we have compiled a complete catalogue of sources of this' kind, comprising all the relevant material in austrian, czech, hungarian, german, italian, french, british, american, and other collections, it will be only the first step. we will not have considered the difficult problem of authenticity, especially that of a single work ascribed to two or three different composers. and even at this stage of a research plan we would have to face the problem of making limiting decisions, leaving out works and composers of presumably only local importance. but we have to be careful. (as an example of this we may mention wenzel raimond birck [1718-63], a not unimportant composer, given due credit -by kirkendale, but unknown to mgg, grove, or riemann.) once we have completed-as far as it can ever be completeour inventory of sources, the next step would be to have microfilms made oeall relevant sources. this is above all a large-scale practical and financial effort. some substantial microfilm collections have already been set up, such as the specialized haydn collection in haydn institute in cologne, but a comprehensive collection of sources from the viennese school in general would of course be of much larger dimensions. the next step to be taken is again primarily of a practical and financial nature: the scoring of all the works handed down to us only in single parts, which is the case for the greater part of the 106 instrumental music from the classical period. the scholar who deals primarily with vocal music (opera, church music) can scarcely imagine how lost one may feel amongst mountains of unscored symphonies. the scoring of this microfilm material would of course be an immense help to scholars, and in this connection we must add still a fourth step. ifwe have in mind the establishment of a real research tradition, we must issue a publication which would enable scholars in different parts of the world to make use of the scored material. the editions of various sorts of monumenta, indispensable as they are, always have to limit themselves to selections-and we know from existing editions that such selections are of necessity insufficient for the specialist. it might be possible, through some sort of copying procedure (microfilm, microfiche, xerox, or the like) to organize the distribution of copies to a certain number of leading music collections in the various countries. this would certainly be expensive, but not nearly as expensive, and not requiring nearly as much labor, as the preparation of printed editions. historical background in one of his remarkable articles on the great epochs of music, blume talks about the different impressions obtained from close and distant views of a mountain. the baroque, he tells us, is like a mountain. if one sees it from a distance, it may look as monolithic as a great massif, but when one comes near it, the unity dissolves into so many details that it approaches chaos.2 i am afraid we shall have to admit that most of the current thinking about the viennese classic period is determined by the fact that we are just beginning to come closer to the mountain. we shall find out that things look different when we come close enough to form an impression founded on real observation, not on traditional cliches. ifwe are to find out what really happened in the development of the viennese classical tradition, there is one thing which is \ urgently needed, and which is very difficult to grasp: chronology. we must try to gain exact knowledge about the composers in question, their life and work, from whom they learned, what music they really heard and played. and we must try to get even closer. we must try to be able to date single compositions 107 much more exactly that we can do now. one example may show the importance of precise dating. we know that a quite decisive development took place around 1770. the traditional cliche, as far as haydn is concerned, is "the romantic crisis" -or sturm und drang-period, though nothing points to an explanation of that kind. rather, it was the breakthrough of the classical style-the final synthesis. and just at this stage of development we are left without important details of chronology. it would seem that along with haydn, vanhal was one of the most important pioneers. but we cannot tell to what extent haydn learned from vanhal or vanhal from haydn. it would be most valuable if we could date the symphonies of this period with greater exactitude, but so far we have not been able to do so. here again, important pioneering work is being done. the primary sources which can give us the most exact dating will most often be manuscripts and printed editions. in the case of manuscripts, only dated autographs can give us really exact information, but in many cases we are faced with undated copies. much has been done in recent years to establish methods of determining the age of manuscripts through research in watermarks, copyists' handwriting, etc. and as far as printed editions are concerned, we have gotten fine information by dig. ging out material about old publishing firms and their catalogues. but still it must always be remembered that the composition itself can be of an earlier date than any known copy or print. even taking into account the great progress that has been made through the work of scholars like deutsch, weinmann, larue, garijohansson, landon, barry brook, and others, there is still a great deal to be done if we want to come closer to finishing our complex jig-saw puzzle. of course there are many other questions relating to historical background about which further information is needed, but scarcely any that are as basic as the problem of chronology. as far as performance practice is concerned, much depends on the collection of purely historical material, but the real problems are so much bound up with questions of musical interpretation that they call for quite special consideration. musical analysis compared to the work on source problems, which has really 108 made wonderful progress in the years since the last war, the studies in style problems have not been very conspicuous or revo,. lutionary. of course it might be said that as long as the material is available only to a rather limited degree, there is no point in turn,. ing to the problems of style and musical analysis. but i do not think that the real difficulty in working along these lines is related to the incompleteness of the material. the greatest obstacle for renewed activity in this field is an old and deeply rooted tradition of regarding and judging music of the classic period with preconceived expectations of form in the manner of a 19th-century textbook, and not regarding it as the object of unbiased historical investigation. not only does this result in a considerably narrowed viewpoint, but on the whole it is an application of analytical means and methods which cannot lead to a real understanding of the problems we wish to investigate. in the center of any discussion of formal structure, we usually find the so-called sonata form, the form of the first movement of almost any symphony or sonata and also the form of many other movements. the more conspicuous shortcomings of analyzing this form according to traditional textbook notions can be summed up as follows: 3 (1) the textbook type of sonata is not an 18th-century concept, but a 19th-century reconstruction of a form mistakenly thought to be the common basis for the music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven. moreover, it was codified to serve the purpose of teaching composition, not of explaining any historical development in music. (2) this sonata-form type is in most cases regarded as a model, not merely as a framework. deviations from the fixed type are explained as anomalies, as signs of imperfect, immature handling of the form, when they should rightly be seen as variations in style and form, as varying ways of filling out the frame. (3) the whole conception of this form is linked with a rather one-sided focusing on certain thematic ideas, on the assumption of a fixed construction, based on a "principal" and a "subsidiary" theme as indispensable formal pillars.4 this limitation of viewpoint alone would make impossible any real understanding of the development ofform in the music of haydn. ifwe wish to make clear the stages and variations in the process of formation of the viennese classical style in music, we must widen our analytical base and improve our tools. let us consider a few points where further investigation might be useful. 109 (1) there are two fundamentally different types of form included under the rubric of sonata form: a type introducing only a few motives and aiming at a basic impression of formal wholeness; and its counterpart, a form based on the introduction of several individualized themes or episodes, and aiming at an impression of change and contrast. the first of these two types is characteristic of haydn, the second of mozart. (2) the 18th-century interest in what was later to be called sonata form rested more on the demonstration of periods than on the nomination of "themes." the enumeration of themes has not too much to do with sensing the formal "happening." the distinction made between liedtypus and fortspinnungstypus in fischer's famous article, "zur entwicklungsgeschichte des wiener klassischen stils" (1915)-one might also think in terms of w6lffiin's o.ijene and geschlossene form-could certainly be utilized to greater advantage. (3) a very important question, which has not been given enough attention, is that of texture. besides purely homophonic style, the main types of texture that seem to have been generally accepted are true polyphonic style (the finale of mozart's jupiter symphony) and "thematic development." the very common, more "linear" development, where either a bass line or a melodic outline takes over the leading role for a while, needs further stressing. so also do the patterns of tutti-development. these often constitute an important part of the sonata form, distinct from or in direct contrast to the. opening theme and other thematic episodes. (4) the art of thematic invention should be studied much more attentively. here again, beethoven draws a dividing line in sonata tradition. in beethoven we have to deal with strongly individualized themes, some of them worked on for years before the final version was found. but in mozart and haydn, we have to deal more with traditional types of theme formation related either to opera, to chamber music, to concerto style, to church sonata tradition, or to various other melodic idioms. a famous example, the similarity between the beginning of mozart's symphony in g minor, k. 550, and cherubino's "non so pili cosa son, cos a faccio," could scarcely be overlooked. the whole art of melodic invention needs further investigation and would certainly repay any labor. tendencies of expression and style of performance fall into 110 various categories: there are those that look back to baroque traditions, or to the so-called pre-classical style (in my article quoted above i use the more neutral term, "mid-century style"), and those that foreshadow the classical style. we must be concerned with the division of phrases into periods-of the development from the unbroken fortspinnung of the baroque, through the endless chain of two-bar constructions of the "mid-century style," on to the harmonically based thematic, coherent, period formation of the classical style. the harmonic conception must also become one of the primary fields of investigation, and here the analysis of "harmonic rhythm," which has been the especial province of american scholars, comes into the picture. as far as expression is concerned, we cannot overlook allimportant features like tempo and rhythm. everyone studying the development of haydn's symphonic art must be aware that the stylistic change around 1765-70-the so-called "romantic crisis" -has two especially important sides: harmonic expression and rhythmic "drive." even if we must admit that we approach domains where solid facts alone will not do, but where some sort of musical intuition or interpretation is needed, we cannot stop there. more than anything else, the changing stages in the development of the viennese classical style are characterized by changing means of expression. but here, as with the concept of sonata form itself, we must remember that we should investigate expression as understood in the 18th century, not in the 19th or 20th century. the relativity of 18th-century contemporaneous descriptions is too often forgotten. when, for example, schubart, in his ideen zu einer asthetik der tonkunst, writes of the mannheim orchestra, "its forte is a thunderstorm, its crescendo a cataract," we must of course view this description in the light of the orchestral style of 1770, and not that of 1870 or 1970. without a doubt, research of the kind that is suggested here can succeed only if it is undertaken by a very highly qualified team of musician-musicologists. some recent conferences, such as those that took place in brno and kassel in october 1967, have provided the opportunity for discussions between musicians and musicologists, who are especially interested in historically oriented performance practice. future conferences of this kind might contribute to the formation and solution of questions such as those i have enumerated. iii this, then, is the shape of my dream for the future of research in the music of the classic period: given the needed (substantial) financial support, the right scholars to carry out the project, and very careful organization, i envision the following developments: (1)' the preparation of an inventory of sources, (2) the establishment ofa source collection, (3) the scoring of all the works, (4) the collection of documentary background materials, (5) the initiation of a specialized style-analytical research project, and (6) the investigation of problems of performance practice. a crowning achievement of the project would be the supplemental distribution of copies of all the scores to a circle of leading libraries. this would clear the way for the preparation of editions and recordings by publishers and recording societies. will this dream one day become reality? notes 1 see my remarks on this subject in "some observations on the development and characteristics of vienna classical instrumental music," studia musicologica 9: 115 if. (1967). 2 f. blume, syntagma musicologicum, p. 217. 3 see also "sonatenform-probleme" in festschrift f. blume (1963) pp. 221 if. 4 "sonata" in grove's dictionary, 5th ed., 7:886if. (1954). 112 4 james s. ackerman, "'ars sine scientia nihil est,' gothic theqry of architecture at the cathedral of miian," art bulletin, 31 :85-111 (1949). 5 erwin panofsky, gothic architecture and scholasticism (latrobe, 1951). otto von simson, the gothic cathedral (london, 1956). the use of these terms derives from panofsky's introductory essay in studies in iconology: humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance (new york, 1939), later published as "iconography and iconology: an introduction to the study of renaissance art," in meaning in the visual arts (garden city, 1955). panofsky distinguishes routine identification of the meaning of conventional motifs in art (iconography) from the "synthetic" analysis of the fundamental symbolic values of works of art in broad cultural contexts (iconology). his pursuit of this distinction between sign-language and nonconventional symbols may have originated in his contact with ernst cassirer at the warburg institute in hamburg where cassirer worked on the second volume, "mythical thought," of his philosophie der symbolischen formen (berlin, 1925) .. the earlier volume (1923) was a study oflanguage. it could be wished that studies in iconology would develop into a psychoanalysis of form in art which could carry our understanding of "meaning" far beyond, for example, the study of leitmotive in music, the identifying attributes of gods or saints .in art, or the typology of buildings in architecture. unfortunately, in art history proper, no really new analytic methods, corresponding to the suggestions in cassirer's work, have been evolved. the tendency today is to announce any study which delves into cultural contexts, in the tradition ofthe warburg institute, as "iconology." summaries of the field are provided by jan bialostocki, "iconography and iconology," encyclopedia of world art and by william s. heckscher, "the genesis of iconology," stit und tjberliejerung in tier kunst des abendlandes, bd. iii theorien und probleme, akten des 21. lnternationalen kongressfiir kunstgeschichte in bonn 1964 (berlin, 1967), pp. 239-61. 6 rudolfwittkower, architectural principles in the age ofhumanism (london, 1949, third ed. 1962). 7 erwin panofsky, "die perspektive als 'symbolische form'," vortriige der bibliothek warburg (1924-25), pp. 258-330. 8 williamjordy, "the symbolic essence of modern european architecture and its continuing influence," journal of the society of architectural historians 22: 177-87 (1963). arnold berleant, music as sound and idea despite the serious obstacles that stand in the way of discussing such questions as what constitutes a piece of music, the papers by miss carpenter and professor crocker deal sensitively with the issue and make useful and important observations. my comments are intended to assist in clarifying and furthering these discussions. let me proceed by identifying and then applying two demands that this sort of question calls forth, the first conceptual and the second substantive. there is opportunity here to develop only some conceptual suggestions, and i shall merely be able to indicate the direction in which a substantive contribution might proceed. when one faces the task of talking about music, as about any art, one encounters a double dilemma. either you remain silent and safe, or you make use of words which, as a foreign medium that is used here primarily for a nonaesthetic end, must necessarily differ in kind from the art one is speaking of. if you do elect to communicate, you run headlong into a different problem, 95 for the language available for talking about art is remarkably unsatisfactory. such language is almost always an unsuitable medium, composed generally of metaphor and evocation, and grounded usually on false analogies with linguistic functions (such as communication), with psychological explanations (such as catharsis, sublimation, and expression), or with intellectualistic attributes (such as symbolism, meaning, and truth). furthermore, if one wishes to avoid these pitfalls of conventional terminology, one is faced with the awesome task of devising new, more directly descriptive concepts. the problem is especially difficult in the case of music. unlike literature and the fine arts, music employs materials not commonly associated with language and the conceptual process, and it suffers most from being talked about. often the most that is done is to apply to music the alien speech of another, more easily verbalized art. yet this difficulty, which music shares with the literary arts, actually helps us avoid a confusion to which the theory of literature is especially prone. because it is directly and immediately perceptual, music raises the insistent demand to be taken on its own terms as experience. moreover, music sharpens for us the differences between the ways in which art is experienced and the ways in which those experiences are understood and conceptualized. by noting and applying this basic distinction between the full perceptual experience of music and the concepts and linguistic medium through which that experience is codified and explained, we may thus hope to avoid the first dilemma, that which results from the need to talk about an art that is basically non-linguistic. in applying this distinction to the notion of a "piece of music," then, we must make clear the differences that exist between the musical object as a perceptual whole and the musical object as a conceptual whole. for music comes first and foremost as experience. indeed, in certain respects it epitomizes the perceptual qualities of all art, for in comparison with other artistic media the musical experience is less fraught with resemblances, relationships, and associations which distract and mislead us. this problem, unfortunately, occurs in the visual arts and is particularly grave in the literary ones. in the directness of our experience, music appears as a phenomenal object. here it is a perceptually congruent grouping of sounds, silences, and secondary visual, kinesthetic, and other active-passive sensory events. in this form, music is grasped in its intuitive experiential immediacy. when we proceed to describe and understand musical experience, we can employ broad perceptual categories such as sound and motion, or more specific ones such as pitch, timbre, dynamics, tonal succession, and juxtaposition. these categories are the musical concepts with which the composer works. however, music may also be described in conceptual categories like sonata-allegro form, harmonic rhythm, thematic relationships, style, and so forth. these are the concepts that the musicologist and theorist use in analyzing a musical work. it is certainly true that the perceptual and conceptual categories can and do overlap; yet the difference between them lies in the primary reference either to 96 immediate auditory-experiential qualities or to the activities of analysis and organization. these categories resemble one another, however, in that they comprise referential symbols that are conceived apart from the actual perception of music and that depend on language rather than on sound. the composer occupies an ambiguous position: as a worker in musical materials he operates in the phenomenal medium of musical perception; yet when he pauses to reflect on or to explain what he is doing, he shifts to perceptual (and occasionally to conceptual) categories. still, there is a striking consistency in the testimony of creative artists about their reliance on purely perceptual qualities for making creative decisions. they simply "like it that way" because "it sounds better." there is, i believe, a good deal of evidence that favors the adoption of this distinction in the musical object between the experiential and the categorial. the history of music abounds with examples of ingenious technical bravado incorporated into a musical work which simply does not succeed in performance. and we all recognize how the aural integrity of a musical piece need not necessarily correspond with a unity that can be discovered by analyzing the work. if we wish, then, to be clear about what a musical piece is, we must decide whether we mean the object as heard or the object as analyzed. professor crocker's paper offers several illustrations of the difficulties that result from the failure to notice and observe this fundamental distinction. his discussion is knowledgeable and illuminating through the range of illustrations he brings forward to test various proposals for locating the musical piece. yet it shifts between the piece as an experienced unity, which he describes by referring to time span (five minutes plus or minus), and the piece as a structural entity (multi-movement works, sonata form, motet, aria). similarly, he moves from the formal units through which we are exposed aurally to a composer's extended composition (the acts of operas, the movements of symphonies) to our knowledge of who he was and the intentions he had (as in our unwillingness to part from our conviction that a piece should have only one composer) for purposes of questioning whether the multi-movement trope and introit can be considered a single piece. the same ambiguity pursues professor crocker's discussion of chopin's preludes op. 28 and webern's op. 5, for while we often hear the individual pieces which comprise each opus played straight through (perhaps changing the order in the case of the chopin), neither of these works was intended as a multi-movement composition. the same perceptual-conceptual distinction is overlooked when we are led directly from considering the beginning, middle, and end of a piece as they sound, to the search for a of. form, 'perhaps. unknown, but nonetheless there. our pursuit of the muslcal piece might be aided somew?at ·f k ew what it is we were seeking-sound or idea. i would opt for locatmg iwen . ." ". ". th the primary sense of the notion of "musical object or piece m .. e t i experience and ass. igning the significance of formal, styhstlc, percepua, . i . i intentional and other features to their effects on the muslca expenence. n 97 any event, some such decision must be made, for the distinction can hardly be overlooked. miss carpenter's broadly developed paper contains a wealth of suggestion, and i could not presume that a brief commentary such as this can do justice to its many observations and insights. her paper is an attempt to deal with the problem of the musical object in essentially traditional terms, and my comments may contribute most by noting how a careful avoidance of the second difficulty that was mentioned above-speaking of music in language originally designed for other, quite different purposes-might serve to carry the discussion forward in a somewhat less misleading fashion. miss carpenter approaches the problem of determining what a piece of music is by contrasting music as process with music as object. she associates a piece of music with music taken as an object, since only when it is an object does music have a clearly articulated structure, with its form as its objective aspect. she illustrates music as process with john cage's variations for orchestra and dance, a work which demands the participation of the perceiver in a flow of organized sound, and music as object with edgard varese's ionization, whose closely knit formal organization enables the listener to remove himself from what is going on by stepping back and interposing "distance" between himself and the piece. it is this ability to disengage oneself and distance the piece that she finds cultivated during the period when the independent musical work began to emerge. what in general seems to characterize the musical object is our awareness of form that carries one beyond the constant motion of the musical process to the perception from a distance of an object as a whole-the product of perceptual form. now i think we can all recognize a vast range in degrees of formal coherence. what is at issue, however, is the extent to which formal integrity is necessary for music to become an object, and, even more basic and important, what the nature of such form is and how it can best be described. the first question, i suggest, is largely empirical. the kind of coherence relevant to a discussion of music is primarily auditory, and it is in the light of the experiential (and not analytical) orderliness of music that this must be appraised. it is indeed possible that the cage vtiriationspossesses minimal aural coherence sufficient to be fairly regarded as a musical piece. that tight organization is not essential for this is shown by our willingness to take certain through-composed songs of, say, schubert and debussy as pieces. m?reover, the .use. of chance techniques may itself provide a measure of uulty, an order m disorder, to give a work aural coherence as 10 't . h . . ngasllste perceptton of form that we are concerned with then our answe l' . h . f h· "rs ie in t e region 0 t e psychology of musical perception. . mo:e to the purpose of this discussion, however, is the question of the wa s m which the formal features of music are described m' a y eag t h . iss arpenter ap,nears er 0 t e tendency of our language to spatializ d . . r: .notmg that this is somethin done to t e an objectlfy time, issue is whether this tendency is ill . process. the point at uidmatmg objectificat' . 98 lon or a distorting j one for describing i should like to suggest that it is the latter, and doubly so, first, since misrepresents musical perception by treating it in :'visual second, since it exerts the unfortunate influence of the historical tenden'::y to associate visual perception with cognitive' apprehension. miss discussion constantly moves the musical object to the level of the physical object perceived visuaiiy,in space in order to consider it. for instance, she makes repeated use of the notion of distance in considering the perception and identification of a musical piece, as, for example, in the notion of music as product, and she frequently seems to use "distance" in a literal sense. this usage is quite foreign to the intent of edward bullough, who gave the term currency through his concept of "psychical distance." 1 bullough took this as the characteristic feature of the appreciative attitude toward art, that is, as a trait of the perceptual experience of art, and he took pains to distinguish it from actual physical and temporal distance, both of which applications he regarded as derivative at best. furthermore, he typically and most successfully applied the notion of psychical distance to theater and the fine arts rather than to music, and for reasons that are obvious. yet miss carpenter, in defending the musical object against the musical process, interprets object, piece, form, space, and distance in visual, often physicalistic, terms. to be sure, there are places in part iv in which this relationship appears to be inverted, when hearing asserts its perceptual individuality and becomes the model for vision. still, the dominant impression of the visual metaphor remains. for example, in part vi miss carpenter interprets the fugue as a musical object in the light of visual perception, in which time becomes unessential and the spatial perception ofform compelling. indeed, she claims that we must apprehend the fugue from a distance by a single imaginary act. yet if we take hearing as the paradigm in the perception of artistic form, a development miss carpenter notes approvingly in part iv, we might rather then justify inverting the relationship and all art, assimilating painting to music (that is, to the movement of perceptual experience) instead of spatia ii zing music and assimilating it to a conceptual abstraction. it is difficult to interpret her citation of walter pater in any other way, for in taking music as the paradigm of all art, he is carrying to a logical conclusion his glorification of the intensely moving flux of sensory experience. these observations bring me finally to consider briefly the substantive task that this kind of discussion requires in order for it to be carried forward on sound ground. any clarification of what a "piece of music" is must necessarily involve reference to musical experience. consequently it is the characteristics of such experience which must first be determined. miss carpenter makes some valuable observations on this subject in her discussion of the psychology of perception in parts iv and v. this approach must be developed and extended, but with a clear concern fof examining musical experience in its own l>efceptual terms and not through the use of a visual of any other" 99 ! \ . . analogy. for our understanding of music has, i thi1;tq longbeen by the tendency to assimilate it to the other more familial!;' and readily verbalized arts, just as our understanding of art in general has sorely hallaicapped by our propensity to explain it in the light of concepts: and objects of a wholly",,different and foreign sort. i have elsewhere 2 used the',j(oncept of "surrogate theories of art" to denote attempts of this sort, and the applies equally to the substitution of the conceptual object for the perceptua:l one, ,and the visual experience for the musical one. once a path is charted around these"' pitfalls, we must devise concepts and categories that are taken from musical experience. only in the light of these can we hope to acquire a clearer understanding of the musical object. it would be presumptuous to do more than suggest a direction here, but perhaps that will be sufficient to provide a positive close to this discussion of two thoughtful and provocative papers. notes 1 edward bullough, "'psychical distance' as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle," british journal of psychology, 5:87-98 (1912). this well-known paper has been reprinted in a number of anthologies in aesthetics, including melvin rader, ed., a modern book of esthetics, 3rd ed., (new york, 1960), pp. 394-411; morris weitz, ed., problems in aesthetics (new york, 1959), pp. 646--656; and eliseo vivas and murray krieger, eds., the problems of aesthetics (new york, 1953), pp. 396-405. :i arnold berleant, "surrogate theories of art," philosophy and phenomenological research, forthcoming. saul novack, some thoughts on the nature of the musical composition (further considerations of professor crocker's reflections) the questions that professor crocker has engaged are of overwhelming import. within an obviously enjoyed bit of speculation, he has shown his wisdom by allowing them to remain unanswered. at this moment, limited by a response which is even briefer than professor crocker's exposition, i cannot offer anything beyond a few suggestions as to possible directions further inquiries might take, well aware of the lack of sufficient amplification and support of some of my observations. the word "piece" is a curious one, and its implicit meanings were perhaps not originally intended. distinction should be made between "piece" and "composition." the former implies any musical time-space which is either inorganic, or organic but subservient to a higher musical unit. the term composition (componere: to collect together a whole from several parts) involves much more than a collection of the several parts. if we limit the 100 some desiderata and goals for the study of 18th-century italian opera donald jay grout it is only within the past two decades that opera seems to have emerged from its former lowly status as a step-child of musicology. a few scholars-notably, romain rolland, egon wellesz, hugo goldschmidt, h. c. wolff, and edward dentproduced valuable studies of 17th-century opera, andh. abert in 1919 brought out the first comprehensive general history. but the 18th and 19th centuries remained-and still remain-an all-but-impenetrable jungle except for a few clearings around the names of the "masters," especially handel, gluck, mozart, verdi, and wagner. recently, however, there are encouraging signs of progress: the 17th-century composers are being re-studied with modern techniques, and a few brave souls have even begun to bring order out of the chaos of the 19th century. but the 18th century still remains obscure, even though here too some encouraging beginnings are being made. i suspect that there have been several reasons for this longstanding neglect: one perhaps is the idea that opera, that "impure" form of music, isa less respectable subject than, say, the early history of the symphony or the sonata; also, many historians may be still unconsciously laboring under the old notion that 18th-century italian opera before gluck was a regrettable episode best forgotten unless to heave a few objurgations at its "abuses" -this of course being easier than to find out what it was that unaccountably made these works flourish in a society which, one suppose, was not made up altogether' of intellectual and musical morons. but the main cause of our present ignorance of 18th-century italian opera is more objective: it is simply the almost total lack of modern critical editions of the scores. until such editions are available for at least a few composers beyond handel, gluck, and mozart, we shall be in the position that, whatever general statements we may make about the history of italian opera in this period, it will be almost literally the case that we don't know what we are talking about. the production of editions of operas by such composers as the bononcini's, a. scarlatti, vinci, leo, and hasse (to mention only a few names 88 from the earlier half of the century) is the first order of business if we ever expect to make any real progress in this area. unfortunately, such editions are both laborious to prepare and extremely expensive to publish. on the latter point i have nothing to say here, but i do want to enumerate a few things that would make the actual preparation of an edition somewhat less uncertain and less wasteful of time than it is at present. it may be said that these desiderata are so obvious that it is hardly worth while to set them down, and that in any event they are not likely to be realized. nevertheless, i shall list them, in the hope that someone who wants to earn the everlasting gratitude of his contemporary and future colleagues in the field of opera history may be moved to undertake one or another, or part of one or another, of the following publications: . 1. a collective catalogue of scores with locations. (we may have this when rism completes its series of manuscript sources.) short of a collective catalogue, special catalogues: holdings of particular libraries, or full lists and locations of opera scores of individual composers. 2. the same for the printed librettos: in brief, bringing the library of congress catalogue up to date and applying the same high standards to cataloguing librettos in other libraries. dr. claudio sartori has already such a card catalogue, which it is to be hoped he will soon be able to complete and publish. indexes: by author, composer (if named), date, city, and printer. 3. lists identifying librettists, singers, impresarios, scene designers, and patrons. (these could be included in no.2 as additional indexes.) 4. lists of "personaggi," perhaps combined with a dictionary of dramatic subject-matter and motives in the manner of riemann's opernhandbuch. 5. (a) catalogue of music incipits. this is an opportunity for collective enterprise: the incipits to be expressed by all collaborators according to a uniform system adaptable to use in computers. (b) similar catalogue of text incipits. 6. search of miscellaneous aria collections ("arie scelte" and the like) by individual effort or preferably by computer, with the aim of identifying either additional sources or settings of aria texts from operas, the music of which is not otherwise preserved. 89 7. catalogue of 18th-century scribes, with description and illustrations of characteristic features of their. handwriting. 8. catalogue of papers used in with reproductions of watermarks; index of the latter, with places and dates insofar as determinable. that will do for the present. i rather imagine the last j udgment will be upon us before the above program is realized, but every little step toward it would be helpful. in the meantime, we had better get along with our editions, making use of whatever bibliographical or other aids are available, abandoning any idea of final, unsurpassable perfection and doing the best we can as soqn as we can with what we have. by way of conclusion, here are a few questions that may be answerable when we have a sufficient number of editions of representative 18th-century italian operas: 1. it should be possible eventually to study and compare the opera repertories of particular italian cities in the 18th century. among other matters, this would probably settle the questionwhich despite a number of recent assertions and revocations stiu remains unanswered-was there, in fact, such a thing as "n eapolitan" opera and if so how did it differ from opera in rome, venice, florence, milan, or other italian cities, and how (if at all) did it affect other contemporary styles? 2. comparative style studies of the music should provide a more secure basis than we now have for periodization of 18thcentury opera. does the "classical" period of opera seria begin after 1760, or is it already there as early as 1730? how long and in what cities did the older opera style as represented by a. scarlatti maintain itself? to what extent, where, and when did the new style (of which l. vinci may· have been the first important representative) begin to supersede the old? 3. we lack at present any comprehensive study of the 18thcentury opera seria libretto. what earlier or contemporary literary influences does it reflect? what was its influence on contemporary italian litefature? what is the relation between changes in the libretto and changes in the musical style of opera in the course of the 18th century? 4. how do these operas, text and music, relate to or reflect the social structure, manners, and ideas of their time or place? 5. what connection is there between opera and the early 90 18th-century symphony? are the style and structure of symphonic movements derived from the opera aria? did instrumental idioms in turn penetrate the vocal lines of opera? the above few suggestions and questions are offered not as new or startling discoveries but simply as reminders of some of the work that lies ahead for historians of 18th-century opera. 91 ernest h. sanders-medieval english polyphony and its significancefor the continent ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 65-7472), 1963. (465 pp., columbia university diss.) j. e. maddrell the amount of scholarly work on medieval english music published since the 1920's is quite daunting inits sheer bulk, and production in post-war years has increased to such an extent that one can hardly call the subject neglected. articles and monographs have, however, tended to concentrate on isolated questions; they leave one conscious of the need for a study which would treat the subject as a whole. dr. harrison's invaluable music in medieval britain did not entirely meet this need, for while it deals extensively with other matters, the account it gives of english polyphony from 1100 to 1400 is a mere 50 pages than an eighth of the whole book. this dissertation does not supersede music in medieval britain (it will be a while before anything does), but complements it, offering a detailed account of english polyphony in the 13th and 14th centuries. the work is all the more acceptable because it has been done with exemplary care, thoroughness, and responsibility. sometimes dr. sanders permits himself an aside: it is ext,raordinary how the field of english medieval music particularly is littered with the fractured bones of theorists, who, for the sake of a theory, are presumed to be of limited competence (p. 314,f.n.). we may not be too happy about the metaphor, but it is reassuring to know that one is dealing with an authority who will give due weight to primary sources. a willingness to do so is perhaps the great strength of the dissertation, for although dr. sanders has obviously profited from the work of apfel, bukofzer, dittmer, and other investigators, he is not afraid to brush their conclusions aside when they have too tenuous a relevance to the facts as presented by the music. one very pleasing result is the excellent editing of latin texts, on which dr. sanders rightly prides himself. i shrink from summarizing the complex argument of chapter i, which discusses the rhythmic ambiguity .of certain early english pieces in mensural notation; dr. sanders' conclusion, based on a close study of theoretical and paleographic evidence, is that these doubtful pieces indicate an english variant of the third rhythmic mode, which he terms "alternate third mode": j rather than or n. his reconstruction of the "irregular modes" of anonymous iv seems,· on balance, more convincing than dittmer's, but (as dr. sanders acknowledges) there can be no absolute solution to a problem of this kind. his argument-inevitably-leaves one without a criterion for deciding which rhythm to apply in transcribing any of the 209 numerous english pieces which appear to go well in either duple time or the alternate third mode. i myself share his preference for the latter, although i cannot agree that his trail$cription of campanis cum cymbalis (pp. 106-07) is better than dittmer's binary transcription. be that as it may, dr. sanders deserves credit for having refuted the view that sumer is icumen in was originally in duple meter. one might previously have had objections to the extremely awkward articulation of the text produced by bukofzer's transcription but there remained the undeniable fact that the original notation showed pairs of breves. dr. sanders has now made it clear that such pairs can be read .i j. it is gratifying to find one's instincts corroborated by someone else's scholarship. the second, third,·· and fourth chapters consist largely of analysis of polyphonic techniques used by english composers of the period. all the analyses are impressively carried out, and it would be difficult to fault them as such; but they are not all equally relevant. chapter ii, for example, on the worcester fragments, is invaluable, demonstrating, inter alia, that the tenors, or pedes, of freely composed pieces in the worcester repertory are remarkably similar, particularly the ostinato tenors in f, and that some of them may have been taken from popular song. it shows, too, that the english practice of altering a cantus firmus, which begins in the 13th century, was adopted in the interests of what dr. sanders calls "tonal unity." on the other hand, the following chapter (c. 1285-1325) strikes me, after repeated readings, as being merely a collection of technical analyses with little wider purpose; its findings would be obvious to all if a complete, performing edition of the music were available. similarly, chapter iv opens with a useful reconsideration of the terminology used by scholars in discussing 14thcentury english music (gymel, conductus, etc.,) but ends with a superfluous rejection of bukofzer's "english discant" theory-superfluous because that theory has already been convincingly refuted by others. it is a pity, too, that fuller treatment was not given to the eleventh fascicle of ms wolfenbiittel 677, especially in view of dr. sanders' interesting suggestion that the second notre dame generation was strongly influenced by english music; a closer examination would have further strengthened the first part of chapter v, which makes a useful distinction between continental works which show english influence and works of english origin in continental sources. in general, dr. sanders' dissertation is an admirable example of its genre. one's criticisms therefore center not on the question of his competence, but on the limitations of the genre itself. what one misses is any sense of the relation between the music and the culture which produced it and gave it purpose, as if music, in the middle ages of all periods, existed in a vacuum. indeed, when he ventures outside the field of musical technique, dr. sanders runs into trouble; on p. 95 (f.n. 49) he suggests that the addition of the latin text to sumer is icumen in may have been due to franciscan influence, a statement which betrays no more intimate knowledge of franciscan literary activities (which consisted chiefly of converting secular material into religious 210 poems in the vernacular) than can be picked up at second or third hand from music in medieval britain and the new oxford history of music. besides, the other contents of ms harley 978 show that the song belonged to quite another area of medieval culture. the limitations of the approach associated with the term "history of music" are most evident in the concluding half-chapter. its main contention is plausible enough: because of the preference for major tonality, for tonal unity, and for the consonance of the third characteristic of english medieval music, england may be regarded as the home of western tonal music. but dr. sanders insists on taking an evolutionary view which he has to bolster with a long and somewhat specious argument, a large part of which appears between quotation marks. one highly questionable feature is the emphasis he gives to the role of so-called "instrumental elements" in the evolution of tonal harmony; it ignores what is perhaps the most important single aspect of medieval music, namely, the fact that it is essentially rooted in the possibilities and limitations of the human voice. if, moreover, one were looking for exceptions to the general rule (no chromaticism, avoidance of unvocal intervals, etc.), one would turn not to english music, but to the work .of machaut and his french contemporaries. the fact is,. of course, that the idea of evolution in music is at best a metaphor from biological science, and at worst a gross oversimplification of the ways in which human sensibility manifests itself; it has long been recognized as unhelpful in the other arts. in dr. sanders' evolutionary scheme, 18th-century tonality represents a kind of zenith in european music; he may well be right, but the two inferences most naturally drawn from his concluding argument are (a) that a composition is only interesting as a rung in the ladder of evolution and (b) that any tonal composition is better than any modal one. i refuse to believe that so capable a scholar as dr. sanders accepts either of these absurdities; but there they are, inescapable side-effects of a muddled argument which is patently lacking in the qualities shown by the rest of the dissertation. some minor blemishes, remarkable in a work which maintains so high a standard of competence, must be pointed out. they are all avoidable characteristics of a lot of musicological work on medieval subjects. there is, for example, an overconfident misuse of such words as "certainly," "doubtless," and "unquestionably" when probabilities, possibilities, or even hypotheses are being discussed. one has qualms about blaming dr. sanders for a trick which seems endemic among medievalists in all disciplines, but it is a trick, even if the writer is unaware of it-a trick to blackmail the reader into feeling as convinced by the writer's theory as he is himself. i do not expect to find a sympathetic audience for my view that sigla, over-abbreviated titles, and the like are pedantic paraphernalia, but i am convinced that these devices (outside a bibliography or catalogue) hardly justify themselves. they are supposed to save space -though there are plenty of pages in this dissertation which have large blank spaces between text and 211 they decidedly do not save the reader's time. even more annoying is dr. sanders' reluctance to refer to a composition by its title or incipit; instead, he gives the number of the piece in its manuscript or appropriate edition, so that unless the reader has at hand a fair number of editions of continental and english music, he has often no means of knowing what composition is being cited. after searching through an edition only to find that the piece cited has been in one's performing repertory for years, one may be forgiven for regarding this practice as an attack on sanity. finally, i must warn intending readers (who will, i hope, be numerous) of two nuisances for which dr. sanders is not responsible. on the film, several musical examples are partly illegible; and pp. 321 and 332 are missing. the latter annoyance seems quite unnecessary; if frames informing us that a page is missing can be inserted into the film, at the point where the page should be, why cannot those frames show the pages themselves? professor sanders replies; perhaps the most complimentary comment in mr. maddrell's thorough and largely favorable review is that my dissertation complements as singularly important a work as frank ll. harrison's music in medieval britain. i am somewhat taken aback, therefore, by his criticism that it fails to convey "any sense of the relation between music and the culture which produced it and gave it purpose." for any doctoral candidate in 1961 or so to have set himself such a task would have involved a great deal of presumptuous duplication of the subject matter of dr. harrison's book. moreover, its execution would have had to be slipshod, since the stated aim of this dissertation was to provide a first comprehensive as well as analytically detailed investigation of all extant english polyphony of the 13th and 14th centuries and to assess and define its varying influence on continental composers. in its conception, orientation, and execution a dissertation often differs markedly from a book. the author of this dissertation found it desirable to limit himself to the examination in depth of a large, relatively homogeneous, and insufficiently explored topic. these considerations explain the plenitude of what mr. maddrell calls "technical analyses with little wider purpose." if one proposes to bring a body of music into focus, one has to analyze it. that the resultant findings were not truisms to be taken for granted is easily proved by a critical reading of much ofthe relevant musicological literature published prior to c.1960. moreover, the very fact that most of the music was not available in reliable performing editions indicated the desirability of providing ample and detailed substantiation for the conclusions, which were neither commonly known nor obvious,e.g., the striking diversity of motet types in medieval england, such as the variation motet and the rondo motet; the circumstances that helped bring about the placement of the tenor as cantus-firmus carrier in the middle, of the polyphonic fabric; the clarity with. which the english repertoire demonstrates isorhythm to have originated .as a means of underscoring the strophic phrase organization of motet superstructures, etc. similarly, the rejection of bukofzer's "english distant"· theory did not strike me as superfluous; while mr. maddrell claims that it had already been refuted by others, the only substantialcontributioil to a very beclouded 212 field was an article (" 'english discant' and discant in england," mq (1959) 45:26-48), in which the author, sylvia w. kenney, uncovered bukofzer's misreading of the theoretical sources, which in any case postdate the in question. it was the detailed examination of this repertoire that showed bukofzer to have subjected the musical evidence to a twofold misinterpretation. a further important consideration is that painstaking examination of the sources necessarily confers a specialized expertise,! which, in turn, gives rise to evaluation and conclusions. it seems to me that a reviewer cannot very well accept some of these, while rejecting without presentation of commensurate evi<;ience to the contrary. thus, mr. maddrell is gratified that my discussion of the rhythmic interpretation of 13th-century english notational devices corroborates his instinctive musical attitudes toward the summer canon, but sees no need, presumably for similar reasons, to. reject a method of "binary transcription" of campanisf honoremus. that it must, in fact, be discarded is overwhelmingly indicated by the pre-franconian notational evidence. there is, however, a larger issue that is implicit in the twin complaint about what might be called lack of ethnomusicologically relevant treatment on the one hand and the pervasiveness of "technical analyses" on the other. the globalization of western culture has bestowed on the discipline ofethnomusicology an entirely novel and embracing importance, which gives the demand for "anthropomusicological" investigation of western music greater relevance than ever before. yet, i should like to take this opportunity to emphasize as strongly as i can the specific tendency of the western tradition towards divorcing music from its intrinsic ancillary functions as an ingredient of processes, and, concomitantly, toward the view of music as an autonomous art, whose purpose is the conception and facture of finite products, of structured objects, by means of notation. this seems to me to be the unique (and ethnologically significant) glory of western music; it follows that the careful, loving, and expert analytical exploration of any part 6f this huge repertoire is inevitably a primary musicological obligation, as it revea'ls the concepts that gave rise to any given graphic fixation. the medieval view of ars musica is elucidated by the writings of the contemporary teacher-reporters ("theorists") and by the works of the composers. a dissertation dealing with aspects of this traditioll necessarily has a predetermined focus, and mr. maddrell rightly stumbles over the irrelevance of my suggestion that the addition of the latin text to the summer canon may have been due to franciscan influence, even though it is appropriately buried in a footnote. the fact that as an obiter dictum it is not substantiated or developed need not, however, be taken to indicate a lighthearted disregard of our knowledge of franciscan activities in 13th-century england. the franciscans strove to spiritualize and "re-christianize" all social groups with which they made contact, including the monastic and secular clergy. while it is true that a large part of their efforts was directed to the laity and therefore produced religious poetry mainly in the vernacular, there is sufficient direct and indirect evidence that in the proper environment the influence of the franciscan spirit may well have caused a secular song to be equipped with a secondary sacred text in latin. i should think that the contents of the harleian manuscript would support the notion of the reformation of a secular piece under such circumstances. one major section of the dissertation (its final half-chapter) does go beyond the description and evaluation of the immediate evidence, since it attempts to address itself to the larger implications of the significance of medieval english polyphony for the continent.2 i am distressed that mr. 8-c.m. 213 maddrell misunderstood two salient thoughts expressed in that chapter. (i) it was (and is) my contention that the genesis of counterpoint required a rational ordering of the tonal material, i.e., a process that loosened the primal bonds tying pitch to language by considering pitch as a separate entity to be defined precisely (numerical ratios). this is impossible without the intercession of essentially instrumental factors; the voice can be "fretted" only after the model of a string, e.g., the monochord. this notion of an instrumental seedbed as the basis for the proper conception of polyphony obviously has nothing to do with the manner (usually vocal) in which any given medieval composition was performed. significantly, music, no matter how it was realized in performance, was in the middle ages generically referred to as "musica instrumentalis." (2) it seems to me that a teleological view of the history of western music is defensible. the advantage of historical hindsight is that, without falling into etiological traps, it can and must at least suggest, _if not plausibly demonstrate, curves of evolution; indeed, mr. maddrell grants that i "may well be right." however, that meliorism has nothing to do with this position seemed to me so manifest that i quite spontaneously refrained from belaboring the point in the confident expectation that an evolutionary view would not become alloyed with valuational connotations. the inferences (a) and (b) that mr. maddrell nevertheless draws from the concluding chapter of the dissertation are patently unjustified. notes 1 to say so is no proof of pride; unless expertise is to be taken for granted, there is no point to academic publishing. ii it has appeared in afmw (1967) 24:24-53 ("die rolle der englischen mehrstimmigkeit des mittelalters in der entwicklung von cantus-firmus-satz und tonalitiitsstruktur"). editorial note: our readers may examine several of dr. sander's central theses in the following articles derived from his dissertation: "duple rhythm and alternate third mode in the 13th century," jams (1962) 15:249-91; "peripheral polyphony of the 13th century," jams (1964) 17:261-87; "tonal aspects of 13th-century english polyphony," acta musicologica (1965) 37: 19-34; "cantilena and discant in 14th-century england," musica disciplina (1965) 19: 7-52; "die rolle der englischen mehrstimmigkeit des mittelalters in der entwicklung von cantus-firmus-satz und tonalitiitsstruktur," archiv far musikwissense/w.jt (1967) 24:24-53. 214 adjunct editors: general editing: business manager: reports: l. michael griffel, associate editor mary obe1kevich, associate editor 0 r-ci''jt\:", if f} margaret r. griffel, associate editor bar.bargj.misholy"assista.,ilj stephen willis, assistant editor associate editor jay rahn, assistant editor-domestic emmanuel leemans, assistant editor-foreign articles: isabelle emerson, associate editor ,.judith gaull, assistant editor dissertations: josephine m. cooper, associate editor susan testa, assistant editor bibliographica: shai bursztyn, associate editor lillian s. fraker, assistant editor secretary: virginia papper faculty advisor: denis stevens copyright © 1969, department of music columbia university, new york printed in great britain '7 fll!lfrld .. kl,.'1 $rdwh. ut1fv'€r>i, hl.ay .. c1 7 . u .... corresponding editors domestic "--""raymond kelton boston university, boston, mass. h f' ,-6aniel l. .. fa .. .. university, waltham, mass. --. it 1\""7 .• bryn mawr college i .... 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corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the university unless otherwise noted. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york .. ,'( bea friedland john m. jennings frederick rimmer gerald abraham friedrich blume kenneth cooper winton dean vincent duckles otis fellows donald jay grout daniel heartz egon kenton jens peter larsen jan larue maria rika maniates 7 reports from the domestic editors: events on campuses corresponding 14 american 27 new york: ph.d. program in musicology at cuny from the foreign corresponding editors: 35 new zealand: music in the universities 39 glasgow: scottish music archive 42 announcements 43 letters 47 49 52 65 73 81 84 88 92 96 105 113 117 articles i8th-century studies in honor of paul henry lang foreword 18th-century music and the problems of its history musicology in german universities il teatro aua moda, or a safe and easy method of producing baroque operas according to modern practice handel and keiser: further borrowings thoughts 011 writing a comprehensive history of 18th-century music paul henry lang: an enlightened critic of the french enlightenment some desiderata and goals for the study of 18th-century italian 'opera approaching a history of 18th-century music the music of the 18th century: a retrospective view a challenge to musicology: the viennese classical school the mapping of musical classicism, a little-known and dangerous period sonate, que me veux-tu?: the enigma of french musical aesthetics in the 18th century alfred mann william j. mitchell leonard g. ratner alexander l. ringer denis stevens j. a. westrup walter wiora 141 artist and teacher 147 giuseppe sarti and mozart's quartet, k. 421 154 approaches to musical historiography of the 18th century 158 mozart and the j osephian era: some socio-economic notes on musica1 change 166 utrecht: class of '52 169 aspects of the 18th century 174 zur stellung bachs on weltbild der goethezeit 178 bach's place in the world-view of the goethe era neal zaslaw 183 handel and leclair dissertations theodore karp 193 'finn mathiassen the style of the early motet chester fanning smith 197 leon crickmore c. p. e. bach: six harpsichord concertos jane r. stevens the keyboard concertos of c. p. e. bach mark devoto 200 laurence david berman the evolution of tonal thinking in the works of claude debussy j. e. maddrell 209 ernest h. sanders medieval english polyphony and its significance for the contin<?nt ernest h. sanders 212 reply to j. e. maddrell bibliographica david sommerfield 215 a monteverdi discography 233 publications received 235 contributors the philosophy of theodor adorno david a. sheldon m usic today is managed, controlled and mass produced by a monstrous culture industry which dispenses its goods to an anonymous public whose unconscious values have been predetermined and conditioned by the technology of a conformist society. new music, whose function is continually to contradict and oppose, through its own inner tensions, the society from which it springs, is in danger of becoming too widely separated from this society and at the same time of losing its tensions by regressing to neutral, lifeless, overformalized arrangements of notes. this, in essence, is the philosophy of theodor adorno, professor of sociology and philosophy at the university of frankfurt. just who adorno is, his reasons for this pessimistic view, and his significance in the world of contemporary music are questions which this paper will attempt to answer. theodor wiesengrund adorno was born in frankfurt, germany, on september 11, 1903. as a sociologist he has had a long association with the institute for social research in frankfurt, of which he has been managing director since 1953. during the second world war he was forced to leave germany and come to the united states where he was musical director of the princeton radio research project from 1938-41. after returning to germany following the war, he again came to this country in 1952-54. during this time he collaborated in the research and writing of the authoritarian personality, the first of the five volumes in harper's "studies in prejudice" sponsored by the american jewish council. adorno's position as a sociologist, as represented in this work and in his activities with the institute for social research in general, seems to be one haunted by two basic fears: first, that sociologists will create a sociology that is based on the radical empiricism of clever mathematics and nose-counting which david a. sheldon is a doctoral student and graduate assistant in inusicology at indiana university. his dissertation on "the chamber music of johann friedrich fasch" is in progress. 83 has gained so much ground in the social sciences in recent years (adorno argues that statistical information derived from these means can only give us a somewhat generalized classificatory schell\e and does not enable us to understand society); second, that the horrors of the totalitarian regimes, especially those of the hitler variety, will be forgotten and thereby return. adorno's sociology has been explained as a curious mixture of marxian ideas of economic determinism and of freudian psychological methods. he fears totalitarianism and the idea that historical processes can best be explained as a result of production and consumption; and he fears the loss of individualism and claims that society is kept together by the threat of personal physical violence. to adorno, sociology must become a critical discipline. it must show up society for what it is and vvhat it can do or destroy. to do this, sociology must have a doctrine or philosophy; indeed, adorno, who has been called an intellectual ,marxist, argues many of his points with agile dialectical reasoning. in addition to his professional activities as a sociologist and philosopher, adorno is a prominent figure in the field of music criticism. as a young man he studied composition with bernhard sekles and alban berg, piano with e. lung and eduard steuermann, and musicology at the university of vienna. during this time he was engaged as a music critic, and in 1928-31 he was editor of the music periodical anbruch in vienna. while he was musical director of the princeton radio research project in america, he advised thomas mann on certain musical matters in the writing of doktor faustus. since 1950 he has regularly given lectures and courses in composition at the kranichstein institute summer session, darmstadt, and in 1954 he was awarded the schonberg medal. adorno's output as a composer includes mostly songs, but he has also written two movements for string quartet, three women's choruses, six short orchestral pieces, arrangements of french folksongs and orchestrations of schumann piano pieces (gurlitt 1959:9). his writings on music include: the philosophy of new music (1949), essay on wagner (1952), dissonances (1956), klangfiguren: musical writings i (1959), mahler (196p), and many articles. as a music critic, adorno is alternately praised as a person of sharp, penetrating insight and damned as an idealist whose negative attitude and vague theorizing cannot cope with the realities of modern music. as a sociologist and musician both, adorno's favorite and 84 .. "',,',; most characteristic area of expression is that of music-sociology. in reality most of adorno's musical writings, especially those of a general nature, can be grouped in this area, for when he speaks of music he speaks of it in the context of his social theories. in the same way that his sociology is imbued with a critical philosophical basis, adorno's music-sociology represents a critical scheme of aesthetics. his aesthetics seems to be influenced for the most part by hegel's dialectical reconciliation of contrasts, as his sociology is influenced by marx's dialectical reconciliation of class differences. in adorno's aesthetic creed the element of tension between opposites is the absolute criterion for qualitative evaluation and also for formal unity. as in his sociology, adorno's music-sociology goes far beyond mere statistical analysis. he views music history basically in terms of collective behavior guided by the laws of consumption, with only occasional appearances of significant individuals who by themselves affect the progress of music. because of the abstract, non-material nature of musical sound, the society can hear in the music what it wishes and can even use music for ideological purposes. in this way music can not only be misused as an ideology for the immediate means of power control but can also regress to a state of unawareness of itself and its role in society. adorno feels that the role of music, especially serious music, is to reflect in its own materials and content the contradictions and tensions of the society which produces it. in this way, serious music, to be true to itself and its society, must be conceived in a continual state of dialectical opposition and dissatisf9-ction. the synthesis of this opposition is, according to adorno, social and aesthetic truth. this is what adorno means when he says, "the social sense of the musical phenomenon is inseparable from its truth or untruth, its success or failure, its contradiction or agreement."l because of this, music-sociology, for adorno, cannot limit itself to empirical investigations based on listener reaction but must work to discern the real social position of music and its real essence within society. the urgency of some critical aesthetic evaluation in these terms of music today is reflected in adorno's views of the present musical situation. he believes that there is becoming less l"der gesellschaftliche sinn musikalischer phanomene ist untrennbar von ihrer wahrheit oder unwahrheit, ihrem gelingen, oder misslingen, ihrer widerspriichlichkeit oder stimmigkeit" (1959b:ll). 85 and less difference between the so-called extremes of popular music on the one hand and serious music on the other-in fact, between all types of music along this continuum. much of his criticism in this respect is directed toward the monolithic" culture industry" which, according to adorno, controls the production and distribution of the culture products. the unconscious acceptance of this control by the manipulated and conditioned listener is reinforced by the sensuous and seductive nature of the music-music which is characterized by a lack of tension and is therefore socially and aesthetically false. parallel to this is the destruction of meaningful form; and meaningful form, in adorno's opinion, can only be achieved by the clear articulation of the contrasts or tension-producing elements in relationship to the whole. the listener regresses to the point of hearing only the charming, isolated moments of a composition or focusing his attention on the performer, and he thereby destroys his perception of the whole. this tendency toward "atomized" listening has its effect on the size of the standard repertory of accepted classics, which through a steady shrinking process is narrowed to a selection which has nothing to do with quality. a "pantheon of best sellers" arises from this process. they become popular not because of striking individual features but because they successfully conform to a narrow and predetermined standardization achieved by the neutralization of dissimilar features. culture goods are produced according to a formula, a formula which copies and perpetuates the fetishistic aspects of the listener's regression. the ultimate result of this leveling process is that the personal judgment of the listener is today completely eliminated from the marketability of the "art" product. when adorno makes the statement that "the liquidation of individualism is the real signature of the new musical situation,"z he is . in essence referring both to the music and to its audience as well. schonberg seems to adorno to be the epitome of modern musical innovation. admittedly a member and supporter of the schonberg school of the 1920's, adorno, in his philosophy of new music, portrays schonberg and stravinsky as the two protagonists of a new age. but whereas stravinsky glorified the 2"die liquidierung des individuums ist die eigentliche signatur des neuen musikalischen zustandes" (1956b:683). 86 .. liquidation of individualism and dehumanized· music to a phenomenon of mere sound, schonberg, according to) adorno, expressed the bitter resentment of this liquidation and opened up an entirely new world of expression through the freeing of music from the supremacy of the triad (mayer 1961:236-40). schonberg's successors, however, have lost sight of the real significance of the 12-tone row by usingit as a means of creating neutral and static forms rather than by using it as he did, as a means of binding together contrasting and more or less explosive musical forces. adorno condemns "prefabricated" mu/sical forms which substitute technique for composition. he argues that the "ultraconstructivists" are using technical manipulation as an end in itself. this total rationalization of form, which is mistaken for musical architecture and which denies music its essential feature of unfolding in time, results in an absence of form. the doing away with subjectivity, the fear of expression and the neutralization of musical material to rigid self-contained formulas are the symptoms of an aging modern music living off the remains of the innovations made forty-odd years ago. in short, there is a loss of dynamic tension. adorno explains the reasons for this on two different levels: that of the relationship of the artist and his work to society, and that of the relationships of the musical materials themselves. on the first, or broad, level, adorno clearly states, "the symptoms of the aging of modern music are, sociologically, the reduction of freedom and the disintegration of the individual, which are accepted, endorsed and copied in private life by people who have lost their sense of direction and their individuality" (1956a:28). he seems to feel that the same thing is happening to modern music that is happening to popular music, classical music, and music in general. at the same time, however, adorno strongly implies that the reason that modern music suffers so and fails to fulfill its function of expressing tension and dissatisfaction is that it has become too far removed from society. in speaking of the "third program" and special art theaters for modern radical music adorno says, "as necessary as such segregation might seem to be in order to protect artistic progress from the rage of the compact majority. . . the work [in this way] begins to lose its inner tension, and the wallpaper patterns and arithmetic problems which are threatening to render the aesthetic avant87 gardism of today harmless are not to be separated from the renunciation of the dialectic with the public, a dialectic which should not function as adaptation but as opposition."3 on the level of the musical material itself, adorno explains his criticisms in essentially the terms. he constantly speaks of the necessary dialectical opposition of content and form, of means and end, and of performer and music. the synthesis of these contrasts is, according to adorno, perfect form, a form which grows out of these elements alone and which is not superimposed upon them. lithe course of music in time .. .itself contradicts predeterminability." " . .. the primary musical impulse should produce at any given time the principle of its construction."4 in this respect it is only natural that adorno regards the free atonality of schonberg as his ideal, and denounces the com plete serializa tion of today's modern music. he also observes that in addition to a lack of perfect form the idea of the completely predetermined is an illusion because music in this way can neit'her be constructed in absolute clarity nor does such construction coincide with the resulting actual music (1959c). interestingly enough, adorno's view of such serialized music is applied in the same manner to chance music. "music which is abstractly and mathematically dictated from without and which has no subjective mediation has an affinity to absolute chance. it is not unlikely that the youngest 'aleatoric' experiments manifest just that very thing. lis adorno is also of the opinion that lithe depreciation of the determined in favor of determinants appears especially flagrant in the area of 3"50 notwendig solche 5egregationen zuweilen sein mogen, urn den ktinstlerischen fortschritt vor der wut der kompakten majoritiit zu beschtitzen, ... so begin'nt die 5ache in sich selbst ihre 5pannung zu verlieren, und die tapetenmuster und rechenexempel, die den iisthetischen avantgardismus heute drohend verharmlosen, sind nicht zu trennen von dem verzicht auf eine dialektik mit dem publikum, die nicht in der anpassung, sondern in deren gegenteil bestehen miisste" (1959d:68). 4"der verlauf von musik in der zeit, ... widerspricht seiber der pradeterminiertheit" (1959c:364-6). " ... der primare musikalische impuis soli jeweils das konstruktionsprinzip erzeugen" (1959c:363). 5"die dem musikalischen phanomen von aussen, ohne subjektive vermittlung oktroyierte, abstrakt mathematisch sich gebardende notwendigkeit hat affinitat zum absoluten zufall. nicht unmoglich, dass die jungsten 'aleatorischen' experimente eben das bekunden" (1959c:350). 88 electronic music."6 speaking of the music of the ultraconstructivists he states, "all this exaggerated articulation of the actual raw material of music is not inspired by any artistic aspirations; on the contrary the manipulation becomes an end in itself .... it results too, in the regression of music to the pre-musical pre-artistic stage of raw sound; it is only logical that the next step be concrete or electronic music" ", (1956a:25). "" in accordance with the concept of perfect musical form created by contrasting elements, adorno ts very much concerned with the clear articulation of these elements in musical performance. among his criticisms of performances of new music, and also his reasons for its unintelligibility to the public, are: not enough attention to melodic continuity and differentiated tone color; too-fast tempos; inadequacy of musical education on the part of the conductor and performers; and not enough rehearsal time due to the demands of unionism. adorno claims that very often the non-understandability of the listeners is willfully confirmed by non-understandable performances (1959d:66). by non-understandability, adorno is referring to the listener's inability to conceive the entire form because of the neutralization of the contrasting elements and the unclarity of the inarticulate performance. indeed, according to adorno it is only through the clear representation of the opposing elements and their perfectly balanced relationship that the true form can be perceived. this explains, at least in part, his early objections to the use of radio for the broadcasting of serious music so delicately conceived. this transmission of music only distorted its fine shadings and nuances and thereby destroyed its form (1941:110-139). writing in 1958, however, after improvements were made in electronics, adorrio urges the use of the radio as a means of breaking the "intellectual monopoly of the cultural machine." with regard to new music he now urges that even rehearsals be broadcast so that the listener can hear the evolution of the musical form through the interpretation of the conductor (1959d:69-70). linked closely with his admiration for schonberg's free atonality is adorno'sown concept of musical means-a sort of idealized counterpoint which is, again, characterized by the 6" ... die entwertung des determinierten zugunsten der determinanten scheint besonders flagrant im bereich der elektronik" (1959c:361). 89 unity of contrasts. "as a synthesis of manifold elements the idea of counterpoint essentially is, in the truly hegelian sense, identity of the non-identical."7 the end result for adorno is a form which is durchkonstruiert and which is free of all exterior and abstract form. the form grows out of the musical process itself and exists as a sectionless whole. in this way adorno's concept of unity is realized. he is always quick to qualify this unity, however, by stressing that the individual voices must still maintain their independence. this explains some of his objections to the 12-tone technique, which he praises for its freeing of counterpoint from overt harmonic implications, while he at the same time points out its inherent dangers. "the 12-tone technique in which the spirit of counterpoint is accomplished contains also the potential of its death. the perfect determinability of voices, which are placed independently opposite one another [but] which are completely complementary, denies their own independence."b the perfect determinability of voices, caused by their origin from a common source, i.e., the row, tends to diminish the contrasts to mere complementary relationships, with the antithetical nature of counterpoint perishing in the synthesis. the resulting unity of such material is a false one which adorno calls "secondary form," the product of neutralization and liquidation of individuality. we may smile at the bombastic way in which adorno categorically condemns the music situation of today. however, as a sociologist, philosopher, writer, and musician his opinions certainly deserve attention, even though they are on a rather abstract, idealized plane. whether or not we agree with his dark picture of a totalitarian state, whose inhabitants are both conditioned and driven by freudian fears to repression and regression, we cannot deny adorno's significance and accomplishments. criticized by some as the arch-enemy of music, adorno in many respects may be truly. the most progressive 7"ais synthesis des mannigfaltigen war die idee des kontrapunkts wesentlich, im eigentlich hegelschen sinn, identitiit des nicht-identischen" (1959a:239). b"die zwolftontechnik, in welcher der geist des kontrapunkts sich vollendet, enthalt auch das potential von des sen tod. die volikommene determinierthe it der selbstandig gegeneinander gesetzten, ganzlich komplementaren stimmen dementiert deren eigen selbstandigkeit" (1959a:238). 90 musical figure in the world today by virtue of his abhorrence of apathy in art. while adorno is dissatisfied with modern music as represented by stockhausen and boulez, he is even more opposed to the idea of turning back to history, as do the n eo-classicists, in order to copy techniques and forms which grew out of past societies. nor would he advocate turning back to the practices of schonberg. for adorno, progress is only forward, a constant dialectical process of change and motion. although to sum up his basic philosophy in a phrase would certainly do him injustice, adorno's ideas do seem to revolve around a central theme, namely, the unity of contrasts. not only is the dialectical opposition of art to society a necessity for social truth, but the opposition of music to itself is a necessity for artistic truth. only by opposing and expressing dissatisfaction with itself can music attain validity and unity. new music today is threatened by a relaxation of this essential ingredient through the loss of individuality and the fetishism of technique. modern music is indeed growing old. references adorno, theodor 1941 the radio symphony. radio research. new york. 1956a modern music is growing old. the score, no. 18, december, pp.18-29. 1956b das pantheon von best-sellern. neue zeitschrift fur musik, vol. 117, no. 12. 1959a die funktion des kontrapunkts in der neuen musik. in klangfiguren: musikalische schriften i. berlin. 1959b ideen zur musiksoziologie. in klangfiguren: musikalische schriften i. berlin. 1959c musik und technik. in klangfiguren: musikalische schriften i. berlin. 1959d neue musik, interpretation, publikum. in klangfiguren: musikal, ische schriften 1. berlin. gurlitt, willibald, ed. 1959 riemann musik lexikon. mainz. ma yer, harry 1961 adorno's muziekfilosofie. mens en melodie, vol. 16, no.8. 91 • are, unfortunately, not too clear. the excessive quotes from the two secondary sources cited earlier are perhaps the chief weakness in the study. it has caused the author to slip into some strange citations: lucques for lucca (p. 4), lipsia for leipzig (p. 21), bibliotheque nationale de florence (p. 31, footnote 34), and so on. chapter 5 is devoted to an examination of 18 plates from the manuscript vat. lat. 6082, a missale plenum from the 12th century. an index to this gradual is found in appendix a and the plates in appendix b. the study is not a comprehensive analysis of each of the neumes and the various forms each neume takes in the manuscript bu t a select reference to some of the melodic differences between the beneventan version on the plate and the vatican gradual. occasional neumes of interest are pointed out. no attempt was made to compare this manuscript with the two beneventan graduals already published and indexed in volumes 14 and 15 of the pa/eographie musicale. such a comparison, both with regard to contents and musical notation, would have added much to the dissertation. many of the plates in the appendix are of interest in that they also contain examples of those manuscripts written in central italy with non-beneventan text but with a musical notation borrowed from the beneventan. the importance of these manuscripts indicates a fertile area for subsequent studies. rembert g. weakland, o.s.b. is coadjutor archabbot of st. vincent archabbey and chancellor of st. vincent college. [manuel willheim johann adolph scheibe: german musical thought in transition ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 63-5159), 1963. (299p., pas. film $4.10; university of illinois diss.) konrad wolff when composers double as writers, or vice versa, they usually create complications for posterity. johann friedrich reichardt, for instance, is known to students of music history as one of the founders of the german lied and to students of literary history as the principal target 211 of goethe and schiller's satirical xenien. very rarely do the readers or even the authors of the one kind of history know about reichardt's figuring in the other. it is therefore fortunate that the author of this dissertation on scheibe (1708-1778), in addition to his musicological background, is schooled in german literature and in aesthetics. scheibe was a respectable composer and a leading musical journalist. he also contributed much to the philosophy of the arts in general, both in germany (where he grew up) and in denmark (where he lived during the last thirty-eight years of his life). his best-known work, der critische musicus, was originally conceived as a parallel to johann christoph gottsched's versuch einer critischen dichtkunst of 1730. gottsched, who was the most respected german author of the time and the leading authority on literature, had been scheibe's teacher in leipzig. his book was based on the so-called "rationalist" principles of 17th-century french drama. this was what scheibe tried to translate into musical criticism, but with time, as willheim demonstrates, he became increasingly less dependent on gottsched's system. to the music student of our time, scheibe is mainly known for his "most unfortunate" (p. 240) controversy over the music of j.5. bach. scheibe accused him of an "overloaded (schwulstig) and confused style"l as well as an "excess of art." he also objected to bach's custom of writing out embellishments in actual notes, which, scheibe said, made the melody unintelligible besides depriving it of harmonic beauty. he concluded by judging that with all due respect for bach's tremendous care and effort, his compositions were contrary both to nature and to reason. scheibe's attack created a sensation. while bach himself did not reply, one of his admirers, j. abraham birnbaum, leipzig professor of rhetoric, wrote a forceful defense. further emphasis was given the battle by two famous musical authors, mattheson and mizler,2 who opened their journals to scheibe and birnbaum, respectively, for the continuation of the fencing match. the most unfortunate part of the quarrel was that scheibe was prevented by the publicity of the affair from admitting that he had done bach an injustice; however, in 1739 he did pay full tribute to the italian concerto. it is hard to conceive how a good musician such as scheibe could ever have been deaf to the values of bach's music, considering that ihis speaking of bach as the "lohenstein of music" shows scheibe's dependence on gottsched who used to say the same thing of all contemporary writers he disliked. lohenstein was a "schwulstig" writer of the 17th century. cf. scherer-walzel, geschichte der deutschen literatur, (3d ed., berlin, 1921), p. 309. 2although he devotes a whole chapter to mizler (69ff.), willheim does not mention the significant fact that gottsched contributed articles on music(!) to mizler's journal. this may have been one of the reasons for scheibe's dislike of mizler and for his gradual estrangement from gottsched. 212 .. • • during scheibe's student years in leipzig he had heard the master himself play. willheim investigates the personal relations between bach and scheibe thoroughly and arrives at the convincing conclusion that there was no personal feud (as some bach biographers believe). nevertheless, it is quite possible that the young man, not being of a most generous disposition (a defect he shared with all the writers of his time), either consciously or unconsciously tried to get even with the one member of the older generation with whom he could never hope to compete. willheim is objective enough to sympathize with scheibe's criticism that bach wrote too unvocally. even if true, to blame bach on this account is as narrowminded a reproach as the opposite one by niigeli who some eighty years later blamed mozart for writing too vocally. to understand the problem one must remember that instrumental music, to which this criticism principally relates, was just then coming into its own. the great lessing explained in 17673 that an instrumental composer must be much more than a composer of vocal music and must always be prepared to give his best, since no text can come to his aid and fill the gaps in the expressive quality of the music. willheim regards scheibe's initial aesthetic approach as deriving from gottsched, that is, as essentially french. in a slightly oversimplified outline (20ff.) he describes the french style in music as vocal and expressive, centering on adagio pieces, in contrast to the italian style of sensuous and lyric instrumental music in which the accent is on the allegro type. french music is characterized as rationalist-with reference to cartesianism rather than the enlightenment (p. 51)-and i talian music, as unphilosophical. then willheim shows that scheibe gradually added the new idea of the century, nature, to gottsched's standards of french classical drama. 4 to scheibe, the element of nature in music was melody (p. 100), whereas harmony represented the art of illuminating the melody and nothing more; when he blames bach for showing" too much art," he is referring to the fact that in bach's music the harmony follows its own laws. later, in the chapter on rhetoric (p. 157), willheim incidentally refers to bach's occasional habit of expressing a variety of emotions throughout a cantata text by presenting the same melody in various figurations. however, this was just one of bach's numerous ways of uniting the different parts of the same composition. quite as frequently, he proceeds by harmonic means. the second partita is marked by the cyclic use of the dominant ninth chord and the goldberg variations, by the identity of the harmonic progressions and the harmonic rhythm without any help from melodic motifs.5 3cf. the review of voltaire's semiramis in lessings werke, georg wittowski, ed. hamburgische dramaturgie 5:12-17, (leipzig, 1911). 4cf. pope (1711): "first follow nature ... at once the source, and end, and test of art." 'certain authors have seen a melodic motif in the bass line. this is not so; the aria is homophonic, and the bass is just a bass. 213 for this, schiebe had no ear, though he was not insensitive to harmony as a means of expression. willheim prints in the appendix a recitative from scheibe's cantata, ariadne, which shows an amazing pre-romantic use of tritone progressions and dissonances. 6 the appreciation of harmonic logic as a thing of beauty (as for instance in the works of corelli and vivaldi) was beyond his comprehension; here, expected harmonic progressions are judiciously mixed with mild surprises, and the result resembles one of horace's or cicero's well-shaped sentences. bach added individual expression to this system by using dissonances and alterations whenever required, but he did not abandon the grammar of directed harmony for the sake of expressiveness as did scheibe in his recitative. willheim neglects this aspect, and we should have liked more help from him from a strictly musical viewpoint. he does give us an interesting expose of how scheibe, by underlining melodic inspiration as a primary source of composing, in fact transcended the affektenlehre. this is followed by a discussion of rhetorical figures, ways of writing (schreibarten), national styles and types of music. willheim's report on scheibe's doctrine of rhetoric is, on the whole, one of the best parts of the dissertation. differently from mattheson/ scheibe speaks of rhetoric only for the present a tion of single phrases and not for the organization of a composition as a whole. in addition to strictly rhetorical figures, he also mentions three musical ones: transitus, syncopatio, and ligatura. scheibe's distinction between three different styles (schreibarten) contains a few original points. he recognizes (129ff.), first of all, the elevated style (splendorous music appropriate for festive occasions or grand subjects), then the intermediate style (meaningful, pleasant, and flowing, but also intelligent}8 and finally the low style which has its rightful place in the pastoral schaferspiel (of which later goethe produced several examples). willheim then deals with the traditional genres (gattungen) of music as described by scheibe, whom he justly blames for neglecting the chamber style. in the account of national styles, willheim, without much support in scheibe's writings, 6it always seems to me that german music was fully ready for romanticism by 1750, when the eruption of classicism halted this evolution for a great number of years. figures like c.p.e. bach and scheibe, who combined artistic and literary productions, resemble berlioz and schumann in this respect, and are in contrast to haydn, mozart, beethoven and schubert. 7cf. hans lenneberg's translation of much of der vollkommene cape 11meister (not quoted by willheim) in journal of music theory 2:47-84, 193236 (1958). 8"exceedingly clear, lively, fluent, and yet perspicacious," in willheim's rendering. 214 .. • • classifies the polonaise or polacca 9 as part of polish music. by 1720 this dance had, in fact, become as international as the minuet. in this chapter, i missed a reference to georg muffat's epoch-making florilegium of 1696-97. the most progressive part of scheibe's theories, and the climax of willheim's dissertation, occurs in the section dealing with operatic recitatives. in this field scheibe was several steps ahead of everybody else. it is entirely possible that gluck-who may have met scheibe in copenhagen in 1747 (p. 203)-was influenced by scheibe's concepts. (it would be a worthwhile task to compare scheibe and gluck's operatic ideas in detail.) the highest possible compliment was paid to scheibe's views in 1767 when lessing quoted them extensively in his review of voltaire's semiramis (p. 208) . willheim's book is solid and informative as far as it goes. there are some editorial flaws in it, from typographical errors and unintended repetitions (one sentence appears twice, on pages 199 and 200) to mistranslations. most of the essential passages from scheibe's writings are fully quoted in german and then translated. willheim translates "sie [die natur] zu erhalten, ja so gar in bessern stand zu setzen" by "to support it, to improve it," whereas it really means "to preserve it, and even repair it." (p. 101). on p. 95 he quotes scheibe's assertion that symphonies must be judged by the fire of their invention and that it may happen that a composer, by force of trying to match the different parts skillfully, deprives himself of his spontaneous spark. "man intersuche also nur, ... ob alle satze gehorig mit einander iibereinstimmen, und ob dahero den komponisten vielleicht das feuer verlassen ha t." this means: "all that is necessary is to find out ... whether the different movements hang together properly, and whether, for this reason (my italics), the fire has perhaps deserted the composer." "dahero" can not mean anything else but an emphatic "for this reason." it is not correctly rendered in willheim's translation: "one must observe ... whether all movements are properly in agreement with one another, and whether the composer, perchance, has lost his fire in subsequent movements." there is no justification at all for adding the last three words, since the fire can have deserted the composer right in the beginning by force of his trying to make all movements "hang together properly." "bewegungen," used by scheibe as a technical term in two continuous sentences, is translated once by "movements" and once by "emotions" (p. 96). to use "motions" or "moving forces" both times would have preserved the thought expressed in the original german. shortcomings in the organization of the book disturb the reader. while respecting willheim's reason for relegating the bach controversy to the very end, i still think that it should have come at least 9willheim (p. 148) speaks of the polacca in the first brandenburg concerto, but bach's name for the section in question was poloinesse. willheim does not mention the more typical polonaise from bach's sixth french suite. 215 before the discussion of opera (after chapter vii), and perhaps even earlier. when i reached p. 100 ("when scheibe attacked bach for failing to keep music natural, or for an excess of art, bach's friend and protagonist magister abraham birnbaum rushed to his defense"), i felt that i had to turn at once to the concluding chapter and read that whole story first. i t is also confusing to the reader that w illheim is frequently at odds with chronology. in the introduction, he immediately starts out with kant, goes back to thomasius, follows this by discussing first gottsched and his generation, then lessing (in the 1760's), and then speaks of the scheibe of 1730. there are similarly confusing presentations to be found throughout the dissertation, for instance, in the (otherwise excellent) brief history of rhetoric during which aristotle, opitz • (1624), quintilian, and burmeister (1606) are mentioned in this order. my knowledge of the literature is not extensive enough to enable me to give a list of works which willheim ought to have consulted, but it is certainly a serious matter that he did not incorporate in his research the excellent and thorough study of scheibe by max graf in composer and critic, (w.w. norton, 1947), pp. 77-85. since willheim's dissertation was written, a new and important study of johann friedrich reichardt by werner salmen (atlantis verlag, 1963) merits investigation, for the two musician-journalists had much in common, including the curious habit of contributing to their own journals pseudonymous letters on controversial subjects. on general aesthetics willheim's sources are largely secondor even third-hand. i particularly object to the extensive use he makes of windelband's philosophy textbook of 1891 which, despite the many editions it subsequently received, has always largely remained a collection of the philosophical blind spots of german academic intelligentsia in .wilhelmine times. willheim is not personally close enough to the great men of whom he speaks. he pairs lessing and winckelmann (p. 16) and moses mendelssohn and reichardt (p. 88) as though they were friends and/or equals. preferring modern textbooks to contemporary sources, he writes with a regrettable lack of color. in describing the swiss aestheticians of the middle of the century, for instance, he relies almost exclusively on cassirer (p. 15). how much inner truth, lucidity, and fire could have been gathered for this chapter from goethe's detailed expose of their theories, as well as of their personalities, in the seventh book of dichtung und wahrheit! and how refreshingly does goethe describe his visit with old gottsched in leipzig! this leads me to the most serious defect of the dissertation: scheibe does not come alive in it. we do not learn what he looked like or what his personal habits were. we are not informed that he was married for the last thirty-nine years of his life. we learn about his character only incidentally; yet his character plays a big role in explaining some of his actions, just as in the case of reichardt. willheim, for instance, uncritically swallows scheibe's account of how he founded der critische musicus together with telemann who figured as a silent partner of sorts. but this account, for which there is no supporting evidence 216 whatever, was only written after telemann's death! can we trust scheibe? ruhnke (hans albrecht in memoriam, barenreiter, 1962) doubts it seriously. or take the fact that scheibe, at the end of his life, enrolled as a freemason, a fact which willheim does not even mention. his collection of melodies to freemason songs (1776) became very popular (the title page is reproduced in mgg 4:893). was he sincere, or was it just another cultural fashion he thought he had to adopt? in any case, we ought to know more about scheibe's religious beliefs. in his youth leipzig was a battleground between the pietists and the antipietists (to which bach belonged); this would presumably also throw additional light on some of scheibe's aesthetic and ethical utterances.!o more than anything, we should like to know scheibe better as a composer. willheim discusses the recitative given in the appendix with thoroughness and sensitivity, but there is much more to know about this man whose oeuvre c.f .0. schubart said contained "quite a few works having a claim to immortality. few composers knew how to write recitatives in so masterly a fashion; his arias too are full of lovely passages, and his choruses full-sounding and strong." according to the article on scheibe in mgg (by caroline bergner and hans gunter hoke), three flute sonatas, other cantatas, and "songs for piano"(?) by scheibe are in existence. if and when willheim's dissertation is published-and i hope it will be-every interested reader will be grateful if the author were to include the maximum of available information on these works as well as an analysis of their character, style, and form. the artistic creations by theorists and critics, apart from their potential intrinsic value, constitute a most important test of the theories and criticisms voiced by their authors. to quote pope once more: "let such teach others who themselves excel." lothe religious element is also neglected in willheim's resume of french aesthetics. malebranche's objections to art expressing passions, for instance, belong to the most important ideas of the time; yet willheim fails to include them. konrad wolff, german born, holds an m.a. in musicology from columbia. he is on the advanced piano faculty at peabody conservatory. 217 editor-in-chief: special project editor: associate editors: margaret ross griffel richard koprowski anne bagnall thomas w. baker peter dedel leonie rosenstiel douglass seaton faye-ellen silverman maurie sommer assistant editors: brenda szafir billet laura demarco robert fuller stephan kotrch vladia kunzmann frayda lindemann virginia marion barbara turchin cornelia weininger editorial assistants: ruslana antonowicz, charles brewer, eliezer dreyfus, paul hawkshaw, joseph sullivan, sallie waterman business department: gayle seaton, advertising and circulation thomas w. baker, treasurer editorial advisor: l. michael griffel faculty advisor: patricia carpenter copyright © 1974, the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york printed in great britain by william clowes & sons, limited london, beccles and colchester corresponding editors: domestic susan gillerman carla pollack mark h. jasinski myrl hermann harrison m. schlee roger hall ronald t. olexy bruce saylor anne gugliotta marie bergbuchler monica grabie virginia marion laurel fay betty j. scott susan youens robert a. green andrea olmstead samuel o. douglas peter siemon lorna faraldi john t. bryan john burkhalter barbara petersen cecilia van de kamp marjory smith edward parmentier christopher wilkinson anne witherell michael a. keller jeffrey weinstein carol quin james ladewig arthur haas mary badarak patrick rogers nancy malitz joseph kotylo anne amerson margaret grossman michael lamkin john martin harold house ramona h. matthews hugh kerr bruce gustafson judith j. warmanen r. theodore staton & eva murphy josephine hart frank carey norman sanger ellen j. keck boston university, boston, mass. brandeis university, 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philadelphia, pa. university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. university of rochester, eastman school, rochester, n.y. foreign harold kjellberg james h. cook michael evans edward rutschman david schroeder lynn bailey edgar j. lewis frances shepherd glenn l. gore george loomis laszl6 somfai georges franck l. gene strasbaugh albrecht schneider don harran winfried kirsch bernd baselt rudolph angermiiller horst heussner anne-marie riessauw a. annegarn axel helmer john m. jennings niels martin jensen susette clausing georg borchardt anthony ford g. r. rastall anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec davitt moroney ladislav reznfcek bojan bujic wolfgang sieber giorgio pestelli walter pass hans conradin university of southern california, los angeles, calif. university of texas, austin, tex. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada university of wisconsin, madison, wis. university of wyoming, laramie, 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university of oslo, oslo, norway university of reading, reading, england university of regensburg, regensburg, germany university of turin, turin, italy university of vienna, vienna, austria university of zurich, zurich, switzerland whenever possible, communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the institution in question. otherwise, they may be sent to the editor of current musicology for forwarding. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york robert a. green h. wiley hitchcock hugh h. kerr n in a archabal douglass seaton susette clausing albrecht schneider david s. josephson malcolm s. cole charles h. kaufman robert f. nisbett harry perison judith tick charles w. ward reports 7 from the domestic corresponding editors: studies in american music at twenty american campuses 35 bloomington: the black music center at indiana university 37 brooklyn college: the institute for studies in american music 41 miami: ives centennial festival, 197475 43 minneapolis: ives festivals at minnesota, spring 1971 and spring 1972 46 chicago: american musicological society convention, november 1973 from the foreign corresponding editors: 48 erlangen-nuremberg: musicology at the friedrich-alexander university 52 hungary: fourth international conference on folk-music instruments, may 1973 54 announcements articles 55 percy grainger-some problems and approaches 69 in tribute to charles edward ives on the iooth anniversary of his birth 71 eric zeisl's "american" period 79 the hodges and newland collections in the library of congress: a preliminary report 90 louis gruenberg: a forgotten figure of american music 96 the quarter-tone system of charles ives 105 ragtime and the music of charles ives 114 charles ives's concept of music dissertations edward berlin 120 robert]. dietz-the operatic style of marc blitzstein in the american "agitprop" era j. bunker clark richard koprowski bibliographica 127 the renaissance of early american keyboard music: a bibliographic review 133 "postface" 135 contributors austin clarkson editor associate editors: jon appleton jamie croy thomas day michael griffel walter hilse david josephson raoul orceyre, s.j. margaret ross libby rubin cheryl seltzer robert willis neal zaslaw mildred shapiro executive secretary assistant editors: 'i i i i i assistants: i ' lward a. lippman paul helmer amy kaiser nancy miller mary obelkevich william payne mary peckham rose rosengard tom frenkel, anne frothingham, ann unterecker, judith zessis faculty advisor copyright © 1967, department of music columbia university, new york printed in great britain corresponding editors domestic sylvia crawford rufus hallmark ·harriet franklin daniel l. farber william k. gallo david sommerfield mrs. wade hampton mrs. bea friedland rose rosengard david graham ·edward e. swenson ernest harriss william t. hopkins eric van tassel john carroll collins robert lowry richard a. kramer floyd g. sumner bruce carr 'beye fyfe william mahar claus sadlier, jr. daniel coren john w. baker charles a. johnson orin moe, jr. bonnie j. blackburn "mrs. ruth a. solie peter j. hodgson mrs. jeanne brynie "mrs. marion mckay jerald c. graue hal tamblyn kathleen chandler adkins john i. schwarz, jr. mrs. patricia kellogg lake john planer "thomas w. warburton mrs. mary ann feldman 'charles sigmund philip t. jackson "louise basbas "dan broucek elizabeth berry mrs. stephen l. polen priscilla m. drucker • corresponding editor newly appointed for 1967-68 baylor university, waco, texas boston university, boston, 11ass. brandeis university, waltham, mass. catholic university of america, washington, d.c. city university of new york, brooklyn college, brooklyn, n.y. city university of new york, city college, new york, n.y. city university of new york, queens college, flushing, n.y. columbia university, new york, n.y. cornell university, ithaca, n.y. george peabody college for teachers, nashville, tenn. indiana university, bloomington, ind. new york university, new york, n.y. north texas state university, denton, texas ohio state university, columbus, ohio princeton university, princeton, n.j. rutgers, the state university of new jersey, new brunswick, n.j. state university of new york at buffalo, buffalo, n.y. syracuse university, syracuse, n.y. tulane university, newcomb college, new orleans, la. university of california, berkeley, calif. university of california, davis, calif. university of california, los angeles, calif. university of california, santa barbara, calif. university of chicago, chicago, ill. university of colorado, boulder, col. university of hawaii, honolulu, hawaii university of illinois, urbana, ill. university of kansas, lawrence, kansas university of kentucky, lexington, ky. university of maryland, college park, md. university of miami, miami, fla. university of michigan, ann arbor, mich. university of minnesota, minneapolis, minn. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of oregon, eugene, oregon university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. university of rochester, eastman school of music, rochester, n.y. linda stryker university of southern california, los calif. cqarles echols michael broyles charles e. koch, jr. mrs. anne baker mary beth duncan raymond barr marie ann heiberg ralph cherubini michaefi d. g.race • al1bert filosa foreign correspondents laszlo somfai ladislav burlas alan brown reinhard gerlach peter strauss georg borchardt reiner kluge eberhard klemm olga mikl6ssy bernd baselt m. witte j. d. bergsagel horst heussner john c. g. waterhouse brian jeffery axel helmer georgio pestelli richard marlowe josephine m. mason niels martin jensen winifried kirsch karl-werner giimpel michael tilmouth othmar wessely anthony ford rita egger anna amalie abert anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec ian d. bent theodor gellner john steele marie briquet robert guilloux willem elders j. e. maddrell hans conradin ake berglund university of texas, austin, texas university of toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of wisconsin, madison, wis. washington university, st. louis, mo. western reserve university, cleveland, ohio yale university, new haven, conn. bartok archives, budapest, hungary bratislava university, bratislava, c.s.s.r. cambridge university, cambridge, england giittingen university, giittingen, germany haile selassie i university, law faculty, addis ababa, ethiopia hamburg university, hamburg, germany humboldt university, berlin, germany karl marx university, leipzig, germany karlova university, prague, c.s.s.r. martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, germany munster university, munster, germany oxford university, oxford, england phillips university, marburg, germany queens university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, ireland saint andrews university, french department, fife, scotland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden turin university, turin, italy the university, southampton, england university of birmingham, birmingham, england university of copenhagen, denmark university of frankfurt, frankfurt, germany university of freiburg, freiburg, germany university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of graz, graz, austria university of hull, yorkshire, england university of innsbruck, innsbruck, austria university of kiel, kiel, germany university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of munich, munich, germany university of otago, dunedin, new zealand university of paris, paris, france university of utrecht, utrecht, holland university of york, english department, york, england university of zurich, zurich, switzerland uppsala university, uppsala, sweden communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the university unless otherwise noted. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york richard l. crocker patricia carpenter events 5 musicological method 10 american graduate schools, part i 41 reports from england 47 announcements articles 49 musicology and the musical composition 50 . some reflections on the shape of music 56 the musical object responses 87 leo treitler 94 rudolf arnheim 96 ruth halle rowen 101 edward t. cone 107 bernard stambler 112 david burrows reports bruce carr 117 report from buffalo: the third international webern festival john h. baron 119 report from leipzig: congress of the gesellschaft fur musikforschung dissertations arthur hills 123 michael bruce collins the performance of coloration, sesquialtera, and hemiolia (1450-1750) michael collins 128 reply to arthur hills arnold salop 130 donald m. mintz the sketches and drafts of three of felix mendelssohn's major works john 138 mayer joel mandelbaum multiple division of the octave and the tonal resources of 19-tone temperament matt c. hughes 143 reply to michael kassler michael kassler 144 reply to matt c. hughes 146 dissertations from abroad bibliographia gary berlind 149 griphos: an interim report 153 mla publications finn mathiassen-the style of the early motet (an investigation of the old corpus of the montpellier manuscript) copenhagen: dan fog musikforlag, 1966 (212 pp.; transl. by johanne m. stochholm) theodore karp the publication of a dissertation presenting a broad study of the early 13th-century motet is bound to be greeted with interest by medievalists. as a group, we are still working to establish better control over a wide number of repertoires and to expose these to scrutiny by means of published editions. professor mathiassen repays our interest with a wealth of statisticalinformation and more than 350 musical.examples, which together illustrate his commentary on those aspects of the subject that he deems to be most noteworthy. the study, based on the motets offascicles ii-vi of the montpellier ms h 196, is organized into four main sections. the first outlines the reasons for the choice of topic, in the· process surveying many earlier views regarding medieval polyphony. a consideration of cultural and aesthetic factors underlying the 13th-century motet concludes this section. the following chapter is devoted to a consideration of the individual upper voice: the . relationship between text and music, rhythm, tonality, and form. the third chapter treats techniques of part writing and "polyphonic phrasing," while the final section takes up questions of harmonic practice. extremely little attention is paid to the motet tenors since the author feels that these offer little to explain the immediate appeal of the early motet and since excellent coverage of the subject is already available in the commentary volume of the rokseth edition. nevertheless, the format of that volume did not permit an exhaustive inquiry into tenor treatment. many worthwhile questions remain to be answered, and it is a pity that so few of these are investigated in the present volume. the ultimate value which this monograph may hold for the individual reader depends in large part upon the extent to which the reader is able to accept the author's orientation towards his subject, together with certain premises on which the work is based. those seeking little more than an orderly listing of certain stylistic traits observable in the old corpus of the montpellier ms will find greater satisfaction than those looking for penetrating interpretation. 193 the central question that seems to underlie the present study is whether it is possible to discuss the motets of the period 1190-1260 in terms of a single style. in one sense we may speak of the style of the early motet just as we may speak of the style of the symphony, let us say during the 70-year period, 1820-90. but if we speak in these terms, it would seem that we imply an interest in defining those common characteristics that mark the essential bonds of unity among works that may also possess contrasting features. we even suggest an interest in the comparison 9f these common traits with their counterparts in earlier and later repertoires. yet in this study, the author does not display any particular interest in charting the main channel of a diversified repertory. we are given examples of the different ways in which phrases may be articulated and of the different fashions in which phrases in one voice-part may relate proportionally to those in other voice-parts. but the relative importance of the various techniques is never indicated, nor are the musical aims and justifications explored. in another sense, experience with all later music teaches that significant stylistic change may be observed within any major genre during a period of more than a half-century. if we are concerned with detail technique, we cannot merely assume the presence of a unified style. but while the statistics presented in this study give evidence of stylistic diversity, there is practically no interpretation of the meaning of this diversity. questions of stylistic evolution, geographical provenance, etc., are left almost untouched. furthermore, the manner in which the statistics are presented will not enable the reader to draw his own conclusions regarding these basic questions. the author's attitudes towards scholarship's accomplishments and responsibilities with regard to questions of stylistic evolution are stated in puzzling fashion. apparently referring to all polyphony created between 1170 and 1250, he first declares (p. 12) that "the chronology of the music has been fairly well clarified." but three pages later he finds premature earlier efforts "to ascertain-or at worst to postulate-diverse historical and sometimes also national relationships of which positive proof is lacking." since the author refers also (p. 12) to the danger of "losing our way in a morass of dreams and barren speculations," it would appear that one of the attitudes underlying the present work is a quest for security and certainty. however, should we reach a state in which specialists in a given field prefer not to deal with central problems when solutions for these are problematical, to whom shall the average reader turn for guidance? since the author's purpose is to explore "the style of the motet" of the first half of the 13th century, one must next question whether the montpellier repertoire provides a fit vehicle for this purpose. although professor mathiassen does not go into this problem in any detail-there is only a remark that mo lacks examples of the three-voice motet with a single text for the upper voices-he apparently assumes a much· higher degree of representativity than seems justifiable without further documentation on his part. consider just one small item. in a penetrating study of the motets preserved in the notre dame mss, hans tischler found that among motets 194 employing different modal patterns for tenor statements, changes from faster to slower rhythms are about as numerous as changes in the opposite direction. in the montpellier repertoire, however, the balance is clearly weighted in favor of changes to quicker rhythms and the incidence of occurrence is smaller. either a freak of chance entered into the later selection process, or, what seems more likely, there was a change in taste. related to this issue is a misleading statement (p. 28) that "relatively few of the motets in. mo are unique, most of them can also be found in other collections." according to rokseth, half of the motets contained in the fifth and sixth fascicles are unica in the sense that they are not preserved elsewhere in polyphonic form; indeed there is a noticeably increased concentration of unica towards the later portion of each fascicle. together the two fascicles account for more than three-quarters of the repertory being considered. at no point does the author indicate the extent to which these unica are stylistically similar or different from remaining motets preserved in other polyphonic sources, even though his use of unica as examples often seems to raise the question. despite the author's seeming desire to avoid the uncertain and unprovable, there is much in the study that is c.ontroversial. professor mathiassen correctly points out that a 13th-century motet, once composed, was not unchangeable; but in so doing, he reaches an unwise balance. by virtue of its recreative function, the motet is more closely related to, for instance, chess or cricket than to the art of music when considered from a modern point of view .... a thirteenth-century motet is not a work of art in the modern absolute sense of the word, but a fluid esthetic phenomenon, a series of more or less diverging, but fully equivalent versions of a model, which, in so far as it can be distinguished as such at all, in itself cannot be considered more than one of the versions (p. 37). there is also an extreme emphasis on the importance of linear forces in the 13th-century motet and on the independence and self-sufficiency of the individual upper voice-part. we are told (p. 77) that "a medieval motet should not be read vertically like a modern score," and that (p. 63) "the effect of the pitch of any note in a given context depends primarily on which of the ... two tertian series it belongs to---but not on its vertical relations and only in special cases on its relation to a single tonic." further, it is claimed (p. 91) that "the composers were given a completely free hand with regard to the form of the motet upper voice." this nearly total disregard for the formative of consonance and dissonance and for the structural influence of the tenor on the upper voices is at odds both with occasional admissions of the author and with his statistics which demonstrate how keenly aware the composers were of harmonic forces. the influence of the author's orientation is apparent on many levels. it is suggested (p. 58) that there are "cases in which written chromatic alterations tend to avoid a 195 leading note." the two examples furnished show a bj, proceeding to an a and then to a c'. if we analyze only the individual voice-part (all that is given by the author), it is quite possible to arrive at the conclusion that the essential cadential movement in each instance consists of the progression bj,-c', and that the a is merely an escape tone. but if we take the polyphonic complex into consideration, we find that the bj,'s are dissonances that resolve to a and that the essential cadential movement is a-c', a fifth opening to an octave, the lower voice moving down a whole step. the relevance of such a cadence to a discussion of the leading tone is doubtful whether the cadence is adorned by a non-essential tone or not. the author also investigates whether a sixth between upper voices was treated as consonant or not. although he mentions testimony by anonymous iv and odington to the contrary, professor mathiassen concludes that such sixths were regarded as dissonances since the lower note of the interval "resolves" downward (normally by leap rather than by step, as is claimed). most of the examples mentioned, however, are derived from motets that exist also in versions for one voice less. if the examples are to be employed as evidence for the above conclusion, it is necessary to show first that the versions for the greater number of voices came into being first and then to establish that the upper voices were composed simultaneously rather than in seriate fashion, as indicated by the theorists. otherwise, we perceive that the so-called resolutions were in existence before the sixths came into being and that these motions therefore originated independently of the sixths. one further troublesome area remains to be considered: certain choices of terminology will make many uncomfortable. while it is useful to distinguish between melismatic sections of two-part organa that are in irregular notation and others that display strict modal patterns, it is questionable whether the best way to do this is to restrict the meaning of organum purum to the former and to create a new latin term, organum mensuratum, for the latter. this reviewer is uneasy about such terms as single beat (employed in connection with the modi recti) and double beat (for the modi per ultra mensuram), and simultaneous imitation (designating parahel motion). the propriety of the terms fugato, canon, and double counterpoint in their particular contexts seems dubious. the use of a terminology for phrase structure that is primarily dependent upon criteria of structure and the presence or absence of rests creates several problems .. is it meaningful to speak of a "whole phrase" when such a term may encompass structures as diverse as a two-note motive and an entire voice part? further difficulties arise from the practice of employing the adjective "structural" in a musical context but with the meaning corresponding to a division point the poetic structure (i.e., the rhyme). thus, if one were to compare the statistics regarding finals of masculine whole phrases with those regarding the "finals" of feminine whole phrases, one would not be comparing points that are equivalent from the musical standpoint: the latter may refer to the penultimate interval of the passage or even a still earlier point. 196 while we may acknowledge the diligence shown in this monograph, the usefulness of some of the information, and the provocative quality of certain " suggestions, this reviewer would caution the prospective reader to employ his critical faculties to their fullest when using this study. he would also urge a more adventurous attitude towards the further exploration of this vital body of music. leon crickmore-c.p.e. bach: six harpsichord concertos [wq. 43i birmingham: unpubl. thesis for the master of arts degree, university of birmingham (england), 1956 jane r. steveris-the keyboard concertos of carl phillipp emanuel bach ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 65-9718), 1965 (viii+301 pp., yale university diss.) " chester fanning smith the master's thesis of leon crickmore appears slightly revised in music & letters (39/4: 227-41 [july 1958]). here the title is altered from that of the original thesis to simply, '''c. p. e. bach's harpsichord. concertos." that such a change in title is possible may give some conception of the nature of the thesis. miss stevens, on the other hand, sets out to discuss all 52 of the concertos and dutifully proceeds from the first to the last. the emphasis of both authors is on the form of the concertos. about to embark upon an analysis of the form of c. p. e. bach's harpsichord concertos, the student who is well aware of the chronology of music history will expect these works to stand somewhere between the baroque concerto and the classical concerto. of course, in a literal sense they do. both authors use this point of view as a basis for their discussions. to what extent, then, is c. p. e. bach, whose father was his only teacher of composition, influenced by the baroque concerto? and to what extent" does his originality, to which haydn and mozart both paid tribute, lead toward the establishment of the classical concerto? the two authors center their interest on the first movements of the harpsichord concertos. each feels that the form of these movements is similar to the form' of the fast movements of a baroque concerto. the ritornello principle, upon which the discussions hinge, should perhaps be briefly stated. torelli presents this principle very clearly in his concertos. the quick 7-c·m. 197 musicology in german universities 17riedrich 11lume as is generally known, germany is justly regarded as what may be called "the cradle of modern musicology."l "modern musicology" in this sense stands for scholarly access to music on the basis of the principles and method of empirical learning, in contradistinction to the medieval concept of ars musica (vyith its two major spheres of scientia. and usus musicae) which meant scholarly access to music on the basis of numerical speculation and rational definition of the sounds. once an indispensable (and at'times even compulsory) component of the academic curriculum and (in the middle ages) of the quadrivium, the study of music had slowly petered out and finally come to an end in the german universities between the last decades of the 16th century and the early 18th century. for a certain period there was an almost complete lacuna and the word musica was lacking altogether in the programs, although it was a gross exaggeration when peter wagner in 1921 pretended that this lacuna had lasted for two centuries. of all german universities only leipzig seems to have preserved the medieval tradition, at least to some extent. the reputation of musica as a field of academic learning and the reputation of its teachers had decayed. in some cases professors of mathematics had been offered the chairs of musica and in others the teaching of music had been attached to that of physics. scientific leanings of music theorists dominated in the period of johannes kepler, robert fludd, marin mersenne, etc.-precursors of the division between the historical and the scientific conception of musicology that came to the fore in the 19th century. about the year 1700 the study of music in the german universities reached its lowest level and had completely vanished in most of them. very soon, however, while george philipp telemann was a student in leipzig (1701-05), a new drive toward music teaching awoke in the old alma mater (founded in 1409). and when, twenty years later, lorenz mizler took his degree in leipzig (in 1736) and began to lecture on music (besides mathematics and philosophy) this might have meant a fundamentally new start. mizler, closely connected with the philosopher christian wolff in nearby halle, was a representative of the age of enlighten52 ment. his counterpart at leipzig university was the professor of rhetoric and poetics, johann christoph gottsched, the "pope of literature" of his age. mizler's principal aim was, according to his own words, "to confer on music the shape of a science," which meant to deal with music as if it were a subspecies of mathematics. he lectured in leipzig until the year 1743 on die gelehrte historie der musik which however meant less "history" proper than what he believed to be the true nature of music. he was a friend of johann mattheson in hamburg, and mattheson declared himself prepared to contribute in his will to the foundation of a chair for music at leipzig university "if there were some assistants." but the truth was that there were not only no assistants but that mizler himself was a hermit in the desert of the german universities. as a matter of fact, jacob adlung in 1758 complained that there was no professor of music in any german university. mizler was indeed an isolated phenomenon. he might have become something like a connecting link between the ancient doctrine of musica and the new kind of music teaching as developed in the later decades of the 18th century. yet his bad luck was that for the one end of the development he lived too late, for the other one too early. for both of them he was too paltry a musician. the trend of the new way of teaching music in the german universities was toward fruitful musicianship. if in hamburg in the 1730's the kantor (who was telemann) was expected to teach "the theory and the history" of music in the johanneum and if in the same town mattheson and johij.nn adolf scheibe advocated the reinstatement of chairs for musical instruction in the german universities in general, no one of them aimed at theory or history in the modern sense of the words, but at a revival and recapitulation of the old subjects and slogans: the well-known mythological and legendary anecdotes, the quotations from greek theorists and fathers of the church, the fairy-tales of the effects of music. they aimed at mathematical calculations on sounds and intervals, at the medieval modes and their rules, at orpheus and amphion, at the pythagoreans and the aristoxenians, at all and sundry, but least of all at the period's own musical tradition. "theory" did not mean harmony or counterpoint or improvisation, etc., "history" did not refer to bach or lully or monteverdi or lasso. but this was just what the concepts of theory and history came to mean in the next generation. 53 when johann nikolaus forkel in gottirigen and daniel gottlob turk in halle were appointed "music directors" in their respective universities and started lecturing on the "theory" and the "history" of music (about 1770), the signification of those words had turned around: to forkel and turk they meant what they mean to us. while forkel taught on the theory of music in general and tried to give a general introduction to the knowledge and criticism of music, turk was able to lecture as early as 1809 on the historia artis musicae-and he meant history. werner friedrich kummel has expounded the facts very clearly and thoroughly, but he has failed to take into account this change of meaning of the words. one must overlook neither this change of meaning nor the fact that these new teachers were distinguished practical musicians. the outcome was, in the end, that music teaching in the universities from this time on meant teaching the technique and practice of empirical music, combined with information on pragmatic history. for about one hundred years distinguished practical musicians with a comprehensive knowledge of all branches of their field took the posts of the former antiquarians, scientists, and mathematicians. kummel quotes the resume written by the gottingen professor of philosophy, christian meiners, in 1802: "in the most recent universities it became customary to appoint at least one eminent draftsman and musician respectively. such distinguished artists were honored with the title of professor, music director, etc., provided they were not only skilful but also learned artists [nicht bloss geschickte, sondern auch gelehrte kiinstler] able to lecture on the theory or the history of their arts for those who required such instruction." this, in brief, is a vivid picture of the situation as it presented itself in a good many of the german universities at the beginning of the 19th century. the tradition of scholarly approach to music as inherited from the middle ages was dead. the medieval musicus had long been replaced by the "cantor." it was from this type of musician, such as friedrich chrysander and guido adler, who originally did not belong to the university and hadnothing whatever to do with scholarship, that the modern type of musicologist sprang up. this is important to observe and ought to be kept in mind. german musicology has descended from those musical practitioners and by no means from the older theorists, scientists, or mathematicians. to make this clear certainly does not mean to 54 disparage the men belonging to this interim group. that would be foolish in view of such names as forkel, turk, zeiter, franz joseph frohlich, heinrich carl breidenstein, adolf bernhard marx, gottfried heinrich bellermann, gottfried wilhelm fink, theodor mosewius, and many more. yet it is worth noticing that, notwithstanding the eminence of these names, it took three generations until from these origins emerged the phalanx of persons who, still deeply rooted in practical music, represented the full-fledged musician, coined by scholarship: eduard hanslick, ludwig nohl, august wilhelm ambros, philipp spitta, friedrich chrysander, qtto jahn (who actually was a professor of classics), gustav jacobsthal, to name only a few of them. even before they began to teach there had been a rigid differentiation of subjects. as early as about 1810 turk had divided "theory" into pars aesthetica, arithmetica, and acustica. frohlich in wurzburg had devoted lectures to aesthetics (1812) and pedagogics (1819). carl friedrich zelter made similar propositions in berlin. with simon ferdinand gassner in giessen, c. breidenstein in bonn and others, the subjects of lectures embraced such fields as the history of church music or the history of music in the ancient world, or analysis of important compositions of the past and of different periods. a. b. marx in berlin was perhaps the first professor to lecture on "the aims and methods of musical instruction." the word musikwissenschqft occurs in the title of a lecture of his announced for 1833-34, einleitung in die musikwissenschqft, and the pattern of "rise and fall" appears about the same time in a lecture on elute und verfall. the process of differentiation is highly interesting and most informative. kummel has described it in detail. the history of the instruments, especially the history of the organ, and the history of single genres and forms of composition, mark the progress then made in mid-19th-century music teaching. lecturesqn single great masters ofthe past were added aboutthe same time. the first lectures onj. s. bach were offered by th. mosewiusinbreslau in 1845. the names of beethoven and mozart appear for the first time in academic catalogues in basel in 1855 and 1856. in the 1860's gluck and haydn, and in the 1870's wagner and weber, occur as subjects of lectures in strassburg, heidelberg, munich, prague, berlin, etc. special problems like notation, medieval polyphony, even the history of opera and of instrumental 55 music, of the· lied, etc., were not infrequently chosen as subjects of academic instruction. it was, therefore, nothing exceptional when young hugo riemann in his first two semesters (1878-79) announced that he would teach the development of western notation (die entwicklung der abendliindischen notenschrift) and the history of music printing and music selling (geschichte des notendrucks und musikalienhandels). on the whole it may be stated that the full breadth of historical subjects from antiquity through the middle ages and all later periods had been reached in the 1870's. this means that within the last hundred years the syllabus of lectures on the history of music in the german universities has remained largely the same although, of course, considerably refined and increasingly differentiated. this was the state of affairs when the first generation of "great" german musicologists (like ambros, chrysander, spitta, etc.) was superseded by the second (born between 1848 amd 1855) that comprises celebrities like hermann kretzschmar, hugo riemann, max friedlander, guido adler, etc. (in the order of their dates of birth). to the first should be added hermann helmholtz, the eminent physicist, and to the second carl stumpf who started in philosophy, both of whom exerted remarkable influence on the development and validity of musicology within the illustrious circle of the humanities in humboldt's university pattern. in a third generation (born between 1865 and 1877) german musicology excelled with such names. as adolf sandberger, peter wagner, johannes wolf, hermann abert, friedrich ludwig, theodor kroyer, robert lach, ludwig schiedermair, arnold schering, and again here one man ought to be mentioned who came from "outside," from science and philosophy into musicology, erich von hornbostel. it is on these three generations that the fame of german musicology rests. their heritage has laid the foundations of all our knowledge about the history of music down to the present day. later generations of scholars have preserved and enlarged and refined this inheritance admirably, specialized it infinitely and filled in its lacunae to an amazing extent. but when we want to deal with bach we still resort to spitta. for the general history of music ambros or riemann are still fundamental. notation is unthinkable without wolf, as is organum and motetus without ludwig. this does not mean a depreciation of what later generations have achieved. but the first three have been the 56 testators; we are the heirs. their lifetime has been the "golden age" of german musicology. with the heirs it has spread over the world. the succession of these three generations discloses the incontestable fact that german musicology's recent ancestry h::j.s descended from practical musicians. it originated from living music, not from obsolete theory. from forkel and turk onward its problems were the actual problems of its time, and scholarly access to these problems was sought for by consulting history. its idea was to establish a living contact between what actually happened or was wanted in music and what history and older theory had to say to present problems. the permanent question, as it were, was: "how can the music of our day be derived from its historical ancestry, and how can history be brought to fruition for our day?" the learned teachers of the first generation had been practitioners of music or had come from other fields of humanities, while those of the second and the third generation directed their careers, at least as a rule, immediately at research work in music and at musicology as a field of academic teaching. they would no longer have been content to be tolerated as "able artists" with the decorative title of a professor; they felt able to hold university chairs because they felt that their research was as methodical and as valuable as any. this was what chrysander in 1863 and adler in 1885 had intended when they set the highest standards for musical studies. kretzschmar, it is true, had long remained in close contact with practical music (he liked to perform and to conduct far into his old age) and abert had been a professor of classics before he definitely turned toward musicology. but on the whole, by the lifetime of this generation musicology had been so. firmly established in the academic curriculum, and the field of research in music, especially in its history, had been so unreservedly acknowledged as an equal to others, that the musicologist became, for the first time in history since the middle ages and on completely altered premises, a full member of the academic circle. to be precise: not quite without a last trace of distrust. in the second generation it was still possible that a distinguished scholar of the rank of hugo riemann at leipzig never acquired a full professorship because a friendly literary colleague of his suspected him to be "not perfectly dependable in method," and h. kretzschmar at berlin who indeed was a full professor would 57 have to stand a second musicological chair established next to his own for c. stumpf as a sort of supervision to der musikant. from that time on berlin university owned, as an exception for germany, two musicological chairs until in recent decades the of professorships (of different ranks) was considerably augmented. in the third generation, however an open insult like this would have been inconceivable. the rapid rise of "modern musicology," i.e., research in and teaching about music in a scholarly manner, was a tremendous success and has been conceived as such: in little more than a hundred years music had reconquered the place it once had held in the universities. yet this shining medal had a reverse. the price to be paid for the growing independence and self-assertion of musicology was the rapidly deepening schism between scholarship and practice, between musicology and music. this was, to be sure, an unintentional result of the evolution, but it indisputably was caused by the tendencies prevailing throughout the 19th century. scholars of the new type were increasingly emancipated from practical music. eminent scholars like]. wolf or f. ludwig not only were unable to compose or to perform but even were not interested in such skills, while others who were able musicians considered themselves dilettanti. strengthening specialization in scholarly problems meant declining interest in artistic skill. indubitable pride (certainly not unjustified) in what had in 'it comparatively short time been reached in, the field of research, especially in history, soon created some sort of class consciousness and in no time the degradation of the non-scholars was at hand: the relation of the "professor of musicology" with the "music director" very soon resembled the medieval relation of the musicus with the cantor. as early as 1875 chrysander stated plainly that the offices of music director and professor were already separated in some places (ktimmel). as a matter of fact, the segregation of music and musicology had started in the "first generation" and may be regarded as a negative landmark of the "golden age." it was philipp spitta who in 1883, in an expertise for the prussian government, explicitly demanded that once and for all only musicology (kunstwissenschaft) and not practical music· (praktische kunst) should be taught in the universities and that only real scholars (wirkliche musikgelehrte) should be appointed professors. this of course meant a house. divided. the antagonism of craftsmanship versus scholarship is another 58 heritage we have taken over from the generations of the "great." the edifice of practical music teaching in the universities had always been feeble. as a rule it had rested, since forkel and turk, on a single pair of shoulders in each university. now with the strengthening and stabilization of musicology it was pressed more and more into the background. in some of the german universities the question was raised whether music teaching should be retained in the academic curriculum at all or whether it was not sufficient to let some young assistant conduct a chorus and a students' orchestra and spare all further activity. professors increasingly nurtured the concept of scholarship as an isolated field, cautiously screened from practical music, and proceeded to lock themselves up in their ivory towers. as late as 1960 walther vetter (professor at humboldt university) was able to write: "whoever as a scholar feels the urge to display his capacity as conductor or instrument player therewith proves that as a scholar he rests on weak foundations." which again means a house divided. that a modest strain of music teaching has trickled down into present times in the german universities is probably due to the fact that without such help too many students would have remained bare of adequate training in harmony, thorough bass, score reading, and other indispensable prerequisites for the study of musicology. but just this meant degrading practical music teaching into the propeadeutic role of a mere ancilla musicologiae and was certainly not very apt to improve the relations of the two fields and of their representatives. the battle between "music" and "musicology" reached a climax in the 1920's but lasted well into the 1950's and 60's. the still unsettled relation of the two quarrelling brethren has roused a feeling of animosity; it has even poisoned the atmosphere in many a university for decades. the historical evolution of musicology in the german universities largely explains the diversity of the situation in america and germany. many (or perhaps most) of the amer!can universities boast a solid and comprehensive fabric of music teaching. the programs of american music schools reach from elementary instruction through singing, instrument playing, harmony, etc., up into the regions of composition and conducting. these schools, much to the astonishment (and envy) of european spectators, have remained efficient from the time of their founding into our own days. an admirable number of illustrious names 59 is inextricably interwoven with the history of these institutions. when reading the endless list of professors of music in the american universities (cf. mgg xiii, 1118 seq.), the german musicologist is particularly impressed. by two facts: by this abundance of well-known names and by the difficulty of distinguishing professors of "music" from those of "musicology" proper. the catalogues of the german universities show musicologists only (just as spitta had demanded almost one century ago), apart from a few scattered musicians, the so-called "music directors.' , this is a natural consequence of the historical development in both countries. musicology proper (in the german sense) was, notwithstanding the activities of single scholars like oscar g. sonneck, waldo s. pratt, carl engel, and others, nonexistent in american universities well into the 20th century. a full professorship was established no earlier than 1930 for otto kinkeldey at cornell and in 1933 a second one for the bearer of this festschrift, paul henry lang, at columbia. but in the 1930's a . long procession of german musicologists who had left the german universities, much to the latter's detriment, were hospitably received in the united states. men like curt sachs, erich von hornbostel, carl geiringer, erich hertzmann, leo schrade, edward lowinsky, manfred bukofzer, otto gombosi, hans th. david, gerhard herz, paul nettl, and many more distinguished scholars were in due course of time appointed professors in american universities. a striking number of them came right from the headquarters of german musicology, the old berlin university (now humboldt university). they brought with them the heritage of german tradition in all its respects, with all its advantages and disadvantages. small wonder that, apart from their scholarly erudition and experience, they brought with them also their unsettled relation toward music. the sudden influx of so many foreign musicologists and the speedy divulgence of a hitherto almost unknown branch of musical studies in the american universities seems to have at first caused some misgivings. in his harvard dictionary oj music willi apel hinted at the problem in 1944 with a few memorable sentences (p. 473): [all definitions] indicate the tendency to interpret musicology as a broad category of "musical science," including everything that is not clearly "practical" music (composition and performance). thus, traditional fields of study such as harmony, counter60 point, music history would fall under the term musicology.· one might argue whether this tendency is desirable and commendable. the unfavorable reception which, on the whole, musicology has encountered since its introduction in this country some 30 years ago may well be due largely to the somewhat boastful manner in which its champions have laid claim upon fields which had an old standing of their own. another undesirable aspect of the present situation is the fact that, owing to the very broad interpretation of the term, people have been able to call themselves "musicologists" who are not good in any musical field at all. this seems to reflect a situation that in germany had been . engendered by history but in the united states, given a time-honored and solid structure of music teaching, had not existed prior to the immigration and expansion of german musicology. in the imported goods was hidden the worm of dissent like the snake in the bunch of bananas . . in referring to this dissent willi apel has indeed pointed to a weak spot of some significance to the universities of both countries. that is the question of what we mean by the term "musicology." is it possible to restrict "musicology" to some particular fields such as history of music, history of its theory, the physical basis of music, musical folklore, music ethnology, bibliography, etc.? can we put these fields on a par with other fields of music studies and learning such as counterpoint, conducting, etc., forming in this way a reservation where musicology may feel at home and well-screened from others where a menacing sign says: "no admittance!"? or is musicology, as a field of scholarly learning, entitled to deal with the total of "music" (whatever this may mean)? p. h. lang has written somewhere (i quote from apel, loc.cit.): "musicology unites in its domain all the sciences which deal with the production, appearance, and application of the physical phenomenon called sound." this agrees in principle with the definitions of musikwissenschaft as laid down by its classical masters, by friedrich chrysander in his famous introduction to the jahrbuch for musikalische wissenschoft (i, 1863) and by guido adler in his fundamental article, "umfang, methodik und ziel der musikwissenschaft" in vierteljahrsschrift for musikwissenschoft (i, 1885). and it is indeed hard to understand how a field of scholarship that deals with "music" could be deprived of some of its aspects or could waive the claim to comprise the totality of the subject, even if one may question 61 the degree to which musicology at present is able to materialize this claim. this seems to be the underlying problem. no sooner had musicology (in the modern sense of the word) come into being in the german universities than it began to expand into all and sundry fields connected with music-and it cannot help doing so. totalitarianism is in the nature of any science. the inevitable consequence was, and is, that in the german universities, where practical music was just loosely installed, musicology almost superseded and thwarted music, whereas in the american universities, where music teaching is deep-rooted, the introduction of the new sphere of musical scholarship at first led to its falling out with the older citizens of the realm. on the other hand, in neither case can musicology dispense with music practice and music teaching. here the dilemma comes to the fore: the dissenting brethren are dependent on each other although the junior by his nature must claim to have access to any field even if legally administered and dominated by his seniors. the mutual relation is more complicated than it seems at first sight. in the long run the american universities have the better chance to surmount the hurdle because their well-founded fabric of music teaching offers a favorable prospect for fruitful cooperation. in the german universities the basis of musical practice is almost a void. music is taught in the hochschulen and conservatories, and these schools are often on bad terms with the universities. musicology constantly runs the risk of losing the ground under its feet. musicians and musicologists should, in both countries, bear in mind that they are bound up with music and that music's fate, in their respective countries, is their fate. the musicologist will never teach counterpoint, or conducting, or opera composition. the fear that he might do so all the same stands behind the frightening sentence of walther vetter (quoted above). common sense will prevent him from interfering with tasks that need the well-trained practitioner and specialist which he is not and cannot be. on the other hand, he must be and remain privileged to engage in any sort of scholarly investigation and in teaching any given field even if it be counterpoint, oj[" composition, or auifohrungspraxis, provided he deals with them under the auspices of scientific method, not with a view to tech';' nical perfection. it depends on their starting-points if musi62 cologists and musicians do or do not find the ways of cooperating in their joint aims. and here american thought and the structure of american universities clearly have the lead over their musicological ancestors. . note 1 the word "german" in this article stands for "german-speaking." selected references adler, guido 1912 methode der musikgeschichte, leipzig: breitkopf and hartel. blume, friedrich 1954 musikforschung und musikleben. in kongressbericht bamberg 1953, kassel: biirenreiter, pp. 7-23. bukofzer, manfred 1957 the place of musicology in american institutions of higher learning, new york: liberal arts press. hibberd, lloyd 1959 musicology reconsidered. in acta musicologica, 31: 25-31. harrison, frank ll.; hood, mantle; palisca, claude v. 1963 musicology, englewood cliffs: prentice-hall. hiischen, heinrich 1949-51 ars musica and artes liberales. in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, kassel: barenreiter, vol. i, cols. 698-702, 737-42. 1957 die musik im kreise der artes liberales. in kongressbericht hamburg, 1956. kassel: barenreiter, pp. 117-22. 1966 universitat und musik. in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 13, cols. 1093-138. kerman, joseph . 1965 a profile for american musicology. in journal of the american musicological society, 18:61-69; 426. kretzschmar, hermann 1919 einfuhrung in die musikgeschichte, leipzig: breitkopf and hartel. kummel, werner friedrich 1967 geschichte und musikgeschichte, marburg: marburger beitrage i. 1967 die anfange der musikgeschichte an den deutschsprachigen universitaten. in musikforschung, 20:262-80. lowinsky, edward 1965 character and purposes of american musicology. in journal of the american musicological society, 18:222-34. pietzsch, gerhard 1936-41 zur pfiege der musik an den deutschen universitaten. in archivfur musikwissenschojt, i, 3, and 6. redlich, hans ferdinand 1958 musik als akademische disziplin diesseits und jenseits des armelkanals. in studium generale, 11: 318-22. 1963-64 the meaning and aims of musicology, manchester: percival lecture. 63 ruhnke, martin 1961 musica theorica, practica, poetica. in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, kassel: barenreiter, vol. 9, cols. 949-58. . szmo1yan, walter 1966 die musikwissenschaft am bsterreichs universitiiten. in osterreichische musik-zeitschrift, october: 55-63. vetter, walther 1960 voraussetzung und zweck in der musikwissenschaft. in festschrift a. orel, vienna, pp. 207-12. wagner, peter 1921 universitiit und musikwissenschqft, freiburg, switzerland. wiora, walter 1961 musikwissenschaft und universa1geschichte. in acta musicologica, 33:84-104. wiora, walter and albrecht, hans 64 1961 musikwissenschaft. in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 9, cols. 1192-220. sister mary joachim holtaus, o.s.b. beneventan notation in the vatican manuscripts ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-6065), 1962. (230p., pos. film $3.15; university of southern california diss.) rembert c. weakland, o. s. b. to anyone working in the field of gregorian chant the need for specialized studies in the various notations is apparent. for the pioneer chant scholars of the last century, the important manuscripts were those in the chironomic notation and especially those written in st. gall notation. their interest in the later diastematic notation was limited, since they used these manuscripts only as a control for the melodic readings of the earlier manuscripts. today we are more aware of the need to look into the precise problems of these later manuscripts, especially during the crucial period of transition from chironomic to diastematic notation. sister joachim's dissertation deals with a beneventan manuscript from precisely that delicate period. beneventan notation was from its inception somewhat diastematic in character but like the beneventan script was a unique, localized style. the first study of the musical sources of the notation was made by h.m. bannister in his monumental study, monumenti vaticani di paleografia musicale latina, 2 vol., leipzig, 1913. a more exhaustive study appeared in volume 15 of the pa/eographie musicale under the title "etude sur la notation beneventaine," pp. 7l-16l. since the date of publication of that volume in 1935, little has been added to our knowledge. in the first two of the six chapters of her dissertation, sister joachim traces the history of beneventan script, relying in large measure on e.a. loew's now famous study, the beneventan script, oxford, 1914. chapters 3 and 4 ("evolution of beneventan notation: a study" and "manuscripts with beneventan notation found in the vatican library," respectively) are for the most part a resume of the two works on notation cited above. she has listed here, however, not only the vatican library number for each manuscript but the film number of the st. louis microfilm collection of the vatican manuscripts. in the fourth chapter she examines 46 of 51 vatican manuscripts with beneventan notation and makes special reference to 26 manuscripts from which facsimiles are reproduced in an appendix. these reproductions 210 • • • are, unfortunately, not too clear. the excessive quotes from the two secondary sources cited earlier are perhaps the chief weakness in the study. it has caused the author to slip into some strange citations: lucques for lucca (p. 4), lipsia for leipzig (p. 21), bibliotheque nationale de florence (p. 31, footnote 34), and so on. chapter 5 is devoted to an examination of 18 plates from the manuscript vat. lat. 6082, a missale plenum from the 12th century. an index to this gradual is found in appendix a and the plates in appendix b. the study is not a comprehensive analysis of each of the neumes and the various forms each neume takes in the manuscript bu t a select reference to some of the melodic differences between the beneventan version on the plate and the vatican gradual. occasional neumes of interest are pointed out. no attempt was made to compare this manuscript with the two beneventan graduals already published and indexed in volumes 14 and 15 of the pa/eographie musicale. such a comparison, both with regard to contents and musical notation, would have added much to the dissertation. many of the plates in the appendix are of interest in that they also contain examples of those manuscripts written in central italy with non-beneventan text but with a musical notation borrowed from the beneventan. the importance of these manuscripts indicates a fertile area for subsequent studies. rembert g. weakland, o.s.b. is coadjutor archabbot of st. vincent archabbey and chancellor of st. vincent college. [manuel willheim johann adolph scheibe: german musical thought in transition ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 63-5159), 1963. (299p., pas. film $4.10; university of illinois diss.) konrad wolff when composers double as writers, or vice versa, they usually create complications for posterity. johann friedrich reichardt, for instance, is known to students of music history as one of the founders of the german lied and to students of literary history as the principal target 211 william sherman casey printed english lute instruction books, 1568-1610 ann arbor: university microfilms 60-2514)' 1960. (pos. film $3.15; michigan diss.) julia sutton (um order no. university of toward the latter part of the 16th century, england's artistic riches crowded one upon another in such profusion as to produce one of the most remarkable creative explosions in our history. not least among the exalted arts of the time was that of the lutenist whose "sweet song," attested to by innumerable poets, still provides us with some of the loveliest sounds in the lute repertoire. more mundane, perhaps, but of importance as contributions to and manifestations of the great popularity of the lute, were the lute instruction books printed in england during this period. william casey, in his two-volume study, surveys the five extant self-instructors published between 1568 and 1610 and includes a transcription of the music in the fourth book. the five books published between 1568 and 1610 are: 1. le roy, adrian. a briefe and easie instruction to learne the tableture to conducte and dispose thy hande unto the lute. translated by j. alford londoner. london: john kyngston for james roubothum, 1568. ' 2. le roy, adrian. a briefe and plaine instruction to set all musicke of eight divers tunes in tableture for the lute, and a briefe instruction how to play on the lute by tablatorie, to conduct and dispose thy hand unto the lute, with certaine easie lessons for that purpose . ... and also a third booke containing divers new excellent tunes. translated by f. ke., gentleman. london: james rowbothome, 1574. 3. barley, william. a new booke of tabliture, conteining sundrie easie and familiar instructions, shewing howe to attaine to the instruments, as the lute, orpharion, and bandora: together with divers new lessons to each of these instruments. london: william barley, 1596. 'the music from this work appears in adrian le roy, fantasies et danses from a briefe and easye instruction (1568), ed. pierre jansen (centre national de la recherche scientifique, paris, 1962). the original volume in french is lost. 202 • • 4. robinson, thomas. the schoole of musicke: wherein is taught, the perfect method, of true fingering of the lute, pandora, orpharion, and viol de gamba; with most infallible generall rules, both easie and delightful/. london: printed by thomas este for simon waterson, 1603. 5. dowland, robert. varietie of lute lessons, london: thomas adams, 1610. this contains two instructional sections: j eanbaptiste besard's "necessarie observations belonging to the lute and lute playing," trans. r. dowland; and john dowland's "other necessarie observations belonging to the lute."2 it should be stated at the outset that casey's interest is more pedagogic than scholarly. as an amateur guitarist and teacher, he explains, he has chosen to make a compendium of the instructions in the five publications in order to provide a lute tutor for the contemporary player (i.e., guitarist with an interest in old music). his decision to transcribe robinson's music was also dictated by considerations of its practicability for beginners. furthermore, the transcription is for guitar rather than lute. there is no question that the inclusion of robinson's music in the second volume marks dr. casey's most important contribution. robinson's life is hardly known to us, but we do know that he was in the service of the earl of exeter and the court of elsinore. his music reflects this high professional standing. 3 the schoole of musicke contains 38 delightful and characteristic pieces (6 for lu te duet), always skillfully and idiomatically written, always charming; some indeed are outstanding. the complex yet lovely fantasie for two lutes, the exercise in simple chords (griffe his delight), the setting of row well ye mariners, and others among the dances or variations on grounds are worthy of inclusion among the finest of the lute repertoire. we may note here that ties with the virginal repertoire of the same period are very close. dr. casey's transcription methods are on the whole highly commendable. his was undoubtedly a labor of love, for his copying of the tablature along with the transcription (a procedure recommended but not always followed by modern scholars) represents countless hours of work. highly accurate, certainly musical, he carries out a most praiseworthy goal of providing an edition which at once preserves the polyphonic nature of the music (about which all instructors of the period are in complete agreement) and is entirely playable. praises for bringing this music out in a good modern edition are certainly in order. it is really too bad that the title of the thesis gives no hint of the emphasis on robinson and the inclusion of his music. this, i am sure, is why 2facsimile edition by schott (london, 1958). 30ther works by robinson are medulla musicke ... transposed to the lute (london, 1603), now lost; new citharen lessons (london, 1609). 203 richard alexander harmon does not list casey's work in his article on robinson (mgg 11:584-85). unfortunately, the transcription of the tablature into modern guitar notation (e tuning) rather than lute (g tuning) is questionable today not only from a scholarly but from a musical point of view. 4 it caters to the outdated notion that the lute is an esoteric, dead instrument and fails to recognize or encourage the renaissance it is so deservedly enjoying. while it is always difficult for the editor to make decisions with regard to transcription procedures and while the results are always easy to criticize, dr. casey would have done well to have read the lengthy discussions on the subject in le luth et sa musique 5 and to have given more weight to the fact that recent editions of lute music are all in the original tuning. as it is, guitarists may thank him • for adding fine music to their literature; lutenists, while awaiting david lumsden's forthcoming publication of a lute transcription,6 will have to be satisfied with the tablature placed above the guitar music (they may also read the music in the bass clef, transposed up one octave, with a change of key signature). among minor points of criticism, one may wonder why dr. casey chooses to change some of robinson's spellings (e.g., "gigue" in the original has become" jig," and" almaigne" is converted to "allemande"), but not others (robinson's "fantasie" is kept), or why he chooses to omit some of the music of robinson's "rules to instruct you to sing" (the music omitted is for viol and voice). this author would have liked to see unusual positions and courses indicated in the modern notation, a technique employed by some modern transcribers,' but this is a matter of personal preference. nevertheless, casey's omission in the transcription of fingerings given by robinson is puzzling. in the first volume of his thesis, the five self-instructors are introduced first, together with a careful and rather lengthy explanati0n of the tablature and the reasons for transcribing it for guitar. then we launch into the meat of the prose text: an extensive compendium of the instructions, with numerous examples culled from the originals transcribed together with the tablature. the various books' recommendations on choice of instruments, their stringing, fretting, and 4casey justifies his use of the e tuning by citing edmund fellowes' transposition of the lute songs "down in many instances" in the english school of lutenist song writers (london, 1920-1932), suggesting that the actual pitch of most lutes was lower than concert g. arthur mendel, "pitch in the 16th and early 17th centuries," musical quarterly 24:28ff., 199ff., 336ff., 575ff., presents contradictory evidence in these masterly essays which should certainly have been taken into account. sjean jacquot, ed. (paris, 1958). with library cataloguing systems as slow as they are, however, it may be that dr. casey's access to this valuable book was blocked even as la te as 1960. 6announced in le luth et sa musique, p. 34l. 7e.g., david lumsden, ed., english lute music (16th century) (london, 1963). 204 .. tuning are covered, as are le roy's very specific instructions on the intabulation of vocal music. the chief matter in all the books is fingering technique for both hands (it is worth noting that the tutors are all in substantial agreement here), and each point is clearly explained. a search for hints in the tutors as to performance practices (dynamics, ornaments) predictably turns up very little, though robinson is more explicit than the others. there follows a frankly superficial survey of the music in the lute books of le roy, barley, and r. dowland; and finally, there is a fairly extensive analysis of robinson's music . certainly anyone wishing specific instructions on lute playing will do well to read casey. his survey is arranged in a logical, straightforward manner, and many of the best examples and exercises to be found in all the books are included. it is with volume 1, however, that one may have the greatest quarrel, for the scholar will look in vain here for an exact comparison of the tutors (as in a chart, for instance), for an explanation of historical developments or influences, for any biographical information on authors or composers (even robinson gets no biographical notice), or for any discussion of musical trends, types, or sources for the music. the title of the thesis is ambiguous, for it suggests that the five lute instructors published in england were of english origin. actually, only one of the five, thomas robinson's, is of english provenance (i am referring to the instructions, not to the music). dr. casey, while duly taking note of the foreign origins of the other four, draws no conclusions therefrom about historical priority or musical influences upon england. although he states quite properly that nos. 1, 2, and 3 of the instructors are all translations of le roy's first instruction book (thus reducing the real number of books to three), he does not ask why le roy should have been popular for so 10ng.8 no effort whatsoever is made to locate the source of the major instructional portion of no.5 (j.b. besard's "necessarie observations belonging to the lute and lute playing"), about which there is no mystery and which could have been obtained quite easily.9 one would also have thought that since extensive quotes are taken from besard's copious instructions, an a ttempt might have been made to judge dowland's accuracy in translating and in copying the examples, yet there is nothing on this point. lo bfor complete information on le roy's instruction books, see adrian le roy, premier livre de tabulature de luth (1551), eds. andre souris and richard de morcourt (centre national de la recherche scientifique, paris, 1960) with a historical introduction by jean jacquot and a list of concordances by daniel heartz. 9dowland's translation is from besard's de modo in testudine libel/us, the instructional portion of his gigantic thesaurus harmonicus (cologne, 1603). lothe translation is indeed very close to the original and only a few minor changes of fingering were made in the examples. cf. julia sutton, "the lute instructions in jean-baptiste besard's novus partus (1617)," musical quarterly 51:345-62. 205 it must indeed be of some significance that the tablature imported into england at this time was french and that the technique was international, but nothing is said of it.n to put it briefly, no questions are asked which move beyond the realm of the factual material in the texts orwhich would serve to place them in historical context. small errors of scholarship may also be noted in this section. the reference to p. 2 on p. 27 is to p. 22. pavane is consistently misspelled as "pavanne," although a number of acceptable variant spellings could have been used. the case for the terms "crotchet," "minim," etc., in an american thesis is also dubious; if authenticity were in order at this point, the original instructions would be all we would need. setting aside the cursory summaries of the musical contents of le roy, barley, and dowland, we turn to the discussion of thomas robinson's music. here casey's pedagogical point of view provides us with a good analysis of the pieces in order of difficulty. he goes into their technical requirements (works calling primarily for single notes, those employing chords or high positions), and then gives us some insight into the various forms in the collection (psalms, variations upon grounds, dance structures such as binary or varied binary [double] types), and a look at modality versus tonality, and key schemes. beyond this, as was said above, we are not taken. the author's scholarship here is casually hit-or-miss, for though he claims to have done no work on sources, this is not quite true. for example, he recognizes that the variations on the hexachord are typical, citing the six examples in the fitzwilliam virginal book as proof; he is aware that robinson's spanish pavin employs the same melody as bull's (fitz., vol. 2),12 and that robinson's coe from my window is to the same tune found in several settings in the same source. a few hours' more work with the same collection would have told him that robinson's twenty waies upon the bels [sic] is based on exactly the same two-note motive as byrd's the bells (fitz., vol. 1); that the passamezzo calliard is constructed over the same bass as the paired passamezzo pavana and cagliarda passamezzo of byrd and also of peter philips (both in fitz., vol. 1); and that this bass is in l1besard, for example, grew up in burgundy, studied for a number of years in rome, and subsequently published in cologne and augsburg. his written language was latin, his tablature french. diana poulton, "la technique du jeu du luth en france et en angleterre," le luth et sa musique, pp. 107-119, says, " ... ie succes de la "breve et facile instruction" ... de le roy [in england] et ie fait qu'elle demeura l'ouvrage classique sur ie luth, en differents traductions, jusqu'au debut du xvrre siecle, montre qu'elle devait decrire la technique communement en usage." karl scheit, "ce que nous enseignent les traites de luth des environs de 1600," le luth et sa musique, pp. 93-105, discusses robinson, besard, and waissel, pointing ou t more similarities than differences. 12ail references are to the edition by j.a. fuller maitland and w. barclay squire (breitkopf and hartel, 1899; reprinted by dover publications, n.y. 1963). 206 fact the popular pasamezzo antico. 13 he would also have learned that robinson's robin is to the greenwood gone is to the same tune used by munday (robin, fitz., vol. 1) and farnaby (bonny sweet robin, fitz., vol. 2). had he checked a little further on the spanish pavin, he would have found that not only the melody bu t the bass, a variant of the folia, is identical with bull's and that melody and bass together were commonly known as the pavanigliay other concordances are immediately suggested by a quick survey of the indexes of the virginal books of the time. is the bibliography reflects the lacunae in the study. even in english there are major omissions (e.g., bukofzer's music in the baroque era or any of the literature on virginal music), but the lack of foreign references is almost complete (e.g., all the pertinent articles in la musique instrumentale de la renaissance,16 the entries in mgg which had appeared prior to 1960). in short, this is an uneven piece of work, lacking not all but many of the normal appurtenances of scholarship. the chief problem is that casey has really attempted to handle two theses: a study of lute instruction books published in elizabethan england and a study and transcription of thomas robinson's schoole of musick. as it is, both are incomplete. the practical performer can benefit (if he is a guitarist) from the work casey has done; the scholar will have to await further studies. l3reese, music in the renaissance (new york, 1954), 864ff., discusses the" passamezzo pavans" of the english school at this time. 14reese, ibid., p. 865. see also diana poulton, "notes on the spanish pavan," the lute society lournai3:5-16, in which she gives a long list of concordances. lshans f. redlich, "virginal music," grove's dictionary of music and musicians, ed. eric blom, 9:4-19. 16centre national de la recherche scientifique (paris, 1955). julia sutton received her ph.d. in musicology from the eastman school of music. she is presently an instructor at queens college. 207 thomas f. heck, with contributions from robert erenstein, m. a. katritzky, frank peeters, a. william smith, and lyckle de vries. picturing performance: the iconography of the performing arts in concept and practice. university of rochester press, 1999. xii, 255 pp. reviewed by barbara russano hanning one picture is worth a thousand words. despite all the caveats and cau­ tionary tales included in this collection of essays entitled picturing performance, the authors convincingly convey their belief that iconography is an invaluable critical tool. during the course of separate contributions by six different specialists, scholars are repeatedly urged to pursue the in­ vestigation and proper application of visual sources, are provided with very specific guidelines, and are appropriately reminded that interdiscipli­ nary cooperation is essential in the interpretation of images of the per­ forming arts. organized and edited by thomas heck, professor of musi­ cology and head of the music and dance library at ohio state university, the book presents, as its subtitle promises, essays in the theory and prac­ tice of the iconography of the performing arts. its central chapter (chap­ ter 3 of six) consists of four brief "discourses in applied iconography" in music, dance, theater, and the performing arts; the last-named, which ac­ tually precedes the other three, is an introductory essay in methodology, illustrated by sources concerning the commedia dell'arte. surrounding these discourses, which constitute the book's core "applications" of icono­ graphic concepts, other chapters offer a wide variety of theoretical per­ spectives, from a review of terminology and art-historical methods to the semiotics of scenography and a guide to research resources. the latter in­ cludes a gratifyingly practical emphasis on the internet, thanks largely to heck's awareness that the web's impact on iconography has already been significant and will certainly increase in the very near future. the word iconography has been defined and used in many ways, but in pictorial analysis it is generally acknowledged to mean the study of subject matter and meaning in works of art and, as a corollary, the study of signs and symbols in art. having established the distinction between iconogra­ phy and iconology (a distinction eroded by current usage, as he points out), professor heck provides an extremely learned survey of the various uses of the term through the ages, from cesare ripa's first descriptive colcurrent musicology. no. 70 (fall 2000) 122 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york reviews 123 lection of emblems (iconologia, 1593) to the most fashionable modern parlance-including phrases in which "iconography" is preceded by modi­ fiers such as "sexual," "political," "religious," etc. indeed, in a usage re­ cently coined by a freelance journalist, iconography denotes a new lan­ guage in itself, a "potent imagist shorthand" manipulated by the media in the form of logos, slogans, bumper stickers, or soundbytes to encode their messages by writing (or graphing) words that project images or icons (36). heck has devised a clever chart (40-41) to show at a glance the plethora of related "tributaries" branching off from the principal or mainstream "river icon": ichnography as well as iconograph and iconography; iconic, hypericonic, iconicity; iconophilia; iconotext, and so on-a more dazzling array of derivatives than charles sanders pierce, one of the founders of semiotics, probably could have ever imagined! in this opening chapter, heck also includes a summary of the influential method outlined in erwin panofsky's groundbreaking studies in iconology (1939), in which the art his­ torian proposed three progressively deeper levels of "reading" works of art: pre-iconography (describing and naming the separate elements in the work), iconography (analyzing them), and finally iconology (interpreting their meaning). in the spirit of his "river icon" metaphor, heck proposes a new word, "icononomy" (pronounced i-con-on-o-me), to replace "pre­ iconography" as a more precise way to characterize the first level of panofsky's interpretive scheme. the second chapter, contributed by dutch art historian lyckle de vries, continues in the theoretical vein of the first. this author revisits panofsky's method, chronicling in greater detail its development and the extent of its hold on art historians. he then offers a critique of its short­ comings and urges the acceptance of a revisionist method of interpreta­ tion, one which gives greater place to function and tradition. for panofsky, who basically exalted italian renaissance painting, art history was essen­ tially the highest form of cultural history, and his view of art always im­ plied a capital "a"; for the dutch revisionists, who see seventeenth-century genre painting, for example, as a worthy but less erudite type of art, iconography merely contributes to our understanding of cultural history.! the third, central chapter shifts the book's focus to "practice" by pre­ senting four discipline-specific "discourses in applied iconography." here the prescriptive hand of the editor, thomas heck, is visible in that each essay conforms, with more or less success, to the same tripartite organiza­ tion: traditions (the past); techniques (the present: methodologies and their application in the different fields); and trends (projected outcomes in the near future). the first section, concerning performance in general, but centering on the author's research on itinerant commedia dell'arte troupes around 1600, is by m. a. katritzky. potentially the most interesting to this 124 current musicology reviewer, the essay is unfortunately the least successful in the group. the illustrations-a series of commedia dell'arte actors in performance-'--are too small to enable the reader to make sense of many of the author's points about them. furthermore, katritzky's presentation of basic methodology apparently aims at enlightening "those who simply don't know where to start," and this "iconography-for-dummies" approach adds insult to injury after we have been led through a painfully difficult and labyrinthine series of comparisons. perhaps inexperienced scholars in music, dance, or the­ ater iconography would find the companion essays in those subjects equally frustrating; but i seriously doubt whether even a novice need be told to "obtain legible reproductions," as katritzky instructs in the third of her five-step approach to doing research in the performing arts (86). "of all the performing arts, music has been the one most frequently memorialized in art," writes heck (221), himself the author of the next section, a comprehensive essay on the development and methods of musi­ cal iconography. as the subject is presumably of greatest interest to read­ ers of this journal, heck's essay justifies a bit more commentary. his survey of "traditions" takes off, appropriately enough, by quoting howard mayer brown's definition of musical iconography from his new grove article (1980) and by noting its dependence upon panofsky.2 with joan lascelle, brown had identified three main types of evidence that works of art can provide about music: the history and development of musical instruments (organology); the manner of performance of earlier music (performance practice); and the place of music in society (cultural history). heck adds a fourth category of musicological pursuit, namely, composer and per­ former iconographies, which began to appear in the nineteenth century. these were apparently the earliest type of studies in musical iconography, and were soon followed by illustrated anthologies of "music in society" and pioneering volumes of "history of music in pictures" during the first half of the twentieth century. an important milestone in the field, duly re­ ported by heck, was the foundation in 1971 of the ridim project (the repertoire international d'iconographie musicale, or international inven­ tory of musical iconography) at the city university of new york, indicative of the musicological community's hopeful response to the heightened awareness of "the vast extent of historical visual material pertaining to mu­ sic" and its attempt to establish indexing and methodological norms for the new discipline (96-97). heck mentions many of the m~jor scholars who have more recently contributed to the four categories of musical iconography, beginning with portraiture (his added category) and ending with brown's cultural studies, sometimes also dubbed musical iconology. here, heck considers emanuel winternitz, the founder of this most important branch of the discipline, reviews 125 but does not do justice in my opinion to some of winternitz's intellectual descendents in the u.s., like james mckinnon (1982) and especially richard leppert (1988, 1993).3 in the "trends" section, heck adduces the advances in information gathering and retrieval, citing the systematic in­ ventorying fostered by various european centers of rldim;4 the continu­ ing standardization of indexing fields (either with the iconclass alphanu­ meric notation system, which heck outlines, or with the controlled vocabulary promoted by the art and architecture thesaurus); and the in­ creased communication among archivists, scholars, and students via the world wide web. in fact, heck's most important contributions to the vol­ ume are the explicit directions he affords the reader about using the internet as a tool for research. the remaining "applied discourses"-about dance and theater iconog­ raphy, written respectively by a. william smith and robert erenstein­ follow the same general tripartite format of discussing traditions, tech­ niques, and trends. perhaps because of their common dependence upon the parameter of time, these newer branches of iconography must rely more heavily on the moving image, and therefore on the comparatively re­ cent media of film, video, and now digital resources, all of which entail new problems of collection, storage, and retrieval. furthermore, as erenstein points out, theater history was a late bloomer, as it first had to suffer through a stage of separation anxiety on the part of literary critics who were reluctant to admit evidence to the study of drama that emanated from nonliterary sources. in general, erenstein's section on "techniques," or the "how-to of theater iconography," is far more interesting and enlightening than that offered by katritzky at the beginning of this third chapter. chapter 4, by frank peeters, brings a new perspective to scenography, that of semiotics. wagnerians will appreciate this brief essay, which is rich in analytic thought about the iconicity of acoustic as well as visual "sign­ systems" in the theater. mter all, what better way is there to understand a leitmotif and how it functions to convey meaning? the author, who teaches linguistics and theater history in antwerp, surveys the literature from roland barthes to jean alter and others, and provides two valuable bibliographies: "scenography: an introductory reading list" and "recom­ mended readings in theater semiotics." the last section of the book-chapters 5 and 6, and a supplemental "bibliographic orientation" in each of the three fields of music, dance, and theater iconography-is invaluable in that it provides annotated lists of selected iconographic research resources, both traditional and elec­ tronic, as well as step-by-step guidelines for accessing databases, image­ bases, and other visual resources on the internet. grouped geographically by countries of western europe and north america, and including street 126 current musicology addresses, telephone/fax numbers, and web-addresses, these resources will undoubtedly ultimately be dated, but they are admirably up-to-date as of 1998, when the book went to press. commercial collections as well as those in museums, libraries, and universities are included. finally, heck summarizes the growing impact and enormous potential of computer technology and looks ahead to the problems of intellectual control posed by the "virtual marketplace"-modestly suggesting an appropriate critical! moral stance-and to the challenges of global metadatabases, which will require the adoption of internationally accepted standards of indexing in order to succeed. ironically, the book suffers from dark photographic reproductions, none of which are glossy, and strange sudden changes in font size (as on page 122). but much of the information it presents is a welcome and ex­ citing boon to budding iconography scholars and enthusiasts. notes 1. it is no accident that lyckle de vries is the author of a book on jan steen (1977), a seventeenth-century dutch artist and tavern owner who painted hundreds of genre scenes, including many "merry companies" showing ordinary, robust folk eating, drinking, dancing, and making music. the revisionists whose theories de vries adapted as a corrective to panofsky are henri van de waal and christian tiimpel (58-61); he has high praise for american michael baxandall, whose new approach to art history goes "far beyond iconography or iconology" (63). 2. tilman see bass, who contributed the article on iconography to the new edi­ tion of the new grove (2000), elaborated on panofsky and brown in his discussion of method, and adheres to the distinction between iconography (the second level of interpretation) and iconology (the third level). at the third, "the scholar may establish an iconology of the intrinsic meaning of the picture and discuss it as a manifestation of the artist's personality, the patron's ambitions and the onlooker's expecta­ tions. iconology explains the picture as a paradigm of a given culture" (emphasis mine). although the publication of this book predates the appearance of see bass 's article, heck is obviously familiar with his work (which takes a much broader ap­ proach than did brown, who was essentially a renaissance scholar) ,judging by the number of times he cites see bass in his footnotes and bibliography. seebass also edits the most important and long-standing (since 1984) journal in the field of music iconography, imago musicae. 3. in heck's selective bibliography from 1973 to 1998, only one work by leppert (1988) is mentioned. leppert's 1993 book the sight of sound, which exam­ ines the social meanings of music in england and the low countries from 1600 to 1900, is an important omission, as is mckinnon's essay (1982) addressing recent trends and prospects in iconography in the collection edited by holoman and palisca. 4. although this originally new york-based world project is now largely under european coordination and auspices, the ridim newsletter-started in 1975 by reviews 127 professor barry brook of the graduate center of the city university of new york and published continuously since then-has been transformed by zdravko blazekovic into a new "international journal for music iconography" called music in art. the journal, published twice yearly by rcmi (the research center for music iconography, located at the graduate center), launched its first issue in 1998 (as vol. xxiii, nos. 1-2), consisting of papers on music iconography read at the sixteenth congress of the international musicological society, which took place in london the previous year. references brown, howard mayer. 1980. iconography of music. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, edited by stanley sadie, vol. 9, 11-18. london: macmillan. leppert, richard d. 1988. music and image: domesticity, ideology, and socio-cultural formation in eighteenth-century england. cambridge: cambridge university press. ---. 1993. the sight of sound: music, representation, and the history of the body. berkeley: university of california press. mckinnon, james. 1982. iconography. in musicology in the 1980s, edited by kern holoman and claude v. palisca, 79-93. new york: da capo press. panofsky, erwin. 1939. studies in iconology: humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance. new york: oxford university press. seebass, tilman. 2000. iconography. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, edited by stanley sadie, vol. 12,54-71. 2d ed. london: grove. vries, lyckle de. 1977. jan steen "de kluchtschilder. "groningen: privately printed. winternitz, emanuel. 1967. musical instruments and their symbolism in western art. new york: norton. ideas which have been presented in whole work. in general, the remarks on the organization of the polyphonic mass are well taken. this dissertation is a fine and penetrating study of a significant renaissance composer. it is a pleasure for the reviewer to point to two further fruits of dr. cross's research: his article, "the life and works of matthaeus pipelare," musica disciplina, xv: 97-114 (1963), which presents the biographical details and a list of works by genre, and his edition of the opera omnia of pipelare (rome: american institute of musicology, 1966-67, 3vols.). ursula kirkendale-antonio caldara: sein leben und seine venezianisch-romischen oratorien graz-cologne: hermann bohlaus nachfolger, 1966. (406 pp., university of bonn diss.) hermine weigel williams this dissertation, presented in 1961 to the faculty of philosophy at the university of bonn for the doctoral degree, now has been published as volume 6 of the series, wiener musikwissenschqftliche beitrage. in the published version, the biographical portion has been greatly expanded to include additional material, especially information contained in documents from rome. antonio caldara (1670-1736), a composer primarily of vocal music, served the imperial court in vienna during the reign of the hapsburg emperor charles vi. his appointment to the coveted position of vicekapellmeister in 1716 brought him into a circle of composers that included johann joseph fux and francesco conti, and it is upon the basis of his musical accomplishments at this court that his reputation .rests. , until the publication of this work, little was paid to caldara's musical career before 1716. in part i, which deals with the life of caldara, dr. kirkendale not only greatly expands our knowledge of his early life but corrects many errors of fact that appear in the article, "caldara," in die musil; in gescliichte und gegenwart. the biographical narrative begins with confirmation of the fact that caldara, son of the violinist, giuseppe caldara, was indeed from venice, for it was at san marco that he began his musical career as one oftheboy singers for the ducal chapel. what talent he possessed as a singer must have soon been overshadowed by his instrumental skill, because by 1689 he was referred to as a virtuoso cellist. with whom he studied (kirkendale suggests domenico gabrielli, the famous cellist), and whether or not he was ever a regular member of an orchestra for a theater or a church is not known. in fact, up to the end of the seventeenth century, caldara held no influential position as either a performer or composer. 130 at the turn of the century, a change occurred in caldara's career: he obtained the titled position of maestro di cappella from the duke of mantua, and held it at least until 1707. obscurity surrounds this phase of caldara's life, for neither the literature concerning music at the mantuan court, nor the mantuan archives, nor extant manuscripts shed very much light upon his responsibilities for, or contributions to, the musical events there. since .mantua had an imposing oratorio tradition, this lack of information is particularly regrettable. while the period from 1671-1707 may be wanting in supporting evidence, the reverse situation obtains for the remainder of the biography, i.e., that period from 1708-36. dr. kirkendale is to be commended for the admirably thorough research that went into this, one of the most valuable sections of the entire work. although it is unnecessary to summarize all of the major and minor discoveries which she has made concerning this period of caldara's life, her account of events which took place in 1708 bear mentioning, for this year acts as an important prologue to the final phases of the biographical web. it was in 1708 that (a) caldara went to rome, became acquainted with and undoubtedly was influenced by composers like handel, a. scarlatti, cesarini, .and corelli, (b) left rome, supposedly because of political tensions there, arriving in barcelona to serve the hapsburg charles iii (who later became emperor charles vi), and (c) came back to italy, presumably to venice for the performance of his opera, sofonisba. the contacts made in rome and barcelona were instrumental in providing him with two positions of note. the first and lesser-known position was as maestro di cappella to prince ruspoli in rome (1709-16). when one considers the enormous output of compositions during caldara's tenure there (150 solo cantatas, 3 operas, 9 oratorios, etc.), it is evident that this represents a particularly fruitful and significant phase of his career. the second position was as vice-kapellmeister at the court in vienna from 1716 to 1736, the year of his death. inasmuch as the final phase of his life has been emphasized by all other biographical accounts, dr. kirkendale's presentation of this material is concise and merely serves to round out the biographical section. part. i concludes with a discussion of the composer's personality and his reputation among his contemporaries. part ii, the shortest of the three parts, opens with a review of the manuscripts, followed by a chronological list of the oratorios. bibliographical information included with each of the forty-two items in the chronology is as follows: text, scoring, date and place of first and subsequent performances, autograph scores, score copies, instrumental part-books, printed libretto, substantiating evidence, other remarks. the information in this section is detailed and yet clear; the explanatory remarks are particularly useful, for unlike some scholars dr. kirkendale carefully indicates how she arrives at her conclusions. one can scarcely imagine a more exhaustive or exact description of the manuscripts than this. while part ii itemizes the bibliographical data for all forty-two of 131 caldara's oratorios, part iii concentrates upon the seventeen oratorios composed or performed between 1697 and 1716. the author traces caldara's stylistic development from (1) the late venetian prachtstil evident in his earliest oratorios, through (2) a mixture of this venetian style and an early galant style evident in the middle oratorios of this period, to (3) the purer early galant style of his last works in this period. in the first of these three divisions, one can establish venice as the place of performance in only a few cases (the others being presumably in either venice or mantua), yet there is a strong venetian local style present. the second and third divisions, dr. kirkendale explains, are bound together through a common place of performance-rome; but, in spite of this common denominator, a specifically roman style is less in evidence than the general galant style of the era. thus, one can speak initially of a "venetian style," but later of a style "in rome." the underlying intention that pervades the whole of part iii is to reveal the degree to which the secular and sacred, the opera and church styles, penetrate caldara's oratorios. the analysis of each oratorio is supported by musical examples and is often accompanied by an appropriate and worthwhile comparison with other contemporary oratorios. one interesting observation which emerges from this analysis is the discovery of what might be called an "artistic signature" of caldara on many of the oratorios. that signature is the eingangsostinato of the opening aria in the prima parte. part iii concludes with a two-page summary of the viennese style of caldara's later oratorios. not only is this summary too brief, it is also out of place. it would be better to have omitted any mention of the viennese style, since it is too complex a subject to be summarized in this fashion. the appendix contains a list of the musicians employed by prince ruspoli from 1709 to 1716, together with a synopsis of the facts known about them. the author also includes documents pertaining to caldara from both the ruspoli and viennese periods. unfortunately, however, this volume includes no bibliography, an essential part of any truly scholarly work. in summary, this work should be of interest and value for anyone concerned with the history of the oratorio or with italian composers at the beginning of the 18th century. dr. kirkendale has helped to place caldara in the proper perspective by showing that he was indeed a composer of stature while in italy, and that his activity in vienna should be viewed as the apex of a most distinguished career. 132 .;gukc.4.u 2, ,,& < ' i.. miriam karpilow whaples exoticism in dramatic music, 1600-1800 ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 58-7938), 1958. (415 p., pos. film $5.40; indiana university diss.) sirvart poladian the primary objective of this study is "to examine for the first time the body of baroque and classical opera and ballet on exotic subjects, and to determine to what extent, if any, this subject matter influenced their music." the au thor defines "exotic" as "equivalent to non-european," a definition that excludes the spanish and the east european. nor does she consider the florentine camerata, although she does acknowledge their achievement in effecting one of the most far-reaching style changes in music history. a distinction is made between music for plots which take place in exotic locales and musical patterns borrowed from music indigenous to distant lands. the principal task of the author has been the examination of approximately 100 scores, the titles of which suggest exotic topics. these are selected from about 400 such titles in standard opera bibliographies. opening with the" furious moresca" danced at the wedding party given by the duchesse de berry on january 29, 1393, the author proceeds with a survey of the diffusion of exotic entertainments in europe. chapter ii deals primarily with the subjects and the social philosophies implied. by the librettos, among them, the "noble savage" and "back to nature." subsequent chapters discuss the musical scores set to plots about exotic lands as well as the native music of these countries-principally turkey, china, and the americas. the final chapter summarizes her findings and is followed by a bibliography, valuable appendices, and a general index. particularly detailed analysis of lully's bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), campra's l'europe galante (1697), rameau's les indes galante (1735), gretry's le caravan du caire (1783), and works by speer, muller, gasparini, etc., discloses little exotic music. in certain situations composers resort to minor mode, chromaticism, primitive harmony, repeated motifs, gibberish, and exotic instruments, and gluck succeeds, to a limited degree, in imitating certain melodic formulas of turkish music in la rencontre imprtivue (1764). considerable space is devoted to the patterns and instruments of turkish music as utilized by europeans. whaples concludes that none of the actual exotic music brought by travelers from turkey 114 ". • • and the orient was ever quoted in these operas. extended, monotonous repetitions and tunes based on a few within a narrow compass do not occur. indeterminate pitches, microtones, ejaculations, glissandi, vibrato-all characteristic of the style-were known but not used. what passed as "stilo alla turca" was primarily "farcical in intent" and therefore utilized the musical vocabulary of the comic opera. whaples found no musical differentiation between the spanish and american characters in the montezuma operas: "none go beyond the use of primitive drone, repeated rhythmic patterns, or melodic formulas standardized for stylized incantation scenes, but without ethnomusicological authenticity." among the rare exceptions she cites the peace pipe dance in les indes galante, the torture scene in dalayrac's azemia (1786), and the part of a runaway negro slave in a trio from rudolph kreutzer's paul et virginie (1791). she concludes: "musical representation of primitive [savage] peoples on the european stage contained some stylistic features for differentiation but not native music itself (p. 258). we have found no instance of musical exoticism before 1800 which uses non-european devices not also found in the european vocabulary" (p. 263). the author calls attention to the glaring disparity between the enthusiastic acceptance of oriental decorative arts and literature on the one hand, and the rejection of exotic musical idioms on the other. she offers several hypotheses to account for this attitude. first, aural taste and aesthetics are probably conservative psychological factors much more difficult to overcome than responses to visual arts or literary forms, hence the general distaste of europeans for oriental and primitive music. second, content with their "superior" musical tradition, 17thand 18th-century composers felt no need to seek new musical resources such as those that swept europe at the turn of the present century when the traditional vocabulary was regarded as exhausted. third, europe lacked adequate knowledge of actual exotic musics; there was no interest in ethnomusicology. fourth, whaples speculates that there may have existed a subconscious ideational conflict between the concept of the "noble savage" and the exotic musics which europeans found "repellent"-a cleavage between the philosophy of the librettos, which regard the non-european sympathetically as a part of mankind, and distaste for his utterly alien musical language. whaples presents 56 excerpts from primary and secondary historical sources containing descriptions of the music of exotic lands. the quotations range in length from one sentence to eleven pages, and include items from the "itinerary of richard i and others to the holy land," captain cook's travel journals, and the writings of dr. charles burney. early examples of exotic music are brought together from scattered sources, such as the tupi melodies from brazil (1592) and the turkish tunes in donado (1688). among the more significant is a piece of turkish janissary music, mehter, reconstructed in recent years by 115 turkish scholars (p. 81). she stresses the conjectural nature of the reconstruction inasmuch as it is based on literary sources and not music. "just how much conjecture is involved we have not been able, after a year of persistent inquiries to learn." she notices little affinity between this piece and imitations of "turkish music" in 18th-century europe. the author accomplishes the task she set out for herself and confirms that european music remained fundamentally unchanged by exotic subjects. while the major thesis and conclusions of the dissertation are sound, a spot-check disclosed more errors and oversights in minutiae than might be expected. 1. the author fails to lay sufficient weight upon the difficulty of adopting alien musical idioms. in spite of our widespread and intimate knowledge of exotic musics today, only one "european" composer, alan hovhannes, has succeeded in making exotic idioms his own musical vocabulary after years of intensive study. composers of the baroque and the classical times, even of today for that matter, could not be expected to submit to such discipline in order to absorb and compose in a foreign musical language. in any case, performance practice-one of the essential ingredients-would have eluded them. 2. several pertinent tributary aspects of the problem have been all but ignored. sometimes stage directions call for an exotic instrumental group tor which no music is provided in the score. no attempt is made to discover what the nature of this music might have been. differences between vocal and instrumental style do not receive due attention, particularly in view of the obvious dissimilarities between the mehter music and the 18th-century imitations of "turkish music." nor is a serious attempt made to trace the probable role of exoticism in the introduction to europe of ornate, florid style. 3. occasionally the discussion is interrupted by digression into material not directly relevant. in one conspicuous instance (p.192) the author launches into the controversy over the authenticity of some pieces ascribed to mozart, which fokine had used for his ballet chung yang and the mandarin (1936). the involved discussion concerns errors by several persons, particularly the program annotator. the problem had been clarified already by a final footnote in mojsisovic's article on this subject (zeitschrift fur musikwissenschaft 12:480), and in the kochel-einstein mozart verzeichnis (3rd ed.) to which she refers. 4. some of the minor discrepancies are probably due to conciseness. the remarks within the text about the turkish instruments donado mentions are likely to be misconstrued if one does not refer to the fuller extract in the appendix. the same is true of whaples' criticism of burney's discussion of the siege of rhodes. burney specifically states his remarks are based on the 1679 edition. at this point the author commits a second oversight. a footnote for this passage in the 1935 edition of burney names john coleman as one of the two composers responsible for the instrumental music; here his name is omitted without explanation. 116 • her comments on the symbolism of keys, the nature of vocal and instrumental bass lines, reasons for unisons and octaves, and the gibberish might be revised by a broader knowledge of these topics than is evident from her statements. in view of the considerable excerpts from several languages occasional typographical errors might seem inevitable. there are seven of these in the one page quoted from donado. for instance, "bi e" should read "bize," meaning" to us." her own translation adheres literally to the original texts without attempting a literary style. occasionally one meets passages such as "daul, a drum somewhat larger than is ordinary, with a wooden body" (p.328), or "when they have quitted work at the sugar-works" (p.379). in the translation of "etlichen oboen, oder violinen," the violins are omitted (p.320), and in one case "trois" becomes "two." to sum up, on the basis of the operas examined it is highly probable that the results of whaples' study will remain substantially the same if the remaining 300 exotic titles are also examined. furthermore, we should be grateful to the author for bringing together such copious excerpts from travel diaries as well as examples of exotic musics from early historical sources. sirvart poladian is librarian in the music division of the reference department, new york public library. 117 artist and teacher alfred mann in his imaginative review of paul henry lang's handel biography (the new 'york times, september 25, 1966), gerald abrahain noted an interesting point of comparison between handel's career and the author's own: they settled in the countries of their choice at exactly the same age. it is tempting extend this thought despite the obvious pitfalls and limitations of analogy. in both cases, permanent residence in the new country followed upon an earlier foreign sojourn of four years. in both cases, this sojourn was decisive. it was the world of french literary excellence from which paul henry lang took the conviction that to write about art is in itself an art. devoted to the example of romain rolland, supreme master of music and letters, the first american professor of musicology has invariably served his discipline as an artist. nothing could be more typical of his attitude toward the finished scholarly essay than his delight at the alarmed question posed on one occasion by an editor to whom he delivered a manuscript: "wo sind die fussnoten?" the standards of the artist have prevailed in his teaching. the students who enter his seminar enter the workshop of a practicing writer forever absorbed in the perfection of the scholarly craft. his instruction, by model rather than precept, reflects the scope and vision of his own work, and in discussing portions of handel's teaching in the following pages, we do not hesitate to suggest the parallel between handel and his biographer again. handel's teaching has received little attention; his interest in the didactic process and the role it played in his artistic career have been underestimated. although earlier in his life handel had 'resented teaching some of the young of hamburg's aristocracy, later, as the royal music master, he took a delight in princess anne's talent and progress. the autographs containing handel's instruction in composition are associated with his most mature style and with portions of his best known works.! unlike bach, haydn, and beethoven, who copied or paraphrased extensive portions of composition manuals for their 141 students, handel did not draw on the theoretical writings of his time. nor does he seem to have taken an interest in theoretical formulations. the course of instruction which he prepared began with the study of bass realization, but nowhere is a chord discussed as separate entity or phenomenon. the figures of his thorough-bass examples delineate melodic rather than harmonic situations in such a pronounced manner that even the first two introduced (the 3 and the 6) serve immediately as starting points for chromatic progressions (example 1). ex. 1 the order in which the familiar symbols are thus placed seems curiously inverted to the modern harmony teacher. and' 6 bfc 6 •• d 'h 7 d 4 are presented e ore 7; 4 is paire wit 4 at the very en of 2 3 2 . the discussion, in examples of progressions below and above a pedal note. and appear together: both serve as illustrations for the melodic formula of the resolution into the third (example 2). the use of the seventh is shown first in examples of the 7-6 ex. 2 6 5. 4 3 j m r 6 5 3 im t resolution, then in examples of seventh chord successions (example 3). the ninth is followed by the octave, the sixth, or ex. 3 76 7 6 777776 \i r' jj oj j j j i r ii ':'ult, r r r r i r r ii the third, depending upon the motions of the different voices involved (example 4). but there is no such rule as, for instance, bach gives for the use of the ninth: "with 9-8 one plays 3 and 5."2 ex. 4 4398 9 6 6 9 6 f it ii r i r j ii 142 nevertheless, handel's presentation of the practice of figured bass is highly systematic. it is contained in 24 examples in which the components of the triad are subjected to all the principal situations of part writing. the examples are divided into groups of three, and a careful didactic design is evident at once from the sequence of examples in the first group. they are exercises for the combination of root positions, the first in c major and written entirely in half notes, the second in g major and written entirely in quarters, and the third in f major and written entirely in eighth notes. all three are in common time, and the methodical progress continues with the following examples: the next two are in the minor mode and show combinations of various note values in triple meter. while the pedagogical pace is deliberate, the course of these studies is remarkably free from limitation. the problem of the passing and turning dissonance is introduced in the passages from the root of one chord to that of another, and the discussion of the third opens a spectrum of new problems: the alteration and inversion of the consonance and the resolution of the tied dissonance. thus, the second group of three examples is devoted to the exchange of major and minor chords and to the modulation between major and minor modes. the third group deals with the sixth chord, with its alterations, and with a wider scope of diatonic modulation. the fourth group deals, in more extensive examples, with the unaccompanied and accompanied suspension of the third; the fifth group similarly with the unaccompanied and accompanied suspension of the inverted third. the fifth of the· chord does not lend itself to a treatment comparable to that of the third; the octave lends itself only to suspension. but in conjunction with the discussion of resolutions into the octave, which handel takes up next, he shows a greatly increased range of problems in part writing; this section is made up of six examples reviewing all suspensions and double suspensions and illustrating the resolution from one dissonant chord to another. a concluding group of three examples consists of basses for complete sonata movements, and the figured bass exercises are followed by a set of meticulously copied sonatas from handel's opus 1. we have pointed out the virtual absence of a distinction between the disciplines of harmony and counterpoint. an intensification of the thorough-bass fabric through use of 143 imitation is suggested in the earliest examples, and a later systematic exposition of the technique of imitation and fugue, in turn, presents the unmistakable appearance of a continuation of examples for bass realization. similarly, a distinction between studies in the "old" and "new" style-the essence of fux's teaching-is absent; handel's instruction embraces both with natural ease. the examples for stretto exercises, some of which reappear in the final chorus from messiah, so perfectly reflect the stile antico that chrysander assumed they were responds written by an anonymous renaissance master which handel copied . without the text. yet the fact that handel wrote, not copied, them is evident from corrections which give unquestionable proof of the act of composition. the most elaborate of these is at the same time connected with a striking demonstration of the transition from one style to another. handel begins the example as shown in example 5; in order ex. 5 to avoid the fourth in the second measure, he changes the upper part, as shown in example 6. the change produces the ex. 6 r f f intended beginning of a stretto passage, but the melodic line now sketched out would lead in imitation to successive sevenths. thus, a further change is required, and rather than giving up this melodic line, handel decides to alter the spacing of entrances, which enables him to complete the example (example 7). the same extended opening, however, serves on another page for a different example in which the closely woven motet texture of the stretto exercise is transformed, through the introduction of a second theme, to a sprightly trio sonata setting (example 8). 144 ex. 7 iiij iij " ex.s the use of two themes leads us into the most advanced phase of handel's instruction. in the examples and assignments for the composition of double fugues, the second theme is in several cases derived from the first, as, for instance, in a fugue whose thematic material is related to that of the examples just quoted (see example 9). a final example, in which two themes are related to each other by augmentation and diminution, links handel's fugal teaching again to messiah (the chorus "let all the angels rejoice"; the thematic material returns in samson and the foundling hospital anthem). 145 ex. 9 ./ iii:) ... . , . .... .. etc. -(jiiiiiiii' --the plan of handel's instruction unfolds with magnificent and clarity. while it always demands a broad perspective, there \is never any doubt about handel's specific directions. in a four-part fugue he writes out the first three thematic entrances; beginning with the fourth, he continues merely the bass line but indicates by figures the contrapuntal texture to be realized. it is followed by a four-part fugue which handel begins with the bass entrance and in which he marks at the second, third, and fourth measures of the bass part in ascending order the entrances for tenor, alto, and cantus: t a, a g, c a. in the larger fugue assignments, all of which are again written in thorough-bass manner, handel outlines all expositions by means of similar entries. for the exposition of double fugues he indicates the choice of subj. and contrasubj. but beyond this there are no comments, no verbal explanations. in his role as teacher, handel remains at all times the active composer. here, too, what paul henry lang writes in the introduction to his handel biography applies: "all we can do is to endeavor to follow the development of thought and technique, placing them in their proper environment, so that the image of the artist will appear before us." notes 1 the autographs are preserved in volumes 260, 263, and 264 of the manuscript collection in the fitzwilliam museum, cambridge. a survey of their contents was given by the present writer in hiindel-jahrbuch 1964/65, pp. 35-57. 2 see h. t. david and a. mendel, the bach reader, new york, 1966, p. 393. 146 robert barclay brown-the early atonal music of anton webern: sound material and structure ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 65-14,414, 1965. 249 pp., brandeis university diss.) steven e. gilbert viewed in light of the year of its completion, 1965, the early atonal music rif anton webern takes a large, honest step in the right direction. it is well organized, clearly written, and arrives at conclusions which have generally been corroborated by later research. the work is divided into four chapters. in the first, entitled "problems of analysis in atonal music," dr. brown places his ideas in their historical context and gives a discerning account of the various approaches to atonal music which preceded his own. the third chapter, "other structural techniques," discusses the given repertory (namely, webern's opp. 3-16) in terms of conventional compositional devices, such as os tina to, imitation, and canon. the fourth, "webern and his contemporaries," introduces contemporaneous examples from schoenberg, skriabin, and strauss. it is, however, the second chapter, "webern's sound material and its role in musical structure," which forms the central portion of the author's thesis. the essential analytical tool involved here is the representation of unordered pitch-sets through their constituent intervals. any set of distinct pitches can be arranged in ascending order within the same octave, and the intervals between consecutive notes (measured in semi tones) can then be placed in an array. thus the set c, c#, d, d#, e, g, g# translates into the intervallic pattern 11111311; in addition to the numbers shown in the array there is the "hidden interval" of four semitones between g# and c. by taking the first note of the set and placing it at the end the intervallic pattern, one produces 11113141. this process, repeatable four more times, yields, respectively, 11131411, /1314111.1314111\, and 11411131. anyone of these six patterns can be used to represent the given set. for identification purposes, however, dr. brown chooses the one which lies within the smallest interval and (if this requirement is not satisfied uniquely) has the larger intervals on the left. in the present case, then, the initial version is selected. if one wishes to denote a particular transposition of a given set, the appropriate letter name should be placed to the left of the array. for example, c# 11111311 represents the set c#, d, d#, e, f, g#, a. using this notation, the author goes on to list the intervallic patterns which occur most frequently in the works under discussion. this is certainly an 105 impressive undertaking, without the aid of a computer. among other things, he cites the continuing prevalence of f3ll and [131-1 the second of these sets is merely the inversion of the first, and they share the same interval content; yet dr. brown does not regard them as equivalent. making use of this property for all sets and their inversions would have reduced the total number of possible unordered pitch-sets from 350 to 200.2 surely this would be an advantage for the analyst; thus it seems odd that dr. brown has evidently not thought to do so. also puzzling is the matter of nomenclature. at the close of chapter 1, dr. brown apologizes for having to introduce "a certain amount of new or specialized terminology to facilitate discussion" (p. 42). however, the reason for some of this new terminology is unclear. for example, he uses the term "pitch-type" to apply to the name of a note without reference to register, because he rejects milton babbitt's term "pitch-class" "lest the reader mistakenly infer some connection between the present study and babbitt's work in twelve-tone theory" (p. 5,fn. 15). however, babbitt's term was already well known and need not have been-and, indeed, has not been-confined to twelve-tone music alone. the bibliography is reasonably complete, except for two important omissions. the first is allen forte's article "a theory of set-complexes for music,"3 which relates directly to the subject of the present dissertation. the second is donald martino's "the source set and its aggregate formations,"4 in which unordered sets of three, four, and six notes are catalogued with respect to interval content. it must be emphasized, however, that my criticisms, for the most part, are not to be leveled against dr. brown alone. it is a sad fact oflife that every 20th-century dissertation is somehow required to define its terms anew, and as a result there is much needless duplication and confusion. to appreciate this fact one need only imagine the tedium of an analogous situation, in which every l8thor 19th-century topic would be prefaced by a definition of the tonal system! given the idiosyncrasies of the field, the early atonal music of anton webern is no mean achievement. notes 1 these formations, translatable, respectively, into a minor third plus a minor second and vice versa, constitute a signally important element, not only in the present repertory, but in webern's twelve-tone works as well (for example, op. 24). 2 some sets are their own inversions, and therefore the number is cut not quite in half. 3 journal if music theory (1964) 8: 136-83. since this article appeared very shortly before dr. brown's dissertation was submitted, it would be unrealistic to expect it to feature in the body of the work. however, at least a bibliographical citation and a footnote would have been welcome. 4 journal of music theory (1961) 5:224-73. 106 rudolf arnheim the following jottings are neither co-ordinated among themselves nor intended as a systematic evaluation of miss carpenter's essay. they are nothing but a few resonances (if it is permissible to resound in the plural) to' what impresses me as an unusually substantial and stimulating piece of writing. i the work of art as a self-contained entity-a problem not only pertinent but topical. topical for all the arts because of the present tendency to fuse the various modes of expression in situations or happenings combining the work of the maker and the performer. is this a return to the origins of art, at, which music, dance, and pantomime were inseparable and icons meaningless without the performance they served? art severed its roots in physical and social space when it ceased to be a part of the pursuit oflife and became a reflection of that life. daily existence secularized itself aesthetically and art became a segregated professional product. just as thought is not located in the life it contemplates so the framed painting, the movable statue, the piece of music belong nowhere and everywhere. the aesthetic object had to isolate itself in order to make its new function clear. to step back and to contemplate is helpful if you can afford it. but when the isolation from your fellow man, from your society, from the objectives of the whole becomes painful, the footlights create anxiety and the frame around the picture must go. concerts and stage performances are becoming impossible because the average person can no longer sit still. the loss is obvious, the gain doubtful. are we returning to the healthy totality of art at its origins? the primitive ritual expressed vital concerns; it was highly organized and required the utmost skill and effort of the dancer, the musician, the carver and the painter. can we match these standards? ii both the visible and the audible world start as undifferentiated environments; but they are hardly "syncretistic"-a term piaget took from claparede, who took it from renan to indicate something "wide and comprehensive but obscure and inaccurate". the mind needs order from the beginning. the early world is simple but not chaotic. at first, a few strong stimuli-a light, a sound-are set off against a textured ground. with increasing articulation, sights and sounds form subwholes of perceptual space. however, distinction must never outrun continuity; otherwise perceptual space, visual or auditory, goes to pieces. so also in art. in comparison with a monet, a giotto may look discontinuous, but it is not an assortment of separate units. the collages of kurt schwitters, which looked like accidentally 94 arrested bits of waste in the twenties, turn out to be durably composed. perhaps the bits of sound our ears are trying to assemble these days will fit together tomorrow. unless they do they are not new music but the denial of art. iii the eyes see objects while the' ears hear action. in the world of sight, pure action, such as lightning, is rare. in music there are really no objects. objects have substance persisting in time. a piece of music is a self-contained package of pure action. since the senses of man and animal are geared to action, music as a biological stimulus is much stronger tha,n any visual object. the form of all action ranges between two extremes: the repetitious uniformity of the heartbeat as against the unique event of a solar eclipse, a birth, a flood. many speculations of theorists derive the origin of music from bird song because early music has a continuous texture, in which one activity persists. it is a component of prolonged activities, of work, play, ritual, rather than of particular acts. later, when music detaches itself from these activities it can become background music, it sets a mood as does the color oflight in a room. even then it is still a quality of a situation, not a detached entity within it. or it moves to the foreground and becomes an action of its own. iv there is a close relation between structure and delimitation. music at psychologically early levels, e.g., that of primitive cultures, has no beginning and no end because of its uniformity. perhaps the crescendo is the first step beyond: it has a climax and therefore an end. it is the beginning of what one may call event structure. only through event structure can sound acquire a beginning and an end, i.e., become a self-contained package of action. this, as miss carpenter reminds us, is the "piece" of music of our own tradition. when the internal structure loosens, the boundaries begin to dissolve. the music slips back into the social situation from which it came. it oozes into the silence surrounding it or submerges in the noise. v the perceptual problem of how a unitary entity can result from a sequence of sensations is not peculiar to music. every visual object is built up by scanning, and from the deposited arrivals the brain builds a spatial structure. i suspect that musical structure is as spatial as visual structure and that the time sequence inherent in perceived events is translated by the brain into movement in space. a dancer, i have said elsewhere, does not leap from the future into the past but from place to place. similarly, a sonata as an entity in the mind proceeds from place to place. what we experience as simultaneity depends on what hangs together structurally. perhaps true succession in time exists only for disconnected events. 95 rita benton nicolas joseph hullmandel and if french instrumental music in the second half of the 18th century .. ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 61-4019), 1961. (384p., pos. film $5.05; state university of iowa diss.) roger kamien nicolas joseph hiillmandel, composer, author, pianist, teacher, and virtuoso on the glass harmonica, was one of a number of alsatian musicians who worked in paris during the second half of the eighteenth century. most of his compositions are keyboard sonatas with violin accompaniments. similar in style to the sonatas of johann christian bach, his works show real compositional skill. dr. benton's dissertation is the first full-length study of hullmandel, and it substantially adds to our knowledge of this musician.! the chapter dealing with hiillmandel's life is particularly rich in new information. 2 dr. benton shows that he was born not in 1751, as was previously believed, but in 1756, and that he was the son of michel hiillmandel, a musician at the strasbourg cathedral. n.]. hiillmandel was highly regarded in his own day and frequented aristocratic circles in paris. like many musicians in the late 18th century, he apparently was not regularly in the service of the imaterial from this dissertation appears in dr. benton's article, "nicolasjoseph hullmandel (1756-1823): quelques aspects de sa vie et de son oeuvre," revue de musicologie 47:177-94 (dec., 1961). the best previous studies are georges de saint-foix, "nicolas-joseph hiillmandel, 1751-1823," la revue musicale 4:193-205 (april, 1923); eduard reeser, de klaviersonate met vioolbegeleiding in het parijsche muziekleven ten tijde van mozart (rotterdam, 1939), and reeser's article "hiillmandel," in mgg 6:833-39 . a very helpful discussion of hiillmandel may be found in william s. newman, the sonata in the classic era (chapel hill, 1963), pp. 652-55. 2dr. benton has written an interesting biographical study of another alsatian sonata composer who worked in paris. see "jean-frederic edelman, a musical victim of the french revolution," the musical quarterly 50:165187 (1964). 95 aristocracy. he seems to have earned his living as a piano teacher. among his students were georges onslow and hyacinthe jadin, who was one of the first professors of piano at the paris conservatoire. two chapters relate hiillmandel to the period in which he lived. one is a brief but useful discussion of french attitudes towards instrumental music. the other, entitled "historico-musical factors in hiillmandel's background," summarizes the findings of previous research dealing with the following topics: music in alsace, carl philipp emanuel bach,3 french keyboard music, the transition from harpsichord to piano, hiillmandel's parisian predecessors, the accom'" panied clavier sonata, and concert activity in paris during the second half of the 18th century. the dissertation contains other valuable features. there is a thematic index of hiillmandel's works, and a list of original and early editions that is more complete than any previously available. the appendix to dr. benton's study includes both the original french text and her annotated translation of hiillmandel's article, "clavecin," which appeared in an edition of the encyclopedie methodique in 1791. 4 this interesting article shows the viewpoint of an 18th-century pianist who regarded the harpischord as an outmoded instrument. a musical supplement to the dissertation contains the divertissement in f major for piano or harpsichord, op. 7, no.6, a selection from the petits airs for harpsichord or piano, op. 5, and two sonatas (op. 4, no.3 and op. 8, no. 3).5 the sonata in c minor, op. 8, no.3, has a very important violin part and is a fine work that is well worth performing. studies dealing with the 18th century are frequently least helpful when it comes to the analysis of musical style. as jan larue has recently observed, "the techniques of style analysis ... are neither widespread nor fully developed."6 it is not surprising, then, that the sections treating hiillmandel's music are somewhat less informative than other parts of the dissertation. there is no thorough discussion of thematic material, thematic contrast, or developmental procedures. however, there are some perceptive observations about individual works, and the relationship between the keyboard and violin parts is well-described. in this dissertation, as in many other studies, one is not often given 3 along with eduard reeser, dr. benton accepts fetis' report that hiillmandel studied with carl philipp emanuel bach. it seems very possible, however, that fetis was in error here. (see william s. newman, op. cit., p. 652.) 4 dr. benton's translation of this article may be found in the galpin society journal 15:34-44 (march, 1962). shullmandel's sonatas op. 1, no.2 and op. 6, no.3 are included in the musical supplement to eduard reeser, op. cit., and the sonata op. 3, no. 2-without the violin part-is the musical supplement to georges de saintfoix, op. cit. 6review of william s. newman, op. cit., in the musical quarterly 50:398 (1964). 96 the precise frequency with which certain style characteristics occur. instead, expressions like "sometimes" or "quite often" are employed. for example, dr. benton observes that "sometimes [italics mine] the second theme-group begins with material similar to that of the first group but in a related key and treated differently" (p. 155). she then gives two musical examples which illustrate this procedure. one would like to know exactly how frequently this does occur. then one could determine whether hiillmandel employs this procedure more or less often than other composers. there are other advantages in tabulating the precise frequencv of the style characteristics studied. one is that such a tabulation tends to oblige the writer to define the characteristics with greater care. another is that it assures the reader that the writer has not relied merely upon his general impressions when making statements of frequency. my last two paragraphs should not obscure the fact that dr. benton has written a good book that is of real value to students of 18th-century music. roger kamien teaches at queens college. he completed his dissertation on problems of 18th-century musical style at princeton, 1964. arthur michael daniels the de musica libri septem of francisco de salinas ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-6046), 1961. (535p., pos. film $6.80; university of southern california diss.) peter bergquist arthur daniels' dissertation is a detailed study of salinas' de musica (salamanca, 1577; facsimile reprint, ed. kastner, in documenta musicologica, barenreiter, 1958) based on a complete translation from the original latin. de musica is a massively learned treatise on harmonics and metrics by a blind organist who was also one of the most eminent musical scholars of his day. in this work salinas is concerned with music only as a mathematical science and touches on problems of composition and performance peripherally as they impinge on harmonics and metrics. yet, he is not so doctrinaire as to reject the testimony of the ear; he emphasizes throughout that sensory perception must join with reason in the study of music. reason is the ultimate authority and must supply proof for what the senses perceive as correct, since the unaided senses may judge 97 musicology and the practice of music: thoughts from the work of the schola canto rum basiliensis wulj arlt i in view of their common subject matter, one can easily see why the question ofthe relationship between scholarship and the practice of music has been raised time and again since the birth of modern musicology, and why the discussion has been conducted essentially from the side of scholarship. to begin with, one of the duties of scholarship is to seek perpetually to elucidate itself through reflection and thereby to clarify its connections with related activities. but beyond that, musicology was born into an era which, in its immediate relationship to music, generally tended to value practical application above perception and understanding. also, as the result of an estrangement between cognition and application, delineated ever more sharply since the middle of the 18th century, these two fields came to stand in an opposition which, because it had never been fully argued out, gave only the appearance of reconciliation. accordingly, the various possibilities for speaking about music had become more and more widely separated because of several factors: (1) the petrifaction of music theory, which was less and less fitted to the diversity of the compositional styles of the time; (2) the change in social circumstances, which had led to the bourgeois concert business and, subsequently, to a related music criticism; (3) the evolution of aesthetics under the influence of philosophical systems; (4) the rise of acoustics as a result of new developments in the natural sciences; and (5) the increase in historical studies and projects. in addition, the representatives of the new discipline of musicology were as a rule practicing musicians and even composers. their backgrounds ranged from music criticism or classical philology to the science of history. therefore, the question of the relationship between scholarship and the practice of music was for them an inherent and peculiarly personal problem, though in each case it took on a different form; and their responses, whether systematically formulated or deducible from the consequences, produced quite different results. these responses ranged from the juxtaposition (peaceful at best) of the representatives of "science of the arts and art," as viewed by philipp spitta,1 to the amalgamation in the work of hugo riemann2 of the systematic conceptions of the musician and thinker with his music-historical observations, an amalgamation at once problematic and stimulating, though not easily dissolved. we look back into the history of musicology essentially because it helps us to understand our present situation, for the problems which became clear at the end of the last century decide to this day the relationship between scholarship and the practice of music. we must not overlook the fact, how88 ever, that 20th-century discussions of the aim of musicology produced fresh points of view concerning the relationship between historical knowledge and musical performance.3 in spite of this it must be stated that those encounters in which each field attempts to do justice to its particular mission remain today the exception rather than the rule. in fact, such encounters, in view of the manifold juxtaposition of opinions determined today by the self-understanding of practice as well as scholarship, are in most cases to be considered neither necessary nor desirable. thus, it is incomprehensible that a historian doing purely philological work should seek an encounter with musical performance. in fact, sometimes a researcher, whose scholarly work deals with the middle ages or the renaissance, will as a practicing musician be inclined rather toward the 18th or 19th century. this is not necessarily an anachronism but is due to his personal interest or professional connections. and this can happen not only in the study of sources or in work on early music theory, but even in problems of textual criticism, which provide access to the structure of the music but not necessarily an idea of the sound of a given piece. parallel circumstances arise in other types of historical inquiry, in sociological investigations, or in works dealing with the psychology of music. similarly, within the practice of music, can we really reproach an interpreter who takes as his point of departure the score of a mozart work with but little consideration for all the historical circumstances under which the composition was created? can we insist that a performer should discover the proper interpretation chiefly through scholarship? the same holds true when the interpreter speaks about music from a practical position. when he, in an amalgam of psychoanalytical, musical, and historical facts, explains the characteristics of a beethoven movement by means of the "psychic disposition" of the composer, the historian can register no complaint, no matter how much such commentary may have annoyed him, as long as the performer does not claim that his is a definitive historical pronouncement.4 of course, the above discussion has not dealt with all of the possible positions. thus, the musicologist must enter the realm of practical music in some questions of paleography, but he has to go much further when, from his standpoint as a historian of the arts, he is concerned with the comprehension of that which is specifically artistic in his subject, especially when studying the creative process of composition or attempting to approach the sound by means of his inner ear. correspondingly, the practical musician, insofar as he is concerned with the special characteristics of the music of the past, cannot avoid opening himself up to scholarship. furthermore, we must remember that present-day scholarship has made us all aware that the essence of a musical work is not limited to its aural reality. in fact, as carl dahlhaus has emphasized, the tension between (1) what is "stated by the notation," i.e., that which is common to all performances, (2) the "musical sense," i.e., the aurally and intellectually perceivable "relationship among the tones which make up the work," and (3) the aural realization which changes from 89 interpretation to interpretation, belong, themselves, to the essence of the musical work.5 but nowhere does the cooperation of musicology with the practice of music become more indispensable than in the performance of old music in the light of its historical background. this is the situation at the schola cantorum basiliensis. ii the schola cantorum basiliensis was founded in 1933 as an "institute for the teaching and research of old music." its mission was considered to be "the exploration and practical testing of all questions relating to the revival of old music," "old" being defined as music dating from the middle ages through the middle of the 18th century.6 this revival was to take place as a continual juxtaposition of the "spirit of the time" on the one hand with the artistic claim of "performance with outstanding musical forces" on the other, and it required the "cooperation of artist and scholar," with the "goal of producing a lively and reciprocal interaction between scholarship and the practice of music." the director of the first group was paul sacher, and he had both practicing musicians, such as ina lohr and august wenzinger, and musicologists arnold geering and walter nefto help realize the basic idea of the schola. as it worked out, the differences between the two positions, in self-understanding as well as in their common work, became insignificant in the face of everyone's enthusiasm for the idea. this was the "lively interaction" towards which all were striving. nevertheless, if one tries to go beyond the statements of position made above and to ascertain the relationship between scholarship and the practice of music which prevailed in the schola at that time, it cannot be denied that the center of gravity lay with the artists, who had themselves become quite deeply involved in scholarship. accordingly, the "nucleus of the school" was to be formed by a "colloquium of teachers," composed of "singers and skilled players of all the more important old instruments." at the same time, the "representatives of musicology" were to "stimulate and support" the discussion by means of "their advice and judgment," as well as "by making the group aware of any historical conditions." the schola thus demonstrated that it was being carried along on the wave of enthusiasm which the revival of old music had created, especially in the 1920's. those who subscribed to this attitude accepted the results of the new discipline of musicology with an enthusiasm characteristic of the youth movement, the efforts at reform in protestant church music, and the organ movement. without such enthusiasm the "renaissance of old music" and the secure position which old music enjoys today would never have been possible. yet, as the performance of old music with old instruments became even more natural and acceptable in the decades which followed, the awareness of the fact that the results of every occupation with old music could only 90 be relative gave way to a preoccupation with didactic and purely artistic work, and it was only natural that the schola reflected this development.7 in contrast to all of this, the 1960's brought a far-reaching consideration of special problems in the revival of old music.s this deliberation led not only to thoroughgoing changes in instrument construction and matters of interpretation but also to a redefining of the roles of scholar and performer. the effect of this on the schola was that the original goal of a dialogue between the two returned to the foreground. characteristic of this dialogue is the tension between the personal intuition and the creative power of the artist, whose obligations to his own time are stronger by nature, and the historian's knowledge, which is indispensable but never definitive. this tension, moreover, is the most essential feature of any performance of early music which is done with the consciousness of its historical conditionality. but because the practice of art cannot be imagined without knowledge, nor the science of art without intuition, the resulting implication for the actual work is that each person must ascertain his own position between these two poles and take his own individuality into consideration. furthermore, one's own position is, and must always be, subject to change, precisely because of this constant tension. obviously this situation poses its own special problems for the performing artist; yet, last but not least, it is this situation from which arises the fascination of the dialogue between scholarship and practice within their common work on old music. thus, in its teaching, the schola cantorum basiliensis may not content itself with imparting finished results but must help each person to find his own standpoint. accordingly, in instrumental classes, practical instruction is accompanied by the joint reading of sources, which has, in fact, often revealed the position of the teacher. the encounter between scholarship and the practice of music has especially important effects in the so-called "theoretical" courses. ear training, for example, attempts to impart not merely the usual general skills but concentrates on the ability to hear the music of previous eras in terms of its own structure. this generally means that the student who has come from a conservatory must first be led away from hearing habits developed by functional tonality and introduced to the perception of monophonic and polyphonic modality. in order to awaken the understanding of the succession of sounds in machaut or monteverdi (an understanding which is prerequisite to perception), "historical composition" (satzlehre) offers an outline of the practice of composition from the 13th to the 18th century; analytical and practical exercises are included. thoroughbass is learned at the keyboard, as soon as its most important theoretical foundations have been provided, and a realization is to be written out only as a method of review and control. again, the study of paleography offers a further point of contact between scholarship and the practice of music, in that one of its aims is to make the students thoroughly familiar with the authentic performance of music from the 13th to the 17th century; this is done by working with original sources. there are also courses 91 in organology and in the history and the techniques of tuning. in addition, efforts are made to restore the practice of improvisation, not only as embellishment but also as playing over a model bass line. finally, the schola strives to make the historic dances known, so that the connection between music and movement, so essential in deciding questions of tempo in old music, can be better understood. we feel, also, that it is always crucial to remain open to creative experiments. it is assumed that this encounter between scholarship and the practice of music can take place only against the background of a historical "instrumentarium," which in basel means the large collection of instruments housed in the nearby historical museum, and that a library with collections of microfilms is available for day-to-day work. moreover, one must point out the close cooperation between the schola cantorum basiliensis and the conservatory (which, like the schola, is part of the music academy of the city of basel) , and between the schola and the institute of musicology at the university of basel. iii the schola cantorum basiiiensis, as was emphasized at the time of its founding, stands between "conservatory" and "university," and, because of its special purposes, it can be compared with other institutions only in certain ways. nevertheless, in looking back at its historical development as we did above, it seems justified to claim that, in fact, the encounter between scholarship and the practice of music as undertaken at the schola has been quite beneficial to the conception by each of itself. with respect to musical practice, theory which considers itself an aid to performers' interpretations and is oriented toward particular works and their historical background could stimulate discussion in our schools of music. and with regard to university musicology, at least in the german-speaking world, one can well ask to what extent systematic music theory, with its still customary presentation as "harmony" and "counterpoint," can be replaced by a theory which is more historically oriented, and therefore better connected with musicology. correspondingly, in the matter of practical exercisesincluding score-reading, a skill which is still practiced-one should ask how a teaching method proper to musicology should be constituted in the realm determined by the tension between musical scholarship and practice. beyond these initial indications of practical consequences, there is still the task of determining the extent to which the insights gained from the work of the schola contribute to the understanding of general questions concerning the performance of old music and musical life in general. this is true for the question of whether temporal boundaries can be drawn in the definition of "old" music, as is traditionally done, or whether, in fact, when one considers the current receptivity toward history, it should be defined as "the performance of music in the light of its historical conditionality." if so defined, we could, on the one hand, delimit the interpretation of baroque music on 92 modern instruments and, on the other, permit the possibility of interpreting music of the 19th and perhaps even of the early 20th century as "old music." furthermore, from this point of view questions could be raised as to where old music stands in society and how its position has changed along with the changes in hearing that have occurred since the 19th century. in connection with this, the motivation for reviving music of early times should be clarified. finally, the practice of "old music" in the aforementioned sense leads to the fundamental question of the historical dependence of music in general. and for these reasons the special task of an "institute for the teaching and research of old music" becomes manifest. (translated from the german by thomas w. baker) notes 1 philipp spitta's view is well characterized in his article "science of the arts and art" ("kunstwissenschaft und kunst"). in it he says: "a mutual and more fundamental influence could only lead to the stunting and atrophy of the best which artist and scholar carry within themselves, each according to his gifts and goals in life. such an influence would take from the artist his feeling of freedom and attenuate the energy of his creative strength; such an influence could easily seduce the scholar into wanting to see a whole where, in reality, there are only fragments before him. each would thus become untrue to his spirit." and further: "if there is a clear recognition of the goals of both scholar and artist, a crossing of their paths without any hostile encounter is possible. they will arrange matters so that in subjects to which both can lay a claim, 'light and air' will be divided equally between them. a situation is quite conceivable in which they would get along peacefully side by side, each one devoted to his own purpose: the creation of beauty for one, the struggle for truth for the other." in zur musik (berlin: gerbrtider paetel, 1892), pp. 6, 14. 2 the best presentation of riemann's mixture of systematic and philosophical ideas on the one hand and historical ideas on the other is to be found in the studies of wilibald gurlitt: "hugo riemann und die musikgeschichte," zeitschrift fur musikwissenschaft (1918-19) i: 571-87; hugo riemann (1849-1919), abhandlungen der akademie der wissenschaften und der literatur (sitz mainz), geistesund sozialwiss. klasse, 1950, no. 25 (wiesbaden: franz steiner verlag, 1951; riemann musiklexikon ii, 12 (mainz: b. schott's siihne, 1961), pp. 50510. 3 see, for example, glen haydon, "the scope and function of musicology," proceedings of the music teachers national association, 41st series (1947) 71: 67-71. 4 see jacques wild berger, "versuch tiber beethovens spate streichquartette," schweizerische musikzeitung (1970) 110: 1-8; and the appended discussion with willy hess (ibid., pp. 122-23, 195-96). a revised version of the "versuch" was published in beethoven '70 (frankfurt/main: s. fischer/verlag, 1970), pp. 31-44. i; c. dahlhaus, musikiisthetik (cologne: musikverlag h. gerig, 1967), p. 113; also pp. 23-24 et passim; see idem, ana{yse und werturteil (mainz: schott, 1970), pp. 62-65. 6 this and the following quotes are taken from an unpublished prospectus which was written before the official opening of the schola on 1 december 1933. its fundamental thoughts and wordings were carried over into the official texts and describe the goals of the institute to this day. 7 it is significant that the necessity for a "continuing cooperation" between artist and scholar was emphasized at the founding of the institute, not only for the reasons given but also because it was assumed that "questions of conception and style" were going to "go through various changes." in contrast, the review for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 93 schola stated that "the attempt to reproduce the original methods of performance is less a historical than an artistic concern," and the scholars at the schola were characterized at the same time as an "advisory board," which could "also contribute to the understanding of old music." in walter nef, "fiinfundzwanzig jahre schola cantorum basiliensis," musikakademie der stadt basel, 92. jahresbericht (1958-59), pp. 30 and 36. 8 they were reflected at the 1967 convention in kassel: alte musik in unserer zeit, musikalische zeitfragen xii (kassel/basel: barenreiter, 1968), and in the colloquium of the same year in brno: musica antiqua. colloquium brno 1967. on the interpretation of old music, colloquia in the history and theory of music at the international music festival in brno ii (brno: international music festival, 1968). 94 a memorial tribute to otto deri jack m. shapiro otto deri would have been pleased with this issue of current musicology. he loved to read the works of his close friends and colleagues, to discuss their analyses, discoveries, and insights, and to be happy with them about the completion of a project. when he died so suddenly at the age of 57 in april 1969, the immediate selfish concern of his friends at city college, having been deprived of his person, was to find ways of holding on to his memory and to the influence of his work and style. four different approaches to commemorate otto deri were suggested, each symbolizing a vital concern of his professional life. together, they speak to the diversity of his interests and achievements. the most obvious memorial was a concert. although otto was devoted to study, scholarship, and the written word, the performance, the hearing, of music was to him a constant joy and the ultimate goal. his first diploma, received from the budapest royal academy of music in 1933, was in performance. later, as the cellist of the lener quartet (1945-48), the new york trio (1951-61), and the faculty quartet of the city college of new york (1952-69), and through countless other appearances in solo, chamber music, and orchestral concerts, otto continued to devote a major portion of his life to the art of making music. in addition to his own performance activities, he coached chamber music ensembles at the city college and instructed cello privately and at the manhattan school of music (1946-54) and westminster college (1949-52). otto's professional activities were matched in intensity by his participation in informal chamber music sessions and by his indefatigable concertgoing. his last minutes were spent doing what he enjoyed perhaps more than anything else-playing chamber music with his family and friends. even during his vacations abroad he managed to join colleagues and friends in a few evenings of chamber music. on his last trip to hungary he wrote from budapest: "so we did get here, and it is wonderful to see my parents. played chamber music with my father (he is 81 !). brahms sextet among other works." while others spent time listening to a recording, otto deri preferred to "play it himself" or to go to a concert. he enjoyed recorded music in its "proper" context; and his distrust of, contempt for, and refusal to cope with things mechanical did not usually extend to the phonograph. but he did preach the primacy of live music to his students and followed his own dictum by spending many evenings listening to music in concert halls. the fact that the performers were in many instances friends or students or that the music performed often had specific relevance to his special professional interest in contemporary music 1 was not the sole reason for this passion for hearing live music. he never considered attending a student recital a chore or 25 an obligation. he would have gone even if there had not been a special professional or social purpose. a concert, therefore, was especially appropriate in honoring his memory. it was given on 10 april 1970 and served as the opening concert of the new auditorium of the graduate center of the city university. the program, performed by his friends and colleagues, reflected his special tastes and included miriam gideon's the seasons qftime, dedicated to otto, who had suggested the texts to her. mark brunswick delivered a special eulogy, and hans jelinek, in otto's memory, contributed a woodcut for the cover of the program. (see appendix for the program.) the second item in the four-part memorial was suggested and implemented by his students. they insisted on something tangible toward which they could contribute their rarest possession-money. the students' admiration and respect for otto and their devotion to his teachings, counsel, and friendship were matched by his skill, dedication, and success as a teacher, counselor, and friend. sharing an office with him for more than sixteen years gave the present writer many opportunities to eavesdrop professionally on his endless conferences with students, as well as with younger colleagues whom he supervised in introductory courses. most of these conferences concerned papers which students had written for his classes. occasionally the students were not prepared, but otto had always done his homework. the papers were covered with his comments, and any "inadvertent" use of source material without acknowledgement was given special attention complete with citation of author, chapter, page, and a few choice suggestions about integrity. his ph.d. in criminal psychology, from peter pasmany university (budapest, 1935), apparently reflected another continuing interest in his life. manystudentsreceived master lessons in style and expression, as well as flash-like diagnoses of their problems in areas of content. he insisted on precision of facts and logic. a favorite comment, written and oral, was: "really?! !"-with his eyebrows raised almost to the glasses perched on his forehead. students would often bring nonmusical or nonschool problems for his advice. he always dealt with these situations with tact, firmness, and discretion. and students returned again and again just to talk with him. he was a marvelous listener, dispensing much comfort to his students and colleagues. to mark all this and more than can be expressed here, those of his students who were at the city college in may of 1969 presented the ccny music library with a facsimile edition of stravinsky's manuscript of le sacre du printemps in otto deri's name. because of his unusual interest in the quality of student research and writing, it is hoped, as a third part of his memorial, that an endowment fund can be established to provide annual prizes for the best undergraduate and graduate writing on music at the city college. finally, we have this issue of current musicology. such a project was suggested by professor neal zaslaw, now of cornell university, as providing an opportunity for otto's friends and colleagues to devote a portion of their scholarly activities to his memory and to offer an instance of his influence on 26 colleagues and on the art of music. neal took the initiative in generating interest in the project, soliciting the articles, and making the early arrangements for publication. in the editorial hands of michael and margaret griffel and their current musicology staff, the project has come to fruition. an appreciation of otto would be incomplete without a mention of his "big" temperament. he reflected in his life the mountains he loved, the skiing in which he delighted, and the world of nature which he very much appreciated. he was an omnivorous reader, especially of philosophy, psychology, and poetry, and delivered and published papers on aesthetics as well as on music. it is singularly appropriate, therefore, that a collection of such varied essays as are printed here be issued in his honor. note 1 his book exploring twentieth-century music, published in 1968 by holt, rinehart, and winston, won a deems taylor award. appendix concert in memory of otto deri i. trio in d ntajor, op. 70, no. i ludwig van beethoven allegro vivace e con brio largo assai ed espressivo presto felix galintir, violin, fortunato arico, cello, fritz jahoda, piano ii. four songs franz schubert suleikas zweiter gesang an den mond in einer herbstnacht wanderers nachtlied auf dent wasser zu singen j net steele, soprano fritz jahoda, piano 27 iii. the seasons of time (1969) miriam gideon written in memory of otto deri janet steele, soprano fritz jahoda, piano iv. quartet no.2, op. 17 moderato allegro m.olto capriccioso lento fortunato arico, cello neal zaslaw, flute bela bartok the faculty string quartet: felix galim.ir, violin, michael tolom.eo, violin, jack shapiro, viola, fortunato arico, cello. woodcut by hans jelinek in memory of otto deri 28 '7 } neal zaslaw editor associate editors: michael griffel paul helmer walter hilse david josephson mary obelkevich william payne margaret ross cheryl seltzer robert willis mildred shapiro executive secretary assistant editors: alex blachly anne frothingham amy kaiser mary peckham rose rosengard thomas day managing editor editorial assistants: carla habner, joan long, gianfranco monacelli, josephine mongiardo, richard rodzinski, ann unterecker, laurence wallach, cornelia weininger editors-at-large: austin clarkson jamie croy kassler joel newman faculty advisor copyright © 1968, department of music columbia university, new york printed in great britain corresponding editor domestic harriet franklin daniel l. farber richard d. dinwiddie richard h. crouch david sommerfield mrs. wade hampton mrs. bea friedland rose rosengard edward e. swenson jon appleton lucy dyal lowell lindgren william t. hopkins judith fiehler murray ralph ,john carroll collins howell price richard a. kramer floyd g. sumner beye fyfe william mahar mrs. margaret johnson mrs. muriel waterman daniel coren john baker linda mclaren orin moe, jr. mrs. ruth a. solie peter j. hodgson mrs. marion mckay jerald c. graue william b. pepper hal tamblyn david browning john i. schwarz, jr. mrs. patricia ann lake thomas w. warburton charles sigmund louise basbas elizabeth berry mrs. joanna wieckowski norris l. stephens priscilla m. drucker george james, iii charles e. koch, jr. thomas lipiczky mary beth duncan arthur birkby marie ann heiberg caitriona bolster boston university, boston, mass. brandeis university, waltham, mass. case western reserve university, cleveland, ohio catholic university of america, washington, d.c. city university of new york, brooklyn college, brooklyn, n.y. city university of new york, city college, new york, n.y. city university of new york, queens college, flushing, n.y. columbia university, new york, n.y. cornell university, ithaca, n.y. dartmouth college, hanover, n.h. florida state university, tallahassee, fla. harvard university, cambridge, mass. indiana university, bloomington, ind. louisiana state university, baton rouge, la. new york university, new york, n.y. north texas state university, denton, tex. ohio state university, columbus, ohio princeton university, princeton, n.j. rutgers university, new brunswick, n.j. state university of new york at buffalo, buffalo, n.y. syracuse university, syracuse, n.y. tulane university, newcomb college, new orleans, la. university of arizona, tucson, ariz. university of california, berkeley, calif. university of california, davis, calif. university of california, riverside, calif. university of california, santa barbara, calif. university of chicago, chicago, ill. university of colorado, boulder, col. university of hawaii, honolulu, hawaii university of illinois, urbana, ill. university of iowa, iowa city, iowa university of kansas, lawrence, kan. university of kentucky, lexington, ky. university of maryland, college park, md. university of miami, miami, fla. university of michigan, ann arbor, mich. university of minnesota, minneapolis, minn. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of oregon, eugene, ore. university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. university of rochester, eastman school of music, rochester, n.y. university of southern california, los angeles, calif. university of texas, austin, tex. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. washington university, st. louis, mo. yale university, new haven, conn. foreign karl-werner giimpel laszlo somfai ladislav burlas alan brown anna amalie abert reinhard gerlach peter strauss reiner kluge winifried kirsch hubert unverricht othmar wessely eberhard klemm olga mikl6ssy rita egger theodor gcillner bernd baselt j. d. bergsagel horst heussner john c. g. waterhouse brian jeffery willem elders axel helmer se6irse bodley josephine m. mason niels martin jensen michael tilmouth georg borchardt anthony ford anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec ian d. bent john steele marie briquet robert guilloux richard marlowe ludwig finscher georgio pestelli j. e. maddrell hans conradin ake berglund m. witte albert-ludwig university, freiburg, germany . bart6k archives, budapest, hungary bratislava university, bratislava, czechoslovakia cambridge university, cambridge, england christian-albrechts university, kiel, germany georg-august university, gottingen, germany haile selassie i university, law faculty, addis ababa, ethiopia humboldt university, berlin, germany, johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany johannes gutenberg university, mainz, germany karl-franzens university, graz, austria karl marx university, leipzig, germany karlova university, prague, czechoslovakia leopold-franzens university, innsbruck, austria ludwig-maximilians university, munich, germany martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, germany oxford university, oxford, england ' phillips university, marburg, germany queens university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, ireland saint andrews university, french department, fife, scotland state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university college, dublin, ireland university of birmingham, birmingham, england university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, yorkshire, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of otago, dunedin, new zealand university of paris, paris, france university of paris, paris, france university of southampton, southampton, england university of the saarland, saarbrucken, germany university of turin, turin, italy university of york, english department, york, england university of zurich, zurich, switzerland uppsala university, uppsala, sweden westfalische wilhelms university, miinster, germany communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the university unless otherwise noted. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york john fesperman paul lansky austin clarkson susan thiemann caitriona bolster mary peckham reports 7 musicological method in american graduate schools, part ii 51 reports from england 60 announcements 61 letters 63 report from washington: music and instruments at the smithsonian institu.; tion 66 report from tanglewood: american society of university composers' institute 71 report from university park: sixth annual conference of the national council of the arts in education 75 report from ljubljana: tenth congress of the international musicological society 78 report from new haven: annual meeting of the american ethnomusicological society 81 report from new york: first american performance of reinhard keiser's croesus articles 85 musicology and the musical composition responses 86 kenneth kaiser 95 arnold berleant 100 saul novack 105 robert l. hall 110 maria rika maniates replies 114 richard l. crocker 116 patricia carpenter dissertations keith e. mixter 127 ronald cross matthaeus pipelare: a historic and stylistic study of his works hermine w. williams 130 ursula kirkendale antonio caldara: sein leben und seine venezianisch-romischen oratorien 133 dissertations from abroad bibliographica j. e. maddrell 134 albert seay johannes de grocheo: de musica fred blum 137 music library association panel on microforms and photoduplication michael griffel 142 bibliography of writings on ernest bloch 146 publications received 149 index to current musicology, 1965-1966 156 contributors the music oj the i8th century: a retrospective view egon kenton not many months ago, i was asked by one of our younger musicologists whether i would be willing to take part in a panel discussion on the value of the music of the past. to the invitation, he added his hope that "we would not give ourselves over to jeremiads." this seemed to me to be a spiritual holdup, and i declined. but i could not forget this anticipated censorship, and pondered repeatedly its implications, severely scrutinizing my own thoughts, feelings, and judgments about music that belongs to history, regardless of whether it still forms a part of current concert and recording repertory or is relegated to the museums of graduate seminars. i presume that by value aesthetic value was meant, as there is little to be said about historical values. these are facts. the operas of peri and caccini undeniably have historical value, but few of us would bemoan the fact that they are not performed today. the same can be said of the early clausulae or the hundreds of canzoni da sonar a quattro. on the other hand, we may rightfully regret that haydn's symphonies ()r mozart's litaniae lauretanae are not in the good graces of our concert managements. a number of the compositions of these two masters, however, are heard very frequently, and the recordings of their compositions now neglected by public performers are eagerly sought by music lovers. there are different reasons, then, for the current esteem or neglect of musical works of the past, and in looking for these reasons we shall discover that they are to be found invariably in some judgment, individual or collective, reasonable or biased, contemporary or of long standing. looking for the reasons behind the neglect of some works of haydn and mozart-the list of similar cases can be greatly enlarged-we find the judgment of concert managers whose aim is to ensure the largest possible sale of tickets, by appealing to the widest masses who are content to hear the same small repertory over and over again. this is a commercial judgment, neither historical nor aesthetic, and so we may dismiss it. the reasons for current neglect of clausulae or canzoni da sonar are entirely different. while historians of music have published, and continue to publish, monographs and learned articles about them, and textbooks point out their historical importance, surely no one would assert that they are missed in the current concert repertory. and yet, these pieces were composed by excellent musicians-learned and inspired artists-and were enjoyed in their time by large audiences. their contemporary aesthetic value was greater than that of the present, i.e., the judgment of those artists' contemporaries about their compositions was more favorable than ours. this judgment, which we also call criticism, is a complex spiritual phenomenon, which has many sources, motivations, and influences. criticism has a very large literature, with ramifications reaching into the fields of history, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, sociology-into almost every branch of the study of man. needless to say, there are also histories 'of art criticism, and the reader is referred to a handy, highly compressed but readable specimen by lionello venturi)' venturi considers the criticism of visual art works. (the great advantage of his subject is that he can start with greek antiquity-there were art critics in athens-while musical criticism did not start until the late 17th century.) the first lesson we learn from a history of the judgment of art is that this judgment may be either objective or subjective, i.e., it criticizes the art work either from the point of view of technique-the solidity or equilibrium of a building, the faithful reproduction of the human body (the coloring of the walls or the decoration of a vase were not then yet considered as independent arts)-or from the point of view of the agreeable proportions of the fac;ade, columns, etc., the expression of the character of apollo or of a diskobolos. translated into musical terms, we do today judge the technique of composition in a symphony or sonata (provided it was composed by a creative musician and not by a computer or an improvising performer) and the expressions of the character of figaro, or of the mood-here the thing becomes complicatedof frederic chopin, of harold in italy, of the brotherhood of man, of a garden in the rain, or of ourselves reacting to the thematic material in our several ways. we can readily see at this early point in our investigation of criticism-which is the only possible basis for judging artistic (aesthetic) value-that there is no difficulty in formulating an objective judgment ofa musical work of the 13th or 16th century. 97 we know from history the technique of composition available to the composer, and we have the tool called comparison. by comparing the composer's work to similar ones by his contemporaries, we can judge his craftsmanship. as for the subjective value, that has always been, is, and will forever be a matter of personal judgment-predilection or aversion. there is, however, one criterion that gives us a more solid footing: the consensus-time element. if a number of generations have held that dufay's chansons are lovely-and that includes both consensus and' time-we can safely conclude that they have aesthetic value. now, we noted that the technical means of composition available to the 13th-century composer are a factor to be taken into account. we know from history that these means were developed slowly through several centuries· from the middle ages on. we know that the visual arts were developed to a high degree of perfection by the chinese, the egyptian, the hindu, the persian, the byzantine cycles of civilization, but music-,-with its polyphony, harmony, and abstract forms-remained to western civilization to develop to the highest degree of complexity, and that it is unique in the history of the arts. we know that the visual arts reached a culmination and decayed together with those particular cycles. to determine the life cycle of western art-music and assay the role of 18th-century music in it is, then, the purpose of this investigation. western civilization is a much more complex phenomenon than the others mentioned above. involved in western civilization were large territories, several languages (indeed, groups of languages), and different climates and ethnic groups. tribes of latin, teutonic, and slavic ancestry absorbed local peoplesthe celts, for instance-yet interacted upon and influenced each other, ceaselessly adopting each other's innovations, so that by and large western civilization may be recognized as fairly homogeneous, though vastly diversified in its details. one aspect of the complexity of western music is this constant interaction, which must be recognized by the critic before he can form a judgment. another aspect is the presence of polyphony, harmony, and form. the critic must note whether these are rudimentary, more advanced, or in a stage of artistic perfection. this recognition of progress or advancement from the primitive to perfection is discussed by d. w. a1len.2 98 the idea of progress is basic with the majority of music historians, and it is difficult to see any other approach to a critical history of music. allen, while not declaring for or against such a historical outlook, quotes a number of opinions regarding "progress" in musical art. it is unfortunate that allen's book appeared in 1939 (and, except a brief preface, the text of the second [dover] edition is unchanged), since the most important histories of music, regardless of country of origin, have appeared since 1940. these histories are almost without exception factual, not philosophical. one of the exceptions is d. w. ferguson's history of musical thought.3 in chapter xiii, entitled "retrospects and prospects" -a stocktaking strategically placed at the turn of the 17th century, the greatest turning point in the history of western music-ferguson observes that at the beginning of that history western musicians borrowed near-eastern pitch-relations with a text in verse of quan:titative rhythm. they changed almost at once, however, to prose with qualitative rhythm, and to different pitch-relations, and not without reason: they had a different outlook in music, and "the christian musician dealt with prose texts in which the verbal organization was relatively unimportant [unlike in poetry] . not artistic but human sensibilities-feelings of humility, of tenderness, of religious exaltation-gave him his themes .... "4 this description of our earliest western music makes it clear that we have a good basis for both kinds of criticism: that which judges the material and craftsmanship, and that which is concerned with the expression of feelings. if so, we can proceed with the same method and apply it to music, even if much more complicated, of a later age. our arts, all of them, became much more complicated with the passage of time-one cannot deny that a bach fugue is much more complicated than a gabrieli ricercar, which again is much more complicated than a clausulaand the sentiments they express (if they do) are much more complicated too. that more complicated art has more aesthetic value than simple art cannot be said without qualifications; a classroom fugue is surely not as valuable as, e.g., beethoven's fur elise. we have no difficulty in following up the advance of the technique of composition from the primitive toward the mature and ripe. examples of a limited scope would be the advance from parallel organum to free organum, or that from arcadelt's 4+ c•m• 99 madrigals to· those of marenzio and monteverdi; of a wider scope, the advance from the 14th-century variations de molen van pariis to bach's canonic variations. to demonstrate the advance in the expression of a feeling, of an abstract thought, ofliterature, or of events, is difficult and debatable. outstanding composers have expressed diametrically opposed views about it (richard strauss for, hindemith against). at any rate, claims of composers actually to have expressed such extra-musical topics can be met with from the middle ages on. both the claims and the means of expression employed are frequently naive, in early times as well as quite recently.5 on the other hand, such undeclared expressions of grief as mozart's g minor symphony, g minor string quintet, e minor violin sonata; beethoven's f minor string quartet, and sonata appassionata; or declared, as brahm's c minor piano quartet, and others too numerous to mention, cannot be dismissed as pure fantasy. we shall have to take them into account. first, however, we must look at the technical aspect of composition somewhat more closely, in· order to obtain a tool with which we can judge it. two composers have tried to do this for us. they are hindemith and schoenberg; and their descriptions of the act of composing perfectly define the two essential phases of composition. hindemith uses the german word eirifall to pinpoint that initial phase in which a primordial musical idea or germ-motif "drops in" unsolicited.6 schoenberg, on the other hand, neglecting this initial impulse and starting out from almost irrelevant premises, gives searching attention to the essential technical work necessary to manipulate the eirifall and build a masterpiece on it.7 naturally, the two phases, or elements, of musical composition will be found in musical works in different proportions or degrees. in one composition we shall find the einfall more impressive, in another, the manipulation-corresponding to, and partly identical with, the objective and subjective elements mentioned earlier. it may be expected that, keeping these factors in mind, we can evaluate the music of the past with reasonable precision, using this tool as a kind of geiger counter. we will find that its imaginary needle goes up gradually until the 18th-19th centuries, after which it goes down rather precipitously. historians, critics, and commentators of music try to explain music by verbal description. to the contrary, we could perhaps 100 try to explain our verbal description of western music's evolu'. jion,.and'decline with amusical analogy. comparing that evolutionand decline to the crescendo-decrescendo of the prelude to the first act of lohengrin, we could say that the music of the 18th century corresponds to the first cymbal clash in that condensed microcosm. the music, developing slowly· up to that apex, culminates in that burst of energy, and after a second explosion oflight-the 19th century-gradually dies away, much faster than it developed .. what are our factual criteria for this evaluation of the music of the· past? paul henry lang, in his encyclopedic panorama of the history of music, observes that the ties between all the species cultivated by mozart "were close and intimate, they were all saturated with the elements of a minutely organized style which gave the classical era homogeneity unparalleled since the time of the netherlanders."8 in no period before or since do we find music so minutely organized or homogeneous and showing similar perfection in style and content. ever since medieval monks changed to new pitch relations and qualitative rhythm, composers concentrated on refining them by imbuing these relations with melodic, polyphonic, finally harmonic meaning; by investing chord successions with structural power, making harmony functional; by creating organized abstract forms; by evolving melodic, harmonic and polyphonic styles, vocal, choral, and orchestral styles, and a wide array of instrumental styles in order to obtain a variety and contrast, a unity and concentration unprecedented in music before the 18th century, and not conceived by any previous civilization. to quote lang again? "mozart's ideas are deepened to symbols of universal significance."9 if our imaginary needle signals another climax in the 19th century, it is because composers of that century tried to enhance the individual, the content, the orchestral colors (and those of single instruments) to an unprecedented degree and on' the highest artistic plane. but these elements are really secondary compared to thematic work, style, and form. they are characteristic of what we call "romantic" movements, such as have occurred regularly in various civilizations, always just 'after a high point achieved in the culture of those civilizations. if such a romantic movement has not been carried too far, or ifit has not been generally accepted (in which case it is usually called "mannerism"), there is a possibility of a return to further 101 evolution. however, if the romantic movement is general and allpervading in scope and significance, it signals the that civilization. ' there was no return from the romanticism of the ptolemaic (egyptian), hellenistic, and late byzantine cultures. each in turn spelled the end of a cultural period. the first surrendered to greek, the second to roman, and the third to turkish civilization and culture. general and all-pervading romanticism is a sign of decay. it ushers in a period of individualism which discards classical conventions. unattractive as conventions are, they provide the composer with a guide line: with a valid-because generally accepted-set of principles that guard him and prevent his slipping in the quicksand of experiments. only exceptional geniuses like josquin, monteverdi, or beethoven could successfully throw conventions overboard, because their artistic judgment, their foresight and instinct, were strong enough to make them perceive the limits oftheir material and stop at the threshold of the absurd. composers in the 19th century introduced innovations and changes in music to such an extent and at such rate of speed that by the end of the century the form, technique, purport, and meaning of music would have been unrecognizable to haydn or mozart. for not only was their great achievement, the sonata form, discarded by berlioz, liszt, and wagner, but thematic work-i.e., deduction-was replaced by the leading-motif technique--or induction. haydn's great work in defining and . tonalities was undone, and a tonal ambiguity was attained through chromaticism, creating a situation in which the listener never knows exactly where the composer stands and whither he moves harmonically, as every dissonance leads to a choice of two or three directions. the objective attitude of the classics was discarded early in the century by chopin and schumann in favor of a highly personal approach, in which subtle changes in the composer's moods are expressed instead of general emotions common to a nation, a period, or even to humanity . . the founding of nationalistic schools and· styles fragmented the heretofore unified western styles. in quick succession there appeared program music, descriptive music, realistic and impressionistic music, primitive and futuristic music. over102 sophisticated (hugo wolf) and undersophisticated .(dvorak) music rubbed elbows with music of huge proportions and epic length (bruckner, mahler) and miniatures (satie). the of the earth was scoured for· exotic local color (balakirev, rimsky-korsakoff, bizet, delibes, debussy, puccini). with the advent of the 20th century, the main stream of western music broke up into rivulets, like the delta of the mississippi which moves sluggishly to its end, with individual strains-struggling fiercely for survival by dint of individualistic styles-still recognizable. but these individualistic styles lead to dead ends. the iridescent color patches of the impressionists led to saccharine sweetishness; in polytonality and polyharmony the several keys lost their fine psychological meaning and became chaos; no composer can be expected to continue where richard strauss left off-either in post-romantic sound or the description of a toothbrush-and dodecaphony, a system that promised a new life, is already dated. it is dated because of the feverish search for effect, for a frisson nouveau. even bartok, who never lost his firm footing in music, led to a dead end, because his feat, the assimilation of folk-music, was a personal feat that can only be repeated, not continued. we have reached the end of the road. lang entitled the last section in his book "the decline of the west?" although he ends on an optimistic and hopeful tone, there is no doubt that he wrote a complete history of western music. it is difficult to resist the urge to quote warren dwight allen, who ends his preface thus: "getting down on our knees, we need to pray that we may have a future, after all, a future in which music and the arts may still flourish, and in which man may have another chance."l0 are these jeremiads? no: they are history. anything else would be hope, prayer, or propaganda. notes 1 history of art criticism, 1936, dutton. 2 philosophies of music history, 1939, dover edition, 1962, 286ff. 3 new york, 1948. 4 op. cit., 237. 5 see hindemith's remarks in a composer's world, cambridge, mass., 1952, 31f. 6 ibid., 57ff. 7 schoenberg: style and idea, new york, 1950, ch. ix, criteria for the evaluation .103 of music, especially pp.159ff. it is interesting to note that, while. the statements referred to are true flashes of insight, some of the reasoning of both composers is debatable, to say the least. ' 8 music in western civilization, new york, 1941, 625. 9, ibid., 624. loop. cit., ix. 104 percy grainger: country gardens and other curses david s. josephson [ed. note,' this is the first in a series of writings conceived by the author as an essay in bibliography, seeking to provide the foundation for a thorough and broadly-based study of the life and music of percy grainger.] the lead obituary in the new york times on 21 february 1961 began: "percy grainger, composer, dead/creator of country gardens . .. " an editorial eulogy in the times on the following day noted that "pieces like his country gardens will be delighting audiences long after some of the highly touted music of more 'advanced' composers is long, long forgotten." a recording published shortly before grainger's death was given the title country gardens and other favorites.1 the sad litany always begins with country gardens, and it invariably continues with colonial song, handel in the strand, irish tune from county derry, mock morris, molly on the shore, shepherd's hey. culled from a seemingly bottomless chest and published in any number of marketable arrangements, these charming little conceits provided their creator with a handsome income, but at the same time they obscured utterly the spirit and accomplishments of the man and slowly drove his reputation into the ground. their popularity is only one of a tangle of sources that have distorted our perception of grainger. certainly he himself was partly responsible for that distortion, just as he was for the gradual narrowing of his reputation as a pianist to exponent of the grieg piano concerto (which he considered "hardly one of its composer's most exquisite works"2) and a handful of other pieces, despite his mastery of an immense and unconventional repertory. indeed, his last recording documents an intensely vital performance of country gardens and an absolutely harrowing one of the grieg concerto.3 now, however, with the passing of more than a decade since grainger's death, it is high time to rescue the name of one of the brilliant musical lights of our century. we need not grind any axe. his was in the last analysis a limited genius, his creative breath short, his noble final experiment with what he termed free music a failure. grainger was an erratic man, elusive, private, and vulnerable. but he was a character unique in the annals of 20th-century music: composer, arranger, teacher, writer, editor, linguist, collector and scholar of folk and ethnic musics. blessed with a wonderfully imaginative ear and a radical, far-ranging mind, grainger embraced machaut and duke ellington, russian folksong and zulu dance. to deal with the man is difficult. perhaps we remain too close to our subject. the prejudices against which he fought remain to a great extent our prejudices, within both the concert hall and the classroom. the musical 56 frivolities into which he poured his consummate craft remain frivolities, not yet having gained the respect that comes with vintage. much of the rest of his music yields its treasures unwillingly and often demands instrumental resources which we can gather only with difficulty. we must break through the isolation of the man, imposed in his youth by his sudden success and bewildering experiments, in later years by the stigma of old-fashionedness, and throughout his life by his stubborn convictions and eccentricities. another problem is that grainger's music is not readily accessible. much of it remains scattered in manuscripts, and of that which was published a great deal is either out of print or irregularly available. there is little chance that this situation will soon be remedied; yet, until it is, our knowledge of grainger's music will remain incomplete and our appraisal of it onesided. a more immediately fruitful approach to understanding grainger is bibliographical, although here too one encounters some difficulty. during his long active career, grainger's vast range of musical activities insured him continual printed notice. much of it, however, was laudatory and repetitive, and marred by garbled stories and outright misinformation. we must be careful even with primary materials. grainger took a rather casual, not to say cavalier, attitude toward reporters and seems to have enjoyed exercising his wit on hapless interviewers. during one discussion taped for the bbc, he was asked: "you've never really gone in very much for sonata ... " "i've never touched it," he answered. "never touched it? why?" "well," he hesitated, "the italians were on our side in the first world war, were they?" "yes." "yes, well then that spoils my story. my story was that i wouldn't write anything that has an italian title." transparent enough. but later in the interview, his voice perfectly serious, grainger mentioned that at the age of ten he went to study in germany because the german language was closest to icelandic. now, in a certain context that statement does not seem preposterous: his mother's reading of nordic epics marked them decisively upon the boy's consciousness and provided him with an artistic ideal which he would henceforth embrace-"shapely yet 'formless,' many-sided yet monotonous, rambling, multitudinous, drastic, tragic, stoical, ruthlessly truth-proclaiming."4 but it was preposterous. rose grainger took her son to frankfurt am main only because she wanted him to receive the best possible musical training and thought that he would get it there. in this interview and elsewhere, grainger's memory seems to have played tricks on him, so that his dating of earlier events was often unreliable. for instance, he attributed his lifelong interest in folk music to the influence of lucy broadwood, a towering figure in the young english folk-song society (founded in 1898), whose lecture "on the collecting of english folk-song," delivered to the musical association in march 1905, introduced him to the enormous variety and beauty of english folk music and to the high challenge and promise involved in its discovery and analysis.5 in fact, however, surviving autograph manuscripts dispute grainger's attribution and push back 57 his interest in traditional music to at least 1898, when he was sixteen years old. in that year he sketched the first of a series of settings of old english popular music, "willow, willow" from augener's minstrelsy of england; set "thora von rimol," a song from the saga of king olaf; and composed a sailor's chanty, the secret of the sea, on a text by conan doyle.6 in 1900 came fourteen settings from the scottish songs of the north; in the following year, sketches for the scotch strathspey and reel and for the swedish folk tune a song of vermland; in 1902, his first version of the irish tune from county derry7 and still more scottish songs; and in january 1905, the earliest settings of tunes found in a printed anthology of faeroe island folksongs. grainger's faulty memory concerning miss broadwood, however, was not without cause; for she was instrumental in introducing him to the authentic experience of collecting (rather than merely setting) folksong, as well as to the work of a wide circle of musicians and scholars who were bringing their enthusiasm and professional knowledge to bear on the task. grainger joined the folk-song society, and his exposure to the ideas, discussions, and techniques of its members was to prove decisive. early in april 1905 he traveled with his new colleagues to the town of brigg and embarked on what was to become one of the monuments of english ethnological research, his collection of lincolnshire folk music. the difference between the scrupulous transcriptions of the brigg songs that he published in the society's journal on the one hand, and the earlier, rather homogenized scottish settings on the other, gives eloquent testimony to the impact of his encounter with miss broadwood.8 the mixed blessings garnered from interviews are evident in a three-part series on grainger published in the new yorker early in 1948 and quoted all too often since.9 rich insights and interesting statements abound, but at the same time we struggle with grainger's blithe spirit. he dismisses his father as "an interesting fellow, although a confirmed drunkard," an incredible statement in view of the crucial and far-reaching influence of the man's character, behavior, and marital relationship on his son's personal life. the interviewer embraces the flippant tone of his subject. in writing of grainger's distaste for the piano ("for what possible reason should we be limited to what we can hit with ten fingers ?"), he regales us with the information that the composer "wrote a number that requires the player to lean over and use his nose now and then, but playing it is strenuous, and even dangerous, and it hasn't gone very well." no words obscure more effectively the spirit of a man who questioned the dominance of the piano in concert life and spent years devising mechanical and keyed alternatives to it, but who also played the instrument supremely well, taught it, and wrote about its technical challenges.lo unlike the interviews, grainger's published writings are invariably serious and rewarding. even the minor articles-his contribution to the carl engel festschrift,l1 his early reminiscences of great musicians "with whom i have had the privilege of coming in contact,"12 his "appreciation" of strauss,13 58 and his brieflate essay on grieg,14 as well as the forewords to his compositions and editions-reveal something of his restless, probing mind. among the major writings, one with the delightful mouthful of a title "the culturizing possibilities of the instrumentally supplemented a cappella choir" gives evidence of grainger's broad historical knowledge of performance practice and of the professional experience, wide reading, and exquisite taste that he brought to the subject.15 the craggy integrity with which he argued here against contemporary concert life remains as striking today as it must have seemed thirty years ago. in "the impress of personality in unwritten music," grainger ranged from primitive music to modern, displaying a remarkable familiarity with non-western music, descriptive sources, and ethnographic materials, as well as a keen sensitivity to the tribal concept of personal ownership of songs and dances.16 in this essay he tentatively explored many ideas that were to find partial fruition in the free music. furthermore, he so thoroughly assimilated his insights into the music of one particular people, the rarotongans in the south seas, that he used their music as the model for one of his most striking works, random round (1912-14). the most remarkable article published by grainger was his earliest, written at the age of twenty-six. "collecting with the phonograph" consists of a long introduction on his recording and transcribing techniques and his insights into folksong and singers, followed by his transcription of twentyseven songs and their variants, as well as copious notes appended to each.17 grainger had followed up his first trip to brigg with collecting expeditions to sutherland and sussex in the autumn of 1905. he returned to brigg with miss broadwood and other collectors in 1906 and there transcribed his first major collection of songs. enthralled by the characters he met and at the same time disappointed by the inadequacies of traditional transcribing techniques, he came alone to brigg at the end of july with a new-fangled wax cylinder phonograph. the article documents his experiences during these two trips and during a third lincolnshire sojourn and a trip to dartmouth in 1908. grainger's life-long fascination with machines was already in evidence in his discussion of their advantages and drawbacks. he envisioned a mechanical device that would record on paper (as the phonograph does on wax) all sounds played or sung into it, giving the number of vibrations of each note, precise rhythmic durations of notes (by accurately proportioned line lengths-much like the slits in pianola music) and pauses, dynamics, vowel-sounds and blends.18 still, he used the primitive machine at his disposal to throw light on the pitch and key of performance, interval relationships, and scale variants; on fluctuations of tempo, lengths of rests, and precise degrees of rhythmic irregularity; on dynamic details, melodic variations, and the articulation of notes; on dialects, vowel-sounds, nonsense syllables, and details of note59 to-syllable allotment; and on the component notes of what he called "twiddles and ornaments." such minute attention to details flowed from a desire to document the singer and his idiosyncrasies along with the song. grainger noted that each singer considered the songs that he performed his own property and could not help but mold it to reflect his own character19 ; therefore grainger would record several versions of each song and also note the variants and even the bantering asides of the singer. h. g. wells, after traveling with grainger in gloucestershire in 1909, remarked that he tried to record not their songs but their life.20 it is no wonder, then, that grainger's printed transcriptions are so much more complex and fascinating than the others found in the early volumes of the society journal, or that in his later settings of many of these songs he favored those versions that were most irregular and characteristic of the singer. this article is the most impressive testament of his scrupulous editorial work. its advocacy of the phonograph provoked a strong reaction within the society, and a brief was prepared in reply. yet, his essay changed the course of english ethnomusicological method and technique. the research for this article proved decisive, too, in grainger's creative life. the melodic quality of much of his original music seems to breathe the folk idiom in its directness, its irregular rhythm and phrasing, its underlying simplicity and tunefulness. the folk influence may also help to account for his reluctance to attempt to develop and sustain large formal musical structures. one wonders what it was that so attracted and held grainger to the scope of folk music. although several of his contemporaries shared his love of folksong, they were not so charged by it in their creative life. part of the answer may lie in the patterns of his life: he left a broken home at the age of twelve to live first in an alien german society and then in london; he did not settle permanently until he was in his thirties, and even then a year rarely passed without his crossing the atlantic or pacific. grainger was a restless and unrooted spirit. folksong, on the other hand, has everything to do with roots, with the land and its memories. his trips through britain and scandinavia were veritable searches for human and musical roots. and so in his later settings he took care to note the date, singer, and place of the original song, printed the melody and often its variants, and only then went on to decorate it with superb craft, taste, and invention, yet with utter integrity and faithfulness to the singer and his song. grainger's british and danish folksong cycles are treasures of 20th-century music, the neglected monuments of a cherishable composer. * * * * * of the voluminous bibliography of secondary material concerning grainger and published during his lifetime, the extended treatments can be counted on the fingers of one hand: richard franko goldman's article in the juilliard review21 ; charles hughes's in the musical q.uarterry22; d. c. parker's genial study, percy grainger23 ; and cyril scott's essay in an early issue of the musical q.uarterry.24 scott was uncommonly perceptive. he alone, 60 recognizing the decisive impact of kipling on the young composer, correctly attributed to it the first fruits of grainger's idiom. he noted a certain sentimentality in grainger's character which permeated his melodies and drew him back to old sketches and "often, things of no apparent value"-an accurate assessment of grainger's collecting mania which the passing of time and the evidence in the composer's home in white plains have reinforced. scott understood grainger's "vulgarities" as expressions of strength, natural being, and refusal to pose. the simple works, he observed, were not written to please the public; rather, they were expressions of a "certain obvious simple part of his childlike nature." finally, scott perceived sharply that grainger "is not an evolving artist, but one who branches out more than actually grows." the different idioms and techniques in his music were thus a function of mood, not of growing maturity. scott awaited the day when grainger would complete the more serious sketches, the bush music and train music among them, for these were "the beginnings of what promise to be very great works."25 grainger never did. aside from these major writings there remains a great deal of secondary material, ranging widely in utility and literacy, published on grainger during his lifetime and since. much of it is hidden away in articles and books of a general nature and in newspaper reports and articles. the sum total of these published resources pales, however, beside the enormous amount of manuscript material available for study. although this material is scattered throughout europe, america, and australia, and some is not easily accessible (grainger's letters to grieg, for instance, are found in the public library of bergen, norway), the bulk lies in three repositories: the grainger museum in melbourne, the composer's home in white plains, and the library of congress in washington, d.c. the grainger collection at the library of congress alone possesses a considerable number of music manuscripts and sketchbooks; the entire collection of grainger's british folksong wax cylinder recordings and his other folk and ethnic recordings from scandinavia to new zealand; recordings that document his own performances and music; thirty cartons of letters in alphabetical order of the correspondents; other letters still unordered; two large files of letters from his friend karen holten and photostats of over 600 letters to her (most of them in danish); some twenty-five cartons with diaries and sketchbooks, academic records, drafts of articles, postcards, calling cards, newspaper and magazine clippings, tax records, royalty statements and other financial documents; and three unpublished autobiographical studies. the first of these studies, a series of sketches for a work with the revealing title the life of my mother and her son, was the issue of a profound need to purge his grief at rose grainger's suicide. seventy-five pages long, it was begun in august 1922 as a passionate diary and slowly evolved into a commonplace book containing copies of her letters, cards and inscriptions, miscellaneous expense accounts, and various factual and reminiscing entries. this outpouring was abandoned after ten years; it was replaced by a far larger and 61 more detached study, the aldridge-grainger-strom saga, written during the fall and winter of 1933 while grainger was on the high seas with his wife and friends. 26 containing probably close to a half-million words cramped into some 230 large pages, it is an invaluable document, discursive, rambling, intensely personal, perceptive, comprehensive-in short, a basic tool for a study and understanding of the man's life. the third document, an eighteenpage typescript written in january 1947 and entitled bird's-eye view rif the together-life of rose grainger and percy grainger, retraces the ground of the first essay, this time in a more orderly and detached fashion. the other major repositories of graingeriana are the british museum, the national libraries of ireland and scotland, the new york public library, the royal library in copenhagen, and the libraries at the university of rochester (new york) and upsala college (new jersey). given this dispersion of materials, grainger scholars can be thankful for the duplication of some of the major documents: the autobiographical studies at the library of congress just cited, for example, are copies of the grainger museum originals, while the british institute of recorded sound (london) has copies of the grainger wax cylinder collection at the library of congress. furthermore, the british museum, the new york public library, and the university of rochester have published bibliographies of their music manuscript holdings, and there is an incomplete published list of music in the library of congress.27 also at our disposal, of course, are the printed card catalogues of the british museum, the library of congress, and the new york public library. but that is all. to my knowledge, no complete catalogue, published or in manuscript, exists of any of the major collections aside from the british museum, or of any of the minor collections aside from the two mentioned above. as a result, we are on our own, for the most part, in an impenetrable jungle of materials. especially lamentable is the lack of scholarly and bibliographical communications from the grainger museum and from the grainger library society at white plains. (one would like to know, to choose a random example, which repositories besides the british museum have copies of the rare little volume of photos rif rose grainger, and of 3 short accounts rif her life by herself . .. , privately printed and circulated by grainger after her death-a most valuable source of information for his early years.) the task of absorbing, assessing, and balancing the collection of materials on grainger, and then piecing together a rounded study of the man, is staggering. it could be most fruitfully explored in its early stages through bibliographical studies and guides and through scholarly essays on specific areas of his life and work. furthermore, because of the wide scattering of materials, it will have to be a communal effort, one whose contours are just now beginning to achieve some definition in the fine work of a small number of australian and english scholars. from grainger's homeland have come recently a lucid and penetrating summary examination by roger covell28 and a fine historical essay on the free music by ivor dorum,29 62 while from england we now have a sturdy edition of a score of lincolnshire folksongs by patrick o'shaughnessy30 and a trenchant musical appreciation by ates orga.31 dissertations dealing with the wind music and the free music have been written during the past few years in the united states; one of these will be discussed in the second part of this bibliographical essay, to appear in the next issue of this journal. notes 1 available now on mercury wing srw 18060. 2 "the culturizing possibilities of the instrumentally supplemented a cappella choir," the musical quarterb 28 (1942): 165. 3 vanguard vrs 1098. 4 robert lewis taylor, "profiles: musician," the new 'yorker, 14 february 1948, p. 33. 5 proceedings of the musical association 31 (1904--05): 89-109. 6 white plains, new york, grainger library society mss. 7 grainger found the tune in the petrie collection of the ancient music of ireland, ed. george petrie (dublin: m. h. gill, 1855-82). 8 the brigg songs are found in the journal of the folk-song society 2 (1905-06): 79-81; the scottish settings, in the grainger library society mss. 9 taylor, "profiles," 31 january 1948, pp. 29-37; 7 february 1948, pp. 32-39; 14 february 1948, pp. 32-43. 10 "reaching your goal at the keyboard," the etude 59 (1941): 79-80, 134. 11 "the specialist and the all-round man," a birthday tribute to carl engel (new york: g. schirmer, 1943), pp. 115-19. 12 "glimpses of genius," the etude 39 (1921): 631-32, 707-08. 13 henry finck, richard strauss, the man and his works (boston: little, brown & co., 1917), pp. xvii-xxv. 14 "edvard grieg: a tribute," the musical times 98 (1957): 482-83. 15 the musical quarterly 28 (1942): 160-73. 16 the musical quarterly 1 (1915): 416-35. 17 journal of the folk-song society 3 (1908-09): 147-242. 18 ibid., p. 152. 19 recognizing this fact, grainger insisted on sending royalties to those surviving singers whose songs he had used in published arrangements. 20 quoted in grainger, the musical quarterb 1 (1915): 420. 21 "percy grainger's 'free music,'" the juilliard review 2 (fall 1955): 37-47. 22 "percy grainger, cosmopolitan composer," the musical quarterb 23 (1937): 127-36. 23 new york: g. schirmer, 1918. 24 "percy grainger: the music and the man," the musical quarterly 2 (1916): 426-27. 25 ibid., pp. 432, 427, and 428, respectively. 26 aldridge was his mother's maiden name; strom, his wife's. 27 pamelaj. willetts, "an autograph manuscript of percy grainger," the british museum quarterb 25 (1962): 18-19, and "the percy grainger collection," the british museum quarterb 27 (1963-64): 65-71; philip l. miller, "percy grainger gift," bulletin of the new 'york public library 66 (1962): 415-16; ruth watanabe, "the percy grainger manuscripts," the university of rochester library bulletin 19 (1963-64): 21-26; edward waters, "music," the library of congress quarterb journal of current acquisitions 20 (1962-63): 35-37. 28 australia's music (melbourne: sun books, 1967), pp. 88-103. 29 "grainger's 'free music,'" studies in music 2 (1968): 86-97. 30 twenty-one lincolnshire folk-songs from the ms. collection of percy grainger (london: oxford university press, 1968). 31 "percy grainger 1882-1961," music and musicians 18 (march 1970): 28-32, 34, 36, 38-40,70. 63 early 16th-century manuscripts at piacenza: a progress report collected and edited by jane b. weidensaul the musical holdings of the archivio del duomo at piacenza, italy, were fully catalogued by francesco bussi in a volume published in 1967.1 attracted by the early 16th-century items, prof. martin picker obtained microfilms from the library and began a personal investigation of the materia1.2 this investigation was widened considerably when he decided to make the filmed part-books the subject of his doctoral seminar held at rutgers university in the spring of 1972. the repertoire contained in the manuscripts was divided by genre, and the research was conducted by the group as follows: patricia virga investigated the motets, stephen fisher the masses, jane weidensaul ,the polyphonic hymns, and benito rivera the lamentations. miss weidensaul collected the results of the work and edited the following progress report for publication in this journal. * * * * * as described by bussi,3 the early 16th-century material includes four partbooks containing: (i) passioni, messe, salmi, magnificat, motetti . ... (2) f. r. f. e anonimi: messe, messa di requiem, antifone, inni, motetti . .. . (3) adriano willaert e altri: messe, inni, lamentazioni, motetti ... . (2 volumes). because bussi did not assign numbers to the holdings of the library, the numbers given in parentheses above have been adopted in this report to facilitate the identification of the material discussed. from the titles, it is obvious that the books contain a large and varied repertory of sacred music suitable for the various seasons of the church year, for the celebration of the mass, and especially for vespers worship. only one secular work appears: the dialogue madrigal quando nacesti amore? of verdelot (ms. 3, both volumes). of the original six voices, just two are present, and these sing not the opening text, but rather the first response, "quando la terra." most of the pieces of the piacenza repertory are incomplete owing to the lack of correspondence among the four part-books. only small portions of mss. 1 and 2 belong to the two closely related volumes of ms. 3, or to each other, for that matter. just two works (motets) were found in all four partbooks. this suggests that the books were bound from various fascicles, most of which were independent originally. 41 just how this music made its way to piacenza is one of the many mysteries uncovered by the investigation. the most notable early 16th-century musician from the piacenza region was girolamo parabosco, born there in the 1520's, later a pupil of wiilaert, cocontributor with the master to the instrumental musica nova of 1540, active traveler (three visits to his native town are documented during the fifth decade of the century), and, finally, first organist at san marco.4 parabosco could well be the link between the piacenza holdings and the pieces of venetian origin, but no hard evidence has emerged to support this thesis. 1. the motets: motet literature dominates the piacenza manuscripts and comprises some 149 pieces in all. the works call for a variable number of voices, according to the designations, and at least one piece carries the words "chorus ii," thus indicating a polychoral setting. the second chorus section begins with the text "donee ponam," verse 2 of psalm 109, dixit dominus (ms. 1,66'-67). the composer has remained anonymous to date. the provenance of much of the music is clearly northern italian, and the substantial number of works attributed to willaert suggests ties to venice. in addition, there is some affinity with manuscripts of florentine origin. these are rome, biblioteca vallicelliana s. borromeo e.ii,5 and chicago, newberry library ms case vm 1578 m 91.6 of the two, the vallicelliana ms. shows a remarkable relationship to the piacenza collection: twenty-six motets are concordant, and five motets identified as unica in the rome inventory have now lost their solitary status: simile est regnum/deus qui (wiilaert), virgo prudentissima (jachet), sub tuum presidium (l'heritier), estote fortes/vos amici mei (arcadelt), and mundi christo/ sancti martires (maitre jan). seven concordances were found between the piacenza collection and the newberry manuscript, and here, too, a second source turned up for one of the unica: salve rex pater/eya ergo (ms. 2). in addition, eight concordances were discovered between the piacenza manuscripts and vatican city, cappella giulia xii, 4, a choirbook dating from 1536.7 the part-books studied by the seminar contain only a slim handful of composer attributions; unmasking the anonymous writers of some 149 motets therefore presented the greatest problem. to date, fifty-eight, or about one-third, of the pieces have been traced to their creators. nine motets have been tentatively identified from inventories and catalogues lacking musical incipits; more positive attributions await the examination of source materials not presently available. the predominance of composers active in northern italy appears evident from the list which follows. 42 composer willaert verdelot jachet motets identified 15 8 6 composer gombert l'heritier festa consilium lupus maitre jan claudin arcadelt mouton moulu (or lebrung) de silva layolle anonymous works in other mss. ii. the masses: motets identified 5 4 3 2 2 2 5 the piacenza part-books contain several sets of mass ordinaries; only six of the masses are present in as many as three parts-there being evidence to suggest that one additional part is missing-and the remaining nine works have been preserved in but one part, usually the bassus. the identified masses include the following works: fevin or divitis: missa dictes may toutes vas pensees, a 4 (=missa secunda, mss. 2 and 3), a parody of a chanson by compere. the mass following is by fevin, a point which might swing the evidence for attribution of this work in his favor. fevin: missa 0 quam glorifica luce, a 4 ( = missa tertia, mss. 2 and 3), probably a paraphrase mass based on an untraced melody which clinkscale has been able to isolate.8 j achet berchem: missa super altra non e il mio amor, a 5 (ms. 3b), a parody ofa madrigal by verdelot. festa: missa se congie pris, a 5 (=missa octava, ms. 2), based on a chanson melody as cantus firmus. the only previously-known source for this last piece was wolfenbiittel ms. a. the piacenza version confirms alexander main's suspicion that the german source is incomplete,9 for three sections have now come to light for the first time: a second osanna, a first agnus, and a second agnus for a reduced number of voices. the sole agnus setting in wolfenbiittel corresponds to the third agnus in the piacenza version. the piacenza voice corresponds in most sections to the vagans of the german manuscript, although in two sections in 43 which the tenor does not have the cantus firmus, the piacenza voice takes over the part assigned in wolfenbiittel to the tenor, an arrangement showing greater logic. there are many differences in textual setting between the two copies, with associated rhythmic variants. the most interesting of these is at the et incarnatus, which in the piacenza source begins with seven breves, while the wolfenbiittel version breaks some of them up into semibreves, obviously sacrificing number symbolism for the sake of better declamation. all the evidence suggests that the german manuscript contains a heavily edited version of the work and that the piacenza source probably gives the original version. the work in ms. 2 headed "f .r.f. e anonimi missa pro difunctis," copied complete in four voices, is one of the more intriguing puzzles of the piacenza manuscripts. it is apparently unique, and possibly the most complete polyphonic setting of the mass for the dead written in the first half of the 16th century. both the texts and the melodies are those of the standard roman rite, which was current in italy long before it spread to the north as a result ofthe reforms of the council of trent. most of the polyphonic settings written before 1540 employ a rite drawn partially from the sarum usage, in which the gradual and tract are different and the sequence is omitted. all of the requiem masses published before 1540, except the brumel setting (antico, 1516), use the northern version, and brumel set fewer sections than "f .r.f." the style is quite homophonic, perhaps even naive; the use of chant melodies in the polyphonic sections is minimal, consisting mostly of an allusion in the first notes of the cantus. immediately following the missa pro difunctis is a work designated "f.r.f. dies ire" [sic]. the clefs are rather different from those used in the main body of the requiem, but not so different that this movement could not be substituted for the dies irae in the mass itself. this work could also have been intended to serve in connection with movements of another polyphonic requiem which did not include a setting of the dies irae. the appearance of "f.r.f." over two works in similar style in the manuscript suggests that these are the initials of the composer rather than those of the dedicatee, although the matter is not settled. the requiem, with one or the other of the two sequence settings, is the only mass complete in all parts in the piacenza collection. just why the copyist adopted choirbook format for this work is yet another mystery. bearing in mind the simplicity of the notation, the lack of concern for motivic unity, and the near lack of significant imitation and rests, one can contrast the requiem with all of the other masses, even those present in only one voice. none of the other masses shows this same naivete: almost all of them have some sort of obvious motivic structure, and many of them show imitation or rests which signify imitation, the use of ligatures and of notes longer than a semibreve, mens ural changes, canons, expansions or reductions of the original texture, and other devices typical of the more sophisticated 44 composers of the period. it thus seems likely that the requiem was one of a few pieces of local origin copied into a set of manuscripts which contained, basically, an imported repertory. iii. the polyphonic hymns: the two volumes of ms. 3 contain, by happy chance, all four parts of a polyphonic hymn cycle, substantially by willaert. this is apparently the sole manuscript source for the master's hymns yet discovered. two printed collections, the hymnorum musica (scotto, 1542) and i sacri e santi salmi (gardane, 1555), both issued during the lifetime of the composer, contain all of willaert's previously-known works in the genre. three pieces attributed to willaert in the manuscripts are certainly unica,' conscendit jubilans (festum nunc celebre), impar ancilla (maria mater domini), and sumens illud (ave maris stella). in addition, no concordances have been discovered for the four hymns of anonymous authorship, two of which are unistrophic and two of which, following willaert's custom, are designed for alternatim performance with new music for each polyphonic strophe. the first strophe of most willaert hymns is assigned to the chant choir, a matter which leaves the scholar in possession of the texts to only the even-numbered verses. a pageby-page search of the analecta hymnica10 finally revealed the proper titles of all of the hymns in the piacenza manuscripts. after one puts aside the two unistrophic hymns, pieces well separated from the willaert cycle, there remain twenty-one works of which nineteen are attributed to willaert by the scribe, sixteen being concordant with the settings of the hymnorum musica. the concordances bear out the accuracy of the attributions without exception: there is thus no reason to doubt the ascription of the three unica to the master. a lucky find among the hymns offers some worthwhile clues regarding the dating and history of the cycle. hymn no.6, quo sanctum marchum (hodie festum pie celebremus) is musically identical with willaert's multi strophic setting of ut queant laxis in the hymnorum musica. since the hymn honors st. mark, the patron saint of venice, and since the only source for the text is given by dreves as "cod. marcian l ii 93,"11 a holding of the biblioteca marciana of the same city, it seems fair to conclude that the cycle under consideration was brought to piacenza at some point following willaert's employment at san marco in 1527,12 notational differences between the manuscripts and the printed hymnorum musica demonstrate that the former was not copied from the latter. assuming that a scribe working in venice after 1542 would have had access to the more accurate printed part-books (the manuscripts contain many errors) and would have used them, one may tentatively date the hymn cycle, at least, as having been copied between 1527 and 1542. surely much manuscript material has been lost since the 16th century, material which might offer assistance in the establishment of a chronology ofwillaert's works. that such manuscripts existed in 1533 is documented in 45 the correspondence on theoretical matters between spataro and aron in august of that year. spataro states in his letter that he owns many hymns of willaert and wonders whether aron could induce the master to compose three strophes of a hymn to honor st. petronio, whose feast was to be celebrated at the end of september. 13 the weight of all of the evidence suggests that the hymns in the piacenza manuscripts form an earlier corpus, perhaps composed and compiled by willaert for st. mark's within a few years of his appointment there, then revised-some pieces added, others dropped, and one given another textfor publication in 1542. several of the pieces must predate willaert's venetian tenure. festum nunc celebre, for instance, was the standard ascension hymn in the north; it was rarely, if ever, set by italian composers. a search for stylistic clues yields little of a concrete nature: willaert's mastery is evident in all of these pieces, even in those suspected of being youthful works. in any case, it would be illogical to think that he suddenly turned to hymn composition only in the fourth decade of his life. iv. the lamentations: two part-books of the piacenza collection (ms. 3) contain, respectively, the tenor and bass parts for three separate lamentation settings for holy week. scoring of these parts has demonstrated that at least two more voices would be required to complete the music. no concordances have resulted from a search of catalogues, early prints, and manuscripts available to the writer. the first set contains a nearly complete lamentation cycle for the three holy week services. the full cycle includes three lessons for each day: this set lacks only the third lesson for friday. whether the omission is the fault of the composer or of the scribe is difficult to determine. there are signs of great carelessness in the copying of the text throughout these works. one cannot defend these errors as text variants allowed before the council of trent. indeed, there was room for variety, but this variety involved the choice of verses only. devices for unification of this cycle are apparent: only two modes are used, the same music is reintroduced at each "jerusalem" refrain, and the melodic material sometimes shows an affinity with the standard lamentation tone. the latter relationship often ends quickly, however, and is frequently absent altogether. the second set of lamentations covers only the wednesday service. the entire work is in the fourth mode with an occasional and connection with the lamentation tone, which is in the sixth mode, is thus impossible. the "jerusalem" refrain is again set to the same music, and a melodic motif which ascends to c and then returns to b pervades the work. a trait common to the present set and the first set is the use of the corona, not only at the end of acrostics and verses but also within verses. this sign occurs on the average of about every eighth measure. while this may merely represent a scribal mannerism, it points up the highly sectional character of the phrasing. 46 both sets also omit a final sentence of the jeremiah verse, "facti sunt hostes." this is the only case of an incomplete verse setting and may indicate common authorship or at least common local provenance. the third set has a complete cycle in the tenor part for three days of holy week. the bass part is incomplete in two respects: the scribe stopped copying the music after the first lesson for thursday, and he never copied the text at all. the similarity of choice of verses indicates that the third set may belong to the same local group as the first two. new music is used, however, for the "jerusalem" refrain, and many sections of the wednesday service show a relationship to the standard lamentation tone, particularly in the stepwise ascent from f to this is the principal unifying force of the music: the same material is merely transposed and expanded for the thursday service. * * * * * what began as a seminar exercise in preliminary manuscript examination concluded with the disclosure of much new information of considerable scholarly interest. the possibilities for discovery could in no way be exhausted during the course of one semester. not all concordances, for instance, could be determined, partly because of the unavailability of certain microfilms at the time they were needed, and partly because of the prohibitive expense of obtaining every film the students might have wished to see. it is hoped that these initial findings will spur further research on the piacenza holdings. notes 1 francesco bussi, piacenza: archivio del duomo, catalogo del fondo musicale (milan: istituto editoriale italiano, 1967). 2 a paper discussing two works was read by prof. picker at the international josquin festival-conference ofl971. entitled "josquiniana in some manuscripts at piacenza," it will appear in the conference proceedings scheduled for future publication. 3 bussi, piacenza, pp. 139-51. 4 francesco bussi, "girolamo parabosco," die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 10 (kassel and basel: barenreiter verlag, 1962), cols. 740-42. 5 this manuscript was inventoried by edward lowinsky in "a newly-discovered sixteenth-century motet manuscript in the biblioteca vallicelliana in rome," journal of the american musicological society 3 (1950): 173-232. 6 an inventory of this manuscript was in preparation by h. colin slim at the time of the seminar. 7 paul kast, "romische handschriften," die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 11 (1963), col. 755. 8 edward clinkscale, "the complete works of antoine de fevin," vol. 1 (ph. d. diss., new york university, 1965), p. 123. 9 main's modern edition of the incomplete german source is contained in costanzo festa's opera omnia, vol. 1 (rome: american institute of musicology, 1962). 10 g. m. dreves and c. blume, analecta hymnica medii aevi, 55 vols. (leipzig: o. r. reisland, 1886-1922). 47 11 analecta hymnica, vol. 22, p. 175. 12 w. gerstenberg, "adrian willaert," die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 14 (1968), col. 663. 13 knud jeppesen, "eine musiktheoretische korrespondenz des friiheren cinquecento," acta musicologica 13 (1941): 35. 48 kenneth kaiser, concepts of the architectural object it may be possible to add some useful comments on architecture relevant to patricia carpenter's "the musical object" without reviving the romantic parallel "architecture is frozen music," and without using the treacherous parallels of the arts required by spiritualistic theories of cultural history. though music and architecture may both employ measure, proportion, and sequence, and deal in the ordering of essentially abstract form, the way in which a building springs from a specific need and is put to a particular use in a particular spot makes the problem of architecture unique. architecture can never be adequately explained without taking that use into account (though many excellent writers have tried), for it is only in that specific use that the buildings have their strongest emotional effects, and through the use that their major symbolism arises. there is not a single, dominant mode of expression or symbolism throughout the history of architecture, however, and each variation brings a change in the status of the architectural object. further, it should perhaps be recognized at the outset that buildings, pieces of music, and. other works of art are subject to disuse, abuse, misuse, or creative re-use, and that anyone piece seems to have several possible aesthetic effects, and a multiple status as object. the aesthetic presumptions of modernist architects, usually applications in one guise or another of a zeitgeist theory, have not adequately explained this multiplicity of effects. if the major achievement of the cathedral of amiens is that it expressed the spirit of its time, then we should be relatively in..; different to it as an aesthetic object. because of this difficulty, architects otherwise in agreement have argued whether "history" is the great storehouse of material, the great teacher of principle, or the gre,at irrelevance. generally, however, architects have been interested in what the historic buildings meant to their original creators, and the architect's unspoken aim has been to capture or recapture that relationship with modern means (this holds even for the gothicor greek-revival). the historian-critic, also, usually finds that the original meaning is the one worth studying. in regard to miss carpenter's thesis it may be interesting to ask whether the years from about 1440 to 1925 form an era of the isolated piece of architecture, the self-conscious· monument designed on paper, dependent for its aesthetic effects on that paper design by the calculating individual architect. immediately we must admit that the earlier date can be defended only by contrasting a few "renaissance" buildings in italy with an international gothic tradition which continued in some isolated corners of europe until it was replaced by an equally international baroque tradition in the 18th century. the latter termination, 1925, moreover, can be fixed only on claims made in modernist architectural manifestos, claims yet unfulfilled. what distinguishes a building by brunelleschi or alberti as object from its 86 medieval predecessor? a very practical matter first. it has been realized only fairly recently, by frankl and others, that the medieval builder's basic problem was that he lacked a measuring stick! 1 from town to town there was no commonly accepted "foot" or "yard" which would allow the freemason to convert a dimensioned or scaled drawing on paper into a full-size construction.2 these masons (called "free" because they were not attached to a single guild hall, but moved about as work demanded) evolved a geometric system that.allowed them to layout a building as elaborate as a cathedral from a mere verbal description or a diagrammatic sketch, with no more equipment than a compass, a square, and a cord that could be knotted to record lengths and doubled to divide that length, etc. a building was begun by arbitrarily fixing the length of a lath or module stick in multiples of which the major bays, spans, openings, or divisions of the building could then be laid out. it was hard for historians to uncover this process because it was a well-kept guild secret. only in the later middle ages, as the guild system was breaking down, were a few clandestine handbooks published which have helped us interpret the geometric schemes shown in the much earlier sketchbook of villard de honnecourt (fig. l). this ubiquitous geometric system controlled the proportions of gothic buildings down to small detail (scholars have checked certain cases) 3, but it seems to have been pursued for pragmatic rather than for metaphysical purposes. in 1392 the building committee of the milan cathedral had to decide on a scheme for determining the heights of the various vaults. torn between the desire for great height and the fear of collapse it might bring, the committee first rejected very high proportions ad quadratum, then considered a lower scheme ad triangulum, and finally compromised on an even lower scheme composed of an inelegant combination of equilateral and pythagorean triangles (fig. 2).4 modern scholars,notably panofsky and von simson, have tried in very different ways to find the "iconology," the inherent psychological meaning, of the gothic system, but their type of meaning seems yet relatively uncertain in comparison to the sort of "iconography" that the abbots and bishops themselves attributed to their buildings.5 parts of the church or its formal characteristics were paralleled via a language of "conventional signs" with the holy family or the city of god. the meaning was semiotic. victor hugo's notion of the cathedral as the common book of life, communally written, consulted daily (which so caught frank lloyd wright's fancy), may be correct in its general direction. though we have learned the names of a few gothic architects, robert de luzarches, erwin von steinbach, and others, whose works testify to great personal mastery, the buildings retain the aspect of "activity," not the aspect of "pieces" totally pre-designed. the irresolution of formal problems and the tolerance of disharmony in even the more perfect gothic works is amazing. brunelleschi and alberti, very much to the contrary, avoided the old geometric proportioning system and developed numerical proportions. scale 87 fig. 1 villard de honnecourt, sheet from sketchbook circa 1235. geometric schemes for the proportioning of figures. 88 drawings were introduced (with difficulty) into building practice, but more important, these renaissance architects sought complicated proportional relationships in their plans, elevations, and details that could be developed only in paper or model designs. their will to create discrete pieces of architecture, consistent throughout and self-sufficient, cannot help but impress those who visit the pazzi chapel in florence or san andrea in mantua . .. ... -.. -: ... · · • · • · · i 1. .1' , i '. . !-. '70 '._. i . . \. f64\. •••• j '. 'c/ '. /j ,,-" j' . ,.. .. ® ...... . ® .\ .!. fl •••. ) · .' \ : ,/! \. i \ .,. \ 1 ... ...... . · ...... \ : i \. ! • \ • i \ i \ i:@ .... ·j,··@)· .. · .. · .. · ; ;1\ · i . \ i i \ ... i ! \ ·:h"······1. .. 0\ .. · .. · :tr'·.... \ . .!'...... i ...... .............. ...... ....... .... ...... ......." i, .. ,,;:'·}! .. ... :; ................. , \ \ ...... :\ ...... \ \. p' .'. \ ';".h ............... \ \ i i i fig. 2 milan cathedral, cross section of the nave. right half: diagram of proportions based on equilateral triangles proposed in 1391 by gabriele stornoloco. left half: vaults as executed according to the scheme approved by the building committee in 1392, based partly on equilateral and partly on pythagorean (3: 4: 5) triangles. (l. beltrami after c. boito, it duomo di milano, milan, 1889) these "pieces," however, were meant to carry universal significance in a number of new ways.6 first, the studied revival of roman architectural forms (and roman methods as understood from vitruvius) for churches and palaces set these buildings apart in the city as illustrations of higher principle. second, the use of small whole number ratios for proportions was intended not to imitate the musicians, but rather to echo the sacred harmonies of the universe as described in plato's timaeus. since they observed these numerical proportions in the human body as well, their system has acquired the name "anthropometric proportion." third, their neo-platonic preference for the 89 :: .. . . , .' . : . ______ :-__ ! . ... ;:., .>: ••. ... •.. .. :'t,;.jih. . <.",'l r.. . ';'" f •. ..,..., ......... '-.' ¢ ..... '.;;::.:;',;.'..:: ... ", . .0/"':'.: ft;'.;" . . :-;:.r.:fj ;;,: :.::::l, ".: .. ,; '{,;)",:!)'.,,-:. .. .. " .lq".,:p. ... . .... '1"": ,.t;.,<>. ,)' . .:,. .. :. zt-' ... 9 ...... .... -!jj!'*' ... ...,.'; .. '.;. \",1" .. _" ... af!" ..... jtrfo 'wii' . • '-." t_,' : .. a. '.; .":. ,!j: ' •.. ' ...... ":t:' -'" .. 'jl-.j>. .... 1:1 .' ,'.' ",. fig.3 leonardo da vinci, drawing circa 1490. the divisions of the figure are rational measurements on the scale drawn below the square. (accademia, venice) 90 circle and the square for the plans of churches bore the same sacred iconology of perfection and divinity (fig. 3). contrasting their work with gothic building, we see a strong shift from semiotic to symbolic meaning, matching the change from ritualized building "activity" to the self-conscious "piece." it seems fairly certain that the exploitation of numerical proportions in building depended heavily on the idea of central perspective, particularly for a theory of proportional diminution with distance. the likelihood that brunelleschi invented both systems links them further. renaissance buildings are definitely to be seen in perspective space-in picture space-as the painters represented them, but, at the same time, we should not feel we are missing some more. "global" experience. panofsky has argued that the appearance of central perspective in art (or its disappearance) speaks first of all for an anthropocentric mode of thought (or its demise).7 conceiving buildings or musical compositions as unified entities in visual space may be a habit eminently suited to the human mind, and an inherent characteristic of humanistic eras. the variations in architectural expression through subsequent periods are less interesting for our purpose than the recent challenge to the very basis of "renaissance" design staged primarily by le corbusier between 1923 and 1929. his remarkable book vers une architecture of 1923 was an odd mixture of old french academic themes with an extremely original bid for modernity. his conception of what the significance of this architecture should be was so novel that it escaped the english translator, and most readers over the decades have followed suit, mistaking the book for a functionalist tract. le corbusier's incessant references to modern machines-aircraft, ships, and automobiles-do not suggest that the essence of architecture is the efficient, rational design found in machines. he wanted, rather, to illustrate that architecture should have the objective quality which he found at that time only in machines. his eulogy of the parthenon includes the claims that it belonged in the realm of the mechanical, that it was totally unsymbolic! his notion (and hegel's) was that at the peak of classic art, the building was "the pure creation of the spirit," untrammeled by any reflective or conventional meanings. in these years he worked to rid his buildings of the very language of the old symbolism-the renaissance paper design with its calculated unities. asymmetry, dynamism, and surprise were the rule; exteriors and interiors were of uncertain extent; perception depended not on a controlled viewpoint, but on proceeding around and through. his bid for the "object" quality of the machine was made with a proliferation of common objects in the buildings (fig. 4).8 mass-produced factory windows, bare plumbing pipes, standard radiators, crude electrical fittings, common steel handrails, and thonet furniture were all openly displayed for their commonness. these were le corbusier's equivalent of the objet trouvb of the dadaists. the building was art only in the sense that it was the artist's collage of common non-art objects. le corbusier's ideas were immediately put to use by gropius and others 91 in germany, where before the first world war there had been an attempt to rally a new architecture around the word sachlichkeit. the results had been disappointing. in practice, sachlich might describe a perfectly ordinary house with some unexpected doric columns at the entrance and unusual neobiedermeier interiors. it was at the entrance and in the interiors of an ordinary house that some art nouveau filigree would have indicated, a few years before, a different progressive ideological allegiance. biedermeier was pursued for its simplicity and cleanness, not for the "commonness" implied in derogatory usages of the name. occasionally this prewar sachlichkeit involved the direct imitation of machine forms in building, but a strong traditional hierarchy of genres in architectural thought made this practice strictly inappropriate for anything . . ....... ... •• • • 0 ... . ..... :.. • ,flo fig. 4 le corbusier, drawing for the interior of a house, 1922. but factories or other rather utilitarian building. it is incorrect to speak of "modern architecture" at all in ,germany (that is, building of all types, from factories to churches, made to express a unitary image of modernity through a canonlcal vocabulary of simple, rectangular, machine forms) until this hierarchy of genres broke down. it did not give way even in the work of gropius and the bauhaus until 1925, and then under the impact of le corbusier. the dream of an architecture expressive of an utterly new world, experienced vitally and instinctively, not statically and reflectively, was very old, but means of realizing the dream were late in coming. for gropius, the cultural salvation of mankind depended on adherence to the achievements of the new architecture, but other leading architects quickly became bored with the ideals of the great campaign, while the plodding followers carried its results over most of the globe. 92 the buildings themselves, "masterpieces of the twenties," first touted fon, their universality and rationality, aged poorly. 'they are again fascinating today, but fascinating as the most highly calculated of fine-art, aesthetic objects! they no longer exude modernity, and their effects seem more delicate than dynamic-change a color from white to buff, or close the window shades, and the architectural effect is utterly changed. in short, the radical compositional methods and the new millennial iconology did not rid architecture of an old and persistent ailment: aestheticism. since the 1850's, when a few architects first departed from established classical or medieval vocabularies, original creations and novel devices had raised questions of credibility, taste, and tradition that could not be answered in the old ways. designs seemed to call for painterly evaluations which even today have as yet no established place in architectural thought. '13 10 a 221 140 1& fig.5 le corbusier, le modulor, 1950. two interlocking scales of dimensions are based on fibonacci series expansions from the "golden ratio." the particular choices made by architects in the twenties made them especially vulnerable to aestheticism. like contemporary artists in other fields, they believed themselves to be past "the end of a mimetic tradition." the only valid expression would be totally new. their choices, machine objectivity, modernity, "the spirit of the times," were all vague concepts of higher generality than the particular use of the buildings. but in architecture, despite the collapse of other traditions, buildings always tend to be mimetic of use. the aestheticism of the twenties, then, is precisely that the symbolism of the buildings often bore no relation to their use. the collision of the two is the anomaly of the period. le corbusier's own later works and books may be the best criticism of the modernist program. from the thirties on he returned to composition of mass and space in more distinct pieces. his buildings became more decisively mimetic of use. with their eccentrically personal sculptural effects, the buildings could no longer be viewed as "ordinary life" transformed into art. his formal theory of proportion, le modular, which appeared only in 1950, 93 is the first in the history of architecture to propose scales of fixed measurements suitable for the dimensions of the human body (figs. 5-6). all previous systems had dealt in ideal ratios which the designer could apply at any absolute size. le modulor speaks implicitly for an empathetic response to the object in the observer. one can doubt that it is these modular scales of measurement that give his buildings (at chandigarh, for example) an empathetic quality, but few would deny that these buildings have this quality to an extraordinary degree. in this the late buildings are utterly different from his earlier collages of common objects. fig. 6 le corbusier, le modulor. an illustration of the suitability of the of dimensions to human needs. the best designers today feel that the attempts to liberate design from the limitations of the set academic "piece" (symbolized in germany by the insistence on the word baukunst in place of architektur) resulted in a program with its own severe, inherent limitations. therefore, they are again open to all the possibilities evolved in the past for the designing of objects, isolated or common. notes 1 paul frankl, "the secrets of the medieval masons, with an explanation of stornaloco's formula by erwin panofsky," art bulletin, 27:46-60 (1945). 2 in the imperial roman period standard measures were enforced and considerable use, was obviously made of planning on paper. we know also that charlemagne tried to standardize measures throughout his empire and that he was successful enough so that the "ideal" plan for the monastery of st. gall, developed in 816 and 817, was recorded in a modular drawing on parchment based on a scale of one sixteenth of one carolingian inch on the drawing equal to one carolingian foot of the building. see walter horn and ernst born, "the 'dimensional inconsistencies' of the plan of saint gall and the problem of the scale of the plan," art bulletin, 48: 285-308 (1966). evidence from later centuries, however, suggests that the technique of scale drawing was abandoned. 3 maria velte, die anwendung der quadratur und triangulatur bei der grundund aufrissgestaltung der gotischen kirchen, (basel, 1951). 94 4 james s. ackerman, "'ars sine scientia nihil est,' gothic theqry of architecture at the cathedral of miian," art bulletin, 31 :85-111 (1949). 5 erwin panofsky, gothic architecture and scholasticism (latrobe, 1951). otto von simson, the gothic cathedral (london, 1956). the use of these terms derives from panofsky's introductory essay in studies in iconology: humanistic themes in the art of the renaissance (new york, 1939), later published as "iconography and iconology: an introduction to the study of renaissance art," in meaning in the visual arts (garden city, 1955). panofsky distinguishes routine identification of the meaning of conventional motifs in art (iconography) from the "synthetic" analysis of the fundamental symbolic values of works of art in broad cultural contexts (iconology). his pursuit of this distinction between sign-language and nonconventional symbols may have originated in his contact with ernst cassirer at the warburg institute in hamburg where cassirer worked on the second volume, "mythical thought," of his philosophie der symbolischen formen (berlin, 1925) .. the earlier volume (1923) was a study oflanguage. it could be wished that studies in iconology would develop into a psychoanalysis of form in art which could carry our understanding of "meaning" far beyond, for example, the study of leitmotive in music, the identifying attributes of gods or saints .in art, or the typology of buildings in architecture. unfortunately, in art history proper, no really new analytic methods, corresponding to the suggestions in cassirer's work, have been evolved. the tendency today is to announce any study which delves into cultural contexts, in the tradition ofthe warburg institute, as "iconology." summaries of the field are provided by jan bialostocki, "iconography and iconology," encyclopedia of world art and by william s. heckscher, "the genesis of iconology," stit und tjberliejerung in tier kunst des abendlandes, bd. iii theorien und probleme, akten des 21. lnternationalen kongressfiir kunstgeschichte in bonn 1964 (berlin, 1967), pp. 239-61. 6 rudolfwittkower, architectural principles in the age ofhumanism (london, 1949, third ed. 1962). 7 erwin panofsky, "die perspektive als 'symbolische form'," vortriige der bibliothek warburg (1924-25), pp. 258-330. 8 williamjordy, "the symbolic essence of modern european architecture and its continuing influence," journal of the society of architectural historians 22: 177-87 (1963). arnold berleant, music as sound and idea despite the serious obstacles that stand in the way of discussing such questions as what constitutes a piece of music, the papers by miss carpenter and professor crocker deal sensitively with the issue and make useful and important observations. my comments are intended to assist in clarifying and furthering these discussions. let me proceed by identifying and then applying two demands that this sort of question calls forth, the first conceptual and the second substantive. there is opportunity here to develop only some conceptual suggestions, and i shall merely be able to indicate the direction in which a substantive contribution might proceed. when one faces the task of talking about music, as about any art, one encounters a double dilemma. either you remain silent and safe, or you make use of words which, as a foreign medium that is used here primarily for a nonaesthetic end, must necessarily differ in kind from the art one is speaking of. if you do elect to communicate, you run headlong into a different problem, 95 an annotated translation of moriz rosenthal) s franz liszt, memories and reflections elise braun barnett introduction otto deri often used to discuss programs for piano recitals with me. more than once he expressed surprise that the late piano compositions of liszt were performed only rarely. he recommended their serious study since, as he pointed out, in these pieces liszt's conception of melody, rhythm, and harmony are quite novel and anticipate debussy, ravel, and bartok. these discussions came to mind when a friend of mine, mrs. oscar kanner, a relative of moriz rosenthal,! showed me an article by the pianist entitled "franz liszt, memories and reflections," which had appeared in a 1911 issue of the journal die musik,2 and also a handwritten, unpublished autobiography written in new york during the last years of rosenthal's life, 1940 to 1946. rosenthal's concerts in europe and america are still remembered by the older generation. his musical conceptions, emotions projected on the piano with an amazing technique, remain an unforgettable experience. he is also remembered as having been highly cultivated, witty, and sometimes sarcastic. his skill in writing is less known, but his autobiography and essays reveal a most refined, fluent, and vivid german style. he is able to conjure up the "golden days," when unity of form and content was appreciated. it is my hope that the following annotated translation of rosenthal's article will provide a worthy tribute to the memory of otto deri. translation in october of 1876, as a youngster of thirteen, i played for franz liszt during one of his frequent visits to the schottenhof in vienna,3 and i was admitted to his much envied entourage as perhaps the youngest of his disciples. at that time his highly promising evaluation sounded like words of magic which seemed to open wide the gates of the future and art, and i followed him, the great magician, to weimar, rome, and tivoli, where he stayed at the villa d'este as a guest of cardinal hohenlohe. i usually found liszt surrounded by his flock of faithful students and admirers. he moved in their midst with the benevolence and grandezza of a ruling sovereign. his gentlemanly, brilliant appearance always produced a fascinating effect, whether he was engagingly amiable or, occasionally, critical and witty. he appeared to me totally different, in a warmer, highly artistic light in tivoli near rome, where i was fortunate to be his only student and to receive daily instruction in the fall of 1878. every afternoon i appeared at the villa d'este, where i found the master composing either in his study or 29 sometimes on the terrace, where he was gazing forlornly into the blue. the glowing roman autumn, the picturesque beauty of the area, the master's noble instruction-all these things blended into an ecstasy which i still feel today. what was especially interesting in his teaching was his clarification of musical structure, his emphasis on hidden subtleties, and his explanation of the historical relation of each work to the evolution of art, for he looked at everything with the eye of a creator. when i played for him the first etude from opus 10 by chopin, he remarked: "gounod has composed a 'meditation' to the first prelude of bach's well tempered clavier. one day i would like to write a countermelody to this study, but it would be a 'jubilate' and not a 'meditation.''' he had boundless admiration for chopin, and once when we were talking about the dioscuri of the romantic era, he commented in his quick-witted way: "schumann is more broad-shouldered, but chopin is taller." with respect to contemporary music, the russians interested him because of their modern orientation in harmony and instrumentation. he thought very highly of camille saint-saens and told of his marvels as an organist.4 rubinstein, in spite of his great inventive faculties, seemed to liszt to be too unconcerned and casual. "we are no geniuses, we have to work," he often remarked humorously when the compositions of the russian master were played to him.5 brahms he described as "not exciting and very hygienic."6 nevertheless, when i brought the paganini variations to him soon afterwards, he praised their polyrhythm and said: "they are better than my paganini etudes; however, they were written much later and after knowing mine."7 some months later, shortly before i concertized in paris and st. petersburg, he asked me to play for him rafael joseffy's second danse-arabesque,8 which he liked very much because of its graceful melody and harmonic delicacy. he improvised on the main theme in an ingenious way and then performed compositions by schubert, as well as the etude in c# minor of op. 25 and several preludes of chopin, with such tenderness and boldness of feeling and expression that even six years later i mentioned to the master the unforgettable impression which his playing had made upon me. with a modesty that only a liszt could permit himself, he said with a smile: "one always exaggerated the quality of my playing a little." my memories take me to the year 1884. i had not seen liszt for years. i had heard from many musicians and critics that his compositions were to be considered mere farces and that the best one could attribute to him was a certain talent for brilliant piano transcriptions, vide the second hungarian rhapsody! these vehement attacks produced in me the opposite effect. i thought with enthusiasm of mazeppa's death ride, of tasso's triumph, of the transcendental etudes, of the bacchic passion of the mephisto waltz, that lisztian mephisto who appears in the piece as the ever-affirming spirit. soon the old pied piper had brought me under his magic spell again. i was seized 30 with an irresistible longing to see and hear him again before it was too late. i traveled to weimar but met him already in leipzig, where he had come to hear the opera helianthus by goldschmidt.9 the master received me with his old affection and love and suggested that i play the six-pronged monster called hexameron10 as an 'hors d'oeuvre' for the beginning of the lucullian music dinners which his host of students prepared for him twice a week. the number of great talents who assembled under his banner (some of whom were to achieve great fame in europe) had increased considerably since 1878. i mention here the names of ansorge, friedheim, lutter, reisenauer, sauer, siloti, van de sandt, weingartner. they were joined later by lamond, stavenhagen, and thoman.ll the crowd of mediocre students had also grown alarmingly, especially thefeminini generis; they surrounded the master like a swarm of mosquitoes, and he tolerated them with an inexplicable gentleness.12 the names of some of those for whom he did not care had slipped his memory completely, and he called them by their native country. "now play your sonata, norway," he would say, for instance. sometimes he waved me into the adjoining room and asked: "what is the name of the lady who is playing just now?" and after i told him her name, he shrugged his shoulders contemptuously or cried out, "holy smoke!" frequently he asked us to play new pieces prima vista.13 on such occasions many students carefully stayed near the door from whence they could retreat, if necessary, a retreat which was not exactly brave, but one that was as ingenious as that of general moreau ... .14 when one of the more "important" students performed the "ride of the valkyries" in the arrangement by tausig,15 he said to me in a low voice: "when tausig played this piece for me the first time, i was afraid that he would break the piano strings. in the case of this gentleman, that fear seems unfounded." it was the pride of a superior, stronger individuality which brought forth these words. he imagined himself in passionate youthfulness, tossing the "ride of the valkyries" and the "magic fire spell" down to his audience from the concert podium .... what were the effects which the young liszt produced in his audiences, and how did he achieve them? when cortez was conquering mexico, he aimed his firearms at the indians. they took off in wild flight, because they believed that the white men were gods, since they evidently could command lightning and thunder. it did not occur to any of these children of nature to examine and calculate the caliber and strength of the firearms. in the beginning they submitted in awe to the superior culture of old europe. when liszt, after an interval of several years, stepped before the parisian public in 1834, the technical and artistic abilities which he commanded were so superior that the audience could not help surrendering without reservation to his phenomenal appearance. hardly anyone at that time was able to judge how technically perfect his playing was, a technique which was handed down to us through his transcriptions. there were no points of comparison, and most of the compositions he performed were published only later. were liszt's innovations really stimulated by paganini? i realize that all 31 biographies share this point of view, and that liszt did not contradict it. however, if one considers the effects with which paganini fascinated his audiences, one finds that they cannot be transferred to the piano. indeed, they have no relation to the nature of this instrument. the rapid raising and lowering of the pitch ofthe strings, the sound effects of the pizzicatos, and the passages consisting of alternating coll'arco and pizzicato tones (as they occur, for instance, in the "non piu mesta" variations),16 the flute-like tones in double stops, etc., have no counterpart in piano playing. they could only intensify the pianist's ambition greatly but were not able to open up new vistas for his creativity. these effects were more dazzling and exciting on the violin but, at the same time, of a more superficial nature. under these circumstances, should liszt, who, in his spiritual and musical importance towered high above the genoese, owe so much to him and to no one else? i will answer this question without reservation. in the year 1830, at the age of twenty, chopin had come to paris, ignorant of the ways of the world, amiable and modest, but as the creator of an irresistible phalanx of etudes, two concertos, his don giovanni variations, the polish fantasy, and other works which broke all the limits of traditional technique and which, through their spiritual content, were to found a new era in art. in the first of his etudes, dedicated to liszt, we find for the first time harmonies and passages in widely-stretched finger positions in strict legato; in his op. 25, no.6, for the first time, double thirds played with a most original, revolutionary fingering; and a previously quite unheard-of "con bravura" technique of skips in his don giovanni variations (which schumann later used in the «paganini" section of the carnaval). and, moreover, there are new possibilities for the left hand in the same work, as well as in both of his c minor etudes, and grandiose climaxes which are full of volcanic passion, although they are fashioned with iron logic. at this point, one needs only to compare the great transcendental etude no. 10 in f minor and the arpeggiated chords of the magnificent harmonies du soir by liszt with the previously published etudes in f minor and major of op. 10 by chopin to see the many stimuli liszt had received from the genius of chopin, in spite of the former's originality. liszt, however, appears as an innovator and pioneer in the orchestral effects of his transcriptions for the piano, a progeny which was not to find any epigone. a native instrument, the cimbalom, probably gave him the idea to distribute whole octave passages and runs in both hands in such a way that each hand plays alternate notes. this offered the performer possibilities of enormous strength and explosions of speed. liszt matchlessly builds up tonal climaxes to their utmost brilliance and, in a splendid manner, thunderously projects the entire orchestral mass onto the keyboard. "the piano glows and sparkles under its master," wrote schumann. this wonderful musician and poet did not report only about the boldness and power of liszt's playing but also about the enchanting delicacy, which schumann appreciated even more. and it was just this delicacy which the master retained in his ripe old age. 32 pieces such as his liebestraum and consolations still exuded a fascinating charm. they seemed like a sublime sacrificial haze which rises, then drifts away .... yet sometimes he presented one or more works from his very last period of composition in which the heartfelt sounds, expressing his deepest beliefs and convictions, now and then lapsed into the falsetto of an almost childish naivete. i heard him in public only once, as a matter off act in 1880 in vienna. if i am not mistaken, it was an evening put on by the wagner society, and the bosendorfer saal was filled to capacity with the most elegant viennese audience. the platform was decorated with flowers; everywhere one saw the dazzling sparkle of precious jewels and the eyes of beautiful women-these were the surroundings which liszt, as a man of thirty, had loved for his then still very worldly art. all this disappeared completely as the master stepped onto the stage and sounded the first measures of his au lac de wallenstadt! over the moonlit, silvery lake of magic glided the boat, escaping the troubled waters of this world and pressing toward purer springs.17 the master appeared like a high priest of music as, in a reverent trance, he let the last measures fade away. he responded to the enraptured pleadings of his listeners with an improvisation of the chopin-liszt chant polonais in major, whose printed edition he embellished, moreover, with the most delicate fiorituras that glistened like a rain of pearls. there is a big step from the poet and singer of au lac de wallenstadt to the sharp, ironic franz liszt. nevertheless, before i touch on the excellent features and minor weaknesses of his compositional style, allow me to mention an episode which shows the master as a man of the world, a man possessing an ingenious superiority. the scene is the tonkunstlerverein in vienna, in the year 1885, i believe. rarely had a small salon seen a meeting of a triumvirate of such significance: brahms, liszt, and rubinstein at one table. and since they were sitting near one another, a stimulating and interesting conversation could have developed easily, but for reasons unknown to me it did not. when in the course of the evening a neighbor of rubinstein's asked him for an autograph, the titan of the piano drew from his pocket a calling card and handed it to her. the peculiar "autograph" was passed on to liszt, who wrote below the printed name of rubinstein: "et son admirateur f. liszt." this was only a lever de rideau. a very pretty and well-known pianist, whose ambitions were higher-reaching still, and who was eager to cut a lock from each of the three "world-famous" men as a souvenir, approached anton rubinstein, clanked her scissors, and uttered her request persuasively in the most tender sounds of their mutual native country. rubinstein, who in his opera nero18 had already proved his aversion to any cruel emotion and the extreme kindliness of his character, bent his head to the beautiful petitioner. with the sails of hope billowed by fresh breezes, she turned to liszt, who said with an indulgent bow and a sardonic smile: "samson and dalila! but do not fear, madame; i shall not knock down the pillars of your conjugal happiness." somewhat derailed but still not quite crushed, dalila intruded vehemently on master brahms. but he wholeheartedly declined 33 such antiquated homage offaded cliches and tried to keep her offwith words and gesticulations-and hurt his finger on the curl-guillotine. embarrassed silence followed, and a chilly breeze blew over the assembly. presently the music publisher albert gutmann hastened along with a glass of water, caught a few drops of blood, and exclaimed with pathos: "whoever tastes of this blood will understand hanslick's language!" the situation was saved. on the way home 1 overheard a great musician say to a young pianist, since he evidently thought that the homage of the evening was misdirected: "i always have the feeling that those old composers like lachner19 and liszt will all die about the same time." the speaker was, as 1 said, a great musician, johannes brahms-but the parallel sounded worse than parallel fifths, and the double stop was wrong. lachner is dead, but it seems to me that liszt becomes more and more alive and that the flock of his followers grows daily. 1 confess candidly that his favorite problem, namely to condense the multi movement symphony into a one-movement form, does not seem to me to be successfully solved at all times. the basic theme may lend wings to liszt's imagination, but it hinders him when he works out a composition, and (as with the big mazeppa etudes) paralyzing the musical effect, it causes the composer to take a desperate step: to give the poetic program a new meaning or sometimes even to overthrow it, as liszt did in the ideals, taken from schiller.2o liszt's imagination, also, does not always flow in a free and proud current, as with the heroes of the classical and romantic periods, and his astounding harmonic experiments do not always make the grade. but in many of his works one can hear the winged spirit of a genius and, above all, one feels the spell of an individual and magnetic personality. how remarkable and full of contrasts are the life and work of that ingenious man! the most ambitious virtuoso, he abdicated at the zenith of his fame.21 the most illustrious, worldly artist of his time, he knelt down at the feet of the catholic church.22 he wrote masses and oratorios which, according to his own words, he created by praying rather than composing. but he also seduced and enticed with his sensual mephisto waltz, with his sinful transcriptions, and with the blinding fireworks of his ungodly genius. however, he always served faithfully the progress of true art, furthered newcomers, and thought ofhimselfleast. with his mastery he intoxicated others and gave happiness to the world. we, his disciples, who were permitted to ripen the fruits of our diligence under the rays of his genius, who were deeply sensitive to his lofty mind, preserve his memory as an indestructible possession. notes 1 moriz rosenthal was born in lwow (lemberg), poland, in 1862 and died in new york in 1946. he studied piano with karol mikuli from 1872 to 1874 in lwow, with rafael joseffy from 1874 to 1876 in vienna, and with liszt from 1876 to 1878 in vienna, rome, and weimar. he undertook concert tours all over europe, including russia. his first american tour was in 1888, and he settled in the states permanently in 1937. he taught piano at ilie curtis institute in philadelphia, and his pupils include robert goldsand and charles rosen. 34 2 moriz rosenthal, "franz liszt, erinnerungen und betrachtungen," die musik (1911) band 57, 11: 46-51. 3 rosenthal had seen liszt before playing for him in 1876. he describes the event in his autobiography: and finally the day, or rather, the evening arrived when i saw him, the great, the magnificent, the invincible franz liszt! frau toni rab, one of his students from graz, was making her debut in the biisendorfer saal. shortly before the official beginning, which was set for 7: 30, there arose a whispering, a murmuring, a rustling. ludwig biisendorfer, the piano maker, as he liked to be called, appears at the entrance of the hall, makes his way through the surging, curious audience, and leads a tall, slim, white-haired man with an aquiline profile and jovian glance to his seat of honor bedecked with wreaths. a storm of applause wells up, liszt declines it amiably, points to his pupil. his mere presence lends magical splendor to her debut. but the ovations of the audience are brought under control only after the master has appeared four times on the platform to acknowledge the applause. according to professor p. ciilestin rapf, o.s.b., archivist and librarian of the schottenstift, liszt lived in one of the buildings of the schottenhof, in the apartment of relatives. he never stayed in the schottenhof convent, however. 4 in 1876 liszt transcribed saint-saens's danse macabre, op. 40, for the piano. the latter had composed it originally as a song and, in 1874, as a symphonic poem. liszt also conducted the first performance of samson et dalila at weimar in 1877. 5 speaking about liszt, rubinstein described their reunion in 1871 as follows: "we met as old friends sincerely attached to each other. i knew his faults (a certain pomposity of manner for one thing) but always esteemed him as a great performer-a performer-virtuoso, indeed, but no composer." see harold c. schonberg, the great pianists (new york, 1963), p. 255. 6 the first meeting of liszt and brahms took place in weimar in 1853. brahms visited liszt, who was surrounded by musicians, pupils, and admirers. the former felt himself to be out of place, though liszt seems to have been very kind to him. in 1860 brahms was one of the organizers and signers of a publication which, in strong words, denounced the musical tendencies of the so-called "neudeutsche scbule" and was obviously attacking wagner and liszt. 7 the same theme by paganini in a minor is used by liszt and brahms for variations. hanslick described rosenthal's playing of the brahms set as follows: the paganini variations (on the last of the twenty-four capriccios) suggest a bold campaign of discovery and conquest in the field of piano virtuosity, an experiment in the capacities and possibilities of the instrument. to report that rosenthal mastered them faultlessly, and with utter security and freedom, is to rank him automatically among the first pianists of the time .... rosenthal's modest bearing and his quiet and unaffected manner at the piano merit special praise. see eduard hanslick, vienna's golden rears if music 1850-1900, trans. and ed. henry pleasants iii (new york, 1950), pp. 276-77. 8 rafael joseffy was born in hunfalu, hungary, in 1852. he died in new york in 1915. a pianist, teacher, editor, and arranger, he composed many pieces for the piano. he spent the summers of 1870 and 1871 with liszt in weimar. 9 adalbert von goldschmidt was born in vienna and died there in 1906. he composed helianthus to his own libretto. the work was performed for the first time in leipzig in 1884. 10 the hexameron was a collective piano work written in 1837 for a charity concert and based on the march from bellini's i puritani. the participating composers were chopin, pixis, thalberg, czerny, herz, and liszt; each contributed a variation. liszt also wrote the introduction, the piano arrangement of the theme, the bridge passages between the variations, and the finale. 11 konrad ansorge was born in berlin in 1862 and died there in 1930. a pianist, composer, and teacher, he studied with liszt from 1885 to 1886. arthur friedheim was born in st. 35 petersburg in 1859 and died in new york in 1932. he was a pianist, composer, teacher, and editor, and studied with liszt in rome from 1880 to 1882 and then in weimar for six years. heinrich lutter, born in hannover in 1858, died there in 1937. a pianist, composer of chamber music, and teacher, he studied with liszt in weimar and budapest. alfred reisenauer was born in konigsberg in 1863 and died in liebau in 1907. he was a pianist and composer and studied with liszt beginning in 1874. he made his debut under liszt about 1880 in rome. emil sauer, born in hamburg in 1862, died in vienna in 1942. a pianist, composer, and teacher, he is believed to have studied with liszt for only a few months. alexander siloti was born in kharkov, russia, in 1863 and died in new york in 1945. a pianist, composer, and teacher, he studied with liszt in weimar from 1883 to 1886. maximilian van de sandt was born in rotterdam in 1863 and died in cologne in 1934. a composer and pianist, he studied with liszt during the last three years of the latter's life. paul felix weingartner was born in zara, dalmatia, in 1863. he died in winterthur in 1942. a conductor, composer, and editor, he was with liszt in 1883 in weimar. frederic lamond was born in glasgow in 1868 and died in sterling in 1948. he was a pianist, violinist, and organist, and studied with liszt in weimar and rome from 1885 to 1886. bernard stavenhagen was born in greiz, germany, in 1862. he died in 1914 in geneva and was one ofliszt's last pupils. he was also present when liszt died. stefan thoman was born in hommona, hungary, and died in budapest in 1940. he studied piano with liszt and counted bartok, dohminyi, and fritz reiner among his students. 12 august gollerich, a liszt pupil and biographer, once counted 225 male and 184 female students in liszt's entourage. 13 one participant in the weimar master class, around 1880, described liszt's sightreading ability as follows: his sight-reading of difficult manuscript compositions, which were brought to him on different occasions, was simply marvelous. he would listen to the player for a minute or two with a smile which betrayed a sort of scornful sense of absolute mastery, and then he would sit down and execute the most intricate passages with as much ease as if they were the abc of a language, every syllable, every word of which was familiar to him. what astonished and impressed me most was not so much that his fingers were responsive to every motion of his mind; i wondered at the mind, which one felt instinctively was gifted with the power of taking in at a rapid glance every possible variety of passage which has ever been written for the pianoforte. his glance seemed to be at once penetrative and allembracing. he thought it out at once with clearness and rapidity. see bettina walker, my musical experiences (new york, 1893), p. 108. 14 jean victor marie moreau was a republican general during the french revolutionary wars. his skillful retreat before archduke charles was considered a model for such operations. 15 carl tausig was born in warsaw in 1841 and died in leipzig in 1871. a pianist, composer, and arranger, he was with liszt in weimar in 1855. 16 paganini's variations are based on "non pili mesta" from rossini's opera la cenerentola. 17 au lac de wallenstadt bears a quotation from byron's childe harold: ... thy contrasted lake, with the wild world i dwell in, is a thing which warms me, with its stillness, to forsake earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. countess d'algoult wrote in her memoirs: "the shores of lake wallenstadt kept us for a long time. there franz wrote for me a melancholy harmony, imitative of the sigh of the waves and the cadence of the oars, which i have never been able to hear without weeping." see humphrey searle, the music of liszt, 2nd rev. ed. (new york, 1966), pp. 23-26. 18 nero is an opera in four acts on a libretto by jules barbier. it was written for the paris opera in 1876 but was not performed there, to rubinstein's disappointment. the premiere took place in hamburg in 1879. later the work was performed in most of the european opera houses but has not been kept in the repertoire. 36 19 franz lachner was born in rain, germany, in 1803 and died in munich in 1890. a conductor and composer, he was highly esteemed during his lifetime. 20 the work, inspired by a poem of schiller, was written in 1859 for the consecration of the goethe-schiller monument in weimar. parts of schiller's poem are inserted in the score. before the last slow movement liszt writes: "the firm adhesion to and therewith the ceaseless cooperation with the ideal is the highest aim of life on earth. it was in this sense that i took the liberty to supplement schiller's poem by adding as closing apotheosis the jubilant confirmatory resumption of the motive which had gone before the first part." 21 liszt's last public concert as a piano virtuoso was given in elisabetgrad, now stalingrad, in october 1847. 22 the wish to become a priest can be traced in liszt's life from his early youth. in 1827, before the death of his father, he intended to join the church, but during the following years his mother discouraged him from taking this step. he had religious instruction from 1833 to 1834, when he stayed with the abbe lamennais. in 1863 liszt entered the oratory of the madonna del rosario in monte mario. two years later he received the tonsure and took three minor orders. in 1868 don antonio solfanelli instructed liszt in religion, and in 1879 the latter became an honorary canon of st. albano in rome. 37 structural revisions in the string quartets opus 4i of robert schumann linda e. correll the study of sketches affords many insights into the compositional process. schumann's sketches for the three string quartets op. 41 are particularly noteworthy because they represent an attempt to solve problems that the large, abstract forms presented to composers of the second quarter of the 19th century. a comparison of the sketches with the printed editions of these quartets immediately reveals schumann's concern with elements of structure. the present study attempts to illustrate this structural concern within the framework provided by schumann's sketching techniques in general. the manuscript material drawn upon constitutes two sets of schumann autographs-the sketches1 and the fair copy.2 however, the quartets appear to be the subject of several entries in schumann's haushaltbilcher,3 and it is probable that a set of preliminary sketches also exists.4 schumann wrote the op. 41 quartets in june and july of 1842. according to entries in the haushaltbuch,5 in april and may of that year schumann studied quartets by mozart, beethoven and haydn. on june 2 he began "quartet essays,"6 and on june 4 he began composition ofop 41/1. gerald abraham states that the haushriltbuch indicates simultaneous composition of the first two quartets. 7 the autograph fair copies bear the following dates: op. 41/1, june 24, 1842; op. 41/2, july 5,1842; op. 41/3, july 22, 1842. the sketches are not dated systematically, but when dates are present they serve to suggest that schumann sketched at a rapid pace, apparently with well defined goals. for example, the first two movements of op. 41/1 were finished on june 5. in all likelihood the first two quartets were completely sketched before schumann began the fair copy ofop. 41/1. the date of july 4 at the end of the first-movement sketch ofop. 41/3 shows the composition of that quartet to be concurrent with the preparation of the fair copy ofop. 41/2. the overlap implied by this chronology, coupled with the fact that multiple drafts of passages are rare, supports the assumption that the present sketches are not first drafts, but represent a somewhat later stage of composition. 8 schumann's sure grasp of the large formal outlines ofthe individual movements is indicated in the methods of musical shorthand that he employed. details are seldom crystallized, but each movement is fully mapped out. the sketches are written -predominantly in piano score, often with just melody and bass notated. in many instances only the melody is sketched (in whatever voice it may happen to occur). the plans for the general length of sections within movements often contain empty bars that were left to be filled in later. the material that consequently fills these bars is usually of a transitional, developmental, or modulatory nature; thus schumann post87 pones many harmonic decisions. occasionally bars are numbered and the numbers are then written over empty bars later in the sketch to minimize the task of writing out repeated passages. repetitions are also indicated, especially in sonata-form movements, by the use of capital letters. these occur at both ends of the principal key area of the exposition, and the recapitulation merely indicates that the material von a-b should be inserted. in the first movement ofop. 41/1, the recapitulation constitutes such a close parallel to the exposition, that after the transitional passage a second set of capital letters directs that the secondary material should be repeated a fourth higher (quadro hoher). in one instance (op. 41/3, finale) schumann writes memoranda for successive tonal areas quite far in advance of their actual entries, presumably as an aid in tonal planning and modulation. the above methods are used throughout the sketches for op. 41. however, quartets 1 and 2 illustrate them in a more orderly fashion. quartet 3, evidently sketched more hastily, is less consistent in method, and the sketches for it are more fragmentary. the result is a greater number of structural changes from the sketch to the printed edition. the available sketches for op. 41 illustrate schumann's preoccupation with matters of form. this is not to suggest that the composer was not concerned with refinements in the content of the music. on the contrary, modifications in detail are numerous. however, a study of preliminary sketches would appear to be prerequisite to a meaningful evaluation of the growth and subsequent modification of thematic ideas. formal considerations, on the other hand, usually receive a later emphasis, and the present sketches clearly document this stage of the compositional process. for these reasons, in the following discussion alterations in detail are summarized and a more comprehensive approach applied to various types and stages of structural revision. the sketches to op. 41, in the true character of a working draft, often differ from the printed editions in matters of melodic detail, rhythmic patterns, and scoring. in fact, the slight changes that were later made, usually by the time of the fair copy, involve the vast majority of measures. the various musical elements appear to share equally in these revisions; altera-' tions in rhythm are just as common as alterations in pitch, while scoring and register changes abound. in those passages where rhythmic changes occur, the final version almost always substitutes more rhythmic uniformity for a tendency toward rhythmic variety in the sketch. this inclination toward a monorhythmic approach is particularly characteristic of schumann's later works, and to find its conscious application in 1842 is noteworthy. alterations in the melodic lines sometimes confirm this aspect of uniform rhythm. a particularly subtle example occurs in the third movement of op. 41/1 (example 1). with the exception of the third measure, the sketch and the printed edition are 88 identical. however, the presence of the suspension in the final version is consistent with the rhythmic feeling of first-beat suspensions so important for the entire passage. ex. lop. 41/1, 3rd mvt., mm. 4-11. sketch: i (==! #r it i i _::or i i i e=i i it runt?} i r=-a 0 j?r print: f: [' i e e' 1 i r changes in instrumentation seem to have been postponed until the time of the fair copy. although most of the sketches are written in piano score, several appear in full score, and often this scoring differs considerably from that of the fair copy. incidentally, most of the alterations made by schumann on the fair copy itself are concerned with matters of scoring. structural changes on the small scale are plentiful. they include many modifications in phrase lengths. single bars are inserted or omitted frequently in the sketches (changing irregular phrase lengths to regular, or vice versa). in several instances changes in phrase structure coincide with modifications of the melodic lines and serve to alter the effect of sequential passages. with respect to over-all structure, two general trends may be observed by comparing the sketches for op. 41 with the completed compositions: 1. most of the extensive alterations occur in transitional passages. 2. there are, with several exceptions, many more deletions from than additions to the final versions. large-scale formal modifications were made in the finales of op. 41/1 and op. 41/2. both were originally planned and designated as rondos in the sketches; both were evidently changed to sonata forms when the actual writing of these sketches began. the result in op. 41/1 is a rather unconventional sonata form in which the recapitulation (bars l52ff) begins with secondary material stated in the submediant (f major).9 the principal theme does not recur in the tonic (a minor) until bar 214, shortly before the coda. with this procedure the formal unity of the entire quartet is strengthened since the beginning of the recapitulation features synthesis, and at times, juxtaposition of the keys of f major and a minor/major-a most appropriate parallel to the beginning of the quartet where the intro89 duction, in a minor, leads to the allegro portion of the first movement in f major. thus the type of tonal duality that allows an f-majot first movement in this "a-minor" quartet is confirmed in the recapitulation of the finale. the finale of op. 41/2 is a more conventional sonata form, and the only indication (other than its designation) that it was planned as a rondo is the greater length of the original a period in the sketch. (this passage was crossed out in the sketch and evidently modified in the course of the composition.) occasionally in the final versions of the quartets the structural balance within a movement is significantly altered as a result of extensive reductions in the lengths of transitional passages. this has the effect of tightening the 90 ej(. 2 op. 41/1, 4th mvt., mrn. 148-15l. " i' j 11j. j v :j i 'if -jbi 'tf sf. 1 j-t:j 11.): ex. 3 op. 41/1, 4th mvt., mm.148ff. 1st version. jj,] j j 1\ j 1 j 1 i j j d p. j j v p-==== f ====-==== ::::=: * ij "j e i: fl .. i ... i. i v j la 1 j 1\ j j . j j . .... [j,] : '" v * these brackets are pre sent in the sketch". perhaps they indicate that schumann intended to delete the passage immediately. ex. 4 op. 41/3, 1st mvt., mm. 36ff, 1st version. ad ii 1rj, it : * [#j a" ii i tj [oj -it i,g [.j dj dj * : '"-.. ·r ----.. illegible 91 formal design and also reflacts schumann's predilection for abrupt tonal changes. the four-bar transition (bars 148-51) that occurs before the recapitulation in the last movement ofop. 41/1 is a case in point. the final version (example 2) features an ambiguity between, or perhaps a synthesis of, 0 minor and f minor (0 minor had been prepared in the eight preceding bars of the development). as a result, the resolution to f major at the beginning of the recapitulation is particularly effective. the additional sixteen bars of transition in the sketch (example 3) tend to weaken the tonal novelty of the recapitulation by placing premature emphasis upon the minor form of the submediant. f minor is implied for the entire twenty-bar length of the original transition (with the exception of the sequential tonicization of its flat-submediant, major). the arrival at f major merely seems to substitute the major mode for the minor. a similar situation, this time involving changes in the modulatory scheme, appears during the transition between the principal tonal areas of the first movement of ope 41/3 (bars 36-46 of the printed edition). here a substituex. 5 op. 41/3, 1st mvt., mm. 36-45. ," it. qj: . v 't · ., , , 1 1 t f ".fp "" " . . v ., · v' of or f /' 1i i q ... n_ -. --.. . · -t f sjip :.::=.--:-. : """i. lw /all l! -v i -= sf "" 1i : v iii'? -=:::;::::pt f::::. j." j i sf i b.,g.· "" -: . "r .. 92 tion of material took place, evidently at the time of the fair copy, since the entire passage is crossed out in the sketch but no alternative version provided. in the fair copy the passage is pasted over a section of the score. conceivably, schumann had at least one additional thought before achieving the final form. the ten bars in question were originally twenty-three in the sketch (example 4), and these constituted a more traditional continuation of the transition than that which appears in the final version. the theme is stated twice in the tonic (a major), then the final measure of the four-bar phrase is treated motivically and modulates through f# minor, eventually to arrive at the secondary tonal area, e major (bar 46 of the printed edition). the final version displays schumann's affinity for tonal juxtaposition (example 5). instead of a conventional modulation, c major enters immediately at bar 36 of the printed score (a neapolitan tonal relationship to the previous key in the transition-b major), and the final four bars of the transition (bars 42-45) modulate swiftly to the secondary area, e major. schumann's concern for conciseness is reflected in the passages cited above. it is significant to note that the deletions and substitutions were made in transitions, whereas additions and expansions seem, with one notable exception, to be confined to introductions and codas. one may surmise that the composer allowed himself to be more expansive primarily in those sections that did not affect fundamental formal design. the coda to the third movement of op. 41/2 appears to have been originally only four bars long (example 6). ex. 6 0p. 41/2, 3rd mvt., original coda. .. '" sketch: .. illegible schumann apparently sketched the coda in a version close to its final form at another time, since the page in the sketch that contains the coda is separated by several pages from its proper place. this second sketch recalls the theme of the trio, as does the coda of the printed edition, but lacks the cadential pizzicato of the final version. similarly, the introduction to the first movement of op. 41/3 must have occurred to schumann after he was well into the exposition, since it appears at the bottom of page 1 of the sketch. this introduction was originally eight bars long instead of the seven bars of the final version. the first bar (four additional beats of the opening chord) was crossed out in the fair copy. an interesting question arises concerning the proposed introduction to the first movement ofop. 41/2. dickinson states that the last four bars (bars 93 30-33) of the introduction to op. 41/1 were originally intended as the introduction to op. 41/2.10 however, in the sketch to op. 41/2 there is no hint of this proposed introduction. the passage occurs only in the sketch to op. 41/1 with the last two bars compressed into one. oddly enough, expanded to the four-bar length, it appears in the fair copy of op. 41/2 but is crossed out. it seems as if schumann considered establishing a melodic relationship between the two quartets. both quartets, incidentally, feature opening allegros in f major. in only one instance does an addition of musical material occur in the main body of a movement. at bars 113-23 in the finale of op. 41/3 the principal theme occurs in f major (the tonic of the movement is a major). there is no evidence of this passage in the sketch. while the tonal succession is not altered by the additional passage in f major, there is little doubt that the presence of this material adds considerably more weight to the region of the flat submediant major. f major, at this point, reinforces the tonal area of the immediately preceding quasi trio. consequently, this tonal area is firmly established as a distant structural goal from which later. statements of the principal theme (beginning in g major and a minor respectively) progress back toward the tonic. as a result, the traditional rondo procedurethat of presenting the principal theme in the tonic-already undermined in the preceding sections of the movement, seems from this point to be unequivocally abandoned. it is interesting to note that the sketch was closer to the rondo prototype, not only in the omission of this statement of the principal theme in f major, but also in the presentation of the theme in the a-major tonic at bars 65ff (in the final version the theme appears in minor at this point). the rondo-like character of the printed edition results primarily from the compartmentalization of the thematic material. it has not been the purpose of this study to attempt a critical appraisal of the op. 41 quartets. rather, analytical procedures have been employed in an effort to illustrate some of the methods that schumann used in achieving his structural objectives. it is evident that some movements, for example, the adagio of op. 41/1, required few changes. at the opposite pole is the hasty sketch of the finale of op. 41/3, where even the over-all form of the movement appeared in a tentative version. the literature on the composer is quite consistent in stating that schumann's talent was lyric rather than dramatic, and that his most inspired works were the early pianoforte pieces. even though boetticher's study of the manuscripts has shown that schumann made a considerable number of revisions in his early works,ll the fact that many of these works consist of a series of short pieces has served to perpetuate the older view that spontaneous, improvisatory composition was characteristic of schumann's early style. the extended works that originated during and after 1841 are often discussed from the standpoint of the composer's inability to cope adequately with the larger forms. it is this writer's opinion that such generalized criticism is not 94 completely fair to schumann, and that it cannot, with any degree of accuracy, apply in equal measure to the large number of works completed during these years. schumann's literary writings shqw that he thought a great deal about large-scale formal continuity.12 the gp. 41 revisions provide evidence that these thoughts were not confined to prose essays; in almost every instance the revised version represents the better reading. from the purely objective standpoint, however, the revisions have great value in that they illustrate the approach of an important 19th-century composer to the structural demands of the abstract forms. notes 1 forty-seven handwritten pages plus a title page dated leipzig, june 1842. the sketches were signed over at a later date by schumann to johannes brahms. they ultimately formed a portion of brahms's nachlass tl1at was acquired in 1907 by the preussische staatsbibliothek in berlin. today tl1ey are in tl1e musikabteilung of the deutsche staatsbibliothek in east berlin. 2 originally in the collection of oscar bondy, now in the possession ofrudolff. kallir of new york city. dr. kallir has given permission to the toscanini archive division of tl1e new york public library to microfilm his collection and for the present writer to study tl1e microfilm. 3 according to wolfgang boetticher, robert schumann. eirifuhrung in personlichkeit und werk (berlin, 1941), p. 626, tl1e haushaltbiicher were in the preussische staatsbibliothek, berlin, in 1941. presumably tl1ey are still tl1ere (deutsche staatsbibliothek). 4 since neither preliminary sketches nor the haushaltbiicher could be consulted by the present writer, secondary sources have had to be relied upon for information tl1at tl1ese manuscripts may contain. in some instances tl1e secondary sources specifically cite their sources of information, in otl1ers they are not so precise and it must be presumed tl1at they borrowed information eitl1er from each other or from tl1e schumann documents referred to above. 5 as quoted by gerald abraham in an editorial footnote to a. e. f. dickinson's essay "the chamber music," in schumann: a symposium (london, 1952), p. 139, footnote 1. 6 presumably tl1ese are preliminary sketches. 7 abraham, op. cit., p. 139, footnote 1. 8 preliminary sketches, including those of the thematic-working-out type, undoubtedly exist. if this is not tl1e case, boetticher (op. cit., pp. 568ff) is in error in calling bars 148-51 of tl1e fourth movement of op. 41/1 tl1e theme of tl1e rondo (tl1e movement was originally entitled rondo in the sketch). abraham follows boetticher in referring to tl1ese bars as tl1e rondo theme, and calls attention to tlle fact that this tl1eme is stated only once in the final form oftl1e movement (abraham, op. cit., p. 146, footnote 1). the passage, slightly expanded, occurs only once in tl1e sketch also, and at approximately the same place in tl1e movement; thus, tl1e fact that both writers call this the original theme suggests tl1e existence of earlier sketches. 9 the tonic of tl1e movement is a minor. in tl1e exposition the secondary tonal area was the relative major, c major. 19 dickinson, op. cit., p. 142. 11 boetticher, op. cit., pp. 521ff. an entire section of tl1e book is devoted to the sketches. 12 references to schumann's views of musical form are contained tl1roughout leon b. plantinga's schumann as critic (new haven and london, 1967). 95 repor t from indiana: inter-american conference of ethnomusicology and composition david a. sheldon le growing awareness of the contributions of our neighbors in latin america to the fields of musical composition and scholarship, as well as the sincere desire for active hemispheric cooperation and exchange in these areas, is indeed apparent in the work of the latin american music center and the archives of traditional music on the bloomington campus of indiana university. it comes as no surprise, then, that this university should take on the ambitious task of serving as host to the fourth general assembly of the inter-american music council (cidem), the first inter-american composers seminar, and the second inter-american conference on ethnomusicology. these meetings, which took place april 24-28 and involved over 110 participants and observers, were held in conjunction with the third spring festival of music of the americas presented by the latin american music center of indiana university. besides indiana university and cidem, the other sponsoring institutions were the music division of the pan-american union and the national music council of the united states. cidem, founded no more than a decade ago, has already been very active in establishing educational and research programs involving both north and latin america. the first interamerican conference on ethnomusicology was held two years ago in cartagena de indias, colombia, the papers from which were published by the pan-american union. at the suggestion of dr. george list, director of the archives of traditional music at indiana university, it was decided at that first meeting to hold the second conference at indiana university in 1965. in calling together a joint meeting with the first inter-american composers seminar, the chief goal in the planners' minds da vid a. sheldon is a doctoral student and graduate assistant in musicology at indiana university. 199 was to create an atmosphere where related problems could be discussed on an interdisciplinary, as well as inter-american, basis. in addition, there seemed to be the hope that the mere physical contact and active participation of the delegates might transcend political and professional boundaries, thus achieving a common understanding with regard to basic issues facing both groups. the director of the latin american music center at indiana university and general chairman and planner for the entire conference, professor juan orrego-salas, feels that if he is fortunate enough to participate in the planning of another joint meeting of this nature, he would like to see it expanded to represent music education, historical musicology, and the views of professional performers. such a full program does pose many problems as evidenced by this conference. because of the inevitable limitations of time, the composers, seminars and ethnomusicology conferences were unfortunately conducted simultaneously during the fourday period in which papers were given, except for one joint meeting of both groups. an invaluable aid to the delegates interested in both areas was the printed copies (in spanish and in english) of all the papers made available to the delegates before the respective sessions. a sincere attempt was made to overcome the language barriers during the round table discussions by having simultaneous translation with the aid of translators and earphones. for the most part successful, much was yet lost in the more rapid exchanges between participants. the discussion topics for the composers seminar centered around problems facing the contemporary composer of the americas. specific topics were: "the performance of new music," "the training of the composer," "the public and live music," and "state and private aid to music." a general consensus of opinion arose from these sessions that the basic problem of the contemporary composer lay in the area of the education of the public. while the composers from latin american countries were fairly well represented, major figures from north america were disappointingly few since most of those invited were unable to attend. in this respect the ethnomusicologists were in a much better position. representing the united states with papers were frank gillis, charles haywood, george list, alan merriam, bruno n ettl, and charles seeger. also participating were barbara krader, john mueller, willard rhodes, and nicolas slonim200 • • • sky. special mention should be made of frank gillis, associate director of the archives of traditional music at indiana university, who served as general chairman and host for all the ethnomusicology sessions. gilbert chase and rae korson, although listed in the program as participants, were unable to attend. of the sixteen papers given in the ethnomusicology conference (including the two given at the joint session), ten were presented by delegates from latin american countries. most of the latin american ethnomusicologists who gave papers at the first conference held in 1963 were again present. some newcomers were manuel danneman (chile), flor de maria rodriguez (uruguay), and l. h. correa de azevedo (brazil, now in paris for unesco). the general theme of the ethnomusicology conference was acculturation and musical traditions in the united states and latin america. this writer felt that the papers given by ethnom usicologists from the united states, especially those on north american subjects, were distinguished by a somewhat more sophisticated and highly developed methodology than were those given by the delegates from latin american countries. in addition, it was often evident in the papers dealing with latin american music that research had been conducted in virtually unplowed ground. while such pioneering is obviously necessary and must be begun by someone, this situation had the usual result of producing papers with very broad scopes and very tentative conclusions. on the other hand, although they might not have the advantage of the scholarly traditions in musicology and the social sciences to the extent that we do in this country, the latin american ethnomusicologists showed that they are quite capable of scholarship of a very high calibre. it is a pleasure to know that indiana university plans to publish in english all of the papers given at the inter-american conference . 201 \ editor-in-chief: adjunct editors: general editing: __ manager: reports-domestic: reports-foreign.: articles: dissertations: bibliographica: secretary: faculty advisor: neal zaslaw l. michael griffel joan long mary obelkevich margaret ross griffel alex "blid31y jay rahn emmanuel leemans . leonie rosenstiel isabelle emerson josephine mongiardo cooper susan testa ' shai bursztyn virginia papper denis stevens copyright © 1970, department of music columbia university, new york printed in great britain corresponding editors domestic i. n,i.", raymors daniel l. farber boston university, boston, mass. brandeis university, waltham, mass. university, providence, r.i. bryn mawr college, bryn mawr, pa. carnegie-mellon university, pittsburgh, pa. case western reserve university, cleveland, ohio' catholic university of america, washington, d.c. gitv ty of new v ork, bropklyn colle!!"e"bl:ookiyn, n.y. 11 •• vgcsr .-1' rj • ., '( •• i ltv: ueens-uollege, .l'iushmg, n.y. c." ..... r1;t3 roi§,w 1,1, l<orne i university, ithaca, . . florida state university, tallahassee, fla. harvard university, cambridge, indiana bloomington, ind., ''word knol j.;j},-a.j t'ls.g.ljl urt,¥.er,, .. .... al, ctiiebe,-, 'dna q 'm' h .. j.f t1.", . lvllchlgan .l:!;ast lansmg, ic. 1>i'w'i.,i, ,,}' new york university, new york, n.y. "i -" ohio state university, columbus, ohio princeton university, princeton, n.j. n.j. jlijlversi n ,..d j :state niversity f ew ork at buffalo, buffalo, n.y. thomas n. rushing tulane university, newcomb college, new orleans, la. i i/"...! ir ;0" rmrs:-i'o'itlriel waterman university of arizona, tuscon, ariz. !if,'ssmer<j;!it wo01fo", setty saliaeffer university of arkansas, fayetteville, ark. r,chard ev'ielovl • t:a',iiziili :8iijlson university of california, berkeley, calu:. $. vinh f.lo'jh 'marl, 8.1&il'ler university of california, davis, calif. k.sahe s'c.he /i /'otas f2t!otititjek university of california, riverside, calif. 'c.h.drj. a"j",v.s -&:ia"'me9, .if. . university of california, santa barbara, calif. mrs. ellen t. .. s university of chicago, chicago, ill. harian d. mcconnell university of colorado, boulder, col. lriii'iij f. j, -9a'jiel laesa university of hawaii, honolulu, hawaii mrs. miss mary tiffany university of illinois, urbana, ill. david lasocki university of iowa, iowa city, iowa 'orje. c. fof.e .... a'l q, gtlfsler university of kansas, lawrence, kan. lee patrick university of kentucky, lexington, ky. ,tach. ("."",for<! thomas stoner lfjupive!sity ofmaryland,,.colle1!'e . 'verl.h, .. m'fijpi'l l<:"r4pw4br.e,# &i ... sterling e. murray niverstty of michigan, ann arbor, ich . • ice ... charles 6. beeay of minnesota, /lgl linn griff.", -ear brolleek umverslty of north carolma, chapel hill, n.c. 01'\ f!rou,4tek r?) ..cor gillespie university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. mrs. rose mary allen university of oregon, eugene, ore. peter bloom university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. norris l. stephens university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. ema lee i .. wi", priscilla m. dr trelter university of rochester, eastman school of music, rochester, n.y. james wheat ba'''p/st:lyc paul marks murray charters mis. bellarily ilosier edgar j. lewis university of texas, austin, tex. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada university of wisconsin, madison, wisc. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. robert j. nicolosi jclitet h,qlfeq.,. caitrisaa bolster foreign kefi '.verael' ctifa1391 laszl6 somfai ladislav burlas o georges franck alan brown anna amalie abert reinhard gerlach don harran reiner kluge winfried kirsch hubert unverricht othmar wessely eberhard klemm mrs. olga mikl6ssy rita egger bernd baselt j. d. bergsagel horst heussner john c. g. waterhouse willem elders axel helmer se6irse bodley josephine m. mason niels martin jensen michael tilmouth georg borchardt -------;> anthony ford annemarie bragard andrej rijavec fan d. bent john steele washington university, st. louis, mo. -6'" yale university, new haven, f. lties1 l'abet't lmswig ttpiversiq(, bartok archives, budapest, hungary bratislava university, bratislava, czechoslovakia brussels, belgium vlrj'"i" } j cambridge university, cambridge, england christian-albrechts university, kiel, germany georg-august university, gottingen, germanx hebrew university, jerusalem, israel .):r,j "'0;) j." fijji.u! humboldt university, berlin, germany 24 h ql rej.es sf. johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany sqvf(olt' johannes gutenberg university, mainz, gennany i j / karl-franzens university, graz, austria karl marx university, leipzig, germany karlova university, prague, czechoslovakia leopold-franzens university, innsbruck, austria martin luther university, ha1ie-wittenb!!rg, germany oxford university, oxford, england phillips university, marburg, germany queens university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, ireland state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university college, dublin, ireland university of birmingham, birmingham, england university of 90penhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, gennany university of hull, yorkshire, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of otago, dunedin, new zealand -emarie bri'l'let t tpiversity gf pal!is; paris, t¥1'..j,ol14';.jpl!oa;ut:l,iisi.,..ip;:'''ioitj.lisi.,..if:lt:aajlp&.cee-.. __ richard marlowe ludwig finscher georgio pestelli ..j.-&. i'll! ael eifel! hans conradin ake berglund m. witte university of southampton, southampton, ei).gland university of the saarland, saarbriicken, germany university of turin, turin, italy university of vort, english defl&l'hnel'l:t, y 6re, eflgi:!t11s university of ziirich, ziirich, switzerland uppsala university, uppsala, sweden westfiilische willielms university, miinster, germany communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the university unless otherwise noted. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york (1\ # ernest d. may craig wright ivo supiclic f<1u'1 j nancy benvenga poil-hl'/ don harran ti 25 (34/ 36 reports from the domestic corresponding editors: events on eight american campuses princeton: bach research cambridge: rare music manuscripts at harvard from the foreign corresponding editors: zagreb: the institute of musicology london: berlioz's echoes zdenka e. fischmann ; israel: highlights of the year 1968-69 czechoslovakia: some musicological sources ilf/l./ georges franck /j.{l..rnj j. e. maddrell civ 57 ® budapest: third annual bartok conference announcements letters articles (b mensura and the rhythm of medieval monodic song hendrik vanderwerf @ concerning the measurability of medieval music michael horwath henrietta schavran (;t.) tebaldini, gnecchi, and strauss' '",."1"" dissertations edward leon kottick the music of the chansonnier cordiforme, paris, bibliotheque nationale 8 rothschild 2973 david e. crawford 102 thomas lee noblitt charles sutton! ® the motetti missales of the late 15th century eddie covington bass thematic procedures in the symphonies of berlioz bibliographica : i la! charles h. kaufmann ell!? marvin c. genuchi the life and music of jacob french (1754-1817), colonial american f.:":) . \ composer , p.tlf'tl,;' thomas f. heck \l.!..?j ricordi plate numbers in the earlier r--"" 19th century: a chronological survey r. l. e. foreman @l bibliography of writings on arnold bax neal zaslaw 140 free music periodicals 144 performance practices supplement 173 contributors {' the precise frequency with which certain style characteristics occur. instead, expressions like "sometimes" or "quite often" are employed. for example, dr. benton observes that "sometimes [italics mine] the second theme-group begins with material similar to that of the first group but in a related key and treated differently" (p. 155). she then gives two musical examples which illustrate this procedure. one would like to know exactly how frequently this does occur. then one could determine whether hiillmandel employs this procedure more or less often than other composers. there are other advantages in tabulating the precise frequencv of the style characteristics studied. one is that such a tabulation tends to oblige the writer to define the characteristics with greater care. another is that it assures the reader that the writer has not relied merely upon his general impressions when making statements of frequency. my last two paragraphs should not obscure the fact that dr. benton has written a good book that is of real value to students of 18th-century music. roger kamien teaches at queens college. he completed his dissertation on problems of 18th-century musical style at princeton, 1964. arthur michael daniels the de musica libri septem of francisco de salinas ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-6046), 1961. (535p., pos. film $6.80; university of southern california diss.) peter bergquist arthur daniels' dissertation is a detailed study of salinas' de musica (salamanca, 1577; facsimile reprint, ed. kastner, in documenta musicologica, barenreiter, 1958) based on a complete translation from the original latin. de musica is a massively learned treatise on harmonics and metrics by a blind organist who was also one of the most eminent musical scholars of his day. in this work salinas is concerned with music only as a mathematical science and touches on problems of composition and performance peripherally as they impinge on harmonics and metrics. yet, he is not so doctrinaire as to reject the testimony of the ear; he emphasizes throughout that sensory perception must join with reason in the study of music. reason is the ultimate authority and must supply proof for what the senses perceive as correct, since the unaided senses may judge 97 the precise frequency with which certain style characteristics occur. instead, expressions like "sometimes" or "quite often" are employed. for example, dr. benton observes that "sometimes [italics mine] the second theme-group begins with material similar to that of the first group but in a related key and treated differently" (p. 155). she then gives two musical examples which illustrate this procedure. one would like to know exactly how frequently this does occur. then one could determine whether hiillmandel employs this procedure more or less often than other composers. there are other advantages in tabulating the precise frequencv of the style characteristics studied. one is that such a tabulation tends to oblige the writer to define the characteristics with greater care. another is that it assures the reader that the writer has not relied merely upon his general impressions when making statements of frequency. my last two paragraphs should not obscure the fact that dr. benton has written a good book that is of real value to students of 18th-century music. roger kamien teaches at queens college. he completed his dissertation on problems of 18th-century musical style at princeton, 1964. arthur michael daniels the de musica libri septem of francisco de salinas ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-6046), 1961. (535p., pos. film $6.80; university of southern california diss.) peter bergquist arthur daniels' dissertation is a detailed study of salinas' de musica (salamanca, 1577; facsimile reprint, ed. kastner, in documenta musicologica, barenreiter, 1958) based on a complete translation from the original latin. de musica is a massively learned treatise on harmonics and metrics by a blind organist who was also one of the most eminent musical scholars of his day. in this work salinas is concerned with music only as a mathematical science and touches on problems of composition and performance peripherally as they impinge on harmonics and metrics. yet, he is not so doctrinaire as to reject the testimony of the ear; he emphasizes throughout that sensory perception must join with reason in the study of music. reason is the ultimate authority and must supply proof for what the senses perceive as correct, since the unaided senses may judge 97 defectively. but reason should not lead one to take a position that is completely opposed by the ear. this attitude is the rationale for salinas' preference for justly tuned consonances rather than the harsher pythagorean intervals; not only do the just intervals sound better, but their numerical description and derivation is simpler and more logical. salinas' classification of the perfect fourth is also affected by this attitude. he insists that the fourth is consonant because its numerical ratio is simple, because the simplest division of the octave (2:3:4) produces the fifth and fourth, and also because it is almost always found at the end of compositions as part of a fully consonant sonority. but he does acknowledge that the fourth can seldom stand alone and ordinarily requires the support of the fifth below. thus he arrives at the same position taken by composers and most practical theorists of the period. de musica is divided into seven books, the first four on harmonics, the last three on metrics. book i, as daniels describes it, is "one of the most comprehensive expositions of neo-pythagorean number theory ever written by a music theorist." in book ii salinas studies the numerical ratios which define intervals and classifies the intervals as consonant or dissonant. salinas here begins to expound his preference for just intervals, a central concern of the books on harmonics. daniels suggests that salinas reflects the increased interest of 16thcentury composers in the full triad. similarly, the account of the diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic genera in book iii reflects the greater interest of composers in chromaticism. this section culminates in salinas' ideal tuning which includes 24 tones to the octave and achieves just harmony throughout the circle of fifths. book iii also contains detailed descriptions of three meantone temperaments for keyboard instruments and one equal temperament for fretted instruments. the three meantone temperaments reduce the perfect fifth respectively by 113, 217, and 114 of the syntonic comma. the first was invented by salinas, the second by zarlino, and the third was first described by pietro aaron. salinas intends that all should be applied to an octave of 19 tones in order to equalize the greater and lesser tones of just tuning, an adjustment which he recognizes as a practical necessity for keyboard instruments since they cannot achieve the perfect tuning and fine gradations of which the human voice is capable. the work on tuning and temperament is one of salinas' major claims to fame. he is credited with the first precise mathematical definition of equal temperament, and his 24-tone division of the octave is one of the earliest and best multiple division, according to j. murray barbour. book iv concludes the study of harmonics with an extensive account of the greek tonal systems, containing what is still one of the clearest explanations of the difference between harmoniae and tonoi. salinas was one of the first musical scholars to obtain an extensive knowledge of the original sources of greek theory, and his lucid presentation shows how well he mastered this material. he acknowledges also the 98 .... confusion among the sources on some points and states that not everything in these writings can be clarified completely, an admission which only increases one's respect for his ability to unravel as much as he did. book iv concludes with a detailed critique of several ancient and contemporary theorists, especially with. regard to their adherence to or deviation from just intonation. salinas does not hesitate to criticize the most eminent figures; the pythagoreans, aristoxenus, ptolemy, gafori, glareanus, and zarlino are among those who suffer his closely reasoned censure. the three books on metrics present their material in a largely traditional and uncritical manner. book v defines and classifies rhythm and poetic feet, book vi treats meter, and book vii explains verse construction. this last book contains the examples of spanish and other folk music which have been salinas' chief claim to fame. daniels asserts that the inclusion of these tunes is not the most valuable feature of salinas' treatise, because they are intended only as illustrations of poetic meters and are not studied from any other point of view. moreover, many are fragmentary. although they are valuable as examples of 16th-century folk music, salinas was interested in them not as such but only as accessories to his humanistic aims. the most important part of the treatise is certainly the section on harmonics. daniels says as much, devotes the bulk of his study to the first four books, and passes over the last three almost completely except for transcribing and commenting on the examples of folk song. daniels' study is admirably thorough, very well written, and extremely readable, despite the technical nature of much of it. the extensive quotations daniels has included, frequently entire chapters, add even more to the value of his work. no major errors of fact are apparent. the only mis-statement i found was the observation on p. 414 that gafori's "treatise in the vernacular" must be lost. in fact, salinas was referring to gafori's angelicum ac divinum opus musicai (milan, 1508), of which all but the title is in italian. this is plainly a small matter and hardly a serious reflection on daniels' work. in his opening chapter daniels develops the idea that music and the other arts of the renaissance reveal a common belief in the mystical power of number to express universal truth. this explains why salinas emphasized harmonics rather than practical music in de musica. daniels cites later examples of a similar attitude, in helmholtz for one, and ties it further to the growth in the 20th century of interest in mathematical acoustics, in hindemith's theories, in serial music, and in writings of such people as milton babbitt. he closes with a quotation from lord kelvin to the effect that what we can measure numerically we know, and only what we can measure do we know. salinas' approach surely has something in common with the other figures daniels names, but to go so far as kelvin perhaps overstates the intention of salinas and the other musicians mentioned. other modes of knowledge than the numerical are possible, and in 99 an art such as music, perhaps preferable. one can measure endlessly and still fail to understand the nature of a work's musical language or esthetic value. numerical measurement unquestionably has its uses, but a book like de musica, that concentrates exclusively on measurement, is somewhat limited in value and interest when compared with the work of other theorists from the same period such as zarlino, who treat more immediately and extensively the design of the art-work and the methods of its composition and performance. writers such as zarlino and gafori say much more about what musicians now want and need to know regarding renaissance music than salinas. these reservations aside, salinas still deserves our attention as a distinguished musical humanist, for the light his work sheds on the history of music theory in general, and possibly for what he might contribute to present attempts to find alternatives to equal temperament. daniels' study is an ideally thorough treatment of salinas' work and can be heartily and unreservedly recommended to anyone concerned with music theory of the renaissance. peter bergquist completed the phd. in musicology at columbia university in 1964, and is presently assistant professor at the university of oregon. his dissertation treats the theoretical writings of pietro aaron. wallace c. mckenzie, jr. the music of anton webern ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 60-2792), 1960. (507 p., pos. film $6.45; north texas state college diss.) dika newlin reading this thesis reminded me anew how much progress we have made in accepting contemporary musical trends as fit subjects for musicological research. such was not always the case. i vividly remember the furor caused twenty years ago when it was announced that my columbia thesis subject would be bruckner, mahler, schoenberg. what! a thesis partly about a still living composer? horrors! thus the reaction of a sizeable portion of the musicological world. thanks to enlightened advisors, the project was nonetheless fulfilled, and i like to think that this pioneer work helped prepare for the greater liberality of today in this respect. when reading this work, it is necessary to remember that it was finished in 1960. of course, more webern material has come to publica tion since then. there are the webern essays der weg zur neuen musik, the jone-humplik correspondence, kolneder's study in the 100 on graduate study and standards z:n musz:cology barry s. brook the stimulating recent reappraisals of the nature and aims of musicology in america (by harrison, hood, palisca, kerman, lowinsky, lippman, etc.) have been concerned only secondarily with problems of graduate study and standards. these problems deserve concentrated attention at this time for the urgent reason that graduate schools will soon be swamped by the multitude of maturing war babies. we can dispense with the statistics. the projections are indisputable. the word "swamped" is not idly used-many institutions are already at high tide. because of its relative youth, musicology may very well be harder hit than other humanistic disciplines. the number of universities offering the ph.d. in musicology has risen from one to thirty-five in the past thirty-four years; the number should reach eighty by 1975. although musicology in this country "may be said to be flourishing" (report rifthe commission on the humanities, a.c.l.s. 1964, p. 166), it will be no simple matter to double its training capacities within a decade. to do so without sacrificing standards as they now exist will be doubly difficult. in recognition of these problems and pressures the american musicological society has established an advisory committee on graduate standards. the members of the committee (sylvia kenney, scott goldthwaite, albert seay, barry brook, chairman) will welcome discussion and comment on questions within its province both in private and in print. current musicology is the ideal forum for such discussion. not only is it the journal of the graduate students themselves, but it regularly performs the valuable function of documenting and reviewing current graduate practice, curricula, and theses, both here and abroad. furthermore, in her provocative editorial in the last issue ofcm, miss croy has already flung a gauntlet in the face of the musicological establishment. more on this in a moment. graduate study in the humanities in this country has recently been the object of potent criticism. the most vehement attack was made by william arrowsmith, chairman of the classics department of the university of texas. the humanists themselves, he holds, have betrayed the humanities by succumbing to "a long servile imitation of the sciences." much of their teaching is "pathetically wanting-timid, unimaginative, debased, inefficient, futile." humanists, he believes, ought to be making subjective and critical judgments about the arts, actions, and problems of men ("the shame of the graduate schools: a plea for a new american scholar," harper's a1agazine, march 1966). quoting arrowsmith, george kubler, and others, miss croy brilliantly marshals their barbs and directs them at musicology today: its tendency tobarry s. brook, professor of music at queens college, was recently awarded the e. j. dent medal for distinguished work in musicology by the royal musical association. his edition, with introduction and indexes, of the breitkopf thematic catalogues, 17621787 (dover) is forthcoming. 156 ward curricular uniformity and toward standardization of methods in reporting research; its stress on biography, style, and source research at the expense of "truth values of music"; its conservatism with respect to new techniques that might encourage "creative and critical approaches to music." thcse reproofs warrant thorough exploration and debate and invite bold alternatives. perhaps the very mushrooming of graduate education will, along with its dangers, provide the opportunity for imaginative new approaches in music. the purpose of this paper is not to enter the lists on either side of the philosophical battle but rather to present for general consideration some practical issues on standards for graduate study. admittedly, these "practical issues" can hardly be isolated from "basic viewpoints," but in light of the impending inundation of graduate facilities, musicologists may be forced to come to grips with the one while still debating the other. it should first be pointed out that concern over graduate standards is widespread. many disciplines are far ahead of ours in studying the question. the american musicological society, as an association of individual scholars, has until recently largely ignored the need to playa collective and well-thoughtout role vis-a-vis music departments and university administrations in advising them on the establishment of graduate programs and on the professional training of young scholars. obviously, no learned society in the humanities can impose standards (as can, say, medical and some other scientific associations). on the other hand, it is clear from what has been happening in disciplines such as anthropology and chemistry that the very establishment of standards by a responsible outside body can of itself help in raising them. thus, a learned society, by merely stating its views, can provide guidance to institutions establishing new graduate programs; it can suggest ways to broaden and strengthen existing curricula; it can specify library requirements peculiar to an individual discipline and thus assist department chairmen in their efforts to pry funds from reluctant administrations. the effectiveness of an outside stimulus of this kind has been seen, for example, in a small eastern collegc where a single line in a middle states evaluation report resulted in the rectifying of some major library deficiencies that years of faculty entreaty could not accomplish; and in a major university an entire doctoral program in the sciences was revamped to meet general specifications established by a professional society. at its december 1964 meetings the council of graduate schools in the u nitcd states devoted a plcnary session to the subject of accrediting graduate programs. the definitions of graduate study and graduate faculty that emerged from the discussion are worth quoting in full: graduate study suitable for meeting the requirements of an advanced degree involves more than the mere accumulation of credits. it involves a degree of time of some duration during which a student's primary, if not exclusive, interest is his advanced study. it involves intensive application to his studies, fruitful contacts with his fellow-students of similar interests, personal relations with faculty members beyond those of classroom lectures, many hours in the library, not alone for required reading but also to follow his own interests into fields outside his immediate specialty, attendance in seminars, colloquia, lectures and symposia, both those directly related to his course work and research interests, and others more remote. it is of utmost importance that graduate education shall take place under 157 conditions that will thus stretch a student's imagination, broaden his outlook beyond the normal confines of his own specialty, provide rich opportunities for reading, discussions, investigation, and criticism, with ready access to libraries, laboratories, and instruments. hence the residence requirement at the center where these opportunities exist. these considerations for the graduate students are even more significant in their application to the graduate faculty. a professor who offers graduate instruction must not only keep in touch with the advance of knowledge in his field, but contribute toward it through his own research. rewarding research requires time for reflection and reading, opportunities for the exchange of ideas with colleagues, blocks of time for scholarly work uninterrupted by routine chores even of academic significance. the richest resource of a university is the scholarship and learning of its faculty, and these must be protected from erosion by activities of lesser significance, however worthwhile in themselves. a faculty subjected to a heavy load would soon show the deleterious and debilitating effects of such un\\iisc use of its limited time and energy-time and energy limited by preparation of lectures and seminars, by conferences with graduate students, by constant reading in fields of pertinent scholarship, and by visible work towards productive scholarship and research. returning to the "practical issues" referred to above, here are a fistful, briefly outlined, that may profit from public airing: general. can the dimensions of the master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees in musicology be defined? what should these degrees prepare the student to do? how much time should it take to earn them? how valuable is it for those going on to the ph.d. to first earn an m.a.? should there not be an objective evaluation of faculty competence before graduate degree programs are instituted? curriculum. what kind of balance between formal course work and independent investigation is reasonable? how comprehensive should professional preparation be? for example, are "two solid semesters of study in notation" an indispensable part of every musicologist's equipment? should such courses as advanced orchestration and counterpoint be credited to musicological degrees? if so, how many? how about courses normally credited to the master of science degree in music education? how about advanced study in other departments? inter-disciplinary degrees? dissertation. should a full-fledged master's thesis be a requirement for the master's degree? are the substitutes available in some schools defensible (e.g., the "extra course," or the "thesis outline, bibliography, and single chapter")? can standards be established for doctoral dissertations? how many years should be allotted for their completion? language requirements. present practice varies from one to four languages and from the most stringent controls to the almost non-existent. some uni\-ersities require rigorous nationally-standardized qualifying examinations; others are satisfied with evidence of ability to translate a relatively simple paragraph with dictionary at hand. can or should recommended norms in this field be established at all? in a thoughtful memorandum prepared for faculty consideration at l\' e\\i york university, isidore chein, professor of psychology, forcefully challenged the validity of blanket language requirements. he regards them as "arbitrary, unjust, and unduly restrictive and often self-defeating with respect to their proper function." in their place he 158 would propose: a wide variety of alternatives to be specified by the various schools and departments from the entire gamut of subject matters (including various languages, of course) represented in the domain of graduate education .... granted that the mastery of one or more languages may be a very great asset, there may be other subjects beyond the scope of a given area of study, that are even less dispensable . . . . if social psychologists, to take one example, must devote time to the study of foreign languages, few if any of them will be able to devote time to the study of physiology, anthropology, philosophy, mathematics, etc. yet, the field as a whole would be richer, if there were some social psychologists skilled in foreign languages, others skilled in physiology, others in anthropology, others in philosophy, others in mathematics, and others in various combinations of these. these arguments do not, at first blush, seem to apply to a discipline so rooted in foreign language literature as musicology, but they should not be lightly dismissed in view of rapidly changing research interests and the vast new literature in english. library facilities. a definition, if it were possible to make one, of the kind and size of library needed for new m.a. and ph.d. programs in musicology may be invaluable in inhibiting premature births. for established institutions, an indication of the funds necessary to keep a library up-to-date might work wonders when budgets are debated. miscellaneous. should there be an intermediate degree in musicology, say, doctor of musicology, for undergraduate teachers not planning to pursue a career in research? (see everett walters, "the immutable ph.d.," saturday review, january 15, 1966.) what can be done about the increasing numbers of abd's ("all but the dissertation") and the avoidance of stretch-out cases in the future? (see frederick ness, "the case of the lingering degree," idem.) the institution by one university of steep yearly fees, levied after course work has been completed, is a "distorted remedy" at best. what of the work loads of the iga's ("indentured graduate assistants")? in some instances, students are expected to perform so many routine chores and other duties that insufficient time is left for study and none for, say, music making. in one large institution, students have been advised to leave their instruments at home! the problem of non-preparation of future college teachers is a most serious one and needs immediate attention. possession of a doctoral degree in musicology counts for nothing with a class of70 freshmen "appreciators." although college teaching is the young musicologist's principal method of eating in this country, he is rarely given any guidance to prepare him for his de facto vocation. this sink-or-swim method of initiating the newly-minted scholar into his teaching career is wasteful at best and frequently disastrous. the frustration of his research ambitions-even if temporary while he learns his trade-makes matters worse. a sensiblepreferably informaltraining plan involving observation of old hands, followed by apprentice teaching, should be part of every graduate program. it would be appropriate to conclude with a quotation from the recent report made by the advisory committee on graduate standards to the executive board of the a.m.s.: 159 \ve propose, after due study, exploration and consultation, to prepare a document that would formulate standards and ideals of excellence for graduate study in musicology; the document should be framed in terms specific enough to guide young departments with library, curriculum, language requirements, etc. and general enough to be applicable to the great variety of means and aspirations that exist on campuses across the country. curricula, for example, are not built out of standards; they are compromises between the interests of whatever faculty happens to be present and the realities of budget and schedule. what is needed is a formulation of ideals to give direction and meaning to these expedient compromises as they are hammered out in individual departments. such a document should incorporate a statement of the standards of musical scholarship-scholarship that draws its strength and its standards from a long tradition of university scholarship in many disciplines. such standards can always use redefining; especially they need clear, forceful application to the many different kinds of things done in graduate programs today. this document should include a survey of existing graduate facilities, libraries, faculties, curricula, language, degree and dissertation requirements, etc. it should carry forward the work of strunk (state and resources rif musicology in the united states), bukofzer (the place of musicology in american institutiom of higher learning) and palisca (american scholarship in western music) to include a systematic self-appraisal of our graduate teaching, its content and its goals. there is urgent need at this time for full-scale debate of the issues, philosophical and practical, by faculty and students alike. such debate is imperative, both for the preparation of a meaningful document on graduate standards, as well as for the realization of its essential objective: growth toward the highest excellence in professional preparation. 160 thomas lee noblitt-the motetti missales qf the late i5th century ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-100), 1963. (university of texas diss.) david e. crawford although many of the motets of josquin's era have been subjected to abundant scholarly investigation, one of the most rudimentary questions usually remains unanswered: under what circumstances were these works performed? this question is compounded by a phenomenal increase in the number of motets composed in josquin's time and also by the diversity of texts employed. therefore, the motetti missales are of special interest, for here are several motet cycles which were used as substitutions at mass. chapter i lists the contents of the cycles, their manuscript sources, and concordances. noblitt identifies the following cycles as motetti missales: mi 2267. l25v-135 missa galeazescha1 by compere mi2268. 100v-11o missa quarti toni by gafurius (essentially a normal mass ordinary, but preceded by a motet for the introit and concluding with a motet in place of deo gratias) mi2269. 84v-93 salve mater salvatoris2 by.gafurius l26v-134 ave mundi domina by weerbecke 1 34v-143 quam pulchra es by weerbecke 1 62v-l70 ave domine jesu christe (compere) l7lv-179 hodie nobis de virgine (compere) mu 3154. 38v-43 gaude flare virginali (martini?) 43v-48v natus sapientia (martini?) the function of these cycles is explained either by a rubric for the given motet (loco introitus, loco gloria, etc.) or by a listing of motetti missales in a table of contents at the beginning of mi 2269. the motet texts usually bear no relationship to the mass texts which they replace, except for the motet associated with the elevation. in every cycle, the text of the motet for the elevation mentions christ or the body of christ. within a cycle, however, the texts are related to some central idea and are frequently obtained from closely related liturgical sources. each cycle is composed in one mode throughout, normally employs one combination of clefs, and is frequently unified by mensural patterns and thematic material. chapter ii is devoted to the cycles ofweerbecke and compere. most of this material, the biographies, text identifications, and musical analyses, derives from other scholars,3 but professor noblitt does acknowledge his in102 debtedness. the important observation is made that all of the elevation motets contain fermata-marked chords, probably intended to coincide with the elevation of the host (p. 58). chapter iii deals with the two anonymous cycles in mu 3154. professor noblitt believes that the composer may have been martini, and he bases this possible attribution upon three points: martini's residence at milan in 1474, the fact that other music of martini can be identified in mu 3154, and stylistic features in the two cycles which can be found in works known to be by martini. unfortunately this commendably original conclusion, although perhaps correct, is developed inadequately. the first point is relevant if motetti missales were practiced at milan in the early 1470's; in no case is that early date clearly demonstrable and a later date remains possible. mu 3154 seems to be a heterogeneous collection of fascicles from several periods and repertories. a thorough analysis of this volume might significantly support or dispute professor noblitt's case. such an analysis is not presented, and so the strength of the second point is contingent upon study yet to be fulfilled. the discussion of musical style singles out two traits which allegedly point to martini's authorship. one of these is the use of divisi at the final cadence to form a complete triad, "so unusual and otherwise unknown in its time" (p. 148). in fact, other composers were using divisi in this manner; for example, the practice can be found seven times in weerbecke's missa de ave regina caelorum (preserved in mi 2268 and elsewhere). the second stylistic feature is a 3-4 escape-tone formula in a two-part texture. the significance of this formula is reduced after a glance at the credo ofdufay's missa caput, where it occurs five times. the motetti missales of gafurius are presented in chapter iv. although most cycles contain eight motets, salve mater salvatoris includes only five, and the rubrics are inadequate; thus the precise role of these works at mass seems uncertain. fermata-marked chords occur at the end of the fourth motet; their presence suggests that that motet, concluding with the elevation would have been sung in place of the sanctus (p. 155). in chapter v professor noblitt proceeds to the difficult problem of motet groups in the milanese codices which bear no external designation as motetti missales. there are six groups, all of which had been suggested as possible motetti missales by finscher. 4 mi 2267. 162v-167 beata et venerabilis (five motets), anon. 167v-173 ave regina caelorum (five motets), anon. mi 2269. 67v-71 sponsa dei electa (four motets), gafurius 71 v-75 q,uando venit ergo (four motets), gafurius 98v-106 verbum sapientiae (eight motets), gafurius, anon. 154v-162 nativita.s tua (seven motets), anon. two criteria are employed by dr. noblitt for the identification of motetti missales, "( 1) the presence of textual unity between all motets of the group which in turn allows them to be used at a single feast or festival group during 103 the church year, and (2) the inclusion of a suitable text for the elevation, set in fermata-marked block chords" (p. 211). each of the cycles is described, and each fails to qualify as motetti missales. i believe that these requirements, if met by a motet cycle, would surely indicate that the composer intended those motets as motetti missales. the criteria apply to systematized repertories, but they deny recognition to any less standardized practice. it would be difficult to envision a systematic practice without related procedures as forerunners or contemporaries. the second criterion, for example, requires a motet at the elevation. no elevation motet occurs in gafurius's missa q,uarti toni, which contains two substitution motets. chapter vi is devoted to the development of am bros ian liturgy but reveals no precedent for the motetti missales. as other illustrations of the substitution concept, the well-known examples by josquin and la rue are cited (p. 255). portions of the dissertation rely too heavily upon secondary sources, and this is a shortcoming painfully obvious in this chapter. only the standard liturgical sources are consulted and no new insights emerge. the entire account of the ambrosian mass (pp. 242-43) derives, unacknowledged, from apel's gregorian chant (pp. 469-70) even to the point of reproducing apel's table comparing ambrosian and gregorian musical items. milanese libraries abound with liturgical manuscripts and prints of the 15th and early 16th centuries. an authoritative approach to the gafurius codices will have to deal with those primary sources. related to this methodological deficiency is the total reliance upon secondary sources for a description of mu 3154 (pp. 59-64). on one question, professor noblitt reports that an answer cannot be obtained "because of the lack of a complete catalogue of this ms" (p. 251). perhaps this apparent failure to consult a microfilm5 of the manuscript also explains why all of the many other motets in mu 3154 are completely ignored. it may be true that the volume was intended for practical use, but the only supporting evidence which professor noblitt provides is to claim that this conclusion is strongly suggested by the choirbook format (p. 241). that format demonstrates only that the copyists observed the most common practice of their day. the final chapter contains transcriptions of the two munich cycles. by 1963 modern editions of all the other repertories either already existed or were being prepared. most typographical errors are self-evident, but a few flaws in workmanship depreciate the dissertation's appeal and usefulness. weerbecke's anima mea liquifacta is found in the manuscript f1178, not f1176 (p. 12). the manuscript wa 2016 now resides at warsaw, not breslau (p. 12). in the list of motets within each cycle (p. 7), a motet by compere is given the incipit hodie christus nobis, but the second and third words are transposed in all subsequent references. 6 three liturgical models are cited for ave regina caelorum on p. 26, only one for the same text on p. 218. josquin's tenure at milan begins in 1459 (p. 254), but the date of his birth is given incorrectly as 1450 (p. 63). motet texts are reproduced in full, except for two elipses (p. 23). this 104 inconsistency raises a reader's curiosity and forces him to confirm both the original text and its identification. spot checking indicated that the identification of texts was usually satisfactory, although several oversights occur. the third portion of gafurius's quando venit ergo (p. 227) quotes the vespers hymn jesu nostra redemptio, stanza i. several polyphonic hymn cycles of the period employ this text for the feast in vigilia ascensionis. gafurius's hoc gaudium est (p. 227) begins with stanza iv of the trinity vespers hymn, in maiestatis solio.7 the text fo'rmat should be revised to reflect the a b a b rhyme scheme. in these motets, numerous internal cadences occur simultaneously in all voices, and the cadences are often emphasized by double bars in the manuscripts. the dissertation devotes no systematic attention to these caesuras, even though they may be intimately connected to the mass ritual. although attention is devoted to musical styles, only in the case of the munich cycles do those analyses lead to conclusions of historical interest. ludwig finscher's succinct statement of historical and aesthetic peculiarities in compere's motetti missaless escapes noblitt's attention. both finscher and lowinsky9 think that compere's milanese works anticipate an italianinspired style not commonly practiced before the 1490's. lowinsky refuses to believe that compere, arriving in milan at the approximate age of twentyfour in 1474, could have composed at that time these three cycles of motetti missales, employing a style to which apparently neither he nor other composers would return for another two decades. lowinsky also points out that weerbecke, who served at milan from 1472 to 1481, returned to milan in 1489, the latter date being a possible one for weerbecke'smotetti missales. then lowinsky goes even further, proposing "that the 'substitution masses' contained in the gafori codices are simply motet cycles adapted by gafori loco missae to suit his own taste and preference." however, in all eight cycles which noblitt accepts as motetti missales, the special character of the elevation text and its unique musical treatment is consistent. since this could not be coincidental either (1) the composers originally intended their cycles to conform to a known motettimissales practice, or (2) the elevation motets are imposters, interpolated into pre-existent motet cycles. no evidence supports the latter possibility. professor noblitt believes that compere's missa galeazescha was composed between 1473 and 1476 or 1477 (p. 36), being dedicated to duke galeazzo maria sforza or to his son, gian galeazzo sforza (born 1469). this is a bmv cycle, identified texts stemming mostly from marian sequences. the texts, especially the apparently non-liturgical interpolations, are usually dolefullaments, thoughts which i believe contradict the unrestrained behavior and despotic rule of galeazzo maria. it also seems unlikely that the cycle would, have been by his frail son, gian galeazzo, whose political authority was usurped by lodovico il moro in 1480, when gian was only eleven years old. on december 26, 1476, duke galeazzo maria was murdered, and such texts could be appropriately associated with the galeazzo 105 -name in the wake of that murder. the exclamation "0 maria" appears in four of the eight motets; this may be a thinly disguised reference to duke galeazzo maria. also intriguing is the use of several texts from the sequence verbum bonum et suave and, in the seventh motet, the expression mater bona. could these be a play on the widow's name, bona di savoia? bona was faced with two grave problems. she eventually failed in the power struggle to preserve the strife-torn duchy for her son. her other concern was for her husband's soul, which she thought to be in jeopardy because of his many misdeeds. bona even petitioned pope sixtus iv to intercede in his behalf and paid the pope generously for his aid. the missa galeazescha can be interpreted as an eloquent prayer for bona's success in both of her missions. limitations of space permit only one illustration, the end of the first motet: reis ergo fac, regina, o virgo pura apud regem ut ruina relaxentur debita. o virgo pura, pro nobis dulciter ora. lines 1, 3, and 4 are taken from the bmv sequence salvatoris mater pia; others are apparently free insertions. the three lines from the sequence become a perfect commentary on current instability. the concluding line, ora pro nobis, would be common enough, but inserting the emphatic dulciter seems to indicate an especially impoverished or bereaved condition. the apparent ambiguity of the rubric "galeazescha" therefore becomes deliberately meaningful. the mass prays for the welfare of both males who comprise the legitimate galeazzo lineage. this motet cycle contains the progressive stylistic features noted by finscher and lowinsky. if the work was composed in 1477, then the evolution of compere's style remains as puzzling as finscher believed, a puzzle which noblitt fails to recognize. one of the engaging features of this topic is its implication for other motet repertories. finscher suggests that compere's officium de cruce, a cycle of nine motets printed in petrucci's motetti de passione (1503), might have been used as motetti missales or during successive liturgical hours on a given day.l0 noblitt observes that compere's texts were also employed in the natus sapientia cyclell of mu 3154 and suggests that compere intended motetti missales, petrucci having deleted the loco designations in order to invite a wider use of the motets. unexplained is the appearance of adoramus te christe as the second motet of the cycle in petrucci, ,but as the conclusion of the fifth motet in mu 3154. in the munich cycle, as well as several other motetti missales, this is the text associated with the elevation. both finscher and noblitt are speculating, and so another possibility might as well be added. the first motet in petrucci's cycle quotes an introit text and could be sung at that 106 occasion. the music for the mass ordinary would derive from another source with petrucci's second motet, adoramus te christe, interpolated at the elevation. motets three through nine would be sung at successive hours on the same day: matins, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline. this agrees with the conventional liturgical roles for the texts of the last seven motets, roles even mentioned within the motet texts. (for example, the last motet begins with hora completorii datur.) my solution also honors petrucci's caption, officium de cruce, by not forcing upon it an interpretation more restrictive than its literal meaning. in mu 3154, where several loco designations do exist, the lines of texts specifying the hour are occasionally deleted. a later milanese collection, mi 2266, bearing the date 1527, is simply mentioned by professor noblitt as lacking any motetti missales cycle (pp. 5, 242). claudio sartori's inventory12 provides thematic incipits for only one voice of the items in this badly burned manuscript, but he nevertheless shows one . group of motets which might be discussed. on ff. 76v-77 occurs the anonymous motet bone jesu dulcis christe, a text appropriate for the elevation and set fermata-marked chords. the preceding six anonymous motets are shown at least to begin with the same mensuration, to contain one flat in the signature, and possibly to employ the same clef combinations. dealing with this mutilated manuscript would be a trying task, but its possible relevance to motetti missales cannot be dismissed without further study. the dissertation provides useful descriptions of the motet repertories as well as sound criteria for recognizing motetti missales. professor noblitt's account of the milanese motets is also constructive, for he corrects some of the inaccuracies published by jeppesen and the archivium musices. 13 the dissertation is marred by technical flaws and especially by a deficient regard for primary sources. only seven manuscripts of polyphony are cited, and of these wa 2016 is assigned to the wrong city, fl 178 is given the wrong shelf number, and inadequate attention is devoted to mu 3154 and mi 2266. the account of martini's musical style was prepared with insufficient knowledge of mi 2268. the identification of mass substitutions using motets not preserved as cycles, as well as the identification of other cycles, remains open. professor noblitt believes that the history of motet substitutions at mass involves only mu 3154, the three milanese codices, and the two examples by josquin and la rue. it seems unlikely to me that the motetti missales cycles would have acquired their standardized practice without prior experimentation. perhaps other motet repertories provided the music for those experiments. the numerous polyphonic masses with troped texts should be studied with a view toward motetti missales. another related practice occurs in some tenor masses which contain liturgical texts from outside the mass ordinary underlaid in . the cantus firmus. due to the cosmopolitan careers of the many composers associated with milanese circles, knowledge of motetti missales must have been widespread. we still cannot measure the significance of that practice to an era notorious for its ecclesiastical irregularities. it is hoped that new evidence, 107 .,q < j or a new interpretation of known information, can someday shed more light on these questions.14 manuscripts cited fl176 fl178 mi2266-2269 mu 3154 wa 2016 notes florence. biblioteca nazionale centrale. magliabecchiana xix, 176. ibid. magliabecchiana xix, 178. milan. archivio del duomo. cod. 2266-2269. munich. bayerische staatsbibliothek. mus. ms. 3154. warsaw. biblioteka uniwersytecka. ms. mf. 2016 (ex breslau). 1 this title derives from the inscription "galeazescha" which appears above the rubric "loco introitus" of the first motet, ave virgo gloriosa. 2 for the sake of brevity, a cycle of motetti missales is frequently designated by the incipit of the first motet. i follow this practice unless otherwise stated. 3 gerhard croll, das motettenwerk gaspars van weerbeke (gottingen, 1954, typescript) and his article in musicadisciplina (1952) 6:67-81; ludwig finscher, die messen und motetten loyset compere, (gottingen, 1954, typescript) and his article in musica disciplina (1958) 12:105-43. 4 loyset compere: opera omnia ii, ed. ludwig finscher (1959), p. i. 5 the question which noblitt leaves unanswered can be solved through microfilm. of the incomplete masses in mu 3154; only one, the missa salve regina on ff. 390-95v , lacks both a kyrie and an agnus dei. but this is no confirmation of ambrosian practice, for folios are missing at the beginning and the end of the mass. it is likely that the missing folios contained both of the missing movements. for this information i am indebted to professor charles hamm of the university of illinois. 6 this confusion started with the copyist in mi 2269, who gave the version hodie christus nobis in the cantus, but hodie nobis christus in the bottom three parts. professor noblitt was unable to identify the opening sentence of text. working from the latter version, which the majority of parts support, the identification is easier to acquire; the sentence is based upon phrases from the second responsory of matins at nativity. the final two sentences of the motet, unidentified in the dissertation, also derive from the nativity office. these lines are to be found in responsory five of matins and the magnificat antiphon of second vespers. 7 see suitbert baumer, geschichte des breviers (freiburg, 1895), p. 362. 8 compere ii, pp. ii-iii. 9 review of osthoff's josquin desprez in renaissance news (1963) 16:255-262. 10 compere iv (1961), p. ii.11 page 99, footnote 29. we are misled here; the texts differ in numerous details, although they clearly do derive from the same model. 12 claudio sartori, "11 quarto codice di gaffurio non e del tutto scomparso" in collectanae musicae historiae (florence, 1956) 1 :24-44. 13 knud jeppesen, "die drei gafurius-kodizes der fabbrica del duomo, milano," acta musicologica (1931) 3: 14-28 and archivium musices metropolitanum mediolanense (milan, 1958). 14 a synopsis of the dissertation has recently appeared in thomas l. noblitt, ambrosian motetti missales repertory," musica disciplina (1968) 22: 77-103. that article offers no significant modifications of material in the dissertation. 108 moo coeditors: general editor: senior associate editors: associate editors: l. michael griffel margaret ross griffel maurie sommer emmanuel leemans d.jay rahn leonie rosenstiel stephen willis thomas w. baker tamara lowe dworsky robert fuller bonnie lester jack light assistant editors: faye-ellen silverman helen stachowski editorial assistants: anne bagnall, janice butler, peter dedel, gabriel ghirlando, s. j., richard koprowski, stephan kotrch, dennis sanders, douglass seaton, george stauffer business department: thomas w. baker, manager jack light, advertising secretary: cynthia schwan faculty advisor: christoph wolff copyright © 1972, the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york printed in great britain by william clowes & sons, limited london, beccles and colchester corresponding editors domestic patricia t. nolan alexander silbiger harriet franklin myrl hermann harrison m. schlee jurgen thyme robert e. houston adrienne f. block anne gugliotta rita mead jack light laurel fay carole k. huston thomas kelly james c. griesheimer samuel o. douglas marek sowinski dale hunter william penn barbara petersen norman rubin john d. arnn kathleen chaikin michael a. keller thomas n. rushing philip e. aaholm mary ann grigsby richard evidon sue vinks hough rosalie schellhous warren spaeth elizabeth bartlet john h. hajdu anne amerson sister bertha fox gordon s. rowley george c. foreman lee patrick ramona h. matthews jack crawford sterling e. murray janice c. teisberg julia anne griffin & dan broucek richard benedum frank carey norris l. stephens carol lee irwin robert d. lynch james wheat frederick a. hall paul f. marks boston university, boston, mass. brandeis university, waltham, mass. brown university, providence, r.i. bryn mawr college, bryn mawr, pa. carnegie-mellon university, pittsburgh, pa. case western reserve university, cleveland, ohio catholic university of america, washington, d.c. city university of new york, new york, n.y. city university of new york, brooklyn college, brooklyn, n.y. city university of new york, hunter college, new york, n.y. columbia university, new york, n.y. cornell university, ithaca, n.y. florida state university, tallahassee, fla. harvard university, cambridge, mass. indiana university, bloomington, ind. louisiana state university, baton rouge, la. manhattan school of music, new york, n.y. mcgill university, montreal, quebec, canada michigan state university, east lansing, mich. new york university, new york, n.y. princeton university, princeton, n.j. rutgers university, new brunswick, n.j. stanford university, stanford, calif. state university of new york at buffalo, buffalo, n.y. tulane university, newcomb college, new orleans, la. university of arizona, tucson, ariz. university of arkansas, fayetteville, ark. university of california, berkeley, calif. university of california, davis, calif. university of california, riverside, calif. university of california, santa barbara, calif. university of chicago, chicago, iii. university of colorado, boulder, col. university of hawaii, honolulu, hawaii university of illinois, urbana, iii. university of iowa, iowa city, iowa university of kansas, lawrence, kan. university of kentucky, lexington, ky. university of maryland, college park, md. university of miami, coral gables, fla. university of michigan, ann arbor, mich. university of minnesota, minneapolis, minn. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of oregon, eugene, ore. university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. university of rochester, eastman school of music, rochester, n.y. university of southern california, los angeles, calif. university of texas, austin, tex. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. foreign david schroeder paul d. ledvina edgar j. lewis thorn lipiczky andre p. larson janet schmalfeldt georges franck don harran jacques chailley ivo supicic othmar wessely bernd baselt horst heussner john c. g. waterhouse jose l6pez-calo francis cameron willem elders axel helmer john m. jennings niels martin jensen warwick a. edwards georg borchardt anthony ford g. r. rastall andrej rijavec ian d. bent ladislav ({eznicek eric grabner giorgio pestelli hans conradin published under the aegis of university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada university of wisconsin, madison, wis. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. wesleyan university, middletown, conn. west virginia university, morgantown, vv. va. yale university, new haven, conn. brussels, belgium hebrew university, jerusalem, israel institut de musique et d'education musicale, paris, france institute of musicology, zagreb, yugoslavia karl-franzens university, graz, austria martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, germany phillips university, marburg, germany queen's university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, n. ireland salamanca, spain state conservatorium of music, sydney, n.s.w., australia state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, hull, yorkshire, england university of leeds, leeds, england university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of oslo, oslo, norway university of southampton, southampton, england university of turin, turin, italy university of zurich, zurich, switzerland whenever possible, communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the institution in question. otherwise, they may be sent to the editor of current musicology for forwarding. the music department columbia university new york dieter rexroth bernd baselt giorgio pestelli andrej rijavec jack m. shapiro elise braun barnett william drabkin irwin freundlich john graziano joel lester stanley persky george rochberg andre singer reports from the foreign corresponding editors: 7 federal republic of germany: concerning the international musicological congress in bonn, 1970 11 german democratic republic: musicologyat the martin luther university, halle-wittenberg 15 italy: musicology at the university of turin 16 yugoslavia: musicology at the university of ljubljana 20 announcements 23 25 29 38 48 58 64 68 75 83 articles in remembrance of otto deri (19111969) a memorial tribute to otto deri an annotated translation of moriz rosenthal's fran::; lis::;t, memories and riflections some relationships between the autographs of beethoven's sonata in c minor, opus iii random thoughts on the preludes of claude debussy serial procedures in schoenberg's opus 23 problems in the neue bach ausgabe of the e major partitafor violin alone a discussion of compositional choices in webern's furif sat::;efur streichquartett, op. 5, first movement reflections on the renewal of music kaleidoscope and silly putty: an appositive inquiry otto deri steven e. gilbert clyde w. brockett, jr. stephen c. fisher christopher and irmgard holloway michael fink 90 bela bart6k: a portrait of his personality drawn from his letters dissertations 105 robert barclay brown the early atonal music of anton webern: sound material and structure 107 carlton t. russell the southern french tonary in the tenth and eleventh centuries 114 joseph p. ponte aureliani reomensis, musica disciplina: a revised text, translation, and commentary lawrence a. gushee the musica disciplina of aurelian of reome: a critical text and commentary translations 119 alois troller on the spiritual in music bibliographica 135 pierre boulez: a selective bibliography 151 publications received 155 contributors • special section: articles, reports, and reviews on musicology and music education introduction: musical literacy and the teaching oj music in school) college) and university austin clarkson npraisals of the relation between the music educational estab-j-\. lishment from grade to graduate school and the culture at large should take at least cursory note of john kenneth galbraith's warning that education is being shaped more than we realize by the needs of modem industry. this would seem to be as true of music as of other sectors of the cultural economy. industrialists admire soaring sales, educators value the utility of their instruction, and the two motives tend to reinforce each other to give the impression that music in america is in a state of hurtling progress. a few months ago, howard taubman observed in the new york times that lp disks, hi-fi, and fm have helped to make "millions musically literate." while no one doubts that electronic mass production of music has transformed our auditory environment, there are others who argue that it has instead degraded listening habits. but let us tum from the ambience to the questions raised by the phrase "musical literacy." according to the oxford universal dictionary "literacy" is a late 19th-century form of the much older adjective "literate," which, since the 16th century, has meant liberally educated or learned. with the new form was associated a new meaning considerably less elevated than the first. presumably because education is no longer a prerogative of the ruling classes, "literate" and "literacy" could now also refer to the ability merely to read and write. language and music are too diverse for the notion of literacy to be transferred uncritically from one to the other. the respective modes of operation, logics, and cultural functions are so different as to rule out simple analogy. it is sufficient for the purpose of this discussion to maintain that in the primitive sense literacy in a given musical tradition depends on the ability to make auditory discriminations among the musical sounds that constitute the utterances of that tradition. whichever the musical community (rural, urban, popular, elite), whatever the individual's role (composer, performer, listener, thinker), auditory perception is the prime condition of musical literacy. 129 transference of the notion of literacy from language to music has encouraged music educators to overrate reading and writing musical script at the expense of developing auditory perception. students are too often drilled in the notational system of a limited tradition instead of learning the aural and memorative capacities needed for a wider range of musics. exaggerated deference to the written note underlies the urtext fallacy (the notes are the music), the elaborate role notation plays in some contemporary compositions, and also the tendency to teach notation symbols before the sound relations they represent have been unmistakably perceived. undue reliance on notation induces atrophy of the ear and disperses the function of script from musical description or prescription to include that of hearing-aid. if script is to play so large a role in literacy training, it must be explained that notation is a peculiarly western invention, that drastic changes in the relation between musical sound and written signs have occurred and are still occurring, and that the script-sound relation of the 19th and early 20th centuries is no longer a musical sine qua non. the contemporary music project (described under reports) has recently launched a broadly-conceived and intensive program designed to improve "comprehensive musicianship" at the college level. comprehensive musicianship is defined in the project's brochure as "incorporating conceptual knowledge with technical skills to develop the capacity to experience fully, and the ability to communicate the content of, a musical work." the "technical skills" include aural training, composition, and performance, where aural training is the ability to understand the structure of sound, to conceive musical sound from its notation, and to demonstrate the understanding of musical structure through musical notation, verbal report, and performance. while the importance of script is maintained, aural proficiency and a focus on the musical utterance are paramount. let us conclude, then, that basic musical literacy includes aural skills that cannot be achieved by casual listening. the arsenal of sound reproduction devices and an expanded repertory of recorded music will affect real musical literacy only after auditory proficiency has been secured. if the war against literacy in language may now be regarded as nearing its terminal phase in america, the equivalent battle in music has scarcely been joined. sceptics might insist on the absurdity of comparing language with music in this regard, since the cultural functions of the two systems seem completely distinct. they might also argue that musical literacy could never be widespread in as linguocentric a culture as ours. but the previous condition of music in our culture need not necessarily set the limits of its future role. music may have a hitherto unsuspected importance in the cultural mix of the anticipated leisure society. it is already acknowledged as the prime means of training perception and judgment in one of man's most highly developed senses. since computer technology now provides educators with the means of teaching large numbers of people aural skill with unprecedented efficiency, it may well be that the only serious deterrent to a more vital musical culturc is the present notion of what music's role should be. educators are increasingly concerned with the conceptual foundations of fields of knowledge and are correspondingly minimizing the learning oflarge bodies of fact. in responding to this important development by stressing the 130 « conceptual side of music, educators will need to recall that learning music, unlike learning mathematics or philosophy, requires the education of a senseorgan. "percepts and concepts interpenetrate and melt together, impregnate and fertilize each other. neither, taken alone, knows reality in its completeness. we need them both as we need our legs to walk." so writes vvilliam james. an individual's ability to conceptualize is limited by his ability to discriminate the relevant sensory data. a greater role for music in our culture depends as much on cultivating auditory perception as on teaching the in tellectual basis of the art and discipline of music. let us consider now the one music course required in general education (whether in primary school, high school, or college) that deals with musical concepts and literature. often called "music appreciation," it usually treats the properties of musical sound, the elements of structure, simple notation, and functions such as melody, rhythm, harmony, and instrumentation. the course then proceeds to the study of selected "masterpieces" ofvvestern music in regard to form, meaning, value, and historical context. the approach is evidently modelled on the "great books" notion that the liberally-educated person's intellect and imagination should be disciplined to understand the prime cultural achievements of western man. but there is a critical difference between a course in, say, philosophy, on the one hand, and in music, on the other. the former prcsupposes that the student has a complete familiarity with the sign system by which the concepts of the discipline are conveyed, whereas the latter does not. the difference is immense. let us take, for example, an individual who is attending the first lecture of his first course in philosophy. he can already discriminate the phonemes and morphemes of the english language, and he probably knows the dictionary meaning of a large fraction of the words used in philosophic discourse. since he also understands english syntax, we could say that he is literate in english and preliterate in philosophy. at the very outset he is prepared to learn the contextual meaning of the special words employed by various philosophers and to acquire a fund of philosophic concepts. he is equipped to discover the value and significance of philosophic notions, to judge the structure of a philosophic discourse, and to discern how a series of philosophic constructs can generate a tradition. within a year he has gained considerable familiarity with the medium of philosophic ideas and has become at least partly literate in philosophy. the student confronted by his first formal course in music is less fortunate. his perceptual skills may well extend to a fairly good apprehension of popular music, but his powers of musical conceptualization are probably nil. the vast majority has yet to learn how to discriminate the elements and constellations of elements that constitute sophisticated musical utterances of western high culture. nor is he sufficiently familiar with the articulative norms of the various art musics to grasp the functional relations, or to judge the esthetic qualities, of the sonatas, symphonies, and songs he is given to hear. at the present efficiency of teaching musical perception and conceptualization, it is too much to expect a student to achieve within a semester, or even a year, sufficient aural skill to understand fully more than a very few aspects of elaborated compositions. the low quality of auditory perception results, moreov(t, in the expedient of substituting concepts which the student can 131 grasp more readily for inherently musieal eoncepts. the symbols and concepts that dominate music appreciation are in general only marginally musical for they seem too orten to be drawn from literature, esthetics, psychology, \'isual arts. dance, and history. this predicament is surdy incompatible with the modem proposition that music means itself. the 10\\' incidence of musical literacy \\"quld seem to contribute to the diflicultv music has in establishing itself as a serious discipline throughout academe. the degree of literacy achievable in a medium limits the diseipline, and hence the educational value, it can provide. if the student of music apprt'ciatioll is unable to make the auditory discriminations required for an\" but the most elementary concepts of musical utterance, the instructor cannot encourage the stimulating and productiye attitude of discovery learning, \\hereby a student starts with a musical question and seeks the musical answer on his own. students cannot expect to have the satisfaction of arriving at an indt'pendent interpretation of a composition and of comparing it with his instructor's. lacking the ability to put a musical question or discover a musical ans\\"('[, he is constrained to accept the rht'toric of conclusions laid down in the curriculum. :'\0 matter how effective the instruction or how well-founded the judgments, the student does not acquire the musical fluency needed to transcend the curriculum. nor is he ablt' to take the essential final step of the learning process-the confirmation in practice of concepts that arc to him as yt't hypothetical. music appreciation without intensive devclopment of aural skills is less a creative intellectual inquiry into the meaning and value of a primary medium of human utterance than a passive and illiberal acquiescence in a set of marginally musical statements of fact and opinion. the problems that face those educational reformers who are tackling the crisis of musical literacy raise fundamental challenges to musicological method and research as well as to educational theory and practice. it is possible that an awakening interest in musical literacy may even help reverse the trend that in the past has separated the two professions. the reformers arc doing much to counter those heresies that in the past have generated so much musicological animus. charles leonhard of the university of illinois, for example, attaeks the still vvidespread "instrumentalist" doctrine that music education contributes to the health of the student and develops wholesome ideals of conduct, citizenship, and good work habits. he points out that these \'alues arc not unique to music and that many other areas of the curriculum arc probably better suited to conveying them. investigations of cognition and concept formation undermine the pervasive notion that, because one "learns by doing," musical performance is in itself the path to musical understanding. \villiam c. hartshorn, music supervisor of the los angelt's city schools, points out that just as technical skill in playing an instrument is not gained by reading about it, so musical understanding docs not come mert'ly from musical performance. the traditional assumption that the task of music education is to teach children the esthetic experience is forcefully attacked by theodore r. sizer, dean of the graduate school of education, harvard university. he writes that" 'art' in the sense of an t'sthetic experience cannot be taught in any systematic or predictable way," and charges that most schools favor the esthetic approach but with least chance of success. he recommends a ruthless pruning of art education to 132 • disciplines of seeing and hearing, and avoidance of "appreciation" or assessment of esthetic values. colleges are doing what the elementary schools could do handily; a systematic and carefully-limited course in literate perception could be completed, he maintains, by the sixth or seventh grade. education in music and the visual arts should simply providc the tools for proceeding on one's own. sizer's contention is supported indirectly by those who have in recent years attempted to specify how to teach the esthetic response. they ultimatcly confess to the complexity of the task and fall back on relaying the usual information about music. of the music educators directly concerned with the problem of musical literacy, hartshorn proposes a pedagogy based on the premise that "what music communicates and how it communicates are one and the same thing." he insists that learning concepts of tone is the first order of business in teaching children music. in a paper advocating the teaching of musical concepts in elementary grades, asahel woodruff of the university of utah warns that elementary school curricula that rely exclusively on "spontaneous expression" in music, visual art, and dance neglect the discipline essential to every artistic statement. he outlines a procedure for teaching concepts that progresses from percept to concept to testing the concept in practice. the work of some other music educators who have investigated problems in the teaching of general music are here either summarized in reports or noticed under dissertation reviews. musicologists are gradually recognizing the importance of their part in the development of a literacy program. professors frank d'andrea, frederick mayer, and jack sacher, in their respective articles, suggest what music educators regard as the musicologist's contribution. professors claude palisca and alexander ringer show in their present articles that musicologists have already begun to seize the initiative in pioneering new instructional programs. many distinguished musicologists are also variously engaged in the juilliard and contemporary music projects, to mention only the most extensive. this constitutes a beginning. only an intense, concerted effort waged simultaneously on all fronts will succeed in overcoming the celebrated inertia of the educational status quo. much new educational and musicological research in hearing, learning, and musical concept formation is required for an empirically well-founded program for musical literacy. the psychology of hearing and the process of musical conceptualization merit especially intensive study, since they are all but neglected fields. and if concept teaching is to be more than a pious wish, musical terminology must be properly standardized, musical concepts must be developed and formulated more precisely, and the patterns and processes of musical utterance must be understood more completely. a survey of recent books, manuals, and articles that outline concept teaching for music educators or report on its application reveals serious deficiencies of formulation and organization that must be corrected before they are programmed into teaching machines. one indication of the terminological disorder is the loose use of the term "concept" for anything from positive descriptions of entities and straightforward definitions to propositional statements of fact. the generalizing power of a concept is all but overlooked. (a concept, let us recall, is a general idea used for a class of items and necessarily 133 involves a measure of abstraction.) the manual with the greatest scope and potential is music in general education (menc 1965). although it sets out to be suggestive rather than extensive and systematic in its recommendations to high school teachers, it follows its predecessors in failing to take sufficient account of the present state of musical knowledge as embodied in contemporary musical and musicological thought. for instance, it echoes educational tradition by reducing rhythm to a single factor-meter. but the notion of rhythm now generalizes the temporality of music on many more levels than that. a complex of factors which vary from music to music delineates the temporal procession of musical events; and such concepts as harmonic rhythm, timbral rhythm, and registral rhythm are now available. to compound the difficulty of the manual's organization, a number of factors that may contribute to rhythm are treated under the topic "interpretation," an activity defined as the choices the performer makes in dealing with the "variabies": dynamics, expression marks, instrumentation, phrasing, and tempo. in addition to making the unwarranted assumption that pitches and durations are fixed and the rest variable, this approach neglects to consider that if the composer has made choices with regard to any of these factors, they no longer admit variation unless the composer so indicates. the task is then to interpret the composer's notation in the light of our best knowledge of the relevant conventions of his tradition and to realize the musical values of his utterance as completely as possible. the section of the manual titled "form and design in music" demonstrates how sparsely the multi-levelled complexity of musical structure is conveyable to the musically pre literate. as in the majority of such texts, "form" is here reduced to the repetition schemes of motives, themes, and their transformations in closed forms of the common practice period. the harmonic-tonal structure of a beethoven symphony movement selected for intensive treatment is not mentioned (pace schenker) and melody is treated as a static array of pitches (pace kurth). nevertheless, music in general education contains far better information and more complete coverage than its predecessors and is clearly a new departure which deserves to be supported and supplemented by constructive musicological thought. there are many ways in which musicologists can contribute to the achievement of an effective and comprehensive program for musical literacy and yet serve the interests of musicology as well. one realm which remains relatively uncharted, and which has not been indicated elsewhere in this issue, is musical structure. the pre-emptive task of recovering the historical sources and contexts of western music and the desire for a total, positive history of music have consigned structural research and contextual analysis to lower priorities. the present need for more complete formulations of compositions as complex systems may stimulate musicologists to test the hypothesis that musical structure is in some critical respects altogether different from other classes of structure, and the corollary that dynamic and auditory (in addition to static and visual) paradigms are required for its explanation. intensive research in the forms of musical utterance may reveal genetic structures as powerful as, say, buckminster fuller's discovery of the tetrahedron in the structure of the physical world. musicological method would be enriched and the discipline's contribution to knowledge enhanced in the degree that 134 .. • musicologists discover and explain the uniqueness of musical structure as a multi-levelled interrelationship of temporal functions. new theories would have to account for the perhaps unexampled multivalence of the elements and modules of musical structure, such that a single sound or sound-complex may function as an event simultaneously in some or all of the processes gencrated by the several variable properties of musical signals. an empirically-founded program for musical literacy should be pursued with all possible energy. delay at this juncture could prove costly. although many educators are properly sceptical of the rush to introduce automated teaching systems before the programs have been properly tested, electronic technology is offering a seductive battery of hardware. the race is already on. only the utmost vigilance will prevent the conceptual equivalent of the school marm from being sealed into, and indefinitely reproduced by, the gleaming machines. industry is not disposed to wait while the wheels of research grind slowly on. \vith federal funds flooding education at an increasing rate, wall street now regards education as "the growth industry to watch." the scent of profits has excited the giants of publishing and electronics into mergers that will influence every branch of education. while the spectacle of corporate courtship rites enacted on so grand a scale merits the highest admiration, the imaginable consequences give one pause. with the education market estimated as having a billion dollar potential, stakes rise, pressures mount to buy and sell, and to cut risks manufacturers design systems for prompt and wide acceptance. it is not beyond reason to imagine the new combines buying into educational systems as the television industry has bought into professional sports. education as "show biz" would not be far behind. unless the most responsible and imaginative professionals work creatively together to prepare the needed software, music education may soon be saddled with expensive but misbegotten programs that might do the cause of musical literacy more harm than good. one solution to the urgent problem might be an agency whose sole function is to plan an intensive campaign of research and development directed to achieving a program for musical literacy adaptable to the various educational levels. the professional societies, governmental agencies, and private foundations concerned with music instruction might appoint and fund a directorate of qualified individuals charged with assimilating the results of research accomplished, with stimulating new research where needed, with adjudicating the merits of proposed programs, and with commissioning the writing and testing of new programs that meet the most exacting standards of current musical and educational knowledge. for a powerful attack to develop, music educators in public schools, conservatories, and colleges will need to draw closer together. to adequately equip performers, composers, listeners, and thinkers as music perceivers, their programs will have to be more closely coordinated. the restoration of music to its ancient place of honor in liberal education and in the culture at large will be a hollow triumph so long as it is assumed that the musically preliterate can understand music . 135 mozart and the josephian era: some socio-economic notes on musical change alexander l. ringer i am now happily arrived at that part of my narrative where it is necessary to speak of haydn! the admirable and matchless haydn! from whose productions i have received more pleasure late in my life, when tired of most other music, than i ever received in the most ignorant and rapturous part of my youth, when everything was new, and the disposition to be pleased undiminished by criticism or satiety.! thus charles burney, about to conclude a general history of music, introduces the composer in whom he and the immediately following generation saw the very apogee of western musical history. burney then proceeds to a general discussion of haydn's life and work through the 1780's. mozart, on the other hand, "who astonished all europe by his premature talents during infancy," is treated summarily injust three lines, less than half the number devoted to kozeluch.2 in the nearly 200 years that have elapsed since burney's dicta were first published much has been said about the stylistic changes that occurred in european music during the lifetimes of haydn and mozart. personalities have been studied, musical structures analyzed, idioms described. indeed, the very concept of a "viennese classical school," once passionately promoted by guido adler and his disciples, has recently come under attack. hans engel no longer subscribes to the traditional designation "classical style," noting that there is "only a style of the classicists haydn and mozart."3 needless to say, one may well go a short step farther and question the very use of the term "style" in this connection. for, if style to the artistic manifestations of a given aesthetic attitude or complex of attitudes, one wonders what meaningful insights can possibly be expected from the lumping together of two composers born a generation apa,rt, and, as burney implicitly recognized, so utterly different in musical and general background and outlook. "with him," paul henry lang has said of haydn, '> music shed its courtly etiquette and playfulness to become a most personal expression, the expression of the austrian peasant, of love of life, of the colorfulness of nature, moving about in a 158 kaleidoscope of wit, humor, joy, and sorrow. from the italians, he took the beauty of a rounded form, from the germans their counterpoint, but with all his skill and artistry he remained the austrian peasant.4 culturally speaking, the key word in this characterization with which few would wish to quarrel is "remained." throughout his long life haydn never failed to assert his 18th-century heritage, even though he was himself responsible for the continuous reshaping of part of that heritage. mozart, to be sure, was born into a milieu as typical in some ways of entrenched attitudes and customs as the establishment at eisenstadt. yet he emancipated himselffrom that milieu. far from "remaining" anything he had once been, he literally "became" the herald of a new age, the age of the urban middle-class, hence of economic liberalism and newly gained political freedoms-indeed, of that complete transvaluation of all values subsequently associated with the romantic movement. haydn may have shed "courtly etiquette and playfulness in favor of a most personal expression," but he never would have thought of exposing the very depths of his inner life, as mozart did in the hope that by thus engaging the empathy of his public he might help to change the human condition. courtly etiquette may have given way in the course of haydn's creative career to rationalistic human behavior, and playfulness to a more serious and responsible view of the world around him. by the same token, haydn, as it were, never quite "lost his 18th-century cool," never used his art to question the legitimacy of the establishment, never really abandoned music as entertainment in favor of music as philosophy. it was of mozart, not of haydn, that goethe said that he should have composed faust. and it was mozart who, not unlike beethoven and schoenberg after him, deeply affected the shape of things human in his time through artistic deeds symbolic aesthetically of the very spirit that animated the far-reaching reforms of emperor joseph ii and the concomitant changes in the socioeconomic foundations of austrian society. well over a half a century ago werner sombart made the useful distinction between quantitative and qualitative luxury as basic categories of socio-economically determined cultural behavior.5 quantitative luxury, he held, was typical of postrenaissance european nobility, whereas qualitative luxury reflected the intermittent desire for better,rather than more 159 numerous, products, a desire found throughout history, it is true, but especially so among the rising middle classes of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. that these two "ideal" types may coexist at· any given time, goes without saying. conversely, history has known situations, particularly in the 18th century when the nobility of europe was in a stage of incipient decadence, in which quantitative luxury assumed almost grotesque proportions. to cite but one ofsombart's many examples, "on february 25, 1732, the court of saxony ordered 910 pieces of porcelain figures and vases for a single floor of the royal palace."6 needless to say,such wanton display of non-productive wealth provoked much unfavorable comment throughout the 18th century, often in essential agreement with sombart who regarded the enormous increase in the manufacture, importation, and purchase of non-essential goods above all as a direct outgrowth of the epochal "victory of the female," that of queens and aristocratic wives no less than mistresses of all types and origins. 18th-century music reflected the craving for quantitative luxury not only in the unprecedented proliferation of musical activity, especially in the field of opera, but also in intrinsically musical terms. a case in point is the italian grand aria which dominated the musical scerie in the first half of the 18th century through sheer force of numbers, as well as the dazzling vocal display that marked any properly executed da capo. the emergence of the instrumental virtuoso was, of course, a related phenomenon. where the spirit of the ancien regime continued to prevail, as in france, official patronage tended to perpetuate quantitative luxury in virtually all forms of artistic manifestation. conversely, opposition to the regime relied increasingly on political confrontation through cultural dissent. as early as the 1760's d' alembert found that there were people in france who suspected a republican behind every devotee of opera buffa.7 about a decade later rousseau, the erstwhile promoter of italian opera buffa, was converted to the gluckist cause when he realized that gluck's iphigenie's represented but another link in the chain of cultural reappraisals that decided the outcome of the revolution before it actually occurred. by the time france underwent the full impact of the teachings of the philo$ophes, so sublimely reflected in the art of gluck, austria was already in the throes of a socio-cultural revolution instigated by an emperor who declared in 1781: "1 have made 160 philosophy the legislator of my empire."8 in fact, some of the trenchant reforms wrought by joseph ii originated in the 1760's and '70's when he ruled together with his mother, the empress maria theresa. but, whereas then the russian ambassador, prince galitzin, witnessed the confiscation of his set of the complete works of voltaire, now the anti-clerical frenchman's views determined imperial decrees, and the "baroque" tastes of the empress yielded to "beautiful simplicity" in music, her son's favorite art, no less than in fashion. the solitary reign of joseph ii lasted no more than a decade, but that decade, from 1780 to 1790, shook the very structure of austrian society. before the first full year of his autocratic reign had passed, the emperor who believed that "great actions should be carried out with a single stroke" had put all religious orders under the jurisdiction of the dioceses and directed their bishops to swear allegiance directly and only to the crown. in the summer and fall of 1781 decrees were issued guaranteeing universal religious freedom and, additionally, granting civil rights to the jews whose banking and trading activities were so essential to the emperor's industrial plans. almost immediately, unproductive members of the upper ranks of society found themselves cut off from their traditional pensions. and other badly needed social reforms followed shortly, including the abolishment of serfdom and feudal dues, the prohibition of judicial torture, and the e,stablishment of proper appeal procedures. not so dramatic perhaps, but of direct relevance to the ensuing shift from quantitative to qualitative luxury, were the radical reductions in the budget of the court, the concomitant emphasis on industrial expansion and foreign trade, and above all novel administrative and managerial arrangements that favored those members of the aristocracy who were willing and able to make positive contributions to joseph's "white revolution."9 neither in the material nor in the artistic sense did the emperor and his aristocratic collaborators wish to abolish luxury per se; rather, here as there, they sought to encourage quality over quantity, the individual over the mass. it was, therefore, surely no mere coincidence that prompted mozart, exasperated by his archbishop's deeply rooted quantitative conceptions, to make his permanent home in vienna precisely in 1781, the first year of what political historians have come to identify as the josephian era. "we are old friends already," 161 the emperor said to mozart when they first met, "and i shall be delighted ifit be in my power to render you any service."lo that mozart's hopes of composing a libretto written by the emperor himself came to naught is of very little significance in comparison with the historical fact that joseph's sincere desire to render service to all of his subjects set an example of service that was quickly emulated by every layer of vienna's bulging population and contributed immensely to the general leveling of traditional class differences. if france was ruled by the last grande cocotte, her brother, the austrian emperor, had neither wife nor mistress. a modest man whose health was declining fast, he found satisfaction not in ostentatious display of wealth or power but in real accomplishment as his people's first servant. and the general climate of personal dignity he sought to create quite naturally favored an artistic approach that was emotionally intense yet opposed to excesses of any sort. that well-informed, ever alert musical correspondent and political liberal, johann friedrich reichardt, recalled nearly twenty years after the emperor's death: he is moderate, simple, labors tirelessly, has himself an eye and a hand for everything; urges his nation emphatically in speeches and in print to fulfill its patriotic duties; cares for it with truly imperial magnanimity and generosity; creates excellently furnished hospita,ls for many thousands, establishes schools for physicians as well as veterinarians in all of his german and italian hereditary lands; travels in all of them repeatedly with very little display in order to supervise personally the execution of his decrees. he beautifies the capital, enriches it and the daily growing, limitless suburbs with fine buildings, countless factories, liberates the homes of the bourgeoisie from the burden of the imperial court imposition according to which until then one floor of every house had to remain free at the court's disposal; he opens all castles and parks to all the people, enhances them and prepares them with proper expense and taste for the most comfortable enjoyment of the public. everything under the jurisdiction of the police undergoes improvements. he imports some of the most famous artists to grace the public theaters and with the help of one of the greatest actors and artistic connoisseurs of his time, schroder, gives the national stage a perfection previously unattained anywhere. he forms an excellent italian opera for the public furtherance of singing and artistic taste. in him every art, every science, of whose value he is persuaded, has found a patron saint.ll not the least among the many ways in which the liberal cosmopolitan atmosphere in joseph's vienna benefited music 162 was the increase in musical activity in the palatial homes of the city's affluent as soon as the curtailment of court patronage took effect. since material conditions, both physical and financial, virtually excluded operatic performances even in the most lavish of aristocratic residences, instrumental music received an unprecedented boost in prestige. but to some extent this newly enhanced role of instrumental music was also due to the ethnic backgrounds of the principal families involved, many of whom hailed from hungary and bohemia. "it has been said," charles burney observed in the 1770's, "that the bohemian nobility keep musicians in their houses: but in keeping servants it is impossible to do otherwise, as all the children of the peasants and trades people, in every town and village throughout the kingdom of bohemia are taught music in the common reading schools, except in prague, where, indeed, it is no part of school-learning; the musicians being brought thither from the country."12 the significance of non-austrians (in the narrow sense of the term) in the creation of material and aesthetic conditions conducive to the kind of qualitative luxury embodied in the music of the viennese classical composers can hardly be overemphasized. it was prince galitzin who engaged mozart for all of his concerts in the winter of 1782, and during the next season mozart played regularly also at counts johann eszterhazy and zichy. between february 26 and april 3, 1784, i.e. in five weeks, mozart by his own accounting played five times at galitzin's and i nine times at eszterhazy's. as otto j ahn pointed out a long time ago, these aristocratic soirees represented mozart's greatest source of income. and when baron van swieten became the center of serious musical activity, especially through his sunday morning concerts at the court library, his associates included counts apponyi, batthyany, franz esterhazy and, inevitably, those fanatic music lovers, the brothers-in-law lobkowitz and schwarzenberg. the summer concerts at the augarten initiated in 1782, which included mozart as performer and/or composer from the outset, attracted a growing audience from the upper middle class sector, as did all subscription concerts held in public places. when mozart, nearly two years after the first augarten season, reported to his father that he -had enrolled one hundred subscribers for three concerts at six gulden each, he listed also several wealthy jewish families who vied with the landed 6+c.m. 163 aristocracy from bohemia and hungary for leadership in the conversion process from quantitative to qualitative luxury,13 indeed, the qualitative development of music, "the favorite art of the middle class, the form in which it can express its emotional life more directly, and with less hindrance than any other,"14 could not but profit from an enlightened despotism that deprecated lavish personal patronage while encouraging "predemocratic" values and creating the conditions necessary for , the artistic amalgamation of the diverse tastes and musical practices of the various socio-economic and ethnic groups that populated joseph's vast multi-national realm. that his reforms left their marks well into the 19th century, even though some of the restrictions he had sought to abolish forever were ually reinstated, is confirmed by reichardt who wrote in 1809: in the mild and imperceptible gradations from the higher princely nobility, with an annual income of a million, a half million, or a quarter of a million gulden, to the lesser courtly nobility, with an income of a hundred thousand gulden or over, from thence to the petty new nobility, who not infrequently have and spend as much, if not still more-the bankers and great landowners and manufacturers are included here; and so on through the bourgeoisie proper down to the well-to-do petite bourgeoisie; in the way that all the great public diversions and amusements are enjoyed by all classes without any abrupt divisions or offending distinctions-in these respects, vienna is again quite alone among the great cities of europe.!5 mter the congress of vienna, as prince metternich began to impose his particular brand of authoritarianism on the empire, the city in which mozart had settled in 1781, haydn in 1789, and beethoven in 1792, re-dedicated itself to the quantitative luxury of what eduard hanslick so bitterly denounced as "the musical bric-a-brac typical of a period of intellectual inactivity and the greatest political degeneration in austria."16 in the days of joseph ii, when power made a first attempt to serve the people, mozart assembled on stage three different strata of society, each represented by a different band but all enjoying themselves in the same ballroom at the invitation of an aristocratic host who welcomes his guests in the name of liberty. half a century later, once again mere servants of power, the people of vienna had little choice but to dance their troubles away to the tunes of joseph lanner and johann strauss father. generations were to pass before the gradual restoration of qualitative luxury in a 164 climate of relative personal freedom and social equality produced conditions favorable to the formation of another, hardly less differentiated, "viennese schoo1." notes 1 burney, charles, a general history of music (london, 1789), 2: 958. this article is based on the author's paper read at the ams national meeting, new haven, december, 1968. 2 ibid., 960. 3 hans engel, "sources of the classical idiom," international musicological society, report of the eighth congress, new york, 1961 (kassel, 1961), 1 :285. see also his "haydn, mozart und die klassik," mozart jahrbuch (1959), 51. 4 paul henry lang, music in western civilization (new york, 1941),625. 5 wener sombart, luxus undkapitalismus (munich and leipzig, 1913), 71. 6 ibid., 94. 7 cf. romain rolland, musiciens d'autrefois, 3rd rev. ed. (paris, 1912),213. 8 the pertinent letter to cardinal herzan, the imperial minister in rome, is quoted in r. w. harris, absolutism and enlightenment, 1660-1789 (new york, 1966),221. 9 the. term "white revolution," coined by the present shah of iran, would seem to fit joseph ii's revolutionary reforms admirably. 10 cf. the letters of mozart and his family, trans!. and annotated by emily anderson (new york, 1966),2:745. 11 johann friedrich reichardt, vertraute briefe geschrieben auf cinet reise nach wien und den {jsterreichischen staaten zu ende des jahres 1808 und zu a1ifang 1809, ed. by gustav gugitz (munich, 1915),2: 168-69. 12 charles burney, the present state of music in germany, the netherlands, and united provinces (london, 1775), 11-12. 13 for mozart's own complete listing of subscribers see the letters of mozart • •• , 870-1214 arnold hauser, the social history of art (new york, 1958),3:82. 15 this particular excerpt from reichardt's previously cited letter appears in source readings in music history, trans!. and annotated by oliver strunk (new york, 1930), 730. 16 eduard hanslick, geschichte des concertwesens in wien (vienna, 1869),367. 165 problem of unknown quantities outside the sample would be eliminated. perhaps the study could involve only those elements which have finite qualities. it will be interesting to read from the author and others about further refinements in his method. philip friedheim-tonality and structure zn the early works cif schoenberg ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-6464,1963. 557 pp. in 2 vols., new york university diss.) jdroctor as the striking developments in music during the late 19th and early 20th centuries recede further in time, more and more musicians are returning to a close examination of the early works of schoenberg, usually in an attempt to examine the historical processes involved and, perhaps, to separate those elements in modern music which can be seen as the result of a direct historical development from those that are distinctly special to the period. philip friedheim's dissertation deals with this problem. the dissertation is laid out in three parts. part one is entitled "the relationship between tonality and structure"; part two, "the early works of arnold schoenberg," which examines compositions from 1893 to 1908, the time of the first atonal works. part three is a conclusion that briefly surveys schoenberg's later development. part one appears in condensed form with many of the examples eliminated in the music review (1966) 27: 44-53, and is, to my mind, one of the most interesting sections of the dissertation. it concerns itself with motivic transformation and melodically motivic sonorities in the works of brahms, wagner, and strauss. friedheim's thesis is that certain methods of organizing musical material that can be found in tonal compositions begin to predominate in music written under the influence of declining tonality. such devices are: motivic variation and transformation, and the combining of variously transformed motives into highly contrapuntal complexes; characteristic sonorities that give color to a work but do not represent a tonic in any classical sense; and harmonic devices, such as multiple interpretation of chords, including the variety of possible roots by supposition, enharmonic equivalents, and abbreviation of "functional" progressions by the omission of a typical chord, usually the dominant. all of the above go hand in hand with ambiguity and may be seen in relation to the classical tonal style as either contributors to, or results of, the weakening of the tonal system. the course 121 of the dissertation follows this development in a historic fashion, starting with predecessors of schoenberg and continuing through his opus 11. in the discussion of schoenberg's predecessors, friedheim makes a useful distinction between thematic development and thematic traniformation (pp. l3ff). the transformation concept is illustrated by examples from brahms and includes an elaborated version of schoenberg's observations on the fourth symphony in style and idea. (it might be worth mentioning that the "rhythmic alteration" method of transformation is old, being the essential technique of the baroque variation suite.) there are also examples from wagner, with some excellent demonstrations of motivic interrelatedness. the significance of these predecessors to friedheim is evident from such statements as: "tristan und isolde represents the point in the history of tonality where the expressive element becomes so dominant that the harmony no longer supports the form ... the structure of the music now lies more within the vast complex of interrelated themes than anywhere else" (p. 39). the relation of this view to schoenberg's development is apparent; however, it remains to be shown where in schoenberg's works this same principle operates on a basic level and where it does not-but where a form-creating tonic emphasis is still present. in part two, at the beginning of each group of works examined, friedheim carefully discusses chronology and suggests alternatives to rufer's catalogue. this is welcome in that rufer groups members of the same opus together, whereas friedheim separates these members and balances dates on manuscripts against internal evidence to arrive at his ordering of the composition of the pieces. i hope that friedheim might see fit to gather these chronological observations together into an article in order to make this information more generally available to interested readers. here and there in the course of the dissertation, friedheim provides lists of errors he has found in various scores. all such lists are useful in helping to clear up the errors abounding in schoenberg scores. one of his corrections, however, is probably a mere typographical error: "op. 8, no. 1 ... 5-2 1st via., 2nd note should be a d" (p. 248); friedheim must have meant to say it should be a (an additional error in this opus that friedheim failed to ca tch is in the vocal score of op. 8, no.2; m. 8, second beat, left hand: instead of a.) the author traces the growth of certain techniques in schoenberg's early works. an example is his discussion of the main chord in the prelude to gurrelieder, ed-bd-c-ed-g-c. this chord acts as a non-standard tonic sonority. it is an indication that this piece will make free use of the whole step as a stable sonority. friedheim is especially interested here, however, in the use of this chord to create a continuing aura of uncertainty, and as a source for both harmonic and melodic material. another example of new technique is his citing of symmetrical, non-classically-tonal sonorities in pelleas und melisande, specifically, two augmented triads adding up to a whole-tone scale, and four-note chords in fourths. 122 the unerring path to atonality is traced through such operations, as that employed in traumleben, op. 6, no.1, which is otherwise a rather straightforward song (p. 251): "the melodic movement of the to rather than to produces the outline of an f-major triad although this chord does not appear in the accompaniment. the melodic propensity to leap to and from nonharmonic notes characterizes the writing of this period and often imparts to certain passages the suggestion of bitonality. " at one point friedheim shows an interesting correspondence between schoenberg's speculation in his harmonielehre and a composition written some years earlier, the song chase!, op. 6, no.5. the passage from harmonielehre is entitled "biisse zum verminderten 7-akkord" and is concerned with example 304. (i hesitate to use page numbers here, as my copy has this material beginning on page 411 while friedheim lists page 444.) the original idea, that of "supposing" a series of different roots to a diminished-seventh chord, is extended in harmonielehre to the process of outlining a diminished-seventh chord in scalar form by interpolating notes between the chord members in a consistent fashion so that the added notes themselves form a diminishedseventh chord. there are thus two scales for each "main" diminishedseventh chord. this is the so-called "octatonic" scale and is used extensively in stravinsky's fireworks, composed at about the same time as the schoenberg song. an earlier example is found in tchaikovsky's sixth symphony, first movement, mm. 271-74. schoenberg, however, carries the idea yet further in harmonielehre and in the song to include the accompanying of a diminished-seventh chord by the octatonic scale with which it shares no members; he thereby presents the entire chromatic scale in a well-defined way and in short order. this is one example of a distinctly modern approach, not derived from classical tradition or tendencies. it involves symmetrical relations between tone complexes and further includes the "tonal" concept of chord prolongation, but with a decidedly non-classical tonal procedure. friedheim contends that schoenberg was continually facing the problem of structure in large works and attempting new solutions. he wonders whether a large structure "necessitated a conscious harmonic simplification" (p. 325). he indicates one solution as applied to the kammersymphonie, op. 9, in which schoenberg employs the form-supporting devices of: (1) preservation of thematic character (contrast), (2) relative harmonic stability within an advanced chromatic style (whole-tone scale inside an e-major harmonic background), (3) sonority (chords in fourths as a type ofpunctuation) , and (4) variation and contrapuntal combination of themes. eventually we are led to the situation occurring in the last movement of the quartet, op. 10, for which friedheim refers to chords that "represent momentary harmonic oasis within an atonal desert. thus it is not a specific tonality but a sonority or pitch sequence that appears at the recapitulation" (p.393). some good and welcome observations about rhythm are made with refer123 ence to the atonal style. he says on page 431: "tonal harmony, rooted in the functioning bass and the cadential progression, demands a rhythm based on patterned repetitions. atonal music, freed from the forward motion of the bass and the harmonic drive toward resolution, loses the necessity for a downbeat. the downbeat is, after all, not so much the place for an accent as for a harmonic resolution." the suggestion of rhythm as a primary formal element (thus serving a new role in atonal music) is indicated by friedheim's discussion of the first part of op. 11, no.2. "if one views the passage as a single curve, moving first toward rhythmic clarification, and then away from it, the entire fifteen-bar unit becomes directed. thus, one is not dealing with the development of rhythmic motives, i.e., with thematic material, but with the relative degree to which the patterns support or destroy a fundamental pulse" (p. 460). (in this connection, see friedheim's article "rhythmic structure in schoenberg's atonal compositions," jams [1966] 19: 59-72.) another rhythmic distinction is made when friedheim indicates that the early works of schoenberg are easily shown to be derived from the romantic tradition. serial music on the other hand "functions as a neo-classic element within schoenberg's fundamentally romantic weltanschauung" (p. 56). it might be well to point out that this characteristic is reflected in the varied rhythmic complexity of the pieces. the "post-romantic" and atonal works are in general more convoluted rhythmically, as though perhaps to counteract the disappearing subtlety of the rhythmic effect of harmonic progression in a classically tonal composition as compared to the generally undifferentiated flow of relatively dissonant harmonies in these works. but when schoenberg enters the realm of twelve-tone composition, he is satisfied that he has discovered an alternative to tonality, one which, presumably, need not reflect the flow of traditional music but has its own unique type of motion, for schoenberg's rhythm immediately reverts to simpler patterns contributing to the "motoristic" drive of a piece but not to the breathing effect of older music. the basic rhythms are universal, the flow is stylistic, and schoenberg is no longer interested in preserving the rhythmic effect of a fundamentally different style. the title of the dissertation is perhaps misleading in its emphasis on tonality, insofar as friedheim's actual descriptions of pieces are more concerned with motivic analyses in the sense of repetition, transformations and inversion, etc., than with pitch structures per se. when harmonic points are described it is usually with reference to a peculiar detail outside the context of the phrase, much less the entire work, so that instead of considerations of tonality there are those of chord succession. unless one considers the total environment of an interesting or peculiar detail, questions of tonality are inappropriate. and so friedheim misses an opportunity to make some valuable distinctions of systematics in schoenberg's early music. he is, therefore, also unable to delineate any essential trend or transformation technique in a sufficiently specific and thorough manner. this problem is, perhaps, the 124 result of attempting to deal with every composition of the most prolific period of the composer's life. more information might well have been gained through a total analysis of what friedheim considers the most representative or significant works for demonstrating his thesis. the question of tonality is, in fact, the weak point of the dissertation. near the beginning the author quotes, and apparently endorses, a definition of tonality given by delbert m. beswick in his ph.d. dissertation, "the problem of tonality in seventeenth century music" (university of north carolina, 1950): "tonality is the organized relationship of musical sounds, as perceived and interpreted with respect to some central point of reference that seems to coordinate the separate items and events and to lend them meaning as component parts of a unified whole" (beswick, p. 18; friedheim, p. 4). despite its lack of affirmation this can be a workable description, if not a definition, of tonality in its broadest sense. but a fundamental distinction between "common practice" tonality and "expanded" tonality is not made in any systematic way, and this is the very rock upon which copious learned argument founders. a reference to "fundamental bass" as the primary constituent of classical tonality will not suffice, not only because of the inherently untheoretical, incomplete, and undefined nature of this rameauoriented theory, but because it is easily countered by examples which can be produced, nearly at will, from almost any arbitrary selection of pieces that are twelve-tone or generally admitted to be non-tonal in the classical sense, and which nevertheless contain fundamental-bass progressions of, for instance, perfect fifths. the derivation of these progressions is no less tortured than those common in this dissertation or in the "extended tonality" section of piston's harmony. an obvious example of this technique is found in the second song of schoenberg's opus 15, from its beginning to the downbeat of measure 5, wherein fundamental-bass progressions of an ascending series of perfect fifths can be discerned easily. friedheim would surely agree that this piece had little in common technically with a piece of beethoven, but the precise nature of the difference is not told, and it seems that this could properly be the main point of investigation of a dissertation bearing a title like this one. the distinction between a broad and narrow definition of tonality must not, of course, be confused with the possibility of the presence in a piece of a characteristic sonority which cannot, for reasons of context and, perhaps, traditional knowledge, be taken as a non-triadic tonic. such an example is the "tristan" chord, and friedheim discusses this problem on pages 42 and 43. here he indicates that he recognizes a distinction between tonality in general and classical tonality in particular, but he fails to make use of this awareness for the balance of the dissertation. in friedheim's assessment of a work's adherence to tonality, too much seems to depend on whether or not that work begins and ends in the same key. tonality is a very complex set of possibilities and is not defined by the specific type of elements in a piece or by 125 any detail of connection of sonorities, but rather by what may be heard to lie behind the piece, that sound from which every other event can be shown to be derived, either directly (e.g., v), or through the medium of derivations from derivations (e.g., v of v). a piece may consist entirely of triads and not be tonal, or it may be tonal but not in the classical manner. the classical manner should have been defined tightly so that the non-classical could be distinguished more easily. to be sure, the source for friedheim in his harmonic terminology is schoenberg himself, whose observations on the subject are found in harmonielehre and in the structural functions tif harmony. these theories themselves grow out of a stream of 19th-century thought which derives from rameau and includes the still pervasive influence of riemann. friedheim's analyses are thus well legitimatized in that they follow the style used by schoenberg in the analysis of his own works. but do schoenberg's attitudes toward analysis reflect what is really needed in the field to enlighten and inform others in a way that, hopefully, relates to how people hear music or can learn to hear music? an example of the pitfalls of this kind of theory crops up when friedheim discusses the song erwartung, op. 2, no. 1. about the opening measure he writes: "this passage sometimes appears in textbooks as an example of a non-functioning appoggiatura chord. it can, however, be interpreted as an altered supertonic ninth without the root. the acts as a tonic pedal, and the other notes must be arranged in order (p. 98). this statement has a footnote appended: "although this particular alteration of a iig chord appears extreme, it is listed in schoenberg's harmonielehre (vienna 1911) p. 401 ex. 298 last chord" (p. 98). overlooking schoenberg's failure to include an example of the use of this chord without the root, this writer presumes that friedheim's preference for naming it an altered iig rather than an altered iv7 depends on schoenberg's omission of such a chord in his list of altered seventh chords. in any case, what information is supplied by such a label? and what can a non-functioning chord be in any case? it cannot mean that the piece would be essentially the same without it. is not an appoggiatura a note which functions? would an appoggiatura chord not be one in which all membersfunctioned as appoggiaturas? does the discovery of a functioning chord in friedheim's sense mean that there is a change in the basic harmony from a chord to its resolution? if so, is that not counteracted, in this case, by the pedal tone and the absence of the root? and what is the difference, after all, between a ii7 chord and a iv chord, and, by extension, a ii9 and iv7, if it is not that the specific presence of the root of the ii chord bears a melodic association with both the tonic and mediant tones and supplies in advance a fifth for the dominant chord, a "function" unfulfillable by the ,iv chord? in fact, what does "dominant function" involve if not the contrapuntal operations of arpeggiation, passing, and/or neighbor tones? does a listener hear "note names" regardless of chromatic disguises? if an analyst were primarily interested in vertical configurations 126 per .ie, would it not be wise for him to ponder the differences and similarities between chords of the same notes (by name) as well as of different notes? consistent with the problems created by schoenberg's theoretical syntax is the by now comical issue of the fourth inversion of a ninth chord in verklarte nacht. friedheim says (p. 119): "despite schoenberg's own analysis of this construction, the question still remains as to whether a ninth can be placed in the bass and still maintain its harmonic meaning?" what is its harmonic meaning when the ninth is not in the bass? is it the same for all pieces? suppose, for the sake of argument, that it retained its harmonic meaning in this case. would either the construction of the piece or the hearing of it change? would information be provided by that fact, or does the simple succession of four chords with each part moving unerringly by half step render the whole argument senseless? another basic consideration of this syntax, and one heavily employed by friedheim, is the concept of supposition of roots to chords to form more conventional patterns than would appear from the notes actually present. indeed, friedheim reads a characteristic of the decline of the strength of the tonal system in the possibility of manifold root suppositions for a single chord. this characteristic is an essential point in his thesis in that it introduces ambiguity. "these two factors, the dissolution of the harmonic rhythm and the merging of separate root functions, ultimately deal the death blow to tonality" (p. 243). this attitude is the basis for analyses like the following concerning op. 8, no.2: "the first diminished-seventh chord has an as the root actually sounding in the bass. then, with the remaining, the chord becomes a v g on an implied f:ij:, i.e., (f:ij:)-a:ij:-c:ij:-e-g, and resolves to b-major. the in the bass has become a d:ij:, an anticipation of the major third of the b chord. its continued presence in the first bar, however, considerably obscures the function of the implied f:ij:" (p. 249). note how friedheim, following schoenberg's syntax, arrives at a solution to the passage that entails hearing an implied tone that the composer himself fights in the music. if an analysis is to have any relation to what is heard, why cannot the diminished-seventh chords be heard as the simple, symmetrical, chromatic structures that they are, capable, because of their likely appearance in multiple situations, of multiple resolutions? when such a chord is heard, the listener may have a guess as to where the tones might go, but it is an ambiguous sound until it actually moves. in a highly chromatic environment, it is unlikely that the listener will or should have very specific expectations as to the resolution of any chord. this is one of the reasons that such chromatic sonorities and their distant resolutions have so much more power in classic than in romantic music. another pitfall of the analyst is exemplified in a passage on gurrelieder (p. 151) where friedheim says: "the diminished-seventh chord functions as a v9 without the root. the sustained note d can also be interpreted as the dominant ofthe neapolitan, a progression established in the preceding song." 127 i t can be, but why? the d in fact moves down a half step to become the first note of the tune. why is the description "dominant of the neapolitan" (which does not appear here) more informative than a connective motive of a descending half step? function should refer to what the tones do, not to how they might be labeled irrespective of the music under scrutiny. what develops here is the establishment of a classification system which purports to be analysis. relationships are established between chord classes on a hypothetical basis. notes that appear in a piece of music are then given names that correspond to the relations set forth in such tables as those by erpfl or schoenberg.2 in this way the analyst is in fact describing his system of classification without reference to the composition. one other harmonic feature that friedheim leans on heavily is the abbreviated cadence, specifically proceeding from a pre-dominant-type chord directly to the tonic without the intervening dominant. schoenberg discusses this procedure, "kurzung von wendungen durch weglassung des wegs," on page 403 of the harmonielehre. a particularly strong example is in die aufgeregten, op. 3, no.2: "the d7 at the end becomes a v of ii and the main body of the song follows in f minor, thus omitting two intervening chords, the supertonic and the dominant" (p.239). schoenberg could well have been using this device consciously, precisely where and in the way that friedheim points it out, but, again, the rather direct contrapuntal connection between the two chords is ignored. yet, that this intention is a real fact of the hearing of such music is questionable, even given friedheim's warning that "any extreme use of this technique, however, will result in tonal obscurity" (p. 1 07). perhaps the point concerning the newness of procedures might have been better made by substituting the simple idea of counterpoint within chromatic rather than diatonic constraints for the concepts of conflicting implied roots and multiple interpretations, and of abbreviation. thus, triads may move effectively to many other triads in the most unusual fashion. the composers of the first half of this century were deeply involved in a polyphonic style; thus one may readily expect fascination on their part with the varieties of movement of each individual voice in a chord. in such a case unusual progressions need not be viewed as abbreviations of conventional progressions but as examples of a fresh outlook on chords in their simplest contrapuntal associations. from this point of view, the music of the early 20th century has much in common with the experiments in intense chromaticism of the last part of the 16th century. in both cases, the chromatic scale is the primary assumption and the concept of chords related by consonance to the tonic as structural goals of motion is of no consideration. this attitude would also substitute minimal expectations for the conflicting multiple expectations of friedheim's approach. it should be noted that friedheim himself seems willing to treat the sonorities this way when the chords are less frequently specific triads, as in the works described as "atonal" and parts of those immediately preceding. 128 the strengths of this dissertation lie, then, in the historically oriented survey of schoenberg's predecessors and in the discussions of his own early music, especially with reference to questions of motivic manipulation contributing to clarity in a time of the clouding of tonality. what is weak is the style of harmonic analysis, which, though hoary, seems not to be particularly helpful in distinguishing the stages of tonal development from the classical tonal style to serialism and the utter dominance of the chromatic scale. much of the blame belongs to schoenberg himself, of course, as he seemed to be of that traditional breed of musicians who treat music theory as a mystical branch of knowledge concerned with divining relations that do not have much to do with what music sounds like or how it is composed. one is tempted to entertain the notion that schoenberg was throwing up a smoke screen designed to cover the fact that he really was doing something new after all. notes 1 hermann erpf, studien zur harmonie= und klangtechnik der neueren musik (leipzig, 1927), p.32. 2 arnold schoenberg, structural functions of harmony (new york, 1954), p. 20. 5+ c•m• 129 while we may acknowledge the diligence shown in this monograph, the usefulness of some of the information, and the provocative quality of certain " suggestions, this reviewer would caution the prospective reader to employ his critical faculties to their fullest when using this study. he would also urge a more adventurous attitude towards the further exploration of this vital body of music. leon crickmore-c.p.e. bach: six harpsichord concertos [wq. 43i birmingham: unpubl. thesis for the master of arts degree, university of birmingham (england), 1956 jane r. steveris-the keyboard concertos of carl phillipp emanuel bach ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 65-9718), 1965 (viii+301 pp., yale university diss.) " chester fanning smith the master's thesis of leon crickmore appears slightly revised in music & letters (39/4: 227-41 [july 1958]). here the title is altered from that of the original thesis to simply, '''c. p. e. bach's harpsichord. concertos." that such a change in title is possible may give some conception of the nature of the thesis. miss stevens, on the other hand, sets out to discuss all 52 of the concertos and dutifully proceeds from the first to the last. the emphasis of both authors is on the form of the concertos. about to embark upon an analysis of the form of c. p. e. bach's harpsichord concertos, the student who is well aware of the chronology of music history will expect these works to stand somewhere between the baroque concerto and the classical concerto. of course, in a literal sense they do. both authors use this point of view as a basis for their discussions. to what extent, then, is c. p. e. bach, whose father was his only teacher of composition, influenced by the baroque concerto? and to what extent" does his originality, to which haydn and mozart both paid tribute, lead toward the establishment of the classical concerto? the two authors center their interest on the first movements of the harpsichord concertos. each feels that the form of these movements is similar to the form' of the fast movements of a baroque concerto. the ritornello principle, upon which the discussions hinge, should perhaps be briefly stated. torelli presents this principle very clearly in his concertos. the quick 7-c·m. 197 movements consist roughly of two musical phrases, one assigned to the orchestra or tutti, the other to the solo or concertino. the movement is constructed by alternating these two elements, taking them through a series of closely related keys, and then ending the movement with a final tutti in the original key. (j. s. bach's brandenburg concerto no. 2 offers an excellent example of this type of structure.) it is the recurring tutti which provides the term "ritornello principle." the number of ritornellos generally varies from three to five. the modulations within a movement also become highly conventionalized: i-v-(iii ifin a minor mode)-vi-ii-iv-i. depending on the number of ritornellos, ii and iv become optional choices for the composer. c. p. e. bach tends to have four or five ritornellos in the quick movements of the harpsichord concertos. this fact and the use of the solo harpsichord as a continuo instrument in the ritornellos lead miss stevens to conclude that bach is essentially conservative in these works, which span his entire professionallife. the key scheme of an entire movement is not discussed in either of the studies; one wonders at the omission. one does not expect the composer of the amazing clavier-sonaten und freye fantasien, nebst einigen rondos furs fortepiano fur kenner und liebhaber to be conservative in his harmonies! the bold espressivo modulations which one comes to expect from bach as well as the juxtaposition of unexpected keys, are elements of the empfindsamer stil and are found in these concertos as well. the concerto in d minor of 1748, wq. 23, offers some interesting insights into c. p. e. bach's use of harmony, both on the larger structural level and within particular phrases. the structure of the first movement consists of five so-called ritornellos which are separated by accompanied statements from the solo harpsichord. these ritornellos provide the harmonic skeleton of the movement, giving it both scope and direction. it is interesting to see how differently bach plans his harmonic "tour" in comparison with earlieras well as later-composers. instead of the conventionalized scheme stated above, there is the following: i-iv-v (lowered from c-sharp to c major)-i. this intriguing scheme leads one to speculate that bach's search for musical meaning is centered in the harmony rather than in the thematic structure or the repetition of elements. the harmony :.vithin individual phrases can only be· described as extraordinary. one is immediately arrested in the first three measures by· the downward progression i-v6(minor)-vi. the harmony proceeds at the rate of one chord per measure here. in the sixth measure an appoggiatura resolves most unusually by arriving at a different chord on the note of resolution. in this fashion the music is propelled over a regular eighth-note pulsation. frequently bach, like haydn, modulates by bringing the music toa temporary pause and simply starting in the new key. one such interesting example occurs between the 91 st and 92nd measures. in measure 91 the music comes to rest on a six-four chord in g minor. this is directly followed by a dominant to tonic progression in e-flat major. bach makes these more 198 distant harmonies meaningful by cpnstan,tly returning to the tonic, d minor, during the course of the movement. the purpose of this brief discussion of c. p. e. bach's use of harmony is to point out that the harpsichord concertos are actually anything but conservative. miss stevens arrives at the conclusion that they are conservative by analyzing the structure from a thematic standpoint without apparently being very aware of the novel nature inherent in these compositions. miss stevens makes the following statement on page 119 of her thesis: when ... bach introduces a recapitulation into a concerto movement, ... a conflict [italics mine] is produced between the ritornello form and the recapitulation design which is superimposed upon it. the fact that bach worked freely after about 1750 with both this form and the more traditional, non-recapitulatory one is somewhat puzzling; it seems to suggest that he had already moved too far from the traditional ritornello concept to be disturbed by what appears to be a fundamental dichotomy [italics again mine] between these two formal types. i frankly find this statement puzzling, and was heartened by mr. crickmore's interesting comparison ofc. p. e. bach's use of the so-called ritornello form to the textbook definition of concerto form. in one column he lists· the alternating tuttis and solos and compares them in an opposite column to the usual elements of sonata-allegro form: exposition, development, recapitulation. the comment has been made that practically nowhere in c. p. e. bach does one find what can truly be called a development in the usual sense of the term. this type of comparison may therefore be questioned. it is my contention, however, that such a comparison is made valid by bach's harmonic practice. the harmony has a restless quality in most of his music almost from the very start, as in the d minor concerto discussed above. this restlessness tends to give the music the flavor of developing while the thematic outlines remain intact. on the other hand, there seems to be a clear relation between the ritornello form and what miss stevens calls a "recapitulati9n design" : the first and last tuttis are in the same key, and the last substantially recapitulates the first. referring once again to the concerto in d minor, wq. 23, one finds, as in the classical concerto, a clearly stated double exposition. the orchestra states theme i in the tonic and theme ii in its relative major. this part of the exposition is followed by a harmonically exact restatement of both theme i and theme ii with the harpsichord presenting the thematic material in conjunction with the orchestra. here the similarity with concerto form ends. instead of a so-called development section, there are statements of the same material in new keys, until the final orchestral tutti, in the same key as the first tutti, functions in a recapitulatory fashion and rounds out the movement. a development section would have been superfluous in this work, because of the general feeling of harmonic searching which characterizes the movement from the very,beginning. 199 earl mclain owen, jr.-the life and music of supply belcher (1751-1836), ((handel of maine" volume l· text, xvii + 152 pp. volume il' musical supplement, vi + 204 pp. ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 69-4446, 1969. d.m.a., musicology, southern baptist theological seminary diss.) sterling e. murray american studies is a comparatively little-researched region of historical musicology. as with any youthful area of study the often laborious and frustrating task oflaying a basic bibliographical and biographical foundation must be accomplished before more definitive studies can be achieved. dr. owen's dissertation contributes to this growing foundation and, thus, to a developing knowledge of our musical heritage. dr. owen organizes his study in a deductive manner, progressing from an investigation of the composer's life to his musical publications and culminating in a stylistic study of the music. in the introductory remarks of chapter i, dr. owen explains that "on october 22, 1886, an extensive fire in the central district of farmington quite possibly destroyed certain priceless documents such as letters, diaries, singing society records, etc. therefore, it has been necessary that this investigator base his historical research mainly on secondary sources-nineteenth century histories, correspondence with historians and libraries, and recently published books" (p. 1). this is a supposition, which the author does not attempt to justify. it is also "quite possible" that there were no records of any importance relating to supply belcher destroyed in the farmington fire. lack of primary biographical source material is a handicap, but, in spite of this limitation, dr. owen manages to reconstruct the chronological framework of belcher's life and to paint a vivid picture of the composer's relationship to his family and his community. the biographical discussion of chapter ii divides belcher's life into two periods, the first dealing with the composer's early life in massachusetts and the second treating his later years in maine from 1785 to his death in 1836. the first section primarily provides data documenting belcher's early life and his role in the american revolution. of particular interest is the discussion of belcher's musical training and his possible association with the singing school operated by william billings in stoughton, massachusetts, in january of 1774. because it has generally been assumed, though never conclusively established, that billings exerted a strong influence on other early american 102 psalmodists, the definite establishment of a teacher-student relationship between him and one of the other yankee tunesmiths would, indeed, be revealing. ralph daniel, in his study of the new england anthem,1 has, in fact, placed belcher as a student in billings's singing school. dr. owen disproves this statement, however, by providing in an appendix the membership list of that school, a list which does not include the name of supply belcher. in the documentation of belcher's later years, the new england composer emerges as a man concerned with and active in his community. in addition to discussing belcher's role as the local singing master, dr. owen documents the composer's activity as town clerk, representative to the massachusetts legislature (maine having been a part of massachusetts until 1820), town selectman, and justice of the peace. such observations seem especially pertinent to studies of composers whose music was so closely allied to community life. although informative and generally quite readable, this chapter only partially fulfills its professed purpose. in his introductory remarks, dr. owen states that the "task of the second chapter is to establish supply belcher's position in history and to reveal the various roles he and his family played in the development of our cultural heritage" (p. 1). although the author mentions these roles, he fails to relate them to contemporaneous political, economic, and social developments or to place them in a historical framework. the composer's life would have emerged in a broader dimension had these relationships been designated. chapter iii, "supply belcher's musical publications," introduces the reader to the american tunebooks which contain music by the composer, with a brief resume of their printers and compilers. a commentary on the theoretical introduction to the most extensive single collection of belcher's music, the harmony if maine (1794), forms the basis for the greater part of this chapter. dr. owen begins by stating that "supply belcher's extant, published works are located in the following tunebook publications: (1) the harmony of maine, 1794; (2) the worcester collection of sacred harmony, 6th ed., 1797; (3) the hallowell collection if sacred music, 1817; and (4) ancient harmony revived, 2nd ed., 1848" (p. 29). it is unfortunate that dr. owen did not pursue the publication history of belcher's music in order to establish the extent of its popularity and influence. such an investigation would have revealed that belcher's music also appeared in the following collections:2 samuel holyoke, columbian harmony [1802] (st. john's) abraham maxim, northern harmony, 1805, 1808 (hallowell, jubilant, rapture, st. david's new) charles robbins, columbia harmony, 1805 (ordination anthem: hail, thou king of glory, topsham, hymn 98, hymn 116) thomas atwill, new york and vermont collection [1806] (potency) john busnell, musical synopsis, 1807 (emancipation, invitation, protection, plentitude, spring) azariah fobes, delaware harmony, 1809 (lilly, victory) 103 although perhaps not so popular as those of some of his colleagues,3 belcher's tunes enjoyed a much wider circulation than that implied by dr. owen's statement. closer attention to the publication history of belcher's music would have revealed other interesting facts. for example, the fuging-tune appearance is the only tune by belcher to be published before the harmony of maine and represents the earliest printing of a composition by the maine composer. it appeared in two tunebooks in 1788, the worcester collection (2nd edition) and federal harmony (boston: john norman). furthermore, in the latter tunebook the tune is not listed among those being published for the first time. perhaps, norman had the worcester collection in mind, or the publication history of appearance may have begun earlier than 1788. although composer attributions are indicated in the table of contents of both tunebooks, the authorship of appearance is noted as "unknown." the tune retains this anonymous status as late as nehemiah shumway's american harmony, printed in philadelphia just one year before the harmony of maine. in a 1953 checklist of unlocated titles in early american psalmody, allen p. britton and irving lowens listed only one item by belcher, a "celebrated ordination anthem" with "a number of other fuging pieces never before published," printed in 1797 by isaiah thomas and ebenezer t. andrews in boston.4 dr. owen suggests that this may be a reference to the anthem "hail, thou king of glory" and the two fuging-tunes topsham and pittston. this hypothesis is based on the fact that these compositions, grouped together and attributed to belcher, appeared in the sixth edition of the worcester collection in that same year. dr. owen might also have pointed out that these two publications were both announced by the press of thomas and andrews. the subsequent appearance of one of these fuging-tunes and the same anthem eight years later in robbins's columbia harmony may lend additional support to dr. owen's argument. in any case, the consideration of these additional publications would have created a more accurate picture of belcher's music in relation to the entire early american repertory. it was common practice for tunebook composers and compilers to include an exposition of music theory at the beginning of their publications. this introduction was often the work of a different author. such is the case with the introduction to the harmony of maine, which dr. owen identifies as "reproduced verbatim from the worcester collection of sacred harmony (worcester: isaiah thomas, 1786), a tunebook in which isaiah thomas quite probably compiled and edited the music and wrote the musical instructions" (pp. 35-36). his next statement, however, proves to be inaccurate: "in addition to appearing in all eight editions of the worcester collection of sacred harmony and the harmony of maine, these instructions can be found in the boston collection (boston: william norman, c. 1800) and the federal harmony (boston: john norman [1788])" (p. 36). previously in his dissertation, dr. owen pointed out a discrepancy in britton's identification of these same instructions: "britton contradicts himself by indicating that 104 these musical instructions were prepared by oliver holden, originally appearing in holden's union harmony, vol. i (1793). an examination of union harmony, vol. i proves this statement to be incorrect" (p. 36, fn. 18). in his 1963 doctoral study of oliver holden, david w. mccormick clearly establishes that "holden developed or compiled a set of rudiments and instructions for singers for the first edition of union harmony [1793], then revised this material slightly for succeeding editions of that work, and transferred it without change to the parallel edition of the worcester collection. thus, the introductory material of the union harmony, 2d edition [1796], is identical with that of the worcester collection, 6th edition [1797]."5 it appears that the introduction to the worcester collection, editions one through five (1786-1794), also appeared in belcher's harmony of maine, while those of the worcester collection, editions six through eight (1797-1803), under the editorship of holden, were borrowed from the union harmony. the text which follows contains a short commentary and discussion of each sub-heading of these instructions. dr. owen helpfully provides a photoduplication of the original text, which he urges the reader to study before reading his commentary. the ensuing discussion, which clarifies various points of that text, demonstrates a thorough understanding of the early american idiom. some minor errors do, however, intrude. for example, hans gram did not "come to america from germany" (p. 39). gram was born in copenhagen in 1756 and reached the united states only in 1785 by way of the danish west indies.6 also, in the discussion of "the various moods of time used in psalmody" a table of metronomic equivalents is reproduced (table ii, p. 44), without indication of its derivation.7 one of the most surprising aspects of this chapter is the lack of importance attached to the original character of the harmony oj maine. there would be little argument with the statement that "the great majority of tunebooks published during this period are made up of various composers' music and do not constitute the efforts of only one person" (p. 34). but this would seem to provide all the more reason to draw attention to similar ventures which predated belcher's collection, such as daniel read's the american singing book (1785), jacob french's new american harmony (1789), abraham wood's divine songs (1789), samuel holyoke's harmonia americana (1791), oliver holden's american harmony (1792), jacob kimball's rural harmony (1793), and all of billings's tune books, with the exception of music in miniature (1799). while this group is small, it does encompass some of the most influential collections of 18th-century american psalmody. the discussion of "stylistic observations" in chapter iv is "based upon the following aspects: (1) general observations (texture, form, instrumental passages, key signature, time signature, tune names, the possible use of parody technique) ; (2) melody; (3) harmony; (4) text" (p. 2). although this organization, strongly reminiscent of the fourth chapter of mccormick's dissertation, is generally successful, there are portions of the text which, it seems, could be more effective if combined or redistributed.8 105 the author provides a sound and thorough analysis of belcher's style, progressing from general observations to more detailed investigations. he is always careful to support his analytical remarks with musical examples, cross-referenced by footnotes to the musical supplement in volume two. such a system presents both advantages and disadvantages; while it is certainly more convenient for the author to copy the music only once and it is more economical to include the music in its complete form in a supplement, the need to refer to a separate volume when checking analytical statements against the music is a definite inconvenience, one that is particularly cumbersome when reading the dissertation on microfilm. most of the stylistic discussion benefits from the organization and presentation of material, but in several places confusion arises. for example, the fuging-tune is discussed in terms of texture, while the anthem and plain tune are relegated to the domain of form. the author never clearly states whether he considers the fuging-tune a formal type or an aspect of textural variety. this ambiguity is apparent in the statement, "twenty-four of belcher's tunes are fuging in form and texture. although some deviate from the strictest definition of a fuging-tune, they all are sectionalized and contain some sort of imitation in the second section of the tune" (p. 55). this inconsistency in terminology carries over into the discussion ofform, where the fuging-tune is ignored and the formal analysis restricted to those compositions which are "through-composed, each textual phrase being set to different music" (p. 61). dr. owen places psalm and hymn tunes, as well as anthems, into this classification. even though most plain tunes have no phrase repetition within the setting of a single stanza, they are intended to be sung strophically to several stanzas of text. the reader could easily miss the point of the plain tune's strophic organization when it is classified with the truly through-composed anthem. a less confusing classification might base formal considerations on the relationship between the text and the music, and divide the compositions into fuging-tunes, plain tunes (without musical or textual phrase repetition), tunes with extension (with musical and textual phrase repetition), and anthems (set to a prose text in a through-composed manner).9 the author discusses rhythm as an aspect of melody and concentrates on the deployment of rhythm as an organizational factor. it might have been more helpful if the topics of "rhythmic pattern" and "melodic unity" had been united and grouped under the common heading of phrasing. for convenient reference, at the end of the sections on general observations, melody, and harmony, the author provides a capsule summary of that section's salient points. the discussion of belcher's texts concentrates on a description of the meter and rhyme schemes employed. possibly the most helpful aspect of dr. owen's research on these psalm and hymn texts is presented in chart form in appendix], where the texts are indexed by first line with an indication of meter and origin. the sizeable bibliography is cast in a practical format of books ; periodicals; 106 tune books, anthologies, psalters, hymnbooks; unpublished dissertations; and other sources (including personal letters and newspaper clippings). the musical transcriptions of volume two are drawn from the three tunebooks mentioned in chapter iii and include all of belcher's extant music. editorial emendations are kept to a minimum, and the music is copied neatly and accompanied by "a piano reduction for rehearsal purposes" (p. 2). one aspect of this study demands further comment. in his introduction, dr. owen states that one of his objectives is "to determine the reason for belcher's having been given the title 'handel of maine'" (p. 1). the only stylistic reference to handel which follows occurs on page 70: "it is likely that belcher's admirers dubbed him 'handel of maine' because of his usage of very florid and ornate passages." this conjecture seems naive. this title was first applied to belcher by the editor of a newspaper in a small new england town. lo it was then passed on by metcalf, who probably overestimated its importance. in all probability the name of handel, commonly encountered in literary magazines of the period, was a convenient epithet to symbolize the idea of a famous composer. it seems doubtful that any stylistic analogy was intended. it might have been helpful, however, if dr. owen had traced some references to handel in contemporaneous newspapers, magazines, concert programs, and tunebooks. some research has been done in this field already.l1 dr. owen's admirable study, nonetheless, has shed some light on another dim corner of american musical historiography and is a welcome addition to the growing standard bibliography of early american psalmody. notes 1 ralph t. daniel, the anthem in new england biforel800 (evanston, illinois, 1966), p. 136. 2 these tunebooks were drawn from an unpublished index compiled by richard a. crawford. the reviewer would like to take this opportunity to thank dr. crawford for allowing him to quote from this index. names of tunes are placed in upper case letters throughout this paper. 3 as an adjunct study to his index, dr. crawford has compiled a list of the 100 most frequently published tunes. forty-four of them are by native american composers, but belcher is not represented. see dr. crawford's contribution to notes (june, 1971). 4 allen p. britton and irving lowens, "unlocated titles in early sacred american music," notes, series 2 (1953) ii :36. this reference is taken from an advertisement in an 18th-century american newspaper quoted in evans's american bibliography. dr. owen reproduces this advertisement in his study. 5 david wilfred mccormick, "oliver holden, composer and anthologist," (unpublished s.m.d. dissertation, union theological seminary in the city of new york, 1963), p. 238. 6 ibid., pp. 74-82. 7 the chart appears to be derived from a much earlier tunebook, william billings's singing master's assistant (boston, 1778), as transmitted in hans nathan's introduction to the facsimile edition of billings's continental harmony (cambridge, massachusetts, 1961), p. xi. b dr. owen uses a stylistic matrix based on traditional methods of analysis, which, as with similar analyses of other primitive styles, are not always applicable to early american psalmody. 9 see richard a. crawford, andrew law, american psalmodist (evanston, illinois, 1968),p. 16. 107 10 according to dr. owen, the title "the handell [sic] of maine" first appeared in the may 10, 1796, edition of the tocsin, a hallowell, maine, newspaper. this reference is reproduced in full in appendix h. 11 ralph t. daniel, "handel publications in 18th-century america," the musical quarterly (1959) 45:168--74, essentially a reprint of the information in daniel's ph.d. dissertation, "the anthem in new england before 1800," which was published in 1966 by northwestern university press; and virginia larkin redway, "handel in colonial and post-colonial america," the musical quarterly (1935) 21 :190-207. dr. owen does not mention either of these articles in his bibliography. terence william bailey-the ceremonies and chants oj the processions oj the western church: with particular attention to the practice oj the cathedral church oj salisbury ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 69-1142, 1968. 340 pp. text, 33 pp. music, university of washington diss.) charlotte roederer "this dissertation proposes to describe and study the ceremonies and chants of the processions of the western church" (p. 1). with this brief introductory statement dr. bailey has proposed an enormous task. the processional repertory is large and diverse, properties which make it an interesting but difficult study. it includes chants which range in style from reciting tone invocations of rogation days to elaborate antiphons of major feasts, antiphons which rival many office responsories in size and complexity. also included are numerous office chants which double as processional pieces. it is a formidable repertory indeed. perhaps this is why it has been largely avoided by musicologists despite its importance long acknowledged by students of the medieval carol, the conductus, early polyphony, and liturgical drama. dr. bailey wisely singles out one particular practice for special consideration in part i, that of salisbury cathedral, the sarum rite, because, as he explains, "the sarum use was not only universally admired, it was perhaps the most widespread of any ... " (p. 1). furthermore, "sarum was to have a greater influence in the matter of liturgical customs than any other single church in europe" (p. 2). also recommending the sarum rite "for a study intended to treat the processions in a context larger than the local ... is (the fact) that the sarum customs ... were written up ... in such a way as to be general in their application" (p. 3). finally, the sources are plentiful. "there are more than twenty manuscript sarum processionals, or fragments, and at least twenty-five printed editions" (p. 14). 108 it teatro alta or a sofe and easy method oj producing baroque operas according to modern practice kenneth cooper it has often been maintained that baroque opera (whatever that catch-all term may include) is dramatically dull, literarily inane, socially ridiculous, and musically uneven, if not stagnant. if most revivals of baroque opera have led us to believe this, we must blame inadequate understanding of what the drama, character, and music really mean in this genre as well as inadequate liaison among the so-called experts in these areas. i have a strange suspicion that many people who have enjoyed seeing certain baroque operas on the stage have secretly harbored reservations as to whether the experience really compared in dramatic persuasion to carmen or the marriage of figaro, or to whether the theatrical approach helped or hindered "the music." it seems to me that now, when musicologists are able and ready to provide information and scores, and enlightened musical directors are interested in unusual stage works, it is time that a search be made for stage directors who can understand the musical and characterizational aspects of the unique, but in a way universal, aesthetic of this particular genre. i think the first step is to clear up some apprehensions and misunderstandings, and the second step is to make some positive suggestions about how to go about bringing these works to life. baroque operas (which to my mind, include any dramatic work written between 1600 and 1789 regardless of subject matter or stageability) were conceived and executed for many different purposes during the 17th and 18th centuries. they were performed, for example, at cou:rt, in public opera houses, in the street, the. church,and in concert. they were done with much dramatic action, little dramatic action, or no dramatic action; much costume and machinery, little, or none; a large orchestra, medium, or small; recitative, spoken dialogue, or chant; one language consistently or several mixed (arias in italian and recitatives in the vernacular, for instance); sexual verisimilitude in casting and costuming or not, etc. the demands of such an occasion mayor may. not have been a blessirig to the particular work, but in any case a specific composer's procedures in such circumstances enlighten us as to the relationship of an opera 65 with its functions, social or otherwise. in short, there was an enormous variety in types of works produced. it is clear that the specific;: conditions under which an opera was composed and produced were not the only ones under which it could be performed. when successful works were revived, very often the circumstances were different and basic changes had to be made. (most often, composers adapted to the occasion by writing a new opera.) for example, handel's acis and galatea (an opera in the inclusive sense) was written c. 1718 for an aristocrat's small stage, small forces, and possibly literary-minded audience. when handel revived the work in 1732 he re-thought the relationship of the score to the occasion because his purpose was now a different one-he had a public to attract, a competitor to outdo, a budget to cover, and a new cast to suit. the reason these factors led handel to compose italian arias for this english opera is not hard to imagine. perhaps if his cast had been the same, or the money not an object, or any other circumstance different, handel would not have added or subtracted this or that. handel created (or re-created) a theatrical piece for a certain occasion. each production was newly thought out-no old arias were used if singers were no longer available to sing them, no italian language was used if an audience expected drama in english, and no staging was used if it was considered inappropriate. in the case of acis, there is no question in my mind that the original version was better, but this was not always the case. since composers revived and revised old works for new purposes, we nowadays can take the liberty of doing the same (as in fact w.e cannot help doing), only making sure that we also make the work suitable to the new purpose. there are operatic effects that are lost in concert, such as damon offering polyphemus a drink (in acis and galatea),l oratorios that become distorted in church, such as israel in egypt or messiah, and church works that are dimmed in concert, such as monteverdi's vespers or the masses of mozart and haydn. (in reference to the latter, it must be emphasized that a 20th-century concert hall may be truer to the original in atmosphere and acoustics than a 19thor 20th-century church.) but all these are possible with a change of emphasis here and there, and the deciding factor will be the work's "eternal charm," that is, its aspects which are worth reviving. in order to grasp a work's possibilities we must 66 understand the exigencies of its creation and its first performances -in short, the composer's purpose for turning out the workand seek out the reasons why handel did not stage semele and susanna, not only that he did not do it. by any high theatrical standards (regardless of the aesthetic), there is not much point in presenting a purely "vocal" opera, one with almost no action or characterization masquerading as a recreation of baroque aesthetics, when in fact it often lacks italian diction (nottto speak of voice production), it lacks the castrato voice, anqit lacks most urgently the directorship of a handel or a sca&latti or a monteverdi. our audience is as interested in theater as any ever was and will accept spirit more of letter, although vf!!ry often the latter is of crucial importance. i firmly belie.ve .,t,5'at english and french audiences, for example, were al!o nterested in good theater, and they knew quite well what it was. i question whether all acting was stylized in the 18th century. perhaps it was where competent stage direction was lacking, which may well have been the case in many opera houses; perhaps also certain "bejewelled eunuchs" held the clamp on sensitive staging. but consider stylizing shakespeare: an 18th-century director may well have fallen in with the fashion, and probably have rewritten some sections as well-but it is inconceivable that shakespeare's men and women (no matter what the sex of actor) could have been lost in the shuffle. so that if handel did not go to the trouble of seeing that alcina became a real "acting" person on stage (which is not at all certain), we do know he created that person realistically in the music and through the words and expected that to suffice for the occasion. is the modern director to stylize alcina because it was fashionable in the 18th century? of course not. alcina must live for our audience as she mayor may not have lived in the 18th century. if a baroque opera is to come to theatrical life, the music and stage directors must believe that that is possible. they must be convinced of the credibility of the characters as expressed by the words, costumes, actions, and music. not all ofthese aspects need be the focus of attention all the time-in baroque opera, the music often indicates to us that a character is soliloquizing, or that his character is being psychologically revealed to us. a stage director shoujd not compulsively create "action" here, but 3+ c•m • 67 merely credibility. the endless series of arias in baroque opera must be faced and dealt with positively, rather than apologized for with stylization, over-action, or no action. v eryoften subtle or obvious analogy is involved, which action or gesture can help or hinder. ", ' all musical aspects of the be in line with the characterization in the drama. this \j.ncludes voice-range, orchestration, continuo-realization, aria 'i_ornamentation, cadenzas, tempi, relative dynamics, etc. thj',slightest change of anything affects to a greater or lesser extent iili}e character of the piece and of the protagonist. obviously, there' no such thing as the "right" solution to some of these must be worked out between music director and singer and composer. if the latter is unavailable his best sense must be represented. i believe that carries weight in instrumental music as well, although it given a personal aspect. the entire dramatic production must be focused at and directed to a specific audience (however disparate) by a specific cast in a specific hall. there is no "ideal size" handel orchestra, for example-this is a function of many factors. nor are there rules about those necessary cuts, except that everything performed must be in character. composers often protected themselves against emergencies by writing extra arias of different characters-the selection to be made at the time of performance. one thing can be said categorically, however: no audience (with a few stellar exceptions) truly understands a theatrical production in a foreign language, and the pretence that the work is not literary, but only musical, dismisses the notion of living theater immediately from the listener's mind. perhaps in some cases it makes better sense to have italian artists singing in italian, or french artists singing in french, but english-speaking artists must sing to english-speaking audiences in english, if understanding is crucial. if audiences are interested in conflicts between people, in real people and real situations, in credible or somehow enlightening stories or in humorous chaos (i simplify), it seems to me that we should be seeing more poppea's, giuditta's, and susanna's, and fewer guilio cesare's and lucio silla's. this choice is within the province of the music director, and he must realize that a role with character is much more persuasive than a role without it, whether sung by joan sutherland or not. there 68 are many fine singers now who can sing this difficult music, but not if the audience's entire attention is focused on their vocal cords. now it would. seem that i am advocating complete freedom on the directors' parts to do with any opera as they will. truebut the crushing facts are these: first, that handel, scarlatti, and other men of genius knew more about all the details of musical theater than most of us do now, so that their judgment and taste (sketched in their scores for us to ponder) should be appropriately respected; second, that the combined good tastes of directors and performers will result in an exciting performance, whereas anyone's poor taste will spoil it. that indefinable quality taste is the governing quality that all musical treatises dismiss with pleasure-it is learned only from those that have it. these two humbling notions rear their heads the moment a director chooses to remove a note, a few measures, or a whole piece; to write an ornament, a series of diminutions, or a cadenza; to change a dynamic, instrument, or tempo, or to realize a continuo part. the director must be prepared to indulge in all these activities as if he were the composer. finally, i would like to encourage groups at universities to help themselves to the baroque opera literature (as some have already), as a possible supplement to gilbert and sullivan. perhaps some exchanges can be worked out between universities. staging techniques used in g & s productions are a better start than the very formal attempts at stylization made by some of our larger opera houses, who, of course, have been astonished by the success of these operas. perhaps their astonishment would be increased if the works were tastefully performed, credibly staged, and sung in eriglish! but much can be done with student forces and imaginative direction. iffunds are lacking, perhaps acis and galatea should be done rather than semele: shepherds may have simple costumes but apollo cannot descend from a cheap cloud. it is possible to do an opera with twenty people, if heed be, but those that involve a chorus might be the most successful at a university. columbia-barnard's recent production of susanna, performed in honor of dr. lang, proved among other things that for a well-known title, the music substance were both new and overwhelming. the work has a huge range of emotional activity, from the ultra-religious to thc bawdy, from the real to the incredible, from the young to the aged. ali characters can i69 become alive if they are believed to be alive. there· are grounds for omitting the part of chelsias, susanna's father, among them the fact that handel did. but he can become an additional comment about age in the drama, as well as a person whom one would expect to meet in that company. the work, like many which are based on biblical stories (this one is apocryphal), has very distinct relevance for our time-the questions of sexual desires in old men, judicial corruption, fickle crowds, and female safety are still very much with us. and we quickly recognize the boy daniel, standing up for susanna andjustice, being "putin his place" by the authority of the elders. the song "tis not age's sullen face, front and solemn pace that the truly wise declares" needs no further interpretation today. but although the wicked old men are led to death at the end, we are sorry for them because handel has created rich, personal, real music for them which we cannot forget. the "crocodile" air sung by the first elder when susanna is condemned to death resembles mozart's "deh' vieni non tardar" (figaro) in that the original comic intention of the character is sharply contradicted by the deep feeling and serious intent of the music, so that we are left with mixed feelings-as we would be about any human being. handel's susanna is especially rich in this particular subtlety of characterization, but many operas contain these elements inherently if one is sensitive to them. the music is a constant indication of this, whereas the text may be flat and the theatrical indications, particularly with regard to character, almost nonexistent. apropos of the latter, character may often be enriched by consulting source material, such as biblical or greek mythology, or other uses of the story. one need be tasteful, though-handel (and his librettist) deliberately omitted any reference to susanna's four (or six) children! all too often, beaumarchais' characterizations are ignored when mozart's figaro is staged (obviously they are only a clue, also). the texts all too often are dismissed as doggerel and regarded as blemishes to otherwise fine works. the anonymous text of susanna almost dissuaded me from producing the work. but it turned out to be an extr;::!'!1ely clever text, and the consistent condemnation it has received can only be attributed to the fact that it has been read and recited, rather than sung and listened to. i would like to give one specific example of "applied" musi70 cology, or performance practice, as it is called by musicologists. the problem of the "da capo" is not always easy to solve, despite my own forewarning to deal with it positively. handel very often abridged them, and sometimes left his singer with the final line of b-text rather than a-text.2 occasionally handel allowed his singer to end in a foreign key in order to follow up the b-section with the next action.3 in susanna, in several cases, the ritornelli after the b-sections are long and final (ending in the tonic) and the action continues naturally afterwards, without any "da capo."4 in these cases we did not feel that a repeat of the a-section (ornamented or not) would aid the piece in any way, except perhaps in symmetry, and i believe that this notion was gradually losing popularity at that time, particularly in comic opera. moreover, i think the ritornelli were made long and final to permit handel to cut the :'da capo's" in performance if he felt it necessary to do so. in "guilt trembling" (no. 37), however, the da capo is motivated by the all-too-iate return of joachim, and susanna has all the reason in the world to repeat her story to him-with a few embellishments, of course. notably, this ritornello (bridging the end ofb with the beginning of a) strikes up the a mood directly, and does not make either a gradual connection or a possible ending. i must emphasize that the da capo's should be sung if possible and if effective; if not then the following priorities: decorate it (in character), shorten it (a la handel), omit it, and finally, if all else fails, omit the aria. except under rare circumstances, omitting a b-section will produce a poetic and musical oddity. doing this is equivalent to saying "the play's the thing" without "wherein i'll catch the conscience of the king." perhaps, too, this is the moment to frown on long cadenzas that use more than one breath (cf. quantz's rule), on scales and arpeggios introduced without regard to style or character, on endlessly held 'cello notes in recitatives (they indicate duration of harmony, not duration of note, cf. caccini), on distracting harpsichord improvisations (not to be confused with interesting ones), on breaths taken in the middle of words (which usually means that the aria is being sung too slowly), on cadences left devoid of even the simplest decoration when needed, on french overtures played mechanically, unmelodically, and too slow, and, most of all, on meaningless repeats, which are as boring as a person who always repeats what he said exactly the same way. any of these failings are acceptable 71 now and then when in character, but usually result in annoying the listener, whether he knows it or not. i will be happy if some of these ideas and provocations spur more productions of baroque operas from all points of view, just as lionel tertis once cheered a reviewer who had given him a poor review with the words, "it was the most wonderful piece of publicity for the viola: in it, you mentioned the viola at least thirty times ..•. " notes 1 this is a detail mentioned in homer and, i think, understood by handel as being part of the action. greek, romani and biblical sources often supply such details not specified in the score. 2 "0 had i jubal's lyre" from joshua. 3 "let the bright seraphim" from samson, or "why do the nations" from messiah. 4 "the torrent" (no. 21), "if guiltless blood" (no. 23), and "blooming as the face of spring" (no. 19). . 72 einem tiefen, schwer erforschten grund ruhe, auch von diesem immer schwer auszusprechenden grunde das mogliche mit heraufzunehmen trachte."22) diese grundlichkeit ist mit der "grundlichkeit religioser musik" bei bach verwandt. man mub nicht goethe und sein zeitalter uberspringen, urn bach zu verstehen. haben jene musiker und denker in jeder hinsicht weniger von ihm gewubt als wir, denen aile hinterlassenen werke bachs in gesamtausgaben zur verfugung stehen? bach's place in the world-view of the goethe era bach's presence in the consciousness of a cultural elite cannot be ascribed to a period so remote as his own lifetime or so late as 1829; in fact it date.s from abq,ut 1800. "the revolving wheel of fortune," says friedrich rochlitz, "on which sebastian bach, the revered father, had for a while been very low, brought him up again-up to the highest point, indeed, albeit for a brief moment. that moment occurred about the year 1800." the same important writer, whom goethe knew and valued highly, later declares that "so many penetrating, true, and worthwhile writings" have appeared concerning bach "that even those persons who do not occupy themselves with him and his works must needs possess at least the outlines of both in their minds." 1 in 1811 hans georg nageli calls bach the "greatest of all composers."2 forkel judges him "the prime classic."3 goethe, in a letter to zelter, uses an expression mainly applicable to the head of an order like that of the freemasons: "your grand master."4 a. b. marx, in 1828, is exuberant in his praise of the st. matthew passion, "the greatest work of our greatest master, the greatest and holiest work in the music of all nations."5 e. t. a. hoffmann speaks ofthat "powerful genius, sebastian bach,"6 and hegel of his "magnificent .•• geniality [genialitiit]."7 he was compared to durer and michelangelo, shakespeare and newton, dante and homer. goethe's era saw him primarily within the context of an aesthetic world-view, not, as does historicism, withintl1.at of a detailed historical conception. he was considered it! classical representative of significant ideas. thus k. c. f. dause, the original philosopher whose spanish adherents made trend known as "krausismo," calls him "a splendid example and model offree and bold part-writing."8 178 schubart characterizes bach as "original,"9 goethe as "fundamentally original,"l0 an epithet suggestive of characteristic personal traits and independence, as well as of innovative creativeness. "one comes upon such bold modulations," says schubart, "so grand a harmony, such novel melodic passages, that it is impossible not 'to recognize the original genius of a bach."loa "original" also contains the idea of primordialism, of derivation from sources more universal than historical influences and fashions. the concept of "linear counterpoint" iii bach was current already then. forkel points to the "interweaving of several melodies, all of which are so singable that each can, and actually does, appear in the uppermost part."ll rochlitz stresses that with bach "each part is treated freely (is 'real,' as they say) and melodiously, each, as it were, sings its own song; yet in the aggregate they,form a single, tightly-knit whole."12 carl maria von weber says, "the greatness of his works, as regards harmony, springs from the adroitness of his mental powers" which enable him to link together the most contradictory melodic lines into a unified whole."13 thoughts such as these were articulated by musical experts and expatiated upon by universal thinkers. thus bach was extolled for having combined freedom in the single parts with harmonic cohesion and by the same token freedom of artistic imagination with the logical consistency of harmony. rochlitz underlines that "in bach's most perfect works everything seems inevitable (as if it could not be fashioned otherwise without harming the whole) and at the same time free (each component seemingly self-determined)."14 hegel carries the thought further. he begins by observing that in bach's compositions "different melodies are [often] harmonically intertwined, so that the juncture of specific notes in these melodies always" produces a chord. when this is the procedure, he goes on to say, deeper music ought not to. dwell at length on consonances. "on the contrary, it ought to break up the simple initial concord into dissonances. the boldness of the musical composition abandons merely consonant progressions, moves forward to antitheses, calls forth the strongest contradictions and dissonances, and displays its own might while unearthing all the forces of harmony, whose conflicts it is then just as sure of allaying, thus celebrating the satisfying victory of melodic reconciliation. it is a struggle 179 between freedom and necessity: a struggle between the imagination's freedom to abandon itself to its own sway and the necessity of those harmonic relationships which it requires for its expression and in which lies its own signlficance."15 what later composers were to admire in bach was to some extent already formulated in goethe's time. schumann emphasized his "deeply combinative" quality; but rochlitz anticipates him when he points to bach's "profound combinative gift,"16 an expression allusive not only to the combination of parts in harmonic polyphony but to that of rhythms, of chords, of closely related and distant keys. bach was honored for his pure music, as against music clouded over with sentiment or programmatic cqntent; pure music was also differentiated from music that stressed national styles and tended to self-portrayal. with bach, says zelter, "it is all music, and nothing else; not german, not italian, simply music."17 it is misleading to assume that the romantic period's relation to music was always characterized by a surrender to feeling and a rejection of intellect. connoisseurs realized even then that ingenious music, such as bach's fugues, required intelligent listening. rochlitz is quite emphatic when he says, "his works mean very little to the man who prefers to think while enjoying art; he will never absorb, let alone discover, their essence and excellence .... most of all, [bach] stimulates and engages the intellect. not," he adds, "the cold and dry but the lively, susceptible, penetrating intellect."18 empty, meaningless music, according to hegel, cannot be considered art, for it lacks a principal aspect of all art: content and expression.i8a the purely musical structure of a work rises to the level of true art only through the "spirit inherent in its architecture."18b to have "spirit," here, is to be not only ingenious and plein d'esprit, but spiritoso as well. e. t. a. hoffmann points to the "spirit" in bach's manner of composing variations,19 surely with particular reference to the goldberg variations. . at the time, it was a fundamental concept that, while sculpture had reached its greatest perfection and meaningfulness during greek antiquity, music had only done so in the modern period of western civilization. "sculpture," says hegel, "reaches its highest pinnacle at the hands of the greeks and romans in the ;,tncient world, just as do painting and music in more recent times at the hands of the christian peoples."19a he goes on to say that 180 only western christianity, and no other epoch or culture, had developed a "fundamental sacred music." in this context "fundamental" implies substantive solidity (as when one speaks of a fundamental scientific treatise) as well as penetration into the depths of the soul and the appropriate expression of what lies there. "this fundamental sacred music," says hegel, "is among the deepest and most effective products art can bring forth."19b in hegel's world-view, therefore, it occupies the same high rank as the sculpture of phidias, the poetry of dante, the drama of shakespeare. which masters and which works of sacred music did hegel have in mind? first, the great tradition of catholic liturgical music, whose central figure, as it appeared at this time, was palestrina. but then he points out that the protestants, too, created such music: works having "great depth of religious feeling as well as musical substance, abundant in inventiveness and craftsmanship; as for example, above all others, sebastian bath, a master whose magnificent, genuinely protestant, vigorous yet at the same time erudite geniality [genialitiit] has only recently begun to be fully appreciated again."19c elsewhere i have offered an interpretation of goethe's most famous dictum on bach, made in 1827.20 the conception of eternal harmony in the cosmos and before the creation goes back to old traditions, especially to kepler's harmonice mundi (1619), a book that also influenced bach by way of werckmeister. athanasius kircher spoke of the harmonia nascientis mundi; god had created the world as a monumental world-organ.21 goethe described himself as a mystic in his old age; but he never blurred the boundaries separating the knowledge that comes of experience from rapturous mysticism. "it makes a great difference .•• , whether, when clarity no longer suits me, i endeavor to wrap myself in a certain obscurity, or whether, convinced that clarity is based in deep, recondite ground, i endeavor to evoke whatever i can from that ground, which in any case is all but ineffable."22 this fundamentality is related to the "fundamental sacred music" of bach. one must not skip over goethe and his era in order to understand bach. did those musicians and thinkers know so much less about him, in every respect, than do we, who have at our disposal complete editions of all his extant works? (translated by piero weiss) 181 notes 1 allgemeine musikalische zeitung (4mz) (1831) 33:265; also wegez;u bach edited by j. miiller-blattau (augsburg, 1926), p. 27. 2 amz (1811) 13:662. 3 j. n. forkel, ober johann sebastian bachs leben, kunst und kunstwerke edited by j. mi.i1ler-blattau (kassel, 1950), p. 13. 4 goethe, briefentwurf of june 21, 1827. [, berliner allgemeine musikz;eitung (1828) 5: 13if.; also m. geck, die widerentdeckung der matthiiuspassion im 19. jahrhundert (regensburg, 1967), p. 23. 6 e. t. a. hoffmann, musikalische novellen und au/siitze edited by e. istel, vol. 1 (regensburg, n.d.), p. 91. . 7 g. w. f. hegel, asthetik (berlin, 1955), p. 859. b g. schurda, a'sthetik und musiktheorie des philosophen karl ehr. fr. krause (miinster, 1932), p. 180. 9 c. d. f. schubart, ideen zu einer a'sthetik der tonkunst (vienna, 1806). 10 goethe, letter of april 22, 1827. loa op. cit., p. 100. 11 op. cit., p. 41 12 amz (1803) 5:516; wege zu bach, p. 14. 13 c. m. von weber, siimtliche sehri/ten edited by g. kaiser (berlin and leipzig, 1908), p. 342. 14 amz (1803) 5:514-15. 10 op. cit., p. 844. 16 amz (1831) 33:265ff.; wege zu bach, p. 47. 17 zelter, letter of april 8, 1827. ' 18 amz (1803) 5:509ff.; wege zu bach, p. 9ff. 18a hegel, op. cit., p. 817. 18b ibid., p. 803. 19 e. t. a. hoffmann, sehri/ten zur musik (munich, 1963), p. 251. 19a hegel, op. cit., p. 882. 19b ibid., p. 859. 1ge ibid., p. 859. 20 w. wiora, "goethes wort iiber bach," hans albrecht in memoriam (kassel, 1962), p. 179. 21 r. dammann, der musikbegriffim deutschen barock (cologne, 1967), p. 416. 22 goethe, "zur morpho1ogie," weimar edition 11/6, p. 354. 182 1 porgy and miles* by mark tucker miles davis traced his rising fame in the 1950s to changes taking place in society. "there was a new mood coming into the country," he stated in his autobiography. "black and white people were starting to get together, and in the music world uncle tom images were on their way out." describing himself as a "nonconformist"-"cool and hip and angry and sophisticated and ultra clean"-davis identified with others in that period who were breaking barriers and challenging authority: martin luther king leading the montgomery bus boycott, marian anderson appearing as the first black singer at the metropolitan opera, marlon brando and james dean gaining popularity as actors by portraying rebels (davis 1989:197-98). davis's bold, brash persona earned him a special degree of respect from black americans. writer amiri baraka considered the trum­ peter his "ultimate culture hero," someone who embodied "a black atti­ tude that had grown steadily more ubiquitous in the 1950s-defiance" (baraka 1996:41, 48). given davis's affiliation, first with a group of postwar jazz musicians carving out a new identity for black artists, then with a larger movement engaged in transforming the nation's cultural and political landscape (in­ cluding the beats, civil rights activists, abstract expressionists, and oth­ ers), it is remarkable that in 1958 he teamed up with arranger gil evans to record an album devoted to porgy and bess. ever since its premiere, the opera by the gershwins and heyward had sparked controversy and caused mrican americans to speak out in protest. in 1935 duke ellington said porgy and bess was not "true to and of the life of the people it depicted" (quoted in morrow 1993: 117). in the sixties harold cruse excoriated it as "the most perfect symbol of the negro creative artist's cultural denial, degradation, exclusion, exploitation and acceptance of white paternalism" (cruse 1967:103). unpredictable though davis may have been, it is hard to think of him undertaking a project more at odds with his rebellious im­ age and militant sensibility than a rendition of gershwin's "folk opera" de­ picting working-class mrican americans in charleston, south carolina. yet far from an artistic misstep, porgy and bess became one of the most successful albums of davis's career. widely admired by critics and fans, it current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 20dl-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 14 current musicology occupies a lofty position in the canon of recorded jazz. critic tom piazza (1995: 179) calls it "as beautiful and integrated a jazz album as you will ever hear." historian wilfrid mellers (1987:355) proclaims it "the most distinguished music that has as yet been created through the ... merging of the traditions of jazz, pop, and art music." one of the album's tracks, "summertime," has gained masterpiece status through its appearance on the smithsonian collection of classic jazz. music from the davis-evans porgy and bess has been performed by jazz repertory orchestras and chore­ ographed for dancers. listening to the recording today, it's easy to understand both its initial popularity and long-term appeal. gil evans's orchestrations envelop the trumpeter's spare, plaintive solos with a gorgeous tapestry of sound. gershwin's melodies take on new colors and shapes in this environment­ as though familiar garden flowers had undergone exotic mutation after being transplanted to the soil of another planet. the album does not simply offer up jazz-flavored interpretations of selected tunes but delivers a thorough and cohesive reimagining of gershwin's score, with careful at­ tention to structure, pacing, continuity, and shifts in mood. some writers, in fact, have discussed the lp as a large-scale jazz composition in its own right; baraka (1997:71) refers to it as a "symphonic tone poem." one striking quality that permeates the album is ambiguity: it's not clear to the listener whether davis and evans are retelling the opera's story of love and loss on catfish row or spinning a different tale alto­ gether, offering views of their own lives and times in late-1950s america. partly, the ambiguity results from the instrumental performance of a texted vocal work; removing the words puts distance between the jazz re­ composition and the opera's original setting and plot. having davis serve as principal soloist throughout-performing numbers sung by characters both female and male, both leads and secondary roles-further enhances the vagueness of the presentation. in the strawberry woman's song, for example, is davis channeling the voice of the street vendor? he apparently thought so, saying that if you lis­ tened to his version of her cry, "you know what's going on. you hear that old strawberry-seller yellin' out strawberries" (quoted in carr 1982:102). critic gary giddins, though, cites the piece as evidence of the trumpeter's heightened self-consciousness, the deliberately cracked notes revealing signs of "narcissism" (1997:222). wilfrid mellers hears it as something alto­ gether different: a "lovely blue lullaby, poetic in sonority, sleepy in rhythm" (987:356). so what is the subject of the strawberry woman's song? does davis transport the listener to catfish row, to some interior psychological realm, or to the hazy borderland at the edge of slumber? in a way, the ambiguity enhances the music's appeal, giving it a multivalence missing from the opera's folkloric naturalism. mark tucker 15 one critic who has noted the album's elusive locus of meaning is amiri baraka, who hears the music produced by davis and evans as having an al­ luring yet unreal quality. "miles's horn itself is so beautiful," baraka writes, "except there is a feeling in us that maybe all of this is a dream. a film. an invisible pageant of feeling." porgy and bess, he concludes, is "great movie music" (baraka 1996:71). i'll return to baraka presently, for i believe he comes closer than any writer to grasping the essence of the davis-evans collaboration. for now, his inspired comparison of porgy and bess to "movie music" serves as a starting point for understanding how this intriguing album came to be. * * * the davis-evans porgy and bess was one of many jazz and pop recordings from the late fifties that sought to capitalize on interest in the film pro­ duced by samuel goldwyn, directed by otto preminger, and starring sidney poitier, dorothy dandridge, and sammy davis, jr. though goldwyn announced he had acquired rights to the film as early as 1957, it was not completed and released until july of 1959. a list of selected jazz treatments of porgy and bess (see table 1) reveals that 1959 was the year many of these recordings were issued, timed to coincide with the distribu­ tion of the film.l most of these albums simply took the best-known num­ bers from the opera and recast them with new arrangements and impro­ vised solos. one of them, porgy and bess revisited, was more unusual, with each character in the drama portrayed by a different instrumentalist (cootie williams played porgy, rex stewart was sportin' life, and alto sax­ ophonist hilton jefferson was bess). in ajune 1959 review of four recent jazz responses to porgy, john s. wilson singled out the williams and stewart album as the best of the lot thus far, criticizing gil evans for his "slow, mournful" arrangements and davis for the "shaky breathiness" of his trumpet playing (wilson 1959). evans was not content to follow a med­ ley approach with porgy, nor, like arranger russ garcia before him (in al­ bum versions for bethlehem and verve), did he attempt to duplicate the overall sequence of gershwin's opera, from beginning to end. instead, he constructed a kind of large-scale orchestral suite (as he had done on miles ahead, though now minus the composed transitions) that reordered numbers yet retained much of the original work's dramatic thrust and emotional core. this interest among jazz musicians in tackling porgy and bess also re­ flected broader trends in the music industry beyond the tie-in with preminger's movie. jazz recordings of hit broadway musicals proliferated during this period, as artists hoped to match the success of andre previn's trio with my fair lady in 1956. in 1959, for example, such recordings as gypsy by the teddy wilson trio, south pacific by bob crosby's bobcats, and li'l abner and pal joey by previn were available. jazz was also beginning to 16 current musicology table 1 selected jazz interpretations of porgy and bess, 1956-1997 artist/ group year mel torme, francis faye, betty roche 1956 (porgy and bess: a jazz version) record label arranger bethlehem russ garcia louis armstrong and ella fitzgerald ree. 1957; verve russ garcia issued 1959 miles davis with orchestra ree. 1958; columbia gil evans issued 1959 ralph burns and his orchestra 1959 decca ralph burns (porgy and bess in modernjazz) rex stewart, cootie williams, et al. 1959 warner bros. jim timmens (porgy and bess revisited) bob crosby's bobcats 1959 dot porgy and bess all-stars 1959 united artists bill potts mundell lowe all-stars 1959 camden mundell lowe hankjones 1959 capitol hankjones (swingin'impressions of porgy and bess) oscar peterson trio 1959 verve oscar peterson trio modernjazz quartet 1963 atlantic john lewis, members of the mjq oscar peterson,joe pass, 1976 pablo oscar peterson, stephane grappelli, mickey roker joe pass, et al. joe henderson 1997 verve joe henderson, conrad herwig, kevin hays mark tucker 17 turn up on television and film soundtracks, providing atmospheric back­ ground for shows featuring suspense, mystery, crime, and action-as in henry mancini's music for the peter gunn television series, elmer bern­ stein's for the man with the golden arm, and miles davis's for louis malle's film elevator to the gallows in 1958. the deepening connection between jazz and visual media has relevance to the porgy album, since both gil evans and many of the project's orchestra musicians had worked for film and television studios. critics noting this connection have reacted differ­ ently. while baraka hailed the album as "great movie music," stanley crouch claimed that without davis's horn, many of evans's arrangements would merely sound "like high-level television music. "2 but there are other commercial and musical reasons to consider for davis's involvement with porgy and bess. producer george avakian de­ scribed the album as part of a comeback campaign he orchestrated for davis, whose career in the first half of the fifties had been derailed by drug addiction and spotty performances. avakian wanted to revisit and expand the sound of the nine-piece group davis had used for the birth of the cool sessions in 1949. he was also intrigued by the contemporary "third stream" movement-experiments to combine american jazz with tech­ niques drawn from european art music-and had arranged for davis to record part of an lp with gunther schuller, music for brass. this album convinced avakian that "a similar, less 'classical' setting could attract a whole new audience [for miles] without upsetting his growing fan base" (avakian 1996:31).3 accordingly, the first three davis-evans collaborations -miles ahead, porgy and bess, and sketches of spain-offered a diluted third stream mixture of jazz, pop, and classical ingredients, the latter supplied by symphonic orchestration (french horns, tuba, double reeds, harp) and concert hall repertory (compositions by de falla, rodrigo, and that crossover pioneer, gershwin). rather than a strategical career move, davis spoke of porgy simply as marking another stage in his artistic development. in his autobiography, he claimed it was his idea to record the work after he had seen his soon-to­ be wife frances taylor dancing in a production of it at city center (davis 1989:229). he also linked porgy to his growing interest in european con­ cert music and his attraction to the new directions opened up by modal jazz. through pianist bill evans, davis was discovering ravel and rach­ maninoff and studying modes used by the armenian composer aram khachaturian. in a well-known interview with nat hentoff from 1958, the trumpeter compared the modal practice of bill evans and khachaturian to the porgy arrangements devised by gil evans. jazz, he told hentoff, was returning to an "emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation" (hentoff 1962:167). 18 current musicology by way of example, davis cited the arrangement for "i loves you, porgy," in which gil evans had written only a scale for the trumpeter to solo on: no chords. the results are heard halfway through the piece (1:47) when, over an oscillating f to c pendulum in the bass, the orches­ tra sets up floating color chords based on the a phrygian mode, and davis uses the same mode for improvising. it is a painterly effect, with the trum­ peter producing sharply defined lines over a soft background wash. this passage conveys the fresh possibilities for freedom and open space offered by modal jazz. as miles said, "when you go this way, you can go on for­ ever" (hentoff:166). at the same time, the music graphically illustrates bess's comforting words to porgy in her aria: "i wants to stay here/wid you forever/an' i'd be glad." as we know, though, bess won't stay with porgy but leaves him behind when she heads north with sportin' life. (the very next track on the album-and the final one-is "there's a boat that's leaving soon for new york.") what davis and evans evoke so pow­ erfully in "i loves you, porgy" is the vision of a stable, nurturing happiness that doesn't exist-and probably never will. despite such glowing moments of promise in the davis-evans porgy and bess, there is an unmistakable aura of sadness and yearning that hovers over the album. it surfaces most in romantic ballads like "bess, oh where's my bess" and "my man's gone now," but it's there also in the religious numbers and street cries, in "the buzzard song" and "summertime." some might relate this pathos directly to heyward's story and gershwin's score-though in fact the opera features many more lively and dramatic sections to provide contrast. (porgy's upbeat "i got plenty of nuttin' ," for example, is missing from the davis-evans version. it might have given a lift to the proceedings, but the idea of davis putting on the mask to proclaim "nuttin's plenty fo' me" and "i got no car, got no mule"-when he was driving a white ferrari convertible at the time-was ludicrous.) baraka, though, interprets the music of davis's porgy not as melancholy ruminations, not even as a gloss on the opera, but as a portrait of two dif­ ferent sides of the trumpeter's aesthetic: the hip, street-smart, bluesy mrican american vernacular confronting what baraka calls the american "cushion" or "bottom"-the "lushness and pretension" and "sensuous well­ being this society sports."4 in baraka's view, davis's trumpet depicts an mrican american seeking to integrate-or at least find a place within­ mainstream america. he writes: it is the bluesiness of the davis conception ... submerged in all the lushness that gives these moods an intelligence and sensitivity. there is yet a searching quality in miles's horn, above, beyond, below, in­ side, outside, within, locked out of the lushness, the lovely american mark tucker 19 bottom. it is a searching, a probing like a dowser, used for searching out beauty. (baraka 1997:71) what baraka identifies as the fusion of "african american" and "american" qualities in davis's aesthetic might also be understood as a musical model for social integration. given the escalating sequence of re­ cent events in the civil rights movement-from brown v. board of educa­ tion and rosa parks to eisenhower sending federal troops to little rock­ the davis-evans projects in the late fifties demonstrated how blacks and whites could join talents to form a creative coalition. the large, interracial cast for porgy included not only the musicians on the album, but extended out and back to the gershwins and heyward, gullah-speaking sea islanders, even ravel and khachaturian. as davis observed in his autobiog­ raphy, "black and white people were starting to get together." the al­ bum's cover photo drove the point home, implying an erotic connection between a possibly mixed-race couple-an image that has nothing to do with porgy and bess or the world of catfish row but with new personal freedoms that were possible on the cusp of the sixties.5 and on the al­ bum's high-spirited last track, new york city was celebrated as the promised land, a place of pleasure and loosened social codes far removed from the problems of poor black folk living down south on catfish row. but if the davis-evans porgy and bess sent a hopeful message about race relations and drew power from the fusion of an "african american" and "american" aesthetic, it also sounded a warning about trouble yet to come. the album opens not with the soothing lullaby "summertime" but with porgy's disturbing song of the buzzard, portent of evil and misfor­ tune. songs of loss and absence recur throughout, from "gone, gone, gone" to "bess, oh where's my bess" to "my man's gone now." the prevalence of minor keys gives a somber cast to the album. and as if to reinforce an undercurrent of foreboding, the only gil evans original included in the set-titled "gone," and based on gershwin's "gone, gone, gone"-features davis not as the introspective, romantic balladeer but as baraka's favorite jazz anti-hero: the "cool man, bad dude, hipster" (baraka 1996:41). much of "gone" features davis soloing only with rhythm section-no padded "cushion" here, but the lean profile of black jazz musicians taking care of business and playing the blues. when the orchestra reenters after davis's solo choruses, it's like the credits rolling at the end of a private-eye television series. the punchy brass accents say, "look out-don't mess with me!" the music glamorizes davis as a tough urban character-someone out of a chester himes novel or the godfather of richard roundtree's shaft. a few months after porgy and bess was released, davis found himself in a real-life dramatic episode that directly challenged the album's vision of 20 current musicology interracial harmony, underscoring instead qualities of tragedy and conflict hinted at throughout evans's rescoring of gershwin's work. davis was standing in front of birdland in manhattan, taking a break after playing a radio broadcast. as one version of the story goes, he helped a white woman get into a cab. a white policeman came up and told him to move along or he'd be arrested. davis refused, saying he was working at the night club and pointing to his name on the marquee. a detective ap­ peared and fighting broke out, with davis throwing punches and the two whites using blackjacks. more police arrived, and the trumpeter was led away with a bleeding head wound to the precinct station, where he was charged with assault and battery and resisting arrest. he spent the night on riker's island. at the trial, davis didn't take the witness stand because his lawyer told him "the white judge and white jury would mistake my con­ fidence for arrogance" (davis 1989:240). eventually the arrest was ruled illegal and the charges dismissed. a suit brought against the police depart­ ment by davis and his lawyers was unsuccessful. this experience trans­ formed davis: "[it] made me bitter and cynical again when i was really starting to feel good about the things that had changed in this country" (ibid.:238) . if porgy and bess showed davis striving to seek reconciliation with the mainstream, searching for beauty in the "lovely american bottom," as baraka has said, then the birdland incident served as a brutal reality check. on the streets of new york, a celebrated black artist found out that society had not changed as much as he believed and that justice under the law was no more guaranteed for him than for the humble residents of catfish row-or in our own time, for such innocent black victims of po­ lice brutality as abner louima and amadou diallo. unlike porgy, though, miles would not smile and shrug this off-"nothing" was never going to be "plenty" for him. but in his music, davis at least could dream of a better place and time, a land where sweet strawberries ripen on the vine and bess and porgy's love lasts forever. the dream was tempered by davis's first­ hand knowledge that for mrican americans-for all americans-it was going to take a mighty long pull to get there. his art would bear eloquent witness to both the pleasures and perils of that journey. notes * editor's note: this paper was originally read at "rhythm-a-ning: a sym­ posium on jazz," columbia university, new york, n.y., may 6,2000. many thanks to carol oja for making this paper available to the journal and to thomas payne for his valuable editorial comments. 1. the film has been out of circulation since 1972, when goldwyn's lease on the rights to porgy and bess expired and the gershwin and heyward estates refused to renew. mark tucker 21 2. see crouch (1996:31). in another critical assessment of the davis-evans col­ laborations, crouch writes that their recordings "were inclined toward the pallid textures that resulted from the impressionistic influences on evans and from the disavowal of the varied negro vocal inflections that had meant so much to the richest instrumental timbres of the idiom" (1998:311-12). 3. though avakian produced miles ahead, he had left columbia by the time of porgy and bess, which was produced by cal lampley. 4. baraka takes his image of the "bottom" or "cushion" from davis, who ap­ plied it to gil evans's orchestrations for bandleader claude thornhill. according to baraka, "davis says thornhill's music drew him because he wanted a music with more melodic access and a 'cushion' (bottom) of harmonies that made his own simple voice an elegant, somewhat detached 'personality' effortlessly perceiving and expressing" (baraka 1996:46). 5. the two figures in the photo were davis and frances taylor, with heads and upper bodies cropped to render their identities ambiguous. references avakian, george. 1996. miles and gil remembered. liner notes to miles davis & gil evans: the complete columbia studio recordings, 1957-1968. columbia cxk 67397. baraka, amiri. 1996. homage to miles davis. in the miles davis companion, edited by gary carner, 41-51. new york: schirmer. ---. 1997. miles davis: "one of the great mother fuckers." in a miles davis reader, edited by bill kirchner, 63-73. washington, d.c.: smithsonian institution press. carr, ian. 1982. miles davis: a biography. new york: morrow. crouch, stanley. 1996. play the right thing. in the miles davis companion, edited by gary carner, 21-40. new york: schirmer. ---. 1999. miles davis in the fever of spring, 1961. in always in pursuit: fresh american perspectives, by stanley crouch, 295-323. new york: vintage. cruse, harold. 1967. the crisis of the negro intellectual. new york: morrow. davis, miles, with quincy troupe. 1989. miles: the autobiography. new york: simon and schuster. giddens, gary. 1997. miles wiles. in a miles davis reader, edited by bill kirchner, 217-23. washington, d.c.: smithsonian institution press. hentoff, nat. 1962. an mternoon with miles davis. in jazz panorama, edited by martin williams, 161-68. new york: crowell-collier press. mellers, wilfrid. 1987. music in a new found land. new york: oxford university press. morrow, edward. 1993. duke ellington on gershwin's "porgy." in the duke ellington reader, edited by mark tucker, 114-17. new york: oxford university press. first published in new theatre (december 1935): 5-6. piazza, tom. 1995. the guide to recorded jazz. iowa city: university of iowa press. wilson, john s. 1959. four more jazz approaches to porgy. high fidelity (june): 92. • abstracts with this issue cm embarks on abstracting dissertations which are written in languages not generally accessible to english-speaking readers. that is, cm will not print abstracts of dissertations in french, german, italian, spanish, or english. authors of dissertations in languages other than those cited are invited to contribute abstracts of their work . for dissertations written in yugoslavia, our readers should consult the muzikoloski zbornik (musicological annual), edited by the department of musicology, university of ljubljana. this annual, of which there are two volumes now available, prints abstracts of yugoslav dissertations along with an english summary. primol:, kuret musical instruments in the medieval frescoes of slovenia defended april 6, 1965 cniversity of ljubljana in their depiction of musical scenes the visual arts have provided the music historian with priceless information concerning those periods for which other sources arc either rare or non-existent. since medieval texts on instruments arc especially few, the specialist in this field is particularly dependent on paintings and on manuscripts with representational art. slovene church frescoes picture instruments played in the same manner as elsewhere in europe from the 16th century to the mid-17th century. important subjects of the era are portrayed, such as, the last judgment and processional epiphany scenes. of greatest interest is the painted carniolan choir, a motif which flourished particularly in carniola, littoral, and carinthia, and which usually included angels playing musical instruments. these frescoes reveal developments in form and technique of the full range of instruments: trombones, trumpets and wind instruments of all kinds, lutes, shawms, portative organs, harps, bagpipes, fiddles, and horns, among others. the musical instruments in these medieval frescoes bear out the evidence of written sources that instrumental music was perpetrated by traveling artists from whose ranks permanently employed musicians descended. written documents include the first printed handbook of musical instruments wri tten and published in 1511 by sebastian virdung, and the itinerario of paolo santonino, secretary to the visiting bishop pietro carlo da caorla, composed during the latter's journeys through slovenia between 1485 and j 4b7 and amply describing musical practices in the regions visited. andrej rijavec music in slovenia in the protestant era defl>ndcdjune 22,1964 lj niversity of ljubljana the protestant era, that is, the middle and latter part of the 16th century, is of special importance for slovene culture and in particular icjr its music. 195 the religious movement had the powerful dfect of weakening the stylistic continuity vvhich slovene music had achieved \\,ith vvestem european musical de\tlopment since the acceptance of christianity, rijavec's dissertation seeks to e\"aluate the chief musical achievements of the period and to examine style \\,ithin both catholic and protestant music. ample attention is given slo\'ene catholic music. particularly as found in the institutions of ljubljana. ;\fonethekss, the main conccm of the work is thc actiyity of the protestants. primo:!' trubar and others incorporated luther's vie\\'s on music into the framcwork of slm"cne protestantism. the musical ideas of the former are set forth in his cerkovna ordninga (church order) and in his introductions to hymnbooks which playcd vital roles in the spreading and consolidation of the faith. the acti\'ity of the ljubljana protestant circlc, especially of its gymnasium, is seen to be of great importance. rijavec describes the functions of rectors, cantors and their assistants, two sun'iving school curricula, choral and instrumental instruction, and the connection between the musical duties of the school and the ljubljana protestant church. discussion of town and prmincial musicians, and of domt'stic music-making, completes the picture of ljubljana. rijavec then proceeds to im"cstigate associations of the camiolan nobility with musicians such as annibale de perini, giacomo gorzanis, and phillip duc. as well as protcstant musical acti\'ity in other parts ofsloyenia. the author's analysis of musical compositions and performance rc\tals stylistic influences from protestant germany, alongside persistent connections \i,ith the italian renaissance. ht' concludes that the reformation had both bmdicial and detrimental eff('cts on slovene music, and that after the triumph of the counter-reformation at the beginning of the 17th century, slo\"ene music took a considerably different course from what was the case in regions where protestantism took permanent root. levre zupanovic achievements and characteristics of the j1lork tatroslav lisinski ddc:nded february 25, 1965 cni\trsity of ljubljana . [he croatian composer vatroslav lisinski (1819-1854) has been the subjcct of a substantial literature, in which tne monograph by franjo ksaver kuhai' ( 1887; 2d ed. 1904) is ou tstanding. nevertheless, his biography has remained incomplete, and a thorough analysis and evaluation of his music has been left untouched. zupanovic's study is an important supplement to present biographical knowledge. furthermore, his bibliography of lisinski's works includes four hitherto unknown picces and discloses that two compositions, formerly attributed to lisinski, are works of other composcrs. zupanoyics analyse's sho\\, lisinski to hah' bccn schooled in tht' carl, romantic stde. his compositions can be di\,idcd roughly into three' period;: the carl\' years, the sojourn in prague from 1847 to 1850, the later years in 196 zagreb. it was during the prague years that lisinski was exposed to the activities of his gnman contemporaries and the new concepts of berlioz. his harmonic idiom is characteristic of the early romantics, especially in its treatment of dissonance and syncopation. id('!1tical or slightly modified melodic formulas often appear in his music; in the opera porin one finds an anticipation of the usc of leitmotif. a substantial number of compositions draw their inspiration from fillk music and from nature (e.g .. the idyll ncr abend). included in lisinski's output arc s('\tn oylttures. s('\'(']1 chamber works, thirty-three piano pieces, sixty-eight songs. lisinski was the founder ora nationally-oriented school of croatian music; however, he far surpassed his fcllo\\croatians in the integration of diverse inouences. the just balance of structure and expression of several late works place him on a level with his european contemporaries, such as, ;\,;lendclssohn, schumann, chopin, liszt, glinka, and verdi. 197 bibliographical sandtraps: the klavierschule, pleyel or dussek? julius zsako according to the detailed reactions expressed by many of its readers, the "bibliography of performance practices" (ppb) which appeared in current musicology, number 8/1969, seems to have filled the dire need for a study of this type, however studded with beginners' constraints this work turned out to be. such an undertaking, even as a point of departure, a "working tool," deserves praise and encouragement. yet, in terms of this project's very nature and the circumstances surrounding its inception, errors of commission and omission were expected a priori. it is, in fact, one such curious bibliographical reference which prompted the present article. this concerns entry number 816, "pleyel, ignaz. klavierschule, 3rd ed. leipzig: hoffmeister & kuhnel, 1804 ... ," a publication attributed, whether by accident or intent, to pleyel alone. toward the end of the 18th century several well-known composers established themselves as publishers, too. one reason for this tendency was to protect the authenticity of their own compositions, in the absence of copyright laws, against the malpractices of other publishers. nevertheless, as entrepreneurs, they occasionally became involved in complicated mercantile and legal problems, sometimes even concerning the question of authorship. entry number 816 is the culmination of an apparently inexplicable exchange between two, or rather three, such noted composer-publishers. the ppb is correct in making no reference to the first and second editions of the klavierschule, since there were no such editions under that author-title listing. however, the bibliography fails to mention the two earlier works which show different titles but contain the raison d'etre for entry number 816. the leipzig (third) edition is a revised, german version of a french edition published in paris by pleyel himself in 1799. surprisingly, in this edition pleyel claims to be only a co-author and entitles the work: methode pour ie piano forte par pleyel et dussek.l to further confuse bibliographers, if the original english edition is referred to, dussek is credited with sole authorship. the first publication, dussek's instructions on the art of playing the piano forte or harpsichord, was published by dussek's firm, corri dussek & co., in london during 1796.2 dussek's bewilderment upon seeing that the third edition of his book did not even mention his name is expressed in his open letter, "jedem das seine," in the amz of 1802 :3 herr pleyel in paris ... lies vor einiger zeit die von mir in london unter dem titel: dussek's instructions etc. bey corri dussek et co., herausgegebene klavierschule, in franz6sischer uebersetzung, drucken, 75 und that mir die unerwartete ehre an, sich auf dem tite! als mitverfasser derselben zu nennen .... bey meiner jetzigen reise in deutschland finde ich diese meine klavierschule in einer deutschen uebersetzung aus dem verlag der herren hoffmeister und kuhnel in leipzig, denen es jedoch, ich weis nicht warum, gefallen hat, meinen namen auf dem titel derselben ganz zu unterdrucken und hrn. pleyel allein als verfasser derselben zu nennen. since dussek's protest appeared in 1802, the year of 1804, reported in the ppb as the year of the third edition, should be changed accordingly.4 in the same amz letter dussek also declares that he has undertaken a revision of his klavierschule, which was to be the only authentic german edition. the publication of this edition, which was to hand the authorship back to dussek, was announced by breitkopf and hartel in 1803 as follows: dussek, j. l., pianoforte-schule. nach der englischen originalausgabe (dussek's instructions) ubersetzt und von dem verfasser selbst, verbessert und mit vielen praktischen beyspielen vermehrt, herausgegeben. i thlr.5 to further complicate this story, yet a fourth edition of the dussek pianoforte-schule is reported by craw.6 although dussek made it clear that this pianoforte-schule was the outgrowth of his original work (not to be confused with pleyel's klavierschule), the title page of the english original already carried the seeds of the forthcoming controversy. the long and explanatory title page of dussek's instructions makes the following reference to pleyel: making the compleatest [!] work ever offered to the public. / to which are added gp. 32 expressly composed by / ignace pleyel, / six progressive sonatinas w. th violin accomp.ts ad libitum; / which the author has so constructed, that the passages are / first immediately under the performers hand, not exceed.g / in compass one fifth, and gradually extended & connected w. th / the improvement of the pupil. it is further explained that the work is divided into two books and that each can be purchased separately. on the bottom of the title page the following announcement appears: n.b. a continuation of six progressive sonatas, by ignace pleyel, / will shortly be publish'd ... the whole of this work, consisting of / three books, may be had ... in addition to the above evidence of pleyel's involvement with the first edition, there are other good reasons to explain why pleyel added his name to dussek's for the parisian edition. pleyel not only provided the french translation but also added some eighteen of his own exercises to those of 76 dussek.7 enjoying an excellent reputation in paris as both composer and publisher, pleyel knew that he would also increase the sales potential of the book in france by listing himself as co-author. these facts do not, however, explain the controversy surrounding the german edition, especially since pleyel was never so popular in germany as he was in france and england. this third edition would seem to suggest that pleyel unscrupulously declared himself the sole author of dussek's volume. tracing the authorship of the klavierschule is only half the story. the fascinating complexity in this evolution of authorship, and the psychological facets which might have constituted such an unusual state of affairs are not readily apparent. since it was hoffmeister who published the third edition of the klavierschule, one has to consider the relationship between pleyel and hoffmeister, dating back to 1798-99. the issue is again a question of authorship; however, the progression is now reversed. here are the words of hoffmeister as expressed in an open letter, again in the amz:8 herr ignaz pleyel hat in seinem verlag 3 grosse duetten fur 2 flaten herausgegeben, und mir die unverdiente ehre erwiesen, auf dieselben als das 50ste werk meinen nahmen zu setzen, und dadurch mich zum verfasser erkliiren ... ich entsage demnach affentlich den sussen vaterfreuden, und stelle soiehe 3 duetten dem herrn pleyel anheim, mit der bitte, statt meines nahmens den wahren verfasser, der ihm wohl am besten bekannt seyn wird, auf das titelblatt zu setzen ... while dussek and pleyel managed to settle the matter of the klavierschule amicably, the relationship between pleyel and hoffmeister remained rather embittered for many years. there is evidence that dussek was not seriously concerned about the elimination of his name from the third edition; he did not directly blame pleyel for it, and the two composer-publishers maintained a continuous and friendly personal and business relationship.9 perhaps dussek was made aware that pleyel's contribution was significantly valuable, as becomes readily apparent when one compares the original and third editions. on the other hand, several letters of pleyel to hoffmeister evidence a continued implacability on the part of hoffmeister and also reveal the burden ofa distressing monetary debt which hoffmeister owed pleyel. lo this, in fact, led to severely strained relations between the two; pleyel, sarcastically, even changed to the "sie" form of address and threatened to come to leipzig in order to personally collect what he was owed. there is no proof, of course, that the third edition of the piano method (without the name of dussek) was directly related to this unsettled and alarming situation, nor that hoffmeister, in turn, was trying to cause pleyel the pains of undeserved "sweet parental joy." nonetheless, it was published in the midst of heated mutual mistrust, and the above letters do reflect hoffmeister's ire. 77 there is yet another impugnable issue related to the background of the above controversy, and again in the amz.n preceding hoffmeister's open letter, a reviewer (signing as m ... ) discusses the duets of "hoffmeister." expressing his "sincere opinion" (very assuredly), the commentator suggests that the style of the duets strongly indicates pleyel, rather than hoffmeister, as the composer. the presentation of this overly-expert stylistic evaluation leads one to believe that the reviewer's opinion was guided by inside information. interestingly enough, this review was written almost a year before hoffmeister's protest. one of the more peculiar facts concerning this mystery is that, while pleyel was better known in paris and hoffmeister in leipzig, each published the other's work in the city in which that other was the less popular of the two. why would pleyel market his own compositions under the name of hoffmeister when, during that time, pleyel's compositions had the better sales potential in paris. moreover, there is no proof that the flute duets were composed by pleyel. around 1800 pleyel's vogue as composer sharply declined. dussek and hoffmeister relinquished their publishing activities completely in 1800 and 1805, respectively. pleyel, on the other hand, became quite well known as a publisher, but he stopped composing at this time. the present author did not attempt to gather additional information pertaining to the modus operandi of the protagonists in this mystery, nor to follow up the other pedagogical publications attributed to, or associated with, the name of pleyel.12 this complex puzzle is the result of a foray into just one item in the ppb, noted in passing, and is in fact only remotely connected with the main concern of this author's doctoral thesis on pleyel's string quartets. however, when one considers authorship pertaining to music in a period when unscrupulousness was a part of the publishing business, one wonders how much anyone really knows about the so-called lesser composers. notes 1 a copy of this 1799 publication is reported in the catalogues of several libraries, including the british museum. full title is quoted by howard allen craw, a biography and thematic catalog of the works if j. l. dussek (unpublished ph.d. dissertation, university of southern california, 1964), p. 386, as follows: methode / pour / le piano forte / par / pi'!yel et dussek. / ceue methode contient essentiellement les principes du doigte du forte piano. / on y trouvera aussi une nouvelle maniere d' accorder cet instrument. 2 a copy of this edition is in the new york public library. 3 amz, intelligenz-blatt (december, 1802) 7:29-30. (the orthography is that of the original.) 4 one copy of this third edition is in the library of congress. the klavierschule von j. pi'!yel. nebst 27 uebungs-stiicken. dritte, verbesserte und vermehrte ausgabe consists of two main parts: 42 pages of instructions (13 lectionen, 8 regeln) followed by 17 pages of (twenty-seven) progressive pieces. the latter part was printed separately and according to a different printing style, and its pages are engraved with a plate number "58." the folio following the title page contains a publisher's catalogue, and, interestingly enough, it bears the date december 1804. this date would indicate either a new printing of the klavierschule or an insertion of the 78 publisher's catalogue into the material in stock, after dussek's pianoforte-schule had already been published. 5 amz, intelligenz-blatt (november, 1803) 4: 14. (original orthography). 6 op. cit., p. 287. craw was unable to find references to the second and third editions; the fourth edition was published by breitkopf & hartel around 1815. 7 rita benton, "ignace pleyel, disputant," fontes artis musicae (1966) 13 :22. 8 "anzeige," amz, intelligenz-blatt (december, 1799) 5: 19-20. (original orthography). 9 benton, op. cit., p. 22. 10 hermann baron, letter to the present writer, london, july ii, 1970. baron's unique collection of correspondence, dating from 1800 to 1805, testifies to a number of business dealings between pleyel and the publishing house of hoffmeister and kuhnel in leipzig. some of the letters reveal the fact that pleyel lent hoffmeister much cash and merchandise during the fall of 1800, probably while pleyel was staying in leipzig. this writer wishes to thank mr. baron for having provided him with this as yet unpublished information. 11 "recensionen," amz (february, 1799) i: 345-46. 12 for the interested reader, there are a few such references available which are not reported in the ppb. the library of congress lists under pleyel's name several instructive duets for two violins, progressive pieces for piano, and even instructions for the violoncello. some of these publications include informative explanations. pazdirek's list includes such items as: pleyelczerny, klavierschule mit besonderer rilcksicht der jetzigen leistungen auf diesem instrumenteleuckart; pleyel & schubert, dance and song, song for home & school-williams; pleyel und wanhal, kleine pianoforte-schule-cranz. c. f. becker's systematish-chronologische darstellung der musikalischen literatur (leipzig, 1836) offers about twelve different later or revised editions of the klavierschule issued by german and austrian publishers. 79 the mapping of musical classicism, a little-known and dangerous period jan larue it is always tempting to consider one's own period as terra incognita. as we know from the astronauts, it is dramatic to know the unknown-or even to seem to know it. possibly this feeling has accounted for some of the magnetic attraction of the renaissance that by count in professor hewitt's fourth cumulation has produced more than twice as many american dissertations for that period as we find for classicism. perhaps it is time now, however, to share in this heady mystery by showing that classicism, by neglect and default, may now claim to be the period, particularly in proportion to the wealth of surviving sources. no doubt the seeming familiarity of the classical period has provided a central reason for its neglect as a field of research. familiarity has bred disinterest, if not active contempt, for its problems; and as a corollary, imagine the insecurity of working to find something of genuinely new interest in a field that all one's colleagues know to some extent-or think they know. finally, and most distressing, the more familiar an area of music is, the more confident our musical judgments become: while we are likely to find a virelai of almost any unknown 14th century composer at least of considerable historical interest, we know enough fine symphonies by haydn and mozart to be able to say with some conviction that the work of many minor symphonists is dull or even actively bad. despite these hazards, however, there are tangible rewards, somewhat heightened by rarity, in discovering occasional fine works by kleinmeister; and in a broader view, there is genuine fascination in attempting to understand the morphology of procedures that led to the masterpieces of the classical period. yet pursuing the roots of haydn and mozart we strike a second problem in classical research: the sheer volume of the sources. it is common fora doctoral student taking up an 18th-century topic to discover two or three times as much material as any reference work had led him to expect. my own union thematic catalogue of 18th-century symphonies must certainly now exceed 10,000 incipits (we are waiting 113 for a computer to do an accurate count), a total much higher than most authorities have expected. this tendency for topics to expand unmanageably has slowed and discouraged classical research. even more sharply dangerous is the two-thorned problem of authenticity: (1) who wrote the piece? (2) which version should be considered the authentic piece? speaking merely of symphonies, i have shown elsewhere that sources for a single symphony may be attributed in different archives to as many.as five different composers. an often trickier assignment than attribution, however, is the mere establishment of the work itself. some years ago a small experience with a problem in 18th-century opera frightened me so badly i have hardly touched an opera since. in tracking down a supposed aria in a supposed opera supposedly by galuppi, while making the usual cross-check i discovered that in a second source the aria had moved to a different act; in a third source it was transposed a fifth; in a fourth source it had been remodeled into a duet; in a fifth source it was attributed to jommelli as part of a chamber pastorale; in a sixth source a new text had been adapted to the music; in a seventh source the text had been set to new music; and in an eighth source the aria had disappeared entirely. it is with some justification that one regards classicism as a dangerous musical continent, wildly crisscrossed with confusing tracks. the familiarities and unfamiliarities of classicism, areas of knowledge and abysmal ignorance existing paradoxically side by side, have produced a serious and increasingly noticeable gap: we have no reliable general survey of this important era. pressed by colleagues and publishers, a number of classical scholars have carefully considered attacking the problem, only to withdraw until more ammunition can be accumulated. we simply do not yet have a sufficient depth of bibliographical control-not· to mention analytical control-of the enormous output of classical composers to make possible even' a relatively satisfactory survey. hence, if an interim report is all that can be made, it behooves us to plan this attack on the dangerous continent of classicism with great care. as guidelines in making a new plan we can study two approaches in the past, neither of which has produced satisfactory results. first, the attempt by any single author is doomed to failure because the volume of music is just too great to review without the assistance of numerous primary investigations. yet in 114 many areas there exist no primary investigations, even on central topics. for the symphony, mea culpa: i am not yet quite ready to do my part for the symphonic background, despite many years of preparatory investigation. typical of many problems in classicism, the material grows and grows; still worse, some ofit changes like a chameleon: scarcely a week passes that does not produce a fresh problem in attribution. the final total of conflicting attributions may reach as high as 7 per cent, and until most of these confusions can be resolved, the background will remain bewildering. with one work in fifteen in doubt, the nonspecialist choosing a "characteristic" illustration or venturing a fresh conclusion can make some bad mistakes. to circumvent the presently insurmountable problems of the single generalist, some publishers have attempted an opposite but almost equally unsatisfactory plan: the collective volume of chapters by specialists in various subfields. this approach raises all sorts of administrative difficulties at the outset: discrepancies in originality, accuracy, length, and prose· style. then come more specifically musicological difficulties: disparities in proach, method of presentation and nomenclature, number of examples, and bibliographical depth. finally and most serious: publishers often experience a negative correlation between the eminence of a scholar and his adherence to assignments, with the sad result that collective volumes inevitably contain both gaps and overlapping. the worst overlaps, of course, must be exdsed by someone. but by whom? alas, by a generalist at best, and all too often much worse, by a more or less capable subeditor untroubled by scholarly scruples, who can be trusted to wield his cleaver decisively and eliminate all problems-except quality. unfortunately this murderer of research will characteristically eliminate the more original material, since it tends to run counter to conventional, superficial interpretations that he may know; and in condensing paragraphs into sentences he will unerringly· suppress the refined distinctions of the specialist, enforcing conformity in the name of consistency, his whole gray influence a levelling mediocrity. with such methods, how can we advance beyond the efforts of the past? first we must begin by recognizing that nothing more than atempqrary solution will be possible for many without the foundations of research the generalists cannot design their broader hypotheses. second, we must discover some 115 ,v way of attaining a part ofthe consistent and revealing perspective of the generalist without losing the meaningful details of interpretation produced by painstaking evaluations of specialists. while these opposed goals can never be wholly reconciled, a considerable improvement could be achieved by a new approach that attempts to combine the best of both generalist and collective specialist methods in the following four-phase plan: 1. the survey should be written by a single generalist with specialist (or, only as a second choice, by a specialist with generalist experience). he should begin by producing a cogent theory of what musical classicism means and how this central idea pervades the various forms of musical expression in the later 18th century. 2. he next prepares a general outline of the book and a detailed outline of each chapter. 3. selecting in each subfield the specialist most likely to be critical of other efforts in that subfield, the writer sends him the general theory, the full outline, and the detailed chapter outline, soliciting his criticism in return for a definite (if predictably inadequate) fee. the specialists will be listed as consultants at the head of each chapter to which they contribute, giving them at least a minimal acknowledgment as well as supplying some immunity for the generalist from unprincipled sniping. notice that it is much more effective to present material for criticism than to ask a specialist to produce an outline himself. an appeal for reaction rather than action calls into play all of the specialist's most refined abilities without ·forcing him to commit himself directly. compared to actions, therefore, reactions produce nearly equivalent information quicker and more easily, with none of the problems attendant on chapters individually devised. 4. with reactions in hand, the writer completes the book and sends the semifinal draft of each chapter to the appropriate specialist for final reactions, which he incorporates (if genuinely appropriate) into the final typescript. no one could guarantee that this procedure will be fully successful, but it offers several plausible improvements over the single and collective attempts of the past. in view of the desperate need for a workable survey of classicism, one can hardly suggest a repetition of unsuccessful methods. to illuminate the enlightenment we must try something new. 116 away from the "traditional" splintered program are in growing evidence. the trend which now seems to be asserting itself is towards exactly that which .mr. porter urges, a plan which integrates music theory, history, and performance. universities that are starting or have already begun such programs will be producing a brand of high school music teacher who will more easily be able to fully implement the "laboratory in musicianship" that harold brook porter describes. at institutions such as the university of british columbia, evidence of the superiority of an integrated program is already at hand after only two years of operation. through its chronological organization from ancient greece to the present, students in this comprehensive plan arc well aware of historical development. as an important adjunct, especially in the light of mr. porter's dissertation, they can take with them into their subsequent teaching a better understanding of a wealth of musical literature. cortland hultberg is professor of music at the university of british columbia, vancouver, canada. john malcom tait the significance of musical understanding in music education columbia university ed.d., 1963 gary m. martin the purpose of john tait's study is to examine authoritative views regarding musical understanding and to propose a definition of the same. he then attempts to relate this definition to the educational process of the public schools. musical understanding is defined as a process in which a person re-creates the sounds he hears in terms of his own feelings, knowledge, and imagination. five areas of musical understanding are identified as follows: (a) hearing music: aural recognition of the components of music, such as, rhythm, melody, harmony, form, and so forth. (b) seeing music: visual recognition of musical relationships when they are presented in a musical score. (c) imagining music: (sec below) (d) feeling music: imagining and feeling music are the most intangible of the five aspects of musical understanding. music elements suggest to individuals concepts which may form a bridge between the music and life itself. these concepts (or bridges) are formed by individuals as an out-growth of the interaction between music and their feelings and background. (e) knowing music: knowledge of music history, music theory, musical instruments, and musical forms. tait acknowledges that, in the opinions of some musicians, more than one 193 kind of musical understanding exists. however, he asserts that there is a central body of musical understanding, possessing many facets but found within a framework that is essentially unified. he also has an admitted penchant for the ability to read music notation as a major need of students and cites music performance as the best measure for evaluating musical understanding. in chapter 4 the author examines music in the public schools. he states that a school music program is less accuratcly validated by the number and diwrsity of its activities than by the quality and depth of learning that result from these activities. he recommends a general music class at all levels of education, each being taught by qualified and trained persons. music education, particularly in senior high school, is criticized for its narrow scope and for the lack of opportunity for all students to develop musical understanding as defined in the study. tait's objective has been to define comprehensively the meaning of the term "musical understanding" and then to examine the school music curriculum in light of that definition. although one may choose to argue with his definition of musical understanding, the conclusions he draws and the recommendations of the thesis would seem to be generally acceptable in music circles today. gary '>1. marti" is presently on the faculty of the university of oregon school of music after having served as a music consultant to the department of education, state of oregon. 194 considers the nature and perception of visual and musical entities. the dependence of accurate musicological formulations on the historical orientation of our musical hearing is discussed by ruth halle rowen, and edward t. cone explores the historical meanings, criteria, and conceptual implications of our basic terms for the musical work. bernard stambler, responding to professor crocker's plea for the development of historically appropriate formal senses, deals with 18th-century thought, its character and background, and the manner in which it has conditioned our present-day approaches to the entire musical repertoire. problems of successive and simultaneous apprehension with regard to miss carpenter's notion of the musical object are investigated by david burrows. in the forthcoming issue, saul novack explores the various criteria for the cohesion of multimovement works, and maria rika maniates compares composition as "objectified entity" with composition as "continuous process" in an ontological and historical framework. philosopher arnold. berleant notes, with respect to the problem of musical explanation, a distinction between auditory and analytical forms of perception. the relationship of music to the emotional experiencing of reality, in a historical context, is discussed by the philosopher robert hall; kenneth kaiser, from the viewpoint of architectural theory, considers the notion of the "piece of architecture". finally, miss carpenter and professor crocker will have the opportunity of responding to the commentators. since it is the purpose of this project to promote an exchange of ideas, we welcome further comments from our readers. richard l. crocker, some reflections on the shape of music in a recent article ("the troping hypothesis", the musical quarterly 52: 191, 1966) i dropped what i thought was an innocent remark, to the effect that one might reflect on what constitutes a piece of (western) music. now i find myself asked to do the reflecting. please look for no more than that; my intent is merely to begin a line of discussion, not to conclude one. the question came up in connection with an introit trope, which seems at first glance not to qualify as "a piece of music", because it is interpolated as three separate sections in a pre-existing piece, the introit. why do we hesitate to call such a trope a "piece"? obviously because it seems to be three pieces, not one; for we expect a piece to be continuous, or at least not interrupted by some other claim on our attention. but then, each of the three pieces into which our trope has fallen is too short to be a piece all by itself; for we expect a piece to have a certain minimum substance. or do our three pieces of a trope, along with their introit, rather form one large composite piece? but such a piece seems too composite, its elements too diverse; for do 50 we not ask that a piece be by one, and only one, composer? and if the trope cannot be considered together with the introit, but rather must stand on its own merits, still we are bothered by the fact that its sense seems (in principle, at least) to depend upon something outside itself, upon the introit. without reflection, i think we agree that such a trope is not a piece. as we consider the reasons upon which our reaction is based, however, i think we may well begin to have doubts. for the reasons we produce so confidently at first, do not seem so universally applicable when we try them out on different repertories, especially on very recent repertories, and. even the repertory that we-or perhaps more precisely our immediate forebears-call traditional. i do not offer either a comprehensive sllrvey of western forms or a new theory of what constitutes a piece; instead, only a cursory discussion of a few of those bothersome cases that refuse to abide by the most obvious canons of form, canons we share by common inheritance and perhaps uncritical conviction. it may well be (and i hope it is) that if the canons here so crudely formulated are merely rephrased, they will gain a sophistication sufficient to extend their validity as far as necessary. in trying to arrive at a clear idea of what constitutes "a piece", one of the most persistent obstacles is the popularity of "multimovement forms", as they are sometimes called in the traditional repertory. those symphonies and sonatas that are regarded as masterworks (and hence generate canons of taste) are so persuasive in the succession of their movements that we instinctively take the "piece" to be the "whole piece", consisting of several organically related parts, the divisions between these parts or movements being merely articulations in the larger form. this sense oflarger form mayor may not be present in any given symphony or sonata; the point is, we assume it should be present, and when we look for it in other repertories-as we do-we are inclined to note its absence as a fault. but this is to ignore a prior reality, a reality both historical and phenomenological in nature. the whole genesis of multimovement symphonic form betrays an intense effort to join together entities once separate, whether we look to the opera sinfonia, whose movements could be played separately as overtures to the several acts, or to the suite, which for a long time retained elements of its original ad libitum constitution. the sonata da chiesa, on the other hand, is perhaps to be understood in terms of an over-all governing idea, but only because it involved an artful selection and ordering of distinct entities that elsewhere appeared in ad libitum formats. in the 17th century the structure ofa keyboard suite apparently depended upon the selection made by the performer from the dances and other pieces available to him. the only guiding principles were general ones; the constituent pieces were usually by one composer (that is, usually the performer), usually in one "tone" or key, and tended to follow a conventional order, for example, allemandecourante-sarabande. these principles, however, are distinct in nature from the principles that govern the over-all shape of a symphony, and we would be 51 mistaken to apply the canons of one to the other. the concept of "a piece" involves a basically different level of form in the two cases. another clue to the position of multimovement form in the traditional repertory is its elusiveness and the zeal with which composers of the 19th century pursued it. they tried hard to fuse together the four movements of the symphony into a continuous musical experience, one that would be a true image of the organic ideal of form they heard within. as an alternate solution they sometimes expanded a one-movement form to the point where . it could rival the over-all dimensions of a multimovement form, while avoiding its over-strong articulations. schoenberg's verkliirte nacht is a particularly convincing example; yet is it an example of a normal concept of a "piece", or only an exceptional concept, an ideal held only by some people at some times? in between the 19th-century composer and his ideal of a continuous, organic form stands the obstinate reality that multimovement form is multipiece form, that the constituent movement or piece is transcended only by exceptional effort not always crowned with success. if we grant, for sake of continued argument, that symphonies and sonatas are multi pieces, and that the idea or ideal of a "piece" can be represented by something other than the scope of a symphony, then the problem of assessing a multi piece becomes one of assessing the kind and degree of linkage realized against that intended. this problem seems slightly different from the problem of the inner shape of a constituent piece-even though, as is evident, similar principles may govern both. and if we are willing to accept in comparison a variety of kinds and degrees of linkage, then we can come to somewhat novel conclusions. we usually grant without thinking that pieces get bigger as western history unfolds. that may still be so, at least, up to 1890: les troyens, and even more, der ring, are "pieces" offormidable length. but if we accept four successive evenings of der ring as a "piece" (i reckon about 20 hours over an elapsed time of 77 hours), then we must compare it, not to a one-minute antiphon, or even a ten-minute tract but rather to a medieval rhymed office, a gesamtdienstwerk involving seven or eight hours of one man's music and text spread out and informing an elapsed time of 24 hours. wagner is longer; but the comparison does not demonstrate, to me at least, that earlier pieces were significantly shorter. obviously, we should not compare extremes but rather more normal phenomena. if we did so, i think we could come to the very rough hypothesis that a piece of (western) music is of the order of magnitude of five minutes (plus-or-minus four minutes) in length. by that seemingly whimsical observation i mean that a "piece" is not something an hour, or 20 hours, long. if a piece ends before a minute is up, the audience (if it is indeed convinced that the piece has ended) is apt to betray mild, and often delighted, surprise. if a piece lasts more than 9 or 10 minutes, they start to fidget, internally if not visibly. even symphonic movements do not seem to run over 10 minutes so very often. 52 this five-minute hypothesis would have to be subjected to extensive verification-more, certainly, than it is worth. but even as a crude estimate it suggests that pieces did not get significantly longer between, say, 890 and 1890. an interesting corollary is that pieces may not have diminished in length since 1890 to the radical degree we usually imagine. perhaps, in webern, say, we are witnessing merely a reversion from a special solution to a more general one. or, we should say, to a broader spectrum of possibilities; for it would be foolish to substitute one norm for another. we do, of course, recognize as legitimate pieces all sorts of things besides symphonies. still, i suspect we unconsciously measure them against symphonic dimensions. (post-wagnerian composers from schoenberg-if not hugo wolf-on have been trying to tell us differently, but we tend to take their sayings as idiosyncrasies of contemporary music rather than literally.) songs are pieces, after all, and we have songs (of comparable dimensions) from one end of western music to the other. it seems to me we should develop a sense, or senses, of form that react specifically and positively to the dimensions of an antiphon, a 13th-century motet, a 17th-century aria or canzona, a stilck-or a piece. surely we have now learned that a sonata by domenico scarlatti has form even if it does not have sonata form. i think we need to extend this education of our ears to a great many other areas, even including tropes. the problem of linking pieces into multipieces is cap-able of the most varied solutions, each of which suggests a different set of canons of judgment. leonin's pieces of polyphony (organa or "works") are placed on top of a chant continuum, as are some motets in the early stage of development. 'some pieces of music in the late 16th and early 17th centuries are placed on top of a drama continuum, as are some pieces in the 20th century (such as l' histoire du soldat). the grouping of 17th-century keyboard piecespreludes, allemandes, courantes, say, by louis couperin-into ad libitum arrangements has been touched upon; what about the grouping of 19thcentury keyboard pieces-preludes, nocturnes, mazurkas, say, by chopininto other ad libitum arrangements? how did chopin use these pieces, or how did he imagine them to be used? twenty-four preludes at one sitting? i think not; rather a few, as chosen and ordered by the performer. and should we call this order by the latin term ad libitum, or the english aleatory? it is a curious thing that while chopin's preludes, op. 28, are often played ip. an order to some degree aleatory, webern's bagatelles, op. 9, usually are not, even though webern would be commonly understood as the composer with the less perceptible "form". but if we take seriously the order of webern's fun! siit;;;e, op. 5, or even his fun! stucke, op. 10, we might almost be persuaded we were hearing an (admittedly diminutive) five-movement form alia beethoven or bartok. yet we should honor webern's-and schoenberg's-sometime insistence that they were writing stucke [pieces], not multipiece symphonies or string quartets. it is evident, in any case, that music is not presented to us as a never53 ending continuum, but rather in discrete units, or pieces, and that an extended exposure to a composer's consecutive thought is intermittent. operas come in acts, der ring (gratefully) on four separate evenings; in between we walk, talk, eat, and perhaps sleep. acts come in scenes and arias; and sometimes we applaud in between. orchestral music comes in movements, and only the more devout maintain fixed attention during the interim. what about our trope? how much of an obstacle is it that the lines of the trope (which constitute a believable form when considered by themselves) are interrupted by fragments of the introit? if it is too much of an obstacle, we could in some cases imagine the trope sung without the introit, just as concert suites are often formed (and variously so) by extracting music from ballet. is the loss of logic, of consecution, really greater in the one case than in the other? ifwe do have to deal with trope and introit together, in alternation, as a single artistic happening, then the formal problem is most severe, for here we confront our conviction that a piece of music should be by one composer at a time. the pasticcio, the arrangement, indeed all such symbiotic forms, seem to be repugnant. the question is actually a complex one; it involves purposiveness and artistic identity, and their relation to idea and formal control. there is one approach that might be useful in the present case. once upon a time it was thought that all aspects of a sounding piece might be brought under a composer's control, and it was further thought that this would be a good thing. on a broader front, however, we have since learned that indeterminacy in some aspects is a better thing and in any case an inevitable one. almost everyone accepts the fact that tempo, tone color, balance, inflection, can vary among performers and performances. yet we feel that the format of an artistic conception should be inviolable, as if the format or rhetoric of a piece were in some way connected more closely than the inflection to the basic idea or identity of the composer's utterance. why? it is not too hard to imagine music whose utterance is so intimately associated with tone color or inflection that these should be strictly controlled, while the large-scale format might just as well be left unordered. that could include renouncing unilateral control over the audience's attention for an uninterrupted stretch of time. we accept a conversation, a panel discussion or debate, as a form of verbal expression; why not a musical counterpart as well? all this has been concerned mainly with variant solutions to the multipiece problem. there are many other problems associated with the idea of a "piece"; i would like to consider only one, and that briefly. we share a strong conviction, i think, that a piece should have a beginning and an end, and a middle that bears a reasonable and perceptible relationship to the beginning and end. (actually these are several problems.) but already we are not sufficiently precise: all pieces have beginnings and endings, simply because everything does-everything in the world. here is no canon of taste, but only of necessity. is this the meaning of our persistent partitive expression, 54 "a piece (not the whole) of music" ? no matter. what we require of a piece, i think, is that the beginning sound like a beginning, and especially the end like an ending; and that the middle move us from the one experience to the other. but now the matter seems quite different than at first, and nowhere near as obvious, or as obviously universal. clear beginnings and endings, then, are a matter of taste, and the taste may vary. some like a very clear beginning, a "premier coup d'archet"; others, including mozart, feel that the second "coup" has an equally strong claim on our attention. many instances of beginnings, middles, al,ld ends that do not live up to our categorical proposition will leap to mind; let me add one or two that might not otherwise l>e mentioned. psalmody, a widespread musical experience in the middle ages, has a singularly undirected middle, the same melodic formula being repeated a (musically) indeterminate number oftimes, each time for a (musically) indeterminate length. i find certain similarities with instances in the rock-and-roll idiom and its derivatives, such as folk-rock. here, too, there are interesting attempts to give the illusion of no ending. at some seemingly indeterminate point the music starts to reiterate a phrase, and after a seemingly indeterminate (but in practice controlled) number of reiterations, the music fades out to be replaced immediately by the recitative-like continuity of the disc jockey. the intent, clearly, is an eternity symbol; it is not that the music ends, rather that the listener stops listening, while the music goes on and on. often announcer and song overlap at both ends. if this example is trivial, it cannot be called uncommon. i doubt whether the discussion has made our trope seem any more like a piece. actually, such tropes are relatively extreme examples of the kind of formal disassociation touched upon throughout these reflections. the trope may remain a nonpiece; but it may help us to understand other less extreme, and more important, instances. in these, it becomes increasingly apparent that a strong quantitative factor is involved-how much linkage, how much continuity or conclusiveness, how long the piece. are we to conclude that art knows no eternal rule? nb canons ofform? no criterion for distinguishing a piece from a nonpiece? even ifwe were to conclude the substance of such a proposition, we should rephrase it to say that we know no rule, rather than that none exists. but we hardly need to retreat to such extremes. one of the things we mean by "creative", i think, is that creation results in the existence of something that was not there before, and in music this seems to have as corollary that a radically new musical creation precedes the canoll;s of judgment that concern it. (the art of the meistersinger, while another extreme case, is still representative of what happens when musical activity remains within existing canons:) a historian, if so inclined, might conceivably formulate canons so general as to hold for all music ever written. but he could not, as historian, ever find canons that would hold for all music yet to be conceived and created. it seems doubtful that even an aesthetician, from his lofty lookout, could see far enough for that. there will, hopefully, always be some pieces disorderly enough to call forth new 55 mensura and the rhythm of medieval monodic song j. e .. maddrell at least up to c. 1350, monodic music played a larger and more important part in european life than polyphony. gregorian chant is still a living force among us, but what of the vast body of non-liturgical song? from time to time one can hear performances of troubadour and trouvere songs, although there is an unfortunate tendency to perform only the same few anthologized pieces, while (for instance) the italian laude and the spanish cantigas remain, as far as modern audiences are concerned, mere names in the history books. a wider selection of monodic song ought to be available, in print and in performance; but any responsible attempt to achieve this end is made more difficult by the fact that the notation of the songs, in most cases, gives no indication of the rhythm. for anyone whose interest in the songs is purely historical, the problem is quickly dealt with. fie has merely to enumerate the various scholarly theories, add some comment, and present the would-be transcriber with a choice between several forms of modal rhythm on one hand, and free rhythm on the other. for him, historical scholarship has gone as far as it can with an insoluble problem, and it is useless to discuss the matter further: are not the histories of music written? but anyone concerned with the culture of the past as a vital reality in the present will have a more serious, more intelligent, interest in the songs; he will insist on the importance of experiencing the songs through performance. he simply cannot accept that two quite different methods of transcribing a given song are equally good, and he may feel unable to commit himself to either. the modal theory has, from the start, been admittedly based on assumptions rather than facts, and it is impossible to apply the methods it recommends without at least some misgivings. for instance: even if it is an appropriate method of transcribing french and proven<;allove songs, can it be used for, say, english songs, or religious, but non-liturgical, songs in latin? one is therefore very grateful to dr. hendrik vanderwerf, who has recently reopened the question. in two articles, which are best read together . (1965 and 1967), he considers the trouvere songs in light of the knowledge that many of them were orally transmitted, and points out that the variants which are found whenever a song is preserved in more than one source are not all to be written off as scribal errors in an attempt to establish a supposed "original version"; they are rather necessary consequences of the culture to which the songs belong, and must be taken into account in deciding what rhythm to adopt in transcription. on this point i am in total agreement with 64 dr. vanderwerf (and gratefully acknowledge the influence of his view on my own work) but his second major conclusion, that "the rhythm is free in two ways: first, accented and unaccented tones and syllables may come at irregular intervals, and second, there is not necessarily a simple relation between the duration of one tone and that of another" (1965: 67), cannot go unquestioned. "free rhythm" is an attractive expedient for the transcriber, who merely has to write a melody in stemless neumes, or to represent single notes as quarter notes and ligatures as groups of eighth notes; but it leaves the performer with an uneasy choice between a plainsong-like rendering and his own invented rhythm----:-in other words, between two methods which have equally slender chances of approximating what might have been a medieval singer's version. even assuming that the choice of rhythm was originally left to the performer, it is, surely, an editor's duty to minimize discrepancies between medieval and modern choices, by choosing on behalf of the performer a rhythm likely to have been chosen by his medieval counterpart. the choice need not, indeed must not, rely on strict principles, applied without variation to every song. each song must be treated on its merits, considering the internal features of its notation and the external evidence of medieval notation in general. nevertheless, the paleographic evidence is often inconclusive or contradictory, and the transcriber will need some guidance as to the broad lines on which to work. for this he will turn to johannes de grocheo, the only medieval writer to discuss secular monody. i have in preparation an article which deals at length with the paleographic side of the matter; at present i wish to make a semantic point about grocheo's terminology, which seems to call for a reinterpretation of several previously known facts. passages from grocheo have often been cited in support of the free rhythm theory. in a 'work which contains much of value on the subject of rhythm, we find the following, part of which is quoted with approval by dr. vanderwerf: indeed, when we recur once more to the most important theoretical source of the time, there is not a single allusion to either binary or ternary time in grocheo's lengthy treatise. what this keen observer states is, on the contrary, that musica mensurata comprises exclusively polyphonic works like conducts and motets but neither gregorian chant nor any monophonic secular music, and that the latter type, a musica non ita praecise mensurata is sung totaliter ad libitum. does this leave any doubt? monophonic music, far from being subject to the modi, had the privilege of free rhythm. (sachs 1953: 176. the italics are not mine.) it is not easy to see how this statement could come from anyone who had read grocheo attentively. his treatise is by no adult standards lengthy, and if he mentions neither duple nor triple time, it is because he is a post3-c.m. 65 franconian and does not aim to discuss notation and rhythm. as for "doubt," it is bound to arise, as soon as one sees that phrase totaliter ad libitum in its context. here is the whole passage, which occurs in grocheo's account ofthe various methods of classifying music: alii autem musicam dividunt in planam sive immensurabilem, et mensurabilem, per planam sive immensurabilem intelligentes ecclesiasticam, quae secundum gregorium pluribus torus determinatur. per mensurabilem intellegunt illam quae ex diversis sonis simul mensuratis et sonatibus efficitur, sicut in conductibus et motetis. sed si per immensurabilem intellegunt musicam nullo modo mensuratam, immo totaliter ad libitum dictam, deficiunt, eo quod quaelibet operatio musicae et cuiuslibet artis debet illius artis regulis mensurari. si autem per immensurabilem non ita praecise mensuratam intellegant, potest, ut videtur, ista divisio remanere. (others divide music into plain, or non-mensural, and mensural. by "plain or non-mensural" they mean plainchant, which is classified, following gregory, in several modes. by "mensural" they mean music made from different notes measured and sounding at the same time, as they do in conductus and motets. but if by "non-mensural" they mean music that is in no way measured, still less performed completely freely, they are wrong, since any performance of music (or any art) must be measured by the rules of that art. if, however, they mean by "nonmensural," "not thus precisely measured" this division can evidently stand.) (ed. rohloff, p. 47) it is not true that grocheo lumps plainsong and secular monody together as opposed to polyphony. his tripartite division is more subtle: musica simplex (or civilis, or vulgaris), musica composita (regularis, canonica, or mensurata), and musica ecclesiastica (ed. rohloff, p. 47). the second and third categories, polyphony and plainsong, do not directly concern us here, but it is worth noting that grocheo implies that the liturgical sequences were performed in a regular meter, in contrast to the main bodyofthe chant (ed. rohloff, p. 65). several of his remarks about the music which falls under his first heading warn us that the phrase non ita praecise mensuratam does not mean what it at first appears to mean. the instrumental ductia, he says, is measured with appropriate percussion, cum decenti percussione mensurata (p. 52), since it is a dance form. again, he tells us that the cantus coronatus was performed with instrumental accompaniment (p. 50). both these facts are difficult to reconcile with "free rhythm" as it is generally understood, but a third fact turns the difficulty into an impossibility. grocheo helpfully cites a number of french songs to illustrate what he has to say about monodic song forms (for the most part he comments on the effect various forms are intended to produce in the audience), and four ofthese songs are extant. ofthe four, three are founel in the chansonnier cange, written in a notation which, although pre-franconian as to ligatures, clearly uses longs and breves for single notes: ausi com l'unicorne 66 (spanke 1955: 2075), chanter m'estuet, quar ne m'enpuis ienir (1476), quant ii rossignol (1559), are all given as examples of musiea non ita praecise mensurata (ed. rohloff, p. 50; for the songs see beck 1927: i, ff. 1, 22v, 110v and 117, and the transcriptions in vol. ii). the phrase can hardly be taken, therefore, as evidence for "free rhythm." what, then, does grocheo mean? perhaps the best way of finding an answer is to consider the different senses of the word mensura as used by other theorists in the tradition to which grocheo made so notable a contribution. for johannes de garlandia, whose work was known to grocheo, musiea mensurabilis was organum (polyphony) which is, he says, a generic term for all mensural music: habito de ipsa plana musica, que immensurabilis dicitur, nunc est presens intentio de ipsa mensurabili, que organum dicitur, quantum ad nos prout organum generale dicitur ad omnem mensurabilem musicam. (coussemaker 1864: i, 175) lambert, author of the pseudo-aristotelian traetatus de musiea, makes a similar distinction. his three categories of musiea mensurabilis are all polyphonic forms: discant, hocket, and organum (coussemaker i, 269). the distinction here is between plainsong and polyphony, for in common with all theorists earlier than grocheo, neither lambert nor garlandia take account of secular monody; we cannot therefore conclude ex silentio that the rhythm of nonliturgical monodic songs was that of plainsong. indeed, it is clear that the word mensura meant to the theorists something more than it means in modern scholarship. in his discussion of the rhythmic modes (coussemaker i, 97104), garlandia describes the third mode, by its very nature mensural in our sense, as ultra mensuram. nor is he alone in this; the diseantus positio vulgaris even states that any note of more than two beats or less than one is ultra mensuram (coussemaker 1,94). these statements, puzzling at first sight, suggest two conclusions: firstly, musiea mensurabilis, in the medieval sense, is synonymous with polyphony, and secondly, that mensura, when it refers to rhythm, denotes a strict modal pattern; thus the author of the de musiea libellus virtually identifies mensura with modus: modus in musica est debita mensuratio temporis, scilicet per 10ngas et breves; vel aliter: modus est quidquid currit per debitam mensuram 10ngarum notarum et brevium. notandum quod quidam modus dicitur rectus; alius dicitur in ultra mensuram, qui scilicet excedit rectum modum sive rectam mensuram. (coussemaker i, 378) the key words here are reetam and debitam (regular and proper), both of which qualify mensuram. it is not difficult to imagine a mensura which is not, in this extremely strict sense, regular; consequently rhythmic patterns which to the modern scholar are mensural could be regarded by the medieval 67 theorist as immensurabilis. when we take into account the additional fact that mensura does not necessarily refer to rhythm in every case, it will be realized that mensura has a strong qualitative, as well as a quantitative, force. it is with this in mind that we must reconsider the significance of what grocheo has to tell us. for him, the qualitative force of mensura is uppermost, and he uses the term in contexts which have nothing whatever to do with rhythm, as in his statement that the church (melodic) modes do not necessarily govern all music: gantus autem iste per toni regulas forte non vadit, nec per eas mensuratur. (ed. rohloff, p. 60) we recall his statement, already quoted, that "any performance of music (or any art) must be measured by the rules ofthat art." grocheo's synonyms for polyphony are, from this vantage point, extremely revealing: musica regularis, canonica, mensurata. the association of mensura with regula-both qualitative terms-is significant; the connotations of both words are propriety, reason, regularity, and order (cf. rectam and debitam). this important meaning of mensura is familiar outside muscial scholarship, and we have a· vernacular example in langland's recurrent phrase "measurable hire," which means "proper, reasonable wages." this sense has not entirely been lost in modern english, for one can still hear, occasionally, something described as "all right in measure," which is practically synonymous with "within reason." to carry the analogy further, one might reflect that regula means both "rule" and "ruler," and that the chief use of a ruler in the middle ages was not to measure distances (quantitatively) but to ensure that the line drawn was straight, i.e. qualitatively. 0 the purpose behind grocheo's threefold division of music is evident. polyphony is mensurata because it is written in accordance with the rules of composition; it is regular, ordered, and logical. plainsong, though immensurabilis, has its own kind of order, provided by the rules of the melodic modes or toni. secular monody differs from both. though measured (in the modern sense) as to rhythm, it is not written according to the rules of composition; hence it is neglected by most theorists who are concerned with codifying rules. its rhythms need not conform to strict modal patterns. it is therefore non ita praecise mensurata, the ita possibly referring back to the rules of composition. monodic song answers the description well; its frequent melodic sixths, its flexible structures, and relatively wide vocal compasses, are not characteristic of 13th-century polyphony. rhythmically, too, the songs in mensural notation-those in the ghansonnier gange and the later additions in the ms du roi (facsimile in beck 1938), in both cases written about the same time as grocheo's treatise-often depart from exact modal patterns. the evidence of grocheo suggests that it is to these sources, rather than to modern theories of rhythm, that we should look for guidance in transcribing non-mensurally notated songs. these observations, offered in the hope of provoking discussion, show that 68 there is no justification for "free rhythm'" in grocheo or any other medieval theorist; but we have no proof that it never existed. we must be content with the best explanation of the facts that can be devised. "free rhythm" is not such an explanation. how can we accept that "the use of a rhythmically noncommittal notation in times when a metrical script was available indicates a free or optional rhythm" (sachs 1953: 178), when examples abound of motets and conductus in non-mensural notation? anonymous iv tells us that such pieces were read "by the understanding alone, by saying, 'i take this note as long, and that oneas short' ... " and on the evidence available there is no reason to suppose that a similar practice was not applied to monodic songs in non-mensural notation. references beck, jean-baptiste 1927 chansonnier cange, 2 vols., philadelphia. 1938 le manuscrit du roi, 2 vols., philadelphia. coussemaker, charles henri edmond de, 1864 scriptorum de musica •.. , 4 vols., paris. grocheo, johannes de 1943 der musiktraktat des johannes de grocheo, ed. ernst rohloff, (media latinitas musica ii), leipzig. sachs, curt 1953 rhythm and tempo, new york. spanke, hans, ed. 1955 gaston raynauds bibliographie des altjranzosischen liedes, leiden. vanderwerf; hendrik 1965 the trouvere chansons as creations of a notation1ess musical culture. current musicology (1965) 1: 61-68. 1967 deklamatorischer rhythmus in den chansons der trouveres. die musikforschung (1967) 20: 122-144. concerning the measurability oj medieval music hendrik vanderwerf i am very grateful to neal zaslaw for his invitation to add some commentary to j. e. maddrell's article printed above. understandably i am also very appreciative of mr. maddrell's acknowledgment of having been influenced by some of my writings, and i am happy to respond to some of his "observations, offered in the hope of provoking discussion." i welcome this opportunity especially since mr. maddrell directs attention to medieval theory, a source of information i have not touched upon in my publications in journals, although i have not at all ignored it in my research. i am very much intrigued with maddrell's evaluations of some of the medieval statements in relation to rhythm and meter in medieval music, but 69 tebaldini, gnecchi, and strauss michael horwath a piece may be classified as a quotation or a plagiarism whether, on the one hand, the borrowings are conscious or unconscious and whether, on the other, they are legitimate or illegitimate. illegitimate plagiarisms are those committed with the aim of creating a deception in order to further one's own enrichment or prestige. to fit this category, the plagiarism must agree enough with one or more previously written art works of a second person that one can, in any event, exclude coincidence as the cause of this similarity. the greater the number of duplications or similarities that can be shown, the surer one can be that a given instance is a case of genuine plagiarism. with works that are revisions and variations, on the contrary, one can in no way speak of plagiarism, inasmuch as the original work, or at least its creator, is acknowledged and cited. one of the clearest examples of would-be plagiarism is mozart's requiema work which prince walsegg commissioned secretly so that it could be issued in that nobleman's handwritten copy as his own work. however, a material payment to the creator of the art work has no influence on the intellectual property of the work. in other words, even with the consent of the composer the spiritual possession cannot be passed on or sold to someone else.1 unconscious plagiarisms are very common.2 they arise, basically, from two causes: (1) through "technical" aspects of the setting. thus it is not surprising that the theme (a broken major triad) of pallavincino's la gerusalemme liberata reappears note for note in mozart's bastien und bastienne and again as the first theme of beethoven's eroica. in all three cases it is possible that the composer proceeded from the natural tones of the hunting horn. (2) a much more common origin of an unconscious borrowing would seem to be the "parallelism" of one composer's musical thought with that of another. in this case it is a question of a "musical idiom" of the era. a composer uses a theme that he knows, while being convinced that it is his own; the appearance of the same thread in the works of two composers, therefore, can often be explained as a "manifestation of the time." (the distinction made here is between one composer hearing another's theme and using it as his own, and two composers hearing and reworking the same "idiom of the time.") there are countless examples of such unconscious borrowings and only a few striking ones can be cited here-: (a) the tannhauser chorus "freudig begriissen wir die edele halle"; the freischut;:; aria "wie nahte mir der schlummer" at the words "himmel nimm des dankes" (ex. la) 74 example 1. unconscious borrowings. a) tannhiiuser 4in;#,e j 81 fgl)o i r q i j j " freu dig_ be grti ssen_ wir die ed le_ hal ie .•. freischiltz ••• him mel,_ nimm i i i f ii des__ dan kes_ zlih rer (b) the zauberflote duet "bei welche liebe" in the section "konnte jeder brave mann"; schubert's heidenrosiein: "sah' ein knab'" (ex. ib) b) zauberf/ote ,i e r' f f f i a e ,j i j j j j ii konn -te je der bra ve_mann sol che glock·chen heidenroslein 8ah ein knab ein ros lein.stehn ros-iein auf der ..• (c) die walkiire, act iii, scene 3, at the words "war es so niedrig, was ich dir tat" ; the freischiitz overture: third and fourth measures (ex. 1 c) c) walkuere fi jq j j " war es so nie drig ••• freischiltz , i: j j. )10 j $ (d) the loewe ballade die uhr at the words "sie blieb von seiber stehn" schumann's friihlingsfahrt; "ach gott, fiihr uns liebreich zu dir" (ex. id). d) loewe •.. sie blieb von sil ber stehn schumann gott fiihr uns lieb reich zu dir 75 the boundaries between illegitimate and legitimate borrowing are hard to define. 3 borrowings may also be intended to honor an earlier master, considered an apotheosis of musical thought. in no way illegitimate is a quotation from one's own works, such as mozart's in don giovanni (from figaro) or wagner's in meistersinger (from tristan). we can find quotations used frequently in the operas of richard strauss.4 strauss used musical quotations essentially as a technique to achieve irony. he employed thematically unrelated quotations or, on the other hand, melodies based on a text which in fact has nothing to do with the action, but which nonetheless evokes a distinct recollection in the listener. thus in his opera ariadne auf naxos strauss frequently used melodies from lully's music to moliere's le bourgeois gentilhomme, and achieved new effects through old dance tunes and instrumentation. in the introduction to the second act of the first version of ariadne strauss employed lully's sarabande. this is a case, then, of using old music in order to introduce the listener to the plot appropriately. the quotation from rheingold (images of waves from the opening section), which is used in the .spot where the rhine salmon is served, is ironic, however. in the same banquet music "la donna e mobile" from verdi's rigoletto is also heard, abruptedly and undisguised. the opera intermezzo is peppered with quotations. often they are hidden, cleverly woven into the instrumentation, so that it is difficult even for the practiced listener to understand these ''jests'' at first hearing. worthy of mention in this context is the passage "mir passt das ganze milieu nicht," at which point gounod's melody from faust, "laisse moi contempler ton visage," sounds. in the opera schweigsame frau strauss used quotation sources with which few people would be familiar, together with very well-known melodies from many stylistic periods in music history. in the wedding ceremony music from the fitzwilliam virginal book is used; in the expose of the notary melodies by martin peerson are heard.5 monteverdi's opera l'incoronazione di poppea makes its appearance with the aria "sento un certo non so che" in the singing lesson of the strauss opera. directly following this monteverdi quotation the aria "dole' amor, bendat' alato" from giovanni legrenzi's opera eteocle e polinice. wagner's rheingold fanfare sounds at the words " ... solange die leute geld haben, saufen sie." further on in the score of schweigsame frau can be found the hunting motive from wagner's tannhauser and also the aria "behut' dich gott, es war' zu schon gewesen" from the opera der trompeter von siickingen by nessler, which is followed by the entrance song of papageno from mozart's .<:,auberflote. verdi's "la donna e mobile" also returns once more, this time to the text "cavaliere vanuzzis ruhm ist bis in unser vaterland gedrungen." similarly, in the operetta-like music of liebe der danae, there are sizable reminiscences of wagner's wotan in the presentation of jupiter. strauss used all these quotations after the sharp attacks levelled against him upon the appearance of his opera elektra. giovanni tebaldini, in his 76 essay "telepatia musicale?" (rivista musicale italiana [1909] 16 :400-12), had accused strauss of committing a violation of copyright in the opera elektra, alleging plagiarism of the opera cassandra by the italian vittorio gnecchi. in his essay tebaldini presented, in addition to many no longer provable charges, forty-eight comparative musical examples which were supposed to prove that the opera elektra was merely a'revised cassandra. the opera cassandra (on a text by luigi illica6) was first performed on december 5, 1905, in the teatro comunale in bologna, and also toured various other cities later on (e.g., vienna in 1911). it is known that gnecchi sent richard strauss a score of cassandra from turin. elektra was completed on september 22, 1908, in garmisch, and received its first performance in dresden on january 25, 1909; therefore gnecchi's opera is without a doubt older than that of richard strauss. we have little tangible information about the origin and development of cassandra but much, on the contrary, about elektra. the collection of dr. levin in cambridge7 contains a sketch book which includes the first twofifths of the opera. appearing on the title page is "elektra, final copy" and on the reverse side, "elektra alone, b flat minor, in public, b minor; agamemnon, c minor; victory dance, c major." from the letters of richard strauss, especially those to hugo von hofmannsthal, we can learn something about the genesis of elektra. "i'm already busy with the first scene of electra; the work, however, is not progressing rapidly," strauss wrote on june 16, 1906. in a letter of june 22, 1908, he said, "i can let her [chrysothemis] repeatedly stammer 'orest, orest, orest", (see gnecchi's cassandra, p. 232, line 1, as pointed out in tebaldini's example xv, no. 47). strauss hiiilself expressed an opinion about the tebaldini essay only once: do you know a better way to combat hate and envy than by maintaining a dignified silence? you of course know the story of hercules and the hydra? concerning the case of cassandra-elektra, i had already decided not to reply to it since i did not yet know mr. tebaldini's publicity brochure for gnecchi. now that i know it, i will really be quiet. for the entire story is really too silly, apart from the obnoxious hints of chauvinism which can be clearly discerned in the italian and french attacks against me, against which one must always offer as a contrast the widest hospitality that germany, more than any other country in the world, accords italian and french art, and for which she is thanked so little by her neighbors [from a letter written to romain rolland from garmisch, may 8, 1909]. a superficial study of the forty-eight tebaldini examples (see the appendix to this article) undoubtedly might give the impression that the accusation is correct, that strauss had actually "reworked" cassandra into elektra. in example i (nos. 1-5) tebaldini tries to prove that the melody of the "agamemnon children" is a clever copy from the prologue of cassandra. it is altogether possible that strauss remembered this melody, but does it 77 -----.really give the same impression? in the indictment this theme appears in four other examples. is it forbidden to work out a melody, to develop it? tebaldini's example ii (no.6) seems, at first glance, to be actually very "plagiaristic," but should be regarded as a melodic and harmonic development which was perfectly normal at the turn of the century (therefore an "idiom of the time, " as discussed above). . in example iii (nos. 7 and 8) the descriptive mood is very similar; however no comparable harmonic means are used. in example iv (nos. 9 and lo) a similarity is hardly ascertainable. should the extraordinary pp or p and the dolcissimo or molto expressivo be considered significant here? not shown by tebaldini, in any case, is the crescendo before no. 10 in the score. example v (no. 11) is put together from various places in cassandra in such a way that a comparison would be completely out of place. example vi (nos. 12-14) again links unrelated melodic elements in order to give the impression of a similarity to elektra. it should be mentioned here that any given succession of three to four specific notes can be found in almost any great work of music. that the musical illustrations cited in example vii (nos. 15 and 16) really show a very great similarity is due to the not very original use of the major scale from the third upwards. everything else in this example has turned into an insignificant complex through the assembly and combination of various incongruous sections from the opera elektra. (tebaldini at this point needed four different places in the score as "proof" of the similarity of four measures.) in example viii (nos. 17-22) only a-az is of some interest. indeed, similar phrases are also found in puccini (tosca). the phrases d and bare, as scales, without particular significance (as before in no. 15a). in cone can hardly speak of similarity any more than in c1. there is no resemblance in no. 20, except for the tonal succession f-a-b; the rhythm, likewise, diverges sharply; the notes inbetween are ignored. the next number presents a slight alteration of no. 20 (that is, a-b-d, or f-g-b), which is in no wayan unusual tonal succession, even if there is some rhythmic coincidence. no. 23 shows a descending scale,s followed by an upward octave leap. example ix presents certain (quite conventional) rhythms in no. 24; the arpeggiated jump of a tenth had already appeared in many works of older composers (e.g., in richard wagner). in no. 25 gnecchi uses the arpeggiated seventh chord with altogether greatly altered intervals. at this point only a rhythmic relationship with elektra can be established. in example x, no. 27, tebaldini actually offers an instance that is convincing in its great similarity. a definite justification can be made for no. 28 also, although in this case various sections of elektra are again combined. the use of scales (albeit also partially altered) which return prematurely to the starting note is found in all these examples and also in no. 29. (in a faster tempo such passages would not be at all noticeable.) 78 a correspondence in example xi cannot be established, even through a clever presentation (which tebaldini undoubtedly has found). why the upper c# is abruptly printed lighdy in example xii, no. 34, cannot be perceived from the cassandra score. example xiii presents a series of thoroughly common flourishes which gnecchi uses, as does strauss. nos. 35 and 36 are contrived similarities; no. 35 is, in fact, without a page reference from the piano score. in no. 37 there is, to be sure, a rhythmic similarity, but the effect (and this is, of course, decisive in the end) is radically different. the cassandra example is a model of "italian melody"; the elektra excerpt is a drumming rhythm, without regard to the melodic lines. in no. 38 no rhythmic similarities are present; in this case, however, the tonal successions agree. whether the succession of the notes c-g is particularly original may be questioned. 9 nos. 39 and 40 show hardly any appreciable similarities. a certain relationship cannot be denied in no. 41, and nos. 42 and 43 are also cleverly selected examples. example xiv shows a highly common octave doubling. (should the same metronome indication also be considered a proof of plagiarism?) there is also an entirely inappropriate comparison in example xv, no. 45. for no. 46 tebaldini needs eleven sections from cassandra in order to be able to compare them to one elektra fragment. essentially this involves repeating earlier examples. no. 47 in the first part shows a similarity of the word "orest," but everything else is missing in the quotation from elektra. only the vocal line which appears in cassandra is present (in the form of a speaking passage). in the second section the construction is similar, but not the harmony. no. 48 is a clever juxtaposition of themes which were already discussed before, individually. vittorio gnecchi died on february 1, 1953, thus outliving richard strauss by a few years. he wrote several other operas (e.g., virtu d'amare) and ballet music aside from cassandra, and should be taken quite seriously as a composer. had he been convinced that elektra was a so-called "genuine plagiarism," he would himself have probably championed tebaldini's opinion in 1909, or perhaps have published a tract against elektraat some later date. but riemann wrote in his lexicon that gnecchi stood far apart from the "elektra-feud," displaying no interest in "telepatia musicale?" these examples were selected very cleverly by tebaldini and can actually lend great weight to the possibility that richard strauss knew the opera cassandra and remembered portions of it here and there. certainly a large number of the comparisons are presented unscientifically, even ifwith great artfulness. in 'the balance, however, it can be said in the case of gnecchi versus strauss that, as in other previously mentioned examples, we are dealing with a quite legitimate use of quotation-the common "musical idiom" -and not with a case of true plagiarism. if one considers cassandra independently of any ties to elektra, the former reveals itself to be an excellent work. the cantabile melodies are strongly reminiscent of gnecchi's famous contemporary puccini; the rhythmic 79 treatment, with its frequent changes of meter, shows that the composer of cassandra was familiar with theories on ancient greek music.10 the entire work creates a very nicely rounded impression, doing full justice to italian opera at the turn of the century. that this attractive opera never became really at home on the large operatic stage is certainly not in any way the fault of tebaldini and his "telepatia musicale?" in any event, it would be worthwhile to remember this opera again and bring it back into the performing repertory. dr. franz grasperger writes about elektra that it is the "peak of development" in strauss's operatic creation.l1 this is undoubtedly a very widespread view and cannot be refuted by tebaldini's attacks. strauss"doubtlessly found in this music drama an inspiration for a musical form of expression which until then had not even approximately existed. how did tebaldini arrive at a comparison of elektra and cassandra in the first place? the answer lies most probably in the content of the two operas; the hofmannsthal elektra text is, after all, the continuation to some extent of illica's cassandra. cassandra ends with the death of agamemnon and the heroine of the title. elektra begins with the accusation concerning agamemnon's death. in most works about the ancient greek myths, the plots, as they are presented in both operas, proceed directly from oj;le into the other. two chief characters, agamemnon and his son orestes, are developed by the epic cycles. standing in time between these persons are cassandra and, after agamemnon's death until the return of orestes, elektra,12 with regard to the subject matter the continuity is singular in the history of music, since even in wagner's ring the individual sections are never as closely welded to one another in their plots. strauss is still often attacked today for his quotations; indeed, one even frequently hears talk of "theft" and cribbing." but if the strauss works are examined more closely in this respect, it can be shown that the use of quotation makes much higher demands on a composer's ability and originality than does the elaboration of his own musical thoughts. this is because the incorporation of a "musical, foreign body" into one's own personal concept requires, aside from great skill, an immense capacity for "sympathetic attunement. " (translated by margaret ross griffel) notes 1 it is therefore a question of the "moral safeguard" of works' inherent intellectual value. cf. fr. pauli, "bewusste and unbewusste melodiebenutzung," mxv/3. 2 r. hennig, "unbewusste plagiate," m xxii/3. a cf. herzfeld, lexikon der musik (illstein, 1957). 4 cf. hans erhardt, richard strauss. 5 an english composer, c. 1572-1650. 6 illica also wrote the librettos .to the puccini operas la boheme, tosca, and madama butterfly and text to giordano's opera andrea chenier. 80 7 mueller von asow, e. h. richard strauss: thematisches verzeichnis i (vienna: l. doblinger, 1959), p. 408. 8 compare numbers 15 and 18. g this tonal succession is presented through the kettledrum line, as is already frequently found in haydn. 10 puccini based two of his operas (especially turandot) on the scholarly knowledge of oriental music; gnecchi did the same concerning ancient music. 11 franz grasberger, richard strauss, hohe kunst--erfiilltes leben (rosenbaum: vienna). 12 in the ancient greek myth cassandra is murdered first, then agamemnon. appendix on pages 82-91 following are the musical examples referred to in the course of this article. they are takenfrom the article by giovanni tebaldini, " telepatia musicale?" in the rivista musicale italiana (1909) 16: 4°0-12. theftrst nine pages have been photographically reproduced, while for the final page the type has been 4-q·m. 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 "z4jz .... ;;;;;:;;;; 4wij4a 89 90 a confermare come tutte ie idee musicali e tutti gli spunti citati (ec presi a caso nello svoigersi di una qualunque melodia, rna assumano i ii loro ripetersi e per it lora 5volgersi, vengono qui citatealcune fra 14 identici, talara con varianti. naturalmente un piil accurato studio citazioni, che vennero qui notate dopa una seorsa sommaria data agli temi riportati nelle tavale nel seguente ordine ii iii iv v vi (a) vi (e) vibis vii (a) vii (b) viii (17) (b) viii (18) (e) viii (19) viii (22) viii (23) ix x x (b) x (28) xi xii (a) xii (b) xiii (35) xiii (36) xiii (37) xiii (39) xiii (41) xiii (43) xiv xv cassandra indicazioni delle pagine nelle quali si riscontrano i temi citati di "cassandra" 2-5-6-7-10-11, 2 volte. 208. 133, 3 volte-134, 4 volte-135, 6 volte -136,2 volte-137. 70-68. 157,2 volte-167-173-194-203 a 204. 194,2 volte-191. 59-62-68-71-72-155-156-157. 60-61-71,2 volte-155. 2-25-31,2 volte-37, 3 volte-150-153. 38, 4 volte-40, 2 volte. 167-168-171-172-204, 2 volte-205230 (e) 105. 105. 43,2 volte-44, 4 volte-45-47, 2 volte -51. 46,4 volte-47, 3 volte--58, 2 volte. 42, 2 voite-43-45-51-83, 3 volte-1i3117-121-169-229. 190,4 volte-192, 12 volte-195, 3 volte -196, 5 volte-206-225, 2 volte. 118-64. 30-31-116,8 volte. 1-12-45, 3 volte--80-8i, 2 volte-84, 4 volte-85, 4 volte--86, 3 volte-87, 4 volte-88, 3 voite--95. 3-6-7-8-12-13,2 volte-72, 2 volte123-124-150-191-192":202,7 voite-154. 4,22 volte--5, 9 volte--6, 8 volte-7, ii volte--8, 7 volte 9, 11 volte-17, 4 voite-l 8, 11 voite-19, 9 volte-20, volte-18, ii volte-19, 9 volte-20, 4 voite-l 59, 8 volte-160, 13 volte-161, 9 voite-l 95, 4 volte-196, 7 volte-197, 6 volte-198, 4 volte199, 4 volte-200, 4 volte-203, 10 volte-206, 2 volte. 39,2 volte-136, 2 volte-138-150-151. 2 voite-152, 2 volte-153, 2 volte. 73 tutta la pagina-74-75-76-77ie intere pagine-82, 2 volte-87-88. 125-126-127-128-205-206-230, 3 volte -231. 16-17-21-22-23-148-149-160, 4 volte -161, 4 volte-163, 5 volte-223224. indicazioni delle pagine nelle quali si riscontrano i temi citati di "elettra" 21-25-26, 2 voite-28-32, 3 volte-33, 5 volte-64-71-95, 3 volte-96-120-12i-122-123, 2 voite-125, 5 volte126,3 volte-127, 4 volte-148, 4 volte-149-i50, 2 volte -151,152,2 volte-153, 3 volte-154-172-180-181-186 -187-200-201-202-235-240-241-242-243-245-247248, 3 voite-249. 140-142-143-144. 7-77,2 volte-79-91-221. 65-66-67, 2 voite-72-73, 5 volte-74-75, 6 volte--79, 3 volte--80-81-92, 4 volte-95-232, 2 voite-247-248, 2 volte. 170 (a) 2 volte-(b) 8 volte. 200,3 volte-201, 2 voite. 29,4 volte-30-64-175-176, 2 volte-i77, 2 voite-179192,4 volte-193-196, 3 volte. 120-123, 3 voite--126-127, 2 volte-169-174-181-188, 2 volte-192, 2 volte--193, 2 volte-217, 2 volte-218, 4 volte-219, 2 volte-221-222, 2 volte-227-228, 3 volte -232, 2 volte-234-236, 4 volte. 49 (e) 3 volte-(b) 237, 2 voite-(b) 241. 126, 2 volte. 127, 2 volte. 49, 3 volte-59, 2 volte. 6-8-14-15,2 volte-20, 3 voite--22-30-31, 2 volte-32, 4 volte-35, 4 voite-37-52-85, 2 volte-97-165-166-195, 4 volte-196-202, 2 volte--235, 5 volte-236-245, 4 volte -246, 6 volte-249, 2 volte-250. 16-17,3 volte--i8-19, 4 voite--23, 2 volte-27-39-40. (b) 12-20-21,2 volte-24-25, 4 volte-53-81, 2 volte--82, 4 volte--83-85, 4 volte-c-i06-158-250. (b) 101, 2 volte. 54, 3 volte-55, 3 volte-56, 3 volte-57 tutta la pagina--58 tutta la pagina-59 tutta la pagina-60-61-62-70, 2 voite -116-128, 2 volte. 185, 2 volte-186, 2 volte-202. 5,2 volte--6, 2 volte-7, 2 volte-8, 3 volte-9, 2 volte-io 5 voite-l 1-12-14, 4 voite-l 8, 2 voite-20, 6 volte-21, 2 voite-25-26, 30 voite--27-34, 2 volte-36, 3 volte-87, 2 volte-llo-11 1-112-113-160, 2 volte-175, 2 volte -176-188, 4 volte-194, 7 volte-212-213, 4 volte-224225-228-231-233, 2 voite-242, 2 volte-248, 5 volte250,3volte. 23-24, 5 volte-25, 2 volte-26, 3 volte-35, 3 voite110-111-112-156-162-163-250,5 volte. 153-179-180-182, 9 volte-183-197-198-199-200-228, 5 volte-229-230, 4 volte--237, 5 volte-238-240'-243246, 7 volte-247, 8 voite--249, 4 volte-203-204. 98,2 volte-102, 2 volte-i03, 2 voite-104, 8 volte-1i0, 2 voite-l 11, 2 volte-1i2-1i4-115, 3 voite-l 19-133-134, 2 voite-233, 12 voite-244, 13 volte-245, 5 volte-250, 4 volte. 162-163-164-169-170-171-224,2 volte. 203-204. 13-14-20,3 volte-25-43, 3 volte-44, 3 volte-46-58-60, 3 volte-63-65-72-103, 3 volte-104-108-1i4-1i5-122156, 2 volte-159, 2 volte-160-161, 5 voite-165-166175-189,2 volte-192, 2 volte-193-238, 2 voite-247. 164, 5 volte-182, 3 volte-183, tutta la pagina. bot.h miss stevens and mr. crickmore indicate that awareness of the style of the music is essential to an understanding of it. unfortunately, both of them bypass this basic approach to the music with excuses of insufficient space in or inappropriateness to their dissertations. miss stevens is trying to generalizations from a study of 52 compositions. i question whether she succeeds. mr. crickmore, on the other hand, rather than confining himself to the six concertos of wq. 43, looks for similarities to so many other concertos, not only ofc. p. e. bach, but also of johann christian bach, haydn, mozart, and even beethoven, that the result is confusing. to their credit, they have devoted time and energy to one of the most original and imaginative of composers. laurence david bermanthe evolution of tonal thinking in the works oj claude debussy cambridge: unpubl. harvard university ph.d. diss., 1965. (vol. i, text and bibliography, xv+265 pp.; vol. ii, musical exx., 262 pp.) interlibrary loan from the eda kuhn loeb music library, cat. no. mus t. 65.32. xerox copy from widener library, $5'7.00 (with permission of the author). . mark devoto this is an invaluable dissertation. it is not onjy a profound and incredibly thorough analysis of debussy's approaches to harmony and musical form; it is a first-rate survey of 19th-century harmony as well, and this aspect of the dissertation prolegomena-to-debussy-wou1d make dr. berman's study a worthwhile reference text for a course in advanced harmony. but the preliminary studies in dr. berman's dissertation are not really a separate affair; they are closely integrated into the debussy analysis. the documentation is gratifyingly immense: the musical examples, drawn from dozens of works by many different composers, are numbered through 306, but the many subdivisions of the'numbers make probably twice that many actual examples. in addition, there are harmonic-melodic schemata for all the works discussed in detail. dr. berman's writing is vigorous, terse, absolutely direct, and a pleasure to read. dr. berman's study cleaves once and for all many of the gordian knots of debussy's music. the analytical approach, and the results obtained, far surpass in depth and comprehensibility anything else on debussy's music i have seen. we are all aware of debussy's importance historically and intrinsically; we' are equally aware of the mountains of simplistic and specious "analysis" that have appeared over the past 70 years, from such 200 formidable people as schoenberg on down, through kurth and rene lenormand, through the syntheses of a. eaglefield hull and the newer "serial" analysts, to the miseries of saturday symphony program notes. for all that, debussy's music is perhaps less well understood today than schoenberg's, and, though familiar, it is still tantalizingly enigmatic even to most 'musicians. the man debussy has recently been unveiled in edward lockspeiser's admirable two-volume study, debussy: his life and mind (1962 and 1965), which deals in great detail, and with a penetrating over-all view, with the events and intellectual surroundings of debussy's career; now, at last, there is a really fine book on debussy's music. a pox on harvard, for making dr. berman's dissertation so difficult of access (harvard and university microfilms do not have an agreement). the dissertation is so thorough, precise, and full that i can discuss only a few essentials. in this review. appropriately enough, dr. berman begins his first chapter, "the legacy of wagnerian chromaticism," with a look at bach's g minor fantasia for organ, a unique example' in its day of the possibilities of diminished-seventh enharmony (and one that must have awakened the dead on the untempered instruments of bach's time); dr. berman points out that until' the 19th century, with chopin and wagner, the diminished-seventh was employed mainly as an unambiguous dominant (vg), and only rarely as an enharmonic dominant. similarly the augmented six-five-three or "german sixth" (also a resource of early classical harmony and differing from the diminished-seventh only by a single chromatic inflection), as illustrated in mozart's k. 453 piano concerto, is described by dr. berman as "less ambiguous than the diminished seventh,' since its function with relation to a given key is fixed" (p. 6). (enharmonically, the augmented six-five-three is also an unambiguous dominant seventh.) the revolution in the use of these harmonic resources in the 19th century, according to dr .. berman, came about by expansion of their contexts; liszt and wagner, for instance, made much of the sequential treatment, as opposed to resolutional, of chromatically-altered or otherwise multifunctional chords, and in such contexts, by gradually decreasing the frequency of appearance of distinguishing temporary tonics, achieved new' paradigms for harmonic motion and musical continuity. thus dr. berman states on page 11: wagner's attitude toward enharmony is this separated from schubert's [as exemplified by the last page of his impromptu, op. 90, no.3] in that it is not necessarily tension-building, from bach's in that it does not rely upon temporary resolution in overt harmonies, and from mozart's, since it is not confined to playing a predetermined formal role. in a word, the ·chromaticism of parsifal is·an enharmonic continuum which has no need for root movements to explain or clarify temporary tonalities. and a little later, speaking about parsifal, dr. berman says, there is no denying that wagner is concerned with breaking down longer chromatic spans into smaller entities which have some semblance 201 of tonal unity. yet, one may well ask whether, within the boundaries of these entities, the number, complexity, and expressive force of the chromatic details allow the listener to function on any but the lowest architectonic level. from here dr. berman proceeds to a microscopic dissection of "le balcon" (no.1, though not the first composed, of debussy's five baudelaire [significantly baudelaire!] settings of 1887-89), whose conspicuously chromatic dimension is wrought in an elaborately contrapuntal piano accompaniment reminiscent of wagner's orchestral accompaniments, in striking contrast to the more "french," "figurational" treatment exhibited by other songs in the set, such as "lejet d'eau" (no.3), which is discussed in a later chapter. dr. berman points out that the "wagnerian" songs in the baudelaire group, compared with the ariettes oublices of about the same time, are something of an isolated phenomenon; nevertheless, "it cannot be ignored that this encounter with [wagner's] chromaticism produced debussy's first mature works. and just as debussy, with all his later antagonism toward the wagnerian aesthetic, never succeeded in resisting the music (nor, for that matter, the music-drama), so, too, the chromatic 'virus' is always latent in his work'; (p. 30). likewise, in la damoiselle clue (1887-89), the tristan-like passages near the end coexist with the medieval-modal "antique" harmonies of the beginning, the latter, dr. berman suggests, having their justification in the pre-raphaelite literary origins of the work. dr. berman then turns to the opposite pole of the 19th-century harmonic legacy in his second chapter, "neutralization: the diatonic disintegration of functionality." he says on page 31: " ... harmonic complication in a purely diatonic context contributed as forcibly to the disintegration of functionality as it did in the chromatic realm," and proceeds to back up this assertion with an impressive set of demonstrations. (would that the authors of so many harmony texts could savor these words to the full, and climb off their pinnacles of "doubly-augmented-root-with-simultaneously-raised"-andlowered-fifth-degree" chords!) dr. berman begins with the origin of the dominant seventh as a 16th-century passing-tone or suspension, and its subsequent evolution as an independent resource of quasi-consonant nature: " ... both [these processes] serve to show how conditioning to a sound within a certain environment allows the sound to leave that environment and find new ones: it has 'matured', so to speak" (p. 32). this statement could serve as a law of harmonic evolution, to be engraved on the doorposts of every library of music theory. in an analogous manner, in the 19th century, the triads on the so-called "modal degrees" of the scale (iii and vi, sometimes ii)' achieve a greater independence as chordal entities, even when they are still structurally subservient to the major triads; beethoven's fondness for casting secondtheme groups in tonal regions based on iii or vi is cited by dr. berman as an archetypal example of the new freedom. after giving several examples from chopin (the beginning of the b-flat minor funeral march and the 202 beginning of the polonaise-fantaisie, among others), dr. berman says: "considering the foregoing passages as a group, one is struck by a single characteristic common to almost all of them: the chords are in root-position regardless of the extent to which the "contrapuntal" vestiges are still apparent. in this respect, the growth of weak harmonic successions in 19th-century style is part of a more all-embracing tendency to call attention to the specific sound value of certain chords by giving them root status (this being synonymous with greater autonomy and independence)" (pp. 38-39). an especially noteworthy feature of this discussion is the question of the so-called "added sixth degree," whose validity is scarcely acknowledged in most harmony books because it implies an origin other than superposition of thirds above a root; thus by the traditional interpretation chopin's f major prelude (or for that matter weill's moritat) begins on vig, despite the topicity of the underlying bass, because the sixth degree cannot be accounted for as a passing-tone or neighboring-note, and cannot be achieved in a tower of thirds until the thirteenth degree above the bass is reached. (the major tonic triad with added sixth is, of course, a partial mapping of the black-key pentatonic scale, whose extensive employment by debussy traces back to chopin.) with reference to examples from chopin and liszt, dr. berman brushes aside all the old straitjackets: the problem is essentially this: within the scope of the over-all piece the tonality is unequivocal, and the sixth degree remains ornamental. yet, there are certain limited (microscopic) contexts which allow the sixth degree momentarily to build up its own field of associations (p. 45). the broad field of "associations" is narrowed to specific "mixtures of sounds," from which dr. berman derives the general principle of neutralization (p. 46) : the clear-cut harmonic shapes of classical tonality, in which each chord· has a certain role to play and a certain place to occupy, are obscured by the addition of dissonant or embellishing tones which evoke intervallic groupings at odds with the intention and the function of the original entity .... the dominant ninth chord itself is symbolic of this slow functional disintegration, because its particular physiognomy contains the substance of a "neutralization": its lower three notes say v, but its upper three say ii. copious examples chosen from, inter alios, gounod, massenet, bizet, and debussy's earliest known work, the song "nuit d'etoiles" (1876?), illustrate the principle in isolation; dr. berman then offers detailed analyses of three complete songs, "mandoline" (1880-83), "c'est i'extase" from ariettes oubliees (1888), and "les cloches" from deux romances (1891). dr. berman's third chapter, "the nineteenth and harmonic modality," attacks squarely a subject that is very broad and highly ramified and, in most of the literature, utterly confused. on page 69 he writes cogently: 203 the extent ... to which the romantics intended to copy sixteenthcentury polyphony in earnest is open to question. we are too quick to believe that they deceived themselves into thinking that they had successfully reproduced sixteenth-century techniques, when all they . intended to do,"more likely, was to give their sacred work a certain "legitimacy" by resurrecting the atmosphere of the old sacred style. it seems improbable that beethoven's main concern in using the lydian mode in his "dankgesang" was to create a piece of pure modal writing (although critics disputing the authenticity of this writing have made it their concern, and, in so doing, have made it appear as if it had been .. beethoven's as well). and, on pp; 71-72: it is undeniable that the source of our greatest confusion about "modal practjce" lies in our failure to have distinguished between the use of modes in music of a single line ;lnd that of many lines. indeed, the sixteenth-century theorists were already aware of the modifications which preoccupations of consonance and dissonance must impose on the employment of the medieval modes. yet, if they were able to "perceive" these modifications with 'the ear-and thert<by to understand the organization of the modes in the context of the polyphonic whole-they were not successful in conveying their perceptions to the nineteenthand twentieth-century musician who had lost the gift for hearing in modal ,tetins. rather, they chose. to designate the modality of a piece in relation to one line at a time, in which they were justified, supposedly, by the fact that their music was, indeed, composed of individual lines. but in the "harmonic" context of nineteenth-century "modality" such a , basis for explaining modal procedures would be clearly unrealistic and useless. . as an example of this analytical problem, dr. berman cites the neapolitan sixth chord, whose root is, in a scalar sense, equivalent to a component of the phrygian mode; but the neapolitan "had from the beginning very specific expressive connotations which are not known to have belonged to the phrygian mode, if only because the lowered second degree in phrygian was' a real element of the mode-therefore sounded throughout the course of a piece-while the neapolitan, as a foreigner to the mode, was reserved for certain momentary purposes" (p. 73). dr. berman then goes on to show, in a convincing set of analyses of pari of the "menuet" from-the petite suite (1889) and the wholeof'.'lejet d'eau" (from the baudelaire songs) and "l'echelonnement des haies"(from the trois melodies of 1891), that the origin of debussy's modal structures is not to be found in 16th-century models or earlier, but, like so many of his tonal inventions, in the intrinsic relationships of tones themselves. 'these analyses are a prelude to an exhaustive analysis' of the string 'quartet of 1893, debussy's first large-scale masterpiece and a work which presents remarkable analyticarproblems. dr. berman shows that chromatic and modal elements in the first movement are at odds with each other and 204 with a classical sonata-allegro tonal structure. "in a word, debussy is using a conventional tonic-dominant opposition for his basic tonal structure and invoking a prodigious contrapuntal apparatus to cover it up" (p. 104). dr. berman suggests the possibility of external circumstances (debussy's election to the societe nationale) motivating the choice of outward sonata-allegro shape, a situation that in the light of our knowledge of debussy as an archanticlassicist cannot fail to seem somewhat amusing, but which, if true (dr. berman's case is well made), produced a unique result. a similar conflict can be perceived in the last movement, which had franck's quartet as a model. in the middle movements, however, the apparently simplified formal schemes frame a more detailed and advanced state of debussy's tonal language, one that marks these movements more than the other two as forerunners of the greater harmonic discernment and selectivity of the later works. chapter iv is called "the impact of the russian school: chromaticism turned modal." everybody knows about debussy and boris godunou, and nearly everybody knows about mussorgsky's sunless and debussy's nuages. dr. berman's study is the first that i have seen that goes into the particulars of the music; in addition, the historical information that he brings to bear on the subject demolishes many of the prevalent oversimplified notions about debussy's encounter with "russian realism." in describing the concept of "mixed modes" (what calvocoressi called "variable scales"), dr. berman gives the following interpretation of the famous chord-pair (c ed gd ad and cd f;!: a) that underiies the coronation scene in boris godunou (p. 133): ... to talk of "roots" at all implies a functional relation between the chords, in which one would play an altered v of v to the other's dominant, and vice-versa, tending towards a tonality which never appears. given such an interpretation, one would find it natural to conclude that, by suppressing a chord of resolution, moussorgsky has capitalized on the ambiguities of the two harmonies and created a state of instability in perpetuum. the truth is, however, that .the ostinato exists for quite different reasons. the chord of resolution is not missing but is very much present in the c major harmony. the oscillating chords, therefore, do not stand in the relation of altered ii to v, but (if we are to give them functional names at all) as altered v of v to real v ofv. with the eliminationofa v-i cadence, these two harmonies are seen to have no basis at all in "roots", except in the c-pedal itself, which they embellish. the movements of the components of these chords to the pitches of the c-triad are . thus contrapuntally conceived, and not guided functionally whatsoever. f;!: is, of course, enharmonically common to both chords and is therefore also a pedal, but it is really submerged by the c, which has priority because bfits reiteration and metric placement. indeed, the importance of the tonic pedal-point as an organic harmonic 205 resource cannot 'be overestimatc;:d in debussy's and mussorgsky's music, as dr. berman is at pains to demonstrate, here and in the next chapter; and it must be noted that these composers' use of a tone center as a parallel resource to key is a harbinger of a basic unifying concept in the products of the viennese atonal revolution, notably in the "tonalistic" world of alban berg's music. (as an ancestral example, one could perhaps cite the g-centricity of the second theme of the first movement of schubert's c major quintet, which centricity of course coexists with but decidedly influences the tonal dimension ofe-flat major.) dr. berman brilliantly summarizes debussy's search, in the years of growth, as follows (pp. 139-40): ... the music written in the decade 1890-1900 (the period of peluas) seems itself to pose the crucial question for debussy's development at this, time, namely, how must chromatic tones be arranged so as to relieve the total structure offunctiona1 responsibility? it is, in short, the period in which debussy's hearing becomes further refined, in which his familiarity with altered-chord patterns and cadentia1 formulae involving chromatic tones becomes sufficiently solidified to create a "non-functional", essentially linear music which provides a solution to the question of modulation, as it has already done with that of utilizing the old diatonic modes in the environment of a new harmonic style. the new "chromaticism" may express itself, compositionally speaking, in diverse ways, but these are reducible to the conception of the mixture of modes as the generator of all potentialities required for "linear" modulation. it is in the acceptance ofa chord built on any of the eleven non-tonic tones of a given scale to make a bona fide cadence with the tonic chord that the degrees heretofore considered chromatic, or foreign, to a particular major or minor scale must now be considered "modal alternates" of that scale. one can no longer speak of majorminor, but of an archetypal scale beginning with a tonic-the c-scalewhich embraces all chromatic degrees, but in terms of diatonicism. that is to say-we are not dealing with a chromatic continuum, but with a construct in which only seven elements will be present at any given moment-and yet, one in which each of the twelve chromatic tones has an equal opportunity, theoretically, of being one of those seven elements. the tritone-centricity in the boris chords is an aspect which is mirrored in debussy's nocturnes for orchestra, and dr. berman's chapter iv is built around an analysis of other parts of boris and the whole of the nocturnes. the latter work, however, exhibits a more complex structural plane. the b-f tritone, first of all, frames a bogenform which is but one of the cyclic aspects of the three movements; "nuages" begins and ends, and "sirf!lles" ends, on b. "fetes" begins on the open fifth f-c; c to the beginning of "sirenes" ("fetes" ends on an a major chord, which is also the second harmony heard in "sirenes".) the pentachordb e fwhichframes the all-important english horn melody in "nuages" and is essentially a referential scale, would ordinarily 206 be regarded as part of a locrian scale with raised second degree (or perhaps as phrygian-locrian, a "mixed mode"); but dr. berman points out that the pentachord transposed to its own upper terminus, f, generates f gad bd cd, which is the underlying referent for "fetes," and which recreates the f-b polarity. as a tritone, the b-f pair permits enharmonic identification with two different dominant-seventh structures (like 50% of a diminished-seventh chord); as the first and fifth degrees of a scale, it effectively destroys tonicdominant identification for that scale. (it seems almost to have become a 20th-century leitmotive. the b-f pair is central to act i, scene 3 of pelteas et melisande, as well as to one of the prim.ary referential chords of wozzeck, notably in act hi, scene 2.) to generalize here would be only to repeat what dr. berman has brought out again and again with great force and clarity: modal degrees and chromatic inflections are inextricably interrelated; their function in context is the discriminant. let me give an archetypal example, to which i hope dr. berman would not object. the lowered second degree has at various times "phrygian" or "neapolitan" attitudes. in chopin's c minor prelude, the d-flat major chord can be described as having, post facto, the function of root-position neapolitan on one occasion (followed by v), and the function ofiv of vi on another (followed by v of vi, then vi), both instances being preceded by vi. similarly, in chopin's c-sharp minor nocturne, the lowered second degree is first the root-component of a neapolitan sixth, and in the next beat the phrygianly-inflected melodic second degree of the scale (in the comparatively uncommon v7 with lowered fifth). in chapter v, "harmonic evolution and textural innovation," dr. berman summarizes the principles described in the earlier chapters, and illustrates the extension of some of them with analyses, in terms of specific procedures, of examples from works by debussy and his immediate predecessors (die gotterdammerung and duparc's songs are well represented). dr. berman apologizes unnecessarily for the "artificiality" of the categories which are given here as they appear under subheadings: "the tendencychord cadence," "the phrygian sound," "the lowered seventh degree," "the augmented sixth chord," "the tonic pedal," "the raised fourth degree," "ninth chords," "the 'heterophonic' principle," aj;ld "the whole-tone scale." to recapitulate here the wealth of information and analytic penetration in these subchapters would require an outline. as long as the chapter itself. i will dwell for a moment only on "heterophonic" sonority, which is a general term that covers "acoustic sensuality," variety of coloristic devices, and over-all complexity of texture in debussy, and is inseparable from considerations of tone-relationships. the last paragraph of this chapter reads in part (pp. 213-214): the debussy textural ideal envisions a harmonic atmosphere in which dissonant tones are placed so as to reduce their "shock" value to a minimum and heighten their "overtone" value to a maximum. as paul dukas wrote in relation to the quartet: "the harmony itself, despite 207 many boldnesses, is never rough or hard. m. debussy takes particular delight in successions of rich chords that are dissonant without being crude, more harmonious in their complexity than consonances themselves." such an attention to the phenomenology of sound suggests a concentration on the requirements of an individual sonority, which in turn would imply a certain indifference to causal harmonic connection. as has been said above, the heterophonic context only encourages these possibilities, does not necessitate them .... dr. berman's sixth and final chapter, "tone and gesture in la mer," consists of a full analysis of that huge work of 1905, and demonstrates that la mer exhibits a full flowering of motivic construction that forecasts the motivicity of the works of schoenberg, berg, and webern (and that for this reason has, along with jeux, disproportionately attracted the scrutinizing eyes of today's composers). the brief epilogue which follows chapter vi points to la mer as occupying the summit of debussy's tonal evolution, with a continuous if occasionally circuitous path leading upwards from "le balcon" of nearly twenty years earlier; the summit epitomizes a singlehanded, personal, original achievement in the annals of tonally-structured musical form that is unsurpassed by any composer since beethoven, and that is only now beginning to be understood .. why did dr. berman not include pelleas et melisande in the continuity of his study? as soon as it is asked, this question is answered: pelleas is unique in debussy's works and in opera, and is music in a unique synthesis with a unique play, and really belongs in a separate survey. whoever undertakes a comprehensive study of pelteas-there has not yet been· an adequate onewill discover that dr. berman's the evolution of tonal thinking in the works of claude debussy is the most valuable preparation he can find anywhere. this last sentence is also by way of exhortation to publishers, who, if they have obligations to the community of interested musicians, cannot pass up this fine study. 208 or the marvelous are benda's melodramas ariadne auf naxos and medea, \vinter's das labyrinth, zumsteeg's geisterinsel, and siissmayr's spiegel von arkadien. 2 for an opinion on this see edward dent, "the romantic spirit in music," proceedings qf the musical association (1932-33) 59: 92. 3 see edward o. d. downes, "the operas of johann christian bach as a reflection of the dominant trends in opera seria," unpublished ph.d. dissertation (harvard university, 1958), p. 115. 4 revue musicale (1827) 1: 574. 5 alfred loewenberg, annals of opera (cambridge, 1943), col. 710. 6 2: 548, 565, 605. there was clearly a certain amount of competition between the opiracomique (carafa) and the opera (auber) concerning the production of these two operas. auber's work had been scheduled for performance early in 1827 but was continually delayed by the lack of progress of the dicorateurs. reports on their progress in 1827 refer to the opera as "mazzaniello," but after it becomes known that carafa is producing an opera with the same title, auber's opera becomes la muette. 7 biographie universelle des musiciens, 2nd ed. (paris, 1860-65), v, 106. 8 loewenberg, op. cit., col. 491. roger jacques kamien-the opening sonata-allegro movements in a randomly selected sample oj solo kryboard sonatas published in the years i742-i774 ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-9458, 1964.310 pp. in 2 vols., princeton university diss.) thomas warburton roger kamien has contributed a valuable service to musicology by showing how one might apply statistical methods to a study of sonata-allegro movements. in his dissertation he has methodically observed specific qualities in a random sample of seventy works. these have been drawn from a total population of 1090 works published between 1742 and 1774. many previous studies of sonata-allegro movements have involved either the historical evolution of the concept of the sonata in general or the tonal dispersion of musical materials in particular. kamien, by contrast, has attempted to bridge the gap between the specific and the general. having surveyed previous discussions of sonata movements, kamien observes a lack of objectivity among writers in their descriptions of sonata form. he deplores the inexactness of such terms as "rarely found" or "not uncommon" or "frequently appear" to qualify the occurrence of musical properties. he even refrains from using the term "sonata form" past his second chapter. through an application of statistical methods, he hopes to determine and describe the incidence of musical events in a more precise language. (in appendix ii he describes the specific technical procedures he has employed.) further, he attempts to attain a frame of reference with 118 no limitation to a single composer, group of composers, or specific country. after studying the random sample, he can indicate the changes of style for the total population by means of statistical inference. kamien logically and articulately outlines his method. he chooses the dates 1742 and 1774 (inclusive) because they mark c. p. e. bach's first published solo keyboard sonatas on the one hand and mozart's first solo keyboard sonatas on the other. furthermore, he limits his subjects of study to movements in a fast tempo which repeat each of two sections. accompanied sonatas have been eliminated, as have sonatas by domenico scarlatti and works which originally appeared only in anthologies. kamien admits the obvious limitation "that a random sample may fail to include the most significant works of a period" (p. 32). in an appendix, the author lists the works in his random sample and gives pertinent information about their publication. as a basis for evaluating change during the period of thirty-two years, he divides the sample at the year 1759, to separate the halves. he then defines cogent compositional gestures that seem indigenous to music of the period. after observing the relative lengths of the two sections, he studies texture, imitation, exchange of voices, phrase structure, and expressive indications. for the first section he particularly emphasizes the so-called "dominant caesura," which he defines as a cessation that "gives special emphasis to a point that roughly corresponds with the beginning of the v area" (p. 56). he is especially interested in measuring the length between the opening of the second section and the return of the first material in the tonic. he qualifies each composition according to these several characteristics and bases his conclusions on the frequency of their occurrence throughout the sample. occasionally the author relates the music in the sample to the works of haydn and mozart. from his observations, kamien shows changes in phrase structure, sectional articulation, and harmonic style from the first half of the sample to the second. few important changes are observed in procedures during the second parts of the movements. in a summary chapter, the author shows the changes in outline form, with page references to the earlier parts of the dissertation. it is apparent that many characteristics can easily be evaluated quantitatively in a given group of compositions. indications of dynamic markings or the appearance of a certain kind of texture can be seen and counted precisely. thus his summary in tabular form, for example, shows the decline of imitation and the increasing disparity of length between the two sections from the earlier works to the later. although the systematic procedure leads to definite, substantial conclusions, two problems arise when making generalizations from the study of a random sample. first, not all musical qualities lend themselves completely to treatment by the statistical method. the dominant caesura, for example, depends for its effect on material that surrounds it. kamien notes that 119 mozart writes a dominant caesura in all his sonata-allegro movements except the sonata in c major, k. 279 (p. 58 and fn. 27). such a statement belies the nature of the gesture, for there is one of mozart's most dramatic moments. after a brief half cadence (m. 16) and a quarter-rest, mozart introduces the brilliant dominant of the submediant and from there leads to the dominant level through a cycle of progressions by fifths. at this point a dominant caesura provides the foil for the dramatic play of harmonies that follows. since kamien makes a quantitative evaluation of such a qualitative gesture as the dominant caesura, he may be overlooking the essence of the musical style. a second problem stems from the limitation of the sample itsel£ the author does admit that significant compositions may be excluded; however, a further limitation is apparent in that significant musical gestures may be lacking in works of the sample. a gesture present in a given work of the total studied simply may not appear in any other work of the sample. for instance, kamien speculates (p. 61) on the possibility that a change of tempo marks the second theme in the exposition. he then makes the following remark (fn. 36): "william newman's observation [in the sonata in the classic era (chapel hill, north carolina, 1963)] that 'there are not a few freer-type movements in which a complete change of tempo demarcates what would still have to be called the "second theme'" (pp. 153-54) does not seem to hold true for our population." if kamien had not had the benefit of previous observations from the newman study, his sample would not even have shown the possibility of changes of tempo. whatever problems he encounters, kamien has so carefully defined his method and its limits that he can show conclusively that a change of style does take place between 1742 and 1774. the conclusions would seem no less substantial if he had even eliminated those aspects which do not appear to be appropriate for treatment by statistical analysis. the limitation of the statistical method is that it momentarily denies the style of a single composer or the musical character of a single work in deference to a large repertory. furthermore, using a random sample allows the researcher only relatively accurate conclusions about the total population. in historical perspective, the sonata-allegro as such remains a dynamic form, a frame for compositional realization. its very nature defies even an observation of change, since it never seems to become a fixed form. william newman makes the following observation on page 4 of the above-mentioned book: "since history is always in transition, any division into periods, however necessary for the sake of easy reference and simplified perspective, is bound to have something of the arbitrary about it." the sonata would offer as many different connotations in the thirty-two years after 1774 as it would in the period under consideration. kamien's work may be particularly useful as a working model for similar studies to follow. if the conclusion of the present study were confined to the random sample and not implied for the total population as well, the 120 problem of unknown quantities outside the sample would be eliminated. perhaps the study could involve only those elements which have finite qualities. it will be interesting to read from the author and others about further refinements in his method. philip friedheim-tonality and structure zn the early works cif schoenberg ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-6464,1963. 557 pp. in 2 vols., new york university diss.) jdroctor as the striking developments in music during the late 19th and early 20th centuries recede further in time, more and more musicians are returning to a close examination of the early works of schoenberg, usually in an attempt to examine the historical processes involved and, perhaps, to separate those elements in modern music which can be seen as the result of a direct historical development from those that are distinctly special to the period. philip friedheim's dissertation deals with this problem. the dissertation is laid out in three parts. part one is entitled "the relationship between tonality and structure"; part two, "the early works of arnold schoenberg," which examines compositions from 1893 to 1908, the time of the first atonal works. part three is a conclusion that briefly surveys schoenberg's later development. part one appears in condensed form with many of the examples eliminated in the music review (1966) 27: 44-53, and is, to my mind, one of the most interesting sections of the dissertation. it concerns itself with motivic transformation and melodically motivic sonorities in the works of brahms, wagner, and strauss. friedheim's thesis is that certain methods of organizing musical material that can be found in tonal compositions begin to predominate in music written under the influence of declining tonality. such devices are: motivic variation and transformation, and the combining of variously transformed motives into highly contrapuntal complexes; characteristic sonorities that give color to a work but do not represent a tonic in any classical sense; and harmonic devices, such as multiple interpretation of chords, including the variety of possible roots by supposition, enharmonic equivalents, and abbreviation of "functional" progressions by the omission of a typical chord, usually the dominant. all of the above go hand in hand with ambiguity and may be seen in relation to the classical tonal style as either contributors to, or results of, the weakening of the tonal system. the course 121 music education needs musicoloey frank d) andrea i n five years' time, the school music curriculum and the training of music educators will be far different from what they are today, if the present vigorous rate of change is maintained throughout the nation. while it is hoped that theorists, composers, and performers will contribute to the establishment of school music programs that are educationally and esthetically valid, a major force in this transformation will be musicologists working closely with music educators. this is already clearly evident in the imaginative proposals presented elsewhere in this issue by professors palisca and ringer. music education has a threefold need for musicology. first, education in the arts, particularly in music, is not firmly assured in the schools; it forms part of general education for only a small percentage of our youth. music educators have borne almost alone the responsibility of advocating a greater role for music. by the very nature of their credentials, musicologists could add weight to the argument, as scholars from other fields have done for their disciplines. second, those who have instituted improvements in music education during the last six or seven years need the assistance of musicologists, especially in regard to the organization of subject matter and the selection of music literature. third, since teacher education can no longer be the exclusive domain of professional educators, nor the production of new musical knowledge the sole concern of musicologists, both must join in the task of preparing comprehensively trained music educators. let us briefly examine each of these needs. the "california situation" is the most recent example of the continuous struggle to maintain a respected and vital place for music in the school curriculum. the status of music in california has been far from encouraging. in january 1961, the california music educator news reported that "progressive deterioration in curriculum opportunities in arts education fields had been coincidental with the growth of population." from 1950 to 1960, general enrollment in the los angeles high schools increased 25 percent, but enrollment in music classes slipped from 26 percent of the student population to 14. thirty-two high schools in other large districts throughout the state reported that music teachers increased in numbers from 61 to 65 during the same period, despite a 50 percent increase in student enrollment. supported by a resolution of the menc, the vigorous efforts of the california music educators association have now resulted in affirmative action by the state board of education (music educators journal, september-october 1965:51-55; september 1966:34). frank d'andrea recently succeeded harry r. wilson as chairman of the department of music and music education, teachers college, columbia university. he is currentlya member of the board of the music educators national conference. 151 the difficulty of providing adequate musical opportumtlcs in school, so apparent in california, reflects the national condition. a monograph prepared by the national education association reports that about half of all students in grades seven to nine were enrolled in music between the years 1956 and 1962 (music and art in public schools. washington, d.c.: august 1963). in grades ten to twelve the percentage is smaller, the difference depending on the size of the school: the larger the school, the smaller the percentage. the median percentage of 1962 high school graduates who had taken a year of music was 24 percent in large schools, 34 in medium, and 57 in small. only 16 percent oflarge schools required all students to take music, but this figure is higher than among smaller schools. it is interesting to note the kinds of music courses and activities offered, for example, by mediumsized schools in grades ten to twelve: 78 percent offer band; 72 percent, chorus; 27 percent, orchestra; and only 23 percent, a general music course. an improved program of musical studies would no doubt increase the enrollment in music courses. however, musicologists, together with performers, composers, and theorists, must meet with music educators to answer a more deep-seated need. that is to state to educators and to society at large the reasons why the arts should be a part of the liberal education of all high school students. \vhen these reasons are accepted, the current anxiety over enrollment and curriculum balance will diminish. how is music education improving itself? during the past six years there have been major changes in the philosophy of music education, in curriculum design, and in instructional practice. the current concern of musicologists in educational improvement is itself part of a larger movement that has occupied music educators throughout the school system and in their state and national associations. the nature of the change can perhaps best be illustrated by contrasting the objectives of music education stated in the november 1952 and march 1959 numbers of the bulletin rif the national association rif secondary school principals. in 1952 the objectives were: to find a richer life through music; to develop wholesome ideals of conduct, good work habits, social aspects of life; to contribute to health, citizenship, home life, and recreation; to discover talent and provide vocational training. the 1959 bulletin cites the following objectives: to disseminate the cultural aspects of music as an art; to understand other peoples through their music; to develop musical knowledge, appreciation, and skill; to use music as a means of recreation, release, and developing social relationships; to provide a musicallyenriched program for the gifted child. the objectives of music education have unquestionably progressed from being essentially non-musical to stressing the value and integrity of music as a fine art and an academic discipline. several important publications have helped shape this transition. one of these, basic concepts in music education (chicago 1958) re-orients our view of the philosophical foundations necessary for such a change and reminds us of the cultural and esthetic conditions which must pertain. in another, music for the academically talented student in the secondary school (william c. hartshorn. nea-menc 1960), music education as never before faces up to the obligation to develop studies based on the literature of music, which would provide more students (particularly the academically talented, whether or not they have aptitude for performance) with challenging instruction and experiences. 152 here is a challenge for the musicology student who plans to teach, and for the musicology professor who wishes to devise new courses for the intellectually gifted. though directors of band, orchestra, and chorus may have the requisite training, their principal interests lie elsewhere. the academically talented student needs a teacher who is widely read, who enjoys working with ideas, who can stimulate inquiry, and who is imaginative in developing 'honors' study. musicologists are needed in the training of such music educators. to meet the need for better and more rigorous instruction throughout secondary education, the national association of secondary school principals has formulated position papers in five major educational areas. the latest, the arts in the comprehensive secondary school (1962), is an important definition of the purpose of the arts and the scope and structure of their curricula. two of the recommendations relevant to the role of musicology deal with music courses and performing groups. now that music is recognized as an important discipline with a significant program of course offerings, it is necessary to construct a secondary program designed to produce increased understanding of the conceptual and affective levels of music literature through the systematic presentation over a fourto six-year span of a continuous body of knowledge encompassing the historical and stylistic aspects of music. such a series of courses in which music is approached (in professor ringer's phrase) as a "system of thought" would be taught most appropriately, i believe, by someone thoroughly grounded in music history. what an aid to music education it would be if every qualified musicology department would organize and initiate a series of courses in its neighboring secondary schools! there is another, and similar, need for intelligently conceived courses that present an integrated approach to the arts. the number of secondary schools experimenting with integrated programs in the humanities and arts is growing steadily, and such courses might also be appropriate at the elementary level. the guidance of musicologists is needed in regard to the content and texts for these courses. as we well know, performance constitutes the major activity of secondary school music, and music educators have only begun to augment the usual band, orchestra, and chorus curricula with an organized approach to music structure, history, and literature. a high technical level of performance has been achieved and the music played is diverse and of high quality, but the traditional routine of rehearsing a large choral or instrumental group five days a week minimizes serious consideration of the music itself. there would be more opportunity for this if, through more flexible scheduling, smaller instrumental and vocal ensembles appropriate for music from the renaissance and baroque periods were formed. schools that seem to have little difficulty in purchasing expensive sousaphones, contrabass elarinets, and baritone saxophones, should also be able to obtain earlier instruments, such as harpsichords, clavichords, recorders, and viols. musicologists can readily see how they might contribute to developments in this direction. one last publication, music in general education (menc 1965), will suffice to demonstrate that music educators are endeavoring to develop a program that is better structured and more specifically musical. this book will, i believe, have far-reaching influence as a guide to those who are expanding the 153 scope of musical instruction. to rectify the deficiencies of a performanceoriented curriculum in which a large majority of high school students have no formal contact with music, and in which students active in performance groups frequently lack musical understanding, music in general education makes suggestions with regard to course content, sequence of presentation, musical experiences, and the approach to musical literature. instead of prescribing a set curriculum, it defines eleven essential "outcomes" of music education, together with the content and learning experiences appropriate to each. these will assist the imaginative teacher to design a music curriculum for courses in the humanities and allied arts; to construct fourto six-year curricula in band, orchestra, and choir which emphasize history, structure, and style, as well as performance technique; to prepare appropriate commentary, analysis, and demonstration for educational concerts using performance groups; and to assemble a library of essential music books, records, and films. but imaginative though the teacher may be, he will need considerable help from the musicologist in attaining each of these objectives; projects in music literature for high schools, such as the one described by professor palisca, should be initiated throughout the land. let us now consider teacher education, particularly at those points where musicology and music education might reinforce each other. music teachers are educated at a wide variety of institutions-liberal arts colleges, conservatories, teachers colleges, and university schools of music-all of which should be engaged in analyzing their effectiveness and searching for improvement. similarly, all phases of music instruction are involved in the evaluation and revision of music education. no area of music instruction can escape the responsibility of ensuring that it is adequately preparing prospective teachers. the effectiveness with which a teacher presents music as an art and discipline depends on the breadth and depth of his liberal arts background. school music classes and rehearsals which involve historical inquiry, stylistic comparison, and esthetic criticism require an intellect and sensitivity which the technical and pedagogical study of music alone cannot fully develop. the kind of graduate needed to teach tomorrow's music students is one who has experienced the richness and variety of courses in the humanities and integrated arts, or a seminar in the history of ideas; whose intellect has been challenged to analyze, synthesize, and articulate; and whose mind has been well-nurtured in fields outside music. before too long high school students will have intellectual fare which surpasses that now presented in college. instead of musical production and performance being paramount, the high school music curriculum will have the kind of liberal arts courses which now characterize undergraduate study. we must therefore assure for teachers the education which produces the "liberally educated man." just as we must ensure that high school music study will have a more truly musical content, so we must achieve deeper musical insights from college music instruction. the entire range of theoretic, historical, compositional, applied, and pedagogical studies must be directed towards specifically musical understanding. it has always been something ofa mystery to me why a teacher, after four to six years of study in the history, literature, and craft of music, thinks of his job primarily in terms of conducting and confines himself to 154 developing instrumental or vocal technique and performance. rarely does he think of presenting structure and context as the substance of musical study. the contemporary music project report, comprehensive musicianship, is a step toward a solution. finer auditory and analytical skills, and familiarity with a greater range of music literature will enable teachers to achieve this objective. a revised college program that introduces musical systems other than triadic tonality, contrapuntal and instrumental procedures other than four-part chorale harmonizations, and compositional skills for achieving greater insight into historical styles and problems of performance will substantially improve the teaching of school music. the ability of the school teacher to present the theory and craft of music depends largely on what he learns from his college instructor and how he is taught. in the emerging school music program history and literature are no less important than the understanding of music structure; they should closely complement each other as the fundamental content of every musical experience in high school. and yet it is my impression that in undergraduate programs, history and literature receive proportionally the least amount of time, and that they are too frequently the most poorly taught of all areas. students entering graduate school seem best prepared in performance and least in music history and literature. a course in history and literature is usually given only one year, divorced from theoretic studies, and taught at the level of an "introduction to literature." we have specialists in theory, counterpoint, applied music, conducting, even elementary methods, but any one of these may "double" in music history on the strength of one, sometimes two, years of history studies. it is rare to find music history being taught by a specialist. but if a course in music history and literature is to be an important part of the program, whoever teaches it should have: a thorough preparation in music history and analysis; experience in playing and singing parallel literature; a course that relates music to other arts and humanities; a course in the pedagogy of music history (team-taught by a musicologist and a music educator) and instruction in audio-visual techniques of demonstration; access to an adequate library, early instruments, and school teaching materials. since knowledge of the history and structure of music is essential to the education of the musician, the subsequent musical and professional training of the teacher should utilize and develop these specifically musical studies. activities and instruction in performance, methods courses, and student teaching experience should all be based upon and apply the understanding of music learned in the foundation courses. for example, the analysis and explanation of a madrigal or a fugue should be just as relevant to conducting and methods courses as to courses in history and analysis. only in this way will the quality of teacher education and, ultimately, of school music be improved. at the outset, i supposed that in the next few years the arts will be given increased attention in the educational program. music educators will need every professional assistance, particularly the musicological, to define the goals, provide the instructional literature, and educate school teachers, if american schools and society in general are to have a music education with the intellectual excellence and esthetic richness they need. 155 the speculative content of schoenberg's harmonielehre john f. spratt as might be expected, arnold schoenberg's harmonielehre, published in 1911, represented a considerable departure from traditional practice. even the most tradition-influenced section on chorale harmonization contains a statement of purpose which can be paraphrased as follows: "it is not a question of harmonizing, but of the creative use of harmony. one may have to make corrections, yet not in terms of theory, but by virtue of one's sense of form ... corrections are to be arrived at intuitively."l where such an attitude is expressly stated, even with respect to chorale harmonization, it is not surprising that the remainder of the book emphasizes the creation of original harmonic progressions without the guidance of a given melody or bass line. there are limits to pedagogical originality, however. the author still finds it necessary to enumerate the diatonic chords in c major and to state that in the first exercises the root of the chord must always be in the bass and that in the key of a minor a chord containing an f# may never be followed by one containing such instructions are, of course, indispensable. yet in the version of the book most widely used in the english-speaking world there is little other than instructions of this nature. i refer to robert d. w. adams's translation, theory rif harmony (n ew york: philosophical library, 1948). dr. adams states that this edition is intended for the practical use of students, and that much philosophical material has been omitted, but he notes that "the essentials-explanations, directions, examples-have been included" (p. xi). dr. adams states further that "some american readers may be surprised, perhaps a bit disappointed, to find here a treatise on traditional harmony, handled from a conservative, even strict point of view, when they may have expected a dissertation on the twelve-tone system or a survey of 'ultra-modern' harmony" (p. xi). the adams translation is based on the leiifaden2 by erwin stein, a practical guide to the harmonielehre, from which all speculative portions were excluded. dr. stein's leiifaden presumably had the approval of schoenberg himself. however, that such approval was at least qualified may be inferred from schoenberg's sardonic comments, in his own preface to the leiifaden volume (p. 3), to the effect that stein's book would enable the reader to ignore the speculative portions of the harmonielehre and would eventually cause three-quarters of the book to be forgotten. it thus appears possible that the omitted portions of the book are at least as "essential" as the practical instructions. this consideration prompted roy e. carter to undertake the first complete english translation of the 83 harmonielehre, based mainly on the revised edition of 1922 ("arnold schoenberg's harmonielehre: a complete english translation," unpublished ph.d. dissertation, florida state university, 1970). the portions omitted by stein and adams, and which this paper refers to as the speculative content, are very substantial. a deep preoccupation with nature's bearing on culture in general and the art of music in particular is apparent throughout the book. speaking of cultural systems, schoenberg says onpp.5-6: ... a real system should above all consist of principles which account for all phenomena. ideally, just so many phenomena as actually exist, no more, no less. such principles are the laws of nature. and only such principles, which admit of no exceptions, can claim the unqualified validity of natural law. however, laws of art are conspicuous mainly for their exceptions. [universally valid] artistic principles have so far eluded me (as well as others), and it is doubtful whether any such will soon be formulated. attempts to base art entirely on nature will continue to be abortive. the attempt to formulate artistic law can at most have the merit of a good comparison (that of influencing perception). this is a considerable merit .... yet one must never imagine that such miserable achievements constitute eternal laws comparable to the laws of nature. i repeat: natural law is true without exception, but theories of art consist mainly of exceptions [italics added]. from this and many similar passages, schoenberg appears as a determinist with respect to nature, a relativist with regard to culture, a spinozian naturalist in the sense of regarding nature as an exemplary system and regarding inference from nature as a vital force in culture. (he states only that efforts to base culture entirely on nature are bound to be unsuccessful.) yet anyone so preoccupied with the overtone series as a justification for his harmonic practice regards nature, ipsofacto, as a vital force in culture. since the term "relativism" has certain unfavorable connotations that are ineradicable, the writer feels constrained to employ the term "contextualism" to describe schoenberg's attitude toward culture. this attitude has two major consequences: firstly, a marked hostility toward existing attempts to formulate cultural law and, secondly, an extreme skepticism in his own musical system with regard to any ultimate principle. the hostility toward existing cultural systems accounts for the savage invective in which the book abounds and which constitutes the main reason for excluding certain portions from classroom use. the formulators of musical law are known variously as music historians, theorists, musicologists, and aestheticians, all of whose professions are the objects of schoenberg's unremitting derision. he makes it a point of honor, while discussing the history of music, to explain that he has never read a history of music (p. 80). hugo riemann is acknowledged to be a man of profound intellect. however, schoenberg himself had surmised what riemann laboriously "proved" 84 concerning the development of organum: namely, that organum developed into real polyphony only because of the introduction of contrary motion. thus, without the aid of scholarship (wissenschajt) he arrives at the same conclusions. he is not a wissenschaftler, he says, but self-taught and relying solely on the power of thought. heinrich schenker is depicted as a man ofrare talent and learning. but, in his contention that the golden age of music is past, he is similar to a man capable of judging only ripe apples, not green ones. his emphasis on the magic number five is demonstrably false, since g is the third tone of the (c-major) triad, the seventh tone of the chromatic scale (calling the first), etc. nature, says schoenberg, is too inscrutable for us to be able to divine her secrets so easily. again, he has not read schenker's book but has simply glanced at a few of its pages. his sharpest invective is reserved for aestheticians. he makes it plain at the outset that his harmonielehre is not concerned with aesthetics, but rather with a skill comparable to good cabinetmaking. his discussion of "nonharmonic" tones-some of which allegedly, in existing aesthetic systems, are declared to be either beautiful or ugly-includes a reference to notable "non-harmonic" passages in the works of j. s. bach. with great cunning bach has concealed such passages in a motet; according to schoenberg, the theorists cannot read bach's old clefs and the aestheticians cannot hear the passing tones (p. 392). consequently, the least endearing aspect of schoenberg's creative personality is revealed in this book: a petulant disdain for music scholarship in all its forms. a more constructive corollary of this attitude is the extreme skepticism with regard to eternal law in his own writing. in this he resembles his contemporary william james, who once declared of psychology, a science in which he occupies a founder's position, "what a science! not one law, not one principle." schoenberg's contextualism thus leads him to observe that it matters little whether one's initial hypothesis is "correct" or not, for in the long run both the true and the false hypotheses will be proven inadequate (p. 16). the use of consonance and dissonance as antithetical terms is unjustifiable, the difference being one of degree (p. 18). the laws of a work of art (p. 32) are incidental rather than necessary features, and they are possibly laws of perception more than of art. the melodic progression f-e is most convincing if given the aspect of necessity by appropriate harmonization; however, there are no absolutely reliable means of ensuring this aspect of necessity (p. 100). any and all rules in the harmonielehre may be set aside by a more urgent necessity, and this is perhaps the only rule that is admissible. (even here, appealing to the ultimate criterion of necessity, schoenberg has already recognized it to be a relative term.) laws concerning rhythm valid in earlier music hardly hold true for bach and are actually reversed in beethoven, schumann, and brahms. he doubts that a unifying principle may be formulated. needless to say, he denies any ultimate status to tonality as an alleged natural law of musical composition. 85 but the degree of arbitrariness he ascribes to the tonal system is indeed surprising. he does not necessarily contend that triads are arbitrary, but he does attribute the system of building chords in thirds above the triad to nothing more profound than the make-up of manuscript paper, whereby the lines and the spaces are respectively a third apart. from this paltry, ridiculous circumstance (says schoenberg) arises the conviction that c-e-gis a "chord" whereas c-e-g-d is not. he does not believe in the "golden section" as a principle of musical art; he regards the tempered system merely as a truce in the struggle for musical expression; above all, he denies the aesthetic premise (p. 394) that certain chords or sounds are intrinsically beautiful or ugly. the artist is not concerned with beauty, which tends to be a personal preference, nor even with truth, the knowledge of which would be unbearable. the artist creates out of inner necessity and is concerned only with integrity (wahrhaftigkeit), of which, indeed, beauty, order, and intelligibility are likely to be by-products (p. 395). schoenberg's reverence for natural law is not shared by all philosophers of science. such men as bertrand russell and a. s. eddington have felt that the laws of nature, as inviolable truisms, really relate nothing to us of nature. the force of this attitude may be very clearly seen with reference to the law most basic to musical art, the law of the vibrating body, whereby frequency varies inversely with length. a piano string two feet long will produce the octave of one four feet long. however, piano strings do not exist in nature. a host of exclusions also exists: density, tension, and other properties must remain constant. the law is true eternally and without exception, but only if one takes very elaborate precautions to make it true. it is therefore as much a law of culture as of nature. not to deny the reality of nature, the writer still believes in ontological deposits of iron ore existing independently of culture and from which piano strings (and also pythagorean anvils) are made. the purpose of the above example is twofold: first, to show that schoenberg's sharp distinction between cultural and natural law is to some extent unnecessary, and, second, to suggest that culture is no less amenable to the formulation of law than is nature, provided that one acknowledges truistic reasoning as a legitimate instrument. thus, schoenberg's anticipation of riemann's conclusion, that polyphony did not develop until after the introduction of contrary motion, is a truistic statement. what he calls polyphony (mehrstimmigkeit) is largely synonymous with counterpoint; the notions of contrast, contrariety, and other derivatives of the word contra are indispensable features of counterpoint, as we know it. one may go further and state that the rhythmic and melodic complementarity found in a bach fugue or a beethoven sonata is the distinguishing feature of western music, the musical logos of the western world, since it is a feature sufficiently abstract to survive even the abandonment of the tempered system, i.e., in electronic music. what riemann and schoenberg note is the first indication of such a conclusion. 86 likewise, schoenberg's observation (p. 289) that sounds appearing as suspensions or passing tones in bach and beethoven later appear as selfsufficient chords in wagner is a specific instance of the more abstract view that culture evolves from the implicit to the explicit. in this manner 19thcentury harmony may be regarded not as something essentially new but as an explicit form of something already implicit in the 18th century, just as 19th-century technology develops the implications of newtonian science. the musical revolution of the 15th century consists to a great extent in developing the triadic harmonic system, which is more clearly implicit in machaut than in the 13th century. finally, this eminently truistic proposition, which depicts culture as evolving like a socratic dialogue, also describes schoenberg's own development as a composer. it is demonstrable that his opus 11 for piano employs atonal practices implicit in the second quartet and that, as schoenberg himself often said, his first serial works are to a great extent conscious formulations of organizational devices previously present in a manner of which he himself only gradually became aware. despite his low regard for cultural law, schoenberg does view history as an orderly, even a natural process. he feels that the medieval church modes, which he numbers at seven, were reduced to two, major and minor, in more modern times, and that these two were reduced to one, the chromatic mode, in very recent times. he represents this process as one of simplification, with the suggestion that all notable advances are simplifications. this is undoubtedly true in a sense; yet the simplification is relative to the situation, and not progressive. thus, while the system of copernicus must have seemed simpler than that of medieval astronomers, one can hardly say that albert einstein's system is simpler than that of copernicus. nevertheless, cycles of complexity and simplicity, contextually and tautologically defined, can convey insight into the course of history. it is likely that the expansion of the modal system to twelve by glareanus in the 16th century constituted an unviable complexity, and that the de facto reduction of twelve modes to two (which is observable in willaert, for example) was ultimately made explicit as the major-minor harmonic system. this system is neither more nor less simple than the original modal system, but it is simpler and more workable than a modal system acutely out of accord with musical practice. one is reminded of einstein's dictum that the truth is the simplest explanation. in due course the major-minor system also became discrepant with actual practice. schoenberg relates (p. 309) that he had witnessed vigorous dispute over the root of the first chord in tristan. such disagreement is symptomatic of discussions involving systems in decline. like many of his contemporaries, schoenberg observes of the late 19th century that harmonies had become so ambiguous that any note and any chord could be related. therefore, the final reduction of two modes to one is, if not necessarily simpler than previous systems in their prime, certainly simpler than the existing attempts to account for new phenomena with an old system, and simpler in the sense of recognizing and organizing a defacto situation. 87 both culture and nature may thus be regarded as processes of constant and irreversible change, wherein no law is eternal except as it removes itself from the world of transient phenomena. readers of plato's dialogues will not find this a markedly original view. as whitehead noted, any thorough analysis of western civilization is likely to become a commentary on plato. an analysis of western music tends to travel in the same direction. may we not say that schoenberg's preoccupation with musical law is another commentary upon plato? notes 1 a. schoenberg, harmonielehre (vienna, 1922), p. 342. all translations and paraphrases in this article are by the author. 2 the complete title is praktischer leiifaden zu schonberg's harmonielehre: ein hilfsbuch filr lehrerundschiiler (vienna, 1923). 88 coeditors: special project editor: general editor: senior associate editors: associate editors: l. michael griffel margaret ross griffel leonie rosenstiel maurie sommer emmanuel leemans d.jay rahn stephen willis thomas w. baker tamara lowe dworsky ro bert fuller bonnie lester jack light assistant editor: faye-ellen silverman editorial assistants: anne bagnall, janice butler, peter dedel, gabriel ghirlando, s. j., richard koprowski, stephan kotrch, dennis sanders, douglass seaton, george stauffer business department: thomas w. baker, manager jack light, advertising secretary: cynthia schwan faculty advisor: christoph wolff copyright © 1972, the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york printed in great britain by william clowes & sons, limited london, beccles and colchester corresponding editors domestic patricia t. nolan alexander silbiger harriet franklin myrl hermann harrison m. schlee jurgen thyme robert e. houston adrienne f. block anne gugliotta rita mead anita heppner jack light laurel fay carole k. huston thomas kelly james c. griesheimer andrea olmstead samuel o. douglas marek sowinski dale hunter william penn barbara petersen norman rubin john 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karl-franzens university, graz, austria martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, germany phillips university, marburg, germany queen's university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, n. ireland salamanca, spain state conservatorium of music, sydney, n.s.w., australia state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of erlangen-nuremberg, erlangen, germany university of ghent, ghent, belgium university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, hull, yorkshire, england university of leeds, leeds, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of oslo, oslo, norway university of southampton, southampton, england university of turin, turin, italy university of vienna, vienna, austria university of zurich, zurich, switzerland whenever possible, communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the institution in question. otherwise, they may be sent to the editor of current musicology for forwarding. the music department columbia university new york dan broucek and julia ann griffin richard t aruskin richard rastall john m. jennings leonie rosenstiel donna k. anderson wulf arlt isabelle cazeaux reports from the domestic corresponding editors: 9 a survey of the relationship between musicology and performance in the music departments of thirty-nine north american graduate schools 45 chapel hill: the amsjsem meetings of 1971 47 lincoln center: the international josquin festival-conference, 21-25 june 1971 from the foreign corresponding editors: 65 leeds: music studies at the university 70 new zealand: new zealand music research 77 announcements articles the spheres of music: harldony and discord, part i 81 introduction and overview 84 musicians 88 musicology and the practice of music: thoughts from the work of the schola cantorum basiliensis 95 musicology and other friendly musical disciplines hubert doris peter paul fuchs fabio gonzalez-zuleta anthony hedges dina koston siegfried landau franqois lesure meredith ellis little david loeb yehudi menuhin anthony newman michael rabin denis stevens 100 music-01ogy 104 interrelations between musicology and musical performance 111 ethnology and music: a philosophical considera tion 116 on the training of musicologists and performers in great britain 121 musicology and performance: the common ground 124 do the findings of musicology help the performer? 128 toward a committed musicology 131 what questions should a performer ask a musicologist? 138 the composer as musicologist 142 musicology vs. performance 145 the 20th-century performer as interpreter of the baroque tradition 155 a performer's perspective 159 some observations on performance practice rosalyn tureck 164 toward a unity of performance and musicology 173 contributors current musicology dedicates this issue to the memory of william j. mitchell (19061971) under whose chairmanship and through whose inspiration this journal came into existence. columbia university: a.b., 1930 m.a., 1938 assistant professor, 1941 -1 947 associate professor, 1947-1952 professor, 1952-1969 chairman, department of music, 1962-1968 state university of new york at binghamton: professor, 1969-1971 ronald cross-matthaeus pipelare: a historic and stylistic study of his works ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-3317), 1961. (307 and 160 pp., new york university diss.) keith e. mixter this dissertation is the first major study of this highly imaginative and skillful composer of the turn of the 15th century. dr. cross has let pipelare's works determine the course of the dissertation, since he feels that the problems are often related to specific compositions. pipelare composed in nearly every musical genre of his time. outstanding exceptions are the passion and the frottola. in chapter i the biographical details are presented. mter discussing the references to pipelare to be found in theoretical works, dr. cross proceeds to refute the thesis, first advanced by maldeghem, that pipelare was born in louvain. pipelare's sojourn at's hertogenbosch is well documented, and the author draws all inferences from this that can justifiably be drawn. evidence found in a jena manuscript (chorbuch 2 of the universitatsbibiiothek) leads to the conclusion that the composer had died by the year 1512. chapter ii is devoted to an examination of the concordances to pipelare's compositions. as "sources" dr. cross has listed manuscripts, early prints, and modern prints. in chapter iii, which concerns the chanson compositions, the author roams rather far afield chronologically, but this often results in a very informative capsule study of a text motif. the shortest chapter of the dissertation is the fourth. it is devoted to the composer's motets, one of which, hie est vere marryr, survives only in a keyboard arrangement by fridoiin sicher. the longest chapter by far is that which examines pipelare's mass compositions. these compositions, which tend to confirm the very close association with the lowlands suggested by pipelare's chansons, show a highly imaginative manipulation of preexistent material. in the missa dicit dominus: nihil tuleritis in via this manipulation leads to a structural unification of the mass sections. in the later works (particularly the missa mi mi) one finds much use of a "saturation" 127 : . technique, in which the writing is permeated with the preexistent material. the sixth and final chapter is a recapitulatory one entitled "summary of technical and stylistic details." following the bibliography a musical supplement presents eight of the twenty-seven surviving compositions (four have been lost) in a modern edition. this edition follows modern transcription procedures. dr. cross uses a 2-1 reduction in the note values, and bars between the staves according to the so-called "mensurstrich" principle. the supplement includes two chansons, two motets, a credo, and three of the surviving nine masses. great weight is given in this dissertation to pipelare's manipulation of preexistent material, so that one finds this problem being covered in discussions of individual compositions, in the section on "preexistent material," in the section on "technical procedures involving preexistent material," and in the section on "integration and saturation." while this element is obviously very important, the reviewer feels that the discussion might have been somewhat curtailed in favor of other stylistic elements. dissonance practice, for example" receives very cursory treatment. despite this, the author considers dissonance an important factor in determining the chronology of pipelare's works. too often we find an emphasis on unusual practices in pipelare's music. these, except by implication, do not tell us general characteristics of his style. on the other hand, when we are told about three "ubiquitous" elements of his style, we are given but one musical example of only one of these elements, with no references to further occurrences. (knud jeppesen's the style oj palestrina and the dissonance still serves as a model of documentation in this regard.) mensuration and rhythm receive rather extensive treatment. here, however, one meets with an unfortunate inconsistency in point of reference, as, for example, in the discussion of canon, where semibreves, measures, and quarter rests are referred to on the same page. a priori assertions which remain unexplained do not guide the reader well, a case in point being the assumption of "composition alta minima" (i.e., the minim equaling the tactus in 02 mensuration) in section iii ("et resurrexit") of the st. john credo. the author has quite correctly given, as an advantage of the "mensurstrich" principle of barring, the possibility of indicating a conflicting mensuration by bar lines within the staff. unfortunately this device of alternate (dotted) barring has been applied to instances of hemiola rhythms, rather than to really conflicting mensurations (which abound in renaissance music). since hemiola rhythms can be very adequately expressed in "mensurstrich" barring without the use of supplementary alternate barring, it would seem useful to limit the use of the latter to genuine conflicting mensurations (such as g against ¢) and not to apply it to temporary shifts in rhythm. too often critical points are not illustrated by examples, or even by reference to the supplement. in the discussion of the chanson, morken ic hebe ter scolen ghelegen, the piece is described and then compared to a piece by 128 j osquin baston, four measures of which are quoted. how nice it would have been to have a pertinent passage of the pipelare piece superimposed! in the discussion of the four-part segovia agnus, a critical point is made of the concluding device, which the author says is common to all the other movements. unfortunately this is not provided in an example. in certain parts of the dissertation questionable technical terminology seems to stand in the way of the lucid transmittal of information. in a discussion of imitation, the author states that pipelare does not employ a great deal of imitation. in the following paragraph, however, we learn that certain types of imitation are "very characteristic of his style." these are "internal imitation" and "concluding imitation." a little later, we see that a section labeled "phrase formation" really deals with the problem of melodic contour. the musical supplement seems well and carefully done. one objection to procedure may be raised, however. although the editor has set up a very workable critical apparatus, he insists on supplementing it by cumbersome and disturbing footnoting. abbreviations such as s ("superius"), ms ("manuscript," as an adjective), and pro ("printed") disturb a text which otherwise has a good literary flow. in the matter of translations, the author supplies the original of easily accessible works (such as van den borren's la musique en belgique or fetis' biographie universelle), but neglects to do the same for less accessible publications (such as gerber's neues historisch-biographisches lexikon der tonkiinstler, not yet reprinted at the time this dissertation was written). mter the number of translations from latin and modern french and german, the reader is disappointed to find only the original of two renaissance french texts (fors seulement and vray dieu), although the texts have much bearing on the music. finally, the style of the author leaves something to be desired in the matter of footnoting and bibliography. under "early prints" the liederbuch des arnt von aich is not dated (rism [1519)5), and, in general, references to the repertoire international des sources musicales would have been very helpful (assuming that the volume recueils imprimes, xv!cxviie siecles, published in 1960, was available for dr. cross's dissertation, dated dec. 1961). the bibliography contains very few music listings, although the author has demonstrated in numerous footnotes that he has consulted such works. the author has consistently omitted place of publication (as well as publisher) in all book references, although scholars and librarians are often in need of such information in locating rare materials. dr. cross is to be credited with several discoveries or fresh insights which contribute greatly to our knowledge of this area. among these are the addition of three further manuscripts to du saar's list of sources for een vrolic wesen, the identification of liber 3 of the inventory of the fugger music library as ms 34 of the bayerische staatsbibiiothek in munich, the disclosure of the unification of a mass by the utilization of similar ending material, and the detection of pipelare's use of the agnus dei of a mass to sum up the musical 129 ideas which have been presented in whole work. in general, the remarks on the organization of the polyphonic mass are well taken. this dissertation is a fine and penetrating study of a significant renaissance composer. it is a pleasure for the reviewer to point to two further fruits of dr. cross's research: his article, "the life and works of matthaeus pipelare," musica disciplina, xv: 97-114 (1963), which presents the biographical details and a list of works by genre, and his edition of the opera omnia of pipelare (rome: american institute of musicology, 1966-67, 3vols.). ursula kirkendale-antonio caldara: sein leben und seine venezianisch-romischen oratorien graz-cologne: hermann bohlaus nachfolger, 1966. (406 pp., university of bonn diss.) hermine weigel williams this dissertation, presented in 1961 to the faculty of philosophy at the university of bonn for the doctoral degree, now has been published as volume 6 of the series, wiener musikwissenschqftliche beitrage. in the published version, the biographical portion has been greatly expanded to include additional material, especially information contained in documents from rome. antonio caldara (1670-1736), a composer primarily of vocal music, served the imperial court in vienna during the reign of the hapsburg emperor charles vi. his appointment to the coveted position of vicekapellmeister in 1716 brought him into a circle of composers that included johann joseph fux and francesco conti, and it is upon the basis of his musical accomplishments at this court that his reputation .rests. , until the publication of this work, little was paid to caldara's musical career before 1716. in part i, which deals with the life of caldara, dr. kirkendale not only greatly expands our knowledge of his early life but corrects many errors of fact that appear in the article, "caldara," in die musil; in gescliichte und gegenwart. the biographical narrative begins with confirmation of the fact that caldara, son of the violinist, giuseppe caldara, was indeed from venice, for it was at san marco that he began his musical career as one oftheboy singers for the ducal chapel. what talent he possessed as a singer must have soon been overshadowed by his instrumental skill, because by 1689 he was referred to as a virtuoso cellist. with whom he studied (kirkendale suggests domenico gabrielli, the famous cellist), and whether or not he was ever a regular member of an orchestra for a theater or a church is not known. in fact, up to the end of the seventeenth century, caldara held no influential position as either a performer or composer. 130 neal zasla w editor associate editors: alex blachly shai burstyn l. michael griffel margaret ross griffel mary obelkevich hedi siegel executive secretary assistant editors: kathryn bumpass joan long josephine mongiardo william payne business manager editorial assistants: isabelle emerson, walter hilse, david josephson, raymond kennedy, sue kenyon, sidney moore, mary peckham, rose rosengard, lillian steiner fraker, cornelia weininger, carolyn whittaker austin clarkson editors-at-large jamie croy kassler faculty advisor: ernest sanders copyright © 1969, department of music columbia university, new york printed in great britain corresponding editors domestic raymond, kelton . , danierl. farber mrs. frederick cunningham, jr. mrs. betty jo wareham. richard d. dinwiddie gary zeller stuart chasnoff mrs. bonnie lester mrs. bea friedland kathryn bumpass graham hardie jon appleton lucy dyal lowell lindgren michael williams j. theodore johnson terry c. terry howell price ernest may floyd g. sumner wye t. jamison mrs. carol steiner william mahar thomas n. rushing mrs. muriel waterman betty schaeffer laurence brillson mark c. riener kenneth peacock orin moe, jr. mrs. ellen t. winter harlan d. mcconnell david leese william b. pepper robert d. oursler lee patrick thomas stoner warren spaeth sterling e. murray charles g. boody dan broucek don gillespie vicki sue carlson peter bloom norris l. stephens priscilla m. drucker george s. james, iii zenoby lawryshyn jean m. walkinshaw bellamy hosler bostf?n university, boston, mass. brandeis' university, waltham, mass . bryn mawr college carnegie-mellon university case western reserve university, cleveland, ohio catholic university of america, washington, d.c. city university of new york, brooklyn college, brooklyn, n.y. city university of new york,city college, new york, n.y. city university of new york, queens college, flushing, n.y. columbia university, new york, n.y. cornell university, ithaca, n.y. dartmouth college, hanover, n.h. florida state university, tallahassee, fla. harvard university, cambridge, mass. indiana university, bloomington, ind. new york university, new york, n.y. north texas state 'university, denton, tex. ohio state university, columbus, ohio princeton university, princeton, n.j. rutgers university, new brunswick, n.j. stanford university state university of new york at buffalo, buffalo, n.y. syracuse university, syracuse, n.y. tulane university, newcomb college, new orleans, la. university of arizona, tucson, ariz. university of arkansas university of california, berkeley, calif. university of california, davis, calif. university of california, riverside, calif. university of california, santa barbara, calif. university of chicago,. chicago, ill. university of colorado, boulder, col. university of hawaii, honolulu, hawaii university of iowa, iowa city, iowa university of kansas, lawrence, kan. university of kentucky, lexington, ky. university of maryland, college park, md. university of miami, miami, fla. university of michigan, ann arbor, mich. university of minnesota, minneapolis, minn. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of oregon; eugene, ore. university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. university of rochester, eastman school of music, rochester n.y. university of southern california, los angeles, calif. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of wisconsin foreign edgar j. lewis robert j. nicolosi caitriona bolster karl-werner gumpel laszlosomfai ladislav burlas alan brown anna amalie abert reinhard gerlach don harran reiner kluge winfried kirsch hubert unverricht othmar wessely eberhard klemm mrs. olga mikl6ssy rita egger bernd baselt j. d. bergsagel horst heussner john c. g. waterhouse willem elders axel helmer se6irse bodley josephine m. mason niels martin jensen michael tilmouth georg borchardt anthony ford anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec ian d. bent john steele marie briquet robert guilloux richard marlowe ludwig finscher georgio pestelli j. e. maddrell hans conradih ake berglund m. witte university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. washington university, st. louis, mo. yale university, new haven, conn. albert-ludwig university, freiburg, germany bart6k archives, budapest, hungary bratislava university, bratislava, czechoslovakia cambridge university, cambridge, england christian-albrechts university, kiel, germany georg-august university, gottingen, germany hebrew university, jerusalem, israel humboldt university, berlin, germany johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany johannes gutenberg university, mainz, germany karl-franzens university, graz, austria karl marx university, leipzig, germany karlova university, prague, czechoslovakia leopold-franzens university, innsbruck, austria martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, germany oxford university, oxford, england phillips university, marburg, germany queens university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, ireland state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university college, dublin, ireland university of birmingham, birmingham, england university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, yorkshire, england university of liege,liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of otago, dunedin, new zealand university of paris, paris, france university of paris, paris, france university of southampton, southampton, england university of the saarland, saarbriicken, germany university of turin, turin, italy university of york, english department, york, england university of zurich, zurich, switzerland uppsala university, uppsala, sweden westfalische wilhelms university, miinster, germany communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the university unless otherwise noted. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york bibliographr of performance practices 7 preface 9 introduction 11 bibliography of performance practice bibliographies 13 abbreviations 17 bibliography of performance practices 87 index the growth of a musical idea-beethoven's opus 96 mary rowen obelkevich one of the most fascinating aspects of beethoven scholarship is an examination of his extant manuscript sources for a composition from the first rough ideas to the polished work of art. in this study i shall concentrate upon the various factors which played a role in his creation of the g major sonata for violin and piano, opus 96, including the borrowing, manipulation, and revision of musical ideas within the structural fabric of the composition. there are four main manuscript sources which contain beethoven's progressive work on opus 96-beethoven autograph ms. 41 of the gesellschaft cler musikfreunde, vienna; the petter sketchbook; ms. 60 of the conservatoire national, paris, collection malherbe; and the autograph score of the sonata owned by the pierpont morgan library of new york city,! the earliest of these documents, ms. 41, contains a draft of the melody which beethoven utilized as the theme of the finale of opus 96, as well as sketches for the chorfantasie, opus 80, and the beginning of the goethe song, fxampu i .. ,;,--. .. . . . c .j i '"'q 'i' ]it ... ¢ !f : ..,.41-4\-......... • ..... + .-v. fit i i i "kennst du das land" (in its second version). i call the presentation of the opus 96 melody a draft rather than a sketch, because it is not a broad scheme for the structure of an extended musical area, nor does it represent detailed work on a problematic compositional section; rather, it has the appearance of a small, well-determined musical entity. the incomplete 91 elements in the notation of the melody's setting seem to be abbreviations employed by beethoven to facilitate the copying-out process rather than omissions of content due to creative indecision on his part. key signature, meter, and clefs are self-evident. the manuscript is undated and is not known to have been part of a specific conglomerate of sketches. however, beethoven completed the third sketched item, "kennst du das land," during the summer of 1810, before his first meeting with bettina von arnim. therefore, it is likely that the sheet was compiled during the prior months, perhaps from the endofl809. 2 (ex. i). the accompanied tune bears a striking resemblance to jobsen's song, "der knieriem bleibet, meiner treu!" from der lustige schuster, the second part of the comic opera der teufel ist los, with text by c. f. weisse and music by j. c. standfuss. both parts of this singspiel survive only in a revised and augmented version by johann adam hiller. standfuss may well have taken the folk-like tune from the second strain of a song, "ich bin nun wie ich bin," found in sperontes' collection der singende muse an der pleisse. only speculations may be made as to the precise origins of the melody.3 (ex. ii). $i,; ; j j 1 11, $ 1, 1; i, '1 1"'11 1'2 ) ) idi) #111 af. iqr-ltes-le ar-xe. be,! d4 i1t", iiki __ bltr l4-d' ", .• 9 ¥j* m 1, 'it 111 t 11 it] \1 j i, 'j 1 j j' j i j 1 1 ei ne q 1£b i t3 lu 1$ u 11' d i@ 1 i; ele . .f.r,.' _________ .. _ ____ _ _ . _____________________ "ej there are, of course, many means by which beethoven may have become acquainted with this well-circulated tune. neefe, who was one of beethoven's earliest teachers, was a student, admirer, and close friend of hiller. 4 undoubtedly, beethoven heard his instructor praise hiller, and probably studied some of hiller's vocal compositions. also, some of hiller's immensely popular singspiele were among the operas presented at the court of bonn during beethoven's youth. 5 in fact, hiller's operas were on the boards well into the 19th century. it is plausible that beethoven attended a production of der teufel ist los given in december 1809 in vienna. although surviving 92 records indicate that only the first part of this work was presented, it is very likely that, according to custom, the second halffollowed a day to a few weeks later. at this time, beethoven may well have become attracted to the rollicking tune with its earthy quality, humor, and potential for artistic manipulation. 6 the next important source of opus 96 consists of some sketches found in the petter sketchbook. this manuscript is composed of two sections which, although unrelated in physical characteristics and content, were bound together. the first of these is short, containing 12 folios, and probably dates from the winter of 1808-09. the second, however, is much more extensive; it consists of 65 folios representing work from the middle of 1811 into the following year. 7 sketches of opus 96 come from this latter portion of the compilation, occupying much of the last pages of the manuscript (721', 73v-r, 74v). immediately preceding the sketches of opus 96 are some for the 8th symphony, which was completed in october 1812. following the sonata (74r) is a sketch of the song "an die geliebte," first setting, wo 0140. these folia contain ink sketches which serve as melodic guides to the last three movements of opus 96. as far as i know, this is the first place where beethoven wrote out a broad outline for the sonata. the main themes, continuity between movements, and some melodic detail are fairly well established. in addition to these sketches, there are some crayon sketcheswhich seem to be different in purpose-for the adagio on 72r and the allegro moderato on 73v. the crayon adagio sketches are modifications of the ink ones. the allegro sketches also appear to be revisions of an earlier model, but no set of ink sketches for this movement is present in the petter sketchbook. it seems likely that the crayon sketches were written a good deal later than the ink ones, perhaps after beethoven had started to write out his autograph score of opus 96, and that, having referred to the petter sketchbook for this purpose, he found it necessary to experiment with some of the musical ideas before composing his finished version. 8 (ex. iii). a comparison of the above version of the poco allegretto theme with that in ms. 41 presents some features of great interest. the themes are quite similar in overall contour, despite the striking divergences. the beginning of the second section of the melody (m. 9) reveals a combination of a misleadingly innocent melodic alteration with what might be called a harmonic insertion between the simple tonic and subdominant harmonies of ms. 41 (mm. 8 and 9 respectively). in the petter version, beethoven alters the melody by retaining the shape of his opening motive, that is, leaping up a fourth from to b rather than ascending a half-step to g. the scalewise descent of a tetra chord is retained in both versions. this tetra chord has, of course, the same intervallic construction as either tetrachord of a major scale. thus, the first in ms. 41 functions as the third of a lower tetrachord starting on d, and so implies the scale/harmonic color ofd major. beethoven enters the subdominant key area, and maintains it until the dominant of the 93 penultimate measure. in the petter version, the f$ functions as the first tone of an upper tetrachord carrying the harmonic implication of the dominant ofb major, the majored mediant area ofg major. a closely related change that beethoven makes from the petter theme to his final version in the morgan autograph is that of altering the first f$ of m. 9 to an a$. in contrast to the preceding harmonic simplicity, this a$ leadingtone, remote from the system of g major, reinforces the turning point in harmonic emphasis. the a$-b leading-tone-tonic implication is paralleled in m. 13, where beethoven gains the subdominant by using b as the leading tone of c. consequently, he attains this main structural area of the earlier 94 n ok s)· ltr4d.:ds a. 5htcll£s of ai>mio ", iwr 'l$' i 't!1 ru 1::3 i t1l:j i 'ij;j ]1[: [$,if r t:l±1 i 0 , , lii' i!l , r , "ij 1 vl.s16l.f in tke faoc--simllf] .. 01 v1.j 1-:11 uo 1-3 ,"res -;:;41" " v -u -;t' .fori" .. . . .. --v 1:.j -, 1 1 1 p/4"d m-..-'" ... xvi 0 i , b 0' facsimile 95 [for adagio] facsimile ,:'i;"";. , .... r1j 0;;::-.. ,jlkll. hv " 1 1 1'" " f f , f' .. .. facsimile 96 d. facsimile. morgan autograph score, opening of the poco allegretto, p. 29. version after a "delay" of four measures, a harmonic extension which adds a sophisticated polish to the charming folk-like quality of the tune. another of the differences between the settings of ms. 41 and the petter sketchbook is that in the earlier version beethoven terminates the melody on the tonic final, whereas in the petter sketch, on the third degree. the tonic final brings the melodic motion to a halt, giving the tune its aspect of completion, a short but fulfilled musical entity. in the second version, however, the function of the tune has changed-it is now the theme of a continuous chain of variations. thus, beethoven's simple change has had a far-reaching effect on the artistic utility of his musical subject. the third extant source of opus 96 is ms. 60 of the conservatoire national, collection malherbe. max unger catalogued and briefly annotated these holdings. ms. 60 contains beethoven's work on two compositions, opus 96 (the last movement only) and the c major mass, opus 86. the work on the sonata was independent of that on the mass, which was composed during 1807 and performed on september 12 of that year. unger characterizes the section on opus 96 as a "bruchstiick aus dem finale der sonate in g dur fur violin u. klavier, w. 96, unbekannte fassung, in partiturmassigen niederschrift."9 i wish here to identify these fragments in greater detail. 4-c •m • 97 in the following example, parts a and b are reproductions of the two pages in ms. 60 containing work on opus 96, highly dissimilar both in appearance and in function. (ex. iv). a is on a sheet of paper ruled with twenty staves. there are five triple staves of score, with every fourth staff left blank. this format is also used 98 example iv part a part b i " l .......... ' • ,i; ; throughout most of the morgan autograph. the paper, scoring, and style of handwriting of these two sources are strikingly similar, with meticulous indications of dynamics, rests, and accidentals. as was often beethoven's practice in fair copy, clefs and key signatures are indicated only in the first measure (of the movement or folio). the writing is, for beethoven, extremely neat and legible; even the few minor revisions are notated with care-in short, we have beethoven's fair copy. b, in querjormat, contains three systems of score, each separated by a blank staff. both handwriting and musical content are far less finished than in a. b is a composing score, a working draft, no longer a sketch but not yet a finished copy. it is a musical continuation of a, but not part of the fair copy. there may have been a more polished version ofb which was, indeed, in fair copy and corresponded to the second page of the finale in the morgan autograph. from various documents surrounding the first two performances of opus 96, we know that beethoven composed two versions of the last movement. these concerts took place on december 29, 1812, and january 7, 1813, with the archduke rudolph pianist, pierre rode violinist. rode, from all accounts, disappointed everyone's expectations. apparently, he was well past his prime by 1812, and even critics who had been his 99 admirers in earlier years failed to find the same fine qualities in his playing. for instance, louis spohr, no light appraiser of other violinists' abilities, wrote of the young rode that the more he heard him perform, the more overcome he was by his playing. in a letter, however, written several months before the first concert, spohr warned the archduke that he missed rode's former boldness in conquering great difficulties. spohr's review of rode's recital in the viennese redoutensaal, which took place one day before the second performance of opus 96, was far less diplomatic. he found the playing cold and mannered, the violinist's technical security shattered, his passage work sloppy and unsure. 10 beethoven must have been all the more disappointed since he had gone out of his way to accommodate the whims and abilities of his violinist. it is very likely that the archduke was excited and flattered at the prospect of performing with a famous foreign artist and that beethoven, whose income depended almost exclusively upon rudolph's generosity, had no wish to jeopardize the success of the performance. in a letter written to the archduke shortly before the first performance,ll beethoven mentions the care taken in revising portions of the last movement and assures him that all will go well: " ... in view of rode's playing i have had to give more thought to the composition of (the last) movement. in our finales we like to have fairly noisy passages, but rode does not care for them-and so i have been rather hampered ... " nevertheless, the performance did not go very well. according to a review in gl6ggl's musikzeitung, "the piano part was played with more soul than the violin part; mr. rode's greatness does not lie in this type of music but in the performance of the concerto."12 the letter to the archduke hints at two elements guiding beethoven's newer version: rode's playing, with, one assumes, its growing unreliability, and his preference for the legendary "french tradition" of violin writing. this style features mannered rather than bravura passages, polished harmonic and melodic embellishments, delicate phrases, an overall gloss of highly controlled brilliance-elements characteristic of the compositions (especially the concerti) of rode himself. the rondo-like variation form is fully in keeping with the concerti of viotti, kreutzer, baillot, rode, spohr, and others of that school, although it was certainly not bound to the french influence. however, the allegretto of beethoven's sonata was conceived prior to and independently of any specific consideration of rode's musical personality. the kinds of changes which beethoven made from ms. 60 to the version in the morgan autograph confirm these observations. the basic structure of the composition has been fully retained, despite the alterations. these latter fall into three categories: technical simplification of the violin part; refinement of the piano part, giving more finesse to the left hand by softening the reiterated rhythmic pulses of the octaves (especially in mm. 4, 5, 8, 16) and filling in the harmonic colors formerly supplied by the violin; 100 and changing of several details of melodic figuration (especially from m. 19 on). in m. 17 the first note is still the f# of ms. 41 rather than the a# of the morgan autograph. a of ms. 60, nonetheless, is very similar to the final version. the most important late manuscript source of opus 96 is beethoven's autograph score of the sonata.l 3 this document, signed and dated by the composer, is exceedingly well preserved. the score comprises twelve large sheets of paper, each folded over to provide four pages. these four-page gatherings were, in turn, sewn together into the present order. two sets of small, rough-edged holes, punched through the bulk of the manuscript, give evidence of an earlier, more rudimentary binding, quite possibly improvised by beethoven himself.l4 a piece of thread may have been pulled through these punctures in order to hold the individual gatherings together, but to allow sheets to be removed and inserted without difficulty. someone other than beethoven has numbered the upper outside corner of each page of music in pencil. aside from these penciled numbers, the first six pages of the last movement (29-34) were numbered 1 to 6 by beethoven in ink, presumably when he replaced the earlier version with this one. some pages of the score have been left blank, as indicated in the following chart: allegro moderato, pp. 1-8 scherzo, pp. 17-21 adagio, pp. 25-28 poco allegretto, pp. 29-44 p. 9 blank, beginning of gathering which extends through p. 12 pp. 14--16 blank, completion of gathering which starts on p. 13 pp. 22-24 blank, completion of gathering which starts on p. 21 one gathering, no blank pp. pp. 45-46, which complete the final gathering, are blank. most of these blank pages seem to indicate revisions of the sonata which were too extensive to be made directly in the text. beethoven copied these passages onto fresh gatherings in order to assure a neat manuscript which could be bound by joining the four-page units. thus, he avoided tearing out a rejected page when he could have done so without detaching good material as well. he probably found it necessary to copy music retained from the replaced gathering onto the new one, and then to continue with the revised music. for this reason, we usually cannot determine where alterations begin, although we assume that they probably end very near to the blank portion of each gathering. page 9 was left blank under different circumstances. there are numerous corrections throughout p. 8, indicating that beethoven had more difficulty in writing out the music (of mm. 172-90) than he had anticipated. he seems to have proceeded to the following measures, and to have left a blank page for possible further changes. the above chart also indicates that in the morgan autograph, the scherzo 101 is bound in front of the adagio. this order is the reverse of the position of these movements in the petter sketches, the steiner first authentic edition of the sonata, and the early birchall edition.15 furthermore, the former ordering defies musical logic. in the morgan score, the key signature of the scherzo is notated , indicating that this movement follows one written in three fiats. the first movement, in g major, hardly satisfies this requirement. the adagio, however, is in the fiat submediant area ofg, namely e fiat. the most convincing musical proof of the sequence of movements is offered by a revision at the end of the adagio, the bridge section leading to the scherzo. (ex. v.) £xamvle i "1,ir' .,.. .. ,ic-, j. p. 102 facsimile the chief difference between this passage and its final revision lies in the metric structure. the discarded section may be divided into the following broad phrase units, determined primarily by rate of harmonic motion. (ex. vi.) , (4*' #j c.:1 i"'" t ... , (#1 two features of the above scheme work against a fluid and tightly unified transition into the scherzo: m. 62 falls on the weakest part of the phrase, and the spondaic organization ofmm. 62-64 is abandoned in m. 65, reverting to the less assertive trochees featured throughout the earlier portion of the movement. as early as the petter sketches, beethoven seems to have been striving for an unbroken union of the adagio with what is now the scherzo. no distinction is made between the movements; they are not independently labeled, or separated by double bars. moreover, the harmonies glide into one another in a remarkably smooth progression. however, beethoven does not commit himself to a written statement of the transition itself. perhaps his first attempt to compose the passage is represented by this deleted section of the autograph score. 103 measure 62 of this earlier version anticipates the scherzo through its metric organization. the adagio, up to m. 62, contains two main pulses to the bar, a stressed and an unstressed. the scherzo, on the other hand, has only one pulse per measure. thus, the spondaic pattern introduced in m. 62 links these schemes; the tempo of the scherzo is set by the half-measure pulses ofm. 62 which, in turn, derive from the duple meter of the adagio. these same features are prominent in beethoven's revision of the passage. measure 62 no longer shares the harmonies of m. 61, but is set in the tonic. thus, the structural harmonic weight of the tonic coupled with the new rhythmic organization combine to draw our attention to m. 62. this latter measure is now established as the beginning rather than the end of a phrase grouping. (ex. vii.) (vnoiw3u mj d3v;jj:h 3w:jtbs j" fl/oil''tlj..iycj) y/10iwjh "''''jnniwij example vii .. •. 1;1' , fi,,t d; " ""';' l' in the final version beethoven alters the metric scheme to unify it with that of the scherzo. the hemiolia figure, now shifted to the cadence, is extremely effective, for whereas it does not break the metric continuity between movements, it differentiates them and gives the impression of slowing down without actually slackening the tempo. this device permits the rhythmic scheme to end in a state of uncertainty, which, coupled with the harmonic ambiguity of the tritone, is resolved by the scherzo. one might say that measures 62 ff. are as much a part of one movement as the other. it is this unusual kind of bridge-and there is an analogous instance leading to the final poco allegretto-that gives the sonata its remarkable inner unity, its seamless flow of music, a quality shared by many of beethoven's later works. although the morgan autograph is a fair copy, some extensive insertions, corrections, and revisions demonstrate that beethoven was still in the process of composing the sonata. i shall discuss some of the most important of these in the order in which they occur in the final version of the composition. the first major revision is found in the allegro moderato, p. 5 of the autograph score. (ex. viii.) beethoven may have discarded this draft ofmm. 101-08 because it anticipates a return to the opening motive of the composition and a harmonic progression to the dominant, both of these features tending to diminish the scope of the development section and the impact of the recapitulation. therefore, in the final version of this passage, he introduced an additional melodic element (m. 102) taken from m. 84 of the exposition. he also altered 104 the harmonic color of the later version; the earlier passage seems to attain the dominant in m. 108, whereas in the second the mediant is prolonged throughout mm. 104-07 and the dominant delayed until m. 124, the start ofa passage derived from mm. 79-83 of the exposition. measures 124-39 extend the dominant into the recapitulation (the last beat ofm. 139). although no passage corresponding exactly to the preliminary version of mm. 101-08 is found elsewhere in the movement, beethoven seems to have retained much of its motivic shape and modulatory function in a revision of the end of the recapitulation (mm. 247-59). this change is of special interest, since it reveals successive stages in beethoven's compositional process. i think that beethoven arrived at the final version of mm. 246-60 in the following manner. the first version of this passage led directly from a continuation of the arpeggios of mm. 242-46 into the cadenza-like runs in mm. 260-67. from m. 260 to the end of the movement, both versions coincide. the cadenza ends with a return to the arpeggios (in the tonic as opposed to the earlier diminished-seventh chords) in mm. 268-75. these lead to a last 105 facsimile glimpse of the opening motive (mm. 275-79), which culminates in the upward sweeping scale ending the movement. the newer version postpones the end of the movement, by presenting the opening motive on chromatically ascending degrees of the scale; this passage crescendos towards the excitement of the cadenza. (ex. ix.) the earliest sketches for the final shape of mm. 247-59 seem to be in the beginning of the mysterious crayon sketches for the allegro moderato on f. 73v of the petter sketchbook (see ex. iii). i believe that after beethoven crossed out the rejected measures in the autograph score, he jotted down his new ideas on some systems which he had left blank on folios in the petter sketchbook containing work towards the sonata. these sketches are also very similar, in part, to the first version of mm. 101-08 (see ex. viii). beethoven's final version ofmm. 248-59 (ex. x, p. 109) begins with a similar melodic motive, and a diminished chord which might have resolved inwardly to a chord. however, this progression is denied, and the harmony glides through the c:jf passing tone into an extended (to m. 261) (through the end ofm. 271) i (from m. 271 to the end of the movement) progression. thus, the harmonic motion of the final version is prolonged far past the scope of beethoven's earlier projections. although it may be that beethoven made additional preliminary sketches for this passage, i do not think that this was necessarily so. further stages 106 facsimij,e by no means full, nor does it extend over the entire movement. in addition, the sketch for the coda is very different from its present form. the trio commences with 14 deleted bars. (ex. xi, p. 110.) beethoven's decision to shift the disposition of the melody (from the piano to the violin and vice versa) forced him to rewrite these measures. he appears to have observed the following procedure for scoring this passage: (1) he wrote in bar lines; (2) copied out the melody-the continuous feature of the music; (3) either added harmonic substance (realizing the implications of the linear motion) and/or worked out melodic refinements. he may have worked from a previously sketched, drafted or composed source, or composed the score directly. elements of the structural continuity take precedence over details of incidental importance. always allowing for exceptions, one might even recognize a similar procedure for the composition of the entire sonata. the coda brings us again to the petter sketchbook where the section marked "coda," separated from the brief sketch of the trio by a double bar, is very different from the finished version. (ex. xii, p. ill.) the latter is closely derived from the scherzo; however, it is in the major mode rather than the minor, and ends with a trill reminiscent of the first movement. measures 48-51 of the earlier concept of the coda are retained in the present form. perhaps mm. 48-82 were once a bridge passage leading directly into the poco allegretto, and the opening 16 bars of the trio were to be continued in a 108 example .i r • i,i,_ b i' .;+41+ :---!: .... . .... " f,j, .. , i, f-ir )jqlj1 1'\!jt 1 j/.i '*il r _ i,_ -.. . ' • 4i'*' i.j' _ ':ij '7' '-'"' ''''f: -1----r ili7 ... ; r., j g f,j·grts; _ ----r :i : c j #1 ,. l:l'f i..,ji 1 facsimile 109 ijo' r [ 1$4 tiulj 1/',=./ " on) , " •• til'" ......... nf31 q tiiili 11 ,1 'opa coda \tnill i, lin b) 11 'u ij n i j n i j -0 i sw ottmjalaait different manner (mm. 33-48). unfortunately, this problem cannot be solved from the sources at present. the poco allegretto contains only two remnants of major revision, neither of which is self-contained in the autograph. the first, already discussed at some length, is the rewriting of the opening portion of the movement, pp. 2934 of the autograph. the second, which appears to have given beethoven a good deal oftrouble, occurs on p. 41, mm. 227-28. (ex. xiii, p. ill.) it seems as though the movement, from m. 227 to the return of the opening theme at m. 245, originally continued in a different manner. the morgan autograph shows a certain hesitation on beethoven's part-many smudges, messy alignments, occasional changes of a note or an ornamental figure. beethoven, not satisfied with his earlier version, abandoned the score to work out an alternative, then finished the details of his composition directly on thefair copy. (ex. xiv, p. 112.) this article has attempted to follow beethoven's composition of opus 96 from its beginning as an isolated musical borrowing to the completed form of the sonata. although it is not possible to resurrect a man's creative processes, at least their marks can sometimes be deciphered. in the case of 110 example xli --f is f;---. 1!t.:!: i--' '\ / 1i \ / \ / ..... it .l.og" i i f---/\ ---+--48·' ... hij, gu/.. j;j ",f b'h, ... \,riic -y * \ v / / '\ =examrle m a " r j n.t. v,,,"'" r,uf """.. ",+ ,u," of .. h,u'il w(.h utatet-e4' fifher it ,."1't\4iltej r l 0' ihf""'j"c .. t the rlltvisj" .. s "" j as: ",ore l;i'd.,. + i j "'.,,( be'h ur't4 ..,ii .... /3eefh""ett .:d4ucd. r;""" rt4d. ir , ----f-..i ) lini] 111 example xiv beethoven, these manifest themselves as the traces of a burning force bound by artistic logic. a man's last works in a genre, or in a phase of his creative activity, are likely to be imbued with a special significance by posterity, as are most manifestations of finality in a transient world. opus 96 is such a creation. unlike the earlier sonatas for violin and piano of opera 12, 23, 24, and 30, opus 96 is not a composition essentially pianistic in nature with the added color of a violin, a composition which could easily be reworked for keyboard alone (e.g., opus 23 in a minor). nor is opus 96 an exploitation of one instrument, the pianoforte, echoed and somewhat contrasted by the violin, as in the sonatas of opus 3d-especially in the variation movement of the a major sonata, the entirety of the c minor sonata, and (to a far lesser extent) the first movement of the g major sonata. on the other hand, the kreutzer sonata, with its concertante element, is also of different ilk. this work presents two virtuoso parts of equal importance in a contrasted, "competitive" manner. opus 96 also has moments of brilliance. the final scale of the first movement and the runs in the trio, thrown back and forth between violin and piano, make great demands upon the players. yet, the listener welds these feats of technical prowess into the 112 whole, hears them not as bursts of power but flights of soaring lyricism. even the double cadenza at the end of the allegro moderato, commencing with sparkling figuration shared by both instruments (m. 262) and ending with them combined in an extended trill, achieves a complete blend of instrumental color and musical substance, a great artistic union. notes 1 the writing of this paper was largely inspired by discussions with alan tyson during his professorship at columbia university in the spring of 1969. i should like to acknowledge, with deep appreciation, permission granted by mrs. evelyn hertzmann and professor edward lippman of columbia university to use materials assembled by the late eric hertzmann. i am also indebted to the trustees of the pierpont morgan library and its librarian, herbert cahoon, for allowing me to study the library's signed autograph score of beethoven's sonata in g for violin and piano, opus 96, and to use some photographic reproductions of this score for illustrations. i am also grateful to the librarian of the columbia university music library, thomas watkins, and his staff. 2 franz grasberger, gesellschaft der musikfreunde in wien. die handschriften der meister. beriihmte werke der tonkunst im autograph, vienna, 1966, p. 114, identifies the motive on line i of ms. 41 as "der entwurf eines themas flir streich-quartetts." i was not able to verify this statement. the copy of ms. 41 at my disposal is a diplomatic transcription among dr. hertzmann's notes. kinsky-halm gives the time of composition for "kennst du das land" (second version) as 1809. this is confirmed by thayer-forbes i:493ff. the song was published as "mignon" by breitkopf und hiirtel in october 1810, as the first of six songs with pianoforte accompaniment, opus 75, dedicated to princess caroline von kinsky. 3 j. standfuss, der lustige schuster, oder der teufel ist los, zweyter theil. eine comische oper in drey aufzilgen, hrsg. von johann adam hiller, leipzig, 1771, pp. 14-15. for further information about the intriguing, folk-like tune, see georgy ca1mus, "die ersten deutschen singspiele von standfuss und hiller," publikationen der internationalen musikgesellschaft. beihefte. 2. fo1ge, hft. vi, especially p. 3; max seiffert, "die sperontes-1ieder 'ich bin nun wie ich bin''ihr schonen horetl an' und seb. bach," festschrift, fritz stein zum 60. geburtstag ilberreicht von fachgenossen freunden und schillern, hrsg. von hans hoffmann und franz rlih1mann, braunschweig, 1939, pp. 65-70 (facs. p. 67); johann sigismund scholze, sperontes singende muse an der pleisse, in ddt 1. fo1ge, xxxv-xxxvi, hrsg. von edward buhle, leipzig, 1909, p. 52; philipp spitta, "sperontes 'singende muse an der p1eisze'. zur geschichte des deutschen hausgesanges in achtzehnten jahrhundert," vierteijahrsschrift filr musikwissenschaft 1 :35-126, especially pp. 86-95. 4 "c. g. neefe's lebens1auf, von ihm selbst beschrieben," (1799) amz 16:241-45, 17: 257-61, 18:273-78, especially pp. 243f., 245, 258ff., 260, and 273. on p. 259 neefe characterizes his regard for hiller, his mentor: "er ist die quelle, woraus ich meine bessern musika1ischen kenntnisse geschopft." 5 thayer-forbes i: 67. 6 alfred loewenberg, annals of opera 1597-1940, 2nd ed., geneva, 1955, p. 267. 7 max unger, neues beethoven jahrbuch (1933) 5:445f, presents a brief catalogue of the "grosse pettersche skizzenbuch," named after the viennese collector gustav a. petter, who possessed it around the mid-19th century. this catalogue is superseded by unger's useful and thorough eine schweizer beethoven sammlung, zurich, 1939, p. 164. the sketchbook now forms part of the bodmer collection owned by the beethovenhaus in bonn. s for a transcription of the main body of the ink sketches of opus 96 in the petter sketchbook, as well as a brief discussion of the sonata, see gustav nottebohm, beethoveniana i, leipzig, 1872, pp. 26-30. to my knowledge, the crayon sketches have not been transcribed or analyzed. 113 9 "die beethovenhandschriften der pariser konservatoriumsbibliothek," nbj (1935) 6: 87. 10 selbstbiographie, cassel and gottingen, 1860-61, vol. i, pp. 67,177. n emily anderson, the letters of beethoven, new york, 1961, letter no. 392. 12 boris schwarz, "beethoven and the french violin school," mq(1958) 44:441. 13 the pierpont morgan library acquired this manuscript from leo s. olschki in 1907. see the latter's account of the sonata's "discovery" and sale, "decouverte du manuscrit autographe de la dixieme sonate de l. van beethoven," bibliofilia ix. some facsimile copies of pages from the autograph are published in bibliofilia ix, op. cit., frontispiece; walther lampe and kurt schaeffer, editors, beethoven sonaten, klavier und violine, urtext, g. henle verlag, munich-duisburg, 1949, vol. i, frontispiece; emanuel winternitz, musical autographsfrom monteverdi to hindemith, new york, 1965, vol. 2, plates 84-86. 14 the uppermost of these holes is approximately 4.1 em. from the top of the page, the lower 5.5 em. from the bottom. 15 alan tyson, the authentic english editions of beethoven, london, 1963, pp. 20, 89f., i 44f. the new york public library, music division-special collections, owns a copy of the steiner print. 114 some observations on the row technique zn webern's opus 25 donald chittum there are many aspects of web ern's drei lieder that are noteworthy and deserve discussion in their own right. i am thinking specifically of the composer's penchant for creating discrete cellular structures, each with its own pitch, rhythmic, dynamic, and articulative character, and his way of shaping these structures into a well organized, but still multifarious, work of art. as interesting as these phenomena are to the theorist, i nevertheless wish to devote my attention in this article to the specific properties of the row, the manner in which it is used, and how it affects certain aspects of harmonic organization. the row of the songs (see example 1) is composed essentially of seconds and thirds; it contains only one perfect interval and no tritones. in keeping with other rows used by webern, it has an internal symmetrical organization'! for instance, the row may be divided into four three-note aggregates, each containing a major third and minor second. aggregates a, b, and dare transpositions of each other, while aggregate c is a variant of these, with the minor second added beneath the lower member of the third rather than the upper. example 1 1 2 " 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 $ #* ., • .. .. p .. ., "'i w..,. i $ fl ;j it a b c d a row such as this, containing certain inner symmetrical relationships, is like those used by schoenberg in that it is not merely an arbitrary ordering of twelve pitch classes, but rather an unfolding of a central pitch concept which initially manifests itself in much smaller aggregates or row segments. these then evolve into the entire row through various transpositions, inversions, retrogrades, or variants.2 it would therefore seem more prudent to think of the row not so much as the representation of the primordial pitch concept of the piece, but rather as a more complex manifestation of this concept. once these pitch concepts reach this state of evolution (the row), webern, like schoenberg, tries to emphasize certain inherent relationships among various forms of the row and their transpositions. he accomplishes this by binding various forms of the row together through tones which function in both sets. this process occurs in both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the 96 f piece by means of elisions between both simultaneous and successive statements of the row. consequently, the function of the elision goes well beyond that of merely avoiding any unnecessary duplication. in the first song webern limits his use of the series to the original (0), the inversion transposed up two semitones (12), and the respective retrograde forms. a comparison of 0 and 12 reveals that the pitches c:lj: and g fall in identical positions in both forms.3 in the chart below, as well as in others subsequently presented, the tones holding the same position in various forms of the series are connected in boxes, and the tones involved in elisions are connected in circles. webern emphasizes the relationships between 0 and ri2 by stating the original at the outset and following it immediately with a statement ofri2 in both piano and voice. the pitch g performs a dual function, or elision, in both series. there are only two departures from strict serial writing in the first song. one occurs in measure 5, where web ern repeats pitch 9 of ri2 in the piano after it is sung by the soprano. the other instance takes place in measure 11, where webern repeats pitches 10 and 11 and b) of r. curiously enough, this is done in the line "noch einmal bin ich ganz ins werden hingestellt und bin auf erden."4 could it be that webern resorts to a subtle bit of word painting by using two unaccountable pitches in referring to mortality? in the second song webern uses 0 5, 17, and their respective retrograde forms. notice that these series stand in the same relationship to each other as do those of the first movement, except that they are both transposed a perfect fourth higher. the example below indicates tones which appear in identical positions in these various forms, as well as tones which frequently are involved in elisions. example 3 1 2 ;) 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 r -r"\ j '-" , 1 1 4-c.m. 97 interestingly enough, these elisions always occur between voice and accompaniment, and not in either part alone. webern uses four different types of elisions in this song, the most common occurring when the original and retrograde forms of the same transposition appear simultaneously. the following chart indicates the measure, the form, and the pitch integer involved. form and tone performing measure transposition dual function 7 r5 and 0 5 4 11-12 17 and ri7 10 30 ri7 and 17 6 40 0 5 and r5 8 a second type of elision takes place when original and retrograde forms appear consecutively. for instance, in measure 9 the last three tones of 0 5 are also the first three tones of r5, and in measure 18 the last two tones of ri7 are the first two tones of 17. a third type of elision occurs when webern combines two separate statements of the same form. one statement begins before the other; the second is stated in quicker rhythmic values, so that it ultimately coincides with the first. at this point, a single statement of the remaining pitches suffices to complete both statements. illustrations of this procedure appear in measures 15 (ri7), 20 (r5), and 27 (17). the last type of elision involves two different forms, each transposed to a different pitch. here, webern permits a single pitch to function in both statements simultaneously. (see the chart below and example 3.) measure form and transposition elision 6 ri7 and r5 2=7 14 0 5 and ri7 10=5 15 and 29 0 5 and ri7 12=12 22 and 30 17 and r5 12= 12 31 ri7 and r5 4= ii and 2=7 35 ri7 and r5 3=6 two other departures from strict serial writing appear near the end of this song. both are quoted in example 4. notice that in the first illustration (measure 33) pitch 3 ofri5 appears prematurely, and in the second illustration (measure 39) pitch 12 of 17 appears prematurely and the statement of pitch 12 of r5 is deferred. in the third song webern returns to the forms and transpositions used in the first song. again he uses both tones eight and twelve of 0 and 12 in elisions. an interesting device appears in measures 48 to 54, where a statement of the original is interrupted by the completion of a statement of the retrograde. this is followed by a statement of 12, which shares certain pitches of the 0 form. (see example 5.) 98 example 4 a b example 5 langsamer, ;. ca 84 11 end-lich imrner langsamer, j. ca 58 05 3'1 z ann f rif. u...po -+8 ==-3 +.1 50,----:-15j 51 er 5j -i@ i z .3 s" sie an ----p bis zum rand a " 7 j-iff, 17 sf f sx-{ ) ,-,:. ® 'l y. 99 the chart below shows the first and last notes of the various forms used in the three songs. example 6 0 r 12 r12 song 1 $ ........ ' , .... ', j, l' i' song 2 $ 05 rs i7 ri7 ii .... , hd' .' i' 0 r 12 ri2 song 5 $ i' ...... ' ,-#' /. " q, i, since the role of the series has grown to include a greater number of formative functions, and since it has become increasingly more necessary to speak of serial technique in terms of a more pervasive musical control, it has become equally unfashionable to think of the series primarily as a substitute for tonality. however, we do know that schoenberg and most of his early disciples understood that the row could replace the formative function of tonality within a piece, and that "transpositions function in a similar manner to modulation in tonal music .... "5 this is nowhere more evident than in these three songs. for instance, notice (in example 6) that webern has created two tonal areas, represented by o-r and 12-ri2. o-r can be understood to be the tonic area, while 12-r12 can be understood to be its most important auxiliary area (analogous to the dominant in tonal music). in the second song o-r is transposed to 05-r5, and 12-r12 to 17-ri7; thus while both are transposed, the same relation remains intact (again having analogous antecedents in tonal music). in the final song web ern returns to the forms and transpositions of the first song. therefore, we see that, in addition to creating a tripartite tonal organization, webern regards the function of these transpositions as analogous to that of modulations in tonal music. it is customary to think of berg, rather than webern, as the link between serialism and the tonal music of the past. even the last works of schoenberg seem, on the surface, to have a closer kinship to their classical forebearers, and this is especially true when one takes into account their harmonic vocabulary and the nature of their gestures. because of his enormous originality and depth, webern is generally accepted as the point of departure for the second and third generations of serialists. to many minds it is webern, and not schoenberg, who stands out as the consummate creative spirit of this school. it is interesting, therefore, to see that webern did not, in fact, turn his back on the past but rather was able to rework older concepts of organization and blend them with new approaches, materials, and gestures into a highly original and provocative musical language. 100 notes 1 the row of the symphony, op. 21 is arranged so that the second hexachord contains the intervals of the first hexachord but in reverse order; the row of cantata no.1, op. 29 is arranged so that the transposed retrograde is the same as the inversion, and the retrograde inversion the same as the original. 2 for a fuller discussion of the process, see george rochberg's the hexachord and its relation to the 12-note row (bryn mawr, pa., 1955); george perle's review of rochberg's book in the journal of the american musicological society (1957) 10: 55-59; donald martino "the source set and its aggregate formations," the journal of music theory (1961) 5: 224-73; and john verrall's "a method for finding symmetrical hexachords in serial form," the journal if music theory (1962) 6:277-82. 3 in this article only forward forms of the row are given; i.e., 0 and i, since rand ri can easily be deduced by reading these forms backwards. 4 "once more i in creation's portal live my hours and yet am mortal." (translated by eric smith.) 5 j. rufer, composition with twelve notes, trans. h. searle (new york, 1954), p. 86. 101 a gentleman's lute book: the tablature of gabriello fallamero joel newman a mong the many musical volumes" given into the light" in 1584 by venetian printing presses were items prophetic as monteverdi's canzonette a 3, influential as marenzio's fourth book of five-part madrigals or the second edition of galilei's fronimo, and as ordinary as the subject of this study. 50 apparently uneventful is this tablature that it has never been described in detail, though it has been cited on occasion (chilesotti 1889; de la laurencie 1928:35; boetticher 1954; reese 1954:523; r.i.s.m. 1:323). einstein had not examined the volume and could not list its contents completely in his revision of vogel's madrigal bibliography (1946:51). the present article, begun as a footnote to this invaluable reference tool, was expanded after examination of the tablature made clear that it had some modestly distinctive qualities as well as typical ones. after all, the most everyday musical source deserves attention; such ephemeral material-along with diaries, letters from one nobody to another, and cartoons-can play an essential role in our full understanding of a historical period or process. material of this kind may be seen as the grout in which are embedded the more outstanding tesserae of history's mosaic. nothing is known about the "gentleman" author or his dedicatee, the signora livia guasca pozza, damma nobilissima alessandrina. the references to their status are correct: the fallameri were an aristocratic family of the piedmontese city, alessandria, though they were not as well-known as the guasco family (a. guasco 1605; bossola 1903). the tablature's title page reads as follows: ii primo libra de intavolatural da liuto, de motetti rice reate madrigali,1 et canzonette alia napolitana,1 a tre, et quattro voci, per cantare, etl sonare composte per gabriel joel newman is an associate professor of music at columbia university. 175 fallamero gentilhuomo allessandrino,1 novamente posto in luce./ [device] i in vinegia.! appresso l'herede di girolamo scotto.! mdlxxxiiij.1 this ambiguously worded title formula raises several interesting questions. is composte a boast, and would intavolate have been more accurate? a scholar has indicated that the volume's contents are "only intabulations" (ward 1952:88), but the present examination will suggest that fallamero plays a more important role. is the collection as comprehensive as the title promises? is it as conservative as the presence of motetti and ricercate would suggest? are all of the contents in tablature notation? the phrase per cantare et sonare is certainly an unusual one in the context of italian lutebooks. listing the complete contents and examining each category in turn will serve to answer these and other questions. title and no. of parts 1. in me tanto l'ardore (4) 2. apariran per me ie stelle (4) 3. u. ver l'aurora (5) 4. tirsi morir volea (5) s. madonna mia gentile (5) 6. ma di chi debbo lamentarmi (4) 7. sapi signor che lilia son io (5) 8. per pian to la mia carne (4) 9. quando la sera scaccia (5) 10. liquide perle amor (5) 11. partin) dunque (5) 12. fera gentil (5) 13. perche si streto, 2da parte (5) 14. cantai hor piango (5) 15. tengan dunque ver me, 2da parte (5) 16. mentre la bella dori (6) 17. non ti sdegnar (6) composer2 de monte lasso marenzio ruffo vinci lasso marenzio rore lasso a. gabrieli 1 copies are extant at the austrian national library, the university library at genoa, and the british museum in london (which now owns the copy formerly in the hirsch collection). i am grateful to the viennese authorities for a microfilm of their copy. 2titles and names have been modernized. only information provided by fallamero has been given here. 176 18.10 mi son giovinetta (4) d. ferabosco 19. livia gentil, voi sete tanto vaga 20. poiche sei cosi sorte scropolusa 21. preso son io nelle piu belle braccia 22. canzonette d'amore 23. s'all'aparir di voi, fulgente stella 24. vorria madonna fare, fare, fareti a sapere 25. 0 faccia che rallegri il paradiso 26. siate avertiti, 0 voi cortesi am anti 27. occhi leggiadri e cari 28. amanti miei, poiche scontenti state 29. 10 son bell'e delicata 30. vorria saper da voi, belle citelle 31. chi mira gl'occhi tuoi 32. 10 son fenice & voi sete la fiamma 33. nel vago lume de' bei vostri rai 34. viver non posso senz'il mio bel sole 35. gridate, gridate guerra 36. amor se giusto sei 37. 10 vo morir non sia alcun 38. mentr'io campai contento 39. standomi un giorno (5) lasso 40. indi per alto mar, 2da parte (5) 41. in un boschetto, 3za parte (5) 42. chiara fontana, 4ta parte (5) 43. una strana fenice, 5ta parte (5) 44. alfin vid'io, 6ta parte (5) 45. si dolce d'amar voi (5) striggio 46. dolce mio ben (6) 47. animam meam dilectam (5) lasso 48. congregamini, 2da parte (5) 49. recercar del terzo tono padovano 50. recercar del ottavo tono 51. i dolci colli (6) striggio 52. et qual cervo ferito, 2da parte (6) 53. anchor ch'io possa (6) 54. n asce la pena mia (6) 55. anchor che col partir fallamero's anthology of forty-six numbers, exclusive of separate partes, comprises three distinct musical categories: lute arrangements of vocal favorites (nos. 1-18, 39-48, 51-54), in177 tabulations of ensemble or keyboard ricercari (nos. 49-50), and canzonette to the lute (nos. 19-38 and 55). the first grouping is the rule in italian lutebooks, though the second type is less characteristic, since other lu tenists generally provided some of their own ricercari or fantasie, whereas fallamero has merely intabulated works by another composer. as for the last category, it is unique to this tablature; these are the first canzonette to the lute found in print. had fallamero added the phrase di diversi eccellentissimi musici after his motetti, ricercate, madrigali, his title page would have been clearer; but then he has carefully indicated each composer's name for all the selections in these elevated categories. the lighter canzonette alla napolitana, on the other hand, are given without any attributions. the presence of motets seems a rather conservative retention of a practice standard in tablatures of the 1540's. boetticher's article (1954) on fallamero indicates that his is the last book to follow this custom. 3 however, the promised motets actually turn out to be but one composition in two partes, animam meam dilectam tradidi, a work of lasso's middle years.4 by listing "motets" before madrigals on his title page, fallamero is only paying lip service to tradition. in fact, the heading on his table of contents is more accurate: tavola delli madrigalil motetti ricercate, et canzonettel intavolate nel liuto da gabriel fallamero.5 the two ricercari (exs. 1 and 2) are poly thematic specimens from annibale padovano's libro primo de ricercari a quattro voci, printed in 1556. ex. 1 ricercar del ottava lana (no. 8)6 'his statement that this is the last tablature "das noch einem grosseren bestand von motetten der spatrenaissance verpflichtet ist" is certainly an exaggeration (1954). 'first printed in paris in 1565 by le roy (boetticher 1958). 'the extensive manuscript tablature upsala university library vh87 includes only two motets as does genoa university library f vii 1, a manuscript source with a remarkably similar repertoire to fallamero (hambreus 1961:46-53; neri 1890). 6cf. the modern edition in open score by n. pierront and j.p. hennebains, paris, editions de l'oiseau lyre, 1934, p. 62. 178 ex. 2 ricercar del ferzo fono (no. 11)' j : 4-,j _ ,j i : i f' annibale, a predecessor of andrea gabrieli's at san marco, was second organist there from 1552 to 1563 and composed keyboard (or ensemble) music, madrigals, and liturgical pieces. fallamero intabulated these pieces from the original partbooks without adding so much as a single ornament; however, his d-tuning results in a transposition up a fifth. by selecting instrumental compositions first published twentyeight years earlier, fallamero may seem behind the times; but there are several indications that padovano's music was not considered old-fashioned in 1584. for one thing, his libro primo de ricercari was to be reprinted four years later in 1588. then too, no less a vanguard spirit than vincenzo galilei had the highest praise for padovano in both the fronimo (1568; 1584) and the dialogo (1581).8 in the former galilei included an intabulation of one of these ricercari (del settimo tono) that he writes is "the most beautiful perhaps of all that he has written" and "in truth, to my view, ... marvelous." (del valle de paz 1933:1ff.) further on in the book he names four of his contemporaries who, in his opinion, compose as well as they perform. padovano is cited first, then merulo, guami, and luzzaschi. there is a more important reason why it was not inconsistent for the century's chief spokesman against polyphony to espouse padovano's strictly contrapuntal music. instrumental music lagged behind the stylistic development undergone by 16th-century vocal music. the newly independent instrumental genre had only begun to make obeisance to the classic style of sys'ibid., p. 84. the editors have transformed the first measures to 'h rid d 1 : 1_ though their table of variants notes the composer's intention in both original editions. needless to say, fallamero does not bear them out. 8"1 say then that in our times there have been many excellent players, both of the lute and of the keyboard instruments, among whom some have indeed known how to play well and how to write well, or let us say how to compose well, for their instruments, as for the keyboard instrument an annibale padovano ... " (excerpts from the dialogo translated in strunk 1950:320.) 179 tematic imitation during the post-j osquin period at the time of the madrigal's supremacy and of the turn to denser textures representative of the music by willaert, gombert, and rorein short, during the "mannerist" period. the novel treatment of textures and dissonances, the insistent pictorial urge were all developed at the suggestion of the poetic texts. since the textless ricercar or fantasia had no need" to imitate nature," it was not touched for a long time by the mannerist style. in fact, these genres maintained their classic serenity and polyphonic spirit through decades of production by masters like cavazzoni, willaert, buus, segni, padovano, and merulo. since it was understood that these compositions did not share in the newer style, they were evaluated according to different criteria. though galilei outspokenly favored the vocal monody and simple "native song" style over flemish counterpoint, he felt that the retention of the latter in instrumental music was appropriate (palisca 1960:359ff.). thirty madrigal intabulations constitute the heart of this anthology. besides individual compositions there are a few cyclic ones, three sonnets set in the usual two partes and an entire petrarchan canzona, standomi un giorno solo, in six. lasso, whom fallamero calls rolando, predominates, along with striggio and marenzio. that great "hit" of the century, ferabosco's 10 mi son giovinetta, first printed in 1542, is the oldest selection. chronologically next come the lasso, rore, and striggio cullings, the latter's six-part pieces indicative of the new fashionableness of this texture in the 'sixties and 'seventies. indeed, the first book of striggio's six-part madrigals was re-issued no less than eight times; its most often intabulated item was nasce la pena mia, perhaps the second most famous piece in this anthology. john ward's axiom that "the repertoire offered by a tablature is normally that of the particular decade in which it was printed" (1952:88) is certainly valid for this mixed bag of madrigals, and all the more so because of the marenzio and andrea gabrieli items which had just been published in 1580. all four marenzio gems were to be "transalpinized" by thomas watson in his pioneering english madrigalian publications of 1588 and 1590 (kerman 1962:53-55, 59). a manuscript tablature in the genoa university library, f vii 1, described by achille neri (1890:73-81) has a similar repertoire of lasso, rore, striggio, and marenzio madrigals and shares fallamero's nos. 12, 18, 39-44, 46, 51, 53, and 54. its 180 anonymous compiler informs us by means of an enormous title9 that the marchese of san sorlino (who is also the duke of nemours' brother) has been kind enough to allow him "to copy from all of his rarest tablatures." the fallamero volume presently in the genoa university library may possibly have belonged to the marchese's collection, which would explain the many correspondences noted above. the canzonette in our tablature open up a chapter in the still largely unwritten history of italian accompanied song. in spite of literary, pictorial, and archival evidence for the continued practice of solo song in italy-singing to the lute, "viuola," viola da gamba, lira da braccio, harpsichord, and organthere are relatively few printed musical documents of the practice extant.10 early in the annals of music printing, italian lute song appeared in the form of three books of frottole to the lute, but later with the flood of many-voiced madrigal publications that began in the 1530's, the solo genre dwindled to a thin trickle, re-emerging in the century's final quarter in the sphere of native partsong, i.e., the canzonetta and halletto. fallamero's was the first printed collection to include canzonette with a lute part in tablature, and it was soon followed by simone verovio's series and by collections by quaglia ti, vecchi, bellasio, gastoldi, and a. ferrari. the canzonetta style had first appeared with the work of ferretti, conversi, and caimo published in the 1560's, though the term itself was not to be used until the next decade. stylistically, the canzonetta mediated between the villanella and the madrigal. "the more animated the villanella becomes motivically, the more its fifths disappear and the more it tends to take the form of the canzonetta," is einstein's characterization of the process by which it originated (1949 2:582). the twenty examples that fallamero grouped at the center of his book are typically brief and strophic, with the vocal superius printed in mensural notation over the tablature (plate 1). for the fourpart pieces, the latter simply reduces the lower three voice parts, 9 giardino di lntavolatura per il leuto delle piu rare madrigali et vilanelle et capriccio brandi volte et corante gagliarde pas et mezzo che il principe ii sigr marchese di san sorlino fratello del sigr duca di nemours mi ha fatto favore di lasciarmeli copiare sopra tutte ie sue piu rare intavolature. 10 see the discussion in newman 1962:186-193,210-211. 181 but the canzonette a 3 are completely intabulated so that they can be performed with or without the singer. of all the tablature's contents only these twenty pieces lack attributions. the five four-part canzonette are easily identifiable as orazio vecchi's, from his libro primo first published in 1581y vecchi complained about this practice in his dedication: "since the greater part of these canzonets have been strewn around italy under various composers' names, i have decided to make public by means of the printing press the fact that they are mine ... "12 of the fifteen three-part compositions remaining, i have only been able to identify four. it should be noted that identification from the music itself is mandatory with this light verse, so many different versions use the same capoverso. a list of the identified canzonette with their sources and a thematic listing of the unidentified remainder follow: title and no. of parts composer or source 20. poiche sei cosi sorte scropolusa(3) anon.!3 22. canzonette d' amore( 4) vecchi 24. vorria madonna fare (3) anon.14 25. o faccia che rallegri il paradiso (3) anon.14 27. occhi leggiadri e cari (3) de antiquis13 3l. chi mira g1' occhi tuoi (4) vecchi 32. 10 son fenice (4) vecchi 33. n el vago lume (4) vecchi 37. 10 vo morir non sia alcun (3) g. fiorino15 38. mentr'io campai contento (4) vecchi "einstein had identified 10 son fenice in his vogel revision (1946). long before this, oscar chilesotti had reprinted fallamero's no. 24, 26, and 38 (1889) and no. 32 and 35 (1891). he later published the part-song versions of no. 24, 26,35, and 38 (1925). 121 have taken this from the copy of the fifth impression, 1591, in the library of the civico museo bibliographico musicale, bologna. i3i1 secondo libro delle villanelle alia napolitana a 3 voci, de diversi musici di barri; raccolte per joanne de antiquis con alcune delle sue . .. 1574. modern edition by s.a. luciani, rome, instituto italiano per la storia della musica, 1941. i4i1 terzo libro delle viollote alia napoletana de diversi con due moresche nuovamente stampata a 3 voci. venice, a. gardano, 1567. "gaspar fiorino, la nobilita di roma ... et ie vilanelle a 3 voci ... venice, g. scotto, 1571. 182 incipits of cajvtus parts of unidentified canzonette 19. r r r i r r i r r .j 1li via gen til, "/. li3 #,j r r i r r f' i f' r r i f r r i r f r 1pre so son i 0, "/. nel ie pili bel23. ,1 i i • r .. o. .. i i s'al a pa nr di vo i. 26. f' r r i l f j i j j (; i j 18 i i sia ver ti te, "/. 28. 18 f' r j i j j i! j j j 4 r" r jda man-ti mie i, poi -che scon 29. i f' r i r r f i10 son bel-l'e de ii ca ta de la 30. 17 j± r r r i r -j i d j j i j j i-i . e var-ria sa per da vol, bel ie ci tel ie 34. f' r r i p r j i j r" ) ju_ w j 18 i vi ver non pos so senz' il mia bel so ie 35. i $ r f' i r r f' i r ,j r f 113 gri da te, gri da te, guer ra, guerr r rtft:rrtia r rtiz -j ie 113 01 "'" 36. a mor se giu sto se i com' al cun 16 not identical with a composition with the same title in g. zappasorgo's napolitane a 3, libro primo, 1571. i am grateful to luigi f, tagliavini for checking the zappasorgo volume for me. 17 not identical with the piece so entitled in the terzo libro delle villotte (see note 14), 183 if after continued checking, these ten compositions still resist identification, the possibility that some or most of them are by the intabulator himself should be considered. certainly, the dedicatory piece, livia gentil, a tribute to livia guasca pozza, ought to be assigned to fallamero. a transcription is given here (ex. 3) for comparison with the facsimile (plate 1) and to illustrate the simple homophonic style of these pieces. is ex. 3 livia gentil (no. 19) g. fallamero (7) li via gen til, li via gen til, voi se te tan to va ga, tan to va ga, li via gen til, vol se te tan to va ga ch'al ap pa rir del vo stro chia to viso ne re st'il ni to e con-qui so. so. i *e in the original. 18fallamero does not furnish transposition instructions of the kind found in the petrucci frottola tablatures, the verdelot-willaert intabulations of 1536, and in some of the contents of the bottrigari lute manuscript of 1574 (macclintock 1956:179,186-190). 184 ""'" cf; til tl-i--_:t_ti3.t.t:_-t---li-t-t-./t-:f.--i--:-+-tl_f tluia gcotijt lillia,gentil voi i: tadto'vaga tanto vaga liuia gentll vol fete taoto va-rf r f f f r f r f r f r ga ch'31'apparir del uo(lro chiaro vi fo ne rdla il modo juonitq e conquifo f ff f r f f r f --1-444f-f-l-ot--&-s" it-',----l-+-t-l -;-+-t..l.-}--i---rot, i i } i +-+-j--j-+. -+ -'1 i -t-j--+ --+-r----rl oj -r 6+-j-tel-tti-} } j 10 -j--oior.----11{!'1 citl f'o[cu1i1fjg,j 'i/unt·nr/la q...::.l'jd'rfe d i {w it dotce tlfo 'n..e it .onclo: {( ujndo (" b"cca ride ouer {aue!l" stncomc ['.11m2 mia cl4 me diulf4 1\e si ,be lluia gent;! ogn'/f1j "i c!jiaf'lfa ogn'unper u?, feruir ii storz" bramm4 tant'i dieua ,..... c/j q\ f r ffff f f f ! ijlfr rfj fff fr rr rr anchor checol partir 1' .. lma fi mora penfaodo di tornar'partir vurei tad to (on dulci unto fon dulci ran to (on dolci gla rioff r ohi--'+"':::-=-lht1 :====----== -:-d-c .. i!---.------+i-i-t ---t--_ •• . ------i-r-+ .i• fs 5"4 ------------0t-ia-g --forni mie • li l fin e. ""0 .... i'd tv i a canzonetta version by gaspar fiorino of rore's anchor che col partire has been used to fill up two empty systems on the last page of the book (plate 2). perhaps it was originally planned as a twenty-first piece, closing off the canzonet group. it has lost its vocal line, though the text was retained. based on two bits of music from this most famous madrigal (ex. 4) and some snatches from its original verse, this inelegant reduction for popular consumption indicates the existence in the renaissance of an interest in the "instant" and oversimplified; it is a kind of "heart of the madrigal" (ex. 5). fallamero has used this partenza most appropriately as his volume's envoi.1 9 ex. 4 cipriano de rore n j r 11 j j che col par ti j an cor re tad to son dol ci gil ri tor til mei ex. 5 anchor che col partir gaspar fiorino a canto of the original canzonetta : ii:) oj " an cor che col par tir l'alrna si rna ra, a a oj oj i i t t i i r i---ri f -p.n : : : fallamero s mtabulatwd, no. 55 a oj --. ., rna ra, pen san -do di tor nar par tir vor re i,_ a oj i ., r t r i r r i r f f : 19this adds one more to the more than fifty settings and parodied versions listed by ferand (1962:150-53). the source is fronimo's la nobilta di roma, 52.ff. 187 ! ! " : oj " .. tan to son dol ci, tan to son dolci .. : t.j l--t i' r i i/ ! r r r i i r f ..j j 1 .. .. : : .. : oj gli ri tor ni mie i i. " i i 1':'1 : t.j l i r i r r:e: i i i i f:. f:. 1':'1 : : in summary, our gentleman amateur has labored hard to arrange a large quantity of music by fashionable italian and ultremontane composers. his exertions and those of his fellow intabulators made it that much easier for contemporaries to familiarize themselves with vocal literature (in the absence of easily procurable scores) or to amuse themselves with the morceaux choisis of the day. if it appears an extreme demand on the lute's powers to give it six-part pieces to play, we would do well to remember our daily usage of the piano as a medium for study, rehearsal, and pleasure; we often turn to it for help in "hearing" a sixor eight-part complex. the lute intabulation served these needs and perhaps one other, that of a seguente part with which to accompany or fill out the performances of many-voiced vocal works. f allamero has taken care to provide arrangements of a variety (of types) of music. the only major genres he has slighted are the dances and canzoni. his tablature has the distinction of being the first collection in which the modest canzonette stand their ground with the complex creations of great madrigalists. references boetticher, wolfgang 1954 fallamero. in musik in geschichte und gegenwart. kassel und basel, vol. 3, col. 1757ff. 1958 o. di lasso und seine zeit. kassel, vol. 1, p. 206. 188 bossola, a. 1903 donne illustri alessandrine. rivista di storia, arte, archeologica della provincia di alessandria 12:25. chilesotti, oscar 1889 saggio sulla melodia popolare del cinquecento, milan. 1891 lautenspieler des xvi. j ahrhunderts. leipzig. 1925? canzonette del secolo xvi. milan. de la laurencie, lionel 1928 les luthistes. paris. del valle de paz, giacomo 1933 annibale padovano nella storia della musica del cinquecento. turin. einstein, alfred 1946 italian secular vocal music, etc. music library association notes 4. 1949 the i talian madrigal. princeton. ferand, ernest t. 1962 anchor che col partire; die schicksale eines beriihm ten madrigals. festschrift k.g. fellerers. regensburg, pp. 137-154. guasco, annibale 1605 tela cangiante ... opera morale (containing 3,110 madrigal poems). milan. hambraeus, bengt 1961 codex carminum gallicorum; une etude sur ie ms. 87 de la bibliotheque de l'universite d'upsala. upsala. kerman, joseph 1962 the elizabethan madrigal. n.y. maccuntock, carol 1956 a court musician's songbook: modena ms. c311. journal of the american musicological society 9:177185. 189 neri, achille 1890 un codice musicale del secolo xvi. in studi bibliografici e letterari. genoa. newman, joel 1962 the madrigals of salamon de' rossi. unpublished phd. disserta tion, columbia university. palisca, claude 1960 vincenzo galilei and some links between "pseudomonody" and monody. musical quarterly 46:344-360. reese, gustave 1954 music in the renaissance. n.y. r.i.5.m. 1960 repertoire international des sources musicales. munich. strunk, oliver 1950 source readings in music history. n.y. ward, john 1952 the use of borrowed material in 16th-century instrumental music. journal of the american musicological society 5:88-98. 190 ments. if questioned directly would they actually say that selecting band uniforms is more important than familiarity with mozart's music? or is it possible that the typical murray graduate in the field has no notion of influencing public taste but rather looks upon his task as one of conformity to popular standards? perhaps this is so. perhaps he values conformity above all else as evidenced by the extremely high importance rating of 2.9 he gives to "the techniques and attitudes necessary for successful work with your administrators." i would hope not, but what is mr. darnell's opinion? unfortunately, we have no way of sharing his thoughts on this and on many other interesting questions raised by his survey. james mckinnon is assistant professor of music at the state university of new york at buffalo. peter meyer bela bartok) s ady-lieder) op. 16 winterthur: verlag p g. keller, 1965. (95p., price not given; university of zurich diss.) halsey stevens in this country dissertations dealing with music of the 20th century are still relatively infrequent, and when they appear at all, are likely to take a life-and-works form or to deal with a substantial segment of a composer's work. not so with that of peter meyer, who chose for examination the ady songs of bela bart6k, offering a restricted view of the composer's achievements. the songs composed by bart6k playa rather minor part in his catalogue. aside from a number of songs from his student years composed to german texts (heine, siebel, ruckert) and a few more in hungarian (p6sa, peres, havas, stank6), there are only two sets of "composed" songs: opus 15 (1915-16) on unidentified hungarian texts and opus 16 (february-april, 1916) on texts by endre adyl by far the greater contribution or bart6k to song literature is the large number of folksong transcriptions, ranging from the relatively literal harmonizations of 1906 to the highly imaginative settings of 1929. in his preface dr. meyer (working under the supervision of dr. kurt von fischer at the university of zurich) considers the place of the song in bart6k's creative work, dealing first of all with folksong itself and folksong transcription and briefly cataloguing the "original" songs. in this context he 'points out that one must not confuse the german words original and originell as often happens, though they arc not equivalent. idr. meyer. lists the liebeslieder of 1900 "for two-part chorus (with piano accompaniment?) ," these liebeslieder, on poems by ruckert, are for solo voice with piano; they have been published in der junge bartok (1962). 189 to stress this in a time like ours, when originality often acquires an exaggerated word-value, is perhaps not entirely superfluous. for that reason it may perhaps be advantageous to speak of "art songs" rather than "original songs;" but this distinction cannot be clearly made in bart6k, since the peasant songs become art songs in his hands (p. 10-11). parenthetically, one might observe that bart6k's songs, opp. 15 and 16, are both original and originell. dr. meyer provides a fairly detailed study of the latter, comprising both textual and musical analysis. he apparently does not read hungarian, since he credits frau zsuzsa stamm-duzar with the translations of the hungarian texts. these are, however, quite literal, and except for the individual prosody of the language suffice reasonably well, though one should not expect revealing consideration of inflectional subtleties. the ady songs werc first sung in an all-bart6k concert at the academy 01 music in budapest, april 21, 1919; ilona durig6 was the singer, and bart6k himself was at the piano. dr. meyer quotes a number of reviews2 to the effect that song composition is "not the most radiant side of bart6k's great talent," though on the basis of the works performed, kodaly, writing in pesti napla, predicted that hungary could now demand a place "in the civilized world." the more important part of dr. meyer's study lies, of course, in his analysis of the music, which he examines from the standpoints of voice and melody, accompaniment and harmony, formal structure, and relationship of text and music. he begins consideration of each song with a discussion of the text itself. these discussions are not especially penetrating, though he does point out discrepancies in the published german translations by r. st. hoffman, where the words had to be altered occasionally to fit the music. the author finds traces of debussy's influence in the syllabic word-setting; that influence was already apparent in bluebeard's castle (1911), which followed a fairly intensive study of the french composer's music. dr. meyer acknowledges that the syllabic setting of hungarian peasant music might lead to a similar result, and in fact it is difficult to separate the two possible "influences," so inextricably are they intermingled with those elements which are purely bart6k's. the author cites certain symmetrical melodic patterns as characteristic of the melodic lines and stresses the function of rhythm in shaping the melody. in connection with "egyedul a tengerrel" (alone with the sea), he refers to my comment on the melody: this remarkable banality of certain phrases halsey stevens mentions in his book . . . . he is of the opinion that it is difficult to take the song seriously on the whole. and yet, if we consider the whole song, we can hardly suppose that a parodistic design was intended. it seems more likely that bart6k sought, with these dittylike (liedchenhaftj simple melodic forms to suggest the somewhat cheap, threadbare atmosphere of the little hotel room. (p. 59) dr. meyer may be right in his assumption; the fact of the banality of this setting he does not dispute, and one may only hazard a guess as to the reason 2he does not, however, credit them to his source: the third installment of dr. janos demeny's monumental documentation of bart6k, in zenetudomdnyi tanulmdnyok, vii: 114-16, from which they are translated -even to footnote numbers (though the footnotes themselves are not reprinted). this work does not appear in the bibliography. 190 therefor. the character of the melodic line in this one song is unquestionably at odds with the other four. harmony is discussed at greater length-and with more musical illustrations-than any of the other elements; but the author develops no overall harmonic theory applicable to bart6k's procedures throughout. in his summary he refers to the work of null and lendvai, but he appears to feel that the latter's application of the "golden section" to the music of bart6k goes too far and is probably not applicable to the ady songs even if later works do conform to the theory. he considers the bagatelles, op. 6, as marking the metamorphosis of traditional harmony, a process continued in the ady songs, in which the new conception of harmony goes so far that the framework of all vertical sonorities traditional for centuries in western art music-that is, the octave-fifth framework-is no longer predominant. in its place bart6k puts the two forms of the seventh as framework, with the minor 7th divided symmetrically into two perfect fourths, while the major 7th is erected as perfect fourth and tritone. these harmonic skeletons may be further dissected; the first leads occasionally to outand-out quartal harmony .... in this fundamental significance of 7th, 4th, and tritone lies the main difference from another modem tonal harmony, that of hindemith, which retains the third as basis. (p. 82) a brief appendix includes a cursory examination of the five songs, op. 15, which seems in the nature of an afterthought. the bibliography is curiously haphazard, with many entries that can have served no useful purpose to the author if he used them at all. hans nathan's article in a history qf song (ed. denis stevens, 1960) is not mentioned; oskar elschek is cited as elschert; bart6k's own articles mentioned are not located by date or publication. the total impression of the work is that the author has devoted his attention to a very restricted area ofbart6k's output without providing the specific revelation that the limitation of content would lead one to expect. halsey stevens is professor of music at the university of southern california and author of the life and music of bela bartok. 191 • • due to negligence. it is unforgivable for anyone writing on jazz to notate the blues scale with a flatted sixth instead of a flatted seventh, and this incorrectly from a source (p. 78). some are undoubtedly typographical, and some are due to mistakes of fact. they are too numerous to bring out in any great detail here. furthermore, many of the ideas presented are not clearly stated and show the author to be without complete command of his subject. finally, a good deal of the important literature in the field has been neglected. a study in which king oliver and his recordings play such a major role should have utilized, or at least cited, king joe oliver, by walter c. allen and brian a. l. rust (belleville, n.j., 1955), the definitive work on the man, his life, and recordings. i find it hard to believe that this dissertation could have been accepted as a piece of scholarly research and writing. its basic ideathe transcription and analysis of tunes taken from a certain style period of jazz-is good. such an undertaking, however, requires a broad knowledge of the music, historically, esthetically, and theoretically, and a fine hand to develop it. pyke was weak in the majority of these requirements. yet, with more care, and with proper guidance, he could have done much better. frank j. gillis is acting director of the folklore institute, indiana university. joseph emilio rotondi literary and musical aspects of roman opera, 1600-1650 ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 59-2265), 1959. (287p., university of pennsylvania diss.) barbara russano hanning any study and revaluation in english of early opera deserves the interest of musicologists, but one which promises a "unique approach" through a consideration of literary as well as musical aspects is especially welcome. for it was particularly in this formative period of both florentine and roman opera that the librettist played an important role in determining the ultimate shape of the work. whether the text was written by a humanist poet, "to make a simple test of what the music of our age could do" (rinuccini in the deciation of his euridice, 1600), or by the composer himself who chose from among those literary forms and conventions available to him, it cannot have failed to influence the musical setting. one is therefore pleased to 105 see from the title and preface of mr. rotondi's dissertation that he does not plan to ignore the libretto, "the guiding principle for all the sister arts," but all the more disappointed when the expectations aroused are not fully satisfied in the body of his work. the book is organized in two sections. the first three chapters deal with general background material and purely literary matters, and the last two with musical problems. chapter i briefly discusses the "political and social atmosphere" in 17th-century italy, the literary sources of libretti, and the nature of serious and comic opera. it gives special consideration to the problem of the origins of comic opera, and finally presents a section that treats of the subtitles of 17th-century opera. chapter ii narrows the scope of the discussion to rome, the musico-dramatic production in that city from 1600 to 1650 (exclusive of any consideration of their libretti), and closes with a rather superficial judgment on the nature of the existing patron-artist relationship, a relationship that incurs the scorn of the author. after a preliminary enumeration of commedia elements in roman libretti, the final chapter of this literary section (chapter iii), investigates the plots of each of five libretti, chosen precisely because of their ambiguity of dramatic genre. in an attempt to resolve their ambiguity, rotondi applies the criteria of commedia established in the previous chapter, and concludes that they belong to the category of commedia in musica. this chapter is the most original, interesting, and in some ways provocative one of the work. the second section moves from a consideration of the external forms of acts and scenes (chapter iv) to the internal designs of solos and vocal ensembles (chapter v). here it is only for the sake of convenience that the discussion is limited to the same five works, for each is treated independently of the others, and surprisingly enough, independently of its own libretto. the dissertation contains an appendix, consisting of 64 pages of musical examples, a short index, and a bibliography composed entirely of secondary sources. mr. rotondi offers very little information about the nature or whereabouts of his primary sources. under the heading "musical manuscripts", he lists the five operas and in each case cites one score to which he presumably has access. two operas were studied from the first editions of their scores, but the other three are cited only in the form of british museum transcripts of the original editions, copied in 1915. in no case does he tell us where the first editions may be found. it is curious that mr. rotondi had to avail himself of 20th-century copies, for the first editions of at least two of these works are in the possession of, for example, the santa cecilia library in rome. similarly, his sources for the libretti seem to have-been either solerti's modern editions in albod del melodramma, or the musical scores themselves. thus, any discrepancy between the original libretto and its setting would pass unnoticed. the division into two sections, with the musical one slightly outweighing the literary in quantity, though not in depth, proves to be 106 • • 1 • • a hindrance to a thesis which all but promises its readers a synthetic revaluation of the sister arts of poetry and music. in fact, mr. rotondi adheres to a strict dichotomy between literary and musical considerations throughout his study. he attempts no synthesis and draws no conclusions that might serve to overcome the rather artificial, if convenient, separation of the two aspects. for example, nowhere does he state or even imply that the structural placement of the chorus or the balanced distribution of solos and ensembles might be part of the librettist's art. his failure to relate the libretti to their musical settings is particularly regrettable, for these works are products of an era in which the seconda prattica and the new recitative style heralded the text as music's mistress. the five operas selected for this study were all written in rome within a span of twenty years: la morte d'orfeo (1619) by stefano landi (1590-1655), himself the librettist; l'aretusa (1620) by filippo vitali (c. 1600-1653),libretto by msgr. ottavio corsini; la catena d'adone (1626) by domenico mazzocchi (1592-1665), librettist, ottavio tronsarelli; diana schernita (1629) by giacinto cornacchioli (dates not supplied by the author, but given in the new ricordi encyclopedia as ca. 1590-16587), libretto by g.f. parisani; and la galatea (1639) by loreto vittori (1604-1670), himself the librettist. it would have been interesting to note, for example, that two of the composers, vitali and vittori, were of florentine background, that the prolific poet tronsarelli composed at least one other text for mazzocchi (ii martirio de'santi abundio, 1631), or that vittori's libretto bears the same title as an earlier one by chiabrera. in no case, however, are the composers or librettists identified in their historical context. this information would have been more than a courtesy to the unspecialized reader; it might have modified some of the conclusions drawn by mr. rotondi, whose preoccupation centers solely on the works themselves. the main concern of the first, the literary, section of the dissertation is to establish the genre of the five chosen libretti as commedia. rotondi tells us that his investigation was prompted by the disparate opinions of historians as to the origin of "comic opera" (its beginnings are placed anywhere from l'amfiparnaso (1597) to la serva padrona (1733) with rospigliosi's chi soffre speri (1639), the most frequently cited mean), and by his disagreement with the prevailing notion that serious opera was infiltrated by comic elements. three of the five works chosen for his study are often cited as examples of this process of infiltration and, according to rotondi, one of them (diana schernita) is taken for a veritable comic opera by several scholars. rotondi maintains that the problem may be clarified by considering the dramatic genre of the libretto. thus, in the third chapter he closely examines the literary affinities of these libretti to 17thcentury comedy and thereby hopes to alter the established conclusions about the early existence of comic opera i.n. rome. let us review the crucial third chapter more closely. rotondi recognizes the aristotelian divisions of literature as the basic categories 107 adopted by 17th-century poets. consequently, his own theoretical criterion for commedia throughout the dissertation is supplied by the dictum in the poetics that comedy mirrors life at close range. he derives other criteria from the literary practice of the age and applies these also to the roman libretti under scrutiny. parody looms large in rotondi's list of commedia elements and accounts for modifications of plot and the satiric treatment of mythological characters as ordinary people, as well as for the frequent paraphrasing of traditional sources, for example, a canto by dante in l'aretusa. the most characteristically roman manifestation of parody, and one intended to attract clerical patronage, was the use of allegory, "a serious aspect of commedia." (tronsarelli, for example, whose libretto is avowedly modelled on marino's idyll adone, equates his characters with such moralistic abstractions as good, evil, reason, and concupiscence in the description of his plot, or moral, printed at the beginning of the score.) the less than idealized treatment of love and sex is another aspect of commedia rotondi culled from literary practice and then discovered in some of the works studied. (in diana schernita, for instance, the goddess is made to undress in front of her lover, whom she turns into a stag.) the third and most obvious manifestation of commedia is described by rotondi as the popular element. this may be introduced in the form of a ballo-like shepherd's chorus, or a comical situation such as the pursuit of a young and elusive lad by a shepherdess of "prudent age" (la galatea). although these features are indeed present in the chosen libretti to greater or lesser degrees (diana schernita has few, if any, elements in common with, for instance, l'aretusa), it is doubtful whether they always provide sufficient reason in themselves to justify the identification of all five libretti as commedie. one of the main difficulties here is the author's failure to distinguish clearly between the terms "comic elements" and "commedia elements," and between "comic opera" and com media in musica. the preface and first chapter suggest fleetingly that three of the operas discussed have musical as well as literary characteristics in common with chi soffre speri, and therefore would be accepted by some scholars as genuine "comic operas," but the matter is not resumed when he considers the musical settings. furthermore, the whole question of whether "comic elements" may in fact be present in serious opera, as serious elements are in commedia, is ignored. another difficulty created by rotondi's aristotelian bias is his refusal to recognize the independent genre of tragicomedy, which had been greatly discussed by literary theorists since the writings of giraldi cinthio in the mid-16th century. in this respect, the works of tasso and guarini are much more important as literary sources for rotondi's libretti than either trissino's 50fonisba or bibbiena's calandria. the acknowledged source for tronsarelli's libretto, marino's adone, was a kind of pastoral (de sanctis calls it an idillico, a genre separate from the comico), and one cannot ignore the link between the oft-used orpheus legend and poliziano's orfeo (not cited among the literary sources), which popularized it. as for some of the other criteria set up the author-quotations 108 • • from dante and others, allegorization and moralization, the introduction of "popular" elements and situations-these were conventions which can also be seen in the earlier pastoral tragicomedies and in the florentine libretti as well. to say that some of the roman operas use these conventions with more satirical intent than others might be tenable, but to insist that their appearance in every case makes the libretto a com media strains the thesis to the breaking point. another source of confusion is the author's dogged overuse of the subtitles of the libretti in an effort to have the poets themselves support his conclusions about the nature of their works. alas, this is not always practicable, and in the sole case (la morte d'orfeo: tragicommedia pastorale) where the link between subtitle and genre is obvious mr. rotondi misses his opportunity. three of the remaining works are called favola and two of these have the additional qualification, boschereccia. taken together, the words mean merely "woodland tale," but rotondi conjures up an implied opposition between a simple rustic setting and the "atmosphere of the arcadian countryside," and then reasons as follows: since the subtitle indicates a deviation from the original model ( a hypothetical favola buccolica), it therefore describes a parodistic genre which necessarily belongs to comedy. l'aretusa, however, is called simply favola, as were the pastoral poems by rinuccini and striggio, and here rotondi turns to fanfani's "comprehensive dictionary of the italian language" to show that the word may have had comic overtones. (no date is given for his reference, but the earliest edition of fanfani's vocabolario appeared in 1865.) interestingly enough, the earlier vocabolario degli accademici della crusca (i quote from the neapolitan edition of 1746-48) defines the word as follows: "falsa narrazione, trovato non vero, talora non verisimile, come gli apologi, 0 ie trasformazioni d'ovidio, talora verisimile, come ie novelle del boccaccio" (an untrue story, an unreal invention, sometimes without verisimilitude, as the apologues, or the metamorphoses of ovid, sometimes possessing verisimilitude, as the novelle of boccaccio), and gives as its more specialized theatrical meaning," ... 0 intreccio di commedia, 0 di poema" (either the plot of a comedy or of a poem). in any case, if l'aretusa is a commedia partly by virtue of its subtitle, as rotondi maintains, then the whole question of the genre of la favola d'orfeo and of dafne must be reconsidered. although the musical section of the dissertation has fewer pitfalls, it is also less daring in its conjectures. the chapter on structural designs consists of twenty-five pages of outlines wherein are listed the various vocal and instrumental pieces in their order of occurrence within each work. no commentary is provided for these outlines, which are in themselves difficult and tedious to read, but the section is prefaced by five pages in which the author explains his terminology. here, in addition to the relatively formless type of solo usually in recitative or arioso style, one finds the forms strophic, ostinato, and canzona described and applied either to monodic or choral stanzas. the last term, borrowed from ape!, is intended to call to mind a 109 section ali zed form with contrasting meters, textures, and so forth. perhaps madrigal would have been a more appropriate term. a certain lack of consistency in the description of choral textures is distracting. '''contrapuntal'. .. shall be used interchangeably with 'polyphonic' and 'fugal' ... the word 'canonic' ... as a relief term for 'fugal' to avoid excess repetition of the latter term." the cursory survey given at this point in the dissertation could well have been expanded by an attempt to link the use of these forms to the dramatic situations and verse forms of the libretti. one could ask, are certain stanza forms more commonly assigned to comic characters? is the emergence of an aria style distinct from the expressive recitative in any way connected to a similar development in the libretto? does the monodic chorus occupy a special position in the drama? on the subject of the chorus, mr. rotondi expresses his disagreement with those who consider it to be simply an ornamental feature of roman opera. but he supports the assertion that it occupies a "position of great importance and [is] an integral part of the complete dramatic scheme" only by the observation that the chorus frequently repeats the texts of solos or smaller ensembles and thereby "highlights the emotional aspects" of the libretto. in the final chapter, where a closer examination of formal types is undertaken, the departure from the florentine melodic style is described as "not great," and the generalization that the roman declamatory style was perhaps "more lyrical" at times or possessed "more verve" is added as an afterthought. in fact, a more thorough examination of the two schools, again with greater attention to the treatment of the libretto, is necessary before meaningful conclusions may be drawn. i should like to see, for example, a comparison of such details as the treatment of text declamation, the use of dissonance in affective passages, and so forth, as well as of the larger structural designs which are by no means absent in the earlier florentine opera. only in this w'ay will it be possible to form a complete picture of the continuity and development of baroque opera. barbara hanning is presently completing the ph.d. in musicology at yale university. 110 thoughts on writing a comprehensive history of 18th-century music vincent duckles to approach the 18th century as a self-contained historical entity is to invite problems at the outset. we all know that there is nothing inherently significant about a time span of one hundred years. centuries come and go, and can be measured from any arbitrarily selected date in the calendar. most historians are well aware of this, at least in theory, but few are ready to give up the convenient practice of dividing time into one-hundred-year parcels. they have created an 18th century for us whether we like it or not. the concept itself is an established historical fact. the generations of scholars who have devoted themselves to the music of the period between 1700 and 1799 have produced a substantial body of literature that calls for some kind of synthesis. history is to a large extent the product of its own documentation; it is made by the men who write the history books. at one time it was thought that all a historian had to do was to describe the facts as he saw them. now we are less confident of that simple, positivistic approach, recognizing that the historian's data; particularly in the realm of the arts, is highly selective and projected through a'series of interpretations and re-interpretations in which the writer's taste and sense of values are necessary ingredients. the first task of the historian of 18th-century music is one of organization-the problem of clarifying the structure of the age. it does not suffice to explain it merely in terms of a prolonged transition from the baroque to the classic. in a century that begins with buxtehude and ends with beethoven, the patterns are infinitely complex. as daniel heartz has observed (in a paper presented at the tenth congress of the international musicological society in ljubljana) features commonly identified with mature classicism are to be found iii the neapolitan opera as early as 1740. jens peter larsen has called attention to the recurrence of aspects of late baroque style in the instrumental music of the last decades of the century.! there is still considerable confusion as to what is meant by "classicism" or "the classic style." frits noske, for one; is prepared to abandon the 81 terms altogether. he favors a periodization in which disintegrating baroque forms lead directly into emerging romantic ones.2 in many respects the terms baroque, rococo, pre-classic, classic, style galant, sturm und drang, empfindsamkeit (all borrowed from other disciplines) have outlived their usefulness. larsen's point seems to be well taken when he advises us to "forget these labels and what they stand for, and limit ourselves to the of the music." yet these "labels," inadequate as they are, bear witness to a key problem for the historian of 18th-century music-the problem of explaining the diversification of styles. the 18th century was an age of style consciousllt;ss. it expanded the familiar categories of church, chamber, and theater style into a system of descriptive terminology. for the 18thcentury opera goer, distinctions were made in terms of some variation on the theme: french vs. italian opera. but other national influences and local schools contributed to the picture: english ballad and comedy opera, for example, and a variety of instrumental styles fostered in bologna, venice, padua, berlin, paris, mannheim, and vienna. sacred music throughout the century displays a spectrum of styles ranging from survivals of the renaissance ars antiqua to a type of "modernism" closely related to t,he neapolitan operatic tradition. one can applaud larsen's suggestion that the proper study of the music historian is music, and at the same time insist that, as far as the 18th century is concerned, the ideas that lie behind the music are of great importance. theory, methodology, aesthetics, and historiography are pedestrian terms in our vocabulary, yet they stand for vigorous aspects of 18th-century musical thought. our own historical viewpoint takes its start from the enlightenment. the great histories of burney, hawkins, and forkel in the last decades of the century do not mark the beginnings of historical method as applied to music; rather they are the culmination of a line of development that can be traced through the lexicons of brossard, walther, rousseau, and gerber, gaining momentum in the critical journals edited by such men as mattheson, marpurg, scheibe, and hiller. similarly, we owe to the 18th century the establishment of a systematic approach to musical aesthetics. aesthetic views were anything but remote and abstract in that context. we cannot understand the musical creativity of the time without becoming conversant with the 82 contemporary concepts of imitation, expression, and the relationships between music and its sister arts, painting and poetry. another area of crucial concern for the historian of 18thcentury music resides in the continuing pursuit of what lies behind the notation. the understanding of 18th-century performance practices is made all the more difficult because the notational conventions employed are, by and large, identical with our own. the baffling elements are those which the early musicians took for granted. some valuable work has been done to shed light on these problems in recent years-studies such as george buelow's thorough-bass accompaniment according to john david heinichen, for example, or edward reilly's exposition of the wealth of information to be found in quantz's versuch. the approach through the theorists and pedagogues is only one of many that should be brought to bear on the task of restoring 18th-century music to life. notes 1 larsen,j. p. "some observations on the development and characteristics of the vienna classical instrumental music," in studia musicologica scientiarum hungaricae (1967) 9: 115-39. 2 noske, f. r. besc/wuwingen over de periodisering der muziekgeschiedenis. leiden, 1965. 83 some riflections on performance and aesthetics bea friedland as an aesthetic phenomenon music may be classified in any of several ways. one can describe it, for example, as a "sonorous" art and thereby focus upon its acoustic properties; the description "aural" underlines its sensory aspect; "temporal" suggests a conceptual dimension, and so forth. on yet another level, music ranks among the "performing" arts; this modifier transfers the emphasis from theory to operations. but irrespective of the mode of discourse, the essential fact is that music is inconceivable without the executant element, symbolized by plato's rhapsode, who must "interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers. "1 the platonic image translates into explicitly musical terms with the notion of an "intermediary ... whose capacity to relive the originator's [ composer's] experience, and ... whose technical competence in relaying it" are central to the "partnership between the originator and the percipient."2 or, stated otherwise, the reality of music as process rather than object becomes its distinguishing mark; it is unlike painting, architecture, sculpture, literature, or philosophy, for the fundamental reason that a piece of music is not made to be gazed upon, read through, or contemplated, but to be sounded-which involves activity, and of a very strenuous and exacting sort-in the present.3 in view of this exceptional feature of music, the comparatively recent arrival of performance practice-aziffuhrungspraxis-as a specific research area in musicology is indeed surprising. apart from the seminal contributions made during the first decades of this century by arnold dolmetsch, hans albrecht, robert haas, and arnold schering,4 as well as a few important early monographs on ornamentation, systematic attention to the problems of interpretation and the emergence of a corps of specialists on the subject have become musicological realities only within the last twenty-odd years.5 yet in this short span scholarly investigations in the field have yielded a store of knowledge and educated conjecture whose value is demonstrable in practical as well as intellectual terms. programs of older music are no longer a rarity, and the resultant sophistication of taste generates ever-higher standards of authenticity. today, for instance, audience sensibility would hardly tolerate a concert performance or commercial recording of monteverdi madrigals with piano accompaniment, such as nadia boulanger's 78 rpm of i 937-although it was a pioneering achievement at that time.6 56 within the decade just ended, most major american universities have instituted graduate seminars in performance-practice problems of various periods. in 1968 william s. newman conducted one at the university of north carolina. an outstanding accomplishment of this seminar was the compilation of a comprehensive bibliography of writings on performance practices, reproduced in its entirety by current musicology, which devoted a complete issue to its publication.7 the activities of professional organizations also testify to the urgency of this aspect of music research. both the international musicological society and its american affiliate have held important colloquia on special problems in performing older music. the college music society, at its annual meeting in december 1968, sponsored a round table entitled "rehearsal techniques and historical performance practice," with four noted scholar-conductors presenting the main papers.8 the city university of new york, in 1969-70, organized a lecture/seminar/ demonstration series centered on performance-practice problems; the format paralleled cuny's inaugural-year project, perspectives and lacunae in musicological research.9 under the direction of robert donington the new series, problems in peiformance practice from the middle ages to the present day, like the earlier one, presented in turn a number of visiting scholars, each a specialist in one or another area of the field. a synoptic view emerged, consequently, not only of the broad range of current explorations into the history of performance practice, but also of the wide spectrum of theoretical and empirical approaches reflected by the participating lecturers. the twin goals of this musicological problem-area are the recovery of knowledge for its own sake (a central aim of all the humanities) and the actual reconstruction of a former sound-world. since the latter objective must be attained without benefit of aural evidence, it is obviously possible to arrive at substantially different interpretations of the pertinent data. what must be considered and assessed are relevant contemporary writings about music; the old instruments used, as well as then-current methods of voice production; the physical conditions of performance; the societal framework, ranging from the general sociocultural setting to the specific musical occasion; and, finally, the notated music itself. it is altogether fitting that the primary source-document appear last on this list; not until the 19th century, after all, did the musical autograph become the more or less immutable record of the composer's intention and the inviolable mandate for the performer. the impulse of the performing musician to improvise-either entire pieces or extemporized embellishments to existing compositions-has conditioned the development of western music from its earliest known manifestations. the generating principle of polyphony, in a very real sense, was the use of plainsong as a foil for improvised or quasiimprovised accompanying voices. music from the turn of the 14th century to the first decades of the 19th has been described as "the process of making the composer's defences sure against the incursions of the extemporizer,"l0 and 57 although the figure of speech is colorful and felicitous, it can also mislead. the plain fact is that a good part of the music during this period was intended by the composer to be modified in performance-the melody ornamented (including lengthy interpolations), the accompaniment elaborated, the rhythms altered. this conception of the written composition as a partial sketch, a plan offering alternatives for realization, had evolved into a theoretical canon by the first decade of the 17th century. during the succeeding 150 years the composer's work was treated somewhat casually: instruments could be deleted, added, or changed; a composition might be simplified or shortened, embellished or lengthened; plagiarism and piracy abounded.ll but if these permissive attitudes are entirely at variance with the aesthetic values and legal codes of our own time (an age of composer power, aleatory ventures notwithstanding!), the benefits of the earlier tradition surely outweighed the abuses. the idea of the performer as de facto partner-in-creation with the composer released a source of artistic invention that expanded and enriched the total musical experience. for today's electronic composer the musical intention and its actualization are one-"he has been his own copyist, proofreader, publisher, conductor, and orchestra" ;12 formerly, the composer expected and listeners encouraged creative collaboration from the performer. yet this interpretive freedom, as practiced in the past, was not limitless; the range of possibilities fell within a restricted set of conventions, an accumulated tradition generally understood and observed and hence not always fully described or explicated in the scholarly treatises, composers' prefaces, and similar documents of the time. inquiry today into the musical aesthetics and performance practices of earlier epochs offers a comparable range of options-broad, but not infinite-for the researcher. one is dealing here with a sonorous phenomenon forever irretrievable in its primal, complete (i.e., heard) form. there is no true analogue, in music history, of the exhilarating discoveries-sought-after or serendipitous-which have periodically rewarded historians of the visual and literary arts.13 this being the case, the musicologist must ultimately rely upon some combination of (a) factual data, (b) presumptive evidence, and (c) his own musical judgment. that the last two factors invite diversity of opinion is selfevident. there can be more than one hypothesis regarding, say, the acoustical conditions in a certain church or opera house during the 1600's; and everyone knows about not disputing taste. but what of the first point, the recovery of written sources? here, too, interpretation and decision-making are obligatory. we have seen that the musical manuscripts themselves offer only limited and tentative clues, and literary texts about music-critical, didactic, philosophical, journalistic-need to be assessed for their reliability, universality, and influence, inter alia. of an old treatise or teaching manual, for example, one must ask: is the writer an authority? do his rules and admonitions represent the performance practices of more than a specific time and circumscribed region? is the work prescriptive or descriptive? 58 perhaps more so than in other areas of musicology, therefore, a crucial determinant of the individual scholar's style of investigation and interpretive bent in aufjiihrungspraxis research is his framing philosophy of history. in light of the endless musicological polemics in this field one is impelled to pursue the point further-in quest of an explanatory principle, a unitary measure for the spread of opinion. on analysis, the dissonant views do in fact fall into an ordered series of positions along a continuum: a simple rigidity-flexibility scale.l4 the operative factor here is tolerance of ambiguity; this means, in relation to musicology, that location on the scale is a function of the historian's approach to some very basic questions: are the scientific ideals of precision and certitude feasible objectives in recreating early-music performance? does there exist to be discovered an authoritative set of procedures governing the practices of each era in the past? how heavily can one rely upon nonmusical documentary sources or commit oneself to obligatory interpretations? and, finally, the eternal dilemma confronting every humanist scholar: what is the degree of investment in one's own findings and conclusions? the answers to these queries constitute the matrix of attitudes defining for each researcher the goals and limits of this branch of musicology. and although firm beliefs are an inevitable (and commendable) result of thoughtful and musically-sensitive scholarship, the most convincing expositions are those advanced not as final solutions but as strongly suggestive hypotheses. a model for this nonauthoritarian, open-ended outlook was provided ten years ago at a symposium on 17thand 18th-century performance practice held during the eighth congress of the international musicological society, meeting in new york city in 1961.15 in the discussion following the two main papers, several of the panelists, though agreeing that much philological and organological research remained to be done, argued against unyielding, exaggerated positions taken in the name of authenticity. arthur mendel suggested that "the battle for historical accuracy is overwon"; ralph kirkpatrick spoke of being "musicians first and following performancepractices second; and we should approach music with the humility of the artist"; j ens peter larsen confessed, "i do not like the phrase 'exact reconstruction,' which is not possible for us today. the best we can achieve and what is desirable is a closer approach to old traditions"; and robert donington, citing instances of conflicting evidence, insisted that "the law is less important than the spirit in performance." as coordinator of the cuny 1969-70 lecture series, professor donington took many opportunities to enlarge on this point; he urged the fusion of "sheer intuition" and musicality with the specialized knowledge acquired from research. but the elementary truth of this proposition had its most forceful demonstration in the breach rather than in the observance, as the series progressed. sol babitz, defending his individualistic interpretation of notes inegales, unwittingly caricatured his own argument by the rigidity of his 59 adherence to contemporary treatises, as well as the eccentricities of his musical illustrations. several of the cuny lecturers, on the other hand, indicated the futility of viewing early treatises as exclusive repositories of orthodoxy. frederick neumann and albert fuller, among others, cited numerous faulty procedures and erroneous theories arising from latter-day misuse of such documents. but the essential flaw in the end-of-scale position exemplified by babitz has deeper implications. this mode of thinking shares the philosophical and logical errors of all fundamentalist belief; it attempts to reify a dynamic process by erecting a monolith of "baroque characteristics" (whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness) and then resorts to circular reasoning to validate the authenticity of those stylistic traits previously defined. and there is still another, more pragmatic case to be made against dogmatism in performance-practice scholarship-the ever-present risk of being proved wrong by subsequent research. until very recently, for example, the 17th-century sound ideal was imagined as the thin, clear, somewhat piercing tone ... inherent in most of the instruments of the period-the viols, recorders, cornetti, high trumpets, harpsichord, etc.16 yet new investigations suggest quite another hypothesis. evidently 17thcentury musicians in italy successfully counterbalanced this strident tendency of their melody instruments, so often exacerbated by uncongenial acoustical conditions in churches and ducal chambers, with large forces of foundation instruments and echo-absorbing draperies; this practice bears witness to the period's serious "preoccupation with bass sonority."17 the 19th century is an epoch whose performance tradition is still imperfectly understood, partially because of our own era's lack of empathy with the romantic aesthetic. scholarly zeal for historical authenticity-wie es eigentlich gewesen-in respect to older music is limitless, but there is no equivalent impulse to recreate a bona fide romantic performance style. the response of the cuny audience when harold schonberg presented rare transcriptions of 19th-century pianists (paderewski, de pachmann) playing chopin is indicative. these genuine-not reconstructed !-performances from an earlier cultural epoch simply provoked amusement; they qualified as high camp. now suppose a renaissance scholar could miraculously produce a 1592 recording of the duke of gonzaga's choir doing a five-part monteverdi madrigal. if such a fantasy could materialize, the listeners' reactions would range from absolute reverence to ordinary, uncritical acceptance of the mantuan singers' vocal and interpretive style as a neutral historical datum. perhaps another fifty years must elapse before the romantic era can be regarded with appropriate aesthetic detachment, though the beginnings of a swing in this direction are already demonstrable. many 19th-century musical 60 conventions are out of favor today, among them the cult of virtuosity which mesmerized audiences and propelled artists toward extravagant display at the expense of the music. but this phenomenon was not peculiar to the 19th century, nor did it arise spontaneously; it grew out of a long tradition already firmly established by the early 1600's. moreover, it remained for one of the most adulated virtuosos of the romantic epoch, franz liszt, to make the turn to modern standards of interpretation, as documented in an autocritique remarkable for its candor despite its self-congratulatory tone: ... in yielding to mindless applause, i nearly put myself on the wrong path, from which, happily, i disengaged myself in time.1s in any event, understanding past performance practices is not synonymous with reconstructing artifacts, any more than knowledge of former fashions in concert-programing (excerpts, interpolations, potpourris, etc.) requires worshipful imitation of those customs today. the process of transmuting the written model of the composer's imagination to its aural counterpart calls to mind huizinga's insight on the play element in art. the very idea of entering the creative world of another suggests the notion of playing (tinkering?) with the creature of the original fancy; now it is but a step to the suspicion that "style and fashion are more readily consanguineous than orthodox aesthetics are ready to admit. "19 indeed, this salient feature of music and the dance, their common dependence upon an agent to animate the object-appreciator relationship, constitutes an intriguing problem in the philosophy of art, one that has never been adequately analyzed. the failure of scholarly thought to acknowledge performance as one of the primary categories in aesthetics is finally being challenged on fundamental grounds: namely, that the neglect of this parameter undervalues the decisive role of process and change in certain modes of aesthetic experience.2o and, for musicology, these theoretical considerations serve to emphasize the urgency of a nondoctrinaire approach to studies in the field, a point aptly summarized in the following caveat: [do not be misled] into regarding knowledge of the past as a substitute for imagination in the present, rather than as food for it.21 notes 1 ion, p. 530 in the dialogues if plato, trans. benjamin jowett (oxford, 1953). 2 robert donington, "expression," in grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 5th ed. (new york, 1966), ii, 984. 3 donald jay grout, "on historical authenticity in the performance of old music," in essays in music in honor of archibald thompson davison (cambridge, mass., 1957), p. 346. 4 dolmetsch, the interpretation of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries (london, 1915); albrecht, "die auffiihrungspraxis der italienischen musik des 14. jahrhunderts" (dissertation, berlin, 1925); haas, "die auffiihrungspraxis der musik" (vol. 6 of ernst biicken's handbuch der musikwissenschaft, potsdam, 1931); schering, auffiihrungspraxis alter musik (leipzig, 1931). 61 5 frederick dorian's the history of music in performance (new york, 1942), despite its popular style, was the first important english-language book in this area; a more current reference is robert donington's the interpretation if early music (london, 1963; 2nd ed. 1965). 6 this vintage recording has been recently reissued as a long-playing disc (seraphim 60125). 7 current musicology (1969) number 8; supplement in current musicology (1970) 10:144-66. 8 published in college music symposium (1969) 9 :83-111. the participants were john reeves white, denis stevens, alfred mann, and franklin zimmerman. 9 summarized by the present writer in "report from new york: ph.d. program in musicology at the city university of new york," current musicology (1969) 9:27-35. 10 h. c. colles, "extemporization," in grove's, ii, 991. 11 marc pincherle, "on the rights of the interpreter in the performance of 17thand 18th-century music," the musical quarterly (1958) 44:145--{)6. 12 herbert russcol, "music since hiroshima: the electronic age begins," the american scholar (1970) 39:289. 13 one such fortuitous strike came about during the painstaking art restorations in florence, after the 1966 flood. a long-time brunette (donatello's wood sculpture of mary magdalene) suddenly became a proper blonde again, when the artist's original gilding was disclosed under layers of mud and centuries-old dirt! 14 this notion is borrowed from the influential post-world war ii study by adorno et al. on personality components of social and political attitudes: theodore w. adorno, else frenkel-brunswik, danielj. levinson, and r. n. sanford, the authoritarian personality (new york, 1950). 15 full proceedings in report of the eighth congress if the international musicological society (kassel, 1961),2 vols. the quotations in the remainder of this paragraph are from vol. ii, 122-23. 16 putnam aldrich, "the 'authentic' performance of baroque music," in davison festschrift (see note 3), 162. 17 anne schnoebelen, "performance practices at san petronio in the baroque," acta musicologica (1969) 41 :44. 18 revue et gazette musicale de paris (feb. 12, 1837), quoted in r. wangermee, "tradition et innovation dans la virtuosite romantique," acta musicologica (1970) 42: 20. 19 johan huizinga, homo ludens (boston, 1950), p. 186. 20 hilde hein, "performance as an aesthetic category," journal of aesthetics and art criticism (1970) 27:381-86. 21 donald grout, op. cit., p. 347. 62 kaleidoscope and silly putty: an appositive inquiry andre singer recently a young friend, aged eight, came to visit me bearing a gift: a plastic egg containing a blob of silly putty. perhaps he made me this present for the simple reason that he himself wanted to play with it, for he promptly proceeded to do so. but i would rather like to think that he regarded it as a sort of return gesture, for i had given him not long before a kaleidoscope that he now brought along, too, a fascinating toy that even i like to play with occasionally. at any rate, here i was between the proverbial twin horns of a dilemma: should i join my young friend in play or should i retire to my study to pursue my own contemplations? i solved the problem the way one usually does when not in complete control of the alternatives: i did first the one and then, after daniel had left, the other. even now, some weeks after that visit, i am not certain which of the two was the worthier enterprise. but since the reader was not able to participate in the pleasures of the first, i think that i ought to share with him the results of the second. silly putty is a plastic material with properties that invite manipulation. its texture is homogeneous; it possesses both plasticity and elasticity. it can be made to take on any shape or form without having either of its own. one can knead it into a ball and bounce it around as if it were rubber. it can be flattened out like dough or clay, molded into mountains or molehills, given an angular line or an undulating one, made to resemble a phallus or the twin humps of a bactrian camel. in short, its versatility is protean, reflecting ultimately only the limitations of one's own imagination or dexterity. amorphous itself, it exists as a potential for multiple shapes and does not require or create an environment in which to function. it is stuff from which to fashion any number of simulacra, entirely at one's convenience. it serves equally well as a means for escaping reality or, if one so wishes, for emblematically exploring it. i am as attracted as the next man to escaping reality by means of play or contemplation. constitutionally, though, i am more predisposed toward exploring it, particularly within the safe comforts of emblematic thought. but at the same time, as a creative artist of sorts, i am also impelled to direct action, i.e., to give concrete reality to a set of personal constructs through the free exercise of my craft. if these be seemingly opposite tendencies, their integration does not constitute a problem but rather an enduring (and obdurate) challenge. certain it is that a reconciliation of opposites, a resolution of contradictions, cannot meet this challenge. to maintain them in a permanent-even if precarious-balance is more to the purpose. hence i turned toward seeking a more informed confrontation of implications. at the outset the derivation of the very name kaleidoscope suggested an essential quality of its nature: a spectrum of "beautiful form." it would be pointless to argue at length the obvious ambiguity of terms like "beautiful" 83 and "form." ambiguity is not to be feared here but rather considered an asset, revealing the very nature of things much better than might a precise definition with its built-in straight-jacket constraints. in any case, i have no intention of implying that our pleasure and delight in the ever-changing configurations of a kaleidoscope should be attributed solely to an aesthetic sensitivity stimulated by "beautiful forms." there are other, more important considerations, particularly when viewed against the polarity of silly putty's amorphous nature. a kaleidoscope is, of course, a highly structured instrument created for a specific purpose: to present the collective of its ingredients in one particular way. the ingredients (slivers of colored glass) have properties of which only two, viz., transparency and color, play an important part. the ingredients are not viewed directly, and neither is their combination; nor do we form any abstract image of their relatedness or cohesion. it is their refracted reflection, combined into a perforce symmetrical pattern, with which we are presented. we can produce different patterns by simply shaking the kaleidoscope but cannot control the nature of the changes or predict their results. all patterns formed will differ from each other to some degree. yet in the end the basic similarity of all patterns far outweighs the differences observable in each. protracted contemplation will result in satiety and force us to confess that all the differences do not, in fact, make any real difference. what we are offered are not similar or different forms but the prototype of a collective form as instanced by an almost endless number of variants or permutations. as a musician who is composer, teacher, and performer, i am naturally and perhaps instinctively interested in and preoccupied with sound (the material of music), with its organization (or the lack thereof), and with the forms organized sound happens or tends to take. in this context, then, certain properties of kaleidoscope and of silly putty have both relevance and significance, on several levels and in various ways. in the first we can see the role played by symmetry, encompassing an almost endless variety of patterns achieved with only a limited number of ingredients. the second exemplifies a total absence of pattern, whatever the shape eventually superimposed on the amorphous and unstructured material might be. furthermore, inherent in the first (kaleidoscope) is an absence of the element of choice: we neither select nor influence the resultant patterns (or their succession) to suit some structural purpose of our own. indeed, we cannot have a directed purpose in mind at all. inherent in the second is the lack of necessity: whatever shapes we construct will be intentional, arbitrary, willful, and therefore self-justificatory. here everything depends on free choice, while nothing (beyond our control) dictates it. the patterns of the kaleidoscope are the products of optical laws and the incidence of chance; we do not provide them with a specific identity and cannot be held responsible for them. but every form into which silly putty is shaped is entirely and exclusively our responsibility. thus i suggest that in musical composition some processes employed in 84 the organization of sound and in giving form to organized sound may be related to aspects-inherent, latent, or manifest-of our two "toys." to a certain degree, our structural concepts of pattern on the one hand and of "free" form on the other can be regarded as metaphorical implementations of those aspects, properties, attributes. of course, even though correspondences are striking and close, i do not mean to assert that they are allpervasive and exclusive. but a number of parallels clearly exist and ought not to be ignored. whatever the degree of influence, however, we must keep in mind that the individual works of art and artifacts themselves are considerably richer in expressive meaning and import than any that kaleidoscopic patterns or silly putty shapes might possess. this is principally due to the many contexts of elements and of their organization in the one and the other. to take one instance only, consider the function of symmetry, the specific proportionate relationship of parts to one another. such symmetry is inherent in the patterns of the kaleidoscope and is also prominent (on several levels of organization) in literally thousands of musical compositions. we would prefer to think of symmetry as existing in nature, as being a "natural" phenomenon and, as such, one of the chief implementing tools of articulated order. we would like to think that given the right conditions and circumstances symmetry will arise by itself, will exist as the proper balance of elements, and can thus be taken for granted. yet this is not so in music. since music is a process in time, unidirectional in its forward flow and (for practical purposes) non-reversible, the segments of its continuity cannot coexist simultaneously: symmetry can apply only to the succession of its events. this means that, in music, no state of symmetry or balance exists, except as a telescoped remembrance of successions that must have been willed to occur in this particular proportionate manner. in other words, symmetry itself is an event that must be brought about, having the nature of a process but not the existence of fact. of course, by abstracting from this continuum we can create a perceptual context in which it can be thought of as functioning, and which can be conceptualized-all of which makes us fully responsible for its occurrence.1 and yet, perhaps we are not fully and individually responsible. for centuries, symmetry has been collectively acknowledged (and practiced) as an important aspect of order and balance, cutting across styles of discourse and often dominating-some would say oppressing-the free unfolding of musical thought, and restricting to a degree the area of individual choice to a comparatively small number of alternatives. philosophic and aesthetic theories were elaborated which asserted that symmetry and order, being "natural," were therefore desirable, correct, and beautiful. hence music, if it is to take its rightful place among the arts, should or must imitate and express-or at least strive for-that same perfect harmony of parts and proportions as exemplified in nature. only in this way can it fulfill its deeper purpose, which is to please god, man, society, or what will you. many 85 composers were caught up in this belief, without necessarily articulating it overtly; they shared it as something fundamental to the nature and practice of their art, rarely to be doubted or questioned. it influenced their imagination at its source and governed their inventiveness, but it also called forth and stimulated a striving for the exploitation to the utmost of preselected resources. there is not much point in quarreling (ex post facto) with such a belief-i suppose it was and is as good as any other. it certainly permitted the creation of many of our greatest works of art, and i am not prepared to argue whether this came about because or in spite of such orientation. at any rate, in periods when assorted symmetries of organization exercised collective sway over creative imagination and artistic production, it was not entirely a matter of individual responsibility to reassert them anew in numerous single compositions. could artists have thrown off such limiting constraints and pressures, had they wanted to? could they have wanted to? this is a moot point; some who did so obviously could. as for the others, who knows? to summarize: symmetry and patterned order are inherent attributes, automatic by-products, of the translucent images formed in the kaleidoscope. in musical composition, on the other hand, they are a function of relationships purposefully created. bringing about a patterned organization on the simplest level is achieved through the intentional exclusion of disruptive opposites. we are accountable for the satisfaction and pleasure we find in such achievement, and also for the aesthetic and expressive values we associate with it. it is frequently maintained today that these "expressive values" belong to the past, that they have become obsolete in our unbalanced world, that they have lost their relevance. i do not agree; i would say rather that they retain as much relevance to our present as all esteem for any other past might be considered to preserve. this, however, is an immense variable and need not be dealt with here. we seem to have left silly putty way behind, but not really. its emblematic relevance to compositional procedures in music (and with some selfrestraint i am not considering here any of the other arts) is of a different yet equally direct order. indeed, we could almost say that in some respects we have entered upon an age of silly putty. i do not mean to sound facetious: silly putty may be a toy, but it is not a joke. the properties that led me to discuss it have already been mentioned and need to be recalled only briefly. first: the amorphous nature of the material itself, without inherent tendencies of its own. today we think of and use sound, the sonorous material of music (and, for that matter, silence) in a somewhat similar way. formerly, sound was manipulated primarily through the specific organization of its concomitant attributes: pitch, duration, intensity (volume), etc. small (or narrow) preselected segments of such spectra were combined into compound units and interrelated within larger entities. it was these patterns of preorganized combinations (e.g., scales, chords, rhythms, tonalities, etc.) that provided the raw materials of composition. but today's composers do not 86 necessarily begin with such preselected, prepatterned sets of relationships, not in respect to melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic articulation, nor, particularly, with regard to form. they begin with the stuff, the material itself, with unorganized, amorphous sound, and with the enormous, if perhaps not yet complete, range of its attributes and of new concepts of utilization. that range has expanded to an unprecedented degree, its materials shaped and molded (like silly putty) into any desired form, not limited to, but not excluding either, the use and development of some preorganized units or patterns. to us it may indicate that there is a break of tradition here, often deliberately posited. old systems seem to have been abandoned or simply ignored, even though they have served us well for at least a millennium. their time seems to have inevitably gone by; yet they survive as monuments to a vitality that is no longer ours to imitate but rather to experience and, perhaps, to re-create under some different guise. the vast number of musical masterworks survive not unlike great cathedrals that have outlasted worshipers, heretics, and even money-changers. but the main and proper concern of most composers today is with the music of the present, and perhaps of the future, too, in the sense that they are conscious of the present as the eventual past of the future rather than the already articulated future of the past. that is all, but it is quite a lot. second: in giving specific shapes and forms to amorphous sound material, we are very conscious today of being free and responsible agents. we select our ingredients anew and even from scratch, as it were, and also create entirely new ones. we try them out, experiment, and sometimes accomplish. we feel very "engages" in all that we are doing and in what we refuse to do. there is a new directness to such compositional intents, a rhetorical quality of address and invocation to such music, which is often immediately effective. at its best this music has an enormous expressive potential, articulated and almost nakedly employed through the hypertrophied qualities of mere sound, of intensity, volume, and rhythmic aggressiveness. this is particularly evident when presented in a strongly personal, if not always individual, manner. the general expressiveness of patterns and balances, of orderliness and restraint prevalent in much music of earlier periods, may seem almost neutral in comparison: impersonal, yet strongly individual. third: many composers do want their "works of sound" to create their own environment in which to function. they aim to achieve this most directly through control-aggressive and total control of the environment. performers and audiences alike, and even the unpredictable chance event, are all subordinated to a compelling drive aimed at maximum impact amounting to tyrannical control. but, fundamentally, this soon becomes self-defeating. the creation and the structuring of environment under imposed conditions of total control tends to become, in the end, a prison for those who conceive the "work" and devise the "event" just as much as for those who listen to, participate in, or want only to experience it. the arbitrary compulsiveness, often quite mindless, of many of these attempts seems to indicate that they 87 represent a newly primitive rather than a sophisticated stage of development. becoming obsolete as soon as their immediate time is over, they turn into remnants of outdated rebellions that have lost pertinence, although they might still command some force of coercion. fourth: although the material of both silly putty and music may be shaped into any number of forms, there remains an important difference. musical forms, even if self-generated and self-justificatory, are highly organic. that is to say, they derive relevance directly from the nature of the material, they acquire significance through purposeful organization, and they show an interrelatedness of the parts to each other and to the whole, one that cannot (and never could) be defined in terms of patterns and balances alone. the organic configurations of compositions, however, are a matter of choice, not necessity. in this sense, the shapes of silly putty, deliberately created though they may be, cannot be equated with the new organic forms that we can see emerging from recent musical practices. a few further observations are necessary to point up instances of unresolved contradictions. mutually exclusive opposites are embraced as a matter of course in the compositional practices of today: e.g., total serialization (of all musical elements) on the one hand, totally aleatory procedures on the other. the most exact specification of parameters in electronic music might alternate or combine with instructions directed toward achieving complete independence from them through positing the widest possible latitude in realization-performance, and even in the "accidents" of the composition itself. thus the distinction between composition and performance may be blurred at will, or sharpened into a contrast between the first as a process and the second as a mere reproduction of the results of that process. such opposites coexist in today's music quite peaceably. how much farther we might go from here, and toward what future, cannot be predicted. our anxieties, if we feel any, are part of the scene, and so are reactions of surprise, shock, indifference, or exaltation. but we do know how far we have come: we can retrace (in historical perspective) a progression from the anonymity of composers to the individualized and even personalized figure of the artist. one line of development might lead to the depersonalization, partial or complete, of computer-made music and its absolute determinacy, if desired. another line might lead to deindividualization, e.g., a sort of symbiosis of composer and performer, the former selecting and supplying the raw material, and the latter attending to sequence and combination. what beckons is a sort of collective improvisation and eventually completely aleatory "happenings," aimed at absolute indeterminacy. thus the future, either future, is full of question marks. from the wish that our works of art possess lasting, unchanging values, created for eternity, as it were (what presumption!), we have moved to the near-compulsion of capturing the immediate present in them and expressing it as the event of the moment (what pretention !). we may organize our compositions without any specific definition of shape, form, or structure, 88 and we might also deliberately avoid giving them any fixed identity. we may want every performance to be different from all others, i.e., induce ever-new permutations of the same elements. at the same time, obverse impulses drive us to immobilize one particular performance on tape, record, or film, to fix it immutably to a degree that was unknown (and would have been both inconceivable and undesirable) in previous ages of symbolic notation through conventional signs. as in our kaleidoscope, such a series of alternate soundevents (performances) constitutes really a prototype of a composition that has no existence other than the totality of all its variants. in the end all such contradictions and opposites are complementary and perhaps even neatly balanced. they serve as new psychological imperatives by the aid of which our turbulent age continues to evolve, offering itself for our comprehension. not all our earlier questions have been answered, it is true; what is to be done about them? jacques barzun has written that "cultural periods are united by their questions, not their answers ... "2 in this sense our present age might have begun long ago to develop and build its own future, for the latter may well reveal what our missing answers were (or must have been), simply by having already implemented them in a synthesis inaccessible to our present awareness. at the same time it will surely reinterpret our questions themselves, placing them in a perspective that we cannot and need not discern. all things considered, this should be a comforting thought to those in despair over the chaos swirling around them, and a reassuring one to those concerned with doing their own thing. as for me, i am looking forward to the next visit of my young friend. he phoned to tell me that he received a new toy called digi-comp no.1, a small digital binary computer. he wants to know all about it, and soon he will want to know all about future implications, developments, and possibilities. i confess to being slightly apprehensive; would you not be? notes 1 we are of course able to compress the consecutiveness of articulated aural events, symmetrical or not, into simultaneity, be it in performance or on tape, etc., but not, however, without a change in identity of the totality of segments, and thus in effect producing a new "composition." hence, the potential of temporal symmetry and proportionate balance with which the original segments might have been endowed is suppressed. 2 classic, romantic and modern (boston and toronto, 1961), p. xx. 89 in remembrance of otto deri ( 19111969) photograph by peter vidor 24 6 the complete and detailed list is printed in the neue bach-ausgabe, series i, vol. 33, (trauungskantaten), kritischer bericht, kassel-basel-london-n ew york-leipzig, 1958, pp.12-l5. 7 reprinted in the bach jahrbuch, 1938, p. 106 ff.; 1939, p. 81 ff.; and 1940-48, p. 161 ff. (bwv 197=bj 1939, p. 88; bwv 195=bj 1939, p. 89.) 8 zeitschriftfiir musik, 1934, p. 191. 9 the writer is greatly indebted to the director, prof. h. kretzschmar, for his laborious search of these and other documents in his care; 10 mus. ms. bach st 73, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 11 am. b. 39, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 12 the ful1score, piano/vocal score, and performing parts of this reconstruction are currently in the press, and will be published by breitkopf und hartel, leipzig. 13 mus. ms. bach st 43, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 14 mus. ms. bach p 670, dahlem, berlin. 15 friedrich smend, bach in kothen, berlin, 1951, p. 64. 16 reconstruction of bwv 1z0a published by curwen (london) and schirmer (new york) 1955. 17 mus. ms. bach p 91, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 18 mus. ms. bach st 12, dahlem, berlin. 19 mus. ms. bach p 65, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 20 full information concerning bach's wedding music, sources and history, is contained in the critical report to nba. 1/33, barenreiter, kassel, 1958, deutscher verlag fiir musik, leipzig, 1958. musical research in israel,' its history, resources, and institutions don harran the history of musicology and ethnomusicology in israel is closely interwoven with developments on the national educational and artistic scene.! seeds of an indigenous musical culture were planted around 1910 with the opening of the country's first music school and, in 1911, of the israel school of music, the latter headed by abraham j. idelsohn. growth accelerated with the founding of the hebrew opera by mordechai golinkin (1923), the formation of a society for new music (1929), and the launching of the palestine orchestra, today the israel philharmonic orchestra, by bronislaw hubermann (1936) and, in the same year, of the radio station voice of jerusalem with its own chorus and orchestra. the year 1933 marked the inauguration of the first conservatory of music (now the rubin academy of music, jerusalem), and the year 1945, the first teachers' training school for music (tel-aviv). the educator leo kestenberg (1882-1967),2 to whose initiative the latter is due, drew up a blueprint for an educational system predicated on the specificity of the jewish cultural heritage. it .was no easy matter to find a "didactic" norm among the different ethnic strata of israeli society, each with its own language, folkways, and artistic traditions. nor was it easy to reconcile the correspondingly different opinions that raged then-and now-about what music education in this country should be like. 120 kestenberg, as far-sighted in his own right as was his teacher busoni, geared his reform to encompass both the past with its 2,ooo-year-old history of jewish music and the present with its colorful ethnic practices. his conviction that a system of education must grow out of its own national and cultural roots-that it must be invested with its own content and guided by its own purposes-is one to give food for thought in an era when israeli music, folk and artistic, is following a pattern of increasing westernization. those who believe that music education in israel ought to be like unto itself may take heart from israeli musical research which has been-and, as long as music withstands the process of acculturation, promises to remain-true to the character of its subject matter. those two areas about which kestenberg's program turned were, from the very beginning, the two directions in which musical research in the country evolved. the first, the music of the jews and its history from biblical times to the present, may, generally speaking, be divided into three phases: music in the bible (old testament), its development in the post-biblical period, and music in modern times (from the 16th century on). knowledge about biblical music rests in large measure upon the correlation of the information gleaned from scriptural writings with the findings of the historians and archeologists. the objects of inquiry are various: musical instruments, their names, classes, ancestry, and functions; the texts that underlay vocal music (e.g., psalms and their prosody); the music, its varieties, its performance practices (e.g., soloistic, antiphonal, responsorial), and, as much as can be reconstructed, the build of its melodies and rhythms; the occasions for which music was employed (merrymaking, warfare, signaling, harvesting, etc.); the grounds for a distinction between sacred and secular forms; psychic effects of music, its application as a therapeutic aid, the role women played in its performance, and the affiliation of music with dance. the sources of knowledge about post-biblical music-extending from the hellenistic period through the middle ages and down to the 16th centuryare the later books of the old testament (daniel, ecclesiastes), the apocryphal writings, the dead sea scrolls, the new testament, patristic literature, and the oral traditions of ancient eastern communities (e.g., the melodies collected by idelsohn and others among jews of syria, persia, babylonia, etc.). its subjects are synagogal music and its centers (palestine, babylonia, and later, eastern and western europe), its relation to christian chant (during the first six or seven centuries a.d.), its instruments (the shofar was the only one permitted by talmudic authorities, but were there others ?), its varieties (psalm singing; cantillation of the pentateuch, the prophets, etc.; post-biblical prayer hymns or piyyutim); the influence of hellenistic cultureand with it the new importance that accrued to secular music; the organization of the synagogue service, the functions of the shamash (beadle) and the chazan (cantor), the extent of congregational participation, and the use of singing in the talmudic schools; the practice of cantillation (te'amim), its kinds, its correlation with the different modes assigned to the biblical books, 121 its development from an oral tradition to a system of written stenographic signs, the differences in the meanings of these signs from one period or locality to another, and the later theoretical fixation of these meanings; chazanut (cantoral singing), its structural types (or prayer motives), its improvisational practices, and the balance struck between the two; the historical and sociological questions that surround the shift from music in the religious ceremonial of the temple to that of the synagogue; the degree to which the former was transmitted to and preserved by the latter; the development away from a group mode of performance (as entrusted to the levites) to a soloistic practice (as carried on by the chazan); the early growth of cognate musical traditions-ashkenazic, sephardic, eastern-following upon the breakup of babylonian culture; the study of the dozen or so theoretical tracts in hebrew dating from the 10th to the 15th centuries. the history of jewish music from the 16th century on has been explored along the following lines of investigation: later developments in the various synagogal traditions; the division of the ashkenazic line into an eastern and a western european branch; the incorporation of melodically fixed chants=drawing no little sustenance from the style and content of gentile music-into the synagogue service (e.g., kol nidre, ma-oz tsur, adonai melech, etc.); the paths of assimilation to or alienation from european art traditions in the synagogal music of western europe; the institution of reform movements in the same; the popular religious songs (niggunim) of the hassidim; the zmirot or table chants employed for the singing of grace; art music in the jewish communities of the diaspora; the life and works of the internationallyfamed jewish composers of the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g., from mendelssohn to schonberg) ; and art music and its composers in israel from the time of the first waves of immigration to the founding of the state (1948) and down to the present. the second large area· to engage the interest of researchers here falls rightly within the province of ethnomusicology, though it is difficult to draw hard and fixed bounds between it and the "history" of jewish music. its investigators are concerned in the main with recording and analyzing the musical practices-religious and secular-of the ancient jewish and non-jewish communities of the near and middle east, in particular, those settled today in modern israel. like his colleagues abroad, the israeli ethnomusicologist wrestles with the usual problems of methodology and, sometimes, epistemology previous and subsequent to the notation of his material: how does he best go about recording it? what kind oftranscription reveals the general contour of the music while, at the same time, doing justice to its wealth of subordinate detail? how does one achieve, in analysis, an equilibrium between stylistic description and the marshalling of pertinent ethnic, social, and cultural data? to what extent can the information served up by music help to revise the tried and true concepts established by the latter? beyond the study of separate ethnic groups, the researcher is intent on furnishing answers to the wide range of ancillary questions that touch 122 upon knowledge about cultural or ethnic contacts, the relationship between present musical practices and those of earlier, perhaps ancient, times, the acculturation that overtakes these practices as they are passed on from one generation to the next, the origins and wanderings of musical instruments, performance traditions and the personality of the oriental musician, and the degree to which theoretical and musical systems are the bedrock on which live musical practices are grounded. despite the quickening of the pace of ethnomusicological research within recent years, it is still too early to speak of an attrition of musical sources. israel is a small country, to be sure, yet within its circumscribed boundaries there lies a rich store of ethnic materials waiting to be recorded and brought to the research table. a further branch of the "ethnomusicological" area of oriental musical research is the study of the folk-song traditions that grew up, following the destruction of the second temple, among the jewish communities dispersed throughout eastern and western europe. these are the songs, properly speaking, of the ghettos, and they range from semi-spiritual and ceremonial types to tunes patterned on the social and domestic conditions of jewish life in the diaspora (work songs, love ballads, dances, wedding songs, dirges, lullabies, etc.). they command attention for their texts (of which most are in yiddish, hebrew being the sacred language reserved for worship), for their styles (which, in most cases, represent a hybrid mixture of europeanisms flavored by the modal and, sometimes, improvisational idiosyncrasies of the orient), and for their connection with the social conditions that begot them. folk song in modern israel is still another branch of investigation. it is as varied as the ethnic sources from which it sprang. by and large, the pattern of development may be traced to the geographical origins of the migrations beginning in the 1880's and continuing to the present. jews flocked to their religious and, after 1948, national homeland, some as a refuge from persecution and pogrom, others as a fulfilment of zionist ideals. they brought with them their songs and folkways, and these were the separate alloys which melted together into the amalgam that is israeli folk song. its "history" spans the songs of the pre-world war i years-melodies whose style was more or less of a hodgepodge of russian, ukranian, germanic, and hassidic ingredients; the first attempts (starting with yoel engel in the later '20s) to create an indigenous popular literature by welding together-with greater homogeneity than hitherto had been achieved-a western-styled melos (slavic or germanic) with eastern modes; the borrowing of dance rhythms (among them the boisterous "horah") and the more conscious imitation of . near eastern melodies-free in rhythm, narrow in range, formally asymmetrical, deviant from major-minor modality-both of which characterize the tunes of the '40s and early '50s; and the stylistically variable, highly westernized popular music repertory that has formed since then. the acculturative processes to which art and music submit are, for the most part, 123 beyond the control of the researcher, whose function it is to observe and explain their workings. 3 still, in the wake of the increasing americanization of popular song, it is hard not to sigh at, if not outwardly deplore, the ensuing loss of national musical identity. musical research in israel would not be what it is today were it not for the host of scholars-musicological and ethnomusicological-who have madle it so. they range from its distinguished "founders," abrahamj. idelsohn (who took up residence in jerusalem from 1907 to 1921 while working on his fundamental ten-volume thesaurus of hebrew-oriental melodies, 1914-32) and robert lachmann (in jerusalem from 1935 until his death four years later), to the several scholars active outside of israel whose research has advanced the methods and enriched the content of musicology at home (curt sachs, eric werner, paul nett!, egon wellesz, et al.), and the later generation of musicologists living in israel, chief among them edith gerson-kiwi and hanoch avenary. for a review of their achievements until the year 1958, the reader is referred to edith gerson-kiwi's excellent article on "musicology in israel."4 just as musical research would not be what it is were it not for its researchers, so its researchers would not be what they are without the availability of adequate opportunities and materials for research. musical scholarship here owes an untold debt to the efforts of robert lachmann (1935-39) and edith gerson-kiwi (after 1947) in building up the impressive collection of recorded materials now housed in the record archives of the national library (hebrew university). to lachmann's original nucleus of 2,500 or so recordings dr. kiwi added some 4,500 more, and these were later augmented by extensive supplements from different quarters. the largest percentage of these thousands of phonograms is constituted of examples of jewish liturgical music (nearly half). the rest may distributed among. jewish non-liturgical music (about one-third) and the music of separatist or non-jewish ethnic groups (samaritans, karaites, moslems, etc.) in and out of israel. this vast museum of sound materials places a rich and diversified body of primary sources in the hands of the musical scholar. the further expansion of these archives and the co-ordination of the separate endeavors of native researchers have been the guiding goals in the foundation (as an affiliate of the national library) of the jewish music research center in 1964. the center employs the talents of its scholars in the classification and analysis of the musical, literary, and recorded documents on jewish and oriental music housed in the national library. its most notable accomplishment to date is the publication of a festschrift in tribute to eric werner and "his achievements in the field of jewish music studies" on his 65th birthday 5: 'yuval' studies of the jewish music research center (jerusalem, the magnes press of hebrew university, 1968). among the contributors figure both israelis and such lights of the musicological world as higinio angles, jacques chailley, dika newlin, and bence szabolcsi. planned for the future, as part of the internationally-scaled projects of the 124 international repertory of musical sources (rism), is a complete inventory of the primary sources, musical and literary, of jewish music throughout the ages. it will bear the same relation to alfred sendrey's fundamental bibliography if jewish music (new york, columbia university press, 1951) as do the various volumes of rism to eitner's bio-bibliographisches q,uellenlexikon. another fund of materials is stored in the center for israeli music, founded in 1968 under the auspices of the music division of the public council for culture and art. it aims to bring together the music (scores, records, tapes) of israeli composers of art music from the turn of the century to the present and, at a later stage, to do the same for israeli folk and popular song. once the center has achieved its aims, the way will be cleared at last for a systematic appraisal of modern israeli music-its composers, schools, and developments-and the writing of a history of contemporary music in israel. further research materials are held by the israel institute for religious music, founded in 1955 under the auspices of the ministry for religious affairs and the ministry for education and culture. its phonoarchive contains several thousand items from the jewish religious sphere only. one must mention, in addition, the general bibliographical materials belonging to the music division of the national library (in jerusalem) and, on a lesser scale, those belonging to the central music library (in tel-aviv), to the library of the music academy and department of musicology of tel-aviv university and that of the rubin academy (in jerusalem), and to the library of the ethnological institute for jewish music (in haifa). the researcher may have further recourse to the ethnic materials held by the national and rockefeller museums (jerusalem) and the museum of ethnology and folklore (haifa), to the private collection of musical instruments originally built up by edith gerson-kiwi during the years 1953-58 for the now defunct ethnological institute for oriental jewish music at hebrew university, and to the impressive assembly of african and asiatic instruments-secured through the offices of a number of foreign embassies in this country-housed in the rubin academy of music in jerusalem. an aid of inestimable value in ethnomusicological research is the melograph, an instrument for notating single melodies. it registers sounds diagrammatically: a needle traces on graph paper the up and down contours of linear movement. exact intervals are later measured by reference to a numerical scale fixing cent distances. such an apparatus was built in 1957 at hebrew university for what is now the ethnological division of the center for electronic music in israel (founded in 1958). just as mechanical aids have revised or reversed established opinion in the social and physical sciences, the users of the melograph envision the possibility of a reanalysis of near eastern music with no less crucial results for ethnomusicological research.6 musicology in israel officially came into its own with the founding in 1956 of an israeli branch of the international musicological society. largely silent until the early '60s, the society was reconstituted in 1967 as the israel musicological society. it sponsors lectures and public forums, and com125 municates through a bulletin. the first issue of this bulletin (may, reviews the activities of the society for the year 1967-68, states the official bylaws, and lists the current members. mention should be made of the first international congress for research in jewish music held under the auspices of the world jewish congress in paris, 1957. its various resolutions-the preparation .of a complete corpus musicae hebraicae, listing all writings on and documents of jewish music as well as collections of ethnological materials; the development of comprehensive phonogram archives; the publication of an annual on jewish musical research; etc.-have largely been taken over by the center for research on jewish music (see above). the first musicological congress of international scope to be held in israel took place in jerusalem in the summer of 1963. it also marked the 16th annual congress of the international folk music council. its theme, "east and west in music," was explored in depth through lectures and live concerts. to mark the occasion, a number of monographs by local scholars were published covering such diversified aspects of jewish and eastern music as folk song in israel; hebrew, syrian, and greek liturgical recitative; the persian doctrine ofdastga-composition; and the performance of arabic song in the middle ages. . the annual congresses of the israel institute for religious music-held during the week of hanukkah-provide an important forum for communication about research on jewish liturgical and non-liturgical music. its lectures and proceedings are subsequently gathered together and published in the annual duchan ("pulpit," 1960 on). beyond the publications of this institute (which include an annual bulletin on world-wide activities in the of jewish religious music as well, 1960 on) and of the center for research on jewish music, many original research papers of israeli scholars are scattered about in local journals, chief among them bat-kal ("echo," two vols., 1956 and 1961) andtatslil ("chord," 1961 on). perhaps the most significant step in the advancement of musical research in israel has been the inauguration of academic training programs in musicology. hebrew university opened its doors to musicology with the founding of a department in 1965-66, and tel-aviv university followed suit in 1966-67. their programs of undergraduate studies are spread out over three years, and comprise a number of historical, theoretical, and methodological subjects set up in the form of preparatory courses, lectures, discussion groups, proseminars, and seminars. plans for graduate departments should materialize in the not-too-distant future. about the paths of israeli musicology in the years to come, perhaps the best signpost is the title to the above-mentioned convention: "east and west in music." that israel stands at the crossroads between eastern and western musical cultures places it in a unique position. the kind of universality evidenced in the multiple ethnic structure of israeli society suggests as its 126 corollary the universal attitudes that should inform its musical (and humanistic) research. israel has the sources and talents for a direct, vital study of semitic music. it has assimilated western musical culture and the intellectual habits of western scholarship as well. what this means is that studies of eastern and western music are equally viable areas as a framework for future scholarship. explored separately, and then conjointly, the combination of the two should open up a perspective for a vigorous, rewarding comparative research. notes 1 the writer acknowledges his gratitude to the bialik foundation (in jerusalem) for permission to excerpt this article---with minor changes-from his forthcoming book, an introduction to musicology (in hebrew). 2 for a general account of kestenberg's educational reforms in germany and elsewhere, the reader is referred to the article and bibliography in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart 7:863-65 (1958). 3 a number of israeli scholars-less dispassionate about this issue than the present writerfeel it is their duty not only to engage in research, but to stem the tide of change overtaking its objects. they advocate an accelerated program of education in native folk and ethnic traditions designed to preserve the old and to resist the new. such a program-as they see itwould enlist the aids of discretionary radio and television programming, professional training facilities in near eastern music and its practices, publication of trustworthy editions, and live interchange with eastern musicians and musicologists invited to come and discuss their own music. the whole question of where the researcher's role begins and ends is, at any rate, one that invites heated debate in this country. 4 in acta musicologica 30: 17-26 (1958). 5 actual publication was delayed for technical reasons by 18 months. 6 see dalia cohen and ruth katz, "the melograph, some remarks concerning its use," 'yuval' studies qfthe jewish music research center (see above), pp. 155-68. 127 bryan r. simms. the atonal music of arnold schoenberg, 1908-1923. oxford university press, 2000. ix, 265 pp. reviewed by ethan haimo schoenberg's decision, around 1908, to begin writing compositions that had no tonal center and few, if any, traditional harmonies, remains an event of surpassing historical importance, one that has had an incalcu­ lable influence on the subsequent history of music. given the central sig­ nificance of this repertoire, it is surprising that-before now-no one had undertaken the challenge of writing a book devoted to schoenberg's atonal compositions. bryan simms has responded to this curious lacuna with a book entitled the atonal music of arnold schoenberg. however, the scope of his book is even wider than is implied by its title: the second chapter discusses schoen­ berg's evolution toward atonality and the last chapter addresses the early serial period. thus, in some important ways, simms's book discusses at least parts of all three of schoenberg's principal compositional approaches: tonal, atonal, and serial. one of the interesting changes that has taken place in anglo-american studies of schoenberg's music has been the gradual widening of the per­ spective with which the music has been examined. whereas once upon a time, much of the discussion was resolutely technical, with the emphasis placed almost exclusively on the development and use of sophisticated theoretical tools to explain the pitch organization, 1 nowadays one is apt to find more discussion of the contexts in which the works originated.2 the atonal music of arnold schoenberg reflects and celebrates this change by placing considerable stress on factors other than pitch organization. simms quotes extensively from schoenberg's writings, coordinates stylistic developments with biographical events, carefully examines schoenberg's choice of texts, analyzes the meanings of those texts, discusses schoen­ berg's interactions with his contemporaries, weighs the rationale for his use of a particular stylistic approach, describes the philosophical and aes­ thetic ideas that lay behind specific compositional decisions, and much else besides. when this repertoire is approached in such a comprehensive manner, it quickly becomes apparent that schoenberg's atonal music did not con­ stitute a single unified, period-not technically, nor stylistically, nor in any current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york iii 112 current musicology other meaningful way. rather, as simms demonstrates, it was a complex and ever-changing reality, one that embraced such sharply contradictory tendencies as the motivic intensity of op. 11, no. 1 and the radical athe­ maticism of erwartung, op. 17. simms's decision to extend the range of his discussion beyond the chronological boundaries of the atonal period and his choice to expand the parameters of his discussion far beyond pitch structure together con­ stitute one of the many strengths of this book. at the same time, the broad scope of this book is-alas-a serious flaw. in a book with only 219 pages of text, it is impossible to do justice to all of the topics that are contem­ plated; inevitably at least some are given short shrift. as a general rule, i think that the biographical, philosophical, documentary, and textual as­ pects are handled quite well. however, at the same time, other important topics are given insufficient attention. for example, in his second chapter, "schoenberg's evolution toward atonality," simms describes the features of schoenberg's early works that prepared the way for the rise of atonality. in keeping with his approach, he does not limit himself solely to a technical analysis of the changing pitch language. instead, he starts with an interesting discussion of the ori­ gins and use of the term "atonality" and an extended examination of schoenberg's theoretical writings on the subject. these two tasks are handled very well. simms provides an insightful summary of the sometimes contradictory attitudes within schoenberg's circle to the term "atonality." we find that-notwithstanding its later re­ jection by schoenberg-the term may have originated with a supporter (egon wellesz) and that there was far more sympathy to its use in schoenberg's circle than is generally recognized. equally effective is the discussion of the idea of atonality in schoen­ berg's writings. simms points out that although schoenberg wrote no trea­ tise devoted solely to the subject of atonality, his "literary oeuvre still offers an invaluable entree into this repertory." simms then skillfully weaves dis­ parate writings together to show what schoenberg meant by "extended," "suspended" (aufgehoben), and "fluctuating" (schwebend) tonality and ex­ plains how these ideas played a role in the gradual transformation of schoenberg's language. only after completing his consideration of these topics does simms il­ lustrate the process of evolution by means of analyses of selected compo­ sitions from schoenberg's tonal period. this is an essential step if the theoretical generalities of the previous section are to have any precise meaning. however, this task simply cannot be accomplished in the ten pages that are allotted for the purpose. reviews 113 and it is not merely the number of pages devoted to the problem that is problematic. simms illustrates the decline of tonality in schoenberg's works by making analytical remarks about only three of schoenberg's works, all of which are songs: erwartung, op, 2, no. 1 (1899), die aufgereg­ ten, op. 3, no. 2 (1903), and der wanderer, op. 6, no. 8 (1905). on a num­ ber of grounds, this is unsatisfactory. in the first place, schoenberg's songs are not representative of all aspects of his compositional thought in the years 1899-1908. in general, the songs are rather short-nothing close to the size of the important instrumental works from this period. those in­ strumental works face issues of tonal definition and relation that are much different than those faced in the more diminutive dimensions of the songs. moreover, schoenberg generally made a fairly clear distinction be­ tween the texture of his songs and his instrumental compositions. his songs tend to be homophonic, often reliant on a principal melody (not necessarily in the voice) supported by successions of discrete chords. by contrast, his instrumental works tend to be less clearly chordal and, corre­ spondingly, more reliant on contrapuntal textures. this is an important distinction because major steps on the road to the "emancipation of the dissonance" were made possible by the radical treatment of intervals found in the contrapuntal textures of the instrumental works. to be sure, simms offers some reasons for analyzing only songs. he ar­ gues that the "genre of song was an especially useful laboratory in which to try out new ideas." he goes on to claim that the "inherent expressivity of the song provided an environment in which harmonic and tonal exper­ iments needed no further justification than their alliance with heightened emotions and new poetic ideas." finally, he cites schoenberg's claim that "extramusical influences produced the concept of extended tonality." but none of these is convincing. the argument that "the genre of song was an especially useful laboratory" could be said equally persuasively of any genre in schoenberg's works. and is there really more "inherent ex­ pressivity" in schoenberg's songs than in instrumental works like verkliirte nacht or pelleas und melisande? finally, it is an error to assume that schoen­ berg's statement that "extramusical influences produced the concept of extended tonality" is a reference just to the songs. all of schoenberg's completed works from the end of his apprenticeship with alexander zemlinsky to the writing of the chamber symphony, op. 9 were based on a text and thus everything schoenberg wrote before 1906 had extramusi­ cal influences. although simms gives insufficient attention to a detailed consideration of the evolution of schoenberg's language and although the examples he chooses are not completely representative, i should not like to leave the 114 current musicology impression that what he actually says is faulty. to the contrary, the analyti­ cal remarks that he does make are well chosen and accurate. for example, in his analysis of die aufgeregten, op. 3, no. 2 (24-26), simms points out that "the ambiguities that characterize the tonal plan of the song are evi­ dent from the very outset." he shows that the opening refrain "is made from a chain of primarily vagrant chords, whose progression is guided solely by a descending stepwise bass line" and thus, the listener has "no way of relating the passage definitely to any key." furthermore, he points out that unlike earlier examples, this occurs right at beginning of the piece so that "the listener has no tonal context in which to interpret it." simms also asserts that the composition "exhibits an experimental and nontraditional use of key that the composer described as schwebend." although schoenberg had applied the term only to short spans, simms feels it is appropriate to extend the idea to the large scale. he suggests "it produced its most fundamental disruption in the macrostructure of a work, weakening the unifying capacity of a key throughout the entirety of a composition." simms further argues that in die aufgeregten, unlike the earlier erwartung, there is no "large, tonally unified plan at work." instead, the song moves through a number of remote tonal areas. simms asserts that "the order in which these tonal areas occur and the presence of ellip­ tical and incomplete progressions prevent the listener from deducing any one key that controls the totality of the piece." although the key signature suggests that "schoenberg conceived of the work as moving in f minor" he believes that "even the most astute listener cannot trace the persistence of that key from beginning to end"-as one could with earlier composi­ tions. thus "traditional tonality wavers to the point of fragmentation and is relegated to dim and localized references to distant regions." in sum­ mary, "no longer does schoenberg use key to produce a unified and inte­ grated structure." although these remarks are to the point, accurate, and broadly illustra­ tive of some important tendencies in schoenberg's early works, they do not come close to giving a full picture of what happened in the crucial pe­ riod that led to atonality. indeed, the three songs chosen, and what simms elects to discuss in those songs, do not illustrate some aspects of the birth of atonality at all. in the first place, none of the songs simms chooses adequately captures the extent of schoenberg's restless experimentation with new chordal types in the years 1899-1908. from the examples, one might conclude that schoenberg's chordal vocabulary was only a modest extension of tra­ ditional harmony, involving mainly the increasing use of vagrant chords. but in this period (and principally in the instrumental works), schoen­ berg experimented with many new chords: from the ninth chord in fourth reviews 115 inversion in verkliirte nacht, to the whole tone hexachord in pelleas und melisande, on to the hexachordal chord of fourths in the chamber sym­ phony, op. 9-to name only a few famous examples. these chords are important not just because they were new, but be­ cause they are part of another important trend that is not covered in this chapter. in schoenberg's music from this period, there was a clear evolu­ tion, not only in the treatment of chordal dissonance, but also, in its very definition. at the beginning of schoenberg's career, many chordal dis­ sonances still resolved in a traditional manner. but relatively quickly, chordal dissonances lost their distinctive status within a chord and their motivation for resolution. by the end of the tonal period, it had become impossible to tell which was the dissonance and which was the stable chord tone. in short, the emancipation of the dissonance was intimately connected both to the changes in chordal vocabulary and to the way in which that vocabulary was used. but nothing of this process is illustrated in the examples or discussed in any depth elsewhere. and this highlights another important omission: the absence of ex­ amples from instrumental works makes it difficult to understand how schoenberg's contrapuntal textures contributed to the emancipation of the dissonance. it was primarily in instrumental works like the string quartet, op. 7 and in the chamber symphony, op. 9 that schoenberg made radical strides in the direction of creating a musical language in which triads (or chords derived from triads) played little role. in passages like the fugal transition in the first movement of the string quartet, op. 7 (beginning at 1al, ex. 1), the constant motion of the attack rhythm yields a quickly changing succession of simultaneities (mm. 103-6), almost none of which are triadically-based harmonies. by choosing only songs and by placing the emphasis almost exclusively on harmonic progres­ sions, simms shows none of this. indeed, as can be seen from the sum­ mary of simms's arguments above, there is no discussion of any aspect of schoenberg's evolving pitch language other than its harmonic progres­ sions. the story of the evolution of schoenberg's pitch language is con­ siderably more complicated and multidimensional than is evident from simms's discussion. unfortunately, the inadequate treatment of pitch language in the chap­ ter on the evolution toward atonality is not an aberration, but the norm. by trying to do so much, simms ends up giving some important topics in­ adequate consideration. and too often, the internal structure of the music is one of the topics that receives insufficient attention. for example, in the fourth chapter, "small instrumental works," simms discusses four important collections of compositions: three piano pieces, op. 11, five orchestra pieces, op. 16, six little piano pieces, op. 116 current musicology example 1: schoenberg, string quartet, op. 7, first movement, mm. 97-108. etwas weniger bewegt 97,., ~,~~ ~ p ,., ~ areo ~3 sehr ausdrucksvoll oj ~ ~." 101 areo 105,., (gl ______ , (d) __________________ , ~ ---i i ~ i ~.i i (gl_ , ~~~ reviews 117 19, and three pieces for chamber orchestra-seventeen separate move­ ments, and this in a chapter of only twenty-nine pages. as always, simms does not limit his attention solely to the pitch language, but covers a broad range of other issues as well. for instance, his discussion of op. 11 begins with some general observa­ tions about the opus as a whole: that it is not a unified cycle; that schoen­ berg may have been hesitant about writing for piano; that he seems to have written intuitively and without sketches and with only one major rewrite in the third piece; that he made various revisions in 1924 and 1942; that he wanted the pieces to be played freely; and that he argued with busoni about the latter's unauthorized rewriting of the second piece. these are important points, and, as usual, simms has provided a very good, well informed, appropriate, interesting, and completely satisfactory discussion of these topics. simms then continues with a general summary of the formal structure of the first two pieces of the opus. he points out that they both are ex­ amples of what he calls "developmental ternary form" in which an open­ ing group of thematic ideas returns in highly varied form after a middle section that, though contrasting, also includes fragmentary and highly var­ ied restatements of the original themes. only after this does simms get down to talking about the harmonic vo­ cabulary itself. here is the entirety of what he says on the topic: the harmonic vocabulary in op. 11, nos. 1 and 2, also differs sub­ tly from that of many of the george songs in that it greatly reduces the direct use of triads and familiar seventh chords. it also moves cautiously away from the late-romantic harmonic palette-altered or vagrant chords, whole-tone harmonies, triadic tetrachords, and pen­ tatonic subsets-that schoenberg had used repeatedly in the early atonal style of op. 15. the harmonic language of the three piano pieces begins to show an important change in schoenberg's thinking about atonal music, as it abandons, however tentatively, the mixed idiom of op. 15 and adopts a homogenous, dissonant, and distinctly anti-romantic alternative that had been hinted at in "sprich nicht" from op. 15 and in its contemporaneous "am strande." this was a new harmonic practice to which schoenberg referred in 1911 in the harmonielehre when he confessed his "aversion to recalling even re­ motely the traditional chords ... the simple chords of the earlier har­ mony do not appear successfully in this [new atonal] environment. i believe, however, that there is another reason for their absence here. i believe they would sound too cold, too dry, expressionless. or, perhaps, what i mentioned on an earlier occasion applies here. 118 current musicology namely that these simple chords, which are imperfect imitations of nature seem to us too primitive." (63) the first sentence is correct insofar as it goes: the direct use of triads and familiar seventh chords is indeed greatly reduced in these two pieces. so too, simms is probably correct that nos. 1 and 2 "move cautiously away from the late-romantic palette." however, those statements are both nega­ tives: they say what was abandoned; they do not say what is present. that is left to the end of a single sentence: "it adopts a homogenous, dissonant, and distinctly antiromantic alternative." but this is completely inadequate. it tells us almost nothing about the harmonic vocabulary of op. 11, nos. 1 and 2 and nothing at all about the syntax. what specifically does "homogenous" mean? what precisely does "dissonant" mean in this context? (what could it possibly mean after the emancipation of the dissonance?) what is "a distinctly anti-romantic alter­ native?" since none of these claims are illustrated with musical examples, we are left with very little precise idea of what is being asserted about schoenberg's music. as before, it is not so much that there is anything specifically wrong with the claims that are made but rather, it is that they are far too general, too simplified, cover too little ground, or simply omit crucial parts of the discussion. to be fair, there is some further examination of the pitch language of these compositions as simms continues with a discussion of some of the controversies that have arisen about how to understand these pieces. but even this discussion is astonishingly incomplete. simms starts by citing some of the studies that claim that op. 11, no. 1 retains significant residues of tonal structure, even including tonal cen­ ters. he then summarily rejects this line of argument by quoting schoen­ berg's assertion (in a letter to busoni) that: "my harmony allows no chords or melodies with tonal implications any more." simms then offers one and only one alternative. he cites and briefly explains allen forte's theory of pitch class sets, and remarks that op. 11, no. 1 "has proved to be especially susceptible to analysis by these principles." he then supports this assertion with a single example where the pitch class set formed by the total pitch content of one measure is equivalent to the pitch-class set of the opening hexachord in the melody. this survey of the literature is every bit as unsatisfactory as the analyses of the works themselves. suggestions that some tonal references remain in schoenberg's atonal music have persisted for some time. is it enough sim­ ply to cite one of schoenberg's statements in order to reject this line of thought? as simms shows in other places, schoenberg's comments cannot always be taken at face value. if so, shouldn't there be at least some furreviews 119 ther discussion of this topic? and shouldn't there be at least some interac­ tion with the secondary literature?3 moreover, forte's analytical approach has hardly gone unchallenged. pitch class set theory has been highly controversial and has sparked a vig­ orous debate. richard taruskin (1979, 1986, 1987, 1988), george perle (l990a, 1990b), and the present author (haimo 1996) have raised ques­ tions about this method of analysis in general and its application to the works of schoenberg in particular. forte and his supporters have made numerous, forceful responses to these criticisms. at the very least, should­ n't some mention of this have made it into the footnotes of simms's dis­ cussion? and wouldn't it have been appropriate for simms to participate in this lively intellectual debate? shouldn't we expect a book on schoenberg's atonal music to engage forcefully with the debates about the structure of this music? but even beyond this, must this be the sum of all possible choices? tonal harmony or pitch-class sets? that's it? nothing more? does simms have no independent views on the subject? shouldn't he? shouldn't some­ one who undertakes to write a book on schoenberg's atonal music have some clear and original (not to mention thoroughly detailed) ideas on the pitch structure of these compositions? simms's failure to confront the relevant literature in his discussion of op. 11 is, unfortunately, not an exception, but the norm. although the bibliography as a whole is rather impressive (including dozens upon dozens of recondite entries), simms customarily fails to be in dialogue with that literature in an effective way. time after time, relevant citations are either not made at all, or (as with op. 11) are given only the most cur­ sory consideration. for example, in the second chapter ("schoenberg's evolution toward atonality"), simms scarcely interacts with recent literature on the subject. typical of this is his response to walter frisch's book, the early works of arnold schoenberg: 1893-1908 (1993), which covers the same time span as simms's second chapter. however, in the entire chapter, simms cites frisch's work only twice (footnotes 47 and 50) and both times, these cita­ tions are nominal. yet, frisch's book discusses in considerable detail many of the problems that simms only limns in his chapter and has many force­ ful ideas about the evolution of schoenberg's pitch language, ideas that are typically supported with cogent and illuminating analyses. indeed, in many ways, frisch's book is a model of what simms's book could have been. like simms, frisch examines schoenberg's works in a broad context, not limiting himself only to the pitch language. but, unlike simms, frisch does not let the more inclusive scope of his book lead to a superficial consideration of the pitch language. and, again, unlike simms, 120 current musicology frisch constantly interacts with previous writings on the subject, making his work part of a lively intellectual discourse. for all of these reasons, simms's book is a troubling mixture of excel­ lence and negligence. on the one hand, he has provided a significant amount of information about schoenberg's atonal compositions-their historical background, choice of texts, relationship to the composer's bi­ ography, and much else beside. any subsequent scholar who wishes to ex­ amine any of these pieces will shorten his or her work considerably by be­ ginning with simms's discussions. indeed, anyone wishing a good general introduction to the compositions and their historical background should start here. but, unfortunately, seeing these compositions in a wider con­ text has come at the expense of a detailed and systematic examination of the pitch language and has come without a meaningful interaction with the work and ideas of others. notes 1. see, for example, milton babbitt's seminal articles (1955,1960,1961,1962). 2. a highly successful example of the newer approach is walter frisch (1993). 3. some of the more important post-war studies relating specifically to tonal re­ lationships in op. 11 include: reinhold brinkmann (1969), will ogdon (1981), and howard cinnamon (1993). simms cites only brinkmann in this chapter. references babbitt, milton. 1955. some aspects of twelve-tone composition. score 12: 53-61. ---. 1960. twelve-tone invariants as compositional determinants. musical quarterly 46: 246-59. ---. 1961. set structure as a compositional determinant. journal of music theory 5: 72-94. ---. 1962. twelve-tone rhythmic structure and the electronic medium. perspectives of new music 1: 49-79. brinkmann, reinhold. 1969. arnold schonberg, drei klavierstucke op. 11: studien zur frilhen atonalitiit bei schonberg. beihefte zum archiv fur musikwissenschaft, vol. 7. wiesbaden: f. steiner. cinnamon, howard. 1993. tonal elements and unfolding nontriadic harmonies in the second of schoenberg's drei klavierstiicke, op. 11. theory and practice 18: 127-70. frisch, walter. 1993. the early works of arnold schoenberg: 1893-1908. berkeley: university of california press. haimo, ethan. 1996. atonality, analysis, and the intentional fallacy. music theory spectrum 18: 167-99. ogdon, will. 1981. how tonality functions in schoenberg's opus 11, number 1. journal of the arnold schoenberg institute 5: 169-81. perle, george. 1990a. pitch-class set analysis: an evaluation. journal of musicology 8: 151-72. reviews 121 ---. 1990b. the listening composer. berkeley: university of california press. taruskin, richard. 1979. review of the harmonic organization of "the rite of spring" by allen forte. current musicology, no. 28: 114-29. ---. 1986. letter to the editor. music analysis 5: 313-20. ---.1987. reply to van den toorn. in theory only 10: 47-57. ---. 1988. review of the music of alexander scriabin by james baker. music theory spectrum 10: 143-68. psychological jargons of our own day qargons that are themselves a heritage from german romanticism)-but let us hope that the links have not yet been welded tight. footnotes 1 her explicit description of "the great formal types of musical organization" as perceptual categories" (p. 64) becomes a frank example of this sort of parochialism (p. 68). 2 we can now, with hindsight, find precursors or progenitors of absolute music earlier than the 18th century, but composers had to cleanse their minds and their music of the ideas and emotions specifically linked with the modes (six or twelve) and with the affects (whether as intarsia or as mystique) before "absolute music" could become a conscious aim and program. incidentally, one looks through history nearly in vain for a creative artist (as distinguished from critic or philosopher) who clearly displays a belief or an interest in "universal" . 8 many of aristotle's phrases have acquired the quality almost of incantation. a good example of this is the frequent use, by both miss carpenter and professor crocker, of the aristotelian phrase "beginning, middle, and end". for greek tragedy, based on familiar legends, the "beginning" of a play was the point in the story selected by the dramatist as making clear the part of the story he was going to use; the magic of aristotle's phrase is not easily transferred to another context. for music (with the exception of john cage), "beginning" means flatly a change from the inaudible to the audible. 4 an instance which strikes me as combining the perennial philosophy with a bit of aristotle and some special pleading occurs in glossing harmonia as "the perfect attunement between microcosm and macrocosm". true enough, and miss carpenter also calls this "one ofthe oldest images of music". but i hope that no one will start building systems on the fact that, as metaphors, "democracy" or "snowflake" may also serve to symbolize a perfect attunement between macroand microcosm. 5 perhaps this subjective-objective business is only another instance of a trait shown by schools of psychology during the past century, the trait of borrowing fundamental concepts from the physical sciences-and, rather regularly, not fully exploiting the physical concept until the physical scientist has discarded it and moved on to something quite different. on subjective-objective, see, for an instance already old, alfred north whitehead, science and the modem world (new american library), p. 50 and passim. 6 theodor lipps, who, in an imposing number of works of major size in aesthetics, reduced all music to a departure from and a struggle back to the tonic chord, should have provided, for ever, a salutary lesson for builders of universal aesthetic systems. david burrows, on patricia carpenter's" the musical object" "the musical object" is neither short nor long enough. i hope miss: carpenter will take up her big and convincing idea at book length, for, al. though she argues it most convincingly here, it deserves to be traced in detail through the literature of the period she deals with. one byway that could 'i receive attention in a fuller treatment of the theme is the history of notation 112 as it related to the history of the piece. more important are the implications of her theme for general cultural history. not only does the period of "the musical object" correspond roughly to that in which painting was "conceived as a piece of three-dimensional visual space", -as miss carpenter points out herself, but it also corresponds roughly to the period of the objectivization of discourse in printed books, as marshall mcluhan has been reminding us. unfortunately, she does not deal with one question in the history of ideas that is raised by her use of the sapir-whorf hypothesis: did we not spatialize and objectify time in our ways of talking about it before process became product in our music? going into linguistic relativism should mean going into it historically, since "the musical object" is historically relative. if i have any real disagreement with miss carpenter, it is not with her idea, but with the extent to which she gives in to it. i feel that the momentum of the argument she produces to defend the proposition that a piece of music from about 1420 to about 1910 was "stylized toward objectivity", that it represented "a musical illusion of the kind of wholeness we associate with a thing visually perceived" carries her too far when she maintains that we grasp such a piece "not only as a successive, but also as a simultaneous whole". to begin with, miss carpenter's notion of the word "object" (and her notion of the word "simultaneous" as well) is so broad as to be almost unsporting, including as it does objects material, immaterial, real, and unreal, along with thoughts, events, and states of mind. at the same time,although she gives "three minimal requirements for objectness", these do not include two requirements essential to our common sense understanding of objectness. for one, an object (as opposed, say, to an entity) is commonly assumed to be a material presence, something accessible to touch and sight. more importantly, an object is commonly assumed to be something lifeless and static. miss carpenter naturally has the right to define "object" in any way she wishes, but the word lacks bite without these restrictions, for it permits too much. is a gesture usefully described as an object? it can have beginning, middle, and end, take place out there, be stylized and repeatable. what about a roller coaster ride ? yet even though miss carpenter plays down our common understanding of "object" as something material and static, it silently 'accompanies her discussion throughout, giving it an air of paradox that is one of its strengths. this feature could be further strengthened; i 'think, by openly acknowledging that "object" here is a metaphor, rather than a description for a piece of music. one great advantage it has as a metaphor is its very ordinariness. if this is to be exploited fully, then its ordinary usage must be acknowledged. during the period miss carpenter is concerned with, music-making detached itself more and more from its traditional background of ritual and social occasions. in a sense the whole activity of music confirmed the drift toward objectivity that she describes at the level of the piece. but during the 17th century and beyond-and this is one feature of the underlying paradox of miss carpenter's thesis-there was a drift away from concreteness of 113 reference, away from cantatas and toward sonatas. it is hard not to think of this as a retreat from objectivity in an important sense of the word. . miss carpenter demonstrates beautifully how tautly self-entailing a struc-: ture a fugue is. there is much in a good one for memory and for recognition., in claiming then from this that a fugue is perceived "as a simultaneous; whole", she obviously is not using "simultaneous" in the sense of "occurring: at the same time" (and so fusing in the instant)-this would entail a fatal; confusion of our perception of chords with our perception of motives-bu< instead in the static, visual sense of "present together, contiguous". but this' sense of "simultttneous" does not seem justified here, for memory cannot con-:: front past and present in the way that vision confronts contiguous features of a j; visual field. the point may be crudely obvious, but, husserl to the contrary, the first note of a melody is over when the next, let alone the last, has begun, let alone ceased to sound. husserl's observation is true only in the sense that, the first note is not forgotten, but it is definitely gone. ' in fact, truly to comprehend a piece as a simultaneous whole would be an act of annihilation. the most absolutely structured piece depends absolutely on succession for, to name one essential feature, its appeal to kinesthesia. it may be that the composer begins with a static grund gestalt and that composition is the process of its animation, but we as listeners or performers cannot retrace that path. at any given moment in a piece we are oriented by the memory, more or less distinct, more or less relevant, of what we have heard up until then, and by some notion of what we might hear in what is to follow, but we have no real access to the whole until it is all over-and then the residual imprint of the whole is a feeble thing. such as it is, does not this residual imprint depend heavily on the conceptual identity of the piece, and on, that weak analog of the piece, its notated score? in this connection, the distinction between willaert and bach is surely one of degree, not of kind. (intriguingly, miss carpenter tells us which structurally" defined bach fugue to consider as an example, but not which structurally diffuse willaert ricercar.) i find that i can as successfully, or rather, no more unsuccessfully, hold in my imagination a (diffuse) image of a willaert ricercar (i took the one in the historical anthology of music) as i can a (defined) image of the bach fugue. . again i think she goes too far in asserting the claims of the whole when she writes: ''just as i cannot see a chair, a man, the letter a, without some sort of schema into which it fits, so also i cannot hear a piece of music that is not part of my world." it is true that "the importance of the great formal types of musical organization developed in our tradition cannot be discounted, for they serve as perceptual categories", though it is also true that there is some endemic academic inclination to give them more than their due as serving the convenience of academic discourse. but when i have no global schema that applies to a new experience, i apply whatever i have at hand, that works over smaller ranges, often with highly satisfactory results. surely we can all remember being caught up in sonatas as children without benefit 114 of the schema "sonata", and surely we are all capable of being caught up as adults in contemporary or exotic music whose premises are strange to us. listening is at its most vital when it is an act of enlargement, not simply one of confirmation, and the range of miss carpenter's examples persuades me that she would agree. what schema should i bring, for example, to an "occasion for experience" by john cage? miss carpenter's point is that, unlike the varese ionization, the cage variations is no object; but i do not think she wants to imply that i cannot hear it for that reason. actually, "occasions for experience" fits v arese as well as cage, bach as well as willaert, musical "objects" as well as nonobjects. an experience is no less an experience for being structured. both extremes are itineraries for auditory experience, for trips through different sorts of auditory landscape. and i can no more comprehend as a whole, as a single object, a trip through a formal garden than one through an open field. on one other matter, miss carpenter does not make a distinction that seems important, the distinction between distance from the aesthetic object and distance from the world. the user of a work of art may play the role of participant or that of observer, but in either case he suspends his participation in practical affairs and acts within a special aesthetic enclave. this is as true of tribal music as it is of drawing room music, and something like the same kind of stepping within a magic circle is an aspect of ritual and games as well as of the arts. so that i think when miss carpenter writes of stepping back from the musical object, she is noting a polarization of the aesthetic enclave. to sum up: miss carpenter leaves me convinced that for a time european music of privilege, by means of the gestural enclosure of spans of time, went about as far as may be toward creating a musical illusion of objectivity. but it did remain an illusion. there are dangers as well as benefits in talking as though being of a time is the same as being of a piece, and at some points in her paper miss carpenter seems to me to come dangerously close to confusing metaphor and reality. maybe this is just the good standard average european in her, but in this case that is something to resist. finally, i should like to congratulate miss carpenter on having had a new idea-we need all of those we can get-and to thank her for acting on it as persuasively as she has. her idea is not only new, but big as well, for it confronts our best understanding of the perception of music with our best understanding of its history. few readers will put down "the musical object" with their views of that history unaffected. 115 gesualdo: misguided or inspired? faye-ellen silverman gesualdo remains to this day one of the most controversial composers in the history of music. critics have accused him of poor writing, excessive and disorderly chromaticism, and the indiscriminate use of chords,l and they have pointed knowingly to the fact that he had no followers.2 adherents, on the other hand, have admired his craft3 and pointed to his spiritual affinity with 20th-century atonality.4 the obvious question arises: which side is right? an analysis of gesualdo's works reveals that both of these extreme positions tend to ignore the essence of his music. his work is contemporary in sound due to its highly chromatic, nervously fluctuating, and extremely fragmented melodic lines, and its short contrasting sections. yet it could not have been written at any other moment in history, for it is firmly rooted in the traditions of its own century. the counterpoint, with its careful treatment of dissonance, and the use of thirds and fifths in local as well as longer-range motions (yet without implications of harmonic movement), the employment of a modal center rather than a free use of the twelve-tone scale, and the constantly shifting rhythms and textures are the best examples of these roots. the genius of gesualdo, then, comes from his ability to integrate all of these elements into a unique system, one which enables him to use freely cross relations and fragmented lines while retaining the underlying coherence and unity which are essential to good art. his system seems to arise from a preference for a three-note chromatic motif, such as cc:ltd (sometimes reordered cdc:lt, dc:ltcq, etc.), used especially to express musically such emotionally charged words as "morire" or "torcete." this motif is occasionally extended to four, five, or even six notes. these notes may be stated in direct succession or may be separated by intervening notes. in the former case the motif is sometimes obscured by rests or by octave transference within a voice. in addition, there is occasional transference between voices, especially (a) in instances of intervening rests (ex. 1)5; example 1 luci serene e ghiare (sopranos r & ii), l1111. 19 20 • ,6 1.1 non do-lor nel-la pia ma • "j '" i i v non do-lor nel-la pia ga, rna 49 (b) in homophonic passages; (c) where the chromatic motif is transferred locally but stated in the original line by long-term references (ex. 2); example 2 arelita zanzareta (soprano ii and alto), nun.45 49 fi lit pro-van-do in quel bel sen dolce ve-l't ;fa, dol-ce ve 19 no fi 'it pro-van-do in quel bel sen dol ce ve ie (no) or (d) where a complete statement of the motion in one voice is not necessary since that voice or a neighboring one has stated the same progression a few measures earlier. in cases where the motif is interrupted by intervening notes, a single voice part is divided into two vocal levels, one of which states the chromatic motif (ex. 3). example 3 dolcissima mia vita (soprano r), nun,s 11 c f i if' ijr,j j 1-'(' dji! i-if ,. j j j i la brarna ta a-i-ta, a-lta? ere-de te for-se analysis: r---o ., ;j ,; f t j n?i!j j r f g r i wm ' (note the perfect symmetry between the ascending and descending levels.) the chromatic motif often leads to the juxtaposition of major and minor chords. other chromaticisms arise from gesualdo's preference for the chromatic neighbor note rather than its diatonic counterpart. gesualdo treats the neighbor note in a manner similar to his way of handling the three-note chromatic line. he postpones the return to the original note, through rests, until the start of the next phrase; he intersperses notes at a separate vocal level; and he sometimes transfers resolutions to another voice, especially when such a transference would sound like a continuation of the original line. thus, this neighboring motion is really a variant on the three-note chromatic motif. when gesualdo's juxtaposition of chromatic triads does not arise from such motivic considerations, it is generated by the harmonic movement of a third or a fifth. a harmonic analysis of gesualdo's music (which does not use functional harmony of the classic-romantic tradition but does foreshadow certain harmonic tendencies of the baroque)6 shows that most chords, both chromatic and diatonic, move by thirds and fifths (ex. 4). 50 example 4 moro, lasso, al mio duoio, mm.l 4 f, ie.! f, iu" 1 ,.,. mo ro, lasso, al mio u tmo _ ?o, yas1\ i' mo ro, lasso, al mio duo mo ro, lasso, al mo third third third ----e chi mi pull dar t:i ::::: , duo10 e chi mi dar 10 10 duo10 third cta b'----g.-----e a"'----'c g '---" fifth fifth the movement by thirds is sometimes an extension of the basic tonal area, for example, gbd-egb, and sometimes an independent gesture, e.g., gbd-edgb. occasional stepwise motions are used to create symmetry: when f-a is balanced by b-g, the a-b progression is stated. local motions are supported by long-range ones. the intervals from the beginnings to the ends of phrases are usually statements of a third or fifth or movements of a second which are then followed by a third or fifth at the starts of subsequent phrases. homophonic sections, however, sometimes move by seconds for contrast. the long-range motions of 10 pur respir07 are (ex. 5) : example 5 phrase (1) mm. 1-12: (2) end m. 12-16: (3) mm.17-18: (4) m. 19-beg. m. 22: (5) mm.22-23: (6) mm. 24-27: (7) mm. 28-33: intervals texture used polyphonic polyphonic with increased rhythmic motion homophonic polyphonic homophonic polyphonic with three chordal changes per measure and many repeated notes polyphonic but only two chordal changes per measure. 51 phrase intervals (8) end m. 33-beg. ma3: c -7 g (9) mm. 43--45: (10) end m. 45-54: texture used polyphonic; fast to slower motion balances acceleration at end of phrase 7 homophonic returns to same tonal area as opening. (note the textural contrasts outlined in the chart above. these will be discussed later in this essay.) there is no modulation, although an occasional progression which we would nowadays label v 7 of v resolving to v is sometimes used, as well as the transposition of motivic material. yet no new tonal area is ever established. such a systematized use of chromaticism may have been overlooked by other theorists who have had a bias toward tonal motion and/or have tended to regard each verticality as a chord. gesualdo's music, however, stems from a pretonal, highly contrapuntal tradition and uses many notes purely as voice-leading dissonances. he employs, for example, incomplete as well as complete neighbor notes, anticipations, chromatic and diatonic passing tones, and suspensions and suspended passing tones, and will sometimes add a sharp or flat in order to smooth out a line by avoiding intervals such as the augmented second. an analyst, therefore, must look at metric stresses and think in terms of chordal areas which encompass more than one verticality. george ruffin marshall is one of the many theorists who have dealt with gesualdo's works.8 i disagree with his conclusions, however, because i feel, for the reasons described below, that his focus is too narrow. he limits himself to the hindemith system of analysis (whereby the lowest note of the strongest harmonic interval, in any combination, is taken as the root of the chord). in so doing, he treats the music as tonal, classifying chords by tonal functions, e.g., "the various types of chords used,"9 rather than examining the unique system of a pretonal composer. moreover, since gesualdo's chords are related by a preference for harmonic thirds and fifths, it is also hard to agree with daniel rowland,lo who says that unrelated chords from the chromatic gender [genus] are juxtaposed. while the chords mayor may not be from the chromatic genus (i tend to think, however, that they are not but are built up anew by thirds), they are logically chosen in order to achieve an expressive effect rather than being merely juxtaposed. for similar reasons alfred einstein's conclusionll that all chords are tested and all transpositions are permitted seems to overlook gesualdo's system. new chordal combinations were certainly tried. but gesualdo's purpose was not to test every chord (in contrast with some modern compositions which are written to "test" or demonstrate new instrumental effects). he chose his chords most carefully. the position of some of gesualdo's admirers is equally naive. for, in spite of the modernness of sound, gesualdo is not, as lowinsky believes, an 52 atonal composer (see note 4, below). he lived in a period of musical transition, an era similar to the ars nova and to the 20th century. he was a composer who, writing at a time when the current style had reached its limits, had to create his own system. this transitional position in history led him to find solutions to the problems of creating contrast, a process which parallels the experiments of our own transitional era. gesualdo's music "works," therefore, for many of the same reasons that 20th-century compositions "work." timbral and rhythmic contrasts (see example 5, above) rather than harmonic motion propel his pieces and prevent stagnation. each composition creates its own form. gesualdo alternates polyphonic and homophonic sections, brings forth rhythmic differentiations between polyphonic sections, varies the rhythm of repeated words, constantly changes metric stresses and the ordering of the entering polyphonic voices, and uses contrasting motives. in addition, he employs other original solutions, such as the use of distinct phrases which move locally away from the modal center and have differing rates of chord changes, and his use of expressive dissonances, which create crossrelation tension and also contribute to the vital, nonstagnant quality of his music. this transitional position also seems to explain the fact that gesualdo had no followers. scientists had just proven that the earth was no longer the center of the universe. this discovery had upset current philosophical and theological beliefs. man, therefore, had to reestablish his sense of unity and sense of self. the development of tonality, which actually had its roots in the 16th century, seemed to answer this need for a unified system. gesualdo, then, could have no successors, since, in order for such composers to carry further the implications of his music, they would have had to break with the traditional intervals of the third and the fifth, use tones independently, and fragment melodic lines completely. this step was taken at the beginning of the 20th century, where fragmentation occurred in everyday life and where, consequently, dissonance in music seemed expressive of the times. nevertheless, the very uniqueness of gesualdo's music has led to its being admired and accepted hundreds of years after it was written. this acceptance may be linked to a change in aesthetics which has led to the use of a musical language which finds dissonance expressive and melodic fragmentation comprehensible. tonal music was motion-oriented; music "worked" if it flowed from beginning to end, propelled by the resolution of chordal tensions. in the 20th century, however, there is a tendency to evaluate each piece in terms of self-consistency, rather than according to a set of predetermined rules. each piece sets up and, when successful, adheres to its own rules. gesualdo's music fulfills this criterion; with its unique but consistent use of chromaticism and its careful craftsmanship, it should continue to enjoy the appreciation it deserves. 53 notes 1 see, for example, charles burney, a general history of music, ed. frank mercer (new york: harcourt, brace, and company, 1935), p. 181; donaldj. grout, a history of western music, rev. ed. (new york: w. w. norton and company, 1973), pp. 292, 303; and daniel b. rowland, mannerism-style and mood: an anatomy of four works in three art forms (new haven, yale university press, 1964), sec. 4, p. 36. 2 alfred einstein, the italian madrigal, vol. 2, trans. alexander h. krappe, roger h. sessions, and oliver strunk (princeton, n.j.: princeton university press, 1949), p. 215. 3 stravinsky's admiration of gesualdo may be seen in the former's composition monumentum pro gesualdo di venosa and in his discussion of this homage in conversations with igor stravinsky by the late composer and robert craft (garden city, l.i.: doubleday & com" pany, 1959), pp. 33-34. 4 see, for example, edward e. lowinsky, tonality and atonality in sixteenth-century music (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 1962), p. 77. o all musical examples and measure numbers are taken from gesualdo's siimtliche madrigale fur funf stimmen, compo wilhelm weisman (hamburg: u grino verlag, 1962). 6 in oliver strunk, source readings in music history: the renaissance (new york: w. w. norton & company, 1965), p. 40, there is a passage from zarlino which says: "the third [condition of what is sought in every composition] is that the procedure of the parts should be good, that is, that the modulations should proceed by true and legitimate intervals arising from the sonorous numbers [e.g., the unison, octave, twelfth, fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth], so that through them may be acquired the usage of good harmonies." this shows that movements by thirds and fifths, which later became systematized in the baroque, were very much accepted by 1558, the year of zarlino's istituzioni armoniche. 7 this madrigal may also be found in archibald t. davison and willi apel, historical anthology of music, vol. 1 (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1963), no. 161 pp. 182-83. 8 "the harmonic laws in the madrigals of c. gesualdo," (ph.d. diss., new york university, 1955; ann arbor, mich: university microfilms order no. 16-774). 9 ibid., pp. 48-51. 10 see his mannerism-style and mood, pp. 17,27,36,37. 11 einstein, the italian madrigal, vol. 2, p. 717. 54 approaches to musical historiography of the 18th century leonard g. ratner history can be told in many ways. each writer will highlight those facets of the past which are sympathetic to his own view; this coloring may be personal or it may reflect the spirit of the times. over the past one hundred and fifty years we can distinguish such coloring in the musical historiography of the 18th century. some of the phases have been: 1. a kind of hero worship, in the early 19th century, reflecting the napoleonic mood. attention was centered upon the great figures of the 18th century, and upon beethoven. 2. a dialectic or evolutionary view, in the later 19th century and early 20th, reflecting the ideas of darwin and hegel. the evolution of the classic style and of sonata form was traced in order to explain the heroic achievements of the later haydn and mozart, and of beethoven. 3. nationalism, paralleling the political nationalism of the 19th century. claims were made for mannheim, berlin, vienna, italy, and bohemia as playing decisive roles in the evolution of the classic style. 4. an approach which might be designated as psychological or generative, in which the coloring of 20th-century psychology can be sensed. basic organizing and motivating forces in 18th-century music (and in music of other periods) are sought for, to explain how the subconscious or subliminal expresses itself outwardly. the writings of kurth, reti, westphal, and schenker would be subsumed here. 5. afactual or objective treatment, aiming at completeness and accuracy of all types of data. present-day technology has given this approach much emphasis; air travel, photographic and sound reproduction methods, along with subsidies for scholarship have made the recovery of data much more feasible than heretofore. the result has been comprehensive catalogues, reliable modern editions, and depth studies of genres and persons. 6. a phenomenological approach, centering upon the work of art itself. traditionally, this has consisted of analysis of the 154 structure ofa composition; recently, the idea of performance practice has been incorporated, to consider not only how a piece was put together, but also, how it might have sounded to 18th-century listeners. 7. 18th-century music as representing a facet of the history of ideas. this approach searches for the philosophical, social, economic, aesthetic, scientific, religious, and other motives in 18th-century life in order to throw some light upon the characteristic qualities of the music itself. each of the approaches listed above has its own validity; each is a point of perspective that organizes the historical terrain. yet each has its own problems and its limitations. for example, the "great man" view can easily misrepresent the relative importance of lesser figures in their time and milieu; while the dialectic approach as well as that of nationalism can run the danger of misreading trends, influences, and the connections between causes and effects. some special problems relating to the recovery of data are: 1. the immense quantity of data, representing an output of hundreds of thousands of individual compositions, by thousands of composers; and, in spite of the large amount of data available, the gaps that presently exist, often due to the irretrievability of many works. 2. reading the data correctly. this includes proper transcription of the music, frequently complicated by irresponsibility in copying, inconsistencies in notation and editing; authentication of a composer or composition, complicated by the exuberant piracy of many 18th-century musicians and publishers; interpreting a properly-notated work with respect to valid sonority, tasteful ornamentation and nuances of performance; correcting the errors and emendations made in later editions. 3. the immense task of putting music newly-recovered into score; typically, ensemble music, both vocal and instrumental, was prepared or published only in parts or short score. each of the approaches discussed first in this paper must necessarily incorporate elements of various other attitudes as a substructure. a history of 18th-century music that co-ordinated intensive treatment of all of these facets in proper balance would be a gigantic undertaking, not only because of the 155 immense amount of data involved, but also because many uncertainties exist regarding the arrangement of historical perspectives. very likely, for these reasons, no up-to-date comprehensive history of 18th-century music or of the classical period exists. still, the difficulty of marshalling material and co-ordinating points of view can be overcome if a context can be established that will be flexible enough to adjust to new material or to shifting emphases. one way to attack the problem of historical perspective is to deal with the work of art in its own time, a co-ordination of the phenomenological and history of ideas approaches. studying the work of art, we would try to trace its life history from the general premises of composition upon which it was based, through the special formulations that give it its special distinction, to the actual realization of the work in a reasonably valid performance. also, we would try to place the work in its social context, to learn how it embodied ideas of musical expression and how its genre evolved to serve the purposes of its times. to do this, we can determine what general assumptions, what basic criteria, were accepted in 18th-century musical composition. each work can then be seen as a special variation or combination of the common elements of 18thcentury musical rhetoric and expression, not as an item in a category but as a variant of a type. in this approach, musical theory and criticism by 18th-century writers can play important roles. they can reduce speculation to a mihimum, providing clues to the scholar as to lines of investigation; they can correct misconceptions that have grown up over the years; and they can indicate generic tendencies proper to the music of the 18th century. the final object of this view of history would be to create anew the work of art in a performance that had as much of the color of the 18th century as we could recover. history would then be brought up-to-date, giving us a heightened sense of what the musical experience might have been in the 18th century. when the editors of current musicology asked me to prepare a brief statement "assessing problems inherent in attempting a comprehensive history of the music of the 18th century," i accepted the assignment with some degree of confidence, but i find that confidence rapidly draining away with the recognition of the extent of the problems that remain to be solved before a 156 truly comprehensive history of this period can be written. the crux of the matter lies in that term "comprehensive." it calls for a synthesis that, in my view, would be premature at this time. the writing of history is a social phenomenon conditioned by the state of knowledge and society's readiness to absorb it. comprehensive histories tend to be of two kinds: (1) they can be imaginative introductions to a new field, or (2) masterful summaries of existing information. the present state of our knowledge of 18th-century music does not encourage either of these approaches. it is doubtful that any "introduction" to the music of the 18th century, written at this time, could have much scholarly authority. it would tend to fall into easy, if not misleading, generalizations. at the same time, it is too soon to expect an achievement at the level of a book such as reese's music in the renaissance. there are too many gaps in our know1edge, too many primary investigations to be conducted before the over-all patterns become clear. it has been observed that the more remote a period is in time the easier it is for the historian to command it. the observation is a half truth at best, but it suggests one reason why the coverage of our studies in 18thcentury music is still far from comprehensive, and by the same token why it will take us an even longer time to bring the 19th century under historical control. 157 2 see, for instance, william w. abbott, certain aspects of the sonata-allegro form in piano sonatas of the 18th and 19th centuries (unpub. diss., indiana university, 1956) where a number of movements of this kind by these composers are listed. mayer joel mandelbaum-multiple division of the octave and the tonal resources of i9-tone temperament ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 61-4461), 1961. (479 p., indiana university diss.) john chalmers while some recent developments in music have tended to minimize the role of defined pitch as a structural element, there nevertheless are theorists and composers who are concerned with creating a new music in which the melodic and harmonic orders are still fundamental organizing parameters. rejecting both the extremes of 12-tone combinatorial serialism and the psychological ambiguities of the aesthetic of indeterminacy, these musicians seek to organize sound by means which, though grounded in history, are consistent with the results of modern acoustical research. such endeavours may be subsumed under the somewhat unsatisfactory term multiple division,l the division of tonal space into steps which deviate significantly from the 300-year-old norm of twelve equal tones. in a field as large and complex as this, no general attempt at a theoretical treatment has appeared since bosanquet in 1876.2 the relevant material that has appeared in the meantime has tended to suffer from relative obscurity and either unsympathetic or idiosyncratic treatment by its authors. in correcting these long standing deficiencies in the literature and in proposing a new and rational theory of composition in the 19-tone system, dr. mandelbaum has created the definitive work in the field. the dissertation is divided into three sections, the first of which is devoted to the various reasons for advocating multiple division grouped under the general categories: acoustical, historical, and evolutional. the last, since it deals in part with concrete aspects of style and performance, may have the greatest immediacy for the contemporary musician although the speculative theorist, as dr. mandelbaum considers himself, must also build his case on traditional foundations. musical acoustics, or, one is tempted to say, harmonics, is developed from a consideration of tonal consonance and its relation to the ratios of small whole numbers. dr. mandelbaum's elaboration of these concepts through a thorough discussion of tone lattices is particularly valuable. explained in this manner, the functional relationship of rather complex pitch ratios is made clear. the voluminous literature on this aspect of acoustics is wellcovered. nonharmonic and nonoctaval scales, fields of active interest today, 138 are briefly introduced, as are a few examples from physical acoustics such as inharmonicity. in general, however, the emphasis is on what is usually referred to by the term musical acoustics. multiple division finds its greatest support historically in that it affords a means of re-creating the glories of past musical cultures, while retaining the advantages of more recent styles. preeminent among such cultures is that of the greeks. mandelbaum provides an interesting analysis of how the pythagorean system breaks down when applied to the enharmonic genus. this may lend support to those who believe that the various tunings catalogued by ptolemy enjoyed actual use. on the other hand, kathleen schlesinger's subharmonic harmoniai deserve more attention than given here. despite their controversial status, they form an imposing system which is capable of fascinating development beyond that of her modal tuning for the piano.3 senary just intonation is well-handled, with the usual reservations made about its employment even in the pure scale era. the often passed over mean-tone system and its analogues are gratifyingly discussed, since unequal systems are not only interesting per se, but are very closely related to certain important equal divisions such as 31,43, and 19 itself. oriental and folk musics are included in the historical section, since some theorists hope to assimilate them too into a world-wide synthetic musical culture. most writers on the future evolution of music have expressed a profound dissatisfaction with current practices, although few have been as thorough as yasser in a theory of evolving tonality, a major landmark in the literature. in addition to a consideration of yasser's theories, mandelbaum discusses quarter and other aliquot divisions of the tone. one important aspect of these systems is that of interperformability. while one may grant the performability of the existing duodecimal literature on quarter-tone instruments, the same cannot be said for those tuned to 19-tone or other systems which are not multiples of twelve. since most of the multiples of twelve have little acoustic advantage over twelve itself, this could be interpreted as a further reason not to advance to a new system. however, the wide acceptance of electronic music suggests that the time of change has come and that the necessary readjustments are not insuperable. having introduced the main concepts of multiple division, mandelbaum turns to a more detailed examination of the writers advocating specific systems. since many of these writers are poorly known and not easily obtainable in this country, this section is extremely useful. these writers can be roughly divided into four groups. the first consists of those primarily interested in equal temperaments. of these, bosanquet is the most important. his classification scheme and generalized keyboard are highly relevant today, nearly a century after first publication. any keyboard designer or notation reformer would do well to read his elementary treatise. more widely known for their music are two 20th-century theorists and composers, i van wyschnegradskii and the late julian carrillo. the music of the latter is now available on discs from mexico.4 139 the second group comprises those concerned with unequal systems built on some version of just intonation. the best known of this group is harry partch, theorist, composer, and instrument builder, whose own book, genesis of a music, has recently gone out of print. by far the most attention is paid to those writers advocating 19-tone temperament, although many of these have made other noteworthy contributions as well. the two most vocal partisans of 19 are "ariel" in germany and yasser in the united states, though the latter's theories are applicable to other systems too. kornerup is perhaps better known for his golden system, which is of note today because of the growing interest in musical application of the golden section.5 while he has championed 31 more than 19, a. d. fokker's contributions to multiple division are so pervasive that his work may be conveniently discussed here, as he has helped greatly to clarify the position of 19 among other proposed temperaments. the final group of authors are those presenting generalized methods for finding optimal equal temperaments. in general, two approaches are used. one, which might be termed melodic, simply examines the errors in representation of a given set of just intervals. this is basically "ariel's" method, and is as valid as his choice of intervals. the other is a harmonic one, based on the accuracy of certain generating harmonic intervals such as the third, fifth, and harmonic seventh. fokker has developed an interesting method which depends on the choice of certain intervals which wiirschmidt termed defining intervals.6 if the factors of these intervals are taken as components of a set of vectors, the resulting octave division corresponds to a periodicity in the corresponding tone lattice. professor viggo brun, a norwegian mathematician, has applied the euclidean algorithm to the problem of finding series of temperaments which represent the generating intervals with increasing accuracy. its chieflimitation is the difficulty of differentially weighting the factors. in both these cases, one assumes that some just intonation is the ideal for which the required temperament is a cyclic approximation. while these approaches may be cfiticized, they serve to stress the point that there is no one ideal temperament, but only temperaments more or less well-suited to individual musical needs. the frequency with which certain temperaments are arrived at by different methods could be interpreted as evidence of similar intentions among theorists, as well as of the universal value of these tunings. mandelbaum's contribution to this literature is an analysis and evaluation of 19-tone temperament relative to its possible competitors. he goes about this by defining a quantity to be known as the combined error factor (cef), the product of the absolute error in an interval's representation and its fractional error in scale degrees. cef's for various intervals are combined to form an overall harmonic evaluation. in addition, the full range of equal temperaments is subdivided in order not to have to compare such incommensurables, from a performance viewpoint, as 19and 53-tone temperament. 140 according to his the temperaments of number twelve through twenty-four will be considered in one group. employing only the perfect fifth and the major third as generating intervals, mandelbaum computes the total cef in several ways with the advantage usually going to the 22tone system. if, however, he adds the minor third into the calculations, the favor turns strongly to 19. one might ask, though, whether the minor third is really independent of the other two intervals, and whether its inclusion is objectively justified. one might also take exception to dr. mandelbaum's exclusion of any intervals derived from the seventh harmonic in this group of temperaments. granting that the cef of 7/4 is quite large even in 22 (the only possible tuning in this area), this system can articulate a dominant seventh formation, making a one-unit distinction between the 6/5 and 7/6 minor thirds. it is thus possible that such a melodic phenomenon would permit 22 to be used as a musical system embodying the 4 : 5 : 6 : 7 tetradic structure, despite its acoustic errors. the other temperaments are treated in a similar but less controversial manner. turrung specifically to 19 in the last section, dr. mandelbaum explains his method of composition in this system. the basic gamut is considered to be derived from cycles of perfect fifths and minor thirds, the first because of this interval's overwhelming importance, the second because of the great accuracy with which it is represented in this tuning. here, as in twelve, consonance and dissonance function as opposites; there are, however, six new neutral intervals peculiar to 19. consonances include the traditional thirds and fifths and their inversions with the addition of the major second and minor seventh. major sevenths and minor seconds are dissonant. scales are formed by projecting cycles of each of the nine intervals of 19 until only two interval classes differing by one unit remain. when arranged symmetrically, these scales are termed "quasi-equal-interval-symmetrical". such scales occur in pairs-typical ones are the 12 + 7, 13 + 6, 14 + 5, and 11 + 8, to name the most important. since each of these scales is formed by analogy to the diatonic scale of seven fourths, modulations will be made most naturally by the generating interval. thus, each scale pair demands a unique harmonic treatment. chords are classified according to their intervals; consonant chords are composed of consonances, while dissonant and imperfectly consonant formations contain dissonant and neutral intervals respectively. a pentadic basis for harmony is postulated in which no chordal interval contains less than three nor more than five units of the temperament. the discussion closes ,with a consideration of the type of resolution demanded by certain of the neutral and dissonant intervals and the relationship of these requirements to the harmonic context. in addition to proposing a theory of composition, dr. mandelbaum has realized his concepts in nine preludes for two specially tuned pianos. the scores are included as part of the dissertation, and since 19 is a system for which standard notation can be used, they should present few problems to the reader. the tuning of the two pianos is a reasonable solution to the prob141 lem of assigning 19 tones to two 12-tone octaves. considering the 19 pitches as derived by a series of altered fifths one piano is tuned to sharps and naturals, the other to flats and duplicated sharps. the music is of a vigorous, rather percussive nature and makes free use of the unique sonorities and progressions available in 19. a particular attachment is seen for intervals derived from the golden section-the interval c to f-flat is very close to .382 octaves. in other places, sonorities reminiscent of yasser are seen. of particular interest is an attempt to treat 12 of the 19 tones in serial fashion, reserving the other seven for the purpose of modulation. little use seems to be made ofpentadic harmony; this may be partly due to instrumentallimitations. a tape containing the preludes and a number of textual illustrations accompanies the manuscript. as it is really an integral part of the dissertation, the prospective reader should make an effort to obtain it. the publication of this work would fulfill an important function, as there is no good reference book available on multiple division. anyone considering a seminar on the subject would be advised to locate some copies, before plunging into partch and others. however, since six years have passed, a number of additions and revisions would be desirable. a considerable amount of new material has appeared, so far unpublished, from an informal but very active group in los angeles.7 this group has' also been active in building instruments and performing locally. in the general literature, important suggestions have been made in psychoacoustics as well. some exploration into the serial properties of 19 as '19 should be offered for the sake of composers who lean toward this technique. since it is a system with a prime number of tones, 19 has certain properties not shared by 12. for example, neither an all-interval row nor an all-interval set is possible. nonetheless, in spite of its age, this work is an indispensable addition to anyone's library on multiple division and should be made available by better channels than interlibrary loans and university microfilms. footnotes 1 rvor darreg has suggested the term xenharmonics. 2 this is his general theory of the division of the octave, appearing in his book an elementary treatise on musical tuning and temperament, london 1876. 3 for example, ervin wilson has developed what he calls "diaphonic cycles", which combine arithmetic division with tetrachordal articulation. 4 a collection of records is currently available from cruzada pro-sonido 13, santfsimo 25, san angel, d.f. mexico. o two other examples of golden ratio systems are schroer's "aureotonality" and walter o'connell's ingenious and elaborate system which is to appear in volume 8 of the english edition of die reihe. 6 defining intervals are small intervals set equal to zero degrees of a temperament. they comprise the various commas and dieses. 7 this group is made up of colleagues and students of ervin wilson, harry partch, and others. 142 there is no justification for "free rhythm'" in grocheo or any other medieval theorist; but we have no proof that it never existed. we must be content with the best explanation of the facts that can be devised. "free rhythm" is not such an explanation. how can we accept that "the use of a rhythmically noncommittal notation in times when a metrical script was available indicates a free or optional rhythm" (sachs 1953: 178), when examples abound of motets and conductus in non-mensural notation? anonymous iv tells us that such pieces were read "by the understanding alone, by saying, 'i take this note as long, and that oneas short' ... " and on the evidence available there is no reason to suppose that a similar practice was not applied to monodic songs in non-mensural notation. references beck, jean-baptiste 1927 chansonnier cange, 2 vols., philadelphia. 1938 le manuscrit du roi, 2 vols., philadelphia. coussemaker, charles henri edmond de, 1864 scriptorum de musica •.. , 4 vols., paris. grocheo, johannes de 1943 der musiktraktat des johannes de grocheo, ed. ernst rohloff, (media latinitas musica ii), leipzig. sachs, curt 1953 rhythm and tempo, new york. spanke, hans, ed. 1955 gaston raynauds bibliographie des altjranzosischen liedes, leiden. vanderwerf; hendrik 1965 the trouvere chansons as creations of a notation1ess musical culture. current musicology (1965) 1: 61-68. 1967 deklamatorischer rhythmus in den chansons der trouveres. die musikforschung (1967) 20: 122-144. concerning the measurability oj medieval music hendrik vanderwerf i am very grateful to neal zaslaw for his invitation to add some commentary to j. e. maddrell's article printed above. understandably i am also very appreciative of mr. maddrell's acknowledgment of having been influenced by some of my writings, and i am happy to respond to some of his "observations, offered in the hope of provoking discussion." i welcome this opportunity especially since mr. maddrell directs attention to medieval theory, a source of information i have not touched upon in my publications in journals, although i have not at all ignored it in my research. i am very much intrigued with maddrell's evaluations of some of the medieval statements in relation to rhythm and meter in medieval music, but 69 i hope that his article is not a return to evaluation of medieval music as it was prevalent early in this century and before. it was customary in those days to concentrate on treatises for one's information on medieval music, without simultaneous evaluation of the preserved music in all its sources; at that time this approach could be in part because the treatises were much more accessible than the practical sources. maddrell turns to actual music only once when prompted by grocheo's mention of four actual songs, three of which occur in the ghansonnier gange. i suppose that i have no reason to be disappointed that maddrell does not refer to my evaluation of the notation in that chansonnier, but i think i amjustly disappointed by his own evaluation of it and by the lack of evaluation of the other ten sources in which these same chansons occur. one cannot simply say that the gange "clearly uses longs and breves for single notes." interestingly, one of the three chansons under discussion, quant ii rossignol (r 1559), occurs twice in the ghansonnier gange (on fols. 110 and 117) and, if it was the scribe's intention to indicate the meter ofthis chanson by using longs and breves, he must have changed that meter drastically from the first to the second notation. i had specific reasons for omitting discussion of medieval theories from my article on declamatory rhythm in the chansons of the trouveres. there was first the practical cqncern of keeping the article reasonably short in order to make it qualify for inclusion in a journal. i hope to have an opportunity to fill this gap in my forthcoming book on the songs of the troubadours, trouveres, and minnesinger. but there was a second and more important reason for leaving this part of the discussion for a later publication: i have my doubts about the practical value of grocheo's writing on this whole subject. but before explaining these doubts i would like to question some specific observations made by maddrell. i fail to see how grocheo's remark-whatever it may mean-about the ductia, which have no text, can shed any light on the performance of the chansons, which do have text and which, in the opinion of many medievalists, were poems in the first place. i also wonder about maddrell's observation that grocheo "tells us that the cantus coronatus was performed with instrumental accompaniment" and that this fact is "difficult to reconcile with 'free rhythm' as it is generally understood." why are free rhythm and instrumental accompaniment so difficult to reconcile? furthermore, where does grocheo say that the cantus coronatus is accompanied? there are two very cryptic passages in the treatise (rohloff, p. 52 and p. 63) in which the words "viella" and "cantus coronatus" occur within the same sentence. both passages are so obscure that even ardent advocates of instrumental accompaniment hesitate to rely upon them. in addition, there is a rather questionable translation by albert seay of a passage (rohloff, p. 50) in which the word "coronatur" is translated as "is accompanied ... (i.e., instrumentally)" rather than as "is crowned" (i.e., in a contest). (johannes de grocheo goncerning music, translated by albert seay, colorado springs, 1967, p. 16.) 70 i would also like to .question maddrell's interpretation of the famous statement by anonymous iv quoted at the very end of the above article. why is it so certain that the unknown author is referring to clearly measurable music? is it not possible that there were long and short notes in free rhythm? i for one would think so, although such longs and shorts would not be in a ratio of 1:2 or 1 :3. when trying to pry information about meter and rhythm in medieval music from statements by theorists we have to keep in mind the peculiar tradition of treatises about musica; above all we have to realize that the word musica as used by the learned writers of the middle ages is not necessarily synonymous with our word music. indeed many treatises hardly touch upon the latter; instead they discuss numerical laws, partly inherited from the greeks, which were supposed to govern all movements and functions of the bodies in the universe, of human beings, and of what we call music, the latter seemingly including poetry. it is obvious that in many instances music owes the privilege of being discussed in treatises about musica exclusively to its property of being the only readily measurable element in the entire realm of musica. in such treatises we find discussion about scales, about the ratios of intervals, and about verse feet in classical latin poetry and certain ambrosian hymns. this poetry was extremely suitable because it was based upon an alternation of long and short syllables in a ratio of 2 : 1. the entire discussion of duration in medieval music is given in such a way that it is clear that, even if all medieval music had been performed in free rhythm, it would have been unlikely that there would have been a place for something as unmeasurable as free rhythm in a discussion about musica. there are also instances in which learned authors of the middle ages write primarily about actual music, but the concept that music is part of musica very often makes the authors prejudiced; they insist upon taking it for granted that music has all the properties of musica and that therefore music must be measurable in all aspects, regardless of whether the author could discern this measurability or not. thus free rhythm was something medieval theorists tried to circumvent or at best it was mentioned without giving it the proper name. in the statements from grocheo quoted by maddrell the distinction between music and musica is so blurred that it is impossible to distinguish clearly and consistently between the two. and perhaps the only safe conclusion one may draw is the observation that not all medieval music was as clearly measurable as grocheo would have liked it to be; in other words, all music was measurable as long as one did not measure too precisely. when giving his own division of music grocheo does not lump plainsong and secular monody together, as maddrell rightly points out, but neither does he lump secular monody together with measurable music. and he may have had good reasons for his division of music into three groups other than a preference for tripartite divisions. one could perhaps argue that, if all chansons by troubadours and trouveres had been performed in some form of clearly measurable meter, grocheo or some other theorist of the time 71 would have amply described it. yet we find no such discussion in treatises about either musica or rhetoric, and treatises on the latter certainly present extensive discussions on the art of writing chansons. next i would like to respond to maddrell's observation that "it is, surely, an editor's duty to minimize discrepancies between medieval and modern choices [of "rhythmization"] by choosing on behalf of the performer a rhythm likely to have been chosen by his medieval counterpart." i realize fully that the terms "free" and "declamatory" by themselves do not solve the problem of how each individual chanson was performed seven or eight centuries ago nor how it should be performed now. but, i trust, my discussion of free rhythm in die musiliforschung has made it sufficiently clear that we have to examine each chanson <in its own merits, and that different performers and editors are likely to come to different conclusions regarding the choice of rhythm and tempo. one can certainly advocate that an expert editing medieval songs which are to be performed in a free rhythm should notate these songs in such a way that the non-expert also may know how to perform them. thus there is some reason to publish such songs in modern notation with notes of different length and perhaps even with barlines. but such an editor should certainly go as far as to work out a "rhythmization" for each stanza because of the differences in meaning and distribution of accents from stanza to stanza. and certainly such "rhythmization" should be accompanied by an emphatic statement that these indications for duration and accentuation should be taken very freely. although much may be said in favor of this way of editing, one can also make strong objections. the first requirement for performing these chansons is a clear and perfect understanding of the text; fulfillment of this requirement should make "rhythmizations" by the editor superfluous, perhaps even a hindrance. by presenting a chanson as rigidly as our notational system requires one risks asking too much attention for the melody, and one may well obscure one of the most important characteristics ofa chanson: it is a poem performed to a simple and unobtrusive melody in such a way that the text receives the almost undivided attention of performer and listener alike. i would like to take this opportunity to follow maddrell's example and present some observations of my own in the hope of provoking discussion. when in the treatises about musica the learned authors turn to measurability in time, they all agree that music is measurable. they are specific and clear when discussing measurability in modal or mensural notation and in latin poetry based upon classical quantitative verse feet, but they are vague, circuitous, or even incomprehensible when discussing duration in plainchant and other monophonic music, as well as in polyphonic music predating modal and mensural notation. for a long time it was acceptable practice to take it for granted that all or most medieval music, especially polyphony, was clearly measurable in time and that determining the exact meter of a given piece was up to the modern perhaps it would be more practical to assume that a given piece of medieval music was conceived in 72 free rhythm unless there is good evidence for the opposite interpretation. mensural or modal notation in one source of a given piece is not necessarily sufficient evidence that the piece was conceived as such; it only indicates that the scribe of that particular manuscript was of the opinion that the piece concerned should or could be performed in the meter indicated. i also venture to question the theories regarding the origin and development of polyphonic music as based upon discussions by medieval theorists. the order in which the successive theorists introduce polyphonic music does not necessarily represent the order in which it originated and developed, only the order in which it gradually became acceptable for inclusion in discussions of musica. no one writing about musica in· the eighth or ninth century would have considered discussing "underdeveloped" polyphony, which was measurable in time, in which the singers were not very much concerned about "staying together," and which showed no clear preference for beautiful ratios in the intervals between the different voices. simultaneously we have to question the assumptions that polyphony was started by the person who was the first to add consciously a second part to a preexisting melody, that this was first done in the frame of the liturgical music, and that even these earliest polyphonists were consciously trying to "stay together." instead it may be more in keeping with the findings of anthropological and ethnomusicological studies to assume that the chaotic cacophony of primeval men gradually developed in two different directions: one development led towards singing in unison, the other towards various forms of primitive polyphony-or heterophony as some may call it-which in turn led to the very sophisticatea compositorial techniques developed by western composers from the late 12th or 13th century on. even if it were possible to distinguish unequivocally between cacophony and primitive polyphony it would probably be impossible to determine now which one of the developments was the first to come to fruition: the branch leading towards unison singing or the one leading to polyphony. one development is likely to have influenced the other, and both are likely to have been influenced by solo singing. a question for which we may be able to find an answer is: how did polyphonic singing creep into the christian liturgy, an area in which so much symbolic value seems to have been given to singing in unison? the above observations are not intended to question the general value of the medieval treatises about musica. although the value of individual treatises differs widely, as a group they are precious sources of information on medieval philosophy, aesthetics, mathematics, astrology, astronomy, and the like. however, as far as the reconstruction of early western music is concerned, their practical value has been somewhat overrated, while the study of ethnomusicology-or comparative musicology, as some prefer to call it-has been far underrated. 73 richard carroll davis-self parody among the cantatas of johann sebastian bach ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-4542), 1962. (547 pp. in 2 vols., boston university diss.) robert l. marshall scholars have been fascinated by j. s. bach's practice of parody almost from the very beginnings of bach scholarship. as early as 1855 wilhelm rust, the principal editor of the bach-gesellschaft complete edition, briefly discussed bach's parody procedures in the foreword of his first volume of cantatas for the bg (vol. vl). eighteen years later, in vol. xx2 ofthe bg, rust presented a more thorough description of the extent and nature of bach's use of parody. he reported there for the first time that large portions of such important lost works as the st. mark passion and the funeral music for the death of prince leopold of anhalt-cathen were almost entirely preserved in the music of the trauer-ode, bwv 198, and the st. matthew passion, respectively. in the same year, 1873, the first volume of philipp spitta's classic biography appeared, containing further discussion of parody-related pieces. since then the potentialities and importance of investigation. in this field of bach research have been abundantly clear. but, as mr. davis remarks in the introduction of his dissertation, although many valuable articles and monographs on this subject have been written in the 20th century, no one has "undertaken a complete analysis of all extant parodies and their models." the dissertation under review here does not attempt to embrace all the surviving parody compositions but only those cast in the form of cantatas and based on other cantatas written by bach himself. it therefore does not consider such works as the b minor mass or the christmas oratorio. those compositions are the subject of a companion doctoral dissertation, "the use of contrafacta in the large choral works of j. s. bach," submitted to boston university in 1960 by robert william holmes. the present review is concerned only with the study of mr. davis. the dissertation is in two parts. part one, general discussion of parody works and movements, is just under 200 pages long and, in the words of the author, "reflects the work of many musicologists of the past and present." 129 ,.. it is a review, then, of the secondary literature, dealing with biographical, chronological, and philological information, "and other pertinent historical facts" designed to "familiarize the reader with the parody cantatas." part two, classification and ana?jses oj changes, represents "the original contribution of the author." this section is close to 300 pages long and is followed by an appendix. the four chapters of part one (oh. i: parodies from weimar models, oh. 2: parodies from ooethen models, oh. 3: parodies from leipzig models, oh. 4: parodies of miscellaneous isolated movements) present the historical background to each parody pair in chronological order. throughout this part traditional broad generalizations are quite naively accepted or new ones just as naively proposed without sufficiently rigorous or critical evaluation. before turning to a critique of details, it is more profitable to consider first some of the larger questions raised or latent in part one. davis assumes that all the models discussed in his thesis have "at least one point in common. bach himself considered each of them important enough for parody .... " there is, however, no biographical information concerning bach's attitudes that justifies this remark. surely it would have been sufficient to assume only that bach found these works suitable for parody. this assumption, of course, raises the question: what makes a work suitable for parody? this question, highly relevant, is not considered in the dissertation. the author maintains several times that "bach's revision of existing music for new works often seemed to require as much if not more effort than that required for the composition of fresh musical material," a statement which evidently assumes that a large-scale change reflects a large-scale effort. while there is no way of knowing precisely how much effort any compositional act-large or small-represented for bach, it would have been possible to approach an answer to this question by examining the autograph scores. the author was convinced, however (p. xxi), that a "pilgrimage to european libraries to seek out manuscripts and lost originals was not necessary for the analysis in part two." such a pilgrimage would not only have been thoroughly enjoyable but also a revelation. it would have prevented a number of erroneous judgments bearing not only on the degree of effort bach expended in a particular situation, but, more significantly, on whether a composition is indeed an original or a parody. but if, for the moment, we share mr. davis' assumption that a parody often represented a considerable creative effort, then it puzzles one how often parody compositions are deemed by him to be of "inferior quality," or how "poor declamation" can be put forth as a criterion for establishing that a work is a parody. there is, in fact, a certain ambivalent attitude on the part of the author toward the entire parody process. this is perhaps most clearly evident in the following passage: all of the musical examples presented in this chapter [on declamation and interpretation of the text] so far show that bach's somewhat mechanical manipulation of phrase and note [?] structure was not wholly an 130 instinctive process. some of the changes were obviously rendered with considerable· deliberation and care. at times the original beauty of a phrase was damaged by a necessary alteration, sometimes it was improved. considering that a seemingly insignificant change made by a tyro can easily reduce great art to a mere banality, most of the alterations are commendable and disclose the flourishes of a master's touch (p.366f.) the internal inconsistencies of this passage-along with the confused use of "all," "some," "most," etc.-reveal that the author is uncertain in deciding whether the parody compositions are to be considered refinements and improvements of works which bach thought "important" enough to submit to revision and often transformation, or whether they were more or less successful rearrangements and adaptations of earlier compositions that happened to be handy when a new work had to be prepared on short notice. it is possible, of course, that in some cases the one explanation applies and in some cases the other. perhaps this is even what the author had in mind when, as a justification for the existence of part one, he wrote that an analysis of the kind to be presented in the second half of the dissertation "obviously" requires the knowledge of the correct chronology. but nowhere is the chronological information made relevant to the study. it merely provides a convenient means of determining the order in which compositions or examples are discussed. the question whether bach's technique of parody or his attitude towards the practice changed during his career is not investigated in the dissertation. this whole complex of issues-the "importance" or "suitability" of the models, the criteria for determining whether a composition is a parody in the first place (and if so, whether it is or is not successful), the evidence bearing on the degree of "effort" or mere "mechanical manipulation" in the parody process, and the relevance of chronology to all these questions-should have been sorted out and considered somewhere in the dissertation. part one, unfortunately, is also unreliable as a summary of earlier research. a few examples taken from chapter i should illustrate this. the description of pitch and tuning perpetuates the misunderstanding ofspitta and the older bach research that the weimar organ was tuned in hoher chorton, a minor third higher than the kammerton pitch of the woodwinds. the publications of alfred diirr (studien iiber die friihen kantaten j. s. bachs, cited in davis' bibliography), arthur mendel ("on the use of pitch in bach's time," the musical quarter[y, 1955, not cited in the bibliography), and others, however, have long established that the weimar organ was not tuned in a high key, but rather that the woodwinds at times were tuned in the tief-kammerton. in the same chapter erdmann neumeister is referred to as bach's librettist. while there are a number of librettists with whom bach collaborated closely, such as salomo franck, christian hunold, and picander, neumeister was not one of them and indeed was no more closely associated with bach than metastasio was with mozart. 131 with no mention of his source, davis asserts that bach performed the "hunting cantata," bwv 208, at weissenfels "against the will" of his weimar patron duke wilhelm ernst, and that this "cost bach his promotion to kapellmeister." spitta claims, though, that wilhelm ernst in fact directed bach and "his librettist" salomo franck to compose the cantata for the festivities at weissenfels. in the course of chapter ii davis offers a generous summary of the findings in friedrich smend's bach in kothen and cites smend's method for finding lost cothen works: deduce the characteristics common to known parodies whose originals were written in cothen and then attempt to locate missing ones by comparison of these identifying elements. davis himself makes no attempt to apply this method, or, for that matter, to develop any new criteria for identifying parodies, or for reconstructing lost originals from parody compositions. (on p. 442 one reads that "bach's methods are so unpredictable that some [sic] movements cannot be authentically reconstructed with absolute cer. tainty." which ones can be, and how does one go about it?) as mentioned earlier, he frequently resorts to the traditional criterion-poor declamationas confirmation, or even proof, of parody. thus he maintains (p. 32) that the declamation in the chorus "nimm auch, grosser furst, uns auf," bwv 173a/8, is "curious enough to prove that the music existed previously in some other form." but in discussing the parody pair bwv 173a/l-bwv 173/1 a few pages earlier (p. 27), davis concedes that the text of the parody represents an "improvement in declamation and artistic content" over the original. he writes in another place that "it is axiomatic that wherever faulty accentuation exists, or that absolute agreement between text and music is lacking, the movement is a parody" (p. 193). there is, however, no such axiom. poor declamation is no infallible proof of parody. friedrich blume proposed at the new york congress of 1961 that many of the arias written by bach during his first few years in leipzig surely must be parodies, for there were numerous instances of poor declamation and missed opportunities for word-painting. of the five movements mentioned by blume at the congress as possible parodies, however (bwv 144/2,5, bwv 25/5, bwv 2/5, and bwv 38/3), three (bwv 144/2 and 5, and bwv 2/5) exist in autograph composing scores and are clearly not parodies. (there are no surviving autograph scores for bwv 25 and 38.) the autograph score ofbwv 173a, too, is clearly a "composing" score throughout and not a parody. part two of the dissertation, representing the "original contribution of the author," is an "analysis of the various musical techniques used in parodies, such as instrumentation, declamation, fragmentation." the author's method was to make a "note by note comparison of all parody cantatas with their models for which music is available. wherever differences exist, an attempt is made to determine bach's reasons for making these changes .... " the five chapters of this part are entitled (1) instrumentation, (2) octave displacement of melody, (3) ornamentation, (4) declamation and interpretation of text, (5) fragmentation. 132 the material presented in the first three chapters of part two-over 100 pages of the text-describes compositional acts that are not peculiar to the process of parody. almost all the instances of substitution, addition, or deletion of instruments recorded in chapter i are attributed by davis, no doubt correctly, to external circumstances concerning the availability of instruments or performers and related matters. similar revisions often accompanied later performances of original works as well, when circumstances, or taste, dictated. alterations such as the transposition of a note or group of notes up or down an octave to secure. an effective melodic accent or a strong structural bass line, or to keep a part playable; the subsequent addition of ornaments; the correction of outright errors such as parallel fifths and octaves or inexact repetition of identical material-all such gestures are observable in the surviving manuscript material of original compositions, as well as in the scores of parodies. they thus testify to bach's working habits in general rather than casting any special light on the technique of parody. the same comment applies even to the chapter on "fragmentation." in the words of the author, fragmentation refers to insertions, deletions or exchanges of measures or fractions of measures when parodies were formed. usually fragmentation was necessitated by a new and dissimilar text. sometimes it occurred for less obvious reasons within instrumental sections. in either case, fragmentation changes are of special interest because they alter the symmetry [i.e., structure?] of a movement (p. 400). he continues, "considering the difficulties encountered while fitting a new text of different meter and proportions to an existing work, bach's reasons for troubling himself with these problems are a mystery" (p. 402). his speculations about bach's possible reasons reveal again his ambivalence about parody: (1) "the need for a number in a hurry with nothing more appropriate available" (i.e., the negative-and paradoxical-attitude: why employ a particularly difficult technique when the work has to be done in a hurry?) ; (2) "a requirement [desire?] for music which fits the meaning of a new text rather than its physical form" (a good explanation, but not always appropriate. as davis points out in discussing the parody pair bwv 75/7-bwv 100/6, fragmentation technique-here the addition of measures-is employed even though the two texts have exactly the same structure and are indeed different verses of the same chorale); (3) "recognising the potentialities of old music with a desire to improve it and use it again" (i.e., the positive attitude towards parody). in fact, the fragmentation technique is not peculiar to parody compositions. werner neumann's description of "permutation" and "combination" in bach's choral fugues, alfred durr's description of the "ritornello quotation" in the arias, emil platen's analysis of the structure of bach's chorale choruses all call attention to the large-scale use of the fragmentation technique, i.e., to bach's facility in combining and recombining component parts (measures or groups of measures) into new configurations. the implication 133 to be drawn from the pervasiveness of this technique seems clear; it is surely that the notion of an "organic" theme is essentially irrelevant in a discussion of bachian melody. "phrases" are rather chains of motives that, like molecules, could be joined together or detached as the composer saw fit. the fragmentation technique thus afforded bach a flexibility that enabled him to adjust pre-existent phrases to new texts, and davis' examples amply illustrate bach's resourcefulness in applying it in choruses, arias, and recitatives. only the fourth chapter of part two is concerned with the particular problems of parody composition. bach's methods of replacing few syllables with many, or the reverse, are imaginative yet usually simple. often apparently more was involved than texting a melisma, subdividing a long note, or adding or deleting one or two notes or rests. of course, something more was involved, at least in the more successful passages: the unfortunately (or fortunately) unanalyzable factors of artistic instinct-of taste. at other times the structure of a vocal line seems quite transformed, although, as davis points out, the resemblance to the original is still discernible. even these techniques, however, can be found in original compositions. they are all in some way manifestations of the baroque ostinato and concerto principies: free obbligato lines continually spun out against the recurring theme or tutti ritornello. appended to the dissertation are two forbidding compilations, giving in volume, page, and measure numbers the location of every instance in which discrepancies between model and parody appear. the tables are intended, of course, as a convenience for the reader and future scholars, but any prospective student of the parody process will doubtless prefer to place the scores of the related works side by side and see the changes for himself in context rather than turn to these lists. the last straw in this dissertation, however, is the last paragraph. one reads there in this age of enlightenment the following: an interesting study would be the further investigation of other works by bach which indicate carelessness in writing, but which have no extant parodies. based upon observation of analogous situations in the known parodies, one may correct and refine all of bach's work in a manner which the master himself may have done. practical editions of bach's works should strive for perfection of these musical forms, a perfection for which bach continuously strived. they should not always strive for perfect fidelity to the manuscript, which often contains great errors that escaped a hurried hand (p. 474). before anyone is tempted to embark upon that interesting study he may be reminded that the "complete analysis" of bach's parody technique still has to be written. that study will be supported by a sturdy biographical and bibliographical foundation; it will make extensive and thoughtful use of all relevant manuscript material; and it will consider the technique and practice of parody within the larger context of the bachian compositional technique in general. 134 modulation-an exact parallel, to give one example, to the new scientific conception that a few fundamental laws of nature such as the law of gravitation could be dynamically applied to a variety of individual situations. (of course, further close musical parallels within this general framework can be cited to the more particular world forms of each era;) in order for a listener to appreciate such a unified musica] form, paralleling the new general form of world, he had to view the progress of the piece as a whole. if the complex sequential development of moods were to be grasped, the piece had to be seen in its totality. the listener's sole preoccupation with the moment-to-moment impact of a piece was thereby necessarily altered; the composition had to be seen as a separate entity, like an object which can be set apart at a distance and whose completeness creates a space of its own. it had to be appreciated as a total dynamic process, with a corresponding space formed of the interrelationship of all its elements from beginning to end. so considered, its space paralleled that of the basic world of the 17th through the 19th century. what then of today ? if the philosophy of world as here briefly outlined is valid, it must, ipsofacto, apply to itself. the world form of today then must be . precisely the reayization that the world is essentially human-formed. rather than residing in a set system of laws of nature, each system is relative to the observer. this is paralleled in music by the abandonment of classic triadic tonality as a structuring element, in favor of new modes of procedure. in the absence of such a culturally pre-given framework, both composer and listener are required to construct significance in relation to each new work. similarly, the exploitation of spontaneity and unpredictability emphasizes that meaning is whatever you choose to make it. so too, the strong syncopated rhythms of jazz project one forcefully out of this everyday world into more dramatic ones for the sheer experience of taking the trip. where it will go now, there is no telling. yet it is clear that music, like all art, in dealing with the experiential is as essential as science for the development of our consciousness of world. one can only say, play on. maria rika maniates, musical form: product and process since it is impossible in the short space allotted for respondent papers to discuss all the points raised by miss carpenter, i should like to focus on what is, to my mind, the most original contribution of her brilliant essay. her distinction between musical form as externalized product, or a whole piece of music, and musical form as internalized process, or a random series of musical events, yields extremely important ramifications for both our ontological and historical conceptions of music. to mull over terms such as "objective, articulated, spatial, organic, architectonic" is not to quibble over 110 .. ) '" semantics, for these terms reveal how we perceive the world of our experience. they are extensions of our mode of consciousness. by crystallizing our notion of the musical piece as a complete gestalt outside ourself, we come to realize that this notion-including as it does the implication of a highly-structured, organic form-is actually relevant to musical works belonging to a particular tradition. the central core of this tradition is strikingly small: western european music of the 18th and 19th centuries. according to miss carpenter, the works of 20th-century composers such as john cage, the canzona and ricercar of the 16th and early 17th centuries, and non-western music lie outside this tradition. these works are syncretic, diffuse, and involve the moment-to-moment happening of musical events; they are process rather than product. our relationship to musical products is such that we tend to objectify "a piece" both perceptually and conceptually. it is a complete, detached and fixed "thing." our relationship to musical process is such that we tend to participate in depth in the musical activity; since our perception demands total involvement with internal succession of details, we find it difficult to conceptualize musical process in an abstract, objective way. furthermore, any effort to do so may be entirely beside the point. contemporary ,philosophies and aesthetics of music seem inadequate because they tacitly attempt to found criteria for understanding the essence of music on the basis of the objectified conception ofa musical piece. and yet this conception is applicable only to the local tradition of which miss carpenter speaks. for example, suzanne langer's theory of music as symbolizing the morphology of feeling and leonard meyer's idea of musical affectivity arising from the inhibition of responsorial tendencies both depend on the notion of dynamic, antecedent-consequent discourse in a temporal order of causality. it is impossible to relate their approach to western music before or after this local tradition, not to mention the enormous field of non-western music. miss carpenter's study points up the urgent need for musical theorists and philosophers to broaden their concept of musical being. in so doing, they would permit aesthetics of music to catch up with recent developments in the general field of ontology and thus reinstate the centrality of their contribution to philosophy of art. whether they seek to posit a general philosophy of music, or an aesthetic of a specific tradition of music (let us say, that of 18thand 19th-century style), their results will be all the more valid when put in the proper perspective. miss carpenter's discussion of time and duration, while necessarily limited by the nature of her topic, reaffirms my conviction that a study of music as durational happening-that is, an ontological study of the primary mode of music as existent phenomenonmust serve as the foundation for any further philosophical enquiry. even rather well-worn (perhaps out-worn) dissertations on emotion and feeling in music can benefit from such a study, for it would effectively demonstrate in what areas such searches for the "beautiful in music" could be effectively conducted. 111 this latter point brings up the question of historical studies. to illustrate the fundamental change from process to product in its historical framework, miss carpenter discusses the ricercar and fugue as exemplars of these two types. this choice is indeed a felicitous one since the appearance of the ricercar coincided with the 16th-century idea of "opus perfectum et absolutum." miss carpenter points out the importance of a new idea at that time -the notated, published composition-the objective "res facta." yet this idea is not at all new; elsewhere miss carpenter herself states that "our entire tradition of music in the west has been engaged in setting apart the musical object, in stabilizing the musical process into product" (p. 66). indeed, the development of western music from the 10th century on can be seen as a long struggle with the problem of notating the aural experience of music, and hence of objectifying the musical work. this concern is peculiar to western t., consciousness and sets it apart from other cultures with equally complex and distinguished musical traditions. in the west, as notation slowly perfected itself, it became capable of fixing more and more details of the heard work on to paper. the role of performance improvisation diminished as the sophistication of notation increased. today, with the possibility offreezing actual heard sounds on tape without the mediation of symbolic notation, the composer possesses immediate control over the objectified aural product; the interpretive role of performance becomes negligible. with the further possibility of electronically generated sounds, this variable factor moves toward total dispensability. the opposite tendency away from total objectification of the musical piece in the 20th century is, of course, aleatoric music, where the performer controls vital parameters of the musical material. by virtue of its diffuse form, however, aleatoric music is process and not product; it therefore· does not belong in the historical development of musical objectification sketched above. with this long-range view in mind; it is difficult to see that any drastic change in the development of musical objectification occurred in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. what miss carpenter implies, but never clearly states, is that a particularly strong and decisive impetus toward conceptual stabilization of the musical object took place at that time. up to the 17th century, the evolution of musical objectification had been a very gradual one involving primarily the changing relationship of notated elements and improvised performance practice. both these aspects operated within the conceptual arena of musical process-a process which historians call western polyphony. when ricercar became fugue, the conceptual arena itself changed character-musical process became musical product, and within a short time span there appeared other abstract instrumental forms, such as the concerto grosso, sonata principle, etc. what caused this change that fundamentally altered man's conception and perception of music itself? it is not accidental that the philosophical concept of the autonomy of "a piece" and the musical concept of abstract, objective forms should appear after the advent of music printing. marshall mcluhan has based his study 112 of our changing modes of perception on the successive influence of oral, manuscript, printed, and electronic communication. according to mcluhan, technologies are extensions of our sensory and nervous systems, and ultimately shape our manner of perceiving the world around us. the point is that the musical product, the objective "piece of music," the temporally dynamic, goal-oriented musical structure made their appearance in the gutenberg galaxy. printing implied that a pictorial statement could be repeated precisely and indefinitely: "opus perfectum et absolutum." printing inevitably resulted in the predominance of visual orientation-an orientation which is basic to miss carpenter's argument for objectified spatial form in music. printing surreptitiously led to a mechanized principle of repeatability and a mental attitude of abstraction and classification. it also shaped a form of thought emphasizing linear, causal relationships. these few ideas suggest that the specific impact of printing occupies a most important and central position in miss carpenter's thesis. in one sense, printing can be considered as the logical culmination of a development from oral to handwritten dissemination of music. but the medium itself can be the message, and, in this case, the technology of printing furnished the necessary ground for a complete objectification of the musical object. if we turn to our own century-the electronic age-we are reminded of mcluhan's image, "the global village." the introduction of electronic media has resuscitated a primitive outlook; we now experience in depth and with total involvement. we do not stand outside the work but in its center; we like to participate in a process rather than perceive a product. mcluhan's admiration of john cage's aleatory compositions is well known. but is process in cage's music the same as process in pre-baroque music? renaissance polyphony, seen from this point of view, appears to be janus-faced, looking forward and backward at the same time. it is certainly not as objectively causal or developmental as the music of the gutenberg galaxy; nor is it as completely chance or haphazard as contemporary aleatory. the different degrees and dimensions of musical process-from the minimum to the maximum of possible controlling factors-need more careful study. returning to our pivotal case in point, the ricercar, miss carpenter states that it developed from vocal polyphony of the renaissance. her analysis of musical process in polyphony is excellent, but she fails to take into account the fact that renaissance polyphony is vocal polyphony. while the one-toone relationship of word and tone varied considerably during this period, the total text, either apparently or inherently, determined the over-all dimensions of the polyphonic procedure from the vantage point of the listenerperformer. the ricercar employed the principles of polyphonic process without the text, and herein lies the secret of its problematical status as a successful instrumental composition. although it was not possible to do more than indicate a few lines of thought arising from miss carpenter's paper, my response attempted to underline the basic importance of her distinction between musical process and product. 113 while her analysis of "product" is carefully executed and provocative, her discussion of "process" seems to need further clarification. perhaps we can look forward to such a study in miss carpenter's future publications. richard l. crocker the articles by miss carpenter and myself have produced a gratifying divergence of responses. but if the respondents had difficulty responding to us, i, at least, find it impossible to formulate a response to them that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. in availing myself of this opportunity kindly provided by the editors, permit me to make only a very small point and a very large one. as to the small point, one or two of the respondents seemed confused as to my own position. i was, in fact, trying to be soft-spoken; now let me speak hard: the "common notions" i presented (i think they are clearly identified) are emphatically not my own. i fail to see how any intelligent person, upon due reflection, could continue to subscribe without qualification to those simple-minded ideas i put forward under a politely collective "we." i trust that no one shares the ideas in question; if someone does, he does not share them with me. mr. cone seems unwilling to believe that any intelligent person, even miss carpenter or myself, could really intend to take positions as unreasonable as our language might suggest. mr. cone seems sure that a quick trip to the dictionary will straighten us out. for my part, i must reluctantly assure him that my position is still as unreasonable as it first appeared to him. mr. cone's own position is, of course, quite clear. as to the large point: i found both encouragement and horror in the fact that miss carpenter and seemingly all the respondents either explicitly asserted the decisive importance of historical concepts in resolving questions of aesthetics, or else tacitly agreed to such importance by invoking historical ideas to illuminate their arguments. i myself happen to think that history provides the only reliable answers to such problems, but i did not expect to find a half-a-dozen aestheticians agreeing with me. from this i take encouragement. what horrifies me is the content of many of the historical ideas invoked. the basic categories in which we have been trained to think about music history are not merely open to question; when questioned seriously, they often turn out to embody outright fabrication with little or no meaningful relationship to observable fact. it would be hard to construct on purpose a more fantastic and unwarranted system of assertions about western society from 700 to 1500 than the system retailed under the heading "middle ages" in books in common use. but, you say, we are not here discussing the middle 114 the use of greek tragedy zn the history of opera ruth zinar throughout the history of music the ancient greek tragedies have inspired composers of operas, ballets, oratorios, and symphonic works. the frequent use of greek themes stems from many reasons, foremost of which are the power and force of these ancient legends, the philosophical problems they present, and the question of man's fate that lies within them. these myths are among the oldest sources of inspiration in western art. unlike the bible, which composers have generally approached reverently, they have been subject to revision and varying attitudes depending on changes in outlook from one culture to the next. each generation sees the legends in the light of its own experience and environment, and the subject matter of opera used by that generation reflects its own preoccupations, prejudices, and preferences. as a result, not only have the musical treatments and interpretations of plots and characterizations of the greek tragedies varied in different periods,l but each age also appears to have its own attitudes as to which tragedies provide suitable material for operatic presentation. thus, certain themes become favorites for a time, only to give way to others in a later age. this article presents a survey of these changing preferences and prejudices as they pertain to the use of greek tragedy as subject matter for opera,2 as well as a tentative chronological listing of the operas based on certain themes from greek tragedy. it is not known at which point the greek tragedies of aeschylus, sophocles, and euripides were no longer presented in their original form, but by the time of plato dramatists were dealing with politics, war, love, and philosophy, as well as with the deeds of gods and ancestors. rome borrowed the dramas, performance methods, and music from the greek theater and then expanded, exaggerated, and distorted these borrowings. in the 3rd century a.d., athenaeus, a greek living in rome, complained that "in ancient times the greeks were music lovers, but later, with the breakdown of order, when practically all the ancient customs fell into decay, this devotion to principle ceased, and debased fashions in music came to light." in olden days, he continued, "it was the acts of heroes and the praise of gods that the poets put to song-music."3 in spite of the romans' preference for sensational spectacle, violence, rhetoric, and sensuality, greek tragedy in some form continued to be cultivated at least into the 3rd century. after the general recognition and acceptance of christianity, all arenas, including the theaters, were closed, and a new era in the history of music and its relationship to the theater began. like the ancient greeks, the early christian fathers considered music 80 important in influencing the thoughts and emotions of men. among the scholars and teachers of the time was clement of alexandria, who in his "exhortation to the greeks" (c. 200 a.d.) voiced the kind of opposition to the ancient tragedies which influenced the course of music throughout the medieval period: for my own part, mere legend though they are, i cannot bear the thought of all the calamities that are worked up into tragedy; yet in your hands the words of these evils have become dramas, and the actors of the dramas are a sight that gladdens your heart. but as for the dramas and the ... poets, who are altogether like drunken men, let us wreathe them, if you like, with ivy, while they are performing the mad revels of the bacchic rite, and shut them up .... under cover of music they have outraged human life, being influenced by daemons, through some artful sorcery, to compass man's ruin. by commemorating deeds of violence in their religious rites, and by bringing stories of sorrow into worship, they were the first to lead men by the hand to idolatry.4 this new doctrine of morality was foreign to the greek doctrine of fate, and the greek tragedies were seen as tales of horror, parricide, incest, and violence. as a result of the activities of the church, the theaters, with their music and drama, were abolished at the end of the roman empire, and liturgical dramas took their place. but although the tragedy and the theaters of the greeks and romans were not known to the masses during the middle ages, the great classical tragedies were studied in their latin translations in the schools of europe. during the renaissance, the knowledge of the classics of antiquity spread. in 1423 the plays of sophocles and aeschylus were first brought to italy by giovanni aurispa, a humanist and educator, and the study of greek made rapid progress. by the end of the century choruses in tragedies presented in the schools were sometimes set to music. during the 16th century renaissance artists turned to greek themes more often in spectacles characterized by a melange of gods, heroes, nymphs, satyrs, shepherds and shepherdesses, stupendous scenic effects, and a bringing together of song, dance, music, and costume. some plays, written in imitation of the greek originals, were performed as intermedii with solos, duets, madrigals, instrumental pieces, and choruses. among these was an alkestis by hans sachs (1555), which has been lost. the academie de poesie et de musique was founded in france by the poet bail in 1570 during the reign of charles ix. its purpose was to restore the ancient drama, and towards the end of the reign of henry iii, the academie was about to present "une piece de theatre en vers mesures a la farson des grecs,"5 when political troubles interfered. in 1585 the first performance of a greek tragedy with choruses set to music took place in a modern theater. sophocles' oedipus rex, translated into 81 italian by the scholar and statesman orsatto giustiniani, with music by andrea gabrieli, was chosen to inaugurate the opening of vicenza's teatro olimpico. although the production became the 16th-century model for performance practices of musical dramas,6 oedipus himself was banished, for it was apparently not until almost two hundred years later that an opera was based on his tragic story. shortly after gabrieli's oedipus rex the florentine camerata was formed with the aim of returning to the greatness of greek tragedy, but the new christian interpretations could not accept the greek concept of fate which was so intimately related to greek religion and to the greek theater. the first operas produced in florence were really festivals to celebrate occasions at court, and this may account for the fact that greek tragedies were not used as subject matter. ottavio rinuccini, as librettist, provided a happy ending for the opera euridice (1600). in his preface to the work, he described the approval with which such representations as his were received; he wrote that "some may feel that i have been overly bold in changing the end of the fable of orpheus; but so it seemed fitting to me at a time of such rejoicing."7 several years later striggio, the librettist for monteverdi's orfto (1607), intended to portray orpheus' death at the hands of the bacchantes but did not do so for fear of offending the court. instead, he had apollo lead orpheus to heaven to seek euridice in the beauty of the stars and the sun. these "happy endings" were typical of the period, and the operas of the early baroque became a mixture of love story, pastorale, and fairy tale. in her study of the use of alceste as subject matter in opera, abert states that the florentines would have thought it impossible to set a complete greek drama to music.s it appears from rinuccini's and striggio's treatments of the orpheus legend that one reason for the rejection of greek tragedy as subject matter during a period in which the "restoration" of the ancient theater was an ideal was that greek tragedies were, in fact, "tragic." their themes-the anguish and suffering depicted, the portrayal of rulers with all too human weaknesses-were inappropriate for the festive court occasions for which opera was supposed to be written. amid general corruption, political assassinations, and insecure conditions, the first public opera house, the teatro san cassiano, was opened in venice in 1637, and the masses, with their taste for longer, more spectacular works, gained admittance to the world of opera. the genre became a craze, and all the earlier tendencies were amplified. librettos caricatured the greek myths, so that gods acted like characters in an intrigue-filled farce based, in part, on the life of the period. tangled sub-plots, extraneous characters, mistaken identities, disguises, double triangles, casts of characters involving monsters, nymphs, and tritons, numerous stage machines for miracles, apparitions, transformations-all catered to the age's taste for spectacle and amusement and to the vanity of the absolute monarch (if there was one), the privileged nobility, or the wealthy middle class. throughout the 17th century, greek legend was a major source of librettos, and there were at least sixty-nine 82 operas based on ancient greek mythology which provided subject matter for two-thirds of those written and produced up to 1650, for a little more than halffrom 1650 to 1675, and for a little less than halffrom 1675 to 1700.9 this, then, was the picture of the opera stage when in 1649, almost half a century after the camerata, the first opera based on a classic greek tragedy, cavalli's giasone, was produced. in 1660 ziani's l'antigona delusa da alceste (with a libretto by aureli), was presented in venice. like other operas of the time, it was a drama of love, hate, revenge, and jealousy. the libretto was a fantastic distortion of euripides' original play, in which the old ideas of fate and friendship played no role. the greek tragedy of euripides contains a scene in which alceste is veiled after being rescued from death by hercules, and another in which she expresses her fear that admetos will take a new wife in her place after her self-sacrifice. these scenes (together with alceste's devotion, admetos' fatal illness, and the final rescue by hercules) provided a better starting point for the favorite type of baroque libretto than those of any other greek tragedy. aureli's libretto included mistaken identity, disguises, comic scenes, and two love stories ending with two happy couples, alceste and trasimedes (admeto's brother) and antigona (a foreign princess) and admetos. butler believes that this distortion and the preoccupation of baroque librettos with infidelity were based on christian ethics and constitute the hallmark of modernity.lo in the last years of the baroque period, beauty and charm began to dominate opera as the works became more superficial. machines were still popular, and the happy ending was mandatory. during this period a new heroine from the pages of greek tragedy appeared on the stage in operas supposedly based on euripides' iphigenia. one such opera, iphigenie en tauride (1704) by henri desmarets, contained distortions of the plot, and ballet, pageantry, and elaborate stage settings. at least five more operas based on iphigenia (in tauris or in aulis) appeared during the next fifteen years. at the close of the baroque period, alceste and iphigenia were still the legendary figures upon whom most of the operas based on themes from greek tragedy relied. during the rococo, subjects were drawn more from classical history or legend than from mythology. a number of critics of contemporaneous opera, however, still saw in greek tragedy the ideal subject matter. in it teatro alta moda (1720), benedetto marcello ridiculed the librettos of his time and gave ironic advice to poets: the librettist's subject matter need not be historically true. as a matter of fact, since all the greek and roman subjects have been treated ... the modern librettist is faced with the task of inventing a fable and adding to it all kinds of oracles, realistic shipwreck scenes, ... etc. all that is needed is to have an historical name or two on the public announcement of the work, the rest can then be freely invented and the 83 only further thing that matters is that the number of verses must not exceed twelve hundred, arias included.ll francesco algarotti also lamented this change in subject matter; he saw it as an economy measure and regretted that accounts of deities were renounced and historical themes used because they were less magnificent and hence less expensive. in 1755 he advised: the poet can conquer these difficulties [the expense of machines in production, the theme not suited for music, the story not familiar enough] only by choosing the subject of his libretto with the greatest care .... he should take his plots from events remote in time, or at least in place, that furnish occasion for marvelous happenings while at the same time being extremely simple and well-known.12 he went on to recommend especially the story of iphigenia in aulis, "where to the great variety of settings and machines is superadded the charm of ... euripides' poetry .... the poet ... will be in a position to do with opera what has to be done with states which, in order to keep it alive, have to go back to their roots from time to time. "13 diderot was another writer who mentioned the suitability of iphigenia in aulis as subject matter for opera. in his "entretiens sur le fils naturel" (1757), he said of clytemnestra's despair over the impending sacrifice of iphigenia, "i know of no verses ... that are more lyrical, nor of situations that are better suited to imitation by music. clytemnestra's state of mind must wrest from her inmost heart the cry of nature, and the composer will convey it to my ear in its most subtle shades."14 composers and librettists apparently responded either to these critics or to the same forces in society which elicited their recommendations. in the century prior to marcello's criticisms, only about a half dozen operas had been based on the iphigenia legends. in the little more than fifty years between that time and gluck's iphigenie en aulide (1774), there were at least fifteen. but the tragedies of agamemnon, the choephores, the eumenides (the oresteia trilogy of aeschylus, which contains the horror-ridden stories of agamemnon's murder by his wife clytemnestra and her subsequent murder by her own children, electra and orestes), and oedipus rex (who killed his own father) were almost completely ignored. gebel wrote an opera based on the oedipus legend in 1751, but otherwise the greek tragedies which explored the deepest and most powerful elements of human conflict and passions were avoided, as the rococo " ... presented the world with the most lighthearted, amoral, and beautiful entertainments ... a stage devoid of earnestness, pathos, and solemni ty. "15 the criticisms of the philosophers and intellectuals of the rococo eventually bore fruit in the next period of operatic history. in 1755, the same year in which algarotti had urged the use of tragedy as a suitable subject for opera, johann winckelmann, the classical archeologist, published his gedanken iiber 84 die nachahmung griechischer werke in der malerei und bildhauerkunst, a work which reawakened interest in antiquity. gluck was undoubtedly familiar with the ideas ofwinckelmann, algarotti, and marcello, and with 18th-century aesthetic theory, which saw music as the handmaiden of poetry. in his operas based on the tragedies of alceste (1767), iphigenia in aulis (1774), and iphigenia in tauris (1779), he attempted to carry out the ideals of "simplicity and naturalness," which, as he stated in his foreword to alceste (the second opera of his collaboration with the poet ranieri calzabigi), "are the highest principles of beauty in all artistic creations."16 in alceste, especially, gluck found the "strong passions, grand images and tragic situations," elements which "stir the audience and provide such great harmonic effects."17 his version of alceste, however, and others of the 18th century, concentrated on the character's nobility and her inner struggle between motherly and wifely love. the cowardice of admetos and the friendship of hercules played small parts. in gluck's other tragedies lyriques, as well, the characters were "more noble" than in the greek originals. in iphigenie en tauride, pylades offers to die with orestes solely out offriendship. in the euripides play, however, he was also motivated by his concern with what people would think if he did not die with his friend. "the current conceptions of the relations between men and women were such that they were enamored of the sacrifice, thinking it ... right and proper ... in harmony with christian religious ideals. "18 this need to stress the noble and self-sacrificing aspects of behavior was but one of the factors which limited the selection of greek tragedies for the operatic stage. the aesthetic viewpoint which dominated the 18th century was expressed by christoph wieland, librettist of anton schweitzer's alceste (1773): music ceases to be music when it ceases to give pleasure .... music must refrain from painting the fury of an oedipus who ... gouges his eyes and curses the day of his birth .... the composer should never forget that ... when he makes us cry, the tears we shed must not be painful but . .. tears expressing ... the emotions of an overflowing heart. this consideration would seem to exclude oedipus ... and perhaps the majority of the tragic heroes from the lyrical stage.19 la harpe, an influential literary critic and playwright ofthe period, agreed with wieland. writing on what constituted suitable subject-matter for opera, he declared: "i do not wish to hear the cry of a man in pain. i expect from the musician ... that he will find accents of grief without making them unpleasant ... i wish the charm of the melody to mingle with the emotion i feel."20 although gluck challenged this viewpoint and wrote in reply, "if some wicked person should say ... that sophocles in the finest of his tragedies ... 85 dared to show ... oedipus with his bloody eyes, and that ... the unfortunate king ... must have expressed the deepest sorrow, i will retort that m. de la harpe does not wish to hear the cry of a man in suffering,"21 he did not attempt an opera based on the oedipus tragedy. there were a few operas using the oedipus theme between 1770 and 1830. of this group sacchini's oedipe a colone (1786) was the most successful. although it was cooly received in france, it was well liked in england and italy and by 1844 had received 583 performances. the story of electra was attempted in opera for the first time during the classical period. in 1782 electre by lemoyne, with a libretto by guillard, was produced, and it shocked audiences. clytemnestra's murder was committed on the stage, this action violating 18th-century aesthetic values and making the denouement even more terrible than in the original tragedy. haffner wrote an electra in 1787, and champein composed music for a literal translation of sophocles' elektra in the 1790's. this work was rehearsed and received with great applause at the opera, but at the last moment the authorities refused to permit it to be performed. la harpe also reflected the conceptions of his era when he declared, "agamemnon is a coldly atrocious piece ... as for [the character] of clytemnestra, it seems to me that one cannot tolerate her at all: she is an atrocity which is revolting."22 thus, alceste, antigone, and i phigenia remained the favorites. during the classical period, the interest in greek tragedy was evident in at least seventy-five operas based on the dramas of ancient greece. most of these, however, dealt with the noble, self-sacrificing heroines, and only a handful with the tragic, violent figures of oedipus, electra, and orestes. agamemnon and clytemnestra were apparently still completely rejected as possible subject matter. by 1800 the peak of the worship of antiquity had passed, and the western world was entering a new century with changing values. throughout the romantic period, interest in greek legend was superseded by musical nationalism, wagner's theories of the music drama, and the predominance of program music. in opera, favored subjects included modern history, fairy tale, folk legend, medieval history, and (later) everyday life. a marked decrease occurred in the number of operas based on the greek tragedies. writers were apparently bored with alceste and iphigenia, and antigone also fell into disfavor. from 1830 to 1900 there were fewer than fifteen operas based on greek tragedy. of these, none seems to have been taken from the tragedy of iphigenia. several composers did turn to aeschylus' dramas, however. "the agamemnon was ... particularly admired by napoleon .... he had long desired to produce a greek play-in a good french translation-in its initial integrity, with choruses, music, etc. the project did not materialize."23 the works based on oresteia include agamemnon (1847) by treves, a "burlesque tragedy" by herve (1856), and taneev's trilogy oresteia (1895). there were also 86 several operas about medea, including two parodies of the medea and jason story. then, in 1909, richard strauss shocked the musical world with elektra which contained the most brutal and violent music of any opera written up to that time.24 strauss was deeply interested in the writings of current philosophers and social critics and in psychological "analysis." the music drama, with a libretto by von hofmannsthal, stresses electra's pathological desire for vengeance and her exultation over the murders of her mother and her mother's lover aegisthus. it is more a study and explanation of electra's feelings than a drama, as it suggests electra's unconscious erotic attachment to her father. whether society was ready for works like those of strauss, or whether strauss paved the way for such works, there followed a marked change in the number of operas based on the greek tragedies of aeschylus, sophocles, and euripides, and in the direction taken in the choice of subject matter. since strauss's elektra, there have been at least thirty musical theater pieces on the tragic themes of greek drama, and of these, more than half have dealt with the orestes, oedipus, electra, and agamemnon legends. one of these music dramas is alkestis (1924) by egon wellesz, who saw the ancient legends as timeless: it is the nature of the stories which the greek poets have left to us that many different facets are contained in them, so that every age can turn to that in which it may see its own experience ... each age has formed them afresh, and so filled them with its own life.25 his major concern was to restore the role of fate in the drama, so that its "power ... is to be discerned in the events on the stage, instead of caprice and arbitrariness. "26 the libretto by von hofmannsthal was completed by wellesz and does stress the overriding power of fate. honegger's antigone (1927) was written to cocteau's abridgment of sophocles' play and shows man in the grip of the destiny he has created for himself. carl orff wrote two works based on sophocles' tragedies, antigone (1949) and oedipus tyrannus (1959). both follow the original stories closely. questioned concerning his choice of such dramas, orff declared: sometimes i am asked why in the main i choose old material for my stage works. i do not feel it to be old, but only valid. the dated elements are lost and the spiritual strength remains.27 one of the more important operas of the 20th century is stravinsky's oedipus rex (1927), a setting of cocteau's version of the sophocles drama. the goal of this work, stravinsky said, is: ... to focus the drama not on oedipus himself ... but on the 'fatal development' which ... is the meaning of the play .... oedipus, the 87 man, is a subject for a ... symbolic treatment that depends upon the interpretation of experience and is principally psychological. the geometry of tragedy is what interested me, the inevitable intersecting oflines.28 stravinsky believed that his audience was "not indifferent to the fate of the person, but ... far more concerned with the person of the fate and the delineation of it which can be achieved uniquely in music ... [ where] the portrait of the individual as the victim of circumstances is made far more starkly effective by this static presence."29 this interpretation can be related to the composer's profound religious feeling and to his belief in a great order presiding over the universe. stravinsky declared that "the music was composed during my strictest and most earnest period of christian orthodoxy" and that he most certainly believed "in a system beyond nature."3o cocteau's libretto for oedipus rex remains close to the original greek tragedy in its portrayal of the power of fate in oedipus' life. in 1952 darius miihaud, composer ofthe trilogy oresteia (agamemnon, les choephores, and les eumenides), writing on the future of music, declared: one knows ... that there have always been catastrophes in the history of the world. and yet one can only confirm that these catastrophes have not prevented the world from continuing to exist .... doubt seems to me to be not only superficial but ridiculous .... courage !31 milhaud worked for ten years to set the oresteia trilogy to music. there are similarities, apparently, between the theme of aeschylus' work, which deals with mankind's redemption and the furtherance of knowledge and progress through suffering and catastrophe, and darius milhaud's personal philosophy. the libretto of l'orestie is by claudel, whose version of the dramas follows that of aeschylus and is close to the original tragedies in all facets, including the representation of orestes' murder of his mother as being not a result of free choice, but on the injunction of a god. other operas since the first world war have included leoncavallo's edipo re (1920), a grand opera which follows the original story closely, enesco's oedipus (1936), which uses microtones, and partch's "electronic" opera king oedipus (1961), as well as louise talma's alkestiade (1956), which is a setting of thornton wilder's play and does not depart from the original story by making alceste's wifely devotion the only major theme. in 1965 pizzetti's clitemnestra was performed at milan's la scala. a critic said of this piece: "musically, the work was ... somber, repetitive, unnecessarily difficult to sing. but as exciting theater, the blood-thirsty agamemnon legend is hard to beat .... "32 the most recent of this series is martin david levy's mourning becomes electra, which had its premiere at the metropolitan opera in new york in 1968. a number of characteristics appear to be evident in all these works. there is a frequent choice of a text by an outstanding writer (cocteau, claudel, wilder, h6lderiin, hofmannsthal); less alteration of plot than in previous 88 eras (except in krenek's deliberate distortion in das leben des orestes, 1930); concern with dramatic values; use of such devices as choral singing, choral dancing, "quasi parlando," "speech chant"; frequent use ofthe chorus (some of the works are called "choral dramas"); and simple staging.33 all of these suggest the performance practices of ancient greece. above all, there is a seriousness in approach which seems to indicate an earnest searching for ways to express the greek tragedy through modern idioms, and a reawakened interest in and approval of the dramas dealing with profound inner conflicts and problems of humanity. the acceptance of these tragedies as suitable subject matter for opera may be the result of a certain affinity between some contemporary viewpoints and those of ancient greece. unlike the classical period, with its optimism and faith in reasoned solutions, the baroque period, with its protagonists dominated by one "affect" or feeling, or the middle ages, with its conception of sin and rejection of much of the subject matter of greek tragedy as stage material, modern audiences, writers, and composers accept and explore the role of fate in human life and the complexity of human emotions. gone is the demand for happy endings-violence of emotions and action is acceptable on the stage. the modern age can understand sophocles' ironic fatalism, euripides' human realism, and aeschylus' conflict-filled emotion-driven protagonists. the appended listing of operas based on greek tragedies has been compiled from the bibliographical sources indicated on p. 94. many of these volumes or studies refer to some works not mentioned elsewhere. none contains more than a small percentage of the total. where different dates were given for the same opera in different sources, the writer has used the date given in grove's dictionary of music and musicians (5th edition, 1954). where there is a discrepancy in dates in the works not listed in grove's, the earliest date has been selected. operas based on selected greek tragedies alceste date composer title of opera 1660 ziani, p. a. l' antigona delusa da alceste 1674 lully, j. b. alceste 1680 franck, m. alceste 1693 strungk, n. a. alceste 1699 draghi, a. alceste 1702 magni, p. admeto, re di tessaglia 1718 porsi1e, g. alceste (festa teatrale) 1719 schiirmann, g. c. die getreue alceste 1727 handel, g. f. admeto, re di tessag1ia 89 date 1728 1744 1750 1758 1758 1767 1769 1773 1780 1786 1786 1793 1794 1806 1847 1852 1882 1922 1924 1956 date 1718 1725 1745 1751 1752 1772 1774 1775 1782 1786 1787 1788 1789 composer dominique, ? lampugnani, g. b. handel, g. f. favart, c. s. raupach, h. f. gluck, c. w. guglielmi, p. schweitzer, a. wolf,e. benda, f. w. h. gresnick, a. f. portugal, m. a. (portogallo) guglielmi, p. mueller, w. elwart, a. e. e. staffa, g. gambaro, a. boughton, r. wellesz, e. talma, l. title of opera alceste (parody of lully's opera) alceste alceste (lost) la noce interrompue (parody of lully's opera) alcesta alceste alceste alceste alceste alceste alceste alceste admeto die neue alceste (parody) alcestis (incidental music to euripides' work) alceste alceste alkestis alkestis alkestiade antigone (or antigona)* composer date composer orlandini, g. m. 1790 zingarelli, n. a. gandini, a. 1791 winter, p. von bernasconi, a. 1796 bianchi, fr. galuppi, b. 1800 basili, f. casali, g. b. 1808 poissl, j. n. traetta, t. 1824 gardin, ? myslivecek, j. 1841 mendelssohn, f. (incidental music) latilla, g. 1863 weingartner, f. mortellari, m. c. 1927 honegger, a. parenti, f. p. m. 1942 pallantios, m. hoszisky (horzizky), f. 1949 orff, c. dutillieu, p. 1954 joubert,j. campobasso, a. v. * antigono is the story concerned with alexander the great and should not be confused with the above listing. it was set to music by g. porta (1724), g. b. lampugnani (1738), j. a. hasse (1743), b. galuppi (1746), n. conforto (1750), g. santis (c. 1750), g. wagenseil (1750), c. w. gluck (1756), j. duran (1760), v. l. ciampi (1762), n. piccinni (1762), t. traetta (1764), f. zannetti (1765), p. guglielmi (1767), g. f. maio (1768),j. g. schwanberg (1769), p. cafaro (1770), p. anfossi (1773), t. giordani (1774), g. gazzaniga (1779), l. gatti (1781), g. paisiello (1785), n. a. zingarelli (1786), l. caruso (1788), v. righini (1788), lauro rossi (c. 1790), and f. ceracchini (1794). date 1699 1704 90 iphigenia composer keiser, r. desmarets, h. and a. campra title of opera die wunderbar-errettete iphigenia iphigenie en tauride date composer 1706 coletti, a. b. 1713 scarlatti, d. 1713 scarlatti, d. 1718 caldara, a. 1719 orlandini, g. m. 1725 vinci, l. 1735 porpora, n. 1739 aliprandi, b. 1745 avossa, g. 1748 graun, c. h. 1751 j ommelli, n. 1756 mazzoni, a. m. 1762 bertoni, f. g. 1763 traetta, t. 1764 maio (majo), g. f. 1764 maio (majo), g. f. 1765 agricola, j. f. 1765 guglielmi, p. 1768 galuppi, b. 1771 jommelli, n. 1774 gluck, c. w. 1777 solari, g. 1777 sarti, g. 1778 despreaux, ? 1779 anonymous 1779 favart, c. f. and f. j. prot 1779 gluck, c. w. 1781 piccinni, n. 1781 solar, martin y 1784 monza, c. 1784 prati, a. 1785 pleyel, 1. 1785 tarchi, a. 1785 tarchi, a. 1786 giordini, g.(?) 1787 zingarelli, n. 1788 cherubini, l. 1789 campobasso, a. v. 1798 mosca, g. 1798 rossi, l. 1804 trento, v. 1806 mayer, ? 1807 danzi, f. 1809 federici, v. 1811 mayr,j. s. 1817 carafo, p. 1951 pizzetti, 1. title of opera lfigenia lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in tauri [sic] lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide (some arias by traetta in 1753 performance in naples) lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in tauride iphigenie in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia momie (parody of gluck's iphigenie en aulide) iphise aux boulevards (parody of gluck's iphigenie en tauride) les reveries renouvelees des grecs (parody of gluck's iphigenie en tauride; based on favart's 1757 parody, la petite iphigenie) iphigenie en tauride iphigenie en tauride lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in tauride lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide lfigenia in aulide iphigenia lfigenia in aulide il sacrificio d'ifigenia lfigenia in tauride lfigenia 91 date 1649 1675 1692 1692 1713 1726 1727 1735 1744 1752 1772 1775 1786 1788 1789 1792 1797 1798 1805 1813 1813 1815 1822 1838 1843 1851 1866 1935 1939 date 1751 1779 1786 1791 1797 1802 1874 1920 1927 1936 1959 1961 92 composer cavalli, f. giannettini, a. kusser,]. s. charpentier, m. a. salomon, ? brusa, g. f. dominique, ? vinci, l. perez, d. gebel, g. cannabich, c. benda, f. vogel,]. c. naumann,]. g. winter, p. von marinelii, g. cherubini, l. piticchio, f. lang1e, h. f. m. fontenelie, m. granges mayr,]. s. coccia, c. muelier, w. celli, f. pacini, g. mercadante, g. s. r. krempelsetzer, g. engel, l. milhaud, d. composer gebel, g. desaugiers, m.-a. sacchini, a. m. g. mereaux, n.]. (le froid de) dibdin, c. zingarelii, n. a. lassen, e. leoncavalio, r. stravinsky, i. enesco, g. orff, c. partch, h. medea title of opera giasone medea in atene jason medee medee et] ason medea e giasone medee et]ason (parody of salomon opera) medea riconoscinta medea medea medee et] ason medea (monodrama) toison d'or (medee a colchos) medea in colchide ossia ii ritorno di in grecia medea und jason la vendetta di medea medee la vendetta di medea medee medee et] ason medea in corinto medea e giasone die neue medea (parody) medea medea medea medea (das orakel in delphi) medea medee oedipus title of opera oedipe le petit oedipe oedipe a colone oedipe a thebes (oedipe et]ocaste) the sphinx (?) edipo a colono oedipus edipo re oedipus rex oedipe oedipus tyrannus king oedipus giasone the oresteia (agamemnon, the choephores, the eumenides, i.e., operas dealing with electra, orestes, clytemnestra, or agamemnon) date 1681 1723 1734 1772 1780 1782 1783 1787 1789 179? 1800 1808 1818 1847 1856 1872 1895 19? 1902 1905 1909 1913-22 1924 1930 1950 1961 1965 1967 date 19? 1915 1915 1915 1925 1931 1940 1941 1948 1951 1961 composer perti, g. a. micheli, b. handel, g. f. agricola, j. f. cannabich, c. lemoyne, j. b. cimarosa, d. hiiffner, j. c. f. hoszisky (horzizky), f. champein, s. zingarelli, n. a. morlacchi, f. kreutzer, k. treves, ? herve (florimond ronger) alberti, ? taneev, s. i. cuclin, d. weingartner, f. gnecchi, v. strauss, r. milhaud, d. linstead, g. f. ktenek, e. demuth, n. badings, h. pizzetti, i. levy, m. d. title of opera oreste l'oreste orestes (mainly from other handel works, with new overture) oreste e pilade elektra (melodrama) electra orestes ("opera comique") electra orestes electra clitennestra orestes orestes agamemnon agamemnon ("tragedie burlesque") orestes oresteya (trilogy) agamemnon orestes cassandra elektra l'orestie trilogy: agamemnon (one scene set to music, 1913) les choephores, (1915) les eumenides (1917-22) oresteia ( trilogy) das leben des orest the oresteia (trilogy) orestes clitemnestra mourning becomes electra other 20th century operas based on greek tragedies composer gray, c. pizzetti, i. romani, r. senilov, v. roussel, a. wellesz, e. thomson, v. thomson, v. ghedini, g. f. cortese, l. mihalovici, m. title of opera trojan women fedra fedra hippolytus la naissance de la lyre bakchantinnen the trojan women (incidental music) oedipus tyrannus (incidental music) le baccanti prometeo phaedre 93 bibliography used for the preceding list abert, anna amalie. "der geschmackswandel auf der opernbiihne am alkestis-stofl' dargestellt," die musiliforschung (1953) 6:214-35. clement, felix and pierre larousse. dictionnaire des operas. paris, 1910. davidson, gladys. the barnes book of the opera. new york, 1962. ewen, david. enryclopedia rifthe opera. new york, 1963. grout, donaldj. a short history of opera. 2nd edition. new york, 1965. grove's dictionary of music and musicians. edited by eric blom. 5th edition. london, 1954. huchzermeyer, helmut. "zur auffiihrung antiker tragodien auf der modernen biihne," neue zeitschriflfur musik (1962) 123:492-97. kloiber, rudolf. handbuch der oper. 6th edition. regensburg, 1961. loewenberg, alfred. annals of opera, 1597-1910. revised edition. geneva, 1955. machlis,joseph. introduction to contemporary music. new york, 1961. martens, frederick h. a thousand and one nights rif opera. new york, 1926. moore, frank l. crowell's handbook of world opera. new york, 1961. riemann, hugo. opern-handbuch. repertorium der dramatisch-musikalischen literatur. leipzig, 1886. rotondi, joseph ernileo. "literary and musical aspects of roman opera-1600-1650." unpublished doctoral dissertation, university of pennsylvania, 1959. teasdale, may silva. 20th century opera at home and abroad. new york, 1938. thompson, oscar (ed.). the international cyclopedia rif music and musicians. 9th edition. new york, 1964. tower, john. dictionary-catalogue rif operas and operettas which have been peiformed on the public stage. morgantown, w. va., 1910. notes 1 several studies have dealt with interpretations of specific tragedies in operatic history. these include: anna amalie abert, "der geschmackswandel auf der opernbiihne, am alkestis-stoff dargestellt," die musiliforschung (1953) 6:214-35; harold edgar johnson, "iphigenia in tauris as the subject for french opera," (unpublished master's thesis, cornell university, 1939). 2 this article stems in part from the writer's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "greek tragedy in the theatre pieces of stravinsky and milhaud" (new york university, 1968), which includes a survey of the musical treatments and changing interpretations of greek tragedy in operatic history. 3 athenaeus, the deipnosophists, trans. charles burton gulick (cambridge, mass., and london, 1937), vi, p. 417. 4 clement rif alexandria, trans. g. w. butterworth (cambridge, mass., 1953), pp. 5-9. 5 paul henry lang, "the literary aspects of the history of opera in france," (unpublished doctoral dissertation, cornell university, 1934), p. 83, citing balf, oeuvres complets. 6 leo schrade, la representation d'edipo tiranno au teatro olimpico (vicenza, 1585) (paris, 1960), p. 32. 7 ottavio rinuccini, "preface to euridice," in the essence rif opera, ed. ulrich weisstein (london, 1964), p. 19. b abert, op. cit., p. 216. 9 from the listing of "important operas" in grove's dictionary rif music and musicians (5th ed.; london and new york, 1954), vi, 233 ff. 10 e. m. butler, "alkestis in modern dress," journal rifthe warburg institute (1937-38) 1: 59. 11 "ii teatroalla moda-part i," trans. and annotated by reinhard g. pauly, the musical quarterly (1948) 34:375. 12 francesco algarotti, "essay on opera," in weisstein, op. cit., pp. 72-73. 94 13 ibid., pp. 73-74. 14 denis diderot, "entretiens sur le fils naturel," in weisstein, op. cit., p. 94. 15 paul henry lang, music in western civilization (new york, 1941), p. 532. 16 gluck, "dedication of alceste," 1769, in weisstein, op. cit., p. 107. 17 gluck, "dedication of paride ed elena," 1770, in weisstein, op. cit., p. 108. 18 butler, op. cit., p. 59. 19 christoph martin wieland, "essay concerning german opera and a few related subjects," in weisstein, op. cit., p. 117. 20 la harpe, letter to journal de poetique et de litterature, october, 1777, in c. w. gluck, the collected correspondence and papers, ed. hedwig and e. h. mueller von asow (london, 1962), p.103. 21 gluck, open letter to la harpe, 1777, ibid., p. loi. 22 william h. matheson, claudel and aeschylus (ann arbor [1965]), p. 6, citing la harpe, cours de litterature, i, p. 84. english translation by the author. 23 ibid., p. 9. 24 see michael horwath's "tebaldini, gnecchi, and strauss," current musicology (1970) 10: 74-81, for a discussion on whether elektra was a plagiarism of vittorio gnecchi's cassandra, which was first performed in bologna in 1905. 25 egon wellesz, essays on opera (london, 1950), p. 146. 26 ibid., p. 140. 27 andreas liess, carl orjf, trans. adelheid and herbert parkin (london, 1966), p. 36. 28 igor stravinsky, "on oedipus rex," encounter (1962) l8:30-3l. 29 igor stravinsky and robert craft, dialogues and a diary (new york, 1963), p. 7. 30 ibid., p. 9. 31 darius milhaud, "ich glaube an die zukunft," melos (1952) 19:242-43. english translation by the author. 32 "music," time (march 12, 1965), p. 50. 33 helmut huchzermeyer, "zur auffiihrung antiker tragodien auf der modernen biihne," neue zeitschriftfiir musik (1962) 123:492-97. 95 three bj s-three chaconnes byron cantrell ever since hans von bulow coined the expression "the three b's" in denoting j. s. bach, beethoven, and brahms to the exclusion of other fine composers whose family names begin with that same initial letter, numerous comparisons have been made regarding the composition techniques of these masters. although distinct forms are associated with the different time periods within which each lived, all three of these men are regarded as superior composers of variations. each has treated the usual melodico-harmonic forms so idiomatically that commentary is too often limited to banal remarks on similarities or noncomparative discussion of individual works. the continuous variation form, the chaco nne, has, however, been ingeniously used by these three masters, and, because most of the aspects of the form are demonstrably retained by each of them, comparisons can effectively be made. emerging in the late renaissance, the chaconne gained enormous popularity during the baroque era; indeed, no opera in the italian style was considered complete during this age without one or more numbers in chaconne form. but with the classical period came a strong preference for melodico-harmonic variations and opera buffa finales, and the ostinato variation idea seemed destined for oblivion. it was johannes brahms, late in the romantic period, who handsomely revived the chaconne and thus paved the way for its popularity among later composers. in his book, the technique of variation, dr. robert u. nelson devotes considerable space to a discussion of baroque chaco nne practice in the instrumental field. in order to consider the three pieces selected for study here, a list of fourteen points has been extracted from dr. nelson's work. the order in which he describes them is the order in which they will be used for the purposes of this analysis: 1. the chaconne is invariably in triple meter. 2. the aecented second beat of the old chaco nne is carried over from the original dance form. 3. stock themes, based on or derived from ascending or descending tetrachords, were much used. 4. the harmonic structure of the original presentation is invariably as important as the theme itself as a basis for variation, although there is no fixed practice of either rigid conformity to, or departure from, the original harmonies. 5. continuous structure is an integral part of the form. 6. increased rhythmic movement is a prominent feature of the chaconne. 7. pairing of varia tions is a common practice. s. transposition of the os tina to from the original voice to some other voice is not unusual. 63 9. also quite common is the division of the set into sections, usually three, in opposing modes rather than contrasting keys, although the latter is also encountered. 10. in some of the chaconnes based on the descending tetrachord, the ascending tetrachord is substituted as a basis for variation in one or more variations. 11. other musical forms are often suggested by returning to the original or related settings. 12. contrapuntal devices, such as imitation and pedal point, are widely used. 13. sequential treatment of figuration ideas is prominently featured in variations based on the tetrachord. 14. other ideas are often added to the basic form to make it more interesting. 1 bach the best known of bach's chaconnes is the final movement of the partita in d minor for unaccompanied violin. phillip spitta reasons that, because of its length and the fact that it is preceded by a gigue, the chaco nne is an appended, rather than integral, part of the partita. 2 this deduction seems plausible enough as the chaconne is in no way enhanced by the presence of the four preceding movements; indeed, the other movements begin to recede when their intrinsic beauty becomes overshadowed by the marvels of the chaconne. the dating of the work3 and the determination of bach's purpose in composing it are points of scholarly dispute. the date of composition can, in any event, be placed around 1720; bach's intent was most likely founded in his desire to indulge in friendly competition with johann g. walther. the most vigorous controversy, however, appears to concern the number and nature of the variations. auer,4 szigeti,5 spitta,6 leichtentritt,7 and bernstein,s all pose individual views. many writers describing this chaconne identify an eight-bar theme upon which the composition is based; the number of variations claimed by these writers ranges from thirty-three to sixty-five and most often includes some bridges or extensions. the present study has determined sixty-four variations on a four-measure theme, with neither bridges nor extensions. the bach chaconne actually opens with the first variation. the second beat of each measure enunciates the ostinato in the lowest voice, as shown in example 1. the ostinato, constructed with a descending tetrachord, shifts to the first beat at variation 5, and all subsequent alterations of the theme are created by expanding or compressing the ostinato motive within the four-bar period. example 1 64 the triple meter remains constant throughout the work. although the traditional accented second beat of the chaconne form is clearly evident in the first variation and for a while thereafter, it disappears in measure 24 and does not reappear until the close of the first section. in the major section, and in the concluding minor, the accented second beat is used in several successive variations, and then temporarily abandoned. in this way, bach avoids rhythmic monotony and actually intensifies the effect of the traditional chaconne rhythm by highlighting it. the harmonic structure undergoes little alteration until the fifth variation, after which it is not used except for the occasions when bach employs the initial setting as a ritornello and for a few variations after this return. this can be seen distinctly at the change of mode from minor to major. in general, it can be stated that the harmonic structure is extremely fluid and only incidentally related to the initial presentation. however, bach usually uses a v to i(i) or viio to i(i) cadence. except for the breaks at the changes in mode, the variations are wholly continuous, one variation flowing into the next without any possible pause. in conjunction with this, the rhythmic pace increases steadily in each section and concludes in the minor section with a slightly modified restatement of the original setting. pairing of variations, common in this chaco nne, begins with the first two variations and continues virtually throughout the work. undoubtedly, it was this profuse pairing of variations that provoked the adoption of the eight-measure theme idea by auer, spitta, and others, who regarded the occasional single variations as bridges or extensions. generally, the double is merely a figuration of the previous variation (example 2), but a more subtle treatment is sometimes used wherein the double inverts the motion of the previous variation (example 3). example 2 var.7 example 3 var.41 var. 8 var.42 single notes of the ostinato are sometimes transposed, most likelyoccasioned by the limitations of the solo violin medium. there is, however, one instance of complete transposition of the bass theme to the soprano in variation 50 (example 4). 3-c.m. 65 example 4 the chaconne has three sections in opposing modes: the first and third sections in d minor, the second in d major. this middle section has only nineteen variations and serves very effectively to relieve the intensity of the minor so that it can be resumed in the concluding section. variation 49 is one which so disturbed spitta that he considered it a new theme (example 5). upon examination, however, this variation proves to be the only one in which bach has substituted the ascending tetra chord in the bass for the original theme. example 5 by dividing the chaconne into three sections and using a variant of the original setting to conclude the minor section, bach strongly suggests rondo form. this serves to give greater cohesiveness to such an extended work and conveys a sense of musical unity and coherence to the listener. because the violin is hardly the instrument with which to indulge expansively in contrapuntal devices, little use of such practice is made in the chaconne. there is an occasional suggestion of imitation but nothing that could be firmly labelled as such. instead, bach makes use of some remarkable examples of pedal point. variations 41, 42, and 43 feature a dominant pedal (example 3 provides a partial quotation of variations 41 and 42), which resolves on a tonic pedal in variation 44. variation 55 uses a mordent as a tonic pedal (example 6). bach makes his final use ofa dominant pedal point in variations 58, 59, and 60. example 6 sequential treatment is abundant in this work; often it is partial or modified, but many examples of full sequential treatment are present. variations 9, 15, 17, 18,20,21,31,61, and 62 all demonstrate use of sequences. variation 31 is especially interesting (example 7). of the three works considered in this study, only this one is actually called "chaconne" by the composer. 66 example 7 beethoven it is not known whether or not beethoven consciously experimented with the chaconne form, although it is entirely possible that he saw or heard works in this form by handel and other baroque composers. in fact, as late as 1772, tommaso traetta had used the form as the finale to his masterpiece, antigona. because the bach chaconne was not published or performed until more than two decades after beethoven's death, the thirtytwo variations in c minor was, to the musical world of the mid-19th century, the older work. despite the historical context, and in spite of the double bars that separate each variation, many musicologists consider the thirtytwo variations a chaconne. the german edition of thayer9 explicitly describes it as such, as does fuller-maitland.10 theodore frimmel, in the beethoven-handbuch,ll quotes nottebohm as placing the date of composition between the middle of 1806 and the beginning of 1807. he calls the work distinguished, states that schumann played it and even unconsciously used some of its ideas in his symphonic etudes, and reports that brahms assiduously practiced these variations. the theme of the thirtytwo variations in c minor is an eight-bar idea (example 8). triple meter is sustained throughout the work. the accented second beat of the old chaconne style is immediately abandoned after the first variation, but it reappears for variations 5, and 9 through 15, and makes its final full appearance in variation 31. both the bass and soprano voices appear to be derived from tetrachords, the soprano ascending, the bass descending. either of these voices can be made to function as the ostinato, but, because the soprano is merely an amplification of the harmonies and because the bass is not used all the way through the work, it seems more logical to consider the harmonic scheme itself as the ostinato. with the exception of the last variation, the harmonies remain absolutely faithful, with the solitary substitution ofviio7 off for v7 off in some of the variations. example 8 the structure is not continuous in that double bars separate each variation. 67 however, some of the variations either spill over into the following variation or are anticipated in the last measure of the preceding variation. in nine instances one variation flows into the next; thus, eighteen of the variations are joined in some manner. example 9 shows a fine use of this procedure. increased rhythmic movement is less evident in this chaconne than in bach's. beethoven relies more on varying figurations to provide necessary contrast between variations. he also relies on changes in dynamics to express another type of separation, and only toward the close of the two sections in minor does one truly feel an extended increase in rhythmic movement. example 9 var.32 f'ecc a... fdco .. _ -the pairing of variations is rather common in this work but not nearly so frequent as in the bach chaconne. notably, the first three variations spring from a single figuration idea. example 10 also shows that both the soprano and the bass ostinati are transposed almost immediately. in addition, variations 10 and 11, 13 and 14, and 20 and 21 invert the ostinato between the hands. example 10 var. i var.2 var.3 like bach's chaconne, this work is divided into three sections in opposing modes, with the major lasting for five variations. beethoven draws attention to this brief middle section by marking it maggiore. there is no substitution of tetrachord, but the work as a whole does suggest a rondo. the reappearance of the soprano and the original harmonic progression-now in the major mode-at the beginning of the maggiore, followed by the return of the theme in minor (with the bass harmonies arpeggiated) in variation 31, strongly suggest rondo form. 68 beethoven makes masterful use of many contrapuntal devices. two instances of mirror imitation are shown in example 10. this technique is also found in variations 26 and 29, and, slightly modified, in variation 6. variation 17 is the return to minor, and the modified canon at the second between the alto and soprano over an alberti bass produces a wonderful effect (example 11). variation 22 is a canon at the octave between the hands playing in double octaves (example 12). pedal point is used only once, on the tonic in variation 31. beethoven uses a few modified sequences in the course of these variations, but he does not really indulge extensively in this technique. example 11 example 12 the most significant addition to the baroque form is the extended coda of the last variation. it might be argued that the fugue which bach added to the passacaglia in c minor was, like this coda, a free variation on the theme, but here the usage closely parallels that usually associated with sonata form. other original inclusions are polyrhythmics in variations 9, 16, the last bar of 31 and the beginning of 32, and the ostinato within an ostinato in variations 10 and 11. it is unusual that this work was published without opus number, but perhaps beethoven regarded this composition as an experiment. at any rate, pianists are grateful for it, and it is the most played of all the sets that beethoven wrote for the instrument. brahms the finale to brahms's fourth symphony refocused attention on the chaconne form. the symphony was unsuccessful for many years after its first performance but has steadily grown in the estimation of musicians and is now regarded as one of his finest compositions. 69 in the program notes published as an introduction to the philharmonia edition of the symphony, karl geiringer dates the composition of the last movement as the summer of 1885, and the first performance as october 25th of that year.12 fuller-maitland lists the date of composition as 1886 and says that this last movement gave rise to much discussion because of its innovative qualities.13 according to edward evans, riemann stated that it was some time before even the professional critics realized the structural basis of the last movement.14 since brahms transcribed the bach chaconne for piano left hand and, in addition, knew the beethoven c minor variations, it is interesting to see what he retains of each. the theme seems to have been borrowed from bach but also greatly resembles the soprano theme of the beethoven thirtytwo. like the two works examined above, the theme is in triple meter (example 13). the accented second beat is not present in the initial statement but is heard in the strings in variations 1 and 2, dropped for variation 3, used for the next three variations, dropped again until variations 15 and 16, and further reintroduced in variations 20,21,24,25,28, and 30. the theme also suggests its origin in the ascending tetrachord. example 13 '0:"" ""'j''''1 e r;:. "'7-(1.. l . . i f .p.. i ...... i---"f j'" i . . 'i$. -. sheer fluidity dominates the movement, as the harmonic structure begins shifting immediately after the first variation. brahms retains the e minor center, yet modulates, however briefly, to almost every imaginable key. it is interesting to note that the dominant-seventh chord with the flatted fifth that enriches the seventh bar of the theme is heard again only in the first variation and in the twenty-fourth variation. so great is the wealth of harmonic change in this work that even a chord of such striking interest as this dominant is used only three times. brahms maintains the continuous structure of the old chaconne, even where he changes tempo. the rhythmic movement increases until variation 10; then different ideas predominate until variation 16. intensity builds until variation 22, where contrasting material resumes until the gregarious coda. variation pairs are as common here as they were in bach's chaconne. the vigorous pairing of variations 8 and 9 (example 14) is very effective in a manner reminiscent of bach. in these ostinato transpositions, which would make an interesting study in themselves, brahms not only transposes complete themes from soprano to bass or inner voices but also transposes single notes of the ostinato through 70 example 14 var. 8 (strings only) var. 9 (strings only) the voices. no doubt this method was greatly influential in the formulation of color melody by schoenberg and his disciples. so many instances of this idea occur in the work that it sometimes becomes necessary to make an intensive search to find a semblance of the ostinato. variations 27 and 28, which are paired, illustrate this idea (example 15). example 15 this chaconne is also divided into three sections using opposing modes. variations 13, 14, and 15 are in e major-a much smaller section than either of the works considered above-but brahms suggests other keys, as can be seen in the example above. here, the variation seems to start in c major and, though the beginning of the last measure returns to e minor, it immediately moves away from the tonic. brahms does not substitute tetrachords, but he does occasionally substitute individual notes for those in the ostinato. measure 5 of variation 27 (example 15) shows a substitution of (or aq) for the of the ostinato. for the most part, however, the ostinato is retained intact, with some extension and diminution of parts of the theme. 71 consistent with the symphonic character demanded by the other three movements of the symphony, this chaconne suggests sonata form; not only does it make use of modal contrast, but variations in the "exposition" are paired with others in the "recapitulation." thus, the theme and variation 16, variations 1 and 24, 2 and 25, 3 and 26,5 and 27, and 6 and 28 are all pairs that are used to extend the chaconne into sonata form. i t is only natural that a superb contrapuntalist like brahms has endowed this movement with a vast array of contrapuntal ideas. imitation is a prominent feature in variations 3, 5, 7, 13, 18, and 28. there is a canon between the upper and lower strings in variation 31, and mirror imitation is found in variations 8, 15, and 18. variation 26 uses a pedal on c with splendid effect (example 16), and the tonic pedal is used in variations 12 and 13. sequences, very much in evidence throughout, are prominent in no fewer than twelve of the variations. examples 15 and 16 show how effectively brahms uses this idea. example 16 elc. ('------some of brahms's additions to the chaconne form are highly original. certainly, the pairing of variations in separated sections of a work is unique. cross rhythms and polyrhythmics are abundant. decidedly unusual is the change of time signature from 3/4 to 3/2 in variation 12, followed by the change of mode in the succeeding variation. it is a stroke of pure genius not to have them coincide. a few of the variations are bridges between pairs or sections but still retain the ostinato, and there is a four-bar bridge between the last variation and the coda. the latter develops not only the theme itself but also a few of the variations. octave transposition is very prominent, as can be seen in example 15. returning now to the fourteen points that characterized baroque chaconne practice, the results of this investigation can be summarized. 72 1. all three works remain in triple meter throughout. 2. none of the three works makes extensive use of the old accented second beat, although it does appear somewhere during the course of each work. interestingly, brahms decides not to use it for his theme. 3. all three works are based on tetrachords, but only bach develops a four-bar idea. consequently, he has many more variations than either beethoven or brahms. 4. only beethoven retains the harmonic structure virtually intact. both bach and brahms depart at will from the initially stated harmonies, so that the return to the original harmonization is greatly enhanced and can be made to suggest other forms. 5. only beethoven does not maintain the continuous structure, but even he makes use of continuity where he feels it is required. 6. while all three make some use of increased rhythmic movement, it is most evident in bach's piece. beethoven and brahms prefer contrasting settings along the lines of character variation. 7. all three make use of paired variations. brahms pairs them not only side by side but also in different sections of the work. 8. all three composers transpose the ostinato at will. in addition, brahms transposes individual tones of the ostinato, thus gaining greater flexibility in its treatment. 9. all three works are divided into three parts in opposing modes. bach has the most, brahms the fewest variations in the contrasting middle section. 10. only bach employs substitution of the ascending for the descending tetrachord. 11. bach and beethoven incorporate a suggestion of rondo form in their chaconnes. brahms hints at sonata form. 12. contrapuntal devices are very much in evidence in all three works, although bach has fewer such ideas than is usual for him because of the limitations of the solo violin in performing multivoiced lines. 13. both bach and brahms are lavish in sequential treatment. beethoven relies but little on this device. 14. bach adheres most strictly to the old baroque form without adding to it except for the use of expansion and compression of the ostinato and harmonic departure from the original setting. beethoven adds polyrhythmics, dynamic changes, an ostinato within an os tina to, and, most significantly, a coda. brahms uses practically all of these additions, plus cross rhythms, extensions, bridges, tempo changes, poly tonal effects, and alteration of the melodic structure. each of these works is a masterpiece in its own right. while adhering to the basic chaconne form, each composer amends it as his ingenuity dictates and infuses it with his own personal stamp. perhaps this is why von billow's coinage of the expression "the three b's" has been almost universally accepted and still persists nearly a century later. texts employed the music used in analyzing the bach chaconne was a photostat of the 1720 dresden manuscript, which the noted violinist marshall moss was kind enough to lend this writer. this manuscript was compared with modern practical editions (auer, flesch, etc.) and with that which barenreiter published in 1958 as part of the bach neue ausgabe, siimtliche werke. the edwards reprint of the breitkopf und hartel ludwig van beethoven, werke was the prime source for the thirtytwo variations in c minor. the edition of the complete variations for pianoforte, edited by anton door for universal-edition in vienna, was also consulted. 73 the edwards reprint of johannes brahms's samtliche werke was the prime source for the finale from the fourth symphony, and the wien philharmonischer verlag edition listed below (note 12) was also used. notes 1 robert u. nelson, the technique of variation (berkeley and los angeles, 1948), pp. 67-78. 2 phillip spitta,johann sebastian bach, trans. clara bell andj. a. fuller-maitland (london, 1899), vol. ii, p. 94. 3 ibid., pp. 71-72; charles sanford terry, "johann sebastian bach," in grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 5th ed. (london, 1954), vol. i, p. 316. 4 leopold auer, violin master works and their interpretation (new york, c. 1925), p. 20. 5 as quoted by sidney finkelstein in the liner notes for the bach guild recording 627/9, j. s. bach, six sonatas and partitas for violin alone, performed by joseph szigeti and released in 1962. 6 op. cit., ii, 95-96. 7 hugo leichtentritt, musical form (cambridge, mass., 1951), pp. 312-14. 8 martin bernstein, an introduction to music (new york, 1937), pp. 86-87. 9 alexander wheelock thayer, ludwig van beethoven • .. , trans. and ed. hermann deiters and hugo riemann (leipzig, 1908-17), vol. ii, pp. 526-27. 10 j. a. fuller-maitland, brahms (2nd ed.; london, 1911), p. 153. 11 beethoven-handbuch (leipzig, 1926), vol. ii, p. 360. 12 johannes brahms, symphonie iv (vienna: wien philharmonischer verlag [n.d.]). 13 op. cit., p. 152. 14 edward evans, handbook to the chamber and orchestral music of johannes brahms (london [n.d.]), vol. ii, p. 164 (footnote). 74 foreign paul marks murray charters paul d. ledvina edgar j. lewis robert j. nicolosi andre p. larson janet schmalfeldt karl-werner gumpel laszl6 somfai ladislav burlas georges franck alan brown anna amalie abert reinhard gerlach don harran reiner kluge winfried kirsch hubert unverricht othmar wessely eberhard klemm mrs. olga mikl6ssy rita egger bernd baselt j. d. bergsagel horst heussner john c. g. waterhouse willem elders axel helmer se6irse bodley josephine m. mason niels martin jensen michael tilmouth georg borchardt anthony ford anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec ian d. bent john steele robert guilloux richard marlowe ludwig finscher georgio peste iii hans conradin ake berglund m. witte ivo supicic university of washington, seattle, wash. university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada university of wisconsin, madison, wise. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. washington university, st. louis, mo. west virginia university, .l\10rgantown, w. va. yale university, new haven, conn. albert-ludwig university, freiburg, germany bartok archives, budapest, hungary bratislava university, bratislava, czechoslovakia brussels, belgium cambridge university, cambridge, england christian-albrechts university, kiel, germany georg-august university, giittingen, germany hebrew university, jerusalem, israel humboldt university, berlin, germany johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany johannes gutenberg university, mainz, germany karl-franzens university, graz, austria karl marx university, leipzig, germany karlova university, prague, czechoslovakia leopold-franzens university, innsbruck, austria martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, germany oxford university, oxford, england phillips university, marburg, germany queens university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, ireland state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university college, dublin, ireland university of birmingham, birmingham, england university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, yorkshire, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of otago, dunedin, new zealand university of paris, paris, france university of southampton, southampton, england university of the saarland, saarbrucken, germany university of turin, turin, italy university of zurich, zurich, switzerland uppsala university, uppsala, sweden westfiilische wilhelms university, munster, germany institute of musicology, zagreb, yugoslavia communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the university unless otherwise noted. published the l\1usic department under the aegis of columbia university new york nancy carol kovaleff charles g. boody and margaret snell d. jay rahn ''''alter pass anthony hedges don harran georges franck john f. spratt j. e. maddrell mary rowen obelkevich james d. freeman reports from the domestic corresponding editors: 7 a survey of recent comprehensive examinations administered by departments of music in nineteen north american graduate schools 55 new haven: the new york pro musica visits yale 57 minneapolis: the charles i ves festival, spring 1970-reftections 58 morningside heights: columbia's new doctoral program in ethnomusicology 62 65 66 75 81 from the foreign corresponding editors: vienna: beethoven symposium england: music conference at sheffield university israel: the composer's workshop, 1969 belgium: the festival of flanders announcements articles 83 the speculative content of schoenberg's harmonielehre 89 grocheo and the measurability oj medieval music: a reply to hendrik vanderwerf 91 the growth of a musical ideabeethoven's opus 96 dissertations 115 aubrey s. garlington the concept of the marvelous in french and german opera, 1770-1840 thomasvvarburton gregory proctor 118 roger jacques kamien the opening sonata-allegro movements in a randomly selected sample of solo keyboard sonatas published in the years 1742-1774 121 philip friedheim tonality and structure m the early vvorks of schoenberg bibliographica 130 publications received 134 index to current musicology, 1965-1970 150 contributors on the training of musicologists and performers in great britain anthony hedges the training of professional musicians in great britain has been bedeviled by the traditional, though unnatural, division between the various conservatory establishments-the four royal schools of music, the guildhall school of music and drama, and so on-and the small (by american standards) music departments which now exist in virtually every british university. until very recently the assumption was that if practical training was desired, then a conservatory course would be chosen; if academic training were preferred, the student would select a university course. stated in this way, the unreality and absurdity of the division is immediately apparent, but when i was a student, some twenty years ago, it was generally accepted as an inevitable and even desirable distinction. my contemporaries at the conservatories shared little common ground in their approach to music with their colleagues at universities, and even today, having taught extensively in both types of institutions, i find that there too often remains a markedly differing outlook between the "practical" conservatory teachers and the "theoretical" university staff. that the conservatories were dimly aware that adequate performers could not be produced through a training based almost exclusively on instrumental playing was shown by the various "graduate" courses which they instituted in the period following the last war. however, when one talks to students who have taken these courses, it becomes clear that the fundamental academic disciplines which are basic to a university course are virtually ignored: the approach is essentially geared to musical rather than intellectual training, and history, harmony, etc., tend to be regarded as frills rather than as basics. some twelve years ago at the royal scottish academy of music, i instituted an intensive three-year course in the outlines of music history from plainsong to contemporary music. it was uphill work at the time to convince either colleagues or students that a general knowledge of music history was desirable, if not essential, for a practical musician. even today, british conservatories tend to pay lip service to anything other than playing an instrument. before dismissing such attitudes as ignorant or unbalanced, one must realize that music is ill-taught-if taught at all !-in the large majority of british schools, and that there is a dire shortage of first-class private instrumental teachers. thus most students are accepted for professional training more on promise and latent talent than on any impressive accomplishment. given the normal grant-aid period of three years, the traditionally-minded conservatory teacher argues as follows: "this student needs six to eight 116 hours of daily practice on his main instrument if he is to reach a high professional standard; furthermore, his secondary instrument needs three to four hours daily if he is to reach a respectable standard. that leaves very little time for anything else." there is a genuine feeling of desperation here. how can our students catch up in three years with their contemporaries in other countries, many of whom will have had a first-class training since primary school? the universities face a similar dilemma, arising from the failure of most british schools to take music seriously. again, student selection must be based primarily on promise instead of achievement; despite regulations about alevel passes, these examinations, as presently constituted, are no guarantee of any real standards as far as music is concerned. the student has almost certainly been so badly taught in harmony and counterpoint that he will have to be taken back almost to the beginning and thoroughly trained in the appropriate logical and aural processes; his history is likely to be the result of regurgitating the words in a general textbook rather than based on any scholarly study or detailed knowledge of the music involved. being so deficient in these subjects, he is unlikely to be even a tolerable analyst. above all, the university teacher will have to inculcate the close logic, the painstaking attention to detail, the stringent self-criticism and opening-up of individual thought which constitute a scholarly approach. small wonder that here, in the thick of essays, seminars, compositional work, it is hard to fit in instrumental instruction as well. there have been two marked musical stages in the british universities in this century, and a third may well be emerging. initially the music departments were dominated by teachers whose main background was organ and cathedral music, whose main teaching concerned harmony, counterpoint, and history from c. 1550 to c. 1900. the dramatic spread of the influence of musicology in this country following the last war was quite abruptly reflected in a large majority of professional and teaching appointments being given to scholars. the "cathedral tradition" quickly waned, together with the rapid decline of church-going as a mark of social respectability, and musicology became virtually the fundamental constituent of university music courses. in the past few years there has been further change, and as british universities have gradually incorporated performance as a part of their courses, many more practical musicians have been appointed to their staffs. few universities now lack a specialist composer or an attached instrumental ensemble, whereas even ten years ago few possessed either. of the last four professorial appointments in britain, two have gone to musicologists, one to a professional pianist, and one to a professional composer. what caused the british universities almost uniformly, and within the course of a few years, to modify their traditions of pure scholarship to incorporate the essentially practical and professional study of performance? it seems to me that a number of factors were simultaneously involved, the first of which concerns the basic nature of the subject itself. 117 music is sound; the study of music, the study of a sound world. purposefully organized musical sound may legitimately be considered a form of abstract language.! however one defines music, the study of music must constitute the study of particular sound worlds and abstract languages. it is with sound that we begin, because this is what music is. the purpose of musical study is to try to probe with our conscious minds what is essentially a communication from subconscious to subconscious (from the heart to the heart, as beethoven put it). before we can start, we must master the language. this is not merely a question of learning musical notation as theory, any more than learning a spoken language is a question just oflearning vocabulary and grammar. in terms of spoken language we must not only be able to converse as fluently as the natives: we must become steeped in the same literature, the same historical traditions; we must be able to catch the most subtle inflection and understand its precise significance in any given context. to this end we learn to write essays in the language (in music via harmony, counterpoint, composition, orchestration), we steep ourselves in its literature, history, philosophy, and general culture, we go to live with the people and imbibe their ethos-the sounds, smells, sights, thoughts, even the restrictions: everything which shapes their daily lives and their modes of speech. omitting any of this means an incomplete grasp ofthe language as it actually exists. music is infinitely more subtle and evasive than spoken languages. moreover, it really lives only when it is actually heard. the mind cannot conjure up the complex sounds of music so precisely as it can conjure up the sequence of words. in either case the subtle significance is often lost unless spoken or played aloud. i may think of an abstract idea: "i love early mornings in summer." take a dozen people agreeing with that sentiment, and each, through the force of his own personality, would give the phrase different inflections and shades of meaning. given the equivalent of that statement in music, our job is not to inflect it ourselves but to try to discover what inflection the composer intended. to do so involves a knowledge of the composer, his musical language, the historical and personal traditions of that language, and much more. such lines of thought always proceed toward sound as the end product. without that end, all the rest is essentially futile and nonproductive. there is no such thing as the abstract study of music, and if there were, it could not possibly interest and involve anyone with music in his blood. we chose to study music because in our youth we were intoxicated with sound. how impossible, therefore, to provide adequate courses of study which do not involve performance; they are blighted by unreality from the start. how equally futile to provide courses which "teach" performance only. a worthwhile performance is not taught, even if basic technique may be: a worthwhile performance grows from a profound knowledge of all aspects of the music involved. i doubt that many british academicians just a few years ago reasoned quite 118 like this, but whatever their motives, or perhaps dissatisfaction with the prevailing "abstract" state of affairs, the notion began to spread for one reason or another that performance might, after all, be a respectable branch of music study. (as historians, they must have had a subconscious awareness that, historically speaking, the odds were weighted against performers being regarded as desirable members of society.) the main impetus, however, came-i suspect-from the students themselves. the demands that relevance in curriculum be seen as well as claimed may have been dramatically highlighted by the student uprisings of three or four years ago, but they were in the air well before that. indeed they were taking shape at much the same time that many british academicians were feeling a little unsure of music as a purely academic discipline. (i can quote no written authority but recall many conversations on the subject with other music lecturers.) the change was apparent in interviews when each year an increasing number of applicants asked about the role of performance in our curriculum. it was also revealed when one suggested to applicants of a high performing ability that they might be more suited to a conservatory, only to be told with increasing frequency that the conservatory approach was too narrow to interest them. added to this, the british system of peripatetic instrumental teachers in schools and the establishment of county youth orchestras got into its stride only in the early 1960's; by the end of that decade we were seeing the first practical products of this emphasis on instrumental performance. so now we have performance as a part of most british university music courses; instrumental instruction is available in most music departments, and we have to consider how it is accommodated, and what standards we should expect. in brief, it is usually one of a series of specialized options for final exams, and the nonspecialist can only be constantly encouraged to impose the same high standards of self-criticism on his playing as on the rest of his university work. lacking the necessary hours for practice, even the specialist cannot often rival the technical accomplishments of the conservatory student. but his detailed grasp of compositional procedures and musicology should compensate in terms of interpretive understanding. at hull university he is also expected to study thoroughly performance practices and the history and repertoire of his instrument. thus far i have mainly considered the performer and the assets he gains from academic studies. similarly, the musicologist learns from practice. unless he himself performs, he exists in a vacuum, in an unreal cloud-cuckooland. moreover, unless he has personally come to grips with the language which he employs, by actually bringing it to life, he fails to understand what it is really about; his tomes enshrine the dead, the theoretically correct, but will not represent the same language as that actually spoken by the performer. just as the performer who has not come to grips with music through writing it himself, through analytical methods and historical awareness, will have an incomplete understanding of what he is playing, so the musicologist who has 119 not handled the basic materials through composing, performing, and conducting, will not fully understand the sound world he writes about or edits. in short, i regard both the "pure" musicologist and the "pure" performer as not only undesirable but also unreal in terms of the world of music which i know and love. the only musician who wins my respect is both musicologist and performer and has a lively practical understanding of the many other fields of music as well. naturally he will have his own specialization, but if this is achieved only at the expense of other accomplishments, he is as potentially dangerous as any other mind which claims authority in a subject which it knows only in part. note 1 i mean here that clear messages are passed from composer to listener even though neither can precisely define the communication in the crude terms of verbal language. 120 music and song in plays acted by children's companies during the english renaissance michael shapiro in recent years, an impressive amount of scholarship has concerned itself with music and song and their uses in shakespeare's plays. in addition to the earlier studies of naylor, noble, and cowling, we are now fortunate to have john h. long's and frederick sternfeld's more specialized studies of the uses of music and song in the comedies and tragedies respectively, peter seng's useful compendium of information on the songs, and john cutts's edition of songs used in the later plays. although we can only rejoice over this significant body of work, it has created the impression that shakespeare's plays are typical of the period in their uses of music and song. while this hypothesis may turn out to be valid, it cannot be tested until scholars have thoroughly investigated the uses of music and song in plays written by other dramatists and in plays performed by other acting companies during the same period. in fact, a cursory view of english renaissance drama suggests, if anything, the atypicality of shakespeare's uses of music and song. for example, the plays acted by the companies of child actors which flourished between 1599 and 1612 are richer in music and song than are the plays written by shakespeare and others for adult companies during the same period, and often use music and song in radically different ways. moreover, the musical conventions in the plays acted by children's troupes were developed in and for small, indoor "private" theaters, and were often adopted by adult troupes after 1609 when they began to move to those theaters from their large, open-roofed "public" theaters. a few scholars have recently continued the exploration of non-shakespearean private theater music begun by arkwright, lawrence, and others. cutts and andrew j. sabol have unearthed several settings for songs from plays acted by children's troupes, and w. r. bowden in the english dramatic lyric: 1603-1641 has investigated the use of song in plays acted in both public and private theaters by both adult and boy companies. the forthcoming1 collection of essays, edited by john h. long, on music in non-shakespearean plays of the period promises to be of great interest. much more remains to be done, but few literary scholars are equipped for the tasks involved. when the texts of plays supply lyrics for songs, as they frequently do not, musicologists who are familiar with sixteenthand seventeenth-century collections of music-printed and manuscript-are likely to be more successful than literary scholars in discovering settings. even when settings can be located, they need to be edited and translated into modern notation before directors can use them for modern productions or literary scholars can discuss their dramatic effects, although such discussions too might best be conducted by musicologists. one of the aims of this article, therefore, is to invite musicologists to collaborate with literary scholars in investigating music and song and their 4+ c•m • 97 uses in non-shakespearean drama of the english renaissance, particularly in the plays acted by troupes of child actors. it is hoped that the brief history of the children's companies and the discussion of music and song in their plays will stimulate further investigation and exploration in the area of nonshakespearean theater music of the english renaissance. perhaps the list of references that follows the discussion will be of some use to musicologists wishing to undertake such inquiries. a brief outline of the history of the children's troupes in england will explain why their plays are richer in music and song than contemporaneous plays acted by troupes of adult actors (hillebrand 1926; chambers 1923: ii, 8-76). in england, most of the children's troupes were originally troupes of choirboys; the two most prominent companies of boy actors styled themselves as the children of st. paul's cathedral and the children of the chapel royal. as choirboys, they were taught to read music, sing prick song, and also to play instruments, such as organs, viols, cornets, virginals and recorders (harrison 1958: 186, 191, 2i4; woodfill 1953: 144). most of the boy choristers became adult choristers when they reached maturity, and some, like the composer thomas ravenscroft, a boy chorister at paul's, went on to make significant contributions to english musical life (lawrence 1924: 41823). during elizabeth's reign the choristers from st. paul's, the windsor chapel, the chapel royal, and westminster abbey performed plays at court as part of the christmas-shrovetide revelry. sometime around 1576, the children of paul's and the children of the chapel royal acquired their own private theaters, which were probably little more than typical tudor banqueting halls. although the children's troupes charged admission to performances in these halls, such performances were considered rehearsals for performances in the banqueting halls at court and probably accommodated courtiers and would-be courtiers who were unable to attend the court performances. after an eightor nine-year period of dormancy, the paul's boys and the chapel children were reactivated around 1599 and flourished for about a decade, performing plays, mostly satiric comedies, by such dramatists as jonson, webster, chapman, middleton, marston, and dekker.2 it is difficult to say whether the members of the acting companies were more than nominally choirboys after 1599. the members ofa children's troupe like the children of the kings revels, which acted at whitefriars, were not choristers. the children's troupe that acted at blackfriars, once called the children of the chapel royal, lost its connection with the chapel royal shortly after the accession of james in 1603, but the children of paul's probably consisted of choristers and was directed by the cathedral choirmaster until the troupe's dissolution in 1607, in view of the origin and history of the children's troupes, it should be no surprise that their plays use music and song more profusely than do contemporaneous plays acted by adult companies, although it is an exaggeration to describe them as resembling"the musical or musical operetta of today" 98 (sternfeld 1964: 14). a statistical approach is illuminating. of the thirty-two extant children's plays acted before 1591, twenty-nine (91 %) have a total of 128 songs, or an average of 4.4 each. garter's susanna, one of the three plays that have no songs, apologizes in the epilogue for this lack. in the post-1599 period, sixteen of the twenty-one plays (76%) acted by the children of paul's contain a total of eighty songs, or an average of 5 each, while 72% of the plays acted by the chapel children contain an average of 2.4 songs per play. by comparison, only 49% of the plays acted by shakespeare's troupe during a corresponding period contain songs, the average of 1.4 songs per play is considerably lower than that for the plays acted by children's troupes, and plays acted by other adult troupes contain even less music (bowden 1951: 126-28; shapiro 1967: 346). the plays acted by children's troupes can be conveniently divided into two distinct phases, falling on either side of a hiatus in the dramatic activities of these troupes that lasted from about 1591 to 1599 or 1600. in the plays acted before 1591, few of the songs have much dramatic relevance and the two plays with the most songs-summer's last will and testament and the arraignment of paris-are more like music-hall revues than plays. moreover, there is little variety in the use of music and song in the pre-159l children's plays. nearly all of the songs in these plays, as well as most of the songs in plays acted after 1599 by the children of paul's, fall into four categories, which describe the dramatic function of the songs: complaint, servant song, pastoral or supernatural song, religious song. complaints one type of song which is virtually unique to the plays acted by children's troupes before 1591 is the complaint, usually a solo song by a female character. bowden describes the singers of this type of song as temporarily frustrated lovers, forsaken lovers, or bereaved lovers (1951 : 24-26; sabol 1960 : 224-25), but the complaint tradition originated earlier and is broader than bowden suspects, and included laments of friends, children, and parents, as well as lovers. the complaint is almost always a personal expression of the character's emotions and, as such, usually has some relevance to the dramatic action. the complaint thus differs from sad but impersonal songs, like the one sung to viol accompaniment in wit and science or the "dolefull ditty" that laments summer's approaching death in summer's last will and testament. one of the earliest of these dramatic complaints is "awake ye wofull wights," the lament of pythias for damon in edwardes' damon and pythias (1564), a play acted by the children of the chapel royal. the stage direction stipulates that pythias was accompanied by regals, but the song also survives in settings for lute accompaniment. long has printed the tune, recitative-like in character, which was probably used in the play (1967: 24799 50). like most dramatic and non-dramatic complaints of the period, "awake ye wofull wights" is highly alliterative, intoning pythias' sorrow in such lines as: "gripe me, you greedy grief,/and present pangs of death!" (1924: 11. 612-13). similar complaints occur in patient grissel, misogonus, the arraignment of paris, and sapho and phao. furthermore, arkwright found a number of extant complaints, which seem to belong to plays, in manuscript collections of music (1906: 341-3, and 4013; 1909: 30-40 and 112-17; and 1914: 117-38). the most famous of these is "alas, ye salt sea gods," the lament of panthea for abradad, ascribed to richard farrant and set for treble voice and four strings. noting farrant's connection with the children of the chapel royal, w. j. lawrence argued that the song belonged to a play acted by that troupe, the wars of cyrus (pub. 1594), which contains characters named panthea and abradates, although the printed text of the play makes no provision for such a song (1921: 514). "alas, ye salt sea gods," like most complaints of this type, is heavily alliterative, contains repeated exclamations and stock phrases like "grievous groans" and "weep and wail," and includes a plea for the singer's death. it is one of several complaints sung by noble women who are threatened with captivity, sexual violation, the death of or separation from a lover, or with some equally heart-rending fate, and it is therefore quite possible that the type of dramatic complaint under discussion was a standard feature of the "pathetic heroine" play, which was popular with the children's companies in the 1560's, 1570's, and early 1580's (brawner 1943: 455-64). complaints even occur in a few plays acted by children's troupes after 1599. in the anonymous maid's metamorphosis, the pathetic heroine sings "ye sacred fyres, and powers above" and "since hope of helpe my froward starres denie," while marston seems to have had his heroine sing a complaint of this type in sophonisba and may have used complaints in antonio and mellida and antonio's revenge. if the alliterative and repetitive style of the lyrics and the recitative-like character of the tunes make the complaints seem somewhat heavy-handed, one should remember that sophisticated musical settings probably made them into effective expressions of grief and sorrow. gustave reese, writing about elizabethan songs with viol accompaniment in general, including the "tragic songs of farrant and parsons," described the settings as follows: the upper voice generally carries a syllabic setting of the poem, while the lower voices, faster moving and noticeably less melodic, weave an amorphous polyphonic texture below the tune, and fill in gaps between its phrases (1959: 817). but we are not even sure if the so-called tragic songs of farrant and parsons were interided to be sung in dramatic performance, and much work remains to be done not only in locating and analyzing settings of complaints but also in defining the relationship between dramatic and non-dramatic complaints. 100 servant songs a second type of song in children's plays is the servant song, usually sung by two to four pages or maidservants. although sabol and others have pointed out the use of servant songs by edwardes and lyly (sabol 1958a: 147-48), the convention is more extensive and more dramatically relevant than has been realized. songs of this type occur in tom tyler (c. 1540), respublica (c. 1552), and nice wanton (c. 1560), as well as in the plays of edwardes and lyly. these servants, descended from the witty slaves of roman comedy and the vices of morality plays, are the agents of mischief, mockery, and merriment, and their songs generally ridicule figures of authority and celebrate festive revelry, with emphasis on drinking and sex. the song in ii.ii of misogonus (c. 1577), for example, combines nearly all of these:motifs: let snurgis lurke & druges worke, we doe defie their slaverye he is but a foole, that gois to schole all we delight in braverye. it is the best, to live at rest, and takt as god doth send it to haunt ech wake, & mirth to make and with good fellowes spend it. the merye, man with cupp & cann lives longer then doth twentye the misers wealth, doth hurt his health examples we have plentye. in cardes & dice, our comforte lies in sportinge and in dauncinge our mindes to please and live at ease and sometime to use praunsinge. with bes & nel we love to dwell in kisinge and in hakinge. but whope hoe hollie, with trollye lollye to them weil now be walking. (second, fourth, sixth, and tenth stanzas) a quartet, consisting of the prodigal-son protagonist and three of his attendants, sings this song to the well-known tune of "heart's ease." before the song is sung, one of the attendants assigns the parts: well then bycause you take me for your deane ile apoynt the partes my selfe by saint john 101 you shall singe the false kinde i meane you know what & thoust bere the bas because thou art rustye the counterfet tener is youres by youre lott my selfe will singe the truble & that very trusty. r. w. bond, the editor of the play, informs us that "false kinde" has been written in the manuscript above the word "tenther," which has been deleted (1911: 197, 309-19). unfortunately, bond's note on these directions is so brief and vague that one would welcome further commentary on the musical terms and any attempt to describe the style of the setting used in the play. as the reference to a bass part suggests, the children's troupe acting misogonus included at least one adult actor, a practice not uncommon among children's companies before 1591 (hunter 1962: 237). in plays acted after 1599, small groups of servants sing very much as they did in the plays of edwardes and lyly, that is at the end of short scenes of pert, audacious dialogue. as in the pre-1591 plays, such scenes rarely further the dramatic action but supply contrasting attitudes, parody theme and action of the main plot, create an atmosphere oflevity, and usually culminate in song. such scenes, with this type of song, occur in the plays of william percy (intended for paul's but probably never performed there), and in plays acted by the chapel children at blackfriars, but most of all in plays acted by the children of paul's. in act ii of marston's antonio and mellida, two pages and a maid sing "the descant on our names," the lyrics to which are lost but must have been extremely bawdy because the pages' names-dildo and catzo-are italian terms for penis. marston's what you will requires three page songs, all of them unfortunately lost, although sabol has found two songs in ravenscroft's melismata that might well have been used (1959: 8). while this approach can rarely yield more than conjectural results, it opens up possibilities of matching lyrics from manuscript and printed collections of music with plays with blank songs. in lii of blurt, master constable, probably by middleton, three pages sing "what meat eats the spaniard ?", which pokes fun at one of their masters (saboli958a: 146-49). in iiji of the same play, two maidservants sing a bawdy question-and-answer duet, "in a fair woman that thing is best?" this song is sung in response to a request for a "light song," of the kind that "go nimbly and quick, and are full of change, and carry sweet division" (ilii. 47-49). the lyrics are ostensibly a sonnet written by another character, which the maids read before singing, perhaps because a polyphonic setting rendered the words unintelligible (evans 1929: 44-45, 59-60; bowden 1951: 129; long 1955-61: 1,4; and sabol 1960: 229-30). thus, the children's troupes seem to have carried over the servant song from their pre-1591 plays when they resumed dramatic activities in 1599. this type of song belongs exclusively to the plays acted by children's companies, for adult troupes rarely if ever had more than two or three boys 102 capable of taking more than a walk-on role and those boys usually played female roles. when adult companies did use groups of children, as in midsummer night's dream and merry wives qf windsor, the children are given roles which require a good deal of singing and dancing but little or no speaking. many of the plays of the children's troupes, however, count heavily on the pages to fulfill their traditional functions both in speech and song. one would like to know more about the musical aspects of the servant song. pastoral and supernatural songs a third type of song in the children's plays is the song for pastpral or supernatural characters, usually a choral song, such as the nymph's song in peele's arraignment qf paris. when choral groups were assigned a collective role, they were usually cast as muses, nymphs, shepherds, or fairies, probably because of the traditional association of music with such groups. muses sing in edwardes' damon and phythias, while cupid sings with a group of nymphs in ii.ii of lyly's gallathea, and troupes of fairies dance in ii.iii of gallathea and sing and dance in iv.iii of lyly's endimion, possibly to one of the songs in ravenscroft's brieje discourse (lawrence 1924: 418-23). moreover, such songs occur in a few plays acted after 1599. there is a fairy chorus in act iii of the wisdom qf doctor dodypoll and a chorus of nymphs in wi{y beguiled. the maid's metamorphosis calls for rival singing choruses of shepherds and woodsmen in act i; the lyrics of the shepherds' song are not given, but a song found in ravenscroft's melismata, "the crowning of belphoebe," would fit the context (sabol 1959: 7-8). in act ii of the same play there is a chorus of fairies who sing and dance first alone and then with pages, and settings of both songs appear in ravenscroft's brieje discourse (lawrence 1924: 420; sabol 1958: 153). songs of this type were naturally used rarely by adnlt companies, although they do occur in midsummer night's dream and merry wives qf windsor. even the children's troupes abandoned this type of song in the early 1600's as they began to perform realistic satiric comedies set in contemporary london instead of the ovidian romantic comedies made popular by lyly. religious songs a fourth type of song in plays acted by children's troupes was the religious song-a hymn or prayer, usually sung by a chorus. as most of the children's companies were groups of boy choristers, they were accustomed to singing hymns or prayers in choral ensembles for religious services, so that considerable time and energy could have been spared by their using the same songs in dramatic productions. thus, a number of plays contain hymns or prayers, usually at the end, which could have been used for devotional purposes. for example, the "hymnus" at the end of act iii of sapienta solomonis is a latin verse rendering of psalm 72. in other plays, where the lyrics are not given, 103 almost any religious selection would fit the context, as in godly queen hester, where hester asks her chapel to "syng some holy himpne [sic] to spede us this day" (1904: 1. 861). many of these religious songs come at the ends of plays, invoking blessings for the queen, the court, and sometimes the commons; this type of song has little relevance to the dramatic action but is highly relevant to the theatrical occasion of a court play, the function of which was to praise or flatter the sovereign and, by extension, the members of the court and even the country as a whole. none of the paul's plays produced after 1599 concludes with this prayer for the health and well-being of the sovereign and nobility, with the possible exception of marston's antonio's revenge, which concludes with a request for "a solemne hymne .. . /to close the last act of my vengeance." the request and the hymn which must have followed it underscore the revengers' desire for purification, and the dramatic relevance of the hymn probably precluded the conventional prayer for the sovereign. other plays use final songs, not necessarily religious, for dramatic effects, and such songs are usually integrated with the theme and action. thus, the maid's metamorphosis concludes with a "roundelay" of g<?neral rejoicing, and westward hoi closes with a rowing song, for the trip back to london, which turns into a plaudite. plays like the maid's metamorphosis and sophonisba, which are set in classical antiquity, use hymns to phoebus and hymen, just as shakespeare uses a song to bacchus in ii.vii of antony and cleopatra. it would be interesting to know whether these pagan hymns and prayers were set to or modelled after christian religious music. some scholars have suggested that shakespeare's song to bacchus, for example, may be a parody or imitation of the pentecostal hymn veni creator (noble 1923: 127; sternfeld 1964: 86-87; seng 1967 : 212). in the first few years after their revival in 1599, the children's troupes continued to employ the same basic types of song that they used before 1591, albeit with greater flexibility and dramatic relevance. even the few new types of song, which they probably borrowed from adult companies, were used in more interesting ways. for example, several of the plays acted by children's troupes after 1599 contain serenades, a type of song usually associated with plays acted by adult troupes. the serenade is generally sung by a suitor's servants or by hired musicians to a lady who usually appears "above" at a window or balcony. because nearly all the sponsors of serenades are rejected as lovers, modern scholars regard the serenade as a conventional means of representing unsuccessful courtship. the convention of the vicarious serenade was evidently based on contemporaneous notions of social and dramatic decorum. no one of noble rank, either on or offstage, would sing or play an instrument except on very rare occasions and then only after great protestation. in plays, the production of music is generally left to servants, professional musicians, effeminate courtiers, lower class characters, or characters associated with loose sexual behavior (ingram 1957: 154; bowden 1951: lo4 19-22,44-45,123; sternfeld 1964: 7-8). the vicarious serenade is used in the conventional way in plays acted by adult troupes, such as shakespeare's two gentlemen of verona, as well as in blurt, a1.aster constable, acted by the children of paul's, where a soon-to-be-rejected suitor instructs his musicians to "speak movingly" beneath his love's casement. but other plays acted by the children's troupes use the convention in a freer and more playful manner. in jack drum's entertainment three rival suitors appear in succession under the lady's casement. one directs his page to sing "delicious beautie that doth lie," the second, a miser, has his page sing a song of money, "chunck, chunck, chunck," while the third, the successful lover, makes music out of his apology for not bringing any music: unequald katherine i bring no musick to prepare thy thoughts to entertaine an amorous discourse: more musick's in thy name, and sweet dispose, than in apollos lyre, or orpheus close. i'le chaunt thy name, and so inchaunt each eare, that katherinas happie name shall heare. m)' katherine, my life, my katherine. (1934-39: iii, 198) similarly, the lover in what you will directs his page to sing a lute song under the lady's window, but marston then undercuts the convention of the vicarious serenade by having the lover lament the professional singer's inability to express authentic emotion: fie, peace, peace, peace, it hath no passion into o melt thy breath in fluent softer tunes that every note may seeme to tricle downe like sad distilling teares and make-o god! that i were but a poet now t'expresse my thoughts, or a musitian but to sing my thoughts, or any thing but what i am, sing't ore on[c]e more: my greefes a boundles sea that hath no shore. (1934-39: ii, 249) the most unconventional use of the vicarious serenade occurs in marston's dutch courtesan, a blackfriars play, in which a young gallant twice sings to his lady without protest or fear of debasing his rank. much has been written about the dramatic relevance of songs in plays acted by children's troupes. earlier critics tended to view these songs as extraneous entertainment (wright 1927: 261-74; moore 1929: 167); more recent critics, on the other hand, seem to regard most of the songs in these plays as dramatically relevant (bowden 1951: 83; kiefer 1954: 163-71; and ingram 1957: 154-64). one difficulty in dealing with this question is arriving at a satisfactory definition of "dramatic relevance." if earlier scholars tended lo5 to -define it too narrowly, more recent scholars may be said to err in the opposite direction. one could reach his own working definition of the term by examining the functions attributed to the songs in shakespeare's plays by the various critics whose remarks are quoted or paraphrased in peter seng's useful book. moreover, anyone assessing the dramatic relevance of a song ought to consider any extant settings, or at least speculate about the kind of setting such lyrics might have required. even with the songs in shakespeare's plays this procedure has not always been followed. for instance, feste's song in ii.iv of twelfth night-"come away, come away, death" -has often been regarded as a folk song because the duke describes it as such before it is sung: mark it, cesario, it is old and plain. the spinsters and the knitters in the sun and the free maids that weave their thread with bones do use to chant it. it is silly sooth, and dailies with the innocence of love, like the old age. (ii.iv. 44-49) the lyrics themselves, however, suggest a highly sophisticated art song. the usual explanation for this discrepancy involves a possible change in singers suggested by the text, but the discrepancy may have its own dramatic function as well, for the duke's inaccurate, pseudo-nostalgic description of the song may be another manifestation of his posturing as a melancholy lover (seng 1967: 109-115). instrumental music very little instrumental music occurs in the children's plays acted before 1591, and most of it was probably played offstage, like the mourning song played by the regals in damon and pythias. off-stage regals also produced the unusual effect called for in the arraignment oj paris-"an artificial charm of birds being heard within." in sylva sylvarum bacon explains how the effect is produced: "in regals, (where they have a pipe they call the nightingalepipe, which containeth water) the sound hath a continual ,trembling" (1862: iv, 255). the same effect was later called for in the dutch courtesan and blurt, master constable. the instrumental music which was produced on stage in plays acted by children before 1591 was played by the choirboy-actors, who were often trained instrumentalists. only occasionally are there groups of supernumeraries who may have been professional musicians, such as the "noyse of musicians" in summer's last will and testament. four of the performers of wit and science were skilled violists and relatively competent actors, for they each assumed several roles in order to accompany the hero's dancing and their own singing. similarly, characters in plays by udall, lyly, and peele are also required to play pipes, fiddles, and lutes. 106 if the repertory of the children of paul's is any indication, instrumental music was used even more frequently in children's plays acted after 1599 than in those acted before 1599. as on the public theater stage, singers usually accompany themselves on the lute or lyra viol, although singers use the harp in the maid's metamorphosis and antonio and mellida, and the tabor and pipe in jack drum's entertainment. in the last-mentioned play, another singer calls for a whole consort of viols to accompany her song on stage. the purely instrumental music in the plays acted by the children's troupes after 1599 was produced by a wide variety of instruments. probably for acoustical reasons, the indoor private theaters used different instruments from those used in the larger, open-roofed public theaters (cowling 1913: 53-63). thus, cornets rather than trumpets are used for sennets and flourishes, and may have been played offstage by professional musicians (long 195561: i, 33-34). stage directions in some plays acted by children's troupes call for "still flutes," or recorders, while those in sophonisba or a mad world, my masters call for organs. for instrumental ensembles, the children of paul's seem to have employed whole consorts, usually of viols and sometimes of cornets, whereas the blackfriars troupe, like the adult troupes, was by 1602 employing a broken consort of organ, lute, mandolin, bandora, viol, and pipe, according to the diary of duke philip julius of stet tin-pomerania (chambers 1923: 11,47). it is difficult to tell whether the members of the whole consorts used at paul's were professional musicians or whether they were specially trained choirboys, like the viol players in wit and science. unlike the musicians in earlier plays, like wit and science, the musicians rarely play on stage, and in the one exception-westward hoi -they are identified as "the town consort" and a "noyse of fidlers." moreover, none of the members of these consorts has a speaking part, except in northward hoi it is possible that professional musicians, or waits, were hired for the plays, as was apparently done for college plays at cambridge and for the plays of the king's men produced at blackfriars after 1609 (greg 1923: 207-08; and woodfill 1953: 40-41), but it is also possible that the musicians at paul's after 1599 were specially trained choirboys, as they had been before 1591. regardless of the identity of the musicians, it was probably this consort of viols that produced the entr'acte music at paul's. whether or not there was entr'acte music in the public theaters and if so who supplied it are thorny problems, but most scholars agree that entr'acte music was more important at the private theaters (harbage 1955: 46-47; sternfeld 1964: 14-15). many of the plays acted by the children of paul's after' 1599 call for entr'acte music, and in the plays of william percy, written for paul's but probably not acted there, every act but the last is followed by this stage direction: "here they knockt up the consort." fq.rthermore, in many plays acted at paul's and blackfriars the entr'acte music is woven into the action. there is no evidence that the musicians at paul's offered a musical prelude or postlude, but the performance at blackfriars witnessed by the duke of stettin-pomerania in 107 1602 was preceded by an hour-long offering by the broken consort (chambers 1923: 11,46-47). the children's troupes of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries seem to have used both vocal song and instrumental music more often and more variously than did the adult troupes of the same period, and may even have influenced their elders. in 1609, shakespeare's company began using the blackfriars theater as their winter quarters and the next few years saw other adult troupes acquiring private theaters. there is some evidence to suggest that these adult troupes preserved many of the conventions regarding the use of music and song that had been developed when the children's troupes occupied the same theaters. the influence of the children's troupes and the private theaters on the adult troupes is an important subject in theater history, for the so-called private theater became the dominant type of theater in the stuart period and has remained so down to the present. many readers of this journal could no doubt make significant contributions to the musicological aspects of this chapter in theater history. notes 1 it was only after correcting the galley proofs that the writer was able to examine .music in english renaissance drama, edited by john h. long (university of kentucky press, lexington, 1968). while the seven contributors to this symposium cover topics ranging from music in medieval mystery plays to music in semi-dramatic royal entertainments, two of the articles deal directly with music and song in private theater plays: r. w. ingrams' essay, "patterns of music and action in fletcherian drama," and vincent duckles' extremely useful bibliography of primary sources of music for lyrics in early seventeenili-century english drama. 2 the reader can establish ilie repertories of the children's troupes by consulting schoenbaum's revised edition of harbage's annals of english drama. craik, bevington, hillebrand, shapiro, and harbage's shakespeare and the rival traditions are also helpful. references arkwright, g. e. p. 1906 deaili songs ofpyramus and thisbe. in notes and queries, vol. 84, pp. 341-43 and 401--03. 1909 early elizabethan stage music. in musical antiquary, vol. i, october, pp. 3040. 1913 early elizabeilian stage music. in musical antiquary, vol. iv,january, pp. 11217. 1914 elizabeilian choirboy plays and their music. in proceedings of the royal musical association, 40ili session, pp. 117-38. bacon, francis 1862 sylva sylvarum. in the works of francis bacon. ed. james spedding et al. brown and taggard, boston, iv, 255. barjona, laurentius 1911 misogonus. in early playsftom the italian. ed. r. w. bond. oxford university press, oxford. 108 bevington, david 1962 from "mankind" to marlowe. harvard university press, cambridge, mass. bowden, william r. 1951 the english lyric, 1603-1641. yale university press, yale studies in english, new haven, vol. 118. brawner, james p. 1943 early classical narrative plays by sebastian westcott and richard mulcaster. in modern language quarterly, vol. iv, pp. 455-64. chambers, edmund k. 1923 the elizabethan stage. clarendon press, oxford, 4 vo1s. cowling, g. h. 1913 music on the shakespearian stage. cambridge university press, cambridge. craik, thomas w. 1958 the tudor interlude. leicester university press, leicester. cutts, john p. 1957 a note on 'the maydes metamorphosis.' in notes and queries, vol. 202, pp. 292-93. 1959 la musique de scene de la troupe de shakespeare. centre national de 1a recherche scientifique, paris. evans, willa mcclung 1929 ben jonson and elizabethan music. lancaster press, lancaster, pa. greg, w. w. (ed.) 1904 godly queen hester. materialien zur kunde des alteren englischen dramas, a. uystpruyst, louvain. 1923 the academic drama at cambritlge. in malone society collections, vol. 2, part 2. harbage, alfred 1952 shakespeare and the rival traditions. macmillan, new york. 1955 theatrefor shakespeare. university of toronto press, toronto. 1964 annals qf english drama. revised by samuel schoenbaum. university of pennsylvania press, philadelphia. harrison, frank lloyd . 1958 music in medieval britain. routledge and kegan paul, london. hillebrand, harold n. 1926 the child actors. university of illinois press, urbana. university of illinois studies in language and literature. vol. ii. hunter, g. k. 1962 john lyly: the humanist as courtier. routledge and kegan paul, london. ingram, r. w. 1956 the use of music in the plays of marston. in music and letters, vol. 37,pp. 154-64. kiefer, christian 1954 music and marston's "the malcontent." in studies in philology, vol. 51, pp. 163-71. lawrence, w. j. 1908 music in the elizabethan theatre. in shakespeare jahrbuch, vol. 44, pp. 36-50. 1912 the elizabethan playhouse, first series. shakespeare head press, stratford-uponavon. 1920 music in the elizabethan theater. in musical quarterly, vol. 6, pp. 192-205. 1921 the earliest private theatre play. in london times literary supplement, aug. 11, p.514. 1924 thomas ravenscroft's theatrical associations. in modern language review, vol. 19, pp. 418-23. 1927 pre-restoration stage studies. harvard university press, cambridge, mass. lindsey, edwin s. 1929 the original music for beaumont's play "the knight of the burning pestle." in studies in philology, vol. 26, pp. 425-43. 5+ c•m• 109 long, john h. 1955-61 shakespeare's use of music. university of florida press, gainsville, 2 vols. 1967 music for a song in 'damon and pithias.' in music and letters, vol. 48, pp. 24750. 1968 music in english renaissance drama. ed. long. university of kentucky press, lexington. macdonald, emslie 1953 three early settings of jonson. in notes and queries, vol. 198, pp. 466-68. marston, john 1934-39 the plays of john marston. ed. h. harvey wood. oliver and boyd, edinburgh, 3 vo1s. moore, john r. 1929 the songs of the public theatres in the time of shakespeare. in journal of english and germanic philology, vol. 28, pp. 166-202. naylor, edward w. 1931 shakespeare and music. j. m. dent and sons, ltd., london. noble, richmond 1923 shakespeare's use of song. clarendon press, oxford. reese, gustave 1959 music in the renaissance. revised edition. w. w. norton, new york. sabol, andrew j. 1958a two songs with accompaniment for an elizabethan choirboy play. in studies in the renaissance, vol. 5, pp. 45-59. 1958b a newly discovered contemporary song setting for jonson's cynthia's revels. in notes and queries, vol. 203, pp. 384-85. 1959 :ravenscroft's melismata and the children of paul's. in renaissance news, vol. 12, pp.3-9. 1960 two unpublished stage songs. in renaissance news, vol. 13, pp. 222-32. seng, peter j. 1967 the vocal songs in the plays of shakespeare. harvard university press, cambridge, mass. shakespeare, william 1948 the complete works. ed. g. b. harrison. harcourt, brace, and co., new york. shapiro, michael 1967 the plays acted by the children of paul's, 1599--1607. unpublished doctoral dissertation. columbia university. sternfeld, f. w. 1959 songs in jonson's comedy. in studies in the english renaissance drama. ed. j. w. bennett et al. new york university press, new york, pp. 310-21. 1964 music in shakespearean tragedy. routledge and kegan paul, london. woodfill, walter l. 1953 musicians in english society from elizabeth to charles i. princeton university press, princeton. wright, louis b. 1927 extraneous song in elizabethan drama after the advent of shakespeare. in studies in philology, vol. 24, pp. 261-74. 110 zur stellung bachs im weltbild der goethezeit* walter wiora nicht schon zu seinen lebzeiten und nicht erst seit 1829 ist bach in das bewubtsein einer bildungselite gelangt, sondern um 1800. "das rollende rad des geschicks," sagt friedrich rochlitz, hatte "auch die speiche des ehrwurdigen vaters, sebastian bach, die eine weile weit unten gewesen, wieder hinauf, ja, wiewohl nur einen kurzen moment, auf den hochsten punkt gebracht. dieser moment trat um das jahr 1800 ein." spater betonte derselbe bedeutende schriftsteller, den goethe gekannt und geschatzt hat, es sei uber bach "so vieles einsichtsvoll, wahr und gut geschrieben worden, so dab selbst, wer mit ihm und seinen schopfungen sich nicht befabt, doch wenigstens die umrisse eines bildes von ihm und ihnen in sich tragt."l) 1811 nennt hans georg nageli bach den "grobten aller tonkunstler."2) forkel wurdigt ihn als "ersten klassiker."3) goethe verwendet in einem brief an zelter einen ausdruck, der namentlich fur das oberhaupt eines ordens, wie der freimaurer, gebrauchlich war: "euer grobmeister."4) a. b. marx preist 1828 die matthauspassion uberschwenglich als "das grobte werk unsers grobten meisters, das grobte und heiligste werk der tonkunst aller volker."5) e. t. a. hoffmann spricht vom "gewaltigen genius seb. bach"6) und hegel von seiner "grobartigen ... genialitat."7) man verglich ihn mit durer und michelangelo, mit shakespeare und newton, mit dante und homer. die goethezeit sah ihn primar im zusammenhang eines asthetischen weltbildes, nicht-wie der historismus-im zusammenhang eines detaillierten geschichtsbildes. er galt als klassischer reprasentant bedeutungsvoller ideen. so nennt ihn k. ch. f. krause, der originelle philosoph, dem sich die spanische richtung des "krausismo" angeschlossen hat, "ein glanzendes beispiel und musterbild der freien und kuhnen melodiefuhrung."8) von schubart wird bach "original" genannt9), von goethe "grundoriginal."lo) in diesem wort liegt einmal die vorstellung * an english version of this essay follows at the end of the german text. 174 von besonderer eigentiimlichkeit und selbstandigkeit, die bis zum originellen geht. "man stobt da," sagt schubart, "aufso kiihne modulationen, auf eine so grobe harmonie, auf so neue melodische gange, dab man das originalgenie eines bachs nicht verkennen kann" (100). 1m wort "original" liegt zugleich die idee urspriinglichkeit, herkunft aus universaleren urspriingen, als es geschichtliche einfliisse und moden sind. die vorstellung yom "linearen kontrapunkt'; bei bach war schon damals verbreitet. forkel deutet auf die "verwebung mehrerer melodien, die alle so sangbar sind, dab jede zu ihrer zeit als oberstimme erscheinen kann, und wirklich erscheint."ll) rochlitz betont, dab bei bach "jede stimme frei (wie man sich ausdriickt: real) und melodios behandelt ist, jede gleichsam ihr eigenes lied singt, und doch alle nur ein engverschlungenes ganze bilden."12) carl maria von weber sagt: "die grobe seiner werke in harmonischer riicksicht entwickelt sich aus der gewandtheit seiner seelenkrafte, die widersprechendsten melodielinien zu einem ganzen zu verkniipfen."13) solche gedanken sind von den fachleuten der musik ausgesprochen und von universalen denkern weitergefiihrt worden. man hat zum beispiel an bach geriihmt, wie er die freiheit der einzelnen stimmen mit ihrer harmonischen gemeinschaft und damit zugleich die freiheit kiinstlerischer phantasie mit der sachgegebenen konsequenz der harmonik verbund"en habe. rochlitz hebt hervor, "es erscheine in bachs vollendetsten werken alles nothwendig (als konne es nicht anders gemacht werden, ohne nachtheil des ganzen), und doch zugleich alles frei (jeder theil als nur durch sich selbst bedingt)."14) hegel vertieft diesen gedanken. er weist zunachst darauf hin, dab in kompositionen von bach oft "verschiedene melodien harmonisch ineinandergearbeitet werden, so dab immer das zusammentreffen bestimmter tone dieser melodien" einen akkord ergibt. und er fahrt fort: in solcher behandlungsweise diirfe tiefere musik nicht in konsonanzen verharren; "sie mub im gegenteil das einfache erste zusammenstimmen zu dissonanzen auseinanderreiben. "die kiihnheit der musikalischen komposition verlabt den blob konsonierenden fortgang, schreitet zu gegensatzen weiter, ruft alle starksten widerspriiche und dissonanzen auf und erweist ihre eigene macht in dem aufwiihlen aller machte der harmonie, deren kampfe sie ebensosehr beschwichtigen zu konnen und damit den befriedigenden sieg 175 melodischer"beruhigung zu feiern die gewibheit hat. es ist dies ein kampf der freiheit und notwendigkeit: ein kampf der freiheit der phantasie, sich ihren schwirigen zu tiberlassen, mit der notwendigkeit jener harmonischen verhaltnisse, deren sie zu ihrer auberung bedarfund in welchen ihre eigene bedeutung liegt."15) was spatere komponisten an bach bewundert haben, ist zum teil schon in der goethezeit ausgesprochen worden. schumann hat das "tiefkombinatorische" an ihm hervorgehoben; der ausdruck findet sich ahnlich aber schon bei rochlitz, der auf bachs "tiefe der kombinationsgabe"16) hinweist; er meint nicht nur die kombination von stimmen in harmonischer polyphonie, sondern auch von rhythmen, akkorden,von nahen und entiegenen tonarten. man verehrte in bach reine musik im unterschied zu solcher, die von sentiments oder programmen getrtibt sei, und unterschied reine musik auch von solcher, die nationale stile betont und zur selbstdarstellung bringt. bei bach, sagt zeiter, "ist alles nichts anderes als musik; keine deutsche, keine italianische, aber musik."17) es ist abwegig zu meinen, man habe sich im zeitalter der romantik bei musik stets dem geftihl hingegeben und den verstand beiseitegelassen. auch damals war es dem kenner offenkundig, dab ingeniosemusik, wie bachsche fugen, intelligentes horen erfordert. mit allem n achdruck sagt rochlitz: "wer bei seinem kunstgenusse nicht denken mag, ftir den sind seine werke sehr wenig und nie wird er ihr wesentiiches und vorztiglichstes sich zu eigen zu machen, ja auch nur es auffinden konnen. . . . am meisten regt er an und beschaftigt den verstand"; aber, so ftigtrochlitz hinzu, "nicht den kalten, trocknen, sondern den lebendigen, entztindbaren, durchdringenden."18) leere, bedeutungslose musik ist nach hegel nicht zur kunst zu rechnen, denn ihr gehe eine hauptseite aller kunst ab: der inhalt und ausdruck (817). die rein musikalische struktur der arbeit werde zu wahrer kunst erst durch das "geistreiche solcher architektonik" (803). geistreich heibt hier nicht nur ingenios und plein d'esprit, sondern auch spiritoso. e. t. a. hoffmann weist auf das geistreiche in bachs manier zu variieren hin;19) er denkt dabei wohl besonders an die goldberg-varia*men. es war ein grundgedanke, dab die plastik ihre grobte vollkommenheit und bedeutungsfiille schon in der griechischen 176 antike erreicht habe, .die musik aber erst in der abendlandischen neuzeit. "die skulptur," sagt hegel, "erreicht ihren hochsten gipfelpunkt in der alten welt durch die griechen und romer, wie die malerei und musik in der neueren zeit durch die christlichen volker" (882). 1m abendlandischen christentum habe sich entwickelt, was keine andere epoche und kultur hervorgebracht hat: "die grtindliche religiose musik." 1m worte "grtindlich" liegt sowohl substantielle gediegenheit (wie man von einer grtindlichen wissenschaftlichen abhandlung spricht) als auch das eindringen in den grund der seele und der angemessene ausdruck des seelengrundes. "diese grtindliche religiose musik," sagt hegel, "gehort zum tiefsten und wirkungsreichsten, was die kunst tiberhaupt hetvorbringen kann" (859). in hegels weltbild hat sie somit einen ahnlich hohen rang wie die plastik des phidias, die dichtung dantes, das drama shakespeares. an welche meister und werke religioser musik denkt hegel? zunachst an die grobe tradition katholischer kirchenmusik, als deren zentrale gestalt damals palestrina erschien. dann aber weist er darauf hin, dab auch die protestanten solche musik geschaffen haben, werke von "grobter tiefe sowohl des religiosen sinnes als der musikalischen gediegenheit und reichhaltigkeit der erfindung und ausflihrung: wie zum beispiel vor allen: sebastian bach, ein meister, dessen grobartige, echt protestantische, kernige und doch gleichsam gelehrte genialitat man erst neuerdings wieder vollstandig hat schatzen lernen" (859) . . den bertihmtesten ausspruch goethes tiber bach aus dem jahre 1827 habe ich in der gedenkschrift ftir hans albrecht interpretiert.20)· die vorstellung von der ewigen harmonie im kosmos und vor der schopfung geht auf alte traditionen zurtick, besonders auf keplers harmonice mundi von 1619, ein buch, das tiber werckmeister auch auf bach eingewirkt hat. athanasius kircher sprach von der "harmonia nascientis mundi"; gott habe die welt als eine monumentale· weltorgel geschaffen.21 ) goethe hat sich im hohen alter selbst als mystiker bezeichnet; aber er hat den unterschied zwischen erfahrungswissen und schwarmfischem mystizismus nicht verwischt. "es ist ein grober unterschled ... , ob ich, wenn die klarheit mir nicht mehr zusagt, mich mit einer gewissen dammerung zu umhtillen trachte, oder ob ich, in der uberzeugung, dab das klare auf 177 einem tiefen, schwer erforschten grund ruhe, auch von diesem immer schwer auszusprechenden grunde das mogliche mit heraufzunehmen trachte."22) diese grundlichkeit ist mit der "grundlichkeit religioser musik" bei bach verwandt. man mub nicht goethe und sein zeitalter uberspringen, urn bach zu verstehen. haben jene musiker und denker in jeder hinsicht weniger von ihm gewubt als wir, denen aile hinterlassenen werke bachs in gesamtausgaben zur verfugung stehen? bach's place in the world-view of the goethe era bach's presence in the consciousness of a cultural elite cannot be ascribed to a period so remote as his own lifetime or so late as 1829; in fact it date.s from abq,ut 1800. "the revolving wheel of fortune," says friedrich rochlitz, "on which sebastian bach, the revered father, had for a while been very low, brought him up again-up to the highest point, indeed, albeit for a brief moment. that moment occurred about the year 1800." the same important writer, whom goethe knew and valued highly, later declares that "so many penetrating, true, and worthwhile writings" have appeared concerning bach "that even those persons who do not occupy themselves with him and his works must needs possess at least the outlines of both in their minds." 1 in 1811 hans georg nageli calls bach the "greatest of all composers."2 forkel judges him "the prime classic."3 goethe, in a letter to zelter, uses an expression mainly applicable to the head of an order like that of the freemasons: "your grand master."4 a. b. marx, in 1828, is exuberant in his praise of the st. matthew passion, "the greatest work of our greatest master, the greatest and holiest work in the music of all nations."5 e. t. a. hoffmann speaks ofthat "powerful genius, sebastian bach,"6 and hegel of his "magnificent .•• geniality [genialitiit]."7 he was compared to durer and michelangelo, shakespeare and newton, dante and homer. goethe's era saw him primarily within the context of an aesthetic world-view, not, as does historicism, withintl1.at of a detailed historical conception. he was considered it! classical representative of significant ideas. thus k. c. f. dause, the original philosopher whose spanish adherents made trend known as "krausismo," calls him "a splendid example and model offree and bold part-writing."8 178 notes 1 allgemeine musikalische zeitung (4mz) (1831) 33:265; also wegez;u bach edited by j. miiller-blattau (augsburg, 1926), p. 27. 2 amz (1811) 13:662. 3 j. n. forkel, ober johann sebastian bachs leben, kunst und kunstwerke edited by j. mi.i1ler-blattau (kassel, 1950), p. 13. 4 goethe, briefentwurf of june 21, 1827. [, berliner allgemeine musikz;eitung (1828) 5: 13if.; also m. geck, die widerentdeckung der matthiiuspassion im 19. jahrhundert (regensburg, 1967), p. 23. 6 e. t. a. hoffmann, musikalische novellen und au/siitze edited by e. istel, vol. 1 (regensburg, n.d.), p. 91. . 7 g. w. f. hegel, asthetik (berlin, 1955), p. 859. b g. schurda, a'sthetik und musiktheorie des philosophen karl ehr. fr. krause (miinster, 1932), p. 180. 9 c. d. f. schubart, ideen zu einer a'sthetik der tonkunst (vienna, 1806). 10 goethe, letter of april 22, 1827. loa op. cit., p. 100. 11 op. cit., p. 41 12 amz (1803) 5:516; wege zu bach, p. 14. 13 c. m. von weber, siimtliche sehri/ten edited by g. kaiser (berlin and leipzig, 1908), p. 342. 14 amz (1803) 5:514-15. 10 op. cit., p. 844. 16 amz (1831) 33:265ff.; wege zu bach, p. 47. 17 zelter, letter of april 8, 1827. ' 18 amz (1803) 5:509ff.; wege zu bach, p. 9ff. 18a hegel, op. cit., p. 817. 18b ibid., p. 803. 19 e. t. a. hoffmann, sehri/ten zur musik (munich, 1963), p. 251. 19a hegel, op. cit., p. 882. 19b ibid., p. 859. 1ge ibid., p. 859. 20 w. wiora, "goethes wort iiber bach," hans albrecht in memoriam (kassel, 1962), p. 179. 21 r. dammann, der musikbegriffim deutschen barock (cologne, 1967), p. 416. 22 goethe, "zur morpho1ogie," weimar edition 11/6, p. 354. 182 1 an art such as music, perhaps preferable. one can measure endlessly and still fail to understand the nature of a work's musical language or esthetic value. numerical measurement unquestionably has its uses, but a book like de musica, that concentrates exclusively on measurement, is somewhat limited in value and interest when compared with the work of other theorists from the same period such as zarlino, who treat more immediately and extensively the design of the art-work and the methods of its composition and performance. writers such as zarlino and gafori say much more about what musicians now want and need to know regarding renaissance music than salinas. these reservations aside, salinas still deserves our attention as a distinguished musical humanist, for the light his work sheds on the history of music theory in general, and possibly for what he might contribute to present attempts to find alternatives to equal temperament. daniels' study is an ideally thorough treatment of salinas' work and can be heartily and unreservedly recommended to anyone concerned with music theory of the renaissance. peter bergquist completed the phd. in musicology at columbia university in 1964, and is presently assistant professor at the university of oregon. his dissertation treats the theoretical writings of pietro aaron. wallace c. mckenzie, jr. the music of anton webern ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 60-2792), 1960. (507 p., pos. film $6.45; north texas state college diss.) dika newlin reading this thesis reminded me anew how much progress we have made in accepting contemporary musical trends as fit subjects for musicological research. such was not always the case. i vividly remember the furor caused twenty years ago when it was announced that my columbia thesis subject would be bruckner, mahler, schoenberg. what! a thesis partly about a still living composer? horrors! thus the reaction of a sizeable portion of the musicological world. thanks to enlightened advisors, the project was nonetheless fulfilled, and i like to think that this pioneer work helped prepare for the greater liberality of today in this respect. when reading this work, it is necessary to remember that it was finished in 1960. of course, more webern material has come to publica tion since then. there are the webern essays der weg zur neuen musik, the jone-humplik correspondence, kolneder's study in the 100 series kontrapunkte, and that most fascinating "whodunit" in musicological literature, hans moldenhauer's the death of anton webern. many previously unknown compositions of webern have come to light through moldenhauer's researches. therefore, in mckenzie's thesis one will find omissions which are not his fault. the work begins with a brief account of webern's life, drawn mainly from robert craft's leaflet accompanying his record album of webern's complete works, from rognoni's espressionismo e dodecafonia, and from wildgan's biographical table in the webern issue of die reihe. in this section, there is one curious error. mckenzie speaks of the 1907 piano quintet as not having been finished. actually it was finished and has been recorded in the craft album. elsewhere mckenzie mentions this but not the blueprint publication (boeklebomart). in chapter ii, the general movement of expressionism is discussed. good use is made of robert wiedman's unpublished n.y.u. thesis on this subject, and the appropriate literary and artistic sources are adduced. in this section, i think mckenzie makes one bad mistake in equating neue sachlichkeit and the twelve-tone "technique." if anything, the neue sachlichkeit is closer to such things as hindemith's gebrauchsmusik. (i know he repudiated the term in later years, but the thing did exist.) for a better perspective on all this, read schoenberg's wonderful essay, "new music, outmoded music, style and idea," in style and idea. a word here concerning the use of the term" twelve-tone technique" which mckenzie (and many other writers) employ a great deal. schoenberg himself objected to this term because he thought it suggested an undue rigidity. he always preferred to say "method of composition with twelve tones." i think we should respect this preference and use his expression (or, for greater brevity, "twelve-tone method"). the point may seem subtle and pedantic but i think it is meaningful. (incidentally, the cacophonous mouthful, dodecaphony, i can do nicely without.) chapter iii deals with webern's music between opp. 1 and 16-i.e., the pre-twelve-tone works, and is by far the bulkiest section of the thesis. this is probably as it should be, for the twelve-tone works have been more frequently and exhaustively analyzed (especially op. 24, the concerto for nine instruments, has become a classical subject for analysis and, as i have experienced, is even accessible to the undergraduate novice in this field). starting out with the passacaglia, op. 1, mckenzie convincingly compares its theme to representative bach and beethoven motifs that were certainly well-known to webern (basic motif of beethoven's grosse fuge, theme of bach's b minor fugue, wtc i). before tackling the works that abandon a tonal center, mckenzie discusses the vexed question of the term "atonality." as is wellknown, schoenberg objected violently to the negative connotations of this word, preferring "pantonality." but other writers (d. rudolf reti) have used the latter term with a quite different meaning. what 101 to do? mckenzie does plump for "atonality" (which i would not) but at least he gives us the benefit of a full discussion of all problems involved. naturally, in discussing the group of works now under consideration, mckenzie has to pay a great deal of attention to the importance of the individual intervals. here he ignores enharmonic notation, e.g., he calls a diminished fourth a major third and an augmented second a minor third. i think this is very unwise. after all, webern certainly had a very precise reason for notating each interval as he did-therefore these notations must be taken into account. in this whole section, there is a great deal of purely "academic" analysis of motifs, canonic treatments, etc. i feared at first that mckenzie would give insufficient attention to the expressive ends which these means serve-would speak too much about how the work is "made" and not enough about what it "is" (as schoenberg said). however, he does discuss expressive details, especially in the songs. sometimes his interpretations are very convincing; sometimes he really reaches for them (e.g., in op. 19 we are told that in the setting of the word "griin" the sound "actually suggests the color green." why? how?). here we enter dangerous waters, for, as mendelssohn said, there are certain things that are not too vague to be said in words, but too definite. thus, there are times when verbal interpretation might hinder rather than help. mckenzie did make one very interesting discovery. he calls this "signature phrase," which he finds in all of webern's songs. it is characteristically a small interval (minor second, major second, or minor third) followed by a large interval (often a sixth or seventh) -both descending. the third note is in chromatic relation to either the first or the second note. this phrase is often set off by rests, or occurs with sudden changes of dynamics, rhythm, or tempo. mckenzie often points out this motif in the course of his text, and also devotes an appendix to its many appearances. this is potentially an important discovery. the method could be refined still further by asking consistently the following questions: 1. does it make any difference which intervals are used, or are only the descending direction, differing size of the intervals, and chromatic relation as described above significant? 2. do the texts to which the motif is set show any type of interrela tionshi ps? 3. if the motif is used in non-vocal music, is there any characteristic emotional connotation which may be detected from the musical context? research of this nature would form a valuable contribution to the type of investigation desired by deryck cooke as set forth in the challenging preface to his the language of music: if this state of affairs (the frequent misapprehension of 'the new language of music') calls forth a clear and convincing outline of the expressive aims of the new language, with an account of some of the terms 102 of its vocabulary and some of its forms of expression, to offset ever so slightly the present welter of aridly technical, not to say purely mathematical exegesis, no one will be more pleased than the present writer, who whole-heartedly admires such of this music as he has found expressive of emotion. more power, then, to the present and future scholars who will take part in this important enterprise! chapter iv discusses (rather briefly) the twelve-tone works. of course, a brief presentation of the rudiments of the method is made. as always, simplification may lead to some misunderstanding as in this sentence: "the only way a particular tone may be repeated, before the completion of the series, is immediately after it sounds the first time" (italics mine). what about repetitions of successive groups of tones? (d. the beginning of schoenberg's third string quartet, first theme of his piano concerto). mckenzie certainly hits the nail on the head when he says of w ebern' s total oeuvre, "the musical expression is essentially lyrical this is not constructivist music" (italics mine). this sentence ought to be engraved in bronze somewhere as an antidote to articles like stockhausen's "structure and experiential time" (die reihe, vol. ii, webern issue). some may not agree, however, with the statement that webern is "in many ways the most easily approachable of the group for the uninitiated listener." how about berg's wozzeck, which shattered the "uninitiated listener" at the met to such an extent that the day after its premiere the number of lost objects reported to "lost and found" was the largest in the history of the house! in this connection, leibowitz' article "alban berg; the seduction of truth," in a british horizon issue of the late forties is of interest. a technical aside: i must fault mr. mckenzie, or his typist, or his adviser for letting pass too many careless mistakes in spelling of names and citing of titles. thus i read about rogers sessions, wallingford rieger, paul gaugin, kandinsky's ober die (i) geistige in der kunst-and i cannot forebear to mention that the title of my bruckner, mahler, schoenberg received a supererogatory and. such errors could so easily be avoided with a little more proofreading care. they are so irritating (even sense-interrupting) to the careful reader. there is certainly much worthwhile research still to be done on webern. (we look forward to the fine work-in-progress of hans moldenhauer.) let us hope that such research will not take off from boulez' notorious sentence "schoenberg est mort," (with the implication "and a good thing, too.") rather, webern must be seen as the heir of the grand viennese classic-post-beethovenian-contemporary tradition. in this way his true greatness will be seen. and his name and work will not be misused for tendentious purposes which he would-in my belief-have been the first to repudiate. dika newlin is professor of music at drew university. 10.3 ruth halle rowen, musical hearing in history i read the articles of miss carpenter and mr. crocker with great interest, especially as they raise the question of musical hearing. miss carpenter, in dealing with the "aspects of the heard thing", speaks of "the increasing hierarchization of the musical space"; mr. crocker, also on the subject of hearing, proposes that we "educate our ears" to "develop a sense or senses of form" covering the span of western music. both miss carpenter's hypothesis and mr. crocker's suggestion require a historical orientation of musical hearing. we might therefore combine and paraphrase their thoughts as follows: in order to determine with validity the historical changes in the hierarchization of musical space, we must try to hear the music of each period as it was heard by its contemporaries. how do we train our modern ears to hear in terms of the music of another period? while familiarity with the music is essential, commentaries on style, method, and performance written at the time may help considerably in our pursuit. fortunately there were champions of the ear in every era. let us compare statements on musical hearing by heinrich schenker of vienna and aristoxenus of tarentum-figures at opposite ends of the historical span. schenker's exclamation, "oh how easy it is to fabricate theory and music history, when one hears badly 1" (harmonielehre, 1906, p. 162) does not conjure in our minds the remedy of a hearing-aid or an oscilloscope for measuring frequency. although the chapter from which this sentence stems is called "the construction of intervals", the emphasis is on perceptual rather than acoustic measurement. some twenty-two centuries earlier, aristoxemis remarked that melody appeals to "the two faculties of hearing and intellect. by the former we judge the magnitudes of the intervals, by the latter we contemplate the functions of the notes" (the harmonics of aristoxenus, ed. & trans. henry s. macran [oxford, 1902], p. 189). sometime between aristoxenus and schenker, the distinction between hearing and intellect was dissolved, and a single, complex notion of hearing emerged. while many theorists of the middle ages and the renaissance became so speculative about proportions of pitch and rhythm that they seemed to forget music theory should also relate to what is heard, marchettus of padua succeeded in keeping an equilibrium between the mathematical and the aural. chromatic alteration had been advocated both "causa necessitatis" and "causa pulchritudinis". marchettus furthered its tasteful use by declaring that the pitches are raised or lowered "to obtain more beautiful harmonies" (gerbert scriptores 3: 135). he espoused the term "musica colorata" rather than "musica falsa", contending that chromatic alteration is good, not bad, as suggested by "false". marchettus' inclination toward intelligent hearing is apparent. the application of the word "color" to tone links the aural sense to the visual. miss carpenter discusses the relationship of hearing to color in the area of synaesthesia, which has sensorial connotations much more technical 96 than those we might possibly apply to the mention made of musical color in the middle various uses of "color" in relation to music of the middle j\gcfhiid renaissance indicate the recognition of the role of musical beihni' """",mtngside of musica colorata, "color" appeared in the middle ages in the and color. as exemplified in the isorhythmic motet, "color" /.netimes referred to the repetition of a series of tones without regard to t,eir original rhythmic values, while "talea" indicated the repetition of .. ij;ythm. johannes de muris in the libellus cantus mensurabilis mentions that s6me of his contemporaries make this distinction: "for they say color when the same tones [voces] are repeated; but talea when similar note-shapes [figurae] are repeated" (coussemaker scriptores 3:58). the difference between color and talea, however, was by no means clear cut. prosdocimus de beldemandis pointed out that there were three possibilities: (1) no difference between talea and color, (2) the difference described above by johannes de muris, (3) color as the repetition of both tones and note-shapes, with talea as the repetition of note-shapes alone (ibid. 3 :225-27). , the application of "color" to music went beyond mere repetition; it also "'involved embellishment of the melodic line. johannes de garlandia, speaking of the copula (a passage of rapid notes), discussed the selection of a place where this "color" was to be introduced in the cantilena (ibid. 1: 117). the embellishing type of coloration was pursued in the 15th century by conrad paumann, the organist, in his fundamentum organisandi (facsimile ed., by konrad ameln [beflin, 1925]). paumann offered the following ways to color the descent of a fifth: ex. 1 conrad paumann, fundamentum organisandi, fundamentum breve ad ascensum et descensum [plates examples like the above, written to show the technique of organ composition, provide proof absolute that in the 15th century a melodic motion was heard on different levels. paumann heard through these melodic lines to the scale motion 5-4--3-2-1. today we must incline our ears to listen in the same way. 4-c•m • 97 to rediscover the way music was heard in the 15th century, we may co _ pare organ settings of musicians such as paumann with their vocal count:_ parts in such contemporary song books as the locheimer .. (ibid.) following is an excerpt from the melody "des klaffers neiden . appears in both sources: ex. 2 locheimer liederbuch, des igaffers neiden [plate 14] (transposed up a fourth for comparison) i!------------, ii des kia! fers nei den tut mich mei den freull im her fundamentum organisandi (plate 74] (original pitch) the interval of a fifth (at *), a bare leap in the vocal melody, is characteristically colored in the organ version. in contrast, the next interval of a fifth (at **) is colored on both versions! their juxtaposition reveals that a scalewise descent (g fed c) could be heard through different colorations. in ensuing eras, coloration appeared in many guises depending on the musical styles prevalent at the time. the article "coi9ratura" in johann gottfried walther's musicalisches lexicon (1732) enumerates the following fast ornaments (figuren) : circoli mezzi, tremoli, trilli, diminutione, variationi, because they are colorful (weil sie sein bunt und farbicht aussehen). in a separate article, walther said that "variazione" means the changing and decoration of a vocal or instrumental melody by introducing smaller notes so that one still notices (mercket), and understands (verstehet) the original melody. although walther did not actually mention the word "hearing", he was cognizant of intellectual hearing. his dictionary articles provide further evidence of the value of investigating variation procedures for acquaintance with the hearing processes of bygone centuries. the investigation of coloration alone cannot fulfill our desires in our quest for historical ears. mr. crocker proposes another area of inquiry when he leads us to wonder whether there is any eternal rule for "distinguishing a piece from a nonpiece". to tackle this problem we must consider what the listener hears. the "listener" may be the composer re-evaluating his work as he views it at a distance, the theorist trying to determine the method behind the composition, the performer digesting the work during the act of recreation, or the bystander examining it from a professional or nonprofessional standpoint. in haydn and mozart's time the audience had a great influence on "distinguishing a piece from a nonpiece". now we look askance at the concert-goer who has the temerity to applaud between movements, thus breaking the continuity. in the 18th century, matters were different. mozart himself tells us the reason why he felt compelled to write a substitute movement for his symphony in d major (kv 297). 98 the audience forgot to clap their hands as loudly and to shout. as much as they did at the end of the first and last movements. for indeed the andante is a great favourite with myself and with all connoisseurs, lovers of music and the majority of those who have heard it. it is just the reverse of what le gros says-for it is quite simple and short. but in order to satisfy him (and, as he maintains, some others) i have composed a fresh andante-each is good in its own way-for each has a different character. but the last pleases me even more (the letters of mozart and his family, ed. and trans. emily anderson [london, 1938], vol. 2: 837). which symphony is a "piece", the one with the original middle movement, or the one with the substitute movement? apparently, posterity is not able to make up its mind, as both andantes are currently in print. perhaps we may better decide if we try to listen with 18th-century ears to the first movement with its "premier coup d'archet" beloved by the parisians, and to the last movement which begins "with two violins only, piano for the first eight bars -followed instantly by a forte." concerning the latter, mozart informs us, "the audience, as i expected, said 'hush' at the soft beginning, and when they heard the forte, began at once to clap their hands" (ibid. 826). perhaps even after we listen to these outer movements we will remain as undecided about the second as mozart evidently was. moving forward to the romantic era, we still find the ears of the audience influencing the composer. berlioz was quite used to the selection of one or more movements from romeo and juliet for performance, depending on the taste of the royal listener under whose patronage the program was being prepared. berlioz, the conductor, even dared to include only the scherzo and finale from beethoven's fifth symphony on his program for the festival of 1022 performers. he obviously sacrificed his ears to showmanship, admitting that at the rehearsal the cellos and double-basses sounded like "the grunting of about fifty ferocious pigs" (memoirs of hector berlioz, ed. ernest newman [new york, 1966], p. 354). in his essay on this symphony berlioz describes the structure of the passage connecting the last two movements in vivid aural terms. "the ear hesitates, uncertain as to the way in which this harmonic mystery is about to issue" (a critical study of beethoven's nine .rymphonies, trans. edwin evans [london, 1958], p. 66). however, nowhere in the essay is there any attempt to discuss the structure of the symphony as a whole. the taste for divertissement is evidenced in the romantic suite, often a series of movements which satisfied either composer or audience, or both. mr. crocker reminds us of the eclectic nature ofthe 17th-century keyboard suite. in the 19th century, compilation of a suite from the movements of a ballet is a reminiscent procedure. the variable length of the classical serenade, dependent on the circumstance of performance, may also come into this category. in another channel lies the desire for greater unity between movements, 99 culminating in the romantic era with compositions consisting of only one movement. great admiration' for the unity in beethoven's fifth was one of the factors which caused e. t. a. hoffmann to link his analysis of __ this symphony with his premise that music is the most romantic of all the arts. hoffmann started his discussion of the symphony as follows: the first allegro, meter c-minor, begins with the main theme consisting of only two measures, which in the continuation is variously shaped, appearing again and again. in the second measure a fermata; then a repetition of the theme a tone lower, and again a fermata; both times only string instruments and clarinets. the key is not yet determined; the listener imagines eb major. the second violin again begins the main theme, in the second measure the key of c-minor is now determined by the violoncellos and bassoons sounding the keynote c, while violas and first violins enter tn imitation, culminating in a passage containing the two-measure main theme which is repeated three times (for the last time with the whole orchestra joining in) and pro ceding to a fermata on the dominant, causing a foreboding of the unknown, the mysterious, in the mind of the listener (allgemeine musikalische zeitung 12: 634 [july 4, 1810]). it is significant that hoffmann concluded his lengthy sentence, with its measure-by-measure analysis, by indicating the effect of the passage on the listener. he continued to enumerate the details of each movement and then summarized on a different level. beethoven has retained the usual succession of movements in the symphony; they seem to be fantastically linked to each other, and the whole envelops one like an ingenious rhapsody; but the feeling of each thoughtful listener is certainly of a single lasting sensation of inexplicable, passionate longing, deep and sincere, understood and retained until the final chord .... beside the internal disposition of the instrumentation, etc., it is most of all the inner relationship of the individual themes to each other which engenders the unity that establishes a single mood in the mind of the listener. in haydn's and mozart's music this unity reigns over all. it is clearer to the musician when he discovers it in two different movements with the same fundamental bass, or when the joining of two movements is obvious; but a deeper relationship, which have nothing to do with that type, often speaks only from soul to soul, and it is this relationship which reigns between the movements of both allegros and the minuet, and which gloriously proclaims the circumspect genius of the master (ibid. 658 [july 11, 1810]). schenker agreed with hoffmann's demand for a "very deep penetration into the internal structure of beethoven's instrumental :music", but differed with the "realization of the demand" (beethoven v. sinfonie [vienna, 1925], p. 72). in his book on beethoven's fifth symphony, schenker referred to hoffmann's article, saying, "hoffmann's ear did not reach higher musical connections, since his presentation is merely'an empty word-duplication of 100 the tonal occurrence and not yet a real clarification of its meaning" (ibid., p.20). schenker's impatience with hoffmann is understandable, especially when we take into' account their divergent backgrounds. schenker approached beethoven's symphony with the ear of an early 20th-century theorist; hoffmann, with the ear of an early 19th-century critic-composer. our historical investigation of hearing on various hierarchical levels must include all available evidence, whether or not it conforms to current standards. the task will be complicated indeed. we will have to take into account and assess opinions of composers, theorists, performers, critics, informed or uninformed amateur listeners, from their respective points of view. in applying their comments to the music, we will have to establish the hierarchical levels, which in turn vary for different periods. whether or not our results will affirm "the increasing hierarchization of the musical space" remains to be seen. the attempted investigation must be fruitful, nevertheless, because we will be "educating our ears" in the process. edward t. cone, what is a composition? not all arguments can be settled by agreement on the definitions of the terms involved, but the issues at stake can always be clarified thereby. not all questions of definition can be settled by appeal to the dictionary, but, unless one is determined to play humpty-dumpty, that is the place to begin. when the concept under discussion is one that may well be affected by relevant historical considerations, as is certainly the case with "piece of music", one might well start by consulting the oxford english dictionary. the entry under "piece" in the oed is, as one might imagine, lengthy. the references that concern us are to be found under two subheads: the first refers to the use of the word "in general sense; or followed by oj" and the second to "absolute uses ... without oj". in other words, we are asked to distinguish between "piece of music" and (musical) "piece". the former is listed under meanings relating to "a portion or quantity of any substance or kind of matter forming a single (usually small) body or mass". it is considered as "forming one body of finite dimensions" and as constituting "a separate part of the whole existing stock of the substance". in this sense, which is the earlier of the two to enter cornmon use, we find, for example, the locution "piece of song" (twelfth night, ii, iv, 2), which, although obsolete today, shows clearly the way in which the term is conceived and how it differs from the more modern "absolute", usage. in the latter sense "piece" refers to "a production, specimen of handicraft, work or art", and is equated with "piece of work"; specifically, "a musical composition, usually short, either independent or for-ruing an individual part of a larger work". what interests me about the foregoing distinction is the fact while the 101 back's wedding music frederick hudson within the corpus of sopie 200 sacred cantatas which bach composed, those which graced marriage services are probably the least known. the reasons are not far to seek. a mere handful survives of a much greater output, public and broadcast performances are extremely rare, and, as far as the writer is aware, no commercial recordings exist. only six trauungskantaten are known to us by name; the music of five survives in whole or in part, but the source material of two of them is fragmentary. in order of composition the complete list consists of: der herr denket an uns (complete) bwv 196 sein segen fliesst daher wie ein strom (libretto only) " anh.14 q ewiges feuer, 0 ursprung der liebe (incomplete) " 34a herr gott, beherrscher aller dinge (incomplete) " l20a gott ist unsere zuversicht (complete) " 197 dem gerechten muss das licht (complete) " 195 the list is extended slightly by three chorales which bach composed for use in lieu of a wedding cantata: was gott tut, das ist wohlgetan sei lob und ehr dem hochsten gut nun danket alle gott (vor der trauung) (nach der trauung) (nach dem segen) bwv 250 251 " 252 outside the scope of the marriage service are three surviving hochzeitskantaten, that is, cantatas composed to entertain the bridal party and guests at the wedding breakfast which followed the service: weichet nur, betrubt'e schatten vergnugte pleissen-stadt o holder tag, erwunschte zeit (cathen) bwv 202 (february 5, 1728) " 216 (1734 or 1735) ,,210 terry,! scherring 2 and hans brandts buys3 have suggested, without documentation however, that the three chorales were composed for the wedding of bach's daughter elizabeth ("lieschen") and johann c. altnikol on sunday, january 20, 1749. schweitzer4 suggests that bwv 97, in allen meinen taten, and bwv 100, was gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, were used as wedding cantatas, while schering 5 adds as possibilities bwv 9, es ist das heil uns kommen her, bwv 93, wer nur den lieben gott lasst walten, bwv 99 or 100, was gott tut, das ist wohlgetan, and bwv ill, was mein gott will, das g'scheh allzeit. at the writer's request the bach archives, leipzig, under the direction of professor werner neumann, graciously carried out a thorough investigation iii of the registers of st. th9mas' and st. nicholas', the two main leipzig churches for which bach was required to provide figural music, from 1723 to 1750. at st. thomas' the verger or registrar had been meticulous in entering "gantze brautmesse" (literally, "complete bridal mass") for each wedding graced by a cantata. due to his attention to detail we know that cantatas were performed in st. thomas' at 31 weddings during bach's leipzig period, the first on tuesday, july 13, 1723, and the last on sunday, february 18, 1748.6 the nextgantze brautmessewasheld on september 20,1751. the search in st. nicholas' marriage registers did not prove so fruitful, since the registrar there had not thought it necessary to add this important detail. during bach's period of office there is only one entry of gantze brautmesse-sunday february 17, 1749-and it is here that the handwriting changes, showing that a new registrar had taken over this duty. as st. thomas' and st. nicholas' were used equally, sharing the cantata choir and orchestra on alternate sundays, we may speculate that as many wedding cantatas were performed in the latter as in the former. if this is true, then bach was responsible for performing cantatas at some 60 marriage services in the main leipzig churches. it is possible that bwv 195 was performed at weddings in at least three versions and the double text in bwv 34a suggests performances at two different weddings. we may suppose with schweitzer and schering that bwv 9, 93, 97, 99, 100 and iii could have been used for marriage services, and there is the further possibility that bach may have used cantatas by other composers. of the six known wedding cantatas, bwv 196 is preleipzig, so this leaves a mere five out of a large corpus of such music irretrievably lost to us-proportionately the greatest loss in any single genre. when bach died in 1750 his cantata autograph scores were divided between his oldest sons, wilhelm friedemann and carl philipp emanuel. his widow, anna magdalena, retained many of the performing parts, and these she sold to the leipzig town council in 1752 to alleviate her poverty: 44 sets of parts were thus preserved. wilhelm friedemann's inheritance included bwv 196, 34a and 120a, and of these there survives solely the second halfofbwv 120a. c. p. e. bach took much better care of his inheritance: in 1790, two years after his death, a long catalogue of his music library was published in hamburg-verzeichniss des musikalischen nachlasses . .. 7-and almost everything from this treasury exists today. this catalogue includes the two wedding cantatas which survive complete in autograph score at the present time, bwv 197 and 195. the earliest of the surviving wedding cantatas is der herr denket an uns. though the autograph is lost, a copy of the score which belonged to kirnberger, bach's pupil 1739-41, is preserved in the princess amalie collection. this is probably one of the earliest cantatas composed by bach in any category. there are no recitatives, there is no division into the usual var . .. and nach der trauung, and the thematic material and its use are similar to those of other early works which can be dated with some assurance, quite apart from the immaturity of its style and scoring. after a 21-measure 112 sinfonia in dotted rhythm, the four following movements are a setting of psalm 1i5, vv. 12-15: 2. 3. aria: 4. duet: 5. chorus: derr herr denket an uns und segnet uns. er segnet das haus israel, er segnet das haus aaron. er segnet, die den herm jurchten, beyde kleine und grosse. der herr segne euchje mehr und mehr, euch und eure kinder. ihr seyd die gesegneten des herm, der himmel und erden gemacht hat. (amen.) v. 12 v.13 v. 14 v. 15 it was bach's custom to make copious references in his wedding cantata texts to the occupation or circumstances of the bridal couple, often by the use of happy metaphor and simile. beginning with spitta, writers have read significance in the references to "he will bless ... the house of aaron" and "the lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children." they have suggested that the first reference could apply only to a pastor of a church, and the second to the re-marriage of a widower with many children by his first wife. they have pointed to the wedding of bach's aunt, regina wedemann, to pastor johann lorenz stauber on tuesday, june 5, 1708, as fitting these circumstances. stauber was pastor at dornheim, a widower with many children, and his wedding took place at nearby arnstadt. the previous autumn bach had left arnstadt to take up his appointment at st. blasius, miihlhausen, and had himself been married to his cousin barbara by pastor stauber at dornheim. the evidence for bwv 196 being performed at this wedding is circumstantial, but the musical evidence points to the year 1708, towards the end of bach's office at miihlhausen, as the date of composition. the only dissentient is alfred heuss,8 who would place this cantata in the weimar period. a piece of "modern" development, which some of us would call vandalism, was entirely responsible for the little we know about sein segenfliesst. in 1902 the authorities ordered a new road made at the side of st. thomas', leipzig, which involved the demolition of the old st. thomas' school. during the demolition a wall-cupboard was revealed in the cantor's quarters, containing an exercise book with greek homework in the handwriting of c. p. e. bach and a printed libretto of this wedding cantata. this is now in the bach museum, eisenach, and consists of a four-page folio, folded down the middle in octavo size, slightly damaged in the top right-hand corner. the first page gives us the names of and information about the bride, bridegroom, and bride's father, and states bach's titles and appointments in full, together with the date of the wedding: february 12, 1725. the bridegroom was christoph friedrich l6sner, who is described as floss-verwalter. an investigation of the royal and electoral archives of the siichsischen landeshauptarchivs, dresden,9 showed that l6sner held an important and responsible appointment under august the strong, 1670-1733, elector of saxony and king of poland. his duties included the care and maintenance of all rivers, streams, and watercourses in saxony, and responsibility for the transportation, by means of rafts, of logs 113 and other timber needed throughout saxony for military as well as domestic use. in the wedding libretto delightful use has been made of the bridegroom's a,ssociation with watercourses and rafts. the cantata is in the usual vor ... and nach der trauung sections, each of three movements. there is no chorale movement and the cantata could be for chorus and soloists, or soloists alone. the text of the first movement comes from ecclesiastes 39, v. 22: his blessing covered the dry land as a river and watered it as a flood. then follows a recitative in which l6sner is compared to hiram, king of lebanon, who $upplied king solomon with cedar and fir trees by means of rafts for the building of the temple at jerusalem. the third movement is an aria based on ezekiel 47, in which god's blessing is invoked for the bridal pair like the holy, unfathomable waters which proceeded from the altar and through the threshold of the several doors. in the n ach der trauung section there are references to the bitter waters of mara being made as sweet as honey by the blessing of moses, and to the garden of eden from which flowed four rivers. the entry for this wedding of february 12, 1725 was found in st. nicholas' registers. it was not held in the church, however, but in "d. phillips gasthof in a room on the first floor at 6 o'clock in the evening." we may exercise a little imagination and visualize four of bach's prefects struggling up the staircase earlier in the day with a chamber organ for the cantata. the annual inventory of musical instruments in st. thomas' school, an musikalischen instrumenten, has an entry in 1720 for such an organ made um bey denen hauss-trauungen zu gebrauchen ("for use at house-weddings"), and special mention is made that this little organ had four handholds. the following day bach performed yet another wedding cantata, this time in st. thomas', for the wedding of christian heinrich hennig, burger und kramer, and amelia rosina kuttner, daughter of a pergamentmacher. in historical order the next surviving wedding cantata is 0 ewiges feuer. to say that it survives is half the truth, for the musical evidence consists merely of an incomplete set of seven original parts.10 these are for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, first violin, viola, and continuo, in the hands of five different writers, one of whom may possibly be 'bach himself helping out his hardpressed family and pupils in their copying. in the seventh and last movement the alto and tenor parts are missing and the continuo part stops at bar 34 at the end of a loose folio. the reverse side of this folio contains 13 staves without notation, so one may conclude that the remaining 62 bars were written on a further loose folio, now lost. the surviving material is sufficient to show that this was a full-scale cantata with many unique features, among them the incorporation in the final chorus of the three-fold aaronic blessing set to the traditional plainchant. the aaronic blessing was normally pronounced from the altar steps at the conclusion of the main sunday morning service as well as at the marriage service. our impressions would necessarily rest on the incomplete parts, except that bach made use of three movements in a later whitsunday version, bwv 34, with the same title, which can be dated between 1740 and 1742. he re-arranged these movements in the order of 114 1, 5, and 4, interposed two new recitatives, adapted the libretto for whitsunday, and reworked the music in part. the autograph score of the whitsunday version (with some later additions in the hand of wilhelm friedemann)l1 employsbach's full festival orchestra of three trumpets and timpani, two oboes and strings in the choruses (nos. 1 and 4), and two transverse flutes with muted strings in the lovely alto aria (no.5) which begins the nach der trauung section of the original wedding version. a study of the original wedding parts and the score of the whitsunday version over a period of years convinced the writer that a reconstruction of this wedding cantata would be possible, and this task was begun with the hope that something of the original spirit would emerge, even if the exact letter of bach's text should be impossible to achieve.12 no insurmountable difficulties were presented in nos. 1, 4, and 5 in spite of bach's reworking for the later version, and the wedding recitatives, nos. 2 and 6, were of the secco type and complete in the surviving parts. nos. 3 and 7 gave the greatest trouble and heartsearching, for the fragmentary parts were the sole foundation on which to build. no.3 is a tenor aria in four sections, each section followed by an alto recitative which expounds and comments on the previous aria section. the text of the aria sections is from psalm 128, vv. 4-6, the psalm appointed to be read in the marriage service. the last section, tea, that thou shalt see thy children's children, is followed by the chorus, no.4, which begins with a massive statement of ... and peace upon israel which completes this psalm verse. the beginning of no. 4 is thus a continuation of no. 3 and appears in a new light, restored to its original position from that of final chorus in the whitsunday version. the dating for 0 ewiges feuer is still uncertain, but the evidence suggests a marriage service celebrated either on march 6, 1726 or on november 8, 1728. the weight of evidence points rather to 1728, if indeed the wedding was held in one of the leipzig churches, and not in a church in some other city. to summarize this evidence: 1) there are three direct and unmistakable references in the libretto which make it certain that the bridegroom was a pastor of the church; 2) the abundance of biblical references in the text and the "aptness and good taste displayed suggest an author who had an extensive and intimate knowledge of the scriptures. wustmann (bachs kantatentexte, 1913) was the first to suggest christian weiss senior, pastor of st. thomas' 1714-36, as the author of 11 cantata texts of this character belonging to bach's early leipzig period; 3) the watermarks in the original parts point to a date during bach's early years in leipzig, and the scoring and thematic figuration of the alto aria, no.5, wohl euch, ihr auserwiihlten schaje, are similar to those used in movements of this period (in bwv 249 and 249a, and in o mensch, bewein' which was originally in the st. john passion before being transferred to the st. matthew passion); 4) a search of st. thomas' and st. nicholas' marriage registers for weddings of pastors which had been graced by a cantata pointed to monday, november 8, 1728, as the marriage celebration best fitting the evidence. on this day a cantata was performed in st. 115 thomas' at the wedding of friedrich schultze, bachelor of theology and deacon of st. wenceslas' in naumburg, and johanna elisabeth, daughter of dr. christian weiss, senior pastor of st. thomas'. dr. alfred diirr (bach institute, gattingen) thought this dating possible, but believed that the watermarks and copyists suggested early 1726 rather than 1728. the registers of st. nicholas' record a wedding held there on march 6, 1726, but the bridegroom was a barrister and not a pastor. the evidence is, then, that in the first half of 1726 no weddings of pastors were celebrated in st. nicholas', and no weddings of pastors in st. thomas' were graced by a cantata. if bwv 34a was not composed for st. thomas' on november 8, 1728, then the alternative is that it would have been composed for and performed at a wedding in a church outside leipzig. in the final chorus there is an earlier text, partly crossed out, both texts being equally suitable for the a pastor, and this suggests the possibility ofbwv 34a having been performed at two different weddings. herr gatt, beherrscher aller dinge, on the other hand, is not an original composition, for five of the eight movements are reworkings from earlier cantatas. eight of the original parts are extant,13 together with the fragmentary autograph score which provides the second half of the cantata.14 the parts are for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, viola, with three continuo parts, one of which is transposed down a whole tone because of the chorton pitch of the leipzig organs. the first five movements of this organ part are in the handwriting of johann ludwig krebs which, since krebs was. bach's pupil from 1725 to about 1737, sets terminal dates for the composition and first performance of this cantata. the fragmentary autograph score was in the possession of johann ludwig erk until his death in 1883, after which it passed to the royal library, berlin. erk had noted at the beginning of the fragment that it was from bwv 137, lobe den herren, because of the final chorale which both cantatas share, and it was not until some 50 years later that georg schiinemann identified the fragment with bwv l20a and published an article on his discovery in the bach-jahrbuch for 1936. the first surviving page of score begins 11 measures from the end of no. 4, a sinfonia with organ obbligato. the oldest form of this movement is the preludio of partita iii in e flat for solo violin, bwv 1006, of about 1720, and there exists an autograph ofa reworking of the whole partita for an unnamed instrument (clavier? harp?), bwv 1006a, of 1737. apart from a few small differences the surviving wedding source material is identical with the sinfonia in bwv 29, wir aanken dir, gatt, first performed in the council election service on august 27, 1731. nos. 1,3, and 6 of herr gatt, beherrscher are reworkings of nos. 2,4, and 1 respectively of bwv 120, gatt, man lobet dich in der stille. the opening ritornello of bwv 120, no.2 was used also in et expecto resurrectionem, credo, b minor mass. the material of bwv 120, no.4 goes back to bwv 10i9a, no.3, the sonata in g for violin and cembalo, but smendi5 suggests that the original was a vocal version of the cathen period, now lost. though 116 bwv 120a, no. 1 is three measures longer than bwv 120, no.2, other differences are slight and arise mainly from the new verbal text. no.2 of bwv 120a is an original composition and the surviving material is adequate for a reconstruction. no.3 can be recovered easily from no.4 ofbwv 120, and no.4 similarly from the sinfonia in wir danken dir, gott. from the last ii measures of the sinfonia the wedding autograph score is complete. the reconstruction of bwv 120a16 proved less difficult than that of bwv 34a, largely because of a comparative wealth of surviving source material. unfortunately, sources and records give no clue to the identity of the bridal party or to the date of the wedding. only the period 1728-36 can be put forward for its composition. the libretto shows a strong affinity with the music set to it: bach may have adapted and written the libretto as well as the music and, if so, both together evidence his deep religious feeling for the spiritual significance of the marriage service. the autograph score of bwv 197, gott ist unsre zuversicht, is extant17 but the original parts are not. it is a magnificent full-scale cantata scored for bach's high festival forces of three trumpets and drums, oboes, string and continuo, four-part choir, and soprano, alto, and bass soloists. there are ten movements divided equally vor . .. and nach der trauung, the wedding service proper, up to the point where the pastor pronounces them man and wife and blesses them, taking place in: between. the second part begins when the bridal couple and the pastor have proceeded to the altar steps. the first five movements in the autograph score give evidence that bach carried out his normal compositional processes on these folios: they show second thoughts and improvements as he went along, crossing out notes and groups, entering his second thoughts in the space available, and occasionally writing the letternames of notes above the stave where the corrections were unclear. in nos. 6 to 10 there is not the same evidence of erasure and correction, and the score gives the impression that it is a fair copy and not an original composition. this is especially true of the main movements, the arias nos. 6 and 8, the other movements being recitatives with a simple chorale to finish. these two arias are reworkings of arias which appear in the fragmentary christmas cantata, bwv 197a, ehre sei gott in der hohe. the last two folios survive (four written pages), at present in the possession of the heinemann foundation, new york. in the first aria the original is for alto solo, two flutes, cello obbligato, and continuo, which bach has rescored for bass solo, oboe, bassoon obbligato, strings, and continuo, both versions being in the same key. the original of the second aria is for bass solo, oboe d'amore obbligato, and continuo, and he has reworked this for soprano solo, violin obbligato, two oboi d'amore, and continuo, this time transposing it up a fourth from d to g major. the reworking in each case is an improvement and extension of the original. the libretto of the christmas cantata comes from the third part of picander's gedichte, 1732. the libretto structure of the wedding cantata has a striking resemblance to that ofbwv 120a, and there is a strong probability that bach himself was responsible for adapting the original texts, 5* 117 changing them into wedding similes and metaphors, and adding new texts for the newly composed movements. from the paper and watermarks of the full score, bwv 197 may be dated 1737-38 with some assurance. both the original parts18 and the original score19 of bwv 195, dem gerechten muss das licht, are available today. the unraveling of the history of this source material and the weddings at which it was used presents greater problems than that of any other wedding cantata. the first half begins with a chorus for maximum forces-four-part choir, four solo voices, three trumpets and drums, two transverse flutes, two oboes, strings, and continuo. four movements follow-a bass recitative, a bass aria for strings and oboi d'amore, a dramatic soprano recitative, and a chorus comparable to the opening movement. the nach der trauung section consists merely of a chorale, scored for two horns instead of trumpets, the other instruments doubling the voices. between the first and second folios of the original score a libretto has been inserted setting out the words as in part i, but in part ii giving the words of an aria, recitative, and chorus. on the last page of the four bach has entered in stiff, crabbed handwriting the score of the final chorale. this chorale is not part of the original libretto, but was intended as a substitute for the three movements of part ii at the last performance of the cantata towards the end of bach's life. there are 23 performing parts extant (first violin in duplicate) in the hands of 19 different writers, one of whom is bach, who wrote out the first 30 or 40 measures ofthe 1st, 3rd, and 5th movements in 11 parts, and added the final chorale in 22 parts. the greater part ofthe original score has been written by four different copyists, one of whom has written the whole of the first and fifth movements. bach has written the recitatives, second and fourth movements, only measures 1-12 in the third movement, and for the fifth movement merely the title, chorus, the clefs and key-signatures, and possibly the notes of the first measure. these autograph entries were sufficient to show his copyists how he wished them to proceed, and the obvious conclusion is that they were in part copying and in part rescoring from movements already in existence. bach's crabbed, difficult writing in parts and score is similar to the handwriting in the revised and added sections of the st. john passion parts used for the last performance of his life. the satb ripieno parts of the wedding cantata are older than all other parts, and give evidence that they were used for a performance previous to that which substituted the final chorale for the three movements of part ii of the libretto. the parts for these movements have been cut off with a sharp knife or pair of scissors, the paper format is smaller, and for the second to fourth movements of part i they refer to basso tacet, tenor tacet, and alto tacet, pointing to the original movements from which the bass recitative and aria and the soprano aria were reworked. thus, at least three performances of this cantata were given at different times. space allows merely a summary of conclusions: first performance: autograph score and original parts, now lost; a setting of 118 all eight movements as in the full libretto ; the chorus parts only for four and not eight voices. second performance: autograph swre, now lost; all original parts lost except for the satb ripieno parts; the vocal parts now for eight voices; the second to fourth movements for bass, tenor, and alto respectively; all eight movements present as in the full libretto. third performance: a new draft of the full score (that which survives today); new parts written for voices and instruments except for the old satb ripieno parts (again those which survive today); the second movement recitative newly composed by bach; the third movement tenor aria reworked for bass; the fourth movement recitative newly composed or reworked for soprano; the substitution of the final chorale in place of the three movements of part ii of the libretto. an attempt to identify this splendidly proportioned cantata with the wedding for which it was originally composed brought a promising result. the text of the opening chorus is from psalm 97, vv. 11-12, light is sprung up for the righteous . .. , and in the following recitative the bass sings, hochedles paar an dem man so gerechtigkeit als tugend ehrt, ("right noble pair, whom one honours for righteousness as well as virtue"). then in the recitative of part ii of the libretto there is another reference to hoch edles paara further indication that the bridal couple were highly respected and certainly of some rank. gerechtigkeit ("righteousness") and tugend ("virtue") appear to be the outstanding qualities of the bridal pair and, with these clues to help, a search of the registers of st. thomas' and st. nicholas' pointed to the following rather than to any other wedding graced by a cantata. in st. thomas' on september 11, 1741, dr. gottlob heinrich pipping, ... beruhmter rechtsconsulent und burgermeister in naumburg, married johanna eleonore schiitze, daughter of dr. friedrich wilhelm schiitze, senior pastor of st. thomas'. from the marginal note, gantze brautmesse, it is certain that a cantata was performed at this wedding, and what better combination of attributes could one have than "righteousness" for a famous lawyer who is also mayor of an important city, and "virtue" for the daughter of leipzig's leading clergyman? no ordinary wedding lasting the usual halfhour or so would be a fitting tribute to such a marriage; it must have taken over an hour to perform the eight movements of the original setting of bwv 195.20 notes 1 j. s. biography, london 1928, p. 258, leipzig 1929, p. 312. 2 j. s. und das musikleben leipzigs im 18. jahrhundert, leipzig 1941 (= musikgeschichte leipzigs, vol. 3), p. 97. 3 j. s. bach-48 praeludia, haarlem & antwerp, 1950, p. 214. 4 j. s. leipzig, 1908, p. 619, london, 1911, vol. 2, p. 242. ii op. cit., p. 54. 119 6 the complete and detailed list is printed in the neue bach-ausgabe, series i, vol. 33, (trauungskantaten), kritischer bericht, kassel-basel-london-n ew york-leipzig, 1958, pp.12-l5. 7 reprinted in the bach jahrbuch, 1938, p. 106 ff.; 1939, p. 81 ff.; and 1940-48, p. 161 ff. (bwv 197=bj 1939, p. 88; bwv 195=bj 1939, p. 89.) 8 zeitschriftfiir musik, 1934, p. 191. 9 the writer is greatly indebted to the director, prof. h. kretzschmar, for his laborious search of these and other documents in his care; 10 mus. ms. bach st 73, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 11 am. b. 39, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 12 the ful1score, piano/vocal score, and performing parts of this reconstruction are currently in the press, and will be published by breitkopf und hartel, leipzig. 13 mus. ms. bach st 43, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 14 mus. ms. bach p 670, dahlem, berlin. 15 friedrich smend, bach in kothen, berlin, 1951, p. 64. 16 reconstruction of bwv 1z0a published by curwen (london) and schirmer (new york) 1955. 17 mus. ms. bach p 91, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 18 mus. ms. bach st 12, dahlem, berlin. 19 mus. ms. bach p 65, deutsche staatsbibliothek, berlin. 20 full information concerning bach's wedding music, sources and history, is contained in the critical report to nba. 1/33, barenreiter, kassel, 1958, deutscher verlag fiir musik, leipzig, 1958. musical research in israel,' its history, resources, and institutions don harran the history of musicology and ethnomusicology in israel is closely interwoven with developments on the national educational and artistic scene.! seeds of an indigenous musical culture were planted around 1910 with the opening of the country's first music school and, in 1911, of the israel school of music, the latter headed by abraham j. idelsohn. growth accelerated with the founding of the hebrew opera by mordechai golinkin (1923), the formation of a society for new music (1929), and the launching of the palestine orchestra, today the israel philharmonic orchestra, by bronislaw hubermann (1936) and, in the same year, of the radio station voice of jerusalem with its own chorus and orchestra. the year 1933 marked the inauguration of the first conservatory of music (now the rubin academy of music, jerusalem), and the year 1945, the first teachers' training school for music (tel-aviv). the educator leo kestenberg (1882-1967),2 to whose initiative the latter is due, drew up a blueprint for an educational system predicated on the specificity of the jewish cultural heritage. it .was no easy matter to find a "didactic" norm among the different ethnic strata of israeli society, each with its own language, folkways, and artistic traditions. nor was it easy to reconcile the correspondingly different opinions that raged then-and now-about what music education in this country should be like. 120 musicology and the future of music education alexander l. ringer a-[fr[ca'.; of edl'catio],;[st theories have ge'.;erally bee'.; so preoccupied with "the whole child," his level of aspiration and potential for achievement, that the academic formation of his teachers has received, at least until quite recently, relatively little attention. \\forse than that, the all-consuming concern with problems of juvenile adjustment and psychological welfare has fostered some strange notions indeed, including thc myth that a high degree of personal sophistication might interfere with a teacher's classroom effectiveness. the resulting intcllectual poverty of teachereducation curricula and their eroding impact on the "educational wastelands," stretching from the 1930's to the immediate post-sputnik era, are too well-known or rather too sadly-remembered to require further elaboration. happily, the gradual reorientation of educational goals, characteristic of the last fifteen years or so, has brought in its wake not only the long-overdue socio-economic rehabilitation of teaching as a profession but also a hard new look at the intellectual standards of teachers and the quality of the subject matter they teach. those responsible for this educational revolution-inthe-making were quick to realize, for example, that the "new math" would in the end be only as good as the men and women chosen to teach it. though obviously less in the limelight than the sciences and so-called language arts, school music, too, is currently subject to wide-spread reappraisal. but unfortunately, most attempts to do something about the pitiful state of musical literacy among our youngsters are somehow arrested at the semantic stage, whether in the form of pious pronouncements or timid admissions of past failures, and hence never face up to the real need for an entirely new image of music in the schools, an image that will have to be shaped by bright young artists fully aware of the totality of the world's musical heritage at all levels and from all cultures and historical periods. nearly thirty years ago the american composer and poet paul bowles remarked that the american people tended to regard music as a "form of decoration" rather than "a system of thought. " ifamazingly little has changed in this respect, it is largely because our music teachers have been similarly conditioned. unquestionably, american education, controlled as it is by local boards, is often at the mercy of poorly-educated taxpayers footing the by no means inconsiderable bill. by the same token, the members of our supposedly free academic communities responsible for the artistic and intellectual preparation of music teachers have done shamefully little to counteract the whims of a citizenry accustomed to identifying music almost exclusively --------------alexander l. ringer is professor of music and chairman of the musicology division at the university of illinois. his paper was read at the international seminar on teacher preparation in music, held at the university of michigan from august 8 to 18,1966. 136 • with commercial forms of entertainment. instead of providing their students with the means necessary to break a vicious circle that operates to the cultural detriment of the entire nation, they have in many instances actually reinforced it by yielding meekly to the lowest possible common denominator, oblivious to the truism that in education at least the quality of the supply necessarily determines the nature of the demand. as the general educational climate rapidly improves, however, a genuine desire for "the pursuit of excellence" is beginning to animate greater numbers of responsible music educators as well, even though their institutions, weighted down with vested intnests, may seem distressingly slow in accepting desirable changes. suspicion is still deep-seated, especially with regard to the potential role of musicologists (those egg-heads of the music world). and yet, where else could our young men and women find knowledge and understanding of music as a "system of thought" if not among the tangible products of those who have labored for so many decades to make available the musical treasures of the past and present, of simple people no less than of learned composers? how clse, if not through the study of its history and ethnography, are they expected to become sensitive to the esthetic values and concepts related to music through the ages, let alone to its respective cultural roles in vastly different societies? the frequently misunderstood function of the musicologist may be compared to that of the scientist engaged in basic rather than applied research. \'vhilc he is the one whose prolonged agonies make ultimate application possible, he ordinarily pursues his work with little concern for its "practical" value. such at least has been the general orientation of musicologists operating within the basic frame of reference inherited from 19th-century europe. and it was this traditional orientation that designated them as virtual outcasts in the eyes of a society which tests human achievement as a rule by asking simply: "will it work?" there is no need to expatiate upon the proven dangers of pragmatism as an educational or, for that matter, political philosophy. the daily newspapers are sufficiently instructive in that regard. but it may be worthwhile to reiterate that the present impasse of music education in america is largely the result of an attitude that evaluates even doctoral dissertations in terms of their immediate relevance to "problem-solving." needless to say, the apparent non-relevance of musicology is intimately related to its emphasis on man's cumulative past, quite beyond the reach of social science studies directed to the hcre-and-now. in this respect, die counterweight provided by musicology can be of crucial importance in the formation of the "whole teacher" as well as of the "whole musician." in this day and age, to be sure, musicologists are by no means unaware of their responsibilities to the present and future, as well as the past. as a matter of fact, relatively few of the young men and women sitting in our seminars today will ever be active as "research" musicologists. many are seeking the background and equipment needed for the proper transmission and distribution, indeed popularization, of the very best scholarly products. quantitatively, at least the "ivory tower" musicologist is rapidly becoming the exception rather than the rule. moreover, once largely dedicated to the musical history of western man, musicology now makes ever more numerous, extensive, and intensive forays into the musical heritage of all mankind. 137 finally, the unprecedented concern with broad analytical issues, in response to recent technological developments, especially in the computer field, has given a significant boost to systematic musicology-musical theory in the true sense of the word (as opposed to the exclusive preoccupation with musical skills that is so often mistakenly identified with theory). the suggestion that musicology become fully engaged in the complex and problem-ridden process of teacher preparation for the public schools is inevitably predicated on the idea that music education, whatever the level, aims for universal musical literacy-literacy, moreover, in the broadest sense of the term. even verbal literacy is all too often limited to the mere ability to read and write (and that only passably), largely because an overriding concern with verbal skills obscures the principal purposes for which such skills ought to be acquired: namely an intellectually and psychologically profitable engagement in the study of man's intellectual heritage and the ability to communicate effectively in the realm of ideas. as envisaged here, education presumes to develop above all the critical faculties, in contrast to the prevailing ideal of training for the execution of prescribed practical tasks. if adequate verbal education imposes itself as a matter of virtual survival in the modem world, much the same goes for music which, altogether divorced as it is from concrete reality in its symbolic language, remains unmatched in the promotion of purely conceptual modes of thinking. admittedly, there is little in these views that has not been previously stated by other well-intentioned educators. but action has lagged indefensibly. in discussions of the need for curricular revisions in teacher preparation, those loath to change retreat time and again behind the bogey of certification requirements, even though our larger institutions of higher learning (especially the state universities) have both the power and the duty to promote certificatjon reforms whenever changing cultural conditions seem to call for them. several years ago i had the good fortune to receive an invitation from the hebrew university of jerusalem, israel, to set up a music curriculum in accordance with its basically humanistic tradition and outlook. unimpeded by the established grooves of educationist behavior, i was able to propose and implement an integrated three-year undergraduate program of music history, theory, and ethnology that covered the range of styles and structural procedures from chant to serial composition. undergraduate students at the hebrew university concentrate on two major subjects. those wishing to teach music in the public schools may therefore choose a parallel course of study in pedagogy, which enables them eventually to teach in a manner sui ted to their individual temperaments and talents, yet which is centered on a common body of subject matter. of course, conditions in israel differ considerably from those in the united states. following the european example, israeli high schools put" far greater emphasis on languages, history, and literature than is customary in this country. moreover, musically-inclined students often supplement their already rigorous high school studies with additional work at local conservatories of music. thus, the freshman class had already gained a substantial musical as well as verbal literacy. american high schools too will eventually have to take charge of this type of preparation. in the meantime, the vicious 138 circle of a high school education, inadequate as a base for the intensive college program needed to produce teachers equipped to remedy the high school situation, will have to be broken from above, that is, at the college level. realizing this crucial fact, the university of illinois school of music, encouraged by a preliminary grant from the ford foundation, is now experimentally initiating an abridged version of the curriculum already operating in israel. beginning september 1967, a small group of volunteer freshmen of superior academic qualifications will be exposed to a two-year program of coordinated music history, literature, and theory studies, five times a week, two hours a day. a year later, when this first group ente,s the sophomore stage of the program, a second group, selected this time at random, will begin an identical course of study, permitting the eventual evaluation of results on a comparative basis. it is our hope that this experiment will set a pattern of team-teaching by composer-theorists and musicologists and will lead to the establishment of a basic curriculum in which all music undergraduates have a thorough acquaintance with music as a system of thought. it is gratifying that this project has the unanimous and enthusiastic support of the music education division of our schoo!. the potential benefits of the university of illinois plan are easily imagined. for one, many a student having decided at first to major in music for no more compelling reason than that he enjoyed playing in his high school band may thus discover before it is too late that music as a serious activity fails to hold his interest. for another, prospective teachers who do not belong in any classroom may withdraw early in the face of such a high-powered initiation program. but the program will also permit qualified students who are prevented by current curricula from investigating specific facets of music in depth to do so in their junior and senior years. having unlimited confidence in the basic soundness of mind and character of our undergraduates, provided they are given an opportunity to prove themselves, we expect considerable increases in enrollment in such advanced elective courses as music in the renaissance, contemporary music, and music of the world's cultures. far be it from me to suggest that this particular program of study deserves to be regarded as a panacea for the ills besetting music teaching in america's public schools. it will hardly improve performance skills or precipitate new methodological developments. but executed properly, it should make an invaluable contribution to the personal, intellectual, and musical growth of the individuals to whom our children will ultimately be exposed.! for decades music educators have accusingly pointed to musicologists as self-centered and/or exclusively subject-centered academicians, unconcerned with the realities of the classroom. today a new generation is not merely willing to extend a helping hand; it actually demands the right to be heard, as well as the opportunity to demonstrate that no gimmicks, no pedagogical tricks, and no commercial methods of production can replace thorough musical knowledge and the concomitant personal pride in the teaching of an art whose full educational potential remains as yet to be uncovered. 1 for further ramifications of a musicologically-oriented music teaching curriculum, see alexander l. ringer, "a re-examination of teacher training in music," college music symposium 1:61-75. 139 random thoughts on the preludes of claude debussy irwin freundlich " ... there is nothing blurred in debussy's art. his music is finely wrought and highly chiseled. not since mozart ... was every note of a score so interdependent and carefully weighed as in this music .... despite its seeming elusiveness, the music has its own inexorable logic, often exasperating the musical analyst ... " otto deri1 but the "inexorable logic" of which otto deri wrote is the inexorable logic of the poet faced with the delineation of atmosphere, mood, or character. the choice of textural settings, the potent chemistry of his harmonies, the musical images, melodic configurations, fluid rhythms, and modifications of touch, articulation, and stress are all dictated by the poetic needs of each piece; and it is from these needs that the varying structures of each prelude evolve. the maintenance of interest, continuity, and unity in so free and elusive an approach to art is, of course, a tribute to one of the greatest musical craftsmen of our century, well-recognized in these years. (i say "in these years" because i clearly remember that when i first heard the music of debussy in my student days we asked, "is it really music ?") one thinks of certain works of schumann wherein that most touching of composers simply drops one musical idea to begin a new one without any apparent organic continuity or energy motivated by the music itself. i believe that one is rarely or never faced with this situation in the music of debussy. the organic flow of the preludes is generated by the musical materials which are motivated, in turn, by essentially poetic considerations, an amalgam of elements that, in deri's words, proves exasperating to the musical analyst. i believe deri was right in asserting that debussy was closer to the literary symbolists than to the impressionist painters with whom time has indissolubly linked his name and art. the aesthetic prototype was a poetry wherein the timbre and rhythm of each word was at the service of projecting an aura, a characteristic stimmung. the care with which the poet's choices were made is matched by the care in the music of debussy. as deri said, the blurred impressionism in debussy is by no means a result of confused thinking; rather, as we well know, it is the product of the most precise calculation in the control of musical materials. both books of preludes (1910, 1913) originate in a superbly rich epoch in the history of 20th-century music: the epoch of stravinsky's sacre du printemps (1913), ives's piano sonatas (1902, 1915), schoenberg's pierrot lunaire (1912) and drei klavierstiicke, op. 11 (1908), bartok's bagatelles (1908), ravel's miroirs (1905) and gaspard de la nuit (1908). the preludes take their place firmly among these pathbreaking works. they provide for us a kaleido48 scopic microcosm of the workings of debussy's mind and sensibilities, a microcosm in which his compositional techniques and the pianistic realization of those techniques may be observed in close relation to his aesthetic preoccupations. consider, for a moment, the range of cultural allusions touched upon by the preludes as an immediate indication of the bent of debussy's interests: greek antiquity-the oracle at delphi, the votive dancers around the famed prophetess (captured for debussy's delectation on the fragment of a frieze in the louvre); egyptian antiquity-the canopic urn housing the ashes of the dead; french poetry and culture-the fireworks on bastille day, the harmonie du soir from the fleurs du mal of baudelaire, or the maiden with the silken hair from the poem by leconte de lisle; english literature-dickens of the pickwick papers, or puck of the midsummer night's dream; spanish culturethe guitar evocations of the serenade interrompue, or the stamping habanera and "cante hondo" of la puerta del vino; italian culture-the bells of anacapri, the tarantella, and neapolitan popular song; minstrelsy of the black musicians who were first heard in europe at the turn of the century; medieval legend-the myth of the cathedral at ys, involving gregorian chant and organum; painting-the frozen landscapes of des pas sur la neige or feuilles mortes, or the more agreeable vista of heather in bruyeres; the world of puppetry, caught so graphically in general lavine, eccentric. one must add to this catalogue the natural phenomena of wind (over the plain, or the more stormy winds over the atlantic), the billowing of veils or sails, the capriciousness and fantasy of the watery world of ondine, the fluttering of exquisitely dancing sprites, and the lone work dedicated to the world of the piano etude, les tierces alternees, foreshadowing the much later etudes. are not the allusions revealing? they are a far cry from the epic themes of the great german tradition, much more in the spirit of the 18th-century french clavecinistes. they constitute an extraordinary hothouse world of reflected images, in turn exquisite, delicious, and highly perfumed. "la musique doit humblement chercher a faire plaisir; il y a peut-etre une grande beaute possible dans ses limites," he said. "ii faut que la beaute soit sensible, qu'elle no us procure une jouissance immediate, qu'elle s'impose ou s'insinue en nous sans que no us ayons aucun effort pour la saisir. voyez leonardo da vinci, voyez mozart. voila les grands artistes." it matters little whether or not the title preceded or followed the composition of a given prelude. there is common ground between title and musical content. the activity, relative inactivity, and elements of character hinted at by the titles are explicitly stated in the nature of the musical materials and the ways in which these materials are treated in purely musical terms. from this poetic base are generated the form and structure of each prelude. one recalls mendelssohn's reminder that music is not less specific than words but more so. the nuances of fantasy and imagination inherent in each prelude can be suggested only in words, or talked "around." to hear is to understand. let us begin with a consideration of voiles, justly famous as one of the first 49 pieces to abjure tonality. the connotations of "veils" or "sails" (the very ambiguity is characteristic) focuses attention on the image of billowing, a gentle moving back and forth rooted to an immobile base. debussy, therefore, sits the piece on a low bd whose only activity is to propound irregular rhythms at irregular intervals and, on occasion, to rest quietly. the harmonies, two in number (a whole-tone series and a pentatonic series, both starting on a bd) are united by the bass tone. the entire piece oscillates, in the largest sense, between these two harmonies (51 mm. on the whole-tone series, 6 mm. at the climax on the pentatonic series, swinging back to 17 closing mm. on the whole-tone series). the oscillation also exists in the nature of the melodic ideas. if the melody descends, it is compensated for by a rise; ifit ascends, it has a subsequent complementary descent. even the subsidiary, accompanying figures share in the rocking motion (e.g., middle voice in mm. 22-28). melodies a and b (ex.l, which also illustrates oscillating melodies) are recapitulated in reverse order, so that the piece ends where it began. the wave of sound ascending at the climax and receding into the recapitulation serves only to further emphasize the fact that the whole structure and content share the rocking, billowing activity which is its poetic raison d'etre. example 1 a. b. the elusive evocation of baudelaire (les sons et les paifums tournent dans l'air du soir) is a nocturne dealing with the sensations aroused by a drowsy commingling of the senses, a theme close to the interests of the symbolist poets. the imagined fusion of sounds and scents is suggested by (or suggests) melodic fragments that attempt to rise (ex. 2a, the main motive), trail off into nothingness (ex. 2b), or are caught in nostalgic webs of sound (ex. 2c). the perfumed ambience of baudelaire's harmonie du soir from les fleurs du mal (the source of the title) is further heightened by the distant horn calls at the final cadences. the static basses move from a low a to an ad and back to a with some momentary attention to c#. the reference to les cotlines d' anacapri is first suggested by bell sonorities that act as a kind of series, from which are extracted important accompanying 50 example 2 a. b. c. figures and a final sequence that ultimately dominates the piece. a tarantella, abruptly intruding (ex. 3), makes way for two popular song types in neapolitan style (mm. 68ff.). example 3 , the bell tones, reintroduced in diminution, accompany the tarantella (ex. 4a) and then overpower it in a clangorous ending at the final outburst (ex.4b). example 4 ---=51 h. the much admired and well-worn la cathidrale engloutie deals with activity that strives to rise from the depths (m. 1) but is momentarily pulled back by dragging movements in the bass (m. 2). the ascending motive (m. 1) dominates the musical materials of the piece and shares interest with the gregorian-type melos (ex. 5) stemming from the medievalism of the legend. example 5 the emergence of the cathedral, the cathartic resolution of the musical impulses, takes place in a radiant c major, which, characteristically enough, appears for the first time in the piece near its conclusion. the final blurred statement of the melody graphically paraphrases the waters closing above the submerging cathedral, as the musical activity subsides into the final quiet conclusion. the dotted, jerky rhythms of danse de puck characterize the image evoked of robin goodfellow, the puck of midsummer night's dream. the capricious musical outbursts flow from the nature of the poetic subject at hand down to the haunting horn calls (mm. 69-70), at which point puck seems to pause and listen as the musical activity holds back. the disappearing scale passage at the close is sheer vaudeville as puck flees the stage. equally vaudevillian in approach is la serenade interrompue, comprising, along with la puerta del vino and la soiree dans grenade (from estampes), debussy's "spanish" pieces for piano. it is, in effect, a tiny dramatic "scena" and can be understood only in that sense. the serenader "tunes up" his guitar (ex. 6; note the sliding pitch represented by the grace note in m. 2). example 6 52 he begins his serenade first on the guitar, in "punteado" style (ex. 7); example 7 .,i" '. ff • l' and continues vocally, with an accompaniment in "rasgueado" (strumming) style (ex. 8). example 8 f eti.pres.lf ei "" feusuf,i:" .. 1 " '-..:!.--, -..--. -'4 .,. -'4 -#. , the vocal element is raw, primitive, "echt" spanish. he resumes his guitar playing but is interrupted by the slamming of a shutter ( ?), suggested by strong chordal sonorities in broken rhythms (mm. 46-47). nevertheless, he returns to the serenade, sings and plays for a while, until his somewhat free recitative is again interrupted, this time by a distant march. he rages (mm. 85-86), is again interrupted by the march, rages once more, and recaptures vocal command of the scene, concluding with an endearing, sensuous song (mm. l13ff.). there follows a little more guitar playing, and the serenader then vanishes into the night. instances can be multiplied ad infinitum to illustrate the relationship of debussy's musical imagery to the extramusical content of each prelude, but a few words must be said about his skillful motivic elaborations. the life of the main motive in feux d' artifice is a case in point. the fireworks on bastille day (alluded to by the evanescent quote of la marseillaise at the conclusion of the piece) suggest to debussy material that splutters or soars. the initial motive forms a diminished fifth, becomes a perfect fifth, and then undergoes much motivic variation (ex. 9). these motivic derivations do not exhaust its possibilities, as the reader can see for himself by examining the music further. example 9 a. i i }" 7 s t 53 d. e. f= very subtle attention to motivic derivations to supply musical energy is strikingly evident in the exquisite la fiue aux cheveux de lin, the tiny essay dealing with a reposeful, tender affect associated with leconte de lisle's poem of the same name. i am reminded, at this point, of alban berg's analysis of schumann's triiumerei. in it berg delivered a withering attack on hans pfitzner's assertion that with the schumann piece all one could do was to genuflect, "play the music and say, 'how beautiful.'" one could not talk about nor analyze it. berg gnashed his teeth and set about to demolish pfitzner in his own famous analysis of triiumerei, which revealed "the exceptional pregnancy of the individual motifs, their profuse relations with one another and the manifold application of the given motivic material." a close perusal of lafiue aux cheveux de lin reveals a somewhat similar craft on the part of debussy. the tonality of major frames the picture, a silken study in hushed sonorities. harmonically, the piece is governed by the subdominant. it favors movements to the iv and vi chords instead of the sharper contrast of dominant harmony, which is touched upon only with the greatest discretion, notably at the return. this softening of harmonic contrasts is underlined by emphasis on stable root-position triads aided and abetted by parallel chord movements neutral in color. rhythmic subtleties abound, with gentle stresses shifting from the downbeat to the third beat and complicated, on occasion, by syncopations that carryover from a previous bar. at times an offbeat replaces the main beats in stress. at the crucial harmonic climax, the third beat is tied over into an inactive first beat for the only time during the piece. but the motivic manipulation adds to the exquisite balance and organic unity. the cadential formula to the neutral swaying opening melody (ex. 10) reveals two motives (a and b) pregnant with implications for the further course of the musical continuity. the link (c) to the next phrase is equally important in subsequently generating longer melodic strands. example 10 b '..... i 1j s .... s "f -::: p.-f: ... " _. -_. motive a is useful cadentially (mm. 18-19); motive b (a descending fourth) is employed in augmentation (mm. 31-32); motive c appears most often not as 54 a third plus a second but in the opposite order. it generates the longer melodic strands mentioned above in several rhythmic variants (mm. 11-13; 15-16; 19). only at the final cadence do we clearly hear v-i high in the upper reaches of the piano, but, true to the character of the piece's poetic content, it rests securely buried in the reposeful tonic. debussy's basses are inclined to move very slowly. often three or four bass tones hold together an entire prelude. la puerta del vino, for instance, has only three essential bass tones: a on which the habanera rhythm sits; a digression to a (mm. 44ff.); and a move through a few ornamental harmonies to (mm. 62-65), which finally returns to the tonic even the stormy west wind prelude, which accentuates so much noisy activity in its lisztian treatment of the entire range of piano sonorities, is, in essence, pivoted to a low for forty of its seventy-one measures. only a b and a arc used prominently as pivotal points in the harmonic motion. the frenzied activity is entirely figural, rhythmic, and textural, with these factors playing a more important role than the opposition of harmonies or the pull of linear forces. the problems involving textural inventions and combinations of unprecedented ingenuity display debussy in one of his greatest roles as an innovator. beveridge webster has pointed out that, for some reason, it was not until book ii that debussy resorted to three staves to clarify and beautify his notation, even though some of the problems in book i would have benefited from such a device. the use of doublings and the addition of new dimensions in tonal space to create variation without the alteration of harmonic or melodic details is well illustrated by a comparison of the beginnings of the first two phrases of danseuses de delphes (ex. 11) and the more complicated voiles (ex. 12). the infinite variety of textures is also startlingly evident in the manifold ways in which debussy begins his preludes: (1) block chordal texture with melody in the inner part; (2) unaccompanied melodic duet, flute style; (3) trill figuration spread over an octave, no melody, no harmony; (4) melodic motive, tones tripled, harmonized and opposed to bare bass tones; (5) bell sonorities ("quittez en laissant vibrer") interrupted by a distant fragment of a tarantella high in the upper register; (6) rumbling bass figuration outlining a example 11 (). 44) de,!", el• 55 example 12 (l.1"clire )': so m.7 m.is harmony; (7) unaccompanied melody harmonized only at the cadence; (8) rhythmic motive ("ce rythme doit avoir la valeur son ore d'un fond de paysage triste et glace") on which a bare melody is imposed; (9) blockchordal sonorities over the entire range ofthe piano, rhythm deemphasized, bell-like in sonority; and so forth. allied to this hypersensitive preoccupation with musical "settings" is an ingenious catalogue of musical images. one thinks of the musical symbolism in bach: the sighing seconds, the jumping basses, the critical harmonies at the "et sepultus est" in the crucifixus of the b minor mass, the string accompaniment which provides a musical halo to the recitatives of jesus in the st. matthew passion. turning to debussy, one sees how graphically the moonlight streams downward over the disguised quote from "au claire de la lune ... " in la terrasse des audiences du clair de lune. one senses easily the capriciousness of ondine; the stark quiet of the funereal evocation of canope; the jigging of the dancing puppet general lavine, eccentric; the outburst of wind in le vent dans la plaine; and the stumbling footsteps in des pas sur la neige. a study of this last-mentioned prelude indicates the fastidious sensibility to details in textual differences that enabled debussy to cast endless light on simple materials. the rhythmic motive, symbolizing the dragging footsteps (one involuntarily thinks of brueghel's hunters) is stated alone. a melody is superimposed; widespread parallel chords harmonize the motive (mm. 5-7); the motive is used on top of two new simple lines (mm. 8-9) or in an inner voice surrounded by two lines (mm. 17-19). one could speculate on debussy's subtle rhythmic apparatus and explore the kaleidoscopic rhythmic shifts that necessitate such acute sensibilities in timing on the part of the performer. add to this a study of the infinite variety of articulative demands and the problems of sonority related to the use of the pedals of the piano. debussy complained repeatedly to marguerite long (who first studied many of his works with him) that she was never attentive enough to the "insides" of the harmonies. but no matter in what direction we turn, we can only hint at the "rightness" of debussy's choices and decisions, his razor-sharp delineation of poetic ideas, the striking sense of balance and cohesion among all the above-mentioned elements. i recall a story that edward steuermann told me. while he was still 56 studying composition with schoenberg, the master announced they would examine how mahler modulated in one of his symphonies. confidently they sat down to peruse the score. after a few preliminary grapplings, however, schoenberg turned to steuermann in exasperation, said, "well, he modulates t", and slammed the score shut. and so, too, the essence of the preludes remains basically beyond rational explanation. only the ear can perceive and judge. as our exasperation gives way to wonder, it seems appropriate to recall and slightly paraphrase the dictum of blaise pascal, 'l'oreille a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point'. note 1 exploring twentieth-century music (new york, 1968), p. 155. 57 reflections on the renewal of music george rochberg when mahler called bruckner "half-baked" and brahms "overdone," he was exercising his very strong sense of skepticism regarding the value of their achievements. obviously, judgments produced by the skeptical temper are not necessarily true for all people. yet, for an artist, they are basic to decisions he must make for himself. they affect his views not only of the work of others but of his own as well and determine to a great extent what he will willfully take, i.e., borrow or "steal," from another, how he will allow himself to be influenced, and what he will accept into his personal canon. the capacity for self-indulgence is the measure of the lack of self-critical faculties, rationalizations notwithstanding, whether offered in the guise of aesthetics or not. skepticism, therefore, is one of the primary requisites of mental awareness, the sharpness of a natural or developed acumen which tests everything in order to discover what is good or authentic. the development of critical powers leads to the capacity to make discriminating judgments without which there is no taste; and without taste there is no art. for what we call "art" is ultimately-however else it may be defined-the habitual exercise of projecting fine judgments of subtle and specific perceptions. that is why the gross, generalized, and nonspecific perceptions of today's avant-gardists fall outside the range of art and have been dubbed "anti-art." the self-declared avant-gardist lacks, among other things, precisely that skeptical temper of mind which develops the critical powers leading finally to taste, subtlety, grace, proportion-in a word, art. borges'sl notion that history may be the record of the infinitely varying individual inflections of a universal mind contains more than one refutation of commonly-held beliefs. among them is the belief in the necessity or desirability of originality,2 the motive force which seems to supply the energy for change itself and offers the justification for asserting the aggressive tendencies of the ego, whether in art, politics, business, etc. from borges's notion one can proceed directly and easily to the consideration of how influence-which produces resemblance, replication, reminiscence through emulation of manner or substance, or both-operates from one man to another, from one epoch to another, even to the inclusion of outright borrowing, i.e., exact repetition. but, then, in the case of direct borrowing, from whom is one taking if not from one's larger self, providing, of course, one accepts borges's idea that each of us is, indeed, a single individual filament of a vast, interconnected cosmic nervous system, one cell of a complex far-flung organism. narcissistic individualism, which thrives chiefly on the belief in originality and rationalizes the excesses of self-indulgence, is a kind of metaphysical cop-out. 75 by an act of pure fantasy the florentine camerata reached across centuries to the drama of ancient greece and came up with monody and opera. if ancient greek drama had persisted without change into the time of the late renaissance, baroque and subsequent opera might never have occurred. how different is modern opera from greek drama as it was actually performed? we shall never know. but in the mental space carved out by the historical loss of the actual practice of greek drama there grew a myth of how it was; and out of the myth and the urge to resuscitate greek tragedy, music renewed itself. we are still living off the energies of that act of renewal. another of the many refutations of commonly-held beliefs implicit in borges's idea of history is the long-cherished notion of the linear causal progression of human events buttressed in our time by the dizzying speed of the changes by which science and technology have "advanced" our civilization. to be a victim of the idea of change as endemic to the course of man's motion through time is nothing short of a curse on the artist. for it deprives him on every side of the reality and value of the past experience of human beings whose earlier contributions must be considered as valid as his own, but for different reasons, if his own are to be considered valid by others who will come later. if one wipes the slate clean of others, in order to satisfy some misguided notion of being "contemporary," one's own fate is, by the same token, equally guaranteed null and void. there is no virtue in starting all over again. the past refuses to be erased. unlike boulez, i will not praise amnesia. the history of music leapfrogs its way across the centuries. the "perfect art" of the netherlanders, overridden by monody, lives in renewed form in schoenberg and webern; the fugal art of bach, overridden by the sonata, comes to life again, albeit imbued with a new psychology and purpose, in beethoven, the master of the sonata; the ground-bass variation technique, overridden by the harmonic variation, is reborn in brahms's fourth symphony; stravinsky resurrects pergolesi in pulcinella; web ern, in his klangfarben version of bach's "ricercare" from the musical offering, virtually writes a new work; ives's concord sonata treats the motto of beethoven's fifth symphony as an underlying presence; and so on. all acts of renewal through uses of the past renew both that past drawn upon and that present in which the act occurs. far from being acts of weakness or signs of the depletion of creative energy, they reveal a profound wisdom about the paradox of time, which does not consume itself and its products as if it were fire, but gathers up into itself everything which has occurred in it, preserving everything as the individual mind preserves its individual memories. the myth is more important than the fact. it is not at all true that this is the "age of mcluhan" any more than it is the "age of schoenberg," or "of stravinsky," or of anyone else. this is the cliche language of the media and of simple-minded critics and historians 76 who need to pin tags on phenomena. nor is it at all true that there is a single tradition which operates along the track of a main line with station stops at bach, beethoven, brahms, etc. if one can accept in whole or in part the idea of a universal mind, endlessly producing a repertoire of recurring images and forms, one immediately appreciates the rule of human conduct and culture: an emergent procession of varieties of parallel, simultaneous patterns ofliving and believing, frequent juxtapositions of opposites in these patterns, frequent and violent overt conflicts between such patterns, subtle conflicts and tension between related but different patterns, and so forth. like every other time, ours is a vast mix which refuses to be reduced to neatly packaged verbal categories. if brahms does not belie the "age of wagner" concept, then debussy does; ifnot debussy, then verdi; and so on. verbal consistencies are not more fruitful than aesthetic ones. (music, like existence itself, is susceptible to description but not to analysis.) to insist on either verbal or aesthetic consistencies is to limit the world at any given moment of individual perception only to what that individual eye can see, ear hear, mind perceive; it is to refuse, especially, the contradictory evidence of other observers and other consciousnesses which are equally limited. like the 19th century, the 20th presents us with nothing but contradictions, and only the partisan thinks he sees clearly. schoenberg probably suffered more from a sense of ongoing linear change and the pressure of historical consciousness than any other major composer of the 20th century. he was overly concerned with his ultimate position in history and as a result became too self-conscious about how he worked, how his work affected others, etc. history has nothing to do with creation and is not a sufficient motive force for a man's actions. when it enters the stream of consciousness and becomes a criterion for the evaluation of oneself and others, it tends to corrode and destroy. taken as an abstraction, history is a constant danger to human thought and life. in his story "the aleph,"3 borges describes a poet and his work, in a way the very model of a certain variety of contemporary composer, in these words: "he read me many another stanza, each of which obtained his approbation and profuse commentary, too. there was nothing memorable in any of them .... i realized that the poet's labor lay not with the poetry, but with the invention of reasons to make the poetry admirable; naturally, this ulterior and subsequent labor modified the work for him, but not for others." like a stain on the tissue of time, the self-indulgent verbiage of proclamation and justification will remain as sometime documents of our collective confusions; but the work which it attempted to make "admirable" will have long since faded from the field of memory. the desperate search in the second half of the 20th century for a way out of cultural replication, i.e., being influenced by others, borrowing, leap77 frogging, etc., has let loose a veritable pandora's box of aberrations which have little or nothing to do with art, but everything to do with being "successful" historically or commercially. even the critics, no longer willing to be left out or behind, have joined in the hue and cry for "the new"; they celebrate and rationalize it. self-indulgence is now the rule. by a series of typical paradoxes only powerful creative spirits like brahms, mahler, bartok, and stravinsky remain skeptical of everything but authentic values and, therefore, continue the process of cultural replication by refracting all previous music through their individual, particular natures; the avant-gardists, wanting to start all over again, make anarchic hash of music, partially by invoking the philosophies of the east and doctrines of noncausality and indeterminacy, among others. what was advertised as the "exhaustion of tonality" at the end of the 19th century, descriptions by historians beginning typically with tristan and tracing the demise through the new viennese school, may simply have been an incapacity on the part of composers to continue to produce a viable tonal music which could stand comparison with the best work of the 18th and 19th centuries. even if we grant the emergence of new perceptions and sensibilities, it does not follow that authentic values must be cast aside every time a new device or procedure is discovered. culture, like time, its guardian, proceeds by slow accretion and eventually absorbs everything of value. by the same token nothing of value is ever lost. this is the only faith that a serious artist can live by, provided that he has made something worth preserving, even though he will never really know the fate of his work. we live within two distinct yet interrelated realities: the world of nature which includes man as a biogenetic reflection of nature's urge toward consciousness, and the world of man which includes art as a spiritual reflection of that self-awareness nature has given him. art is neither a mirror nor a substitute for the world. it is an addition to that universal reality which contains natural man and shows the infinite varieties of ways that man can be. william faulkner put it much more simply when he said that art was a way of declaring that "kilroy was here." however we phrase it, art preserves the reality of man's presence on earth. it is part of his urge toward the physical survival of the race and the spiritual immortality of the individual. its fantastic nature does not change this striving one iota. on the contrary, it intensifies, confirms, and purifies it; for man, though he may be a failure in the realms of social and political order, is primarily and essentially a craftsman and maker of symbols and metaphors. this is his true gift, his real nature. what cannot be remembered cannot be preserved. the true intent of art is to preserve human consciousness. the homeric epics and the old testament-to cite just two examples-existed, we are told, in centuries-old oral traditions before being written down more than 2000 years ago. if the dislocation of tradition which afflicts us had befallen the ancient greeks and 78 hebrews, we would not know the poetic glories of the odyssey and the iliad or the vast sweep of human experience recorded in genesis through deuteronomy. we would be bereft of two of the richest sources and deposits of human metaphor and symbol. why, then, do composers today think that music which they admit cannot be remembered earns them, merely because they wrote it, the right to preservation and transmission? they produce for obsolescence while secretly hoping for immortality. it is curious that le sacre is the subject of rhythmic analysis, wozzeck of structural analysis, and more recently lulu of harmonic and intervallic analysis, not to speak of rhythmic and metric analysis. they are treated as though the balletic and theatrical impulses which brought them to life are as nothing compared with the formal designs and patterns which articulate their audible surfaces. the primal energy and sensuality of le sacre, the heartbreak of human noncomprehension and the cruelty of the human condition which are basic to wozzeck, the heartlessness of lust, the poison of soullessness depicted in lulu-all this is disregarded as though it were of no account. the passions of man, which are the very heart of theater and theater music, seem to escape or to embarrass those who write about music today. the gestures which embody dramatic functions and form the real and audible stuff of music remain, analysis notwithstanding, the only reasons why these works have entered their respective repertoires and will undoubtedly remain there. as obvious as all this is, or ought to be, it is completely overlooked by legions of composer-theorists who are lost in the labyrinth of academic abstractions. there can be no justification for music, ultimately, if it does not convey eloquently and elegantly the passions of the human heart. who would care to remember the quartets of beethoven or bartok if they were merely demonstrations of empty formalisms? what claim would chopin have on us if he had merely given us the abstractions of shape, gesture, and motion through time? debussy was being celebrated only a few years ago as one of the patron saints of pure instrumental timbre as a compositional virtue. how he would have writhed to be reduced to the size of his idolators! more recently, interest has been shown in varese's penchant for symmetry. all well and good; but one could hardly claim that this describes or explains in any meaningful way the passion, bite, and force of his rhetoric, the real reasons we value him. the insistence by all on ignoring the dramatic, gestural character of music, while harping on the mystique of the minutiae of abstract design for its own sake, says worlds about the failure of much new music. like mushrooms in the night, there has sprung up a profusion of false, half-baked theories of perception, of intellection, of composition itself. the mind grows sterile, and the heart small and pathetic. the enlargement of mental perspective teaches us that consciousness, 79 whose core is the central nervous system, is radial, not linear. earth-time embraces man through his entire slow, tortuous advance up the ladder of evolution. no matter how far up that ladder he may climb, no matter how far away from his beginnings he may find himself as the decades, centuries, and eons elapse, he will bear within him all that he ever was. what profit is there, then, for man to shorten his perspective to man-time, that tiny scale of measurement by which men count their days and actions? man-time is a distorting mirror in which, by ever so slight a shift of position, men can create false images, reduce the significant to smallness, inflate the insignificant to largeness. music without a cosmology will not move the soul; nor will it illumine the heart. the cosmogony of the ancients and primitives, expressed in magic, rites, and rituals, which invested the world around them with signs and symbols of the unknown, parodoxically ensured the survival of these peoples; for through their seemingly unsophisticated notions they preserved the sense of awe and mystery in the face of a cosmos into which man had seemingly stumbled. and we? because we have lost that precious sense of the magic and mystery of existence, we have no cosmogony. (physics and astronomy are poor substitutes.) because we have no cosmogony, we are finally, but surely not suddenly, faced with the problem of whether man can survive his own thoughtlessness and arrogance, his collective hubris. mahler was the last composer to intuit that music belongs to cosmogony and is supported by it. what was it beethoven was supposed to have said? "music is the one corporeal entrance into an incorporeal realm which comprehends us but which we cannot comprehend." even if we suppose that beethoven did not say it, would the statement be less true? the renewal of music depends on the renewal of the art of composition itself. ifwe value wagner and brahms for the power of their harmony, why, then, have we given up harmony? if we value mozart and chopin for the elegance of their melodies, why, then, have we given up the melodic line? if in the combination of many voices a radiant polyphony emerges, why have we given up counterpoint? ballet cannot exist without rhythmic pulsation and periodicities any more than opera can exist without the accompanied aria. both are rooted in myth, fairy tale, real or imagined history, the embodiments and extensions of man's passionate nature. nontheatrical music is not necessarily less dramatic. it must still move and touch us. the enlargement of the timbral palette is made at the sacrifice of the melodic phrase, the rhythmic period. if there is value in this enlargement it will come only with its direct and concrete association with discernible, memorable melodies and rhythms, polyphonic combinations, and textural composites which articulate that longing for a reality which is man's best and perhaps only true claim to existence. history will not help us; but the past, which is ever-present, can. 80 the renewal of music is linked to the survival of man. in his prophetic introduction to magister ludi, published in 1946, hermann hesse refers to the treatise of an ancient chinese philosopher who describes "the music of decline" as a reflection of the chaos and disorderly state of men's affairs. it is painful, to say the least, to consider that ours may be or, in fact, is such a "music of decline." man the human being must learn to reconcile himself to a universe in which he is or is not a welcome guest (how can one tell?) simply in order to survive physically-which means acknowledging the limits of his biogenetic nature, as well as the delicate balance of nature itself and his relation to that balance. in the same way, man the musician must learn to reconcile himself to the limits of music which inhere in his central nervous system and to stop torturing sound into shapes and gestures whose meanings, if they have any, suggest that man has lost the power of musical speech and has reduced himself to inarticulateness. to sing is to project the subtle inflections of the human psyche; to dance is to project the subtle inflections of the human body and its musculature. the renewal of music lies in the direction of reasserting both, simply and directly. the gestures of 20th-century music do not invalidate those of the 18th or 19th centuries, any more than western music invalidates indian music, or vice versa. when authentic, they are extensions of the psychology of musical expression. in no way can it be claimed that they supersede the vast continuities, the grander and more serene gestures of tonal music. they are primarily investigations of previously unexposed and unexplored areas of the human psyche and have value in so far as they articulate those areas of sensation, feeling, and emotion with clarity of means and eloquence of utterance. these narrow-chested gestures of our time often tend to be peripheral to the major, earlier gestures of music and describe, as it were, a series of vague and tenuous probes and lines of movement, extending from the ghostly shadowlands of the surreal to the gravity-free, time-frozen sensations of cosmic space-longing, from the randomness of causality-free projections to the overdetermined, tightly woven structures of total organizations. there is no contradiction in suggesting that the renewal of music depends on the fullest possible use of the human imagination, the only recognizable limit being the central nervous system, which potentially includes, therefore, all the gestures, old and new, of which music is capable. translated into practice, this would mean the use of every device and every technique appropriate to its specific gestural repertory in combination with every other device and technique until theoretically all that we are and all that we know is bodied forth in the richest, most diverse music ever known to man, ars combinatoria. notes 1 jorge luis borges (b. 1899), argentine poet and philosophical essayist. in "pascal's sphere," which appears in other inquisitions, 1937-1952 (new york, 1966), pp. 5-8, borges 81 remarks: "perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors" (p.8). 2 a unique discussion of the belief in the necessity of artistic originality can be found in leonard b. meyer's music, the arts, and ideas (chicago, 1967), especially pp. 54-67, 188. 3 a personal anthology (new york, 1967), pp. 138-54. 82 to have expressly forbidden the use in composition of triplets against duplets was the italian giannantonio banner, maestro di cappella in padova, in his compendia musico of 1745. the real reason for rewriting the piece by zannetti seems to have been overlooked by mr. hills. it has nothing to do with brossard or walther, but with the nature of the piece itself. it is labelled a corrente, and one might expect it would be in triplet meter like other correntes, but it is duple on every level. yet it bears in every part the sign 3 of triple meter. i conclude, therefore, that the sign is an indication that the piece is actually ternary. i heartily agree with mr. hills that the definitive work on performing 17th-century triplets is still to be written. i submit that it is not a refinement of method that is needed, but more information, from treatises or from the music itself. should anyone be able to supply me with such evidence, i shall be more than happy to refine my present conclusions. university of rochester donald m. mintz-the sketches and drofts oj three oj felix mendelssohn's major works ann arbor; university microfilms (um order no. 61-16), 1960. (vol. i, 497 pp. text; vol. ii, 151 pp. music, cornell university diss.) arnold salop . as the title indicates, this dissertation consists of a study of early drafts of three well-known works by felix mendelssohn: elijah, the d minor trio, op. 49, and the a major symphony, op. 90. thanks to a fulbright, dr. mintz was given the opportunity. to visit the deutsche staatsbibliothek in berlin 'and examine the volumes of the mendelssohn nachlass containing these drafts. his findings are reported here. dr. mintz goes about his task by first discussing any matters of background that seem relevant to the work or movement in question, then describing in more or less detail the published versions of the various movements-i.e. those of the breitkopf & hartel gesamtausgabe (ga), and finally drawing comparisons with the versions found in draft form (ms). in doing this, professor mintz demonstrates complete familiarity with the pertinent literature, with the versions of these works contained in the ga, and also presumably with those of the ms-i say presumably because only isolated passages of the early drafts are presented as musical examples. indeed, he has demonstrated something more than mere familiarity; he has gone into these works in their various versions with a fine-toothed comb. he has studied what makes them tick motivically, thematically, harmonically, and dramatically, and has applied this knowledge, and that gained from comparing the versions, to the 130 end of drawing conclusions regarding mendelssohn's position in the familiar antithesis between classic and romantic practice. as a result, he is able to make a number of interesting, sometimes even illuminating, observations about the style. thus, for example; an excellent description of a harmonic change may be fourid on pp. 222-223. dr. mintz suggests that the more romantic (i.e., schumann-like) quality of the ga version can be traced to the fact that what was a direct, even prosaic, move from tonic to dominant in the ms comes to center around the mediant degree in the ga and only slips away to the dominant at the very end of the phrase. this, of course, touches upon one of the major innovations of early romantics: the richer harmonic practice, particularly the tendency to slip in and out of keys very easily and frequently. since this tendency has not been much discussed by theorists or historians, i would suggest that professor mintz performs a valuable service by calling it to attention. in another passage (pp. 234-235), he asserts that what was a development in the ms has been replaced by a contrasting middle section in the ga, in support of which he offers a photocopy of the entire passage in question. one may take issue with his conclusion, or his grounds for reaching it, but one can only be grateful for the opportunity to examine so large a section of the ms and for the at least plausible interpretation offered. it is also worthwhile knowing that mendelssohn's original conception of the last movement of the symphony involved a recapitulation, but that this was deleted from the later draft on which the ga version is based (p. 446). the dissertation also contains a number of secondary studies of considerable value. interesting discussions of the various manuscripts may be found on pp. 41ff. and 316ff., where attempts are made to establish the chronologies for the sources of elijah and the "italian" symphony. some 19th-century views on pedalling are presented on pp. 216ff., with evidence drawn from the writings of kalkbrenner, thalberg, and moscheles. in a series of notes an attempt is made to use the information gained from study of the earlier versions to arrive at a more authoritative text of the symphony than is presented in the ga, specifically with regard to indications of dynamics, phrasing, and attack. added to this is a style of writing that is often breezy and contemporary in usage and metaphor (pp. 28-29) : obadiah and the people never engage one another, for obadiah walks barefoot down fifth avenue carrying his message on a placard-and is ignored. i must admit, furthermore, that i find myself most sympathetically inclined to what is certainly dr. mintz's main conclusion, although this is, unfortunately, buried in the middle of his dissertation (pp. 235-236): mendelssohn's first thoughts •.• tended to be traditional. the last thoughts, however, are basically romantic ... failure to recognize the relation of the traditional and romantic leads to the endlessly repeated fable about the romantic classicist or the classical romanticist ... the 131 manuscripts prove beyond a doubt that mendelssohn was and wanted to be a modern, romantic composer ... studies of this kind, of course, are needed, and needed badly; for despite the wealth of materials and the accessibility of the music, the 19th century seems as little understood as the 14th. yet after going through this very long and detailed dissertation several times, i cannot but feel a little disappointed with what dr. mintz has accomplished. his attempts to support his main conclusion (that mendelssohn should be considered a romantic) are based upon an oft-repeated assertion that the draft versions are invariably more traditional, less romantic, than those of the ga-an assertion i find difficult to accept. part of the trouble probably can be traced to the fact that dr. mintz has not been particularly liberal in the use of examples. quite often he asks us to take his word for what is contained in the ms, and his descriptions sometimes range fairly far from the factual. thus, the following assertions are offered without benefit of illustrative example (p. 159): there is also entirely too much iv in the ms ... of course the ga version ... does not stay clear of iv, and there is no reason why it should. in the ga, iv is handled so that the chord hints at its coming importance, which is one thing, whereas the ms gives this importance away, and that is quite something else. i am far from certain, furthermore, that some of those examples drawn from the ms that are included in any completeness of texture or passage could legitimately be termed less romantic or more traditional. i am more than willing to listen to dr. mintz's arguments concerning why they should be so considered, but he never does give any coherent rationale for' his judgments. he merely reaches some. sort of conclusion about the final version involving greater ambiguity (p. 173), or a replacement of structure by atmosphere (p. 153), and then goes on to say that this is surely a romantic trait. a list of some of the other characteristics adduced by professor mintz may help put his method in perspective. on p. 10 the view that art is a means of subjective expression is presented as an essential characteristic. on p. 116 a passage is said to be romantic in flavor because a repeated element is taken from within the theme rather than from its beginning; on p. 135 the romantic quality is traced to an allegation that the two parts of a theme are not gbverned by the same motive; on pp. 153-154 it is linked to the use ofa wider variety of textures, greater tension, and avoidance of structural clarity. the idea that constant flux of tension is a normal condition is taken as a sign of romanticism (p. 162); so is the omission of the repeat of an exposition section (p. 171). meaning presented vaguely rather than expounded (p. 173), disguised naivete (p. 205), richer harmonic practice (pp. 222-223), and less purely musical, more symbolically emotional drama (p. 310) are just a few other traits associated with this movement. i think it would be most difficult to piece together a coherent picture of that cultural phenomenon known as musical romanticism from a list of this 132 dj¥.t.% _. kind. indeed, in the absence of a general and meaningful definition of what is understood by this term, we cannot be at ali sure that these are not merely superficial differences-differences which do not really reflect a basic change in attitude. in addition, while a number of these characteristics may be considered to hit quite dose to the mark (for instance, emphasis on atmosphere, the richer harmony), others are distinctly vulnerable. the omission of the repeat of an exposition may be found in beethoven. disguised naivete hardly seems a characteristic of berlioz or wagner. constant intensity flux, i have suggested,l is an important characteristic of the music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven, as well as ofj. s. bach. the same would seem to be true of the emotionality of the dramatic structure. it could easily be maintained, after ali, that bach, haydn, mozart, and beethoven were writing as emotionally as they could, given their limited resources of sound, force, color, etc. true enough, they seem to have tried to evoke high emotion in a different waypreferring to build the sense of drama gradually instead of relying upon . heavily charged effects-and this may be what professor mintz had in mind when he called the romantic the less strictly musical approach. nevertheless, i find it difficult to go along with what is at least an implication of lesser emotional intent on the part of these earlier composers. indeed, i think they were often far more successful than mendelssohn in projecting a quality of emotional drama, despite the limitations under which they worked. all this suggests that one cannot well assume that there is any kind of general agreement about what constitutes romanticism. i think, furthermore, that dr. mintz tends to overstate his arguments. often he seems to assume the role more of an attorney than of a researcher, that he was out to build a case rather than to report his findings, and that he would bend any kind of evidence he could find to the support of his position. thus, for instance, in reaching the conclusion mentioned above that structure is replaced by atmosphere (p. 152), he seems to exaggerate the significance of some rather minute differences in figuration and use of restsdifferences such as might well go unnoticed at the proper speed of performance. and the same point (that the ga presents a more romantic version than the ms) is driven home so frequently that one cannot but wonder how much it is the result of the study of the manuscripts and how much it represents a prior conviction. his method of motivic analysis also seems questionable. a passage such as the following (p. 122) seems to infer that motivic and melodic connections are determined by pitch alone, without regard for rhythmic configuration: indeed, the rhythm, combined with harmonic functions, sometimes creates the impression that a melodic similarity exists ... where in fact, there is no such similarity. this inference is reinforced by the way motivic and thematic relations are indicated in many of the examples. thus, for example, the allegation 5* 133 that the two parts of the first theme of the trio are not governed by the same motive can be understood only in the light of such an assumption. for the antecedents of these two statements are so close to being identical in rhythm and general outline that it seems inconceivable that anyone who took these factors into account could have overlooked the relationship. then too, how else could dr. mintz have arrived at the following division into motives (p. 119 of the musical examples): 1 2 3 4(' ::-;1'_' it:u+ij' 'tv lei i,i ¥ j ¥ i i 4 note that this analysis goes completely against mendelssohn's own rhythmic indications and involves making a distinction between two configurations (labeled 2 and 3), the second of which is merely a transposition of the first. to be sure, dr. mintz recognizes the inconsistency in this latter point and attempts to justify his procedure on grounds of "differing functions". however, my guess is that he was motivated by a desire to play tune detective, to show how various motivic configurations grew out of the entities labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4. mendelssohn obviously did like to make use of what might be termed a thematic or motivic matrix-a series of characteristic fragments scattered throughout a movement, which could be made to give birth to thematic sections, transitions, developments, etc., by introducing changes in their contour very gradually. professor mintz, then, may have been led to adopt just these motivic articulations by a desire to account for the fact that this theme is not directly related to the one so widely used in the development. his very next example, at any rate, purports to show that several of these seemingly arbitrarily defined motives are indeed incorporated into the "development theme", as he calls it. if the study of relations of this kind was indeed behind the treatment of the motive as essentially a pitch phenomenon, there are two questions that perhaps should be raised: are the connections pointed out plausible, and what has been done about studying the "natural" divisions (i.e., the ones that would have been heard directly) of melodic lines into units. in answer to the first question, i can only venture the opinion that the relations pointed out are often quite implausible. the motives dr. mintz professes to see as related are sometimes merely commonplaces presented in quite different rhythmic configurations. these places, furthermore, are often quite distant from each other, in some cases separated by several intervening movements (see especially pp. 394-408 of the text). when, in a.ddition, it is noted that the motives sometimes are defined with utter disregard for the units as they would be perceived, as already pointed out, and are even hidden in the middle of a phrase, or buried in what could legitimately be interpreted as an accompaniment figure, it becomes clear that professor mintz has indeed wandered far from what canons of perception and common sense would seem to require. 134 indeed, the author admits that some of the relationships he points out would pass unnoticed by the listener, but he defends his observations by claiming that the relationships would be registered subconsciously (p. 398)-a claim which would seem most difficult to substantiate. interestingly enough, he himself warns against drawing loose relationships of this kind in discussing the trio (p. 289). i am curious to know why he did not take his own strictures to heart in dealing with the symphony. i think professor mintz has failed to come to grips with the question of the motive as a readily perceived unit. although the motive is clearly in evidence in mendelssohn's music, the author seldom deals with it. nevertheless, he seems to assume that classic music is built up by repetitions of presumably perceptual fundamental units. apparently dr. mintz recognizes that his primary reliance upon pitch similarities often got him into trouble, forcing him to deny connections where they obviously existed. presumably to avoid this difficulty, he introduces a kind of relational process that he calls "poetic structure". to use his own definition (pp. 127-128): the essence of poetic structure is that one or more elements of a significant theme are detached from their original context and absorbed into another context in such a way that the process by which this is brought about remains hidden both from the listener and the score reader and can be revealed only by the expenditure of considerable analytic thought. upon reading this definition, i wondered what possible aesthetic effect any such relationship could have. when i saw the examples to which he applied it, however, it seemed to be a way out of the dilemma into which his artificial treatment of the motive had plunged him. he finds it necessary to invoke "poetic structure" to explain the readily apparent simllarities between the first two phrases of the trio; he resorts to it even in the case of so obvious a derivation as the following (p. 128): b. the frequency with which obvious relations such as these are passed over while others, much less self-evident, are pointed out lends the whole dissertation a kind of alice-in-wonderland quality: the unheard-of becomes the expected. much trouble could have been avoided simply by treating the motive as a small entity designed to be recognized, hence, as a combination of rhythmic pattern and directional profile. the treatment of formal procedures offers additional grounds for concern. dr. mintz makes much, for example, of a supposed conflict in the scherzo of the trio between sonata-allegro form on the one hand, and minuet and trio form on the other (pp. 258-262). his contention is that the expectations aroused by the belief that this will be a sonata-allegro movement are consistently 135 confounded by what appear to be moves appropriate for a minuet and trio, and that this conflict is largely responsible for the sense of a kind of reality different from the one we know"7a kind of reality (or unreality) that seems most appropriate for this "elfin" music. but all that seems to be involved is a kind of standard set of surprises such as are often to be found in the music of haydn and beethoven in particular. i can only question whether the conflict of forms really has such an unworldly effect, or whether it even exists in this case, largely because i am not sure that these forms were considered such concrete things, or that common knowledge of their properties would have been assumed by mendelssohn. certainly it seems an exaggeration to suggest that this kind of misdirection was an innovation of the romantics; indeed, mendelssohn's movement seems child's play in this respect compared to the scherzo from beethoven's op. 59, no. i-a movement that hardly could be considered suggestive of unreality. at several points, furthermore, dr. mintz touches upon what he considers to be the essential features of sonata-allegro form. thus, he asserts that "tonal duality is the condition that must be met" if a movement is to satisfy the sonata principle (p. 169). a little later (p. 174), he claims that the development in the first movement of the trio is less romantic in the ms version than in that of the ga because: ... it is essentially a traditional (or classical) type of development, one in which one or more themes are examined and a variety of new and surprising facts about their natures is revealed. without getting involved in arguments that really have no place in a review, i can only suggest that dr. mintz again has assumed general agreement where no such unanimity of opinion exists. there are also some evidences of background problems that tend to undermine confidence in professor mintz's judgment. thus he speaks of the conversion of the bridge into an area of relative tonal stability as being a romantic development (pp. 139-140). but this type of bridge can be found fairly frequently in the sonata-allegro movements of haydn, mozart, and even occasionally beethoven.2 curiously, the one exception dr. mintz allows, mozart's symphony no. 40, actually does contain a modulation within the bridge-to the dominant of the relative major. i have the feeling, however, that his view of where the bridge is may be different from mine (he does not specify its location). this, at least, is the case in another movement he discusses, the first from brahms's second symphony, where the bridge is said to begin at measure 118. but this seems to me the beginning of the kind of closing drive that usually follows the second theme proper; the passage in measures 44-81 clearly functions exactly as a bridge ought to, with both modulation and an increase in excitement, while measures 82-117 obviously represent a new theme in a new key, and hence could well be designated as the second or subsidiary theme. if this section from measure 118 on is really what dr. mintz considers a romantic bridge, i would suspect again that he 1'36 has compared fundamentally different types of entities in arriving at this conclusion about the stable bridge. certainly, if he compared this passage with exactly equivalent sections from classic movements, he could hardly reach the conclusion that tonal stability at this point in the form was a romantic innovation. in the face of questionable facts and judgments such as these, i do not see how much reliance can be placed in the analytical or cultural conclusions professor mintz offers us. when, for instance, he speaks of his own inability to decide whether certain passages should or should not be considered related as a reflection of "the peculiar love of ambiguity characteristic of the romantic music" (p. 121), i wonder if he has really demonstrated sufficient objectivity and analytical acumen to enable us to have much confidence in his evaluation. we might well feel that more rational standards of analysis would perhaps have done away with the ambiguity. nor is it easy to accept dr. mintz's assertions about the consistently more romantic quality of the ga. are the early drafts really more classic in conception than the final versions, or are they merely less polished? i should report also that the manuscript of this dissertation was rather carelessly prepared-obviously in haste, as most probably are. there are numerous uncorrected typographical errors; examples promised in the text are nowhere to be found (p. 157); mozart's symphony no. 40 is listed as k. 440 (p. 140); there are inconsistencies in the measure numbers allotted to expositions, developments, and recapitulations (p. 107 and p. 237). in the last analysis, a dissertation like this is always something of a gamble. for it is so much an attempt to prove a point-that mendelssohn was a romantic-rather than to present factual material and explore various inferential possibilities, tllat failure to support this point adequately would leave very little substance that might be of interest to the academic community. thus, i must report that i would be hard put to think of ways in which this dissertation would prove useful in research or teaching, although, as i have pointed out, some of the individual observations are well worth study. i hope, however, that professor mintz will have the courage and patience to take up this task again. he has a great and detailed store of knowledge concerning mendelssohn and these works in particular, as well as the kind of mind that could produce a much needed re-evaluation of a badly misunderstood figure. but if he is to accomplish this, i would suggest, he must reconsider his preconceptions concerning evidence, inference, and, especially important, analysis. should dr. mintz be able to do this, i would expect an outstanding contribution to musical scholarship to result. footnotes 1 "intensity as a distinction between classical and romantic music," journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 23:359-371 (spring 1965). 137 2 see, for instance, william w. abbott, certain aspects of the sonata-allegro form in piano sonatas of the 18th and 19th centuries (unpub. diss., indiana university, 1956) where a number of movements of this kind by these composers are listed. mayer joel mandelbaum-multiple division of the octave and the tonal resources of i9-tone temperament ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 61-4461), 1961. (479 p., indiana university diss.) john chalmers while some recent developments in music have tended to minimize the role of defined pitch as a structural element, there nevertheless are theorists and composers who are concerned with creating a new music in which the melodic and harmonic orders are still fundamental organizing parameters. rejecting both the extremes of 12-tone combinatorial serialism and the psychological ambiguities of the aesthetic of indeterminacy, these musicians seek to organize sound by means which, though grounded in history, are consistent with the results of modern acoustical research. such endeavours may be subsumed under the somewhat unsatisfactory term multiple division,l the division of tonal space into steps which deviate significantly from the 300-year-old norm of twelve equal tones. in a field as large and complex as this, no general attempt at a theoretical treatment has appeared since bosanquet in 1876.2 the relevant material that has appeared in the meantime has tended to suffer from relative obscurity and either unsympathetic or idiosyncratic treatment by its authors. in correcting these long standing deficiencies in the literature and in proposing a new and rational theory of composition in the 19-tone system, dr. mandelbaum has created the definitive work in the field. the dissertation is divided into three sections, the first of which is devoted to the various reasons for advocating multiple division grouped under the general categories: acoustical, historical, and evolutional. the last, since it deals in part with concrete aspects of style and performance, may have the greatest immediacy for the contemporary musician although the speculative theorist, as dr. mandelbaum considers himself, must also build his case on traditional foundations. musical acoustics, or, one is tempted to say, harmonics, is developed from a consideration of tonal consonance and its relation to the ratios of small whole numbers. dr. mandelbaum's elaboration of these concepts through a thorough discussion of tone lattices is particularly valuable. explained in this manner, the functional relationship of rather complex pitch ratios is made clear. the voluminous literature on this aspect of acoustics is wellcovered. nonharmonic and nonoctaval scales, fields of active interest today, 138 a discussion of compositional choices in webern) s funf satze fur streichquartett, dp. 5) first movement stanley persky webern's twelve-tone pieces have long been admired as models of compositional craft. the lucid presentation of ideas in these pieces is rarely equalled in the works of berg and schoenberg. abstract ideas about the properties of sets under the operations of the twelve-tone system are given a musical exposition by such a wealth of articulative devices that they serve as awe-inspiring models for students of compositional craftsmanship. however, the lucidity of webern's twelve-tone style is counterbalanced by the enigmatic elusiveness of many of his most impressive pre-twelve-tone works. i will try to formulate a rationale for pitch choice in one of these works, the first movement of the funf satze fur streichquartett, op. 5. part of the problem of analyzing pitch choice in a work like this may be the analyst's predisposition toward a particular analytical method. for example, the success the analyst may have with webern's twelve-tone music by using a method for determining the literal sequence of pitches (or intervals), the transposition of a set, and even, in some cases, the total transpositional plan of a piece is seductive enough that one may ask for similar results in the pre-twelve-tone work. but one is apt to forget that, although one may find many isolated instances of precursors to twelve-tone thought, before the "method of composing with twelve tones" had become clear (to the extent that it was clear) to schoenberg, there was no such general method, not even the theory of such a method. in order to understand the pieces of this period, one should understand the traditional organizational procedures on which composers relied and try to extrapolate from these procedures the innovations that webern was able to produce. among the more common techniques representative of this period and found in this piece are: a formal plan of the 19th century mixed with ideas about variation from debussy and early schoenberg; the use of operations from geometry in order to preserve an intervallic succession while providing pitch differentiation; the exploration of pitch intersection between transposed collections. it is from the concern with intervals and intersection that the most interesting choices in this movement are made. although these particular selections and their compositional ramifications do not constitute a central position in webern's technique, they do find a home in the techniques of such diverse composers as debussy, berg, and bartok. the technique alluded to concerns the use of inter vallie content as variable during the course of the composition. this will be treated at greater length after a discussion of intervallic invariance and intersection. the first pitch succession is c-c# followed by f-e. these two dyads are separated by instrumentation (cello plus second violin at two octaves, viola 68 plus first violin at one octave) and mode of sound production (arco vs. pizzicato). the intervals for the presentation of these pitches are a minor ninth and a major seventh. the total content of this tetra chord is two minor seconds, one minor third, two major thirds, and one perfect fourth. among the ideas that web ern extracts from this tetra chord are: (1) inversion, (2) symmetry, (3) transposition a major third, (4) transposition a perfect fourth, (5) two major thirds at the interval ofa minor second, (6) two minor seconds, (7) the trichord c, e, (8) the trichord c, f, and (9) imitation. the idea of symmetry is combined with inversion in the symmetrical chord in mm. 5 and 6. george perle mentions this chord in serial composition and atonality;l however, he is concerned with neither the context in which this chord occurs nor its content. the chord is (reading up) c, g#, b, c#, f#, a. each instrument plays a double stopped minor sixth or inverted major third (cello, c-g#; viola, second violin, first violin, c#-a). web ern immediately extracts the cello and first violin dyads for a chord in harmonics a, c, c#) that provides the cadential chord for the first section. these extracted pitches constitute a transposition down a major third of the opening tetrachord (point 3 above) or an inversion at a minor second. this transposition provides an intersection of c-c# with the opening tetrachord while completing the symmetrical hexachord a, c, c#, e, f. the hexachord thus formed is given a literal presentation at m. 47. (let no one misinterpret my earlier remarks to mean that this third-order combinatorial hexachord does not occupy a prominent position in webern's compositional thought!) looking back at the symmetrical chord, one can now interpret it as two identical symmetrical tetrachords transposed a major second. each tetra chord is composed of two major thirds at the interval of a minor third and is thereby related to the opening tetrachord (see point 5 above). perhaps more important is the identification of this tetrachord as part of the series that produces the hexachord referred to as appearing in m. 47. that series (as presented in m. 47) is composed of minor seconds transposed a major third (as in the opening tetrachord-point 5 above), and the opening tetrachord and the tetrachord from the symmetrical chord are now related by their association with the derived hexachord. i will return to the major second transposition between the tetrachords in the symmetrical chord later. point 4 mentions the transposition of a perfect fourth. it is from this that the total form of the movement is derived. the movement appears to be in classical sonata form with the recapitulation combining both thematic groups from the exposition. it is this kind of combined recapitulation that is so characteristic of debussy and schoenberg. the chord in harmonics (m. 6) ends the first group (tempo i j = 100). the second group (tempo ii j = 88) has the viola playing two major thirds at a minor second (point 5 above), and the transposition of the tetrachord is a perfect fifth from the cadence chord of the first section a, c, c# transposed to e, g, g#). this transposed tetrachord and the rest of the 69 material of the second group are transposed up a perfect fourth (thereby returning the tetra chord to the original level ) in m. 37, the beginning of the recapitulation. notice should be taken of the am steg timbre to associate these two occurrences of the major thirds at a minor second. at no other place in this movement is there such a coordination. the idea of two minor seconds is given a literal representation in the second melodic idea of the second group. the pitches phrased together in the first violin part are b, c#, and high c. the high c is a minor ninth above b and a major seventh above c# and thereby refers to the intervals in which the minor seconds are presented in the opening tetrachord. this chromatic trichord is explicitly stated in mm. 43 and 46. more will be said about this climactic place in a different context. it is the combination of these two minor seconds that provides the only available major second for transposition. this interval is present neither in the opening tetrachord nor in the hexachord derived from it. however, granted that this interpretation is much more unusual than some of the more literally stated intervals in the movement, some very interesting intersections occur from this transposition. the symmetrical chord occurs three other times in the movement. the chord at m. 17 is repeated for the last chord, which is a transposition up a major second from the original chord in m. 6. since the original chord contained two tetrachords with the upper tetrachord a major second lower than the lower tetra chord, this transposition places what was originally the lower tetra chord into the upper position. it also reproduces one of the dyads of the missing tetrachord. these six intersections are the largest number that any transposition can produce. there are also six intersections with a minor third transposition; however, neither of the tetrachords is reproduced. the other occurrence of the symmetrical chord is at m. 49, where it is transposed down a major third (point 3). this transposition produces four intersections and two dyads of the original. these reproduced dyads form a different tetrachord, found in the cello at m. 7. however, the chord at m. 49 is rearranged in its vertical spacing. the major second transposition is used also for the canon between the first and second violins in mm. 2 and 3 (see point 9). the melody which is imitated has seven pitches which repeat, with one pitch (g) duplicated and transferred an octave. the articulation of these seven pitches is 3 + 2 + 2 and in the repeats 4+2+2. (the grouping of 4 has the repeated pitch). the three pitches phrased together are a transposition of a trichord found in the opening tetrachord. the opening tetra chord contains two such trichords (c, c#, e and f, e, c#-see point 7) which are related by inversion (point 1) and transposition a perfect fourth (point 4). the trichord that begins the sevenpitch melody in the dux is the inverted form of the trichord transposed up a major second. therefore the comes, which is transposed down a major second, reproduces the pitch level of the trichord in the opening tetrachord. i n another canon in m. 14 the major second transposition also produces 70 some interesting intersections. the four-pitch melody which is imitated is from the cello in mm. 8 and 9. it contains the tritone ad-d. the transposition up a major second produces the tritone bd-e. as the entire canon is then transposed a tritone, these two tritones are reproduced. the two dyads are found in the 2 + 2 phrasing of the first canon in mm. 2 and 3. they are also part of the chord in m. 5, the notes of which are all voice-led a minor second to the symmetrical chord. the e-bd is the only dyad reproduced in the reoccurrence of the m. 5 chord in m. 49 because of the major third transposition. the d-ad is found first in the tetrachord that accompanies the seven-pitch melody in m. 2 and thus prepares that dyad in the following second violin imitation, and in the ostinato that accompanies the restatement of the beginning minor ninth, at the very end. the c:it-g of that ostinato comes from the transposition of the cello melody in m. 9 up a perfect fourth in the recapitulation at m. 38. the d-ad is also part of the bridge between the contrasting themes in the second group (m. 9). the ad-d of the cello melody is taken over by the viola's countermelody, and the two violins pick up the viola's double stops. the trichord c, c:it, e or its inverted form c:it, e, f occurs many times during the course of the movement. i previously mentioned its appearance in the three pitches beginning the seven-pitch melody. it is also part of the chord that accompanies that melody: ad, b, c, d. ad, b, c is a perfect fourth transposition of the original inverted form of the trichord. these same pitches represent the transposition levels of this chord in m. 3 as shown by the cello part. the same pitches are also reiterated in the cello in m. 23, although without the chords above them. the melodies above the cello in the second violin and viola in m. 23 are this same trichord. this trichord and its inversion transposed a minor second produce the tetrachord which is the basis for the symmetrical chord and the derived hexachord. this trichord and its inversion transposed a major third form the tetrachord that is the cello melody marking the second thematic group in m. 7. the trichord c, c:it, f has a far more limited organizational value in its literal occurrences. it is found across the phrasing of the 2 +2 part of the seven-pitch melody in m. 2. however, the additional note and the phrasing seem to nullify the value of that observation. we have not accounted for the final tetrachord of the seven-pitch melody. in spite ofthe large amount of material that literally refers to the opening tetrachord by pitch/interval content and ideas extracted from that tetrachord, we are still not able to account for all the thematic material of this piece in terms of an analytic approach that classifies material by its literal content and its transposition, i.e., the twelve-tone analysis method. besides the seven-note melody, the entire second group with the exception of the viola double stops does not restate the opening tetrachord. the clue to the derivation of variant material is found in the succession of melodic ideas as webern presents them. the movement begins with the tetrachord c, c:it, f, e. its content has 71 been noted. the seven-pitch melody divided 3 + 2 + 2 follows. then the final three pitches of that melody are separated and imitated by all the instruments at major third intervals. the seven-pitch melody as divided by the phrasing has the trichord g, followed by e and then a, bd. the trichord g is from the opening tetrachord. the intervals that follow are also from that tetrachord: major third, perfect fourth, and major seventh. the e, a trichord is from the opening tetra chord, but the partitioned e, a, bd is not. remembering that webern had treated the opening dyads as a tetra chord with a total interval content and that he had then extracted a trichord to begin the next melodic idea, we can treat the tetra chord in the seven-pitch melody the same way, since he again extracts the last trichord. dividing the tetrachord into two overlapping trichords, we get e, a and e, a, bd. the seven-pitch melody now consists of the followingtrichords: g; e, a; e,a,bd. putting these trichords into a neutral ordering ("normal form") we see an interesting progression: 034, 045, 056. each trichord is a minor second larger than the one preceding. the trichord 056 (e, a, b d) is the result of a feature found in the opening tetrachords: namely, that the two trichords of that tetrachord have a minor second difference in interval size. the cello melody that begins the second section (m. 8) is a symmetrical tetrachord, made of the 034 trichord and its inversion transposed a major third. because of this transposition the tetrachord has an outer interval and middle interval a minor second smaller than the opening tetrachord but maintains the two minor seconds in their same positions. a new trichord 023 and its inversion are produced. the tetra chord can now be analyzed as consisting of two interlocking trichords, 034 and 023, and their inversions. the new trichord is treated in the same manner as before: namely, it is extracted and starts the next melodic idea-another tetrachord phrased 2 + 2. this last tetrachord does not provide the final reduction in trichord size (a technique that would be comparable to the treatment of the trichords in the seven-pitch melody above). it is the following melody in the first violin (m. 9) that starts with the trichord 012. this would seem to be the end of the linear progression. many lesser composers would probably have been satisfied with a design as pretty as this. not webern. he now relates one end of the series to the other by the phrase in the first violin part (m. 11). the pitches ed, a, bd, b are the inversion of the tetrachord in the seven-note melody, e, a, bd, transposed down a minor second. that tetrachord is extracted from the five-pitch phrase before it. as the tetrachord appears in that phrase, it is an inversion of the tetrachord transposed a perfect fourth (m. 2). the use of that tetrachord following the presentation of the trichord 012 refers to the presence of the 012 trichord in the 0456 tetrachord. the remaining trichord of that tetrachord, 046, can be found in the last three notes of the cello's final phrase, m. 9, again cutting across a 2 + 2 grouping. because the four-pitch cello phrase (f, ad, d) in m. 9 is simply a tritone transposition of the chord in m. 2 (ad, b, c, d), 72 because that chord is derived from the tetra chord e, g:it, a, by the movement of a minor second inside the tetrachord, and because both tetrachords contain the trichords of the opening tetrachord, the cycle is complete. the progression of change is not linear but cyclical, i.e., the end is combined with the beginning (see example). webern uses an interesting device to explicate this diminution in trichord size. there are a few places where the two violins play in octaves. they are mm. 16, 17,46, and 50. the pitches in these places are, respectively, e, f; f, g; b, a; and f:it, a, f. the first and last trichords are the same, but the first, second, and third show the diminution in interval size. derived collections in webern's op. 5, first movement ;t., 11 .. , " + lii!." , i ... t ... .i. ... j "" ... j! i.,' • i if fl. . } i / i j the diminution is alw stated explicitly in mm. 19 and 20 in the viola part. the pitches are g:it, c, a, b, the first four pitches are the cello melody in m. 7, but because of the additional minor second a chromatic pentachord is produced. earlier in this paper i mentioned that this technique is found also in other composers of the period. robert moevs commented on a very similar technique in his 1915 article "intervallic procedures in debussy: serenade from the sonata for cello and piano, 1915."2 in that piece cells were also added together until the intervallic limit of a tritone and a fifth was reached. of the masterpieces that webern has produced, i rank this movement among the highest. it is for the listener, finally, to appreciate the succession of 73 musical ideas, the preclslon of the compositional choices, the movement forward and back between newly exposed aspects of previously presented material. this appreciation will no doubt earn this piece a place among the finest creations of the human mind. notes 1 berkeley and los angeles, 1968, p. 26. 2 perspectives of new music (1969) 8:82-101. 74 ! \ . . analogy. for our understanding of music has, i thi1;tq longbeen by the tendency to assimilate it to the other more familial!;' and readily verbalized arts, just as our understanding of art in general has sorely hallaicapped by our propensity to explain it in the light of concepts: and objects of a wholly",,different and foreign sort. i have elsewhere 2 used the',j(oncept of "surrogate theories of art" to denote attempts of this sort, and the applies equally to the substitution of the conceptual object for the perceptua:l one, ,and the visual experience for the musical one. once a path is charted around these"' pitfalls, we must devise concepts and categories that are taken from musical experience. only in the light of these can we hope to acquire a clearer understanding of the musical object. it would be presumptuous to do more than suggest a direction here, but perhaps that will be sufficient to provide a positive close to this discussion of two thoughtful and provocative papers. notes 1 edward bullough, "'psychical distance' as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle," british journal of psychology, 5:87-98 (1912). this well-known paper has been reprinted in a number of anthologies in aesthetics, including melvin rader, ed., a modern book of esthetics, 3rd ed., (new york, 1960), pp. 394-411; morris weitz, ed., problems in aesthetics (new york, 1959), pp. 646--656; and eliseo vivas and murray krieger, eds., the problems of aesthetics (new york, 1953), pp. 396-405. :i arnold berleant, "surrogate theories of art," philosophy and phenomenological research, forthcoming. saul novack, some thoughts on the nature of the musical composition (further considerations of professor crocker's reflections) the questions that professor crocker has engaged are of overwhelming import. within an obviously enjoyed bit of speculation, he has shown his wisdom by allowing them to remain unanswered. at this moment, limited by a response which is even briefer than professor crocker's exposition, i cannot offer anything beyond a few suggestions as to possible directions further inquiries might take, well aware of the lack of sufficient amplification and support of some of my observations. the word "piece" is a curious one, and its implicit meanings were perhaps not originally intended. distinction should be made between "piece" and "composition." the former implies any musical time-space which is either inorganic, or organic but subservient to a higher musical unit. the term composition (componere: to collect together a whole from several parts) involves much more than a collection of the several parts. if we limit the 100 term to its application to purely musical conditions, we must expect its organic nature to result from musical integration. the questions we must ask are: what is musical integration? what are its criteria? are they not derived from the "system" within which the music operates? we encounter, however, different systems, and we cannot apply, for example, the same principles to the monophonic art of gregorian chant as one does to triadic tonality, or non-triadic tonality, or, to select another example, twelve-tone serial music. within the corpus of music based on triadic tonality which, in its evolution and development, extends from the 13th through the 19th century, our particularized concepts of integration or "order" have been derived from and loosely codified in somewhat sterile classifications of so-called musical forms. form, in its most general sense, evolves from the myriad and subtle fashions in which tonal structure and thematic design are fused. the latter is dependent upon the former for its articulation into an organic unity. when this happy marriage occurs, a composition comes into being. a composition is a vision of the whole, and both of these principles, structure and design, individually and jointly, become subservient to the realization of this vision. design without structure is meaningless prattle. structure without design produces an empty shell. but what constitutes structure, and what is thematic design? the answers to each require major exposition. this is dangerous territory, and one in which great abuses in critical writing exist. thematic design, glorified by the "music appreciation" cult, has always been the center of attention. its aspects of repetition and contrast lend themselves easily to descriptive procedure, providing the reader with at least an extensive, ifnot always clear, representation of its constituted nature. the character of musical structure, however, has been far more elusive. if, for the most part, our consideration of structure is grammatical rather than syntactical, how can we begin to comprehend organic character? thus, "conventional" analysis of l7th-, l8th-, and 19thcentury music emphasizes chord nomenclature and key changes considered seriatim. in the music of the renaissance, emphasis is given to the enumeration and description of cadences, which become the key to the understanding of modality and tonality (with unfortunate confusions), as well as other phenomena. prior to the renaissance we still are, for the most part, in virgin territory. the historian happily fixes upon other devices such as isorhythm or textual-musical forms as a safe means of accounting for over-all unities. the primary concern for design only tells us nothing about the relationship of tones to one another and their role in the logical ordering of tones. a definition of structure is impossible without considerable elaboration. only a basic concept is posed at this point. the structure of a composition involves the interrelationship of tones whereby organic unity is achieved. each tone has not only immediate contextual significance but also functions within all other contexts further removed, ultimately relating to the entire . composition. it is obvious that the relationships that create unity in a twelvetone serial composition are different from one in triadic tonality. reference, 101 therefore, is made to the term "system," for each system implies the conditions for structure. each one of us must discover for himself the means whereby the tonal relationships convincingly explain the organic nature of the musical work. but he cannot rely upon the techniques that merely describe the facade. modulations, cadences, "aesthetic" key relationships, and juicy, imaginative chord descriptions all make nice reading, especially if the literary style is attractive. they unfortunately do not reveal the organic conditions of the work of art. the ultimate validity of one's basic assumptions and the operative realization of these assumptions finally must rest not only on its logic but also on the degree that others find it more convincing than any other analysis. finally, the principles must be realized and tested through the aural experience. if the analyst who seeks to discover the "truth" cannot discern the musical structure of a work, either he is momentarily limited or the composition is a "non-composition." some contemporary "creators" have given us some choice examples of the latter within recent years. the example of professor crocker's question-raising tropes poses problems in form and unity to be solved only in terms of principles peculiar to the monophonic chant phenomenon without possible comparisons or confusions with musical events in polyphony, based as they are on different operative principles. he finds that the tropes "actually show a relatively clear, closed musical form when considered by themselves, apart from their introit." mr. crocker is an authority in this area, and i am willing to accept his statement; yet in my own examination i cannot find their musical structure. textual, liturgical structure is clear, and i can sense a general, over-all design and organization in the introit (e.g., resurrexi, l up. 778) in which repetitions of sections set off in alternation with a contrasting antiphon articulate a spatial ordering suggesting more than just a "beginning, middle, and end." is there a coincidence of liturgical order and musical order? i think that it is the former by purpose and the latter by accident, i.e., a by-product rather than a conceptual vision of the whole. nevertheless, one may pose the possibility of simultaneously achieving musical and nonmusical unity, as, for example, in the setting of a poem in a through-composed schubert song. i specify. throughcomposed, for a strophic setting is completely different from a compositional point of view. to discern, therefore, the nature of musical structure, one must find the structural conditions that are unique or peculiar to a particular time style, conditions that are inherent in the system. certainly, the high point of clarity is attained in the 18th and 19th centuries, and our approach to the problems of musical structure has been less difficult. no one has more convincingly demonstrated this than heinrich schenker. the problem of "multi-pieces" or multi-movements becomes ever so much easier to understand once the criteria for the composition are established. if a movement is an organic unit through both structure and design, its identity as a composition thereby is ensured. its relationship to other units therefore must be sought in other than compositional terms. in each type of multi102 compositional grouping a specific unifying principle (non-compositional) operates as the basis for the relationship. a few contrasting examples are given. a clausula may be a compositional unit (e.g., ham: i, ex. 28c, commencing on the syllable, do [domino], on the fifth line, to the end of the example), but it is also part of a larger liturgical unit which is not a compositional entity. a polyphonic setting of the mass (ordinary) may have a number of compositional units. the mass as a whole is a liturgical unit. the nature and number of compositional units vary according to the ordering of the compositional concepts within the spatial possibilities in the liturgical arrangement. thus, for example, in the desprez missa pange lingua kyrie-christekyrie are fused in structural and design unity to form a total composition. by way of contrast, in the bach mass in b minor the same liturgical divisions, kyrie-christe-kyrie, are three separate compositions. in both cases the mass is a liturgical unit rather than a musical unit, and the individual movements are subservient to the non-musical entity. it does not make sense to regard the mass as either a musical form or composition. the 17th-century suite, growing out of the paired dances of the renaissance, is based on rhythmic contrast. this is emphasized particularly in the proportion suite in which the same thematic design is cast in different durational values. dance contrast, perhaps in its origin a rhythmic-motoric phenomenon, became a specific aesthetic principle. each dance in a suite is a separate composition. the collective principle is aesthetic rather than compositional. the unity of key throughout is not conditioned by structural factors but rather by the aesthetic factor of contrast, for thus does it focus attention on the differences in the rhythm and tempi of the successive dances. each movement of a symphony by haydn or mozart, for example, has its intrinsic structure and design and is complete unto itsel£ the events of structure and design and their formal fusions have no bearing on events in each of the other movements. the choice of key for the slow movement certainly is not dictated by structural considerations. what could possibly be the meaning of the oft-used term, "symphonic form" ? the composer may very well choose his keys with care, and the reasons for choices are many. whatever they are, however, they are almost never dictated by the principles of compositional unity. a strophic song is a composition repeated as many times as is necessary to accommodate the text. the poem, therefore, governs the highest order of identity, i.e., the compositional repetitions are subservient not to a higher musical order but only to a poetic order. we readily recognize the compositional autonomy oran aria. in an opera, for example, secco recitatives are pieces; arias, usually, compositions. the latter are sometimes subservient to a larger compositional unit, but the opera as a whole is, as mr. crocker implies, a dramatic continuum, and, i must add, not a compositional continuum. 103 more challenging is the concept of theme and variation. while each example must be judged in its own terms, essentially the procedure is governed by a succession of units, the theme and each variation constituting a separate compositional entity. while there are the obvious similarities within a set of variations, there are also differences, sometimes considerable, revealing different structural or design concepts. in such a case, however, we are directed to specific aspects of linkage among the set. we witness varying degrees of compositional redundancy or compositional parallelism. the variational principle remains as the super-imposed musical concept that serves as the hierarchic basis for the collection. schematic ordering in bach's goldberg variations, for example, is a vision of the whole which thereby intensifies through non-compositional means the interrelationships of the variations. despite the remarkably fascinating totality, each variation is aseparate and unique composition with a parallelistic structure and different design. mr. crocker recognizes the problem of "linkage" in the "multi-piece," and notes that varied solutions are possible. the quoting of thematic material outside an individual movement is not sufficient to create a larger unity, for that by itself does not create a binding superstructure. in these terms neither beethoven's 9th symphony nor dvorak's "new world" symphony is a single, unified composition. referential parallelisms (as in beethoven's 5th) and thematic quotations establish hierarchical musical units, but they are not compositional. likewise, compositions with open ends represent purposeful manipulation of design or structure, or both, to create the illusion of continuity even though complete musical order already has been achieved, the latter, perhaps, to satisfy the artistic conditions which impel the creative mind to drive toward formal control. if we were to juggle several symphonies by haydn to project four movements in the order of c major, f major, g major, and finally, c major again, would we serve any purpose in describing the total "event" as a i-iv-v-i unity? from the viewpoint of tonal relationships the movements would be continuous rather than contiguous. yet we still would be presented with four compositions. continuity does not imply unity. in this light wagner's der ring might be reconsidered. the basic assumption that we are presented in each of its large units with continuous flow of sound, hence formal continuity, is subject to question. even the view that single acts are compositional units requires further thought. structural analysis may reveal that there are complete entities within the act that serve as the true compositional unities. the open ends that produce a continuous flow, aided by the "symphonic" articulation of the leitmotif, create the illusion of the larger organic whole. in the absence of a specific term to describe the phenomenon of the multicompositional grouping, one might be led to characterize each according to the hierarchical principle or principles which govern it. but terminology does exist. a sonata is not a musical composition; it is a sonata-and so on. in each case the specific term spells out the exact nature of the non-compositional unity. 104 i am inclined to believe that in our literature there are lots of "pieces" which we call compositions, and lots of compositions which we do not recognize as such because they are seen as subordinate to a higher order which is non-compositional. the investigation of musical structure remains the primary task of the musicologist as a preliminary step to the understanding of the composition. by way of comparison, the contemporary theorist, frequently a composer himself, has been compelled by historical necessity to formulate the theoretical conditions governing much of the music of his 'time. in doing so, he has been much more successful than the musicologist concerned with the historical past. "form analysis" and "style analysis" in the traditional sense have failed to provide us with significant insight. robert l. hall, music as the form if world "if music," commands the duke in subjunctive uncertainty, "be the food oflove, play on." no lover would ever doubt that the music should continue; philosophers have never been quite sure. how can the mere patterning of outer sound create, of itself, inner emotion? or in any way express it? or does music merely symbolize emotion in some nonverbal way, presenting us with an analytical understanding of it? is music philosophy or is it feeling? from this central query our insight into the nature of music must stem. the nature of music must follow from the nature of man. of him we can say with certainty that he is conscious of a total world, earth and heaven, with which he must deal. the nature of that world, however, depends upon the fundamental way he happens to apprehend it. for a different person, for a different culture, for a different time of life, or even for a different mood, there may be a different way in which things are found to relate to each other and to the whole. a world, then, is the pattern of happenings within an over-arching form. it is an integrated way of experiencing the universe. the world pattern of a mere mood-say love or despair-is but a variation on the more basic world pattern of the individual, and this but a version ofthe underlying pattern of the culture, whose most fundamental form may persist, through various stages, over milleniums. the essential point to be understood about a world form is that it is a way of experiencing, not a structure of thought. only secondarily is it subject to conceptualization. true, we must conceptualize it in order to understand itthe philosophies of a period are different versions of this-but it need not be conceptualized in order to be lived. while a world form may feature, for example, salvation or the transitoriness of all things, and these may be conceptualized in the religion, science, or philosophy of the time, they are grounded in a way of experiencing which is prior to formulation. 4* 105 some relationships between the autographs if beethoven's sonata in c minor, opus 1111 william drabkin the complete autograph of the piano sonata, opus ill, is one of the most accessible, in reproduction, of beethoven's manuscripts. in the last fifty years it has been published in facsimile three times: two german editions and an inexpensive american reprint.2 unfortunately, neither german publication contains a description of the manuscript, and the introduction to the american edition apparently ignored the existence of another autograph of the first movement of the sonata. the most significant research on the autographs of opus iii is to be found in heinrich schenker's pioneering edition3 and in hubert unverricht's critical examination of the autographs, early editions, and correspondence between beethoven and publishers of the sonata.4 the present essay offers another examination of the autographs, particularly with respect to striking notational similarities and differences.5 i shall first enumerate the sources for the sonata, then make some observations concerning the general relationship between the autographs, and finally discuss some textual problems arising from a comparison of the autographs, as well as the significance of such a comparison for the understanding of beethoven's compositional and copying processes. sources-autographs and rampl's copy the composing score, or urschrift, of the first movement is a heavily corrected manuscript of seventeen pages. it is in the archives of the beethovenhaus in bonn, and i shall refer to it here as the bonn autograph. the autograph for the complete sonata (i.e., the one published in facsimile) consists of a sixteen-page fair copy, or reinschrift, of the first movement and a twentyfour-page urschrift of the second movement. it is in the deutsche staatsbibliothek in berlin and will be referred to as the berlin autograph. a copy of the sonata, made for beethoven by wenzel rampl, is in the bodmer collection of the beethovenhaus.6 the physical properties of the manuscripts (foliation, watermarks, size of paper, etc.) are discussed in detail by unverricht, who deduces that: (1) there is a lost reinschrift of the second movement; (2) rampl's copy was made from the bonn autograph and the lost reinschrift; and (3) an earlier copy of the urschrift of the second movement was presumably destroyed at beethoven's request.7 sketches there are four manuscripts known to contain sketches for opus 111:8 s. 12: an 88-page sketchbook in the staatsbibliothek der stiftung preus38 sischer kulturbesitz in berlin, known as artaria manuscript 197, or sketchbook "d." sketches for a fugal treatment of the main theme (mm. 21-22) of the first movement are to be found on pp. 76-77. s. 14: a l28-page sketchbook, also in the staatsbibliothek der stiftung preussischer kulturbesitz, known as artaria manuscript 201, or sketchbook "e." sketches for the first movement are to be found on pp. 2-21; for the second movement, on pp. 22-62. a continuity draft of the first movement9 runs from pp. 10-21. i shall refer to this sketchbook as artaria 201.10 s. 201: beethoven ms. 51 in the bibliotheque nationale in paris, a collection of ten oblong leaves in pocket format, i.e., folded in half to form four pages of music each; these pages contain primarily sketches for opus 110 and opus ill. in its present state, the manuscript is divided into nine parts, each containing one leaf (except part 3, which has two). it is wholly unlikely that beethoven used these ten leaves together as a continuous sketchbook, and it is quite possible that they were put together long after his death. nevertheless, the manuscript may be reassembled into a number of "sketch gatherings," usually made up of four leaves (16 pages) which originally comprised a single sheet of paper.ll some of the sketches for the first movement of opus iii supply missing parts of the continuity draft in artaria 201. for example, the left-hand side of part 8 recto has the following entry, neatly written (ex. 1): example 1 sketch for mm. 19-22. in the continuity draft the allegro can brio begins with m. 21 of the sonata. the entry in the pocket sketchbook supplies the two previous measures. the presence of mm. 19-22 in a neat sketchbook entry helps to explain notational peculiarities which occur in this passage in the autographs. in the bonn autograph, the printed staff lines at the bottom of p. 2 end in the middle of m. 20. beethoven drew a continuation of the staff lines, completed m. 20, and continued to write m. 21 on the hand-written staff lines! in the berlin autograph, he ended p. 2 with m. 19 and continued with m. 20 on p. 3, without writing the clefs and key signature at the beginning of the first system; moreover, he did not even leave enough room at the beginning of the system to write them in later.12 these notational peculiarities, which suggest that beethoven thought ofmm. 19-22 as a unit, illustrate that even a composer's uncorrected manuscript can offer clues to his compositional process. s. 278: ms. a48 of the gesellschaft der musikfreunde in vienna, a fourpage manuscript devoted primarily to a draft of the beginning of the maestoso, in which mm. 8-10 are contracted into two measures (ex. 2): 39 example 2 the bonn autograph originally followed this version but was corrected by means of an extra measure squeezed into the above passage. early editions the history of the early publication of opus iii has been discussed in detail by u nverricht, tyson, and forbes.13 the respective dates of publication of the various early editions are not known precisely,14 but the sources have been determined.15 rampl's copy served for schlesinger's edition, issued in paris and berlin. both duplicate an error in the rhythmic notation of m. 5 of the bonn autograph. a copy of schlesinger's edition, together with the composer's list of errata, was used for the vienna edition of cappi and diabelli.16 the complete berlin autograph was used exclusively for clementi's london edition.17 the general relationship between the autographs it is almost certain that beethoven referred to the bonn autograph while writing the first movement of the berlin autograph.18 first, both manuscripts are dated in the upper left-hand corner of the first page: "am l3tenjanner (jenner) 1822." in all probability the bonn autograph was begun on this date, since the last page of the continuity draft of the first movement (artaria 201, p. 21) bears the inscription: "am 13ten die neue sonate." second, the number of pages in both manuscripts is the same, and a majority of corresponding pages begin with the same measure.19 third, p. 8 of both autographs lacks clefs and a key signature at the beginning of the first brace; in both manuscripts, however, there is ample space for them. finally, at the top ofp. 12 of the berlin autograph, the left-hand part is corrected to read an octave higher. this change is the result of beethoven's copying the beginning of p. 12 of the bonn autograph without realizing that the "8va" on p. 11 thereof is still operative after the page turn. when beethoven wrote the berlin autograph, he avoided using the "8va" on p. 11. he was thus obliged to correct the notation of the left-hand part on p. 12 for the sake of uniformity. the first movement of the berlin autograph is a reinschrift insofar as it contains no compositional corrections. page 3 has a "vi-de" cancellation of a measure which was written with poor alignment between the rightand left-hand parts; similarly, a few notes on p. 13 are crossed out in order to 40 improve the alignment of parts. i have already mentioned the corrected copying error at the beginning of p. 12. although there are differences in content between the autographs of the first movement, none is the result of a correction in the berlin autograph. variants in the berlin manuscript consist of different note readings in two measures and additions and omissions of dynamic markings. the variants in dynamic markings are discussed in detail in schenker's erlauterungs-ausgabe, passim. the significance of the different note readings will be discussed later in the present essay. some specific relationships between the autographs-key signatures the absence of clefs and a key signature on p. 8 of both autographs raises the following textual question: does the key signature at the top of p. 9 (m. 87 in both manuscripts) indicate a change of signature, or is there a missing signature change before m. 87? although beethoven customarily wrote out the clefs and key signature for the first system of each page of his piano sonata autographs, rampl construed the signature on p. 9 of the bonn autograph as a change of signature, and beethoven did not correct rampl's copy in this detail. all the editions of the sonata except clementi's indicate a signature change at m. 87; in clementi's edition, a three-flat signature replaces one of two flats at the beginning of the fourth system on p. 6 (m. 86). i should like to reconsider the validity of this signature change: an examination of the notation of p. 8 of both autographs reveals that the change of signature ought to have occurred much sooner-perhaps as early as the beginning of p. 8, precisely where beethoven left room for a key signature. let us assume, however, a two-flat signature on p. 8 of the bonn autograph. then mm. 77, 85, and 86 have a's with superfluous natural signs, and mm. 81-84 (and the right-hand part of 80) are textually incorrect, since there are no flats in front of the a's in these measures. of the remaining measures on p. 8, 76 contains no a's, and 78 and 80 (left-hand part) contain a's with flats that cancel previous natural signs. thus, from a textual point of view, only m. 79 can be more appropriately considered in a signature of two flats-the flat in front of the right-hand a does not cancel a previous natural sign. but this flat was almost certainly added to the autograph after rampl copied the sonata, since it is missing from his copy. one may therefore conclude that beethoven had in mind a signature of three flats when he wrote p. 8 of the bonn autograph.20 the accidentals on p. 8 of the berlin autograph are essentially the same as those in the bonn autograph; this situation suggests that beethoven copied it mechanically and hastily. there are flats in front of the a's in the right-hand part ofmm. 79 and 81, but none in m. 80.21 if beethoven intended a signature of three flats on p. 8, why did he bother to make a previous change to two flats for a phrase only four measures long (72-75)? the purpose of such a signature change is difficult to explain, but a 41 precedent for it is found in the first movement of the sonata in e major, opus 109: the signature change at m. 61 is cancelled at m. 63. beethoven was also uncertain of the change of key signature at m. 72. in the bonn autograph, this change originally occurred at the beginning of m. 69a (the second ending)-presumably the result of the composer's absentmindedness. (the octave are intended here, as in the first ending!) rampl's copy and schlesinger's edition preserve the error. when beethoven discovered his mistake, he crossed out the signature change in 69a and placed it at the beginning of 72. in the berlin autograph beethoven copied the rests at the beginning of m. 72 before writing in the signature change. moreover, in both autographs the previous measure (71) is textually incorrect in the old signature of four flats, since there are no natural signs in front of the right-hand d's.22 in sum, beethoven's intended key-signature changes, as evidenced by the accidentals in the measures preceding 72 and 87, are represented accurately neither by the signatures found in the autographs nor by those which appear in early and modern editions. variants in note readings there are only two differences between the autographs with respect to note content (excluding differences which were corrected in the early editions): (1) the last left-hand chord of m. 116, and (2) the penultimate sixteenth-note in m. 133 (ex. 3): example 3 a. m. 116 bonn berlin b. m. 133 (last quarter). bonn berlin the bonn versions appear in every edition which i have consulted (except, of course, clementi's early edition). the only account of the variant readings is to be found in the erlauterungs-ausgabe, but schenker does not even mention the discrepancy between the versions of m. 116.23 it is possible to demonstrate that the readings in the berlin autograph represent stages in the composition of the work that precede the corrected version of the bonn autograph. in other words, we have a paradoxical example of a manuscript which was written later representing the earlier stage of the composition, at least in the two places in question. 42 measure 116: there are several corrections of notes and tempo markings in rampl's copy which correspond to identical corrections made by beethoven in the bonn autograph; these were the last compositional changes made in the first movement.24 among them are: (1) the addition of a quarter-note d in m. 77 (and the consequent restemming of the left-hand part); (2) the changing of the left-hand part ofm. 91; and (3) the changing of the last left-hand chord in m. 116, which originally read: g-c1-el, the same as the berlin version. the new readings of (1) and (2) incorporated in the berlin autograph support unverricht's hypothesis that beethoven wrote the first movement of the berlin autograph some time after rampl's copy had been corrected and sent to the publisher in april 1822; had he written it earlier, the berlin autograph would also have had corrections in these places.25 if the three corrections were made at about the same time, then the berlin version of m. 116 can be ascribed to a mental lapse on beethoven's part, during which he wrote down the earlier version.26 the bonn version ofm. 116 agrees with the parallel place in the exposition of the movement, m. 50. the chord here is ej,-clej,l, and there are no corrections in this measure in either manuscript. one may be inclined to ask: why does the chord become problematic in the recapitulation, and not in the exposition; is the berlin version actually an error, or was the composer perhaps attempting to vary the recapitulation? i do not believe that beethoven, having discovered an ingenious disposition of the i2-chord (in which the right-hand melody supplies the root of the chord two octaves higher, and in which the rightand left-hand parts are enabled to outline the same ej,-dj,-c motive-see ex. 4), would have abandoned it in the recapitulation for the sake of variety. example 4 x x x t. ......... t: .e #7 sf f x x x (51) :t-&-: ,::: * mm. 50-52. the x's delineate the motive in the rightand left-hand parts. in the continuity draft in artaria 201, m. 116 is better defined and closer to its final version than m. 50 (as may be observed in ex. 5 on following page). noteworthy features of the sketch of 116 are: (1) the right-hand melody begins on the second beat, instead of the first; (2) the large numbers under the melody explicitly indicate two left-hand chords, instead of an arpeggio; and (3) one of these chords, a 11, is shifted to the fourth beat of the measure. it appears that beethoven had not yet decided to delay the i1-chord until 43 example 5 m.50 8 m.1l6 t the final sixteenth of the measure. since the right-hand c3 does not occur until the final sixteenth, beethoven needed a c in the left hand in order to have a complete chord; thus he probably had in mind an ordinary left-hand chord for m. 116 in the continuity draft. for the evolution of m. 116 i suggest the following scheme, based on the corrections in artaria 201 and the bonn autograph (ex. 6) : example 6 stage 1 stage 2 stage 3 stage 4 note that the last chord is always a complete but is achieved in the final version alone by the right hand complementing the left. it must also be made clear that beethoven reached stage 4 in manuscript bifore stage 3, inasmuch as he wrote m. 50 of the bonn autograph before he wrote m. 116; thus stage 3, which combines elements of stages 2 and 4, represents a backwards development in the composition ofm. 116. in conclusion, i offer the following explanation for the existence of the error in m. 116 of the berlin autograph and the absence of such an error or correction at m. 50: there is a continuous written evolution of m. 116 (illustrated in ex. 5), in which the error is an intermediate step. since no such evolution exists for m. 50, the error never shows up in the autograph material. measure 133: the discrepancy between the versions of m. 133 may also be traced to an earlier stage in the bonn autograph. after trying a number of unsatisfactory solutions for mm. 132-34, beethoven crossed out all the unusable material for these measures and worked out the final version on a separate page.27 this page contains more rejected solutions, but one of them was 44 close enough to the final version to permit beethoven to indicate the final version merely by changing a few notes in the rejected one (ex. 7): example 7 a. first version h. final (corrected) version m. 133 in the bonn autograph. the penultimate sixteenth-note of m. 133 is a g in example 7a, illustrating that the reading in the berlin autograph is part of a rejected version in the bonn autograph. hence, the errors in the berlin autograph at mm. 116 and 133 are attributable to the same cause: the mental copying of a stage preceding the final version of the composition. in view of the accessibility of the berlin autograph, it is regrettable that the bonn autograph has not also been published in facsimile. the presence of wrong notes in the berlin autograph illustrates once more the danger involved in working with only part of the existing source material for a composition. in accounting for variants, i have illustrated only a few of the corrections in the bonn autograph. but an exhaustive study of all the corrections in this manuscript-and of the related sketches-would help us better understand beethoven's procedures in composing the first movement of opus 111.28 notes 1 this paper was based on a project for a seminar on beethoven conducted by professor lewis lockwood at princeton university. 2 drei masken-verlag (munich, 1922); c. f. peters (leipzig, 1952); dover books (new york, 1968). the dover edition, in paperback, is a reprint (and reduction in size) of the peters edition, which, in turn, reprints (and cleans the page borders of) the edition of drei masken-verlag, made on the iooth anniversary of the composition of the sonata. although the dover edition is reduced in size and printed on cheaper paper, pages which have few or no corrections can be read with little more difficulty than either german publication, except 45 for editorial accidentals in pencil and not in beethoven's handwriting. heavily corrected pages (in the second movement) are easier to read in the larger german publications; however, it is difficult to determine the original readings of these passages in any of the facsimile reproductions. 3 published in 1915 as part of die letzten funf sonaten von beethoven, mit einfuhrung und erlauterung von heinrich schenker (vienna, 1913-21), commonly referred to as the erliiuterungsausgabe. 4 die eigenschriften ulld die originalausgaben von werken beethovens in ihrer bedeutung fur die moderne textkritik (kassel, 1960). 6 i shall also discuss some relationships between sketch and autograph and, as they concern peculiarities in the autographs, between sketch and sketch. 6 described in max unger, eine schweizer beethovensammlung (zurich, 1939), pp. 158-59. in his article "notes on five of beethoven's copyists," jams (1970) 23: 438-71, alan tyson challenges the attribution to wenzel schlemmer of this and other copies of beethoven's late works. unverricht follows unger in attributing this copy to schlemmer, who was thought to have been beethoven's chief copyist from about 1807 until his death in 1823. but tyson demonstrates convincingly that it was made by beethoven's "copyist b," who he believes was wenzel rampl (pp.450-52). i am indebted to dr. hans schmidt of the beethoven-archiv for providing me with a microfilm of this copy. 7 unverricht, op cit., pp. 34-38. see also emily anderson, the letters of beethoven (new york, 1961), volume ii, p. 942 (letter 1074). 8 the most extensive published catalogue of beethoven's sketches is hans schmidt's "verzeichnis der skizzen beethovens," beethoven-jahrbuch 1965/68 (bonn, 1969), pp. 7-128 (entry numbers prefixed with "s." in the present essay). 9 on the use of the term "continuity draft" see lewis lockwood, "on beethoven's sketches and autographs: some problems of definition and interpretation," acta musicologica (1970) 42:42. 10 both artaria 197 and 201 are described in gustav nottebohm, zweite beethoveniana (leipzig, 1887), pp. 468-75. 11 parts 4, 6, 8, and 9 once comprised a single sheet of paper, and there are a number of musical connections between pairs of pages, which suggest that they were used as a 16-page pocket sketch gathering for the last movement of opus 110 and for both movements of opus iii. similarly, parts 1, 2 and 5 were once part of a single sheet, the fourth corner of which is not to be found in this manuscript. these leaves, with or without the missing leaf, probably also comprised a sketch gathering for exactly the same music. in both of the above reconstructions, all the sketches for opus 110 precede those for opus iii, and there are no musical connections between the gatherings (although they may well have been used at the same time). there are no connections between these gatherings and the remaining parts of the manuscript: part 7 contains sketches for the agnus dei of the missa solemnis, as well as for both movements of opus ill; part 3 consists of an entirely different kind of paper, which, together with ms. 80 and ms. 99 of the bibliotheque nationale, comprises a 24-page pocket gathering containing sketches for the credo of the missa solemnis and all three movements of opus 110, as well as a number of drafts of the canon for tobias haslinger, woo 182. 12 beethoven supplied the clefs and key signature for the first brace of every page of the first movement of the berlin autograph except p. 8, but there he left sufficient room to write them in later. 13 unverricht, op. cit., pp. 34-47; alan tyson, the authentic english editions of beethoven (london, 1963), pp. 110-13; thayer's life of beethoven, revised and edited by elliot forbes (princeton, 1964), volume ii, pp. 859-61. 14 recently dr. tyson informed me that in his opinion all of the early editions of opus iii date from the spring (or early summer) of 1823. 16 unverricht (op. cit., p. 34) summarizes the principles used in determining the relationship among the autographs and early editions: "die abhangigkeit von quellen lasst sich an 46 hand von gleichbleibenden behalsungen und balkungen, durch ilbernommene fehler ... und varianten, an gemeinsamen weggelassenen oder erganzten akzidenzien und vortragszeichen, gelegentlich durch genaue ubereinstimmung der zeileneinteilungen und anderem nachweisen." 16 the list of errata is included in anderson, op. cit., volume iii, p. 1047 (letter 1i90a). 17 see tyson, authentic english editions, pp. 110-13, for a list of variants among the early editions. 18 unverricht (op. cit., p. 38) asserts: "beethoven hat die reinschrift nicht wieder von neuem aus dem kopf geschrieben, sondern die urschrift kopiert, wie auch aus den vielen gleichzeitigen bemerkungen in der erstschrift und aus der oftmals getreuen einhaltung der gleichen zeileneinteilung hervorgeht." the material i have gathered here documents unverricht's claim. 19 the bonn autograph is actually a page longer, but the last page consists of an insertion for a heavily corrected passage p. 14. (see the discussion ofm. 133, towards the end of this essay.) 20 most of the textual errors in mm. 79-84 were corrected in schlesinger's edition by flatting some of the a's in these measures. it would probably have been impossible to change the position of the key signature without reengraving the entire first line ofp. 7. in my opinion there is no musical rationale for a key-signature change at m. 87, the second measure of the phrase which leads to the recapitulation of the movement. thus clementi's solution, which seems to be quite unintentional, is more reasonable from a musical point of view. 21 curiously, mm. 82-83 in the berlin autograph must be read textually in a signature of four flats (f minor, the local key center of these measures), since there are no flats in front of the right-hand d's. clementi's edition preserves all of the textual errors in mm. 80-84 of the berlin autograph. 22 apparently beethoven failed to take into account his having shifted the signature change from m. 69a to m. 72. the edition of cappi and diabelli indicates the change at m. 71, despite beethoven's admonition in the bonn autograph. in failing to heed beethoven's instructions, it thus corrected the textual error in m. 71. 23 furthermore, he treats the berlin version ofm. 133 as an oversight on beethoven's part (p. 48): "sonderbarweise zeigt aut. b) [berlin] als vorletztes 16tel des t. 133 den ton g statt as; kein zweifel, aber, dass wir hier nur mit einem versehen zu tun haben." 24 later editorial changes, such as the insertion of accidentals and the shifting of the key signature from m. 69a to m. 72, are not to be considered compositional; neither are the different readings of m. 116 and m. 133, as i demonstrate below. 25 see unverricht, op. cit., pp. 36-37. beethoven probably wrote the first movement of the berlin autograph while engaged in negotiations regarding an english edition of the sonata. these negotiations began injuly 1822, and beethoven sent the berlin autograph to ferdinand ries in london in february 1823. see anderson, op. cit., volume ii, p. 954 (letter 1084), and volume iii, p. 1006 (letter 1143). 26 it is also possible that beethoven changed m. 116 much later, after he had written the berlin autograph, in which case the berlin version would have been the result of his copying the bonn autograph directly. but this possibility seems unlikely, since the correction in m. 116 would then be the only compositional change in the first movement made after its reinschrift was written. 27 see fn. 17. beethoven also had difficulty composing a similar passage, mm. 56-57, on p. 6 of the autograph. the sketches on pp. 12 and 19 of artaria 201 show additional unsuccessful attempts to find a satisfactory register and descending motivic pattern for mm. 56 and 132-33. 28 a microfilm of the bonn autograph is in the toscanini memorial archives of the music division of the new york public library at lincoln center. the sketches are on film in the princeton university library. 47 ethnology and music: a philosophical consideration fabio gonzdlez-zuleta if the idea reveals the style of a thing according to its characteristic features, then art, which involves the faculty of imagination, requires as a creative process an ordering of its elements. thus, we can understand that musical art consists of the ordering and clarification of its elements, which of course are manifold. these elements comprise the physical scale, which is part of the phenomena of sound and acoustics, just as they also include human, ethnic, social, intellectual, and spiritual factors. acoustical factors give rise to the technical aspect of music, which obeys the laws of an experimental science. human elements lead us to intellectual, psychic, philosophical, and metaphysical considerations, which characterize a style or, more properly, an aesthetic. the sum of the scientific and aesthetic factors gives us the work of art to a greater or lesser extent, according to its predominating elements, characterizing different cultural levels which vary from the purely folkloric or popular to the most learned expressions. the nature of the musical problem is, then, a multifaceted one of universal significance, since anyone of its elements, whether on a technical or an aesthetic level, requires the most serious consideration. musicology tries to include all of these elements within a historical framework. the foregoing considerations make one think that just as, from a technical standpoint, sound requires silence in music, so, too, from an aesthetic standpoint, does music require an ethnic ethos. silence and ethos are implicit elements in the musical work (composition), and theorists and composers, especially, must be aware of them. consequently, the ethnic significance of a musical work is in itself a complex of problems which in turn comprises another scientific field of investigation; but at its base we can see multiple musico-aesthetic tendencies, determined by spheres of influence which are of special importance. here ethnology, which treats all races, comes closest to ethnography, which puts its emphasis on each of them individually. ethnographic complexity is augmented in today's world by the ease of interchange and racial mixture. in latin america the indigenous indian population has had a special influence through its admixture with the european and the african. cultural complexity becomes even more bewildering when we consider internal and external environmental factors, which are in turn affected by social influences, civilization, and culture. musical manifestations of ethnic conglomerates vary and are determined by the requirements of particular moments in history. these determinants create typical expressive characteristics which can be ascertained through detailed studies. today, it is almost impossible to find a pure ethnographic characteristic, especially in civilized areas. nevertheless, as a natural reaction to the fact of 111 cultural dissolution, there appears a reinforcement of traditional local values which, although they may be artificially preserved, constitute in any case an ethnic phenomenology. such is the case with folklore, which develops spontaneously out of this basic feeling of the worth of the local community. popular music, on the other hand, is more a case of transplantation and the influence of a new emotional environment such as has developed, for example, in the andean airs, which have a spanish flavor, and the negro spirituals, which are african in essence. at this level of ideas we can also see certain applications to learned musical culture, when someone takes local elements from another area and assimilates them into his musical work. to this can be attributed the fact that, as is frequently the case, french musicians can write in the spanish style, czechs in the american, or germans in the oriental. having left the field of folklore, which is often confused with popular music, we see that musical ethnography is a phenomenon of cultural disinvolvement, in which ethnic authenticity is more or less relative in spite of the fact that its aesthetic value may be indisputable. because of this relativity, not a few composers appreciate the musical manifestations which are today called nationalistic and which historically underwent a special development in the first decades of the present century. undoubtedly, the distinguishing mark of these works was due to the sum total of their ethnographic significance combined with a high technical level of musical development. for arnold schoenberg their importance derived more from the culture of the composer than from local ethnic values. in his book style and idea he said: ... the theme russe is certainly very pleasant. but that there now exists russian music is due to the advent of some great composers. were this not the case, great irish or scotch symphonies should have been created, because the folklore of these peoples is of an unsurpassed beauty and full of striking and characteristic traits. on the other hand, some smaller nations whose folk music is not as extraordinary have succeeded in placing in the history of music and into the minds of music lovers representatives such as smetana, grieg, chopin, liszt, dvorak and sibelius. characteristically enough, sibelius contends that his music is not based on national folk music, and i guess that grieg's also is not. chopin's rhythms are often derived from polish dances, but harmonically and in part melodically neither his music nor that ofliszt (or much of smetana's) differ essentially from western and central european styles of their day.l what schoenberg averred, of course, admits ofmuch argument on several points, just as does his statement that the purely folkloric "has been unable to penetrate the wall separating folk music from art."2 nevertheless, the fact of folklore's acceptance as a basis for artistic elaboration is important, with the appreciation of its substantial ethnic value or, in simpler terms, its national112 istic value left to the judgment of the composer and the listener. but here we are already in relativistic and, of course, emotional territory. yet the ethnic question is not only a problem of the adaptation of the work to local color. each human work carries within itself a complex of intrinsic ethnic elements, because no man can escape from his own origins, with all their influences and consequences. (from this point of view, psychology is a part of ethnology and would form another chapter of the study.) hence the same music which is called "pure" has an ethnic value that depends directly on the individual who creates it or which, in other words, makes the music of an american, american, or of a japanese, japanese. this circumstance, considered in the light of concrete instances, has given rise to what is distinguished by schools as german symphonic style or italian opera. this is an important consideration, precisely in the evaluation of a work of art in relation to a people and a culture and in the appreciation given to the artist, even though his work may apparently not be of the type which can properly be called nationalistic. unfortunately, this idea is not obvious to the chauvinistic mentality, but, in any case, the work of the artist, if it is to be understood in this way, is always patriotic by nature and universal because of the qualities that all men share. johann sebastian bach is admired as a german composer, but he is also a musical prototype of humanity. exactly because of this communication of the artist in his work, a. schmarsow (cited by ortega y gasset) declared that art is "an explanation created between man (as an individual) and the world, a spiritual operation as necessary as the religious or scientific reaction,"3 which in the case of music history results in the fact that it transforms itself even more into a history of the ethnic emotions, with all the implications of a humanity which confronts the cosmos. here, once more, enters the function of art, which cannot be a simple "game" or "sumptuary activity" without obeying creative psychic needs in conformity with the universal range of the world views of peoples. the german "konnen" or the "ability to do" is the ethno-artistic ability of man in the representation of his ideas, which can surpass imitation in order to lead to a prophetic plan that, as johannes lotz would say, causes the artist, in spite of all limitations, to surpass himself, rising up as a prophet and glorifier of being among men, and having in his true aspect something holy.4 the ethnic and psychological configuration is important to this discussion since its diversified aspects are the work of specialists. although the first term refers to the community and the second to the individual, no one fails to grasp the fact that the individual is part of a community which in itself is ethnic. for this reason, it sometimes becomes difficult to make a conceptual or even a scientific distinction. moreover, the existence of an ethnic psychology and, therefore, a collective or social one can also be understood. sociology is, consequently, another of the factors added to the complex of aesthetic and artistic events. on this point alphons silbermann, in his book wovon lebt die musik, says that "while some unite aesthetics and psychology as 113 a disordered conglomeration, others attempt to treat the work of art through a mixture of aesthetics and sociology and often include aesthetics, sociology, and psychology."5 hippolyte taine attempted to understand the history of the beautiful and the beautiful itself through the elements of culture, ambience, and time. and he arrived at a socio-aesthetic method which, going further, searched for the basic functions, the basic motive forces of art itself; in the process he mixed together all the problems of the origin of art with an investigation of the social mission of the artist. we would depart from our proposition if we wanted to enter into this dispute, even if only to clarify that which differentiates schools of thought which try to explain artistic phenomena in the light of pure aesthetics or intermingled with ethnic, sociological, and psychological points of view in accordance with the specialty and predilection of the individual thinkers. in any case, it is obvious that the subject is interesting because of this same complexity and interrelationship of its elements, to which we add historical development. all the components, whether technical or aesthetic, are important in a musical work. and among them the ethnic implications do not cease to play an important part in the work itself, inserted as they are into this double current which runs from the material to the immaterial, from science to spirit, from man to god. this is because absolutely all the good (and the beautiful is good) obeys the harmonic laws of the universe, which, in the last analysis, constitute a state of divine contemplation, that is, contemplation of truth. if we did not think in this manner, our considerations would have a simply mundane value, determined by the "production" and "consumption" which characterize human materialism. music (as can be easily understood) does not reduce itself to these material masters; it shows a "splendor of intelligibility," or a splendor veri according to the platonists, in which, as the aristotelians say, the effect can be traced back to a cause. at any level of human thought, and this time through the study of aesthetic components as they relate to music (as do ethnic aspects), one concludes that, in surmounting obstacles to the consideration of transcendental or metaphysical explanations of art, as edgar allen poe so beautifully expressed it in his essay the poetic principle: ... we still have a thirst unquenchable ... this thirst belongs to the immortality of man. it is at once a consequence and an indication of his perennial existence. it is the desire of the moth for the star. it is no mere appreciation of the beauty above. inspired by an ecstatic prescience of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by multiform combinations among the things and thoughts of time, to attain a portion of that loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone. and thus when by poetry-or when by music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods-we find ourselves melted into tears-we weep thennot as abbate gravina supposes-through excess of pleasure, but through a certain, petulant, impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp 114 now, wholly, here on earth, at once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys, of which through the poem, or through the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate glimpses. the struggle to apprehend the supernal loveliness-this struggle, on the part of souls fittingly constituted-has given to the world all that which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand and to feel as poetic.6 (translated from the spanish by leonie rosenstiel) notes 1 new york: philosophical library, 1950, pp. 197-98. 2 ibid., p. 198. 3 jose ortega y gasset, obras completas, 4th ed. (madrid: revista de occidente, 1957), vol. i, p. 191. 4 johannes baptist lotz (1903). german transcendentalist philosopher, author of das urteil und das sein, cine grundlegung der metaphysik (munich: verlag berchmanskolleg, 1957). 6 regensburg: gustav bosse verlag, 1957, p. 22. english translation by the editor. 6 robert l. hough, ed., literary criticisms of edgar allen poe (lincoln, nebraska: university of nebraska press, 1965), pp. 39-40. 115 michael bruce collins-the performance of and hemiolia (i450-i750) ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-1598), 1963. (338 pp., stanford university diss.) arthur hills modes of musical thought are shaped as surely by the symbolism of notation as conceptual thought is shaped by the symbolism of written language. an understanding of any musical style, therefore, depends on a study of its notation. since notational forms, like language patterns, persist well beyond the moment of their most functional application, the study of a given notation requires a consideration of the notational conventions that preceded it. mr. collins is right to seek solutions to some of the more obscure 17th-century practices in the system of notation that was brought to a high degree of perfection in the 15th and 16th centuries. that his dissertation cuts across the traditional concepts of renaissance and baroque is indeed laudatory. such an orientation, however, implies a shift of method, cutting likewise across traditional research methods. the weaknesses of mr. collins's work are due primarily to a failure to fashion an adequate method. . mr. collins has investigated the performance of triplet figures from 1450 to 1750, and therefore has considered not only "colored" (that is, black) notation but also sesquialtera proportion, and the manner in which both black notes and sesquialtera produce the effect known as hemiolia.1 he sticks perhaps too closely to his topic. some of his conclusions might have been clari .. fied by investigating also the performance of more complex proportionshow to perform five or seven notes against two, for example. as is well known, a performance from part-books was regulated and kept together by the beating of a tactus. obviously then, the theorists insisted that all notes, blackened or otherwise, had to be understood in relation to their position in the tactus. a performer had to adapt the symbols he was reading to the beat he was watching. two types of beat were employed. first, when triple meter appeared in all the parts, an unequal tactus was used-a long downstroke for the first two units of the meter, and a short upstroke for the 123 ;.) ea. _ third unit. second, when one or more of the parts was in binary meter, an equal tactus was used-the downstroke and upstroke of equal duration. the unequal tactus was used only when all parts moved in triple meter, either by mensural sign, or by black notes. otherwise, the equal tactus prevailed, and black notes, sesquialtera proportion, or any other unequal proportion occurring in a single part, had to be reconciled somehow to that tactus. mr. collins has arrayed an impressive list of theorists across the 300 years of his topic who discuss the precise effect of this reconciliation. black notes appearing in one voice-part of imperfect time, minor prolation were adapted to the tactus in various ways. if the black notes filled out but one or two tactus, either alia breve (¢) or alia semibreve (c), the longer black note was diminished by a quarter of its value, and the shorter note, by half of its value. in such cases, ¢ til • and c • 1 could be resolved in modern notation as: ¢ o.d and c j. j (the ! is, of course, a blackened minim which becomes, when halved, a semiminim, or quarter-note in modern transcription). the theorists frequently described this resolution as an example of the ternary effect blackening had on the binary measure. the longer black note was reduced to a perfect note (that is, a dotted note) one rhythmic level down. the black breve became a perfect semibreve; the' black semibreve, a perfect minim. so, just as black notes in one of the perfect: mensurations caused imperfection of the larger notes, black notes in an imperfect mensuration caused perfection of the larger notes. once the larger, note, in the latter case, had become perfect at the next lower rhythmic level, the smaller value that accompanied it took whatever time remained to complete the tactus, and lost, therefore, half of its value. groups of black notes. that extended beyond a tactus or two, however, usually meant sesquialtera proportion. only if the longer groups fell clearly in twos did dupla proportion result (reduction in value by half). a special problem arises in connection with cadential figures of this common type (the arrows show the downstrokes of the tactus): ex. 1 4c ., t i' ! both martin agricola (musica figuralis deudsch, 1532) and loys.bourgeois (le droict chemin de musique • .. , 1550) write out figures which show the performance resolution: ex. 2 124 is am. encouraged by the clear evidence of these two northern theorists, mr. collins applies their reasoning to the interpretation of a large group of italian theorists of the 16th and 17th centuries. no italian, however, writes out a resolution. instead, the southern theorists instruct the performer to watch the downstroke of the tactus, letting it evenly divide the second of the three black semibreves. in other words, as collins correctly observes, the figure is to be thought of as: i lt •. by adapting the resolutions of agricola and bourgeois to the italians, however, collins reasons that the black minims thus produced must be considered as minor values associated with major ones (the semibreves). further, he reasons that these minor values should not be reduced, and that they are therefore equivalent to white minims: i li finally, since color can cause dupla proportion when black notes are paired, collins treats the outside black semi breves as dupla, and reduces them like. .. l !! l i h· h b· hili· £'.. wise to mmlms: j i . ntis way e rmgs t e ta ans mto conlormlty with agricola and bourgeois, and a french-german performance practice is imposed on the south. \ the italian theorists must not be forced into the northern straitjacket. they do not write out resolutions, and indeed it would be difficult to write a resolution of a real triplet in terms of the notation they knew. only by proportion.al sign or black notes could a triplet be suggested in the binary meters. the squarer northern resolution is easily expressed by the notation, so that agricola and bourgeois simply show the same passage written in black notes and then in white equivalents. on the other hand, what the italians have to say, mr. collins's arguments notwithstanding, can be understood perfectly well to mean real triplet performance. the downstroke of the tactus will divide the second black semibreve just as evenly in a triplet resolution as it does in example 2 (the dots in example 3 show the alignment of the binary and ternary elements in terms of their common twelve-part factor): i i j 1 collins has reasoned wrongly in any case. he is safe enough in dividing the second black semibreve into two black minims, i lt·, but to assume that the resulting minims lose none of their value follows only if they are filling out the perfection of a larger, imperfected value (filling out, in this case, the imperfected semibreves). otherwise the minims, adapted to a binary meter, must 5+ c•m • 125 lose half their value; completing semibreves which have become perfect at the next lower rhythmic level: t· ji j .. the latter is an unlikely resolution for many reasons, one of the more important being the short-long rhythmic syncopation that results. we may more easily assume then that each group of . • ! equals a perfect semibreve in sesquialtera proportion to the binary ...,. semibreves of the accompanying parts. the rhythm: c i it· could then be expressed as: c r it 0 in white notes. collins also argues that the northern resolution best observes the conventions of 16th-century suspension treatment. this argument is equally false. minim suspension preparations are standard, whether the minims are in sesquialtera proportion or not. the important rule regarding suspensions requires that the dissonance should not be of longer duration than the preparation. a triplet performance gives both the preparation and the dissonance equal length-the length of a sesquialtered minim (see example 3). by starting with the theory that three black minims (! ! !) must be resolved to fit the tactus in one of these three ways: j j j, j j j, or j j j, collins falls into one of his few problematical translations. the issue, however, is . crucial. he translates zarlino (collins, p. 87) as saying on the subject of sesquialtera proportion: " ... within the tactus there are contained three long or short notes-which there are-of which two are put on the downstroke, and one on the upstroke ... " (le istitutioni harmoniche ... , 1562). zarlino, . in fact, says that one puts two notes during the downstroke (due si pongono della positione) and one in the upstroke (uno nella levatione). zarlino has simply pointed out that the third note of the triplet falls in the course of the upfurthermore, zarlino says that there will be three long or short notes (depending of course on the note-value involved). he does not suggest a combination of long and short notes. lusitano (introdutionefacilissima •.. , . 1553) has a similar explanation for the performance of three-note groups, and he too uses the preposition nella. lusitano makes his point even more clearly: in discussing other proportions. for example, when a proportion of nine notes' must be sung against the tactus, five come during the downstroke and four in the upstroke. a nonup1et works out precisely this way. lusitano is not describing a quintuplet followed by a group offour notes. banchieri (cartella musi. cale . .• , 1614) instructs the singer to perform three black minims with :; hesitation or perplexity (titubatione), an admirable description of performing three against two. collins manages to see this as a description of a solid, square, unhesitating j j j figure. in accepting agricola, bourgeois, and a whole group of german theorists 2 . who give explicit instructions for performing three black minims as two short notes and a long one, collins has not noticed that he is dealing with a well126 defined, national school-and a school peripheral to the italian mainstream. the italian theorists did not engage in verbal circumlocutions merely to confound 20th-century musicology. they were concerned with a different performance practice. collins documents a pra<;tice of considerable significance for the transcription of some german arid french music of the late 16th century and the 17th century. by reference, however, to an illustration in mattheson (kleine general-bass-schule ... , 1735) and to a description of figura corta in printz (musica modulatoria vocalis .•. , 1678), both of which show combinations of two short notes and a long one for black triplets, collins concludes that this type of resolution applies also to much of the music of]. s. bach. in some cases it may. collins himself becomes cautious at this point, however, and suggests that the musical context should determine the resolution. but then, curiously, he wants to resolve the triplet voice-pair of the orgelbiichlein chorale prelude, in dulcijubilo, into this rhythm: j jl bach owed as much to his italian as to his german or french predecessors, and the tranquil, fluid motion of in dulci jubilo seems especially close to his italian side. "italian style" is real triplets against duplets. therefore, precisely on the grounds of musical context, one may conclude that bach wanted the conflict of these rhythms:w w w· today we would write it as:fri fri trio the enormous and often careful work that mr. collins has expended on this dissertation makes it especially regrettable that he has failed to collate the theorists with more discretion or to interpret them with more impartiality. considering the pre-eminence of italian music during the 16th and 17th centuries, it would have been more reasonable to use italian theorists to understand the germans. to attempt the reverse is folly. ,mr. collins, however, goes further and rewrites a piece published in 1645 by the italian, zanetti, according to definitions given in 1703 by the frenchman, brossard, and in 1732 by the german,]. g. walther (collins, pp.222-224). likewise he accepts variant musical sources too uncritically. he is content if a variant supports his hypotheses. he does not ask whether variants represent some real adaptation to a performance practice, whether they represent idiomatic adjustments to a new performance medium, or any similar questions. instead, he extricates himself from problems by clever but generally faulty reasoning. the theorists can be taken at face value with better, more plausible results. the type of dissertation attempted here has tremendous potential. certainly, to understand the confused notation of the 17th century, we are going to have to rely heavily on 16th-century practices and on good common sense. unfortunately, however, even the definitive work on performing l7thcentury triplets is still to be written. mr, collins is in a better position than most to write it. he would need only to refine somewhat his method. 127 footnotes 1 the principal arguments of mr. collins's dissertation may be consulted in two articles: "the performance of sesquialtera and hemiolia in the 16th century" , jams 17: 5-28 (spring 1964), and "the performance of triplets in the 17th and 18th centuries", jams 19:281-328 (fall 1966). 2 these theorists incelude finck, 1556; quitschreiber, 1607; vulpius, 1608; beringer, 1610; elsmann, 1619; gengenbach, 1626; hase, 1657; and trumper, 1668. reply to arthur hills michael collins mr. hills's main criticism of my work is aimed at my "failure to fashion an adequate method". it seems to me that there is a great deal of talk about method lately; but certainly no matter how airtight the researcher's method, it is no substitute for his having investigated all sources, finally choosing those relevant to the subject. this has been my "method", and the virtually complete list of l6th-, 17th-, and 18th-century theorists consulted can really not be listed. i chose those who seemed to be talking about real practice rather than abstract mathematical theory. mr. hills has turned up no new sources, to contradict my theory; instead, he has attacked it on the rather dubious grounds of national styles. we shall for the moment leave 'aside the 17th-century german theorists of the conservative camp who so clearly call for resolutions of three black minims <l!!) into binary figures (ll !). in the 16th century there were, no national styles in the sense that mr. hills claims. there were different .. genres, such as madrigal, mass, motet, and chanson, and there was an international style-that of the netherlanders. they developed the polyphonic style about which the italians discourse; they brought it to italy and they' were employed there to write and perform this music in the great churches' and courts of italy. the italian theorists i quote are speaking of the notation and the music of these netherlanders. aron cites obrecht, josquin, and isaac as his masters and acquaintances in florence; zarlino cites willaert, his teacher, ockeghem, josquin, de rore, and mouton. tigrini is beholden, as, are they all, to gafurio, whose treatise is not about italian music, and to tinctoris, aron, and lusitano (a portuguese theorist); he cites josquin as well as palestrina. zacconi cites the theorists zarlino and heyden among others, and most of his examples are drawn from ockeghem, obrecht, isaac, " josquin, and mouton. ' now the first theorists to write out resolutions ofsesquialtera and hemiolia were agricola (1532) and bourgeois (1550), both of them perhaps somewhat removed from the center of musical culture. the former, however, quotes gafurio, the latter heyden, frosch, and listenius. they do not make ref' erence to tactus in regard to their resolutions. the later 17th-century german theorists, perhaps stemming from the great influence of the netherlander 128 handel and leclair neal zaslaw those of us who studied with paul henry lang while he was gestating his monumental biography of handel were fortunate to share his discoveries and insights, to hear key chapters as they were finished, and to receive an enthusiastic and inspired introduction to the music, life, and times of that great german turned italian turned englishman. in such a state of "handelconsciousness," this writer, beginning work on a dissertation on jean-marie leclair l'aine, was intrigued by statements in the literature on leclair which linked the latter's style to handel's. marc pincherle, for instance, had written of leclair:1 his models were the italians and the french; but before investigating what he owed them, one notes incidentally certain affinities also with the greatest germans of his time: johann sebastian bach and handel, whom he did not know-the first for certain and the other in all probability. this opinion was echoed in other articles on leclair, including that in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart:2 leclair's models were especially italian and french forerunners; but one finds also a certain harmonic and contrapuntal connection with j. s. bach and handel (although in all probability he did not know them) .... marpurg in his traite de la fugue [berlin, 1756] placed leclair on ,a level with handel, telemann, the graun brothers, and the members of the bach family. similarities between handel's and leclair's instrumental music may in some part be due to the fact that these men, like so many of their contemporaries, were indebted to italian models, and especially to the music of corelli. handel worked with corelli in rome while leclair studied in turin with one of corelli's students, giovanni battista somis. even without these personal contacts, however, the music ofcorelli would have been readily available to both men in printed and manuscript copies. similarly, leclair would not have needed to know handel personally in order to have been familiar with some of his music. that handel's european fame was considerable rather early in the century has been amply demonstrated by qtto erich deutsch in his handel: a documentary biograph:j. with these general 183 conditions in mind, we may proceed to specific evidence that leclair knew not only handel's reputation but his music. i the year 1728 was a year of extraordinary activity for leclair, and it saw the beginning of his international fame as composer and violin virtuoso. that year leclair l'eft turin, where he had completed his studies with somis, and moved to paris, where he published his second livre de sonates pour ie violon ••. and made his debut at the concert spirituel (april 17). "mr. leclair,. famous violinist," reported le mercure de france, "played a sonata which was generally and vigorously applauded." leclair met with continued success, appearing at those concerts again on april 19 april 24, april 26, may 1, may 3, and may 6.3 on july 20 (=july 31),4 however, the following advertisement 'appeared in a weekly london newspaper, the country journal: new musick this day published, solo's for a violin or german flute, with a thorough bass for the harpsichord or bass violin. compos'd by mr. le clair, lately come from italy, opera secunda. n. b. there may likewise be had, where these are sold, great variety of concerto's, sonata's, and solo's for all instruments in use. printedfor and sold by john walsh, servant to his majesty, at the harp and hoboy if!, catherine-street in the strand, and joseph hare at the viol and hoboy in corn hill, near the royal exchange. the contents of the several volumes of leclair's music published in london by walsh between 1728 and 1764 need not concern us here. these publications contained only music that' is already known from the more widely circulated paris editions which leclair himself published and which his wife engraved. we note, however, not only that leclair was in london (a fact previously overlooked by his biographers), but that he had business dealings with handel's publisher, walsh. considering handel's stature in the london of 1728, it seems highly probable that leclair came into contact with his music during this visit, regardless of whether he met handel himsel£ nothing further is known of leclair's stay in england. when walsh repeated his advertisement in the country journal two weeks later on august 3 ( = august 14), leclair, whose name was misspelled, was still described as "lately come from italy." when the advertisement appeared a third time on august 10 184 (=august 21) however, that description of leclair was dropped, as if he had left england.5 this seems to suggest that leclair had remained in london only long enough to see his sonatas through the press, and had then returned to france. leclair finished his busy year by returning to paris to perform at the concert spirituel on august 15, september 8, and november 1.6 we have record of only one more appearance that year: on december 22 leclair and pietro locatelli performed before the court at kassel in what appears to have been billed as a competition between french and italian music.7 ii in 1734 leclair was settled in paris, working at the court of louis xv as concertmaster of the musique du roi. the libretto of a pasticcio was published that year in paris:8 nouvelle chasse du cerf, divertissement en musique; compose de plusieurs airs parodies sur les opera d'angleterre: avec differentes symphonies etrangeres. according to the libretto the music to which this new poetry was composed was taken, save for two numbers, from the works of handel. the other two numbers were set respectively to the music of fago, an obscure neapolitan composer, and to the music of leclair. the music world of paris was not then so large that leclair would have failed to hear about this use of his own music, and, if he went to hear this production, he heard virtually an entire evening of handel's music. the author of the pasticcio, sere de rieux, offered additional evidence of handel's fame among the french in remarks in his preface:9 the merit of this learned author is known in all europe, and the "crown" that he received last year from the hands of the most illustrious englishmen puts him beyond all praise. 185 iii beginning in 1736 leclair no longer appeared in public in paris. this retirement was triggered by a dispute with pierre' guignon, another student of somis, over the concertmastership of the musique du roi. leclair left the service of louis xv and some time shortly thereafter entered the service of anne, princess of orange. anne was an english princess who had studied the harpsichord and composition with handel before her marriage into the house of orange. from all accounts, anne had been an excellent student and became an accomplished musician under the guidance of her famous teacher. later she was one of handel's staunchest supporters in his battles to obtain political and financial support for his opera company. leclair visited the court of orange (to which, according to the dedication to his q,uatrieme livre de sonates a violon seul avec la basse continue • •• oeuvre ix [1743], he had been summoned by the princess) for three months of each year from 1736 or '37 until 1742.10 that leclair's music and violin playing pleased the discriminating princess is attested to by her decorating him with the croix neerlandais du lion. although little is known about the concerts held at het loo (the palace of the court of orange),n we cannot doubt that leclair was called upon by his patroness to perform a great deal of music by her former teacher and favorite composer. iv about 1736 madame leclair engraved the paris edition of handel's harpsichord suites and four years later a reedition of the same works,l2 it is not known whether this was an exchange with walsh, the publisher of the original edition of handel's suites, or whether this was simply another case of the musical piracy which flourished in the absence of international copyright laws. in any case, the handel suites were on sale at madame boivin's and leclerc's music shops-the same dealers who sold leclair's music-and leclair would have had ample opportunity to become acquainted with these works. during this same period, an anonymous essay in le mercure de france discussed the fact that there were now french violinists and french instrumental music considered of rank equal with that of the italians, who had always served as models in these fields. speaking of composition, the anonymous author praised 186 handel, whom he considered, interestingly, an italian resident in england, and added, "we can place opposite the compositions of this learned musician the compositions of leclair l'aine ..• "ila v during the years 1740 through 1742 leclair lived (aside from three months each year at the court of orange) in the hague where he was maestro di cappella to a wealthy commoner, du liz.l3 du liz had a private musical establishment of twenty singers and instrumentalists from whom he required frequent private and weekly public concerts in his opulent home. the catalogue ofdu liz's music library is extant,14 and it reveals that in the repertoire performed at his concerts were a number of handel operas: floridante (1721), ottone (1723), flavio (1723), tamerlano (1724), and rodelinda (1724). thus we have evidence of leclair rehearsing and performing a selection-though hardly a very up-to-date selection--of handel's prolific opera output. this brief essay has attempted to demonstrate from our fragmentary knowledge of leclair's career that he must have been familiar with handel's music. our evidence has accumulated in spite of the fact that we know little of the repertoire played by leclair in his public concerts, and nothing of the repertoire played in his extensive private music-making. that leclair knew the music of the famous handel should not surprise anyone. music and musicians circulated widely in the 18th century in spite of what seems to us primitive systems of transportation and communication. "the facile telemann ... combined the french galanterie style with the italian concerto style. unlike leclair, teleniann did not succeed in fusing the styles into a higher unity .... " thus wrote manfred bukofzer15 of that style attempted by couperin as les gouts reunis, that style praised by quantz as the vermischter geschmack, that pan-european style of which leclair and handel were two of the most successful practitioners. we 'may conclude that, insofar as what handel's and leclair's music have in common cannot be attributed to the common coin of their times, leclair had paid handel that sincerest form offlattery: imitation. 187 notes 1 jean-marie leclair l'aine, paris, 1952, p. 72. ("ses modeles sont les italiens et les franc;ais; mais avant de rechercher ce qu'il leur doit, on notera incidemment certaines affinites, aussi, avec les plus grands allemands de son temps: jean-sebastien bach et haendel qu'il ignorait, l'un a coup sur et l'autre fort probablement.") 2 aristide wirsta, "leclair," mgg 8:444. ("leclairs modelle waren besonders ital. and frz. vorganger; aber auch zu j. s. bach und hiindel, obwohl er sie hiichstwahrscheinlich nicht kannte, findet man eine gewisse harmonische und kp. beziehung •.•. marpurg stellte leclair in seinem traite de lafugue auf eine stufe mit handel, telemann, den briidern graun und den angehiirigen der familie bach.") 3 le mercurrle france, 1728: april, p. 856 ("le sieur leclerc, fameux violon joua une sonate qui fut generalement et tres vivement applaudie ... "); may, p. 1061. 4 england still observed the julian calender during the first half of the 18th century while the rest of europe (excluding russia) had adopted the gregorian calendar. to make the english dates comparable to the french dates, therefore, eleven days must be added. in each instance of an english date in this article, the continental date is given directly afterwards in parenthesis. 5 leon vallas (un siecle de musique et de theatre ii lyon, 1688-1789, lyons, 1932, pp. 193-94) suggests that leclair was in lyons on august 8, 1728, as concertmaster of the voeu du roi, an annual concert in tribute to the khtg. this is contradicted by leclair's presence in london onjuly 31 and in paris on august 15. (the latter date also proves that the walsh advertisement of august 14 was out-of-date, since leclair must have left london by that date.) a reexamination of the archival records upon which vallas based his suggestion (la bibliotheque de la ville de lyon, archivemunicipale: cc 3115,no.10l [1727]; cc3119, no. 147 [1728]; cc 3124, no. 136 [1729]; cc 3139, no. 151 [1732]; and cc 3162, no. 151 [1735]), and other evidence too lengthy to be presented here; appears to show that local lyons references to "leclair l'aine" apply to the oldest of the leclair brothers resident in that city, namely jean-marie ie jeune. if this theory is correct, then the listing in the violin section of the voeu du roi in 1735 of"m. leclair aine ..• m. leclerc [sic] cadet •.. m. leclerc cadet 3" .•. " refers respectively to jean-marie lejeune, pierre, and jeanbenoit leclair. (concerning the latter see neal zaslaw, "some notes on jeanbenoit leclair," revue beige de musicologie 19 :97-101 [1965].) 6 le mercure de france, 1728; august, p. 1859; september, pp. 2094-95; november, pp.2509-1o. 7 arend koole, pietro locatelli, amsterdam, 1949, p. 47; christiane englebrecht, "die hofkapelle des landgrafen carl von hessen-kassel," zeitschrift des vereinsfiir hessische geschichte und londskunde, 68: 166 (1957). 8 printed in an anthology, les dons des enfans de latone: la musique, et la chasse du cey, poems dedies au roy (paris, 1734), containing the libretti of several divertissements as well as a potpourri of other items, including a collection of trumpet fanfares. the "nouvelle chasse du cerf ... " is found on pp. 97ff. and the "table des airs a chanter,. avec vioions, compris dans la chasse du cerf" on p. 315. the third movement of leclair's trio sonata in d major, opus 2, no.8, was used for a choeur de nymphes, "que tes jeux sont charmans." .9. ibid., p. 300. ("le merite de ce scavant auteur est connu dans toute l'europe, & la couronne qu'il a recue l'annee demiere de la main des plus illustre anglois, met au dessus de tous eloge.) the "crown" refers to the honorary doctor of music degree offered to handel by oxford university but refused by him (see otto erich deutsch, handel: a documentary biography, new york, 1955, pp. 316-17, 333-34, 340, and 379), 10 jacob wilhelm lustig, under the nom de plume of wohlgemuth, wrote in a brief biographical report on leclair, "er pflegte ehedemjahrlich ein vierteljahr unsere 188 princessin zum concert zu besuchen" (in marpurg [ed.], kritische briqe fiber die tonkunst, ii/4: 469 [december 18, 1762]). lustig's assertion is confirmed by receipts for the monthly salary paid leclair by franc;:ois du liz during 1740-42. these receipts (algemeen rijksarchief: archives de la cour de holland, no. 5162) show the leclair was away from du liz's palace during april, may, and june of 1741; these, therefore, must have been the months spent at the court of orange. 11 see d. f. scheurleer, het muziekleven in nederland in de tweede heift der 18e eeuw ... , the hague, 1909. 11a "memories pour servir a l'histoire de la mul!ique vocale et instrumentale: le violon," le mercure de france (june 1738) 1:1110-18. ("ii est vrai qu'en italie, outre les trois plus fameux que nous avons nommes [tartini, somis, and montanari], et qui peuvent de disputer a nos trois celebres vio10ns [leclair, guignon,.and cupis], ils ont encore comme nous [he had already named 14 other good french violinists] de tres-habiles maitres, comme solarini, veracini, san martini, vivaldi, pretre, chanoine venitien, plus sc;:avant dans 1a composition, que pour l'execution, et encore bononcini, indel [sic] en ang1eterre, &c. on pourroit oposer a ce sc;:avant musicien, 1es compositions de le clerc l'aine, et celles de bien d'autres franc;:ois.") 12 william c. smith,.handel: a descriptive catalogue oj the early editions, london, 1960, pp. 252-53. 13 algemeen rijksarchief (see note 10), and d. f. scheur1eer, leclair l'aine in holland," sammelbiinde der internationalen musikgesellschaft 10:259-62 (190809). 14 d. f. scheurleer, "een haagsche musiekliefhebber uit de 18e eeuw," vereeniging voor nederlandsche muziekgeschiendenis 9 : 41-64 (1914). 15 manfred f. bukofzer, music in the baroque era, new york, 1947, p. 265. 189 bela bartok: a portrait of his personality drawn jfror.n his lsetters otto deri with an by neal zaslaw this article was originally written for light motifs, a mimeographed publication of the friends of music at the city college of new york. it appeared in three installments in volume 2, numbers 1, 2, and 3 (march, april, and may, 1963). while no substantive changes have been made in the version below, several minor emendations have been incorporated to conform with current musicology's editorial style. the translations from bartok's letters were made from two collections, where they may easily be located by date: bartok bela-levelek, jel1ykepek, kriziratok, kottdk [bela bartok: letters, photographs, manuscripts, facsimiles], edited by janos demeny (budapest, 1948). bartok bela levelei-az utolso ket ev gyiijtese [bela bartok's letters, collection of the last two years], edited by janos demeny (budapest, 1951). many of the letters in these two volumes are also to be found in several more recent hungarian publications. (in some of these, however, certain politically sensitive passages have been suppressed.) several of the letters are also available in german translations. for english-language readers this article offers the double reward of a well-translated sampling of bartok's fine prose style and the sympathetic commentary of bartok's compatriot deri. deri's interest in bartok was oflong standing, and it was merely reinforced by their common plight: emigration to the united states to escape the nazis. one outcome of that sympathetic link between the two hungarian musicians was the forty pages devoted to bartok in deri's book, exploring t wentiethcentury music (new york, 1968). the appearence of this work in the last year of otto deri's life provides us with a final, unhappy parallel between him and bartok: each was taken from us in the midst of a productive career. n.z. priface today bela bartok is acknowledged by the music world as one of the foremost composers of this century. although his music is reaching an ever larger circle oflisteners in this country, little is known about bartok himself. the articles about him that have been published in english deal mostly with his music and are too technical for the layman. the present writer, a compatriot of the composer, therefore feels that a picture of bartok, the man, would be of general interest. two volumes of his letters published in hungarian in 1948 and 1951 provide especially appropriate source material for this study. in order to present a meaningful picture of a great man, it is not enough to 90 describe his personal characteristics, his preferences and dislikes, or the mere outward events of his life. the special task of a biography is, as goethe wrote in dichtung und wahrheit, "to present the man in relation to his times, and to show how far-as a whole-they are opposed to him, how far they are favorable to him, and how, if he is an artist, he reflects them outwardly." in view of the limitations of space and material, this article cannot pretend to be a biography of the composer. the letters under consideration, some 300 in all, by no means cover every period of bartok's life. the aim of this study is, in accordance with goethe's criteria for a biography, to acquaint the reader with bartok as seen in the context of the particular political and social milieu into which he was born and to which he had to adjust. his family background and his early years-both important shaping forces in his developmenthave also been taken into account. his works have not been considered, nor his musical growth, except for its role in the development of his personality. family background and early experiences bartok was born in 1881 in nagyszentmiklos, hungary (now sinnicolaulmare, a small community in rumania), situated in an area where four languages were spoken (hungarian, german, serbian, and rumanian). the family later moved to n agyszollos (winogrado, now part of the soviet union), from there to beszterce (bistrita, now rumanian), and in 1893 to pozsony (pressburg, later renamed bratislava and now in czechoslovakia). in bartok's childhood all these localities belonged to hungary and were within the framework of that large political unit called the austro-hungarian empire. the area was alive with national and cultural aspirations and with the tensions arising from them. the bitterness and dissatisfaction felt by the hungarians against the iron rule of the hapsburgs had been smoldering for a long time before bartok was born. it reached a climax in the war of independence of 1848, when the hungarians rose under kossuth's leadership and attempted to cast off austrian rule. after two years of fighting, the austrians won the war with russian help. kossuth found refuge first in turkey and later in the united states. the thirteen leading generals of the hungarian army were executed, and a reign of terror followed, which lasted more than a decade. in 1867 a reconciliation took place, but in spite of this the hungarians still felt that emperor franz josef was partial to austria and derelict in his duty as king of hungary. he spent no time in hungary and did not care to learn hungarian. a special grievance of the hungarians was that the language of the austro-hungarian army was german even in the specifically hungarian divisions (references to this are found in bartok's letters) . other countries of the empire (rumania, serbia, bohemia, etc.) were also seething with unrest, and an especially intense antagonism existed between hungary and rumania. the murder of the archduke in 1914 in serbia, which precipitated the first world war, rounded out the sequence of events. 91 this was the political climate into which bartok was born, and we can understand, in the light of this background, why his first composition, written at the age of eleven, already dealt with geographical realities and was entitled the stream if the danube. it is of almost symbolic significance that the young bartok attempted in this first work to integrate austere german melodies with light austrian tunes. these are followed by hungarian folksongs signaling the entrance of the danube into hungary at deveny; rumanian and bulgarian tunes later represent the course of the danube through these countries on the way to her final destination in the black sea. more will be said later about bartok's early, intense patriotic feelings, but first a picture of his family environment and the history of his early years should be given. these facts emerge partly from his short autobiography and from a brief biography written by his mother. bartok's parents were both musical. his mother was a schoolteacher and also gave piano instruction. his father-director of an agricultural school-was an amateur musician, played several instruments, and organized an orchestra in bartok's native community. bartok's first years were greatly influenced by a most unfortunate event: at the age of three months a smallpox inoculation caused an allergic condition, resulting in a painful skin disease. this skin condition, diagnosed as contagious, lasted five years and caused bartok great physical and mental suffering. it meant complete isolation from other children of his age and probably had a decisive influence on his character development. the complete loss of all outside contact must have been responsible also for the extremely close relationship that developed between him and his mother. according to his mother's biography, bartok was always a very serious and quiet child, who kept away from the games and other physical activities of his playmates, even after his recovery. at the age of seven, bartok was cast into still deeper gloom by the death of his father. to the widow now fell the task of bringing up young bela and his sister elsi, four years his junior. bartok received his first piano instruction from his mother; his lessons started when he was five. three years later his instructor in nagysz6116s foresaw a brilliant future for the young boy. systematic musical studies, however, were begun only in pozsony under the guidance of a very competent teacher. after graduation from high school bartok continued his studies at the royal academy of music in budapest. this separation from his mother in 1899 gave rise to an intensive correspondence between mother and son, revealing their devoted relationship. through this correspondence we gain a picture of bartok as a young student at the academy and learn about his first experiences away from home. his first year of study was interrupted by an attack of tuberculosis. complete rest and great caution were required, as reflected in the anxious tone of his mother's letters. bartok suffered mostly because he was required to be separated from his piano. at the end of three months, however, he had recovered completely. 92 bartok was slow to make new friends in the noisy capital and attempted to share everything, even his musical experiences, with his mother. a letter dated february 18, 1900, illuminates this close relationship: last week i studied the score of rheingold. i found many interesting things which i had never seen before. it is scored for a great number of instruments: 1 small flute, 3 large flutes, 3 oboes, 1 english horn, 3 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet .... after describing the complete score he continues: in some instances there were more than 30 lines in the score. (i really don't know whether all this interests you.) incidentally, i was told that this is really nothing; professor szabe has score paper with 60 lines, because he is using so many instruments.-the cake was good.-next week i shall write two post cards, and a letter will be due on the following monday. melodies are frequently jotted down in his letters, sometimes in the form of a musical quiz. in one of his early letters he constructs a puzzle out of the ring motive from wagner's tetralogy. at other times he gives his mother and sister the task of finding the texts of hungarian folk songs, the melodies of which he gives in the correspondence. the smallest details of his finances are frequently recurrent topics. the following excerpt is from a letter dated march, 1903: something prosaic: you told me already at christmas that my pants and shoes are torn. i have worn them up to now-and i have only just bought new ones for six forints. he writes to his mother in the same year about the reaction of his friends to one of his first compositions: one person found that it sounds like strauss; professor thoman said it has a brahmsian flavor; dohnanyi said it sounds like modernized tchaikowsky-somebody else again heard wagner's influence. that shows that nobody was right. the fact is that it has its oddities. for example, it starts with the following chord: isn't it beautiful? we learn from bartok's autobiography that by the time he came to budapest he had acquired a fairly thorough knowledge of music from bach to brahms. at the academy he studied wagner and liszt. he later wrote that 93 at that time he had still not grasped "liszt's true significance for the development of modern music." the next important influence was, according to the biography, that of richard strauss. bartok states: ... i was roused as by a bolt of lightning by the first performance of also sprach zarathustra in budapest (1902); ... it filled me with the greatest enthusiasm. letters to his mother from 1903 tell us that he had memorized the heldenleben in piano arrangement and amazed his professors and colleagues by performing it from memory. this feat brought him his first appearance abroad. he was invited to repeat the performance of heldenleben in vienna and won the acclaim of hanslick and other reviewers. hanslick said, according to bartok: by all means he must be a musical genius; it is a pity, however, that he specializes in strauss. the strauss spell did not last long, however, and after a period of renewed study of liszt and debussy there is no evidence, either in the autobiography or the letters, that bartok concentrated on the study of any single composer. he had now become a composer in his own right. at the same time he became deeply interested in hungarian peasant music, which had a decisive influence on his musical development. if the question is raised as to the motivation that started bartok on his search for the halfforgotten hungarian peasant music, the answer is indicated in his letters of the time. their main theme is an intensely patriotic feeling and a complete identification with everything genuinely hungarian. it is only natural that, as a musician, he focused his attention on the investigation of true hungarian music. nationalism the strength of bartok's pro-hungarian and anti-hapsburg feelings is revealed by his kossuth symphony, written in 1903. a tone poem along the lines of the straussian models, its ten-part story was also written by bartok. the work starts with a characterization of kossuth, sounding a warning of the danger menacing the country. the warning is followed by a call to arms. a sinister theme, played by the bass clarinet, symbolizes the tyranny of the hapsburgs. later the distorted version of the austrian national anthem signals the death-struggle resulting in national catastrophe. the country mourns; but even mourning is banned, and therefore the motto of the last section is "everything is quiet .... "1 bartok's opposition to the hapsburg regime is also reflected in a letter from the same year. he writes to his mother: do you know why the opposition is struggling and filibustering in the parliament? the issue is whether it should remain austro-german, as 94 the situation shamefully existed before, or whether our army should be hungarian from now on. at last the opposition grew tired of the endless empty promises of the government .... the ministers dare only defend the status quo because he who is called the king of hungary wishes it so. as things stand, there is really no hungarian king. only a hungarian can be the king of hungary .... god save the hungarians and save them from the hapsburg family. unfortunately, even god is unable to carry out my second wish .... in another letter, also from 1903, he wrote even more bitterly: the present conditions dangerously resemble the situation that existed before 1848. the hungarians have awakened from their inertia and are demanding their rights. the croatians, too, are revolting, and the most wise secretary of war is issuing the most stupid decrees, stirring up the situation even more. and the good hungarian king! the constitutional king. he dares to state that it is his privilege to decide what should be the language of command in the hungarian army. a hapsburg as a constitutional king amounts to an iron ring made out of wood.2 a hapsburg does not have the least understanding, and even a feebleminded person's insight is superior to his. a few months later he wrote to his mother: in case you should meet rigele, tell him not to invite the archduke. i am not going to play for such bribing, criminal murderers. his complete dedication to his country is summed up in a letter (september 8, 1903) to his mother: it will be the downfall of the nation that every single hungarian is so completely indifferent with regard to everything hungarian .... we are sinning, all the time, in everyday life, in every small matter against the hungarian nation, because we don't care whether somebody speaks hungarian; neither does it matter how he uses our only and beautiful language .... it is imperative that every youth, when he reaches maturity, should decide for what ideal he wants to struggle .... as far as i am concerned i shall serve but one purpose in my whole life with all means at my disposal: the best interest of the hungarian nation. unfortunately, even in my own home there are many things which ought to be corrected. i was sad to see during my last stay at home, that even you and my sister were committing the above-mentioned sins. do speak hungarian among yourselves! ! ! it would be terribly embarrassing for me if you, visiting me, were to address me in german in the presence of my friends, who are familiar with my way of thinking. they would think i am only giving lip-service to that cause .... it would be very sad, indeed, if those who are closest to me were not to cooperate.3 this letter throws light on the fact that the source of this strong patriotic feeling was not his home environment. an almost childish chauvinism is shown in a letter (1905) from paris in which he reported with satisfaction that 95 he could find all the major hungarian newspapers at the newsstands and added that it gave him pleasure to see that rumanian, croatian, and polish papers were not available. it is quite logical, as has been said before, that a composer who dedicated himself as ardently to the hungarian cause as did bartok should investigate its greatest treasure for a musician: its almost forgotten peasant music. bartok soon became aware of the fact that the pseudo-hungarian music that inspired brahms and liszt to write "hungarian" rhapsodies and dances was very different from the old, genuine hungarian folk music. the only way to find this treasure was to travel to remote parts of the country, where this music still lived, and to obtain first-hand knowledge of it. thus resulted bartok's famous folk music expeditions, first to many parts of hungary and later to rumania, slovakia, and as far as turkey and north africa. in addition to his creative genius bartok had the searching and analytical mind of a scientist. as a result ofthese trips and studies, a monograph was published on hungarian folk music and, many years later, a book on serbo-croatian folk songs.4 both works are models of methodology and analysis and are considered basic studies in the field of folk music research. the other result of these travels was the effect of this music on bartok the composer. he completely assimilated the folk idiom, so that it became his musical mother tongue, in contrast to composers who used folk songs merely as fertilizer for their own melodic invention. bartok succeeded in creating a unique style by integrating this folk idiom with other elements of contemporary european musical developments. humanism the moment when bartok extended his trips beyond the geographical boundaries of hungary was a highly significant one, marking a new phase in his maturation. the early, strongly nationalistic feeling gave way to a deep humanistic attitude. he realized that folk music of all nations is an international treasure, and that it has the power to unite all nations. he frequently emphasized that he had never found a folk song in which the words expressed hatred or hostility toward other nations. bartok maintained that common people, as a rule, felt friendly toward other countries, and that hostilities were created by the ruling circles. in view of bartok's past, it seems almost paradoxical that after publishing some rumanian folk music he was accused in chauvinistic quarters of being a traitor. bartok himself never belonged to any political party. he probably sensed that politics always implied compromising truth and freedom, so that he had to remain in isolation. as bartok matured he became increasingly aware of the cultural weakness of the hungarian "intelligentsia." he wrote to a childhood friend in 1905: the hungarian middle class has no sensitivity with regard to national art. there is nothing to be done with the concert audience in budapest. increasing bitterness was indicated in a letter written two years later to his mother: 96 with the hungarian fo01s-1 refer to the concert audiences-1 shall not struggle any more. let them drown in their own merry widows and other operettas. it seems to me that every serious cultural production has to be taken abroad. as he realized that he had nothing in common with the group to which he belonged by birth and by education, and also that there was no other group with which he could identify himself, he was more and more overcome by loneliness. he wrote to his mother from paris in 1905: in spite of the fact that i have meals with a dozen people-cubans, north and south americans, spaniards, etc., in spite of the excursions with germans and turks, i still feel lonely. although i am aware that i have friends in budapest and vienna, i have, nevertheless, suddenly realized that i am completely alone. i know it, i can foretell it: this intellectual loneliness will be my fate. i am looking and searching for an ideal companion, but i know very well that it is futile. even if i should find somebody, i know that, after a while, disappointment will follow. although resignation seems to be in complete contrast to the abovementioned searching, little by little i acquiesce in the thought that there can be no other solution. as a consolation i can offer this to others: one has to rise mentally to a height whence one can view conditions with a quiet detachment and complete indifference. it is extremely difficult to do this. however, to acquire this ability is the greatest triumph we can have over ourselves and over everything. i have felt temporarily that i have reached this height, but this feeling has been followed many times by struggle and defeat. when will i succeed in remaining on top? the same feeling was expressed again two years later in a letter to stefi geyer, a concert violinist: after having finished your letter, i have the sad feeling that i shall have no other consolation in my life but music. one is reminded by these letters of beethoven's thoughts, which he expressed in a letter to his friend wegeler in 1805: "resignation! what a wretched refuge and yet the only one open to me;" and also, in his journals in 1812: "for thee there is no longer happiness except in thyself, in thy art." there are many parallels between the struggles of beethoven and bartok; an important difference is, however, that bartok found considerable happiness in his family life. he married twice and had a son by each marriage. the first marriage ended in divorce, when bartok fell deeply in love with a former student, ditta pasztory. the second marriage took place in 1923. the fact that his second wife was a concert pianist inspired bartok to compose the sonata for two pianos and percussion, a work they performed frequently on european and american concert tours. the happiness of his immediate environment, however, did not change bartok's feelings of loneliness and isolation. his strong craving to identify himself with a larger group than his microcosm held remained unfulfilled. 97 this fact must be viewed against the stratification of hungarian society. as already pointed out, bartok's own class, the hungarian bourgeoisie, was alien to him both culturally and ideologically. the hungarian peasant, on the other hand, had for hundreds of years lived an almost animal-like existence under hungary's feudal system, and while bartok was strongly drawn to their cultural heritage, he could not consider this group as his own. the remaining group, the aristocracy, was alien to him for two reasons: the idea that a person or a group could have privileges gained only by birth seemed absurd to bartok; and the hungarian aristocracy, with its german orientation and its affected mode of living, repelled him. a letter of 1906 reports a meeting with the countess de hoyes: the most gracious countess de hoyes, offspring of members of the imperial secret council, has arrived .... the barbaric hungarian conversation gave way to the mellifluous teuton idiom .... the countess is as cold as the franz josef land [in the arctic ocean] at christmas time. the blood freezes in our veins when we see and hear her. english etiquette is strictly followed at meals. however, i like dissonances, and just for the fun of it i appeared in my sport shirt and worn shoes in this formal atmosphere. the structure of hungarian society being what it was, bartok was fated to remain in isolation. he looked in vain for a group with ethical and cultural values similar to his own. the outbreak of the first world war in 1914 was a hard blow for this man who had always hoped for understanding between all peoples. there are few letters left from 1914-19, but the words uttered by beethoven in 1809: what a disturbing wild life all around me, nothing but drums, cannons, men, misery of all sorts . . . could have been written by bartok a hundred years later. in 1919, for the first time, bartok thought of leaving hungary. the idea was expressed in a letter to his mother: i am waiting and waiting; one cannot move. i have already tried to investigate various possibilities in three foreign countries. although i could make a living here, i could not work as i would like to for at least ten more years .... everything is disintegrating ... and the best are persecuted. there are few letters dated from the next decade. bartok concertized extensively during these years; he toured the united states and soviet russia and also visited turkey to collect folk songs. the rise of fascism and the weak efforts of the league of nations filled bartok with bitterness. a letter from geneva in 1931 to his mother described vividly the futility and inertia of the actions of that world organization, whose task it was to prevent war: 5 98 the following topics were discussed: an english poet (paeta laureatus) was complaining bitterly that too few poems are recited in public and that, even when it is done, it is done badly. valery added that the reason is that this subject is taught badly in schools. a resolution was made that the radio stations should be asked to have more poems recited on their programs and that an effort should be made to keep these recitals on a high level. (this will have no practical results.) another resolution was to urge the movie industry that at every performance, in addition to the main feature, an educational film should be shown. (they will ignore our resolution and will continue to play what brings in more profit.) it was very amusing how one speaker reacted to the next. all started out expressing their immense pleasure and deep satisfaction with the ideas of the previous speaker. then it turned out that these ideas had to be changed slightly, or that they could not be carried out or that they were downright wrong. finally it slowly emerged that nothing the previous speaker had said was any good. courtesy, however, is the most important thing. the topic of fascism, which represented the antithesis of everything in which bartok believed, gained importance gradually in the letters. he wrote to a friend in 1937: originally we intended to go to italy (the dolomites), but my hatred for italy has been so intense of late that i am simply unable to set foot on the soil of that country. this might seem to be an exaggerated viewpoint, but i would like not to be disturbed, at least during my vacation, by italian aggressiveness.6 i was told, however, that the nazi poison has already penetrated into austria, but at least there it is not so much in evidence. a few weeks later, after austria's incorporation into nazi germany, bartok wrote a significant letter (dated april 13, 1938) to a friend, a mrs. muller, in basel: those days, when austria was being overrun, were horrible for us .... i would like to add one more thing that is terrible for us: that is, the immediate danger that hungary will capitulate to that criminal regime. the question is only: when? how i could live and work (which amounts to the same) in such a country, i cannot imagine. my duty really would be to emigrate as long as it remained possible .... unfortunately, in hungary almost every "christian" cultured individual is in sympathy with the nazi system. i am really ashamed that by birth i belong to that class. my position personally is quite bad, because both my publishing company7 and the a.k.m.8 have been nazified and the executives simply thrown out .... yesterday i received the infamous questionnaires, asking for information about my grandfathers, etc. they contained such questions as: "are you german, or do you belong to related races, or are you non-aryan?" naturally neither kodaly nor i will fill 99 out these blanks. our standpoint is that such questionnaires are illegal and lawless. (in a way i am sorry that we did not fill out the forms, because in answering the questions we could have made good jokes. we could have stated that we are "non-aryans" because, in the final analysis, and also according to the dictionary, aryan means indoeuropean. we hungarians are finno-urgic, that is, non-european, and consequently non-aryans. to another question: "when and where were you wounded?" i would answer: "on march 11, 12, 13, 1938, in austria.")9 in that same year bartok banned the performance of his works in all nazi countries. a letter of october 1938 shows the keen perception with which bartok followed world events. he gives in this letter a detailed analysis of the hitlerchamberlain meeting and of the resulting appeasement in munich. he adds: thus the influence of this system [nazi] of lies will spread more in europe. one has to go somewhere, but where? i live even more withdrawn-if that is possible. i don't feel like seeing people; everybody who lives is potentially a nazi .... it is a painful situation .... i would like to finish my work before the imminent world catastrophe. the course of european events of the next few years is reflected in a letter of april 1940 to mrs. muller: i don't have to tell you how everything else affects me. i feel unable to write letters filled with complaints; on the other hand, i don't approve of a "keep smiling" attitude either. what a dilemma .... a few months later he wrote to a friend: as a result of the events i cannot compose .... only wotan (and his earthly ruler) knows what the future will bring. finally the day came (october 12, 1940) when bartok, in his sixtieth year, left hungary and went into voluntary exile, bound for the united states. an excerpt from his will, made out a few days before he departed, is quoted here: my burial should be as simple as possible. in case, after my death, they should want to name a street after me, i have the following wish: as long as the former oktogon square and the former korond10 bear the names of those individuals,l1 or as long as any public street, square, or building is carrying their name-no public street, square, or building shall bear my name. en route to lisbon, where he was to embark, he stopped for a day in geneva, and from there he wrote to mrs. muller: this trip is a leap into uncertainty, instead of staying in a situation that is unbearable. god only knows how long i'll be able to work abroad .... but there is nothing one can do about it; no question can be raised; it has to be this way. 100 thus bartok left his native hungary. can a more painful transplantation be imagined? exile at the end of october, 1940, bartok arrived in new york. he had visited this country twice before, and so he was not a complete newcomer. his first impressions about the new world were expressed in earlier letters, reporting on a transcontinental tour in 1927-28. a letter from seattle (january 18, 1928) gives some of these impressions: ... people are very friendly everywhere. they take us for rides and are sorry if the weather does not permit this. they show great interest in progress in everything, but sometimes it is hard for them. all cities are very new, and every cultural movement has just recently started. as an example, seattle had 3,000 inhabitants in 1880; today the population is 400,000 .... this country is immensely large; yet distant places are very similar to each other. i travel a distance equivalent to that from madrid to moscow and find the same type of buildings, people, and food. however, in 1940 a more permanent adjustment was necessary. bartok made a courageous start. he wrote a few months after his arrival: my head is full of all kinds of new words, names of subway stops, streets, data of timetables, etc. all these things are necessary knowledge, but otherwise useless .... it was not easy for us to learn how to deal with various electrical devices and gadgets, with can openers, etc. however, by now we master these tasks fairly well. half a year after his arrival he stated: there are three things i could not get used to: (i) to the ruminating people (every second person is chewing gum), (2) to the half-darkened railway coaches, and (3) to pay by check. the first year passed fairly well, but one year after his arrival bartok wrote with bitterness to a former pupil (mrs. creel) in seattle: ... the letter which i planned to write would have been very unamerican-complaints and more complaints. (here we always have to feel fine, even if half dead). the only bright spotis my work at columbia: the study of serbo-croatian folk material which belongs to harvard university. unfortunately, however, my appointment is only temporary, and my work might have to remain unfinished, and so even this leaves me with a bitter taste. if i tell you that for the coming season we have only one orchestral engagement and a few more lectures and lecture recitals, you can imagine how uncertain our situation is. in the next year bartok's situation deteriorated; he also suffered from unexplained fevers. he wrote to mrs. creel on march 2, 1942: 101 · .. our situation becomes worse from day to day. all i can say is that never in my life, since i have earned my own living, have i found myself in such a horrible situation as seems to lie before me, in the very near future .... i have lost my trust in people, in countries, in everything. his appointment at columbia expired on january 1, 1943, before he had finished his work. but he suffered even more from the fact that his works were so infrequently performed. he wrote to mrs. creel (december 31, 1942): it seems that my career as a composer has come to an end. my works are almost completely "boycotted" by the leading orchestras. they perform neither my new works nor the old ones. this is very shamefulnaturally not for me. in february 1943 his physical condition suddenly worsened. in addition to his fever, he suffered from rheumatic pains and also lost a great deal of weight. he reported in one of his letters that he was down to a "ridiculous" weight of 87 pounds, and summed up the situation in a letter on june 28, 1943: there is no hope of recovery, and it is out of the question to accept a position .... now we go to saranac lake at the expense of as cap. by the end of september all our money will be gone, and i have no idea what we'll do. in 1944 his condition improved, but only on the surface. his doctors knew by this time that the diagnosis was advanced leukemia and that the end could not be far off. a letter of august 1944 indicates that bartok must have been aware of this: i am glad about the good news,12 i feel, however, that everything comes too late. probably too late for me, and surely too late for those who are being murdered by the nazis. at the end of 1944, ascap and boosey and hawkes (his american publishers) provided him with modest financial security for the next three years. in one of his last letters (july 1, 1945) bartok for the final time expressed the hope of returning to his native country. he wrote: i get very depressing news from hungary: terrible destruction, famine, menacing chaos. as i see it, for the time being we cannot think of going back, although i would like to return-and for good. three months later, on september 26, 1945, bartok died and his voluntary exile came to an end. in 1946 a street was named after him in budapest, at a time when-in accordance with bartok's wish-no street, square, or public building bore the names of the fascist dictators. this rounds out the picture of bartok in relation to his times. he strove for freedom and justice and fought constantly for those principles. his battle was at first directed against the oppression of the hapsburgs and against the injustices of the feudal system; later he struggled against fascism and war. 102 his voluntary exile had the same symbolic significance as the stand taken against fascism by men such as mann, toscanini, and casals. his name and theirs will endure as symbols of courage and idealism. l3 notes 1 the kossuth symphony had its premiere in budapest in 1904 and met with considerable success. 2 a hungarian idiom signifying an attempted transformation which by its very nature is completely impossible. 3 this letter was written on white stationery, and the words were underlined with red and green ink. red, white, and green are the hungarian national colors. 4 hungarian folk music (london, 1931). serbo-croatian folk songs, in collaboration with albert b. lord (new york, 1951). bartok's rumanian folk music, ed. benjamin suchoff (the hague, 1967), was published after this article was written. fi bartok was attending the meetings of the league of nations as a cultural delegate of hungary. 6 a reference to the italian invasion of ethiopia. 7 universal edition. s autoren, kom,bonisten und musikverleger. 9 the days of austria's takeover by the nazis. 10 oktogon and korond were two squares in the heart of budapest. oktogon was changed to mussolini square, and korond to hitler square. 11 bartok, as an expression of his deep contempt, did not soil his pen with mussolini's or hitler's names. 12 a reference to allied victories in france. 13 as this journal went to press, an english translation of bartok's letters was published: bela bartok letters, ed. janos demeny, trans. peter balaban and istvan farkas, rev. elisabeth west and colin mason, preface by sir michael tippett (london: faber and faber, 1971). 103 neal zasla w editor associate editors alex blachly shai burstyn l. michael griffel margaret ross griffel paul helmer walter hilse david josephson raymond kennedy mary obelkevich rose rosengard libby rubin mildred shapiro executive secretary assistant editors: josephine mongiardo mary peckham cornelia weininger william payne business manager editorial assistants: kathryn bumpass, isabelle emerson, sue kenyon,joan long, gianfranco monacelli, sidney moore, leonie rosenstiel, lillian steiner, carolyn whittaker, judy zessis editors-at-large: austin clarkson jamie croy kassler joel newman faculty advisors ernest sanders copyright © 1968, department of music columbia university, new york printed in great britain corresponding editors domestic raymond kelton daniel l. farber mrs. betty jo wareham richard d. dinwiddie gary zeller stuart chasnoff mrs. barbara hampton mrs. bea friedland kathryn bumpass graham hardie jon appleton lucy dyal lowell lindgren michael williams judith fiehler j. theodore johnson john carroll collins howell price ernest may floyd g. sumner bruce carr william mahar mrs. margaret johnson mrs. muriel waterman laurence brillson john baker kenneth peacock orin moe, jr. mrs. ellen t. winter harlan d. mcconnell david leese jerald c. graue william b. pepper robert d. oursler lee patrick thomas stoner warren spaeth thomas,w. warburton charles sigmund dan broucek don gillespie elizabeth berry peter bloom norris l. stephens priscilla m. drucker george s. james, iii zenoby lawrshyn jean m. walkinshaw edgar j. lewis robert j. nicolosi caitriona bolster boston university, boston, mass. brandeis university, waltham, mass. carnegie-mellon university case western reserve university, cleveland, ohio catholic university of america, washington, d.c. city university of new york, brooklyn college, brooklyn, n.y. city university of new york, city college, new york, n.y. city university of new york, queens college, flushing, n.y. columbia university, new york, n.y. cornell university, ithaca, n.y. dartmouth college, hanover, n.h. florida state university, tallahassee, fla. harvard university, cambridge, mass. indiana university, bloomington, ind. louisiana state university, baton rouge, la. new york university, new york, n.y. north texas state university, denton, tex. ohio state university, columbus, ohio princeton university, princeton, n.j. rutgers university, new brunswick, n.j. state university of new york at buffalo, buffalo, n.y. syracuse university, syracuse, n.y. tulane university, newcomb college, new orleans, la. university of arizona, tucson, ariz. university of california, berkeley, calif. university of california, davis, calif. university of california, riverside, calif. university of california, santa barbara, calif. university of chicago, chicago,lll. university of colorado, boulder, col. university of hawaii, honolulu, hawaii university of illinois, urbana, ill. university of iowa, iowa city, iowa university of kansas, lawrence, kan. university of kentucky, lexington, ky. university of maryland, college park, md. university of miami, miami, fla. university of michigan, ann arbor, mich. university of minnesota, minneapolis, minn. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of oregon, eugene, ore. university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. university of rochester, eastman school of music, rochester n.y. university of southern california, los angeles, calif. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. washington university, st. louis, mo. yale university, new haven, conn. foreign karl-werner giimpel laszlo somfai ladislav burlas alan brown anna amalie abert reinhard gerlach don harran reiner kluge winfried kirsch hubert unverricht othmar wessely eberhard klemm mrs. olga mikl6ssy rita egger theodor gellner bernd baselt j. d. bergsagel horst heussner john c. g. waterhouse willem elders axel helmer se6irse bodley josephine m. mason niels martin jensen michael tilmouth georg borchardt anthony ford anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec ian d. bent john steele marie briquet robert guilloux richard marlowe ludwig finscher georgio pestelli j. e. maddrell hans conradin ake berglund m. witte albert-ludwig university, freiburg, germany bartok archives, budapest, hungary bratislava university, bratislava, czechoslovakia cambridge university, cambridge, england christian-albrechts university, kiel, germany georg-august university, g6ttingen, germany hebrew university, jerusalem, israel humboldt university, berlin, germany johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany johannes gutenberg university, mainz, germany karl-franzens university, graz, austria karl marx university, leipzig, germany karlova university, prague, czechoslovakia leopold-franzens university, innsbruck, austria ludwig-maximilians university, munich, germany martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, germany oxford university, oxford, england phillips university, marburg, germany queens university, department of extra-mural studies, belfast, ireland state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university college, dublin, ireland university of birmingham, birmingham, england university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, yorkshire, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of otago, dunedin, new zealand university of paris, paris, france university of paris, paris, france university of southampton, southampton, england university of the saarland, saarbriicken, germany university of turin, turin, italy university of york, english department, york, england university of zurich, zurich, switzerland uppsala university, uppsala, sweden westfalische wilhelms university, munster, germany communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the university unless otherwise noted. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york katharine caldwell jamie croy kassler se6irse bodley hubert unverricht hans conradin georges franck walther siegmundschultze thurston dart linda e. correll michael shapiro frederick hudson don harran reports 7 from the domestic corresponding editors: events on 20 american and canadian campuses from the foreign corresponding editors 45 hull: conference of research students in music 47 london: cybernetic serendipity 60 dublin: curriculum at university college 62 mainz: musicology since 1946 64 zurich: methodology at the musicological institute 65 budapest: second annual bart6k conference 68 halle: handel opera renaissance 75 announcements 77 editorial articles 81 comments on current musicology's methodology project 87 structural revisions in the string quartets opus 41 of robert schumann 97 music and song in plays acted by children's companies during the english renaissance iii bach's wedding music 120 musical research in israel dissertations robert l. marshall 129 richard carroll davis "titles of dissertations" self parody among the cantatas of johann sebastian bach bibliographica 135 announcement: performance practices bibliography 136 contributors i am inclined to believe that in our literature there are lots of "pieces" which we call compositions, and lots of compositions which we do not recognize as such because they are seen as subordinate to a higher order which is non-compositional. the investigation of musical structure remains the primary task of the musicologist as a preliminary step to the understanding of the composition. by way of comparison, the contemporary theorist, frequently a composer himself, has been compelled by historical necessity to formulate the theoretical conditions governing much of the music of his 'time. in doing so, he has been much more successful than the musicologist concerned with the historical past. "form analysis" and "style analysis" in the traditional sense have failed to provide us with significant insight. robert l. hall, music as the form if world "if music," commands the duke in subjunctive uncertainty, "be the food oflove, play on." no lover would ever doubt that the music should continue; philosophers have never been quite sure. how can the mere patterning of outer sound create, of itself, inner emotion? or in any way express it? or does music merely symbolize emotion in some nonverbal way, presenting us with an analytical understanding of it? is music philosophy or is it feeling? from this central query our insight into the nature of music must stem. the nature of music must follow from the nature of man. of him we can say with certainty that he is conscious of a total world, earth and heaven, with which he must deal. the nature of that world, however, depends upon the fundamental way he happens to apprehend it. for a different person, for a different culture, for a different time of life, or even for a different mood, there may be a different way in which things are found to relate to each other and to the whole. a world, then, is the pattern of happenings within an over-arching form. it is an integrated way of experiencing the universe. the world pattern of a mere mood-say love or despair-is but a variation on the more basic world pattern of the individual, and this but a version ofthe underlying pattern of the culture, whose most fundamental form may persist, through various stages, over milleniums. the essential point to be understood about a world form is that it is a way of experiencing, not a structure of thought. only secondarily is it subject to conceptualization. true, we must conceptualize it in order to understand itthe philosophies of a period are different versions of this-but it need not be conceptualized in order to be lived. while a world form may feature, for example, salvation or the transitoriness of all things, and these may be conceptualized in the religion, science, or philosophy of the time, they are grounded in a way of experiencing which is prior to formulation. 4* 105 a world to him who holds it is objective reality. since it involves readiness to respond, it elicits certain constant preparatory muscular tensions. seen by another person as capabilities and propensities, it is character. ifshared, it is the character of the group or of the culture, their style of life, their way of being. what happens when the individual is faced with an urgent situation for which his world makes inadequate provision? his world recasts itself the best way it can for effective action while his body prepares for extraordinary activity. this correlated transformation of world and body is the nature of emotion. the emergency body measures (activities of the sympathetic nervous system) are basically the same in all cases. the kind of world transformation, and correspondingly, the kind of emotion experienced, ranges from the narrowing, constricting effect of fearful or humiliating situations to the broadening, expansive effect of joyful or love situations. if the effect persists but with the individual's awareness of the transformation, it becomes mood; if permanent, it is absorbed into the very nature of the objective world. if a world form is a pattern of experience, how is it constituted? its essence is rhythm in its broadest sense, that is, anticipated recurrence. all life consists of responses, innate or learned, for dealing with events which continually recur. it is fundamentally dependent upon being able to deal with like objects in like ways. it is equally dependent upon the remission between recurrences to provide for utilization, for rest and repair, for the necessary leverage for movement, and for a chance to deal with other functions. eating, breathing, walking, working all depend upon rhythmic alternation. in a human world the endless complexity of interlocking cross-rhythms are integrated into even higher rhythmic unities to enable us to deal with them overall. a world pattern is then the means for dealing by anticipation with the most underlying rhythm-the ultimate way of things, e.g. evil and salvation, or temporary meaningfulness and ultimate disintegration. in precisely what does this rhythm of experiencing inhere? we only know things in action, or with potentiality for action, and the space in which this can occur. now space can only be apprehended in terms of what can happen in it. for a physicist dealing with the reality of cosmological or sub-atomic space, or for a painter dealing with the significance of the space containing a given set of objects, the variable, almost plastic, nature of space reflecting the kinds of events able to occur in it is readily understood. the rest of us tend to conceive of space as a vast, uniform emptiness. this concept is useful for a number of practical considerations of distance and the interchangeability of volumes, but it is only an abstraction. while we may think of space that way, we actually experience it otherwise without often realizing it. occasionally the plasticity of space does become apparent to us-for instance, when we go back to a town we lived in long ago, or visit where we once worked, and its space seems to have shrunken along with our changed relationship to the place. or on other occasions we experience what we refer to as a certain 106 atmosphere, a sense of something in the air, meaning that there is the potential, experienced spatially, for certain types of things to happen. since space reflects potential occurrence, it is set up initially by actual happenings, motions which are then taken as repeatable. it is this expressive action space which is the pattern of expected recurrence, of rhythmic experience. space, so understood, is the form of world. art, including music, enables us to experience directly other more profound forms of world. to understand this we must remember that any relatively isolated group of elements, be they lines, sounds, body movements or whatever, if interrelated, create a space of their own. some elements are so reminiscent of actual experiences they tend to evoke corresponding responses. for example, the experience of accomplishment leading to new vistas is so like that of an actual upward ascent that certain rising lines re-awaken a tendency within us to respond that way. similarly, despair has a form ofletdown that certain downward lines tend to produce within us. in general, certain forms of line or color or volume or sound have dynamic qualities to which we react. the artistic creator, whatever his medium, combines such elements, building them rhythmically to create an experiential totality with its corresponding virtual space. this experiential space, reflecting the form of the work of art, is made to parallel the actual space which is the form of the basic cultural world. in so paralleling, it can provide a deep commentary on world in experiential terms-hence the profound significance of a great work of art. the sensation of our everyday world being transformed in the artistic experience of such an enriched world is the aesthetic emotion. it is in the perspective of this philosophy of world that i would like to recast a number of valuable insights of patricia carpenter's article "the musical object." let us consider first the analysis of the nature of sound as the foundation of music. the world as perceived by a human being is primarily a visual world full of basically tactual objects. in general, sound emanating from a seen object simply adds to the object's already established character. it is in bringing us the unseen that sound takes on a unique role: warning of hidden danger, foretelling unperceived goals, signalling the out-of-sight presence of loved ones. as such, we apprehend not the sound in isolation but the whole situation: the approaching heavy truck, the children at play. sound extends the immediate visual world and its space. except as a useful abstraction there is no separate acoustic world or acoustic space. rather, sound often transforms our perceived world. sound was the primary herald of danger in the primitive world, and often enough today the blare of a horn, or the shout of "look out!," or the screech of brakes, or the sudden piercing wail of a child in pain instantly transforms the significance of the world before us and galvanizes us into action, hopefully effective. thus sound instigates emotion. we are used to reacting to it. indeed, language capitalized on sound as the transformer of the significance of the perceived world, using it as its only 107 medium for tens of thousands of years, in tum enhancing its significance for us. the perceived world with its forms embedded in its space is built by us wholly on the ground of rhythm. what happens if some rhythm of sound is set up which by its nature will permeate that world and its space? in the extreme case, if the visual input is very narrowly restricted and the rhythm of a spoken chant given central attention, the perceived world may be completely wiped from consciousness and replaced by any other perceived world the rhythm-maker describes-this is the case of hypnotism. more typically, if, as in music, we build further rhythmic sound structures at different levels on top of a basic one, their total interrelationship creates a space which replaces the original space of the perceived world. the effect is world dramatically transformed-emotion, or when sustained, mood. the space of music is created by movement resulting from patterns of anticipated recurrence temporarily deferred. these patterns operate at various levels of rhythm: beat, meter, phrase, harmonic progression, or other unit of organization. it is a complex space, then, of tension and release, exactly that space which the mood created by the music would form in the world if created by an actual situation. the space of a particular mood created by the music may be exploited by words or actions, or both, which enhance the effect with an appropriate concrete situation-hence song, dance, marching music, opera, background music for drama. indeed some music practically compels physical activity by the listener. a musical beat is an alternation of impulse and release; the meter and rhythm depend upon regular alternations of strong and weak beats. we respond through our own inner tension and release. fail to provide adequate release by unduly strengthening the accent, by throwing in accents on the weak beat, or by cutting into the release of the beat itself, and the body feels forced to provide for itself the necessary release by actually moving on the next accent. however mood-producing, music must basically parallel the form of the cultural world, for mood is only a variation of this world. with regard to cultural world forms, we now come to the historical aspect of miss carpenter's paper and to a brief commentary on her distinction between primitive, medieval, and modem western musical apprehension. the primitive world with which we here wish to compare that of the west is essentially the neolithic as we understand it, reconstructed in part from the modem primitive and the similar stage in the development of the child. such primitive worlds can be broadly characterized conceptually as composed of basic events, eternally recurring, consisting in essence of the presence of the appropriate spirit-being. one coped with this world by invoking the needed spirit event. music was a major way of accomplishing this through its powerful compelling rhythms, supplemented by words and dance gestures, which suggested and often, indeed, produced the invoked event-be it sex or war. the parallel of musical pattern to world pattern could not be 108 more complete. the action space of both was the occurrence of the spirit event; what mattered was neither the overall structure nor the process as such of producing it, but, rather, the immediacy of the successful invoking. from his primitive world, man progressed through major stages of evolving consciousness in terms of deepening world pattern until he came to the post-classical age. throughout its history prior to this century, western culture dealt with that level of consciousness which organized world, conceptually speaking, as an underlying reality rationally giving rise to each surface aspect of nature. during the medieval period the world form was cast in terms of the divine containing within itself the rational ordering principle producing the universe. musically this was first accomplished by the powerful hypnotic rhythm of a solemn chant cast in the rational framework of the greek-derived modes, which created an experiential reality for the divinity expressed in the sacred words. the evolution of this world during the medieval period was in successive stages, each articulating more fully the over-all rationality of nature. within a rational framework of the rhythmic and melodic modes, the music supporting the divinity-evoking words increasingly elaborated the earthiness of folk music and dance rhythms-;:-as secular music, in turn, incorporated procedures of complexity from sacred music. the essence of all this music was neither the structure of the whole (although this factor was becoming more prominent) nor the process in its own right, but the successful invoking of divinity as central to the world space. by contrast, in the period from the 17th through the 19th century, the central place in the world space was increasingly occupied by underlying rational physical law. this abstract rationality was paralleled by the coming to the fore of purely instrumental music. the modes, each appropriate to a different type of mood, had afforded rational musical equivalents to different approaches to situations. they now coalesced into the major and minor scales, providing a new, more general framework for mood-structuring. the major scale could be considered the musical equivalent of the general form of taking a positive approach to a situation: proceeding up the scale to the tonic goal, there were two vigorous whole steps followed by the half step of "closing in," all repeated as a second stage of approach in the second tetrachord; the down side "leaving" was conversely reluctant. the minor scale was the reverse case: in the ascent, after the initial step, a half step preceded two wholes in each tetrachord, presenting the general form of reluctance to approach a situation; going down, there was the corresponding quickness to leave. the reduction of the modes, with their specific characteristics, to two general frameworks opened up a further change paralleling the increasing emphasis on a world of dynamic natural laws. compromises with natural systems of tuning enabled one both to maintain a basic form of major or minor and to vary this form subtly through scale transpositions. the possibility of dynamic change was created through a fundamental principle, 109 modulation-an exact parallel, to give one example, to the new scientific conception that a few fundamental laws of nature such as the law of gravitation could be dynamically applied to a variety of individual situations. (of course, further close musical parallels within this general framework can be cited to the more particular world forms of each era;) in order for a listener to appreciate such a unified musica] form, paralleling the new general form of world, he had to view the progress of the piece as a whole. if the complex sequential development of moods were to be grasped, the piece had to be seen in its totality. the listener's sole preoccupation with the moment-to-moment impact of a piece was thereby necessarily altered; the composition had to be seen as a separate entity, like an object which can be set apart at a distance and whose completeness creates a space of its own. it had to be appreciated as a total dynamic process, with a corresponding space formed of the interrelationship of all its elements from beginning to end. so considered, its space paralleled that of the basic world of the 17th through the 19th century. what then of today ? if the philosophy of world as here briefly outlined is valid, it must, ipsofacto, apply to itself. the world form of today then must be . precisely the reayization that the world is essentially human-formed. rather than residing in a set system of laws of nature, each system is relative to the observer. this is paralleled in music by the abandonment of classic triadic tonality as a structuring element, in favor of new modes of procedure. in the absence of such a culturally pre-given framework, both composer and listener are required to construct significance in relation to each new work. similarly, the exploitation of spontaneity and unpredictability emphasizes that meaning is whatever you choose to make it. so too, the strong syncopated rhythms of jazz project one forcefully out of this everyday world into more dramatic ones for the sheer experience of taking the trip. where it will go now, there is no telling. yet it is clear that music, like all art, in dealing with the experiential is as essential as science for the development of our consciousness of world. one can only say, play on. maria rika maniates, musical form: product and process since it is impossible in the short space allotted for respondent papers to discuss all the points raised by miss carpenter, i should like to focus on what is, to my mind, the most original contribution of her brilliant essay. her distinction between musical form as externalized product, or a whole piece of music, and musical form as internalized process, or a random series of musical events, yields extremely important ramifications for both our ontological and historical conceptions of music. to mull over terms such as "objective, articulated, spatial, organic, architectonic" is not to quibble over 110 .. • robert l. weaver florentine comic operas of the 17th century ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 58-5975), 1958. (366p., pas. film $4.85; university of north carolina diss.) william c. holmes robert l. weaver's dissertation is, without doubt, one of the most useful additions to our knowledge of seventeenth-century opera to have appeared in recent years. early florentine, roman, venetian, and neapolitan operas have previously been studied, at least to the extent of providing the serious student with a few basic biographicalbibliographical tools. this is not to say that, especially in the case of roman opera, nearly enough music has been made available in order to make it possible to reach definite stylistic conclusions. on the contrary, much more work will have to be done if we ever hope to unravel the complicated web of events which led to the well-known operatic masterpieces of the late 18th century. a certain lack of interest in the first century of opera perhaps explains this scarcity of basic studies. interestingly enough, most of the preliminary studies in 17th-century opera (with the notable exceptions of grout's short history of opera, anna amalie abert's claudio monteverdi und das musikalische drama, a few articles, and a handful of dissertations) were written more than thirty years ago. prevailing musicological interests change and with these changes, middle and late 17th-century opera has suffered neglect. one of the most important and astonishing lacunae in musical history has been florentine opera after the middle of the seventeenth century. rome, bologna, naples, and venice-to name only a few cities-have had their chroniclers of theatrical history, with which, of course, the history of opera is so intimately connected. as weaver points out in his preface, florence has not been so fortunate; there are few standard reference works dealing with theatrical life in that city. accordingly, weaver devotes 200 of the 366 pages of his dissertation to the academies, academic comedy, and the greatest florentine writer of academic comedies, giovanni maria moniglia (1624-1700) . the chapter headings in this section of the dissertation are as follows: the academies; g. m. moniglia; the academic comedies; the sources and structure of the librettos; comic operas in florence and at pratolino; the 18th-century critical view of 17th-century drama; and the melani family. the academy of the immobili was one of the most active of the 111 florentine academies and enjoyed the patronage of cardinal giovanni carlo de' medici. 1657 marks the first performance by the immobili of a comic opera at "their" theater, la pergola. between 1657 and 1662 there were 6 comic operas presented at the pergola. the projected seventh performance in 1662 was cancelled because of the death of cardinal giovanni carlo. the librettos of all of these operas were written by moniglia. interestingly enough, with the exception of the professional solo singers, all dancers, chorus members, etc. were noble members of the academy. indeed, as weaver remarks, "it is the stamp of the cultured amateur which in fact sets off the comic operas of florence in the middle of the century" (p. 84). the librettos especially of the florentine comedies are noteworthy for their economy of means and expression. this is in marked contrast to roman opera of the period, which relied heavily on complicated stage machinery. weaver's many allusions to "the roman and venetian spectacles" can, however, be misleading, for it is precisely the more economical means that set apart, generally speaking, venetian operas from roman. such a spectacle as cesti's ii pomo d'oro cannot be considered in the general picture since it is a gigantic exception to the usual theatrical ?tyle of venetian opera. and, as for roman comic operas, both chi soffre speri (1637 and 1639) and dal male il bene (1653 and many times later) are notable for the economy of means in their librettos. the intermezzi which close each act of chi soffre speri of course introduce lavish effects that have little if anything to do with the development of the plot, but the body of the opera is essentially simple and unadorned. in dal male, the number of dramatic parts is considerably reduced: there is no chorus and there are no intermezzi. weaver remarks that as moniglia grew older his librettos became simpler; the same can be said of giulio rospigliosi's aforementioned roman comedies. weaver's investigation of the influences of the improvised commedia dell' arte on mid-century comic operas is enlightening and whets one's appetite for further studies in this area. the braggart warrior, the old doctor, and the many types of comic servant found in these academic comedies can all be traced back to classical roman types, as moniglia himself wrote in the introduction to his works published during his lifetime. weaver aptly remarks that it is the academic environment into which these comedies were born which was responsible for their classical orientation. chapter vii introduces the melani family, that extraordinary group-almost all of which were musicians. atto, the famous singer, has certainly left posterity the most voluminous and colorful records of his life. his brother, the composer j acopo (1623-1676)' is the melani who most concerns us here, for he set five of moniglia's seven comedies to music. chapter viii deals with the first of these musical comedies, la tancia avera il potesta di colognole, a dramma rusticale, performed at the pergola in 1657. its extraordinary popularity can better be appreciated when one notes that its libretto was published 112 i • • six times in 70 years and that the opera itself was revived as late as 1727. the recitative of ii potesta is lively, especially in the comic parts. there are da capo arias, but these are assigned to other characters than the heroic lovers. interestingly, melani attached certain musical styles to the various types of characters, e.g., the comic parts are all in common time and major mode. i question weaver's theory that the typical mid-l7th-century mannerism of a slur "over the barline" from the leading tone to the tonic note should be performed other than as written (p. 230). weaver suggests delaying the leading tone until the following beat in order to create a dissonant appoggiatura which resolves upward. voice instruction manuals of this period never specifically mention this manner of performance and consequently one is left with the distinct impression that the slur should be performed as it is written on the page. goldschmidt long ago published some of the music from ii potesta in his studien zur geschichte der italienischen oper. a glance at these few pieces will convince any reader that weaver does not exaggerate when he calls it "one of the masterpieces of the century." chapter ix is devoted to a listing of the ballet-operas performed at the medici court. ipermestra in 1658 (moniglia cavalli) and ercole in tebe in 1661 (moniglia melani) were among the first formally defined court operas of the type which were a few years later to be performed in such capitals as paris and vienna. chapter x takes up one of the great, but little-known, operaburlesques of the 17th century: filippo acciajouli's ii girello, set to music by melani. after its first performance in rome in 1668, it was performed in a number of italian cities. some of these later performances, one of them staged with puppets, may have had additional music by other composers. the avvisi di roma described the opera as "un po' grassetta" (translated by weaver as "a trifle long," but probably more accurately rendered as "a trifle racy"). ii girello boasts, among other things, two full-fledged patter songs. however, though its comedy verges on the slapstick, its musical style is not at all venturesome. weaver's final chapter sums up his findings under the title "the melani rewarded." there are two appendices: a listing of the known compositions of jacopo melani (both scores and librettos), and all the operas and operatic entertainments performed in florence from 1597 to 1741 (arranged both chronologically and alphabetically by title). the reader can see that the main purpose of this dissertation is clearly to present hitherto uncollected bibliographical data; stylistic discussions of the music are held to a minimum. as such i have found this work to be an invaluable aid to the study of opera in the mid17th century. let us hope that some of the scores of the monigliamelani collaboration will be made available in the near future. william holmes is assistant professor of music at cornell university. 113 musicology and performance: the common ground dina koston the way in which one views the relationship between musicology and performance would, i think, be determined by one's idea of what an education in music should be. and i think that few musicians find themselves comfortable with their basic education. while it is true that all schooling, and especially professional schooling, is now being questioned profoundly, i believe, nonetheless, that serious problems of education in music in this country long antedate the current upheaval. obviously, one cannot be well versed in all aspects of music, particularly since musicologists have made available such a wealth of music, while travel and recordings have introduced music of other cultures. nevertheless, there must be some qualities common to all musicians. too often musicology becomes words without music, and performance, sound without meaning. hearing-how well the ear perceives-is the beginning. the acuity of perception of the qualities or properties of sound at any given moment and that same acuity of perception of the relationships of successive sounds are fundamental. there are so many different emphases that may be given to an organization of sounds that it is difficult to develop one's perceptions sufficiently to comprehend all of the music known to us. moreover, each person has certain proclivities or ways of hearing within the world of sound. but the scope of that hearing, along with the techniques of translating those perceptions into action, is what makes a professional musician. the latter is distinguished from the amateur with a well-developed ear by the consciousness of that hearing, by the ability to utilize it in ways beyond superficial imitation. furthermore, the professional musician must be able to experience these highly developed perceptions directly from the printed score: the score must be the sound. perhaps, with the amount and extent of music presently available, one could begin the study of theory in a different way. one might simply consider the properties of sound that can be organized, namely, length, range, timbre, and amplitude, and begin exercises in that primitive but more abstract way, thereby arriving at the traditional studies as special cases with particular emphases. this kind of beginning could facilitate hearing which aspects of sound were predominant at a given time and which were simply functions of other aspects. and, hopefully, one would experience both greater freedom and greater control over the use of these elements of sound. what does differentiate one musical specialist from another? given that all musicians have this highly developed, useful ear (or, more properly, "inner ear"), one might say that they are differentiated in great measure by the nonmusical aspects of their work. a musician becomes a performer by the 121 addition of considerable athletic and dramatic prowess; a historian, by skills in research, writing, languages, and possibly a gift for gossip; an aesthetician, by knowledge of philosophy and psychology. the composer and the theoretician are perhaps more completely involved purely in the organization of sound. the theoretician has the duty and the luxury of scrutinizing many techniques of composition. the composer, too, needs to investigate these but must then ignore many areas in order to develop fully his or her ideas and gifts. composing requires constant choice, and, therefore, constant relinquishment. i think that this listing of the nonmusical requirements of various musical specialties recalls the deficiencies mentioned earlier: many musical specialists concentrate on nonmusical aspects of their work to such an extent that it becomes uninteresting, misleading, or without center. this is not to diminish a real problem: the demands of each specialty are so great at present that it is difficult to achieve proportion. yet, i think that this is a period desperately in need of just that sense of proportion. and specialties change. for example, in recent years we have seen the reentry of physical scientists and mathematicians into the field of music. this fact has been responsible for both extraordinarily interesting developments and lamentably nonmusical conclusions. if one is connected with the world of sound in a direct way, then the changes can be a source of stimulation rather than of despair. my own schooling in music was in many ways typical for an instrumentalist. it began very early with "ear-training" and piano lessons. traditional theory studies were started in early childhood and were, perhaps, more extensive than is usual. let me hasten to add, lest it seem that i am promoting my own kind of schooling, that it has nonetheless been my deficiencies in music theory which have proven the most troublesome. there was a severe lack of rhythmic studies and a superabundance of traditional harmony (without real attention to the rhythm of harmonic change). there were years of counterpoint without careful attention to certain aspects of single-line construction, the kind of study necessary, for example, for understanding a bach solo cello suite and also crucial for the coherent hearing of webern (the registral stepwise connections). one can explain many of these things in a few minutes, but long studies (exercises) are required in order that they be sufficiently internalized as abstract principles of movement. i had no early education in pre-17th-century music; my later lack in that area was due to the peculiarities of my own schooling. that my experience was not totally idiosyncratic is borne out by my musician friends. and i do know that too much of my adult life has been occupied with filling gaps in my education. i am not referring to the kind of self-education that goes on forever; i mean basic gaps in schooling. we are living in times which offer too much exposure to an enormous variety of stimuli for us to depend upon purely imitative teaching (even with the most worthy model). this kind of teaching may be sufficient in a more 122 simple or closed society, where the exposure to limited stimuli permits a more profound engagement. the abstractions available through broad and thorough investigations in all the areas of music are crucial if we are to become anything other than victims, mindlessly latching onto what is at hand at the moment, with no real involvement. 123 special project in tribute to charles edward ives on the iooth anniversary of his birth once a nice young man ... said to father, "how can you stand it to hear old john bell (the best stone mason in town) sing?" ... father said, "he is a supreme musician." the young man (nice and educated) was horrified-"why, he sings off the key, the wrong notes and everything-and that horrible, raucous voice-and he bellows out and hits notes no one else does-it's awful!" father said, "watch him closely and reverently, look into his face and hear the music of the ages. don't pay too much attention to the sounds-for if you do, you may miss the music. ... " charles ives, memos, edited by john kirkpatrick (new york: w. w. norton, 1972), p. 132. while her analysis of "product" is carefully executed and provocative, her discussion of "process" seems to need further clarification. perhaps we can look forward to such a study in miss carpenter's future publications. richard l. crocker the articles by miss carpenter and myself have produced a gratifying divergence of responses. but if the respondents had difficulty responding to us, i, at least, find it impossible to formulate a response to them that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. in availing myself of this opportunity kindly provided by the editors, permit me to make only a very small point and a very large one. as to the small point, one or two of the respondents seemed confused as to my own position. i was, in fact, trying to be soft-spoken; now let me speak hard: the "common notions" i presented (i think they are clearly identified) are emphatically not my own. i fail to see how any intelligent person, upon due reflection, could continue to subscribe without qualification to those simple-minded ideas i put forward under a politely collective "we." i trust that no one shares the ideas in question; if someone does, he does not share them with me. mr. cone seems unwilling to believe that any intelligent person, even miss carpenter or myself, could really intend to take positions as unreasonable as our language might suggest. mr. cone seems sure that a quick trip to the dictionary will straighten us out. for my part, i must reluctantly assure him that my position is still as unreasonable as it first appeared to him. mr. cone's own position is, of course, quite clear. as to the large point: i found both encouragement and horror in the fact that miss carpenter and seemingly all the respondents either explicitly asserted the decisive importance of historical concepts in resolving questions of aesthetics, or else tacitly agreed to such importance by invoking historical ideas to illuminate their arguments. i myself happen to think that history provides the only reliable answers to such problems, but i did not expect to find a half-a-dozen aestheticians agreeing with me. from this i take encouragement. what horrifies me is the content of many of the historical ideas invoked. the basic categories in which we have been trained to think about music history are not merely open to question; when questioned seriously, they often turn out to embody outright fabrication with little or no meaningful relationship to observable fact. it would be hard to construct on purpose a more fantastic and unwarranted system of assertions about western society from 700 to 1500 than the system retailed under the heading "middle ages" in books in common use. but, you say, we are not here discussing the middle 114 ages. to that i reply that the very substance of many of the ideas advanced depends upon their being attached to an alleged historical period "ca. 14201910" and that this substance is clarified, "objectified," perhaps even defined by being distinct and different from "the medieval world-view." descriptions of european culture that contrast (no matter how tacitly) high-level generalities about the modern period with high-level nonsense about the medieval one risk serious difficulties. assertions that such-and-such (say, formal objectivity) is a distinctive feature of modern thought are weakened if suchand-such keeps popping up in medieval thought as well. my own feeling is that these observations apply, one way or the other, to many of the arguments presented in this colloquium. i would like to add that more is involved than just my own notorious idiosyncrasies. read a paragraph by william c. bark, in his book origins of the medieval world (doubleday anchor books, 1958, p. 109); he is speaking of conceptions of the middle ages: all the old views-the renaissance aesthetic contempt, the enlightenment's anticlerical sneers, the economic snobbery of the early twentieth century-are still alive. all are the products of ignorance and bias, the more surprising because proponents of these views abhorred those evils and thought they were free of them. all are primarily negative. all are quite wrong. and if we have been that badly informed on the first two-thirds of western history, how goes it with the last third? what is most horrifying is not that such arbitrary historical generalities exist, but that they are blandly accepted in our own field as if they were fact. well-educated, intelligent musicologists will diligently root out errors of terminology, bibliographic reference, birth dates of minor composers, or will argue endlessly (and sometimes with profit) about the function of a single note in a small piece; yet these same intelligent people may accept without a wince a statement such as, "the middle ages produced, not works of art, but a synthesis of the arts ... " it is not just the level of generality i call into question here, it is the truth of the assertion. i do not say that we can afford carelessness in detail; i merely say that we can afford it even less in our most high-level thoughts about history. to apply this summarily to the matter at hand, it seems to me that the idea miss carpenter constructs of the work of art in western culture was not the only one in force during the period she has in mind, was not the way europeans thought about music; and that this same idea could be applied with equal validity to certain kinds of pieces in music from the middle ages -or from other times and places. et sic de ceteris. it seems to me that western music, along those stretches known to me, shows such a variety of simultaneous alternatives that the attempt to marshal them behind a stately procession of weltanschauungen can only continue to yield unsatisfactory results. 115 " wha t should musicology be? edward a. lippman the recent book musicology} written by. harrison} palisca} and hood} contains a valuable summary of the development and state of musical scholarship in the united states. the authors acquaint us with our tradition} make known our achievements} expose our failings} and come to grips with important problems of method and purpose. it has been apparent for some time that musicology would not easily take root in this country. the discipline has been expanding} but hardly flourishing} making its way} but winning few friends. at the 8th congress of the international musicological society} which met at columbia university in 1961} our success in the eyes of the world made it all too clear that we lacked recognition at home. with the objectivity naturally possessed by an outsider} harrison examines our dilemma with great discernment. he is appalled at our inability to secure publication both for monographs and for scholarly editions} and points to our resultant failure to communicate with one another and with any larger public. he also finds that we have erred in neglecting the less pretenti6us varieties of music such as jazz and folk music} and indeed in neglecting the history of american music in general. most of all have we overlooked the larger social connections of music. we must broaden our concern} he counsels} and turn from style} taken as an autonomous phenomenon} to man and culture. musicology will then} we may hopefully expect} be more meaningful to both the world of scholarship at large and the general public. as harrison realizes} this view is quite consonant with that of the ethnomusicologist} and it is not at all surprising to find it in the foreground of mantle hood's discussion. the history of this field tends to emphasize the same d1.lality of approach} the germans concentrating upon specifically musical description and the americans more upon culture and the role of music in society. but style and structure must not only be supplemented edward a. lippman is professor of music at columbia university. 55 by study of the culture, hood maintains, they need also to be accompanied by the actual performance of whatever music we undertake to investigate. certainly this will broaden our conception of stylistic analysis, which has too often been restricted to a description o'f scalar systems and of those features of music that were most amenable to notation. again in agreement with harrison's view, alan merriam sees in the wider social and cultural significance of music the key that will release musicology from its isolation and make it meaningful to the general community of scholars. his book the anthropology of music, which is unfortunately full of jargon such as "culture history" and "music sound" that paradoxically makes it unclear and somewhat offensive to outsiders, is otherwise an interesting attempt to explore all the varied anthropological aspects of musicology. the ideal he holds up, however, is once more a combination of the social with the specifically musical approach. the same desire to encompass the two major traditions in ethnomusicology also underlies bruno nettl's conception of the field, and in his book theory and method in ethnomusicology, he proceeds systematically through the various phases of research, from the collection and analysis of data to the final questions of social meaning. to an ingenious organizational scheme he adds a fine grasp of each division of the subject. the first chapter presents an excellent summary of the history and changing definitions of ethnomusicology; and the pedagogical value of the work is increased by an appended series of exercises that illustrate every stage of the discussion. it is from an attitude in some sense "ethnomusicological", then, that new perspectives for musicology as a whole would seem to arise. even the apparently conventional introductory manual by lincoln spiess, entitled historical musicology, gives evidence of the same influence, particularly in short added tions that touch, however inadequately, on the linguistic problems of chinese, japanese, and slavic musicology. this is essentially a bibliographic work, but it again contains useful lists of problems for the student which may well suggest different kinds of research that would not otherwise occur to him. more generally, the divergent attitudes we find within ethnomusicology-those of the anthropologist and the musician, of the cultural investigator and the stylistic one-have their counterpart within musicology in the distinction between the general 56 and the specifically musical historian, between the cultural approach and the positivist or analytic one. but ethnomusicology does more than merely sharpen our understanding of this duality: it makes possible a world view of music in both its stylistic constitution and its human significance, and thus helps us to come to any particular investigation, such as that of european art music, not only with the added insight produced by the comparative study of any phenomenon, but with the widest possible conception of what music is as a whole. the ways in which this will affect the work of the historian of western music are subtle, but far-reaching. his evaluation and understanding of every manifestation he studies will be changed. but there will be concrete benefits as well as intangible ones, when matters of the diffusion of musical instruments are involved, for example, or of the impact of distant cultural areas, or of the interaction of folk music and cultivated music, of vocal and instrumental styles, of notation and performance practice. our task, then, is to broaden ouf vision, and especially, to pursue specific problems that are informed with larger issues. we must study music in the context of the whole of society and culture and of all mankind. in contrast, however, palisca argues for a more specific conception of musicology, and maintains that acoustics, physiology, and psychology should be excluded; our concern is really with music as a humanistic manifestation, and not with physics or the psychological laboratory. the natural sciences are in any event too difficult and technical to be learned by the musicologist; they call for special laboratories and equipment; and it is a fact, as palisca points out, that our musicological journals simply do not include articles on such supposed branches of the discipline. thus the original american acceptance of the grandiose getman plan for musicology, which can be seen in glen haydon's introduction to musicology, has given way to increasing specialization and a dangerous centrifugal tendency. the restricted range of most of our scholarly studies sharply contradicts the ideal of a cultural and world perspective, and it is to just such a perspective that physical and biological science 'will be found most relevant. other suggestions have been made from time to time, with the intention of bettering the fate of american musicology. of these the most popular recipe for success is that musicologists undertake to prove their value by showing performers how to 57 realize musical embellishments properly. such a humble role would of course neatly support the frequent criticism that our musicology is too positivistic, too occupied with the collection of data and the determination of detail. on the other hand, more concern with musical significance, with social factors, with basic conceptions of music, and with larger patterns of stylistic change would certainly secure our subject more respect and attention. there would be help to performers in this too, for a deeper understanding of each composition and its place in history would seem at least as valuable as a knowledge of correct ornamen ta tion. but any course that may be advocated by theoretical considerations must depend for its implementation upon capable and talented students. yet we cannot expect to attract undergraduates to a field neither they nor their teachers have any knowledge of, especially if its values and achievements are in fact not worth their attention. if musicology cannot enhance musical experience and understanding, it can hardly call for notice either from musicians or from scholars, but only from those of routine intelligence and little imagination, and we should not be surprised if students of superior mentality seem to wander into the field more by accident than design, or in default of any other pursuit more appropriate for them. we also must not overlook the obvious fact that musicology is an unusually demanding discipline for an american, for education in language and foreign cultures is pitifully small in this country, and even when a student possesses a high degree of musicality he often must spend a discouraging amount of time and energy in mastery of adjunct studies in language and general history. our major complaint must then be addressed, as it so often turns out, to earlier education, and even more correctly, to the whole temper and attitude of the society in which this education has its place. as a pragmatic culture, we are willing heirs -* to the english outlook that makes music an ornament of life, somewhat like food and wine, and we have traditionally regarded it, in a still more negative light, as a distraction and a '1\ thief of time. when we concern ourselves with history at all, it is with political and economic history----:with values that seem important because they make sense to us in the present. in particular, the average american is peculiarly unable to grasp music as a cultural-historical expression in the way in which 58 he understands painting and literature. as a result, while these latter arts take on a certain measure of significance and dignity, musical works are essentially gross stimuli without specific stylistic quality. in the response to music, historical awareness is absent, and the lisfener takes the indulgence of his feelings as the sole source of musical understanding similarly consists of a circumscribed tracing-out of repetition or sonataform, or of harmonic and polyphonic structure, all under the head of "appreciation" or "analysis". even the college curriculum in music is made up almost exclusively of courses in "music literature" and "theory". "musicianship" is accompanied by "ear-training," and followed by elementary harmony, intermediate harmony, advanced harmony, chromatic harmony, and keyboard harmony, and for those with strength to continue, by elementary counterpoint, advanced counterpoint, double counterpoint, free counterpoint, orchestration, form, and so on. it is as though the undergraduate student in french or german, for example, were to devote his academic career solely to language mechanics, taking spelling as a freshman, elementary grammar and dictation as a sophomore, and then intermediate grammar, advanced grammar, and composition as an upper classman. but a non-humanistic attitude is not far removed from an anti-humanistic one, and the "liberal arts" music student will naturally find no fault with the juke-box popularization of mozart or the whistled subway versions of beethoven's late quartets. indeed the desecration of musical works is often the product of good will and a democratic philosophy, although a mistaken notion of the accessibility of art provides the true basis. we can make natural science part of musicology or exclude it. we can undertake interpretive studies or confine ourselves to the cataloguing of facts. we can produce more and more editions of music and even secure a wider influence through the medium of newspapers and record companies, or radio and television. whatever course we adopt will be of relatively little effect on the ultimate place of musicology in the united states; it will not in itself provide respect or jobs or an audience for musicologists, nor will it make possible the publication and sale of serious books on music. even the enlightened revision of the curricula of primary and secondary schools and of colleges, and the encouragement of actual playing and singing will not make us experience music as a significant expression of culture in the 59 face of public attitudes and educational ideals that are deaf or hostile to musical values. the underlying social determinants of the place of music and ml1sicology resist change with a discouraging stubbornness; we can guess only that music and musicology have a common fate, and that a simple increase in the amount of musical activity will be of no avail if it is not accompanied by a deepened understanding and a new respect. our wisest course, for reasons of strategy as well as the advancement of knowledge, is to keep our discipline as wide and diversified as possible. but what musicology should be is less important than what american culture should be if musicology is to exist. references harrison, frank l., claude palisca, and mantle hood 1963 musicology. englewood cliffs: prentice-hall. haydon, glen 1941 introduction to musicology. englewood cliffs: prentice-hall. merriam, alan p. 1964 the anthropology of music. evanston: northwestern university press. nettl, bruno 1964 theory and method in ethnomusicology. new york: free press of glencoe. spiess, lincoln b. 1963 historical musicology. brooklyn: the institute of medieval music. 60 utrecht: class of '52 denis stevens almost every musicologist recognizes the importance of conventions-even those of the less conventional kind sponsored by the international musicological society. savoring more of the master class than the slave market, these meetings (now, alas, five years apart instead of three) bring together scholars and students from dozens of different nations, so that the general impression tends to be one of colorful eclecticism and exotic charm. the first meeting to take place after world war ii was at basel, but i found it impossible to attend since i was otherwise engaged. engaged to be married, in fact; and i had been gently reminded that the doctrine of sponsus amat sponsam would naturally exclude the possibility of a musicological honeymoon. i waited patiently for the next meeting-utrecht, 1952. increasing travel commitments to europe, for musical and musicological purposes, had begun to make my existence resemble that vie trifurquee of which liszt so often complained. my original plan was to attend the congress, and then go on to zurich where an orchestra was waiting for me to record some music by telemann. when i arrived in zurich, however, limp from a surfeit of dutch cuisine and international musicology, the news came through that the place for the actual recording had been changed to hilversum, so back we went to holland-my wife having traveled separately by the rheinpfeil since she was unable to find time for the congress. the kindly and hospitable dutch sensibly did very little to change the relaxed, sleepy atmosphere of the old university town of utrecht, which seemed to absorb without too much effort the ( sudden inundation of what doc davison used to call "schafters" intent on what edwardj. dent used to call "vidge."l they were a splendid crowd, young and old, male and female, professors and students; and needless to say there was an especially large contingent from germany. i had long looked forward to meeting some of the luminaries of that very musicological nation, and recall even now the conversations i had with rudolf von ficker; some of whose imaginative practical editions of medieval music i had produced for the bbg third programme. prominent among the seniores were jeppesen, smijers, and 166 angles, all legendary names then as now; and although i had already met van den borren in brussels and the countess de chambure in paris, it was heart-warming to see them once again in the midst of long-lost friends and colleagues. many of these came from america, and their remarkable contributions to scholarship were among the most talked-of subjects in the unofficial gatherings without which no convention would be really worth attending. dapper and delightful, dragan plamenac spoke about his faenza discoveries, while two centuries back the formidable manfred bukofzer linked together the twin phenomena of conductus and clausula with all the skill of a born scientist. it was an inspiration to me, this opportunity to speak with scholars whom i had known imperfectly only through their published work, but i was also slightly scared when bukofzer asked me to be his slide-operator. to project something the wrong way up or left-to-right during a lecture by this terrifyingly efficient figure would have been disastrous, but fortunately everything went well. when the countess de chambure lectured on the chansonnier nivelle de la chaussee, producing the original manuscript from her capacious handbag at a climactic point in the address,. excitement knew no bounds, for we recognized this as a gracious musicological gesture rather than (as it could have been, in lesser hands) a staged gambit pour epater les bourgeois. not everything succeeded in so rooting our attention. one paper appeared to consist of little more than a recitation of obvious errors in a medieval manuscript, the occasion being made all the more uncomfortable by the chairman's failure to stop this chronic logorrhoea, even when its time of expiration had long passed. another paper, delivered in heavily-measured, polysyllabic pseudo-english of a type now familiar from doctoral dissertations, left little more than an abstract impression in spite of the fact that the author-reader clearly thought of himself as some latterday moses propounding musicological law. as the bemused and bewildered audience left the hall, a tall, well-dressed gentleman across the 'aisle, speaking in a stagewhisper of no mean dynamic range, languidly summed up his own feelings: "well, fellers, don't blame us!" paul henry lang was referring to the american contingent, and his cautionary words were then, as so often later, both necessary and accurate. i found myself agreeing with him, in subsequent conversations, 167 that clarity of thought .and elegance of style were virtues frequently lacking in musicological matter; and that sheer weight of learning and bulk of research needed to call on those virtues for support and sustenance, rather than reject them out of hand. lang's manner was relaxed, casual, yet dignified. he seemed to have many friends, and one or two enemies. but he was obviously no harborer of grievances or resentments, for whenever somebody tried to cut him, he would wheel round, clap them on the back, and greet them with an affable "hi!" so that they would be bound to make at least a cringing acknowledgment. i was much amused, and not a little impressed, by this kind of diplomacy; yet it hardly prepared me for what followed in the business meeting a day or so later. the council of the society was one of those self-perpetuating, self-ossifying bodies which, with an unbelievable lack of tact, conducted its entire business in the german language. objections were made from the floor by the more vociferous of the french, english, and american contingents, but these had little effect since the teutonically inclined oherappellationsgerichtmitglieder apparently understood no english. as in similar confrontations (as they are now fashionably called) the tension rose because neither side understood what the other was talking about. at this point lang, who was known to most of us through his sinewy editorials in the musical quarter(y, stood up and gave them a long harangue in german, a lead which inspired bukofzer to do the same thing, only at greater length, the result of which was the removal of the entire council and the voting in of a new one. and that is how the )nternational musicological society became truly international. note 1 "schafters" is apparently derived from musikwissenschafter; "vidge" seems to be a corruption of some ancient payment in pennies, such as "item, to mr robert for ye tunynge of ye organys ..... vijd" -thus, any kind of dusty documentary research. 168 patricia carpenter the widely ranging and lively responses to the opening papers of the colloquium are gratifying and somewhat surprising: gratifying, especially because of the interest in confronting problems (in spite of difficulties in communication upon which we all agree) in an area where there is as yet no clearly formulated set of questions nor even a common applicable language; surprising, i found, because of the quickness with which were attributed to me positions that are not my own. read into the text were, on the one hand, value judgments i had taken care to avoid, and on the other, outworn historical views i had not considered to be still at issue. i want to speak to these two points-the normative and historical issues -because they bring to attention what seems to me a primary concern of a project such as this: our presuppositions. the purpose, as i see it, in drawing together assumptions that are (or have been) made is to be able then to question their meaning (not value) and to explore more fundamental structures that support them. for example, my restriction of the term 'artwork' to the narrow modern sense of "an aesthetically isolated, secularly created object" was not a devaluation of other productions, but an attempt to bring into focus one kind ofform. any specific manner of forming raises interesting technical questions, as well as questions of meaning. although here i was interested chiefly in technical matters (the first step), i believe that the relation between the two dimensions can be explicated, that we can move from facts to phenomena to meanings. mr. arnheim, for example, not only sketched a framework for the technical means of form by which isolation is accomplished-a polarity between balance and continuity, structure and delimitation, simultaneity as structural and successiveness as discontinuous-but also indicated significant issues involved in the isolation of an object for sheer contemplation.! on my own view, the separation of artworld from lived world is a distortion of the function of making. but what is the significance of this distortion? 2 or again, to take as an example a set of norms which have applied to the music of one era is not to affirm those norms for all music. all of us are engaged in questioning 18th-century ideals of form based on the presupposition that classic triadic tonality is the natural (or common-sense) way of hearing. but why was there such exaggerated emphasis at that time on the exploitation of these few principles of "good" or "easy" form? mr. berleant, for example, reverses my procedure when he suggests that i have associated a piece of music with music taken as object "because only when it is an object does music have a clearly articulated structure." rather, i have held that the exploitation of such structural attributes fashions a piece of music that invites us to experience it as object, that music is thus stylized toward objectness. i do, of course, maintain that what mr. treitler formulates as my second thesis follows from the first: if it is possible to isolate a certain kind of perceptual form, then a certain mode of perception can be read back from that 116 kind of form. this rests on what i take to be the unity of the aesthetic situation-of creative process, artwork, and aesthetic experience. for purposes of analysis we can fragment our view of the work, looking at it from the side of creator and constructed form, or of spectator and experienced form. we can emphasize the "givens" of the work from two directions: on the hinter side, its possibilities are determined by the physical properties of the matter from which it starts (such as, in music, features of the specific system in which it is written); on the hither side, the work must fit the laws of the imagination by which and for which it is made. we can emphasize, that is to say, either the division or unity of the arts. but underlying a certain mode of form structure as well, i should say, the total experiential situation. 3 this situation is not constant, but historical. the attempt to read that total situation from one aspect (say, "form") is not to read from some hypothetical world-view to the particular. the respondents expressed a proper contemporary horror of the 19th-century notion of weltanschauungen, but surely the hegelian idealism of which this is an aspect is no longer a threat to contemporary thought, which has been engaged for more than half a century in translating those facts validly represented in that notion-i.e., facts of style -into the more palatable contemporary terms of "experience." (for example, certain factors of the experienced world-ways of experiencing time and space, views of causality, matters of distance-can be isolated as stylistic features.) although western history is, to a striking degree, an accumulated history, a history of generative ideas and their dialectic or of technical problems and their solutions and failures, i myself cannot construe it as continuous narrative except as a narrative of one such idea or problem, selected and isolated-as, for example, the problem of the "spatialization" of form. misreadings such as the foregoing seem to me to have stemmed from the purpose of the paper. i was not attempting, in an essay of this size, either to do history or to present a critical evaluation of the notion of the artwork. i was attempting to apply a method of analysis that consists primarily in going behind assumptions that we hold. i applied this method to a way of conceiving form which seems clearly to be a predominating (but not sole) ideal during a span of our musical tradition-a prevailing norm or goal of form, a set of presuppositions about form. i described the essential nature of this kind o(form as perceptual form, something primarily to be listened to, i.e., an object; specifically, as temporal object, i.e., an object that includes time in its essential being; and ultimately, as work of art, something created and experienced as an aesthetic (perceptible) whole, i.e., an object perceived for its own sake. this kind of form seems to me to presuppose a visual or spatialized model, a fact apparently agreed upon by most of the respondents. mr. berleant, for example, puts very well what i took as the basic fact for this paper; " ... our understanding of music has, i think, long been impeded by 117 the tendency to assimilate it to the other more familiar and readily verbalized arts, just as our understanding of art in general has been sorely handicapped by our propensity to explain it in the light of concepts and objects of a wholly different and foreign sort." the various respondents took issue not so much with that fact itself-that our language (and hence mode of conceptualization) has tended to spatialize and objectify time-as with my "eager acceptance" of that fact. i still follow here mr. berleant, who takes double issue with the consequent "distortion" of the temporal process, as misrepresenting musical perception and reflecting the unfortunate influence of the historical tendency to associate visual perception with cognitive apprehension. i think he describes the distortion accurately. i neither defend nor condemn it, but take it as my point of departure, in order to explore, explicate, question its meaning. to take such a distortion as object for investigation requires a fundamental assumption that i do make: we constitute-and in so doing, stylize-our world. in other words, i have turned around the question of style, asking first about stylization in general, then about particular styles. at issue here is the distinction generally drawn between perception and conception. i do not want to confuse "a way of conceiving form" (which in this case i have characterized as modeled on visual perception) with "our conceptions of form." form, i should say, (along with mr. hall) is a way of experiencing, not a structure of thought-and perception itself stylizes.4 the distortion toward visualization has characterized a certain mode of constituting-that is, of perceiving, feeling, imagining, conceiving, structuring, experiencing-the world, and hence music. again, today we are generally engaged in questioning the assumptions underlying this style of experience (what whitehead, for example, has called "the bifurcation of man and nature" or gilbert ryle, "the official doctrine of descartes' myth, the ghost in the machine"). one of the basic presuppositions of this mode of constitution, stated with especial force by bergson, is the identification of spatialization and conceptualization, an assumption which seems to underly mr. berleant's argument as his basic distinction between "the full perceptual experience of music and the concepts and linguistic medium through which that experience is codified and explained." i believe that this fragmentation of consciousness is itself one element of style in the prevailing materialistic mode of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. whereas mr. berleant wants to sharpen the contrast in regard to music, i want to emphasize the unity of the cognitive experience, including music. the totality of the perceptual situation that so strikingly characterizes the comprehension of aesthetic form holds for perception in general. it is no longer possible strictly to separate knowledge taken in through the senses from the conceptual and imaginative faculties of the mind that receives it.5 but mr. berleant and i both maintain that the consequences of stylizing perception toward vision are more striking in music-a nonvisual, nonverbal art-than in other arts. 118 the confusion of normative and historical issues was most apparent in regard to the contrast i drew between ars or techne and the modern notion of "art." to map the development of this notion in relation to music would be to write some other article. but let me answer briefly to mr. treitler's reformulation of my "historical thesis," which he says implies that before the renaissance music was random or arbitrary in its form and nonexpressive in its content, and that musical practice had no pragmatic basis. this "general and oversimplified view" of medieval musical theory and practice is one of mr. treitler's especial concerns, but it does not follow from my own. one can maintain, i think, both that a distinction must be made between experienced meaning and talking about experience, and also that there is a significant relation between any experience and the framework in which it is conceptualized. it is important, i believe, to attempt to understand the way the world is experienced in any era in terms of its own available concepts. the contrast between ars and art in the narrow sense (if! were to attempt to translate it into conceptual terms of the medieval era) is not the distinction between theory and practice (theoria i interpreted as a means of detachment for, not a mode of being of, music), nor even that between intelligible and sensible form; it would be akin, rather, to the distinction prevailing between accidental and substantial form. i located, during the 16th century, the appearance of a self-conscious notion of autonomous form and a concern for a new kind of expressivity. although there is some theoretical treatment of beginnings and endings in to the whole composition in the generation of gafurius and aron, i know of no concern with an aesthetic whole, in regard to music, before this. (mr. treitler places at about the same time the beginning of a similar self-conscious concern to shape historical time as temporal object. vasari's lives, for example, first appeared in 1550.) but the care i have taken not to read back the notion of 'artwork' into an era when it was not viable implies neither randomness of form nor nonexpressivity for the music of that era. "well-craftedness," for example, so well demonstrated in mr. treitler's analysis of landino's song, is the essential ingredient of techne. it is also, of course, a fundamental ingredient of the modern notion of art, but there are other more essential ones which the older notion does not include. i) the work of art is self-subsistent, like a thing. in regard to music, this requires the notated work, or what i would call the musical composition. 2) unlike the mere thing-matter existing in some shape in the physical realm, the artwork is also artifact-shaped by man, existing as purposive product in the realm of human design. 3) unlike the artifact, the artwork is not a thing, but exists onry in the realm of the human spirit, as object in relation to experiencing subject. it is perceptual form or "appearance," a stylistically-made image. 4) the work of art is an object experienced as aesthetic, with the power to seize the spectator and isolate the transaction between subject and object. it is aesthetically as well as perceptually isolated, perceptual form perceived for its own sake, i.e., without purpose. it exists in a realm of its own. 119 differences such as these in the conception of the nature of music can be read, i think, in technical changes in the phenomenon music-for example, in new techniques for stylizing form toward self-subsistence and a new rhetorical or dramatic model of expression, which founds the self-significance of music. i would say that against a basic disposition of the western habit of thought, the different ingredients of the idea of the artwork appear at different times and in different stages of development-as historical phenomenon, as transition or preparation, as self-conscious concept, as prevailing norm. in my own terms, i would express what happens during the 16th century (which i take as watershed between medieval and modern) as a change in the substance and function of music. the stuff of music changes from vox (sound produced by the natural instrument, hence essentially including words) to sonus (sound produced by artificial instruments), with a concomitant emphasis on the purely perceptual qualities of sound, and ultimately, in the 19th century, on the autonomous expressivity of music: music means itself. the function of music thus becomes, during those three centuries, expression. it seems to me that mr. treitler's consideration of landino's song, disregarding as it does the text, which is an essential, not arbitrary, part of the structure, is a distortion of its "form" into the contemporary mode of perception per se. at issue here is my own especial concern: emphasis on form as experienced form and aesthetic form as the total, concrete form of this individual work, here and now, distinguished from the musical composition as presented for analysis, or from any abstracted feature of structure, such as structural skeleton. this distinction was made explicit in several responses, for much of the discussion turned on various senses of the ambiguous word 'object' and the admittedly difficult concepts of aesthetic form, aesthetic object, and work of art. like 'form,' 'object' is a correlative term. just as considerations of form can be fruitful only if the level of that which is formed is specified (form in relation to stuff or matter or to content or meaning), so also 'object' is always related to a subject in a specific way and is not clear unless that relation is clear. the distinctions between physical, perceptual, and aesthetic dimensions of 'object' should have been more strongly contrasted. let me then gloss my statement that curren.t controversies concerning musical form reflect in a specialized way currently changing conceptions of both 'form' and 'object.' two directions in contemporary thought have provided the context for the paper: a broadening of the concept of 'object' that lessens the distinction between subject and object, i.e., between knower and known; and a broadening of the concept of 'knowledge' that lessens the distinctions between various modes of knowledge, i.e., sensation, perception, conceptualization, imagination. 6 . i have not used 'object' here in the narrow sense of "something visible or tangible, any material thing" (webster). an object is that which rises up before, against, in correlation to a subject; 'thing' i have restricted to 120 even in the narrowest sense, then, i should say that a ifperceived, is an object.7 music only makes more striking a problem that arises in respect of all perception-the relation between experienced object and physical correlate. mr. cone points directly to the difficulty: where, how, does the composition endure? one can move from here toward the ontological status of the musical work or toward the experiential status of the musical object; surely these are two sides-'-distinguishable sides-of the same problem.8 i have taken 'object' in a broader sense, however, which has been developed especially by edmund husserl and the phenomenologists. an object is the content of an act of consciousness (which is an act of intentional. ity) and is always the correlate of the action of consciousness that intends it. such an act will be a structure of subjective components, but it is essentially consciousness-of something and thus also always has an objective side. on this view, an act of consciousness and its object are inseparable-subjective and objective aspects of the same situation-and arise together in experience. subject and object no longer refer to two different kinds of things, but to two different sorts of meanings offered to the understanding. knowledge then, in its broadest sense, is that primary activity of consciousness (consciousness-of) by which arise both self and world; it can be perceiving, thinking, recalling, imagining. all intend the world in a different manner; all are possible positions to take toward the object. in considering music as object the question is: how is the musical object intended? it is intended in the mode of the imagination-as imaginative form, an image-and as created form-a stylistically-made image. on my view then, music, like any other act of the imagination, is one way among many by which man constitutes his world. in this line of thought i see the issues at stake regarding the musical object as twofold: the incorporeality of the musical object (including the problems of "unreal" and "ideal" objects) and the extent to which it is an object of immediate, not mediate, knowledge (including the problems of intuitive knowledge in general). when i contrast musical object to process, i emphasize its being as an other; when i speak of its "thingly" quality, i emphasize the reality of the musical stuff.9 a melody, for example, is not created ex nihilo. on both these counts i stand opposed to the still-influential romantic exaggeration of hegel's view that "music has no genuine objectivity, but is one with subjectivity." notes 1 arnheim lays a sound basis for comprehensive analysis with his distinction between shape and form: "the words 'shape' and 'form' are often used as though they meant the same thing . . . . actually there is a useful difference of meaning between the two terms. the preceding chapter dealt with shape-that is, with the spatial aspects of appearance. but no visual pattern is only itself. it always represents something beyond its own individual existence-which is like saying that all shape is the form of some content." art and visual perception: a psychology of the creative trye (berkeley and los angeles, 1954), p. 82. 121 the passage ftom walter pater, for example, was cited not so matter to be affirmed or denied, but rather as a matter of fact, as marking the limits beyond which the kind of musical form under question can no longer be conceived. he speaks within a tradition that assumed music to be a kind of rhetorical expression and that modeled musical form on well-made rhetorical discourse, calculated to arouse the affections. in the 19th century music, as a language, was asked to do something it had never been put to before: to express without benefit of, yet more fully than, words. explicitly, pater (like hanslick) spoke against the narrow view within this tradition (that of the 18th-century enlightenment), which could complain against nonverbal music, "sonata, what do you want of me?" nevertheless, when probed, pater's theory (like that of hans lick) proves to be another theory of expressionism, in which the greatness of art lies in the greatness of its expression. this is brought to light in an analysis by albert hofstadter, which is briefly as follows. all art, according to pater, strives toward a certain condition of being, of which music is the paradigm: in art the form (or mode of handling the material, which is specific to each art) becomes an end in itself. art transmutes matter into aesthetic substance: the condition of aesthetic form is that all matter be absorbed into the form, which is central. the elements are "musicalized." (in music, according to pater, there is no distinction of ends from means, ofform from matter, of subject from expression.) the theory breaks down when in regard to literature (in his essay on "style" in appreciations) pater grounds the greatness of art in its matter (which he interprets here as the thought or idea expressed, the "import"). now matter and content, says hofstadter, are different conceptions, both related to the same form differently. the identity ofform and can only occur in matter. if we extend the concept of matter to mean not just the subject matter, but all material, then we see that form in a concrete sense is what is made of this material, according to a certain way of handling it. then form applies to all (great) art and is not just a principle of abstract (or "musical") art. pater's ambiguous use of 'matter' to mean either represented subject or expressive content reveals that he has conceived of a form that, although it absorbs matter, expresses content, and stands in relation to content, therefore, as vehicle to meaning. "pater did not persist throughout in seeing matter as musical; he suffered from a lack of concreteness in form. in its failure to absorb expressive content lies the failure as an aesthetic theory." unpublished lectures in philosophical aesthetics viii and ix. 3 the paradigm for analysis of the artwork within the total context of its world is martin heidegger's example of the greek temple in "der ursprung des kunstwerkes" in holzwege (frankfurt-am-main, 1950), pp. 7-68, tr. by albert hofstadter as "origin of the work of art" in philosophies of art and beauty, ed. hofstadter and richard kuhns (new york, 1964), pp. 649-701. see also: jean-paul sartre, essays in aesthetics, selected and tr. by wade baskin (new york, 1964) and the works of george poulet, especially those two that deal with the dimensions oftime and space: la distance intcrieure (paris, 1952), tr. as the interior distance, by elliott coleman, (baltimore, 1959) and etudes sur ie temps humain (paris, 1950), tr. by coleman as studies in human time (baltimore, 1956). 4 "perception already stylizes. a woman passing by is not first and foremost a corporeal contour for me, a colored mannequin, or a spectacle; she is an individual, sentimental, sexual expression. she is a certain manner of being flesh which is given entirely in her walk or even in the simple shock of her heel on the ground-as the tension of the bow is present in each fiber of wood-a very noticeable variation of the norm of walking, looking, touching, and speaking that i possess in my self-awareness because i am incarnate. if! am also a painter, what will be transmitted to the canvas will no longer be ... just 'a woman' ••• but also the emblem of a way of inhabiting the world ..• in short, the emblem of a certain relationship to being." maurice merleau-ponty, "indirect language and the voices of silence" in signs (northwestern university press, 1964), p. 54, tr. by richard c. mccleary from signes (paris, 1960). 5 the following studies are interesting in this regard: rudolph arnheim, in "gestalt psychology and artistic form" (aspects qfform: a symposium onform in nature and art, ed. lancelot law whyte [london, 1951], pp. 196-208), maintains that everyday vision initiates and anticipates the duel of the artist with the image and that visual form is a basic means of understanding the environment. hence the aesthetic significance 122 of a particular form is determined not only by the actual structure of the image of an external object, but also by the formative processes of perception, the need 'of the organism for comprehension, and the personal temperament and tensions of the perceiver. this theme runs through all of arnheim's work. see especially his "perceptual abstraction and art" in toward a psychology of art: collected essays (berkeley and los angeles, 1966) pp. 27-50 (reprinted from psychological review, 1947). the prevalence of abstractness in children's drawings and primitive representations (for example, a circle representing a head) presents a problem as long as perception is considered as passive registration of the retinal image, and abstraction as an intellectual elaboration of perceptual raw material, requiring therefore a higher level of mental development. gestalt research shows structural whole-qualities like roundness to be not secondary, but primary perceptual phenomena. arnheim suggests that perception consists in the application of perceptual categories, evoked by the structure of the configuration, to the stimulus material. if this is so, he says, the elementary processes of perception, far from being mere passive registration, are creative acts of grasping structure acts of insight, of understanding, and the distinction between percept and concept would seem to disappear. the perceptual categories are not intellectual distillates, but rather spontaneous forms of sensory perception, discovered in and applied to any object that fits them. abstraction thus starts at the most elementary level of cognition: the acquisition of sensory data. james j. gibson, in "pictures, perspective, and perception" in daedelus (winter, 1960), pp. 216-227, presents a clear statement, from the point of view of an experimental psychologist, of current confusions, and hence issues, concerning perception, focused on visual perception, pictorial communication, and pictorial art. by "seeing" gibson means not the special process of considering one's sensation or the special act of seeing in perspective, but understanding-the having and achieving of knowledge about the world. however, visual perceiving often does not feel like knowing, but rather like an immediate acquaintance or a direct contact. what then is to be said about this difference between immediate and mediated perception? helmut reinold, in "the problem of musical hearing" (reflections on art, ed. and tr. by suzanne langer [baltimore, 1958], pp. 262-297, from archivfiir musikwissenschaft [afmw]) maintains that today the barriers between intellect and sense are breaking down and that musical hearing is the model for perception as "true-taking," as the apprehension of that which is true from the very center of the integral individual being, i.e., something entirely subjective, yet none the less true. invaluable material may be found in ,vision and value, ed. gyorgy kepes (new york, vol. 1 1965, vol. 2 1966). the relation between perceptual and conceptual whole can be explored rather than simply denied-in regard to music or to perception in general, say, of a ball or a head or a house. we effectively perceive the roundness of the ball or head or "the rest" of the house. perception is more than the apprehension of a single aspect; it is, rather, an integration of many profiles. perceptual isolation raises such questions as: how do we perceive a unit? how do we perceive a shape? but also: how do we perceive "something" ? the role of schemata in the comprehension of musical form has been taken for granted in some cases (such as "sonata" or "fugue"), but quite unexplored in a more general sense. (in this regard it is helpful to bear in mind the distinction between 'form' in the broad sense and the narrower sense of 'formal types'. see franz brenn, form in der musik [freiburg, 1953] and articles on "form" in mgg and the harvard dictionary.) work in other fields might illuminate this: the neo-kantians, especially ernst cassirer, have demonstrated the conceptual schemata that are brought to bear upon experience, stressing the intellectual aspect of ordering perceptions by showing that concepts are ideal categories to which things are roughly expected to conform. jean piaget has described the importance of schemata in the learning process of the child. this is discussed by irving m. copi in "the growth of concepts" (language, thought, and 123 culture, ed. paul henle [ann arbor, 1958]), especially as it bears on the use of the terms 'concrete' and 'abstract.' see also heinz werner, a comparative study of mental development (new york, 1948), passim, and arnheim, "perceptual abstraction and art," supra. a current view of the notion of "set" or "expectation," formulated as the "hypothesis theory" by jerome s. bruner and l. postman, holds that all cognitive processes, whether they take the form of perceiving, thinking, or recalling, represent hypotheses which the organism sets up or that are evoked by the particular situation-hypotheses (in perception at least) which are largely in the background and usually unconscious. see floyd h. allport, theories of perception and the concept of structure (new york, 1955), chapters 15 and 17, for discussion and bibliography. bruner, in "on perceptual readiness" (readings in perception, ed. david c. beardslee and michael wertheimer [princeton, 1958], reprinted from psychological review, 1957), briefly reviews the problem and develops the thesis that perception involves an act of categorization, discussing the use of cues in inferring the categorial identity of a perceived object. e. h. gombrich, in art and illusion: a study in the psychology of pictorial representation (pantheon, 1956), makes much of the notion of schema from the point of view of the artist: he interprets it in the medieval sense of simile or exemplar, the pre-existing blank or formulary upon which distinctive features are entered. j. a. fodor, in a provocative article, "could there be a theory ofperception?" (journal of philosophy 63:369-380, 1966), focuses his question on gilbert ryle's discussion of perception (in the concept ofmind [new york, 1949]), especially the problem of how we recognize a tune. 6 broadening of the conception of 'object' is seen today in many areas of thought. briefly, it might be said to stem from two fundamental points made against hume's idea of the total field of consciousness as a sum or aggregate of elements all independent of and intrinsically unrelationed to one another: 1. a questioning of the line of demarcation between physical and psychological phenomena. see especially franz brentano, psychologie von empirischen standpunkt, 1874 (the crucial chapter, tr. by d. b. terrell as "the distinction between mental and physical phenomena," is reprinted in realism and the background of phenomenology, ed. roderick m. chisholm [glencoe, illinois, 1960]); and ernst mach, die analyse der empfindungen (jena, 1922), according to whom the difference between the physical and the psychological is not founded upon the nature of the materials concerned, but depends entirely upon the point of view from which the materials are viewed, i.e., upon the interest of the observer pursuing it in a certain direction. 2. the analysis, by henri bergson and williamj ames, of the organization of consciousness as a thoroughgoing interpenetration and intrinsic interconnection of all mental states. for bergson, an object is a center for the gathering up and dispersing of energy which constitutes an action (see especially essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience [paris, 1889] tr. by f. l. pogson as time andfree will [london, 1910]). for james, as far as sense-perception is concerned, the facts to start from are not "simple sensations" independent of and separable from one another, but rather "sensible totals," "concreted objects" vaguely continuous with the rest of the world. (the principles of psychology [new york, 1891]). aron gurwitsch, in the field of consciousness (pittsburgh, pa., 1964), reviews the changing notions of 'object' and 'consciousness,' especially as they bear on his demonstration of a convergence between the general orientation of phenomenology and that of gestalt theory. (original french version: thborie du champ de la conscience [paris, 1957]). carried into the field of aesthetics, contemporary views of 'object' and 'form' tend to undercut the traditional distinction between creator and spectator in relation to art and to bypass predicaments concerning the nature of the "aesthetic" object-predicaments usually precipitated by the "musical" object, as, for example, in monroe beardsley, aesthetics (new york, 1958), pp. 51£r., or stephen c. pepper, the basis of criticism in the arts (cambridge, 1963), pp. 154ff. instead of beginning with the question: does one start with experience or object, one begins with the unity of object and experience; in the phenomenological approach 124 the two are given together. but both artist and spectator make the aesthetic judgment in respect of the work, which is therefore central. along this line of thought, i suggest two works: eugene f. kaelin, in an existentialist aesthetic (madison, wis., 1962), examines the theories of sartre and merleau-ponty, concluding that both have gone down complementary blind alleys as a result of their initial standpoints: sartre begs the question of perceptual knowledge with his distinction between perception and imagination; merleau-ponty's weakness lies in his distinction between primary and secondary expression. kaelin's study makes clear (although this is not his thesis) that the central problem in contemporary aesthetics is the relation of imagination, perception, and cognition, on the one hand, and of expression, meaning, and communication, on the other-i.e., the relation of art and knowledge. albert hofstadter, in truth and art (new york and london, 1964), maintains that the ultimate aim of aesthetics as a philosophical discipline is to think the truth of art. he evaluates recent philosophies of art (especially as they bear on art as knowledge) and develops a comprehensive theory of truth, which is applied to art as a special kind of language: the essence of art, he holds, is the articulation of human being and, ultimately, of the truth of human being, i.e., spiritual truth. in developing this essential function of art (to show the forms of human concern so that we can know them for what they are), he provides the ground for understanding the history of the arts as "a marvelous, unendingly interesting revelation of the possibilities of human existence" (p. 211). 7 john cage's characterization of objects as "occasions for experience" is apparently borrowed from alfred north whitehead, who stresses the process-nature of experience. to be an actual entity, whitehead holds, is to be an occasion of experience, which is not an undifferentiated flow but rather a transition from one occasion to another. "an occasion of experience, as an activity, is analysable into modes of functioning which jointly constitute its process of becoming. each mode is analysable into the total experience as active subject, and into the thing or object with which the special activity is concerned .... thus subject and object are relative terms." (adventures if ideas [new york, 1933], p. 178.) see also concepts if nature (cambridge, mass., 1920), chapter 7. john dewey, in art as experience (new york, 1934), emphasizes the on-goingness of the aesthetic experience. "an experience" is unified by a single quality which pervades it and also has form because there is dynamic organization, i.e., it takes time to complete, has growth, inception, development, fulfilment. for applications of these theories (stressing process) to music, see the following: donald sherburne, in "meaning and music" (journal if aesthetics and art criticism [jaac] 24: 393-400, 1966), analyzes the power of music in terms of whitehead's theory of perception. robert erikson, in "time-relations" (journal if music theory 7: 174-193, 1963), takes as a starting point for his analysis whitehead's "what we perceive as present is the vivid fringe of memory tinged with anticipation." in the 18th century, erikson concludes, time could apparently be separated from the events which took place in it. time, for us, is unitary with events, whether in science, in art, or in ordinary life. william r. huchinson, in "aesthetics and musical theory: an aspect of their juncture" (jaac 24:393-400, 1966), applies dewey's notion of an experience to an analysis of the last movement of brahm's symphony no.4. problems of musical objectivity are discussed: by h. h. drager in "the concept of tonal body" (tr. from afa1w 1952) in langer, op. cit., pp. 174-185 (a comment on handschin's der toncharakter). 8 the distinction between the musical composition and individual experiences of the work is extensively explored by roman ingarden in "das musikwerk" in untersuchungen zur ontologie der kunst (tiibingen, 1962). 125 9 fundamental to the relation of artwork and thing, and indeed, to the conception of the artwork itself, is heidegger's essay, "der ursprung des kunstwerkes." he considers three traditional meanings of 'thing' and concludes that the work of art is not a thing, but an event: the happening of truth (i.e., the unconcealiiient of the essence of things) and thereby, the erection of a world. this is the 'work' of art, the setting-into-work of truth. by the "thingly" character of the musical work i mean that feature of the work which heidegger opposes to world as "earth." ' hofstadter (truth and art), in his own development of heidegger's crucial point, the relation of truth and art, finds heidegger's notion of beauty as pure shining inadequate because it does not do justice to the central phenomenon of rightness and necessity in the concept of truth. see especially pp. 197ff. on the mutual adequateness of work of art as "thing" to "concept", in the sense of spiritualized will. the character of "thingliness" is especially important in the work of jean-paul sartre. see in being and twthingness (eng. tr. by hazel barnes [new york, 1956]), the section on "quality, and quantity, potentiality, instrumentality": "the fluidity, the tepidity, the bluish color, the undulating restlessness of the water in a pool are given at one stroke, each quality through the others; and it is this total interpenetration which we call the this. this fact is clearly shown by the experiences of painters, especially of cezanne .•.. it is the form which is color and light. if the painter wants to vary anyone of these factors, the others change as well, not because they are linked by some sort oflaw but becau,se at bottom they are one and the same being." in n ausee, striking contrast is drawn between the massive viscosity of the existing world ("the sound of the water in the masqueret fountain sounded in my ears, made a nest there, filled them with signs ••. ") and the haunting melody which, like the circle, is not absurd, does not exist, but is. 126 bibliographica robert l. folstein 116 a bibliography on jacques offenbach 129 performance practices bibliographysecond supplement 150 contributors e. taylor atkins. blue nippon: authenticating jazz in japan. durham, n.c.: duke university press, 2001. xiv, 366 pp. reviewed by ian condry "thank god for japan! it's turning out to be a second nevada" (209). these words of an american booking agent in the 1960s capture some of the paradoxes of jazz in japan. on one hand, it is a jazz paradise-where else can one find jazz coffee shops (jazu kissa) that prohibit talking, but of­ fer patrons the opportunity to listen to extensive record collections over state-of-the-art speakers? and the japanese are not only fans. some of japan's jazz musicians have achieved success in the international jazz world, notably pianist akiyoshi toshiko, who in 1980 received three top awards from down beat magazine. but still, for many musicians and com­ mentators in the west (and for some in japan as well) there persists the enduring image that japanese jazzers, both the fans and the musicians alike, are somewhat akin to the faux venetian canals in las vegas. aren't they trying to be something they cannot be? even for e. taylor atkins, an assistant professor of history at northern illinois university, part of the attraction to the topic was the "superficially oxymoronic quality of jazz in japan' " (3). what becomes clear through the course of this book, however, is that delving beyond surface impres­ sions into the depths of jazz in japan reveals a dynamic musical world that teaches us about transnational flows of music, cultural identity, and above all, the meaning and sources of musical creativity. this is a gem of a book. blue nippon is a profound achievement for providing an engaging, read­ able, and incisive analysis of jazz in japan. ("nippon" is the japanese pro­ nunciation of 'japan.") the work is historical, yet rather than offering merely a chronological accounting of jazz artists, albums, and shows, atkins presents a multi-faceted look at the ways jazz artists and music have been caught up in the rapid changes that shaped japan during the twentieth century. he covers 1920-1995 and explores the ways that in suc­ ceeding decades jazz has been associated with the cultural politics of mod­ ernism, militant nationalism, postwar reconstruction, and national self­ assertion. each of these eras is used by atkins to reflect on the interaction between music, society, and history. as his overarching theme, atkins explores the diverse ways that japanese jazz musicians, and their critics, have struggled to "authenticate" jazz injapan. in so doing, he challenges one of the more enduring stereo­ types of the japanese people in general, namely, that they are meticulous current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 534 current musicology imitators, but poor innovators. atkins takes aim at the racial politics un­ derlying many assertions of authenticity: "there is an obsession with identifying and filtering the 'pure' or 'authentic' core of the music from the eclectic and multiracial contexts in which it was actually created." the irony is that such "racialist conceptualizations of 'authenticity' undermine the pretensions of the music as a 'universal language.' " his method is to "challenge these widespread notions by highlighting the contributions of individual jazz artists to the idiom, and by recounting the historical, racial and commercial obstacles and pressures they have had to surmount to do so" (11). to his credit, atkins also addresses questions about his own legit­ imacy as a white researcher studying asian artists working in an mrican american genre (17-18). overall, we get a view of jazz through the words and music of the participants, and atkins provides the historical context­ the cultural and economic trends, the changes in venue, the impact of war and occupation, and so on-which provide the backdrop for interpreting the jazz of different eras. initially, i questioned atkins's use of "authenticity" as the organizing theme for his project. simon frith (1987:137) famously describes authen­ ticity as "the most misleading term in cultural theory," in part because it suggests an unproblematic identification between the artist, songs, and au­ dience. but i came away impressed that atkins did not let abstract theoret­ ical concerns surrounding authenticity bog down the narrative about the japanese who live for jazz music. indeed, for atkins, defining "authentic­ ity" is not primarily about identifying those artists or works that are most "original," 'japanese," or even "good." authenticity in jazz, as in other folk arts, implies that an artist must possess specific qualities-educational background, life experience, ethnic heritage, motivations, or artistic vision-which confer upon the artist the right not only to work unchallenged in a particular medium, but to establish the standard by which all others working in that medium will be judged. (24) it is worth noting that authenticity in this sense is not solely about artistic excellence, but is also concerned with power, specifically the power to set standards, which underscores the concept's social and cultural signifi­ cance. atkins adds that most jazz aficionados would agree with a notion of "personal authenticity" (emotive "sincerity," expressiveness, or assertive­ ness) (23-24). "in the real world, however, preoccupied as it is with issues of race and power, what we might call 'national authenticity' and 'ethnic authenticity' often have more operational power, perhaps because they are easier to determine 'objectively' than personal authenticity" (25). in some ways, atkins's book can be read as an extended attempt to disabuse ian condry 535 us of our tendency to think in terms of national or ethnic authenticity, as when we assume japanese musicians are exacting but without much soul. atkins's study of jazz relates to my own interests in japanese hip-hop, which i have been studying since 1994 (condry 1999). as in the jazz world, what is "authentic" (honmono) is hotly contested in japanese hip­ hop, but we can also see how the aesthetics of rap music, especially the emphasis on the rapper's "flow" (rhythmically nuanced vocals), give a par­ ticular flavor to the debate. one problem for japanese rappers is that the japanese language does not contain stress accents. in the early 1990s, this was seen as an insurmountable deficiency of the language, as rappers tried adding stress accents to make the words "sound like english." in 1994 and 1995, however, several successful albums convinced record executives in japan, and many magazine writers as well, that there could be such a thing as "authentic japanese hip-hop." everyone disagreed, of course, about what constituted "authentic," but there has been little debate about the japaneseness of the style because it is clearly marked by the use of japanese words. japanese hip-hoppers also emphasize the importance of nightclubs as the "actual site" (genba) of the hip-hop scene. these all-night venues, in cramped, smoky, sweaty, often (literally) underground bars, provide a space where rappers perform, fans participate, and freestyle battles can rage until four in the morning. the forcefulness of the live show in some ways trumps the theoretical dilemmas of authenticity. as one dj put it, "we don't care that some people think we are imitators. our fans under­ stand the music, and that's what matters." atkins's book made me wonder about how authenticating strategies in japanese hip-hop will change as more j-rappers attain mainstream success, perhaps even achieving recog­ nition abroad. the history of jazz in japan suggests that authenticity can only be defined by attending to the specific context of a given era. atkins approaches problems of authenticity by focusing on the processes involved in legitimizing and popularizing jazz music in japan, or as he says, "the reasons for the japanese fascination with jazz, the dilem­ mas faced by japanese artists struggling to liberate themselves from for­ eign models and working to define individual and collective standards of creativity" (10). japanese find themselves in a double-bind that nicely cap­ tures the paradox of being innovative on one hand, yet working within genre conventions (and a canon of standards) that provide the measures and contexts for evaluation: track too closely to the "original," and you are imitative; stray too far, and you are no longer a jazz musician. this is something all musicians must deal with, of course, but one wonders if the dynamic changes according to how ethnicity is marked in both musical production and reception. we can see this in the various approaches atkins identifies for authenticating jazz injapan: 536 current musicology • interpreting and attempting to replicate the exact sounds of american jazz as well as the social and cultural contexts (e.g., the hipster scene) in which it was produced; • asserting the basic affinity of the "colored races" (the japanese as "yellow negro"); • sojourning to america, or in the interwar years to shanghai, as a rite of authentication; and • efforts to "indigenize" or "nationalize" jazz by incorporating tex­ tures, instruments, or aesthetic principles from traditional musics, thereby creating what some believed to be a national style of 'japanese jazz." (12) significantly, these approaches emphasize different aspects of creativity and different links between music and identity. they also contradict one another and point to the fluidity of the discourse of authenticity. hold too tightly to one definition, and the others slip through your fingers. what becomes interesting in atkins's study is how different historical periods bring out different approaches (and different successes and failures) in these authentication strategies. atkins finds that the most fertile eras for experimentation injazz were times when musicians turned inward: during the war and during a period of national self-assertion in the 1960s and 1970s. because atkins's strategy is to clarity what each era offers to our under­ standing of jazz creativity, what the book does and does not do varies dra­ matically depending on the chapter. some generalizations, however, may help the reader position the book. there is relatively little discussion of the development of japan's recording industry, though the industry issues are discussed with great insight when they do appear. we learn little about recording studios, copyright issues, or the business of music publishing. although we get descriptions of key songs and albums, there is little musi­ cological analysis (no musical transcriptions, for instance). the reception of american artists and albums is generally discussed to explain how japanese artists developed their styles, but if one is seeking an explanation of how a certain american jazz artist was received in japan, this may not be the place to go (paul whiteman, however, is discussed at length). the character of the "average japanese fan" is little discussed, because atkins focuses on the challenges faced by jazz musicians. he also warns readers that there is little information provided about some well-known and im­ portant artists, including guitarist watanabe kazumi, pianist ozone makoto, trumpeter tiger okoshi, clarinetist kitamura eiji, saxophonist abe kaoru, and "countless others" (16-17). for some artists, atkins pro­ vides biographical information, but the bulk of his efforts are in placing ian condry 537 musicians in their historical contexts. for me, these absences were more than compensated for by the rich stories that atkins tells. in chapter 1 of blue nippon, "the japanese jazz artist and the authenticity complex," atkins gives an overview of the book's argument. here "complex" refers to the japanese usage of the term konpurekkusu to mean "inferiority complex." atkins does a nice job of characterizing some of the different ways authenticity has been conceptualized as a dynamic relationship between performer, audience, setting, and music. some american jazzers after touring in japan challenged the authenticity of both japanese jazz performers and audiences. for example, branford marsalis claimed that "unlike many other people, they [the japanese] have identified jazz as part of the american experience. but i don't think they understand it most times, -especially at my shows. they just stare at us, like, 'what the hell are they playing?' " the owner of a jazz coffeehouse in tokyo responded angrily, "the reason that audiences are cheerless at your [marsalis's] concerts is because they know 'this guy's not putting himself into it' " (20-21). this points to some of the subtleties of japanese understandings, which appear not only in assessing the quality of jazz performances, but also in recognizing racial politics involved in the music. atkins discusses in detail the various debates about how jazz is defined both as black music and as american music, attending both to u.s. scholarship and writings injapan. the racial undertones of jazz are discussed and developed as a theme throughout the book, and offer an interesting comparison to a recent study of jazz in china (jones 2001; see the review by dale wilson in this is­ sue, pp. 524-32). the ways in which japanese jazz musicians moved be­ tween identitying as authentically 'japanese" (more or less) and authenti­ cally 'jazz" (more or less) is precisely the dynamic that gives atkins's narrative momentum. he does not limit himself only to the music that can be identified as 'japanese jazz," that is, music which explicitly marks itself off as a national idiom. instead, he explores 'jazz in japan," noting that the diversity of styles over the years and among different artists militates against identitying a core japanese essence that can be heard in the music. but why are the japanese consistently characterized as "imitators," both at home and abroad? evenjapan's most accomplished jazz artists are iden­ tified as the japanese version of someone else: 'japan's satchmo" (nanri fumio), 'japan's sonny rollins" (miyazawa akira), and 'japan's gene krupa" (george kawaguchi). atkins notes that there are social and histori­ cal realities implicit in the assertion that japan is a "nation of imitators." he quotes from christine yano, who has a newly published book on enka, a style of popular music that echoes traditional folk music vocals. ac­ cording to yano, enka musicians rely on certain kata (forms) in music, 538 current musicology text, and gesture that make the expression "culturally safe and under­ standable" (33). others explain the "imitation" label by highlighting the system of "schools" (iemoto) of training that dominate some artistic expres­ sions, such as flower arranging, which encourage, even demand, close at­ tention to the master's style. in other words, exact imitation is a culturally valued style of learning in japan. on the other hand, atkins sees more parallels with the west than differences in this particular characterization of japanese ness. don't alljazz musicians train by imitating respected pred­ ecessors? doesn't apprenticeship with art blakey's jazz messengers confer legitimacy in the same way that japanese iemoto (schools of art) do (35-36)? the book's argument is that there are historically and culturally specific means of establishing and conveying authenticity. race, national­ ism, and consumerism all figure in the history of jazz, but not always to the same degree. the remainder of the book is organized around different eras of japan's history. chapter 2, "the soundtrack of modern life: japan's jazz revolution," begins in the 1920s and explores japan's jazz age. one won­ ders, in this context, "what is jazz?" instead of applying today's common musicological criteria for jazz as a style exhibiting the characteristics of "swing," improvisation, and so on, atkins argues that we should either conform to contemporary definition(s) or rely on sociocultural analysis of jazz. such an approach is important because in the interwar period, 'jazz" could and did refer to "popular music, social dance, and other forms of american popular culture," while also connoting "a new set of social mores, fashions, gender relations, and consumer practices otherwise known as 'modernism' " (47). jazz, above all, represented the west, and specifically america. al­ though japanese musicians perceived jazz as black music, the central dy­ namics in the interwar years concerned modernization and the uncertain fate of japanese culture. 'japan's jazz age coincided with a time of politi­ cal, cultural, and economic volatility, which fed a gnawing uneasiness over the perceived erosions of traditions and the rising prominence of america in japanese cultural life" (48). even so, appropriations of foreign culture by the japanese are nothing new, and atkins traces some key examples, in­ cluding court music from imperial china in the 700s and the rapid im­ ports during the meiji era after 1868, notably driven in the early days by the needs of the military (51-53). in the 1920s, ocean liner bands, dance halls, and the rise of osaka jazz (especially after the tokyo earthquake of 1923) form some of the focal points for atkins's enchanting stories of these early days of jazz, when authentication often revolved around for­ eignness. being abroad-whether traveling, living, or being raised outside of japan-is a key marker for authenticity during this phase. atkins deian condry 539 scribes the efforts of kikuchi shigeya, a college student and son of a japanese parliament member, who was the first to bring jazz records back to japan (from chicago) in 1920. interestingly, japanese american jazz singers, such as alice fumiko kawabata and rickey miyagawa, who were frustrated by racial barriers in the american entertainment industry found a welcome audience in japan, and outshone homegrown vocalists such as dick mine and awaya noriko. we also learn of the important role of ida ichin) and his cherryland dance orchestra in bringing about the profes­ sionalization of jazz in japan, and about the fledgling recording industry of the day. some japanese musicians raised their status by playing in shanghai. one of the strengths of atkins's work is his evocative descriptions of these locales for musical performance, for it is too easy to locate the au­ thenticity of music in particular virtuoso performers and performances without considering in detail the settings which provide the crucible for such productions. in the interwar years, live jazz band performances were limited almost exclusively to commercial dance halls. public outcries against the "scandalous behavior" in dance halls, in which male patrons bought tickets, each good for one dance with a professional female dancer (so-called "taxi dancers"), meant that the public tended to regard the music with suspicion and even antipathy (68). this performance environ­ ment also influenced the style of the music. since tickets were good for "one dance," musicians were encouraged to keep songs short, often lasting no more than two or three minutes, which discouraged extended jamming and improvisation. chapter 3, "talkin' jazz: music, modernism, and interwar japan's culture wars," opens with a description of the risque scandals surround­ ing jazz music and dance halls. here the focus shifts to the 1930s. in the years between the two world wars, atkins observes, japan was torn between cosmopolitan and nativist impulses: on the one hand, the period of "taisho democracy"l was character­ ized by electoral party politics, "cooperative diplomacy," leftist ac­ tivism and public ideological debate, and a burgeoning entertain­ ment culture conspicuously based on foreign models; on the other hand, the same era witnessed the flowering of a politicized cultural traditionalism and militancy among "agricultural fundamentalists," and artists, writers, the military, and the state. (95) the popularity of jazz in the interwar period was caught up in the cosmo­ politan impulse, but was increasingly contested as japan drifted into a militant, nativist, imperialist mode. at the time, jazz represented the 540 current musicology conspicuous emergence of an americanized global culture. the classical music establishment rejected jazz on aesthetic grounds, while others de­ fended the music by holding up paul whiteman as an example of "artistic songs done in the jazz style" (104). atkins argues that whiteman's music and writings were "the single greatest influence on the first generation of japanese jazzmen," and notes the conspicuous absence of "race records" amidst the ubiquity of whiteman's recordings. atkins discusses the complicated racial politics (white/black/yellow) that permeated the ideological discourses surrounding jazz, and the im­ portant role of music critic horiuchi keizo as an outspoken defender of whiteman's jazz style. although the debate about the aesthetic shortcom­ ings of jazz were restricted to specialized music periodicals, wider debates about the sociocultural degradations of the jazz age spread into the main­ stream press. in both discourses, however, the key underlying assumption was the association between jazz and modernism, whereby the music could "represent in musical terms either the transformations that created and defined modem society, or the revolt against those changes" (107).jazz in japan thus became a touchstone for a celebratory "sociology of the streets," and alternatively a sign of modem degradation at the heart of contemporary "culture wars" (106-21). yet this modernism in japan held its own particular character as well. atkins argues that the lack of a japanese analogue to the negrophilie that was a defining element of jazz in europe (e.g., the parisians fascination with the sauvage josephine baker) might be explained by japan's status as "a non-western nation that had spent the last half-century trying to demonstrate its 'modernity' " (123). in contrast, european society was questioning its "civilized" values in the wake of world war i. for japan, the equation of blackness with authentic jazz expression came later. chapter 4, "jazz for the country's sake'; toward a new cultural order in wartime japan," identifies a variety of ways that jazz artists maneuvered in the shadow of militant nationalism. following the attack on pearl harbor, the home ministry issued a series of offical proclamations aimed at eradicatingjazz from japanese soil (147). this "total jazz ban," however, was far from total. atkins argues that in contrast to nazi germany and the ussr, where attempts to "nationalize" jazz were state-directed, in japan "endeavors to create a 'national music' (kokumin ongaku) were often made as responsive yet autonomous creative decisions of the artists themselves" (131). he shows how jazz could remain in japanese society, and even pro­ mote the war effort, when it was made "authentically japanese." saxo­ phonist and composer hattori ryoichi, for example, worked to create a 'japanese blues," one inspired not by mississippi fields and juke joints, but rather an "oriental blues" which drew inspiration from indigenous folk ian condry 541 songs and chinese themes in an effort to promote the idea of a pan-asian brotherhood. here atkins offers an interesting discussion of the pressure of signing with record companies and its influence on japanese jazz styles (130-39). but with government slogans like "luxury is the enemy," jazz musicians found themselves increasingly without a stage. dance halls were banned by november 1940, as merely one part of a multi-pronged cam­ paign to mobilize the populace. in response, many musicians began play­ ing what was termed "light music," namely, "an acceptable form of prima­ rily instrumental music that was, in actuality, not so different from the dance music, 'symphonic jazz,' and nativized jazz of the previous decade" (144). atkins also analyzes a police report of 1941 discussing the challenge of identifying acceptable music. one can only be amazed at the morphic quality of jazz. looking back at the devastation of world war ii, many japanese writers interpret the efforts of japan's musicians' efforts to create a national mu­ sic as a strategy to deceive the authorities. atkins disagrees, arguing that "there is no evidence that the artists were cajoled by record companies or by the authorities" into using this material (135). moreover, the efforts to create a wartime jazz by hattori, sano tasaku, taira shigeo, and others, atkins argues, can be put in a more positive, if paradoxical, light. [t]he crisis mentality of the authoritarian state and the flowering of cultural nationalism in the late thirties and early forties challenged japanese musicians for the first time to authenticate their jazz with­ out reference to american standards. in so doing, they not only served the national purpose, but also remained true to the jazz aes­ thetic's insistence on innovation. (161) this is only one example among many of the ways atkins uses the idea of authentication to engage related issues of originality and creativity, and to show the complexity of the relationship between censorship and freedom. in chapter 5, "bop, funk, junk, and that old democracy boogie: the jazz tribes of postwar japan," atkins discusses the sharp shift in focus amongjazzers in the postwar period, a shift partly related to japan's status. "with defeat at american hands," atkins notes, "came a much deeper sense of japanese inadequacy in the realms of politics, economics, and cul­ ture, a feeling that was not conducive to creative self-assertion" (162). numerous jazz musicians were hired to entertain american troops during the allied occupation (1945-52), and this required the japanese to mas­ ter american models to gain employment. some efforts were made to cre­ ate a cultural lifestyle analogous to the bebop hipster in japan, but this introduced a new irony. despite the democracy and new social freedoms of the postwar years, japanese jazz musicians were not really free to be 542 current musicology creative. atkins argues that contrary to popular opinion among japanese jazz musicians that the war was a "dark age" (many of their musical biogra­ phies leave this period blank), in some ways these years held more creative promise than the so-called "golden age" that followed (163). during the occupation, japanese jazz musicians had ample, and often lucrative, op­ portunities to play, but their audience of american g.i.s demanded fidelity to standards played the way the americans expected to hear them. this historical contrast in authenticity is striking. one of the delights of atkins's book is his ability to shift registers in each chapter. from the question of the nature of creativity and accommo­ dation during wartime, the author moves to explore "how the production and consumption of jazz-both as a mass cultural commodity and as sub­ cultural ethos-were decisively shaped in the first two postwar decades by institutional, psychological, and sociocultural impulses set in motion by the occupation" (167). by relating production and consumption, atkins offers a nuanced portrait of one of the pressing theoretical debates of the day, namely, the place of entertainment industries in the transformations of japanese culture. atkins shows how the explosive growth of mass enter­ tainment in japan in the late 1950s and 1960s resulted not only in new au­ diences for japanese jazz musicians, but also in a splitting of the jazz scene into different "tribes." at one extreme, the charismatic and flamboyant drummer george kawaguchi was "a genuine teen idol, a movie star and a major concert draw" and thus was a major player in the jazz boom of the 1950s (195). but for jazz writer dr. uchida osamu, kawaguchi "simply im­ itated jazz" while pianist moriyasu shotaro was "aiming for the real thing" (195). atkins also offers an intriguing discussion of the ways bebop--or "modern jazz," as it was often called in japan-"perplexedjapanese musi­ cians": "having won the freedom to play their beloved jazz openly in less circumscribed contexts than ever before, they were truly bewildered to discover that the music had passed them by" (197). but this was only one dimension of an increasingly diversified jazz scene (hence, the "tribes" in the chapter's title) in which some of the leading musicians of the day, such as saxophonist sleepy matsumoto and watanabe sadao, struggled anew with questions of how "funky," "black," or "modern" their music should be. chapter 6, "our thing: defining japanese jazz' ," is one of the most powerful of the book. atkins identifies the sixties and seventies as 'japan's most prodigious flowering of domestic creativity to date in the jazz idiom" (226). a number of jazz musicians demonstrated a "new-found and hard won confidence" which was related to the "coincidence of a resurgent cul­ tural nationalism and an unprecedented willingness to stretch the jazz id­ iom" (226). it is ironic, however, that some of the new international attenian condry 543 tion to japanese jazz resulted from what might be called a self-orientalizing approach to the music, adding shakuhachi (japanese flute) frills and ap­ propriating japanese minyo (folk song) melodies. atkins asks, "did jazz musicians necessarily have to incorporate musical elements or themes from an essentialized japanese cultural heritage' to be original? in other words, was the construction of japanese jazz' the only way that japanese could create original and authentic jazz and be true to the jazz aesthetic?" (226). yes and no. yes, in the sense that these transformations often drew the most enthusiastic responses when japanese played overseas. no, in the sense that such orientalizing was only part of a larger story. we also hear, for example, how important new settings were for a jazz avant-garde to share ideas and to perform. unlike occupation-era musicians who had ample opportunities to take the stage, the younger generation had to scrap for performance sites, and often played for free, thus "circumvent­ ing the established customs and venues that sustained more established jazz stars" (228). atkins discusses the activities of some of these young vi­ sionaries, including guitarist takayanagi masayuki and bassist kanai hideto. their "new century music workshop" held friday afternoon "happenings" at a tiny ginza coffeehouse that attracted college students, artists, and bohemians to the free-for-all jazz experiments. the workshop was finally barred from performing there after a woman, enthralled by the music, added to the performance an impromptu nude dance. in trying to develop 'japanese jazz," musicians engaged in a wide range of musical experiments and acrobatic leaps of theory. percussionist togashi masahiko highlighted the japanese sense of space (ma), or rhythm. others sought inspiration from japanese folk songs and vocal styles. the eminent poet terayama shuji argued for the affinity of the "yellow negro" to the suffering and marginality of all great blues-founded musics. we also learn of an intense engagement with the racial undercur­ rents of jazz by japanese music critics like yui shoichi. atkins notes that black nationalist discourse was more likely to appear in music periodicals than in the mainstream press. what is interesting, however, is how the struggle of black americans was interpreted to highlight the importance of japanese respect for their own colored background. musically, there were a wide variety of experiments in merging traditional japanese musics into the jazz idiom. two of the most successful japanese artists in this vein were percussionist togashi and pianist akiyoshi toshiko. in 1980, akiyoshi became the first woman and the first non-american to win in three categories (big band, arranger, and composer) in the critics' poll in down beat magazine. part of her success arose from her incorporation of japanese themes, such as references to the mercury poisoning scandal in minamata, japan. 544 current musicology but for atkins, such "neo-nationalist" approaches to jazz generally foster a misinterpretation of what jazz in japan is all about. on the one hand, the various artists grouped under the heading of 'japanese-style jazz" are so different that the category has little meaning. on the other hand, some of the more striking appropriations of traditional japanese musical styles are by americans, such as john zorn or dave brubeck (e.g., brubeck's 1964 lp jazz impressions of japan). the deeper problem is that the move­ ment towards a new explicitly japanese aesthetic standard was unsuccess­ ful in changing how japan's jazzers are evaluated. "if the idea of japanese jazz failed ultimately to subsume the individual artistic visions of such talented musicians, it also failed to alter the aesthetic standards by which japanese judged themselves ... the historical propensity to try to 'measure up' to an external american referent remained firmly entrenched" (263). atkins's disappointment here is palpable, and it suggests a way to under­ stand his project as a whole. in the end, atkins has two missions. he wants readers to be sensitive to "the unequal power relations that determine and confer authenticity," but he also wants us to entertain the possibility that at least some japanese mu­ sicians "have got it," that is, that they can swing with the best of them (17). i went away convinced, and also with a list of albums that i hope someday to find. like other important monographs, such as erlmann (1996) and walser (1993), atkins demonstrates how much insight can be gained from an extended focus on a single genre of music in a particular context. in addition, he has created a reading of history and of jazz that enriches both. his description ofthejoys ofajazz club injapan in many ways offers a metaphor for the world he has created in his book. beyond these walls is a jaded, materialistic society in advanced stages of moral decline. but if you come up in here you better love and be­ lieve in something. the outer realm is pensive and plastic, a place where people speak of the livelihoods and wellbeing bursting in a bubble. here you sit around the table with your jazz family and dig into heapings of spontaneity, soul, ecstasy, and fun. (2) readers will have the opportunity to see japan's twentieth-century his­ tory not only in terms of political and economic transformations, but also through the diverse music and musicians who constitute an important stream in the global rivers of jazz. what is clear from this book is that where the stream will flow depends fundamentally on both japanese and westerners seeing beyond ethnic and national prejudices to truly hear the music. ian condry 545 notes l. in japan, eras are commonly named after the emperor. the taish6 era (1912-26) followed the meiji era (1868-1912) and preceded the showa era (1926-89). references condry, ian. 1999. japanese rap music: an ethnography of globalization in popular culture. ph.d. diss., yale university. erlmann, veit. 1996. nightsong: performance, power, and practice in south africa. chicago: university of chicago press. frith, simon. 1987. towards an aesthetic of popular music. in music and society: the politics of composition, performance, and reception, edited by richard leppert and susan mcclary, 133-49. cambridge: cambridge university press. jones, andrew f. 200l. yellow music: media culture and colonial modernity in the chinese jazz age. durham, n.c.: duke university press. walser, robert. 1993. running with the devil: power, gender, and madness in heavy metal music. hanover, n.h.: university press of new england (for wesleyan u niversi ty press) . yano, christine. 2002. tears of longing: nostalgia and the nation in japanese popular song. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. a1usic-ology hubert doris although this may not be the place to say it, i have never really believed that the study of music was, or even could be, divorced from its performance or perception. the question may be one of emphasis. sometimes it is very clear that one person feels drawn to a theoretical, or analytic, view of music; other times the pull is toward the understanding of music from the point of view of history. in my own case, theory, history, performance, and composition have become so intermingled that it is almost impossible to know where one ends and the other begins. far from simplifying matters, this melange of considerations can create enormous difficulties. take composition, for example. no one living in the 20th century can be unaware of what has happened in music in the past 400 years if, during his education, he has ever taken even one course in music history. furthermore, the proliferation of recorded "authentic" performances of early music makes older styles available, even outside an academic setting. however, knowing everything can be quite a burden. it may be stimulating, but at the same time it can put a strain on the creative impulse by making the novice composer terribly self-conscious if he finds himself imitating music of the past. one wishes to find his own voice, but in the tumult of the past which constantly surrounds a person, the finding of one's voice may become more important than its cultivation. today, it is impossible to grow up in blissful ignorance of all music except that of the immediate past. and one owes this somewhat questionable blessing to what is usually referred to as musicology. douglas moore once called composition "irrepressible invention." i think that, ideally, this is true. but i consider it very hard, indeed, to be "irrepressibly inventive" in the presence of the enormous amount of music already in existence. i think this explains, in part, why so much music today is as deliberately antihistoric (i.e., eccentric) as it is. it represents a complete rejection of the concept of a mainstream of music and may be called a denial of history and of the concepts of music in other times as explained to us by historical students of the art. certainly, not everyone feels this way. in my case, as i have grown older and more experienced, i have found that the music i write is a little less deliberately "original." i do not mind if, occasionally, it is somewhat reminiscent of what has gone before. i feel less intimidated by "other people's" music, but i do wonder, sometimes, what it would have been like to grow up as chopin did, without the weight of historical knowledge on my shoulders. all this does not mean that learning about music of the past is not enthralling. having studied with some excellent scholars, first at harvard and then at columbia, i am aware of how deeply enriching to the present an understanding of the past can be. it is wonderful to know what happened, to try to see why it happened. these studies were to me a little like the apple was to 100 adam. i would not be what i am today without them, but one sometimes longs for innocence. as for performance, i think musicology is invaluable. perhaps the speed with which the music of the past was forgotten was due as much to changing performance practice as to the desire for novelty. occasionally, of course, a work considered monumental for one reason or another, like handel's messiah, was reinterpreted by its admirers in later times. but a work in modern dress, as it were, can never be as satisfying as the original, even though it may retain some of its quality. like nearly every other pianist of my generation, i began with the welltempered clavier (clavichord in those days) as edited by carl czerny. i discovered, when i arrived at college, that what i had been accepting as the "bach style," fortified by bruno walter's annual performance of the st. matthew passion at the philharmonic, and stokowski's toccata and fugue in d minor, while rich in certain pleasures, was far less gratifying than the real thing. my thoughts on how the music went, on what propelled it from one instant to the next, were completely changed. without the desire for authenticity, for seeing things as they really were, which is one of the great contributions of musicology, we would be even more like plato's cave dwellers than we are. i do not wish to imply that no musician's home is complete without clavichord, harpsichord, organ, lute, and piano. i still like the way horowitz plays scarlatti, even though i realize that i am perceiving scarlatti's essence from a different angle. no one would say that, because it is outdated, in the wrong language, and mistranslated, that the king j ames version of the bible is worthless. the truth is that the more we know about a work, the richer our total understanding and experience of it become. when i was twenty i went to france to study with nadia boulanger. i thought i was going to study composition. little did i know! i discovered that i was unaware of so much music and so much about music: i was overwhelmed by a feeling of hopelessness. how could one ever spend enough time studying so that, by the time one had reached her age, one would possess even half the knowledge which she seemed always to have at her fingertips? in time i realized that mere study could never produce such expertise. to mademoiselle boulanger absolutely anything that has to do with music is relevant. even more, anything that has to do with communicating a thought about music, or with its performance or creation, is relevant. through experience, through constant awareness, the material needed to make a point or open the mind and eyes of another presents itself almost of its own accord. i learned to understand music of many periods, of many styles, by performing it at sight, analyzing it, having it explained by a person whose natural insight had been sharpened by an insatiable curiosity about all music, not just that of western europe. through her insight into the very essence of a musical style, mademoiselle boulanger is able to communicate the sense of what composers must have 101 thought about their music and what they must have been trying to do. this, in my opinion, is the very essence of musicology. it can lead us to an understanding of human thought and belief outside our own time. like all other aspects of historical study, it can make us aware of our fellowship with men of the past, who, though outwardly very different from us, were engaged in much the same activities. without study, application, and empathy, how can we hope to understand a world before darwin and freud? in turn, how will our children be able to understand a world that existed before television and automobiles? the recreation of these worlds, which, except for their attempts at permanence, are lost to us, can be achieved only through speculation based on these attempts. this can be done through music, but it is a difficult task, since music is, in essence, neither a visual nor a verbal manifestation of the human spirit, though it often uses sight and word as aids in communicating itself. what i learned from nadia boulanger is the use of scholarship. though others might not call her a musicologist, how many knew the beauties of monteverdi before her recordings of 1938? how many people, apparently quite numerous now, had even the faintest idea of the realization of a figured bass or of its function? this wedding of scholarship and performance is what i strive to achieve. as a teacher, i try to show my students that it is important not to separate theory from practice, or literary knowledge from musical understanding. each discipline, though valuable in itself, is a tool to enrich one's understanding of the very stuff that makes such distinct disciplines possible: music. in all honesty, however, i must say that sometimes one does not have to be much of a scholar to be an accomplished musician. after two years with nadia boulanger, and while i was working for my m.a. in composition at columbia, i studied with pierre monteux. he was a man who could not have cared less about what was going on in the world of bach, of mozart, or even of stravinsky. it was his job to perform the music as clearly as he could; and if anybody was ever motivated by pure musical instinct, and a fantastic one at that, it was monteux. but one really could not ask him his reasons. it was done a certain way because in that way it would be clearest. what an instinctive understanding of style monteux possessed! that, too, however, was the product of immense care and tremendous application, two of the most important criteria of good scholarship. what i have been attempting to show is my belief that every aspect of music, every tool that helps one enter more deeply into its heart, should be used. at times, one tool is more useful than another; if one tool does not work, another should be tried. i feel fortunate to have so many means available to me and less daunted by what seemed an impossible undertaking when i was younger. in the course of my life i have performed, conducted, taught, composed, written criticism, arranged, created the music and lyrics for what used to be called popular tunes, sung, and danced. i suppose that explains my multifaceted approach. i know no other. every means is useful to me in its own 102 way, and many of them are either directly related to, or stem from, musicology, which i find inestimable as a means, as well as fascinating in itself. would there were really world enough and time-i might even become a musicologist! 103 aspects of the i8th century j. a. westrup if historians are to be believed, the world was once a tidy place. the age of this, the century of that-how simple it is, and how easy to remember. in spite of war, pestilence and industrial unrest, the life of men shaped itself into patterns which are neat and comprehensible. the history of music is no exception. if it were, students would find it hard to learn. but we know from our own experience that neither life nor music is as simple as that. paradoxically, the very attempt to discern a pattern blurs the facts; and the facts have an uncomfortable habit of making us revise our judgments. if we say that the 18th century begins with the baroque and ends with the rococo, with the mannheimers hovering in between, we have established a convenient system of mnemonics, on to which we can hang the works of individual composers. but where did the baroque end and where did the rococo begin? a mere glance at chronology is sufficient to shake up our ideas. when handel was writing messiahjohann stamitz was establishing his reputation. in the 1740's carl philipp emanuel bach and his father were both publishing keyboard music. when telemann died haydn had been in the service of the esterhazy family for six years and was already known as a composer outside austria. the year 1733 is particularly interesting. handel, after the success of esther, was embarking on a series of english oratorios. rameau, at the age of 50, produced his first opera. pergolesi wrote la serva padrona, blissfully unaware that nearly 20 years later it was to cause such a· ferment in the french capital. and j. s. bach, having written nearly all the cantatas that st. thomas's needed, could relax, apart from occasional commitments, and settle down to writing what he wanted to. national styles have been neatly tabulated, and indeed the differences between french and italian music were the subject of vigorous discussion at the time. but national styles had an awkward habit of crossing frontiers. it is true that when french composers wrote airs italiens the result would hardly have deceived any italian, and when german and english composers professed to write in the italian style they were apt to go through 169 the motions without capturing the genuine accent. but a great master like bach could incorporate both the italian and the french styles in a single work-the first brandenburg concertoand produce something which, to our ears at least, sounds completely consistent. our judgment of bach has suffered to some extent from the views of 18th-century writers, and this has affected our conception of 18th-century music in general. burney's opinions are well known: sebastian bach .. " like michael angelo in painting, disdained facility so much, that his genius never stooped to the easy and graceful. i never have seen a fugue by this learned and powerful author upon a motivo, that is natural and chantant: or even an easy and obvious passage, that is not loaded with crude and difficult accompaniments. sebastian bach is said, by mr. marpurg, to be many great musicians in one: profound in science, fertile in fancy and in taste easy and natural. burney disagrees with this view, on the basis of the organ works. finally the most familiar passage: if sebastian bach and his admirable son emanuel, instead of being musical-directors in commercial cities, had been fortunately employed to compose for the stage and public of great capitals, such as naples, paris, or london, and for performers of the first class, they would doubtless have simplified their style more to the level of their judges. a misjudgment, we feel, but a misjudgment based on a vast ignorance of bach's music. we generalize from it by saying that bach was regarded as old-fashioned in his lifetime and for many years afterwards. some people would say that bach actually was old-fashioned and on this base a whole philosophy of appreciation. the facts are simple. no one in bach's lifetime had the opportunity to know the whole range of his music as we know it today. only those in his immediate vicinity had the opportunity to hear the orchestral suites, the concertos and the cantatas. those who did would have recognized that much of this music was as up-to-date as anything written by carl philipp emanuel. bach came to be regarded as the supreme representative of the baroque because the world got to know him through his fugues. here indeed is profound science, but the same is true of the fugal movements of haydn, mozart, schubert, and beethoven. fugue 170 has never been old-fashioned, because it appeals to a composer's instinct to flex his muscles. but to the ordinary musiclover it has always seemed a severe form of composition. that is why a generation that knew little of bach beyond his fugues was willing to show respect to his science but was hardly aware that he was fertile in fancy or that his taste was easy and natural. even today there are those who regard the coffee cantata and the peasant cantata as exceptions in his output. the old man, they say (bach and handel are always referred to as "old"), was relaxing from his normal severity. the other secular cantatas may be admitted as further examples of a simple, jolly form of music-making; but little account is taken of the movements that were transferred to church cantatas. and in a discussion of the church cantatas it is the austerity of christ lag in todesbanden or the elaborate counterpoint of einjeste burg that are regarded as typical. yet there are hundreds of movements in these cantatas that present us with gay tunes and lively rhythms, without any of the complexities associated with bach's name. if he had cared to, or if he had had the opportunity, he could have been as popular as telemann. in fact, he deserved a far bigger reputation. telemann had ideas but did not know what to do with them. bach had the unique power of working the mine of his invention to the best advantage. handel is another example of a composer who will not fit into a pre-cast mold. it is easy enough to say that his arias conform to types; and it is undeniable that the same idioms, the same procedures, recur' again and again. yet no one can ever say confidently at what point an introductory ritornello is going to reach its cadence; and if "v'adoro, pupille" in giulio cesare is to be called typical, one is tempted to ask, "typical of what?" the range of handel's imagination was immense, and both his early and his later works are full of surprises. i have never forgotten having heard the cantata apollo e dafne for the first time. this struck me then, and strikes me still, as something unique in 18th-century music. but similar discoveries are waiting for anyone who is willing to make' a pilgrimage from esther to the triumph of time and truth, not least in those remarkable recitatives with orchestra, where the whole fabric of 18thcentury conventions is torn aside. it is a pity that messiah has so long been established as handel's outstanding masterpiece. i( is far from being typical of him at his best, and includes several 6* 171 movements which would be regarded as tedious if they occurred in any other work. the truth is that the leading composers of this period were first and foremost individuals. this is recognized in the case of domenico scarlatti, because his idiosyncrasies are more immediately apparent. but bach and handel were far more versatile, and the same is true of rameau. not one of these three contemporaries can be fitted into a convenient pattern. they could all be conventional at times, and it is their conventional moments' that cause them to be labelled "baroque" composers. but all three were constantly sending out sparks of imagination which resulted in unpredictable music-unpredictable because if it could be predicted, we should be men of equal stature. the same is true of the later 18th century. any industrious researcher can produce a comprehensive dissertation on chromaticism in this period. but this will not explain the miraculous effect of ilia's first aria in idomeneo or the minuet of the jupiter symphony. nor will research, however thorough, explain the apparent contradictions in mozart's music-how, for instance, the year 1791 could include both "ah perdona" in la clemenza di tito and the duet for the two armed men in die zauberfliite. in a sense the duet for the two armed men is as old-fashioned as anything in bach; but at the same time there are plenty of arias in bach which have the same simple charm as "ah perdona." the neat garden-plot of 18th-century music presented by historians is much more a' wilderness of second-rate growth, in which a few marvellous flowers bloom all the more brightly in contrast to the drabness around them. the second-rate composers are often referred to as "interesting" ; but bach, handel, and mozart are more than interesting, they are men whose music has enriched the lives of thousands. if we try to relate their music to their personality we are baffled, either because we do not know enough or because we know too much. any attempt to reconcile mozart's bawdy correspondence and his music is doomed to failure. even when he is being serious in his letters he does not impress us as a young man of outstanding intelligence. it is equally difficult to relate these composers to their environment. handel's operas may reflect the taste of aristocratic audiences, but there is no notable difference of style in his oratorios. it has for long been fashionable to talk about haydn's sturm und drang period. but there is 172 no evidence that he ever read the relevant literature. the violence of the symphonies to which the label is applied is clearly an expression of his own state of mind. the reasons for this are obscure; but at least there is no need to look for external causes. it is perhaps a good thing that we shall not be able to read the history of 20th-century music as it will be written 200 years from now. even now there are signs pointing to eventual generalizations. it is not uncommon for debussy and ravel to be linked together, and the time may come when elgar, mahler, puccini, schonberg, and stravinsky will all be regarded as typical of the present century, though there may bean artificial dividing line similar to the magic year 1750. it is a depressing thought, but not more depressing than traditional attitudes to the music of the past. there is still time to escape from them before the computers take control. 173 the challenge of educational reform claude v. palisca t here is a vacuum of leadership and ideas in music education today. musicologists have not assumed the responsibility they should in filling this void; indeed, many are hardly aware of it. as curators, conncj'iseurs, and interpreters of the world's music, past and present, they should be in the forefront of efforts in curriculum development and teacher training. opportunities for the participation of musicologists are greater than ever now that the federal government, foundations, and publishers are sponsoring programs ofresearch and reform. but few have taken the initiative or joined in collaborative projects. problems of public school music have aroused more antipathy than interest among us in recent times. it has been almost declasse for a scholar to have anything to do with "music education" and "music educators." there are historical reasons for this attitude. the generation of musicologists working in the thirties and forties was led by men who had their early schooling in europe. they could strike little rapport with this country's unique popular public school system and its leaders. the foundation of the american musicological society was in part a declaration of independence from the music teachers national association, whose meetings were the forum for music scholars in earlier days. to be drawn again into perennial discussions of teaching methods and curriculum was the last thing the veterans of these meetings wanted. music scholars have perforcc had to consolidate the imagc of their profession. few of us can spend morc than a small fraction of our time on research. if you imagine a heart specialist who dedicates a quarter of his time giving popular lcctures on the circulatory system, another quarter teaching principles of medicine to advanced undergraduates who will not becomc physicians, and divides the rest of his time between teaching medical students, administration, and clinical practice, you have a picturc of the degree of commitment a professional music researcher can give to his pursuit. no wonder we guard our identity so jealously. yet we must honestly admit that we are principally teachcrs of music and that most of us would as well have it this way. because of this major engagement in education, it behooves us to extend our commitment to pre-college schooling. this is not only for the simple reason that our students are products of the lower schools. pre-college teaching is part of our mission, because it should be based on the most up-to-date and enlightened knowledge and outlook, of which, i hope, we are cxponcnts. it is well-known that professors of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology led the movement that put the "new math" and the new science claude v palisca is professor of the history of music at yale university and principal investigator in its secondary school curriculum development project "an approach to understanding music." 145 courses into a large number of schools. their intervention was necessary because a gap had opened between the traditional classroom subject matter and methodology and the content, methods, and organization of modern mathematics and science. the object in the recent reform has been to teach children to think, experiment, and operate in a way as close as possible to that of the advanced researcher. for this purpose materials are put before the student that exercise his ability to isolate and solve problems and arrive at concepts and understanding. it has taken scientists who have themselves pushed knowledge to the frontiers to develop the material and guide its use. such a movement to revise the content of music education too has begun, but it has gathered only little momentum. this is partly because those who are at the head of various musical disciplines have not assumed leadership. instead of the initiative being taken by composers, musicologists, conductors, performers, and vocal and instrumental teachers, innovation has been left mainly to educational administrators and professors of pedagogy. in the vogue for innovation that has struck the education profession, the music field is in danger of being captured by media specialists-peddlers of audio-visual equipment and know-how, computer and machine learning experts, and the new wave of methodologists who see in technology the salvation of the bankrupt curriculum inherited from the previous generation. little is being done about the content of the curriculum, which, if truly brought up to date, would necessitate a revolution in method equal to that experienced in other fields. l although in the field at large and in the nation as a whole musicologists have not been very active in this movement, there are a few islands of effort that hold much promise. the juilliard repertory project, under a contract with the u.s. office of education, is now in its third year. its present phase, covering kindergarten to the sixth grade, will soon be terminated. a large repertory of western music from the middle ages to the present and folk and art music from all areas of the world has been edited mainly by or under the direction of musicologists. the repertory is made up largely of music not presently in circulation in educational circles and is being tested in public schools under the direction of several educational consultants. so far the reception by both teachers and students has been enthusiastic. unfortunately, this kind of testing program tends to perpetuate present practices by giving high marks to pieces that fit into the conventional format and downgrading those that do not. for example, baroque chamber music with keyboard continuo can scarcely find a place in today's schools; yet it may be just what is needed to draw the ubiquitous piano student into ensembles without compelling him to shift to a string or wind instrument. unison violin music also finds little favor, because the typical situation is a mixed string class; but may not such mixed classes be a mistake in the first place? material for a course in music literature at the high school level is being written at yale university, also under a contract with the u.s. office of 'an excellent prognosis of what lies ahead is charles leonhard, "the next 'len years in music education," council for research in music education, bulletin no.7 (spring 1966), pp. 13-23. for a good summary of the organization, sources of support, and current activities in music education research, see robert a. choate, "research in music education," journal of research in music education 13: 67-86. 146 o. education. teaching guides, study material, and various auditory and visual aids all aim at providing the student an opportunity to learn through a process of discovery the fundamentals of musical structure and style. he does this while becoming thoroughly familiar with a small number of masterpieces that cover the most important categories and periods of music. the personnel includes several musicologists, as well as a high school music teacher-eonductoradministrator, a theorist, and a composer. 2 both of these projects responded directly to recommendations made by the seminar on music education held at yale university in june, 1963. six musicologists were among the thirty-one participants: allen p. britton, noah greenberg, mantle hood, irving lowens, william j. mitchell, and myself. in addition, there were composers, critics, music teachers, music educators, conductors, and professional musicians.3 most of the recommendations of this conference remain today invitations to individual and collective initiative. i shall cite a few that strike me as particularly relevant to musicology. most junior high schools offer a course in "general music" to all students. with the present emphasis on languages, sciences, and mathematics, and probably new pressures for strengthening of social science at this level, this course may well disappear unless it is made both more substantial and palatable than it is now. the course has been in many school systems the last opportunity to reach the student otherwise disengaged musically. the organization of several alternate courses that are appealing and rich in content by independent groups of researchers could well generate new strength in junior high school music. at the yale conference i suggested a course in the "music of the peoples of the world." 4 i still believe this would be a very desirable program at this level, though certainly only one of several possible solutions. for the elementary grades there is urgently needed a graded series oflistening experiences coordinated with exercises in reading, singing, improvising, and playing. it must be carefully thought out to develop basic skills and concepts about musical structure, style, and function. such a curriculum remains, so far as i know, an unfulfilled desideratum. here again there are many paths possible. any good solution would require the participation of p.ersons who are accustomed to questioning traditional theoretical concepts and have a broad world view of music and a long historical perspective. another area that requires scholarly competence is that of musical films. teaching films and television series showing present-day musical cultures or 2for more detailed descriptions, see below in reports on projects in music education. 3the report of the conference was first published in a small multilith edition in the fall of 1963 and the following year was printed in a revised and abridged edition as music in our schools, a search for improvement, report of the yale seminar on music education, prepared by claude v palisca. u.s. department of health, education, and welfare, office of education, bulletin no. 28, oe-33033 (washington: u.s. government printing office, 1964). the document, no. fs 5.233:33033, is for sale by the superintendent of documents, u.s. government printing office, washington, d.c., 20402. price 30 cents. 4music in our schools, pp. 19-20, contains my proposed outline. 147 reconstructions of historical contexts of music making and musical instruments are practically an untapped resource for music teaching. investigations such as these require large sums of money that individuals or university music departments do not have at their c1isposal. because of the pattern established by foundations and government a2:encies in granting support, there can, unfortunately, be no national flan or rational division of effort. projects must be proposed and funds requested independently by a university or other institution, a group of them, or an organization such as a professional society. ideas for projects must start with individuals like ourselves, who persuade administrations and with their help find collaborators. together they must then propose a plan to a fund-giving agency such as the u.s. office of education. the road from an idea to a contract is a long and rough one, and few projects survive it. if the need is a real one, the research carefully designed, the personnel truly professional and suited to the work, and the economic efficiency high, there is usually a good chance of support. one of the most frequent lacks i have observed in proposals, both among those approved and not, is scholarly competence. what assurance is there, we must always ask, that the information, concepts, and interpretations that the project develops pass the test of validity that we as a profession insist upon in music research? it is now routine in educational research to insist upon "psychometric" evidence of the validity of an educational program or tool. no one will deny that this is an essential step. but many of the so-called "instruments"-usually short-answer tests or questionnaires of some kindthat measure the success of educational experiments are themselves so dubious in their reliability that both positive and negative results must be regarded with extreme suspicion. yet the kind of evaluation that would put the content of a curriculum to the test of historical and analytical truth and relevance in terms of the contemporary state of the musical disciplines is rarely contemplated. the musicologist is greatly needed to counterbalance the psychologist, and the two must find a meeting ground in the enormous and challenging total task. unfortunately, the help of theorists or musicologists is rarely sought. if the success of various commercial publishing enterprises in music that have skirted scholarly help is taken as a measure, we as a group shall probably find some if not most of the results of many current projects neither acceptable nor much of an improvement over existing materials. it is therefore urgent that musicologists participate fully in the search for new content and methods. on the other hand, where scholars have intervened, the experience has been that they cannot be left too much to their own devices. years of college teaching tend to obliterate the realities of the heterogenous class population, the short attentionspan, and resistance to unrelieved expository prose of the pre-college class. the scholar tends also to assume powers of abstraction not even possessed by college students and to shun the many technological aids that could make abstractions concrete. an experienced school teacher, preferably one with a ready classroom to test ideas, needs to be close at hand. the educational theorist is also essential, for, though progress in learning about learning is slow, some advances have been made. research and development eventually yield fruits that need to be tested and propagated in classrooms. the yale curriculum project mentioned above 148 • includes in its three-year span a year of testing in connecticut schools, followed by rewriting and in 1967 a summer institute for teachers from various parts of the country. these teachers will not only be introduced to the material so that they may test it in their schools but will spend an even larger proportion of their time in independent analytical and historical studies under regular yale faculty members. this is to strengthen their resources for learning, research, and self-criticism. aside from such rather special uses, the teacher institute has proved itsclfa powerful instrument for educational reform in its owri right. hundreds of them in a wide range of fields are held every summer. in its report of 1962, the committee on music in secondary education of the american musicological society recommended that the most practical and effective contribution that members of the society could make to secondary music education was to organize institutes where "active teachers and administrators of secondary school music may study the literature, history and theory of music intensively under specialists in these fields .... " 5 at that time no federal legislation had yet enabled the government to support institutes in music, although a large number had been so financed in mathematics, physics, biology, and foreign languages. the arts and humanities act of 1965 (public law 89-209), however, provided for the extension of support to institutes in the humanities, though the amount of money available so far has been small. the readers of this journal represent some of the most neglected areas in the training of music teachers. the ams committee report stated: the training of secondary school music teachers at present aims at producing choral, band, and orchestral leaders. the theory, history, and literature of music form only a small part of most undergraduate programs in music education and often this is bar-ely augmcnted in graduate programs. these fields would therefore seem logical areas for intensive summer-institute study. by emphasizing theory, history, and literature of music, the institutes would not only raise the musical competence, sensitivity, understanding, and taste ofleaders of instrumental and vocal ensembles, but they would encourage an aspect of secondary school music that has been comparatively neglected in america. this is the offering of elective courses in elementary music theory and harmony, music history, and litcrature. one of the most promising developments in the music education picture is the cooperation of various arts organizations achieved by the national council of the arts in education. incorporated in 1958, it has completed the first phase of its existence, that of organization and consolidation. it is now a truly representative group that can speak for all the arts-theater, dance, the visual arts, architecture, and music. the principal associations in the scholarly aspects of the arts are among the sixteen member organizations: the college art association, the american musicological society, and the society for ethnomusicology. since 1962 it has sponsored late-summer conferences at which about eighty delegates sent by member organizations have met to discuss such topics as the status of the arts and artists in education (lake eric college, ohio, 5report of the committee on music in secondary education, august 28, 1962. copies of this may be had by writing to mc, stoeckel hall, yale university, new haven, connecticut. 149 1962), the arts and the american community (carnegie institute, pittsburgh, 1963), "encouraging and supporting creative youth" (oberlin college, ohio, 1964), and "the interaction of art and science" (moore college of art, philadelphia, 1965).6 planning for the 1966 conference at the hopkins center of dartmouth college was based on the recognition that a consensus of opinion had crystallized within the council and that it was time to communicate more forcefully than before to the world outside the arts. a sizeable group of superintendents and principals from the new england area was invited to join in intensive discussions on how to bring greater opportunities for significant exposure and learning in the arts to school children and youths. ncaie has won the recognition of influential people in government and education. among the regular observers at the annual conferences have been roger stevens, chairman of the national endowment for the arts of the :'\ational foundation on the arts and the humanities, kathryn bloom, director of the arts and humanities program of the office of education, harold arberg, music specialist in the same office, david stewart of the american council on education, and ralph burgard, executive director of arts councils of america. ncaie deserves the support of the community of music scholars through their organizations as an effective medium for influencing national opinion on arts education and for participating in a continuing dialogue with artists, educators, and scholars on important current issues. in this day of specialization the search for communication among specialists has to be both deliberate and perpetual. not only has the distance grown among those teaching at various levels but also within the field of music and indeed within the field of musicology. the one-man department as well as the onevolume-one-author history of music are becoming rarities. the chasm that separates the expert researcher and those who are supposed to diffuse the results of research is already alarming. unless this split is counteracted by constantly-exercised channels of communication and collaboration, it will grow more intense. the burden of communication is upon the scholars; for collaboration the climate is ripe. but are scholars ready to give up their pet research projects long enough to seize the opportunity? scopies of the proceedings of these conferenccs are available from univcrsity microfilms, ann arbor, michigan. 150 " problems in the neue bach ausgabe of the e major partita for violin alone joel lester a scholarly edition presents a musical work as close to the composer's intentions as possible. among the criteria taken into consideration are the existence of an autograph score, the care taken in its preparation, the degree of supervision by the composer of the first editions, and the presence of several versions authorized by the composer. to this end, editorial emendations are sometimes necessary to correct errors in autograph scores. several sources are often compared to arrive at a reading closer to this ideal than that found in any single source. in a kritischer bericht, the sources are evaluated, one or several are selected as most accurate, and all variants are listed. a musician consulting the edition and its kritischer bericht then has at hand the information he needs to make intelligent analytical and performance decisions. as a violinist preparing for a performance of bach's partita no. 3 in e major for violin alone, the present writer did not always find all this information in the edition edited by gunter hausswald for the neue bach ausgabe.1 at a number of points, readings are not taken from the primary source, the autograph score; yet, the kritischer bericht neither notes that a change has been made nor explains the editorial decision. at other points, ambiguous notations in the autograph score are interpreted without an explanation of the source difficulties. three principal sources were used in the preparation of the nba edition: a reinschrift score in bach's hand (listed as source a), a copy in the hand of anna magdalena bach (source b), and a third copy in an unknown hand (source c). b is assumed to be a copy of a or an intermediary score copied from a, while c may well date from an earlier source.2 the autograph score is the only source in bach's handwriting, and it was the model for the edition. "only in a few cases in the textual criticism did one have to diverge from the absolute dominance of the autograph. in general, the deviations have to do with writing errors or imprecisions, as in the placement of bowings, which were sometimes clarified by other sources."3 the following is a listing of bowings in the nba which do not follow the autograph and are not mentioned in the kritischer bericht: 1. loure, m. 13, beats 4 and 5. slur 1 + 3 in a, slur 4 in nba. (fo1. 20v, 9th staff, 4th measure.) 2. gavotte, m. 33, beats 1 and 2. slur 3 + 1 in a, slur 4 in nba. (fo1. 21r, 5th staff, 4th measure.) 3. gavotte, m. 38, beats 3 and 4. slur 3 + 1 in a, slur 2 + 2 in nba. (fo1. 21r, 6th staff, 2nd full measure.) see discussion below. 4. gavotte, m. 76, beats 3 and 4. slur 3 + 1 in a, slur 2 + 2 in nba. (fo1. 21r, 11th staff, 4th full measure.) see discussion below. 64 the most significant of these is m. 33 of the gavotte (ex. 1). the bowing is entirely clear in the autograph. it serves to articulate a relationship between mm. 32-34 and 34-36, a relationship which is obscured by any change in the bowing (ex. 2). what is the source of hausswald's bowing? since the kritischer bericht does not refer to the passage, one can only assume that the four-note slur is found in sources band c. the 1879 bach gesellschaft edition was prepared without knowledge of the autograph score and was based on source b.4 this source, as well as source c, has the four-note slur. source c, however, is highly inconsistent in bowings, particularly in those places where the autograph is most consistent. for example, in the gavotte, c presents the rondo theme in an assortment of bowings at its different appearances (ex. 3), in contrast to identical bowings found in the autograph. did hausswald alter the bowing to conform with source b because he thought bach had erred in writing two bows against a sustained note? hardly, for in that case a multitude ofbowings would have had to be altered (e.g., see the gavotte, mm. 86-87). to emend bowings and durations in order to make the solo sonatas and partitas more "violinistic" is to open a pandora's box. at two other points in the gavotte, mm. 38 and 76, a two-note slur seems to have been emended to a three-note slur in the autograph score (ex. 4). in both cases, hausswald decided on 2 + 2 slurs. in these three cases, the kritischer bericht fails to mention the change or the problem. example 1 gavotte. m. 33, beats 1 and 2. autograph. example 2 gavotte. mm. 32-36. autograph bowings. example 3 ri j. i"r ,. ':j " ;r gavotte. mm. 1-5. .,. source c mm. 16-21bowings. mm. 40-45. mm. 64-69. same. nba. both phrases have the same harmonic structure, repetition pattern, and bowings. ,. "''" .. '-" '-----' '-' '-' "'---" 'c..v "fal_" "---"' '-' "--'" . 65 example 4 gavotte. m. 38. beats 3 and 4. autograph. m.76. beats 3 and 4. autograph. in the preludio, the placement of the f in m. 13 and of the pia (no ) in m. 15 is open to question. the nba places both on the third sixteenth of the measure. the f is placed ambiguously in the autograph score (ex. 5a). the fin m. 17 is written in approximately the same manner as that in m. 13 (ex. 5b), yet is printed on the first sixteenth in the nba. in the return of this passage in a major in mm. 63-67, the autograph clearly places all dynamics on the first sixteenth of the measure. if one reads the fin mm. 13 and 17 as occurring on the first sixteenth, then the source of the problem is the pia (no) in m. 15 (ex. 5c). since it is clearly placed at the beginning ofm. 65, it may be a writing error here. the placement of these dynamics is an important determinant of the phrasing (ex. 5d). if the fin m. 13 is placed on the first pitch, then the placement of the pia(no) on the third sixteenth must be a writing error. once again, a full discussion is called for, and none is presented. example 5 a. preludio. m.13. beat 1. autograph. d. h. m.17. beat 1. autograph. c. m.15. beats 1, 2, 3. autograph. j r r r cr i r r r r ft i fr r r jr i r r j r fr i; ii -/f----------i" cr''''""----____ ..---' '-..... ----/ f f f preludio. mm. 13-17. reduction. notes 1 johann sebastian bach, neue ausgabe slimtliche werke; scrie vii 1, werke filr via line. drei sonaten und drei partitenfilr violinc solo, bwv, 1001-1006, ed. gunter hausswald (barenreiter, 1958), pp. 54-62 of score; pp. 7-117 of corresponding volume in kritischer bericht. 66 2 bach's autograph is available in two facsimile editions: (a) sei solo a violino senza basso accompagnato. libra primo. da joh. seb. bach. faksimile., ed. bernhard sprengel, with notes by wilhelm martin luther, 2nd edition (barenreiter, 1958). (b) johann sebastian bach. sonaten und partitenfur violine auein, with notes by yehudi menuhin and gunter hausswald (insel-verlag, 1962). this edition is reduced in size and is quite inexpensive. full information on all sources can be found in the kritischer bericht. 3 kritischer bericht, p. 66. 4 johann sebastian bach's werke, bach geseuschaft; bd. 27, ed. alfred dorffel (breitkopf und hartel, 1879), partita no.3 on pp. 48-56; vorwort und kritischer bericht on pp. xiii-xxx. 67 the trouvere chansons as crea tions of a nota tionless musical cul ture hendrik van der werf the trouveres occupy a curious and bifarious position in the cultural history of the middle ages. according to tradition they were both poets and composers, which leads us to ask whether they were poets first and musicians second, whether their poems existed by grace of the melodies, or whether they attained the apogee of lyrical art: complete unity of poem and melody. whichever is the case, the trouveres stand apart from their fellow poets, and especially from their fellow composers, in their predilection for monodic chansons which are often esoteric in content. some medieval authors such as chretien de troyes, richard de fournival and jean bodel, who are primarily known for literary works, also wrote chansons, but the famous trouveres, except for adam de la halle, produced chansons exclusively. adam seems to have been exceptionally venturesome in his choice of literary and musical genres. as far as we know, no other trouvere composed polyphonic music, and he and guillaume d'amiens were the only trouveres to write chansons in fixed forms. hundreds of trouvere chansons have been preserved.! they evoke colorful images and arouse great curiosity about the personalities of the trouveres and the circumstances in which the chansons were created and performed. the scarcity of information has stimulated rather than dampened this curiosity, making it difficult sometimes to distinguish fact from fancy. in the last analysis, knowledge of the conditions surrounding the chansons remains quite incomplete. it is often pointed out that there were many noblemen among the troubadours, the earliest authors of vernacular lyric poetry; the ranks of the trouveres, on the other hand, included 1 for a list of the trouvere chansons with complete information about their sources, see spanke 1955. hendrik van der werf graduated ph.d. in musicology at columbia in 1964 and is presently teaching at the eastman school of music, rochester. 61 burghers as well. we may' further assume that the ttouveres, whatever their social status, were in general not professional authors or musicians. it is widely accepted that the trouveres left the performance of their chansons to professional performers, the so-called jongleurs. everything considered, it is easier to establish the characteristics of a trouvere chanson than of a trouvere or a jongleur. a trouvere chanson is often preserved in more than one manuscript, but the melody of the chanson is seldom identical in all sources. in some cases the versions differ only slightly, whereas in others there does not seem to be any relationship between them, even though the text demonstrates that we deal with the same chanson. nevertheless, there is usually no doubt about the common parentage of the preserved melodies even if the discrepancies are considerable. thus editors of trouvere melodies are confronted with the problem of establishing the original melody, while wondering how so many significant changes could occur. nearly all editors of trouvere melodies appear to have been guided by the principle that most of the discrepancies in the sources are deteriorations caused by scribal inaccuracy or by inadequacies of the oral tradition. friedrich gennrich, the acknowledged authority in the field of secular medieval monody, formulat.ed the following simple and seemingly undebatable principle for deriving the critical version of a medieval song from its various versions: correct the recognized errors and record the variants (1937:33). he explicitly rejects the opinion of those, notably pierre aubry (1909:xxvii), who warn that attempts to reconstruct the original melody of the trouvere chanson may well result in the creation of a new composition. instead, gennrich claims that "at present we are able to establish a critical version of the melody with equal if not greater certainty than the text" (1955:xiv). at first sight gennrich's principles seem quite acceptable even though he seldom mentions the corrections he makes in his own editions. but a closer examination reveals a number of aspects that are questionable to say the least. gennrich's method of editing medieval monody is extensively explained by werner bittinger (1953), who gives the careful reader the impression that this method consists of a set of directions for distilling the best possible melody from a number of different versions of a chanson, . and for proving that the versions we find in the chansonniers 62 are scribal deformations of this best version. aubry's observation-certainly startling for its time-that the discrepancies were legitimate variants rather than errors goes unheeded. he regarded the indistinct melodies and the imprecise notation as the chief causes of the variants (1909:xxiv). philologists who publish the poems of the trouveres encounter problems similar to those of the musicologists who edit the melodies. since very few of the melodies but nearly all of the poems have been published, it is worthwhile examining the philologists' approach. we find that the 19thand early 20thcentury editions of poems were based upon the principle that somewhere under a blanket of scribal errors and other deteriorations lay the original poem in all its charm and beauty. accordingly, the editors set out to correct all errors and emend all changes made by later hands. however, they gradually concluded that their basic principle implied some questionable assumptions, such as, that the scribes were extremely inaccurate and made scores of mistakes, and that the chansons could only deteriorate during the process of being performed and copied. according to these assumptions, each chanson was sent into the world as a good chan'son which the performers and scribes corrupted and forgot parts of, offering a poor substitute for the original poem. realizing these implications, some editors came to the conclusion that efforts to reconstruct the original had produced only a new version. a hallmark of the old editorial policy can be seen in the following announcement on the title page of a collection of chansons by the chaste lain de coucy: die lieder castellans von couey naeh samtliehen handsehriften kritisch bearbeitet (fritz fath, ed. 1883). in a later edition by arthur langfors we see the emergence of a new approach. he remarks that "by making a small number of corrections fin a certain version] one obtains an excellent text; we shall indicate only the principal variants in the other manuscripts" (1917:65). the new editorial method invited discussion among scholars concerning the nature of the small corrections one should make, but in general there were no more attempts to reconstruct the original. the philologists came to the conclusion that for a long time studies of medieval literature were influenced by "prejudices and prepossessions which years of association with printed matter have made habitual ... if a fair judgment is to be 63 passed upon literary works belonging to the centuries before printing was invented, some effort must be made to realize the extent of the prejudices with which we have grown up, and to resist the involuntary demand that medieval literature must conform to our standards of taste" (chaytor 1945:1). in study by h. j. chaytor just quoted we find revealing information about medieval reading and writing habits, about oral tradition, and about the methods of copying texts, and we are made aware of the enormous change in attitude towards language in general, and the written or printed word in particular. this change has come about mainly since the invention of printing. if the findings of the philologists are applied to the study of the melodies, the discrepancies in the manuscripts become sources of abundant information about the compositional technique of the trouveres, the performance habits of the jongleurs, and the scribal methods of copyists. our first and probably most important conclusion is that, in general; the different versions of a chanson present that chanson as it was performed by different jongleurs who had learned the chanson by rote either directly or indirectly from the trouvere himself. in other words, the chansons were in the first place disseminated by oral tradition and not by copies made from the trouvere's autograph. only towards the end of the trouvere era did the chansons become "collectors' items," and only then was the chanson, written down as it was performed at the time. it follows that we should not judge the melodies from their appearance in notation, but rather we should sing them while thinking of an audience; instead of basing the analysis of a chanson upon one melody reconstructed from several sources, we should analyze all the melodies as they appear in the sources. then, when comparing these different versions we should realize that it was not compulsory for a performer always to sing a chanson with exactly the same melody. for him a chanson was not an untouchable entity with a sacred "original form" to be respected and preserved. it was normal for a jongleur to perform in the way he thought that particular chanson ought to be performed and we should not pass judgment on a jongleur who invented part of a melody or even an entire one. thus the differences in the versions are not necessarily infractions of the rules for performing someone ,else's composition, as present-day audiences would be inclined to think; 64 neither should they be considered as conscious improvisations upon a given theme in the modern sense of the word. on the. contrary, according to the jongleur's concept, he was singing the trouvthe's melody even though, according to our concept, he was varying it. the difference between these concepts reflects the fa<;:t that our attitude towards printed music differs con'siderably from the jongleur's attitude towards the poetry and melody of a chanson learned by rote. as a second conclusion from the work of the philologists, we must stress the important effect of oral tradition on scribal copying methods. there may be documentary evidence for the oral tradition of the melodies,2 but without dissemination of this kind the discrepancies among the versions of a given chanson would have been different, unless it is assumed that the scribes either did not know anything about music or that they continually did' their best to change the original as much as possible without writing a new chanson. a chanson may have been notated on different occasions after performances by one or several different jongleurs; each s\lch notation may have been copied several times, and the version which we find in a manuscript may be a first notation or a remote copy of it. we may safely assume that the scribes (those who first notated it and those who made copies) did make changes but that .only an infinitesimal number of these changes are caused by real scribal inaccuracy; instead, they are the consequence of the attitude towards a chanson transmitted by oral tradition and of the medieval methods of copying.i do not wish to imply that medieval methods of copying were primitive, only that in several respects circumstances were different from those of today. there was no one prescribed way of performing a certain chanson, nor was there the uniformity in musical notation that we now know. monody was much less uniformly notated than the measured polyphony of the period, though they were perhaps notated by the same scribes. furthermore, we may conclude that the scribes did not copy at sight symbol for symbol. instead, certain manuscripts show clearly that a scribe must have sung to himself 'we are not trying to establish the extent to which oral tradition affected the dissemination of the text. since there are empty staffs above the words of so 'many chansons we may conclude that it was more difficult to obtain the music than the words, and that there may well have been more copying of the poems than of the melodies. 65 a section from the manuscript in .front of him-not necessarily the melody of exact.ly· one entire line-and then copied from memory what he had heard rather than what. he had seen. consequently he put himself in the position of a jongleur .notating his own performance. in this process he could make deliberate changes and corrections, but he may also have unconsciously varied the melody more or less extensively by changing' the distribution of the melody over the text, by ornamenting the melojy, or by simplifying it. "'it furthermore, it may be assumed that many of the nota tors and copyists had respectable educations and knew more about the theory of music and the rules of rhetoric than many a trouvere or any jongleur did. consequently, we have to take into 'account a tendency on the part of notator and copyist to correct the trouvere and jongleur. thus in some cases the changes made by the scribe are in accordance with performance practices, but in other cases the scribe's objective was to make. the chanson conform to the theories. in some chansons he may even have transformed free rhythm into . of course, it is conceivable that among the many jongleurs who knew a given chanson there was one who performed it in its original form; subsequently, this chanson may have been written down 'exactly as the trouvere had created it. thus we may possess the original. melody for some chansons; but we cannot be sure of our ability' to distinguish the original from among the recorded versions. we cannot simply assume that the version we think is best is theoriginat for it is quite possible that the jongleurs,. who were experienced singers, were better musicians than many trouveres and· improved upon the latter's creation. more important, even if we could determine the original version, we should not discard the others, because inmost cases the chansonniers present us with various fully acceptable melodies in the best manner of the period. 3in light of this knowledge we observe that most of the chansons in the manuscripts k, l, n, p and x were copied directly or indirectly from one mon source. on the other hand, many of the chansons in the manuscripts m and t are related in a different fashion: they were probably not copied from one common source but notated from different renditions, which, however, may have come from the same performer. furthermore, we may conclude that the scribe of the chansormier cange was thoroughly familiar with motets, chansons in fixed form, and the like, and that this strongly influenced his opinion of the notation and the performanoe of the true trouvere chansons. (the manuscript sigla are those used in spanke 1955.) 66 rather than accepting the above observations as premises for further examination of the trouvere reper'toire, we .should regard them as two aspects of one complex theory. other aspects of this theory concern rhythm, tonal' structure, melodic form, and the position of the trouveres in medieval culture, aspects which i shall discuss fully in future articles. here i will briefly mention their major features: 1. careful examination of the variants discloses that only a very small number of the chansons were meant to be performed in a strict, a modified, or a mixed modal rhythm. if all the chansons had been performed in modal rhythm, as is generally assumed, variants would have been quite different. in fact, the variants are such that they could originate only in declamatory performances of. which the rhythm is free in two ways: first, accented and unaccented tones and syllables may come at irregular intervals, and second, there is not necessarily a simple ratio between the duration of one tone or syllable and that of another. 2. it also becomes obvious that there is no reason to assume < ' that the trouveres were guided by the system of the so-called church modes in composing their melodies, or that they wrote in major or minor scales with tonics, dominants, and leading tones, as has sometimes been suggested. nor is there always the close interdependence between versification and melodic form which gennrich describes. instead, the melodies give the impression of being "remembered improvisations" with little design and a rather loose organization. 3. the chansons in fixed form, the french motets, and the spanish cantigas stem from the world of learned musicians, whereas the chansons of the trouveres originated and circulated in a notationless musical culture in which notation and theory exercised little or no influence, but in which the rules of rhetoric were well-known and faithfully observed. instances of border-crossing are only occasional; therefore, a trouvere chanson resembling a monophonic motet is a rare exception. but it is just these exceptions that mislead so many musicologists who approach the chansons as intricate musical settings ofa text. instead, a trouvere chanson is a poem to be declaimed to an unobtrusive melody which leaves the performer ample freedom for a dramatic re·ndition of the text and sometimes for showing off his beautiful voice. 67 references aubry, pierre, ed. 1909 joseph bedier, ch,!nsons decroisade ... avec leurs melodies. paris bittinger, werner . 1953 studienzur musikalischen textkritik des mittelalterlichen liedes. friedrich gennrich (ed). literarhistorisch-musikwissenschaftliche abhandlungen, wurzburg. vol. 9. cha ytor, h. j. 1945 from script to print: an introduction to medieval literature. cambridge. gennrich, friedrich 1937 grundsatzliches zu den troubadour-und trouvere-weisen. zeitschrift fur romanische philologie 57. 1955 altfranzosische lieder, vol. 1. tiibingen: sammlung romanischer obungstexte, vol. 36. langfors, arthur 1917 les chansons attribuees aux seigneurs de craon. helsinki. spanke, hans, ed. 1955 gaston raynauds bibliographie des altfranzosischen liedes, neu bearbeitet und ergiinzt. leiden. 68 (p. 85). assuredly, one sentence is of little value; but perhaps the rest of the paragraph from which the quotation was lifted would elucidate matters, particularly since i continue after the above quote that this would be discussed later. "we find that hughes neither articulates any specific hypotheses about skriabin's preludes nor puts the data to any significant use" (p. 86). the hypotheses concerning my thesis are clearly stated on p. 14. the question arises as to what mr. kassler expected my thesis to prove. i intended it to show concise amounts of what i call and define as tonal complexity. "and surely hughes deserves criticism for having become engaged in a data-collection procedure ... without justification of the unconventional measurement criteria" (p. 86). apparently, mr. kassler is undecided in this criticism. mter having stated my main concern, namely, "tonal orientation" versus "tonal organization", mr. kassler continues: " ... the necessity for unusual measurements should cause no surprise" (p. 85). " ... and with hardly any comment on the results other than 'they are here'" (p. 86). any analysis can only show what is there. the question, however, is what is there? reply to matt c. hughes michael kassler matt c. hughes austin, texas mr. hughes's reply accuses me ofinaccuracies, but the accusation appears to be gratuitous, for he mentions none. some comments by way of surrebuttal: 1. the phrase 'information theory' has come to mean specifically the field whose development stems from the classical shannon articles and whose current state is illustrated by the content of such journals as the ieee transactions on information theory. to speak today of information theory not in the shannon tradition is oxymoronic. 2. re opus 11, no.1: footnote 2 of my review indicated the presence of a rhythmic problem caused by the composition's being noted not in the current common musical notation (ccmn). hughes has interpreted (for instance) the measures excerpted in ex. 1 as if ex. 2 were their ccmn equivalent; in my review, i said that "the bar placement seems to disallow hughes's 'fiveagainst-three' interpretation"-if the bar had been placed after the second note of the left-hand group of three notes, rather than before, i would have left hughes's interpretation unquestioned. example 3 is the ccmn equivalent of ex. 1 i would tentatively propose (based only on consultation of the edward b. marks reprinted edition). since my version clearly does not have the right hand finishing befqre the left and does have a left-hand note 'bit value' of2/5, hughes's finding of an error in my commentary must be 'lost'. 3. hughes apparently believes that merely by naming the results of his internal-evidential procedures a 'measure of tonal complexity' he has 144 endued his procedures with the power to make significant musicological determinations. in fact he has provided no demonstration that his calculation procedures explicate any a priori notion of complexity nor has he shown that they give insight into the skriabin preludes or into any traditional formulation of tonality theory. ex. 1 skriabin, prelude, cp. n, no.1 ex. 2 * hughes would give this chord bit value 1/3 but surely this is a mistake. ex. 3 145 reports on research and development in music education the recognition that music is a conceptual and academic discipline as well as a field of esthetic experience is increasingly evident in present research in the materials and methods or teaching music. many of the projects undertaken by individuals, music departments, and professional organizations are sponsored by the u.s. office of education under the recently established arts and humanities program, two of the most extensive being the yale and juilliard projects. the music educators national conference is sponsoring the contemporary music project for creativity in music education, a massive program of long duration. individual research projects range widely from teacher training, selection of materials, and psychological testing, to curriculum development, experimentation with audio-visual aids, and programmed learning with electronic machines. the quantity of research in all branches of education has reached such proportions that the u.s. office of education is establishing the educational research information center (eric), a storage and retrieval system intended to increase the availability, and hence the utility, of research publications. if music educators everywhere make usc of eric to familiarize themselves with the best research in music education and even in other disciplines as well, standards will surely rise throughout the country. the function of the following group of reports is not to give a sampling of all types of educational research and development in music. rather, it is limited to those projects that deal principally with the materials and techniques of teaching music literature. although the impact and effectiveness of these projects will obviously vary considerably according to a large number of factors, we hope that these reports will present the reader with some idea of what is being done in an area of music education of immediate concern to musicologists.-gordana lazarevich. an enlarged repertory jar kindergarten through grade six u.s. office of education, arts and humanities program, h-117 ( 1964-66) roger sessions, director known as the j uilliard repertory project, this undertaking aims to enlarge the existing repertory of musical compositions studied and performed in public schools by anthologizing works from the middle ages to the present. 161 in contrast to the heavily arranged and excerpted music that is so conspicuous a part or present music educational materials, the compositions published by the juilliard project will be carefully edited to preserve their integrity. the compositions are to be dra\\"n from literature for solo voice, choir, orchestra, and chamber ensemble with a view to their suitability for children from kindergarten to grade six. the project represents the combined efforts of musicologists, performers, and music educators. the committee members responsible for the various categories or material arc: gustave reese, ages; noah greenberg ideceased). renaissance; claude palisca, baroque; paul henry lang, classic; .\lfred wallenstein, romantic; :"jorman delio joio, post-romantic; nicholas england, folk music, including arrica, the east, and the orient. contemporary composers arc heing commissioned to write compositions for inclusion in the anthologies. the procedure or selection is as follows for the romantic period, for example: fifty pieces were originally selected, most of which are solo songs. these were sent to schools \\·here they were tried out in the classroom, and then returned with reports on their effectiveness and their acceptance by teachers and students. the reports are presently being evaluated, and the final selection and publication \\ill soon be completed. -g.l. contemporary music project jar creativity in music education educators national conference, with a grant from the ford f ounda tion (1963-69) grant beglarian) director the present project is an outgrowth of a project for young composers-inresidence which began in 1958 under the auspices of the ford foundation program in humanities and the arts. it was expanded in 1963 through a six-year grant from the ford foundation, and has since been under the administration of the menc. norman delio joio is project chairman, and john davis, assistant director. the current project supports three major activities: 1. the placement or young american composers for a mlmmum of one \car's residence in various public schools for the purpose of composing music to be performed by the students. 2. seminars and workshops for music educators in cooperation with colleges and universities. 3. pilot projects in public schools to study methods of presenting contemporarv music and to bring about a full realization of musical talent through creative experiences, impro\'isation and composition. the project has already placed 70 young composers in public schools and supported sixtcen tcacher vvorkshops and six pilot projects dealing with newer techniques in music education. it also supported the seminar on comprehensive :\iusicianship held at northwestern university, april 1965. the aim of the four-day conference was to consider the state of training provided 162 by the schools or music in institutions or higher learning. among the participants were historians, theorists, educators, composers, and performers. the proceedings of this seminar arc published in comprehensive musicianship: the foundationfor college education in music (menc 1965), which lists the participants, summarizes the recommendations of each of the three groups (composition, analysis, and history), and prints the five important background papers read at the seminar: james c. carlsen, the role of programmed instruction in the development of musical skills. allen forte, the role of the study or music theory in the development of musical understanding. charles leonhard, the philosophy of music education-present and future. learning theory and music teaching. william]. mitchell, the role of music history and literature in the development of musical understanding. ole sand, current trends in curriculum and instruction. a second publication, experiments in musical creativity (menc 1966) reports on the three pilot projects sponsored by cmp during 1964. these were conducted in cooperation with school systems in baltimore, md., san diego, cal., and farmingdale, n.y. the baltimore and san diego projects provided in-service seminars for music teachers, who in turn instructed pilot classes at selected grade levels. their major aim was to find suitable approaches to the presentation of contemporary music to children. the teacher seminars met each week to study and analyze contemporary music under the direction of a composerconsultant. the farmingdale project was conducted with 31 talented children from grades six to eight. the objectives of this project were to demonstrate experimental techniques in musical composition using 20th-century idioms; and to demonstrate the development of musical resources through rhythmics, singing, improvisation, and composition. on the recommendation of the seminar, five institutes for music in contemporary education have been established and are to operate for two academic years, starting in the fall of 1966. each institute consists of a regional group of universities, colleges, and public school systems, with an administrative center and a regional director: northwestern region robert trotter, school of music, cniversity of oregon western region ellis kohs, school of music, university of southern california midwestern region arrand parsons, school of music, northwestern university southern region wiley housewright, school of music, florida state university eastern region walter hendl, eastman school of music, university of rochester. the purpose of the institutes is to strengthen the teaching of music in public schools and colleges. instructional programs are offered in basic musicianship courses in pre-college, upper-level graduate, and undergraduate music cur163 ricula. they are aimed at musicianship training in depth for all music students \\hether they aspire to be professionals, teachers, or amateurs. the instructional programs of the institutes cover composition, a survey of theoretical systems, the study of the development of music in its historical context, the practice of aural skills necessary for analysis, performance, and music criticism; they will also include conducting, orchestration, and arranging. the results of the project will be evaluated in annual reports by the project directors. bulletins on the various activities of the cmp appear regularly in the j1usic educators journal. c.l. the theory of expectation applied to musical listening u.s. office of education, coopctative research program, h-i06 (1964-66) richard colwell, director leonard b. meyer, in his book emotion and in music, sets forth a theory of musical understanding which has since gained wide acceptance. a musical event, says meyer, has "meaning" only when it has come to arouse in us the expectation of another more or less definite musical event. emotion or affect results from a particular situation where this expectation is not fulfilled in the ordinary way. in a good piece of music our expectations are constantly being modified through delayed resolution with the consequent high yield of affect; but they are never frustrated to such an extent that we cease to expect altogether, for at this point the piece would become meaningless. this, in brief, is meyer's "theory of expectation," although this particular phrase seems to be colwell's. colwell deals in his study with two main problems: (1) what must the student be taught so that he can appreciate music along the lines of meyer's theory? and (2) can this material be successfully taught to fifth-grade children? in order to determine what were the "meaningful" musical elements to be taught, colwell did not consider it sufficient to rely on a list abstracted from alone; this lis't was compared to, and modified by, reports by experienced listeners on what they heard in certain given pieces. furthermore, colwell had the felicitous idea of relying not on the studied responses of these listeners, nor even on their response to a printed score-both of which might haw involved more wishful than actual hearing-but rather on their impromptu comments written on a virtually blank score after only a few hearings of a representative (though not overly familiar) work. the results of this "blank score test" were sufficiently consistent with meyer's theories to pro"ide a broadc'r base for the subsequent classroom experiment. in the classroom phase colwell decided to concentrate on music of the classic period and to use sixthas well as fifth-grade students. the material constituted a year's course and was divided into 4 nine-week units follows: 164 i. keyboard peiformance. the piano was used as a physical focus for the understanding of basic chords and melodic patterns. 2. factual information. along with some standard biographical and historical material, verbalizations were presented for stylisti,c traits, musical forms, and differences between instruments. 3. listening. it was attempted to make listening an active rather than the usual passive experience through a concentration on specific elements of the music (e.g. tempo, meter, rhythm, melody). students followed the music with line scores. 4. singing. thc primary purpose was "to use the conventional singing materials to further not only singing ability but also listening skills." the teachers involved were carefully briefed on the proper methods of instruction in each of these areas. musical tests of various kinds, some devised by colwell, were administered both before and after the year of instruction. control groups were provided. results: 1. keyboard performance. this unit was beset by problems of finger coordination, and even special eighteen-week groups did not achieve satisfactory results. conclusion: "the keyboard appears to be an inefficient vehicle in terms of time, for teaching the awarenesses desired by this study. " 2. factual information. a lot of facts were conveyed-there were many pcrfect objective test scores-but "much of this material was not utilized when listening, because the students did not get enough practice doing this to build listening skills." 3. listening. there was "complete inability to apply any concrete learnings to the musical situation." e.g. students could not identify simple rising and falling melodic patterns in the music they heard. 4. singing. results "fell far short of success" because, in colwell's opinion, students were so habituated to singing as recreation that intensive learning experiences in this area were hard to achieve. thesc results are almost completely negative. but colwell interprets them not as a failure of meyer's criteria in practice, nor even as evidence that such material is actually unteachable at this grade level, but as a general indictment of the early years of music education. "this study found that students retained no concrete know ledges or skills from their first four years of music instruction. even though the knowledges and skills which the study needed as prerequisites are widely accepted objectives cited by teachers, found in song book series, in curriculum guides and methods texts, they are taught and learned in a fashion which offers no tangible results. no doubt this situation is due to a combination of time limitations, inappropriate or negative materials, and certain traditional or habitual approaches toward teaching . " music. the indicated solution involves a general overhauling of music education from the very earliest grades. teachers should be trained to teach music in terms of specific musical elements, not through anecdote or group rote singing. realistic but definite goals should be set for each student for each year of music study. --thomas frenkel. 165 educational research injormation center (eric) eric is the first nation-wide, comprehensive information system to serve american education by acting as a central storehouse of information about educational organizations, curricula, methods, and materials. its function is to coordinate field activities and make information available to teachers, administrators, and researchers. it stores documents and relates information promptly and inexpensively. whereas central eric operates within the office of education as a branch of the division of research training and dissemination, bureau of research, there are twelve decentralized clearinghouses located at different universities throughout the u.s., each one specializing in one area of research. others will be located at research and development centers and at regional educationallaboratories. the center for music is to be located at ohio state university. among those already in operation are the clearinghouses on junior colleges, exceptional children, linguistics, reading, counseling and guidance, science education, small schools and rural compensatory education, the disadvantaged, teaching of foreign languages, school personnel, vocational and technical education, and educational administration. although eric registers and makes available research supported by the office of education, it also provides services to state and city school systems, colleges, universities, and professional organizations. --c.l. the development oj the content and materials jor a music literature course in the senior high school u.s. office of education, arts and humanities program, h-243 ( 1965-66) neal e. glenn, director; robert glidden, assistant director the purpose of this project is to broaden the high school music curriculum through an experimental class in music literature, titled "masterpieces of music literature," established at the university high school in iowa city. the two-semester, full-credit course is open to students whether they have musical proficiency or not. the objectives of the project are: (i) to experiment with the content of a secondary school course in music literature and to observe the students' response. their achievement is tested and evaluated through the use of gordon's musical achievement profile and the listening achievement test. [the gordon achievement profile contains four sub-tests: melodic recognition, rhythmic recognition, harmonic recognition, and symbolic understanding. the first three are auditory-visual dis166 • crimination tests of 44 items each; the symbolic understanding test has 50 items. the listening achievement test contains 45 multiple-choice items, three each on fifteen musical excerpts. various musical styles are represented and questions are based on composer, rhythm and meter, melodic constructs, harmony, timbre, and texture.] students are interviewed by the university high school guidance department, where their reaction to specific aspects of the course is recorded. parents are mailed a questionnaire in an attempt "to determine parental attitude toward the music literature course and its place in the curriculum." (2) to assemble and develop curricular materials. at the end of the project the teacher is presented with a set of source materials to be used in future teaching of the course. (3) to examine the potentialities of various audio-visual teaching aids and to evaluate their applicability to the course. the following audio-visual equipment is employed: tape recorders for use in the classroom and listening laboratory, overhead projectors, 35mm slides, l6mm motion films, and record players. the emphasis is on form and content of the compositions presented. the compositions are by representative composers from 1500 to the present. tapes prepared for classroom use include thematic excerpts for the study of form, content, and style comparison. to save class time, information in the form of musical themes, cadence points, and diagrams of form is prepared on loxlo transparencies. scores are not used because of the expense they would present to the school, and because "that practice would place undue importance on music reading for a course that is offered to performers and non-performers alike." (abstracted by g.l. from the directors' progress report.) edex: systems instructions in music listening warren 1. rasmussen, director the first stage of an experimental project utilizing a systems approach to instruction in music listening has recently been completed at san francisco state college. dr. warren rasmussen, assistant professor of music, prepared a series of 25 taped listening lessons for two fourth-grade classes at the college laboratory school. the tapes, which emphasized listening for the constituent elements of music, were presented by means of the edex, one of the newer developments of instructional technology. the edex makes it possible to construct such lessons as self-contained "packages." visual illustrations, such as overhead projecturals or 2x2 slides, can be programmed for automatic projection at predetermined points during the taped lessons. students are able to respond to multiple-choice questions posed on the tape or on projecturals by means of individual response units. scoring of these responses can be done automatically by means of signals programmed on the tapes. cumu167 lative individual student scores are indicated by individual counters on the ed ex console. one of the major purposes of the initial project was that of determining the extent to which such "packaged" instruction could be utilized effectively \\"ith elementary school students. this was considered important because of possible implications for improving music instruction in the self-contained elementary classroom. another purpose was that of gathering data which would provide guidelines for further planning of sequential instructional materials. results of the project supported the idea that sequential planning for instruction in listening skills can be effective, and that presentation to elementary classes through such media as the edex is practicable. (this report was submitted by professor rasmussen. for further description, see robert a. \\'eisgerber and \varren i. rasmussen, eighty ears a teachelin music educators journal, ="iovember-december 1965, p. 79.) evaluation and synthesis oj research studies relating to music education u.s. office of education, arts and humanities program, e-106 (1963-65 ) erwin h. schneider and henry l. cady, investigators this project deals with the problems created by the lack of an organized body of research information in music education, and meets the need for a classification of a large body of research studies. it also synthesizes the knowledge gained from such research for actual use in the profession and provides a system for the dissemination of this knowledge. the investigators collected research data from various studies in music education completed between 1930 and 1962, evaluated and synthesized the data, and indicated the implications for current practice and future research. the findings, in the form of indexes, abstracts, and microfilms, are to be put at the disposal of the educational research information center (eric) of the u.s. office of education. the procedures employed in gathering this data included compiling a list of titles of published and unpublished reports and documents in music education during this 32-year period, developing proper criteria for their evaluation, synthesizing these findings, and indicating the implications for practice. from a total of 11,810 titles of research studies in music education, 1818 studies were reviewed and/or abstracted. 182 (31 percent) of the doctoral dissertations and 40 (19 percent) of the masters theses were found to be both relevant and competent research. only 51 (5 percent) of the published reports and none of the unpublished documents reviewed were considered both relevant and competent. some of the conclusions obtained from the analysis of the research literature ,vere that the assumption that much of the competent and relevant research 168 in music education is produced by college and university professors of music education is not warranted, nor is the premise that all or even a majority of theses and dissertations in music education are reports of research studies. neither titles which indicate research, types of reports, nor the source of publication are indicative of reports of research in music education. finally, descriptive studies, usually of the status and survey type, constituted the majority of the research studies completed during the years covered in the survey. schneider and cady summarize the knowledge presented in this body of research in a series of statements grouped under various categories, but they note that these conclusions must be taken as tentative and could well be contradicted or modified by research completed since 1962. for example, regarding teacher selection and training, the authors conclude that no generally accepted criteria appear to exist for selecting prospective music teachers, and that existing sclection practices do not seem to be valid in that most are concerned with only the musicality of the candidate; the adequacy of the preparation for teaching music in the elementary school curriculum is ranked very low by both men and women classroom teachers. vvith regard to the music pupils, a definite relationship seems to exist between academic average and grades, aptitude, and achievement in music; no significant relationship appears to exist between participation in high school instrumental music activities and the student's social, racial, or economic background. children in the lower grades show a positive attitude towards music experience in school, but evidence less and less interest in later years. there appears to be agreement that mere association with the arts is not enough in an educational sense, and that a rational or disciplinary approach to the arts is necessary. on the other hand, there is much disagreement among teachers and administrators concerning the methods for achieving the objectives of music education. if the practices of music teachers are an indication of what kind of preparation should be provided them, then college music theory courses must be modified. using these findings, the authors deduce a number of implications for practice. for example: the objectives for music teachers need to be defined; curricula for the prospective teachers of music should provide understanding of human psychology and administrative techniques; the content of theory and harmony courses for music education majors needs to be redesigned in terms of the knowledge and skills needed by music teachers; and teachers should not operate on the assumption that economic, cultural, or social background determines musical ability. also, greater reliance should be placed on intelligence test scores and academic achievement in selecting students for specialized study in music. the major implications for future research include the suggestion that, since music education apparently suffers from philosophical confusion, further analysis in this area is a prerequisite for determining the nature of the deficiencies in music education. psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies on the development of esthetic sensitivity would provide muchneeded data for a clearer understanding of the meaning and value of music to man. studies are also needed on the types of music literature most meaningful and appropriate to the various ages and backgrounds of students, as are 169 examinations of the effects of sensory deprivation (of the culturally disadvantaged child) on the development of musical perception and on ability. future investigation should also determine whether or not the knowledge required and acquired by prospective music teachers is at all valid, and which musical skills are needed by them. (prepared by margaret ross from the authors' summary of the project.) a study oj new concepts, procedures, and achievements zn muslc learning as developed in selected music education programs u.s. office of education, developmental activities project, v-008 (1965-66) ronald thomas, director for this project on experimentation in school music education, ronald thomas collected descriptions of 92 innovative programs from 132 schools in 36 states. he defines four categories of innovation: content (structure, sequence, or form of the study), strategies (techniques, organization, or procedures), media (instructional aids), and performance and literature. innovative approaches to contcnt include activities encouraging individual exploration of the musical process, the stressing of group composition of vocal and instrumental pieces, and the acquisition of vocal skills as a logical outgrowth of creative activities. new and imaginative strategies have been devised as solutions for traditional problems. dictation is used to develop musical memory so that pitch perception becomes an aural as well as a visual experience. students conducting their own laboratory classes learn from group evaluation, the teacher serving as a "resource" person. curriculum planning is revolutionized through flexible scheduling and programming that allow for group or individual instruction, and for ensembles. the use of educational media has been vastly expanded to include flash cards, television, projectors, and video-tape recorders. the variety, excellence, and expanding repertory of vocal groups, orchestras, chamber ensembles, etc., were noted everywhere. \vhile each program differs in philosophy, intent, procedure, scope, and goals, many common factors appear: (i) each has clearly defined objectives in music learning. (2) there is concern in the design of the programs for the student's point of view, suggesting a new awareness of the educational process. (3) traditional assumptions about the relationship of skill and cognitive growth are being questioned. few of the programs were designed on the premise that cognition stems directly from training in a technical skill. (4) teachers are taking a new role. they share in class activities rather than dominate them; they provide leadership rather than authoritarian control. (5) the student is being given an opportunity to experiment and thereby to gain experience and to develop value judgments 170 from his own discovery. (6) teachers in the selected schools lead active musical lives apart from their school work. some are performers, some conductors, others composers and arrangers. (7) with few exceptions, innovative programs are "one man operations" planned and executed by practicing school music teachers who are educationally concerned and have musical insight. they are not the product of the disciplined professional educator or of research sponsored by foundations or supervised by institutions of higher learning. instead, they constitute an exciting and significant grass-roots movement which depends for its pressure and intensity on the energy and will of individual teachers in the classroom. (prepared by libby rubin from a report presented by ronald thomas to the fifth annual conference of the national council of the arts in education, dartmouth college, september 1, 1966.) an approach to musical understanding jar secondary school students u.s. oftice of education, arts and humanities program, h-221 ( 1965-68) kenneth a. wendrich, director one of the major conclusions of the seminar on music education held at yale university injune 1963 was that the primary aim of music education is to develop musicality. two years after the seminar this project was initiated, its objective being the development of musical understanding through listening, performance, and the study of music literature as an academic discipline. the objective is to be attained through the designing and testing of a one-year curriculum consisting of a number of related units. each unit deals with a particular musical genre and is to bc built around a core work representative of that genre. each unit will provide the following material derived from, or directly pertaining to, the core work: (1) a teacher's manual containing material {or discussion and suggested procedures; (2) a student workbook containing exerciscs, musical examples, articles of biographical and historical interest, performance materials, and suggested reading and listening lists; (3) reduced scores of large orchestral and choral works with instrumental parts transposed to facilitate reading; (4) tape-recorded illustrations. upon completion, the unit is to undergo several testing periods: first, in one of six public schools in connecticut over a period of two years, followed by the testing of the entire curriculum in 25 schools throughout the nation. the teachers who arc to perform the testing in its second stage will attend an eight-week in-service training program in the summer of 1967. the first unit, music for the dance, is ccntered around petrouchka by stravinsky and was completed in september 1965. it was revised after having been tested in six public schools during the past year. among the five units 171 currently in progress are: solo piano music (schubert's impromptu in a-fiat major, op. 142, :"jo. 2, and chopin's ballade in g minor, op. 23); chamber ,\iusic (haydn's quartet op. 76, no.3); symphony (beethoven's third symphony); concerto (bach's fifth brandenburg, and brahms' violin concerto); opera (verdi's otello). assisting the director are three other members of the yale faculty (allen forte, claude palisca, and leon plantinga) and two musicologists from new york university uan larue and victor yellin). (this report is based on information supplied by kerala snyder, yale university:) 172 launcelot allen pyke, ii jazz, 1920 to 1927: an analytical study 2 vols. ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-4988), 1962. (lisp., pos. film $2.75; state university of iowa diss.) frank]. gillis this doctoral dissertation, filled with a miscellany of errors of fact and judgment, points out the need for academic advisers qualified to direct scholarly papers dealing with jazz. it is unfortunate that as colleges and universities become increasingly aware of the interest and importance being attached to jazz, few faculty seem to be available for guiding those researching and writing on this vital aspect of american culture. whereas much of the carelessness is the fault of the author, his advisers apparently lacked knowledge of the musical and esthetic values of jazz, and of the available reference works. whether this condition can be attributed to the failure of music departments to recognize the validity of jazz as a significant musical phenomenon, and fit for scholarly enquiry, or to a shortage of qualified teachers, it is a rather sad situation that should soon be rectified. pyke's work, a study based upon ten transcribed jazz tunes recorded during what might be called the classical period of new orleans improvised ensemble jazz, is divided into two parts. volume i, comprising the text, deals with the background and musical characteristics of jazz, and volume ii contains a transcription of the ten tunes with the melodic instruments notated in score. before one gets too far into the text, several serious errors turn up. first, it should have been brought out in the title that the study is restricted to negro jazz. second, one of the recorded versions transcribed and analyzed, bunk johnson's original superior band playing "down by the river", was recorded in 1942, not 1922, as stated, and thus should not have been considered in the study. third, in his treatment of "a representative selection of new orleans jazz" the author fails to include even one of at least a dozen significant recordings made by jelly roll morton's red hot peppers in 1926-27, a group that many jazz critics, writers, and enthusiasts would quickly name as one of the two outstanding jazz units-the other being king oliver's creole jazz band, represented in the dissertation by four selections-playing in the new orleans ensemble style. the entire work-the sections on the historical background of jazz and on musical analysis, the bibliography and the transcriptions themselves-is carelessly done and contains many errors. some are simply 104 • • • due to negligence. it is unforgivable for anyone writing on jazz to notate the blues scale with a flatted sixth instead of a flatted seventh, and this incorrectly from a source (p. 78). some are undoubtedly typographical, and some are due to mistakes of fact. they are too numerous to bring out in any great detail here. furthermore, many of the ideas presented are not clearly stated and show the author to be without complete command of his subject. finally, a good deal of the important literature in the field has been neglected. a study in which king oliver and his recordings play such a major role should have utilized, or at least cited, king joe oliver, by walter c. allen and brian a. l. rust (belleville, n.j., 1955), the definitive work on the man, his life, and recordings. i find it hard to believe that this dissertation could have been accepted as a piece of scholarly research and writing. its basic ideathe transcription and analysis of tunes taken from a certain style period of jazz-is good. such an undertaking, however, requires a broad knowledge of the music, historically, esthetically, and theoretically, and a fine hand to develop it. pyke was weak in the majority of these requirements. yet, with more care, and with proper guidance, he could have done much better. frank j. gillis is acting director of the folklore institute, indiana university. joseph emilio rotondi literary and musical aspects of roman opera, 1600-1650 ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 59-2265), 1959. (287p., university of pennsylvania diss.) barbara russano hanning any study and revaluation in english of early opera deserves the interest of musicologists, but one which promises a "unique approach" through a consideration of literary as well as musical aspects is especially welcome. for it was particularly in this formative period of both florentine and roman opera that the librettist played an important role in determining the ultimate shape of the work. whether the text was written by a humanist poet, "to make a simple test of what the music of our age could do" (rinuccini in the deciation of his euridice, 1600), or by the composer himself who chose from among those literary forms and conventions available to him, it cannot have failed to influence the musical setting. one is therefore pleased to 105 special project musicology and the musical composition part i, the musical composition cheryl seltzer, editor with the present issue, current musicology inaugurates a series of special projects, the first of which is entitled musicology and the musical composition. this project has been designed to stimulate discussion on the nature of the musical composition in western culture. it aims to investigate modes of musicological description and explanation and to expand our understanding of musical works in themselves and in the context of tradition. the project is organized as a symposium, consisting of essays and commentaries solicited from individuals representing the field of music and other relevant disciplines, and supplemented by communications from our readers. contributors will consider the notion of the musical composition; the scriptsound relation; the musical medium; systems of musical organization; the dimensions, levels, elements, and processes of musical structure; the kinds of musicological statements appropriate to theories of style. these and other pertinent topics will be treated both at specific points of time and in historical development. . we begin by presenting two papers which treat the notion of the musical composition and the assumptions underlying the changing means of creating and experiencing music in the west. richard crocker proposes a re-evaluation of the criteria whereby we perceive a piece of music as a conceptual entity. asserting that we tend to impose 19th-century formal concepts on all music, he suggests we develop a formal sense capable of responding more sensitively to the unique coherence inherent in each instance of the musical repertoire. patricia carpenter explores the ramifications of 'our western tendency to objectify music, and the consequent notion of a piece. she is concerned with the apprehension of a musical entity and considers such factors as distance and spatiality; the organization of time; music as object and music as process; the sense of hearing and musical perception; the relation of our linguistic and musical concepts; the relation of the object to changing notions of form. these essays were submitted to respondents for comment. six contributions are included here, and a second group will be presented in the next issue. leo treitler questions the possibility of separating subjective and objective aspects of musical perception and, citing medieval music and theory, evaluates miss carpenter's postulate of historical development of the concept of "piece". the psychologist rudolf arnheim, reflecting on the emergence of the self-contained work of art-its gradual isolation as object from daily life49 considers the nature and perception of visual and musical entities. the dependence of accurate musicological formulations on the historical orientation of our musical hearing is discussed by ruth halle rowen, and edward t. cone explores the historical meanings, criteria, and conceptual implications of our basic terms for the musical work. bernard stambler, responding to professor crocker's plea for the development of historically appropriate formal senses, deals with 18th-century thought, its character and background, and the manner in which it has conditioned our present-day approaches to the entire musical repertoire. problems of successive and simultaneous apprehension with regard to miss carpenter's notion of the musical object are investigated by david burrows. in the forthcoming issue, saul novack explores the various criteria for the cohesion of multimovement works, and maria rika maniates compares composition as "objectified entity" with composition as "continuous process" in an ontological and historical framework. philosopher arnold. berleant notes, with respect to the problem of musical explanation, a distinction between auditory and analytical forms of perception. the relationship of music to the emotional experiencing of reality, in a historical context, is discussed by the philosopher robert hall; kenneth kaiser, from the viewpoint of architectural theory, considers the notion of the "piece of architecture". finally, miss carpenter and professor crocker will have the opportunity of responding to the commentators. since it is the purpose of this project to promote an exchange of ideas, we welcome further comments from our readers. richard l. crocker, some reflections on the shape of music in a recent article ("the troping hypothesis", the musical quarterly 52: 191, 1966) i dropped what i thought was an innocent remark, to the effect that one might reflect on what constitutes a piece of (western) music. now i find myself asked to do the reflecting. please look for no more than that; my intent is merely to begin a line of discussion, not to conclude one. the question came up in connection with an introit trope, which seems at first glance not to qualify as "a piece of music", because it is interpolated as three separate sections in a pre-existing piece, the introit. why do we hesitate to call such a trope a "piece"? obviously because it seems to be three pieces, not one; for we expect a piece to be continuous, or at least not interrupted by some other claim on our attention. but then, each of the three pieces into which our trope has fallen is too short to be a piece all by itself; for we expect a piece to have a certain minimum substance. or do our three pieces of a trope, along with their introit, rather form one large composite piece? but such a piece seems too composite, its elements too diverse; for do 50 joseph p. ponte-aureliani reomensis, musica disciplina: a revised text, translation, and commentary ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 62-1207, 1961. 666 pp. in 3 vols., brandeis university diss.) lawrence a. gushee-the musica disciplina of aurelian of rrfome: a critical text and commentary ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-11,873, 1963. 406 pp. in 2 vols., yale university diss.) stephen c. fisher until the discovery some twenty years ago of a small tonary which can be dated from the 790's, the musica disciplina of aurelian of reome was the oldest known practical work on music to survive from the middle ages. it remains the first work in the great series of summaries of both ancient and modern musical knowledge that continued for over seven hundred years, including such works as hucbald's de institutione harmonica and walter odington's summa de speculatione musica, and ending with zarlino's le istitutioni armoniche of 1558. martin gerbert first printed the treatise in his scriptores of 1784, establishing its date and provenance, but until joseph ponte and lawrence gushee chose the musica disciplina as a dissertation topic almost simultaneously and without knowledge of one another, no one had attempted a really searching study of the work. as it happened, the two employed such different approaches for their research that the dissertations have surprisingly little in common. taken together, they give us a quite complete picture of our knowledge of music in the 9th century as seen by aurelian of reome. the most complete manuscripts of the musica disciplina begin and end with eulogies on abbot bernard of reome, noblest of men, archsinger, and future archbishop. these are followed by numerous edifying examples of the virtue of forgiveness, and the whole work is presented to bernard by his humble exiled servant aurelian as a token of esteem. evidently aurelian had been a monk of the abbey of st. john of reome near the town of moutier-st. jean in central france (the only portion of the abbey now standing is a splendid late medieval doorway, which can be found in the cloisters in new york city); he had been banished for some unknown offense and was writing a treatise on music (at some nearby monastery?) in order to regain favor with abbot bernard. the rest of the story is shrouded in a fog of hyperbole and hidden by the mists of time. by examining lists of abbots of reome, gerbert was able to date the work with almost unbelievable precision to the early 840's, probably the year 843, marking the end of the short abbacy of bernard ii. this is the only abbot bernard who fits aurelian's 114 description as a descendant of charlemagne and yet is early enough to predate the oldest manuscript sources of the treatise. no one questions this dating. unfortunately, it does not appear that bernard ever became an archbishop, and we have no further information whatever about aurelian. dr. ponte and especially dr. gushee attempt to shed some light on these shadowy figures, but neither is very successful. the body of the musica disciplina consists of twenty chapters, the first seven on the ancient and biblical heritage of music, the last thirteen on the chant of the church, especially on the concept of mode. as gushee points out, this is not an elementary work but a treatise on topics of interest primarily to the skilled musician. unlike the treatises that were to follow it, the musica disciplina does not attempt to integrate the traditional and practical sides of musical knowledge or even to find an approach common to both topics. as gushee makes clear, the first part of the work deals with music primarily from the boethian arithmetical point of view, while the second section treats the subject from the standpoint of grammar. the present writer might extrapolate from this to suggest that a change in attitude might have occurred as a result of the increasing use of musical notation after 850. in addition, the appearance of the music on the page with the text might have lent more weight to the arithmetical aspects of practical music, this situation making possible the reconciliation of ancient and modern musical theory to some degree. (what is needed, however, for a resolution of such hypotheticals is a study of the influence of notation on the other aspects of music.) the first half-chapter of the section on modal theory is found in a number of sources as a separate treatise, de octo tanis, appearing in gerbert just before the musica disciplina proper and with an ascription to alcuin. several other portions of the musica disciplina occur in the manuscript tradition as separate entities. of five manuscripts that evidently once contained the complete text, two are only fragments and another, gerbert's source (florence, biblioteca mediceana laurenziana, pluteus 29.48), is not quite complete. drs. ponte and gushee both base their editions on the 9th-century valenciennes manuscript 148, but the differences among the three printed versions of the work are slight. proceeding from this common basis, ponte and gushee take quite opposite directions. ponte is concerned with making the treatise available to the modern scholar interested in musical tradition and chant theory in the 9th century and treats the other aspects of the work, often rightly, as subsidiary issues. gushee, devoting himself to an examination of the background of the work, discusses only a few of the most interesting points raised in the treatise itself. ponte writes his dissertation from the center outward. the second of his three volumes is the critical text, with translation on facing pages; strangely enough, however, he uses the text of the valenciennes manuscript while emending the translation with readings from the other sources. the third volume is an almost line-by-line commentary on the work and gives extensive references to early manuscript sources of the chants aurelian discusses, as 115 well as elaborations on the import of aurelian's comments. ponte writes his first volume to reorganize the material of the third part on a topical basis, with a particular eye toward helping those who would use the dissertation on microfilm. probably in order to proceed as quickly as possible to the musical aspects of the treatise, ponte dismisses some of the other considerations rather hastily. he takes the treatise at face value as an original work written by aurelian for abbot bernard. aurelian's lament that none in that benighted age, save bernard, could compare with the wonderful musicians of the past makes the author conclude that aurelian might be an old man writing a treatise which reflects the musical practice of the early part of the century. assuming the simplest imaginable textual history for the work, ponte suggests that most of the known manuscript sources are closely related to the valenciennes text. although he attempts to reconstruct a melody from a verbal description given by aurelian, he is not very successful. where ponte is interested in his topic, however, he brings some very useful material to light. one of his most intriguing discussions concerns a remark aurelian makes about certain bad musicians who evidently were singing the offertory verses to newly composed melodies. if ponte's suggested interpretation is correct, the offertory verses originally had been sung to a set of tones which were going out of use in the early 9th century because singers preferred to invent free melodies rather than perform the more demanding task of fitting the often unwieldy verse lengths to the tones. ponte also faces the problem of aurelian's often careless use oflanguage; for instance, the word "tonus" may refer to the greek tanas, to a church mode, to tone of voice, to the whole tone, or it may simply mean "pitch." the concepts are seemingly interchangeable, so that aurelian can begin a paragraph on the fifteen greek modes and end it with the list of fifteen tones of voice given by isidore as a list of examples. unfortunately, in the recent publication of ponte's revised translation (aurelian of reome, the discipline if music, colorado springs: colorado college music press translations, iii, 1968), the commentary is almost completely omitted, except for a set of emendations to gerbert, in order to facilitate comparison between the text and translation. the volumes of commentary in the microfilmed dissertation are likely to be the best guide to the scholar working on the musica disciplina for a long time to come. gushee, who had the benefit of seeing what ponte had done while he was still writing his commentary on the treatise, chose to concentrate on the investigation of the things ponte had taken for granted or simply ignored. his dissertation shows a higher caliber of critical thinking than does ponte's, and his writing demonstrates far more personality. since he was not tied to the order of events in the treatise, his volume of commentary is better organized than even the first volume of ponte's dissertation. in considering the meager documentary evidence concerning aurelian and bernard, he brings few new facts to light, but he does find room for several speculations about bernard's prospective archbishopric, and even more space for the 116 consideration of the possibility that aurelian himself became an archbishop. there was an archbishop aurelian of lyons, the archdiocese where reome was located, who held office from 876 to 895. in 843 he would have presumably been a young man and therefore (says gushee with perhaps a touch of glee) the proper age to have committed some infraction of ecclesiastical discipline which merited punishment by exile. unfortunately, there is no direct evidence to support this identification, since no surviving record shows that archbishop aurelian had at any time a particular interest in either music or the abbey of reome, although he was once archdeacon for an adjacent region. to strengthen the argument for the identification, gushee points out that aurelian is not a common name in this period; however, he tells us elsewhere that the father of the archbishop was also named aurelian, which would indicate that the name was in use in at least one of the great families ofthe realm. citing an ecclesiastical decree from the early part of the century commanding good singers to teach others, gushee makes the more plausible suggestion that aurelian's offense was his failure to share his knowledge with other musicians. gushee's greatest contribution to our understanding of the background of the work is his determination of the filiation of the manuscripts, in which he upsets the entire conception that previous scholarship had held of the history of the text of the musica disciplina. while a number of the family trees that the present writer has seen drawn by musicologists in source studies have seemed to be more the result of reading tea leaves than of textual analysis, gushee's examination of the scribal variants is sufficiently thorough to substantiate a new picture of considerable complexity. the large number of partial manuscripts of the treatise fall for the most part into patterns which indicate an extremely strong possibility that the work first existed as separate units which were then combined into a first version of the musica disciplina, and that aurelian made the final version by augmenting the earlier treatise with interpolations and by adding the passages referring to bernard. whether aurelian did more than this final revision of the work is not certain, although gushee establishes enough of a difference of content and style between the probable original and the additions of aurelian to make it seem likely that the first complete version was the work of another hand (or other hands). the entire problem is complicated by the apparent collation of different branches of the manuscript tradition in the preparation of some of the presently known sources, but the weight of evidence is such that gushee's version seems eminently reasonable. interesting as it may be to speculate upon these matters, however, one question does emerge: how much of the treatise was written by aurelian of reome. whether he was the same aurelian who became archbishop of lyons in his old age has little real bearing on what the treatise tells us about music. for his own reasons, dubious though they may be, ponte comes to the same conclusion as gushee about the earlier date for the practice covered by the treatise. while gushee's reasons are more substantial for this assumption 117 than are ponte's, as long as the treatise remains isolated in time and space, the precise decade of its composition is not terribly important. perhaps the next major study of the musica disciplina will be an attempt to unravel the problem of separate authorships of various sections to the extent that different points of view can be established for different writers and that some of the obscurities in the work can be clarified. the task, if it is at all feasible, would be monumental, and one can certainly not fault gushee for not having attempted it. but until it is tried, gushee's work on the history of the text will have little relevance to what the treatise actually says. perhaps the most useful parts of the dissertation under the present circumstances are the short discussions gushee presents on a number of topics raised in and by the treatise, such as the greek noeane formulas and the presence of notation in the best manuscripts, which leads gushee to conclude that aurelian did use notation, although his references to it in the text are not very explicit. if gushee's dissertation seems at times to go to great lengths to explore issues that have little to do with the content of the musica disciplina, his general study of the background and many of the matters he clarifies are extremely valuable for coming to terms with the treatise. furthermore, if looked at as just a study in methodology, this dissertation will prove quite illuminating to almost every student who intends to do source work in the history of music. 118 a synthesis of the arts, most completely embodied in the cathedral. the cathedral was architecture, it is true, but it also embraced sculpture (in relief and the round) and pictorial art (as mural and as stained glass). its liturgy comprised drama, literature, and music. already with the 14th century, each of these arts was beginning to realize itself individually, and the process was completed by the renaissance. the communally built cathedral yielded to the individual art, the individual artist, and the individual work of art. we may now be entering a definitive post-renaissance stage of western culture, but i find it misleading to look on what is happening as in any sense a return to older and perhaps more natural modes of perception. rather, we are confronted by an attack on the whole concept of art. if the attackers win, not only the work of art as we know it but art itself may disappear. some composers-i use the term only because i do not know what else to call them, except perhaps noncomposers-are loudly proclaiming the death of music in a manner that recalls certain stylish theological positions, and they are encouraging their followers to complete its doing-in. others, more reticent, are nevertheless apparently trying to hasten the process by insisting that whatever one wants to call music is music, that what one calls a composition is a composition. john cage's position is more honest. a few years ago, in conversation, he said, "i don't claim that what i am doing is music, or art-or that it has any value. i maintain only that it is an activity, and that it is the one in which i happen to be engaged at present." such a position is, from a purely personal point of view, unassailable; but if generally accepted by those who call themselves musicians, it means the end of music. let us not deceive ourselves. the extreme avant-garde is not trying to offer new definitions of what constitutes a work of art, or to create new forms, or to encourage new modes of perception. the extreme avant-garde has only one attitude towards the arts: it wants to kill them. bernard stambler, debts and transfigurations the materials of miss carpenter's article suggest certain quodlibets on the terms and structures of our responses to the arts. miss carpenter is quite adept with the two large structures, or frames of reference, she is manipulating and combining for the purposes of her paper: the sense (or concretizing) of musical form that appeared in the 18th century, and certain analytic methods of experimental psychology, essentially of the 20th century. somewhat less clear and explicit in her article (as, generally, in "histories" of music) is how we are to see the relation between 18th-century and pre-18th-century forms. the 18th century developed the "great formal types of musical organization" that by and large we still live by; it might be more accurate to say, the 18th century provided the ears with which we still hear music. the forms 107 used before, say, 1740 can be described as "precursors;' of the later forms; less influenced by solipsistic teleology,! we may see them rather as not merely different forms but as different concepts of what "form" is and does. (pro•. fessor crocker's article suggests something of this sort.) it would be a great convenience ifhistory were continuous: we could thereupon safely measure cause and effect, make clear judgments of better and worse, and above all play one or the other of the favored ploys of man-in-thestreet-as-historian: "things grow better all the time", or "things grow worse every generation". unfortunately, the course of events is more likely to be marked by discontinuities, or by abrupt turnings of corners that did not seem to be there. the century and a half before the time of c. p. e. bach is marked by an unusually large number of these radical discontinuities-in social structures, in philosophy, and (one is tempted to say, above all) in literature and music. let me instance one or two of these, partly to show our tendency to force history into continuous lines. this is in itself a characteristic of our age (by which i mean c. 1750 to the present) ; other ages have found their happiness by the reverse of this distortion. the literary and philosophical men, for instance, of the mid-14th century who labeled their era the renaissance and the preceding stretch of time the middle ages were explicitly saying: "there was the great period of classical antiquity, and now here we are; in between was a thousand years of marking time and of dull hair-splitting that can safely be ignored." for an instance, then, of discontinuity and of our tendency to line things up anyway. classes in music appreciation probably still argue whether bach climaxed and culminated the age before him, or whether he essentialized his age and paved the way to the future. bach was probably the greatest composer who ever lived; but seeing this should not prevent one from also seeing that he had no significant effect on music after him (except possibly in helping to decrease the modes of music from twelve to two and a half) and that the only musical tradition he climaxed was that of the provincial german church composerthat he was almost unbelievably cut off (mostly against his will) from the living musical tradition of his day. but we, preferring bach, shut our ears to that tradition as represented, for instance, by the serious operas of venice and naples. as an adornment on this distortion we magnify pergolesi greatly beyond his stature while we preserve the one comic opera of alessandro scarlatti and let his hundred serious operas fall into various limbos. the excuse, "castrati!", will not answer this accusation: it is rather that we, having j. s. bach to "represent" the first half of the 18th century, cannot admit to our ears or to our conceiving minds a set of musics contemporary with his and yet so different from his. the present vogue of "baroque" music (which tends to ignore, or transcend, the question of whether the baroque-see professor lang's music in western civilization-is of the 16th or of the 17th or of the early 18th century), even to the extent to which it is not 108 simply precious or commercialistic, does not controvert what i have just said: it simply uses "baroque" (a word still hovering somewhere between "cute" and "fantastic") to embrace composers as fundamentally unlike each other (and unlike]. s. bach, in spite of superficial resemblances) as couperin ie grand, vivaldi, and alessandro scarlatti. above all, the term excuses us from the tasks of adjusting our ears to deal with the problem of whether a given "baroque" composer (often with condescension compounded by calling him, instead, "rococo") may not have achieved, along with]. s. bach, the whole range and the whole task of what music may aim at. but i am chiefly interested in what the 18th century did, and in how and why. first, the "what". in literature as well as in music this century saw the birth of "the great formal types" that still live. the novel and the short story were both born in the 18th century; even the predecessor of the novel, the romance (picaresque or other), is written today in its 18th-century shapes. less obviously, poetry (both lyric and longer forms) and the drama have had a continuous history only since the middle of the 18th century. consider in their effect on the form, content, and purpose of later drama sheridan, lessing, and schiller-and then corneille or moliere, shakespeare, or the other elizabethans or ]acobeans. how and why the 18th century did these things that provide unbroken threads to the present is less easy to say, but a few parts ofit may be said. it is the time in which the major nationalisms of europe are clarified (though not all were yet established as nations) approximately as they still stand today. then, and also for the first time, the power and culture of europe become dominantly bourgeois-with a bourgeois demand for utility even in the arts being subserved by clarity and comprehensibility (or what is also called classicism). out of a great amalgam of trade among nations, not only within europe but with the far east and scattered colonies as well; of general leisure and money enough to afford (for the first time in history) direct public support of writers, composers, and performers; of a breakdown first real and then theoretical of the rigid class-distinctions of earlier societies in europeout of these and other ingredients western europe evolves an aesthetic (political and social as well as artistic and religious) which in its variations serves until this day-variations on a naive but good-hearted paradox: essentially parochial insights and constructs yearning by magnification to become "universal". (or: when i bite a lemon let the world's mouth pucker, now and eternally.) a great sequence of philosophers, from england to france to germany, sounds with increasing swell this groundtone of the "universal", and the lesser pipes of aesthetics and criticism pick up the burden. one line of this occurs within music itself: the development of an idea we have come to accept as having the full force of a natural truth-"absolute" music, a concept or an aim never attempted before or outside western music of the past two centuries.2 miss carpenter quotes pater's remark that all the arts aspire to the condition of music; more to the point is the western notion that all musics aspire to the condition of absolute music. 109 absolute. universal. aristotle, twenty-three hundred years ago saddled poetry with the notions behind these terms; critics have borne them as an incubus ever since.3 aristotle could no more help organizing and classifying than he could help breathing. he did a better job, usually, with dead things like the parts of animals; by some sad accidents of history it came to be assumed that he had done as well with the disjecta membra of plays, oflogic, of behavior ethical and political. his systems· have mostly come to be seen as timebound, suffering from the same bourgeois ailment as the 18th century'san impulse to elevate the parochial to the universal. more important: when one remembers that athenian tragedy had died a half-century before aristotle came to athens, that to the athenians aristotle was not an athenian and not even really a greek, that aristotle nowhere shows an ability to deal with behaviors or with words that goes beyond taking these things apart to look for their component pieces--one begins to wonder whether his insights into greek tragedy were even timebound. . and then one is prepared to see that this wonderful structure of the poetics explains only one of the ancient tragedies, the oedipus tyrannus (and it turns out to be an explanation of the play nearly as irrelevant as freud's). only a reader taught to accept the poetics as revealed truth would be able, in a triumph of will over intelligence, to derive from it an illumination of any other greek play (to say nothing of any later play). and yet, ever since the german romantics revived aristotle's "ipsights" into tragedy, critics have kept them alive by a combination of hypnotic language and forced feeding (somewhat like poe's monsieur valdemar) so that-to take the most egregious example-shakespeare's heroes in the tragedies, who represented to his audience that breed of man, different by nature and god's will from themselves, that man who as ruler dominated every aspect of their livesthese heroes now, by romantic-democratic process, have become the same as those in the audience: every man his own hamlet, lear, macbeth. the error is not in the bourgeois mind but in the absurdities and reversals a bourgeois framework perpetrates when applied where it doesn't fit. now, in these pontifications on history and critics' jargons, what of miss carpenter's article? the "solution" of the problem ofa varese or a cage (and such a problem implicitly provides the skeleton of her article) is not to be found in a combination of 18th-century musical form-concepts and 20th-century experimental psychologies, treating them as though they were manifestations of what used to be called the perennial philosophy, applicable anywhere and anywhen.4 nearly half her paper, for instance, is spent "in the matter of isolating and externalizing a musical object and setting it at a distance-on the problem, that is, of making it discrete in an objective world". while part of her discussion bears upon the gestaltist's idea of a continuum between subject and object, her vote goes to the object as discrete. a distinction between "subjective" and "objective" has come to seem one of the revealed data of existence, but such a distinction in today's (psycho110 logical) sense is another creation ofthe 18th century. it is today a distinction embarrassing to the gestalt psychologist and specious to the linguistic philosopher. 5 we might do well to throw both terms into the discard before we are forced to do so: are the findings (or the musical compositions) ofa computer, built and programmed by a man, subjective or objective? somewhat more serious is her fixation on triadic (and presumably tempered) harmony. i am not forgetting pythagoras or jeppesen-on-palestrina, nor am i ignoring the possibility of a coilvincing dissertation on a triadicsense in watussi drum music or in gamelan-klang. but surely, at this point in history (and in international geography), we should be ready to see that listening to music with the ears of the late 18th century is a habit we might consider breaking, or at least stretching.6 of course we can analyze bach, or machaut, harmonically, but we might learn a good deal more about their music (and about anything written before the middle of the 18th century, and probably about chopin and debussy as well) if we came to think of harmonic analysis as a highly interesting but not highly significant approach to music. it is the place in our ears occupied by triadic thinking (in its l8thcentury, tempered-scale forms) that inhibits or even excludes other ways of dealing with music-and this extends to our forgiveness of the early 18thcentury composers for the nonsense they uttered about the affects and of the composers as late as beethoven for their silly beliefs in modeand keymeanings. the point, in short, is to decide who is to be the boss-the scholar/critic, or the terms, concepts, or just plain jargon that he has inherited. someone has said that every work of art should be destroyed when it reaches the age of forty-five; the linguistic philosophers might say that every word should be destroyed at the same age, or at least every word capable of being used abstractly. for when fecundity disappears from a word, when it is a measuring rod that was originally designed for this and now is being applied to that, thinking turns into a chess game in which terms and concepts can only run through a fixed gamut of gambits and responses. there is a wholesome struggle in professor crocker's mind between an absolutist (or wordbound, or universal) aesthetic and a relativist aesthetic. the final paragraph of his article seems to show a lingering inclination to the absolutist side, but his compromise favors the other pole in his choice of "creative" canons for music not yet written. i endorse his choice, but think it far more important for historian and aesthetician, for critic and musicologist, to be ready to be creative (or even relativist) in dealing with the past. this is more than a matter of correcting the misjudgments perpetrated by our predecessors-it is being constantly alert to the temptations to hear-and-see through ear-and-eye defined by timebound spectra. in literary studies, the ideas of german romanticism, of marx, of freud have come to be fetters (like those described by plato in his figure of the cave) for looking at the past. chains for musicology are being forged from the 18th-century musical experience joined to certain 111 psychological jargons of our own day qargons that are themselves a heritage from german romanticism)-but let us hope that the links have not yet been welded tight. footnotes 1 her explicit description of "the great formal types of musical organization" as perceptual categories" (p. 64) becomes a frank example of this sort of parochialism (p. 68). 2 we can now, with hindsight, find precursors or progenitors of absolute music earlier than the 18th century, but composers had to cleanse their minds and their music of the ideas and emotions specifically linked with the modes (six or twelve) and with the affects (whether as intarsia or as mystique) before "absolute music" could become a conscious aim and program. incidentally, one looks through history nearly in vain for a creative artist (as distinguished from critic or philosopher) who clearly displays a belief or an interest in "universal" . 8 many of aristotle's phrases have acquired the quality almost of incantation. a good example of this is the frequent use, by both miss carpenter and professor crocker, of the aristotelian phrase "beginning, middle, and end". for greek tragedy, based on familiar legends, the "beginning" of a play was the point in the story selected by the dramatist as making clear the part of the story he was going to use; the magic of aristotle's phrase is not easily transferred to another context. for music (with the exception of john cage), "beginning" means flatly a change from the inaudible to the audible. 4 an instance which strikes me as combining the perennial philosophy with a bit of aristotle and some special pleading occurs in glossing harmonia as "the perfect attunement between microcosm and macrocosm". true enough, and miss carpenter also calls this "one ofthe oldest images of music". but i hope that no one will start building systems on the fact that, as metaphors, "democracy" or "snowflake" may also serve to symbolize a perfect attunement between macroand microcosm. 5 perhaps this subjective-objective business is only another instance of a trait shown by schools of psychology during the past century, the trait of borrowing fundamental concepts from the physical sciences-and, rather regularly, not fully exploiting the physical concept until the physical scientist has discarded it and moved on to something quite different. on subjective-objective, see, for an instance already old, alfred north whitehead, science and the modem world (new american library), p. 50 and passim. 6 theodor lipps, who, in an imposing number of works of major size in aesthetics, reduced all music to a departure from and a struggle back to the tonic chord, should have provided, for ever, a salutary lesson for builders of universal aesthetic systems. david burrows, on patricia carpenter's" the musical object" "the musical object" is neither short nor long enough. i hope miss: carpenter will take up her big and convincing idea at book length, for, al. though she argues it most convincingly here, it deserves to be traced in detail through the literature of the period she deals with. one byway that could 'i receive attention in a fuller treatment of the theme is the history of notation 112 herve lacombe. the keys to french opera in the nineteenth century. translated by edward schneider. berkeley: university of california press, 2001. xv, 415 pp. reviewed by mary jean speare herve lacombe's the keys to french opera in the nineteenth century, a revised and expanded translation of his les voies de l'opera franr;ais au xixe siecle (1997), is a brilliant study that, as the title suggests, provides keys to under­ standing french opera. early on, lacombe argues that nineteenth-cen­ tury french opera was "governed by a complex set of codes and practices" (1). he then explores the many elements that make up these conventions by dividing the book into three parts-"genesis, performance and recep­ tion," "drama, poetry, and music," and "society, genre, and aesthetics"­ each of which is further divided into three chapters. lacombe emphasizes the fact that the three parts overlap. while he clearly states his point that artistic and sociological matters intersect, the book's organization results in some structural choices whereby lacombe returns to certain topics in a circular fashion. for example, the first section, "the genesis of opera," logically con­ tains a discussion of the difficulty that young composers faced in getting a work staged (10). lacombe then returns to this topic in the beginning of the final section, "the parisian operatic world," with valuable observa­ tions about the inaccessibility of the theater at the opera, and the fact that earning the prix de rome opened no doors to young composers (209-15). he also makes some unusual grouping decisions within the three parts. because part 2 concerns questions of structure, it seems surprising to find "genre" in part 3 rather than in part 2. structure determines genre in many ways. the genre of opera comique, for example, is determined by the fact that it contains spoken dialogue and is usually in one or three acts (speare 1997:111-61). because of lacombe's tendency for writing many short sections with subheadings within chapters, it is not always clear how sections relate to each other; some of these seem like short essays complete in themselves. in the thought-provoking section entitled "music and time-enfolded time," lacombe discusses the way in which dramatic time is suspended, for ex­ ample in an aria. yet while he argues that the loss of distinction between recitative and aria in drame lyrique at the end of the century could be "bet­ ter suited to dramatic action" than number opera, he does not give any examples. in fact, the only operas that he mentions in this section are current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 246 current musicology monteverdi's orfeo and rossini's otello (124-25). these quibbles about the organization of the text do not detract from the fact that this book is an important work. lacombe's skillful use of source materials, including unpublished letters, opera receipts, and particularly contemporary reviews gives us a comprehensive picture of nineteenth-cen­ tury french opera. in presenting information on the rules of the theater, he also sheds light on minor but interesting points. the story that one reads in all the bizet biographies about how he had the audacity to take a bow after the first performance of les p&heurs de perles, for example, has always seemed merely amusing. lacombe proves, however, that in violat­ ing the rules of good manners in the theater, bizet's act was detrimental to his career (38-39). lacombe even gives the reader afresh view of wagner's experiences in paris, suggesting that the tannhauserincident was "first and foremost the result of a breach of customary behavior" (39). another strength lies in lacombe's discussion of the idees fixes that occur in french criticism. nineteenth-century french critics constantly bemoaned the loss of melody in opera and complained that operas are too symphonic. inevitably the name of wagner appears, even in a period when critics had actually heard very little wagner. in a review of the opera ondine (1863) by the little-known composer theodore semet, for example, the critic durocher wrote that semet's orchestration was modeled on weber, feiicien david, gounod, and wagner with its "violin tremolos, growling bassoons, flute sighs and strange instrumental couplings." durocher went on to complain that a chanson of the king of the crickets was in question­ able taste. berlioz, by contrast, particularly praised the orchestration and stated that the chanson was "delicious and extremely original" (speare 1997:156-57) . lacombe's discussion of the "reign of melody" and its rela­ tionship to the popularity of rossini in paris, as well as the influence of stendhal's writings, explains this aesthetic (lacombe, 267-71). in his dis­ cussion, lacombe quotes saint-saens, who wrote in 1876, "for 150 years 'melody' has been the facile catchword of musical clliticism" (271). from the outset, lacombe states that he tried to enter into the "spirit of the age" of nineteenth-century french criticism (xiii). at times his opin­ ions seem as passionate as those of his heroes, berlioz and saint-saens. when discussing the advent of the tenor chest voice, he argues that french head voices were not entirely replaced by chest voices in the nineteenth century and laments the loss of the head voice in the twentieth century. whether or not one entirely agrees with him, it is refreshing to read such bold statements as, "it must be admitted that late-twentieth century tenor technique has become almost uniformly rudimentary and monotonous. this is particularly awful in opera comique . .. which is bloated by perform­ ers devoid of vocal subtlety or charm" (48). words like "charm" strongly mary jean speare 247 recall the language of nineteenth-century french criticism. lacombe's frankness is also evident at another point when, in discussing the question of authenticity, he states: "very few works are published in high-quality editions and the state of the french repertory is particularly disastrous. the works of offenbach, gounod, and bizet, to name a few, have been distorted and are performed from incomplete material riddled with er­ rors" (65). one could go further and point out that not only are familiar works misrepresented, but that there is a wealth of less familiar repertory waiting to be discovered and published in reliable editions. saint-saens, for example, wrote twelve operas (thirteen if one counts the opera by ernest guiraud that he finished, fredegonde), only one of which (samson etdalila) is performed regularly. some of the most admirable passages in the keys to french opera occur in the second section, "drama, poetry and music," particularly when lacombe explores the idea of poetic expression in opera. he defines the term "poetic expression" as "the composer's ability to bring to life a series of emotions or images, to make them as brilliant and moving as can be" (148). once lacombe defines the term, he proclaims gounod as the "clearest and most influential embodiment" of operatic poetry in the mid­ nineteenth century (149). here, however, the only example of poetic set­ ting is found in the caption to an image of the garden scene in gounod's faust. at this point a musical discussion of the scene would be helpful. instead, one must skip ahead past the next subsection in the chapter to find a section entitled "the poetic model of gounod-expressiveness in the orchestra" (154), where lacombe returns to this topic and provides several examples that prove his point. again, he makes his argument through the words of nineteenth-century criticism. my only minor com­ plaint with this illuminating discussion is that lacombe could have given more details about specific passages in gounod. at one point, for example, in discussing gounod's sapho, he tells us, "let us look a little more closely at how this [operatic poetry as the essence of the work] is reflected in sapho" (155), but he does not do so, except through the eyes of berlioz. stating that the "most interesting passages are to be found in act 3," he quotes berlioz, who called it a "broad and poetic creation" (ibid.), but lacombe does not analyze the score or suggest in what ways the orchestra­ tion had inspired berlioz. nevertheless, his view of gounod is compelling. although gounod is viewed as an innovator, lacombe is scrupulously fair in considering gounod's predecessors, mentioning poetic orchestral effects in meyerbeer's les huguenots as well as act 2 of rossini's guillaume tell. and here, he does provide the kind of musical detail that is lacking in other examples when describing rossini's "four root position chords in long note values, separated by rests" (159). this sentence, along with his 248 current musicology subsequent description of the orchestration, provides a balance between his own analysis and the criticism of the past without the need of musical examples, so vivid is his description of this passage. the three overlapping parts of lacombe's work help the reader un­ derstand one of his themes, namely that, "nineteenth-century french op­ era may ... be seen as a series of frames within frames"-although this important statement is buried in the endnotes. he goes on to explain that he means a "well-organized system that dictates structures or limits, such as the framework of genre, the framework of aesthetics, or the social frame­ work" (393, n. 1). in an intriguing section within pan 2, lacombe uses the word "framework" to explore connections between staging and musical score. in his discussion of open and closed spaces, he observes the ways in which scenes tend to change from open to closed, and from day to night, depending on whether the emphasis is on the "collective" or on the "indi­ vidual" (90). it is through this staging technique, he notes, that conflict in grand opera is portrayed on stage (92). he later effectively demonstrates how theatrical space became incorporated into scores. meyerbeer, for ex­ ample, translates stage movement into a "polychoral musical structure" when the various contrasting groups are presented on stage (such as hu­ guenots, catholic women, and clerics in act 3 of les huguenots) (128-29). in part 3, "society, genre, and aesthetics," the discussion about na­ tional divisions between french music and german music is particularly fascinating as he explains the differences between german and french attitudes towards music in the nineteenth century: "for the germans, music was a matter of soul, of the inner life; for the french, it was a social matter, a matter of entertainment." lacombe suggests that the "french resistance to [german] romanticism" helps explain why grand opera was concerned with startling effects rather than with "opening a door on the world of ideas" that we find in german opera (295). this profound difference, of course, helps explain the whole complex system of french opera. so much of the activity of opera production was related to economics in paris, be­ ginning with theater directors who were reluctant to stage a work by either an unknown composer or by berlioz (for whom entertainment was ofleast consideration) . in his concluding chapter, lacombe returns to several of the strongest themes of his argument-german aesthetic values, operatic poetry, and private spaces-and brilliantly weaves them together. he suggests that what he calls the "interiority" of the germans, an emphasis on introspection and domesticity, can also be found in france and that musically it was best expressed by gounod and massenet. in these composers' works, he states "opera depicted private space, achieved a poetics of intimacy, and revealed the close ties that bind individuals and their environment" (304). one mary jean speare 249 thinks immediately of such scenes as manon's "adieu notre petite table" (from massenet's manon of 1884), which lacombe discusses earlier in the text (285). indeed, the intimacy of this scene, and especially the familiar object of the table, helps illustrate one of the most important points of the book when lacombe makes a connection between operatic poetry and the realist aesthetic at the end of the century. operatic poetry, he argues, is linked to realism because it refers "spectators to their own experiences of the tangible world" (304). in helping the reader to make connections such as these, lacombe fulfills the promise of the title. it is worth noting that in the original french edition, he uses the term "les voies" (paths) rather than "keys" in the title. along these paths, he provides countless valuable details, thought-provok­ ing discussion, and entertaining quotations and illustrations. his own ob­ servations are equally entertaining, such as his clever comparison of the dignity of the theater of the opera with seventeenth-century opera: "this was a matter of glorifying, not a sun king, but a sun nation; a very french need ... to display on stage the radiance of france's fortune and culture" (244). references lacombe, herve. 1997. les voies de l'opera fran~ais au xlxe siecle. paris: fayard. speare, mary jean. 1997. the transformation of opera comique. ph.d. diss., washington university. microsoft word braus typeset current musicology 108 (spring 2021) ©2020 braus. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 53 ira braus save for bartók, webern, messiaen and a few others, great composers are not celebrated for maintaining style-historical perspective when drafting music analyses. schoenberg, for instance, divined proto-serial thinking in works by beethoven and brahms, possibly to “legitimate” his own serial technique (brinkmann 2000, 21-22). tendentious analysis of this sort evidences neither analytic incompetence nor neurological illness, of course. it reveals, rather, a narrowed analytic focus that is oftentimes part of artistic creativity. elliott carter’s analysis of the first movement of his piano sonata, i submit, is a case in point. in the essay to follow, i will argue that his analysis so misreads, historically and structurally, the movement’s distinctive treatment of sonata form, a treatment repeatedly prefigured by beethoven in his two-tempo expositions. i’ll conclude by proposing biographical factors that may have informed carter’s seeming agnosia.1 for those familiar with carter’s biography, it should not surprise that beethoven’s name peppers much of the former’s writings on music. here are two such examples: (1) the three late sonatas of debussy have much in common with the last works of a number of composers whose styles changed abruptly near the end of their lives. […] this same sort of crystallization and clarification of content, as well as a certain restraint or stylization of means, is noticeable in the last works of bach, mozart, and beethoven. (carter in bernard 1997, 124) (2) the question of how much you can expect most listeners to hear is a problem in itself—i wonder how many people hear themes coming back in the tonic of a beethoven symphony. and furthermore, beethoven himself, with functional harmony at his disposal, always presented many effects coordinated with the return of themes to the tonic at the beginning of a recapitulation—some emphatic non-harmonic effect such as [...] a pause or a long pedal, so that when the theme returns in the tonic it’s very obvious that something has happened, whether a listener recognizes it’s the tonic or not. similarly, i use coordinations of different sorts to articulate the flow of musical ideas in my own works. (carter in edwards 1971, 104) 54 in the first statement, carter lauds the distillation of form and content in the mature music of beethoven and of other composers. in the second, he describes obstacles in hearing beethoven’s structures and suggests ways in which he—and carter, inferentially, in his own music—makes them audible to listeners. these ideas we will revisit later by way of explaining tensions between carter the composer and carter the self-analyst. for now, i bring to the reader’s attention three beethoven compositions “prophetic” of carter’s piano sonata: (1) piano sonata in d minor (“tempest”), op. 31, no. 2; (2) string quartet in bflat major, op. 130; and (3) string quartet in f major, op. 135. while these works perforce differ from carter’s stylistically, comparison of their respective designs and analytic histories with those of his sonata will, i hope, shed light on the question of carter’s agnosia. in june 1948, carter penned his analysis of the piano sonata (meyer and schreffler 2008, 77). this he had done to supplement a recording of the work made by beveridge webster that edgard varese would subsequently play in a lecture series on contemporary music at columbia university (ibid.).2 the analysis starts with a preamble explaining the work’s genesis and aesthetic, followed by an outline of its large form supplemented by a handwritten chart of its themes/thematic cells (meyer and shreffler 2008, 78). before we inspect a reproduction of the chart (example 1), i must stress two points from the preamble. first, carter composed the piano sonata for the “modern concert grand piano.” he says that the work: employs a large range of techniques that are peculiar to that instrument. it carries out [...] my interest in the plastic flow of music and in contrasting rates of change. i am especially interested in the time plan of music, and in the modeling of phrases and sections and their interconnections. (carter in meyer and shreffler 2008, 77) extended performing techniques, large scale temporal planning, and interconnections of phrases and sections indeed characterize carter’s music written after 1940. after listing these characteristics, he proceeds to outline the structure of the first movement, with reference to his thematic chart: the first movement begins with an introduction that contains material which is used throughout the work: the jump of the octave (a) reappears in the work alternating between b and a sharp, which sound the two conflicting tonalities of the work. for, all through the work, there is a conflict between keys a semitone apart. [...] the material of the first movement [...] also consists of two arpeggio figures (c) and (f) and a motive (g), the phrase (e), which suggests the first part of the second theme, and the actual first theme (h), which is used in many different variations throughout the first movement. (carter in meyer and shreffler 2008, 77) 55 example 1: carter’s chart of thematic cells from his piano sonata, first movement. while this overview speaks to the material of the first movement, it leaves unanswered three questions about the large form: (1) is the “introduction” an autonomous segment, discrete from the main body of the sonata form? (2) to what extent does the piano sonata’s tension involving structural semitone relations (b-a sharp), its two-tonic complex, shape its form? (3) why does “the actual first theme,” cells (g) and (h), occur in the middle of a structural block (measures 44-48), transition-like, when preceded by a repeated “two-tempo complex” (brodbeck and platoff 1983, 149-62) that recurs at critical moments in the sonata form? to tackle these questions, let us turn to the composer’s prose outline (table 1), referring back to his thematic chart as needed. a caveat: the outline’s page numbers clash with those in the published score.3 so i have inserted measure numbers in angled brackets followed by my estimated page numbers in the published score, the latter numbers placed in rectangular brackets; asterisks separate the respective bracket-pairs for each entry in the table. 56 table 1: carter’s prose outline of the form of his piano sonata. introduction: pages 1-2, end of the fourth brace, <1-32>*[3-4] first theme: page 2, 5th and 6th braces to page 4, fourth brace, featuring (g) and (h), <33-70>* [4-7] transition: page 4, brace 5 to page 5, brace 5. note return of (a) at end, also (i), <71-82>* [7-8] second themes [sic]: page 5, brace 5 to page 5. note (i) at the end. <83-108>* [8-10]  page 6, brace 5 to page 7, first measure. note three-part canon bottom of page6 [9]  page 7, second measure to fifth brace: development of (i) with new phrases, <108-122>*[10-11] development: return of (b) in harmonics, page 7, last brace, <123-133>*[11]  page 8, top to fifth brace: development of (c) with fragments of (b) and (h), <134-138>*[12] (cont’d)  page 8, last brace, to page 9, fourth brace, last two measures: variations of (h), <139-155>*[12-13]  page 9, fourth brace, last measure to bottom: part of second theme in bass, <155-160>*[13]  page10, top to fifth brace: variation of (h) with (a) jump of octave which becomes repeated notes, <161-84>*[14-15]  page10, last brace to bottom of page 11: repeated notes and development of (f), amplification of intervals of (h) last two races, <185-96>*[15-16]  page 12: interruption of development of (f) by statement of part of second theme which is derived from (e), top two braces, <197214>*[16-17]  page 12, braces 3,4,5, and first part of 6: continuation of development of (f), <215-23>*[17] recapitulation: begins with statement of (f), page 12, bottom, to page 13, bottom. return of (h) and (g), <223-51>*[17-19]  page 14, return of introduction in varied form, <252-264>*[19-20]  page 14 last brace, to page 15, brace 3: return of second phrase of second theme, <265-70>*[20-21] coda: page 15, brace 2 to end: from (c), (e), and later (i), <270-303>*[21-23] 57 according to table 1, carter designated measures 1-32 as an introduction, corresponding to the above described “two-tempo complex.” this means that the maestoso “introduces” the scorrevole not once but twice. since this complex will recur both at the development and at the recap, however, one senses a precariously thin line between an introduction that “contains material that is used throughout the work,” and an introduction that projects or rotates, as james hepokoski and warren darcy (2006) might say, across the entire movement. while carter’s placements of the transition and second group are tenable; location of the recap, starting with (f) at measure 223 is not. why? his point of recapitulation starts not with the first theme “featuring (g) and (h)” but with material from the “introduction.” what is more, measure 252 (maestoso) contains a “return of the introduction in varied form.” can a mere introduction to a sonata be so thematically rich as to return repeatedly in varied form? moreover, the same maestoso exposes a heretofore covert link between it and the canonic idea in the second theme, introduced at measure 102, then reprised at 265. aside from the meno mosso tempo and the pedal tones present in the two sections, their linkage at 265 yields one of the movement’s few v-i(i) motions, foiling its underlying i-#vii polarity, more of which below. as shown in example 2, the iterated co-tonic b flat in measures 262-264 morphs by way of under-third motion (b flatg flat/f sharp) into an implied enharmonic a sharp, slipping to a natural (measure 265) which then completes a minor dominant of b minor resolved in 267 and prolonged until 270, the bridge to the coda.4 example 2: measures 262-267, transformation of co-tonic b flat to enharmonic a sharp en route to b minor. before tying carter’s analytic contradictions to what daniel chua (1995, 210) terms “ectopic” sonata structure in beethoven’s late music, let us pause to compare carter’s analysis of his piano sonata to those by david schiff and charles rosen, themselves members of the composer’s inner circle.5 schiff, who hears the first movement has having “vestigial outlines of sonata allegro design,” reminisces: 58 carter claimed that it contained ‘no true development in the classical sense [...] all the ideas are in a constant state of change, expansion, contraction, intensification. yet at the same time the sonata displays a conspicuously sophisticated approach to the classical forms [sic] of sonata allegro and fugue. the first movement can be divided into an exposition (with two thematic groups), development and recapitulation, but with a number of escape clauses. it begins with a slow maestoso introduction that returns at several points in the movement: bars 24-32, 123-28 (in harmonics) and 251-63. [...] the first return interrupts the initial fast theme; the second marks the beginning of the development, and the third comes in the middle of the recapitulation, between the two theme groups rather than as an introduction to the first. (schiff 1998, 205-209) carter’s claim (undocumented by schiff) that there is “no true development” gainsays the former’s inclusion in the outline displayed in table 1. moreover, schiff dodges the gaps in his own analysis by way of “escape clauses” (take his reading of the maestoso segments). ironically, such analysis jibes with carter’s, since it de-thematizes the maestoso, whose several recurrences schiff sees as form-breaking rather than form-making. charles rosen, in contrast, analyzes the structure of the sonata from a “long century” perspective. he observes: there are a great many traditional elements in this sonata, of course. the sonata form of the first movement has a clear exposition of the first and second themes, a development section, and a recapitulation. the recapitulation is unusual in the way that is marvelously dovetailed with the development. there is, of course, a classical tradition behind that: there are a number of cases of haydn doing it, although the tradition was largely lost in the nineteenth century. [...] what i am trying to demonstrate is that while some of the classicism in this work is imposed from without, much of it is reconquered from within. in other words, the outward shape of the piece is a relatively conventional sonata in which there are some very radical musical materials. it is significant that the piece opens not with a theme but with the sonority of the octave bs out of which all the themes emerge. deriving themes from the actual sound is a very extraordinary development in the history of music, and one which carter’s subsequent compositions extend in an even more radical way. if i am right about the first movement and much of the second movement as well, even the tonality is not the traditional triadic tonality but is a reinvented tonality, carter achieves the sense of b major without the tonic-dominant relationships and without much use of the b-major triad. the central feeling of b major stems from the sonority of the piano itself and the harmonics it can produce. (rosen 1984, 10) rosen states correctly that mid-phrase recapitulation happens in classical music, though its use by haydn (see symphony no. 102, mvt. 1) does not resemble that 59 found in carter’s piano sonata. as we will see, it is beethoven’s mid-phrase recapitulations—in his two-tempo sonata forms above all—that more closely prefigure carter’s in the piano sonata. rosen, like carter and schiff, dethematizes the maestoso segments. in so doing, however, he discovers that the “themeless” maestoso emanates from the piano sonority itself (rosen 1984, 4). that is, the thematic material of the entire movement, derives from the equaltempered harmonic series of the initial bass note b and its synoptic expansion into a quintal aggregate theorized by rosen, one that represents the source chord for the entire movement (see example 3).6 example 3: charles rosen’s acoustically-derived source chord for carter’s piano sonata. amusingly, rosen imparts the backstory of the above example as follows (emphasis his own): i telephoned mr. carter one day to tell him that i had remarked that playing the b natural with considerable force stimulates the b flat harmonics on the piano but does not stimulate the a natural. this struck me as odd [...] i had always understood the minor seventh is a more powerful harmonic than the major seventh [...]. mr. carter’s reply to this was, “perhaps that’s just something about your piano. have you tried it on other pianos?” i was very pleased to see he knew as little about acoustics as i did. i finally looked it up in a musical dictionary and learned that in equal temperament the major seventh, and the minor seventh [sic], is an important overtone and that the notes of carter’s basic chord are in fact the only harmonics that have any importance in equal temperament [...]. this is almost subliminal, but it certainly works on our sensibilities and obviously worked powerfully on carter’s. i think we can take carter literally when he says that he tried out the sonorities of the piano, and that the piece eventually emerged from them. (rosen 1984, 7-8)7 while the arpeggio-like cells derived from this chord propel the music forward locally (see c, e, f, h, i in example 1), the tension between b and a sharp/enharmonic b flat frames, literally, its two-tempo sonata form. with reference to example 3, the tension between b and a sharp/enharmonic b flat enunciates critical points in the structure, starting with its brute-force iteration in the maestoso in measures 1-15 (example 4a) and ending in the coda, where the movement closes on a b flat octave (not shown here). 60 example 4a: measures 1-15 of carter’s piano sonata, mvt. i, showing brute-force iteration of b-a sharp in the bass. let us further explore carter’s seeming agnosia in view of the beethovenian shadow looming above (and behind) his sonata. schiff, tracing the maestoso’s recurrences within the first movement, drew ironically a parallel between these recurrences and those of the largo music in beethoven’s “tempest” sonata, op. 31, no. 2: the first return interrupts the initial fast theme; the second marks the beginning of the development, and the third comes in the middle of the recapitulation, between the two theme groups rather than as an introduction to the first, see above. (schiff 1983, 209) example 4b displays the opening largo of op. 31, no. 2. beethoven’s initial largo both “introduces” and “interrupts the initial fast theme” (measures 6-7, compare carter’s in 1-33, compare examples 4a and 4b). example 4b: the opening of beethoven’s piano sonata, op. 31, no. 2. 61 to continue, the largo, writes schiff, “marks the beginning of the development,” as does the maestoso in carter’s in 123-133 (see examples 4c and 4d). last not least, the largo “comes in the middle of the recapitulation, between the two theme groups rather than as an introduction to the first,” (measures 153157, compare carter’s 223-225, then 252-254, examples 4e and 4f); schiff implies, of course, the second of the two largo statements here. while the last homology with carter is less neat than the first two, it deserves mention since both the largo and maestoso segments critically modify their respective recapitulations. in beethoven’s recap, the largo section blossoms first into a recitative, then into a virtuoso flourish leading immediately to a recap of the second group.8 carter, as noted earlier, places the maestoso between the two theme groups, reversing the two tempi of the first group and skipping to the midpoint of the second group (measure 265, review example 2). example 4c: opening of the development section of carter’s piano sonata, measures 123-133. 62 example 4d: opening of the development of beethoven, op. 31, no. 2, mvt. i, measures 9298. example 4e: opening of the recapitulation in carter’s piano sonata, mvt. i, measures 223-225, then 252-254. 63 example 4f: opening of the recapitulation of beethoven’s op. 31, no. 2, mvt. i, measures 142163. how many times must an introduction introduce before we can call it a theme? surely, carter’s introduction does not introduce a sonata structure as haydn’s does at the outset of, say, his symphony no. 104 in d major. we may assay carter’s introduction more clearly, however, through the lens of sonata theory, as devised by hepokoski and darcy (2006). among other valuable contributions, their research offers a taxonomy of sonata forms (types) and heuristics for navigating them. two such heuristics obtain here: deformation and zero modules. the authors gloss deformation as: the stretching of a normative procedure to its maximally expected limits or even beyond them—or the overriding of that norm altogether in order to produce a calculated expressive effect. it is precisely the strain, the distortion of the norm (elegantly? beautifully? wittily? cleverly? stormily? despairingly? shockingly?) for which the composer strives at the deformational moment. the expressive or narrative point lies in the tension between the limits of a competent listener’s field of generic expectations and what is made to occur—or not occur—in actual sound at that moment. within any individual exemplar (such as a single composition) operating under the shaping influence of a community-shared genre-system, any exceptional occurrence along these lines calls attention to itself as a strong expressive effect. as such it marks an important event of the composition at hand, a deformation may 64 occur either locally, producing a momentary or short-range effect, or broadly over the large-scale architecture of music as a whole. (hepokoski and darcy 2006, 614)9 as the authors explain, deformation may occur both globally and locally within a sonata form. the deformation carter downplays in his analysis involves not just the two-tempo complex in the primary theme or p (hepokoski and darcy’s symbol) but its power to stretch the limits of sonata form in ways that follow— with still more irony—the paths of beethoven, liszt, franck and other such deformers. as we have seen, the two p tempi in carter’s piano sonata are structurally interdependent; the first does more than simply raise the curtain on the second. the second of the heuristics, zero-modules, categorizes the structural behavior of the two-tempo p. hepokoski and darcy write: it is not uncommon for individual zones—especially p and s [secondary theme]—to begin with music that, even while opening that zone, seems preparatory to a more decisive (or more fully launched) module that follows. this aspect can take on different realizations, some of which are “thematic” some of which are not. one might find: an introductory vamp [...] an initial group of “set-apart” emphatic chords; a quasi-fanfare motto [...] that “clears the way” and then proceeds onward to contrasting material; an obvious anacrusis module [...]. a zero designation [e.g., p0] indicates the results of an interpretive decision that proposes either that the module at hand displays an overt preparatory function [...] or that the initial module conveys the sense of something “destabilized” [...]. if the analyst decides that such an introductory model is not as fully separate from what follows to merit the “zero” label per se, a lighter alternative is the use of a 1.0 label [e.g., p1.0], the next module of which, still more decisive, would be understood as 1.1. at issue here are only degrees of strength and analytical nuance: often either the “zero” or the 1.0 label will be workable. in either case, the zero-module will lead directly into something more secured and normative for that zone [...]. zeromodules are not musical ideas that stand outside of the zone proper. a p0or p1.0module launches the p-zone and therefore belongs to p-space (and hence to expositional space). (hepokoski and darcy 2006, 72-73) two of the above ideas powerfully engage a two-tempo p. first, p0 can be inflected structurally to be thematic: the authors even mint a symbol for such interdependency, namely, p1.0, p1.1 (hepokoski and darcy 2006, 72). second, such p-modules inhabit expositional space. these ideas inform both thematic coherence in a two-tempo complex and will be useful in positing certain homologies between carter’s sonata and two of beethoven’s late quartets to be treated presently. in the first movement of beethoven’s string quartet in b-flat major, op. 130, one finds a p1.0, p1.1 that foreshadows carter’s. example 5a shows that the 65 opening adagio ma non troppo “introducing” the allegro in measure 14 returns in 20, now grounded on v, which is prolonged through the next allegro. the second allegro links the iteration of p in the exposition with the transition to the second group, alighting on the flat submediant (example 5b). for reasons to be discussed, it’s worth noting here that structural mediant relations are not happenstance in this movement, for a chain of thirds links the adagio to both the allegro and, later, to s. chua (1995) probes this idea in his study of the “galatzin” quartets mentioned earlier.10 example 5a: beethoven’s string quartet in b-flat major, op. 130, mvt. i, measures 1-20. 66 example 5b: beethoven’s string quartet in b-flat major, op. 130, mvt. i, measures 53-57. but carter welds p1.0 to p1.1 more tightly than does beethoven in his quartet. he fashions a pseudo-modulation of tempo (sixteenth equals sixteenth) that links the maestoso and legato scorrevole tempi in tandem with a modulation of affect: the autograph score shows “molto sostenuto e [sic] espressivo” in measures 2-3 of the maestoso plus “flowing and expressive” over what would be published as legato scorrevole (meyer and schreffler 2008, 74). apart from these features, we can compare beethoven’s trans-sectional prolongation of v here with carter’s projection of the maestoso’s i-#vii polarity into the legato scorrevole. example 5a suggests an homology between beethoven’s v prolongation (measures 7-30) and carter’s i-#vii, save that the latter prolongs the #vii not through imitative counterpoint but rather bruteforce repetition and registral emphasis of pitch classes b and a sharp (compare example 4a). and just as chua’s third-chains unified beethoven’s adagioallegro complex, carter carries the initial leap and the descending whole-step cells of the opening maestoso (a and d, example 1) transformationally into the legato scorrevole. 67 example 5c: opening of development section, beethoven, op. 130, mvt. i, measures 93-114. yet another homology between the two works informs the openings of their respective development sections. comparing examples 4c and 5c, one sees that beethoven and carter juxtapose shards of their respective p1.0-p1.1 groups. moreover, each of these respective sections emerges organically out of 68 decelerated closing gestures of their expositions, recalling the incipits of their respective movements. uncanny is how beethoven exploits indwelling harmonicities of the string texture, thereby foreshadowing carter’s artificial harmonics in recalling the “a” cell of his sonata.11 in measures 95-96 of op. 130, violin 2’s d flat4 leaps an octave across silence to enharmonic c sharp5, doubled as a quarter-note by violin 1 and replaying the fanfare-fourth motive launched in measure 14. by way of reliving measures 14ff, violins 1 and 2 then move by oblique motion to dyad f sharp4-c sharp5, measures 96-97, where violin i leaps a fourth to unsupported f sharp5. the music in measures 95-97 is then transposed down a major third in 98-100.12 octave leaps between the violins in measures 95-96, 96-97, 99-100, and 100-101 dramatize the octave’s 2:1 harmonicity, this compressing the cello’s two-octave leap of f2-f4 that began the canon in measure 7. for the remainder of the development section, the fanfare motive alternates between leaping fourths and octaves in violin 1, the latter of which sprouts a transformation of s, whose initial leap of a minor sixth in measure 55 (violin 1, b flat4 to g flat4), expands to an octave, measures 106-107 (cello, a4 to a5). like beethoven, carter starts his development by juxtaposing two fragments of p, (a) and (h) (review example 4c). the local modification of (a) looks backward historically not only to p and to beethoven’s op. 130, but to the a section of schoenberg’s klavierstück, op. 11, no. 1 (example 5d). carter, like schoenberg, nests his harmonics not within interphrasal silence á la op. 130 but within a silently depressed e flat4-c4 dyad sustained across the entire section, starting with the bass’s f1-a flat1f4-a flat4. these dyads progress to f3-a flat3g3-b flat3 and are then displaced upwards to g4-b flat4f4-a flat4, amalgamating (a) and (b). the “silent” e flat4-c4 excites the harmonics of all the preceding dyads.13 in measures 126-127, the fundamentals of g4-b flat4f4-a flat4, stronger than those of their lower octave, amplify the harmonics of c6-e flat6 which congeal into echt fundamentals (see measure 128). example 5d: artificial harmonics in schoenberg’s klavierstück, op.11, no. 1, measures 14-16. 69 at velocemente (measure 129), the sustained e flat morphs into enharmonic d sharp of a g-sharp minor aggregate recalling (c) and (h). the e flat becomes enharmonic scale-degree 3 of b major and the flattened seventh of f minor. both tonalities collide in measures 122-123, doing so in retrograde, measure 130 (review example 4c [letter x]). in the same measure, the aggregate c5-f5-d flat5 “resolves” by upward leap to a b major triad. that aggregate, spelled as incomplete german sixth in a major, equals enharmonic v7 of b-flat major, the movement’s “other” tonic. in measures 133-134, b flat resurfaces in as enharmonic a sharp in the a sharp-c sharp dyad (letter y) leading into the scorrevole following.14 whether carter channeled the development of beethoven’s op. 130, no. 1 while composing his own is anyone’s guess. what is remarkable, is that both composers juxtaposed marked oppositions of tempo and timbre to integrate p1.0-p1.1 elements into their respective development sections. example 5e: recapitulation of beethoven, op. 130, mvt. i, measures 131-134. affinities between the two works’ recapitulations must be mentioned as well. carter’s recap starts with scorrevole material (measure 223, review example 4e), from which maestoso material reenters at 252, bridging the truncated reprise of s at 265 (review example 2). beethoven’s recap enters at measure 131 but with the allegro component of p (example 5e) saving the adagio for the coda, where 70 juxtapositions of p1.0-p1.1 denser than those in the development expand into euphoric reconciliation of the two protagonists. carter’s recap starts with scorrevole material (measure 223, example 5e), where the maestoso reenters at 252, bridging the reprise of s at 265, (review example 2). hepokoski and darcy talk elsewhere in their book about a “false start” quality in p0 expositions (see fn. 8). to build on this idea, the first movement of carter’s piano sonata shares with that of beethoven’s op. 130—perhaps more than with any other po form by the latter—a dialectic between “dissociation and integration,” as noted by brodbeck and platoff (1983, 162): these recurrences mean that, for listeners, the function of the adagio and the relationship between its material and that of the allegro are constantly changing. it’s no coincidence that these unexpected interpolations occur at the main articulations of the form: practically at the start of the exposition, at the opening of the development, not […] in the recapitulation, and at the beginning of the coda. the undermining of the formal procedures of sonata form as well as its harmonic structure is central to beethoven’s purpose. [...] in the end, dissociation and integration exist side by side. chua (1995, 210) for his part, weighs the cognitive ramifications of these ideas, the “question of how much you can expect most listeners to hear,” recalling carter’s earlier phrase: what is the ‘logic’ behind this ‘madness’? perhaps the best word to describe it is ‘duplicity.’ for what confronts the analyst is no longer just contrast but a strange kind of ‘double-mindedness’ that forces him to dither. the paradoxes in the work are engendered by a fission in the construction, in which elements [...] insist on happening twice. confusion arises from the blur of double images, and the clarity of events in the classical language breaks down the face of this ‘duplicity.’ […] beethoven creates a structure of ‘undecidability’ in which it is difficult for the rational mind to elicit a logic of simple binary oppositions so vital in eighteenth and nineteenth century music; the tension of conflict and resolution, contrast and synthesis often associated with the functions of sonata form is eroded. it is not that these oppositions no longer exist; rather the singularity of their logic is blurred by their being doubled, so that, for example, the ascendency of allegro over adagio, or resolution over tension, […] called into question. the ‘duplicity’ of the work confuses those elements in a series of paradoxes that signal a redistribution of the functions of a sonata structure. at every moment of structural punctuation there is a deflection, a deferral, or a functional inversion. (chua 1995, 210)15 had the “structural duplicity” of carter’s sonata blurred his analysis of its form? returning to the initial contention of this study that a composer’s creative drive may narrow his/her analytic frame of reference, let us refine the initial question regarding carter’s agnosia: was he was so fixed on composing out the 71 piano sonata’s quintal matrix (rosen) that he analyzed cell (h)—the most pervasive expression of the matrix—as p, rather than making it but one component of p, encoded in the “introduction” by (c)? one might compare such analysis to beethoven’s conferring p status upon the dactylic figure in measures 37-39 of op. 130, no. 1 (transition) despite that figure’s stemming from its motivic prototype in measures 9-12, the adagio part of p. in terms of sonata rhetoric, carter’s cell (h) and beethoven’s dactylic figure both drive the transitions of their respective expositions, rather than proclaiming actual themes. carter was not alone in misreading two-tempo sonata forms. arnold schoenberg may have done similarly when analyzing the thematic material of beethoven’s string quartet in f major, op.135, mvt. 4 (see examples 6a-c). like op. 130, no. 1, op. 135, mvt. 4 unfolds as a two-tempo complex (less involved than that of op. 31, no.2 and op. 130) made of a storied grave (“der schwergefasste entschluss”) joined to an allegro. though the grave returns just once before the recapitulating allegro (measures 161-174), one puzzles retroactively as to whether the grave works as an introduction, and/or retransition, and/or recapitulation. using beethoven’s compositional process to “legitimate” his own, schoenberg writes of the opening grave in his 1941 essay, “composition with twelve tones” (see example 6c): the basic set is used in diverse mirror forms. the composers of the last century had not employed such mirror forms as much as the masters of contrapuntal times; at least they seldom did so consciously. nevertheless, there exist examples of which i want to mention only one from beethoven’s last string quartet, op. 135, in f major. the original form, a, ‘muss es sein,’ appears in b inverted and in the major; c shows the retrograde from of the inversion, which now reinverted in d and filled out with passing notes in e, results in the second phrase of the main theme. whether or not this device was used consciously by beethoven does not matter at all. from my own experience i know that it can be also be a subconsciously received gift from the supreme commander. (schoenberg 1975, 220-222) 72 example 6a: beethoven’s quartet in f major, op. 135, mvt. iv, measures 1-27. 73 example 6b: beethoven’s quartet in f major, op. 135, mvt. iv, measures 161-173. 74 example 6c: arnold schoenberg’s thematic analysis of beethoven, op. 135, fourth movement. in his analytic graph (example 6c), schoenberg labels the opening 3/2 section “introduction.” despite appealing to beethoven as kindred spirit, however, he omits mention of its return in 161-173, example 6b; this passage, as we see, is a composite and composed embodiment of his proto-serial analysis of the first grave. as can be gleaned from measures 171-173, however, the return subsumes the “original” and “mirror” forms of a as identified in levels a) through c) of the graph (tonally adjusted), endowing the grave with p0 implications. it is reasonable, i think, to assert that schoenberg’s gaze upon permutability of the germinal motive in op. 135, no. 4 distracted his attention from historical, if not formalistic, precedents for the movement’s structure. milton babbitt observes: 75 schoenberg cites beethoven’s op. 135 as a work adumbrating, in motival form, the operations of a twelve-tone system, while admitting that the motival transformations in beethoven are not literal, because of the tonal functions they must fulfil. but this is the crux of the problem. for it is just this aspect of the tonal motive, which is subject to the predetermined boundary conditions of tonality, that completely differentiates it from the twelve-tone set and its transformations which are themselves the fundamental boundary conditions. the tonal motive assumes functional meaning within context and becomes, in turn, a vehicle of movement within this context; the twelve-tone set, however, is the instigator of movement, and defines the functional context. to equate a compositional element with a pre-compositional element is not only to confuse the nature of the systems but to reduce the number of levels of musical meaning, and as a result, to reduce the functional multiplicity of the individual note. (babbitt 2003, 16-17) babbitt chides schoenberg for falsely equating motivic behavior in tonal and twelve-note musics so as to violate their respective “fundamental boundary conditions” (the rules of each system). by the same token, carter, as self-analyst, allowed motivic cells defined by his quintal neo-tonality to supersede fundamental boundary conditions of its sonata form in general, and of its po organization in particular. to what extent, then, does carter’s apparent disregard of compositional precedent symptomize a music historical agnosia? in his essay, “to be a composer in america” (carter, 1953 [1994]), he speaks of the perennial struggle in composition to balance flow and form: the context of any musical event gives meaning to that event, a meaning that it can never achieve for itself. in spite of this almost self-evident idea, most of the composers of recent times, while sometimes quite inventive in terms of melody, harmony and rhythm, have all too frequently taken a conventional attitude toward form. [...] now, even to start with the idea of writing a fugue is to be forced to accept a whole range of predigested ideas that make the task of inventing an interesting flow more difficult. it is very hard to chase out the specter of bach [...] and the same can be said of beethoven and others in connection with sonata form. composers [...] have generally forgotten today how important musical flow and continuity are and have often relegated them to conventional observances. this is a great mistake. (carter in bernard 1997, 206) at first, the above screed may seem ironic vis-à-vis carter’s analysis of the piano sonata, since the specter of beethoven demonstrably shadows both the design of the first movement and of the second movement’s fugue as well.16 in all probability, however, carter’s silence on the p0 structure of the first movement did not result from agnosia. his wide music literacy would preclude this. such silence more likely arose from his going with the musical flow to the point of virtually chasing out the specter of beethoven, if not the “pre-digested ideas” of 76 sonata composers who followed him. indeed, schiff tells us that carter conceived the sonata as a riposte to what he deemed the austerity of neo-classicism: the basic premise of the sonata is the interaction of a virtuoso soloist with the modern grand piano. free from the constraints of ensemble playing, the sonata pursues a rhythmic idiom that is complex in metrical design and improvisatory in its manner of execution. carter also wanted to move away from the neo-classical piano writing of stravinsky and hindemith and sought to renew the grand piano sonority of nineteenth-century piano writing. while working out the sonata he discussed his concern for the development of a new grand piano style with samuel barber who was writing his sonata at the same time and had similar goals. (schiff 1983, 203) carter broke with the neo-classicisms of stravinsky and hindemith by celebrating the sound of the piano per se. moreover, he infused into the piano sonata an improvisatory element, which seconds rosen’s thesis that liszt’s piano sonata in b minor may have further inspired carter, owing to the primacy of dramatic gesture in both works (rosen 1984, 3). for carter, his sonata’s improvisatory spirit, embodied in the rich “interconnection” of sections, offers a credible explanation for his scorrevole analysis of the first movement. felix meyer and anne c. shreffler aver: carter’s analysis is interesting above all for its emphasis on small thematic cells, their relationships to each other, and their infinite capacity for transformation. this kind of material, which as carter tells varèse, is inspired by the sonorous possibilities of the grand piano, has implications for the form of the piece. rather than developing “blocks” of material sequentially, the piece takes on a fluid form in which motivic cells are transformed, combined, recalled, and foreshadowed. (meyer and shreffler 2008, 76) last, but not least, jonathan bernard’s interpretation of the piano sonata gives prospective insight into the work and its analysis. rather than interpreting the maestoso-scorrevole dialectic as being either introductory or thematic, bernard envisages “different varieties of music characters, speaking their lines in alternation” (bernard in boland and link 2016, 15). his reading anticipates works such as the string quartet no.2, where carter, in his program note, baldly anthropomorphizes each of the instruments in analyzing their respective structural roles (carter in stone and stone 1977, 273-274). perhaps future research will disclose the young carter’s sense of beethoven’s late music, through analysis of this repertoire done by himself or with nadia boulanger. there is no question that her notion of la grande ligne, which she especially prized in beethoven’s music, deeply impressed the young composer: 77 when she conducted the [bach] cantatas, even when she played accompaniments for romantic songs such as those by schumann or fauré [...] mlle. boulanger taught us to feel an inexorable, constant beat, a push forward regularly like the march of time throughout the work. this gave the piece of music its forward motion and a great sense of continuity. there was no dwelling, so to speak, on beautiful moments [...]. this was one of the ways we were encouraged to play [...] and appreciate music, and of course another element was la grande ligne, the long line of the music that flowed from beginning to end in one grand melodic sweep. mlle. boulanger was very fond of showing how beethoven achieved this, and also bach and mozart. we were constantly encouraged to think about this particular aspect of large-scale continuity in its linear and rhythmic sense—certainly an invaluable lesson. (carter in bernard 1997, 287288)17 the beauty of carter’s piano sonata is that it does “dwell on beautiful moments” while enfolding them within la grande ligne. his analysis subordinated, understandably, formenlehre to la grande ligne, the latter unfolding through methodical exploitation of the piano’s acoustical possibilities. paradigmatic in this regard is the transition between the first maestoso and legato scorrevole sections, where a triple modulation of motive, tempo, and timbre instantiates “large-scale continuity,” one that subtly interlinks its pied subsections. for carter, the self-analyst, the idea that such links may have occurred at structural points correlating with those in beethoven’s op. 130, no. 1 was less important than extracting the materials that enabled such continuity. in a word, he crafted his 1948 analysis for varèse more on the music desk than on the writing desk. we may conclude, then, that carter did not suffer music historical agnosia when composing the piano sonata. rather, he had internalized beethoven’s “deformations” of the sonata topos so deeply, as to translate them both poietically and poetically into his own idiom. arthur berger, reflecting on the state of music analysis in the late twentieth century, eloquently compared the “rightness” of a composer’s analysis of his or her own work to that of one made by a noncomposer (berger 2002, 184): an age like our own in which composers are analysts—their own analysts as part of it—imposes a special burden upon the non-composing analysts who find themselves, in competition with the composers to do the “right” thing and determine how the composers would analyze their own music [...]. composers need not have the last word with respect to their own works. there may still be things they may have conceived as creators that they fail to conceptualize as observers even in their own music, things they must dig up on their own. this does not mean they did not know what they were doing and this should not be held against them. it means there is a different sense of “know.” 78 notes 1 webster’s third international dictionary defines agnosia as “the partial or complete loss of ability to recognize familiar objects especially by seeing, hearing or touching and usually as a result of brain damage.” 2 in a footnote on p.77, the authors report that webster aitken premiered the sonata at the frick museum, 16 february 1947 (meyer and shreffler 2008, 76). 3 there exist two editions of the piano sonata, the first by mercury (1948) and the second, revised in 1982, by mercury/presser. the differences between the two are trivial. 4 compare b minor: v-i to f minor v-i in measures 102-108. 5 “ectopic,” according to webster’s third new international dictionary, means “occurring in an unusual position or in an unusual manner or form.” 6 schiff (1998, 206) nicely clarifies linkage of the two tonics, b and a sharp/b, by way of the a sharp/b flat comma in the circle of tempered fifths: e-b-f sharp-c sharp-g sharp-d sharp-a sharp/b flat-f-c-g-d-a. 7 rosen (1985, 5) traces the timbral element of the piano sonata back to the textures of chopin and debussy. schiff (1998, 204) hears not only echoes of debussy in the sonata but of copland, especially in its gestural content. 8 the respective maestoso and largo segments share a declamatory quality, the latter recitative-like. beethoven perhaps encountered the practice of instrumental recitative in his youthful exposure (through neefe) to the music of c.p.e. bach, a composer venerated by the first viennese school. (see the recitative in the andante of bach’s “prussian” sonata no. 1.) 9 on p. 299 hepokoski and darcy include, under “variants and later deformations of the ‘slow’ introduction,” beethoven’s piano sonatas op. 31, no.2, and op. 109, plus the string quartet, op. 130, all of which exemplify “false start” sonatas (hepokoski and darcy 2006, 614). 10 see chua’s examples 6.10 and 6.14, pages 215 and 218 respectively. for instance, he beams the cello’s g-e flat-c-a-f in measures 8-9 and their continuation in violin 1’s d-b flat-b-e flat-c-a, measures 14-16. 11 harmonicity is a perceptual phenomenon, whereby one hears chords comprising a simple harmonic relation (e.g., an octave) as emanating from one acoustic source, versus chords of complex relation (e.g., a seventh) emanating from separate sources (deutsch ed. 1999, 302). 12 the fact that a4 caps a complete d major triad measure (99) further establishes d (iii) as temporary tonic, which then launches a progression of falling fifths back to the recap in 132. 13 in the score, carter brackets these pitches, proscribing keyboard performance “if harmonics are audible.” this applies to the remaining dyads as well. 14 at least four other factors affirm a sharp as tonic polarity. a sharp: (1) closes the first maestoso, (2) opens the second maestoso, (3) opens the second scorrevole, and (4) morphs into the b flat unison ending the movement. 79 15 his reading is affirmed in two recent sources (lockwood 2008, 198) and (kinderman 2006, 296). 16 the introductions to the fugues in beethoven’s op. 133 and in the carter both start with fragmented versions of their respective fugue subjects. 17 rosen further explores la grand ligne in marc ponthus and susan tang (eds.), 2008, 59-64. references babbitt, milton. 2003. review of polyphonie – revue musicale trimestrielle; quatrième cahier: le système dodécaphonique (1950). in the collected essays of milton babbitt, edited by stephen peles et al., 16-21. princeton: princeton university press. berger, arthur. 2002. reflections of an american composer. berkeley: university of california press. bernard, jonathan. 2016. “the true significance of elliott carter’s early music.” in elliott carter studies, edited by margeurite boland and john link, 3-32. cambridge: cambridge university press. brinkmann, reinhold. 2000. “ein ‘letzter riese in der musik,’ gedanken zu max reger im 20. jahrhundert.” in jahrbuch des staatlichen instituts für musikforschungpreuβischer kulturbesitz, edited by günther wagner, 9-35. berlin: springer. brodbeck, david and john platoff. 1983. “dissociation and integration in the first movement of beethoven’s op. 130.” nineteenth-century music 7 (2): 149-162. carter, elliott. 1997 [ca. 1985/95]. “‘elle est la musique en personne’: a reminiscence of nadia boulanger.” in elliott carter: essays and lectures, 1937-1995, edited by jonathan bernard, 281-292. rochester: university of rochester press. ____________. 1977 [1959]. “string quartet no.2.” in writings of elliott carter, edited by else stone and kurt stone, 273-274. bloomington: indiana university press. ____________. 1997 [1953/94]. “to be a composer in america.” in elliott carter collected essays and lectures, 1937-1995, edited by jonathan bernard, 201-210. rochester: university of rochester press. ____________. 1997 [1959/94]. “the three late sonatas of debussy” (1959/94). in jonathan bernard, ed. elliott carter: essays and lectures, 1937-1995, ed. jonathan bernard, 122-138. rochester: university of rochester press. chua, daniel k.c. 1995. the “galitzin” quartets of beethoven: opp. 127, 132, 130. princeton: princeton university press. deutsch, diana. 1999. “grouping mechanisms in music.” in the psychology of music, second edition, edited by diana deutsch, 299-348. san diego: academic press. edwards, allen. 1971. flawed words and stubborn sounds: a conversation with elliott carter. new york: w.w. norton. hepokosi, james and warren darcy. 2006. elements of sonata theory: norms, types, and deformations in the late-eighteenth-century sonata. oxford: oxford university press. kinderman, william. 2006. “beethoven’s last quartets, threshold to a fourth creative period?” the string quartets of beethoven, edited by william kinderman, 279-322. urbana: university of illinois press. 80 lockwood, lewis and the juilliard string quartet (joel smirnoff, ronald copes, samuel rhodes, joel krosnick). 2008. inside beethoven’s quartets; history, interpretation, performance. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. meyer, felix and anne c. shreffler. 2008. elliott carter: a centennial portrait in letters and documents. woodbridge, suffolk: the boydell press. rosen, charles. 1984. “the musical languages of elliott carter.” washington, dc: music division, research services, library of congress. ____________. 2008. “elliott carter, the sustained line.” elliott carter, a centennial celebration, edited by marc ponthus and susan tang, 59-64. hillsdale, ny: pendragon press. schiff, david. 1998. the music of elliott carter. ithaca: cornell university press. schoenberg, arnold. 1975. style and idea; selected writings of arnold schoenberg, edited by leonard stein, translated by leo black. new york: st. martin’s press. carlton t. russell-the southern french tonary zn the tenth and eleventh centuries ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 66-7182, 1966. 243 pp., princeton university diss.) clyde w brockett) jr. in "the southern french tonary in the tenth and eleventh centuries" carlton t. russell has written a dissertation about one of the most interesting kinds of music treatises in the middle ages-the tonary. the interest of the tonary lies in its twofold purpose: to explain music as a theory made manifest in tonal modes and to catalogue chant melodies according to mode. as a book of theory the tonary has both didactic and philosophical value, while as a manual of practice it maintains such an intimate association with chants that it can be physically connected to books of liturgical music. when it occurs as an adjunct to an antiphonal of the mass or the offices, this modal catalogue, or "list" tonary, actually need not contain explanations or rationale. yet, some descriptive passages and modal nomenclature generally appear in the manner of rubrics, and a brief theoretical exposition may introduce the catalogue. it is important to point out this split personality of the tonary because dr. russell has had to face the problem of treating both practice and speculation, which he has done very nicely. dissertation writers might well hesitate before undertaking examinations of the tonary precisely because of its indivisible duality and its magnitude. furthermore, a researcher is expected to analyze and compare all sources of a selected treatise. in addition, the theory explaining the practice of intoning chants modally is on the whole exceedingly difficult to understand.1 reasons such as these may indeed account for the general lack of study of the tonary. but whatever the reasons, the fact remains, as dr. russell reminds us, that this type of half-theoretical, halfpractical plainsong treatise has not commanded the attention of students to the extent one might wish. for his part, dr. russell has carefully analyzed seven french "list" tonaries, all bound into graduals and tropers from the limousine and the aquitaine. he has considered the chants themselves, as well as comments in "theoretical" tonaries on the technique of singing them. these seven southern french tonaries are exempt from lengthy theoretical rationalization, and, accordingly, dr. russell preemptively dismisses speculative arguments, or, as he labels them, "certain important issues." instead, he lays a foundation upon which he can reconstruct the organization and content of the southern french tonary. he proceeds by first recognizing and reconfirming the tonary's bifocal nature. next, he proceeds to explain the character of the southern french tonary, first by presenting a historical survey, then by comparing the lists of a number of representative tonaries, next by interrelating the contents of the southern 107 french group, and then by describing the individual southern french ton aries themselves. in the second part of his dissertation (chapters 4,5, and 6), dr. russell develops hypotheses and draws some intuitively logical conclusions about individual chant types and modes. dr. russell has divided his study into six chapters with an introduction and a summary. he heads his study with two quotations drawn from explanations of tonal modes which are more recent than the group of manuscripts to be described. the first quotation questions the tonary's practical value. no less sympathetic an author than heinrich glarean (dodecachordon, i, chapter 15) became skeptical about the need to retain the "superfluous" and "annoying" differences-connectors of verse endings to chant beginnings -and indeed would not consider them further. continuing, g1arean observed that the difference system of the approaching mid-16th century was not concrete. on the other hand, dr. russell has presented evidence which shows that in the 10th and 11 th centuries the difference system was remarkably stable in its transmission through the southern french tonaries. their overall homogeneity prompts dr. russell to remark that the infrequent chants, which tend toward the addition of differences, are "peripheral," inasmuch as the system was already codified at the time it was first evidenced. this stability is noteworthy in light of the evolution of western chant and its continual exposure to the accrual of newer compositions for the divine service. evolution is the subject of a second quotation drawn from that bible of ecclesiastical chant by peter wagner, einfiihrung in die gregorianischen melodien (iii, 137). wagner suggested that chant was never fixed, but rather a "taglich sich erneuerndes leben." later in his study, dr. russell holds that this "daily self-renewing life" suggests improvisation, affecting especially introit verse endings, either plain or elaborate, though made visible only through continuously recorded variants in the tonaries. far from contradicting any system or order as presented by the differences, dr russell understands that those musical variants which did occur took the nature of nuances rather than revisions. in chapter 1, dr. russell proceeds to sketch the history of the tonary from around 800 to the 12th century and mentions the principal books. he reviews each tonary in a veritable procession according to age: "early," "middle," and "late." here dr. russell also informs us that the 11 th-century montpellier manuscript faculte de medecine h. 159 is not without its own brief "middle period" tonary of office antiphons on folio 11 v (paleographie musicale, viii, text edited on pp. 10-11). this folio seems not to have belonged with the rest of the codex originally. yet, beyond the assumed misplacement of this folio, no conclusive reasons, such as provenance, have been provided for not treating it later within the corpus of the southern french tonaries. even more curious is the discussion of the tonary from gaillac (albi) in paris, b.n. lat. 776, voluble in chapter 1 but laconic in chapter 3, where the purely southern french sources are described. perhaps dr. russell avoided a fuller discussion because of the bulk of paris 776-15411isted chants 108 -or perhaps because of the fact that it is complete for only the first five modes. still, london, b. m. harley 4951 from toulouse, a tonary fully discussed in chapter 3, is also incomplete. the de modorum formulis, mentioned in passing, is a to nary appended to an epilogus formerly considered to have pertained to guido of arezzo's antiphonal and attributed to guido. recently, however, it has been reconsidered as being of doubtful authorship.2 dr. russell has somewhat apodictically ascribed it to guido in three places (pp. 14, 35n, 113n). moreover, the origin of its most complete source has been assigned (by edmond de coussemaker, who edited it, et al.) to the 12th century; therefore, its location among 11 th-century books here seems an error. in chapter 2, dr. russell compiles impressive statistics to elucidate the limited number of southern french tonaries by comparing their lists of chants with those examples mentioned in the preceding chapter. he achieves convincing analyses through several tables which treat tonary types and purposes, totals of verse-connected chants, organization by modes and by classes of chants, and the number of differences. appendix ii, in the format of dom r.-j. hesbert's antiphonale missarum sextuplex, compares all textual incipits in four southern french tonaries; paris 909 is used as a reference point. an interesting fact deduced from tables of comparison is that adherence to liturgical order is more than coincidental. noting the arrangement of the to nary, dr. russell proposes that the contents of the chant book to which it was annexed were probably scanned in their liturgical sequence and perhaps subsequently arranged according to mode. further observation indicates in all of the lists the predominance of chants for that of the liturgical year between advent and ash wednesday. dr. russell does not explain the reason for this predominance. perhaps it resulted from the fulfillment of an arbitrary quota for modal identification, in accordance with dr. russell's aforementioned hypothesis that liturgical books were recoursed from their beginning. to this point, dr. russell's discussions have dealt with tonaries in general, but chapter 3 isolates the analysis of the southern french group, not including paris 776. the conduct of this chapter depends upon the historical survey in chapter 1, with emphasis now upon the seven southern french sources. the oldest and smallest of the seven manuscripts, paris 1240 from st. martial de limoges, may date from the early 10th century. whatever its precise date, we can appreciate the value of chapter 1 in determining a terminus post quem as far as practicable. a facsimile illustration here, or a reference to one published elsewhere (e.g., palt!ographie musicale, xiii, figure 20, p. 123), would have helped, since there is mention of "cheironomy" applied to what we assume to be musical notation. the author has not adequately discussed the notation and leaves us under the impression that the original disposition of neumes in aquitanian manuscripts is cheironomic, not diastematic. even in this early manuscript, however, the neumes, although not very precise in their measurement, are nevertheless essentially diastematic.3 perhaps "proto-diastematic" would have been a preferable 109 term. even if they were adiastematic, on the contrary, the notation still carries enough interest to warrant both an illustration and additional description. other sources, paris 909 and paris 1121, are also from st. martial. a fourth manuscript, paris 1084, comes from aurillac, farther south in france; a fifth, paris 1118, is thought to have been written near auch. its fine illuminations depicting musicians are most attractive. unreferenced historical data and several photographs are to be found in the paliographie musicale, xiii, p. 141, figures 21, 32, and 33. the two remaining southern french tonaries are attached to the graduals of toulouse and narbonne, the former complete for just the first four modes. two of these manuscripts, paris 909 and paris 1121, contain internal abbreviated lists, termed "brief" tonaries. dr. russell is aware of the enigma adumbrating the function of their samplings of antiphons and introits, one for each mode, but he reaches a hypothetical settlement in considering them "quick reference indices" and "tonaries of recitation tones" for readily intoning the eight modes by their convenient, separately located formulas. they appear not to be confined to nor conceived in these two manuscripts alone, for dr. russell, in a footnote, allies them with a similar section concluding odo's tonary. are they not perhaps aurelian's chapter xix in the musica disciplina in substance, also? in that chapter aurelian describes recitation formulas which could serve in the absence of some psalmodic plan, such as the notated doxology, which in later books "individualized" each mode. in other words, in a modernized tonary each modal formula might appear in the main body of the tonary at the head of its respective mode, instead of remaining in a separate section. lawrence gushee4 even states that just one tonary is represented in the three subdivisions of aurelian's chapters x-xix, rather than three suspected formerly by joseph ponte. it appears likely that a separate section not intended to be a distinct tonary was also destined to appear at the back of the early limousine ton aries, as governed by usual practice, or perhaps, merely by preference. having analyzed their contents in chapters 1 and 2, dr. russell is now prepared to show the filiation of seven southern french tonaries. he says that though clearly similar in content, two traditions can be distinguished in the two principal groups: those sources from saint-martial and those from farther south in aquitaine and gascony. it follows that manuscript traditions testifying to practices in southern france are further distinguished by their regional backgrounds. dr. russell's next step is to discover the genealogy of the sources. he finds this a difficult task even as he lays his groundwork in chapter 2 ("difficulties of erecting a stemma"). nevertheless, he produces a credible family tree. his table no.6 gauges the descent of southern french tonaries from 750, in a hypothetical lost prototype, to 1200, presaged closely by the fleury manuscript, paris b.n. nouv. acq. lat. 443. paris 909 and paris 1121 are closely tied, as are paris 1118 and paris 1084. dr. russell shows that the tonary of toulouse descended from paris 1084, and the tonary of narbonne in turn from toulouse. the tonary of 110 gaillac reappears here as a possible direct descendant, as well as the tonary of fleury, from paris 1240, ancestor of the southern french family. chapters 4 and 5 deal individually with antiphonal and responsorial chants. dr. russell does not stop at identifying and tabulating the differences; rather, drawing from tables compiled, he analyzes melodic stereotypes in antiphons' beginnings. he thus intensifies his study of melodic incipits among the southern french antiphons, even including the themes of gevaert (la melopee antique). initia of introits and communions are compared by means of another table. he presents effectively his idea of the required adjustment of terminations to these beginnings as a ramification of peter wagner's anpassungsgesetz (einfuhrung, iii, pp. 78ff. and l29ff.). he develops his history of the system, which unfolds in stages from around 800, when no differences appear, to the latest version of the tonary from the 10th century (paris 909), and then to the present. next he correlates the respective involvement of the tonus peregrinus within the modal systems of his sources with aurelian, hucbald (?), odo, and others. students of the medieval modes may obtain worthwhile information here by noting the assignment of particular differences of the stock of peregrine-tone antiphons in the southern french tonaries. the treatment of the elaborate introit tones is extensive. using paris 909 as a standard, dr. russell has transcribed examples of them (table no.9) and compared versions in the tonary with those of the gradual proper. as a result, he can propound several kinds of interrelationships. discussion of offertory chants, which swell the lists of paris 909 and paris 780, concludes chapter 4. it is noteworthy that graduals, chants with nonstereotyped verse structure, are also found in paris 909, paris 780, and paris 776. although dr. russell does not make mention of the fact, the latter source even includes hymns, which are not associated with psalm verses. in reading about responsorial chants in chapter 5, we face the unanswered question: why are six differences provided for the first mode in paris 1121 when regularly the responsory is a class subject to but one difference? dr. russell suggests that since several differences for each mode, twenty-eight in sum, are acknowledged in aurelian's deuterologium tonorum, responsories at that time normally adjusted to multiple terminations, a practice which appears to have been discontinued later. thus the six different endings could have been either in error at the later date of paris 1121, the early 11 th century, or the consequence of proposing "out of purely theoretical interest" the categorization of responsories, like antiphons, by beginning formulas. further investigation is needed. the last chapter concerns the noeane and primum quaerite, modal vocalises which served to identify each mode with a characteristic melody. the noeane formulas (or, as byzantine chant authorities term them, echemata) had, perhaps, some liturgical background but are more probably purely theoretical remnants.5 they occurred earliest, for instance in paris 1240, without melismas. later, musical notation plus latin phrases extracted from the holy scriptures were added; and still later, the greek syllables were iii abandoned in favor of the latin verses. dr. russell finds that the greek and latin formulas had coexisted since the appearance of paris 909 and that at some former time the latin had compromised the greek. dr. russell has undertaken a thorough comparison of the two systems and has established that they are sometimes parallel beyond their common purpose. he finds possible cross-relationships in the music in one or two cases, for example, similarity among the melismas of the commemoratio brevis and paris 1118, and even some melodic repetition in both greek and latin in paris 909 and paris 112l. the interesting comparison of noeane and primum formulas initiated in this research invites further study, and i hope dr. russell has plans to approach the tonary again from this direction. a few minor errors nearly escape notice. the phrases "ordinary mass pieces" and "ordinary chants" (p. 43) are confusing, since they may allude to either the ordinary, requiring capitalization, or to usual chants, in which case some other adjective might have been less ambiguous. the phraseology is similarly misleading in "paris 780, which even includes the ordinary chants" (p. 98). the spelling of "diastemy" (p. 42) defies interpretation. is it a synthetic from diastematy, which is a correct term in the context in which it is used? a discrepancy occurs in the note to table no.2 (p. 22), allotting paris 780 the total of chants for paris 776. in the concluding bibliography, one author, joseph smits van waesberghe, has been listed under v rather than s. such reference to compound cognomina is not infrequently a cause for perplexity among american authors (even more noticeably when they cite spanish authorities). perhaps ofless consequence is dr. russell's translation "modulation" for modulationem (p. 107). one customarily finds some synonym of melody for this most problematic word. this dissertation will provide the reader with several prospects for further research. one such prospect is the investigation of troping introits and the practice of adding melismas to introit verse-endings (pp. 86-87). also, dr. russell's comments concerning the antiphons' beginnings as they are aligned with verse-terminations in the southern french practice ask for further study, as do the echemata. dr. russell's work deserves praise for its potential help t'o anyone studying tonaries. he has presented a spectrum of examples, not merely the southern french ones, and his statistics can be useful to anyone undertaking further comparisons. the excellent "key to difference symbols used in appendices i and ii" is actually a digest of psalm and introit verse-tone differences within the southern french sources. equally useful are the musical transcriptions of entire tonaries in paris 1118 and paris 1121, best representing the two traditions. these are now available for comparison with messine archetypes edited by walter lipphardt.6 results might show relationships or nonrelationships between northern and southern french traditions more conclusively than we now recognize. in terms of the seven ton aries scrutinized, appendix i provides the most complete data for the prescribed difference of every chant, conveniently indexed alphabetically by mode. although dr. russell does not mention in what form 112 he studied his material, bibliographical reference to the southern french tonaries indicates that he could have found them only in source manuscripts or on microfilm. dr. russell's bibliography makes abundantly plain the fact that, heretofore, theoretical treatises, rather than liturgical music manuals, have received the lion's share of editors' attention. the time has come to examine the tonary afresh from a purely practical standpoint, and "the southern french tonary in the tenth and eleventh centuries" has made a good start toward that end. notes 1 the encyclopedic musica disciplina of aurelian of reome encompasses its tonary in chapters x through xvii and deuterologium tonorum. the erudite commentary by lawrence arthur gushee, "the musica disciplina of aurelian of reome: a critical text and commentary" (ph.d. dissertation, yale university, 1963), comprehends both speculation and practical musical phenomena of the 9th century. dr. gushee's dissertation makes aurelian's writing seem less esoteric by means of an extremely pertinent diagnosis of semantics, and it is a pity that dr. russell neglected it, or that it was unavailable to him. dr. russell has employed the translation of the musica disciplina by joseph ponte (ph.d. dissertation, brandeis university, 1961) published in 1968 as volume 3 of the colorado college music press series of translations. both the gushee and ponte dissertations are reviewed in this issue of current musicology. 2 joseph smits van waesberghe, s.j., musikerziehung, vol. 3, part 3 ofh. besseler and m. schneider, musikgeschichte in bildern (1969), p. 196; also idem, de musico-paedagogico et theoretico guidone aretino eiusque vita et moribus (florence, 1953), p. 143. 3 the notation in paris 1240 is classified in the paleographie musicale, xiii, p. 141, as the most primitive diastematy. for a more recent assertion see manfred f. bukofzer, "the music of the laudes," appendix i in ernst h. kantorowicz, laudes regiae (berkeley, 1958), p. 191, source no.2. 4 op. cit., p. 205. 5 it is difficult to say just how practical noeane, noeagis, etc., were in the west. it may be that along with dr. russell (note on p. 35) we are too willing to admit them as a pure practice, whereas we should raise some real doubts about any liturgical employment. dr. russell (p. 112) suggests that they had been discontinued in the service probably long before they were eliminated from liturgical books, but he offers no information as to the nature of their former employment in the service. 6 der karolingische tonar von metz, heft 43 of liturgiewissenschaftliche quellen und forschungen (munster, 1965). 113 the 1965 revision of the u.s. copyright law austin clarkson next to income tax and jay-walking, the least unbroken law is surely that of copyright, if only because the copyright law presently in force was passed in 1909 and tailored to the gutenberg, rather than to the marconi, era. the drafters of the 1909 statute could not have foreseen that authors' rights would soon be threatened by juke boxes, microfilm, videotape recorders, communication satellites, and computerized storage and retrieval of information. they did not anticipate that within 50 years some works of authorship would be primarily fixed by magnetic tape or by a set of punched cards that program a computer. n or did they imagine that the notion of an "original" would be virtually smothered by a million mona lisa's, or that copying techniques would place "first editions" within the reach of everyone. revision of the copyright law has had to accommodate the technological blitz of the last half century, to right inequities, and to attempt to make some provision for the shape of things to come. i t may not be so very long before households with any cultural pretensions whatever subscribe to the microfilm of the month club, or own cans of magnetic tape (for use on their home computer) marked the english novel 1700-1950, and the annual supplement of new music for 1995 (in four parts; one each for europe, the americas, africa, and asia). the level of respect and recognition accorded by the members of a high culture to its finest and most valuable artifacts is inevitably mirrored in its copyright law. that the present u.s. copyright law has survived, coelacanthlike, so long attests to nothing more than that an immobilizing inertia afflicts some aspects of culture; that it has been permitted to survive in such condition is a national, if not international, scandal. in past decades, rampant apathy, complacency, and criminal self-interest have successfully thwarted reform. and even now, the revision bill of 1965 is gravely threatened by the juke-box profiteers and their allies who object to paying royalties on recorded performances, austin clarkson is an instructor of music at columbia university. 191 and by the "non-profiteers" on the fringes of the educational establishment who self-righteously assert that all materials used for the moral, spiritual, and intellectual betterment of the populace should be donated free of charge. copyright law influences the entire intellectual health of the community. it not only affects writers, composers, performers, artists, scientists, teachers, and students, but in the modern world it plays an increasingly important role in international relations. as abraham l. kaminstein, register of copyrights, points out in the preface to his supplementary report on the 1965 revision bill: "it is startling to realize, in an era when copyrighted materials are being disseminated instantaneously throughout the globe, that the united states has copyright relations with less than half of the world's nations. the injustice of this situation to authors here and abroad is obvious, but equally serious to our national interest is the lack of the cultural bridge between countries that copyright furnishes."l the following digest of some leading aspects of the 1965 copyright law revision bill is presented in the belief that our readers have a large stake in seeing an equitable, honorable, and effective copyright bill signed into law. since the revision bill will almost certainly be taken up in the next session of congress there is still time for interested individuals and groups to acquaint themselves with the bill and to make their opinions known on capitol hill. preparatory studies for the revision of the antiquated copyright law were initiated in 1955 and resulted six years later in a report submitted by the register of copyrights. the report's more controversial recommendations stung hitherto lethargic parties into violent opposition. after another three years of discussion, debate, hearings, and redrafting, the revision bill of 1964 was submitted for further comment. the final, legislative, phase began this year when senator mcclellan and representative celler introduced the copyright law revision bill to the 89th congress on february 4 for active consideration. the register of copyrights filed a supplementary report in may which icopyright law revision, part 6; supplementary report of the register of copyrights on the general revision of the u.s. copyright law: 1965 revision bill. washington, d.c., 1965, p. xv. (for sale by the superintendent of documents, u.s. government printing office, washington, d.c., 20402. price $1.00.) 192 summarizes the revision program and presents the bill in its most up-to-date form. the ensuing summary is made from this supplementary report with a view to interesting a readership concerned with matters musical and educational. those who desire more complete information are urged to purchase the report itself. a. the subject matter of copyright 1. the present reference to "all the writings of an author" as the general subject matter of copyright has been replaced by the phrase "original works of authorship." this phrase maintains the established standards of originality without implying any further requirements of esthetic value, novelty, or ingenuity. 2. the revision bill takes a giant step forward by requiring that protected works be fixed in any tangible medium of expression now known or later developed, from which works can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. improvisations and unrecorded performances would not be subject to statutory protection but would continue to be protected at common law un til such time as they are fixed. no particular form of fixation is required as long as the work is capable of being retrieved. a musical composition, for. example, would be copyrightable if it is written or recorded in words or any kind of visible notation, in braille, on a phonograph disk, on a film sound track, on magnetic tape, or on punch cards. it will now be possible for composers of tape music, concrete music, and programs for a computer to copyright their works without having to reduce them, as is presently necessary, to some bogus musical script. 3. another important change is the addition of a new category to the subject matter of copyright: "sound recordings." the revision bill distinguishes between sound recordings (copyrightable works that result from the fixation of a series of sounds) and phonorecords (material objects in which sounds are fixed). sound recordings as copyrightable works are therefore distinguished from any musical, literary, or dramatic works that are reproduced on phonorecords. thus, a phonorecord (a disk or tape, for example) of a song would usually constitute a reproduction of two copyrighted works under the bill: the song and the sound recording of it. where, on the other hand, the composition recorded is a work in the public domain, the phonorecord would reproduce only one copyrighted work: the sound recording. 193 b. exclusive rights under copyright limitation of the author's exclusive rights is, not surprisingly, the most disputed part of the revision bill and the one most affected by advancing technology. the basic legislative problem is to insure that the law provides the necessary monetary incentive to write, produce, and publish creative works, while at the same time guarding against the danger that these works will not be disseminated and used as fully as they should be because of copyright restrictions. as shown by the iniquitous juke-box exemption, a particular use which at one time may have had little or no economic impact on the author's rights can assume tremendous importance in times to come. an author's righ ts cannot be tied to present technology so that his copyright loses much of its value because of unforeseen technological advances. the five basic exclusive rights granted the owner of a copyright are the right (1) to reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords; (2) to prepare derivative works based on the work; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public; (4) to perform the work publicly; and (5) to exhibit the work publicly. a source of bitter contention between educational groups and authors and publishers has to do with the relative merits of "fair" or "free" use of copyrighted material by non-profit users such as teachers, librarians, and educational broadcasters. the unrestrained use of photocopying, recording, and other devices can go far beyond the recognized limits of "fair" use (as established by precedent) and may severely curtail the copyright owner's market for copies of his work. even when the new media (such as non-profit broadcasting, linked computers, etc.) are not operated for profit, they may reach huge audiences and may be expected to displace the demand for authors' works by other users from whom copyright owners derive compensation. the drafters of the revision bill believe that reasonable adjustments between the legitimate interests of copyright owners and those of certain non-profit users are no doubt necessary, but they affirm that the day is past when any particular use of works should be exempted for the sole reason that it is "not for profit." hence, the revision bill imposes no blanket "for profit" limitation on the right of public performance; exemptions from copyright control are instead spelled out under a number of headings, such as fair use, face-to-face teaching activities, educational 194 broadcasting, religious services, et alia. 1. fair use. the drafters of the revision had fond hopes of at last spelling out the meaning of "fair use" so that it would be unnecessary to continue relying on the complex history of precedent. the 1964 version of the revision bill reads as follows in this regard: the fair use of a copyrighted work to the extent reasonably necessary or incidental to a legitimate purpose such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research is not an infringement of copyright. in determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use, the factors to be considered shall include: (1) the purpose and character of the use; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. both sides reacted unfavorably to this language. the authorpublisher groups feared that specific mention of uses such as "teaching, scholarship, or research" could be taken to imply that any use even remotely connected with these activities would be a "fair use," while educational groups objected seriously to restrictive language such as "to the extent reasonably necessary or incidental to a legitimate purpose" and "the amount and substantiality of the portion used." a group of educational organizations urged further that the bill adopt a new provision which would specify anum ber of teaching and scholarly activities as completely exempt from copyright control. in broad terms and with certain exceptions, the proposal would permit any teacher or other person or organization engaged in non-profit educational activities to make a single copy or record of an entire work, or a reasonable number of copies of "excerpts or quotations," for use in connection with those activities. it was argued that these privileges are a necessary part of good teaching and that it is unjustifiable to burden educators with the need to buy copies for limited use or to obtain advance clearances and pay royalties for making copies. authors, publishers and other copyright owners reacted violently to these proposals on the ground that the market for their works would be severely diminished and that ultimately the economic incentive for the creation and publication of the very works on which education depends would be destroyed. agreement was evidently impossible to reach, so the drafters regretfully pared the provision down to the bare 195 clause that "the fair use of a copyrighted work is not an infringement of copyright." the inability of the producers and users of copyright works to agree on a definition of fair use betrays a lamentable cleavage in our culture. the corrupting effect of evaluating activities according to whether or not one gains money by them and of the defensive attitude that educators are unappreciated and inadequately rewarded have taken their toll of the respect we grant the work of authorship itself. it seems to me that the greatest concessions need to be made by the rank and file of professional non-profiteers who believe that because they are somehow serving the public good, they should be exempted from the need to respect an author's rights. but as educators we should not have to appeal to some higher, even divine, right and hence to demand special treatment under earthly law. if educators have a score to settle with society (and there is plenty of evidence to show that they have) recompense should be levied on the culture as a whole. educators must apprise everyone of his responsibility to education and not ask authors and publishers to shoulder the collective guilt as scapegoats. if a society truly respects its education it will not only reward its authors for their work, it will ensure that only the best ideas are used and even pay premium prices for them gladly. society will surely regard its education more highly if its educators in turn respect their materials enough to pay for them a t fair and honorable rates rather than scrambling for discount, wholesale, or even fire sale prices. the execu tive board of the american musicological society recently reported to the congress in favor of the fair use clause and opposed to the proposals of the educational association. everyone who can should express himself on this issue to his congressman. 2. face-ta-face teaching activities. performance or exhibition of a work by instructors or pupils in the course of face-toface teaching activities in a classroom or similar place normally devoted to instruction is exempted from copyright control. there is no limitation on the types of work covered by this exemption, which would mean that a teacher or student in a classroom situation would be free to read from copyrighted text material, to act out a dramatic work, or to perform a musical work, to perform a copyrighted motion picture by showing it to his class, or to exhibit copyrighted text or graphic material by means of projectors. no provision is made to exempt the copy196 ing by office duplicators of an entire work for classroom use. it won't be easy, but teachers will have to evolve a new attitude to copyrigh ted works if they wish to remain law-abiding citizens. 3. educational broadcasting. here is another area in which authors and publishers sharply oppose educational groups. nonprofit educational broadcasting is now reaching large audiences and the revision bill argues that these audiences are increasing rapidly, that as a medium for entertainment, recreation, and communication of information, a good deal of educational programming is indistinguishable from commercial programming, and that the time may come when many works will reach the public primarily through educational broadcasting. it concludes that the author's compensation should be determined by the number of people reached, and that it does not seem too much to ask that some of the money now going to support educational broadcasting activities be used to compensate authors and publishers whose works are essential to those activities. hence, the 1965 bill exempts educational broadcasting made primarily for reception in classrooms and as a regular part of systematic instructional activities of a non-profit educational institution, but does not exempt transmissions intended for the enlightenment, edification, or instruction of the public at large. c. federal pre-emption and duration of copyright 1. single national system. under the present law there is a dual system of protection of works: before publication they are protected under common law, whereas after publication they are protected under federal statute. the revision would establish a single system of statutory protection for all works whether published or unpublished. the common law would continue to protect works (such as choreography and improvisations) up to the time they are fixed in tangible form, but thereafter they would be subject to exclusive federal protection under the statute even though they are never published or registered. 2. duration of copyright in works created after the new law's effective date. the present term of copyright is 28 years from first publication or registration, renewable for a second period of 28 years. with respect to works created after it comes into effect, the bill would provide for a term of the author's life plus 50 years, in order to bring it into line with the copyright term in most countries. "joint works" would be protected for the life of the second author to die plus 50 years after his death. for anonymous works, pseudonymous works, and works made for 197 hire, the term would generally be 75 years from publication, with a maximum limit of 100 years from creation of the work. 3. duration of copyright in pre-existing works under common law protection. an unpublished work still under common law protection when the statute comes into effect would be brought under the statute and given the same term of copyright as that applicable to works created after the effective date. 4. duration of subsisting copyrights. for copyrights still in their first term when the new law comes into effect, the bill would retain the present renewal provisions but would extend the length of the renewal term from 28 to 47 years (making a total term of 75 years from publication or registration). for copyrigh ts in their renewal term the total term would also be extended to 75 years. 198 on the spiritual in music alois troller translated from the german by christopher and irmgard holloway introduction why should i presume to talk about music? i lack the skill of the musician, as well as the knowledge of the musicologist. i am therefore incapable of taking part in theoretical and critical discussions about music. i can discuss neither the origin of a piece of music nor its correct interpretation. what remains to be said, then, if i omit everything that forms the basis of discussions by musicians and musicologists? the title of this essay provides the answer: the spiritual. let us consider whether music, that is to say, music generally heard in concerts, has a spiritual meaning. we should consider whether the listener experiences more than an individual enchantment of the soul, more than admiration and joy at the technical virtuosity of the performing artists, more than a social pastime. however important the emotional impact of the music, however pleasurable the sensual joy of sound and the expert appreciation of the interpreters, however delightful the festive pomp, all this would not account for the efforts of a community to establish and organize music festivals. 1 they belong to the realm of public events, even though they are organized by private citizens and can exist mainly because of private support. what makes the cultivation of music and every other art an important task is their spiritual message, which rises above the individual. the dictators of our century realized their power by preventing artists from creating freely and by banning "degenerate" art in the third reich and "bourgeois, decadent" art in the communist countries. this suppression was not only limited to the communications of literature and the visual arts, which are accessible to the understanding, but also included, to an even greater extent, those artistic creations whose messages could not be comprehended conceptually. contemporary works of music were no less suspect or undesirable politically than the works of poets and pictorial artists. this gives us sufficient grounds, and indeed makes it our duty, to consider how rationally incomprehensible works of art can succeed in troubling the mentality of dictators, for such considerations lead us to the conviction that the arts convey significant pronouncements of the human spirit. 119 the spiritual creation musical compositions are created by the human mind. they can be classified as works of the spirit. one must explore their essence in order to grasp their character. i beg the reader not to become impatient if we make a long and laborious detour instead of an entertaining one in search of these works of music. i am following the thoughts of nicolai hartmann, which are specifically expounded in his aesthetik and vom sein des menschlichen geistes. that does not mean, however, that i am taking over his realistic ontology in general. i believe that his teaching is founded upon, complemented, and modified by the phenomenology of edmund husserl. i shall not dwell on this point any further, as this paper does not aim to explain philosophical doctrines and methods but rather to elucidate the spirit of music. i mention hartmann and husserl only to show the origin of the ideas expounded here. works of the spirit comprise all statements of the human mind. as a rule, we accept them without thinking about their evolution, origin, and effect. we see and hear the messages of thinkers and artists and hardly ever ask ourselves how they are made possible. the structure of the inanimate world and the enigma of nonhuman nature interest us more than the spiritual being of man. we accept this with a naive certainty and gloss over the problems. to be sure, many people are also interested in emotional life. psychology, which is concerned with the state of the soul, both conscious and unconscious, awake and dreaming, has numerous partisans, both professional and amateur. but they do not enter that sphere of the human mind which we are exploring here. neither can we gather in the richness of the spiritual being and plumb its depths. our only object is the phenomenon of the spiritual creation. the word phenomenon is used here in the philosophical, technical sense. it does not signify a mere general and indeterminate object of discussion. no-our aim is to explore the work of the spirit as it appears in your consciousness, and mine. but how does it appear? one mind cannot transmit messages directly to another. the mind that expresses itself must lay down its communication in symbols which can be perceived by our senses. the scientist expresses his subject in words, numbers, or formulas and occasionally illustrates them pictorially. the writer shapes the spiritual content into words and sentences, the composer into notes and other symbols. these physically perceivable carriers of spiritual communication can be visual or acoustic (written, spoken, or sounding in tones) ; they are rarely intended for the sense of touch. spiritual communication always triumphs over sensory perception. the man who creates with his mind, whether he be an artist or a scholar, first visualizes or hears the creation in his spirit. he sees or hears it-this must be stressed. he shapes the spiritual content as such in his mind and makes it perceptible visually or acoustically by putting ink on paper, by moving a pencil or brush over a surface, by working on a stone with a chisel, by making the air vibrate through the spoken word or sound-generating media. the mind, which has 120 been made accessible to sensory perception by physical means or, to use copyright terminology, has been materialized, is detached from the mind of its creator, is made objective. this autonomous spirit is the spiritual work. it exists independently of its creator, even thousands of years after his death. but it does not exist as a material object in itsel£ as such, only the physical carrier exists, for example, a painting on canvas, ink on paper, chiseled stone, a recording, and so on. the spiritual creation, which is embodied in the object, exists only for the receiving spirit. that is to say, everything that takes place in the mind of the creator is renewed through another human mind, which perceives the symbols that belong to the physical world in its consciousness, and this receiving mind transposes the symbols into the spiritual creation. it achieves this by going in reverse-not, like the creator, from the spiritual vision or hearing to the physical product, but from the latter to the spiritual creation. thus, the spiritual exists first in the mind of its creator and, afterwards, again in the minds of all who perceive it. in this way it can exist in a limitless number of places and in different eras, in the spirit of the creator as well as in the spirit of the receiver for whom it was created. aesthetic creations and creations of the understanding the distinction between aesthetic creations, on the one hand, and the creations of the understanding, on the other, is of fundamental importance to our subject. the spirit which concerns us here manifests itself in different ways in both categories. works of the understanding are those which communicate knowledge. they contain a message which has been transmitted by the signs in which the work of the understanding has been fixed, but which does not appear directly in consciousness via these signs. the perception of the signs is followed by reflection, and knowledge is conveyed only through the latter. the signs are symbols of thoughts and their connections. the scientist, who reveals a mathematical, scientific, or intellectual perception, does not see or hear it directly. it does not appear in his mind as an independent visual or acoustic shape. the signs which are visually and acoustically perceptible (words, numbers, drawings, etc.) are accurate indications of their spiritual contents. they are comprehensible only in the context of their broader sense. this holds true also for numbers and formulas, of course. their function is only to indicate. it is different as far as words, sentences, and pictures are concerned. they offer an immediate statement and can also be carriers for the communication of knowledge. words such as reason, creation, communication carrier, science, etc., are concepts whose contents become evident only upon further reflection. but words, sentences, and images can also transmit the creation of the spirit directly and at the same time reveal a message to the understanding. this is the way poets communicate, insofar as their works include a message that can be grasped by the understanding (for example, 121 when holderlin says, "the impatient word always rushes ahead of mortal man and does not permit the hour of success to mature untouched."). the receptive spirit sees how the word hastens and experiences how the hand grasps too quickly for the result. it is often hard to draw the line between the creation of the understanding and the aesthetic work. but it is not necessary for us at this point to recognize its course, as works of music are always aesthetic. the concept of aesthetic, in this connection, signifies only the way in which the spiritual creation manifests itself. it does not make a statement about the experience of the person who perceives it. it is unimportant whether this person experiences it as beautiful, agreeable, or repugnant, or whether he feels any sensation at all. any creation that is directly experienced by the mind, independently of the reflection of the understanding, is aesthetic. as soon as a person sees or hears an aesthetic creation, he experiences a visual, spiritual image or an acoustical pattern of sound. the creator of this work has objectified it by putting it down in symbols. the aesthetic creation, i.e., a poem, a sculpture, a composition, appears before the receiving spirit as soon as that spirit sees or hears it. the receiver can avoid the effect only by avoiding its reception, by not paying attention, e.g., if his mind is elsewhere during a concert, so that the sounds reach his ears but not his mind. the aesthetic creation needs no reflection, nor does it require the participation of the understanding. this is its power, through which it has its magical effect. the concept of "magic" shows that the effect lies beyond the realm which the understanding is able to explain. we can only affirm this particular existence of the aesthetic creation, but we do not know how it originates. nevertheless, we can understand further traits of the aesthetic creation as a phenomenon of the spirit through an examination of its exterior. strata of the aesthetic creation the visual or acoustical phenomenon as such is the foreground of the work and is real matter (words, tones, lines, colors, etc.) shaped by the author. this shaped matter effects the appearance of the spiritual creation. but this is not merely a foreground, a superficial appearance. strata lying beyond the foreground appear at the same time as a visual or acoustical occurrence. rembrandt's self-portrait shows not only the well-painted portrait of an old man; its spiritual content is also directly apparent: the perception of this is the result of seeing, not of reflection. therefore, something purely spiritual, psychic, and consequently something nonphysical, appears as a consequence of sensory perception in the aesthetic creation. the more of such background strata a work of literature or art contains, the richer it becomes. depending on the type of work, these background strata appear either in certain mental images (for example, the visually perceivable statements in plato's caveparable), or they produce a feeling in us which is determined solely in its 122 direction (abstract paintings and sculpture, poems without concrete content, and, above all, works of music). the author of a work is affected by the deepest layer and advances from it to the foreground, which he shapes to make his most profound emotion felt, thereby making perceptible the statement relating to this sensation. again we must explain that the receiving mind reaches the deepest layer via the surface and thus has to travel the path in the opposite direction. the author himself is often not aware of this process. he may think that he is led by his craft and technique, and that he has nothing deeper to communicate (for instance, the statements of hindemith). but every important work has these inner strata which transmit meaning to the receiving spirit. the perceptible surface is only the means of a far-reaching spiritual and intellectual message. individual, objective, and objectified spirit we have recognized the work ofliterature, music, or art as the creation of the spirit. furthermore, we have seen that it is independent of the spirit of the author who created it, and we designated this autonomy as the objectified spirit. moreover, we followed the path of this creation in the mind of the author, through the physically perceptible medium of communication, to its appearance in the receiving spirit of the reader or listener. throughout we have talked about the spirit of the author, about the objectified spirit of the work itself, and of the accepting spirit of the recipient. this tripartite division is not sufficient to fathom the phenomenon of the spirit to the extent which the subject i am discussing demands; i could just as well say as far as my perceptive faculty and its suitable theme extend. no one, myself included, can fathom the mystery of the spirit. that is also why i mentioned not the problem but only the phenomenon of the spirit, that spirit which appears in our consciousness. if we investigate further, we must be content with two more categories. the problem of the person as the center of the spiritual act, on which max scheler elaborates, will remain unexamined. let us turn, then, to the individual, objective, and objectified spirit as a category of the spiritual being. we have already spoken of the creation as objectified spirit, but not about its relationship to the individual and objective spirit. both appear in the objectified spirit of the work. the objectified spirit is individual and objective spirit which succeeds in asserting itself in the work. this statement, arid though it may seem, is, in fact, the gate through which we can reach the core of our subject. the individual spirit rests in the objective spirit; it detaches itself with effort and struggles with the spirit which has been objectified by other people. it becomes objectified itself in this process and is in turn seized upon by the individual spirit of younger men. it may sound more familiar if we speak of the creative individual, the 123 zeitgeist, and the succession of generations. but this type of formulation does not indicate the phenomenon clearly enough. \ve must therefore impose effort and restraint upon ourselves and extract from man and society only that mysterious, driving, conserving, revolutionary force which we recognize merely as a result of its activity and which we call spirit. the individual spirit the individual spirit is the autonomous spiritual entity of the individual, that is, one which belongs to only a single person. as each human being appears physically distinct (fingerprints, for example) and is an emotionally individual, unique, and irreplaceable entity, so does his mind differ-as far as possiblefrom those of all other spiritual beings. the reader will have noticed the distinction in the above statement: namely, the compelling physical and emotional individuality on the one hand and the merely possible spiritual individuality on the other. man is physically individual as a phenomenon, and as such he must have his own emotional sensations, which he alone can experience, because certain experiences are inevitably his own (e.g., love, fear of death). it is certain, furthermore, that each human being can be mentally individual. on the other hand, few make use of this potential. they allow themselves to be led by the undetermined "spirit of person" (geist des man), which heidegger so impressively revealed in sein und zeit. they think but do not make decisions according to their experience; they let others decide for them and express what others do and think. the first step of the individual mind is independent resolution adjusted to personal experience. this stage need not be discussed here. a higher level is the individual statement concerning the existence of the communicator as a person, concerning the existence and being of other people, groups of people, and other beings (nonhuman animate and inanimate world). here, according to their content, we have to distinguish two categories of personal communication-of the type, that is, which arises solely from the person making a statement: (a) belonging to one category are communications about being and existence hitherto unknown, thus newly discovered. the analytical, scientific mind differs thereby from one which compiles only that which puts previous statements into a systematic order; but even that is already a personal stirring of the individual spirit. (b) the other category contains information about existing things which were brought into existence for the first time by the communicator, those things which were created by his mind: new applications of the forces of nature (inventions) or new, sensually perceptible phenomena (visual or acoustic), that is, aesthetic creations (works of literature, music, and art). in this instance we must make a further distinction which is important to our subject. the scientific achievements of each step and the inventions stem from the individual spirit. the mind of the researcher or inventor has 124 enriched the knowledge of mankind (discovery) or even the existence of natural forces (inventions) through its personal action. this act, however important it may be, is not individual to the extent that only one scientist or inventor could accomplish it. if the general state of science or technology has created the basis for them, then discoveries and inventions are made inevitable; however, gifted minds might be far ahead of their time and accelerate evolution by hundreds of years. numerous examples of parallel discoveries and inventions might be quoted. aesthetic works are truly individual, i.e., necessarily and forever associated with one person. the history of literature, music, and art cannot demonstrate a single instance of a parallel literary, musical, or artistic creation. in these aesthetic works the individual spirit can be perceived by the senses and is therefore a phenomenon whose reality cannot be doubted. works of literature, music, and art are therefore the most infallible witnesses for the existence of the individual spirit in a particular epoch. the objective spirit i said earlier that the individual and objective spirit may appear in the work as objectified spirit, that is, as a spirit which has become detached from its creator and been given an independent existence. we must now talk about the objective spirit. all the knowledge which several or many persons, or even nations, possess in common is objective spirit. but this embraces not only knowledge as recognized or supposedly recognized being and existence: all common ideas of any kind belong to the objective spirit as long as they have not been objectified as individual, distinct spiritual entities (e.g., the odyssey, iliad, texts of the bible). the borders between such works of literature and art, which appear as common property, on the one hand, and as objective spirit on the other, are almost impossible to define, but this is hardly necessary for our argument. it is sufficient to know that the same ideas exist in the consciousness of the same generation in a particular sphere. they are often the result of the same spiritual impulses. this objective spirit is responsible, among other things, for the conflict between generations. it gives rise to contradicting ideologies. it appears as a group spirit. it is the spirit of tradition and the spirit of progress. the notions and ideas of each human being stem, for the greater part, from the objective spirit. the individual spirit of the average person contributes but little toward the ideas of even great thinkers and brilliant artists. this holds true not only for their discoveries, inventions, and aesthetic creations, but especially for their day-to-day thinking. the objective spirit is the ocean of human imagination and thought. the momentary existence of each generation either ripples the surface or creates big waves. we shall not explore this infinity of the objective spirit any further. the reader may think that we have rather daringly separated the spirit from the soul. but we can comprehend the soul only as far as its motions 125 appear in consciousness and, herewith, in the cognizant spirit. in this way they are, however, absorbed into the spiritual sphere. the soulful stirrings of a generation become evident in its objective spirit. of the immeasurable realm of human unconsciousness, in which the soul, above all, is active, we comprehend only that which becomes spiritually visible and audible in the consciousness, that is, only that which takes shape in the objective, in the individual, in the objectified spirit. we can gain knowledge about the unconscious only indirectly by way of the spirit. there is but one exception: physical touch. but we shall say no more about this now and will especially not linger in that realm in which the direct union of the soul and conscious communication can hardly be separated. what we must emphasize once more is that the communications of thought and feeling, communications, therefore, of the deepest, most tender, and passionate emotions and sensations, must appear as a spiritual message as soon as they reach an indefinite number of persons. this is valid for both science and art. this mode of being in man also imposes rules on works of music. the soul of the composer can communicate what it feels to the creation as objectified spirit only via the individual and objective spirit. and exclusively from the objcctified spirit can the receptive mind learn what the composer wanted to say about his knowledge of the world, his joy, and his suffering. the character of the musical work the work of music emerges from the spirit of the composer and detaches itself from him. it achieves an existence independent of the spirit of its creator. as we established earlier, it receives its spiritual content from the individual mind of the author and from the objective spirit which he has absorbed and by which, primarily, he has been spiritually molded. the work of music has these elements in common with all other creations of the spirit. like all works ofliterature and art, indeed, like all other aesthetic works, it is perceived without rational reflection. but while these things, whether they be stories, poems, paintings, sculptures, pantomimes, films, etc., generally appear to the outside world as phenomena which build a bridge to the experience of the reader or viewer, the work of music stands alone. with the exception of music set to texts and program music, in which the accompanying text elicits pictures, it provides no information concerning specific experiences and situations in the lives of people; nor does it depict things of the external world which are curtailed or limited to their main elements. in the work of music the soul of the artist speaks about itself exclusively and directly via the spirit. the artist expresses what people have given him, taken from him, and done to him, without reference to the succession of events. whatever the eyes of the composer have seen, whatever his hands have held, is changed into sounds, sounds which he heard in his mind and which he communicated through notes and other symbols. music is therifore the most human and most soulful if all the arts. 126 nevertheless, the listener encounters more than statements about mankind in the work of music. creation places in the hands of the composer the sounds, successions of sounds, rhythm, expectant silence, resonance, and fading away of sound within a limited span of time, as necessary and essential modes of being of the musical work. the same law governs the song of birds. thus the work of music arises from man's understanding of being and from his statements about his existence. but it takes root in being and leads the listener to the deepest secrets of creation; it brings him to a place where knowledge is foolish, where only the intuitive spirit trembles happily in its origins. can one still speak so solemnly nowadays? are these not the remnants of the objective spirit of the last 3000 years? he who has experienced the collective, almost breathless silence and entrancement of hundreds, even thousands, oflisteners not just once, but at every consummate performance of a great work of music, will agree with me that neither scientifically analytical nor ironic language, which fearfully rejects feelings, can be adapted to this noble and deeply mysterious event. even when the music of our time, like the literature and the pictorial arts, avoids merely pretty appearances and tells of the real and therefore often miserable existence of man, his confusion and errors, his fall from the possible harmony of creation, it still does not lose its own essence. the work of music is independent of momentary human existence and exists as a successful, heroic deed of creation. the work of music and the zeitgeist may i remind the reader that the creative work is objectified spirit, that the objectified spirit duly stems from the spirit of its originator, and that this is individual and objective spirit. the objective spirit, i.e., the spirit of the time, or zeitgeist, shapes above all the spirit of the author. the zeitgeist in turn is formed from the spiritual possession which developed over thousands of years and from that which people of each epoch add to it. this last element stands out; inherited possession is rarely regarded as self-evident foundation. thus one often describes contemporary music only in terms of its being different. would even one composition of our time be thinkable without the music of the past? timelessness is preserved, i.e., whatever belongs to man independently of momentary existence in a specific era appears in the continuance of the objective spirit, which is passed on from century to century, from millennium to millennium. as much as the artist may wish to admire and assimilate the objective spirit which came to him from past generations, his spirit cannot become the spirit of that time. the objective spirit of his time is shaped by the experiences and knowledge of his fellow men. as a creative person he is forced to take part in the creation of the zeitgeist. he reports about what he experiences together with his contemporaries. he makes the events of the day appear in the work of art. in the work of music the soul of the author communicates 127 its very own emotions because, as we saw earlier, the outer world does not appear as such in music but rather can resound only as it is changed into personal experience. the more strongly the artist experiences the events of the day, the more he separates himself from the differently disposed, time-bound emotions of past generations. the artist of our time can no longer proclaim an order about which man presumes to have knowledge. the objective spirit of the 19th century still saw man as the master of the universe. the europeans and americans felt secure in their inherited order. they were affected by personal destiny and did not concern themselves with the future of mankind. they looked for the measure of their actions in traditional value concepts, without giving consideration to their origin. only the greatest thinkers, such as kierkegaard, hegel, and nietzsche, brought forth new ideas. the objective spirit was satisfied with appearances, with the picture of a fully accountable order, with the hierarchy of inherited values. differences of opinion were, so to say, family quarrels that remained on the surface of man's individual or mass destiny. in the objective spirit of the 20th century, creation appears in its immeasurable greatness; man appears as a being without a secure home. the spirit of the west is being questioned by people of different cultures. it cannot provide answers, since it alludes to values inherited from the past. as a believing catholic or protestant, as a philosopher, lawyer, and citizen, the artist must independently explain and justify his convictions, his knowledge, and his picture of the world. human existence and all creation are, for him, direct sources of information. he knows, however, that he experiences only their outward appearance and not their entire essence. the spiritual and political storms of the 20th century have swept away the apparently secure world of the 19th century. only that part of the objective spirit' which knows the eternal and unchangeable truths about man has survived. musicians of our time therefore give as accompaniments to their compositions texts from the bible, liturgy, or from thinkers and poets of antiquity. this fragmentary statement concerning the relationship of the objective spirit of our times to the objective spirit of the last century is sufficient to show that we cannot expect composers to dwell in the external tranquility of the 19th century. in contemporary works of music we encounter either spiritual restlessness, in that it is only a mode or expression of an existence ruled by the body, or a striving for new spiritual laws; that is, these new rules derive directly from man's being, from his questionable and insecure existence. what the soul of the composer grasps intuitively, his spirit wishes to express in sounds and rhythms. the 19th-century picture of the world was seemingly shaped from an objectively scientific view; the scientific discoveries in the renaissance, such as those of galileo and newton, laid the foundation for this vast thought structure, to which music was a parallel development. when the structure 128 collapsed, music, too, could no longer endure in the same manner. now that philosophy has thrust aside the mathesis generalis of leibniz as a human fantasy (as in the lifelong work of edmund husserl), now that politics have been eviscerated because of radical new considerations, art cannot remain unaffected. this change is the work of the objective spirit and not the eccentric struggle of a composer with a mania for innovation. the one slowly and carefully untangles itselffrom the spiri t of earlier generations, while the other pushes ahead stormily. all this in no way means that works of former times, including musical works, particularly those of the 19th century, are insignificant or totally wrong for us. those that arose from the depths of human emotion bear witness to the unchangeable being of man, which is affected only in its superficial existence by the changes of time. the great artists always created their works with a direct regard for man and creation. they did not let themselves be held back by the objective spirit. therefore, their messages are important and precious to us, even if their dress is unfashionable. we do not want to lose them. we must not, however, turn a deaf ear to those who speak of today, who speak of man as they perceive his existence, because we may maintain a partiality and loyalty for past speakers. as in every era, most people, including composers, allow themselves to be led by the objective spirit, without feeling anything deeper themselves. even what is said by these superficial people warrants our attention today. the coming generation will no longer be bound by it. were it not for these would-be-artists, however, the few great ones would have no opportunity to perfect and detach themselves from the stream of contemporary, sectarian music. thousands of composers are necessary to teach those few to tell future generations how the being of man was experienced by great musicians and held in the objective spirit of their works. the music of our times is a part of the spiritual stream in which the history of man flows by. yet, at the same time the masterpieces are islands which stand out from the waves as objectified spirit and are not carried away by the flow. what would the objectified spirit be without the receptive spirit, however? hthe works of our contemporary composers were to find no willing ears, they would then exist only in the spirit of their creators; but these composers would despair in their task and be crushed by the weight of their emotions, a burden which no one could relieve. there is still much to say about the wanton and self-satisfied dissemination which can be intended only for a small circle of chosen persons, but we shall not discuss these details. we are concerned only with the character of contemporary music as an expression of the objective spirit of our era. the interpreter and the zeitgeist the work of music is spiritual, but it appears in a shape that can be perceived by the senses. notes and other related symbols, as means of com129 munication, describe the work visually but do not carry it to its ultimate form. notes lead only to a mental hearing. the work of music should, however, emerge from the notes as a sounding work and, in fact, as a physically jjerceptible phenomenon rif sound. to that effect one needs sources which create sounds (human voices, instruments) and those persons who know how to understand and master them. it is the singers and musicians, conductors, soloists, orchestral players, and chorus members who bring the work of music to that sound structure which the composer shaped and heard in his mind. the performing artists or interpreters present the work; that is, they recognize the spiritual message in the whirl of notes and other symbols and make it sound, suspended in space and the succession of time. before considering this phenomenon in more detail and experiencing the effect of the interpreter's spirit, we shall in passing look at the experiencing of other creative categories in order to reaffirm the individuality of the work of music. with paintings, sculpture, and literary works, everyone to whom the author's message is presented observes it directly. dramatic works can appear as easily in the mind of the reader as on stage, and sometimes in a more joyful and fascinating reproduction. nevertheless, in these works the director and actor intercede as mediators between the poet and the receiving spirit of the onlooker and listener. but as soon as a drama is coupled with a work of music, not even the professional musician, let alone the layman, can extract a valid experiencing of it from the score. only the change of this spiritual work into a pattern of sound can do that. thus the work of music, by its very nature, is the only one of the aesthetic creations which cannot communicate with the receiving spirit without an intermediary. this knowledge says something important about the spiritual essence of a work of music. the work of music first appears in the receiving spirit of the performing musician and enters his mind as a spiritual creation. as he understands it in his own mind and feels it stir in his soul, he embodies it in sound and thereby imparts it to the ears and receiving spirit of the listeners. the performing artist, however, is not only a spiritual and physical intermediary. the composer does not command the means to communicate the work as he hears it in his mind. the performing artist must add from his own spirit what is essential for a live performance and what is suited, of course, to the spirit of the composition. the conductor and the soloists or small ensembles (e.g., from duet through octet) must at each performance spiritually complete in sound the work given to them. they finish the almost but not quite communicated work when they pass it on to the listener. i will let the matter drop with this statement and not present the differing tasks of individual interpreters (conductors and soloists) on the one hand and groups (orchestras and choruses) on the other. what i am saying at this point about interpreters and the zeitgeist concerns mainly conductors and soloists. i regard the orchestra as the instrument of the conductor. 130 the spirit of the interpreter is formed by the objective spirit of his era and by his individual spirit. no performing artist can be the spirit of bach's or beethoven's time or even of wagner's or mahler's. as a spirit of his own time the interpreter encounters the objectified spirit of the composer, consequently the spirit of that particular time, the spirit of the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and beginning of the 20th century. he encounters it in notes and other symbols. this does not portray the work in all its details, as i have demonstrated. from his own spirit the interpreter adds just the thing that gives the work life. yet in today's world he encounters more than the score alone; he knows the work through numerous performances by other interpreters; through records he can encounter these sound examples as often as he wishes. the interpreter is in danger and may fall into the trap of not performing the work individually from the score; such interpreters silence their individual spirit, if it makes itself felt at all. they take the work of others as a ready-made product. thus, their spirit does not encounter the objectified spirit of the composer directly but rather the finished, performed work in which the spirit of another interpreter has participated. can, indeed should, the spirit of the interpreter confront the spirit of the composer directly? i can answer only the first part of this question: i can speak about ability. this lies in the sphere of the phenomenologically objective statement. remarks about the second part of the question, on the other hand, fall within the sphere of competence of musicians and musicologists. the answer to the first question emerges from the encounter of the objectified spirit of the composer with the spirit of the interpreter. the latter is also objective and individual spirit. the objective spirit is not only that which holds sway in all people of an era, or of just a certain locality or cultural class. people of a certain sphere of activity and emotion have their own objective spirit in this regard. the objective spirit is not built anew in each era; the contents of former times are passed on, and we therefore speak of tradition. that which convinces people remains; the purely fashionable things which grow out of a need for change fade away and then sometimes reemerge in the changing of taste. the spirit of the interpreter takes over ideas about the state of the soul and mind of the composer with whose work he concerns himself, from the objective spirit of musicians. he receives corresponding ideas about timbres and sonority from his teachers and other models. even if his individual spirit moves independently, he cannot detach himself from the objective spirit in which it was formed. should the interpreter have something personal to communicate and, at the same time, perceive and wish to preserve the awe of the cultivation of music in former generations, that is, of their musical culture, he carefully introduces the spirit of his own time in his interpretation. he cannot avoid this change in interpretation; otherwise, he would split his being into living existence on the one hand and anachronistic, sedimentary experience and notion on the other. if he does this, he lives and perceives in the daily 131 experiences of his time as a contemporary; but as an artist he withdraws into the past. the interpreter, on the other hand, who looks at his time as a contrast to the immediate past seeks innovation everywhere. he pays no heed to traditional ideas and wishes to encounter the objectified spirit of the works of former times directly; as a spirit of his own time he wishes to merge with the spirit of another age and be free of the spiritual layers which lie in-between. it is not only the revolutionary zeal of the missionary that drives interpreters to these undogmatic performances. on occasion antecedents from other cultural fields also steer the interpreter past ideas about works, especially those formed in the western european sphere, and to a direct meeting with the score. perhaps he is also unconcerned with the subjective existence of the composer who created it. in the concert halls of today we meet interpreters of works who enrapture uncritical listeners but evoke anger in connoisseurs. the latter are those who welcomed and cherished with faith and love their ideas about works as children of our time. they were, most of all, filled with the inherited objective spirit of the european music culture. at this point the decision on what should be done falls due. what freedom is suited to the individual spirit as an expression of his time as opposed to the objective spirit of tradition or even the image of the subjective existence of the composer? let whoever is familiar with music, irrespective of era, decide this. i see only the question and do not know the answer. this much i do know: the interpreter has to render the work as it is written down; the latitude of interpretation lies only in the area in which one cannot find the objectified spirit of the composer and in which the work therefore has to be completed in performance. the case is entirely different when it involves the use of one work for the creation of another, a second-hand work. this is not performance but rather arrangement. the musical work of the spirit exists in sound through interpretation. the sensuous attractiveness of sound exists, of necessity, in unison with the spiritual communication. the more beautiful the sound of the work, the more easily it is accepted by the receiving spirit. sonorous attractiveness is the work of the composer and the interpreter. the latter plays a decisive part. the mantle of sound can be woven well only if the interpreter has acquired the necessary ability. now and then the interpreter is open to the temptation to demonstrate his technical skill and catch the listener in the net of euphony, that is, to infatuate him with that part of the performance which should serve only to transmit a message that is as complete as possible to the receiving spirit. the work for such an interpreter is merely a means and pretext for focusing attention on himself. vve must now differentiate between the direct encounter of the interpreter with the objectified spirit which appears in the work and those actions which remain in the physical, tonal, and technical-virtuoso foreground. the borders are almost impossible to find. the centers of gravity are, 132 in fact, often shifted during a performance. the connoisseurs, e.g., the music critics, can say whether the interpreter on the podium is possessed by the zeitgeist, or whether he is a virtuoso playing tricks with his abilities, purely providing a treat for the eyes and ears. the listener and the zeitgeist somewhere at the beginning of this paper i reached the conclusion that the single human being is individual in body and soul, that he can attain spiritual autonomy, but that he very often fails to do so. i spoke of human lassitude, of splashing around in the shallow waters of words and actions. this may be good in many respects. we are not passing judgment here but merely establishing this fact. a person would like above all to have his peace and not see tradition shaken or even overturned. but the zeitgeist acts constantly as a perpetrator of disorder. in his labors man cannot avoid all that concerns his physical being. technology and politics rule human existence. art, however, is the realm which is detached from that compulsion, as schiller explained in his 26th and 27th letters, "on the aesthetic training of man." in them the power of the spirit is completely free and rules according to its own desires. the same freedom that belongs to the creative spirit is also part of the receiving spirit, e.g., the concert-goer. he too can sojourn wherever he desires in the realm of art, but he cannot find access so easily. as a rule, in matters of art, there is a delay of one or two generations between supply and demand, while all other wares on the market are either immediately accepted or forever rejected (with the exception of great inventions). in music the receiving spirit must make the greatest effort to reach the objectified spirit of contemporary works. we learned earlier that the soul of the artist speaks most directly in music. what the zeitgeist knows and surmises appears without digression in the objectified spirit of the work. the listener, who consciously or unconsciously detaches himself only reluctantly from the inheritance which is familiar to him, rejects the statements of contemporary music about existence in his time, statements which express the fears and pains with raw and often brutal harshness. he prefers to hear those messages about human fate which are already familiar to him and whose euphony mitigates the shock of the message itself (e.g., schubert's winterreise). added to this is the fact that the work of music can hardly be grasped at first hearing because of its detachment from any apparent connection with our experiences. the receiving spirit cannot stand before it as before a picture or sculpture and cannot go back, as in a book. the work flows past his ears; each single part is physically present for only a moment. the listener must shape the work into a unity in his mind. is it then surprising that even the willing concert-goer finds it difficult to approach the spirit of contemporary composition and to open his ears, his spirit, and his soul to it? how shall he separate the serious message from the superficial one? 133 nonetheless, he cannot refuse entry into his being to the spirit of today's composers. i could continue these thoughts at great length; you, the reader, may continue the subject in your own mind. conclusion in concert programs the spirit of former centuries, as it was objectified by previous composers, and the spirit of today, which has been stressed by living composers, meet the spirit of the interpreters of various cultural origins, even if traditional occidental training is predominant. the listeners, who come from all ends of the earth, bear witness to this encounter. detached from the stresses of everyday life and free from every constraint, spirit meets spirit. the eternal in man and the merely momentary appear in the works, in the interpretations, and in the audience. the fearful and joyful excitement of the soul and spirit, the upheaval, and the trusting peace in the harmony of creation appear in the sounds. music festivals are a festival of the human spirit communing with itself. there it has the opportunity to hear itself, to understand itself in relation to the present time, and to trace its path back through the centuries. notes 1 from 1966 until his retirement in 1970, professor troller was president of the lucerne music festival, for which he prepared this paper. * this article is the first in what current musicology hopes will be a continuing series of english translations of publications that might otherwise remain unavailable to most of our readers. 134 footnotes 1 the principal arguments of mr. collins's dissertation may be consulted in two articles: "the performance of sesquialtera and hemiolia in the 16th century" , jams 17: 5-28 (spring 1964), and "the performance of triplets in the 17th and 18th centuries", jams 19:281-328 (fall 1966). 2 these theorists incelude finck, 1556; quitschreiber, 1607; vulpius, 1608; beringer, 1610; elsmann, 1619; gengenbach, 1626; hase, 1657; and trumper, 1668. reply to arthur hills michael collins mr. hills's main criticism of my work is aimed at my "failure to fashion an adequate method". it seems to me that there is a great deal of talk about method lately; but certainly no matter how airtight the researcher's method, it is no substitute for his having investigated all sources, finally choosing those relevant to the subject. this has been my "method", and the virtually complete list of l6th-, 17th-, and 18th-century theorists consulted can really not be listed. i chose those who seemed to be talking about real practice rather than abstract mathematical theory. mr. hills has turned up no new sources, to contradict my theory; instead, he has attacked it on the rather dubious grounds of national styles. we shall for the moment leave 'aside the 17th-century german theorists of the conservative camp who so clearly call for resolutions of three black minims <l!!) into binary figures (ll !). in the 16th century there were, no national styles in the sense that mr. hills claims. there were different .. genres, such as madrigal, mass, motet, and chanson, and there was an international style-that of the netherlanders. they developed the polyphonic style about which the italians discourse; they brought it to italy and they' were employed there to write and perform this music in the great churches' and courts of italy. the italian theorists i quote are speaking of the notation and the music of these netherlanders. aron cites obrecht, josquin, and isaac as his masters and acquaintances in florence; zarlino cites willaert, his teacher, ockeghem, josquin, de rore, and mouton. tigrini is beholden, as, are they all, to gafurio, whose treatise is not about italian music, and to tinctoris, aron, and lusitano (a portuguese theorist); he cites josquin as well as palestrina. zacconi cites the theorists zarlino and heyden among others, and most of his examples are drawn from ockeghem, obrecht, isaac, " josquin, and mouton. ' now the first theorists to write out resolutions ofsesquialtera and hemiolia were agricola (1532) and bourgeois (1550), both of them perhaps somewhat removed from the center of musical culture. the former, however, quotes gafurio, the latter heyden, frosch, and listenius. they do not make ref' erence to tactus in regard to their resolutions. the later 17th-century german theorists, perhaps stemming from the great influence of the netherlander 128 lassus, do refer to tactus. they all say the same thing. beringer (1610), who is perhaps the clearest, says: " ... in this case [three black minims against two white ones] the notes are counted as three-part, but measured off as only two-part. thus the first two are worth a half tactus, and the third by itself is also worth a half tactus" . i maintain that this is exactly what the italians were saying since 1553. it is futile to argue that zariino distinguished between "della" and "nella"; he might also have used "alia", as we shall see in the following quotations describing the relation of the three notes of sesquialtera (or hemiolia) to an equal tactus: lusitano (1553): zarlino (1558): tigrini (1588) : pisa (1611): "ie due si metterano nella prima testa, & una nella seconda" "due si pongono della positione & uno nella levatione" "due si metteranno nella positione, & una nella levatione" "due si metteranno nel descendere & una nell'ascendere" "due vanno nell'abbassare della mano, & una nellevare" picerli (1630): "dando similmente due note alia prima, un'altr'alla seconda parte della battuta" lorente (1672): "dos semibreves al dar del compas y uno al als:ar" while none of these writers illustrates a resolution as do agricola (1532), quitschreiber (1607), vulpius (1608), beringer (1610), elsmann (1619), gengenbach (1626), hase (1657), and triimper (1668), it is quite obvious that the italians agree with the germans. had one of the italians written "la terza nel mezzo della seconda" or something similar, then there would be something to argue about. when we add to these theorists bourgeois (1550) and the portuguese lorente (1672), whose examples and explanations are all about 16th-century prima prattica, then the practice of resolving sesquialtera and hemiolia appears to be international. therefore, i conclude that i . am not dealing with a well-defined national school, and i would further say that the mainstream is not italian but rather netherlandish. now, with reference to 17thand 18th-century instrumental music, i do not conclude on the basis of quotations from mattheson and printz that resolutions also apply in the baroque period. i merely add them to the aforementioned theorists in order to construct a hypothesis for baroque practice. since no theorists before 1750 actually mention dotted figures or pairs of eighth-notes in conjunction with eighth-note triplets, i have examined the music in the light of my hypothesis. briefly, the hypothesis is that the l6thcentury rules for the resolution of sesquialtera, hemiolia, and coloration are to be applied to lower note levels in the 17th and 18th centuries. i was greatly encouraged by the fact that the subtraction of one-fourth and one-half respectively in the resolution of the trochaic figure (. = l.l), advocated by virtually all 16th-century theorists, exactly conforms to the difference between the trochaic triplet and the dotted figure (f.f=ny variants found even in one and the same autograph further supported the hypothesis that triplets were occasionally resolved into binary figures. mr. hills has given us a completely unsupported hypothesis as a statement of fact when he asserts that the" 'italian style' is real triplets against duplets". in the light of common sense and marpurg, would anyone claim this for the gigues of corelli ? to this i must add that the only writer i know ever 129 to have expressly forbidden the use in composition of triplets against duplets was the italian giannantonio banner, maestro di cappella in padova, in his compendia musico of 1745. the real reason for rewriting the piece by zannetti seems to have been overlooked by mr. hills. it has nothing to do with brossard or walther, but with the nature of the piece itself. it is labelled a corrente, and one might expect it would be in triplet meter like other correntes, but it is duple on every level. yet it bears in every part the sign 3 of triple meter. i conclude, therefore, that the sign is an indication that the piece is actually ternary. i heartily agree with mr. hills that the definitive work on performing 17th-century triplets is still to be written. i submit that it is not a refinement of method that is needed, but more information, from treatises or from the music itself. should anyone be able to supply me with such evidence, i shall be more than happy to refine my present conclusions. university of rochester donald m. mintz-the sketches and drofts oj three oj felix mendelssohn's major works ann arbor; university microfilms (um order no. 61-16), 1960. (vol. i, 497 pp. text; vol. ii, 151 pp. music, cornell university diss.) arnold salop . as the title indicates, this dissertation consists of a study of early drafts of three well-known works by felix mendelssohn: elijah, the d minor trio, op. 49, and the a major symphony, op. 90. thanks to a fulbright, dr. mintz was given the opportunity. to visit the deutsche staatsbibliothek in berlin 'and examine the volumes of the mendelssohn nachlass containing these drafts. his findings are reported here. dr. mintz goes about his task by first discussing any matters of background that seem relevant to the work or movement in question, then describing in more or less detail the published versions of the various movements-i.e. those of the breitkopf & hartel gesamtausgabe (ga), and finally drawing comparisons with the versions found in draft form (ms). in doing this, professor mintz demonstrates complete familiarity with the pertinent literature, with the versions of these works contained in the ga, and also presumably with those of the ms-i say presumably because only isolated passages of the early drafts are presented as musical examples. indeed, he has demonstrated something more than mere familiarity; he has gone into these works in their various versions with a fine-toothed comb. he has studied what makes them tick motivically, thematically, harmonically, and dramatically, and has applied this knowledge, and that gained from comparing the versions, to the 130 editor-in-chief: margaret ross griffel associate editors: thomas w. baker jack light leonie rosenstiel faye-ellen silverman maurie sommer assistant editors: anne bagnall peter dedel robert fuller gabriel ghirlando, s. j. richard koprowski douglass seaton george stauffer cornelia weininger editorial assistants: rodney buckins, laura demarco, vladia kunzmann, lowell lacey, virginia marion, brenda szafir, thomas tracy, barbara turchin business department: thomas w. baker, treasurer gayle seaton, advertising and circulation editorial advisor: l. michael griffel faculty advisor: joel newman copyright © 1973, the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york printed in great britain by william clowes & sons, limited london, beccles and colchester corresponding editors: domestic susan gillerman carla pollack mark h. jasinski myrl hermann harrison m. schlee jurgen thyme ronald t. olexy bruce saylor anne gugliotta marie bergbiichler monica grabie jack light laurel fay betty j. scott susan youens james c. griesheimer lionel party samuel o. douglas dale hunter john t. bryan william penn barbara petersen cecilia van de camp marilyn christianson norman rubin christopher wilkinson ann witherell michael a. keller thomas n. rushing jeffrey weinstein carol quin james ladewig sue vinks hough lester brothers mary badarak warren spaeth nancy malitz anne amerson margaret grossman gordon s. rowley john martin lee patrick ramona h. matthews jack crawford edward j. soehnlein judith j. warmanen r. 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university of minnesota, minneapolis, minn. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of oregon, eugene, ore. university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. university of rochester, eastman school, rochester, n.y. foreign harold kjellberg james h. cook michael evans ingrid p. buch david schroeder paul d. ledvina edgar j. lewis glenn l. gore george loomis laszl6 somfai georges franck l. gene strasbaugh a. schneider-klement don harran winfried kirsch bernd baselt rudolph angermuller horst heussner anne-marie riessauw a. annegarn axel helmer john m. jennings niels martin jensen susette clausing georg borchardt anthony ford g. r. rastall anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec davitt moroney ladislav reznicek bojan bujic wolfgang sieber giorgio pestelli walter pass hans conradin university of southern california, los angeles, calif. university of texas, austin, tex. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada university of wisconsin, madison, wis. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. west virginia university, morgantown, w. va. yale university, new haven, conn. bartok archives, budapest, hungary brussels, belgium free university of berlin, berlin, germany friedrich-wilhelms university, bonn, gennany hebrew university, jerusalem, israel johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, gdr mozarteum, salzburg, austria phillips university, marburg, gennany state university of ghent, ghent, belgium state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of erlangen-nuremberg, erlangen, germany university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, hull, yorkshire, england university of leeds, leeds, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of oslo, oslo, norway university of reading, reading, england university of regensburg, regensburg, gennany university of turin, turin, italy university of vienna, vienna, austria university of zurich, zurich, switzerland whenever possible, communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the institution in question. otherwise, they may be sent to the editor of current musicology for forwarding. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york rosalie schellhous michael a. keller christopher wilkinson marycyr l. gene strasbaugh laszl6 somfai rudolph angermuller wolfgang sieber w infried kirsch albrecht schneiderklement albrecht schneiderklement jane b. weidensaul fa ye-ellen silverman kathryn bailey malcolm s. cole reports from the domestic corresponding editors: 7 riverside: music and dance in 18thcentury france lo new york state: genesee music pressan alternative 13 dallas: the american musicological society convention, 1972 16 berkeley: rameau opera revival, 1972 18 23 26 31 34 38 40 41 49 55 71 from the foreign corresponding editors: west berlin: the american student in germany hungary: hungarian musicology-a special system of graduate and postgraduate studies salzburg: libraries, archives, and musicological research regensburg: musicology at the university frankfurt am main: teaching, studies, and research at the musicological institute bonn: the starting point: musicology at the friedrich-wilhelm university budapest: the 1972 conference on early folk-song sources articles early 16th-century manuscripts at piacenza: a progress report gesualdo: misguided or inspired? the evolution of variation form in the music of web ern a sonata offering for the prince of tuscany dissertations david s. josephson 79 thomas carl slattery the wind music of percy aldridge grainger bibliographica dagmar groeneveld 92 a bibliography of the european harp to 1600 michael fink 103 anton webern: supplement to a basic bibliography iii contributors grocheo and the measurability of medieval music: a reply to hendrik vanderweif ]. e. maddrell the pleasure i had in discovering that dr. vanderwerf had found my article on mensura (current musicology io: 64-68) worth replying to was somewhat diminished by the realization that he had not recognized its purpose. my article clearly reveals that i do not rely on treatises for my information on medieval music. the suggestion i made was that a scholar transcribing monody might need non-paleographic guidance in evaluating the often inconclusive evidence of musical notation. there can be no question of relying on "treatises" (in the plural) since grocheo's is the only work to discuss secular monody. excerpts from other treatises were quoted because they had a bearing on my semantic discussion of the term mensura, except for my brief citation of anonymous iv's remarks on the interpretation of non-mens ural notation. my conclusion was that, while there is no theoretical evidence for "free rhythm," our methods of transcribing monody should take full account of the chansonnier cange and the later additions to the ms du roi-neither of which, i might add, supports a strictly modal method of transcription. the main significance of the article, however, was the proof that mensura, for grocheo and other theorists, did not primarily mean quantitative measurement. a full discussion of the chansonnier cange would, therefore, have been hardly appropriate, even ifit could have been contained within the limits ofa single article. the fact that the cange scribe did use longs and breves for single notes, however erratically, is not to be explained away by saying that he was influenced by motet notation; nor does it argue for "free rhythm," although it may imply the use of non-modal fixed rhythms. as for the practical value of grocheo's treatise, it is hardly good scholarship to dismiss a source merely because it does not support one's own view. the only evidence dr. vanderwerf adduces in support of his extraordinary opinion that grocheo is of questionable value as an authority is a paragraph of generalization, vague in expression as in thought ("many treatises," "in many instances," "such treatises," "learned authors," but not a single concrete instance), about a distinction between musica and music. if by "treatises about musica" dr. vanderwerf means philosophical treatises in the boethian tradition of musica speculativa, treatises that were not concerned with practical music, then one can only marvel at the eccentricity of a view which would associate grocheo, of all theorists, with the speculative tradition-grocheo, whose avowed intention was to avoid speculative theory and concentrate on the music of paris as performed in his own day! dr. vanderwerf questions my interpretation of passages from grocheo dealing with the instrumental ductia and the cantus coronatus. i cited the former 89 because it is by nature a form in fixed rhythm, yet grocheo included it with monodic song as "music not precisely measured"; the conclusion is either that grocheo was a half-wit or that mensuratam has a meaning distinct from the modern sense of quantitative measurement. the passage about the cantus coronatus is hardly so obscure as dr. vanderwerf claims. the "crowning" can refer only to accompaniment or to ornamentation of the melody; i now think ornamentation by the singer to be more likely. in any case, it cannot mean "crowned in a contest," since it would be the singer, not the song, that was crowned. i am surprised that dr. vanderwerf should believe that anonymous iv was referring to polyphony in free rhythm in the passage quoted at the end of my article. anonymous iv in this section of his treatise is preoccupied with methods of reading ligatures and single notes, and it is obvious from the context, to say nothing of his use of such mens ural terms as "cum proprietate" and "cum perfectione," that he has regular rhythms in mind. besides, any system which deduced rhythm from the ligatures must have had fixed rhythms. i am equally surprised that dr. vanderwerf should feel that if all the trouvere songs were sung in fixed rhythm, some theorist "would have amply described it." i regard this as an argumentum ex silentio, one of the classic errors in logic. perhaps dr. vanderwerf will publish the evidence on which he bases his view that in an ideal performance of a song the text would have "the undivided attention of performer and listener alike," whereas the melody would be only "simple and unobtrusive." ideal from what point of view? and is one justified in assuming that medieval taste in the relation of text to music was that of any other period-the 16th century, for example, or the 19th? happily, i can welcome at least the spirit of dr. vanderwerf's closing remarks on the importance of ethnological evidence, which has thus far not received sufficient attention. the real question, after all, is not which kind of evidence-paleographic, theoretical, ethnological-should carry the most weight, but how one can best use all three kinds together. 90 a sonata offering for the prince of tuscany malcolm s. cole item 73 in bianca becherini's catalogo dei manoscritti musical della biblioteca nazionale di firenze1 is a set of twelve sonatas. the title page of the manuscript reads as follows: sonate/d/ violino, e violoncello/dedicate/ all' altezza reale di gio: gastone de medici/ principe di toscana/dd/giuseppe maria fmifani. there is an abundance of information on the dedicatee, giovanni (gian) gastone de medici, the last medici grand duke, who reigned from 1723 to 1737. almost nothing is known, on the other hand, about the composer. his name appears in none of the standard reference works; no mention of his compositions, manuscript or printed, occurs in the catalogues of collections in other italian libraries. indeed, it had begun to appear as if fanfani had sunk into almost total oblivion, leaving only this set of sonatas. recently, however, the veracini scholar john hill notified me that he has unearthed biographical information about fanfani which he plans to incorporate in a note on the composers at the court of the last medici grand duke.2 since prof. hill can demonstrate that fanfani's activities extended well into the 18th century, it seems appropriate to examine in detail the florentine collection of early sonatas. the manuscript contains six works (labeled sonate) in the mold of the sonata da chiesa and six others preceded by the designation sonate da camera. although the precise year of origin cannot be established, the sonatas must have been composed between 1713 and 1723, because the title page is addressed specifically to the "principe di toscana." such a date would place fanfani in the period immediately following corelli, thus making him roughly contemporaneous with more celebrated figures such as veracini, vivaldi, and tartini. a few notational characteristics of the manuscript should be mentioned. although the standard g and f clefs are used almost exclusively, on three occasions fanfani or his copyist, to avoid an excessive number of leger lines, no doubt, has either substituted a different clef sign (tenor clef, court sonatas ii/2 and vi/3) or placed a familiar symbol on another line of the staff (g clef, lowest line, church sonata vi/2). fanfani frequently, but not consistently, indicates in his key signature one sharp or flat fewer than dictated by the chosen key (court sonata ii, a major, two sharps). the absence of a reference to a keyboard instrument and the lack of figures in ten of the twelve sonatas suggest that these compositions are simply string duets without continuo. a few figures do appear, however, specifying in all but one instance a seventh chord in 6-4-2 position (church sonatas iii/2, 71 3, 4, and iv/i). in all probability, a continuo instrument participated in each sonata, but because the harmonic vocabulary used was, on the whole, self-evident, figures were not deemed necessary. dynamic indications occur in five sonatas and involve a total of eight movements (church sonatas iv/4, vi/2, 4; court sonatas ii/i, 2, iii/i, v/i, 2). normally, the term piano appears in conjunction with a restatement of a twoto five-measure block of cadential material. in church sonata vi/2, on the other hand, the echo principle is applied to motivic fragments (ex. 1).3 example 1: church sonata vi/2, mm. 20-22 fanfani constructs the six church sonatas in the four-movement sequence which was standard with many of corelli's contemporaries and immediate successors.4 in the six court sonatas, on the contrary, he offers three designs (see appendix). cyclic relationships between movements are not in evidence. in the matter of tempo markings, fanfani favored adagio and allegro in the church sonatas while admitting a broader selection in the court sonatas. although a specific dance term (giga) appears only in the finale of the first court sonata, it is evident nonetheless that dance models frequently furnished the stylistic basis of individual movements. the proportions of the individual movements and, consequently, of the sonatas as a whole are considerably smaller than those suggested by newman for corelli: church sonatas, 112 measures versus 150; court sonatas, 70 measures versus 100.5 in fact, fanfani exhibits a certain discomfort in longer movements, especially in a first allegro. the choice and sequence of meters derive from corelli (see appendix). fanfani selects the minor mode for four of the church sonatas and only two of the court sonatas. unlike corelli, who either placed all the movements of a sonata in the same key or, at most, wrote one of the slow movements in the relative minor, fanfani demonstrates a marked preference for the dominant as the tonal area of the third movement of the church sonatas (five of the six). within none of fanfani's individual movements is there an interpenetration of contrasting meters, tempos, or styles. even short, essentially transitional movements invariably begin and end in the same key; fanfani thereby eschews the connecting device of a phrygian cadence on the dominant of a key. fanfani's music is clearly tonal, his modulations customarily do not range far from the main key, and his harmonic vocabulary is limited; the primary progressions are enlivened occasionally at cadences by a neapolitan sixth or, even more rarely, a diminished seventh. technical demands are limited as well, since the composer rarely requires the performer to go beyond the third position. one major exception occurs in church sonata vi/2, where 72 he calls for the fifth posltion (the only time in the collection), as violin figurations inexorably climb to a ' , '.6 similarly, only in this same movement does fanfani write an extended passage in double stops. as in the works of numerous contemporaries, the character of the individual movement is determined by its position within the sonata. the slow, introductory movement that opens each of the church sonatas often displays dotted rhythms of the kind familiar in the french overture (see iii/i, v/i). division of these movements into regular phrases and periods is not possible. only sonata i/ i is imitative at its beginning. at later points in these movements, fanfani offers several passages in which the violin and violoncello imitate one another motivically, the descending line producing in this instance a chain of suspensions (ex. 2). example 2: church sonata viji, mm. 3-5 i i"'\::". r--. -'" oj "'""'l ]l r-.. ; "-<:::t i...i:::ji primarily, however, the texture is homophonic, and the violoncello provides the harmonic foundation in quarterand eighth-note motion, with the melody unfolding above, sometimes lyrically (i/ i), sometimes pompously (iii/i, v/i). because these opening movements are so brief (nine to fourteen measures), they remain in the chosen key as a rule, with perhaps a momentary departure to the dominant. the more adventurous opening movement of sonata iii provides the sole exception. the ensuing allegro, almost always the longest movement of the composition (thirty-one to sixty-seven measures), is customarily treated fugally, at least initially. the subject matter is at times rhythmically and melodically striking, displaying a distinct profile (as in i/2); at other times, it is simply a figurative idea of the perpetuum mobile type (as in iii/2; see exx. 3a and 3b). example 3a: church sonata 1/2 example 3b: church sonata 1ii/2 in either case the strict initial contrapuntal entry and those that occur after significant points of articulation soon give way to freer treatment; the bass eventually ceases all imitative activity and assumes a purely supportive function for the violin figurations, often in conjunction with that overworked device of the baroque, the sequence. sonata ii/2 provides a representative example of fanfani's preferred method of constructing a fugal movement 73 but each church sonata allegro contains noteworthy details. the close point of imitation in sonata iv /2 results in an intense beginning of a movement which, for its first eighteen measures, is a surprisingly compact example of contrapuntal writing. in sonata v /2 the violoncello participates actively in the figurative work, at times in motivic imitation with the violin, at times in a relationship that amounts almost to invertible counterpoint. brief passages that approach stretto (m. 11) and canon (mm. 38-39) make this the most adventurous contrapuntally of the fugal movements in the church sonatas. from measures 9 to 13, the soloist plays two real parts, i,n which motivic imitation and suspensions are prominent (ex. 4). example 4: church sonata vl/2, beg. m. 9 etc. the relatively brief third movements are usually in saraband rhythm. no. iii/3, in french overture style, is an exception. save for the imitative opening of no. vi/3, the movements are homophonic, the bass supporting unornamented melodic lines that consist primarily of whole notes, halves, and quarters. in all probability, these outlines are merely skeletons that were embellished in performance, as in corelli's opus 5. this theory is supported in sonata v /3 by a particularly awkward upward leap of an augmented fourth in the solo that occurs in conjunction with a stepwise ascent of the bass (ex. 5). example 5: church sonata v/3, mm. 18-20 although he shuns strict ground basses, fanfani exhibits some preference for a bass line that descends by step and half-step, the practically identical lines of sonatas 1/3 and iv/3 providing illustrations of this (exx. 6a and 6b). example 6a: church sonata 1/3 74 example 6b: church sonata iv/3 .a,(:o 0·1 rrji..ji"e 0 r if fj i 0 characteristically, chains of suspensions unfold above such passages. the six finales are of the giga (3/4) or gigue (6/8, 12/8) type. no. ii/4 is undivided; the remaining five are in bipartite dance form, with the two sections being of approximately equal length. in the second section of no. iv/4, five of the eight "extra" measures may be attributed to an echoed restatement of immediately preceding material. invariably the harmonic goal of the first section is the dominant. favorite goals of tonicization within the second section are the subdominant and the submediant. two of the five bipartite movements display a relation of head motives (iii/4, vi/4), and three show a similarity ofcadential formation (1/4, iv/4, vi/4). no. v/4 exemplifies the baroque predilection for spinning out material, but several other finales exhibit relatively regular phrase and period structure, which is not surprising in view of their dance heritage. for example, the first twelve measures of the second section of sonata 1/4 consist of one block of four measures in a minor that is simply transposed to d minor and then to g minor, the sequential arrangement accentuating the regularity of the phrase structure (ex. 7). example 7: church sonata 1/4, mm. 23-26 ,..., ....-n-r1 oj : among stylistic details that may be mentioned are: (1) the interruption of a steady flow of eighth notes with triplets to accentuate a final cadence (iii/4); (2) the acceleration of motion in the bass to accentuate the drive to the final cadences of sections (v/4); and (3) the use of the diminished seventh to approach the final cadence (v/4, vi/4). also in vi/4, voice-leading occurs that probably would not have pleased those critics who had censured corelli some years earlier7 (ex. 8). example 8: church sonata vi/4, last 3 mm. r--.. j"-... h "'" _r-... r-... '" po.... j ..... jl [a>oo r w' i' '1'"1'. 1 1 75 of the eighteen movements in the court sonatas, sixteen are constructed in bipartite dance form, the only exceptions being a largo in saraband style (v/3) and the fugal allegro of vi/2. modulatory goals and sectional proportions conform generally to the practices noted in connection with the dance movements of the church sonatas. although the second section of no. iii/2 is considerably longer than the first (fifteen measures), the bipartite structure is not affected. sonata ii/2 most closely approaches ternary form when, in the second section, the main theme appears complete in the dominant and again, as a kind of recapitulation, in the tonic. in thirteen of the sixteen movements, a palpable relationship of head motives exists. court sonatas ii/i, iii/i, and ill/2 are the only exceptions, and they account also for three of the nine movements that display no relationship of cad entia i figures. (the others are ii/2, 3, v/i, 2, and vi/i, 3.) stylistically the character of the individual movements is once again determined by their position in the sonata (see appendix). with the exception of no. iii, the court sonatas have an allegro or spiritoso second movement. the allegro of no. i is in 6/4; the others employ common duple meter, suggesting the allemand perhaps. of greatest interest is sonata vi/2 (b minor), which is the only allegro not in dance form. of the fugal movements in the complete collection, it is the most complex and the most continuously imitative (ex. 9). example 9: court sonata vi/2 a countersubject unfolds in conjunction with a fugal subject, which itself appears not only in tonal areas (e minor, a minor) other than the tonic and dominant, but also in canonic relationship at the octave. as with the bipartite dance design used as finales in five of the church sonatas, the fugal movements and sara band in the court sonatas illustrate the overlap of church and court styles. the preceding survey of fanfani's twelve sonatas, it is hoped, adds yet another piece of information to the history of sonata evolution in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. in spite of the composer's often stereotyped approach to form, which relied upon formulas and mechanical figurations, there are moments of great interest and beauty, especially in the shorter movements. fanfani's chronological position in the evolution of the sonata makes it useful pedagogically to compare his works with those of his more illustrious contemporaries. when the forthcoming note of prof. hill establishes authoritatively the period of fanfani's activities, future research might 76 well unearth subsequent compositions that reflect the fascinating transitional period from baroque to classic in italy. appendix: the twelve sonatas church sonatas court sonatas tempo key aleter mm. dance tempo key meter mm. dance char. char. i i adagio d c 9 i largo g c 13 (fr.ov.)* 2 allo. d c 67 2 allo. g 6/4 31 * 3 adagio a 3/2 13 saraband 3 giga g 12/8 22 giga* 4 allo. d 3/4 43 giga* ii ii 1 grave a c 14 i largo a c 18 (fr.ov.)* 2 allo. a c 49 2 allo. a c 20 allem.* 3 adagio e 3/2 21 saraband 3 __ a 3/8 16 giga* 4 allo. a 6/8 38 gigue iii iii i c 10 (fr.ov.) i adagio c 26 (fr.ov.)* 2 allo. c 31 2 3/4 29 giga* 3 adagio g c 9 (fr.ov.) 4 allo. 3/4 39 giga* iv iv i adagio a c 14 i d c 12 • 2 allo. a c 38 2 spiro d c 15 allem.· 3 adagio e 3/2 19 saraband 3 d 3/4 35 * 4 allo. a 3/4 36 giga* v v i adagio d c 13 (fr.ov.) i largo e c 20 (fr. ov.)* 2 allo. d c 42 2 spiro e c 25 allem.* 3 adagio a 3/2 22 saraband 3 largo b/b 3/2 13 saraband 4 allo. d 12/8 27 gigue* 4 allo. e 3/4 40 giga· vi vi i grave a c ii i and. b c 14 (fr.ov.)* 2 allo. a c 59 2 allo. b c 27 3 adagio e 3/4 18 3 __ b 3/8 41 giga* 4 allo. a 12/8 31 giga* * denotes a movement in bipartite dance form. notes 1 kassel: barenreiter, 1959, p. 79. the title is taken from the author's photocopy of the manuscript. 2 i am deeply grateful both to mr. emanuele casamassima, director of the biblioteca nazionale centrale in florence, for communicating to me prof. hill's interest in composers at the florentine grand ducal court and to prof. hill himself, with whom i have enjoyed a warm and lively exchange of correspondence. prof. hill, who is on the faculty of the university of pennsylvania, has prepared a "fanfani" entry for the sixth edition of groves. two broader studies devoted to fanfani's more illustrious contemporary f. m. veracini are in progress. 3 all musical examples are by the author. 4 the monumental work by william s. newman, the sonata in the baroque era (chapel hill, n.c.: the university of north carolina press, 1959), pp. 50-91, represents a model methodology for the investigation of the sonata. 77 5 newman, the sonata, p. 70. g for a discussion of violin technique in the early 18th century, see david boyden, the history of violin playing from its origins to 1761 (london: oxford university press, 1965), pp.338-41. 7 marc pincherle, corelli: his life, his work, trans. h. e. m. russell (new york: w. w. norton & co., 1956), pp. 47-50; compare with the original corelli (paris: librairie felix alcan, 1933), pp. 37-40. 78 musicology and other friendly musical disciplines isabelle cazeaux it seems something of a truism to say that there are relationships between musicology, composition, and performance, that they complement each other, that they can be mutually helpful, and that they can all contribute to the enjoyment and understanding of music. we must first have compositions; otherwise performers would have nothing to play or sing, and musicologists nothing to say. composers can at times be totally independent of the other two groups if their music is electronic, for example, or if it serves visual ends, such as intarsia on furniture, or ornaments on clothes-renaissance dresses or 20th-century ties. pleasing the eye, however, is only an occasional purpose of music, and so we need performers if we are to hear it. whether or not we also need musicologists is not for me to say, but i think they are here to stay. scholars want them, certainly, and so do concert-goers and other listeners who expect a musicological (or pseudomusicological) explanation of what they are about to hear. musicologists have helped bring to light forgotten compositions of the past and, sometimes, of the present. their research in performance practice is hopefully of value to performers. conversely, some composers' pronouncements-and they are becoming more and more frequent-can help musicologists understand their creative processes. what performers have to say about what is or is not playable can guide the musicologist in making a better edition or in understanding how an old instrument was probably held or played. in other words, the various disciplines are closely allied. it is those people who practice them who sometimes present problems. but more about that later. there are musicologists who also compose or perform, such as halsey stevens and denis stevens; but although it is essential that musicologists know something about composition and performance, and advisable that composers and performers have some training in musicology, it does not follow that everyone must be an expert at everything, the exceptional individuals notwithstanding. each discipline requires long hours of work, and there is rarely enough time to do everything well. then, too, each requires a special type of mind-creative, artistic, or scholarly. it does not matter whether or not they are equivalent, but it must be recognized that they are not the same. both musicologists and performers disagree among themselves about the extent to which performers should try to re-create an authentic performance (assuming that such a thing were possible). i believe that most musicologists and many musicologically-oriented performers strive for as historically valid a performance as can be achieved. but i have also heard less scholarly performers say that, since musicologists disagree with each other on problems of interpretation, the artist need not worry about such matters. they therefore feel free to playas they like. in fact, they do not always mean the same 95 thing as musicologists when they speak of interpretation. musicologists think of music a ficta, notes inegales, and the like, whereas these performers are concerned with how much pedal one should use when playing bach on a grand piano. "if bach were alive today," they insist, "he would be grateful for our modern instruments." to this kind of remark there is little one can reply, because one must assume that they obtained their information through direct communication with the departed composer. colleges and universities which give degrees in musicology encourage performance more and more as an auxiliary discipline, without necessarily considering vocal or instrumental lessons as part of the credit hours for the degree. some expect a candidate to have achieved a minimum level of proficiency in performance before entrance, or before graduation. certain institutions provide a collegium musicum, in which musicology students may play or sing; they also sponsor visits by performers of early music, who give concerts and then discuss the music with musicology classes. the josquin festival (new york, 1971)1 was an example on an international scale of extended dialogue between scholars and performers. in fact, more and more of the papers presented at musicological meetings include musical illustrations, live or recorded. similarly, lecture-recitals such as those organized by the toscanini archives of the new york public library's music division stress both archival and performance aspects of music. the interest in early music is no longer limited to musicologists and other antiquarians. whenever a competent group gives a free concert of early music, one is sure to find the place filled with people of all ages and varied garb; and not all of them look like musicologists. the trend in scholarly editions is changing. musicologists take a bolder stand than in the past. they suggest more musica ficta, realize figured basses, write out ornaments; and for lute music they keep both the scholar and the performer in mind by giving the tablature as well as the transcription. it is no longer fashionable (though by no means unheard of) to rely on the performer's taste and let him decide what to do when the musicologist is unwilling or unable to make up his mind. as a result, we now have less of a dichotomy between scholarly and practical editions. the historical musicologist who teaches touches upon composition and performance. he discusses compositions and places them within their larger historical, social, or other applicable context. through research he can discover a piece of music and identify it; through paleography he can make it readable, explainable, and performable. he considers musica ficta, text underlay, and other problems of performance. he may criticize editions and performances of music. students want to perform-no matter how poorlyworks which they have studied musicologically. pure theorists explain and analyze compositions in great detail. many seem happy to concentrate on the particular piece under their nose; they use a less comparative method than musicologists and care less about nonmusical factors which others might consider pertinent. they often tell us in 96 no uncertain terms what it is that we are hearing. if we think we are hearing something else occasionally, the fault, i am sure, is ours. musicologists use theory too, of course, but in a broader sense, i believe, and as one of several means to a better understanding of music. it would be difficult to operate without librarians. i am referring not to the dedicated souls who try to attract illiterates to the library but to musicologist-librarians such as franc;ois lesure and nanie bridgman, who help scholars and performers locate source materials or decipher difficult scripts. since they see other musicologists every day, they know about work in progress before it is listed in bibliographies and can tell others concerned with the same subject, so as to avoid unnecessary duplication. i am indebted to librarians for much useful information. some curators of instrumental collections help performers and musicologists with organological and iconographical details. several, such as genevieve thibault, also organize concerts in which their instruments can be heard as well as seen. music critics are called upon to review both musical works and musical performances. journalistic critics have included composers, performers, and some musicologists, such as alfred einstein and paul henry lang. there should be little difference between good criticism and good musicological method, but that is not always apparent in the daily papers. in more scholarly media, however, one finds musicologically-oriented criticism. a recent example is alexander blachly's review of two recordings of trecento music in the april 1971 issue of the musical quarterly; therein he considers anachronistic instrumentation, insufficient musica ficta, and lack of references to sources in formulating his judgment. these are not points which would ordinarily cause most newspaper critics to bat an eyelash. when i consider the many musicological polemics that have taken place, i realize that musicologists do not always act as one big happy family. on the other hand, i have always thought that scholars were essentially harmless to other musicians and nonmusicians. such is not everyone's opinion, however. to some people the musicologist seems like a cold, dehydrated creature, all mind and no heart. he is essentially a frustrated composer or performer who turned to scholarship out of despair. owing to his lack of "feeling," he was too incompetent to do anything else. and so, with a vengeance, he tries to take away a performer's spontaneity and warmth by admonishing him against playing a piece "as he feels it." the musicologist does not like music; that is why, as everyone knows, he talks about everything connected with music, except the music itself. he would rather look at a score than listen to one. if he is forced to attend a concert, he makes observations about whether the ornaments were properly performed or not, thereby spoiling other people's listening pleasure. he may be a scholar, but a musician he is not. "is mr. x a musician or a musicologist?" a performer asked me. i inquired whether one necessarily precluded the other, though i had been strongly tempted to retort: "are you a musician or a performer?" in 97 retrospect i am glad i held my tongue, first of all because i do not completely agree that "musicorum et cantorum magna est distancia ... nam qui canit quod non sapit, diffinitur bestia" ; and secondly, the lady probably meant no harm at the time and was simply restricting the use of the term "musician" to composers and performers, whereas i had thought it also included persons who knew about music. her views were more clearly expressed on another occasion, however, during a radio interview, in which she proclaimed with gusto: "i am madly fighting musicology!" i was once asked by a layman: "isn't it dangerous for a potential composer to study musicology? won't it stifle his creativity ifhe finds out about all the things that have already been done?" another unforgettable remark was: "musicologists are only trying to show off their erudition by unearthing the works of some obscure composer, whose music could interest no one, and would do better to say something new about established masterpieces." since this statement was made by a theorist, i took it in stride. but imagine my reaction when i read in the preface to a thesis by a gifted student of mine, a performer who i thought was converting to musicology: "in academia today, the concept of studying the esoteric is very acceptable as long as one is not actually confronted with any facts of the matter." i knew that the gentleman was joking, but i threatened him with some sort of excommunication unless he softened his words. just as book publishers occasionally try to sugar-coat serious musicological writing by minimizing the author's scholarly background,2 certain critics and impresarios show a similar penchant with regard to performances. i was recently sent an advertisement for a series of concerts of unusual music. judging from reports of earlier series, these programs are of high quality and require no apology for the musicological spadework that must have been necessary in their preparation. but whoever composed the notice saw fit to quote from critics who seemed to equate musicology with dullness. "mr. --and his singers avoid musicological mustiness. for them, music is a very living art."3 "musicologists as a rule are none too animated themselves, but one ... happens to be a conductor ... who proves a happy exception,"4 said a record reviewer. why the publicity experts include musicologists on their mailing lists and send them these gems is difficult to understand. surely musicologists cannot be expected to buy subscriptions in response to such appeals. publicists must think that musicologists are not only tedious but also stupid and insensitive. are we to turn the other cheek? why not? temporarily annoying as they might be, a few remarks directed at musicologists by some laymen or by some musicians of another stripe cannot do much damage. in fact, they probably do not reflect a majority view. today, most people are trying to bring the various branches of music closer together for our mutual benefit. perfect equality among musical disciplines may be a myth, at least in the minds of some of their representatives, but fraternity is not impossible. musicologists converse more and more with other friendly musicians. we can, therefore, be proud that, as gusta"e 98 reese put it in his introductory comments at the josquin festival, we are becoming ecumenical. notes 1 see the report in this issue, pp. 47-64. 2 see p. h. lang's review in the musical quarterly (1963) 49:252-54. 3 harold schonberg, the new york times, 11 february 1971. 4 john w. freeman, opera news, 27 february 1971, p. 34. 99 thomas turino. nationalists, cosmopolitans, and popular music in zimbabwe. university of chicago press, 2000. x, 401 pp. reviewed by ron emoff tom turino begins his most recent book, nationalists, cosmopolitans, and popular music in zimbabwe, by discussing interactions between "the global" and "the local." turino concerns himself here with the dynamics of such interactions in urban popular music production in harare, zimbabwe, from the 1930s through the 1990s. he writes that his main goal "is to clarify the continuities and parallel cultural effects of colonialism, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism-three phenomena often understood in opposition to each other" (4).1 he contends that an ideologic opposi­ tion as such commonly proves to be ephemeral among zimbabweans themselves, who experience and embody globalizing processes more at the level of their own "lifeways," cultural values, and sense(s) of identity. turino writes that while this analysis is not unique to zimbabwe, it is of particular impact there due to the "historical proximity and rapid pace" of such processes of global interaction in zimbabwe. it is likely that turino's prior interest in performing on mbira, a zimbabwean musical instrument, has also affected his choice of locale in which to perform ethnography, and thus to interpret these specific histories and constructions of national­ ism and cosmopolitanism. turino expresses an apprehension toward a common explication of globalism in which a modernist ideology vies against a more "traditional" one, in which a capitalist system is pitted against "indigenous" alternatives. he draws in part upon anthropological authors such as james clifford (1992), jean and john comaroff (1993), and aijun appadurai (1996) to devise a schema of cosmopolitanism that draws its breath from "objects, ideas, and cultural positions that are widely diffused throughout the world and yet are specific only to certain portions of the populations within given countries" (7); since cosmopolitanism becomes manifest through the lives, actions, experiences, and perceptions of actual people in unique situations, it is always localized or locationally distinct, yet it is also translo­ cal, in that the world is culturally and productively connected through "cosmopolitan loops" (8) that link particular cosmopolitan ideas and tech­ nologies. as a mode of interacting in the world, cosmopolitanism tran­ scends particular homelands, individuals, or groups. one might also re­ flect here upon the very positioning of the ethnographer her/himself, who commonly moves freely between local(e) to translocal and back so as current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) 158 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york reviews 159 to represent specific cosmopolitanisms to other "locals" throughout the world. ethnographers might be vital, though perhaps backgrounded, mediums for processes of cosmopolitanism. turino further evokes cosmopolitanism to identify situations in which "local people deeply internalize foreign ideas and practices and make them their own; that is, foreign dispositions become deeply constitutive of local habitus" (8). such internalization/appropriation implies unique imaginations that can improvise upon foreign ideas, materials, and people. internalizing the foreign can comprise a vital component of cultural ex­ pression in other parts of mrica as well as the rest of the world. 2 turino conveys the incorporative and integrative nature of zimbabwe cosmopoli­ tanism, which is not simply a mode of conforming to global styles, ideas, and forms, but a way of imbricating these into local aesthetics and politics. we are privileged to view the regenerative and recyclable capacities of cos­ mopolitanism in zimbabwe. in musical terms, cosmopolitanism here does not necessarily refer to a particular source, such as delta blues or cuban son. rather, it draws upon a flow of other cosmopolitan styles. turino illus­ trates such a cultural flow, for example, with the popularity and influence of mills brothers recordings in zimbabwe during the 1940s and 1950s. moses mpahlo of de black evening follies, who performed "concert" music between 1943 and 1960 in zimbabwe, said "i wouldn't say we used to write music as such. what we used to do is ... take two, say, tunes, and we combined them together. we then composed our song (my italics) from those two tunes" (130-31). turino defines musical nationalism, which becomes a prime medium or venue of cosmopolitanism, as "the conscious use of any preexisting or newly created music in the service of a political nationalist movement" (190). turino depicts examples in zimbabwe in which musical practices explicitly become part of nationalist political movements, such as with the impact of chimurenga songs ("songs of the struggle") from within the zimbabwe mrican national union in the 1970s. he is critical of a model of musical nationalism based on "folk" or "vernacular" elements simply be­ ing incorporated to form cosmopolitan musical styles, a model that does not adequately distinguish between nationalist movements and nationalist sentiment.3 instead, turino advocates a focus on "musical nationalism in re­ lation to political nationalist movements and state nationalist projects" (190).4 in his discussion of nationalism, as elsewhere, turino draws upon theoretical frameworks commonly outside the scope of much musicologi­ cal writing. for example, on nationalism, he evokes partha chatterjee (1986, 1993)-in part a postcolonial theorist-who has asserted that na­ tionalism 'produced a discourse in which, even as it challenged the colonial claim to political domination, it also accepted the very intellectual premises of 'modernity' 160 current musicology on which colonial domination was based" (164, italics in the original). re­ ferring to this particular citation, turino writes that "by the 1950s in zim­ babwe, nationalism was not simply a product of imitating european enlightenment models. by this time, the ideas of nationalism were deeply ingrained and internally generated by the black cosmopolitan leadership" (164). turino has written more broadly elsewhere (1999) on peircian semi­ otics. he deploys such a sign-oriented analysis in this book to discuss, for example, middle-class identity construction (129). in this instance, it is musical literacy and carefully orchestrated harmonies that act as "indexical­ dicents" (i.e., the object is implicitly understood to affect the sign itself: a weathervane is a sign for wind) upon middle-class consciousness. while turino's evocation and application of peirce's semiotics can be illustrative in the text, one might wish to hear more elaborate enunciation of this interpretive system as it works amongst shona-perhaps even some evi­ dentiary confirmation from shona. turino gives a historical breakdown of relationships between musical taste and class distinctions throughout the past in zimbabwe, basing his conceptions of class as analytic category on bourdieu.5 for instance, an emerging middle class is purported to have coevolved there from about the mid-1930s with a fondness for "concert" music, a musical genre in which a clear distinction between performer and audience is established. such a differentiation is less definable in bira ceremonial musical perfor­ mance, a mode of ceremonial spiritual/musical performance in zimbabwe that involves musically invoking zimbabwean ancestral spirits. in chapter 4, turino identifies concert, jazz, and ballroom genres as prime musical activities belonging to a local cosmopolitan elite. one might ponder the nature of cosmopolitanism's own class-ified "underbelly": how might cos­ mopolitanism or its (after)effects operate or become manifest in different ways among those outside of the privileged classes? in describing various performance traditions among shona in zimbabwe, turino notes that the cultural distinctiveness of the term shona itself derives from a colonial designation for what was actually a multi-"ethnic" region. indeed, much of the colonized world's borders, both geographic and those more diaphanous, reflect colonially conceived divisions. turino is critical of "modernist reformers" who attempt to force the "most valuable" symbols from both individual and foreign cultures, and who thereby likely overlook the distinctive local meanings emergent from indigenous artistic practices. he implicitly chides such reformers for de­ ciding what is culturally valuable to themselves, and not necessarily to the local people whose practices are being interpreted. later in the book, reviews 161 turino asserts that "while modernist reformism often has preservation of 'the traditional' as one of its rationalizations, it tends to preserve surface features only, while having a major transformational effect at the level of cultural practice and ethos" (107). the kwanongoma college of music, founded in 1961 in bulawayo, exemplifies this reformist inclination with its emphasis on "indigenous" music, though from within a european ped­ agogical framework. in this case, indigenous music was to be "improved upon," and thus made more appealing to cosmopolitan audiences. turino questions any actual conception of a traditional/modern dichotomy among zimbabwe music-makers themselves, recognizing that such cate­ gorization often has arisen largely from colonial and postcolonial dis­ course, and not necessarily from local perceptions or interpretive stances. especially with different ways that time is (re)figured throughout mrica and in many other regions of the world-for example in practices that re­ vitalize ancestral spirits, places, and times into the present-schematizations pitting modern vs. traditional might not address peoples' unique perceptions of ways that various senses of time affect one another. throughout the book, turino gives critical readings of earlier scholar­ ship on musical practice in zimbabwe, including, for example, the work of andrew tracey (1972), hugh tracey (1961), a. m. jones (1948), john kaemmer (1975), paul berliner (1978), robert kaufman (1970), dumi­ sani maraire (1990), and angela impey (1998). he thus interacts with, re­ constructs, and refits prior ethnomusicological research, framing it within his own research findings. for example, he questions hugh tracey's ear­ lier claim that there had been a "revival" in mbira practice in zimbabwe. he asks, "why, then, assume prominence, decline, and revival" (italics in the original), since the actual status of such practice prior to the 1930s, the era of tracey's claim, is purportedly unknown. turino's extended analysis of shona popular musician thomas mapfumo (a musician who receives the majority of turino's attention) as a performing embodiment of musical nationalism would perhaps be strengthened by some detail of actual band-audience and band-internal politics and aesthetics. what about the views of mapfumo held by other zimbabwe cosmopolitans or by his own band members, for example? some notion of recording studio or touring dynamics-in other words, more insight into mapfumo as performer-would enhance the reader's sense of how musical nationalism operates on an everyday ground. and perhaps semiotic analysis could have been applied here as well to construct a signing system of musical nationalism in action, through mapfumo. with the predominance of mapfumo as primary "object," one contrastive gap appears in the book in that there is little elaboration upon zimbabwe's 162 current musicology women, such as world-renowned mbira star stella shiweshe, or much on the role of women as music-makers throughout zimbabwe's nationalist and cosmopolitan past. those who feel compelled to see written representations and analyses of "the music itself" might be disappointed to find little of this in nation­ alists, cosmopolitans, and popular music in zimbabwe. however, for those who view musical performance as expressive culture, contingent upon multiple realms of experience, this book is a valuable asset for its histori­ cal, ethnographic, interpretive, and critical perspective. notes l. andy bennet (2000) employs the term "glocal" (though perhaps a somewhat awkward one) to discuss multifaceted and multidirectional interactions between local and global processes in urban popular musicand identity-making, as well as reception in the united kingdom. 2. see my new book, recollecting from the past: musical practice and spirit posses­ sion on the east coast of madagascar (2001), in part for various culture-specific meth­ ods for such internalization. in madagascar, the very processes of internalization (rather than merely the products of such processes) are empowering, historicizing, and indeed often a vital component in a malagasy imaginative and performative aesthetics. 3. turino specifically cites manuel (1987, 1994), diaz (1996), austerlitz (1997), and bohlman (1988) in making this particular criticism. 4. here turino cites capwell (1976, 1991), buchanan (1995), noll (1991), and wong (1984) as exemplary authors. 5. "according to bourdieu, class also involves the relative control over other types of capital [other than control over processes and resources of economic pro­ duction]: cultural (e.g., social style, aesthetic taste, 'manners'), social (connection), educational (degrees), and political resources that are valued within particular social fields and that may be 'exchanged' or used to procure economic and other types of capital" (121). references appadurai, arjun. 1996. modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. austerlitz, paul. 1997. merengue: dominican music and dominican identity. philadel­ phia: temple university press. bennet, andy. 2000. popular music and youth culture: music, identity, and place. new york: st. martin's press. berliner, paul. 1978. the soul of mbira: music and traditions of the shona people of zimbabwe. berkeley: university of california press. bohlman, philip. 1988. the study of folk music in the modern world. bloomington: indiana university press. reviews 163 buchanan, donna. 1995. metaphors of power, metaphors of truth: the politics of music professionalism in bulgarian folk orchestras. ethnomusicology 39: 381-416. capwell, charles. 1976. sourindro mohun tagoree and the national anthem project. ethnomusicology 31: 407-30. ---. 1991. marginality and musicology in nineteenth-century calcutta: the case of sourindro mohan tagoree. in comparative musicology and anthropology of music: essays on the history of ethnomusicology, edited by bruno nettl and philip bohlman, 228-43. chicago: university of chicago press. chatterjee, partha. 1986. nationalist thought and the colonial world. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. ---. 1993. the nation and its fragments: colonial and post-colonial histories. princeton: princeton university press. clifford, james. 1992. traveling cultures. in cultural studies, edited by lawrence grossberg, cary nelson, and paula treichler, 96-116. new york: routledge. comaroff,jean, andjohn comaroff, eds. 1993. modernity and it malcontents: ritual and power in postcolonial africa. chicago: university of chicago press. diaz, edgardo. 1996. puerto rican affirmation and denial of musical nationalism: the cases of campos parsi and aponte ledee. latin american music review 17: 1-20. impey, angela. 1998. popular music in africa. in the garland encyclopedia of world music. vol. 1, africa, edited by ruth stone, 415-37. new york: garland publishing. jones, a. m. 1948. hymns of the africans. african music society newsletter 1: 8. kaemmer, john. 1975. the dynamics of a changing music system in rural rhodesia. ph.d. diss., indiana university. kaufman, robert. 1970. multi-part relationships in the shona music of rhodesia. ph.d. diss., university of california at los angeles. manuel, peter. 1987. marxism, nationalism, and popular music in revolutionary cuba. popular music 6: 161-78. ---. 1994. puerto rican music and cultural identity: creative appropriation of cuban sources from the danza to salsa. ethnomusicology 38: 249-80. maraire, dumisani. 1990. the position of music in shona "mudzimu" (ancestral spirit) possession. ph.d. diss., university of washington. noll, william. 1991. music institutions and nation consciousness among polish and ukrainian peasants. in ethnomusicology and modern music history, edited by stephen blum, philip bohlman, and daniel newman, 139-58. urbana: uni­ versity of illinois press. tracey, andrew. 1972. the original african mbira? african music 5: 85-104. tracey, hugh. 1961. a case for the name mbira. african music 2: 17-25. turino, thomas. 1999. signs ofimagination, identity, and experience: a peircian semiotic theory for music. ethnomusicology 43: 221-55. wong, isabel. 1984. geming gequ: songs for the education of the masses. in popular chinese literature and performing arts in the people's republic of china, 1949-1979, edited by bonnie macdougall, 112-43. berkeley: university of california press. editor-in-chief: margaret ross griffel general editor: thomas w. baker special project editor: leonie rosenstiel associate editors: jack light faye-ellen silverman maurie sommer assistant editors: anne bagnall peter dedel robert fuller gabriel ghirlando, s. j. richard koprowski douglass seaton george stauffer cornelia weininger editorial assistants: rodney buckins, emma butler, laura demarco,jane fulcher, lani kennedy, vladia kunzmann, lowell lacey, virginia marion, brenda szafir, thomas tracey, barbara turchin business department: thomas w. baker, treasurer jack light, advertising editorial advisor: l. michael griffel faculty advisor: joel newman copyright © 1973, the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york printed in great britain by william clowes & sons, limited london, beccles and colchester corresponding editors: domestic susan gillerman carla pollack harriet franklin myrl hermann harrison m. schlee jurgen thyme robert e. houston adrienne f. block anne 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loomis laszl6 somfai georges franck l. gene strasbaugh a. schneiderklement don harran jacques chailley ivo supicic winfried kirsch othmar wessely bernd baselt rudolph angermuller horst heussner jose l6pez-calo francis cameron a. annegarn axel helmer john m. jennings niels martin jensen susette clausing anne-marie riessauw warwick a. edwards georg borchardt anthony ford g. r. rastall anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec davitt moroney ladislav reznicek bojan bujic wolfgang sieber eric grabner giorgio pestelli walter pass hans conradin university of texas, austin, tex. university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada university of wisconsin, madison, wis. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. wesleyan university middletown, conn. west virginia university, morgantown, w. va. western michigan university, kalamazoo, mich. yale university, new haven, conn. bartok archives, budapest, hungary brussels, belgium free university of berlin, berlin, germany friedrich-wilhelms-university, bonn, germany hebrew university, jerusalem, israel institute of music and music education, paris, france institute of musicology, zagreb, yugoslavia johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany karl-franzens university, graz, austria martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, gdr mozarteum, salzburg, austria phillips university, marburg, germany salamanca, spain state conservatorium of music, sydney, n.s.w., australia state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of erlangen-nuremberg, erlangen, germany university of ghent, ghent, belgium university of glasgow, glasgow, scotland university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, hull, yorkshire, england university of leeds, leeds, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of oslo, oslo, norway university of reading, reading, england university of regensburg, regensburg, germany university of southampton, southampton, england university of turin, turin, italy university of vienna, vienna, austria university of zurich, zurich, switzerland whenever possible, communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the institution in question. otherwise, they may be sent to the editor of current musicology for forwarding. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york adrienne fried block james r. mckay rita h. mead thom lipiczky georges franck georges franck don harran ladislav :reznicek hans conradin and andreas wernli john c. g. waterhouse sieghart dohring david s. josephson jifd zaloha richard w. harpster reports from the domestic corresponding editors: 7 new york: doctoral program at cuny 15 chicago: the contemporary chamber players 18 hunter college: the electronic music studio 21 wesleyan university: the wesleyan world music program from the foreign corresponding editors: 23 a survey of the relationship between musicology and performance at sixteen foreign universities 32 belgium: the festival of flanders, 1971 36 hungary: interforum for hungarian television 38 israel: testimonium ii, 1971 44 oslo: musicology at the university 45 zurich: the musicological institute 48 belfast: music at queen's university in its provincial context 52 marburg: musicology at the university 55 announcement articles 56 percy grainger: country gardens and other curses 64 the first opera repertoire of the castle theater in cesky krumlov 73 genius in the 18th century: c. f. d. schubart's vom musikalischen genie leonie rosenstiel malcolm frager edmund haines otto luening david mcallester susan thiemann sommer john morgan lesley a. wright 81 83 88 92 95 98 101 the spheres of music: harm.ony and discord, part ii introduction and overview the manuscript of the schumann piano concerto a composer reacts to musicologists musicology and the composer cerebration or celebration how i felt on 14 march 1972 dissertations michael john shott hugo wolf's music criticisms: translation and analysis according to pepper's four world hypotheses bibliographica 107 roger huntington sessions: a selective bibliography and a listing of his compositions 126 performance practices bibliographythird supplement 137 publications received 141 contributors component objects in conjunction with the basic kind of events that can take place within it. the space of that world is the potentiality for its objects giving rise to those events. the work of art is seen to be a unification of certain experiential effects so organized that they create a virtual space which exactly parallels the actual space of world. 21 the necessity, for the perception of change, of a "specious" present was first formulated by e. r. clay in 1882 and developed by williamj ames as a certain saddle-back of time with a certain length of its own, on which we sit perched and from which we look in two directions into time (william james, principles of psychology [new york, 1891], i, p. 609). psychologists refer to this by various names, "the sensible present" the "mental present" the "perceived present"; the metaphor quoted is henri pieron's. see fraisse, op. cit., pp. 85f., and whitrow, op. cit., pp. 70f. 22 edmund carpenter and marshall mcluhan, "acoustic space" in explarations in communication (boston, 1960), pp. 67f. 23 fraisse (op. cit., chap. iii). 24 arnold schoenberg, style and idea (new york, 1950), p. 109. leo treitler, on patricia carpenter's "the musical object" i shall begin my comments on miss carpenter's paper with a brief summary of what i understand to be its governing aspects. i find three theses represented, and i shall state at once that i find it possible to hold the first without necessarily holding either the second or the third. the first thesis is a formulation about the essential nature of the music that has long dominated western high culture. it is a music that is issued in discrete, autonomous, closed, self-contained entities called "pieces". a piece marks off a single stretch of time that is outlined, framed, and conceived as one unified gesture or motion. the concept of the autonomous piece suggests, optimally, a clear relation of part to part and of parts to whole. a piece is given direction in that one part follows from another in a causal way, so that we may say there is a necessity about the sequence as a whole. this defines a unity in the sense of form, but it also requires a unity of substance that pervades the whole. the second thesis states a conclusion about the relation of the listener to the musical work-i.e. about the nature of musical perception-that is said to follow from the conception of "a piece" given in the first thesis. all music is process, but when a process is closed and unified as to form and substance it is objectified. it becomes a product, a made thing that is set apart. we perceive it all at once and from a single point of view. we observe it from a distance and do not participate in the making or in the happening of it. we know it as a thing in itself, quite apart from any single experience of it, that is quite apart from our own moods, fantasies, feelings, or activity. in short we know it objectively, not subjectively. this dichotomy of process and object or subject and object has consequences for the conception of form. form is 87 gestalt, recognizable because it is familiar. it is limit, boundary, outline, container, frame. it is imposed upon substance from without by the maker. it fixes substance. the third thesis is the assertion that the history of western music may be understood from the vantage point of the first and second theses. it is the view that the notion of a piece of music emerged gradually in the western tradition, that it developed in a steady and progressive manner until recent times, and that there is a significant challenge to it now. this process is described in several ways. the piece is gradually pried loose from the continuous musical stream; there is an increasing differentiation of parts and an increasing subordination of parts to whole; segments of music are initially paced off by such arbitrary measures as the length of a stanza of text, and only later are molded into closed shapes. with these changes there is a new concern for expressivity and at the same time a new attention to the notated and published composition-a composition fixed once for all time, not improvised and ever-changing. some attention is given over to the location of these changes in calendar history. in general the chronological limits for the conception of form that miss carpenter has developed are given as 1420 and 1910. the main turning point, however, seems to be the renaissance, and in particular the humanistic era ofthe 16th century. but then the notion of the work of art in the sense of an object created for itself developed chiefly during the 18th century. i believe there are good reasons for the indecision over this question, and i shall shortly suggest what they are. but first i should like to comment briefly on the second thesis. it raises epistemological and aesthetic issues of the greatest importance which cannot be discussed in general terms here. but the difficulties over the distinction be'i tween subjective and objective knowing, between process and object, are nowhere more apparent than in discussions of perception and analysis of music. the problematic character of miss carpenter's position on this point is brought out by her own language. the musical object is a thing apart, to be perceived from a distance and as a simultaneous whole. but in describing her experience of the prelude in b minor from the well-tempered clavier miss carpenter writes, "it moves like a melody ... strongly anchored between points of tension and rest . ••• i follow and grasp a single continuous motion • . . . the momentum builds up relentlessly .... it is a single, serious action, shaped as one intensely directed motion" [italics mine]. the "object" is described in dynamic terms, and the knowing of it as an experience, an active following, a being with the process. what is more, the terms "tension" and "rest" denote activity, but they also connote personal, subjective involvement. related difficulties arise over the form-substance dichotomy, which follows from the object-subject concept. form is shape or limit imposed on substance. but the famous remark of pater is cited-and affirmed-that "all art constantly aspires to the condition of music", for music does not "distinguish the 88 matter from the form". pater was right about music, of course. we know it as soon as we try to decide, for example, whether a harmonic progression is form or substance. the dichotomy works only in the simplistic sense in which sonata allegro, say, is form, and themes 1 and 2 are substance. but we try to discourage that view of things even in our music appreciation lectures. turning now to the third thesis (i shall refer to it as the historical thesis), i should like to draw attention to the short bit of music on page 90. it is a composition for two voices and its two sections are to be sung in the arrangement abib2aa. if we study its movement from one moment to another we shall find that it has 'been wrought with the greatest care. in the interest of brevity i shall confine my observations to the upper voice, remarking only that it is consistently and systematically supported by the lower voice. the melodic line is created as an elaboration of descents and ascents through the octave ai-a, which is treated as the conjunction of a pentachord al-dl and a tetrachord dl-a. the note of conjunction d l is treated as the tone of maximum stability. at first the line descends directly through the pentachord, then it slows its pace by making an elaboration upon dl (mm. 4-5). following this pause it quickly completes the descent to a and returns directly to a l (m. 10). at m. 11 the line descends again, but the el ofm. 12 is prolonged for eight measures (from the viewpoint of both parts it is a prolongation of.the cadence on a-el). the a section is completed only with the long-delayed descent to d l. for the beginning of the b section the line skips to a, then returns by step to dl and beyond, as though to traverse the full octave again. but it rises only to gl (m. 26), whence it falls to d l. it rises to gl again (first ending, m. 35) but only to fall to the cadence on el. with the repetition of the b section the cadence descends to dl. this establishes a relationship of antecedence-consequence in the two statements of b, which depends on the same tension-release mechanism that is involved in the prolongation of e l and its ultimate displacement by d i in the a section. but on a higher level of structure both statements of b lack finality, for they fail to complete the implied ascent through the octave. that is accomplished only with the return to a, where there is an immediate and satisfying upward skip to a l • to review, the final cadence of a after the prolongation of e l , the repetition of b with second ending, and the return to a are all required for the completion of a process initiated, for the resolution of an imbalance. the form as a whole has a necessity about it. it is propelled forward from a beginning through intermediate to final goals. the parts exhibit a functional relationship to one another and to the whole. the music commands a unified space (the octave articulated as pentachord and tetrachord) through which it moves in a fashion that is as directed and well-paced as is its movement through time. it is a "piece" in the full sense of that word carried by miss carpenter's first thesis. and it is a counter-example for the historical thesis, for it is an italian ballata composed by francesco landino (d. 1397).1 it is not a pro89 duct of the age of humanism and it antedates alberti's system of perspective. of course we might say that it is a proto-renaissance piece or that it is in. advance of the main development. but that introduces a familiar circularity· which deprives the thesis of its meaning altogether. what is more, the com-.: positional principles that enabled landino to create a unified and autonomous piece are at work in certain repertories of the 13th century, and of the •. 12th, and even of the llth.2 on the other hand caccini's sfogava con le stelle,s liszt's piano sonata in b minor, and stravinsky's le sacre du printemps-to mention only three among many post-renaissance not demonstrate those principles very well. nor do pasticcio operas, nor as miss carpenter observes, do ricercari by willaert. this brings me to the central point of my remarks. in the historical thesis . we are offered a broad interpretation that is not well supported by the close .. study of individual works. for the principles of unity, directedness, and i. closure constituted a standard long before the renaissance, but having once dominated repertories they did not continue to do so with equal or steadily gaining force throughout the history of western music until recent times. the view of a smooth and consistent development is contradicted by the bumpy texture of the course of events. still, this interpretation has great currency, 4 and we are obliged to inquire after the traditions of thought that favor it. the historical thesis gives substance to a general view of cultural history that we owe to the men of the renaissance and that we have continued to reinforce with our interpretations.6 it is the construction of history into the epochs classical antiquity, middle or dark ages, and renaissance, with the latter given a sense of ultimacy. the very notion of a reawakening or rebirth requires that the preceding age be regarded as a period of dormancy. it promotes the tendency to understand whatever is highly cultivated in the renaissance to be the replacement of its opposite or its absence in the middle ages. this corollary has greatly hampered the study of medieval musical practice and theory. miss carpenter's historical thesis-with its implication that, before the renaissance, music was random or arbitrary in its form and non-expressive in its content-is one consequence. another, related, consequence is the general and oversimplified view that the sounds of medieval music are "founded upon philosophical and theological bases".6 it is oversimplified because of its suggestion that, if prescriptive. theory was rationalized on philosophical and theological grounds, musical practice can have had no pragmatic basis. this is a traditional failure to observe the clear settingapart that medieval writers themselves made. thus, guido of arezzo, in the 11th century: let the painstaking seek out ... the book enchiridion most lucidly composed by the most reverend abbot odo, from whose examples i have departed only in the forms of the notes, since i have simplified my treatment for the sake of the young, in this not following boethius, whose treatise is useful to philosophers, but not to singers. 7 if, in fact, we seek out odo's books we shall find that it is shot through with 90 references to the judgment of the ear, and that its author is quite plain in his demand for audible coherence in the use of musical materials (for unity of substance, in the language that has been used here). in view of this when odo has his disciple ask "what is music?" and replies that it is "the science of singing truly," we really should not leap to underscore science-it is to be read as "knowledge", not as something akin to theoretical physics-but rather singing truly. as for the customary foreclosure on the subject of musical expression in the middle ages, it certainly goes well with the assertion about the philosophical : and theological bases of musical sound. but together these ideas do not go well at all with the evidence of a great interest on the part of medieval writers in musical qualities and musical character. turning once again to guido, we find him writing in this unexpected manner: it is no wonder that the hearing is delighted by the variety of sounds, just as the vision enjoys the variety of colors, the olfactory sense cherishes the variety of odors, and the tongue derives pleasure from the alternation of tastes. thus, truly, does the sweetness of agreeable things enter the heart. in marvelous fashion. through the windows of the body.9 this is a direct concern with musical experience, or, as it was often put, with the power of music. far from ignoring the subject, medieval writers struggled to come to terms with it. guido's contemporary, herman of reichenau, complained of the difficulties of doing so: i have not yet found special terms to express the force of this sweetness . . . . what wondrous depth there is in music in this respect. it lays itself open to the intellect to a certain extent, but cannot be described except in comparatively superficial terms.10 these passages, far from what we are taught about the middle ages, might easily have been associated with any of the post-medieval waves of reaction against speculative theory-for example that of the 19th century, heralded here by herder: "so far as melody is concerned, my mind has not been set at rest by rameau or tartini [he might have said pythagoras or boethius] .... as explanations for music's appeal to the soul the mere counting of proportions and measuring of intervals make so little sense to me that i would shy away from music forever, if this numerology were all there was to it" (kalligone, 1800). well, we see that so far as the middle ages are concerned, that is not all there was to it, the myopic tradition to the contrary notwithstanding. the serious contradictions that emerge when we confront the historical thesis with such passages as these and with such pieces as the one by landino are reflections of what we may call the historian's gamble. we recognize that general theories are tactical measures rather than verifiable truths. we require them for making our data intelligible, and we value them for their capacity to organize and to direct further investigation. but we must recog92 nize, as in the case under consideration, their tendency to act as screens that filter out unfriendly material. and in the present case i suppose my argument has been that the general theory represented by the historical thesis has been a bad gamble, for the gains have not been sufficient to cover the losses. we need better theories to help us understand the differences between the musics that we call medieval and renaissance. footnotes 1 leo schrade (ed.), polyphonic music oj the fourteenth century (monaco: editions de l'oiseaulyre, 1958), iv, p. 43. 2 to support this assertion i can only refer the reader to three of my own studies on the subject of unified form in the music of the middle ages: "musical syntax in the middle ages" in perspectives of new music iv (1965), p. 75; "tone system in the secular works of guillaume dufay" in journal of the american musicological society xviii (1965), p. 131; "on the structure of the alleluya melisma: a western tendency in western chant" in studies in music history: essaysfor oliver strunk, to be published by princeton university press. 3 davidson and apel, historical anthology of music (cambridge, 1950), ii, no. 184. 4 thus leonard b. meyer, writing of the same challenge to traditional western notions of form that concerns miss carpenter, used the title "the end of the renaissance?"-in hudson review xvi (1963), p. 169. and in a recent issue of the new statesman the critic wilfred mellers wrote: "debussy's freeing of harmony from temporal rhythm and stravinsky's freeing of rhythm from harmony were complementary, both negating europe's post-renaissance obsession with progression in time" (march 24,1967, p.417). o see leo schrade's essay "renaissance, the historical conception of an epoch" in international musicological society, report of the 5th congress, utrecht, 1952 (kassel, 1953), p. 19, and the present author's "on historical criticism" in the musical quarterly liii (1967), p. 188. the anti-medieval basis of the renaissance and its lasting effect on interpretations of the middle ages have long been recognized outside of musicology. see giorgio falco, "la concezione del medio evo nella storiographia generale dall'umanismo al romanticismo", atti del iii congresso na;:.ionale di studi romani vol. ii (instituto di studi "romani, bologna, 1935); nathan edelman, "the early uses of medium aevum, moyen age, middle ages", romanic review xxx (1938), pp. 3-25; xxxi (1939), pp. 327-330; theodore mommson, "petrarch's conception of the dark ages", speculum xviii (1942), pp. 226-242 (further bibliography there); h. weisinger, "renaissance theories of the revival of the fine arts",italica, xx (1943), pp. 163-170; wallace k. ferguson, the renaissance in historical thought. five centuries oj interpretation, boston, 1948, especially concerning "the revolt of the medievalists". 6 albert seay, music in the medieval world (englewood cliffs, new jersey, 1965). the passage is quoted in the opening paragraph of the preface. 7 "episto1a de ignoto cantu" trans. by oliver strunk in source readings in music history (new york, 1950), p. 125. 8 translation of relevant selections in strunk, op. cit., p. 103. 9 guido aretinus, "micrologus" edited by joseph smits van waesberghe in corpus scriptorum de musica iv (nijmegen, netherlands: american institute of musicology, 1955), chap. 14, p.159. 10 musica hermanni contracti ed. and trans. by leonard ellinwood (rochester, 1936), chap. 19, p. 65. 93 riley, matthew. 2004. musical listening in the german enlightenment: attention, wonder and astonishment. aldershot, uk and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. reviewed by matthew head matthew riley's impressive contribution to the history of music theory and psychology explores an enlightenment ideal oflistener "attentiveness." this ideal was discussed, or more often simply referenced, by german theorists of the last three decades of the eighteenth century. attentiveness (aufmerksamkeit) concerned neither reverent communion with music nor rapt attention and silent contemplation; it was neither a description of so­ cial conduct nor a presentiment of romantic and modernist listening. rather, it described a psychological state in which the attention, as a faculty of the mind, was voluntarily exercised. attentiveness was rarely a goal in itself; most often, it was a means to listeners' engagement with the ruling senti­ ment of the piece as it unfolded through time and was subject to changes in intensity, or gave way temporarily to subsidiary sentiments. riley traces such visions of listening to jean-jacques rousseau (chapter 2), whose concepts of melodic unity and natural simplicity provided compositional-stylistic cues for audience attentiveness. at the same time, riley notes in passing that such ideas of unity and their relationship to the listeners' undivided attention were already present in germany in the 1730s in the writings of johann mattheson. riley sets himself the painstaking task of elucidating what the authors of his primary sources sought to communicate in their jargon-filled and often abstract texts. riley's readings stay close to the terms employed by contemporary authors, giving his book the character of a foundational study rather than one that explores less immediately apparent aspects of music­ theoretical discourse. given that the sources are complex and contradic­ tory, and that the terminology and conceptual background often unclear to modern readers, this is an appropriate and difficult task which riley ex­ ecutes extremely well. attentiveness is about the mental effort that underwrites a sustained engagement with music, and its appeal to a writer such as johann nicolaus forkel seems to me to be that it allows the theorist to turn music from some­ thing one listens to (or produces) into something one comprehends. atten­ tiveness had strings attached: it was not valued by theorists purely as a state of engagement. in the texts riley considers, listeners do not emerge freely from attentiveness with their own personal sense of music's significance. current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 117 118 current musicology instead, attentiveness "enabled" listeners to "benefit" from music's civiliz­ ing purification of the passions and directed them to a particular set of experiences. i wonder if the disciplinary roles of attentiveness (in a foucauldian sense) could be further developed. chapter 1 summons the philosophical context for music critics' refer­ ences to attention and describes with admirable clarity contemporary con­ ceptions of the mind. alexander gottlieb baumgarten's aesthetica (175058) is reviewed as a foundation for subsequent aesthetic topics-although arguably this material is dealt with adequately elsewhere in the literature. l chapter 2 traces an ideal of attentiveness in rosseau's stylistic and aesthetic preferences for melodic unity and for sympathetic identification with the implied narrator of a musical discourse. chapter 3 re-evaluates johann georg sulzer as a writer on music. riley argues convincingly that far from belit­ tling instrumental music, sulzer accorded it a special status as belonging to that art (music) most able to catalyze social progress by animating the pas­ sive minds of the uncivilized. the connection of this important discussion to the previous chapter, and to attentiveness, is a little difficult to grasp, but the point appears to be that through music the savage mind can acquire a capacity for attention. chapter 4 similarly revises received wisdom about the enlightenment's dismissive attitude to instrumental music. forkel, riley reveals, considered instrumental music meaningful for expert and knowl­ edgeable listeners, but deemed it unsuitable to liebhaber because they fo­ cused solely on its "external" features. such views are then related to forkel's programming of concerts at the university of gottingen. the fifth and final chapter turns to compositional theory of the 1770s and 1780s and rereads the now-familiar discussions of musical rhetoric in terms of "techniques for arousing or sustaining the attention on a particu­ lar emotion, or for putting the listener into a state of wonder" (riley 2004:5). for descartes, wonder was "a sudden surprise of the soul which makes it tend to consider attentively those objects which seem to it rare and extraor­ dinary" (28). in an anticlimactic finish, riley re-examines some of the warhorse examples from the c. p. e. bach secondary literature, including the cantata heilig, nudging them gently from compositional theory into music examples "about" listening. the compositional and aesthetic ideas of original genius, fantasy, and the picturesque are referenced here, but we are invited to reconsider these categories in the context of attentiveness, aston­ ishment and wonder. thus, for example, the much-discussed juxtaposition of b-major and c-major chords in heilig (an illustration of the disjunction between a choir of angels and a chorus of people), is read as a means through which bach could arouse (in his words) "attention and sentiment" (161). riley chooses not to explore less regulated aspects oflistening or exammatthew head ine whether composers and performers really adhered to the formal pro­ nouncements of sulzer and forkel. the title, which begins musical listen­ ing in the german enlightenment, implies a broader study oflistening habits than is offered. the boundaries of the study are drawn not just by the focus on attentiveness itself, but the fact that all the primary sources are printed, male-authored texts, more or less canonic and official, that have a disciplin­ ary component-that is, with varying degrees of explicitness and authoritarianism, they instructed burgerthum on how they should engage with music and established hierarchal values for engagement with different aspects of music. the opposite of attentiveness was not simply distraction, but-at least according to forkel, the principal musical theorist of atten­ tiveness-a focus on external rather than internal aspects of music. internal aspects included the ruling sentiment of the piece and its moral/ethical purpose; external aspects included the tone quality of instruments and voices, and (remarkably) rhythm. attentiveness was a marker and a means of achiev­ ing advancement through the continuum of savagery to politeness. future research might consider the gap between musical culture "on the ground" and the theoretical sources considered here. caryl clark's study oflistening to viennese opera buffa (2004) is an excellent point of reference, alongside the foundational studies of william weber (1997) and peter gay (2005: 11-35). forkel's rhetorical effort to consign the tone quality of voices and instruments to "external" elements of music is difficult to reconcile with the evaluative terminology of contemporary critics and musicians. this is not to question riley's account of forkel-which is excellent-but only the extent to which forkel is a reliable guide to the world beyond himself. a broader account of listening would be a useful addition to this vol­ ume. perhaps reflecting the origin of this book in a phd dissertation, riley is at pains to focus his topic and render it discrete. even within the realms of attentiveness in music theory, riley's focus is highly selective. riley is aware that attentiveness was not usually an end in itself, but rather a means of sustaining the listener's engagement with the "content" of a piece of music over time. given that this "content" was often the sentiment, emotion, pas­ sion, or character of the music, a study that focuses almost exclusively on attention (rather than on emotion) can sometimes feel a little cold. it is unfortunate that something approaching a taboo still surrounds discus­ sions of musical expression even when the primary sources indicate in over­ whelming consensus that "moving" and so refining the heart were the pri­ mary goals of the fine arts. there is still a need for a study that establishes a terminology and a way of engaging with this aspect of eighteenth century music. riley stays clear of "new musicology," so this is not a book to consult on 119 120 current musicology issues of power, identity, or subjectivity in listening, though these issues could be pursued with reference to riley's work. the light coverage of even such culturally-oriented topics as nationalism is surprising, though, given that nationalism is raised in some of the secondary sources riley considers. for example, riley cites mary sue morrow's bland account of eighteenth­ century musical reviews (1997); unlike morrow, however, riley doesn't ex­ plore how national character informed people's written responses to music in the later eighteenth century. another culturally-oriented topic overlooked by riley (and morrow as well) is gender.2 outside of musicology, the en­ lightenment is often said to have invented sexual difference in terms ofbi­ nary opposition. given that such opposition involved appeals to the differ­ ent weightings of reason, imagination, and sensibility in men and women, one wonders if differences in musical "attentiveness" were (rhetorically) gendered in this period. as existing literature indicates, the kennerlliebhaber distinction (that riley discusses as a gender-neutral matter) did in fact con­ cern gender difference as well as differences of educational level (head 1999).3 no criticism is implied by my ending here with a paradox inherent but not fully articulated in riley's study. this paradox surrounds the term "lis­ tening" which is an absent presence in the primary sources discussed. musi­ cal listening in the german enlightenment is a book about listening that leaves one with the sense that there was barely a discourse on listening in the late eighteenth century. almost all the musical writers discussed by riley pass over listening itself to discuss instead the results of listening, encapsu­ lated in such enlightenment ideals as understanding, moral/ethical effect, and judgment of value. in this sense, riley's study is always almost about listening, but constantly shifts back into the realm of musical aesthetics more generally. this is less a fault with riley than a diagnosis of enlightenment discourse on music which was disciplinary in intent and weighed down with scholarly protocol. the philosophical pedigree and psychological ku­ dos of attentiveness as a concept lent gravitas to music, and scholarly legiti­ macy to words about that art, but possibly at the price of rendering listen­ ing as an activity out of reach. notes 1. see hosler (1981). 2. for reasons that are not dear, morrow suppressed the significance of the many references to gender difference in the primary sources she collected. this ideological blindness to gen­ der issues also characterizes riley's study (as it does the history of englightenment theory and aesthetics in general). 3. see handworterbuch der musikalischen terminologie, 1972, s.y. "kenner-liebhabermatthew head dilettant" (by erich reimer). references clark, caryl. 2004. reading and listening: viennese frauenzimmer journals and the socio­ cultural context of mozartean opera buffa. the musical quarterly 87: 140-75. gay, peter. 1995. the naked heart. new york: w. w. norton. head, matthew. 1999. "if the pretty little hand won't stretch": music for the fair sex in eighteenth-century germany.fournal of the american musicological society 52 (2): 20354. hosler, bellamy. 1981. changing aesthetic views of instrumental music in eighteenth-cen­ tury germany. ann arbor, mi: umi research press. morrow, mary sue. 1997. german music criticism in the late eighteenth century: aesthetic issues in instrumental music. new york and cambridge: cambridge university press. weber, william. 1997. did people listen in the 18th century? early music 25: 678-91. 121 stoddard lincoln john eccles: the last of a tradition 1963 unpublished diss., oxford university. franklin zimmerman the value of the work appearing recently under this somewhat romantically subtitled caption can best be summed up by saying that it fills a long-felt need for a study in depth of an important composer of the post-purcellian schoo!. moreover, it fills the need through expert handling of an enormous amount of detail, much of which is the result of original research and analysis. its total worth is such that it is certain to be an important item in the bibliographies of future scholars of english music of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. placing eccles in the as-yet-seldom-researched hiatus between the periods of purcell and handel in the history of english music, mr. lincoln first sorts out a few genealogical problems, then sets to work on his main task: to discover eccles' significance in native musical developments in london during the post-purcellian twilight and to diagnose the ills which brought these developments to nothing. reflecting upon the aesthetic interworkings of earlier english musical and poetical traditions, he formulates and substantiates the notion that it has been the awkwardness of the english language when sung which has imposed upon musician and lyric poet their most difficult problems. for the music dramatist with classical ideals these problems have been virtually insurmountable. comparing the achievements and methods of henry lawes to those of lully, mr. lincoln then traces the development of the rhetorical style of the lawes brothers, following it up to the late 1670's when pietro reggio appeared in england to introduce italianate melismas, both structural and illustrative. (while it is true that purcell did first begin to use vocal melismas about this time, i wonder if it can be maintained that such were then new in england. the works of coperario, laniere, and walter porter, to name only a few of the composers figuring chiefly in vincent duckles' massive research into the history of florid song in england, certainly seem to prove otherwise.) these investigations lead naturally to the main theme of the thesis, that is, the origins and development of that strange aesthetic creature, the english dramatic opera, which found its stride only with purcell and his contemporaries and lost it with their passing. its companion form, the english play with incidental music, also comes in for full and detailed investigation, so that the stage is well set for the arrival of 208 ... • ... eccles on the scene in the spring of 1693. the remainder of the dissertation traces his adventures in this strange demi-world of the london theatres, leaving unturned no stone, unanalyzed no plot, song, or masque which might yield any clue as to the source of the difficulties under which dramatic composers and poets labored with less and less success at each turning of the way. eccles and congreve, motteux and o'urfey, even the actors betterton and mrs. bracegirdle at last gave way before the nemesis which had undone purcell and was soon to give handel good cause to try his giant's strength. the dissertation ends with a study of semele, eccles and congreve's joint handiwork, which could have saved the english tradition and even might have. but far be it from me to divulge the fatal flaw or expose the villain of the piece, thus spoiling the prospective reader's fun in following the thorough, enormously detailed sleuthing mr. lindoln has done to find his conclusions. for originality of research, musical analysis, and historical insight, mr. lincoln can hardly be faulted, for it is a superb dissertation. his readers might have been a little more careful in criticizing matters of prose style, and there are moments-sometimes rather long ones-when the "thetic line" disappears in the underbrush. but the author very clearly can see the forest as well as the trees and should be given every encouragement to publish a somewhat emmended, but nevertheless definitive, monograph on eccles as soon as possible. such a publication would fill a real need and fill it well. franklin zimmerman received his phd. at u.s.c. and is presently professor of music, dartmouth college. he is the author of henry purcell: an analytical catalogue of his music . 209 editor-in-chief: margaret ross griffel associate editors: anne bagnall thomas w. baker peter dedel richard koprowski jack light leonie rosenstiel douglass seaton faye-ellen silverman maurie sommer assistant editors: laura demarco robert fuller barbara turchin cornelia weininger editorial assistants: brenda szafir billet, rodney buckins, vladia kunzmann, frayda lindemann, virginia marion, thomas tracy business department: gayle seaton, advertising and circulation thomas w. baker, treasurer editorial advisor: l. michael griffel faculty advisor: patricia carpenter copyright © 1974, the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york printed in great britain by william clowes & sons, limited london, beccles and colchester corresponding editors: domestic susan gillerman carla pollack mark h. jasinski myrl hermann harrison m. schlee jurgen thyme ronald t. olexy bruce saylor anne gugliotta marie bergbuchler monica grabie jack light laurel fay betty j. scott susan youens james c. griesheimer lionel party samuel o. douglas dale hunter john t. bryan barbara petersen cecilia van de camp marilyn christianson edward parmentier christopher wilkinson ann witherell michael a. keller jeffrey weinstein carol quin james ladewig lester brothers mary badarak warren spaeth nancy malitz joseph kytolo anne amerson margaret grossman gordon s. rowley john martin lee patrick ramona h. matthews jack crawford edward j. soehnlein judith j. warmanen r. theodore staton & eva murphy josephine hart frank carey norman sanger ellen j. keck harold kjellberg james h. cook boston university, boston, mass. brandeis university, waltham, mass. brigham young university, provo, utah bryn mawr college, bryn mawr, pa. carnegie-mellon university, pittsburgh, pa. case western reserve university, cleveland, ohio catholic university of america, washington, d.c. city university of new york, new york, n.y. city university of new york, brooklyn college, brooklyn, n.y. city university of new york, hunter college, new york, n.y. city university of new york, queens college, flushing, n.y. columbia university, new york, n.y. cornell university, ithaca, n.y. florida state university, tallahassee, fla. harvard university, cambridge, mass. indiana university, bloomington, ind. juilliard school, new york, n.y. louisiana state university, baton rouge, la. mcgill university, montreal, quebec, canada memphis state university, memphis, tenn. new york university, new york, n.y. northwestern university, evanston, ill. pennsylvania state university, university park, pa. princeton university, princeton, n.j. rutgers university, new brunswick, n.j. stanford university, stanford, calif. state university of new york at buffalo, buffalo, n.y. university of arizona, tucson, ariz. university of arkansas, fayetteville, ark. university of california, berkeley, calif. university of california, los angeles, calif. university of california, riverside, calif. university of california, santa barbara, calif. university of chicago, chicago, ill. university of colorado, boulder, colo. university of hawaii, honolulu, hawaii university of illinois, urbana, ill. university of iowa, iowa city, iowa university of kansas, lawrence, kan. university of kentucky, lexington, ky. university of maryland, college park, md. university of miami, coral gables, fla. university of michigan, ann arbor, mich. university of minnesota, minneapolis, minn. university of north carolina, chapel hill, n.c. university of oregon, eugene, ore. university of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pa. university of pittsburgh, pittsburgh, pa. university of rochester, eastman school, rochester, n.y. university of southern california, los angeles, calif. university of texas, austin, tex. foreign michael evans ingrid p. buch david schroeder paul d. ledvina edgar j. lewis glenn l. gore george loomis laszl6 somfai georges franck l. gene strasbaugh alexander schneider don harran winfried kirsch bernd baselt rudolph angermiiller horst heussner anne-marie riessauw a. annegarn axel helmer john m. jennings niels martin jensen susette clausing georg borchardt anthony ford g. r. rastall anne-marie bragard andrej rijavec davitt moroney ladislav reznicek bojan bujic wolfgang sieber giorgio pestelli walter pass hans conradin university of toronto, toronto, ontario, canada university of washington, seattle, wash. university of western ontario, london, ontario, canada university of wisconsin, madison, wis. university of wyoming, laramie, wyo. west virginia university, morgantown, w. va. yale university, new haven, conn. bartok archives, budapest, hungary brussels, belgium free university of berlin, berlin, germany friedrich-wilhelms university, bonn, germany hebrew university, jerusalem, israel johann wolfgang goethe university, frankfurt, germany martin luther university, halle-wittenberg, gdr mozarteum, salzburg, austria phillips university, marburg, germany state university of ghent, ghent, belgium state university of utrecht, utrecht, holland svenskt music history archives, stockholm, sweden university of canterbury, christchurch, new zealand university of copenhagen, copenhagen, denmark university of erlangen-nuremberg, erlangen, germany university of hamburg, hamburg, germany university of hull, hull, yorkshire, england university of leeds, leeds, england university of liege, liege, belgium university of ljubljana, ljubljana, yugoslavia university of london, london, england university of oslo, oslo, norway university of reading, reading, england university of regensburg, regensburg, germany university of turin, turin, italy university of vienna, vienna, austria university of zurich, zurich, switzerland whenever possible, communications to the corresponding editors should be addressed care of the music department of the institution in question. otherwise, they may be sent to the editor of current musicology for forwarding. published the music department under the aegis of columbia university new york faye-ellen silverman bo]an bu]ic anne-marie riessauw georges franck heinz j. dill julie anne vertrees suzanne forsberg reports from the domestic corresponding editors: 7 important library holdings at fortyone north american universities 69 masters' theses in musicology, second installment 77 new york city: computer conference, june 1973 81 84 87 90 91 96 from the foreign corresponding editors: england: music at the university of reading ghent: musicology at the state university budapest: commemoration of kodaly's 90th birthday, december 1972 announcements articles schoenberg's george-lieder: the relationship between text and music in light of some expressionist tendencies mozart's string quartet k. 465: the history of a controversy dissertations 115 beth anna mekota the solo and ensemble keyboard works of johann christian bach stanley a. malinowski, jr. david s. josephson 121 donald george moe the st. mark passion of reinhard keiser: a practical edition, with an account of its historical background 130 margaret hee-leng tan the free music of percy grainger bibliograp rica 134 publications received 137 contributors marian smith. ballet and opera in the age of "giselle". princeton: princeton university press, 20001. xx, 306 pp. reviewed by sarah hibberd since the publication of jane fulcher's the nation's image in 1987, there has been growing interest in exploring the appeal of french grand opera. this has generally taken the approach of grounding the works in their political context (fulcher) or, more recently, their social setting.! a more tentative strand of interest in situating grand opera in its contemporary the­ atrical context and in examining other lyric genres produced in paris in the 1820s and '30sin their own right (sala 1995; wild 1987; hibberd 2001) has encouraged a reevaluation of what has been perceived as the merely "sensational" and a more nuanced understanding of the relationship be­ tween the musical and visual dimensions of drama. perhaps the most promising subject for such a comparative exercise is the genre staged at the opera alongside opera: ballet-pantomime. in her pioneering work, marian smith has noted the equal status the genres en­ joyed at the opera-both ballet and opera were still being presented, ei­ ther in the same or in separate works, at every performance during the july monarchy. indeed, ballet was often more popular than opera.2 tellingly, meyerbeer's first grand opera, robert le diable (1831) has been remembered above all for its ballet divertissement in act 3, in which a group of de­ bauched nuns lure the hero into taking a sacred branch. smith's principal argument in her new book is that "the longtime marriage between opera and ballet at the opera had not yet fully ended in the 1830s and 1840s" (xiii). more specifically, she suggests that audiences had a "crossover flu­ ency in the languages of both ballet and opera" (xiv). thus, in order to appreciate more fully the experience of ballet and opera audiences of the time, smith argues, it is necessary to examine the genres in relation to each other: "we stand to discover a rich array of connections that can in­ crease our understanding ... and, at the same time, allow us to experience some of the same pleasures of recognition and familiarity that helped at­ tract their first audiences to the opera house" (xvii). smith's perhaps sur­ prising conclusion-to modern audiences of ballet, anyway-is that plot and words were essential to both genres, and that clues to this narrative component can be found in the scores of ballets-pantomimes. smith's book is at once a comparative study of ballet and opera and a long overdue history of ballet-pantomime that presents basic information, such as the sorts of plots, characters, dancing techniques, and musical styles current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york sarah hibberd 229 common to the genre. in the first chapter, "music and stories," smith ad­ dresses the question of how a genre with no sung or spoken dimension can communicate action and plot. while the story is told essentially through action or mime scenes, more formal dance numbers and divertissements contribute to the atmosphere and the couleur locale of the setting. the music that accompanies mime scenes takes several forms: it might suggest general mood, action, or personality; provide diagetic music and noises; weave in snatches of ethnic or national music; or use recurring motifs and passages of borrowed music. the orchestra switches fluidly between these tasks, and, as critics noted, it was more important than gesture in commu­ nicating what was happening. similar techniques had been used since at least the end of the eighteenth century in a number of genres, including pantomime dialoguee and melodrama, genres which were influential on the development of ballet-pantomime at the turn of the century. audiences would, therefore, have been used to listening for such aural clues, not only at the opera, but also at the commercial theaters where such techniques were still being used. although frequently dismissed as "popular" theaters, some venues attracted a cross section of the public, including the wealthier citizens who attended the opera. indeed the theatre de la porte saint­ martin had a ballet troupe that was seen as a rival to that of the opera. although, as smith suggests, this crucial narrative role of music has been largely erased from ballets in modern productions, it was nevertheless a familiar part of the sonic world of the parisian theater-going public in the 1820s and '30s.3 one of the most important tools of narrative music was the airparlant. the orchestra played a few bars of a popular opera air or traditional song (a timbre); the unsung words provided an instant translation ofthe action. sometimes the general dramatic situation of the opera from which the timbre had been drawn, or the personality of the character originally associ­ ated with it, would add further significance. an example of the sophisti­ cated implications of the choice of timbre~a subject that smith touches on only briefly-is found in ferdinand herold's 1827 ballet-pantomime la somnambule. this work launched a fashion for works featuring sleep­ walkers-to the extent that one critic warned the public going out into the streets after dark to take umbrellas to protect them from the young som­ nambulists who would doubtless be falling from the crowded rooftops where they would typically wander.4 at this time scientists were drawing parallels between the conditions of sleepwalking, dreaming, and madness, while disciples of anton mesmer were artificially magnetizing willing volunteers who apparently developed a sixth sense while in a trance. this complex melange of so-called trance phenomena, their association with the spiri­ tual world, and their increasing association with women was being exploited 230 current musicology in literature of the period (balzac, nodier, dumas, and hugo each drew examples into their novels) as well as in the theaters. in the ballet-panto­ mime we find a range of borrowed airs that between them suggest this whirl of relationships: a traditional air, "dormez mes cheres amours"; a contredanse from nicolas-marie dalayrac's 1786 opera nina, ou la folle par amour, about a young girl who has lost her lover and in turn her sanity; excerpts from rossini's armida (1817), whose sorceress heroine leaves the stage at the end of the opera in a mad frenzy; the opening bars of the sextet from rossini's la cenerentola (1817), in which confusion and affront at the unsuitable behavior of the heroine are expressed. these and other borrowed melodies suggest the myriad of associatiom that parisians would have made with sleepwalking at the time, and present specific comments on the dramatic action and sentiments of the characters. indeed such tech­ niques go beyond words and add another dimension to the business of storytelling. they are also an important clue to the musical tastes of the time and the way in which audiences listened; the vast majority of works being staged in paris featured arrangements of knovlm music rather than new compositions. the tendency of both contemporary and modern crit­ ics to denigrate "mere" arrangements-however sophisticated, and to what­ ever ends-ignores their pervasive power and appeal in the second chapter, "family resemblance," smith goes into some detail about the similarities between opera and ballet-pantomime. these include the shared use of themes and settings; dramatic devices; aria, recitative, ensemble, and chorus, and their equivalents in dance; as well as visual spectacle, mise en scene, and tableaux. and of course many of the same artists and backstage personnel were involved in producing both genres. again, it becomes clear not only that ballet-pantomime and opera were closely related, but that they were also deeply embedded in more general theatrical practices and fashions of the time. smith notes that the emphasis on mise en scene and tableaux, for example, derives in part from the practices of the commercial theaters. and of course a work's creators­ from composer to librettist, set designer to artist-not only worked on both operas and ballets, but had often worked (or even continued to do so) in one or more of the secondary theaters. chapter 3, "the lighter tone of ballet-pantomime," considers one of the most obvious differences between opera and ballet, with a view to ac­ counting for ballet's distinctive qualities. smith tackles it from two angles. first, she examines the way in which dancing is treated in a literal fashion within ballet (with the emphasis on verisimilitude and on objectitying the body) and how this affected the nature of the plots. second, she studies the phenomenon of parody, in which operas comiques were routinely trans­ formed into ballets. in the first part, smith notes how there generally had sarah hibberd 231 to be a reason for dancing, much like the need in early opera for the characters to have a reason for singing-musicians (orpheus), gods of music (apollo), and supernatural characters in general (the furies) all had the "right" to sing. this was also a time when the phenomena of sleep­ walking, madness, and muteness, all of which popularly afflicted male char­ acters in works at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were converted to popular female afflictions. and with this shift came a more lingering, voyeuristic attitude to the performance; smith, lynn garafola (1993), and maribeth clark (2001) have written about ways in which the female body was fetishized in ballet. given the physical nature of the genre, dancers­ far more than singers-were gazed upon by male members of the audi­ ences not only onstage, but also backstage in the foyer de la danse. here aristocratic "patrons" were allowed to observe them in a more intimate setting, and even to take this to its obvious conclusion in a system of glori­ fied prostitution. the sexual reputation of dancers was thus legendary, and this expectation, smith suggests, was even transposed into ballet plots in which masculine power and female submissiveness were reinforced more categorically than they were in opera. the ballet parodies that smith claims also contributed to the "lighter tone" of the genre are another facet of broader theatrical practices of the period. three adaptations of operas comiques are considered, and smith suggests that this choice of light-hearted works for the opera provides a direct and unique pipeline from the opera-comique. it should perhaps be acknowledged that other "pipelines" were also being exploited by such composers as auber and halevy: both made their reputations at the opera­ comique, but both wrote works for the opera that incorporated musical devices of the "lighter" genre, such as the use of ballads and other short­ breathed forms with simple lyrical melodies. (indeed the emerging genre of grand opera was in part defined by its synthesis of devices from other genres, notably opera comique.) yet smith also makes the important point that part of the significance of this impact on ballet was that "parody ballet had ... been designed to be dependent on words (even if at second hand) to make its performances work" (96). this assertion leads into one of the most fascinating chapters in the book. la somnambulewas described by one critic at its 1827 premiere as be­ ing an "opera lacking only words. "5 in chapter 4, "ballet-pantomime and silent language," smith reveals the extent to which words were in fact at the heart of ballet, and were the focus of attention in a way that they were not in opera. she identifies a variety of methods of insinuating speech into the genre: onstage sign, libretto, instrumental recitative, air parlant. how­ ever, it seems that by the 1830s words were already beginning to "sink be­ low the surface" (97), though without disappearing altogether. as noted 232 current musicology above, the quoting of known melodies-which had the potential of add­ ing both specific and general meanings to a performance-was a valuable technique in ballet. but by around 1830, composers were increasingly writ­ ing new scores for ballets. some critics complained that the orchestra's primary role should be to "translate" the dancers' gestures, and that airs parlantswere essential for this. others, however, welcomed a more abstract move. indeed, house composers at the commercial theaters had already become less dependent on borrowed music: quotations had been largely abandoned in melodramas by the 1820s, and although newly composed airs were officially forbidden in most comedies and vaudevilles, composers increasingly introduced numbers of new songs. this was perhaps a sign that theater composers were becoming frustrated with arranging and were trying out a more creative role. smith points out, however, that although specific texts were gradually eliminated from scores, composers still cre­ ated an instrumental approximation of voices-whether whispering, argu­ ing, or shouting-and audiences still expected a ballet to tell a detailed story. intriguingly, the apparent narrative compatibility of ballet and opera meant that in 1828 it was still possible to have singers and dancers "talk­ ing" to each other in the same work. smith's fifth chapter, "hybrid works at the opera," is a fascinating examination of three very different examples of such crossbreeding, which illustrate the degree to which audiences were fluent in a variety of musical languages. the best-known of the works, auber's opera la muette de portici (1828), as its title suggests, features a silent heroine, fenella, who has lost her voice before the curtain rises be­ cause of a traumatic experience. on one level she has ambiguous symbolic significance, embodying the "voiceless" oppressed neapolitans under span­ ish rule and triggering their uprising. at the more practical level of com­ munication, as smith describes, music and gesture enable fenella to "talk" easily to the other characters-and to the audience. although most of the critics marveled at the legibility of fenella's "speeches," cas til-blaze was uneasy about the mixture of gesture and song. in particular, given the crucial role of music in "translating" her gestures, he was unconvinced by the scenes in which fenella had "conversations" with singing characters, as the role of the orchestra became unclear. should it be heard as fenella's voice? or simply as the accompaniment to song?6 few other critics en­ gaged in such philosophizing, however, perhaps because in such scenes the orchestra's dual role was always carefully handled; in any case, it was not an issue that anyone would have thought of raising at the time. in a scene with her brother, masaniello, fenella's voice is indeed "represented" by the orchestra-using quotations from earlier in the work to underscore the meaning of her gestures, and tracing her shining moods-while sarah hibberd 233 masaniello's responses are either unaccompanied, or punctuated by spare chords. it is only towards the end of their conversation that fenella's de­ spair becomes subsumed by masaniello's anger and call to arms; her dis­ tress at having been seduced and then abandoned by a spaniard inspires masaniello to launch the uprising against their oppressors. her final ges­ tures are simultaneous with his declaration of vengeance, and tremolando strings build into the finale. thus her despair-and her "voice"-is assimi­ lated into the broader drama and masaniello's actions. although later critics, notably wagner, saw la muette as a popular but one-off experiment that could not be repeated, it had clearly been enough of a success for its creators to produce another hybrid work two years later: le dieu et la bayadere. this time the heroine's muteness is explained by the fact that she is a foreigner, a common affliction of melodrama and vaude­ ville heroines that was mined for its potential for mime and comic misun­ derstanding. auber, however, retreated from the detailed mimed narra­ tives of fenella. instead, his heroine mimes simpler ideas, and dances in set pieces and in dramatic scenes. as smith notes, this is probably explained by the fact that the young dancer, marie taglioni, was more of a dancer than a miming actress, and auber and his librettist approached their task with this in mind-indeed the way in which she "[swam] in your eyes like a curl of smoke" charmed the audience (140). but in contrast to the posi­ tive reception of la muette, the reaction to le dieu was more equivocal: critics were more impatient with a dancing heroine in the middle of an opera. the creators of the next hybrid work, halevy and gide's opera-ballet la tentation (1832), retreated from the practice of inserting mime and dance scenes into an opera. they shifted the balance, placing sung num­ bers into a spectacular ballet-pantomime. this appears to have been a more consciously "popular" work altogether. the influence of works from the commercial theaters is evident, the most obvious being a number of faust dramas and an adaptation of frankenstein, le monstre et le magicien (which featured a blue monster like that drawn out of the cauldron in the ballet). la tentation also featured a fair amount of "borrowed" music, a large num­ ber of scenes for the chorus and corps de ballet, and extraordinary special effects including the earth opening up during a climactic combat between devils and angels. the emphasis was thus on dazzling display, and it was this aspect that the critics applauded. smith concludes that it is "striking that the three works should have been created at all, could find box-office success, and could be reviewed by critics who, in some cases, saw no reason to say much (or anything) about their hybrid nature" (166). it is also striking that although they slotted reasonably comfortably into the dramatic conventions of 1828-32, no at234 current musicology tempt to create similar hybrid works was made after this time. the gradual shift from visual narrative to display in these works was perhaps symptom­ atic of the greater gulf developing between modes of mime and dance (or narrative and display) within ballet-pantomime itself: an issue that is con­ sidered in the final chapter. smith observes that "one would not guess, by watching most oftoday's productions, how much the original giselle behaved like opera" (167). she then sets out to reveal what adolphe adam's 1841 giselle would have been like as well as how modern producers have gradually erased its narrative aspects altogether, and how modern audiences have quite different expec­ tations. mime and action scenes are generally cut, and those that remain are transformed. airs parlants and speech-like passages slip by unnoticed­ and are often misunderstood and accompanied by inappropriate mime­ and the virtuosity of the dancer becomes more important than the plot. furthermore, a modern audience is unlikely to register some of the sug­ gestions oflocal color in the dance scenes-such as the "germanness" of a waltz, or the "frenchness" of a minuet-even though one might recognize a bolero as spanish, if one were to listen for such signals. one of the most striking aspects of giselle for someone more familiar with opera than ballet of the july monarchy is its complex relationship to operas in the repertory. in the heroine's celebrated mad scene, for ex­ ample, obvious visual influences appear to be not only the trance scene from la somnambule, but perhaps the "ghost" scene from adrien boieldieu's extraordinarily popular opera comique la dame blanche (1825); the mad scenes of italian operas such as donizetti's lucia di lammerrnoor (1835); the tomb scene in halevy's guido et ginevra (1838); not to mention the ballet of debauched nuns in robert le diable, which apparently inspired nourrit's scenario for la sylphide (1832)-no doubt another influence. in other words, giselle fits into a continuing vogue for trance·like heroines on the brink of delirium, and illustrates the rarely acknowledged influence of the dramatic and visual elements ofitalian opera on works staged at the opera at this time. one of the most significant developments in parisian theater of the 1820s and '30s was the growing importance of the relationship between the mu­ sical and visual dimensions, and the simultaneous decline in the signifi­ cance of spoken or sung words. the "visual legibility" of melodrama was finding a place in opera and other drama; in la lvluette, for example, tableaux at the end of each act summed up the preceding action. in the same year (1828), the playwright leon halevywas moved to complain that the theatre fran<;ais had become a "tragediorama" (allevy 1938:85). this power of the visual has been attracting the attention of opera scholars who sarah hibberd 235 have explored the translation of gesture into musical language, or the com­ plex, often conflicting, relationship between music, text, and mise en scene. smith, however, reminds us how narrative is nevertheless still essential to non-verbal genres. paradoxically, in ballet-pantomime music, not gesture, is the primary tool for unlocking this narrative. yet, the fact that words were "sinking below the surface" in the 1830s can be viewed as the first step towards the elimination of narrative altogether-and the concurrent rise of virtuoso dance which later came to define ballet. smith asserts in her introduction-and confirms unquestionably in her book-that we have much to gain by examining ballet and opera along­ side each other. i would suggest that it is also difficult, even undesirable, to isolate ballet from its broader theatrical context, in particular from its rela­ tionship with melodrama and vaudeville as well as with opera and opera comique. the array of musical and visual languages on the parisian stages necessarily had an impact on the creation and reception of ballet-panto­ mime. journalistic reviews highlight such connections effectively. the grow­ ing disenchantment with narrative ballet sparked hostile reviews reminis­ cent of those written about melodramas and vaudevilles. genres that com­ bined musical arrangements and medleys with imaginative special effects routinely drew mocking and patronizing comments that missed the whole point of such works and took their popular appeal as a sign of their aes­ thetic inferiority. the turn to newly composed music was perhaps part of a desire to give ballet-pantomime-and melodrama and vaudeville-an ac­ ceptable status. the observations smith makes about modern attitudes towards bal­ let, as illustrated by her comparison of the "original" giselle with modern productions, points to the crucial importance of how audiences listen ( ed). our failure to recognize the cues in ballet-pantomime is symptomatic of our attitude to july monarchy opera and theater generally. although the influence of melodrama, opera comique, and grand opera on later repertories and genres is frequently asserted, such works have tended to be dismissed as precursors of more significant works or genres, and are rarely revived. on the rare occasions that they are revived, they are usually cut and re­ worked to suit our modern palates. smith's triumph is in identifying the (surprisingly?) sophisticated listening and viewing strategies of ballet­ pantomime's original audiences, giving us an understanding of why they were so extraordinarily popular, and creating in the reader a desire to see giselle as it was originally staged. more than twenty tables provide a wealth of fascinating facts-settings of operas and ballets, borrowed music in ballet scores, scenes cut from modern productions of giselle--and numerous illustrations present con­ temporary sketches of costumes and mises en scene. smith also includes many 236 current musicology contemporary descriptions of these works, an important contribution to our understanding and "connection" with ballet-pantomime. her transla­ tions preserve, even enhance, the wit and spirit of the originals. the book is essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenlth-century music the­ ater. notes 1. anselm gerhard (1998) relates the evolution of the genre to the develop­ ment of the modern city. 2. although the genre was known as ballet-pantomime, while danced seg­ ments within an opera or ballet-pantomime were referred to as ballet, like smith i occasionally use the word ballet as a shorthand term for the genre. 3. indeed, such techniques are fundamental to silent and modern film and cartoon music, genres that are similarly perceived as being "popular" today. 4. le coumer des theatres (october 6, 1827). for an examination of the transla­ tion of this phenomenon to the stage, see hibberd (2004). 5. la pandore (march 2, 1828). 6. journal de debats (march 3,1828). references allevy, marie-antoinette. 1938. la mise en scene en france. paris: e. droz. clark, maribeth. 2001. bodies at the opera: art and the hermaphrodite in the dance criticism of theophile gautier. in reading critics reading: opera and ballet criticism in france from the revolution to 1848, edited by roger parker and mary ann smart, 237-53. oxford: oxford university press. fulcher, jane. 1987. the nation ~ image: french grand opera as politics and politicized art. cambridge: cambridge university press. garafola, lynn. 1993. the travesty dancer in nineteenth-century ballet. in cross­ ing the stage: controversies on cross-dressing, edited by lesley ferris, 96-106. lon­ don and new york: routledge. gerhard, anselm. 1998. the urbanization of opera: music theater in paris in the nine­ teenth century. translated by mary whittall. chicago: university of chicago press. hibberd, sarah. 2001. "cette diablerie philosophique": faust criticism in paris c. 1830. in reading critics reading: opera and ballet criticism in france from the revo­ lution to 1848, edited by roger parker and mary ann smart, 111-36. oxford: oxford university press. ____ . 2004. "dormez donc, mes chers amours": herold's la somnambule (1827) and dream phenomena on the parisian lyric stage. cambridge opera journal (forthcoming). sala, emilio. 1995. l'opera senza canto: il melo romantico e l'invenzione della colonna sonora. venice: marsilio. wild, nicole. 1987. la musique dans ie melodrame des theatres parisiens. in mu­ sic in paris in the eighteen-thirties, edited by peter bloom, 589-610. new york: pendragon press. current musicology's project on musicological method: some comments thurston dart king's college, london (march, 1968) in june of 1967 michael griffel asked me if i would look at current musicology's questionary on musicological method [number 5/1967; number 6/1968] and comment on some of the issues raised by the replies. i'm sometimes rather skeptical about the value of questionaries. (far too much of the time of british academics has been spent recently in completing them, and footling questions invite ridiculous answers. still, the whole procedure is presumably very character-forming; no doubt it has been useful in frustrating our selfish desires to concentrate overmuch on such mischievous or downright antisocial activities as teaching or research or administration or trying to become learned or keeping up with the scholarly joneses.) current musicology's questionary, i confess, took me a little while to penetrate. "methodology," for instance, is one of those gadfly words that hatched out not long ago. it buzzes, most distractingly, in and out of sundry academic reports, syllabuses, and curricula at the present time. i spend much energy in trying to swat it. i've been searching for a context in which "method" would not do just as well. besides, this word saves 45% typing-time, which could be used for filling in yet more forms. . . . the boundary between "science" and "humanities," too, is an entirely fortuitous one, unknown a few decades ago. the more blurring of this adventitious division we can do, the better it will be for the future of mankind. all serious students-old or young-are scientists, in that they study what is known. all serious students are involved in the humanities, in that they are human beings. "nothing human do i deem alien to me." the further we advance into such fields as physics or biology or communications, the more evident it becomes that we are faced over and over again with problems of probability theory, ethics, orderliness, parsimony, morals, money, and logic entirely akin to those that occupied the attention of aristotle, confucius, or the buddha, quite some time ago. the problems have certainly become far more urgent; but their essential nature, which is bound to the mystery of humanity itself, has not changed. to my taste, then, all questionaries are far too "either-or," and current musicology's is no exception. the most magical and alluring hours of the 24 are those at dawn and dusk, not high noon or deep midnight. the most fruitful areas for all human endeavor are the becoming and the dissolving, not the is or the is-not. ail questionaries, too, get very soggy and limp unless you ruthlessly kick out the abstract nouns and the passive verbs. the same goes for other prose. underline for yourself the abstracts and passives in "what 81 attention is given to the methods employed in determining the performance practice for a specific work or group of works ?" (current musicology, 5: 8). in reading and re-reading the answers, i have found myself perplexed by certain gaps or slants that seem to recur many times. it is, perhaps, best if my report, for what it's worth, deals with these one by one, in no particular order. actualities. universities have many jobs to do, but by no means the least of them has always been to teach people something about the problems of the societies and cultures of their own time. a university worthy ofthe nameand we can all think of many that are not-is in a perpetual state of "becoming." it stands at the leading edge ofthe future. it locates areas of change; it surveys what has been; it helps young men and women to transmute themselves into adult and responsible members of society. it constantly passes the past under review; it continually re-defines the present; it must always play a vital part in determining possible futures, since these will to a certain extent depend upon the acts and thoughts of its graduates. these ideas are commonplace enough in, say, the natural sciences or linguistics. in music studies one has the feeling that they are scarcely touched on at all. if musicology is to deserve its place in the academic sun, it must grow out of a study of today's problems as well as those of yesterday, for music is about people, and people do not really change very much. the roles and functions of music in the societies and schools of our time; music as muzak or drug of addiction or placebo or panacea; the interlocking and interdependent problems ofthe composer, the performer, and the audience, or of the professional and the amateur; music in societies whose assumptions differ from our own, just as the assumptions of a medieval christian society differed from those of islam or genghis khan: these are some of our problems, as scholar-musicians. if we do not turn our attention to them, whoever else will? it seems to me that any attempt to come to terms with a professional composer like, say, dufay will be superficial, naive, and misleading unless we know something of the problems confronting lou harrison or gian carlo menotti, richard rodney bennett or sir william walton. nearly all the courses i have been reading about begin with the distant dead. why are we so afraid of starting at the other end, with the near-at-hand and the living? taboo-subjects. there are a lot of these. one notes a few outstanding ones, with many misgivings. music education, for instance, in which-for someone like myself-some of the most exciting and original work is at this time being done in the united states. music criticism: does not this begin with writing reviews of composing methods, scores, performances, books, television spectaculars, of our own time? this is what all the great music critics of the past did: mattheson, morley, shaw, schumann, hanslick, berlioz. to read the average city paper in america is one of the most depressing things one can do, if it is music criticism one is after. criticism of actualities of this kind will teach self-reliance, modesty, self-criticism,judgment; it will sharpen the edges of words and increase the cutting-power of ideas; it will unerringly locate areas of ignorance and infallibly isolate the built-in warps that weaken 82 most value judgments. it may even help to foster taste and discrimination, for these are :plants of very slow growth. professionalism. there seems little or no contact between musicology, as it is taught in american universities, and professional music, as it is heard in concert or community hall, or opera house, or television studio, or radio program. painting and sculpture are lonely arts, done in solitude. music is a social phenomenon-always has been, always (with luck) will be-in which performer, composer, and listener intersect and interact in the hereand-now of a live performance. (our addiction to the dead has virtually excluded that shy bird, the composer, from his natural roosting places, the concert hall, the opera house, the school, and the orchestra. it is good to know of the project the ford foundation has thought it right to set in motion to amend this situation, at least for schools.) "performance practice" as a study will be meaningless and pernicious unless the would-be scholar is constantly and forcibly reminded of some elementary articles in the creed of every professional musician. for instance: "whatever else i do, i must not bore my audience"; "i must make it new"; "my performance will of course take account of my mood, my instrument, the composer's wishes, my audience's reaction, my platform colleagues, my acoustical surroundings"; "i am not a pianola roll, programmed only to my teacher's views of how to interpret"; "our conductor today is either a knave or a zealot; since i don't yet know which, and since my job is to serve the composer and my platform colleagues, i shall not feel obliged to look at him at all; ignoring him will be restful for me and will not make an atom of difference to the performance." and so on. style. have we any notion of what this means? all too often investigations of style are self-fulfilling prophecies, immensely gratifying to one's self-esteem, but utterly useless to the advancement of scholarship. a really luminous investigation of, say, bach's style will depend on sorting authentic works from bogus ones. such considerations are elementary among art historians; unless one begins with them, all one's stylistic criteria will be contaminated and circular. as an experienced professional performer who also tries to be something of a scholar, i have yet to prove to my own satisfaction that any of the following keyboard works ascribed to johann sebastian bach were in fact unquestionably composed by him: the six english suites, the chromatic fantasy and fugue, the triple concerto in a minor, all the other concertos for one to four keyboards, the organ toccata and fugue in d minor. if i am right, then something is very wrong. (if i am wrong, then will someone please prove the point to me, very soon?) many replies to the questionary stress that musicology, like so much else, makes most of its advances through observation, analysis, hypothesis, and the back-and-forth thrusts of discussion. are we firm enough in tiie way we teach these essential techniques of how to rape your subject? do we pay enough attention to the touchstone of anonymity? i cannot believe so. gong-words. like taboo-subjects, there are lots of these. i mean terms like 83 "renaissance," "classical," "baroque," "sonata form": their reverberations are so strong and so diverse that they instantly blanket every discussion and deafen each debater. best if we renounce our addiction to them as soon as we can get unhooked, for i cannot believe it to be good for us. (next week will do.) our conception of the relationship between style and chronology, too, is far too thin-textured and shapeless. many professional musicians of my own acquaintance pride themselves on their simultaneous mastery of a number of different composing or performing techniques. mter all, every craftsman enjoys acquiring and demonstrating his craft. it is equally likely that dunstable prided himself on being able, at the drop of a benefice or the request of a duke, to write a simple magnificat, a complex mass cycle, an architectonic isorhythmic motet (complete with his own carefully composed alliterative verse to go with it), a fauxbourdon hymn, or a "top-twenty" song. if this was in fact the case-and i have no reason to believe otherwise-then most of our discussions of chronology based on style criteria (or of style based on shallow analyses of source criteria, as for instance with bach's brandenburgs or handel's op. 6 concerti grossi) will turn out to be otiose. our conclusions are likely to be unbecomingly grotesque in consequence. notation. the case for concentrating on the period 1400-1600 is a very strong one. there is even a certain case for traversing this period backwards, so that one may proceed from the known to the unknown and may see for oneself how ambiguities and uncertainties arose. printing had as decisive an effect on notation's transformation as disc and videotape are having on music's deformation today. it is never possible to generalize about manuscripts, since each of them is by its nature a unique human artifact. but music prints, whether from plates or movable type or the lithographic stone, are a different matter. the student musicologist, to my mind, ought always to begin with a thorough study of printed musical documents. there is much to be said for this start being made with the printed musical documents of the present day, for they are immediately available, at small cost; we pay a heavy price as scholars if we spend our entire time with microfilm or photographic copy. in this way the student will learn how to shape his own calculus of error and to formulate his own algebra of doubt. with these tools, and fortified by comparing them with the work of such outstanding scholars as mckerrow, fredson bowers, or charlton hinman, he will then be equipped to try to crack the safe of a single musical manuscript. knit tour own baroque. we do this very well nowadays, to judge from the majority of gramophone records i hear. it bears little resemblance to what earlier times heard and did. synthetic instruments (e.g., so very many 20thcentury harpsichords) are used to pull early music every which way. artificial and mannered styles of performance, fashionable only at the french court between, say, 1710 and 1715 when royalty was present, are rammed into purcell's odes or bach's cantatas or handel's oratorios with all the hamfisted skill of a backwoods veterinary surgeon injecting an old cow suffering from the staggers. the cow may yet live, despite the vet. an analysis of changes in 84 beat-groups' performance practice during the last five years will focus one's prudence. like the prospect of being hanged, it may even concentrate one's mind wonderfully .... aesthetics. music seems more resistant to the formulation and application of aesthetic theories than any other art. a pity, then, that so little is taught to english-speaking music students about the work of french-speaking commentators of the past fifty years, in particular of some of the men and women now living and working in paris and brussels: pierre schaeffer, wangermee, souris, collaer, bridgman, boulez, and the brilliant aestheticians of the sorbonne. the anglo-saxon world, it seems to me, is all too apt to become excessively anglo or saxon (or both) when confronted with the french world. better if we came to terms with it, for it's been there a long time. england has more than once been described as a french colony that turned out rather odd. to be classed as a great composer it is not essential to have been germanspeaking, difficult, and dead, though this is evidently a great help .... here, then, set down pell-mell, are some of the thoughts and considerations that have come to my mind in reading these very instructive reports on musicological method in american graduate schools. i am only too aware of how disheveled and unoriginal they may turn out to be, but i hope that they will make some contribution to the discussion. it seems clear to me that the debate might, with advantage, be very searching. it must also begin very soon. 85 introduction and overview leonie rosenstiel, project editor the articles in this section of current musicology form the second and concluding part of our project, "the spheres of music: harmony and discord," which was begun in issue number 14/1972. in issue number 15 our contributors have also concerned themselves to a great extent with past, present, and possible future problems of communication among the various branches of music and related fields and with the positive and negative effects that these disciplines may have on each other. again, the articles are written from widely differing points of view and treat their subjects in diverse manners, but this variety is, itself, inherent in the nature of the project.l malcolm frager uses his own experience with the manuscript of robert schumann's piano concerto as a case study, demonstrating how musicological methods and information may help a performer "to better realize the original intent of a composer," as well as to correct errors in published editions. the differing reactions of composers to musicologists and the potential uses of musicology as an aid both in unearthing music for performance and in understanding contemporary scores are emphasized by edmund haines. citing early exposure to musicology as a factor in his positive reaction to the field, mr. haines describes his own methods for researching contemporary spanish music. the ubiquitous quality of musicological research is stressed by qtto luening, who shows how his own background in that field influenced his development as composer, teacher, and "practitioner in the arts." going a step farther, he discusses the significance of environmental factors in the continued survival of the art of music and the need for an understanding of related disciplines. in describing the relatively recent recognition of musical performance as an integral part of teaching music within the liberal arts curriculum at wesleyan university, david mcallester argues for the universal acceptance of this procedure as the equivalent of laboratory or field experiences in other liberal arts and sciences. susan thiemann sommer believes that problems of communication lead many musicians to the false conclusion that there is little or no relationship between musicology and performance. performance decisions should remain with the performer, but he should also be aware of his options, and the musicologist can provide this information. as a record reviewer, mrs. sommer notes with approval the growing trend toward more historically valid performances of early music. the writers, be they performer, composer, scholar, or critic, show a common interest in the ways in which musicological research and resources may be of particular help to both composers and performers. they all stress the need for better communication and greater understanding, so that each specialist may benefit from the insights of others. 81 using their own experiences and those of their friends and colleagues, the contributors to this issue argue strongly-both implicitly and explicitly-for the exposure of the developing musician, no matter what his ultimate field of specialization, to the information and techniques of both the practical and the theoretical aspects of his art. in so doing, they scrutinize past and present practices and attitudes in the various areas of music and offer suggestions for the modification of those aspects which they feel have been and will continue to be detrimental to the best interests of music and musicians in general. the authors of the present articles, as well as of those in issue number 14 not only pinpoint areas of discord but also set forth concrete, constructive suggestions for achieving greater harmony and more effective communication among members of the musical community. note 1 see leonie rosenstiel, "introduction and overview," current musicology 14 (fall 1972): 81-83. 82 in keeping with the nature of this special issue, ca1 here presents revie\vs of doctoral dissertations in music education. four of the five reviews deal \\·ith the concepts, realities, and ideals of music education in america; these differ considerably in both aim and achievement. the dissertations discussed will give the reader some idea of the variety in scope and quality of doctoral work in the field today. one contains a comprehensive plan for an integrated music curriculum; another proposes a new definition of musical understanding to provide a philosophic basis for the curriculum; a third uses the polling technique in an attempt to discover the present philosophic basis of music education; a fourth attempts an evaluation of the effectiveness of the music curriculum of a specific teacher's college. these dissertations clearly evidence the gap now separating musicology from music education, as does the dearth of musicological theses having relevance to music education. for further information about dissertations written in music education, the reader will find reviews in the councilfor research in lvlusic education, which has published four bulletins to date. these may be had by writing to the editorial office, richard j. colwell, college of education, university of illinois, urbana, illinois. marlin orville johnson the philosophies and attitudes of selected music teachers toward music education (research study no.1) ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 61-6898), 1961. (229p., pos. film, colorado state college, greely, ed.d.) arthur daniels public school administrators, prodded by such cntics of the american educational scene as hyman rickover and james conant and spurred by the achievements of the soviet schools, have in recent years re-evaluated and revamped many areas of our primary and secondary educational systems. advances are most noticeable in the study of languages, mathematics, and the sciences, but general progress is such that more and more colleges are now able to offer advanced credit courses designed to move the student 182 through his undergraduate curriculum in three years. nevertheless, the area of public school music has thus far escaped reform; any college instructor of music can testify that incoming students, even prospective music majors, are for the most part poorly, if at all, trained for advanced music study. martin johnson, in his 1961 ed.d. dissertation, has tried "to determine the current philosophies and attitudes toward music education in the public schools held by representative music educators," with the aim, presumably, of uncovering some of the reasons for the present appallingly low stature of his profession. mr. johnson, currently director of music education in the independence, missouri, school system, used two questionnaires: a form requesting data on the respondent's training and experience; and a "q-sort (question-sort) instrument," that required the respondent to evaluate forty "philosophy statements" and forty "attitude statements" and to arrange them in order of relative importancc. the forty philosophy statements were to be distributed among seven groups, so that the single "most important" statement be assigned to group vii, the four statements next in importance to group vi, the next nine to group v, the next twelve to group iv, the next nine to group iii, the next four to group ii, and the "least important" statement of the forty to group 1. the forty attitude statements were to be similarly ordered (p. 40). beforemailinghisquestionnaires.mr. johnson ran a pilot study designed to weed out those statements which "were not clear, not concise, poorly worded, or of little or no value." although he received 100 percent cooperation from the fifteen people involved in the pilot study, johnson obtained only 39.2 percent return from the 362 questionnaires, and this despite repeated dunning. (an appendix to the dissertation contains samples of the letters which were mailed at various stages of the study.) of those who did respond, 50 percent were high school music teachers, 22.5 percent were supervisors of music education, and 27.4 percent were college-university teachers of music education subjects. the respondents hailed from the sixteen states comprising the southwestern, western, and northwest music educators conferences. johnson differentiates between his two categories of statements as follows: philosophy statements refer to music education as "the study of a particular branch or subject of knowledge," and attitude statements imply "a position, disposition, or method with regard to" music education (p. 15). later he informs us that the philosophy cards contained statements about: "aesthetics; class methods; communication in music; diversity of the music program; evaluation concerning (a) the performance of music, (b) the success of a music program, (c) the testing program; goals of education in general; music education [!]; the mind and knowledge; the social aspects of music; teacher training" (p. 42) and that the attitude statements concerned: "administration; aesthetics; amateurism; analysis; basic aims of music education; books (contents); performance in music; note reading; social aspects of music education; success and its relationship to music; symbols" (p. 70). repeated readings of these and similar passages left me confused as to the distinction intended between the two classes of cards, and a reading of the statements themselves only deepened my confusion. for example, the first philosophy statement: "the experimentalist places great stress on freedom 183 and socialization in the rehearsal room. discipline develops from within the student rather than from without, hence, causes more individual growth" (p. 44) appears to be less "philosophical" than the first attitude statement: "if moral and spiritual values arc to be found in music education, they must be found in the character, personality, and the life of the music educator" (p. 71). not until his concluding summary does mr. johnson concede that he has not distinguished satisfactorily between the two classes of statements: originally the writer had hoped that definite statements of philosophy and attitude could be found. in the development of this study, the writer became increasingly aware of the difficulty in delineating between philosophy and attitude statements of music educators. it could well be that the results of this study represent responses to general statements concerning music education rather than to specific statements of philosophies or attitudes (pp. 176-77). it is evident that he failed in the critical phase of his study; one can only wonder that his committee allowed him to advance beyond this point. perhaps the few who did respond to mr. johnson's pleas for cooperation did so because they share his love for the arcane. of the forty philosophy statements, no. 23 ("we should be more concerned with what music can do for the child than what the child can do for music") drew more first place votes than any other (although only 13.3 percent). i sense noble intimations in this remark, but its precise meaning eludes me. the author begins his discussion of the responses to this statement with these words: in the desire to make music sound beautiful, to create good stage appearances, and to use music for both public relations and school aggrandizement, "we have often been negligent in our concern with what music can do for the child as over and against what the child can do for music" (p. 56). the portion of this sentence within quotes differs substantially from the original statement, but at least the interests of clarity are served by the phrases which precede it. if this sentence says what the author intended to say, then the entire, amplified remark should have been presented as the original statement. mr. johnson's interpretations of the responses are less than revealing. on discovering that many respondents favored the notion that "a child's attainment should not be limited by the capacity of his teacher," he concludes that this "should give strength and comfort to teacher training institutions that better teachers are desired by those already in the profession" (p. 59). the least popular philosophy and attitude statements, not surprisingly, were those which threaten the interest of the music education profession: "the contribution of the arts in public education, is not as essential in our day of science and automation as in earlier societies." "music education has been over-emphasized. the development of an art-conscious society could well be attended to through other means than music." the author finds the response to the former statement "an interesting and important development" (p. 68); he believes that the response to the latter statement serves to "emphasize, that while this statement was considered unimportant, this aspect of music education should not be neglected. materialism needs the spiritual reflection that music can provide" (p. 94). 184 occasionally the illogic of mr. johnson's analyses is numbing. he castigatcs the supervisors for having little faith in tests of musical capacity as aids in the screening process, although his question specifies the use of tests as the sole determinant in screening students (p. 134). while earning his degree mr. johnson apparently suffered at the hands of his instructors. in the course of his dissertation he directs several peevish remarks at one of his three groups of respondents: the college-university teachers of music education subjects. he notes early that "much of the criticism directed toward music education has come from college and university music leaders" (p. 3) and concludes much later that this is "due, no doubt, to the fact that the college-university teachers contribute more articles to magazines for publication than do high school music teachers or supervisors" (p. 184). this notion may go down in educational history as the "publish or cherish" doctrine. having found that "the consistency of the three groups of respondents, to almost all statements, was relatively low except to a few of the statements ... which were unimportant," he assigns the responsibility for his own failure to achieve definitive results to the college-university group: "it could be assumed, however, that if more consistency toward basic philosophies is to be achieved, it will necessarily come from those who prepare teachers" (pp. 179-80). he commits a gross error of fact in accusing college teachers of voting heavily in favor of the statement, "music education could well be supplanted by other means in the development of an art-conscious society." the heavy vote (according to his table 26, p. 131) actually was for the statement, "teachers must possess musical insights in order to select proper music for performance. this depth or insight usually signifies the musical stature of the teacher." he compounds his error by asking, rhetorically, "should we be concerned that college-university teachers of music really think that their subject matter is so unimportant as to do away with this part of a college curricula [sic]?" although the bulk of this dissertation consists of pseudo-statistical operations of the type illustrated above, the second chapter, a "review of related literature," shows how tightly drawn the music education horizon can be. it begins: the area of philosophy related to music education has little or no material from which to draw and only from these in related areas was it possible to make specific references regarding some aspects of music education, its criticisms, its weaknesses, and its strength. it would take a lifetime of reading to absorb even a small part of the literature from plato onward which touches upon mr. johnson's chosen area, but his bibliography lists only seven books, a handful of master's and doctoral theses, and a few articles, all in english. despite his failure to discriminate between his two classes of statement, mr. johnson hopes that the study could be refined by choosing fewer statements, more correspondents, and by concentrating on "the basic objectives" of music education. his complete misunderstanding of the purpose and technique of statistics is summed up in the final horrifying suggestion that 185 all 38,000 music educators of the menc be questioned on "what basic philosophies and attitudes music educators should hold." before marching over the precipice of that objective, mr. johnson should learn that sampling procedures are designed expressly to avoid having to deal with entire populations and that you can't discover what music edu-:ators should believe by finding out what they do believe. one can only hope that this dissertation is not typical of music education doctoral studies. arthur daniels is assistant professor of music at oakland university. josiah darnell an evaluation of the bachelor of music education curriculum at murray state college through an analysis of the opinions of its teaching graduates ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-2257), 1963. (indiana university, ed.d.) james mckinnon this dissertation is an evaluation of a particular curriculum, and logically enough the author begins by explaining why one undertakes an educational evaluation. he does so by quoting what various authorities have to say on the subject. for example, troyer and pace write: \vhat are some of the purposes and values of evaluation? why do we evaluate? one very clear reason is in order to judge the effectiveness of an educational program.l and leonhard informs us that: evaluation enables the teacher to ascertain the effect of the learning experiences of his students and the validity of his teaching methods. 2 thus we learn that the purpose of evaluation is evaluation, and in case the lesson is not grasped it is repeated later in a paragraph which defines educational evaluation: ... the process of judging the effectiveness of educational experience. it includes gathering and summarizing evidence on the extent to which educational values lmaurice e. troyer and c. robert pace, evaluation in teacher education, washington, d.c. 1944, p. 2. 2charles leonhard, "evaluation in music education," basic concepts in music education, fifty-seventh yearbook of the national society for the study of education, part i, chicago 1958, p. 313. 186 giuseppe sarti and mozart's q,uartet, k. 421 william j. mitchell criticisms addressed to' the mqzart quartets, k. 421 in d minqr and k. 465 in c majqr, have been attributed to' giuseppe sarti fqr rqughly a century and a half. cqnceivably, the attributiqn is cqrrect, althqugh the manuscript qf this unpublished writing, addressed to' a milanese yqung lady, has never been fqund, to' the best qf my knqwledge. the available squrces are two' references in the allgemeine musikalische zeitung (33: 540 [august 1824]; 23: 373-78 [june 1832]). the first states briefly that sarti had written osservazioni critiche sopra un quartetto di mozart which had been read by karl mqzart and, accqrding to' karl, by wqlfgang, tqq. bqth repqrtedly felt that it was written in a bitter spirit. the later nqtice is a much mqre detailed , descriptiqn qf the cqntents and qf an anqnymqus milan cqrrespqndent's search fqr the manuscript. he writes: "da es mir nun gelungen ist, dasselbe zu erhalten, so folgt hier der angekiindigte auszug, in dem es sich noch eine andere, als die schon erwiihnte mozart'sche stelle handelt." the title is nqw given as esamo acustico fatto sopra due frammenti di mozart, da giuseppe sarti. while the first nqtice in amz quqtes the beginning qf the c majqr quartet, the secqnd specifies the criticisms qf this wqrk and also' gqes into' a similar denunciatiqn qf the beginning qf the develqpment sectiqn qf the first mqvement qf the d minqr quartet. the quarrel that fqllqwed, presumably launched by sarti, has engaged the attentiqn qf many writers including fetis, oublicheff, j ahn, and ernest newman. it is with misgivings that i, tqq, jqin the fray, fqr it is apparent that little can qr shquld be dqne to' applaud qr lament the clear victqry qf time fqr k. 421 and k. 465. i do' so', hqwever, simply to' underscqre a curiqus preoccupatiqn qf the past and, unfqrtunately, qf the present tqq, with minutiae at the expense qf inclusive meaning. in the case qf the d minqr quartet, the qne qn which i prqpqse to' dwell exclusively, the qver-all pathqs and tragic dispqsitiqn qf the wqrk, qnly fqur years remqved frqm don giovanni, has been iqst in a detailed accqunt qfthe alleged abuses qfpythagq-' rean apotomes, limmas, and minimos. it is the cqntentiqn qf this writer that such criticisms shquld nqt qf necessity be swept under the rug, but that they take qn dwindling significance when they 147 are viewed in terms of the infinite adjustability of the sensitive performer, listener (as opposed to the unyielding mathematically calculated edicts of the herr gottlob who seems to have provided sarti with his intonational ammunition), and the structural analyst who is finally in a position to judge detail in relation to broader sense. the analyst need not restate the tragic essence of the work, for mozart has done it for all time, but he can perhaps suggest the uncanny hearing behind its expressive disposition, without which dark intensity might easily have become bathetic chaos. perhaps out of such a discussion, if successful, there might emerge a keener sense of the nature of musical criticism. in order to comprehend the broad structure of the development section, it is necessary to back up to the end of the exposition. when this is done, it becomes apparent that, whatever significance might be accorded the e [, chord of bar 42, the inclusive plan is the connecting of the mediant chord, previously established as f major, and the a minor-major chord of bars 50 (a minor) to 66 (a major) as in example 1. ex. 1 bars: 40 50 66 iii q-# dill v two prolongations occur in the detailed manifestation of this plan: the technique that leads from the mediant to the dominant harmonies (bars 40-50); the extension whereby the c q of the a chord (bar 50) becomes c# (bar 66) in preparing for the return of the tonic harmony of the recapitulation of bars 70ff. the first of these (bars 40-50) brings to the fore the e [, chord of bar 42. it stands as another token of mozart's procedure in beginning his development sections-the seeking out of a remote base of operations which seems to break with its immediate past while peering ahead to an uncertain future. such apparently radical departures from an established tonal center, whether they occur in k. 421 or in the g minor (k. 550) or c major (k. 551) symphonies, should be enjoyed for their own value but understood analytically in the light of broader relationships. in the case of k. 421, the passage can be most insightfully heard as a voice-leading or horizontally propelled relationship. the outer voice octave, f-f2, of bar 40 moves to 148 e-e1 of bars 45-46 (e1 of bar 45 is an anticipation of the of bar 46). these structural octaves are circumvented by the introduction of ed, eventually bearing the significance of d#, in bars 42-45 in the' manner of example 2. example 2a sketches a generalized background, 2b a more detailed representation of the techniques employed, while 2c graphs the striking connection of the bass's ed and f through a descent of a seventh. ex. 2 bars: 40 45 46 8 b7 (#6) 8 i becomes 42 45 46 47 50 8 10 8 (#6) b. cons .. prep. b. --------------------r it is this passage that reportedly offended sarti who, according to the milan correspondent of amz, wrote: "the e following (bar 45) in failing to go to f, creates an arrant apotome monodico j one of the greatest musical faults. in order to make such a detour, must become d#, which might perhaps have happened here if the had not been clearly established by d in the first quarter of the bar and the two preceding bars; hence it is impossible for the listener to believe that he hears d#, thus being spared from a horrible sensation on the entrance of e." it is not necessary to enter into such notational quibbling, for in the end it is the not the scribe, who must protect us from the horrors of the apotome monodico. the important point is that the critic, presumably sarti, could not have suggested a continuing motion to f if he had perceived, however dimly, the intent of the entire passage. curiously enough, the critic describes mozart as one who "has not concerned himself with counterpoint" (shades of padre martini and thomas attwood!). yet it is only by reference to contrapuntal procedures, now expressed in a highly mature and unique manner, that the structure of the passage can be comprehended. the ed chord, in this sense, stands as consonant preparation for the dissonance of the fseventh or augmented-sixth chord of bar 45. as indicated in 149 example 2b, the guiding outer voice relationships are, 8-10-8 -flat 7 (sharp 6)-8. sarti was correct in construing the ed as, behaviorally, a d#, but hopelessly wrong in reviving memories of. pythagoras to stir up a notational fracas. should the embellishing d of bars 43-45 have been written as and the entire section, bars 42-45, notated as a d# major chord moving eventually to the augmented sixth chord of bar 45? mozart, in all probability, would have answered, no!, but in his colorful salzburgian patois. for sarti's continued good health, it is just as well that he seems to have had no opportunity to examine the third movement, adagio ma non troppo, of the g minor quintet, k. 516, bars 62-64. clearly, pythagoreanisms are not applicable to intensified chromaticism, which must attempt to resolve notational diffi. culties in a staff system that serves only diatonic and the most modest chromatic ventures. the three remaining criticisms addressed to k. 421 are still related to small details and need not detain us in our attempt to reveal an inclusive frame of reference. briefly then: the minor second of bar 54 is considered wrong because it lasts approximately two seconds rather than a proper one second as taught by the science of harmony, or a proper half bar as allowed in the study of counterpoint. the 16th note of the viola, g#, also in bar 54 is considered very harsh even though it is fleeting. the upper tone of the trill in the second violin, bar 55, forms a false octave with c# in the first violin, thus by extension creating another apotome and another instance of depraved taste. missing from these criticisms, and also from all subsequent reviews pro and con of these passages, is any attempt to discover a frame of reference. certainly the harshness of the dissonances represents the brooding expressiveness of the work rather than a model for textbooks in strict counterpoint or harmony. in this sense they are their own justification, if justification is needed. yet it is only through the procedures of counterpoint and harmony, properly extended, that a grasp of these challenging bars . becomes possible. arrival at and extension of the a chord can be most clearly explicated when presented in three sections with a short addendum. they are: affirmation of the a minor chord through its applied dominant, with the posting of the perfect fifth, e2 to at, in the upper parts as a significant interval (bars 46-53); the , 150 reaching of a neighboring-passing chord (upper voices, dlg1, against the bass through a change of octave register (bars 53-56); the downward prolonging of the neighboring-passing chord until its arrival at the a major chord (bars 59-66); the addendum in the form of a return to the tonic d chord (bars 66-70). an inclusive sketch with the sections marked, follows in example 3. ex. 3 i. 2. 3. addend. t # ---------da.d. v llad section 1: the connecting of the upper voice relationship, e down to a, is carried out by a stepwise descent, leading first from e to c in bar 50, and then by a filled-in fifth (bar 50-53) initially interrupted by the gently frustrating of bar 51, and then completed in the succeeding bars. the course of action is sketched in example 4. ex. 4 bars: 46 50 53 ad section 2: the connection of the a minor chord (bar 53) with the neighboring-passing chord (bar 59) is paralleled by a change of register as represented in example 5. the first illustraex. 5 bars: 53 56 59 --] .... _ .... b. thus 151 \ " , 0 -..... +'" '" i i-.if) i '" i ii i i i i i i • i i i i + i i i i i '" i i '" i i i i i l , i i i i i i :( • i i i i i , i " . • z \, i ,. ( " • i• i .... :> '" .s "'"':> if) '" aif) z '" if) '" if) :> \0 m 6 !xi 152 tion (example 5a) sketches the direct one-register connection; 5b illustrates the techniques that bring about a change of register. ad section 3 and the addendum: example 6 outlines the long descent from the high d of bar 59 to the lower d and c# of bars 65-66. the addendum is included. one final summary sketch remains, the aim of which is to represent the over-all shape of this, to say the least, remarkable development section. ex. 7 8 8 4 # diii i!.regardless of whether there might be agreement or disagreement on the manner or the matter of sketching the structural elements pf the development of the first movement of k. 421, one thing should be clear: in the light of the sweeping persuasive force of the whole, apotomes, limmas, and minimos must be reinterred in their respective pyramids. but perhaps more than this, one must wish, i suppose in vain, that our critics and historians, if not our theorists and analysts, had a greater sense of the relationship of the detail to the pervasive whole. one can be thankful that paul henry lang, to whom this article is respectfully dedicated, although he has never to my knowledge made a graphic analysis, has nevertheless demonstrated with constancy in his musical views an insight and judgment that often follow from or may be demonstrably present in this kind of structural analytic activity. ) 153 q,ue me veux-tu?" the enigma of french musical aesthetics in the i 8th century maria rika maniates le xviii e siecle ouvre une ere nouvelle dans l'histoire de l'esthetique musicale. peu a peu, les nombres cartesians s'effacent devant les magies romantiques, tandis que ie dogmatisme, combattu par l'«empirisme' passionel», s'effondre, laissant au criticisme ie soin de reconstruire l'esthetique (brelet 1958: 398). the above quotation illustrates a common approach polarizing the 18th century into two antipodes: the eadier part dominated jby "rationalism" and the later part dominated by "romanticism." this influential point of view has resulted in a conception of 18th-century aesthetics as either the outmoded remains of 17th-century ideas or the embryonic development of 19thcentury thought. l in musical aesthetics, the age of enlightenment indeed presents several obscure aspects to the modern researcher. 18thcentury writers based their theories of musical forms, style, anq. j taste, on the fundamental postulate that there existed a causal nexus between music and emotion. to be sure, the acknowledgment of this relationship was not an exclusive achievement of the 18th century. the idea oflinking music and emotion can be seen weaving its way, like an ariadne's thread, through the labyrinth of musical philosophy from plato's time to the present day. in the 17th century this idea became the central thesis of a philosophy of musical expression and as such, was inherited by 18th-century thought. however, an understanding of musical' aesthetics in the earlier part of the 18th century cannot be won by viewing these ideas of musical expression solely from the conceptual framework of baroque affektenlehre. nor does the gradual appearance of theories of inherent musical expressivityin the later part of the century represent only a move to preromantic philosophy. both questions and answers in musical aesthetics and criticism in this era arise out of the particular philosophicalmilieu created by primary notions of the meaning and significance of music. this ambience is obviously connected chronologically 117 \ and spiritually to both the 17th and 19th centuries; yet it has certain salient that are the hallmarks of a unique intellectual situation. it is the topography of this situation that we must come to know. there are several avenues that can lead to a detailed picture of this terrain. since the aesthetic of opera and dramatic music has been relatively well mapped out and, in a way, constitutes a special branch of musical criticism, it can be omitted for the purposes of this investigation. instead we will concentrate on more tortuous byways-attitudes toward absolute music. the striking difficulties 18th-century philosophers experienced in coming to terms with one of the most important developments in music of their own century lay bare the assumptions of their musical philosophy. by examining this problem, we may clarify two obscure . aspects of 18th-century thought: the fundamental concept of musical significance and the meaning of music. the inevitable juncture of these two theories occurs at the focal crossroads of 18th-century musical aesthetics. progression to this point of confrontation can be traced by following the french careers of the two most ubiquitous terms in 18thcentury european aesthetics-expression and imitation.2 the apparent predominance of linguistic terminology in french aesthetics was a holdover from the baroque doctrine of the affections. in the 17th century, the rational theory of the passions rested on the cartesian principle of the concrete and individual nature of emotions (schueller 1948: 546). the portrayal of these passions in music was inextricably bound up with a rhetorical concept of music as a language with a grammar and vocabulary of expressive techniques and devices (kretzschmar 1912). such a concept was feasible because the affections were thought of not as mysterious, ephemeral emotions of the psyche, but rather as clear, static states of mind. thus, the presentation of passions in music could be rationally stereotyped into sets of figures and patterns. bukofzer points out that these figures and patterns did not express but merely presented the affections. in this way, a specific pattern was not considered as inherently suited to "express" a particular passion, and various affections could often be "presented" by similar or identical figures. the distinctly rational and intellectual connotation of the , doctrine of figures was a direct outgrowth of a highly character118 istic attitude toward concrete and abstract concepts in baroque thought, which tried to render abstract ideas concretely· and concrete things abstractly. a strictly musical idea was therefore at once concrete and abstract, it presented an abstract affection in concrete form, and for this reason the figure has a structural significance for the entire composition (bukofzer 1947: 389-90). in baroque instrumental rriusic, then, a composition is dominated by one mood presented by one figure: hence the structural unity of baroque ,style. the motivic fragmentation of preclassic style, stimulated by dramatic principles derived in part from opera, brought together many moods and affections in continuous juxtaposition. the mature classic style further refined the structural function of contrasting elements in composition with the resultant illusion that emotiona1 qualities are not merely presented, but rather embodied within the musical elements themselves. baroque aesthetics is concerned with the objective aspect of emotion and music, that is, with the representation of certain abstract affections by stereotyped musical figures. the 18th century swings the tangent in the opposite direction and discusses emotion in terms of the reaction of the listener. the importance of personal sentiment in 18th-century thought is demonstrated by rivarol's essay, de l' homme intellectuel et moral. " in this study he states that sentiment is the source of rational thought, perception, and even sensation, and that genius possesses sentiment in the highest possible degree (rivarol 1808: 4-9, 125). this essentially subjective attitude is ..; illustrated by the persistent congern with taste in 18th-century aesthetics. cartaud. de la villate, for example, rejects the mathematical explanation of music in these terms: on feroit un peu trop d'honneur a nos maitres de musique si on 1es croyoit de grands mathematiciens; une science dont 1es principes varient se10n 1es caprices du gout ne peut etre etablie sur 1es regles immuab1es des proportions (cartaud de 1a villate 1736: 191). the problems posed by the conflict between absolute and relative criteria of taste in the 18th century is a separate study in itself (cf. smith 1937 and chambers 1932). the subjective approach of the age of sensibility has a special import arising out of the accepted connection between emotion . in music and emotion aroused in the listener. baroque aesthetics 119 j operates on the premise of a clearly conceived dichotomy between the affection objectively presented by the musical figures and the emotions subjectively present in the listener. in the 18th century th.is duality is abandoned. indeed, the aesv the tics of this period operates on the premise that the emotion expressed in the music is the same as that which the auditor experiences on hearing the music. in criticizing 18th-century writers for failing to distinguish between the two, wessel implies that this failure is due to ,a lack of clarity in their thinking (wessel 1955: 2-3). far from being a shortcoming, this identification of the objective-subjective states of emotion in the aesthetic situation represents a recognition of emotive reaction to music, and thus functions as the tacit thesis on which 18thcentury aestheticians built their theories of the human significance of music.3 ! the human significance of all the arts finds its expression in a general proposition, developed from aristotelian mimesis,4 concerning universal imitation of nature. musical imitation of nature forms a special, and problematical, category of this general concept.5 before embarking upon a discussion of musical imitation, it might be advisable to. consider the various ideas connoted by the generic term "nature," ideas that augmented the complexity of the theory of imitation itself. from the writings of this period there emerge five categories of nature: 1. empirical realiry (a) human nature: the "natural" expression of the passions (b) relations between cause and effect in human experience (c) the world of visible objects and audible noises 2. ideal rype (a) "ia belle nature": idealized forms as models for artistic adornment 3. system cif self-evident truth (a) properties and relations of essences 4. universe cif feeling and taste (a) what is sensually perceived and immediately enjoyed (b) representation of types and absolute aesthetic validity 5 .. primitive and un-artistic (a) primitive man seen as "natural"6 ecorcheville quotes a well-known couplet the time which 120 sums up the general viewpoint of 18th-century thought in france: et la musique doit, ainsi que la peinture retracer a nos sens ie vraie de la nature (ecorcheville 1906: 27) the most outstanding characteristic of french aesthetics is the 1 persistant attempt throughout the century, with the exception of a few· writers, to include music in the general theory of the imitation of nature. music, as well as painting and poetry, has the power to "paint" and therefore to "imitate" and "express." c'est [music], sije ne me trompe, l'art de peindre et demouvoir par ie moyen des sons (laugier 1754: 4; cf. borrel 1960). it is significant that early writers, such as crousaz, dubos,and andre, include their discussion of music in philosophical works about art and beauty. books dealing only with music do not appear until the mid-century. although a rational bias in these early writings is evident, it is not entirely accurate to say that their concept of beauty is independent of the sentiments (lang 1941 : 430). to be sure, these aestheticians still harken to boileau's precept, "rien n'est beau que ie vraie," meaning that art must imitate real nature and thus become "tin tableau fideie de la nature" (blainville 1754: 33). hazard's one-sided interpretation of truth and beauty is seen in his comment on the problem of relative beauty in andre's thought: of course there was one way out of the dilemma, or, rather a way of not getting into it at all. all that was necessary was to stand firmly by the classical doctrine. beauty was a reflection of the true. mter that, there was nothing more to be said (hazard 1954: 357). as we shall see, there remained a great deal more to be said. only when nature is seen as the abstract, general type (category 2) does beauty become synonymous with clarity and truth. here the rational emphasis on the intellect reigns supreme. one scholar characterizes this early period of aesthetics as one in which writers ignore all spiritual elements that cannot be grasped by the intellect (goldschmidt 1915: 33). andre, however, distinguishes two meanings of beauty, one dependent on rational logic and one dependent on sentiment. 121 ii y a un beau relatif a nos sentimens: et qui nous cause quelque plaisir; il y a un autre qui ne depend que de la speculation (andre 1741: xiv). the picture is not quite so bleak as goldschmidt paints it, for ii [alongside of the concept of nature as the ideal type, there exists the idea of human nature comprised of the passions and sentiments. this latter notion exerts a strong influence on the theory of artistic imitation. it is here that the cartesian doctrine of the passions instituted a traditional emphasis on the naturalness and reasonableness of imitation (robertson 1923: 203). the rational propensity of the early 18th century is also balanced by the hedonistic view which postulates that the natural purpose of art is to please and that musical composition is the art of combining sounds in a manner agreeable to the ear. les beaux arts ne se proposent pas seulement d'imiter, ils veulent plaire (lacombe 1758: 12). le but directe de tous les arts est de plaire; ils ne sont plus propres a aucune fonction, desque ceile-ia n'est pas remplie (chabanon 1785: 387). scholarly attention given to the intellectual aspect of the theory of imitation has produced an overemphasis on the artificial and rational character of this doctrine. we must not neglect another equally important facet of french thought-the stress laid on "naturalness" and "appropriateness." in the 17th century the peculiarly french notion of bienseance led to an interpretation, or misinterpretation, of aristotle's poetics that contributed to the theoretical foundation of french classical tragedy. this notion, related to aristotelian mimesis, appears again in 18th-century aesthetics. attention must be drawn at this point to the first category of nature in which. the natural expression of the passions is outlined. a desire to establish an underlying aesthetic unity for all the beaux arts permeates the whole of french aesthetics. this unity is found in aristotle's theory of imitation. revered tradition of positing the correspondence among the arts on their common imitative nature begins with batteux's famous book, les beaux arts reduits a un.mtme principe, 1746 (serauky 1949-51). batteux's essay constitutes the first systematic formulation of this theory and was well knowp, if not notorious, in england and germany where it received numerous editions and translations (schenker 1909). 122 the theories of imitation and the natural expression of the passions converge in french aesthetics into a conception of poetry and painting as the most natural imitations of nature. in this context music presents difficulties whose solutions will be studied in more detail in the course of this essay. at this point, it is sufficient· to sketch in brief the place occupied by music in the imitative hierarchy. music rests on a slightly lower level than poetry because its imitation of emotion is less natural and specific than that of the latter art.' musical imitation thus becomes dominated by linguistic principles as a result of its imperfect power.7 the joining of music and language takes the form of two theories: (1) words can give music concreteness of emotional association and meaning which alone it cannot possess; (2) in order for music to approach the most natural manner of imitating passions, it must imitate declamation. dubos (serauky 1954) is one of the first writers in france to discuss the relationship of music and emotion.s true to the tenor of the times, dubos begins with a reference to classical authority: aristides quintilian a dit que ie chant, que ie musique, par rapport a l'esprit dans lyquel elle a ete composee, et a l'effet qu'on a vpulu lui faire produire, se peut partager en musique qui nous porte a l'affiiction, en musique qui nous rend gais et nous anime; et en musique qui nous calme en appaisant nos agitations (dubos 1719,3:43-44). dubos evidently echoes the classical concept. of ethos based on the idea that music can have a direct and immediate effect on the listener arousing in him an emotion of character. this specificity of emotion is central to early french aesthetics and is one evidence of the continuing influence of baroque affektenlehre, except that the emotion in question is translated into subjective terms. and in this translation lie the seeds of future difficulties. dubos supports his thesis by suggesting that nature has marked each passion or affection with its unique visual expression, tone, and gesture (ibid. 234). he even goes so far as to maintain that absolute music is capable of arousing specific emotions: les symphonies etoient susceptibles, ainsi que sont les chants musicaux composes sur des paroles, d'un caractere particulier qui rendent ces symphonies capable de nous affecter diversement, en nous inspirant tan tot de la gayete, tan tot de la tristesse, tan tot des sentimens de devotion (ibid., 44). 123 in this latter view he is seconded by caitaud de la villate who feels that an elegaic melody without words moves everyone (cartaud de la villate 1736: 290). the philosophical difficulty posed by such an interpretation is recognized by later writers who attempt to solve it in various ways. batteux, for example, simply evades the issue by ignoring the fact that specific emotions in music often cannot be identified: ii suffit qu'on ie [emotion] sent, il n'est pas necessaire de ie nommer. le coeur a son intelligence independent des mots, et quand il est touche, il a tout compris (batteux 1746: 285-86). the fact that this unsatisfactory statement really fails to define musical emotion led chabanon (sorel-nitzberg 1952) to formulate his theory of general musical characters. departing from his idea of music as empirical sensation, chabanon reduces musical character to four basic types: "tendre, gracieuse, gaie et vive" (chabanon, 1779: 26). he never clearly explains the difference between his general characters and specific emotions, or between his general characters and baroque affections. nevertheless, his theory enjoyed considerable reputation in the 18th century. laborde (briquet 1960) lists several supporters of chabanon and agrees with them in stating that "la musique ne peut rendre que les masses de sentimens, comme la douleur, la joie et la haine, mais jamais les details, comme ie dedain, ie mepris, ie soupc;on" (laborde 1780: 656-57). whether an undifferentiated emotion such as sadness or hate can exist or not is, of course, a moot point still in the forefront of emotive aesthetics in the 20th century. it is in this framework that theories linking music and language come to the rescue of the floundering concept of musical emotion. blainville (borrel 1949-51), one of the champions of this approach, limits specific emotions to song, or, as he calls it, the genre cantabile: ce genre ajoute a la parole, anime les mouvemens des passions, soit de joie ou de tristesse, de crainte ou de fureur ... (blainville 1754: 13). his two other genres, the harmonico and sonabile, consist of meaningless instrumental music such as that of locatelli and vivaldi i · (ibid., 7-8). by joining words with music, a composition becomes capable of expressing and arousing specific emotions. without words, music lacks emotional significance and is devoid of 124 meaning. cartaud de la villate, for example, criticizes italian h instrumental music in similar terms: la musique italienne, livree aux meditations d'une oreille slsavante, neglige trop les du coeur. la plus belle voix lasse quand eile parle a vuide. un concert sans paroles, ou des airs qui ne sont pas montes sur l'accent ordinaire des passions, sont des . machines mouvantes qui articuleroient des pas bien cadences sans aucune trace exterieure de sentiment (cartaud de la villate 1736: 313). while blainville uses language, somewhat lamely, to bolster the emotive interpretation of music, boyeuses precisely the same approach to destroy it. in his amusing and provocative tract,9 he flatly poses the question, "la musique peut-eue exprimer les passions?" (boye 1779: 3). his whole leaflet echoes with a resounding "mais non!" he notes that it is useless to suggest, as do the encyclopedist circle and rousseau, that music should imitate the declamatory manner in order effectively to express passion. his reason reveals a remarkably astute grasp of communication theory; he intimates that words have fixed sounds and meanings (langer's discursive symbolism) whereas a musical note is indeterminate in this respect (ibid., 7). entin, tout l'art musical possible ne sauroit noter ni les cris, ni. les plaintes, ni les gemissemens, ni les exclamations, ni les sanglots, ni les ris, ni les pleurs: c'est un fait incontestable (ibid., 6). in reply to objections raised by an imaginary adversary in the person of a female qpera lover, boye says that her emotions are aroused not by the music itself, but by the libretto and the acting. boye suggests that music may possess several characters, the principal one being joyousness (ibid., 32); but these characters are simply modifications of style rather than expressions of emotion (ibid., 15). he objects vehemently to the current confusion of character and passion with a reference to his cook: s'il etoit permis de confondre ainsi les caracteres avec les passions, quoique les uns soient aux autres, a-peu-pres, ce que ie repos est au mouvement; ma robe de chambre auroit donc de l'expression; car, ma cuisiniere me disoit l'autre jour que ie dessein en est triste (ibid., 15-16). boye evidently differentiates between passion and character by describing the first as animated and the second as static. like chabanon, boye is here returning to a more baroque concept of 125 static, abstract emotion represented in music. furthermore, his parallel between style and character vexes the modern reader by its elusive and incomplete exposition. at any rate, it appears that music with words is a dubious solution to the problem of emotion in music, for it can be used both positively and negatively. such a theory, however, is only one of two ways by which music and language can be associated. the second develops within the doctrine of imitation. musical imitation of nature presents only one facet of the imitative character shared by all the arts as postulated by batteux. according to this writer, each art imitates nature by its own means. the function of all art is to transport the traits of nature and to portray them through elements which are not in themselves natural. lemusicien par des sons artificiels fait gronder liorage tandis que tout est calme (batteux 1746: 13). batteux elucidates two categories of imitation, both of which belong to the first type of nature-empirical reality: (1) the imitation of sounds and noises, or non-emotional imitation, and (2) the imitation of animated sounds and passions which he calls "tableaux a personnages" (ibid., 283). in his famous article in the mercure de france, morellet makes the same division into physical nature and human passion (morellet 1771: 114). in discussing the first type of imitation, moreilet likens music to a metaphorical or onomatapoetical language. the musician chooses objects in nature that can be imitated by sounds or motion so that both the objects and their imitation have one element in common. he admits that this type of imitation implies resemblances or rather analogies, a weak form of imitation. lacombe also discusses musical imitation of natural objects in terms of movement and sound (lacombe 1758: 252), and chastises absolute music for failing to incorporate this type of imitation: vne suite de ces tableaux de musique [imitations of dawn, storms, etc.] ne seroit-elle pas plus interessante que la plupart de nos symphonies, de nos concerts, de nos sonates, de nos ouvertures qui ne forment, pour l'ordinaire, a bien appn!cier, qu'un bruit harmonieux sans vie et sans expression, et qui ne devroient etre regardes que comme ces traits, ou ces academies que font les jeunes peintres pour s'exercer (ibid., 255). this rather harsh evaluation of instrumental music is typical of l26 the period. for lacornbe, non-imitative instrumental music is ii nothing but "a harmonious noise without life and expression." musical imitation is extremely limited in comparison with painting and poetry because only certain things are suited to musical painting-twittering of birds, cries of people, bubbling of water, etc. (ibid., 256ff.). lacombe states that harmony dominates compositions which imitate objects, while melody dominates those which express passions (ibid., 308). this latter idea brings us to the second of batteux's imitative categories, the expression of passion. batteux implies, as does lacombe, that melody or song is superior to instrumental music which possesses only "une demie-vie et ie moitie de son etre" (batteux 1746: 284).10 from this point batteux concludes that the expressiveness of song is completely significative because song is "ie tableau du coeur humain" (ibid., 284). the idea that good melody imitates the accents and inflexions of the voice appears early in the 18th century (dubos 1719, 1: 430). the most influential exponents of this theory in the 18th century are diderot, rousseau, and the encyclopedists. their basic assumption is the necessity of imitation and painting in music. un concert, une sonate, doivent peindre quelque chose, ou ne sont que de bruit, harmonieux, si l'on veut, mais sans vie (cahusac 1751-65,6: 315a). the fact that the above statement occurs in an article on "expression" in the encyclopedic raises a question of terminology. cahusac, the author of this article, provides a clue in another entry on "enthousiasme." here he writes "qu'il n'existe point de musique digne de ce nom qui n'ait peint une ou plusiers images: son but est d' emouvoir par l' expression, et il n'y a point d'expression sans peinture" (ibid., 5: 12ib). cahusac seems to imply that expression cannot exist without imitation. elsewhere in the "expression" article, he is even more explicit. speaking of painting, poetry, and music as imitative arts, he specifies: chacun de ces arts a et doit avoir une expression, parce qu'on n'imite point sans exprimer, ou plutot que l'expression est l'imitation meme (ibid., 6: 315a). this identification of expression and imitation not only aids in understanding encyclopedist theories, but also sheds light on the 127 basic assumptions of 18th-century aesthetics. although he does not belong to the philosophe circle, morellet sums up their point of view exactly in his introduction: je regard comme au moins dans la question presente, les termes ex primer et peindre ... et comme toute peinture' est une imitation, demander si la musique a de l'expression et en quoi cette expression consiste, c'est demander si la musique imite et comment (morellet 1771: 114). the encyclopedists are not concerned so much with the imitation of physical objects as with the expression of the passions in music. diderot (launay 1954) treats both aspects in le neveu de rameau, but the bulk of the discussion centers around opera and expressing the passions (diderot 1761-62: 128; cf. lang 1968). rousseau (cotte 1963) in his dictionnaire refers to batteux's two types of imitation, but he corrects the latter's classification by making the first category part of the second: 11 [the musician] ne represent pas directement ces choses [water, thunder, etc.] mais il excitera dans l'ame les memes mouvemeiis qu'on eprouve en les voyant (rousseau 1768: 253-54, "imita'tion") . .; thus, even the depiction of natural objects becomes dependent on exciting empathetic sentiments in the listener. it is not necessary to dwell on the fact that in the 20th century theories of empathy, analogy, and resemblance still lie at the basis of symbolic or, psychological explanations of the correlation between emotion embodied and experienced in the aesthetic situation. for rousseau, the dominance of melody and song is inherent in the concept of musical expression-imitation. in his essai sur l'origine des langues he dismisses sensory data as operative elements in the aesthetic effect of a work of art. having declared the primacy of imitation at the expense of the sensuous aspect of / art, rousseau proceeds to say t}lat in painting, pure colors only v please the eye. it is the design, or the imitation, which gives life and spirit to the colors enabling them to express passion 'and represent objects (rouseau 1753+61: 297). he then makes his cardinal point: la melodie fait precisement dans la musique ce que fait ie dessein dans la peinture (ibid., 298). / since melody and song are considered the most natural expressions of emotion, it follows logically for writers in this 128 tradition to maintain that instrumental music must imitate song in order to acquire expressive power. ainsi, c'est toujours du chant que se doit tirer la principale expression, tant dans la musique instrumentale que dans la vocale (rousseau 1768: 211, "expression"). blainville also relegates instrumental music to an inferior position when he states that music moves the soul "par la voix ou par les instrumens. on peut dire que ie chant tient ses beautes de la nature, comme de la premiere main, et que la symphonie les a qu' en seconde. le chant est la nature meme, dont la symphonie n'est qu'une foible imitation" (blainville 1754: 117-18). in this remark we discern the reason why absolute music is held.in such low esteem. it is essentially an imitatio:q. of an imitation, or in other words, its expression of the passions is twice removed from the original. absolute music, limited by the lack of a vocal medium, enjoys at best only a "demie-vie" which it can strengthen by imitating song. but it can never equal vocal music in the natural expression and imitation of emotions. what precisely is understood by "chant" or "melodie"-the model of all expressive music? it appears from the preceding discussion that 18th-century writers have in mind a type of melody which they feel is the very soul of natural emotional expressivity. lacombe remarks that such, melody does not strive ta "paint" individual words (as did baroque figural devices) but rather to imitate the sentiments of the entire passage (lacombe 1758: 291). this is accomplished by means of a natural declamatory style. chabanon cites as excellent examples of melodic declamation two passages from pergolesi's la serva padrona and monsigny's rose 'et colas which express respectively impatience and irony (chabanon 1779: 159). 18th-century ideals of natural declamation are relevant to theories of dramatic music and opera in particular, and as such do not form a central focus in this essay. more important is the influence of this ideal on other genres of music, since aestheticians of this period freely translated this concept into a general precept: l'expression de la musique [instrumental] et de la dance doit avoir les memes qualites naturelles, que l'eloquence oratoire (batteux 1746: 287). 129 under this general precept, even absolute music becomes a "language of emotion" : ii est aussi des morceaux de musique purement instrumentales, suivis avec tant de verite, qu'ils semblent suggerer des paroles, des idees de passions, d'image ou de peinture: telle me semble etre la musique de tartini, vrai langage des sons; phrases musicales, fondes sur la melodie la plus pure, et sur l'art de faire chanter ie violon. en effet, ses concerts sont vraiment ie triomphe de cet instrument, qui semble alors declamer un beau discours, auquelles autres parties ne paroissent jointes que pour entretenir ie ton et la liaison des idees. (blainville 1754: 86). contrary to both cartaud de la villate and morellet, blainville. praises at least one italian composer of instrumental music. evidently, blainville does not place tartini in the same pejorative category as locatelli and vivaldi. the words used to describe tartini's excellence are significant: tartini's music is a language of sounds in which the violin sings and declaims a beautiful discourse. these words are .not idle metaphors; they reveal g lainville,s linguistic terms of reference and expose the underlying ideal of melodic declamation. the more closely music / resembles the accents of passionate speech, the mor. e vividly it imitates the emotions; herein, lies its expressive power and , meaning. this. attitude is a marked characteristic of french musical thought. it is not insignificant that chamber music was published in paris at this time under such titles as conversation.ll the notion of discourse was so popular in france that even some of haydn's quartets and symphonies were published under the title of quatuor dialogue.i2 since all expressive music is by definition linked to speech {/" patterns, any instrumental piece could be easily adapted for the voice by adding words (chabanon 1779: 81). the implication of a quasi-vocal style is evident in this statement. furthermore, chabanon is willing to admit that words would make the expression of such a piece fixed and precise (ibid., 195). by this he does not mean to imply that music is totally inexpressive without words. he suggests that words help the ignorant pinpoint the character of a composition, but that a musical person is capable of grasping this character totally in musical terms. if orchestral players accompanying a singer were asked what the singer is expressing, they would repeat the, melody on their instruments and answer, "viola ce que ie chanteur a dit" (ibid., 46-7). 130 despite his gallant attempt to justify. a theory of inherent expressivity in absolute music, the expression of individual emotions in instrumental music posed a real problem for chabanon, a problem he to solve with his theory of basic characters. declamation and language influence still other aspects of musical speculation. cahusac, in the encyclopmie, explains the phenomenon of national styles in instrumental music in these terms: les instrumens d'ailleurs n'ayant ete inventes que pour imiter les sons de la voix, il s'ensuit aussi que la musique instrumentale des differentes nations doit avoir necessairement quelque air du pays qu elle est composee (cahusac 1751-65, 3: 142a, "chant"). the concept that musical style springs from linguistic differences comes from the theory that music and language were the first expressions of emotion in primitive man. since music became separated from language in. the course of human evolution, it still tends to imitate the declamation of the latter for expressive purposes. rousseau's celebrated arguments in his lettre sur la musique franfaise (1753) depend on this theory. rousseau claims that the superiority of the italian language over the french accounts for the more natural and expressive qualities of italian music. of french music and language he says: premierement ie defaut d'eclat dans ie son des voyelles obligeroit d'en donner beaucoup a celui des notes, et parceque la langue seroit sourde, ia musique seroit criarde (rousseau 1753: 347). rousseau's public "letter," of course, forms part of the querelle des bouijons centering around the controversy over the relative merits of italian and french opera. thus rousseau's arguments focus on vocal music. the ramifications of this idea, however, can be seen in blainville's generalization: en effet, ie genre d'une musique nait particulierement du caractere de la langue d'une nation (blainville 1754: 43). theories of interrelated national character, language, and style, together with speculation on primitive man as the source (category 5 of nature) all converge to elucidate the "natural expressiveness" of music. grimm, for example, introduces a new twist to an old problem. he proposes that music, born as expression of passion in primitive man, functions as a universal language addressed to humanity's emotional being. for this 5+c.m. 131 reason, its meaning is necessarily vague, and words are needed to make this emotional meaning precise (grimm 1751-65, 12: 824b, "poeme 1yrique"). the inability of most 18th-century writers in france to conceptualize absolute music as meaningful and significant finds its epitome in the apostrophe attributed to fontenelle: sonate, . que me veux-tu? boye has little patience with this attitude and . rejects the relevancy of fontenelle's query (boye 1779: 40). he counters the prevalent opinion that words alone give emotional precision to music with the idea that both words and music must \ have ap.propriate emotional qualities in order for a vocal piece to express a particular passion. words alone are not enough. the \ accompaniment must also have its own "character" which \ i contributes to the total effect-"character" here understood i vaguely as "style." he illustrates his point with two operatic arias. the first, "ah! laissez-moi donc pleurer" from gretry's :(,emire et azor, is cited as an example of the successful union of poetic and musical expression. not so with orfeo's lament from orfeo ed euridice by gluck. in this case the music fails to live up to its half of the bargain. the text expresses sorrow, but the music, according to boye, lacks the corresponding character. he baldly states that the words could designate a joyous feeling equally well, and suggests a substitute text: j'ai perdu mon euridice, j'ai trouve mon euridice, rien n'egale mon malheur; rien n'egale mon bonheur; sort cruel, quells momens! quelle rig-eur, quels transports! rien n'egale mon malheur. rien n'egale mon bonheur. in performance the singer corrects the defect in gluck's music by his acting (ibid., 13-14). limited by his own philosophical assumptions, boye is unable to extrapolate the basic questions raised by his illustration; the relation of text and music in an aria is different and more subtle than in a recitative, especially when one is confronted with gluck's lyrical restraint and sublimated expressivity. yet this .specific controversy has survived into modern aesthetics via hanslick who lifted boyes discussion bodily into his own treatise of 1854, the beautiful in music (vom musikalisch-scmnen) .13 three leading aestheticians of the later 18th century attempt, each in his own way, to resolve the problem posed by the confrontation of two philosophical concepts: the universal 132 significance of music based on the imitation of passionate human expression, and the meaning of absolute music. the solutions of morellet, chabanon, and boye represent a progression from a positive to a negative evaluation of both. in spite of the obvious differences in vocabulary and technique between these writers and modern philosophers, there appears a striking similarity of views and methods in 18thand 20th-century emotive aesthetics. old topoi of content revive in new configurations of form. although morellet subscribes to the encyclopedist theory of musical imitation, he finds that he must refine this theory in order to accommodate a reasonable defense of innate musical expression proper to instrumental music. he states that all passions have their individual, natural declamation which can be divided into two types-inarticulate cries and articulate discourse. music imitates the former and in this imitation lies the secret of its charm. instrumental music also imitates the accents of passion, but it is impossible to name the passion imitated. to objections raised against the idea that instrumental music imitates declamation, morellet points out that .such ,a ! theory is not as arbitrary as it would seem on the surface (morellet 1771: 128). by imitating natural declamation, instrumental music does not necessarily imitate discourse, but 'rather the r inarticulate cries of man. the passions expressed by discourse can be recognized and named, but those expressed by inarticulate cries remain vague and undefinable.l4 this intellectual play on words and concepts demonstrates the length to which an 18thcentury aesthetician was forced to go in order to elasticize an inflexible system of thought. i morellet admits that such musical imitation is often imperfect (ibid., 135). he points out, however, that it is an error to demand '. exactness of artistic imitation: l'imitation dans tous les arts doit embellir la nature (ibid., 132). artistic imitation is, in a sense, an illusion (ibid., 133). thus morellet cites the idea of imitative embellishment of nature (category 2-ideal type) to support his theory that the imperfect, illusionistic imitation of absolute music is not a defect but a virtue-indeed it becomes the principal source of music's charm: eue [music] peut se contenter d'une imitation legere; que ce ne sera pas en elle une faiblesse, mais delicatesse d'expression; que des analogies foibles seront pour elle des moyens vraies et que ses 133 portraits seront tres-ressemblens, sinon par l'exactitude de chaque trait, au moins par ie nombre des similitudes qu'elle aura situ rassembler, et enfin que l'imitation et l'expression lui appartennent peut-etre a un aussi haut degre qu'aux autres arts qui ont sur nous un si grand empire et quijettent nos sens et notre imagination dans si douces illusions (ibid., 142). morellet's apology represents not only a justification of the capacity of instrumental music to express emotion, but also a defense of the entire imitative doctrine as applied to the arts. in spite of. its great popularity, this interpretation was not without opponents. chabanon takes issue with several ideas assumed by proponents of the theory of imitation. first of all, he stresses the sensual enjoyment of music at the expense of the importance of imitation as an aesthetic criterion, thus emphasizing the fourth category of nature. la musique au contraireplait sans imitation, par les sensations qu'elle procure (chabanon 1779: 43). consequently, he places no value on imitation in instrumental music. imitation of emotions is out of the question since music is incapable of painting any individual, concrete passion, and imitation of physical objects can be considered nothing better than mildly amusing play unless linked to a dramatic situation. as an example of the latter; he cites the overture to pygmalion which represents a storm. because it precedes the scene of an agitated woman awaiting her lover, this imitation becomes imbued with tragic overtones that would be entirely missing if the overture were played on the concert stage (ibid., 44). rousseau and the encyclopedists come under heavy fire,15 chabanon criticizes them severely for maintaining that vocal music preceded instrumental because· song was supposedly the first and hence the natural expression of emotion in primitive society. their error, according to chabanon, consists in presuming that the word is the mother of song. he suggests that it is much more likely that primitive man expressed his feelings first in wordless song. hence, song is the mother of speech. logically, then, instrumental music preceded vocal music, because a song without words is equivalent to instrumental music (ibid., 54-7). turning to song itself, chabanon denies rousseau's assertion that the merit of song is to resemble discourse by pointing out 134 that the least musical part of music is simple recitative (ibid., 60). this opinion is shared by boye who states: la musique qui approche ie plus de i'expression est ia plus ennuyeuse (boye 1779: 17). by "expression," boye refers to the oratorical declamation advocated by the encyclopedists by virtue of which recitative rates as the most expressive aspect of music. chabanon's objection to the declamatory theory, then, rests on the thesis that it tends to ignore the innately musical elements of expressivity in melody. rousseau and his colleagues built a general theory of musical expression on a very limited conception of song. if this conception were expanded to admit lyrical melody whose meaningfulness and expressivity reside solely within a musical structure that is independent of verbal declamation, then it . becomes possible to adumbrate a theory of significance and expression for music without words. unfortunately, such a theory does not find its formulation in chabanon's writings, or for that matter, in the writings of any french aesthetician in the 18th century. boye in his inimitable style also opposes the idea that music imitates passionate declamation: un compositeur qui pretend copier les accens passiones de la nature, est donc aussi ridicule que quelqu'un qui voudroit former tous les mots imaginables avec trois lettres de l' alphabet (boye 1779: 8). he dismisses musical imitation of physical objects in short order. natural sounds are noises and therefore have nothing in common with music. admitting that music is capable of imitating bird calls, he asks what possible contribution such imitation can make to expressivity (ibid., 19-21). sarcasm is showered on rousseau's idea that music imitates objects by awakening in the soul the same feeling that one experiences on seeing the object (ibid. 23). if music does not imitate natural phenomena or express human passions, what is its significance for boye? mter roundly rejecting musical imitation, boye finishes his pugnacious little pamphlet with his first positive statement: a negative definition of music: l'objet principal de la musique est de nous plaire physiquement, sans que l'esprit se mette en peine de lui chercher d'inutiles comparisons. on doit la regarder absolument comme un plaisir de sens, et non de l'intelligence (ibid., 23). 135 foreseeing the inevitable objections that his definition degrades music, boye closes his argument with the following broadside: pour moi, lorsque certains effets de musique repandent dans toutes les parties de mon etre ce fremissement volupteux qu'on nomme vulgairement, chair de paule; je prefere cette jouissance precieuse a toutes les tempetes des froides observateurs; de meme que lorsque colas embrasse sa maitresse, il y prend bien plus de plaisir qu'a toutes les comparaisons qu'on pourroit faire sur l'amour (ibid., 26). pursuing the pros and cons of imitative theories has lead boye into a cul-de-sac in which music is relegated to the rank of a purely visceral pleasure. while boye's open espousal of a sensual appreciation of music is refreshing, especially in comparison with the stilted and somewhat frigid intellectualism of imitative pedants, his negative praise still does not explain the human and spiritual significance of music. and after all, this is the question that the philosophy of music attempts to answer. many are the attempts to solve the specific enigma posed by fontenelle. however, the impasse created by the interlocking concepts of passion, nature, imitation, and musical significance in effect prevents any satisfactory answer. having arrived at the crossroads, the french aestheticians lose their way. the writers of the later 18th century do recognize that musical meaning must be liberated from the arbitrary demands of imitative aesthetics and that absolute music must find philosophical understanding. but no philosopher of this period crystallizes a vocabulary adequate to deal with the idea of embodied or innate musical meaning. indeed, one can summarize the situation in france .. by asking with fontenelle, sonate, que me veux-tu? and answering, le je ne sais quoi. notes 1 representative examples of this interpretation are: folkierski 1925; goldschmidt 1915; serauky 1929; damerini 1955. 2 this essay is the first of three studies in french, english, and german aesthetics respectively. the last two will appear shortly in other journals. 3 it is interesting to note that 19th-century .philosophers carried this objectivesubjective association still further. when formalists suchas hanslick rejected emotion as the content of music, they based their arguments on the fact that the emotional reaction of several listeners to the same piece of music were often quite different. hanslick's thesis ultimately rests on the rejection ofa causal nexus between musical meaning and subjective emotion, which is the premise of those romantic aestheticians with whom he disagreed (vom musikalisch-schonen 1854). modern emphasis on the semantics of meaning and symbolism, as well as on the psychology of information 136 theory, has produced various attempts to redefine the relationship of the emotional content of music and the emotional response of the listener (cf. s. k. langer, philosophy in a new key 1942, feeling and form 1953, and l. b. meyer, emotion and meaning in music 1956). 4, aristotle's theory in the poetics refers only to the aural arts, but was extended in the 18th century to include the visual arts as well (draper 1921): (poetry, drama and music) ... all happen to be, on the whole, imitations •.• ••• """uat tvyx&vovutv ojuat /l'p:fjuets tj • • • (jiepl ""ot'l]tu<iis i, 15-16). ii serauky (1929: 5) incorrectly divides musical imitation into two equivalent categories-imitation of affects and imitation of nature. 6 for a more detailed analysis of nature in 18th-century thought, see lovejoy 1927. 7 rousseau is the most famous exponent of this doctrine, although he is by no means the first. condillac writes in 1746: en effet, quel est ie son ie plus propre a rendre un sentiment de l'fime? c'est d'abord celui qui imite ie cri qui en est ie signe naturel: il est commun ala declamation et a la musique (condillac 1746: 146). according to this writer, music and words were used together in their infancy to express passion. only after a long time did they separate (ibid., 13). but musical expression was developed when it was one with declamation (ibid., 138). the echo in rousseau is striking. he states that poetry existed before prose since the passions spoke before reason (rousseau 1753 + 61: 293). poetry and music were born together in song. naturally, vocal melody becomes the principal element of music to which all other elements are subordinate and conversely, absolute music becomes meaningless and fugal devices "des restes de barbarie et de mauvais gout" (ibid., 382). 8 crousaz (traitc de beau, 1715) actually precedes dubos. however, the only available copy of the former's treatise is the second edition of 1724 in which the author omits the 12th chapter on "le beau dans la musique" because of objections raised against its obtuse character. 9 it is significant to note that hanslick knew boye's work and refers to it in his own treatise. 10 these phrases are borrowed from dubos who writes that the sounds of a symphony soient que de simples imitations du bruit inarticule, et s'il faut parler ainsi, des sons qui n'ont que ie moitie de leur etre, et une demie-vie" (dubos 1719, 1: 436). 11 for example, in 1746 guillemain published a set of works entitled six sonates en quatuor ou conversations galantes et amusantes entre une flute traversiere, un violon, une basse de viol et la basse continue (bucken, 1931: 51). 12 in 1764, de la chevardiere published six symphonies ou quatuors dialogues pour deux violons, alto et basse, composes par m. haydn, maitre de musique ii vienne, consisting of the string quartets op. 1, nos. 1-6 (scott 1934: 4). four years later he published another collection entitled six symphonies ou quatuors dialogues pour deux violons, alto viola et basse, this time comprising the haydn symphonies ga 15,25,32,33, a cassation in g, and a symphony in b flat which is not in the thematic index (oberdorffer 1939: 11). 13 hanslick assumes that boye's excursus supports his own contention that music cannot express or embody emotion; in this instance he misunderstands boye who suggests that it is possible for music to be suited to the emotional quality of a text within the limitations of its art (boye 1779: 13). but boye does not believe that by music can express individual passions; on the contrary, the limitations of its art only permit music to have general character or style. for this reason the bulk of the responsibility for expressivity falls on the poetry and acting. hanslick's choice 137 of a corroborating excerpt from boye is unfortunate, for this particular passage seems less of an integral part in boye's aesthetic, and more of an excuse to air this writer's manifest dislike of gluck's music. 14 morellet's distinction is attacked by chabanon who denies that music imitates the inarticulate cry of the passions (chabanon 1779: 64). 15 feelings of violent animosity were expressed publicly between chabanon and the encyclopedists (oliver 1947: 145). references primary sources: andre, ie perej. 1741 essai sur ie beau. amsterdam. batteux, c. 1746 us beaux arts reduits ii un mhne principe. paris. beaumont, s. de 1743 uttre sur la musique ancienne et moderne. paris. blainville, c. h. 1754 l'esprit del'art musical. geneva. boye, m. 1779 l'expression musicale mise au rang des chimeres. amsterdam. cahusac 1751-65 see diderot 1751-65. cartaud de la villate 1736 essai historique et phi10sophique sur ie goiit. paris. in cartaud de la villate, berlin 1960. vol. 1, pp. 202-327. chabanon, m. p. g. de 1764 eloge de m. de rameau. paris. 1779 observations sur la musique. paris. 1785 de la musique consideree en elle-meme et dans ses rapports avec la parole, les langues, la poesie, et la theatre. paris. condillac, e. b. de 1 746 essai sur l' origine des connaissances humaines. paris. crousaz, j. p. de 1715 trait; de beau. amsterdam. diderot, d. 1751 lettre sur les sourds et muets. n.p. in o. e. fellows and n. l. torrey, eds., the age of the enlightenment, new york 1942, pp. 266-273. 1751-65 encyclopedie ou dictionnaire raisonee des sciences, des arts et des metiers, paris. 17 vols. 1761-62 le neveu de rameau. in p. albert, ed., oeuvres choisis de d. diderot. paris n.d. vol. 6, pp. 19-173. dubos,j. b. 1715 rcjlexions critiques sur la poesie et sur la peinture. paris. 3 vols. grimm,f. m. 1751-65 see diderot 1751-65. laborde, j. b. de 1780 essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne. paris. lacombe,j. 1752 dictionnaire portatif des beaux-arts. paris. 1 758 le spectacle des beaux arts. paris. laugier, abbe m. a. 1754 apologie de la musique fratlfoise contre m. rousseau. paris. 138 morellet, m. l. 1771 del'expression en musique. in mercure de france, nov. 1771, pp. 113-43. rivarol, a. n.d. de l'homme intellectue1 et moral. in oeuvres completes de rivarol. paris 1808. vol. 1. rousseau, j. j. 1753 lettre sur la musique paris. in oeuvres completes de j. j. rousseau. paris 1792. vol. 19, pp. 341-426. 1753+61 essai sur l'origine des langues. n.p. in oeuvres completes de j. j., rousseau. paris 1792. vol. 19, pp. 215-333. 1768 dictionnaire de musique. paris. secondary sources: borre1, e. 1949-51 blainville, charles-henri. in mgg 1: 1889-91. 1960 laugier, abbe marc-antoine. in mgg, 6:.325-26. brelet, g. 1958 philosophie et esthetique musicales. inj. chailley, ed., precis de musicologie. paris, pp. 389-423. briquet, m. 1960 laborde, jean-benjamin de. in mgg, 8: 17-21. biicken, e. 1931 die musik des rokokos und det klassik. potsdam. bukofzer, m. 1947 music in the batoque era. new york. chambers, f. p. 1932 the history of taste. new york. cotte, r. 1963 rousseau, jean-jacques. in mgg, 11: 1006-12. damerini, a. 1955 profilo storico della estetica musicale. in rivista musicale italiana 25: 108-17. draper, j. w. 1921 aristotelian mimesis in eighteenth century england. in publications of the modem language association of america, 36: 372-400. ecorcheville, j. 1906 de luzzi ii rameau, 1690-1730; l'estmtique musicale. paris. folkierski, w. 1925 entre ie elassicisme et ie romantisme: etude sur i' estmtique et les estheticiens du xviiie sieele. paris. goldschmidt, h. 1915 die musikiisthetik des 18. jahrhunderts. zurich. hazard, p. 1954 european thought in the 18th century. translated by j. l. may. new haven. first published 1946. jullien, a. 1873 la musique et les philosophes au dix-huitieme sieele. paris. kretzschmar, h. 1912 allegmeines und. besonderes zur affektenlehre, ii. in jahtbuch der musikbibliothek peters, 20: 65-78. lang, p. h. 1941 music in western civilization. new york. 5* 139 1967 the enlightenment and music. in eighteenth-century studies 1: 93-103. 1968 diderot as musician. in diderot studies 10: 95-107. launay, d. 1954 diderot, denis. in mgg, 3: 429-34. lovejoy, a. o. 1927 nature as the aesthetic norm. in modem language notes 42: 444-50. prod'homme, j. g. 1913-14 diderot et 1a musique. in zeitschrift der intemational musik gesellschaft 15: 156-62, 177-82. oberdorifer, f. 1939 der generalbass in der instrumentalmusik des ausgehenden 18. jahrhunderts. cassel. oliver, a. r. 1947 the encyclopedists as critics of music. new york. peteut, p. 1902 jean-baptiste dubos. tramelan. robertson, j. g. 1923 studies in the genesis of the romantic theory in the eighteenth century. cambridge. schafke, r. 1934 geschichte der musikasthetik im umrissen. berlin. schenker, m. 1909 charles batteux und seine nachahmungstheorie in deutschland. leipzig. bd. i der neue folge, untersuchung ;:.ur neueren sprach-und literatur-geschichte. schueller, h. m. 1948 "imitation" and "expression" in british music criticism in the 18th century. in musical quarterly, 34: 544-66. 1952-53 correspondences between music and the sister arts, according to 18th century aesthetic theory. in journal of aesthetics and art criticism, 11: 334-59. scott, m. m. 1934 haydn's opus two and opus three. in proceedings of the musical association, 61: 1-19. serauky, w. 1929 die musikalische nachahmungsasthetik im zeitraum von 1700 bis 1850. munster. 1949-51 batteux, charles. in mgg, 1: 1411-16. 1954 dubos, jean baptiste. in mgg, 3: 841-43. smith, a. c. 1937 theories of nature and standard of taste in england, 1700-1790. chicago. snyders, g. 1968 le goat musical en france aux xvlle et xvllie siecles. paris. sorel-nitzberg, a. . 1952 chabanon, michel paul guy de. in mgg 2: 996-1004. wessel, f. t. 1955 the a.ffektenlehre in the 18th century. ann arbor. 140 wayne schneider, ed. the gershwin style: new looks at the music of george gershwin. oxford university press, 1999. xiv, 290 pp. reviewed by david schiff this volume, published just after the gershwin centenary in 1998, al­ ready seems to belong to an awkward age of transition in musicology. a number of the book's twelve essays beat the drums for a new approach to gershwin that would rescue him from the snobbery of high art prejudices, and for a more general attempt by musicologists to engage with popular culture. a look at the program for recent american musicological society meetings quickly reveals that the revolution has already happened; pop is everywhere. but gershwin remains as elusive as ever. the two most useful essays in the collection, "'rotating' porgy and bess," by wayne d. shirley, and "gershwin's blue monday (1922), and the promise of success," by john andrew johnson, are traditional musical scholarship of a high order. shirley closely scrutinizes the evidence for russian composer and pedagogue joseph schillinger's influence on gersh­ win's great folk opera, and johnson provides much valuable information about its intriguing precursor. charlotte greenspan's "rhapsody in blue: a study in hollywood hagiography" similarly offers a systematic and sur­ prisingly sympathetic guide to a film that many will be tempted to dismiss as kitsch. none of these essays, however, really addresses the issue of gershwin's style, and those that do suffer from apparently unconscious high art prejudices even when they protest against them. the ghost of arnold schoenberg-or is it brahms, or boulanger?-walks through many of the essays. the very title of wayne schneider's essay, "gershwin's operetta overtures: medley or composition?" loads the dice in favor of the second category, as if a medley were, by definition, not a composition. (schneider does not look at what to me is a more interesting phenomenon: the pres­ tige and influence of operetta on broadway which persists to this day.) similarly, larry starr's "musing on 'nice gershwin tunes,' form and harmony in the concert music of gershwin," while full of insights into gershwin's craft, condescendingly praises gershwin as "an intelligent and practical musician" capable of "long-scale compositional intent." and the late stephen gilbert gives gershwin points for his "contrapuntal bias." another sign that the academy is determined to praise gershwin only on its own terms is charles hamm's call for "authentic texts" and study of performance style of the 1920s-you can't get much more old musicology current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) 164 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york reviews 165 than that-in an essay which otherwise quite militantly calls for new approaches. every historical reconstruction of gershwin performance practice that i have heard has demonstrated the uselessness and ir­ relevence of such an approach for a body of music which lives on through performances in styles gershwin could barely have imagined. while it would be entirely misleading to view gershwin as in any way marginal to american musical culture-quite the contrary-critics and es­ pecially other composers always had trouble placing him, and continue to. if i may indulge in toveyisms, the problem is that gershwin was at once the most normal of composers and the most abnormal. no one, not even leonard bernstein, has been able to repeat gershwin's success in the the­ ater and the concert hall, and as the gap between popular music and the classical repertory continues to widen (no matter how many times market­ ing departments hype "diversity"), it becomes harder to understand his ability to cross over an abyss which has swallowed everyone else whole. in gershwin's time, the classical world took him quite seriously-except, that is, for his american rivals and their running-dog critics. ravel and schoen­ berg recognized compositional genius when they heard it. the very fact that gershwin's three major concert pieces entered the repertory immedi­ ately and have never left it, and that porgy and bess stands unrivalled among american operas, should silence any talk about gershwin's sup­ posed compositional weaknesses, and should instead invite closer and more sympathetic analysis of his exceptional strengths. but an understanding of the gershwin style must rest on his songs, and the study of his songs must encompass an understanding of their place in musical theater. the latter task is a particularly challenging lacuna in gershwin scholarship given the fact that none of gershwin's shows have proven revivable. as a song writer gershwin was distinctive, but not unique. he placed himself in relation to irving berlin and jerome kern, and his output paralleled the work of richard rodgers and cole porter. the question that c. andre barbera addresses in his "george gershwin and jazz"-why are jazz musicians so attracted to gershwin's tunes-is a seductive red herring. only one gershwin tune has a special status in jazz, "i got rhythm," which barbera barely discusses. many other gershwin tunes are jazz standards, as are rodgers's "my romance" and porter's "miss otis regrets," just to name two songs that would never be mistaken for gershwin's. neither rodgers nor porter display gershwin's reliance on the blues scale, or on repeated notes, the latter a trait which barbera relates to jazz improvisation. i was surprised to find that none of the essays built on the pioneering work of alec wilder (1972) or, for the lyrics, philip furia (1990, 1996, 1998). both of these writers, in quite different ways, give us a sense of how 166 current musicology song writers perceived their job, how they measured their own aesthetic success, and how they viewed their own tradition. the scholars in the gershwin style, much as they intend to take the songs seriously, refuse to take their milieu seriously, and so always seem to be looking at the songs from the outside and through a glass, darkly. references furia, philip. 1990. the poets of tin pan alley: a history of america's great lyricists. new york: oxford university press. ---.1996. ira gershwin: the art of the lyricist. new york: oxford university press. ---. 1998. irving berlin: a life in song. new york: schirmer. wilder, alec. 1972. american popular song: the great innovators, 1900-1950. new york: oxford university press. mein1jes, louise. 2003. sound of africa!: making music zulu in a south african studio. durham and london: duke university press, 335 pp. brett pyper in the early 1990s, when louise meinges conducted the bulk of the re­ search on which sound of africa!: making music zulu in a south african studio is based, zulu ethnicity was being celebrated on the world's stages at the same time that it was being bitterly contested at home. in the wake of paul simon's graceland collaborations, accomplished studio musicians and eth­ nically identified groups like ladysmith black mambazo gained access to the burgeoning world music market. at the same time, however, a violent upsurge of zulu ethnic nationalism threatened the negotiated transition from white minority rule to nonracial democratic elections. this violence, which jeopardized the transition process from nelson mandela's release in 1990 until the eve of south mrica's historic 1994 elections, was a mani­ festation of the apartheid state's reification and manipulation of mrican ethnicity as a divide-and-rule strategy. inevitably registering these powerful countervailing processes, meinges' study proceeds from three broad theoretical coordinates: first, that control over black expressive cultural production and ethnic identi­ ties has been a crucial feature of south mrican sociopolitical contestation; second, that musical styles can be interpreted as signs and are subject to manipulation in the interests of social groups; and third, that style derives its meaning and affective power primarily through its association with the sociopolitical positioning and social values of music participants and through the sensuous experience of those who encounter it (9-11). though such principles have been well established in anthropology, performance studies, and cultural studies, by tracing them through to the level of sonic experience and affect, and by showing precisely how musical style and sound are themselves sites of hegemonic contestation, meinges' study makes a significant contribution to contemporary research on south mri­ can music, and to the expanding literature on the relationships among aesthetics, race, and cultural identity more generally. particularly impres­ sive is the way in which meinges integrates her topical, methodological, and theoretical concerns with her own representational strategies as a writer. the topical focus of meinges' book is mbaqanga, the mass-mediated vocal and instrumental popular music best known outside south mrica from recording anthologies like the earthworks/virgin indestructible beat current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 206 current musicology of soweto series and the late mahlathini's international tours with the mahotella queens. targeted predominantly toward zulu audiences on the apartheid airwaves, and the local market that accommodated itself to leg­ islated ethnic separatism, mbaqanga was an eclectic genre that peaked in popularity in south mrica during the 1960s and 70s, incorporating (inter alia) elements of township jazz and jive, african-american soul, neotraditional mrican guitar styles, and various indigenous and syncretic choral traditions. largely lacking a basis in live performance-indeed, the rise of mbaqanga was contemporaneous with, and in part occasioned by, the exile of many of south mrica's celebrated jazz and stage performers of the 1950s-this music offers a prime site, as meintjes amply demonstrates, for studying the technological mediation of indigenously inflected popu­ lar music outside western culture industry centers, a ubiquitous twentieth­ century phenomenon that ethnomusicologists have begun examining only in recent decades (coplan 1985; manuel 1988 and 1993). meintjes' interest in mbaqanga goes well beyond writing an under-ex­ amined genre into south mrican music history. recognizing that the apart­ heid state exerted its hegemony as much through cultural institutions as through bureaucratic civil or military ones, she examines the recording studio as a microcosm of the society within which it exists. in the appar­ ently neutral space of the studio, she argues, the complexities of race politics are present but play out implicitly through other means ... in contrast to many south mrican spaces that are acutely racialized and overtly politicized, the studio reveals how south mrica's ruthless politics are infused with feeling and embedded in the struggles of daily living and in expressive forms that on the surface appear to have little to do with race. (9) methodologically informed by the encounter between the anthropology of sound and popular music studies' concern with the institutional sociol­ ogy of the music industry (keil and feld 1994), meintjes uncovers the social contests that circulate around and through the minutiae of studio practice. she examines the ways in which variously positioned musicians, engineers, producers, and other role players, all with particular interests and value systems, collaborate and compete in a high-tech studio setting to sonically realize images of racial and ethnic identity as musical style. beyond the boundaries of the apartheid state, she also considers the inter­ section of global forces with local and individual struggles to reshape so­ ciallife by reworking expressive forms. since the inception of south mrican popular music studies, scholars have recognized that the means of producing and distributing expressive brett pyper 207 culture have tended to pass out of subaltern communities of origin and into the hands of commercial and ideological interests antagonistic to-or at least separate from-the social development of such communities (coplan 1979). meinges rightly points out that the recording studio has remained somewhat of a "black box" in the ethnomusicologicalliterature: ethnomusicology has been particularly slow to recognize the creative potential and semiotic nuance of technology in music making and to include its analysis within the field's interpretive frameworks. this is in part an outcome of the facts that ethnomusicologists have privileged live performance, expected technology to take away from both creative processes and from the experience of music, and have focused historically on musics that have, or seem to have, a life of their own outside the music industry ... as long as the studio was thought of as a site into which creative agents and compositional ideas would go, get compromised by technological manipulation there, then emerge packaged for consumption, there was little need for detailed analysis of its processes. (280, n.27) though tucked away in a footnote, the disciplinary critique voiced here (which meinges acknowledges has been somewhat mitigated in recent years), encapsulates her project at large. her book offers a timely, acutely observed ethnographic analysis of the recording studio as a cultural insti­ tution, an analysis that ably complements, and in some respects challenges, the broad brush-stroke narrative characteristic of many sociologically ori­ ented accounts of commercial music production. "in the studio's fragmenting and circuitous practice," meinges writes in her introduction, "lie openings for poetic innovation, for social and professional repositioning, and for empowering moves" on the part of music-makers (2). methodologically speaking, she also sees in these studio practices an opening for examining a variety of ways in which music serves socially situated actors as a strategic and symbolic resource. the object of meinges' analysis, therefore, is less the broad social-historical arc of a par­ ticular genre or the general cultural system from which it emerges, than a constellation of specific, fleeting sociomusical interactions observed dur­ ing the course of a series of typical studio production sessions. sound of africa! consequently unfolds as a series of analytical vignettes clipped from the clamor of studio talk and music-making. each focuses on particular "moments," "gestures," and "utterances" with goffmanesque attention! to the microsocial dynamics that are at play in given situations, from which meinges "writes outwards" to illuminate the broader social processes in 208 current musicology which they are embedded. in so doing, she documents the shifting ways in which music-makers in the studio manipulate and elaborate on sounds to articulate a sense of personal and collective personhood; strive for creative and political voice; invoke, reproduce or refigure social stereotypes; and reach for commercial and symbolic success. though there is little in this approach that does not fall within the purview of conventional musical ethnography, and meintjes' research design is as extensive in scope as those from which other scholars have made far more general cultural claims, it is the consistency with which she keeps the pragmatics of the microcultural in view in the context of ethnotheoretical debates that renders this study distinctive. sound of africa! is a writerly text that enacts what it sets out to argue: that any mode of cultural mediation -including meintjes' own-neces­ sarily functions both as a conduit and as a filter, reshaping the events and social identities that it ostensibly reflects. meintjes highlights the parallels between the studio's mode of operation and the production of an ethno­ graphic text by adopting the studio's terminology to point out the dialogi­ cally constructed nature of her own account. thus the individual chapters of the book are called "cuts," which are subdivided into various "takes" of scenes that are usually presented in an opening "guide vocal." meintjes sometimes metaphorically rewinds and replays the moments she is exam­ ining, and her analyses are focused in "mixes," and sometimes "remixes" that offer alternative interpretations of given events. while at least one reviewer has found this literary conceit distracting (coplan 2003), i find meintjes' experimental approach to combining the form and content of her study well motivated from a theoretical point of view and congruent with her findings. she notices, for example, that her studio interlocutors afford greater attention to the manipulation of sound and textural change at the microlevel than they do to the marking of harmonic and melodic patterning or genre designations in the course of their interactions. she also finds-and this contrasts noticeably with the findings of studio eth­ nographers working in other locations (porcello 1996)-that mbaqanga music-makers tend to invoke a shifting range of ethnic and other identity markers to characterize their experience of sound, rather than referring, for example, to the sonic attributes of other recorded models. meintjes' close attention to the details of musical timbre and the poetics of studio communication as sounds are reworked, overlaid, and their meanings ne­ gotiated is aptly conveyed in the "fragmenting and circuitous practice" of her own account. and while the recursive, non-linear nature of her narra­ tive requires a little extra work from the reader, her text effectively conveys the surreal juxtapositions of everyday life in a transitioning south mrica with the experience of doing fieldwork there. interspersed between her brett pyper 209 transcripts of studio talk and passages of technical cultural analysis are passages of visceral, vivid prose that seem seared into her memory. the first chapter or "cut" of the book introduces the main partici­ pants in the recording that meintjes documented at ajohannesburg stu­ dio in 1991 and 1992: an album by the group isigqi sesimanje titled lomculo unzima. meintjes also here includes a brief account of hearing mahlathini and the mahotella queens perform in austin, texas, in 1993. this juxta­ position not only highlights the contemporaneous internationalization of mbaqanga, but also offers a more commercially celebrated case against which to situate the more characteristic, modestly-resourced, and locally-oriented recording project on which meintjes centered her research. the theoreti­ cal focus of this cut is the question of genre, on which meintjes takes a problematizing stance. listing typical generic traits of mbaqanga, she ar­ gues, would overlook "the shifts in interpretive communicative praxis that make mbaqanga into what it is. such a list would sidestep the social, histori­ cal, political, biographical, and many of the performed and sonic relation­ ships by means of which mbaqanga is constituted, imputed with significance, transformed, and reinstated" (19,67). meintjes' counterproposal is persuasive and rather provocative: that the meaning of genre is to be found less in an assemblage of stylistic con­ ventions than it is to be located in "the self-making rhetoric that elaborates artistic reputations." given that the artistic personas and lived subjectivities of mbaqanga musicians often foreground ethnic and related identities, the implication here is that the process of genre definition participates in the politics of identity formation, an insight that denaturalizes the status of genre as culturally given, and redirects attention to the process and im­ plicit social stakes of formulating musical definitions (69). cut 2 of the book engagingly brings anthropological frameworks to bear on the most futuristic of settings: the studio control room. attending to the particularities of studio space, meintjes documents how the physical environment in which mbaqanga is produced is a culturally constructed space with a mystique that both derives from and informs the music that is created there. the second part of cut 2 explores how the studio can ac­ quire "magical" properties and be experienced as a "fetish," due to its re­ stricted-access interiority as an "inner world"; its hyper-technological, fu­ turistic iconicity; the extreme control it offers over sonic experience; and the way in which it allows the diffuse constituent elements of the "track" to emerge as the focus of collaborative studio artistry. while meintjes regis­ ters claims that the studio can serve as a creative resource available to all who work in it, she observes how differential access to the space and its technological practices superimpose broader south mrican social differ­ ences onto the professional divisions of labor within it. those most awed 210 current musicology and alienated by the studio environment, she observes, are mbaqanga mu­ sicians, whose relative lack of technical knowledge, language competence, and shared listening repertoires place barriers between them and their professional interlocutors and between experts, laborers, and capital (1024). the role of predominantly white sound engineers in mbaqanga produc­ tion is also introduced in this cut but is periodically taken up in the re­ mainder of the book (and is well worth tracing via the index). recognizing the latter as crucial-if often culturally misinformed and reluctant-co­ producers of the genre, meintjes observes how engineers mediate their own musical and professional values vis-a-vis those of producers and musi­ cians in their negotiated manipulation of the sonic details of recorded tracks. having presented the broad object and setting of the research, the remaining four cuts of the book share a concern for the ways in which discourses about social identities impinge on studio production processes and, in turn, are disseminated through them. cut 3 explores the notion of "liveness" as a trope of mrican musical authenticity, which meintjes points out is an illusion of sounding live that is constructed through technologi­ cal intervention in the studio and mediated symbolically through discourses about the natural and the artistic. she questions the notion that "to sound mrican is to sound live," linking it to pervasive stereotypes concerning the "naturalness" of mrican musicality, though she acknowledges that such views can be differently invested and are espoused by some of her musical interlocutors themselves (118-19). quoting some acutely observed studio exchanges, she notes, moreover, that "the essentialized self in discourse does not cohere directly with the practicing self at work in the studio," describing instances where the labor invested by musicians in honing skills that might appear natural are brought to the surface (122). she concludes that the tension between the purported authenticity of performance and the falsity of mediated sound is a discursive one (139). whereas discursive constructions of "mricanness" are the focus of cut 3, cuts 4 and 5 explore how sounds are variously "figured" in terms of alternative identifications within south mrica. cut 4 considers how tropes of whiteness are imputed to particular musical gestures vis-a-vis a more encompassing south mricanness, and looks to the cultural work that ste­ reotypes can nonetheless perform in shaping feeling, embodied identities (168). for meintjes, this is an ambivalent process: while she notes that it is with the knowledge of the constructedness of racial and ethnic categories that musicians can jokingly "loosen the [musical] sign from its signified and hang it on other forms" (167-68), she reports that "at least some mu­ sic-makers assume fundamentally racialized differences in their cultural, sensuous, or even physiological listening experience, not only in preferred brett pyper 21 1 listening repertoire" (170). these differences resonate outward beyond the studio in cut 5, where meintjes argues that ')ust as sounds are gath­ ered, built on,juxtaposed, isolated, and reworked into expressive forms in the studio process, so too are figures of ethnic difference overlaid, recon­ sidered, disavowed, or embraced" (180). the grim ramifications ofthis in the national context emerge in the opening sequence of the cut, when meintjes and tj lemon (the journalist whose photographs productively accompany meintjes' text), witness a fatal attack perpetrated by members of the nationalist inkatha freedom party. in speculating on the complex relationships between gestures of zulu cultural assertion and politically motivated atrocities, meintjes reflects on how the aesthetic feeds back into the civic and the political, providing expressive forms "with which to mark, live in, reflect on, and shape categories of social difference" (207). the sixth and final cut examines mbaqanga's international circulation as world music, returning to the case of mahlathini, who at a particular moment serves meintjes' studio interlocutors as a model while they at­ tempt to fashion sounds that might enable access to foreign stages (220). mahlathini's celebrated "groaning" voice serves as one such sonic signi­ fier. on one hand, this gesture is imitated by local musicians as an exoticizing cultural marker with which to pitch their performance to projected audi­ ences in the culturally imagined domain of" overseas." on the other hand, as meintjes shows, the same gesture, semiotically speaking, could be read as a de-exoticizing, domesticating move. the concluding cut of the book reviews the multiple, intersecting levels at which mediation is considered in meintjes' study: as technological manipulation, as the negotiation and arbitration of musical labor, as poetic language attempting to convey the qualities and ineffability of sound, as the brokering of personal and collec­ tive positions within systems of power, and as a semiotic theory of mean­ ing. it is in the convergence of all these forms of mediation, meintjes ar­ gues, that social difference is produced and reinforced (261). sound of africa! is a conceptually nuanced and challenging book that addresses a range of important theoretical and methodological questions currently confronting cultural anthropologists, ethnomusicologists, and particularly south african cultural and popular music scholars. meintjes raises the bar for attentively describing and acutely analyzing the com­ plexities of sociomusical phenomena; moreover, she addresses these con­ cerns through the form as well as the content of her text. yet what i have argued to be a strength of the book could be viewed by some some as a liability. in its attention to the ephemera of social and aesthetic practice, and its tight integration of subject, data, and theory, meintjes inevitably offers a highly selective account of an extensive musical domain that argu­ ably remains somewhat indistinct at the close of her account. given its 212 current musicology strong orientation towards theoretical issues, readers interested in such topics as the repertoire, stylistic and choreographic conventions, or the discography of mbaqanga will find useful pointers but not systematic treat­ ment of these questions in this book. though meintjes is intensely aware of the racial and interpersonal politics of studio interaction and ethnographic representation, as well as the penetration of global cultural vectors within south mrican commer­ cial performance, readers are offered only the briefest of glimpses into relevant processes pertaining to meintjes' focus: the production of a par­ ticular recording by isigqi sesima~e. this is more a question of emphasis than of omission, and meintjes' book raises several questions that might best be pursued in future research. but it would not, i think, have compro­ mised her overall design to have examined-as she does in numerous other pertinent asides throughout the book-aspects of the music production process that combine to place mbaqanga in a racially circumscribed posi­ tion in the south mrican marketplace and cultural imaginary. examples of such processes that are revealed seem suggestive: meintjes makes tanta­ lizing mention of the roles of studio producers in dictating the sartorial personas of "their" artists, and alludes to the existence of a post-produc­ tion a&r committee charged with setting standards ai!d vetting record­ ings for commercial release. even a cursory sense of the discourses inform­ ing such additional instances of cultural brokerage would help us to see how other institutional practices frame and intersect with the activities of artists, producers, and engineers, cumulatively serving to make this music "zulu."2 notes 1. chicago-based sociologist erving goffman brought an acute qualitative dimension to social analysis in fore grounding and theorizing the microsocial interactions of daily life as microcosms of broader social processes. see, e.g., goffman (1973). for a useful recent overview of goffman's work, see lemert and branaman (1997). 2. these discourses are surely both amplified and refracted by other discur­ sive practices relating to marketing, product labeling and presentation, and the formulation and cultivation of ethnically conceived distribution channels. references coplan, david. 1979. the african musician and the development of the johannesburg entertainment industry, 1900-1960. journal of southern african studies 5 (2): 135-64. ---. 1985. in township tonight! south africa's black city music and theatre. johannesburg: ravan press. ---. 2003. review of louise meinljes, sound of africa!: making music zulu in a brett pyper 213 south african studio. anthropological quarterly 76 (1): 135-49. coffman, erving. [1959] 1973. the presentation ofseifineveryday life. woodstock, ny : overlook press. keil, charles and steven feld. 1994. music grooves: essays and dialogues. chicago: university of chicago press. lemert, charles and ann branaman, eds. 1997. the coffman reader. cambridge, ma: blackwell. manuel, peter. [1988] 1993. popular musics of the non-western world: an introductory survey. new york and oxford: oxford university press. porcello, thomas. 1996. sonic artistry: music, discourse, and technology in the sound recording studio. phd dissertation, university of texas at austin. 10 according to dr. owen, the title "the handell [sic] of maine" first appeared in the may 10, 1796, edition of the tocsin, a hallowell, maine, newspaper. this reference is reproduced in full in appendix h. 11 ralph t. daniel, "handel publications in 18th-century america," the musical quarterly (1959) 45:168--74, essentially a reprint of the information in daniel's ph.d. dissertation, "the anthem in new england before 1800," which was published in 1966 by northwestern university press; and virginia larkin redway, "handel in colonial and post-colonial america," the musical quarterly (1935) 21 :190-207. dr. owen does not mention either of these articles in his bibliography. terence william bailey-the ceremonies and chants oj the processions oj the western church: with particular attention to the practice oj the cathedral church oj salisbury ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 69-1142, 1968. 340 pp. text, 33 pp. music, university of washington diss.) charlotte roederer "this dissertation proposes to describe and study the ceremonies and chants of the processions of the western church" (p. 1). with this brief introductory statement dr. bailey has proposed an enormous task. the processional repertory is large and diverse, properties which make it an interesting but difficult study. it includes chants which range in style from reciting tone invocations of rogation days to elaborate antiphons of major feasts, antiphons which rival many office responsories in size and complexity. also included are numerous office chants which double as processional pieces. it is a formidable repertory indeed. perhaps this is why it has been largely avoided by musicologists despite its importance long acknowledged by students of the medieval carol, the conductus, early polyphony, and liturgical drama. dr. bailey wisely singles out one particular practice for special consideration in part i, that of salisbury cathedral, the sarum rite, because, as he explains, "the sarum use was not only universally admired, it was perhaps the most widespread of any ... " (p. 1). furthermore, "sarum was to have a greater influence in the matter of liturgical customs than any other single church in europe" (p. 2). also recommending the sarum rite "for a study intended to treat the processions in a context larger than the local ... is (the fact) that the sarum customs ... were written up ... in such a way as to be general in their application" (p. 3). finally, the sources are plentiful. "there are more than twenty manuscript sarum processionals, or fragments, and at least twenty-five printed editions" (p. 14). 108 in the introduction dr. bailey also states the attitude of his approach: " ... this study is very much concerned with the liturgy. musicology should ignore nothing which is relevant to music, and the relevance of the liturgy to an investigation of chant can no longer be doubted" (p. 7). to such an approach, this reviewer would respond with a para-liturgical phrase of another era: "amen, brother!" dr. bailey's topical outline is clear and makes the material contained in the dissertation quite accessible. this study falls into two main sections, the first concerned with the sarum customs, the second with the general practice. included in part i is: (i) a description and comparison of all the remaining sarum processionals (ii) a detailed description of the processions themselves-taken from the rubrics of the service books (iii) a discussion of the chants and prayers-demonstrating the role of the music in the processions and its relationship to the liturgy, and a transcription of all of the special sarum processional music (iv) an account of the history and development of the processions and their music from the founding of the cathedral to the reformation. part ii of the study demonstrates the universality of the sarum customs, discusses local differences, outlines the earliest history of the customs and music, and includes an examination of the processional musical repertory of the whole of the western church-sarum's included (pp. 10-11). the author displays his greatest expertise in the first half of the study. in chapter i he concentrates on detailing the contents of the manuscripts and their state of preservation. several good attempts are made to account for the presence or absence of certain feasts. dr. bailey cites, for instance, the adoption of st. anne's feast in 1383, ordered by urban vi to popularize the marriage of anne of bohemia to richard iii. chapter ii, also quite interesting, contains translations and paraphrases so extensive that the uninitiated reader can begin to visualize the actual route of the procession and the conduct of the participants. the third chapter approaches the music. dr. bailey rightly recognizes the importance not only of the antiphons which are restricted to processional use but also of the many antiphons, responds, versicles, and prayers from other services which are borrowed for various processions. however, he realistically transcribes only the "special sarum processional music" (p. 10). his transcriptions are based on oxford, bodleian ms. rawl. lit. d. 4., and are presented without commentary, that being deferred until the end of the study. both text and music are written out free-hand with no particular attempt to reflect the structure of the pieces. the melody is transcribed in undifferentiated eighth notes. with all the notes of a melisma barred 109 together, numerous barrings of a dozen or more notes are created. thus, not only is the transcription not particularly enlightening but, what is worse, it also obscures the neumatic configurations. apart from whatever rhythmic implications they might have, the neume groupings are often very useful melodic units to consider in analyzing chant. chapter iv returns to ceremonial matters. for this section dr. bailey draws not only on the processionals themselves but also on various versions of the consuetudinary, the oldest dating from between 1173 and 1203. development of the ceremony ended by 1545, when henry viii effectively abolished the processional, apparently by issuing an injunction limiting the accompaniment of processions to the litany. part ii of the study, which deals with the general practice, is less satisfactory than part i. the approach remains sound, and as a compilation of available source material, it is useful. however, the subject is far too large to be treated in more than a cursory manner. the section opens with a listing of 106 sources-antiphonals, processionals, ordinaries, customaries-arranged by century and country but not by type of source. there is no indication of whether they are notated or not, although one familiar with medieval sources can usually make an accurate guess. nor is there any indication of the nature of the compilation. the comment that "it was learned too late for them to be consulted that two eleventh-century nonantola tropers in rome (ms. bibl. casanate 1741 and ms. bibl. nazionale 1343) contain processional antiphons" (pp. 141-42) indicates that perhaps this study is not so complete as it could be. brief perusal of the solesmes sources volume or the rism tropenund sequenzen-handschriften volume will turn up many more manuscripts containing processional pieces. (of course, the rism catalogue of processionals will identify many more when it is published.) the bibliographical nature of the study does not create serious problems for the liturgical sections of the second hal£ the treatment is simply descriptive, with little opportunity for discussion of the liturgical implications of the ceremonies. in the musical chapters, however, the superficial treatment is frustrating. for example, table 2 on page 295 lists "the distribution of palm sunday pieces in sixteen of the oldest chant sources." but no solid conclusions can be drawn from this array because the choice of manuscripts is not sufficiently focused. included in the table from the author's 1 06 sources are paris, bib!. nat. fonds latin 1240 and paris, bib!. nat. fonds latin 1121. but not included among the 106 is paris, bibl. nat. fonds latin 909, a manuscript which is contemporary with and closely related to paris, bibl. nat. fonds latin 1121. in fact, they are so similar in the processional that their divergence with respect to the palm sunday processional is especially significant. paris 1121 transmits a repertory of a dozen processional pieces, but paris 909 contains two processional sections, one of which transmits the more austere cluniac palm sunday tradition that allows for only one processional hymn, the famous gloria laus et honor. the fine liturgical study palmenweihe und palmenprozession in der lateinischen liturgie by hermann ]. graf svd 110 (steyler verlagsbuchhandlung kaldenkirchen, germany, 1959) could have helped in this section. the author postpones the musical analysis of the sarum antiphons until after he has considered the general practice, because "individual pieces of plainchant seldom reveal their significant features except in relation to others of the same family ... " (p. 11). this attitude is well taken. but it is equally true that individual pieces-of plainchant or of any other kind of musicseldom reveal their significant features except when they are studied individually in great detail. because he continually tries to deal with the whole repertory, dr. bailey's analytical observations are usually not particularly penetrating. dr. bailey's commendable concern for the total context has left him little space or energy to deal with the repertory from a stylistic point of view. such "biting off more than one can chew" is not atypical of doctoral dissertations. in dr. bailey's case, the basic approach is sound enough for his results to be quite useful to anyone doing the further research still needed in the field. this usefulness is enhanced by the clarity of the entire study, both in organization and in style. the reader would have appreciated an index to the chants transcribed. they are scattered throughout the text in chapter iii and can be found readily only by the reader already familiar with the repertory and its usual liturgical distribution. since the author is very much concerned with the ceremonies, an index of references to feasts also would have helped the reader a great deal. as the text stands, a reader interested in a given feast must seek and find for himself the many references to it. for instance, a few of the comments about palm sunday include: pp. 39-41 pp.66-74 p. 184 pp. 211-214 p.316 description of sarum procedure, translation of some rubrics; transcription of sarum special antiphons; footnote on relationship of palm sunday procession to practice of stational churches; form and constitution of the procession outside of sarum; woodcut from sarum processional of the palm sunday, blessing of branches. it may be inappropriate for a reviewer to do an excessive amount of second-guessing, but it seems that this dissertation might have been made more interesting had the author confined himself throughout to the sarum repertory. one of the most important stylistic questions which might be treated entirely within the sarum tradition and then transferred to other areas is: what is the stylistic relationship, if any, between those chants which were special processional pieces and those which were borrowed for processions from the offices? dr. bailey goes into some detail as to exactly which chants (ordinarily matins responds) were used. moreover, some of the "special chants" were not only labeled as responds but were also performed as such. a more detailed examination of individual sarum chants 111 would also have been interesting. as the study stands, there is no consideration of any given antiphon as a musico-liturgical entity. in summation, dr. bailey treats the ceremonies of the processions of the sarum rite very well. the treatment of the ceremonies of the whole western church, though more cursory, is still useful. however, the discussion of the chants provides only a tantalizing introduction to a very large and interesting repertory. jay weldon wilkey-certain aspects oj form zn the vocal music oj alban berg ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 65-10,911, 1965. 281 pp., indiana university diss.) fred hauptman the music of alban berg presents an unusual challenge to the analyst. berg's eclecticism and stylistic freedom prevent a totally systematic approach and lead writers to unfounded generalizations. most of the writing on berg is by authors who are not theoreticians, and real weaknesses in the older analyses have been exposed by recent critical works, such as that of george perle. therefore, extended theoretical studies, such as that undertaken in this dissertation, are necessary if the elements of berg's expressive but elusive style are to be finally clarified. the purpose of the study is "to trace the development of two formal phenomena in the vocal music of alban berg, namely his use of serial technique and his use of traditional forms" (p. iii). dr. wilkey examines all of berg's published music with voice, including der wein and the two operas. after introductory chapters on the schoenberg school in general and on the basically romantic nature of berg's early works, there are five chapters that attempt to show a clear line of serial development from the sieben friihe lieder to lulu. the "phenomenon" of "traditional form" is then discussed in two chapters, one on "contrapuntal procedures," the second on "sectional forms." these are followed by a summary and bibliography. the topics discussed in the dissertation are important ones. indeed, each of the "aspects" chosen could profitably be the subject ofa separate volume, and their alliance here seems somewhat arbitrary, causing the author to discuss most works twice in order to maintain his two-part organization. this would be a minor inconvenience to the reader if the study achieved its aims. unfortunately, despite some insights, it leaves a great many questions unanswered. the first chapter teaches us nothing new about the relationship of the 112 ~~1cflj ~/1-/3 ~ 2001-~ 2002 edited by mark burford recollections travis a. jackson 9 mark tucker (1954-2000) articles historical studies mark tucker 13 porgy and miles jeffrey magee 22 "king porter stomp" and the jazz tradition dan skea 54 rudy van gelder in hackensack: defining the jazz sound in the 1950s jeffrey taylor 77 earl hines and "rosetta" jazz musicians and their contexts george e. lewis 100 experimental music in black and white: the aacm in new york, 1970-1985 jeffery s. mcmillan 158 a musical education: lee morgan and the philadelphia jazz scene of the 1950s t. m. scruggs 179 "come on in north side, you're just in time": musical-verbal performance and the negotiation of ethnically segregated social space david chevan 200 musical literacy and jazz musicians in the 1910s and 1920s jazz analysis ben givan 232 discontinuity in the music of django reinhardt keith waters 276 william r. bauer 303 mattheww. 324 butterfield scott deveaux 353 sherrie tucker 375 christopher 409 washburne paul allen anderson 427 evan spring 446 outside forces: "autumn leaves" in the 1960s scat singing: a timbral and phonemic analysis music analysis and the social life of jazz recordings viewpoints: perspectives on jazz studies struggling with jazz big ears: listening for gender injazz studies latinjazz: the other jazz review-essays other planes of there: critical notice of graham lock's blutopia. a review of blutopia: visions of the future and revisions of the past in the work of sun ra, duke ellington, and anthony braxton, by graham lock. fan fare: an investigation of recent jazz biographies. a review of bright moments: the life and legacy of rahsaan roland kirk, by john kruth; myself when i a m real: the life and music of charles mingus, by gene santoro; open sky: sonny rollins and his world of improvisation, .by eric nisenson; clifford brown: the life and art of the legendaryjazz trumpeter, by nick catalano; morning glory: a biography of mary lou williams, by linda dahll; and an unsung cat: the life and music of warne marsh, by safford chamberlain. vijay iyer 462 being home: jazz authority and the politics of place. a review of songs of the unsung: the musical and social journey of horace tapscott, by horace tapscott (edited by steven isoardi); and the oxford companion to jazz, edited by bill kirchner. reviews min gabbard 477 eric porter. what is this thing called jazz?: african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists kathy j. ogren 484 phil pastras. dead man blues: jelly roll morton way out west frank tirro 491 aiyn shipton. a new history of jazz brian priestley 500 rob van der bliek, ed. the thelonious monk reader david sager 509 richard m. sudhalter. lost chords: white musicians and their contribution tojazz, 1915-1945 jazz reception and meanings abroad jeffrey h. jackson 518 uta g. poiger. jazz, rock, and rebels: cold war politics and american culture in a divided germany dale wilson 524 andrew f.jones. yellow music: media culture and colonial modernity in the chinese jazz age ian condry 533 e. taylor atkins. blue nippon: authenticatingjazz in japan corresponding editors australia mary chan graham hardie margaret]. kartomi andrew d. mccredie austria university of new south wales, kensington university of sydney monash university, clayton monash university, melbourne / university of queensland, brisbane eva badura-skoda editor-at-large, vienna belgium anne-marie riessauw philippe vendrix croatia state university of ghent universite de liege stanislav tuksar university of zagreb england stephen d. banfield george c. biddlecombejr. judith h. blezzard john caldwell tim carter david charlton geoffrey a. chew nicholas cook barry a. r. cooper jonathan m. dunsby mark everist anthony ford frederick hudson andrew jones christopher kent nicholas marston thomas messenger susan k. rankin nicholas sandon benedict sarnaker france olivier delaigue nasreen hussein university of birmingham royal academy of music, london university of liverpool university of oxford royal holloway and bedford new college, egham royal holloway and bedford new college, egham royal holloway and bedford new college, egham university of southampton university of manchester editor-at-large, reading university of southampton university of hull university of newcastle upon tyne cambridge university university of reading university of oxford university of surrey, guildford cambridge university university of exeter goldsmiths' college, london national conservatory universite de paris-sorbonne germany jeffery bossin albrecht schneider herbert schneider hubert unverricht ghana technical university, berlin university of hamburg university of heidelberg katholische universitat, eichstatt j. h. kwabena nketia international centre for african music and dance hong kong greta olson chinese university of hong kong italy fabrizio della seta conservatorio "a. casella," l'aquila, rome gabriel m. steinschulte pontificio istituto de musica sacra, rome new zealand gerald r. seaman university of auckland northern ireland piers hellawell queen's university of belfast portugal manuel carlos de brito universidade nova de lisboa salwa el-shawan castelo-branco universidade nova de lisboa republic of ireland harry white university college dublin russia lev gins burg galina v. grigorieva rimma kosacheva nelli g. shakhnazarova scotland christopher d. s. field raymond monelle south africa muzykal'naia zhizn; moscow moscow tchaikovsky conservatory government institute of theatrical arts, moscow scientific research institute of the arts, moscow university of edinburgh university of edinburgh winfried ludemann university of stellenbosch switzerland max luetolf university of zurich wales david r. a. evans david wynjones university college of north wales, bangor university college, cardiff / open university, cardiff editor's preface the increased presence of jazz studies at universities and cultural insti­ tutions in the united states and abroad has brought with it a recognition of how diffuse the community of those who research and write about jazz has become. whether this "family" of jazz scholars-both in and outside of academia-is a dysfunctional one, as ken burns would have us believe, or simply one that exhibits the sometimes perplexing yet more often insightful idiosyncrasy of a thelonious monk solo is a matter of conjecture. un­ deniable, however, is the fact that at the present moment the methodolog­ ical scope of jazz scholarship has expanded to an unprecedented degree. in many ways, seeds for the growth of jazz studies at columbia university were sown during mark tucker's professorship in columbia's music department (1987-97). professor tucker, whose rigorous, sensitive, and eminently musical scholarship on jazz and other american musics set a standard for the field and inspired jazz researchers worldwide, died on december 6, 2000. it is to his memory that this special issue of current musicology is dedicated. this issue is decidedly interdisciplinary insofar as it includes contribu­ tions from scholars working across a spectrum of academic fields, as well as work by those who approach jazz as journalists or as independent re­ searchers. the choice to identify the topic of this issue as 'jazz studies," rather than simply 'jazz," was a deliberate one. scholarship on the music, its practitioners, and the contexts in which jazz is produced and engaged is no less rich or compelling than the discourse on jazz discourse and the questions the music continues to provoke. the unique historiographic challenges of a music that is barely a century old-or younger, if viewed from the perspective of jazz recordings-and the latent "consequences" of constructing its canon, as krin gabbard has put it, have prompted many to interrogate the narrative strategies employed in rendering the music's past. most of the articles and reviews featured in this issue have in some way or another taken on this challenge by reconsidering under docu­ mented, if familiar, figures-for example, von freeman, rudy van gelder, and lee morgan-by rethinking configurations of and approaches to the field of jazz studies, and by reminding us of the still emergent, living quali­ ties of jazz so often obscured, ironically, by jazz studies itself. the study of jazz remains wide-open, in large part because of the far­ reaching influence of jazz itself, both as a musical and cultural phenome­ non. this issue of current musicology seeks to demonstrate some of the range and diversity of those who have made jazz and its attendant dis­ course their object of contemplation and study, while honoring one of jazz's most respected scholars. -mjb spitzer, john and neal zaslaw. 2004. the birth of the orchestra: history of an institution, 1650-1815. new york and oxford: oxford university press. reviewed by johna. rice musicological books by more than one author are (with the obvious excep­ tion of anthologies) relatively rare. so it is natural to be curious both about the individual contributions that john spitzer and neal zaslaw made to this monumental book and about the nature of their collaboration. in their preface, they explain that "neal zaslaw wrote the first drafts of chapters 3 and 6 ['lully's orchestra' and 'the orchestra in france']; the remaining chapters were drafted by john spitzer. the two of us edited, rewrote, and reedited the entire book together" (v). their combined labors have resulted in the most comprehensive, accurate, and insightful account ever written of the orchestra's early history. i need to make this absolutely clear at the out­ set because my review points to what i feel are some flaws in the book. these observations must be considered in the context of the authors' over­ all achievement in so expertly and indefatigably covering such a vast and complex field. the book falls into two large parts. the first part (chapters 1-9) con­ sists largely of a series of chronologically-arranged surveys tracing the de­ velopment of the orchestra in france, italy, germany (by which the authors mean the german-speaking part of europe), and britain and its north american colonies (all treated in a chapter inaccurately called "the orches­ tra in england"). the second part of the book (chapters 10-14) explores various topics throughout the period indicated by the book's title, from performance practices, rehearsals, seating, acoustics, and orchestration, to the conductor, the economic status of orchestral musicians, and (in conclu­ sion) "the meaning of the orchestra." most of the book is based on secondary literature; it presents a thor­ ough, well-organized, and authoritative synthesis of decades of scholarly research. chapters 4 and 14 are among the exceptions. chapter 4, "corelli's orchestra;' is based in large part on new archival research and includes sev­ eral documents that have not, apparently, been published before, while chap­ ter 14, "the meaning of the orchestra;' is largely woven from research in computerized databases. whether presenting new material or synthesizing the work of other scholars, spitzer and zaslaw always write with admirable clarity and without a trace of academic jargon. the final chapter of the first part, entitled "the classical orchestra," current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 137 138 current musicology discusses orchestras active between 1750 and 1815. in keeping with the in­ ternationalization of music in the second half of the eighteenth century (facilitated by the frequent travel of composers and orchestral musicians), this chapter breaks away from the geographical specialization of earlier chap­ ters and covers all of europe. though the chapter's scope is appropriate, its title gives pause. the term "classical" has been subject to incisive criticism in recent years by scholars such as james webster (1991) and pointedly avoided by others, such as daniel heartz (1995). so it is surprising that the authors use it, and the even more old-fashioned term "viennese classical style," without justification or explanation. spitzer and zaslaw devote substantial attention to two musicians in particular who played crucial roles in the development of the orchestra in the second half of the seventeenth century: lully and corelli. their chap­ ters, the only ones devoted to individual musicians and the orchestras they led, add significantly to our knowledge and understanding of the period. among the many important issues they cover here is the problem of whether or not corelli's orchestra sometimes played without keyboard instruments in the continuo group. the authors argue that although "organs and harp­ sichords were indeed present at many of corelli's performances;' the key­ board instruments "were associated conceptually and practically with the vocal rather than the instrumental aspects of performance" (125). the detail with which spitzer and zaslaw discuss lully and corelli may raise expectations for the treatment of later orchestras that the book does not fully meet. i was disappointed at the relatively little said about johann stamitz and the celebrated mannheim orchestra, about the london orches­ tras for which haydn wrote his late symphonies, and about the orchestras in vienna for which mozart wrote most of his late operas and concertos and beethoven his first eight symphonies.! the book's final chapter presents a close analysis, influenced by the work of the linguist george lakoff and others, of various metaphors by which eighteenth-century writers revealed their understanding of the orchestra. there is much food for thought here. the comparison of the orchestra to clockwork (519), for example, brings to mind the chronological proximity of the first orchestras to the invention of the balance spring around 1665.2 the authors' awareness of how metaphor expresses meaning encour­ ages readers to take notice of the book's most pervasive metaphor, that of birth. the use of this metaphor in the title is by no means accidental or casual; it appears several times in the book. yet the authors do not seem to have treated their metaphor with complete consistency, or with clear aware­ ness of its implications. near the end of the book, they call the birth of the orchestra "not an event but a process-a long process that began in the john a. rice early seventeenth century and completed itself, more or less, in the early decades of the nineteenth century" (530). but earlier they write: "when it was born in the late seventeenth century the orchestra was a novelty" (507). the use of scare quotes in another passage suggests some discomfort with the metaphor: "the orchestra was 'born' in england between about 1685 and 1715" (272). birth carries with it connotations of organic development, beginning with the weakness and imperfection of infancy, continuing with the imma­ turity of childhood, and ultimately resulting in the maturity and strength of adulthood. (to half of humanity, the idea of birth is inseparable from the idea of extraordinary physical pain.) taking the metaphor of birth seri­ ously, we cannot escape the implication that orchestras of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were babies or children compared to the adult or­ chestras of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. although spitzer and zaslaw never acknowledge such implications, they seem to have allowed them to shape parts of their narrative. they write in their conclusion: "the development of the practice and theory of orchestration drew orchestral music closer to works of art" (530). that suggests that the earliest orchestral music, perhaps because the orchestra itself was in its infancy, does not qualify as art. the authors define the early nineteenth-century orchestra in their pref­ ace as "the institution that, with changes, still exists in concert halls and opera houses in many parts of the world" (v); in other words, the late-ro­ mantic symphony orchestra that caters largely to urban-dwelling, upper­ middle-class music lovers over the age of fifty. this, some readers might conclude, is the mature organism resulting from the birth and subsequent development of the orchestra. yet music lovers of the early twenty-first cen­ tury are able to enjoy a wide variety of orchestras, some of which do not descend directly from the early nineteenth-century prototype. we enjoy il giardino armonico, for example, because the baroque or­ chestra that inspired it was no newborn child. we can speak of its birth only in the sense that we can speak of the birth of venus: it rose fully formed from the seventeenth-century musical sea, as mature and as perfect as botticelli's goddess. the compositions that lully and corelli wrote for their orchestras are just as much works of art as the music that tchaikovskywrote for a very different kind of ensemble two hundred years later. i don't think that spitzer and zaslaw would disagree with me. i only wish they had made this point more explicitly. early on, the authors clearly acknowledge that no single set of defini­ tional criteria apply to every orchestra. in chapter 1 they list the following as features that, in various combinations, allow us to define an instrumental 139 140 current musicology ensemble as an orchestra: a violin-based ensemble with part doubling, stan­ dardized instrumentation and repertory, 16-foot bass, keyboard continuo, unity and discipline, and particular kinds of administrative structures. the authors stress that an ensemble does not need to have all these features in order to be an orchestra, encouraging a flexible approach to the often vex­ ing problem of what is and is not an orchestra. yet lurking, not fully ac­ knowledged, somewhere in their minds is the sound and appearance of what they call "a real orchestra" (243). thus the ensemble taking part in the per­ formance of moliere's le malade imaginaire in 1674 "looks, and perhaps it sounded, a lot like an orchestra" (86). they write of the dresden kapelle: "by 1709 something very much like an orchestra had emerged" (225). and of johann sebastian bach: "only in leipzig can he be said to have had any­ thing like an orchestra at his disposal" (245). statements like these make me uneasy. what is the difference between an orchestra and something "like an orchestra"? in the case of bach, spitzer and zaslaw are reluctant to consider the ensembles for which he wrote before he came to leipzig as orchestras be­ cause the strings apparently consisted of one player on a part. here the au­ thors seem to retreat from their complex and subtle demonstration in chapter 1 of how various combinations of characteristics can define an orchestra, and instead reduce their analysis to a single criterion: the size of the string band. reporting that bach's four ouverture are transmitted without dupli­ cate string parts, they conclude that these works were probably played by one musician on a part.3 they write: "overtures 3 and 4 sound particularly grand and 'orchestral' [scare quotes again], but bach achieves this by multi­ plying parts rather than multiplying players and by writing orchestral ef­ fects into the music, so that his one-on-a-part ensemble sounds more or­ chestral than it actually is" (249). this explanation-this dichotomy between what is orchestral and what sounds orchestral-appears to be at odds with much of the excellent con­ tent of chapter 13, "the birth of orchestration." there spitzer and zaslaw make the crucial point that part of what makes an ensemble into an orches­ tra is how a composer writes for it. they illustrate the orchestral unison (one of several "effects of unity and grandeur" characteristic of eighteenth­ century orchestral writing) by quoting the beginning of bach's keyboard concerto in d minor, bwv 1052 (448). they are absolutely right to call the ensemble for which bach wrote this concerto an orchestra, whether it was originally played one on a part or by a larger ensemble. the problem of whether an ensemble with one-on-a-part strings can be called an orchestra comes up several times in the book. it is never com­ pletely resolved, and probably never will be. the authors state that "large john a. rice ensembles and part doubling do not seem to have been defining features of the lullist movement in germany. style was more important than size to the german lullists" (220). in other words, german musicians, including bach, created orchestras simply by writing in a particular style and demand­ ing a level of ensemble discipline (uniform bowing and so forth) character­ istic of lully's orchestra. of an engraving entitled "concerto a cembalo obligato con stromenti" and dated 1777, the authors write: compared with the theater orchestras above, this little ensemble of eight instruments [two violins, two flutes, two horns, cello, and harpsichord or piano 1 hardly looks like much of an orchestra. the caption insists, how­ ever, that they are playing a 'keyboard concerto with instrumental accom­ paniment; and indeed one-on-a-part performances of concertos were common in germany throughout the eighteenth century. (356) behind this rather cloudy reasoning are two questionable and contradic­ tory assumptions: 1) that to look "like much of an orchestra," an ensemble needs significantly more than eight players; and 2) that any ensemble in­ volved in the performance of a concerto is ipso facto an orchestra. spitzer and zaslaw have assembled a vast amount of information about the size and instrumental content of eighteenth-century orchestras, much of which is presented in a series of tables and appendices that constitute one of their book's major assets. these tables, however, have to be used with caution. some information is given in square brackets, and it is not imme­ diately obvious what these brackets signify. do they enclose data that is not documented in the column headed "source"? if so, what is the source for the data enclosed in the brackets? in a few cases information in one table is contradicted by information in another. for example, the covent garden orchestra of isis listed in table s.2 (with eight violins and no double basses) is quite different from the covent garden orchestra of isis in appendix d (with twelve violins and two double basses). the orchestras listed in the tables occasionally appear to be ensembles gathered for special occasions, and probably do not reflect the normal prac­ tice of a particular institution. for example, in table 5.1 ("representative italian opera orchestras, 1707-99") an orchestra assembled in the teatro comunale of bologna in 177s consisted of forty-two strings, two flutes, two oboes, one english horn, two bassoons, four horns, four trumpets, four trombones, and timpani. that massive ensemble was surely not representa­ tive of the opera orchestra at the teatro comunale, or of italian opera in genera1.4 another reason to use the tables with caution is that in some cases they 141 142 current musicology present information about orchestras, and in other cases they report the personnel of kapellen. spitzer and zaslaw explain that the term kapelle was often used for a court's entire musical establishment, and that the relation between the size and composition of a kapelle and the orchestra (or orches­ tras) drawing from that kapelle for its (or their) members is problematic­ and an occasional source of inconsistency in this book. as the authors say in reference to data about the mannheim kapelle: "these numbers and these proportions represent instrumentalists available in the kapelle, not the or­ chestra as it appeared at any actual performance" (259). yet on the previous page they say that these same figures show "the development of the mannheim orchestra" (258; emphasis added). the distinction between kapelle and orchestra is further blurred in appendix b, which, despite its title ("sample orchestras, 1773-1778"), contains several kapellen. as spitzer and zaslaw themselves state: "tables that compare all kinds of ensembles playing all manner of music in all sorts of venues are impossible to inter­ pret" (28). the nature of keyboard instruments used in eighteenthand early nine­ teenth-century orchestras is also a source of some inconsistency. table 7.4 ("instrumentalists in the mannheim kapelle, 1723-78") makes no refer­ ence to stringed keyboard instruments; the only keyboard instruments mentioned are a pair of organs. yet in appendix b the mannheim kapelle in 1773 is said to have included two harpsichords. this inconsistency is re­ flected in the text as well: "some symphonies composed at mannheim in the 1760s have figures under the bass line in the manuscript parts, suggest­ ing that a harpsichord might have been a regular member of the orchestra for symphonies at that time" (3l3). from all this data, we might conclude that the mannheim kapelle employed two keyboard players who sometimes played organ and sometimes stringed keyboard instruments, and that one of these players might have participated in the performance of sympho­ nies. 5 the book's use of the term "harpsichord" is itself somewhat problem­ atic. spitzer and zaslaw often translate the word cembalo as "harpsichord," despite strong evidence that in eighteenth-century italy cembalo was used indiscriminately in reference to any keyboard instrument with strings. in­ stead, i wish they had followed their admirable policy of not translating the word basso when used to designate the bass line of orchestral music. cembalo is just as ambiguous and complicated in its meanings as basso. the authors' rendering of cembalo as "harpsichord" reflects their ten­ dency, perceivable in several parts of the book, to minimize the importance of the piano vis-a-vis the harpsichord during most of the eighteenth cen­ tury. although they admit that "by the 1770s pianos (what today are called john a. rice 'fortepianos') had begun to replace harpsichords, first in german orches­ tras, then elsewhere" (24), they do not sufficiently emphasize the impor­ tance of the role that the piano played in music making even before 1770, disposing of uncertainty in this area with an undocumented declaration that, "the keyboard instrument most widely used in the classical orchestra was the harpsichord" (312). according to table 8.2, in 1818 the covent garden orchestra still included a harpsichord (although the instrument's name is enclosed in square brackets). the book's many illustrations constitute an important part of its value. i cannot think of any other book in which pictures of so many seventeenth­ and eighteenth-century orchestras have been assembled. several of them are completely new to me. at the risk of seeming ungrateful for this wealth of visual material, i wish some of the pictures had been reproduced more clearly, and with more details of the orchestras visible. several images (for example, figs. 3.1, 3.2, 3.4, and 8.2) are disappointingly fuzzy. others depict large halls or open spaces in which the orchestra appears as a small group (for example, figs. 4.1, 5.3, 7.3,10.6, and plate xi). although such pictures usefully show the orchestra's spatial context, i would have welcomed more close-ups that might have allowed readers to see the individual players and their instruments more clearly. the book does contain some details oflarger illustrations, but even in the case of some of these details (for example, the illustration of a performance of cesti's ii porno d'oro in 1668, fig. 2.3), my middle-aged eyes would have welcomed even sharper, more revealing im­ ages of instrumental ensembles. another aspect of this book's richness is its mutually reinforcing net­ work of musical analyses, discussions of performance practice, and illustra­ tions of how orchestral leaders imposed discipline on their ensembles dur­ ing rehearsals and performances. among the orchestral effects that spitzer and zaslaw describe as "effects of unity and grandeur" is the tirade, defined by georg muffat at the end of the seventeenth century as "several quick notes in a row, executed with great bow speed" (451). the authors explain that "the tirade is an upward or, less often, a downward scale, played quickly, with alternating bowstrokes." "alternating bowstrokes" seems to mean that a tirade requires each note to be bowed separately. while examples 13.13 (from lully'satys) and 13.14 (from a concerto by vivaldi) seem to support this interpretation, in example 13.15 (from an overture by jommelli) what the authors refer to as a tirade is slurred, suggesting that it should be played with a single bow stroke. (this apparent inconsistency sent me back to chap­ ter 11, "orchestral performance practices;' but oddly the section subtitled "bowing and articulation" deals almost entirely with the second half of the eighteenth century.) 143 144 current musicology later in their chapter "the birth of orchestration;' the authors present a fascinating and provocative analysis of the exposition of the first move­ ment of haydn's symphony no.6 (ie matin), in which they identify tirades (again with slurs) among several effects of grandeur that haydn deftly ma­ nipulates (494-501). this analysis proposes new ways of thinking and writ­ ing about eighteenth-century orchestral music: concert symphonies were intended, as schulze said, to "show off instru­ mental music in all its magnificence;' and in this sense symphonies, inso­ far as they were about anything, were about the orchestra. by using the full range of orchestral effects to highlight the melodies, harmonies, rhythms, textures, and structures of the music, eighteenth-century sym­ phony composers communicated the excellence of the orchestras for which they composed their symphonies and the excellence of orchestras in gen­ eral. (501) this makes good sense; but in choosing a patently programmatic symphony to make this point, spitzer and zaslaw are being a little coy, perhaps. haydn's symphony no.6 may be "about the orchestra;' but it is also about the morn­ ing. of haydn's slow introduction, they write in a footnote: "this opening adagio is sometimes said to depict the sun rising over the horizon:' this implies either that they do not subscribe to this interpretation, or that it is unimportant or impossible to verify whether or not the music depicts a sunrise. but this adagio, at the beginning of a symphony that haydn him­ self called ie matin, most definitely depicts a sunrise, and that sunrise is a crucial part of the picture painted by haydn in this first movement. spitzer and zaslaw refer to the solo flute melody at the beginning of the allegro as "a radical effect of variety and nuance." that is undoubtedly true; but to ignore the fact that the flute is playing a tuba pastoralis motive (much like the one beethoven later used in the last movement of the pastoral sym­ phony) is to ignore an important element in haydn's depiction of the morn­ ing. the combination of the sunrise and the cowherd's call makes clear that haydn's first movement depicts not just any morning, but a morning out­ doors in the country. the birth of the orchestra is an important book that belongs in every serious music library. it contains much that will be of interest to students of performance practice, church music, opera, the concerto, the symphony, and the social history of music. orchestral musicians as well will read it with excitement and pleasure, learning from it more about the early history of their venerable institution than they can from any other single source. john a. rice notes l. the authors appear to have made no use of an important series of recent articles on beethoven's orchestral musicians by theodore albrecht (2000a; 2000b; 2002a; 2002b; 2003; 2004). 2. see landes (1983:123) on this crucially important advance in timekeeping technology. 3. spitzer and zaslaw do not consider here the possibility of two players using one part, although elsewhere they ask readers to assume "that string players played two on a part" (144). 4. the date and the number of players in this orchestra in bologna do not agree, in any case, with the text. spitzer and zaslaw state: "the largest of these commercial theater orchestras in table 5.1 is an orchestra of 58 at the opening of the teatro comunale in bologna in 1763" (148). but table 5.1 contains no entry dated 1763, and the entry dated 1778 involves an orchestra of sixty-two. 5. some of these symphonies may have been performed in church, in which case the figures would more likely have been realized by an organ. references albrecht, theodore. 2000a. beethoven's timpanist, ignaz manker. percussive notes 38 (4): 54-66. ---. 2000b. mozart's (and beethoven's) magic flutist: anton dreyssig, ca. 1753/54-1820. flute talk 20: 6-9. ---. 2002a. franz stadler, stephan fichtner, and other oboists at the theater an der wien during beethoven's heroic period. the double reed 25 (2): 93-106. ---. 2002b. anton grams: beethoven's preferred double bassist. international society of bassists journal 26 (2): 19-23. ---.2003. benedict fuchs, franz eisen, and michael herbst: the hornists in beethoven's eroica symphony at its first performances in vienna. the horn call: journal of the inter­ national horn society 34 (1): 39-49. ---.2004. a case of mistaken gender: the hornist camillo bellonci (1781-?). the horn call: journal of the international horn society 34 (2): 107-08. heartz, daniel. 1995. haydn, mozart, and the viennese school, 1740-1780. new york: w. w. norton. landes, david s. 1983. revolution in time: clocks and the making of the modern world. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. webster, james. 1991. haydn's farewell symphony and the idea of classical style. cambridge: cambridge university press. 145 edward leon kottick-the music of the chansonnier cordiforme, paris, bibliotheque nationale rothschild 2973 ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-539), 1962. (335 pp. in 2 vols., university of north carolina diss.) henrietta schavran among the great song manuscripts of the 15th century, the small but elegant, heart-shaped chansonnier cordiforme is a particularly appealing mirror of contemporary cultural tastes. as though to preserve for musical posterity some of the best-loved songs of the time, its repertoire of 44 pieces includes delightful favorites such as 0 rosa bella, j'ay pris amours, man seul plaisir, de taus biens plaine, and tout a par mtry, the melodies of which were repeatedly paraphrased and all of which were set with contrafactum texts at least once. the collection spans the periods of dufay and ockeghem, and includes afair sprinkling of works by contemporary english composers active on the continent. of singular interest are the fourteen italian songs. sixteen works appear to be unica. edward kottick's dissertation, orgapized into three main divisions, presents historical and descriptive studies of the manuscript (vol. i, chapters i through iii), detailed analyses of the music (vol. i, chapters ivthrough viii), and modern transcriptions of thf songs with critical commentary (vol. ii).i primary purpose, as stated in the introduction, is the stylistic analysis of the music. in chapter i, we are led along the bibliographical trails explored by kottick during his search for facts relating to the manuscript and the identity of its first owner, jean de montchenu. fixing the compilation of the chansonnier at between 1460 and 1476,2 kottick offers socio-historical reasons why it may have originated in savoy. a lengthy biography narrates some of montchenu's machiavellian exploits; that the gentleman was a scoundrel of the first order is made clear, but that a knowledge of him "helps to establish a picture of the society for which dufay, busnois, binchois, ockeghem, and morton were writing their chansons" (p. 13) is questionable. the sections of chapters ii and iii dealing with the physical and notational characteristics of the chansonnier and the nature of its illuminations are generally thorough and informative. cursory, however, is the section in chapter ii devoted to the repertoire and its composers. kottick divides the compositions into those in italian style and those in franco-burgundian style, the latter including some songs with italian texts. the former pieces are those syllabically set, with short phrases, repeated notes, and clearly-marked 92 cadences; the franco-burgundiai.l songs are described as having "longer phrases with concealed cadences, more frequent use of imitation, and a melismatic style" (p. 33). a stylistic distinction is also made between the earlier and later generations of the franco-burgundian school; triple meter, a more use of hemiola, and a tendency toward smaller rhythmic values mark the earlier songs, while the later works tend to have duple and triple meter with about equal frequency, more straightforward rhythm, and larger note values (p. 36). although kottick's main objective is the analysis of the repertoire as a whole, it is regrettable that he does not provide some sort of historico-analytical commentary on each individual piece. the few general observations that he does make are limited to such rudimentary remarks as "chiarafontana is a duet in which the voices are almost equal in importance" (p. 40); "ma bouche plaint . .. like the first half of ockeghem's ma bouche rit, ends in a phrygian cadence" (p. 40); and "de tous biens plaine . .. was a famous and often paraphrased chanson" (p. 39). kottick might have reported, for example, that fully one-fourth of the pieces in the cordiforme repertoire were provided with contrrifactum texts in late 15thand early 16thcentury collections oflauda poems by feo belcari and others,s thus attesting to the diffusion not only of the more famous french songs, but likewise of some of the lesser-known italian ones (lesser-known, that is, to modern researchers). lauda texts, with the directions cantasi come, are found for the following cordiforme i talian songs: hora cridar oyme (belcari lx); 0 pelegrina luce (belcari lxxxix) ; morte, merce, gentile aquela (belcari xlv and ccv) ; o rosa bella (belcari clxvi) ; ben 10 sa dio (belcari liv and xxxix) ; and gentil madona (belcari lxiv and cxlv). the french songs sung as laude include tout a par moy, j' ay pris amours, le serviteur hault guerdonne, de tous biens plaine, and mon seul plaisir. in his all-too-brief discussion of pieces in cordiforme that parody or paraphrase other songs, kottick fails to note obvious similarities between the melodies of chiara fontana (no.5) and j'ay pris amours (no. 18), particularly their identical openings. in his edition of the unica, kottick draws a similarity between chiara fontana and ockeghem's ma bouche rit (no. 32) "with its characteristic descending fifth" (p. xii), but the argument is unconvincing. style characteristics of the individual composers are reported in a somewhat desultory fashion. biographical data are meager or not forthcoming; the reader is referred to the bibliography for references which, for the most part, turn out to be articles in mgg. bypassed altogether is the question whether or not the names barbingant and barbireau represent the same man, the latter name not appearing in the body of the dissertation at all. (nor does the bibliography cite studies on barbingant-barbireau, such as du saar's 1946 investigation of barbireau's compositions, which includes a chapter on no. 25, l' omme bany de sa plaisance, and c. w. fox's important "barbireau and barbingant: a review" in jams [1960] 13:79-101.) the study lacks a composer index. composer attribution is less precise than one might wish. while, for ex93 ample, kottick mentions that cent mille eseus (no. 23) "is attributed to busnois in one source, but to caron in two others" (see also appendix to this review), he fails to point out conflicting or uncertain attributions for tout a par mqy (attributed to frye in mellon and wash. 252 but to binchois in nivelle de la chaussee); 0 rosa bella (bearing dunstable's name in rome 1411, but bedyngham's in porto 714); andje ne veis oneques lapareille (bearing name in nivelle de la chaussee and dufay's in one of the two places where it is copied into montecassino, but coming down anonymously in the other sources). kottick names dufay as the composer of no. 27, le serviteur hault guerdonne (he does so also in his recent articles), in keeping with most prior opinion. but heinrich besseler, who had questioned dufay's authorship on stylistic grounds,4 has recently pointed out that, by virtue of evidence in the manuscript porto 714, the composer of this chanson is most likely robert morton. 5 in the section on poetry (chapter iii), kottick identifies the text of one song: 0 rosa bella, the poem of which is by leonardo giustiniani. as a matter of fact, other songs in cordiforme are likewise set to poems attributed to giustiniani in contemporary literary sources or in modern literary writings: no.9, perla my a eara (not per la my a eara, as transcribed), and nos. 6 and 13, which are two different settings of 0 pelegrina, a luee. 6 in the second, larger division of the dissertation, kottick treats the "music of the chansonnier as a statistical unit, of which the elements of modality, melody, rhythm, polyphony, etc., are separately scrutinized. for classification purposes, the repertoire falls into four categories: the italian-style songs, the franco-burgundian songs, songs of the earlier generation, and songs of the later generation. the latter two categories take as a starting point works whose composers are known (a confusing error in the footnote on p. 86 labels the later songs as being those of the earlier generation). among the later pieces are the two anonymous songs, marte, meree (no. 10) and amor eon l'areo tesso (no. 12), both of which paraphrase juan cornago's marte, merce (which survives in montecassino and in escorial iv, a. 24). why, we wonder, does kottick omit from this category ma bouehe plaint which, as he points out, is fashioned upon ockeghem's ma bouehe rit? moreover, if a song like le serviteur hault guerdonne, now believed to be by morton, a later composer than dufay, is transferred to the category of the later generation, kottick's findings would be subject to revision. in the process of analysis by classification, the individual songs unfortunately lose their identity, and their interior characteristics often become engulfed in a sea of figures and percentages. in the chapter on modal practices, for example, kottick examines beginning signatures and the modes of central and final cadences. his findings show that the dorian scale pattern occurs at the final cadence in 19 of the 44 songs and that the "tonic-tonic and dominant-tonic relationship occurs between central and final cadences almost two-thirds of the time" (p. 70). regrettably, these statistics are not broken down for the four categories of songs set up by kottick; it remains for 94 the reader to investigate, for example, whether the dorian scale pattern is more prevalent in the italian-style or the franco-burgundian songs, or if the supertonic-tonic relationship (found seven times) is more characteristic of the earlier or later songs. more interesting is kottick's discussion, in the same chapter, of the relationship between modality and the use of flats. mter briefly summarizing the investigations of apel, lowinsky, and hoppin on the question of partial signatures, kottick presents statistics showing the frequency and the kind of flat signatures 27 pieces, as found in cordiforme and 29 other sources. he points out (p. 76) that, when a song occurs in different manuscripts with varying signatures, one of two things can happen to its modal structure: either the internal flats (that is, flats occurring in the course of the music) and/or the requirements of musica fleta can produce a reading in accordance with a source having a fuller signature, or the modal structure of the piece can change from a transposed to a non-transposed mode (or from a mode transposed by two flats to one transposed by one flat). kottick discusses gentil madona (no.4) to illustrate the first possibility and le serviteur (no. 27) to show the second. he concludes that the modal system of the time was not rigid and that a "change of modal scalic pattern may occur in a song as it appears in one or several mss" by reason of varying signatures and internal accidentals, application of musica fleta, etc. (p. 83).7 in his introduction, kottick states (p. 4) that the "melodies, derived from such diverse sources as folksong, dance music, and plainchant, show subtle interior motivic relationships." but the melodic derivations are left for the reader to find. in the chapter on melody (v), kottick studies, among other aspects of this element, the frequency of occurrence of five types of melodic curves, the pitch climax notes at the phrase and song levels, the melodic range of phrases, and the over-all range of the individual voices. his findings show that songs in the italian style have undulating and descehding phrase contours, while the franco-burgundian songs are predominantly undulating; pitch climaxes in the italian songs occul: within the first half of the phrase and toward the middle of the phrase in the franco-burgundian songs. this interesting information would be more meaningful to the reader if kottick had provided specific musical examples from each song category. the section on rhythm (chapter v) and the chapter concerned with polyphonic aspects of the music (vi) similarly supply detailed statistics as well as examples of patterns and formulae. the discussion in chapter vi relating to cadence structures and types of dissonance found in the songs make worthwhile reading. disappointing, however, are the comments on the vertical aspects which, within four pages, reiterate the single idea that songs of the later generation and those in the italian style tend to use fewer perfect consonances than those of the earlier generation (see pp. ill, 112, 114). although kottick divides melodies functionally into vocal style (on the basis of the superius) and filler style (mostly on the basis of the contratenor), he does not, in his analytical discussions, probe into the changing role of the 95 f f contratenor. we have historical accounts of the performance a 2 of both je ne veis oncques la pareille (no. 43) and tout a par moy (no. 31);8 we 'find, in this very manuscript, a substitute contratenor for comme jemme desconjortee (no. 30). the contratenors of these earlier songs may well function as harmonic fillers, the superius and tenor voices forming an autonomous duet. in songs like vostre bruit (no. 22), where the upper voices enter imitatively over a supporting lower part, the contratenor in the main retains its subordinate position. on the other hand, if we look at cent mille escus (no. 23), the first half of 0 pelegrina (no. 13), and the first part of est-il mercy de quoy (no. 29), we find that the contratenor rather consistently joins the upper two parts in presenting the phrases in imitation, an indication of the increased melodic, rather than merely filler, function of this voice in the later songs and a gentle hint of the technique of pervading imitation that soon was to be widely applied. indeed, a conclusion, such as we read at p. 120, that "there appears to be little distinction in either the class, nature, or frequency of imitation between the songs of the earlier and later generations" is a questionable generalization and could lead the reader to make one or more of his own. the isometric, italian-style pieces, like perla my a cara (no.9), probably are examples of the 15th-century giustiniana, or vini;:;iana, a song type often mentioned in contemporary sources and traditionally associated with leonardo giustiniani and other poets who improvised melismatic ornamentation to simple discants during actual performance. this aspect of the italian repertoire receives no mention; furthermore, the bibliography lists too few writings on any aspect of italian quattrocento music, such as rubsamen's article on the giustiniana previously cited. a short commentary relating the chansonnier cordiforme to its concordant sources might help future investigators to trace the repertoire in general and the italian songs and those ascribed to the english composers in particular. turning to volume ii, where kottick presents a modern edition of the music, the following comments may be noted. the critical apparatus has several serious shortcomings. an examination of the lists has revealed, first of all, a number of citation errors and omissions, rendering suspect their use for scholarly reference. secondly, the method of reporting concordances for songs that come down in several versions is confusing and misleading. here, kottick could have limited his concordances to substantially identical pieces (but including those with added si placet parts) and could have referred the reader to modern sources where citations for related works are available. what he does do, however, is toss into his concordance lists a random number of citations for different but related songs without clearly explaining their relationship to the cordiforme settings or to each other. in some instances kottick gives incomplete citations for such related pieces and reports folio numbers for the voice or voices based upon the version that occurs in cordiforme, but not for the other parts. to add to the confusion, concordances purporting to be identical with cordi96 forme sometimes turnout to have unrelated contra tenors. of the nine concordances for commefemme desconfortee (no. 30), for example, none is identical with cordiforme; yet kottick's list indicates that only one of the nine citations differs in any way from the version in this manuscript. the concordances given for j' ay pris amours (no. 18) include citations for several versions of the song; kottick's list does not make this distinction clear. appended to this review is a partial list of corrections, additions, and remarks applicable to kottick's concordance citations.9 except for the song gentil madona, kottick fails to report different or contrafactum text incipits, a surprising omission, since he goes to some length to give minor spelling changes in his lists of variant text readings. this is particularly regrettable when french songs come down with italian texts (see nos. 18,23, and 27 of the list of corrections). as stated earlier, contrafacta intended to serve as laude are nowhere cited. aside from differences in signatures and flats occurring in the course of the music, kottick supplies few variant musical readings. not reported, for example, is the fact that at least nine sources for de tous biens plaine show variant readings for the first few notes of the contratenor, which omit the octave leap in that voice found in the cordiforme version. a spot check of the first few notes of je ne veis oncques la pareille in cordiforme and four other sources has revealed the following musical variants: superius: in all sources except cordiforme, the bb breve (meas. 2 in the edition) appears as a dotted semibreve, minim (bb, a). contratenor: the opening note in cordiforme, a dotted breve, appears in the other sources as breve and semibreve (the latter being followed in three of these sources by a dot of imperfection). among the sources consulted by the reviewer was nivelle de la chaussee, not included among kottick's concordances for this piece. a casual comparison of the modern edition with the manuscript has shown that the musical transcriptions are generally accurate and clearly notated. kottick provides text for the superius part only since, he asserts, it is "almost always the only voice with full text" (vol. ii, p. 4); earlier, he states that "only the superius is supplied with a full text" (vol. i, p. 33). in the chansonnier itself, however, in the group consisting of nos. 25 through 44, nine songs, besides having full text under the superius, have it also under the tenor, three have it also under the contratenor part, and most of the others have at least a substantial quantity of text under both lower voices. the twopart song, chiara fontana (no.5), has text under both voices. such scribal preoccupation with text placement for so many songs in this carefully prepared manuscript once again conjures up that phantom question which haunts editors of manuscripts of this period: how many voices should be provided with text? a check of the text of ben [0 sa dio (no.2) revealed that the opening lines probably should be scanned: 5+ c•m • 97 rather than ben 10 sa dio se sum verginea pura che in ben fare spero che falsa infama non renove el vero, ben 10 sa dio se sum verginea pura che en ben fare spero, etc. this reading would improve the text underlay, so that the word che of the second line could be set under the f (first note of me as. 8 in the edition) and the cluster of syllables under the small-note values in meas. 9 would be eliminated. the line of text, ben quel pensare dolore me sia, appears on folio iv in the manuscript and belongs in place of the words a tollere grande sospecto del mal pensare, which erroneously appear as the third line of the b section in the edition (meas. 15-19). on the whole, the dissertation contains much worthwhile information about the manuscript and about aspects of style in 15th-century song composition. furthermore, it makes available in modern notation a number of songs heretofore unpublished. but the historical and stylistic significance of the repertoire of the chansonnier cordiforme still awaits elucidation. appendixio piece no. and name 4 gentil madona 7 0 rosa bella kottick citation mc871,114v dij 517, 93v-95 mc 871n, 102 (c only) par 4379, 30v (s only) sev 5.1.43,50 (t and c only) corrections, additions, remarks text incipit in mc n87111 : fortune las. c different; t octave higher. sand t lacking. these two sources should be cited together, since the former and the relevant portion of the latter are scattered parts of a single ms. 18 j'ay pris amours (the reviewer has rearranged the order of kottick's citations to show which of several versions they represent) 98 version i: identical with cordiforme dij 517 version ii: bol q16, 122v-123 flo 27, 41v par 15123, 21v-22 per 431,83 (not cited) (not cited) me: trois chans, 3 wolfobr,94 par 4379, 27v-28 wash 252, 3lv-32 intarsia: wooden inlay ..• slacking. text: canti zoiosi e dolce melodia/ tutti cantiamo al umile maria. wolf, 38v-39. nivelle, 71v-72. c different from version i. c like par 4379. c like above 2 citations. plate in ligi, note d' archivio ii (1925) , pi. vii piece no. and name version ii: contd other versions: kottick citation me: rie-simg, 139 (not cited) (not cited) lon 31922, 4iv-42. (variant c) paris 504, i, 17 flo xix, 59, 189v (s & t only) tr 1947-4, 7-8 (variant c, no text) (not cited) corrections, additions, remarks gives 4 versions, one of which is version ii. me: dto, bd. 28, 29, p. 185. wolf obr, p. 92. c different from versions i and ii. s only. unable to identify version because t and clacking. should read 189v-190. a third voice, on fol. 190, has the directions: "canon: j. pre sequar" in-dicating a 4-part piece. the name "johannes martini" is at the top of fol. 190. c different from above versions. meoftr 1947-4inrmi, xlviii, p.20. (numerous other versions a 2, a 3, and a 4 borrow one or more voices of the cordiforme setting. see hew odh, 139-141. see also g. reese, "musica;i compositions in renaissance intarsia," in medieval and renaissance studies, proceedings of the southeastern inst. of medieval and renaissance studies, summer, 1966 (durham: 1968), pp. 76-80, for a recent study of this chanson that includes a modern edition of version ,ii and a plate of the intarsia.) 23 cent mille escus par 15123, lov-ii name of composer partly cut off. 24 le souvenir 27 le serviteur c changes after first 3 notes. per 431, 58 c begins the same but then changes; different from par 15123 version. (not cited) me: ambros ii, 554 per 431, 88 cop 291,888 (s & toniy) *jardin, 62 (initial verse only) , par 15123, 92v-93 flo xix, 59, 278v (not cited) text incipit: cento milia scuti. bol q16, 145v-i46; text incipit: cento milia escute. has dufay attribution. (par 15123, followed in this me, was trimmed in binding and the top of the attribution cut off. the remaining fragment was read as "dufay" by fetis, but, as plamenac claims in mq (1951) 27 :111, the name was probably "busnoys" in the unmaimed original.) a 4; fourth voice added under c. slacking. should read p. 68. text: 10 sol tuo servitor dona gentile. should read 278v-279. this is a 3-part version attributed to heinricus isaac; uses s of cordiforme. me of flo xix, 59 in dto, bd. 28, p. 31. 99 piece no. and name 28 fortune 30 comme femme 31 tout a par moy 32 ma bouche rit 33 mon seul plaisir 39 terriblement 100 kottick citation (not cited) ep: odh 37v-38 (a, 4, variant c) me: hewitt, 294 (variant c) trois chans, no. 3 (not cited) bolq16, 116v-117 (a 4) bol q18, 37v-38 (a 4) nh mel, 62-63, binchoys dij 517, 41v-42 (variant c) esclv.a.24, 131v-132 flo xix, 176, 123v-124 mun 328-331, 121 par 1597, 29v par 4379, 13v-14 rome xiii, 27, 88v-89 wolf287,31v-32 (not cited) me: rehm, 53 trois chans, 9 (not cited) (not cited) (not cited) mun 351a, 22v-23 *ep:jardin, 62 me: dto, xvii, 112 corrections, additions, remarks the very next opening of flo xix, 59 (279v-280) contains an anon. 4-part version using s of cordiforme. a different piece, attributed to busnois in the bologna odh; uses s and t of cordiforme version. gives odh 4-part version. this piece is not in trois chans. per 431, 94v-95 (old 104); text incipit: fortuna vincenecta. music missing in c for meas. 9 through 16 in kottick mod. edition. a added. a added, different from q16. different c. same c as nh mel. same c as nh mel. same c as nh mel. an anon. 4-part version using t of cordiforme. should read 29v-30. a 3-part version attributed to agricola in flo basevi 2439 and elsewhere, using t of cordiforme version. same c as nh mel. same c as nh mel. same c as nh mel. wash 252, 17v-18 (t and conly, s lacking). same c as nh mel. same c as nh mel. and other sources listed above. should read p. 70. same c as nh mel and other sources listed above. me: kenney, frye 00, no.1. dij 9v-11 (v-vi). cop 1848, 431. text incipit: mansieul. facs., after mun 351a, in apeln, p. 137. not the text set in cordiforme but a quodlibit text beginning the words, "mon seul plaisir." it is found in an unrelated musical monophonic setting in par 12744, and appears in a setting by nino lepetit in flo basevi 2439 and elsewhere. should read bd. 22, p. 112. piece no. and name 43 je ne veis oncques notes kottick citation me 871, 29v (not cited) (not cited) wash 252, 45v-46 ' paris 1597,41 * (not cited) * (not cited) corrections, additions, remarks has attribution to dufay. mc n871, p. 377 (fol. iso); it is also at fol. 29v in this ms as cited by kottick. nivelle, 51"'-52. has attribution to binchois. should read 43v-44. should read 40v-41. *lansdowne, 246. *me: wallis, ccxii. 1 since 1962, kottick has published a summary of the contents of vol. i in journal of the american musicological society (1967) 20: 10-27 and an edition of the unica (american institute of musicology, 1967). his recent article, "flats, modality, and musica ficta in some early renaissance chansons," journal of music theory (1968) 12: 2, deals with some of the material investigated in chapters iv and viii of the dissertation (see footnote 7 of this review). 2 page 11, but on p. 12 he suggests 1468-1476; in his edition of the unica, he proposes 1470--1477. 3 see laude spirituali di feo belcari ••• e di altri neue quattro piu antiche raccolte ••• (florence, 1863). 4 guillelmi dufay, opera omnia, vi: cantiones, 1964, pp. iv and xiv. 5 "falsche autornamen in den handschriften strassburg und montecassino," acta musicologica xl (1968), 203. some of the conflicting attributions mentioned above are, in fact, shown in kottick's list of concordances, but that information is not made use of in the body of the dissertation. w. rubsamen, in "the justiniane or viniziane of the 15th century," acta musicologica (1957) 29: 177, reports that perla my a cara appears with giustiniani's name in the manuscript 1091 (dated 1460) of the riccardiana in florence; a. d'ancona, in poesia populare italiana, 1906, p. 488, lists 0 pelegrina as a strambotto by giustiniani. 7 kottick's article in journal of music theory, cited earlier, essentially covers this material and includes ten guidelines, or principles, for the application of musicaficta. these guidelines, which, he states, are derived mostly from the evidence of internal accidentals in cordiforme, are discussed in the dissertation in chapter viii, pp. 175--78. the melodic principles enumerated by kottick are very satisfactory; the harmonic ones do not take into consideration the rule expounded by ugolino d'orvieto and other theorists of the time that a third expanding stepwise to a fifth, or a sixth to an octave, should be major and that a third contracting stepwise to a unison should be minor. s g. reese, music in the renaissance, 1954, p. 58, and s. kenney, walter frye and the contenance angloise, 1965, p. 153, respectively. 9 the reader might keep these emendations at hand'when consulting kottick's inventory printed in jams xx, which contains material almost identical with that given in the dissertation. 10 abbreviations and symbols used by kottick include: ep (early printed works), me (modern editions), and * (text only). modern editions appearing since the dissertation date have generally not been included by the reviewer. 11 kottick lists montecassino as two separate manuscripts (mc 871 and mc 871n) and cites concordances with either one or the other siglum. in the column of corrections, the reviewer cites this source as mc n871. see isabel pope's recent study of this manuscript in anuario musical (1964) 19:123-53. 101 interrelations between musicology and musical performance peter paul fuchs in discussing this subject from the standpoint of the performer, i find it necessary to use the narrower definition of musicology given in the harvard dictionary of music: "work ... that involves the discovery of unknown or the clarification of obscure matters."l the performer, particularly the conductor, who has many obligations in preparing a performance (some of them of a rather trivial nature), rarely finds the time to do in-depth research on problems directly connected with musical execution-problems that may indeed have a very noticeable influence on the final outcome of the performance. obviously, in such cases the help of an expert with enough erudition to make sensible decisions may be more than welcome. the above statement, unless properly qualified, could of course lead to a great many misconceptions. it would be difficult to respect a conductor if he were to use a musicologist as a musical thinking machine, a supplier of the whole truth in every instance, a truth which would then merely need to be translated into sound in order to produce a performance. no matter how reliable the work of the musicologist may be, in a certain sense the performer must be his own musicologist. he must make decisions, perhaps on the basis of musicological revelations fed to him by others, which will reflect his own musical taste and intelligence. there is no whole and unshakable truth upon which he may rely. even though musicology may be called a science, it is a science that serves an art and is therefore not necessarily an exact science. generally speaking, i am inclined to believe that a performer should call on the help of the musicologist mostly for music written before 1800. after that date the notation becomes so exact and the available sources so plentiful that the intelligent performer ought to be able to make his important decisions without the help of outsiders. before the year 1800, however, one finds many problems that need the kind of loving analysis for which the average performer lacks the proper background: various types of ornamentation, the realization of a figured bass, the execution of vocal and instrumental appoggiaturas, or the assignment of various orchestral units and the use of the organ in the accompaniment of chorales in j. s. bach's passions, to name just a few particularly striking examples. before he arrives at any decisions, however, it is important for the performer, particularly the conductor, to develop a basic philosophy of performance. the question that he must ask himself most often in this connection is the meaning of the word authenticity. how "authentic" must the performer be in order to do justice to his function? to this question the past hundred years of performance practice have certainly supplied solutions of the most extreme kind in both directions, with a full spectrum of variations 104 in between. one need only think, on the one hand, of a well-known "edition" of handel's messiah that uses horns and trombones, or of an arrangement for large symphony orchestra of bach's chaconne in d minor for violin solo, and, on the other, of some recently recorded performances of the st. matthew passion in which the elemental outburst of thunder and lightning has been toned down to a peaceable mezzo forte in order not to violate the "style." who is right? how far does the performer's conscience allow him to go? in order to answer these questions, we should first understand what the term "authenticity" really means and what bearing it has on the validity of a performance. not long ago a recording of mozart's don giovanni appeared in which the conductor apparently had made it his aim to have the vocal lines performed exactly in the manner in which they might have been heard during mozart's lifetime. this involved the addition of any number of fioriture completely unfamiliar to our present-day ears but quite possibly "authentic." not having heard the recording myself, i have relied on the comments of several reviewers, who were surprisingly unanimous in their condemnation of the practices used. they lauded the conductor's erudition but did not think much of his performance, which leads me to the conclusion that it was perhaps mozart's authentic don giovanni, but not our don giovanni. does this sound like blasphemy? i think not. it merely leads us back to the widely accepted opinion that there is, and must be, a legitimate difference between the function of an art museum and that of a musical performing organization. the paintings in a museum remain forever the same, no matter what their age may be. they may be restored when natural wear requires it, but this must be done with the greatest care, so that nothing in the character of the original will be changed. if a viewer finds a painting dated, his reaction is normally to give it but scant attention and to move on to the next work, which may be more to his liking. thus he is allowed to make his own selections, to decide for himself which works arouse his emotions and which do not. we find it completely normal that some paintings touch us more than others. with a musical performance, the work-audience relationship is of a very different nature. the listener in a symphonic concert mayor may not enjoy the rendition of a symphony, but for the time being he is a captive. he cannot turn to the next selection or switch channels. therefore, it is in the best interests of the performer or conductor not to lose rapport with his audience during any selection, or even any part thereof. he cannot say that "this is the way the composer wrote it, so don't blame me if you don't like it." no, he must be keenly aware that it is his duty, by the choice of his program and by the type and quality of his rendition, to keep the listener satisfied. let us face it: no matter how letter-perfect a musical performer may be, he never merely presents for inspection the work of another; rather, he gives his all to the interpretation in order to win approval from the audience. for that reason it is most essential, particularly in older works, that the performer create a bridge between the work and the audience. musical 105 tastes change, and the art of performance lies in taking these changes into account without doing violence to the intrinsic nature of the work. if his performance leaves the audience cold, then it will do him little good to claim that it was absolutely authentic by the best available standards of scholarship. he must translate without losing the flavor of the original. but what is really meant by "translating" the composer's intentions? not one specific thing, of course; "translation" may express itself in a hundred different ways, from the most physical to the most spiritual adjustment of the original. one hopes, however, in this time of conscientious performance standards, that such changes remain subtle. toscanini was very fond of telling journalists that he was only the composer's faithful servant, and that he never did anything but see to it that every note was sung or played the way the composer wrote it. this was an excellent publicity line, particularly at the fade-out of an overly romantic age in which the "interpreter of genius" had the right to impose his own personality upon everything. but it does not take a great deal of musicological knowledge to point out how vulnerable toscanini's statement is. there are many reasons for which slight changes in the written text of a score may be necessary in order to warrant a proper execution. mozart is perhaps the only one among the older composers who can always be taken at face value. the reason is that he was eminently practical and never wrote anything that could not be properly performed by the means available during his own time. but how different is beethoven! felix weingartner devoted an entire book to the hundreds of changes that must be made in the original text of beethoven's nine symphonies in order for them to sound satisfactory to a modern ear. these changes were not particularly musicological. a mere knowledge of the techniques of wind instruments during beethoven's time shows us that certain notes could not be produced on the instruments available to him, and that whenever these notes seem to be demanded by the musical sequence, it is only logical to have them played, since modern instruments can produce them without difficulty. not to use these notes-because beethoven did not write them-would hardly be in the best interests of the performance, for it is obvious that beethoven did not always tailor his invention to the possibilities of the existing instruments, the way mozart did. in fact, i remember a very striking example from my student days: a viennese orchestra performed beethoven's fifth under the direction of a very prominent conductor who at that time had apparently gone through a spell of having to be literal at all costs. in the recapitulation of the first movement, when the second theme appears in c major, it was not played by the horns (as weingartner recommends and as is now done in every performance) but by the bassoons-which is what beethoven wrote. the reaction of the audience was not merely astonishment at the rather strange sound, but a series of unrestrained chuckles; to hear the bassoons play this heroic theme could only be termed funny. so much for relentless authenticity, which eliminates the use of ordinary 106 common sense. to any open-minded musician it must be quite obvious that beethoven would have liked to use the horns for this particular passage, but since his horns for this movement were in ed and could not produce all the necessary notes, and since there was not enough time for a change of pitch, he had to resort to the bassoons. it is easy to see that this was done in order to cope with a dire emergency and not out of artistic conviction. in such a case it seems that the task of the present-day conductor is not to safeguard the literal execution of all details but to project the contents of the score in the most direct and technically unencumbered fashion possible. this may sometimes call for slight reorchestrations, as in the above example; more often it will necessitate changes in the dynamics or even in the phrasing. for we are referring not only to passages which beethoven could not commit to paper because of the limitations of the instruments available to him: we are thinking also of other passages where he was so completely possessed by the musical meaning that he did not pay strict attention to the details necessary to make this meaning clear. here again the conductor must be untrue to the letter in order to be true to the spirit. as mentioned before, the real problems, the ones that often induce the conductor or performer to seek the advice of the musicologist, occur mostly in works written before 1800. this is so mainly for two reasons. first, during the 17th and 18th centuries musical orthography was far less literal than after the eroica. it dealt much more frequently with ambiguous symbols that must be interpreted by the performer for proper execution. (the figured bass is only one example.) the second and even more important reason is that certain performance practices of earlier periods, which must have been part and parcel of every musical education in those days, have since quietly disappeared and can be unearthed only through ardent musicological labor. we can discover some of these lost performance practices in surprisingly familiar music, where familiarity with the music itself often overshadows the fact that in playing it we are not following our standard rules. a good example is the slow introduction of the overture to don giovanni, which is marked alta breve. if we were to follow our own rules and insist that this introduction be performed at a speed indicated by two beats to the measure, the result would be absolute disaster. this is where musicology comes to our aid. musicologists tell us that in mozart's day time-beating was not nearly so important an activity as it is now, that therefore the indication alta breve in a mozart score has nothing to do with giving two beats to the bar or with the speed that this would dictate, that alta breve is thus merely an expressive indication suggesting the pulsation of the passage. of course this is not a unique case: exactly the same thing occurs in the opening measures of cosi fan tutte and die zauberflote. musicians of today have a tendency to overlook such apparent discrepancies and simply follow "tradition." i have often tried to test this point by asking my students why the opening of don giovanni should not be conducted in two. the answer usually was: "why, everybody knows this piece. you 107 could not possibly conduct it in two; it would be much too fast." i submit that for a thinking musician this answer is insufficient. how do we know that it should be played at a slower tempo, except for the fact that we remember it from past performances? but what would happen if this were not the thrice familiar opening of don giovanni but rather the second movement of a divertimento by dittersdorf? would we still know what to do? or would we have to consult someone else's recording and hope that it might supply the right answer? one might think that the basic theory of tempo determination in music before beethoven ought to be a matter of common knowledge among musicians. and yet, i have found relatively few musicians who were able to furnish an intelligent explanation, or who were even aware that a difference existed in tempo determination before and after 1800. this leads us to the peculiar discovery that sometimes the "knowledge" of a so-called tradition can easily stifle investigation into musicological matters. if an otherwise well-trained musician were not familiar with the "traditional" tempo of the introduction to don giovanni, he might initially be tempted to perform it at an incorrect tempo. but probably sooner or later he would sense something wrong with his interpretation, and then he would perhaps start asking a few questions that might ultimately lead him to the proper explanation for the phenomenon. on the other hand, a musician familiar with the "tradition" would not be likely to ask any questions; he would simply accept something as right because it was practiced by those who "ought to know." such an attitude would lead away from all risk, away from inquisitiveness, and away from the acquisition of knowledge. when i was still a novice in my profession, i once asked a much older and more experienced italian colleague why a certain retard, not written in the score, was always observed in a duet from la traviata. his non sequitur answer was "si fa cosi," which, in other words, meant "do it, and don't ask silly questions." yet, an intelligent and inquisitive musician does want to ask questions, silly or otherwise. he wants a reason for doing something, and this reason frequently can be found only with the help of musicology. he must be eager to know what the original performance practices were, not in order to accept them all without reservation, but in order to make an intelligent choice among them and to adjust them to the sense of style of his own epoch. take, for instance, the question of vocal appoggiaturas in mozart's operas, or in other vocal works of the same period. as a student i was taught that appoggiaturas are admissible only in a secco recitative, never in an accompagnato or-heaven forbid-in an aria or concerted piece; and even where they were admissible, so i was taught, they could be used only in the descending, never in the ascending, line. listening to a few representative recordings of recent vintage will soon convince the hearer that the attitude toward this problem has changed greatly. now, not only are appoggiaturas used in accompagnato recitatives and concerted pieces, but they are also occasionally taken in ascending lines. let an erudite musicologist decide which is right. i would suspect that the practice of mozart's time probably 108 went much further than that of the most uninhibited present-day performance. this does not mean to say that we are not going far enough; an exact imitation of the "authentic" practice might easily appear today as a stilted mannerism. fashions may change to some extent, as they have in this case, but rarely does any fashion revert completely to its original practice. as another illustration, take the question of the instrumental appoggiatura. when is it short and when is it long? what is the meaning of the little line drawn through its stem? should it always be performed according to its written value? although these questions have been the subjects of many books, not all the ambiguities have been removed. one example has haunted me for many years: the opening measures of the last movement of mozart's violin concerto in a major, k. 219 (ex. 1). example 1 here the appoggiatura on e is written as a sixteenth and in all probability should be performed as such. yet in nine out of ten performances you will hear it played as an eighth. admittedly, the eighth-note sounds very elegant and graceful, but is it correct? this question must be asked, particularly in view of the fact that in a phrase a few measures later the identical sixteenth appoggiatura is almost invariably performed as a sixteenth (ex. 2). example 2 thus, we have a case in which two phrases in absolutely identical notation and only a few measures apart are, in the majority of performances, executed differently. why? here we could certainly use a definitive answer from musicologists. perhaps this answer has already been supplied, and only my ignorance in such matters keeps me from knowing it. but if this be the case, then the majority of performers must be subject to the same ignorance, which, for their sake, i prefer not to assume.2 it is strange that in our time problems of this nature still exist. perhaps musicology could come to the rescue and supply the words of wisdom which we so badly need. in a sense, it would be reassuring for a teacher to be able to say to his student: "this is the way it must be played, and any other execution is wrong." but on second thought, perhaps we ought not to wish for this 109 state of affairs. one of the charms of music lies in the fact that there are still unresolved situations, and that the solutions are to be supplied by the good sense and taste of the artist rather than by any kind of exact knowledge. perhaps one ought to deal with some of these problems in the spirit of artur schnabel, who supposedly said, when asked about a certain question of ornamentation: "it really does not matter how you play it-the important thing is to have the courage of your convictions!" notes 1 cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1969, p. 558. 2 i distinctly remember adolf busch's execution of this passage. this violinist, who certainly could not be accused of a superficial approach to musical problems, played tlie e appoggiatura as a sixteentli-note. in tliis interpretation, he certainly had the principle of consistency on his side. 110 alyn shipton. a new history of jazz. london and new york: continuum, 2001. x, 965 pp. reviewed by frank tirro the arrival of a book that purports to be a "new" history of jazz signals an event of no small consequence among the dedicated community of jazz scholars. several excellent histories, such as those by lewis porter and michael ullman (1992) and by ted gioia (1997), have been published within the past decade, the former a work of careful scholarship and good pedagogical sensibility and the latter just as thoughtfully constructed, but more philosophical in nature. at the same time, outstanding dissertations, monographs, research articles, collected readings, conference papers, re­ views, obituaries, discographies, useful web sites, and more are now ap­ pearing with frequent regularity to expand our knowledge of the field. barry kernfeld's finely edited second edition of the new grove dictionary of jazz (2001), popularly referred to as jazzgrove ii, is a stellar resource and has been welcomed with consistently good reviews. additionally, the hun­ dreds of entries onjazz, ragtime, blues, and popular musicians in the new american national biography (garraty and carnes 1999) have begun to give us a sense of finally coming to grips with the history of this music. all of these modern writings of quality, in a sense, stand on the shoul­ ders of gunther schuller's pathbreaking work, early jazz: its roots and early development (1968). in schuller's first critical study, and its continua­ tion, the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945 (1989), this extraor­ dinary composer-performer-researcher set a new standard for jazz re­ search. he developed his history of the music primarily through musical analysis, but he also established a procedure for critical jazz writing that has yet to be improved upon: first, listen critically to enormous quantities of source material (the recordings) as well as witness (and/or perform in) live performances; next, conduct original research that integrates the complementary work of other scholars; then, transcribe and analyze key compositions, not only to construct a framework for the history, but also to allow other researchers the opportunity of critically evaluating conclu­ sions drawn from the analyses; and finally, synthesize the whole into a bal­ anced and meaningful narrative. it may seem pedantic to state all this, but before schuller, even though there were important jazz histories, none held to the standards demanded of today's scholarly work in traditional historical musicology.! therefore, a revisionist text that, according to the author, challenges "the assumptions current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 492 current musicology that underlie what might be regarded as the mythology of the emergence of jazz" (2); that promises to investigate bebop and the revolutionary jazz of the 1960s in ways that have not been previously undertaken (3); that, according to the dust jacket, challenges hypotheses of earlier authors and re-evaluates those assumptions in the light of new source material and the new historicism of the repertory movement; and finally, that looks at the internationalism of the genre in a new way, is not a work to be taken lightly, nor one to escape the scrutiny of a very close reading. as a serious work of historical writing, it must meet the standards established during the long twentieth century of musikwissenschaft. in dealing with shipton's book, we must first put the publisher's hyper­ bole to rest and hope that it does not truly represent the view of the author. to start with, the book is accompanied by a pair of compact disk recordings entitled: jazz: the definitive peiformances. almost by definition, there are no definitive performances in jazz, an improvisatory art that reinvents the created art object with each subsequent performance. also, no collection of thirty-two samples can even approach a representative display of jazz in its many forms or its artists in their various phases. additionally, any collection of jazz that has no charlie parker recordings, for whatever reason, is certainly less than definitive. and finally, compared to the outstanding list of jazz recordings selected by martin williams for the smithsonian collection of classic jazz-even with its faults, omissions, and limitations-shipton's two cds are not in the same league. the pub­ lisher's press releases also billed this book as an "antidote to ken burns' 'jazz'," the ten-part television documentary that needs no antidote. burns's work, with all its shortcomings, was constructed in a totally differ­ ent medium, created with a substantially different audience in mind, and was part of a larger personal triptych on race relations in the united states: the civil war, baseball, and jazz. 2 the comparison is unwarranted and unfair. shipton's book is, however, a sincere and thought-provoking study writ­ ten by an impressive young man with years of experience as a british radio jazz commentator and on-the-air host. he has a literary flair, and the book reads well. during his broadcasting career, he collected many interviews with important jazz musicians. additionally, he has read widely in the field and has written an excellent monograph on dizzy gillespie (shipton 1999) that forms the underpinning for his views on the origins of bebop. a new history of jazz is organized into twenty-one chapters. in virtually every chapter there is at least one claim of new evidence or new insight and a challenge to the accepted historical tradition. even attributing this style of presentation to overenthusiasm, the book cannot help but be pro­ vocative. nonetheless, there are many sections that are outstanding, and i would point out in particular shipton's writing on artie shaw (343-52), frank tirro 493 the new orleans revival (607-31), george russell (732-34), charles mingus (762-72), ornette coleman (773-90), and the aacm and bag (803-29). shipton's familiarity with the music in these sections is appar­ ent. here, his critical evaluations of the music, theoretical writings, histori­ cal impact, and musical environment are well thought out and balanced. and he devotes an appropriate amount of space to develop each subject. that being said, this brings us to the book's first problem: the balance of presentations of major subject areas is out of kilter. of the 887 pages of text, the first 400 are devoted to the general category of "origins," but this designation is deceptive or inexact at best, for it includes all jazz, american and international, up to world war ii. the next section, part ii, "from swing to bop," and its related part iii, "consolidation of bebop," encompass another 333 pages (403-736). that leaves only 148 pages for part iv, "new jazz," essentially all the music since 1960. and that is the first major shortcoming of this text. for a jazz history published in the first years of the twenty-first century-and this book is not a monograph on particular phases of jazz history but a general survey-this text suffers a se­ vere distortion of perspective. the first sixty years and their nineteenth­ century roots receive eighty-three percent of the narrative; the last forty years are left with but seventeen percent. this problem is compounded by the nature of jazz history itself, for there were, in the beginning, a few jazz musicians and a little jazz music. during the first century of its history, the number of musicians multiplied and the repertory swelled. there have never been more living jazz musicians, jazz styles, jazz record sales, or more international jazz venues than there are today, but shipton's conical approach to jazz's history reverses the inverted cone of the quantity of jazz as it grew through the years. a model for a more judicious approach might be observed in mark tucker's article on the history of jazz written for the second edition of the new grove history of music and musicians (2001). tucker's outline history, brief but incisive, reflects much more ac­ curately the quantitative and qualitative nature of jazz as it moved through the twentieth century than does shipton's history. the second major shortcoming of a new history of jazz is the book's to­ tal lack of notated musical examples. technical assertions about the music abound, but they lack the specific musical examples that display and prove the point. for example, in his chapter on "big band bebop," shipton explains that, "the distinctive sound of [the woody herman band's] four new saxophonists [zoot sims, herbie steward, stan getz, and serge chaloff] became the defining element of the second herd, and it has been known ever since as the 'four brothers' band, after jimmy giuffre's composition of that name" (537). the first part of the technical discus­ sion, which follows, makes sense without the inclusion of a musical example, even though it would have been informative to have had one: 494 current musicology the main melody line of four brothers is carried by getz, with chaloff shadowing him an octave below, and the other two tenors sand­ wiched in between, with the brass adding occasional stabbing chords. (ibid.) however, the concluding statement of this paragraph suffers severely from the lack of notation to explain what shipton means by "harmonized coda" and "individual solo tags." the harmonized coda and individual solo tags once again marked out the four distinctive saxophone voices of the new band, which, owing principally to the dynamic drumming of don lammond, had lost nothing ofthe energetic spark of its predecessor. (ibid.) in a different discussion we must accept on faith that: well you needn't was to be recorded by miles davis in the 1950s, but it shares its chords with tadd dameron's virtually contemporaneous dameronia, and is a good example of a piece where monk uses simi­ lar thematic material for the central eight-bar bridge section to that of the main theme. (489) shipton owes the reader two different excerpts with the same changes as well as another example comparing the incipit of the main theme with the incipit of the bridge melody. complicating the problem are the constant off-handed references to recorded performances without listing the specific recording being referenced. in the first example above, "four brothers," shipton refers to a classic 1947 recording that he includes on his compact disk. on the other hand, "well you needn't" had several recorded performances. in many cases, the experienced reader might assume that he or she and the author are thinking about the same per­ formance, but this is not always, perhaps not even usually, the case. there are so many jazz standards with multiple recordings, re-recordings, studio takes, alternate takes, air takes, re-releases, altered releases, pirated edi­ tions, and so on, that it is not acceptable, in a book purporting to be a work of serious scholarship, to cite evidence that is not verifiable. added to this is another minor frustration: the author's use of footnotes without page references, as well as the citation of oral history that was personally collected but neither transcribed for the reader's evaluation nor housed in an archive available to researchers. for example, in shipton's discus­ sion of the white bassist, steve brown (250ff.), he gathers evidence to sup­ port his argument that steve brown was the first great virtuoso of jazz frank tirro 495 string bass playing and that jean goldkette's band should have been ac­ corded greater historical recognition than, in shipton's judgment, it has been given by other scholars. comparing the goldkette band in early 1927 with almost all its large band rivals from the same period, no other rhythm section-mrican­ american or white-gets close to this combination of lightness and swing. (253) no small claim, for the competition includes, considering 1927 recordings alone: ellington's "birmingham breakdown" and "east st. louis toodle00"; and the frankie trumbauer orchestra's (with bix beiderbecke) "ostrich walk."3 add to that an earlier recording by the fletcher hender­ son band, "the stampede,"4 and you have a historical claim worth check­ ing out.5 shipton might be right, but he neither convincingly proves his case nor does he make it easy for the reader to run the experiment and check the data. in his opinion, the key to goldkette's rhythm section is bassist steve brown, and he says that wild bill davison told him, in the late 1980s, that brown was "the first great virtuoso of the string bass, doing things [in the 1920s] that no one else did until jimmy blanton in the 1940s" (251). footnote 78 accompanies this quotation, but it reveals no lo­ cation where this piece of oral history might reside other than in the au­ thor's mind. why footnote it at all if the reference is unverifiable? not a serious problem in this instance, but the pattern is repeated throughout the book. a second quotation supporting the first, this time by milt hinton, is included. steve brown was the one everybody listened to .... you could hear him loud and clear, even from outside [the midway gardens in chicago]. what a beat that man had! he was doing things, cross­ rhythms and stuff, that i've never yet heard anybody else do. he was the best and we all knew it. footnote 80 for this quotation leads the reader to richard m. sudhalter's recent book (1999), but the absence ofa page reference leaves the reader to find the item in question the hard way. the inconvenience to the scholar who wishes to check the context of this quotation is enormous and seriously diminishes the value of shipton's book, even if he might be correct in his assumptions. the proof of the pudding, of course, is in the music. shipton cites three 1927 recordings by the goldkette band in which the author hears significant examples of brown's band playing from this period: ''i'm looking over a four leaf clover," "hoosier sweetheart," and "my pretty girl." the disco graphical information for these recordings can be found 496 current musicology in brian rust's jazz records: 1897-1942 (1978)} but shipton should have cited them for the use of his readers. after tracking down the records and listening to the slap-bass work of brown on "my pretty girl" (on the first of the two possible victor recordings), i am not the least bit convinced that brown outshines wellman braud or that goldkette outranks ellington. i certainly didn't hear any cross rhythms in the bass playing of brown. interestingly enough, shipton solves his own dilemma when he writes, i suspect that the influence and historical importance of the jean goldkette victor orchestra would have been greater had it re­ mained together beyond september 1927, when economic pressures forced goldkette to break up the group. (253) the conclusion is obvious. as much as shipton might like the playing of steve brown and the goldkette band, wellman braud and duke ellington are more important historically. there is no revision to be made here. shipton makes several noteworthy claims in his "new" history of jazz, and i will try to evaluate only a few. he dogmatically states that the 12-bar blues is a twentieth-century creation. "[w] e can regard the twelve­ measure, ubiquitous form of the blues as originating in the twentieth cen­ tury, rather than in the nineteenth" (53). shipton's evidence for this con­ clusion is ma rainey's recollection of first having heard the blues in 1902 and w. c. handy's recounting of first having heard the form in 1903. what kind of evidence is this for so sweeping a generalization? rainey heard her first blues in missouri and handy his in mississippi. eileen southern (1971:332ff.) cited both of these references and added bunk johnson's recollection, "when i was a kid, we used to play nothing but the blues." southern's belief that this referred to the 1880s must be amended to the 1890s,7 but there is little reason to believe the twelve-measure aa'b form sprang up overnight. no doubt the blues crystallized as an omni­ present twelve-measure form in jazz during the twentieth century, but its widespread dissemination by the turn of the century, the early dates of rainey's and handy's recollection, and the claim that bunk johnson played instrumental blues in his youth all tend to confirm nothing other than a nineteenth-century origin. if shipton had wanted to pursue this matter further, he should have found new evidence and fleshed out his argument rather than toss off a basically unsupported generalization. on another point, shipton argues that string bands and minstrel music have been overlooked as prime contributors to the emergence of jazz. he states, string bands [banjo or mandolin and violin] were portable, flexible, and musically adaptable .... in early sound recordings, the percusfrank tirro 497 sive attack of the banjo was more easily captured than drums or bass instruments, and a clear impression of syncopation and the begin­ nings of "swing" or jazz rhythm is discernible in recordings of banjo rags from the late 1890s. (26ff.) he cites no sources, and then continues: even more significant is that in some of the earliest recordings by a full mrican-american string band, the london recordings by dan kildare and ciro's club coon orchestra from 1916, many of the ele­ ments of jazz are present. ... this suggests that string ensembles de­ rived from plantation music are every bit as significant in the early history of jazz as the singing and percussion-playing that have hith­ erto preoccupied jazz historians, given the widespread nature of such groups. (27) yes, this is a valid hypothesis, and although many writers have referred to minstrel music, banjo music, and plantation dance musicians, shipton may be the first to note the likelihood of a widespread influence by mrican american string ensembles. he brings new evidence to support a view only hinted at by others. however, he goes too far when he states: generally, jazz historians have placed emphasis on the brass-band tradition because of the obvious instrumental links with early jazz bands, but since many of the same musicians were playing in string groups, tackling a similar repertoire, and belonging to a more wide­ spread southern tradition among mrican-americans, string bands were every bit as significant as their loud, brassier counterparts. (29) the brass band tradition was more significant in the development of early jazz, and the preponderance of evidence weighs in heavily for the brass. in new orleans it is well documented by rose and souchon (1967). most of the memoirs of the early great jazz musicians refer to the influence of the brass bands, not the string bands. and, as paul laurence dunbar wrote in 1903: w'en de colo'ed ban' comes rna' chin' down de street, don't you people stan' daih starin'; lif' yo' feet! ain't dey playin'? hip, hooray! stir yo' stumps an' cleah de way, fu' de music dat dey mekin' can't be beat. ... but hit's sousa played in rag-time, an' hit's rastus on parade, w'en de colo'ed ban' comes rna' chin' down de street. 498 current musicology alyn shipton's a new history of jazz is at once delightful and frustrating. he brings new ideas and new evidence to the story, but he does his work unevenly. he writes knowingly about muhal richard abrams and anthony braxton, but virtually ignores mary lou williams. he gives us a photo­ graph of cassandra wilson, but he allows her but one sentence in the final chapter. he gives john zorn and dave douglas some much-deserved attention, and tells us virtually nothing about j. j. johnson. alas, the new history is an uneven work, both enlightening and disappointing. notes 1. even the fine history by marshall stearns (1956), which also set a new stan­ dard for its day, lacked the keen analytical prowess schuller brought to bear on the music. before stearns, several interesting and useful histories were published, but most relied only on the author's personal listening experience, which could be fairly comprehensive since they were written early in the history of jazz. however, all these books tended to be anecdotal, some were unwilling to admit that the new style, "swing," was indeed a form of jazz, and all were superceded because of their early date. among the best of the early histories, one must list robert goffin (1932), hugues panassie (1934), sidney finkelstein (1948), rudi blesh (1949), andre hodeir (1956), and alfons dauer (1958). another fascinating booklet (38 pages) should be noted, especially because of its early date: alfred baresel's das jazz-buck (1925) attempted to separate jazz performance into its basic components of tempo, rhythm, melody, accompaniment, etc., and included notated examples for the piano. it may have been the first systematic attempt to consider the param­ eters of jazz performance and explain the nature of jazz improvisation, rhythm, and syncopation. 2. see my review, tirro (2001). 3. ellington (brunswick 3480 and victor 21703); armstrong (okeh 8535 and okeh 8566); trumbauer (okeh 40822). 4. columbia 654-d. 5. only the ellington band uses a string bass in the rhythm section, but all the rhythm sections swing. trumbauer's rhythm section of guitar, piano, and drums is especially light and delicate. 6. "i'm looking over a four leaf clover" (victor 20466); "hoosier sweetheart" (victor 20471); and "my pretty girl" (victor 20588 and victor "x vault" series). 7. donald marquis (1978) convincingly demonstrates that bunk johnson lied about his age and was younger than he claimed. this also demonstrates the unreli­ ability of unverified oral history as the basis for names, dates, places, and other items of identification. as lewis porter points out, "lay researchers have been especially active in the area of oral history, which produces fascinating and essential tapes and documents. but some of these researchers sometimes confuse oral history with biography" (1988:196). references baresel, alfred. 1925. dasjazz-buch. leipzig: zimmermann. blesh, rudi. 1949. shining trumpets. london: cassell. frank tirro 499 dauer, alfons m. 1958. der jazz: seine ursprunge und seine entwicklung. kassel: e. roth. dunbar, paul lawrence. 1903. the colored band. in when malindy sings, n.p. new york: dodd, mead and co. finkelstein, sidney w. 1948. jazz: a people's music. new york: citadel press. garraty john a., and mark c. carnes, eds. 1999. american national biography. 24 vols. new york: oxford university press. gioia, ted. 1997. the history of jazz. new york: oxford university press. goffin, robert. 1932. auxfrontieres dujazz. paris: editions du sagittaire (anciennes editions kra). hodeir, andre. 1956. jazz: its evolution and essence. new york: grove press. kernfeld, barry, ed. 2001. the new grove dictionary of jazz. 3 vols. 2d ed. london: macmillan. marquis, donald m. 1978. in search of buddy bolden, first man of jazz. baton rouge: louisiana state university press. panassie, hugues. 1934. lejazz hot. paris: correa. porter, lewis. 1988. some problems in jazz research. black music research journal 8: 195-206. porter, lewis, and michael ullman, with ed hazell. 1992. jazz: from its origins to the present. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice-hall. rose, al, and edmond souchon. 1967. new orleans jazz: a family album. baton rouge: louisiana state university press. rust, brian. 1978. jazz records: 1897-1942. 2 vols. 4th ed. new rochelle, n.y.: arlington house. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and musical development. new york: oxford university press. ---.1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. shipton, alyn. 1999. groovin' high: the life of dizzy gillespie. new york: oxford university press. southern, eileen. 1971. the music of black americans: a history. new york: w. w. norton. stearns, marshall. 1956. the story of jazz. new york: oxford university press. sudhalter, richard m. 1999. lost chords: white musicians and their contribution to jazz, 1915-1945. new york: oxford university press. tirro, frank. 2001. review of jazz: a film by ken burns. journal of american history 88: 1195-98. tucker, mark. 2001. jazz. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, edited by stanley sadie, vol. 12,903-26. 2d ed. london: macmillan. williams, martin, ed. 1987. the smithsonian collection of classic jazz. rev. ed. washington, d.c.: smithsonian collection of recordings. musicology and the composer otto luening in preparing for this article, i thought it would be good to start with definitions of musicology. to my surprise, my desk dictionary did not list the word, and so i read the definition in grove's dictionary, which i found magnificently vague: "musicology. this term has occurred more and more frequently of recent years in english books, periodicals and articles. it is used to express the scientific study of music in the widest sense. in france and america the word has been in current use for some considerable time .... " etc., etc.1 under "method" grove's says, "it is still sometimes questioned whether the term musicology really corresponds to the idea it is meant to express or whether it has merely come into use for the convenience of having a single word for 'musical science.'''2 as busoni used to say, "one knows what one means, doesn't one?" but in my search to find out what i was writing about, i did come across adler's table from his methode der musikgeschichte, and i saw that it included the general teaching of music; the teaching of harmony and counterpoint; the teaching of composition; the teaching of orchestration; methods of teaching singing and instrumental playing; the laws of the compositions of each epoch, as they are conceived and taught by the theorists of each period and as they appear in the practice of the arts. the "systematic" section mentions the tabulation of the chief laws applicable to the various branches of music and their investigation and justification in harmony, rhythm, and melody. contributory sciences include general history, chronology, diplomacy, literature and languages, biography, acoustics, physiology, psychology, grammar, metrics, aesthetics, etc. after due deliberation i concluded that i have been a musicologist all my life but did not know it. however, it also seems that with such an all-inclusive table of subjects and sub-subjects, hardly anyone can escape being a musicologist in one field or another. so, if! am asked what effect musicology has had on me as a composer, i find that, in self-defense and while groping for an answer, i reverse the question and ask, "how has composition affected musicology?" but after coming up for air, i find that i am somewhat prejudiced! my first contacts with musicology were when i heard lectures by adolf sandberger, read his life and works if peter cornelius, and used some of his bavarian denkmiiler. so far, well and good. but sandberger fancied himself a composer, and when i heard one of his orchestral works, overture to a drama, in munich around 1913, i was astonished that anybody could make an orchestra sound as horrible as he did. i then realized that only a very learned man could know exactly what to leave out in order to make the end result hopelessly dreary and dismal. 92 but to be fair, i must say that in some of his greener fields of research, sandberger probably did have an influence on me. he was curator of the music department of the state library in munich, and i used that library a lot; i also used his denkmiiler quite a bit, and other denkmiiler as well. i could not escape his lassus research and was almost moved to tears when i saw that he had written a study of chabrier's gwendoline, a study which i have avoided reading to this very day. but now back to adler's list. having participated in the general teaching of music since i was fifteen years old, i suppose that this subject did have an influence on me as a composer. i have been involved ever since in such various activities as the teaching of harmony, counterpoint, composition, and orchestration, and methods of teaching singing and instrumental playing; and i am sure that as a composer i must have been influenced by this whole business. having been drafted from time to time to teach history of music, survey, and theory courses, and having been a practitioner in the arts, i imagine again that these activities probably had a considerable influence on me as a composer. as part of the job i had to investigate and justify many interesting laws of harmony, rhythm, and melody, although i am afraid i was not very systematic about it (i probably realized that if i became too systematic i would not do much composing). here again i was influenced by musicology and kept certain areas at arm's length, so that they would not infringe on the marvelous world of composition. i must admit, however, that the teaching of compositional systems and of orchestration had quite an influence on me as a composer, because it taught me to differentiate between that which is teachable and that which is not, the latter being, perhaps, much the more important to the composer. under the other headings i have listed above, no one who has been called upon to teach general history can escape without getting some vague knowledge of it, and chronology is very handy if you want to put things in the right order. the latter field, i am sure, influenced my composing, because i have long since given up the idea of beginning at the very beginning of anything and carrying it through to the very end. diplomacy is, of course, what one needs in order to get along with any of one's colleagues in any of the aforementioned fields, and with an administration. i like libraries and have often used them but offer, as an important innovation that will help composers and perhaps others, a new cataloguing system. i suggest one that will bring the user in the shortest possible time from card catalogue to book, score, or record. arrows and maps might be useful. my research in acoustics has helped me very much as a composer because i am of the old-fashioned school that likes a little sound with its music, and so physiology too has always interested me. my studies indicate that unless the general level of rock and roll is reduced, we will have a generation with a severely damaged hearing capacity. this affects me as a composer, for what 93 is the use of writing certain kinds of music, if people have become so deaf that they cannot hear them? psychology, another of the contributing sciences in adler's systematic section, has definitely been of use to me as a composer, but only in the applied psychology department. without it, how could one communicate, endure, and be endured by one's students and colleagues over the years? the direct influence of any of these fields has hit me hardest when it has come from a composer turned musicologist, that is to say, a composer writing about anyone of these subjects. i think of berlioz, richard wagner, robert schumann, liszt, busoni, weingartner, the strauss-hofmannsthal letters, abbe vogler, zarlino, debussy, carl maria von weber, reichardt, and many others. but i have also been influenced by noncomposing musicologists, or by musicologists who have no practical knowledge of music at all. i think here of thayer's beethoven, a magnificent biography; jacques barzun's berlioz; scriabin, by faubion bower, a pianist turned writer; schopenhauer's attempts to describe music; and st. foix's mozart biography. some musicological efforts have had no influence on me at all. i think of the musicologists' musicologists, who will come up with some special studies, such as "the history of the violin bow from horse to hindemith," or "the significance of the note g in the works of johann sebastian bach," or perhaps "musical figures and other figures that figured in wagner's tristan and isolde." these, i think, are more for the specialist. i hope that this tribute to an emerging field, already populated with many activists who are making their scholarship sound, will be accepted for what it is: words without song. notes 1 groves dictionary of music and musicians, 5th ed., ed. eric blom, vol. 5 (london: st. martin's press, 1954), pp. 1020-21. 2 ibid., p. 1021. 94 thomas goldsmith, ed. the bluegrass reader. urbana: university of illinois press, 2004. jonathan t. king in a world of increasingly uncertain american identity, it is hardly surpris­ ing that an interest in bluegrass music, so tied to notions of white america, should be enjoying a revival. editor thomas goldsmith's the bluegrass reader is the latest addition to a small canon of historical literature that is beginning to coalesce in this environment. rather than aim for historical definitiveness, as was the case with tom ewing's bill monroe reader (2000), goldsmith widens his scope to include many forms of documentation in­ cluding promotional materials, record and cd liner notes, interviews, aca­ demic articles, newspaper and magazine articles, program notes, speech tran­ scripts-even a record review parody. the result is a subjective, impression­ istic collage of material that breaks little new theoretical ground, but as­ sembles a great deal of essential historical information, representing many facets of the bluegrass universe. for this effort, goldsmith was recently awarded the international bluegrass music association's 2004 award for print media personality of the year. the bluegrass reader is divided into three large sections: "the big bang: 1939-59;' "the reseeding of bluegrass: 1960-79;' and "another roots re­ vival: 1980-2000." as is belied by these subheadings, the editor conceives of bluegrass history as two large revivals of an initial creative impulse. i will describe the contents of each of these parts below, in a necessarily awkward list, and then return to treat the book as a whole. part 1, "the big bang," chronicles that initial creative impulse on which the rest of bluegrass his­ tory supposedly depends. it begins with eight musical portraits-bill mon­ roe, flatt and scruggs, the stanley brothers, don reno, jimmy martin, mac wiseman, the osborne brothers, and jim and jesse mcreynolds-cobbled together from varying sources: biography, personal reminiscence, interview. l after these initial portraits, 1. mayne smith's classic 1965 essay from the journal of american folklore appears, marking a strange transition from hagiography to academic abstraction. soon follows an etymological study of the word "bluegrass" from folklorist and bluegrass scholar neil v. rosenberg, followed by the folkways liner notes to mountain music blue­ grass style (fa 2318) penned by mike seeger, son of the noted musicologist charles seeger. between celebrity biography and academic analysis, there are two pieces current musicology, no. 76 (fall 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 97 98 current musicology that add some cultural perspective. one is joe wilson's description ofwycb in bristol, tn as a representative study of radio's significance in the prolif­ eration of bluegrass. the other is mike seeger's "late news report from sunset park, west grove, penn. five-string banjo picking contest:' this piece is particularly interesting because it offers such details as the contest's background and rules, as well as complete lists of contestants and songs. (notable participants included washington square folk-era pickers mike seeger, eric weissberg, and roger sprung.) part 1 concludes with alan lomax's famous esquire article referring to bluegrass as "folk music in over­ drive" (131). lomax's affectionate but oversimplified history exemplifies the presence that bluegrass was gaining in the mainstream media by 1959. part 2, "the reseeding of bluegrass;' concerns the "recontextualization" of bluegrass in the 1960s and 1970s, beginning with another portrait of monroe. this article for sing out! magazine, however, was deliberately de­ signed by folk-revival polymath ralph rinzler to lionize monroe rather than banjoist earl scruggs, who had been getting a lot of media attention. this explicitly "revisionist" approach makes it a good opener for the "reseeding" chapter. after a brief regional digression (a nostalgic memoir of the blue­ grass scene in dayton, ohio) and a portrait of singer-songwriter hazel dickens, three ethnographic depictions of bluegrass clubs in the early 1960s give a fascinating range of responses to the new "urban bluegrass." the first two concern the boston club the hillbilly ranch; one by an enthusiastic audience member, noted blues historian samuel charters, the other by an unconvinced southern musician, michael medford. the last, by hunter s. thompson, is a cynical reading of citified bluegrass as grotesque minstrelsy. the three pieces reveal a wealth of ethnographic data in a few short pages, and are very useful to compare. another flurry of portraits follows, including the country gentlemen, the kentucky colonels (featuring the whites), monroe fiddler kenny baker, unsung hero larry sparks, "newgrasser" sam bush, ralph stanley, vassar clements, and the star-studded bluegrass alliance, as well as carlton haney and dave freeman. these last two are a sigrtificant addition to goldsmith's gallery, because they are known less for their musicianship and more for their entrepreneurship. carlton haney founded what is generally known as the "first bluegrass festival" in 1965 (though he had been promoting bill monroe since 1957), while dave freeman founded the bluegrass label county records. the inclusion of these two portraits will be valuable to those interested in the understudied institutional history of bluegrass, and will, i hope, inspire them to seek other sources like it. neil rosenberg has discussed the commercial aspects of bluegrass mu­ sic at length in his book bluegrass: a history (1985), and he does so with jonathan t. king more subtlety in two pieces in the reader. the first, a 1990 record review, explores the relationship between bluegrass and rock 'n' roll, acknowledg­ ing the many similarities despite rhetorical differences. the second, an ety­ mology of "bluegrass;' examines the term's varied usages by musicians, pro­ moters, critics, and fans. in so doing, rosenberg demonstrates how the cre­ ation of a new musical genre is linked to both regional practices and main­ stream commodification; he also reveals that musicians and fans alike un­ consciously elide these distinctions through their use of a single generic label. two essays featuring the band old and in the way (of which hippie icon jerry garcia was a member) demonstrate what goldsmith calls the appeal of bluegrass to the "counterculture." personal testimonies from vassar clements, david grisman, and peter rowan (from the old and in the way liner notes) and from john duffey (from washington d.c's path-breaking seldom scene) reveal much about traditionalist rhetoric in the later 1960s. the old and in the way liner notes were written in 1997 and aim to give an "honest" sheen to the tale of the "hippiegrass" band "trying to play this music 'right''' (218). duffey's piece, in contrast, is an inflammatory polemic re­ garding the limitations of "traditionalism." both work to demonstrate how discussions of authenticity can be powerfully manipulated by artists and fans. an early piece by robert cantwell, author of bluegrass breakdown ([1984] 2003), describes in rich and colorful prose bill monroe's 1971 per­ sonal bluegrass festival at bean blossom, in.2 another telling festival por­ trait is given by connie walker, wife of bluegrass bassist ebo walker. in this parodic autobiographical piece, she describes a bluegrass-playing husband dragging his family to a festival, only to abandon them to pick tunes all night with his "alternate family:' "since daddy was up picking until half an hour ago;' she writes, "he can't be coaxed out of his sleeping bag to help you light the stove (or go out to borrow the kerosene you forgot), or manage the young 'uns as you turn eggs with one hand and fight off flies with the other" (191). she suggests forming her own alternative family, the "bluegrass wid0ws, association:' part 2 closes with two examinations of emergent instrumental styles: bluegrass banjo and bluegrass mandolin. this pairing is enlightening, situ­ ating these different instrumental styles within larger tradition of players and lineages of influence. the banjo essay, for instance, explores the various sub genres of bluegrass banjo playing through a historical first-person anec­ dote: the meeting of innovators bill keith and bobby thompson. part 3, "another roots revival;' is again portrait-heavy, profiling hot rize, the all-star bluegrass album band, mainstays doyle lawson and quick99 100 current musicology silver, the johnson mountain boys, peter rowan, dobro® virtuoso jerry douglas, the nashville bluegrass band, alison krauss, dale ann bradley, jimmy martin, john hartford, ricky skaggs, del mccoury, and ralph stanley.3 part 3 also includes an essay demonstrating the bluegrass community's pathological fascination with bill monroe, who died in 1992. his portrait in part 3 occurs in the form of the eulogy, "first christmas without bill." on the more anthropological side, scholar thomas adler contributes a perceptive piece linking bluegrass to other realms of human relationships, both sexual and familial; it should definitely be read against walker's "blue­ grass widows' association." furthermore, a handful of essays concerning "women in bluegrass" indicate that the leading roles played by female per­ formers in terms of showmanship and record sales have not gone unno­ ticed, though their success flies in the face of so-called traditionalism. murphy henry's keynote address at the 1998 international bluegrass music associa­ tion (ibma) annual trade show is a spirited call to arms, condemning the limited recognition of, and opportunities available to, its female members (298). her speech is directly rejoined by the next essay by respected ibma leader pete wernick, "bones to pick" (305), which provides counterexamples to henry's complaints. the placement of this well-intentioned attempt to justify the ibma's institutional behavior gives the unfortunate impression that henry's feminist frustration is effectively "contained" by the bluegrass tradition. goldsmith artfully allows for the last profiles to close the book on the notoriously familiar themes of perseverance (del mccoury), frustration and sin (jimmy martin), redemption (ricky skaggs), death (john hart­ ford), and immortality (ralph stanley). sounds like a bluegrass album to me. as is surely clear by this point, the organization of the book as a whole is historical, by topic. the editor's introduction gives a basic framework of bluegrass history, one that works well enough to situate the subsequent ma­ terial. it acknowledges many of the well-known tropes in bluegrass-de­ bates over the definition of bluegrass, the role of bill monroe and his dis­ ciples, the significance of bluegrass festivals, the importance of beats and hippies, the influence of rock music, the acceptability of popularity-and it puts the anthologized pieces in historical perspective. the introduction would certainly be helpful (even necessary) to the bluegrass novice, but its organization is problematic: the author divides his history into three twenty­ year phases in an over-determined and unnecessary fashion. for instance, the last item in part 1 is mike seeger's above-mentioned description of a jonathan t. king banjo contest, in which big-name folk revivalists participated. this piece would seem more natural in part 2, in which bluegrass is ostensibly reposi­ tioned in a cross-cultural milieu. and the first item in part 3 ("another roots revival: 1980-2000") actually was printed in early 1979! the organi­ zation is not consistent with either the specified dates or overarching con­ cepts. though the topics are generally arranged chronologically, the articles themselves are not, which sometimes results in unexpected juxtapositions: for instance, a 2000 record review from the contemporary magazine no depression is bracketed by a 1959 description of a banjo contest by mike seeger on one side, and a 1975 portrait of don reno and red smiley on the other. despite the slightly schizophrenic feeling this induces, it can work to foreground the stylistic differences between the pieces. rather than be lulled into the rhythms of 1950s style promotional hyperbole by reading six con­ secutive press releases, the reader is jarred into realizing that the change in rhetoric is as significant as the change in musical history. still, i would have preferred a simple chronological organization by publication, rather than an attempt at creating a quasi-historical narrative. goldsmith's organizational scheme is indicative of the fact that the blue­ grass reader seems directed toward the serious fan who wants a broad range of material, but who doesn't question the genre's accepted history. on the other hand, to the editor's great credit, the affable introductory sections to each piece give clear and helpful context, without being so specific as to predetermine the reader's response. the book's heavy emphasis on biography, like its organizational scheme, is both a strength and weakness. the bluegrass world is well known for its veneration of its royalty, and the reader's characterizations are often quite detailed. the portraits come from such varied sources-musicians, critics, academics, reviewers, friends, fans-that the thoughtful reader can glean as much information from the authors' own styles of writing, as from the his­ torical and biographical facts cited. untangling the role of each piece's au­ thor requires close attention; such an exercise could be a very rewarding classroom or seminar experience. this emphasis on celebrity tends to de-emphasize the ethnographic ma­ terial, so when such data appears, it is quite welcome. examples include the descriptions of bluegrass festivals, which, though they do contain their fair share of celebrity-gawking, also show a view from the stage, back at the com­ plicated audience constituency. as noted above, the three short character­ izations of bluegrass clubs in the early sixties also reveal the period's contra­ dictory attitude towards this music. the essays containing descriptions of jerry garcia's experimentation with bluegrass, for instance, emphasize the 101 102 current musicology positive aspects of the new stylistic hybridity, while tennessee native michael medford's notes from a boston bluegrass bar reveal the tensions and criti­ cisms that can emerge. it's a fascinating anthropological picture of music mediating cultural difference from a musician's point of view. another sur­ prising yet effective selection is charles wolfe's group of record review paro­ dies from 1978. like his straightforward characterization of the rebel records label (also reprinted in the reader) , wolfe's parodies certainly dem0nstrate the kind of discographical knowledge that many bluegrass musi­ cians and fans possess or desire. his well-crafted humor reveals the obses­ sions of bluegrass fans as clearly as the most well documented historical take. a personal quibble: a reader is by definition selective, and as the preface clearly notes, not everyone will agree on the inclusion of each article. i was surprised, however, that goldsmith did not include any material concern­ ing the "folk" guitarist doc watson. watson appears only parenthetically, through acknowledgments of his influence on clarence white, dan crary, and ricky skaggs, among others. an account of his seduction away from the electric guitar by ralph rinzler is an important historical moment that would have revealed much about the aesthetics of the 1960s folk revival. the incident is briefly described in the introduction to rinzler's piece on bill monroe, which states that rinzler "brought doc watson out of the north carolina mountains." as goldsmith himself notes, "old habits die hard, and one of the hardest to shake is the tendency to assign bluegrass to the appalachian hills and hollers. though understandable, it's inaccurate" (126). by reinforcing the conventional wisdom that watson was an isolated rural treasure discovered by rinzler, this brief reference to watson (and the omis­ sion of the actual story) again works to reinforce the overly simple underly­ ing structure implied by the three section headings. goldsmith also reinforces the so-called conventional wisdom through his selection of the anthology's final portraits of del mccoury and ralph stanley. mccoury, though adventurous enough to play with funk bassist and bandleader bootsy collins, is described as attempting to protect the "pure" bluegrass community from the foul language of alternative rocker steve earle, with whom he had collaborated musically. this anecdote, com­ monly discussed among festival-goers, works to oversimplify the bluegrass festival community as uniformly reactive and insular. in the last segment of the reader, ricky skaggs (discussing ralph stanley's recent deification, following the success of the film 0, brother where art thou), is quoted as saying that stanley has become "like an old african ... a world-music person" (327). this is a comment of great significance on many levels, and is clearly worth including in such an anthology. however, jonathan t. king the "purifying" rhetorical move of introducing bluegrass musicians into the pantheon of "world music" is extremely complicated and necessitates a re­ buttal. skaggs' ostensibly centrifugal comment would be an intriguing, cen­ tripetal place to end a different version of the bluegrass reader, but cer­ tainly not one that reinforces the genre's generally accepted, "canonical" his­ tory. such problems, however, should not obscure the book's worth as a use­ ful mixture of the well-known and the obscure. the inclusion of perspec­ tives that were not necessarily as coherent or consistent might have made the book unwieldy or frustratingwhat: no discussions of race or class? but it also would have helped capture the history of a music that is rife with contradictions and complications. (that said, my version of the bluegrass reader would contain most, if not all of the pieces included by goldsmith; to have omitted any of the portraits would have elicited complaints from the serious fans to whom this book is directed, just as i grumpily noted the omission of doc watson.) given the space limitations of a reader like this, goldsmith has assembled a highly readable collection that occasionally sur­ prises, but more often generates nods of recognition. i recommend it highly for guided use in an undergraduate class, or deeper meta -analysis in a gradu­ ate seminar. and certainly for summer festival reading. notes 1. the bill monroe section is an excerpt from jim rooney's book bossmen (1971). 2. presumably the piece discusses the 1971 festival-goldsmith doesn't make this clear in his commentary. 3. the martin portrait is reprinted from tom piazza's infamous new yorker piece, which he later turned into a book, true adventures with the king of bluegrass (1999). references cantwell, robert. [1984] 2003. bluegrass breakdown: the making of the old southern sound. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. ewing, tom. 2000. the bill monroe reader. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. piazza, tom. 1999. true adventures with the king of bluegrass. nashville: vanderbilt univer­ sity press. rooney, jim. 1971. bossmen: bill monroe & muddy waters. new york: da capo press. rosenberg, neil v. 1985. bluegrass: a history. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. 103 newly-discovered addenda to the trouvere repertoire by hans tischler a recent article by vivian s. ramalingam and f. p. r. akehurst (1997), "a new trouvere fragment in the hague," brings to light a flyleaf of a lost late-thirteenth-century manuscript. 1 the authors established the date of this fragment based on its contents, script, and notational style. obviously cut from a chansonnier or from a section of a manuscript con­ taining trouvere songs, it was used to bind a codex from the second quar­ ter of the fourteenth century, now located in the koninklijke bibliotheek in the hague and bearing the shelf number 72 j 17. this flyleaf preserves three items: (1) a line of text, obviously from the end of a song, which the editors were unable to identify; (2) a complete anonymous and otherwise unknown single-stanza song; and (3) music and the first four verses of text of a well-known song by adam de la hale (ca. 1230-1288), "puis keje sui de l'amerouse loi." to begin, the single line of text preserved at the top of the flyleaf comes from no. 1457 in the spanke-raynaud bibliographie des altjranzosi­ schen liedes, "puis ke ii mal d'amours me font sentir," and is edited along with all of its versions in trouvere lyrics with melodies, complete edition (tischler 1997, 9:no. 824). versions of this song appear in four manu­ scripts: ms. 0 f. 104v contains stanzas 1-2 and the melody for stanza 1; ms. i also gives the first two stanzas on ff. 167v-168r, but without musical nota­ tion; ms. z ff. 23v-24r offers the only complete five-stanza poem with the melody for the first stanza, one essentially identical with the one recorded in ms. 0; and ms. c f. 193r-v provides only four stanzas without music, substituting new but related poetry for the latter three stanzas. 2 the rhyme syllables and the rhyme order of the replacement stanzas are, how­ ever, identical to those in the other manuscripts. the fragment of this poem surviving in the hague flyleaf consists of the last letter of verse 6 and verses 7-8 of stanza 5, as preserved only in ms. z. the songs collected in that manuscript are grouped by poet. "puis ke ii mal d'amours me font sentir" is the second of a group of six by robert du castel d'arras (ca. third quarter of the thirteenth century). the robert songs are preceded by a group of four by his fellow trouvere and towns­ man jehan ie cuvelier, and followed by one piece by guillaume ie vinier. the fact that robert is the author of the text fragment preserved in the flyleaf casts doubt on ramalingam and akehurst's suggestion (1997:25) current musicology. no. 70 (fall 2000) © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 101 102 current musicology that the anonymous song that follows may, like the song fragment that ends the flyleaf, be by adam de la hale. examples 1a and 1 b present the first and fifth stanzas of robert's song, as given in ms. z ff. 23v-24r; the underlined text (in ex. 1 b) indicates what is preserved in the flyleaf. the melodies of the one and a half songs that follow this line of text on the flyleaf are given by ramalingam and akehurst in appendices 1 and 4 of their article, notated in rhythmless black note heads. the notation of the repeated a section of the aab form of adam de hale's song, preserved at the bottom of the flyleaf, elicits a long discussion by the authors. (this song is listed in spanke-raynaud 1955:no. 1661 and is edited in tischler 1997, 10:no. 960.) the article mentions the presence of e.o.p. stems3 in adam's song, but no conclusion is drawn from this observation. noli" is any mention made of the fact that single notes with a stem, like those without, do not signify any particular durational value in this notation but receive their rhythmic values through a translation of the poetic meter into the pattern of the correlated rhyth­ mic modes, as is proven elsewhere by versions of trouvere songs in mensu­ ral notation. the c.o.p. stem introduces a lively variant into the formulas of the rhythmic modes by dividing the breve value. it was the chief variant avail­ able, before songs and motets turned to the notational differentiation of the longa and brevis-the beginning of mensural notation, needed for more complex rhythms. it is this notation, intermediate between modal­ melismatic and mensural-syllabic writing, that was used in the codex of which only the flyleaf survives. a second rhythmic variant carried over from modal notation was the plica, which, attached to the right edge of a note, provides a gliding tone to the next note. here and there groups of diamond-shaped notes, known as currentes also indicate rhythmic variants in this fragment, as in other manuscripts of the period. a copy of the notation of adam's song, as furnished in the above­ mentioned article, is reproduced in example 2a. this example shows the ubiquitous use of e.o.p. stems. all of the ligatures are written either as a series of rhomboid currentes or with e.o.p. stems, and are all thereby desig­ nated as breve values (several of them also carry plicae, as do some of the single notes). as the ligatures represent breve values, so, it would seem, do the single notes, thus revealing a simple tribrachic meter or sixth mode to go with the decasyllabic verses of the poem. example 2b offers a transcription of the complete first stanza of this song, which additionally demonstrates a feature quite frequently found in trouvere songs: a change of meter from tribrachs to trochees and from sixth mode to second, which marks the transition from the decasyllabic verses of the a section to the pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic verses (five through ten) that form the b section of adam's song. hans tischler 103 example la: robert du castel d'arras, "puis keje sui de l'amerouse loi" (first stanza); ms, z ff. 23v-24r. aa fn v ~ u f r 6! in ~ r' 10 r e r 10 if' [*'j . ;j 1. puis ke ii mal k'a mours me font sen tir 3. bien doi voir va len te et de sir fv --i'" j aij j --1 ~ j ijl u r i r' £, :11 u! • -r 2. sont si plai sant k'il m'en e stuet chan ter, 4. d'a-voir les biens ke mi font e spe rer. b fr' 0 r if' v f gt' 10 .. u 0 i r' [*'j i 5. or mi laist dieus si ser vir et ou vrer frv r if' 0 r iv r 0 r if r r r r v m 6. vers rna da me, ki tant est sage et fran ce f-' v r ie u 0 .. i i 7. ke nc me laist cha if de spe ran ce fa. )1 j ij j' f i r' 0 uj i r' ~' ii 8. et si me laist mon de sir a chie ver. example lb: robert du castel d'arras, "puis ke ii mal d'amours me font sentir" (fifth stanza); ms. z ff. 23v-24r. nus ne se doit de boine amour partir pour nul travail c'on en puist endurer, car nus ne puet pour ii tant mal souffrir k'ele ne puist mil tans guerredouner. nus ne poroit lajoie comparer ki vient d'amour: nis d'estre rois de franc,r n'avroit on pas tant deduit ne plaisance c'uns amans a d'amie conquester. 104 current musicology example 2a: adam de la hale, "puis ke je sui de l'amerouse loi." l ~ t;; l n , ...... , "'" , i , '" iv\ puis ke ie sui de la me-rou se loi bien doi a-mours en can-tant en sau cier l . , l l n ... , , , "." i , q , si' ,~~ encor i a milleur rai son p(ou]r-koi je doi cant-fer] da me-r~us de-si-rier example 2b: adam de la hale, "puis ke je sui de l'amerouse loi." (written a 5th higher in ms. the hague) aa 1) 2) fu )1 3 j -, j j j ~ }i m -3i j j 1)1 j "i j i. puis ke je sui de l'a me rou se loi, 3. en cor mil leur rai son, pour koi 2) 2) 2) 1) f =t~ v n m on ji i i, 4i h j ] j j j j [oj ] :iu • .11 ~ 2. bien doi a mours en can tant en sau cier. 4.je doi can ter d'a me rous de si rier. ms. w (paris, b.n. fr.25566) f.20r-v 5. car sans rna ne chief 6. sui au cuer trais et fe rus 7. d'uns vairs iells ses et a gus 8. ri-ans pour mieus as se nef; 9. a chou ne puet con tre ster 10. hau-bers ni e sells. 1) c.o.p. stem written; 2) currentes written. hans tischler 105 turning now to the anonymous song, the second item on the hague flyleaf, it is useful to compare its rendition in ramalingam and akehurst's article (ex. 3a) with that of adam's piece, given in example 2a. as will be immediately apparent, in example 3a the figures are all written without c.o.p. stems or eurrentes. thus one may presume that the figures, whether ligatures or single notes, do not all symbolize breve values. on the other hand, the verses, like adam's, are also mainly decasyllabic and catalectic (i.e., they end on accented rhyme syllables). they may therefore be either iambic pentameters or dactylic tetrameters. the only exception is verse 6, which has only seven syllables, again catalectic. reading the poem in ei­ ther meter, it becomes clear that the ornamental figures would, in an iambic scansion, fall sometimes on strong "beats" and sometimes on weak ones. with one exception, however, they would ornament only long rhyth­ mic values, when the dactylic third mode is employed. and dactyls also seem preferable for scanning the poem. example 3b provides a transcrip­ tion of this hitherto unknown song according to this analysis. it is followed by the very fragmentary text as edited by ramalingam and akehurst (ex. 3c). to the three addenda discussed above, a fourth discovery may be added here, one that is included in, but more or less hidden among, the hundreds of songs of the complete edition of trouvere songs (tischler 1997). it appears there in vol. 14, as part of lai no. 18. recorded in spanke-raynaud (1955:no. 362a) as " ... en tremblant" and extant in ms. n f. 186r, this is, in fact, the end of a contrafactum to philip the chancellor's marian lai ave gloriosa. because of a lacuna in the manu­ script, however, most of it is lost. this fragment can now be added to the three other contrafacta of this famous latin lai, which survives in six manuscripts. these contrafacta are listed in the spanke-raynaud (1955) under: no. 1020, nete (or virge) glorieuse (in ms. paris, bibliotheque de l'arsenal 3517-3518, ff. 3v-4v, and without music in ms. tours, bibliotheque municipale 948 f. 119 and ms. c f. 157r); no. 1695, l'autrier ehevauehoie pensant (in ms. n ff. 186r-v+185r-v; also listed in the lost chansonnier mesmes); and no. 2060, lone tens m'ai teu (ms. n ff. 185v+ 187r-v; also listed in the lost chansonnier mesmes). example 4 shows the last two sections of philip's lai and the newly­ recognized fragment of its fourth contrafactum. to conclude: the hague flyleaf adds one new fragmentary source to each of two trouvere songs, one by robert du castel d'arras and one by adam de la hale. it also adds a new song to the 1224 songs and song 106 current musicology example 3a: anonymous song in the hague flyleaf (as in ramalingam and akehurst 1997). f i! ei! • i. • i! • . .. ; . i! i! • i! ., • .. ~ i! • ji, i! est mer velie se chas cuns nest a mans car se tolls ciaus vo loit a mours grey [er] i! ei! • i. • i! ., s • i! i! • i! i! i! ., • • [ki] [n]e ie sont elle [est] bien si poi sans eun tout seul iour nen po roit uns .... ;. i! • .-;;. i • i! • -7; -':;0 i! • i! i! i! i! • [du] rer mais a mours veut dou che ment doc tri ner tolls cuers pour mett,re en len ii! • i! • • • m;;; • i· i;;. i! i! i! • . i! i! • i! i! • i! i! tent] e de ii servir car mout a ta -len te quant elle puet as bains ses biens don ner example 3b: transcription of anonymous song in the hague flyleaf. aa (0) 0 fb v ji m v p ji 1)1 j1 )1 j !j 1. [c]est mer vel ie se chas cuns ti'est a mans, 3. [ki] ne ie sont, elle [est] bien si poi sans fk ji (0) p v v i! 0 in i ~i 3 i) k n j :11 ;0 j' 2. car se taus ciaus vo loit a moms gre ver. 4. c'un tout seul jour o'en po roit uns [du] rer. 5. maisa moursveutdou-che-ment doc-tri-ner 6. taus cuers pour mettreen l'[en ten] te fg v v v v v v iv v r c:r j j1 7. de ii ser vir, car mout ii ta len teo fp (0) ji (0) ji r.-.. 1) r c:r )1 ji ) iq )1 j j' 3 8. quant el ie puet as bains ses biens don nero 1) the rest in vv. 2,8 is cut off. hans tischler 107 example 3c: fragmentary text of anonymous song in the hague flyleaf (as in ramalingam and akehurst 1997). 1. c'est mervelle se chascuns n'est amans, car se tous ciaus voloit amours grev[ er j [kinje ie sont, elle [estj bien si poisans c'un tout seuljour n'en poroit uns [dujrer. mais amours veut douchement doctriner tous cuers pour mettre en i' [ententje deliservir, car mout ii atalente, quant elle puet as boins ses biens donner. 2. dont doit cascuns bien iestre desirans k'amours ie voelle aves le[s boins conjter, car tant de joie est en ii apparans k'elle en puet .... gouverner.* mais pur les bons vuet amours estorer · ............... . ente, si fallent cil dont ii volontes gente · ........ t en iaus en trer. 3. car casc .......... nans et si'il i a teis c'on ne puist douter · ................ . sanz, mais cius ki cui de encontre ii [ ... erj · ................. penser, dont il doit iestre en i'atente [ ................. entje de grandement a besoing conforter. 4. . ........ congnissans e got les biens k'amours voe[t donnerj · .. uns ki onkes fust vuians et cil ki sont .............. . ret n'jaukuns m'en espoente s'a boine amours a chou mise m'entente ke [comfors? li?j donne sans demander. 5. dame, vous estes ii ente dont ii biens [viejnt, car boine amours l'i ente, pour chou vous pri de mon chant escouter. * gouverner looks like [gj ominerwith a superscript e above the i. n.b.: the text in square brackets ([ j) is strictly conjectural. 108 current musicology example 4. philip the chancellor, ave gloriosa (ninth section with fourth contrafactum). 7a. ne 0 sbire a per te ment 8a. ie mar ti re ms. lob (brit. libr. eg. 274) dr 93. mun di 101.lu sti por 97. per gra 105. per spi 6a. j'aim 100.0 ri 107. pu el ti e 94. tu spe ell lum, 95. tu g10 ri e ti e 102. ge sta ell lum, 103. ie ti (i e ii scnt. loa. mes maint pre sent 11. ii front, oil ti e 98. mi fa ell lum 99. es rna ter ge ri tus spi fa ell lum 106. es eel la ere en trem blant. que fre re ne suer. go con di to ris. ia pia sma (0 ris. ne ie torment 96. spe cta eli lurn, l04.1y fa eli lum, de mon cuer; ni to a to ris, ris, families and ninety-three lais edited in the complete edition. and it adds one more manuscript to the 292 sources which preserve trouvere songs with their melodies or poems connected with them. furthermore, it in­ creases our knowledge of the notation and its implications for the ap­ proach to the performance of thirteenth-century songs. notes 1. use of this article and of its musical examples by permission of the alamira foundation and the alamira music publisher. 2. the following manuscripts are referred to by their customary designations: ms. c: bern, stadtbibliothek ms. i: oxford, bodleien library, douce 308 ms. n: paris, bibliotheque nationale, fr. 845 ms. 0: paris, bibliotheque nationale, fro 846 ms. z: siena, biblioteca comunale, h.x. 36 hans tischler 109 3. a c.o.p. (cum opposita proprietate) stem is one drawn up from the left edge of a note or a ligature, to indicate that the next two (or sometimes three) notes are to be read as together filling the durational value of a breve, i.e., splitting the breve into two (or three) semibreves. references ramalingam, vivian s., and f. p. r. akehurst. 1997. a new trouvere fragment in the hague. yearbook of the alamira foundation 2: 19-29. spanke, hans, ed. 1955. g. raynauds bibliographie des altjranzosischen liedes. leiden: e.]. brill. tischler, hans. 1997. trouvere lyrics with melodies: complete comparative edition. 15 vols. american institute of musicology, corpus mensurabilis musicae, no. 107. n euhausen: hanssler-verlag. "king porter stomp" and the jazz tradition * by jeffrey magee fletcher won quite a few battles of music with "king porter stomp." and jelly roll morton knew this, and he used to go and say "i made fletcher henderson." and fletcher used to laugh ... and say "you did," you know. he wouldn't argue. (henderson 1975,1:69) toward the end of his life in may 1938, ferdinand 'jelly roll" morton (1890-1941) walked into the library of congress's coolidge auditorium sporting an expensive suit, a gold watch fob and rings, and a diamond­ studded incisor (lomax 1993:xvii). he sat down at the piano and, with the assistance of folklorist alan lomax, conveyed his music and life story into what lomax called a "one-lung portable presto recorder" (ibid.:287). speaking in a measured, orotund baritone, morton explored his past at a leisurely, dignified pace, but he was eager to set the record straight on one particular subject: that he had "personally originated jazz in new orleans in 1902" (ibid.:84). historians have since shown the origins of jazz to be more complicated than morton allowed (gushee 1994; panetta 2000), but none can refute the story of his most popular and enduring composition, "king porter stomp": [t]his tune become to be the outstanding favorite of every great hot band throughout the world that had the accomplishments and quali­ fications of playing it. and until today this tune has been the cause of many great bands to come to fame. it has caused the outstanding tunes today to use the backgrounds that belong to "king porter" in order to make great tunes ofthemselves. (morton 1938)1 "king porter stomp" did indeed become a standard during the swing era, widely performed by big bands throughout the 1930s and beyond. moreover, as morton said, many musicians used the chords, the "back­ grounds," of "king porter'''s trio and stomp sections as the basis for new tunes. adding luster to "king porter'''s agency in jazz history, benny goodman gave the piece a key role in an account of his band's legendary performance at the palomar ballroom in los angeles on the night of august 21, 1935. as goodman recalled, when the band started playing fletcher henderson's arrangements of "sometimes i'm happy" and "king porter stomp," the "place exploded" (goode 1986). current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york jeffrey magee 23 jazz historians have reinforced and expanded morton's claim and goodman's testimony. the palomar explosion and its aftershocks have led some historians to cite it as the birth of the swing era, most notably marshall w. stearns, who, after tracing jazz's development in 1930-34, could simply assert, "the swing era was born on the night of 21 august 1935" (stearns 1956:211; see echoes of this statement in erenberg 1998:3-4, and giddins 1998:156). gunther schuller has called "king porter stomp" one of the "dozen or so major stations in the development of jazz in the twenty years between 1926 and 1946" (schuller 1989:840). and goodman's recording, he wrote elsewhere, "was largely responsible for ushering in the swing era" (schuller 1985). one of morton's many recordings of "king porter stomp" appeared on the canon-shaping smithsonian collection of classic jazz (now out of print), and henderson's and goodman's versions may be found on the smithsonian's big-bandjazz anthology. other reissues of goodman's and henderson's recordings remain easily accessible. 2 more recently, ken burns's television documen­ tary jazz highlighted the piece as paradigmatic. in the liner notes for the program's spin-off compact disc anthology, loren schoenberg has written that the "pedigree of 'king porter stomp' traces the evolution of jazz composition" (burns 2000:10).3 a piece inspiring such vast claims deserves to have its story told, espe­ cially as scholars question the value of canon formation in jazz studies and even the "seductive menace" of records that constitute the canon (gabbard 1995:1-28; rasula 1995:134). for as the jazz canon-or more properly, jazz canons-continues to serve useful pedagogical, historio­ graphical, and performative purposes, the works that comprise it should not be ignored so much as they should be investigated more thoroughly.4 if, as robert walser has argued, "the price of classicism is always loss of specificity" (walser 1995:169), then we might balance classicism with more specificity in order to forestall the homogenization of the jazz canon that walser and others wish to avoid.5 "king porter stomp" presents an intrigu­ ing case injazz history before bebop, because exploring its transformation from multistrain piano piece to big-band standard reveals the piece's canonical status to be less inevitable than anomalous and rather unlikely. "private material" (ca. 1907-1923) "king porter stomp" had existed for nearly three decades before mak­ ing a national impact in 1935. morton himself claimed to have conceived it in 1905 (lomax 1993:146). following roy carew, who assisted morton late in his life, james dapogny suggests a date of 1906 (dapogny 1982:25, 496). lawrence gushee-who discovered that morton was born in 1890, not in 1885, as he himself claimed-dates morton's first compositions 24 current musicology slightly later, during an itinerant period in 1907-11. "king porter stomp" had probably been composed (if not written down and titled) by 1910, when morton met the man for whom he named the piece (gushee 1985:396-97). whatever the case, the piece stands as one of morton's earliest compositions, conceived by a young pianist in the peak decade of ragtime. the title, like the composer, conjures both aristocratic gravitas and honky-tonk grit. in morton's account, he named the piece after porter king, "a very dear friend of mine and a marvelous pianist" from florida. king, according to morton, was an educated gentleman with a wonderful musical education, far much better than mine ... he seemed to have a kind of a yen for my style of playing. and of course he particularly like [sic] this type of number that i was playing, and that was the reason that i named it after him, but not "porter king"; i changed the name backwards and called it "king porter stomp." (morton 1938) as for the "stomp" part of the title, morton staked another major claim, considering the term's widespread use in the 1920s and beyond. "'king porter' was the first tune with the name 'stomp' wrote in the united states," he said, confessing, "i don't know what the term 'stomp' mean myself [sic]. there wasn't really any meaning only that people would stamp their feet and i decided that the name 'stomp' would be fitted for it" (morton 1938). schuller defines "stomp" as "synonymous with blues" and indicating a piece with a "heavy or strongly marked beat" (schuller 1968:382). by the 1920s stomps comprised a loosely defined marketing category for fast, hard-driving jazz-oriented music, somehow distinguished from blues, as in the "blues and stomps" series of morton's compositions published by the chicago-based melrose brothers music co. (dapogny 1982: plate between 36-37). on the copyright registration card at the library of congress, the melrose brothers aim to have it both ways: there, the piece bears the subtitle "dixieland stomp, blues master piece [sic]." if morton wrote anything down when he composed the piece, no sources have come to light. the earliest version is morton's solo piano recording of 1923, and his publisher did not claim its copyright or publish it until late in the following year. such facts suggest that morton had a casual or naive attitude about publication. certainly, he stood outside the orbit of aggressive tin pan alley song plugging and the smaller industry of midwestern ragtime, whose leading composers regularly saw their works published soon after composing them. but morton was anything but ca­ sual or naive about the market value of his works. as an itinerant pianist, jeffrey magee 25 he saw much more benefit in withholding them from publication, as he explained to lomax: you may wonder why i didn't copyright my tunes in the old days ... the fact is that the publishers thought they could buy anything they wanted for fifteen or twenty dollars. now if you was a good piano player, you had ten jobs waiting for you as soon as you hit any town and so fifteen or twenty dollars or a hundred dollars didn't mean very much to us .... so we kept our melodies for our private material to use to battle each other in battles of music. (lomax 1993: 146-47) publication and early piano recordings (1923-26) morton never shed his distrust of publishers (stewart 1991:168-69), but by 1923 he had more incentive to protect and promote his music. that year he moved to chicago and began an association with the melrose brothers, who published morton's works after he had recorded them (dapogny 1982:20). at this point, the melrose brothers music co. was a fledgling, "small-time" operation with a "modest store,", as rick kennedy has noted, but it "stood at the forefront of the new jazz movement" (kennedy 1994:72-73). although morton had seen his first publication in 1915 ("the original jelly roll blues" [will rossiter, chicago]), the jazz vogue that had begun in 1917 and crested in 1923-24 now coaxed more of morton's music into the public arena, where other musicians could play it in'their own way. morton quickly achieved success with "wolverine blues," the first of his pieces that melrose issued (dapogny 1982:20, 63-64). "king porter stomp," however, did not show promise of becoming a hit, much less a standard, in jazz or any other repertory. morton played the piece in his first solo recording session (july 17, 1923, richmond, indiana, gennett 5289), suggesting the work's pride of place in his reper­ tory. (he ultimately made more recordings of "king porter stomp" than of any of his other pieces [dapogny 1982:495].) the next year the piece was further disseminated through a couple of pre-publication "plugs" and melrose's dual publication of the work as a piano solo and as a dance­ band arrangement. judging from the documented recording legacy from 1923 through 1927 (see table 1), however, the piece failed to attract a broad or sustained following among other musicians-even though variety, in late 1924, had observed a "recording vogue" for "only 'hot' tunes" (variety, november 12, 1924). certainly, the piece came nowhere near matching the interest raised by another "hot" melrose publication, charlie davis's "copenhagen," which spread rapidly among bands in chicago and new york after its publication in october 1924 (magee 1995:51,55). 26 current musicology table 1 "king porter stomp": a discography, 1923-1942* date artist/group matrix no. 1923 july 17 jelly roll morton gennett 5289 1924 ca. october ai turk's princess orchestra olympic 1463 november 3 benson orchestra of chicago rejected ca. december king oliver and jelly roll morton autograph 617 1925 ca. february 3 johnny sylvester and his orchestra pathe actuelle 036211 february 20 fletcher henderson and his orchestra rejected february 26 lanin's red heads columbia 327-d march charles creath'sjazz-o-maniacs okeh 41565 1926 april 20 jelly roll morton vocalion 1020 1928 march 14 fletcher henderson and his orchestra columbia 1543-d 1932 december 9 fletcher henderson and his orchestra okeh 41565 late 1932 cab calloway and his orchestra stash stl24 [taped broadcast from cotton club, new york) 1933 august 18 fletcher henderson and his orchestra brunswick a-9771 1934 september 14 claude hopkins and his orchestra decca 184 1935 april 29 ishamjones and his orchestra rumbleseat records rs 103 june 6 rhythm makers orchestra nbc thesaurus 127 [benny goodman orchestra) july 1 benny goodman and his orchestra victor 25090 november 6 blanche calloway and her orchestra vocalion 3112 [as "i gotta swing") 1936 february chick webb and his orchestra polydor 423248 1937 january 10 count basie and his orchestra jazz archives ja-16 [taped broadcast from "chatterbox," william penn hotel, pittsburgh) may 17 teddy hill and his nbc orchestra bluebird b-6988 july 13 benny goodman and his orchestra columbia ml4591 december 16 harry roy and his orchestra parlophone 1158 1938 may-july jelly roll morton (2) circle 23-24 circle 73-69 august jelly roll morton rejected september 12 erskine hawkins and his orchestra bluebird b-7839 september 27 glenn miller and his orchestra ? 1939 april 6 harry james and his orchestra brunswick 8366 december 14 jelly roll morton general 4005 1940 february 7 metronome all-star band columbia 36389 march 28 teddy bunn blue note 503 may 28 zutty singleton and his orchestra decca 18093 july 14 jelly roll morton pirate mpc-502 july 27 cab calloway and his orchestra jazz panorama 16 1942 january 27 bob crosby and his orchestra decca 4390 *adapted and expanded from richard crawford and jeffrey magee (1992), which was com­ piled from brian rust (1982). jeffrey magee 27 an obvious explanation for the piece's initial failure to catch on might seem to be that by 1924 "king porter stomp" was decidedly old-fashioned, a strain-form piece from the ragtime era. but melrose had no reason to think that would hinder its chances in the marketplace. dance bands of the era occasionally played older material, including "maple leaf rag" (1899), "high society" (1901), "panama" (1911), and "eccentric" (1912), as well as more recently published strain-form pieces such as "tiger rag" (1917), "clarinet marmalade" (1918), and "copenhagen" (crawford and magee 1992:xii-xiii, and passim under song titles) .6 a closer look at "king porter stomp" as it appeared in the melrose sheet music publication and morton's early recordings reveals the quali­ ties that made the piece both old-sounding and unique in the early 1920s (ex. 1). an observation by dapogny can serve as a starting point: "[morton's] departure from ragtime style is more radical than the surface of his playing might suggest" (dapogny 1982: 11). and as dapogny puts it, the piece's final strain is "one of morton's most forward-looking creations" (dapogny 1982:496). yet the forward-looking elements rise in relief only after ragtime roots are recognized. first, the overall form and key scheme of the piece, as morton recorded and published it in 1924, resembles con­ ventional non-da capo march and dance forms, and piano ragtime as standardized in the work of joplin and others. (it lacks one formal quality regularly seen in joplin's rags, however: the first strain's return after the second strain.) 14 [: ai6:] [: bl6 :] a~ interlude x4 trio cl6 d~ stomp cxl6 cx'16 the roles of the hands show both morton's indebtedness to and depar­ ture from ragtime conventions. as in ragtime, the left hand serves the dual purpose of marking the beat and supplying the harmonic founda­ tion, while the right hand features a variety of syncopated patterns that play against the pulse. the second strain is the most conventionally rag­ like, with an alternation of octaves and chords in the left hand, and a right-hand pattern based on the "maple leaf rag" motif. meanwhile, morton also steers away from ragtime's regularity and repetition. at the opening of the first strain, for example, morton played and published par­ allel fifths, lending force and weight to the opening idea. in the second strain, the left hand plays new orleans-style "tailgate" trombone breaks. morton's early recordings of the tune reveal left-hand patterns even more active and varied than the sheet music shows: "trombone" figures, synco­ pation, and forceful accents jolt the texture, especially in the opening of morton's 1926 recording. 28 current musicology example 1: "king porter stomp." by ferd 'jelly roll" morton. © 1924 (renewed) edwin h. [al 1\ ~ : _11 i ~ : morris & company, a division of mpl communications, inc. this arrangement © 2002 edwin h. morris & company, a division of mpl communications, inc. all rights reserved 8va ______ ---, ~ ... ..~ .. v ,r;.rrr qr r r r i --...j ~ i ... .. ... -f'... .. ... i -f'.. -f'. . . . ~ i i ... i .. r ~ i -ii i '--------r r r r r qr r r r -f'_-f'...... ~ ... 4i i i i r' .... jeffrey magee 29 example 1 (cont.) 11 ~ 1 .,. ..1:.. .~ ~.p.. r""i~1 _~..1 ..1:.. ~ r i i i i i i r i r i "'j# i ! .,...~.,. n l • l i . ~.,. : 1 i i 'i 1 'i i 1 1 # i # i i ii i i stomp i i ~ i i 1 ~ ............ ~ i i , i , i ... .,... i i ... i ... ~-# -# i ... i~_ : , 1 1 i ........ , i .... 30 current musicology example 1 (cont.) fi i i " i i i i i.. i i r-, 11 i " i io! i ~ '. • ---~ --~--i ~ ~-<ii"",-<ii""1 -&i-&.. 1 , .. , , i-&i-&: 1 -.t 1 i 1 -6!i --1 -.t fi i i.. i i i i i.. i i i i k i i io! i ~' i ~' ~-<ii"",-<ii""1 -&i-&~-<ii"",-<ii""1 -&i-&.. : i -.t , i -.t 1 i i fine jeffrey magee 31 use of riffs reveals another way in which morton reaches beyond rag­ time. in the trio and stomp strains, morton builds eight-bar phrases from repeated oneand two-bar riffs. conventionally considered a phenomenon appearing in band arrangements of the 1930s and 1940s, riffs distinguish morton's style not only in "king porter stomp," but also in other pieces such as "big foot ham," "grandpa's spells," and "wolverine blues" (dapogny 1982:496 and passim). morton's "king porter" riffs, in dapogny's words, "pointed the way for arrangers and composers for years to come" (dapogny 1982:496). although morton contrasts the trio and stomp strains with riffs, he un­ derscores each of them with a form of a recycling iv-v-i progression, in which the tonic serves a dominant function, tonicizing the subdominant. the built-in momentum of starting away from the tonic and returning to it every two bars surely accounts for the piece's appeal to later jazz soloists. morton distinguishes the harmonic plans of the trio and stomp only in their bass lines. in the trio, the tonic is approached by chromatic de­ scent in the bass line: m, a, a~, to d~. in the stomp, the tonic is reached through chromatic ascent: g~, g, a~, to db. this reveals another key de­ parture from ragtime: contrasting strains unified by a common harmonic plan. the first evidence of morton's characteristic practice of strain varia­ tion appears in his 1915 publication of "original jelly roll blues," which dapogny, slightly more decisively than schuller, calls "probably" the first published jazz composition (dapogny 1982:293; cf. schuller 1968:137). in the final strain, the high e~ draws attention to another distinctive feature of morton's style: the blue note. edward berlin has cited a few ex­ amples of blues-inflected ragtime pieces, yet they tend to prove the rule that, especially before 1912, ragtime rarely got the blues (berlin 1980:15460). the blues saturate morton's works, however, and in "king porter" the blue third stands out as the most distinctive pitch of the climactic final strain's riff. is "king porter stomp" a rag? on the surface it would appear so. in fact, on a 1925 sheet music cover, melrose advertised the piece as part of 'jelly roll morton's famous blues and rag series" (dapogny 1982: plate between 36-37). yet, although his form and some figuration follow rag­ time, it is clear that morton's varied left-hand style, his riff-based phrase structure, his variations on the trio and stomp strains, and his use of the blues place "king porter stomp" in another world. stylistically anomalous in the early 1900s, the piece would remain so in the swing era and beyond. stock arrangements and early band recordings (1924-25) the melrose brothers gave the piece every chance to succeed. had they simply issued "king porter stomp" as a piano solo, it might not have 32 current musicology found a new life as a band arrangement. as was customary in the early 1920s, however, the publisher issued the piece in a stock arrangement for dance orchestra by elmer schoebel, one of its staff arrangers. before the firm claimed the piece's copyright on december 9, 1924, it found two bands to promote the piece in pre-publication recordings (see table 1): ai turk's princess orchestra and the powerful benson orchestra of chicago, both of which had likewise recorded the melrose stock arrangement of "copenhagen" before its publication in late 1924 (crawford and magee 1992:16). in addition, morton and king oliver made an unusual duo recording of the piece within a month of the copyright claim. on it, morton keeps time with a standard rag-derived alternating bass as oliver plays the melody almost note-for-note as it appears on the sheet music. hearing the recording as a publisher-instigated plug helps account for the apparently unimaginative playing on this record, which has puzzled at least one jazz historian (gioia 1997:66). the whole plugging process seems to have had a short-term effect. within three months of the stock's publication, several additional bands made "king porter stomp" records, including the st. louis-based charles creath's jazz-o-maniacs, and new york dance orchestras led by white bandleader sam lanin and black bandleader fletcher henderson. any consideration of these recordings calls for a few words about the stock arrangement. the white pianist, composer, and bandleader elmer schoebel was a talented and versatile musician in the 1920s-"a key figure in chicago jazz" (sudhalter 1999:31)-but his arrangement for melrose looks like standard work for hire. it did what a stock was supposed to do: preserve the structure, harmony, melody, rhythm, textures, and other fig­ uration of its source while giving it dance orchestra colors. the clarinet and alto saxophone carry the main melody through the introduction and first two strains; the trumpets play most of the riffs in the trio and stomp. two of the early-1925 recordings show how bands adapted the stock. creath's group, featuring the soulful trumpet star who led the band,7 clearly follows the stock arrangement, departing from it in just two ways: (1) creath paraphrases the stomp melody accompanied only by piano, and (2) the band repeats the trio and first stomp sections. such minor alterations were unremarkable at a time when the most popular bands regularly "doctored" stocks or wrote their own "specials" (arrangements tailored by a band's staff arranger to feature that band's particular strengths) . in contrast, lanin's red heads take considerable liberties with the stock. their four-bar introduction features a new harmonic scheme. instead of morton's alternation of tonic (a~) and diminished chords, lanin's band plays a harmonic surprise, the major submediant in measure jeffrey magee 33 2, leading to a somewhat deceptive return to the tonic: ab i e i f7 i bb 7. a novelty-style piano solo in the trio includes a few substitute chords, and in the end the band slips from the stock's cadence on a dp chord to an e9 chord, recalling the introduction's surprise chord in a new harmonic con­ text. despite such typically new york-style twists, the band plays in a no­ tably loose, flexible quasi-new orleans style.s this suggests that lanin and his sidemen, like most other jazz-oriented musicians in 1924, were catch­ ing the spirit and style of king oliver's creole jazz band, whose first recordings had hit new york within the past year. two other things are notable about lanin's record: a trumpet solo (instead of reeds) in the first strain and the use of the trio, with its chromatically descending line, as a foundation for solos (by clarinet and piano). interestingly, both of these features would appear in henderson's recordings in 1928 and beyond, yet lanin's doctored stock hardly represents the kind of reconception that henderson's band would later undertake. considering henderson's prominent connection to "king porter stomp" in the swing era, his band's 1925 recording looms large for its ab­ sence: it was never released. by this time, henderson and lanin shared the musical duties at the roseland ballroom, midtown manhattan's lead­ ing dance hall-"the 'class' dance place on broadway," in the words of variety's monomial music columnist "abel" (green), writing in october 1924 (quoted in magee 1995:48). don redman, henderson's principal arranger and reedman, has recalled the many "battles of music" that henderson's and lanin's bands fought at the roseland. "he was at one end of the hall," redman recalled, "and we were at the other, and in the middle was the arrangers' table .... we were always making up new arrangements trying to top theirs" (driggs 1962:96). we can only wonder what kind of arrangement redman might have worked up for hender­ son's band, which recorded "king porter stomp" on february 20, 1925, just six days before lanin's did. the closeness of the recording dates leaves little doubt that the two bands fought this battle on two fronts: in the recording studio as well as in the ballroom. unfortunately, we now hear only one side of the battle. a tantalizing question remains: did louis armstrong, who joined henderson's band a few months earlier, playa role in the recording? if henderson was "battling" lanin with this piece in early 1925, he should have featured armstrong, as he often did, as a weapon from his arsenal that lanin could not match. in fact, among the thirty-one recordings henderson's band made since armstrong had joined it in october, only six do not feature an armstrong solo, so more likely than not, armstrong had a solo on "king porter stomp." evidence from later henderson recordings invites further speculation on that point. 34 current musicology henderson's stomp: from stock to head (1928-33) after the brief flurry of "king porter stomp" recordings in early 1925, no one but morton recorded the piece again for three years. when henderson's band revisited the piece in 1928 it became the main conduit through which "king porter stomp" passed from the jazz age to the swing era. henderson made three different recordings of the piece: the revised version recorded in 1928, the so-called "new king porter stomp" of 1932, and another revised version of 1933. in these recordings we hear his band transform the piece from a stock to a head arrangement, that is, an arrangement developed through discussion and demonstration with little or no written music. in the process, "king porter stomp" changed from a multistrain rag-based piece to a streamlined 'jamming" piece for improvis­ ing soloists, a shift graphically revealed in table 2. to make the change, henderson and his sidemen extended morton's riff principle to the entire piece; riffs serve as the foundation for the solos. why did henderson revisit the piece three years after his unissued recording in 1925? that his name was closely linked to the piece from the 1930s onward-making it seem entirely natural for him to have made the piece a central element in his band's book-has tended to overshadow some practical exigencies in 1927-28. for one thing, many historians in­ terpret the late 1920s as a low point for henderson, attributable to don redman's departure from the band in july 1927 (see, for example, allen 1973:214). richard hadlock notes that redman left an "enormous gap" that henderson never filled (1988:205). similarly, schuller argues that redman was "virtually irreplaceable" as the "architect of the band's style" (1968:267). with redman gone, henderson had to seek out new arrangers and arrangements, or resort to old ones. yet, although redman's departure posed a challenge to henderson, the 1928 "king porter stomp" reflected a trend in henderson's repertoire that had appeared before redman left: playing updated arrangements of older pieces. present since the early 1920s, the tendency had escalated in 1926 with such recordings as "clarinet marmalade," "fidgety feet," "sensation," and "livery stable blues," all revised versions of pieces by members of the original dixieland jazz band, as well as "panama," "the st. louis blues," "the wang wang blues," and "wabash blues" (magee 1992:202). it was in 1926, too, that henderson's band played morton's "the chant" in a newly published melrose stock.9 the 1928 "king porter" may also have had impetus from a more proxi­ mate cause: the composer. morton was in new york at this time, and, in fact, he had been in the columbia recording studio a day before hender­ son's band came there to record his piece (allen 1973:246). whether or not henderson encountered morton at this time, by the 1930s fletcher jeffrey magee 35 table 2 form outlines of "king porter stomp" recordings and stock arrangement, 1923-35 morton (1923) 1(4) a a b b x cx cx cx' t melrose stock (1924) 1(4) a a b b x c cx cx' t morton (1924) 1(4) a a b b x c cx cx't lanin (1925) 1(4) a b b x c c c cx cx' t creath (1925) 1(4) a a b b x c c cx cx cx' t morton (1926) 1(4) a b b x c cx cx cx' t henderson (1928) 1(8) a b x c c c c cx cx' t henderson (1932-33) 1(8) a x c c c c c c cx cx' t goodman (1935) 1(8) a x c c c c c cx cx't i = introduction a = first strain b = second strain x = interlude c=trio cx= stomp 1 cx' = stomp 2 t = tag ending and morton were "great friends," at least partly because of "king porter stomp," as this article's epigraph suggests. the 1928 recording occupies a pivot point in the piece's biography, one that can be heard in at least two contrasting ways. retrospectively, it marks the earliest documented stage of henderson's transformation of the piece. so it stands as a rough early version of the arrangement that evolved in the early 1930s to become a national hit for benny goodman in 1935 and a big-band standard thereafter. as i've written elsewhere, listen­ ing to henderson's recordings of 1928-33 "from a classicized perspective on musical composition is like hearing a sketch develop into a finished score" (magee 1999:68). yet the "sketch" analogy, however apt in retrospect, obscures the arrangement's basis in aural, not written, music making, and the exciting, even radical nature of henderson's revision. lo so it takes some effort to hear the arrangement from the contrasting perspective of the 1920s. the band announces its distinctive approach from the opening bars, with a new eight-bar introduction featuring a fiery trumpet solo by bobby stark (ex. 2). the solo's tone, figuration, and structure further suggest louis armstrong as a kind of "missing link" in the piece's evolution. armstrong's trademarks permeate the solo, including the syncopated leaps of a fourth at the opening, characteristic of armstrong's solos with henderson three 36 current musicology example 2: "king porter stomp," introduction, trumpet solo by bobby stark (fletcher henderson and his orchestra, 1928). eh7 5+ years earlier (magee 1992:316, 319-20), and the big, blaring tone through­ out. the whole eight-bar unit parses clearly into a pair of parallel four-bar phrases, with the rhythm of measures 5-6 nearly identical to that of measures 1-2. that reveals a new sense of the importance of linking and relating phrases of a solo, of the coherence that armstrong had brought to the jazz solo since his early days with henderson (harker 1999). the overall form of the arrangement throws greater emphasis on the trio and stomp than ever before, beginning a pattern that would extend into the swing era. henderson's band omits the repeats of the first and second strains, setting another trend that would become standardized in the 1930s. the first trio hews close to morton's original melody; subse­ quent choruses of the trio are used for solos backed by riffs. the stomp, on the other hand, becomes the place for the whole band to shine. in the 1928 recording, the band runs through the stomp just once, but that cho­ rus would become the most famous of all, the call-and-response chorus that schuller (1968:268) has termed "the single most influential ensemble idea in the entire swing era" (ex. 3). while many ideas anticipate standard swing arranging practice, the rhythm section marks this as a 1920s recording. two instruments in partic­ ular signify the recording's twenties vintage: the tuba, mostly plugging alternate beats (one and three), and the banjo, strumming a steady four­ beat pattern. close listening also reveals a haze of ride cymbal and high hat work, including a cymbal hit after the final cadence-a trademark of henderson's drummer, joseph "kaiser" marshall, since 1923. the whole recording lopes along at around 180 beats per minute, approximately the same tempo as henderson's former competitor, sam lanin, had taken it in 1925. rhythmically, the 1928 version looks not forward but backward. when henderson recorded the piece again on december 9, 1932, it was issued under a revised title: the "new king porter stomp." that day's recording session has become-like the session of bennie moten's kansas city orchestra that produced "toby" and "moten swing" four days laterjeffrey magee 37 example 3: "king porter stomp," final strain, beginning (fletcher henderson and his orchestra, 1928) (from sturm 1995:63). 1\ l ... ~ .l ... : l ... ~ .l ... j. reeds ~ ~ ,~ ........ i ........ brass 1\ i ~n~j1 j i. ~n;j1 j 1 ~ v·..".?:t. --~-..".?:t. 0> m go 0> m go 0> tuba : ..". ... ~ ..".' one of those legendary sessions prized for the desperate, unlikely artistry of struggling black bands in the early depression years (on moten's ses­ sion, see schuller and williams 1983:18). it is this recording, along with henderson's "down south camp meetin'," that martin williams and gunther schuller chose to exemplify "the swing band style as it was taken up by nearly everyone else" (schuller and williams 1983:14). yet the recording's hallowed status belies the haphazard conditions of its making. john hammond has written an account of the session in which the "king porter stomp" recording appears as an afterthought, squeezed in at the end: we were scheduled for ten o'clock on a friday morning, a standard three-hour recording session, which meant we had to be through by one. at ten on friday two musicians were in the studio. at 12:15 john kirby showed up with his bass, followed shortly by the rest of the band. we cut three sides in less than forty-five minutes, two of which were masters acceptable for release: "underneath the harlem moon" and "honeysuckle rose." the third side, "new king porter stomp," we could play through only once. (hammond 1977:67) the session produced a single columbia disk, featuring "honeysuckle rose" on one side and "harlem moon" on the other. "king porter stomp" found its way onto a low-budget okeh recording backed by a clarence williams-led "nonunion jug band" (ibid.:68). yet, from hammond's perspective, "the session was one of the most sat­ isfying i have ever had anything to do with." he attributed the results, in part, to what had appeared to be liabilities: the time and space constraints placed on the event by the studio and the musicians themselves. "perhaps to make amends for their casual behavior," hammond recalled, "the musi­ cians really put out in the short time available to us. the studio was small, the band setup intimate-the kind of conditions in which musicians can 38 current musicology really hear and feel what each man is doing. the results were superb" (ibid.:67) . this "king porter" is "new" in many respects. the band quickened the tempo to 210 beats per minute. the string bass (played by kirby) and gui­ tar (freddy white) impart a lightness and forward momentum far from the comparatively heavy, "vertical" tread of the 1920s tuba-banjo combina­ tion. formally, the new version makes a decisive shift toward the trio and stomp: the band omits the rag-like second strain entirely, adds two solo choruses to the trio, and creates a new stomp strain acting as an intensive build-up to the final call-and-response shout chorus, which now features saxophones in place of the outmoded clarinet trio. howard spring (1997) has convincingly argued that the differences between henderson's first and second "king porter" recordings may partly be explained by the devel­ opment of the lindy hop in the late 1920s and early 1930s. despite fundamental changes, however, it remains a "head" arrange­ ment whose basic structure, procession of solos, riff foundation, and cli­ mactic antiphony remain intact from 1928. with the second strain's omis­ sion and the trio and stomp's expansion, the first strain now sounds like an extension of the introduction: an introduction to a series of solos over a riff foundation. that foundation, poured in 1928, now solidifies in henderson's 1932 and 1933 recordings. under stark's first-trio solo, the saxophones playa syncopated variation on morton's original trio melody, which had been in the foreground in henderson's 1928 recording. cole­ man hawkins's solo appears over a four-note syncopated brass riff. the first chorus of j. c. higginbotham's trombone solo is accompanied by a falling-thirds figure in the saxophones that had its origins under jimmy harrison's trombone solo in 1928. by 1933, the riff foundation has become more pronounced. now, the recording balance shifts so that the solos interact with the riffs rather than soaring above them. the band retains the basic structure from 1932 while changing some of its contents. henry "red" allen's trumpet solo fills the two-chorus slot, previously taken by j. c. higginbotham, preceding the en­ semble out-choruses. morton's original trio melody, suggested in the saxo­ phones' variation of it under stark's solo, comes to the fore in a clarinet solo (by either hiltonjefferson or russell procope) in the next trio strain. by the late 1920s, public performance practice had departed from recording practice, which had to fit the arrangement into the three to three-and-a-half minute limit of a 78-rpm record. critics wilder hobson and otis ferguson noted that henderson's recordings give few clues about how the band sounded in public. few of the recordings, noted hobson, "give anything like the golden, seething spirit of a fletcher henderson occasion" (hobson 1962; d. ferguson 1982:57). and accordjeffrey magee 39 ing to sandy williams, who would soon be playing the piece with bobby stark in chick webb's band, on christmas night at the apollo theater, "i counted the choruses 1 played on 'king porter stomp '-twenty-three. bobby stark and 1 could playas many choruses as we felt like on that, so long as each chorus was a little more exciting. that was our tune" (dance 2001:69-71). accounts like williams's are reminders that part of "king porter'''s appeal came from things that were never captured on a printed page, a sound recording, or any other media. a transcription and analysis of the 1933 recording by dave jones and james dapogny allow for a closer look, revealing several things. first, they notate and discuss the exceptional solos of coleman hawkins and red allen. both soloists demonstrate an uncanny ability to "float against the rhythm," to create and sustain "motivic coherence" apart from the origi­ nal melody, and, in general, they reveal "improvisers thinking composi­ tionally." second, they reveal "many small disagreements among members of the band about what notes and rhythms to play and how to play them," reinforcing the notion that even five years after his band's first issued recording of the piece, henderson's "king porter stomp" remained unno­ tated, a "head" arrangement "made collectively by the band members and played from memory" (dapogny and jones n.d.:n.p.). goodman's stomp: a score mter playing ajob in detroit's graystone ballroom in november 1934, henderson failed to pay his sidemen. the accumulated uncertainties of getting a regular paycheck in henderson's band took their toll and henderson's entire band quit en masse, many of them to join benny carter back in new york (allen 1973:300-1). meanwhile, benny goodman's fledgling career as a bandleader was shaping up to become permanent. on december 1, 1934, goodman began leading his band on the "let's dance" radio program. it was billed as a "dance party" every saturday night and would be heard across the country, but there was also a large studio audience, for nbc's studio 8h could seat around one thousand people (firestone 1993:106). although "let's dance" lasted only twenty­ six weeks, it shaped the careers of benny goodman and, by extension, fletcher henderson in several important ways, and it helped seal the canonic destiny of "king porter stomp" in the twentieth century. as a commercially sponsored network radio program, "let's dance" was a potential gold mine in the music industry. network radio was less than a decade old, and commercial sponsorship had only recently taken hold as the chief means of promoting radio, a phenomenon validated by the communications act of 1934 (smulyan 1994:167). live music on ra­ dio, of course, was not a new phenomenon. as early as 1924, for example, 40 current musicology henderson's band could be heard playing at the roseland ballroom on whn new york, and radio stations carried many other bands and singers on "sustaining programs," that is, on-location broadcasts from hotels, ball­ rooms, and nightclubs throughout the 1920s. such programs certainly expanded a musician's audience in a way that had been impossible before the advent of radio in 1920. but the more recent commercially sponsored programs guaranteed a broad national audience on a regular basis. as david w. stowe has noted, these were the choice jobs, bringing unprece­ dented prestige and remuneration. such programs were "the swing indus­ try's greatest prize" and the "primary means by which a band and its agency found and prepared its audience" (stowe 1994:108-9). "let's dance" also allowed goodman to expand his repertoire and style. the program's format called for three bands to play thirty-minute sets in alternation, beginning with kel murray and his orchestra playing sweet dance music (to use the parlance of the era, when "sweet" and "hot" designated the range of popular dance music), continuing with xavier cugat's orchestra playing latin-tinged music (on the crest of a rumba fad in the early 1930s), and ending with goodman's band playing "hot," jazz­ oriented music. the job came with an allowance for eight arrangements per week in the first thirteen weeks, reduced to four per week when the show was renewed for a second thirteen-week period in late february (hammond 1977:108-9). goodman cast about for arrangers he could call on and work with. in search of a distinctive sound, and with john ham­ mond's encouragement, goodman sought out black arrangers to give his style the shot of jazz that the job required. among many possibilities, henderson-struggling to make ends meet and with more than a decade of dance-band experience behind him-stood out as a natural choice to take on much of the arranging work, sometimes doing as many as three a week (firestone 1993:109-10, 116). an entire network show featuring hot music would have been commer­ cially unfeasible before august 1935, but with the presence of murray and cugat hewing closer to the melodies of the tunes they played, goodman was freer to depart from them. john hammond has stressed this point: "the liberties goodman was allowed on let's dance," he recalled, "were made possible because cugat and kel murray were playing in straight, commercial fashion. by the time benny came on the air he could play his own way." hammond also emphasized the importance of the show's budget allowing goodman to commission new arrangements, which broke "the stranglehold music publishers had on the performance of popular songs" (1977: 1 09) . ross russell later made a similar point in a more evolutionary and em­ phatic tone: "[t] he war against the horrible products of the tunesmiths, jeffrey magee 41 which began with fletcher henderson in the 1920's, has been brought a successful conclusion only by the beboppers (russell 1959:202). actually, henderson had adapted and rearranged stock arrangements in the 1920s (magee 1992), so it was not so much the "first time" that arrangers had broken away from publishers' arrangements of popular songs as it was the first time in the early 1930s that white bands in particular had departed from what publishers had provided. at this point, henderson finally committed "king porter stomp" to pa­ per, and in this form it became the first fletcher henderson arrangement in goodman's book. (at the same time, goodman also acquired fletcher's brother horace's "big john special.") yet the arrangement that henderson gave goodman in late 1934 or early 1935 was not simply a transcription of the version his own band had played. it introduces several slight but telling changes. for example, henderson enhanced the riff ac­ companiment in the opening strain to include incisive exchanges between the brass and saxophones, where before there had only been saxophones (exx. 4 and 5). in addition, the revised arrangement for goodman also re­ stores morton's trio melody to the foreground in the first trio; the melody retains the syncopated character that henderson's band had brought to it in its earlier recordings, but it no longer accompanies a trumpet solo. henderson also recast the penultimate chorus. in 1933, henderson had featured a rippling, triplet saxophone riff (with piquant brass dissonances) flowing right out of the end of red allen's trumpet solo (ex. 6). in contrast, the 1935 recording featured a full ensemble chorus based on a climbing syncopated figure (ex. 7). to some extent these differences reveal the more fundamental distinc­ tion between the versions played by henderson and the version played by goodman: henderson's band played a "head" arrangement that-despite fundamental similarities among the 1928, 1932, and 1933 versions-was never played the same way twice. goodman's band, on the other hand, clearly plays an arrangement that has been fully written down, except for the solos. the "many small disagreements" between the henderson recordings of 1932 and 1933 would not be allowed by the fastidious goodman and his well-rehearsed band. under goodman's auspices, "king porter stomp" coalesced into a score whose recorded performances, espe­ cially the much anthologized july 1, 1935, version, gleam with polish and sparkle with vitality. "[o]ne of the biggest kicks i've ever had in music [was] to go through these scores and dig the music out of them, even in rehearsal," goodman noted in his 1939 autobiography (goodman and kolodin 1961:147). john hammond, who stood in a unique position to appreciate what both henderson and goodman did with the piece, recog­ nized the musical and cultural import of goodman's version. in his words, 42 current musicology example 4: "king porter stomp," first strain, mm. 9-16 (fletcher henderson and his orchestra, 1933, transcribed by james dapogny and davejones). goodman's version "is something of a landmark in white jazz circles. it is the first time, to my knowledge, that a large white orchestra has succeeded in capturing the attack and freedom of the best coloured bands" (quoted in erenberg 1998:74, from a hammond article in melody maker that ap­ peared before goodman's commercial recordings of "king porter" [may 28, 1935]). swing standard goodman's success with "king porter stomp" seems to have prompted many other bands to record it: the number of recordings of the piece rose significantly after 1935. table 1 presents an outline of "king porter stomp"'s biography through most of the swing era. although the bands of cab calloway, isham jones, claude hopkins, and undoubtedly others, played the piece before goodman, the table illustrates dramatically that goodman's recording and performances in 1935 launched a new phase in the piece's history, when it became a standard among big bands. in that year, the piece's trickling recording history became a steady stream, with several big-band versions mixed with a notable revival of interest in recording the original piano version by its composer. jeffrey magee 43 example 5: "king porter stomp," first strain, mm. 9-16 (henderson arrangement for benny goodman, transcription in benny goodman collection, yale university). 1\ i ~ .~ rr-r-. ,.--., trumpet solo ,~ ...'---'" 1\ saxophones ,~ ~---~ q5= __ =i ~~$' 1\ trumpets ~ >j: .... trombones : bass : i a,6 006 f7 mm? solo saxes tpts. >>>-> thns. ,..-... bass n6 nm6 a,6 f7 m9 e>? 006 06 a,6 among these recordings stand many nearly forgotten treasures of the swing era. during the same period in early 1936, when stanley dance pro­ moted "cutting" contests between the goodman and chick webb orches­ tras, for example, webb's band recorded what might be the fastest "king porter" on record. the arrangement is clearly derived from henderson's, but its tempo is not. played at more than 260 beats per minute, webb's "king porter" clearly "cuts" the goodman band in sheer speed. a year later, the teddy hill orchestra recorded "king porter stomp." it too bor­ rows heavily from the henderson arrangement and offers several novel 44 current musicology example 6: "king porter stomp," penultimate strain riff (fletcher henderson and his orchestra, 1933, transcribed by james dapogny and dave jones). trumpets trombones bass example 7: "king porter stomp," penultimate strain riff (henderson arrangement for benny goodman, benny goodman collection, yale university). saxophones :> :> :> trumpets trombones bass gb6 go n6 ideas as well. most notably, hill's recording features a new four-bar intro­ duction (during a period when almost all bands played a version of henderson's eight-bar opening), followed by a two-bar break and the first strain solo featuring hill's nineteen-year-old trumpet player, john birks gillespie, in his first recorded solo. the band recordings after henderson's tell part of the same story: that the henderson arrangement was the prevailing approach to "king porter stomp" in the 1930s and 1940s. moreover, considering that no band be­ sides henderson's recorded the piece between spring 1925 and fall 1934, it is safe to say that henderson saved the piece from obscurity. jeffrey magee 45 in the meantime, its composer had fallen into obscurity. between 1930 and 1938 morton appeared on only one recording. he had become per­ sonally alienated from the younger jazz musicians from new york (with the exception, apparently, of fletcher henderson), and he suffered finan­ cial problems, ill health, and fear of a voodoo curse (dapogny 1982:2122). beginning with the library of congress recordings, morton made five more records of "king porter stomp" from 1938 to 1940. by then, his play­ ing style was at least twenty years out-of-date, but his recordings reveal it to be even more exuberant and vital. high-register octave flares signal the beginnings of phrases, left-hand figures inject sudden accents, the right hand frequently leaps among registers-all revealing a new mastery and an unprecedented freedom and flexibility. we've seen how morton's riffs and structure continued to shape big-band versions into the 1930s, but the influence also worked the other way. in his 1939 recording of "king porter stomp" (anthologized on the smithsonian collection of classic jazz), morton shows his awareness of the arrangement, because here for the first time he leaps among registers in a pianistic version of call-and-response. in the lomax interviews, morton had said, "no jazz piano player can really play good jazz unless they try to give an imitation of a band" (lomax 1993:79). example 8 shows the closing bars of what might be called morton's "band" version of "king porter stomp." although morton recorded "king porter stomp" more than any of his works, no single musician demonstrated a more sustained and public com­ mitment to the piece than benny goodman. over his half-century career as a bandleader, goodman returned to henderson's arrangement of "king porter stomp" again and again, more than almost any big-band chart in his sizeable book. ll it was the first fletcher henderson arrange­ ment he received from henderson, and one of the last he ever played in public, at his final concert at wolf trap in vienna, virginia, a week before his death in june 1986. the piece served a particular function for him, what might be called the "hot slot," since whenever he played it on radio, television, and concert programs it often served as a climactic closer, either for the first half of the program or for the entire program, usually followed by either an intermission or the band's sign-off theme, "goodbye" (connor 1988:passim). a recording issued in 1986 preserves a televised performance from the previous year featuring goodman's band playing several henderson arrangements, including "king porter stomp." in this performance the band harks back to the 1935 score. the trumpet soloist, laurie frink, recreates bunny berigan's famous solo in the introduction and first strain, and the same riffs appear under this and other solos. the last two cho­ ruses feature the same ensemble arrangement as the 1935 recordings. 46 current musicology example 8: "king porter stomp," final strain (ferdinand 'jelly roll" morton, 1939, from dapogny 1982:504). meanwhile, the ensemble sounds remarkably good-better, in some ways, than the 1935 band. the saxophones are milky rich and smooth, with carefully tapered phrase endings. the brass are not as harshly bright as the 1935-36 band's brass. and the drummer has a lighter touch than gene krupa did. more than an artifact demonstrating a continuous per­ formance tradition, goodman's 1985 pbs performance shows that "king porter stomp" could sound fresh a half a century after it had launched the swing era. new bottles, old wine the piece's recording history extends far beyond records bearing its name. several bands developed and recorded "king porter" contrafacts based on the stomp strain-using the "backgrounds" of "king porter," as morton put it, "to make great tunes of themselves." for example, benny carter's "everybody shuffle" (1934) features a sequence of eight stomp­ based strains with solos and ensemble riff choruses. schuller and williams note several other swing era spinoffs, including larry clinton and bunny berigan's "study in brown," cab calloway's "at the clambake carnival," harry james's 'jump town" and "call the porter," and benny goodman's "slipped disc," a punning title referring both to the record and to good­ man's sciatica, for which he'd had surgery at the mayo clinic in the sum­ mer of 1940 (schuller and williams 1983:14). sy oliver's "well, git it!" for tommy dorsey's orchestra, recorded in 1942, begins as a blues flagwaver a la "bugle call rag" then shifts to a series of stomp-based strains. duke ellington's "bojangles (a portrait of bill robinson)" (1940), includes a re­ curring riff chorus also based on morton's stomp. the stomp progression also makes a surprise appearance in the eight-bar tag ending of the willie bryant orchestra's recording of gershwin's "liza," recorded august 1, 1935, while goodman's band was in the midst of its national tour. jeffrey magee 47 a couple of "king porter"-related tunes preceded the swing era. morton's own "hyena stomp" comprises several variations on the stomp underneath the laughing hyena antics of lew lamar (victor, chicago, june 4, 1927: the jelly roll morton centennial: his complete victor recordings, rca bluebird 2361-2-rb). this recording comes as close as we can get to hearing how morton might have arranged "king porter stomp" for his own band.l2 one of morton's frequent sidemen, johnny dodds, also wrote a partial "king porter" contrafact, the languorous "indigo stomp," which combines twelve-bar blues choruses and strains based on the stomp progression. the piece has attracted several modern jazz musicians as well. john lewis composed at least two pieces based on "king porter": "golden striker" and "odds against tomorrow." when asked what he found in­ triguing about the piece, lewis responded in a way that typified his gener­ ation of jazz musicians. "what made 'king porter stomp' interesting to me," he said, "was not a performance by jelly roll morton or what i heard from him, but what fletcher henderson did. he recomposed the piece. that's what's important" (lewis 1987). in 1958, gil evans made a new arrangement of "king porter stomp" for his eighteen-piece orchestra for his album new bottle/old wine. the album's title aptly captures the spirit of evans's "king porter," which takes shards of morton's original (morton's second strain, which the swing era had discarded, in a quasi-dixieland setting, and morton's first stomp strain in a style closer to the original than to any big-band setting) as well as allusions to henderson's arrange­ ment (most clearly in the pickups to the final chorus and the approach to the final cadence), and casts them in an advanced bebop idiom, with ex­ tended tertian harmonies (including ninth and thirteenth chords), dart­ ing, angular lines for the ensemble, and a post-charlie parker alto saxo­ phone solo. in short, the arrangement fits squarely into the era of evans's collaborations with miles davis while taking full measure of jazz history before it was filtered through earlier versions of "king porter stomp." as a result, evans's version not only reaffirms the piece's place in the jazz tradition, it also makes the piece a repository for that tradition. a similar effect through contrasting means emerges from jon hendricks's vocalese sung by the manhattan transfer in a precise rendition of good­ man's july 1, 1935, recording. although explored by several sophisticated practitioners since the 1940s, vocalese has only recently emerged as a serious subject in jazz scholarship (see grant 1995). hendricks, a master of the genre, creates a vocalese that characteristically tells a fact-based but fanciful story about the music on which it is written (sometimes with rhymes worthy of another porter: cole). by telling the story behind morton's piece in words set to goodman's recorded performance of 48 current musicology henderson's arrangement, hendricks, in effect, unites the tune's three principal legends. here is the introduction and first strain sung by alan paul to the tune of bunny berigan's solo (while the other three singers back it with the accompanying riffs and long tones set to words shown in italics):13 gather roun' 'n hear my story oh boy! 'bout the time when jelly roll was in town (stompin' it off, stompin' it off . .. ) he heard a local pianist what joy! stompin' out music on an old upright piano here comes king that was downright ragged in a scott joplin way (here he comes-master a/the stomp) 01' jelly knew the fella' could play dig him! by the things he heard his right hand say (now we're gonna romp) (there was no doubtin' that the man could swing) whenjelly roll demanded his name hail! king porter well, the man responded "porter king" (dig 'im!) by order! well, jelly lef' the city, but he wrote (dig 'im!) ya wanna dig 'im a rompin' ditty 'bout a porter (dig 'im!) ya gonna dig 'im who was "king 0' the stomp" porter king sho' can stomp conclusion the story of "king porter stomp" in the period before bebop ranges across four decades and three crucial figures in jazz's early development: jelly roll morton, the pianist and bandleader whom gunther schuller has called the "first great composer" (schuller 1968: 134); fletcher hender­ son, the bandleader and arranger whose 1920s band was a prototype for swing era big bands, and whose arrangements defined the style of benny goodman's orchestra, and by extension, a normative standard of big-band jeffrey magee 49 swing in general; and goodman himself, whose band projected hender­ son's arrangements, starting with "king porter stomp," into the ears and feet of americans from new york to los angeles, creating a national style from an arranging style that originated in harlem. the story also includes a cameo appearance by the young dizzy gillespie, and perhaps even louis armstrong, in absentia. such a lineage lends the piece's canonic status an aura of rightness and inevitability. yet the piece's history reveals that it was anything but destined for that status. for well over a decade, morton withheld it from publication and recording. when it was finally published and recorded in 1923-24, it failed to catch on among bands, despite publication as a stock arrange­ ment promoted through pre-publication plugs. henderson's first record­ ing, in fact, was never even issued. mter that, between 1925-31, few if any other bands picked up the piece besides henderson's. indeed, rust docu­ ments only two recordings between march 1925 and december 1932: one by morton (1926) and one by henderson (1928). and while rust's discog­ raphy is not exhaustive, it makes clear that "king porter stomp" was neg­ lected in comparison with other hits and emerging jazz standards of the period (see crawford and magee 1992). henderson's 1928 version, a radi­ cal revision of the piece, nevertheless came at a time when the band had lost don redman, a pillar of its musical identity since the band's forma­ tion in 1923. the 1932 columbia version, now widely anthologized, was squeezed in at the end of a recording session that almost did not take place, and appeared only on a cut-rate okeh record. the arrangement developed by henderson's band came into goodman's hands only after henderson's band, out of money, had dissolved. even goodman's now­ legendary palomar ballroom appearance on august 21, 1935, almost didn't happen because goodman nearly disbanded his orchestra after a debacle in denver, colorado. moreover, bunny berigan's solo on "king porter stomp," which had electrified the palomar crowd, might not have been heard in public because goodman actually fired berigan in salt lake city for excessive drinking, only to hire him back the next day (firestone 1993:146). the written and aural record of "king porter"'s history suggests that this canonical work, so influential and widely played in jazz's first half­ century, achieved its hallowed status almost in spite of its creator and chief advocates. yet it continues to exert fascination for musicians, listen­ ers, and dancers even now, a century after the date its composer claimed to have "originated" jazz. if an "originator" or "inventor" can be seen as a catalyst as much as a creator, perhaps the staying power of the "king porter stomp" may redeem morton's claim as we look back on his legacy. 50 current musicology notes * i'm grateful to amy bland and peter schimpf for research assistance, to james dapogny for copies of his unpublished essay and transcription, to richard crawford and jeffrey taylor for many suggestions during the research that led to this article, and to the anonymous referees of current musicology for their insightful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of the article. 1. in this article, morton's statements about "king porter stomp" are tran­ scribed directly from the library of congress recording, not from lomax (1993), which, although usually preserving the substance of morton's discussion, repre­ sents considerable editing. cf. lomax (1993:146) for lomax's edited transcription of this passage. 2. all three of henderson's recordings of the piece (made in 1928, 1932, and 1933) may be found on a study in frustration: the fletcher henderson story (columbia/ legacy 57596), as well as in the fletcher henderson series on classics (classics cd 572 and classics cd 535). among goodman's many recordings of the piece, the most easily available is the classic and widely anthologized version recorded onjuly 1, 1935, which has been reissued, for example, on benny goodman plays fletcher henderson, hep cd 1038; and benny goodman: the birth of swing (1935-1936) (bluebird 07863). big band jazz (smithsonian rd 030) features that goodman recording and henderson's 1932 version. earlier recordings of the same arrange­ ment may be found on benny goodman and his orchestra 1935 from the famous "let's dance" broadcasts (circle ccd-50), from a march 9, 1935, broadcast, and the rhythm makers orchestra (nbc thesaurus 127), from the band's marathon record­ ing session onjune 6, 1935. 3. the point is further reinforced in fred sturm (l995:n.p.), which includes "king porter stomp" among four case studies. 4. with due respect for legitimate concerns about canon formation in jazz, i find that the jazz canon is far from exerting the kind of hegemony claimed by some scholars. for ~xample, at my institution, indiana university, over 1,600 music majors-both undergraduate and graduate-work toward their degrees with no required exposure to jazz in the classroom or private lessons (unless they are jazz majors), although the school of music has an internationally renowned jazz stud­ ies program. meanwhile, non-music majors by the hundreds pack the elective jazz survey course offered through the school's "general studies" program, which offers an introduction to major figures and key recordings-a canon-of jazz his­ tory, while also confronting issues relating to improvisation and mrican roots that counter the implied fixity of canonic works. 5. walser himself has demonstrated the value of that kind of specificity in his analysis of miles davis's 1964 recording of "my funny valentine" (walser 1995). 6. "tiger rag" probably dates from before 1917. although the original dixieland jazz band received its composer credit and made its first recording that year, morton muddied its pedigree when he claimed credit for composing it "back in the early days before the dixieland band was ever heard of" (lomax 1993:82). 7. for a vivid memory of creath, "the greatest blues player of his time," see bushell and tucker (1988:34-35). jeffrey magee 51 8. as garvin bushell told mark tucker, "new orleans" carried stylistic connota­ tions for musicians in 1920s new york. "when you went to hear a band out of new orleans," bushell recalled, "you heard a different feel. the harmonic line was the same, but the rhythm of the solos was different" (bushell and tucker 1988:25). 9. copyright july 19, 1926 (e644871), arranged by mel stitzel. 10. the phrase "henderson's revision" must be understood as a shorthand reference to the interactive origins of the arrangement. according to allen, the arrangement stems from coleman hawkins's ideas; trombonist sandy williams (with henderson in the early 1930s) credited material in the arrangement to banjo player charlie dixon (allen 1973:246, 529). certainly others, undocu­ mented, contributed as well. there is no contradiction in these claims; the arrangement that came to be known as henderson's "king porter stomp," and later written down by him, had its roots in a collaborative effort. 11. a few pieces exceed it, based on a count of goodman's big-band perform­ ances documented by d. russell connor (1988): "don't be that way," "one o'clock jump," "sing sing sing," "stealin' apples" (another henderson arrange­ ment), and "stompin' at the savoy." goodman also performed several other tunes more frequently, but mostly in small group settings. 12. another close approximation may be heard on the "king porter stomp" recording by james dapogny's chicago jazz band, on originaljelly roll blues: music of jelly roll morton (discovery 74008, 1993). 13. the manhattan transfer, swing (atlantic 83012-2,1997). references allen, walter c. 1973. hendersonia: the music of fletcher henderson and his musicians. highland park, nj.: published by the author. berlin, edward a. 1980. ragtime: a musical and cultural history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. burns, ken. 2000.jazz: the story of america's music. columbia/legacy 61432. bushell, garvin, and mark tucker. 1988. jazz from the beginning. ann arbor: university of michigan press. connor, d. russell. 1988. benny goodman: listen to his legacy. studies injazz, no. 6. lanham, md., and london: the scarecrow press, inc. and the institute of jazz studies. crawford, richard, and jeffrey magee. 1992. jazz standards on record, 1900-1942: a core repertory. cbmr monographs, no. 4. chicago: center for black music research. dance, stanley. [1974j 2001. the world of swing: an oral history of big-band jazz. new york: da capo press. dapogny, james, ed. 1982. ferdinand 'jelly roll" morton: the collected piano music. washington, d.c.: smithsonian institution press and g. schirmer, inc. dapogny,james, and davejones. n.d. "king porter stomp" unpublished score and essay based on fletcher henderson's 1933 recording. driggs, frank. 1962. don redman, jazz composer-arranger. in jazz panorama, edited by martin williams, 91-104. new york: crowell-collier. 52 current musicology erenberg, lewis a. 1998. swingin' the dream: big band jazz and the rebirth of american culture. chicago: university of chicago press. ferguson, otis. 1982. the otis ferguson reader. highland park, ill.: december press. firestone, ross. 1993. swing, swing, swing: the life and times of benny goodman. new york: w. w. norton. gabbard, krin. 1995. the jazz canon and its consequences. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 1-28. durham, n.c.: duke university press. giddins, gary. 1998. visions of jazz. new york: oxford university press. gioia, ted. 1997. the history of jazz. new york: oxford university press. goode, mort. 1986. liner notes to benny goodman: the rca years. bluebird 5704-1. goodman, benny, and irving kolodin. [1939] 1961. the kingdom of swing. new york: frederick ungar. grant, barry keith. 1995. purple passages or fiestas in blue? notes toward an aesthetic of vocalese. in representing jazz, edited by krin gabbard, 285-303. durham, n.c.: duke university press. gushee, lawrence. 1985. a preliminary chronology of the early career of ferd 'jelly roll" morton. american music 3: 389-412. ---. 1994. the nineteenth-century origins of jazz. black music researchjournal 14: 1-24. reprinted in lewis porter, jazz: a century of change (new york: schirmer, 1997),92-119. hadlock, richard. [1965] 1988. jazz masters of the 20s. new york: da capo press. hammond, john, with irving townsend. 1977. john hammond on record: an autobiography. new york: ridge press/summit books. harker, brian. 1999. "telling a story": louis armstrong and coherence in early jazz. current musicology, no. 63: 46-83. henderson, horace. 1975. interview with tom maccluskey, denver, colo., april 9-12. transcript in two volumes at the institute of jazz studies, rutgers uni­ versity, newark, nj. hobson, wilder. 1962. memorial to fletcher. review of the fletcher henderson story: a study in frustration. saturday review (september 30): n.p. kennedy, rick. 1994. jelly roll, bix, and hoagy: gennett studios and the birth of recordedjazz. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. lewis,john. 1987. telephone interview with the author. lomax, alan. [1950] 1993. mister jelly roll. new york: pantheon books. magee, jeffrey. 1992. the music of fletcher henderson and his orchestra in the 1920s. ph.d. diss., university of michigan. ---. 1995. revisiting fletcher henderson's "copenhagen." journal of the american musicological society 48: 42-66. ---. 1999. fletcher henderson, composer: a counter-entry to the inter­ national dictionary of black composers. black music research journal 19: 61-70. morton, ferdinand 'jelly roll." 1938. library of congress recording. circle 23-24, afs 1639. panetta, vincent j. 2000. "for godsake stop!" improvised music in the streets of new orleans, ca. 1890. musical quarterly 84: 5-29. jeffrey magee 53 rasula, jed. 1995. the media of memory: the seductive menace of records in jazz history. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 134-62. durham, n.c.: duke university press. russell, ross. 1959. bebop. in the art oj jazz, edited by martin williams, 187-214. new york: oxford university press. rust, brian. 1982. jazz records, 1897-1942. 5th ed. 2 vols. chigwell, essex, united kingdom: storyville publications and co., ltd. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and musical development. new york: oxford university press. ---. 1985. morton, ferdinand (jelly roll). in the new grove dictionary oj american music, edited by h. wiley hitchcock and stanley sadie, vol. 3, 279-8l. new york and london: macmillan. ---.1989. the swing era: the development ojjazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. schuller, gunther, and martin williams. 1983. liner notes to big band jazz: from the beginnings to the fifties. smithsonian rd 030. smulyan, susan. 1994. selling radio: the commercialization oj american broadcasting, 1920-1934. washington, d.c.: smithsonian institution press. spring, howard. 1997. swing and the lindy hop: dance, venue, media, and tradition. american music 15: 183-207. stearns, marshall w. 1956. the story oj jazz. new york: oxford university press. stewart, rex. 1991. boy meets horn. edited by claire p. gordon. ann arbor: university of michigan press. stowe, david w. 1994. swing changes: big-band jazz in new deal america. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. sturm, fred. 1995. changes over time: the evolution oj jazz arranging. rottenborg, germany: advance music. sudhalter, richard m. 1999. lost chords: white musicians and their contributio~ to jazz, 1915-1945. new york: oxford university press. walser, robert. 1995. "out of notes": signification, interpretation, and the problem of miles davis. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 165-88. durham, n.c.: duke university press. wang, richard. 1986. goodman, benny [benjamin] david. in the new grove dictionary oj american music, edited by h. wiley hitchcock and stanley sadie, vol. 2, 243-45. new york and london: macmillan. what qyestions should a performer ask a musicologist? meredith ellis little performers and musicologists traditionally have had trouble communicating with each other. many performers feel that the musicologist is a dry, dull scholar interested primarily in exploring the esoteric minutiae of earlier music1 and in using reason along with endless facts for the purpose of always being "right" in any argument or discussion. and many musicologists feel that the performer is an empty-headed activist who spends most of his time in an endless series of rehearsals and concerts, who knows a few facts but has them all out of context, and who sometimes listens politely and respectfully to the musicologists' ideas but later ignores them and relies on a mysterious, subjective inspiration when it comes to preparing and performing a piece of music from another era. unfortunately, these prejudices all too often have a basis in fact. many performers and musicologists do embody the qualities just mentioned, and, what is worse, they enjoy being that way. some performers even believe that musicologists have nothing at all to offer the world of music, and some musicologists believe that performers could well be dispensed with, since music is best enjoyed intellectually. overcoming this communications gap is a prerequisite to the establishment of a worthwhile working relationship between musicologists and performers. success will come when both sides discover the good representatives as well as the bad ones in the two fields of endeavor. these "good" representatives possess an open and inquisitive mind, musical intelligence or musicianship, the experience and training of the best specialists in their field, and an intuitive grasp of the problems of both performance and research. even when the good performer seeks information from the good musicologist, the questions he asks are often far too limited in scope. he may say, for example, "what ornamentation should i add to this score?" or "how fast should this piece go?" those who pose these queries, however sincere they may be, want the response to be a specific "correct answer" (as if one existed!), but the resulting performance is likely to be about as imaginative as a painting in which one fills the numbered sections with certain prescribed colors. what is needed is a deeper level of understanding of the piece, from which the sensitive musician will be able to answer this type of question himself. the considerable recent advances in musicology should be utilized more widely in the performance of music of other ages. performers must learn to ask the kinds of questions which will bring them the information they want and need, facts and ideas which will help them to re-create the original intensity, power, and grace which many compositions from former years are reported to have had. how can inquiries be phrased so as to elicit the most relevant information? suitable questions concerning a piece of music fall into four categories: 131 1) notation: one must obtain a score with the correct notational symbols and understand their meaning as to pitch, time values, and other matters expressed overtly. question: "what notational symbols represent the composer's intentions in a manner which i can understand ?" 2) analysis: understanding of the composition, especially its structure and style, is essential. questions: "how is this piece constructed as a whole, and what is the relation of each section, phrase, and note to this whole?" "what styles has the composer borrowed or elaborated upon? how has he done this?" "what is unique about this piece?" 3) projection of analysis: the structure and styles should be projected as analyzed; thus performance techniques, usually referred to as "performance practices," must be studied. question: "what techniques or performance practices were in use or might have been intended by the composer at the time the composition was written?" question for the performer to ask himself: "which of these techniques will illuminate most convincingly the structure and style of this piece? how?" 4) cultural context: the piece must be placed in its proper historical framework. questions: "what was the cultural context in which and for which the piece was written?" "does the composer write as part of a tradition or as a departure from it ?" it will be beneficial to discuss these four categories in more detail, and then to qualify their use with comments, warnings, and suggestions as to whom it would be most helpful to ask. notation: a performer may face three types of problems in notation: those of transcribing or deciphering unfamiliar notation, those of evaluating an edition which someone else has made, and those oflocating and interpreting relevant secondary sources. if he chooses to work from the composer's manuscript (holograph) or a printed edition approved by the composer, he must learn to understand the notational system and to know what the symbols mean in terms of sound. if a modern edition is used, he must be able to evaluate it, know its strengths and weaknesses, decide if the editor knew what the composer intended to write. in either case he may want to have access to certain secondary sources for added information, especially in the absence of an extant holograph. useful secondary sources are usually the work of the composer, his close associates, or his pupils. they may be verbal writings explaining that particular piece of music or others similar to it, or earlier or later copies of the score, perhaps embellished or abbreviated for various reasons. 132 in order to dispel complacency in this area, let me say that very few modern editions of music prior to the 20th century are as faithful to the composer as they might be, and many are deficient in important aspects. heinrich franz biber's sonata xi (the "resurrection" sonata, c. 1675), a favorite with violinists who play baroque music, is usually performed from the version in the 1905 austrian denkmiiler,2 but this edition contains serious errors and meaningless dissonances resulting from the editor's misunderstanding of biber's use of scordatura tuning. the german musicologist max schneider pointed out these errors in 1907 in an article entitled "zu bibers violinsonaten,"3 and a corrected version appears in the appendix of the 1959 reprint of the denkmiiler. nevertheless, a recent performance of this composition in a major recital at a leading eastern united states school of music used the 1905 edition, leaving all the rude mistakes intact. the same sonata is also included in the widely used historical anthology of music,4 but this version still contains errors similar to those of the 1905 denkmiiler. not only are some modern editions of older music incorrect, but many major composers are available only in editions for which the editor has not consulted or included information from relevant secondary sources. interesting alternate versions of many of]. s. bach's keyboard works are extant in the hand of heinrich nicolaus gerber (1702-75), one of bach's pupils, but these versions are not available in even the best modern editions of bach's music.5 practically all medieval and renaissance composers suffer from inaccurate or unclear modern editions. furthermore, some controversy exists among musicologists as to the best way to transcribe time values in music before 1650, and transcribers need both experience and musical imagination in order to arrive at a convincing solution or compromise. the admonition caveat emptor might well be placed on every modern edition of earlier music. analysis: while many approaches to analysis are in use today, most are concerned with a study of the structure and styles of a piece of music. the structural features may include its text (if any), its function in a liturgy, the dance it was meant to accompany or from which it was stylized, a succession of harmonies, the mode or other arrangement of tones upon which it is based, or the succession of somewhat separate sections (as in a theme and variations, or the different strains of a dance piece). in some cases, such as a fugue or canzona, one might look for a type of procedure (i.e., the exposing of a subject in various contexts) rather than a structure in the sense of framework. perhaps the term "structural principles" describes this aspect of analysis better. in the question of style, one may seek to determine the identifying characteristics of a particular piece as seen in the light of other works similar to it. this includes sources from which this style has been derived, as one attempts to retrace the learning processes of the composer in the compositions which may have influenced him. some of the traditional sources of styles are found in court, theater, church, popular, and folk music, and in particular ways of treating melody, harmony, rhythm, texture, and the other elements of music. 133 in general, structure may be thought of as the overall conception of the piece with its various sections, phrases, and gestures, while style is a characteristic manner of doing something-a particular reminder of a certain practice. both structure and style must be identified in precise detail in order to make a good analysis. it is not enough, for example, to say that a piece is "in the viennese style." the performer needs to know exactly what elements (such as melodic patterns, harmonic sequences, or subtle pauses in timing) constitute this style, and where and how and why the composer has utilized these elements. stylistic analysis requires not only a practical working knowledge of the styles themselves but also wide experience with many pieces of music similar or related to the one being analyzed. only then can the unique qualities of the piece be identified and appreciated. as for structural features, it is not enough to say, for example, that a piece is based on dance patterns. unless one knows not only the general qualities of the bourree but also the specific rhythmic patterns with the characteristic steps, and the lengths and shapes of the bourree dance phrases, one cannot obtain real structural insight into the overall rhythmic framework of the piece. furthermore, pieces have not one but many structural features, and some of them are more important than others. projection of the analysis: having used the musicologist's help both in obtaining a suitable score from which to work and in making a good analysis of the piece, the performer should next ask the question "what techniques will illuminate most convincingly the structure and styles as analyzed?" unfortunately, few musicologists are equipped to answer this, either by training or intuition, since few perform seriously in public and have experience dealing with the performance problems of particular pieces. the performer should keep the question in mind while asking the musicologist to explain instead what techniques were in use at the time the composition was written or which the composer might have intended to be used. the answer to this comprises all the information usually thought of as "performance practices": for example, basso continuo realization, improvisation, musica ficta, ornamentation, dynamics, registration, articulation and phrasing (including the related studies of fingering, bowing, tonguing, and breathing), tempo and its fluctuations, rhythm and its alterations, tuning, and the construction of ancient instruments. once the performer has access to a full range of possibilities in these techniques for a certain style and age, he should, with much practice, be able to figure out specific answers himself. in fact, it is imperative that he learn how to do so, since choices should be personal and must make sense for the piece as a whole. he must choose a proper balance of techniques, and this is often an intuitive matter, depending more on musical imagination than on research or logic. he may ask himself "how do i project the viennese style in this piece?" the answer may be in his choice of articulations (tonguings, bowings, or fingerings), combined with a tempo consistent with the speed of 134 harmonic change. or he may say: "how can i show the listener how this piece makes sense as a whole?" answers can be found in the use of suitable dynamics, registration, or instrumentation, in contrasting articulations and tempos, and perhaps in rhythmic alteration or tempo fluctuation at crucial places in the structure. the important point to make here, and perhaps the most important single statement of this essay, is that the choice of techniques and their proper use are completely dependent upon the analysis of the structure and styles of the piece. one does not simply "plug in" the notes of an ornament; one must think of it in terms of its function in a certain place in a particular composition. everything depends upon context-both the notes one adds and the timing one gives to those notes. fran<;ois couperin uses exactly the same signs for ornamentation in the two keyboard pieces la voluptueuse and l' angelique, but the contrasting moods of the two pieces dictate quite different execution of the ornaments in each case. of course there are limits in the personal application of performance practices to a piece of earlier music, and these occur when an interpretation results which was probably not within the range of possibilities envisioned by the composer. it is perfectly valid to do this, and musicians throughout history have successfully updated or improved early music to suit a contemporary audience, but the performer should be aware of the changes he has made and possibly add his own name to that of the composer in listing the piece on a program. recent advances in the construction of renaissance and baroque instruments have made available playable replicas of extant old instruments. performers are beginning to experiment fruitfully with the possibilities of using, for example, baroque oboes and flutes in the music of bach and telemann. another encouraging activity is the revival of old systems of tuning, often resulting in striking sonorities not previously imagined. although these trends naturally improve the quality of renaissance and baroque music by providing insights not possible in any other way, one should realize that the use of a certain instrument or tuning system will not in itself result in a good performance. the larger questions of the analysis and projection of the piece's unique qualities must also be confronted and resolved. cultural context: the fourth category for inquiry needs little comment. although many performers are able to do this type of research for themselves, they may save time by asking for suggestions for the best books, articles, and other source materials to be consulted. the goal is to become filled with a sense of the underlying attitudes and unquestioned assumptions which the people associated with the piece might have had. this includes composer, audience, critic, and performer. one seeks not only the external description of a cultural situation, its buildings, institutions, customs, personalities, and other art forms but also the feelings and reactions of the people to their culture and to each other. comments: these four categories are interdependent, and problems in one area may often be solved at a later time by knowledge gained from resolutions 135 in a different area. one may change his conception of structure after various experiments with ornamentation, tuning, or fingering. an open mind is necessary in probing the mysteries of music of past ages, and not all the answers can be found at one time, or by one visit to a musicologist. performers should also realize that much of the research in music is far from definitive. many questions have not yet been answered; some questions are in the process of being studied, and some have not even been asked at all. it is often wiser to omit certain pieces from the repertoire than to invent an interpretation based on insufficient information. an alert musicologist will know whether or not enough information is available. if a performer has had training in musicology, he may want to try answering the questions without help. however, he should keep in mind that the answers can be quite subtle, and that finding them often requires highly specialized skills and experience. on the other hand, many performers will object to doing any research at all, with or without a musicologist's help, since they are too busy with rehearsals and concerts to spend time on such study. they depend completely on what they were told by their teachers, no matter how long ago. in my opinion, these musicians should not perform compositions intended for other ages but should limit their repertoire to 20thcentury music and some 19th-century compositions for which the performing traditions are still alive. the cultural state of our nation would be greatly enhanced if more performers were to seek new, relevant music instead of continuing to deliver renditions of palestrina, handel, mozart, and schubert which are either overly dramatic or note-perfect and dull. in choosing a musicologist with whom to work, the performer should naturally gravitate toward one who does significant research in the area of the piece under study. in addition, he should appreciate the fact that widely differing attitudes toward music exist among the world's musicologists, and that these unspoken opinions have a great deal of influence on the kind of information a particular scholar possesses or can find. four of the common attitudes or mind-sets are: (l) "the musicologist's main goal, and the only one which can be completely objective, is a descriptive and statistical study of the quantifiable aspects of music in all its forms." (2) "the important thing to be studied in music is style. every piece embodies styles from other composers, ages, and locations." (3) "music is a performed art, and, as such, can never be completely written down on a page. music is only meaningful as sound actually heard and must be studied with this in mind." (4) "music is primarily a humanistic study and is important mainly as an expression of man's needs and strivings, that is, of his spiritual life." most musicologists will refuse to pigeonhole themselves, but most do favor one of these attitudes above the others. the performer should try to aim certain kinds of questions at scholars who have an attitude conducive to a helpful answer. it is unrealistic to expect a dedicated humanistjaesthetician to give detailed advice on 14th-century notation, or a statistician-musicologist to provide information on improvisation in handel's italian arias. beware of 136 a musicologist who gives short authoritarian answers or is engaged in violent controversy with a colleague on certain facts and their interpretation. seemingly definitive brief answers are often too simple to include a realistic range of possibility, and violent arguments usually indicate that a moderate position, somewhere between the views of the two antagonists, is the most useful and sensible one. let performers take the initiative in learning about earlier music from musicologists. let them ask questions which will lead not only to better performances but also toward new kinds of research in music. to seek the answers to the larger questions in the performance of older music is to follow a long and arduous path, but it is necessary if one is to re-create the richness of the music of past ages. notes 1 throughout this paper terms such as "earlier music" and "music from another era" refer to compositions whose performance traditions are not known through direct experience. "earlier music" includes not only western art music through the mid-19th century, but any piece whose "flavor" and peculiarities are not a part of one's understanding. 2 sechzehn violinsonaten mit ausgefiihrter klavierbegleitung. (dtoe, jg. 12, t. 2, bd. 25 [vienna: artaria, 1906]). introduction and revisionsbericht by erwin luntz. 3 zeitschrift der internationalen musikgesellschaft (1907) 8:471-74. 4 edited by archibald t. davison and willi apel (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 1959), vol. ii, no. 238. 5 samples of ornaments found in two of the gerber manuscripts are given in j. s. bach's werke, ed. bach-gesellschaft (leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, 1851-99), vol. xxxvi, p.xxxviii. copies of bach's music by gerber are listed in wolfgang schmieder's thematisch-systematisches verzeichnis der musikalischen werke von johann sebastian bach (leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, 1950). for further information on gerber as bach's pupil see the bach reader, revised edition by hans t. david and arthur mendel (new york: w. w. norton & co., 1966), pp. 263-65. i am indebted to professor erich schwandt of the university of rochester for pointing out the potential value of the gerber manuscripts. 137 "paths of harmony" in the first movement of brahms's cello sonata in e minor, op. 38 david w bernstein "the paths of harmony are tortuous," wrote arnold schoenberg in his manuscript on the musical idea. they lead in all directions, approaching a starting point and leaving it again and again, leading astray, as they lend to a different point a momentary meaning that they soon take back again, producing climaxes that they know how to exceed, calling forth gigantic waves that ebb without coming to a standstill. nevertheless, this seemingly random progress is based on a profound meaning that can be easily verified in music governed by tonality. (1995:309-11) these words aptly describe schoenberg's dynamic model of tonality. har­ mony creates states of rest and unrest-conditions which schoenberg de­ scribed as "centrifugal" and "centripetal" tendencies. he defined these relationships in terms of "distances" from the tonic, which he classified and graphically represented by the "chart of the regions" in structuralfunc­ tions of harmony (1954:20,30,68-69). schoenberg conceived of musical space in terms of two or more di­ mensions in which "musical ideas are presented as a unit." tonal function is multi-dimensional: pitches (i.e., scale-degrees), as well as chords and regions have either centripetal or centrifugal tendencies. they create states of rest or unrest, by either establishing the tonic region or undermining it. schoenberg did not consider motivic processes as separate from harmony and large-scale tonal form, since a given motive implies certain tonal rela­ tionships. like harmony, motivic development also initiates a dynamic pro­ cess: a motive is something that gives rise to motion. a motion is that change in a state of rest which turns it into its opposite. thus, one can compare the motive with a driving force .... a thing is termed a motive if it is already subject to the effect of a driving force, has already received its impulse, and is on the verge of reacting to it. it is comparable to a sphere on an inclined plane at the moment before it rolls away; to a fertilized seed; to an arm raised to strike, etc. ... the current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 170 current musicology smallest musical event can become a motive if [it is] permitted to have an effect, even an individual tone can carry consequences. (1994:27) motivic and thematic procedures create states of rest and unrest; they work in tandem with the tonal forces mentioned above to present a dynamically changing yet organically unified musical work. in this essay, i shall demonstrate how this approach to tonality works in an analysis of the first movement of brahms's cello sonata in e minor, op. 38. my goal is both to contribute to an understanding of schoenberg's unique conception of tonality and to enhance our appreciation of this beautiful composition from what sir donald francis tovey called the pe­ riod of brahms's "first maturity." written in sonata form, the movement's first theme is a sentence, a thematic archetype consisting of "tonic" and "dominant" phrases estab­ lishing an opening tonal contrast followed by "reductions" usually culmi­ nating with a half-cadence. the dominant phrase is often a sequential rep­ etition of the tonic phrase. this repetition, however, is not initially appar­ ent in the opening movement of the cello sonata. as schoenberg noted, the dominant phrase (ex.!, mm. 5-8) is a varied repetition of the tonic phrase (ex. 1, mm. 1-4) (1967:79). the arpeggiation of the tonic triad and the embellishment of its fifth by the ~6 scale degree is transposed to the dominant in mm. 5 and 6. but it is also rhythmically varied, and fur­ ther elaborated in mm. 5-7 by leaps of an octave and minor nin tho (com­ pare motives a and a2 and band b2 in ex. 1.) the first two measures of brahms's sentence initiate a developmental process beginning with the movement's grundgestalt-schoenberg's term for a complex of motive forms, both rhythmic and intervallic, that "occurs repeatedly within a whole piece and to which derived gestalten can be traced" (1995:169). it consists of the pitch and rhythmic forms in the first two measures of example 1, including the above-mentioned arpeggiation (motive a) and the ~6 neigh­ bor-note motion (motive b). in a tonal work, according to schoenberg, a state of tonal balance is challenged and restored. a state of unrest, expressed within a motive, phrase, or theme constitutes what he called a work's "tonal problem."l the futherance of the musical idea . .. may ensue only if unrest­ problem-present in the grundgestalt or in the motive (and formulated by the theme or not, if none has been stated) is shown in all its consequences. these consequences are presented through the destinies of the motive or the grundgestalt. just how the grundgestaltis altered under the influence of forces strugglingwithin david w. bernstein 171 example 1: "tonic" and "dominant" phrases, brahms cello sonata in e minor, op. 38, mvt. 1, mm. 1-8. grundgestalt tonic form .~ . . ~ a2 b 2 r----~ r----------------------, 5 dominant form .~ it, how this motion to which unrest leads, how the forces again attain a state of rest-this is the realization of the idea, this is its presentation. (1995:227) the tonal problem is often first introduced in a composition's first theme, either in the grundgestalt itself or in its continuation. the latter is the case here, where the dominant phrase, which presents the first modi­ fication of the grundgestalt, sets up the initial challenge to the tonic. there is a move towards the dominant region and a series of chromatic alter­ ations forming cross-relations-a/ ali, g/g#, and c/c#-with the corre­ sponding notes from the previous phrase. (compare mm. 1-3 and 4-8 in ex. 1.) another cross relation-d /d#-emerges after the turn away from the dominant in m. 9 (compare mm. 8 and 10). these half-step relations are all manifestations of what one may term the principal motive (hauptmotij) of the work, the grundgestalt's motive h.2 of course, although the progression towards the dominant does cre­ ate imbalance, it is not truly unsettling. but the tonal problem established 172 current musicology in the movement's beginning phrases does open pathways to regions which pose substantial "threats" to its tonal balance. we shall see how brahms realizes and ultimately resolves this unrest. following the tonic and dominant phrases, the subsequent measures consist of what schoenberg termed "reductions," a condensation of the theme's motivic elements culminating with an elimination of its character­ istic features (1967:58). the reductions (mm. 9-20) largely consist of the rhythm associated with motive a, now spanning a linear third, rather than a triad. the piano accompaniment begins with a repeated two bar pro­ gression, which locally tonicizes g, the mediant region and the ~vi of the dominant (mm. 9-12, ex. 2). the progression appears once again in m. 13, but this time the inflection towards g does not occur; an f# replaces the g in the tenor in m. 14. the sentence concludes in the piano with !lvijo7 of the tonic rather than a dominant seventh (m. 17); c replaces b (~6 for 5), the former note doubled by the cello in a high register. brahms further exploits the implications of his opening materials in the bridge section (mm. 21-57). beginning with a return to the first theme, this time played in octaves by the piano, the harmony touches briefly upon the flat submediant major and neapolitan regions (ex. 3). these regions play an important role in the movement, most immediately with a re-state­ ment of the first phrase of the first theme in the flat submediant begin­ ning in m. 34. the augmented-sixth harmony accompanying the ~6-5 (now transposed to a/r-g) in mm. 35-37 is yet another manifestation of the open­ ing half-step motive (ex. 4). the progressions toward the neapolitan and flat submediant regions incorporate enharmonic reinterpretations of the cross-relations in the tonal problem: the enharmonic re-spelling of the a/ all to a/b~ opens the door to the neapolitan region (ex. 3, mm. 26-29); the change from g/g# to g/ m accompanies the move to the flat submediant (ex. 4, m. 35). following an aborted cadence (m. 42), the bridge once again moves toward the neapolitan region before returning to the submediant (ex. 5); the voice-leading in the cello in mm. 42 and 44 respectively re-interpret the opening half-step as 1-7 in the two regions (f /e~ in m. 42, c/b~ in m. 44). beginning in m. 46, the half-step motive in the cello is joined by the same interval in the left hand of the piano (ex. 6). the outer voices in this passage move in sixths, another manifestation of the grundgestalt's empha­ sis upon the sixth scale degree. a chromatic descent in the bass leads to an f# dominant pedal (mm. 50-57) which resolves in m. 58, at the beginning of the second theme in b minor. we have seen above how the functional implications of the grundgestalt's ~6-5 effect a tonal progression culminating with the arrival of the second theme. this process works in tandem with brahms's "developing variations." david w. bernstein 173 example 2: tonicization of the mediant region, mm. 9-12. 9 '" 1>. ~ ii 11", i> t ~ t fl' ~~ " ii i i ~ i~i @.i ~. '!"~'!" .~ '!"~'!" ;,~. ~~ ~ ~~;, ;, : t: vi~ m: v~ ii example 3: harmonic motion through the flat submediant major and neopolitan regions, mm.29-34. 24 : f\ ~ @l f\ ~ @l t: bsm: np: 29 t: ~1i'; bsm: np: [6 ,-----3---. ,-3-, """'" \..l _cj ~~ "~o i l..l-u i ~ • ~ : :d'---'~~'. m~ y' i>~ ~ rri . : ~. ~ m-n ~ vii ii i i' v' iii v .,. . til: m' y' .~ ~. 174 current musicology example 4: augmented-sixth harmony as manifestation of half-step motive, mm. 35-37. 35 : ~.~ . ~ . ~ " ~~ ----~#1 .. r. r. ---~ ........... ........... ........... ........... _ ........... -oj i~ "~ * r "* , ~~ "~ gel 6th ger. 6th ger. 6th variation, according to schoenberg, occurs when certain features of a ge­ stalt are maintained, while others are not. variation entails a process based upon "change": in a change, that which is to be altered is partly maintained; otherwise, it would be something different and not something changed. i can cut off pieces from an apple, i can hollow it out and stuff it with other things, but i cannot make a pear out of it (i can give it the shape of a pear, but i can write no piece "in the form ofa pear" as the good joke by satie pretends to do.) chang;ing thus means repeating, but repeating only in part. the parts that are not repeated can be replaced by something else. (1995:227-29) variation entails changing one or more characteristics of a theme. such changes create variety, but ultimately serve only an embellishing or an ornamental purpose. developing variation is a more dynamic process that produces new gestalten from old (1995:231). as exemplified by the con­ nection between the first and second themes in a sonata-form movement, "the changes proceed more or less toward the goal of allowing new ideas to arise" (1994:38-39). just as the introduction of foreign elements within the context of a given tonal region produces unrest, so may the juxtaposi­ tion of dissimilar thematic components yield a similar effect and a propen­ sity for dynamic motion and change. the relationship between these seem­ ingly unrelated parts reveals itself as the work progresses, just as the un­ folding of a composition gradually reveals how distant tonal elements re­ late to the tonic. scholars have often failed to recognize the fact that schoenberg condavid w. bernstein 175 sidered developing variations as a goal oriented, large-scale formal proce­ dure. walter frisch, for example, explains that for schoenberg, "develop­ ing variation means the construction of a theme (usually of eight bars) by the continuous modification of the intervallic and/or rhythmic compo­ nents of the initial idea."3 this view results from schoenberg's habit of restricting his application of the concept to individual themes.4 as frisch notes, schoenberg's most extensive published analysis, a discussion of brahms's song "0 tod" (the third of his four serious songs, op. 121), only focuses on the first twelve measures (frisch 1984:18).5 considering developing variations on a small scale tells us much about the construction of brahms's themes. as we have seen above, the tech­ nique applies to the first theme of the cello sonata. similarly, as illustrated by example 7, the second theme exhibits a coherence based upon a gradual melodic unfolding stemming from the opening two notes: the initial fourth (motive f) takes on a dotted quarter and eighth-note rhythm (motive a3) then evolves first into a triadic figure (motives d3 and d 2) and next into a larger figure (motive d1 ) ,joining with a series of dotted quarter and eighth­ note rhythms (motives a\ as, a6, and a7).6 the relationship between the first and second themes is more striking than their internal consistency. a comparison of examples 1 and 7 shows that both themes share similar motivic materials. the dotted quarter and eighth-note rhythm in the second theme (motives a3 through a10) also ap­ pears in the first theme as segments of motive a, ai, and a2• motives d3, d 2, and d1 in the second theme look back to the initial statement of motive d at the beginning of the first theme's second phrase (m. 5). similarly, mo­ tive cl in the second theme initially occurs in the first theme's third mea­ sure (motive c). the associations between the two themes are founded upon varied repetitions of shared motivic elements, in which certain features of the first theme remain in the second theme, while others do not. this rela­ tionship emerges as part of a gradual process of developing variations. the critical link between the two themes, motive d, appears in mm. 25-29, just after the beginning of the bridge (ex. 8). following the return of the first theme in the flat submediant region (m. 34), brahms continues to explore possible functional implications of the grundgestalt's half-step motive in mm. 42-53 (as illustrated in exx. 5 and 6). apart from the presence of this crucial relationship, features of the first theme disappear; through a process that schoenberg called "liquidation," the theme is reduced to a series of undifferentiated quarter notes. yet another form of motive d ap­ pears in mm. 54-57 (ex. 9) preparing the entrance of the second theme in m.58. as was the case with the first theme, the second theme proceeds to a 176 current musicology example 5: move to neopolitan region, mm. 42-45. 'sm: 17 np: y7 (i) example 6: half-step motive in the cello and piano (left hand), mm. 46-50. 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 example 7: second theme, mm. 58-65. e 1 ;---;1---------1 as a9 aio 113 6;#r~ ---tc -(1' lit~ [} dr &9:1 y--#p#[.---0' ~r~ --up r * david w. bernstein 177 example 8: motive d linking the first and second theme, mm. 25-29. d r---------------l example 9: entrance of second theme as prepared by motive d, mm. 54-57. c ________ d ________ , d ~ ,cdr if r #r i ,c ctrk fl---i ruf' ,~ d ii tonicized dominant in m. 65. its reductions emphasize the grundgestalt's ~6-5 in the dominant region. (note the f#-g in the piano [left hand, mm. 66-70; right hand, mm. 76-77] and in the cello [mm. 68-69].) the clos­ ing section (mm. 78-90) introduces new material based upon the second theme's kopfmotif, motive f, the ascending fourth f#-b (ex. 7). as one might expect, the closing section paves the way for a return to the beginning of the exposition by embellishing the dominant in the tonic region with its ~6 (in the piano [left hand, mm. 88-90]). schoenberg objected to the term "development" to designate the middle section of a sonata-form movement, arguing that: the customary term, "development," for this section, is a misnomer. it suggests germination and growth which rarely occur. the thematic elaboration and modulatory "working out" (durchfurhung) produce some variations and place the musical elements in different contexts, but seldom lead to the development of anything new. (1967:200, n.l) this description certainly holds for the first movement of the cello so­ nata. brahms's "elaboration" consists of further "working out" of themes from the exposition. the opening of the elaboration concentrates on the 178 current musicology example 10: large scale motion by thirds. 93 101 109 128 ~:. i, i~i' i ~r r ___ -i ~r j_ . example 11: chromatically inflected f major triad and f minor approached from dk first theme (mm. 93-127). it then turns to the second theme (mm. 12842) and concludes with elements from the closing section (mm. 150-63). however, what the elaboration lacks in thematic development, it makes up in further explorations of the grundgestalt's functional implications. the elaboration begins in the mediant major/minor, approached by enharmonically re-interpreting d# to e~ (the tonal problem's d/d# cross relation becomes d/e~) and substituting c for b in the dominant har­ monyat the close of the exposition (compare mm. 90 and 92), resulting in a leading-tone seventh chord in the new region (f#-[a]-c-e~). this ini­ tiates a series of harmonic shifts by thirds, transposing the grundgestalt david w. bernstein 179 example 12: structural dominant approached through a series of dominant minor-ninth chords and its ~6, mm. 143-47. 146 example 13: return of the first theme in neopolitan region, mm. 195-97. a. mm. 32-34 b. mm. 195-97 : g :& g ~1 ) ~v " " t ~~~ ~ j ~ t ~~~ 4!j " " 1,,.,,,. : oj i :l -'d '~ ~ i ~-~ from g to b~ (m. 101) to d~ (m. 109), and finally arriving at a return of the second theme in f minor (m. 128). the large-scale motion by thirds (ex. 10) derives from the grundgestalt's arpeggiation (ex. 1, motive a). in addi­ tion, as indicated by the dotted slur in example 11 (mm. 126-28), f minor is approached from d~, its ~6 (ex. 1, motive b). the tonal problem's c/q cross relation appears as c/d~ in both d~ and f (the sharp submediant and the n eapoli tan regions). the alternation of b!*-aj, and blr-aj" ~6-5 and q6-5 in d~ m<yor in mm. 109-12, a modification of the grundgestalt's motive b, also exploits one of the opening cross-relations: ai1\# becomes b~/b~. with the arrival off minor, the neapolitan minor, which schoenberg classified as "distant," brahms pushes the movement's tonality to its fur­ thermost limits. a repeated chromatically inflected f-major triad (mm. 116ff., see ex. 11) precedes the cadence in f minor at m. 128. the har­ monic tension becomes particularly acute in mm. 120 and 121, as the same triad, now in second inversion, is embellished by an inverted augmented180 current musicology example 14: grundgestalt's ~6 accompanied by dominant seventh chord, mm. 255-64 . 255 • ~& co : • "--. '-----. e'------. e1\ ~ * i~.: ~i 16n~· . . : oj r -i 1 , ~n----:r;; : : .. " ger. aug. 6th .. ~ .. ~g 9· ~g *u~ ff "-ger. aug. 6th 260 '" n : ~ .----.~ : i i " ~ : j v ~.,t "---~ ~~ ~~ ~.,t ~.,t .& ~ example 15: dominant seventh chord functioning as german augmented sixth, mm. 26573. 265 --. : • t ~ ~ . h.______ ~,:----. h,~ ~ .. --oj ~t>j ~. } ) \ ~. : : i ".., ~4 ..,. e 269 '" : ~ ~f" : oj ! ) ) ~ .. : ~ "'-~ ,,----cj'q t* e u david w. bernstein 181 example 16: close of first movement, mm. 274-83. 274 -~ -~ ~ b"{ ~ : : = ~ " ~ * i i i : oj u 'if ?f #4 q4 ?f ~ #~ -.i : ~ ~~ ~ ~ "'---~ ~ i .. q~ ~~ "-279 ~ ~ : p pp ~~ jj i ~ <> <> <> : p pp : ~~~~~~~ ~ \j" ~ .. ~ .. ~~ sixth harmony, a manifestation of the grundgestalt's ~6 previously exploited in the bridge section (ex. 4, mm. 35-37). the ~6 also plays a role in the progression to the final dominant pedal at the close of the elaboration. beginning in m. 143, brahms approaches the elaboration's structural domi­ nant through a series of dominant minor-ninth chords (ex. 12). the added minor ninths enhance the descending-fifth progression; the ninth is the ~6 of each dominant seventh's tonic region. moreover, the final move to the dominant in m. 147 proceeds directly from the e-minor tonic's ~6, the c in the bass in m. 146. a question remains: after brahms has projected the tonality as far as the distant neapolitan minor, how is balance restored? this process is played out in the recapitulation. beginning in m. 196, the bridge section (mm. 184-220) is transposed up a perfect fourth, eventually allowing for a state­ ment of the second theme in the tonic (mm. 220ff.). instead of proceed­ ing to the flat-submediant, the return of the first theme is stated in the neapolitan region (compare mm. 32-34 and 195-97, exx. 13a and 13b), thus directing the listener's attention to the relationship between the two regions. the end of the movement reveals a functional relationship between the neapolitan and the flat-submediant and, at the same time, integrates 182 current musicology the tonal problem's cross relations into a diatonic framework. in the coda (mm. 255-283) a dominant-seventh chord accompanies the grundgestalt's ~6 (ex. 14, mm. 256 and 257). this harmony, spelled as ifin the neapolitan region, functions as a german augmented sixth (with all instead of b~), one of schoenberg's functionally ambiguous "vagrant" harmonies. mea­ sure 258 (ex. 14) presents the same harmony as dominant seventh of~ii in the tonic. in mm. 266-67 (ex. 15) both interpretations ofthe chord in m. 256 return again. in addition, the g/g# (mm. 265-66) as well as the c/c# (m. 269) cross relations also proceed smoothly in the tonic. finally, as shown in example 16, brahms re-spells the b~ as all in m. 278; the final progres­ sion contains all ofthe tonal problem's chromatic elements, most notably the a/all cross relation, placed within a prominent stepwise descent from e to cq, doubled in octaves in the piano (mm. 274-78). balance is restored and the movement comes to an end with the cello's neutral g#,joined by a stable open fifth in the piano. brahms has successfully manipulated the work's harmonic and motivic materials in articulating an organically uni­ fied whole. to be sure, the "paths of harmony" followed in his cello so­ nata have not merely played a supporting role in this process. for, as schoenberg states, "everything that happens in a piece through motivic development, variation, elaboration, and thematic work results not only from the effect of harmony, but in particular as a direct consequence of its function" (1995:309). notes 1. for a detailed discussion of schoenberg's "tonal problem" including an analysis of the tonal problem in schubert's der wegweiser, see neff (1993). 2. as a complex of motive forms, the grundgestalt may contain a motive which has precedence over the others. see schoenberg (1995:357-58). 3. frisch, however, does consider large-scale motivic development on his own terms. see, for example, his analysis of brahms's string quintet, op. 34 (1984:8386). 4. schoenberg's most comprehensive discussion of developing variation, which takes into account large-scale form (the bridge section in the first movement of mozart's "dissonant" quartet, k. 465), appears in his 1917 manuscript, zussamenhang, kontrapunkt, instrumentation, formenlehre (1994:41-43); see also the editor's discussion of this passage (1994:lxiv-lxviii). the analysis also appears in schoenberg (1995:253-55); see also the editor's commentary (1995:54-59). 5. schoenberg's analysis of"o tod" appears in his essay "brahms the progres­ sive" (schoenberg 1984:431-34). 6. example 7 is an adaptation of schoenberg's analysis of this theme (1967:80). references frisch, walter. 1984. brahms and the principle of developing variation. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. david w. bernstein 183 neff, severine. 1993. goethe and schoenberg: organicism and analysis. in music theory and the exploration of the past, edited by christopher hatch and david w. bernstein, 409-33. chicago: the university of chicago press. schoenberg, arnold. [1954j 1969. structural functions of harmony, edited by leonard stein. new york: w.w. norton. --. 1967. fundamentals of musical composition, edited by gerald strang and leonard stein. london: faber and faber. --. 1984. brahms the progressive. in style and idea: selected writings by arnold schoenberg, edited by leonard stein, translated by leo black, 398-441. berke­ ley and los angeles: university of california press. --. 1994. coherence, counterpoint, instrumentation, instruction in form/ zussamenhang, kontrapunkt, instrumentation, formenlehre, edited by severine neff, translated by charlotte cross and severine neff. lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press. --. 1995. the musical idea and the logic, technique, and art of its presentation, edited and translated by patricia carpenter and severine neff. new york: co­ lumbia university press. the tonal occurrence and not yet a real clarification of its meaning" (ibid., p.20). schenker's impatience with hoffmann is understandable, especially when we take into' account their divergent backgrounds. schenker approached beethoven's symphony with the ear of an early 20th-century theorist; hoffmann, with the ear of an early 19th-century critic-composer. our historical investigation of hearing on various hierarchical levels must include all available evidence, whether or not it conforms to current standards. the task will be complicated indeed. we will have to take into account and assess opinions of composers, theorists, performers, critics, informed or uninformed amateur listeners, from their respective points of view. in applying their comments to the music, we will have to establish the hierarchical levels, which in turn vary for different periods. whether or not our results will affirm "the increasing hierarchization of the musical space" remains to be seen. the attempted investigation must be fruitful, nevertheless, because we will be "educating our ears" in the process. edward t. cone, what is a composition? not all arguments can be settled by agreement on the definitions of the terms involved, but the issues at stake can always be clarified thereby. not all questions of definition can be settled by appeal to the dictionary, but, unless one is determined to play humpty-dumpty, that is the place to begin. when the concept under discussion is one that may well be affected by relevant historical considerations, as is certainly the case with "piece of music", one might well start by consulting the oxford english dictionary. the entry under "piece" in the oed is, as one might imagine, lengthy. the references that concern us are to be found under two subheads: the first refers to the use of the word "in general sense; or followed by oj" and the second to "absolute uses ... without oj". in other words, we are asked to distinguish between "piece of music" and (musical) "piece". the former is listed under meanings relating to "a portion or quantity of any substance or kind of matter forming a single (usually small) body or mass". it is considered as "forming one body of finite dimensions" and as constituting "a separate part of the whole existing stock of the substance". in this sense, which is the earlier of the two to enter cornmon use, we find, for example, the locution "piece of song" (twelfth night, ii, iv, 2), which, although obsolete today, shows clearly the way in which the term is conceived and how it differs from the more modern "absolute", usage. in the latter sense "piece" refers to "a production, specimen of handicraft, work or art", and is equated with "piece of work"; specifically, "a musical composition, usually short, either independent or for-ruing an individual part of a larger work". what interests me about the foregoing distinction is the fact while the 101 two senses of "piece" are closely related, the connection between them is not so simple and obvious as one would suppose. for although "piece of music" may be analogous to "piece of cake", "piece" tout court is more like "cookie". and the second usage seems not to derive directly from the first. it appears rather to arrive indirectly, by way of "piece of work" (cf. "opus"). the "piece" is thought of as the result of a limited of work, not as a delimited portion of all music. used in the second way, the word has been applied to plays, pictures, statues, and furniture. its specific application to music comes on the scene comparatively late. the oed finds the word referring to a playas early as 1643, but the earliest citation for a musical composition is 1825. grove, on the other hand, states, without evidence, that it has been in use "since the end of the 18th century". in any case, the "absolute" usage is more recent than the "general"; but this fact tells us less about music than about european thought, for the concept is recent with respect to all the arts, whether fine or applied. (according to the oed, the first instance of "piece of work", meaning "a product of work, a production", is 1540. this date coincides strikingly with the one cited by miss carpenter for the appearance of opus perfectum et absolutum for a musical work.) let us now look a little more carefully at the definition: "usually short, either independent or forming an individual part of a larger work". (i shall return to the term "composition" a little later.) grove says that the earliest use of the absolute term in english referred to the parts of a suite, but that the word is not generally applied to works in several movements, like a sonata, nor to the individual movements thereof-and further, that it is "not used of vocal music". certainly all of these qualifications determine our ordinary use of the word in the absolute sense. although we may occasionally refer to the "movements" of a suite, we usually feel that they have more independence than those of a sonata-i.e., that they are pieces. we note webern's care in distinguishing (drei) kleine stucke from (funf) satze. we do not normally refer to a symphony as a piece, nor as four pieces; but we do speak of the pieces that make up le tombeau de couperin. we do not usually call songs, or cantatas, or operas, pieces. (jocular use is always an exception: "the ring is quite a piece !") but these distinctions are practical, not theoretical. if one should hear the adagietto from mahler's fifth symphony played alone on a program, one might well call it a piece. a scriabin one-movement sonata might be considered a piece. furthermore, the limitations of the word are not the same in all languages, not even all western-european ones. beethoven referred to the first movement of op. 27, no.2 as questa pezzo, and verdi wrote four pezzi sacri for chorus. german dictionaries report that stuck (which dates, incidentally, from the 16th century) refers especially but not exclusively to instrumental music. and so.on. it now seems clear that both miss carpenter· and professor crocker have, to a certain extent, confused the two "pieces". for "piece of music" is as we see, by no means synonymous with (musical) "piece". the latter, once we 102 2£ wktajii-_ z .{ j .,} have milked it history, retains little conceptual power. to argue over what is or is a piece is, today, an argument about usage: does one normally refer to or that-a song, a symphony, an opera-as a piece? it is equally pointless{to argue over what constitutes a "piece of music"-for any ,piece of music,: be considered as constituting a "piece of music", or, as one migh,t better write it, "piece-of-music". (it is difficult to define the term ". without 'circularity, for what else is one to call what one is trying to define?) a piece; then, is what. one can usefully call a piece; a piece of music is what one chooses to regard as a piece of music . .. what we ought to be discussing-in fact, what miss carpenter and professor crocker are often, but not always, discussing-is, what is a composition? pieces, songs, symphonies, operas-all are compositions. must a piece be written by one, and only one, composer, as professor crocker implies? perhaps-but many compositions have been written by more than one. (we don't have to wait for the collaboration of luening and ussachevsky; we can point to the handel-brahms and haydn-brahms variations.) does a bach fugue, as miss carpenter seems to believe, represent the ideal piece? never mind-a willaert ricercar is certainly a composition. (let that statement stand for now; we may wish to modify it later.) must a piece be continuous? no doubt, but the ordinary of the mass can constitute a composition in several parts, distributed over a wide span of time, interrupted by other music. is a trope a piece? the query may be translated thus: "is it valid to apply to a special medieval form of vocal interpolation a modern word normally used to distinguish short, discrete, instrumental works?" when the is stated in this way, the answer is obvious; but what we should really be asking is, "is introit-cum-trope a composition?" what is a composition? returning to the oed, we find that the word "composition" can be applied to music in two ways. referring to the process, to the action of writing music, the term has been current at least since 1597, when it was so used by morley. referring to the product of such an activity, its first citation is from 1666-67-in pepys's diary, of all places. by way of definition this dictionary offers little help: "a musical production, a piece of music". grove offers nothing. is "composition" then synonymous with "piece of music", as the oed would have it? when the dictionary becomes vague, or at odds with ordinary usage, one must refer to one's own experience with words in order to answer such a question. are the terms synonymous as we normally use them? a folk ballad is certainly "a musical production, a piece of music"; do we call it a composition? hardly. why not? because we feel that a composition must indeed be composed-by a composer. the composer may be known or unknown, single or multiple, human or (heaven help us) mechanical-but the composition must have a composer. if a piece of music is the result of accident or, like the ballad, of evolution, tradition, and constant variation, we do not normally apply to it the term "composition". the only way in which composition, in this sense, can be practiced is by 103 ) \ } \ some sort of recording. in the past this recording has been in the form of writing; now other methods are available to us. j'he real poi.rli, i think, is that a composition must be repeatable-and id(entifiably repeatable. without recording, no repetition can be identified/cas a form "0-_-,original, since the original would exist only in the slipper\and unreliable form of memory. the composition must endure in some kiiid of tr;lodel (a ,-, score, a master tape) against which every performance can be checked:->. ' perhaps, then, one can simplify matters and equate the composition''yith its model. if there is a score, the composition is the score, and every performance can be measured as a more or less accurate realization of its directions. (in the case of a mechanical recording as a model, any other performance would be measured as an imitation of the original.) but ifwe accept such an equation, then what of stockhausen's klavierstilck xi? there is something intuitively wrong in saying, of several pieces of music that sound completely different from one another, that they are all valid realizations of one and the same composition because they were all obtained by faithfully following the directions of the same score. or, to make the issue clearer, here is the score of a new composition of my own: play any phonograph record in your collection. are all possible performances of this score realizations of one and the same composition? i think that we must conclude, first, that a score is not a composition, but only a series of directions; and second, that a score can be said to embody a composition only if its directions, correctly followed, lead to results that can be aurally recognized as performances of the same piece of music. a further condition for a piece of music to achieve compositionhood has to do with its beginning and ending-extremes, as i call them. as professor crocker says, "all pieces have beginnings and endings, simply because everything does." but so does any fragment of music. hence his demand "that the beginning sound like a beginning, and especially the end like an ending". by this, i take it, he means that the extremes must be musically determined and musically satisfying as extremes. (to be sure, in vocal music the extremes are also partly determined by the words; but if they are totally determined by the words, the result can hardly be called a musical composition. the task of the song composer is to make the musical form sound natural in spite of the exigencies of the text. see, below, the discussion of what i call "essentially vocal music".) the last requirement is a preliminary way of saying that a composition must have form. this condition is necessary and might even, when properly interpreted, prove sufficient. true, at this point i may have overstepped the line that separates the definition of a class from the specification of a good example of that class. yet i should find it as hard to define "musical compositron" without some'reference to form as to define "poem" without some reference to rhythm. to call a piece of music a composition is the same as 104 calling it a work of art, as i use the term. when a work of art is fully formed, there is no doubt of its status: it is a work of art. but it is always hard to decide what to call less fully formed works. we may wish to call some of them imperfect; others, unsuccessful; still others, bad. and at some point we are bound to say, "this is not a work of art at all". so, perforce, the term "work of art" implies some normative judgment; so, too, i hold, must the term "composition". and indeed, if we take the trouble to follow the oed back from "composition" (product) through "composition" (activity) to its source in 'fcompose", we find the term, as applied to music, defined as "to invent and put into proper form"; from which we could certainly infer that to call a "musical product" a composition is to attribute to it at least a modicum of structure. it is of further comfort to refer to webster (third) and to find that, properly glossed, its definition offers some support to my own. according to this authority, a composition is "a written piece of music; esp. an odginal work of some magnitude and to whose formal structure appropriate attention has been given". let us ignore "magnitude"; most of us would reject the implication that our word should be reserved for fairly long works and be denied to much of webern. but the rest is apposite. "written": this refers to my requirement that a composition be recorded in some way. "original": presumably this is intended, not as a stipulation of original quality, but as an indication that a work should not be secondhand-i.e., that it should be neither deliberately copied nor traditionally handed down. in other words, it must be "composed by a composer". "formal structure": this restriction can be interpreted as applying to my own demands for recognizable repeatability as well as for musically determined form. there is, then, some justification for the position that to call a piece of music a composition is to suggest that it can be considered a work of art. but now a new question arises. why have we, in the case of music, only the term "composition", which has, etymologically speaking, no specific relation to music, and has, practically speaking, associations with most of the other fine arts? there is no common noun-a music-comparable to a picture, or a building, or.a statue. (even if one protests that the last does not apply to reliefs, one must admit the usage "a sculpture", which does.) one answer, if not the only one, is suggested by a comparison with another art suffering from a similar disability. what term have we-save "composition" again-to cover all products of imaginative literature? poem, novel, short story, drama-there is no single word that covers all these and only these. but in the days when literature was primarily poetry, before the development of prose fiction and prose drama, no such word was needed; "poem" was always at hand (in whatever language one was using) and covered almost all cases. every imaginative writer could accordingly be called a poet. but when a new word was needed to cover the wider range of possibilities, none was readily available-except the generalized "composition". 105 in the same way, when music was thought of as primarily, if not exclusively, vocal, no term was needed other than "song". i believe it is no accident that the adoption of the generalized word occurs simultaneously with the appearance of independent instrumental music. but there is a much more profound lesson to be read here. so long as music was essentially vocal (and, when instrumental, tied to dance or ritual), there was no occasion for what miss carpenter calls "the self-conscious notion of the musical work and the cultivation of autonomous musical form". by essentially vocal music-which i take almost all pre-renaissance music to be-i mean essentially textual music: music whose form is determined primarily by textual (or ritual) exigency. (the key word in this formulation is, of course, "primarily". a vocal style founded completely on textual requirements, as in certain forms of liturgical chant, would have no musical interest whatsoever. at the other extreme, much l5thand 16th-century polyphony, while primarily textual, achieves forms that are either satisfactory from a purely musical standpoint or at least independent enough to be listened to as musical compositions.) vocal music written since the rise of a specifically instrumental style is composed on quite different principles. (indeed, perhaps one need say only that it is composed.) except in the case of the pure recitative, its form is primarily musically determined. even when the demands of the text seem paramount, those of functional harmony and tonal structure are more insistent. (the rare exceptions, of which satie's socrate may be one, only point up, by contrast, the force of the general rule.) in other words, the concept of a musical composition is, as miss carpenter says, a late arrival on the western musical scene. but this arrival need not necessarily represent a change from process to object, or from becoming to being, or from participation to observation. the comment attributed to johann gottfried walther, that music "has gone through a change in its usage from adjective to substantive", can be interpreted in a simpler and more objective way. a substantive can stand alone; an adjective must modify a substantive. modern music may thus indeed be a kind of "object"; medieval music embellished, varied, expanded, or otherwise modified another object: the text. or perhaps one should say that music, text, and ritual together constituted the object. the loose forms of the ricercar and canzona are primarily due, not to an ideal of syncretic form, but_precisely to the fact that there was, in the 16th century, as yet no ideal of instrumental form. as has often been pointed out, the only models the composers had were vocal. imagine these compositions with suitable words and you will realize that they embody what i call essentially vocal forms, adapted for instruments. lacking the structure of the word, they seem to us imperfectly realized as compositions-though compositionhood is certainly the condition toward which they aspire. the late professor a. m. friend (of the princeton university department of art and archaeology) used to insist that what i have been arguing for music was true of all the arts. the middle ages produced not works of art but 106 a synthesis of the arts, most completely embodied in the cathedral. the cathedral was architecture, it is true, but it also embraced sculpture (in relief and the round) and pictorial art (as mural and as stained glass). its liturgy comprised drama, literature, and music. already with the 14th century, each of these arts was beginning to realize itself individually, and the process was completed by the renaissance. the communally built cathedral yielded to the individual art, the individual artist, and the individual work of art. we may now be entering a definitive post-renaissance stage of western culture, but i find it misleading to look on what is happening as in any sense a return to older and perhaps more natural modes of perception. rather, we are confronted by an attack on the whole concept of art. if the attackers win, not only the work of art as we know it but art itself may disappear. some composers-i use the term only because i do not know what else to call them, except perhaps noncomposers-are loudly proclaiming the death of music in a manner that recalls certain stylish theological positions, and they are encouraging their followers to complete its doing-in. others, more reticent, are nevertheless apparently trying to hasten the process by insisting that whatever one wants to call music is music, that what one calls a composition is a composition. john cage's position is more honest. a few years ago, in conversation, he said, "i don't claim that what i am doing is music, or art-or that it has any value. i maintain only that it is an activity, and that it is the one in which i happen to be engaged at present." such a position is, from a purely personal point of view, unassailable; but if generally accepted by those who call themselves musicians, it means the end of music. let us not deceive ourselves. the extreme avant-garde is not trying to offer new definitions of what constitutes a work of art, or to create new forms, or to encourage new modes of perception. the extreme avant-garde has only one attitude towards the arts: it wants to kill them. bernard stambler, debts and transfigurations the materials of miss carpenter's article suggest certain quodlibets on the terms and structures of our responses to the arts. miss carpenter is quite adept with the two large structures, or frames of reference, she is manipulating and combining for the purposes of her paper: the sense (or concretizing) of musical form that appeared in the 18th century, and certain analytic methods of experimental psychology, essentially of the 20th century. somewhat less clear and explicit in her article (as, generally, in "histories" of music) is how we are to see the relation between 18th-century and pre-18th-century forms. the 18th century developed the "great formal types of musical organization" that by and large we still live by; it might be more accurate to say, the 18th century provided the ears with which we still hear music. the forms 107 mark tucker (1954-2000) by travis a. jackson mark tucker was one of those rare individuals who excelled in all the areas one might invoke in assessing a musical scholar's importance. his two books and numerous essays on duke ellington and his public presen­ tations on thelonious monk have all contributed to our recognition of him as a first-rate musicologist and jazz scholar, one whose work is beauti­ fully written and brimming with insight. his research on ellington's early years has enhanced our understanding of how one of america's most celebrated composers developed his craft. by situating ellington in the complex worlds of washington, d.c. and harlem up to the 1930s, mark helped open the door to a more nuanced investigation of jazz, going beyond hagiography or decontextualized musical analysis to render a complex portrait worthy of his subject. his unfinished monograph on thelonious monk promised to go in the same direction. a presentation for columbia's center for jazz studies lecture series in 2000 showed mark succeeding at disentangling monk the myth from monk the musician, and in the process bringing many who thought they understood monk to a new level of awareness. mark's skills went far beyond those of a good writer and researcher. although the opportunities didn't come enough, those moments when he sat down at the piano to concertize or demonstrate musical concepts were an instructive treat for anyone within earshot. indeed, one of the most vivid memories i have comes from a farewell party thrown for mark and his wife carol in 1997, as they prepared to leave new york for williams­ burg, virginia. mark and his onetime roommate, jazz pianist bruce barth, improvised a series of deliciously swinging four-hand versions of jazz stan­ dards and blues at the piano. these sides of mark-the thoughtful and elegant writer, the consummate musician-are ones that nearly everyone had the opportunity to see. being one of his students during his time at columbia gave me the op­ portunity to see a side of mark whose importance might be easy to under­ estimate, if only because it was a less public aspect of his day-to-day work as a faculty member. nearly anyone with an advanced degree has probably had the experience of handing in a term project for which they received little to no feedback beyond a grade and a "good job" (or, worse, "this current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 10 current musicology reads like a first draft ... "). with mark, the experience of getting a paper back was something i eagerly awaited, for what he returned was marked up nearly beyond recognition. along with copious marginal comments and queries, i received pinpoint copy-editing whose purpose was to make my writing more clear, more direct, and more powerful. some pages would be filled with balloons around groups of words, each designated with a circled number, that indicated the best possible way to rearrange those elements. i typically describe that experience to my own students as a process of really learning how to write-mastering the skill of saying twice as much in half the space. i would come to understand that his way of responding to student work was a gift extended to his students as it had been extended to him by his mentor at the university of michigan, richard crawford. likewise, mark's classroom demeanor, whether in a lecture or a seminar, was cut from the same cloth: he was less an imparter than a sharer of knowledge, asking questions and opening up issues for further exploration. his main concern was equipping students with the means to generate and answer important questions. nearly every day, he showed me the value of having an expansive, open, and giving spirit. a mentor, after all, does more than attend to a mentee's travis a. jackson 11 intellectual development. mark did that through introducing me to senior scholars, carting me with him and others to the monthly roundtables at the institute of jazz studies in newark, and, perhaps most importantly, giv­ ing me opportunities to publish and present my work. but beyond that, he shared his love for music and his dry and incisive wit. the time we spent listening to music and recommending recordings to one another was en­ riching. i remember, for example, a warm spring afternoon when we both sat transfixed in his living room luxuriating in robin holcomb's singing on "one of these days" from bill frisell's nashville (his pick) and his e­ mailed comment that mccoy tyner's tender moments (my pick) was in­ deed, as many musicians had told me, "a blessed recording." but one of the most legendary exchanges we had, throughout the spring of 1994, concerned the children's television icon barney, with whom mark's son wynn was fascinated. our exchange started innocently, but quickly took on a surreal tone-with stories about "the big guy" perishing in the la brea tarpits and being satan in disguise being traded eagerly. perhaps the funniest salvo came from mark after my oral exam on john coltrane's a love supreme. following others, i had speculated that archie shepp was the "mystery saxophonist" at the end of the recording. mark expressed a different view in an e-mail message: "i was really disap­ pointed that the big guy's name didn't surface once in your presentation today. otherwise you did a great job. some people believe, you know, that it really is archie shepp inside that purple costume." in many ways, it's difficult to summarize the enormous impact mark has had on me. i learned, right up to the end, so much about what it means to be a responsible and inquisitive scholar and a caring human be­ ing from his example. in november 2000, shortly after the "mega-meet­ ing" of music societies in toronto, i called him to see how he was doing. through labored breaths, he informed me that he was still working on the monk book, that he was getting new ideas and really enjoying the process of writing. in the midst of all that was happening, i marveled, he was still at it-working, writing, persevering. when i got the news nearly a month later that he had passed, all i could do was cry: for what his family had lost, for what musicology had lost, and for what i had lost. i miss him. opera at columbia university, 1941-1958 by jack beeson introduction the following essay was written, and the accompanying material com­ piled, in 1961. with the exception of the addition of some singers' names, the essay has been only slightly revised; at this late date it would be diffi­ cult to find and to correct any errors in the production data. my purpose forty years ago was simply to record a short but vibrant pe­ riod in the history of american opera through my experience as coach and conductor in the columbia opera workshop and the closely related series of american opera premieres. for some years thereafter, i offered copies to anyone who showed an interest and to those on campus who-naively, i thought-were eager to revive the workshop and/or produce new operas at columbia with some regularity. over the years, as opera workshops, small companies, and the writing and producing of chamber operas burgeoned, copies of the essay were requested more frequently-even by such organiza­ tions as opera america. in celebration of the music department's cente­ nary in 1996, both a low library exhibition and a publication highlighted the workshop and its related productions. it was at the same time that the glimmerglass opera and the new york city opera revived paul bunyan, drawing attention to the premiere of britten and auden's opera at columbia in 1941. shortly thereafter, the same two companies revived virgil thomson and gertrude stein's the mother of us all and invited me to speak to their audiences about her birth, largely from workshop singers, in 1947. long before this period of interest in events of the past, i had given a copy of the material to a former graduate composition student, jim stepleton-by coincidence the son of my junior high school music teacher in muncie, indiana. his interest led to his producing, in collabo­ ration with the friends and enemies of modern music, a concert of ex­ cerpts from operas first performed at columbia from 1941-1958. this ret­ rospective in miller theatre in 1997 received extensive press comment. finally, an inquiry from a graduate student at another university, ad­ dressed to elizabeth davis, columbia's music and arts librarian, re­ quested a copy of a specified "unpublished document." ms. davis then in­ sisted to me that this long drawn-out nonsense should cease, and that the material should be published. i complied, insisting only, in light of my many years at columbia, that the publisher be current musicology. current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 193 194 current musicology i add, more as a coda than a preamble to what follows, that through the energy of jim stepleton there has recently been incorporated the douglas moore fund for opera, which will become active some months hence. its purpose is to provide young composers of opera-moore fellows-with residence in opera companies that produce new works; to learn the ways of singers, conductors, and stage directors; to experience the pleasures and perils of collaboration; and perhaps to play rehearsals, coach singers, and conduct a bit. in short, to serve apprenticeships similar to those some of us enjoyed during our years with the workshop and its productions half a century ago. * * * in 1940, four years after its organization, the columbia theatre associ­ ates (cta), a small repertory company specializing in new and neglected old plays, moved into the newly-built brander mathews hall on the columbia university campus. the facilities of the new theater were most inadequate for the production of even modest operas, but there was an or­ chestra pit-or the semblance of one-and a production of two one-act chamber operas was undertaken immediately, in collaboration with the juilliard school. collaboration with musical forces more readily at hand seemed preferable, however, and during the next two seasons columbia's music department augmented the musical forces from both inside and outside the columbia community that were assembled by milton smith, who ran the school's theatre department, and by the cta. in order to better serve the musical needs of the brander mathews productions and to provide an outlet for the department's interest in lyric theater, the opera workshop was organized in the 1943-44 season. in addition, otto luening was brought to the university in the spring of that season to re­ hearse and conduct the first performances of pieces of eight by bernard waganaar. pieces of eight was the first opera commissioned by the alice m. ditson fund, a grantor committed to advancing the cause of american music, and which after 1942 was administered by an advisory board with music department representation. in the autumn of 1944, professor willard rhodes was selected as execu­ tive and musical director of the workshop, and otto luening was ap­ pointed to the barnard and columbia teaching staff and named musical director of the cta. through these changes in leadership, and with the ditson fund made available to commission and underwrite the produc­ tion of a new opera each spring, a modus operandi was established which was to continue for about thirteen years, though with several changes of stage director. jack beeson 195 the opera workshop existed as a general studies course offered for four points, meeting twice a week (tuesday and friday) for a total of eight hours. membership in the workshop was open to aspiring conductors, stage directors, composers, and librettists, as well as to singers. singers were admitted to the course only after an audition, and an attempt was made to achieve a distribution of voices in accordance with the repertory under study. ditson tuition scholarships were available to the most promis­ ing singers. a program of study combining courses from the music department and the school of dramatic arts was available to those preparing for careers in the lyric theater. during its most flourishing years, the workshop resembled a small opera repertory company in the amount and scope of its activity. friday classes were given over to staging arias and ensemble scenes that had been rehearsed musically in the tuesday class sessions. in addition, numerous solo and ensemble coaching sessions were held, usually in the music department, under the guidance of the music director, his musical assis­ tants, or the student-coaches. occasionally student stage directors were en­ trusted with special rehearsals; for a period, sessions in italian and english diction were provided. limited space in the department and the busy schedule of instruction and play production in brander mathews drove us frequently to earl hall, mcmillin (now miller) theatre, and casa italiana; it was not rare for classes and rehearsals to be occurring in two or three places simultaneously. several times a season the arias, scenes, and acts from the standard repertory studied in class were presented to invited audiences. piano accompaniment sufficed. of greater importance to the opera project as a whole were the full pro­ ductions, usually mounted twice a season and typically produced in collab­ oration with the theatre associates. the productions were about equally divided between neglected eighteenth-century comic operas, always trans­ lated into english (performed in mid-winter), and new works by american composers, commissioned by the ditson fund. usually both productions were included in the regular subscription series of the cta. in addition, the new works were given prominent place in the annual spring festivals of american music presented by the music department and the ditson fund for six successive years to distinguished invited audiences. these large scale productions of premieres-usually of chamber op­ eras, it should be added-were well attended and given full attention by the metropolitan and national weekly press. as often as not they were di­ rected (both musically and dramatically) and sung by persons not neces­ sarily regularly connected with the workshop. several of the premieres, for instance, were conducted by otto luening and staged by directors or 196 current musicology choreographers from off-campus. but even those productions not given under the aegis of the workshop were made possible by the existence of that organization, for the workshop provided continuity-that is, it could be depended on to supply the singers for small parts, a chorus, and, fre­ quently, talented singing-actors for the important roles. other roles were cast from "downtown," from the ranks of those who were delighted to per­ form without pay for free coaching, stage experience, and critical notice in the press. orchestras for the productions were made up partly by columbia students and partly by outsiders. an arrangement with the musicians' union made possible the payment of instrumentalists' out-of­ pocket expenses, a very much smaller amount than union scale. the size of the orchestra varied, from thirteen instrumentalists required by several of the chamber operas to about thirty. the inadequate pit, the small size of the house, the orchestral budget, and (by no means the least important factor) the interest of everybody concerned in a production of musical and dramatic intimacy-all these elements determined the size of the orchestra as well as the style of the production. particularly during the forties and the early fifties, the opera workshop and the opera productions were a vital part of the city's musical and dra­ matic life. of more widespread importance was the commissioning and performing of new works. the astonishing interest in the lyric theater shown by american composers since the second world war and the new directions their works have frequently taken have certainly not been alto­ gether the result of the columbia project. but its influence can be imag­ ined, if not measured, when one realizes that during its existence brander mathews was prominent among all theaters in the united states in the number of new operas it brought into being and that the recent interest in dramatically viable operatic productions was from the beginning the aim of the brander mathews productions. the current practice of casting chore­ ographers as stage directors was anticipated at columbia in a number of productions: gian carlo menotti's the medium, virgil thomson's the mother of us all, otto luening's evangeline, and albert rivett's poor eddy, among others. the emergence of menotti as a successful and well-known composer and his debut as a stage director occurred on campus in 1946and one might in passing draw attention to the fact (glossed over by their biographers) that the first operatic efforts of those two stalwarts, benjamin britten and w. h. auden, took place in may 1941 on west 117th street. but, though the quality of individual productions during the late fifties did not decline, there was a notable diminishing in the number of produc­ tions and in workshop activity. the reasons were various: other workshops sprouted inside and outside parent institutions; the g.1. bill came to an jack beeson 197 end and men and women who might previously have been able to nurture their talents in the workshop were forced to rely on lady luck; professional and semi-professional opera companies and even broadway producers began to show an interest in new works and in the revival of eighteenth-century repertory. more significant, however, was the fact that the academic and administrative community at large had not exhibited sufficient interest and support to organize this branch of theater at columbia on a secure academic, artistic, and financial basis. an arts center with three theaters had long been planned, but was not built; it was said that a large gift was proffered by william paley and rejected. those who had led the opera project were not interested in continuing what was now being done elsewhere-frequently in imitation of columbia's efforts-and development along new lines seemed impossible under the conditions that prevailed. their patience exhausted, their energies no longer buoyant, and their efforts recognized in the main outside the university, they turned their attention to other matters. the assistants, having served their apprenticeships, were not tempted to continue the struggle with the old unsolved problems and the new unsolvable problems posed by the scarcity of rehearsal space in the music department, the disappearance of milton smith and the school of dramatic arts, and the disappearance altogether of brander mathews hall. in spite of difficulties, much was accomplished during columbia's oper­ atic years. it is not necessary to emphasize further the encouragement given to new works and ideas and to the revival of neglected operas of interest to the university community and the new york public at large. (one notes with some smugness that paisiello's charming barber of seville was first rediscovered, not in berlin in 1960, but in new york in 1946.) equally important ends were served in training conductors, stage­ directors, and singing-actors. one may single out from the names on the following pages four coaches and assistant conductors who have turned their apprentice years to professional use: jacob avshalamov, composer­ conductor of the portland junior symphony; john crosby, founder and artistic director of the sante fe opera; john kander, composer and conductor on and off broadway; and the present author, a composer. * * * in 1961, it seemed to me invidious to list any singers who had once been members of both the opera workshop and the casts of related pro­ ductions. now that forty years have passed, there are but few still perform­ ing and some have died. of those singers whose names or recorded voices may be familiar today a partial listing may suggest the quality and variety of the young artists who enlivened opera at columbia from 1941-1958. 198 current musicology everett anderson ellen faull alice howland gladys kuchta james mccracken leopold simoneau teresa stitch-randall david thaw josh wheeler as indicated earlier, the new american operas were cast in part from "downtown." by prior arrangement, the title role of menotti's medium served claramae turner, successfully, as her audition for the metropolitan opera. the first the mother of us allied dorothy dow to zurich, la scala, and the new york philharmonic. two sopranos who appeared in the se­ ries of new american operas were also involved in two douglas moore pre­ mieres at the time: shirlee emmons and leyna gabriele. appendix a: direction of the columbia opera workshop 1943-44 musical director: nicholas goldschmidt stage director: herbert graf 1944-46 musical director: willard rhodes stage director: herbert graf 1946-48 musical director: willard rhodes stage director: john wolmut 1948-54 musical director: willard rhodes stage director: felix brentano 1954-57 musical director: rudolph thomas stage director: felix brentano summer opera workshops were under the music direction of both otto luening and willard rhodes. the stage directors were ernst lert and elemer nagy. appendixb: opera and plays with live music in brander mathews hall from 1941 to 1958, produced, for the most part, by the columbia theatre associates (cta) in collaboration with the music department and its opera workshop. certain operatic productions were undertaken at other venues, sometimes in collaboration with the columbia theatre associates. all works performed are operas except for those indicated with a (t), which are mostly plays with newly-composed incidental music. date of season performances work(s) performed 1941 february the devil take her (double bill) may 1941fall 1942 blennerhasset paul bunyan the burglar's opera collaborators alan collard (librettist) john gordon (librettist) arthur benjamin (composer) norman corwin (librettist) philip roll (librettist) vittorio giannini (composer) w. h. auden (librettist) benjamin britten (composer) hugh ross (conductor) milton smith (stage director) edward eager (librettist) alfred drake (librettist) john mundy (composer) production information produced in collaboration with the opera department of the juilliard school of music world premiere. produced in collaboration with the opera department of the juilliard school. world premiere. produced by the cta and the columbia music department with the chorus of the schola cantorum. six (?) performances. world premiere. produced by the cta. '> ("l ~ cd to; to; rjj o z ...... <d <d appendix b (cont.) date of season performances work(s) performed february the music master march iphigenia in taurist 1942december the village barber 1943 may a tree on the plains 1943december the two misers 1944 collaborators edward eager (translator) g. b. pergolesi (composer) richard falk (conductor) milton smith (stage director) witter bynner (translator) claude lapham (composer) joseph weidemann (librettist) edward eager (translator) johann schenk (composer) nicholas goldschmidt (conductor) milton smith (stage director) paul horgan (librettist) ernst bacon (composer) nicholas goldschmidt (conductor) milton smith (stage director) edward eager (translator) andre-ernest-modest gretry (composer) nicholas goldschmidt (conductor) milton smith (stage director) production fuformation probably the first performances in english. produced by the cta and the columbia chamber opera players. six (?) performances. produced by the cta. incidental choral settings for euripides' play. very likely the first american performances. produced by the cta and the columbia music department. five performances. commissioned by the league of composers. first new york performances. produced by the eta and the columbia music department. five performances. probably the first new york performances. produced by the cta and the columbia music department. five performances. nl o o (j c ~ z ..., ~ c '" ,.., n o r< o ~ appendix b (cont.) date of season performances work(s) performed collaborators may 1944december 1945 may 1945december 1946 february pieces of eight edward eager (librettist) bernard wagenaar (composer) otto luening (conductor) milton smith (stage director) thejealous husband edward eager (translator) the scarecrow the imaginary invalidt the barber of seville g. b. pergolesi (composer) otto luening (conductor) martin smith (stage director) dorothy lockwood (librettist) normand lockwood (composer) otto luening (conductor) willard rhodes (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) milton smith (stage director) jack beeson (composer) phyllis mead (translator) giovanni paisiello (composer) otto luening (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) milton smith (stage director) production information world premiere. first opera commissioned by the alice m. ditson fund. produced by the cta and columbia music department, aided by the ditson fund. five performances. world premiere in english and probably the first performances of the opera in the u.s. produced by the cta and the colum­ bia music department.! five performances. world premiere. based on a play by percy mackaye. commissioned by the ditson fund. produced by the cta and the columbia music department, aided by the ditson fund. five performances. produced by the cta. incidental music for moliere's play. based on beaumarchais' play. only previous american production had been in french (new orleans, 1810). produced by the cta and the columbia music department. five performances. 'from the fall of 1944 onwards, the music department was represented primarily by its sponsorship of the opera workshop. '> n ;.:: t:o t"'j t"'j v1 o z ~ o >-' appendix b (cont.) season date of performances may2 may 27-28 august 14 1946n.d. 1947 work(s) performed the medium collaborators gian carlo menotti (librettist, composer, and stage director) otto luening (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) robert horan (stage assistant) willard rhodes (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) jacob avshalomov (musical assistant) john wolmut (stage director) elena allegro (stage assistant) willard rhodes (conductor) elemer nagy (stage director) production information world premiere. commissioned by the ditson fund. produced by the cta and the columbia music department, aided by the ditson fund. five performances. the workshop in a program of scenes and acts from the repertory. the summer school opera workshop in a program of scenes and acts from the repertory, including the whole of menotti's the old maid and the thief. a competition for a new one-act opera was sponsored by the ditson fund, in collaboration with the metropolitan opera. the winning work, the warrior by bernard rogers, was performed by the met in january 1947. 2also in may were several perfonnances of stravinsky's l 'histoire du soldat, produced jointly by the american section of the international society for contemporary music and the cta, conducted by dimitri mitropoulos, and directed by frederick cohen. nl o nl n c:: ~ z .., s= c:: [fj n o t-< o c'l ><: appendix b (cont.) date of season performances work(s) performed collaborators production information december 17-19 february (double bill) may stratonice the man with the terrible temper (l irato) the mother of us all willard rhodes (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) jacob avshalomov (musical assistant) john wolmut (stage director) elena allegro (stage assistant) winthrop palmer (translator) etienne mehul (composer) phyllis mead (translator) etienne mehul (composer) willard rhodes (conductor) the workshop performed scenes from operas with texts taken from the works of shakespeare. believed to be first american performances of both of these one-act operas. produced by the cta and the opera workshop of the columbia music department. eight performances. jack beeson (assistant conductor) jacob avshalomov (musical assistant) albert rivett (musical assistant) john wolmut (stage director) gertrude stein (librettist) virgil thomson (composer) otto luening (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) john taras (stage director) world premiere. commissioned by the ditson fund. produced by the cta and the columbia music department. aided by the ditson fund. nine performances. '> n ~ co t"ri t"ri cjl o z n) o '-'" appendix b (cont.) season date of performances august 11 august 14 1947january 26-28 1948 may august 6 august 13 work(s) performed evangeline collaborators otto luening (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) ernst lert (stage director) otto luening (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) ernst lert (stage director) production information demonstration by the summer workshop of opera scenes, mostly mozart ensembles. opera scenes by the summer workshop, mostly mozart ensembles. willard rhodes (conductor) the workshop in scenes from the repertory. jack beeson (assistant condudctor) john wolmut (stage director) lee macburney (stage assistant) otto luening (librettist, composer, and conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) nona schurman (stage director) world premiere. aided by the ditson fund. produced by the cta and the columbia music department. eight performances. demonstration by the summer workshop. willard rhodes (conductor) the workshop in scenes from the repertory. albert rivett (musical assistant) everett lee (musical assistant) ernst lert (stage director) ruth ives (stage assistant) lee macburney (stage assistant) nl o ~ (") c:: ~ z >-3 ~ c:: [/l >-< n o t"" o c"l >< appendix b (cont.) date of season performances work(s) performed collaborators 1948december the belle of new york hugh morton (librettist) 19493 gustave kerker (composer) willard rhodes (conductor) albert rivett (musical assistant) martin smith (stage director) louise grifford (stage assistant) january sir john in love february the little clay cant may a drumlin legend ralph vaughan williams (composer) willard rhodes (conductor) albert rivett (musical assistant) felix brentano (stage director) jacob avshalomov (composer) helena carus (librettist) ernst bacon (composer) otto luening (conductor) production information operetta produced by the cta and the opera workshop of the columbia music department. based on vaughan williams's the merry wives of windsor. first complete performance in the u.s. (for two pianos). produced by the opera workshop with various members of the school of dramatic arts. produced by the cta. incidental music for the play by king shudraka. world premiere. commissioned by the ditson fund. produced by the cta and the columbia music department. four performances. albert rivett (musical assistant) anley loran (musical assistant) martin smith (stage director) oreste sergievsky (choreographer) 30peras by henry cowell, paul nordoff, and, later, hugo weisgall (six characters in search of author) were commissioned by the ditson fund but not produced at columbia. '> c'l ~ 1:0 t"j t"j [jl o z n) o (,r! appendixb (cont.) nl 0 0> date of n season performances work(s) performed collaborators production information c ~ ~ may the emperor wants albert rivett (composer) produced by the cta. a play with t"i z asont incidental music. >-3 s:: c august 6 otto luening (conductor) the summer workshop in scenes from the rjj n albert rivett (musical assistant) repertory. 0 t"' everett lee (musical assistant) 0 ernst lert (stage director) 0 >< ruth ives (stage assistant) lee macburney (stage assistant) august 11 otto luening (conductor) the summer workshop in scenes from the albert rivett (musical assistant) repertory. everett lee (musical assistant) ernst lert (stage director) ruth ives (stage assistant) lee macburney (stage assistant) 1949december the way of .albert rivett (composer) produced by the cta. incidental music for 1950 the worldt the play by william congreve. january the barrier langston hughes (librettist) world premiere. produced by the cta and jan meyerowitz (composer) the opera workshop of the columbia willard rhodes (conductor) music department. ten performances. albert rivett (musical assistant) felix brentano (stage director) appendix b (cont.) date of season perfonnances work(s) perfonned collaborators production infonnation 1950december the old maid gian carlo menotti (librettist a double bill of menotti operas performed 1951 and the thief and composer) by a workshop group at cedar crest college. penn. produced by the opera the telephone gian carlo menotti (librettist workshop. and composer) albert rivett (conductor) ruth ives (stage director) marchgiants in the earth arnold sundgaard (librettist) world premiere. after novel by ole edvart april douglas moore (composer) r0lvaag. awarded the pulitzer prize in willard rhodes (conductor) music for 1951. aided by the ditson fund. albert rivett (musical assistant) produced by the cta and the columbia felix brentano (stage director) music department. ten performances. april 2 the workshop in scenes from verdi operas (at casa italiana). may come down danielt albert rivett (composer) produced by the cta. a play with '---< incidental music. > n ;>j may the old maid gian carlo menotti (librettist a double bill of menotti operas performed co to; to; and the thief and composer) by a workshop group in white plains, n.y. rfj 0 produced by the opera workshop. two z the telephone gian carlo menotti (librettist performances. nl and composer) 0 "'-l albert rivett (conductor) ruth ives (stage director) appendix b (cont.) season 19511952 date of performances may 1952may 1953 march work(s) performed acres of sky sweeney agonistes poor eddyt collaborators zoe lund schilller (librettist) arthur kreutz (composer) qtto leuning (conductor) jack beeson (assistant conductor) john kander (musical assistant) edward reveaux (stage director) letitia evans (choreographer) production information first new york performance. aided by the ditson fund. produced by the cta and the music department. five performances. t. s. elliot (librettist) first performance in new york; presented, richard winslow (composer) with a small orchestra, on a program that willard rhodes (conductor) included scenes from the repertory. john kander (assistant conductor) felix brentano (stage director) elizabeth dooley (librettist) albert rivett (composer and conductor) albert smith (stage director) doris humphrey (stage director and choreographer) charles weidman (principal performer) a dance drama based on the life of edgar allan poe, with songs. produced by the cta. aided by the ditson fund. five performances. n) o 00 n c:: ~ z "' s:: c:: rn r; o r o o >< appendix b (cont.) season 19531954 date of performances april may (double bill) 1955march 1 1956 may work(s) performed the beggar's opera malady of love hello out there pantaloon collaborators john gay (librettist) j. c. pepusch (composer) willard rhodes (conductor) john rander (assistant conductor) felix brentano (stage director) lewis allen (librettist) lehman engel (composer) william saroyan (librettist) jack beeson (composer) willard rhodes (conductor) john kander (assistant conductor) felix brentano (stage director) rudolph thomas (conductor) john crosby (musical assistant) felix brentano (stage director) production information produced by cta and the opera workshop. five performances. world premiere. world premiere. both operas produced by the opera workshop in cooperation with the school of dramatic arts. aided by a grant from the ditson fund. four performances. the workshop in scenes from the repertory. in mcmillin theatre. bernard stambler (librettist) world premiere. based on a melodrama by robert ward (composer) leonid andreyev. performed at the juilliard rudolph thomas (conductor) school of music in a collaborative john crosby (assistant conductor) production. produced by the cta and the felix brentano (stage director) opera workshop of the columbia music thomas degaetani department. aided by the ditson fund and (stage assistant) the juilliard school. three performances. '> n ~ co t'j t'j en o z n) o <.0 appendix b (cont.) date of season performances work(s) performed 1956november the dreamt 19574 may panjilo and lauretta may 24 love is a game collaborators production information louis huber (conductor) a production combining the major part of john reich (stage director) shakespeare's midsummer night's dream oreste sergievsky (stage assistant) and the music to purcell's fairy queen. louise grifford (stage assistant) produced by the cta and the opera chester kallman (librettist) carlos chavez (composer) howard shanet (conductor) kurt saffir (musical assistant) walter baker (musical assistant) bill butler (stage director) marivaux (librettist) milton feist (translator) pierre petit (composer) rudolph thomas (conductor and stage director) john crosby (assistant conductor) felix brentano (stage director) workshop of the columbia music depart­ ment. five performances. world premiere. produced by the cta and the columbia music department. aided by the ditson fund. ten performances. first american performance of the one-act opera based on marivaux's play. followed by scenes from the repertory, all accompanied by piano. 4the opera workshop was discontinued after the season 1956-57. a grant from the ditson fund made possible a production of the sweet bye and bye by kenward elmslie (librettist) and jack beeson (composer) on november 21, 22, and 23, 1957, at the juilliard opera theater. nl >-' o n ~ ~ ~ s::: ~ cjl ,... ii o t< o c"l ><: appendix b (cont.) date of season performances work(s) performed 1957march the boor 19585 (double bill) gallantry collaborators john olon (librettist) dominick argento (composer) production information new york premiere. arnold sundgaard (librettist) world premiere. produced by the cta and douglas moore (composer) the columbia music department. aided emerson buckley (conductor) by the ditson fund and the recording kurt saffir (musical assistant) industries trust fund. five performances. j. o. scrymgeour (stage director) day tuttle (stage director) .. son april 10-11, 1959, columbia university, in cooperation with the university of illinois, presented the bewitched by harry partch, "a dance­ satire" with choreography by joyce trisler. the work was produced by tom degaetani in the juilliard concert hall and was aided by the ditson fund. ~ :» n ~ ~ t"i t"i en o z n:l ...... ...... do the findings of musicology help the performer? siegfried landau i imagine that the aim of musicology and of its relationship to performance is the achievement of an "authentic" presentation of a score. however, an "authentic" performance is not of necessity identical with a "successful" one. to assess the influence of musicological research on my own performances, i will first have to clarify the role of the performer and what constitutes a "successful" performance. i believe that the performer is the interpreter of the composer. the former must thoroughly understand the intentions of the latter in a re-creative blend of thought and intuition and then let his particular talent be the medium for these intentions. only in this way is a convincing performance possible. the composer, whether present himself or represented by musicological findings, must not look over the shoulder of the performer in an inhibiting manner. the success of the performance is measured by the extent to which the convictions of the performer are communicated to the public. the re-creative talent of the performer must be constantly stimulated, and few data regarding a score are ever irrelevant, since the performer responds both consciously and subconsciously to somewhat mysterious stimuli. it is here that musicological studies are indispensable. comparative studies of different editions, manuscripts, and sets of parts illuminate questions of thematic relationships, of phrasing, of expression marks. the performer wants to saturate himself with the ideas of the composer and understand fully the latter's objectives. the discovery of slight differences between the initial statement of a theme and its reappearance in the recapitulation, variants which a study of contemporary orchestral scores reveals as either erroneous or definitely desirable, is a very useful product of musicological research. drawing attention to the many sins of omission and writing errors due to excessive haste is most helpful, even necessary, to the performer. while these studies make the performer look more closely at the score, other studies, such as those which explore the performance practices of the composer's era, often make the performer more flexible with regard to indications in the music. occasionally, biographical studies may also help to clarify perplexing notations. let me illustrate how these musicological studies are utilized by the performer. as a conductor, i will discuss orchestral scores; let me begin with mozart's haffner serenade, k. 250. the original score is in the meisterarchiv in vienna. in addition, there is a later score in which the work is reduced from an eight-movement serenade to a five-movement symphony (not the haffner symphony, k. 385) by omitting the second, third, and fourth movements of the original. the source of this version, already used during mozart's lifetime, is the set of sixteen orchestral parts prepared by a copyist and housed today in the prussian state library in berlin. a comparison of the two 124 versions discloses discrepancies with regard to the violas, bassoons, oboes, and an optional timpani part. these parts contain indications in mozart's handwriting; musicologists therefore believe that they were once in mozart's own library. here the musicologists' findings have aided immensely in deciding which reading to choose, the earlier eight-movement score or the later fivemovement one with mozart's indications. of great help, too, are the many musicological studies of the performance practices of each period. for the performance of baroque masterpieces, such studies provide a wealth of information which permits one to understand the intent of the composer without committing oneself to a lifeless imitation of a style which functioned under different performing conditions. questions about the role of the cembalo, the size of the orchestra and chorus, figured bass, ornaments, and string phrasings are given answers which provide the musical imagination with basic stylistic criteria. to attain a stylistically "pure" performance seems to me neither possible nor even desirable, for, as nietzsche once said, "the really historical performance would talk to ghosts." however, one does learn the "sound" of each style and can decide such matters as which editions of handel's oratorios and operas to utilize, whether to accept the schmitt-lewicki additions to mozart's c minor mass, or how to select from the various endings and additions of the same composer's requiem. the performer must familiarize himself with the performance practices of the classic era, too, and thus he again seeks musicological guidance. the melodic nakedness of many an andante in mozart's concertos and the thinness of his accompaniments become clearer when we learn that these were just outlines which the artist considered a challenge to his improvisatory capabilities. here is another example from the classic era. some strange dynamic markings in beethoven's third piano concerto become clearer when one knows the properties of the piano for which it was written. there is a thundering piano solo in the development section of the first movement, starting with m. 210. the strings and woodwinds are directed to play softly against this, since beethoven was afraid that the strings would obscure the piano. the strings actually develop the main motive, however, and should be heard clearly. i thus take this orchestral marking with a large grain of salt because the modern grand piano has no difficulty being heard. the aesthetics of our time favor a historical consciousness and therefore condemn weingartner's reorchestrations of beethoven or the various attempts to "rescue" the schumann symphonies by conductors who believe that their own ideals of sonority should be superimposed on those of the composers, who, in their opinion, either orchestrated poorly or had instruments with limitations that no longer exist. i, however, like to hear an orchestral sound which reflects the old instrumental limitations, because every great composer has used such limitations creatively. an example in which the biographical research of musicologists has proven to be of immense help to the performer can be seen in beethoven's missa 125 solemnis. in the orchestral score, the quartet sings "pleni sunt co eli" at m. 84 in the sanctus and continues until the benedictus. the vocal score, however, shows the chorus starting at m. 84. in terms of orchestral texture and other considerations of balance and textual interpretation, one would think that the editor of the vocal score is correct. however, a passage in schindler's biography specifically quotes beethoven as having weighed the question of letting the chorus enter and rejected it in favor of the quartet. therefore, the indications of the orchestral score should be followed. the foregoing have been examples of the ways in which i have been aided in my musical interpretations by the broad scope of musicological research. yet, all this cultivates only the roots from which a good performance must grow. i am a composer myself and have worked with many other composers while i was preparing to conduct their works. i have discovered how many things they imagined to have put in their scores and how often they miscalculated intended effects. the creative spark remains hard to capture in print. but i do not see anything tragic in this fact. on the contrary, it is the mark of the gifted interpreter to read the signposts of a score and then to convey the intent. this gives a performance the subjective stamp which is the secret of a good performance. the audience can sense the conviction of a performance rooted in knowledge and projected by intuition. intuition is a much maligned word in an era of so-called objectivity, machines, metronomes, and precision. i insist on thorough preparation and sound scholarship, but only as a ritual of physical and mental immersion. the spiritual experience of the ritual is what the performer then brings to the performance from the well of his sensitivity to the composer's style, his love of and admiration for the score, and the conviction which rational comprehension gives to the execution of technical details. nothing takes the place of the intuitive welding of all assembled data supplied by musicology. c. p. e. bach said: "interpretation is nothing else but the capacity to make musical thoughts clear according to their true content and affection-whether one sings or plays." the true content of a piece is revealed by musicology, but the "affection" must be sensed by the performer. how often arnold schoenberg wrote at the start of a movement that "the metronome markings are not to be taken literally-they merely give a suggestion of tempo." and even stravinsky, who said that conductors should be like sergeants whose duty it is to make sure that every musician obeys the composer's indication, fluctuated considerably as an interpreter when i heard him conduct a score of his own at various times. that is not meant as criticism, but rather to point out that stravinsky as a composer and stravinsky as a performer did not share identical views. with the current interest in (often rightfully) forgotten romantic scores, i see a hunger for excitement during a performance in which letter and spirit are not identical, and where one inspires the other. in these romantic works much leeway is given to the performer. in fact, the "objective" approach to performance was in a large measure a reaction to the exaggerated 126 view of the virtuoso. however, this reaction has reached unreasonable proportions. an element of unpredictability must be left to the performers, in order that something "extra" can coalesce during the concert, once the technical details have been thoroughly assimilated. musicology takes care of these technical details for me; it clarifies them or at least poses them as questions to which interpretive answers can be given intelligently. then the performer in me can truly function, even though a critic might later disagree with some of my interpretive solutions to problematic spots. 127 frisch, walter. 2005. german modernism: music and the arts. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by karen painter frisch contra modernism long admired for judicious analysis steeped in history, from schoenbergian brahms to brahmsian schoenberg, walter frisch, in german modernism: music and the arts, topples a historiography in place for at least sixty years. chapters on ''ambivalent modernism" (parsifal) and "regressive modern­ ism" (pfitzner's palestrina) serve as bookends. reger receives twenty-three pages, schoenberg four-and those four on the works in a performance that set wassily kandinsky and franz marc aglow. the book traverses a half-century of early modernism, as frisch occasionally specifies, from 1870 to 1920. if the book's title overreaches, laying claim to the entire sweep of german modernism, one need only recall that at the time, the music of wagner and strauss, mahler and schreker, sparked debates over "modern" music, whereas schoenberg, webern, and berg fell by the wayside, receiving scant notice in the annals of history and more scorn than recognition from critics. all this would change, but only after world war i, when musical life became politicized and polarized, each camp with its own advocates. frisch has a different story, and one worth telling. periodization commands less attention in musicology than in history, except from carl dahlhaus, frisch's exemplar. while historians dispute the events that most decisively changed the course of human life, periodization in music remains tied to style categories that have fallen into disrepute. even without agreeing on a definition of modernism, we can recognize that more than nomenclature is at stake. joseph auner, quoted on the back cover, considers frisch's subject to be the transition between romanticism and modernism. many textbooks rely on this periodization. but iflate romanti­ cism extends to strauss and mahler, and modernism begins with atonality, then numerous innovations will be overlooked. some of the compositions frisch illuminates are absent from the standard music histories, still others subsumed into anachronistic style periods. he can be forgiven, therefore, if the canonic modernist composers from 1910 to 1960 appear, if at all, in a ritual listing of names. and however audacious the revisionism, frisch is hardly alone. 1 current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 261 262 current musicology as is inevitable with any impassioned study covering a broad swath of history, there are blind spots, even on frisch's terms. (strauss's symphonic poems, which blazed the path of modernism in the eyes of contempo­ raries, are barely mentioned.) yet far from a traditional survey, the book is de facto a study of influence-that of bach, but especially of wagner and die meistersinger. here, too, frisch is in good company. the leading book on contemporary german music before world war i, by walter niemann, was entitled die musik seit richard wagner (1913). frisch is interested in composers "revisiting and drawing materials from the past;' and his intima­ tion that historical influence was the chief trait of modernism (253) must be taken seriously. the importance of frisch's book lies as much in its method as in its content, which is mainly given over to case studies. german modernism evinces a commitment to sensible and sober analysis that is all too rare among interdisciplinary texts. musicology becomes the most catholic of disciplines in frisch's hands, faithful to the duties of analyst and aesthetician, yet calling upon other disciplines in good measure, especially the visual arts and literature, but also political and social history. frisch proceeds thematically, not chronologically, yet the historical logic is unassailable. after untangling the subject of nietzsche and wagner (chapter 1), frisch turns to naturalism, bearing down on works from 1903 to 1908 (chapter 2), then, in a tour de force, delves into music's influence on the visual arts (chapter 3). taking a few steps back, frisch then pursues a more conservative path, from bach's influence, 1895-1910 (chapter 4), to irony in thomas mann and mahler, 1901-06 (chapter 5), to conservative and "regressive" modernism in strauss and pfitzner, 1910-15 (chapter 6). the cancroid structure is emblematic of the undertaking, at once survey and tome, circling around the issues vital to our discipline. chapter 1 provides an excellent introduction to german modernism via nietzsche, surpassing any other known to this author. chapter 2, "ger­ man naturalism;' exemplifies the book's modi operandi. frisch examines wagnerian naturalism in its many diverse strands, eshewing any simple teleology. wagner remains progenitor, but a literary figure, arno holz, instead supplies the context for experiments in naturalism. a berlin realist of searing poignancy, holz coined several phrases for realist technique, and frisch's discussion of his writings has ramifications well beyond the operas discussed in this chapter. the choice of musical examples here is quirky, but nonetheless persuasive. following several introductory sections, including a superb account of declamatory naturalism, "german verismo" (section 4) is devoted to the swiss hans merian's response to italian verismo. eugen karen painter d'albert's tiefland also receives ample treatment, but frisch disassociates the work from german naturalism (section 5). max von schillings's mona lisa instantiates verismo, but only by way of its plot; its musical kinship is to wagner and strauss (section 6). the chapter culminates in a thoughtful discussion of schreker's der ferne klang (section 7) and strauss's salome and elektra (section 8); none of the three, frisch concedes, was historically associated with naturalism, but each is nonetheless "a better reflection of the naturalist agenda" than tiefland or mona lisa (76). if history and in­ terpretation clash swords, the endeavor only becomes more genuine as a result, exposing the limits of interdisciplinary scholarship. cultural context can inform interpretation-and frisch exercises utmost prudence in this re­ gard-but should not determine the analytic course or hermeneutic practice. the result, at best, is a subjective process, forsaking rigor but remaining true to the insights and intuitions of the analyst and listener. chapter 3, "convergences," examines an extension of the wagnerian legacy in which music transcends the rules of its craft. the term "conver­ gence" is borrowed from adorno, but without the philosophical baggage. for adorno, the arts converge when their aesthetic conditions resemble one another without any material influence (coloristic timbre or rhythmic brushstrokes) or thematic influence (visual representations of listening). nor can the convergence be intentional. impugning wagner's ambition to unify the arts, adorno cites kandinsky and schoenberg's mutual discovery of parallels in their respective paths to abstraction, though he remains leery of the metaphors each forged from the other's art. an art form must be true to its "immanent principle" is adorno's dictum. frisch, untroubled by the ambiguity in adorno's thinking, declares that austrian and german artists "strove towards convergence" in the period 1885 to 1915 (91). the ideal of convergence of the arts can be traced to 1800 or earlier; its early utopian strain, which frisch lays bare, provides a useful genealogy for wagner's gesamtkunstwerk and deserves more scrutiny in the period of high mod­ ernism.2 this chapter will enlighten art historians and musicologists alike, never mind that its tenacious study of music's influence on the visual arts inverts the book's charge of understanding music in the context of the other arts.3 the rich detail and purview allow the chapter to stand firm, largely independent of an otherwise solidly musicological study. copious analyses of klinger and kandinsky on either end enclose a far-ranging discussion of symbolism, jugendstil, and much else. the perspicacious reading of klinger's brahms fantasy supports frisch's credo that modernism drew from tradi­ tion more than scholars have acknowledged. among the chapter's gems is a discussion of kandinsky's visual sketch of a four-movement symphony, which, oddly, is more precise than his impressions of a concert from the same year, 1911. 263 264 current musicology in an about-face, chapter 4, on bach, is musical through and through. is there no parallel in the other arts to the historicism in music around 1900? the fascination with ancient greek art, including a renewed interest in winkelmann, during the very same time that composers and critics turned to bach, may be one cultural and aesthetic correlate.4 the popularity of wilhelm worringer's abstraction and empathy ([ 1907] 1997), part of which he expanded into formprobleme der gotik ([ 1911]1920), bears witness to a profound rethinking of earlier styles in the visual arts. abstraction in gothic, byzantine, and egyptian art resulted not from technical limitations or a primitive mindset, worringer maintained, but from weltanschauung-a "spiritual dread of space" (geistige raumscheu) and a desire for spiritual transcendence.5 the archaicism and rigor of bach's music, as frisch shows, empowered some composers to rise above the focus on "sensation" in modern life and art. the rhetoric of the day recalls the mozart revival that promised an escape from fin-de-siecle decadence; a comparison of the two movements might reveal a single cultural phenomenon behind the market­ ing of the respective composers.6 frisch's discerning observations on bach reception in the inaugural issues of die musik will serve a range of scholars, particularly as background for the journal's later missteps into reactionary and fascist ideologies. yet the abrupt shift from reception history and aes­ thetics to biography and musical analysis begs the question: if reger had a "neurotic obsession" with bach (173), then how do the musical politics of the bach revival shed light on his compositional practice? frisch's three reger analyses contain bracing insights into thematic borrowing and development, as only a brahmsian could deliver. yet the underlying presumption of a "historicist modernism" becomes murky. the organ suite, op. 16 (1894), frisch's starting point, is modern in its use of dissonance, estranging tone from technique. frisch adduces no modernism in the bach variations (1904), but one is tempted to speak of a postmodern gloss on the bach legacy, since all fourteen variations, excepting the theme and the concluding fugue, banish any hint of bach or a baroque idiom. once modernism became all the rage, reger fancied his piano concerto a "new path" more likely to succeed than others (including schoenberg's op. 11 piano pieces); he likened the work to brahms's d minor piano concerto "translated into modern terms." what makes this brahmsian con­ certo modern is that the compositional materials are mere shards of bach chorales-this during the very years that charles ives, across the atlantic, quoted fragments of american tunes. but frisch at once retreats, for reger's deep thematic interrelations are alien to an ivesian collage. (here, the oft­ noted similarity of mahler to ives would be more apt.) do these disparate qualities amount to modernism, or was historicism perhaps instead a counkaren painter termovement? the more fruitful comparison frisch makes is between reger and busoni, as cohorts and competitors. to paraphrase: reger absorbed bach's techniques into his compositional voice, while busoni juxtaposed '''real' bach and 'fantasy' bach" (182). some aesthetic questions fall by the wayside. how does this juxtaposition square with busoni's insistence on the "unity of music?"7 or, how does busoni's sketch of a new esthetic of music, which his contemporaries took as a manifesto for the twentieth century (as frisch mentions elsewhere), relate to his bach reception? chapter 5, "ironic germans:' rests solidly on geistesgeschichte. frisch probes thomas mann's use of irony as context for mahler, with a literary excursus that takes on a life of its own. buddenbrooks, but especially tristan and blood of the walsungs, parody the early modernist cultural ideology of music. mann's irony encompasses various literary devices. most relevant to mahler, it seems to me, are the narrator's shifting positions and detach­ ment. the enterprise is admittedly heuristic, not biographical. mahler had no appetite for contemporary literature, and, in any case, the three works by mann postdate most of the compositions frisch considers. the compari­ son is no less valuable for that, however, and mahler scholars, with their tendency to deploy simple cultural paradigms of identity or gender, would do well to seek literary models for his artistry. in frisch's magisterial treat­ ment, mahler's irony spans a range of aesthetic means and measures, from changes in dynamics to lurches in thematic syntax or tonal language. this line of interpretation, too, has an adornian pedigree, but the musicologist manfred angerer supplies the characterization of mahler's fragile connection to musical reality as an "as if" relationship. hans vaihinger's die philosophie des als ob (1911), which developed from his study of nietzsche, would serve frisch well in developing a historically informed analytic practice that ex­ tends beyond musicology.8 mahler used irony, frisch proposes, to establish distance from his musi­ cal past. the evidence is overwhelming in the fourth symphony, with the finale's sardonic text. if irony is also a determinant in the finale of the seventh symphony, which receives a briefer treatment, then it is only by virtue of the raw materials-thematic allusions to the meistersinger prelude and franz lehar's operetta the merry widow, with their blatant diatonicism. (mahler always programmed the symphony with wagner-except when it stood alone at the premiere in prague-and in amsterdam, to make the point clear, the meistersinger prelude preceded the seventh symphony.) but for mahler as for beethoven, as paul bekker stressed, symphonic process matters more than the actual themes (1918; [1921] 1969).1 would interpret the intent and execution of this movement somewhat differently from frisch. the formal process in the finale of the seventh symphony is 265 266 current musicology as gripping as in any mahler symphony, and hardly lacks sincerity. while the tone is alternately bombastic and parodic, the symphonic architecture breeds strength and veracity. in the first part of the movement, the thematic and harmonic resplendence seems unsustainable, even illusory. the rondo form proceeds apace, one section interrupting the next. (the schematic form for the first part, ending at m. 219, is unexceptional: a b a cab a b.) if ironic in effect, these disruptions also serve an earnest aesthetic purpose, recognized by mahler's contemporary paul ehlers: the movement is im­ mensely cohesive, despite its vast size and elaborate structure.9 the rondo form, a remnant of eighteenth-century wit more than nineteenth-century monumentalism, is gradually dismantled in the second part, as if the logic of enlightenment convention gives way to external forces. the form of the central section, ending at m. 433, might be sketched c dab a d c. sec­ tion d (mm. 249-68 and 368-401) evokes the turkish march in the finale of beethoven's ninth symphony, which is not without its own parodic tone: the lattice texture collapses, and the full energy of the orchestra with per­ cussion is channeled into a single line. the rondo form all but disappears in the final part of the finale. section d, with its carny momentum, takes the lead; schematically, the rondo proceeds as dad ca. the course of the movement gradually yields to a quotation from the first movement. a stock device in nineteenth-century symphonic literature, the brawny quotation resounds to great effect above a sinking chromatic line. no critic failed to notice the artistry and conviction of the thematic consummation, a beloved gesture of closure, be the symphony by mahler or bruckner. quite apart from the structural tension within the movement, which imparts an air of gravity, a purely ironic finale would be indecorous after the symphony's foreboding opening in a cold b minor featuring an obsidian tenor horn. if the finale's diatonicism is mediated by meistersinger, which is in turn mediated by mozart, as frisch proposes-what does it mean that mozart is evoked so sensuously in the preceding andante amoroso?lo the meistersinger quotations are unmistakable, but the art and craft of the music lie elsewhere. the finale refashions the same structural principle at work in the preceding movement: a refrain or ritornello, highly charged in affect (virtuoso sensuality in the fourth movement and symphonic pomposity in the finale), recurs some seven or eight times, as if defying the passage of time-perhaps a hope against hope that tradition will prevail. is mahler an ironic german, as the chapter's title declares? at times, art erased the borders between germany and the austro-hungarian empire. mahler composed german music, as did brahms, because he self-consciously chose the genres of symphony and lied, with their irrefutably german identity. yet early advocates, including zionists, also heard in mahler's music karen painter allusions and elements that they passionately held to be jewish, bohemian, or viennese. if, to playoff frisch, mann was born into a german lineage of irony going back to nietzsche and friedrich schlegel, mahler could only adopt it. or, if mann was at liberty to introduce ironic distance into his up­ per-bourgeois weltanschauung (or perhaps nurture a sense of detachment related to his ambivalent sexual orientation), mahler could not escape the disparities within his family background and career. the final chapter takes its title from nietzsche's image of "dancing in chains;' whereby artists become freer by imposing limits upon their work. frisch interrogates the "strongly retrospective forms and styles" of strauss in his collaborations with hofinannsthal and pfitzner. his most spectacular contribution is to uncover a wholesale parody of the act ii love duet from tristan und isolde at the opening of rosenkavalier, in the love scene between octavian and the marschallin. true to strauss's creative persona, in this ironic recasting, craft prevails over subtlety-from the "impatient" motif (isolde's anticipation of tristan's arrival) in the orchestral introduction to a wagnerian intensification which, strauss instructs, should be rendered "thoroughly parodically;' to the notorious harmonic orgasm with horn outbursts. frisch's study concludes with an opera disavowed by many germans of liberal persuasion, its manifest beauties notwithstanding. quite apart from pfitzner's efforts to collaborate with the nazis or the political symbol that his music became in the third reich, or even his rabid anti-semitism before 1933, palestrina springs from an ideology of tradition. pfitzner faced rebuke and parody for the politics of the plot itself (schoenberg portrayed pfitzner as a composer so inactive that he falls into snoring), but the score, too, often reflects an unmediated and unquestioning use of tradition and convention-whereas a composional ideal, from mahler to hindemith and beyond, has been to deploy tradition to one's own creative ends. 11 in an es­ say he would renounce soon thereafter, mann admired the "psychologically modern" in palestrina, particularly its "organic" connection to tradition or archaic styles. does this warrant frisch's classification of palestrina as modern, albeit a "regressive modernism?" the austere opening of the work is deftly captured by frisch's notion of a "second" or "as if" diatonicism, tinged with archaicism, but to my ears it is not modern. far from dancing in chains to become freer, pfitzner sought to tether germans, both listeners and composers, to the rules of tradition. it is not always evident what the analyst or historian gains by unifying such diverse idioms under the rubric of "modernism." but frisch's point is well taken as a corrective to the linear historiography of modernism from 267 268 current musicology schoenberg to stockhausen. any quibbles over the liberal use of the term "modern" finally remain just that, quibbles. frisch's book is many things, the least important of which is a history of german modernism. a survey of music and art over four decades that were fraught by polemics over "modernism" risks superficiality or incoherence, but frisch avoids both. his array of case studies answers to the charges of history and criticism, placing representative and popular pieces alongside acknowledged masterpieces. as a group, these compositions resonate powerfully with the themes frisch teases out of a rich historical fabric. his diversity in approach, woefully rare in musicology today, results in a few collisions between recep­ tion and analysis. if tief/and is mediocre, by frisch's verdict, why did it meet such public success? were early reviewers entirely misguided when they enjoyed the brilliance and craft in the finale of mahler's seventh symphony without noticing any irony? the book's limitations are also its strengths. frisch steers clear of fash­ ionable currents in austrian and german studies. his scrupulous attention to artistic and musical traditions at the expense of developments in ideol­ ogy is welcome and largely justified. yet is it not relevant that the original version of "blood of the walsungs" parodied yiddish dialogue-which mann's father-in-law persuaded him to suppress? anti-semitism, the most prevalent strain of modernist critique during the period under discussion, goes unmentioned. 12 the ironic distance in mahler's music (if not identi­ fied as such) led to aspersions of a cold and emotionless intellect. there are, however, many places to turn for literature on ideology in music, and frisch's study is none the poorer as a result. although reception sources are deployed to fine effect, the book is more a study of music than of responses thereto. frisch also proceeds without recourse to critical theory. the few exceptions may confound the generalist reader, who can otherwise easily follow frisch's lucid prose and argumentation. for instance, gerard genette, potentially a central figure in a book concerned with musical influence, appears first as a fleeting reference (the mere term "second degree" [185]), and later in a digression on hypertext and hypotext (201). as frisch moves nimbly through an awesome range of artistic move­ ments and creative artists, historical vignettes and musical works, the reader is guided at every turn, if occasionally the signposts are at cross-purposes. frisch introduces tief/and as "the greatest success of any german dramatic opera since wagner" and reports that, following the 1903 premiere, "it became one of the most frequently performed operas in the repertoires of hamburg, vienna, and berlin." yet pages later, to segue into a discussion of salome, he speculates that "the german public by 1903 was ready for something more sophisticated and colorful" than tief/and. these moments, karen painter however, are the natural by-product of a book that courageously unites the methodologies of history and aesthetics. half tutor and half provocateur, frisch sets clear objectives in the repertoire under survey, instructing the novice and equipping the scholar to pose new questions. students and schol­ ars alike will turn to this book in their exploration of modernism, and, on some subjects, it will remain the definitive and final voice. but more than that, frisch cultivates a methodology and exemplifies a practice for a field crippled by an enthusiasm for cultural studies and ideology to the exclusion of musical analysis. unlike some histories of twentieth -century music, there is nothing extraneous in frisch's narrative. the writing is sometimes dra­ matic and powerful, other times eminently serviceable, but always without a shred of pretension or ornament. if academics are taken aback by some of the sharply-profiled prose (the finale of mahler's seventh symphony sounds like "wagner-on-steroids," 212), then far more non-academics will be drawn into a world from which humanities professors, regrettably, have often barred them. notes 1. the most sustained attack on modernism can be found in taruskin (2005). alex ross's forthcoming book seeks to undo the antimonies embedded in historiography since the late nineteenth century, arguing instead for a continuum from traditionalists to modernists. 2. rousseau (2000) links artistic convergence with the discourses surrounding evolution and degeneration. i am grateful to anne leonard for this citation. 3. in this regard, see also leonard (2003). 4. see siinderhauf (2004). 5. abstraction and empathy became a manifesto for german expressionists and surrealists, and it is in this context that frisch mentions worringer (108). 6. frisch does not address mozart, nor does leon botstein, in his parallel examination of mozart, address bach. see botstein (1991). 7. frisch allows anthony beaumont to pose and answer the question, but the curt response does little to allay one's curiosity. aesthetic inquiry dissolves into musicological biography. see beaumont (1985:161-63). 8. hans vaihinger has been all but ignored in the musicological literature, an exception being grund (1997). vaihinger has been the subject of several recent studies in german. the only adaptation in english is wolf (1951). 9. ehlers (1908) was one of the few early critics to come out against mahler's seventh sym­ phony. his review resorted to anti-semitic rhetoric, and as michael kater has shown, ehlers became active in the kampfbund fur deutsche kultur during the third reich and contributed to the national socialist ideological literature on music (kater 1997:16). 10. elsa bienenfeld, in her 1909 review of mahler's seventh symphony for the neues wiener journal, wrote, "this f-major piece is the spitting image of mahler's reverence for mozart. in hardly any of today's compositions is the style of a past era revived so vividly and peculiarly as in this delicate piece. even mahler can make music speak of the sweetest bliss." translation in painter and varwig (2002:326). 269 270 current musicology 11. schoenberg's "pfitzner (three acts of "the revenge of palestrina")" was sketched for the society for private musical performances. a copy is located in the arnold schonberg center in vienna. 12. neither does frisch address the nazi collaborations or reception of various figures who figure into his discussions. felix draeseke, for example, would be celebrated by the third reich in roeder (1935). references beaumont, anthony. 1985. busoni the composer. london: faber & faber. bekker, paul. 1918. sinfonie von beethoven bis mahler. berlin: schuster & loffler. ---. [1921)1969. gustav mahlers sinfonien, tutzing: hans schneider. botstein, leon. 1991. aesthetics and ideology in the fin-de-siecle mozart revival. current musicology 51: 5-25. ehlers, paul. 1908. review of the munich premiere of mahler's seventh symphony. der sammler l31 (october 29): 8. grund, cynthia m. 1997. fictionalism: a neglected context for studies in musical significa­ tion. contemporary music review 16: 41-50. kater, michael h. 1997. the twisted muse: musicians and their music in the third reich. oxford and new york: oxford university press. leonard, anne. 2003. picturing listening in the late nineteenth century. phd dissertation, harvard university. niemann, walter, 19l3. die musik seit richard wagner. berlin: schuster & loffler. painter, karen and bettina varwig. 2002. mahler's german-language critics. in mahler and his world, edited by karen painter, 267-378. princeton, nj: princeton university press. roeder, erich. 1935. felix draeseke als judengegner. die musik 28: 425-27. ross, alex. forthcoming. the rest is noise: listening in the twentieth century. new york: farrar, straus, and giroux. rousseau, pascal. 2000. confusion des sens: le debat evolutionniste sur la synesthesie dans les debuts de l'abstraction en france. les cahiers du musee national d'art moderne 74: 4-33. siinderhauf, esther sophia. 2004. griechensehnsucht und kulturkritik: die deutsche rezeption von winkelmanns antikenideal, 1840-1945. berlin: akademie. taruskin, richard. 2005. the oxford history of western music, vols. 4-5. oxford and new york: oxford university press. vaihinger, hans. 1911. die philosopie des als ob. system der theoretischen, praktischen und religiosen fiktionen der menschheit auf grund eines idealistischen positivism us. berlin: reuther & reichard. wolf, heinrich franz. 1951. philosophy for the common man. new york: philosophical library. worringer, wilhelm. [1907)1997. abstraction and empathy: a contribution to the psychology of style. translated by michael bullock. chicago: ivan r. dee. ---. [1911) 1920. formprobleme der gotik. munich: r. piper. current.musicology.79-80.245-292.pdf timothy d. taylor. strange sounds: music, technology, and culture. new york: routledge, 2001. x, 278 pp. reviewed by albin j zak iii strange sounds is among the growing literature concerned with the inter­ face of technology and musical practice, reception, and use (referred to in this book, as in many others, as "production" and "consumption").1 more specifically, the author is concerned with the ways "that digital technology shapes the three areas that have historically been so affected by technol­ ogy: music production, storage/distribution, and consumption" (is), with a particular focus on the latter two. the ability to capture sound as digital information is, of course, an outgrowth of analog sound recording, and is thus only the latest chapter in a history of technological evolution that has both shaped and been shaped by the forces of musical culture. the field of potential inquiry for such a project is vast, and from the complex of relevant topics taylor takes up a subset focusing on "agency" and "ideolo­ gies of technology" (9), with the aim of probing the social dimensions of the music/ technology interface. what emerges is a somewhat idiosyncratic investigation that draws attention to several unlikely historical and aes­ thetic connections. there are, for example, two chapters devoted to so-called "space-age pop" of the 19s0s which, though a fascinating and in scholarly circles un­ der-reported topic, would seem to have little connection to digital music technology. or so it appears from the technological and the musical evi­ dence. but the author is after something else here. the inclusion of space­ age pop-one of the more unlikely pop music revivals of the 1990s-along with the relatively obscure techno artists banco de gaia and muslimgauze, and the goa/psychedelic trance music and dance scene in new york city bespeaks an interest in the margins of popular culture.2 in addition to its influence on modes of music making and use, digital technology has facili­ tated the formation of a virtual internet community where like-minded listeners, perhaps few in number and widely dispersed, are drawn together through a digitized sharing of music and information. through such things as mp3s, internet newsgroups, and web sites-which taylor uses as sources­ those at the margins may acquire a sense of community; as he puts it, digital connectivity helps "fans to find each other" (114). it's not digital technology per se, then, that is at issue here, but rather digital technology as a current representation of the human/machine interaction central to musical experience in the west for at least a century. in the author's refleccurrent musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 160 current musicology tions on digital technology's influence on the way we hear, make, and share music, as well as how technology is, in turn, affected by the ways we use it, a view emerges of technology "as fundamentally and profoundly social" (206) . the book is in three parts, entitled "theory," "time," and "space." the first of these introduces the topics to be explored, briefly summarizes some "theories of consumption," and takes on "the problem of agency in existing theories of technology and society" (15). taylor argues that nei­ ther the top-down characterization of consumption, "mainly associated with max horkheimer and theodor adorno of the frankfurt school" (22), nor its antipode, the bottom-up formulation associated with the so-called bir­ mingham school, accurately depicts the ways in which people behave as consumers. the former describes a scenario where "so-called culture in­ dustries promulgate their products on a public that accepts them unques­ tioningly," whereas the latter takes the view "that people make their mean­ ings out of mass-produced and mass-mediated cultural forms" (22). in fact, says taylor, either of these is liable to happen. they coexist as alternate possibilities in an overall dynamic that moves in both directions simulta­ neously. the technological corollaries to these consumption theories are "tech­ nological determinism, in which technology is assumed to transform its users directly," and "voluntarism," which views "technology [as] a tool that people use, nothing more, and is thus essentially neutral" (26). again, taylor finds "both positions are overtotalized and falsely binarized" (37). seeking a more realistic view of "technology as nei1:her voluntaristic nor deterministic but as caught up in a complex, fluid, variable dynamic of each" (30), he posits something of a "practice theory" that emphasizes particularity of situation and circumstance. for "some sociotechnical sys­ tems are more deterministic than others" while "some provide for more voluntarism than others .... [i] ndividual subjects and subjects-as-agents are always important, though never central, just as structures [technology in this case] that act on them are always important but never central" (37). there is a wide range of experiences to be found in the ways that people interact with technology, "based on social class, age, geographical loca­ tion, gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, ethnicity, cultural capital, and so on" (37). taylor insists that to accurately reflect the complexity of the process, theoretical formulations must take into account such variabil­ ity and acknowledge that "any music technology ... both acts on its users and is continually acted on by them ... in a never-ending process" (38). the second part of the book takes a look at the 19)os via french musique concrete and american space-age pop. "if in france," taylor writes, "there was, by and large, optimism over technology in the postwar era, spending albin]. zak 161 some time examining american ambivalence and anxiety over technology in the same era provides a useful comparison" (72). if such a contrast seems curious, taylor makes the unlikely connection through the resur­ gent popularity among some techno artists and fans (especially in france and england) of musique concrete composer pierre henry on the one hand and space-age pop-or, more generally, "exotica"-on the other.3 examples include metamorphose, the 1997 remix album of henry's messe pour le temps present (1967) with contributions from several well-known techno produc­ ers, and the band stereolab, whose main composer, tim gane, has often expressed an affinity for exotica. there is also some discussion of the renewed interest in so-called "vin­ tage gear," older-style sound generators and sound processing devices. strangely, there is little here about sound per se, emphasizing instead the issue of control. older, analog technology is preferred by some musicians, we are told, "in part because these older instruments have fewer auto­ mated features than today's instruments and thus allow musicians a greater degree of control" (97). and later: "the sophisticated digital hardware, and software that can replace some hardware, have caused some musi­ cians to worry about what is happening to their control over their own sounds" (llo). this assertion is supported with statements by brian eno and robert moog concerning not "sounds" but user interfaces. the result­ ing fallacy of the argument is a symptom of the book's priorities: though the topic is ostensibly sound and music, pride of place is given to cultural theory, which receives far more detailed and thoughtful discussion through­ out the book. what taylor characterizes as eno's "growing doubts" about musical technology are concerns voiced over the design of a new recording con­ sole. (taylor tells us only that eno is writing about "some extremely ad­ vanced studio technology.") eno's specific complaint is not with its sound, but with what he calls the "endless options" it presents to the user. the problem, then, is not too little, but too much control; wielding it, sorting through all the choices it makes available, is burdensome (eno 1999). when it comes to "sounds," eno has been one of the great proponents and prac­ titioners of digital sound programming on the yamaha dx-7 precisely be­ cause of the control it allows. as he told an interviewer in 1985, "at the moment my favourite synthesizer is a yamaha dx7 ... i've become very interested in programming it because it allows you to create different har­ monic series quite precisely" (jensen 1985). similarly, the main attraction of the moog synthesizer-its sound-is not discussed. instead, the com­ ments attributed to moog make the point that "the older equipment in­ vites a physicality, and offers a tactility that are pleasurable and unavailable with most newer instruments having buttons instead of knobs" (llo-ll). 162 current musicology indeed, user interface design has been a subject of much discussion. and the user interface may in fact affect sound in some way as it steers a user towards what is most easily or efficiently accomplished. this idea, however, is not explored. conflating sound, sound manipulation, and user inter­ face obscures both the nuances of the topic and the issue of agency that taylor repeatedly claims as a primary focus. finally, in the book's third section the author probes some of the is­ sues raised by the "increased availability and dissemination of digitized sounds" (12). this is a particularly interesting section in its probing of apparent paradoxes wrought by the increasing integration of technologi­ cal and musical practices. on the one hand, for example, "digital technol­ ogy ... makes home music making possible as never ibefore." this, in turn, allows musicians who so desire to "produce their music largely apart from more social and public realms." yet in the form of goal psychedelic trance music and other types of dance scenes, the mechanized groove is the basis for "bringing people together in new communities" (13). similarly, while digital technology has made it extremely easy to decontextualize musical sounds, to remove them from their original cultural place and moment, it also fosters the possibility that the sounds will attract greater attention and acquire a new cultural status. that is, as digital technology connects the globe, obscuring or erasing context in one big technological conflation, it may also amplify the local. as such, the small, the intimate, and the un­ usual may take on a disproportionate size and weight of presence on the global stage. * * * when the stated project is to surf the margins of culture and report what one finds, it may seem pointless to criticize the shape of the wave. still, i am left with reservations about conclusions reached through a lens as nar­ rowly focused as taylor's. while i have no quarrel with limiting the discus­ sion of a larger phenomenon to a specific subset of issues, i do find it curious from a historical standpoint that the book is framed as it is, espe­ cially considering taylor's stated concern for "history as it shapes peoples' real lives" (9). the music at the heart of his discussion is one genre or another of electronic dance music. and whatever else the various styles and "little cultures" associated with this music claim to be, they all belong in one way or another to the vast and complex culture of post-world war ii pop music.4 yet the section of the book devoted to historical anteced­ ents in the 1950s focuses on the "art music" (as taylor terms it) practices of musique concrete and elektronische musik, and the easy listening of space­ age pop. no mention is made of the rock and roll records of the 1950s that both fused technological and musical practices and deeply influenced the sound consciousness of a broad public. as i shall discuss later in more detail, the rock records of the 1950s laid aesthetic and practical founda­ tions for music making, reception, and use that have influenced the devel­ opment of both music and technology ever since. taylor's "interest in the agency of everyday people and their use of everyday technologies" (15), and his interest in pop music, would seem to indicate at least an encounter with the most "everyday" of 1950s music. in defending his "rather eclectic group of musics," taylor admits "to being fascinated by many of these sounds on the fringes" (8). that's well and good, and promises a fun and illuminating ride. but then he goes on to say: i would argue that the strange, the relatively unheard, often affords greater insights into the largest issues i want to examine-agency, ideologies of technology, pro and con-than does other music. it is not that the mainstream offers no avenue to understanding people and their music in a particular place and time. but the odd-the marginal-can often tell us more, for the margins have much to say about the centers that those in the centers might not be aware of. (8-9) probing the lesser known aspects and figures of musical cultures is a project that happily is becoming widespread among musicologists. but asserting that the marginal can "tell us more" seems an overstatement of a personal preference. for one thing, the mainstream-represented, for the sake of argument, by the records on the billboard charts-is not a faceless mass. it is composed of individual participants (musicians, listeners, record buy­ ers, producers, dancers, a&r people, djs, and so forth), a great many of whom are in themselves marginal. furthermore, it's not as if these catego­ ries are autonomous; interactions between music representing the main­ stream and music representing the margins make for a dialogue that af­ fects both. when junior vasquez collaborates with john mellencamp (mr. happy go lucky, 1996), the result is something that neither the artists nor their fans can predict. the process is volatile. also, the marginal may enter the mainstream at any time-the unexpected rise of grunge from small clubs in seattle comes to mind. or the mainstream may recede to the margins-as with, say, hair-metal. the point is simply that there is an all­ encompassing dynamic at work; the "margins" and the "mainstream" are not fixed categories and the fluidity of the situation, the porousness of the boundaries, requires a broad frame in order to make even a rough sketch of the cultural picture. it is the interaction of cultural activities at all levels 164 current musicology and of all sorts-raymond williams's "complex unity" (1977:139-40)­ that provides the pulse for the cultural organism. taylor himself argues for a more nuanced view with regard to technological determinism/ voluntarism and also in his use of the term "glocalization," which "emphasize[s] the extent to which the local and the global are no longer distinct-indeed, never were-but are inextricably intertwined, with one infiltrating and implicating the other" (120). i am left feeling like i would have a better grasp of the "largest issues" the author wishes to engage if he took a similar, more realistic view of the workings of the pop mainstream/ margins relationship. most of this criticism is aimed at the book's second section, "time," which contains three chapters devoted to matters of historical precursors. it begins with a chapter called "postwar music and the technoscientific imaginary," which, after reminding us of the widespread 1950s hype about technological marvels ranging from atomic energy to "kitchen gadgets," outlines the history of the elektronische musik/musique concrete debate in france. taylor is particularly interested in the ways in which these musics manifested "anxieties about signification, and the place-and placement­ of this new music in the histories of music past and future" (66). placing some of pierre boulez's famous doctrinaire outbursts alongside statements by fellow french composer pierre schaeffer, taylor paints a picture of an "aesthetic-discursive war" (55), "a deadly binary stmggle" (58) between aesthetic stances that he summarizes with claude levi-strauss's formula­ tion ofbricolage (musique concrete) versus science (elehtronische musik): "the bricoleur works in signs, the scientist with concepts" (58). he boils the debate down to a difference in attitudes toward signification and composi­ tional control, extending the binary to include contemporary formulations of oral/literate and primitive/modern. in something of a stretch, taylor also likens the debate to the nineteenth-century aesthetic split between proponents of program music and absolute music: one last note on the historical underpinnings of this battle over the issue of signification. there is clearly a residue of older debates about musical meaning resonating in the rheto:rical war between the musique concrete composers and the elektronische musik composers. their disagreement essentially recapitulated-·or continued-a nineteenth-century battle between richard wagner and his proponents and composers whom they thought were not grounding their music in the real truths of poetry and drama. wagner's side was the side of "program music," that is, instmmental music with an explicit story or meaning; the other side rallied around the idea of "absolute music," instrumen1:al music thought albin j. zak 165 to be without any such story or extramusical meaning. the main figure on this side was johannes brahms, championed by the most influential critic of the day, the viennese eduard hanslick, who had written in on the beautiful in music that the only meaning in music is its form: "forms moved in sounding are the sole and single content and object of music." although he and richard wagner were often at odds, and though wagner's stature still remains high, hanslick's opinion is the one that has been dominant since, though it undergoes periodic attack, or what is seen as an attack, which is how composers in german [sic] viewed musique concrete. (54)5 this is a difficult piece oflogic to follow, especially as it comes on the heels of quotes from schaeffer about training listeners "to focus on timbral quali­ ties of sound only, while attempting to ignore the origins of the sounds; the listener was expected to isolate and focus on an objet sonore, a 'sound object'" (54). surely such a plea argues for a stripping away of "residual signification" (50) , hopefully rendering the sound material as supposedly neutral in association as that created from scratch by elektronische musik composers. the composer of musique concrete flirted with programmatic associations, but far from embracing them he hoped that listeners could be trained to ignore them. the fact that both sides were indulging them­ selves in wishful thinking need not distract us from the point, which is that both schaeffer and boulez had in common a modernist's distaste for audi­ ences' interpretations of their music; ideally, composers would exert as much control over reception as over their materials. further, taylor mis­ represents hanslick by suggesting a vast oversimplification of what is in fact a carefully argued defense of the complexity of the musical experi­ ence. by invoking a complex history in such a cursory way, he leaves the reader to wonder what the point is of raising it in the first place. a contrasting aesthetic is presented in the discussion of pierre henry, characterized as a composer "relegated to the margins of the canon of twentieth-century music, since ... the hegemonic discourses and practices valorized organization and the abstract" (60). on the other hand, henry's concern for "expressivity" and "communication" make him a more likely candidate than schaeffer for arguing a link between musique concrete and techno. "many techno musicians," taylor writes, seek forbears as a way of grounding themselves in a legitimate tradition, and so the rise of "electronica" musics in the last few years has also prompted a renewed interest in henry and some of the other early electronic composers ... contemporary musicians have cultivated interest in henry's 166 current musicology (and other older electronic) musics for a variety of reasons, reasons that would be difficult to theorize adequately under the rubric of some kind of postmodern nostalgia or a pure aesthetic appreciation. instead, it seems as though today's djs and remixers seek out these earlier musics as a way of attempting, in part, to discover a musical past for themselves, or to join a preexisting tradition, effectively resuscitating a residual tradition (in raymond williams's conceptualization) of which they can be the contemporary heirs. by actively linking themselves to a particular tradition or portion thereof and selecting heroes and forbears, contemporary popular musicians are able to construct an alternative history of popular music-not a history that begins with the blues and wends its way through r&b, elvis presley, chuck berry, bob dylan, the beatles, the rolling stones, bruce springsteen, and others, but a tradition that has roots in studio experimentation, and perhaps even the romantic notion of the un (der) appreciated solitary genius. this history, however, usually omits the mrican-american and gay musicians who are more demonstrably the real precursors of techno music, for it is mainly being championed by heterosexual suburban white men. for them, a lineage going back to the european avant-garde is more compelling than a more historically accurate one that traces their music to mrican americans and gays. as such, these latter groups are almost wholly exscripted as techno is championed as an intellectual music to be listened to, not danced to. (66-67) these assertions are supported with a few citations from techno websites making mention of henry and a few french and british newspaper ar­ ticles referring to him as a "grandfather" or "father" of techno musicians. but one has to wonder at the generality of the claims. if they are true of some of "today's djs and remixers," they are clearly not true of a great many others. who, then, are we talking about? if the answer is "hetero­ sexual suburban white men" who invoke the name of pierre henry, then a follow-up question is surely in order: why be so selective, or, perhaps bet­ ter, why place the emphasis here? exploring even a little of the question posed by the title of the book's first chapter-"will the revolution be digi­ tized?"-must lead us further afield than this. and without going very far, we find ourselves among musicians and fans of multiple races, genders, and sexual orientations. taylor acknowledges as much, which makes the argument somewhat baffling. if the point is that "many techno musicians seek forbears as a way of grounding themselves in a legitimate tradition" albin j. zak 167 (66), why limit the discussion to a "tradition" that is peripheral to most pop fans' (and artists are fans, too) experience? is this a case of the mar­ ginal telling us more about the center than the center itself can convey? or is it the distortion of a prism skewing the story in a desired direction? yes, some techno artists count pierre henry as at least an ideological or spiritual forbear, an exotic "art music" uncle. (this may, of course, be as much a matter of image construction as musical affinity.) what these re­ cordists have in common with henry is the medium of sound recording and a similar attitude toward "communication." to this extent, the con­ ceptual connection is clear; but the evidence of specific musical connec­ tions points just as clearly in another direction. for virtually all of the be­ wildering array of musics that fall under the "electronica" umbrella owe their groove to a pop lineage whose aesthetic foundations can also be traced to the 1950s. like the composers/technicians of musique concrete, the early record­ ists of rock and roll used technology to make musical works in unfamiliar ways. but unlike the abstraction of musique concrete, and perhaps more sub­ versively, rock and roll embraced conventional music making even as it transformed it. rock and roll distinguished itself from the musics it bor­ rowed from-r&b, country, jazz, gospel, pop-in its acceptance of the recording medium as a central element not simply of distribution, but of artistic identity. unlike their precursors, rock and roll records did not sim­ ply insinuate technology into musical composition and performance. rather, in their often rude commingling of music and technology they proudly fore grounded their own artifice. if technological manipulation in music recording had previously been like the machinations of the wizard behind the curtain, here was a brash new music that flung the curtain open, challenging sonic conventions just as it did social ones. further­ more, advances in recording technology offered musicians a strange, yet tempting new possibility for making music. the practice of overdubbing allowed a musician to self-accompany, to create a virtual ensemble from multiple passes of the same piece of tape. though for many the whole idea ran counter to a cherished notion of authentic musical performance and was viewed as a gimmick or a sham, the practice caught on and came to be commonplace. the "one-man-band"-or small group-aspect of techno is a vestige of the work done by les paul early on (1951), followed by the likes of paul mccartney (1970), todd rundgren (1972), stevie wonder (1972), and prince (1980), each of whom has used technology to turn themselves into a "band." working with drum machines, synthesizers, sequencers, and samplers became a widespread practice in the 1980s. in the pop mainstream a new, machine-friendly genre known as synth-pop emerged in the u.k. bearing 168 current musicology the influences of disco, rap, and-though few at the time would admit it­ progressive rock. in both their sounds and their grooves, synth-pop musi­ cians in groups of two or three took increasing advantage of the revolution in digital technology as it became ever more feasible to have a "band" that consisted mostly of machines.6 two-person groups like eurhythmics, yaz, and tears for fears went to the top of the charts. and as howardjones proved in an impressive run of solo success, even just one person with a handful of synths could not only make hit records but provide a live stage show as well. contemporaneously, at the margins, a music its creators called "techno" was developing a distinctive presence through recordings released by independent musicians working in and around detroit. again, the music was made by individuals and small groups working with machinery. ac­ knowledging its stylistic roots, one oftechno's founders, derrick may, char­ acterized the music as "george clinton and kraftwerk stuck in an eleva­ tor" (savage 1993). electronica records in general, and certainly the ones that taylor discusses, all partake of this pop music legacy. of course, in attempting to carve out their own cultural place, artists may define them­ selves in terms that minimize the influences of immediate forbears. ap­ pealing to an older, more "mythical" influence is a common rhetorical gambit among artists of all sorts. and that appeal is instructive as to the artists' aesthetic stances and the rhetoric of identity construction. but the "music itself'-and in the case of records, the sounds themselves-offers its own compelling evidence, which must be factored into any interpreta­ tion of artists' statements. the following chapter, "men, machines, and music in the space-age 1950s," briefly traces the rise of "commodity scientism" (76) in postwar america/ with an eye out for the "anxiety and ambivalence" (72) that attended the public's fascination with new technologies of all sorts. as the discussion moves to music, the technological marvells at issue are hi-fi ste­ reo and the lp record. space-age pop featured sophisticated musical ar­ rangements, often for full orchestra, that were recorded, mixed, and mar­ keted so as to highlight the sonic prowess of the home hi-fi system. the records that taylor cites all make programmatic reference to modern tech­ nology in some way, as evinced in their album art, track titles, and liner notes. the music, however, is scripted composition that relies on a much older technology: musical notation. indeed, les baxter, one of the promi­ nent composer/arrangers ofthe genre, refers to himself as a composer of "concert music."8 bobby christian's strings for a space age (1959) features cover art that depicts a rocket blasting off, yet contains string arrange­ ments of "out of nowhere," "how high the moon," and "autumn in new york." the occasional appearance of a theremin or the overlay of some echo or reverb effect is an addition to the timbral palette, but the aim of albin j. zak 169 the sonic representation is high fidelity. thus, space-age pop's claim to a technological aura-that is the infusion, rather than the overlay, of a tech­ nological ethos-is apparent not so much in the music but in the sophisti­ cated recording and mixing techniques that sought to maximize the trans­ parency of the listening experience available on the home hi-fi. here again, rock and roll records represent a far more radical sonic rhetoric with no pretense of aural transparency whatsoever. a great many of them, whether intentionally or because of limited resources or techni­ cal ineptness, are the epitome of lo-fi. and their primary medium of dis­ semination, am radio, played its own part in a listening experience that completely distorted acoustic reality. as the sound gained widespread ac­ ceptance, its influence on listeners became evident in a gradual redefini­ tion of standards of audio quality. a "good" sound came to be understood as one that was somehow distinctive in itself, rather than an accurate rep­ resentation of some acoustic ideal. think, for example, of the distorted guitar on the rolling stones' "(i can't get no) satisfaction" (1965), the phased and filtered vocals that open queen's "bohemian rhapsody" (1975), or the crushing drums of peter gabriel's "the intruder" (1980). each of these takes a general timbral type and shapes it in a quite specific way. making a pop record came to involve the crafting of a unique sonic world, an aim that remains fundamental-and especially so for electronica. as a project in iconography, this chapter is quite interesting. taylor presents evidence of "anxiety and ambivalence" toward the brave new world in the form of album cover art juxtaposing images of space-age technology and "beautiful women . . . always exotic, always threatening, and always tempting" (93). the gendered iconic rhetoric that equates men with tech­ nology and (often barely clad) women with space or the atom bomb is an instructive window into part of the social matrix of america in the 1950s. likewise the identification of men with "complex hi-fi technology" (80). but the 1950s technology that would seem more germane to taylor's study is the portable radio and the 45-rpm single. neither of these were identi­ fied primarily with men or women. they were the province and the libera­ tion of teenagers. if fidelity was low and the sound mono, the sense of empowerment was great for a generation of adolescents who had the money to pay for the music they liked and the technologies enabling musical mobility, which insulated their listening habits from adult control. with such devices as car radios and portable record players, young people shaped their own musical worlds in their rooms, their cars, their parties. insofar as taylor seeks to probe sources and causes of anxiety and ambivalence about technology, the social tumult associated with rock and roll-from racial integration of the pop airwaves to the growing generation gap-would seem to be a fruitful place to look. 170 current musicology in the last of the three chapters in this second section, entitled "technostalgia," speculation turns to the reasons for exotica's resurgent popularity. taylor finds fans' attraction to the genre voiced in tenus of the "anthropological project" of collecting rare recordings, in terms of youth rebellion (since for today's young generation mainstream rock represents their parents' music), and in an appreciation of the music's sophisticated arrangements. but there's another dime'nsion to the resurgence, i think, one that points to yet another vestige of the rock and roll legacy, namely, the aesthetic of the absurd. rock and roll is infused with an absurdity-a reveling in the irrational and the meaningless-whose power to annoy the status quo is neatly exemplified in the famous frank sinatra diatribe in which he characterized rock and roll as ... the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious fonn of expression it has been my displeasure to hear ... it fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people. it smells phony and false. it is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiterations of sly, lewd­ in plain fact dirty-lyrics ... it manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face ofthe earth.9 to try to imagine what sounds might have elicited sinatra's vitriol we might think of the distorted racket of elvis presley's "hound dog" (1956); the hysterical melodrama of screamin' jay hawkins's "i put a spell on you" (1956); the baby-talk vocal and the trashy guitar solo of buddy holly's "peggy sue"(1957), not to mention the comical, wait-for-it harmonic shift in the bridge; or the pitiable yet catchy tale of teenage heartbreak that is leslie gore's "it's my party" (1963). each of these more or less canonic tracks derives a certain portion of its charm and lasting importance as an exem­ plar of the pop aesthetic from its embrace of an absurdity encompassing music, words, and sounds. with rock and roll, the absurd moves out of the confines of the novelty song to effect a reordering of what constitutes ra­ tionality. the meaningless, the incongruous, and thejust-plain-stupid burst forth with unprecedented force in the "mass infantilism and bad taste that was early rock and roll" (early 1995:25). it dismayed adults, but the sense of recklessness and bold abandon such behavior embodied became a touch­ stone for pop music thereafter. the rock critic lester bangs probably would have agreed with sinatra, in a way, but for bangs the music's supposed faults were in fact its strength. in an epiphany over the count five's psy­ chotic reaction (1966), he once wrote that "grossness [is] the truest crite­ rion for rock and roll, the cruder the clang and grind the more fun and longer listened-to" the record would be (bangs 1987:10). exotica was not albin j. zak 17 1 aimed at teenagers, but its rapid fade from a modest popularity was due in large part to what was viewed as a sort of b-movie bad taste. and this is precisely why it has once again found a following. it took some decades for a pop audience to work through various authenticity/identity scenarios and come finally to the point of such informational "plenitude" (mccracken 1997) that some would seek freshness wherever they might find it. but when they were ready, listeners for whom the musically absurd is merely another aspect of a multivalent aesthetic-that is, pop fans-found the cheesy charm of exotica waiting for them. exotica's revival is in some ways reminiscent of the growing fascina­ tion with the producer joe meek and the continuing influence of phil spector. joe meek was an english recording engineer and producer who made records in his apartment often using novel recording techniques and home-made sound processing devices. he, too, had a thing for space, and in 1962 he wrote and produced an instrumental track inspired by the launch of tel star, the experimental at&t communications satellite. played by meek's house band at the time, the tornados, whose lineup was aug­ mented by meek's partner geoff goddard on clavioline, "telstar" is a scrumptious piece of pop absurdity that became a worldwide hit. it reached #1 in both england and the u.s. the track begins and ends withelectroni­ cally manipulated sounds meant to evoke the static of extraterrestrial com­ munication. in between is a kitsch anthem with its own special beauty, a song of optimistic celebration uttered in the unearthly voice of the clavioline. for his part, spector, in track after track that he called "little symphonies for the kids," developed a conception of recorded sound whose textural substance was wholly dependent on technological mediation. and though the arrangements are overstuffed and the lyrics repeatedly voice the vicissitudes of teenage romance (darlene love's "[today i met] the boy i'm gonna marry" or the crystals' "he hit me [it felt like a kiss]"), there is a slightly weird grandeur to the sound of the tracks that subsumes the corniness of it all in expressive gestures whose appeal has proven last­ ing. * * * among the ideas explored in the third, and strongest, section of strange sounds are global music trafficking, ownership, identity, ritual, and com­ munity as glimpsed in examples of music by enigma (michael cretu), banco de gaia (toby marks), muslimgauze (bryn jones) , and the goa/psyche­ delic trance scene in which the author did fieldwork. in "a riddle wrapped in a mystery" (chapter 6), taylor recounts the fascinating tale of michael cretu's sampling of a song performed by an ami (taiwan) couple named 172 current musicology kuo ¥lng-nan and kuo shin-chu. the song was called 'jubilant drinking song" and was included on a collection of recordings made at different times and places and released on cd by the ministere de la culture et de la francophonie/ alliance francaise as part of a collection called polyphonies vocales des aborigimes de taiwan. some pieces in the collection were recorded during a european tour (in which the kuos took part) co-sponsored by the french and taiwanese governments for which the musicians were paid fifteen dollars per day; others were field recordings made by a taiwanese ethnomusicologist. the resulting enigma track, "return to innocence"­ which uses the entire 'jubilant drinking song"-was a massive hit in both europe and the u.s., leading ultimately to a lawsuit by the original musi­ cians and a new recording by them incorporating-what else?-synthesiz­ ers and drum machines. mter the enigma track became a hit, the kuos went into a taipei studio and recorded an album's worth of material (in­ cluding the by now proven hit 'jubilant drinking song"), and then sent the tracks to the belgian producer dan lacksman for mixing and technofication. (lacksman is best known as the producer for the techno duo of eric mouquet and michel sanchez, who go by the name deep for­ est.) the resulting album, circle of life, became a hit in both taiwan and japan. taylor mines the messiness of this tale to comment on issues of musi­ cal ownership, western attitudes toward "the primitive," and the ways in which digital technology works not only to split "sonic signifiers from their signifieds and from their makers," but also to allow "the original makers of these musical signs [to find] ways of bringing them home" (135). one might also note the inadequacy of institutions and laws in the face of the global and instant music traffic that is now the norm. it appears that every­ thing involved with the making of "return to innocence" was done legally as far as cretu's part is concerned. his publishing company licensed the rights from the maison des cultures du monde for 30,000 francs, half of which was paid to the chinese folk arts foundation. (in this case, these two bodies are in effect "the record company," and as is common among record companies, seeing the monies distributed equitably has apparently been something less than a priority.) clearly, however, current laws, en­ forcing institutions, and even the ethics of cultural exchange are not equipped to deal with the competing interests of commerce, art, and ide­ ology in a world where music in material form travels rapidly across the globe and turns up in places its original makers neither intended nor imag­ ined. the kuos' story is a classic example of how the music business-capi­ talism, for that matter-has always worked. those who manage to grasp power exercise it to their benefit until forced into more equitable dealalbin j. zak 173 ings. assuming that there is no criminal activity involved, power is wielded according to the rules of a game set forth in laws, protocols, and habits. digital connectivity adds more players-and sometimes in transnational dealings, contradictory rule-sets-to the game. in the midst of a complex and competitive cultural economy, there is little point in criticizing artists, as some have done, for exercising their imaginations through appropria­ tion. the english "bands" banco de gaia and muslimgauze also use samples of music taken from far afield. regarding banco de gaia, taylor specu­ lates that "it might be possible to interpret [toby marks's] use of [sampled] tibetan music as not unrelated to chinese treatment of tibet and tibet­ ans." but such an interpretation, which characterizes the work as an "im­ perial project" (153), would miss the point. artists are society's court jest­ ers, and they serve the function that jesters always have. at their best, they challenge everyone's cherished beliefs, icons, and attitudes. they expose formulations of authenticity and integrity as endlessly subjective, self-serv­ ing projects. they pierce assumptions; they undermine pretense; they call into question the very idea of taste and, as such, they have a place in a society's conscience. attempts to limit the scope of their challenge are ongoing-they are a fundamental concern, for instance, of most totalitar­ ian regimes; closer to home we had the parents' music resource center­ but they are always a bad idea. the job of attending to fair distribution of monies earned or the integrity and preservation of a particular musical tradition is the job not of artists, but of administrators, lawyers, accoun­ tants, politicians, scholars, and institutions. meanwhile, expect artists to behave as opportunists-sometimes naive, sometimes cynical, often (thank­ fully) incorrect, inconvenient, or incoherent. if it seems slightly nutty and quite cynical, as it does to me, for middle-class english musicians to con­ struct public images that incorporate, and in a sense trade on, far away political conflicts, well, so be it. the association of the solo members of banco de gaia and muslimgauze with tibetan and palestinian causes respectively-while at the same time obscuring their own actual identities-is but one aspect of the deep arti­ fice of this music. taylor points out that their use of samples not only splits signifier from signified, but may reconfigure the sense of a sound alto­ gether. removing samples from any affective context they may have had, treating them "as extremely aestheticized bits of sound (that is, snippets of sound for sound's sake)" (150), the artists use the sounds to create new affective contexts. toby marks, for instance, speaks of a technique whereby "you distort the sample to such an extent that it's not recognizable" (151). yet stripped of their associative function, the samples participate in mak­ ing new meanings. in a refreshingly ethnographic response to theories of postmodernism claiming the impossibility of "definitive hearing or inter174 current musicology pretation" due to the "fragmentary" and "depthless" nature of such un­ grounded artistic expression, taylor points to fans of the music: "for these fans, this music isn't necessarily postmodern in the jamesonian sense of depthlessness, or mere pastiche; they don't often hear the samples as decontextualized or aestheticized, but as things that contribute to the meaning and coherence of the songs" (157-58). indeed, in their new con­ text the sounds take on a new rhetorical identity. listeners, unaware of a prior source, assume that the sounds originate with the track at hand, for that is what their own experience tells them. thus, in a process that may repeat again and again, samples undergo a transformation from copy to "original." as the sound is cut loose from its origins, it assumes a new "ori­ gin" and takes its place in a new rhetorical scheme. in taylor's chapter on the goa/psychedelic trance "little culture" in new york (chapter 8), we move from the "postconcert and postsocial" (144) world of the solo studio composer to the communal "vibe" (17 4ff.) of the all-night dance party. challenging theories of youth subcultures that "seem to have been written without reference to what people are actually doing" (180), taylor frames the rave in terms of theories of religion and ritual borrowed from emile durkheim and victor turner. he notes that while his approach seems to run counter to views that commonly depict youth subcultures as clustering around expressions of resistance or opposition to a dominant culture, he is "not abandoning politics that have traditionally preoccupied youth subculture theorists" (181). rather, he is attempting to expand the analytical perspective to account for what he observes in the goa/psy trance experience: not resistance but communion, vibe. indeed, the "little culture" formulation itself "helps move beyond the deeply essen­ tialist assumptions of youth subculture theory" towards a view that "em­ phasizes the multiplicity and diversity" of cultural groups "that are rela­ tively whole in and of themselves," not simply rebellious subsets (179). digital technology plays a central part in the goa/psy trance little cul­ ture; its fans "have embraced technology" (191) even as they identify with age-old practices. in addition to connecting via the internet, they gather and move to the repetitive beat and melodic fragments supplied by synthe­ sizers, samplers, and drum machines. dancers-many seeking a height­ ened state of consciousness-join in a communal experience of exaltation termed "ecstasy" by turner, or "collective effervescence" by durkheim. music composed of digitized sounds and inscribed in digital media is the enabler of the transcendent vibe that engulfs the dancers in a state that is somehow felt to be "natural." thus technology-artifice-takes on an or­ ganic quality through the agency and beliefs of those embracing it. "goa/ psy trance people attempt to naturalize technology, turn it into something ancient and inevitable" (191). consider the rhetoric quoted from the liner albin j. zak 175 notes from a trance cd: the all-night dance ritual is a memory that runs deep within us all, a memory that takes us back to a time when people had respect for our great mother earth and each other. a time when we came together to dance as one tribe united in spirit, we understood the cycles of nature and the power of the elements. we danced around great fires, we chanted and we drummed, invoking the great spirit to empower ourselves and our community .... they worked hard to eradicate the memory of the dance ritual but it remained as a seed deep within us all, to emerge one day in a new age, the age of technology. (191) taylor is well on track in this chapter, i think. his report on the goa/psy trance scene argues against the kind of ambivalence toward "technology and music king" (173) expressed by writers such as charles keil and chris­ topher small, which insists that live music is essential for social interac­ tion. keil sees "what happens in recording studios as a classicizing, perfect­ ing, dream-world thing, and that takes it away from the dancers, which takes it away from the public space, the streets, clubs" (keil and feld 1994: 158). small, seemingly never very happy with recorded music, argues that the disc which can be held in the hand, is bought and sold like any other commodity and exists, at least potentially, permanently, is still, from the point of view of afro-american musicians and their audience, including the vast contemporary audience for rock and pop music, only a way of disseminating the performance more widely; ... for them it is disposable, to be thrown away when its usefulness is finished, to make room for new creations. (small 1998:244) for those who live with mechanized music, these comments have a hollow ring. many hip-hop and techno musicians have vast record collections, which form a kind of repository of cultural history that encompasses style, aesthetics, politics, and memory-in short, tradition. it is in this sense that public enemy's hank shocklee refers to his brother keith as "know[ingj records like an encyclopedia" (moon 1991 :70). the machine is what it has always been: an implement. as taylor notes, it only gains whatever value it has through the use people make of it. there is a symbiotic flow between human and machine that is felt by musician, listener, and dancer-some­ thing like taylor's rapprochement between technological determinism and 176 current musicology voluntarism. whether or not it's part of an intermediate stage on the way to what a recent book calls our post-human future, i don't know (fukuyama 2002). but as of now, the pleasure of the aesthetic experience, whether solitary or communal, is undiminished by the latest technology. whether the pulse beats to a drum or a drum machine, the human energy gener­ ated by desire, memory, imagination, and social interaction subsumes the circumstantial particulars. "technology, however awe inspiring and anxi­ ety producing it may seem to be upon its introduction into the realm of human social life, quickly becomes part of social life, naturalized into quo­ tidian normality as it helps people do things they have always done: com­ municate, create, labor, remember, experience pleasure, and, of course, make and listen to music" (206). many cultural theorists make an appearance in strange sounds, but it is the inclusion of fans' and musicians' perspectives that gives the book its sense of life. the recurring themes of process and agency bring into the picture a set of issues that mediate the theoretical by the actual, and often present a view more resonant with real world practices. one such case is taylor's take on "cultural democracy" (161). he rightly points out that the idea of technology as an enabler of a sort of cultural equal opportunity is best engaged with specific cases before us. what we see is the marked change both in techniques of music making-many obviating traditional ideas of musical skill-and in access to those techniques held out by the proliferation of low-cost technology driving a do-it-yourself ethic among dance/ electronica musicians. (the phenomenon, however, is certainly not limited to these genres.) the idea continues to grow that anyone, given the desire to, can make records. fans, too, are inv'lted to visit websites where they can remix artists' tracks from their own computers. and, of course, anyone with a playback device may choose the music for the mo­ ment, even rearrange the order of tracks on an album or make unique compilations of their favorites. taylor points out that the situation per­ sonifies jacques attali's formulation of "'composition,' in which people make their own music for their own reasons and pleasure" (162). this is one of digital music's more intriguing prospects. both recordists and lis­ teners have a power over their personal musical experiences that is un­ precedented to the point that the distinction between the two may be­ come quite blurred. in a dn world, we are forced to reexamine concepts of "artist" and "audience" that have held for at least five hundred years. 10 a similar idea was floated by glenn gould in a 1966 article for high fidelity in an essay that resonates with many of the topics in strange sounds: at the center of the technological debate, then, is a new kind of listener-a listener more participant in the musical experience. albin]. zak 177 the emergence of this mid-twentieth-century phenomenon is the greatest achievement of the record industry. for this listener is no longer passively analytical; he is an associate whose tastes, preferences, and inclinations even now alter peripherally the experiences to which he gives his attention, and upon whose fuller participation the future of the art of music waits. he is also, of course, a threat, a potential usurper of power, an uninvited guest at the banquet of the arts, one whose presence threatens the familiar hierarchical setting of the musical establishment. is it not, then, inopportune to venture that this participant public could emerge untutored from that servile posture with which it paid homage to the status structures of the concert world and, overnight, assume decision-making capacities which were specialists' concerns heretofore? the keyword here is "public." those experiences through which the listener encounters music electronically transmitted are not within the public domain. one serviceable axiom applicable to every experience in which electronic transmission is involved can be expressed in that paradox wherein the ability to obtain in theory an audience of unprecedented numbers obtains in fact a limitless number of private auditions. because of the circumstances this paradox defines, the listener is able to indulge preferences and, through the electronic modifications with which he endows the listening experience, impose his own personality upon the work. as he does so, he transforms that work, and his relation to it, from an artistic to an environmental experience .... . . . it is my view that in the electronic age the art of music will become much more viably a part of our lives, much less an ornament to them, and that it will consequently change them much more profoundly. if these changes are profound enough, we may eventually be compelled to redefine the terminology with which we express our thoughts about art. indeed, it may become increasingly inappropriate to apply to a description of environmental situations the word "art" itself-a word that, however venerable and honored, is necessarily replete with imprecise, if not in fact obsolete, connotations. in the best of all possible worlds, art would be unnecessary. its offer of restorative, placative therapy would go begging a patient. the professional specialization involved in its making would be presumption. the generalities of its applicability would be an affront. the audience would be the artist and their life would be 178 current musicology art. (gould 1984:347, 353) these thoughts undoubtedly struck many at the time as strange. and per­ haps they still do. but along the byways of the digital world explored in strange sounds, the wheels of gould's vision are already in motion. under headphones, in their own private worlds of musical sound, listeners con­ trol what they hear and when they hear it. on desktop computers around the world, music is created and distributed completely outside the influ­ ence or control of mainstream media outlets. a current mp3 player (the "madplayer" from mad waves) offers not only hours of music storage, but a built-in music construction set of beats and loops, as well as a micro­ phone input for vocals; if no pre-recorded music quite suits the listener's mood, they have the means to create something themselves. technology continues both to influence habits of musical use and to empower users to assert their musical individuality. in the process, aesthetic criteria and con­ ceptual formulations of music's place in culture are being reconfigured. stay tuned. notes l. see, for example, born (1995), eisenberg (1987),jones (1992), kahn and whitehead (1992), theberge (1997), and zak (2001). 2. such stylistic designations as "techno" and "trance" refer to more or less distinct musical styles and scenes. there is, however, much overlap among them in musical and technological resources, in compositional techniques, and in modes of audience identification/participation. the general ternl "electronica" is often used to refer to the overall complex of electronic dance music. my terminology mirrors taylor's usage. 3. in addition to space and technology, exotica-also known as "lounge mu­ sic"-includes a range of kitschy evocations of far-off lands and cultures. 4. "little culture" is a term borrowed from grant mccracken, who makes several appearances in the course of strange sounds. it refers to "cultures that are relatively whole in and of themselves" (13). 5. throughout this argument, the position of "german" composers is, for the most part, represented by boulez. 6. the digital marvels of the early 1980s include the ned synclavier, the fairlight, and the emulator samplers; the lexicon 224 digital reverb simulator and the lexicon pcm 42 digital delay; the linn-drum and oberheim dmx drum machines; and the yamaha dx-7 synthesizer, the affordable price of which made fm synthesis available on a mass-market scale. 7. taylor borrows this term from smith (1982). 8. for baxter's repeated references to this, including comments on his music out of the moon album (which taylor cites), see baxter (1995). 9. this version of the quote was taken from http://www.sammydavisjr.com/ pages/read/ode/ode3.htm gune 16, 2003]. albin j. zak 179 10. "diy" (do-it-yourself) is a rallying acronym for independent musicians working outside the major record label mainstream. references bangs, lester. 1987. psychotic reactions and carburetor dung. new york: alfred a. knopf. baxter, les. 1995. interview with james call and peter huestis, palm springs, ca­ lif., january 24. club velvet. http://www.tamboo.com/baxter/baxinterview/ index.html uune 16, 2003]. born, georgina. 1995. rationalizing culture: ircam, boulez, and the institutionaliza­ tion of the musical avant-garde. berkeley: university of california press. early, gerald. 1995. one nation under a groove: motown and american culture. hopewell, nj.: the ecco press. eisenberg, evan. 1987. the recording angel: explorations in phonography. new york: mcgraw-hill. eno, brian. 1999. the revenge of the intuitive. wired 7/1 qanuary). http:// www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.01/eno_pr.html uune 16, 2003]. fukuyama, francis. 2002. our posthuman future: consequences of the biotechnology revolution. new york: farrar, straus & giroux. gould, glenn. 1984. the prospects of recording. in the glenn gould reader, ed­ ited by tim page, 331-53. new york: knopf. jensen, alan. 1985. the sound of silence: a thursday afternoon with brian eno. http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/ uune 16, 2003]. originally appeared in electronics & music maker (december 1985): n.p. jones, steve. 1992. rock formation: music, technology, and mass communication. newbury park, calif.: sage publications. kahn, douglas, and gregory whitehead, eds. 1992. wireless imagination: sound, radio, and the avant-garde. cambridge, mass.: mit press. keil, charles, and steven feld. 1994. music grooves: essays and dialogues. chicago: university of chicago press. mccracken, grant. 1997. plenitude. toronto: periph.: fluide. moon, tom. 1991. public enemy's bomb squad. musician (october): 69-72. savage,jon. 1993. machine soul: a history of techno. village voice quly 20): "rock & roll quarterly" insert, 18-21. small, christopher. 1998. music of the common tongue: survival and celebration in african american music. hanover, n.h.: university press of new england/ wesleyan university press. smith, michael l. 1982. selling the moon: the u.s. manned space program and the triumph of commodity scientism. in the culture of consumption: critical essays in american history, 1880-1980, edited by richard wightman fox and t. ]. jackson lears, 175-209. new york: pantheon. theberge, paul. 1997. any sound you can imagine: making music/consuming tech­ nology. hanover, n.h.: university press of new england/wesleyan university press. williams, raymond. 1977. marxism and literature. oxford: oxford university press. zak, albin]., iii. 2001. the poetics of rock: cutting tracks, making records. berkeley: university of california press. 180 current musicology discography (labels of original release) christian, bobby. 1959. strings for a space age. audio fidelity 5959. count five. 1966. psychotic reaction. double shot 1001. crystals. 1962 "he hit me (it felt like a kiss)." philles 10!5. gabriel, peter. 1980 "the intruder." on peter gabriel. geffen 2035. gore, leslie. 1963 "it's my party." on i'll cry if i want to. mercury sr 60805. hawkins, screamin' jay. 1956. "i put a spell on you." okeh 7072. holly, buddy. 1957. "peggy sue." coral 61885. love, darlene. 1963. "(today i met) the boy i'm gonna marry." philles 111. mccartney, paul. 1970. mccartney. apple stao-33-63. mellencamp,john. 1996. mr. happy go lucky. mercury 314 532 896-2. paul, les, and mary ford. 1951. "how high the moon." capitol 1451. presley, elvis. 1956. "hound dog." rca 47-6604. prince. 1980. dirty mind. warner brothers 3478. queen. 1975. "bohemian rhapsody." on a night at the op.'j'y'a. elektra 7e 1053. rolling stones. 1965. "(i can't get no) satisfaction." on out of our heads. london ps 429. rundgren, todd. 1972. something/anything? bearsville 2bx 2066. tornados. 1963. "telstar." on telstar: the sounds of the tornados. london ll-3279. wonder, stevie. 1972. tal,king book. motown 319. • peter kivy. new essays on musical understanding. oxford: oxford university press, 2001. x, 236 pp. lawrence kramer. musical meaning: toward a critical history. berkeley: university of california press, 2002. ix, 335 pp. reviewed by lydia goehr it is not obvious that one would choose to read these two new essay collec­ tions together, although their titles are similar. but it is useful to do so. both are notable for their author's display of wit, musicianship, and deep commitment to writing seriously about music. both show the current in­ terests of the field. yet, radically opposed in method and style, each serves to illuminate the strengths and weaknesses of the other. both are offered as unapologetic demonstrations of their methods. peter kivy is one of the most significant figures in the field of the analytic philosophy of music; lawrence kramer is a major contributor to the postmodern discourse of new musicology. kivy is a self-proclaimed purist about music; kramer wants to account also for music's being socially conditioned. kivy's brevity, clar­ ity, and use of explicit argument contrast with kramer's length, indirec­ tion, and sometimes obscure style; kramer's richness and hermeneutical complexity contrast with kivy's sometimes historically-spare account. both, however, share a certain modesty, because, whereas kivy seems not to want to assert that there is anything too new in his new essays, so kramer seems content to move only "toward" a critical history. what is "new," kivy tells us, is, first, that most of his essays haven't been published before and, second, if they have, then at least that this book constitutes a new collection of his essays written since 1993. these are the features kivy uses to bind his "self-contained," "diverse," and mutually "in­ consistent" essays together, even if, as he adds, they all contribute to his own overall "coherent" philosophy of music. but a worked out philosophy of music is less what he gives us than a collection of exploratory and revi­ sionary essays on topics about which he says he still has not finally made up his mind. the section titles he uses to divide the eleven essays similarly do current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 154 current musicology little to produce a whole that is more than the sum of its parts: "some history (and its aftermath)"; "music and the emotions (yet again)"; and "more about music." these titles in turn reflect the strikingly self-effacing quality of the essays themselves: strong conclusions withdrawn and modi­ fied, or asides and qualifications offered in the spirit ofthis book's being part of an ongoing project or discussion with others in the field. of course, one wouldn't expect kivy's tentativeness to entirely mask his more usual sharp and sometimes even angry arguments against his opponents-it doesn't. but in this collection, unlike in the many other books he has writ­ ten, the atmosphere of tentativeness pervades. however, despite his own disclaimers, kivy does treat both usual and unusual topics in the philosophy of music with often novel and smart argu­ ments. essay 1 describes the role of early (medieval) notation in shaping the work-concept (about which i'll say more in a moment); essay 2 treats arthur schopenhauer's philosophy of music, interestingly read as looking back to former, eighteenth-century representational theories of music's meaning and forward to romantic theories of music's liberational powers. his third essay looks at the apparent inconsistency between eduard hanslick's formalist aesthetic theory and his anti-formalist music criticism. the fourth offers a clever, though unsympathetic, explanation of why the languages of serialism and minimalism are (apparently) too difficult or banal for listeners to listen to: serialism, he argues, (unsucessfully) "chal­ lenged" music's linguistic code and minimalism (unsuccessfully) "broke" music's "prescriptive code." part 2 offers revisions and extensions of kivy's deservedly well-known work on musical emotion and expression (e.g., 1989). part 3 comprises an uncharitable attack on "new musicology"; a dismissive essay on music and political or social movements; a positive re­ sponse to jerrold levinson's music in the moment (199'7), with its account of architechtonic listening; and a modest proposal, conltra nelson goodman (1968), defending the ontological possibility of forging a musical work. most of kramer's essays are also new (9 of the 12), yet in his words they continue a project already largely worked out. still, this project does move toward a more interesting sense of the "new"--the "new" of "new musicology"-a "critical" project based on retheorizing practice with the aim to replace "old" or atrophied methods and discourses. in his music as cultural practice (1990), he says that he employed the lilotion of"symboliza­ tion" to demonstrate how music did not need to be translated into, be­ cause it already was, a well-formed communicative discourse. in classical music and postmodern knowledge (1995), he investigated how classical musi­ cal forms "condensed" narrative and depictive forms of subjectivity. in this collection, kramer focuses on "ambiguity," specifically, the lack of strict determination of musical meaning, to show how music can situate itself lydia goehr 155 and be situated in all kinds of ways in our world of concrete human affairs. it is most closely an existential notion of "ambiguity," in which musical meaning is constituted (both as autonomous and as socially determined) through the many roles and modes of expression music comes to assume. kramer maintains that a thick description of music's situatedness will make explicit (or bring to voice) aspects of musical practice that have been repressed by dominant discourse(s). for this reason, he claims that his writing contains a politics. however, it's a politics positioned entirely at the level of discourse and retheorizing. so positioned, the question arises as to whether such a description of music's place in the world, as a mirror of the self's place, suffices to meet the implied critical demand for the renegotia­ tion of that place. describing how musical forms mirror and mediate modes of subjectivity is one thing. whether it suffices to sustain a politics of the new, or to account adequately for the dynamics of social change, is an­ other. what one might ask for here is less a devotion to discourse per se than a devoted account of social practice. another critical question arises whether such retheorizing can avoid becoming, in its own political certi­ tude, just a substitute of that which it seeks to replace. new musicology, like any other method, can become old very fast. no method is immune. kramer's approach is hermeneutic and existential, descriptive and interpretative, literary, musical, and philosophical. his figures include schubert, schumann, shakespeare, and shostakovich; george eliot, brecht, coltrane, and the marx brothers. his concepts include identity, subjectiv­ ity, gender, autonomy, alienation, mourning, and memory. he treats high and low art and entertainment, unified and fragmented identity, aesthetic transcendence and social determination. however, it is almost impossible to state the conclusion of anyone of kramer's essays without making it look as if one has reduced his entire argument to a platitude. for he offers less linear arguments than juxtapositions of increasingly fragmented para­ graphs, dealing with many different kinds of material, which he splices together in a most impressive manner. unfortunately, i have to add that the manner, especially of quotation, is sometimes also rather overwhelm­ ing, making it difficult for the reader to grasp the pattern. still, suffice it to recommend his fourth essay, "franz liszt and the virtuoso public sphere: sight and sound in the rise of mass entertainment," and his tenth essay, "long ride in a slow machine: the alienation effect from weill to shostakovich," with the proviso that this recommendation largely reflects my own interests. i think it fair to say that, in kramer's book, there is some­ thing for everyone. yet one can identify an overriding methodological aim to overcome much of the rigidly dichotomous nature of traditional (romantic/mod­ ern) musical discourse by reconsidering concepts, say, of the musical, 156 current musicology extramusical, form, and expression. with this aim, eivy might have some sympathy. but whereas kramer aims to overcome the rigidity by liberating the historicity and fluidity of these concepts, kivy prefers rather to recom­ mend something like a pluralism of positions (in the spirit, he says, of his new tolerance). you be an emotivist, i'll be a formalist; you listen this way, i'll listen that way. here kivy isn't always convincing, especially when he opts for this pluralism more as a gesture of tolerance or resignation than really condoning the contrary or different position. one might compare his more tolerant essay "auditor's emotions: contention, concession, com­ promise" with his less tolerant "absolute music and the new musicology," for kramer, on the other hand, the retheorizing of concepts, while aimed admirably at loosening up rigid thinking, also runs the risk of reaffirming it. as i mentioned above, in critical theory one always has to be conscious of the risk that one's retheorizing will end up losing its own critical edge, such that it will end up being as ideologically rigid or dichotomous as the theory it seeks to replace. kivy and kramer both give priority to the late eighteenth century, a time when music removed itself or was removed by society into an autono­ mous and increasingly isolated sphere of cultural practice. this was the moment, as the story goes, when the concept of a musical work fully emerged, when much more attention was paid to music's form than its content, when priority was given to purely instrumental music over music with words. at this moment, the question of how music means became urgent (cf. kramer, p. 2). however, whereas kramer devotes his attention to the period that came after 1800 in order partially to deconstruct that bit of the claim regarding music's autonomy that rendered music too isolated, kivy paradoxically defends this isolation by focusing on the period prior to 1800. kivy is and always has been committed to the eighteenth century, a commitment that inflects almost every argument he presents. that it does so, however, sometimes strains, more than it decides, the issue, for what he always seems to want to do is show that what can be said about musical practice after 1800 can also be said about it before. in kivy's view, there are clear advantages to this strategy. first, it will yield a more or less perma­ nent ontology for the entirety of (classical) music's history; second, it will validate philosophically the music he admires most. the argument, however, is not that easy to make. consider kivy's open­ ing essay "note-for-note, performance and early noltation," where he in­ tends to disentangle the conceptual confusions that are associated with the claim that the work-concept realized its full character around 1800. against the musicologist leo treitler, he argues that by looking carefully at the condition of repeatability in relation to the "early history" of nota­ tion (medieval), one should argue not for the absence but rather for the lydia goehr 157 presence of the work-concept. but how, kivy wonders, should one best describe this early presence if one also wants to maintain, as he does, that something conceptually decisive happened only later in the eighteenth century? he tentatively suggests the following: let's not so much think of this early stage as having works distinct from performances but as being in a "proto-work/performance stage" (5). proponents ofthe so-called "1800 thesis" might grant kivy this suggestion if they could make sense of proto­ ontology. but they might also not mind, in some sense, if they could not. for what trietler demonstrates so well, as kivy's own very nice remarks on repeatability do too, is that one can say much about the relation of nota­ tion to performance without invoking a work-concept at all. think of the repeatability that occurs in ordinary language use where no such concept need be invoked. why then add the extra proto-ontological baggage? i think the burden still remains with kivy to show what, if anything, his weak ontological proposal adds to the historical, or even indeed to his larger ontological, account. both books focus on music as a mirror or model of the activities of the private and singular self. neither pays much attention to the social prac­ tice of music-making as a communal activity, even if kramer is concerned with the intersubjective, communicative side of the self. this focus seems appropriate for books in which the private, authorial selves are strikingly present. kivy often speaks of how he constitutes himself as a listening self; kramer speaks of himself also as a compositional self. kramer offers us a cd of one of his compositions, revenants, a set of 32 variations. i lack the expertise to judge the piece in compositional terms, but i was struck by the discordance of form between the piece and his postmodern essay. for al­ though they both follow the principle of variation, the former struck my ear as having just the sort of calm, expressive and unifying voice that his postmodern essay deliberately lacks. this is intentional, kramer suggests, insofar as his ("unoriginal") piece is meant to evoke the ghosts of a (ro­ mantic) past that, he says, postmodernist theory should not ignore. "un­ original music," kramer writes to conclude his final essay, "is one resource by which ... the living may discover their capacity to live on in the present­ only differently" (287). kivy, i think, would be suspicious of this resource: "the reason popular music is popular is that it is 'easy listening'. the rea­ son classical music is not is that it requires, at least for its full, rich effect, knowing stuff' (215). yet kramer shows there's nothing (socially) easy about ease; all musics, he would likely say, are "stuffed" with meaning. despite the difference of judgment, however, the two authors still find common ground in their shared determination to find "the good life" through their chosen musics. is8 current musicology references goodman, nelson. 1968. languages of art: an approach to the theory of symbols. indianapolis: bobbs-merrill. kivy, peter. 1989. sound and sentiment: an essay on the musical emotions. philadel­ phia: temple university press. kramer, lawrence. 1990. music as cultural practice, 1800--1900. berkeley: univer­ sity of california press. ___ . 1995. classical music and postmodern knowledge. berkeley: university of california press. levinson,jerrold. 1997. music in the moment. ithaca, n.y: cornell university press. earl hines and "rosetta" by jeffrey taylor one of the proudest moments of earl "fatha" hines's career took place in 1976, when he was invited to perform at a white house dinner in honor of the president of france. mter an evening chatting with betty ford and clint eastwood, hines sat down at the piano in the east room and launched into "rosetta." "rosetta" had been composed by hines and his arranger henri woode over forty years earlier. that the pianist chose this tune for such an occa­ sion, and at this late stage of his career, says much about its prominence in his life. only "boogie woogie on the st. louis blues" held the same pride of place in hines's performances. he revisited "rosetta" hundreds of times, in solo performances, with vocalists, and with groups of varying sizes. but though the association of a jazz musician with a "signature" tune is not unusual, hines's relationship with "rosetta" was complex and unique. on october 6, 1939, at the end of a lengthy band session for the bluebird label, hines recorded four solo versions of "rosetta."l only the third take was issued at the time, coupled with hines's solo version of "glad rag doll," recorded ten years earlier. the first two (rejected) takes are presumed lost, but the fourth was included many years later on an lp reissue by rca-france.2 the two available performances, placed side by side, capture hines's relentless virtuosity and innovative musical mind, and provide a fascinating example of how a jazz musician can revisit the same melody and chord structure from two perspectives. but the record­ ings also raise larger issues of context, for they are closely linked both to the tune's creation and subsequent performance history and to hines's working life as one of the most gifted band pianists of his generation. in addition, hines's 1939 versions of the tune dramatically capture the ways in which he had, in less than a dozen years, revolutionized the very genre of the piano solo. the nature of the two solos also raises intriguing issues about the place of transcription in jazz research. much of my discussion here is rooted in a study of my own complete transcriptions ofthese recordings. 3 the incor­ poration of such scores into the study of jazz is now widely accepted in the scholarly community. yet, though the use of notated excerpts to illustrate specific analytical points is a familiar aspect of academic discourse, study of complete transcriptions raises additional issues. when one is confronted with the entire "text" of an improvised performance fixed neatly on the current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 78 current musicology page, it is difficult not to evaluate the score through the aesthetic lens of western art music. the issue is particularly conspicuous in piano tran­ scriptions, for they can appear deceptively clean. although the transcriber must wrestle with rhythms, chord voicings, and other issues, the notes on the keyboard are invariable; unlike other solo or ensemble transcriptions, the reader is not continually reminded of the inadequacies of western no­ tation to capture bends, growls, scoops, and other jazz techniques related to pitch and timbre. a complete piano transcription easily lends itself to structuralist interpretation, for it is tempting to evaluate the performance based on the integrity of its overall form: the use of effective contrast be­ tween strains or choruses, facility of modulation, pacing of important events, motivic development, and so on. yet, though western aesthetic standards are not wholly inappropriate for a pianist so steeped in the clas­ sical tradition as was hines, his artistry as a soloist must also be evaluated by different criteria. as i have written elsewhere (j. taylor 1992, 1998,2000), hines was a pianist who relished testing himself and his audience, a feature vividly cap­ tured by gunther schuller in his observation that "listening to hines is always like standing at the edge of a precipice in a heavy wind" (schuller 1989:284). though his solos seem at times to teeter near structural inco­ herence, this feature is not a symptom of an erratic musical mind nor an inexperienced performer but is rather the very essence of his improvi­ sational style. hines's brinkmanship posed substantial challenges for my role as transcriber, for rarely have i encountered a musical art more resist­ ant to being captured in notation. yet, the more time i spend with the highly artificial musical "texts" i have created, the more i am struck that the scholarly and ideological issues surrounding transcriptions may rest less with the process itself (the results of which, as most scholars agree, are highly subjective, pallid representations of the original recordings) and more, as both ingrid monson and paul berliner have suggested, with how the texts are used to make analytical and aesthetic observations about the improviser's art (monson 1996:133-91; berliner 1994:11-12). in this arti­ cle, therefore, i am suggesting that the "rosetta" transcriptions be used less as "complete works" for study and more as windows into the ways in which hines engages with and signifies upon the tune, its performing history, and his own musical artistry.4 when his work is viewed this way, these two tran­ scriptions provide a fascinating guide, however conjectural at times, to the moment-to-moment unfolding of a great musical imagination. "rosetta"'s story begins in 1932, when hines (1903-1983) met pianist and composer henri woode while on tour in kansas city. hines hired woode as an arranger, and he created several notable showpieces for jeffrey taylor 79 the pianist's band, including 1932's raucous "sensational mood." as hines recalled, "rosetta" was inspired by woode's girlfriend: he was crazy about a girl called rosetta. whenever i wanted him, or asked the guys where he was, they used to say, "he's with rosetta." finally i got a bit mad, and told him to have rosetta come where we were playing, and she could eat and drink and i'd pay for it. then he heard a little phrase i made one night on the piano, .and he worked it into a tune we wrote together. we dedicated it to her and called it "rosetta" and it became a big hit ... (dance 1977:76) the passage suggests that the tune represents a kind of signirying on hines's improvisational style. as for the nature of the phrase that caught woode's ear, it may be the drooping fourth in mm. 2-3 and 4-5 of the tune's a section-one of the melody's most distinctive features (see exam­ ple 1 for the complete melody line and accompanying harmony). this idea surfaces occasionally in other improvisations of the same time, where its "open" sound complements the horn-like conception of hines's right hand. it is hinted at near the end of the second eight-bar phrase in hines's solo on "sensational mood," and more overtly referenced in the third chorus of 1932's "down among the sheltering palms" (take 1) (ex. 2).5 (in this and other examples, where noted, i have transposed from the original key to f to facilitate comparison with "rosetta"'s original melody line.) in addition to the descending fourth motive, the passage also sug­ gests the repeated "a" in the fifth and sixth measures of hines's tune. the gesture also plays a prominent role in other melodies that hines wrote or co-wrote, including "a monday date" (1928), ''you can depend on me" (1932), "straight to love" (1941), and "am i too late?" (1947), inviting speculation that these tunes also grew out of improvisations. the tune was submitted for copyright on february 3, 1933. ten days later, hines's band made four takes of it for the brunswick label, in an arrangement by saxophonist cecil irwin. two of the takes featured an armstrong-style vocal by trumpeter walter fuller, who was so delighted with the success of the number that he later named his daughter rosetta (dance 1977:168). hines's group recorded the tune again in november of 1934, in a somewhat updated (and faster) arrangement by bassist quinn wilson. in 1935 the tune was formally published by joe davis, inc. in a piano/vocal version, with an undistinguished verse that is rarely if ever played, and the tune began to enter the country's band repertory. by 1942, it had been featured on twenty-two recordings by other performers (crawford and magee 1992:60-61). all but six of these are instrumentals, a result, perhaps, of rather clumsy lyrics. most likely because of the tune's 80 current musicology example 1: "rosetta." words and music by earl hines and henri woode © 1933, 1935 (renewed) morley music co. this arrangement © 2002 morley music co. all rights reserved. f d7 g7 f e7 r r i j rta) r r i .j ,j j i " 17 am e7 am dm7(,5) c g7 c , ~j j j i~r r r i'" i'v 1° r r if oj oj i'" i c7 i'r t ~ j i 25 f c+7 f d7 g7 c7 f ,& r ( i'v r r ij j; i) r r i j j j ij j j i ii i ,1 ----example 2: earl hines, "down among the sheltering palms" (july 14,1932), a3 (i.e., third chorus), mm. 13-16. transposed from ak 8va _________ _ -,----------------------, association with hines, thirteen of these recordings feature pianists in prominent roles. and, significantly, six feature the artists most responsible for shaping the art of the piano solo during the 1930s-art tatum and teddy wilson. indeed, besides gershwin's "liza," "rosetta" is the only tune both tatum and wilson recorded as soloists prior to 1942. by the time he made his first solo recordings of "rosetta" in 1939, the tune was a cherished friend. trombonist trummy young, who joined the hines group not long after the first band recording was made, once re­ marked that "earl liked that tune so much we used to play it two or three times a night sometimes. he just fell in love with the tune" (dance 1980:40). but though hines clearly had emotional attachments to the jeffrey taylor 81 piece, like other musicians he must have also been drawn to its wide range of possibilities. beyond the distinctive sighing fourth figure in the melodic line, musical details ofthe tune show superb craftsmanship (ex. 1). cast in the familiar 32-bar aaba form, harmony, melody, and rhythm work to­ gether to create drive to the end of each eight-bar phrase. the first four measures are made notable by the shifting of harmony under a single pitch: in measure 2, under a held c in the melody, the harmony shifts from tonic to dominant with a raised fifth. the inspiration for this effect may have come from victor herbert's "indian summer" (1919), a tune hines returned to frequently in later years (dance 1977). the first three bars enrich the f tonality with tension, rather than creating harmonic mo­ tion. in the last five bars of each a section, however, both harmonic and melodic rhythm increase in speed. the harmony, beginning with the d7 chord, moves through a series of secondary dominants until the tonic is again reached at measure 7. the idea of shifting harmonies under a single pitch (the a in mm. 5-6) is continued throughout this passage, with the melody line featuring diminutions in the rhythmic pattern. this tension between melody and harmony is underscored by quinn wilson in his 1934 arrangement, in which the brass punch out a new chord at the beginning of each measure. the bridge modulates to the minor iii (a minor), a distinctive move, though not unheard of (a similar key change occurs in "i never knew" of 1925 and "more than you know" of 1929, among other examples). recordings suggest that the melody of the bridge was less fixed from the outset. the hines band versions present an instrumentally-conceived line that lacks a strong sense of melody, and even in fuller's first vocal the trumpeter seems to be making up the tune as he goes along. certainly, most performances avoid the trite phrasing of the melody as presented in the 1935 sheet music, but this may simply reflect the tendency of swing era soloists and arrangers to abandon a tune's melody at the bridge. hines's two 1939 takes of "rosetta" are intriguing examples not only of his improvisational approach, but of his recasting of the piano solo, a process he had begun in his revolutionary 1928 solo recordings for the qrs label. though much has been written about various stylistic trajecto­ ries in pre-1940s jazz piano (stride, boogie-woogie, swing, etc.), as well as their important practitioners, less has been made of the evolution of the jazz piano solo as a specific genre-one with its own rules and performance history. because pianos can stand alone in performance, a uniquely varied literature and performance practice has developed around them in jazz. since pianists could duplicate both the role of solo instruments (in the right hand) and the backing of a rhythm section (in the left) they were prized by club owners (or party hosts) with limited funds to spend on live 82 current musicology entertainment. but though their choice of instrument could be financially lucrative, piano soloists also faced the challenge of building a satisfying, swinging performance without help from other ensemble members, rely­ ing on their own ingenuity to achieve variety and their own internal sense of time to maintain tempo and momentum. still, though these challenges were daunting (and not always adequately met by pianists of the 1920s and '30s), they also lent the piano solo genre its uniqueness as a self-contained expression of improvisational creativity. ajazz piano solo was (and is) the work of a single imagination, one with complete control over the shaping ofthe event. the first generation of jazz solo pianists, born in the 1890s (jelly roll morton and james p. johnson, among others), came of age in the ragtime era, and their solos tended to remain strongly rooted in that tradition. often, these musicians featured instrumental specialties, multi-strained set pieces in which certain key elements remained in place during perform­ ance. for example, if one compares morton's seven solo versions of his own "king porter stomp," recorded over a seventeen-year period, it is clear that though the performances vary considerably, many features always stay the same-chiefly introductions, breaks, interludes, and endings, as well as specific melodic and harmonic material. 6 in short, the performance approach in these solos held much in common with that of the prejazz pi­ ano rag. when these musicians turned to other repertory-most typically popular songs and blues-their renditions often also seemed "arranged" in the sense that the number of choruses, introductions, interludes and tags, key regions, and general stylistic approach were decided upon in advance. and, as henry martin has suggested, even when seemingly spontaneous invention occurred, it may not have been "improvisation" in the sense that the term was later used in jazz, but rather the employment of variational patterns that had been carefully worked out (martin 2000). when earl hines first turned to the piano solo genre he could not help drawing partly on this performance legacy. he had made contact with nearly all the important early jazz pianists during his formative years: as well as encountering james p. johnson and luckey roberts in pitts­ burgh, he met willie "the lion" smith and duke ellington on a trip to new york with lois deppe in 1923, and fats waller and jelly roll morton became close friends during his early years in chicago. but unlike most jazz pianists active in the 1920s, hines had established a prominent career before he made any solo recordings. johnson, morton, and waller had all made piano rolls near the beginning of their professional lives, and solos loom large in their early discographies. hines's first recordings, however, were made with an ensemble, deppe's serenaders, and these were fol­ lowed by band recordings led by johnny dodds, louis armstrong, and jeffrey taylor 83 others. most of these recordings featured hines's unaccompanied work, in introductions, breaks, and occasional choruses. but before 1928, he had never been called upon to record an entire solo performance on ei­ ther piano roll or disk. the reason, however, was apparently not lack of opportunity but simple disinterest on hines's part. in fact, hines often maintained that audience demand had made him a soloist: i was always known as a band pianist and a band leader. i never did want to play no solos. i wanted to be the band leader and just play pi­ ano and choruses now and then. but the public kept pushing me out there until i finally had to go in the woodshed and learn how to play piano by myself. (hines 1980) hines put his feelings even more strongly when recalling a 1928 session with armstrong: now i was just accompanying louis and the next time the guys say "oh, why don't you make a piano solo?" i say, "i don't want to make no piano solo." ... i said, "man, i don't want to be sitting up here playing by myself." (miller and rusch 1976:4) just two years before his death, when asked whether he often played the beautiful 1904 steinway he kept in his apartment (a gift from san francisco chronicle editor scott newhall) hines responded, "no, not really. i never got much pleasure out of playing alone" (b. taylor 1981). though the comment may reflect hines's reliance on audience response, it also sug­ gests a craving for the interaction of the bandstand, for the joys of commu­ nal music-making that initially draw many artists into the jazz tradition. perhaps no part of hines's background and training is more crucial to understanding the entire sweep of his solo artistry than his early develop­ ment as an ensemble pianist, for it informs both improvisational method and overall conception. because of his early experiences, hines came to solo playing relatively unencumbered by the structural and formal conven­ tions established by his contemporaries. when he did reluctantly turn to the solo genre, it became simply a chance to explore musical territory beyond the limitations imposed by ensemble performance. for example, while discussing with stanley dance another 1939 solo performance, "the father's getaway," hines noted that he was "enjoying being away from the band and, as the song says, 'free to do the things i might'" (dance 1980:44). hines's solos on band recordings seem eager to burst the con­ fines of thirty-two bar form, and the piano solo provided that freedom, giv­ ing greater reign to his imagination so he could explore ideas without 84 current musicology worrying whether his compatriots would follow his train of thought. for that reason, hines's solos are not conceived "compositionally," as were many solos by morton, johnson, and their contemporaries, who often shaped their performances into works that lent themselves to publication in simplified sheet-music versions. it is impossible to imagine a notated version of either the "rosetta" solos or any of the solos that precede them, beyond a transcription. neither are hines's solos "arranged" in the sense that he developed a specific approach to frequently-played pieces (as did art tatum for many of his favorite tunes). in fact, hines suggested that such a process would be incongruous with his aims as a musician: i always felt that to be a "soloist" you should have piano arrange­ ments and that's something i didn't want. because i play strictly from the heart ... never the same. whatever feeling i have at the time, that's what comes out. (b. taylor 1981:3) this claim is fully borne out by the two "rosetta" performances. by 1939, the tune was one of his most requested numbers, yet, remarkably, neither recording hints of rote. a comparison of the overall procedure followed by hines in the two solos illustrates the looseness of his conception (fig. 1). though they share key regions, the shape of the two solos shows marked contrast: the first offers three choruses in f and one in e~, whereas the second presents two in each key, and the placement and length of the in­ terludes is also substantially changed. one senses that hines simply lodged the melody and chord progression in his mind and took off, using the structure of the tune as a springboard for a flight of musical discovery. in the truest sense, these solos are music of the moment-glimpses of hines's creativity that, were it not for recording technology, would live on only in the memories of those fortunate enough to be present when they were played. hines's lack of experience playing and recording piano solos may also explain why, unlike the work of morton, johnson, and other masters of what martin williams has called "three-minute form," these performances often show little awareness of the time limit demanded by 78-rpm records. in a famous example, "fifty-seven varieties" of 1928, hines claimed he was unaware of even being recorded until a recording engineer whispered in his ear to "put in an ending, put in an ending" (miller and rusch 1976:4). the result is remarkable in that it does not sound appreciably different than many of hines's other solos, many of which seem prema­ turely aborted-as if he could have continued in a similar vein for several more choruses had not the recording engineer signaled him to stop. in "i ain't got nobody" (1928), this makes for a serious miscalculation (and a jeffrey taylor 85 figure 1: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6, 1939), takes 3 and 4, formal schemes (number of measures in parentheses). key take 3 take 4 f intro(8) intro(io) al(32) al(32) a2(32) ftou interlude 1 (4) interlude 1 (8) e~ a2(32) a3(32) a3(32) in terlude 2 (8) interlude 2(10) a4(32) a4(32) tag(4) tag(s) miraculous save): apparently unaware time is running out, hines launches into a third chorus, then deftly twists the first eight bars of the tune so that they sound like the last eight. by 1939 hines had grown more adept at accommodating the time limit, but one still often senses a delight in cross­ ing the finish line at the last possible moment. particularly in the tag of take 4, the listener is given few indications the performance is drawing to a close un til the final bar. hines's development as primarily a band pianist not only influenced his improvisatory process and general conception of the piano solo but also played an important role in the development of his stylistic language. as he pointed out in many interviews, his famous "trumpet style," in which right-hand octaves approximate the timbre and phraseology of brass play­ ers, took shape initially during his playing with ensembles during the 1920s: we didn't have amplification then and the piano could hardly be heard, cause they didn't take the front out or the top off. so when a guy gets finished playing those loud instruments over there and here i am tinkling, i said, "oh man, i got to do better than this." so i started playing my trumpet style and people began to hear me. a lot of guys started using that same particular style because it cut through the band then. i was playing octaves and they could hear me and i was pretty fast with it too. (rock 1978:28) though this aggressive octave technique had become somewhat more re­ strained by 1939-hines seemed to absorb some of the subtleness of touch that wilson and tatum brought to the jazz piano idiom-it remained an instantly recognizable feature of both his band and solo style. in the 86 current musicology climactic final chorus of take 3 of "rosetta," for example, he uses the technique to create a powerful melodic line that drives the performance inexorably into the tag. still, though hines's distinctive sound grew partly out of a desire to be heard in the ensemble, he also learned ways to integrate his piano work skillfully into an arrangement without overpowering his fellow musicians. indeed, hines's band experience may have influenced the remarkable sense of space in much of his solo playing. perhaps even more important, the rhythmic disruptions, beat displacements, and occasionally wayward turns in the harmonic progression that are so crucial to hines's edgy, per­ plexing style seem to have evolved in the ensemble context. one notices, for example, in an early performance such as 1928's "savoyagers' stomp" (recorded with carroll dickerson's savoyagers), how much hines plays off of the admirably secure rhythmic foundation of zutty singleton's drum­ ming as he continually tugs at the time and inflects the harmony with col­ orful twists. significantly, when hines recalled his fascination with playing "close to the edge" (and occasionally tumbling over), he usually described its occurrence in an ensemble context: i was always exploring and trying to find something else. sometimes i was lost and didn't know where i was but i'd keep going around until i caught up. i'd do it purposely. i'd have a rhythm section and they never did know where i was half the time. bass player's talking to the guitar player saying "where's he at now?" i used to have fun like that. (hines 1980) it may be that hines's remarkable internal "clock," whereby he could achieve shocking feats of rhythmic audacity and never lose the beat, were first developed while working with a rhythm section. both "rosetta" per­ formances are permeated by the shifted accents, rhythmic displacements and suspensions, and other perversions of the basic meter that are so es­ sential to hines's approach. the point is that, even though hines's solo work was created in musical isolation, the idiom he developed betrays a highly interactive sensibility, both in style and conception. in her insightful book saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction, ingrid monson sees musical interaction in a jazz performance-defined at a variety of musical, social, and cultural levels-as (among other things) a key to a revised aesthetic method for evaluating the art> of jazz. for perhaps obvious reasons, piano solos do not figure prominently in her discussion. yet, i would suggest that such a concept of interaction in several broad senses informs hines's "rosetta" recordings, though they are ostensibly the work of a single musician. mter noting the presence in these recordings of an improvisatory art shaped jeffrey taylor 87 largely in an interactive context (as well as the ramifications of that art's removal from its context), i will now focus on a complex of specific and interrelated features: the ways hines converses "across time" with (and sig­ nifies on) both earlier band versions of "rosetta" and his ensemble's arrangements in general; the ways he engages the melody and chord structure of his own tune in each performance; and, in the case of the fourth take, how he comments and builds on ideas presented in a performance that took place moments earlier. for a musician who saw himself first and foremost as a band pianist, it is not surprising that hines's work in the solo piano idiom should reflect the context in which he was working night after night. occasionally, his en­ semble work was carried over to the piano solo idiom. the syncopated in­ troduction to his band's 1932 recording of "i love you because i love you" (take 1), for example, contains the seed of the introduction he uses for his solo performance of "down among the sheltering palms" (take 1), recorded later in the same session. and certain gestures explored in the solos make their first appearance in hines's solo choruses on ensem­ ble recordings. the whirling tangle of notes that hines plays in bars 21-24 of his solo chorus in "a monday date" (on the 1928 recording with jimmie noone's group) reappears in both solo versions of the same song, and in precisely the same place in the tune. 7 the ways in which earlier band versions of "rosetta" played into hines's 1939 solos on the tune can be seen graphically in take 3. throughout both solo versions, hines saves his most capricious flights of fancy for the minor bridge, perhaps relishing the distinctive harmony of these eight bars or sensing an opportunity to deviate from the melody. in the last two bars of the bridge in the second chorus of take 3, he executes a descending, largely whole-tone idea in straight eighth-notes (ex. 3), a passage that elicits special comment in a popular jazz history text (see porter and ullman 1993:127). though it is a startling moment, a similar idea appears in hines's solo chorus on the 1934 band recording of the tune, in precisely the same place in the chord structure, and is suggested as well in a series of descending ninth chords that he plays behind the sax solo in the final chorus-again at the same place in the original tune. apparently this lick was connected in hines's mind not just to earlier band performances of "rosetta" but to a specific place in the harmonic outline. another striking connection may be seen between the 1934 band recording and the first four measures of the bridge in a3 of take 3 and a2 of take 4 (exx. 4a and 4b). in the first example, an extended trill on e~ is accompanied by punchy, syncopated right-hand octaves-an effect not 88 current musicology example 3: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6, 1939), take 3, a2, mm. 23-24. straight eighths _____________________________________ ---, 1\ :e ~~ h.~ ... ~ b ... ~ h*"~ ---... ~ ,-~ mp rfrf:. ~ ~~ i ~-!l ih'. /1.;'. ~ : ...example 4a: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6,1939), take 3, a3, mm. 16-20. 1\ l l f., l .., !''-v .... >~ !''/ .... ~!~ ... ~ >>>>tr(q) : example 4b: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6,1939), take 4, a3, mm. 17-20. jeffrey taylor 89 unlike the device art tatum enjoyed using on the third strain of "tiger rag."8 in take 4, hines seems to refer back to the sense of stasis provided by this trill, but instead of this gesture he creates a whirling chromatic fig­ ure in the right hand that is accompanied by sustained chords in the bass. these passages hint at the intriguing ways hines might recall an idea from a previous take and expand on its basic premise. however, the ideas go back even further: both the trill and the whirling right-hand figure are first hinted at during hines's solo on the 1934 band performance, as well as behind fuller's vocal on the same recording-the latter instance sug­ gested that hines did not consider the gesture purely a soloistic device. and, as in the previous example, they occur in precisely the same place in the tune. previous band performances of "rosetta" are not the only sources hines interacts with on these solos. other aspects of his band's arrange­ ments occasionally bleed into the recordings. the fact that the band's per­ formances were on his mind at the time of the two "rosetta" solos is shown by his reference, in the second interlude of take 4, to part of the melody of "lightly and politely," which had been recorded directly before the solos. and earlier in the same solo, hines employs another device that had appeared in several of his band's arrangements: a reiterated domi­ nant pedal. the device appears briefly in "xyz," recorded earlier in the same session, where arranger buddjohnson uses it as a transition between the third and fourth choruses. but the idea is placed much more promi­ nently in the final section of "g. t. stomp," recorded three months before the "rosetta" solos, with a gradual piling-up of b~s that leads to the climac­ tic entry of walter fuller on a high e~ tonic. hines had also used the de­ vice extensively in "the father's getaway" from late july 1939, where he built an entire chorus out of the idea. in take 4 of "rosetta," however, use of the dominant pedal is noteworthy not just because it shows how hines mined his big band performances for ideas but also because he character­ istically twists it to his own innovative ends. his placement of the gesture effectively blurs the dividing line between the first and second choruses, presenting what seems at first like an interlude but ends up being part of the next chorus (ex. 5). hines's two "rosetta" solos are rather different than his earlier improvi­ sations on tunes by other composers, and it is interesting to speculate how much of this contrast is due to the fact that hines uses his own tune as a basis for the performances. in the days of ragtime and early jazz, at least, pianists viewed certain pieces as their own special property, even if they eventually made their way into the mainstream repertory (eubie blake's "charleston rag" and james p.johnson's "carolina shout" would be good examples). certainly, hines must have felt pride in his tune, in addition to 90 current musicology example 5: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6, 1939), take 4, ai, mm. 31-32 and a2, mm. 1-2. " ~~ r~ r~ r~ ~ ~,h .... ~ .. : '5" ~ _-:i ,"'-'i' ~ -=r ~-=r:jf-,d. _-:i ' ~ t maintaining a deep sense of its inherent possibilities. but i think the famil­ iarity both hines and his audiences had with the tune, as well as the pianist's "ownership" of the piece (both legally and figuratively) may explain his unusual treatment. several of the earlier solos for which multiple takes exist-"glad rag doll" of 1929 or "love me tonight" of 1932, for example -show broad similarities in outline (number of choruses, modulations, etc.) even while the musical material itself differs widely between takes. yet, the two renditions of "rosetta" stand somewhat apart in the looseness of their conception, showing, besides contrasting structures, particularly striking liberties in the use of melodic and harmonic material. as i have already suggested in my discussion of various ideas that hines develops on "rosetta"'s bridge, a particularly useful feature of transcrip­ tions is the possibility they open up for comparing the improvisatory process in successive choruses and in parallel sections of the underlying tune. typical for the period, hines opens each solo with a fairly straight rendition of the tune, yet while doing so he shows some humorous takes on the original piece. example 6 reproduces the beginning of the open­ ing chorus in each performance, along with the original melodic line. the first take presents the tune in fairly unadorned fashion, though the smoothness of the line created by tied notes in the original is eliminated by hines's sparse and syncopated right hand line. in the second take, how­ ever, at the end of measure 2, hines abruptly telescopes the correspon­ ding notes of the melodic line into an ironically truncated phrase. it is al­ most as if he were poking fun at the languorous motion of the original melody. in example 7, i have provided, from both takes, several examples of hines's treatment of the opening four bars of "rosetta" in interior choruses, along with the relevant phrase from the original tune. if space allowed, one could, of course, extend the comparisons to include all cho­ ruses and all statements of the "a" section of the tune. but these excerpts example 6: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6,1939), takes 3 and 4, ai, mm. 1-4, with original melody line. ~ ~ ... ,--------...... .... ~ --=--ttl' ~ " r i,j f 'p 'f i p 1] 1 i, j f a"f uctl j!j ~ ~ ~ .~ l i:: :::i~ ~ ,.~; t i,,\~: ~ = i'i"~ ~ }~, 1,,:[ ~ ~f ~ [ ,:: '---< ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ t"' o id <.0 ,.... 92 current musicology show some of the imaginative ways hines interacts with the original melody and harmony ofthe piece. one notices first that, in the left hand, hines erases one of the most distinctive features of the original tune's harmonic structure, an element maintained by most other musicians when they perform the piece: the augmented chord in the second bar (the same may be said of the passages in ex. 6, above). in examples 7a and 7b he uses the g# of the augmented chord (respelled here as an a~) as a blue note in the right hand, its effect intensified by clashes against gs in the bass. the effect is to draw focus to the melodic line. hines also seems intrigued by the parallelism suggested in the original tune by the repeated rhythmic motive in measures 1 and 3. as a result, each of these four-bar excerpts is divided into two closely­ related sections-a type of antecedent! consequent phraseology. and hines emphasizes this structure by returning to the dominant note (c) each time in measure 3, rather than moving to the third (a), as does the original melodic line. the excerpts also show other ways in which hines engaged with his own improvisations. example 7d is clearly based on the idea hines was working with in example 7c, and both these excerpts occur in similar places in the performance-right after a modulation to h. in example 7d, however, hines not only adds rhythmic complexity to the left-hand part, but partially obscures the phrasing by subtle shifts in the melodic line. the effect is radically different: whereas example 7c had driven aggres­ sively forward, example 7d ruminates. yet the final example clearly seems to arise from hines's memory of what he had done at the same spot in the previous take. hines's two "rosetta" performances are different from most of his ear­ lier recorded solos in the function and character of their introductions. in prior performances, such as "glad rag doll," "love me tonight," and "down among the sheltering palms," hines used introductions, as did most musicians and arrangers, mainly to set mood, tempo, and key. yet, perhaps because "rosetta" was such a familiar property for both hines and his audience, he clearly felt the tune called for different treatment. both introductions (exx. 8a and 8b) give little sense of how the tune is go­ ing to proceed. in fact, they seem specifically designed to disorient­ perhaps to make the entry of hines's familiar tune all the more dramatic. in the third take, the chords of the left hand, placed in a low range on the keyboard and so tightly knit as to approximate tone clusters, completely obscure the harmony, though the right hand subtly suggests the a minor of "rosetta"'s bridge. the slowly descending glissando of take 4 (perhaps a signifying reversal of the upward sweep with which hines usually an­ nounced his band's theme song, "deep forest") obscures both harmony example 7: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6,1939), takes 3 and 4, compared versions ofmm. 1-4 of original tune. melody of c+7 f 07 1$ & e j 1 r ( 1 -r r r 1 j j: i) r r i 11!';:::qt=~;ii'::)'ij i: ~ ~f ~i:j' ~i ~ r-... i :""""'m";:'._~wmb~ : '_ fl : ~ ~ _ ~ 11:::: : i! i; ~ r:;~' q; r; ~'i:: ': >i~ 1 i (b ) r i i ex. 7d. take 4, a3, mm. 1-4. trasnposed from e~. >~ .>l i!: ::~2t f j , &: r 11~:n ,:~::2 f r;f '11 r it; f ji~ '-< m ~ >< ~ >< r o ~ to (.)q 94 current musicology example 8a: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6,1939), take 3, introduction. 5 example 8b: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6,1939), take 4, introduction. take 4 gva _ _____ --, ,., q ~ ~ ii iiiiii rr ~~ gliss. (r.h.) hj j iiiii i : 1>""0"_ ___""0" 5 ,., ~ ~ >~ ~~v' .-.-/ '.-.-/ ... ~ i i i , : -........ ~:&:--------~ -61~-6i-0-____......-.1 >-'----' 9 ,., £:.-~ ~ . . . ~. . .--;-j :: h ... ~ : v ~ . ~i jeffrey taylor 95 and rhythm; it is only by counting in reverse that one notes the gesture fits neatly over two bars. as different as the two passages sound at first hearing, however, the transcriptions show subtle ways in which the introduction of the fourth take "interacts across time" with that of the third. in the earlier version, hines maintains a chromatically descending outline in the harmony (from the a minor suggested by the right hand in mm. 1-4, to the a~ of m. 5, to the g of m. 6). then, by deftly sliding a single note upward in the bass (from d to e) he moves from the g-minor chord in the second half of measure 7 to the dominant (c7) in measure 8. as perplexing as this in­ troduction is at times, it maintains a certain logic, making the entry of the tonic key at the beginning of the first chorus seem inevitable. in the intro­ duction to take 4, hines seems to build on ideas from the earlier passage, recreating in measure 3 the figuration of measure 5 of take 3 (a fifth in the bass, with the right hand arpeggiating the chord). he extends this fig­ uration through measures 7 and 8 while echoing the chromatic motion of the first take with a sequence of ninth chords. in measure 8, however, there is a sudden change of direction, with hines abruptly interrupting the descending chords by pouncing on an a~ fifth (a reminiscence, perhaps, of measure 5 in the earlier introduction). even though he could easily have moved from the d9 in measure 8 to g, and from there to the dominant off, he chooses, typically, not to take the easy route. as a result, the entry of the tonic at the beginning of al is not nearly so neatly prepared as in take 3. the interludes that hines uses to modulate from f to e~ in both per­ formances inspire similar observations (exx. 9a and 9b). like its introduc­ tion, the harmony of take 3's first interlude is sophisticated but logical; by manipulating just a few choice notes in the left hand, hines elegantly an­ ticipates the key change, guiding the listener gracefully between fairly re­ mote tonal regions. the second interlude has much less sense of direc­ tion. it meanders through a variety of keys, and does not arrive at the dominant chord until the final beat. compared to the first interlude, right and left hands seem out of sync at the end of the passage; though hines begins the chorus following the interlude with a right-hand b~ octave, just as he does in take 3, the attack is made slightly early, with the left hand not moving from dominant to tonic until the second eighth note of the chorus's first measure. in other words, the beginning of the chorus be­ comes elided with the end of the introduction. it is a surprising moment, but typical for hines. a comparison of these introductions and interludes, and, indeed, of both performances in their entirety, raises important issues about aesthetic 96 current musicology example 9a: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6, 1939), take 3, modulating interlude before a4. (i ~. .jr:¥ • .:.rrn-~ h .. ,...-.. ~n i ~ ~ p i l....j......w ..... hfl [~ :> :ii i '1.)' ..0. ~ ~...----... in...,. : ------i :> fl i""fi i .-----------. .f'-~.p.. ~,.t. • ~ ~ .. ., ...... ~ i f ~ r-j---..j .ll~ j.---.-. j..-j d. 1 r:el :e : i r' '1 ... ... (~~ example 9b: earl hines, "rosetta" (october 6, 1939), take 4, modulating interlude before a3. fi ~.f''./i..~ :~ ,;.2-!: t,-r--.~. ~ ~ ~~ ~ # h-riirh-r~ : stance. ingrid monson brings up the same questions when she takes tradi­ tional jazz historiography (particularly as represented by the work of gunther schuller) to task for its western bias: when it comes to critical evaluation, [schuller] looks first to the sup­ posedly universal standards of western musical analysis and cites them as evidence of the value of jazz music. as an outside observer, he feels entitled to evaluate the musical production of jazz musicians jeffrey taylor 97 by these standards without asking whether these indeed are the sole -or even the most important-criteria to musicians and their audi­ ences. (monson 1996:136) i do not wish to engage the complexities of these issues here, though i hope this essay has shown my interest in bringing a variety of perspectives to bear on these solos. but monson's passage speaks to a personal and scholarly dilemma i have encountered while listening to, transcribing, and studying these performances. when initially planning a collection of earl hines transcriptions, i was drawn to the third take of "rosetta" because it exhibited the very features i had been trained to celebrate in a musical work. in particular, it seemed a piece that would be ideally suited to re­ creation in live concert performance (a process that, however, continues to raise troubling ideological issues for me, despite my personal experi­ ence that audiences find such performances satisfying). early lists of pieces to include in my hines edition were, in fact, all made up of per­ formances that adhered fairly closely to standards i had learned to appre­ ciate in my training as a musicologist and a performer, and which i imag­ ined could, in score form, be reinterpreted by present-day pianists. i consciously rejected solos where hines played himself into blind alleys, garbled passagework, lost his way in a chord progression, or had to sud­ denly truncate his improvisations to adhere to the recording time limit. yet, i soon realized that the proposed volume would give a highly mislead­ ing idea of hines's talent. as i have already stressed, these "mistakes" are not aberrations but a fundamental part of hines's genius, and to suggest otherwise is to do him a vast injustice. the two "rosetta" takes bring this into relief. as i mentioned earlier, only the third take was released at the time, most likely for the very rea­ sons that initially drew me to it. the "logic" of the issued take-as shown, for example, in the introduction and interludes-is in fact rather unusual for hines; it makes the listening experience a little too comfortable, the unfolding of the improvisation a little too easy to follow. with its inter­ rupted momentum, "messy" modulations, and occasionally blurred formal structure, the unissued fourth take is far more characteristic. yet the de­ scriptive tools with which i am most familiar fail me when addressing this paradox, and i am aware that much of the foregoing discussion resorts to the very aesthetic assumptions and modes of analysis i have sought to transcend. still, exploring questions of interaction and context, as well as other intriguing modes of inquiry that are being introduced into the field, will, i hope, continue to enrich my appreciation of a musician who, even after many years of study, never fails to surprise. however these aesthetic 98 current musicology issues may be resolved in my own work and jazz scholarship at large, they raise a dilemma essential for jazz scholars to confront if they are to do justice to jazz's variety and power. notes 1. brian rust (1982) lists october 21 as the recording date for the third take, but judging from the matrix number sequence this is probably an error. rust does not list the fourth take at all. the collector's classics cd reissue of earl hines: complete piano solos lists both third and fourth takes as occurring on october 6. 2. both are now available on the collector's classics reissue. 3. the two transcriptions are included in earl ''fatha'' hines: selected piano solos, 1928-1941 (j. taylor, forthcoming). 4. my ideas here are partly inspired by those discussed by ingrid monson (1996). i will, however, be using her concept of "interaction" in somewhat more general terms, without engaging the more specific theoretical (particularly post­ structuralist) frameworks that monson both employs and critiques in her study. 5. in these transcriptions i have followed the notational procedures used in the musa edition (j. taylor, forthcoming). except where noted, all passages are swung. brackets indicate clear technical errors (usually mis-struck notes) that have been corrected. parentheses around normal-sized pitches indicate notes or chords i suspect may be unintentional, but which have remained in the score since these moments, as i have pointed out in the article, are an inherent part of hines's im­ provisational style. parentheses around grace notes indicate "ghost notes" that are scarcely audible. 6. for a discussion of morton's "king porter stomp" and its subsequent history, see jeffrey magee's article in this issue (pp. 22-53). 7. this phrase, however, recurs in different choruses in the two solo versions; in the qrs version it appears in the second chorus, in the okeh, the third. 8. tatum first recorded "tiger rag" in 1933, and hines, who developed a friendship with tatum during the 1930s, may have known the pianist's rendition through this recording or live performance. references berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago: university of chicago press. crawford, richard, and jeffrey magee. 1992. jazz standards on record, 1900-1942: a core repertory. cbmr monographs, no. 4. chicago: center for black music research. dance, stanley. 1977. the world of earl hines. new york: da capo press. ---. 1980. liner notes to giants of jazz: earl hines. time-life records tlil1. hines, earl. 1980. taped lectures. earl hines archive, university of california, berkeley. martin, henry. 2000. strategies of non-improvisation in the stride piano works of james p. johnson. paper delivered at toronto 2000: musical intersections, toronto, canada, november 4. jeffrey taylor 99 miller, susan, and bob rusch. 1976. chattin' with the fatha. cadence (august): 3-5. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: university of chicago press. porter, lewis, and michael ullman, with ed hazell. 1993. jazz from its origins to the present. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice-hall. rock, henry. 1978. earl "fatha" hines: the fatha, the sons, and the spirit of jazz. aquarian (march 29-april5): 1, 28-29. rust, brian. 1982. jazz records 1897-1942. 5th ed. 2 vols. chigwell, essex, united kingdom: storyville publications and co., ltd. schuller, gunther. 1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. taylor, berigan. 1981. an interview with earl hines: "you got to eat your wheaties to play with me." interplay (may): 3, 10. taylor, jeffrey. 1992. earl hines's piano style in the 1920s: a historical and analytical perspective. black music research journal 12: 57-78. ---. 1998. louis armstrong, earl hines, and "weather bird." musical quarterly 82: 1-40. --.2000. life with fatha. i.s.a.m. newsletter 30 (fall): 1-2, 14. ---, ed. forthcoming. earl ''fatha'' hines: selected piano solos, 1928-1941. musa 14. madison, wis.: a-r editions and the american musicological society. derek b. scott, ed. music, culture, and society: a reader. oxford university press, 2000. x, 238 pp. reviewed by timothy d. taylor it is always easy to quibble with collections of previously published ma­ terials over the important writings that are excluded and those that are included. but derek b. scott clearly made some rather curious decisions in compiling this reader (decisions made in part, he tells us, because of the prohibitive cost of reprinting certain items). there is only one ethno­ musicologist represented u ohn blacking); no steven feld, or charles keil. most of the scholars in the u.s. who are primarily associated with the "new musicology" are also absent, such as philip brett, richard leppert, susan mcclary, and gary tomlinson. among figures of the past, those who have long toiled, with little or no recognition by the vast majority of musicologists, on the subject of music and culture are entirely side­ stepped, for example, k. peter etzkorn and the german sociologists of music who influenced him, such as georg simmel (who wrote his ph.d. thesis on music); max weber; alfred schutz; or more recent scholars such as kurt blaukopf and alphons silbermann. and important ethnomusicol­ ogists of the past such as alan lomax and alan p. merriam are omitted as well (see the list of references at the end of this review for a representative sample of work by these writers). perhaps most curious is scott's decision to forego writing a new intro­ duction to the materials in this book; his introduction is instead a reprint of an article published in 1990 on the sociology of music. this article is reasonably useful as far as it goes; it provides a helpful overview of writings on music and society, and identifies some areas for future research, areas that have only been addressed in the intervening decade, such as the im­ portance of funding and patronage to composers. but it doesn't serve to provide an overview of the excerpts that comprise the book, much less introduce them. a new introduction would also have permitted scott to discuss important writings that are not represented in the book. those introductory writings that are present scott disperses into the body of the volume. these brief introductions, which sometimes refer to writings not included in the reader, precede each of the reader's five sections: "music and language," with contributions by harold powers, deryck cooke, leonard bernstein, and others; "music and the body," with contributions by simon frith, angela mcrobbie, elizabeth wood, john blacking, and others; "music and class," including writings by theodor adorno, paul willis, richard middleton, and more; "music and criticism," with writings current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) 128 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york reviews 129 by lucy green, michel foucault and pierre boulez, rose rosengard subotnik, and others; and "music production and consumption," with contributions by evan eisenberg, lydia goehr, peter wicke, and more. the only other newly written text in the book is a section at the end entitled "brief explanatory notes on theory," with three parts, "structuralism and poststructuralism," "cultural sociology," and "feminism." the section called "music and the body" includes a hodgepodge of writings on gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. the editor fails to make a dis­ tinction between "race" as a category that refers to racial groups and "eth­ nicity" as a category that refers to subgroups within a larger group (for ex­ ample, jews as a subgroup of european americans), which is the accepted practice. but the section title unfortunately seems to perpetuate essential­ ist notions of race, ethnicity, and gender, as though these three are rooted somehow in biology-"the body"-rather than in culture and history. scott has chosen to take excerpts from previously published articles rather than present articles in their entirety. while this allows him to max­ imize the number of contributors and texts (there are thirty-six excerpts), most are disappointingly brief at just two or three pages, though a few are longer. since everything in this volume has been previously published, the remainder of this review will concentrate more on the volume's position­ ing of itself as a reader in the new musicology or critical musicology than on the evaluation of the included articles. given the occasional discussion about the nature of the field of histori­ cal musicology these days, it is probably inevitable that music, culture, and society will be seen as attempting to make an intervention in the new musi­ cology or critical musicology, though editor scott is a bit circumspect on this point in his foreword, saying simply that he wanted to include articles that provide alternatives to the musicological mainstream. just what this mainstream is, and what these musicologies are, seems to be a matter of current debate, at least in north america. there are those who seek to find meanings in musical works, meanings beyond the formal and stylistic concerns that form the basis of most musicological inquiries. but are meanings to be found primarily in the notes-the musical texts-or are meanings to be found in a larger complex of the musical work and its time and place-in a word, its culture? i had thought that the new musicology, at least in part, represented an attempt to link historical events with musical ones, so that musical works were better situated in culture and history than they had been in most ear­ lier musicologies. the new musicology, however, has proved to be more influenced by philosophy and literary theory than by theories and meth­ ods from history and the softer social sciences such as anthropology (not 130 current musicology forgetting ethnomusicology). meanings, it seems, are thought to reside in the texts, the main belief of earlier musicologies. not surprisingly, then, even though scott's volume features the words "culture" and "society" in the title, the selection of writings show that this book is as much representative of the more textological orientation of phi­ losophy and literary theory-and the new musicology-as it is of culture and society. there are entire selections that never address the subject of society or culture at all, confining themselves to music as text, music as structure-for example, most of the excerpts in the section "music and language," even though language, as mikhail bakhtin and others have taught us, is deeply social. this is a reader that clearly traces its sociology of music not to scholars of the social--much less, the cultural-but scholars ofthe musical text. scott's study of music, society, and culture is thus decid­ edly textological in orientation, not, ironically, all that social or cultural. it is also rather ironic that those musicologists whose work argues most forcefully for linking culture and history to studies of musical works-e.g., susan mcclary (1991,1992), gary tomlinson (1999), and richard taruskin (l995)-are all omitted from this volume, though mcgary is at least men­ tioned in one of scott's introductory paragraphs. and, displaying the kind of bias, witting or not, against culture and history in the new musicology, taruskin, something of a new historicist, is never mentioned or cited by anyone in this volume. judging from this volume, it appears as though the "new" and/or "criti­ cal" musicology, in order to distinguish itself from the old ones, had to jet­ tison history in favor of theory. it is sadly not the case that older musicolo­ gies (with the exception of the work of some individuals) were attentive to cultural and historical questions as they impinged on particular musical works, but at least most musicologists were mindful of historical questions surrounding a work, even if they lacked a cultural theoretical way of con­ necting the work to larger historical and cultural forces. in music, culture, and society: a reader, most, though not all, of the articles oscillate between the twin cultural studies pillars of text and theory, eschewing deeper questions of culture, society, and history. finally, i should note a few typographical errors and other problems. scott refers to john cage's famous piece as 4' 32" in his introduction (not, of course, 4' 33"); the influential author of how to do things with words is referred to as j. l. austen, not austin. these and other minor problems aside, music, culture, and society, while usefully reprinting parts of some classic and more recent important articles not always grappled with ade­ quately in mainstream musicology, doesn't really live up to two thirds of its title. reviews 131 references bakhtin, mikhail. 1981. the dialogic imagination. translated by caryl emerson and michael holquist, edited by michael holquist. austin: university of texas press. blaukopf, kurt. 1989. musical life in a changing society. translated by david marinelli. portland, oreg.: amadeus press. brett, philip, elizabeth wood, and gary c. thomas, eds. 1994. queering the pitch: the new gay and lesbian musicology. new york and london: routledge. etzkorn, k. peter. 1974. on music, social structure and sociology. international review of the aesthetics and sociology of music 5: 43-49. ---. 1987. musicological and social analysis of music. in transplantedeuropean music cultures, edited by geoffrey moon. miscellenanea musicologica: adelaide studies in musicology 12: 90-95. feld, steven, and charles keil. 1994. music grooves: essays and dialogues. chicago: university of chicago press. leppert, richard. 1993. the sight of sound: music, representation, and the history of the body. berkeley: university of california press. lomax, alan. 1962. song structure and social structure. ethnology 1: 425-51. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. ---. 1992. georges bizet: carmen. cambridge: cambridge university press. merriam, alan p. 1964. the anthropology of music. evanston, ill.: northwestern uni­ versity press. schutz, alfred. 1951. making music together: a study in social relationships. social research 18: 76-97. silbermann, alphons. 1963. the sociology of music. translated by corbet stewart. london: routledge and kegan paul. simmel, georg. 1968. psychological and ethnological studies on music. in the conflict in modern culture and other essays. translated and edited by k. peter etzkorn, 98-140. new york: teachers college press. taruskin, richard. 1995. text and act: essays on music and performance. new york: oxford university press. tomlinson, gary. 1999. metaphysical song: an essay on opera. princeton: princeton university press. weber, max. 1958. the rational and social foundations of music. translated and edited by don martindale, johannes riedel, and gertrude neuwirth. carbon­ dale, ill.: southern illinois university press. beth anna mekota-the solo and ensemble keyboard works of johann christian bach ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 69-18,059, 1969. 309 pp., university of michigan diss.) suzanne forsberg for many years the music of johann christian bach, the youngest and favorite son of johann sebastian bach, was eclipsed not only by the fame of his father and his contemporaries mozart and haydn but also by the renown of his two older half-brothers, carl philipp emanuel and wilhelm friedemann. the dissertation of beth anna mekota on "the solo and ensemble keyboard works of johann christian bach" now gives evidence of increased interest in and know ledge of this composer's music. in addition to the 1967 second edition of charles sanford terry's biography, with corrigenda and foreword by h. c. robbins landon,l a dissertation on j. c. bach's liturgical choral works was completed in 1969, and dissertations on his chamber music and his late keyboard concertos are now in progress.2 at the outset of her dissertation dr. mekota describes johann christian as the "most adventurous" and "cosmopolitan" of the eleven bach sons, as well as "perhaps the most talented" (p. 1), and many other modern scholars of 18th-century classicism support her viewpoint. h. c. robbins landon maintains that while c. p. e. and w. f. "occasionally had bursts of fantasy, even genius ... on the whole it is johann christian who is the better balanced composer."3 in material prepared for the new oxford history of music, jan larue ranks him as "england's greatest symphonist" and puts him "in the select company of those who at times equalled haydn and mozart."4 dr. 1-1ekota's dissertation, organized into six main divisions (plus a conclusion, two appendices, and a bibliography), presents biographical information (chapter i), a survey of the solo and ensemble keyboard literature (chapter 2), and detailed analyses of the music (chapters 3 through 6). her primary purpose, as noted in the preface, is a stylistic examination of the music. an investigation of the first two chapters affords us a look at dr. mekota's treatment of secondary sources. she acknowledges her debt to charles sanford terry's john christian bach5 "for the greater portion of the material in chapter i" (p. ii). indeed, the forty-six pages of text represent essentially a summary of terry's 169-page biographical section-and it seems a questionable practice to base approximately one-fifth of a dissertation on a readily available english source. throughout chapter 1 dr. mekota consistently cites the first rather than 115 the second edition of terry's biography (both appear in the bibliography). for the most part, this presents no problem, since the text of the second edition remains unaltered except for the addition of a foreword and corrigenda by robbins landon. at one point, however, dr. mekota's information seems to be at variance with terry's text. without direct reference to her sources, she states that "in 1754, after four years in berlin, johann christian departed for italy. the date of his departure, the manner in which he traveled and the purpose of his trip are unknown" (p. 6). terry, on the other hand, offers considerations pointing to 1756 as a possible departure date rather than 1754 and furnishes a romantic motive for the later date.6 we can only conjecture then that dr. mekota's source was landon's corrigenda to the second edition in which he summarizes heinrich miesner's arguments for a 1754 departure date (pp. xxiv-xxv). miesner's viewpoint originally appeared in a review in 1934 of the first edition (not included in dr. mekota's bibliography), consisting of seven pages of additions and corrections.7 in chapter 2 under the heading of "bach's performance media," dr. mekota discusses the accompanied keyboard sonata, the most numerous species of published classic sonatas. for those attempting to use the dissertation as a guide for further research into this major genre of the 18th-century, dr. mekota offers little help. although the literature is meagre, a starting point is william s. newman's article "concerning the accompanied clavier sonata,"8 as well as two sections in his the sonata in the classic era9 (pp. 98105 deal with the genre in general, pp. 703-11, with the works of j. c. bach in particular). dr. mekota cites pages 91 and 683 of the latter work (which make only passing references to the accompanied keyboard sonata) but neglects the two other more important sections. the accompanied keyboard sonata originated in the 18th century but soon declined when the great classic composers started writing piano and violin sonatas in which each instrument was on an equal footing. in chapter 2 dr. mekota might have dealt with the origins of the form, as well as the question of why the violin remained subservient to the clavier for at least half a century, even though it had dominated during the basso continuo era. according to dr. mekota, bach composed forty-four duos for keyboard and accompanying instrument. however, the seven duos of the italian period do not qualify as true accompanied keyboard sonatas (newman includes them in his list of bach's works of this genre) ,10 because the musical materials allotted each instrument are so interlocked "that unlike its usual role in an 'accompanied sonata,' the violin here becomes an indispensable voice in the ensemble" (p. 106). the one sonata of this group that dr. mekota includes in the appendix tends to confirm her viewpoint, though not unequivocally. although the violin shows an independence unusual for accompanied keyboard sonatas, the two parts are not truly equal. in chapter 5 dr. mekota discusses in some detail the ways in which the optional instrument accompanies the clavier in thirty-four sonatas (employing either violin or flute) dating from the london years. she points out that 116 these duos were intended for wealthy dilettantes in the upper strata of society. for background material in this chapter she might have included the fact that c. p. e. bach (with whom christian studied for at least four years) published two sets of accompanied sonatas by subscription in 1776 and 1777 (w. 90/1-3 and 91/1-4). in a letter of25 september 1775, c. p. e. wrote that the violin and cello parts could be left out of these seven "easy" sonatas.ll chapters 3 to 5 include a stylistic study of bach's solo and ensemble keyboard works composed in berlin (before 1754), italy (1754-62), and london (1762-82). each chapter is divided into sections on form, harmony, texture, melody, and rhythm. in the discussions covering form dr. mekota's principal point is that "the emerging sonata form can be traced in the course of bach's keyboard composition" (unpaginated abstract preceding dissertation). among transitional figures between the baroque and classic eras, bach played a major role in the evolution of this form, as well as of the early classic style in general. dr. mekota describes the berlin works as being "for the most part binary in form." some, however, "contain two tonal areas and hint at bithematicism, thus foreshadowing later sonata form" (abstract). she attempts to fit the majority of the first movements of the italian and london works into a "textbook" sonata, a variant of the "textbook" type, and a "classic" sonata. the "textbook" sonata she describes in part as having an exposition containing "two contrasting themes or groups of themes in two strongly established tonal areas" and the "classic" sonata as one in which "themes may not contrast sharply, but tonal areas are well-established" (p. 93). although the author appears to derive her terminology from leonard ratner's article "harmonic aspects of classic form,"12 she has somewhat diluted his emphasis on tonal contrast as the basic criterion. ratner disagrees with what he terms the typical "textbook analysis" used by theorists during the past century, in which they "regarded classic sonata form as being constituted from two principal themes." he proceeds to give convincing arguments that "bi-thematicism, thematic contrast, and well-defined areas of statement and development are not valid as basic formal criteria" (p. 160). buttressed by quotations from classical theorists, he shows that sonata form is essentially a structure based on key areas. dr. mekota herself states that many of the london keyboard works that she has classified as sonatas are at variance "with one or more aspects of sonata structure" as she describes it (p.133). her discussions of melody, texture, rhythm, and harmony do not always maintain equal depths of critical analysis. the sections on texture, however, contain many valuable observations. for example, she maintains that "texture in bach's music serves primarily to delineate form. each new musical thought, whether it be a principal theme or subordinate idea, is usually set forth in a sonority that contrasts with its surroundings" (p. 229). her harmonic analyses are also extremely thorough, covering such items as harmonic relationships among movements, modulatory procedures, cadential 117 formulas, harmonic rhythm, use of pedal tones, and harmonic vocabulary. she makes the useful comment that, although consistent within a given movement, the harmonic rhythm of the berlin period is "highly variable." in the italian and london compositions the harmonic rhythm is more controlled, and changes often coincide with new structural subdivisions (p.227). on the other hand, her discussion of rhythm is incomplete. here a point could be made for including harmonic rhythm under the sections on rhythm-especially since there is so little material on the subject. in fact, rhythm is not discussed for the berlin works. one might note, for example, that the relatively undifferentiated rhythmic style of the berlin compositions shows the influence ofc. p. e. bach and the baroque background. under the italian works we find remarks such as: "most of the rhythmic patterns ... offer little that is distinctive for their time. melodies rarely involve any figure more complicated than that of a dotted eighth and sixteenth" (p. 112). yet without resorting to complex patterns, bach is among the first to give rhythmic profile to the phrase. a seeming contradiction also arises in dr. mekota's discussion of bach's melodic structure; she points out that bach is commonly considered to be "one of the first composers to place emphasis on contrast within a composition" (p. 229). at the same time, however, she concludes that "[his] melodies, although graceful and pleasing, are not often distinctive" (abstract). in appendix 1 under the chronological listing of works written in london between 1762-81, we see sonata [in f], which comes from a collection of "six sonatas for the piano-forte composed by bach, benda, gzaun [sic], wageneil [sic], hasse & kernberger [sic]. london: harrison, cluse & co., [1799]" (material in brackets added by dr. mekota). apparently the names of the composers appear only on the last three sonatas of the collection. according to dr. mekota, "since these last three sonatas are by the last three above-named composers in the order in which they occur on the title page, it seems reasonable to assume a direct correspondence between the first three sonatas and the first three names on the title page" (p. 239). most researchers in 18th-century music will find this a risky assumption, and the gross spelling errors in the title page scarcely inspire confidence. backtracking through the dissertation in search of fuller information, we find on page 50 that dr. mekota actually feels-contrary to the britishunion catalogue13-that the sonata was probably composed by c. p. e. bach, since the other five composers appearing on the title page were men whom c. p. e. had known at the court of frederick the great. it is surprising to read, therefore, that "because of the uncertain attribution the sonata has been included in the study" (p. 50). here the author might well have attempted to determine the correct composer by means of stylistic analysis, a resource entirely absent in her discussions of authenticity. turning to appendix 2, we find four compositions transcribed into modern 118 edition. the inclusion of these works is particularly valuable, since they exist only in manuscript or 18th-century editions and represent the three major periods of bach's output. one of the accomplishments of the dissertation is a chronology for the sonatas that places them in either the berlin, italian, or london periods. also valuable is the charting of the evolution that occurred in bach's style during these years, supported by well-chosen examples. the most obvious unsolved problem of the dissertation is its lack of a critical musical evaluation of bach's solo and ensemble keyboard works. dr. mekota's concluding statement-" ... his compositional technique generally reflects practices current in his lifetime"-tells us little about his significance and contributions to the 18th century. the question of how his solo and ensemble keyboard works differ from those of, for example, his brother c. p. e. bach, or numerous other contemporaries, remains unanswered. j. c. bach's influence over mozart receives only passing mention. dr. mekota notes that mozart constructed concertos from christian's op. 5 sonatas at the age of nine, but we miss any reference to edwin j. simon's important article on the subject, "sonata into concerto: a study of mozart's first seven concertos."14 she might also have mentioned mozart's letters in which he recommends bach's sonatas to his sister in 1774 and speaks of using them for teaching purposes in mannheim in 1778.15 for one evaluation of j. c. bach's music, we can turn to jan larue, who points out that bach's evolution of formulas as early as 1770 "to relate and control the heterogeneous elements of a new style was in itself a novel and notable accomplishment."16 professor larue goes on to say that one of the composer's most important contributions lay in his coordination of all the elements "to a common task of expression," thus resembling and influencing mozart.17 in addition to bach's thematic contrast (burney was the first to comment on this), he broadened the internal structures of the themes themselves by expanding their building blocks or modules. in opening themes in particular he "perfected a compound structure of fanfare balanced by a contrasting response."18 it is hoped that future work on johann christian bach and his solo and ensemble keyboard works, some of it perhaps to be carried out by dr. mekota herself, will broaden and deepen our understanding of his music along stylistic-analytical lines. notes 1 charles sanford terry, johann christian bach, 2nd ed. (london: oxford university press, 1967). 2 following is a list of ph.d. dissertations, both completed and in progress: edward o. d. downes, "the operas of j. c. bach as a reflection of the dominant trends in opera seria, 1750-1780" (harvard university, 1958); marie a. h. vos, "the liturgical choral works of johann christian bach" (washington university, 1969); joseph a. white, jr., "the concerted symphonies of johann christian bach" (university of michigan, 1958); 119 delores]. keahey, "the chamber music of]ohann christian bach" (university of texas) ; oscar d. yancey,]r., "a study of style and form in the late keyboard concerti of]ohann christian bach" (indiana university). 3 terry, bach, p. xxiii. 4 "the early symphony," new oxford history of music, vol. 7 (in press). 5 london: oxford university press, 1929. 6 terry, bach, p. 13. 7 zeitschriftfiir musikwissenschoft 15 (1934): 182-88. 8 the musical quarterly 33 (1947): 327--49. 9 chapel hill, n.c.: the university of north carolina press, 1963. 10 the sonata in the classic era, pp. 704-05. 11 carl hermann bitter, carl philipp emanuel und wilhelm friedemann bach und deren bruder, vol. 1 (berlin: wilhelm miiller, 1868), pp. 209-10, as cited by newman in the sonata, p. 102. 12 journal of the american musicological society 2 (1949): 159-68. 13 the british union-catalogue of early music printed before the year 1801, vol. 2, ed. edith b. schnapper (london: butterworths scientific publications, 1957), p. 964. 14 acta musicologica 31 (1959): 170-84. 15 the letters of mozart and his family, ed. and trans. emily anderson (london: macmillan, 1938), vol. 1, p. 364, and vol. 2, p. 71l. 16 larue, "the early symphony." 17 larue, "concerto," new oxford history of music, vol. 7 (in press): see also his guidelines for style analysis (new york: w. w. norton & co., 1970), pp. 142--43. 18 larue, "the early symphony." 120 operatic texts: ours, yours, and mine roger parker. 2006. remaking the song: operatic visions and revisions from handel to berio. ernest bloch lectures. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by steven huebner a carmen without mercedes, frasqita, le remendado, le danca'ire, without cigarette girls and gypsies. a carmen where carmen's husband garcia (from prosper merimee's antecedent novella) is included and gets killed by don jose-as does zuniga, who is merely threatened in bizet's opera as customar­ ily performed. a catfight between carmen and micaela, a slash across the face. a dirt performing space surrounded on three sides by viewers. sixteen musicians who accompany the singing-actors in a reduced, reorchestrated, cut, and rearranged version of bizet's music. such was director peter brook's la tragedie de carmen (with collaboration from set designer jean-claude carriere and composer marius constant) performed with much success at the bouffes du nord in paris, and also at lincoln center, in the early 1980s.1 having attended the production, i can attest to its dramatic efficacy. reading roger parker's remaking the song brought brook's version vividly to mind. although la tragedie de carmen does not surface in the book, brook's staging provides a radical example of the central issue that parker explores. bizet's opera was indeed "remade"-or (choose your verb) mangled, cavalierly distorted, imaginatively adapted, rearticulated, effectively reduced to its essence, productively appropriated. with good reason one might ask why brook did not merely package his production as an adaptation of merimee, with assistance from bizet? well, might come the reply, most of the familiar tunes do put in an appearance. sacrilege? where is bizet's "work"? parker voices gentle impatience with the defense of particular operatic texts grounded in authorial intent. operatic productions change with the times; new contexts produce new readings. why not push the envelope to the musical texts as well, especially because so many opera composers of the past proved eminently practical when faced with the realities (and limitations) of stage performance? parker argues for giving variant readings-even those produced when the composer seems to have abdicated control to others-a fair hearing. his approach is two-pronged. in three case studies his argument focuses on the textual history of a single work: the substitution of susanna's "un moto di gioia" in place of the more familiar "venite, inginocchiaveti" current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 117 118 current musicology and the same character's "ai desio" for "deh vieni" in mozart's le nozze di figaro; luciano berio's idiosyncratic realization of puccini's sketches for the end of turandot; and the history of the aria "dove sei?" from handel's rodelinda, a history that includes translation (and considerable musical change) as ''art thou troubled?" the remaining two case studies consider musical and dramatic resonances of one opera in another: the "crossed­ wires" between verdi's il trovatore and la traviata (verdi wrote the latter while preparing the stage production of the former) and the brief incursion of the "verfuhrungs" motif from wagner's parsifal in verdi's falstaff. parker's writing, beautiful and engaging throughout, yields many local­ level rewards. for example, he elegantly interprets the citation of parsifal at the beginning of the third act of falstaff as a moment of dislocation apposite to falstaff's existential anxiety here and a modernist world just beyond-this in an opera usually seen as backward-looking. old oppositions between verdi and wagner need careful reevaluation, parker suggests (although wagner's influence could be painted with a finer brush than to suggest that verdi was really attacking wagner ism in general when he criticized bruneau's le reve, 84). parker's defense of mozart's "ai desio;' which marshals what we know about the voice of adriana ferrarese, for whom this substitute aria was written, draws attention to some of its salient similarities to "per pieta" from cost fan tutte for the same artist, and therefore invites an understand­ ing of susanna against the character of fiordilgi. few other critics will have previously thought of the frothy trills from la traviata as they listened to similar gestures in the third act of il trovatore when the count interrogates azucena and ferrando recognizes her. what can one operatic world possibly have to do with the other? we may reach for ingenious explanations, writes parker, or savor the strangeness of the moment, a destabilizing of the work's "identity." but is this moment quite so uncanny? at the risk of appearing simplistic (and dissonant with the wonderful nuance of this book) one might observe that the use of" traviata figuration" in this trovatore scene seems appropriate for the count's nonchalant and (at first) inconsequential banter with the gypsy. and, given the degree to which the genesis of both operas overlaps, perhaps it would be even more uncanny if echoes of one were not heard in the other. parker's overarching concern rotates around the connected ideas of musical work( -concept), authenticity, inviolability of text, and the puta­ tively objective establishment of best versions-none of which he is very happy with. celebrations of definitive and unalterable scores bespeak the hegemonic collective construct of "our text" (50) a sacred trust unsullied by solipsistic interpretation and guarded by successive generations of performers and critics. such adherence to supposedly final compositional steven huebner intentions ultimately blinds us to much valuable cultural matter. opera is "inherently mutable" as the dust jacket says. and times change. but in our current musicological climate these hardly seem like the complaints of a maverick. (or am i merely reflecting my own fundamental agreement with parker's position in observing this?) where are the great defenders of textual inviolability and objective aesthetic standards in anglo-american writing? the straw men that emerge on the pages of the book are winton dean and j. merrill knapp for handel, stefan kunze and even hermann abert (writing near the beginning of the twentieth century!) for mozart. james webster does get critiqued in a footnote for his apparent dismissal of "ai desio." yet in the context of interpreting (and praising) "deh vieni;' webster merely reports on what others have said about ''ai desio"-hardly an elaborate defense of immutable texts. here is carl dahlhaus on this issue, writing over a quarter-century ago: if music is viewed less as a corpus of works than as an event, a "commu­ nicative process;' then the main emphasis of musical philology and the compiling of musical editions no longer fall exclusively on "authentic" texts, i.e. those reflecting the intentions of the composer. on the contrary, inauthentic versions, being documents of particular modes of reception, enjoy equal rights as historical evidence. (1983:39) the gap between the last clause and support for the equal rights of inau­ thentic versions on the stage seems small. parker writes that although he does not advocate a replacement of "voi che sapete" with elvis presley's "heartbreak hotel;' this does not mean he feels "empowered automatically to dismiss it, to pronounce that it could never work in any circumstance" (12). surely something we call responsible "criticism" today has an implicit methodological code that enjoins practitioners to resist automatic dismissal (not always easy, to be sure) as they seek to understand the context for any cultural artifact as it travels through time-even a ie nozze that might include "heartbreak hotel." reception histories do not seem to be in short supply in our discipline. in short, the current musicological enemy lurks largely unseen on these pages. parker's stance seems redolent oflong-standing critiques of "positivism" and philology put to the service of protecting incontrovertible genius. my own impression is that such battles were waged quite a few years ago and resolved in a healthy state of pluralism. resolution was perhaps inevitable because an indictment of modernist mastery implicit in some critiques of "positivism" could always easily be met with a reply that would question how an attempt to establish parameters of compositional intent could possibly represent a crushing of the historical subject. the same critic/scholar need 119 120 current musicology not necessarily be drawn to both edition-making and hermeneutics (parker himself has excelled at both). it would seem that as a community we have come to understand that since the second cannot survive without the first, it is hardly equitable to dismiss the first as manual labor unbecoming of the modern intellectual. nowadays, isn't there a consensus that to labor on editions that suggest parameters of intent is not perforce to discourage the changeability of texts for evolving critical and practical purposes? (these parameters delineate what was intended, was not intended, and the wide range of situations where we aren't sure or the distinction is not salient.) any identification of what constitutes a text adequate to help generate "the work" operates at the behest of the critical and practical ends to which the text is applied: an ontology of "our text" to be sure, but also of "your text" and "my text"2: this, at least, is implicit in parker's study, and might even have emerged more forcefully as an epistemological premise. if critiques of positivism-as-perpetuator-of-genius in the academy today are something of a cliche (almost as much as reflexes that once sprang to the defense of authenticity), then to put a more positive spin on this we might observe that the health of any discipline depends on salutary reminders. outside the academy it is another matter-although parker, perhaps too readily, lumps together the musicological community with performers (not entirely separate groups, of course) for their uncritical championing of "authentic texts." journalists and opera producers get censured in his mozart chapter for their blind defense of an authentic version of le nozze that necessarily had to include "venite, inginocchiatevi" and "deh vieni." notwithstanding cecilia bartoli's decision to use the substitute arias, many performers of international calibre (in my experience) are especially prone to celebrations of authenticity, the notion of humbling themselves before the genius of the composer, except when the budget must prevail or practical performing realities become an issue. the radio interviews and teaching dis­ course of master artist/teachers are filled with mozart-wanted-this-mozart­ wanted-that assertions. even more than in the academic world, insight into genius functions as a guarantor of prestige in the performing economy of classical music. although parker's caveats seem more pertinent to this group than to the musicological community, it is not clear that most performers, journalists, and producers maintain an active interest in the epistemological fineries of academic discourse, even when as beautifully fashioned-and jargon free-as in this book. let's hope the word gets out. it is worth pushing parker's delicately drawn premise a bit further with brook's la tragmie de carmen, a production that, as i have already indicated, used the original music throughout, although reorchestrated and performed out of order. as i also hinted earlier, there may be those who maintain that steven huebner brook developed the essence of bizet's opera, that the work-or what is deemed some truly meaningful part of it-lay in these "authentic" quali­ ties that transcended adherence to, say, the original sequence of the music. in this case, bizet's text (as one generator of the work) would be liberally conceived indeed, a position that cannot be defended or refuted in a vacuum. the text of brook's la tragedie de carmen might even be assimilated with the text of bizet's carmen in certain critical (or journalistic or performing) situations. an identification of this production as "bizet's opera arranged by brook" belonging to the same class of text as "bizet's opera arranged by ernest guiraud" (who famously replaced the original spoken dialogue with recitatives shortly after bizet's death) will depend on-and be evaluated against-the critical use to which this identification and classification is put. and this despite the obvious fact that guiraud's text is closer to parameters of intent that we can (imperfectly) reconstruct for the composer. in other words, it would seem more productive to judge the persuasiveness of the critical project at hand than to insist on a (relatively) fixed condition of the text per se. in a mutation from "our text" to "my text;' appeals to putative intention may indeed suit certain critical aims and narrative strategies for constructing history (for example reception history: more on this below), which as readers and listeners we may, or may not, find compelling as a premise for inquiry and experience. or with bizet -guiraud-brook we might argue that the latter fully realized the violence that lies at the patriarchal center of bizet's opera, with the bottom line of the piece expressed in don jose's stabbing of carmen. here, an interpretation would shape a very broad perception of the text indeed, one that tolerates the music played out of order. others may find that premise too reductive or a violation of their understanding of authorial intent. to imagine a compelling justification for presley's "heartbreak hotel" in place of cherubino's "voi che sapete" seems even more daunting. a google search does, however, yield publicity for a band called cherubino, with the blurb: the charmingly, and rather appropriately named cherubino (that's the hormonal youth of mozart's opera the marriage of figaro; cherubino is italian for cherub) is a young power trio that's [sic 1 experienced a whole lotta heartbreak and celebrates that adolescent emotional distress with tuneful bursts of mid-fi in die rock. (ashlock 2002) of course presley's own performances of the song were nothing if not hormonal. yet his text brims with despondency caused by love ("well since my baby left me / i found a new place to dwell / it's down at the end oflonely street / at heartbreak hotel / you make me so lonely baby / i get so lonely / i 121 122 current musicology get so lonely i could die"), obviously much darker than the content of"voi che sapete." nonetheless (to turn the coin), "voi che sapete" has a particular status as a "phenomenal song" in le nozze, that is, one literally presented by the stage character as a vocal piece. because it stands out from the normative musical discourse of the opera by staging the artifice of performance, why not push that artifice further with an anachronistic substitution? perhaps it is also worth recalling that in a way beaumarchais did deal in heartbreak in his antecedent trilogy: the count does succeed in sending cherubino away-to his death on the battlefield-after le mariage de figaro, as we learn in the third installment la mere coupable. the insertion of "heartbreak hotel" would be to update an opera with a vengeance, to make a point about character not only with modern costume but with pop music. could we call the text of such a production "mozart's le nozze di figaro," as many would have no hesitation doing if the music followed a version sanctioned by the new complete edition but were set in the 1950s or 60s? yes, we might say, except for "that presley song" (said in a disdainful or enthusiastic way). but we might continue: "that song" is very much in the spirit of the character and therefore does not really detract from a sense of the whole work as mozart's opera. acceptance of this statement would seem partly contingent on different perceptions of "wholeness;' say, either as a composite of many little parts or rather as some sort of reigning dramatic spirit. or we might reject the statement because we feel that the insertion induces laughter for the wrong reasons, producing comedy with stylistic dislocation rather than a comedy of character. at what point does the semiotic significance get sucked out of a text called "mozart's le nozze di figaro" when insertions of music written by others are made to it? hard to say-this is rather like the philosophical paradox of the heap-but it seems clear that with some presley woven in (perhaps even more copiously) an entity called "mozart's le nozze di figaro" would prove difficult to manipulate in criticism, as i hope my brave attempt shows. but who would declare these maneuvers impossible and without potential to build a consensus in a particular community of critics and listeners? i do have a quibble with the scope of parker's method. from one point of view, associating intertextual analysis with a critique of the fetishization of original versions makes good sense: compositional agency in the latter gives way to the riffing of one text on another in the former, the story of how compositions are about other compositions regardless of intent. but-here's the rub-parker does not seem particularly inclined to downplay autho­ rial agency except where it became muted in the posthumous history of a handel aria or the realization of turandot sketches. moreover, a critical approach favoring the interpenetration of texts is not necessarily dissonant with proposing parameters of textual authority. one might credibly defend steven huebner both as discrete operations in the discipline: the text scholar (or artist such as brook) produces a text-a critical and musical undertaking in itself-and the intertextual explorer makes this a premise of inquiry. texts are certainly fragile for all kinds of reasons and authenticity is a very loaded concept, but to recognize all of these contingencies does not preclude a normative basis for a hermeneutics centered on influence or quotation and grounded in the performing materials associated with any work. against this epistemological model, it is difficult to see what intertextual references have to do with the material scope of a text, especially if compositional agency is implied at some level. falstaff, for example, is filled with allusions to many different works of music and literature-parker might have added die meistersinger to the wagner side for the act 1 finale, with its contrasting groups-but regardless of the quantity detected, the textual identity of falstaff(in all its complexity) would scarcely seem threatened. my puzzlement about the place of intertextual reference (with its at­ tendant hermeneutics) in parker's plea for a liberal approach to texts stems partly from a premise that the conglomeration of materials established by compositional agency produces the object of reception history, or rather the subset of it involving posthumous textual history called wirkung in german-speaking lands, curiously unmentioned in parker's study even as he discusses the english re-textings of handel's "dove sei?" explanatory power in parker's discussion of this phenomenon derives from consider­ ation of an object (however nebulous its borders) that changes over time, that is from a paradigm that involves the piling of different meanings and adaptations upon one set of cultural matter conceived as discrete from other cultural matter. in remaking the song, something called "the song;' after all, is remade. parker does, however, float the idea that the kind of intertextuality trig­ gered by quotation might encourage a broadening of the textual parameters for an opera. for example, on the matter of the intrusion of parsifal into falstaffhe fantasizes: one might imagine performances that switched the orchestral preludes to falstaff act ii, scene 1, and parsifal, act ii, an operation that would certainly make audiences at bayreuth sit up and take notice; but there is in truth little likelihood of enticing or outrageous substitutions, of external ways in which we can destabilize these operatic works. however, we might all the same ponder the fact that a late point in verdi's last opera is marked by a curious incursion from another work. (89) parker goes on here to reinforce the point that the parsifal citation un­ dermines our previous understanding of falstaff. is the proposition of performing wagner's second act prelude at the beginning of the third act of 123 124 current musicology verdi's opera a credible consequence of this critical reorientation? perhaps, but i am unconvinced that this is an effective way to advocate the mutability of opera. the gravitational pull of the mass of materials associated with a theatrical work called falstajfin such a combinatory performance would, in most critical contexts, do little to weaken our sense of verdi's (or wagner's) opera as textually distinct, or (to use parker's term ofreference) less stable. indeed, it would be just as likely to remind us of their differences: the very salience of parker's observations about falstajf-as-angst-inflected derives from the implication of a certain distance between these composers. parker mines the parsifal citation for its hermeneutic implications precisely because it is foreign in important respects, recalling the commonplace idea in liter­ ary theory that the "other" contributes to a sense of identity. he calls it a "curious incursion." should we protest at the desecration of two monuments if an orchestral prelude from parsifal made its way into a performance of falstaff? of course not, as we consider what is achieved and to what end. but it is difficult to see how the debate could avoid taking the construct of two separate works as its premise. my guess is that said discussion, as with the more widely spanning intertextuality of "heartbreak hotel" in le nozze, might posit limits (however vague) to their textual mutability, at least to the extent that titles attached to composer names perform useful critical work and function as viable categories to structure experience. parker also reflects on value judgment in his broader effort to query such notions as work, authenticity, and inviolability of text. his goal here is to undermine "original is best" ways of thinking (significantly, philologists have long spoken of "corrupt" texts) by celebrating later variants, to critique the circular use of value judgement in order to shore up a sense of authenticity (good because authentic, authentic because good). fair enough, but to my mind the recognition oflater versions as aesthetically satisfactory ultimately does little to dislodge a premise of reception history that reinforces a sense of original identity. textual criticism seems an effective way, though not the only one, into understanding just how broadly defined that identity might be. and in shaping an understanding of the text, the semiologist's poietic phase would seem difficult to ignore: original texts may not be the best in every context, but they remain important protagonists in historical (and critical) narratives. to treat the entire historical mass of textual materials associated with any work in a synchronous, undifferentiated, hypertext/hyperlinked manner (and i do not want to suggest that parker advocates this) would be akin to the universalizing impulses of the original urtext builders, where narrative impulses wither before textual immutability (in one case) and obsessive comprehensiveness (in the other). now, some readers will prefer the politically less neutral qualifier "inclusive" to "comprehensive" in this steven huebner last sentence. that all voices deserve equal hearing rhymes well with our sensibilities today, but (in another register) so does protection of intellectual and artistic property. berio's realization of the turandot sketches works well within the framework of the argument. although based on materials left behind by puccini, the berio version not only creates a much different sound world from puccini's style but also fleshes out certain dramatic implications, like, for example, a musical prolongation of calaf's erotically charged kiss. parker maintains that this setting helps the opera achieve "contemporary accept­ ability" (his discussion is musically sensitive and critically insightful in a way that cannot be reproduced here). without updating, works risk becoming outmoded and irrelevant. such is the impulse behind director's opera. again, fair enough. perhaps we need to wait longer for the lines of operatic convention to be further attenuated, for habits to be broken, to reach a point when the past can be restored in all of its archaic fullness to produce aesthetic pleasures grounded in its strangeness and dissonance to contemporary mores. parker criticizes franco alfano's earlier realization of the sketches partly because his setting of calaf's kiss represents sex as a "barbaric, messy business, overwhelmingly concerned with power" (98). if we were to begin expurgating operas in the repertory for offensive representations of gender and sexuality, then we would certainly have our work cut out for us. engaging with the strangeness of the past partly involves engaging with its unsavory representations. if these are not counterbalanced by an aesthetic payoff in some other aspect of any work, it may well indeed fall into oblivion. another parallel with urtext builders emerges: we universalize "the song" by making it relevant to different times and places through revision. along another branch of his probe into berio's realization, parker sug­ gests that "it is important not because it has in some way 'saved' turandot, but rather because it underscores the fact that we can indeed rethink operas by rethinking their music" (119). we constantly change works under pressure of the moment, he argues, through cuts, adjustments to vocal lines, reorchestration, and piano-accompanied performances. it is the performative moment that counts, not the score. there is an irrefutable logic in grouping the realization of sketches with the employment of other textual materials associated with any opera, and (we might add) making a distinction between this and the insertion of pieces composed from scratch by someone else. but i think we do need to be careful about a completely unhierarchical approach that does not differentiate between an autograph full score and a fragmentary sketch: most often, the sketch derives its entire value from critical appreciations of other, more "complete" textual mate­ rial associated with the work. berio only undertook the project in the first 125 126 current musicology place because of what puccini had actually completed. likewise, the reason that folding "heartbreak hotel" into something called "mozart's le nozze di figaro" would likely command interest (if it were to command interest at all) is the consensus built long before around the quality of mozart's opera. this would seem to lend the voices of puccini and mozart a certain authority, however difficult it is to fold the consequences of that authority into criticism and performance. in the final analysis, parker strikes a moderate tone himself, "one that denies that there are entirely objective rules for aesthetic appropriateness but that nevertheless resists the view that accords everyone, regardless of experi­ ence and knowledge, the right to an equal hearing in making aesthetic claims" (13). (i would, however, rephrase the first part of the statement to suggest that there may indeed be objective rules for aesthetic appropriateness ac­ cording to the purpose at hand-merely a repackaging of parker's ostensible intent.) in other words, we need to know something about contexts, those synchronic with the work's composition and diachronic in its performance history. but, might ask the devil's advocate: wouldn't limited knowledge be the best path to refreshing rearticulation? yes, there is much to be gained on that premise, we might answer, but traditionalists are valuable as a reminder of what there is to lose as we avidly fashion works in our own image. beyond reporting on his own lack of interest in working "heartbreak hotel" in le nozze di figaro, i wish that parker had told us somewhat more about just why informed reception is a compelling criterion of performance and criticism. i suspect the answer might invoke the construct of a dialogue with the past, one where authorial intent, as amorphous as it is, is not discounted entirely and where diachronic mutability comes up against an ontology where "our text" means your text, my text-and the composer's. notes 1. for a more complete account see the review by hilary u. cohen (1982). 2. for a wider perspective on this issue see bohlman 1999. references ashlock, jesse. 2002. cherubino. epitonic.com (april 4): www.epitonic.com (accessed october 11,2007). bohlman, philip. 1999. ontologies of music. in rethinking music, edited by nicholas cook and mark everist, 17-34. oxford and new york: oxford university press. cohen, hilary u. 1982. review of la tragedie de carmen, adopted by peter brook, jean-claude carriere, and marius constant. theatre journal 34 (4): 530-31. dahlhaus, carl. 1983. foundations of music history, translated by j. b. robinson. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf interpreting discontinuity in the late works of debussy marianne wheeldon 1. many writers have commented upon formal discontinuity in debussy's music. robert sherlaw johnson compares this discontinuity to the collage technique of messiaen (1975:102-03); robert orledge describes it as mo­ saic construction (1982:170); roy howat refers to it as a definable system of block construction (l983:23n6); and robert p. morgan terms it additive structure (1991 :48). yet these scholars were not the first to take note of dis­ junction in debussy's compositional style. decades earlier, another group of musicians similarly drew attention to debussy's use of discontinuity. the composers of the darmstadt avant -garde in the 1950s and 1960s seized upon debussy's works to inspire and legitimize their own formal experiments.! pierre boulez, herbert eimert, dieter schnebel, and karlheinz stockhausen all acknowledged their debt to debussy with lectures, articles, recordings, and concerts of his compositions.2 these composers focused on debussy's formal innovations in general and championed debussy's last orchestral work, the ballet/eux (1913), in particular.3 the present article draws upon many of the insights of the darmstadt composers to help isolate those features of debussy's music that promote discontinuity. by revisiting their commentary and incorporating it, when­ ever feasible, into analyses of debussy's works, i hope to achieve two objec­ tives. first, by cultivating an approach that valorizes discontinuity, i aim to flesh out many of the observations and descriptions scholars have made concerning debussy's compositional style, a small selection of which was cited in the opening paragraph. these writers all point to a conspicuous feature of debussy's music, one that became more pronounced in his final works. while the darmstadt composers perhaps overemphasized the role of discontinuity with regard to jeux, debussy's subsequent compositions are more in line with their commentary. for example, certain preludes (1913) and etudes (1915), the trois poemes de stephane mallarme (1913), and the central movements of the cello sonata (1915) and violin sonata (1917) pursue formal discontinuity further, which becomes even more noticeable in the smaller scope and sparser textures of these compositions. second, by approaching debussy's late music from the viewpoint of current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 97 98 current musicology discontinuity, i hope to offer a counterbalance to much music-theoretical discourse, which tends to present a bias towards unifying structures and continuity in music. despite the broad acknowledgment of discontinuity in debussy's works (to which the comments in the opening paragraph tes­ tify), it is ultimately treated as a surface feature of the music, belied by an underlying continuity. while intentionally privileging musical discontinu­ ity accentuates the opposite stance, it is a necessary first step in forming a balanced consideration of debussy's compositions, one that ultimately ac­ knowledges the interplay of discontinuity and continuity in his late style. in cultivating an analytic approach for debussy's late works, i draw largely upon stockhausen's 1960 article "moment form-new relations between durations of performance and work and moment" and its revision in jonathan d. kramer's 1978 article "moment form in twentieth century music" and 1988 book the time of music. stockhausen's moment form pre­ sents one of the few theoretical attempts to broach musical discontinuity, both theoretically and aesthetically, and thus provides a productive starting point for a discussion of debussy's late style. following a summary of stockhausen's ideas, i analyze three late works­ "feuilles mortes" (preludes ii), "ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" (preludes i), and "ondine" (preludes ii)-in light of his arguments, taking into consid­ eration the increasingly autonomous ideas of these compositions, their non­ developmental modes of presentation and, finally, the potential openness in their forms. familiar formal patterns present in many of debussy's preludes and etudes, such as ternary design, gradually disappear in the works analyzed in this article. the dissolution of any recognizable formal pattern is complete with "ondine," which represents one of the most experimental of debussy's late compositions and offers, in microcosm, many of the traits that the darmstadt composers found so compelling. 2. what attracted the darmstadt composers to !eux was its proliferation of ideas and their unusual presentation. as eimert states, !eux's repertoire of twenty-three themes "is considerably larger than in usual formal practice." he notes that these themes: are mostly repeated once or twice, then they submerge. the repetitions guarantee comprehensibility in the accepted sense, but incomprehensi­ bility increases in so far as the material repeated is constantly new. these juxtapositions function in a linear, direct, straightforward way. (1961:6) in subsequent analytical comments, eimert rejects all traditional formal marianne wheeldon categories for jeux, preferring instead terms such as "flowing form," "elastic structure," and "wave form" (1961 :9, 17). all these descriptions are sugges­ tive in that they reject a hierarchical notion of form, so much so that eimert himself concludes that "traditional music theory is helpless in [the 1 face of this work" (1961 :20). similarly, boulez avoids conventional terminology in his description of jeux: one must experience the whole work to have a grasp of its form, which is no longer architected, but braided; in other words, there is no distributive hierarchy in the organization of'sections' (static sections: themes; dynamic sections: developments) but successive distributions in the course of which the various constituent elements take on a greater or lesser functional importance. one can well understand that this sense of form is bound to run up against the listening habits formed by contact with three centuries of 'architectural' music. (1991:155) as the above quotations indicate, both eimert and boulez acknowledge the inadequacy of applying "traditional formal schemes" to jeux, and their attempt to find a new lexicon not only grapples with formal procedures in jeux, but also indicates the direction of their own compositional endeavors. similarly, stockhausen's writings of the 1960s describe new musical forms that "are remote from the scheme of the finalistic, dramatic forms" (1963a: 198).4 these writings, though they are intended to provide theoreti­ cal frameworks for his compositions, outline the same issues confronting eimert and boulez: that is, how to counter inherited notions of form, a legacy that boulez describes as "three centuries of architectural music:' among the numerous formal procedures stockhausen codified in the 1950s and 1960s, moment form is perhaps the most radical in that it attempts to distill the tendency toward fragmentation in post-war music into an aes­ thetic program.5 stockhausen originally conceived of moment form as a way of accom­ modating listeners. faced with complaints that his work kontakte (1960) was too long (at 341/2 minutes) to sustain the listener's interest, he strove to devise a compositional practice that allowed audiences to exercise control over their hearing of his work (l963a:189). like the contemplation of a painting or a sculpture, stockhausen wanted to create a form that granted listeners the freedom to come and go at will, without compromising their experience or the composition itself (1963a:192). this premise led to the creation of moment form, first articulated in "moment form-new rela­ tions between durations of performance and work and moment." in this article, stockhausen describes a form made up of autonomous musical sec­ tions-"moments"-that were to be appreciated as complete and self-con99 100 current musicology tained musical utterances, rather than for their role in a larger composition. to create this possibility, stockhausen's conception of moment form ad­ dresses three main issues: the characteristics of the individual moment, the connections between moments and the principles of moment succession, and the requirement of endlessness. first, stockhausen describes the moment "as something individual, in­ dependent, and centered in itself, capable of existing on its own" (1963a: 199). moments are created to be dispensable, so that their presence or absence should not effect the identity of the work. thus their autonomy is crucial: the musical idea has to be completed within the confines of the moment as it cannot rely on surrounding moments-which vary from one performance to another-for its musical coherence or completion. whatever musical idea is established within the duration of the moment is maintained to its con­ clusion. therefore, another defining characteristic of the moment is its in­ ternal consistency. as stockhausen states, a moment is "every formal unit that is recognizable by a personal and unchangeable characteristic" (1963a:200). second, the autonomy of moments means that they do not prepare or follow from neighboring moments, and thus connections between them are minimal or non-existent. moments are musical segments that are equally intensive and equally significant, so that a succession of moments is non­ hierarchical and non-teleological. according to stockhausen's definition, moment forms: do not aim toward a climax, do not prepare the listener to expect a climax, and their structures do not contain the usual stages found in the develop­ ment curve of the whole duration of a normal composition: the intro­ ductory, rising, transitional and fading stages. on the contrary, these new forms are immediately intensive, and the main point which is made at once remains present at an equal level to the very conclusion. they do not induce constant waiting for a minimum or a maximum, and the direction of their development cannot be predicted with certainty. they are forms in a state of always having already commenced, which could go on as they are for an eternity. (1963a:198-99) the concluding sentence leads to stockhausen's final consideration, the requirement of endlessness. with stockhausen's new conception of musical time, a listener can no longer recognize a necessary beginning, middle, or end to the composition. there is no sense of development, climax, or reso­ lution, but only a succession of equally important ideas. listeners, there­ fore, would be unaware of where they were in the course of the composition and, indeed, this disorientation is precisely stockhausen's aim. byempha­ sizing the autonomy of the moment rather than any overall flow or contimarianne wheeldon nuity, stockhausen hopes to obliterate all expectations of time, duration, and form previously established by western musical tradition: this concentration on the present moment-on every present moment­ can make a vertical cut, as it were, across horizontal time perception, ex­ tending out to a timelessness i call eternity. this is not an eternity that begins at the end of time, but an eternity that is present in every moment. i am speaking about musical forms in which apparently no less is being undertaken than the explosion-yes-even more, the overcoming of the concept of duration. (l963a:199) though separated by four decades, stockhausen's definition of moment form can shed light upon certain works debussy composed immediately before and during the first world war. many of the preludes and etudes, for example, present successions of self-contained and non-developmental mu­ sical ideas that often bear little resemblance to traditional forms. displaying characteristics of what stockhausen would later term "moment form;' cer­ tain passages within these works do not aim toward a climax or resolution but proceed linearly, with no one musical idea hierarchically more signifi­ cant than another. these ideas may never recur during the course of the composition, and they more often contrast with, rather than connect to, surrounding musical sections. the following analyses focus on discontinu­ ous features in three debussy preludes in an attempt to illuminate one of the most conspicuous and oft-noted features of debussy's late style. the analysis of "feuilles mortes" draws upon stockhausen's discussion of the characteristics of individual moments; the analysis of "ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" focuses on his ideas of moment succession; and the analysis of "ondine" considers both of these features and their implications for open form. each prelude occupies a different position within the continuity-dis­ continuity spectrum, moving from "feuilles mortes;' where an unusual se­ quence of ideas in the central section sits between two otherwise cohesive outer sections, to "ondine," where discontinuity affects the entire composi­ tion. 3. at first glance, "feuilles mortes" appears problematic when considered in terms of moment-form aesthetics, in that the prelude clearly presents a ter­ nary design: the double barlines of m. 18 mark the end of the a section; the direction un peu plus allant signals the start of the b section, which contin­ ues to m. 40; and the return of the opening material, to be played dans ie sentiment du debut, comes at m. 41. furthermore, embedded within the 101 102 current musicology aba' form of the prelude, a smaller aba' structure operates in the opening section, with a truncated repetition of the opening theme recurring in mm. 15-18 to close the section. while the outer sections of "feuilles mortes" are at odds with stockhausen's predilection for an apparently random succes­ sion of moments, the central section (mm. 19-40) presents a sequence of ideas that is more striking. the four themes in this section of "feuilles mortes" embody, to different degrees, the same sort of principles that stockhausen outlines for individual moments. their varying levels of har­ monic and melodic stasis lead to contrasting perceptions of autonomy and, by extension, discontinuity.6 all the themes in the central section of "feuilles mortes" are harmoni­ cally static: they are superimposed over a bass pedal or feature an ostinato, or both in combination. compounding this literal harmonic stasis, many of these themes feature whole-tone or octatonic sonorities, which lack the harmonic functionality and forward impetus of common -practice tonality. above the bass ostinato of the first idea (section i, mm. 19-24), for ex­ ample, the harmonies comprise the complete even whole-tone collection 6-35 [0,2,4,6,8,10]' which underpins the entire section. in other sections, non-functional collections are superimposed one above the other. in the following passage (section 2, mm. 25-30), the lower staff presents a portion of octatonic collection i (4-27 [8,10,1,4]) for the duration of the section, while the melody and descant ostinato of the upper staves present the com­ plete octatonic collection iii (8-28 [0,1,3,4,6,7,9,10]). another octatonic counterpoint occurs in the final idea of the central section (section 4, mm. 37-40), with the half notes in the inner voices presenting octatonic collec­ tion iii (6-30 [0,3,4,6,9,10]), and the melodic line and bass pedal in the outer voices presenting octatonic collection ii (5-32 [0,3,5,8,9]).7 while all of the themes exhibit harmonic stasis, their melodic content often undermines their potential for self-containment. the first idea of the central section exhibits the least musical autonomy in that it features a ris­ ing whole-tone scale, a process that leads to the higher register of section 2 (mm. 25-30). more conspicuously, the independence of this section is un­ dermined by the bass ostinato, which derives from the chromatic arabesque of the immediately preceding measures (mm. 17-18, which itself is a rep­ etition of mm. 4-5). measures 17-20 provide a smooth transition into the central section of the prelude by first introducing the rhythm of the ostinato (m. 17), then its pitches (m. 18), and finally its register (mm. 19-20). there­ fore, the material of mm. 19-24 spills out of its formal boundaries in two directions: the ostinato arises out of the preceding measures, while the ris­ ing melodic line flows toward the next section. yet each theme in this portion of the prelude cannot be characterized marianne wheeldon example 1. "feuilles mortes," mm. 29-36. .~ .~ .~ .~ plus lent f pppj~ #,::=::: "1 291'1 joi '" ~h":#.":.i. ~h": #i ..: i u~ ~ ~ : u ..... ...... ""'-oj ...... oj 3 \ 3 = p marque 1:= = 1'1 joi '" en dehors .j. \j : : u '-/ ~"--~~ = ==---=--== mf-=:::::::= =::k ,j; ~ ppp : i~j r ~ \tl~ i~ 331'1 '" ~ i ~ ~. : ~ u l-.~ ~ =b \ i oj p marque 3. joi~ ro.j. joihj ~ql: i .. j ,~ : ---' mf -==== =====p malta dim. ppp : i~i similarly. after the very smooth entrance into the central section of"feuilles mortes," successive themes display greater levels of autonomy, culminating with the unusual and striking idea of section 3, mm. 31-36 (ex. 1). section 3 stands apart from the preceding two sections in several ways: the intro­ duction of a new and irregular rhythmic figure interrupts the constant eighth-note pulse; a change of tempo to plus lent arrests the momentum of un peu plus allant; an f# bass pedal replaces the persistent g# bass pedal; and section 3 presents a sparser texture, one that covers the registral extremes of the keyboard. despite some voice-leading connections (the a# and c# of the lower staves in mm. 29-30 provide common tones to the f# major triad of m. 31), the material of section 3 owes far less to its preceding measures than the other themes of the central section. moreover, the circularity or stasis of 103 104 current musicology the melodic figure contrasts with the processive nature of the melodies in sections 1 and 4, which move toward the higher register of the next section. instead, the circularity of the musical statement in section 3 (mm. 31-32) is realized by its immediate repetition (mm. 33-34) and has the potential to repeat endlessly. indeed, the greater melodic circularity of section 3 justifies the need for an added measure (m. 36)-a transposition and rhythmic aug­ mentation of the initial triplet figure-one that is necessary in order to break away from the inherent autonomy of this idea and move towards the next musical statement. of the four themes in the central section of"feuilles mortes," section 3 comes closest to stockhausen's description of the individual moment in its harmonic and melodic stasis. thus, the central section presents themes of increasing autonomy, culminating with the singular utterance of section 3. from this point forward, the level of self-containment decreases: section 4 reiterates the g# bass pedal of sections 1 and 2; the rhythm of the melody derives from the triplet figure of section 3; and the melodic contour sacri­ fices its potential circularity to effect a smooth exit from the central section to the reprise of the opening material (m. 41). while "feuilles mortes" as a whole cannot be called a moment-form work, analyzing the four discrete ideas of the central section in this light helps to identify precisely those ele­ ments that contribute to their musical discontinuity and those that do not. despite their conventional organization, many other preludes and etudes contain passages that display characteristics of a moment-form aesthetic. like "feuilles mortes," "les fees sont d' exquises danseuses" (preludes i) and "pour les arpeges composes" (etudes) are both ternary forms, with central sections that share characteristics with stockhausen's moment form. these central sections are more substantial and more fragmented than that of "feuilles mortes;' so that the rapid succession of new musical ideas stands out from the greater continuity of the outer sections. the outer sections of "les fees sont d' exquises danseuses;' for example, emphasize a single idea and texture, whereas the middle section (mm. 24-100) consists of eight distinct statements with eight corresponding shifts of mood and tempo. similarly, "pour les arpeges composes" has a prevailing musical idea and texture for the outer sections, while the middle section (mm. 25-45) fluctu­ ates between different tempi, textures, and dynamics. the contrasting compositional procedures between outer and central sections demarcate not only ternary divisions but also allude to residues of their traditional functions-namely, those of contrast and kineticism.8 yet even though the central sections of"les fees sont d' exquises danseuses" and "pour les arpeges composes" may be analogous to the more dynamic cen­ tral section of ternary forms, the static ideas are antithetical to the goalmarianne wheeldon oriented progressions or dynamic shape of these forms. the rapid juxtapo­ sitions of tempo and character that occur during the succession of indi­ vidual ideas are not conducive to building momentum, substantiated by the fact that both compositions (and "feuilles mortes" discussed above) do not build to a climax. significantly, these compositions feature not only the superficial characteristics of moment succession, but also their larger for­ mal ramifications, as the succession of moments is inseparable from stockhausen's repudiation of climax-oriented forms. in other words, as kramer summarizes, "the flattening out of climaxes" and "the elimination of the dramatic curve" are "prime prerequisite[sl for moment time" (1988:202). while many of debussy's ternary compositions invoke moment suc­ cession in their central sections, the reverse-a continuous middle section framed by discontinuous outer sections-is less common. "pour les quartes" (etudes) is one such exception. it opens with nine distinct ideas, all distin­ guished by individual tempo and performance indications, and many de­ marcated with double barlines. this juxtaposition of material, however, ceases in mm. 49-64, where more continuous compositional procedures assume control: there is repetition of a single motive and cumulative reit­ erations of the performance indication poco a poco accelerando e crescendo, resulting in a climax at m. 61. similarly, the central section of "pour les sonorites opposees" (etudes) abandons the succession of new and contrast­ ing ideas in m. 38 in order to gather together the necessary momentum and dynamics for the climax of m. 50. by reverting to more continuous modes of musical succession in these central sections, debussy implicitly acknowl­ edges that the discontinuities of his compositional style prove antithetical to the creation of musical climax. 4. ecce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" (preludes i), although loosely organized along ternary principles, comes closer to stockhausen's principles of moment suc­ cession than works such as "feuilles mortes." both preludes feature repeti­ tion, but whereas all the repetitions of "feuilles mortes" underscore its ter­ nary design-delineating both the close of the a section and the beginning of the reprise-many of the repetitions of"ce qu' a vu ie vent d'ouest" seem more random. figure 1 outlines the ternary divisions, musical ideas, and their return in ecce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest." the prelude opens with a sequence of seven discrete musical statements (a-g) before the first repetitions occur (shown in fig. 1 with shading). the placement of repeated sections hints at the prelude's ternary form: the var105 106 current musicology figure 1. formal outline of"ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest." c d e f a mm.i-6 b mm.7-9 mm. 10-14 mm. 15-18 mm. 19-20 mm.21-25 ied repetition of a, b, and c in sequence provides the remnants of a reca­ pitulation, while the return of c, f, and h differentiates the central section from the series of new ideas that characterizes the opening section. despite the presence of repetition, the opening and central sections of"ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" call to mind something along the lines of stockhausen's moment succession. although in his writings stockhausen excludes repeti­ tion in moment form, it occurs in his compositions, even in kontakte, the work that he used to illustrate moment form in his 1960 article. kramer acknowledges this obvious contradiction and reworks stockhausen's views on repetition in moment time: the return of earlier material is not antithetical to the concept of mo­ ment time. although stockhausen forbids return in his articles, it can be found in kontakte and even more overtly in other works of his. there is no reason why a previous moment cannot return, provided such return is not prepared by a structural upbeat, which would render the return a recapitulatory goal of the previous section, thereby destroying its self-con­ tainment. if no moment ever returned, the requirement of constant new­ ness would in itself imply a kind of progression, because the listener could expect that the next moment would always differ from all previous mo­ ments. yet progression is impossible in pure moment time. (1988:20708) of the repeated sections in "ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest," 1\, b', and c' could be defined as a "recapitulatory goal;' and therefore antithetical to moment time. although this return "is not prepared by a structural up­ beat;' the repetition of the opening three ideas of the prelude invariably produces the perception of reprise and, consequently, intimations of clo­ sure. thus, the unexpected nature of moment succession is lost due to a recognizable formal pattern, albeit a fragmented version of that pattern. the repetition of c, f, and h, however, does not arouse similar expectamarianne wheeldon tions. instead, these sections are transplanted into entirely new musical con­ texts, and their recurrence does not invoke any discernible design. more­ over, the repetition of c, f, and h occurs after a sequence of seven new ideas, after which the listener is perhaps inured to the "constant newness" of the musical discourse. thus the return of previously-heard material in the central section of the prelude breaks the pattern of "constant newness" by unexpectedly jumbling together old and new passages. from this perspective, the repetition of c, f, and h in the central sec­ tion of"ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" is less conventional in its effect than the varied repetitions of a, b, and c toward the end of the prelude. although the formal plan of figure 1 shows that ternary design is still latent in ecce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest;' it is perhaps not the most significant aspect of its form: the prelude presents a succession of autonomous musical ideas whose many surface discontinuities prefigure a moment-form aesthetic. yet the presence of a reprise, however veiled, undermines these similarities, even though procedures akin to those found in moment form occupy the major­ ity of the prelude. unlike "feuilles mortes," which emphasizes ternary de­ sign through several musical parameters, ecce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" pre­ sents a more delicate balance between a radically discontinuous style and residues of traditional forms. this delicate balance can be seen most readily in the larger treatment of the prelude's ternary design. in ecce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" there is practi­ cally no discernible division between its opening and central sections. con­ sequently, the reprise or recapitulation is the only marker that remains to identify the prelude's tripartite form. moreover, because the reprise is post­ poned until the final measures, if ternary design is recognized at all, it can only be recognized retrospectively. repetition to close the work therefore becomes less of a return-by occurring closer and closer to the end of the composition, the significance of the reprise wanes. as parks summarizes, "[ t 1 he pronounced asymmetry of its truncated reprise and the absence of a readily identifiable b section obscure its ternary roots" (1989:221). truncated reprises are common in debussy's late works, where "reca­ pitulations" are often tacked on in the final measures to close the work, with the result that the reprise is disproportionately small with respect to the entire composition. this is the case with the final eighteen measures of"ce qu' a vu ie vent d'ouest," but more extreme examples occur in other works, such as the reprise of the first three beats of "soupir" (trois poemes de stephane mallarme)-a composition otherwise devoid of repetition-and the reprise or epilogue in jeux, which occupies the final nine measures of a 709-measure composition. indeed, few of debussy's late works totally es­ chew the outline and procedures of ternary forms. although many do not 107 108 current musicology aim toward a climax or follow a "developmental curve," most of the late works employ repetition of previous musical material to close the compo­ sition. repetition may be brief ("soupir"), transformed ("la terrasse des audiences du clair de lune," preludes ii), fragmented ("pour les quartes;' etudes), or drawn from sections other than the opening ("pour les sonorites opposees;' etudes). nevertheless, repetition-however veiled-is still em­ ployed as a compositional device to signal closure. such vestigial structures recall barbara herrnstein smith's concept of "cultural lag" in modern poetry. in poetic closure: a study of how poems end, smith notes that in periods of stylistic transition, poets often resort to convention in order to solve the "closural problems" posed by the emerging style-only now these conventional endings are ineffective in their new con­ texts (1968:229). likewise, debussy's musical conclusions often evince a similar ambivalence. although many of his forms may be interpreted as precursors to the moment forms of the 1950s and 1960s, they nevertheless equivocate in the final measures by reverting to a fleeting quasi-recapitulatory gesture at the last moment. ("ondine;' the subject of the following analysis, is a notable exception.) in smith's terms, the recapitulation would repre­ sent a "cultural lag;' a convention at odds with the new style of the prelude as a whole. if debussy is unwilling or unable to completely eliminate resi­ dues of traditional forms in his compositions, he attenuates them to such a degree that their significance in his compositions becomes minimal. in com­ positions such as "ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest," the brief reprise is over­ whelmed by the preceding discontinuities of the prelude. 5. "ondine;' from the second book of preludes, contains fifteen distinct sec­ tions in its seventy-four measures. only three of these sections are subject to repetition, so that the prelude proceeds with a seemingly constant suc­ cession of new musical statements. like stockhausen's individual moments, many of debussy's ideas can be described as autonomous. most of the sec­ tions that make up "ondine," for example, are harmonically static, with bass pedal-points underpinning large sections of the music. moreover, this har­ monic stasis is often compounded by a corresponding thematic or motivic circularity, which ensures that there is also little sense of melodic teleology. as in "feuilles mortes;' a melody or motive is deemed circular if its implica­ tion for repetition-indeed, endless repetition-outweighs its connections to the following melodic idea. the end of a circular melody therefore is the same as, or approximate to, its beginning, so that the point of completion dovetails with the point of departure. an example of a circular melody in marianne wheeldon "ondine" occurs in mm. 16-17, which returns to its point of departure and possesses the potential to circle endlessly (ex. 2). indeed, the connection to its own beginning far outweighs its connection to the following musical idea, which presents a break in the voice leading. in some sections, this circularity is realized by repetition of all or part of the melody. in "ondine;' the figure of m. 11 returns in m. 12 and is then fragmented for further repetition in m. 13. the reiterations of the following two measures fully exploit this motive's inherent circularity (ex. 3). melodic circularity focuses attention on what happens within the section, and con­ sequently attenuates its progress to the next. "ondine" proceeds with local­ ized flourishes of melodic detail-a succession of self-contained arabesques, rather than one continuous motion. the circularity intrinsic to many of "ondine"'s melodies, when combined with harmonic stasis, creates self­ contained, moment-like statements. the sheer number of musical ideas in the opening of "on dine" and the absence of any recognizable formal pattern may even imply openness in "ondine"'s form. michael 1. friedmann suggests this view when he writes that "some of the sectional juxtapositions ... suggest the flexible and move­ able linkages of post-world war ii european music" (1982:22). this flex­ ibility can perhaps be seen most readily in the treatment of repetition within the prelude, on both local and large scales. sections 4 (mm. 16-17) and 5 (mm. 18-19), for example, return as sections 10 (mm. 38-39) and 11 (mm. 40-41), altered only by transposition up a semitone. the superimposition of these themes over an eb bass pedal (as opposed to the preceding d bass pedal) is sufficient to link them to their new surroundings. similarly, sec­ tions 2 (mm. 11-13),8 (mm. 28-29), and 14 (mm. 62-64) repeat the same musical idea, and the relocation of this passage into entirely new surround­ ings-here' with no transposition-is a more tangible example of the "flex­ ible and moveable linkages" to which friedmann refers. this potential mobility can apply to many of"ondine"'s sections, espe­ cially those bridged by invariant pedal-points. contrasting passages are of­ ten combined into larger groups by sustained bass notes, with d and eb pedal-points, for example, grouping together mm. 14-19 and 32-41 respec­ tively. the superimposition of contrasting and autonomous entities over a single pedal is a simple way of connecting ideas that may otherwise be un­ related. this approach to grouping further reinforces the suggestion of open­ ness in "ondine;' for if the only audible means of connection between adja­ cent sections is their common pedal point, then these sections possess the potential to be reordered. for example, sections 9 (mm. 32-37), 10 (mm. 38-39), and 11 (mm. 40-41)-bound together by an eb bass pedal-still will be linked by that pedal regardless of their internal ordering. similarly, 109 110 current musicology example 2. "ondine;' mm. 15-17. au mouvt 8w-;; -~-~-~-;:..:: r...-::-:: ---, .-.... r--.. ,...-.. ~ example 3. "ondine," mm. 11-14. au mouvt 1\ " '''~ ~ rubato ~.~. !: :j~ i i i iiii ii iiiii p/r~ ii 12 ii i 12 ii ffl'j1o ~~ : oj "0 r. -==== = r· -==== =====-.-; : f~ sections 3 (mm. 14-15),4 (mm. 16-17), and 5 (mm. 18-19), which are joined by a bass d pedal, could occur in any potential order since the d pedal would remain to hold these sections together. in this last instance, the potential mobility of these components is realized, to a certain degree, by the repetition of mm. 16-17 at mm. 26-27, which transfers this material to a new position and a new musical context within the group. as was the case with "ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest;' the repetition in marianne wheeldon figure 2. network of repetitions in "ondine." "ondine" may represent a concession to more traditional musical forms. yet none of the repetitions in "ondine" could be described as a "recapitulatory goal": the traces of ternary form that persist in other late works are entirely absent here. "ondine"'s form, however, adds another wrinkle, for although the repetition of musical ideas does not conform to any recognizable formal scheme, there is nevertheless a periodicity in the return of previous sections. figure 2 diagrams the fifteen sections of "ondine" with arcs placed above them to link the repetitions that occur throughout the prelude. as shown in figure 2, there is an interlocking pat­ tern of repetition. the imbricating arcs show that the placement of previ­ ously-heard material is not arbitrary, but highly regulated, especially in the opening forty measures of the prelude. this periodic pattern of repetition would seem to contradict the arbitrariness of moment succession necessary for an open form. again, kramer draws on stockhausen's compositions to reconcile the seeming disparity: compositions ordered by chance do not generally contain surprises. simi­ larly, if every new section is unexpected, the impact of surprise is lost. but carefully ordered pieces can work with the surprise of placing an old mo­ ment in the midst of new moments .... the truly arbitrary is actually less surprising than the artificially arbitrary. (1988:208) in light of kramer's statements, the sections of "ondine" are perhaps "carefully ordered" to appear "artificially arbitrary." the reiteration of ideas at certain points throughout the prelude seems calculated to avoid anyone from appearing too often and to avoid any resemblance to recognizable for­ mal patterns. moreover, "placing an old moment in the midst of new mo­ ments" prevents the succession of ideas in "ondine" from becoming pre­ dictable. in other words, if each section always had to be new, then the lis­ tener would be able to infer that the next one will also be new, and any 111 112 current musicology inference of this sort would be antithetical to the potential openness of the form. though figure 2 shows this openness to be artificially contrived, the effect is nonetheless a seemingly stream-of-consciousness succession of musical statements. figure 2 also demonstrates that the construction of debussy's musical ideas is integral to this pattern of repetition. not all of "ondine"'s sections are autonomous. those sections labeled as progressive move to a different point harmonically and melodically by the end of the section, and do not exhibit the potential to circle back for repetition. their melodic and har­ monic motion mean that their placement within "ondine" is not open, as they rely on the following section for the musical logic of their internal progressions. on the other hand, the static or autonomous sections of "ondine" are easily relocated. as figure 2 shows, only the static sections are repeated: their relative autonomy allows them to be easily transplanted into new surroundings. if debussy achieves a measure of formal freedom in the opening of "ondine," this freedom is counterbalanced by a change in compositional style towards the end of the prelude. debussy turns to the use of a motive to interconnect the more substantial musical ideas of sections 9 (mm. 32-37), 12 (mm. 44-53), and 13 (mm. 54-61). the motive stated in mm. 30-31, for example, is repeated in mm. 42-43 and then recast within the different to­ nalities, rhythms, and textures of sections 9,12, and 13. the motive-in its unifying function-is prevalent in the later sections of the prelude and spe­ cifically in those sections excluded from the network of repetitions in figure 2. if the evenly-paced and alternating repetitions connect the contrasting sections of the opening forty measures of "on dine;' then the unifying force of the motive interconnects the remaining sections. in this sense, "ondine" is not totally or absolutely discontinuous, as such links and transitions should not exist. this noticeable change of compositional style may occur in re­ sponse to the rapid succession of ideas that characterizes the opening of the prelude. implicitly acknowledging that the discontinuity of"ondine"'s open­ ing is not conducive to ending a work, debussy resorts to more conven­ tional compositional procedures to close the prelude. this gambit repre­ sents another example of "cultural lag." while avoiding the repetition of a recapitulation, debussy avails himself of another type of repetition-here, motivic repetition-to help rein in "ondine"'s succession of new ideas. as smith observes, "the structural forces of continuation" need to be "arrested or overcome" for an ending to be effective (1968:210). debussy's change of compositional procedure, therefore, can be interpreted as his need to as­ suage the musical forces of continuation established at the beginning of the composition. marianne wheeldon yet the motivic repetitions of sections 9, 12, and 13 do not, in them­ selves, intimate closure. in addition to this increased motivic unity, debussy attaches a closing gesture to signal the work's end, which, like ]eux's nine­ bar reprise, seems indicative of "cultural lag." section 15 (mm. 65-74), which introduces new material, reiterates an arpeggiated flourish many times in the course of the final ten measures. while closing gestures necessarily make use of repetition to affirm a sense of ending, the insistence of "ondine"'s final gesture perhaps belies the fact that it inherently has little to do with concluding or, indeed, the prelude as a whole. in other words, its reiteration perhaps overcompensates for its structural ineffectiveness. for stockhausen, ending a moment form was of little consequence-as he states, moment forms simply stop. but for "ondine," composed in 1913, merely stopping was not an option and ending was apparently problematic. hence, debussy's impulse towards convention to help solve the prelude's closural problems. moreover the presence of two types of cultural lag seems to acknowledge­ ironically-those compositional features of "ondine" that suggest formal openness. the autonomy of the musical ideas and their "seemingly arbi­ trary" placement within the prelude contributes to an appearance of open­ ness, an openness from which debussy needs to retreat in order to create the illusion of closure. composed immediately after ]eux, "ondine" marks one of debussy's most extreme essays in formal discontinuity. even the few gestures toward con­ vention-such as motivic unity and the arpeggiated flourishes that close the prelude-fail to bring the work to a satisfactory conclusion. conse­ quently, "ondine" appears to distill the most striking qualities of debussy's late style into a single work and, at the same time, brings to the fore the very features that the darmstadt composers would latch onto forty years later. while "on dine" is exceptional in the level of its fragmentation, some of debussy's other compositions may also exhibit-either partially or fully­ characteristics of moment form. the analyses of "feuilles mortes" and "ce qu'a vu ie vent d'ouest" illustrate the different ways in which stockhausen's notions of discontinuity can add further depth and nuance to often-voiced descriptions of debussy's fragmented style. although debussy's late works predate stockhausen's theory of mo­ ment form, the latter may be understood as having codified formal prac­ tices that had been prevalent for many decades. as kramer observes, mo­ ment form simply provides "a rational framework within which to deal with a species of musical time that had been practiced for some forty years" (1978:193). from this point of view, both stockhausen's moment form and many of debussy's late compositions embody a similar tendency-that is, 113 114 current musicology the compositional desire to break up the continuous and hierarchic logic of eighteenthand nineteenth-century music. and while stockhausen's at­ tempts to theorize this tendency go far beyond debussy's musical endeav­ ors, they may serve nonetheless as a point of departure for discussing debussy's late works: one that takes discontinuity as its starting point, and thus one that accommodates the juxtapositions and fragmentation of his late style. notes 1. for more on debussy's influence on composers after 1950, see claudia maurer zenck (1982) and john mcginness (1998). 2. debussy's music was used to create a musical heritage to which the darmstadt composers could lay claim, and one that would bolster their particular musical endeavors. while one can be critical of their motives, their musical observations were often astute. see eimert (1961), schnebel (1964), stockhausen (1963a, 1963b). 3. as mcginness (1998:52-54) has pointed out, considering!eux as a piece of absolute mu­ sic already transforms it: by suppressing its relation to nijinsky's ballet, the darmstadt com­ posers were able to argue for structural affinities between their work and debussy's, despite the cultural gulf that separated them. 4. english translations of these quotes are from heikinheimo (1972:120,175). 5. these formal procedures include: punktuelleform (pointillistic form),gruppen form (group form), statistische form (statistical form), variable form (variable form), vieldeutige form (multivalent form), as well as momeniform (moment form). for descriptions of these forms, see heikinheimo (1972:94-114). 6. richard parks also draws attention to these measures in "feuilles mortes": "the string of new themes from m. 21 to m. 40 [does not] resemble any conventional pattern (though it is a common one for debussy); indeed, the apparently random distribution appears calcu­ lated to defy prediction and convey a sense of improvisational spontaneity" (1989:79). 7. for octatonic classifications pertaining to the music of debussy, see forte (1991:126). 8. kramer makes a similar point with reference to the first movement of stravinsky's sonata for two pianos (1943-44): "the development section is also a series of moments (of lesser duration so that the increased rate of succession of static moments functions analogously to the increased harmonic rhythm of the classical sonata's development)" (kramer 1978:188). references boulez, pierre. 1991. stocktakings from an apprenticeship, edited by paule ti1evenin, translated by stephen walsh. oxford: clarendon press. eimert, herbert. 1961. debussy's !eux, translated by leo black. die reihe 5: 3-20. forte, allen. 1991. debussy and the octatonic. music analysis 10 (1-2): 125-69. friedmann, michael l. 1982. approaching debussy's "ondine." cahiers debussy n.s. 6: 2235. heikinheimo, seppo. 1972. the electronic music of karlheinz stockhausen: studies on the marianne wheeldon esthetical and formal problems of its first phase, translated by brad absetz. helsinki: acta musicologica fennica. howat, roy. 1983. dramatic shape and form in jeux de vagues, and its relationship to pelleas, jeux and other scores. cahiers debussy n.s. 7: 7-23. johnson, robert sherlaw. 1975. messiaen. berkeley: university of california press. kramer, jonathan d. 1978. moment form in twentieth century music. musical quarterly 64 (2): 177-94. ---.1988. the time of music: new meanings, new temporalities, new listening strate­ gies. new york: schirmer. mcginness, john. 1998. from movement to moment: issues of expression, form, and re­ ception in debussy's jeux. cahiers debussy n.s. 22: 51-74. morgan, robert p. 1991. twentieth-century music: a history of musical style in modern europe and america. new york: w. w. norton. orledge, robert. 1982. debussy and the theatre. cambridge: cambridge university press. parks, richard s. 1989. the music of claude debussy. new haven: yale university press. schnebel, dieter. 1964. brouillards-tendencies in debussy, translated by leo black. die reihe 6: 33-39. smith, barbara herrnstein. 1968. poetic closure: a study of how poems end. chicago: uni­ versity of chicago press. stockhausen, karlheinz. 1963a. momentform: neue zusammenhange zwischen auffuhrungsdauer, werkdauer und moment. in texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalen musik, vol. 1, 189-2lo. cologne: dumont. ---. 1963b. von webern zu debussy (bemerkungen zur statistischen form). in texte zur elektronischen und instrumentalen musik, vol. 1,75-85. cologne: dumont. zenck, claudia maurer. 1982. debussy: prophet and seducer. cahiers debussy n.s. 6: 16-21. 115 clarke, eric and nicholas cook, eds. 2004. empirical musicology: methods, aims, prospects. oxford and new york: oxford university press. reviewed by johanna devaney empirical musicology is a collection of articles exploring the potential for a greater integration of empirical methods into musicology and music theory. this volume is particularly timely given the increase in available personal computer power over the past ten years and the subsequent development of software that may be used to extract, analyze, and/or compile musical data. nicholas cook and eric clarke begin by asking the question, "what is empirical musicology?" and proceed to argue that in reality all musicology is empirical to some degree, in the sense that it is based in an observable reality that may be explored, explained, and generalized. the editors subse­ quently redefine the issue as the extent to which current musicology makes use of the methods of empirical observation, including the ways in which these observations are regulated by the discipline's discourse and the ways in which these methods may be applied and regulated in future research. what is proposed is not so much a paradigm shift as a paradigm expansion; the empirical musicology described here applies empirical methodologies to the meaningful data already collected on a wide range of musicological topics. for the editors, the adoption of the term empirical musicology does not deny the self-evidently empirical dimension of all musicology, [rather, it] draws attention to the potential of a range of empirical ap­ proaches to music that is as yet, not widely disseminated within the dis­ cipline. and just as it is not a matter of empirical versus non-empirical, so we do not wish to draw an either/or distinction between the objective and the subjective. (5) in the realm of traditional musicology, this objective/subjective distinction between data and interpretation reflects the distinction between the data of the score and the interpretative act of analysis. though there are shades of subjectivity in score-based data, due primarily to the various editorial deci­ sions made in the process of score publication, there is an objective/subjective distinction between score-based data and the way in which it is interpreted that takes the raw data as an objective measure and its interpretation as a subjective act. as an empirical musicologist considers data beyond the score, there is an additional degree of subjectivity inherent in collecting, assess­ ing, and relating this data to the music; the objective/subjective distinction current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 271 272 current musicology thus extends to the data itself. the degree of subjectivity ranges from lower levels, such as the close relationship between a performance and its record­ ing, to higher levels, as in the more interpretative relationship between a performance and relevant social and economic factors. the entire range of objective and subjective approaches found between these two margins resides comfortably in the empirical methodological landscape painted by all of the articles in this volume. as a group, the authors of empirical mu­ sicology embrace and employ a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, providing a broad overview of the most widely practiced types of empirical musicology. these methodologies are presented in such a way as to make them accessible to non-empirical musicologists, so that they can address those areas of the musical experience that are not explicated in the score of a musical work or by its historical context. throughout the book, and the field of empirical musicology in general, the distinction between quantitative and qualitative approaches is far from exact. the simplest way to distinguish them is between those methodologies that are based on objective data and those that are based on subjective data. this distinction, however, fails to consider that, as i have suggested, empirical data and methodologies encompass both the subjective and the objective to varying degrees, and it is this nuance that makes the methodologies of empirical musicology relevant to the fields of musicology and music theory at large. i will take up the issues related to the qualitative and quantitative aspects of these empirical approaches in greater detail shortly. in their introduction, clarke and cook attempt to situate empirical musicology as a distinct, and in some ways novel, approach to the study of music. they are careful to distinguish between empirical musicology and other existing empirical methodologies, including the positivist formalism found in certain brands of postwar musicology and theory-the spirit of which was articulated in milton babbitt's statement that "there is but one kind of language, one kind of method for verbal formulation of 'concepts' and the verbal analysis of such formulations: 'scientific language' and 'sci­ entific method'" (babbitt 2003:78) and later embodied in a variety of ways in the work of benjamin boretz (1977), allen forte (1973), fred hofstetter (1979), michael kassler (1967), and arthur komar (1971). cook and clarke criticize the positivist approach for being more empiricist than empirical in that it uses data to validate existing analytical approaches rather than to explore new analytical avenues that might be suggested by that data. the editors consider these positivist works to have been "more a matter of ap­ pearances than of substance, [and that this was true] even at the time" (6). conversely, the empirical program posited in this volume, with its plurality of methods, is motivated by what the data may reveal rather than by which johanna devaney existing notions it can prove, and in this way it is more discovery-driven than the work of post-war positivists. the editors also want to draw a marked contrast between their ap­ proach and those in which informal musical statements, experiences, and phenomena are reduced to formalized propositions for the purposes of test­ ing and theory building. they set their approach to empirical musicology in diametric opposition to theory building and the division oflabor that is often associated with the construction of empirically grounded music theo­ ries. as an example of this type of labor division, cook and clarke cite the 1993-94 seminar carol krumhansl organized at stanford university among the music theorists robert gjerdingen, fred lerdahl, and eugene narmour, and music psychologists jamshed bharucha and caroline palmer. all of the participants worked on the same piece and the outcomes were published in volume 13 of music perception. cook and clarke describe how the division oflabor is made apparent by the way in which the music theorists presented theoretical models and talked past one another while the psychologists con­ textualized and tested the theorists' work. in contrast, one of the few points of consensus in the definition of empirical musicology as it is presented in this volume is that it is an endeavor in which the musicologist works through both the technical and interpretative stages of the research-thus allowing for maximal interaction with the material at hand. the strength of an empirical musicological endeavor derives from the ability of its practitioners to achieve and maintain an objective distance from the data. well-defined methods of data collection and interpretation are es­ sential to fulfill the discipline's promises of relatively unbiased discovery; or, as clarke and cook put it, such methods are needed to create a "context in which to understand objective analyses" (7). the creation of such a context requires an active discussion of the methods and aims of empirical musicol­ ogy and how they relate to musicology. the most general aim of empirical musicology is to encourage these necessary discussions and inquiries. more specifically, the stated aims of the book are to systematically document the areas of musicology in which empirical methods may be most useful, discuss issues related to the applications of these methods, cite studies that have already made use of the methods, and consider the theoretical consequences of employing such methods (9). in order to explore these issues, the editors have assembled a range of musicologists and theorists to survey the most prevalent empirical meth­ ods currently employed. the articles are of two main types. the first type examines methodologies by laying out a set of techniques that address a certain type of empirical question. the second type focuses on how to address a specific topic by combing techniques from a range of empirical approaches. 273 274 current musicology the ordering of chapters highlights the range of qualitative and quanti­ tative methods available to the empirical musicologist. the balance between quantitative and qualitative empirical approaches is reflected in each author's conception of empirical musicology and it is through their discussions of the qualitative and quantitative aspects of their work that the authors both demonstrate the greatest amount of self-reflection and engage most directly with one another's work. the chapters of the book progress from a qualitative focus to a more quantitative one, though there are a number of interesting exceptions that will be discussed in detail in the chapter synopses below. jonathan p. j. stock provides an overview of the methodology of ethno­ musicological fieldwork in "documenting the musical event" (chapter 2). stock discusses ethnographic participant-observer techniques and how an empirical musicologist might apply them. though his discussion of partici­ pant-observer methodology is thorough, his engagement with traditional musicology is cursory. this engagement consists of two brief suggestions of how fieldwork may be a useful tool for the traditional musicologist: first, fieldwork provides a way of investigating contemporary music as a process rather than just as a product, and second, it allows access to historical music for which there is minimal or no written documentation. both applications, however, are presented only in passing as stock discusses methods of par­ ticipant-observation and fieldwork in detail. stock provides a guide for empirical fieldwork and explores issues of representation and interpretation, as well as concepts of authority. he thus provides a balance between the available areas of quantitative investigation (data related to recordings, empirical descriptions of instrument building and learning, concert -going and cd-buying habits) and the predominantly qualitative nature of ethnographic fieldwork (interviews, observation of music making in person and/or with video documentation). in the course of his discussion, stock demonstrates that there is a large amount of data available from the study of music making and offers some general ways of categorizing data, though he fails to address how this might be done for historical investigations. beyond these propositions (and the additional suggestion that musicologists should look at music reception outside of the academy), there is no real point of connection between ethnographic fieldwork and traditional musicology in stock's chapter. he fails to iden­ tify practical contexts for applying fieldwork methods within the scope of traditional musicology, and so the chapter, while useful, remains merely instructive rather than posing questions or proposing solutions. it is left to the subsequent chapters, particularly tia denora's, to contextualize stock's work. denora surveys "action-oriented" sociological methods in her chapter "musical practice and social structure: a toolkit" (chapter 3) and places johanna devaney them in opposition to the "inherently" structuralist approaches espoused by adorno and practitioners of "new musicology;' i.e., lawrence kramer (2002) and susan mcclary (2000). in particular she claims that the textual focus of "new musicology" does not allow for any real investigation of the social settings, spaces, or experience of music. denora critically examines a wide range of methodologies in historical musicology and sociology in order to contextualize her sociological toolkit (the author's term for a group of methodologies). she also provides a context for the ethnographic methods presented by stock in the previous chapter, particularly in her discussion of the relationship between musical taste and identity (willis 1978; frith 1996) and of music as a means of producing emotional states within social and/ or cultural constraints (gomart and hennion 1999; bull 2000; denora 2000; denora 2001). throughout her chapter, denora argues that the sociology of music is balanced between the empirical and the philosophical. sociological meth­ odology traditionally includes the use of representative sampling as a way of producing generalizations and it has expanded in recent years to include ethnographic methods, which augment her toolkit with additional qualita­ tive and quantitative approaches. the middle of the book (chapters 4-7) is more subject -oriented, focus­ ing on specific topics that can be usefully understood through empirical study. in "music as social behavior" (chapter 4), jane w. davidson discusses how a variety of quantitative and qualitative empirical methods may be used to explore the socio-behavioral basis of music making. davidson's chapter conceptually follows denora's survey of music-related sociological methods. like denora, davidson acknowledges that music has only recently been investigated as a social act, though she is interested in examining music from a psychological rather than a sociological perspective. davidson explores the ways in which the subjectivity of individual experience is captured by the participant -observation and in -depth semi -structured interview techniques of the humanistic psychological approaches employed in new paradigm research and related methods (smith, harre, and van langenhove 1995). after surveying how these approaches might be useful for research into musical skill acquisition, musical taste, and performance ensemble dynam­ ics, davidson discusses specific studies that address the role of social and family background in a child's music skill acquisition (howe and sloboda 1991a; howe and sloboda 1991b; borthwick and davidson 2002), the dif­ ferences between social groups in terms of their musical taste (north and hargreaves 1996), and the effects of social and musical interaction on the group dynamics of a string quartet (murnighan and colon 1991). davidson argues for the value of data gleaned from single-subject studies and proposes that such subjective data can be useful in a broader 275 276 current musicology context, particularly by way of her examination of the role of interpretative qualitative approaches in studies of music skill acquisition (borthwick and davidson 2002). towards the end of the chapter she moves into the realm of quantitative analysis with a discussion of the application of personality tests, which arguably reveal causal components in musicians' social interactions and behaviors. in sum, the range of qualitative and quantitative approaches presented by davidson allows for psychologically-oriented investigations of musicians both as individuals and as members of larger societal groups. in "empirical methods in the study of performance" (chapter 5), eric clarke surveys approaches to the study of piano performance. clarke aligns the growth of empirical methods for the study of performance both with a general movement away from equating scores with music and with increased interest in music by cognitive psychologists. the latter has been something of a mixed blessing for musicology, as the interests of psychologists lie in generalizable qualities, while musicologists tend to examine individual cases or localized trends. clarke focuses on piano performances for numerous reasons: the large amount of solo repertoire available (which allows for the examination of the performer in a context to which he or she is accustomed, in contrast to instruments which are more typically part of ensembles), the piano's percussive nature (which facilitates the study of rhythmic skills), the required concurrent activity in both hands (which provides useful data for studies related to coordination), and, perhaps most importantly, the ease with which one can get accurate, minimally intrusive performance measurements from a pianist via midi technology. clarke also discusses the potential of using audio and video data for such analysis and suggests how such data collection methods may become more viable as technology improves, thereby opening up the field of empirical performance studies to performances on a wider range of musical instruments. although he focuses on the details of piano performance for practical reasons, clarke's theoretical discussion examines the study of performance practice in general terms. unlike a musical score, which only provides the instructions set out by the composer, a performance includes the performer's interpretation of the music. by using proper techniques of data extraction and analysis, the musicologist may observe general trends, such as expressive tendencies re­ lated to dynamics and tempo, and personal idiosyncrasies, such as physical movements by a performer or composer. clarke's chapter is primarily quantitative in its focus. he does, however, dedicate a section to evaluative and qualitative methods. here he points out that the data extracted from a recording only provide a partial view of what is going on in a performance and, referencing davidson, he argues that even when it is possible to quantify a social characteristic, it may still be valuable johanna devaney to examine it through a qualitative lens. specifically, clarke discusses "talk­ ing analysis;' a method where performers comment on their performance and then both the commentary and recording are assessed and analyzed. he argues that the integration of qualitative analysis is important here because it allows the performance to be treated as a process rather than as a rarified event preserved by the recording, thus avoiding a common pitfall of score­ based analytical approaches. in "computational and comparative musicology" (chapter 6), nicholas cook surveys a number of ways in which score-based musicological and music theoretic study, as data-rich disciplines, may computationally exam­ ine large bodies of music in order to find systematic patterns. cook argues for a renewal of "comparative musicology;' which had been supplanted by ethnomusicology's culture-centric focus in the 1950s, marking a shift away from cross-cultural analysis. he surveys issues of data representation and comparison and then proceeds to a case study of the humdrum toolkit (huron 1997), a modular software framework that provides both a syntax for representing musical materials and a set of tools with which to perform a variety of analytical functions. the humdrum toolkit receives substantial treatment and promotion in this chapter precisely because it allows a musi­ cologist to build his or her own analytical system component by component. the flexibility of the toolkit approach, whereby each analytical component is selected or written individually and implemented sequentially, also allows the user to control the interpretative processes that are undertaken in the analysis. humdrum's usage and potential is explored through a survey of five studies by huron and his collaborators that implement the humdrum toolkit extensively: the first is a study of the melodic arch in folksongs (huron 1996), the second concerns the "gap-fill" model of harmony (von hippel and huron 2000), the third is a reconsideration of allen forte's 1983 analysis of brahms' string quartet op. 51, no. 1 (huron 2001 b), the fourth is an examination of the distribution of the major and minor modes in eastern european folksongs (aarden and huron 2001), and the fifth is an attempt to characterize idiomatic organization in music (huron and berec forthcom­ ing). in cook's chapter, however, the extent to which one piece of software is detailed and promoted is problematic in that it shifts the chapter's focus away from a more general discussion of comparative techniques to one that is waylaid by a discussion of the logic, operation processes, strengths, and weaknesses of a specific piece of software. cook takes a predominantly quantitative approach that examines the potential for a renewal of comparative musicology allowed by new data-min­ ing technologies. he does, however, consider the subjective aspects involved in generating the objective data representations that form the basis of his 277 278 current musicology computationally-oriented comparative musicology, specifically in terms of how the particular musicological endeavor being undertaken must be used as a yardstick to determine exactly how the data should be represented. anthony pople takes a more piece-centered approach in "modeling musical structure" (chapter 7), surveying a range of formalist, quasi-formal­ ist, and modeling approaches to music analysis. he focuses on the ways in which musical analysis may be modeled and automated, with special emphasis on the ways in which such models demonstrate and explore the relationship between analysis and theory. pople sees this relationship as running parallel to the relationship of hypothesis and experiment in the sciences, noting that this paradigm has allowed scholars from the fields of cognitive psychology and computer science to engage in musical research. the first part of the chapter focuses on various ways in which music theorists have attempted to model analytical practices informally (the abstract representation of music theoretical constructs in babbitt 2003, and forte 1973), quasi-formally (the rule-based systems of lerdahl and jakendoff 1983, lerdahi2001), formally (the artifical intelligence approach of winograd 1968, and formal rule­ based system of tenney and polansky 1980), and with the more advanced techniques of neural networks (gjerdingen 1990) and statistical analyses (schellenberg 1997)-though ultimately all of these approaches are dis­ missed as "theory-building." as alternatives, pople examines both his own tonalities project (pople 2004) and david temperley's modeling of analytical practices with preference-rules (temperley 2001). ultimately temperley's system is judged as having a great potential that is currently unfulfilled due to a number of weaknesses in terms of musical judgment-the range of styles it can adequately address and the depth of analysis it can provide make it inoperable in a number of musical contexts. pople's tonalities project, on the other hand, is described as being capable of providing a sufficiently wide range of musical judgments with sensitivity to musical context such that it might serve as a "junior partner" in an analysis project. the manner in which the tonalities project is presented is similar to cook's discussion of the humdrum toolkit, in that the explicit promotion of a theoretical tool distracts the reader from the authors' discussions of the merits of related methodological approaches. though score analysis is nuanced by individual thought and judgment, pople posits that it is predominantly a quantitative exercise, since it is based on a series of steps and decisions that can be formalized. he argues that a potential benefit of formalized methods of analysis is that their quantitative approach may offer insight that may either challenge or reconfirm more qualitative analyses made by humans (temperley 2001, pople 2004). stephen mcadams, philippe depalle, and eric clarke detail a range of techniques for analyzing acoustical and psycho-acoustical signals in ''anajohanna devaney lyzing musical sound" (chapter 8). they argue that recordings can yield data not explicitly available in scores. such data is relevant to the acoustical properties of sounds, i.e., frequency and amplitude, as well as the perceptual implications of their organization, particularly regarding issues of timbre and timing. technical descriptions in this chapter are geared towards the acoustics neophyte and are clarified by a number of visual representations of idiomatically diverse musical signals in both the time and frequency domains. after basic concepts are explained, they are then exemplified by relevant works in the field, specifically the spectrogram-related work of david brackett (2000), robert cogan (1984), and peter johnson (1999) and the "perceptual principles" work of david huron (2001a), richard parncutt (1989), and lee tsang (2002). the chapter by mcadams, depalle, and clark, focusing on acoustical and perceptual representations and analyses of sound, is exclusively quantitative, although in practice their data may be used for a variety of qualitative applications in performance studies. the last chapter of the volume is w. luke windsor's primer to statistical analysis, "data collection, experimental design, and statistics in musical research" (chapter 9), which acts, along with stock's chapter, as a conceptual bookend for the volume. where stock provided a discussion of fieldwork techniques for collecting and recording data, windsor provides a survey of statistical methods for analyzing and interpreting data. windsor, however, goes beyond the description of particular tools, especially when he addresses the potential for flexible exploration within an experimental method, i.e., the various ways in which a single set of data might be examined or ex­ perimented on to extract richer and more varied information from it. here windsor examines how quantitative methodologies may be appropriately implemented and discusses other alternatives for data collection. overall, windsor's thorough discussion of statistical methods serves to clarify the muddiness of the previous chapters, not only by supplying a technical explanation of statistical analysis, but also by illustrating how such analysis is useful in the context of the types of empirical musicology described therein. likewise, the bulk of windsor's chapter is dedicated to number crunching, while the last section moves into a more qualitative realm with his discussion of the distinction between real-world correlation and controlled experiments. here he discusses both the technique of trian­ gulation, in which different types of data and methods are applied to the same question, and the value of informal data collection before trying to demonstrate causation in controlled studies. this discussion picks up on a number of the techniques discussed in previous chapters, providing a more detailed methodological discussion with a theoretical underpinning. ultimately, clarke provides the most comprehensive synopsis of the challenge of a qualitative/quantitative balance in the field. he notes that 279 280 current musicology while interpretation is a component of all empirical work, it is a slightly more straightforward process with quantitative methods since thdr in­ terpretative processes can be easily agreed upon. qualitative methods are newer and carry with them less-established methods of interpretation. thus their interpretation is often inconsistent. clarke, however, takes issue with the idea that qualitative methods are necessarily more interpretative than quantitative ones: the objection leveled at qualitative research of this kind is that it is too spec­ ulative-that it sets itself up as empirical, and then goes about its business in a manner that looks more like literary criticism. this objection partly reflects the fact that the interpretative assumptions of most quantitative methods have simply become so deeply embedded as to be invisible, but it remains the case that qualitative methods have yet to attain the systematic and explicit character of empiricism in the eyes of many. (92) a full integration of quantitative and qualitative methods, along with the movement towards widespread acceptance of both as a basis for empiri­ cal inquiry, is a necessary condition for the field of empirical musicology to move further into mainstream musicology and music theory. these methods embrace a variety of topics and approaches, and may also function as points of connection with other disciplines. unfortunately, the discussion of quantitative and qualitative methodol­ ogy is the only area in which there is any real interaction between the authors and their respective methodologies. for the most part, they are talking past one another and never really engage with the others' approaches. on one level, this fits the editors' vision of empirical musicology as a predominantly solitary endeavor wherein the practitioner undertakes the data collection, representation, and interpretation alone-in contrast to other empirical areas of inquiry where there is a division of labor between technical and subject -area experts (i.e., theorists and experimentalists). such proximity to the data arguably fosters more nuanced interpretations and applications, but does it necessarily follow that one may only obtain such proximity by isolat­ ing oneself from other empirical musicologists? such isolation risks a loss of perspective and often does not allow for the sort of experience that can be brought to a problem when two experts collaborate-such as has occurred in the field of music cognition, to cite the example used by the editors in their introduction. this situation may change as the field matures; currently empirical musicology exists in the periphery of musicology, rather than as a point of intersection between various disciplines, and such a placement naturally fosters a culture of solitary inquiry. if the methods of empirical methodology become more widespread, it is likely that they will be applied to a variety of problems beyond those set out in this book. johanna devaney ultimately, empirical musicology is more about presenting a variety of methods than asking higher-level questions. and the volume does this rather well, by painting a broad picture of how the empirical methods might be applied in a diverse range of musicological endeavors. the book would serve as a good introduction to those musicologists and music theorists looking to integrate empirical methods into their own work. for the more seasoned empirical musicologist, it offers a window into the use of empirical methods outside of one's own field of specialization and may suggest ways of expanding one's own repertoire. references aarden, bret and david b. huron. 2001. mapping european folksong: geographical localiza­ tion of musical features. in the virtual score: representation, retrieval, restoration, edited by walter b. hewlett and eleanor selfridge field, 169-83. computing in musicology, no. 12. cambridge, ma: mit press. babbitt, milton. 2003. the collected essays of milton babbitt, edited by stephen peles. princeton, nj: princeton university press. boretz, benjamin. 1977. two replies. perspectives of new music 15 (2): 239-42. boretz, benjamin and edward t. cone, eds. 1972. perspectives on contemporary music theory. new york: w. w. norton. borthwick, sophia b. and jane w. davidson. 2002. developing a child's identity as a musician: a family "script" perspective. in musical identities, edited by raymond mac­ donald, david j. hargreaves and dorothy miell, 60-78. oxford and new york: oxford university press. brackett, david. 2000. interpreting popular music. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. bull, michael. 2000. sounding out the city. oxford and new york: berg. cogan, robert. 1984. new images of musical sound. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. denora, tia. 2000. music in everyday life. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---. 2001. aesthetic agency and musical practice: new directions in the sociology of music and emotion. in music and the emotions, edited by patrik juslin and john a. sloboda, 161-80. oxford and new york: oxford university press. frith, simon. 1996. performing rites: evaluating popular music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. forte, allen. 1973. the structure of atonal music. new haven and london: yale university press. ---. 1983. motivic design and structural level in the first movement of brahms's string quartet in c minor. musical quarterly 69: 471-502. gjerdingen, robert o. 1990. categorization of musical patterns by self-organizing neuron­ like networks. music perception 7 (4): 339-69. gomart, e. and a. hennion. 1999. a sociological attachment: music amateurs, drug us­ ers. in actor network theory and after, edited by j. law and j. hazzart, 220-47. oxford: blackwell. hofstetter, fred t. 1979. the nationalist fingerprint in nineteenth-century chamber music. computers and the humanities 13: 105-19. 281 282 current musicology howe, m. j. a., and john a. sloboda. 1991a. young musicians' accounts of significant influences in their early lives: part 1. the family and the musical background. british journal of music education 8: 39-52. ---. 1991 b. young musicians' accounts of significant influences in their early lives: part 2. teachers, practicing and performing. british journal of music education 8: 53-63. huron, david b. 1996. the melodic arch in western folksongs. computing and musicology 10: 3-23 ---. 1997. music research using humdrum: a user's guide. stanford, ca: center for computer assisted research in the humanities. http://www.music-cog.ohio-state.edu/ humdrum/guide.toc.html. [march 2, 2006] ---. 2001a. tone and voice: a derivation of the rules of voice-leading from perceptual principles. music perception 19 (1): 1-64. ---. 2001b. what is a musical feature? forte's analysis of brahms's opus 51, no.1, revisited. music theory online 7.4. huron, david b. and j. berec. forthcoming. characterizing idiomatic organization in music: a theory and case study. journal of new music research. johnson, peter. 1999. performance and the listening experience: bach's "erbarme dich." in theory into practice: composition, performance and the listening experience, edited by nicholas cook, peter johnson, and hans zender, 55-101. leuven, belgium: leuven university press. kassler, m. 1967. a trinity of essays. phd dissertation, princeton university. komar, arthur. 1971. theory of suspensions. princeton, nj: princeton university press. kramer, lawrence. 2002. musical meaning: toward a critical history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. lerdahl, fred. 2001. tonal pitch space. oxford and new york: oxford university press. lerdahl, fred and ray jackendoff. 1983. a generative theory of tonal music. cambridge, ma: mit press. mcclary, susan. 2000. conventional wisdom: the content of musical form. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. murnighan, j. k. and d. e. colon. 1991. the dynamics of intense workgroups: a study of british string quartets. administrative science quarterly 36: 165-86. north, a. c. and d. j. hargreaves. 1996. responses to music in a dining area. journal of applied social psychology 24: 491-501. parncutt, richard. 1989. harmony: a psychoacoustical approach. berlin: springer-verlag. pop ie, anthony. 2004. using complex set theory for tonal analysis: an introduction of the tonalities project. music analysis 23: 153-94. schellenberg, e. glenn. 1997. simplifying the implication-realization model of melodic expectancy. music perception 14 (3): 295-318. smith, j., r. harre, and l. van langenhove, eds. 1995. rethinking methods in psychology. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. temperley, david. 2001. the cognition of basic musical structures. cambridge, ma and london: mit press. tenney, james c. and larry polansky. 1980. temporal gestalt perception in music. journal of music theory 24: 205-41. tsang, lee. 2002. towards a theory of timbre for music analysis. musicae scientiae 6: 23-52. von hippel, paul and david b. huron. 2000. why do skips precede melodic reversals? the effect of tessitura on melodic structure. music perception 18 (1): 59-85. willis, p. 1978. profane culture. new york and london: routledge. winograd, terry. 1968. linguistics and the computer analysis of tonal harmony. journal of music theory 12: 2-49. current.musicology.79-80.245-292.pdf alejandro l. madrid. 2008. nor-tee rifa!: electronic dance music from tijuana to the world. oxford: oxford university press. reviewed by gavin mueller the burgeoning field of electronic dance music (edm) scholarship has drawn from a number of theoretical and methodological perspectives. in particular, the disciplinary melange that is cultural studies, whose rise in academia coincided with edm's rise in popular music during the 1980s and '90s, has proven an effective tool for researchers seeking to understand the social worlds and political and economic contexts in which edm sounds and styles arise. alejandro l. madrid's nor-tee rita! is one such effort, a sorely needed piece of research in a non-western edm scene, when academia in general has lagged behind popular publications and blogs in the documenta­ tion and analysis of global edm. the book's purported object of analysis-a tijuana-based scene knit together through aesthetic practices rooted in the appropriation of the sounds and images of northern mexico-is appropriately conceptualized for a cultural studies approach. furthermore, as an ethnomusicologist familiar with cultural theory, madrid can undergird arguments rooted in post -structuralist theories with solid ethnographic data drawn from participant observation among artists and fans. in the author's words, this is "primarily a book about borders" (3), and these borders are a poten­ tially rich site of investigation, since the music's home base of tijuana is nestled between worlds, while the "heterogeneous music whose styles are as diverse as the number of musicians, producers, and djs that compose it" (9) nudges up against several genres of edm. yet the topic makes for a frustratingly abstract project that overwhelms with concepts casually plucked from critical theory: a book that "explores the intersection of individual choice and hegemonic discourses on ethnicity, class, desire, and difference in the construction and negotiation of individual and collective identities," in which nor-tec music figures as "a strategy invented to come in and out of the web created by the multi-ideological conditions of both radicalized modernity and postcoloniality" (23). this is a vast and compelling project, but madrid's reach exceeds his grasp, and the initial chapter promises more than the book fulfills. while filled with useful ethnographic observations on edm practices, the book's focus on the discursive negotiation of identity makes too little use of it. current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 85 86 current musicology the book's strengths are the extensive historical and ethnographic research madrid has conducted with nor-tee members, analysis of material culture such as cds and flyers, and participant observation at nor-tee events in several geographical settings. he begins with the history of electronic music in tijuana that coalesced into a particular cultural scene. music in tijuana is "a truly glocal phenomenon" (31) in which trends from the global music industry are localized through spanish-language cover bands and through original works in the style of globally popular genres, such as industrial, punk, and techno-pop. eventually, the founders of the nortec collective made a self-conscious decision to craft electronic music "that could be identified as mexican" (34). their method was "to articulate the modern in the sounds of electronica, a reevaluation of tradition in the form of popular nortefia music, and a sense of identification with nostalgia and kitsch" via sampling-a technique with a visual counterpart in nor-tee graphic design work (37). madrid interprets their appropriation of"tradi­ tional and ethnically marked musics" (42) into contemporary forms as an ambiguous response to globalization, at once an admission of the desire for modernity while also a negotiation with the kinds of stereotypes of mexicans common in global modernity as constructed by people of the united states and europe. nor-tee producer pepe mogt used traditional mexican music samples "to strategically position himself within the european discourse of difference;' gaining access to european audiences by drawing upon and resignifying the music the west associates with mexican musicians (45). madrid concludes that" [t 1 he sampling of nortefia music originates in a desire to authenticate current musical practices in their relation to the past, and results in music that rewrites the past" (47). yet the collective's rewriting is selective and ideological, in ways that madrid neglects to address. nor-tee fans and artists actively dislike the rural popular musics from which the collective's samples derive. this attitude is not a desire to validate or authenticate norteiia or banda, but rather stems from "a type of kitsch and camp sensibility" (50). madrid purports to "iden­ tify the aesthetic criteria behind nor-tee's appropriation" of rural styles with the claim that this sampling "challenge [s 1 conventional assumptions of tradi­ tion and cosmopolitanism, heritage and modernity, center and periphery" (52). what follows are succinct examinations of banda sinaloense, norteiia, and onda grupera styles, in which madrid makes the case that they, too, are modern, hybrid, and transnational, not representative of an "authentic" or "essential" mexican character. this assertion comes across as a digression. madrid argues that "traditional" genres are actually "responses to a combina­ tion of collective desires for cosmopolitanism" (62) in their audiences, but the sampling of banda and norteiio in nor-tee music derives from the way gavin mueller these styles sound traditional and mexican in the contemporary moment. it remains unclear how deconstruction of these naturalized traditions sheds light on nor-tec practices and discourses of authenticity, which center on "the sounds and timbres themselves" (67). a more thorough examination of discourses of authenticity in edm as well as sampling practices-drawing from available literature on both topics-might have better complemented this section. for instance, sarah thornton (1996) argues that "the ideological categories of'black' and 'white' define the main axes within dance music" (1996:72): blackness is associ­ ated with body and soul, while whiteness is associated with futurism and technology. how does madrid's ethnography of music produced by latinos, who sample mexican music, complicate this binary? what rhetorics of body and mind does nor-tec engage in, and how do these relate to the samples deployed? existing work on sampling, often from studies of hip hop, might have better elucidated nor-tec's relationship to the past. tricia rose claims that hip hop sampling "affirms black musical history and locates these 'past' sounds in the present" (1994:89), while kodwo eshun argues that the "functionalism" of sampling is" [i]ndifferent to tradition" (1999:14). joseph g. schloss puts forward a theory of "aesthetic purism" in which a producer's adherence to "certain musical gestures ... confers authenticity" (2006:64). nor-tec sampling touches on all three positions; indeed, madrid argues the adherence to musical gestures of campiness is essential to the nor-tec aesthetic sensibility (80), placing its sampling practices in an ambiguous zone between rose's self-conscious reverence and eshun's functionalist modernism. a deeper analysis of these practices would illuminate nor-tec's relationship to other mexican music, allowing a fuller discussion of the way it values the past. madrid alludes to the modernist style of nor-tec productions, an observation that hints at a significance of the kitschy appropriation of nortena and banda. modernism contains its own values, as described by clement greenberg (1987, 1989), including originality, experimentalism, and difficulty. these are values that pierre bourdieu (1987) associates with a bourgeois class position that constructs distinctions between itself and the working class. that nor-tec articulates these values precisely by decontextualizing and exaggerating images and sounds of working-class migrant populations suggests that it may work to reify class distinctions. madrid reads the distancing moves by nor-tec as a form of "empowerment" that reappropriates "cultural icons from foreign discourses" (83). but his treatment is muddy: there is no sustained attention to what constitutes the "dominant culture" that nor-tec supposedly subverts. is it the orientalizing gaze of the united states? the official discourses of mainstream media and 87 88 current musicology politicians? or are nor-tec participants themselves exercising a power to distance themselves culturally from poorer audiences who listen to norteiia and dress as vaqueros (mexican cowboys) without irony? a more explicit treatment of how nor-tec practices contest some aspects of hegemony while reinforcing others might have provided a much-needed organizing principle to this chapter. drawing from bourdieu might have allowed madrid to treat class analytically rather than as a neutral marker of identity. chapter 3 returns to what madrid does best in nor-tee rifa!: transform­ ing fieldwork into an articulate narrative of a music scene. madrid argues that "besides the processes of production and consumption, the process of distribution is fundamental in shaping the identity of any cultural project" (87), and his work here is of interest to any scholar researching the contem­ porary political economy of music, particularly how independent musicians negotiate a terrain in which mainstream distribution channels such as television and radio are controlled by corporations and where recordings are easily pirated. after initial disappointments with major labels, pepe mogt of fussible founded an independent label to distribute nor-tec tracks. "the idea was to develop a loyal fan base that incorporated audiences from tijuana and southern california" (90). crucial to their marketing strategy was the free distribution of mp3s, perhaps one of the earliest and most successful deployments of this type of promotion. "the logic behind this plan was that the wide circulation of the music would eventually lead audiences to request the presence of the collective in live concerts" (92). this has since become a marketing strategy that even major labels undertake. the nortec collective has carefully managed their relationship to the mainstream, cultivating a local underground identity understood as "authentic" by tightly controlling their artistic collaborations, marketing strategies, and types of venues in which they play. they even resorted to pirating their own work when major label hurdles obstructed the release of new music. according to madrid, "the gaze of the international electronica community, with its desire for otherness and its validating cosmopolitanism, played a crucial role in the glocal development of such an aura" (97). what madrid suggests is that "underground authenticity" was itself a strategy to garner attention from outside of mexico, providing the nor-tec scene with an even greater cultural cachet at home and abroad. madrid further points to the new modes of licensing and branding that are ever more critical in the distribution of both major-label and independent music. nor-tec music has appeared in television commercials, video games, and films. rather than producing tours with sponsors in a top-down manner that would appeal to a homogenous latino market, "grassroots strategists ... more sensitive" to differences within the latino community have organized successful nor-tec gavin mueller events (112); major brands then provide sponsorship with minimal involve­ ment in the tours' execution. invoking walter benjamin, madrid concludes that the underground appeal ofnor-tec, even when corporate sponsors have bolstered it, stems from "the audience's nostalgia for an aura, for authentic­ ity, grassroots community, and a rejection of commercial marketing and commercial products ... which provides the grounds for the restitution of aura itself" (113). in contrast, chapter 4 is considerably less concrete. madrid argues that "nor-tec-related expressive culture offers young tijuanenses alternative ways to territorialize and reterritorialize public spaces as well as hegemonic discourses of race, class, morality, and belonging" (115), a framework that draws from deleuze and guattari. madrid summarizes this reterritorializa­ tion as thus: nor-tee has appropriated the myths and stereotypes about the city, turn­ ing them into goods for consumption, merchandise, and exchange value which permits tijuanenses to question alienating discourses from within. in this form, nor-tee culture works as an institution that challenges the dominant discourses of national and local identity and, therefore, notions of center and periphery. (ibid) an earlier mode of cultural studies might have termed this challenge as "resistance," though without a critical account of his use of deleuze and guatarri, it is unclear what this approach gains over a gramscian one. furthermore, madrid's description of the territorialization of tijuana-its urban restructuring, gentrification, and tourist economy-sits uncomfort­ ably alongside his unwavering focus on nor-tec as discourse. according to madrid, "[ilt is important to take into account the discursive level of mythology and simulacra ... as it is at this level that nor-tec articulates a process of cultural reterritorialization" (lls). yet this account is oddly divorced from the previous chapter's description of nor-tec's engagement with globalization. nor-tec may indeed have carved out a discursive terri­ tory from hegemonic forces, but it has also created economic and spatial ones by crafting and marketing a sound that would appeal to a global audience. madrid describes nortec city, an event the collective's label put on to garner international press attention as a "reevaluation of spaces and discourses about tijuana," but it is also an attempt to market a different side of tijuana to tourists uninterested in hoary cliches of donkey shows. as paul chatterton and robert hollands (2003) have argued, urban nightlife, including club culture, has become an important way for urban property owners to reshape and gentrify cities in favor of capital accumulation. yet madrid does not attend to these more material forms of reterritorialization, 89 90 current musicology even as he quotes his informants decrying the gentrification of their city. the nortec collective memorializes certain urban spaces through their songs-do they have material effects on the city's geography as well? chapters 5 and 6 address expressive practices in live performances by the nortec collective and by their audiences, respectively. these chapters should prove useful to other ethnographic investigations of electronic dance music. nor-tee productions have been moved over time from a more abstract and "difficult" sound towards something more crowd-pleasing and club-friendly, due to the pressures of building an audience. "[w] e realized that if we wanted to promote the nor-tee sound we had to play in discotheques. there were no other places to play in," nor-tee producer melo states (150). performers had to become "competent in the codes of communication that allow the collective shaping of the event's atmosphere" (151). because of this mutual shaping, "successful live performances ofedm require skillful improvisers" (153). each track is continually mixed and remixed; thus, "its ultimate mo­ ment of collective signification is its performance ... its authenticity is cre­ ated in performance and consumption" (167). the artist works continually to create both the music and the audience that will consume it dialogically. additionally, nor-tee fans engage in their own expressive practices through the consumption and performance of hybridized mexican stereotypes: "chicharr6n, birria, lucha libre, and nortefio outfits (the onda vaquera) are rearticulated in the modernity of high technology (with synthesizers, by djs, on computers, in electronic music)" (163). madrid argues that these performances of working-class identities by middleand upper-class youth are a form of "nostalgia for that which never took place" (164), but once again, bourdieu's theories might have helped him better illustrate the class distinctions being drawn through this type of parody and kitsch. madrid's analysis of nor-tee dance in chapter 6 is subtle and instructive, uncovering hybrid practices that "combine dance steps typical of ravers and clubbers ... with movements that seem extracted from the choreographies of traditional nortefio dances" (174). here madrid is more observer than participant, and relies on analyzing dancers' moves textually, supplemented by interviews with fans. nor-tee, as a modern and cosmopolitan alternative to traditional latin dance music, facilitates an "activity of gender empower­ ment which would not be possible in traditional latin dancing" for one female dancer, "which allows her to express her sexuality without being institutionalized as a sexual object" (181). she has been freed from the passive position reserved for women in traditional latin couples dancing. other observations, such as "[t]he dancing bodies of nor-tee fans reveal that their desire is to be equal members in a global economy" (187), could use more evidence. dance is certainly a text-and can be analyzed with the gavin mueller tools of textual analysis-but madrid's ethnographic work among nor-tec fans could have been better integrated into his theorizing to strengthen his conclusions. the book closes with a contrast between the fantasy of globalized borderlands-"the happy meeting of two distinctly different worlds"­ and nor-tec's "complex and ironic performative act that negotiates the contradictions of everyday life in a multi-ideological world" (193). the members of the nortec collective explicitly disavow any kind of political engagement through their work, even performing for hire at political rallies (though the reader is not told which rallies). yet madrid wants to insist on their progressive political force, arguing that it is "an audiotopic endeavor that transcends politics to intervene in the sphere of the political, thereby informing us of the power relations and agencies that allow individuals to respond to the ideological web that surrounds them" (199). if this seems like a watery conclusion, it is because madrid has not done justice to the research he has accumulated. the struggles against major labels, the unique marketing pra:tices, and the heavy importance of visual culture to the nor-tec scene cannot be understood as audiotopic, or even strictly discursive, yet they certainly have political implications. by the end of nortec rifa! the bevy of hegemonic forces-major labels, global capitalism, us stereotypes, bourgeois morality-has bewildered rather than provided a proper grounding to judge in what ways nor-tec might work against (or support, an option madrid never really addresses) power structures. the discursively crafted agency that appears throughout the book comes more from madrid's theorization than from his ethnographic work, and his ethnography is shortchanged by strategy. nor-tec is a fascinating and worthy topic, and the attempt to analyze it while bridging the divide between ethnomusicology and cultural studies is admirable. unfortunately, the pick-a-mix approach to cultural theory obscures madrid's fieldwork as often as it both elucidates and limits his project's impact. references bourdieu, pierre. 1987. distinction: a social critique of the judgement of taste. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. chatterton, paul and robert hollands. 2003. urban nightscapes, youth cultures, pleasure, and corporate power. london: routledge. eshun, kodwo. 1999. more brilliant than the sun: adventures in sonic fiction. london: quartet books. greenberg, clement. 1987. modernist painting in modern art and modernism: a critical anthology. eds. francis frascina and charles harrison. new york: westview press. greenberg, clement. 1989. "avant-garde and kitsch." art and culture: critical essays. boston, ma. beacon press. 91 92 current musicology rose, tricia. 1994. black noise: rap music and culture in contemporary america. hanover, nh: university press of new england. schloss, joseph g. 2006. making beats: the art of sample-based hip hop. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. thornton, sarah. 1996. club cultures: music, media, and subcultural capital. hanover, nh: university press of new england. "are my ears on wrong?": hearing polyphony, ca.1375-ca. 1450 ernest h. sanders " ... certainly historians have a right to impose their own modern categories on the past which they are trying to understand. . . we may hope to gain a better understanding if we try to recapture its categories as far as that is possible." (kristeller 1966:29) 1 counterpoint: elements and progression discipulus: ecce contrapuncti exempla mea a te heri ad conficiendum mandata. sed quartam, dissonantiam pessimam, inter contratenorem discantumque, semel in exemplo secundo, at in primo adeo bis video. si tamen in fine secundi contratenorem in tertiam super tenorem, id est in sex tam de discantu ponam, nonne duas consonantias imperfectas formans totam dissonantiam vitare possim? example 1: student's counterpoint exercise. a b contratenor ~~~~~~~~~~ magister: si supranum seu dis can tum sit in ottava cum tenore tunc contratenor debet poni in quinta cum tenore: et sic erit in quarta cum discantu: que quidem quarta resonat diatesseron et est auditui pessima dissonantia: nam quarta non est species contrapunti: sed quia tenor et discantus positi in ottava resonant diapason perfectissimam concordantiam, et contra tenor cum tenore in quinta positi reddunt bon am diapenthe consonantiam: ideo contratenor cum dis cantu in quarta positi non videntur discordare. nam ibi sunt due concordantie perfecte diapason scilicet et diapenthe et unica dissonantia scilicet diatesseron: quoniam igitur maius occupat minus et minus a maiore confunditur due prime concordantie tam suaviter ad aures accedunt et eas amicabili auditu occupant, quod vix discordantia ab audientibus percipi potest. student: here are my examples of counterpoint that you told me yescurrent musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 52 current musicology terday to complete. but i see that there is a fourth-a very bad dissonance­ between contratenor and discant, once in the second example, but in the first even twice. if, however, i put the contratenor a third above the tenor at the end ofthe second [example], i.e. a sixth from the discant, wouldn't i, [thus] writing two imperfect consonances, be able to avoid any disso­ nance? teacher. if the supranum (or discant) forms an octave with the tenor, then the contratenor must be written a fifth from the tenor; and thus it will be in the position of a fourth from the discant, which fourth sounds a fourth and is heard as a very bad dissonance indeed. for the fourth is not an element of counterpoint; but because the tenor and discant, placed an octave apart, produce the most perfectly concordant sonority of an octave, and the contratenor together with the tenor placed at the fifth produce the good consonance of the fifth, therefore the contratenor together with the discantus placed at the fourth are not perceived as a dissonance. for there are two perfect consonances, i.e. octave and fifth, and a single disso­ nance, namely the fourth. hence, because the greater overrides the lesser and the lesser is confounded by the greater, the first two consonances reach the ears so agreeably and fill them with such pleasurable aural perception that the dissonance can hardly be perceived by listeners. the "teacher's answer" in this fictitious conversation with an apocryphal studen t of the 1450s is, in fact, taken verbatim from a treatise dating from the second half of the fifteenth century. 2 it is quoted in klausjiirgen sachs's comprehensive and richly informative discussion of contrapuntal instruc­ tion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as detailed by the profes­ sional theorists in their treatises. (they might better be thought of as teacher-reporters.) sachs appends the following commentary to the pas­ sage: by dint of the "good" consonances the fourth no longer "seems" dissonant. this circumstance reflects a basic fact of the contrapuntal teaching (satzlehre) of the 14th and 15th centuries: the consonance (zusammenklang= sounding simultaneity) ofthree (or four) voices was not a unitary complex (perhaps in the sense of "chord") , but the result of several successively effected intervallic collocations of two pitches each [i.e., presumably, octave and fifth or third and sixth]; an element of a higher order than the single interval (einzelintervall) was not available to the contrapuntal (satztechnischen) thinking ofthat era. (sachs 1974:125-26) the reason, however, for the theorist's disregard of the issue opened ernest h. sanders 53 by the "student's" question would seem to lie in the latter's newly attained habit of substituting the received rules of counterpoint, i.e. over a cantus firmus, for the aural phenomenon, whose natural primacy the quoted pas­ sage makes absolutely clear. in the first place, the author maiotains the terminological distinction between the greek and latin wordsl'or the con­ cept of interval, heard and notated, respectively. secondly, he emphasizes the hearing experience with the words resonare and auditus, i.e., in this context, the sound of a simultaneous conjunction of three pitches and its aural perception. the complex sonority presented by the composer had called forth the conventional rationalization, which provides a theoretical and didactic explanatory basis for the procedures the student had to learn. but if that sonority was heard as an intervallically discrete simultaneity, there would be no reason for the lessened audibility of one of the inter­ vals. as the last clause of the cited passage indicates, it is the auditory expe­ rience of a particular concord (substantially and terminologically differ­ ent from "chord") that legitimates the discord of one of the three interval­ lic ingredients of the alloy, whose sonority in fact neutralizes the disso­ nance of the fourth to the point of non-existence. thus it is not that the contratenor and discant do not "seem" to be dissonant, but that the appar­ ent (on paper) dissonance is so unreal that it "can hardly be perceived" and is in fact an acoustic phantom.3 it is a matter of perception (percipi) , not deception ("seems"-sachs). and therefore the "teacher" would not think it necessary to address the "student's" question; while the written conjunction of a third and a sixth may well seem inoffensive, it is less per­ suasive when heard, especially at endings, because the ear does not hear distinct simultaneous intervals, but the conjoint quality of particular ag­ gregate simultaneities. similarly, the combination of an octave and a fifth, with the latter located between the two top voices, should in the terms of the treatise's explanation be consonant, because the two good intervals presumably outweigh the bad one between the two lower voices. but in fact the unacceptable aural experience of the total sonority negates this assumption as well. the ear, then, disproves the eye, and in the end didac­ tic circumlocution turns out to interpose itself unhelpfully between com­ poser and listener.4 notwithstanding his acoustic perception, the "theo­ rist" formulates a problematic postscript to what was heard by the listen­ ers, including, first of all, the composer.5 like harmony textbooks, coun­ terpoint treatises are didactic simplifications. sachs continues his evaluation of fifteenth-century contrapuntal pro­ cedures as follows: the apportionments within any intervallic constellation are subject to a firm sequential procedure: as a rule, the [generally pre54 current musicology existing] tenor ... is equipped with a complete discant and only thereafter is the two-part counterpoint (satz) expanded to three­ part texture by means of the addition of a contratenor. (sachs 1974:126)6 but, especially with the demise of the isorhythmic motet, the notion of strictly successive composition is merely a reflection of the schoolroom (then and now), not of the composer's study. polyphony for more than two parts is generally-at least to the end of the nineteenth century-a shifting composite of composites, with the varying relative prominence of the horizontal and vertical (linear and sonorous) elements determined by genre and historically conditioned convention and taste. inevitably there are perceptual limitations vis-a-vis the varying combination of simultaneously unfolding lines-as against the more or less successive conceptual process. no perception of any polyphonic music for more than two parts can con­ tinually control both the horizontal and the vertical dimensions. the richer the music (or, for that matter, any work of art), the more legitimately mul­ tifarious are its perceptual opportunities, with their variable twin obliga­ tion of linearity and simultaneity (leech-wilkinson 2002:211). it is an important historical cliche that from the late thirteenth cen­ tury to the beginning of the twentieth, the art of music exhibited a con­ stant pressure to expand the two-voice framework,? first from the octave to the twelfth, thence to two octaves (late fourteenth century), to three oc­ taves (ca. 1500)-the limit, more orless, of choral voicing-and thence to the emancipation, gradual predominance, and expanding ambitus of in­ strumental ensemble music (including orchestral), ultimately delimited by piccolo and tuba. the beginning of this tendency of pushing apart the limits of the field of contrapuntal operation eliminated the possibility of voice exchange, which in the thirteenth century had been a fairly com­ mon device on both sides of the channel, though more prominently in england, and is unquestionably rooted in the concept of recurring sonori­ ties (simultaneities), articulated by means of reciprocal imitation in voices of equal range. voice exchange necessarily receded around the turn of the century, when the octave barrier was breached. voice exchange, a totally strict kind of imitation, "of course, entails working on two parts simultaneously" (blackburn 1987:218). there must have been, during the period at issue, a degree of successiveness in the notational and, to some extent, in the conceptual process, as there is with any composer anytime. but notational procedure does not necessarily re­ flect the conceptual procedure that inter alia assigns functional roles to the voices, no matter whether a composition was conceived around 1400 or 1700 (basso continuo). the old dispute about successiveness vs. simulernest h. sanders 55 taneitys seems to mechanize the more or less hesitant changes in the cre­ ative process, which doubtless involved tabulae compositoriaewell before their earliest extant evidence from the beginning of the fifteenth century.9 no matter how prodigious one presumes the powers of memory and concen­ tration to have been prior to the seventeenth century, the mental pro­ cesses involved in the composition of contrapuntal works for three or more voices must have proceeded from some degree of "score vision," i.e. at least, in relatively uncomplex cases, an imaginary tabula compositoria, be­ fore the notation of parts. early evidence for a similar procedure is found in the quasi-score col­ lection of clausulae (other than the abbreviations collected in ms, f, fols. 178-183v ) of the thirteenth century that, in addition to their greater or lesser self-sufficiency, must be seen as convenient and necessary notational models-for composers and performers-for the contemporary motet rep­ ertoire, whose novel part notation, though an exemplar of economy, gave no secure clue to the rhythms of the voices and their coordination (sand­ ers 1973:509-10).10 the notation subsequently regulated by johannes de garlandia and franco is the basis for the precise and likewise economical part notation, with its system ofligatures, that encoded and preserved the composers' concepts. but that notation, standard from the later thirteenth century for medieval and renaissance polyphony, cannot be taken as re­ flecting the compositional process with its varying mixture of simultaneity and successiveness that has always characterized the creation of complex polyphony (to be understood in terms of the more encompassing german mehrstimmigkeit). on the whole, the notion of totally stratified composition (as well as hearing) seems no more tenable for the ars nova and subse­ quent eras than it was before. as oliver b. ellsworth has put it succinctly, it is erroneous to assume that the accomplished composer had to compose each upper voice successively ... the one conclusion that we may safely draw is that composition by two stages-from structural counterpoint to ornamental discant-is the method by which the medieval composer first learned his craft. any conclusion about the advanced professional can be only so much speculation. (1977:109)11 margaret bent's observations that the "original notation is the only urtext" and that "all transcription translates" put the matter exactly right with respect to the historical circumstances (1994:382,390), not, however, for composition or study, but for performers (and for current editors), since no singer or player of ensemble music at any time-except, prob­ ably, the leader-needs anything other than his part for practice, rehearsal, 56 current musicology and performance (unless memorized). but her concern that some "ana­ lytic information or overlay may be conveyed in our [scored] transcrip­ tions that is rarely apparent in the original layout in parts" (390), should be resolved by the thought that such a circumstance is bound to have had similar compositional antecedents before the final stage of part notation. a m~or aspect of these issues, now as then, is the imprecision or lack of terminology, which has bedeviled modern musical discourse, as is evi­ dent from the definitions given-or not given-in the following reference works: (1) pitch class. both the new grovedictionary (1980; 2001) and the new harvard dictionary of music (1986) restrict the term essentially to twentieth-century music. 12 (2) dyad. the new harvard dictionary defines dyad as "two pitches whether sounded simultaneously or successively. [actually, this is the definition of an interval.] the term is used principally with reference to non-tonal music." webster's new internationaldictionary of the english language (1934) defines dyad as "a chord of two tones." an appropriate definition would be "a constellation of three or more pitches of two pitch c1asses."13 (3) chord. both editions of the new grove define chord as "the simultaneous sounding of two or more notes." the new harvard dictionary offers a similar definition: "three or more pitches sounded simultaneously." in websters second edition (1934), chord is defined as "a combination of tones which blend harmoniously [i] when sounded together because the pitch frequencies are in the ratios of small whole numbers; specif., the common chord, or triad. chords as treated in harmony have at least three tones ... "; the third edition (1961) offers a briefer definition: "a combination of two or more tones sounded together, esp. tones that blend harmoniously because of the simple ratios of their pitch frequencies." a reasonably precise definition of chord would be: "a constellation of at least three pitches of no fewer than three pitch classes in music exhibiting harmonic features."14 (4) --there is not and never has been a name for the first vertical constellation in the first of the "student's" two exercises. it can be circumscribed, albeit clumsily, as a (non-triadic) concord consisting of three pitch classes. ernest h. sanders 57 it seems, then, that the interpretive conclusions, as summarized by sachs, which, while not concerned with critical approaches to the works, have been accepted by nearly all musicologists, for want of proper termi­ nology bring on a perceptual loss of the auditory reality. though environ­ mentally attenuated, concords (of greater or lesser consonance) pervade the contrapuntal texture. they are no less real than the most obvious ex­ amples, as, for instance, the very beginnings of the organa of the early thirteenth century and in the relatively static sonorities used by dufay for emphasis, e.g. in his chanson resveilles vous et faites chiere lye of 1423 and his two settings of the marian antiphon alma redemptoris mater, surely predeces­ sors of the richly euphonic series of chords at the end of the kyrie of his mature missa ecce ancilla domini, which in turn precedes the appearance of final triads in the later fifteenth century, as, for instance, at the end ofthe credo of dufay's missa ave regina celorum. cadences the "student's" two counterpoint exercises represent cadences prominent in polyphonic works of the first half of the fifteenth century. the use of the second cadence, the so-called octavejump cadence, increased as the century went on, though the first, known as "double-ieading-tone cadence," maintained its traditional role, gradually losing its prominence. a signifi­ cant musicological controversy of half a century's duration concerning the cadential role of the contratenor (the successor of the thirteenth-century duplum) in the fifteenth century and its evolutionary significance was re­ cently addressed again in a wide-ranging article by margarent bent, in which she identifies sanders, lowinsky, and randel as "besseler's follow­ ers in america" (bent 1998a:44).15 in his admirable book bourdon und fauxbourdon (1950), heinrich besseler had offered the following formula­ tion, stemming from an attractive, though incautious excess of enthusi­ asm: " ... the ingenious octave leap [the second of the two cadences on page 51, above] was invented to achieve a dominant-tonic formula in addi­ tion to the parallel cadence [the first cadence]" (1950:33). this was promptly attacked one year later by rudolph von ficker, who argued that in compositions of that time superius and tenor, which generally exhibit flawless counterpoint, are the two essential voices and that therefore the contratenor "would be entirely dispensable. its function is mainly restricted to filling and clarifying [?] the framework provided by the essential voices, which consists of already complete sounds" (1951: 116). besseler defended his position by pointing out that in such a composition "no voice is dis­ pensable any longer [if, in fact, it ever was] without destroying the charac­ ter of the work" (1952:141). his views are reflected in the new grove dictionary's 1980 entry on "cadence," which was revised and updated by 58 current musicology william drabkin and harold powers: the advent of triadic harmony in 15th-century polyphony is reflected above all in the new types of cadential formulation. the movement of the principal parts, the cantus and tenor, was still governed by the linear resolution of intervals ... , but the contratenor was free to move by leap; the [three cadential] configurations in ex. 10 [in which the tenor displays the traditional 2-1 step, while the contratenor moves by (a) octave leap to the fifth above the final pitch of the tenor; (b) a fourth ascending to the tonic and forming a unison with the tenor; (c) a fifth descending to the octave below the tenor's tonic, are] all true progenitors ofthe perfect (authentic) cadence ... 16 the most important of besseler's more recent opponents are sachs, bent, ernst apfel, and, primarily, dahlhaus (1968) .17 the many essays (prior to bent's) addressing this subject-all in german-were recently published in english by kevin n. moll, who provided a notably informative and in­ sightful introduction (1997).18 dahlhaus, addressing himselfto the article in which the present author had raised the question why the double-lead­ ing-tone cadence gradually failed to be retained (i.e., sanders 1967:35),19 inferred ("der satz suggeriert ... ") that "only the supposition of 'dominantic tonality' can explain [its] displacement ... by the tritone cadence ... ," i.e. through the lowering by a half-step ofthe raised fourth, thereby producing a "fragment of a dominant-seventh chord" as an evolu­ tionary way station. but the matter under discussion is not the factitious assumption of the in fact non-existent half-step lowering of the traditional raised fourth degree, but its elimination in favor of the lower fifth. dahlhaus proceeds to dispose of the problem of the parenthetical hearing of the contratenor in the octavejump cadence by mentioning "the possibility that the parts were differentiated from one another by tone color." and so he implausibly asserts that "what was heard [sic] was the progression from an imperfect to a perfect consonance [i.e. major sixth to octave] ... whose effect was supplemented, but not changed by the contratenor, no matter whether the framework it filled out brought about a cadence by way of a double leading tone, or by jumping up an octave or a fourth."20 (the de­ scent by a fifth, which was also practiced, is not mentioned.) this in effect describes a molecular (vs. gestalt) hearing process in conflict with the in­ controvertible fact that the lowest of its constituent pitches determines the nature and definition of any simultaneity-a fact so self-evident that it is hardly ever mentioned in the literature on acoustics and psychoacoustics.21 the other side of this counterpoint coin is the fourteenth-century practice ernest h. sanders 59 of occasionally condensing the tenor and contratenor of motets into a solus tenor, generally consisting of the lowest pitch of each interval, no mat­ ter which of the two voice parts contained it. 22 as was indicated earlier, the contrapuntal self-sufficiency of cantus and tenor is a technical convention not inevitably reflecting the conceptual matrix giving rise to the three (or four) voice parts; nor should it preju­ dice perception, particularly at cadences. in fact, the cadential progres­ sion fastidiously labeled 5-1 by bent (1998a:40) seems to have had a lusty existence as a v-i already in the early fourteenth century-in england, whose inhabitants' ears, in contrast to their neighbors' across the channel were, in terms of taste, differently disposed toward the occasional recep­ tion of certain sonorities and their consecutive arrangement. example 2: gb-ob20, f. 35; gb-cgc512, f. 254; us-pru, garrett 119, ff. 4a, 3b, 2a, 5b. early church music 14 (61). fl ••. ~ thomas gemma can-~u-a-ri e pri-mu-la ii-de pro tu-en-da ,; thomas ce-sus in do-\"c-ri a e-mu-jo ie-sus ~ p[rimus tenor] 1\ ~ [slecu!i~s tenor ... it was this particular aural disposition, which caused english compos­ ers of the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries to engage in their extravagant manipulations of the cantus firmus (in the middle voice, mi­ grant, and in various transpositions23), that proves their lack of concern for the perceptions and conceptions mandated by dahlhaus. analogously, when after the appearance of the contratenor bassus tinctoris, a superbly intelligent and informed observer, in his diffinitorium (1475) defined the tenor, i.e. of a cantus-firmus setting, as the referential basis or referential mainstay (fundamentum relationis) of a composition, he certainly did not say or mean to imply that it also necessarily had the function of a fundamentum concentus. as, in contrast to chords and their systemic connections (e.g. in music of the eighteenth century), concords have more limited functionality,24 60 current musicology the new progressions of the contratenor justify no harmony textbook. but on the other hand, the significance of "the development from the 'paral­ lel cadence' by way of the 'octavejump cadence' to the 'fourth-leap ca­ dence'" cannot be disposed of as the "mere consequence of the contratenor's displacement under the tenor [because] the fifth under the penultimate [interval] of the tenor cadence is merely the only possible [alternative] consonance ... (dahlhaus 1968:80). this statement, too, fails to address the question it is meant to answer.25 and the fact that the double-leading-tone cadence endured beyond the middle of the century (dahlhaus 1968:81) merely attests the temporary co-existence of two prac­ tices, a matter familiar from, for instance, the later nineteenth century. in fact, sachs deduces from the evidence (before 1487) that the tenor's loss of its foundational role (klangtragerfunktion) has such essential conse­ quences that one could just about [!] be led to deny it the validity of its name (sachs 1974:127). moll summarizes conclusively: [when] the voice added to the two-part framework ... comes to occupy the lowermost tone of a cadential sonority-and especially if this is a major cadence-this referential pitch cannot simply be explained away as an irrelevant appendage: it will inevitably [emphasis added] be experienced as a sonorous foundation or platform .... (1997:60)26 in any case, the "abasement" of the penultimate cadential tone in the last third of the fourteenth century initially appeared not in the contratenor, but in the tenor, the lowest voice in the fabric, where it is entirely logical for this process to have begun. a considerable number of instances of the tenor's moving from the new penultimate pitch (the "dominant") to the tonic can be found in the french and, to a much lesser extent, italian polyphony of that period (apel 1970-72).21 far fewer such cadences ap­ pear in the repertoire of early fifteenth-century music (reaney 1955-83).28 five such final cadences can still be found in dufay's chansons (1995)29, which the chronologies offered by charles hamm and graeme m. boone attribute to the composer's early period (1420s-30s) (hamm 1964; boone 1987:249).30 (greater scholarly concern with treatises than with composi­ tions might account for the puzzling fact that all these significant occur­ rences have so far been unobserved or unreported.) as with other striking conceptual changes in the history of musical composition-such as the growing recognition, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, of the subdominant as the proper key for slow movements of works in the major mode-there is no etiological testimony accounting for the rather rapid disappearance of the tenor's v-i cadence. it may well be attributable to ernest h. sanders 61 the singers' discomfort with the lowered range of such tenor parts. but the fact that it appeared in the tenor in the first place and maintained itself in the contratenor which ultimately became the contratenor bassus, proves that all the new cadence formations resulted from the desire for or ready acceptance of the sounding cadence whose customary designation as v-i is clearly justified for this repertoire as well. technically, its growing pre­ dominance is due to the same principle of the expanding two-voice frame­ work that had brought about the disappearance of voice exchange around 1300. tonality and the historical distance cadences articulate and define. a second controversy of equally long stand­ ing revolves around the issue of cadential definition of tonality, specifically in the fifteenth century. in conjunction with her discussion of what besseler and his followers regard as v-i cadences in a three-part texture (no matter which of the two lower voices has either or both of those successive pitches), bent justly finds fault that he "observed triads [and] modulations ... and labeled these as tonal functions" (1998a:40). but besseler's fault would seem to lie more in his proleptic riemannesque labeling and less in his hearing. as dahlhaus put it, "pitch relations need not be reducible to chord relations in order to fall under the concept of tonality" (1968: 17) y if, as we must, we fashion the definition of tonality comprehensively enough32, it will, one hopes, lose its anachronistic offensiveness. tonality, so con­ ceived and broadly defined, is a principle governing musical compositions that begin by identifying a particular pitch class as its center of operations, define it further by means of other cadential or semi-cadential way sta­ tions, and conclude on the established tonic. 33 such a definition of tonal­ ity allows it to encompass, when evidently applicable, chant as well as me­ dieval and renaissance polyphony34, in addition to works reflecting later harmonic principles, regardless of their theoretical formulations (e.g. rameau or riemann). many works composed a long time before 1700 impress their tonal cohesion on listeners who, aware that that the freight of centuries will necessarily affect the historic propriety of their percep­ tion, are far from being "students of medieval music who adopt the per­ spective of modern listeners" (bent 1998a:18).35 the underpinnings of a song may vary, as in different harmonizations of the same chorale melody by bach or in fifteenth-century chansons with exchangeable contratenors, but will not usually affect its basic tonal na­ ture, when and as it prevails.36 it is for this reason that the setting of a tune from the first half of the fourteenth century, when the twelfth was the largest contrapuntal interval (ex. 3a), can be replaced with a factitious harmonization (ex. 3b) in a style in which a seventeenth was easily man62 current musicology example 3a: cambridge, gonville and caius college, 334/727, p.l. mater christi nobilis. ~ il 3 roo, u 1......1...1 i i i • for text see early english " n ~~ ~ church music 17, no. 24 ~ i i...i..j..j i il ~ ~ 'ii i i example 3b: harmonized version of example 3a (inner voice omitted). i ~ ~ ~ j ~ i ;j ~ i ~ ~ i ~ : i ~f ~ i ~ ~~ i:: i: : i'~ : i i~: ~ : i:~~i: : i~rll~ i:~i~:~j~i~: ii ernest h. sanders 63 aged (sanders 1967:41,49).37 it is an operation-anathema on its performance!-that is not a lot more blameworthy than mozart's handelian manipulations. but it should help to relieve the apparent discomfitures of many observers who have dealt with these issues and listen to fifteenth-century polyphony.38 excursus (res facta) in the fifteenth century, compositions with their component articulations were known generically as res factae-in all probability, tinctoris's latinization of the french term choses faites -as well as compositiones or cantus compositi. at the beginning of his article on res facta, bandur estab­ lishes that "toward the end of the fifteen th cen tury the term res facta desig­ nates a musical work that is firmly fixed in writing and whose voices are fully worked out." it goes without saying that the class of things for which this term stands had existed for a long time before it first appeared around 1472 in tinctoris's diffinitorium. he who confects such a written work of music is a compositor, the "creator who solely and by means of rational plan­ ning ... produces new polyphonic structures, i.e. becomes the author of a res facta [or compositio] ," which "can hardly be conceived without the sup­ port of a procedure involving writing."39 (it is, in fact, the equivalent pre­ decessor of the term opus perfectum et absolutum in listenius's treatise of 1537 [cahn 1989:11-26].) tinctoris's consequent distinction between compositio and contrapunctus evidently can be traced back to the beginning ofthe century (prosdocimus de beldemandis 1412).40 margaret bent's recent interpretations of tinct oris's term res facta (and of a good many other terms [1983]) have been thoroughly discussed by bonnie j. blackburn (1987:246-65); they were also addressed more briefly by klaus·:jiirgen sachs (1983) and peter cahn (1989:17-26) .41 the recog­ nition of compositional activity actually goes back to perotinus (the first full-fledged composer), petrus de cruce, and phillipe de vitry, and, of course, to franco, who used the same verb (fieri, the passive form of facere) to explain how discant was composed.42 bent's essay, which deprives a res facta of the evidence that it is indeed a chose faite, namely the necessity­ beyond any archival purposes-of written notes (and words), and thus entrusts it to possible mnemonic conception and retention, is also contra­ dicted by copious pictorial documentation. 43 in view of all available evi­ dence, it is surprising, therefore, to read in a recent publication that a tenorista, i.e. a leader of a small group of singers performing contrapunctus super librum, would be different from a compositor "only to the extent that [the latter] converted similar 'coordinations' into mensural notation" (wegman 1996:452). it strains belief that, for instance, dufay's masses should "only" be the distillations of contrapuntal activity of such limited 64 current musicology compositional potential as even well-prepared counterpoint on the book. still more puzzling is the conclusion that "a 'maker,' at bottom, is some­ one who writes down music that might just as well have been sung collec­ tively" (wegman 1996:478). "the tonality of the sixteenth and that of the nineteenth century are stages in a coherent evolution" (dahlhaus 1968: 18). awareness of this fact, how­ ever, obliges the historian to be mindful of the lack of identity of the vari­ ous historic stages of tonality, for it is that critical awareness that must shape the perceptions and descriptions of compositions. a demonstration of tonal cohesion in a chanson by dufay loses its credibility if its terminol­ ogy and the concepts it reflects are foreign imports from a later time. but, conversely, the composition loses nothing of its integrity, if principles origi­ nally familiar from and applicable to a later time are recognized as func­ tioning, mutatis mutandis, in a chronologically removed repertoire. such a procedure is, in fact, a necessity, to be applied with appropriate historical tact,44 no matter whether a listening historian has failed to recognize such a feature or has refused to do so for the justified fear of historical or teleo­ logical contamination. but though the knowledge conveyed by an analyti­ cal method and its terminology may come from a different era, their ad­ justed use is entirely proper in the absence of a historically more appropri­ ate vocabulary, due to the lack of contemporary commentators' (teacher­ reporters') concern.45 in those circumstances, the traditional conceptual associations need not be regarded as disqualifying the application of a term to a phenomenon of a different time. the identification and description of such phenomena are the historian's obligation. as dahlhaus puts it, a [recorded] fact (tatsache) in music history ... must show up as part of a context, of a historiography or description of a historic construct in order to be a historic fact. events of the past, res gestae, become historic facts only in a historia rerum gestarum . .. the chain of continuity converts facts into historic facts ... history is not the past per se, but whatever historic insight may be able to apprehend from it-what the historian catches in his net. (1977:68) elsewhere, he refers to facts as being "chosen on the basis of a [special] historic-epistemological interest and as actually evolving from mere source data into historic facts by way of a conceptual system for which the histo­ rian bears responsibility" (1977:70). yet, the historian is of course not an inventor: "structures and linkages are embedded in the warp ( vorgezeichnet) of the reality as it confronts the historian in the sources, but become apernest h. sanders 65 parent only through conceptual systems drawn up by the [professional] historian" (1977:71). in a recent paper, shai burstyn addressed the issue of the uncertain­ ties of transhistorical perception and the obligations on the chronologi­ cally removed reader, viewer, or, more specifically, listener (1997).46 ulti­ mately, however, even the most expert historically informed performance of non-contemporary music, though it may be thought to remove the im­ manent distance at least superficially, cannot eliminate the elastic herme­ neutic tension between past and presenty but the issue may appear less troublesome when one realizes that]. s. bach would most likely have had little compunction about performance of keyboard works composed by him before his visit to potsdam in 1747 on a new instrument like the fortepiano that he said (perhaps under royal duress) to have much en­ joyed after king frederick asked him to try it out. though the limits of transhistorical acculturation cannot be expunged, imagination honed by scholarly research will produce empathic approximations not reined in by the strictures of determined antiquarianism.48 several years ago, in an important essay, thomas christensen, under the influence, as he acknowledged, of hans-georg gadamer's wahrheit und methode (1960), pointed to our inherent inability to suppress completely our own knowledge, values, and tastes for the sake of some distant and ultimately elusive literal replication ... all observation, whether analytical or historical, is filtered through culturally tinted lenses ... it is only when one recognizes and affirms ... one's 'presentness' that true historical understanding arises ... the gap between ... the present and the past ... becomes an essential condition for understanding. (christensen 1993a:23,24,27) 49 thus, dahlhaus's statement regarding the tonalities of the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries reflects no facile "realism"; neither does it infect the unprejudiced appraisal and explication of a specific work of art with any but the most elemental notions of etiology or those of "embodiment of an essence."50 both dahlhaus and, more insistently, leo treitler have addressed the radical conceptual change which has affected historiogra­ phy. writing nearly thirty years ago, dahlhaus commented that "for some decades historians have felt threatened by a loss of interest in history ... the maxim that one must know the origin of a matter in order to under­ stand its essence has lost the self-evident basis that ... still sustained its belief in the early twentieth century" (1977:12), a loss that must be largely attributed to the waning of the tradition of meliorism prevailing in the 66 current musicology eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, whose beginnings in music history can be traced back as far as tinctoris in the 1470s and to anonymous 4 before himy but the uncertain notion of progress should not lead to the invalidation of causality. brahms, to cite one notable example, responded to questions regarding his delay in composing symphonies by citing the tread of the giant. it seems legitimate to derive from this historical fact the well-known conclusion that his first symphony was to a considerable extent affected by at least one of beethoven's (as brahms himself grumpily ac­ knowledged) and, for that matter, to infer similarly that the grim sisyphean finality of the finale of his fourth symphony-particularly of its coda­ helps to account for his failure to produce another symphony during the remaining twelve years of his life, even if in the latter case brahms gave no specific hint.52 such an inference, far from impairing the work's integrity, can intensify the poignancy of its perception. alban berg's hortatory habit of didactically using social occasions with an available piano to play the tristan chord as the progenitor, because of its irresolution, of tonality's dissolution is another well-known example. and, for that matter, aware­ ness of later developments provides support for the recognition, through the filtered haze of the past, of the rise of the v-i cadence in the four­ teenth century's last quarter and of the radical increase of tonally-cen­ tered structures in the course of the fifteenth; both features may well be regarded as related. the soundness of such observations and conclusions depends on their demonstrable substantiality-a truism whose validity is wrapped up in dahlhaus's "historian's net." notes my thanks go to ian bent, lewis lockwood, and daniel leech-wilkinson for read­ ing this contribution, to the latter especially for bibliographic information, as well as to glenn stanley for his helpful editorial comments. i am particularly grateful to chris hatch for persuading me to address the main issues discussed in this article and inevitably offering perceptive suggestions. l. the emphasis is added. the titular question, of course, was asked in a different context by charles ives; it remains unanswered. 2. except for the substitution of diatesseron for quarta in the penultimate sen­ tence for the reasons indicated below. the proverbial sound of the initial clause of the last sentence seems to be due to the writer's vague memory of a plain boethian sentence in book i, chapter 9 of de institutione musica (boethius [1867] 1966:196), where, however, title and content of that chapter reflect boethius's advocacy of the governance of sensus, i.e. auditus, by ratio. 3. as sachs points out (1974:62,124), the changed perception of the conso­ nant quality of the fourth occurred and was codified soon after perotinus took the historic step of writing polyphony for three voices, which caused the fourth to be regarded as a dissonance between the two lowest voices. "sed nota," writes anony­ mous 4, "quod diatesseron raro in duplicibus determinatur, sed saepius in triplicibus et ernest h. sanders 67 quadruplicibus bene cum alia consonantia" (quoted in reckow 1967:71). (but note that the fourth is rarely validated for two-part polyphony, but more [most?] fre­ quently in music for three and four voices, rightly so together with another conso­ nance [below it].) hearing thus overrode the (pythagorean) rules, since the au­ thor in effect counts the fourth as consonant only in these radically new dimen­ sional circumstances, thus depriving it of its independent contrapuntal validity; see also note 22 below. on fourteenth-century concepts of the contrapuntal fourth, see fuller (1987:56, n.12). 4. this was clearly and emphatically observed as long as forty years ago by richard crocker (1962:9). similarly, oliver b. ellsworth concluded in 1977 that "the treatises in practical music theory, almost without exception, are directed toward the beginning student at the lowest possible level. significantly, the tradi­ tional title for the volentibus introduci treatise [first half of the fifteenth century] ... is optima introductio in contrapuncto pro rudibus [for the unskilled] ... and that title would apply equally well to any counterpoint treatise of the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries." a student at the "intermediate or advanced level ... would probably learn directly from the tutelage of an accomplished teacher [most likely a com­ poser] ... " (1977,2:105-12). see also sarah fuller (1986:39-40), who with re­ spect to the fourteenth century concludes that "syntactic practices ... can only be deduced through direct examination of compositional practice." and, for that matter, theorists of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are not usually not too helpful to a student eager to get inside a beethoven score. 5. while composers do not footnote their compositions (at least not before the second half of the twentieth century, especially in doctoral composition pro­ grams), it is a universal truism that, as elizabeth eva leach concludes of machaut, the "exceptionality and skill [of] a composer [reside] in his canny exploitation of the musical surface in relation to the ... expectations provided by its underlying simple counterpoint" (2000:75). 6. an early formulation of this view was given by thurston dart ([1954] 1960:150-51). but, especially with the rise of composition for three or more voices, however, it is a truism to state that, while a composer is necessarily a contrapuntist, a contrapuntist is not necessarily a composer. see also note 4. 7. this is arthur mendel's felicitous translation of hindemith's term ubergeordnete zweistimmigkeit (hindemith 1942:113). 8. the first to clarify this vexing issue was crocker (1962:12-13). recent dis­ cussions are found in blackburn (1987:212-19,265-68), and in william e. thomson's quirky (and abysmally proof-read), but spirited tonality in music, in which he castigates the view that "pre-bachian composers ... had no way for con­ sidering ... matters such as chords and their interrelationships [as] conceptual perversion [and] patent nonsense" (1999:19). richard norton persuasively rec­ ognizes the existence of "harmonic thinking," as he puts it, "from that moment. .. when two or more voices [properly: more than two voices-see nn. 3, 22] were sounded together ... had this not been the case, the fourth would not have been demoted in status, despite its elemental security within the assumed mathematical purity of pythagorean harmonia . .. " (1984:134). his book has been repeatedly and justly criticized for its frequently extravagant and polemic rhetoric. 9. it is a document of 1407-08 referring to "six tabletes pour faire ie contrepoint 68 current musicology desdiz enffans [ofthe above-mentioned boys]" (higgins 1990:9,25). what was an expense item-though surely a relatively minor one-for the boys is likely to have been a tool for the composer that as standard equipment may have been taken for granted and thus remained actuarially unrecorded. the earliest secure evidence of tabulae compositoriae as aids in the sketching of polyphony "does not predate the second half of the 15th century." see die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, 2nd ed., s.v. "partitur" (by klaus:jurgen sachs). see also hamm (1962:167). as regards "composing without writing," a subject to whichjessie ann owens devotes a chapter of her book on the craft of musical composition during a later time (1450-1600), "all the evidence allows us is to speculate about the methods" (1997:73) and, one should add, its extent. see the excursus below. 10. as to the untenable musicological issue of abbreviatio (edition), see my forthcoming the notation of notre-dame organa tripla and quadrupla (nn. 86, 12). 11. it may well be justifiable transhistorically to cite heinrich koch's view of the creative process in the 1780s: "i don't know how some of my readers ... could have conceived the notion as if! might ... have wanted to convey the insight that in the conception of a composition harmony must be the first to arise in the composer's soul" (quoted in ian bent 1984:29). 12. the indispensable term "pitch class" was coined by milton babbitt (1965:55). for the closely related german term, see riemann musik lexikon, 1968, s.v. "tonigkeit." 13. ninteenth-century examples are the first fourteen measures of the first movement of beethoven's ninth symphony; the first nine measures of schubert's der doppelganger, bruckner's te deum, mm. 1-10. see new harvard dictionary of music, 1986, s.v. "dyad"; webster's new dictionary of the english language, 2nd ed., s.v. "dyad"; and webster's new dictionary of the en­ glish language, 3rd ed., s.v. "dyad. 14. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "chord" and new harvard dictionary of music, 1986, s.v. "chord." 15. in the absence of praenominal and bibliographic information her first reference is presumably sanders (1967:24-53); an english version was published in moll (1997:327-62); see note 18. 16. the second edition of grove, evidently in consequence of bent (l998a), reformulates the beginning of this passage: "the earliest apparent precedents for triadic harmony occur in certain types of cadential formulation prevalent in the 15th century." see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "cadence" (by will­ iam drabkin and harold powers). for discussions of contrapuntal and cadential procedures of the period, see also blackburn (1987:233-34); the spirited remarks and realistic perceptions by daniel leech-wilkinson (1984:10-11, n.6); and graeme m. boone, who advocates "a step away from the theorists' bare rules ... and toward a more integrated evalu­ ation of the musical sound" (1997:91). he regards it as "more accurate to con­ sider musical sound" (92), and concludes "that it is not the historicists or structuralists, but rather besseler who had the most insight ... " (59). nevertheless, boone then seems to reverse himself: " ... it is the tenor ... which i shall take to be the functionally determining note, and not a contratenor note that might sound be­ low it" (60). in a footnote, in an evidently conflicted state of mind, he adds that "i ernest h. sanders 69 shall not attempt to justiry this approach here, except to note that numerous theo­ retical statements argue for the priority of the tenor ... " (in his quotation of gaffurius, the abbreviation of the third word must be resolved to qui, not quem.) i thank peter lefferts for calling this article to my attention, as well as for other items of information. 17. dahlhaus's thesis is contained in note 11 (1968:75-76; translated in 1990:340-41). a preliminary discussion of the controversy regarding the rise of the v-i cadence appeared in sanders (1998:viii-ix). 18. moll's book received favorable reviews; see bent (1999) and leach (1999). five of the twelve essays are by ernst apfel, who has been the most inveterately persistent researcher of the complex and troublesome issues. (for a discussion of his interpretation of the theoretical evidence, see sanders [1967:34-35; translated in moll 1997:338-41]. to my knowledge, the facts and views presented there have not been refuted or challenged.) the translations of the two above-mentioned articles by rudolph von ficker and heinrich besseler are in moll (1997:91-128 and 129-48, respectively); see specifically pp. 119 and 141. 19. see note 15. sarah fuller provides details regarding fourteenth-century cadences: the "phenomenon of cadence," she points out, "powerfully shapes per­ ceptions of formal divisions, tonal structure and sectional association ... " (1986:54). see also her magisterial essay on the ars nova (1992a). regarding the earliest ap­ plication (by jacques de liege) to polyphony of cadentia, see fuller (1992a:230); the term originated in medieval writings on grammar and poetry. for a detailed discussion of fuller's valuable insights into fourteenth-century polyphony, see leech-wilkinson (2002:201-5). 20. as to dahlhaus's general and persistent presumption of was gehort wurde, see wegman (1998); note, however, dahlhaus's later conclusion cited in note 31. bent reformulates dahlhaus (1998a: 15-59). referring to besseler's commentary on dufay's rondeau, helas ma dame (1950:40-43), she paraphrases dahlhaus's char­ acterization of the contratenor as an added, not essential, voice, without which the counterpoint of discant and tenor can exist by itself (dahlhaus 1968:74-75). his observations regarding dissonances caused by the contratenor with one or another of the other two voices are weakened by the fact that the dissonances actually involve all three voices in both cited cases. bent adds that "the song has a perfectly self-contained discant-tenor duet, a fact that besseler chose to suppress" (1998a:40) and concludes that the "upper two voices ... make perfect self-con­ tained sense without the lower contratenor .... " (42). one begins to wonder why the composer bothered to write it if the voice was, in fact, subordinate to the point of negligibility. (for an insightful discussion of bent's views of this subject, see leech-wilkinson [2002:208-9].) while david fallows guardedly referred to the contratenor as "technically dispensable in ... all fifteenth-century three-part chan­ sons' (1983: 135), bonnie j. blackburn stated forthrightly that the contratenor's jump of an octave "produces a v-i cadence" (1987:244, n.57). 21. one who does, briefly, is gerhard albersheim (1939:144). see also norton (1984:126-28). 22. see sanders (1973:560). more recently, fuller has adduced it as the "most solid fourteenth-century evidence for the principle that the lowest pitch governs the sonority" (1986:40). leach has observed that "the possibility for the migration 70 current musicology of tenor function exists" (2000:73, n.18) and subsequently concluded-at least for the compositions at issue-that "the contratenor adopts tenor function when it is at the bottom of the texture" (2001 :75). this principle of course also applies to thirteenth-century polyphony (increasingly for more than two parts), in which voice crossings involving the tenor are necessarily more common; most striking are those cases in which an upper voice temporarily located under the tenor and forming a fourth with it was subsequently redesigned to eliminate a contrapuntal interval that had become unacceptable for the two lowest voices. see sanders (1993:47; 1995:626b) and p. 47 above. 23. see sanders (1967:44-46). for more details, see sanders (1963:287-310, 406-9). 24. they do, however, clearly merit fuller's conclusion, based on her exami­ nation of one specimen of fourteenth-century polyphony, that "the individual voices ... produce vertical sonorities and relationships among sonorities that may be called harmonic if that term is resolutely stripped of any functional connotations" (1992b:49). 25. the 2-1 cadence has largely disappeared with the advent of chansons by composers born by or near the end of the first two decades of the fifteenth cen­ tury, among whom it seems reasonable to count ockeghem as the first. 26. it is well known that there are at least two authors writing in the 1450s who recognized the growing fundamental role of the contratenor, one of them specifi­ cally declaring that "to the extent that the contratenor is lower than the tenor it is called tenor" (coussemaker 1864, 3:466a). in view of changes occurring in the second half of the century (contratenor bassus), this has the ring of an older observer's coming to terms with new tendencies. see also (3:93b). 27. the following compositions locate the tenor below both final intervals formed by the two other voices: nos. 78 (philipoctus de caserta); 84 (pierre des molins); 92, 96 (senleches); 98 (solage); 110 (trebor); 118 (valliant); 133, 216, 256 (anonymous). in the following compositions, the tenor briefly places the penultimate v above the contratenor (mostly a third) before crossing down to the tonic: nos. 17, 18, 76, 82, 86, 89,135,143,170,176,181,278. the octavejump cadence is quite rare. 28. in approximately the first four decades of the fifteenth century, it occurs in two compositions of]. legrand (reaney 1955-83, 2:7,8) and in one each by g. legrand (1955-83,2:2) and by loqueville (1955-83,3:11); and by one anony­ mous italian composer (1955-83,4: no. 2 of the ballades). 29. see dufay (1995: nos. 7, 37, 39, 40, 58). for a readily available example, see perkins (1999:299). the question of the precedence of the italian no. 7 or its french version, which has a different final cadence might be affected by this cir­ cumstance. see fallows (1995:45). the 2-1 cadence retains its prominence (nearly two-thirds) among dufay's chansons, though not surprisingly mostly in those that seem to stem from the time before the mid-thirties. 30. david fallows points out that the "chronology of dufay's music offers con­ siderable scope for future research" (1995:2). 31. three decades later, dahlhaus unequivocally dated the rise of "dominantic tonality" as ca. 1430, when the "dominant-tonic cadence arose." see die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, 2nd ed., s.v. 'tonalitat" (by carl dahlhaus). it seems imernest h. sanders 71 possible to exclude the octavejump cadence from this context. 32. michael beiche refers to riemann's concept of tonality as "increasingly felt to be inadequate and too limited in its applicability." see handworterbuch der musikalischen terminologie, 1992, s.v. "tonalitat" (by michael beiche). see also blackburn (1987:223-24,244). for a discussion of the flawed view of tonality as effectively identical with functional harmony, see norton (1984:27). 33. see also the definition of tonality given by walter wiora, which is a model of precision and concision (1961:24). 34. see dahlhaus (1968:17) and sanders (1967:37). thomson pushes his en­ thusiastic view of tonal cohesion in thirteenthand fourteenth-century polyphony to an unsupportable extreme, since it is patently inapplicable to some organa and many clausulae and motets, whose structure reflects different-rhythmic and nu­ merical-principles of cohesion (1999:217-25); see sanders (1973). apodictic analytical approaches that sweep past inherent "ambiguity" are apt to produce conclusions dimmed by insufficient sympathy for the historic conditions of style and technique; see thomas christensen's insightful review of dahlhaus and joel lester (christensen 1993b:ll1). regarding structural cohesion in a particular medieval motet repertoire, see pesce (1990). she concludes that "a high degree of [contrapuntal] pitch coherence ... could be created ... in the absence of a system of tonality or modality" (313-14), though her hesitation to attribute this phenomenon to compositional intent shows startling caution in her approach to transhistoric cognition. for pertinent treatment of dufay's chansons, see treitler (1965). 35. regarding the fourteenth century, see note 19. for the most recent for­ mulation of the view denying the applicability of all tonal aspects, see perkins (2000:393-95). the difference in views might well be seen as a matter of defini­ tion. 36. it seems significant that there are more tonally-uncentered compositions among dufay's chansons ending with a 2-1 cadence than among the others. they exhibit features of tonal direction (rather than unity), prevailing in many four­ teenth-century chansons. (indeed, for french medieval polyphony, it may well be proper to regard tonal unity as a subspecies of tonal direction.) see fuller (1987). regarding motets, see her admirable 1990 essay (207); in fuller (1992a), she ex­ tends and summarizes the observations offered in her earlier articles. anachronis­ tic impropriety notwithstanding, the introductions to beethoven's opp. 21 and ill, as well as mahler's "goal keys," may be cited in this connection. 37. for some further examples, see sanders (1967:39-40; translated in moll 1997:345). the relative prominence of such specimens in english-as compared to continental-sources is not to be denied. 38. see boone (1997). thomas brothers states: "the contratenor does move, at times, like a tonal bass line, but it has been sufficiently stressed by dahlhaus and others that the voice must have been added to a self-sufficient cantus-tenor pair ... " (1997:189). hans-otto korth, in discussing dufay's "magnificent chanson" se la face ay pale (ca.1430), which ends with the contratenor descending a fifth to the tonic, sighs regretfully that "it is hard to deny its functional harmony" (1986:53). friedemann otterbach, though conceding that the new cadence procedures may be seen as carrying the seeds of the "klangfolge der neuzeit" (1975:83), reverts 72 current musicology (87) to the dahlhaus tradition he had previously articulated (5,56 n. 3). 39. see handworterbuch der musikalischen terminologie, 1996, s.v. "res factal chose faite" (by markus bandur) and terminologie der musikalischen terminologie, s.v. "compositio/komposition" (by markus bandur). bandur's two essays set a high standard of factuality and reliability. see also blackburn (1998). her translation of cantus as "melody" seems inapposite (1987:251); though clumsy, the translation that seems best to convey the meaning of the latin term in the context is "compo­ sition for vocal ensemble." 40. see terminologie der musikalischen terminologie, 1996, s.v. "compositiol komposition" (by markus bandur). for tinctoris's identical conceptual distinc­ tions, see ibid. 41. to sachs's postscript concerning bent's contention that a res facta is "not necessarily written" should be added that tinctoris's unequivocal choice of words in the liber de arte contrapuncti ("contrapunctus qui scripto fit communiter res facta nominatur") and in the diffinitorium ("res facta idem est quod cantus compositus ... cantus compositus est ille qui ... est aeditus" ... "compositor est alicuius novi cantus editor") makes writing an essential part of the process. more­ over, there is clear evidence in chapter 4 of book 3 of his liber de arte contrapuncti ([1477] 1975: 149). after giving a rule pertaining to contrapunctus mente [factus] he continues: and in order that they [i.e. those mentioned in the preceding sentence as more intent on acquiring skill in more attractive and elegant counterpoint than (is possible) with the narrower melodic intervals (i.e. no larger than a third)] may make counterpoint for more [than two] singing on the book more sophisticated, they (will) with circumspection produce it at length in the manner of composers . .. [emphasis added]. the short example (blackburn 1987:257), itself a res facta, stretches, as he says, the limits of unwritten counterpoint worked out laboriously by three sing­ ers-a quasi-composing committee. its relative complexity would probably require and presumably merit notation, guaranteeing both the accuracy and the desirable repeatability of its performance-peter cahn calls attention to tinctoris's signficant expression componendi stilus (1989:18). 42. facere and edere had "to write" as one of their meanings since antiquity. for early uses of terms denoting composition, see reckow (1967:82) ,] acobus leodiensis (1973:36), and franco (1974:65,69). forvitry, see the quotation from gace de la buigne's le roman des deduis (sanders 1975:37). the ascription to vitry of the motet discussed in that article (floretiflorens) has been placed in doubt by leech­ wilkinson (1995:302-3). its incautious assignment to 1314 is not inevitable, how­ ever; as was stated in the above-mentioned article, the "motetus poem can cer­ tainly, though not inevitably, be understood as reflecting the situation that pre­ vailed between september and november of 1314" (1975:33). "not inevitably" was meantto indicate that it could have been composed earlier (ca. 1312). in that case, the stylistic inadequacies of this imaginative fledgling composition could well be attributed to vitry's pioneering youthful inexperience with a genre he essen­ tially created, thus allowing the motets at issue to retain a fair degree of the probernest h. sanders 73 ability of their unitary authorship in view of their topical relationship, identity of tenor in two of them, and novel structural design. it may well deserve, therefore, to be described as an imperfect early attempt rather than as "an imitation-a pale one in certain respects" (roesner 1990:42). in a closely and meticulously reasoned study, margaret bent has again taken up the questions of dating and authorship of the motet at issue without, however, being able to come to a more definite conclu­ sion than the statement that "these considerations blur questions of individual authorship" (l998b:50). while the extant evidence is insufficient to demonstrate vitry's authorship conclusively, it seems under the suggestive circumstances un­ necessarily cautious to state that "we cannot assume it" (39). 43. apart from the numerous depictions showing singers performing chant from books, see bowles (1983) for evidence of polyphony sung from a rotulus. in plate 146, performers are depicted singing an (early?) fifteenth-century polyphonic composition from a rotulus. they are well into the piece, as the leaf has folded back enough to expose the top staff to the viewer, with its complicated white nota­ tion and some coloration. see also komma (1961: plates 120, 138) and die musik in geschichte und gegenwar~ 2nd ed., s.v. "rotulus" (by karl kiigle). kiigle con­ cludes that "rotuli can often be seen ... as intermediary between the composer's autograph and the compilation of larger manuscript collections; they therefore display the status of the so-called fascicle manuscripts (hamm 1962) ... because of their ephemeral character their rate of loss may be assumed to exceed by far that of codices" (577). the rotuli are related to the earlier volumina mentioned by anonymous 4; see sanders (1998:ix-x). 44. "only to the degree that a historian descries the historical essence of works from their inner structure has his historical account aesthetic substance ... " (dahlhaus 1977:49). see also kristeller's principle quoted at the beginning of this essay. 45. see schubert (1994:12-16). 46. the first listener is, of course, the performer. 47. in an exhaustive discussion of what he calls hip (historically-informed performance), published more than two years after the first draft of this article, john butt states that "all forms of historical representation rely on fabrication and an inescapably presentist perspective" and demands of hip that it be an "imagina­ tive-rather than [an impossibly] objective-recreation of the past" (2002:15). elsewhere, he refers to "the concept of hip as a simulacrum of a lost historical past" (157). it is striking that more than half of the book's bibliography, contain­ ing more than 300 titles, comprises books and articles published after the 1980s. 48. as wanda landowska so memorably put it, "but little do i care if, to attain the proper effect, i use means that were not exactly those available to bach" (1981:356). she is quoted by both brown (1988:39) and taruskin (1988:148). for additional in-depth exploration of the issues, see morgan (1988) and tomlinson (1988). more recently, peter schubert quoted helmuth rilling's pithy answer to a question regarding "authentic performance practice on original instruments. 'it is very interesting ... but we have no original listeners'" (1994:3). butt presents the following formulation: "while one has a perfect right to 'prefer' what one takes to be the original sound, and one has a right to argue that this can [sic] present the music in a better light, this does not mean that the music is thus 74 current musicology eternally defined by its original sound, given that the definition of musical works themselves is also a matter of contingent, human practice" (2002:68). 49. in her most recent, rather wistful and aptly titled article on performance practice, margaret bent reflects that many aspects and branches of musicological research "seem to have brought us nearer to the original sound, if not near enough ... [and] without substantiating any claim that the resulting sounds reproduce those originally heard" (2001 :39). reminiscent of the recent controversy regard­ ing the restoration of the sistine chapel ceiling, the absolute goal posited here ("near enough") necessarily must remain chimerical. to at times unwelcome per­ formers' idiosyncracies are added the more or less troublesome historical gaps. both factors doubtless caused brahms's famous remark that he enjoyed mozart's don giovanni best from the score, because no one could perform it right for him. in the end, at least in part because of its contrast with earlier performances, he was bowled over by mahler's 1890 interpretation; see the vivid report in the neues wiener journal (may 19, 1911). the first four pages of this edition were largely devoted to mahler, who had died the previous night (see abridged version in blaukopf 1976:189). for today's informed listeners, mahler's performance would be likely to give rise to negative comments similar to brahms's anticipatory dis­ tress. 50. see treitler (1967:200-2). 51. " ... in this age the capability of our music has undergone such miracu­ lous growth ... that i am boundlessly astonished by the fact that nothing not composed within the last forty years is considered by cognoscenti as worth hear­ ing." this is a conflation of two prefatory statements in tinctoris's proportionale musices and the liber de arte contrapuncti. compare also the remarks by anonymous 4 regarding perotinus magnus (reckow 1967:46): "perotinus ... melior quam leoninus erat." 52. for a recent appraisal of late sketches for one or two symphonies or an overture, see beller-mckenna (1995). 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[1964] 1981. landowska on music, edited, and translated by denise restout and robert hawkins. new york: stein and day. leach, elizabeth eva. 1999. review of moll 1997. plainsong and medieval music 8: 184-90. --. 2000. counterpoint and analysis in fourteenth-century song. the jour­ nal of music theory 44: 45-79. --. 2001. machaut's balades with four voices. plainsong and medieval music 10: 47-79. leech-wilkinson, daniel. 1984. machaut's rose, lis and the problem of early mu­ sic analysis. music analysis 3: 9-28. --. 1995. the emergence of ars nova. thejoumal of musicology 13: 285-317. --. 2002. the modern invention of medieval music: scholarship, ideology, performance. cambridge: cambridge university press. moll, kevin m. 1997. counterpoint and compositional process in the time of dufay: perspectives from german musicology. new york: garland. morgan, robert. 1988. tradition, anxiety, and the current musical scene. in au­ thenticity in early music, edited by nicholas kenyon, 57-82. oxford: oxford university press. norton, richard. 1984. tonality in western culture: a critical and historical perspec­ tive. university park: pennsylvania state university press. otterbach, friedemann. 1975. kadenzierung und tonalitiit im kantilenensatz dufays. munich and salzburg: katzbichler. owens, jessie ann. 1997. composers at work: the craft of musical composition, 14501600. oxford: oxford university press. perkins, leeman. 1999. music in the age of the renaissance. new york: w.w. norton. --. 2000. review of frank d'accone, the civic muse: music and musicians in siena during the middle ages and the renaissance. journal of the american music(}­ logical society 53 (2): 387-95. pesce, dolores. 1990. a case for coherent pitch organization in the thirteenth­ century double motet. music analysis 9: 287-318. reaney, gilbert. 1955-83. early fifteenth-century music, 7 vols. corpus mensurabilis musicae 11. n.p.: american institute of musicology. reckow, fritz. 1967. edition. vol 1 of der musiktraktat des anonymus 4. beihefte zum archive fur musikvissenschaft 4. wiesbaden: franz steiner. roesner, edward. 1990. le roman de fauvel. new york: broude. sachs, klaus-jurgen. 1974. der contrapunctus im 14. und 15. jahrhundert. untersuchungen zum terminus, zur lehre und zu den quellen. beihefte zum archive fur musikvissenschaft 13. wiesbaden: franz steiner. --. 1983. arten improvisierter mehrstimmigkeit nach lehrtexten des 14. bis 16. jahrhunderts. basler jahrbuch fur historische musikpraxis 7: 166-81. 78 current musicology sanders, ernest h. 1963. medieval english polyphony and its significance for the conti­ nent, phd diss., columbia university. --. 1967. die rolle der englischen mehrstimmigkeit des mittelalters in der entwicklung von cantus-firmus-satz und tonalitatsstruktur. archiv fur musikwissenschajt 24: 24-53. --. 1973. the medival motet. in gattungen der musik in einzeldarstellungen: gedenkschrift leo schrade, 497-573. bern: francke. ---. 1975. the early motets of philippe de vitry. journal of the american musico­ logical society 28 (1): 24-45. --. 1993. the earliest phases of measured polyphony. in music theory and the exploration of the past, edited by christopher hatch and david w. bernstein, 41-58. chicago: the university of chicago press. --. 1995. review of le magnus liber organi . .. , vol.l, edited by edward h. roesner. notes 52 (2): 623-29. --. 1998. french and english polyphony of the 13th and 14th centuries. aldershot: ashgate publishing. schubert, peter. 1994. authentic analysis. thejournal of musicology 12 (1): 3-18. taruskin, richard. 1988. the pastness of the present and the presence ofthe past. in authenticity and early music, edited by nicholas kenyon, 137-207. oxford: oxford university press. thomson, william e. 1999. tonality in music: a general theory. san marino: everett. tinctoris, johannes. 1475. terminorum musicae diffinitorium. treviso. --. [1477] 1975. liber de arte contrapuncti. vol. 2 of opera theoretica, edited by albert seay. corpus scriptorum de musica 22. n.p.: american institute ofmu­ sicology. tomlinson, gary. 1988. the historian, the peformer, an authenthic meaning in music. in authenticity in early music, edited by nicholas kenyon, 115-36. ox­ ford: oxford university press. treitler, leo. 1965. tone system in the secular works of guillaume dufay. journal of the american musicological society 18 (2): 131-69. ---.1967. on historical criticism. the musical quarterly 53 (2): 188-205. --. 1989. music and the historical imagination. cambridge: harvard u niversi ty press. wegman, rob. 1996. from maker to composer: improvisation and musical au­ thorship in the low countries, 1450-1500. journal of the american musicological society 49 (3): 409-79. --. 1998. "das musikalische horen" in the middle ages and renaissance: perspectives from pre-war germany. the musical quarterly 82 (3/4): 434-54. wiora, walter. 1961. die vier weltalter der musik. stuttgart: w. kohlhammer. better the puppet?* by james robert currie i. it is dangerous to unmask images, since they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them. (baudrillard 1983:9) herod: dance, salome, dance for me. (wilde 1981:421) in the fourth of rainer maria rilke's duinoelegies, written in november of 1915, we are asked rhetorically if we have not all sat afraid before our heart, as if it were a stage whose curtain then rises. what do we find there? in the elegy it is a dancer, and this provokes the following reaction: not him. enough! however lightly he moves, he's costumed, made up-an ordinary man who hurries home and walks in through the kitchen. i won't endure these half-filled human masks; better the puppet. it at least is full. i'll put up with the stuffed skin, the wire, the face that is nothing but appearance. here, i'm waiting. even if the lights go out; even if someone tells me "that's all"; even if emptiness floats toward me in a gray draft from the stage. (rilke 1982:169)1 the passage is dense and charts a tortured· chain of logic. we look within out of an existential fear because, as it is written earlier in the poem, "we never know the actual, vital contour of our own emotions-only what forms them from outside" (ibid.).2 we are strangers unto ourselves. the spaces within then open themselves up to us and they reveal a human presence, a man, "an ordinary man," one whom we can locate specifically, current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 6 current musicology hurrying home and walking in through the kitchen door. he is real; he is familiar. what could be more comforting than to find such a figure within ourselves in times of need? approachable and artistic, for he is a dancer, and dance of course is the universal solvent. for the elegy's persona, how­ ever, this figure is but a hired performer of the soul. the mixing of artifice with the distracting realities of the flesh is disgusting, the ingredients curdled. something has failed to materialize itself here, something we might refer to as a real presence. this does not imply any kind of crass realism: "the fruit in that painting was so real i could have eaten it." that would amount to kitsch. rather, the phrase has its roots in the religious experi­ ence of consubstantiation. consubstantiation is a magical paradox, refer­ ring to the moment within the celebration of the eucharist when the bread actually becomes the body of christ whilst simultaneously remaining merely as bread, the wine being both christ's blood and at the same time just wine. it is a form of magic that seems to be particularly resonant with aes­ thetic experience, if not the marker by which the aesthetic is validated, as george steiner (1989) has passionately argued. however, in the elegy, when the dancer performs, his materiality-the raw stuff of his body and its move­ ments and the makeup on his face-remains opaque, mere stuff. what should have happened is that the dancer becomes like a stained glass win­ dow: that which is transformed by the light passing through it, and that which, by its color, transforms the light itself. the window and the light should form a mutually redeeming interdependence. but this is not to be, for either the dancer is not made of glass, or there is in fact no light be­ hind him. instead we are left with a parody of the aesthetic experience: "half-filled human masks." bathos-it is something that many of us fear we might find ourselves having to experience in the face of art. who has not gone to art in need of something, requiring to be healed in some way, yet nervous that magic might not make an appearance that evening-anxious that one might have to leave at the end laden down with the depressing thought that one had never managed to transcend the literal fact that, for example, one had been sitting in a theater watching a play? when we return outside, do we not want that slightly far-away look in our eyes, that secret smile that says that whilst we were in the theater we were not just in the theater? do we not desire to be able to feel that we "lost ourselves" and yet, at the same time, were able to find the person we had lost in the first place, the person whose disappearance instigated our being drawn toward art: in other words, ourselves? bertolt brecht would not have been the first person in history to be disgusted by my series of assumptions and rhetorical questions. there is a james robert currie 7 long chain of those who have been keen to draw our attention to the idea that the forgetting offered by art may well be suspicious: from plato, through st. augustine, eighteenth-century french neoclassicists and nineteenth­ century realists, marxists, and others. art is an addictive illusion, an opi­ ate, something that incarcerates us in a cycle of hope and despair, making us incapable of curing ourselves of believing in an unreliable form of magic that keeps us from engaging with what is truly important, with that which might actually redeem us. tacitly, such a position is, of course, also common among the more politically-oriented criticism in the academy today. we are encouraged to rally ourselves to a particular battle cry: rouse yourselves from the slumber of your feelings of security, rub your dream-drenched eyes, and turn a cool, bright light back upon your experience of art. we are asked to disen­ chant art-that is, to perceive it purely as an artifact whose set of effects are the products of its own social and cultural materiality. a disenchanted work of art is a machine without a ghost, a cultural product that we should not perceive as having agency, autonomy, or any kind of aesthetic real presence. and perhaps it is this that the persona of rilke's elegy calls for when, having dismissed the dancer as an aesthetic failure, it rather petu­ lantly asserts: "better the puppet. it at least is full." it is argued that we should admit that art is mere artifice, "nothing but appearance"; if you confuse the distinction between what is artifice and what is real you create something grotesque and unsavory, tattoo-like, "like a painting which is on living skin and should be on a canvas," to appropriate the words of the eighteenth-century french neoclassicist charles batteux (lippman 1986:264). our art should be solid and tangible, "full"; it should be "stuffed skin" and "wire," containing no secret empty chambers which we might fancy a magical metaphysical cloud inhabiting. anyway, such a cloud is mere "emptiness," floating towards us "in a gray draft from the stage." there is no redeeming symbolist paradox here; this is an absence-a blank space, a silence-something that possess no ability to convince us that it is the sine qua non of a real metaphysical presence. how could it? it isn't. the tone of this kind of argument can sometimes seem too severe, verging as it does on an existentially devastating vision of a world that can­ not be anything other than what it simply is: nauseating, to describe it as jean-paul satre does. yet only the most pretentious of critics who wish to disenchant art would do so merely out of a penchant for posturing as steel­ cold and unblinking in the face of such unbearable meaninglessness. to disenchant may well be to deny the reality of our metaphysical horizons, to flatten out depth. but what we lose when we admit that magic is, in a pejorative sense, illusion we gain in a fuller and richer sense of our power as human beings, and of the power of the products that, as human beings, 8 current musicology we make-or so the argument goes. when we disenchant art we energize ourselves in the face of a world without god; at its best the act of disen­ chantment thus has something nietzchean about it. "better the puppet. it at least is full." and if we should perceive such fullness as somehow more than just a puppet, more than an artifice, then celebrate that perception as being of our own human making, as opposed to being something that comes from beyond. make a puppet, make it with your human hands, out of the sense that puppets are more than puppets made by human hands. disenchantment is, thus, to be correlated with liberation and freedom; there is a distinctly enlightenment and secularizing ring to it. this is ap­ propriate, since the term first appears prominently in the work of the soci­ ologist max weber where it is used to express the fact that with the emer­ gence of a scientific view of the universe and nature starting in the seven­ teenth century, nature "is no longer the visible expression of some 'world soul' in which humans also participate. rather nature is sheer, impersonal objective 'stuff', which is governed, causally explicable, but completely cut adrift from human intentions" (critchley 2001:8). separated from nature in this way, enlightenment man felt himself able to exert control, both intellectual and physical, over his natural environment, rather than being controlled by it. the ability to stand above, as it were, and see nature dis­ enchanted, as mere "stuff," gave man the ability to conceive of his own potential autonomy-and this gesture of disenchanting by looking from above, rather than trying to look out from within, is echoed throughout the age of enlightenment whenever liberation, freedom, and autonomy are at stake. nature, religion, political institutions-all of these things were to be scrutinized, their claims stripped of their aura of mythological irre­ futability and disenchanted through the process of being shown to be mere constructs, puppets trying to pass themselves off as living truths. thus, today when we attempt to disenchant art we are acting in part as children of the enlightenment, asserting, against all the odds stacked up against us by postmodernism and poststructuralism, that there is a perspective from which things will be revealed as they truly are and, therefore, by corollary, that we can be autonomous in some way that is not illusory. "better the puppet," for then we are free. likewise, this essay had started out life as an attempt to put into effect such a liberating act of disenchantment. specifically, my concern had been to show that mozart's late opera seria, la clemenza di tito, tries to pass off, by means of the character vitellia, an ideologically-constructed pejorative view of women as if it were nature, or even myth-at any rate, true. by contextuaiizing the work historically-a key strategy in most acts of disen­ chantment-i had, in effect, hoped to liberate us from two different roles that we perform, as both the perceiver and the perceived. i had wanted to james robert currie 9 free us as audience from our entrapment within the opera's real presence, that fake magic which distracts us from perceiving that we are being taken in by a construct. in this sense, i had wanted to free us from being uncon­ sciously complicit with a misrepresentation. but by making us aware of how our gaze might work to keep a character confined within an ideologi­ cal construction, there was the implication that we might be made aware of how other gazes may be constructing us. the political corollary here seems pretty clear: if we unmask the illusions of art it will help us to un­ mask the illusions we live by; if we can see the ideological constructedness of characters in operas we will see how ideologically constructed we are ourselves. and from this realization freedom is born. here is how my ini­ tial attempt to create freedom had looked. ii. la clemenza di titowas first performed in prague on september 6, 1791, as part of the celebrations for the coronation of the austro-german emperor leopold ii as king of bohemia. the libretto, originally written in 1734 by the great pietro metastasio, was of a decidedly venerable quality, and there had been over sixty settings of it during the course of the eighteenth cen­ tury before mozart and caterino mazzola, the court poet at dresden, col­ laborated to create their two-act version for the festivities. the story was also perfectly molded symbolically to fulfill the political propaganda re­ quirements engendered by the then present state of the hapsburg em­ pire and also the role of leopold as its new commander in chief. such concerns were indeed very real in europe after 1789, since with increasing frequency the crowned heads of europe were being accused of incompe­ tence and immorality.3 the action of la clemenza can be understood as motivated by a ten­ sion between vitellia and the roman emperor titus, whose father had murdered and dethroned vitellius, vitellia's father. at the beginning of the opera, titus is at the point of marrying berenice, daughter of the king of judea, and vitellia, livid with jealousy at the thought that her claims to the throne have been spurned, has coerced sextus, who is in love with her, to set fire to the capitol and murder titus. during the course of the first act, titus recants on his decision to marry berenice, sends her packing back to judea, and refocuses his marital plans on sextus's sister, the mod­ est and honest servilia, whose hand in marriage sextus has promised to his friend annius. servilia, tormented by the decision, confesses to the emperor where her true feelings lie, and the ever-clement titus, touched by her honesty, releases her from the law of his plans and blesses her union with annius. servilia's joy is misinterpreted by vitellia as a sign that servilia will indeed marry titus, and as a result vitellia rekindles the flames of her 10 current musicology treacherous idea in sextus's mind. sextus goes off to execute the plan, yet scarcely has this happened when vitellia learns, too late to stop sextus, that titus has finally decided to marry her. the first act ends with the capitol in flames and the onlookers shocked at the apparent death of their benign emperor-who, we later learn, has fortuitously escaped harm. the second act is taken up with the unveiling of sextus's crime, titus's exon­ eration of him, and vitellia's final decision, occurring on the cusp of the opera's conclusion, to confess her seminal role in the whole proceedings. in the final scene, the meaning of the opera's tide prevails, and with no surprises vitellia is forgiven. considering the event for which it was commissioned, the opera in­ vites allegorical interpretation, with titus as a thinly-veiled representation of leopold ii, and vitellia's plotted rebellion echoing the fraught political situation in europe.4 in particular" [t] he burning of the capitol at the end of the first act may well have been understood in 1791 as a frightening symbol of the violence with which the bastille had been attacked just two years before" (rice 1995a:290). this being the case, if we follow the logic of the allegory through further, the implication is that leopold ii is per­ sonally touched by the french revolution, which in a very real way he was because of the obviously dire situation in which it placed his sister marie antoinette (blanning 1999:354). on a general level, though, the opera tries to symbolically assert that enlightened absolutism's continuation and feasibility are insured by the person of leopold himself, for seemingly by means only of the magnetic emanations from titus's magnanimous aura, the deviant and potentially politically disruptive and disastrous behavior of the characters are drawn back into moral and civic alignment. thus, not only might the opera have appealed to those drawn to enlightened politi­ cal behavior, but also those worried by the potential threat to the existing social order that such ideas posed.5 and indeed, both parties had their concerns when leopold came to the throne. leopold, like titus, is to be seen as humane; yet his humanitarianism will not lead him to embrace extreme radicalism-which in this case would have been represented by leopold's brother, joseph ii, whose enlightened policies leopold was keen to distance himself from as soon as joseph had died in february of 1790. attractive as this picture of enlightened authority might be, it never­ theless is made possible by a decidedly unenlightened sexual politics­ which, ironically, was prevalent among enlightened thinkers.6 practically speaking, the rather far-fetched demands the opera makes in terms of its status as a credible reflection of a realizable political reality-particularly to an audience mired in the political turmoil of the late eighteenth cen­ tury-might have engendered some skeptical scrutiny. that is, if we were not distracted by the spectacle of an unruly and politically dangerous james robert currie 11 woman, dangled in front us in the form ofvitellia. this spectacle is a product of the slippery enlightenment discourse concerning equality, human rights, and natural law, at the foundation of which lay the idea that reason and rationality were possessed, or at least could come to be possessed, by all humans.7 unless, of course, as mary wollstonecraft was to point out in 1792 in a vindication of the rights of woman, one happened to be a woman. if reason were to be in the same degree of possession by women as men, then the autonomous workings of reason itself would necessitate enlightened thought being led to the inevitable conclusion: that women must have equal access to political debate and also political action and influence as men. as wollstonecraft wrote, "con­ sider ... whether, when men contend for their freedom, and to be allowed to judge for themselves respecting their own happiness, it be not inconsis­ tent and unjust to subjugate women ... ? who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him of the gift of reason?" (1992:87). an age of enlightenment it may have been, but this did not stop many both from feeling threatened by this line of thinking and from trying to find a means by which it could be negated without seeming to negate what it meant to be enlightened. the answer was to be found in science, one of the very foundation stones on which the enlightenment had been built. in particu­ lar, enlightened thinkers threatened by the potential ascendancy of women made recourse to the increasingly prevalent notion within medical trea­ tises that the sexes were fundamentally different from each other.8 as tho­ mas laqueur has written: "by around 1800, writers of all sorts were deter­ mined to base what they insisted were fundamental differences between the male and female sexes, thus between man and woman, on discover­ able biological distinctions, and to express these in a radically different rhetoric" (1990:5). this was a relatively new turn of events in the discourses of gender science, for before the eighteenth century the sexual organs of men and women primarily had been understood as in an inversional rela­ tionship to each other, rather than as completely different and noncomparable systems.9 if it could be proven that women were, in a sense, a different species to men, then it could be argued that women did not have the same access to reason and therefore should neither have the same rights, nor inhabit the same spheres, nor be responsible for the same kinds of decisions. women should remain in the domestic sphere, suck­ ling children, as rousseau in emile, ou de ['education of 1762 never tired of repeating. lo otherwise, they threaten the transparency of the natural be­ havior that should exist between human beings with a cloying and destruc­ tive artifice-hence, why rousseau railed so much against the salons, pre­ sided over, as they were, by powerful women who readily involved them­ selves in the intellectual debates taking place. even those enlightened think12 current musicology ers who believed that women did have genuine rights could still assert at the same time that women should be barred from taking part in politics because of a lack of independence and reason (landes 1988). few today would fail to whiff the dangerous ideological clap-trap here. however, it is disturbing how little stretch of the imagination is needed to entertain that vitellia, as presented in mozart and mazzola's la clemenza di tito, would have been available to being interpreted as "proof' that such a view of women is in fact true. to appropriate rousseau, vitellia's "natu­ ral" feminine tendency toward feeling and emotion, untethered from its "natural" outlet in the domestic sphere, and accompanied by her equally "natural" feminine lack of reasoning, act to incarcerate her in a miasma of self-involvement. as rousseau states in emile, "the male is male only at certain moments," whereas "[t]he female is female her whole life" and "everything constantly recalls her sex to her" ([1762] 1964: book v, 450). it was a widely held opinion in the eighteenth century, and was to appear again thirteen years later in the important systeme physique et moral de la femme, by the french philosophical physician pierre roussel: "woman is not woman only in one place but in every aspect under which she can be envisaged" ( [1775] 1993:387). blinded by her feminine jealousy, vitellia loses sight of her duty toward the political whole; constantly recalled to her own sex, she is driven to igniting the flames of political rebellion. as stated already, the patchy verisimilitude in the naively idealistic portrait of titus and his powers of control and restraint probably would not have been lost on the informed in the politically unstable years in europe following the storming of the bastille. by comparison, though, there was really no convincing point of reference in recent history for the kind of overtly dangerous, even melodramatic, political activity by noble women as embodied in the representation ofvitellia. women in the eighteenth century tended to suffer from a predicament which arlette farge has de­ scribed as "'mixity' without parity" (quoted in godineau 1997:394). thus, although the rapidly changing structure of society and the public sphere meant that women were increasingly visible and/or active, many of their newfound roles were in a sense never properly legitimated by law or by themselves. even the french revolution failed to grant women the full political rights of citizenship. this is not to deny women's participation in politics. for example, dominique godineau has pointed out that women of the lower classes continued in their traditional roles as making up the first ranks of all public disturbances, such as food riots, religious upheav­ als, and anti-fiscal and political uprisings: protectresses of the community, they rose to defend its rights. thanks to their mobility, their constant presence in the streets, james robert currie 13 their familiarity with public spaces, and their role in the neighborhood, they soon learned of any violation of the tacit rules governing the balance between public power and its subjecters. they were quick to rise to protest any situation they judged intolerable, dragging their men along with them. (godineau 1997:416)11 women of the upper classes, particularly those who organized salons, were often involved in brokering important political relationships. and let us not forget the fact that this was the century of three powerful female mon­ archs: anne of england, catherine ii (the great) of russia, and marie­ theresa of austria. however, in all these areas women came under intense criticism: rioting invited the age-old claim that women were shrews; we have already touched on rousseau's disgust of salons, a disgust that was matched by none other than mary wollstonecraft; and marie-theresa's succession to the throne gave birth to eight years of war. further, many women, while desiring to "take part" in some way, were not necessarily so keen to take the point much further. for example, evidence suggests that after rioting was over people seemed to be relatively accepting of going back to their business and performing their usual social roles (farge 1993:502-5). many women were also prepared to justify the kinds oflim­ ited roles offered to them. thus, in 1793, laetitia hawkins wrote in her letters on the female mind-a direct response to wollstonecraft's vindica­ tion-that "[i] t cannot, i think, be truly asserted, that the intellectual pow­ ers know no difference of sex. nature certainly intended a distinction ... in general, and almost universally, the feminine intellect has less strength and more acuteness. consequently in our exercise of it we show less perse­ verance and more vivacity" (outram 1995:85). relinquished by absence of example from the responsibility of find­ ing a reflection for vitellia's character and actions in the so-called real world, audience members would have been free to use their imaginations in order to project traditional prejudices into the virtual allegorical world of the opera, where they could grow into realities and enable confidence to be felt in the conviction that "yes, of course that's how a women would act in such a situation." moreover, the widely-held perception at this time that there were strong ties between radical thinking, such as proto-femi­ nist debate, and the french revolution would have only worked to aid the creation of an atmosphere conducive to the public acceptance of such an interpretation.12 thus, we might consider that, for many, vitellia may well have functioned as the locus where the opera's claims to representational truth grounded in reality were legitimated. 13 finally, if vitellia is to be considered real, then by the fortuity of analogy, that which threatens the example 1: "s'altro che lacrime," mm. 1-16. flauto obue fagotto como 1, i! in rei d violinoi violino ii viola servilia violoncello e basso ell. •. 0) ~ u : .~ '0) ~ 0) ~ 0) ~ ~ 0) : tempo di minuetto ~ ~ p ~~ ~ p .,-~ --! ~ ~ ~ -p p r:'" p cresco i'"""~ cresco .y ~ ~ ~ "'~" 6~.~ s'al tro 'he la cri-me -----. :::::::r ~ j jp---4.... fp '--j per_ pjp p cresc f ---p """ f -----:-; ,.. if: p cresco f p '",", jp ~ .~ ~ --;--..~ cresc vi> ~ ,~ ~ v;~ ~ cresco ~ jp ..... ,', r~ lui non_ ten ti, t~o it tuo pian ge re~_ ~ jp ..... ~ n ~ ~ z ..., ~ ~ 'j) ..... n o t"" o o >< ja m e s r o b e r t c u r r ie 1 5 ~i l\ ~ . r g ~ j g rr.' • !>, . ~. w .. ~\ ) ~ ~. r. ~ ( .5h .... !>, !>, ot !>, ii 0 !' g ~ r. i, r-. r. i " ). l( ( ~ i .~ \ !>, n ~ ~ r. ii g ~ ! ~ " r. ' ji:>.\\ ~! .[ ~ (. e \l .j !>, !>, g !>, b ~) ! ) 1-g g 1-i q l ,; ) r.) 1 ~ ~ .~ ) i g ( ~ ; oj .. < ~ ~ < oj < 10> < r.. 16 current musicology political stability of enlightened absolutism is gendered feminine, and there­ fore must be assumed, at least within the public discourse, to be control­ lable. the french revolution is but a crazy woman-a comforting thought, perhaps. iii. i might have kept fleshing out the relations here between vitellia, la clemenza as allegory, and political and philosophical ideas; i might have kept forcing myself to see vitellia as a cultural puppet with stuffed skin, wire, and a face that is "nothing but appearance," to return to rilke's words; i might have kept attempting to rip away the veil of illusion that, it is as­ sumed, the "bad" work constructs; and, as i suggested in the introduction, i might have felt that in doing so i was involved in something important politically. this might have been the case, if it were not for the fact that in places in the opera attention is already being directed towards the possibil­ ity that vitellia is constructed in some way. this is particularly the case with her famous rondo "non pili di fiori" (no. 23) .14 here vitellia's convincing illusion seems to crumble as a result ofthe framing of her rondo between two particularly expressively fused pillars: no. 21, "s'altro che lacrime," servilia's entreaty that vitellia plea to titus for sextus's life,15 and the open­ ing chorus in honor of titus, no. 24, "che del ciel," which starts the final scene. 16 servilia's aria (ex. 1) creates the sensation that the path of communi­ cations, leading from her sentiments, through the medium of her musical language, and eventually to vitellia and us, is without obstacles. as result, when she sings one is moved beyond the situation where character is pre­ sented as representation into a realm where character as such disappears and a real presence starts to take over. artifice dissolves in the context of an artifice. it is a magical contradiction, and in this instance i argue that the spell works because of a delicate and almost imperceptible blending that takes place between musical worlds presented as if they were nature and the body-appearing before our aural gaze seemingly unmediated by cultural discourses-and the culturally-produced artifices of musical tech­ nique and style, which are in fact what allow for this transportation to take place. nature appears to us as a subtly etched, continuous background of lightly pulsating eighth notes, which delicately flows into the view of our aural gaze in the two measures of orchestral introduction, and then in a gentle sinuous fashion threads its way through the landscape of the musi­ cal fabric, every now and again calmly gurgling to the melodic surface of the composition, particularly at the breaks between the vocal phrases and in the brief orchestral coda (examples 2a and 2b show the subtle creation james robert currie 17 example 2a: "s'altro che iacrime," mm. 5-7. /1m" 5 woodwinds i i i j oj. u 0.......:1 + violinl 1'1 voice .. oj ""'-j , i,......j '~ii iu f' bj r f r f r r 'l r [ p example 2b: "s'aitro che iacrime," mm. 13-16. +::::' : : ~: i; : e : f i~ [ ~ e ¥ : i~ j j j , = of passages of continuous eighth-note intertwining between the vocal part and the instruments at two places: mm. 5-7, and mm. 13-16). this is a musical landscape that rests calmly in the cool shadowy half-light between images of soft breezes and quietly rippling brooks. floating within and seemingly organically interlaced with this environment are servilia's sighs, emanating from their source in her body out into her melodic line, and then echoed delicately by means of gentle fortepianos and sforzandos within the "natural landscape" of the instrumental accompaniment, creating a kind of pathetic fallacy. for example, the sigh motive in servilia's line in m. 4, ripples into the orchestral accompaniment as a fortepiano in m. 5, which is then repeated in m. 7 (ex. 1). these subtle pictorial intimations are both framed by and also consti­ tute the more obviously culturally-defined artifices of the composition. the undulating and regular rhythmic background helps to measure out the basic underlying rhythmic gesture of the aria, which is in the tempo of a minuet, a dance form that, though somewhat outdated in the ballrooms 18 current musicology example 3: "s'altro che lacrime," mm. 3-6: motivic relations. m. 3 vocal' • , , '~il 9 j j j i p.)j * i [j f" ell et r * i a @ ~# • • • • • • • • • b a b (inversion) a example 4: "s'altro che lacrime," mm. 3-10: motivic relations. rn.3 ~ ~ ~ ~~ ,l,~,2, r----'l---, '~h 2 j j j i d·)j11 [frettl err i i jc'pi urn-pi crcrjjij j i , ~1i -___ 03?~ j •• • n + 0 n + by the end of the eighteenth century, continued to be associated with a sort of noble simplicity, to invoke johann winckelmanny at the same time, though, this background is ordered into a kind of musical perspec­ tive by means of the minuet style's consistent cycle of three-beat measures. likewise, servilia's sighs are coopted into articulating the phrase structure and also play an active role in producing subtleties within the structure that help to detract from the artifice of its potential four-squareness. thus, in the opening four measures of her melody descending sighing gestures (a) occur in the second and fourth measures. these help to articulate the divide between the two two-measure units, yet at the same time they qui­ etly make us aware of the motivic relations that link the two units (ex. 3). finally, in mm. 7-10, we are presented with a descending sequence of these sighs, which grows out of the melodic pitch contour (n + 0) of mm. 5-6, and creates a four-measure unit that is more continuous and fused in comparison with the more literal two-measure unit orientation character­ izing her opening four measures (ex. 4). the overall impression is of a sensitively flexible, seamless entity, one that appears to define a boundary for itself, and then accept as natural the sense and good taste of not trans­ gressing it. in servilia's aria we might say that unity and variety balance each other james robert currie 19 out in a dance between nature and culture: a minuet that seems to em­ body everything the eighteenth century thought to be beautiful. similar kinds of syntheses, which likewise accumulate into an authentically fused expressive presence, also occur on the other side of vitelli a's aria, in the grandly sublime, handelian-style chorus "che del ciel."18 here, however, the synthesizing tendency leads to an image of autonomous, free-thinking individuals, drawn magnetically together as if by natural instinct into a benign social contract, which, rather than compromising their separate identities, becomes the environment that allows the sublimity of the gen­ eral will to become manifest. the orchestral introduction to this chorus is in the decidedly elevated style of the french overture, which had its origin as processional entrance music in the court of louis xiv. but even though this music exudes an aura of authority, the almost ecstatic exuberance of the choral music that it builds up to suggests that the roman citizens are encouraged and energized by it rather than intimidated. further, the po­ tentially restrictive formalities that might seem to be obligatory in the pres­ ence of the french overture style appear to have been transformed into more spontaneous behavior-spontaneity that, nevertheless, does not threaten to become disrespectful or contradictory. the voices give us the impression that without premeditation they suddenly coalesce into a rhyth­ mically unified choral pronouncement; entering on the second beat, as if the spectacle they are witnessing and taking part in keeps them momen­ tary stunned with an awe that then busts into life with their first exclama­ tion, they are magically inspired to sing the same unscripted music at once.19 amongst other things, both "s'altro che lacrime" and "che del ciel" can strike one as authentically present because of their shared tendency toward a seemingly un oppressive synthesis, consistency, and homogeneity of musical expression. in sharp contrast, vitellia's music, sandwiched in between as it is, is all juxtaposition and superimposition, fracture, edge, and seam. through recourse to the work of michel foucault, susan mcclary has famously asserted that the vocal excess and potentially destabilizing presence of female characters in certain operas is often made a spectacle of, and also controlled by means of, a framing device which, as it were, hinders the spread offemale contagion (mcclary 1991:80-111). this line of interpretation could be successfully applied here, the frame being achieved not only through differences in aesthetic presence, but also by the historical associations of the musical styles and forms employed. both the minuet style of servilia's aria and the handelian grandeur of the cho­ rus invoke the past as a locus of stable, benign authority. by comparison, the rondo form employed for vitellia was a form that was particularly in vogue at the time of la clemenza's first performance. one might therefore argue that the unstable contemporary political situation, as embodied al20 current musicology legorically in vitellia, is aligned with the contemporaneity of the rondo form and also of the recently invented basset horn, which is given an obbli­ gato part here. this contemporaneity is then put in an unflattering prox­ imity to the certainties of the past. this interpretation resonates with rice's view that la clemenza partakes of, or was coopted into aiding, leopold's attempt to recreate the political and cultural atmosphere of the 1760s, a period which, apparently, many viennese looked back on as a golden age before the troubles created by the events of 1789 (rice 1995a). but of course, it hardly holds water to propose as a universal for the understand­ ing of operatic representation that as consistency equals presence so dis­ unity equals artifice. in fact, in this instance we could get a lot of critical mileage from assuming that the expressive disjuncture of vitelli a's music is a direct communication of the emotional disjunction of her mind as she tries to convince herself of the act of self-sacrifice she is about to perform. thus, perhaps vitellia is for completely opposite musical reasons than servilla or the chorus of roman citizens are. nevertheless, at four points during her rondo the expressive authen­ ticity of vitelli a's confusion is threatened by a fracture line resulting from the slightly warped character of a musical idea first introduced in the ob­ bligato basset horn part and immediately repeated by vitellia. in and of itself, this theme is suspicious because of the seemingly paper-thin sincer­ ity and sentimental pathos of its sinuous and rather over-seasoned expres­ sion; it is saccharine and mildly crass in its insinuating way, a kind of mime music avant la lettre. its effect, i argue, never manages to transcend the materials from which it is made and, thus, its effectiveness never properly emerges; there is a kind of grotesque literalness to its motivic, phrase, and harmonic structures, which stands in sharp distinction to the effortless, and modestly inconspicuous subtleties of servilia's melodic material. it opens itself up to pejorative judgements particularly when, as happens twice in the piece (mm. 56-60, and mm. 109-13), this melody is slapped on top of a clodhopping, oom-paah-paah-paah march accompaniment, like a slightly curdled frosting on top of an inappropriately bland cake (see example 5, mm. 56-60, for the first occurrence of this theme). one might argue that the contrast here between chromatically saturated me­ lodic expression and simple four-square accompaniment creates the im­ pression of a sort of stunned tragic shock. and indeed, this kind of melody and melodic presentation was soon to become a staple means by which such emotions were to be indicated in the serious operas of italian com­ posers such as bellini and donizetti in the first half of the nineteenth century. the melody, therefore, might be thought of as evidence of the stylistically advanced nature of la clemenza, as some commentators have urged us to consider.20 but such an effect is not successfully pulled off ja m e s r o b e r t c u r r ie 2 1 )~ [) ~~ " r;.. ~ (. ~ ~~ '~ ~ . ~ . i. ~ . ~ ~ . ~ ~. 10· ~. 10' ~. ~. ~ ~. ~ . ~. ~. 1" bl: (<' <' <' <' <' <' <' <' <' ~ " " <' " ~ " 1''' " ~ <' <' <' <' <' <' <' -5 <' <' ~ ~ ~ <' ." .fi .1 '"' '"' -' 1 '"' '"' '"' ~'"' ~ '"' " ~. ~~ 1*' ~. 1>. " ~ .fi • • ~ ~ • '"'.1 '"'1': ~. ~l '"' '"' ~ '"' -' '"' e .~ ( i .~ '" .~ ( i " ." .~ " " ~ c • tt.. c f < r < t< t.. ~ i ~ ~ c " ~ '" ~ a ~ j §" ~ ~ ':: "'" i;j 2 2 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y ~' r;.. i ] i to ~ { ( , 1" ( ~' ~. [11~ 1 e 1 1-~~ { i .9 6 = (. ~~ ~ ~~ ~~ \ • ~ 1 ~\ ~ .~ i ~ r-~) ~ i tc'6 ~ ~ .~ ~ tc-~\ . ) ~ ~ j l! ~ roe r-! r < • r < r .. ja m e s r o b e r t c u r r ie 23 (, ( ~ ~ --. b 0 t ~ ~) i "!h ) , '" ~ ) 1 '0 \ ) ( b ~ ) e 'i3 ( ~ ) e '& f !r i r. ~ i: i¢i: i: ~ i i ! • ~ ~ i f p ( ( c ( ( ~ (' (' (' (' (' (' (' ~ ~ ! \ { ' : , ! ~ ~ i,. < i< lt.. 24 current musicology here. there are a number of reasons for this, the primary one being that each time the melody appears it is preceded by a grand accumulative mu­ sical sweep worthy of comparison with the high tragic style mozart employs for other heroines, for example in donna anna's magnificent aria "or sai chi l'onore" in don giovanni. thus, each time we are led to expect some­ thing more elevated than what we get (example 6 shows how the third occurrence of the idea is contextualized). the immediate effect is one of bathos, one which might create the kind of empathetic relationship between us and vitellia that the words with which this theme comes to be associated would imply: "chi vedesse il mio dolore/ pur avria di me pieta" ("yet he who could see my distress would have pity on me"). however, there is something expressively un­ grounded about this theme that makes it just as easy to hear its effect as a little grotesque, or even quite comic.21 it is almost as ifvitellia suddenly splutters and stalls, and in order to be mended the back of this rondo has to be turned toward us revealing the mechanisms behind the chimera. vitellia has to be kick-started back into action, she (or maybe we should say it) has to be reprogrammed to be, and this is done by the inserting of that creepy musical idea into her machinery, winding the whole thing up, and then letting it run until all the parts click back together again and the machine is able to give us the impression that vitellia autonomously cre­ ates her own music, that she has, in a sense, become again. on a literal level, this impression is created by the presence of the basset horn, which instigates vitellia's utterances, coaxing her to sing her own music and then celebrates with virtuosic figuration when it appears that the lesson has been learned. the transition from broken to functioning, machine to be­ ing, or even puppet to person, is also articulated by vitellia's reclaiming of her elevated, declamatory musical rhetoric with the return of the opening words, "non pili di fiori" (ex. 5, mm. 79ff.). iv. this essay is moving toward the following kind of conclusion: the work of art that we are able to perceive as already in the process of unmasking its own illusions puts the disenchanting critic, striding confidently forward to unmask it, in an awkward predicament. ifwe can already start to see what lies underneath, then the disenchanter starts looking a little like a hired magician at a tired children's party: "see! ideology!" (one cannot but help noticing here a delicious irony-that self-disenchanting works turn disen­ chanting critics into their very object of criticism, into questionable magic makers.) the nasty little barrel-organ theme is not just the sound of a broken operatic music-a music, as it were, without horizon, one that has lost the ability to convince us that it is not just music, and that we are not example 6: "non pili di fiori," mm. 122-130. flauto oboe basset horn fagotto corno i, 11 viulino/ violinoll viola servilla violoncello e basso oj 'n if: '" p f '~ p f ~ q .. j § f '"" u _______________ u~"'clldo _____ u ___________ 1 ~ l=1=l=i ~ ~ ~ .' • ~.' • ~ ~ ... .. ---../ j~,,,~ i:::i::i:d 1:1::1::' :, f f '"" jo [0 eel q"oj '"" ~~ ~ ~~ f '"" '"" '"" --=-= i l7' l7' 7 l7' ii..u i..u ............ ju-j l.u p '"" '"" '"" '"" '"" '"" = re! chi_ ve des '"" p i!:. i!:. i!:. p p ~----::::!,-.-.­ -seil mio_do 10 i!:. i!:. i!:. f: f: f: i': 0.........1--10.....0 pur_a vria_di_me_pie til. ~w p .~ p~ lit '> ::= t"'i [jj §i ~ t"'i ~ (') c::: ~ >-< t"'i ~ u-< 26 current musicology just trapped in the fact of just being people just watching an opera. it is also the sound of the music that one creates when one plays at disenchant­ ing. like the mirror that never lies, this music reflects back the rather unpleasant sound of that which we desire: a music without illusion. then, as if to add salt to raw wounds, the music immediately tries to swallow us up again into its magical illusion, that which we have been trying to destroy. vitellia's rondo goes straight on into the chorus, "che del ciel," that was discussed earlier. no time is offered for the distracting artifice of applause, and, thus, no room is made available to contemplate whether what we have just heard may, in fact, have been an artifice. like brunhilde to her immolation pyre, vitellia runs out of our critical embrace (if in fact she was ever there anyway) and into the sublime forgetting of the final spec­ tacle. suddenly reimbued with agency, she chooses the magic reality of operatic illusion. a shameless part of me craves to conclude with this image of the aes­ thetic triumphant and us humans, by comparison, belittled to the level of puppets who do not even know that we are such. however, the attempt to unmask those who unmask can only exist arbitrarily as a termination point of this discussion. the conclusions i have been trying to reach can them­ selves be unmasked; the music that i have been trying to make dance with­ out strings can easily be made to crash to the floor again under the sheer weight of disenchanting historical argument. to return to a remark from earlier in this essay: a puppet can be made with our human hands out of the sense that puppets have become more than puppets made by human hands. the shifting perspective in vitellia's music, backwards and forwards from puppet to being, can be correlated with the anxious relationship between materialist/mechanistic and transcendental groundings of the subject in the late eighteenth century. earlier in the century, materialists such as d'alembert and diderot were able to present an un anxious, even celebratory, view of human beings as machine-like. at that time, science and reason had yet to take on the negative connotations that they were to accrue during the industrial growth of the nineteenth century-in other words, as the means by which man becomes dominated, rather than that which he uses to dominate nature. adorno and horkheimer's depress­ ingly negative view of the dialectic of enlightenment was not yet a consid­ eration. the idea that a man might be a mechanism was a sign that he was congruent with the universe in which he found himself, a universe which, since the dissemination of newton's and descartes's theories, was likewise considered to be understandable in mechanistic terms. mechanistic man was, we might say, the proof that man was natural, free from alienation. and this way of thinking goes some way towards explaining the popularity james robert currie 27 of musical automata during the eighteenth century: the ability of man to be able to recreate mechanically the intricacies of a musical performance is a reflection of his ability to know himself and to be able to shine the light of reason even into the most mysterious corridors of the human condi­ tion. musical automata are a celebration of the fact that man is soon to become enlightened. one might make a case for understanding vitellia's rondo from this positive perspective of enlightened materialism and assert that vitellia is, in fact, a puppet and that that is all for the best. as carolyn abbate points out, "diderot tended to see theatre and opera in terms of what actors and musicians produce, not merely as abstract texts that imitate the natural world. he was, it would seem, always thinking of the toy theatre, the little marionettes and their tinkling music, when opera was discussed" (1999:476). for diderot, we might argue, the potential split between art as artifice and life as real is not necessarily a consideration. for example, when he ironi­ cally disrupts the narrative flow with commentary from outside, as in the short story this is not a story and the novel jacques the fatalist, is he acting like some kind of proto-postmodernist, or asserting a basic materialist prin­ ciple: that art is just as much made as everything else? if we are good mate­ rialists we do not interpret the point where vitellia's rondo breaks down at the words "chi vedesse il mio dolore" as an interruption of aesthetic illu­ sion that results in our alienation from the experience. in getting to see that she is made, we are drawn closer to her, for we are made, too. toward the end of the eighteenth century, though, this benign sym­ biosis-man, machine, nature, and reason-found itself riven into its com­ ponent parts. and as abbate shows, at this time puppets changed from being objects of entertainment which inspire us toward enlightened opti­ mism to being terrible, even uncanny, things that disturb our sense of being. she writes: [t]he animated figure we confront, astonishingly talented at assuming human functions, suggests how we could look down to find our own chests covered by brass plates, ripped open to expose 'an elegant clockwork' within. thus the perfected mechanical man robs us of a prize, our soul, and in so doing injures human individuality and consciousness. (abbate 1999:476) a possible backdrop for understanding this shift comes from consider­ ing kant's notion that the subject is transcendent, no longer to be scripted as some kind of passive mechanism that just senses objects. in this formu­ lation, the subject's knowledge no longer conforms to the world, but rather the world conforms, as it were, to the structure and also the limitations of 28 current musicology the subject's thinking. a result of this is that the modern kantian subject has no direct access to the world as it might actually be. rather, it repre­ sents the world to itself in the form of phenomena, and therefore remains on some level alienated from the problematic and somewhat mysterious noumenal realm of things-in-themselves. what inhibits kant's transcen­ dental subject from the possibility of feeling itself at home with automata, though, is that it is a fundamental part of its own self-definition to be filled with a yearning to overcome its own limitations, and to strive toward the noumenal realm. on the one hand, this act of attempted self-transcen­ dence injects a sense of ethics into the heart of the subject's self-image, for the act is on some level an attempt to replace nature, how things are, with freedom, an impression of how things ought to be. on the other hand, the subject's attempt to leap beyond its own capabilities and into the unknow­ able places a mysterious glow at the center of its sense of itself. for kant, this mystery is located in the schema that are active in the imagination and which mediate the sensory data that comes to us with the categories of perception that dictate the terms on which this data is to be represented. this mediation "is an art concealed in the depths of the human soul, whose real modes of activity nature is hardly likely ever to allow us to discover, and to have open to our gaze" (kant 1965:183). by placing mystery at the center of its self-definition, kant was able to empower the subject with the sense that it is always more than what it understands about itself. the reverse side of this, however, is the opening up of possibilities for appalling doubts, a crisis of faith, when the subject feels that its self-overcoming is not being properly accessed. the enlight­ ened optimist in kant worked very hard to allay such fears. but kant's arguments opened up a metaphysical wound in the modern idea of the subject that neither romanticism, modernism, nor postmodernism has been able to successfully heal. within this framework, we might argue that the inability for the aesthetic illusion to sustain itselfwithin vitellia's music speaks of an anxiety as to the transcendental grounding of the modern subject. when her music falls apart we are no longer able to celebrate wholeheartedly with her in the glory of our shared mechanistic natures. we are now distracted and disturbed by the huge metaphysical horizons whispering maybes to us from a beyond that we should, but do not, believe possible to curl back up into ourselves. the more subtle interpreter might argue that the disorienting slips from aesthetic illusion sustained to aesthetic illusion unmasked speak of a conflict between views that are symptomatic of the difficulties of the late eighteenth century. this being the case, we should accept vitellia as a ghost from the mechanistic past, come back to haunt, superimposed onto vitellia as a modern subject striving to define its autonomy in terms of the james robert currie 29 transcendent. and such a double exposure affects our understanding of the opera's sexual politics. if the fractures in vitellia's music are normal­ ized as part of an optimistically mechanistic view of the world, then there is little in her music, or at least in "non pili di fiori," that can work disso­ nantly against my earlier reading of vitelli a as a politically reprehensible representation of woman that needs to be unmasked and disenchanted. without the possibility of these changes in expressive mode being experi­ enced as salient and problematic, the music is unable to give us the im­ pression that it is turning its gaze back critically on the ideological context that is coercing it into speaking in a certain fashion. thus, tautologically, if we are all puppets, in a mechanistic sense, then mechanistic thinking is being used to distract us from the fact that vitellia is a puppet whose ges­ tures are attached to ideological strings. by contrast, if we equate the sus­ taining of aesthetic illusion with a concept of the subject as more than just what can be rationally understood about it, then vitellia's musical slips can no longer be so easily accommodated. on the one hand, one could argue that even such a small disruption is enough to set the sexual politics of the opera on the road to redemption, for it briefly unmasks the fact that vitellia might be a construct. and this might lead us toward celebrating la clemenza di tito as a work that deliberately fails aesthetically in order to triumph politically, as a performative deconstruction of the representation of women in opera seria. but on the other hand, we can just as confidently assert that the aesthetic failure of "non pili di fiori" is merely the means by which vitellia's madness is represented. the inability of her music to hold itself together parallels her mentally unhinged state. she becomes a mecha­ nism in a pejorative sense: that which is revealed when the transcendental groundings of the modern subject fail to assert themselves at our com­ mand. she strikes us as unsavory and other in the same way that the devas­ tating, spluttering, and broken inarticulateness of the bereaved sometimes can. ergo women are made crazy and unnatural when they attempt to function within the political sphere. v. in the opening section of this essay, i proposed that disenchantment, true to its enlightenment roots, nearly always implies that there is a perspective from which things can be revealed in a secular light as they truly are, free from illusory metaphysical obfuscations. in what followed, vitellia in mozart's la clemenza di tito was repeatedly drawn back within the terrain covered by such a disenchanting gaze; attempts to imbue her with autonomy and agency were curtailed by contextualizing her historically. as a result, her movements were shown to have no magic to them, her existence was revealed as a passive reflection of culture and ideology, mutely mimetic. 30 current musicology however, this strategy has led to a conclusion that actually sits rather uneasily with the seemingly liberating clarity that disenchantment needs to offer if it is to work politically to our advantage. for having gone through the motions of unmasking the aesthetic illusions that supposedly hide her machinery, we do not now have just one vitellia before us, denuded and in the ideological raw, but three: a vitellia whose mechanistic orientation indirectly enforces pejorative enlightenment constructions of women; a vitellia whose failure to access the transcendent similarly acts as a negative political indictment on la clemenza di tito, for it works to convince us of the notion that women by nature are driven mad by entry into the political sphere; and a vitellia whose failure to sustain the transcendental ground­ ing of her subjectivity is to be lauded as a politically liberating act of deconstruction. instead of the dangerous power of an aesthetic real pres­ ence having been defused, one object with the possibility of being in pos­ session of being has been replaced by three identically constructed ob­ jects, a trio of puppets all moving according to different cultural mecha­ nisms. enlightened disenchanting has led us to confusions of a gothic nature-e. t. a. hoffman and edgar allen poe loom. admittedly, we have managed to turn artistic effects into material, into tangible and identifi­ able ideological "stuff." however, the liberating conceptual control that we as disenchanters were to gain from that transformation is threatened by the accompanying act of multiplication. obviously there are many more disenchanted vitellia puppets that can be credibly produced from further historical investigations, so what we have really created here is a scenario rather like the sorcerer's apprentice. (and as we know, that nightmare of multiplication is only brought to conclusion when the sorcerer returns and performs a terminating act of magic. thus, perhaps disenchantment has led us into a crisis that can only be concluded by the use of the very thing that disenchantment was employed to eradicate in the first place.) since at anyone time one can hold only a certain number of readings regarding one cultural object under the controlling power of one's con­ ceptual grasp, the object, as it continues to generate further readings, will eventually start to escape that grasp. as we become increasingly unable to fulfill the enlightened goal of being able to stand above our material and completely contain it within our gaze, we begin to lose the sense of free­ dom and liberation that such a perspective offers. our autonomy in the face of the object starts to wither as the object, by acquiring the ability to elude us, appears to become autonomous itself. maybe, as adorno writes, "we do not understand music-it understands us" (adorno 1998:xi). if it can escape us for a moment, it is actually standing behind us and watching our growing sense of frustration and anxiety. maybe the autonomous work is conceptualizing us. james robert currie 31 within this scenario, there is one trump card left to those who disen­ chant, and that is to see the production of multiple readings in a work as a historically locatable phenomenon, and thus utterly disenchanted. regard­ ing the eighteenth century, consideration of, for example, the implica­ tions ofjurgen habermas's notion of the bourgeois public sphere might be helpful. crudely put, in an age when art had been more an integral component of the ritual life of the church and the aristocracy, there could be no room, at least theoretically, for the notion that the meaning of a piece of music or a painting was open to debate. in order for the ritual to present itself as universally valid, the meaning of the cultural products it employed had to be imbued with irrefutability, and as a result the cultural products were surrounded with a kind of religious aura. however, as habermas writes, with the emergence of the bourgeois public sphere, "[ t] he private people for whom the cultural product became available as a com­ modity profaned it inasmuch as they had to determine its meaning on their own (by way of rational communication with one another), verbalize it, and thus state explicitly what precisely in its implicitness for so long could assert its authority" (1991:37). like the coffeehouse or the salon, the work of art during the eighteenth century became a kind of meeting ground, a site where the bourgeoisie could define their autonomy by de­ bating meaning through the public use of reason, rather than having to defer interpretation to the authority of aristocratic and religious ritual. the ability of a work of art from this period to be open enough to produce multiple readings is therefore not necessarily an invitation for us to start celebrating art's autonomy from the vice-like grip of disenchanting his­ torical interpretation-even though the emergence of a critical bourgeois environment for art during the course of the eighteenth century is, inter­ estingly, intimately bound up with the emergence of ideas of artistic au­ tonomy. to do so would be to suffer from a confusion about the origins of this tendency toward the production of multiple readings. the music is not producing them of its own volition in order to confuse us; they are, rather, a reflection of bourgeois values. the fact that there may be so many readings that we are not able to hold them all within our gaze, therefore, should not worry us. although some of the readings may sometimes be outside of our line of vision, we are the ones who know the limits of the compound: the bourgeois public sphere. thus, we are the ones with the ability to police them back into view. vi. that attempts to assert real presence as an important "reality" of the expe­ rience of art can be disenchanted so relentlessly suggests, perhaps, that we should just relinquish ourselves to the fact that history and her various 32 current musicology handmaidens (cultural studies and the like) hold the irrefutable ethical high ground within any act of interpretation. maybe those who still wish to engage with the seemingly irrational aesthetic "reality" of art are only left with one kind of option, that which the early wittgenstein of the tractatus logico-philosophicus found himself with when faced with the realm of the metaphysical: "wovon man nicht sprechen kann, daruber mub man schweigen" (whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent) (1961: 150). silence does indeed generally surround the belief that there is a surplus within aesthetic experience that can never be fully accommo­ dated by a cultural context. it is not necessarily the silence of which wittgenstein speaks, though-that which aims to preserve the integrity of something-but rather the silence of censorship. if this seems too extreme an assertion, one need only but think of the kind of morally righteous fireworks that immediately and without fail erupt should one mention any­ thing suggesting aesthetic autonomy-for example, the phrase "the music itself." should that which is silent try to speak, it will be silenced by the sheer force of the speech of others. the fact that this reaction and its validating arguments are now automatic to the point of appearing as natu­ ralized instincts should make us deeply suspicious of any claims that the changes in musicology that have occurred in the past fifteen or so years have marked a progression towards increased intellectual freedom. ideol­ ogy has a tendency to be most pernicious when it makes its claims felt to us as something glowing behind the words we speak, investing them with a confidence that we construe as something of our own making, instead of drawing our attention to the fact that something is being spoken through rather than by us. as kant wrote back in 1784: "a revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism and to rapacious or power-seeking oppres­ sion, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking. instead, new prejudices, like the ones they replaced, will serve as a leash to control" (1991:55). are we really more enlightened now about how to study music, or is it the case that we have simply swapped one form of dictates about what we are allowed to know for another-that we still have police but now they are wearing brightly colored yellow uniforms that put to sartorial shame the drab, institutional black of last year's fashion? is it not the case that whereas before music was not allowed to mean anything other than itself, now it can only mean that which is not itself? if the conclusion of this essay came down to an either/or between aesthetic autonomy in its various forms and the notion that art is com­ pletely historically determined, then this would indeed be a disposable piece of work, unproductively partisan and dogmatic. even worse would be an attempt to alleviate tensions by opting for the luke-warm liberal com­ forts of asserting that both points of view can happily coexist. faced with james robert currie 33 the kind of dilemma presented by this essay, such benignly smiling open­ mindedness can only be a mask for an authoritarian delimiting of critique's movements-a grim insistence on optimism, which denies dialectic and expunges the possibility of change. when wittgenstein placed an insur­ mountable wall between the logical investigations of the first part of the tractatus and the metaphysical speculations of that work's concluding pages he was asserting, in a sense, that the two realms could not talk to each other, for the terms by which one side justified its claims could not be employed to justify the existence of the other. and in this essay, the flip­ ping backwards and forwards between history and aesthetics, between art disenchanted and art enchanted, has been an attempt to give an impres­ sion of a similar divide that cannot be transgressed. however, this would seem to imply that action was no longer possible, which is an unacceptable conclusion, for it is merely an inversion of the covert authoritarian opti­ mism that i have just dismissed. terms within this kind of binary opposi­ tion have a tendency of being mutually reliant on the pretense of cancel­ ing each other out in order for each term to exist. when negotiating the rift between history and aesthetics, most of us attempt to establish a methodological position that is static and a priori; we want something that we can bring fully formed to our object of investi­ gation, something which we assume will remain invariant during the course of the interpretive act and appear almost indifferent afterwards, as if noth­ ing had happened. it might be argued that this is done out of a very real need for consistency, something by which the success or failure of an inter­ pretation is usually judged, for without methodological consistency it be­ comes difficult if not impossible to validate the route by which conclusions have been reached. one might say that it would be like reading directions for a journey which suddenly shift, without explanation, from one point on one road to a point on a completely different road. however, the prob­ lem with the authority vested in consistency is that it brings the act of interpretation into what i consider to be considerable ethical complica­ tions. this is the case whether the methodology aims at either a disen­ chanted or enchanted view of art, but since my focus of concern here is disenchantment, that is where i shall begin. the goal of disenchanting art is to act as a catalyst for the liberation of human beings from illusion. disenchantment aims at freedom, yet the processes by which this is to happen have, as i have intimated, a tendency to verge towards an authoritarian policing of the object of scrutiny. every time the work of art threatens to become autonomous, the disenchanter extends the range of surveillance further into the world of that object. this might be written off as intellectual thoroughness, something which, in turn, could be argued to be an act oflove, the scholar's commitment to 34 current musicology take the object completely on board. and i certainly would not wish to imply that we should discontinue investigating as far as we possibly can. this argument is not about the positing of some kind of sacred ground in which the interpreter's presence is a profanity. however, i do suggest that extending the boundaries of investigation may be instigated less by a quest for knowledge and more by a desire to eradicate the possibility that the work of art might have a private life that we cannot access. disenchant­ ment may, in fact, be involved in a process of dehumanization. for the disenchanter, this latter proposition is a ludicrous one: since the work of art is not human, it cannot be dehumanized. however, the likelihood that the foundations beneath the disenchanter's confidence are more unstable than such breezy common-sense retorts communicate is suggested to us if we try to imagine how one might listen to a piece of music solely from a disenchanted perspective. there is, admittedly, some­ thing slightly cheap about making recourse to an empirical gambit in or­ der to clinch an argument at this late stage in the proceedings. neverthe­ less, i propose that it takes a huge amount of effort to even begin to sus­ tain a cultural reading consistently throughout a listening. i place myself solidly in front of the music so that i can keep it view. repeatedly, though, i find that i have forgotten that i am the subject and the music is my object; i keep finding myself already surrounded by the music's effect, the real presence of which i no longer even consider to question. i try to fix my aural gaze like a spotlight, yet it keeps blinking. (from this i do not suggest that we will always fall back by force of gravity to music's potentially transcendental status, as if it were a magnet of truth situated at the heart of all musical experience. the attempt to remain transfigured throughout a piece of music can just as easily be embarrassed by the intrusion of the music's historicity into our consciousness.) the more draconian of disenchanters might argue that it is our politi­ cal duty to continue endeavoring to overcome our tendency to blink; blink­ ing is merely a bad habit from the past that we have failed to properly unyoke ourselves of. ethically, i think this is exceedingly problematic, as hopefully the remainder of this essay will help to elucidate. nevertheless, it admits of the presence of a problem, and that is to be lauded on some level, for most acts of disenchantment quietly fail to mention blinking­ and this is something that leads them into murky political waters. if the aim of disenchanting is to show us what works of music really are when they are denuded of their illusory aesthetic aura, then these slippages ab­ solutely must be admitted, for they remain with us even after the process of disenchantment has been concluded. disenchantment can only be con­ sidered ethical if its criteria of truth are sustained rigorously at all levels of the investigation. if these aspects of the music are suppressed, then those james robert currie 35 who disenchant are using concealed censorship to pass off illusions as truths in order to convince us that art is illusion. this implies that there is an agenda behind unmasking art as illusion that is not founded on empirical historical research that then forms the basis of political action. it suggests that disenchantment is driven to suppress the possibility of art's real pres­ ence out of fear of what its presence within debate might necessitate. this should make us very concerned as to what kind of freedom is being of­ fered to us by disenchantment, and not just because of the problems in­ volved when those who offer us freedom have to lie in order to do so. what is at stake here is not whether the transcendent actually exists, or whether we can assert that an aesthetic real presence is or is not. such questions are nonsensical since they imply that empirical methods can be employed to account for things which, by definition, empiricism cannot account. rather, it is to ask what is made possible when we accept that there will always be something that eludes our conceptualization, what­ ever it is we decide to call it: the transcendent, the beyond, the metaphysi­ cal, real presence, or even, in lacanian terms, the real. i suggest that the presence of this surplus within our experience that escapes full under­ standing creates a kind of productive despair. we sense a gap between our attempts to grasp something and the elusive thing-in-itself, and as a result we strive harder to understand. it is this lack that helps us to expand our knowledge and to increase the sophistication of our thinking-this is per­ haps one of our most important inheritances from the enlightenment. however, our quest for knowledge of our object will always be interrupted by that which is elusive about the object. this undermines the methodolo­ gies we have been using, cancels out the possibility of interpretive closure, and eventually leads to feelings offutility. such, for example, is the narra­ tive underlying romantic irony. there are two routes out of this situation. the first is to seek revenge on that which eludes, and it strikes me that this is one means of under­ standing disenchantment and the problems and contradictions with which it finds itself faced. disenchantment attempts to banish despair by banish­ ing the surplus, thereby asserting that interpretive closure is indeed pos­ sible. as i have pointed out, in order to be politically effective, disenchant­ ment confidently asserts that what something actually "is" is something that can be established; any illusions that are held about an object can then be dismissed by a simple act of comparing them with "reality." how­ ever, this means that disenchantment takes revenge on the seeming irre­ futability or transcendence of the surplus by the creation of a methodol­ ogy that then lays claims to irrefutability-something it can do only be­ cause the surplus that would invalidate such claims has been silenced. dis­ enchantment usurps the transcendent through the act of hubris of attempt36 current musicology ing to become transcendent itself; its posited irrefutability of fact is founded on the very terms of its implied object of criticism. the problem is that disenchantment's attempt to create a transcen­ dent critical method does not result from critical engagement with the notion of the surplus, but from the rhetorical force of mere assertion­ i.e., that the surplus is politically detrimental, since it lures us into a con­ stant yearning for something beyond the political realities of here and now-and from covert censorship, by simply pushing any evidence of the surplus under the carpet. there is something a little scandalous about this, but there is a deeper sadness at stake as well. for disenchantment strides into the world shining with what are indeed beautiful intentions: to relinquish us from despair and to make us free by showing us the world as it truly is. what it has to settle for, though, is a kind of spartan set of exer­ cises in which anything that threatens the possibility of interpretive clo­ sure has to be ignored out of existence. as a result, all knowledge becomes a means to the system's ends rather than there being the possibility of knowledge as an end in itself. for those who choose to disenchant, this is hardly a form of liberation. at its most extreme it is a demand that they relinquish the full gamut of their perceptions to a system that repays by only serving itself, unable, as it is, to fulfill its promises. this is why in the academy we should be exceedingly suspicious of any kind of confidently self-righteous behavior that is expressed on a group level and in an auto­ matic fashion, as if its claims were self-evident. with regard to disenchant­ ment, such fervor is quite possibly a covert form of mourning: a sense of pleasure taken in the feeling gained from being in the moral right that attempts to compensate for, and therefore obfuscate, the delimitations on thinking and freedom that have been demanded of the participants as the price for entry into the system in the first place. the presence of the surplus is always ethically problematic, siren-like. since it exists in a realm beyond what can be said about it, there is a sense that it is not really able to communicate with us properly. as a result, it never tells us how we are meant to relate to it, and this can lead to the feeling that we are perhaps being led into dangerous waters. perhaps one way of interpreting the situation is to say that disenchantment cannot in­ terpret the undermining of interpretive acts that occurs when the surplus interrupts as anything other than disenchantment's own failure to be in the place where the surplus is. tormented by the possibility of synthesis, disenchantment cannot rid itself of the thought that such transcendence might be possible. but this leads disenchantment into attempting to de­ fine itself by a paradox, something that it cannot do since the method­ ological foundation on which disenchantment defines itself in the first place is empirical. finding its desires to be in conflict with its identity, james robert currie 37 disenchantment experiences failure, the masking of which results in it having to reject the surplus. in a sense, then, disenchantment dismisses the surplus not because it conceives it to be an illusion that acts for the production of other illusions that are detrimental to the possibilities of political action. rather, disenchantment dismisses the surplus because it actually does believe it to be real. disenchantment is fatally wounded by its own inability to see an alternative to absolute synthesis, and as a result confuses itself by trying to use empirical methods to understand that whose being is not empirically founded. but there is another route available, which is that when the surplus interrupts and undermines, the possibility of a self-regulating form of cri­ tique becomes conceivable, a critique that in being involved in understand­ ing the world is simultaneously involved in trying to understand itself when it is forced to acknowledge its own limitations. the perception of the pres­ ence of the transcendent in the world acts as a catalyst for the develop­ ment of our abilities to think, abilities that are allowed to continue devel­ oping indefinitely, since the presence of the transcendent inhibits the pos­ sibility of closure. however, the gap that will always exist between the limits to where we have thought something through and the place where the surplus seems to begin not only creates the desire within us to bridge that gap; leading us forward, it works at the same time to push us backwards. when thinking is forced to navigate this sea between the scylla of despair and the charybdis of hope, the temptation to wish oneself elsewhere is strong. like odysseus, we long to stand on our stable home ground, rather than being tossed about from place to place. however, as the preceding has hopefully shown, if we admit to the presence of the surplus, then the only way to bring that wish to fulfillment is to relinquish oneself to ideol­ ogy. one must willingly submit to an intellectual terrain policed by a poli­ tics of exclusion. this cannot be condoned, for it is a willful delimitation of our already unacceptably limited freedoms, a kind of self-annihilation whose only reward is a rather fragile sense of comfort. if we do decide to keep navigating these waters, then the only way to do so is to assert the following regulative principle: that the existence of a place where thought is not ideology is a possibility, but that our arrival there will only be made known to us at the very moment at which it hap­ pens. we must not confidently map out projects to bring us home to the shore of redemption. as a result, thinking in the world in which we live becomes part of a messianic experience of exile. the beauty of the world's face can smile at us at the same moment that the serpent bites; its appear­ ance can be devastated and simultaneously shot through with epiphanies of the good. things are and are also full of the expectation of their poten­ tial transformation into something else, they are on the verge of flight to 38 current musicology salvation, yet vertiginous with fear, thin ice over the freezing black waters of the unredeemable. vii. in the name of consistency, and for fear of becoming ideology, this essay must now collapse, since the poetic flights of the last paragraph seem to suggest that the coast of home is now in sight. a number of questions must be placed between this essay's conclusion and the safety of harbor. who are these disenchanters? and would it not have been best just to take an article and criticize the logic of its argument, to have shown by means of specific proof? is this not just speculation? i may well have pointed the finger more directly, but what would that have achieved? at best, it would have made those readers sympathetic to my concerns comfortable in their sense of outrage: "look, there's one of them, those disenchanters." and such a "best" outcome, considering what i have been suggesting, would then have been the absolute worst of out­ comes-for it would run the risk of replicating the problem i have been critiquing. if disenchantment does happen anywhere and in any of the ways that i have suggested, one of its most harmful actions is its pretense, covert or casual, at being able to stand outside of the influence of its object of criticism and to assert what that object actually is in contrast to what it might be pretending to be, or what others might be pretending it is. as i have urged, this is harmful to the freedom both of the object itself and of the person who perceives the object in such a fashion. if we productively acknowledge the presence of the surplus in the world we come to realize that disenchantment's definitions are not about knowledge, for they de­ liberately silence the possibility that the object can become something else. acknowledgement of the surplus is therefore an act that makes categoriza­ tion ethically loaded. within the academy, if we think we can just point at someone and say in a pejorative fashion, "there is a disenchanter," we im­ mediately tend to contradict ourselves by disenchanting that person. they become dehumanized for they now no longer have any surplus available to them, that from which they might become something else. but there is another contradiction involved here, for if we point pejo­ ratively at the disenchanter we are inadvertently somehow defining our­ selves as beyond infection by disenchantment. and if this is the case then we are in fact eradicating the possibility that we come up against a surplus within ourselves. like one of rilke's angels, the surplus is "terrifying," for there is no guarantee what our object of contemplation will become when we try to extend our understanding beyond its limits and towards the am­ biguous promise that the surplus offers. by saying "this is a disenchanter" we imply that we could not become one ourselves. but if we fullyacknowljames robert currie 39 edge the critical role of the surplus we cannot possibly comfort ourselves so easily. nevertheless, if the naming of disenchanters involves us in the possi­ bility of becoming disenchanters ourselves, how are those we perceive as misdirected to be made accountable for their actions? surely this argu­ ment against pointing the finger is really just a means of saying that we shouldjust all be nice. and that is completely unacceptable. the implied argument of those who openly critique seems to be that the public exer­ cise of critical interrogation is more important than the niceties of intersubjective address. and if forced to i would agree. but that such pub­ lic critique in the academy often spectacularly fails to be self-reflexive enough to critique without objectifying and ignoring the emotional reality of its addressee is likewise completely unacceptable. any system that bra­ zenly sacrifices moment-to-moment practical ethics to a higher critical goal must make us very wary ofthe critical goal that is being offered. so who are these disenchanters? in varying degrees it is us in our professional roles confronting each other in the public sphere of debate. we have a predilec­ tion for "gazing" each other too easily into puppets. to point to a particular instance of disenchantment would be to dis­ tract from disenchantment's prevalence throughout the discipline. disen­ chantment is a mode or tendency that our thoughts can unwittingly fall into in the process of our investigations; it has reared its head a number of times during the course of the essay you have just been reading. i have opted to construct a picture of it primarily through speculation, since it is consistent with my belief in the productive value of the surplus. to think beyond an empirical investigation of disenchantment suggests the possi­ bilities of what kinds of things disenchantment might become. these pos­ sibilities might not stand for what disenchantment is now, but they can work politically as warnings that we can use as our criticism strives towards a condition where it is no longer ideology. and vitellia? she encapsulates the whole debate, for the interpretive problems she poses do not model, but are ethical problems concerning whether the other we address speaks autonomously or whether language merely speaks through it. so better the puppet? the answer is impossible for the question itself is subject to various becomings. is art ideological stuff-its context, the history by which it has been formed-or is it like, as later on in rilke's elegy, a puppet transfigured by an angel? am i not right to feel as if i must stay seated, must wait before the puppet stage, or rather, gaze so intensely that at last, 40 current musicology to balance my gaze, an angel has to come and make the stuffed skins startle into life. angel and puppet: a real play, finally. then what we separate by our very presence can come together. (rilke 1982: 170)22 it is not our business to answer these questions; it is our duty to live them. notes * earlier versions of the material in this essay were read as papers at the con­ ference "feminist theory and music 6: confluence and divide," boise state uni­ versity, boise, idaho, july 6, 2001; at the lecture series "music and its spheres," the society of fellows in the humanities at columbia university, new york, n.y, november 2001; and in the department of music, university of washington, se­ attle, wash., february 2002. i am grateful for helpful remarks from naomi andre, lydia goehr, james mirollo, hilary poriss, elaine sisman, timothy taylor, and john tresch. 1. "nicht der. genug! und wenn er auch so leicht tut,! er ist verkleidet und er wird ein burgeri und geht durch seine kuche in die wohnung./ ich will nicht diese halbgefiillten masken,! lieber die puppe. die ist voll. ich willi den balg aushalten und den draht und ihrl gesicht aus aussehn. hier. ich bin davor.1 wenn auch die lampen ausgehn, wenn mir auchl gesagt wird: nichts mehr-, wenn auch von der buhnel das leere herkommt mit dem grauen luftzug." this whole passage is influenced by heinrich von kleist's short essay-dialogue "on the mari­ onette theatre" (1810), a complete translation of which can be found in the times literary supplement, october 20, 1978. 2. "wir kennen den kontur i des fuhlens nicht: nur, was ihn formt von aueen." 3. for a more extended examination of this theme, see rice (1995a). 4. the following discussion draws on the following studies: landon (1988:99100); angermuller (1988:261-75); rice (1991); till (1992:258-69). 5. in particular here, see till (1992:258-69). 6. in fact, in certain respects the seemingly progressive and enlightened eigh­ teenth century witnessed something of decrease in the power available to women. for example, as miriam brody writes in the informative introduction to her edi­ tion ofwollstonecraft's a vindication of the rights of woman, "while the eighteenth century would be notable in calling for reform of female manners, the seven­ teenth-century woman, in spite of vilification by seventeenth-century puritanism and cavalier poets, was an active, productive member of the economic life of the community. the range of her activities was limited, but she had far more of the economic independence which mary wollstonecraft tried to reclaim for her sex a century later" (wollstonecraft 1992:27). the best general introduction to the topic of enlightenment thinking about gender that i have come across is outram (1995:80-95) . 7. the clearest explanation of how these features fit together is to be found in cassirer (1951:234-74). 8. for example, see goldberg (1984). james robert currie 41 9. for example, see schiebinger (1989:191-200; 1986:42-82). 10. for further discussion of the importance placed on woman's role as mother during the enlightenment, see fauchery (1972) and miller (1980). 11. see also arlette farge (1993), which includes a list of the studies of this phenomenon. 12. to take an analogous situation, miriam brody writes that although "a small receptive circle ofliberal reformers ... would welcome the vindication with enthu­ siasm ... once concern grew over the association of english radicalism with the ideas of the french revolution, wollstonecraft's assault on established authority . ... was greeted with predictable alarm and outrage" (wollstonecraft 1992:41-42). 13. underlying this paper is a huge scholarly topic, one that can only be scantily mentioned here, but which is centered around a cluster of questions concerning when and how eighteenth-century audiences started to perceive on a regular basis that works of art were to be understood as believably real-if, in fact, an under­ standing of "realistic" in any sense that we might normatively use that term today is even applicable to the period. jiirgen habermas, for example, talks about this phenomenon in relation to the novel and contemporary drama, and therefore to the important eighteenth-century idea of sentimentality: "the reality as illusion that the [novel] created received its proper name in english, 'fiction': it shed the character of the merely fictitious. the psychological novel fashioned for the first time the kind of realism that allowed anyone to enter into the literary action as a substitute for his own, to use the relationships between the figures, between the author, the characters, and the reader as substitute relationships for reality. the contemporary drama too became fiction no differently than the novel through the introduction of the 'fourth wall'" (habermas 1991:50). michael fried (1980) has discussed the issue with regard to eighteenth-century french painting, and obviously these considerations are an important part of any understanding oflate eighteenth-century sentimental operas such as paisiello's nina of 1786 (for ex­ ample, see castelvecchi 1996). the problem with regard to la clemenza di tito, though, is that in the eighteenth century the forms that absorbed audiences' at­ tention and led to the perception of aesthetic illusion as real were often associated with art that reflected an image of bourgeois life back to emergent bourgeois audiences, not with the more ritualistic, authoritarian, and aristocratic subject matter of opera seria-a genre not necessarily reliant on such sustained suspen­ sion of disbelief (feldman 1995:29-30). admittedly, mozart's remarks about idomeneo show that he was as concerned with questions of verisimilitude pertain­ ing to opera seria as to opera buffa. for example, as he states about the voice of the oracle in the often-cited letter of november 29, 1780: "imagine the theatre before your eyes, the voice must be terrifying, it must penetrate; people must believe it is real" (quoted in heartz 1990b:29, n. 23). the relationship between la clemenza and more "realistic," bourgeois trends, though, warrants much further consideration. as a starting point, one might consider daniel heartz's observa­ tions on the possible influence of paisiello's nina on la clemenza, particularly the relationships between nina's famous first aria, "11 mio ben," and vitellia's "non piu di fiori" (heartz 1990a:311-1 7). 14. numbers used refer to the mozart neue ausgabe siimtliche werke 11/5/20. the following discussion is based around an hermeneutic interpretation of how 42 current musicology the sounding forms of this last section of the opera create a sense of the constructedness of the character vitellia. nevertheless, there exists an interesting resonance between my observations and what we know of the history of the com­ position of "non pili di fiori." alan tyson's examination of the paper types sug­ gests that this rondo was composed in two stages: the opening larghetto was writ­ ten shortly before the first performance, but the concluding allegro preexisted mozart commencing work on la clemenza di tito (tyson 1987:48-60). in a certain sense, "non pili di fiori" is something of a compositional mishmash and, there­ fore, already runs the risk of being unable to transcend the materials from which it is made, of being unable to prove that, as the venerable dictum goes, ars est celare artem (art is to conceal art). of course, this point might be of minimal value, for there is no necessary reason why this aspect of this rondo's compositional process should have been perceptible to a late eighteenth-century audience. to assume that it would have been would be to impose an anachronistic aesthetic of the unified work onto a genre, opera seria, where, although such things were begin­ ning to emerge, aria substitution and the primacy of performance over work had been, and continued for some time to be, the norm (see, for example, poriss 2001; brown 1992; freeman 1992; hunter 1989; rosselli 1984; strohm 1980). however, asjohn a. rice has pointed out, the compositional history of the music means that mozart composed the allegro section of this rondo with no knowledge of the singer who would eventually perform the role of vitelli a at the first perfor­ mance, maria marchetti fantozzi. rice's analysis of the kinds of musics associated with her voice thus suggests that certain passages in la clemenza would have been very awkward for her to sing, and this may in turn have drawn attention to the sense of constructedness that i talk about (rice 1995b). 15. the text of servilia's aria is as follows: s'altro che lacrime/ per lui non tenti,! tutto il tuo piangere/ non gioveriv a questa inutile/ pieti che senti,! oh quanto e simile/ la crudelta./ s'altro che lacrime, etc. (parte) [if you do nothing for him but shed tears, all your weeping will be of no avail. oh, how like to cruelty is this useless pity that you feel. if you do nothing for him, etc. (exit) j. 16. the text of this chorus is as follows: che del ciel, che degli dei! tu il pensier, l'amour tu sei,! grand'eroe, nel giro angusto/ si mostro di questo di/ ma, cagion di maraviglia/ non e gia, felice augusto,! che gli dei chi lor somiglia, custodiscano/ cos! [that you are the care, the darling of heaven and of the gods, great hero, has been shown in the brief course of this day. but there is no cause for wonder, fortunate augustus, that the gods thus watch over one so like themj. 17. the famous statement is found in winckelmann's gedanken iiber die nachahmung der greischen werke in der malerei und bildhauerkunst (reflections on the painting and sculpture of the greeks). for information on the dance types em­ ployed in the opera, see schwartz (1991), and for a brief discussion of the use of the minuet topic, pp. 757-58. for further information about the use and meaning of the minuet in late eighteenth-century music, see ratner (1980:9-11) and allanbrook (1984). 18. the association of handel with the eighteenth-century discourse regard­ ing the sublime was already in position during handel's lifetime (schapiro 1993; johnson 1985-86), and continued on into the late eighteenth century and be­ yond (wolff 1984; finscher 1990; weber 1981-82). james robert currie 43 19. my interpretation of the opening entry of the chorus as an awe-inspired exclamation is given some weight by the fact that the start of the chorus's second phrase-beginning in m. 21 with the words "rna, cagion di maraviglia" and set to essentially the same musical gesture as the opening of the first phrase-begins solidly at the beginning of the measure. more accustomed to their environment, the chorus is no longer so stunned; to repeat the gesture would merely be to unmask their initial reaction as unauthentic and unpleasantly performative. 20. see, for example, heartz (l990a) and rice (1995a). 21. at the first presentation of the theme (mm. 56ff.) there is, in fact, an ambiguity as to what the theme refers, since it is played on the basset horn first and only then expressively "grounded" by being sung to the words "chi vedesse il mio dolore." initially, the theme might be thought of as an answer to the question posed in the preceding line of the text: "ah, di me che si did?" ("ah, what will be said of me?"). what people will say about vitellia will be crudely unsympathetic; she will be turned into a comical object of derision. this would seem to be what the melody "means." thus, in this sense the melody is the sonic analogy of the caricature that others might make of her. 22. "wenn mir zumut ist,/ zu warten vor der puppenbiihne, nein,/ so vollig hinzuschauen, dab, urn me in schauen/ am ende aufzuwiegen, dort als spieler / ein engel hinmub, der die bilge hochreibt./ engel und puppe: dann ist endlich schauspiel./ dann kommt zusammen, was wir immerfort/ entzwein, indem wir da sind." references abbate, carolyn. 1999. outside ravel's tomb. journal of the american musicological society 52: 465-530. adorno, theodor w. 1998. beethoven: the philosophy of music. edited by rolf tiedemann, translated by edmund jephcott. stanford, calif.: stanford univer­ sity press. allanbrook, wye jamison. 1984. rhythmic gesture in mozart: "le nozze di figaro" and "don giovanni". chicago: university of chicago press. angermiiller, rudolph. 1988. mozart's operas. new york: rizzoli international press. baudrillard,jean. 1983. simulations. new york: semiotext[ej. berriot-salvador, evelyne. 1993. the discourse of medicine and science. trans­ lated by arthur goldhammer. in a history of women in the west: renaissance and enlightenment paradoxes, edited by natalie zemon davis and arlette farge, 34888. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. blanning, t. c. w. 1999. epilogue: the old order transformed 1789-1815. in early modern europe: an oxford history, edited by euan cameron, 345-74. ox­ ford: oxford university press. brown, jennifer williams. 1992. 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"giant handel" and the musical sublime. eigh­ teenth-century studies 19: 515-33. kant, immanuel. 1965. critique of pure reason. translated by norman kemp smith. new york: st. martins. _____ . 1991. political writings. edited by hans reiss. second enlarged edi­ tion. cambridge: cambridge university press. landes, joan. 1988. women and the public sphere in the age of the french revolution. ithaca, n.y., and london: cornell university press. landon, h. c. robbins. 1988. 1791: mozart's last year. new york: harpercollins. laqueur, thomas. 1990. making sex: body and gender from the greeks to freud. cam­ bridge mass.: harvard university press. lippman, edward. 1986. music aesthetics: a historical reader: vol. 1, from antiquity to the eighteenth century. new york: pendragon press. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minnesota: university of minnesota press. miller, nancy k. 1980. the heroine's text: readings in the french and english novel, 1722-1782. new york: columbia university press. james robert currie 45 outram, dorinda. 1995. the enlightenment. cambridge: cambridge university press. poriss, hilary. 2001. making their way through the world: italian one-hit won­ ders. nineteenth-century music 24: 197-224. ratner, leonard g. 1980. classic music: expression, form, and style. new york: schirmer books. rice, john a. 1991. la clemenza di tito. cambridge: cambridge university press. _____ . 1995a. leopold ii, mozart, and the return to a golden age. in opera and the enlightenment, edited by thomas bauman and marita petzoldt mcclymonds, 271-96. cambridge: cambridge university press. _____ . 1995b. mozart and his singers: the case of maria marchetti fantozzi, the first vitellia. opera quarterly 11: 31-52. rilke, rainer maria. 1982. the selected poetry of rainer maria rilke. translated and edited by stephen mitchell. new york: vintage. rosselli, john. 1984. the opera industry in italy from cimarosa to verdi: the role of the impresario. cambridge: cambridge university press. rousseau, jean jacques. [1762] 1964. emile, ou de l'education. paris: gallimard. schapiro, alexander h. 1993. drama of an infinitely superior nature: handel's early english oratorios and the religious sublime. music and letters 74: 21545. _____ . 1989. the mind has no sex?: women in the origins of modern science. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. schiebinger, londa. 1986. skeletons in the closet: the first illustrations of the female skeleton in eighteenth-century anatomy. representations 14: 42-82. schwartz, judith l. 1991. rhythmic gesture in "la clemenza di tito": dance rhythms as rhetorical devices. mozart jahrbuch: 755-65. steiner, george. 1989. real presences. london: faber and faber. strohm, reinhard. 1980. pasticcio. in the new grove dictionary of music and musi­ cians, edited by stanley sadie, vol. 19,213-16. london: macmillan. till, nicholas. 1992. mozart and the enlightenment: truth, virtue, and beauty in mozart's operas. london: faber and faber. tresch john. 1997. "the potent magic of verisimilitude": edgar allan poe within the mechanical age. british journal of the history of science 30: 275-90. tyson, alan. 1987. mozart: studies of the autograph scores. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. weber, william. 1981-82. the intellectual bases of the handelian tradition, 17591800. proceedings of the royal musical association 108: 100-14. wilde, oscar. 1981. the portable oscar wilde. rev. ed. edited by richard aldington and stanley weintraub. new york: viking penguin. wittgenstein, ludwig. 1961. tractatus logico-philosophicus. new york: routledge & kegan paul. wolff, christoph. 1984. mozart's messiah: the spirit of handel from van swieten's hands. in music and civilization: essays in honor of paul henry lang, edited by edmond strainchamps and maria rika maniates,1-14. new york: norton. wollstonecraft, mary. [1792]1992. a vindication of the rights of woman. edited with an introduction by miriam brody. london: penguin. big ears: listening for gender in jazz studies* by sherrie tucker his wife lil often played piano. ken burns's jazz, on lil hardin armstrong . . are they his third or fourth wives, or two new members of the brass section?" cartoon caption, down beat, august 15, 1943. my ears were like antennae and my brain was like a sponge. clora bryant, trumpet player, on her first encounters with bebop. injazz, the term "big ears" refers to the ability to hear and make mean­ ing out of complex music. one needs "big ears" to make sense of impro­ visatory negotiations of tricky changes and multiple simultaneous lines and rhythms. "big ears" are needed to hear dissonances and silences. they are needed to follow nuanced conversations between soloists; between soloists and rhythm sections; between music and other social realms; be­ tween multiply situated performers and audiences and institutions; and between the jazz at hand and jazz in history. if jazz was just about hitting the right notes, surviving the chord changes, and letting out the stops,jazz scholars, listeners, and even musicians would not need "big ears." yet, jazz historiography has historically suffered from a reliance on pre­ dictable riffs. great-man epics, sudden genre changes timed by decade, and colorful anecdotes about eccentric individuals mark the comfortable beats. jazz-quite undeservedly, and all too often-has been subjected to easy listening histories. the familiar construction of jazz history as a logi­ cal sequence in which one style folds into another, one eccentric genius passes the torch to the next-what scott deveaux (1991) calls "the jazz tradition"-has dominated popular and critical writing about jazz, even the ways our "survey of jazz" classes are taught in universities. i call this progression "dominant jazz discourse" because of the powerful ways it manages to move through and shape jazz narratives that see themselves as distinct from one another. it is not just one discourse among others, but one with a great deal of institutional, social, and political power owed to other discourses about progress, modernism, primitivism, individualism, american exceptionalism, essentialist notions of race and gender, etc. these powerful discourses are, of course, not just about jazz, but move through the ways jazz is talked about, marketed, and understood, even as current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 376 current musicology they move through the ways other histories are narrated (westward expan­ sion, for example). this is not to say that enthusiasts of the 'jazz tradition" narrative are also enthusiasts of racism or primitivism, or even that they would agree with me and other jazz studies scholars who study these connections. it is also not to say that "dominant jazz discourse" has never been challenged. as with most dominant discourses, it has had its dissenters. indeed, con­ tradictory perspectives have proliferated from researchers of mrican american history and women's history, from black studies and latin american studies, from academic jazz studies, from the black press and the socialist press, from critical theorists and musicians. yet, in spite of the continued production of alternate takes, the dominant version continues to dominate. dominant discourses are good at that. allow me to just whis­ per the name of that incredibly useful touchstone, ken burns's jazz, the nineteen-hour master-narrative that precisely (if not succinctly) illustrates what kinds of dominant desires were representable about jazz history for a mass television audience in the year 2001: great men, sudden style changes, colorful anecdotes about eccentric individuals. academics, critics, and musicians have squared off in their responses to jazz, but often even the most vigorous objections to the documentary con­ centrate on scope and inclusion, not on the narrative itself, and revolve around other views of who counts as great men (and i do mean men) and other opinions about the "most important" styles. even jazz studies schol­ ars who quite purposefully and consciously aim to narrate outside of the "dominant jazz discourse" box often find themselves stumping for inclu­ sion of particular styles and artists in the usual pantheon. like any domi­ nant discourse worth its weight in salt, this one is slippery and inviting. even so, there are some areas in which meticulous historical work in jazz studies has managed to unsettle ideological understandings of jazz his­ toriography. much of this has involved locating jazz discourse in a history of primitivism, or in european and european american fantasies of exotic oth­ erness, while documenting "lost" jazz practices that did not fit, and there­ fore do not appear, in dominant discourse. this type of scholarship­ which i will soon discuss-is not just about dueling canons, but about taking the canon apart to see what makes it tick, then trying to craft a dif­ ferent kind of historical narrative that contextualizes this ticking, along with other social, cultural, and political frameworks through which jazz has mattered. this article aims to learn from these areas, and to suggest directions for critical expansion. like many scholars of cultural studies and jazz studies, i consider this work important, not only because it will give us a more complete understanding of jazz history as a distinct narra­ tive, but because it will increase our understandings of the societies for whom jazz has been meaningful. sherrie tucker 377 in this article, i join my colleagues in jazz studies in a call for continued ear-training that will help us to hear and analyze jazz activity and meaning more historically and more in tune with its musical and social complexity.! however, i also depart from many of my colleagues in my plea that we learn to listen to, and take seriously, a register that is particularly under­ theorized in our field-one that is, in fact, when some of us do bring it up, often dismissed with a vehemence that would make our nonjazz col­ leagues in popular music studies (rock docs, i like to call them) feel all cutting edge and complacent. (an example seems pertinent, but, like the women musicians i have interviewed about jazz and gender, i hear myself hesitating. am i afraid of losing gigs? alienating colleagues? would per­ sonal examples blame individuals instead of the ideology that naturalizes these interactions? why do the scarce have to prove that scarcity exists and is not accidental? instead, how about if i just point to the jazz literature, popular and academic alike, and ask where is the gender analysis? now let's compare that picture with say, film studies, or literature ... ) rock music studies didn't always send out the welcome wagon to gender theo­ rists either, yet there now exists an exciting body of work in which gender is productively analyzed in a wide variety of rock and pop contexts.2 i am certainly not the first or only jazz researcher to call for more attention to gender. 3 nonetheless, i am concerned that resistance to gender analysis in jazz studies is particularly entrenched, discouraging to scholars most likely to produce new frameworks, and undermining the potential of our work. i advocate, therefore, ear-training that would enable jazz researchers to better listen for gender in the dissonances, silences, and negotiations of tricky changes at all levels of jazz studies. listening for gender will be help­ ful not only to those of us wanting to understand sexism and the experi­ ences and contributions of women in jazz, but also to anyone wishing to develop more complex frameworks for addressing the histories, sounds, functions, and meanings of this fascinating and multifaceted music. with­ out listening for gender (and to sexuality), in fact, jazz studies risks over­ looking a category of analysis that closely follows race (and is, in fact, inter­ twined with it) as the social category most capable of de constructing this dominant discourse. certainly, other categories such as class, capitalism, and nation, are also key components in critical scholarship, but this article will focus on gender, in interaction with sexuality and race. to return to the handy example of ken burns's jazz, how might jazz studies employ more rigorous incorporation of current theories of gender and sexuality and race, as they inflect one another, to deconstruct dominant fictions in which quests of naive and gifted underclass and/or racialized male protagonists are constructed in relation to failed or absent fathers, insufficient or excessive mothers, nagging or manipulative wives, and un­ named frenzied wiggling female bodies? clearly, i'm still suffering from 378 current musicology my own personal jazz flashbacks, yet i am not simply calling for inclusion of women as musicians into the existing narrative. the narrative itself is shaped by notions of gender and sexuality and race that i find problem­ atic. it is important to emphasize that burns did not invent these privi­ leged narratives of jazz discourse, nor is he responsible for the longevity of dominant desires that make them marketable to major funding agencies. he is responsible, however, for skillfully fulfilling these desires for familiar representations and stories. my discussion of the burns narrative, then, is not meant as a beef with burns, but as a critique of a powerful version of jazz history that i consider harmful; one that permeates american culture at many levels, including contemporary ideas about what jazz is and what it means. take, for instance, the representation of louis armstrong as jazz naif, who alternately plays "like an angel" and falls in love, bumbling along on his life journey, it would seem, without much capacity for agency or criti­ cal thinking. the audience is instructed to cheer as he loses pushy lil ("his wife who often played piano"-there is no place in this story for her own career). we are to cheer again as he is miraculously liberated from alpha (a subsequent wife-pictured with a vampish leer, wearing a fur-coat "":""who, in full knowledge of armstrong's love for lucille, stubbornly re­ fuses to divorce him because she wants to devour his paychecks). and fi­ nally, we are prompted to coo and say "awww" when he finally settles down with his prize, lucille, who is depicted as an uncomplaining, cookie­ baking "former-dancer" (kind of like laura petry on the old dick van dyke show). lucille is portrayed as the ultimate object of desire for anyone who has ever yearned for a domestic partner who has no needs or ambitions of her own, doesn't mind whether her husband comes home or stays away for months at a time, and yet still manages to create the home life he has always wanted. of key importance is lucille's understanding that armstrong's first love must be his trumpet. the jazz hero's life is depicted as meaningless until he finds the right horn, plays it perfectly the first time, lucks upon the right patriarchal band leader, and makes america feel good. in dominant jazz discourse as channeled by burns, jazz heroes achieve greatness through male musical bonding in homosocial bands (constructed as ag­ gressively heterosexual against backdrops of prostitutes, wives, female lovers, and shimmying female dancers). in jazz, black women are often presented as obstacles to greatness, yet their presence functions to define the hero's stature. in episode one, we have the following quote about the legendary buddy bolden: "bolden's mother tried to calm him down, then turned him into the police. he spent the rest of his life in the louisiana state insane asylum in jackson." jelly roll morton's story includes the pivsherrie tucker 379 otal moment when his great-grandmother finds out that he has been working in whore houses, "and threw him out of the house forever. he took to the road at seventeen .... to support himself, he blacked up and performed as a vaudeville comic." the next image shows morton in black­ face, on stage with a white or light actress who points her finger at him in what appears to be an accusatory way. could someone please remind me why jazz studies has no use for gender analysis?4 again, i am not holding up jazz as the solitary culprit responsible for widespread jazz misinterpretation, but instead as evidence of a hegemonic dream world burns did not invent, a dream world that is powerfully de­ sired by enough target viewers that it attracts the necessary backing to buy representation in the big culture capital mainstream that is pbs. "blame burns" is not a slogan that will do any of us any good. our own practices as jazz researchers, historians, journalists, and scholars in jazz studies could benefit from a closer look at gender. certainly, our traditional pre­ occupations with differentiating the "authentic" from the "commercial," the "innovator" from the "imitator" (and dare i mention the relentless tug-o-wars over favorite styles, factoids, and super-heroes that have long captivated jazz writers?), may be better understood if we more persistently attended to historically contingent ideas about masculinity and femininity, in conversation with multiple and shifting ideas about race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, national identity, empire, and capitalism. of course, i realize that these are fighting words injazz research circles. but fighting words are not rare in this field. jazz researchers square off along many lines, such as the touchy, if far too simply defined, division be­ tween "academics" and "non-academics," and additional and sundry boundaries that attempt to distinguish "those with real jazz knowledge" from "loathsome imposters." jazz researchers' criteria for "real jazz knowl­ edge" is itself far-ranging and contradictory, and variously includes (along with the ability to write and conduct research): the ability to play an in­ strument; long-time experience in journalism or broadcasting; a big record collection; a good memory for birth dates, studio dates, death dates, and bassists; a ph.d.; a lack of ph.d., lit. crit. degree, or musicology degree; close personal friendships with jazz musicians, record producers, and other researchers; and so on. the same definitions are often invoked to delineate "loathsome imposters." outrage in the jazz research community today often coagulates around the stand-off between those who wish to batten down the hatches of tradi­ tional methods and master narratives, and those bent on disrupting them. the latter often incorporate poststructuralist approaches to subjectivity, identity, language, historiography, representation, and culture that demand radical shifts in thinking and writing about jazz. often perceived as victims 380 current musicology and perpetrators of elite theoretical fashion, these researchers question familiar jazz-writing imperatives such as (1) canon formation; (2) defining authentic jazz and fiercely guarding its boundaries; (3) jockeying for the final word on historical minutiae; or (4) treating jazz as an artifact (usually recorded) that can be isolated from social context. instead, they approach their task armed with theoretical crowbars. discourse analysis, deconstruc­ tion, audience reception theories, and semiotics dangle from postmodern tool belts. there is no coherent jazz history, they say. instead, difference, dissonance, and competing discourses punctuate the sounds of surprise. questions raised by these spins include: what musics have been called jazz by whom and when and where, and what have these musics called jazz meant historically to variously multiply-positioned musicians, audiences, in­ stitutions, and jazz researchers? what kinds of hegemonic struggles have occurred on specific sites of jazz production and consumption? what kinds of projects have been enabled or thwarted in these struggles? how effec­ tive has jazz been historically as a space for developing counter-discourses, in forming communities and identities, for producing what angela davis calls "collective political social consciousness?"5 among the most productive shifts are the ways in which overlaps of crit­ ical race theory and some strands of cultural studies have brought about a much more complex and historical analysis of race than is possible if one assumes that race is a biological and/or cultural given that guarantees tastes and aptitudes.6 dominant jazz discourse is marked by a legacy of es­ sentialist notions of race coursing through the gamut of jazz narrativity, in­ cluding 'jazz tradition" historiography, gate-keeping and marketing strate­ gies of the recording industry, and representations in music trades such as down beat, all of which frequently perceive jazz meaning through white fantasies about black masculinity (see monson 1995). much of the most widely available and influential early literature (penned primarily by white men) bears the dominant stereotypical raced and gendered assumptions that black men are superior jazz innovators due to natural inclinations to be musical, emotional, virile or childlike, violent or whimsical. these no­ tions of race are still with us (as relentlessly represented in characteriza­ tions of the naive jazz geniuses of ken burns's jazz, in the guise of a civil rights narrative, no less). yet, theories about race as a political and histori­ cal construct have opened up ways for jazz scholarship to chip away at racial myths. even at their most laudatory, equations of racial identity and jazz ability betray their roots in nineteenth-century racial science, in which european­ descended positivists classified people of mrican descent as intuitive, sex­ ual, and uninhibited, and people of their own backgrounds (at least men) as rational, intellectual, and disciplined. the same ideology that consherrie tucker 381 structed black men as natural, intuitive players, appointed white men as those who could best classity and judge jazz.7 white male jazz critics and historians have often counted themselves among the great advocates of black music, culture, and musicians, and many have engaged in explicitly anti-racist politics. yet it is important to remember that racism is not just about behavior or intentions of individuals, but about histories and institu­ tions and ideology. critical race theory and cultural studies of race have provided jazz studies with tools to analyze its own historical division of labor based on ideas about race, as well as manifestations of raced mean­ ings in other jazz sites, with a conception of race as historical, institutional, and ideological, rather than simply as a biological given with predictable traits. critical race theorists, such as kimberle crenshaw, reject not only the essentialist view that race guarantees particular aptitudes, but also its "vul­ gar anti-essentialist" flip-side that concludes that, since race isn't a biologi­ cal fact, it must be irrelevant. in jazz writing, this often manifests in the rhetoric of jazz as a color-blind, utopian, race-free space, a sonic realm of transsocial pure aesthetics that somehow matter without signifying. instead, critical race theorists work from an assumption that race is both "not real" and "real"; real "in the sense that there is a material dimension and weight to the experience of being 'raced' in american society, a mate­ riality that in significant ways has been produced and sustained by law" (crenshaw 1995:xxvi).8 such an approach renders insufficient debates about which race plays jazz best, as well as analyses that dismiss race as a red herring that detracts from the real story (of sound, of genius, of indi­ viduals). instead, it leads jazz researchers to explore the production, con­ sumption, functions, representations, and meanings of jazz and race as they inform each other in a vast range of social and historical contexts. while the influences, practitioners, and audiences of jazz have been di­ verse in all kinds of ways, i would argue that none of them have been free from the profound historical legacy of jazz as an african american cul­ tural formation developed largely under jim crow conditions. jazz then becomes a site for exploring how people negotiate terms of racial forma­ tion, racialization, and racism, in specific ideological, institutional, and social movement contexts (for instance, white supremacy, segregation, desegregation, civil rights, black power, etc.). the significance of culture, for many theorists, is its ability to mediate between social subjects and social structures (gilroy 1987:17). it is, in george lipsitz's words, "where people make meaning under conditions they do not usually control."9 in cultural studies of music, meaning-making is theorized as taking place not only in what christopher small calls the "thingness" of musical works, but in music as an activity, or "musicking," which includes, among other things, playing, listening, playing along with records, dancing, jogging 382 current musicology while listening to a walkman, etc. (small 1998:4-10). if race is taken as one of the contested meanings that is struggled over in culture (see, for example, hall 1992 and gilroy 1987), it is possible to analyze how differ­ ently positioned people, engaged in various modes of jazz "musicking," negotiate multiple, competing definitions of blackness, racial pluralism, racism or anti-racism,racialization, or racial hierarchy institutions and dis­ courses that affect their lives as social subjects. in such an analysis, then, racial meanings are neither moot nor guaranteed by the racial identities of players. thus, george lewis analyzes "'mrological' and 'eurological' systems of improvisative musicality" as "historically emergent rather than ethnically essential" (1996:93). sound could signify "blackness," not be­ cause genes are audible, but because history is often audible. as a historical category, race is rarely, if ever, solely about cultural dif­ ference, but about power and domination, struggle and survival. kathy ogren's historical analysis of jazz in the 1920s demonstrates that racial meanings in jazz were significantly different for white and black audiences and critics even when considering the same music by the same artists (ogren 1989). ron radano moves the discussion from "is jazz black or not?" to the conundrum of what does it mean to call music "black." does calling music "black" encourage exotic, romantic, and essentialist notions of blackness (black people play black music naturally from their genes)? if so, does giv­ ing up the term "black music" risk downplaying mrican american cultural history and power imbalances in the culture industry? (radano 1993:1820). ingrid monson points out that jazz musicians sometimes argue that jazz is "black," and sometimes that it is "race-transcendent," and some­ times the same musicians argue both points in different contexts. for monson, this is not evidence of fickle musicians flipping between contra­ dictory theories, but rather a negotiation of understandable rhetorical strategies in a complex historical web of racism, racialization, and racial politics. in a society that sometimes sees black achievement as racially de­ termined (black people naturally play jazz, white people are capable of mastering any skill, including jazz), and sometimes sees it devoid of mrican american cultural history (jazz is color-blind, or the nationalist burns narrative: jazz is american), it is necessary for musicians to be able to argue both tracks (monson 1996:199-203). surely, these questions are not just exercises for a small number of jazz scholars, but are, rather, ones that really do impact people's lives. this is not to say that race essentialism or race avoidance has disappeared from jazz writing, only that more jazz researchers are reflecting on the ways in which "the nation's racial con­ sciousness has been embedded in american jazz criticism from the begin­ ning" (ramsey 1996:30) and are actively engaging theories about race and ethnicity as crucial components of jazz studies. sherrie tucker 383 this is not so true of gender. jazz studies has been a moldy fig on this issue, stubbornly out of the theoretical loop in its sluggishness to incorpo­ rate current theories about gender, particularly those that may be consid­ ered feminist. more fighting words. even in academic jazz studies, to raise the specter of feminist theory, or even of gender as a pertinent consideration, is often to invite an eerie parallel of what it must feel like for a woman horn player, of any number of historical time periods, to enter a cutting contest where the rules of what counts as virtuosity, prestige, authenticity, and value have been laid down by people who, quite possibly, do not want you there. in neither case would i argue that the skepticism one meets is indicative of the irrelevance of gender. gender as a useful category in jazz studies although race and gender are very different categories indeed, with strikingly different histories, they inflect each other at every turn. women­ of-color feminists in the 1970s and 1980s were on the forefront of theoriz­ ing the inextricability of race, gender, class, ethnicity, nation, and sexual­ ity.!o because these categories were experienced simultaneously, what good was it to theorize them as though they occurred in isolation? this is not to say, however, that because these categories are intertwined, they are identical. to say that race is gendered and gender is raced (and that each is affected by other social aspects such as class, sexuality, and nation), is not to say that race and gender work in exactly the same ways, nor that they can be explained in the same terms. yet, there are some conceptual parallels. the assumption that sexed bodies determine gender, or that sex and gender guarantee particular aptitudes and tastes, did not hold up well un­ der cross-cultural and historical gender studies, which revealed gender to be variable, contingent, and changing. just as theorists today are more likely to see race as a historical category and field of power rather than a genetic category and guarantor of aptitude, scholars are more likely to see gender (and perhaps even sex) as socially constructed-even performa­ tive. and not only do they tend to see gender as "the multiple and contra­ dictory meanings attributed to sexual difference" (scott 1988:25) rather than a linear equation of sex and characteristics, they see it as an ongoing process of being welded and stretched, crumpled and reinforced, buffed and scratched, bent and hammered out in millions of construction zones around the world, musical ones included. ll theorists of gender and music apply social constructionist approaches in a variety of ways, too vast to fully enumerate here, but i'll list a few examples. musicologist susan mcclary has analyzed constructions of gen­ der and sexuality in musical narratives commonly thought to be "abstract," 384 current musicology such as western classical music's sonata-allegro form (mcclary 1991). rock scholar and cultural studies critic norma coates (1997) has theo­ rized the gendering of genres that permeates notions of rock as mascu­ line, authentic, and honest, constructed in opposition to pop, conceived as feminine, slick, and artificial. social anthropologist karin van nieuw­ kerk (1995) studied egyptian working-class women's conceptions of pro­ fessional dancing careers as productive labor, arguing that these dancers challenged historically contingent ideological constructions of the female body as sexual only. suzanne cusick (1999) has analyzed vocal production not as a natural expression of predetermined gender/sex identity, but as among the sites in which gender and sex are constituted, according to judith butler, through repeated performance.l2 even readers for whom the ideas on this quick and sketchy list are unfa­ miliar will be able to discern that none of these approaches could be called essentialist. essentialist approaches to thinking about women and music would assume that women are biologically bound by an essence that gives them common musical traits across cultural differences, that women, by nature, make and use music differently than men. while very few gender theorists would attempt to argue this today, this belief forms a stubborn root underlying assumptions about women's capabilities in the professional jazz world, in dominant representations of jazz, and in jazz studies. the flip-side-the assumption that music is gender-free, that "music is either great or not, gender has nothing to do with it"-has also lost its currency in many fields, though not, it seems, in jazz. women are invisible because they weren't good enough. playing good enough meant playing like men. women who play like men are "exceptional women," and exceptional women can enter the discourse without changing it. we can acknowledge the importance of an exceptional jazzwoman in jazz history while retaining a belief that women cannot play powerfully enough, or women can't improvise. we can use her inclusion to argue that our historical vision of jazz is not sexist, but merit-based. in jazz studies, "gender" is still often taken to denote inclusion of women, and "women's work" at that. in other words, it is the prerogative of women and pro-woman men to gather information on women musi­ cians and compile it for dissertations and for articles and books intended for women readers. in this viewpoint, work on gender and women is seen as benevolent, as a special interest, as useful for women interested in women, but is not considered crucial for jazz scholarship as a whole. sometimes calls for gender analyses are taken as accusatory cries for politi­ cal correctives, admonitions from women and pro-woman men to "seri­ ous" male jazz scholars to include women. "it is only fair," goes this frame­ work, to dig up and acknowledge an "exceptional woman" or two for every sherrie tucker 385 study of "real" jazz that one pursues. the most common inclusion narrative that i see about women in jazz is that they have been vocalists, sometimes pianists, but are only beginning to emerge as hom players, saxophonists, bassists, and drummers. this "always emergent" narrative (what i have else­ where called "the perpetual phenomena phenomenon") is a handy dis­ posable container for jazzwomen. one might pay tribute to vaguely con­ ceived, brave women musicians, woodshedding on the horizon (or in history), without actually changing one's tune, and without, i'd like to em­ phasize, analyzing gender. allow me to demonstrate how this commonly works before i move on to what i mean by gender analysis, as something quite different from-though not unrelated to-the inclusion of women. we can see the disappearing woman act of "exceptional" or "always emerging" jazzwomen in popular representations of jazz, in labor condi­ tions of jazz musicians, in how jazzwomen are seen by musicians and audi­ ences, injazzwomen's own rhetorical strategies for claiming a place in the discourse, and in jazz studies. we see it in jazz, which excuses itself from including women instrumentalists by tokenizing mary lou williams: "with the exception of singers, jazz has mostly been a man's world. but, during the 1930s, there was one female musician who earned the respect and ad­ miration of all the men with whom she played" (episode 6). inclusion of one woman (or jazz musician trapped in a woman's body) justifies omis­ sion of others, and inclusion on the basis of male acceptance reinforces a vision of jazz as men's natural domain. 13 the story appears at once inclu­ sive and familiar. 14 it is also immediately juxtaposed with the aforemen­ tioned construction of patient, loving, desireless, non-musician wife, lucille, as the embodiment of ideal jazz womanhood. 15 another example of the easy slippage between frameworks where jazz is taken to be simultaneously gender-free and a man's world, is the stance wynton marsalis has taken to defend the lack of women in the lincoln center jazz orchestra: "i hire orchestra members on the basis of merit." if they aren't there, they must not be good enough. when interviewed for the village voice by lara pellegrinelli about why the lcjo had not, up to that point, ever had a female member (or an audition, for that matter, which throws another curve into the "merit" argument), marsalis offered an emergingjazzwoman story: "the more women we have playingjazz, the higher the level of playing gets, the more they audition, and the more women are going to be all over" (pellegrinelli 2000:65). someday women will cut it, in other words, and when they do, they will be welcome "all over" the professional playing field. sadly, we see similar moves in jazz studies, with its inability to take women and gender seriously. with few exceptions, the field has pro­ ceeded largely as though feminist theories about gender and music do not 386 current musicology apply to jazz, and as though the painstakingly compiled "women-injazz" histories that began to appear in the 1980s never existed. at best, the "women-injazz" literature has been treated as a disposable container to gesture toward, often magnanimously, and then discard. interestingly, when current gender theories are used in visible and explicit ways, it is usually in service of helping us to better understand the performances and negotiations of discourses of manhood and masculinity of already canonized male musicians. writing about women instrumentalists, on the other hand, tends to take the form of advocacy literature and historical supplements or is at least interpreted as such. i have contended that the women-injazz histories of the 1980s (dahl 1989; handy 1998; placksin 1982) all incorporated far more gender analy­ sis (though not usually explicitly) than has been acknowledged. they had to, in order to even find the women, who were so often absent from the traditional fields of evidence accepted by jazz historians and jazz dis­ course. these women-injazz researchers had to not only track down infor­ mation and individuals who had not been recognized as historically im­ portant, but they had to find methods for reframing "what counts" as jazz history, so that women musicians who contributed to the history, but were omitted from the usual venues, markets, and categories of documentation could be rendered visible. for me, these reframings were incredibly rich, not only for the women they included, but for the entire areas of jazz practice that had been ignored by the dominant histories. when consult­ ing these texts for data for my own research on "all-girl" big bands of the 1940s, i was repeatedly educated by the implicit gender analyses that en­ abled placksin, handy, and dahl to look in places like family bands, school bands, and, well, "all-girl" bands, for jazz history. i wish more jazz historians would tap these books for their pioneering theoretical moves, rather than simply picking at them as grist for footnotes to appease special interests. this is just one area of jazz studies that deserves rigorous gender analysis. 16 usually, when i tell people that i'm interested in gender and jazz, they think that means that i am interested in reclaiming the "lost" histories of women who played jazz. and i am. or in exposing the ways that sexism af­ fects women who play jazz today. and i am. but in addition to these inter­ ests, and in part because of them, i am also interested in gender as an ana­ lytic category for understanding how power is organized, maintained, and challenged, and how change occurs. historical and professional invisibility is one way that hierarchical power is attained. but how? gender analysis would seek such explanations. this requires meticulous historical study, since successful invisibility is attained not just once, but over and over and over again. what makes it possible to ignore women jazz musicians as hissherrie tucker 387 torical subjects when so many women musicians have participated and excelled injazz throughout the music's history? feminist historian joan scott argues that in order to address these ques­ tions, one would need to conceive of gender not just as a synonym for women, and not just as a critical description of sex and gender roles, but as one of the primary fields "within which or by means of which power is articulated" (scott 1988:45). so rather than studying women or gender in the field of jazz, one might study jazz on the field of gender. one could, for example, study jazz as one kind of practice that mediates struggles over historically contingent ideas about sex-assigned qualities and relation­ ships. a study of jazz on a field of gender (as a field of power) may yield insights into how style hierarchies, star systems, club policies, hipness barometers, etc., were established by recording companies, music publish­ ers, jazz journalists, and historians. scott's important essay, "gender: a useful category of historical analysis" (1986) is worth revisiting for its conceptual clarity on the differences between descriptive or causal gender studies and gender as an analytic category that can help historians, including historians of jazz, to better understand complex workings of power in society. my stakes in wanting to study jazz on a field of gender, as well as on other fields where power is articulated (such as race, class, nation, sexual­ ity, etc.), are grounded in wanting to know more about how power and struggle operate in jazz settings. i believe that jazz is an especially rich site for studying key clashes of contradictory social meanings in twentieth­ century u.s. history (as well as in histories of other locations). great vari­ eties of social meanings have been attributed to jazz, as grappled over by variously located subjects-take the hypothetical simultaneity of beliefs that jazz stimulates interracial harmony, national love, subculture forma­ tion, black pride, bohemian ennui, spirituality, sexual prowess, democ­ racy, chaos, and sales of luxury cars. one of the social meanings i sub­ scribe to, both in my enjoyment of the music and in my scholarly work, is that these gaps in shifting and contradictory discourses may expose hierar­ chical fissures as opportunities for productive trouble and social change. i am interested in how ideas about jazz and gender affect each other, how jazz meanings have been structured by (and structure) historically and culturally specific ideas about femininity and masculinity. this means that i am interested in how at the same time such ideas relate to ideas about things like race, class, sexuality, and nation, since gender never takes a solo. i would also argue that masculinity never takes a solo, either. it might appear to solo, but if we look closely, i think we can usually find that even the brassiest balls-to-the-wall renditions of jazz masculinity are constructed in relation to notions of femininity, and are shot through with 388 current musicology notions of race, nation, sexuality, class, and power. and even when we try to meticulously tease them out, we find that masculinities and femininities come in many forms, and do not always adhere to the sexed bodies we ex­ pect. in fact, they not only stick to a variety of bodies in a variety of ways, but to things that aren't bodies at all, like instruments, timbres, pitches, tempos, volumes, styles, genres, venues, after-gig activities, etc., and not only to these objects, but to how they are valued. a feminized style, for in­ stance, may be valued differently in jazz than a masculinized style, even if each contains both men and women. to think that complex gender analy­ sis of jazz is moot (since jazz is obviously masculine music produced by men for men) is to expect jazz to be more linear than life. we have bigger ears than that. jazzmen and masculinity studies interestingly, one place where gender has been explicitly deployed as an analytic category (and decidedly not as a synonym for women) is in re­ cent studies of articulations of masculinity in performances, representa­ tions, and biographies of male jazz musicians. cultural critics and histori­ ans have written, often insightfully, about jazz figures (usually miles davis) and have analyzed the versions of masculinity that produce and are pro­ duced through their music and other modes of self-representation, not only in performances, but also in interview settings and in autobiogra­ phies,l7 much of this work has attempted to grapple with the appeal of davis's "cool" sound-a sound variously interpreted as introspective, even vulnerable (effects produced through a stark, vibrato-less tone, timbral fuzziness, and techniques likely to produce them, such as half-valving), that was the antithesis of previous notions of hyper-masculinity on the trumpet18-in relation to his unapologetic violence against women as rep­ resented in his autobiography.19 hazel carby's analysis of davis's autobiography tracks the trumpet player's self-representation of his journey toward black manhood and mas­ culinity as a struggle between two spheres: the claustrophobic world of women, in which davis depicts himself as trapped and violent, and the cre­ ative world of men, to which he escapes and in which he feels passionate, intimate, and relatively free (1998:135-65). in another miles davis analy­ sis, robin d. g. kelley explores the trumpet icon's personal and musical style as reflecting a "pimp aesthetic," one which one did not have to really be a pimp to embrace, but which explains the relationship between davis's musical appeal and misogyny as continuous, rather than operating in opposition. kelley locates "cool" in a personal style associated with pimps that had a cultural history in mrican america, including jazz settings -not just as a stereotype, but as a way of being masculine, attractive, and sherrie tucker 389 powerful in racist urban environments (2001). elsewhere, kelley has ex­ panded on this historical construction of black masculinity among bebop­ pers, arguing that the fleet musical language and hipster lexicon "sharply contrasted with the passive stereotype of the stuttering, tongue-tied sambo." in a culture where "whites commonly addressed them as 'boy,' zoot suiters made a fetish of calling each other 'man'" (kelley 1993:87). kelley also makes the important point that the exploitation of women by "black male hipsters of the zoot suit generation remind us that the cre­ ation of an alternative culture can simultaneously challenge and reinforce existing power relations" (ibid.:88). though their analyses are different, both carby and kelley clearly see gender, race, sexuality, and class as com­ plex fields of power that jazz plays upon in unique ways, but does not auto­ matically transcend. the men and masculinity (or miles davis studies) school of gender analysis, while yielding important insights, worries me a bit, both for its tendency to omit women (except as oppressed victims) and feminized spheres all over again, and for its privileging of iconic figures that "fit" the most celebrated, even stereotypical versions of black masculinity in jazz. i would feel better about this trajectory if it could be enhanced through greater consideration of other genders enlisted in, and often eclipsed by, the production of dominant racialized hyper-heteromasculinities of domi­ nant jazz discourse. what would happen if we were to take these insights and open them up to consider bebop and cool jazz cultures as including women (some of them instrumentalists), femininities, and female genders (that might include masculinity)? what are the implications for women musicians who played cool jazz and bebop? what kinds of identities did women accustomed to being called "girl" claim when they called each other "man?" what roles were open to female instrumentalists in a cul­ tural formation marked by a "pimp aesthetic"-particularly women who were racially marked in ways that constructed them as hypersexual in dominant race and gender ideology? i have written elsewhere about the interplay between discourses of black womanhood, respectability politics, and jazz, in certain performances of african american women musicians (tucker, forthcoming). did respectability and other discourses of black womanhood produce other ways of being gendered cool jazz or bebop subjects?20 also, while i think it is important to analyze and expose all forms of vio­ lence against women, i also worry about how constructions of black mas­ culinity as particularly misogynist can obscure racism and sexism in the dominant culture (including the market in which jazz autobiographies and other jazz products circulate). when davis represented himself in his autobiography as an angry black man who took pleasure in beating up 390 current musicology women, he did so not in discursive isolation, but on the unavoidable and powerful fields of dominant definitions of race and gender. this self­ portrait was produced and would circulate amid the ideological contours of a marketplace in which such constructions are commonplace and ex­ pected, not to mention profitable. i'm not interested in second-guessing why davis wrote the book he did, or lived the life he did, nor in defend­ ing, excusing, or indicting him as an individual, but i am interested in examining the dominant desires that shape the profitability of race and gender stereotypes. if dominant jazz discourse-and even certain jazz counter-discourses-reproduce narrow, stereotypical, and damaging rep­ resentations from the field of gender on which they play, wouldn't we, as jazz researchers, do well to try to find out what historical actors we are missing, to listen to their versions of jazz history, and to learn what other kinds of gender analyses they make possible? some of these historical actors would include other mrican american male jazz musicians, whose performances of black masculinity have varied a great deal even in the same time periods. herman gray urges us to consider the "lives and careers of john coltrane and miles davis" as "emblematic of the complex social relations (race, class, sexual) and cul­ tural politics surrounding the self-construction and representation of the black masculine in the public sphere" (1995:401). coltrane's respect for alice coltrane as a woman and as a musician, his "black and third world internationalism," and his spiritual quest make him a very different figure indeed. other studies that help to map a fuller inventory of mrican american jazzmen's performances, representations, and constructions of black masculinities in jazz include john szwed's study of sun ra (1998), ron radano's work on anthony braxton (1993), robin d. g. kelley's con­ tinuing exciting work on thelonious monk (1999), david hajdu's biogra­ phy of billy strayhorn (1996), and preston love's autobiography (1997) .21 for a complex model of masculinity analysis in jazz studies, i would rec­ ommend nichole rustin's ph.d. dissertation, mingus fingers: charles mingus, black masculinity, and postwar jazz culture, which explores mingus's life, music, and autobiography, to "reveal how postwar jazz's countercul­ ture enabled black men to challenge prevailing racial stereotypes by repre­ senting themselves as complex subjects with multiple and contradictory experiences." rustin's historically specific approach takes postwar jazz cul­ ture as a place of possibility, albeit one that also reproduced many of the "broader u.s. racial, social, sexual, and cultural politics" that regulated representations of "modern black masculinity" (1999:viii). in other words, "while jazz was a counterculture that embraced black men, it also policed articulations of black masculinity that did not fit within certain models" sherrie tucker 391 (ibid.:3). rather than an either/or analysis that demonstrates how mingus is consistent with dominant or alternative notions of black masculinity in jazz, rustin analyzes mingus's struggles with sometimes being the "right" kind of black masculine jazz subject and sometimes not. not primarily in­ terested in what black masculinity has meant to white america, rustin is interested in finding ways that "allow us to image black men not just as desired objects of mimicry and spectatorship, but as desiring subjects whose experiences have been under-theorized" (ibid.: 19). rustin analyzes how in his autobiography mingus portrays himself as struggling with how to represent himself as a black man, a complicated process that finds him sometimes succumbing to dominant stereotypes of black masculinity, sometimes rejecting them (ibid.:48), and sometimes intervening in "domi­ nant constructions of race, masculinity, sexuality, and creativity that sur­ rounded him" (ibid.:29). rustin makes a welcome leap in theorizing women's experiences as wives of male jazz musicians in a chapter about celia mingus, who ran the independent record label debut with her husband charles mingus and drummer max roach from 1952-58. in bringing celia mingus into the realm of jazz subjectivity, rustin also unravels discourses not usually theo­ rized in jazz studies, such as domesticity and women's experiences. how does "musician's wife" translate into other kinds of jazz roles and subjectiv­ ities? we are invited to consider figures such as gladys hampton, long­ time business manager of the band led by her husband lionel hampton. while wives actively involved in the jazz business have sometimes been written about either as wicked gold-digging intruders into men's great­ ness, or as admirable proto-feminists leading the way for women's careers in arts administration, rustin's approach is analytical. she uses the inclu­ sion of women not as an end in itself, but as a way of considering other kinds of gendered jazz subjectivities that are a part of jazz history, and that have functioned to shape jazz history, music, and meaning, whether or not they are visible in the dominant discourse. theorizing women's experience is not the same as including one or two token women into existing frameworks. how would a gender analysis of miles davis look if it incorporated, for example, narratives from points of view of women in various jazz roles, including musicians? one woman musi­ cian who told me a different kind of story about miles davis than those that commonly circulate, was the african american pianist and saxophonist frann gaddison. gaddison, who became close friends with saxophonist gene ammons while playing piano in lionel hampton's band between 1948 and 1950, told me a story about going to a concert in los angeles with ammons and davis. the itinerary of gendered spheres here is quite 392 current musicology different from carby's reading of davis's autobiography as a narrative in which a man escapes the confining world of women through entering the creative world of men. according to gaddison, when they arrived at the concert, she wanted to stay, but the two men wished to leave. [ammons] and miles got mad because a certain [male] saxophone player was playing on the concert. they got to the door and turned around and walked out. so i came all the way from san diego to hang out with them. but they went and got some girls and made me sit in the lobby while they were making it with these chicks! (gaddison 1994) here we have gene ammons, miles davis, and frann gaddison-three professional jazz musicians-all going to a jazz concert together to hear other musicians play. already, we have ammons and davis as members of the jazz audience, rather than isolated geniuses who only live on stage, ex­ pressing their feelings through their horns, or holed up in some (pica­ resque) dingy hotel room in lonesome dissipation. and these two male mu­ sicians plan to join the jazz audience in the company, no less, of a woman, who is lover to neither, but a colleague ammons met in hampton's band, and an instrumentalist to boot. however, as they enter the hallowed sphere of jazz, the male musicians get huffy and want to leave, not to escape the company of gaddison or other women, but because they dislike a particu­ lar male musician on the bandstand. so ammons and davis leave the world of male jazz creativity to have sex with prostitutes, not as pimps, but as clients. woman musician gaddison waits, disappointed, not because she desires either man's sexual attention, but because she had come "all the way from san diego" to hang out with fellow musicians-whose music she admires and who are experiencing levels of success she will never know­ and to hear what is happening musically in l.a. gaddison's memory narrated to me, a woman writer interested in women in jazz, forty years after the fact, is no more a clear channel to the past than is davis's autobiography or any other representation of jazz his­ tory. her story is a self-representation of a jazz musician who is virtually left out of the discourse, and she crafts it with a complex understanding of the social structures that would define her as "not a real jazz musician" throughout her lifetime. her own interpretations often surprised me, as did the interpretations of many women jazz musicians i have interviewed, and i imagine these interpretations would surprise other jazz historians. yet, why does it follow that gaddison's narrated memory of a jazz history that includes her and marginalizes her at the same time, as told to some­ one writing about women injazz, has no place in "serious" historical memsherrie tucker 393 ory of jazz? why do her negotiations with the ways that jazz discourse loses sight of her even as she spends her life as a working black female jazz in­ strumentalist not get picked up as highly relevant to jazz studies? when i asked gaddison if her story illustrated some of the difficulties of working in a man's world, she told me that her worst problems as the only woman in men's bands were actually not with the male musicians, but with women in the audience who jealously assumed that if there was a woman in the band that she was "making it" with the men. customers would have eyes for some of the guys in the band and they couldn't get to them and so they would want to bug me, or if i walked by a booth or a table or something, they'd be trying to trip you or whatever. that was always happening. (gaddison 1994) again, we have a very different set of gender constructions and relation­ ships than we might expect to see in dominant jazz discourse. we have a jazz club with women in it, for example, women on the bandstand, and women in the audience. we also have some very different constructions of desire, competition, the music profession, and sexual harassment. gaddison certainly doesn't construct a harmonious picture of jazz culture, but neither does she give us a picture of ajazz culture in which misogyny of black male musicians is a key feature, or where black women exist merely to define the heroic stature of jazz history's favorite geniuses. jazz studies with gender and women in it might ask: what discourses produce gaddison's narrative strategy? how common is this narrative among jazz­ women? what else do we need to know in order to make sense of it? these are questions i would like to see taken seriously. my point here is that incorporation of women instrumentalists' versions of jazz history must not stop at the level of token inclusion. these versions have too much to teach us about jazz as a set of social practices where con­ cepts that are important to people have been struggled over, reaffirmed, debated, and challenged. i could cite countless examples of instances when interviews with women jazz instrumentalists shattered my previous notions of the gender organization of jazz history. another example would be my interviews with various members of the african american all­ woman band, the darlings of rhythm, in which i was told again and again by women musicians, including gaddison, how the darlings were a good band because they sounded "masculine." at the same time, the same musi­ cians rejected as offensive the back-handed compliment, "you play like a man."22 the implication of their objection seemed to be that a band of women playing like women could sound as masculine (positively per­ ceived as musical power, drive, and spontaneity) as men playing like men; 394 current musicology that neither the most valued style, nor the genders associated with them, were the exclusive property of men. again, i would not want this history to simply be plunked into a more inclusive progress narrative to show that women also played jazz in the 1940s. rather, i would want this version of jazz history that included women and a range of gendered meanings to be used as a rich source of clues as to how jazz historiography may be en­ riched through complex gender analysis of sound and value, as it affected both women and men. bryce traister cogently spells out the dangers of analyzing white male "heteromasculinity" as one gender performance among others, one that may, in fact, be decentered, or "troubled," through performances of alter­ native genders. noting that the "rise of heteromasculinity studies" in uni­ versity settings coincides with popular conceptualizations of "masculinity in crisis"-including the men's movement's recuperative embrace of heterosexual manhood and male-bonding, institutional and cultural re­ ceptivity to white men's claims of reverse sexism and reverse racism, and the cheers inspired by the heroic entrance of viagra as gallant soldier in the war on impotence-traister cautions that a side effect of a focus on masculinity as performative, unstable, and constructed is missing the many profound ways in which american heterosexual masculinity is not femi­ ninity's analytical double. historically constituted, contingent, and perfor­ mative, yes; but as a regime of power with global effects, white american heteromasculinity has not exactly lost any ground through the ways it has been constructed (traister 2000). for these reasons, it seems important, as the study of masculinity becomes more and more prevalent in jazz stud­ ies, that we take care to guard against narrow theoretical frameworks that avoid a range of genders and that ignore other social categories such as sexuality and race. particularly, it is important to recognize, and critically head off at the pass, those approaches that appear intent on recuperating an allegedly flagging white masculinity, which has had, obviously, a differ­ ent historical relationship to american patriarchal power than black mas­ culinity. analyses of black masculinity in jazz must be prepared to work on a number of contradictory levels in order to account for experiences of black male musicians, as well as for the raced and gendered complexity of white men's and women's attraction to particular ideas about black mas­ culinity (monson 1995; kelley 1999). mter all, dominant jazz discourse has been shaped by a history of white european interpretation of both racial and gender categorization that constructed mrican-descended men as masculine (violent, powerful, virile) in some ways, and as feminine (irra­ tional, intuitive, physical) in others.23 i am ultimately wary of the common failure of men and masculinity studies to see gender as relational, as mixed with other things, and as emsherrie tucker 395 bedded in our understandings of things besides bodies. can an analysis of masculinity as disconnected from femininity adequately account for gen­ der as a field on which histories of power are waged? (i cannot fathom "femininity studies" either, but since nobody else does, there is no critique needed!) ideas about femininity, in relation to ideas about masculinity, and utterly inflected with ideas about race, have played a key role at vari­ ous times and places in constructions of what counts as authentic jazz, and gender is the category that we need for this analysis, not one normative construction of it. jazz authenticity has been constructed differently in dif­ ferent times and places-and specific studies of genres, venues, and roles are certainly needed-but it would appear from my own studies of the 1940s that women's bodies have often served as signs for "not jazz." during the 1930s and 1940s, the boundaries of "real" jazz were frequently marked by differentiation from feminized, devalued sub-genres such as "sweet," "novelty," and "mickey mouse." a common theme in my inter­ views with both mrican american and white women musicians from the 1940s is the frustration of understanding oneself to be playing in the mode of count basie, harry james, or jimmie lunceford, but being perceived by audiences and reviewers as a kind of entertainment akin to "dancing dogs." even playing in styles associated with men were more likely to earn women's bands popularity as sex-spectacles-cross-dressers of sorts-as evidenced by the many references in the trades to women trumpet players as "the female louis armstrong" and drummers as "a gene krupa in girls' clothes."24 masculinity studies of jazz would be enriched by the incorporation of what judith halberstam (1998) calls "fe­ male masculinities," and gender studies of jazz would benefit from the in­ clusion of femininities, a greater range of masculinities, and the incorpo­ ration of representations of women, both dominant ones and women's self-representations of their experiences as jazz subjects. jazz and gender with women in it i have spoken about battles within jazz studies affecting the incorpora­ tion of gender analysis and the inclusion of women's experiences as jazz subjects, but there are battles in women's studies that are worth consider­ ing as well. feminist historians have been debating the importance of writing women's experience versus the merits of gender analysis for some time, a difficult conversation that louise newman describes as "an im­ passe sometimes characterized by academic name-calling, with historians of women accusing historians of gender of political irrelevancy and histo­ rians of gender calling historians of women theoretically naive" (newman 1991:58). newman argues for a bridge that reconceptualizes women's "experience" as not just a political standpoint, but as something that is "produced by and mediated through cultural forms" that are shaped by 396 current musicology constructions of gender, as well as of "race, class, nationality, ethnicity, etc." (ibid.:66-67). far from apolitical catchphrases, what these terms mean, and how they affect our lives, make them too important to dismiss as academic fashion. social analysis can help us to understand why differ­ ently located people have the experiences that they do. in jazz, as in other fields, asking "where are the women?" is not only a useful question for un­ covering "lost" or "hidden" histories of women's achievements, but it is a useful question for finding out how gender structures a field. asking "where are the women?" in jazz history can sometimes reveal ar­ eas that i call the "feminized, marginalized, and devalued sub-categories" of jazz. at various historical moments, these feminized and devalued areas (which contain both women and men) have included music educators, vocalists, novelty bands, "sweet" bands, certain instruments (such as flute and harp, and sometimes-and sometimes resolutely not!hammond organ), local scenes, family bands, and "all-girl" bands, which were invari­ ably seen as a distinct "inauthentic" genre even when they played the same charts with the same instrumentation and influences as men's bands that were constructed as authentic. music education has been an area that has contained both women and men, and has been feminized and devalued. if we paid more attention to it in jazz historiography, we would know more about some influential women who were active in this area, including daisy peterson, music teacher of many jazz musicians and oscar peter­ son's sister; about alma hightower, the drummer who led a wpa chil­ dren's band in los angeles in the 1930s and 1940s; and about other teachers, male and female, who trained jazz musicians.25 the loss of these histories only helps to buoy the racist notions of black musicians as untu­ tored, natural geniuses.26 krin gabbard has equated male band leader kay kyser's stage antics with an aura of "emasculation" that led to the exclusion of his band from serious musical consideration (1996:23-32). for gabbard, kyser's "emas­ culation" is produced through the band leader acting like a nerd instead of a he-man. i would add that it is also significant that he utilized a per­ formance style that was associated with the feminized and devalued sphere of "novelty" bands (bands whose entertainment value emphasized gim­ micks and comedy). "all-girl" bands were automatically considered "nov­ elty" bands, with women musicians as their gimmick, regardless of reper­ toire, instrumentation, or musicianship. even the feminized, devalued sphere of "all-girl" bands served as a disposable container for both women and men who built their careers therein. female vocalists who sang with all-woman bands, as well as male leaders and arrangers, have been ex­ cluded along with these bands' female instrumentalists. my own area of study for the last decade has been, in fact, "all-girl" bands during world war ii, and i will now turn to this feminized, devalsherrie tucker 397 ued area as an illustration of why "where are the women?" is, for me, a more far-reaching question for jazz studies than listing individual women's names as tokens of appreciation. when i tried to "listen to gender" in the historical evidence of "all-girl" bands (oral histories, reviews, publicity pho­ tos, some short films, and very few recordings), the gaps between how women musicians narrated their experiences and how they were repre­ sented (or neglected) in dominant jazz discourse were so great and so con­ tradictory that i needed to broaden my scope. i found it necessary to listen to how "all-girl" bands operated on fields of gender, race, class, sexuality, and nation-fields that also included such things as men's bands, a world war, and radical changes in labor and migration. i theorized that during the war years, the entire profession of musician was feminized, as ideas about acceptable masculinity were equated with military service. in part, the relative acceptance of women musicians during world war ii was due to the feminization of the field. and, to an extent, this acceptance was due to the ideological linkage of "working for, supporting, and entertain­ ing our boys" with acceptable notions of female behavior. both of these gender constructions account for how and why women's bands would be acceptable during world war ii, and why they would not be considered "real bands" in dominant jazz discourse. another factor is that music trades such as down beat and the musicians' union were lobbying the govern­ ment to classify the job of "musician" as "essential" and "draft-exempt." so at the same time that women musicians were actively using down beat want ads to search for jobs (and, in fact, many jobs were available for women musicians, who were, after all, one category of draft exemption), down beat editorials, photos, and cartoons all used representations of women's bodies to define the boundaries of jazz by signaling "not real jazz."27 i didn't expect to find this. this is another articulation of gender and jazz that i stumbled upon by asking "where are the women?" and "why and how did they manage to both exist in, and disappear from, jazz his­ tory?" when i first started going through down beat magazines of the late 1930s through the 1940s, it was because i was in search of information on "all-girl" bands. i knew there would be an occasional listing, as several books on women in jazz had already been published and the authors listed down beat as one of their sources. but what i didn't expect to find were the other ways that women's bodies had been represented in the magazine. i was especially struck by the jokes, poems, and cartoons in which women were portrayed as sexy, ditzy, talentless singers, dumb dates who didn't appreciate jazz, provincial killjoys (often wives) who spoil hipster fun, and squealing, misguided sinatra fans (sinatra's war-time popularity among female fans, despite his 4-f rating and skinny physique, ranked him unpopular with many servicemen) .28 398 current musicology while the careers of many women musicians went unnoticed or under­ rated, there was no shortage of representations of women's bodies in down beat. these representations abounded in down beat during the war years, much as they abound in jazz, though the historical context is radi­ cally different. in both cases, "authentic jazz subjects" are defined in oppo­ sition to women's bodies that signify "not real jazz" (or "exceptional," i.e., "not real" women). interestingly, though down beat was a white-owned and -operated institution, the inauthentic jazz subjects marked by women's bodies in down beat were invariably marked by white women's bodies. down beat's rigid and essentialist formula of "negroes play superior hot jazz" and "women play sweet nonjazz and do it poorly" was confused by the presence of black women musicians. were they black? were they women? were they jazz? were they not jazz? down beat solved this mystery by rarely depicting mrican american women's bands. interestingly, down beat suffered no similar dilemmas over the presence of white male jazz musicians, who were praised routinely for their ability to learn and excel at a music that black men were presumed to come by naturally. accordingly, i found that although all "all-girl" bands were marginal­ ized, they were not marginalized equally, and that these differences had a great deal to do with what various women's bodies and performances sig­ nified on fields of gender, race, class, etc. not surprisingly, the most com­ mercially successful "all-girl" bands tended to be white, and tended to be those that were seen and heard as "not real jazz." phil spitalny's "hour of charm" orchestra, with its audio-visual performance that hailed historical memories of accomplished victorian ladies entertaining guests in the par­ lor, epitomizes this effect. the darlings of rhythm, the band i mentioned earlier in which members described their music as undifferentiated from men's music, were popular in the black press, barely mentioned in down beat, and are now absent from jazz discourse. without an analysis of jazz in a field of gender, one might assume that the women who were depicted in down beat were the ones who best fit the magazine's standards for jazz bands. merit arguments don't hold water in the pages of dominant jazz discourse, or jazz studies, for that matter, any more than they do at lincoln center. my purpose, in other words, is not to argue that we all recognize once and for all that women are now and have always been present in jazz (though they certainly have), or that "real jazz ability" is gender-free. i am interested in how jazz sounds, spaces, images, scholarship, and historiogra­ phy are gendered whether women are in them or not, and in what we can learn about jazz and gender when we ask "where are the women?" and theorize those representations and experiences. i'll leave you with two personal anecdotes about jazz and gender. sherrie tucker 399 i. has anyone else out there had the experience of approaching the bandstand with a notebook to ask a question for a review one is writing for a jazz magazine-only to be interrupted by someone who wishes to order a vodka tonic? now there's a jazz experience on the field of gender. and so is an experience that i, as a white woman, have not had, but that has been described to me by an african american woman colleague: i, unlike her, have never been mistaken for a vocalist in the band. and so are the experiences described by douglas henry daniels and reuben jackson, who have remarked that as african american men who write about jazz, they are often assumed to be members of the band.29 all of these are ex­ amples of how jazz operates on a field of gender and race (as fields of power). but so is the unremarked presence of a white male jazz critic jot­ ting down notes for his review. ii. a friend asks me if she should keep or return the four-cd jazz com­ pilation sent to her by her book club. she wants to enhance her knowl­ edge of jazz, but she's uncomfortable with the package they sent. i look it over. each cd has a selection of straight ahead, blues, and standards played by a revolving roster of notable jazz artists, from red garland to eddie "lockjaw" davis to cindy blackman. in the whole collec­ tion, blackman is the only woman. yet, the inclusion of one woman-a drummer, no less-among the dozens of instrumentalists, constitutes a milestone in the world of anthologized jazz recordings. "but look at the covers," says my friend. 'jazz for a rainy afternoon" is represented by a white woman walking in the rain in what appears to be a wet mesh dress over black bikini under­ wear. the cover for 'jazz for the open road" depicts a white woman in high heels and short skirt hitchhiking by thrusting her pelvis toward the headlamp of an oncoming sedan. 'jazz for when you're alone" is a collection of ballads: "'round midnight," "stars fell on alabama," "you don't know what love is"-tunes, in other words, that jazz musicians of­ ten play. the picture on the cover is of a woman in a fuzzy sweater, rub­ bing her thighs together, directing a come-hither look right at you that doesn't make it seem like she's alone. and 'jazz for a lazy day" (the disc that includes drummer cindy blackman on one cut) invites the viewer to follow a white woman who wades, fetchingly, away from us in a creek. is she aware of our gaze? though the water barely covers her ankles, her sopping wet skirt clings opaquely to her butt and thighs. i think about the down beat cartoons; the writhing prostitutes of ken burns's jazz; the hor­ ror and titillation that their own sexual associations with jazz and black masculinity have held for white mainstream audiences; the whole super­ charged history of white women's sexual bodies as the makers or breakers of white racial purity; the whole supercharged history of hyper-sexualization 400 current musicology of black people and culture for white entertainment, violence, and domi­ nance; the effects of the white male gaze on the unrepresentability of black people's pleasure and agency and subjectivity, all women's pleasure and agency and subjectivity, and especially of black women's pleasure and agency and subjectivity. yes, i say. this collection will enhance your knowledge about jazz. in all kinds of ways. i'm a liar if! say it won't. the shape of jazz studies to come though experience and history both warn me that many jazz scholars will probably read this article as a call for white male bashing, i hope that there will be at least some who will hear my intended call for ear-training in jazz studies that would enable us to listen for gender and race as inextri­ cable, complicated, changing, and profoundly salient to our work if we are seriously interested in historical and cultural significance of jazz produc­ tion and consumption. a far more complex variety of race-specific gen­ ders and sexualities have flourished and clashed, collaborated and cut each other down, in jazz contexts than is commonly acknowledged. even the well-known versions of jazz genders that "fit" the mold of dominant jazz discourse are constructed and policed in relation to other genders, and these struggles are not just about style and taste, but about power. ideas about femininity and masculinity have been historically embedded in discourses of jazz authenticity and value. analyses of both women's and men's jazz practices will benefit from explorations of struggles over ideas about masculinities and femininities, as improvised over the unpredictable changes of social and political time, by musicians, audiences, journalists, historians, collectors, disk jockeys, record producers, documentary and feature film-makers, and academics. 30 of course, these powerful social ideas that affect all our lives are changing constantly, and, as in jazz, the changes sometimes go by awfully fast. that's why we need "big ears." notes * i presented an earlier version of this paper at the american studies association, seattle, washington, november 22, 1998. i would like to thank fellow panelists ingrid monson and bob mcmichael, commentator herman gray, and au­ dience participants, particularly nichole rustin, for helpful dialogue at our ses­ sion, "troubling the silences in the sound of surprise: jazz and the intersection of race and gender politics." 1. see, for instance, the critical directions promoted by a diverse range of jazz studies authors in gabbard (1995a, 1995b) and buckner and weiland (1991). 2. see, for instance, whitely (2000), as well as articles in whitely (1997) and barkin and hamessley (1999). sherrie tucker 401 3. see, for example, heble (2000:141-65), guillory (1998), gabbard (1995b:10430), carby (1998:135-65), monson (1995), ake (1998), and griffin (2001). 4. for the armstrong scenes, see jazz, episode 6. bolden and morton scenes can be found in episode 1. 5. as someone who has spent a great deal of time researching and writing about all-female big bands of the 1940s-groups that were seldom recorded and routinely omitted or trivialized in music trades and subsequent jazz and swing historiography-i am grateful for research models for listening for social mean­ ings, and not just for trans-social "greatness," even if, at least for the moment, it all­ too-often means fewer transcriptions. this trade-off is a tendency not only in jazz studies, but in other fields of music scholarship as well, as exemplified by this ice breaker from a recent society for ethnomusicology mixer: "so, do you do notes, or do you do race/class/gender?" (i wish i caught your name so i could cite you!) despite the tendency for polar ice caps to divide researchers who "do" musicologi­ cal analysis, and those who "do" social analysis, there are also those who "do both," including susan mcclary, susan cook, ingrid monson, rob walser, martha mockus, and ellie hisama, among others. for angela davis's analysis of black mu­ sic as a site for developing "collective political social consciousness," see davis (1998). 6. for analyses of primitivist and essentialist tendencies in jazz criticism, see john gennari (1991), guthrie ramsey (1996:33), and ted gioia (1989). 7. there is also a legacy of essentialism in early jazz criticism and historiogra­ phy by mrican american writers. bearing the burden of representing black music as evidence of positive qualities of the race, black writers wrote about black music as one forum for promoting race pride, and to lobby for increased respect and im­ proved conditions for all mrican americans. this body of jazz writing, published primarily in segregated print circuits such as the black press, did not fit the para­ digm nor make much of a dent in dominant jazz discourse, but is a valuable source for better understanding the serious struggles over competing social mean­ ings that have occurred in jazz settings. see ramsey (1996) and porter (1997). 8. see also omi and winant (1994:55) for a presentation of "racial formation theory," which accounts for the "sociohistorical process by which racial categories are created, inhabited, transformed and destroyed." 9. comments by george lipsitz on "popular culture and urban struggle," american studies association, detroit, michigan, october 14, 2000. 10. in contemporary usage, "women of color" is a u.s.-specific term that en­ compasses many groups of women, including latina, asian american, native american, and mrican american women, and sometimes other groups as well, such as arab americans. the history of this usage of the term has an activist as well as a theoretical history, and represents a coalition developed in the 1960s and 1970s of non-white feminists of various backgrounds, who found themselves multiply-marginalized: in liberation movements in their racial, ethnic, and cultural communities, and by women's liberation and women's rights groups dominated by mainstream white feminists who were often unable to recognize the signifi­ cance of differences between women, as well as commonalities among them. for examples of women-of-color writing, see, for instance, cherrie moraga and gloria anzaldua (1981). 402 current musicology 11. for scholarship that explicitly maps how such theories have been and can be applied in musicology and ethnomusicology, see monson (1997), mcclary (1991), and cusick (1999). 12. thanks to ongoing work in musicology and ethnomusicology, jazz studies does not have to begin from scratch as it figures out how to listen for gender. a strong intellectual community devoted to applying feminist theory and queer the­ ory to music has been developed through a series of groundbreaking conferences on "feminist theory and music." the participants of these meetings who work in jazz include susan cook, travis jackson, and myself. see, also, the scholarly journal, women and music: a journal of gender and culture. 13. i find it fascinating that the repeated inclusion of mary lou williams as a token of appreciation in jazz historiography is so closely paralleled by diane middlebrook's analysis of billy tipton as a woman who passes as a man in order to play jazz (middlebrook 1998). while middlebrook's biographical treatment of tipton is more complicated than that, my own speculation about tipton's story is that he was no more passing as a man in order to play, than was williams, but that this is the only narrative in dominant jazz discourse that can explain the existence of women instrumentalists, even musicians so diverse as williams and tipton. my guess is that tipton presented himself as a man because he identified as a man, and would possibly not be pleased with his greatest fame being achieved as the subject of the first biography of a woman jazz instrumentalist. 14. incidentally, florentine films, the production company that produced jazz, contacted me early on for phone numbers of musicians from an all-woman big band popular with black audiences in the 1930s and 1940s, the international sweethearts of rhythm. the ken burns organization interviewed two alumnae from that band, yet left the footage out of the completed documentary. just before the documentary aired, i was contacted again, this time with a request for an essay on women in jazz that could run on the ken burns jazz web-site. i complied, feel­ ing that it would be better to have the information available even if it wasn't deemed part of the prime time narrative. my essay focused on women instrumen­ talists, making the point that while women have been accepted as vocalists throughout the history of the music, they have been marginalized as instrumental­ ists, except as pianists. amazingly, the web designers added audio links to female vocalists as illustrations! for instance, my line "because infonnation on female jazz vocalists is more readily available, this historical sketch concentrates on instrumen­ talists" is illustrated with an audio link to billie holiday singing "fine and mellow!" also, whenever i mentioned a male instrumentalist, his name was highlighted on the web-site because there was a link to more information about him. when i men­ tioned a female instrumentalist, her name was not highlighted-no link-again, il­ lustrating not her existence, but her lesser importance. the website is an uncanny demonstration of historical erasure in action (http://www.pbs.org/jazz/time/ time_women.htm) . 15. many thanks to gina dent and the students in her graduate seminar, "popular culture and social problems," for the stimulating discussion of this fasci­ nating segue injazz, episode 6. university of california, berkeley, march 15, 2001. 16. i do not mean to undermine advocacy literature. i envision gender theoriz­ ing that complements such work. recent efforts to eliminate sexism injazz include sherrie tucker 403 the protests against jazz at lincoln center for failing to audition or hire women musicians for the lincoln center jazz orchestra, spurred by lara pellegrinelli's in­ vestigative piece (2000) and cheered on by jazz critic nat hentoff (2001). the international association for jazz educators includes a women's caucus, a mentor­ ship program called sisters in jazz, and the lil hardin armstrong award honoring a pioneering jazzwoman residing in the city of the annual conference. psychology professor doris wright's study-in-progress, "career development of women in jazz," seeks to understand barriers facing women and girls who pursue careers in jazz (kansas state university). jeanette lambert's 'jazzgrrrls" listserv provides jazz­ women with an internet community for sharing information and questions and a support network. an example of the potential alliances between gender theory and feminist practice is enacted in ajay heble and gillian siddal's co-authored chapter, "nice work if you can get it: women in jazz." heble and siddall note the remarkable resistance encountered by the guelph jazz festival when they pro­ grammed a "women injazz" theme in 1998 (heble 2000:141-65). from their expe­ riences as cultural critics and jazz festival programmers, they developed a set of questions for theorizing gender and women in jazz. 17. see carby (1998:135-65), kelley (2001), gabbard (1995b:104-30), walser (1995), and guillory (1998). 18. see walser (1995) and gabbard (1995b:l04-30). 19. i have more reservations about approaches to jazzmen and masculinity studies that rely on quick and dirty equations of horns and screech trumpets with expressions of phallic power. my caution is grounded in a historical consideration of the working conditions of female brass players, who have been bombarded with jokes about "blowing" and "horniness," who are relentlessly told that women appear vulgar when blowing into horns and that women lack the physical ability to blow horns, and who are assumed by all kinds of people to play trumpet out of "lack" (in freudian terms). if that doesn't set your caution meter spinning, then consider all those gender and race stereotypes about black women as castrating matriarchs. for many reasons, i resist the notion that trumpet envy is the best theoretical tool avail­ able for understanding the careers of dolly and dyer jones, valaida snow, jean starr, tiny davis, billie rogers, clora bryant, et al. surely, the signs of gender in music (and elsewhere) are more fluid and changing than a direct link from horn to penis to phallus would indicate. why isn't the flute phallic? it, even more than the trumpet, is high-pitched and rod-like. gender cannot be theorized simply by the shape of objects or fixed equations of sound and meaning, but through analyz­ ing social meanings and practice in historical and cultural contexts. 20. farah griffin (2001) theorizes the limitations of respectability politics in her superb race and gender analysis of billie holiday. see also my forthcoming ar­ ticle, "improvising womanhood, or a conundrum is a woman: race, gender, and representation in black women'sjazz, 1930-1950." 21. preston love's autobiography (1997), perhaps the most radical departure of all, is a self-representation of love as lead player (rather than improviser), as family man, as laborer trying to make a living at his craft, and as author analyzing his own life as a black male musician on the road, an analysis that includes addressing the importance of writing it himself. david ake (1998) explores "alternative mas­ culinities" facilitated by jazz in his analysis of the music and testimony of ornette 404 current musicology coleman, drawing parallels between coleman's use of diminutive instruments (e.g., his plastic saxophone and don cherry's pocket trumpet), with coleman's stated temptations to castrate himself. some of ake's analysis strikes me as ahistori­ cal, as it tends toward an oversimplification of many forces impacting struggles over race, gender, and sexuality that ultimately overestimates the power of margin­ alized identities and representations to destabilize hegemonic ones. it further­ more underestimates the possibility that coleman's rejection of the image of the hyper-phallic jazzman was an implicit critique of the construction of hyper-virility that is commonly mapped onto mrican american men-and onto black male jazz musicians in particular ways-by the dominant culture. this is a stereotype that has, in fact, been historically deployed to justify lynching and castration of black men. 22. see my chapter, "the darlings of rhythm: on the road and ready to run," in tucker (2000:195-224), also published as "'nobody's sweethearts': gender, race, jazz, and the darlings of rhythm," american music 16 (1998): 255-88. 23. the need for complex gender analyses to account for constructions of jazz masculinities is well illustrated by a 1956 down beat article on horace silver, in which the pianist complained of cool jazz (a genre often associated with a certain school of white musicians on the west coast) as "faggot-type jazz ... with no guts." silver warned young readers of the magazine that listening to "faggot-type jazz" may, in fact, lead to their own "faggot-type jazz" futures, a fate they should guard against by listening more to "the masters like bird, bud, tatum, lester young, coleman hawkins, miles, sonny rollins-the guys with depth" (hentoff 1956:18). many thanks to mark burford for calling my attention to this remarkable example of the many ways race, gender, and sexuality are entangled throughout jazz dis­ course at its many levels. 24. a down beat article in 1937 described the female drummer in the "all-girl" band the ingenues as "a gene kiupa in girls' clothes!" another drummer was described in 1940 as a "skirted krupa." see "they have a gene krupa in girls' clothes!" (down beat, april 1937, p. 21) and "anne wallace weds, quits" (down beat, september 1,1940, p. 8). 25. for information on daisy peterson, see mark miller (1997:250-51). for ac­ counts of alma hightower's band, see the many references to her wpa band in oral histories of mrican american musicians in los angeles conducted by steven isoardi and compiled in clora bryant et al. (1998). 26. for a consideration of these primitivist myths with regard to musical liter­ acy among early jazz musicians, see david chevan's article in this issue (pp. 20031). see also jeffery mcmillan's discussion of ernestine morgan's central role in the early musical education of her brother, lee morgan (pp. 160-61). 27. for a sampling of such images, see down beat, august 15, 1943 (women linking arms with a male band leader; caption reads: "i haven't seen the new beat -are they his third or fourth wives, or two new members of the brass section?"); march 15, 1944 (a "girl singer" whose breasts are about to fall out of her strapless gown tries to remember: "he said to watch my timing, my phrasing-and what were those other things?"); andjuly 1, 1944 (a woman in the sax section without a sax looks annoyed. the tenor man next to her admonishes: "quit your squeakin'! sherrie tucker 405 with these prices-how else can i take you out?"). again and again, women on the bandstand are depicted as not real jazz musicians, constructing the outer limits that maintains the boundaries of the "real jazz subject." 28. see lewis a. erenberg's excellent discussion of the challenges to gender ideology posed by frank sinatra's war-time popularity (1998:196-98). see also steven b. elworth (1995). 29. daniels writes that musicians and managers often assumed that he, as a black man, was ajazz musician (and not the writer/professor who had scheduled the appointment) when he showed up in jazz clubs to meet with musicians he wished to interview for his historical research on lester young (daniels 1987:152). at a panel discussion, jackson contrasted his own experiences as a black male jazz critic who is often assumed to be a jazz musician, with those of fe­ male jazz instrumentalists who are often assumed not to be musicians ("agents of change" panel, sung/unsungjazzwomen symposium, presented by the smithsonian institution and 65, an arts center, bam majestic brooklyn theater, october 20, 1996). 30. despite professional antagonisms between these various roles, there is also a great deal of variance of opinions and politics within the categories; oddly enough, one of the things those of us who study jazz tend to have in common is that we frequently enlist in two or more of these incompatible "warring factions" at once. references ake, david. 1998. re-masculating jazz: ornette coleman, "lonely woman," and the new york jazz scene in the late 1950s. american music 16: 147-66. barkin, elaine, and lydia hamessley, eds. 1999. audible traces: gender, identity, and music. zurich and los angeles: carciofoli verlagshaus. bryant, clora, buddy collette, william green, steven isoardi, jack kelson, horace tapscott, gerald wilson, and marl young, eds. 1998. central avenue sounds: jazz in los angeles. berkeley: university of california press. buckner, reginald t., and steven weiland. 1991. jazz in mind: essays on the history and meanings of jazz. detroit: wayne state university press. carby, hazel. 1987. reconstructing womanhood: the emergence of the afro-american woman novelist. oxford: oxford university press. ---. 1998. race men. cambridge, mass., and london: harvard university press. cleage, pearl. 1993. deals with the devil and other reasons to riot. new york: ballantine. coates, norma. 1997. (r)evolution now: rock and the political potential of gender. in sexing the groove: popular music and gender, edited by sheila whiteley, 50-64. london: routledge. crenshaw, kimberle. 1995. introduction. in critical race theory: the key writings that formed the movement, edited by kimberle crenshaw, neil gotanda, gary peller, and kendall thomas, xiii-xxxii. new york: new press. cusick, suzanne g. 1999. on musical performances of gender and sex. in audible traces: gender, identity, and music, edited by elaine barkin and lydia hamess­ ley, 5-48. zurich and los angeles: carciofoli verlagshaus. 406 current musicology dahl, linda. 1989. stormy weather: the music and lives of a century of jazzwomen. new york: limelight editions. daniels, douglas henry. 1987. oral history, masks, and protocol in the jazz community. oral history review 15: 143-64. davis, angela y. 1998. blues legacies and black feminism: gertrude "ma" rainey, bessie smith, and billie holiday. new york: pantheon books. deveaux, scott. 1991. constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography. black american literature forum 25: 525-60. erenberg, lewis a. 1998. swingin' the dream: big band jazz and the rebirth of american culture. chicago and london: university of chicago press. elworth, steven b. 1995. jazz in crisis, 1948-1958: ideology and representation. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 57-75. durham, n.c.: duke university press. gabbard, krin, ed. 1995a.jazz among the discourses. durham, n.c.: duke university press. ---, ed. 1995b. representingjazz. durham, n.c.: duke university press. ---.1996. jammin' at the margins: jazz and american cinema. chicago: university of chicago press. gaddison, frann. 1994. telephone interview with the author, july 8. gennari, john. 1991. jazz criticism: its developments and ideologies. black american literature forum 25: 449-523. gilroy, paul. 1987. "there ain't no black in the union jack": the cultural politics of race and nation. chicago: university of chicago press. gioia, ted. 1989. jazz and the primitivist myth. musical quarterly 73: 130-43. gray, herman. 1995. black masculinity and visual culture. callaloo 18: 401-5. ---. 1997. jazz tradition, institutional formation, and cultural practice: the canon and the street as frameworks for oppositional black cultural politics. in from sociology to cultural studies: new perspectives, edited by elizabeth long, 351-73. malden, mass.: blackwell publishers. griffin, farah jasmine. 2001. if you can't be free, be a mystery: in search of billie holiday. new york: the free press. guillory, monique. 1998. black bodies swingin': race, gender, and jazz. in soul: black power, politics, and pleasure, edited by monique guillory and richard c. green, 191-215. new york: new york university press. hajdu, david. 1996. lush life: a biography of billy strayhorn. new york: northpoint press. halberstam, judith. 1998. female masculinity. durham, n.c.: duke university press. hall, stuart. 1992. what is this "black" in black popular culture? in black popular culture (a project by michelle wallace), edited by gina dent, 21-33. seattle: bay press. handy, d. antoinette. 1998. black women in american bands and orchestras. 2d ed. metuchen, nj.: scarecrow press. heble, j\iay. 2000. landing on the wrong note: jazz, dissonance, and critical practice. new york and london: routledge. hentoff, nat. 1956. even mynheers turn to silver. down beat (october 31): 17-18. ---.2001. testosterone is not an instrument. jazz times (june): 166. sherrie tucker 407 kelley, robin d. g. 1993. "we are not what we seem": rethinking black working-class opposition in the jim crow south. journal of american history 80: 75-112. ---.1999. new monastery: monk and the jazz avant-garde. black music researchjournall9: 135-68. ---. 2001. miles davis, the chameleon of cool: ajazz genius in the guise of a hustler. new york times (may 13): sec. 2, p. 1. lewis, george e. 1996. improvised music after 1950: afrological and eurological perspectives. black music research journal 16: 91-122. love, preston. 1997. a thousand honey creeks later: my life in music from basie to motown-and beyond. hanover, n.h.: wesleyan university press. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. middlebrook, diane wood. 1998. suits me: the double life of billy tipton. boston and new york: houghton mifflin. miller, mark. 1997. such melodious racket: the lost history of jazz in canada. toronto: mercury press. monson, ingrid. 1995. the problem with white hipness: race, gender, and cultural conceptions in jazz historical discourse. journal of american musicological society 48: 396-422. ---.1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: uni­ versity of chicago press. ---.1997. music and the anthropology of gender and cultural identity. women and music: ajournal of gender and culture 1: 24-32. moraga, cherrie, and gloria anzaldua, eds. 1981. this bridge called my back. watertown, mass.: persephone press. newman, louise m. 1991. critical theory and the history of women: what's at stake in deconstructing women's history. journal of women's history 2: 58-68. nieuwkerk, karin van. 1995. ''a trade like any other": female singers and dancers in egypt. austin: university of texas press. ogren, kathy. 1989. the jazz revolution: twenties america and the meaning of jazz. new york and london: oxford. ami, michael, and howard winant. 1994. racial formation in the united states: from the 1960s to the 1990s. new york: routledge. pellegrinelli, lara. 2000. dig boy dig. village voice (november 8-14): 65-67. placksin, sally. 1982. american women in jazz, 1900 to the present: their words, lives, and music. new york: wideview books. porter, lewis. 1997. jazz, a century of change: readings and new essays. new york: schirmer books. radano, ronald m. 1993. new musical figurations: anthony braxton's cultural critique. chicago: university of chicago press. ramsey, guthrie p.,jr. 1996. cosmopolitan or provincial?: ideology in early black music historiography, 1867-1940. black music research journal 16: 11-42. rustin, nichole t. 1999. mingus fingers: charles mingus, black masculinity, and post­ war jazz culture. ph.d. diss., new york university. 408 current musicology scott, joan wallach. 1986. gender: a useful category of historical analysis. american historical review 91: 1053-75. ---. 1988. gender and the politics of history. new york: columbia university press. small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. hanover, n.h.: wesleyan university press. solie, ruth. 1997. defining feminism: conundrums, contexts, communities. women and music: ajoumal of gender and culture 1: 1-11. szwed, john. 1998. space is the place: the lives and times of sun ra. new york: da capo press. traister, bryce. 2000. academic viagra: the rise of american masculinity studies. american quarterly 52: 274-304. tucker, sherrie. 2000. swing shift: "all-girl" bands of the 1940s. durham, n.c.: duke university press. ---. forthcoming. improvising womanhood, or a conundrum is a woman: race, gender, and representation in black women's jazz, 1930-1950. in black culture, industry, and everyday life, edited by s. craig watkins. new york: blackwell. walser, robert. 1995. "out of notes": signification, interpretation, and the problem of miles davis. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 165-88. durham, n.c.: duke university press. whitely, sheila, ed. 1997. sexing the groove: popular music and gender. london: routledge. ---. 2000. women and popular music: sexuality, identity, and subjectivity. london: routledge. donald george moe-the st. mark passion of reinhard keiser: a practical edition with an account of its historical background [with] volume ii· score. ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 68-16,839, 1968. volume i: 150 p.; volume ii, xix, 208 p., university of iowa diss.) stanley a. malinowski, jr. 1 reinhard keiser (1674-1739) is remembered today primarily for his operas, which number more than one hundred.2 music historians have consigned him to a position secondary to that of handel, who arrived in hamburg in 1703 and enjoyed an immediate popularity with the opera audiences that eclipsed keiser's fame in that city. nevertheless, as manager of the hamburg opera house from 1696 to 1707, keiser wrote and produced at least twenty-seven full-length operas and numerous shorter works, and many of them enjoyed great success on the stage. though not a consummate genius on the order of bach and handel, keiser was an able composer. there was no lack of esteem for him by his contemporaries-matthes on, scheibe, telemann, and handel, to name but a few, have been quoted as admiring his work. mattheson referred to him as "the foremost man of the world" and asked, "what kind of musical triumphal arch would it have been, in which reinhard keiser had no niche ?"3 handel, a master at taking other composers' ideas and developing them in his own way, borrowed many times from keiser's operas.4 c. p. e. bach acknowledged to forkel the influence of keiser upon his father as follows: "in his last years he esteemed highly: fux, caldara, handel kayser [sic], hasse, both grauns, telemann, zelenka, benda, and, in general, everything that was worthy of esteem in berlin and dresden."5 one of the most significant compliments that could be paid keiser was made by j. s. bach, who thought enough of the st. mark passion to copy it out and perform it himself, probably in weimar and in leipzig.6 indeed, that the st. mark passion exists at all today is due in no small way to bach, for it is only through performance material made by or for bach that this work has survived. the st. mark passion is the last of seven known passion compositions by keiser. most of the earlier works are passion oratorios, i.e., compositions on a specially written poetic libretto that take the form of an oratorio with recitatives, arias, choruses, and chorales. the st. mark passion, however, is an oratorio passion, that is, a composition using a biblical account of the passion story as a text, but with the addition of arias, choruses, and chorales on poetic or non-biblical texts (or occasionally texts from the prophets, psalms, etc., but not from the gospels themselves). though not of the monumental proportions of bach's extant passions, 121 keiser's st. mark is a substantial work. to the biblical text are added ten arias and four chorale settings, which serve as commentary to appropriate passages of the gospel. the passion is scored for four-part chorus, soloists, two violins, two violas, and continuo. in addition, one aria has an oboe obbligato marked in the first violin part. in his dissertation on the work donald moe considers this a conservative orchestration in comparison with keiser's opera orchestras (p. 112), and indeed it is. it was typical of passions at that time, however, to employ a reduced orchestra; trumpets and drums, for example, were not used because they would add an inappropriate festivity to a solemn occasion. strings formed the core of most passion orchestras; they accompanied arias and the recitatives of christ and doubled the voice parts in the chorales. in addition, flutes and oboes were used frequently in arias because their tonal colors suited well the mood of the passion story. of course, there is a possibility that winds doubled the violins for some arias, and that bassoons doubled the bass line. dr. moe deals only casually with these possibilities and makes no recommendations as to their use. it is not likely that bach changed keiser's orchestration, since he used flutes, oboes, and bassoons in his own passions (1723 and 1729) and presumably would have had the same forces on hand in 1726. the deutsche staatsbibliothek in east berlin possesses two sets of parts for the keiser passion,7 one a complete set partially in bach's hand, the other an incomplete set copied entirely by bach. the stiftung preussischer kulturbesitz in west berlin has in its possession a score of this work,s with music in the hand of an unknown copyist and text underlaid in red ink by bach. the parts alone were used by dr. moe in preparing his practical edition of the st. mark passion. although he was aware of the existence of the score, at the time of his work this manuscript was in the process of being returned to berlin, along with the remainder of the former possessions of the prussian state library, from temporary postwar storage in marburg, and it was not possible to obtain a microfilm of it. discrepancies exist between the score and the parts in regard to the actual contents of the passion, and these differences were noted by richard petzoldt in a prewar dissertation.9 what dr. moe has done is to prepare a practical edition that represents the st. mark passion as it exists in one source alone. in his presentation of the music as it stands in these parts, he has rendered a generally faithful edition which is marred by only a few minor errors and misreadings. a comparison (by this reviewer) of microfilms of both score and parts with the edition under study reveals that, in the case of questionable readings, dr. moe made his choice with discretion. by using instrumental and vocal parts that had actually been employed in performance, the editor had the advantage of finding minor corrections made in these parts by the players that might otherwise have gone unnoticed in the score. the editor makes note of his changes in a "list of revisions" and a "list of slurs added by the editor." this latter list might have been replaced by a more convenient editorial procedure, such as a 122 vertical slash through added slurs, which would have made it easier for the performer to distinguish keiser from moe. about the same time that dr. moe was completing his edition, a commercially published edition of the same piecelo appeared in germany. like dr. moe's work, this version is intended as a performance edition, although it also has notes on the sources and revisionsbemerkungen, making it of use to the scholar as well as to the performer. the german editor acknowledges the parts as his preferred source and employs the selection and order of movements or "numbers" found there as the basis of his edition. having checked details against the score, he has resolved conflicts where necessary. in general, this edition and dr. moe's agree in terms of the notes on all but the smallest details. in judging the merits of the moe edition as a "practical" one, the first consideration should be its "practicality," i.e., how suitable is it for the performer? (although a set of instrumental parts was also prepared by the editor, these are not supplied with the print of the dissertation and hence are not under consideration.) to begin with a small but important detail, although the editor's "list of revisions" refers to specific measure numbers, neither measure numbers nor rehearsal letters appear in the edition. this is an inconvenience not only to the performer but also to one studying the music. it is only a minor inconvenience to have to pencil in such numbers when examining the music on one's own, but in a performance situation the lack of easily seen and located points of reference could cause the loss of much valuable rehearsal time. the st. mark passion is eminently worthy of performance today, and to enhance the suitability of his edition for modern american groups, dr. moe has provided an english translation of the entire passion. the merits of performance in the original language can be debated at length, but there can be little doubt that an english version of a work such as the st. mark passion will put it within the grasp of many groups that might otherwise hesitate to attempt a performance in the original german. mattheson considered keiser a master in the setting of words to music: "i believe assuredly that in the time he flourished, there was no composer who ... had set words to music so richly, naturally, flowingly, attractively, or (above all) so distinctly, understandably, and eloquently."l1 in weighing the merits of this practical edition of the st. mark passion, then, one important factor must be the appropriateness and singability of the english version. it is also obvious that this edition is intended chiefly for performance in english because the table of contents lists pieces only by their english incipits-another inconvenience to anyone other than the performer. the musical examples cited in the "historical account" volume are also given with only english translations underlaid. this is a lamentable tradition that dr. moe inherits from a long line of english commentators on the passion in general. unless one happens to be familiar with the particular edition and translation used by the author, one must do some hunting to 123 find the passage in question. when translations depart from a literal rendering of the text, as they often do, one can become hopelessly lostalthough this latter problem is not severe in dr. moe's edition. the recitatives have been translated with the help of the king james and german versions of the bible. the editor's goal is "to maintain good accentuation of the english words while at the same time retaining the character and shape of keiser's line" (p. x). usually he succeeds, but a few specific passages raise disturbing questions. example 1, below, shows that the editor has chosen the reading of the king james version over that of the german; he substitutes the phrase "with the palms of their hands" for the words "ins angesicht." not only does this give a different shade of meaning to the phrase, but it also creates a particularly awkward moment at the cadential figure. instead of following the syllabic accent of the word "angesicht," the figure gives undue prominence to the word "palms." in following the shape of keiser's phrase, the editor has created an instance of weak word accentuation. example 1* (no. 12, mm. 1-2) evangelist und die knechte schlugen ihn ins angesicht; and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands; * in the edition, only one staff is used, with opposing stems and cue-size notes for the alternate version. for the sake of comparison, the english version has been placed here on a separate staff. example 2 offers a similar point at which king james is favored over luther. the german "und er hub an zu weinen," translates simply as, "and he began to weep," and indeed this version would seem to fit the music fairly well. yet by trying to accommodate the traditional english version, "and when he thought thereon, he wept," the editor destroys the simple example 2 (no. 14, mm. 11-12) evangelist und er hub an zu weinen .. when he thought of this, he began to weep. 124 beauty of keiser's phrase. by using ten syllables instead of seven, he has had to add extra notes. in the first part of the phrase, there is not much difficulty, but in the second part the extra syllables get in the way of the cadence and shift the emphasis from "weep" to "began". not only is the accentuation poor, but the falling fourth, so characteristically used as a motive of weeping or sighing, is robbed of all its pictorialism. the third example is a bit different-it points out a translation that is outright clumsy. "sepulchre" is the word given in king james, but the monosyllable "tomb" would certainly do as well. the word order of the phrase "which was from a great rock hewn" is certainly not good english, even in poetic usage, and the break in the next phrase after "unto" only further befuddles the mind of the listener. example 3: (no. 46, mm. 4--8) evangelist das war in einen and laid him in a sepulchre, which was from a felsen ge-hauen, und zet einen stein great rock hewn, and rolled a stone un-to the door of the se-pul-chre. it appears, then, that the editor prefers to fit the king james translation to the music of keiser rather than to attempt an appropriate rendering of what keiser has written. this makes little sense from a scholarly or practical 125 point of view. to alter the music deliberately in order to accommodate an entirely different text from the one the composer had in mind is a distortion of the purposes of an editor. this is not editing-it is more like arranging and should be acknowledged as such. problems such as these create perhaps the weakest link in dr. moe's edition; however, there are compensations in the treatment of the arias, choruses, and chorales. the editor's procedure with regard to the arias was to create a literal translation first and then to work out a rhymed metrical version that fits the music, a sound practice with historical precedent. he succeeds for the most part in choosing words that sing well and fit the musical notes closely without departing from the meaning of the original text. dr. moe occasionally decides that a particular line is overly sentimental or excessive and alters it. for example, he finds the following lines offensive because of their implied anti-semitism: "so wirst du adams schaugerichtenj und gosens zwiebelspeise gram."12 he substitutes the lines, "reject the lust that flesh engenders, 0 child of earth in christ reborn" (no. 28, pp. 107-15). this phrase may sing well, but it distorts what the composer intended. keiser was not embarrassed by such pietistic poetry; he welcomed it, as evidenced by the praise (quoted by dr. moe himself on p. 101) which keiser lavished upon brockes for his famous passion poem der fur die sunden der welt gemarterte und sterbende jesu. for the chorales the editor has used standard translations from sources such as the lutheran hymnal in the case of all but one, for which he could not find a translation. so long as the standard translations are reasonably accurate (and these are), this practice is commendable. in addition to simplifying the editions the selection of such a translation is an advantage to the congregation, which can then sing a familar set of words to a familiar tune when one presents the passion as it was originally sung, i.e., with the congregation participating in the chorales. the editor's continuo realization is adequate for anyone not inclined to use his own for performance. however, in the recitatives one may question the use of a slanted or broken line to separate the common v-i cadential chords from the cadential figure in the voice part, in order to indicate that these chords are to be performed after the voice has sung its line. if the editor goes this far in aiding the one performer, why not also add ossia appoggiaturas at cadences for the singers? dr. moe cites donington13 : "there are few rules so unambiguous as this rule concerning appoggiaturas in recitative, and its consistent application is very strongly to be recommended" (p. xvi). yet after acknowledging that most feminine cadences on a falling fourth in the st. mark passion have the appoggiatura written out, dr. moe gives a few examples from telemann of other types of cadences and turns the problem back to the performer with the words, "it is recommended that the singer apply these general principles" (p. xv). the question of ornamentation is covered in one paragraph. after brief references 126 to c. p. e. bach and donington, the editor states: "trills and ornaments have not been written into this edition by the editor, but the performer is again urged to apply these principles" (p. xvi). again the performer is left to his own discretion, supplied only with inadequate generalizations and anachronistic sources that he may not understand how to interpret. one may well ask what a performing edition prepared by a scholar should be. the problems of transcribing notes from 18th-century manuscript sources are minimal; any musicologist should be able to handle such a problem, but this is more in the line of homework, not the substance of scholarly research. one expects that a scholar well versed in matters of 18th-century performance practice will share the knowledge he has gained from his experience by suggesting appropriate details throughout his edition; the performer may then choose to follow them or not at his own discretion. yet to ignore these problems entirely, or worse, to leave them completely in the hands of the performer, is to suggest that the editor, despite his supposed expertise, knows no more about such things than the casual performer. to imply that the performer can instantly become an expert in 18th-century practice by reading a few lines from donington is an indefensible position for a musicologist to take. in addition to the edition, dr. moe has provided a volume of historical background on passion composition up to the time of keiser. his bibliography is somewhat general in nature-witness works such as grout's history of western a1usic and reese's music in the renaissance-and overlooks a few important works, such as otto kade's die altere passionskornposition his zurn jahre 1631.14 in reading through this account one gets the distinct impression that dr. moe has done little besides quote from secondary sources. it is not even a matter of collecting microfilms of original material; his text does not show much indication that he studied seriously even the available printed editions of early passions to any degree. consider the following paragraphs (pp. 20-22): one of the last german responsorial passions is the st. mark passion by ambrosius beber, which appeared between 1610 and 1620.* this passion uses two choruses-a five-voiced chorus for the turhae and introductory and closing choruses, and a small choir of soloists who sing the parts of the soliloquents. * * the voicing for the various persons is dependent on what is being said as well as on who is speaking. for example, characters who do harm by their words to jesus have an at voicing, and those who do direct harm to jesus have an atb voicing. the words of christ are always satb. this voicing is used only two other times: when pilate gives serious consideration to jesus as "king of the jews," and when the centurion says, "truly he is the son of god."*** the evangelist's part has historical value because it represents a transition from the traditional protestant responsorial passion to the freely composed type. this is shown in two important characteristics: (l) the passion tone surpasses earlier and contemporary works in 127 "rhythmic differentiation" and shows the beginning of monodic declamation, and (2) it deviates completely from the traditional f tonality.**** * ambrosius beber, markus-passion, ed. simone wahon, vol. 66 of das chorwerk, ed. friedrich blume (wolfenbiittel: moseler verlag, 1958). ** simone wahon, "vorwort," ibid., iii. *** elwyn wienandt, choral music of the church (new york: the free press, 1965),291. **** peter epstein, "zur geschichte der deutschen choralpassion," jahrbuch der musikbibliothek peters xxxvi (1929), 36-46. these sentences constitute dr. moe's discussion of the beber passion. the content is accurate, but his methods are subject to question. for example, is it necessary to credit someone for making the simple observation that the composer has used two choruses in a work? might not the author have noted this fact himself by examining the score? this volume of historical background does not go beyond what is already known about the history of passion composition up to the time of keiser. it reads well and represents its sources accurately, but is it an original contribution to scholarly knowledge? as literature it can hardly compare with basil smallman's the background of passion music,15 one of dr. mpe's chief sources and still the best treatment of the subject, despite its brevity. what exactly has been accomplished by dr. moe's edition of the st. mark passion? it is not a scholarly edition, nor does it pretend to be. it is not a practical edition, either, for it lets the performer down when he most needs help and leaves him alone to face the important questions related to the performance of an early 18th-century oratorio. one is left with a simple diplomatic rendering of the work, to which is added an english translation of limited musical or historical value. for most performers, the schroeder edition is more suitable because it offers more help. for those who would like an edition with an english translation, an adequate one remains to be prepared. notes 1 the reviewer is grateful to professors neal zaslaw and donald jay grout for their thoughtful comments and suggestions concerning this review. 2 see the report by mary peckham on the "first american performance of reinhard keiser's croesus," current musicology 6 (1968): 81-83. 3 johann mattheson, grundlage einer ehrenpforte (hamburg, 1740), ed. max schneider (kassel: barenreiter, 1969), p. 129; p. 128. translations by the reviewer. 4 for a list of ten borrowings from keiser's octavia alone, see the preface to the hande1gesehschaft edition, supplements, vol. 6, ed. friedrich chrysander (leipzig: handelgesellschaft, 1902). see also winton dean, "handel and keiser: further borrowings," current musicology 9 (1969): 73-80. 5 hans t. david and arthur mendel, eds., the bach reader (new york: w. w. norton and co., 1966), p. 279. 128 6 it is known that the st. mark passion was performed in leipzig on 19 april 1726 (compare with the bach-dokumente, ed. werner neumann and hans-joachim schulze [kassel: barenreiter, 1969], p. 141). dr. moe also cites spitta's opinion that one set of parts for this passion dates from bach's weimar period (ca. 1717) on the basis of watermarks and handwriting (vol. i, p. 110). but he neglects the more recent research of georg dadelsen (beitrage zur chronologie der werke johann sebastian bachs, tubinger bach-studien, vols. 4/5 [trossingen: hohner, 1958], pp. 73-74), which suggests that bach performed the st. mark passion on good friday of 1713 or earlier. see also alfred durr, "zu den verschollenen passionen bachs," bach-jahrbuch 38 (1949/50): 88ff. 7 berlin, deutsches staatsbibliothek, sign.: mus. ms. 11 71. 8 berlin, stiftung preussischer kulturbesitz, sign.: mus. ills. 11471. 9 richard petzoldt, die kirchenkompositionen und weltlichen kantaten reinhard keisers (dusseldorf: dissertations-verlag g. h. nolte, 1935), pp. 30-31. 10 reinhard keiser, passion nach dem evangelisten markus, die kantate, vol. 152, ed. felix schroeder (stuttgart-hohenheim, n.d.). 11 donald jay grout, a short history of opera (new york: columbia university press, 1965), p. 154. 12 translated as "that you may bear a grudge against adam's showfeast and goshen's onion-food." 13 robert donington, the interpretation of early music (london: faber & faber, 1963), p.519. 14 gutersloh: c. bertelsmann, 1893. 15 new york: dover publications, inc., 1957/1970. 129 margaret hee-leng tanthe free music of percy grainger 197 i, 65 pp. the juilliard school diss. david s. josephson [ed. note,' this is the third in a series of writings conceived by professor josephson as an essay in bibliography, seeking to provide the foundation for a thorough and broadly-based study of the life and work of percy grainger. the first essay, "percy grainger: country gardens and other curses," is in current musicology 15 (1973): 56-63. the second, a review of thomas carl slattery's 1967 dissertation on the wind music of grainger, is in current musicology 16 (1973): 79-91. during the interval between the writing of the present review and its publication, dr. tan's thesis appeared in print as "free music of percy grainger," recorded sound (the journal of the british institute of recorded sound) 45-46 (january-april 1972): 21-38. for the convenience of the reader, references below are given first to the appropriate page or pages in the thesis, then to those in the published article. aside from the transformation of two long quotations from grainger and burnett cross in the thesis into articles printed under the authors' names in the same issue of recorded sound (and so identified by the reviewer), the two guises of dr. tan's essay are virtually identical.] margaret hee-leng tan's dissertation on percy grainger's "free music" is the second american doctoral thesis to have taken the composer's music as its subject. its aim is "to enable grainger to be viewed in a historical perspective befitting his many daring and original accomplishments" (p. 2; recorded sound [rs], p. 21). her essay is divided into four chapters, a "selected bibliography," and an appendix of musical examples.l the first chapter ("introduction") offers the reader the mandatory biographical sketch. the second deals with the principles of "free music." the third compares grainger's experimental writings with those of some of his contemporaries. the fourth chapter-the bulk of this brief dissertation-elaborates on certain early experimental compositions and on a few of the machines through which grainger attempted, toward the end of his life, to put his ideas into practice. dr. tan's essay is the third to deal with the "free music," following the fine contributions on this thorny subject by richard franko goldman and ivor dorum.2 all three writers delve into the early graingeriana that throws light on the later experiments, so that some overlapping of material is unavoidable. dr. tan is the first author, however, to include in the list of seminal early works the train music (1900-01) and random round (1912-14) and to discuss one of the important late machines, the "estey reeds tonetool" of 1952. of especial value are long extracts from important writings by grainger that are not otherwise easily accessible: namely, extracts from the 130 australian radio lectures of 1934-35 (pp. 11-12; rs, p. 24),3 from a statement on "free music" found at the grainger museum in melbourne (pp. 13-14; percy aldridge grainger, "free music," rs, p. 16), and from a remark on the first hill-song in typescript at white plains (pp. 39-44; rs, pp. 31-33). the description and set of drawings of the last "free music" machine contributed by burnett cross (pp. 60-61, figs. 1-4; cross, "grainger free music machine," rs, pp. 17-21) are especially fascinating. cross worked closely with grainger during the 1950's in devising these marvelous electrical mechanisms, and he describes their complicated operations with admirable clarity. but the borrowings do not end here. there are extensive quotations from grainger's article on "the impress of personality in unwritten music"4 as well as from goldman's article and other readily available writings by grainger's contemporaries. the frequency and length of these borrowings is unwarranted, and they often interrupt an argument rather than illustrate or give point to it. in fact, in the second and fourth chapters-the very two that bear directly on the subject of "free music"-these quotations account for far more of the material than does the original writing. one's consequent suspicion that the author has not mastered her subject is all but confirmed by the unhappy evidence of massive and unacknowledged borrowings from other writers. whole sections of goldman's article appear without citationtheir origins hidden by the juggling of goldman's sentences, with ensuing damage to the logic of his argument-as do passages from the chapter on grainger in roger covell's australia's music5 (pp. 8-10, 19-20,25-26,47-48, 50, and 63-or rs, pp. 23-24, 26, 27-28, 34, 35, and 37-include appropriations from goldman; pp. 26 and 37-or rs, pp. 28 and 31-from covell). significantly, it is in the opening paragraphs of the three main chapters, which set the tone and direction of the thesis, that the bulk of the wholesale borrowing occurs. the very core of dr. tan's argument-the setting forth of the principles of "free music" -is lifted almost entirely from goldman. one is astonished that this matter escaped the notice of the persons responsible at juilliard. they ought to have examined at least the goldman essay: it did appear, after all, in their own house organ, the juilliard review, and dr. tan cited it properly several times in her dissertation. in lesser matters as well, symptoms of poor scholarship cast shadows on the enterprise, from the minutiae of citations to the sweep of whole arguments. on the most basic level the evidence is unequivocal. no footnote is given for the extended quotation from grainger's australian lectures,6 or for a statement by the composer on folk song (p. 24; rs, p. 27). on occasion, a citation is given that is of no practical value to the reader: for example, "from the typescript of an unpublished lecture, delivered on a [lecture] tour of australia in the 1930's" (p. 29n; rs, p. 28n). where is that typescript? at other times we are given unci ted information for which we must trust dr. tan alone: thus, "in 1935, [grainger] transcribed for tuneful percussion some balinese religious ceremonial music" (p. 30; rs, p. 29)-no title, no location 131 of manuscript, no musical example. perhaps the information is correct, but we have reason to be skeptical. in the introduction dr. tan arouses our wonder when she states that it was through grainger's folksong recording activities, using an edison cylinder phonograph, that bartok was introduced to the method and came to collect several thousand folk tunes with kodaly in this manner in hungary, czechoslovakia, and rumania during the first decade of this century (p. 3; rs, p. 22). an astounding fact, if correct, for which grainger has never been given credit. the assertion is based on a letter from storm bull written in 1967some thirty years after bull had studied with bartok-concerning a matter that had occurred some thirty years earlier still. furthermore, bull mentions bartok's reference to an article written by grainger just after the turn of the century "in which percy had described his folk-music research in haiti." grainger wrote no such article, nor to my knowledge did he ever visit haiti or collect its music. perhaps bartok was referring to the article on lincolnshire folk songs,7 which appeared, however, one or two years after the publication of the first bartok-kodaly collection of twenty hungarian folksongs. but bull's error here throws doubt on his entire statement quoted by dr. tan. his declaration of bartok's debt to grainger is highly suspect, and in the absence of corroborating evidence it certainly cannot bear the weight of her assertion as quoted above. the biographical sketch which ends the introduction, dependent wholly upon secondary sources, contains no such surprises. neither does it offer any new information, aside from its gratuitous absorption of delius into the english folk-song movement (p. 5; rs, p. 22), and from its one contribution to the grainger mythology, namely, that he returned to the collecting of english folk song in the years following the first world war (p. 6; rs, p. 22). concerning the "free music" itself, this thesis does shed some valuable light. in the second chapter grainger's own writings bring considerable weight to bear on the subject, and dr. tan demonstrates the connection between grainger's early experiences with non-western musics and the development of his experimental ideas. if the comparative arguments of the third chapter-which attempt to relate grainger's work to that of cowell, ives, harry partch, and varese-promise more than they manage to deliver, they are nevertheless interesting in their broad focus. the fourth chapter follows grainger from his early sea and hill songs through the random round to the mechanisms of his colleagues-the player piano, the theremin, and arthur fickenscher's poly tone-and finally to grainger's own machines. it was an absorbing and noble quest, all the more affecting in that grainger did not live to reach its end. but dr. tan's treatment of it is disappointing. she passes over his preliminary investigations of the aeolian organ with perforated rolls and explores only four of the later machines that grainger and cross built. of these four, furthermore, the explanations for only two come 132 from her own pen; those for the other two are taken from goldman and cross. most disappointing of all, dr. tan fails to convey the sense of adventure and improvisation that lay behind these machines. there was whimsy here and a wonderfully alert musical fantasy, which must be captured in any discussion of the "free music." ivor dorum succeeds admirably in this respect and has the good sense to pluck meaning from grainger's seemingly capricious names: "'hills and dales' air-blown-reeds tone tool," "clothesline side-ridge no.1," "'kangaroo-pouch' method of synchronizing and playing eight oscillators." but dr. tan has not read dorum (nor, for that matter, slattery), as her brief bibliography attests. * * * * * to have to review once again a major work on grainger so unfavorably brings no joy. but the two dissertations that have been examined in the pages of this journal are among the longest essays on his life and work; and disappointment in them is only increased by the fear that their sheer size will mark them as central documents in future grainger scholarship. a fascinating composer has been interred too long in a rubble of misconceptions and prejudices; and work of poor scholarship, no matter how fine its intentions, will simply delay and render more difficult the enormous task of restoring grainger's accomplishments to the light they richly deserve. notes 1 copies are available upon application to the grainger library society, 7 cromwell place, white plains, new york. the copy i have used for this review lacks the appendix of musical examples. 2 goldman, "percy grainger's 'free music,'" the juilliard review 2 (fall 1955) : 37-47, and dorum, "grainger's 'free music,''' studies in music 2 (1968): 86-97. see also current musicology 15 (1973): 60-63. 3 not 1933, as dr. tan states. 4, the musical qparterry 1 (1915): 416-35. see also current musicology 15 (1973): 59. 5 melbourne: sun books, 1967, pp. 88-103. see also current musicology 15 (1973): 62. 6 the passages are similar to, but not identical with, passages from jl.lusic: a commonsense view of all types ([melbourne]: australian broadcasting commission, 1934), pp. 11-13, cited in current musicology 16 (1973): 89. 7 "collecting with the phonograph," journal of the folk-song society 3 (1908-09): 147-242. see also current musicology 15 (1973): 59. 133 discontinuity in the music of django reinhardt* by ben givan most analytical literature on jazz still places a premium on structural unity. early writers, such as andre hodeir (1956) and gunther schuller (1958), sought to legitimize the music in the eyes of the musicological community by demonstrating its accessibility to traditional formalist inter­ pretation. this methodological orientation persists in much current jazz analysis (e.g., block 1990; martin 1996; larson 1998; harker 1999). in re­ cent years, however, the formalist view of jazz improvisations as au­ tonomous artifacts, whose aesthetic value stems from their internal coher­ ence, has been challenged on the grounds that it remains as inseparably tied to an inapposite, european ideological heritage as the conservatism it opposes. ethnomusicologists and "new" musicologists have instead pre­ ferred to divert their attention toward jazz's immediate social context­ primarily the vernacular culture of black america-and its historic roots in sub-saharan mrica (tomlinson 1992; walser 1995; floyd 1995). this more humanistic perspective has served to dispel formalism's claims to objectivity. a compromise can be found between these opposing standpoints by re­ garding musical structure and social context as inextricably interdepend­ ent (monson 1996:186, 190). but a further possibility that has yet to be considered seriously is that jazz might be subjected to close analysis with­ out necessarily invoking the organicist corollary that the music itself ought, at some level, to exhibit a unified structure. indeed, as this paper will show, an examination of manifestations of discontinuity, rather than of unity, may offer insight into the creative processes underlying impro­ vised performance. the improvisations of guitarist django reinhardt (1910-1953) provide a fitting case-study, because they often exhibit striking discontinuities. the critic whitney balliett recently described reinhardt's characteristic modus operandi as follows: reinhardt might start a medium-tempo ballad with three or four bars of slightly altered melody, played in single notes behind the beat, each phrase graced by his vibrato (almost a tremble), pause for a beat, and go into a brief mock double-time, rest again, drop in an abrupt, massive chord, and release a hissing upward run. then he'd cut his volume in half and turn into the bridge with a delicate, fern­ like single-note variation of the melody, letting his notes linger and current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york ben givan 233 bend and float on his vibrato. just before the end of the bridge, he would loose another offbeat chord, let it shimmer for three or four beats, work through a hump like arpeggio, lower his volume again, and return to a single-note variation of the original melody and come to rest. (balliett 2000a:99) it is this capricious quality of the guitarist's music, vividly captured here by balliett, that makes it resistant to coherence-seeking formalist readings. in confronting this seemingly elusive body of work, a useful starting point is an insight originally suggested by hodeir. in 1962, hodeir pub­ lished a short analysis of reinhardt's solo on the blues "solid old man," a 1939 recording that also featured rex stewart, barney bigard, and billy taylor of the duke ellington orchestra. hodeir's transcription is repro­ duced in example 1. the solo lasts for only a single twelve-measure chorus, and hodeir's commentary concludes with the following insight: [t] he curious construction of this blues involves three phrases, di­ vided as follows: [measures] 1-3,4-7, 10-12. what happens between the first beat of the seventh measure and the first beat of the tenth? does django stop playing? not at all; these three measures contain a fairly long phrase, which does not belong to the solo proper. it is part of an orchestral "accompaniment" which django "heard in his head" while playing his improvisation. the "parenthetical" character of this phrase should be apparent to every attentive listener. (hodeir 1962:188; emphasis in the original) hodeir draws attention to a phenomenon that recurs in many of reinhardt's other recorded improvisations. for instance, an excerpt from reinhardt's 1946 solo on "love's melody" (ex. 2) contains a similarly "par­ enthetical" passage (m. 7) that, like the phrase described in the quotation above, is suggestive of an accompanimental texture due to its reduced volume and repetitive character. the present article draws some further observations by extrapolating from hodeir's four-decade-old remarks. to begin, consider hodeir's view that the "odd phrase out" in rein­ hardt's solo conveys the sense of being an accompaniment that is subordi­ nate to the surrounding musical material, and that it furthermore repre­ sents the concretization of a musical image that he heard in his head. the latter claim is corroborated by the testimony of many improvising musi­ cians. jazz performers often describe their creative processes in terms of the actualization of musical ideas that are first imagined internally; in some cases they claim consciously to "think ahead," usually by no more than a bar or two.1 234 current musicology example i: "solid old man" (1939). originally published in towardjazz, by andre hodeir. © grovel atlantic, inc., 1962. used by permission. 7 , &'8jb cm7 @} •• i~ qlj&. o1i@?2j example 2: "love's melody" (1946). g#m c#7 f# 3, ii iv fir ~ig,tr it e r cr de e lif ~ n 3 3 ====-mf p d#o em emld 'fill' #flir~m=i£i2f peht ifter bg r pp ben givan 235 but the improviser's mind is not exclusively occupied by images of events that will subsequently be realized as sound. a performer of most mainstream jazz styles is usually guided by a preexistent theme. by pre­ scribing a fixed temporal-harmonic structure (and in many instances a melody, too), the theme dictates a set of creative constraints. thus jazz im­ provisers must keep these constraints in mind. many say that they retain an inner image of the harmonies ("chord changes") while they play, and some use the melody itself as a continual object of reference.2 one of this article's basic premises is that discontinuities within a given improvised solo may result from a performer's attentive shifts between different con­ ceptual fields. this premise also underlies the well-known distinction posited by hodeir himself, whereby "paraphrase improvisation," which is explicitly based on a pre-existing melody, is distinguished from "chorus phrase improvisation," which observes only an established harmonic struc­ ture (hodeir 1956:144). as lawrence gushee has noted, one of the deep­ est foundational assumptions of hodeir's analytical framework is that the improvisational process is based on "separable levels of mental activity" (1981:158). other authors have both refined (kernfeld 1981:17; 1995:131; martin 1996:34) and questioned (larson 1999:286) hodeir's dichotomy; however, this paper does not directly adopt or adapt his scheme. instead, it proceeds from the same basic supposition that contrasting regions of a musical improvisation may derive from separate elements of the impro­ viser's conceptual model, but ultimately derives some additional hypotheses that are specifically geared toward reinhardt's music. discontinuity between temporally proximate musical events leads hodeir to claim that one phrase in reinhardt's performance of "solid old man" "does not belong to the solo proper." the technique of juxtaposing contrasting material has numerous precedents in various musical cultures, and it is often associated with effects such as antiphony, ornamental inter­ polation, and the illusion of simultaneous progression. 3 differentiation in the domain of any given musical parameter can produce these effects, but they are most readily achieved by the exploitation of timbral and spatial contrasts between two or more different instruments, or groups of instru­ ments. familiar examples of such practices include the cori spezzati of renaissance venice, the call-and-response routines of west african and african-diasporic musical traditions, and the discontinuities in certain works of igor stravinsky. however, the effect that hodeir identifies in reinhardt's blues chorus-conveyed by just one performer, playing a sin­ gle musical instrument-is also common. gunther schuller has drawn an analogy between pianist earl hines's use of dynamics and musical texture "to distinguish between primary and secondary material" (1989:280) and the interpolative effects found in various piano works by chopin and liszt. 236 current musicology and paul berliner observes that horn players sometimes give the impres­ sion of playing call-and-response figures "with themselves" (1994: 195). charles hartman even compares certain of bobby mcferrin's a cappella vocal improvisations with the style brise of]. s. bach's works for unaccompa­ nied violin or cello (1991:111); both use registral contrast to create the impression of simultaneously unfolding contrapuntal lines. in many in­ stances, such techniques of abrupt discontinuity can be classified accord­ ing to more than one of the three categories noted above. thus, while edward t. cone interprets the "stratification" of musical ideas in stravinsky's symphonies of wind instruments in terms of the resulting illusion of simultaneous progression that he calls "interlock" (1989:294), richard taruskin compares the same work to a responsorial russian orthodox re­ ligious service (1996: 1488). but to date, the work of cone and others deal­ ing with discontinuity in western art music has no parallel in the literature onjazz. the present article makes reinhardt's various uses of musical disconti­ nuity the basis of a speculative poetics of his improvisational process. discontinuity will be defined very generally as differentiation in the do­ main of one or more musical parameters between temporally proximate events. reinhardt usually creates discontinuities by means of changes in texture-such as alternations between chordal and single-note playing­ or through shifts in register or motivic content. these techniques most of­ ten suggest ornamental interpolation or the illusion of simultaneous pro­ gression. the following selected examples will illustrate that discontinuities are consistently used to reinforce conceptual distinctions.4 example 3 displays an excerpt from reinhardt's 1937 recording of w. c. handy's "st. louis blues" (the original melody appears above rein­ hardt's rendition). when he arrives at the theme's minor-mode "habanera" section midway through his solo, reinhardt chooses to play the original melody, with a few embellishments. but between each of its phrases he in­ terpolates a flamboyant double-time passage. the familiar melody and the unfamiliar accompaniment are differentiated by register, speed of melodic motion, and also timbre, since the melody is played on the gui­ tar's lower strings. two contrasting musical ideas alternate, creating the il­ lusion of one instrument playing a melody (bracketed in example 3) while another plays an obbligato.5 this example is, however, an exceptional case. more frequently reinhardt, like many soloists of the swing era, tem­ porarily reverts to the original melody for just a single phrase or two dur­ ing the course of an extended improvisation.6 example 4, an excerpt from the top of his second chorus on james p. johnson's "charleston" (1937), indicates that, at the beginning of the chorus's second eight-bar section ben givan 237 example 3: "st. louis blues" (1937). original melody 1:15 (jd44) gm guitar l-3~ ii ~ ~ d7_ ~ . ~ .. ~ .. ~1'c_, r d7 ~ " --3" .. -.... l... gm d7 d7 238 current musicology example 3 (cont.) om (mm. 9-12), he interrupts his single-string solo by interjecting a (rhythmi­ cally altered) paraphrase of the original melody whose distinct conceptual origin is highlighted through being played in octaves, creating a sharp discontinuity. thus melodic paraphrase can be identified as a consistent source of discontinuity in reinhardt's improvisations. this technique may serve as a cognitive anchor that reminds both listeners, and perhaps, in a confirma­ tory sense, the performer also, of the ongoing improvisation's underlying thematic derivation. it should be noted that, in reinhardt's solos, para­ phrases of the original melody are often not so unequivocally set off from their surroundings. instead, they often appear as subtler references in which conceptual distinctions are not reinforced by means of explicit con­ trasts. consider, for instance, the guitarist's 1938 improvisation on "body and soul," transcribed in example 5. this solo begins in the guitar's upper register with a paraphrase of the melody's opening that inverts its charac­ teristic ascending perfect fifth into a falling fourth (m. 1). in the succeed­ ing measures, however, reinhardt reverts to a more literal exposition of the melody, a full two octaves lower than at first (mmw. 3ff). toward the end of the first eight-bar section reinhardt departs from the melody with a double-time excursion of the sort seen in the "st. louis blues" excerpt. throughout the remainder of the solo, he continually returns to the out­ line of the written melody; in mm. 9-10, it is isolated from the double­ time elaborative gestures, but on other occasions, such as the end of m. 13 (c-a-f), it is integrated seamlessly into improvised material. example 5 brackets regions substantially based on the original theme. the diminish­ ing level of differentiation between melodic paraphrases and improvised passages found in this solo recalls cone's concept of "synthesis," the process whereby "diverse elements are brought into closer and closer relaben givan 239 example 4: "charleston" (1937). charleston, by cecil mack and james p. johnson. © 1923 (renewed) warner bros. inc. all rights reserved. used by permission. warner bros. publications u.s. inc., miami, fl 33014. c7 n d7 f a7 dm a7 tion with one another" (1989:295). but cone's formulation also implies a teleological process, which is not evident in reinhardt's improvisation. rather, the melody seems to act as a constant mental guide that occasion­ ally is allowed to reappear in various guises.7 240 current musicology example 5: "body and sou]" (1938). om (~= 94) 1:35 f 04 em e,dim f /[ [ fts1 6fr elr 3 3 3 g gf am c om i ~ gaug c a7 * ~2!¥g _jeter-ferfl fffrr .'fer'btr i n*ef#llf~ om g7 c em mo om g • fteuqer'rfttfl ' i ! £ wtfffut i f" ~lje!;;ttj am gaug c 7 a,7 m j [tiff} it] ! a second use of discontinuity in reinhardt's music is exemplified at the conclusion of his solo on "body and soul." here he creates an abrupt discontinuity by introducing an ascending five-note gesture played in oc­ taves. this gesture (also bracketed in ex. 5) is conceptually separate from the main body of the solo. its function is to demarcate the formal bound­ ary between the theme's first sixteen measures and the bridge. in fact, reinhardt played an almost identical figure at the same point in the pre­ ceding chorus, while accompanying the previous soloist. these sorts of "structural markers,"8 often characterized by octave doubling as in the present example, are a recurrent feature of his work as an accompanist. when similar devices occur in his solo improvisations (often producing disjunct contrasts) they can convey the same functional meanings. the procedures described above can also be heard in reinhardt's 1937 improvisation on "the sheik of araby" (ex. 6). this solo opens in the guitar's upper register with the beginning of the written melody-the ben givan 241 example 6: "the sheik of araby" (1937). 4 f &1, &j j j j j j j j i r j j 7 bb 3 om 3 f &1, j ijj d n j 4j &j i j nj ~j j i j j j ; i ill j ,l i 3 cm 3 ; 73 r ill i n 7 )1 j~jj1!j 7 ai 16 f7 bb f &"jp .j.= j 1 ? iq j ir 2'""'s f7j r 7 h d7 i~e e e e 25 g73 c7 3 3 f w' jjqjfj j 7 ~j) i j j qj j ig # 7 ijqjj~n r ill i f7 3 242 current musicology example 6 (cont.) 30 $&1, 'q 4 m 3 3 i nj ilj nj i1j i nj i1j m i1j ii 33 b, second chorus $ &1, fij n j ij j n j in j or rur rfjllf ~#~ r cregefl f7 5 5 5 ;f~bfft~tl i' h ~h h it ~j f e± m uit:jr r familiar ascending neighbor-note motion. but after just two measures reinhardt skips abruptly down to his instrument's lowest octave for almost all of the first chorus, departing entirely from the original tune. the up­ per register is not "reactivated," so to speak, until three measures into the second chorus (m. 35); this is accomplished not by another disjunct regis­ tral shift, but by one of reinhardt's trademark chromatic scales, an espe­ cially conspicuous means of traversing the divide between low and high. another striking moment of discontinuity during this excerpt is the seven­ note motive, played in octaves, that briefly interrupts the lower-register ac­ tivity (mm. 22-24). there are at least two plausible ways to account for this intejjection. in its highlighting of an e~-d neighbor-note relation­ ship, it recalls the original melody's climactic moment ("you'll rule this land ... "), but due to its location within the form-slightly "too early"-it would be considered an anticipatory paraphrase. alternatively, it may function as a structural marker of the sort described in the previous exam­ ple, since it occurs at the end of an eight-measure formal unit. in addition to melodic paraphrases and structural markers, a third ex­ planation for discontinuity in reinhardt's music is the interpretation orig­ inally suggested by hodeir in his commentary on "solid old man": the interpolation of accompanimental material. a clear example of this tech­ nique is heard on reinhardt's 1937 recording of 'japanese sandman." the performance features members of the dicky wells orchestra, with a rhythm section consisting of reinhardt's guitar plus dick fullbright and bill beason on bass and drums, respectively. this makes for a fairly thin musical texture when the guitarist solos, so he compensates by strumming chords between phrases of his habitual single-string melodic improvisation (ex. 7). this example strongly supports hodeir's hypothesis that, while ben givan 243 example 7: 'japanese sandman" (1937). (j=180j c7 f 1:31 f & e #v rf ii [ r f j r· -g 10 j~tr fd 6 c7 ~ f c7 ~ f & r e r 0= rid r fj r t r i r r r r r l tr i f m f~f ~ [i a ii] ~ fffu lif ~ if h r i 12 i f & ~~ 21 bbm f f & "r ~ r r r ~mf i~r '1 ~g f r f ~r i~tl:f el r '1 ~js i 244 current musicology example 7 (cont.) improvising, reinhardt's mind might be occupied by not only a fixed ref­ erent in the form of his theme's melodic and harmonic model, but more­ over by an associated accompanimental "background" texture.9 in addi­ tion to thickening the music's texture, the realization of this conceptual background in the form of repetitive, ostinato-like patterns can also pre­ vent a loss of momentum during lulls between phrases belonging to the musical foreground. the effect is of simultaneous progression: the back­ ground material remains conceptually present even when aurally absent. 10 reinhardt was adept at switching swiftly between background-type rhythmic figures, melodic paraphrases, and straightforward "foreground" improvisation, even at very fast tempos. this facility is evident during the opening of his 1935 ~olo on "i've had my moments" (ex. 8). the solo's first five measures contain a reiterated eighth-note gq, followed by a series of strummed chords. this passage contrasts starkly with the material that follows (mm. 5-9) .11 it seems strongly accompanimental in character simply by virtue of its pitch-repetitiveness, even during the very beginning, which contains no chordal playing. at m. 5, reinhardt abruptly shifts to the principal melody (shown above the transcription), with a few embell­ ishments, and it is not until five measures later that he begins truly to improvise melodic lines for the first time (mm. 10ff). following from this interpretation, the series of eighth-notes in mm. 32-36 could be identified as another accompaniment-like passage. this reading is admittedly more tenuous than the previous one, because while this second passage is also fairly repetitive, (and, like the earlier passage, has a heightened sense of momentum due to the cross-rhythms produced by accenting every third note), reinhardt introduces several other pitches after beginning with only eq. nonetheless, with the exception of the final bqs (m. 36), this passage's melodic profile is markedly different from that of the preceding measures. 12 repetitive figures of this sort may addition­ ally carry a function as intellectual-labor-saving devices; they enable the ben givan 245 example 8: 'tve had my moments" (1935). i've had my moments, by gus kahn and walter donaldson. © 1934 (renewed) emi robbins catalog inc. and donaldson music co. all rights outside the u.s. controlled by emi robbins catalog, inc. all rights reserved. used by permission. warner bros. publications u.s. inc., miami, fl 33014. e,7 am d7 >>>g eh7 g7 j ~ . d7 246 current musicology example 8 (conl) ii : ii, j ii~ ii: :j' ~ iii i; :~,:: ; r ~j : ii : §fa , a j : i : b; l ~ l ::l ~. l f j d n : d7 g7 g g second chorus >>>h7 >>example 8 (cont.) 36 am >>>am ~ g d7 c ben givan 247 248 current musicology soloist to "keep things going" while allowing him an extra second or two to gather inspiration for more involved activity. in the previous two examples, the designation of certain musical mate­ rial as part of an improvisation's background has been largely predicated on its exhibiting a relatively homogeneous character. a musical accompa­ niment can, however, be distinguishable from a primary melody without being comparatively repetitive. the irregular comping of a pianist, or the sporadic interjections by a drummer on a snare or bass drum, are often in­ tegral elements of an interactive jazz rhythm section as it supports an im­ provising soloist. in the context of a larger ensemble, such as the big bands of the swing era, a soloist may be accompanied by instrumental backgrounds, or riffs. and in reinhardt's music one finds instances of musical discontinuity resulting from the insertion of riff-like material within a single-note solo. this represents an additional sort of discontinu­ ous practice; it may be considered a secondary type of background­ oriented technique. reinhardt often juxtaposes short, riff-like fragments against mono­ phonic melodies, usually with symmetrical metric groupings. this tech­ nique is illustrated in example 9, from his 1939 recording of 'jeepers creepers." in the ninth measure of his second improvised chorus, the gui­ tarist introduces a two-measure phrase featuring three-part chords. the chords are answered by a single-note melody. a variant of the chordal pas­ sage follows, and is in turn succeeded by an entirely different single-note phrase (mm. 13-16). the cumulative result is reminiscent of the sort of call-and-response effects frequently heard in big band arrangements, when a soloist alternates with a larger ensemble. big band arrangements of the swing era often feature short riff-like en­ semble passages at the beginning of a chorus, or other significant formal division, creating a sort of musical punctuation during an improvised solo. in the same way, reinhardt tends to interject brief riff-like statements, generally two or four measures in duration and played in chords or oc­ taves, at the beginning of a formal section. example 10, an excerpt from his 1949 solo on irving berlin's "marie," indicates one such instance (mm. 9-12), played in octaves at the top of a new chorus. passages such as this may also function as structural markers. however, they differ from the more common instances of such devices in that they usually begin on or around the downbeat of a new formal unit, whereas more explicit struc­ tural markers tend to end approximately on (or slightly before) the crucial downbeat. before proceeding further, it is worth noting that in certain cases back­ ground material, differentiated from its surroundings by register, texture, or motivic content, may not necessarily function only as a contrasting sup­ plement to the foreground. for instance, it can occasionally be the site of ben givan 249 example 9: 'jeepers creepers" (1939). bb cm c7 (j= 188) =-" i)' ±= 1:39 v p ij hf /f "'-""h"'-"" ular }if h ".-.... 1'1 f r c7 f b, 1'1 11r r f '1 c "0 f if r b 4 f &" j j c7 f b, cm f i'~ #,,~~b~tf?'i#f , 1~~tjef] i! f7 f r~u i j f7 r self-contained motivic development, as occurs in a comparatively lengthy excursion toward the background during reinhardt's 1939 solo on "h.c.q. strut." this simple theme features a repetitive bass line that de­ scends chromatically from -4 through 3, underpinning a ii_v7_i harmonic progression. the melody and bass line of the tune's a-section are shown in example 11. (the bass player on the recording generally plays this bass line with little variation.) two measures into his solo's second chorus (m. 6 in example 12), reinhardt switches abruptly from an elaborate arpeg­ giated foreground melody to a figure derived from this underlying bass line.l3 at first, the bass pitches are doubled an octave higher, with reinhardt 250 current musicology example 10: "marie" (1949). (j=236) fi1 gm 1:01 $ & e =c ~ 4 ~ f ,& f f r ~r r r r r led 7 ~8 7 f7 $ v ~ 7 '-' '-' 'j if utr t if] 14 * & efj~u l r j 1 i j r j. j ) i cy1 7 r' ~] f _______ lcf!tr(rrrl also adding another note a minor seventh above each bass-doubling note. the resultant motive, which is in sharp contrast to all that precedes it, is soon transformed into a three-note ascending gesture that is developed over the next ten measures. then, just as abruptly, reinhardt reverts to foreground mode (m. 16), giving the impression of having more or less resumed where he left off. during this interlude, which is clearly inspired by the tune's bass line and out of character with the surrounding upper­ register melodic activity, reinhardt remains creatively involved with the solo's background long enough to endow it with a degree of variety, rather than treating it as comparatively homogeneous (in the manner of examples 7 and 8). together, the foregoing examples suggest the following hypothesis: dis­ continuous regions of reinhardt's improvisations may be manifestations of different strata of his subjective consciousness. his predominant mode of creative performance involves the production of novel melodic mate­ rial. but this foregrounded, primary material is conceived with reference to a harmonic scheme that ordinarily supports a melody. from time to time, this melody-usually consigned to reinhardt's inner consciousness -is made explicit, often in a way that sets it off from the surrounding pas­ sages. furthermore, reinhardt also appears to sustain an inner image of the passing harmonies in the form of a repetitive rhythmic ostinato.l4 this ben givan 251 example 11: "h.c.q strut" (1939), melody and bass line (first 8 measures only). h.g.q strut, by django reinhardt. copyright © 1967 by publications francis day s.a. this arrange­ ment copyright © 2002 by publications francis day s.a. all rights in the u.s.a. and canada controlled by jewel music publishing co., inc. international copyright secured. all rights reserved. used by permission. ~; :: #:' : q:' : ::" ~: :#:': q:' : ::" i ~ : : i: ; i' : q:' : : :" em am d7 g : :: : : : :~ : example 12: "h.c.q. strut" (1939). a7/c# d7/c g/b * i~f" 11'r" ~11 r" f e a7/c# d7/c g/b em ilir' mit! r 3 tj v 't .j. v i a7/c# d7/c g/b ii tfl"ej tl tje 252 current musicology accompanimental background is sometimes made explicit as well, often with functional implications-such as to provide structural markers, to create riff-like exchanges, to supplement a sparse musical accompani­ ment, or to keep the music going while he gathers inspiration. while clear-cut discontinuities can be heard in a significant portion of reinhardt's recorded solos, they are not the norm. it is more common for less explicit discontinuities to arise within improvised material, all of which appear to be "primary" in character (along the lines of "body and soul" (ex. 5), where melodic paraphrase and "pure" improvisation were less sharply differentiated). but even in these more typical scenarios, it may be possible to discern the same sorts of conceptual distinctions. to illustrate, this paper concludes with some remarks on two complete solos, both of which contain relatively few explicit contrasts. these perform­ ances were recorded just a day apart in 1946, and, coincidentally, are both improvisations on themes by george gershwin: "liza" and "embraceable you." example 13 is a transcription of reinhardt's solo on "liza," divided among three separate staves. above these staves, a fourth staff displays the melody as originally published. the lowermost staff contains musical ma­ terial belonging to the "background level" of the performance. the mid­ dle staff is reserved for all passages that paraphrase the written melody at approximately its original location in the piece's form. the top staff of the transcription holds everything else, which is to say all "foreground" musi­ cal material with no explicit connection to the original melody. example 13 highlights several noteworthy features of the solo. first, note that a four-measure melodic paraphrase appears at the beginning of the final a-section of this aaba form during all three of reinhardt's cho­ ruses (mm. 29, 61, and 93). each of these paraphrases begins with a gq that dovetails with a preceding melodic line. in the first chorus (mm. 27-28), the linear progression c-b-a precedes the paraphrase, and in the third chorus another descent, from e~, is heard (m. 92); in the second chorus an ascending chromatic scale culminates with the same pitch, g (mm. 59-60). these references to the theme's original melody function as a consistent means of punctuation within this solo. the transcription also indicates that six different background ostinato figures occur during reinhardt's solo on "liza" (mm. 9-12, 45-48, 66-71, 75-77,90-92, and 98-100). the third of these (mm. 66-71) straddles the initial downbeat of a new thirty-two-bar chorus, thus de-emphasizing this formal boundary. (this procedure counteracts the strong periodicity of much of the remainder of the solo, which is heavily based on four-bar phrases.) in contrast, the beginning of reinhardt's second chorus (m. 37) is marked by an emphatic four-measure riff-like pattern, played in octaves. example 13: "liza" (1946). liza (all the clouds'll roll away), by george gershwin, ira gershwin, and gus kahn. © 1929 (renewed) we music corp. rights for extended renewal term in u.s. controlled by we music corp. and gilbert keyes music. all rights outside the u.s. con­ trolled by emi robbins catalog, inc. all rights reserved. used by permission. warner bros. publications u.s. inc., miami, fl 33014. published melody 0:27 (j=280) ~t=~#~t=~,..~ -~~ !-ii-" #~ ftc first chorus t ~ ,..~ ,~~,.. ji __ 1=n foreground --....... melody background pm " m f' , e ,# r j j 'r j j ,# 0j. 3£1'_ c7 f em am dm 07 c f. >-~ >>-~ b. i fir. ....... 'i i' ....... ....... ....... l""jj.j...j 'i i i:d t"'i z 0 "" -< > z t-:) u-< (,)0 254 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y ~ itt jj • ~ c~ " • ~ i a~~ • ~ jt gc.~ r-~ ~~ ju 1 sw '" " . j j -t 1 ~.u '" ~ j ii-. q'tt ~ w c1 ( t 1 u '" j ( '" ~ j ~ 1 . ~ • c. '" j c-• ~ 1 '" j ~ ~ ~4t • (~ ~ j0 u~~ ~ ( c <') ...... ~ u • 1 < ~ ~ < . " , < ~ < ." , <: ~ i'l< . " , < ~ < : ." , .::i " ::i ~ ~ :8 o:i ~ o:i ~ 0,; ;;s 0,; ;;s example 13 (cont.) 'omol' '" ~,g; ji j. e id· 26 em am dm g7 c , ifu tr e1 eplf cplit m # .. it.. ~ ~ ~#~ ~'~ b. pm 1& a i $ f j j i r j j i t nflj4lj. 32 ~ c7 f em am dm g7 c c f if7 cc;"f rle f f i"f f f f i"c1 j j j j ij u t;d ~"lfv' i m z ('1 .... second chorus -< b 1$ ii] t ] 7 itl :>-z nj '-.. lr< lr< 256 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y , • j ;, 1 • r-~ , " 1 s c i ( s 1 f~ 0 s r-'" u 1 • i ;, ~ ~j jt) ~) r--u ~ ~) u 'il • ~ 0 f~ '" ~ u ..... ") 1 < il ~ < ~ < il'o < ~ < il :::j:< ~ < il"> < ~ :;;j " :;;j " )< .,; ~ o:i .,; :£ o:i ~ p.; p.; :;: b e n g iv a n 257 j l ~ {~ ~ '" j ~ l ~ii '" u j ~ fr" • o 1 ~ &it!tj 0 ~ l (~ s 8 ~ -< q ~ ~ i $ u i 0 ~ ~ 1 jl , ~ t-o i ~ (, s q ~, ~ ~ d ~ 0 1 ~ 8 c< ') ~ 6 ~ '" .... j '" li '" ~ :;;'" jw »'" jw »< jw» '" ii ::g< jw »'" ~'" ~ i ~ i '" ~ oi oi oi ~ oi ~ 0; 0; 258 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y ~ ~ (t ~ ~ -) ~ g 't ~ l e 0 ill u ~ ~ e ~ <t: \~ r--" 1 . ~ e ~ ~ e~ e 0 ~ e ~ 1 <t: ~ e ~ "" ~ ~ • 1 .. ~ r-~ ]: u ""~ ~ ~ u~ ~ -'" [) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~) ;:5 ~ ~ 0 ~) ~ 0"> .. u ...... 1 , t~ , ~ , ~ , .., , ~ :?c;< ~ , .." ~ ~ '" ~ '" ~ u.; ~ o:i u.; ~ o:i 0.. 0; b e n g iv a n 259 ~ ~ w ~ ~-": ",-"w m il 0 0 r . j (u + " (u + ~ d l 4i .wi ~ 1 ..., d j • " j r " s l -< , ; ~ u ~ , -"~ t i. g l . ~ s '" (+ u 'l; • • s • -< ~ ~ • 0 • ~ ~ c 'l ~ u • s ,...., ~ 1 < ii ~ < ~ < ~ < ~ < r. 6;l< ~ < ~ < ~ :e ~ :e ;>, &l '" ,; oi '" ,; ~ oi 260 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y ~ • c: ~ u • u ( ~ ~ ~ '. • ~ 0 • 1 . • c: ~ s c l • . ~ :l<u 0 (~ s <t: ~ --"(.j. (.j. o§ "' d f~ (.j. i s (.j. c l (.j. ~ s (.j. ~j <t: i . ,: f'. ((.j. s ~ (.j. 1-~ (.j. u tt ill!~ , i "' u -. ~ ~ 0 ~ -=~(~ 0<') • ..... t < ~ :;8< 1i'o .: ii'o .: ii'o < ~ g,< ~ .: ~ < ii'o ;e ~ ;e > , ~ u.; o:i u.; -0 o:i 0.; 0.; :e ben givan 261 these observations are suggestive when viewed from the perspective of recent work on the cognitive psychology of musical improvisation by ed sarath. sarath has posited a model of the improvising musician's mental processes that regards spontaneous creation as arising from "cognitive event cycles" (1996:8-12). each cognitive event cycle consists of a per­ former's reception of perceptual data (stemming from both external sounds15 and the silent inner presence of the theme), and subsequent se­ lection of a strategy for continuing the improvisation. the higher the fre­ quency of these cognitive event cycles, the better able he will be to exe­ cute fresh strategies, conceived "in the moment." conversely, the slower their frequency, the more likely he is to use repetition, or pre-established material, whether it be drawn from his own repertoire of melodic formu­ las, or from elements of the theme itself.16 sarath's model has loose paral­ lels with the remarks of saxophonist lee konitz, who has described his own improvisatory process in terms of a series of conceptual "levels" rang­ ing from non-creative replication of a theme, through increasing degrees of embellishment, to "the creation of wholly new melodies" (quoted in balliett 1996:485). the perspectives of sarath and konitz suggest that it may be possible to assign hypothetical "creative levels" to different passages from reinhardt's solo on "liza." repetitive background material may indi­ cate a relatively low creative level-a slow rate of cognitive event cycles, in sarath's terms. embellished, or otherwise slightly modified, expressions of the pre-existent melody imply a somewhat greater creative level, and original, spontaneously conceived material of comparative complexity may represent a still higher level of cognitive activity.17 one can thus view reinhardt's performance of "liza" as fluctuating be­ tween different creative levels. for instance, after beginning with an eight­ measure passage of relatively complex melodic invention, the first in­ stance of background material (mm. 9-12) implies a momentary period of reduced creative activity whose repetitive pitch-content enables reinhardt to devote more of his mental resources to protentions of the forthcoming foregrounded material that begins at m. 13. the remainder of the impro­ visation can be interpreted along similar lines. in this particular solo, the frequent recurrence of certain melodic patterns with only minor variations (compare, for example, mm. 19-20 with mm. 35-36, or mm. 41-42 with mm.49-50) suggests that these may derive from reinhardt's personal vo­ cabulary of melodic formulas. alternatively, these sorts of comparatively fixed melodic ideas may be specific to this occasion, and as such may either have been prepared beforehand, or invented in the course of the perform­ ance. irrespective of their actual derivation, their recurrence suggests a cre­ ative level somewhat beneath that of non-repeated foregrounded passages, such as the diverse material introduced at the beginning of each chorus' 262 current musicology bridge (mm. 21, 53, and 85), whose uniqueness implies a more truly spon­ taneous conceptual origin. ultimately, these sorts of speculative judg­ ments would be enhanced by a knowledge of the guitarist's customary for­ mulaic vocabulary. (a significant difference in orientation between sarath and konitz ought to be raised. sarath construes his model of the improvisational process as a value hierarchy: a higher rate of cognitive event cycles implies a greater "creative potential," and is thus regarded as a "creative goal" (1996:8-9). to the contrary, konitz takes the view that "no one level is more important than any other" (quoted in balliett 1996:485). the latter position seems more reasonable; conjectures about creative cognition need not be linked to value judgments. therefore, in the present context, to speak of "higher" or "lower" creative levels carries no further implica­ tions as to preferability or worth.) reinhardt is reported to have learned the theme "embraceable you" only a few days prior to recording the solo transcribed in example 14 (peters 1999:20). like his solo on "liza," reinhardt's improvisation on "embraceable you" contains relatively few explicit discontinuities. in this performance the guitarist plays an explicit paraphrase of the final phrase of gershwin's melody at the close of each of his two choruses (mm. 33-35 and 65-67). as in the previous example, these invocations of the improvi­ sation's familiar melodic subject function as a sort of rhetorical punctua­ tion. in addition, "embraceable you" contains an extended ten-measure digression that begins just prior to the start of the second chorus (m. 35). this repetitive passage, which consists primarily of reiterations of first the pitch u and then cq, belongs to the conceptual "background"; it bears little direct resemblance to the neighboring regions, and has the effect of intensifying the music's groove. somewhat more tenuous is the proposition that the c-d-e~ scale­ segments at the beginning of reinhardt's first chorus, and in several other locations, are subtle melodic paraphrases. these rhythmic diminutions of the melody's familiar initial ascending gesture ("embrace me") are en­ tirely integrated into the surrounding material, and not at all highlighted by disjunct contrasts. however, the guitarist only employs them in approx­ imately the same locations as the passages from gershwin's melody to which they bear a resemblance (most explicitly toward the beginning of the solo); this is the primary basis for the proposed reading. is finally, it should be acknowledged that example 14, like the previous example, assigns a substantial proportion of the solo to the conceptual "foreground," and that, again, knowledge of reinhardt's habitual melodic formulas would provide a context for determining how he integrates pre-existent (i.e., either the original melody or his own formulas) and example 14: "embraceable you" (1946). embraceable you, by george gershwin and ira gershwin. © 1930 (renewed) wb music corp. all rights reserved. used by permission. warner bros. publications u.s. inc., miami, fl 33014. m",~,m:""l:~;e~bff e' :~ :;:: fbfft; f foreground :or r '1 v r , --,~::::"" it; :: : : :; pm 1& &1'1, $ j j j i $ j n j j i ji '1 'f oj'', j j _____ u5 e~ first chorus mo fm b, f ~ i ~b#-l #~ #mw,i.i'~ rftf l_ 'fvim fm .,... #b~ i:d m z o ~ z n) oj ~ 264 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y • ~ tlr-j o3~ ;ii p ~ ~ w ~ ~ • j ~ ( i'$ i s e~ u • ( • tlr-~ ~ ~ '" e w ~ ~ \~ ) em w ~ ~ w $ e ~ ~ • .e ill..u+ § • 1 ] ~ p) ~ . 7 w ju ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ;:j $ ~ 0 ~ s 0 "'" ,....; q ) 1 <: ill ;2< ~ < : ~ < ..., < i~ < ..., < ~ < : .., :;;j " :;;j ~ ~ '" ~ ~ pi '" ~ pi b e n g iv a n 265 ~ ! • '" (+ 4 8 ... j r-0 • 7 • .it ~ $ :< ~ i ) .t ~ : "'i ) '-i. 8 1 r-... " iii ) " j ~ l( .u ~ (+ itl~ '-i. i"-iii r• 1 • , ~ , • 1 0 ~.t ~ iii ..;< .... f < .. ;::1< ..,< ~ < .., " ii ~ " ~ < ~ < .., :e '" :e '" 0.: ~ o:i 0.: "0 o:i p.; p.; ;:; 266 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y /i ~ ctt ~ £ ii'l c~ \ ~ c:it p ill ~ ~ ~ ~ r::;;; ~ ~ 4.~ >q ~ ( ~ ei • '" ~ c: ~ £ $ ~ .§ "" ii'l ~ c 't c! , ~ r~ , ::1 '" 0 .c u ~~ ii'l 14.~ on /i 4 ~ ( /i 0 ei~ r:::. r..lm ) ill """ .... t <: ~ ;;:;<: ~ <: ro <: ~ <: ~ ;;:;<: ro < : .., <: ~ ;;e ~ ;;e ;., ~ 0,; .,; .; 0,; .,; ~ .; b e n g iv a n 267 ~ ( '0 • ~ ~ ;. ~ ;+ .: m tl-l;.w..u. i'io ;out ;out ~ c: , s u ~ m &::(;out c;+w: c e ~ ~ ;i~ c ) (~ io "" ~~ , ""'-i ~ ;i""'-~ ~ : (: ~ ~ m ( ~) mw~~ ~ ;i, ~ ""'-~ , ~ ;i, ;.!~ s:: ~ 0 ~ ~ ~ s 0 ..;< ..... i , ~ ;:;', ~ , ~ , ~ ..; r. \;;:, ~ , fro..; ~ :e ;> . :e ,:, .,; ~ o:i .,; ." o:i p.; p.; ~ 268 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y 'i ~ w : ( "" t) 1:0 -;;:w ~ • tu + ~ j,hl~ ~ =-(+ :w ~ (~ • s'w r~--"tu+ it) j w ) ~ j • ~ 0 ~ it) ( it) • ,( ( c( '-i• w ( w "" ., (. 1:0 it) , ~ ijl w w (( tu + ~ (' r\ ( 0 ~) 1:0 '. ~ £ ..;< ...... <ii " ~ ~ " ~ " ~ " ~ < ~ [;:;" ~ < ~ " ~ l :;;: ~ :;;: '" >i u: c:i u: "0 c:i i"i 0.; 0.; ~ b e n g rv a n 269 <"ill ( c ~ (~ <gt "ill -"~ r~ ~ e c: ~ $ j &:~ ~ ~ e u c ;:j ( 0 <-:::.0 ..;< ..... 1 < ~ (21< ~ < ~ < w 'o :e ..,; ~ o:i ~ 0; 270 current musicology spontaneously conceived material. if reinhardt's solo on "embraceable you" is viewed from the perspective suggested by sarath and konitz, one can speculate that the improvisation begins at a creative level which fluctu­ ates between fragmentary expressions of gershwin's melody and contribu­ tions of the guitarist's own. then, midway through the solo, the performer takes a short "break"-a period of reduced creative activity which is mani­ fested by the "background" passage that begins his second chorus. this enables him to prepare for another burst of higher level cognitive activity, which predominates for the remainder of the solo. this paper has suggested that the radically discontinuous character of reinhardt's music need not represent solely a methodological obstacle to be either surmounted or circumvented, but may be worth considering in and of itself. (conversely, questions regarding structural unity have been largely bypassed. 19) but the above framework's applicability to the work of other jazz improvisers is not self-evident. while it would be all too easy to carry out the sort of "dissection" performed here upon "liza" and "embraceable you" on many different improvised jazz solos by other musi­ cians, this seems liable to lead to highly arbitrary parsings. in the final pair of examples, the interpretation of discontinuities as signaling the per­ former's mental shifts of attention between "foreground" improvisation, melodic paraphrases, and repetitive "background" patterns can only be justified on the grounds that one finds, elsewhere in reinhardt's oeuvre, much more clear-cut evidence pointing to a tendency to "think this way." one reason why this evidence readily lends itself to this interpretation is that the guitar, like all rhythm-section instruments, is conventionally played in very different ways at different times-for instance depending on whether the performer is soloing (playing single-note lines) or accompa­ nying (strumming chords)-and these associations persist in other con­ texts. but improvised discontinuities that imply a process of shifting be­ tween different psychological strata can be associated with any instrument. in addition to berliner's account, cited above, of horn players who period­ ically play call-and-response-type figures "with themselves," the critic gary giddins has noted louis armstrong's ability to create an "illusion of self­ accompaniment" through the use of obbligato-like interpolations while singing (giddins 1988:127). arid the tenor saxophonist sonny rollins has stated intriguingly, "there are times when i feel like a one-man orchestra, where i had to be my own rhythm section and all the other parts of the band" (quoted in nisenson 2000:116). these examples raise the possibility that reinhardt's specific uses of musical discontinuity may not be unique to him alone, and that the framework set forth here may yet have broader applications. appendix: discography title matrix no. recording date currently available releaset "body and soul" cl 6716·1 may 31,1938 django with his american (green-heyman) friends (drg 8493) "charleston" ola 1703-1 april 21, 1937 the complete django (mack:johnson) reinhardt and quintet of the hot club of france swing/ hmv sessions, 1936-1948 (mosaic md6-190) "embraceable you" oef 27-1 january 31,1946 the complete django (gershwin-gershwin) reinhardt . .. (mosaic md6-190) "h.c.q. strut" dr 3862-1 august 25,1939 parisian swing: django (reinhardt-grappelli) reinhardt and stephane grappelli with the quintet of the hot club of france (avid amsc648) "i've had my moments" p 77538 september, 1935 django reinhardt, quintet of (kahn-donaldson) the hot club of france: first recordings! (prestige ojccd1895-2 (p-7614)) 'japanese sandman" ola 1889-1 july 7, 1937 django with his american (whiting-egan) friends (drg 8493) 'jeepers creepers" ca4968-1/ march 21, 1939 parisian swing . .. (warren-mercer) 2hpp (avid amsc 648) "liza" dr 10029-1 february 1, 1946 django reinhardt and (gershwin) stephane grappelli with the quintet of the hot club of france: souvenirs (london 820 591-2) "love's melody" dr 10026-1 february 1, 1946 djangoreinhardtand (reinhardt) stephane grappelli ... (london 820591-2) "marie" cw38 jan./feb., 1949 djangology '49 (berlin) (bluebird 9988-2-rb) "the sheik of araby" ola 1837-1 april 27, 1937 the complete django (smi th-wheeler-snyder) reinhardt . .. (mosaic md6-190) "solid old man" osw67-1 april 5, 1939 django with his american (stewart) friends (drg 8493) "st. louis blues" ola 1952-1 september 9,1937 the complete django (handy) reinhardt . .. (mosaic md6-190) t many tracks are available on other compilations in addition to those listed here. 272 current musicology notes * 1 would like to thank ramon satyendra, patrick mccreless, robert p. morgan, and michael friedmann for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. a ver­ sion was presented at the annual meeting of the society for music theory in philadelphia, penn., november 2001. 1. for example, clarinetist pee wee russell states, "i usually think about four bars ahead what i'm going to play"; flugelhorn player art farmer observes "i rarely know what i'm going to do in a solo more than a measure or two ahead"; and tenor saxophonist warne marsh claims "my mind works ahead a bar or two" (balliett 1996:138, 447, 492). 2. for instance, vibraphonist milt jackson attests that "i keep the melody in mind. 1 always remember the melody and then 1 have something to fall back on when 1 get lost" (balliett 1996:308). pianist hankjones states that "you think about the chord pattern-not each chord-and you think about the melody" (balliett 2000b:837) . 3. one could, of course, add to this list by including phenomena such as the "moment form" codified in the writings of karlheinz stockhausen (for a summary, see kramer 1978), or various postmodern "collage" techniques. even the ro­ mantic (or modernist) notion of organicism can be conceived in dialectical terms, for example, as the synthesis of contrasting ideas (see cherlin 2000). 4. on all but three of the recordings discussed in this essay reinhardt is accom­ panied by members of the quintet of the hot club of france. personnel varies, but the quintet's rhythm section always consists of two guitars and a double bass. the three exceptions are the previously mentioned performance of "solid old man," accompanied by billy taylor (bass) and barney bigard (drums); 'japanese sandman," accompanied by dick fullbright (bass) and bill beason (drums); and "marie," accompanied by gianni safred (piano), carlo recori (bass), and aurelio de carolis (drums). 5. on several of reinhardt's other recordings, analogous interchanges occur between two different instruments. for instance, on "studio 24" (april 16, 1942; matrix 16192) reinhardt interpolates guitar "fills" between melodic phrases played by pianist ivon de bie. 6. in fact, there are remarkably few recordings on which reinhardt plays, in recognizable form, a melody that is not his own for a period of more than about four measures without interruption. 7. a strict, practically viable definition of melodic paraphrase in jazz improvisa­ tion has eluded jazz scholars for reasons illustrated by example 5: performers often utilize paraphrase very freely (for a brief discussion of this issue, see williams 199798). for instance, harker (1999:58ff) cites louis armstrong's diminishing differ­ entiation between melodic paraphrases and arpeggiated, harmonically-oriented improvised melodies as a feature of the trumpeter's stylistic evolution during the mid-to-iate 1920s. 8. this term is used by berliner (1994:626 and passim). 9. musical accompaniments, in a variety of genres, are often characterized by the repetition of short musical units. in the terminology of gestalt psychology, ben givan 273 repetitive accompaniments constitute a "ground" against which a listener can indi­ viduate a foregrounded melodic "figure." 10. i should emphasize that in this paper the terms "foreground" and "back­ ground" ought not be confused with the same terms as used in schenkerian theory. 11. here it should be acknowledged that the analytical perspective taken in this paper generally privileges the parameter of pitch above rhythm. that is, pas­ sages of music are often contrasted on the basis of differing pitch-complexity, even though they may not be so readily distinguished with respect to rhythm (or, for that matter, timbre, dynamics, and so forth). this bias is clearly open to question. 12. though it is difficult to tell conclusively from the recording, i suspect that both of these passages are actually played by alternating three strokes on an open string with three stopped notes on the adjacent lower string. 13. i interpret this as a "background" figure because of its direct connection with the theme's harmonic model (specifically, its bass progression), though it clearly does not exhibit the sort of ostinato-like figuration that i have suggested is more typical of background material in reinhardt's music. 14. like many of this article's speculations, this claim is clearly not verifiable. still, like my conjectures that reinhardt may sustain a mental image of a theme's melody and harmonic structure while improvising, it is somewhat corroborated by the accounts of other performers. for instance, in a masterclass at the university of new hampshire, durham, in the spring of 1992, the jazz pianist john bunch commented that, when playing up-tempo unaccompanied improvisations, he would often imagine a drummer accompanying him. this is akin to the "repetitive rhythmic ostinato" about which i hypothesize here, though of course a drum ac­ companiment, unlike a guitar's, lacks pitch (and, unlike bunch, reinhardt is play­ ing with accompaniment). 15. "external sounds" can include the preceding improvised melody, as well as the contributions of other members of the ensemble, or even, more rarely, sounds originating outside of the ensemble altogether. the latter sorts of interactive phe­ nomena (which are fundamental to monson 1996) are not addressed in this paper. indeed, in comparison to the post-world war ii jazz styles that are monson's pri­ mary focus, reinhardt's swing era improvisations (particularly those with the quintet of the hot club of france) appear to involve far less musical interaction of an explicit nature. 16. this statement represents my own oversimplification of sarath's account; it is conceivable that a repetitive passage might well indicate a higher rate of cogni­ tive event cycles, should the performer constantly be evading a continuation that would, in context, be a more routine possibility (see sarath 1996:11). 17. again, this general hypothesis is drawn only loosely from both sarath's de­ tailed framework and konitz's far briefer, and comparatively metaphorical, remarks. 18. some minor additional observations: the figure in m. 16 that introduces a new four-measure unit is here classified as a structural marker due to its similarity with other such figures that reinhardt sometimes employed when accompanying others, such as can be heard on "echoes of france," from the same recording 274 current musicology session (january 31, 1946; matrix oef 28-1). also, the figure in m. 28 is assigned to the conceptual background solely because of its soft dynamic level, such that it suggests an embellished "echo" of the preceding b~-e~ motive that invokes the original melody. 19. a close analysis of reinhardt's improvisations that focused on issues of structural unity might well yield interesting insights, but such questions have (in­ tentionally) not been a concern of this article. references balliett, whitney. 1996. american musicians ii: seventy-two portraits injazz. new york: oxford university press. ---. 2000a. seeing music. new yorker (september 11): 98-100. reprinted in balliett (2000b:854-58). ---. 2000b. collected works: a journal of jazz, 1954-2000. new york: st. martin's press. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago: university of chicago press. block, steven. 1990. pitch-class transformation in free jazz. music theory spectrum 12: 181-202. cherlin, michael. 2000. dialectical opposition in schoenberg's music and thought. music theory spectrum 22: 157-76. cone, edward t. 1989. stravinsky: the progress of a method. in music: a view from deift: selected essays, edited by robert p. morgan, 293-301. chicago: university of chicago press. floyd, samuel a., jr. 1995. the power of black music: interpreting its history from africa to the united states. new york: oxford university press. giddins, gary. 1988. satchmo. new york: dolphin. gushee, lawrence. 1981. lester young's "shoeshine boy." in report of the twelfth congress, berkeley 1977, international musicological society. edited by daniel heartz and bonnie wade, 151-69. kassel: biirenreiter. harker, brian. 1999. "telling a story": louis armstrong and coherence in early jazz. current musicology, no. 63: 46-83. hartman, charles o. 1991. jazz text: voice and improvisation in poetry, jazz, and song. princeton: princeton university press. hodeir, andre. 1956. jazz: its evolution and essence. translated by david noakes. new york: grove press. ---.1962 towardjazz. translated by noel burch. new york: grove press. kernfeld, barry. 1981. adderley, coltrane, and davis at the twilight of bebop: the search for melodic coherence (1958-59). ph.d. diss., cornell university. ---. 1995. mlhat to listen for in jazz. new haven, conn.: yale university press. kramer, jonathan. 1978. moment form in twentieth-century music. musical quarterly 64: 177-94. larson, steve. 1998. schenkerian analysis of modern jazz. music theory spectrum 20: 209-41. ben givan 275 ---.1999. swing and motive in three performances by oscar peterson. journal of music theory 43: 283-314. martin, henry. 1996. charlie parker and thematic improvisation. lanham, md.: scarecrow press. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: university of chicago press. nisenson, eric. 2000. open sky: sonny rollins and his world of improvisation. new york: st. martin's press. peters, mike. 1999. liner notes to the complete django reinhardt and quintet of the hot club of france swing/hmv sessions, 1936-1948. mosaic md6-190. sarath, ed. 1996. a new look at improvisation. journal of music theory 40: 1-38. schuller, gunther. 1958. sonny rollins and the challenge of thematic improvisa­ tion. jazz review (november): 6-11. reprinted in musings: the musical worlds of gunther schuller (new york: oxford university press, 1986),86-97. ---.1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. taruskin, richard. 1996. stravinsky and the russian traditions: a biography of the works through mavra. berkeley: university of california press. tomlinson, gary. 1992. cultural dialogics and jazz: a white historian signifies. in disciplining music, edited by katherine bergeron and philip v. bohlman, 64-94. chicago: university of chicago press. williams,]. kent. 1997-98. authors' responses to forte's questions. annual review of jazz studies 9: 104-5. walser, robert. 1995. out of notes: signification, interpretation, and the problem of miles davis. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 165-88. durham, n.c.: duke university press. ~~ldfj'j ~t1, 's! ~ 2003 festschrift in honor of christopher hatch guest edited by glenn stanley ernest h. sanders 7 preface christopher hatch 11 a selected bibliography leeman l. perkins 15 concerning the ontological status of the notated work in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ernest h. sanders 51 "are my ears on wrong?" hearing polyphony of ca.1375-ca.1450 edmond strain champs 79 five saliences in marco da gagliano's earliest madrigals peter schubert 91 recombinant melody: ten things to love about willaert's music edward lippmann 115 musical articulation: a synoptic view of baroque form christopher h. gibbs 117 writing under the influence? salieri and schubert's early opinion of beethoven janna k. saslaw 145 the concept of ausweichungin music theory, 1770-1832 richard taruskin 165 a suggestive detail in weber's freischutz david w. bernstein 169 "paths of harmony" in the first movement of brahms's cello sonata in e minor, op. 38 edmund j. goehring 185 musical plationism in modern culture book reviews: music and politics in africa brett pyper 205 louise meintjies. sound of africa! making music zulu in a south african studio andrew eisenberg 214 kelly askew. performing the nation: swahili music and cultural politics in tanzania martin scherzinger 223 kofi agawu. representing african music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions contributors in the next issue call for papers corresponding editors australia mark carroll university of sydney margaret]. kartomi monash university, clayton andrew d. mccredie monash university, melbourne belgium francis e. maes state university of ghent philippe vendrix universite de liege croatia vjera katalinie croatian academy of arts and sciences ghana ]. h. kwabena nketia international centre for african music & dance hong kong greta olson chinese university of hong kong ireland harry white university college, dublin italy paul terse pontificio istituto de musica sacra, rome portugal manual carlos de brito universidade nova de lisboa salwa ei-shawan castelo-branco universidade nova de lisboa slovenia svanibor petan university of ljubijana south africa winfried ludemann university of stellenbosch switzerland laurenz lutteken university of zurich united kingdom stephen d. banfield university of bristol barry a. r. cooper university of manchester jonathan m. dunsby editor-at-large, reading david r. a. evans university college of north wales, bangor mark everist university of southampton piers hellawell queen's university of belfast sarah s. hill university of southampton david wynjones cardiff university elaine kelly university of edinburgh nicholas marston king's college, cambridge university gerald r. seaman st. antony's college, oxford university editor's preface the papers in this festschrift honor christopher hatch in a way that says something crucial about the nature of his contributions to the music de­ partment of columbia university for more than four decades. their diver­ sity with respect to discipline, period, and approach reflects not only the breadth of his scholarly interests but also his wide-ranging expertise. in addition to his years as editor of the musical quarterly, chris served as men­ tor-editor to several generations of fellow and later students as well as professional colleagues within columbia and in the field. he read with the greatest empathy for the values, methodologies, and writing styles of his authors. while maintaining the highest of standards, he never tried to impose his own point of view but rather succeeded in making his critique from within, thinking, as far as this is possible, with the mind and soul of the author. his success as mentor-editor depended greatly on his unwa­ vering sympathy and respect for his students and colleagues and his unsurpassable, although reserved affability and patience. he was also a great teacher. understated, decidedly (and no doubt purposefully) not stirring or dramatic, he was, nevertheless, an inspirational teacher whose humanism embodied the ideals of a liberal arts education to the highest, most idealistic degree. and he also educated when the talk-walking down broadway or in tom's restaurant-was about municipal politics, german literature, new england yankees and so many other topics. he was always a rare bird; it is difficult to imagine that many, if any, of his breed still survive. ernest sanders, who was at columbia with chris from the begin­ ning, tells us more about him in his profile. i close by wishing him and lois many years of good health and intellectual vigor. and good reading of these papers! i am sure that the contributors to this book and its readers who know and treasure him will join me. glenn stanley the university of connecticut preface ernest h. sanders it is my great good fortune to have known christopher hatch since the fall of 1950, when both of us entered columbia university as graduate stu­ dents of historical musicology. his superior qualities became readily ap­ parent to fellow students and faculty alike. during his entire subsequent teaching career at columbia, chris was sought out by students and col­ leagues for his perspicacious, yet always tactful instruction, comment, and advice. "he makes us think," 1 heard students say, as they became engaged by this gifted teacher. the combination of his musicality and keen intelli­ gence, often laced with a fine sense of humor, has been of great benefit to all. while his specialty became what is known as theory, his numerous writ­ ings show that the term "theory" is quite inadequate to define his interests, knowledge, and competence. very few of his articles could be described as music-theoretical (one example being his contribution to the book edited by him and david w. bernstein in honor of patricia carpenter). most of them, as well as his numerous reviews, reveal the mind and the learning of a cultural historian of perceptive musicality, often conveying insights go­ ing well beyond the expectations generated by their titles. one of the many examples is his elegant essay on "the 'cockney' writers and mozart's op­ eras" in the opera quarterly (1985), which gives evidence of his wide read­ ing-referring, for instance, to a recent edition of mary shelley's franken­ stein. six years later, on the occasion of the bicentenary of mozart's death, the journal's editor wrote: "i take particular pleasure in making [this one] the first of the journal's original articles ever to be reprinted in the quar­ terly" (1991:27). his essay on hugo wolf's fussreise (1988), in citing corroborating ex­ amples by schumann, henschel, mendelssohn, and ives, enriches the listener's experience through the investigation of the conceptual realm in which this lied arose. and his opera quarterly article on "the wondrous trumpet call in beethoven's fidelia" (1999)-stimulated by his review in the same journal the previous year (1998)-compellingly shows its author as a man of insightful musicality and eloquent humanity. 1 can think of no other contemporary writer on music whose probity and intelligence would cause him to make a contextually apt comment on "the current low re­ spect for the holy estate of matrimony" (1999: 16) . current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 8 current musicology all the articles are relatively brief (averaging about 15 pages), but hardly seem so in the reading, being concentrated and, like their author, spare­ multum in parvo. his numerous reviews evince the breadth of his interests and knowledge, attracting, informing, and persuading the reader by means not only of their multifarious competence, but also of the pithy elegance of his prose and at times by the display of his civilized good humor. the reader will often be gratified by the startling and illuminating recall of items of relevant information from areas of knowledge at times quite far removed from the topic at hand. some reviews (e.g. 1991) attain a scope and a depth admirable vis-a-vis the books under discussion. the biblio­ graphic care and control is consistently impressive; see, for instance, his citation of a wonderfully apt passage from berlioz's essay on beethoven in his review in the opera quarterly (1998) or his truly recondite mention of an unaccounted omission (2003:116, n.3). for his colleagues-first the graduate students, later many of the fac­ ulty-he was and is an invaluable reader, whose acquaintance with a great variety of topics (musical and others) is combined with sympathetically critical insight into authors' thinking. those are the traits that qualified him well for his editorial activities. some of the contributors to this vol­ ume-many of them former graduate students in columbia university's department of music-have communicated to me their fond insights into chris, the man and the scholar. one describes him as a person of out­ standing intelligence, knowledge, generosity, kindness, sincerity, gentlemanliness, and wit-both teacher and friend; the last three words recur in another communication. and a third writer, characterizing him as "a scholar and teacher with one of the keenest musical intellects," refers to the "quiet and unassuming way" in which "as teacher and colleague he selflessly ... help[ed] advance the careers of others." his new england background surely accounts in part for his reticence, modesty, and probity. i cannot imagine chris hurting anyone. i do, how­ ever, remember faculty meetings, when as a departmental citizen he was clearly hurt and angered by thinking or actions inconsonant with his im­ peccable libertarian and moral standards. political matters-departmen­ tal or otherwise-can occasionally ignite his eyes, glittering through the lenses of his glasses, when it is clear to him that issues or people are going indefensibly astray. chris is someone who doesn't know how not to think right, whether professionally, politically, or in personal relations. for a number of years he and his wife, lois, have been living in ver­ mont, the home state of his forebears, where he has been devoting some of his time to floral gardening. having admired the success of his horticul­ tural efforts, i,jointly with my fellow contributors and the editor, dedicate this volume to chris-truly a gentleman and a scholar-and offer admirapreface 9 tion and best wishes to our vermont voltaire and his wife in this year of their golden wedding anniversary. june 22, 2003 references hatch, christopher. [1985] 1991. the 'cockney' writers and mozart's operas. the opera quarterly 8 (1): 27-40. 1988. tradition and creation: hugo wolf's 'fussreise.' college music symposium 28: 70-84. 1991. review of the early romantic era: between revolutions, 1789 and 1848, edited by alexander ringer. 19th century music 15: 80-85. 1998. review of paul robinson, ludwig van beethoven: "fidelio, " cambridge opera handbook. the opera quarterly 14 (4): 121-25. 1999. the wondrous trumpet call in beethoven's fidelio. the opera quarterly 15 (1): 5-17. 2003. review of opera: a history in documents, edited by piero weiss. the opera quarterly 19 (1): 113-16. 10 current musicology charles ives's concept of music charles w. ward as if in a fit of anger charles ives once exclaimed, "my god! what has sound got to do with music !"1 this statement has become popular as evidence of ives's modernism, for it sounds much like what some contemporary composers and theorists have said, i.e. : "sounds, then, are not part of music, however essential they are to its transmission."2 however, ives's concept of music is rooted in the thought of the new england transcendentalists and is fundamentally opposed to many 20th-century ideas about music. the popularity of ives's statement arises from a misunderstanding of the meaning of this outburst, which was penned while ives was describing the reactions of a violinist who wanted to alter the composer's music to suit the instrument. ives continues, "why can't music go out in the same way it comes in to a man, without having to crawl over a fence of sounds, thoraxes, catguts, wire, wood, and brass? .. why can't a musical thought be presented as it is born .... "3 ives was asking that performers not expect his compositions to conform to their own technical limitations. but, if ives's exclamation has been misinterpreted, even more crucial is the misunderstanding of what ives thought to be the nature of music. benjamin boretz and other contemporary theorists seem to operate from what louis kampf has called a "somewhat naive version of logical positivism." these theorists believe that music must be viewed as an object of "rational-that is scientific-discourse."4 ("to many of us in music, the virtues of a confluence of rational inquiry and art have long been evident, if rarely exhibited," writes boretz. 5) that scientific discourse is pursued in terms of "an internally consistent model expressed in the language of mathematics."6 composing a work of art is the defining and creating of "relational 'universes' of elements in whose interrelations are embedded hypothetical properties of relational behavior. "7 sounds are thus not part of music, because artworks, "though they are inferred from observable characteristics of particular slices of the physicalentity world, are not themselves, as art entities, composed of those slices." art entities are, rather, "purely phenomenal things, intersubjective in the sense of thoughts rather than in that of sounds and sights."8 the notational score is, i presume, more characteristic of music because of its ability, through the symbols or signs it utilizes, to express the relationships boretz would want to constitute music. ives, however, had no such ideas when he talked about music and sound. it is true that some of his statements imply at least partial agreement with boretz's ideas on sound as important only as a means of transmitting music; the surface similarity with boretz's ideas is further suggested in this comment 114 by ives: "that music must be heard is not essential-what it sounds like may not be what it is."9 ives's concept of music was metaphysical in the highest transcendental sense. what he wanted to suggest by "my god! what has sound got to do with music!" is present in the famous anecdote about old john bell, with its admonition not to miss the music by paying "too much attention to the sounds."io the essence of the story has been recognized by many of ives's close friends. in a letter dated 24 july 1923, clifton joseph furness, expressing an idea derived from both i ves's essays and correspondence with him, referred to the composer's ideas "about regarding sound as purely a symbol of a mental concept."11 the cowells note that i ves believed music to be "the idea" and that "in certain sorts of composition ives makes a distinction between the music, which is the idea, and the sound, which is simply a physical disturbance during a performance."12 john kirkpatrick confirms this, noting that "ives always regarded 'the music' as being the character of the idea or spirit, quite apart from its embodiment in sound."13 music is, as hegel expressed it, the sensuous incarnation of the idea.14 that idea was not a property of relational behavior but the "substance," a quality which ives believed to be all important in music. 15 there are further distinctions which can aid our understanding of i ves's concept of music. for ives there were several different types of music. he distinguished between "composed" and "natural" music16-music based purely on stylistic considerations and music which tries to reproduce sounds in nature, such as george ives's attempt to reproduce the sounds of church bells pealing in a rainy, misty afternoon,17 or charles's concern with the effect of distance on sound.18 ives felt that "natural" music, in this sense, provides many suggestions towards composition-"glimpses into further fields of thought and beauty."19 however, there is a more fundamental, metaphysical music-'natural' music in its transcendental sense. "whence comes the wonder of a moment? from sources we know not. but we do know that from obscurity and from this higher orpheus comes measures of sphere melodies, flowing in wild, native tones, ravaging the souls of men, flowing now with thousand-fold accompaniments and rich symphonies through all our hearts, modulating and divinely leading them."2o hawthorne sensed the mysteries of these "supernatural sound waves" and tried "to paint them rather than to explain them."21 and thoreau did not have to go to boston to hear "the symphony."22 the roots for this concept of music are found primarily in the ideas of the new england transcendentalists, particularly those of thoreau.23 although emerson had some interest in music, it was thoreau who most extensively developed a metaphysical concept of music. he was intensely interested in perceiving what he thought to be the inherent musical qualities of the sounds and "silences" of nature, but he also believed there to be a transcendental music behind these sounds of nature. 115 daniel e. rider has suggested a number of aspects of thoreau's theory of music24 : (1) music is discussed not in its technical sense, but in a more comprehensive and general meaning. the word music is often used symbolically and poetically, so that even sounds and silences become forms of music. with his acute sense of hearing thoreau perceived some of the incredibly complex organizations of the sounds of nature, hearing what most men call nature's silence to be rich in sounds. from this he poeticized the terms sound and silence in relation to their effect on man's soul. (2) certain qualities inherent in sound can be classified as music, such as those found in a child's beating on a tin pot. (however, these qualities are dependent on a sympathetic disposition toward the child's activities. thoreau imputes the musical qualities to the situation.) (3) thoreau treated music, as a term, in a very metaphorical sense; his terms thrive in a suggestive sense but are destroyed if asked to undergo rigorous examination. (4) music is viewed in a symbolic function, as a vehicle to other philosophical and moral truths. (5) music is also a tool for spiritual development, a means for escaping the materialism and industralization of the 19th century. music is both a means of expression and a catalyst for other human experiences. thoreau's particular understanding of music comes from an idealistic belief in nature as a manifestation of spirit and in music as a realm of the spirit expressing itself. for an idealist such as thoreau the sounds of nature would be much more potent for revealing spirit than the comparatively artificial organization of the sounds and silences that man calls music. in his journal thoreau described nature's sounds as "the general earth song."25 in his youth thoreau thought of the earth as "the most glorious musical instrument, and i was audience to its strains."26 these sounds are the birds, the crickets, the wind, the rivers rushing over the rocks. there is a real music in the earth, infinitesimally complex, that is always open "to the ear that is fitted to hear it. "27 behind the sounds of nature lies the realm of pure music-"sphere music" -which thoreau describes through the use of a metaphor of music rising into the universe. "some sounds seem to reverberate along the plain, and then settle to earth again like dust; such are noise, discord, jargon. but such only as spring heavenward, and i may catch from steeples and hilltops in their upward course, which are the more refined parts of the former, are the true sphere music,-pure, unmixed music,-in which no wail mingles." a balloonist will rise from the world of discordant sounds "into the region of pure melody."28 the finest, purest strains of music travel farther than the coarse ones; thus, "those strains of the piano which reach me here in my attic stir me so much more than the sounds which i should hear if i were below in the parlor, because they are so much purer and diviner melody."29 this is the universal music, the realm of "sphere music" in which the earth gyrates. 30 music is also "god's voice, the divine breath audible," and "the sound of the circulation in nature's veins. "31 it is the voice of god or spirit which 116 permeates nature and man, reconciling all into one whole. therefore "is not all music a hum more or less divine ?"32 another prominent metaphor which thoreau used was that of the telegraph harp. he was fascinated by the sounds of the wind blowing through the telegraph wires which were being erected on the railroad right-of-way near walden pond. this aeolian harp was a man-made invention that had been blessed by the spirit. at last, "the latent music of the earth had found here a vent. music leolian." it is "the travelling patterer for the universe insurance company." the telegraph harp can also rise into the realm of pure melody, if only occasionally. when the right conditions prevail, when "some indistinguishable zephyr blows," the harp "suddenly and unexpectedly rises into melody, as if a god had touched it." through the harp, the spirit touches thoreau's soul: "when the zephyr, or west wind, sweeps the wire, i rise to the height of my being. "33 but ultimately, perhaps, the universal song is the song that rises from within the soul of man, from the spirit speaking within. "all the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. such clarity! obtained by such pure means! by simple living, by honesty of purpose. we live and rejoice. i awoke into a music which no one about me heard. whom shall i thank for it ?"34 man is moved to perceive the inaudible music of the universal over-soul. there was a time when the beauty and the music were all within, and i sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them. i sat for hours on the rocks and wrestled with the melody that possessed me. i sat and listened by the hour to a positive though faint and distant music, not sung by any bird, nor vibrating any earthly harp. when you walked with a joy which knew not its origin. when you were an organ of which the world was but one poor broken pipe .... you sat on the earth as on a raft, listening to music that was not of the earth, but which ruled and arranged it. man should be the harp articulate. 35 thus, when ives exclaimed "what has sound got to do with music!" he was asserting a transcendentalist's impatience with a musician whose mind was limited by the facility of his fingers, a violinist who lacked a vision of the divine. it was this impatience which motivated much of ives's experimentation. in the article "some 'quarter-tone' impressions," he outlined the relationship between his concept of music and his exploration of new musical ideas: it will probably be centuries, at least generations, before man will discover all or even most of the value in a quarter-tone extension. and when he does, nature has plenty of other things up her sleeve. and it may be longer than we think before the ear will freely translate what it hears and instinctively arouse and amplify the spiritual consciousness. but that needn't keep anyone from trying to find out how to use a few more of the myriads of sound waves nature has put around in the 117 air ... for man to catch if he can and "perchance make himself a part with nature," as thoreau used to say. even in the limited and awkward way of working with quarter-tones at present, transcendent things may be felt ahead-glimpses into further fields of thought and beauty.36 for i ves music was a mystical revelation of the over-soul, and he saw his role as a composer as one enlarging the means by which man could express, as did thoreau, "the melody that possessed me."37 notes 1 charles i yes, essays before a sonata and other writings, ed. howard boatwright (new york: norton, 1962), p. 84. 2 benjamin boretz, "nelson goodman's languages of art from a musical point of view," perspectives on contemporary theory, ed. benjamin boretz and edward t. cone (new york: norton, 1972), p. 34. 3 ives, essays, p. 84. 4 louis kampf, on ivlodernism: the prospects for literature and freedom (cambridge: massachusetts institute of technology press, 1967), p. 319. 5 boretz, languages, p. 3l. 6 kampf, on modernism, p. 319. 7 boretz, languages, p. 41. 8 ibid., p. 33. 9 ives, essays, p. 84. 10 charles e. ives, memos, ed. john kirkpatrick (new york: norton, 1972), p. 132. the motto on the title page of this project gives the full text of this anecdote. 11 ives's correspondence with furness is in the ives collection, yale university. 12 henry cowell and sidney cowell, charles ives and his music (new york: oxford university press, 1969), p. 178. 13 ives, memos, p. 242. 14 israel knox, the aesthetic theories of kant, hegel, and schopenhauer (new york: humanities press, 1958), p. 82. 15 ives, essays, pp. 75ff. 16 bentley layton, "an introduction to the 114 songs of charles ives" (senior thesis, harvard university, 1963), pp. 27ff. 17 ives, essays, p. 111. 18 charles ives, "conductor's note," symphony no.4 (new york: associated music publishers, 1965), pp. 13-14. 19 ives, essays, p. 109. 20 ibid., p. 31 and note. this is a paraphrase from carlyle's sartor resartus. 21 ibid., pp. 41--42. 22 ibid., p. 5l. 23 obviously the transcendentalists' view of music is much too complex to be treated in a short article. also, i yes draws on a wide variety of sources for his ideas, and sometimes it is difficult to trace the many allusions in the essa)!s. however, in this article i am trying to contrast aspects of thoreau's view of music with a 20th-century approach in order to illustrate ives's own concept of music. 24 daniel e. rider, "the musical thought and activities of the new england transcendentalists" (ph.d. diss., university of minnesota, 1964), pp. 27lff. this dissertation directed me to the importance of thoreau's journal in treating his ideas on music. 118 25 henry david thoreau, the journal of henry david thoreau, vol. 2, ed. bradford torrey and francis h. allen (boston: houghton mifflin, 1906), p. 254. 26 ibid., pp. 306-0'1. 27 ibid., pp. 379-80. 28 ibid., vol. 1, pp. 53, 58. 29 ibid., vol. 3, p. 125. 30 ibid., vol. 1, p. 35. 31 ibid., pp. 154, 251. 32 ibid., vol. 3, p. 288. 33 ibid., vol. 3, p. 220; vol. 5, p. 293; vol. 3, p. 247; vol. 4, p. 459. 34 ibid., vol. 2, pp. 268-69. 35 ibid., vol. 6, p. 294. 36 i ves, essays, p. 109. 37 see note 35 above. 119 rudy van gelder in hackensack: defining the jazz sound in the 1950s by dan skea introduction to many jazz aficionados, the name rudy van gelder is virtually syn­ onymous with jazz recording. still active today, this reclusive self-taught craftsman is by far the most prolific and accomplished sound engineer in the history of jazz, recording many of the music's most acclaimed albums. in a career that has now spanned half a century and has paralleled devel­ opments in both modern jazz and recording technology, van gelder has contributed to advances in both areas, simultaneously shaping and being shaped by these new developments. although not a creator of new equipment or technology, van gelder has consistently positioned himself at the forefront of technological ad­ vances and been among the first to embrace and fully exploit innovations as they appeared. his ability to adapt each new technology effectively to the recording of jazz has been an important factor in capturing stylistic changes in the art form over the last fifty years. it can also be argued that his skill in making the music more sonically attractive helped record com­ panies sell more product, thus providing them with a financial incentive to carry on their activities. greater record sales also increased audiences for modern jazz, while more widely disseminating important new musical developments. van gelder is perhaps most famous for his role in establishing what is commonly referred to as the "blue note sound." not long after they first began appearing in the early 1950s, his recordings for that label, distin­ guished by their warmth, clarity, and sonic precision, set a new standard for the sound of small group jazz on record, a standard against which al­ most all subsequent efforts were measured. whereas earlier jazz record­ ings seemed to come at the listener from a distance, van gelder found ways to approach and capture the music at closer range, and to more clearly convey jazz's characteristic sense of immediacy. although his signature sound was originally developed primarily with blue note recordings, over the years van gelder has engineered thou­ sands of sessions for numerous other labels including prestige, savoy, bethlehem, impulse, verve, cti, and muse. the sheer volume of his out­ put is astounding, as is the number of his recordings that have come to be regarded as "classic" jazz recordings. (for a select list of albums recorded by van gelder in the 1950s, see the appendix following this article.) current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york dan skea 55 van gelder's expertise has not been limited to the confines of his stu­ dio. he was one of the first of his era to accept the challenge of remote recordings, taking his equipment to numerous nightclubs, concert halls, college campuses, and other venues to preserve some of the most historic and treasured live jazz performances, including those by the art blakey quintet (a night at birdland) , john coltrane ("live" at the village van­ guard), jimmy smith (groovin' at small's paradise), stanley turrentine (up at minton's), and wes montgomery with the wynton kelly trio (smokin' at the half note). by virtue of his accomplishments, van gelder occupies a unique posi­ tion in the history of modern jazz recording. yet he remains an enigma to both jazz fans and fellow engineers. notoriously secretive about his work­ ing methods and personal life, he has long been the subject of curiosity in both camps, and has thus earned the sobriquet "the phantom of engle­ wood cliffs" (griffith 1988). "there was no profession known as recording engineer" rudy van gelder was born in jersey city, new jersey, on november 2, 1924. his family lived in nearby hackensack, where he grew up and went to school. when he was about twelve years of age, van gelder spotted an ad on the back of a comic book ("make your own records at home!") and with his parents' permission he sent away for the $2.98 "home re­ cordo," a device for making short recordings using a turntable and a supply of small blank disks. a perfectionist by nature, van gelder, dissatisfied with the poor sound capabilities of the home recordo, began to try to figure out how to make more accurate recordings. although his first recorder was a simple toy-like device, more professional versions of home recorders had been available in the united states since the early 1930s, and by 1935 the novel idea of making records at home had become something of a fad. in 1931, the presto corporation had introduced the presto record maker, calling it "the greatest advance in home entertainment since radio."! the eighty­ five dollar price included a microphone and a "beautiful, compact, portable, leatherette case." before long, van gelder obtained a disk recording machine and a few microphones, and began recording in earnest, first family members and other relatives, then school friends and neighbors. mothers brought their sons and daughters to the van gelder home to be recorded-singing, reciting poetry, playing the violin-and rudy would make them acetate copies to take home to impress their relatives. van gelder came from a musical family. his father had played cornet in a navy band during world war i, and two of his uncles were professional 56 current musicology musicians. rudy himself took trumpet lessons from bertram russell, a for­ mer member of the john philip sousa band, and played in school ensem­ bles from junior high through college. along with a number of school friends, he became interested in ham radio, a hobby that led him to seek further knowledge of electronics. he also took up photography and learned to develop his own pictures. while still a teenager, van gelder carted his heavy disk recording gear down to lombardo's used furniture store on bergen street in hacken­ sack to record a twelve-piece band that included many of his high school classmates. nominal bandleader sal lombardo was not an outstanding drummer, but the band used the building owned by his parents as a re­ hearsal space because there were always one or two pianos in the back. in high school van gelder became an avid jazz fan. though still under­ age, he and his friend marvin malk visited jazz dubs on new york's 52nd street to hear roy eldridge, billie holiday, art tatum, and his personal fa­ vorite coleman hawkins, whom van gelder would eventually record on twenty-seven different occasions. by the time he graduated high school in 1942, van gelder had already gained a significant amount of experience in sound recording. however, at the time, no full degree course in record­ ing technology was available. so, in the fall of 1942, with his simultaneous interest in photography, cameras, and lenses, he enrolled in the pennsyl­ vania college of optometry. throughout his college years van gelder continued to record amateur soloists and groups on weekends and during the summer months. some of his friends from high school would come over for jam sessions and bring along other musicians with whom they had become acquainted. during at least one summer van gelder worked at nola studios in new york city, where he was able to observe a professional studio operation. a visit to another studio in philadelphia made an especially strong impression. when i was in college, i was going to school in philadelphia, and i was in a professional school learning a profession, and on our off hours we used to go to various clubs in philadelphia to hear music. then, i don't remember exactly why, we ended up going to a radio station-wcau in philadelphia. i walked into their control room, and the environment there gave me a very strong feeling. it was that "this was the sort of place that i'd like to be." i felt strongly attracted to the sort of things that were happening in this beautiful new studio, as compared to the kind of activities i would be engaged in in the profession i was studying. it was a very strong feeling, and i do remember it. but that didn't result in "now i'm going to do that," because at that time there was no profession known as recording engineer. (quoted in forlenza 1993:57) dan skea 57 while the studio atmosphere at wcau was strongly appealing to him, because the career of a sound recordist was less well-defined at the time, van gelder carried on with his optometry studies, committed to pursuing a career in that profession. his recording activities remained essentially a hobby. still, he was determined to continue learning as much as he could about recording technology in order to improve the results he was able to achieve. when van gelder graduated from college in 1946, his parents had just built a new home in hackensack at 25 prospect avenue, on the corner of thompson street. among the unusual features of the house, a one-story ranch style that would soon become fashionable throughout the country, were its cinder block construction and central air conditioning. in plan­ ning their new home, van gelder's parents were mindful of rudy's keen interest in recording. in the space that might otherwise have been an ad­ ditional bedroom or study, they had architect sidney schenker design a control room instead. this room was separated from the living room by a large glass window set into the concrete block wall. the window was double-paned for greater sound insulation, with one pane angled slightly off the vertical to eliminate reflective glare. under this window, a hole through the wall served as a conduit for microphone cables. as it happened, this particular living room turned out to be an ideal venue for recording small-group jazz. the ten-foot-high ceiling made the room seem more spacious than it actually was, while the wide archway open­ ing into the adjoining dining room, in which sound waves could reverber­ ate, offered an added dimension. corridors leading off toward the kitchen and the bedrooms provided additional air columns of varying proportions. "acoustically it sounded nice," said rudy. the room "had little hallways and little nooks and crannies going off. it was really nice. nice place to record. i made some good records there" (quoted in sidran 1995:313). in the end, due to a combination of factors that no one could have foreseen or pre­ dicted, the hackensack living room's uniquely favorable physical configu­ ration and acoustical properties helped van gelder achieve a sound that would eventually be heard, recognized, and widely emulated. ''we used to jam in his living room" not long after graduating from college, van gelder established his op­ tometry practice, opening an office at 447 cedar lane in the neighboring town of teaneck, a short ten-minute drive from hackensack. in his off hours, at night, on weekends, and on wednesdays-his regular day off­ he continued his amateur recording activities. with the increased capabili­ ties afforded him by the new living room studio setup, he was able to gain much greater control over each phase of the recording process. at the time, he was still using a disk recorder, a machine which captured sound 58 current musicology by cutting spiral grooves in lacquer-coated aluminum disks; professional recording consoles were not then commercially available. those that did exist were to be found in the studios of the major radio networks, such as rca and columbia, where they had been designed and constructed by staff engineers. therefore, in order to upgrade further, van gelder had to build a lot of his own equipment, sending away for kits and parts, building his own amplifier, and adapting a radio console for recording. there were no commercial companies making recording consoles as they are today. the major record companies all built their own, and if you wanted to do anything you had to do it yourself. which i did. that's how i started. how much did i end up designing? of course, it was everything. the only commercial designs were available through radio equipment manufacturers. they had consoles for radio pur­ poses and that was my first console, which was actually a modified radio console. (quoted in hovan 1999) the fine thread of lacquer that the disk-cutting machine disgorged was a constant nuisance to van gelder as he was recording. his inventive younger brother leon came up with a solution. it was an electrolux vacuum-the grey and chrome job. it looked like a long tube with rails that you pulled it on. in the basement, di­ rectly under the room that my father built for rudy, where the con­ sole was, and the recording equipment, i mounted it to a concrete wall. and then the tube that you would normally use for vacuuming, i drilled a hole in the floor and ran the tube up. and then i had to adapt various hoses. i remember running around to auto parts stores getting different size hoses· to convert it down so that it was a small tube mounted next to the actual cutting head, and it sucked up the chips. (leon van gelder 2000) in the first few years at 25 prospect avenue, van gelder mainly recorded amateur musicians and singers in the neighborhood. his musi­ cian "clients" were primarily friends from his high school days, who paid nothing for the privilege of recording and only a dollar or so for each ac­ etate copy van gelder made for them. knowing he still had a lot to learn, van gelder encouraged musicians to come to the hackensack living room so that he could gain experience by recording them. in the late 1940s, as word of his increasing skill spread, professional musicians began to show up at his door. one of the first of these was a pianist from westwood, new jersey named bill triglia. dan skea 59 somebody told me that there was a place where you could record. he lived in hackensack at the time. so we went down there, i think to jam. i asked rudy if we could go down there, and we would like to make a tape. at that time i was beginning to play with tony fruscella, who was a talented trumpet player. we were the best musi­ cians around; there was nobody else playing that kind of jazz in new jersey. we knew [rudy] was a good engineer, and he liked jazz. we pushed him, because he was a nice guy, and he did have a love for jazz. and he respected us. (triglia 1999) triglia began passing the word to other musicians, including his friend, drummer sonny igoe. we used to jam in his living room when he was still experimenting, and he didn't even have a tape machine yet. it was all those wax disks, and all that stuff was going on the floor. but we had some great players-red mitchell, tony fruscella. somebody said, "hey, there's a guy who will record us-you want to go play?" and it might have been bill triglia. he was like the big organizer of that kind of stuff. and some of it was late at night. and then he'd play it back for us. i can remember playing at some joint with all those guys, and then somebody said, "hey, i just called up rudy van gelder-he wants us to come over." and so we'd go over there and play some more. (igoe 1999) a long-time jazz lover himself, van gelder was especially interested in recording jazz music and in learning how to best capture its unique nu­ ances. luckily, most of the musicians now getting the word through the bill triglia grapevine were jazz players, and as time went on more and more of them came to hackensack to record. some of the top jazz artists of the era wound up serving as guinea pigs for van gelder's experi­ mentations. among these were saxophonists lee konitz, warne marsh, zoot sims, gerry mulligan, phil urso, and ted brown; trumpeter tony fruscella; guitarist ai casamenti; pianists sal mosca and lennie tristano; bassists red mitchell, bill anthony, and mort pell; and drummers harold granowsky, sonny igoe, and howie mann. pianist billy taylor, one of the earliest artists to record for the prestige label in hackensack, worked with van gelder to develop a method of mi­ crophone selection and placement that would best capture the full range of the piano keyboard. i took some [art] tatum records out and some other pianists' records that i thought would help me explain what i was trying to 60 current musicology get at. and we listened to them. he was the first engineer that i worked with who was that sensitive, and really just took time and cared about mike placement and all that sort of stuff. and i was just knocked out because here was a guy who was willing to take that kind of time on his own to listen and to, you know, say, "well, okay­ play something." and i'd play something, and he'd put a mike in one place and go back in the other room. and then say, "okay, let's try that again," and put a mike somewhere else. i mean, he was really just kind of making some comparisons and coming up with what he thought would get closest to what we were talking about. and he ac­ tually captured the sound that i was looking for, and ultimately that seemed, to my ear, to be the basis of his piano sound. (taylor 1999) because improvisation is such an essential part of the art form, jazz mu­ sic presented special challenges to the recording engineer. in recording classical or popular pieces, because of notation or a (mostly) preconceived product, an engineer might follow a score and thereby anticipate the dy­ namics of specific passages in order to make appropriate adjustments to input levels. in jazz, however, where the playing of soloists and the interac­ tion of the rhythm section is spontaneously improvised, volume levels change dramatically and unpredictably with the emotion of the moment. jazz engineers, therefore, had to be particularly attentive and be able to make lightning adjustments "on the fly." with his musical background and love of jazz, van gelder had an ad­ vantage over most other engineers in this area. his intuitive understand­ ing of the music and familiarity with the players allowed him to anticipate what was coming and to react accordingly. in addition, his grasp of jazz forms, conventions, and terminology enabled him to communicate more effectively with the artists (and later, producers), making sessions go more smoothly and productively. "if something good went in, it came out that way" van gelder's commitment to capturing the sounds musicians were looking for led him to modify emerging technologies for the ideal record­ ing of jazz. during the late forties and early fifties, several significant technological developments occurred in the field of sound recording. the most important of these was the advent of magnetic tape technology, which first became widely available after world war ii. this system had been advanced in germany during the 1930s and came to america by way of two returning servicemen, jack mullin and richard ranger, who brought back several of the german machines called the magnetophon. the german design, not protected by standard patent regulations, was dan skea 61 quickly copied by several american manufacturers, the most successful of which was the ampex corporation. in 1948 ampex introduced the model 200, a large, heavy unit first used by the abc radio network, and in 1949 the ampex 300, a more streamlined machine that swiftly became the in­ dustry standard. the arrival of magnetic tape represented a major break­ through in the recording industry. not only was it the first recording medium to be reusable, but it also allowed for the recording of much longer selections than disk machines. van gelder was among the first american recording engineers to ob­ tain an ampex 300, which he promptly installed in his hackensack con­ trol room. not long thereafter he obtained a second ampex, essentially the same machine, but in a portable carrying case. these machines recorded on quarter-inch plastic tape at speeds of thirty or fifteen inches per second. the expanded capacity of magnetic tape was especially appre­ ciated by jazz musicians, who were now able to more freely extend their improvisations. the long-playing 12-inch microgroove record had been introduced by columbia in 1948, making it possible to fit these longer selections onto commercial albums. shortly after magnetic tape, another piece of german technology ar­ rived in america: the neuman u-47 condenser microphone, an instru­ ment vastly superior to previous models. sold in the united states under the name telefunken, it soon became a universal favorite among record­ ing engineers. once again, van gelder was among the first engineers to utilize this new innovation. "i had, i believe, the second or third one in this country. the first one went to a studio called reeves sound in new york which used to do film recording."2 the telefunken was originally de­ signed to be used as microphones had been up to this time: with a single microphone placed at a significant distance from an orchestra. but van gelder, seeking an immediacy more conducive to the recording of small group jazz, adapted the telefunken to his own purposes, using multiple microphones and placing them closer to the individual instruments. when the microphone was used in this manner, however, the result was unacceptable levels of distortion. at about this time, van gelder was fortunate to have made the acquain­ tance of a man named rein narma, an estonian who had settled in bergenfield, new jersey in 1951. narma, a specialist in audio engineering, discovered a way to modify the telefunken's amplifier by making a change in its circuitry, thereby rendering the microphone far more usable at close range. narma performed this conversion on van gelder's tele­ funkens, and also visited the hackensack studio on quite a few occasions and offered help with a number of other technical problems van gelder encountered in modifying his equipment for the recording of jazz. 62 current musicology there was a while where rudy used me as a sort of consultant, and a time when he called me quite frequently about lots of little things, things that he would come across. i was handy, i was nearby. and these were things that he learned to do himself, because he was good about that. he would call me and say, you know, "i have this kind of problem." or, "what do you do about this and that?" so anyway, there were a lot of little questions that he asked me. in retrospect, i think he would have known the answers himself, but i was handy. (narma 1999)3 being able to use more microphones and place them closer to the in­ struments allowed van gelder to get a more intimate sound in the living room studio. a prime example of this is the sound of miles davis's muted trumpet, which van gelder would later record with the telefunken micro­ phone almost touching the metallic harmon mute, thereby permitting miles to achieve great intensity without having to play at a high volume level. the piercing, icy-blue tone davis was thus able to achieve became one of the trumpeter's trademarks, a sound that critic martin williams called, "one of the most personal and effective musical sonorities in jazz history" (williams 1968). since his first experience with the home recordo, van gelder had steadily sought to learn as much as he could about the recording process, and tried to discover whatever methods and equipment might help to im­ prove the results. in the new living room studio, he was able to exercise a much greater degree of control than ever before and to experiment freely with various techniques. among the musicians who found their way to hackensack in the late 1940s was joe mooney, a blind accordionist from paterson, new jersey, who also played the organ and sang. mooney had already enjoyed a mod­ icum of success in the music business as the leader of a swing quartet that made several recordings for the decca label in 1947 and 1948. as early as 1949 mooney made some demonstration recordings in hackensack, and two years later, for the carousel label, recorded the track that became van gelder's first commercial release. mooney's vocal on "we'll be together again" caught the ear of disk jockey ai 'jazzbo" collins, who began to play the song regularly on his wnew radio show, "collins on a cloud." the record became quite popular. "[collins] just loved that record, and he was on from, i think, four to six on wnew every day," van gelder recalled. "so he played that thing over and over again."4 with the added confidence following the release of mooney's record, van gelder began to take on even more projects. he was now spending more and more time with his recording activities and less and less working dan skea 63 at his optometry practice. he also began to spend more time investigating some of the new techniques that had become possible with the introduc­ tion of tape recording. one of these was the process known as overdub­ bing, a method whereby multiple tracks could be recorded or "stacked" on the same tape, one after another. this was done by playing back the first track on one machine while a second part was added, with both sig­ nals being recorded onto a second machine. in other words, an engineer might (as guitarist les paul did) record a single guitar part first, then record that track plus a second guitar part onto another machine, repeat­ ing the process until the desired number of parts had been accumulated. the downside of this process was that with each added track a degree of fidelity was sacrificed, since the original track now became a second gener­ ation. tape "hiss" also increased proportionately. to compensate some­ what for this, paul learned to record the least important parts first, and the most important parts last, so as to have the finished product retain the greatest degree of sonic freshness (paul 1999). although by no means the first engineer to begin exploring the possi­ bilities of overdubbing, van gelder was certainly among the earliest in the field of jazz recording to make practical application of this new methodol­ ogy.5 as early as 1951, he started making sound-on-sound recordings by "ping-ponging" signals from one tape recorder to another. in that year, pianist lennie tristano overdubbed multiple piano tracks onto van gelder's ampexes in hackensack. tristano, later noted for experimenting with the possibilities of recording and playing back at different speeds, subsequently made many other recordings in this vein elsewhere. at about the same time, guitarist billy bauer, a frequent collaborator of tristano's, recorded a series of bach two-part inventions at hackensack, playing both parts himself through overdubbing. "rudy was just starting to do double tracks at that time. i mean, it was comparatively new" (bauer 2000). saxophonist teo macero recalls a session in 1953 where he overdubbed multiple parts on his composition "explorations." it was crazy, a hilarious experience ... there were five lines in there, and i played tenor and alto. i don't think i played baritone on that. but five lines-you know, you put the tape on one machine, you record on one, you take that out, put it on another tape recorder­ ping-pong, more or less-until you get the five tracks down. oh, i was busy. (macero 1999) in april 1954, bobby sherwood recorded as a one-man band in hackensack by playing trumpet, guitar, piano, bass, and drums in separate passes-fourteen in all-with van gelder bouncing the accumulated 64 current musicology tracks from machine to machine. for good measure, sherwood then added four vocal parts in the same manner. the two tunes recorded, "yes, indeed" and "brown eyes, why are you blue?" were released as a single on the coral label under the name of bobby sherwood and his all-bobby sherwood orchestra. van gelder later said of this session, "i didn't use any special equipment-just standard equipment used by all good record­ ing studios today" (quoted in feather 1956:31). the introduction of magnetic tape made possible another means of manipulating recorded material: editing by cutting apart and splicing together passages from two or more different takes. van gelder quickly developed extraordinary skill with a razor blade, making precise cuts on the diagonal to produce a smoother transition when the splice ran back over the play head. 6 his adeptness at precision splicing would later stand him in good stead when editing tracks for many labels, for which he would frequently patch together the best sections of various takes to produce a more "perfect" final performance. although seemingly antithetical to jazz, an art form that prizes the uniqueness of each performance for its quali­ ties of spontaneous improvisation, the practice of producing more pol­ ished recordings through splicing and other tape manipulations quickly became an accepted practice in many quarters of the jazz world. having a portable version of the ampex tape recorder gave van gelder the capability of making recordings at remote locations more easily than he could with the older disk machines. in the fall of 1950 he made one of his first remote recordings when he took his equipment to frank daley's meadowbrook inn in cedar grove, new jersey to capture a few sets by the woody herman band. of the music van gelder recorded that day, a high­ light was a bass solo by red mitchell on a tune called "bass-ic lady." says guitarist bucky pizzarelli: "the bass sounded so good for a recording that all the bass players would buy it from him" (quoted in kanzler 2001:25). red's brother whitey mitchell remembers that after the meadowbrook session "we went to [rudy's] house and he played us some of these things. [it was] the first good recording of anything i ever heard" (mitchell 1999). unfortunately, neither this vintage woody herman material nor a later recording van gelder made of the band in 1953 was ever commer­ cially released. "i got woody to let him come into carnegie hall and record a whole concert," herman drummer sonny igoe recalled. "it was never released, though" (igoe 1999). van gelder had begun to make connections with several other big band leaders, for whom he sometimes made on-location recordings. these performances were generally recorded for demonstration purposes only, and were not intended to be finished products. van gelder made such demo recordings of the larry elgart band in atlantic city and new york. dan skea 65 when we first met rudy, i decided to make a demo in new york. rudy and myself and charlie epstein carried his gear out to his car, and we found a room in new york city in the ansonia hotel, on the balcony. it had a really nice sound. the first demo was just part of what became sophisticated swing. when columbia took them they said they wanted to re-record them in their own studio. so i had rudy come along as advisor. (elgart 2000) this was the period when the elgart band developed its innovative and lightly swinging guitar-but-no-piano rhythm section. elgart remembers that the new sound actually came into being "because that first recording we did at the ansonia with rudy, there was no piano there. and then we loved the concept, so we just built around that" (ibid.). as important as van gelder's skills in other aspects of recording were, many feel his greatest genius lay in the ability he quickly developed in cut­ ting lacquer masters, the first and most critical step in producing the final record. obtaining a scully lathe in the early 1950s, he taught himself the precision-demanding process of transferring the music from tape to disk. whereas recording engineers in many major studios turned their session tapes over to others to be mastered, from very early on van gelder mas­ tered virtually all of his own recordings, and was later sought out for that purpose by outside clients as well. by mastering his own recordings, van gelder was able to retain a much greater degree of control over the entire process. having been at the console during the original session, he knew far better than any technician in a mastering lab what to expect when the session master tape began to roll. although it was then common practice for recording engineers to add "test tones" to the start of each tape so that the person doing the mastering later could properly calibrate their equipment, van gelder never bothered with this step; he knew that he himself would be doing the mastering, most likely using the very machine that had recorded the tape in the first place, and so there seemed to be no need for recalibration. (in more recent years, this lack of test tones has presented problems to engineers faced with the task of remastering some of these original tapes for digital cds.) the postwar introduction of polymer plastic, with a molecular structure much finer than that of the previous lacquer disks, made it possible to re­ duce the width of each groove on a record and thus allow a greater amount of music to fit on a disk. the mastering process, however, now de­ manded even greater finesse to prevent the recorded signal from "over­ powering" the narrow groove and knocking the needle out of its path. the meticulous and delicate procedure had to be carefully monitored with a microscope to ensure that the proper pitch (the distance between grooves) was achieved, and the gain (degree of volume) not allowed to 66 current musicology exceed acceptable levels. as a cutter of lacquer masters, van gelder soon earned a reputation for being able to "put more level on an lp than any­ one else in the business" (porter 2000). the hotter he was able to record to tape by close-miking, and the more level he could then obtain on his lacquer masters, the less tape hiss and background noise van gelder would have on the finished record, a factor which helped him achieve the clear and tightly-defined sound for which he first established his name. the late 1950s also saw the advent of stereophonic recording, made possible by the introduction of twoand three-track tape recorders. because at first it was uncertain whether or not this new technology would catch on with the general public, most record labels approached the idea with a degree of caution. would people readily convert to stereo, a move requiring them to buy a second loudspeaker, two-channel amplifier, stereo cartridge, etc'? the initial stereo releases of several labels were issued on quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape, a format marketed primarily to dedicated audiophiles. for most consumers the transition to stereo was neither swift nor smooth. stereo recording required a greater degree of skill on the part of the engineer than was necessary in the simpler monaural method. in mono, the signals from all of the microphones were funneled onto a single track and played back through a single loudspeaker. once a basic balance had been established, and the levels of the various instruments set, the only on-the-fly adjustment the engineer needed to make was to perhaps raise the volume of a specific microphone to better capture a solo passage. in these early days of stereo, before the development of consoles capa­ ble of "panning" signals from right to left, engineers had only three choices of where they could route a given signal: they could place a trum­ pet, for example, on the left channel only, the right channel only, or both channels simultaneously. this latter option would make it appear on play­ back that the trumpet was in the physical center of the sound stage. the choices made at the recording stage could not be altered later, since this process was essentially the "direct to two-track" method. further complicating the transition from mono to stereo was the fact that record companies began to issue new releases in both formats, since consumers opting to stick with mono had no use for stereo disks, while those moving to the new technology would no longer purchase mono. this meant that sessions had to be recorded in both mono and stereo si­ multaneously, which required that separate recording machines be run at the same time. needless to say, this presented engineers with an awk­ ward situation: they could not monitor both versions at once during a ses­ sion. savoy producer ozzie cadena recalls dealing with this problem in hackensack. dan skea 67 in '58 or so we started doing stereo. i had to talk savoy into it be­ cause they wouldn't pay the five bucks a goddam hour more. i asked rudy, or we agreed, that we listen to the mono monitors. you know, like the stereo thing, i gotta listen, i gotta jump back and forth to find out what the hell's going on? that may have happened for a couple of sessions, but in the long run we did our monitoring in mono, whether we recorded in stereo or not. it's being recorded in stereo, but the monitors are saying mono. and we got a balance that way. later on they had variations of what goes left and what goes right. but i say it's all gotta be heard on each channel to a certain de­ gree. and that's how rudy recorded the stuff. he recorded a very tight kind of thing, up close recording kind of scene. and he got separation without slam separation. it wasn't like they told the guys, "you get over there forty feet away." they were all tight. everybody was like close together. he just did it electronically. all the folks in the world weren't great jazz enthusiasts-rudy was. that's the differ­ ence. a lot of engineers didn't care. (cadena 1999) unlike some engineers who went overboard with stereo effects, rudy used the new technology judiciously. recording pioneer les paul admired rudy's restraint. the most impressive thing about rudy-which is very much a compliment-is that rudy was conservative and not being radical with any equalization or extreme experiments. he was one to remain stable. and the musicians respected that, knowingly or unknowingly. whether they technically knew what rudy was doing, they knew that if something good went in, it came out that way. where, in a lot of other cases it came out radically different. (paul 1999) in addition to van gelder's recording skills, there were a number of other reasons why his hackensack operation attracted clients in the early 1950s. the first of these was purely financial: his hourly rates were lower than those charged by the established new york city studios. since he worked alone and had no assistant to pay, van gelder was able to keep his prices within reach of the smaller independent labels. producers also liked the fact that van gelder wasted no time setting up for a session. extremely methodical and well-organized, he was always prepared in ad­ vance and spent none of the client's clock time setting up equipment or testing microphones. prestige producer esmond edwards recalls that when musicians arrived, all they had to do was "walk in, unpack the horn and start playing" (edwards 1999). 68 current musicology hackensack clients also always had the benefit of state-of-the-art equip­ ment. highly attuned to evolving technology and able to afford the latest innovations as they became available,7 van gelder consistently provided his customers with the newest and best microphones, tape recorders, reverberation devices, and other apparatus. furthermore, the hackensack living room provided a comfortable, re­ laxed setting. musicians liked the intimacy of the relatively small space; being physically close to one another helped rhythm sections jell. at the same time, the warm, dry sound of the room made it easier to play in than some larger commercial spaces where reverberations bouncing off walls could disturb sonic cohesiveness. ultimately, producers appreciated van gelder's dedication and the se­ riousness with which he approached each recording session. his business­ like, no-nonsense approach told them that he considered the music im­ portant. prestige label owner bob weinstock remembers: there was always mutual respect-the musicians for him and him for the musicians ... see, the main thing about him-he wasn't a bull­ shitter. he loved the music. even before he recorded it, he loved the music. and he loved the musicians, like i did. so it wasn't some guy just doing it for the money. he put his heart and soul into it. (weinstock 1999) "i would like to hear the details" in january 1953, van gelder engineered his first recording session for blue note records, the leading independent label in the jazz field on the east coast. by the following year, two of that label's chief competitors­ prestige and savoy-had also become steady clients at the hackensack studio. over the next decade, the hundreds of jazz albums van gelder recorded for these three labels served as one of the major pathways along which the art form developed and was disseminated. a young engineer trying to learn his craft could hardly have been in a better position than van gelder found himself at this stage of his career. he was recording with ever-greater frequency for three of the most impor­ tant labels in jazz, working with some of the music's biggest stars. miles davis, thelonious monk, milt jackson, sonny rollins, horace silver, and john coltrane were all recording in hackensack on a regular basis, and the albums they turned out were filling the bins at record stores. for both musicians and audiences alike, van gelder's recordings of these artists be­ came central documents in the ongoing development of their individual and collective styles. dan skea 69 van gelder was also gaining valuable experience with every new ses­ sion. blue note owner alfred lion, especially particular about sound, offered guidance and encouragement to help rudy sharpen his own already keen aural sensitivity. rudy had a good ear for jazz, you know, and a good feeling. he wasn't just a man who sat around the controls and looked at the needles ... he listened, you know ... every time i listened to the records from bigger companies, the drum sound was kind of pushed in the back. you didn't hear the details. and rudy and i discussed it all the time, and i said, "i would like to hear the details. i'd like to hear the sock cymbal. you know, that ... [snaps fingers] ... and, cymbals on the top, and the ring. really get this out, you know, and make it lively." rudy mastered that after a while, and very well. and so we went from instrument to instrument-the bass-and we de­ veloped a sound which was the blue note sound. the records sound different from other people's.8 by experimenting with the various elements of the recording process­ the choice of microphones, where they were placed, the physical distribu­ tion of musicians within the studio, the volume level at which each player was recorded-van gelder was able to increasingly achieve a full, yet transparent sound in which each individual instrument could be distinctly heard within the overall mix.9 horns were close-miked for greater pres­ ence and enhanced with a touch of echo. basses became less boomy or muddy, their lines more cleanly defined. the piano was slightly attenu­ ated to keep it behind the horns in the mix. perhaps most tellingly, van gelder's developing sonic sensibilities, coupled with the favorable acoustics of the hackensack living room, enabled him to control and contain the busy and explosive styles of percussionists like art blakey, philly joe jones, art taylor, and max roach, and to successfully capture the drum set "de­ tails" alfred lion was after. van gelder was grateful for lion's expert guidance. alfred knew exactly what he wanted to hear. he communicated it to me and i got it for him technically. he was amazing in what he heard and how he would patiently draw it out of me. he gave me confi­ dence and support in any situation. (quoted in cuscuna and ruppli 2001:xiv) an important element of the evolving "blue note sound" was its consistency. 70 current musicology every session [lion] made i recorded for him, so that label got a dis­ tinctive sound that way. there was a certain consistency and the peo­ ple who bought those records would look forward to what was com­ ing next because they knew the record would have a good sound. the musicians were all of a certain caliber and he would get a good performance out of them. (quoted in hovan 1999) in 1956, blue note presented rudy with a new challenge. alfred lion had just discovered and signed a dynamic young organist from pennsyl­ vania whose innovative approach to the instrument would soon spark a wave of disciples and imitators who embraced the exciting new possibili­ ties of the jazz organ combo. while the electric organ had been recorded injazz before, not until jimmy smith came roaring onto the scene with his thundering hammond b-3 had anyone so fully tested the instrument's po­ tential. smith fired off savagely swinging improvisational lines with his right hand, while comping chords with his left hand and pumping out ferocious bass lines with his feet. lion's blue note partner frances wolff first encountered smith at small's paradise. "the air was filled with waves of sound i had never heard before," wolff remembered. "the noise was shattering" (quoted in cuscuna and ruppli 2001:xv). but hearing smith in person and capturing him on tape were two dif­ ferent things. produced by a series of rotating tone generators, the b-3's unique sound contained many harmonic overtones and partials, which were difficult for recording engineers to deal with. the problem was com­ plicated by the fact that smith amplified the organ's output through a leslie speaker cabinet, which featured spinning rotor horns on top and a revolving drum on the bottom. in other words, the organ's sound was not only a difficult target for an engineer to hit, but a moving one as well. although it took several sessions of experimenting with various micro­ phones and their placements to achieve the organ sound lion wanted, van gelder eventually managed to do so, in the pjrocess becoming the first recording engineer to unveil the hammond's full potential and capture the breadth of smith's creative genius. smith's early blue note albums, combining his innovative playing style with van gelder's improved record­ ing methods, made a significant impact in the jazz world, spawning a gen­ eration of smith disciples and making the organ trio one of the most pop­ ular instrumental configurations injazz for the next fifteen years.lo van gelder's association with the blue note label was unique in several ways. for one thing, alfred lion employed a much more hands-on ap­ proach than other producers, who typically gave van gelder free rein to do as he wished in the studio. lion had firm ideas about what each record should sound like, and was determined to help van gelder achieve the redan skea 71 suits he desired. secondly, unlike other independent label owners, lion paid musicians for a day or two of rehearsals prior to the actual recording date. blue note artists were thus able to attempt material of a more ambi­ tious nature than they otherwise could in a typical three-hour session, and their albums tended to be more polished and structured than those put out on other labels. in contrast, prestige and savoy dates were usually more casually assembled "blowing sessions" done with little preparation. trumpeter joe wilder remembers: the way we did [it] at savoy, we didn't even know who the leaders would be until the session was over. they would say, "well, you know, play some tunes, you guys pick some tunes," or something, and the guys would do that. and when we'd get through, they'd say, ''well, okay joe, you were the leader on this one." or, "frank wess, you were the leader." (wilder 1999) lion was also willing to go to greater lengths at the session itself to achieve the best possible recording, permitting van gelder to tape multi­ ple versions of a given selection from which the best performance would later be selected for release. both the prestige and savoy operations were more cost-conscious, urging musicians to record the maximum number of titles in the time allotted, and saving money by taping over unwanted takes. weinstock recalls: in my recordings, i had a thing with rudy. i'd say, "rudy, once it's stopped and it's no good, erase it." i didn't keep outtakes ... it was an automatic rule. once it was no good, and once you went to do an­ other, he can go right back and take it away. (weinstock 1999) if van gelder benefited greatly from his association with alfred lion, he learned a lot by working with other producers as well. while lion's close supervision provided specific goals to strive for, van gelder also improved his skills through trial-and-error experiments he was able to employ more freely in the looser sessions run by other labels. when i experimented, i would experiment on bob weinstock's proj­ ects. bob didn't think much of sound ... so if i got a new micro­ phone and i wanted to try it on a saxophone player, i would never try it on alfred's date. weinstock didn't give a damn, and it worked out great. alfred would benefit from that. (quoted in rozzi 1995:45) although he achieved his first recognition in the jazz world as the creator of the "blue note sound," van gelder did not limit the technical skills 72 current musicology honed at blue note to projects for lion's label alone. just as he made all of his physical equipment available to every client, he also afforded each the full extent of his expanding technical expertise. while a certain amount of unevenness is evident on some earlier recordings, for the most part van gelder achieved the same "sound" for all of his clients. varia­ tions from album to album were due more to the way the music was played than to how it was recorded. indeed, comparisons of contempora­ neous albums released on blue note, prestige, and savoy from 1954 on­ ward reveal that the great majority share remarkably similar sonic charac­ teristics. ll for all intents and purposes, the "blue note sound" actually became the "rudy van gelder sound"-the most distinctive sonic signa­ ture in the history of recorded jazz. conclusion the 1950s were a seminal period in the development of modern american jazz, and a time during which landmark recordings by leading artists were routinely made in van gelder's hackensack living room. while he also recorded a limited number of nonjazz sessions over the years, van gelder was essentially a jazz specialist.l2 jazz was his preferred medium and the musicians and producers who worked with him knew it. when they came to the hackensack studio for a session, they felt appreci­ ated, not merely tolerated. van gelder spoke the jazz players' language and treated the music they created as high art. i sort of had a rapport with the musicians, and i tried to understand what they were trying to do. i always felt that jazz musicians should be treated in a way that was a little more as if it were a mcyor effort than the way they had been treated in other places. but that was a strong feeling on my part-that i could allow certain types of clients who came to me and had faith in me-to allow them to compete on a quality level with the biggest companies. and particularly with jazz. (quoted in forlenza 1993:58) in 1959, as stereo increasingly became the norm, van gelder built a new studio and home in englewood cliffs, new jersey. he then closed his optometry practice and thereafter devoted himself entirely to his activi­ ties as a recording engineer. but from the start of his careeer, van gelder's intuitive empathy for jazz, combined with his technical skills, per­ fectionist temperament, and dedication to tailoring recording technology to the unique conditions of jazz performance enabled him to deal with the music at a level most other recording engineers were unable to match. he was not so much a technical innovator as a chronicler of artistic innodan skea 73 vations, whose sensitivity and diligence in documenting the forward­ reaching explorations of artists like miles davis, thelonious monk, and john coltrane aided these musicians and others in freely expanding and reinventing musical boundaries. still sounding fresh and lively today, the recordings rudy van gelder made during the 1950s comprise a vital part ofthe music's sonic history. notes l. advertisement for the presto record maker in radio retailing (april 1931): 70. 2. rudy van gelder, quoted on john coltrane's the ultimate blue train, re­ leased in 1996 (blue note cd 53428). this multi-media compact disc contains an interview with van gelder conducted on december 16,1995. 3. when narma later designed and built four custom-made multi-channel recording consoles, van gelder was the first to receive one. the other three went to olmstead studios, les paul, and gotham studios, in that order. 4. van gelder discussed the moody recording at a videorecorded panel in van gelder's honor at the annual conference of the international association of record collectors (august 7,1993, teaneck, nj.). 5. the earliest employment of this technique in jazz occurred on april 18, 1941, when sidney bechet became a one-man band by overdubbing clarinet, so­ prano sax, tenor sax, piano, bass, and drum parts on his recording of "the shiek of araby." 6. van gelder once gave guitarist bucky pizzarelli a demonstration of this ex­ pertise by playing a tape on which he had spliced together the id announcements of a dozen different radio stations. "it was very funny when you heard them. it kept getting funnier and funnier, you know. you would hear every one. he had a whole gang of them" (pizzarelli 1999). 7. a combination of factors-family wealth, a successful optometry practice, and supplementary income from recording-enabled rudy to afford the latest in­ novations. he worked lean and clean, had no assistant to pay, paid no rental on the studio, and earned substantial additional money from his clients by cutting the disc masters for all his recordings. while his optometry practice brought signifi­ cant income in the early years, as time went on the money earned through record­ ing activities became far greater. 8. alfred lion, quoted in the documentary blue note, produced by kim evans for lwt television, ltd. (london). first telecast in britain on february 16, 1986. 9. compare, for example, theeminentjayjayjohnson, volume 1 (blue note cdp 7-81505-2) with the eminent jay jay johnson, volume 2 (blue note cdp 7-81506-2). both were recorded for blue note, the first at wor studios in new york city in 1953, the second in hackensack in 1954 and 1955. 10. while it is not entirely known how van gelder was initially able to record smith so successfully, several organists (including joey defrancesco) have guessed that part of his secret involved miking the b-3's bass tones directly (i.e., hard­ wiring them, without a microphone). this technique is standard procedure today, 74 current musicology and van gelder was apparently the first to do it, although one can only speculate if and when he employed the procedure with jimmy smith as early as the mid-1950s. 11. an example can be heard by comparing the sonic qualities of sessions recorded for three different labels within the space of four days: phil woods, pot pie (prestige new jazz 8291), february 4,1955; horace silver, horace silver and the jazz messengers (blue note 1518), february 6, 1955; and kenny clarke, telefunken blues (savoy 12006), february 7,1955. 12. unlike van gelder, who concentrated almost exclusively on jazz, most recording engineers of the period dealt with a wider variety of musical styles. there were, however, a number of important engineers of the era who did signifi­ cant work in the jazz field. these include irv greenbaum, tom dowd, harry smith, and ray fowler in new york, and roy dunann and wally heider in california. appendix a: select discography of 1950s recordings engineered by rudy van gelder. original recording date is in brackets, where applicable. adderley,julian "cannonball." [1958] 1999. somethin' else. blue note cd 95329. ammons, gene. [1958] 1991. the big sound. prestige original jazz classics cd 651-2. bert, eddie. [1955] 1992. musician of the year. savoy jazz cd sv-0183. blakey, art. [1954] 2001. a night at birdland, vols. 1 and 2. blue note cd 32146/ 32147. blakey, art, and the jazz messengers. [1958] 1999. moanin'. blue note cd 95324. burrell, kenny. [1956] 2000. introducing kenny burrell. blue note cd 24561. clark, sonny. [1958] 1987. cool struttin'. blue note cd 46513. clarke, kenny. [1954-55] 1992. telefunken blues. savoy cd sv-oi06. coltrane, john. [1958] 1987. soultrane. prestige original jazz classics cd 021-2. --. [1957] 1985. blue train. blue note cd 46095. davis, miles. [1954,1956] 1989. miles davis and the modern jazz giants. prestige original jazz classics cd 347-2. ---. [1954] 1987. walkin'. prestige original jazz classics cd 213-2. ---. [1956] 1993. cookin'. prestige original jazz classics cd 128-2. ---. [1956] 1987. relaxin'. prestige original jazz classics cd 190-2. ---. [1956] 1989. steamin'. prestige original jazz classics cd 391-2. ---. [1956] 1987. workin'. prestige original jazz classics cd 296-2. farmer, art. [1954-55] 1994. when farmer met gryce. prestige original jazz classics cd 072-2. fuller, curtis. [1959] 1991. blue-sette. savoy jazz cd sv-0127. garland, red. [1957] 2001. all mornin' long. prestige cd 7130-2. griffin, johnny. [1957] 1999. a blowing session. blue note cd 99009. hawkins, coleman. [1958] 1984. soul. prestige original jazz classics cd 096-2. jackson, milt. [1955] 1992. opus dejazz. savoy jazz cd sv-oi09. johnson,].]. [1954--55] 1989. the eminentjayjayjohnson, volume 2. blue note cd 81506. johnson,].]., and kai winding. [1956] 1996. jay and kai. savoy cd cy-78818. melle, gil. 1998. the complete blue note fifties sessions. blue note cd 95718. dan skea 75 mclean, jackie. [1959-60] 1987. jackie's bag. blue note cd 46142. mingus, charles. [1955] 1990. mingus at the bohemia. debut original jazz classics cd 045-2. mobley, hank. [1957] 1996. hank. blue note cd tocj-1560. modernjazz quartet. [1953] 1987. django. prestige original jazz classics cd 057-2. monk, thelonious. [1953-54] 1999. thelonious monk with sonny rollins. prestige cd 7075-2. ---. [1956] 1987. the unique thelonious monk. riverside original jazz classics cd 064-2. newborn, phineas, jr. [1956] 1986. the piano artistry of phineas newborn, jr. atlantic cd 90534. nichols, herbie. 1997. the complete blue note recordings. blue note 3-cd box set 59352. rollins, sonny. [1956] 1987. saxophone colossus. prestige original jazz classics cd 291-2. ---. [1956] 1987. tenor madness. prestige original jazz classics cd 124-2. silver, horace. [1954-55] 1995. horace silver and the jazz messengers. blue note cd tocj-1518. smith,jimmy. [1957] 2000. house party. blue note cd 24542. --. [1958] 1987. the sermon. blue note cd 46097. taylor, billy. [1954] 1991. the billy taylor trio with candido. prestige original jazz classics cd 015-2. wallington, george. [1955] 1992. live! at cafe bohemia. prestige original jazz classics cd 1813-2. woods, phil. [1954-55] 1996. pot pie. new jazz (prestige) original jazz classics cd 1881-2. ---. [1956] 1991. pairing off. prestige original jazz classics cd 092-2. references cuscuna, michael, and ruppli, michel. 2001. the blue note label: a discography, revised and expanded. westport, conn., and london: greenwood press. feather, leonard. 1956. a sound test. down beat (october 31): 31. forlenza, jeff. 1993. rudy van gelder: jazz's master engineer. mix magazine (october): 54-64, 254. fox, ted. 1987. lion's pride: 30 years at blue note. audio (june): 62-73. gitler, ira. 2001. van gelder's studio. jazz times (april): 24-25. griffith, joseph p. 1988. phantom studio turns outjazz classics. new york times (may 22): sec. 12, p. 2. hovan, chris. 1999. rudy van gelder interview. all aboutjazz (june). http://www. allaboutjazz.com/iviews/vangelder.htm/ [july 25, 2002]. kanzler, george, jr. 1973. sweetest sounds are captured between four world­ famous walls. newark star-ledger (june 13): 38-39. ---. 2001. the house thatjazz built. newark star-ledger (january 9): 21-25. korall, burt. 1956. rudy van gelder: the well-tempered engineer. metronome (january): 24. levitin, daniel j. 1992. interview with rudy van gelder, engineer. recording­ engineer producer magazine (april): n.p. 76 current musicology rozek, michael. 1980.jazz mirror: rudy van gelder. new yorkjazz (december): n.p. rozzi, james. 1995. rudy van gelder: capturing the state of the art. audio (november): 42-46. ---.2000. hangin' with rudy van gelder. audio (january): n.p. seidel, mitchell. 1988. recording engineer finds darkroom is his "natural habitat." newark star-ledger (june 12): n.p. ---. 1990. '90 special achievement award: rudy van gelder. down beat (september): 33. sidran, ben. 1995. talkingjazz: an oral history. new york: da capo press. stewart, zan. 1999. rudy's return. stereophile (august): 60-65. van gelder, rudy. 1999. liner notes to the rvg album: jazz from rudy van gelder. blue note cd tocj-66060. williams, martin. 1968. liner notes to reissue of miles davis, watkin'. prestige lp 7076. radio broadcasts sidran, ben. 1985. interview with rudy van gelder. sidran on record. national public radio broadcast (december). stamberg, susan. 1993. profile of rudy van gelder. weekend edition. national public radio broadcast (february 20). interviews bauer, billy. 2000. telephone interview with the author, march 7. cadena, ozzie. 1999. telephone interview with the author, december 3i. edwards, esmond. 1999. telephone interview with the author, april 10. elgart, larry. 2000. telephone interview with the author, january 23. igoe, sonny. 1999. telephone interview with the author, may 12. macero, teo. 1999. telephone interview with the author, december 19. mitchell, whitey. 1999. telephone interview with the author, may 6. narma, rein. 1999. telephone interview with the author, december 8. paul, les. 1999. telephone interview with the author, november 17. pizzarelli, bucky. 1999. telephone interview with the author, may 12. porter, bob. 2000. telephone interview with the author, november ii. taylor, billy. 1999. telephone interview with the author, december 8. triglia, bill. 1999. telephone interview with the author, may 12. van gelder, leon. 2000. telephone interview with the author, february 2. weinstock, bob. 1999. telephone interview with the author, may 3. wilder, joe. 1999. telephone interview with the author, june 11. david charlton. french opera 1730-1830: meaning and media. aldershot, hampshire (u.k.), and brookfield, vt.: ashgate, 2000. xii, 374 pp. reviewed by julian rushton david charlton's book is not a single-minded monograph but a collection of essays published in periodicals spread over the last quarter-century. this may explain its somewhat cryptic title; it must have been hard to think of anything more suitable-such as "collected essays on aspects of french opera"-that would not have been inappropriately bland. to assist discus­ sion, it may be useful to list the essay titles in the order they now appear (signified by the roman numerals used in the volume l ), with their origi­ nal publication dates: i. the romance and its cognates: narrative, irony, and vraisemblance in early opera comique (1997) ii. continuing polarities: opera theory and opera-comique (1992; originally in german, first publication in english) iii. orchestra and chorus at the comedie-italienne (operacomique), 1755-1799 (1985) iv. the overture to philidor's le bucheron (1763) (1996) v. "envoicing" the orchestra: enlightenment metaphors in theory and practice (1997; originally in french, first publication in english) vi. "minuet-scenes" in early opera-comique (1999) vii. motive and motif: mehul before 1791 (1976) viii. motif and recollection in four operas of dalayrac (1978) ix. the french theatrical origins of fidelio (1996) x. storms, sacrifices: the "melodrama model" in opera (1985) xi. ossian, le sueur, and opera (1977) xii. the dramaturgy of "grand opera": some origins (1987) xiii. on the nature of "grand opera" (1988) xiy. "a maitre d' orchestre ... conducts": new and old evidence on french practice (1993) those who have followed david charlton's pioneering work will probably find the essays concerned with eighteenth-century opera comique (which form the majority) to be the most far-reaching in their implications. and those whose research is mainly confined to english-language periodicals current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 238 current musicology will benefit most from the appearance of two major articles for the first time in english. following charlton's definitive study of gn~try (1986), these deep probes into aspects of a genre often considered problematic, if not actually unsatisfactory-due to the use of spoken dialogue and the at times extreme contrast between this mode of dramatic exposition and elabo­ rate musical structures-constitute a major challenge to preconceptions, and a positive contribution to its critical revaluation. however, the understanding of opera comique is by no means all that is developed here. late baroque tragedie lyriqueis not much considered, de­ spite the starting date of 1730. but there are many implications for its late eighteenth-century descendants, not least the french operas of gluck and his successors, and for the nineteenth century. in respect of its time-frame, the title in fact underestimates the scope of the contents. while essay xii, "the dramaturgy of 'grand opera': some origins," ends with a reference to auber's la muette de portici (1828), its sequel, "on the nature of 'grand opera' ," from ian kemp's cambridge opera handbook on les troyens (1988), inevitably considers composers active later than 1830, such as meyerbeer and hali~vy, in establishing the generic context against which berlioz's opera of the late 1850s can be read. indeed, the view extends into the 1860s (l'africaine). grand opera is an arena in which musicologists outside france have been vigorously engaged in recent years.2 i have be­ come aware of at least four recently completed enghsh-ianguage disserta­ tions concerning grand opera; the statistical probability is that there must be more. published work by these younger scholars,. including benjamin walton, sarah hibberd, and cormac newark, may be found in the recent collection of essays austerely titled reading critics reading (parker and smart 2001) .3 in a few pages of addenda and corrigenda, charlton, acknowledging a comment from steven huebner, suggests that some inflections might be made in his taxonomy of grand opera. nevertheless, his chapter (essay xiii) stands up well as a summary of features essential to the genre. it does not quite convince me (perhaps it was not trying to) that les troyens arises from grand opera, other than in its most superficial aspects. the proces­ sions and the very public suicides of its two heroines do indeed appear typical of the genre, but constitute outward signs of the tragic aspect of berlioz's epic, rather than of its aesthetic essence.4 but that is by the way. in the context of these collected essays, the six pages of essay xii, concern­ ing the origins of grand opera, offer no less acute observations on how the genre arose from the practices and preoccupations of the eighteenth cen­ tury. in support, charlton cites inter alia dramas by goethe and schiller and librettos by michel:jean sedaine (gretry's richard coeur-de-lion of 1783-although it is an opera comique) , nicholas-fran<;:ois guillard (sacchini julian rushton 239 and rey's arvire etevelina, paris opera, 1788), and etienne de jouy (velleda, which was never set to music). this sense of the continuity between the centuries proves something of a leitmotif of the collection as a whole, rein­ forcing the often quoted view of friedrich blume (1970) that classicism and romanticism are impossible to disentangle, or indeed the provisional conclusions arrived at earlier by edward]. dent (1976), who located so much of what we call "romantic" (and, less convincingly, "berliozian") in the music of the french revolutionary period. essays iii, iv, and v form a core grouping, relating as they do to the expressive signification of orchestral music in the theaters of opera comique. completeness might have required the inclusion of one earlier piece (charlton 1976), but its conclusions may have seemed to the author, by this time, provisional.5 essay iii, whose title suggests no more than a useful exercise in gathering facts, proves indispensable to a sophisticated and developing argument. that essays iii and iv both first appeared in festschriften, and essay v in the french-language collection mozart: les chemins de l'europe (in which one might not expect to find a treatment of the reper­ toire to which charlton mainly refers), makes their gathering together here particularly useful. the comedie-italienne was the seedbed of opera comique. examination of the registers of personnel shows the modest size of its orchestral forces in a period when the genre was establishing itself (from 1755 and through the 1760s), and their subsequent growth in suc­ cessive phases, which include the heyday of gretry, the heady early years of revolution (to 1793), and the last years of the century, by which time the orchestra had tripled in size. numbers and function of chorus and danc­ ers are also considered. what seems most important here is the aesthetic consequence of the availability of more instruments. yet charlton is able to show that even early opera comique showed considerable sensitivity to instrumental color and orchestral invention, and of course to their dra­ matic potential. this point is well illustrated in essay iv, on philidor's overture of 1763. le bucheron (the wood-chopper) gave philidor another opportunity to indulge his interest in making orchestral noises appropriate to some rustic metier-the better-known example is le marechal ferrant (the blacksmith) of 1761. one wonders if the overture was omitted from the published score because its integration with the opera it preceded was too daring; as in essay vii, on mehul's euphrosine, and viii, on nicholas-marie dalayrac, we perceive how an operatic drama could accommodate significant instru­ mental gestures, well before the better-known gluck examples (notably iphigenie en aulide).6 the significance of the orchestra in opera comique is, however, most fully exposed in essay v, where its "envoicing" is discussed on a foundation 240 current musicology of encyclopaedist and other eighteenth-century aesthetic and philosophi­ cal thought. the essay starts by citing batteux (1747), who made a distinc­ tion between music which imitates "lifeless noises" and that which "ex­ presses animate sounds and ... relates to feelings"; he calls the latter "ie tableau a personage," translated as "the picture containing human charac­ ter."7 charlton relates this striking assertion, which however does not dis­ tinguish vocal from instrumental music, with two other ideas: the "mate­ rial" reading of eighteenth-century theorists, and the language of both opera comique (after 1758) and of gluck's operas, as "material examples, which enabled writers to synthesize new and pregnant formulations re­ garding the aesthetic operation of instrumental music itself' (v /1). read­ ing "materially" is compared by charlton to one way in which science ad­ vances: "in considering, say, newton's experiences with the apple, or becquerel's discovery of radiation, we happily accept that a material expe­ rience-not discounting that of reading another scientist's results-will have led to a theoretical advance that becomes a point of future refer­ ence" (v /2). this is a rich and convincingly argued discussion, which, if not exactly easy reading, is continuously gripping. at the end one is left in no doubt that the philosophical project concerning opera in mid-eigh­ teenth-century france was by no means confined to the tragedie lyrique and other repertoire of the academie royale de musique. it is true that potent and much-discussed examples of orchestral expressiveness in a dramatic context occurred there before gluck; besides rameau, one thinks of philidor's pioneering ernelinde (1767), which charlton does not mention, in which a particular orchestral effect (horn crescendlo) imitated the imag­ ined (but animate) sound of a ghost, and played a role in determining the emotions and later actions of the eponymous heroine. but charlton makes clear that their origin lay in the less august the­ aters where philidor and others developed their craft. he develops his argument through authors such as franyois:jean marquis de chastellux, jean fran(,:ois marmontel, and andre morellet (the last two of whom were later actively involved in the piccinniste project), and through composers such as gretry, before turning to gluck. particularly fascinating here is to read marmontel, the arch anti-gluckiste, alongside comments from the gluckiste arnaud and examples from gluck's french operas. this tends to confirm my view that the "querelle des gluckistes et des piccinnistes" was itselfless about deeper aesthetic principles than its protagonists believed, and more about the musical style appropriate to rendering feelings at the opera; on the theory of expressive potential of music, there is a surprising measure of agreement, but marmontel, for one, did not appear to hear music in the way his theoretical writings on this aspect of it, at least, might lead one to expect.8 the argument moves to the point where discussion of julian rushton 241 the orchestra relates to the concepts of "voice" through which several writ­ ers, following carolyn abbate (1991), are sensitively reinterpreting the potential of dramatic and narrative music. this marshalling of eighteenth-century evidence is well weighted with reference to contemporary scientific publications; but the risk of drown­ ing in a sea of allusion is a small price to pay for the rewards of this wide­ ranging survey. the history of the orchestra in the eighteenth century has too often been written solely in terms of purely orchestral music (the mannheim symphony, haydn and the viennese) and it needs radical re­ consideration in view of italian opera-an alternative scholarly project­ and of what happened in france, not least in operas, which were, after all, known to mozart and beethoven. this essay (v) overlaps with others that may be related to style (as it is related to genre) and to topical analysis, after ratner (1980).9 these in­ clude the redemption of the romance (essay i), hitherto generally dismissed as something a little bit primitive but here shown to possess considerable semiotic potential. the discussion of minuet scenes in opera comique (essay vi) most obviously impinges on allanbrook's mozart study (1983), dem­ onstrating, along with recent studies of other italian opera, how mozart's originality consisted in creative development of multi-stranded traditions. 1o the twelve-note chord in jean-paul-egide martini's sapho is the center­ piece of an essay (x) on more extreme forms of operatic expression-one is tempted to say expressionism. this chapter ranges beyond french op­ era to include analyses of benda's melodramas, in which tonality and large­ scale planning are demonstrated and compared to scenes in gluck, nota­ bly the relatively neglected armide. melodrama-formally, declamation over or punctuated by music-is clearly related to orchestrated recitative (recitativo obbligato or recitatif oblige'). it is well established that mozart's ex­ periment in zaide led to enrichment of his technique in idomeneo and die entfuhrung, but it is too easy to assume that this was a personal develop­ ment that can be considered in isolation. it is therefore good to be re­ minded how composers interact with each other. charlton brings in piccinni and mehul, and the lesser known rodolphe kreutzer and jean-frederic edelmann, as well as later composers, into his richly referenced discus­ sion; edelmann's ariane, like martini's sapho, flings herself from a cliff into the sea, anticipating the death-leaps of later operas such as la muette de portici and tosca. it is impossible to do justice to every essay in this collection, in which a supplementary value is that one can replace those tattered offprints, and photocopies of doubtful legality, with a solidly-bound volume. charlton's work is densely argued (i caught a few places where a fresh sub-editor might have suggested an alteration). but it all repays rereading; the ar242 current musicology ticles newly englished are a considerable bonus, not because one might not understand them in the language of their original publication, but because they have been revised, updated, and lengthened to become, in effect, new work. the same is true of "storms, sacrifices" (x); despite its original publication being in english, it too is expanded and reprinted. the publishers are to be warmly commended for bringing this mate­ rial, widely scattered and originally published in three different languages, together in one volume. where the articles were originally in english, they are not reset or revised (apart from the four pages of addenda and corri­ genda). instead they are presented in facsimile from the source publica­ tions, with the original pagination (not necessarily starting at one), and in some cases with hand-copied musical examples. this leads me to mention another strand to charlton's work: the study of instruments and how they are played (see also charlton 1973, 1988). this is represented by an article on conducting (xiv), taken from early music and therefore printed in columns. it is graced with seven illustrations, but because of the periodical's more generous page-size, the reduction to the format of this volume makes them hard to appreciate. it is thus harder to reread the article, which is otherwise an intriguing documentary consideration of an aspect of perfor­ mance practice frequently neglected or discussed with more dogmatism than documentation, a deficiency which charlton's article makes inexcus­ able in the future. there are positive aspects to ashgate's publication procedure; for one thing, there will be no need to seek out the original versions in libraries for precise bibliographical reference. each essay is identified by a roman numeral which appears on every page, so that the volume is not difficult to navigate. presumably such facsimile assemblage reduced the costs of prepa­ ration, and if this is not reflected in the price (which may reflect the publisher's estimate of the likely sales), at least some expense went into preparing a complete index to a volume of which no-one involved in op­ era ofthe eighteenth and nineteenth centuries should remain unaware. notes 1. multiple pagination is used, for reasons explained on page 242. page refer­ ences appear as roman numerals, to locate the essay, followed by the page num­ ber (arabic). 2. see, for instance, fulcher (1987), lacombe (1997), and gerhard (1998). mark everist (1994, 2002) has published on the related repertoire of the omon. see the review ofthe recent english translation of lacombe (1997) by mary jean speare in this issue of current musicology, pp. 245-49. 3. the bibliography of parker and smart (2001) contains no fewer than seven titles by david chariton, of which only two (essays i and xiii) appear in the collec­ tion under review. the others (charlton 1982, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1993), as well as julian rushton 243 with charlton's 1992 essay on "rescue opera" further demonstrate the extensive­ ness of charlton's work in both the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. 4. see rushton (2001:324-37). 5. this presentation to the royal musical association (charlton 1976) fol­ lowed close on the completion of his comprehensive treatment of this material in his ph.d. thesis, orchestration and orchestral practice in paris, 1789 to 1810 (1974). 6. dalayrac is a composer who, like gretry, has suffered from the fall in his nineteenth-century reception (including an ambivalent reference in the first chap­ ter of berlioz's memoirs: "cher d'aleyrac [sic]! et ie peuple oublieux des musiciens se souvient a peine de ton nom, a cette heure!,,) and whose reputation charlton, in this article and in the new grove, has done much to restore. 7. the translation cited (p. v /1) is from thomas (1995:19). 8. the primary, though not the only, contemporary documentation of the querelle was reprinted in lesure (1984). my own first experience at addressing the royal musical association in london, comparable to charlton (1976), was "the theory and practice of 'piccinnisme'" (rushton 1971-72). 9. among other classic texts of topical analysis cited are allanbrook (1983) and agawu (1991). 10. see, for instance, rice (1998) and hunter (1999). references abbate, carolyn. 1991. unsung voices: opera and musical narrative in the nineteenth century. princeton: princeton university press. agawu, v. kofi. 1991. playing with signs: a semiotic interpretation of classic music. princeton: princeton university press. allanbrook, wyej. 1983. rhythmic gesture in mozart: "le nozze di figaro" and "don giovanni". chicago: university of chicago press. batteux, charles. 1747. les beaus arts reduits a un meme principe. paris: durand. blume, friedrich. 1970. classic and romantic music. london and new york: faber and faber. charlton, david. 1973. new sounds for old: tam-tam, tuba, curva, buccin. sound­ ings (u.k..) 3: 39-47. ___ . 1974. orchestration and orchestral practice in paris, 1789 to 1810. ph.d. diss., university of cambridge. ___ .1976. orchestra and image in the late eighteenth century. proceedings of the royal musical association 102 (1975-76): 1-12. ___ . 1982. instrumental recitative: a study in morphology and context, 17001808. comparative criticism 4: 149-68. ___ .1986. gretry and the growth of opera comique. cambridge: cambridge uni­ versity press. ___ . 1987. "l'art dramatico-musical": an essay. in music and theatre: essays in honour of winton dean, edited by nigel fortune, 229-62. cambridge: cambridge university press. ___ . 1988. classical clarinet technique: documentary approaches. early music 16: 396-406. ___ , ed. 1989. e. t. a. hoffmann s musical writings. translated by martyn clarke. cambridge: cambridge university press. 244 current musicology ___ . 1990. grand opera. in new oxford history of music. vol. 9, the age of romanticism (1830-1890), edited by gerald abraham, 89-119. new york: ox­ ford university press. ___ . 1992. on redefinitions of "rescue opera." in music and the french revo­ lution, edited by malcolm boyd, 169-88. cambridge: cambridge university press. ___ . 1993. cherubini: a critical anthology, 1788-180l. royal musical associa­ tion research chronicle 26: 95-127. dean, winton. 1967-68. opera under the french revolution. proceedings of the royal musical association 94: 77-96. dent, edward j. 1976. the rise of romantic opera. edited winton dean. cambridge: cambridge university press. everist, mark. 1994. the name of the rose: meyerbeer's opera-comique, robert le diable. revue de musicologie 80: 211-50. ___ . 2002. music drama at the paris odeon, 1824-1828. berkeley and los ange­ les: university of california press. fulcher, jane. 1987. the nation 5 image: french grand opera as politics and politicized art. cambridge: cambridge university press. gerhard, anselm. 1998. the urbanization of opera: music theater in paris in the nine­ teenth century. chicago: university of chicago press. hunter, mary. 1999. the culture of opera buffa in mozart's vienna: a poetics of entertainment. princeton: princeton university press. kemp, ian. 1988. hector berlioz: les troyens. cambridge: cambridge university press. lacombe, herve. 1997. les voies de l'opera fran~ais au xixe siecle. paris: fayard. lesure, fran«;ois. 1984. querelle des gluckistes et des piccinnistes. geneva: minkoff. parker, roger, and mary ann smart, eds. 200l. reading critics reading: opera and ballet criticism in france from the revolution to 1848. oxford: oxford university press. ratner, leonard g. 1980. classic music: expression, form, and style. new york: schirmer. rice, john a. 1998. antonio salieri and viennese opera. chicago: university of chi­ cago press. rushton, julian. 1971-72. the theory and practice of "piccinnisme." proceedings of the royal music association 98: 31-46. ___ . 200l. the music of berlioz. oxford: oxford university press. thomas, downing a. 1995. music and the origins of language: theories of the french enlightenment. cambridge: cambridge university press. andrew f. jones. yellow music: media culture and colonial modernity in the chinese jazz age. durham, n.c.: duke university press, 2001. xi, 213 pp. reviewed by dale wilson mimi zhi yin, meaning literally "decadent sounds," is a classical chinese expression dating to the han dynasty that is used to denote music that is both lewd and harmful. in the ancient chinese context, sound was viewed as a potential register of the moral integrity of the state, as well as a power­ ful tool to influence political stability and control. a reference to mimi zhi yin not only signified portentous or threatening sounds, but also served as a tacit reminder that sound is a power that may be harnessed for utilitarian ends. in republican china,1 a china humiliated by colonization and op­ pressed by japanese military aggression, highly charged political discourse about music was rife with references to mimi zhi yin. a frequent object of such labeling, and the center of vitriolic attacks from both the political left and right, was shidai qu, or "modern song," a mandarin vocal genre ubiq­ uitous in dance halls and on the airwaves. dismissed across the political spectrum as "yellow music" (huangsi yinyue) , meaning pornographic mu­ sic, shidai qu became the embodiment of mimi zhi yin, with all of its cultur­ ally embedded connotations. in his book yellow music, andrew jones de­ tails the history of shidai qu in republican-era shanghai and the media culture through which it was disseminated. emerging from what is at once a musical, historical, and cultural discussion of china's jazz age, yellow music is an elucidation of a musical genre that was simultaneously maligned and appropriated as part of a vision of national rebirth. jones describes shidai qu as "a hybrid genre of american jazz, holly­ wood film music, and chinese folk song" (6). the author places a discus­ sion of shidai qu, as well as other republican-era musical genres, in the context of colonialism, imperialist encroachment of china, national resist­ ance, and the role of music in communist and nationalist nation-building agendas. much of this discussion revolves around foreign-owned media in­ dustries in which nationalist and communist artists and producers con­ stantly vied for dominance. in yellow music, jones situates shidai qu next to a form of leftwing mass music, known as qunzhong yinyue, created specifi­ cally to contend with shidai qu in 1930s shanghai's media marketplace. qunzhong yinyue, referred to by jones as yellow music's "ideological other" (8), was another hybrid musical genre, fused from elements of hollywood and tin pan alley music, soviet choral music, and chinese folk songs. in current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york dale wilson 525 leftist films, composers and film directors utilized both shidai qu and qun­ zhong yinyue, performed by young starlets cast in roles of sing-song girls,2 to metaphorically represent a socialist vision of china's redemption. in such instances, shidai qu became musical portrayals of ideological corruption and moral degeneracy, and qunzhong yinyue their morally and ideologically superior alternatives. jones's study is realized, to a large extent, through the careful dissec­ tion of republican-era political discourses about music. in the wake of the japanese military annexation of manchuria in 1931, intellectual discus­ sions about music and music making took on a heightened political tone and significance. arguments about appropriate means of cultural expres­ sion through music often addressed urgent issues of the day, such as modernity, gender, class, and a politics of national salvation. frequently, both rightist and leftist musical discourses were framed around condem­ nation of shidai qu, or "yellow music." interestingly, as jones reveals, shidai qu originated amongst historical entwinements with the very nation­ building agendas that came to censure it. while examining the history of yellow music, its social significance, and the cinema cultures of which it was a part,jones considers its development within the transnational media corporations through which it was circu­ lated. jones's central argument is that chinese popular music in the 1930s must be understood as a "musical, technological, financial, linguistic, and racial transaction conducted within the boundaries of the complex colo­ nial hierarchies peculiar to that time and place" (7). the result of this multifaceted perspective is a rigorous and unprecedented transnational examination of chinese popular music and modern chinese history in the context of global media structures and colonial modernity. the urban media culture of republican-era shanghai thus forms the backdrop for a discussion of shidai qu as well as the fetishized sing-song girls who sang them. the cinematic portrayals of sing-song girls and their lives formed a contested space for the projection of various ideologies. jones argues effectively that the fetishized star appeal of sing-song girls presented in film was both exploited and mobilized as part of the same political agendas. the discussion is complicated further as the genre of shidai qu is shown to have been spawned by the may 4th movement, a nation-building project constructed around chinese literary reforms.3 while unraveling webs of discourse surrounding shidai qu, jones inten­ tionally complicates an understanding of left and right, center and periph­ ery, in republican-era political and cultural thought. the examination af­ fords multiple points of entry, and in it jones finds a vehicle for straddling a number of academic domains. more importantly, however, via a discus­ sion of the transnational record companies through which shidai qu were 526 current musicology propagated, jones issues some compelling challenges to prevailing as­ sumptions about transnationalism and globalization. the story is set in pre-world war ii shanghai, a city once dubbed the "paris of the east," and, according to jones, a city that outrivaled paris in its appreciation of jazz. the book's setting (between the wars shanghai) and the subject matter (ballroom music and sing-song girls) is of timely relevance in the social sciences and humanities. yellow music is a more finely-tuned exploration of material introduced in recent volumes such as cinema and urban culture in shanghai, 1922-43 (zhang 1999), and earlier in transnational chinese cinemas (lu 1997). the appearance of these scholarly works has followed a latter-day nostalgia for things "old shanghai" in east asian popular culture. chinese cities such as hong kong and shanghai have, in recent years, witnessed a revisitation of republican shanghai themes in their nightclubs and restaurants. in her essay "teahouse, shadowplay, bricolage: laborer's love and the question of early chinese cinema," zhen zhang notes, for instance, that during the late 1990s a number of unprofitable shanghai cinemas were trans­ formed into luxurious nightclubs or "teahouses" and given names reminis­ cent of old shanghai (zhang 1999:49). in hong kong, identification with 1920s and '30s shanghai has found voice since at least the early 1980s in popular tv serials such as shanghai tan, and more recently in a cinematic release bearing the same title. this vogue, which is mirrored in contempo­ rary mainland chinese tv serials, was given a transnational cinematic stamp in the mid-1990s by leading chinese directors zhang yimou and chen kaige, with their foreign-budgeted films, shanghai triad and temptress moon, respectively. more recently, in 2000, popular hong kong recording artist roman tam recorded shanghai new york, a cd /dvd project devoted to shidai quo tam's cd, recorded in new york city with an american big band, features songs made famous by the "golden voice" of shidai qu, zhou xuan, and was conceived to evoke a musical image of shanghai'sjazz age. the shanghai of the 1920s and '30s was a thriving, multiply colonized treaty port carved from a land in abject poverty. it was a place where many of china's urban elite and bourgeoisie enjoyed quotidian lifestyles of western opulence, while their own people endured systematic oppression at the hands of foreigners. in the interstices of this complex and highly stratified society emerged the sounds and images disseminated by a foreign­ owned and dominated media industry-an industry that, as jones shows, ultimately provided the very means of articulating nationalist political ideals. the book opens with the arrival of mrican american jazz trumpeter buck clayton in shanghai in 1935. clayton, who would later join the acdale wilson 527 claimed count basie orchestra, sought work in shanghai's dancehalls­ venues peopled at the time by white russians, filipinos, japanese, and north american musicians. a description of clayton's sojourn in shang­ hai does more than offer a lens on the cosmopolitan social milieu in which the book is situated; it also does much to set the work on its intellec­ tual trajectory. clayton's duties in shanghai dancehalls required him to have familiarity with shidai qu repertoire. his comments about the genre are used as a register of shidai qu's accessibility to western ears and its re­ latedness to american and mrican american musical forms. more impor­ tant however, clayton's presence in shanghai highlights the city's wide­ spread demand for western jazz and dancehall music, resulting from a transnational traffic and exchange of recorded music. one is reminded early on that the gramophone industry, as well as the film industry to which it is closely linked, were and have remained essen­ tially transnational since their inceptions. much of jones's work centers on the activities of the french-owned recording conglomerate, pathe asia, a corporate ancestor of emi. pathe asia was the foremost marketer of mandarin pop songs (shidai qu) in china at the time as well as the princi­ pal organ for distributing chinese-language popular culture abroad. today emi, its corporate heir, is a primary holder of copyrights for shidai quo studying the activities of some of pathe asia's key composers and staff musicians provides an account of how the politics of left and right vied for dominance in shanghai's recording and film industries. at the same time, pathe asia's undertakings in republican shanghai offer an organic global perspective on the cultural and political life of the city. as such, it is a unique and previously unexplored window on china's engagement with colonial modernity. while current reissues of immediate postwar "modern songs" are abun­ dant, recordings from the period prior to japan's all-scale invasion in 1937 are largely unavailable. a scarcity of prewar sound recordings on the one hand, coupled with a lack of musicological expertise on the other, offered jones an incentive to pursue his study of shidai qu via "the discursive and social formations through which it was produced, understood, and de­ ployed as agent of cultural struggle and ideological contention" (15). jones's book is the result of extensive fieldwork and archival research in three major chinese cities. lack of musicological emphasis does not detract from jones's larger themes. by studying the mediation of the genre through radio, cinema, and print, the central issues of the book emerge with great clarity. even some musical descriptions in layman's terms are effective. when the au­ thor describes leftist anthems as soviet-style mass music, there is a strong impression of the flavor and substance of the music-an impression that is 528 current musicology sustained when actually listening to the pieces to which he refers. there are times, however, when a more musically informed discussion could have been useful. this is particularly true of jones's characterization of shidai qu and their relationships with other musical genres. shidai qu are referred to in turn as "sinified jazz," "a combination of big band jazz and chinese folk music," and 'jazzy harmonies with pentatonic harmonies." jazz is a word that is used throughout the book without a clear definition of its meaning being offered. for many, jazz signifies certain kinds of african american improvisatory musics. for others, it refers to many gen­ res of african american-influenced dance music and songs popular dur­ ing america's jazz age in the 1920s. clearer relationships between termi­ nology, sound materials, and genres could have elucidated assertions made about shidai qu and suggested connections with other musics­ especially african american musics. this is important, as the author draws some compelling links between notions of "yellowness" and notions of "blackness." jones suggests that the objection of chinese critics to the "yellowness" (i.e., pornographic quality) of shidai qu was more a problem with its "chineseness," and "perhaps its blackness as well" (102). it is a color-coded argument made by jones, one claiming that there existed in shanghai a conscious association between the idea of "black" (african american) and the idea of "yellow" (pornographic) that unconsciously linked them both with "chinese." a dismissal of shidai qu was thus a relegation of things "black" and "yellow" (in its double sense) to the "lowest level of an evolutionary hierarchy dominated by european cul­ tural forms." this is a valid point given that, as jones states, denigrating discourse about jazz in the republican era was often racialized. furnishing a clearer understanding of words such as 'jazz" and 'jazzy" would have strengthened what is a very compelling argument. problems occur only when trying to understand the nature of the hybridity these terms imply, whose perceptions such characterizations represent, and their relationship to the larger argument. on the one hand, describing shidai qu as "pentatonic melodies with jazzy harmonies" belies the singular­ ity of the shidai qu genre. on the other hand, locating a relationship be­ tween yellow music and jazz (and by extension, african americanness) in the sound materials, jones misplaces an understanding of their inherent "blackness" as well as inherent "yellowness." in discussing one of the prin­ cipal composers of shidai qu, jones refers to li jinhui's "appropriation of an african american musical form" (7). when listening to extant record­ ings of well-known shidai qu, such as zhou xuan's ye shanghai ("shanghai nights") and aishen de jian ("cupid's arrow"), there is a recognizable affinity with american popular musics in their instrumentations. however, one is struck by an absence of both swing and improvisation, two common dale wilson 529 defining terms of 'jazz." also, harmonically speaking, there is little of the chromaticism that characterizes swing era american/ mrican american music. this does not mean that people of the day did not consider this music 'jazz" or that there was no conscious connection made between these songs and mrican american musics. it simply would have helped to have a clearer idea of the nature of the transaction jones describes as "an appropriation of an mrican american musical form." a particularly compelling component of yellow music is its detailing of chinese activist infiltration of foreign-owned recording firms, such as pathe asia. through it, the author lends understanding to the role of music in national mobilization against japanese militarism and euro­ american colonial domination in the years preceding world war ii. jones's interpretive framework is that of music as a technology of power. needless to say, the idea of the political and social instrumentality of mu­ sic is not peculiar to the chinese. in fact,jones's emphasis is on music as a technology of power in the hands of western regimes encroaching into china, and how china's nation builders appropriated those technologies. while dissecting and complicating leftist and rightist rhetoric about mu­ sic, jones occasionally links fundamental ideological overlaps to previous chinese modes of discourse. perhaps in a wish to eschew any neo-confucian interpretive model, most of these correlations are mentioned only in pass­ ing. however, one must acknowledge that "music as power" is a very old interpretive field in chinese history. while jones avoids truisms associated with confucian analytical frameworks, he down plays analogies between the discursive formations he highlights and previous, distinctively chinese modes of thinking about music. are not the key links between leftist and rightist rhetoric about music in the republican era cultural ones? also, are not notions of music as a technology of power and as an index of moral decline far more culturally embedded than jones implies here? it would have been helpful for readers to have an historical understand­ ing of relationships between sound and power structures in chinese classi­ cal thought, and at the same time, an appreciation of how early-twentieth­ century thinkers were still very much immersed in the classics. an opportunity to depict such relationships occurs on page 29, when jones draws historical distinctions between common music (suyue) and refined music (yayue). jones points out relationships between yayue and imperial rituals of state power. state ritual musics were predicated on a theory-the bayin instrument classification system-for harnessing natural sounds as a means of influencing political stability and control. such ancient cosmo­ logical theories found their way into confucian and neo-confucian thought, and were transferred to ideologies surrounding the qin. j ones in­ dicates the role of the qin in the intellectual life of the literati, but he does 530 current musicology not draw direct connections between gin ideology and the cosmological theories in which it was embedded. chinese political leaders, throughout the ages, have depended on clas­ sical expressions to capture the popular imagination. this would have been especially true during the 1920s and '30s, when many thinkers were products of early immersion in the classics. mao zedong's oral skills and literary prowess are often attributed to his being, at heart, a classicist. an abundance of classical references to music concern gin and bayin ideolo­ gies. these ideologies were undergirded by deeply-rooted notions of music as a technology of power and control. on the one hand, classical references to music were often about ancient musics that had little rele­ vance to the daily lives of modern masses. on the other hand, the fact that they referred to "historical artifacts" (29), absent from everyday sound­ scapes, meant that their ideals of power and moral authority could be pro­ jected easily onto contemporary sound worlds. the classics imparted on the imaginations of educated people the very concept of healthy music vs. unhealthy music, music that is spiritually wholesome vs. music that is fun­ damentally corrupting. the fact that notions of mimi zhi yin, with all of its implications, found resonance in republican-era political discourse may tell us less about menacing sounds than the degree to which intellectuals of the day were immersed in classical thought. j ones clearly delineates cul­ turally embedded associations between moral degeneracy, music-making, and prostitution. in situating his discussion of music as a technology of power, however, some additional attention could have been given to the historical roots of such discursive frameworks. among yellow music's many merits is its contribution to contemporary discourses on transnationalism and globalization. as the author shows, early-twentieth-century transnational traffic in jazz, popular musics, and even chinese regional genres provides a genealogy of all that is indelibly transnational· about our contemporary mediascapes. this correlation of contemporary transnationalisms with previous transnationalisms argues that two of the cornerstones of aijun appadurai's theory of transnational culture (1996)-mediation and migration-were already structuring the growth of global media culture in the early part of the twentieth century. other authors have assumed a non-analogous relationship between past and present transnational media cultures. jones shows that there is much one can learn about turn-of-the-millennium global media industries by re­ visiting the sights and sounds of republican-era shanghai. more than anything, this work stands alone in its sensitive portrayal of lijinhui, music impresario and progenitor of shidai gu, and the many star­ lets he trained. it is through the figure of li and his songstresses (includ­ ing zhou xuan) that the author locates and articulates affinities between dale wilson 531 leftist and rightist politicization of musical life in the republican era. li's alleged cultural, social, and political compromises were analogous to the failings of the embattled nation, his songstresses to the country's anguished voices. through the mediation of film, his songs and the women who sang them became instruments for articulating a discourse of national salvation. the simultaneous denunciation and appropriation of li and the enter­ tainment world he inhabited introduces a complex of traditional associa­ tions between prostitution, musical professionalism, and music-making in china-all of which inform an understanding of gendered discourse within the context of nation-building agendas. as jones demonstrates, linkages between notions of the feminine and notions of decadence and degradation were inscribed in the discursive arena. what he could have added was the etymological rootedness of these inscriptions: many words in the chinese language with pernicious associations or negative mean­ ings are formed from the ideogram nu, which signifies woman. jones's themes, refracted through a cinematic prism, overlap and dove­ tail with one another with the same clarity as the film bricolages he so effec­ tively describes. the image of the prostitute as a redeemed subaltern is not unfamiliar in mid-twentieth-century chinese cinema. what jones offers, however, is a penetrating examination of how this theme found residence in the national psyche. jones tells us that sing-song girls can be voices for national distress only in a nation that figures itself as a prostitute. yellow music is singular as a multifarious study of shidai qu and repre­ sents what may be the most up-to-date study of music, politics, and popu­ lar culture in republican china. it is an excellent tool for teachers and students of chinese music studies, and will appeal to scholars of anthro­ pology, cinema studies, cultural studies, asian studies, gender studies, nationalism, and transnational studies. notes 1. republican china refers to the period of china's history beginning with the overthrow of the qing dyansty, china's last imperial regime, and ending with the communist ousting of national forces from the chinese mainland in 1949. some authors, however, understand the era as stretching from 1912 to the present. most of jones's study relates to the period of china's history between the two world wars. 2. the term sing-song girls carries with it historical overtones of courtesanship and prostitution. 3. the may 4th movement began with a political demonstration on may 4, 1919 against the chinese government's decision to comply with the terms of the versailles treaty, and thus surrender shantung province to japan. however, it de­ veloped into a literary, artistic and sociopolitical movement advocating cultural reforms that would lead to the development of a modern and independent chinese state. 532 current musicology references appadurai, aijun. 1996. modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. lu, sheldon hsio-peng, ed. 1997. transnational chinese cinemas: identity, nation­ hood, gender. honolulu: university of hawaii press. zhang, yingjin. 1999. cinema and urban culture in shanghai, 1922-1943. stanford, calif.: stanford university press. thomas carl slattery-the wind music of percy aldridge grainger ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 67-9104, 1967. 265 pp., the university ofiowa diss.) david s. josephson [ed. note,' this is the second in a series of writings conceived by prof. josephson as an essay in bibliography, seeking to provide the foundation for a thorough and broadly-based study of the life and music of percy grainger. the first essay, "percy grainger: country gardens and other curses," can be found in current musicology 15 (1973): 56-63.] percy grainger composed and arranged music for winds from virtually the beginning to the end of his creative life. the fruits of these labors are the subject, at first glance, of the dissertation under review. in fact, however, thomas slattery's thesis is more than a study of the wind music: in both scope and length it is the first major attempt to deal with grainger's life and work. the wind music provides an apt vehicle, for its remarkable range of idiom, genre, and intention allows us to explore the gamut of grainger's productive life from almost every angle; the finest exemplars of this repertory reveal most immediately his striking ear and fastidious craftsmanship. indeed, grainger's largest essay for winds, lincolnshire posy, is a handbook of band orchestration and arguably the most idiomatic and sensitive composition ever written for large wind ensemble. the table of contents reveals both the scale of dr. slattery's investigation and its cogent organization. the six chapters include an extended bibliographical summary; music for wind band; the chamber music for, with, and arranged for winds; grainger's wind scoring; his innovations; and a summary of sources. three appendices-a catalogue of selected works, the locations of autograph manuscripts, and a list of grainger's recordings-and a bibliography conclude the dissertation. musical examples and illustrative and analytical tables are numerous. the presence of broadly chosen source materials, the long list of acknowledgments, and quotations from grainger's writings give evidence of the wide ground covered. pioneering and admirable in its breadth, the dissertation is nevertheless deeply flawed and terribly uneven. it seems to have gone wrong at its very inception, for dr. slattery failed to select an angle from which to approach his subject. instead, he attempted an account of grainger's personal and creative life, an exposition of his works for winds, a bibliographical study, 79 a catalogue raisonne of his music, an analysis of the influences upon the composer and of his influence upon others, and an interpretation of his far-flung theories. overwhelmed by this material, dr. slattery has ended up with a collection of myriad bits and pieces, strung together in a random manner that gives the appearance of authority and scholarship but the substance of neither. furthermore, the writing is unrelievedly gray, effectively stripping the composer of his crazy-quilt, contradictory, and vibrant character. still, the size of this work places it apart from the rest of the grainger bibliography, and close examination of it yields much of value. dr. slattery states in his preface that he set out to "survey certain facets" of grainger's creative life and to "examine in detail" the wind music, as well as to give "more than a cursory examination of [grainger's] life as a composer and performer" (p. v). for this task he had "unlimited access" to the composer's manuscripts and private papers (p. iii). the "bibliographical summary" occupies fully one-third of the body of the text, and related information springs up throughout the manuscript. in effect, dr. slattery seems to have presented his summary as an outline for a projected comprehensive biography, and as an outline it is defective and misleading. he notes the two facets of the composer, "his private life and his public image," yet does not attempt to reconcile them or to examine their influences upon the music. the various streams of grainger's life did issue forth, however, from one source; unless we recognize this fact, nothing will fall into place in a psychologically credible way. true, we must impose certain restrictions for the moment. some personal material remains too sensitive for public dissemination; it must await the passage of time and present circumstance. still, much can be discussed, for the problem at hand is not so much to unearth as to illuminate, penetrate, balance, and understand. even the briefest exposure to grainger's writings impresses us with the fact that he was far more alive to the wellsprings of his own character than are those who have known and written about him. the first task is to establish the facts of grainger's life. dr. slattery's occasional reliance on inadequate secondary sources and on some of grainger's later statements tends to unbalance the biography and lead him astray. on the most elementary level he lacks familiarity with the published material. for example, discussing grainger's experiments and innovations, he quotes the following passage from a recent article by herbert fred: [grainger] was not an evolving artist, but one who branched out more than actually grew. one cannot listen to his works and reflect, 'this is of his late period, and that is of his early period.'l but this nugget of good sense does not originate in fred's dismal little essay. it was taken almost bodily, and without acknowledgment, from a statement made fifty years earlier, while grainger was in his thirties and might have been thought still capable of musical growth; its insight could have come only from cyril scott.2 80 or take the vital moment when grainger left australia with his mother, rose, in order to begin serious musical study in frankfurt am main. secondary sources offer more confusion than aid in ascertaining even the approximate date of his arrival. dr. slattery properly rejects (p. 7) the date of 1892 given by percy scholes3 and thomas armstrong,4 and that of 1894 given by nathan broder5 and nicholas slonimsky.6 he also rejects grainger's own date of 1895, given in a letter written in 1958. in that note grainger mentioned that he had gone to frankfurt to study with clara schumann but that she had died a few weeks after his arrival. since mme. schumann died on 20 may 1896 (as the author notes on the basis of the little entry in the new college encyclopedia of music!), grainger must have arrived in frankfurt in the spring of that year. he recalls that the young pianist's farewell concert had taken place on 14 may 1895 and wonders how to account for the gap of a year's time; but he sees no way to reconcile the problem. now it is certainly possible that an old man's memory will play tricks on him, and in any case grainger was no stickler for trifles such as childhood dates; in another late letter he wrote that he had arrived in frankfurt after mme. schumann's death 17 but the date 1895 given in the 1958 letter is correct. in the introduction to the volume of photos of rose grainger, printed privately thirty-five years earlier, grainger dates his departure for germany as "middle of 1895," and his arrival in frankfurt as "summer 1895."8 an early letter from his father9 corroborates this date. written on 13 november 1895, it acknowledges percy's letters from frankfurt and ends with "remember me kindly to your master & thank him for me," indicating that grainger had already enrolled at the hoch conservatory there. the sequence of events now becomes clear: grainger left australia soon after his farewell concert in may 1895, arrived in germany and settled in frankfurt during the summer, and enrolled at the conservatory that fall. lo as for the plan to study with clara schumann, that must have been a hope of rose grainger's rather than a firm arrangement; prospective students of the great lady had first to spend a year of training with one of her daughters, after which she would take on a small number of the most promising.ll but from the moment the graingers set foot in frankfurt, they must have known that even this possibility was beyond reach, for by 1895 mme. schumann's health was failing rapidly. she was losing her hearing and her strength, practicing became increasingly difficult, and playing virtually impossible.12 by the time grainger enrolled, she was in no condition to continue with her old students, much less accept new ones. for the little boy from australia, then, she was in effect "dead." the confusion in the letters of his old age recalls the psychological, if not the actual, truth of this dimly-remembered incident. sins of commission and omission mar dr. slattery's text so often as to throw doubts on its general reliability. grainger did not "incorporate portions of rarotongan part-songs in a composition called random round" (p. 164). he stated quite clearly in an article which the author has apparently misread that he incorporated the principles and techniques of rarotongan 81 music, not the music itself13 ; and an examination of this work bears out that fact. the last major published composition was not the 1940 lincolnshire posy (p. 26) but the power oj rome and the christian heart (completed in 1948, published in 1953). grainger's interest in old music was first stimulated not by a recording prepared in 1932 by dom anselm hughes (p. 41), but by the concerts of the haslemere festival, organized by arnold dolmetsch, which he had attended the previous july. no doubt hughes played a major role in exposing grainger to the riches of earlier ages. in fact, much of the credit dr. slattery bestows on grainger for the english gothic music editioncalling it "perhaps the finest example of grainger's editorial practices" (p. 41 )-must be transferred to hughes, as a careful reading of that edition makes evident. conversely, the author fails to deal adequately with grainger's enormous editorial accomplishments with both the lincolnshire folksongs and the grieg piano concerto. equally troublesome are a number of misleading statements. it is insufficient to note that "many of grainger's published compositions are notated with two dates, indicating the length of time between their conception and their completion" (p. 12n). for some works the second date indicates revision of a completed score, while for others grainger gives three or more dates.l4 the rescoring of certain compositions often stemmed not from a change in intention but merely from a desire to enhance the possibility of its commercial success and to broaden its availability to various amateur ensembles. the procedural simplification worked out in the revised "set" version of random round arose from grainger's recognition that the piece in its original form remained beyond the scope of most musicians, even thirty years after its creation. one might add here that the composer's lifelong habit of tinkering with earlier works has left us with an immense and confusing pile of material in sketch, manuscript, and print. its sorting, dating, and analysis are fundamental tasks which, to my knowledge, no one has begun. similarly inadequate is the treatment of grainger's anglicisms. true, as dr. slattery states, he attempted to avoid foreign words and expressions and preferred to use slangy words and phrases, such as "hold till blown," "bumpingly," and "slow off lots." but he went further (as one of the author's illustrations shows); his literary output is dense with the products of his desire to avoid compound words having ambiguous roots or latin origins: exhaust becomes "forspend," museum becomes "past-hoard-house," composer becomes "tone-wright," etc. it was hopeless, of course. although he kept at it for fifty years, virtually everyone of these concoctions had to be followed by its common equivalent in brackets. dr. slattery makes no attempt to understand the reasons behind this peculiar obsession. cyril scott did try, in his previously cited essay,l5 noting ironically that although grainger used english words because he thought italian impractical, the opposite held instead-he had to use italian to explain the colloquial english. the composer had other reasons besides the supposed impracticality of a 82 foreign tongue; these had to do with his notions of "musical democracy." one must also examine his practice in the broader context of the movement for language reform which held sway during the early years of this century. finally, in conjunction with the biography, one regrets that dr. slattery did not make more use of primary sources. true, the inclusion of several interesting documents (among them, the manuscript notes concerning hill song no.1, one of the late "round-robin letters," and various recital programs) gives evidence of his having visited the grainger collections in this country. but their presence seems the result of random pickings governed by no clear program of research. photos oj rose grainger he describes as three short accounts of her life, accompanied by numerous photographs and reproductions of her handwriting (p. 36). one would never gather from this description that the accounts are the reproductions; we must assume therefore that dr. slattery neglected to examine this vital little volume. nor could he have read the major autobiographical efforts and come up with so little. those documents brim over with reminiscences, facts, stories, and auto-analyses. they and the letters are essential to the most elementary study of the man and his music, and it is appalling that they remain unexplored and untapped. * * * * * the discussion of the music suffers from a similarly haphazard approach. first of all there is the matter of classification. dr. slattery states that there are "two sides" to the musician grainger, as evinced in his "light, 'tuneful,' folk-oriented pieces" on the one hand, and his "experiments in electronic music" on the other (p. v). but that is a misreading of the evidence: the division, as his thesis goes on to demonstrate, is that of folk-oriented as against original music. (in fact, grainger's interest in mechanical and electronic music lies entirely outside the scope of this dissertation.) but this too is a difficult division to maintain, as dr. slattery realized in categorizing the folk-song-based lincolnshire posy, correctly, as an original work-as opposed (he claims) to "true" folk settings. the problem is that there is no such thing as a "true" folk setting, only a "true" folk song. any setting, even the barest harmonization, alters the original, and no hard and fast relationship exists between the complexity of the alteration and its distance from the original. indeed, grainger felt that the ambitious posy lay close in spirit to folk song, while his simpler popular settings were corruptions of it. within the category of folk settings, therefore, a subdivision into two types seems necessary, whether we call them serious and commercial, or complex and simple. that at least corresponds, we might note, to grainger's own differentiation of "genuine folksong" and "half-breed tunes ... on the borderline between folksong and unfolkish 'popular song."'16 only in this way can we truly deal with such fascinating works as the posy, "the duke of marlborough" fanfare for brass ensemble, the orchestral danish folk music suite, the sea chanty shallow brown, and the scotch strathspey and reel, and 83 properly measure the chasm that separates them from country gardens and the irish tune from county derry. a similar distinction must be made among the original works. one cannot lump together, say, such "popular" pieces as colonial song and" the gumsuckers" march, whose intention was nationalistic, with the strange, mockoriental arrival plaiform humlet. one cannot label some compositions simply as experimental and the rest as "tuneful." the power of rome and the christian heart, for one, is neither of these, but instead serious, ambitious, and conservative in idiom. even the lighter works, when examined as a group, seem uneasy bedfellows. they range broadly in the source of their style and in technique and structure. where, for instance, do we place the children's march, whose simple tune and jaunty swing belie elegant, even "serious" form? to lump them together is to miss half the point and thereby to diminish grainger. that is exactly what happens when dr. slattery overlooks the crucial influence of the london music hall. grainger insisted throughout his life that he was a "musical democrat," and his ears remained open to every kind of music, whatever its source. the legendary harry lauder, whose voice and style so captivated george bernard shawi7 and his colleagues, constituted one such source.is to ignore the music hall is simply to invite confusion. thus the author, faced with the tunefulness of mock morris and misled perhaps by its title, mentions that work among the folk-song settings (p. 94). but grainger himself denied any direct association: no folk-music tune-stuffs at all are used herein. the rhythmic cast of the piece is morris-like, but neither the build of the tunes nor the general lay-out of the form keeps to the morris dance shape.l9 mock morris is an entirely original work in pure music-hall style. the tune came to me in bed, the morning after seeing "the arcadians" (george grossmith as the lean miserable looking jockey ... ) & based upon the motto of the song (but not its music) sung by grossmith: "i've got a mother, always merry & bright."20 nor is mock moms unique. handel in the strand, a reworking of material for an intended set of variations on the harmonious blacksmith, is entitled "clog dance." the second movement of "in a nutshell" suite, "gay but wistful," was described by grainger as an attempt to write an air with a "music hall" flavor embodying that london blend of gaiety with wistfulness so familiar in the performances of george grossmith, jr., and other vaudeville artists. the musical material, composed in london, dates from about 1912, and was worked out and scored during the winter of 1915/16 in new york city and in railway trains.21 the matter of classification is admittedly perplexing. in an essay limited 84 strictly to the wind music, one might perhaps distinguish those compositions intended specifically for winds (lincolnshire posy, the lads of wamphray, children's march, the wind-accompanied choral songs) from those that were conceived with a variety of sonorities in mind (the immovable do) or gradually evolved into wind works (the power of rome), and from the outright transcriptions (mock morris, irish tune, shepherd's hey). but whatever one's method, it must proceed from an overriding view of the music and with a clear statement of intention. otherwise, the definitions and procedures of classification become arbitrary, and the treatment of individual works unbalanced. so it is in the dissertation at hand: dr. slattery's choice of extended treatment of some works and dismissal of others seems guided neither by the intention to analyze closely a major work within each category nor by the desire to give weight in accordance with the accomplishment, individuality, length, or complexity of a given work. quite reasonably, the posy receives twenty-five pages of discussion, the two hill songs fifteen, and the woodwind quintet (walking tune) six. on the other hand, however, grainger's grandest single statement for concert band, the power of rome, is given only one page, as are the marvelous children's march and" the duke of marlborough" fanfare. oddly, too, my robin is to the greenwood gone receives extended treatment, even though it is not strictly a wind piece, while the superbly scored choral songs with wind accompaniment receive only passing mention. dr. slattery's descriptions and analyses of individual works evince considerable thought, and some of them prove most convincing. his structural and harmonic analyses of the six movements of lincolnshire posy are excellent. each movement, he notes, is built on an accompaniment-variation principle, with the folk song on which it is based functioning as a recurring cantus firmus. the construction of each movement and the nature of its accompaniment are derived with uncanny sensitivity from the characteristic shape of the original song and from the personality and vocal style of its singer. quite properly, then, the author opens his discussion with expositions of the tunes themselves and then analyzes the form of each movement and its outstanding traits. his fine work in delineating the part-writing and penetrating the often complex harmonic patterns would have been aided by presentation of musical examples in full score rather than in photocopies of the lamentable compressed published score. one may question his attributions of grainger's tonal idiom: there is no need to repeat, in connection with the composer's "obsession with intervals," harold bauer's dubious remark22 that grainger made "exhaustive studies ... regarding the analogy between the triad and the trinity" (p. 68); and it is a gross simplification to state that the composer's "parallel chromaticism and chromatic root movements reflect the influence of debussy" (p. 69). but these are minor matters when weighed against the achievement. dr. slattery's interest in structural, melodic, contrapuntal, and harmonic elements likewise illuminates his discussions of walking tune, which he observes is unique among 85 grainger's compositions in its proximity to sonata principle (p. 102), and the hill songs, where he buttresses his arguments with splendid quotations and cogent musical examples. other factors, however, less susceptible perhaps to straightforward analysis, often give a work its characteristic shape and sound. phrasing, for one, should not have been ignored, for it is an integral component of grainger's fascination with irregular meters and rhythms. it is responsible in part for the sense of space achieved in the power of rome and for the delightful surprises of the children's march. an extraordinary sensitivity to the phrasing and the general temporal quality of folksong-and to the intimate relationship between these and melodic contour, ornamentation, and harmonic rhythm-lies behind the thrust of the two-piano piece let's dance gay in green meadow and is responsible for the magical contrast between the third and fourth movements of the posy. on the other hand, it is the lack of interesting phrasing which so contributes to the dearth of forward motion and to the monotony (perhaps consciously sought here) in walking tune and the immovable do. there are other ways to examine a composition, of course. sometimes a brief incisive description will do, such as dr. slattery's observation that the distinctive quality of shepherd's hey is achieved by the successive use of varied instrumental groupings to suggest dancers entering and leaving the dance, and by the timbres of fixed-pitch percussion instruments (p. 91). but some works guard their secrets more closely and must be exposed to sustained scholarly work. here the author's failure is telling. to read that the power if rome is characterized by parallel triads and chords built on fourths and fifths, and that its "overall structure [is] ... a series of brie flo os ely-connected sections" (pp. 65-66) is to learn virtually nothing of that strange work. yet it is, after all, grainger's longest uninterrupted utterance for wind band, one on which he worked for thirty years, and his last major published composition. it is a perplexing work with a fascinating history, and any study, much less a dissertation, of grainger's wind music must at least try to treat it seriously. * * * * * in the remaining chapters of his thesis, dr. slattery reaches beyond the wind music in several directions. the fourth chapter, on grainger's scoring practices, includes pertinent and well-illustrated passages on the composer's use of woodwinds and pitched percussion instruments in families, and of brass primarily as solo or supporting instruments; on his characteristic combinations and juxtapositions of instrumental choirs; on his predilection for double reeds and saxophones; and on his unusual concern for the variety, weight, and disposition of his percussion instruments. concerning grainger's practice of setting out his music for "elastic scoring," dr. slattery arbitrarily rejects charles hughes's argument that the roots of the practice lay in contemporary theater scoring23 and relates it instead to 18th-century string 86 scoring (quoting adam carse) and even farther back to the 16th century (citing willaert, for no reason that i can divine other than that grainger transcribed a single motet, 0 salutaris hostia, by that composer). his argument must be rejected: grainger's "elastic scoring" dates from early in his career, after his exposure to the music hall, while his acquaintance with the work of carse and with music from before bach's time arose only from his contact with dolmetsch in the early 1930's. the fifth chapter, on grainger's innovations, is decidedly a mixed bag, more valuable for its pulling together of disparate published material than for its original contribution. the passage on guitar tuning comes straight from cecil forsyth24 and should have been acknowledged as such. the discussion of grainger's anglicisms is, as noted earlier, inadequate. the treatment of "free music" offers valuable primary material but relies heavily on richard franko goldman.25 towards the end of the fifth chapter, dr. slattery cites a note in which grainger claims seven procedures as "complete innovations at the time that hill song nr 1 was conceived & scored" (1901-02): wide-toned scales, irregular rhythms, discordant triads, triads in conjunct motion, nonrepetition of thematic material, nonarchitectural formal procedures, and large chamber music. the author's comments on these claims will not do. to assert that grainger's use of triads in conjunct motion was based on his study of organum in the 1930's is to ignore any number of works composed far earlier-to pick two at random from the four-hand piano repertory, let's dance gay in green meadow (a faeroe island dance setting first sketched in 1905) and hermundur llli (sketched in 1911 and published in 1924 as the first of two musical relics ofmy mother). to find in the large chamber music "a beginning of twentieth century neo-classicism" (p. 167) is to have looked for the wrong source. dr. slattery correctly rejects grainger's claim to the innovation of "wide toned" (i.e., nondiatonic and non chromatic) scales but then goes on to cite, as an earlier instance of this practice, the wrong example: glinka's overture to russlan and ludmilla. he refers here, i believe, to the descending whole-tone scale just before the coda of the overture; but that brief passage is merely tonal coloration in a thoroughly diatonic work, whereas grainger was talking about a fundamentally new mode of composition. concerning the composer's early experiments in irregular rhythm, it is of little use to regret that he did not attempt "further development and refinement of these experiments" (p. 166). one may well ask whether the fifth movement of lincolnshire posy is not one such refinement, or perhaps hold that these early interests in flexible motion and accent were an important step in the more radical development towards the elimination of rhythm and meter in the "free music." the first of the three appendices, "a catalogue of selected compositions," requires some comment. ten of the thirteen groupings of compositions into which it is divided are classifications devised by grainger: american folk settings, barrack room ballads (kipling), british folk music settings, danish 87 folk music settings, the dolmetsch collection of english consorts, english gothic music, free settings oj favorite melodies, the kipling settings, old english popular music, and the sea chanty settings. (inexplicably, the room-music tit-bits series is omitted.) the listings under each classification are virtually complete, rather than restricted to only music with winds. they are the only comprehensive source of this material now available. the three remaining classifications are devised by dr. slattery. the first of these lists grainger's arrangements of music (including his own) for brass choir, clarinets, saxophones, and wind choir. the second is a catalogue of chamber music with winds; to it should be added the echo-song trials of 1945 (new york public library ms.), a version of the scotch strathspey and reel for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, and bassoon (national library of scotland ms.), and a version of jerusalem shoemaker for piano, flute, trumpet, violin, viola, cello, and double bass (library of congress ms.). the third classification is subdivided into arrangements for band, works for brass band, choral compositions accompanied by brass or wind band, and folk-song settings. this list is, however, curiously incomplete. among the arrangements for band omitted by dr. slattery are the nightingale and the two sisters (danish folk music settings, no. 10)26, spoon river, katharine parker's down longford way (arranged for winds or band),27 colonial song, harvest hymn, and immovable do. one might note here that three of the four brass-band works, three of the eight wind-accompanied choral works, and five of the six folk-song settings are arrangements in the versions listed-the brass works, in fact, were arranged not by grainger but by denis wright. finally, since the author has neglected to include in the wind-band classification a subheading for original band works, nowhere in his catalogue can one find children's march, the lads of wamphray, or the power of rome and the christian heart. if one can question dr. slattery's method of classification-and it does seem responsible at least in part for the difficulties encountered here-it is quite another matter to suggest a better method off the cuff. i have offered a few suggestions above, but the entire problem must be thought out afresh after a comprehensive listing has been made of all grainger's music: sketches and completed works, both in manuscript and in print. for whatever method is finally settled upon, it must grow from and reflect the nature and variety of grainger's entire output. to amass and annotate the list of that output is a dizzying prospect. the root of the problem lies in grainger's habits not only of returning again and again to earlier works but also of setting them to "elastic scoring"-two practices that have left us with a bewildering number of versions for the majority of his compositions. take, for instance, a work that dr. slattery does not mention but which can be considered "wind music" in one of its guises: the lonely desert-man sees the tents oj the happy tribes (room-music tit-bits, no.7) was sketched in 1911 and again in 1914 and was completed in 1949. it was published, probably in the following year, by schirmer, in a reproduction of the com88 poser's manuscript. according to a card-catalogue entry at the music division of the new york public library, it was written for three voices (stb)or three winds, or alto saxophones-accompanied by room-music (two guitars, one or two wooden marimbas, piano, and optional winds and strings) or by chamber orchestra or piano! the nypl copy contains the score, piano conductor, and thirteen instrumental parts, and includes a typewritten "list of possible combinations." to think of the number of classifications under which this composition could be placed, and to remember that this piece is not at all unusual in the variety of its possible settingsit is, in fact, less problematic than some other works-is to gain some idea of the challenge of dealing with grainger's music as a body. * * * * * dr. slattery divides his bibliography of printed materials into listings of books, articles from reference works and collections, and articles from periodicals. it is an indispensable tool for the grainger student, but once again its value is diminished by an unfortunate number of errors and omissions,28 and by a lack of annotation throughout.29 copies with a few additional entries penciled in by dr. slattery are available from the grainger library society (stewart manville, librarian, 7 cromwell place, white plains, new york). the following entries, noted in accordance with the author's threefold classification and including material published since his dissertation was written, should be added to his revised list: a. books grainger, percy. music, a commonsense view of all types. [melbourne:] australian broadcasting commission, 1934. --. photos of rose grainger and of 3 short accounts of her life by herself, in her own handwriting . .. [new york?:] privately printed, ca. 1923. o'shaughnessy, patrick, compiler. twenty-one lincolnshire folk-songs, from the ms. collection of percy grainger. london: oxford university press, 1968. scott, cyril. bone of contention. london: the aquarian press, 1969. b. articles from reference works and collections pears, peter. articles in the printed program-books of the aldeburgh festivals of 1966 (pp. 19-21) and 1970 (pp. 77-78). c. articles from periodicals dean-smith, margaret. "letters to lucy broadwood." journal of the english folk dance and song society 9 (1960-64): 233-68. among the letters are two from percy and one from rose grainger to miss broadwood, along with one letter and an extract of another from grieg to grainger. 89 dorum, ivor. "grainger's 'free music.'" studies in music 2 (1968): 86-97. grainger, percy. "edvard grieg: a tribute." musical times 98 (1957): 482-83. --. [four lincolnshire folksongs.] journal of the folk-song society 2 (190506): 79-81. --. "is music universal?" the new york times, 2 july 1933, sec. 9, p. 4, and 9 july 1933, sec. 10, p. 4. --. "mrs. burlin's study of negro folk-music." the new york times, 14 april1918, sec. 6, p. 164. --. "reaching your goal at the keyboard." the etude 59 (1941): 79-80, 134. howes, frank and peter kennedy. "obituary: percy grainger." journal oj the english folk dance and song society 9 (1960-64): 113-14. with an extract of a late letter from grainger to kennedy. orga, ates. "percy grainger, 1882-1961." music and musicians 18 (march 1970): 28-32, 34, 36, 70. with a score of a song of autumn, pp. 3840. palmer, christopher. "delius and percy grainger." music & letters 52 (1971): 418-25. parker, d. c. "the art of percy grainger." monthly musical record 45 (1915): 252-53. --. "grainger's 'colonial song.'" musical standard 9 (1917): 297. "percy grainger, a much-needed musical puck." the new york times, 19 december 1915, sec. 4, p. 15. interview. "percy grainger speaks of value of the organ as a background instrument." diapason 44 (i february 1953): 10. scott, cyril. "die 'frankfurter gruppe.''' neue zeitschrift filr musik 119. (1958): 81-83. wells-harrison, w. "some notable british music. 8. percy aldridge grainger. british folk-music settings." musical standard 8 (1916): 190-91. willetts, pamela. "an autograph manuscript of percy grainger." the british museum quarterly 25 (1962): 18-19. references to several other brief articles and to obituaries on grainger can be found in the music index (1949-). of especial interest is a recently published issue of recorded sound (the journal of the british institute of recorded sound, nos. 45-46 [january-april 1972]). it contains notable essays on the "free music" by grainger and by his associate in that project, burnett cross, as well as invaluable discographies by eric hughes ("the recorded works of percy grainger"), a. f. r. lawrence ("records of percy grainger as an interpreter"), and gerald stonehill ("piano rolls played by percy grainger"). also to be found in this issue is a slightly abbreviated version of a doctoral thesis on the "free music" by margaret hee-leng tan, which will be discussed in the third part of this essay. 90 notes 1 "percy grainger's music for wind band," journal of band research 1 (autumn 1964): 16. 2 "percy grainger: the music and the man," the musical quarterly 2 (1916): 427-28. see this reviewer's article in current musicology 15 (1973): 60-61. 3 oxford companion to music, 9th ed. (london: oxford university press, 1955), p. 420. 4 "the frankfort group," proceedings of the royal musical association 85 (1958-59): 4. 5 die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 5 (kassel and basel: barenreiter, 1956), col. 673. 6 baker's biographical dictionary of musicians, 5th ed. (new york: g. schirmer, 1958), p.599. 7 he was, on the other hand, quite exact in his dating of compositions, to the day and often to the place. thus, in the ms. copy of random round of 1943 (not, as dr. slattery states, 1945), one follows grainger through the score of the "random" version from utah through idaho and wyoming to denver from 23 to 28 february; the "set" version was written out in springfield, missouri, on 14-15 march 1943. 8 page 3. 9 original at the grainger museum in melbourne; photostatic copy at the library of congress. 10 the ms. sketches for the life of nry mother & her son, written after the composer's mother committed suicide in 1922, date his period of study in frankfurt from september 1895 to march 1900 (p. 16). 11 eleanor sternberg, "clara schumann: woman and artist" (m.a. thesis, columbia university, 1969), pp. 60-61. 12 berthold litzmann, clara schumann: an artist's life based on material found in diaries and letters, vol. 2, trans. grace hadow (london: macmillan & co., 1913), pp. 430-37. 13 "collecting with the phonograph," journal of the folk-song society 3 (1908-09): 147-242. 14 thus, i'm seventeen corne sunday was composed in 1905 and rescored in 1912, while the second kipling setting, we have fed our seas for a thousand years, was begun in 1900, completed in 1904, and rescored in 1911. 15 see note 2 above. 16 "program-note," lincolnshire posy (new york: g. schirmer, 1940), [po 2]. 17 how to become a musical critic, ed. dan laurence (new york: hill & wang, 1961), p.322. 18 photos of rose grainger, p. 4. grainger mentioned hearing lauder several times between 1909 and 1914. 19 prefatory note to the score. 20 ms. sketches for the life of my mother & her son, p. 40. 21 prefatory note to the score. 22 harold bauer, his book (new york: w. w. norton & co., 1948), p. 251. 23 "percy grainger, cosmopolitan composer," the musical quarterly 23 (1937): 135. see also current musicology 15 (1973): 60. 24 orchestration, 2nd ed. (new york: macmillan & co., 1949), pp. 479ff. 25 "percy grainger's free music," the juilliard review 2 (fall 1955): 37-47. see also current musicology 15 (spring 1973): 60. 26 published by g. schirmer in 1931 with indications for military band. 27 published by boosey (london) in 1936. 28 grainger's article on grieg in the etude 61 (1943) is in four parts, not one, running from june to september; sidney cowell's obituary note in the journal of the international folk music council 14 (1962) is followed by two others by maud karpeles and poul lorenzen. there are some errors in pagination. i have checked only random entries and suspect that other such lapses occur elsewhere. 29 the following annotation, for one, would have pinpointed the importance of henry finck's monograph on strauss: percy grainger, "appreciation-richard strauss: seer and idealist," pp. xvii-xxv, etc. slattery gives only the title, richard strauss, the afan and his works, and the publishing information. 91 eric ze isl , s "american" period* malcolm s. cole "america can find in my work not her own image mirrored, but she can find there strong medicines against the ills of fate, which i have learnt to brew and which she may need one day."l in these words the austrianamerican composer eric zeisl (1905-59) graphically summarized the impact upon him of america as an adopted homeland. although he felt that difference of environment should not be overrated in its effect on a mature composer, the trauma attendant with his immigration to america liberated memories of early childhood and caused him to write his best works. viennese by birth, heritage, and training, zeisl absorbed the legacy of 19thand early 20th-century austro-german romanticism. as a student at the vienna state academy of music, he immediately displayed a talent for melody, orchestration, and dramatic expression. counterpoint and the handling of large forms, on the other hand, required patient study. the primacy of song in zeisl's formative years cannot be overemphasized, for it was in this genre that his style most rapidly and freely developed.2 not apparent in the songs are two other shaping forces: (1) the slavic tinge that colors some instrumental endeavors (variations on a slovakian folksong, 1933) and (2) zeisl's early awareness of the jewish plight. memories of the stream of fugitive polish jews who poured into vienna would find powerful expression in a host of american works. ironically, it was in austria that zeisl composed three african songs (ca. 1930), his sole work on specifically american motifs. inspired by german translations of two poems by langston hughes and one by frank horne, he set them for stb solo, satb chorus, and small orchestra.3 "arabesque" (horne) illustrates the danger of working from translations. taking the verb "schaukeln" to mean "to rock," the composer humorously portrayed a little irish girl playing with a black baby boy under a tree in which a black man rocks, as in a hammock. in fact, the man had been hanged, the victim of a lynch mob. zdenko kestranek, zeisl's sometime librettist, tampered inexcusably with "aunt sue's stories" (hughes), changing aunt sue to kyulila and shifting the location to africa. the beautiful "harlem nightsong" (hughes) transcended all such vicissitudes. forced by the spread of nazism to flee from austria just as he was becoming established, zeisl spent 1938 in paris, where he began composing the music for job (based on the novel of joseph roth), a work that was to occupy him for the rest of his life and provide a wellspring for his american years.4 emigrating to america in 1939, zeisl settled temporarily in new york. through radio broadcasts, his music won considerable acclaim.5 * the gracious assistance of the composer's widow, mrs. gertrude zeisl, has been invaluable in the preparation of this article. 71 moving to los angeles, he spent two disillusioning years in the movie studios. he subsequently became an instructor of theory and composition, first at the southern california school of music, then at los angeles city college. although zeisl's adopted homeland was by no means invariably kind-problems of employment, performance outlets, and especially publication harassed him-he enjoyed good success with critics and audiences. most important, a number of significant works were commissioned and performed. composed during his twenty-one years in america, these twentytwo works earned for zeisl a niche in our american musical heritage (see appendix). the principal characteristics of zeisl's pre-1939 style may be summarized as follows: 1. extramusical stimuli: the poem, the play or story, texts scriptural and liturgical, the art work. even some of the early instrumental works contain themes with vocal associations.6 2. melody: zeisl's lines, vocal and instrumental, derive from the austrogerman lied tradition.7 in shape and stressed pitches they reinforce the essentially major-minor orientation of the harmony. 3. rhythm: the prevailing meter is common duple. metric changes within a work are encountered occasionally. choices of rhythm and tempo, including precisely indicated fluctuations, serve both to heighten dramatic expression and to articulate sections. rhythmic patterns tend to function as ostinatos. the union of a supple, rhapsodic melody with a strict accompanimental figure is common. cross rhythms are also found. 4. harmony: the scale upon which almost any given composition is based is major or minor ("armseelchen," an early song, is prophetically modal). pedal points, step movement in the bass, and sequence provide a logical, simple foundation upon which zeisl superimposes rich detail that clearly derives from post-romantic chromatic harmony and voice-leading. harmonic rhythm is slow. polychords occur. polytonality and purely parallel progressions or chords built of fourths are rare, progressive tonality practically unknown. 5. scoring: he tends to orchestrate in layers and clearly separates melodic and accompanimental functions. 6. counterpoint: although he effectively employs contrapuntal devices (augmentation, inversion, diminution) from the outset, the early fugues tend to be somewhat stiff and vertically conceived. 7. structure: compositions grow rhythmically, melodically, and harmonically from a germinal nucleus. ostinato patterns unify within movements, cyclic themes between movements. formally, songs, choral works, and small instrumental movements are cast most often in song form. to his larger compositions zeisl either transfers song form or 72 adopts baroque procedures (e.g., passacaglia-fantasy, 1933). the sonataallegro and the rondo are not customarily employed. absolute instrumental music is in fact practically nonexistent. these, then, are the genres, the techniques, and the procedures that zeisl brought to america. the fundamental structural techniques would not change (ostinatos, pedal points, step motion, germ themes, etc.); the sound would change dramatically, reflecting a deeper personal evolution which can best be surveyed first by noting what zeisl abandoned in this country, then by dividing his american output into five general, and sometimes overlapping, categories. he abruptly abandoned the comic opera, for which there was no demand in this country, and the lied. at the same time he temporarily perpetuated his european style, as in the romantic comedy suite (1939-40), essentially a reworking of excerpts from the singspiel leonce und lena (1937; g. buchner). this characterizes the first of the five "american" categories. conceived entirely in america, zeisl's incidental music to emil ludwig's comedy the return qf ulysses (1943) differs in no way, whether in the poignance of the ithaca theme, the lyricism of the love music, or the humor of the ballet music, from the music of an earlier time and a different place. a second category, initiated in paris, is zeisl's gebrauchsmusik. the finest representative example, the pieces for barbara (1944), was actually not conceived as a pedagogical tool but rather as a gift for his daughter. the composer's wife subsequently added the delightful programatic titles. in their published arrangement, the thirteen pieces-the publisher suppressed four others because of their alleged difficulty-provide the young pianist with stimulating 20th-century material of increasing complexity, introducing him to a host of technical, dynamic, rhythmic, interpretive, stylistic, textural, and formal problems. it is in the third category that zeisl's approach alters most radically. the impact of his displacement, combined with the plight of the european jews, recalled memories of the polish fugitives and reawakened a sense of his own jewish heritage. the seminal work is job, the story of a simple man. the sufferings and wandering of the mendel singer family and its redemption through the once sickly, crippled son menuhim stirred zeisl's creativity. in paris in 1939 he composed the overture, menuhim's song, and the cossack dance for a staged version.s by 1941 he had completed the music for act i of an opera. zeisl's music flows continuously in a kind of sprechgesang, with lyrical set pieces interspersed. the orchestra underlines the action with appropriate rhythms and tone colors, fills all transitional passages, and bears the burden of reiterating and transforming the song of the still almost inarticulate menuhim. act i establishes the tenor ofzeisl's american output. its germinal theme of the wunderrabbi's prophecy, i.e., menuhim's song, recurs as a leitmotif in almost each subsequent composition. its sound inaugurates a new compositional direction. 73 example 1: menuhim's song, mm. 10-12 [grave) :-::--.. 7,.--___ >;-______ p c 6ft i p rr (tit i r f' rl j i rtf r 3 (1'] c.resc. poco a. po'-o conceptually and technically, the requiem ebraico (psalm 92, 1944-45), still zeisl's most widely performed work, illustrates the thrust of this direction. in 1934, ironically, zeisl had won the austrian state prize for a requiem concertante, using the latin text and even retaining the characteristic french overture rhythm for the "rex tremendae" section. in america, on the other hand, he wrote a specifically jewish work, set to a scriptural text of praise and consolation, printed in hebrew and english, and dedicated to "the memory of his father and of the other countless victims of the jewish tragedy in europe." for solo voices, mixed chorus, and organ (or orchestra), this work embodies new approaches to structure, melody, rhythm, tonality, and harmony. rather than setting the psalm verses as discrete, relatively independent movements, as he might once have done, zeisl arranges them into units (1-2, 3-4, 5-7, 8, 9-11, 12-14, 15), builds almost each unit upon a transformation of the germinal theme (see menuhim's song) announced by the organ in m.l, and links these units with instrumental interludes. example 2: requiem ebraico, mm. 1-2 c"rave /vl,pde.ra.to (j. conspicuous examples of transformation occur at the soprano-alto unit of verses 12-14, where he stretches the nine-measure announcement of the main theme in to seventeen measures and at the concluding fugue, where the originally lyrical melodic arch has been sharpened rhythmically and compressed. example 3: requiem ebraico, mm. 246-49 zeisl's melodies are at least modal, as in the gypsy minor construction of some lines in the fugue, and at times positively chantlike, as in the two 74 extensive baritone solos (verses 5-7, 9-11), which consist of recitation tones, ornamental inflections, and occasional florid, freely rhythmic melismas. zeisl sets the introductory chorus in and usurping in these years the place formerly held by common duple meter. the tempo indication grave moderato, is likewise typical, grave and pes ante tempos contributing to the mood of numerous compositions. rhythmic patterns tend to be more pliant; frequent cross rhythms and meter changes contribute further to the rhythmic plasticity. new tonally and harmonically is the archaic liturgical flavor captured at the foreground level. individual chord progressions are often modal (m.l, see ex. 2), with open fifths, not infrequently in parallel motion, to enhance the effect. new also is the employment of progressive tonality, this work beginning in b minor and ending in its relative major. with increasing frequency, filler material progressing in steady quarters at the interval of the third or the sixth contributes animation to a slow-moving accompaniment (m.27). example 4: requiem ebraico, id. 27 zeisl's contrapuntal techniques, present throughout the work, may best be seen in the concluding fugue, a model of the control he now possessed in this medium. after its presentation in an extended exposition, the subject is rarely absent, as an identifiable entity appearing in stretto, inversion, and, symbolically, augmentation (at the words, "to show that the lord is upright"). at this climactic point zeisl successfully combines the original form of the subject with its augmentation. this category profoundly influenced categories four and five. to category four belong works conceived as reactions to phenomena fostered in the united states. the modal, chantlike prayer (1945), zeisl's only independent american work for solo voice, incorporates biblical texts that express the composer's hope for the then new united nations. zeisl's realization of the atomic bomb's potential for destruction elicited the unperformed dramatic ballet uranium 235 (1945-46, his first since 1929), that places in juxtaposition a young couple and a mad scientist. a march of doom, satan's dance, dynamo music, and nature music demonstrate zeisl's pictorial powers. a concluding prayer recalls the specifically jewish output of this time. conversely, the revival of the dramatic ballet suggested the possibility of utilizing this medium for vivid expressions of patience and faith in the face of persecution, ideas belonging to category three. the result was two biblical ballets, the vinryard (1953) and the more pastoral jacob and rachel (1954). derived from the story of naboth's vineyard (i kings 21), the 75 former work includes majestic court music, exotic rites of astarte, a bacchanal, and a stoning scene. in the concluding passacaglia and fugue, zeisl not only exhibits absolute control of the baroque procedure, but also turns it to dramatic use as the action proceeds to its inevitable denouement, the destruction of the king's palace. the sharply increased production of independent, not overtly programatic instrumental music, category five, is signalled by an organ prelude (1944) that resembles the overture to job and menuhim's song. in 1949 a significant cycle of multimovement solo and chamber pieces begins with the sonata barocca. the immediately ensuing sonata for violin and piano ("brandeis," 1949-50), which achieved wide recognition, perhaps best illustrates the forms and procedures typical of the cycle: three(or four-) movement format, progressive tonality, cyclic relationships among movements and even among works. the first movement consists of a solemn, modal section that returns in ritornello fashion, framing components that approximate a sonataallegro exposition and recapitulation. an expressive, chantlike line, at times rhapsodically melismatic, distinguishes the slow movement (andante religioso [hebraique]). to this melody strict ostinato patterns are bound. the choice of modified song form suggests the derivation of these instrumental songs from vocal predecessors and counterparts. the thematic material of the finale, an extended rondo, embodies eastern european folk elements: strongly accented dance rhythm, narrow range, repeated patterns, modal flavor, and popular cadence patterns. example 5: "brandeis" sonata iii, mm. 6-7 frequent meter changes (even to which at times produce an additive effect, are characteristic. notable in the remaining works of this cycle is the perpetuation of baroque procedures in the finales of the sonata barocca and the viola sonata (prelude and fugue; passacaglia and fugue) and the pesante-fugue opening movement ofthe second quartet. the cello sonata includes an innovation in its slow movement. instead of a chantlike line zeisl, under the influence of the scholar solomon rosowsky, creates a melody from allegedly authentic biblical cantillation formulas.9 written toward the end of his life, an unpublished trio for flute, viola, and harp ("arrowhead") is suggestive of a new direction in chamber composition, which is pessimistic in tone, spare in texture, and compact in form. zeisl's three principal orchestral works are: music for christmas, a set of variations on "0 little town of bethlehem" with a fugal finale in which the composer combines the "adeste fidelis" subject with "0 little town" and "silent night" in a contrapuntal tour de force; a piano concerto; and a 76 concerto grosso for cello and orchestra with a variation finale (pesante maestoso, i) that fittingly caps zeisl's orchestral endeavors: modality, richeven sensuous-orchestration, a concentrated theme of flexible rhythm and narrow range, and at times poly tonal accompaniment, and a powerful fugue that incorporates cyclic references from the first movement. following an involuntary hiatus of sixteen years, zeisl returned to job and brought to the composition of act ii increased expressivity and technical mastery. switches of scene are more abrupt, the orchestral fabric is richer, the set pieces in turn more savage (cossack chorus and dance), more tender (deborah's lullaby), more sensuous (miriam and the cossack) than anything in act i. ensembles, which had been present in act i, are more frequent and more assured, e.g., the complex one in act ii, scene 2 that conveys the assorted moods of miriam and her cossack lover, mendel standing before the synagogue, the chorus of the pious singing their evening hymn, and the cossacks celebrating drunkenly in the inn. appropriately climaxing zeisl's years of struggle with counterpoint is the closing fugue of that scene, in which the entire cast combines variously to mock or to sympathize with mendel's plight. the contrapuntal texture ceases dramatically at mendel's decision to go to america. the coda n), a stretto treatment of menuhim's song, symbolizes redemption while the chorus pronounces mendel's fate, "wandre j ud !" with the completion of act ii zeisl's career ended. he died in los angeles before composing acts iii and iv of job, which would have been set in america. this unfinished and unperformed work, in which the composer's powers are so convincingly displayed, stands as a monument to the man who stated that his own immigration to america had deeply affected his works. in his exile zeisl wrote, "i feel that i might never have written my best were it not for the great emotional strife of my uprooting" (see note 1). although he did not compose american music, eric zeisl may be said to have enriched america's musical heritage. appendix: zeisl's american output three african songs, stb solo, satb chorus, pfte. or orch., ca. 1930. job, an opera (]. roth; adapted by j. kafka), 1939-58 [act i, 1940-41; act ii, 1957-58]. romantic comedy suite (five excerpts from leonce und lena), orch., 1939-40. return of ulysses (incidental music to play by e. ludwig), fl., vln., tpt., pfte., celesta, 1943; suite for chamber orch., 1948. pieces for barbara (13 pieces for piano for children, e.g., "walking with daddy"), 1944 (vienna: oesterreichischer bundesverlag, 1949). prelude for organ, 1944. requiem ebraico (psalm 92), satb soloists and chorus, org. or orch., 1944-45 (new york: transcontinental, 1946). prayer for the united nations (biblical), soprano and organ, 1945 (new york: mills, 1950). 77 uranium 235 (ballet in two scenes by m. dekobra), 1945-46. to the promised land (three [four] movements for chamber orch.), 1948. four songs for wordless chorus (songs for the daughter of jephtha, judges 11 :40), sa chorus, str., pfte., tpt., timp., 1948 (new york: j. fischer & bro., 1949). sonata barocca, piano, 1948-49 (vienna: doblinger, 1955). sonata for violin and piano ("brandeis"), 1949-50 (vienna: doblinger, 1955) . sonata for viola and piano, 1950 (vienna: doblinger, 1955). music for christmas (variations and fugue for symph. orch.), 1950. sonata for violoncello and piano, 1951 (vienna: doblinger, 1955). concerto for piano, 1951-52. "be merciful unto me, 0 god!" (psalm 52), tenor solo, tb chorus, chamber orch., 1952. second string quartet, ca. 1953 (vienna: doblinger, 1957). the vineyard (biblical; ballet by b. zemach), 1953. jacob and rachel (biblical; ballet by b. zemach), 1954. concerto grosso for cello and orchestra, 1955-56. trio [suite] for flute, viola, and harp ("arrowhead"), 1956. notes 1 albert goldberg, "the transplanted composer, pt. ii," los angeles times, 28 may 1950, sec. 4, p. 4. 2 "the published songs of eric zeisl," a manuscript by the present author, is in preparation. 3 afrika singt, ed. a. nussbaum (vienna: speidel verlag, 1929). of the hughes poems, "aunt sue's stories" first appeared in the crisis,july 1921, p. 121, and "harlem nightsong" in the weary blues (new york: alfred a. knopf, 1926), p. 62. see donald c. dickinson, a bio-bibliography of langston hughes, 1902-1967 ([hamden, conn.]: archon books, 1967). 4 joseph roth, job, the story of a simple man, trans. d. thompson (new york: the viking press, 1931); orig., hiob, roman eines einfachen mannes (berlin: g. kiepenheuer, 1930). 5 for example, public demand forced nbc to broadcast the little symphony (1935, after pictures by roswitha bitterlich) three times in six weeks. 6 see zeisl's scherzo and fugue for string orchestra (comp. 1933; vienna: universal, 1937); the theme of the trio ("vergissmeinnicht") and the fugue subject ("der weise") are taken from songs. 7 to view most of these elements, see the cycle for soprano and piano, kinderlieder [children's songs] (vienna: capriccio verlag, 1933); reprint, with english translation (vienna: doblinger, 1956). 8 menuhim's song (new york: mills music, inc., 1949) exists separately in a version for violin and piano, 9 solomon rosowsky, the cantillation of the bible (new york: the reconstructionist press, 1957). [ed. note: permission for ex. 1 was granted by the copyright owner, belwin-mills publishing corp., melville, n.y. permission to use exx. 2-4 was granted by transcontinental music publications. example 5 is © copyright 1955 by ludwig doblinger. used by permission of associated music publishers. inc.] 78 canons. and only a fool would conclude from this that disorder is a necessary or sufficient cause of new artistic value. patricia carpenter, the musical object* i (music as object and music as process) it is my concern here to focus attention on the quite ordinary notion of "a piece" of music. usually when we speak of music today, we make (perhaps implicitly) what seems to me an interesting distinction between "music" and "a piece" of that music. it is this distinction and some ofits consequences which i shall explore. in the narrow sense, i shall take "a piece" to represent a particular way of conceiving musical form, which has been characteristic in the mainstream of the modern western tradition. this might be compared, perhaps, to the way a painting in this tradition has been conceived as a piece of threedimensional visual space, articulated upon a plane by clear relations between objects and calculated to be seen from a single point of view, i.e., in the manner of classical perspective. i think the chronological limits for this conception of form in the two modes of perception roughly coincide-from about 1420-30 to about 1910.1 i raise the problem of "a piece" in this sense for two reasons: whereas the kind of form to which this notion gives rise has seemed eminently natural to the mode of vision, it is difficult to see how it can be constructed for and grasped by the ear. what kind of a piece can be made out of so incorporeal a stuff as music? secondly, many of the current controversies over musical form are rooted, i believe, in the assumption of this particular kind of form as an ideal, a norm that has been identified, in music as in other arts, with high art. the self-conscious notion of the musical work and the cultivation of autonomous musical form both arose in connection with an early culmination of this formal ideal during the 16th century. today this model of form is called into question. current controversies concerning musical form reflect in a specialized way the change in conception of 'form' in general. but form is an aspect of object. and such controversies are complicated by a more deep-seated change in the conception of 'object' itself. they are interesting because they bring to light tensions between old and new ways of conceiving, and hence, of perceiving, the world. consider two examples which reflect two very different conceptions of the nature of music. one is a piece, in the narrow sense in which i have taken this notion; one is not. ionization, by edgard varese, is an exploration of a new kind of musical '" a revised version ofa paper presented at a joint meeting of the greater new york and princeton chapters of the american musicological society at princeton, january 7, 1967. 56 canons. and only a fool would conclude from this that disorder is a necessary or sufficient cause of new artistic value. patricia carpenter, the musical object* i (music as object and music as process) it is my concern here to focus attention on the quite ordinary notion of "a piece" of music. usually when we speak of music today, we make (perhaps implicitly) what seems to me an interesting distinction between "music" and "a piece" of that music. it is this distinction and some ofits consequences which i shall explore. in the narrow sense, i shall take "a piece" to represent a particular way of conceiving musical form, which has been characteristic in the mainstream of the modern western tradition. this might be compared, perhaps, to the way a painting in this tradition has been conceived as a piece of threedimensional visual space, articulated upon a plane by clear relations between objects and calculated to be seen from a single point of view, i.e., in the manner of classical perspective. i think the chronological limits for this conception of form in the two modes of perception roughly coincide-from about 1420-30 to about 1910.1 i raise the problem of "a piece" in this sense for two reasons: whereas the kind of form to which this notion gives rise has seemed eminently natural to the mode of vision, it is difficult to see how it can be constructed for and grasped by the ear. what kind of a piece can be made out of so incorporeal a stuff as music? secondly, many of the current controversies over musical form are rooted, i believe, in the assumption of this particular kind of form as an ideal, a norm that has been identified, in music as in other arts, with high art. the self-conscious notion of the musical work and the cultivation of autonomous musical form both arose in connection with an early culmination of this formal ideal during the 16th century. today this model of form is called into question. current controversies concerning musical form reflect in a specialized way the change in conception of 'form' in general. but form is an aspect of object. and such controversies are complicated by a more deep-seated change in the conception of 'object' itself. they are interesting because they bring to light tensions between old and new ways of conceiving, and hence, of perceiving, the world. consider two examples which reflect two very different conceptions of the nature of music. one is a piece, in the narrow sense in which i have taken this notion; one is not. ionization, by edgard varese, is an exploration of a new kind of musical '" a revised version ofa paper presented at a joint meeting of the greater new york and princeton chapters of the american musicological society at princeton, january 7, 1967. 56 matter. he considered music to be not so much the organization of tone as of all sound. nevertheless, however revolutionary its stuff, this piece presents me with a familiar model of form: i grasp its shape much as i do the first movement of a symphony by mozart, as a single unified gesture or motionan introduction, first and second ideas, climax and release, coda. or, in the terms by which aristotle characterized the movement or plot of a tragedy, i follow a beginning, middle, and end. by way of contrast, music such as john cage's variationsfor orchestra and dance cannot be comprehended in this way. cage is also interested in expanding the stuff of music. "if this word 'music"', he says, "is sacred and reserved for 18thand 19th-century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound." but his set of variations, however familiar its title, is not, in fact, "a piece" (except perhaps in the sense that a chinese painting, by serving as a sort of window, cuts out "a piece" of the endlessly extended visual world). in his notes for the performance of the variations, cage writes: "in recent years my musical ideas have continued to move away from object (a composition having a well-defined relationship of parts) into process (nonstructured activities, indeterminate in character)." to approach such pieces as objects, he says, is to miss the point utterly. they are, rather, "occasions for experience" . although these two examples are eccentric, they illustrate very well two different-and i take them as polar-ways in which music can be said to be: as object and as process. a piece of music is, first of all, music conceived as an object. any form is an entity; a piece of music is musical form highly stylized toward wholeness. the most obvious differences between these two examples involve those aspects of a work which we ordinarily class as "form"features of the overall structure of the whole. the two examples illustrate differences between an articulated and a diffuse structure. whereas the cage is a random flow of musical happenings, the varese is tightly organized. it has clear relations of part to part and of parts to whole; its parts are highly articulated within the whole. music thus conceived as object invites us by its clear overall structure to step back and look at its "objective" aspect, i.e., its form. the difference in the degree to which these two examples are in fact objects entails another difference-a difference in the distance from which we experience the music. in order to hear varese's piece, i do indeed "step back", as it were, and its familiar formal structure helps me to place it as something i recognize, over there. cage, on the contrary, seems to draw me into the musical process, as if he were concerned to break down the distance between the music and the listening subject, to obliterate the "otherness" of the musical object. there is a fundamental difference between music in which one stands at the center and music to which one is "spectator". in a sense, cage reverses a procedure which seems to have been self-consciously carried out during the early developmentjof the autonomous musical work, that of placing it there, 57 at a distance. the deliberate exploitation of physical space in music, as in venice and rome at the outset of the baroque era, has the effect of specifically locating a piece of music in relation to the external world. the achievement of this fundamental requirement for objectivity (i.e., distance) can be seen, for example, in that exemplar of the autonomous piece, the fugue. i suggest that one of the primary differences between the so-called precursors of fugue (a ricercar of adriano willaert, for instance) and the fugue as it culminates in the works of sebastian bach is the distance from which we listen. the ricercar was written primarily for performance; the listener, as performer, participates to produce the whole from within the piece. the scale by which he ·listens is quite small; he follows best near-reaching relations of "texture". the piece is most satisfactorily grasped at the level of moment-tomoment unfolding of an activity. but the performer of the fugue presents a musical object intended for contemplation by someone who is removed and listening, someone who grasps more far-reaching relations of structure in his confrontation of the piece as a whole. as in the examples of cage and varese, structural differences between the pieces of willaert and bach illustrate, respectively, differences between a diffuse and articulated kind of construction. but there are further corresponding differences concerning distance. in respect of the functional relation within the musical situation between hearing subject and object heard, the music of cage and willaert might be said to be syncretic, as compared to that ofvarese and bach, in the extent to which the relation between subject and object is fused. in regarding a musical object, we can consider not only the mode of its construction and the manner in which it asks to be heard, but also other aspects of the heard thing-for example, ways in which it is related to space and time. for instance, the factor of distance dictates a difference in the space that music shapes and fills. although the increasing hierarchization of the musical space by means of tonality is an important feature of the development from ricercar to fugue, the two contemporary examples, which use not tone but sound, still present two very different kinds of musical space. varese speaks of the spatiality of sound and molds it as if it were a very solid, palpable matter. cage, on the contrary, exploits the most fundamental properties of the mode of hearing. he deliberately breaks down any sense of corporality or external spatiality and constructs-or better, induces-what has been described as an "acoustic" space. time, consequently, is made manifest in two very different ways. varese shapes a single stretch of time which is outlined, framed, and conceived as one motion. not so cage, for whom there is no causality, no necessity-with respect to the sounds themselves, which are randomly produced, or with respect to their order, brought about by the improvisatory movements of dancers and sound engineers. time is something that simply happens. hence, there is no unity of content, no musical idea that is stated, developed, and summarized, as in the varese. cage is not constructing the kind of musical discourse which has served as 58 r a model for familiar form from, say, the fugue of bach, to the present day. ! early in the era, johann gottfried walther aptly described what has happened to in the western world: the word 'musica', he says in his definition, has gone through a change in its usage from adjective to substantive (musicalisches lexicon oder musicalische bibliothec, leipzig, 1732). a piece of music, in the narrow sense of musical form highly stylized toward objectivity, has been achieved by an application of wholeness on increasingly far-reaching levels, an increasing unification of the musical object in respect of both form and content. composer and listener alike have learned, over greater spans of time, to keep a musical form present as a whole and cogent as a whole. in the broadest sense, a piece of music is something like what the philosopher, edmund husseri, had in mind when he used music as a demonstration of our subjective consciousness of time. the first note of a piece of music, he says, is not over until the last has ceased to sound. 2 at the least, that is to say, the idea of a piece of music carries the requirement of some kind of wholeness. indeed, it is a remarkable representation of wholeness, not only in the perception of music but also in the realm of perception in general. the basic fact about a piece of music is that the object heard is never actually there; yet actually, in our mode' of hearing music strikingly tends toward wholeness, toward gestalt. for this reason, the kind of hearing demanded by modern western music has been called "antilogical perception", for it requires the ability to grasp the nonsimultaneous as simultaneous.3 the apprehension of a melody demonstrates a paradox of simultaneity in successiveness. a melody, like a swing of my hand, for example, can be understood as made up of a series of instants or moments-in the case of the gesture, an infinite number of motionless hand stages; in the case of the melody, moments articulated, perhaps, by tones-each moment to the right of, or later than, the last. yet the melody, like the gesture, is as a single motion. now problems posed by the melody-or by the physical motion-are in miniature the most fundamental problems presented by the notion of a piece of music. these are problems concerning our apprehension of time itself, problems concerning continuity in change and a piece of time grasped as an entity. these problems are not new to the contemporary world. zeno's ancient paradox of the arrow, for instance, presents the problem of continuity of motion. augustine, concerned with time as perceived in the course of a poem, wrestles with the problem of a moment-a time-point now which has no extension. aristoxenus of tarentum placed the problem within the realm of music: we hear music simultaneously both as it is occurring and as it has occurred. music owes its effect, he said, to the fact that in it there is not only a pure temporal becoming but also a spatial being. in the west, it would seem, it is these stable elements of "spatial being" which we have increasingly emphasized, until today a melody has become the paradigm for perceptual 59 form in general. the paradoxical nature of a melody focused, at the beginning of this century, a revision of old notions of perception away from the model of an entity as a bundle of sensations and associations, toward the recognition of the primacy in our perception of wholeness-of qualities and of structures belonging only to wholes. in contemporary theory of form, a melody is a model for a perceived object, a gestalt, and for an object of a rather curious kind-a so-called "temporal object". a melody is an object in the sense of pure form (it can be moved from place to place within the pitch-space, and yet remain constantly itself) ; and it is an entity which is grasped as a whole (it is more than its successive parts); but it also includes temporal extension in its very nature (it is a shaped course of time). a melody is the simplest sort of a piece of music.4 but the very notion of a piece, applied to music, is somewhat paradoxical, for a "piece" is a loose or separated part or fragment-a portion of something, as it were, taken from or added to a concrete whole. if we piece something together, we make an aggregate, not a true whole. yet a piece of art, of literature, of music may be taken to be an organism in the sense that to remove anyone ofits members is to deform it. therefore, i shall take the position that the notion of a piece of music is not really so ordinary an idea, but, on the contrary, rather extraordinary, emerging quite locally in the western tradition and developing in a spectacular fashion during the past two centuries. there are musics which are primarily sheer process-unfixed expression, motor participation, magical incantation-but these are musics less differentiated than ours. in the west, music is microcosm, discourse, architectonic construction. a piece of music is finished work, opus perfectum et absolutum, a product brought to completion and detached, as it were, from the loom. most music of the world is not primarily perceptual form, i.e., something to be listened to; our music is. in our central western tradition, music has been gradually but steadily pried loose from its surrounding world of activity. and it is this process of differentiation that i want to investigate here. briefly, the gradual emergence of the piece of music might be described in two stages, as the transformation of music from process to product (resfacta, a made thing) and from product to poem (in the modern sense of the word, a created thing). the self-conscious notion of the piece of music arises late, as compared to that of the poem, say, or drama. the new idea emerges in the humanistic climate of the 16th century and shows itself specifically in a new concern for the musical work. the phrase opus perfectum et absolutum, for instance, first appears in a textbook written by nikolaus listenius 5 in the 1530's in connection with the reformation of the schools in germany; but the emphasis on the musical work was only a symptom of a striking change in attitude toward the nature and function of music itself. there is a cluster of new notions around this idea: for example, a new attention to the notated, published composition, which now stands independent both of practice and 60 of its maker; a new role taken by the maker, who is now not only builder but also creator; concern for a new kind of expressivity in music; and a new significance given to the act of musical creation itself as a bringing-forth rather than a letting-be. the background for the work of art in music, as in the other arts, is the transformation of skill to expression, of know-how to genius, of ars to art-i.e., the change in the conception of creation from sacred to secular. () ! i am not concerned here with tracing the historical background of a piece of music except insofar as it illuminates the problems of form peculiar to this kind of music, problems of a thoroughly composed work, fixed with respect to substance and fixed with respect to form. nevertheless, i do want to question our very conception of "a piece". the contraction of our contemporary world affords us insight into the extent to which different people and different cultures (and historians must add, different eras) differently conceive, structure, and constitute their worlds. for the sake of exploration, then, consider briefly some of the peculiarities of our western habits of thought, for example, the kind of thinking that leads to the notion of "a piece". ii (object as entity) 'piece' is an interesting sort of a noun. it has been maintained that the language (like the music) of a people reflects their reality. and nouns like 'piece' are not found in all languages. indeed, such nouns are strikingly characteristic of the group of languages sometimes called standard average european. let me spend a few moments on what kind of an object such a noun denotes, for such objects presumably are not found in all worlds. our western way of speaking shows a striking tendency to objectify and spatialize things. a comparison made by benjamin lee whorf of differences in structure embedded in the language of the hopi indians and standard average european brings to light very different fundamental conceptions of the world-especially of matter, space, and time-which point up our western inclination toward objectification.7 we objectify many things which whorf calls "imaginary" entities. for example, we objectify multiplicities. we use plurals not only for actual aggregates that can be given all at once (such as ten men) but also for "imaginary" aggregates (such as ten days). the hopi does not use plurals in the latter case but would say, rather, "until the eleventh day" or "after the tenth day". in a similar way, we objectify phases of cycles. we treat nouns like 'summer', 'morning', 'hour' in much the same way as other nouns; we can say "at sunset", like "at the corner" or "in the orchard". in hopi, phase terms are not nouns, but a kind of adverb, rather like "when it is morning" or "while morning-phase is occurring". this tendency to spatialize time is reflected in our language in other ways, as for instance, in our threetense system of verbal forms, by which we are able to stand time units in a row, so to speak, in our imagination; and also in our widespread use of spatial metaphors in speaking of durations, intensities, and tendencies. (we use such 61 words as 'long', 'short', 'heavy', 'light', 'high', 'low', 'rise, 'fall'.) the hopi never speaks of space unless the space involved is actually there. but he has, on the other hand, a huge class of words denoting only intensities and strengths, how they vary, their rate of change, and so forth-ways of describing process and events so subtle and abstract that it is often difficult for us to follow him. we objectify even timeitsel£ we speak of a time, a moment of time, a second, a year of time, like a bottle of milk or a piece of cheese. in hopi, nothing is suggested about time except the perpetual "getting later" of it. but "a piece" of time is merely an instance of yet another peculiarity of our language: our nouns of physical quantity. whorf distinguishes two sorts of nouns in our way of speaking: individual nouns denoting discrete bodies with definite outlines (such as a tree, a stick, a man) and mass nouns (such as 'water', 'flour', 'wood', 'granite'). mass nouns denote homogeneous continua without implied boundaries. where it is desirable to indicate boundaries for a mass noun, we do so by such phrases as 'a pane of glass', 'a cup of coffee', 'a piece of soap', i.e., by a combination of a term for container or body-type with one for contents or matter. hopi nouns, by contrast, always have an individual sense, even though the boundaries of some objects are vague or indefinite. our manner of speaking paves the way, whorf thinks, for our notion of the world as a combination of form and substance (a notion, incidentally, which much of 20th-century thought has been engaged in refuting). in our western way of speaking, we seem to assume a reality fundamentally made up of objects that persist and are recognizable through time. our sentences can speak of subjects taking an action or of subjects to which qualities are attributed, but in both cases the subject is made of some sort of substance that endures. even when the subject is not an object in this sense-for example, an event-we speak of it as if it were. thus, as one commentator puts it, a mechanic will talk of fixing the timing on a car in much the same terms that he uses in speaking of fixing the tire, even though the timing is simply a relation of events, whereas the tire is a thing. perhaps this is simply a metaphorical manner of speaking, but the metaphor proceeds via the conception of a stable physical object. a piece of music is like the timing on a car; it has been objectified. now there are many kinds of objects-material, immaterial, real, unreal, things, thoughts, events, states of mind. but however an object is constituted, there are three minimal for its objectness. an object is, first of all, an other, not i; i grasp it as a part of that world which i encounter as there, not here. also it is an entity: anything to be perceived at all must be perceived as a whole or a part of a whole, as something, for perception is fundamentally an act of integration. and finally, because perception also involves an act of categorization, an object is a certain kind of a thing: i grasp it as some kind of an identity which persists as a recognizable part of my world. 62 in a specific sense, we have been accustomed to distinguish object from process or event. several sensations received simultaneously represent our idea of an object; received successively, of an event. now this is not, in fact, so simple a distinction to make, because "simultaneity" is not a simple notion. nevertheless, a piece of music is, of course, an event. its connections are laid out in time; they come to pass and die away. but it is not sheer process, sheer succession; it is an event, a succession. like discourse, a piece of music takes time to disclose its meaning; yet it can be comprehended in a single act of the imagination. like a melody, a piece can be made to be a single image, which i grasp not only as a successive, but also as a simultaneous, whole. such a piece is exemplified by the prelude in b minor, no. 24, from bach's well-tempered clavier, book 1. what i hear first is an instrumental sounda piece of keyboard music. and it sounds "baroque": i am immediately ex. 1 j. s. bach, wtc i, prelude 24. struck by a familiar kind of continuity, the sense of "ongoingness" given by the walking bass. i am listening to a performance for harpsichord, so the single sounds are discrete and non legato, "atomistic". yet the materials i hear are lines-two lines-although there is, in fact, no melody in the common sense of a singable line. in the left hand i hear a scale passage, part of the habitual vocabulary of any continuo player, a keyboard cliche; and in the right hand, a contrapuntal cliche, a duo of fourth-species suspension figures. but as a whole the piece is shaped like a melody. it moves like a melody-strongly anchored between points of tension and rest, exploiting the possibilities for pattern inherent in the musical system it manifests. i follow and grasp a single, continuous motion. the two lines never stop at the same time except at the half-cadence, which marks "antecedent" and "consequent" phrases. the momentum builds up relentlessly, through the knotted-up climax of sequences to its release at the final cadence. in its overall structure the entire piece is a "melody" -shape, even though it is made out of an "instrumental" kind of stuff-a two-strand line polarized into rightand left-hand material. at this most primitive level of form-i.e., of sheer sound quality-i grasp first this particular kind of texture. at ground, it is this texture which bach has manipulated and i recognize this prelude first as a certain kind of a musical object, made out of this kind of sound. consider the musical object. musical hearing deals with what has been called a "pure" sensation, disembodied from its sounding source, which 63 \ functions more like thought than like a thing. nonetheless, a piece of music is something grasped, something encountered outside myself. there is a space between it and me: it is something that can somehow be laid hold of. and there is a relation between it and me: i bear on it and it also bears on me. a piece of music has an identity of its own. it is something fixed and embodied, which exists in its own right, past the death of its maker. it is a made thingres facta, to use the 15th-century term which distinguished it from improvisation-notated and preserved like any poem or drama and meant to be heard and reheard. it is available for contemplation and analysis. as i learn to know it, i know it as a thing, quite apart from any single experience of it. i can "walk around it", so to speak, and am very much aware of its "other side". and if i know it well, i certainly know what it "looks like" as a whole, as if from a single point of view. yet like any object, a piece of music is inexhaustible. my perception of it is never limited to a single aspect-for example, to one moment of creation or one unrepeatable performance. a piece of music is not sheer act of music-making, but a musical "thing", with its own depth, solidity, and volume. it is "raumlich"-and i borrow the sense of the word from paul klee-in that it is related to physical, intellectual, and imaginative concepts of space as well as of time. and finally, a piece of music corresponds to something i recognize. just as i cannot see a chair, a man, the letter a, without some sort of schema into which it fits, so also i cannot hear a piece of music that is not part of my world. in this regard, the importance of the great formal types of musical organization developed in our tradition cannot be discounted, for they serve as perceptual categories. they establish certain recognizable musical events which aid thus in the comprehension of a total form. if, for example, a "literate" listener should come in in the middle of a sonata, he knows where he is, where within the whole he is located. in some degree this can be said as well ofa fugue after bach. this kind of wholeness is one of structure. but there is another kind of wholeness by which we recognize a sonatasound or fugue-sound from the first few notes, just as we recognize a piece for keyboard, a baroque piece, a piece by bach. we recognize a specific kind of an entity immediately and intuitively, for what it is. this, i should say, is the most primitive level of wholeness-on the level of sheer sound. rather than a structure which is comprehended as a whole, this is a total, global quality, i.e., a quality of substance that pervades the whole. these two extremes of wholeness-a pervading quality of the whole or a well-articulated structuredelimit a continuum along which many kinds of musical wholes may lie. the problems, then, of fashioning a piece of music have to do with wholeness and are twofold: those of any temporal gestalt, and those of a sheerly musical nature. the first are problems of connecting, grouping, and binding together a shape given only gradually in time. to make "an event", i must first of all give it an outline, so that it is finished, framed, somehow set apart; so that 64 it has a shape and is indeed "a piece" within the course of time. this is the problem of temporal art in general: the integration of successive stimuli. but stricdy speaking, a piece of music is not just any happening or experience. it is isolated as to modality of perception; it is a part ofa differentiated perceptual field, in this case, the auditory field; it is something to be listened to. if then, a piece of music is a piece of time, as is sometimes said, it is heard time, objectified time, not my own, subjective, lived time. the specific problems of making and grasping a piece of music do ultimately lie in the stuff itself and have to do not so much with differences between a statically given structure and dynamic, unfolding process, as with the peculiar nature of musical objectivity, with difficulties that arise in trying to fix music and give it body. for the notion of a "piece", as we have seen, is modeled after the notion of a thing. but sound is notoriously evanescent, fragile, and intangible. the musical object is indeed there, something encountered, but it is easily internalized, difficult to keep at a distance and in self-repose. a piece of music presupposes, even before the attempt to create a shape in time, a step back, away from the stuff, so that its substance is clearly distinguished from my own mood, phantasy, feeling, activity. the ultimate problem of the musical work of art lies toward the negative side of autonomy, toward distance and isolation. it is not so much to free music from words, representation, or function, as to free it from ourselves, to externalize it. the musical object must not only be made whole, but also given body, located at a distance and kept there. it must be "spatialized", so to speak. the problem of musical form conceived as a piece is the making of the musical thing. iii (the object as distanced) when we speak of music as "a piece", then, we assume for it a particular mode of existence: it is an object, and an object of a certain kind. we assume that some kind of a form has been imposed upon an indefinitely extending substance, that is, upon music. such a form, at a· highly developed level, might represent a familiar formal type, such as a fugue or a sonata. but at the least, such a form is a limit, a boundary, an outline-some kind of a container, like a frame. for example, the early centuries of our history of music show progressive achievements in the fixing of sound, but they might be seen as well as steps in isolating and framing a piece of sound. now to conceive of reality in terms of form and substance, i have emphasized, is to construe it in the model of a thing, a stable physical object, which we step away from and view from without. this dichotomy is especially uncomfortable in regard to music, chiefly because its substance seems so intangible and so immediate. precisely for this reason, i suggest, the dichotomy of form and substance has been important in music as it has come to exist in our western world-as work of art. true, an essential feature of the art work is the inseparability of form and substance. nevertheless, the condition for art is the articulation of form through a specific medium. and further, artistic form is not the result of 3+ c•m• 65 % internal forces that shape the thing, but, by definition, a form imposed uponi! the substance from without by its maker, whose mark the object bears. thus,i! although the work of art does not exist in the world of things but in a realm!! of its own, the first step toward the art work is the step back, which distances:\ i the notion of the work of art, in the sense of an object created for itself, is quite unique to our modern western world, developing chiefly during the 18th century. it was immanuel kant, at the end of that century, who emphasized the requirement of distance for the work of art, that it must exist in another, the aesthetic, realm, isolated from the demands of both doing and knowing. the technical means by which the art object has been set apart in a spiritual space of its own, in the modern world, are collected under the idea of beauty. such an object is made to be clearly an image, not real: framing subdues the context of reality, idealizing the content removes it; from reality, and concentration and intensification lift it out of the real world.s music by its very nature seems extraordinarily "distanced" in this regard; its ties to reality seem remote. but any particular piece may be more or less framed, isolated, idealized, concentrated, intensified. bach's b minor prelude, for example, is probably not a work of art in our modern sense; it was written for teaching purposes. nevertheless, it illustrates certain means for achieving distance analogous to those which have been applied in literature or painting. it is a single, serious action, shaped as one intensely directed motion, clearly defined as to beginning, middle, and end, and unified as to content. the whole is an expansion of a single musical idea stated in the first measure-which is a remarkable sort of a "beginning": a precisely'symmetrical division of the octave of the key, by scalar tetrachords in the left hand and fourths in the right-a motion left closed and without a leadingtone, stable, yet strongly impelled forward by the suspension formulae. this idea is thoroughly worked out in the middle and brought to resolution and summary in a perfectly placed climax. now this kind of a shape is self-consciously modeled after a conception of "good" rhetorical or dramatic form and has prevailed during the time, in our tradition, when music has been conceived as a kind of language-i.e., from about 1680 to about 1880. a piece of music became, according to this model, expressive discourse, a poem. but in a more general sense, our entire tradition of music in the west has been engaged in setting apart the musical object, in stabilizing the musical process into product. the means by which a physical object has been thus distanced, in order to exist for its own sake, is that which our culture has traditionally applied to the object of thought, i.e., theoria, contemplation. this is an ancient image: if life is compared to a fair, for example, in which some strive, while some are spectators, it is the philosopher who is contemplator and, in this fundamental sense, theorist. objectivity in our music, too, has been achieved by heighten66 ing the traditional distinction between doing and knowing and, thereby, between the knower and the known. to a child, for instance, or to a man who lives in a world more primitive than ours, music is primarily activity, something to do. in such a world, reality is organized in a syncretic manner; i.e., ideas, feelings, actions, objects are undifferentiated in a functional sense. the interaction between subject and world is more fused, more immediate. experience is a sort of continuum, in which time and space exist in a more or less undifferentiated manner: space is a structure embedded in concrete activity, a space-of-action; time is a moment, a salient event in the concrete flow of action. things are perceived differently than in our world: they do not stand out there, discrete and fixed in meaning with respect to the knowing subject. things in that world are intrinsically part of the whole situation, which is itself essentially dynamic. objects are things-of-action, signal-things-i.e., known and recognized by their functional and pragmatic character. a thing is, first of all, what you can do with it. a stick, for example, may be something to hit with, something to reach for something with, something to be held like a doll, or ridden like a horse. in such a world, music, too, is embedded in the immediate, concrete, dynamic situation, deeply bound up with the activity of life. a free sound or a fragment of tune may be something to play with; a hypnotic chant or beat may be something to be used-to activate a magic connection between inner and outer, for instance, or to help sustain an effort. but primarily music is something to be responded to. to the infant, sound is one of the most primitive stimuli for the "startle" response. one of his strongest impulses is to kick in response to sound; and a motor response of the whole body cannot ordinarily be inhibited until adolescence. an interesting point has been made in this regard: that being musical is nothing else than being master of one's own transport the influence of tones. 9 the western tradition, however, in even its earliest images of music, has shown an inclination to distance it-to rationalize, and hence to objectify, it. the west has placed music on the side of the mind-towards logos, knowledge, education, communication, expression. western music calls on memory, retention, expectation. for us, music is primarily something to be learned, taught, achieved, accomplished, created. in the mainstream of our culture, the various conceptions of music reflect a progressive transformation of the nature of music from activity to object. in antiquity, mousike qualified a certain kind of activity, a certain know-how, a skilled" way of making. the broad sphere of the muses originally embraced a part of the arts of production, of poesis: those of the arts which produce not things, but images. as our tradition increasingly separated the acts of making and doing from that of knowing, music, too, was conceived as knowledge (in the broader sense of scientia) as opposed to its practice. but in our modern world music is no longer primarily either a certain kind of activity or a kind of knowledge, but a work of art. the piece of music, in this context, arose between the two 67 realms of theory and practice-in the area of poetica, now reinterpreted as the production of real, not ideal, things. the modern world is concerned with the concrete, perceived musical form-with the actual realization before our eyes, so to speak, of a heard movement in space and time,here and now. in our contemporary way of thinking, a piece of music is a specific kind of an object, a made thing, a stylistically made thing, and ultimately, an object made for its own sake, a form of being-in-itself. on this view, "music", then, becomes the total collection of all its pieces, the imaginary museum of musical works. now i have sketched a picture of the gradual differentiation in our musical culture of a musical object in order to bring to bear on it principles of a more general nature having to do with perception. for that process of differentiation presents a rather remarkable resemblance, it seems to me, to the ' development in the growing child of a consciousness of an objective world, i.e., of his gradual reorganization, reconstruction, and transformation of experience itself. one might say that we have reconstructed the musical experience, learning to make and to grasp a musical object in something like the way the child learns to distance and comprehend the world around him. it is fruitful to look at the emergence of the musical object by analogy to genetic development-i.e., as an increasing differentiation of parts of the organism, on the one hand, and as an increasing hierarchization and subordination of the parts to the whole, on the other-because the analogy illuminates in a broad way perceptual problems that this particular kind of form presents in music. a piece of music, in this sense of music that has been highly stylized toward objectivity, exploits to a remarkable degree the principles of so-called "good" gestalt, e.g., centering, regularity, smooth continuation, and the like.1o but as i have pointed out, a well-articulated structure is only one pole of' wholeness in music. characteristics of a more primitive kind of form are described by heinz werner in a study of some of the fundamental changes that come about through a primitivation of a given pattern.ll children of , kindergarten age who were asked to reproduce a given pattern (either auditory or visual) showed a striking tendency toward leveling and closure, which results in two sorts of diffuse, nonhierarchical form: they produced, on the one hand, a radically homogeneous, global type of representation, with strong emphasis on qualities-of-the-whole (for example, figures made more uniform and indivisible, open figures closed, parts made alike and symmetrical, directions simplified) and on the other, a chain type of structure, characterized by a relative lack of definiteness in the relation of the parts (occasioned by the fact that these parts are experienced as multiple global units and not conceived as figurally related and strictly centralized). kurt koffka summarized the diffuse way in which the child shapes his world: because his categories are so highly dynamic, he can integrate into one sphere of being and happening th,ings which have nothing in common except that they are 68 continuous in space and time. children use juxtaposition, whereas adults use integration. although syncretism, he says, means a firm cohesion of parts, the parts articulate very poorly with one another.12 two criteria are helpful in a study of the musical object, as they have been in genetic psychology in regard to objects in general-the polar concepts of syncretic as opposed to discrete and of diffuse as opposed to articulated.13 these concepts served as a framework for the earlier comparison of a highly articulated, distanced work by varese and a musical process, diffusely put together by cage. the first polarity describes a functional development in the relation of subject and object from a high degree of fusion to separation of ego and worldor, in regard to the musical work, from intense participation of the subject to extreme isolation of the musical object. this raises the question of the socalled "optimum distance" at which an art object should be contemplated in order best to be seen; for each such object dictates its own distance (the single point of view demanded by classical perspective is an exaggerated case of this). further, to view the musical whole from a distance entails a progressive unification of the over-all field, or space. the second polarity describes a development in structure from the diffuse kind of composition described above by werner and koffka to one in which the parts are well articulated and subordinated to the whole. exemplars in perceptual theory are often drawn from music: a glissando exemplifies a diffuse structure; a melody, an articulated one. but music presents us with many illustrations of these two polar kinds of form-for example, the highly structured, goal-directed kind of motion so effectively achieved by classic triadic tonality as contrasted to a mosaic sort of form put together by juxtaposition, as shown by canzonas ofthe early 17th century, many of the works of debussy or stravinsky, or contemporary experiments in musical collage. both of these polarities, of function and of structure, bear on the level in time at which a piece of music is organized as a whole. iv (hearing) a piece of music is not only an object grasped, a perceptual form; it is an object heard, grasped in a specific way. at ground, the problems of musical form conceived primarily as something to be listened to are the problems of auditory perception. before turning to the characteristics of a specifically heard thing, then, let me turn your attention to hearing itself and the quite remarkable place it occupies in the total sensorium, especially in view of the premium put today on the highly differentiated and specific sense of vision. it has been maintained that a primitive syncretic state, in which sensorial, motor, emotional, and conceptual phenomena are inseparably fused, is the ground of experience for all of us. only gradually do we distinguish in our experience between motor and sensory response, between an internal sensory 69 and external mode of behaviour, and, indeed, among the senses themselves. for all of us, hearing remains close to that primitive global state. the sensorium is progressively differentiated in two directions: toward increasing discreteness or clarity of distinction between internal and external world (tasting and smelling are said to be more primitive because of their inability to distinguish subjective and objective content) and toward increasing articulation in modes of perception (a visual act is less syncretic than. hearing, tasting, or smelling, because it is characterized by a higher degree of . specificity). hearing in many ways remains close to an undifferentiated response of the total organism in both these directions. for instance, hearing is close to the intersensory relationship known as "synaesthesia" (i.e., the arousal by a specific stimulus of a second sensation united with the first), the most common form being a coupling of color and tone perception. the following example of a total synaesthesia is the response of a under the effects of mescalin to a steady knocking on the wall: "i think that i hear noises and see faces, and yet everything is one and the same. i cannot tell whether i am seeing or hearing. i feel, taste, and smell the sound. it's all one. i, myself, am the sound." this kind of total response to sound, it has been shown, is prevalent among primitive and archaic peoples and, it is suggested, is potentially inherent in the mentality of all ofus.14 similarly, the interrelation between hearing and motor response is especially strong. plato remarked on the fact that the young of all creatures cannot be quiet in their bodies or in their voices (arguing that therefore education is to be given first through music). and it has been pointed out that the imagination for motion, i.e., the ability to transform kinetic energy into kinetic imagery, is acquired only late in life. for such reasons as these, perhaps, one view of music has traditionally placed it on the subjective side of our world-as the representation of our inner life, pure will, for example; or as an image of "pure duration", pure subjectivity. the tune, says bergson, cradles us and pulls us back to the psychic state from which it comes.15 but the interesting fact about hearing, and especially musical hearing, it seems to me, is the peculiar way in which it mediates between inner and outer world. this is expressed in one of the oldest images of music, as harmonia, the perfect attunement between microcosm and macrocosm. and it is this-the peculiar relation between subject and object within the activity, the situation of music-that is an issue today. the double nature of hearing with respect to the subjective and objective world has been emphasized by helmut reinold. if the senses are arranged in a hierarchy that reaches from the more object-related to the more subjectrelated sensory perceptions (at one end of the scale, the existence and condition of material objects; at the other, the fact that we feel this way or that), and if the acoustic mode is placed within this hierarchy, then the quite special and significant position of auditory perceptions, he says, becomes evident. beyond their capacity of not being experienced as affects of a bodily 70 jimq part (as are taste and temperature experiences), auditory perceptions can become separated from their object, move to the forefront of experience, stand and hold attention by themselves, as, for instance, in music. 16 the ambivalent nature of hearing is already seen in the earliest responses of the infant to sound. he has two very different responses. in general, his reactions to sounds are very diffuse, involving practically the whole body, a mass reaction described as "flight". but one of his earliest specific responses is, in fact, to sound: he turns his head in order to locate and fix in place a sound as an external object. different stages in the hierarchical position of sound relative to the internal and external world-what might be called a scale in the degree ofimmediacy by which we experience sound-have been demonstrated by heinz werner, who differentiates three levels in the experience of tone: instrumental tone, spatial tone, and what he calls "vital sensation". let me summarize some of this work, my point being that in order to create a musical object, it is necessary to transform sound from vital sensation into tone that has an objective character. if a series of tones is played on a piano, several stages of awareness can be shown to exist, which differ as to degree of subjectivity in the hearing of the tone". commonly it is perceived as altogether outside the listener, as coming from a specifically defined source of sound and bound up with some particular object (for example, a musical instrument). such a tone may be called an "instrumental tone". there is as well another type of tonal experience, in which the tone no longer seems to reside primarily in the object or instrument, but rather fills the space around it, occupying the entire room. this may be called a "spatial tone". both of these possess an objective character. yet there is still another way of experiencing tone, i.e., as actually vibrating within the hearer. (" i am filled with tone, as if i were a bell that had been struck.") it is tone experienced in this manner that werner calls vital sensation. vital sensations are devoid of the objectivity that characterizes the instrument or spatial tone; they are psychophysically undifferentiated and involve pervasive bodily reactions to the stimuli,17 a piece of music, as distinguished from sheer musical process or activity, articulates not only a piece; a stretch, of time, but also shapes and fills a kind of tonal space of its own. now i have suggested that the peculiar relation between listening subject and the world he hears-a connection of interpenetration and immediacyhas become a crucial issue in our contemporary world. i have maintained that the musical object, in the mainstream of our modern western tradition, has been fashioned after the manner of a thing visually perceived. our dominant conception of reality, as evident to the sense of sight, is, i believe, in a process of change. and the nature of this change is strikingly demonstrated, i think, in our music. one of the more interesting ideas currently being explored is that our 71 present view of reality, in which real things, persons, ideas, and events are spread out there, clearly and distinctly before us in a more or less continuous, uniform line, is essentially visual; that this view arose at the turn to the renaissance, out of the "auditory-tactile" matrix of a less fragmented, more total (perhaps less civilized) earlier sort of a world, through the isolation of one thing at a time, one operation at a time, one sense at a time; and that this predominantly visual approach to the world is again giving way to a more global way of conceiving of the real. i have tried to show here that hearing in its essential nature negates this kind of a visual world. yet the heard object, the piece of music, has become in this visual world the paradigm, not only for perceptual form, but also for artistic form. "all art", writes walter pater at the end of the last century, "constantly aspires towards the condition of music. for while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it."18 pater conceives of music as "pure" language. but in this passage can be heard the ancient strain of music conceived as sounding number, pure form. and it echoes as well another version of this old notion, one which prevailed during the time about which pater writes-the renaissance. the model for beauty and wholeness, as described by leon battista alberti, for instance, in the mid-15th century, was the harmonious proportion of an ideal body, so ordered that every part has its fixed size and shape and that nothing can be added or taken away without destroying the harmony of the whole. music also served as paradigm for this conception of form. but this is form eminently separable from the matter it shapes-it is number, "organic geometry", abstract and priorly given, ideally existing beyond real time or space. yet the image is concrete and corporeal. an "ideal" body was achieved by seeking after "the most fugitive aspects of things" and by putting together only the most perfect parts found in nature. but the harmonies generated were concretely seen (in the porportions of buildings, for example) and concretely heard. and the eye and ear were in agreement. alberti borrowed his rules for harmonic relations from musicians ("to whom this sort of numbers is extremely well known") for an interesting reason: "the numbers by means of which the agreement of sounds affects our ears with delight are the very same which please our eyes and our minds."19 his statement might be taken as terminus a quo in the career of a piece of music, for it indicates a turning point at which real space, indeed, was "musicalized"-but where real music, in turn, was spatialized. v (the heard thing) i have spent some time on the matter of isolating and externalizing a musical object and setting it at a the problem, that is, of making it discrete in an objective world. let me turn now to the matter of distinguishing it as a specifically heard thing, an object made out of sound. this will con72 cern the problems of giving such an object body and keeping it present. what are the differences in objects, as they are seen, heard, felt? hearing has been defined as acoustic successiveness.' and, on this basis, a distinction has been drawn between an object given simultaneously in space and one given "only" in time. a painting, it is said, presents itself to me all at once as a meaningful whole, so that i am able to grasp it in a single moment or to contemplate it at my leisure. but like any object that unfolds in time, a piece of music is never simultaneously there. it comes to me only one sound at a time; one moment after another passes the time-point now. the musical object thus is discontinuous, fragmentary, and scarcely lays claim to existence at all. on this view, painting has been taken to exemplify being, and music, the process ofbecoming.2o now i do not want to raise here the venerable issue of the uirity or division of the arts, but i do want to point out that such a one-sided view of hearing is misleading in its emphasis and gives rise, therefore, to several problems. the first concerns what a piece of music is made of. music as physical thing might, perhaps, be said to be made up of sound (and the absence of sound). but what we perceive as object, in both time and space, is not a bundle of sensations, given either successively or simultaneously, but an organization of stimuli. and, at the level of aesthetic object, an element in a piece of music is already formed material. such an object is not made up of instants or of single tones, but of concretely sounding forms in motion. another question concerns succession or, broadly, our perception of time. in experience the present is not an unextended point of time-"now". on the contrary, we hold, in the present, a bit of time, "just as you can hold in your hand a certain amount of water from a flowing stream", as it has been put.21 although that amount of time varies, its upper limit is ordinarily about 5 or 6 seconds. how, in music, do we connect a succession of such "nows"? a third question concerns simultaneity or, broadly, our perception of space. it is not the case that, in time, we hear one thing at a time. the sense that comes closest to dealing with one thing at a time is the sense of touch. a conception of space in which things are spread out one at a time in a line is the conception of tactile space. we hear many things at once--one time, it is true, at a time. there are important differences between vision and hearing other than simultaneity versus successiveness. for example, vision separates, holds things apart in space, even as it holds them together in a space, simultaneously. but the things we hear are fused; we hear them all at once. and, as i have emphasized, vision distances, whereas hearing interconnects. i cannot explore these questions adequately here, yet perhaps it is provocative to raise them. but i shall attempt to deal with them briefly by building up a picture of the musical object. let me begin at the most primitive level in an approach to the musical object, i.e., with a state of consciousness. consciousness, it seems, is of a dual 73 nature: it is both temporal and presentational. i am aware at a primary level: of both the flow of time and the presentation of structures within that ': stream of time-i.e., experience always presents us with objects in contexts, !: not with bare sense-data. i cannot begin to build an object, then, from a pure:: sensation, such as "sound". the first operation of attention is to create for; itself a field. consider first, then, structures within that field-within the temporal flow of consciousness. that is, consider simultaneity. my field of awareness includes everything that is given as co-present, in various degrees of simultaneity and various degrees of vagueness: a problem with which i am concerned, shadows of possible solutions or consequences, a sense of my environment and of myself. if i am neither looking nor listening, for example, then either visual or auditory continuum is a sort of diffuse background-the sound of the ocean, the light of day. to grasp anything, distinctly, to articulate thai total field, i must categorize: first, by a mode of, intending-this is something perceived, perhaps, or something imagined;' then (since i am interested here in the perceptual field), by a mode of per-, ception-this is something seen or something heard. yet there are differences even at this level of awareness in the modalities of perception. for example, perhaps there are street noises outside, hums and creaks inside, a child singing in the next room-these may still be background sound, part of the auditory field. like the visual field, the auditory field is unbounded and continuous. but it is peculiarly immediate. even without my active attention sounds easily penetrate; the ear is passive. yet without my active participation they do not readily remain; sound is evanescent and fragile. now suppose i actively attend to the sounds around me; i shut my eyes and listen. then the vague, indefinite stuff of sound becomes an auditory ii world. as soon as i fix my attention, i fix "things" as well. sounding objects .' emerge and isolate themselves as sounding things which are presented to my mind as things happening: a rustle, i.e., something rustling-a thump, i.e., something falling. things are perceived differently in different modalities. if i feel a cube, for instance, i proceed in a line, grasping each surface as i go, collecting the information in my mind as i proceed. if i see a cube, what i see-i.e., three of its sides-is unclear, but the knowledge i have of simple i cubeness fills out my perception and renders it clear. if i hear something, i immediately and clearly know a great deal about it: an approaching heavy truck; several children over there, at play. space perception, the visual perception of objects, separates things. it has to do with outlines, distinctions, articulation. my eye can follow a multiplicity of lines, extending in many different directions. at the same time, the background of visual space acts as a container, holding together a myriad of objects, all at once. the primary fact about visual space is that it is empty. perception of sound, by contrast, fuses things. the first observable fact about auditory space is that it is full. it is full of everything that is sounding now. i can easily hear two, three, a hundred sounds, but they tend to fuse 74 ¥£:;uq 3, ,_ l into one event. nevertheless, i collect a great deal of particular information about the external world through my ears. i can locate objects-quite accurately with respect to direction, less so with respect to distance. sounds give me little information about the size and shape of a source, but can tell me much about its personality. and acuity for thresholds of perception of events in time (the difference between the instantaneous and the durable, for instance, and between simultaneity and succession) is a hundredfold sharper for hearing-and touch-than for vision. space, then, whether auditory or visual or tactile, i take to be the form of the world in the sense of its objectivity, its givenness. and auditory space is the sum total of my perception, through my ears, of the external world. musical space is a piece of auditory space. suppose now i turn my attention to the child's singing, with the intent to listen. what happens now as the background song becomes foreground? if the child simply reiterates the same figure over and over, this is not yet temporal construction. nevertheless, the music itself stands out against the background noises of the sounding world, which are now masked, as if part of a surrounding silence. there is a difference now between the silence of'the background (which is probably not true silence) and the gaps of silence that articulate the music (these are indeed true silences and belong to its own continuity). the music is perceptually isolated; it has an outline; it makes and fills its own tonal space; it is a piece of music. if the child is singing what we grasp as a melody, that melody comes forth as a nonspatial figure. it arises across the single tones and traces its outline upon a tonal space, against a background of silence. i am aware of what happens during the course of the melody, of its beginning, of points within it in relation to the beginning, of its completion. a melody in our modern sense is more than mere prolongation of musical matter, mere reiteration; it is a temporal object. and it is as well a musical object; it marks out, concretizes, fixes, embodies, enlivens a piece of musical space. i have developed the notion of a piece of music as a piece of the concretely sounding musical field. let me illustrate this idea by returning to the primary phenomenon in the articulation of any perceptual field, i.e., the differentiation between figure and ground. auditory space has been described as a sphere without fixed boundaries, as a space made by the thing itself, not a space containing the thing. it is not pictorial space, boxed in, but dynamic, always in flux. it has no fixed boundaries and no point of favored focus. whereas the eye pinpoints, locating each object in physical space against a background, the ear favors sound from any direction and is indifferent to background.22 now this is not entirely accurate, for the depth of the world is given to the ear, as it is to the eye. a sound-figure can move in a heard line against a background which is much like the flight of a bird, for example, seen against 75 the sky. sound, like sight, lays out planes of depth. the farthest seems at first to be made up of distant sounds, such as the recurring roll of the sea, but this is because distance blurs detail. in fact, ifwe listen to the space around us, we notice that continuous, homogeneous, undifferentiated sounds tend chiefly to make up the background: traffic sounds outside, a ticking watch nearby, the, hum of my typewriter. it is the shaped sounds-characteristic, isolated, discretely outlined-that stand out from the background as figure. this is a phenomenon we, as musicians, know well, for in music back\, ground and foreground are not usually constituted by actual distance, but by , formal features. when we speak of different "textures", we are usually speaking of differing relations of figure and ground. sixteenth-century polyphony, for example, tends toward 'an undifferentiated field. the beauty of the renaissance line lies in the manner in which it contributes to the whole organism. to remove one line is like taking one thread from a tapestry or one member from a body. the separate strands are generally neutral, typical, idealized parts. the renaissance musical space is not a container for a motion or a figure; figure is minimized and the line is leveled to a smooth part. the' musical space becomes solid and homogeneous. to some extent this relation of part to whole holds for the bach b minor prelude; each line is equally central in our attention. but each is highly characteristic in nature; each now has the quality of "figure". much of the i movement in the piece comes about as one or the other of the lines comes forward as foreground, a shift in focus which is produced by the slightest shift in pattern. and we are strikingly aware of the tendency of a continuous motion to become background (as in the bass) when it is relieved for a moment at the half-cadence. ex. 2 frederic chopin, three etudes (posthumous), no.2 in a texture which is clearly what we call "homophony", however, it is exactly this relation between figure and ground that the composer manipulates. compare to the bach, for instance, a piece by chopin-the "moscheles" etude in a-flat major. this is also essentially a single melodic line, which is reflected in its triadic support and rhythmically distorted in a subtle manner. the melody itself is, in fact, so simple that it recedes into the background and is absorbed into the total stream of sound, which is shaped (harmonically and rhythmically) by the standing-forth of one figural distortion after another. in the "funeral scene" in wagner's gotterdammerung, the 76 tsczq ¥ aku: £_ framework is also a simple melody, consisting of five quite regular phrases, marked by a half-cadence to the tonic major and framed by material which sets the scene. here, too, the melody and its "scenic" setting continually shift in position in depth. one of schoenberg's piano pieces, op. 19, no.5, is an interesting reproduction in miniscule scale of the shape of wagner's scene: it is a four-phrase melody, articulated chiefly by background material, which "moves out" at the joints and thickens the cadences. in contrast to this, the several mosaic-like figures which make up debussy's prelude, voiles, for example, are put together in such a way as to minimize the difference between figure and ground. this piece, as compared to the wagner or schoenberg, might be said to be quite "flat" and two-dimensional. the freedom to manipulate background and foreground is achieved in classic tonal homophony by an extraordinarily systematic organization of an integrated musical space. continuity no longer depends upon a thread-like connection from one tone to the next, but rather upon more abstract functional connections between simultaneous triadic units. these functional relations support a space so clearly organized in itself that only the skeleton need be indicated, over which motifs, rhythms, and themes may be quite freely thrown. to hear in this "tonal" manner, i must stop perceiving the whole freely and circumscribe my hearing. i subordinate the musical world to a single point of view, as in the analogous way of looking at a visual space organized by classic perspective. both ways of perceptual organization depend upon so-caned "natural" relations-holding among triads, on the one hand, among objects, on the other. both assume a "common-sense" manner of hearing or seeing, clearly and distinctly reflecting in perception the evident, and hence, "natural" order of the real world. vi (heard time) now let me turn briefly to our perception of time, in order to emphasize one point: that we organize time differently at different levels. what holds together "a piece" of time? perhaps our most fundamental sense of time is indeed one of continuity, of an irreversible flux, in which the separate moments of lived experience fuse and interpenetrate, growing dim as they recede into the past. this inexorable flow is marked, especially for the westerner, by the point at which he stands and the perspective this throws on past and future. but time, even for the westerner, does seem to be, above all, a stream. however, in order to perceive time, we must perceive change-either a change that has happened or a change taking place. we do not perceive sheer duration, independently of something that endures. and a duration, either filled or empty (as a gap) is a definite interval, grasped only in relation to change, i.e., to succession. further, we do not perceive succession itself in terms of its elements or the intervals between them, but rather as a schema of relations, an organization-i.e., a rhythm. especially in music, time, as we hear it unfold in a melody, for instance-"musical" time-has to do with 77 distinction and order as well as interpretation and fusion. the comprehension of succession requires some sort of similarity among its elements, some sort of differentiation between them, and a certain limit during which they can be grasped. there are two facts about the perception of time which are especially interesting in regard to music: first, we perceive differently continuous change and discontinuous change, as transformation or as succession, respectively. secondly, we perceive discontinuous change differently, according to its rate of speed, as flicker or as true succession.23 although we tend to group any recurring stimuli into an organization, we group such forms at, various levels according to these basic differences in perception. in music, we group, for example, at the level of figure, at the level of theme or line, and at the level of piece or object. ex. 3 claude debussy, preludes, bk. i, no.2, "voiles" modere e)j= 88) (dans un rythme sans rigueur et caressanil how then do we hear a succession? to perceive mere succession as such requires the perception of before and after as somehow simultaneous, i.e., as occurring within a single mental present; it is a multiple apprehension. now ex. 4 edgard varese, ionisation j =69 gong (high) tamtam (low) j . j ..... 4 ) 4 {" j) p j. 1> 4 4 pj ---r-4 1"4 p side drum bass drums (high) (low) v p i >. r [ "!::l..[ (high) sirens (low) snare drum .-/4 ippp--==== j "-4 pp]j -...... /4 j) cymbal (suspended) jpp .§i. i'"';. 4 ) ... =:: 4 pp :::=--= ppp cymbals 4 '4 p'-i-78 perception is an act of integration which itself takes time; an instant is not a durationless point. we can grasp as whole a series of changes provided the interval that embraces them is not too long. this length of time depends on various factors, chiefly the direction of our attention and the possibilities given in the stimuli for organization. ordinarily, as i have said, its upper limit is about 5 or 6 seconds. what i grasp, even in this instant, is an entity-a musical element, for example-a motif, a rhythm, a configuration of sound, a splash of tonal color. a musical figure fills an "instant"; a melody extends it. listen, for example, to the opening ideas in a few of the pieces i have mentioned: the first figure of debussy's voiles is clocked by the composer at about 4 seconds. the first figure of ionization is marked at less than 2 seconds, but the sustained background sound moves forward, fills the space, and extends it to about 11 seconds. the first phrase of chopin's etude (which is, in fact, a piece of a melody) takes about 8 seconds. the opening measure of bach's prelude spans an interval of about 7 seconds (and remarkably divides it, in time as well as space, in a symmetrical way). the apprehension of musical form involves at least two distinct levels of integration: at the level of smallest unit or formal element are those musical events which are grasped as whole within a single mental act-a figure, a . gesture, a phrase. but these elements are in turn gathered up into larger wholes-a melody, an action, a discourse. the primitive condition for an extended form which is grasped as whole, whether it be an area in space or a stretch of time, is a bounded field with possibilities for organization. such a field is neither sheer continuity (such as a grey fog or the distant roll of the ocean) nor uninterrupted pattern (for example, a child's endlessly reiterated bit of melody or an expanse of grillwork). a true gestalt lies somewhere in between. a musical whole, like any other, can be stylized in either direction. for example, let me indicate how these two polar possibilities for form apply to repetition. in any temporal form, repetition both extends and articulates matter. its essential function is not to produce symmetry or closure, as in spatial form (although it can indeed serve this purpose), but rather to establish an identity, an element, which thereby differentiates itself and persists in time, remaining somehow constant under change. in music, any parameter of sound can generate such an entity; two of the most familiar are durational pattern and patterns of pitch. but not all music is essentially repetitive. and further, any kind of repetition can be constructive or nonconstructive and, if constructive, tight or loose. the different effects of different kinds of repetition reflect differences in the way we perceive any change. at the most basic level, we perceive continuous stimuli differently from discontinuous stimuli. rhythm in the restricted sense of a regular reiteration of pattern is an obvious example of our tendency to organize any stimuli given as discretely separate: we tend to group regularly recurring stimuli (given at a moderate rate) into patterns of two's or 79 three's. but there is as well a rhythm of continuous change, a rhythm of transformation, growth, motion. rhythm in this wider sense is the prepara.• tion of one event by the last-the way in which one wave or one gesture, for instance, arises out of another. immediate repetition (reiteration) has been distinguished from repetition that returns after some time (recurrence), <!-nd these organize succession on • two different levels. reiteration emphasizes differences; it focuses attention on small-scale detail, on "texture". recurrence emphasizes similarities and articulates more far-reaching relations of over-all structure. the one is ab: .. sorbed with the moment-to-moment passage of time; the other tends to stabilize time for contemplation. in this way, repetition may stylize a musical whole either toward process or object, toward the pole of becoming or toward that of being. consider again differences between any of the ricercari of willaert and a fugue of bach (say, no.2, bk. i of the well-tempered clavier). i have suggested that one of the principal differences between them is the scale by which we listen, as that is dictated by the distance the object demands. and i have maintained that ultimately this distance is determined by the level in time at which the object is organized as a whole. in these two examples fugal repe' tition is used in very different ways in order thus to organize the whole. the ricercar is essentially nonrepetitive music, depending for coherence on the musical properties of consonance and dissonance to hold the lines together and to propel them along-a more or less "klang-by-klang" procedure. there is no single recurrent, unifying theme, but rather a moment-tomoment stringing together oflittle fugal expositions-a reiteration, that is to say, of fragmentary passages, which seem to grow organically out of one another by a subtle kind of motivic reminiscence. the continuity of the ricercar might be described as the rhythm of continuous change, i.e., transformation. bach's subject-matter, by contrast, exploits reiterative pattern in the most obvious ways: a relentless motor rhythm, a few unchanging figures that permeate the entire fugue. yet the engaging repetition is the recurrence of the theme itself-constantly the same, although always in a different context-which brackets and structures the over-all course of time. and the flow of time, consequently, seems relatively unimportant in bach's fugue, which is essentially timeless, grasped as a whole outside of and independently of time. the fugue represents, i should say, a musical illusion of the kind of wholeness we associate with a thing visually perceived: it is the presentation of a single bit of musical matter from many different aspects, in many different lights, moved bodily from place to place; but the matter itself (unlike the germ of a symphony of beethoven, for instance, or the motifs in wiilaert's ricercar) remains solid, static, and unchanged. bach's fugue exemplifies "a piece" of music-a musical object, a heard thing, a thing ultimately made to be perceived for its own sake, something sheerly to be listened to. i have stressed, for two reasons, that such a piece of music is form stylized toward objectivity. 80 first, this kind of form in music emphasizes similarities common to all perceptual form rather than differences specific to temporal form. in his fugue, bach exploits the principles of "good" gestalt: clear articulation of parts, grouped by similarity and proximity and subordinated to the whole. the ricercar, on the other hand, approaches the diffuse sort of form characteristic of less developed organization-i.e., a homogeneous, chain-like construction of parts which are themselves leveled and simplified, put together without any strong direction toward a goal. these are formal principles which apply equally to auditory or visual form and can be considered quite apart from the ingredient of "time". and secondly, in thus abstracting from time, we can see the extent to which "a piece" of musical time depends upon the exploitation of simultaneity. western music exploits simultaneity in two senses: it pushes further and further the amount of time to be grasped as "now", and it juxtaposes in an increasingly dense way the number of musical events that occur at ,the same time. increasing hierarchization of parts dictates distance in both these respects, for it allows for a density of events which can be grasped the better if we step back. bach's fugal form is not only well articulated, but also very dense. it extends the "now" to about a minute and a half, and at any point within this "moment" much is happening at once. nevertheless, we apprehend it by a single act of the imagination. the rather undifferentiated structure of the ricercar, by contrast, is not clear from a distance. in the extent to which a piece of music exploits simultaneity, it is also stylized toward spatiality. it requires not only a coherence through time but also a particular conception of musical space. at the least, this is a two-dimensional field that is framed and bounded; at the most, it is a space highly organized. and differences in the conception of musical space, as well as of time, are also a dimension of style. in these examples fugal repetition contributes differently to the organization of space. in the ricercar, repetition helps to build a homogeneous and highly fused tonal body, laying out equal, comparable lines, modeled after an ideal of the human voice, a pleasure to sing, smooth to grasp-lines that unfold organically out of simple connections between adjacent tones. in bach's fugue, by contrast, repetition serves to focus and polarize the forces of a musical field, in order to contain and concentrate the expansion of a single musical idea. the cohesive force in the ricercar operates not so much within the line, which unfolds in a somewhat lazy way, but rather between homogeneous layers. bach, on the other hand, sets up an intensely directed musical motion, within a tightly defined musical space, an organized field of abstract tonal functions. and finally, a piece of music ordinarily has been unified by a single pervading idea, what arnold schoenberg has called its grundgestalt. a musical idea can determine in the broadest manner how the space is shaped, "wie der grund gestaltet wird". space in this sense has been described by schoenberg: "the two-or-more-dimensional space in which musical ideas are presented is a unit. though the elements of these ideas appear separate and 81 independent to the eye and the ear, they reveal their true meaning only through their cooperation, even as no single word alone can express a thought without relation to other words. all that happens at any point of this musical space has more than a local effect. it functions not only in its own plane, but also in all other directions and planes, and is not without influence even at remote points."24 this passage might be taken to describe as well the unified picture-space or dramatic-space with which we are familiar in our modern western tradition. footnotes (the following notes were not incorporated in copies of the paper sent to the commentators.) 1 maurice merleau-ponty, in the following contrast to "spontaneous vision", elaborates some implications of the mode of seeing "in perspective": "sometimes malraux speaks as if 'sense data' had never varied throughout the centuries, and as if the classical perspective had been imperative whenever painting referred to sense data. yet it is clear that the classical perspective is only one of the ways that man has invented for projecting the perceived world before him and not the copy of that world. the classical perspective is an optional interpretation of spontaneous vision, not because the perceived world contradicts the laws of classical perspective and imposes others, but rather because it does not insist upon anyone law and is not of the order of laws •.. [if i want to 'see' things in perspective], i must stop perceiving the whole freely. i must mark what i call the 'apparent size' of the moon and the coin on a standard of measurement i hold, and, finally, transfer these measurements onto paper. but during this time the perceived world has disappeared, along with the true simultaneity of objects, which is not their peaceful co-existence in a single scale of sizes ... now i reconstruct a representation in which each thing ceases to call the whole of vision to itself ... then my glance, running freely over depth, height, and width, was not subjected to any point of view, because it adopted them and. rejected them in turn. now i renounce that ubiquity and agree to let only that which could be seen ... by an immobile eye ... figure in my drawing. (a deceptive modesty, for if i renounce the world itself •.. i also cease to see like a man, who is open to the world because he is situated in it. i think of and dominate my vision as god can when he considers his idea of me.) then i had the experience of a world of teeming, exclusive things which could be taken in only by means of a temporal cycle in which each gain was at the same time a loss. now the inexhaustible being crystallizes into an ordered perspective ... a perspective within which nothing holds my glance and takes the shape of a present. the whole scene is in the mode of the completed or of eternity" (maurice merleauponty, "indirect language and the voices of silence" in signs [northwestern u. press, 1964], pp. 48f., trans. by richard c. mccleary from signes [paris, 1960]). evidence of the revolution in perception which occurred at the beginning of this century is seen in all fields. i cite one example, concerning architecture, from sigfried giedion's space, time and architecture (cambridge, mass., 1962, 4th ed., p. 26): "up to 1910 architects tried many ways of arriving at a new feeling for space ... they could never quite break through. around 1910 an event of decisive importance occurred: the discovery of a new space conception in the arts. working in their studios as though in laboratories, painters and sculptors investigated the ways in which space, volumes, and materials existed for feeling. the speculations of the mathematical physicists seem very far removed from reality and from practical affairs, but they have led to profound alterations in the human environment. in the same way experiments of the cubists ... gave the architects the hints they needed to master reality in their particular sphere ... [offering] objective means of organizing space in ways that gave form to contemporary feelings." 82 marshall mcluhan studies the cultural change in general (see esp. his gutenberg galaxy [toronto, 1962]). zofia lissa, in "on the evolution of musical perception" (the journal of aesthetics and art cr#icism [jaac] 24:273-286 [1965]), discusses methodological problems that arise when contemporary research attempts to examine the thesis that musical perception changes from one historic period to another. leonard b. meyer, in "the end of the renaissance?" (the hudson review 16: 170-186 [1963]), considers the period of music here at stake in terms of his distinction between teleological and anti-teleological music. he concludes that if predictability and choice are impossible, art cannot be a form of communication, for communication requires that the artist predict how others will interpret and respond to the images he produces. gerhard albersheim, in "mind and matter in music" (jaac 22:289-294 [1964]), develops the same thesis on the basis of the breakdown of the spatial structure (in the sense of pitch-space) operating in tonal music, by the means of which music has been actively comprehended by the listener, and the renunciation of which relegates him to the role of passive receiver, thus destroying the possibility for communication. here i juxtapose a passage from merleau-ponty (op. cit., p. 51): there are two possible interpretations, he says, of that tolerance for the incomplete shown by the moderns: either "that they have given up the work and no longer look for anything but the immediate, perceived and individual; or else, completion in the sense of a presentation that is objective and convincing for the senses may no longer be the means to a work that is really complete, because henceforth expression must go from man to man across the common world they live, without passing through the anonymous realm of the senses or of nature .... the accomplished work is thus not the work which exists in itself like a thing, but the work which reaches its viewer and invites him to take up the gesture which created it and •.. rejoin •.. the silent world of the painter, henceforth uttered and accessible. modern painting presents a problem completely different from that of the return to the individual: the problem of knowing how one can communicate without the help of a pre-established nature which all men's senses open upon." 2 edmund husserl, the phenomenology of internal time-consciousness (bloomington, 1964),(trans. by james s. churchill from "vorlesungen zur phanomenologie des inneren zeitbewusstseins", ed. martin heidegger jahrbuchfur philosophie und phiinomenologische forschung [1928]), esp. sect. 39. 3 v. von weizacker, cited by helmut reinold ("the problem of musical hearing" in reflections on art, ed. and trans, by susanne k. langer [baltimore, 1958], p. 268. from archiv flir musikwissenschajt, 1954), who points out the extent to which music has contributed to the revolution in the theory of sensations: not only did von ehrenfels take the nature of a melody as starting-point for his dissertation ueber gestalt-qualitiiten (1890), but also erwin straus helped to refute the mechanistic conception of the senses by means of the musical phenomenon of the complete rest, the "problem of the void", in von sinn der sinne (berlin, 1935). 4 robert w. lundin gives a concise summary of modern theories of melody in an objective psychology ofmusic (new york, 1963), chap. v. friedrich kainz, in aesthetics the science (detroit, 1962), trans. by herbert m. schueller from vorlesungen uber aesthetik (vienna, 1948), makes available an enormous amount of technical material, especially from german aesthetic theory during the first half of the century. his own point of view is that of gestalt theory. husser! (op. cit.; pp. 43f.) develops brentano's analysis of a melody as model for a temporal object (i.e., an object which is not only a unity in time, but also includes temporal extension within itself) and applies it in an extended sense to temporality conceived as form for perception, fantasy, imagination, memory, and recollection. the conception of melody as a motion which requires a musical space is a prevailing model for musical form in general. see ernst kurth, musikpsychologie (bern, 1947), esp. part ii, chap. i and ii; victor zuckerkandl, sound and symbol, trans. by willard r. trask (new york, 1956); and reinold (op. cit., p. 271), who refers this notion to the interrelation between hearing and 83 motor response. the application ofthis notion ofform to an extended piece of music descends from hanslick through such writers as pratt, langer, and meyer (all of whom conceive of t form in music as in some way mirroring psychologit:al "movement", i.e., tension and release). jean g. harrell, in "issues of music aesthetics" (jaac 23: 197-206 [1964]) (interpreting issues raised by hanslick), supports in an interesting way her thesis that "form" in music has been equated with the goal-directed motion achieved by tonality, and "expression", with the breakdown in tonality. silence as the background for melody (and ultimately for music itself) is considered by giseie brelet in "music and silence" (in langer, op. cit., trans. from la revue musicale, 1946), who gives a number of observations on how the musical image is molded as an entity against this background in the imagination of the listener. zofia lissa, in "aesthetic functions of silence and rests in music" (jaac 22:444-454 [1964]) deals with the same problem. the priority of perceived form over actual pitch material receives increasing attention. zuckerkandl (op. cit., pp. 79ff.) describes an experiment designed to determine whether singers use just intonation or equal temperament, which demonstrated, rather, that they not only "simply sang unimaginably off pitch", but, more significantly, that it required the intervention of a measuring instrument to reveal these pitch distortions. fritz winckel, in klangwelt unter der lupe (berlin, 1952) presented experimental evidence for the fact that the pitch-stuff is not clearly represented tones but "deflecting klange". for an application to electronic music and recent bibliography, see his "the psycho-acoustical analysis of music applied to electronic music" (thejournal of music theory 7: 194-246 [1963]). see also charles shackford: "some aspects of perception" (jmt 5: 162-202 [1961],6:6690 and 295-303 [1962]); and paul c. boomsliter and warren creel: "extended reference: an unrecognized dynamic in melody" (jmt7 :2-73 [1963]). 5 nikolaus listenius, musica (niirnberg, 1537), facsimile from the 1549 ed., musica nicolai listenii. 6 the importance of musica poetica to the modem idea of the musical work was first emphasized by hermann zenck in sixtus dietrich (leipzig, 1928). for convenient reviews of the topic and recent bibliography, see martin ruhnke: joachim burmeister (kassel, 1955), pp. 100-170; and paul matzdorf: die ''practica musica" hermann fincks (frankfurt am main, 1957), chap. ii-vi. walter wiora, in "musica poetica und musikalisches kunstwerk" (in festschrift karl gustave fellerer ••. [regensburg, 1962]), discusses the specifically musical work, its ingredients and the milieu in which it arises-an important article which reviews the literature and sources. for two interesting interpretations of the change in the conception of the nature of music, from medieval to modern, see hermann zenck: numerus und affectus (kassel, 1959); and walter eggebrecht: "musik als tonsprache" (afmw 51: 73-100 [1961]). for the general background, see the following: ernst curtius (in european literature and the latin middle ages [new york, 1953], trans. by w. trask from europeanische literature und latein mittelalter [bern, 1944], formulates the change as the "transformation of the canon" from imitation to creation, from "thesaurus as warehouse of tradition to walter pater's 'house beautiful''' (esp. pp. 396£). paul o. kristeller, in "the modem system of the arts" (reprinted from the journal qf the history of ideas [1951] in his renaissance thought ii [new york], 1965), traces the origin of the term "art" in its modem sense and the rehtted term "fine arts" in the 18th century. 7 benjamin lee whorf, "the relation of habitual thought and behaviour to language" (reprinted in language, thought and reality, ed. john b. carroll [cambridge, mass., 1956]). paul henle develops this material in "language, thought, and culture" (chap. i of a study by the same title, ed. henle [ann arbor, 1958]). for further material on the relation between language and world see: martin heidegger, "die sprache" (in unterwegs zur sprache [tiibingen, 1955]) and rele84 vant passages (esp. sect. 34) in his being and time (new york, 1962, trans. by john macquarrie and edward robinson from sein upd zeit [7th ed., tiibingen]). mikel dufrenne, language and philosophy (trans. by henry b. veatch [bloomington, ind., 1963]). albert hofstadter, "language as articulation of human being" in truth and art [new york, 1965], chap. iv. for some points of comparison between a piece of language and a piece of music (considered as language), see my essay on the meaning of music in art and philosophy, ed. sidney hook (new york, 1966), pp. 289-306. 8 kant, in the critique of judgment (1790), takes the first moment of the judgment of taste to be disinterestedness (sect. i, bk. i, "analytic of the beautiful"). although the term 'distance' is not new, the modem theory stems principally from two authors: edward bullough, in "'psychical distance' as a factor in art and an aesthetic principle" (the british journal of psychology 5:87-111 [1912]), maintains that "objectivity" and "subjectivity" when applied to art as a pair of opposites soon lead to confusion. such opposites find their synthesis in the more fundamental conception of distance (obtained by putting the object out of gear with practical needs), which has both a negative and positive aspect. this "distanced", yet personal relation, one of the fundamental paradoxes of art, he calls the antinomy of distance. jose ortega y gasset, in "the dehumanization of art" (symposium 1: 194-205 [1930]), works out a scale of psychic distance which is somewhat misleading because it implies that distance leaves out feelings. p. a. michelis, in "aesthetic distance and the charm of contemporary art" (jaac 18: 1-45 [1959]), develops the idea, describing distance as "the road of the mind itself, in which it must wander in order to meet and recognize itself, as ifit were another" (p. 45). 9 h. p1essner, "zur anthropologie der musik" in jahrbuch fiir aesthetik und kunstwissenschoft, 1951, p. 120-cited in reino1d (op. cit., p. 270). 10 kurt koffka, in "perception: an introduction to the gestalt-theorie" (psychological bulletin 19:551-85 [1922]), sulllffiarizes the principles of gestalt theory for english readers. (reprinted in classics in psychology, ed. thome shipley [new york, 1961] and excerpted in experiments in visual perception, ed. m. d. vernon [baltimore, 1966]). two recent articles review gestalt theory: julian e. hochberg: "effects of the gestalt revolution: the cornell symposium on perception" (reprinted from the psychological review [1957] in readings in perception, ed. david c. beardslee and michael wertheimer [princeton, 1958]); and rudolph arnheim, "gestaltenyesterday and today" (trans. by the author from gestalthaftes sehen [darmstadt, 1960] in mary henle, ed., documents of gestalt psychology [berkeley, 1961]). arnheim's art and visual perception (berkeley, 1954) is the classic demonstration of gestalt principles in visual art. georgy kepes, in the language ofvision (chicago, 1948), in his concern to re-educate visual experience, applies these principles to the "grammar" and "syntax" of vision. in music, these principles were first applied by the so-called "energists", kurth (op. cit.), and zuckerkandl (op. cit.). see also helmut federhofer, beitriige zur musikalischen gestaltanalyze (graz, 1950). leonard b. meyer, in emotion and meaning in music (chicago, 1956), develops a theory of meaning in music' utilizing gestalt theory. charles m. h. keil, in "motion and feeling through music" (jaac 24:337-349 [1966]), commenting on meyer's book, stresses the importance of performance in music: every piece of teleological music, he says, involves not only syntax, but an elusive quality which he designates as "process". james tenney, in meta+hodos (new orleans, 1964), applies gestalt principles to the materials of 20th-century music. 11 heinz werner, a comparative study ofmental development (new york, 194-8), pp. 122f. 85 12 kurt koffka (the growth of the mind, trans. by c. k. ogden [london, 1924], pp. 359 ff.) summarizes here piaget's discussion of the original close connectedness in the child's experience of substance and force. 13 i use the contrasts "syncretic-discrete" and "articulate-diffuse" as they have been developed by werner (op. cit., pp. 53f.). 14 werner (op. cit., pp. 92f.). 15 henri bergson, essai sur les donnees immuiates de la conscience (paris, 1889), trans. by f. l. < pogson as time andfree will (london, 1910), esp. pp. 100f. gabriel marcel, in "bergsonism and music" (trans. by c. k. scott moncriefffrom la revue musical [1925] in langer, op. cit.), disagrees with bergson on this point, maintaining that we speak of the beauty of a melodic line not as applied to an inner progression, but to a certain "non-spatial" figure (p. 146). 16 reinold (op. cit., p. 263). 17 summarized by werner from previous work, op. cit., pp. 96f. 18 walter pater, the renaissance (new york, n.d., first ed. london, 1873). 19 alberti gives two definitions of beauty in his de re aedificatoria, bk. vi chap. 2 and bk. ix chap. 5. the quotation is cited by rudolph wittkower in architectural principles in the age of humanism (london, 1952), part iv, p. 97, in which he studies the relation of music and geometry in the renaissance. william m. ivins, jr., in art and geometry (boston, 1946), chap. v, develops the thesis that the differences between metrical and perspective geometry can be traced back to the differences between the tactile-muscular and the visual intuitions of space, focusing the contrast between greek and modern spatial thinking on alberti's essay. 20 gisele bre1et, in le temps musical (paris, 1949), has laid the groundwork for current studies of musical time. music, she maintains, is temporal form par excellence. she considers arguments for and against correspondences in the arts and takes musical time to be a synthe.: sis of time lived and time thought, immanent to the music itself. walter wiora, in "musik als zeitkunst" (musikforschung 10: 15-28 [1957]), using brelet's study as a starting-point, reviews the background of the field and presents a comprehensive bibliography. susanne langer, in feeling andform (new york, 1953), pp. i 15f., gives a brief outline of the history of the notion of "musical time". andres briner, in der wandel der musik als zeit-kunst (vienna, 1955), structures the problem in terms of two polarities which recur throughout the literature on time, especially in regard to the contemporary change in the conception of time. for some of the issues concerning music as temporal art see also joan stambaugh: "music as a temporal form" (jp 61 :265-280 [1964]) and my comment, "musical form regained" (jp 62: 36-48 [1965]). etienne gilson, in painting and realiry (new york, 1957), develops the complementary view in regard to paintings, that the kind of reality proper to them is the mode of existence (vs. becoming). concerning problems in regard to time in general see also: g. j. whitrow, the natural philosophy of time (london, 1961); paul fraisse, the psychology of time, trans. by jennifer leith (new york, 1963); j. t. frazer (ed.), the voices of time (new york, 1966). the notion of space is related to music in several different ways and the literature is extensive. edward a. lippman reviews, and discusses the literature in his music and space (ann arbor univ. microfilms, 1952). albert wellek (musikpsychologie und musikasthetik [frankfurt am main, 1963], pp. 294ff.) gives a recent review of the topic (from his own point of view). robert hall, in "heidegger and the space of art" (forthcoming in the journal of existentialism, fall, 1967), provides with his notion of space as "the form ofworid" a theoretical ground for discussions of musical space. the unifying principle ofworid provides for the nature of its 86 component objects in conjunction with the basic kind of events that can take place within it. the space of that world is the potentiality for its objects giving rise to those events. the work of art is seen to be a unification of certain experiential effects so organized that they create a virtual space which exactly parallels the actual space of world. 21 the necessity, for the perception of change, of a "specious" present was first formulated by e. r. clay in 1882 and developed by williamj ames as a certain saddle-back of time with a certain length of its own, on which we sit perched and from which we look in two directions into time (william james, principles of psychology [new york, 1891], i, p. 609). psychologists refer to this by various names, "the sensible present" the "mental present" the "perceived present"; the metaphor quoted is henri pieron's. see fraisse, op. cit., pp. 85f., and whitrow, op. cit., pp. 70f. 22 edmund carpenter and marshall mcluhan, "acoustic space" in explarations in communication (boston, 1960), pp. 67f. 23 fraisse (op. cit., chap. iii). 24 arnold schoenberg, style and idea (new york, 1950), p. 109. leo treitler, on patricia carpenter's "the musical object" i shall begin my comments on miss carpenter's paper with a brief summary of what i understand to be its governing aspects. i find three theses represented, and i shall state at once that i find it possible to hold the first without necessarily holding either the second or the third. the first thesis is a formulation about the essential nature of the music that has long dominated western high culture. it is a music that is issued in discrete, autonomous, closed, self-contained entities called "pieces". a piece marks off a single stretch of time that is outlined, framed, and conceived as one unified gesture or motion. the concept of the autonomous piece suggests, optimally, a clear relation of part to part and of parts to whole. a piece is given direction in that one part follows from another in a causal way, so that we may say there is a necessity about the sequence as a whole. this defines a unity in the sense of form, but it also requires a unity of substance that pervades the whole. the second thesis states a conclusion about the relation of the listener to the musical work-i.e. about the nature of musical perception-that is said to follow from the conception of "a piece" given in the first thesis. all music is process, but when a process is closed and unified as to form and substance it is objectified. it becomes a product, a made thing that is set apart. we perceive it all at once and from a single point of view. we observe it from a distance and do not participate in the making or in the happening of it. we know it as a thing in itself, quite apart from any single experience of it, that is quite apart from our own moods, fantasies, feelings, or activity. in short we know it objectively, not subjectively. this dichotomy of process and object or subject and object has consequences for the conception of form. form is 87 jfhe (7or.njjoser as lkfusicologist david loeb the idea that musicology has any validity, relevance, or applicability for the composer is most frequently questioned by the latter when he or she is in graduate school and is forced to take one or more courses in musicology to fulfill requirements of the departmental establishment. such was my own experience, and at the time it seemed that the line ofleast resistance pointed to taking the course without asking philosophical questions-not an atypical response. but the questions remain, even if the courses disappear from the curriculum, or if a student cajoles the department into waiving requirements. how is it possible to anticipate how such courses may later be useful? it was not long after this forced exposure that its first effects appeared. i was commissioned to compose a work for an early music group that wanted to have a contemporary piece to contrast with their staple repertoire. this, as well as many more recent compositions, required a thorough knowledge of the early instruments and also of performance practice. why the latter? the answer is most easily given with respect to the harpsichord. the instrument reached its zenith in the baroque, and the music written for it at that time has a colorful and evocative sound that is not revealed by the printed score. the music, of course, must be "brought to life" by the performer, who must supply not only articulation, phrasing, and ornamentation (of which scant indications appear), but also an appropriate registration (for which there are no indications at all). at this point the composer-quasi-musicologist has vague memories about this sort of thing; it was once mentioned in the musicology course that there were certain areas of common practice concerning these matters, and so one could go and look them up somewhere if one wished. but would that be the wish of the composer who is emphatically writing 20th-, not 18th-century music? perhaps not, until he confers with the harpsichordist who will play his new piece. this performer usually proves to be only too eager to discuss such matters, especially the use of registration. the composer feels a distinct warmth in the player's presence-gratitude for having shown enough interest in his instrument to compose for it. one is also treated on this occasion to a capsule lecture-recital that effectively demonstrates the instrument's traditional range of possibilities and explains the rationale underlying its utilization. the explanation ends with the solemn warning that not everyone views these matters in quite the same way. one must not be misled by those who would have us think that the primary function of registration is to determine color, not to obtain octave doublings. (or was it the other way around?) it is too strong a temptation not to consult another performer, who turns out to champion rather different ideas with equally enthusiastic partisan fervor. alas, there is really no alternative to 138 looking it up in a large, outwardly-hostile library. there, of course, one finds several excellent studies which deal with just this sort of problem. but even this may not really prove satisfactory; sometimes the only answer is to try one's hand at playing the pieces oneself, experimenting with different methods of transforming the scores into music. all that has been proven thus far is that the results of musicology, the labor of dedicated professionals, may have some use; it has not been demonstrated that the composer can profit from the study of musicology as a discipline. we left the composer struggling with the harpsichord, perhaps disillusioned with his brief musicological investigation. however, looking something up in a library, even in scholarly tomes, is not musicology; it is merely an extension of reference techniques learned in elementary school. it is only when the composer begins to reflect on the aptness of the various kinds of ornamentation, articulation, phrasing, and registration with which he is experimenting, that musicology really comes into play by providing a proper stylistic sense of reference as to what might have seemed appropriate to players and listeners of another era. the composer might well agree that the study of musicology should aid this kind of understanding, but how will it help him in his task of creating new music for the harpsichord? there are at least two possible ways. the first is through a knowledgeable and sophisticated use of notation. the notation for conventional instruments is so routine that we often forget the link between notational conventions and playing techniques. the practicality of the bva symbol in extreme registers for some instruments (especially keyboard) and its impracticality for others (especially strings) is the most familiar instance. a second possibility is to adapt patterns indigenous to certain instruments to contemporary styles. for example, many virtuosic works for violin utilize patterns of a rapid succession of notes that lie well under the hand in one position and are then repeated sequentially by merely shifting the hand to a higher or lower position. this technique can be modernized; there are many non triadic patterns of notes which can be fitted into this technique as readily as the triadic ones previously employed. these and other possibilities contribute to the construction of an idiomatic composition, one that will sound like a work for the harpsichord, not something which is merely played on that instrument. it might be thought that such considerations of blending the very old and the very new would apply only to early instruments, but this is not the case. for several centuries composers have demonstrated an awareness of the past through clearly observable practices. one need cite only two well-known examples: bach, welltempered clavier, book ii, e major fugue, and mozart, requiem. both works show an awareness of the harmonic and contrapuntal practices of the preceding period, and the requiem extends this to include treatment of texture. but how should one consider the modal chorale settings of bach, the mozart suite, k. 399, the polychoral compositions of brahms, or, 139 for that matter, the neo-classic school of this century? in these works there is, in each instance, a complete fusion of two styles, that of the composer's own era, and a previous one of his choosing. it can be argued that the discipline of musicology did not exist in the time of bach and mozart, and that it was in its infancy in the time of brahms, but this point is negated by the well-known fact that all three composers made as complete and systematic a study of the music of the past as their circumstances permitted. in recent years there has been a flood of new knowledge of the music of the past-not musicological knowledge, which has, admittedly, reached deluge proportions, but the fact that the average student has at his immediate disposal the vast bulk of music itself, which the master composer until the recent past could not have. we speak of music printing starting in the early 16th century, but how many of these early editions were in the hands of composers? and mozart, for example, had no contact with the works of bach until 1782, when he made a trip to the thomaskirche in leipzig and studied the motets of bach by laying out the manuscript parts on a large table and "synthesizing" the score mentally. it no longer requires a lifetime of dedication to secure a comprehensive general knowledge of past styles and techniques. the most immediate and profound consequence has been to equip almost every composer with that general knowledge which, in the past, was the possession of only those composers who actively pursued it. were it not for this phenomenon, the neo-classic school could not have come into existence. its inspirational models came not only from the classic period but equally or even more so from the baroque. renaissance influence can also be found frequently, and the extent of medieval influence, while smaller, is by no means insignificant. this amalgamation of styles and techniques has also included the influences of musical traditions outside the familiar european and has consequently ensured the usefulness of ethnomusicology. (indeed, this whole tale might be retold via the medium of my experiences composing for chinese and japanese instruments, but that would be another article.) despite this interest in the past, a large group of composers wish to reject it, a wish that seems to have been realized, if one judges by the unfamiliar sounds that dominate their works. but rejecting something is possible only after knowing it, however imperfectly, and thus one might say that historically, it was not possible for such an attitude to occur until and unless a certain level of awareness had been reached. even the romantic composers who made freedom of expression almost a fetish did not reject the classics; they revered them. if they made a conscious effort to avoid too close a resemblance, it was only from the fear of not being able to compete successfully on the classicists' own grounds. perhaps all this could be said in a different way: it is necessary to know what one is rejecting. in retrospect, the composer can only conclude that his exposure to musicology was, after all, the best thing for him and that rules and regulations had, for once, actually worked in his favor. however, if only once or twice 140 during the musicology course someone had tried to explain the usefulness of such study instead of taking that fact for granted, years of doubt, suspicion, and even resentment might have been avoided. few composers recognize what musicology has to offer them, but this sad situation seems as much the responsibility of the musicologists as of the composers themselves. 141 a voice like thunder: corsican women's lament as cultural work ruth emily rosenberg funeral rites are commonly understood as a means by which communities reestablish normal or ideal social relationships following death. lament, which has played a prominent role in such rites, has been studied in numer­ ous cultural and historical contexts as a practice that is effective on both a personal and collective level. an individual lam enter facilitates the collec­ tive confrontation with death through a performance that combines musi­ cal and verbal signification (in the forms of homage, praise, etc.) with non­ linguistic utterances such as stylized crying or weeping, the meanings of which are culturally constructed (urban 1988).as a predominantly (in many contexts exclusively) feminine mode of expression, lament has more recently been examined in its relationship to gender identity (tolbert 1990a, 1990b, 1994; briggs 1992, 1993). in the greek context especially, it has been dem­ onstrated that lament can serve as a privileged arena within male-domi­ nated society in which women express gender-specific concerns (auerbach 1987; seremetakis 1990, 1991; caraveli 1986; caraveli-chaves 1980; danforth and tsiaras 1982). the funeral laments improvised by women on the mediterranean is­ land of corsica constitute one of the oldest and perhaps most significant oral traditions on the island. called voceri (sing. voceru) , these laments were traditionally performed over the body of the deceased and accompanied by wailing and other demonstrations of grief. the practice presumably pre­ dates the introduction of christianity, and written references appear in sources dating back to 1506 (ettori 1978:248). by the late-nineteenth cen­ tury the voceru was in decline and its practitioners gradually disappearing, though the practice endured in villages of the island's interior. today, though the voceru is considered by many corsican poets and singers to be founda­ tional to corsican expressive culture, funeral laments are no longer per­ formed as a living tradition anywhere on the island. though it was not customary in corsica to sing laments for the long dead or to improvise voceri outside of the funeral context, some laments, because of their connection to significant events or their exceptional beauty, circulated orally or were transcribed. many of these laments appeared in collections of corsican popular song published during the second half of the nineteenth century.l though these consist mainly of texts without melocurrent musicology, no. 78 (fall 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 31 32 current musicology dies, first-hand accounts from the same period describe the sound and spec­ tacle of lamentation within the context of the funeral rituap twentieth­ century scholars continued to collect voceri and began to explore their so­ ciological significance, anticipating their imminent extinction.3 field record­ ings made between 1948 and 1973 by ethnomusicologists felix quilici and wolfgang laade contain several voceri, though these were performances re­ corded outside of their intended ritual context, sung from memory by people other than the original improvisers.4 though studying a tradition that is no longer found in the field pre­ sents special challenges, it also has the potential to transform traditional! defunct repertories from folkloric objects or literary specimens into mean­ ingful tools for anthropological and ethnomusicological understanding. in particular, the study of extinct musical practices has the potential to help us better understand the gender structure of a given society in the past, as tullia magrini's work on italian ballad singing (1995) demonstrates. this paper is, in part, a modest attempt to respond to magrini's suggestion that "the same repertories that have been transmitted to us as collections of mere literary or sonorous objects may turn out to be essential instruments for the reconstruction of gender identities from a more or less remote past" (2003:5). the application of this approach to the corsican lament tradition seems especially appropriate, given that the decline of the voceru was virtually co­ terminous with its invention as an object of folkloric interest in the late­ nineteenth century. in the first half of this paper, i demonstrate the ways in which the corsican voceru accomplished the cultural work associated with death and mourning in traditional corsican society. this analysis draws on recent work on greek lament that shows how, within patriarchal societies, laments can serve as a means by which women assist their community during times of crisis, comment on social relationships, and enter into conflict. in the sec­ ond half of my paper, i consider how the voceru has, in one particular in­ stance, been adapted to accomplish comparable cultural work in the twenty­ first century. this example demonstrates that, though the tradition of im­ provising laments is defunct, the repertory can be used to perform new social functions. it suggests that in corsica, and perhaps elsewhere, the fe­ male voice in song retains its peculiar authority in times of conflict and cnsis. the voceru and the funeral ritual the fourth largest island in the mediterranean, corsica today has a popula­ tion of about 240,000 people. though the island is part of france, corsicans ruth emily rosenberg have retained a strong sense of regional identity that was shaped in part by a long history of invasion and domination, notably by the genoese from 1100-1700. in the twentieth century, corsica suffered economic decline and rapid depopulation, the result of both emigration and heavy casualties suf­ fered during both world wars. during this period many aspects of tradi­ tionallife, including the corsican language, faced the threat of extinction. an autonomist movement emerged in reaction to the island's dire political and economic situation in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the cultural reawakening (riacquisto) associated with it helped, among other things, to defend and preserve corsica's distinct musical culture. corsica's traditional music is mainly vocal. the major category of song still found in living tradition is the secular polyphonic paghjella, typically sung by three men. polyphonic masses, which once existed in great diversity in corsican villages, have also survived and are sung for feast days and fu­ nerals (bithell2003:46). secular and sacred polyphonic singing is found on the many commercial recordings of corsican music made in recent decades, alongside newly composed songs of a political nature. the act of singing traditional music in corsica has itself been conceived of as a political act by many since the 1970s, as caroline bithell has extensively documented (1996, 2003, forthcoming). though they appear with much less frequency on com­ mercial recordings, several genres of monodic song also exist, including threshing songs, various laments (for animals, soldiers, bandits, etc.), chjam'e rispondi (a form of improvised debate performed by two men), and songs traditionally performed by women, which include lullabies and the extem­ porized funeral lament ( voceru). until the twentieth century the voceru was an essential part of the do­ mestic funeral ritual in corsican villages. there were variances depending on locality, but the main parts of the rite can be generalized to some degree. when death was announced by the tolling of the church bell, women began their lamentation in the form of cries and wails. large groups of mourners gathered at the house of the deceased, where the body was laid out on a bier (tola) in the common room. while male mourners generally remained si­ lent, sometimes in an adjacent room, female mourners gathered in a circle around the tola. upon entering the house women embraced the deceased and made gestures of grief such as pulling their hair, striking their chests, and scratching their faces. they intermittently addressed the deceased, pos­ ing questions or urging him/her to get up. the voceru would not commence until the priest had come, performed his duties, and departed. a close female relative of the deceased, typically a mother, wife, or sister, would usually be first to sing. if no one in the family was disposed to improvise the responsibility fell to an experienced mourner 33 34 current musicology (voceratrice or pleureuse), known for her improvisatory skill. breaking away from the group of women and coming closer to the deceased, the lamenter would begin her improvisation. the textual form of the voceru, common to many indigenous corsican genres, consists of three octosyllabic couplets with end-rhymes (usually on lines 2,4, and 6). the melodies on which the verses were sung varied according to locale or performer but were charac­ terized by descending motion, usually stepwise, and the prolongation of penultimate and final notes of each line. limited melodic variation gave voceru the quality of an incantation, and the steady, rhythmic delivery of lines might be punctuated by swaying, waving a handkerchief, or lightly striking the bier (ettori 1978:250). sobbing while improvising, the lamenter was accompanied by cries from other mourners, who might interject in between verses or repeat the last word of a line as a chorus. these improvisations could stretch into thirty or more stanzas, and women often sang until they were overcome either by emotion or exhaustion (saint -germain 1869: 173). a voceru might end with a formulaic invitation to the next lamenter, who would then commence her own voceru (ettori 1978:250). surviving texts suggest that sometimes women alternated stanzas, making the lament into a fairly direct dialogue between mourners. mourners often stayed all night at the house of the deceased, though women and men might occupy different rooms (marcaggi [1898]2001:20). although the tradition was seen as pagan by church authorities, a funeral repast might be served during the vigil. at daybreak, the church bell rang again and the confrerie arrived to carry the casket ( or shrouded body) to the church. this precipitated renewed cries of grief among those accompany­ ing the procession. following a church service, the body was taken to the burial place and the coffin lid was closed, again provoking renewed lamen­ tation if women mourners were present. a funeral banquet called a conforto followed burial. obligatory attendance by neighbors and extended families meant these could become large, costly affairs (26). vendetta killings were common in corsica prior to the twentieth cen­ tury, and funeral rites for victims of murder were somewhat different. the windows of the deceased's house would be closed, the body not washed but set out in the same clothes worn at the moment of death. gestures of grief were, not surprisingly, more intense than in normal funerals, and voceri in these circumstances involved themes of vengeance and were often quite graphic. a dance was customarily performed around the bier for homicide victims, though this practice seems to have been nearly extinct by the middle of the nineteenth century. one observer described how female mourners formed a circle around the bier and "move [ d] round the dead body howlruth emily rosenberg ing, breaking the circle, and again closing it, always with loud lamentation and gestures of the wildest grief" (gregorovius 1855:36). with few excep­ tions, voceri for murder victims culminate in oaths of vengeance against the assassins. the behavior of mourners reflected this inevitability: witnesses observed male mourners of murder victims striking their rifle butts against the floor, and women often brandished the victim's bloody shirt or a blood­ stained handkerchief. collectivizing grief lament is one way in which communities deal with the crisis of death. though the event may cause grief and pain for many, it is the lam enter's job to "transform these emotions from internal and individual into relational, interactive, and collective ones" (briggs 1992:350). in many societies this responsibility falls to women; magrini has called women's labor to this end their "work of pain" (1998). as designated mourners, magrini explains, women conspicuously express extreme grief and pain and facilitate a col­ lective encounter with death: death shakes and restructures the community, which must endure the loss and process the connected feelings of fear, grief, and even protest against god. the technique of the lament, which airs and works out the different feelings connected to the loss, is conceived in view of erecting a permanent separation between the dead and the living and of transform­ ing the fear of the deceased person-believed to contaminate the world of the living-into a feeling of affectionate memory for the deceased. thus, ritual mourning may be conceived as "a process by which a new reality is constructed and death finally accepted." (1998) like other lament traditions, the corsican voceri constructed this "new re­ ality" through a combination of text and vocal/bodily gestures thatexter­ nalized the pain of separation while designating boundaries between this world and the next. though they involved a large degree of improvisation, voceri are built on a common repertoire of conventional themes, metaphors, and poetic formulae. the lyrics of a single lament may fall into several different the­ matic categories. a lament might address or reproach the deceased, praise the deceased, narrate part of the deceased's life or circumstances of death, or refer to those negatively affected by the deceased's passing, especially the mourner herself. in cases of violent death voceri commonly include accusa­ tions and insults directed at the guilty party, in addition to threats of violent retribution. 35 36 current musicology the symbolic language of the voceru is similar to that of the modern greek lament (mirologi) (danforth and tsiaras 1982:74).5 for example, wa­ ter imagery is a common means by which lamenters mediate the distance between life and death in both corsican and greek laments. water is a sym­ bol oflife and fecundity, while death and the dead are associated with drought and thirst. in one voceru, a sister laments that her loss is so great that her life is "draining away like water from the river" (viale [1855] 1984:101).6 in another, a mother laments her daughter by complaining that she herself will soon die, since her child will not be able to bring her a drink of water should she fall ill (29). light and darkness is another important opposition used in voceri to highlight the deceased's transition from the world of the living to the world of the dead. the deceased may be praised as a source of light that is now extinguished, as in a voceru in which a mother likens her daughter's death pallor to "a darkened sun" ("un sole oscuratu") (viale [1855]1984:27). voceri may depict the past as light or bright, using images of blackness or darkness to describe immediate funeral context or the uncertain future. this emo­ tional contrast is drawn by a corsican mourner who symbolically reverses the death she is lamenting by negating the darkness, "no, santucci is not dead; i am wrong, i am mistaken: the moon is not hidden, the sun is not dark, the stars on their course are still sparkling" ("no, santucci nun e mortu; eo m'ingannu e facciu errore: nun s'e scuratu lu sole; ie stelle in lu so viaghiu hanu tutte u so culore") (52). conventional themes and imagery are a means by which lam enters cre­ ate what anna caraveli-chaves calls "bridges between worlds:' laments cre­ ate such bridges in order to demonstrate the boundaries between "vital realms of existence: life and death, the physical and the metaphysical, present and past, temporal and mythic time" (1980:144). the lam enter poetically traverses these opposing realms, allowing those listening to collectively con­ front death. voceri accomplish this in myriad ways. the following voceru, improvised by a sister for her brother, a priest, illustrates some of these: this morning, my sisters, you are all invited: we must sing the first mass offather jean andre; come and bring the linens and the plates and silverware. the parish of acquale will all be invited. we must sing the first mass that jean andre has awaited. stammatina, e mid surelle, site qui tutte invitate: s'ha da fa la cantamessa di ghiuvann' audria l' abbate; or purtate ie salviette: e ii piatti e ie pusate. la parrocchia dill' acquale resteri'! tutta invitata. ha da fa la cantamessa ghiuvann' audria aspettata: here are the priests and godmother; this will be a fine mass. but your mouth is closed, you listen to no one ... yes, now i see that you are no longer with us. let's regain our senses and speak the truth; this morning giovanni will go into the grave ... ruth emily rosenberg c' e ii preti, e la madrina; ci sera messa parata. ma vo'avete chiusa a bocca; a nissuno date udienza ... ava si po' chi ci vecu chi di voi ne simmu senza. or punimmu a mente a segnu e parlemmu in pusitura; chi stamane jann'andria ha da scende in sepultura ... (viale [1855] 1984:40-41) in the first stanzas of this voceru, the lamenter sustains the illusion that her brother is still alive. she addresses a group of women, but instead of asking them to help her mourn, which would be conventional in a voceru, she asks them instead to raise their voices to participate in the happy occa­ sion of her brother's first mass. the second verse continues this pretense, but in the third verse the lam enter enacts her personal realization of her brother's death as if to prepare others for the terrible news. such denials and reversals of death appear frequently in voceri and allow the lamenter to contrast two realities: the alternative reality (or fantasy) in which the de­ ceased still lives, and the mourners' actual, irreversible circumstances. in this particular example the lam enter abandons the alternative reality in the third verse with a firm declaration of death. the cantamessa to which she refers is revealed to be the mass for the dead, not the debut mass of a new priest. she further locates her brother in the realm of the dead in the fourth verse by referring to the physical location of burial, which is part of the world of the dead.? the imagined scenario, by contrast, makes reference to domestic items such as linens and plates, which belong to the world ofliv­ ing. the distance between the imagined scenario and reality is thus created, effectively articulating boundaries between life and death. having symbolically "invited" the entire community to share her expe­ rience in the second verse, no one is allowed to escape the bitter truth ex­ pressed in the fourth ("let's regain our senses and speak the truth"). the lamenter asks her fellow mourners and the larger community to confront the death with her, in effect collectivizing the experience of grief. lament as gendered expression in addition to doing this "work of pain" on behalf of the entire community, laments can have special significance for the subculture of women who par37 38 current musicology ticipate in their creation. laments draw attention to the "separate world of women," addressing their specific challenges (caraveli-chaves 1980:148). voceri often directly address this collectivity by inviting women to mourn; though heard by all, the invitation calls for active participation only from other women, reinforcing their dominance in the ritual context. in the voceru quoted above, the lamenter begins and ends by addressing a group of women: "this morning, 0 my sisters, you are all invited ... " she closes the lament by invoking them again, "let me speak, sisters, for i'm lamenting my mis­ fortune" ("lasciatemi di, 0 surelle, perch' eo pienghiu u mio destinu") (viale [1855]1984:42). though many outsiders have depicted corsican women as pitiful and powerless creatures, traditional corsican society afforded women access social spaces outside the home and certain other rights that do not fit the stereotypical view of women's roles in mediterranean societies. their agri­ cultural responsibilities brought them into contact with other women and gave them the opportunity to socialize, for example, and they enjoyed some legal claim to inheritance and land.8 however, because women often de­ pended on men for support, security, and their access to social life, the death of a male relative could have a particularly devastating effect on women in corsican society. strict codes of chastity meant that women who lost the male relatives who protected their honor were especially vulnerable. voceru texts often address difficulties that face the female mourner in these cir­ cumstances. for example, a woman who has lost her daughter imagines her future isolation: "if sickness should confine me to bed who will wipe my brow, who will bring me a drink of water, who will keep me from dying?" ("s'eo cascu malata in lettu, chi m'asciuvera u sudore? che mi dera un gottu d'acqua? chi nun mi las cera more?") (viale [1855] 1984:29). in another voceru, a mother of two laments being left alone with no one to help her with her crops (ortoli 1887:139). the following verses, attributed to a young woman, pertain to the death of her two brothers, killed the same day: death, 0 death may you be cursed for all the misfortune you have caused! from such a full house you have only spared one child! is it left up to me to be the head of the household? i was the only woman around the family hearth i had all of my five brothers at my disposal. ah! now, yes, i have lost morte, 0 morte, tu scia tinta chi ci hai fattu tantu mali! una cas a cus1 piena l'hai ridotta a nidicali! or este tuccatu a me a fa lu rechi-casali? eju di ii feminelli era sola a lu fuconi eu ii me' cinque fratelli li pudia tutti disponi. ava s1 chi l'achiu persu ruth emily rosenberg the right to be heard! lu dirittu di ragioni! (viale [1855]1984:100-01) in this particular voceru the improviser does not lament her brothers' deaths as much as her own uncertain fate. later in this voceru the author juxtaposes the prosperity and security of the past (represented by the fam­ ily hearth) with the darkness and emptiness of the present when she says "i want to dye myself black like the wings of a crow" ("v 6gliu tinghiemi di neru cuume d'un c6rvu ii piumi"). with no male relatives to ensure her rights or status, the sister anticipates a life of silence and mourning. laments like this one signify the precarious status of women who lacked male protection; others address complicated cultural codes of family honor and shame that impacted women in particular. chastity was the most im­ portant virtue for young women. to maintain her honor, a woman entering into a relationship not sanctioned by her family might be allowed to marry, but the resulting rift between the two families could be significant. laments frequently explored the tensions created by such unsanctioned marriages (ettori 1979).9 in particular, such laments sometimes attacked husbands and in-laws for alienating women from their immediate families. in one voceru a woman reproaches her deceased sister's husband for having taken her sister away and made her live in poverty, bringing shame on her family. the lam enter also accuses him of negligence for not notifying them of her illness until it was too late: o jan-fili, my brother-in-law you have behaved badly. you sent the news [of the death] by sounding the church bell. i only had one sister; you should have done otherwise. o cugnatu jan-fili avete trattatu male. ci avete man datu a di a lu son di ie campane. unn'avia che sia surella; quest'un l'aviate da fane. (viale [1855]1984:46) in addition to addressing interfamilial conflict, laments can protest ac­ tions of the broader community or its institutions. this function oflament has been noted among the warao of venezuela (briggs 1992, 1993), the hakka in china (johnson 1988), and in the greek tradition, where such laments can be found both in contemporary examples as well as in the trag­ edies of sophocles and aeschylus (foley 1993; seremetakis 1990, 1991; caraveli-chaves 1980). lament in these contexts may be one of few accept­ able forms of social commentary available to women in a male-dominated society. in corsica, such protest was often directed at the clergy or the gov­ ernment. in one lament a woman says she wishes she could see the intes­ tines of a corrupt priest in a bowl (ortoli 1887:248). in another, the lamenter 39 40 current musicology protests the french law that disarmed corsicans in an attempt to curb ven­ detta killings. she blames this law for leaving her husband defenseless against his assassins: i want to curse the king and curse the courts! because the disarmament should not have happened; the time of assassins is right now! bestemmia b6gliu lu r€ maladi lu tribunale! perch€ lu disarmamentu nun l'avianu da fane; lu tempu dill'assassini appunt'e quistu d'avale! (viale [1855]1994:81) as in these cases, it is in voceri for violent deaths related to vendettas that such accusations and threats are most commonly found. vendetta songs because of its intimate connection to inter-clan conflict and revenge-code violence, the corsican voceru had "real-life" repercussions beyond those dis­ cussed above. the poetic skill that could produce tender elegies for a natu­ ral death yielded in cases of homicide virulent threats, insults, and encour­ agement to male relatives to seek vengeance. over the course of the nine­ teenth century the image of the vengeful corsican mother or widow be­ came something of a stereotype, but there is ample evidence to show that women's laments were indeed a means of inciting men to commit violent acts. this would appear to have been true also elsewhere in the mediterra­ nean world, as is clear from the long history of legislation, stretching back to the rule of solon, that sought to restrict female lamentation on the grounds that it was a disturbance to peace and stability (alexiou, yatromanolakis, and roilos 2002:14-23).10 the role that voceri played in conflict in corsica went beyond impas­ sioned incitement. protracted feuds were a highly regulated form of con­ flict on the island during the nineteenth century, as stephen wilson ex­ plores in his exhaustive study. whatever the external form of a particular conflict, feuding was above all a means by which individuals and collectivi­ ties defended their "honor" against attack. as testimonies to the character and courage of the deceased, voceri for victims of homicide were a way of posthumously defending the honor of the victim and his/her family. the primary way of upholding a family's honor, in many cases, was to exact revenge. as a "true" account of a conflict, validated in performance, lament served a juridical purpose by ascribing blame to an individual or family. i! lament performance was in this wayan opportunity to justify revenge and ruth emily rosenberg commence-or continue-a feud, which generally required the approval of the community (wilson 1988: 197). thus, in addition to their perceived access to unseen realms, bithell has noted that lam enters, "[ t 1 hrough the deployment of what might be described as their lamenting obligations ... are thus able to play an active and indeed decisive part in the direction of local politics" (2003:44).12 gender and the musical revival in corsica the foregoing discussion has established that the corsican voceru, in addi­ tion to being a vital part of the traditional funeral ritual, could be multiva­ lent in terms of its social function. this did not prevent, and indeed may have helped precipitate, its decline and ultimate extinction around the turn of the twentieth century. there were many contributing factors, most of which can be traced to the gradual assimilation of the island into france that began in earnest during this period. revenge-code violence, to which the voceru was intimately linked, declined. continental values began to re­ place those of the village, especially among corsica's urban polie classes. as the older generations of pleureuses passed away, fewer young women were interested in learning to improvise (ettori 1978:249). the successful revival and preservation of much of the island's tradi­ tional music was one of the greatest achievements of the self-described "cul­ tural militants" of the 1970s. polyphony during this period was adopted as an "emblem of the collective phenomenon" and an important site of lan­ guage activism (salini 2000: 11). the performance of corsica's sacred and secular polyphony today flourishes with the proliferation of singing groups (mostly all male) who tour the island and also produce commercial record­ ings. such singing groups, which also perform political chansons, are still associated with a militant cultural and political agenda. singing polyphony has become, according to bithell, a primary way of performing a "unequivo­ cally corsican identity" (2003:49). though the riacquisto focused renewed attention on all forms of tradi­ tional song, women's songs (lullabies and laments, mainly) today have no real place in public music making (bithe1l2003:48). like the island's mo­ nodic songs generally, women's songs have been partly overshadowed by due to an emphasis on "elaborate musical forms" in the collection and study of corsican traditional music (salini 2000:10). the male genres are also simply more versatile than women's in terms of their performance context: paghjelle, for example, were traditionally performed in bars, at fairs, or dur­ ing the hunt (bithe1l2003). today, polyphony groups entertain tourists and locals in concerts throughout the island, often performing outside to large 41 42 current musicology audiences. the female genres of song, traditionally linked to now-vanished rituals, are obviously of a much more intimate nature, their subject matter hardly suited to entertainment. the difficulty of adapting the traditional female repertoire into a rel­ evant or even appropriate means of musical expression has had an impact on the traditional division between men's and women's singing practices. despite the disapproval of some male singers, corsican women have been participating in and forming polyphony groups. recordings by such groups as les nouvelles polyphonies corses and donni di l'esiliu indicate that in the past decade or so, women have crossed definitively into male musical territory. this move has been motivated above all by a desire on the part of women to participate more fully in corsica's musical culture and establish a public musical voice (bithell2003). clearly, the "conquest" of the polyphonic field represents one strategy by which women singers have established such a voice, though the break with tradition was initially, and perhaps necessar­ ily, "done in an imitative manner, as a mirror" (salini 2000:11). this begs the question: if women are singing men's songs, what of the "old" female repertoire? might the voceru, for example, have any efficacy in this ongoing process of bringing women's voices into corsica's musical, cultural, and po­ litical dialogue? a voceru for the twenty-first century an interpretation of a well-known voceru appears on a recent recording by corsican singer anna rocchi. rocchi was raised in the village of rusio, a stronghold of traditional corsican music and singing. she is part of a cel­ ebrated musical family, and she sang with her brothers in the pioneering militant group canta u populu corsu when she was a young adult. re­ cently she released her first solo album da l'alturaghja (2004) at the age of 48. this cd reflects rocchi's deep engagement with and defense of corsican culture. many of the songs are original compositions touching on a broad range of social, environmental, and political causes. rocchi's album also includes versions of some traditional corsican songs, including an inter­ pretation of a lament called voceru per caninu. the text of rocchi's voceru per caninu is based on an old and well­ known lament from the fiumorbo, a region located in the island's interior. it is a voceru di mala morte, originally improvised by the sister of a man named caninu who was killed in a surprise ambush near the village of ghisoni. like the majority of extant lament texts, caninu was published well after the time of its initial performance and presumably underwent ruth emily rosenberg many changes as it circulated in the oral tradition. the text of the lament seems to have been standardized to some degree after it appeared in print; most versions of the song closely follow the one first published by corsican scholar salvatore viale in 1845. rocchi's version of caninu includes seven out of the eleven stanzas usually found in published versions of caninu, and is set to a melody that she and her collaborator eric gineste identify as indigenous to the fiumorbu region (2004).13 save for the lyrics, textual format, and rhyme scheme, rocchi's version initially seems to bear no relation at all to the voceru genre. melodically, rocchi's version lacks the repetition that voceri often have within each stanza (a common form is a[a+a]bb, for example), and therefore lacks the dis­ tinctive quality of incantation. rocchi's performance is moreover an uptempo, folk-rock piece with an accompaniment of guitar, bass, drums, and synthesizer. nevertheless, i would argue that rocchi's recording of caninu represents an attempt to reclaim something of the original function and significance of the voceru. in the context of corsica's male-dominated music revival, rocchi's voceru not only asserts the historical importance of women's voices in corsican society but suggests that there is a place, and perhaps even a need, for women's songs in the current cultural and political environment. the text of the voceru caninu is a bitter rendering of an event that took place in the years just following the french conquest of corsica. the french had arrived on the island in the mid -1700s to serve as mediators between the republic of genoa and supporters of an independent corsican state. genoa's rule of the island had been increasingly threatened by rebellions against its corrupt administration, and in 1735 supporters of independence formed their own government and military, eventually drafting a constitu­ tion that was admired among enlightenment philosophes for its democratic principals. hopes for a corsican republic were dashed when genoa ceded the island to france in 1768. the french got their own taste of the corsican resistance that had stymied genoa: an army of 30,000 was needed to over­ power the corsican opposition to monarchical rule (gregory 1985:32). the decisive defeat of corsican forces, led by the venerated general pascal paoli, occurred at the battle of ponte novu in the spring of 1769. though paoli went into exile, in the years that followed many of his supporters resisted surrendering to the french army, led by compte de marbeuf. as rocchi's liner notes explain, in 1775 marbeuf's army attempted to subdue a group of corsican "rebels" near the village of ghisoni. having been lured, unarmed, to a supposed rendezvous, the corsican shepherds were ambushed and killed by marbeuf's forces with the aid of some corsican soldiers. the shepherds were not only defenseless but hopelessly outnum43 44 current musicology bered. caninu was the name of one of the men that was killed in this inci­ dent. word spread that it was a fellow corsican, acting on marbeuf's in­ structions, who had orchestrated the ruse that resulted in the massacre. this "traitor;' galloni, is named in the first verse of the lament improvised by caninu's sister. the verses that follow narrate the events of the massacre, dwelling on the cowardice and treachery not just of the french but of the corsican traitors, who, according to the sister, belonged to a barbara razza. in the last two verses the sister addresses her brother directly and swears he will be avenged, even if she has to do it herself. 14 the full text of rocchi's version follows: i wish that my voice was as powerful as the thunder that passes through the gorges of san petru and vizzavona so that everyone could hear about the great feats of galloni all of them, at lucu di nazza they were together in a barbaric race [family]. the soldiers and the bandits. with yesterday's storm they all left together! at the bottom of the valley the wind was howling it carried from ghisoni misfortune and terror you could sense in the air murder and treason! they left quickly all the wolves and the lambs and they marched together to the sound of the chalumeau once at the mountains they cut your throat when i heard the screams i appeared at the window and asked "what is the news?" they killed your brother they surprised him on the mountain and slaughtered him looking at your wounds eu vurria chi la me voce fussi tamant' e lu tonu ch' ella franchessi la foce di san petru e vizzavona per chi soni in ogni locu la gran prova di gallonu tutti a lu lucu di nazza elli s'eranu adduniti cun quella barbara razza. li suldati e ii banditi cu a timpesta d'arimani tutti inseme so partiti! in fondu di lu rionu si sintia rughja lu ventu chi purtava da isonu a malora e lu spaventu si vidia chi per aria c' era accidia e tradimentu! e so subitu partiti tutti i lupi cun l'agnelli e marchjavanu adduniti a lu son' di i cialambelli quandu ghjunsenu in la serra ti taglionu i garganelli quand' eu intensi ii briono m'affaccai a lu purtellu dumandai: "chi nova c'he?" anu tombu u to frateddu l'anu presu ind'a sarra n'anu fattu lu maceddu a guarda ie to ferrite my pain increased why do you no longer answer me? has your heart really gone? o cani, beloved of your sister you have changed color! i want powder and cartridges to load my gun i want to put on an ammunition belt i want to arm myself with a pistol o cani, beloved of your sister i want to avenge you. ruth emily rosenberg mi s' accresce lu dulore perche pili nun mi rispondi? forse ti manca lu core? o cani, cor di suredda ai cambiatu di culore! vogliu polvere e cartucci per arma la mio schjuppetta vogliu cinghje la carchera vogliu cinghje la tarzetta o cani, cor di suredda vogliu fa la to vindetta. (rocchi 2004) though the text used by rocchi and the cd liner notes make it clear that caninu is a song about french injustices against corsicans, it is inter­ esting to note that the earliest song collections (tommaseo [1841] 1973; fee [1850] 2001; viale [1855] 1984) tell a somewhat different story. they suggest that the massacre in the voceru was part of a long-standing feud between the bandit caninu and his rivals, who, with the help of some sol­ diers, ambushed and killed seven men, including caninu. these sources do not mention of the involvement of french forces or marbeuf, nor do they identify galloni, though his name still appears in these versions. more re­ cent studies describe the historical context of the song in the same way rocchi does in her liner notes: as a massacre of about a hundred disarmed shep­ herds by marbeuf and corsican "traitors." it may be that the familiar ver­ sion of caninu is a combination of two different voceri, as ghjermana de zerbi has suggested (1983), which would explain the discrepancy. it may also be that the political climate of corsica during the late-twentieth cen­ tury shifted the song's emphasis onto the french/corsican conflict. while the exact provenance or historical accuracy of the song is in ques­ tion, it is clear that rocchi chose this particular voceru because of the song's political and historical import. as a voceru, it is, in fact rather unconven­ tional in that it has such a strong narrative component; most familiar voceri, by contrast, are more personal and mournful than caninu. in rocchi's ver­ sion, several verses of caninu that address the mourner's grief are omitted. as a result, her lament sounds more like a ballad with its emphasis on the historical episode. rocchi's caninu is thus primarily framed as a song of protest against french injustices in corsica, and only secondarily as a la­ ment. shepherds like the ones massacred in fiumorbu, rocchi explained to me, represented the freedom and autonomy of corsican society before it became french. the voceru serves as an important reminder of france's mistreatment of corsicans, a subject that, rocchi said, "we can relate to 45 46 current musicology today." as political commentary, rocchi's voceru avoids the sentimentality and nostalgia that has characterized "folkloric" or popular renderings of the female repertoire. it retains, however, the social and political efficacy of the female lament tradition. given rocchi's political motivations and the obvious novelty of the ar­ rangement, the authenticity of her song with respect to a corsican musical tradition might seem beside the point. however, rocchi herself stressed to me that her primary concern to avoid distorting (denaturer) the meaning of the lament. above all, for her this meant remaining true the emotions of the composer/improviser. she had at first objected to gineste's arrange­ ment of caninu on these grounds. however, she later decided that the in­ strumental accompaniment contributed to the song's emotional intensity by underscoring key moments in the narrative. for example, the song be­ gins with rocchi singing the first verse unaccompanied, highlighting sev­ eral essential aspects of the text. in this verse the mourner not only states her intention to lament but claims her right and her ability to be heard far and wide. only the sound of thunder could be loud enough, violent enough to express her outrage. she identifies the community affected by the mur­ der, which includes not only the bereaved but presumably the murderers as well, whom she singles out in the last line. this statement is juridical; though she ironically suggests that she wants to sing gallonu's praises, she is actu­ ally accusing of him of the craven "feat" of killing defenseless men. the authority of the solo voice and the improviser having been estab­ lished, stanzas two through four narrate the buildup to the massacre with accompaniment that also grows in intensity. a spare guitar accompaniment joins the voice on the second verse, to which drums are added on the third stanza. an ethereal sounding electric keyboard enters during an uncertain pause before stanza four. the introduction of the electronic sound is very unexpected in this context; coming after the line "murder and treason;' its unnatural quality suggests perversity of the soldiers' mission and an omi­ nous "ill wind" that predicts "misfortune and terror." the keyboard motive recurs after every subsequent stanza, as the guitar, bass, and drums build intensity. in the sixth stanza the texture thins abruptly. the guitar drops out, leaving the drums, bass, and an electronic effect that simulates a choir sustained faintly behind rocchi. the significance of this stanza within the context of the voceru is that it marks the definitive end to the narrative por­ tion and focuses instead on the sister's emotional state. also, caninu is re­ ferred to by name for the first time, and the lam enter establishes her close proximity to his body. the content of this stanza is also perhaps the most typical of the voceru genre; the sister addresses her dead brother in an inti­ mate manner, expressing disbelief ("why don't you answer me?") and resigruth emily rosenberg nation ("you have changed color!"). from this realization, "witnessed" by the electronic "voices" that accompany her, the threats of the final stanza begin. the texture reaches its thickest point during this verse, as the full accompaniment returns to back up the unlikely avenger. despite her initial reluctance to record a voceru that departed so funda­ mentally from the tradition, rocchi's efforts do serve, in some sense, the primary goal of a voceru performance. from her perspective, the instru­ mental accompaniment enhances the "drama" of her performance and "gives it the strength it needs" through dynamic, timbral, and textural contrasts. in a traditional performance this emotional intensity would be communi­ cated through other means: sobbing or icons of crying, audible breathing, melodic contour, physical gestures, etc. by relying heavily on the instru­ mental accompaniment rocchi approaches the affective ideal of lamenta­ tion on the recording without having to emote "artificially" with her voice. this compromise suggests to me an effort on rocchi's part to distance her interpretation of caninu from the traditional funeral rite and avoid a disre­ spectful or disingenuous "reenactment" of grief. the peculiarities of the text-in particular the way in which the sister sets herself up as a detached narrator of events-make it suited to this more declamatory and less intro­ spective interpretation. rocchi's performance also represents a departure from older, more sentimentalized renditions of laments that reflected the influence of the french and italian chanson style. is this earlier, "folklorized" style employed the upper register and a great deal of vibrato, resulting in a much gentler, self-consciously "expressive" tone. rocchi's strong middle reg­ ister creates a more heroic sounding lament and turns caninu, by the last verse, into a true battle cry. in these ways, rocchi's voice reflects the political and aesthetic agendas of the riacquisto, which sought to replace a "diluted, often derivative, and inescapably commercial or tourist-oriented product with 'real' corsican voices" (bithell1996:42). though it has been somewhat difficult for female singers to participate in the male-dominated music scene in corsica, caninu represents one strat­ egy for overcoming this obstacle. like women who sing polyphony, rocchi has found a means by which to express her cultural pride and political en­ gagement. unlike female polyphony groups, rocchi's means do not involve "trespassing" into traditionally male spaces of music making. instead, rocchi has sought what she believes is a distinctly feminine mode in which to ex­ press herself. for her, this means not just the voceru or the lullaby that ap­ pear on her album, but also the newly-composed chansons that address po­ litical and social struggles all over the world. it is women more than men who are moved by the suffering of others, rocchi told me, which is why, in 47 48 current musicology corsican society, it has traditionally been women who sing about subjects like death. her belief seems to have been formed in her early years singing in all-male singing groups. although she identified with the same political and cultural causes as her fellow singers, she says found it hard to "find a place." men and women simply have different ways of expressing them­ selves, she told me. observing that corsicans can "defend their culture in many ways;' she says that, for her, singing a voceru is "a way of defending something:' by deploying caninu as a tool of political protest rocchi helps reclaim the female repertory as historically, musically, and politically meaningful. she places herself in a tradition of singing about the conflict between france and corsica, transforming the voceru from a dead tradition into an effective practice. moreover, she cultivates a degree of identification with traditional female singing practices in corsica by insisting on the special responsibility of women to sing about social struggle and conflict. for rocchi, this re­ sponsibility extends beyond the corsica to the rest of world. 16 her experi­ ment suggests that the capacity of the female voice, and especially the fe­ male lament, to move between different realms of existence and even cross into zones of conflict may indeed make it a tool for the mediation of the national, religious, and ethnic boundaries that mark conflict in the twenty­ first century. notes i would like to thank gary tomlinson for his guidance and his assistance with this paper. i am grateful also to carol muller, anna rocchi, and especially to caroline bithell, who pro­ vided me with generous aid and valuable insights while i was conducting my fieldwork in corsica in 2004. 1. collections that include a significant amount oflaments include tommaseo ([ 1841] 1973), fee ([1850] 2001), ortoli (1992), marcaggi ([1898] 2001), and viale ([1855] 1984), from whose text most of the examples in this essay are drawn. 2. see for example beaulieu-delbet ([1897]1992), gregorovius (1855), and saint-germain (1869). 3. the work of fernand ettori (1978, 1979), who spearheaded a broad inquiry in the 1970s based at the centre des etudes corses, is of particular importance. also see southwell-colucci (1933) andzerbi (1988). 4. quilici's recordings were made in 1948, 1949, and 1960-63. laade's field recordings were made in 1956, 1958, and 1973. both collections are held at the phonotheque of the musee de la corse in corte. two commercially recordings are also available (see discography). 5. the important elements, conventions, and symbols of the greek lament tradition are discussed in detail in the seminal work of alexiou, yatromanolakis, and roilos (2002). 6. all translations are mine unless otherwise noted. variations in the original corsican of ruth emily rosenberg some laments reflect the dialect of different locales and are reproduced as they appear in the original source. 7. it has been demonstrated that in corsica tombs and other funerary markers are particu­ larly significant as delimiters of different cosmic (as well as social and geographical) spheres (caisson 1978). for more on corsican beliefs aboutthe spirit realm, see carrington (1971:4561). 8. for a discussion of the wide variation of women's roles and responsibilities in rural corsica in the late-nineteenth century, see ravis-giordani (1979). 9. though ettori (1979) provides a valuable discussion of how voceri expressed familial tensions and acrimony among the living, he does not fully explore the degree to which ex­ pressions of discord in voceri relate specifically to women's lives. 10. recent scholarship suggests this remains a concern in parts of greece. michael herzfeld, in his study of masculinity and conflict in crete, noted in one case that villagers feared the improvised laments of an outraged widow would "plant in her impressionably young chil­ dren the seed offuture revenge" (1985:87). 11. seremetakis argues that maniat laments can function as truth-claims supported by the "inherently jural and historicizing structure" of antiphony (1990:508). the antiphonal na­ ture of voceru performance, though not discussed in detail here, suggests that corsican la­ ment served a similar "record-keeping function" for the community in conflict. 12. though much has been made. of the way in which voceri contributed to conflict and feuding, the juridical nature of lament could also temper interfamilial or inter-communal enmities. except in extreme circumstances or in the case of homicide, attendance at funerals was obligatory for every member of the community. therefore, the rite afforded feuding factions a liminal context in which to convene. voceri might speak to these tensions and serve to diffuse them. this is another way in which the special authority of the lament granted women a degree of political influence within the seemingly narrow funereal context (wil­ son 1988:384). 13. all subsequent quotes refer to the same interview. 14. see arrighi-landini (1997) for a detailed analysis of the narrative, metrical, and rhyme structure of this particular lament. 15. two examples of voceri in this style can be found on a disc by ciosi and nicolai (1990). for additional remarks on this style, see bithell (2003:47). 16. bithell has noted that women's polyphony groups are likewise much more outwardly directed and concerned with more global issues, while men's groups remain more engaged with corsica's immediate political, economic, and environmental problems (2003:59). references alexiou, margaret, dimitrios yatromanolakis, and panagiotis roilos. 2002. the ritual la­ ment in greek tradition, 2nd ed. lanham, md: rowman & littlefield. arrighi-landini, marie-joseph. 1997. voceru-poesie: la naissance du chant. etudes corses 49: 5-28. auerbach, susan. 1987. from singing to lamenting: women's musical role in a greek vil­ lage. in women and music in cross-cultural perspective, edited by e. koskoff, 25-43. new york: greenwood press. 49 50 current musicology beaulieu-delbet, j. (1897]1996. souvenirs de corse. 1897. nimes: lacour. bithell, caroline. 1996. polyphonic voices, national identity, world music, and the record­ ing of traditional music in corsica. british journal of ethnomusicology 5: 39-66. __ . 2003. a man's game? engendered song and the changing dynamics of musical activity in corsica. in music and gender: perspectives from the mediterranean, edited by t. magrini, 33-66. chicago: university of chicago press. __ . forthcoming. transported by song: corsican voices from oral tradition to world stage. oxford: the scarecrow press. briggs, charles l. 1992. "since i am a woman, i will chastise my relatives": gender, re­ ported speech, and the (re)production of social relations in warao ritual wailing.ameri­ can ethnologist 19 (2): 337-61. __ .1993. personal sentiments and polyphonic voices in warao women's ritual wailing. american anthropologist 95: 929-57. caisson, max. 1978. le mortes et les limites. in pieve e paesi: communautes rurales corses, edited by m. caisson, 159-68. paris: centre national de la recherche scientifique. caraveli, anna. 1986. the bitter wounding: the lament as social protest in rural greece. in gender and power in rural greece, edited by jill dubisch, 169-94. princeton: princeton university press. caraveli-chaves, anna. 1980. bridge between worlds: the greek women's lament as com­ municative event. journal of american folklore 368 (93): 129-57. carrington, dorothy. 1971. granite island: portrait of corsica. london: longmans. danforth, loring m., and alexander tsiaras. 1982. the death rituals of rural greece. princeton: princeton university press. ettori, fernand. 1978. introduction a l' etude du vocero. in pieve e paesi: communautes rurales corses, edited by m. caisson, 246-67. paris: centre national de la recherche scientifique . . 1979. le vocero comme catharsis des tensions familiales et sociales. etudes corses 7 (12-13): 177-200. fee, a. l.a. (1850] 2001. voceri: chants populaires de la corse. nimes: lacour. foley, helene. 1993. the politics of tragic lamentation. in papers from the greek drama conference: nottingham, 18-20 july 1990, edited by a. h. sommerstein, 101-43. bari: levante editori. gregorovius, ferdinand. 1855. wanderings in corsica, vol 2, translated by alexander muir. edinburgh: thomas constable and co. gregory, desmond. 1985. the ungovernable rock. london and toronto: associated univer­ sity press. herzfeld, michael 1985. the poetics of manhood. princeton: princeton university press. johnson, elizabeth l. 1988. grieving for the dead, grieving for the living: funeral laments of hakka women. in death ritual in late imperial and modern china, edited by j. l. watson and evelyn s. rawski, 135-63. berkeley: university of california press. magrini, tullia. 1995. ballad and gender: reconsidering narrative singing in northern eu­ rope. ethnomusicology online 1. http://research.umbc.edu/eol/ (august 3, 2005] ---. 1998. women's work of pain in christian mediterranean europe. music and an­ thropology 3. http://www.muspe.unibo.it/period/ma/ (august 3, 2005] magrini, tullia, ed. 2003. music and gender: perspectives from the mediterranean. chicago: university of chicago press. marcaggi, jean-baptiste. (1898] 2001. les chants de la mort et de la vendetta de la corse. nimes: lacour. ortoli, jean baptiste frederic. 1887. les voceri de l'ile de corse. paris: e. leroux. ravis-giordani, georges. 1979. la femme corse: images et realites. in pieve e paesi: communautes rurales corses, edited by m. caisson, 191-207. paris: centre national de la ruth emily rosenberg recherche scientifique. rocchi, anna. 2004. interviewed by the author together with caroline bithell. salini, dominique. 2000. corse: polyphonies feminines. in corsica: polyphoniesfeminines/ women's polyphonies, 3-13. buda records 1977772. saint-germain, leonard de. 1869. itineraire descriptif et historique de la corse. paris, n.p. seremetakis, c. nadia. 1990. the ethics of antiphony: the social construction of pain, gender, and power in the southern peloponnese. ethos 18 (4): 481-51l. ---.1991. the last word: women, death, and divination in inner mani. chicago: uni­ versity of chicago press. southwell-colucci, edith. 1933. canti populari corsi. livorno: giusti. tolbert, elizabeth. 1990a. magico-religious power and gender in the karelian lament. in music, culture and gender, edited by marcia herndon and susanne ziegler, 41-56. ber­ lin: institute for comparative music studies. ---. 1990b. women cry with words: symbolization of affect in the karelian lament. yearbook for traditional music 22: 80-122. ---. 1994. the voice of lament: female vocality and performative efficacy in the finn­ ish karelian itkuvirsi. in embodied voices, edited by leslie c. dunn and nancy a. jones, 179-94. cambridge: cambridge university press. tommaseo, niccohlo. [1841]1973. canti popolari toscani, corsi, illirici, greci. bologna: forni. urban, greg. 1988. ritual wailing in amerindian brazil. american anthropologist 90: 385400. viale, salvatore. [1855]1984. canti popolari corsi. bologna: forni. vuillier, gaston. 1896. the forgotten isles, impressions of travel in the balearic isles, corsica, and sardinia. new york: d. appleton & co. wilson, stephen. 1988. feuding, conflict, and banditry in nineteenth-century corsica. cam­ bridge: cambridge university press. zerbi, ghjermana de. 1983. l'image de l'homme et celie de la femme dans ie vocabulaire affectif des voceri. dea institut de linguistique et phonetique: aix-en-provence. ---. 1988. pleureuses traditionnelles corses: ie panegyrique du patrilignage. peuples mediterraneens 44-45: 89-107. discography ciosi, antoine and maryse nicolai. 1990. canti pupulari di corsica. consul cm 88.09. laade, wolfgang. 1990. corsica: traditional songs and music. jecklin disco jd650-2. l'esiliu, donni di . 2000. corsica: polyphonies feminines/women's polyphonies. buda records 1977772. quilici, felix. 1982. musique corse de tradition orale. archives sonores de la phonotheque national apn82-1/3. rocchi, anna. 2004. da i'alturaghja. albiana cdalo 16. 51 robert j. dietzthe operatic style of marc blitzstein in the american (( agit-prop" era ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 70-15,591, 1970. 475 pp., university of iowa diss.) edward berlin as part of an ongoing study of music in the united states between the world wars, dr. dietz focuses in this dissertation upon the period of the depression and on a single artistic manifestation of that era, as represented by marc blitzstein. the scope of the essay is exceedingly broad, encompassing social, economic, and political aspects, as well as the relevant musical and theatrical trends. this overview, an attempt to capture the very spirit of the era, is wholly appropriate, for blitzstein was an outspoken participant in society, an artist notably conscious of his role and responsibilities. dr. dietz's organization is clear and logical. as background he considers blitzstein's early training and influences; the effect of social and economic conditions on the arts; federal support of music and theater; the influence of labor movements on theater; and the influences of brecht, weill, and eisler. following this section is an account of blitzstein's musical and theatrical activities between 1936 and 1941 which concentrates on two stage productions, the cradle will rock and no for an answer, and a song-play for radio, i've got the tune. the final portion is devoted to an examination of the music. the biographical outline draws upon personal papers on deposit at the state historical society of wisconsin, letters from blitzstein to dr. dietz (1963), and published materials. it is undoubtedly the most authentic compilation of facts on the composer, and it corrects numerous errors which appear in standard reference works. however, the author sometimes fails to analyze or interpret new data he is introducing. for example, the most startling of these corrections, relegated to a footnote, is the disclosure that blitzstein did not die in an automobile accident; rather, he was the victim of a vicious beating (p. 15, fn. 26)! but there is no further discussion or speculation on this point. what is the source of the information? why were the newspapers misinformed? was there an investigation? was there any political motivation for the crime? of greater relevance for the present study is the examination of blitzstein's musical training, his family background, and his moral and ethical values. as a well-rounded musician with exceptional performing abilities, he crowned his formal training, in 1926-28, by studying with both boulanger 120 and schoenberg. on his return to the united states, he was viewed as a promising young composer in the stravinsky orbit (p. 138). that he then rejected the imposing and respected language of the avant-garde in favor of broadway was a surprising development, but one, as the author convincingly explains, which was totally consistent with his conception of art. blitzstein's early life, experiences, and influences, as described by dr. dietz, clearly delineate the inevitability of his embrace of marxist ideals. these ideals, however, clashed sharply with the elitist implications of his sophisticated musical style, and it was the political side of his nature which gradually became dominant. as a social visionary who would not divorce art from life, blitzstein chose to use his music as a weapon for his ideals and to popularize his style to widen his audience. the intellectual processes which directed his musical choices are traced by dr. dietz through the composer's writings in such publications as modern music, the musical quarterly, new masses, and the new york times. at the same time the reader is made aware of the added dimension of blitzstein as critic-a most eloquent and perceptive commentator on the then-current musical scene. the year 1935 witnessed his active entry into "agit-prop" -agitationpropaganda-art. his first such work, "send for the militia," a song-skit based on a workers' insurrection in spain in 1934, was included in parade, a collectively written leftist-oriented revue. significantly, in 1935 he also joined the composers' collective and renewed his acquaintance with brecht and eisler. surveying blitzstein's creative activity, dr. dietz examines each of the works written between 1936 and 1941. the circumstances surrounding each composition and production are outlined, along with a synopsis of the text or dramatic action and a summary of the public and critical response. the cradle will rock (1937) is discussed in greatest detail, for there were many extraneous events which helped to make it a spectacular success: the coincidental resemblance to a current steel dispute in which strikers were killed; its status as a production of the federal theater project of the wpa and the government's attempts at censorship; the resourcefulness of director orson welles in leading the audience of almost 1,000 on a march up broadway to a nongovernment theater; the union restrictions which resulted in the actors performing in the audience, and marc blitzstein alone providing the music from a piano on the stage. the facts as presented arc intriguing, well-researched, and documented. i t is all the more curious, then, that two fairly obvious errors should appear. first, the reader is misled with the implication that blitzstein was joined on the stage by other musicians (p. 207): the orchestra musicians (or those who chose to participate) were not to be placed in the orchestra pit, but upon the stage, in which case they would be considered to be part of a concert .... 121 dr. dietz never explains that the muslcians chose not to participate, the lone exception being an accordionist who joined in briefly from the audience.1 the second error concerns a misreading of the play. dr. dietz designates a leitmotif for occurrences of murder and in the process rewrites the text to suit his theory (p. 298): ... mr. mister directs dr. specialist to tell news reporters that the murdered joe worker fell and was killed in the steel mill because he was intoxicated. the text, however, states that the character was merely injured. he is referred to as "the machinist who got hurt," and the doctor who examines him "after his injury" states, "he was obviously intoxicated" (scene 9). in addition, the injured worker's name was joe hammer, not joe worker. accounts are given in less detail of blitzstein's incidental music for films and plays, a choral song, and a radio song-play. most of the composer's works were well received, and success was similarly anticipated for his second "agit-prop" opera depicting management's abuse of workers, no for an answer (1941). despite a favorable reception from critics, however, the work was a commercial failure. dr. dietz concludes that the public's desire for this type of protest theater diminished as economic conditions improved and offers a parallel in the decreased circulation of such leftist publications as the daily worker and new masses (p. 277). as with the previous opera, the discussion of no for an answer is informative but also not without shortcomings, this time in the form of contradictory accounts. the reader is led to believe that blitzstein decided to use only a piano in no for an answer, following the precedent accidentally established in the cradle will rock. on p. 262 dr. dietz states: with marc blitzstein again at the piano-this time in the orchestra pit .... and, on p. 269, there appears the following quotation from opera news: [no for an answer,] played without benefit of orchestra .... but then, on p. 339, one finds this unexplained statement about orchestration: as in the two earlier "agit-prop" works, the orchestration for no for an answer is not a major factor in the style. how is this contradiction to be reconciled? and why should the reader be expected to simply accept this unsupported and undiscussed opinion? dr. dietz summarizes blitzstein's career after 1941, indicating an abandonment of the "agit-prop" approach. according to his own testimony, blitzstein felt that the necessity for a unified war effort outweighed all other considerations, and it was for this reason that he put his "agit-prop" activities aside. it was not long before he again addressed himself to social themes, but the problems had changed, and he adjusted accordingly. this could indeed be the subject of another dissertation. 122 up to this point, dr. dietz's paper is to be commended for its extensive research and its generally logical presentation of facts. beginning with the section devoted to musical analyses, however, the value of the study decreases as the flaws become more frequent and glaring. for example, it appears that dr. dietz was unfamiliar with the term "segue." when finding it in a blitzstein score, he concluded not that the composer was following a traditional musical, and especially operatic, usage but that he had been influenced by his reading of radio scripts (p. 300, fn. 7): the term "segue," common to radio scripts, is frequently used between scenes in blitzstein's piano-vocal scores. this misunderstanding is not an isolated instance. furthermore, dr. dietz's analyses, replete with measure-counting and lengthy descriptions of stereotyped forms, lack direction and purpose. in his musical examples he frequently fails to establish any particular point and often overlooks what is significant. he does recognize that blitzstein, in applying himself to the vernacular, brought to it a dimension not usually found on broadway, but dr. dietz does not seem to show any understanding of the nature of this unique music. example 1, along with dr. dietz's comments, illustrates the lack of correspondence between example and description (p. 333): the chorus is heard here in the unison singing of a narrow-ranged melody which centers around c' and e' .... example 1: no for an answer, ii 5, mm. 4-8 44£tm 17 j i j p j 17 j i ffrt=t4fhft clearly, it is ed which is a focal point in this example, and not e. even if one assumes that the flat was omitted through a typographical error, no centricity can be attached to the ornamental c. he proposes mrs. mister's "hard times" song in cradle as typical of blitzstein's subtle technique, but the example again fails to establish his point (p. 305): the refrain is twenty-six measures long and in ternary form. the meter is primarily 4/4 with an occasional 3/2 measure to accommodate the text, and the tonality is e-flat major/minor. once more, the over-all impression is that of a commercial popular song but blitzstein again avoided the most obvious characteristics of that song type. what are these "most obvious characteristics" which are avoided? to the present writer, at least, the seven measures illustrated (mm. 18-24) suggest little out of the ordinary (ex. 2). 123 example 2 17 hard times i can assure youj hard tiaes, poor us and poor you. 7 ,7.,. t t 'l<#"" 1-. .,. + v+ + ..;.. .;11+. + w + -+ 7 hard times; fa ther what can we do? 7 ',," .:j. -w vr -t .urather than view the passage as a bimodal ed, it would be more plausible to place the tonal center at dd, interpreting the chords as: ii-v7 ofv-v7-i. there are no meter changes shown; besides, is dr. dietz suggesting that a composer is so controlled by his own text that he must resort to irregular metrics to "accommodate" the words? more likely, words and music are organized to achieve a desired rhythmic effect. on the other hand, he cites an extraordinary song (ex. 3), but, not seeing the possibilities for discussion, he appears almost apologetic at its assumed barrenness (pp. 296-97): the main body of the song is in strophic form, each strophe twentythree measures long. there are no variations in the two repetitions of the original statement. except for a slight irregularity in phrase lengths, the form and musical contents are simple and predictable. above all there is no use of dissonance or altered tones which are not traditional .... blitzstein, in his enthusiasm for a new musical ideology, had proceeded farther in the direction of traditional commercial music than his creative integrity would later allow. one could agree that "there are no variations in the two repetitions" only if the varied piano part were discarded. but beyond that, the song is rich in unexpected turns. the "slight irregularity of phrase length" is at the very heart of blitzstein's ability to keep the listener off balance. what starts off as an ordinary phrase in dd suddenly cadences a beat too soon, and in the "wrong" key! the dissonant harmonization of "sure" in the following phrase extension is hardly a part of the "traditional" broadway language, and the final cadence is again rhythmically misplaced, disrupting the anticipated equilibrium. rather than being "simple and predictable," this 124 example 3 i i j ::!jf v' i" 1 0, you can and slheme and haply put and j ___ " v l.:.....1 .qiijc 'l..:...! v _______ .,. i" i • i ----li. i l--.i ....,-i ",", ,,," # 11_ -; , , "'" aid put, but first !-mre \ the nick-ell s i' , , i i l-! r r dint.. -l :'j. .7 ). $ $. song is a classic example of blitzstein's disposition to affect a commonplace manner while achieving an uncommon result. a consideration which should form a major part of any dramatic-musical examination, but which occurs only rarely here, is the relationship between music and drama. interpretations of this type may be debatable but should still be ventured. in commenting on the use of a chorale for reverend salvation's sermons in cradle, dr. dietz makes some valid points: the obvious significance of a religious melody in this context and the ironic comparison between the chorale's original title, "brunnquell aller guter," and the reverend's willingness to alter his morality for a price. he locates the source in the "69 chorale melodies" appended to collections of bach chorales but neglects to mention that blitzstein preserves the original bass line. but there are more serious flaws in the author's analysis and interpretation, as he tends to overlook the correlation between musical device and dramatic meaning (p. 305): 125 the chorale melody is in two parts, each repeated, and in e minor throughout. the first appearance of each part is accompanied by the melody and bass line, without harmonization. each repetition is harmonized in simple chordal style. as the description is incorrect, a valid interpretation is impossible. actually, the repetitions are not "harmonized in simple chordal style"; every other chord change is omitted! could it not be that blitzstein is suggesting that there is something essential lacking in the reverend? in a following passage, dr. dietz again seems to miss the dramatic context of the musical setting. when the reverend agrees, for a substantial contribution, to alter his previous sermon and preach on the virtues of war, we hear a variation of the first chorale (p. 306): ... blitzstein chose to introduce a contrapuntal chorale variation as accompaniment for the reverend salvation's sermon. the second part is an example of blitzstein satirically incorporating the extreme contrapuntal dissonance of those composers whose craft he admired but whose social significance he doubted. the author wisely avoids mentioning which of the "admired" composers is being parodied, for there is no obvious candidate. besides, there is no reason for such a parody. more likely, as the sermon is varied, so is the music. and as christian morality is distorted by the reverend, the chorale, representing traditional christian values, is similarly abused with dissonance. it is unfortunate that dr. dietz's lack of success in discussing blitzstein's music itself detracts from the accomplishments in the earlier parts of the paper. the gathering together of factual information, the correlation with the social, political, and economic milieu, and the presentation of blitz stein's critical writings give this dissertation value. i t is to be hoped that, should dr. dietz continue to examine american music between the world wars, he will approach the musical problems with some of the ability evidenced in his research. note 1 marc blitzstein discusses his theater compositions, spoken arts 717. dr. dietz is aware of this recording and mentions it on p. 311, but he does not list it in his sources. [ed. note: musical examples are quoted from the dissertation of dr. dietz, who based them on the manuscript scores. the examples are used by permission of the executors of the estate of marc blitzstein. the cradle will rock copyright © 1938, 1964, and no for an answer copyright © 1941, 1969. edward davis, and josephine davis, executors of the estate of marc blitzstein. ] 126 mozart's string q,uartet k. 465: the history if a controversy julie anne vertrees mozart's string quartet in c major has been the subject of criticism and controversy since its composition in 1785. the debate has centered upon the opening measures of the introduction to the first movement, with the method and thrust of the argument shifting from one generation to the next. despite the stature of the composer and the existence of a carefully written autograph, which indicates that only two changes were made as the introduction was copied,! mozart's intentions have been questioned. much of the discussion has revolved around possible errors of harmony and counterpoint and attempts to correct them. the following pages chronicle the time in which the introduction was controversial, although a detailed discussion of the respective analyses is beyond the scope of this article. while visiting vienna in 1785, haydn heard the quartet performed and expressed his deep respect for mozart's gifts as a composer.2 mozart returned the compliment by dedicating the set of quartets to haydn; the first edition, published by artaria in the same year, carries the dedication in italian.3 artaria's advertisement in the 17 september 1785 issue of the wiener zeitung (no. 75,2191) is indicative of the status of mozart's reputation: "mozart's works call for no special praise, so that it should be quite superfluous to go into details; it need only be affirmed that here is a masterpiece."4 franz xaver niemetschek, in his leben des k. k. kapellmeisters wolfgang gottlieb mozart . .. (prague, 1798/1808), praised the quartets as " ... a treasurehouse of the finest thoughts" and deserving of haydn's acclaim.5 the controversy began when the vienna correspondent for carl cramer's magazin der musik expressed his reservations in a report which appeared in the issue of 23 april 1787: he is the most skillful and best keyboard scholar i have ever heard; the pity is only that he aims too high in his artful and truly beautiful compositions, in order to become a new creator, whereby it must be said that feeling and heart profit little; his new quartets for 2 violins, viola and bass, which he has dedicated to haydn, may well be called too highly seasoned-and whose palate can endure this for long? forgive this simile from the cookery book .... 6 a letter printed in the july 1789 issue was more enthusiastic: ... his six quartets for violins, viola and bass dedicated to haydn confirm it once again that he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and the unusual. but then, what great and elevated ideas he has too, testifying to a bold spirit!7 the ii september 1799 issue of the allgemeine musikalische zeitung (amz) reported two anecdotes about mozart's "haydn" quartets which have been 96 frequently quoted. according to that journal, the parts were returned to artaria from italy because of so many "errors," and in hungary count grassalkowich angrily tore up the parts after first accusing the players of making mistakes and then concluding that the parts were full of misprints.s giuseppe sarti was apparently the first to scrutinize the introduction to k. 465 closely and to offer specific criticism. in a disparaging essay, probably written while he was kapellmeister of the russian court from 1784 to 1802, sarti berated mozart for composing cross-relations in the introduction to k. 465 and also in the development of the first movement ofk. 421.9 when sarti left milan in 1784 to join the russian court in st. petersburg, he stopped in vienna on his way. mozart wrote his father on may 8th that "sarti is expected here any day on his way through to russia," and on june 12th: tomorrow herr ployer, the agent, is giving a concert in the country at d6bling, where fraulein babette [barbara ployer] is playing her new concerto in g [k. 452] and i am performing the quintet [k. 453]; we are then playing together the grand sonata for two claviers [k. 448]. i am fetching paisiello in my carriage, as i want him to hear both my pupil and my compositions. if maestro sarti had not had to leave vienna today, he too would have come with me. sarti is a good honest fellow! i have played a great deal to him and have composed variations on an air of his which pleased him exceedingly [k. 460] .10 it is puzzling, then, that sarti referred to mozart in parentheses as one "whom i neither know nor wish to know," and that, after lambasting the quartets, he concluded his essay by asking " ... will anyone be found to print such music ?"ll as for cross-relations, sarti recognized only two kinds-those that should be avoided and those that were intolerable. the first, apatame, ". . . also called a minor semi tone, or false unison, is the succession of two notes bearing the same literal name, as f, f#; e, and the second, minima, is " ... an interval [enharmonic interval] taking the name of two contiguous degrees of the scale, the lower of which is #, the upper as d#, f#, the latter created the worse effect when not concealed and, in fact, sarti felt that "whoever is guilty of them [both kinds of cross-relations] must possess ears lined with iron." sarti referred vaguely to the "old masters" as his source of authority and claimed that while they were guided by sensitive ears, the "barbarians" of today compose " ... passages which truly make us shudder." his analysis, in an impatient, arrogant tone, is laced with snide references to mozart as a mere pianoforte player with "spoilt ears," incapable of distinguishing between and d#12 (ex. 1). one can only speculate about sarti's reasons for attacking mozart. according to dieter lehmann, the chamber music of haydn and mozart and mozart's operas (die zaubedfote in particular) were very popular among russian music lovers in the late 18th century. sarti perhaps resented mozart's 97 popularity and was able to vent his frustrations in letters and at court, where he could exert his influence upon the musical taste of its according to the amz's milan correspondent, dr. peter lichtenthal, sarti's essay was suppressed by the milanese composer and theorist bonifacio asioli. lichtenthal briefly described the "osservazioni critiche sopra un example 1* .i adagio r. --: yioiinoi / crt'lsc. f yiolirw /1 / ii--/ viola .". j c.'esc. f i \...j!::] "lalo1ue/io r ("i',-sf', ./, 6 fr. ----:-----.. :.-;;:p.ti. i cresco p ... r ... . f / 1'1' j ---'crese. f 12 ./ , .... 17 fl' tc 1'1 oj . . el"t'h/', -.... '-----. y , ,1 ;;;p --------+ y. ll} sip p p p -------p '--" '-' .. . sf t:'i ehlt:'i 's'rp\ f p t:'i y' fp t:'i fp sfp t:'i '---;;-r;;f * this example, with the author's analytical markings added, is reproduced with the kind permission of barenreiter verlag, kassel, basel, london, and tours, publisher of wolfgang amadeus mozart, neue ausgabe siimtlicher werke, in association with the cities of augsburg, salzburg, and vienna, under the direction of the international mozarteum foundation, series 8, group 20, part i: string quartets, vol. 2 (ba 4530), p. 145, edited by ludwig finscher. 98 quartetto di mozart" in a communication to the amz in 182414 and two years later published his dizionario e bibliografia della musica (milan, 1826), which contained an italian translation of the amz communication (vol. 4, p. 481). it is interesting to note that the title specifies "un quartetto," whereas the essay examines two quartets. (for a further discussion of this, see below.) in the amz article lichtenthal revealed that karl mozart had read the essay and felt it to have been written in "einem grausamen [inhuman] tone." asioli refused to grant lichtenthal permission to publish the "osservazioni," but upon asioli's death in 1832 lichtenthal secured a copy and printed excerpts, translated into german, in the 6 june 1832 issue of the amz.15 in the meantime, a heated debate took place during the years 1829-32 between the franco-belgian critic and musicologist fetis and an unknown correspondent writing in german under the pseudonym "a. c. leduc." fetis took up where sarti left off by offering an article in his own periodical, la revue musicale (rm). while conceding that beyond a small number of objectionable measures the quartet was truly a masterpiece, he described the introduction as "bizarre" and accused mozart of taking "pleasure in tormenting a delicate ear." after closely examining the harmony, he was struck by the ease with which he could eliminate such"objectionable" places by making minor changes, and in such a way that the introduction would conform to the rules of all schools of counterpoint.l6 fetis based his "corrections" on a rule in his 1821 traite du contrepoint et de la fugue,l7 which stated that in an imitation consisting of alternate entries at the fifth and fourth, there should always be a greater distance between the second and third entrances than between the first and second. not merely content to criticize with words, fetis went on to present an "improved" version of the opening measures. he delayed the entrance of the first violin one beat in measure two, and in measures two and three he substituted the dotted-quarter-eighth figure for the quarter notes in the viola and violins, thereby delaying the lower neighbor tones and softening the dissonance (ex. 2)18: example 2 ,..---,.. . .-----;--.. '1n.1 , fl l ---'in. 2 "--.. 1--.' .... "-"""" -viz. l_ i-'j "i\" ..1 vic. li( __ .... d 99 the peculiarities of the introduction may have first come to fetis's attention when he read lichtenthal's communication of 1824 in the amz. although he may have been advised by luigi cherubini, who at one time was a student of sarti,19 fetis's references to sarti and to the "osservazioni" reflect a knowledge of only the limited information contained in the amz's brief description. fetis's first impression was that mozart could not possibly have composed so carelessly and that undoubtedly "some ignorant copyist" was at fault. however, a pilgrimage to london to consult the autograph convinced him that the cross-relations were carefully notated in mozart's own hand. in his closing remarks he rather half-heartedly agreed with haydn that " ... if mozart wrote it so, he must have had his reasons for doing it."2o fetis recorded the reaction of the paris conservatory community to his article on several occasions. in his second response to leduc, fetis claimed that cherubini, catel, boieldieu, and reicha would support his analysis.21 ten years later he described their initial response: the day the issue which contained this article appeared, the faculty met at the conservatory. cherubini, catel, paer, boieldieu, and reicha, meeting one another there, spoke at length about the question that i had discussed [in the article], and, surprised at the simplicity of the solution which i supplied to the objections, they were astonished that it had taken so long to be discovered.22 finally, in 1884, fetis revealed that there had been, in fact, considerable debate: the affair caused some emotion at the paris conservatory, and during a meeting of the examination board which met at the same time, and when cherubini, boieldieu, paer, le sueur, reicha, berton, and the author of the article met with one another, diverse opinions on this subject were debated. le sueur remained silent, but boieldieu, paer, and berton condemned the harmonic progressions of the passage. reicha undertook their defense, but cherubini settled the question by exclaiming: "you don't know what you're saying; fetis is right. his rule is that of the proper school: it condemns this passage. "23 fran90is louis perne, fetis's esteemed predecessor at the conservatory library, was the first to speak out in public against fetis's presumption to correct mozart's music as if it were merely a student exercise. in a letter to fetis, written the week after fetis's article appeared and published in the following issue of rm,24 perne accused fetis of unjustly reprimanding mozart for employing the same modulations that were universally extolled in the works of bach and handel. he lashed out at fetis's bland conservatism and at composers who strove to be innovative yet lacked the courage to risk disapproval from the old guard.25 appended to perne's letter was an editorial rejoinder in which fetis pointed out that ever since the quartet was published, amateurs and professionals alike had rebelled against the passage without knowing why. 100 having perceived the underlying factors creating the bad effect, fetis adjusted the imitation to improve the harmony according to the rules of counterpoint. he vehemently denied he had been pretentious, retorting, "had i had the intention of correcting all that is shocking in the passage, i would have had a great deal to do."26 alexandre oulibicheff was singularly delighted with fetis's corrections, since: there probably is not a violinist who upon playing the a-natural of the second measure in the first violin, has not thought that [ either] his comrades or himself were playing incorrectly; but this dissonance is in the composition, and it returns one step [lower] on a g in the sixth measure.27 oulibicheff-no longer thwarted by cross-relations and improper imitationlooked forward to playing the quartet secure in the belief that fetis most probably had restored mozart's true intentions to the score. "a, c. leduc" entered the dispute with a lengthy polemic article in the amz, which appeared six months after fetis's first article. leduc immediately took the offensive and derided fetis for not taking into account the fact that mozart had dedicated this and five other quartets to haydn and therefore " ... would not have permitted the smallest careless mistake which could have been criticized."28 he defended mozart's right to exercise free will in composing but inferred that mozart could have composed better harmony had he wanted to. leduc then presented a revision of his own which retained mozart's sequence of entries (the a-natural in the first violin was shortened to conform with the melodic contour of the viola and second violin) but drastically altered the bass line and harmony-under the pretense of demonstrating what a travesty fetis had committed (ex. 3).29 leduc's unstated assumption was that he could correct mozart better than could fetis. the identity of a. c. leduc was a well-kept secret. undoubtedly a french name was chosen to gall fetis as much as possible. as a group, the german example 3 r' 1\ ,q.....-. • ... vii. i 1\ -vn.2 -----...--"' "--'" r-t--. via. 6 [b) -nj 4 #2_ vic. ... ...... 101 authors who contributed articles to the controversy seemed reluctant to have their names connected with the dispute. fetis confessed that the name a. c. leduc was totally unfamiliar to him in his reply to leduc's article,30 but eventually he became convinced that it had to be his rival, the austrian musicologist raphael-georg kiesewetter, an assumption he was to reiterate whenever possible; for their part, the germans remained silent. the 19thcentury music historian august wilhelm ambros did mention the dispute between kiesewetter (who was his uncle) and fetis over the mozart quartet on at least two occasions but never actually made a connection between kiesewetter and leduc.31 in 1826 both kiesewetter and fetis had entered the royal belgian academy competition for historical essays. the topic was: what merits have the netherlanders, particularly of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries, acquired in the area of music composition? and to what extent could those netherlandish musicians of the time who went to italy have had an influence on the music schools that shortly afterwards arose there ?32 kiesewetter won first prize and fetis second, touching off a lifelong rivalry between the two.33 the competition was evidently difficult to judge because the secretary of the competition noted that: kiesewetter's essay presented a general study of the history of the music of the period under consideration, but fetis supplied more precise details and was more thorough on a certain number of specific musicians,34 and both essays were published in a single volume. in his documentary biography of kiesewetter, herfrid kier produced letters from the former which indicate that kiesewetter was not leduc.35 in a letter of 27 march 1830 to georg p6lchau, kiesewetter declared that had the mysterious a. c. leduc not published his article, he would have been compelled to vindicate mozart himself.36 in july fetis's second article appeared, and when by september leduc had not responded, kiesewetter became impatient enough to write an open letter (in the form of analysis and commentary) to the editor of the amz, gottfried wilhelm fink, who finally published it as a supplement to the 27 july 1831 issue; kiesewetter signed it "c. m. balthaser."37 in it he declared that mozart had outgrown student exercises long before he composed the quartet, and, unlike composers "today," he was unaccustomed to explaining his work according to theories he himself formu1ated. 38 in another letter to p6lchau, dated 23 september 1832, kiesewetter admitted having written the balthaser article without mentioning the pseudonym itself. according to kier the balthaser article is listed in both kiesewetter's "handschriftlichen verzeichnis" and in the "schriftumsverzeichnis" of his autobiography.39 kiesewetter often wrote anonymously or under a pseudonym, whereas fetis always signed his own name. unlike fetis, who devoted his life to 102 musical endeavors, kiesewetter divided his time between music and government service. officially, he was a privy councillor ("hofrath") in vienna, and in 1843 he was made "edler von wiesenbrunn" by kaiser ferdinand.40 leopold von sonnleithner described kiesewetter as "jovial, charming, humorous,"41 and perhaps the combination of professional conscience and wit account for kiesewetter's habit of concealing his identity when taking fetis to task. at any rate, fetis soon saw kiesewetter's presence behind every article bearing an unfamiliar signature. ambros conjectured that " ... were fetis to have had the misfortune on the way home to be assaulted and robbed on a lonely path by a tramp, he would have asked: might that bandit have been perhaps kiesewetter in disguise ?"42 when kiesewetter died in 1850, a necrology by aloys fuchs appeared both in the neue zeitschrift fur musik (nz.fm) and in the conglomerate periodical la revue et gazette musicale de paris (r&gmp).43 fuchs provided a list of kiesewetter's works, which followed the biographical data and tributes. the german version included the balthaser article, but when the necrology appeared in paris, the first leduc article had been substituted,44 no doubt by f6tis. kier contends that fetis made the switch and calls it "a malicious insinuation."45 in his articles written in the 1830s, fetis identified leduc only as " ... a german disguised by a pseudonym,"46 but by 1850 he had apparently decided that leduc was kiesewetter and altered the necrology accordingly. this is confirmed by the second edition of volume 5 of biographie universelle, published in 1863, which included an entry for a. c. leduc, identifying him as one of kiesewetter's pseudonyms. in 1884 fetis, recounting the controversy again, connected kiesewetter with leduc in a footnote of his biographie universelle article on gottfried weber, who had entered the mozart controversy in 1832.47 despite f6tis's emphatic endorsement, there is reason to doubt that kiesewetter was leduc. leduc (whoever he was) was more intent upon discrediting fetis than defending mozart. f6tis was at the distinct disadvantage of not knowing the identities of his assailants, whereas leduc and balthaser could capitalize on f6tis's reputation as a conservatory pedant. leduc depicted fetis as a preceptor, mechanically correcting mozart's schulbocke (bloopers) without concern for creativity or beauty.48 the beethoven biographer wilhelm von lenz observed that fetis did not exempt anyone from the tyranny of "the rules," but by seeing what was unique as a violation of rules (albeit formulated after the fact), f6tis restricted his ability to perceive why a composition such as this introduction was unique. "the mozart text is somewhat piquant, but somewhat shocking it is not."49 balthaser expressed general dismay over the inadequacy of the harmony instruction at the paris conservatory and found it " ... hardly the athens of counterpoint" that f6tis seemed to imagine it.50 leduc attributed at least part off6tis's lack of insight to the fact that " ... f6tis probably demonstrates with rossini scores so often that his ear has become pampered and no longer 103 is accustomed to serious harmony."51 in addition, as balthaser pointed out, german ears had had the benefit of hearing bach and handel for the last century and therefore were not shocked by mozart. leduc's attitude toward fetis was always condescending, and leduc seemed to feel he possessed a close affinity to mozart by virtue of nationality that would enable him to interpret and represent mozart more accurately than fetis could: "we are convinced that had mozart lived, fetis's reproach would have caused [him] no anger."52 what irked leduc the most was not fetis's treatment of mozart but rather fetis's misrepresentation of leduc's own remarks. leduc's arguments depended upon a meticulous rendition of the content and design of fetis's articles; on the other hand, distortion and omission were fetis's only weapons against leduc. in his second article leduc criticized fetis's command of the german language and hastened to add that if fetis could not comprehend his carefully constructed logic, it was not leduc's fault. 53 leduc charged that since few frenchmen read german periodicals, their perspective was prejudiced by fetis's suppression and perversion of adverse criticism. in exasperation leduc asked, "in what light would fetis appear before his public if i chose to publish my articles in the french language ?"54 in contrast to fetis's short expositions leduc's two articles are excessively long-winded and encumbered by a profusion of musical examples-an indication that he took the matter far more seriously than fetis had ever intended to do. in his second article fetis exploited the german penchant for extended rhetoric: i will not present a long analysis of the meaning of mozart's composition because it is something which each is free to see as he wishes, and everyone knows the germans make great use of this liberty. as the proportion of decadence of true knowledge in your school becomes more imminent, more importance tends to be placed upon aesthetics. . . . . there are still skillful musicians in germany, but they do not write much.55 it is ironic that fetis failed to realize that he himself was to no small degree responsible for the rise of music criticism in france.56 both balthaser and leduc denied fetis's accusations and attempted to turn the tables by comparing the state of german counterpoint with that in france and by casting further scorn upon fetis. after leduc's second article, which appeared in two consecutive issues of the amz in february 1831, the feud between fetis and leduc ground to a halt. although fetis later reargued his position in a review57 and in his biographie universelle, leduc was never heard from again. he himself said he was necessarily created by fetis's audacity: "fecit indignatio versum!"58 in each of his articles leduc offered clues to his identity. in the 24 february 1830 article he described himself as "ein fremder" while employing the first person plural when speaking of germany. preceding the signature at the end of the article is: "wien, im jiinner, 1830. "59 in the 9 february 1831 104 article leduc gloated over fetis's inability to identify him and offered another hint: "his opponent is indeed a novel [neuer] man, who has never before written with respect to music."60 however, it is difficult to accept this last clue on face value in light of leduc's proven ability to put fetis, a professed music scholar and critic, on the defensive. perhaps he would have reappeared had the articulate gottfried weber not published the third edition of his versuch einer geordneten theorie der tonset;:,kunsl in 1832, which included a section entitled "on a particularly remarkable passage in mozart's violin quartet in c."61 this is the only composition discussed in such detail in the four-volume work, and, realizing the topical interest in the quartet, weber republished the section separately in his own periodical, ciicilia, in the same year.6:2 five years later johann georg kastner produced a french translation, entitled essai d'un tmorie systematique de la composition, and a year later, a synopsis in r&gmp.63 fetis undoubtedly became familiar with vveber's treatise through kastner's translation. the seven-year interim between the fetis-leduc altercation and fetis's publication of a review of weber's treatise, dealing specifically with the section on mozart's quartet introduction,64 suggests he did not read weber's treatise in german or the extracted article in ciicilia. the further publication of two english translations, an american edition in 1841-42 by james franklin warner65 and an english one in 1851 byjohn bishop,66 testifies to the popularity of weber's third edition. it was warner's intentional and unexplained omission of weber's discussion and analysis of the introduction to k. 465 which prompted bishop to reedit and emend the translation for publication in england.67 the flurry of literary activity surrounding weber's new, expanded edition was an appropriate response to his comprehensive and objective analysis of the introduction. the latter appeared in conjunction with a larger discussion of modulation, although weber had used the passage in the earlier editions ... as an example for the elucidation of this or that theoretical tenet, and consequently, for the most part, had fully analyzed whatever appeared peculiar or remarkable in these combinations of tones. before proceeding with the analysis, weber presented a documented summary of the controversy, based upon the articles of fetis, perne, and leduc. he agreed with sarti and fetis that the passage was "strange" but was the first to demonstrate why. while discouraging his readers from expecting ". . . a judgment on the frequent£v disputed theoretical allowableness and irregularity of the passage in question," weber attempted to examine the passage objectively from both grammatical and "rhetorical" perspectives. feeling that the dissonance was not wrong, he claimed that such peculiar sounds" ... must be employed for the sake of contrast." his irritation with fetisian dogma was undisguised: 105 once [and] for all, music is not a science endowed with mathematical deductions and completeness; it is not a system presenting us with absolute rules of permission or prohibition, the adoption of which can in all cases determine . . . the value or worthlessness, the accuracy or inaccuracy, the lawfulness or unlawfulness of this or that combination or succession of tones; and all the pretensions of those who have imagined they could found the theory of music on mathematics, and from such an assumed foundation deduce and establish absolute precepts, appear on the slightest examination as empty and ridiculous dreams .... but even weber dared to offer alternatives to mozart's opening measures. mter explaining how the succession of tones produces contradictory expectations and thus confuses the listener, weber presented six alternatives to the opening measures (ex. 4). example 4 furthermore, weber accused fetis of misapplying his own rule concerning the imitation and denounced the objections of leduc as inappropriate. in an attempt to offer a clever epilogue to the controversy, weber sought to show that mozart's passage did satisfy fetis's rule. according to weber, fetis simply did not recognize where the imitation began between the second and third entries. instead of comparing the distances between the entrances of the three upper voices as fetis had, weber focused on the dotted quarternotes of measures three and four in the second and first violins and showed 106 that at that point they were one beat farther apart than the distance between the entrances of the viola and second violin (ex. 5). example 5 a .-.. v/i.:1 , / • vn.1 ;.=i • . ..j.!:i 1....1. j .,.-.... vi,. ... vic. i' weber intended to include a more detailed discussion in a projected theory of double counterpoint, which, however, he never completed. weber deemed mozart's own "musically cultivated ear" the best judge of his work but admitted that he himself had reservations: as regards my own ear, i frankly confess that it does not receive pleasure from sounds like these;-on this subject i can freely speak as i think, and, in defiance of the silly and envious, dare even take up the haughty words and say: i know what i like in my mozart.68 it was to be expected that upon reading weber, fetis would feel compelled to justify his theories in public once again. he did so, of course, in his review of kastner's translation.69 fetis's tenacity led him to challenge weber to a debate in the presence of a bipartisan jury. he offered to present a history of music theory and unlimited demonstrations proving the infallibility of the natural doctrine of tonality-all of this in the course of five or six sessions of two hours each-upon the request of monsieur weber. he ended his review by describing weber's treatise as an " ... excellent collection of analytic observations, [although] it is not a theory ... "-contrary to what the title implied. 7o as stated earlier, lichtenthal published excerpts from the sarti ms. in 1832, which were translated a second time into english and published in the harmonicon in the same year.71 in the 1824 communication lichtenthal referred to sarti's streitschrift as "osservazioni critiche sopra un quartetto di mozart."72 other than a bibliographic description, the incipit of the introduction, and the closing line ("si puo per far stonare i professori ?"),73 no details were given. in 1832 lichtenthal published the excerpts under the title "esame acustico fatto sopra due frammenti di moazrt" but offered no explanation for the switch.74 the editor of the harmonicon commented upon the title" acoustical examination of two fragments of mozart" as follows: 107 the word acustico is here most improperly employed: the examination is into the practical effect of the passage in question, and does not concern the philosophical nature of the sounds introduced by the composer. the term esame is, unintentionally, very apt, for it signifies also a swarm cif bees. the assailants of mozart were not deficient in stings, though poor enough in honey; and their impotent attacks only caused his works to be sooner known and more widely circulated.75 instead of the italian question the "esame" concluded with a quotation in french from rousseau: "de la musique a faire boucher ses oreilles."76 there is reason to believe that lichtenthal fabricated the earlier title. prior to the 1824 communication, no one had associated theoretical works with the successful opera composer and kapellmeister. neither the 1792 nor the 1812 edition of gerber's lexicon der tonkilnstler mentions any essays, although several pages were devoted to sarti's career and compositions. the 1824 communication and the index to lichtenthal's dizionario e bibliographia della musica (1826) list two theoretical works in manuscript: "theorie de l'harmonie simultanee et successive" and "osservazioni critic he sopra un quartetto di mozart." between 1824 and 1832 every article and book mentioning sarti's :mozart criticism spoke of the "osservazioni" and usually quoted the closing line, thus indicating that their probable source was the 1824 communication rather than the manuscript itself. all books and articles written after the excerpts appeared referred to the "esame. "77 in his preface to the excerpts lichtenthal spoke of his vain attempts to see the manuscript while asioli was alive,78 and lichtenthal's knowledge of what the manuscript actually contained was probably sketchy at best, which may account for the fact that the "osservazioni" were allegedly only about one quartet. the harmonicon published the sarti excerpts in english because " ... the subject is interesting in a theoretical point of view and may induce some of our native artists to enter into a critical inquiry of the question at issue. "79 unfortunately, the harmonicon ceased publication the following year without having issued any rejoinders. the journal did, however, improve upon the typographical format of the article. in an apparent effort to make the analysis more concise, lichtenthal had occasionally summarized sarti instead of quoting him. whereas the amz made no typographical distinction between lichtenthal and sarti, the harmonicon set off the sarti quotations in apostrophes. lichtenthal appended a postscript to his translation, which also appeared in the english version: the whole thing smacks of envy. like every italian maestro, who knows a little more than another italian maestro, sarti is inflated with pride and considers himself great and famous. lylozart's memory ,vas still alive in milan, where he had created a brilliant era as a twelveand fourteen-year-old opera composer, when those six quartets dedicated to j. haydn arrived there and transported everyone into a totally new, 108 previously never suspected world. and in order to diminish the light of this great german genius, sarti (then kapellmeister at the milan cathedral) searched for so-called sunspots, [and] wrote down (they say for a milanese lady), [in] a so-called "esame acustico," those nineteen errors in thirty-six bars listed by him. as for the other thousands of heavenly bars in those six quartets-how did the kapellmeister like them ?80 (lichtenthal erred in stating that sarti wrote the essay while kapellmeister at the milan cathedral, however, since sarti left that position the year before the quartet was composed.) in 1833 a series of unsigned articles on cross-relations appeared in the amz.81 they represented a thorough account of the evolution of the function of cross-relations as revealed in treatises from the renaissance, baroque, and classical eras. the final article, entitled "anhang: ueber sartis streitschrift gegen mozart," reveals the purpose of the series. by elaborately demonstrating how earlier composers and theorists resolved the problems of cross-relations, sarti was cast in a ridiculous light: "one might think, upon reading this, that sarti was about one hundred years too late .... " the author underscored the fallibility of sarti's accusations by systematically taking each of the supposed errors in both quartets and showing with numerous musical examples why they would no longer be considered errors of counterpoint. lichtenthal's excerpts of sarti were quoted almost verbatim but were shuffled to suit the author's purposes. the tone of this final article is reminiscent of the sarcastic and vindictive tone which characterized lichtenthal's postscript. the anonymous author claimed that since consonant harmony makes no allowance for the interval between eb and d#, the listener will perceive it as faulty intonation. nature, we are told, " ... bestowed such a sensitive ear upon sarti that he could hear grass grow. "82 there is reason to believe lichtenthal may have written this series of articles. however, to entertain such a theory means one must take into account a further tantalizing piece of evidence: although the articles are unsigned and the index for 1832 lists them anonymously, the cumulative index of the amz lists them under a. c. leduc. there is substantial evidence for the case that lichtentha1 was leduc and the author of the cross-relations series. until 1810 lichtenthallived in vienna, where he had become a friend of mozart's widow and family83; this is confirmed by the intimate account of karl mozart's reaction to sarti's criticism in the 1824 communication. lichtenthal, a medical doctor by profession, took a life-long interest in music-especially that of mozart: he published a short biography of mozart84 and adapted idomeneo for the italian stage in 1843.85 his position as milan correspondent for the amz could have enabled him to conceal his identity. his residence in italy may explain how he could refer to himself as "ein fremder" as well as a german; however, the first leduc article was 109 dated "vienna, january 1830," which would have meant lichtenthal was visiting there, although no such trip can be documented. part of leduc's success in the confrontation with fetis was due to his command of french and his knowledge of the compositions of the renaissance masters. lichtenthal demonstrated both capacities in his estetica ossia dottrina del bello e delle arti belle, published in 1831.86 finally, with regard to the cross-relations series in particular, after impatiently seeking the opportunity to make the sarti ms. public, lichtenthal would hardly have contented himself with the brief commentary contained in his postscript. the c-major string quartet has continued to capture the interest of theorists, historians, and critics. but the era in which theorists found it possible to suggest that mozart did not know what he was doing and to "correct" his music has long since ended. jacques chailley has interpreted the introduction in terms of the masonic rites in which mozart had taken part exactly one month before the quartet was completed.87 heinrich schenker discussed the introduction in several places in his neue musikalische theorien und phantasien. in volume 1 of harmonielehre he examined it with respect to mixtures of major and minor mode and concluded that ... the a-flat and the a approach each other so closely that the ear is tempted to hear them together, and it becomes difficult to make an immediate and clear distinction between the different functions of these two tones. this difficulty, as is well known, has drawn upon this quartet the misleading name "dissonance quartet."88 schenker, speaking in 1906, referred to the quartet's nickname as if it were in common usage as it is today. this is curious since neither critics sarti, fetis, perne, leduc, balthaser, and ambros, mozart biographer jahn, nor theorists weber, riemann, and schreyer ever referred to the quartet by that name. in volume 3, der freie sat;:;, schenker presented a schematic analysis, illustrating the large-scale motion.89 like schenker, hugo riemann, johannes schreyer, and rudolf gerber discussed k. 465 in terms of their own methods of analysis, but without questioning its propriety.90 before presenting his own analysis antoine-elisee cherbuliez summarized the other 20th-century interpretations in a 1931 congress report.91 from their respective vantage points lichtenthal, weber, lenz, ernest newman, cherbuliez, and deutsch narrated the controversy.92 weber and lenz, in particular, demonstrated remarkable insight, proximity in time and national biases notwithstanding. the articles by weber, cherbuliez, and deutsch contain extensive, though not comprehensive, bibliographic material. ernest newman's censure of the introduction is unique among 20thcentury commentaries: i am convinced that if it were put before us without any hint that it was by mozart we should be pretty severe with it. i venture to say that this 110 introduction is not good mozart, that it has an uncertainty about it-not so much harmonic as aesthetic-that we do not often find in him; that the men of his own day were conscious that it was not good mozart; and that they were quite justified in saying so. newman was especially intrigued by the sarti ms.; he noted that historians often coin cliches which distort the author's original meaning and in turn are taken up by younger historians. he expressed a desire to locate the ms. in order to reevaluate sarti's role in the controversy and included the amz extract and commentary in his discussion: sarti is not attempting an aesthetic appreciation of the quartets as a whole; he is simply subjecting certain bars of them to a technical examination. and is not a good deal of his criticism justified from the technical point of view, especially of his period? newman concluded that " ... sarti turns out to have been mostly right and mozart wrong."93 unlike most of mozart's compositions, the six quartets dedicated to haydn were not tailored to a commission. mozart described them in the dedication as " ... the fruit of long and laborious endeavor." they reflect his experimentation with forms, dynamics, chromaticism, and dissonance. mozart must have anticipated they would be misunderstood, and by entrusting them to his acclaimed colleague he hoped to insure their credibility. his pride in them is apparent when he calls them his "children": " ... i flatter myself that this offspring will serve to afford me some solace one day." he entreated haydn to " ... look indulgently upon the defects which the partiality of a father's eye may have concealed from me .... "94 today, despite past onslaughts of criticism, analysis, and revision, the music retains its elusiveness and beauty. notes 1 b. mus. add. mss. 37763-5 contain the "ten celebrated quartets." they have also been made available in facsimile edition by the robert owen lehman foundation (netherlands: l. van leer & co., 1969). a facsimile of the introduction to k. 465 is included in the neue ausgabe siimtliche werke, ser. 8, group 20, pt. i, vol. 2 (kassel: barenreiter, 1962), p. xiv. it appears from the facsimile that the two changes are in measure two, where the second violin part was rewritten, and in measure sixteen, where the first violin is supposed to be a quarter-note instead of an eighth. andre mangeot pointed out the discrepancies between the ms. and the first edition in his article "le manuscrit autographe de dix celebres quatuors it cordes de mozart," la revue internationale de musique i, no. 4 (october-november 1938): 625-27. the history of the autograph is recounted in the introduction to alfred einstein's w. a. mozart. the ten celebrated string quartets (london: novello & co. ltd., 194-), and in a. hyatt king's article "the mozart autographs in the british museum," music & letters 18 (october 1937): 343-54. 2 emily anderson, the letters if mozart and his family, vol. 2 (new york: st. martin's press, 1966), pp. 885-86 (letter 522). leopold mozart mentions the january 15th and february 12th performances and quotes haydn in letters to his daughter. 3 otto erich deutsch, mozart. a documentary biography (stanford: stanford university press, 1965), p. 250. the set contains k. 387,421,428,458,464, and 465. 111 4 ibid., p. 252. 5 ibid., p. 505. for other notices, see pp. 253, 255, and 259-6l. 6 ibid., p. 290. 7 ibid., p. 349. 8 "anekdoten," amz i (ii september 1799): 855. georg-nikolaus von nissen edited the amz anecdotes and included them in his biographie w. a. l'.1ozarts . ... (leipzig, 1828, reprint hildesheim: georg olms, 1964), p. 490. 9 see dieter lehmann, "zwischen sarti und rasumowsky," acta nlozartiana 3, no. 4 (1955): 48. although the essay as we know it (see note 15) deals with nineteen "errors" in two quartets, the present discussion is restricted to k. 465. william j. mitchell discussed the d-minor quartet's development section in his article "giuseppe sarti and mozart's quartet, k. 421," current musicology 9 (1969): 147-53. 10 anderson, letters, vol. 2, pp. 876 (letter 512) and 880 (letter sis). 11 "sarti versus mozart," the harmonicon 10 (1832): 246. 12 ibid., pp. 243, 246. 13 see lehmann, "zwischen sarti und rasumowsky," p. 44. 14 "theorie de l'harmonie simultanee et successive, ecrite par sarti. m.s.," amz 26 (12 august 1824): 540. 15 "auszug aus dem sarti'schen manuscripte, worin mozart bitter getadelt wird," amz 34 (6 june 1832): 373-78. 16 "sur un passage singulier d'un quatuor de mozart," rm 5 (2 july 1829): 601-02. all translations in this article are by the author. under fetis's editorial leadership la revue musicale began publication on i february 1827 and became the first serious music journal in france. in 1835 it merged with the year-old gazette musicale de paris (r&gmp). 17 see rev. ed. (paris: e. troupenas & cie., 1846), p. 75. 18 "l'introduction d'un quatuor de mozart," rm 7 (17 july 1830): 327, 327b. 19 roger cotte, "cherubini," die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 2 (kassel: barenreiter, 1950), cols. 1170-71. 20 fetis, "sur un passage," p. 605. the haydn quotation cannot be documented. 21 fetis, "l'introduction," p. 327. 22 "essai d'une tmorie systematique de la composition (de la musique), par m. godefroid weber," r&gmp 28 (7 july 1839): 219. 23 "weber (gottfried ou godefroid)," biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie generale de la musique, vol. 8, 2nd ed. (paris: librairie de firmin-didot et cie., 1884), p. 426. 24 letter of 1 august 1829, rm 6 (1830): 25-31. 25 ibid., p. 29. 26 "note," rm 6 (1830): 32. 27 nouvelle biographie de lvlozart . .. , vol. 2 (moscow: august semen, 1842), pp. 254-55. 28 "ueber den aufsatz des herrn fetis (in dessen revue musicale tome v, nr. 26, 1829), eine stelle mozart's betreffend," amz 32 (24 february 1830): 117-30. 29 ibid., insert no. 1, ex. 4. 30 fetis, "l'introduction," p. 321. 31 see ambros's "f.-j. fetis," berliner musik-zeitung echo 16 (17 april 1871): 175,178. see also note 42 of this paper. 32 r. g. kiesewetter and f. j. fetis, verhandelingen over de vraag: welke verdiensten hebben zich de nederlanders vooral in de 14e, 15e, 16e eeuw in het vak det toonkunst verworven; en in hoe verre kunnen de nederlandsche k unstenaars van dien tijd, die zich naar italien begeven hebben, invloed gehad hebben op de muzijkscholen, die zich kort daarna in italien hebben gevormd? ... vierde klasse van het koninklijk-nederlandsche institut van wetenschappen, letterkunde en schoone kunsten (amsterdam: j. muller en comp., 1829). 33 kiesewetter and fetis disagreed publicly from time to time on such subjects as orazio vecchi (1831), compere (1837), gregorian chant (1828-45), fetis's resume philosophique de {,histoire de la musique (1838), and kiesewetter's die musik der araber (1846). 34 robert wangermee, francois-joseph fetis (brussels: palais des academies, 1951), p. 126. 112 30 raphael-georg kiesewetter, 1773--1850. wegbereiter des musikalischen historismus (regensburg: g. bosse, 1968), pp. 113-14. kier refutes othmar wessely's article on kiesewetter in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 7 (kassel: blirenreiter, 1958), cols. 894-96. 36 ibid., p. 113. 37 c. m. balthaser, "noch etwas ueber die von hm. fetis verrufene stelle in mozart's vi quartet," amz 32 (27 july 1831): 493-500. there is a curious inconsistency which kier failed to note: on 19 september 1830 kiesewetter wrote polchau "in the strictest confidence" that he intended to "vigorously express his opinion" in writing either under a pseudonym or anonymously; yet the balthaser communication was dated two days earlier, 17 september 1820. 38 ibid., col. 494. 39 see "meine musikalisch-litterarische selbstbiographie," almanach der kaiserlichen akademie der wissenschaften, vol. 3 (vienna and leipzig: holder-pichler-tempsky, 1853). 40 amz 45 (27 september 1843): 702. 41 otto erich deutsch, "leopold von sonnleithners erinnerungen an die musiksalons des vormarzlichen wiens (leopold von sonnleithner, 'musikalischen skizzen aus altwien')," oesterreichische musikzeitschrift (1961): 62. 42 august wilhelm ambros, bunte blatter, skizzen und studienfilr freunde der musik (leipzig: f. e. c. leuckart, 1896), p. 90. 43 "nekrolog. raphael-georg kiesewetter," nzfm 32 (1 march 1850): 89-91; 32 (8 march 1850): 101-02. "notice necrologique sur r.-g. kiesewetter de wiesenbrunn," r&gmp 17 (24 march 1850): 97-99. 44 see note 28. 45 kier, kiesewetter, p. 113. allgemeine deutsche biographie, vol. 15 (leipzig: duncker & humbolt, 1875-1912), p. 732, attributed the first leduc article to kiesewetter but omitted the balthaser article. 46 fetis, "essai d'une theorie," p. 219. 47 see note 23 and pages 105-07 of this article. 48 leduc, "ueber den aufsatz," col. 130. 49 beethoven. eine kunststudie (kassel: ernst balde, 1855), p. 79. 60 balthaser, "noch etwas," col. 500. 51 leduc, "ueber den aufsatz," col. 128. 62 ibid., col. 125. 63 idem, "neue erorterungen ueber die einleitung eines quartetts von mozart," amz 33 (9 and 16 february 1831): 103. 04 ibid., col. 101. 55 fetis, "l'introduction," p. 328. 56 for critical evaluations of fetis's role as a music critic, see m. d. tajan-roge (a. m. f. fetis) , fausses notes (paris: e. dentu, 1862), pp. 7-9; ernest reyer, notes de musique, 2nd ed. (paris: charpentier et cie., 1875), pp. 403-04; wangermee (note 34); ursula eckartbacker, frankreichs musik zwischen romantik und moderne. die zeit im spiegel der kritik (regensburg: gustav bosse, 1965), p. 21. 57 see note 22. 58 leduc, "neue erorterungen," col. 81. 59 idem, "ueber den aufsatz," col. 132. 60 idem, "neue erorterungen," col. 81. 61 gottfried weber, versuch einer geordneten theorie der tonsetzkunst, vol. 3, 3rd ed. (mainz: schott's sohne, 1830-32), pp. 196-226. 62 "ueber eine besonders merkwurdige stelle in einem mozartischen violinquartett aus c," cacilia, eine zeitschriftfilr die musikalische welt 14 (1832): 1-49,122-29. 63 johann georg kastner, "revue critique. tmorie musicale de gfr. weber," r&gmp 6 (18 february 1838): 77-78. 64 see note 22. 113 65 the theory of musical composition, 2 vols. (boston: wilkins, carter, o. c. b. carter, 1841-42). 66 the theory of musical composition, 2 vols. (london: robert cocks & co., 1851). 67 ibid., vol. 1, title page, p. 389; vol. 2, p. 733. 68 ibid., vol. 2, pp. 736-37 (a footnote on p. 736 lists the sections in which the passage appeared in each edition) and 753-54. 69 fetis, "essai d'une theorie," pp. 219-21. a report of fetis's review appeared in the "feuilleton" column of the 14 august 1839 issue of the amz (41 :650). 70 ibid., pp. 220--21. 71 see note ii. 72 see note 14. 73 lichtenthal, "theorie de l'harmonie," col. 540. 74 otto erich deutsch, "sartis streitschrift gegen mozart," mozart-jahrbuch (1962/63): 7-13. deutsch included the texts of both lichtenthal articles but did not discuss the difference in titles. 75 "sarti versus mozart," p. 243. 76 lichtenthal, "auszug," col. 378. 77 nevertheless, the unexplained change did cause some confusion. otto jahn, in w. a. mozart, 3rd ed. (leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, 1891), p. 39, combined both quotations and called the document the "esame acustico." 78 lichtenthal, "auszug," col. 373. 79 "sarti versus mozart," p. 243. 80 lichtenthal, "auszug," col. 738. 81 "vom unharmonischen querstand und gelegentlich ueber sartis streitschrift gegen mozart," amz 35: 625-31, 641-48, 657-68, 693-703 (suppl.: "ueber sartis streitschrift gegen mozart," 16 october 1833). 82 ibid., suppl., cols. 701, 703. 83 claudio sartori, "lichtenthal," die musik in geschichte und gegenwart, vol. 8 (kassel: barenreiter, 1960), col. 738. 84 cenni biografici intorno al celebre maestro wolfango [sic] amadeo mozart, estratti da dati autentici (milan: g. silvestri, 1816),40 pages. 85 sartori, "lichtenthal," col. 738. 86 estetica ossia dottrina del bello e delle arti belle (milan: giovanni pirotta, 1831). 87 "sur la signification du quatuor de mozart k. 465 dit 'les dissonances' ... " natalicia musicologica knud jeppesen septuagenario collegis oblata (copenhagen: wilhelm hansen, 1962), pp. 283--87. 88 harmony, ed. and annot. oswald jonas (chicago: university of chicago press, 1954), p.346. 89 neue musikalische theorien und phantasien, vol. 3 (vienna: universal, 1956), p. 50. 90 riemann, grosse kompositionslehre, vol. 2 (berlin and stuttgart: w. spemann, 1902), pp. 458-59, 468, 491-93. riemann discussed the relationship between the introduction and the first theme of the allegro. schreyer, harmonielehre. vollig umgearbeitete ausgabe der schrift "von bach bis wagner" (dresden: holze & pahl, 1905): 193-96. gerber, "harmonische probleme in mozart's streichquartetten," mozart-jahrbuch 2 (1924): 72-74. 91 "zur harmonischen analyse der einleitung von mozarts c-dur streichquartett (kv 465)," bericht tiber die musikwissenschaftliche tagung der intemationalen stiftung mozarteum in salzburg (2-5 august 1931) (leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, 1932), pp. 103-11. 92 see notes 49 and 74. newman, a music critic's holiday (new york: alfred a. knopf, 1925), pp. 143-51. 93 newman, holiday, pp. 149-50, 159-60, 163. 94 deutsch, documentary biography, p. 250. 114 concerning the ontological status of the notated musical work in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries leeman l. perkins in her detailed and imaginative study of the concept of the musical work, the imag;inary museum of musical works (1992), lydia goehr has made the claim that, prompted by "changes in aesthetic theory, society, and poli­ tics," eighteenth century musicians began "to think about music in new terms and to produce music in new ways," to conceive of their art, there­ fore, not just as music per se, but in terms of works. although she allows that her view "might be judged controversial" (115), she asserts that only at the end of the 1700s did the concept of a work begin "to serve musical practice in its regulative capacity," and that musicians did "not think about music in terms of works" before 1800 (v). in making her argument, she pauses briefly to consider the latin term for work, opus, as used by the theorist and pedagogue, nicolaus listenius, in his musica of 1537. she acknowledges, in doing so, that scholars in the field of music-especially those working in the german tradition-have long regarded listenius's opening chapter as an indication that, by the sixteenth century, musical compositions were regarded as works in much the same way as paintings, statuary, or literature. she cites, for example, the monographs devoted to the question of "musical works of art" by walter wiora (1983) and wilhelm seidel (1987). she concludes, however, that their arguments do not stand up to critical scrutiny. there can be little doubt, surely, that the work-concept was the focus of a good deal of philosophical dispute and aesthetic inquiry in the course of the nineteenth century. this is evident alone from the writings ofe.t.a. hoffman, whom goehr invokes in her opening pages. in the twentieth century it generated as well a good deal of unusually intense musicological discussion (see below). in the process, obviously, the notion of what can be considered a "work" of music has varied considerably. goehr seems ideally situated to deal with the issues that have thus been raised. she is competent, as i am not, to engage critically the modern analytic theories of philosophers such as nelson goodman and jerrold levinson, whose writings she has discussed in some detail. she is also able to examine the philosophical position of the prominent german musi­ cologists who have studied the question. at the same time, however, goehr affirms her preference for an ap­ proach to the problem that is "rooted in history" (vi). while i am in no current musicowgy, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 16 current musicology position to challenge her primary argument concerning the work-concept on philosophical grounds, or to join in the broader discussion by german scholars of music whose reflections are so clearly rooted in the idealist philosophical thought of the nineteenth century, my understanding of the historical questions to which she refers suggests that some of the evi­ dence most pertinent to her arguments could be construed quite differ­ ently, that a good deal more has been left aside-unavoidably, undoubt­ edly, given the nature and the scope of goehr's inquiry-and that she has ultimately failed to place the listenius treatise in its proper historical con­ text. in sharp contrast to goehr, i would claim, primarily on historical grounds, that the concept of a musical work as an identifiable ontological entity began to take shape long before the 1800s; that, in fact, by the time listenius was writing the basic concept was already clearly discernible, not only in theoretical treatises in latin, but even in the vernacular vocabulary of the period. and although it may be stating the obvious, i would also suggest that the emergence of a work-concept was intimately linked from the outset with the development of a uniquely european historical phe­ nomenon: an increasing reliance on musical notation for the study and performance of music. i am aware of only one other scholar who has questioned goehr's conclusions concerning the work-concept: reinhard strohm. strohm sees her treatment of the pertinent history as both faulty and incomplete.! he objects that, "no coherent account has been given of [the concept's] rela­ tionship with previous eras or, indeed, of alternative concepts that might have survived parallel with it" (2000:136). and he goes on to point to what he sees as "the factual frailty of several of [the book's] historiographical arguments" (138). in her response to this critique, goehr concedes that strohm is per­ haps correct in saying that she did not get "all the history right," but she stoutly maintains her philosophical position, declaring that she "was care­ ful to produce credible philosophical arguments that strohm has not suc­ ceeded in undermining" (goehr 2000:245). she also observes that, "critics of the 1800-thesis always seem to assume the 1800-concept even as they criticize it, perhaps ... because they are describing the same concept" (246). it may also be, however, as strohm observes, that fewer and fewer people now have "professional acquaintance" with music dating before 1800 and are consequently ill-prepared to test their ideas and hypotheses against the earlier repertory (strohm 2000:141). this ought not to be the case with respect to heinz von loesch, whose closely argued monograph concerning the work-concept in the theoreti­ cal treatises written in protestant german-speaking circles in the sixteenth leeman l. perkins 17 and seventeenth centuries clearly defines a position very close to that taken by goehr (loesch 2001).2 in a thorough-going critique of the german scholars who have posited a connection between listenius and the mod­ ern work-concept,3 he lends support to goehr's position, arguing that their conclusions are based on a fundamental misperception (the missverstiindnis of his title). his thesis, simply put, is that the work-concept of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not at all what is currently understood by the term-and, in fact, did not exist.4 he contends, to the contrary, that the introduction of the terms that he views as critical-musica poetica and opus perfectum et absolutum-were simply borrowed, as had been well established earlier,s from aristotle's moral philosophy and, as had been suggested by peter cahn (1989:14ff.), from quintilian's treatise on rhetoric, and transferred by listenius to theoreti­ cal discourse about music. there, he claims, they were first redefined un­ der the weight of older traditions and then progressively abandoned. he holds, therefore, that they could never have been, as had been suggested by the scholars he criticizes, either a terminological response to the emer­ gence of a modern conception of music or its postulate.6 in order to be absolutely clear as to the modern concept to which these apparently deceptive (if pregnant) expressions could not possibly apply in his view of the matter, he identifies and defines what he regards as the constituent elements of the post-1800 construction of the work-con­ cept: (a) polyphonic composition; (b) the treatment of consonance and simultaneous composition; (c) newness; (d) individuality or originality; (e) aesthetic autonomy; (f) unity and form; and (g) timelessness or endur­ ingvalidity, none of which, as he attempts to demonstrate, were mentioned in connection with the two expressions in question either by listenius or by any of the german theorists who followed in his wake.7 to these arguments it is possible to reply in a variety of ways. if, in the first place, writers on music theory adopted the terms musica poetica and opus perfectum et absolutum and continued to use them for well over a cen­ tury, it may well have been because they saw in them a useful reflection of perceived musical realities. and even though the locution, musica poetica, fell from currency after (only) a couple of hundred years, this does not mean that the concept it was thought to represent disappeared at the same time. indeed, loesch himself demonstrates that it was simply replaced in technical discourse by other terms referring to musical creation (composi­ tion) (2001:63-73, passim).8 as for the word opus, although it may have been used in certain contexts, as he observes, to mean-in addition to a notated composition-both a theoretical treatise and a printed collection of music (58-68, passim) ,9 it was in the former sense that it was most fre­ quently understood and used continuously from the sixteenth century to 18 current musicology the present, as we shall see. as to the conditions posited by loesch as necessarily embodied in the work-concept as it is construed at present, they raise at least two problems. it is not clear to me, to begin, that there is any consensus among either scholars or philosophers as to which of them must be considered truly indispensable. most basic definitions of the term "work" are much more circumscribed. michael talbot, in his introduction to the essays that grew out of the symposium he organized under the evocative title, the musical work: reality or invention?, reported agreement among the participants that "a musical work, to merit the description, has to be discrete, reproducible, and attributable" (2000a:3). goehr is a bit less succinct, albeit basically in agreement, when she posits as a given that works "are (a) created, (b) performed many times in different places, (c) not exhaustively captured or fixed in notational form, yet (d) intimately related to their performances and scores" (1992:3), and she attaches considerable significance to its re­ peatability and transportability. in neither case de we hear of such techni­ cal procedures as loesch seems to insists must be present if a piece of music is to be described as a "work." one could also demonstrate persuasively, i believe, that many compo­ sitions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (to go, at this point, no further back in time than to repertories that listenius might have known) do in fact meet all of loesch's conditions. the polyphonic masses of the period from okeghem andjosquin to palestrina and lassus include many such compositions, and an argument could be made as well for pieces of much more modest dimensions, such as chansons, madrigals, and lieder.io the real question, then, simply put (if that is possible), is whether or not musical compositions were seen (and heard) as fixed identifiable arti­ facts that were both reproducible and transportable before the supposed "sea change" that has been fixed about 1800-that is, perceived in some sense as "works" -and if so, when that first began to be the case and what it might have meant to those who had a significant engagement with mu­ sic, whether as theorists, composers, or performers. let us turn, then, to the relevant passage in listenius, one of the most frequently cited and extensively glossed in all of the theoretical works of the sixteenth century. he opens with the declaration that, "music is the science of singing correctly and well" (musica est rite ac bene candendi scientia) , which science, he declares, is threefold in nature: theoretical, practical, and poetic. each of these parts he describes in turn, as follows: theorica est, quae in ingenii contemplatione ac rei cognitione tan tum ver­ satur, cuius finis est scire. un de theoricus mu­ cus, qui artem ipsam novit, verum hoc ipso con­ tentus, nullum eis spe­ cimen agendo exhibet. practicae, quae non solum in ingenii penetralibus delitescit, sed in opus ipsum prodit, nullo tamen post actum relicto opere, cuius finis est agere. unde practicus musicus, qui ultra artis cogniti­ onem caeteros docet, in eaque se circa alicuius operis effectum exercet. poetica, quae neque rei cognitione, necque solo exercitio contenta, sed aliquid post laborem relinquit operis, veluti cum a quopiam musicall aut musicum carmen conscri­ bitur, cuius finis est opus consumatum et effec­ tum. consistit enim in faciendo sive fabricando, hoc est, in labore tali, qui post se etiam artifice mortuo opus perfectum & absolutum relinquat. unde poeticus musicus, qui in negotio aliquid reli­ quendo versatur. et habent hae duae posteriores sibi perpetuo coniunctam super­ iorem sed non e contra. 12 leeman l. perkins 19 theoretical [music] is that which is concerned solely with the contemplation of [its] inherent qualities and the un­ derstanding of the subject. its goal is to know. hence the theoretical musician, who has learned this art, [is] truly content with this alone and presents no example of it in performance. practical [music is that] which does not lose itself in the arcane mysteries of [musical] properties alone, but also results in a work, although no work re­ mains after the performance. the goal of practical music is performance. hence the practical musician [is one] who teaches others more than an understanding of the art [and] trains himself in it to be able to perform any given work. poetic [music is that] which is not content with either an un­ derstanding of the subject or with practice alone, but rather leaves some work behind after an effort, as when music or a musical song is written by someone, the goal of which [music] is a complete and finished work. for it consists in making or con­ structing, that is in such labor that, even after the composer is dead, a complete and discrete work remains. hence the poet-musician is one who is trained in his art to leave something behind. and the two others are always necessary to [musica poetica], but the opposite is not true. 20 current musicology if this passage has been given a good deal of attention since a facsimile of the treatise was published in 1927, it is perhaps in part because it seems a clear departure from the medieval classification of music as either mundana, humana, or instrumentalis, and, even more so because by placing poiesis at the top of the pyramid, it reverses so dramatically the boethian hierarchy in which the performer and the poet are both regarded as much inferior to the musicus, "who possesses the faculty of judging, according to speculation or reason, appropriate and suitable to music," all relevant matters (strunk 1998:142). goehr alludes, for example, to the traces of humanistic learning men­ tioned earlier in the obvious influence of aristotelian thought in the con­ ception of the treatise (1992:115-17). loesch is more specific, stressing the humanistic enterprises that were flourishing in the 1520s at the uni­ versity of wittenberg, where listenius studied under the direction of melanchthon (2001:89-94). however, in many ways listenius's little vol­ ume is quite unremarkable, and, as goehr observes, the author was much indebted to his "intellectual ancestors" (1992:116)-as indeed the author of any such treatise must be. more importantly, neither author takes ac­ count as fully as i believe one must of the importance of the medieval traditions in which listenius's treatise is so clearly rooted. despite the faintly humanistic aura of the initial chapter, the design of the work is essentially medieval in its conception and in its two-part design. following the didactic sequence that had been followed for centuries in teaching music to choir boys, listenius begins with the fundamentals of plainchant, introducing the practical tools that were used to interpret it: letter and hexachordal names for the degrees of the scale; the musical staff; the use of clef signs; solmisation and hexachordal mutation; and the modes. this is followed, in part two, by instruction in the use of mensural notation: note forms; rests; ligatures; the three levels of mensural organi­ zation (modus, tempus, and prolatio); the mensural signs indicating each of these; and the use of proportions to augment or diminish the durational values actually written. this general outline, proceeding in two sections from chant through mensural notation, is to be seen in one treatise after another from the fourteenth century on l3 and was often adopted for those intended, as was that of listenius, for the latin schools of the period. 14 such, for example, was the organization of related treatises such as the influential enchiridion musicesofnicolaus wollick, first published in paris in 1509 (and in several later editions); the elementorum musices practicae of claude martin, pub­ lished by du chemin in 1550; and the vernacular treatise by maximilien guilliaud, rudiments de musique practique, brought out by the same pub­ lisher in 1554.15 leeman l. perkins 2 1 listenius's plan for his musica had been anticipated half a century earlier in the highly systematic (and much more extensive) theoretical writings of johannes tinctoris. the most obvious difference between the two is that tinctoris devoted separate treatises to topics that were handled in lapidary fashion by listenius in a single chapter. in addition, with his detailed treatise on counterpoint, tinctoris went well beyond what listenius was able to achieve; he capped the treatises meant for both theorist and performer with careful instruction for the aspiring composer. it is surely significant that by so doing he anticipated, in a sense, completion of the overall plan implied by listenius's threefold division of music with what might be seen as a treatise on musica poetica, as the latter defined it. inter­ estingly, listenius had apparently intended to add something of the sort to his own modest publication (as he implies in part 2, chapter 2)-a third section devoted precisely to that subject. unfortunately, if he did in fact follow through on that intention, no trace of it remains. admittedly, listenius does not include tinctoris among the few au­ thorities he cites, but he does make reference repeatedly to gafforius, whose practica musice of 1496 relied heavily on tinctoris's paradigmatic work. 16 there are significant parallels, moreover, in the basic distinction made by both tinctoris and listenius between (presumably polyphonic) music that is merely performed, leaving no "work" behind, and a composi­ tion that is notated. with tinctoris it is the difference between cantare super librum, the polyphonic elaboration of notated chant melodies, and res facta, a composition for several parts or voices written in mensural nota­ tion. with listenius, it is the distinction between the performance of a work that leaves nothing behind and an opus perfectum & absolutum. in either case it is the contrast between counterpoint that is done mentaliter and that which is scripto (to adopt tinctoris's terms) p that this was the meaning that listenius had in mind is clear from his examples. although he includes in his initial section pieces in mensural notation, (at that point not yet explained), he closes it with a series of psalm intonations written homophonically in four parts but using chant notation-"punctus contra punctum," so to speak-and contrapuntal for­ mulae of the type that were undoubtedly to be employed when "singing on the book." by contrast, in the second part of his treatise, specifically entitled de musica mensurali, the examples-always fully written out in two or more parts-are all clearly intended to illustrate the intricacies of mensural notation that he attempts to explain. in an admirable article that considers carefully tinctoris's use of the terms most clearly relevant to the present discussion, margaret bent has concluded that, "resfacta is composition, usually but not necessarily writ­ ten, a completed piece resulting from application of, and choices [among], 22 current musicology the rules of counterpoint" (1983:371-91). although i concur with her ob­ servations and conclusions generally, i do take exception to the suggestion that res facta was "not necessarily written." like other scholars who have examined the question, i have come to the conclusion that res facta was understood to designate only a "polyphonic work, fully elaborated in all of its parts, and fixed in writing" (i.e. notated), to quote the admirably con­ cise formulation of markus bandur.18 i also believe that by the time tinctoris was writing, this essential di­ chotomy was widely understood. if, as has been suggested repeatedly­ and as i am inclined to believe-res facta is tinctoris's latin translation of the vernacular term, chose faite 9 , it is possible to conclude that even in common parlance and in layers of the social fabric where learned latin treatises on music were not necessarily known, the written composition, whether sacred or secular, had assumed a special status-and a verbal ex­ pression-that distinguished it from other known forms of musical expres­ sion, such as plainchant and extemporized polyphony. even though the terms in question apparently did not achieve wide currency in treatises on music, either in latin or in french, their meaning is confirmed by their use in the other treatises mentioned earlier. nicolaus wollick, for example, equates res facta with "figural," that is notated (and generally polyphonic) music: musica figurativa, que et rerum factarum dicitur. claude martin and maximilien guilliaud, both of whom follow listenius in the bi-partite organization of their treatise, make the same distinction, but in the vernacular: to quote guilliaud, "music is of two kinds, that is simple, also called plain chant ... and figural, that is commonly called 'chose faite. "'20 i would argue, further, that once a musical composition (a cantus compositus in tinctoris's vocabulary) has been given notated form, it takes on an ontological status that is significantly different from that generally accorded counterpoint "improvised" in performance, however thought­ fully or skillfully. with the "multiple relationships of one part to another" specified in writing for both pitch and duration,21 it became a complete and discrete entity, accessible to anyone adequately instructed in the use of mensural notation. in sum, it was for tinctoris a "work," recognizable not only in its visual representation from source to source but also in its sonorous realization from one performance to another. that this was indeed tinctoris's view is suggested by his own latin usage, as peter cahn has already observed (1989:20). in the final chapter of his book on counterpoint the theorist, pointing to the need for variety in written composition, equates the terms res facta and, in its plural form, opus, when he declares: "every composed work (res facta), therefore, must be diverse in its quality and quantity, as may be seen in an infinite number leeman l. perkins 23 of works (opera), those composed not only by me, but also by innumerable composers flourishing in the present age."22 it is evident from the statements he makes concerning them that tinctoris attached special ontological significance to such compositions, seeing them as comparable in a very real sense to the literary works of classical antiquity to which he so frequently refers. in the prologue to his treatise on counterpoint (in a passage much quoted because of its histori­ cal implications), he asserts that the preceding forty years had seen a re­ markable change in the quality of music composition. he credits the trans­ formation to "countless composers," some of whom he names-first his direct contemporaries: okeghem, regis, busnoys, caron, and faugues; and then the most noteworthy of their predecessors and mentors: dunstable, binchoys, and du fay. concerning their compositions-and his word is once again operar-he declares: nearly all the works of these men exhale such sweetness that in my opinion they are to be considered most suitable, not only for men and heroes, but even for the immortal gods. indeed, i never hear them, i never study them, without coming away happier and more enlightened. as vergil took homer for his model in that divine work, the aeneid, so i, by hercules, have used these composers as models for my own modest works ... (strunk 1950: 199).23 the very fact that he speaks of both "hearing" and "studying" the com­ positions of which he speaks suggests very clearly that a completed musical composition, whether heard in performance or simply studied in its no­ tated form, was the same distinctive and recognizable musical entity, what we would now refer to as a work without hesitation or compunction. if, as i have claimed, the concept of a musical composition as a work can be construed from tinctoris's writings ofthe 1470s, when did it begin to take shape? what were the factors that contributed to its emergence and its definition in the terms that have been explored here? and what is the evidence upon which my opinion is based? the arguments that i find most compelling can be considered from a number of different points of view, each of which is briefly considered below. the musical work and notational practice the development of the concept of a work in connection with musical composition was undoubtedly tied to the ever-increasing capacity of euro­ pean notational practice to fix in writing the essential parameters of the musical practice current at the time, making it possible for the musician to 24 current musicology determine with some precision indispensable elements of pitch and dura­ tion independently of a known text or a preexistent melody. one sees the consequences of that kind of creative freedom already with the modal notation of the twelfth century in the exuberant polyphonic elaboration of melisma that characterizes the discant clausulae in the repertory linked to the church of notre dame in paris. it was, moreover, the sections with lengthy passages on a single syllable that were soon treated as discrete entities, pieces of music capable of an independent existence. these melismatic sections could be lifted directly from their liturgical context and provided with additional text, or even played on instruments, giving rise in the thirteenth century to a new genre, the motet. the establishment of this new compositional type led to fur­ ther innovations affecting the clarity and specificity of meaning for all notational symbols. moreover, the development of the motet as a predomi­ nant compositional type brought with it the regular participation of in­ struments in the performance of notated polyphony. this is, then, a very early stage in the long process by which instrumental genres began to adapt the compositional procedures developed in the setting of texts that will finally allow them to achieve an analogous degree of autonomy as works, a point to which i shall return. following the thread of notational practice into the fourteenth cen­ tury, it is noteworthy in the present connection that, as notational practice became both increasingly sophisticated and more precise, the motet was adopted as a vehicle for the development oflarge-scale musical designs of an abstract nature. through the use of isorhythm and the manipulation of its distinctive formal units-taleae and colores----composers of the period created elaborate musical structures that were largely independent of the texts they were meant to bear, even in the formal design of the piece. not surprisingly, it was also during the fourteenth century that ad­ vances in notational practice, as codified early on by philippe de vitry and marchettus of padua, established ways of indicating unambiguously all of the parameters of rhythm and meter that are currently possible in our traditional system: binary, ternary, and compound meters; dotted rhythms; a bewildering array of proportional relationships; and, of course, a precise designation of pitch that included all twelve steps of the chromatic scale. at that point composition was already possible on much the same terms as in later periods. musicians well trained in their art had every tool needed to create an individual piece of music and to fix in writing all of its essen­ tial musical elements so that others, even if many miles distant from its place of origin, could bring to sonorous life the melodies and harmonies imagined by their (possibly unknown) creators. even though there were undoubtedly differences in performance pracleeman l. perkins 25 tice from one region to another and in the resources available for a given performance, the piece itself was surely regarded as a distinct and identifi­ able entity by those who came together to sing and/or play it. moreover, the rhythmic and melodic complexities found in repertories such as that of the chantilly codex (ca. 1390s)24 testify to the composers' desire not only to explore the capabilities of the notational system in fixing the rhyth­ mic and melodic details of a composition but in fact to expand them to the highest possible degree. musical works and composer attributions it was also during the fourteenth century that notated polyphony was in­ cluded in manuscript collections of music ever more frequently under the names of individual composers. guillaume de machaut is clearly a case in point. it is surely significant that, as the century unfolded, he came to be celebrated as much for his musical compositions as for his poetry. i would suggest that his fame was due at least in part to what might be described as the gradual elevation of the ontological status of the music itself and a growing tendency to see the individual pieces as essentially equal in artis­ tic value to the poetic works with which they were repeatedly copied. one is reminded of the nineteenth proposition oftinctoris's complexus effectuum musicae: "music brings fame to those skilled in it,"25 meaning already in machaut's time, presumably, not just the skilled performer but also the composer of "works" that were in their notated form both transportable and repeatable. moreover, although the remarkably comprehensive nature of the sources in which his oeuvre has been transmitted is unusual, machaut's is not an isolated case. the fourteenth century can be seen as a watershed in the attribution of musical works to a specific composer. whereas the sur­ viving sources for the motet of the thirteenth century-even one as beau­ tifully prepared as the montpellier codex-only rarely identify the author of the musical setting (to say nothing of the poet), the manuscripts of the fourteenth are ever more consistent in attaching a composer's name to individual pieces. although there are some notable exceptions, the same trend is even more marked in the musical sources of the fifteenth century. and with the invention of music printing early in the sixteenth, the authorship of indi­ vidual compositions had clearly become important enough to potential buyers that publishers found it commercially advantageous to identify the composers whose work they were offering for sale. already with petrucci we find complete prints given over exclusively to the compositions of a single composer: josquin, of course, with two volumes, but also obrecht, brumel, ghiselin, la rue, agricola, de orto, isaac, and weerbeke. the 26 current musicology practice continued all through the century (and beyond, of course) and was extended to secular genres as well, taking on its most dramatic propor­ tions with such dominant figures as palestrina and lassus. 26 what is more, as we shall see, the reputation of those capable of making such an impres­ sion, commercially as well as musically, would become a recurring topic of discussion, not only among music theorists but also with humanist schol­ ars, who saw the artistic achievements of composers of music as being some­ how on a par with the works of revered authors of antiquity and linked the names of those composers and authors in their writings (see below). musical works and the dissemination of repertory as we have seen, by the end of the fifteenth century (at the latest), devel­ opments in notational practice made it possible for musical compositions to circulate in a written form that fixed in gratifying detail all of their essential components. perhaps even more significantly, they were also be­ ing disseminated in ever greater numbers, and ever more frequently un­ der the name of the presumed composer. i believe it is therefore possible to assert that a "work concept" had at that point begun, in goehr's terms, to "serve musical practice in its regulative capacity," meaning that music was being circulated as discrete entities, very often associated with a known composer, and gathered into notated collections as individual works (1992:v). but what evidence do we have that it did indeed function in this way? perhaps the most compelling indication is that, by then, notated musi­ cal compositions had come to be an international commodity that had commercial, political, and social, as well as aesthetic, value. this was pos­ sible, obviously, only because virtually any such piece could be transported beyond the region where it had originated and reconstituted in perfor­ mance elsewhere-in however distant a place-by anyone familiar with current notational practice, and, whatever the differences in detail, with a degree of concurrence to any other performance that would have made it immediately recognizable. it was this transportability of the musical com­ position as an identifiable, individual object that accounts for the practice of selecting music as the sole content for some of the most luxurious manu­ scripts known from the period and, most notably, those prepared with ex­ tra-musical purposes in mind. it was in some sense this idea of the work, i would suggest, and the high regard in which many compositions were consequently held, that prompted the preparation of richly decorated collections of musical rep­ ertory as sumptuous, prestigious gifts, often for a ruling noble of the pe­ riod, and that lent to those selective anthologies their perceived value. what but the prized nature of their contents could explain the stunning leeman l. perkins 27 visual presentation given the music in codices such as the chantilly codex, mentioned earlier, the mellon chansonnier, the newberry part books, the medici codex, and the numerous manuscripts prepared in the alamire workshop, to cite only a few of the most characteristic examples?27 it is striking that the labor and expense lavished on these collections rival, or even surpass, that expended on manuscripts into which were copied not only the most important works of classical literature and philosophy,28 but even some liturgical tomes and books of hours. the admiration with which notated compositions were regarded also enabled music printing to become a profitable international commerce. it is surely not by chance that the first volumes of music printed from mov­ able metal type were published in venice, where the aldine press had be­ gun just a few years earlier to produce scholarly editions of the classical works of greek and roman literature. the newly acquired and growing status of music in notated form also offers at least some explanation as to why it was commercially viable for ottaviano petrucci to publish, as the inaugural volume of music produced with the new technology, a collection of chansons without their accompanying texts: the odhecaton a (hewitt and pope 1942). this was possible only because the individual composi­ tions were seen as complete in and of themselves-with or without the poems on which they were usually based-and thus able to satisfy the idea of a "work" much as we continue even now to understand it. significantly, petrucci's initiative was quickly emulated in other regions, and by the end of the century music printing was thriving in a number of the more impor­ tant urban centers, most notably paris, antwerp and nuremberg. and the publications of these presses were being disseminated in considerable num­ bers all across europe.29 the esteem accorded notated musical compositions is also reflected in the care with which scribes copied from their exemplars and the pains that printers took to produce a text that could be deemed "correct." any­ one who engages in the exacting process of collating sources for the music of this period will be struck, not by the occasional variants from one read­ ing to the next, but rather by the surprisingly few differences of any sub­ stance. as sean gallagher has pointed out, this is especially remarkable for those pieces that were widely disseminated and remained in circulation over a period of some years.30 also instructive is the concern of a number of authors who wrote about music-in particular the theorists-as to the reliability of the sources upon which they depended in making their observations. as gallagher has ob­ served, when johannes tinctoris cites the contrapuntal practice or the mensural usage of composers such as busnoys, caron, and okeghem, and provides notated examples to illustrate some of his comments,31 "it is clear 28 current musicology that he understands these [excerpts] as belonging to a textually stable object" (gallagher 2000). similarly, in her discussion of pietro aron's use of petrucci prints as a source for the examples adduced in the trattato della natura et cognitione de tutti gli tuoni di canto jigurato, cristle collins judd observes that "aron ac­ cepts petrucci's authority as arbiter of repertory in a way that simultaneously bolsters his own credibility by instantiating his writing with references to printed sources, available in multiple copies with fixed notation" (2000:57).32 heinrich glarean was also careful about the reliability of the sources he cites, both written and notated. he expressed his concern as to the accuracy of the versions available to him of the treatises on music that he consulted, in particular that ascribed to boethius. he indicates, in the pref­ ace to his dodecachordon, that he searched far and wide for uncorrupted versions of that and other authors' writings. his research in the rich medi­ eval collection of the monastery library in st. gall is well known. he him­ self speaks of it and mentions research done elsewhere, specifically with regard to a volume of treatises (an "encyclopedia") that he had discovered in a monastery "at the head ofthe black forest" (glarean 1965:40). he was apparently no less preoccupied by the correctness of the musi­ cal texts that he selected as examples for his treatise. according to miller, glarean indicated in a hand-written annotation on his own copy that he could not be sure that the polyphony he had included was free from errors in the sources on which he drew, but that he had left it unchanged, ne in alieno opere ingeniosus videretur (glarean 1965, 1 :ix.). here again the under­ lying premise appears to be that the music quoted was a fixed entity, a work for which a correctly written source was essential to the validity of the theorist's observations. moreover, when judd places the writing of the dodecachordon in the general context of humanistic scholarship, with its reliance on commonplace books and the exempla copied into them, she establishes a clear parallel between the authorities drawn upon in the pro­ duction ofliteraryworks and the notated examples that glarean took such great pains to include with his text. it is her view that just as the humanist culled from the exempla in his commonplace book an apt citation from an authoritative literary work to bolster his argument, so did glarean draw upon the compositions of the most respected and widely-known compos­ ers of his day to substantiate his assertions concerning the modal system elaborated in his treatise.33 a similar premise also lies behind the rather different purposes to which the citation of musical texts is put by giovanni spataro and his cor­ respondents, pietro aaron and giovanni del lago in the many letters ex­ changed among them in the 15~os and 1530s. in critiquing one another's leeman l. perkins 29 works, these theorist-composers reveal their attention to the smallest de­ tails of contrapuntal practice, especially in those passages where one or another of them departed from what they understood to be the accepted rules for composition. their attitude toward the notated music was very much like that taken regarding the authoritative theoretical texts that they invoke in making their arguments. indeed, spataro does not hesitate to compare gifted composers with poets, observing that in either case the art and grace required for truly exceptional creative work could not be taught but had to be inborn.34 the emergence of a written instrumental repertory in a lengthy discussion tracing the history of "musical meaning" from an­ tiquity to the enlightenment, goehr links the emergence of the work-con­ cept in music with what she sees as a shift in "musical understanding away from 'extra-musical' towards 'musical' concerns" (1992:120ff). she empha­ sizes the preoccupation of the writers of the ancient world with the "ritual­ istic and pedagogical value" of music (122) and insists on the long history of music's association with and subordination to verbal texts. she observes that because of this focus on the moral and educational role assumed for music, its sister disciplines were not those now defined as the "fine arts," such as painting and sculpture, but rather the language arts of the trivium-­ grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric-and the mathematical studies associ­ ated with music in the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy (130). goehr also claims that the general "extra-musical" understanding of music changed but little over the long period that she surveyed. she as­ serts that, due in large measure to the enduring influence of the christian church during the middle ages, it was "the predominant belief that tonal structures were meaningful only when mediated by a text, usually a reli­ gious one," and that "the human voice was the only pure musical instru­ ment." she goes so far as to contend that, "melodic patterns were usually designed to follow the 'natural' rhythms of the words, so that the length of individual notes would correspond precisely with the time it took to utter each word's syllable" (133). this last assertion ignores entirely the numerous complaints of later humanist scholars about the "barbarisms, obscurities, contrarieties, and superfluities" that riddled, in their view, the setting of texts in the tradi­ tional chants of the christian liturgy,35 as well as the significant place of melismatic effusion in the most elaborate of them, the graduals and great responsories. and goehr suggests that when-exceptionally, in her view­ texts were set to pre-existent music, it was enough to "worry the authori­ ties," simply because, "the word had traditionally come first and ... should 30 current musicology continue to do so" (124), a claim that is belied by the history of the thir­ teenth-century motet, which (as has been observed) owed its very exist­ ence to the addition oftexts (often secular) to music originally composed for religious purposes. goehr also claims, in support of her primary thesis, that it was only after 1800 that the "extra-musical understanding" of music began to lose ground, and that "serious" music, "as an art took on autonomous, musical, and 'civilized' meaning," allowing it "to be understood on its own terms" (122). she argues that only by means of a "radical change in aesthetic attitude, one that transformed the classical into the romantic age," could instrumental music achieve an "acceptable status." only then, in her view, was it possible to believe "that instrumental music could be a fine and respectable art in service to nothing but itself," and to establish "a 'specifi­ cally musical' music and a very 'civilized' understanding" of it (147). the implication is that the emergence of a work-concept for music was inextricably linked to the development of instrumental forms and genres that are essentially independent of the requirements and assump­ tions imposed by the setting of words to music, and that music conforming to such a definition did not come into its own, aesthetically or musically, until the nineteenth century. nothing could be further from the truth. in fact, goehr's interpretation of history requires a radical redefinition of the word "musical" that would severely restrict its current meanings, which include everything pertaining to "the creation, production, or performance of music" or "having the nature of music." and who would deny that the qualities that make instrumental music (of whatever century) "musical" are precisely those found in vocal composition from its outset: a rhythmic organization of sound that can be identified as pitch, whether as a simple melody or a polyphonic piece? moreover, even if one were to accept goehr's narrow definition of this term, it is possible to assert that instrumental music of the kind to which she refers appeared on the aural landscape as early as the sixteenth cen­ tury, establishing for itself well-defined genres and characteristic means of formal organization. it was then, thanks in good measure to increasing musical literacy (and hence a growing international market for printed music of all kinds), that textless composition began to emerge from an earlier improvisatory practice that depended a good deal more on memory than on written notes. what had been largely a performer's art was trans­ formed in relatively short order by the fixity needed for the notational process, resulting in compositions in written form that could be offered to the public by the recently established presses, thus stimulating the devel­ opment of new repertory and facilitating the dissemination of newly com­ posed pieces.36 leeman l. perkins 3 1 it is of course widely recognized that, even as the new instrumental genres began to be codified, instruments were still being used in a variety of ways in the performance of music conceived as a setting for text. in addition, arrangements and intabulations37 of vocal works continued to form a substantial part of the instrumental repertory, both written and unwritten (as they would as well during the nineteenth century). perhaps even more significantly, as we shall see, the compositional styles that had become current in the vocal music of the time had a determinant stylistic influence on the development of the newly emerging genres fashioned specifically for instruments.38 nonetheless, among the earliest printed sources of instrumental music was a type of composition that, however modest, was based neither on the setting of texts nor on vocal models; these were the ricercari for lute of francesco spinacino and joan ambrosio dalza,39 which simply exploited the idiomatic possibilities of the instru­ ment for which they were written: chordal strumming and rapid scale pas­ sages. in italy the loose structures of ricercaressuch as these, which owed their beginnings to the spontaneous improvisation and virtuosic display charac­ teristic of a particular instrument, soon gave way to the more rational pro­ cedures of imitative counterpoint and the juxtaposition of contrasting tex­ tures. although these compositional procedures had already made their appearance in the vocal compositions ofdu fay, okeghem, and busnoys, they are as useful in instrumental composition as they are in setting words to music. consequently, they were widely adopted by instrumental com­ posers who flourished in the course of the century, beginning, it would seem, with girolamo cavazzoni whose four modest ricercares in the intavolatura . .. libra primo of 1543 consist entirely of points of imitation linked, here and there, by figurative passage work.40 these same compositional techniques-systematic imitation and the alternation of contrasting textures, both contrapuntal and homophonic­ are also to be seen in the ricercari of the two celebrated organists of the church ofst. mark in venice, andrea gabrieli (ca. 1510-86) and claudio merulo (1533-1604), in the tientos and fantasias ofiberian composers such as luys de narvaez (1526-49) and antonio de cabezon (ca. 1510-66), and in the fantasias of english composers such as william byrd (ca. 15401623), giles farnaby (ca. 1563-1640), and others. 41 in all of these reperto­ ries rigorous counterpoint and exuberant passage work have a significant role in building up autonomous musical structures, just as they did in the vocal composition of the time, and they continued to be so used into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. similarly indebted to vocal models but clearly musically autonomous in nature are those instrumental genres that take their shape from the 32 current musicology elaboration of a cantus firmus, whether liturgical or secular in origin. of particular note in this regard are the settings of the chant segments iden­ tified as in nomine42 and felix namque.43 particularly impressive for their scope are two of the latter attributed to thomas tallis (ca. 1505-85), which combine the incorporation of the traditional chant melody in extended values with imitative counterpoint and luxuriant keyboard figuration. 44 in addition, both works are clearly articulated into sections by contrasting patterns in the type of figural elaboration used, giving the effect of a varia­ tion form. significantly, instrumental variations also came into existence as a dis­ crete musical genre in the course of the sixteenth century. whether based on secular song, like the many pieces of this kind by english composers included in the fitzwilliam virginal book, or on a simple melody, such as those seen in the diferencias of the spanish vihuelists narvaez and cabezon, the variation techniques used are autonomously musical in nature and far removed from the procedures adopted at the time for the setting of texts. moreover, the genre has had a continuous history from the sixteenth cen­ tury through the 1800s and beyond, and the compositional devices used in many of the early examples were still very much in vogue at the turn of the nineteenth century when, in goehr's terms, the "classical age" was being transformed into the "romantic." in addition to the genres mentioned thus far, there flourished in the sixteenth century yet another type of composition that was frequently-if not exclusively-instrumental in nature: dance music. indeed, traces of its use have survived from the fifteenth century in the celebrated manuscript of basses dances that originated at the court of burgundy45 and in the earli­ est of the instructional manuals describing the dancing of the age.46 as is evident from these sources, much of this music was undoubtedly impro­ vised early on by professional instrumentalists over well-known melodies selected or written for the purpose. by the sixteenth century, however, dance music had evidently been liberated to a degree from its servitude in the ballroom and become a favorite repertory for the recreation of ama­ teurs. it was also stylized to a degree in the process as a market grew for such pieces in notated (and published) form, whether intended for key­ board, lute, or instrumental ensemble. looking only to the publications of the parisian publisher pierre attaingnant, one finds for all three of these performing media important collections given over largely, or entirely, to dance music. already in 1530, less than two years after he had begun printing music, attaingnant brought out a large collection of dances of various kinds for lute, and two others for consort, one with only dances, the other with six galliardes, and as many pavanes in a collection of chansons. 47 dances for keyboard followed in 1531, leeman l. perkins 33 and collections for consort were published regularly thereafter (heartz 1969: no. 28). the latest, dating from 1557, is identified as the seventh in a series, suggesting that dance music arranged for an ensemble of instru­ ments was in constant demand over the twenty-five or so years that the attaingnant presses were in production (heartz 1969: no. 173) .48 (similar observations could be drawn from a number of the other publishers of the period who specialized in the difficult craft of printing music.) although there could be some doubt as to the intended purpose of the collections of dances for consort, it seems beyond question that the pieces arranged for lute or keyboard, both instruments with a delicate so­ nority, were intended not so much to accompany dancing as for the plea­ sure of the player(s), and perhaps of their listener(s). it is highly likely, moreover, that this was also true for the consort music; professionals hired to play for dances may not have needed notated arrangements, whereas the amateur who took pleasure in making music with friends, would have found the dances rewarding and not unduly demanding of technical skill. the well defined, often catchy rhythms, the largely homophonic textures, the frequent repetition of well-defined sections, and the regularly balanced phrases in mensural (and metrical) units offour and eight make this mu­ sic easily accessible to the ear and relatively easy for performers to master. it is noteworthy, as well, that in attaingnant's seventh book of danceries, the pavanes and gaillardes are ordered in alternating pairs, thus constitut­ ing small "suites" of contrasting movements, the first slow, the second lively. that this grouping of contrasting movements was adopted early on in other regions as well is suggested by the development in england of the "fanta­ sia-suite," a new genre that originated in the instrumental compositions of john coprario (ca. 1570/80-1626). he left some two dozen pieces ofthis kind, written for one or two violins, bass viol, and organ, in a three move­ men t sequence that consisted of a fantasy (of the sort discussed earlier), an almaine, and a galliard. and a number of the leading british composers of the seventeenth century followed his lead in this regard: william lawes, johnjenkins,john hingeston, and christopher gibbons.49 such combina­ tions came to be fundamental, of course, to the composition of the instru­ mental genres we know as suites and sonatas, which have a continuous history from the seventeenth century on. lt is possible to argue, as a result, that music of this kind is "specifically musical" (to return to goehr's formulations) and perhaps even an "art in service of nothing but itself." given its modest scope and lack of preten­ sion, there is clearly some question as to whether or not she would allow that it can be seen as "a fine and respectable art" that inspired at the time a "very 'civilized' understanding of music." i think it possible to claim, nonetheless, that these printed collections satisfy-if, at times, only in more 34 current musicology or less embryonic form-the most essential conditions that goehr links to the fundamental character of the instrumental music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. it is also possible to argue that it was the publication of music in no­ tated form that continued to regulate musical practice all through the seventeenth century, and with a good deal of continuity with respect to what had been done earlier for both vocal and instrumental genres. al­ though much music still circulated at the time only in manuscript, this was also the age in which published collections of music began to be identified by opus numbers. 50 such was the case especially for the instrumental rep­ ertories that stand at the initial stages in the development of the sonata as an instrumental genre. starting as early as 1617, biagio marini (ca. 15971665), giovanni legrenzi (1626-90), mauricio cazzati (1616-78), and oth­ ers began publishing groups of instrumental compositions with opus num­ bers,51 suggesting that the practice of thinking of music of this kind in terms of works was becoming well established. 52 and if there was some confusion early on as to whether the term "opus" referred to the print, as the product of a printer's art, or the music itself, it was increasingly in the latter sense that it was used. this suggests that the attention and polish needed to prepare such compositions for publication bestowed on them a distinctive status, not unlike that we are inclined to attribute to musical works in the present day. it must have been a concept of this sort that prompted composers to place (and perhaps to imagine) their compositions in an ordered sequence to be presented formally in print under an opus number. certainly this must have been the case for arcangelo corelli (1653-1713), a violinist trained in bologna who spent most of his active career in rome and composed, exceptionally for the time, only for stringed instruments.53 he allowed his compositions to be heard repeatedly in performance but held them from publication for revision and refinement until he was satisfied with them. then, when he was already well along in his distinguished career, he had them published in six neatly ordered collections. opus 1 (1681) and opus 3 (1689) each included twelve sonate da chiesa; opus 2 (1685) and opus 4 (1694) consisted each of twelve sonate da camera. with opus 5 (1700) came another twelve sonatas for solo violin and basso continuo, half for the church and half for the chamber, and his opus 6 (1714), finally, presented an even dozen concerti grossi. 54 this pattern for publication, grouping a set number of pieces (usually half a dozen) under a single opus number, became well established in the course of the seventeenth century and was still being followed in the eigh­ teenth by composers such as haydn, mozart, and (early in his career) beethoven. and while aesthetic sensibilities had undoubtedly begun to leeman l. perkins 35 undergo a significant change toward the end of the latter's life, attitudes toward the "work" of music, as reflected in the publication of the instru­ mental repertories of these two centuries, point to a good deal of continu­ ity from the sixteenth century on. the work and the reception of music one indication as to the ontological status of music during the earlier period may be seen in the manner in which musical compositions in no­ tated form were "received" by other composers (and writers on music), beginning already in the fifteenth century. if it is possible to say that the writing of glosses was an activity inspired by, and largely limited to, authori­ tative literary works, then it is possible to suggest that certain pieces of music seem to have been regarded, and treated, in much the same way. this occurred to a modest degree even with pieces of very modest scope. thus one finds chansons originally written for three parts to which a fourth has been added. there are three such songs in the mellon chansonnier,55 for example, and another five in the first volume of music to come from ottaviano petrucci's venetian press, the odhecaton a.56 in all of these the added voice is identified by the tag si placet (meaning that it mayor may not be used according to the pleasure of the performers), and in the latter source another four have survived in versions for both three and four voices, pointing to a similar process:>7 it has been suggested that added parts were meant to "modernize" these pieces by providing for them the more up-to-date texture of four voices that would predominate later in the century.58 that may be so, but i am inclined to believe that more is involved. in virtually every case the pieces in question are ascribed in some surviving source to one of the better-known composers of the day. in addition, all of them-with one notable exception-circulated widely on the continent; over a surprisingly extended period of time. this is clear from the array of sources in which they were included, manuscripts and prints from both sides of the alps. hayne's de tous biens playne, for example, is found in twenty-five surviving sources and was included as well in four (lute) tablatures of the period.59 the exception to this wide dissemination is also exceptional: the setting of the widely-traveled secular tune, l'homme arme, which, although found as a chanson in only two manuscripts, came to be used in the composition of polyphonic masses all over europe for more than a century. these circum­ stances suggest to me that these particular songs had achieved a special status, that they were perceived, in a sense, as authoritative texts, integral compositions whose basic structure and substance were conceptually com­ plete and notationally fixed even when the piece had been "glossed" by the addition of one or more newly composed voices. 36 current musicology some of the chansons that circulated most widely took on, in fact, an even wider significance in that they became the starting point not only for a developing series of new compositions but also for a new genre, the in­ strumental canzona. among the most striking examples of this sort of "re­ ception" are busnoys's fortuna desperata, which gave rise to an additional twenty-nine pieces that incorporate, to a greater or lesser degree, the origi­ nal musical material, okeghem's fors seulement l'attente, of which there are some thirty arrangements still in existence, hayne's de tous bien plaine, which survives in twenty-eight different versions, and the anonymous j'ay pris amours, which is known in twenty-five separate pieces that derive in some sense from the earliest three-voice song.60 in these instances as well, in my view, the perception of the identity of the starting composition as an ob­ ject that would be recognized by performers and audiences alike is an indispensable component ofthe process.61 the elaboration of preexistent work is even more significant with re­ gard to the latin motet of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. beginning at the latest in the early 1500s with major figures such as antoine de fevin (ca. 1470-1512) andjean mouton (ca. 1459-1522), motets were adopted as the model of choice for the composition of the polyphonic mass. in this case it was not just a single voice from the piece selected for use, as in the earlier cantus firmus masses, but the entire polyphonic com­ plex that provided a basis for the new composition. moreover, "imitation" masses, as they have been rightly called, came to predominate in the pe­ riod in question. giovanni pierluigi da palestrina (1525-94), whose masses display all of the compositional procedures used for the genre in the course of his century, based many of them on motets, his own, first of all, but also those credited to other composers. it is noteworthy that the composers whose pieces he selected for the purpose included some of the most highly regarded masters of previous generations, from j osquin and andreas da silva to philippe verdelot and cristobal de morales. the prominence given to the earlier repertory suggests that the notated musical texts that were being memorialized in this way were beginning to take on a special aura due to their significant place in the motet tradition and the distinction of their authors, that they were viewed as opera, much as were literary texts being published in the same way. 62 yet another indication of the work-like status attained by the motet in the sixteenth century may be seen in the distinctive character of some of the sources in which they were gathered at the time, not only the luxuri­ ous manuscripts prepared as gifts, as mentioned earlier, but also a number of the printed collections. stephanie schlagel has drawn attention, in par­ ticular, to the impressive format and the elegant appearance of the liber selectarum cantionum quas vulgo mutetas appellant, published in augsburg by leeman l. perkins 37 grimm and wyrsung in 1520 (schlagei2002a) .63 significant, from her per­ spective, is the pride of place given to the seven motets ofjosquin included in the print, where they outweigh, in a sense, even the compositions by the regional masters, ludwig senfl (who edited the collection) and heinrich isaac. she has also noted the unusual circumstances that surrounded the compilation and publication of the collection. an epilogue by the anti­ quarian scholar, conrad peutinger (1465-1547) places the preparation of the choirbook squarely in the humanist milieu of the city of augsburg and may connect it with the activities of the sodalitas litteraria augustana, the literary society that peutinger helped to establish there in 1503. his spe­ cial interest was german history, especially in its relationship to that of rome. he copied inscriptions, collected antiquities and manuscripts, and published the important texts he had discovered and edited (including two medieval chronicles) in collections that were not dissimilar in appear­ ance nor, it would appear, in purpose to the anthology of motets in which his reflections were included. schlagel has drawn a parallel specifically between the liber selectorum cantionum and the romanae vetustatis fragmenta, a compilation of roman inscriptions found in the region around augsburg that peutinger had published in 1505 in a similarly luxurious edition (schlagel 2002a). the analogous treatment given the volume of motets suggests to me, once again, that compositions of that sort had achieved by then a special status, that they were seen as major contributions to an important repertory of a prestigious musical genre in much the same way as we currently regard compositions that we perceive as works of music. that the repertory in question and, in particular, the motets of j osquin were in fact often viewed in this way in the sixteenth century is further demonstrated by the impressive series of motet anthologies put out by printers in german-speaking centers from the 1530s on. one of the earli­ est, hans ott's two-volume collection of 1537-38-the novum et insigne opus musicum and the secundus tomus novi operis musicz"64-was typical in its anthologizing character and its tendency to memorialize the most cel­ ebrated composers of an earlier generation, especially josquin. as in the liber selectarum cantionum of 1520, which in schlagel's view served ott in significant ways as a model, the number of works ascribed to this master is substantial, amounting to about a quarter of its contents overall and in­ cluding several motets that were already found in the print of 1520. the reason for this predilection, which was apparently shared by all of ott's german competitors, is made perfectly clear in ott's preface to the first of the two prints. he declares (giving the composer's name in elegant capi­ tals to emphasize his point) that, "all will easily recognize josquin as the most celebrated hero of the art of music, for he possesses something that 38 current musicology is truly inimitable and divine."65 the surprisingly large place given in these publications to the compo­ sitions believed to be by]osquin so long after his death has caused scholars in the field not only to speak of a "german] osquin renaissance" but also to reflect upon the enormous problems raised in attempting to establish a canon of the composer's reliably attributed compositions. but in the present context it demonstrates once again the power of the notational process to capture the "complete and finished work" in all of its essentials and to transmit it in an intelligible written form to readers and performers all over europe. that these compositions were looked upon as important musical texts that could serve as models, not only to be admired but also emulated, is clear first of all from motets that imitated in significant details an earlier piece by]osquin and thereby came to be given his name in the surviving sources. patrick macey has discussed two such instances and raised the possibility that yet others may be uncovered in surviving sixteenth-century sources (1993). another aspect of the reception of]osquin's motets-and further evi­ dence of their perceived existence as works of music-is to be seen in the invention of si placet parts to supplement those of the original composi­ tion. as schlagel has shown, the practice of writing additional voices for existing pieces became common enough in the course of the sixteenth century so as to elicit instruction for doing so from no less a theorist than gioseffo zarlino, who also provided examples of his own making to illus­ trate the process (schlagel 2002b). 66 significantly, it is clear in the present connection from what he says that the original parts of the piece chosen for this sort of sonorous embellishment were not to be altered in any way to facilitate the compositional task. 67 although the compositions of other composers were also treated in this manner, well-known motets attributed to] osquin were apparently great favorites for the addition of one or more non-essential voices; it was in fact a duo from his benedecta es, caelorum regina (a 6) that zarlino chose to dem­ onstrate the composition of an added part. other examples are scattered through midto late-sixteenth-century sources, especially, as schlagel has shown, those compiled in german-speaking areas.68 the compositions singled out in this way include some of]osquin's most widely circulated and best-loved motets: 0 bone et dulcissime jhesu and ave maria . .. virgo serena (both with two added parts) 69; and stabat mater dolorosa (with an ad­ ditional contratenor altus). 70 the most extravagant example is undoubt­ edly the arrangement credited to guyot de casteletti, who wrote six addi­ tional voices to be sung with ]osquin's six-voice motet, benedicta es, caelorum regina, which had obviously achieved a kind of classical status by the time leeman l. perkins 39 the expanded version was published in 1568.71 surely such surprising lon­ gevity as a revered musical text can only be explained by an attitude, both intellectual and aesthetic, towards the notated composition that is closely akin to that of our present day. the anecdotal evidence the respect, even reverence, shown for certain compositions-their status as works (as understood at the time)-helps to explain why a composer such as josquin des prez was so idolized by his contemporaries. cosimo bartoli compared him to michelangelo, whose paintings and sculptures were so much admired, saying, ... josquin, a pupil of okeghem, may be regarded in music as a prodigy of nature, just as was our michelangelo buonarroti in architecture, painting, and sculpture. just as josquin has so far had no one who could surpass him in composition, so michelangelo, among all those who have cultivated these arts, stands alone and without peer.72 glarean, who was both music theorist and humanist, saw in the music ofjosquin and his generation an ars perfecta, and he compared the com­ poser to vergil, the quintessential poet of roman antiquity. speaking of josquin's view of his own work, moreover, glarean asserts that, "those who knew him say that he published his works after much deliberation and manifold corrections; neither did he release a song to the public unless he had kept it to himself for some years" (1965, 11:265).73 whether or not the notated polyphony of the sixteenth century can be considered "serious" music in the same sense as that implied by goehr's use of the term, it is clear from a statement such as this that glarean took the creative act of composition very seriously and believed thatjosquin did so as well. to judge, moreover, from the vast bibliography dealing with this master's compositions from every possible point of view, modern scholars clearly share glarean's view in this regard. that is also a fundamental meaning to be extracted from the earliest group of anecdotes concerning a composer, those centered, once again, on josquin. the composer's concern not only for the correctness of his music, but also for its impact on the listener, is suggested by one of two incidents recounted by johannes manlius who was, like glarean, a human­ ist educated in basel under the influence of erasmus. as he tells it, the composer tried out new compositions by giving them to the choir to sing. then, if he heard something that did not satisfy him, he would stop them and say, "be silent; i will change that" (1562:542) .74 40 current musicology a second anecdote reflects what was apparently believed to be the composer's attitude toward his own creations, that the substantial integrity of a notated composition was not to be tampered with once he regarded it as "complete and finished." according to manlius, josquin was heard to berate a singer who took it upon himself to ornament one of the composer's contrapuntal lines in words such as these: ''you donkey, why did you add embellishments? if i had wanted them, i would have written them myself. if you wish to add to compositions that have been correctly composed, then write your own, but leave mine unaltered" (1562:542).75 there is of course no way of verifying the accuracy of these reports. 76 but even if they are apocryphal, the attitude of the writer-and perhaps that of the composer as well-are clearly illuminated by them. implicit in manlius's view of music is the sense that a notated composition, especially one by a master of josquin's stature, was a whole entity, complete in its artistic conception, and transmitted in its written form with all of its essen­ tial characteristics intact. conclusion the question of a work-concept for music, as raised anew by goehr, is clearly important not only for the period after 1800, where she sees such a significant cultural and intellectual watershed, but also for the study ofthe music of earlier periods, reaching back at least to the fifteenth and six­ teenth centuries. one cannot assume that the music theorists of those times meant exactly what we might mean today when they speak of musi­ cal compositions as works; the term has become too fraught with multifari­ ous functions and interpretations for that, all the more so because of the wide-ranging discussion that the term has inspired in the course of the twentieth century. it has become difficult, as a consequence, to step away from the ongoing (and sometimes contentious) debate far enough to frame the historical problem without yielding too much to the weight of the ac­ cumulated intellectual and cultural baggage. i believe it is important to make the attempt, however, because the idea of a "work" appears to have been from very early on a significant component of the historical and intellectual context in which the mensural polyphony that characterizes the western musical tradition was brought into being. it would be much too easy to be seduced by a sense of cultural superiority and thus to conclude that earlier uses of the term are no longer relevant to the problem as it is currently articulated, that only with the philosophical sophistication of the nineteenth century has it become pos­ sible to fathom the significance of the fundamental issues involved. but the issues are not only intellecual and philosophical; they have far-reach­ ing practical ramifications as well. the manner in which they are engaged, leeman l. perkins 41 and perhaps eventually decided, will inevitably impinge not only on our view of history but also on the attitudes that present-day editors and per­ formers will bring to their musical activity. ought we not, then, to examine carefully all of the evidence that bears on the issue and to seek in the process a clearer understanding of what constituted for the composers, theorists, performers, and listeners of earlier time a "work"? relevant, in my view, as i have attempted to demonstrate, are the state­ ments of theorists and other writers of the period; the evidence of the sources; the development of new instrumental genres; the corrections of detail made in manuscripts of the period; the stop-press changes made by printers of music in the course of a run; and the anecdotal evidence we have cited concerning the attitudes of both the composer and contempo­ raneous commentators towards the music ascribed to josquin. all of this, and more, would suggest that the status of "work" meant at the time that every detail that could be fixed notationally was considered an essential part of the piece, to be written as accurately and interpreted as scrupu­ lously as possible. little wonder that glarean referred to the music of josquin as an ars perfecta (1965:241), that composers of his stature-and their works-inspired such esteem, and that the art music of the time was disseminated in such quantities all over europe from publishers in venice, rome, paris, antwerp, nuremberg and yet other major centers. clearly, a sound understanding of the work-concept for this period is a matter of no small import. it will inevitably shape our views and our working methods for a long time to come, especially as scholars and editors, as we continue to retrieve and to explore the musical treasures that have become so much a part of the rich history of western musical culture. notes an earlier, and much shorter, version of this essay was read at the 17th interna­ tional congress of the international musicological society held in leuven, bel­ gium, august 1-7, 2002. i should like to extend my warmest thanks to those of my colleagues who graciously took the time to read subsequent drafts and to share with me their critical observations: sean gallagher, anthony newcomb, stephanie schlagel, glenn stanley, philippe vendrix, and, especially, lydia goehr. 1. strohm also criticizes goehr's approach (as i shall not) from a philosophi­ cal point of view, based in his own understanding of idealist german philosophy of the nineteenth century. 2. loesch declares, for example, "selbstverstandlich wurde das musikalische kunstwerk, wenn uberhaupt, nicht vor dem 19. jahrhundert" (2001:25). 3. these include not only seidel and wiora, mentioned above, but also hermann zenk, wilibald gurlitt, hans heinrich eggebrecht, carl dahlhaus, pe­ ter cahn, claus wolfgang niem611er, and klaus-jurgen sachs. see loesch (2001:2). see loesch's bibliography for the studies in question. 42 current musicology 4. " ... derwerkbegriffdes 16. und 17.jahrhunderts [war] gar kein werkbegriff in unserem sinne ... ," (loesch 2001:3, passim). the fundamental theses of loesch's study are first stated succinctly (7-8) and then argued systematically and at length (with considerable redundancy) in the remainder of the book. 5. the aristotelian classification of human activity as either knowing, doing, or making, had been proposed as a model for listenius by both wiora (1983:17), and seidel (1987:2ff), and was adopted as well by markus bandur in his treatment of musica poetica. see handworterbuch der musikalische terminologie, 2000, s.v. "musica poetica" (by markus bandur). 6. loesch lays out this position in detail in the initial three chapters of his study (2001:1-25). 7. loesch's terms in german are as follows: (a) mehrstimmigkeit; (b) konsonanzbehandlung und simultankonzeption; (c) die kategorie des neuen; (d) werkindividualitiit, (e) asthetischeautonomie; (f) einheitundform; (g) zeitenthobenheit und zeitlose giiltigkeit (2001:27-43). 8. loesch also points to the inclusion, in later treatises, of improvisation (sortisatio) under the heading of composition, proving to him (but not to me) that musica poetica should not be considered the same as composition since it is sup­ posed to produce an opus perfectum et absolutum, whereas composition has been expanded to include the usually unnotated activity of improvisation. 9. the author elaborates each of his arguments from a variety of points of view. 10. loesch does not examine the music of the period from this point of view but argues instead that there is no discussion of such conditions in connection with the terms musica poetica or opus perfectum et absolutum either by listenius or in the treatises of his successors; see his discussion (2001 :28-50). the underlying assumption appears to be that anything not specifically mentioned by those writ­ ers cannot have found a place in the music of the period. 11. the interpretation of musica, in this context, as a treatise or manual of instruction on music; was first adopted by loesch (1998), where he elaborates on a comment by braun (1994:39f). he takes up the argument again in greater de­ tail; see loesch (2001:50-58, passim). as i have indicated, i do not believe that the multiple uses made of the term negate its most common meaning as a notated composition. 12. for the latin, see (listenius 1927). in providing an english translation for this lengthy passage, i have followed in some details that offered by goehr in her study (1992: 116). there is also an english translation of the treatise by albert seay (listenius 1975), to be used with some caution. 13. the pattern appears, already fully developed, in the influential and widely disseminated treatises by marchetto of padua, lucidarium in arte musice plane, and pomerium in arte musice mensurate. 14. cristle collins judd has explored in some detail the tradition in which listenius was working against the background of sixteenth-century nuremberg and the impact there of the protestant reformation; see her penetrating study (2000:82ff) . 15. facsimile editions of all three treatises have been published in recent years by minkoff reprints: the wollick in 1972, and the martin and guilliaud (toleeman l. perkins 43 gether with the nouvelle instruction familii:re by michel de menehou) in 1981. 16. see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "gaffurius." (by bonnie j. blackburn). 17. the terminological and conceptual parallels between tinctoris and listenius have been noted by bonnie blackburn (1987:274f.). 18. this is bandur's conclusion in his extensive and detailed entry on "res facta/chose faite": " ... bezeichnung fur ein mehrstimmiges, in allen stimmen ausgearbeitetes and schriftlich fixiertes musikalisches werk ... " see handworterbuch der musikalischen terminologie, 1996, s.v. "res facta/ chose faite" (by markus bandur). this is also blackburn's view; see blackburn (1987:248-60). 19. the possibility was raised early on by ferand (1957:144); blackburn dis­ cusses the problem at some length (1987:260-65); and markus bandur states de­ finitively, "trotz entgegengesetzter beleglage ist wahrscheinlich die prigung res facta bei tinctoris als ubersetzung von chose faite ins lateinische zu betrachten." see handworterbuch dermusikalischen terminologie, 1996, s.v. "res facta/chose faite." 20. "[de musique] sont deux especes, c'est a s<;avoir la simple, autrement appellee plain chant ... & la figuree, que ie vulgaire appelle chose faite" (chap. 1); for the citations from all three treatises, see handworterbuch der musikalischen terminologie, 1996, s.v. "res facta/chose faite" (by markus bandur). 21. the reference is to the definition given by tinctoris in the terminorum musicae diffinitorium (ca. 1472): "cantus compositus est ille qui per relationem notarum unius partis ad alteram multipliciter est editus, qui resfacta vulgariter appellatur. " 22. "omnis itaque res facta pro qualitate et quantitate eius diversificanda est prout infinita docent opera, non solum a me verum etiam ab innumeris compositoribus aevo praesenti florentibus edita." the english version given here has been adapted from the translation by seay (tinctoris 1961: 139f). 23. "quorum ... omnia fere opera tantam suavitudinem redolent ut mea quidem sententia non modo hominibus herroibusque verum etiam diis immortalibus dignissima censenda sint. ea quoque profecto nunquam audio, nunquam considero quin laetior ac doctior evadam, unde quemadmodum vergilius in ilio opere divino eneidos homero, ita iis hercule, in meis opusculis utor archetypis. [praesertim in hoc, in quo concordantias ordinando approbabilem eorum componendi stilum plane imitatus sum]" (ff. 80£., valencia ms.). 24. see die musik in geschichte und gegenwar~ 2nd ed., s.v. "chantilly" (by ursula gunther). 25. "musica peritos in ea glorificat"; see the discussion in cahn (1989: 17). 26. for information on sources and publication practices, see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., "sources" (by stanley boorman). for information on palestrina, see id., s.v. "palestrina" (by lewis lockwood, noel o'regan and jessie-ann owens). for information on lassus, see id., s.v. "lassus" (by james haar). 27. for the mellon chansonnier, see garey and perkins (1979). for the newberry part books, see slim (1972). for the medici codex, see lowinsky (1968). for the numerous manuscripts prepared in the alamire workshop, see kellman (1999). 28. a comparison of any of the collections mentioned with important vol44 current musicology umes in the library of the aragonese kings of naples will amply the illustrate the point; see marini (1947-52). 29. for a useful survey of music publishing in the sixteenth century, see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "printing and publishing of music" (by donald krummel). this essay does not, however, refer to the grow­ ing scholarly literature concerning individual printers, which must be sought in the articles concerning the persons and printing establishment in question. 30. in a paper read at the meeting of the american musicological society in toronto (2000), gallagher made the point convincingly with the cantus of okeghem's d'un autre amer, showing that the readings in the sixteen known sources differ only in minor details, a circumstance that is all the more compelling since the manuscripts in question were both french and italian in their provenance and spanned more than four decades from the earliest to the most recent. 31. see, for example, the liber de arte contrapuncti, ch. 32, "de ordinatione cuiuslibet discordantie," or ch. 8, "de octava et ultima generali regula," concern­ ing the use of counterpoint, or proportionales musices, ch. 3, "divisio proportionum," regarding a mensural problem in this connection (strunk 1998:374-76). 32. see also judd (2000:69,73) for other observations concerning the use of notated polyphony as a means of authoritative reference. 33. see judd's discussion of the commonplace book and its role in the hu­ manistic scholarship of the period (2000:117-76). 34. see blackburn et al. (1991:101-26). the assertion that "composers must be born, just as poets are born" is quoted on p. 104. 35. hence the commission given to giovanni pierluigi da palestrina and annibale zoilo in 1577 to revise the plainsongs of the roman gradual and antiphoner; see the brief written by pope gregory xiii in this connection in strunk (1998:374-76). 36. for a brief survey of instrumental genres that became current in the fif­ teenth and sixteenth centuries, see perkins (1999:789-866). 37. the term refers to the adaptation of mens ural notation to the specialized notational systems designed specifically for lute and keyboard. 38. strohm emphasizes the leading role of vocal music over the centuries in developing the expressive possibilities that came to be associated with instrumen­ tal music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, observing that, "although instrumental music, in the shape of musical works, became more 'emancipated' over the generations, this meant only that it caught up with vocal music in this respect" (2000:139). 39. both collections were published in venice by petrucci: spinacino's intabolatura de lauto libro primo and libro secondo (1507), and dalza's intabolatura de lauto libro quarto (1508). 40. see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "cavazzoni, giromalo" (by colin h. slim). 41. a thoughtful discussion of these issues as they pertain to instrumental music, especially that of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, "no­ tions of notation around 1600," was presented by anthony newcomb at the 2003 annual meeting of the american musicological society in houston as an initial installment of what is to be a more detailed study, currently underway, that will be leeman l. perkins 45 published in due course. i should like to thank professor newcomb for sharing some of his insights with me in private communication. 42. concerning this tradition, see the new grove dictionary of music and musi­ cians, 2nd ed., s.v. "sources ofinstrumental ensemble music to 1630" (by warwick edwards). 43. see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "lauda sion" (by john caldwell). 44. both are readily accessible in maitland and squire (1963, 1:427-36 and 2:1-11). 45. brussels, bibliotheque royale, ms 9085, ed. in facsimile by e. closson, le manuscrit dit des basses danses de la bibliotheque de bourgogne (brussels, 1912/r); for an overview of this type of courtly dance and relevant bibliography, see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "hoftanz" (by daniel heartz and patricia rader). 46. among the most important are the libro del arte de danzare, 1455 (in manu­ script) of antonio cornazano (for italy), and the orchesographie. (langres, 1588 and 1589), of thoinot arbeau (for france), which is available in a modern fac­ simile published by editions minkoff in geneva in 1972. 47. see the inventories of attaingnant's prints compiled by heartz (1969: nos. 16,17,20). the pieces for lute have all been edited in modern score by heartz (1964); the others have been published only in part, as heartz's catalogue indi­ cates. 48. not all seven of the collections have been preserved, but, judging from the systematic manner in which attaingnant numbered his prints, they must have all been published, some of them clearly in more than one edition. 49. see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "fantasia­ suite" (by christopher d. s. field); the coprario suites have been edited by rich­ ard charteris for musica britannica (vol. 46, 1980). 50. it is loesch's contention (with which i disagree) that the use of the word to designate the print as such argues against the existence of a work-concept be­ fore 1800; see loesch (2001:58-60, passim); he cites as an example georg rhau's postremum vespertini officii opus of 1544. there are other, similar instances, includ­ ing not only german prints such as the novum et insigne opus musicum of 1537-38 (a collection of motets), but also italian collections such as zarlino's musici quinque vocum moduli, motecta vulgo nuncupata, opus nunquam alias typis excusum ac nuper accuratissime in lucem aeditum, liber primus, printed in venice by gardano in 1549. see judd (2000: 201ft). 51. marini, for example, published between 1617 and 1655 twenty-two collec­ tions (some of which have been lost), each with its own opus number, the last of which, per ogni sorte di strumento musicale diversi generi di sonate, da chiesa, e da camera, a 2-4, bc, was printed in venice; see dunn (2001, 15:863). 52. most instructive in this connection is the survey of the repertory in ques­ tion by william s. newman (1971:128-62, passim). 53. see the study by marc pincherle (1956), which continues to be informa­ tive and useful. 54. note that corelli was exceptional in the narrow focus of his compositional activity. contrary to the assertion of michael talbot that, "prior to 1800 the great 46 current musicology majority of composers, even the most highly admired, were specialists," quite the opposite was most often the case (2000b: 181). from at least the fifteenth century on the composers best known to history cultivated all of the genres then current­ du fay, for example,]osquin, lassus, or monteverdi, to mention only a few -and the same sort of quasi-universal competence continued to be expected from the professional musicians of the following centuries as well as the careers and works of figures such as haydn, mozart, and beethoven clearly show. 55. busnoys's quant ce viendra, morton's n'aray je jamais mieulx, and the set­ ting of the much used monophonic song, ii sera pour vous conbatu/l'homme arme, whose authorship is in doubt; see garey and perkins (1979: nos. 16,24,34; 2:248, 280, 330). the version a 4 of ii sera pour vous is included in atlas (1981: no. 3b). 56. je ne fay plus, ascribed to both busnoys and mureau, hayne's amours, amours, trop me fiers, agricola's c'est mal cherche, caron's helas, que pourra devenir, and hayne's de tous biens playne, see hewitt and pope (1942: nos. 8,9,12,13,20). 57.jecuidese ce temps medure, ascribed to both]apartand congiet,]uan urrede's nunqua fue pena maior, tmeiskin, with attributions to isaac, obrecht, and ]apart, and perhaps hayne's a l'audience, see hewitt and pope (1942: nos. 2,4,27,93). 58. see hewitt and pope (1942:58-60). 59. see fallows (1999:129ff). 60. for busnoys's fortuna desperata, see meconi (2001). for okeghem's fors seulement l'attente, see picker (1981). for hayne's de tous bien plaine, see cyrus (2000). and for j'ay pris amours, see taruskin (1983:rs 6). 6l. for additional examples, see perkins (1999:763-75). 62. see the work list compiled by lockwood et al. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "palestrina." 63. i should like to thank prof. schlagel for her kindness in making her type­ script available to me prior to publication. 64. note the use of the word opus in the title of the print, which was cited earlier, (see p. 45, n. 50). 65. as quoted by schlagel (2002a:590); uosquinum celeberrimum huius artis heroem facile agnoscent omnes, habet enim vere divinum et inimitabile quiddam .... j talbot, who accepts goehr's basic premises, adds to them the notion that, "between 1780 and 1820, approximately, a genre-centred and per­ former-centred practice became a composer-centred one" (2000b:172), apparently has not considered the extent to which composers such asjosquin have loomed large in earlier periods. 66. i should like to thank professor schlagel for making a copy of her paper available to me. 67. "it will be noted that the added parts often have leaping movements. this is acceptable because of the great difficulty met in trying to adjust a new voice to the composition's continuous lines. for it is one thing to write three parts at one time, another to add a third to two given parts. the latter is a far more difficult task, one for a consummate musician and deserving of high praise when success­ fully carried out." the passage, as quoted in translation by schlagel (2002b) is taken from zarlino's le istitutioni harmoniche (1558), terza parte, cap. 64, p. 260. 68. see schlagel (1996). 69. the added voices are found in munich, bavarian state library, ms 41; see leeman l. perkins 47 schlagel (2002a). 70. the added part is found in rokycany, czech republic, archiv dekanstvi v rokycanech, ms a v 22; see schlagel (2002a). 71. the composition was included in the novi atque catholici thesauri musici, liber quartus ... petri ioannelli de gandino bergomensis collectae (venice, a. gardano, 1568); see schlagel (2002a). 72. the excerpt is from the ragionamenti accademici of 1567: 'josquino, discepolo di ocghem, si puo dire que quello alla musica fusse un mostro della natura, si come e stato nella architettura, pittura & scultura il nostro michelagnolo buonarotti; per che si come josquino non hi pero ancora avuto alcuno che 10 arrivi nelle composizione, cosi michelagnolo ... e solo & senza compagno," as given in english by macey. see the new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. 'j osquin des prez" (by patrick macey). 73. "aiunt enim qui noverunt, multa cunctatione, multifariaque correctione sua edidisse, nec, nisi aliquot annis apud se detinuisset, ullum in publicum emisisse cantum." note that the attitude imputed tojosquin regarding his compositions is much like that found more than a century later with corelli; see note 53. 74. the full passage reads as follows: "quoties novam cantilenam composuerat, dedit earn cantoribus canendam, et interea ipse circumambulabat, attente audiens, an harmonia congueret. si non placeret, ingressus, 'tacete,' inquit, 'ego mutabo'." 75. the full passage reads as follows: "tu asine, quare addis coloraturam? si mihi ea placuisset, inseruissem ipse. si tu velis corrigere cantilenas recte compositas, facias tibi proprium cantum, sinas mihi meum incorrectum." 76. see the broad-ranging discussion of the issues involved by rob wegman (1999). references atlas, allan, ed. 1981. robert morton, the collected works. new york: broude broth­ ers limited. bent, margaret. 1983. resfacta and cantare super librum. journal of the american musicological society 36 (3): 371-91. blackburn, bonnie j. 1987. on compositional process in the fifteenth century. journal of the american musicological society 40 (2): 210-84. blackburn, bonnie j., edward e. lowinsky, and clement a. miller, eds. 1991. a correspondence of renaissance musicians. oxford: clarendon press. braun, w. 1994. deutsche musiktheorie des 15. bis 17. jahrhunderts, ii: von calvisius bis mattheson, geschichte der musiktheorie 8. darmstadt. cahn, peter. 1989. zur vorgeschichte des 'opus perfectum et absolutum'. in zeichen und struktur in der musik der renaissance, ein symposium aus anlass der jahrestagung der gesellschaft fur musikforschung, munster (westfalen), 1987, 11-26. kassel: barenreiter. cyrus, cynthia j., ed. 2000. de tous biens plaine: twenty-eight settings of hayne van ghizeghem's chanson, recent researches in the music of the middle ages and early renaissance 36. middleton, wi: a-r editions. fallows, david. 1999. a catalogue of polyphonic songs, 1415-1480. oxford: oxford university press. ferand, ernest t. 1957. what is res facta? journal of the american musicological soci48 current musicology ety 10 (3): 141-50. gallagher, sean. 2000. doublets, multifarms, and the work-concept in fifteenth-century song repertories. paper delivered at american musicological society conference, toronto. garey, howard and leeman l. perkins, eds. 1979. the mellon chansonnier, 2 vols. new haven: yale university press. glarean, henricus. 1965. dodecachordon, translation by clement a. miller, 2 vols. american institute of musicology. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum of musical works. oxford: clarendon press. ---. 2000. 'on the problems of dating' or 'looking backward and forward with strohm'. in talbot 2000a, 231-46. heartz, daniel. 1964. preludes, chansons, and dances for lute. neuilly-sur-seine: societe de musique d'autrefois. ---. 1969. pierre attaingnant, royal printer of music. berkeley: university of cali­ fornia press. hewitt, helen and isabel pope, eds. 1942. harmonic musices odhecaton a. cam­ bridge, ma: the mediaeval academy of america. judd, cristle collins. 2000. reading renaissance music theory: hearing with the eyes, cambridge studies in music theory and analysis 14. cambridge: cambridge university press. kellman, herbert, ed. 1999. the treasury of petrus alamire: music and art in flemish court manuscripts, 1500-1535. ludion, ghent, amsterdam: university of chi­ cago press. listenius, nicholas. 1927. musica, edited by georg schunemann. ver­ offentlichungen der musik-bibliothek paul hirsch 8. berlin: martin breslauer. ---. 1975. musica, translated by albert seay. colorado springs: colorado col­ lege music press. loesch, heinz von. 1998. 'musica' und 'opus musicum': zur friigeschichte der musikalischen werkbegriffs. in musikwissenschaft zwischen kunst, asthetik und experiment: festschrift helga de la motte-haber zum 60. geburtstag, 337-42. wurzburg: konigshausen & neumann. ---. 2001. der werkbegriff in der protestantischen musiktheorie des 16. und 17. jahrhunderts: ein missverstiindnis, veroffentlichungen des staatlichen instituts fur musikforschung 11: studien zur geschichte der musiktheorie 1. hildesheim: georg olms verlag. lowinsky, edward e. 1969. the medici codex of 1518,3 vols. chicago: university of chicago press. macey, patrick. i993.josquin as classic: qui habitat, memoresto, and two imitations unmasked. journal of the royal music association 118: 1-43. maitland,j.a. fuller and w. barclay squire, eds. 1963. the fitzwilliam virginal book, 2 vols. new york: dover publications. manlius, johannes. 1562. locorum communium collectanae. basel. marinis, tamaro de. 1947-52. la biblioteca napolitana dei re d 'aragona, 4 vols. milan: ulrieo hoepli. meconi, honey, ed. 2001. fortuna desperata: thirty-six settings of an italian song, recent researches in the music of the middle ages and early renaissance 37. leeman l. perkins 49 middleton, wi: a-r editions. newman, william s. 1971. the sonata in the baroque era. new york: w.w. norton. perkins, leeman l. 1999. music in the age of the renaissance. new york: w. w. norton. picker, martin, ed. 1981. fors seulement: thirty compositions for three and five voices or instruments from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. middleton, wi: a-r edi­ tions. pincherle, marc. 1956. corelli: his life and works. new york: w.w. norton. schlagel, stephanie p. 1996. josquin des prez and his motets: a case study in sixteenth­ century reception history. phd diss., university of north carolina. ---. 2002a. the liber selectarum cantionum and the german josquin renais­ sance. thejournal of musicology 19 (4): 564-615. ---. 2002b. gilding the lily: si placet parts of josquin's motets. columbus, oh: lecture-recital for the annual meeting of the american musicological society. seidel, wilhelm. 1987. werk und werkbegriff in der musikgeschichte, ertrage der forschung, band 246. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft. slim, h. colin. 1972. a gift of madrigals and motets, 2 vols. chicago: university of chicago press. strohm, reinhardt. 2000. looking back at ourselves: the problem with the musi­ cal work-concept. in talbot 2000a, 128-52. strunk, oliver, ed. 1950. source readings in music history. new york: w.w. norton. ---. 1998. strunk's source readings in music history, edited by leo treitler, 2nd ed. new york: w.w. norton. talbot, michael, ed. 2000a. the musical work: reality or invention? liverpool: liverpool university press. ---. 2000b. the work-concept and composer-centredness. in talbot 2000a, 168-86. taruskin, richard, ed. 1983. j'ay pris amours. miami: ogni sorte editions. tinctoris, johannes. 1961. the art of counterpoint, translated and edited by albert seay. american institute of musicology. wegman, rob. 1999. 'and josquin laughed' ... josquin and the composer's anecdote in the sixteenth century. the journal of musicology 17 (3): 150-56. wiora, walther. 1983. das musikalische kunstwerk. tutzing: hans schneider. the first opera repertoire of the castle theater in ceskj krumlov ]in za10ha the south bohemian city of cesky krumlov was first mentioned in 1253 as an estate of the lords of krumlov, a branch of the vitkovci family. after these first owners died out, another branch of the family, the rozmberks, took over the property as their familial residence. next to the sovereign, they were the most powerful noblemen in all of bohemia. considerable economic development of the whole region took place around 1600 during the reigns of the last two members of this family, vilem and petr vok. the former medieval stronghold was reconstructed and turned into a renaissance residence suitable for a family of noble position. the city's wealthy citizens copied the tastes of their lords by adorning the walls of their homes with paintings and by building entrances with stone facings. both hitherto independent settlements-the extramural one called "the latdm" and the inner city-were also united into a single administrative and economic entity at this time. before he died, petr vok sold the castle, with its accompanying town and estate, to emperor rudolph ii of austria. after an uprising of the czech nobility had been suppressed in 1622, the estate was given to the austrian nobleman johann ulrich von eggenberg. the family's successors sold the property in 1719 to the schwarzenbergs, who undertook further modifications of the castle and its surroundings. the old aristocratic system broke down in 1848, with the onslaught of a new era. when the new czech settlers took control of the area after the second world war, the city's monuments were in poor condition. however, a number of buildings of historical interest have been saved, and others will be renovated in the near future during a general reconstruction of the city. cesky krumlov has been declared a historic shrine and has become a center of lively tourism in the southern sumava mountain range. the period of most interest musically is that encompassed by the life of joseph adam von schwarzenberg (1722-82). his reign was marked by extraordinarily intensive building activity and a busy social and cultural life. the additions of this era contributed a great deal to the beauty of the castle and fortress. after his father's unexpected death,l schwarz en berg spent the rest of his youth in vienna and touring in other european countries. he subsequently endeavored to utilize on his estate the experience he had acquired in the imperial residential city and abroad. he did so not only in the economic sphere but also in purposeful construction, initiated by his fascination for social and cultural reforms. the castle premises were enriched by numerous paintings, suttues, and other objets d'art. in 1742 the prince had his personal 64 council of grenadiers transferred from hluboka nad vltavou to cesky krumlov. two years later a winter riding school designed by andrea altomonte was built on the slope above the castle. a beautiful masquerade hall was appended to the castle complex in 1748, and more adjustments were made in the following years. the castle chapel was rebuilt and has kept its appearance to this day. in 1755-56 a pavilion called bellaria was added to the decor of the castle garden, and in 1759-60 a new stone bridge was constructed in front of the castle entrance next to the bear's pit. in 1764 a stone bridge, situated in the upper castle and adorned by statues of saints, replaced a hitherto wooden one that was called "na plasti" (on the coat). all of these modifications and innovations were crowned by the building of a new castle theater. theatrical presentations in cesky krumlov castle had always been a favorite pastime of the inhabitants, and accurate reports on performances onginate from the years toward the close of the 16th century. the first permanent theater was designed by j. m. schaumberger in 1682 and was built shortly thereafter during the reign of prince johann christian von eggenberg. the prince had his own ensemble, whose members were part-time professional actors, part-time castle employees.2 no records of the repertoire of this theater have been preserved. in the castle archives, however, there are some manuscripts of italian operas which date from the end of the 17th century and which were probably performed in the castle theater at this time. music was, in any case, an important aspect of the theatrical pursuits in which the noble family engaged. the death of prince johann christian in 1710 unfortunately caused a discontinuation of the theater life in cesky krumlov. endeavors to renew it were made in the first half of the 18th century when joseph adam von schwarzenberg became acquainted with french opera comique in vienna. by 1756 the old theater had fallen into a bad state of disrepair. even in good condition, its technical equipment would have been incapable of fulfilling the requirements of the period. if performances in the theater were ever to be resumed, a total renovation would have to take place. designs for the reconstruction of the theater were in preparation from 1760 on, but actual construction did not commence until 1765. in the meantime a smaller stage in one of the great castle halls was used until work on the theater proper was completed in 1766. the equipment for the change of coulisses, curtains, and other stage settings, which is still preserved intact today, was made by the viennese carpenter lorenz mak and displays the ingenuity of its designers and creators. wall and ceiling paintings, the curtain, and drapery, as well as the coulisses, represent the work of the viennese theater painters johann wetschel and leo merk1.3 both artists also decorated the walls of the small theater hall called the gold room. "plays started as soon as the construction of the new castle theater was concluded and the stage and auditorium provided with the necessary equipment," states a contemporary 65 record from the year 1767.4 one special presentation of note, which took place in the summer of 1768, was a gala opera in honor of the wedding of the castle owner's son, johann von schwarzenberg. after twenty brilliant years of existence the theater outlived its term of usefulness and ceased to be popular. the number of performances kept dropping from year to year and, by the end of the 19th century, had stopped altogether. mter the second world war a few opera performances took place, but the old glory of the cesky krumlov castle theater should be reborn when the present repairs are concluded. although archival research dealing with the past of the cesky krumlov theater has been rather successful, exactly who the actors were has not yet been clearly established. there was no resident company attached to the castle; however, some of the castle employees did participate in performances. neither is there evidence of regular entertainments provided by a foreign company, although there are records of occasional performances by visiting artists who were reimbursed by the prince for their services. judging from the documents and literature of the period, one may assume that the company was really a domestic amateur ensemble composed of the prince's family and, sometimes, their aristocratic friends. thus, some of the facts about the theater have been ascertained, but much remains to be explained. music from the second half of the 18th century preserved in the state archives gives evidence of frequent operatic presentations which took place in this charming setting. these spectacles were usually supplemented by ballet pieces. there are about 300 music manuscripts in the castle library from the period which show signs of use during a past era. whoever had such a theater built and equipped with costly furnishings then saw to it that the music available in the library for performances in the theater was indeed used. information on the composition of the repertoire is given by an inventory originating from the second half of the 18th century, i.e., the first years of the theater's existence. it contains elementary records of operas and ballets and states that the manuscripts were deposited during that period in cesky krumlov castle. the most remarkable thing is that, with very few exceptions, all the mentioned compositions have been preserved and are now part of the cesky krumlov music collection. the repertoire divides itself easily into certain primary types of compositions. there are french comic operas (called operas comiques in the inventory), italian operas (opere serie and opere bu.ffe), and ballets. on the whole, the origin of the above music is evident. the prince was often in vienna and attended performances there. he became acquainted with everything connected with the theater. in his memoirs count khevenhiiller-metsch gives an impressive and detailed account of these viennese performances.5 in the following listings6 the composer is included, together with his dates and the name of the work. if no composer was given for a particular work but research has since determined his identity, the name is listed in 66 brackets; a question mark in brackets indicates that authorship of the work remains unknown. opera titles have been left as they appear on the manuscripts, although the more usual names have been added where there are major differences. information such as the date of the first performance in vienna or nearby laxenburg has also been included. the numbering of the manuscripts in the old inventory has also been kept. accordingly, each of the works has been provided with a call number indicating its place in the collection. there are twenty-seven french operas comiques recorded in the inventory, twenty-six of which are still intact in the castle library. with regard to the dates of these operas, the music was probably brought to cesky krumlov during the first performances, while the works were still part of the vienna theater repertoire. the composers' names are not mentioned for the majority of these operas, but most have been determined and are listed. the opere serie form another important category in the inventory. these operas did not seem to have been too popular in the castle of cesky krumlov, because their performance required a large number of singers and actors. altogether, there were six works of this type in the collection, all originating from the 1760's, and five of them have been preserved. three are manuscripts, and two are printed. the manuscripts are works by johann adolph hasse, and the printed operas are works by christoph willi bald gluck. the missing opera was also composed by gluck. most of the performances staged in cesky krumlov belong to the opere buffe group. to the audience they were the most acceptable ones, easy to understand and not requiring much scenery. during the first years of the theater's existence, this type of opera represented the dominant artistic trend in vienna. it must have been easy to procure the music, as well as organize theater company tours to a small but interesting provincial place like cesky krumlov. a number of performances were supplemented by other topical works and frequently by ballets with serious subject matter. everything was inspired by fashion, and it would be wrong to suggest that theater life in cesky krumlov did not depend largely on foreign models. a separate list of five operas-bernesche-was later added to the existing register. the bernesche are of obvious italian origin. in the inventory they are placed between the lists of opere serie and opere bujfe. of these five bernesche, one, an anonymous opera, was lost. one opera buffa out of twenty-three listed titles is missing at present. the only non-italian composer is the czech florian leopold gassman, who first brought salieri to vienna. in one case, no. 11, the original printed libretto is preserved apart from the music. research as to the time of creation of these operas has established that most of them were composed at the end of the 1760's and the beginning of the 1770's, i.e., exactly at the time when the cesky krumlov castle theater began its performances. such discoveries give proof of a lively and interesting czech musical tradition which can still be seen today through the successful 67 performances of modern czech artists all over the world and through the international renown of czech composers. operas comiques 1. ciampi, vincenzo legrenzio, 1719-62. li tre gobbi rivali (arias). the work is better known under the title la favola dei tre gobbi. the premiere took place in venice in 1 749. sign. no. 281/2/5 k 16. 2. dauvergne, antoine, 1713-97. les troqueurs. the first vienna performance was in 1758. sign. no. 281/2/3 k 16. 3. [duni, egidio romoaldo, 1709-75]. ninette a la cour (airs accompagnes). the full title of this work is le caprice amoureux ou ninette a la cour. the first vienna performance was in 1760. sign. no. 191/2/3 k 14. 4. [--]. l'isle desfoux (ariettes). the first vienna performance was in 1761. sign. no. 271/2/20 k 16. 5. [galuppi, baldassare, 1706-85]. filosofo di campagna (arias). the first vienna performance was in 1763. sign. no. 241/2/7 k 15. 6. gluck, christoph willibald, 1714-87. l'arbre enchante (airs nouveaux). the premiere took place in schonbrunn in 1759. sign. no. 241/2/6 k 15. 7. --. le cadi dupe (airs nouveaux). the premiere took place in vienna in 1761. sign. no. 271/2/21 k 16. 8. [--]. le chino is poli en france (airs accompagnes). the premiere took place in laxenburg, near vienna, in 1756. sign. no. 261/2/17 k 15. 9. --. la cythere assiegee. the first vienna performance was in 1759. sign. no. 241/2/10 k 15. 10. [--]. la fausse esclave. the premiere took place in vienna in 1758. the work is missing from the collection. 11. [--]. l'isle de merlin (airs accompagnes). the premiere took place in schonbrunn in 1758. sign. no. 281/2/1 k 16. 12. [--]. la rencontre imprevue. the premiere took place in vienna in 1764. sign. no. 181/2b/l k 13. 13. [--]. la rencontre imprevue. see no. 12. sign. no. 181/2b/2 k 13. 14. --. les trois sultanes (ariettes). there is no record of gluck having 68 provided music for this work. it is perhaps soliman second ou les trois sultanes by paul cesar gibert, 1717-87, based on a text by charles simon favart. soliman second was first presented in paris in 1761. sign. no. 24 k 14. 15. --. l'yvrogne corrige (airs nouveaux). the premiere took place in vienna in 1760. sign. no. 241/2/8 k 15. 16. [maid ere, pierre van, 1 729-68j. les amours champestres (airs accompagnes). this is a parody of les sauvages, part of les indes galantes by jean phillipe rameau, 1683-1764. the text is by charles simon favart, and the first vienna performance of les amours champestres was in 1755. sign. no. 261/2/13 k 15. 17. [monsigny, pierre alexandre, 1729-1817j. le roi et le fermier. the first vienna performance was in 1763. sign. no. 231/2 k 14. 18. [pergo1esi, giovanni battista, 171o-36j. la servante maztresse. this is a translation of la serva padrona. the first vienna performance, in french, was in 1758. sign. no. 261/2/19 k 15. 19. [philidor, fran<;ois andre danican, 1726-95]. le diable a quatre. the first performance in laxenburg, near vienna, was in 1759. sign. no. 241/2/9 k 15. 20. [--j. le marechal ferrant. the first vienna performance was in 1763. sign. no. 271/2/22 k 16. 21. [sodi, charles, ?-?j. les amours de bastien et bastienne. the libretto, by charles simon favart, his wife, and harny de guerville, is a parody of le devin du village by jean-jacques rousseau, 1712-78. the name charles sodi might be a pseudonym. the first performance of les amours in laxenburg, near vienna, was in 1755. sign. no. 241/2/15 k 15. 22. [?j. le magazin des modernes (airs accompagnes). the first performance in laxenburg, near vienna, was in 1756. sign. no. 281/2/2 k 16. 23. [?j. recueil des chansons les plus nouvelles avec la basse. sign. no. 261/2/18 k 15. 24. [?j. suffisant (airs). the text is by jean joseph vade. the premiere took place in paris in 1753. sign. no. 281/2/4 k 16. 25. [?j. le trompeur trompe (airs nouveaux). the text is by jean joseph vade. the first vienna performance was in 1756. sign. no. 261/2/16 k 15. 26. [?j. tyrcis et doristee (airs accompagnes). the work is a parody of acis et galatee by jean baptiste lully, 1683-1764, and is on a text by charles 69 simon favart. the first performance in laxenburg, near vienna, was in 1756. sign. no. 261/2/12 k 15. 27. la vengeance inutile. this work, whose full title is raton et rosette ou la vengeance inutile, is a parody of titon et l'aurore by jean joseph de mondonville, 1711-72. it is on a text by charles simon favart. the first vienna performance was in 1755. the music is partly by charles sodi, partly by mondonville. sign. no. 261/2/14 k 15. opere serie 1. gluck, christoph willibald, 1714-87. alceste (in italian). the premiere took place in vienna in 1767. this edition was printed in vienna in 1769. sign. no. 126 k 19. 2. [--]. orfeo ed euridice. the premiere took place in vienna in 1762. the work is missing from the collection. 3. --. paride ed elena. the premiere took place in vienna in 1770. this edition was printed in vienna in the same year. sign. no. 124 k 19. 4. hasse, johann adolf, 1699-1783. alcide al bivio. the premiere took place in vienna in 1760. sign. no. 11/3 k 10. 5. [--]. romolo ed ersilia. the premiere took place in innsbruck in 1765. sign. no. 31/3 k 10. 6. --. it trionio di clelia. the premiere took place in vienna in 1762. sign. no. 21/2 k 10. bernesche 1. [galuppi, baldassare, 1706-85]. arcifanfano, re dei matti. the premiere took place in 1 749. sign. no. 201/2 k 14. 2. piccinni, nicola, 1728-1800. l'astrologa. the premiere took place in naples in 1756. sign. no. 201/2 k 14. 3. --. l'incognita perseguitata. the premiere took place in venice in 1764. sign. no. 191/2 k 14. 4. rust, giacomo, 1741-86. la contadina in corte. the premiere took place in venice in 1764. sign. no. 191/2 k 14. 5. [?]. piu briconi it piacer. missing from the collection. 70 opere buffe 1. anfossi, pasquale, 1727-97. la metilda ritrovata. the work is also known as l'incognita perseguitata. the first vienna performance was in 1773. sign. no. 221/2 k 14. 2. fischietti, domenico, ca. 1720-ca. 1810. ii dottore. the full title is ii signor dottore. the first performance in laxenburg, near vienna, was in 1764. sign. no. 41/2 k 10. 3. --. ii mercato di malmantile. the first vienna performance was in 1763. sign. no. 11/2 k 10. 4. galuppi, baldassare, 1706-85. le nozze. the first vienna performance was in 1764. sign. no. 51/2 k 11. 5. gassmann, florian leopold, 1729-74. l'amore artigiano. the premiere took place in vienna in 1767. sign. no.1 11/2 k 12. 6. --. la contessina. the first vienna performance was in 1770. sign. no. 171/2 k 13. 7. --. la notte critica. the premiere took place in vienna in 1768. sign. no. 131/2 k 13. 8. --. ii viaggiator ridicolo. the premiere took place in vienna in 1766. sign. no. 81/2 k 11. 9. gazzaniga, giuseppe, 1743-1818. la locanda. the first vienna performance was in 1772. sign. no. 211/2 k 14. 10. guglielmi, pietro (alessandro), 1728-1804. piu bricconi, piufortuna. no performance date or place could be determined for this work. sign. no. 161/2 k 13. 11. piccinni, nicola, 1728-1800. la buonafigliuola (libretto). the first vienna performance was in 1764. this libretto was printed in vienna in the same year. sign. no. 10 k 12. 12. --. ii cavaliere per amore. the first vienna performance was in 1766. sign. no. 91/2 k 11. 13. [--j. le contadine bizzare. the first vienna performance was in 1767. sign. no. 101/2 k 12. 14. --. figliuola maritata. the full title is la buona figliuola maritata. see no. 11. sign. no. 31/2 k 10. 15. --. la pescatrice. the full title is la pescatrice ovvero l'erede riconosciuta. the first vienna performance was in 1769. sign. no. 14 k 13. 71 16. [--]. la schiava. the work is better known as gli stravaganti. the first vienna performance was in 1768. sign. no.6 k 11. 17. sacchini, antonio maria (gaspero gioacchino), 1730-86. la contadina in corte. the first vienna performance was in 1767. sign. no.9 k 11. 18. --. ilfinto pazzo per amore. the first vienna performance, in german, was in 1779. the premiere took place in rome in 1772. sign. no. 13 k 12. 19. [salieri, antonio, 1750-1825]. ii barone di rocca antica. the premiere took place in vienna in 1772. the work is missing from the collection. 20. --. lafiera di venezia. the premiere took place in vienna in 1772. sign. no. 12 k 12. 21. scarlatti, giuseppe, ca. 1718-77. l'isola disabitata. the first vienna performance was in 1 757. sign. no. 11 k 12. 22. --. gli stravaganti. the work was later known as la moglie padrona. its premiere took place in vienna in 1765. sign. no. 71/2 k 11. 23. scolari, giuseppe, 1720-69. la cascina. the first vienna performance was in 1768. sign. no.2 k 10. notes 1 joseph adam von schwarzenberg's father had a fatal accident during a hunt at brandys near laxenburg. 2 dusan ludvik, "die eggenbergschen hofkomodianten," acta neophilologica 3 (1970): 65-92. 3 jih hilmera, "zwei bohmische sch1osstheater," maske und konthurn 4 (1958): 125-34. 4 cesky krum10v archives, sign. no. i 7bb 10. s furst johann josef khevenhuller-metsch, aus der zeit maria theresias, ed. rudolf graf khevenhuller-metsch and hanns schlitter, 7 vo1s. (vienna: adolf ho1zhausen, 1907-25). this is the diary of khevenhuller-metsch, who was the supreme imperial steward from 1742 to 1776. 6 the author wishes to thank stephen willis of current musicology for his help in preparing the catalogue. 72 michael john shott-hugo wolf's music criticisms: translation and analysis according to pepper's four world hypotheses ann arbor: university microfilms (um order no. 64-12,087, 1964. 655 pp., indiana university diss.) john morgan between 1884 and 1887 the attention of viennese musical circles was drawn to the previously unknown name of hugo wolf. this was not because, as wolf had hoped, he had caught their interest and enthusiasm with the brilliance of his own creative achievements in music. (as a matter of fact, wolf had at this point in his career composed scarcely anything even suggesting the mastery that he was to attain within a very few years.) rather, it was as music critic for one of the city's most widely-read magazines of fashion that the young composer made his debut. his position as a contributor to the wiener salonblatt was secured through his friends, the k6cherts, who, as court jewelers, were important advertisers in the periodical. they were consequently able to wield their influence in wolf's behalf upon the journal's publisher, moritz engel.1 the position as music critic may not have fulfilled wolf's ambitions with regard to his introduction to viennese musical society, but it at least provided him with regular employment for three years and released him from financial dependence upon his family. more importantly, it insured that nearly every sunday his name would lie before the eyes of the city's elite and fashionable. the products of wolf's journalistic activities were gathered into book form over half a century ago by two of the composer's friends, richard batka and heinrich werner.2 for his 1964 indiana university dissertation, michael john shott prepared an english translation of the 378-page batka-werner edition, complete with werner's preface. while the translation accounts for the bulk of shott's project, a brief section of commentary concludes his study. because copies of the batka-werner original are difficult to 10cate,3 and since few institutions are likely to own appropriate numbers ofthe salonblattwhich was, after all, little more than a fashion sheet-shott's dissertation takes on major importance as a readily available source for wolf's significant essays. it is therefore most unfortunate that the translation as shott leaves it is adequate neither for publication nor for continued scholarly use. objections to shott's completed translation are of two kinds: errors of judgment and policy in the mechanical process of converting wolf's ideas from german into english, and failure to provide the translation with the critical apparatus necessary for utilizing it as a research tool. the translation itselffollows wolf's text closely and accurately enough, but 101 herein lies the first stumbling block. shott's english is so bound to the german original that it is often clumsy and unidiomatic. this is particularly regrettable since wolf's german is literary, polished, and elegant; certainly any english translation must approach a similar level in order to achieve permanent acceptability, even at the expense of a literal word-for-word rendering. take, for example, this extract from a remarkable passage in a review (23 march 1884) inspired by brahms's string quintet in f major, op. 88. shott's translation4 is here juxtaposed against the german origina1.5 die phantasie des komponisten the imagination of the composer schwelgt nur in pittoresken bilabounds in picturesque images; dern; die frostigen novembernebel, the frosty fogs of november, die sonst tiber seine kompositionen which usually lie over his composich lagern undjedem warmen hersitions and take the breath away zenslaut, noch ehe er erklingen from every warm sound coming kann, den atem benehmen,-hier from the heart even before it can entdecken wir keine spur davon: be heard,-here we detect no trace alles ist sonnig, bald heller, of all this; everything is sunny, bald dammriger; ein zauberhaftes now brighter, now duskier, a magismaragdgrtin giebt sich tiber dieses cal emerald green is poured over marchenhafte frtihlingsbild aus. this fairy tale picture of spring. all alles grtint und knospet. ja man is green and budding. yes, one h6rt formlich das gras wachs encan practically hear the grass die natur so geheimnisvoll, so grow-nature so mysterious, so feierlich still, so selig verklart, solemnly peaceful, so blissfully -der komponist konnte sich radiant,-the composer had to nur mit gewalt durch raschen entdrag himself away from this magic schlub dies em zauber entziehen, so only through forcing a quick resehr hielt ihn die muse im banne. solution, so securely did the muse 1m zweiten satze senken sich hold him in bondage. in the sedie schatten tiefer herunter. der cond movement the shadows sink abend und allmahlich die nacht lower. the evening and gradually htillen die phantastischen gebilde the night envelop the fantastic des wunderlichen lebens aus dem configurations of the strange life ersten satze ein. tiefes sinnen of the first movement. deep mediund schweigen. ein lebhaft betation and silence. a sprightly, wegtes anmutiges bild durchschwirrt animated, graceful image whirls die tiefe einsamkeit. es ist, als through the deep loneliness. it ob gltihwtirmer ihren reigen tanzis like fireflies doing a round ten, so blitzt und funkelt es in den dance, flashing and sparkling in hastigen figuren der instrumente. the hurried passages of the instruaber das bild verschwindet. die ments. but the image disappears. vorige stille tritt ein, urn jedoch the earlier silence comes back, to wiederum durch ein ahnliches motiv be interrupted again by a similar unterbrochen zu werden. in seltmotif. in strange harmonies which samen harmonien, die wie zwischen modulate between dreams and traum und wachen modulieren, waking, this mysterious tone verhallt dieses mysteri6ses tongepicture dies away. malde. 102 frank walker, in the chapter of his biography dealing with wolf's criticism, translates the same passage as follows:6 the imagination of the composer revels in picturesque images; we find no trace of the frosty november mists that elsewhere brood over his compositions and stifle each warm tone from the heart before it can sound out-all is sunny, now brighter, now more dim; a magical emerald green is diffused over this fairy-like picture of spring; everything grows green and buds, one really hears the grass growingnature is so mysterious, so solemnly still, so blissfully transfiguredthe composer could only by a sudden effort of will withdraw himself from this magic, so closely did the muse hold him under her spell. in the second movement the shadows sink lower. evening, and then night, shroud the fantaslic creations that moved so wonderfully in the first movement. deep meditation and silence. an animated form moves through the deep solitude. it is as if glow-worms danced their rounds, it flashes and sparkles so in the rushing figures of the instruments. but the form disappears. the former silence returns, to be once again broken by a similar motive. in strange harmonies, that modulate between dream and waking, this mysterious tone-picture dies away. certainly walker's translation conveys the sense of wolf's remarks as well as shott's, but it reads in english with a polish that reflects the quality of style found in wolf's german-a quality that inspired walker to apply the term "prose poem" to some of the composer's best writing. a strong sense of poetry also graces ernest newman's somewhat freer rendering of selections from the same review.7 beyond this general criticism of shott's manner of converting german into english, there are particular problems in the translation that betray shott's provincialism in approaching 19th-century music. for example, wolf sometimes refers to the titles of individual works in the original language, sometimes in the german equivalent. this is a common and perfectly natural outgrowth of the fact that music, particularly in the operatic sphere, has always been somewhat multilingual in germany. since, however, in modern english most operas are referred to either by their original titles or by some commonly-recognized english translation, one title should be employed consistently. ii trovatore, for example, should not appear as troubadour (pp. 6, 56)8; l' enfance du christ is known better by that title than by the childhood of the lord (p. 473). guillaume tell is probably more familiar as william tell, but in any event should not be called guglielmo tell (p. 52). auber's la muette de portici is best known by that title or by its subtitle, masaniello; few readers would know the work as mute woman of portici (p. 9). sometimes shott's use of titles suggests that he is unsure about the country of origin. there can be no excuse, however, for the appearance of titles like robert der teufel (p. 81), die afrikanerin (p. 81), die jiidin (p. 91), or fo r the consistent misspellings symphonie phantastique and the hugenots. shott's failure to provide his text with a critical apparatus points the way 103 to another project that must be undertaken before wolf's criticisms can appear in a satisfactory edition. in the first place, the batka-werner edition, while complete in most respects, does contain certain clearly indicated deletions. these could be restored by reference to the salonblatt itself. complete information about the programs reviewed by wolf should also be provided in critical notes, including the date and place of each performance, a list of performers, and the title of each work presented. for example, wolf may refer to a "brahms symphony," without any further indication; more thorough documentation would eliminate such obscurities and allow more immediate access to wolf's observations. shott's "analysis" section explores questions that appear, to this reviewer at least, of dubious value. the author sets himself (p. 541) the task of testing the "validity" of wolf's criticisms. after a labored discussion of what validity is, why it is important, and then a capsule biography of wolf, we read the following, which is the cornerstone of justification for the edifice that shott is about to construct (pp. 554-55) : although wolf was certain that the styles of berlioz, wagner, and liszt were going to constitute the foundation for the future, subsequent history has proved him mistaken. had he lived for another twenty years, he would have become a witness to a marked reaction against the romanticism in which he believed so strongly. today brahms is considered a great composer, and the opinions of wolf's adversaries seem to have been vindicated, while the works of wagner and liszt no longer enjoy the esteem accorded to them by wolf and his supporters. having assumed that history has settled the supposed brahms-"wagner controversy once and for all and has thereby rendered \volf's criticisms "invalid" in one sense, shott sets out to test "whether wolf's judgments of compositions and performances are based upon standards that may be considered valid in the light of acceptable aesthetic criteria of the present day" (p. 559). before this test can be made, however, shott screens vvolf's reviews to arrive at a core of material that meets the requirements of being at least 125 words in length, exclusively devoted to clear opinions about a composition or performance (rather than description), and characterized by objectivity rather than subjective bias. shott is thus left with about eighty pages of wolf's writing-less than twenty per cent of all the criticisms published in the salonblatt. at this point there follows a chapter surveying shott's search for "acceptable aesthetic criteria" against which to weigh the reduced body of criticism (pp. 576-87). the choice falls upon the system first expounded by stephen c. pepper in world if;potheses9 and amplified in his the basis of criticism in the arts.1° in a chapter summarizing pepper's ideas shott describes each of the four hypotheses and then concludes (p. 599) : the critic, then, must ask the following separate questions about a work of art: (1) how pleasant are the feelings it arouses? (2) how vivid an experience does it provide? (3) how well integrated is it? (4) how satisfying is it to a normal person? lo4 all this is by way of preparation for a very brief (twelve-page) section of analysis, in which shott demonstrates that wolf never seems to have applied pepper's "mechanist" standard (number 1 above) to a musical work, and that his criteria are valid primarily by "formist" standards (number 4 above). even if one is willing to accept the premise of shott's approach, one cannot help but feel that he has drawn back from reaching the inevitable conclusion of his own researches: that wolf's criticisms are, by pepper's standards, invalid. on page 598 we learn that pepper's method demands the simultaneous involvement of all four viewpoints represented by the world hypotheses: the only requirement that must be fulfilled to arrive at a valid judgment is that all of these four world hypotheses are to be consulted. the perceiver of a work of art can and often does reflect only one. however, if the critic disregards the ideas of even one of the four, it would prevent him from arriving at a fair judgment, because the data would not be comprehensive, as we are using the term. since, according to shott's findings, wolf never expressed in his written reviews a single attitude that reflected the composite of all four world hypotheses, one must conclude that his essays are, in these terms, invalid. shott's failure to draw this conclusion would seem to indicate that he is as unconfident in the approach he has taken as we are.ll certainly, an examination of the circumstances surrounding wolf's assumption of his post with the salonblatt, as well as a consideration of the audience for which the reviews were intended, suggests that the application of such abstract, ideal criteria as those advanced by shott is extremely unfair. wolf aimed to set down what he considered the faults of musical society in the vienna of his day; but he was not prepared to do so in the systematic, analytical way demanded by pepper's methods, nor would such an approach have interested or satisfied his readers. the story12 that wolf rejected the idea of publishing his criticisms in book form because they were poorly written has baffled biographers, since, as reviews, they are extremely well written. in fact, wolf's attitude may have arisen from an unwillingness to present his ideas in the impassioned salonblatt style before a more discerning public. the delectable treat wolf whipped up to please vienna's dilettantes would not, he knew, satisfy the more substantial and circumspect tastes of the musikus. beyond this, the question of "validity" in wolf's criticisms is, for the historian, quite beside the point. because wolf ranks as an important figure in the development of new music in the later 19th century and because his criticisms reflect his tastes and preferences in colorful and meaningful prose, they have already earned a validity of their own and are more interesting when studied as historical documents than as mere records of opinion. from this standpoint the musikalische kritiken are a musicologist's treasure-trove. surely, for example, wolf's thoughts with regard to the symphonic poem 105 recorded here are of major significance in casting some light on his own important essay in the genre, penthesilea, with which he was occupied while writing for the salonblatt. wolf's observations on songs and song-writing are few and far between in the criticism; yet he discusses the qualities he found admirable and damnable in most of the famous singers of his time. not only do these comments illustrate the composer's ideas about what constitutes good musicianship and good drama, but they are also a guideline to what he expected-no, counted upon-for effective delivery of his own songs. furthermore, many of the artists reviewed by w olflived long enough to make recordings. gustav walter, for example, who seems to have been among the first well-known singers in vienna to abandon opera for the recital hall, always received wolf's warm approval. walter's voice was, from wolf's comments, already in decline in the 1880's, and by the time he cut records early in 1904 there was little left of its former glory. but the sensitivity to poetry, the vividness of interpretation combined with smooth vocal technique that fired wolf's imagination twenty years before, may still be heard by students of the lieder-singer's art. nor is it difficult to discern from lilli lehmann's recordings the virago side of her delivery that sometimes offended wolf and inspired his poetic vision of the soul of isolde.13 similarly, wolf's comments on operatic composition and production, performance at the piano, and the art of ensemble playing take on particular significance and interest when considered in conjunction with the products of wolf's own career as a composer. in other words, wolf's criticisms, like those of other composer-critics, are most valuable when they reflect upon his own musical ideas and feelings; no analysis can be considered satisfactory if it fails to deal with this aspect of their importance as historical documents. shott's avoidance of these matters for what seems, by comparison, an intellectual goose-chase seriously undermines the musicological significance of his project and leaves much to be considered in some future study of wolf's essays. notes 1 frank walker, hugo wolf: a biography (new york: alfred a. knopf, 1968), p. 147. 2 hugo wolfs musikalische kritiken (leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, 1911). 3 on p. viii of his dissertation shott lists the six libraries he knew to hold copies in 1964. 4 shott, p. 45. o batka-werner, p. 31. 6 walker, pp. 157-58. 7 hugo wolf (new york: dover publications, inc., 1966), pp. 37-38. 8 all page numbers in the text refer to shott's dissertation. 9 berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 1961. 10 cambridge: harvard university press, 1963. 11 shott, in fact, appears to lay the groundwork for this conclusion on p. 607. but he ultimately backs down from the harsher verdict, allowing in his final summary that wolf's criticisms are "valid according to formist standards" (p. 621). 12 related by walker, pp. 161-62. 13 review for 25 january 1885; batka-werner, pp. 137-38. 106 dell'antonio, andrew, ed. 2004. beyond structural listening? postmodern modes of hearing. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by julian horton "diagnosing the present," writes rose subotnik in her afterword to beyond structural listening? postmodern modes of hearing, "is a lot like predicting the future, only riskier" (280). subotnik's cautionary remarks notwithstand­ ing, it seems that few periods in the history of musicology have inclined so thoroughly towards disciplinary self-scrutiny as the past twenty years. de­ spite widespread protestations of pluralism, the sources of influence pro­ pelling this introspection are relatively homogeneous, and as such are readily identifiable. if the recent course taken by anglo-american musicology is characterized by anyone single development, it is surely a belated engage­ ment with the various discourses of postmodernity that have gathered force in other areas of the humanities since the 1960s. in the wake, so to speak, of this postmodernization, concerted efforts have been made towards institutional consolidation, evinced in the various corporate and single-author volumes seeking to define the scope and terms of the "new paradigm," to use subotnik's term.! beyond structural listening adds fresh momentum to this tendency. its point of orientation is the con­ cept of "structural listening" as defined and critiqued by subotnik: the rea­ son-centered mode of engagement with autonomous musical structure, particularly as propagated by schoenberg and adorno, that had, until re­ cently, come to dominate anglo-american music-analytical practice.2 the collection assembles essays by fred everett maus, tamara levitz, robert fink, paul attinello, joseph dubiel, andrew dell' antonio, elisabeth le guin, and martin scherzinger on a wide range of topics, from beethoven's ninth symphony to mtv, with the broad intent of establishing what it might mean to listen or think beyond these parameters. in so doing, it delineates very clearly a gamut of "modernist " musicological and analytical tendencies and their putative postmodern alternatives. despite this diversity of subject matter, each essay in its own way ad­ dresses one vital question: what role should analysis, in the sense of the close reading of immanent musical material, play within the new paradigm of musicology? subotnik herself has urged a form of "stylistic listening;' of which structural listening strategies would form one component part. the interrogative nature of the collection's title is salutary in this regard, for the authors do not unanimously accept subotnik's position. it is most trencurrent musicology, no. 78 (fall 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 93 94 current musicology chantly critiqued in scherzinger's "the return of the aesthetic." as he sen­ sibly observes, the abandonment of structural analysis in favor of social, cultural, and political investigation cannot of itself guarantee the obviation of concealed ideology that much new-musicological commentary urges. rather, disposing of analysis risks "reading right through the musical text as if it were a mere representation of the social"; as a consequence, "the music as such is in danger of disappearing against a general background of social determination" (253-54). far from rendering musicology ideologi­ cally aware, the neglect of close reading dissolves music into a complex of socio-political ideologies, the detection of which is itself ideologically mo­ tivated. if musical commentary is to avoid this pitfall, we have to recognize the dialectical dependency of socio-cultural commentary on the autono­ mous text, since "it is only possible to elevate the social world ... as the determining factor of musical experience when world and work are con­ strued antithetically" (254). the points raised by scherzinger hold up a kind of critical mirror to the other contributions: each essay in its own way tests the antithetical construal of world and work. in fred everett maus's essay, this takes the form of a comparison between listening and analysis and certain types of sexual rela­ tions. he undertakes a critical comparison of two landmark models of music­ analytical engagement-allen forte's "schenker's conception of musical structure" (1959) and edward t. cone's the composer's voice (1974 )-with the ultimate aim of identifying points of similarity between listening, analysis and the psychology of sado-masochism. thus cone's depiction of the rela­ tionship between performer as active participant and listener as passive re­ cipient tends "toward the range of sexual activities known as sado-masoch­ ism, or bondage and discipline ... where partners agree that one partner will relinquish overt control and activity to the other" (dell'antonio 2004:35). listening, in short, is an act of submission, while performance and composition entail domination of both the audience and the musical material. analysis, in turn, seeks to regain a measure of the control that listening gives up. maus invokes joseph dubiel's characterization of schenkerian analysis as a kind of "fantasy recomposition," or the process of comprehending music "by taking on the perspective of a fictionalized cre­ ator" to reinforce this point (30).3 this conflation of musicological, analytical, and psycho-sexual concepts tends towards a kind of essentialism. at base, it assumes the pervasiveness of types of sexual interaction in the relationship between subject and musi­ cal work, made possible by borrowing cone's notion of the persona, through which works take on the character of a controlling subject. but what grounds are there for accepting this analogy? why should we assume that modes of .. julian horton sexual interaction also govern our relationship with works of art? even if we accept the idea that the object of artistic experience substitutes for that of interpersonal experience, we still face the problem, which maus does not acknowledge, that such interaction is not purely sexual. and if relation­ ships are more variegated than this characterization might allow, then the putative relationship with the persona of the work has concomitantly to be elaborated. moreover, if the argument is accepted, then it must also hold for the relationship between analysis and the critique of analysis. in other words, some kind of sexual power relation must also exist between maus as critic and the texts of forte and cone as objects of critical scrutiny. the distinction between passive listener and dominant analyst is also problematic, assuming as it does that listeners do not participate in the con­ struction of the works they hear. yet aural reception is at least as much about making sense of music as it is about being its passive recipient. in this re­ spect, structural listening is not just a cultural construct, but also a funda­ mental condition of audition, since listening is an act of comprehension as much as it is of perception. comparison with elisabeth le guin's contribu­ tion is instructive in this respect. the listening experiment she conducts on debussy's song soupir tests precisely this issue. le guin begins with debussy's own supposition that "[w]hen one really listens to music ... one hears at once what should be heard." in order to assess this claim, she sets out to establish what, subjectively, is immediately apparent in the song, without the interventions of musicological knowledge or the analysis of the score (216).4 le guin ruminates compellingly on the relationships between this experiment and the problems of capturing experience descriptively or ana­ lytically, taking in the views of diderot, rousseau, proust, bergson, and husserl along the way. when she remarks of the experiment that "[t]he desire for something to look at is acute: i want a means to winnow these wayward perceptions, confirm the good ones, dismiss the embarrassing ones, and salve my musicological ego in the process" (240), she explains an urge towards conceptualization that collapses maus's distinction between pas­ sive listening and analytical construction. listening, in other words, might be bound up with analytical construction as a basic cognitive response. the essays by levitz and fink form a pair, in the sense that both engage afresh with works that have courted sexual-political controversy; and again, the interaction of analytical and contextual evidence is a central concern. levitz responds to the critical accusations of anti-humanism and proto­ fascism levelled at the rite of spring by adorno and richard taruskin. 5 above all, she takes issue with the way adorno and taruskin have understood the role of the chosen one, contending that adorno's view of her sacrifice as an annihilation of subjectivity in the name of the collective, and taruskin's 95 96 current musicology complementary idea that the rite's musical construction purposely drains the chosen one of her subjectivity, neglect the role of nijinsky's choreog­ raphy in constructing her character and function. instead, levitz sees the rite as an instance of art plastique; its full meaning can thus only be re­ vealed in the relationship of music and dance. reconstruction of the chore­ ography consequently reveals the tragic subjectivity of the chosen one, a crucial component of the work, but one that is lost if the nature of the dance is simply inferred from the material evidence of the score. fink, in turn, leaps to the defense of susan mcclary, reinforcing her sexual-political reading of beethoven's ninth symphony by tracing its co­ vert lineage in the work's nineteenth-century reception, and by inscribing the hermeneutics of violent sexual failure in the failed lydian ascent under­ pinning the famously unorthodox german-sixth harmony at the point of reprise in the first movement (mcclary 1991). fink pursues this property into the finale, asserting that the "lydianized" tonic preparation is never adequately resolved. the closing cadence exchanges "linear and harmonic subtlety for brute force;' "the level of orchestral violence needed to main­ tain the celebration of brotherhood" indicating an enforced conclusion that masks formal failure with "pure noise" (dell'antonio 2004:140-41). fink concludes that beethoven is in fact a rapist, but it is his own composition that he violates. [he 1 sets up an immense and complex formal dialectic, uses it to channel huge amounts of musico-libidinal energy-and then finally, impatiently, vio­ lates his own form by using it to enact his crude, solipsistic tonal desires. (147) the crux of both essays is the claim that forms of structural hearing have colluded to misrepresent the social import of canonical works. levitz does not reject structural evidence outright; rather, by focusing on the links between choreography and the structural techniques in the "danse sacrale" that taruskin regards as anti-human, she imbues them with a renewed sub­ jectivity, and so affords the chosen one her humanity. the point that the original choreography is important to a substantial understanding of the rite is well taken; at the same time, it provokes questions of the relationship between musical and extra-musical evidence that are not developed. even if levitz is correct in asserting that the work should be understood as a col­ laborative art form, we must still confront the issue of how smoothly its component art forms conjoin. in other words, it is entirely possible that the meanings of nijinsky's choreography might fail to permeate the musical material, or that the music might escape from its choreographic context and take on broader political and aesthetic connotations. this possibility julian horton sits behind adorno's observations: the rite is more than the sum of its com­ positional, choreographic, and theatrical intentions; it also dialectically re­ flects its social and political circumstances, and does so because, if adorno is to be believed, musical material and its processes have a quasi-historio­ graphical function. although the arguments pro and contra mcclary's reading of beethoven's ninth have been rehearsed exhaustively, fink's article adds a genuinely fresh dimension to the debate. its achilles heel is again the rela­ tionship between analysis and hermeneutics. the entire reading turns on the presumption that an isolated voice-leading phenomenon (the lydian ascent) guides, or fails to guide, the structure of the whole symphony, and that this is the arbiter of sexual politics. the extent of the lydian ascent's influence is in itself questionable: the formal mechanisms of so substantial a work are likely to be conditioned by much more than a single, albeit cru­ cially positioned, voice-leading dysfunction. neither is its disruptive force in the first movement as extreme as fink suggests. the recapitulatory prob­ lem beethoven confronts is that his exposition first-theme group is both teleological (it builds towards a climactic assertion) and rotational (the in­ tensification occurs in two varied forms). the difficulty faced in the reca­ pitulation is how to make the initial intensification function as a point of thematic and tonal stabilization. this formal dialectic is exposed rather than resolved by the return of the first theme, and one of the casualties is the orthodox resolution of a german sixth. the tonic, however, is not damaged irreparably; the resolution of v onto i is simply transferred into the tonic major at the start of the second theme, in which context the entire first­ theme reprise appears as a preparation for the second group, or as a digres­ sion inserted between the dominant preparation in the retransition and its resolution at the start of the second group. both the tonic major and minor then receive ample cadential support later in the recapitulation, especially in the closing section, which is replete with unproblematic d minor cadential harmony. to tie the stability of the tonic entirely to the voice leading of the reprised first theme is seriously to overstate its formal repercussions. the next stage of fink's argument is to regard voice-leading tendency and libidinal energy as equivalent; the failure of an f# to resolve upwards, with adequate bass support, through g# onto a thus becomes a failure of sexual conquest, for which beethoven will ultimately compensate by the sheer gestural force of the finale's closing cadence. but what is the precise nature of the resulting "musico-libidinal energy"? what grounds do we have for assuming its existence? if such grounds can be identified, what is the mechanism through which libidinal energy becomes voice leading? can we really claim that human libidinal urges are somehow contained within the 97 98 current musicology technical properties of its cultural products? hermeneutics, as lawrence kramer has recently insisted, need not be empirically responsible in this way; however, in the absence of any kind of objective verification for a con­ cept like "musico-libidinal energy," the validity of the observation ends up being drawn itself from the realm of hermeneutics, as a result of which it courts self-justification. 6 the whole sexual reading moreover depends on the finale being understood as a closed form: it aims, in other words, at the kind of closure we would expect from a sonata form or rondo, through which beethoven imposes his will on the recalcitrant voice leading of the first movement. but the form of the finale is infamously problematic; and, as robert pascali has recently pointed out, it may be both historically and analytically advantageous to regard it as an open, or events-based, form, which composes out beethoven's concept of improvisation (2005). in this case, the sort of resolution that closed forms demand, the frustration of which is basic to the sexual-political argument, may not be an embodied property of the finale's formal design. morris's and attinello's contributions also make an instructive pairing. both, in their own ways, compel a kind of musicological self-scrutiny: in morris's case, a moral self-regard; in attinello's, an awareness of the subjectivities attending scholarly discourse. for morris, the difficulty with the notion of structural listening is its evasion of ethical responsibility. musicological questions that, on the face of it, seem epistemological in fact "contain indirect arguments about morality" (dell' antonio 2004:46). mor­ ris traces three prominent strands of moral engagement: the status of mu­ sic as a type of "moral action"; the ethics of composition, performance, re­ ception, and scholarship; and the morality of musical institutions. he in­ vokes alasdair macintyre's after virtue: a study in moral theory (1984) as a way of grounding the investigation of these issues, isolating in particular macintyre's deployment of the concepts of virtue, practice, and tradition as alternatives to enlightenment notions of moral reasoning, before scrutiniz­ ing the moral underpinnings of structural listening habits in these terms. the practical result of this is a type of musical engagement examining "lines of ethical inquiry that resonate with ethical moments within ... pieces" (dell'antonio 2004:58), an aim morris follows up in considerations of brahms' intermezzo op.118, no. 2, steve reich's come out, and "reptile" by nine inch nails. despite morris's avowed distance from the misleading objectivities of structural hearing, his readings nevertheless depend on the assumption that the works he considers have embodied moral qualities, located principally in their structure and affect. thus the ethics of "lateness" in brahms' inter­ mezzo are revealed in certain of its voice-leading characteristics, particujulian horton larly in the deferral of resolution of the pitches d and f# expressed in the piece's opening gesture. this deferral, and the "hollowness" of the resolu­ tion when it finally comes, indicates for morris that "lack is the normal state of affairs in this piece, as indeed it is in human life." the intermezzo there­ fore" [teaches] us what it means to live with reduced expectations;' but also "reveal [s] this poverty as partially compensated for by art" (61). tellingly, morris is forced to rely on a form of structural listening in order to makes this reading stick, and indeed marks this resort rhetorically in the text: "if we must think in structural terms, we can note that the tonic triad of a major is only genuinely resolved at the very ends of the a sections" (60). thinking "in structural terms" is therefore the key to thinking in moral terms, and we essentially return to adorno's structure-as-metaphor argu­ ment: general issues of society and morality will remain detached from musical content and material unless the former are understood to have struc­ tural parallels in the latter. attinello focuses instead on the subjectivities underpinning the act of musicological writing. he begins by suggesting that the use of angels in rilke's duino elegies ([1992] 1977) and walter benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history ([1939]1968) might serve as metaphors for the "sonic violence" expressed in much post-war musical modernism. attinello then reflects on the motivations guiding this research, and on how personal cir­ cumstances can inflect both our choices of, and responses to, research top­ ics. his perceptions are sensitive, thoughtful, and at times painfully honest, inclining towards a kind of fragmentary autobiography. yet the implica­ tions of such intense self-scrutiny for scholarly practice are not altogether positive. attinello's concluding observation that "you can't live in a perma­ nently self-conscious state-you can't dance if you're always looking at your feet" isolates the central issue: the very notion of scholarship is ultimately in danger if the sovereignty of objective content is jeopardized (dell' antonio 2004: 172). we face, at best, a manipulation of the objects of scholarly inves­ tigation to the end of subjective confession; at worst, a collapse of scholar­ ship into autobiography. even in this context, moreover, structural matters cannot be entirely suppressed. the "sonic violence" of much integral serialism must in some sense be embodied in its musical material; music's affect is, after all, not separable from its structural properties. structural listening therefore attends attinello's reading as a supplement: if we wish to locate the sources of sonic disruption, we need to engage in analysis. dell'antonio and dubiel perhaps occupy the opposite poles of scherzinger's antithesis: dell' antonio focuses on an empirical musical phe­ nomenon that challenges the relevance of structural listening while dubiel scrutinizes it from within, relating analysis and listening in three very spe99 100 current musicology cific situations. the types of "collective listening" undertaken by audiences of mtv, dell' antonio argues, undermine the notions of artistic autonomy and centered subjectivity that are basic to adornian critical theory, betray­ ing a plurality of authorship and inviting a type of critical group response that marks them out as "non-modernist" cultural products. the essay criti­ cally invokes a number of authorities to establish this point, among them eco, gramsci, and deleuze and guattari. carving out a legitimate critical space for such cultural phenomena necessarily involves rebutting the marxist critical opprobrium of adorno, horkheimer, and more recently jameson, and especially the accusation that popular music is en masse complicit with the commodification of culture, a view dell' antonio labels as "simple" marx­ ism. while recognizing the commercial aims of music videos, and of mtv as a forum for their dissemination and critique, he contends, in part follow­ ing andrew goodwin, that "commodity-value does not exclude other val­ ues to the appraiser."? mtv, on the contrary, requires videos and the songs they convey to be judged "aesthetically satisfying" by their audience; the critical "negotiation" that results undermines the possibility of a "stable com­ modity-status" (227-28). although dell'antonio is certainly not guilty of understating mtv's market orientation, i remain skeptical about the extent to which the critical processes it encourages stand apart from popular music's commodity func­ tion. the impulse towards critical participation may, after all, have motiva­ tions that are more or less covertly compelled by the market. critical judge­ ments may, in other words, amount to validations of taste, and taste is scarcely unaffected by the culture industry. indeed, any mode of cultural produc­ tion that has within its motivation the reproduction of capital will neces­ sarily seek to shape taste as much as respond to it. the success of the cul­ tural product as commodity will depend upon the extent to which the con­ ditions under which the consumer might identify with the product can be established, in which context it is not unreasonable to speak of the emer­ gence of a condition of false consciousness. furthermore, the fact that mtv's audience engages in a kind of collective appraisal appearing remote from immanent musical considerations does not necessarily mean that structural listening strategies are inappropriate to popular music. its materials are, after all, not ontologically or historically distinct from those of art music, relying as it does largely on the appropriation of tonal idioms. and if the materials of tonality are present in popular music, then they are susceptible to structural analysis. it is even possible that, in this context, immanent analysis performs an act of resistance: by refusing to engage with the prod­ uct at the level of social signification, structural listening forcibly resists the kinds of concealed economic coercion that might underpin collective, nonjulian horton structural appraisal. dubiel, on the other hand, problematizes structural listening by problematizing the concept of structure, contending that, if structure is defined as any kind of musical relational perception, it could potentially apply to the audition of any musical event. this definition is usually nar­ rowed by making a distinction between structural and non -structural prop­ erties, an act of selection that, as dubiel puts it, "tempts us ... to bend our experience of music" towards the relationships prescribed by our concept of structure (174). in an effort to avoid this tautology, he investigates brief examples of relationships, which he has identified "by some means other than hearing" but which he is "for some reason unsure how to hear" (175), in the tristan prelude, morton feldman's triadic memories, schoenberg's op. 19, no. 6, and the q minor prelude from book 1 of the welltempered clavier. in a sense, dubiel transfers attinello's subjectification of the act of writ­ ing into the realm of analysis. in each example, attention shifts from struc­ tural properties themselves to the question of what their analysis means for subjective audition. in the tristan prelude, for instance, dubiel focuses on the theme presented in mm. 17-22 and repeated in mm. 32-36, pinpoint­ ing a subtle alteration of the bassline in mm. 32-36, whereby an f-fii-g ascent occupies one-and-a-half measures rather than two, a property that, for him, is analytically evident but aurally evasive. the issue here, as for dubiel's examples in general, is the relationship between conception and perception: between how we model conceptually the way the music is orga­ nized, and what is perceived during the process of listening, with or with­ out the benefit of an analytical conceptual framework. when he states, in conclusion, that "although i may derive a stimulus from some bit of musi­ cal analysis, it is important that i avoid any obligation to listen to, or for, the particular facts the analysis manages to mention, in the terms in which it mentions them" (198), dubiel draws a clear distinction between conceptual and perceptual modes of understanding. the problem with structural hear­ ing is that it forces perception to submit to conception: how we hear a given moment becomes burdened by the injunction to place this moment in a predetermined conceptual framework. instead, it should be possible to lis­ ten structurally in a broad sense without the anxiety of "intellectual mas­ tery:' it is not clear, however, that perception and conception can be sepa­ rated in this way. questions of what an unmediated perception or concep­ tion might be persist: on the one hand, structural analysis is always, at some level, referential to a perceived object that is the musical work; on the other hand, audition never occurs unaccompanied by some kind of conceptual 101 102 current musicology frame of reference or expectation. there is more at stake here than the mat­ ter of how we might best mediate these two polarities. if musical scholar­ ship is to distinguish itself from non-scholarly modes of writing about music (and i would maintain the necessity of this distinction), then we need a means of identifying what is or is not an appropriate mode of scholarly discourse. analysis is vital in this respect, because it draws a distinction be­ tween the classifiable content of an aesthetic document and the general morass of subjective perceptions, and thus places a limitation on the field of discourse. the postmodern rush towards readmitting subjectivity can­ not in the end obscure this demand; if musical scholarship is defined as any possible discourse about music, then it has no definition. dubiel more-or­ less explicitly limits this field through recourse to analysis. it is not the subjectivities of hearing that demarcate the boundaries of his project, but the analytical evidence that has been established as a classified property of the musical object. in sum, although my overall impression of beyond structural listening is overwhelmingly of an illuminating, challenging, and often provocative collection, its implications pull my critical judgement in two directions. if the postmodernization of musicology simply requires theory and analysis to be more attentive to historical, cultural, social, and performative circum­ stances, then the consolidation attempted here, as elsewhere, is a laudable disciplinary progression. it is, however, entirely possible that this debate has been reflexively determined by ethnocentrically defined institutional struc­ tures, and particularly by the rigorous distinction between analysis and mu­ sicology insisted upon by the institutions of north american musical schol­ arship. the new paradigm of which subotnik writes may be nothing more than a dawning realization that this distinction is suspicious; that analysis, being concerned with historical phenomena, needs to be musicologically responsible, and that musicology, being concerned with the historical con­ texts of pieces of music, needs to be analytically responsible. if, in the end, this distinction collapses and the discipline of analytical musicology, or per­ haps musicological analysis, emerges, then we may choose to define the re­ sult as postmodern, although nothing in the convergence of analysis and musicology itself compels this definition. in this respect, beyond structural listening occasionally perpetuates its core critical issue more than it offers any kind of ramified alternative, albeit in fascinating and thought-provoking ways. it makes especially clear that the continuing, and increasingly tired, insistence on the broadly postmodern concepts of plurality, dec entered subjectivity, provisionality, performativity, the role of the body, and so forth does nothing to reduce the essential de­ pendence of musicological discourse on the investigation of immanent julian horton musical material. each of the essays in beyond structural listening remains indebted to structural-analytical modes of understanding, either by frank acceptance of their significance (scherzinger), or by extensive appropria­ tion (fink, dubiel), or by occasional tell-tale accessions (morris, le guin, levitz), or by identifying oppositional modes of discourse or phenomena (maus, attinello, dell' antonio). it therefore seems, in conclusion, appropriate to reiterate a point that i have elaborated elsewhere, but which has direct relevance here, pace lawrence kramer's recent critical remarks.8 what beyond structural listening makes consistently plain is that modes of musicological discourse of necessity re­ quire some kind of taxonomic engagement with musical material, or risk becoming a kind of scholarship that cannot ground its claims in pieces of music as objects of scholarly investigation. such classification can quite easily take place without falling into the sort of instrumental rational mastery over which there has been so much recent intellectual anxiety. analysis, in other words, may function as a kind of "communicative rationality," to ap­ propriate jtirgen habermas's phrase: as "the communicative employment of propositional knowledge in assertions," rather than "the non-communi­ cative employment of knowledge in teleological action" (1984: 10). the former is a necessity for the agreement and validation of claims pertaining to the properties of musical works; the latter appropriates knowledge as a justification for meta-historical or political agendas. if taxonomy is essen­ tial to the provision of musical-material evidence, it therefore follows that the autonomous identity of the musical work must in a sense remain axi­ omatic to musical scholarship, since there must be a classifiable object to which taxonomy refers. if this axiom is abandoned, then what remains tends towards a self-propelling discourse about discourse, or a loose assemblage of aural recollections, or an unmediated platform for cultural-political agen­ das. notes 1. "new paradigm" is subotnik's term, which she derives from thomas kuhn (1965); see dell'anotnio (2004:279-302). for a recent example of an anthology which attempts to de­ fine this "new paradigm;' see cook and everist (1999). 2. see subotnik (1996:148-76). 3. see dubiel (1990:291-302). 4. le guin cites claude debussy (1971). 5. see adorno (1978; 1997) and taruskin (1997:360-88). 6. see kramer (2004). 7. see goodwin (1992). 8. see kramer (2004:134-36n3,12) as a response to horton (2001). 103 104 current musicology references adorno, theodor w. 1978. philosophie der neuen musik. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp verlag. ---. stravinsky: a dialectical portrait. in quasi una fantasia: essays on modern music, translated by rodney livingstone, 145-75. new york: verso. benjamin, walter. [1939j 1968. theses on the philosophy of history. in illuminations: essays and reflections, edited and with an introduction by hannah arendt, 253-65. new york: harcourt brace and jovanovich. cone, edward. 1974. the composer's voice. berkeley: university of california press. cook, nicholas and mark everist, eds. 1999. rethinking music. new york and oxford: ox­ ford university press. debussy. claude. 1971. monsieur croche et autres ecrits. paris: gallimard. dubiel, joseph. 1990. when you are beethoven: kinds of rules in schenker's counterpoint. journal of music theory 34 (2): 291-340. forte, allen. 1959. schenker's conception of musical structure. journal of music theory 3 (1): 1-30. goodwin. andrew. 1992. dancing in the distraction factory: music television and popular culture. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. habermas, jiirgen. 1984. the theory of communicative action, volume one: reason and the rationalization of society, translated by thomas mccarthy. boston: beacon press. horton, julian. 2001. postmodernism and the critique of musical analysis. the musical quarterly 85 (2): 342-66. kramer, lawrence. 2004. analysis worldly and unworldly. the musical quarterly 87 (1): 119-39. kuhn, thomas. 1965. the structure of scientific revolutions. chicago: university of chicago press. macintyre, alasdair. 1984. after virtue: a study in moral theory. notre dame, in: univer­ sity of notre dame press. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender and sexuality. minneapolis: univer­ sity of minnesota press. pascali, robet. 2005. beethoven's vision of joy in the finale of the ninth symphony. guest seminar. university college: dublin. rilke, rainer maria. [1922 j 1977. duineser elegien, translated and with commentary by elaine e. boney. chapel hill, nc: university of north carolina press. subotnik, rose rosengard. 1996. deconstructive variations: music and reason in western society. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. taruskin, richard. 1997. defining russia musically: historical and hermeneutical essays. princeton: princeton university press. toward a unity oj performance and musicology rosalyn tureck a review of the relationship of musicology and performance is certainly timely. i shall devote this article to (1) an examination of this relationship in the light of my own experience and observation of bach studies and performance, (2) a brief analysis of the nature of each activity, and (3) a few remarks on the interaction of the two disciplines. the development of musicology has changed the face of the performing art. since musicology has become widely established, most performers have become aware of the irrefutable fact that, when performing music of a previous period, they must be cognizant of history. two major problems impede the performer, however. one is the time lag which occurs between the publication of musicological material and its absorption by those involved in performance-concert artists, teachers, and students. the second problem is a communication gap between the domains of musicology and performance. this hiatus is due in part to valid causes arising from the nature of each area. the ideal situation, in my opinion, would be total interaction between the two worlds. the following points may be regarded by some as a counsel of perfection, designed for rare individuals. nonetheless, they may serve as a statement of desirable goals for the application of performance standards toward the expansion of mutual understanding between performing artists and musicologists. although a rapprochement has been effected successfully in some cases, a more constant and enduring interchange is required, for the gap is still too wide and too prevalent. the above-mentioned time lag occurs for a variety of reasons related to the traditional psychological and practical education of the performer. teachers and students concentrate on learning repertoire and on developing technique and musicianship pertaining to performance. whereas many performers, teachers, and students select editions with care and take advantage of the neue bach-ausgabe and books on performance practices, many still work from outdated editions. information reaches teachers and their students slowly unless they undertake independent studies. reliance solely on hearsay about bach style is currently more widespread than one likes to think. outside the domain of musicologist-performer relations stands what may be called, for lack of a better term, the musicological "deviant." this type of musician is an extreme example of the time lag in communication. he believes in absolute musical taste and avoids all studies in earlier performance practices by saying, in effect, "my musical gifts are generally approved, and my education is sound. in the final analysis, my personal taste may therefore be the final judge in my performance style." the musicological deviant also believes that historical studies endanger his spontaneity by an overlay of consciousness which may destroy the artistic element of his performance. these impediments plague the performance world and prevent fluid, 164 productive communication. on the positive side, the requirements of historical knowledge for more enlightened performance are being met increasingly by specialized courses and workshops in universities and conservatories. i should like to suggest, from my own performing and teaching experience, several steps which may contribute toward the elimination of these barriers to achieving a historically informed performance art. the primary need for the performer or performing student is a change in educational orientation and in work habits. the inclusion of more reading in a performer's education would contribute not only to a reserve of historical knowledge but also to increasing reflection and judgment in performance style. in addition to the obvious requirement of reading the classic works and outstanding new publications, specific helpful steps toward expansion are: (i) the reading of research reports in current musicological journals. most performers miss these and are therefore deprived not only of recent information but also of their implied directions. (2) systematic study of variants in manuscripts and early editions. the performer is thus provided with a deeper insight into the problems of manuscripts, editions, structural nuances, and the art of embellishment, as well as errors, omissions, or inclusions of copyists. (3) study and communication with scholars who are working on manuscript sources. alertness to new ideas and methods in research is eminently valuable. these recommendations constitute a departure from the traditional approach to a performer's education and development. they call for the cultivation of new habits in the student and teacher and may appear arduous, but they would bring about significant expansion of the performing musician's horizons. the notion has existed for a long time that a performer must spend virtually all or most of his time developing repertoire and a professional level of skills in technique and musicianship. concentration on a single instrument has also been regarded as axiomatic in the development of a concert performer. certainly both of these notions are valid. every concert performer must undergo a certain period of single-minded work and concentration which the goal of great performance demands. however, a performer's education need not be continually one-sided. breadth of study does not necessarily deprive one of depth in work and accomplishment. i report the following facts not from a wish to write about myself but simply to indicate that a versatile education, including multiple instruments, techniques, sonorities, and historical studies, is not antithetical to the solid performing foundation required for a concert career. when i was a student at the juilliard graduate school, the obligatory studies were confined to one weekly private lesson and one weekly class in theory. few students besides myself chose to take all of the elective courses. no course, however, was offered in historical studies, and no harpsichord or clavichord was to be found in the school. its curriculum is very different today. fortunately, i was introduced to musicological studies before i had reached my fourteenth year by a teacher who was both a performer and a 165 student of history, jan chiapusso, author of bach's world, published in 1968 by the indiana university press. the habit was formed early, therefore, of pursuing these studies as an integral part of my work in bach performance. and i have retained it to this day. my instrumental studies since that time included not only the piano and organ but also the harpsichord and clavichord. the latter two were taught to me by the chicago harpsichordists phil manuel and gavin williamson. i grew, therefore, developing the techniques and absorbing the sonorities of all four keyboard instruments. i also studied the methods of the 19th-century transcribers and, in addition, made comparative studies in registration and phrasing on the harpsichord and dynamics and phrasing on the piano. the amalgamation of multiple instruments and historical studies made it possible for me to perform all-bach recitals at the ages of fifteen and sixteen, previous to my studies at the juilliard graduate school. by sixteen, when i entered the school, my method of study was too strongly established to be narrowed down to a "unifocal" direction. there were additional powerful influences regarding instruments and sonorities. because mr. chiapusso was born in java, he also taught me about the gamelan orchestra. earlier, at the age of ten, i had been taken to hear a concert of electronic instruments at orchestra hall in chicago presented by theremin, a friend of my previous teacher. the impression was overpowering six years later, within one week after entering juilliard, i was studying his instruments with him. few people know that my first appearance in new york took place at carnegie hall at the age of seventeen, when i played a theremin electronic instrument under his direction. despite an intense involvement with contemporary music and instruments, my pursuit of general musicological studies and specialized research expanded with my continuing and deepening interest in bach performance. work with historical sources, as well as comparative studies of manuscripts, editions, and instruments of all periods, has continued throughout my life. already in 1953, when i recorded the forty-eight preludes and fugues of the welltempered clavier for decca, i had studied every variant of each manuscript and early edition listed in bischoff and the bach-gesellschaft notes on the "fortyeight" and produced a comprehensive edition in the selection not only of textual variants but also of ornaments. my years of studying sources on ornamentation, bach's harmony, etc., had enabled me to cope with such a task. a unidirectional type of music education would not have equipped me to work in this way toward a performing goal. i perform works in public only after a careful consideration of many factors. these include the historical research of others (as well as my own), the study of manuscript and edition variants, the examination of musical structures and their relation to historical performance practices, and instrumental factors. after analysis and musical identification of all these aspects, conclusions about the interpretation begin to emerge. as it is enumerated above, this may appear to be an overintellectualized process; but in practice 166 it is not, because this process is both gradual and composite. the student years consist of the comparatively simple task of amassing information, repertoire, and technical skills. only after this stage has been passed can the real work truly begin for the thinking, creative person. and this work so combines intuition and the gathering of information that it becomes in itself an integrated and spontaneous process. the conceptual orientation of the 20th century deals with multiple components on all levels and in many different fields, both aesthetic and scientific. rooted in the opening years of our century, its manifestations are now everywhere apparent. james joyce's ulysses and finnegan's wake are the first examples which come to mind. schoenberg's abandonment of a key center is another illustration of withdrawal from a "unifocal" direction. the music of boulez, stockhausen, messiaen, and others experimenting with multiple rhythmic motives, multiple sonorities employed motivically, multiple orchestras and conductors are all indicative ofa style of thought and expression totally different from the unidirectional forms of the preceding century. although the contemporary manner of multiplicity in concepts and applied forms is unique to our time, it bears an underlying relationship to the equipment of a musician previous to 1750 and encourages the emergence of wellrounded musicians not unlike those of the 17th and 18th centuries. artists of multiple achievement are increasing in number today. combinations of composer, performer, and teacher, of conductor and soloist, of soloist and chamber music player are now encountered at the highest levels of the performing art. the field of bach performance is particularly fascinating in that it requires one to be competent both as a historian and as a performing artist. to this generally recognized double requirement i believe it necessary to add the element of study in 20th-century perceptions and practices in both the creative and performing arts. this study is indispensable to an enlightened awareness of the past because it provides greater objectivity, which, born of self-knowledge, can be used to assess our own judgments about a past era. the concentration of energies on studies of a period different from one's own risks the dangers of noninvestigation of oneself and one's own time. inevitably we bring ourselves into the interpretation and evaluation of all data. from the early decades of our century, niels bohr, the great physicist, stressed the reciprocal interaction between the observer and the material observed; he showed that the viewer plays a major part in the analysis and understanding of the observed material. our forms of thought and response are usually so deeply rooted in the contemporary cultural unconscious as to be automatically unnoticed. objectivity can be achieved only by recognized separation of the self from the object. in attempting to identify with the art and thought of another period, particularly where all tradition has been lost, sharpened perception of our own contemporary formulations sheds light on how these influence our present habits, as well as our interpretation of past 167 practices. the degree of clarity gained thereby may be applied, for example, to the entire approach to performing embellishments and may even be narrowed down to the specific performance of a trillo or an appoggiatura. the selection of auxiliary notes, offand on-beat rhythms in embellishments, and their style of performance rests not only in the gathering of data. these, as well as many other aspects of authentic bach style which are based on source material, bounce off our own unconscious, culturally-conditioned responses. if we are unaware of underlying habits of contemporary musical expectations, the risk of influence from this source upon actual performance is great, no matter how much historical data is stored up in our conscious equipment. the stress of a public concert may destroy all well-intentioned study and practice. i have witnessed instances in which countless hours of work did not suffice to avoid a total reversion to old unstylistic habits under the stress of performance, because roots formed by studies in both historical and contemporary perceptions had not been established. some formulations of the 20th century tend to hamper an identification of underlying sympathy with certain l7thand 18th-century practices. our attitudes in performance education require the most precise visual accuracy known in music history. however, the training of a performer to observe unswerving accuracy to the score is not conducive to "reading" the freer sections of bach scores correctly. nor does the frame of mind which this educated habit produces promote ease in responding to the fundamental element of individual freedom inherent in the nature of cadenzas, arpeggios, and embellishments in general. the psychology of embellishment itself is upsetting to the average musician accustomed to contemporary precision. we know that the musical orientation of composers before 1750 called for performance practices often fundamentally opposed to the strict observance of what the eye saw in the score. as one goes back in the history of western music, interpretive directions virtually vanish and even musical notation is often reduced to a skeletal outline. at this point the uninformed performer is at a total loss. if he adheres to the original, unedited page, he is in danger of performing a mere harmonic outline or, in fact, almost nothing at all. the second movement of the third brandenburg concerto, which shows only two chords, the dominant and the tonic, is an illustration. on several occasions i have heard these two chords played alone and unadorned and read in the program notes that the decision to do so was made in order to be true to the score. the third movement of the capriccio on the departure qf his beloved brother, with its figured bass and little else, is another example. if these two movements are read as they appear in approved unedited scores, they are actually misread. i remember a rehearsal in 1940 when i was performing the bach clavier concerto in f minor. the conductor turned to me with a perplexed face when i proceeded into a cadenza from the fermata on the dominant in the last movement. on its completion he said to me, "what are you doing?" when i explained that i was playing the cadenza indicated by the fermata and harmonic situation, his response was, "but it is not written into the 168 score." by now, itis tedious to hear this kind of remark about bach scores. the question which accompanies it is, "if bach wanted this in the music, why did he not write it out?" these questions, which are still being asked and in some cases employed as a protesting apparatus, exemplify the enormous time lag that historical information endures before it reaches performers and teachers. the modern emphasis upon precise visual accuracy leads at times to extremes which are tragi-comic. in a recent engagement with a major symphony orchestra, i was conducting, among other works, a concerto. when i noted in rehearsal that the continual crescendi and diminuendi in the soloist's performance were not suited to bach and to the concerto's structure, the response was that the performance was based exactly on the printed score. true enough, but the printed score referred to was an edition in typically 19th-century style. although many musicians are better informed, the total naivete of this musician's response is an example of the innocence which exists even among some outstanding performers. problems in bach interpretation are not solved by following printed scores, particularly those produced by 19th-century editors. indeed, most interpretive editions have created our greatest problems. in addition, independence from continual reference to editors' realizations of figured bass or embellishments seems to me the ideal goal. besides studying the forms of embellishment performance practice per se, a further effort toward independence should include enlarging one's ability to analyze and reconstruct the compositional styles of the 17th and 18th centuries. this kind of skill contributes a fundamental knowledge which can be employed in specific applications of principles of embellishments, choice of variants, realization of figured bass, etc. another area of study essential to the performer who aims to fulfill the composer's intentions is the study of manuscripts. the modern increase in reference to a manuscript score is admirable and of significant value to the performer. however, it imparts to the reader the sense of having reached a safe, final harbor, and the assumption that a manuscript "tells all" sometimes creates a dangerous illusion and produces its own headaches. with the continual refinement of methods for studying the authenticity of manuscripts, correspondingly complex determinants are employed in establishing the reliability of a total manuscript or details within an approved one. so specialized an area of research is hardly the task of the performer and music teacher, but they would be aided in their goal if study of the variants were included in their reference to manuscript scores. they would then become realistically aware of the complexities involved in manuscript identifications and choices. distance, physical and psychological, is the second major problem referred to earlier in the relationship between performer and musicologist. physical distance produces a problem in communication between the two disciplines; it affects music conservatories, private teachers who have not ventured into universities, and musicological and performing departments respectively attached to different universities. however, it is diminishing at a fairly rapid 169 pace, when compared with the gaps of thirty years ago. the psychological distance between musicologist and performer reaches deeper and cannot be overlooked or rationalized. the psychological framework of a musicologist and that of a performer developing as an artist are different. many wellknown musicologists can and do perform in public. however, the act of great performance depends not only upon the amalgam of techniques, musicianship, and musicological equipment but also, in the final analysis, on the gift for communication and identification with the composer's vision. the raison d' etre of performance lies not only in the presentation of a musical work but also in artistic communication, conscious or unconscious. communication occurs inevitably when human beings are involved. however, there are no lines of demarcation between communication and art, for at the highest level these project a composite form. one does not employ art in order to communicate. above and beyond the realm of musical talent and the amassing of technical and historical knowledge, the arts of composer and performer merge on some mutually sympathetic level into an integral unity which communicates through its very self. this phenomenon must not be confused with a capacity to reach audiences, which in some cases is exhibitionism. technically expert, some performers are endowed with enough of this quality to sustain a successful performing career. communication in art has meaning for me on quite another level. when it is achieved, listeners respond in terms of experiencing, rather than in mere pleasurable listening, and they return this feeling to the performer in such a way that a cyclic process is established which creates a unit involving composer-performerlistener. the achievement of this trinity is beyond analysis or conscious study. my experiences in this state are beyond explanation. one may choose to be a performer, but one does not choose to be an artist. art chooses. preoccupation with the composite of art and communication nourishes those who are involved in music-making and leads them to create goals different from those who seek to throw light on musical cultures and performance problems through scholarship and investigation. as a result of their specialized performing orientation, some performers continue to fear conscious study of historical practices. the present generation is becoming increasingly aware, however, of their need for historical studies. thus the fear diminishes as the sheer common sense of the situation becomes more apparent. nonetheless, from my view as a performer and a university professor, the drawbridge still needs to be lowered permanently, and defenses, let alone attacks, from both sides have yet to cease. the musicologist's goals, orientation, and quality of life and studies are fundamentally different from those of the performing artist: each activity has aspirations and achievements native to its own spirit. they are different, but this does not imply that a closer association and exchange between the two is impractical. on the contrary, it is realistic to recognize that education in music must now embrace both.! the final problem lies in constructing a bridge, effecting a permanent and 170 easily traversed connection, in order to integrate the knowledge of performance practices of the past with living performances today. integration and fulfillment of past with present is most necessary when music of one period is performed on instruments of another era, as is the case, for example, when music for baroque keyboard or string instruments is played on the piano or with modern violin technique. the problem also exists, however, when such music is performed on instruments of previous times by modern artists, who emerge inevitably from a modern education, psyche, and cultural orientation, for the older instruments represent highly developed products of a totally different conceptual and musical outlook. historical data cannot merely be applied to, or superimposed upon, an instrument or a musical work. they must be first absorbed, then experienced within their own spirit, and at last integrated into the living quality of the structure of the music, the original nature of the instrument, and the act of performance. the area of transference of historical information to specific performance applications and integration in bach performance is one which deserves more attention. this is an art in itself. an area of precious quality is in fact shared by both musicologist and performer. herein lies the humanistic value of musicological studies. beyond the accumulation of information required by both musicologist and performer, and the extension of performing equipment gained by the latter, musicological studies provide the possibility of a deeper, psychic absorption of values and performance practices belonging to a human and aesthetic milieu other than one's own. the deeper the experience of study, the greater the possibility of entry into this other world. the performer's opportunity for this experience is afforded by his own act of living performance. the performer's relation to a composer of the past is unique. no one can claim to fulfill bach's intentions 222 years after his death. one wonders whether anyone except bach himself could ever have made this claim legitimately. besides, the creative process is so vast, so mysterious and complex, that the popular term "realizing the composer's intentions" seems oversimplified in relation to the infinity of spirit and ideas of which true creativity partakes and which it imparts. i should like to suggest the phrase "attempting to be true to the composer's thought and vision" as more descriptive of the true relationship between performer and composer. if i were planning a program of study for young performers, i would recommend that every string player study his instrument's counterpart in the viol and gamba family and develop an equal amount of facility in both the modern and earlier instruments. keyboard players should have an equivalent requirement, namely, a study of the organ, harpsichord, and clavichord, along with the piano. furthermore, i would like at least one electronic keyboard instrument to be included. diversity in instrumental study does not hinder or diffuse concentration. i have found it incalculably enriching to the imagination, not only in my own work but also in the development of my students, for the differences in sonorities and techniques are immeasurably 171 eloquent in their revelation of instrumental composing and performing approaches, ancient and modern. in university classes i teach in such a way that the final examination is multifaceted. it requires an essay on the manuscripts and early editions of a work selected according to each student's major subject, an analysis of the work's musical structure, an edition realizing all embellishments, phrasing, dynamics, etc., in some cases on more than one instrument, and a finished performance of the work in public. the performing students have neither found this work-plan irksome, nor have they complained about lack of time to practice their instruments. the artist-performer must be concerned with forging the sum of all these parts into a great whole with depth of feeling and unobstructed freedom of communication. such a marriage, though rare, is capable of producing great beauty and arrives as close to the composer's thoughts as is humanly possible. this achievement is difficult on every level: it combines the musicological labor of the scholar with the technical and musical development of the gifted performer; it demands a talent for merging the two into an artistic unity; and it is quickened into life only by the precious spiritual gift of giving oneself with reverence and love. note 1 in order to help bridge the existing gaps, i created the international bach society, inc., in 1967. the annual international congress includes performances, workshops, and lectures by distinguished guest musicologists on such specialized subjects as ornamentation, harpsichord construction, lute, manuscripts, etc. performance workshops emphasizing historical studies and methods of stylistically appropriate performance applications are devoted to solo instrumental, vocal, and ensemble performance employing both baroque and modern instruments. 172 musical literacy and jazz musicians in the 1910s and 1920s by david chevan in 1988, i conducted a telephone interview with the african american new orleans clarinet player willie james humphrey about his tenure from 1925 to 1932 in the riverboat band led by fate marable. during our conversation, i asked humphrey if marable had hired him because of his skills as a jazz musician. although we were talking by phone i could feel the mood of the conversation change. humphrey sounded irritated as he replied, "you had to be a musician [his emphasis], 'cause that's the only way you could get on there. you had to know how to read." humphrey caught me off guard. i had been working under the assump­ tion that marable would have hired new orleans musicians because of their skills at playing hot solos. i could never have imagined marable en­ gaging humphrey, a downtown musician, because he "knew how to read." what was i to make of such a strongly-voiced statement? one need only think of how humphrey's words complicate our reading of literature on jazz history, which so often describes the historical ten­ sions and the social and musical disparities between the downtown blacks and the "creoles of color" in humphrey's native new orleans. according to most histories, it was the "creoles of color" who were the formally edu­ cated and musically literate group,l while the downtown blacks were, al­ legedly, trained by ear. willie james humphrey came from a family of for­ mer slaves with no known creole blood. yet his father was a respected music teacher in the new orleans area who taught young players how to read music as well as how to play their instruments. humphrey's words, and especially his annoyed tone, served as a catalyz­ ing agent that prompted me to reconsider the early history of jazz from the perspective of musical literacy as well as musicianship and musical training. many african american jazz artists were studied musicians who might have chosen different career paths if the doors to certain working environments had not been closed to them. we could well speculate about the unrealized concert careers of coleman hawkins, a trained cel­ list who turned to the tenor saxophone, or of bassist milt hinton, who spent most of his youth playing violin and was one of the youngest high school students of his day to make the all-city orchestra in chicago (chilton 1990:4, 6-7; hinton 1988:24-25). these trained musicians sought environments that would challenge all of their musical skills, as readers, interpreters, and improvisers. they did not wish to be confined to current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york david chevan 201 a single category of music but, like willie humphrey, thought of them­ selves as "musicians." the aim of this article is to consider the various ways that jazz musicians -both white and black-encountered and engaged with written music in the 1910s and 1920s. i have chosen an ethnographic approach to this sub­ ject. that is, this essay will privilege the voices of musicians, surveying and interpreting a broad selection of autobiographies, oral histories, and per­ sonal interviews of jazz musicians who grew up, studied, and performed during this period. the material from these primary sources has been sorted into five general sections that cover topics relating to how musicians learned to use written music and to the actual use of written music in per­ formance. the resulting composite picture reveals a wide range of encoun­ ters with and responses to written music by these early jazz musicians. learning to read music for many early jazz musicians, an attraction to music and the idea of making music began before they were first formally introduced to a musi­ cal instrument. some grew up in musical homes where family members were professional or amateur musicians while others remember first hearing music at church, parades, or other community events. in many ac­ counts, they recalled their attraction to the sounds musicians made and their desire to try to make such sounds themselves. following these initial encounters, some musicians, such as pops foster, experimented with homemade instruments. others, including danny barker and clyde bernhardt, formed kazoo groups with their friends and imitated the latest songs. the young louis armstrong began his professional musical explo­ rations by singing in a street corner ensemble.2 these ad hoc and infor­ mal settings prepared young jazz-musicians-to-be for their first encounters with real instruments and perhaps, to some extent, for their first encoun­ ters with notated music (foster 1971 :2-3; bernhardt 1986:33; barker 1986:36; armstrong 1986:32, 34). for musicians growing up in a musical household these first experi­ ences were usually facilitated by a family member, typically a parent or sib­ ling. often a family member became the child's music teacher. pops foster's first bass was a cello with strings made of "twine rubbed with wax and rosin." his first teacher was his brother, willie foster, who taught him to play and to read. soon, the foster brothers and their sister, elizabeth, were "playing lawn parties and birthdays in the afternoons and evenings" (foster 1971:3). eddie durham was taught by his older brother to play musical instruments and read music: "i could read [music] because my brother studied music ... he started teaching me trombone and guitar ... and i could read" (quoted in pearson 1987:5). 202 current musicology barney bigard received his first musical training from his uncle, emile bigard, a violinist and the leader of kid ory's creole ragtime band. emile began his nephew's musical education by tutoring him from the lazarus music book, purchased from sears and roebuck. it was not until the young barney had learned to recognize the note names and values that he was deemed ready to even begin playing an instrument, at which point he purchased a second hand e~ clarinet (bigard 1985:10-11). there were many ways for a young musician to obtain training on their instrument. some early jazz musicians were self-taught, or relied on infor­ mal instruction. others studied privately with teachers, either in school or at home. most mrican american communities in urban centers seem to have had at least one general music teacher who taught many different in­ struments and was responsible for the training and musical skills of entire generations of players. 3 singleton palmer was one of many mrican american musicians from st. louis who came of age in the 1910s and 1920s and studied music with p. b. langford. in addition to giving private instruction, langford led the odd fellows brass band. at rehearsals, langford saw to it that young musicians had an opportunity to learn their craft by sitting alongside more seasoned players. what we would do, i would go take a lesson from him [langford] and then, i think it was every wednesday night down at the union hall ... we would go down, us youngsters and he'd give us a few pointers then downstairs. then, later on, upstairs, he'd carry us up­ stairs to sit beside the older musicians you know and play the marches. he had a darn good band, cause the older guys, they were really good musicians. (palmer 1982:8) trombonist robert carter also studied with langford. carter's elemen­ tary school teacher, harvey sims, was inspired to form a concert band at the school. sims asked langford to be the bandmaster and, as it turned out, to teach the young children how to play their instruments. he would come out to school. there were about twelve of us in the band, and he played an e-flat cornet, and he would take the little band part and he would make the position on the notes, how you make it on the horn. then he'd play the part on his horn, and you'd follow him. and, actually, i learned how to play. (carter 1973:2-3) carter did not learn to read with langford, only how to play the posi­ tions on his instrument. what we see here is the emphasis placed on the skill of using one's ear to learn to perform proficiently. it isn't clear why david chevan 203 langford, who was clearly comfortable with written music, chose not to teach the children how to read. perhaps the task of simultaneously teach­ ing a large group of children basic performance techniques and reading was too great. later, with the help of his schoolmate, robert johnson, carter was able to arrive at a moment of conceptual awakening that startled him and left a strong and lasting impression. most of the training that i have had has been with fellows .... robert johnson was one of the first guys that helped me. he said, "come on. i'll help you," when he wanted me to join bill jeter's band. and that's it. just been from playing with other musicians that can play, sitting down beside them ... as far as the time, knowing one note ... i didn't really know. like a quarter note gets one beat and a half note gets two beats, i didn't really learn that until i ... played with fellows like robert johnson. and he said, "well, there's nothing to reading music. it's just a matter of arithmetic, and it just came to me like a bolt out of the blue." well, it is ... but i didn't know it. that's all there is to it, but ijust don't know. (ibid.:31) carter's story reveals the importance of exchanges between younger and older, more experienced musicians. vertna saunders, an african american cornetist and trumpet player, was similarly frustrated by his early attempts at learning to read music. he relied on his ear to learn pieces. when his playing had developed and his lip strengthened, he was invited to play with a local lodge brass band. they overlooked his inability to read and 'just took a little time" with him. one evening after rehearsal, an older member of the band took saunders aside. so there was a trombone player in this band that was a letter carrier. he had a very, very nice disposition and attitude about life, very, very nice. so he asked me after rehearsal one night, "how you getting along?" i said, "well my lip seems to be coming along fine, but ijust can't learn to read." so i'll never forget this statement as long as i live. he said, "well, i don't see why you should have so much trouble with it." he said, "anytime you see "c," it's in the same place. it's the first ... " well, he played trombone and he told me this in the bass clef. he said, "now you're in the treble clef," so he said, "it's the first space below the staff [sic]. if you here or in china. it's the same. "c." its the same all over." i said, "well, i thought "c" changed." he said, "oh, no "c" never changes." he said, "what's on the first line of the staff?" i said, "well, i don't know right now." he said, "e." anytime you see "e," "it's got to be on the first line." he said, "what follows "e?" i said, "f." he said, "what is that?" i said, "the first space." he 204 current musicology said, "sure that's it." so i went on from there and he told me what instruction book to buy .... so i bought the instruction book and i could understand it pretty well. just by the man telling me about "c" was always in the same place. (saunders 1982:9-10) one of the best known general music teachers in the new orleans area was willie james humphrey's father, james humphrey, but he was only one of several music teachers in new orleans. for example, clarinetists barney bigard, johnny dodds, and albert nicholas all studied with lorenzo tio.4 nicholas noted that tio "could teach as well as he could play," but just as important was tio's musical literacy. barney bigard re­ called that in choosing a clarinet teacher he had narrowed the field to two possibilities. one choice was a member of the john robichaux orchestra. in order to help bigard make up his mind, a friend suggested that he attend a performance of the john robichaux orchestra at the lyric theater and sit directly behind robichaux's clarinetist, alphonse picou, because he always sits with his music stand facing towards the audi­ ence. i want you to watch him read his music. i couldn't see what he was driving at but come monday we ... sat directly behind [picou]. mter a few bars it became clear that the old man never played one part of that music and i asked [my friend] what was happening. "he's playing by ear," he said. "well, i'll be damned," i replied ... (bigard 1985:13) bigard eventually found the teacher he was looking for in lorenzo tio. like nicholas, bigard held tio's teaching skills in high regard and indi­ cated that these were a reflection of tio's skills as a musician. "tio ... was a great reader, even by today's standards," bigard recalled. "he had real fast execution and he could improvise-play jazz in other words-on top of all the rest. he would even make his own reeds out of some kind of old cane. yes, lorenzo tio was the man in those days in the city of new orleans." bigard was equally struck by tio's ability to impart his ideas in a unique manner to every student. he noted that no two students of lorenzo tio played in the same style (ibid.: 17). the dodds brothers were concerned with the development of their mu­ sical skills and studied with a number of new orleans teachers. warren "baby" dodds recalled that his brother, john, studied with lorenzo tio, as well as with charles mccurdy. thatjohnny dodds was studying technique and not improvisation may be surmised from bigard's observations that mccurdy was "quite a musician, but he wasn't ajazz player." bigard noted that mccurdy could play anything written, but was not able to improvise; "it just wasn't in him" (dodds 1992:14; bigard 1985:17). david chevan 205 baby dodds began his studies with dave perkins but soon switched to walter brundy who taught him "the fundamentals of reading music." according to baby dodds this interest in formalizing one's studies byob­ taining a private teacher, honing technique, and learning how to read mu­ sic was not common among the musicians of the downtown african american community. reading music, in new orleans, was more common with the creole community, and dodds felt that he and his brother were exceptions (dodds 1992:7-8, 13). but i would hesitate to accept dodds's claim. he appears to be completely unaware of james humphrey, and may well have not known who amongst his fellow downtown musicians were taking music lessons. although most music ensembles were separated along racial lines, early jazz musicians found that private teachers were ready and willing to teach anyone with an interest in music. a few white musicians, such as pianist jess stacy, studied with african american teachers, and the reverse was also true. pianist pete patterson, an african american, was playing at the 19th century club in st. louis when he was approached by the white con­ ductor of the orpheum theater, dr. bojes. bojes invited patterson to his studio for private lessons. he said, "don't worry whether you have any money or not, because i'm going to give them to you free." ... so, i went over, and he ... taught me ... he gave me eight lessons, and he didn't charge me anything ... he would have taught me longer, but, you see, i was in music playing, and that was my living then .... he gave me three or four of those lessons which were nothing but scales, you know. he said that that was some of the best exercises you can have on the pi­ ano is to have those scales .... he explained some theoretical parts at times, and he would come up and show me, probably in diacritical marks .... like i come upon a phrase and would have an italian word there that meant thus and so. or german ... or they would have french. well, he would tell me what that meant. "allegretto" and "allegro" and all like that, you know. he taught me all that, be­ cause i wasn't well aware of that, you know. i hadn't been playing that type of music that high up, you know. (patterson 1974:4-6) patterson's experience was rewarding, and not unique. for example, while in paris, garvin bushell studied with henri selmer (bushell and tucker 1990:68). peg meyer recalled that whenever fate marable's boat would dock in cape girardeau, he would invite jess stacy, a white teenager, on board to take a piano lesson. according to meyer, "fate would have jess come on the boat and play for him; and in the process teach him how a pianist should play with a band, how to fill in the holes in 206 current musicology the ensemble, and how to back up a band member who was taking a cho­ rus" (meyer 1989:101). stacy would later go on to play piano in benny goodman's orchestra. in addition to studying music privately, some early jazz musicians were able to obtain a musical education at school. this usually consisted of playing in a school band or orchestra, or occasionally participating in group instrumental lessons, such as those taken by robert carter in ele­ mentary school (carter 1973:2). in these settings, students learned to read music and develop their ensemble skills. these school experiences gener­ ally began during their high school years, although vertna saunders, leon king, and robert carter, all african american musicians, began their studies in elementary school (saunders 1982:3; king 1982:5; carter 1973:2).5 peg meyer believed that playing in his high school orchestra developed his strong interest in music and enhanced his reading skills. leon king's first ensemble experience was playing in his high school orchestra in east st. louis. the ensemble regularly played through various orchestral over­ tures, and king noticed that his playing and ensembles skills improved dramatically (king 1982:5). when druie bess, an african american musi­ cian, began lane tech high school in chicago he already had consider­ able experience playing the trombone. he was pleased to find a teacher there who could guide him further with the instrument. bess's trombone skills were so good that he was not permitted to play in the band-he had to play in the orchestra (bess 1971 :4). after high school, musicians might also leave home to attend college where they could continue their music studies. among others, lil hardin studied music at fisk university and e. a. mckinney received his music ed­ ucation at tuskegee institute between 1903 and 1906. mckinney recalled performing in three ensembles run by tuskegee's music program: the preparatory band, the concert band, and the orchestra, all led by s. w. grisham. as part of his training, mckinney studied all of the brass instru­ ments. he specialized on the trombone, but also became familiar with the alto horn, trumpet, valve trombone, and french horn. mckinney found himself rehearsing with an ensemble almost every day of the week and no­ ticed his reading skills improve to the point where he was good enough to tour with the school band (mckinney 1974:1,7-8). there were also musicians who were self-taught or who were motivated to continue their studies on their own. those musicians who wished to de­ velop their reading skills would often acquire and study method books or sheet music. elijah shaw bought "all the literature i could pertaining to drumming." in addition, he worked with a copy of george hamilton green's theory and study on xylophone (cortinovis 1971:35). buster david chevan 207 bailey and his friends would learn the new popular tunes by purchasing the most recent copy of etude magazine. another formal setting where early jazz musicians developed their mu­ sical skills was performing with a benevolent society band. p. b. langford's band at the union hall and the odd fellows brass band in st. louis were only two of the ensembles that were offshoots of such local societies. many st. louis musicians felt that the bands sponsored by local lodge chapters were important learning opportunities for young musicians. similar sto­ ries have been told about the importance of bands affiliated with societies and organizations in new orleans, and further research would most likely turn up comparable groups in other american urban centers.6 while early jazz musicians learned a great deal from their teachers in school and at private lessons, much of their education took place in less formal circumstances. it was noted earlier that robert carter and vertna saunders did not learn to read music from a teacher but from an informal and spontaneous lesson with another musician. these experiences mirror those of many other early jazz musicians who were profoundly affected by a few remarks made by a gifted peer or an older musician. pops foster spoke highly of the advice of his brother willie. according to foster, it was his brother who taught him and a number of other young new orleans musicians the fundamentals of musical notation (foster 1971 :3, 82). vertna saunders remembered that a performance with scofield brown helped a great deal with score reading (saunders 1982:30). louis arm­ strong credits david jones with showing him how to "divide the notes so that whenever fate [marable] threw a new arrangement i was able to cope with it" (armstrong 1986:182). the earliest jazz musicians began their studies before there were recordings to use as models. as a result, observing musicians in perform­ ance was crucial to the development of a young musician. clyde bern­ hardt was told by his teacher, albert jones, to go out and watch other musicians perform. bernhardt then found he could recognize when musi­ cians were taking solos that weren't written in the music (bernhardt 1986:36-37) . as a young boy, leon king would go to a dance hall in collinsville, illinois, every saturday night and stand in the window to watch charlie creath's band. he knew that creath had the best musicians, including zutty singleton, but he never met them. king paid close attention to the numbers and tried hard to learn them; he also noticed that the entire band was reading music (king 1982:11-12). preston jackson would go to the royal gardens in chicago to hear king oliver's band and sit behind honore dutrey. he observed how easily dutrey would play the cello parts 208 current musicology from stock arrangements on his trombone (shapiro and hentoff 1966:97). some younger musicians were sensitive to their technical weaknesses and hid them until they were compelled to improve. vertna saunders re­ membered that other musicians would make fun of him when they found out he could not read music. to compensate, he practiced by ear and was able to fake his way through rehearsals and performances until an older musician explained the intricacies of music notation to him (saunders 1982:5-6, 9-10). jimmy harrison went back to the woodshed for some in­ tense practicing after fletcher henderson fired him for not being up on his reading. when he returned, able to read, henderson rehired him (bernhardt 1986:62). five specific perfonnance contexts marching bands during the first quarter of the twentieth century, brass marching bands were an important component of african american benevolent societies and organizations in most midwestern and southern cities. many young musicians, such as singleton palmer and robert carter, were given their first instrumental lessons under the auspices of these organizations, and they continued their studies by observing the older members of the brass bands perform. the number of societies and the demand for players was so great that musicians frequently played in more than one band. in the st. louis area, for example, musicians played in bands for at least seven benevolent societies: the american united knights, the daughters of africa, the elks, the knights of pythias, the odd fellows, the masons, and the united brethren fellowship. brass bands played for a variety of func­ tions including church ceremonies, picnics, advertisement for society events, and, perhaps most significantly, holiday parades (palmer 1982:8-9; mckinney 1974:14-15, 37; saunders 1982:8). the best known jazz-related activity of the brass marching band was its function in the city of new orleans at funerals. there are numerous ac­ counts of new orleans brass bands, sometimes as many as three or four, accompanying the funeral party to the cemetery with slow marches and solemn hymns. the bands would remain outside the gates of the cemetery until the mourners completed the burial. once the funeral party was out­ side of the gate, the band, cued either by the drummer or the lead trum­ pet, would "put their [sheet] music in their pockets and everybody started wailing" (shapiro and hentoff1966:16, 20-21). the musicians in the new orleans brass bands were clearly comfortable both reading their parts and making up new ones.7 david chevan 209 most of these marching bands were made up either entirely or prima­ rily of reading musicians. these were musicians who placed a high value on reading skills and on overall musicianship. musicians were expected to execute a perfect performance-that is, to perform the piece as written. further, these musicians would judge the musical skills of others based upon these specific values. danny barker used to listen to his grandfather, isidore barbarin, discuss the relative merits of individual performances with his friend and fellow musician, mr. taton. i heard them on the front steps discussing music and musicians very critically. the alto and baritone horns walked in front of the three cornet players in the brass band, and they would hear very closely and clearly who was and was not playing to perfection .... musicians who replaced regular members of both of the great brass bands knew beforehand that when they were handed the music parts to be played that all the ears in the bands were listening sharply at what they were playing, whether right or wrong. (barker 1986:7) individual musicians whose reading and performing skills were exem­ plary were praised and held up as examples for young musicians. the skills of clarinetist lorenzo tio, which have already been discussed, were treated as an exemplary model against which the musicianship of others could be measured. in new orleans marching band circles, the acknowl­ edged master on cornet was manuel perez. manuel perez was ... the idol of the downtown creole colored people. to them nobody could master the cornet like mr. perez. when this brass band played a march, dirge or hymn it was played to perfection-no blunders. many of these marching musicians only played in brass bands, never in dance or jazz bands. (ibid.:26) similarly, kudos were given to buddy johnson, the trombonist for the onward brass band. isidore barbarin described johnson as "the greatest parade and reading trombone player who ever placed a 'bone to his mouth" (ibid.:64). in new orleans, to be considered a good reading musi­ cian was high praise. it should be noted, however, that there were some marching bands that did not read at all. nat towles recalled playing in a marching band where there was "no music, you understand, we didn't know what a sheet of music was" (shapiro and hentoff 1966:16). danny barker does not mention whether any of these groups were discussed by isadore barbarin and mr. taton, but one could imagine that they would not have been viewed favorably. 210 current musicology circus and tent show bands some early jazz musicians spent a portion of their career performing in groups that accompanied traveling entertainment such as circuses, min­ strel shows, carnivals, and tent shows. most of these jobs paid well and were sought after by the better musicians. the music played by these bands served a number of different functions. upon arriving in a new town, most traveling entertainment troupes would advertise their arrival with a parade. before the show began the band performed overtures and light classics. during the show the musicians would accompany the acts, with virtuoso musicians performing solo features between acts. following the performance the musicians would play exit music and later, on occa­ sion, present music for dancing. as a result, the musicians who played in these bands were expected to be technically proficient as well as able to perform a wide variety of music (pearson 1987:7-8, 9, 31-32; bernhardt 1986:8,23-26; bess 1971:4-8; bushell and tucker 1990:11-12). garvin bushell spent the summer of 1916 touring with the sideshow band for the sells-floto circus. the band consisted of mrican american musicians from throughout the south and was led by the arranger h. qualli clark. since the ensemble was not the principal band for the cir­ cus, their repertoire only consisted of marches, popular songs, ragtime, and a few blues numbers (bushell and tucker 1990:11-12). the concert band that played for the show usually had twelve to fifteen musicians, but when a parade took place, the sideshow musicians and other amateur musicians were added to the ensemble so that the band could consist of anywhere from fifty to seventy-five players (meyer 1989:119). the musicians read their parts from stock arrangements and band scores. there were few special arrangements written for these traveling en­ sembles. although most circuses relied solely on published scores, there were some occasions where original arrangements were used. eddie durham's facility as a reading musician enabled him to get work with the miller brothers 101 wild west circus. this job gave him his first opportu­ nity to write and arrange music. i got started in arranging [when] i decided to go with the [miller brothers] 101 wild west circus .... they had two bands, a big white band and the black band. the black band was the jazz band, because they had a minstrel show over there .... the black band was a small band, but they still had three trombones and trumpets, and all that .... i'd get the guys to rehearse, [and] those old guys could play .... that's how i started writing, but it was all for me to learn harmony, because if i made any bad notes they could break away un­ til i straightened up .... that's how i learned to voice, so much vocal and five part harmony, because i had to play around [and] ... to david chevan 211 experiment with those horns ... when i left ... i had my degree anyway. i graduated from street university. (quoted in pearson 1987:6-7) durham's description of his learning process as being similar to going to a university is reminiscent of zutty singleton's observation that working for fate marable meant that one was going to the "riverboat conserva­ tory." these observations make clear that the musicians understood that these jobs served a dual purpose: as employment and as places where one could continue and expand their musical education. durham's tenure as an arranger in a circus band served him well, as he later became an arranger for count basie and glenn miller, among others. movie theaters and vaudeville the theater was also a venue where early jazz musicians could find em­ ployment. traveling theatrical productions, vaudeville acts, and minstrel shows needed musically literate musicians to accompany them on tours, and most theaters also had permanent pit orchestras ranging from a sin­ gle organ or piano to a full orchestra. the responsibilities of the local pit orchestra included playing music before and after the show as well as ac­ companying movies, vaudeville acts, and other traveling performers. for some theater owners, the ability to read the music provided for the band was more important than the group's popularity or overall musical ability. this is exemplified by two similar events, one in new york city and the other in los angeles, that occurred around 1920. in both instances, popu­ lar and well-known bands were hired as the pit orchestra for local theaters, but neither band contained strong readers. when the musicians were given written arrangements to accompany other acts and the movie, they could not play the music. both bands were fired (bushell and tucker 1990:23; foster 1971:122). not all theater owners were so harsh in their demands. garvin bushell heard the local pit orchestras of many mrican american theaters. "they played jazz and had to improvise behind the singers. bad notes didn't mean anything if the tempo was right" (bushell and tucker 1990:36). jesse stone, an mrican american pianist and arranger from kansas city, used to watch his father, a local drummer who played in minstrel shows, marching bands, and the local vaudeville theater. he noticed that all of the musicians, including his father, played from written music. one night they would feature my uncle [on trombone] in the pit, the next night they would feature my father on drums .... they could read music at that time, but they didn't know the definition of an arrangement. they knew it was handwritten music and even when 212 current musicology i came up in school they called it "homemade music." (pearson 1987:11) elijah shaw enjoyed the challenge that came with playing in the theater pit orchestra for silent movies "because you had to play music according to the pictures." the band leader always received a list of cues describing the appropriate music for each scene and, if specific pieces weren't listed on the cue sheet, the musicians in the orchestra were free to offer their suggestions. most theaters had music libraries with published music for this purpose. some movies were shipped to the theater with music that in­ cluded full scores and arrangements. i remember when we played the show for douglas fairbanks, that big picture he was in the thief of baghdad. they sent the music along with the picture, so we didn't have any problems ... it came right along with the picture. so what we had to do was have a re­ hearsal ... that was something. and any number of pictures, the music came right along with the pictures. (shaw quoted in cortinovis 1971:57) there were also those early jazz musicians who played for the silent movies but did not take the job seriously. one group of white chicago musicians performed pieces by the original dixieland jazz band with no regard for what was on the screen. another group of white musicians in massachusetts played the refrain from "tiger rag" during highly emo­ tional scenes (eddie condon 1947:146; kaminsky 1963:11). not surpris­ ingly, these groups quickly found themselves without a job. such anec­ dotes raise the question of whether mrican american musicians valued reading skills more than their white counterparts. with employment op­ portunities already limited, one can imagine that there was more at stake in terms of social status and financial gain for mrican american musicians who could read music. most vaudeville acts and theatrical productions rarely made their home in a single theater. they survived and generated their income by touring. in general, musicians who performed for these productions also accompa­ nied the tour. the larger productions were elaborate shows that could last up to two hours and contained a cast of over thirty-five people, plus the orchestra. while in the pit, the musicians read from parts, but all music played on stage was memorized. most musicians who accompanied the large shows were good readers. while these touring groups, which were more typically small, well-rehearsed ensembles, preferred reading musi­ cians, there were exceptions made for talented musicians who could not read music such as sidney bechet, who performed with will marion cook david chevan 213 and his southern syncopated orchestra during their european tour in 1919 (bernhardt 1986:75, 78; bushell and tucker 1990:56-57). there were even instances where musicians were required to memorize the music for an entire show. as ma rainey's music director, thomas a. dorsey wrote arrangements both for the small group that accompanied the tour and for the local pit orchestras. rainey kept her band on stage and made it a part of her show. dorsey had written and arranged the en­ tire show-from "overture to.finale"-and it was important that every mu­ sician know his part. before the tour began dorsey rehearsed the band "for four straight weeks, five hours a day" until they had memorized the music. thus, although written music was involved in the performance, au­ dience members would not have seen a single piece of sheet music used by the featured musicians (harris 1992:91-93). recording studios one venue that frequently required the use of written music was the recording studio, and some musicians have left accounts that shed some light on the different ways that written music was utilized in such a setting. for example, garvin bushell discussed many of his early recordings and described pieces in terms of whether he was reading a part or improvising his line. this kind of information clarifies not only what specific pieces were notated, but also how the musicians felt about the music they were playing. as in other environments, pieces might be fully notated, partially no­ tated, or not written at all. or the musicians might have memorized their parts and no longer relied solely on the score for their performance. a closer reading of some oral histories makes it possible to identify some recording sessions which used fully notated parts and some recording ses­ sions where the music was completely learned and performed by ear. garvin bushell recalled recording sessions from 1921 led by perry bradford that did not use written music. but bradford had developed a unique method for obtaining a good performance. perry bradford used to direct those sessions with mamie [smith]. he'd stand on a big platform and make motions for what he wanted the instruments to do, moving his hands up for high notes, down for low ones. we knew so little about recording in those days. compared to today's technology, it was like the difference between hitching a horse to a rig and having a cadillac. ifwe'djust used common sense, we would have done things much different. (bushell and tucker 1990:22)8 "common sense" in this instance probably means using written music. baby dodds remembered that there was little written music used by the 214 current musicology hot seven in rehearsal for their recording sessions with louis armstrong in 1927. the process for working out routines and details on the record­ ing was informal and democratic. with louis' outfit we used to have rehearsal and anything that we had in mind for any particular number we would work out then. he would tell each of us when to take a solo or when not to, and who would come in at different times. we weren't a bunch of fellows to write down anything. that would have made it too mechanical. we would stop and talk it out more than anything else. if there was any writing involved lil [armstrong] would write down what the musi­ cians were supposed to do. (dodds 1992:72) although baby dodds suggests that there is something "mechanical" about written music, he does acknowledge that lil armstrong was jotting down something during the rehearsals. in interviews, lil discussed using her own arrangements for the new orleans wanderers sessions in 1926. lil's notations during the rehearsals might have been little more than sim­ ple outlines in long-hand, such as reminders of the routines and solo order. in contrast to the hot seven's parts, baby dodds recalled that jimmy blythe would "write out the parts and give each of us the part for our in­ struments" for his sessions in 1927 (dodds 1992:71). a similar experience occurred when jelly roll morton hired dodds for his red hot pepper ses­ sions in 1927. dodds recalled that morton did not bring the musicians into the studio until the group had already met and rehearsed their parts to his satisfaction. during the rehearsals he would say, "now that's just the way i want it on the recording," and he meant just that. we used his original numbers and he always explained what it was all about and played a synopsis of it on the piano. sometimes we had music and he would mark with a pencil those places which he wanted to stand out in a number ... he often gave us something extra to do, some little nov­ elty or something. when we made 'jungle blues" he wanted a gong effect and i think i used a large cymbal and a mallet to produce the effect he wanted ... it took quite a bit of rehearsing on some of those to get just what jelly wanted but he told us what he expected and we would do our best to get the right effect. (ibid.:74-75) garvin bushell recalled that notated music was used when making recordings with fletcher henderson for black swan in 1921, but much of the time not every musician would receive a part. david chevan 215 fletcher was in charge of the record dates. he might pick the num­ bers in the office, present them to the vocalists, then we'd have a rehearsal and get it together. often there were only two pieces of music, one for the piano and one for the trumpet (or violin). some­ times everybody would have a part. (bushell and tucker 1990:31-32) even if there were only two pieces of music for all of the musicians, it seems clear that the crucial moment in this reading and learning process was during the rehearsal where the musicians would "get it together." it is unfortunate that bushell does not explain why every musician did not get a part. perhaps the complexity of the piece determined whether every musician at the session would even need a part. dances written music was often used by musicians who performed at dances in the 1910s and 1920s. the degree ofliteracy expected of the musicians ap­ pears to have been related, at least in part, to the level of formality of the event. this is reinforced by descriptions of some of the different types of dances played by musicians during this period. social dancing from the turn of the century until at least the late 1920s retained certain formal characteristics. it was common. for dances on the riverboats and in certain parts of southeast missouri to use program cards. the card had numbered lines, and before the show began dancers would sign up on each others' cards; a placard by the band would announce which "number" was being played (meyer 1989: 131). in most cities, the "respectable" dance halls had someone to chaperon the activities on the dance floor. danny barker re­ called that even one of the roughest rooms in new orleans had some kind of chaperon to determine who could and could not dance in the venue.9 peg meyer, a white musician, performed for dances in a wide variety of venues, playing a ballroom one night and a low "dive" the next. leon king, an african american musician, played for dances in fraternities, sororities, dance halls, and once, for a picnic on a makeshift scaffold. dances held in formal settings, "high class places" such as hotels or dance halls, were more likely to hire bands where the musicians read music than those in less formal settings such as rent parties or "chittlin' stomps" (meyer 1989:97; king 1982:5-10, 20-23; foster 1971:43).10 there was a "high-class" and "low-class" continuum in both african american and white communities. bands were organized to work with a general type of venue in mind and their ability to read music played no small part in this matter. for example, john robichaux's band in new orleans was a reading band and was able to work its way from public dances in lincoln park to private dances in upper class venues, eventually 216 current musicology becoming in 1919 the house band at the lyric theater, the city's premier black theater. in contrast, buddy bolden's band, a group that did not rely on written music for performances, was featured at a hall whose nickname was funky butt. perhaps the versatility and the variety of genres within its repertoire was the best measure of the degree to which a band would rely on written mu­ sic. pops foster believed that repertoire played an important role in deter­ mining the venue where a new orleans musician or band might be hired. "it was a rule in new orleans if you didn't play any blues you didn't get colored jobs, and if you didn't play lancers you didn't get cajun jobs. white jobs didn't care what you played. the tuxedo band didn't play any blues; they were a ragtime band and didn't get colored jobs. they got a lot of show jobs and later on some of the dicty affairs" (foster 1971:54).11 foster's delineation tends to coincide with particular venues, genres, and the presence or absence of written music. bands that played "dicty af­ fairs" would perform pieces such as lancers and were reading bands, while bands that played blues, for the most part, were not. race was not the ulti­ mate factor that determined whether written music was used by a band. many bands that played dances for mrican americans read music on the job. leon king remembers dances for mrican american lodges where the performance consisted of playing stock arrangements straight, playing the stocks with changes, and playing head arrangements. the bands that played the monday night black dances on the streckfus boats in st. louis functioned in a similar manner (king 1982:20-23; peretti 1989:74). as has been noted above, the repertoire of dance bands reflected the musical tastes, styles, and expectations of the audiences who attended specific venues. the pieces developed by a group were generally molded around these expectations. some groups, such as king oliver's band, had distinct repertoires for different audiences. clyde bernhardt recalled that oliver usually called "smooth, sweet modern numbers" for white audi­ ences and "when we worked colored places, which was often on our mondays off, we played a lot of blues and jazz numbers" (bernhardt 1986:97). bands that could read music usually had a larger repertoire than those that could not. ensembles with musically literate and techni­ cally skilled musicians, or that frequently rehearsed, were in a better posi­ tion to play more demanding and complex pieces than those that did not. pete bocage recalled that his father, who played in a turn-of-the-century new orleans dance band, did not play any jazz. all of the music his father played was read by the ensemble; some of it was in manuscript while other pieces were published. "and they had a set of books they called 'man­ hattan books'-dance books, you know," bocage remembered. "well they had quadrilles, they had mazurkas, and they had waltzes, and they had david chevan 217 lancers and varieties, and all that type of music they played those days" (bocage 1959). when johnny st. cyr began playing in new orleans, "a band would have a repertoire of about thirty or forty numbers." the musicians he knew and the bands he played with consisted primarily of reading musi­ cians. when they needed new "written music, the musicians would buy it at the big music stores, werlen's or grunewald's, then change it around to suit themselves" (st. cyr 1966:6-8; hennessey 1994:5). ragtime was played by most turn-of-the-century dance bands. many mu­ sicians considered "standard high class rags" (better known as the red back book), a collection of band arrangements of ragtime numbers pub­ lished by john stark, to be an important source for their repertoire. the red back book was one of the primary sources for scott joplin's music. musicians growing up in new orleans and chicago recall hearing local groups perform joplin numbers from the red books (bocage 1959; mezzrow 1972:29). there even was competition amongst musicians for good arrangements of new pieces. pops foster belonged to a musicians' club and purchased ragtime numbers by scott joplin, tom turpin, and walter jacobs by mail order. "for a dollar you got four numbers. when we got a number nobody had, we'd cut the title off the sheet and write 'some stuff' up there and put a number on it to keep track of them. if a guy would ask what it was, we'd say 'some stuff' and that way he couldn't order a copy of it" (foster 1971:78). bands with large repertoires were careful to program their sets to in­ clude a wide selection of styles. clyde bernhardt was impressed with the variety in king oliver's 1931 performances. the band's repertory included hot numbers like "tiger rag" so the guys could show off; the "st. louis blues," "beale street," and the "memphis blues;" waltzes and standards such as "my wild irish rose," "danny boy," and even "0 sole mio"; oliver originals like "mule face blues" and "boogie woogie." [oliver] also did "lazy river," "stardust," and other new tunes and introduced many songs just as fast as they came out. (bernhardt 1986:96) peg meyer carefully planned the repertoire for his performances from the first song to the very end of the night, and always kept his band's crowd-pleasing showmanship at the forefront. meyer rotated the various types of dance tunes systematically to allow the dancers to plan their dance cards. "we played fast and "wild" numbers for one-steps, bouncy melodious tunes for the regular fox trots, blues for the slow fox trots and grinds, and waltzes. we usually programmed our evening using this rota­ tion, and with the program card system the dancers could not only select 218 current musicology their partners for the evening but could select the type of dance and tempo" (meyer 1989:132-33). in contrast, pops foster heard some new orleans dance bands that only performed ragtime numbers: "if you danced to ragtime you could grab the chick and squeeze her anyway you wanted to" (foster 1971:73). reading skills and regional differences the general level of musical literacy and technical ability in the 1910s and 1920s varied regionally. touring musicians were in a good position to notice the differences in musical practice around the country. while some regional differences may have been slight, there were occasionally cities or regions where musicians encountered a higher level of musicianship. in the eyes of many musicians, musical literacy and technical ability were seen as linked-a technically adept musician was one who could read and play his part well. for example, in 1921, while on tour with mamie smith in chicago, bushell was struck by the musical literacy and technical fluency of doc cooke's band at the sunset cafe and of erskine tate's vendome theater pit band. "they could read-or some of them could, the ones who played the vendome theater. chicago jazzmen had the advantage in those years of having a crack at theater music before the new york jazzmen did. they improved their ability that way, and so could read a little better than jazz musicians in the east" (bushell and tucker 1990:25-26). while bushell considered chicago to be a good reading town, he found the level of musicianship to be high in many other locales as well. in baltimore, bushell encountered many skillful, technically adept jazz musicians. there was good jazz in just about every cabaret, no matter how low or cheap. baltimore musicians had more technique than the new york players, i don't know why. they were very fly, smart, creative improvisers. but they didn't play the blues the way the musicians from the south did. their jazz was based on ragtime piano practices, and piano ragtime influenced the way they played their horns. they also had the best banjo players in the world. (ibid.:34) bushell doesn't comment on the musical literacy of these musicians, but his comments regarding ragtime suggest the importance of written music in the ragtime tradition. buster bailey grew up in memphis, tennessee, and recalled playing a hot style of music. as a teenager, bailey played with w. c. handy's band, among others. bailey believed that the biggest differ­ ence between the music in new orleans and that of his native memphis was that new orleans musicians improvised more: "ours was more the david chevan 219 note variety. we played from sheets" (shapiro and hentoff 1966:77). pops foster remembered that w. c. handy's band played society dates through­ out the south. foster thought that handy's band played as though the music had been through-composed, with little or no improvisation (foster 1971:90). st. louis native vertna saunders visited new orleans while playing trumpet on the riverboats. he heard papa celestin's band, a small big band, and was not impressed with the way the group read its arrangements. now the largest band that i ever heard in new orleans was the band they called papa celestin .... he had a large band, but it was just a lot of men in the way ... they were reading. they had arrangements. the style that the new orleans musicians played, they were much better in small groups. (saunders 1982:71-72) as a young boy growing up in louisville, kentucky, trombonist dicky wells "never heard that new orleans 'tailgate' sound style." according to wells, the bands in louisville tended to be larger ensembles that played mostly from stock arrangements with room for improvisation (wells 1991:9). garvin bushell was not impressed by the musicians that he heard in 1922 during a trip to the west coast. he felt the jazz there "was nothing compared to the midwest, east, and south." bushell's critical and discern­ ing ear noticed a good deal, and his observations make clear how carefully musicians were listening to one another and watching how each other were performing. he knew which bands had good readers, which bands had good improvisers, and which had both. bushell recognized the value of musical literacy, technical proficiency, and of just plain sounding like a good jazz musician. the values bushell held were shared by many other musicians, since these ideas could be found in varying degrees in all regions of the country. reading and faking after moving to new york city, bushell joined a rehearsal band that met once a week. these rehearsals exposed him to material that he might encounter on a bandstand (bushell and tucker 1990: 16-17). bushell's combination of reading and "faking" skills appears to be typical of many early jazz musicians. as noted earlier, it was possible for a musician to be exclusively a reading player, such as charles mccurdy. in addition there were numerous players, such as sidney bechet, who read very little or did not read music at all. these musicians relied on their ear skills and were known as "fakers." jack weber observed bands composed of readers and fakers in new orleans. according to weber, high class musicians could read, and dance musicians could not. weber also noted that some of the 220 current musicology fakers believed that "if they learned how to read, it would ruin their ability to improvise!" (shapiro and hentoff 1966:59),12 for some, reading and faking may have been opposite sides of the same coin, but pops foster recalled that musicians would learn their music from parts and, after memorizing it, would no longer use the written music. playing from memory and the process of embellishing, eliding, and other­ wise changing the part over time, should be understood to be a part of the process of faking. foster also stressed the idea of rehearsing as a social activity; it was a way for musicians, family, and friends to gather and spend time together. everybody wanted you to rehearse at their house so they could have some fun .... we'd start rehearsing about eight o'clock in the evening and play till eleven or midnight, according to when the juice ran out. you'd be rehearsing inside and people would be dancing outside. mter we'd playa number three or four times we didn't need the music anymore. everybody who played in new orleans had to memorize. i can still remember a lot of numbers we played back in 1909. i hear one bar of it and i'm ready to romp. (foster 1971:58) foster's incorporation of reading music, rehearsing, memorizing, fak­ ing, and socializing into a single continuum reveals how much reading music was part of the culture in his home. the interaction between read­ ing and faking was also present on the bandstand. those musicians with good reading skills had to prove their ability in order to get work in read­ ing bands, and they had to survive the constant scrutiny of other musi­ cians continuously assessing their abilities. musicians with strong reading and faking skills might be put in the position of choosing between jobs that involved primarily one or the other of these talents. these musicians were concerned about how associating with non-reading bands would af­ fect their reputation and future ability to acquire work. there was also the give and take that took place in bands that consisted of a mix of reading and non-reading musicians. finally, there were occasions when musicians who read found themselves having to pretend that they were faking. some trained musicians who wished to perform in dance bands had to learn how to fake. alphonse picou's first encounter with a group that spe­ cialized in faking illustrates how this learning process took place. i was invited down to the rehearsal that night and i went to the place and i said to him, "what do you want me to do?" i said, "do you want me to play my instrument? is there any music?" he said, "music? you don't need none." i said, "how am i going to play?" he said, ''you're going to come in on the choruses." i said, "all right," and then i david chevan 221 tuned up; we all tuned up our instruments. he said that when i couldn't come in, to stay out and listen until i could come in. i did just what he told me and we got into it, and through with it, and the whole band shook my hand and told me i was great .... that partic­ ular style of playing without music was very new to me. i think it was impossible to me! it seemed a sort of style of playing without notes. (shapiro and hentoff 1966:19) later, picou found that even faking bands relied on reading, or at least on the readers in the band. rehearsals were held to learn new music, usu­ ally from published parts. the material was memorized and "then, after that we didn't need that music no more. we'd go out of the way with it" (ibid.:59) 13. most faking bands had at least one reader to teach the other musicians the written parts. in the original dixieland jazz band, eddie edwards would show other players their parts. likewise, elmer schoebel and arnold loyacano demonstrated the arrangements for the other members of the new orleans rhythm kings who could not read (ibid.:61, 82). baby dodds found that he relied on both his reading and faking skills when he played with king oliver. oliver led a reading band, but he ex­ pected his musicians to put in more than was written on the paper, and when he counted in the song dodds was ready to comply. when i got there the first piece of music they put in front of me was canadian capers. i asked joe [oliver] how he was going to play it. he said from the left hand corner to the right hand corner; from top to bottom. the trio was in the middle of the number. i said "kick off," and joe kicked off. i read that piece of music down, from side to side and i went back to the trio. i had played that number once and knew it, so i began playing my own style of drums. (dodds 1992:33) when clyde bernhardt arrived in new york city from harrisburg, pennsylvania, in 1928 he had to prove that his reading skills were up to the local standard. he was hired by band leader herb cowens for his first new york job on the recommendation of trombone player, dicky wells. bernhardt was aware of his outsider status and his need to prove himself to the other musicians on the job. this need was reinforced by the treat­ ment he received when he arrived to play and only two of the musicians on the bandstand spoke to him. the first set, herb cowens told me to layout if i come to a hard part, not try any passage i couldn't play. there was no rehearsal. we played two sets. the music seemed like average arrangements-i saw 222 current musicology no hard parts. as we started the third set, cowens called some of his best jazz arrangements and i heard [ray] corn and [bill] lewis whis­ pering loud that everybody going to see some good fun now. "this gonna be reeeeeel good," they were saying. "this boy's goin' back where he come from, fast." so cowens stomped off a set that in­ cluded black maria and beau koo jack, difficult pieces that asked for your butt. but i knew right away they were the exact stock arrange­ ments henry mcclane [a harrisburg band leader] used, the latest songs ordered from feist & feist direct from new york city. when my solo part came, i stood up and easily played it note-for-note as written. and very loudly so that everybody could hear. before i sat down i put in a little extra stuff especially for corn and lewis. mter the set, cowens came over. said he knew i never seen those numbers because only new york bands played such hard arrangements, and here i read them all at first sight. bill lewis jumped up when he heard where i learned to play. "man, all them harrisburg niggers read as fast as you?" ray corn was slapping me on the back, said those numbers cut even the best sharks in town. i acted like i thought it was easy music-never told anyone i been playing those same arrangements for months and almost knew them by heart. kept my mouth shut and nobody never found out. ... mter word got around the band box about my fast reading, jobs started coming in. (bernhardt 1986:66-67) once he had proven himself in an adverse setting, bernhardt was able to establish himself as a viable contender in the highly competitive new york music scene. nor was this the first time that bernhardt was given a job on the merits of his reading abilities. when pittsburgh band leader tillie vennie invited him to play trombone for her band she praised his reading by saying, "all your parts were correct. you [are] playing better than you think you are" (ibid.:46). vennie's evaluation of bernhardt's reading skills was not unique. given the highly competitive atmosphere of most jazz environments, it was only natural that musicians were constantly assessing one another's abilities, not only in terms of reading, but in terms of other skills. pops foster re­ membered that most leaders had differing expectations concerning how their musicians should read and execute figures. he was frequently criti­ cized, especially by james humphrey, the father of willie james humphrey. he [humphrey] was always saying, "you'll never be a musician," and "you'll never play nothin'." we'd be playing some place and he'd start worryin' me with, "you'd better learn how to read." i'd say, "oh man, go hide yourself," or "don't rush yourself, go ahead and play." david chevan 223 those old guys wanted to read and play different than we did. jim humphrey and john robichaux wanted to play one way, and freddie keppard and us wanted to play ragtime. old man humphrey didn't like anybody who couldn't read, and he didn't like the way i picked the bass; he wanted me to bow it. (foster 1971:86) it is striking that humphrey and foster equate reading with being a musician and playing well, and it is a reminder of the opening quote by willie james humphrey. it is also worth noting that foster indicates that reading was expected from musicians playing differing styles of music in new orleans. moreover, foster's comments indicate that there was a view of musical literacy amongst the younger new orleans musicians that was creating a division by generation. the "old guys" wanted the younger mu­ sicians to read and perform in a specific manner. the younger musicians, such as foster, were not necessarily opposed to reading music, but they also wanted to just "go ahead and play." despite this apparent generational difference, foster was ultimately in­ fluenced by the musical values of humphrey and his peers. foster's auto­ biography is filled with critical assessments of musicians' reading skills. it is all the more interesting that foster reserved his harshest criticism for musicians and bands that could not read music. the bands that couldn't read could play nothing but choruses. they'd play nothing but chorus after chorus .... there were a lot of players around new orleans who would only play with their own band. some of the guys were ory, frankie dusen, albert nicholas, and george brunies. those guys couldn't read so good or couldn't read at all, and they couldn't go into other bands and start playing. ory couldn't read too good and couldn't find a note either. if he wanted b-flat he couldn't slide up to it and blow, he'd have to slur his horn up to it. he'd stop when he got on the note. i was always able to play with any band by reading or playing by head. that's the way i played with so many bands around town. (ibid.:74,50) foster recognized two distinct approaches to trumpet playing in new orleans. he distinguished these styles by the timbral effect sought by the performer and by the reliance on written music. according to foster, play­ ers like louis armstrong were of the ')azz type." these players did not use written music and they "played hot and made the band swing." in con­ trast, those trumpet players whose sound could be described as sweet would not play original breaks; "if they had to playa break, it had to be written for them." the one exception to this, according to foster, was 224 current musicology bunk johnson. foster aslo held a low opinion of new orleans pianists. he believed that most could not read and "could only play in one key like f-sharp." he added sarcastically, "most of the bands couldn't transpose the music to play with them." according to foster, johnny dodds once sought him out for advice about getting work outside of new orleans. foster told dodds to "study and train ... to play with any band and not just one" (ibid.:50, 77, 99). foster expressed admiration for big eye louis nelson's ability to sight read the violin parts at dances and considered buddy petit "very pleasin' to listen to, even though petit could read." this odd choice of phrasing suggests that foster may have been of two minds about the relationship between reading and faking. on the one hand, he recognized the intrin­ sic value of being able to rely on one's ears and fake. on the other, he couldn't help but admire the beauty in the playing of his peers who could read.l4 preston jackson and mutt carey also praised the reading and playing skills of manuel perez. richard m. jones and clyde bernhardt presented opposing views of king oliver's reading skills. jones thought that oliver was "a good reader and a good technician. anything you'd stick up, he'd wipe right off." bernhardt, on the other hand, thought that oliver's sight reading skills were weak. he even quoted oliver as saying, ''i'm the slowest goddamned reader in my band ... you guys might read faster but damn it, you better wait for me" (jones quoted in shapiro and hentoff 1966:96; bernhardt 1986:91). clyde bernhardt held the opinion that by 1927, "if you didn't read" there was "no place for you in a good-quality band" (bernhardt 1986:62). it is possible to push the date earlier, for some dance bands that played "swing," "hot music," and 'jazz" consisted entirely of reading musicians in the 1910s and 1920s. in new orleans there was the john robichaux orchestra and bab frank's peerless band, and on the riverboats were the bands of fate marable, tony catalano, and charlie creath. there were some musicians in reading bands who would not play with non-readers. according to clyde bernhardt, "if a guy wanted me for a gig but his fel­ lows was not good readers, hell, i rather not take it. not good for your rep to play those bands and i knew it" (ibid.:87). there were, however, many bands that employed differing combina­ tions of reading and faking musicians. danny barker noted that most new orleans bands hired "a fiddle to play the lead-a fiddle player could read -and that was to give them some protection." jelly roll morton was under the impression that the only member of the freddie keppard creole band who could read was the clarinetist, george baquet, and that was why he had the responsibility of playing lead. and, as was mentioned earlier, david chev an 225 arnold loyacano and elmer schoebel, the only two members of the new orleans rhythm kings who could read "sort of helped the others when they needed it" (shapiro and hentoff 1966:20,82,90). these various combinations of reading and non-reading musicians in the same ensemble are evidence that it is impossible to present a single model of oral and literate transmission in early jazz. what we find is a wide range of perspectives and practices. there were many instances when reading and non-reading musicians are working together and helping one another, but there are numerous instances where the musicians are competitive and will not even work in the same ensemble. moreover, it is important to factor into this equation issues such as race, social class, and income. there were times when bands of mrican american reading musicians found that they needed to pretend that they could not read. in new york, james reese europe led an orchestra that consisted primarily of reading musicians. but according to thomas hennessey, eubie blake recalled that europe's orchestra never used written music when performing at white dances. europe would buy full, stock arrangements of the popular hits of the day and rehearse his musicians, all of whom were good readers, ex­ tensively in this material, adding a few distinctive touches to make the arrangement fit the band. once the arrangement was worked over, however, it would be memorized and the music would not be brought to the job. mr. blake stated that this was to avoid breaking the white stereotype that blacks were too stupid to read music and that their musical ability was a wondrous gift and not the result of hard work. to maintain this illusion, europe, when taking requests would ask the patrons to sing a few bars of the melody and ask for a few minutes to "work it out with the boys." then he would have the orchestra play the tune exactly as it had been rehearsed, to the ac­ companiment of amazed remarks by the audience about the natural talent of these negroes. (hennessey 1973: 19-20) blake's story about europe stands in stark contrast to what was dis­ cussed earlier regarding thomas a. dorsey. dorsey trained his musicians until they had memorized their music because he wanted the band to look its professional best. in contrast, europe trained his musicians to memo­ rize the music in order to exploit the racist tendencies of his employers. the use of written music is featured prominently in both stories and its memorization reflects the need for both groups to satisfy professional de­ mands. there was however, a different motivation for each of the leaders. the primary difference here is that dorsey's audience was mrican 226 current musicology american and europe's was white. other differences may include region and social class. we know that mrican american bands led by fate marable and john robichaux on the riverboats and in new orleans read music in front of a white audience, but these audiences were not as wealthy as those in new york. it would be interesting to find evidence about how both these audiences actually felt about written music and its use by mrican american bands. conclusion when willie james humphrey died in 1994, i realized that i would never have a chance to follow-up on our brief phone call. there were so many more questions that i wanted to ask him. i would have wanted to know more about the differences and similarities between the repertoire that musicians read versus the repertoire that they faked. i would have wanted to know about humphrey's views on the differences between new orleans musicians and the musicians he encountered on the riverboats. i'd have asked him about other uptown musicians who studied with his father. more than anything else, i would have wanted to discuss with him the idea of being a "musician." race has not played as large a role in this story as i had initially ex­ pected it would. there were mrican american musicians who placed a high value on reading and those who did not. the same could be said of white musicians. musicians who wanted or needed to learn how to read found a way, no matter how many obstacles they encountered. what re­ mains striking, however, is the emphasis placed on non-reading musicians by white music critics and writers of the 1920s and 1930s. one of the earliest examples of this is charles edward smith and frederic ramsey's jazzmen, which opens with a quote from bunk johnson that identifies the bolden band as the first jazz band because "it did not read at all" (ramsey and smith [l939]l985:v). the book continues in the same vein with a strong emphasis on the inability of the first jazz musicians to read music. historian kathy ogren has identified "primitivism" as one idea central to these writers. she states that "white readers believed jazz performance could transmit the values of a simpler past into the furious present" (1989:151; emphasis in the original). i would suggest that for these writers the disre­ gard of musical literacy helped add to that sense of primitivism, thereby affirming these values. although the many jazz musicians cited in this article came from differ­ ent parts of the country, had different ethnic and racial backgrounds, and worked in a wide variety of environments, it is possible to establish the re­ curring presence of written music in their musical lives. it seems, from the perspective of the musicians, that playing jazz and reading music were not david chevan 227 separate activities, but could and did take place in the same environments. it also appears that the musical literacy of any individual mattered less than the presence of at least one reader in any given ensemble. as long as even one person in the group was able to read music, all of the musicians in the ensemble had access to written music. these readers created what might be thought of as circles of musical literacy, with most jazz musicians encompassed by these circles-given access to written music, whether or not they could read themselves. the idea of musical literacy was and con­ tinues to be shaped by social, cultural, and aesthetic values. in a sense, however, nearly every early jazz musician, even those who could not read music, encountered and interacted with written music. notes 1. see, for example, collier (1983:56-57), porter and ullman (1993:23-24), schuller (1968:70), stearns ([1956j 1970:63-66), tirro (1977:72-75), and williams (1967:9-10). 2. for more on armstrong's experience singing in this childhood quartet, see abbott (1992:314-19). 3. information about these music teachers has been obtained by surveying oral histories, primarily with mrican american musicians. it seems reasonable to imag­ ine that similar kinds of conclusions could be drawn about white urban communi­ ties but more research is still needed on this subject. for example, it would be in­ teresting to know about what kind of training these teachers had, the degree of their musical literacy, and how a person came to obtain the status of the local mu­ sic teacher in large cities. because a handful of names are repeated in the oral his­ tories it is possible to determine who some of these teachers were. in new orleans and the surrounding parishes the local mrican american music teacher was james humphrey; in chicago, major n. clark smith; in harrisburg, pennsylvania, joe vennie; and in st. louis, p. b. langford (peretti 1989:74; hinton 1988:22-23; palmer 1982:7-8; bernhardt 1986:35). 4. for a detailed discussion of lorenzo tio and his family's pedagogical role in new orleans, see kinzer (1996). 5. louis armstrong remembered being introduced to the cornet during his court-ordered stay at the home for colored waifs in new orleans (armstrong 1986:35-48). jabbo smith, gus aiken, tommy benford, and cat anderson were among the many young boys who learned their craft while playing in one of the jenkins orphanage bands in charleston, south carolina (chip defaa 1990:192-95; for more information about the jenkins orphanage and its bands, see chilton 1980). 6. among the organizations that supported bands for young musicians were the knights of pythias, the elks, the masons, and the american united knights and daughters of mrica. in st. louis, the knights of pythias band was led by william blue; sammy long and dewey jackson were two of his students (mckinney 1974:37; saunders 1982:8; long 1973:1, 3). 228 current musicology 7. while they may have been less common, practices similar to those in new orleans were reported for funerals in st. louis and kansas city. lawrence denton remembered that during the summer in kansas city he kept busy playing funerals on almost a weekly basis (pearson 1987:18). robert carter and e. a. mckinney de­ scribe elaborate funeral marches to the st. louis cemeteries. as a young boy carter would frequently fill in for musicians who had to work during the time of the funeral procession. mckinney began playing in these parades around 1904. he remembered that the band might playa hymn or, quite frequently, "general sherman's funeral march" on the way to the cemetery. then, "after the funeral had gone on, then that's when we'd swing around and get into it." "getting into it" in st. louis during the early part of the century meant playing ragtime on the way back from the cemetery. carter's description of the st. louis societies and their fraternal burial societies paints an image that is quite similar to accounts of new orleans activities (carter 1973:3-7; mckinney 1974:17-20, 23-24). marching bands were a frequent sight on the streets of st. louis. during the 1910s, singleton palmer remembered seeing at least one parade every sunday. the effect of these bands on some young boys was strong enough to create, in ef­ fect, a st. louis version of the second line. the repertoire of the bands varied con­ siderably. some bands only played marches and pieces from the standard brass band literature while others included circus music, overtures, ragtime, waltzes, and occasionally jazz (bernhardt 1986:51; carter 1973:9; pearson 1987:18; mckinney 1974:5). 8. this method is reminiscent of the contemporary practice of "conduction" by the composer and trumpet player butch morris. according to morris conduction "is a means by which a conductor may compose, (re) orchestrate, arrange, and sculpt both notated and non-notated music. using a vocabulary of signs and ges­ tures, many within the general glossary of traditional conducting, the conductor may alter or initiate rhythm, melody, and harmony; develop form and structure; and instantaneously change articulation, phrasing and meter. for example, indefi­ nite repeats of a phrase or measure may now be at the discretion of the new com­ poser on the podium. in this way conducting becomes more than a method for mu­ sical interpretation, but an actual part of the process of composition" (morris 1991). 9. for another view of dance halls and chaperons, see badger (1995:82-83, 86-87). 10. for other views on playing in a wide variety of venues, see also bernhardt (1986:54), singleton in shapiro and hentoff (1966:17), dorsey in harris (1992:5152), bradford (1965:97, 122), and smith (1975:65-67). 11. a lancer was a square dance of nineteenth-century origin, closely related to the quadrille. the band book of the john robichaux orchestra, housed at the ransom hogan archives at tulane university, contains a wide repertoire of dance music that covers popular genres and styles from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. i discuss robichaux and his repertoire in chevan (1997:134-95). 12. in a letter, the late john steiner wrote to me in 1992 that "the bass saxman spencer clark used the still darker word 'cheating.' " it would be interesting to learn if other musicians ever referred to faking by this term, a value statement that implies some sort of wrong-doing on the part of the faker. david chevan 229 13. these recollections by alphonse picou help contextualize barney bigard's "discovery" of picou "playing by ear" with the john robichaux orchestra. 14. a partial list of those black and creole musicians whose reading skills were appraised by foster includes walter brundy, sidney desvignes, johnny dodds, louis dumaine, sam dutrey, freddie keppard, charles mccurdy, albert nicholas, big eye louis nelson, joe oliver, buddy petit, alphonse picou, zutty singleton, andjean vigne (foster 1971:28, 44-47, 50, 77, 81, 83, 87, 89). references abbott, lynn. 1992. "play that barber shop chord": a case for the mrican­ american origin of barbershop harmony. american music 10: 289-325. armstrong, louis. [1954j 1986. satchmo: my life in new orleans. reprint. new york: dacapo. badger, reid. 1995. a life in ragtime: a biography of james reese europe. new york: oxford university press. barker, danny. 1986. a life in jazz. edited by alyn shipton. new york: oxford university press. bernhardt, clyde e. b., with sheldon harris. 1986. i remember: eighty years of black entertainment, big bands, and the blues. philadelphia: university of philadelphia press. bess, druie. 1971. interview with peter etzkorn and irene cortinovis, november 5. transcript, western historical manuscript collection, archive and manu­ script division, university of missouri-st. louis. bigard, barney. 1985. with louis and the duke: the autobiography of a jazz clarinetist. new york: oxford university press. bocage, peter. 1959. interview with william russell and walter c. allen, january 29. transcript, ransom hogan jazz archives, tulane university. bradford, perry. 1965. born with the blues: perry bradford's own story: the true story of the pioneering blues singers and musicians in the early days of jazz. new york: oak publications. bushell, garvin, and mark tucker. 1990. jazz from the beginning. ann arbor: university of michigan press. carter, robert. 1973. interview with irene cortinovis, april 27. transcript t-251, western historical manuscript collection, archive and manuscript division, university of missouri-st. louis. chevan, david. 1997. written music in early jazz. ph.d. diss., city university of new york. chilton,john, ed. 1972. who's who of jazz. philadelphia: chilton book co. ---. 1980. a jazz nursery: the story of the jenkins orphanage bands of charleston, south carolina. london: bloomsbury book shop. ---. 1990. the song of the hawk: the life and recordings of coleman hawkins. ann arbor: university of michigan press. collier, james lincoln. 1983. louis armstrong: an american genius. new york: oxford university press. condon, eddie. [1947j 1992. we called it music. reprint. new york: da capo. 230 current musicology cortinovis, irene. 1971. interview of four jazz musicians: eddie johnson, elijah shaw, chick finney, and eddie randle, august 20. transcript t-olo, western historical manuscript collection, archive and manuscript division, university of missouri-st. louis. defaa, chip. 1990. voices of the jazz age: profiles of eight vintage jazzmen. urbana: university of illinois press. dodds, warren "baby." [1959] 1992. the baby dodds story as told to larry gara. reprint. baton rouge: louisiana state university press. foster, george "pops." 1971. pops foster: the autobiography of a new orleansjazzman as told to tom stoddard. berkeley: university of california press. harris, michael w. 1992. the rise of gospel blues: the music of thomas andrew dorsey in the urban church. new york: oxford university press. hennessey, thomas j. 1973. from jazz to swing: black jazz musicians and their music, 1917-1935. ph.d. diss., northwestern university. ---. 1994. from jazz to swing: african-american jazz musicians and their music. detroit: wayne state university press. hinton, milt. 1988. bass line: the stories and photographs of milt hinton. phila­ delphia: temple university press. kaminsky, max. 1963. my life injazz. new york: harper and row. king, leon. 1982. leon king memoir:jazz in the st. louis area: an oral history project. southern illinois university, edwardsville. kinzer, charles. 1996. the tios of new orleans and their pedagogical influence on the early jazz clarinet style. black music researchjournall6: 279-302. long, sammy. 1973. telephone interview with irene cortinovis, april 18. western historical manuscript collection, archive and manuscript division, university of missouri-st. louis. mckinney, e. a. 1974. interview with pat immekus and irene cortinovis, march 15. transcript t-316, western historical manuscript collection, archive and manuscript division, university of missouri-st. louis. meyer, raymond "peg." 1989. backwoodsjazz in the twenties. cape girardeau, mo.: center for regional history and cultural heritage, southeast missouri state university. mezzrow, mezz, and bernard wolfe. [1946] 1972. really the blues. reprint. garden city, n.y.: doubleday. morris, lawrence "butch." 1991. liner notes to lawrence "butch" morris, dust to dust. new world/countercurrents 80408-2. ogren, kathy. 1989. the jazz revolution: twenties america and the meaning of jazz. new york: oxford university press. palmer, singleton. 1982. singleton palmer memoir: jazz in the st. louis area: an oral history project. southern illinois university, edwardsville. patterson, "pete" joseph. 1974. interview with pat immekus, april 3. transcript t325, western historical manuscript collection, archive and manuscript division, university of missouri-st. louis. pearson, nathan. 1987. goin' to kansas city. urbana: university of illinois press. peretti, burton. 1989. music, race, and culture in urban america: the creators of jazz. ph.d. diss., university of california, berkeley. david chevan 231 perryman, gus. 1972. interview with irene cortinovis, april 27. transcript t-i06, western historical manuscript collection, archive and manuscript division, university of missouri-st. louis. porter, lewis, and michael ullman, with ed hazell. 1993. jazz: from its origins to the present. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice hall. ramsey, frederick, jr., and charles edward smith. [1939] 1985. jazzmen: the story of hot jazz told in the lives of the men who created it. reprint. new york: limelight editions. st. cyr, johnny. 1966. jazz as i remember it-early days. jazz journal 19, no. 9: 6-8. saunders, vertna. 1982. verina saunders memoir: jazz in the st. louis area: an oral history project. southern illinois university, edwardsville. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and musical development. new york: oxford university press. shapiro, nat, and nat hentoff, eds. [1955] 1966. hear me talkin' to ya: the story of jazz as told by the men who made it. reprint. new york: dover. smith, willie "the lion." [1964] 1975. music on my mind: the memoirs of an american pianist with george hoefer. reprint. new york: da capo. stearns, marshall. [1956] 1970. story of jazz. 2d ed. new york: oxford university press. tirro, frank. 1977. jazz: a history. new york: w. w. norton. wells, dicky. 1991. the night people: the jazz life of dicky wells as told to stanley dance. washington, d.c.: smithsonian institution press. williams, martin. [1967] 1979. jazz masters of new orleans. reprint. new york: da capo. schoenberg's george-lieder: the relationship between text and music in light of some expressionist tendencies heinz ]. dill according to schoenberg, the song cycle das buch der hiingenden garten (opus 15, 1908), which is based on poems by stefan george, occupied a unique position in the composer's works. in the program notes written for the premiere of these songs, schoenberg stated: "in the 'george-lieder' i have succeeded for the first time in approaching an ideal of expression and form that has been in my mind for years. until now i lacked the strength and confidence to realize this ideal. now that i have definitely entered upon this course, i am aware that i have gone beyond the limits of traditional aesthetics."1 apart from the obvious reference to the beginning of so-called atonal music, a fact which has received ample attention in musicological scholarship, this statement also implied a new aesthetics of songwriting. focusing particularly on the relationship between text and music, my article will deal with some of the aesthetic principles underlying these songs.2 whenever schoenberg refers in his writings to this relationship, he expresses ideas that are unorthodox if compared with 1 8thand 19th-century principles of songwriting. in his essay "das verhaltnis zum text" (1912), for instance, he asserts that his musical interpretation of some songs by schubert, well known to him except for the texts, did not have to be altered in the least after he discovered what was actually happening in the underlying poems. he claims, furthermore, that he was also quite unconcerned about the happenings in the poems he himself set to music. in both cases he had immediately and fully understood the essence, or what he calls the "real content" (wirklicher inhalt) of the poems, without having undertaken an analysis of them.3 schoenberg defended this concern with the real content of a work of art, while ignoring the particulars (the "surface layer of meaning"-die oberflache der wortgedanken) of the underlying text, by arguing that the work of art is similar to any complete organism and that it therefore reveals its truest and innermost essence in every detail. if one hears a line of a poem or a measure ofa musical composition, he said, one is able to grasp its totality.4 furthermore, the composer wanted to break with the view that the literal meaning or the ideas of a poem should be recognizably mirrored in the music. he therefore rejected the "conventional" parallelism between poem and music, in which situation tempo and intensity of a particular passage or section of the text must be reflected in the music. of greater interest and importance to him was the organic development of purely musical themes, as a consequence of which a tender thought could be rendered by a vehement 91 musical expression (one might speak here of a nonmimetic character of the music in the song). probing into the real content of a poem enabled him, he argued, to arrive at a relationship between text and music which, if not closer, was at least as close as the conventional one.5 thus it can be said that whenever he set a text to music he "formed everything so much from within that the music is fully justified even if one does not know the 'program'. everything in this case, as is the case with all great works of art, is expressive art."6 such an attitude toward the text-music problem explains schoenberg's somewhat radical view that a composer approaches a text in a disinterested or neutral manner (he was thinking here, of course, of the "surface layer" of the text), and that "those singers are most satisfactory who sing it [the text] in as pleasing a manner as a well-understood 'doremi.'''7 this statement has to be understood in light of schoenberg's intentions to create music which is as free as possible from all extramusical connections and ideas. (schoenberg disparages the "conventional" musical language "which composes and thinks for everyone"-eine sprache, die fur jeden dichtet und denkt. 8 ) with the doremi he refers to songs which first and foremost should be sound phenomena. hand in hand with this goes the statement that he had completely heard and comprehended schubert's songs (including, of course, the underlying texts) and george's poetry as sound phenomena only; analysis and synthesis, he said, could not have resulted in a more exact or better understanding of the poem or song.9 one must therefore conclude that it is the sound aspect of a poem, especially the "first words,"l0 that serves, so to speak, as the initial point of contact with the "real content." or, in the words of kandinsky, the coeditor of der blaue reiter (in which schoenberg's "das verhaltnis zum text" appeared) : a work of art consists of two elements: the inner and the outer. the inner element ... is the emotion in the soul of the artist. this emotion has the capacity to evoke a similar emotion in the observer .... thus feeling is a bridge between the immaterial and the material (artist) and again between the material and the immaterial (observer).ll in other words, the emotion in the soul of the artist evokes a similar emotion in the observer through the so-called "material aspect" (i.e., "feeling") of a work of art. this term is taken from hans mersmann, according to whom words have not only an intellectual and communicative function; of equal importance is their elemental nature, which in poetry becomes a creative force through rhyme and through the musical flow of vowels. it is to the latter that the composer is especially susceptible.l2 this is expressed in similar terms by kandinsky, who states, "form is the material expression of the abstract content,"13 and by hermann broch, who says that the "linguistic structure" (spracharchitektonik) of a poem transforms both its "rational-communicative content" (rationale mitteilung) and its "emotional 92 content" (gefohlsmassiger ur-inhalt) and lifts them into a "sphere of totality" (totalitatssphiire) which exists beyond the finite and the rational. this transformation becomes even clearer when the linguistic structure is subjected to a "musical structure" (musikalische architektonik). yet a relationship between music and words could not exist if structural elements common to both did not form a bridge between the two.14 this means that a key factor in the composer's relationship to poetry is the musicality of poetry. speaking, for instance, about richard dehmel's poetry, schoenberg states that he primarily and initially approached it with his musical sense (klangverstand), and only then was he able to penetrate the real content (here, sinnen-sinn).l5 schoenberg's pupil webern, writing to the poetess hildegard jone, expresses a similar view: and how well words lend themselves to perception by the .ear. i mean: in my case more intensively than by the eye while reading! then "connections and relationships resound /" and the idea appears before me in visible form. as you put it: "then everything resounds ... then radiance floods the ear .... "16 "idea" and "sinnen-sinn" (letter to dehmel) are obviously the same as "real content." to what extent does the concept "real content" determine or affect the relationship between text and music in the george-lieder? the emphasis on "real content" could lead to a type of song in which a direct or obvious parallelism between text and music did not necessarily have to exist. as a matter of fact, the lack of this kind of parallelism is quite characteristic of the songs in this cycle, so much so that they seem, rather, to be constructed on the basis of a law of polar attraction between poem and music. for instance, the rich sonority of george's rhymed poetry has as a counterpart music that is almost austere in nature. analogous to this is the rhythmic relationship between poetry and music: to the even and metric rhythm which supports the sonority of the poetic line is juxtaposed a declamatory rhythm, or a prose rhythm, as it were, so that george's strict verse (including the strophic patterns) seems to be transformed into prose. the lack of parallelism may well be due to an attempt at redefining the partnership between poetry and music in a situation where new music and traditional verse have to be reconciled to each other. a frequent aspect of traditional verse is its lyrical quality, which is basic to many poems of 19thcentury lieder and, with certain modifications (e.g., stylization), to the ones in this cycle. in lyrical poetry the subject is usually in accord with the world surrounding it (object); form and content are inseparably and uniquely united; sound and rhythmic qualities tend to overshadow the semantic significance as well as the grammatical and logical functions of the words; both sound and rhythm set in motion a kind of evocative resonance. in other words, in the sphere of lyricism, which is, as it were, a magical sphere and one of illusion, all poetic elements are harmoniously unitedp and the 19th-century composer extended and related his music to this sphere by 93 unifying both text and music in it,18 whereas schoenberg created music whose relationship to the text has to be defined primarily in terms of polarity. since traditional musical form is dependent on tonality, the dissolution of the latter would affect the former. referring to this, schoenberg stated that most of his works written during the period of transition from tonality to a new music were based on texts for the sake of unity and coherence.19 it may well be that george's poetry provided schoenberg with a suitable basis for a new music because of its rigid structure, as well as its sonority and its strict rhythm. it is therefore possible to argue that george's poetry was selected because, as a strong structural core, it could function as the desired counterpart in the polar relationship between text and music. but the text does not hold or absorb the music; rather, the music dissolves it by a process in which structural strength of the text seems to be essential. in other words, schoenberg needed something that was tightly structured in order to be able to dissolve and transform it,20 hence his predilection for george's poetry, the rhythm of which george himself described-by implication-as being rather more like ice than like water.21 in conclusion, it can be stated that schoenberg, although dealing with traditional poems, nevertheless applied unconventional techniques to them. the avoidance of mirroring the sound and rhythmic patterns of the poems in the musical structure indicates that he tended to neutralize the material aspect of art, thus showing in this work a trend typical of expressionism, namely, that of dematerialization. schoenberg himself had definite views on dematerialization. he expressed his antipathy toward the "animal warmth of music."22 comparing poetry and music, he said of the former that it is still rooted in the material realm and thus is denied direct and pure expression; music, however, he implied, is free from such material shackles.23 the following statement by adorno, although referring specifically to twelve-tone music, applies also to the music of the george-lieder: "the structure [stimmigkeit] of twelve-tone music cannot be directly 'heard'-that is the simplest name for its non-sensual aspect. all one perceives is strict adherence to a system . . . [schoenberg] renounces the material aspect of art."24 the purpose of dematerialization could only be to lay bare and to make more visible the real content of art (another concept that is quite typical of expressionism). in this process the music functions as an agent: it depoeticizes the text in the sense that it undermines the autonomy of poetic resonance, typical of lyrical poetry25; the music also fragmentizes the text. adorno has pointed to the fragmented structure of schoenberg's music in which, as he says, the artist becomes dissociated from his creation and thereby freed from the grip of the material aspect of music. fragmentation therefore leads to a liberation of that which is significant ("bedeutend") in art,26 i.e., the real content. thus schoenberg's music dematerializes, depoeticizes, fragmentizes, and transforms into prose a highly refined and lyrical text.27 it is in this respect that schoenberg went beyond the limits of the traditional aesthetics of songwriting. 94 notes 1 quoted in egon wellesz, arnold schonberg (leipzig: tal, 1921), p. 24. all translations in this article are by the author. 2 for an extensive analysis of the george-lieder, see karl heinrich ehrenforth, ausdruck und form: schonbergs durchbruch zur atonalitat in den george-liedern op. 15, abhandlungen zur kunst-, musikund literaturwissenschaft, vol. 18 (bonn: bouvier, 1963). other analyses, either of individual songs or of the whole cycle, are by reinhold brinkmann, "schonberg und george: interpretation eines liedes," archiv fur musikwissenschaft 26 (1969): 1-28; carl dahlhaus, "schonbergs lied 'streng ist uns das gluck und sprode,'" neue wege der musikalischen ana(yse 6 (1967): 45-52; and harald kaufmann, "struktur in schonbergs georgeliedern," neue wege der musikalischen ana(yse 6 (1967): 53-61. 3 arnold schonberg, "das verhaltnis zum text," der blaue reiter (munich: piper, 1912), pp. 31-32. essay also in style and idea, trans. dika newlin (new york: philosophical library, 1950), pp. 1-6. 4 ibid., p.32. 5 ibid., pp. 31-32. 6 wellesz, schonberg, p. 81. 7 schoenberg's statement is quoted in hermann broch, "irrationale erkenntnis in der musik," arnold schonberg zum 60. geburtstag (vienna: universal-edition, 1934), p. 49. 8 schonberg, "das verhaltnis zum text," p. 31. 9 ibid., p. 33. 10 ibid., p. 32. 11 "malerei als reine kunst," der sturm 4, nos. 178-79 (1914): 98. 12 "freiheit und bindung im kunstlerischen schaffen," musikalische zeiifragen, vol. 8 (kassel: barenreiter, 1960), p. 10. 13 kandinsky, "malerei als reine kunst," p. 98. 14 broch, "irrationale erkenntnis in der musik," p. 56. 15 joachim birke, ed., "richard dehmel und arnold schonberg: ein briefwechsel," die musikfotschung 11 (1958): 285. 16 briife an hildegard jone und josif humplik, ed. j. polnauer (vienna: universal-edition, 1959), p. 46 (letter of26 may 1941). 17 the definition of lyricism used here is based on emil staiger, grundbegrijfe der poetik (zurich: atlantis, 1951), pp. 13--84. 18 compare with alfred einstein, music in the romantic era (new york: norton, 1947), "music as sound," pp. 32-35, and "music and word," pp. 21-25. 19 arnold schonberg, "gesinnung oder erkenntnis," 25 jahre neue musik, jahrbuch 1926 det universal-edition, ed. h. heinsheimer and p. stefan (vienna: universal-edition, 1926), p.28. 20 compare with ehrenforth, ausdtuck und form, p. 47. 21 stefan george, blatter filr die kunst, vol. 8 (1910), reprint, ed. r. boehringer (munich: kupper, 1967), p. 5. 22 quoted in theodor w. adorno, philosophic det neuen musil (frankfurt: europaische verlagsanstalt, 1958), p. 114. 23 schonberg, "das verhaltnis zum text," p. 29. 24 adorno, philosophie der neuen musik, pp. 113-18. 25 compare with emil staiger, musik und dichtung (zurich: atlantis, 1947), p. 74. 26 adorno, philosophie det neuen afusik, p. 113. 27 compare with ehrenforth, ausdtuck und form, p. 137. 95 jonathan cross. harrison birtwistle: man, mind, music. cornell university press, 2000. xiii, 295 pp. robert adlington. the music of harrison birtwistle. cambridge university press, 2000. xiv, 242 pp. reviewed by stephen walsh the more or less simultaneous appearance of these two substantial books on the music of harrison birtwistle by a pair of british academics is clinching evidence-if such a thing were required-of birtwistle's stand­ ing as a major world figure, at least in the eyes of his british admirers. all the same, something needs to be said about that qualification. birtwistle also enjoys a certain reputation on the european mainland, but it is of much more recent date and by no means universal. his manuscripts are housed in the archive set up in basle by the late paul sacher, who commis­ sioned his trumpet concerto endless parade in 1986; but the distinguished franco-swiss-german musicologists who now run the sacher stiftung are by no means unanimous in their admiration. as for the united states, my impression from across the pond is that birtwistle's music, like his person, is a very intermittent presence. presligious commissions like exody (for the chicago symphony orchestra) can be traced to influential admirers-in this case, daniel barenboim, who was also midwife to the berlin premiere of birtwistle's latest opera, the last supper. otherwise, in the states most of birtwistle's stage works, and much else of note, remain little known. though the music itself is typically harsh, violent, and uncompromis­ ing, there is something curiously homely-or at least home-based-about the underlying personality. as jonathan cross insists early in his mono­ graph, "a sense of place" is fundamental to birtwistle, and "his preference for british folk subject matter, his predilection for the pastoral, his explo­ ration of the linear and the lyrical, locate him clearly within an english tradition" (5). this is an essentially romantic tradition of rooted englishness -elgar, vaughan williams, holst--which was at first very slow to travel and can still seem, from abroad, like the musical equivalent of a thatched somerset cottage or a cool breeze on the malvern hills. the first chal­ lenge of any serious study of birtwistle must be to investigate how a com­ poser who has retained these roots can write music of such apparently re­ morseless cruelty and ferocity. what follows, then, is an attempt to locate this most disconcerting of modern british composers on the basis of these two in many ways comparable, even somewhat similar, studies of his work. current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) 132 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york reviews 133 birtwistle, who was born in 1934, studied composition at the royal manchester college of music in the early fifties, at a time when british mu­ sic and music teaching were still largely innocent of modernism, whether that of stravinsky, schoenberg, or messiaen. it so happened, though, that the rmcm composition teacher, richard hall, knew and taught serial method (of a kind) and encouraged modernist tendencies in his pupils (who included peter maxwell davies and alexander goehr, son of an emi­ gre schoenberg pupil, the conductor walter goehr). it seems, from both his music and his account of himself,! that birtwistle was never much in­ terested in serial method as such, but recognised subconsciously that the encounter liberated him from conventional preconceptions about the limits of musical expression. from the start, he selected models or proce­ dures that suited him, regardless of orthodoxy, and almost from the start (his earliest published work was written when he was 23) adopted a man­ ner which, mutatis mutandis, has remained with him ever since. a lancastrian from the mill town of accrington, birtwistle embodied from early on what the english tend to regard as north country virtues: independence of mind, abruptness, honesty, and a sort of bloody-minded generosity. jonathan cross calls accrington rus in urbe, a characteristic blend of "industry and countryside, of factory chimneys and sheep, of workers' terraces and farmhouses" (7), and usefully suggests the novels of d. h. lawrence as a good and accessible encapsulation of a similar atmos­ phere (that of the nottinghamshire coalfield).2 these are subtly different locales from the pastoral england of vaughan williams's norfolk rhapsody or elgar's falstaff. the rhapsodic, anecdotal, "folksy" air of travel-poster englishry is miles from the clanking and bleating of those regions where the rough moorland comes almost to the factory gate and the workers' chief recreations are fishing, rabbit-lamping, and hare-coursing. against such a background, cross sees no contradiction in birtwistle's idea of a "mechanical pastoral" (the subtitle of his theater piece yan tan tethera). more especially, one can without undue glibness refer the recurrent harshness of birtwistle's response to pastoral subject-matter back to the drastic juxtapositions and often unlovely specifics of life in so unyielding an environment. nevertheless, it helps one understand this rebarbative brand of pas­ toralism to look coolly for a moment at its ancestry. in england, the rural revival-from william morris onward-was always essentially a rejection of urban life and its conditions, even though, paradoxically, it was done in the name of that most urban of political philosophies, socialism. as an idea, it may have been utopian, but it was never sentimental, and its es­ capism was practical, not make-believe. at bottom, the intention was indi­ vidualist. only by escaping from the mass production and deadening 134 current musicology conformity of the city could a man hope to find himself through work and leisure, materially, and spiritually. in the same way, one could argue that the composer vaughan williams saw pastoralism not only as an escape but as an assertion, even if his genius was not consistently equal to the creative challenge it presented. his best work embodied a kind of quest for spiri­ tual identity, even if it meant ignoring the standard postulates of sound craftsmanship. his pastoral symphony may suffer (as constant lambert thought) from "monotony of texture and lack of form" (lambert 1945:103-4), but it remains a marvelous essay in mystical self-absorption. obiter dicta of vaughan williams that have come down to us show that his public persona bore out this independence of normal "urbane" manners. "it looks wrong and it sounds wrong," he is supposed to have said about his violent fourth symphony, "but it's right." perhaps he did also say of the same work: "i don't know if i like it, but it's what i meant." not a note of birtwistle's music could ever be mistaken for vaughan williams even at his most awkward, but i believe all the same that it en­ shrines a kindred spirit. for some unknown reason, the young lancastrian sensed a connection between landscape and myth: between, say, the ama­ teur music-making of rus in urbe and the complex roots of rural story­ telling as embodied in the old mysteries and mummers' plays. his early music-theater piece about the resulltection of st. george and the legend of the cruel mother (down by the greenwood side, 1969) characteristically uses the "band with the curious tone" from the helston floral dance, and cultivates a raucous, galumphing texture and cacophonous harmony that make it quite plain that the composer's interest in such subject-matter had nothing to do with rural escapism, cows looking over gates, or any of the other cliches of the pastoral movement, but rather that he was deeply em­ broiled with the mystical tragedy of human existence, its bloodthirstiness, its relentless cycle of death and rebirth. the obvious musical source for these ideas is not, of course, anything english, but stravinsky, and in particular the rite of spring. birtwistle seems to have been riveted by the violence of stravinsky's russian springtime and fascinated by his obsession with seasonal rotation as an image of spiri­ tual renewal. he has continued to trace this theme in the context of anglo-celtic myth through a long series of major dramatic works culmi­ nating (so far) in the opera gawain. but like stravinsky, he has also sought to delocalize the metaphor through subject matter and formalisms taken from greek mythology and theater. in fact it seems that the formalisms preceded the mythology, in the sense that he made fragmentary settings of sappho and composed abstract greek "tragedies" (tragoedia and monodrama) long before confronting an actual greek myth in the form of the virgilian orpheus, the subject of his opera the mask of orpheus. his reviews 135 partial model for such procedures may have been stravinsky's agon, a plot­ less classical ballet which, moreover, employs a hybrid repertoire of up-to­ date compositional techniques in an entirely personal manner. but there is hardly anything of the actual style of agon and little of its specific method in even the earliest of birtwistle's published music. it is utterly typical of the aura of this unusual composer that one should talk about his work largely in terms of myth-making and broad cultural con­ texts, and rarely in terms of the usual analytical-theoretical paraphernalia -serial structures, pitch-class sets, harmonic abstracts, tree diagrams, and the rest. "anyone hoping," says robert adlington, "for a comprehensive dissection of musical structure or birtwistle's methods of working should look elsewhere" (4). but that "elsewhere" will not include jonathan cross's book, whose general approach is rather similar to adlington's. in fact a survey of their respective chapter headings and subheadings reveals an affinity that would look suspiciously like collusion to anyone unfamiliar with either the music or its extensive but on the whole rather repetitive, non-technical critical literature. both books open their accounts of the music with chapters called ''theatres,'' and both have either chapters or sections on myth, ritual, verse form, and pulse. as may by now be appar­ ent, these things are the stock-in-trade of writing on birtwistle, whose musical language has generally been regarded as impenetrable but whose contexts and terms of reference have always been overt, interesting, and eminently discussable. birtwistle has himself rather encouraged this trend. from the start, seemingly uninterested in "system," and certainly in the kind of re­ spectable, dialectical methodology which formed the basis of most pub­ lished music analysis in the sixties and seventies, birtwistle presented the image of a "natural," an artist who made things-he knew not how or why. pointedly, he has later been inclined to draw attention to the influence of painters like klee and cezanne on his musical thinking, and his acknowl­ edged musical models (stravinsky's symphonies of wind instruments, varese, satie) have often seemed rather carefully chosen to reflect a mod­ ishly anti-intellectual, anti-darmstadt tendency in his own work-though cross reveals some covert orthodox influences and even suggests that birtwistle was capable of withdrawing a piece like three sonatas for nine instruments (1958) because "it sounded too modish, too much like the webern pastiche which was everywhere in europe at that time" (49). adlington has a somewhat different, more trusting line on this intellec­ tual exogamy. for him, "it reflects an awareness that contemporary classi­ cal music guarantees itself increasing isolation and distrust so long as its discussion remains confined to questions of technique and internal struc­ ture" (2). one naturally asks, "isolation from and distrust by whom?" since 136 current musicology birtwistle certainly has never gone out of his way to court general popular­ ity, and even made himself (obviously quite consciously) into a hate figure with the anti-avant garde, middle-brow set by composing one of his most noisily disagreeable works, panic, for the populist, flag-waving last night of the london proms in 1995, an incident on which both cross and adlington dwell with some relish. of course, it may well be that birtwistle also enjoys discountenancing the professional musicologist, whom sir thomas beecham famously defined as "a man who can read music but can't hear it." "over the years," says cross, "we have seen birtwistle invent for himself a distinctive public persona which makes full play of his north­ ern roots and tries gruffly to understate the fact that he is engaged in an intellectual activity, that. he could be seen as part of some sort of cultural elite" (157). invented it may be, but it also reflects something genuine about birtwistle's work-something with which it seems to have taken his un­ questioned public acceptance as an artistic grandee to make him alto­ gether at ease (rather as stravinsky took time to admit that he composed at the piano). for the analytical and sketch studies which have begun, rather fitfully, to flow from birtwisde's sale of his materials to sacher in 1991 have tended to support the idea that while number systems, formal patterns, and even pitch sets are as important for him as for most modern composers, they have always performed a very qualified and unorthodox function. random numbers, for instance, "constitute his prime method of messing things up" (hall [1984] 1998:x), a method, that is, for disrupting what might otherwise become too systematic. in the same way, while sym­ metry is important to him, in the nature of his general approach to form, his real interest lies in fractured, not fulfilled symmetry, and the question of method resolves itself, ultimately, into a question of how to disrupt-a somewhat strange, and, in darmstadt terms, far from respectable, ap­ proach to system. since his early years of gruff inarticulacy, birtwistle has in fact talked a lot about his work, and his ideas are strongly reflected and much quoted in the pages of both these books. (on the whole, i look forward-without much optimism-to the day when composers stop telling us what to think about their music and instead either write more of it or, in certain cases­ definitely not including birtwistle-give up altogether and go into bee­ keeping or charcoal-burning, trades in which there is a serious shortage.) cross and adlington offer two on the whole good and valuable studies from a broadly orthodox position. both, as already hinted, are topic based. in neither case is there any attempt at a chronological survey, though cross provides an excellent opening background chapter, partly biographical, partly contextual. instead, the music is treated as exemplifyreviews 137 ing a series of well-established tendencies in birtwistle's work as a whole. thus, both begin by using birtwistle's obsession with "theater" as the starting point for an investigation of the role of myth, narrative and ritual, before passing on to broad discussions of musical elements, types of form (verse and refrain, etc.), the treatment of pulse and time, and eventually studies of melody, line, texture, and to some extent tonality (or rather pitch-centricity) . as so often with topic-based work, however, problems arise from the need to reduce unruly reality to a set of simple categories. for instance, cross's fourth chapter, on "pastoral" (a genre which, as we saw earlier, links attic greece with the north country of birtwistle's youth), is under­ mined by a certain reluctance to define the term with any precision, so that it turns out to include not only blow's suitably theocritan venus and adonis, but also purcell's dido; not only down by the greenwood side but also punch and judy; not only the rite of spring but also birtwistle's opera the second mrs. kong (a fantasy love story about king kong and vermeer's "girl with pearl earrings"); and yet to exclude-by implication at least­ such obvious pastorals (in the broad sense) as der freischutz and tann­ hauser, presumably because they are nineteenth-century and not-or mainly not-classical in subject-matter. another difficult term that needs sharper definition here is "time," a medium widely but absurdly supposed to be of greater interest to birtwistle and certain of his source composers (stravinsky, messiaen) than to bach or beethoven. it does actually seem that musical aestheticians, from jonathan kramer onwards, have tended to take composers' word for it that time has become a new issue in modern music, without paying enough attention to the extent to which all music acts as (among other things) a way of modifying our sense of time's passage. adlington, though, is aware of this problem. discussing birtwistle's most famous time-piece, he points out that "if it is simply by virtue of their successive presentation in time, then there would no longer be any grounds to mark out the triumph of time as more 'goal-directed' than any other music, for in these terms all music may be understood to 'pass' a listener, unidirectionally" (102, italics in the original). this, of course, is to make the point from the other side, since the triumph of time is being thought of as standing out against a "static" tendency in birtwistle's previous work. but the question remains, what is the actual nature of the stasis in, say, punch and judy, and how, if at all, does it differ from the arrested movement of the "arietta" in beethoven's op. 111, or the inertia of so much vivaldi? finally, those old (or, rather, newish) chestnuts "ritual" and "myth," terms bandied about in recent musicology with all the enthusiasm of an age which has got rid of most of its own rituals and forgotten most of its 138 current musicology myths. in a strong chapter which deals with these two concepts in tandem, jonathan cross still manages to leave one in doubt about their exact signi­ fication in relation to work such as birtwistle's. on myth, he quotes, but partially disputes, the penguin dictionary of psychology (92). he implies, ap­ parently with approval, that for depth psychology "one head is the same as another; one myth is the same as another. faust becomes orpheus. the power of a myth lies not in its subject matter but in what it points to be­ yond itself, what it points to in us" (95). but the whole point of operative myth is that it relates one story rather than another. whatever the "mean­ ing" of, say, the tale of balder the beautiful, it appeals precisely because it is a good story, and to hell with its symbolism. and the whole problem of myth in a work like birtwistle's the mask of orpheus is that the story van­ ishes into a hermeneutic cauldron, from which it has to be re-extracted with the help of program notes which, in practically the same breath, tell us-the humble audience-what the story we are unable to follow signifies to our unperceiving minds. and there is a further, related problem with ritual, which adlington highlights in quoting t. s. eliot. drama, eliot said, "can never coincide with ritual, for in the theatre we are spectators, not participants" (quoted in adlington, 31). one notes in passing that in those relatively few cases (e.g., parsifal and birtwistle's own magnificent last supper) where the rit­ ual action overlaps with our own observances, one is conscious of an ambi­ guity, perhaps a certain unease or even an urge to laugh (which may be why weddings and funerals are good subjects for comedy). but adlington suggests that birtwistle's rituals "have more in common with the unfamil­ iar rituals of alien or ancient cultures than with those prominent in mod­ ern western society" and that his "concept of ritual is essentially an exotic one." this is true in the sense that birtwistle plunders distant epochs for his ritual forms, but untrue in the suggestion that they are culturally alien. on the contrary these stories and formulae are ancestral to us (medieval england, classical greece); and this is exactly the point, because they em­ body ideas which still lurk somewhere in our psyche. there is nothing "colonial" about them, as adlington claims (32), and certainly nothing "culturally offensive." we have simply lost direct contact with them. taken as a whole, adlington's book is nevertheless an impressive debut. it is concentrated and well organized, and if it occasionally swallows the composer's ideas without quite enough chewing, it certainly does not treat his music as beyond reproach. one of the difficulties of criticism (in the neutral sense) of an original of birtwistle's stature is that criteria are lack­ ing for fair evaluation. but adlington is not afraid to go back to old­ fashioned ideas of good practice, a willingness which i think does both him and his subject credit. for instance, he is critical of birtwistle's wordreviews 139 setting, claiming that in his many non-operatic vocal works he shows a "slavish adherence to the original textual form" (71) and a proclivity for "literal renderings ... with verses intact and well separated, [which] ap­ pear absurdly innocent of their bizarre musical surroundings" (73)-a criticism which recalls birtwistle's own insistence, much cited in both these books, on the "sanctity of the context." in general, what emerges about birtwistle's response to words tends to enhance the picture of an ex­ traordinarily independent, at times willful, creative artist whose apparent defects may be merely the outward sign of an unwavering inner force. adlington is amusing on the whole subject of birtwistle's relationship with his librettists, and makes gentle fun of the way in which they have tended to cater to what they perceived as his idiosyncrasies, only to find that, hav­ ing moved on artistically, he no longer saw things that way-like stra­ vinsky, who in an october 1913 letter told alexandre benois: "i'll repeat anything you like but not myself' (quoted in walsh 1999:218). the picture that emerges from cross is by implication more indulgent, and in an obvious sense closer to its subject than adlington. this is per­ haps no more than one should expect from a book subtitled "man, mind, music" by an author who already has a significant track record on the sub­ ject. yet it is perhaps also the case that cross tells us more about the actual music-the dots on the page-than adlington. the latter's music examples are relatively few and, on occasion, exiguous (his very first example shows simply a perfect fifth, d-a, solemnly captioned "the mask of orpheus: perfect fifth dominating the end of act ii"), though they do include a bril­ liantly graphic double page from a work called signals, which as good as proves that birtwistle was influenced in his score lay-outs by edward t. cone's famous chart of the symphonies of wind instruments-a discovery that should give us all hope. cross, on the other hand, is at his most lucid when describing musical processes, apt to drift (as we saw in the case of pastoral) when addressing generalities or the kinds of glib parallels­ between, for example, music and painting-that fall so readily from the pen but seldom withstand the closest scrutiny. his book is also rather care­ lessly proofread. or should we perhaps see this as a natural response to the music of a composer who has always respected error as a creative mechanism and used random number to throw spanners in works. it would be nice to think so, but i am not confident. notes 1. for instance in michael hall's brilliant early monograph ([1984] 1998). 2. another might be richard llewellyn's novel how green was my valley (1939), about a mining community in south wales. 140 current musicology references hall, michael. [1984] 1998. harrison birtwistle in recent years. london: robson books. lambert, constance. 1945. music hoi. london: faber. walsh, stephen. 1999. stravinsky: a creative spring-russia and france, 1882-1934. new york: knopf. other planes of there: critical notice of graham lock's blutopia by paul allen anderson graham lock. blutopia: visions of the future and revisions of the past in the work of sun ra, duke ellington, and anthony braxton. durham, n.c.: duke university press, 1999. xi, 314 pp. graham lock's blutopia: visions of the future and revisions of the past in the work of sun ra, duke ellington, and anthony braxton explores several di­ mensions of cultural critique in the writings and music of three highly in­ fluential musical artists. the book extends lock's pursuit of related topics in forces in motion: anthony braxton and the meta-reality of creative music (1988), an engaging and highly informative account of braxton's career as a composer, instrumentalist, and bandleader. forces in motion featured ex­ tensive interviews with braxton and the members of his 1985 touring quar­ tet, marilyn crispell, gerry hemingway, and mark dresser, along with lock's own commentaries and research findings. lock is also the author of chasing the vibration: meetings with creative musicians (1994), a collection of interviews with jazz composers and improvisers, and the editor of mixtery: a festschrift for anthony braxton (1995). blutopia does not focus its attention on written scores, the sonic dimen­ sions of recordings, or the sonic and social dialogism of live ensemble per­ formances. lock instead seeks to elucidate some of what ra, ellington, and braxton said and wrote in their books, interviews, liner-notes, poems, and elsewhere about their music and its social and philosophical connota­ tions. when he turns to specific musical examples, lock is usually in search of particular extramusical and programmatic implications embed­ ded in lyrics, titles, and other linguistic cues. scholars expecting formal musical analyses may be thrown off by lock's critical method but they may also be surprised by how far his archival and interview research and his in­ terpretive tools can take readers into the distinctive conceptual worlds of ra, ellington, and braxton. three interlocking themes frame the book's six chapters. first, lock considers how the three artists approached (and in braxton's case, of course, continues to approach) their own music as an "alternative form of history" (2). as sun ra once remarked, "history is only his story, you current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 428 current musicology haven't heard my story yet" (51). ra, ellington, and braxton all sometimes deployed their compositions, recordings, writings, and interviews to circu­ late distinctive understandings of the mrican american past and of its bearing on the present and imagined futures. lock hopes to uncover and systematize the historical visions these musicians coded into their music and writings. thus he closely observes selected occasions when his three subjects used their writing and music-making as venues for challenging racist and otherwise constricting histories of mrican americans and the broader black world. second, lock outlines the musicians' disparate re­ flections on religious and metaphysical matters: a double goal here is to critique the ethnographically insensitive secularism of much jazz criticism and to explain how, according to each of lock's subjects, music can serve as a "gateway to 'another reality'" (2). the musicians' various relationships with christianity and some of its modern competitors, such as the nation of islam, also take on considerable importance at certain points in lock's analyses. finally, lock addresses how ra, ellington, and braxton suffered from and responded to a variety of racially inflected aesthetic criteria and stereotypes about mrican american jazz musicians. the book clearly shows how stereotypical or otherwise restrictive expectations about the terrain explored by jazz musicians-like the expectations captured in canonizing notions about genre boundaries and cultural authenticity-have been in constant need of critical revision. it is, of course, not news that the particu­ lar burden of racial romanticism has long haunted the discursive forma­ tion of black music. what is somewhat less well known is how the counter­ histories and careful self-representations of ra, ellington, and braxton, among others, represented acts of recuperation and reconstruction worthy of careful attention. thematic convergence appears in lock's book through the postulated services of a "blutopian" sociomusical impulse present in some of these musicians' compositions, performances, and recordings. the "blutopian" motif joins together "a utopian promise, evident in the creation of imag­ ined places (promised lands)" and "the impulse to remember" and to "bear witness" (2). as a romantic sociomusical ideal, the "blutopian" speaks to a fusion of the prospective and commemorative functions associ­ ated with mrican american sacred idioms and with certain moments in nominally secular, but often strongly spiritual, idioms like soul and jazz. the "blutopian" impulse in sacred and secular music reveals itself, accord­ ing to lock, at "a crossroads in the creative consciousness where visions of the future and revisions of the past become part of the same process, 'a politics of transfiguration,' in which accepted notions of language, his­ tory, the real, and the possible are thrown open to question and found wanting" (2). paul allen anderson 429 lock's "blutopian" motif connotes an idealistic and mythopoetic cri­ tique of the present-and present-day commonplaces about possible futures-forged at the site of recuperative commemoration and utopian hope. hence he polishes to a fine luster such remarks as the following by sun ra: "the impossible attracts me because everything possible has been done and the world didn't change" (26). lock has borrowed his brilliantly apt neologism from a rarely noted ellington composition performed at his 1944 carnegie hall concert. although lock describes himself as commit­ ted to no particular theoretical paradigm in blutopia, his interpretations tell otherwise. readers conversant with black critical theory will quickly recognize that lock's "blutopian" hermeneutic puts his book into conver­ sation with a particular lineage of sociomusical criticism that extends back­ wards at least to w. e. b. du bois's black nationalist reconstruction of the "sorrow songs" ([1903] 1990) and amiri baraka's populist modernist criti­ cism on behalf of the "blues impulse" and the "changing same" (jones, 1963, 1967). recent contributions to this tradition in black aesthetic thought include nathaniel mackey's poetic reflections on the dialectics of absence, remembrance, and restitutive wholeness (1986, 1993a, 1993b), and paul gilroy's theorizations of the du boisian "slave sublime" and the corresponding aesthetic contours of the "politics of transfiguration" (1993). a skeptic might argue that duke ellington only occasionally dipped his music in the "blutopian" imaginary and that braxton's detailed philoso­ phizing about the "affinity dynamics" of "trans-mrican musics" sometimes bears a rather oblique relation to his rigorously experimental music. the thought and music of sun ra, by contrast, speaks to nothing less than a full-body immersion in a shimmering sea of "blutopian" revisionism and otherworldliness. lock argues that ra's musings on ancient egyptian sci­ ence, outer space, his origins on saturn, and the relevant activities of an­ gels, archangels, and demons were neither incoherent nor irrelevant, nor were they signs of madness or bohemian charlatanism. the opening chap­ ters of blutopia neatly explicate how the quixotic contours of ra's astro black mythology were "shaped by a kind of symbiotic dialogue, an inter­ textual relationship, with the main narrative threads of mrican american history" (74). lock pays special attention to the egypt-oriented or nilotic strand of mrocentrism so prominent in ra's early work. such ideas undergirded the transformation of herman poole blount (born in 1914) into le sony'r ra and they similarly motivated many of his song titles, compositions, mystical etymologies (or "wordologies"), and poems. the man friends called sonny claimed saturnian nativity by 1952 and his legally adopted name le 430 current musicology sony'r ra (like the informal stage name sun ra) grandiosely recalled the ancient egyptian sun deity ra not once but twice. lock finds relevant par­ allels between ra's dissident self-invention and other practices of renam­ ing and genealogical revision among mrican americans such as the con­ version protocols of the nation of islam and literary precedents in ex-slave narratives. about the latter, lock notes with characteristic enthusiasm that "the point at which many slave narratives end-with the act of renaming­ is the point at which sun ra's new narrative of mythic identity begins: a shift from history to mystery, past to future, time to space" (51). while the new names le sony'r ra and sun ra telegraphed a egypt-oriented geneal­ ogy of unrecognized black achievement, a forthrightly "impossible" and utopian vision of the human future also energized ra's "new narrative of mythic identity." ra's egypt-oriented reconstruction of mrican americans' cultural and spiritual heritage rejected the dominant mro-baptist worldview he en­ countered as a precocious child of segregated birmingham, alabama. lock recounts that one of ra's basic criticisms of christianity was "that by causing mrican americans to identity with the old testament stories of the israelites, it [had] trapped them in a false history and, in doing so, cut them off from their true historical legacy, the black civilization of egypt, which first gave beauty and culture to the world" (21). the "slave mental­ ity" of christianity demanded that all christians identity the ancient egyptians as pagan oppressors and thereby contributed to what ra re­ garded as the fundamental anti-mricanism and internalized racism of mrican american christianity. denigrated by centuries of white and black christians, the ancient egyptian heritage of classicism and spiritual insight was one that mrican americans needed to consider their own and to take more pride in, ra maintained. approached at this level of generality, ra's revisionist genealogy was hardly unique, though it was a minority position among mid-century mrican americans. the intellectual historian wilson moses has ably shown how egyptocentrism, or a primary identification with the classical nilotic heritage (or at least selected images of it), "has not been the dominant stream in mrocentrism" (1998:92). nevertheless, elements of egyptology could be found in black national­ ist and mrocentric thought in america in the nineteenth century (in the writings of frederick douglass, for example) and earlier. in a sense, then, ra's revisionist mrocentrism was more traditionalist than experimentalist. lock notes some points of overlap and divergence between ra's revisions of the black past and those of the chicago-based nation of islam. indeed, some members of ra's arkestra speculated that the black muslims stole ideas from their musical chicago neighbors. a major point of divergence, however, was that ra embraced rather than rejected the expressive force of mrican american sacred and popular music. as lock tells the story, ra paul allen anderson 431 would reframe and signify upon popular idioms for the sake of his unique religious ends. "sun ra's main aim," lock summarizes, "appears to have been a massive act of re-vision whereby the christian vision of a mythic future is transformed and translated into the language and imagery of a futuristic science" (41). the "futuristic science" lock hints at also bore traces of some very old sciences ra identified with ancient egypt and other philosophies of the pre-christian and non-christian mediterranean world. ra's "massive act of re-vision" is particularly evident in the arkestra's collectively sung space chants, a subgenre to which lock pays considerable attention. these musical chants "constitute the great bulk of [ra's] vocal material" and present ingenious revisions or evocations of traditional mrican american spirituals. "brief, repetitive, and antiphonal," the space chants are "comparable in form to the spirituals, whose themes and refer­ ences they constantly echo" (34). although the space chants formally echo traditional spirituals, they turn away from the slow and mournful "sorrow songs" sub genre so beloved by w. e. b. du bois and many negro renaissance writers and formal composers. as extraterrestrial jubilees, the arkestra's chants point to saturn and other interplanetary locales (rather than zion or heaven) as sites for eschatological expectation and fulfill­ ment in the space age. thus, the chant that begins "the space age is here to stay / ain't no place that you can run away" revises and signifies on the traditional christian spiritual "no hiding place." when the arkestra mem­ bers sing the space chants, they sometimes dance in a counter-clockwise circle, thus recalling the ring shout dance closely identified with slave cul­ ture. these anti-sorrow songs evoke mrican american christian liturgy but also capture ra's alternative effort to coordinate "the minds of peoples into an intelligent reach for a better world, and an intelligent approach to the living future" (41). ra's space chants signified on christian idioms, lock stresses, not for the sake of parody or formal intertextual pastiche but in order to dispense dissident prophecies in an accessible and somewhat familiar form. more generally, the music, chants, dance, and multimedia presentations of the arkestra's "cosmo dramas" were intended to fuel mystical enlightenment and the imaginative anticipation of a world transformed by interstellar travel. the synesthetic spectacle of the live arkestra performance, we might suggest, bonded the dialogism of verbal intertextuality and the jazz protocols of what ingrid monson has called improvisational "intermusical­ ity" to a dialectical negation of the mundane present in an "ecstatic stretch" toward a not yet visible reality (monson 1995; mackey 1993a). ra explicitly represented himself less as an artist or entertainer than as a spiri­ tual messenger, a "member of the angel race," or even a demon, charged with prophetic duties. he intended the extramusical charge of the 432 current musicology arkestra's thrilling and frequently brilliant performances and recordings to transcend the merely formal characteristics of their avant-garde artistry. ra's self-representation obviously rubbed against the grain of most jazz criticism and contributed to his outsider status. in particular, some of the most influential white jazz critics and scholars of the 1950s and later worked to publicize and vindicate the astonishing formal complexity of modern jazz by appealing to such established modernist criteria as medium specificity, formal purity, and non-functionality. the arkestra's multimedia performances and ra's song titles, space chants, and meta­ physical pronouncements refused these criteria. during the course of a famous and long residency at an east village club in the 1960s, however, sun ra and the arkestra rose to considerable prominence when young leaders of the post-bop avant-garde warmed up to the arkestra's aesthetic, spiritual, and political implications. as anthony braxton explained to lock in forces in motion, ra's "use of open improvisation led to the gains that coltrane and cecil taylor generated, so he's like a bridge figure from the bebop period of the music to the extended forms, in which of course he's also a dominant force" (lock 1988: 154). readers familiar with john szwed's biography space is the place: the lives and times of sun ra (1997) will notice similarities between szwed's and lock's analyses, as both acknowledge the other's research. lock's sixty­ page overview, of course, does not attempt to match the detailed exposi­ tion marking szwed's dense 400-page work. one of the more remarkable aspects of szwed's book is its success at weaving together ra's far-ranging intellectual interests and his fifty-year career as a pianist, bandleader, composer, and renegade recording artist. regarding ra's astro black mythology, lock focuses closely on the musician's "blutopian" revision of black baptist eschatological imagery and tracks how spirituals, tropes of millenial deliverance, and ex-slave narratives influenced ra's "symbiotic dialogue ... with the main threads of mrican american history." szwed's much larger canvas affords him the opportunity to explore the full breadth of ra's religious and intellectual interests beyond the contest between christianity and egypt-oriented mrocentrism and to detail the extent to which "sonny did not limit himself to mrocentric canonic thought." "egypt, [raj discovered, had already been connected to the galaxies by edgar cayce, gurdjieff, and others of theosophic bent, follow­ ing the lead of pythagoras and the hermeticists" (szwed 1997:138). lock briefly pursued ra's mystical european lineage in forces in motion (lock 1988:295-307), but he moves this inheritance to the background in blutopia. szwed applauds lock's ingenious deciphering of the space chant­ spirituals connection while space is the place details further the influences of gnosticism and theosophy in ra's writing and music. in particular, szwed's exceptionally generous sampling and exegeses of ra's poetry and paul allen anderson 433 imaginary etymologies move neo-platonic themes and a unique form of "afro-platonism" far closer to the center of ra's thought about music as a tool for the spiritual work of remembrance than one finds in blutopia. brent edwards has also probed into ra's exegetical and recombinatory po­ etic practices. in contrast to szwed's focus on the mathematical and didac­ tic elements, edwards stresses that ra's poetry "is not an espousal of some 'pure speech' to be reconstructed through a messianic poetry; instead it is the 'impossible' task of spelling something new and different ... walking the tightrope between sign and speech" (1998: 197). lock's "blutopian" paradigm focuses the reader's attention on the inti­ mate fusion of the ancient and the futuristic, the commemorative and the utopian. by contrast, szwed's more biographical approach to ra's work suggests that alternate themes seemed to take center stage at different periods of ra's career. he argues for a pronounced shift in ra's thought after 1959 away from the afrocentric emphasis on egypt and the "spiritual past" toward outer space and the "spiritual future" (szwed 1997:126). ra's intellectual shift may have involved the relative and unexpected whitening of the arkestra's concert and record-buying audience from the 1960s to the end of his life as well as a conflict between ra's sometimes non-racial discourse of otherworldliness and the increasing prominence of separatist variations of black nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s. by disarticulating ra's black nationalist, afrocentric, neo-platonic, and extraterrestrial com­ mitments, szwed valiantly attempts to measure the shifting valences of these ideas in the light of ra's changing professional and historical cir­ cumstances. space is the place also distinguishes itself from lock's work by occasionally touching on elements of ra's thought that some otherwise friendly readers may find less endearing, whether it's his platonic scorn for democratic social organization or his apparent mystical detachment from many practical efforts to ameliorate the material conditions of the poor and disenfranchised. a world-class rebel and fearless experimentalist in some dimensions, sun ra the mystic was nevertheless quite conservative in other dimensions. duke ellington's earliest band recordings appeared in the mid-1920s; ra's earliest came thirty years later. lock positions his chapters on elling­ ton after those on ra, one might conjecture, to let after-images of the sun make a defamiliarizing impression upon ellington's better-known and comparatively less exotic work. ellington revealed no significant invest­ ment in the philosophical legacies of the non-christian ancient world, egyptian or otherwise, nor did he write books and poems that outlined a mystical "alter-destiny" for mankind. ellington's forward-looking music also never ventured into the newly opened vortices of caterwauling "en­ ergy music" and electronic experimentation that the arkestra explored so 434 current musicology uncompromisingly in the 1960s and later. the fruits of ellington's vision­ ary gestures will not soon be confused with those of sun ra. still, every­ body's got a little light under the sun, and duke ellington (ra's elder by fifteen years) is no exception. lock makes a strong case for a "blutopian" dimension in ellington's work in discussing how ellington brought themes of historical revisionism and prophetic anticipation together in some of his music. "for a long time, social protest and pride in the negro have been the most significant themes in what we've done," ellington told jazz writer nat hentoff in the 1960s. "in that music we have been talking for a long time about what it is to be a negro in this country" (11s). ellington's comment linked his reflexive insistence on black racial pride to the less overt theme of social protest. his popular and concert music generated racial pride and vindication while addressing the particularities of the mrican american experience with an unmistakable sense of swing, luxurious harmonic tex­ ture, and melodic appeal. lock's pair of ellington chapters follows the in­ tertwined relationship of pride and protest in selected ellington works and commentaries, with an emphasis on long-form works of the 1940s and 1950s. he sets the stage for a "blutopian" ac;count of ellington's art with the play of racial stereotypes and jazz age exoticism active in the reception of ellington's music and stage shows in the 1920s. "there is no evidence," lock emphasizes, "that ellington either initiated or was particularly enthu­ siastic about the jungle' label being attached to his music" (s2). elling­ ton's 'jungle music" of the cotton club era did not reveal cynical jazz age opportunism willing to cater to romantic racism nor did it reflect any im­ plicit garveyist separatism or bold mrocentrism. ideologically speaking, ellington seemed closest to a moderate, non-socialist brand of 1920s new negro black nationalism. both then and later, his glamorous expressions of racial pride and his forthright refusals of stereotypy joined hands with liberal idealism about the unfulfilled promise of american' egalitarianism. "ellington's patriotism," lock concludes, "would become more evident later in his life, but even in the 1920s and 1930s i think it is clear from his music that the focus of his interest was black life in americd' (105). the motifs of racial pride, anti-racist protest, and historical revisionism animated a musical new negro jeremiad, an immanent critique of a racist society unwilling to realize its own liberal ideals. "ellington's declaration that social protest was best made 'without saying it' explicitly," lock adds, "was one of his guiding aesthetic principles" (95). ellington loathed con­ frontation and he usually delivered his social criticisms softly and with a legendary degree of indirectness. such traits helped fashion his image as an accessible creative genius in his own day and a highly enigmatic figure for latter-day interpreters. in search of the political ellington behind the raconteur's mask of sly gentility, lock pays close attention to jump for joy; it paul allen anderson 435 "was possibly the most outspoken project [ellington] was involved in" (95). ellington was the mastermind behind and sole composer for that progressive "revu-sical" in 1941, although sid kuller and paul francis webster penned many of the song lyrics. the collaborative and interracial musical explicitly lampooned the legacy of blackface minstrelsy and of­ fered pointed and humorous critiques of jim crow segregation and en­ during racial stereotypes on the stage and elsewhere. a local black newspa­ per rejoiced: "in jump for joy, uncle tom is dead. god rest his bones" (quoted in hasse 1993:248). unfortunately, the musical ran for only eleven weeks in los angeles. it never hit the road nor did it reach broadway, much to ellington's chagrin. the glow of the "blutopian" impulse manifests itself most clearly in lock's paired analyses of ellington's "tonal reconstruction of black his­ tory" in two long-form compositions that followed jump for joy: the much discussed "tone parallel" black, brown and beige (1943) and a less well­ known and documented composition from the end of the same year, new world a-comin'. lock suggests that the latter was a close-fitting conceptual successor to black, brown and beige, a "utopian coda" to the earlier piece that evoked "the visionary future that ellington had long planned as the fi­ nal section of his musical history of the american negro" (114, 112-13). several other long-form works of the period are also discussed at a similar thematic level. lock considers ways in which ellington's deep south suite (1946) was far more critical of the jim crow south than some commenta­ tors have contended. moving to the 1950s, lock also includes an interest­ ing, too brief discussion of ellington's long-form musical allegory, a drum is a woman (1957). "if black, brown and beige had been his musical rewrite of the history of the american negro," lock proposes, a drum is a woman was his widely misunderstood and underappreciated '''parallel' to the his­ tory of american negro music" (141). musicologists and historians have detailed how early jazz critics wielded racially inflected stereotypes about 'jungle music" and unself-conscious virtuosity in authentic "hot jazz." swing erajazz critics idealized the purity of so-called "hot jazz" and argued for the superiority of mrican american jazz improvisers while lambasting the inauthentic character of "symphonic jazz" and the "sweet" jazz identified with white bands. ellington's intermit­ tent but increasingly important long-form suites and formal concerts and his refusal of established genre boundaries challenged many expectations about jazz music and its practitioners. lock notes how critics often associ­ ated black music with an ideal of unrepressed emotional immediacy, the "natural" infectiousness of swing rhythms, and unpretentious blues-based improvisational prowess. despite ellington's reputation as the swing era's foremost jazz composer, his long-form works sometimes incurred the wrath of influential jazz critics not simply on the grounds of musical 436 current musicology achievement but on the more basic issue of artistic ambition. lock high­ lights john hammond's infamous critiques of ellington's scored-through works reminiscing in tempo (1935) and black, brown and beige (1943). hammond, a prime architect of the swing era, was the most influential jazz critic of the 1930s. lock concludes that ellington "was offering a more comprehensive appreciation of black creativity-one that did not pre­ clude the intellectual-than that discerned by white critics such as ham­ mond and [spike] hughes, with their focus on the 'free and uninhibited' and 'general 'low-downness' " (126). the protest against a barricade of stereotypical assumptions about authentic jazz and mrican american mu­ sic is the theme that most tightly links lock's ellington chapters to his consideration of anthony braxton, an even more vexing dissident from dominan t jazz orthodoxies. ellington soared above the exoticism of the jazz age and the pseudo­ populism of the swing era with an elegant new negro display of uplifting racial pride and black bourgeois refinement. nevertheless, as lock notes, the more "highbrow" framers of the interwar negro renaissance did not rush to embrace ellington's innovative and popular music. lock's brief treatment of early responses to ellington reiterates a familiar and question­ begging conclusion about jazz's dubious status among mrican american intellectuals in the 1920s. it is worth noting, for example, that a renais­ sance spokesman no less "highbrow" and europeanized than alain locke (the harvard-educated black rhodes scholar whom george schuyler once dubbed the "high priest of the intellectual snobbocracy"), wrote glowingly of ellington and his formally elaborate "super jazz" on numerous occa­ sions as early as the mid-1930s (locke [1936] 1968). locke even wrote to ellington in the hopes of organizing an alternative concert to correct the limited aesthetic terrain of john hammond's famous 1938 and 1939 con­ cert surveys of mrican american musical history, "from spirituals to swing." ellington's disdain for the restrictive implications of the jazz label in the 1930s, his evolving ambitions with longer musical forms, and the series of carnegie hall concerts (the "social significance thrusts" lock fo­ cuses on as his "blutopian" musical examples) he presented in the 1940s all spoke to the ideals of alain locke and like-minded mrican american critics and musicians who considered scored-through concert music an idiomatic advance upon popular dance music and what lock called the "lowest common denominator" approach of the hit parade. such relation­ ships go unexplored in blutopia. most of ellington's popular recorded output in the 1940s and later, of course, would remain within idiomatic parameters and song structures listeners were more likely to label "popular" or ')azz" than "classical" or "concert music." in contrast to alain locke, w. e. b. du bois, and other black "highbrows," prominent younger figures of the interwar negro paul allen anderson 437 renaissance like langston hughes, zora neale hurston, and sterling brown busily crafted their own "more comprehensive appreciation of black creativity" through nothing less than an unapologetic admiration of "free and uninhibited" black popular musics, including "low-down" jazz and blues (anderson 2001). for example, none other than sterling brown (dubbed the foremost new negro poet by alain locke) emceed hammond's second "spirituals to swing" concert. it would be mistaken to conclude that brown agreed across the board with hammond's famously all-or-nothing musical judgments. we should bear in mind, however, that hammond's popular front activism shared significant aesthetic and politi­ cal commitments with brown's influential work. blutopia passes over the non-polarizing convergences and the more ambivalent connections be­ tween hammond's swing era criticism and the anti-bourgeois rhetoric of brown, hughes, and other black advocates of folk expression and radical politics in the thirties and later. lock outlines how ellington's overtly revisionist and visionary work an­ ticipated a desirable future in which racial pride-or any similar non­ antagonistic recognition of self or collective worth-would not require the agonistic force of protest and contestation. he quotes a passage from music is my mistress where ellington reminisces about the dream behind his new world a-comin ': "i visualized this new world as a place in the dis­ tant future where there would be no war, no greed, no categorization, no nonbelievers, where love was unconditional, and no pronoun was good enough for god" (ellington 1973:183). lock's emphasis on middle-period extended works is selective, but readers are not suffering from a shortage of more synoptic ellington biographies. john hasse's fine biography, beyond category, for example, interprets the full span of ellington's work in terms of two careers as an ambitious and prolific composer and an in­ defatigable jazz bandleader willing to entertain and flatter a worldwide audience over the course of fifty years (hasse 1993). the two creative im­ peratives were, of course, indivisible, but hasse's interpretive point helps readers keep in mind the full breadth of ellington's ambition and accom­ plishment. lock leaves to future historians and critics the work of elabo­ rating the "blutopian" dimension of the short-form ellington music only indirectly related to the fusion of racial pride and social protest. cut loose from the explicit demands of historical revisionism and social protest, much of ellington's most beloved work celebrated the immanent urbane pleasures of the genre-crossing aesthete, the delights of romantic anticipa­ tion and reverie, and, as his late suites so elegantly demonstrate, the limit­ less curiosity and attentiveness of the cosmopolitan world traveler. it is the more private but no less programmatic ellington of the 1930s and 1940s-the ellington of "prelude to a kiss" and "sophisticated lady" and the ellington who brought to life strayhorn's "take the 'a' train" and 438 current musicology "chelsea bridge"-that many listeners, record-buyers, and musicians ha­ bitually return to again and again rather than the explicitly public ellington of black, brown and beige. perhaps in listening to one of the ellington orchestra's exquisite renderings of these short pieces, and other ones like "caravan" or "in a sentimental mood," one might imagine one­ self encountering what ernst bloch wrote of the "great artwork," namely "a dim reflection, a star of anticipation and a song of solace on the way home through the dark" (bloch 2000:117). in other words, lock's ap­ poach overlooks how some of ellington's less explicitly historical and vin­ dicationist music might also extend an entrancing promesse du bonheur. readers willing to entertain such imaginative frequencies are likely to find additional "blutopian" registers distinct from but adjacent to the more programmatic "social significance thrusts" addressed in blutopia. lock opens his discussion of anthony braxton by contextualizing a sample of hostile reviews of braxton's early double album of solo record­ ings, for alto (1971). these responses frame lock's overview of the fallout of braxton's challenging musical phiralism and the model of creativity mike heffley has called braxton's "ingenious 'double-agency' " (1996:331). because braxton unapologetically embraces influences from both "trans­ mrican music" and "trans-european music" (including the challenging particularities of what he has called the "post-ayler continuum" and the "post-cage continuum"), his cosmopolitanism has unsettled various as­ sumptions about authenticity, canonicity, and functionality. as a result, few living mrican american musicians have incurred more critical hostil­ ity. braxton's frankly utopian efforts to bridge disparate musical worlds and spiritual perspectives have been challenging listeners and players for over thirty years. in earnest conversations with lock throughout forces in motion, braxton details the particularly frustrating accusation of betraying various overdetermined definitions of black music and jazz. blutopia features some piquant quotations from those conversations, such as the following: 'jazz" is the word that's used to delineate the parameters that mrican-americans are allowed to function in, a "sanctioned" zone . . . . but the whole thing is ... it's taken for granted that a european or european-american jazz musician has borrowed some aspects of mrican-american language: why should it be such a big thing that i've learned from europe? i'm a human being, just like ronnie scott or derek bailey. why is it so natural for evan parker, say, to have an appreciation of coltrane, but for me to have an appreciation of stockhausen is somehow out of the natural order of human experi­ ence? i see it as racist. (183; lock 1988:92) paul allen anderson 439 from the beginning, lock explains, many criticisms of braxton's work simply refused to grant legitimacy to his universalist aspirations and his ideals of musical heterogeneity and idiomatic multiformity. jazz critics who suffer from what braxton has called the "across the tracks syndrome," for example, reiterated the unconscious prejudices of john hammond and like-minded "hot jazz" partisans. lock paraphrases braxton's analysis of how many white critics seemed to look to jazz music-and black music in general-as a non-threatening secular transgression against the demands made on listeners by european and european american art music (espe­ cially such braxton influences as schoenberg, stockhausen, and cage). the school of "mainstream" jazz partisanship is, of course, still in session; its teachers and pupils often react with irritation when musicians chal­ lenge the conservative parameters of the" 'sanctioned' zone" of jazz with unusual hybrids that reach out to other experimental schools or to idioms of contemporary popular music. mrican american critics, of course, are hardly immune from demands for a homogeneous jazz tradition linked to particular functional demands. lock defends braxton against some ex­ plicit criticisms made by stanley crouch and amiri baraka, but he might have expanded the discussion to include influential anti-avant-gardists like albert murray and the late ralph ellison. for his part, braxton has intro­ duced and elaborated the concept of "trans-mrican functionalism" as a replacement for the ideologically petrified category of 'jazz." lock's review of some sweepingly negative reactions to braxton's sonic intellectualism and his supposed inability to swing or play the saxophone correctly might lead readers unfamiliar with braxton's career to believe that he has only ever been a musical pariah victimized by unrelenting criti­ cal disparagement. this is not exactly the case. many critics and publicists in the 1970s heralded braxton as a uniquely brilliant young jazz star and a potential systematizer of the dizzying "avant-garde" advances of the mu­ sic's last decade. in the 1990s, braxton joined the elite club of jazz com­ posers and improvisers to be tapped for the prestigious macarthur foundation fellowship; his fellow "genius" awardees include, among others, omette coleman, cecil taylor, and steve lacy. in a chapter of his impor­ tant scholarly study on braxton, ronald radano (1993) dissects the vocabu­ lary of positive braxton reviews from the 1970s. lock argues in blutopia that radano's book "seriously misrepresents braxton's depiction in the jazz press during the mid-1970s" by exaggerating braxton's popularity among critics (269). it can at least be said that radano interprets even these high­ profile years-when braxton made a series of relatively popular quartet and quintet recordings as well as widely-publicized albums for the industry giant arista records-in a manner that ultimately bolsters lock's criti­ cisms of centralizing appeals to a homogenizing jazz tradition. radano's 440 current musicology interpretation clearly emphasizes the counter-productive spectaculariza­ tion of braxton in the mid-1970s. the braxton vogue of that period, he ar­ gues, rhetorically "attenuated the radicalism of braxton's signitying art" and instead shifted "attention to more superficial matters" adaptable to the star-making machinery of the corporate music world. by channeling attention to "the most diverting characteristics of braxton's personality and creativity, they [music publicists] shaped a public image that on the surface celebrated pluralistic excess" but ultimately maintained a homoge­ nizing and "conventional center that reinforced traditional ideas about jazz" (radano 1993:240). the ironic thrust of radano's account is that the jazz-centered terms of the early braxton vogue helped underwrite critical and popular neglect of braxton after 1977, despite what proponents gen­ erally consider his escalating artistic success in the 1980s. lock should wel­ come at least this part of radano's account. alongside his sketches of selected ideas from braxton's three volumes of tri-axium writings (1985), lock appeals to the writing of nathaniel mackey for a critical defense of braxton's idiomatic multiformity and "reflexive swing." lock extends mackey's fascinating interpretation of the limping trickster legba of fon-yoruba mythology into a reading of the sonic protocols of black dissent in braxton's musical multiformity. the musician's "reflexive swing" can thus be read as a dialectical negation of "natural swing" and a productive refusal of homogenizing norms of jazz improvisation and composition. the following passage about legba from mackey's discrepant engagement is of particular relevance to lock's "blutopian" reading of braxton: the master of polyrhythmicity and heterogeneity, he suffers not from deformity but multiformity, a "defective" capacity in a homoge­ neous order given over to uniform rule. legba's limp is an emblem of heterogeneous wholeness, the image and outcome of a peculiar remediation. lame or limping . .. cuts with a relativizing edge to un­ veil impairment's power, as though the syncopated accent were an unsuspected blessing offering anomalous, unpredictable support. impairment taken to higher ground, remediated, translates damage and disarray into a dance. (mackey 1993a:244) the "syncopated accent" of the mythic trickster's limp literalizes braxton's own off-kilter polyrhythmicity and his "blutopian" refusal of any "homoge­ neous order." mackey also associates legba's physical deformity with his mediating role at a crossroads between "the world of humans" and "that of the gods" (mackey 1993:243). the pedestrian deficiency of his limp be­ trays the overlooked promise of idiomatic multiformity. legba's limp in paul allen anderson 441 "the world of humans," mackey suggests, provides a context for hearing a kind of "phantom limp" in the deliberately "troubled eloquence" or "telling inarticulacy" of much black music, including braxton's. impair­ ment can be dialectically "remediated" and translated into anticipatory images of a not yet present, and perhaps impossible, "heterogeneous wholeness." lock contends that the "acknowledgement of the meta-real" sets the writing of mackey and braxton, among others, "apart from the majority of western commentators on black music" (173). lock uses mackey's dialectical model of black tricksterism to suggest moments of criticality and anticipation in braxton's deceptively halting and stuttering saxophone. "and if legba's limp is attributed to his liminal status-his role as a mediator between different realms (with one foot in each)-then perhaps braxton's swing is shaped by his particular position on several thresholds-tradition and futurity, mrica and europe, emotion and intellect, real and meta-real (with one foot in each)-by his insistence on the heterogeneity of black creativity" (153). the "reflexive swing" of braxton's more jazz-related music calls into question the common sense demands for a supposedly "natural" manner of swinging as a defining characteristic of the jazz tradition. having shown that such influential mrican american critics as crouch and baraka have rejected braxton's multiformity as "unnatural" for a black musician and excessively european in flavor, lock nonetheless proceeds with a reductive racial interpretation of braxton's reception. "where ... white listeners seem to want to hear a 'natural' swing," lock writes, "mackey offers a context in which we can hear braxton's playing as reflexive swing, a signifying stutter on a view of black creativity that excludes the thinker, the intellectual" (153). mackey's contrast between a certain expectation for "natural swing" in jazz, on the one hand, and the denaturalizing critical cadences of a more "reflex­ ive swing," on the other hand, is a generative theoretical insight. lock's empirical claim that white listeners and critics are more single-minded in their demand for the "natural swing" of mrican american music, however, is much less convincing to this reader. also problematic is the implication that black listeners are more receptive or culturally sympathetic to braxton's "reflexive swing" in its functional role as a refusal of white stereotypes about black music and culture. there are margins and there are "margins within the margins," as mackey notes. it is regrettable but unsurprising to find many of the finest mrican american experimental writers and musicians receiving "much less attention and validation than they deserve" from all audiences (mackey 1993a:18). musicians and listeners sympathetic to both the "post-cage continuum" and the "post-ayler continuum" and to hybrids of these musi­ cal languages have been the most receptive to the more experimental 442 current musicology aspects of braxton's output. that tautology, however, cannot move an analysis very far. as an experimentalist, braxton does not compromise with popular musical taste, mrican american or otherwise, and he has long recoiled from racially essentializing versions of a "black aesthetic" and canonizing visions of a "blues aesthetic." he has paid a price for these decisions. "i see only a handful of mrican-americans at my concerts-well, braxton's the so-called white negro, i'm not a good example," he told lock in 1985, "but i don't see many at the art ensemble concerts .... no one wants to say this, but the turn-out of the black community for the mu­ sic is a sign of real danger" (lock 1988:277). the shifting tides of audi­ ence demographics, popular taste, music education, for-profit marketing, and non-profit programming are all complicated historical matters that musicologists and historians should be energetically pursuing. "what has happened, in my opinion," braxton suggests in forces in motion, "is that mrican-americans have been profoundly shaped and manipulated by the media, by the top ten mentality and by a persuasion of [black] national­ ism that seeks to establish europe as the only source of the illness we're dealing with, as if we have had no part in creating the sadness that's taking place in this time period" (ibid.:277-78). braxton's controversial hypothe­ sis makes this reader long for more multi-dimensional historical and ethnographic analyses that can move beyond the kind of ideological de­ fensiveness blutopia leaves us with. lock is on firm ground, however, when he describes how braxton has been placed in the unenviable position of "betraying" the canonizing strictures of mrican american jazz neoclassi­ cists like crouch, murray, and wynton marsalis, latter-day exponents of a relatively more avant-gardist black aesthetic like amiri baraka (a "blu­ topian" dialectician if ever one there was), and whites suffering from the condescending folk romanticism or pop aesthetic of the "across the tracks syndrome." radano's new musical figurations details braxton's efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to dismantle the overdrawn binary between the art music of white experimentalists in europe and america and mrican american jazz traditions. in contrast to radano's musicological emphasis on how brax­ ton's hybridic "restructuralism" operated in specific recordings and com­ positions, lock devotes more pages to the "vibrational" physics and meta­ physics of "trans-mrican music" presented in the tri-axium writings. radano's book details braxton's biography, his early membership in the chicago-based aacm (association for the advancement of creative musicians), his early compositions, recordings, and ensembles, and, as we have seen, braxton's critical reception in the 1970s. lock's discussion be­ gins with the last topic and focuses on braxton's mid-1980s writings and his cycle of trillium operas in the 1980s and 1990s. unlike radano's book, paul allen anderson 443 blutopia pays far less attention to braxton's compositions and his relation­ ship with european traditions of experimentalism and avant-gardist utopi­ anism. short of reading the full tri-axium writings (which weigh in at over 1600 pages), readers should consider lock and radano's books in tandem along with mike heffley's detailed monograph (1996). if lock's sympa­ thetic adumbration of the tri-axium writings is accurate, braxton might be understood as reversing rather than deconstructing black-white polarities in ideologies of music in order to center the mystical and humanizing power of "trans-mrican music." braxton may intend to point beyond an initial binary reversal toward a broader and non-essentializing dynamic of world cosmopolitanism, but lock (contra radano) pays little attention in blutopia to braxton's interests in european and european american experimental music traditions. braxton once explained to lock about tri-axium writings that "it was only after reading 500,000 dumb reviews that i found myself thinking, hmmm ... i disagree with the critics who even like my music! so it was like-i don't have any choice, i don't see my viewpoint out there, so here i come! i had to write a book that established my right to have an opinion, and to do that i had to design a philosophical system that would allow me to-from that point-postulate what i wanted to do" (lock 1988:284). smoothly harmonizing with lock's critical sketch of the "blutopian" impulse in mrican american music, braxton notes in blutopia that "tri­ axium" has "to do with attempts to gather axium tenets from the past and present-to get to the future" (184). braxton's critique and correction of jazz criticism may be the thread of tri-axium writings from which lock pulls the most. he discusses braxton's delineation of the "across the tracks syndrome" and an adjacent desire for "black exoticism" captured in the romantic racism of what braxton terms the "grand trade-off." "in this con­ cept," braxton writes, "black people are vibrationally viewed as being great tap dancers-natural improvisors, great rhythm, etc., etc., etc.,-but not great thinkers, or not capable of contributing to the dynamic wellspring of world information. white people under this viewpoint have come to be viewed as great thinkers, responsible for all of the profound philosophical and technological achievements that humanity has benefited from-but somehow not as 'natural' as those naturally talented black folks" (176). lock presents braxton's negative analyses of these and other themes in jazz criticism together with braxton's positive vision of the "vibrational" dynamics of "trans-mrican music." he outlines braxton's elaboration of the "meta-real" dimensions of music in relation to the musician's sense of the spiritual costs of scientific empiricism, the living legacy of euro­ centric racial ideologies and practices, and the "spectacle diversion syn­ drome" plaguing the world's overindustrialized societies. the corrective 444 current musicology counter-history of the tri-axium writings also informs the futuristic prophecies coded into braxton's cycle of trillium operas in the 1980s and 1990s. the trillium operas, lock argues, "concretize" certain arguments of the tri-axium writings "in a series of 'fantasy' scenarios" (196-97). the op­ eras musicalize a fantasy world from where braxton can engage in utopian critiques of present ethical systems. as "redemption songs" oriented to­ ward possible futures, the operas may also be imagined as echoing the intersecting sacred and social force of the spirituals continuum within african american culture. lock's account of the trillium scenarios offers new information not present in the radano and heffley books, but it is likely to frustrate readers not intimately familiar with the operas. the usu­ ally energetic prose style of blutopia slackens (as any prose style would) when reduced to reciting plot summaries. lock's capsule summaries offer too little sense of how the operas' complex sonic artistry would inform audience members' apprehension of their cultural work as musical "concretizations" of braxton's hypotheses about culture and history. frictionless synopses threaten to lose any useful interpretive grip on their objects when the critic turns so decisively away from the notes and aural textures sounded in braxton's operas. sun ra, duke ellington, and anthony braxton wrote and spoke of their artistic and critical visions at considerable length. lock's well-researched and sympathetic account in blutopia offers admirably clear discussions of important issues. throughout his work as a critic and scholar, lock has been solicitous of how many musical innovators approach their art in terms of its spiritual and social ramifications. these musicians often es­ chew the secular and aestheticist codes of musicology, jazz criticism, and many literary-critical theorizations of an african american "blues aes­ thetic." as i have noted, lock's treatment of "meta-real" implications, his­ torical revisionism, and future-directed social vision in blutopia stops short of pursuing the implications of these topics for detailed critical analyses of specific scores and recordings. in that particular meeting of the sonic and the social, the conclusions he draws are rather suggestive than conclu­ sive. the unfinished character of the musical analyses in blutopia are per­ haps in keeping with the prospective character we have come to expect from aesthetic and social discourses of utopianism. but we can be certain that the prominence and depth of the african american "blutopian" imaginary, in its assorted musical and critical dimensions, continues to call for the interdisciplinary attention of critics, musicologists, and historians. among those ongoing efforts, blutopia will surely help blaze new trails to sites of the musical and critical imagination located in "other planes of there." paul allen anderson 445 references anderson, paul allen. 2001. deep river: music and memory in harlem renaissance thought. durham, n.c.: duke university press. bloch, ernst. 2000. the spirit of utopia. translated by anthony a. nassar. stanford, calif.: stanford university press. braxton, anthony. 1985. tri-axium writings. lebanon, n.h.: frog peak music. du bois, w. e. b. [1903] 1990. the souls of black folk. new york: library of america. edwards, brent. 1998. the race for space: sun ra's poetry. hambone 14 (fall): 177-200. ellington, duke. 1973. music is my mistress. garden city, n.y.: doubleday. ford, alun. 1997. anthony braxton: creative music continuum. devon, united king­ dom: stride publications. gilroy, paul. 1993. the black atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cam­ bridge, mass.: harvard university press. hasse, john edward. 1993. beyond category: the life and genius of duke ellington. new york: simon & schuster. heffley, mike. 1996. the music of anthony braxton. westport, conn.: greenwood press. jones, leroi [amiri baraka]. 1963. blues people: negro music in white america. new york: morrow. ---.1967. black music. new york: morrow. lock, graham. 1988. forces in motion: anthony braxton and the meta-reality of creative music: interviews and tour notes, england 1985. london: quartet books limited. ---. 1994. chasing the vibration: meetings with creative musicians. devon, united kingdom: stride. ---, ed. 1995. mixtery: a festschrift for anthony braxton. devon, united kingdom: stride. locke, alain. [1936] 1968. the negro and his music. port washington, n.y.: kennikat. mackey, nathaniel. 1986. bedouin hornbook. lexington: university of kentucky. ---. 1993a. discrepant engagement: dissonance, cross-culturality, and experimental writing. cambridge: cambridge university press. ---. 1993b. djbot baghostus's run. los angeles: sun & moon press. monson, ingrid. 1995. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: university of chicago press. moses, wilson. 1998. afrotopia: the roots of african american popular history. cambridge: cambridge university press. radano, ronald. 1993. new musical figurations: anthony braxton's cultural critique. chicago: university of chicago press. szwed, john. 1997. space is the place: the lives and times of sun ra. new york: pantheon books. unraveling narrativity: a reflexive paradigm stuart i. raphael in the first movement of haydn's string quartet op. 33, no.5, the v-i cadential gesture revealed at the very outset proves to be a defining struc­ tural property throughout the movement. the anachronistic and seemingly impulsive entry of the initial cadence intimates closure, and its successive restatements function as intermittent signposts along the way toward true closure at the end of the movement. presumably, the listener experiences these recurring gestures as moments of foreshadowing, and navigates through the movement following clear points of reference to arrive at an increasingly predictable resolution. but suppose that the listener instead hears the initial cadence as a more explicit presentation of a future event, as an "effect" known prematurely, or as a goal actualized before its motivation or rationale has been established. in this sense, the listener may hear the closing statement not so much as a subtle foreshadowing suggested in ac­ tual time, but rather as an abrupt flash-forwarding to an end point defini­ tively announced within implied or imagined time; thus, musical material subsequently heard from that point on works to peel away moments of the present, and to revise the past so as to justify what is already known to be inevitable in the future. if the music elides or sidesteps the expected point b on the way from points a to c, such a disruption would prompt the listener to rationalize the discontinuity by providing the missing association-in other words, to fill in the musical gap created by the disruption. the musical design of a work such as the first movement of op. 33, no.5 all but insists that the listener exercise a fluid listening strategy in order to reconcile its perceived surface disconnections. this essay explores such a listening strategy within the context of narrativity in tonal music. in so doing, i focus on specific processes that constitute or help construct narratives to illuminate how the listener draws seemingly disassociated parts of music together; how musi­ cal gestures accrue meaning, are clarified, or become recontextualized in the listener's mind; and how the listener's heightened sense of anticipation and reflection helps achieve this synthesis. my exploration of musical narrativity is concerned less with questions of agency and content (important though these questions are) than on some of the active forces underlying and motivating the formation of narrative structures. the mechanisms i discuss reside neither exclusively within the musical work nor entirely within the listener's more subjective realm of narcurrent musicology, no. 78 (fall 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 53 54 current musicology rative construction or reenactment; rather, they rest in both, and are largely dependent on each other. i concentrate on one concept in particular-what i ultimately call "reflexivity"-that enhances musical narrativity when la­ tent within the structure of the work and apprehended by the listener. de­ veloping the idea of musical reflexivity in and of itself necessitates a wider perspective on musical events and presupposes a liberal interpretation of certain spatiotemporal parameters that delineate or influence them. toward this end, i treat reflexivity as a concept that also subsumes the broadly con­ strued phenomenon of "backward causation."! the idea of reflexivity is rooted in a point of view i share with lawrence kramer-namely, that "music can produce narratographic effects only in relationship to strategies of principled disruption: either as those strategies themselves or, reactively, as strategies of containment" (1995:101).2 accord­ ingly, i limit my musical examples to those that contain a high degree of destabilization of musical order, or disruptions. four of my six examples are drawn from haydn's quartets from the late eighteenth century. i chose this repertory because it manifests reflexive properties, or what george edwards has deemed "temporal dyslexia, as though before and after, cause and effect, could be reversed at will" (1998:318). in particular, i examine the exposition from the first movement of haydn's string quartet op. 77, no.1 at greater length to apply these ideas more concretely. musical narrativity redux investigating narrativity, either as a theory or as a principle within any sub­ ject is a complex undertaking. its foundation in history is deeply rooted, and notably so in the renaissance and enlightenment periods, which have sought narrative models to circumscribe historical knowledge and expla­ nation; the non-fiction narrative in particular has often been thought to offer "objective truth" via a configuration of facts and events as observed by the historian (who, in essence, assumes the role of the narrator). twentieth­ century russian formalist and french structuralist schools codified theo­ ries of narrativity, and subsequently many of the humanistic disciplines have recognized various narrative models as vehicles through which time, voice, and plot structure are ordered and made to seem coherent. given the exten­ sive role of narratives in the formation of communal identity, artistic legiti­ macy, and cultural memory, narratives-both as constructs and as concep­ tual frameworks-are thus more often than not difficult to define or even identify. when are narratives misleading or incomplete reductions of a story? what makes narratives fictional, non-fictional, or mere rhetorical strate­ gies? is a narrative's text ever completely finite or authoritative in some episstuart i. raphael temological sense? these are just of a few of the more obvious questions that invariably arise as part of any methodological inquiry into the subject. our experience of narratives as well as the degree of interpretation re­ quired to recognize them also vary and are constrained by the media that convey them. for instance, narratives are made tangible when played out as stage dramas, rendered virtual when expressed as literary works, and left implicit while remaining temporally static when represented pictorially. on a more basic or practical level, i may recall and retell the distinct events that i experienced throughout the course of a day in the form of a narrative simply by connecting the events in a purposeful or meaningful way, by re­ lating the collection of those events to those of a "prototypical day" (e.g., a typical workday), and by establishing a sense of coherence among the events within their total presentation. for the proceeding discussion, i am consid­ ering a narrative to be such an "instance" of a more general story (real or implied) as well as the mechanism by which that story is conveyed. the story's discourse, or mode of presentation, and the story's plot or plotting, which accounts for the method or ordering of events within the presenta­ tion, also regulate narrative structures. 3 following this very general system­ atization, don juan constitutes a story, mozart's don giovanni is its narra­ tive (mozart and da ponte are, albeit arguably, its co-authors), the opera itself is the story's discourse, and mozart's sequencing of events constitutes the plot. such simple denotations are nevertheless hazy at best within the context of instrumental or "absolute" music. most significantly, the identi­ ties of the "players" (i.e., characters, author, or narrator) often blur without the presence of textual cues.4 textless music might also seem to lack a spe­ cific content, and resist being decoded into ordinary propositional state­ ments (e.g., "this music is about x or y"). judging its propositional content to be severely impaired and obscured, peter kivy, for example, has declared that" [absolute 1 music is, for all intents and purposes, propositionally dumb" (1984:159). in questioning the very premise that textless music possesses an appre­ ciable content, the issue of whether such music conforms or is analogous to a narrative structure has at times been obviated. the fundamental suspi­ cion is not necessarily an unreasonable one, but the matter lies outside the scope of this essay. it is more often the case that the wholesale rejection of music's narrative potential has been fueled by placing an undue emphasis on delimiting questions, or by asking them prematurely-specifically, ques­ tions concerning "what is being said?" or "who is speaking?" in music.s we should suspend temporarily the idea that a musical narrative needs to have a tangible content or reify something in order to be understood as a narra­ tive, and postpone the more usual and often imponderable questions in55 56 current musicology volving agency or authorial intention. instead, we should explore narrativity primarily as a process by which music may be, in a more figurative sense, appearing to narrate.6 the specific process that i take up re-evaluates the connectivity of vari­ ous musical elements within a work. this connectivity, though, should not be construed as moving in any single "direction:' specifically, "forward­ moving" connective chains seek goals (examples of which include cadential points reached through harmonic progressions) and in turn, reconcile dis­ crete or discursive aspects of a work; yet "backward-moving" ones may also be latent within a work, and have the power to reveal the origins of more intricate musical material (such as motives or gestures revealed as the sources of more elaborate themes). i suggest that as listeners, we process many works by hearing them through forward-moving progressions, but come to un­ derstand these works retrospectively and more heuristically by perceiving them through a series of backward-moving associations.? the interaction between these multidirectional forces suggests a type of reflexivity in mu­ sic, not unlike the sentence "i introduced myself" implies a reciprocal gravi­ tational pull between the subject ("i") and its reflexive pronoun ("myself"); the reflexive pronoun in such a sentence reinforces and refers back to the subject while reflecting the action of the verb. a similar paradigm-and more to the point, the action contained or suggested within the paradigm-may be gleaned from many passages of tonal music. patrick mccreless proposes such a model in his discussion of narrative designs in music (1988). drawing on roland barthes's theory of five culturally learned codes (i.e., semic, symbolic, referential, proairetic, and hermeneutic) as narrative tools within music, mccreless's observations on the proairetic and hermeneutic codes in particular relate to what i sug­ gest is a part of music's narrative process. in the broadest definition, the proairetic code follows a narrative's plot and governs the sequencing of events in linear time; it encourages a reading strategy in which we establish a chro­ nological ordering and make logical sense out of events. the hermeneutic code, by contrast, entails suspense, implies question and answer, and intro­ duces a puzzle along with an eventual solution; it poses an enigma at the beginning of the story, and prolongs it by delaying and complicating its own solution through a series of narrative devices. texts that capitalize on the proairetic code are "readerly;' whereas those that exploit the hermeneu­ tic code are "writerly" in that they force readers to "write texts" as they go along.s proairetic and hermeneutic codes also imply a reciprocal gravitational pull similar to the concept that i am calling reflexivity; specifically, the herme­ neutic code works outwardly against the story's unfolding and fulfillment stuart i. raphael of closure, but in so doing, offers an even more heuristic understanding of the story as a whole. the concept is applicable to a great deal of tonal music: as we actively pursue the goals of previously heard musical material, our understanding of the work in its totality is shaped by the gradual uncover­ ing of the origins of that material-in essence, our understanding is pro­ cessed retroactively. though reflexivity is essentially a perceived phenom­ enon by the listener, the concept is not exclusively an illusion or even neces­ sarily hypothetical; in some instances, reflexivity may be inscribed in the structure of the musical work in and of itself. to investigate this possibility, i now turn to a more detailed discussion of musical events, key aspects of time that order or shape musical events, and finally backward causation. events unfolding generally speaking, events demarcate the modes of action within a narra­ tive. mieke bal, for instance, defines an event as "the transition from one state to another state, caused or experienced by actors" (1997:182). the lat­ ter part of his definition, however, is overly restrictive for it suggests that events exist only insofar as agents enact or witness them. this is not neces­ sarily the case in that many phenomena could be defined as events without the presence of actors (consider the big bang phenomenon as an obvious example). moreover, claiming that an event entails a transition from one state to another state presupposes that those changes are readily detectable in the event's outward manifestation. this precondition needs further quali­ fication. it could be argued that a calendar week, while comprised of smaller, "transitioning states" (i.e., days of the week), is essentially experienced as though it is one continuous event evolving through a discrete period of time. likewise, a baseball game is experienced as a constant, aggregate event even though it is subjected to smaller, internal transformations (e.g., the individual innings of the game).9 a finer distinction can instead be made between "interior" and "exte­ rior" events; together they bear a hierarchical relationship in establishing order. interior events submit to an ordering of temporally finite elements, whereas exterior events subsume interior events, and generalize or "abstract" their order. a clear example of this is a simple, diatonic chord progression, such as i-iv -v -vi-ii-v -i, that outlines six discrete events-specifically, the chord changes from 1 -7 iv, iv -7 v, etc. (or "transitioning states" if we follow bal's definition). while one event in particular may seem harmoni­ cally conspicuous (i.e., v -7 vi), we are accustomed to systematize this as well as the other smaller, or what 1 am calling interior events, and interpret the progression as a prolongation of i. this prolongation may be regarded 57 58 current musicology as an encompassing exterior event. the beginning measures in the first move­ ment of beethoven's violin sonata op. 12, no.1 offer a more concrete ex­ ample: the opening chord confidently asserts a d major tonality, while the harmony is reinforced as it reverberates through a series of punctuated me­ lodic fragments, or afterthoughts (ex. 1). we hear the five-measure har­ monic progression as the larger, unmediated exterior event within which the central harmonic idea unfolds through time. while obviously critical in establishing an overall melodic contour of the opening gesture, the particu­ lar ordering of these triadic afterthoughts (i.e., the interior events) could be reordered without altering the exterior event. that is to say, as beethoven sketches out a d major harmonic space expansively, it is experienced that way by the listener, and may be explained formally as a spatial event con­ ceptually independent of the individual or progressive ordering of its con­ stituent elements. accordingly, events may be isolated as discrete periods of duration with beginnings and ends, but may also be treated as more glo­ bally conceived phenomena. time may be construed as the framework, measurement, or overall space within which a single event or series of ordered events unfold, and several time orderings may exist simultaneously within a narrative structure. the potential friction between multiple orderings heightens the narrative ef­ fect. 10 more specifically, chronological deviations that arise between any two separate sequential orderings are frequently labeled "anachronies." among the more recognizable anachronies typically used in narrative structures are analepsis (flashback), in which the past is described; and prolepsis (an­ ticipation or flash-forward), in which future events are surmised or ex­ plicitly known. ll many musical works also employ such techniques, or at the very least, give the illusion of doing so. we might consider these and other anachronies within a musical context to be more along the lines of "temporal distortions;' since they not only challenge, but also potentially subvert our sense of more conventional expectations of musical time. 12 jonathan kramer describes several different ways to experience musical time in both tonal and atonal music: goal-directed time, nondirected linear time, multiply-directed linear time, moment time, and vertical time-all of which may be explored through paradigms of linear and nonlinear progressions (1988:57-58). here we should pause to examine kramer's "vertical time" formulation a little further. vertical time threatens a sense of music's forward momentum by halt­ ing rhythmic or temporal articulation and by stretching "a single present into an enormous duration that feels like an instant" (55). "vertical music" gives the impression of near static immobility, and is "that in which nonlinearity predominates over linearity" (57). kramer juxtaposes vertical stuart i. raphael example 1: beethoven, violin sonata op. 12, no.1 (1), mm. 1-5. allegro con brio violin piano time with horizontal time, in which goal directedness characterizes the lat­ ter. vertical music (and the vertical time that distinguishes it) bears a con­ ceptual similarity to the klangflache, or "sound-sheet," which carl dahlhaus describes as "outwardly static but inwardly in constant motion" (1989:307). while dahlhaus reserves the klangflache primarily for nineteenth-century landscape depiction in music and kramer's formulation is by comparison broader in applicability (he identifies a number of minimalist composi­ tions, for instance, as among the more obvious examples of music to pos­ sess vertical time), both might appear to counteract equally the principle of teleological progression in music. vertical time is for the most part a conceptual idea rather than a literal property of a musical structure or syntax, and is best thought of as a meta­ phor to describe a particular kind oflistening experience. yet as i read kramer, we might also hear vertical time implied within more tangible musical phe­ nomena, such as static harmonies, in a manner not unlike horizontal time is intuited within melodies, or sequences of pitches. both vertical time and horizontal time are also interconnected as the interior events within one may be prolonged or condensed into the other. a simple conceptual dia­ gram may help to illustrate the point (fig. 1). measures 15-22 in the third movement of haydn's string quartet op. 77, no.2 capture an arresting moment of vertical time. beginning in mea­ sure 16, the first violin ascends through the first half of an embellished d major scale until the forward propulsion is seemingly thwarted in mm. 1820 (ex. 2). here scale degrees five and six are pulled into the ensemble's "vertical" sonority and expand within moments of stasis, or vertical time. in this particular case, we might rephrase kramer's description of vertical time as "an instant that feels like a duration." several factors enhance this 59 60 current musicology figure 1. diagram comparing vertical and horizontal time. x x x x x harmonic stasis interior events: temporally unordered vertical time x x x x x x x x x prolonging harmony or condensing melody l' '" 71 x x f-xx-7 x x .j,; ~ ~ faggregate of interior events accretion of interior events -7 xxxxxx melodic progression interior events: temporally ordered horizontal time effect within these measures: an emphasis on chordal resonance; a halting of harmonic rhythm; and perhaps most pointedly, an interruption of the first violin's melodic line in m. 19, resulting in an abrupt textural displace­ ment. the harmonies spelled out in these three measures-i, iv, and ii­ dramatize the motion from i to iv and to (a harmonically ambiguous) ii in the first, second, and fourth eighth notes of m. 17 by decelerating the pace of harmonic and rhythmic change, and through its emphasis on a more vertical sonority. vertical time also engages with horizontal time and sug­ gests an otherwise spatial phenomenon throughout these measures. spe­ cifically, the downbeats ofmm.15, 17, 18, and 22 emphasize the d major tonic harmony, and the first violin's pitches of f#, f#, a, and d within the respective measures carry out an unfolding of the d major triad (we could stuart i. raphael example 2: haydn, string quartet op. 77, no.2 (iii), mm. 15-22. r-' ,., ~ n f=3=fa . . fi vi .. .. . . u '--./ .,,~., ~ d i~· .. ~ f p f ff " v2 u .~ ... . . ... . .,,~-:. ~ ~ ~ ~~~ f p f ff -via ~ ~ ~ ... f p f ff vc : .". .. .,;' •• '0 6 .,;.,;.,; ~fp fff also include m. 16 if we separated the pitch, d, from its immediate har­ monic context). once the d major triad is fully consummated in m. 22, we may hear the entire progression in retrospect as an expanse or "spatialization" of vertical time. this triadic region, or what i am calling more specifically an exterior event, engages with the horizontal, forward-moving d major scalar progression in the first violin, which itself follows a sequential and temporal ordering of interior events. a critical question is how we hear, and eventually come to regard, the progression as a single d major exterior event. conceptually, we cannot know that the triad will "resolve" on d until we hear it in m. 22 (though our expectations of stylistic convention relative to this example lead us to be­ lieve that anything other than d is unlikely). the answer lies in our poten­ tial to listen to the progression in a retroactive or backward manner. an example of this· impulse is also suggested within the concluding section of the finale of "the joke" string quartet op. 33, no.2, in which haydn con­ fuses the listener by ostensibly deleting musical material and creating mul­ tiple temporal ellipses between false endings (ex. 3). during these moments of silence or "omission," haydn inscribes a level of disorientation seemingly within the music itself and in turn asks the listener either to fill in time and seek forward-moving continuity by splicing musical material, or to suspend time and reach some sort of resolution through backward-moving retro­ spection. the listener's response may ultimately be to do both as the two seemingly contradictory impulses work synergistically in a multidirectional, or reflexive, pull. in a manner of speaking, then, time in this example seems to progress and retrogress simultaneously. kramer also gives consideration to the potential for forward as well as 61 62 current musicology example 3: haydn, string quartet op. 33, no.2 (iv), mm. 153-72. 1\ presto _ _ ... ;. .. 1'--:". 1 ----. ~ 1 vi u . ~ ~ g.p. gp 1\ v2 t..i i .. via g.p. g.p. vc : ... 161 1\ ~"'" 3 ;. ~ ... ;. .. 1'-_. .. u ,.. ~ g.p. g.p. pp 1\ t..i .. i '---" ~ .. pp g.p. ~ --:-: ... pp backward listening, and proposes that musical meaning arises from our ability to listen both "forwardly" and "backwardly" (1988:168). though backward listening in particular is essentially a conceptual listening strat­ egy, at times it may also be established by more explicit musical syntax. consider for example the first movement of mozart's string quartet k. 387, one of the "haydn" quartets. the gestures that close the exposition (mm. 52-55) return near the conclusion of the development section (mm. 97100), and function as musical bookends. in between these boundaries, the ordering of harmonic material that begins the development section essen­ tially reverses toward the development's end. after the move from d major to its dominant (mm. 56-58), e minor oscillates with its own dominant (mm. 59-63), and finally leads into a descending fifths sequence of domi­ nant seventh chords (e, a, d, g, and c in mm. 64-72). following an exstuart i. raphael tended section in e minor, the initial passage is presented "backwardly" as the descending fifths sequence becomes an ascending fifth sequence of domi­ nant seventh chords (g, d, and a in mm. 90-92), returns to the exchange between e minor and its dominant (mm. 93-96), and concludes with the initial statement in d major (m. 97). in essence, mozart gives the impres­ sion of backward listening throughout a significant portion of the develop­ ment section, during which the progression as a whole unfolds almost in the manner of a harmonic palindrome. the effect of exiting the develop­ ment section is also presented, and in some guise, "known" to us prior to its occurrence, and soon after this exit is in fact heard, we acquire a recontextualized understanding of the beginning of the development once later events give earlier ones a rationale. causal rewind the development section in mozart's k. 387 outlines what i consider an instance of backward causation in music, problematic though the formula­ tion may seem. 13 for my purposes, i require two general conditions to de­ fine an occurrence of backward causation: that a future event appears to us or is implied before some present or past event; and that experiencing a future event influences our understanding of a present or past event. con­ sider a real life analogy to illustrate the first condition: if i walk from point a to point b, i could easily say that walking from point a to point b caused the effect of reaching point b. but i could also say that if my goal to arrive at point b precedes walking there from point a, then point b as an intended effect precedes the act of walking there. in this sense, i know the effect (point b) prior to its cause (walking from point a to point b). the second condi­ tion is more interpretive in nature. simply put, if i state that i will have a kitchen filled with groceries (a future event), this then presupposes that i will need to purchase those groceries (a "nascent past" event). an implied future event in this case influences and gives shape to a present or past event. 14 in narration and knowledge, arthur danto explains that: we are always revising our beliefs about the past, and to suppose them 'fixed' would be unfaithful to the spirit of historical inquiry. in principle, any belief about the past is liable to revision, just in the same way perhaps as any belief about the future. actually we are sometimes more certain about the future than we are about the past. at a given moment i am far more certain where a falling pine-cone will land that i am with regard to where it fell from. (1985:145) i do not wish to claim that backward causation in music can necessarily 63 64 current musicology example4a: haydn, string quartet op. 33, no.5 (i), mm. 1-10. vivace assai " u =' ... ~ rrn ,~ vi : ... 0) .~ ;ocof 1'-1...1...1 r ... . ~ pp .ff " rt'"t'"1 ......... r-t"t"1 v2 : ... ~ 0) pp~ ~ pocof ~ i·~ ie ff /"'t"t'"i via : .. pocof -........ ~ ff pp rrn rt'"t'"1 ........... rm vc : : i • i u-i..j pp pocof .ff be proven; it may be at times only inferred, or offered as an interpretive strategy when listening to music. backward "causal listening;' moreover, engages with a forward causal listening in a reciprocal manner that con­ notes the concept of reflexivity, and my more modest claim is to suggest that musical narrativity is enhanced once the listener is encouraged to for­ mulate reflexive causal chains of musical events. is a reflexive causal chain within a narrative framework may involve the following conceptualizations, (arrows pointing to the right represent a forward direction and left ones a backward direction): (implied) future event ~ present or past event ~ future event (intended) effect ~ cause ~ effect (anticipated) goal ~ origin ~ goal (intimated) closure ~ openings or beginnings -7 closure the first movement of haydn's string quartet op. 33, no.5 establishes a reflexive causal chain among the repeated closing gestures interspersed throughout the movement. the gesture's first appearance at the movement's outset (mm. 1-2) is ambiguous and inconclusive because its two measures outline a seemingly displaced cadential move from v to i without any prepa­ ration (ex. 4a). kofi agawu suggests that "when a composer begins a piece with a closing gesture, he may well be hinting at one aspect of its rhetorical structure that is to be subsequently played with" (1991:59). this is clearly the case here as haydn entices the listener to proceed in a forward-moving direction so as to clarify or justify the purpose of the device, while at the same time to progress in a backward-moving direction so as to uncover the cause of the effect, or future event, which has already appeared to us in stuart i. raphael example 4b: haydn, string quartet op. 33, no.5 (i), mm. 29-32. ~il ii .. h". ,. fl~ ~ .fl'. vi u il ii ~ ------v2 u ~ ~ -& -,j .. .. -.r via i i i i ~ i i i vc ""' example 4c: haydn, string quartet op. 33, no.5 (i), mm. 100-03. fl ii ~ ---.. vl u .... .. ~ f fl ii v2 u ~-,j. ... .. -9 .~ ...... ~ f ----------via i ~ f i i i i vc f some guise. the irony, however, is that as each cadence subsequently ap­ pears, it becomes increasingly "problematic." measures 1-2 sound abrupt not only because they begin with the unanticipated dominant harmony, but also because of the dominant's lack of preparation. measures 7-10 seek to reconcile this issue as the v-i cadence is introduced by a sub dominant preparation of vi and ii in mm. 7 and 8. the more complete progression is repeated in mm. 29-32, reinforced this time by the tonic and the "domi­ nant" of ii in m. 29 (ex. 4b). once we enter the development section, how­ ever, what appeared to be moving toward a "resolution" of the closing ges65 66 current musicology example 4d: haydn, string quartet op. 33, no.5 (i), mm. 180-91. " u 2 ix> ... ..jx) it'm ~ vi ... oj -,,-. . ~----~ 7 t ~ pocof .... . ~ " 2 ix> ,..,......, ix> ...,..,.. v2 ... . .. -----' u ; ~ .,;~ .4 i";·· pocof 2 .......... .. vla .. ~ ........... i ~ i.j,.j..i pp pocof 2 rm .......... rm vc : .,; ......... l..1..l..i pp pocof ture becomes even more complicated. measures 100-03 "distort" the effect of the v-i cadence by introducing it with the unforeseen harmonies onvi and min mm. 100 and 101 (ex. 4c). thus, the arrival of the two-measure pause just before the recapitulation (m. 180) presents a period of confusion and uncertainty, yet paradoxically, a moment of clarity (ex. 4d).as we were seeking a rationalization for the initial closing gesture, we are drawn back to, and possibly made to accept more fully, its original straightforwardness. these multidirectional pulls-toward (de ) familiarization-and the causal chains that are created as part of the listening process, ultimately confirm the movement's reflexivity. a case study: haydn's string quartet op. 77, no.1 i now turn my attention to the exposition in the first movement of haydn's string quartet op. 77 , no.1 to consider how the principal concepts covered so far-exterior and interior events, backward causation, and the more in­ clusive concept of reflexivity-contribute to the piece's sense of narrativity (ex. 5). charles rosen observes that "haydn is interested in the directional power of his material, or, what is much the same thing, its dramatic possi­ bilities. he found ways of making us hear the dynamic force implicit in a musical idea" (1997:129). in this sense, op. 77, no.1 is exemplary-the music proceeds in both a linear progression and in a more circular unfold­ ing of the material; in the process, the exposition is gradually revealed to be a self-contained unit that dramatizes the conventional necessity of its own repeat. stuart i. raphael the entire exposition may be understood as a linear progression from g major to d major, and at the same time, as a retrogressive preparation for the g major closing gesture, intimated at the beginning of the movement and announced more emphatically in mm. 13-14. this linear progression is constituted by the sequential ordering of interior events, and may be rep­ resented summarily by 1-7 v/v -7 v. the retrogressive preparation is more spatially oriented, suggests vertical time (or a "duration that feels like an instant"), and forms an expansive or more temporally fluid exterior event, represented by i ~ de-emphasis of v ~ v. the two, multidirectional pulls operate synergistically, creating a sense of reflexivity within the exposition. the forward-moving causal chain that may be traced throughout the exposition is almost self-evident, and therefore should need only a general description to account for it. it is steered largely by the three broad types of temporal progressions that edward lippman outlines in the philosophy and aesthetics of music: sheer continuity or succession; motivation or impul­ sion; and structural necessity or consecution (1999:43). the march topic, in particular, provides an overt and additional rationale for the music's strong sense of continuity, whereas its motivation is maintained by its clear rhyth­ mic pulse as well as its distinct sense of momentum. 16 aspects concerning structural necessity obviously relate to the exposition's function within a conventional, late eighteenth-century sonata form; here the initial key area­ in this case g major-will invariably modulate to its secondary key area, or the dominant harmony of d major in this instance. a backward-moving causal chain is implied as d major is to some ex­ tent weakened, while at the same time g major is subtly reinforced along the way as the exposition draws to a close before its anticipated repeat. more specifically, throughout the transition between the two key areas (mm. 1427) d major is established rather unconvincingly. the vi 16 cadence in mm. 18-19 is notably weak, and the following cadence falls on d minor (m. 21, in which the d minor harmony is prolonged until m. 25). while d ma­ jor arrives more forcefully in the second (mono)thematic area (m. 27), the emphatic chords that worked so effectively to sustain the forward momen­ tum in the first theme have exploded in retrospect and become dispersed into mere shards in the second violin and viola. while forward momentum may still in fact exist, it is notably diminished. the second theme requires two additional measures of dominant preparation (mm. 31 and 32), re­ solves to the tonic on a weak, third beat (m. 37), and withholds the tonic for two more measures until it resolves more conclusively in m. 39. the decep­ tive cadence that soon follows (mm. 42-43 and 43-44) further elides and weakens d major while adding rhetorical weight to g major in m. 44. the passage in mm. 46-54 attempts to dissolve d major as the triads 67 current musicology example 5. haydn, string quartet op. 77, no.1 (i), mm 1-17. allegro moderato 1\ u .--:' ir~ }r~ ~ vi u i~ ....:; ~ -p mezza voce p 1\ ~ ,... v2 u r~ '!' '!' '!' '!' '!' '!' '!' ~ f;~~ f p via • :1 1 1 1 1 1 1 .. fp fp vc : . fp fp 6 1\ u ~~ ie ie t.. ~ itititfl~ . .;. ~ .;. .;. .;. u mezz voce if p if p if -===: 1\ ~ . .;. ~ u •••• • • • • • ·~·if 1 --if f:.p if p -===: ::f:. r~ ~ ~-r ) if~ if ~fl f:. ~ i~ : if if if 12i\u"~ .--:' }r~ }r~ .--:' u ? ....:; if m.v. 1\ u --u '= ~. ~'!''!''!' '!' .'!' h~ ~ ~ ~ ~ .... if fp u .. '-.-1 fp if : " -----.. if fp 68 stuart i. raphael example 5 (cont.). haydn, string quartet op. 77, no.1 (i), mm 18-29. 18 'fj ~ }r~ ~~ rn 3 ir1 u . ~. 77 i...i.j 3 3 f 3 3 m " u 3_ m . .. ... " t.j 11# # # #~ . ":" 7 3 i...i.j f 3 .~ .~ ~ "----' f ~ : i f 22 fj u " 1'"11. ,..;,..,~"-----.m" .;... ~"-----m. ~ ~"~ t.j -3 3 ~"!'~ .. ........ 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 " n, 3 3 .. 3 3 .. 3 t.j 3 31o..1..j 3 3 '-..../ .-../ ·11# ~ .-../ ·11#· ~ .-../ 3 '1:' ~ ----. ~ . ~ ~ : 26 fj u 1i. ~ rt""1 3 ~. u .. m.v. 3 3 " u 3 j i j i jt1l t.j ·11# m.v. '-. '--" '-. '-" ~ n. !ifr.\ r.\ r.\ r.\ f\ r.\ r.\ r.\ r.\ r.\ r.\ r.\ m.v. ~ ,...~ • ~jr .~. jr.~ : v 69 70 current musicology example 5 (cont.). haydn, string quartet op. 77, no.1 (i), mm 30-41. 34 38,., oj ,., oj : ~ f ~ r""""1 f'---.:/ ~ f f 3 cresco ~ f...:-. ,.4., 3 cresco cresco ~ f ~ -----~ 3 3 3 3 ~ . ····iroi· ~ .". #~ ~ 3 rn."';"" 3 -----stuart i. raphael example 5 (cont.). haydn, string quartet op. 77, no.1 (i), mm 42-54 . 42 " ~ ~ 1= #~ ~ #~ p. ,...#~~,... ? " . . ~~~. ~,...~ .. oj 3 if 3 3 3 il 3 3 .;!.., . ~ ~~ "'-~ ~ u ' .. ~. 3 if ~ ~ ,~ ---~ i if ~ ~ ,... : if n,,~ # # #. _#~# ~,...~. ##~~~# ##. .,...~ • • # # oj i,..i,.j u-j 3 3 3 3 3 3 ~ 3 3 3 u-j 3 3 3 3 3 3 il ~ i~ "" oj ~ ~ .;. ~~ .;. ,11'# ~ -1 ,.-i?# 1 : 51 il ~ h. ,...~ • • # # h. ""h .. # # b.,... .. # . r-t"1 3 u 3 u-j 3 u-j 3 3 3 ........ 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 p 3 f 3 " oj r r r h· • p f : 71 72 current musicology example 5 (cont.). haydn, string quartet op. 77, no.1 (i), mm 55-62 . 55~ 3 .~ fl.,~~ ~ .;, 3 ',~ u . .. 3 ~ ,:,,' 3 '" fl-~ r-~. r+, u .~ 3 u r"""'1 t. ~ . t. . 3 i.j.j f "~~ 3 " fl~. " fl: 71':'" .....3 71':'" .....f 591\ fl. .;,~~ ~ .;, ~. ~ ... .. ~ : u u-l '" ~ r3 ~. j : u . u..j . .t.~. 3 ~. ~~. ~ i : 3 """-i....j .. ~.:~~ : : 3 .. begin to break apart into smaller triplet fragments in the first violin. after a series of cadences on d, as well as a deceptive cadence in m. 50, each triadic triplet with the exception of the g major ones that began mm. 51 and 52 loses the fifth degree of its chord. g major is further emphasized in mm. 51-53 as each statement is approached by a series of dominant harmonies (i.e., e -7 a -7 d -7 g). this harmonic motion from d to g deepens in mm. 55-56, and does so once again in mm. 58-59 as the rhythms acceler­ ate. in a series of gestures that anticipate a strong closing statement in d major, the ensemble begins to coalesce into the same unified rhetorical voice that launched the exposition. the anticipated d major chord on the down­ beat of m. 62, however, is incomplete as it lacks a fifth. \-vhile the subse­ quent chord is complete, it falls on a relatively weak, third beat, and is im­ mediately absorbed into the initial g major closing gesture as part of a pro­ nounced cadence from d to g contained by the exposition's repeat. as lisstuart i. raphael teners, then, we come to understand only in hindsight that the forward­ moving progression from g major to a subsidiary goal of d major was op­ erating reflexively in connection with a backward-moving progression from d major to a primary goal of g major; or to put it in a different way, d major proved to be merely an interior event on its way back into g major­ the larger and more temporally fluid exterior event of the exposition. one could argue that op. 77, no.1 simply dramatizes the inherently circular mechanism that underlies many tonal compositions; that is to say, most tonal music that begins in one key will surely return to it at some critical point. following this line of thought, the exposition of this quartet merely states the obvious. one could even go a step further by concluding that tonality is op. 77, no.1 's story, tonality's "ordinariness" is its narrative, and haydn himself is the narrator. but such matters concerning content and agency while suggestive, if not otherwise significant in establishing the quartet's narrativity, are tangible insofar as the listener can outline a narra­ tive process that makes their recognition possible. moreover, though the rudiments of narrativity may be revealed within a number of musical works-as the foregoing musical examples have ideally demonstrated-the listener ultimately bears the responsibility of (re ) creating narratives and fill­ ing in perceived narrative gaps if and when necessary. i have drawn some additional perspective for my interpretation of op. 77, no.1 as well as the preceding musical examples from edward cone. in his essay, "three ways of reading a detective story-or a brahms inter­ mezzo," cone theorizes that multiple readings of a (literary) story yield dif­ ferent results. in a "first reading;' following cone, the reader is simply motivated to find out what happens in a story, and processes the events while they are recounted in chronological order; a "second reading" entails an analysis of the work's structure, and treats the story as a static art object that can be contemplated timelessly; finally, a "third reading;' though simi­ lar to the first, is characterized by a more informed appreciation of the story, while at the same time suppressing knowledge of key events in order to preserve a necessary level of interest (1989:77-81). cone continues that a second reading in music entails hearing a composition atemporally, and arriving at a "spatially oriented view of the composition as a whole ... [where the listener 1 may have to separate adjacent ideas and juxtapose distant ones in his attempt to uncover all the relationships governing the musical struc­ ture" (85). this conceptualization in particular bears a distinct similarity to how i characterize the listener hearing smaller-scale or interior musical events successively, but comprehending larger-scale or exterior musical events col­ lectively. in op. 77, no.1, more specifically, the consecutive hearings of the exposition (i.e., the initial presentation, its repeat, and the eventual reca73 74 current musicology pitulation) would seem to correspond ideally to the three respective read­ ings that cone outlines. the subject of musical narrativity is clearly vast and open for much debate, and i have chosen to explore only one means by which its many complexities are unraveled. ideally, a new spectrum of issues will have emerged throughout the course of this essay. it is not insignificant, for ex­ ample, that the foregoing discussion presupposes and is predicated on mu­ sic exclusively from the tonal repertory, and that the tonal idiom by design generally accords such music the sense of anticipation and retrospection on which the concepts i have outlined depend. yet i leave the issue of whether non-tonal music is potentially responsive to any of these theories or ap­ proaches for a later discussion. my objective has instead been to recast narrativity as a process that encourages a dynamic listening strategy­ namely, one that reevaluates how musical events unfold through time, are connected to each other in unanticipated and innovative ways, and are or­ ganized in some totalizing manner. at its core, musical narrativity may be thought of as a wide-ranging metaphor for a sense of order, coherence, con­ nectivity, and in many cases, ingenuity within a musical work. what i have called music's reflexivity is therefore neither a rule nor a stipulation in reaf­ firming the potential for narrativity in music; rather it is a concept that ultimately enhances it. recognizing this connection, in turn, may promote a more nuanced listening experience and a deeper understanding of many works from the tonal repertory. notes among the handful of people who gave me some valuable input into this essay, i would especially like to thank two: giorgio biancorosso, whose interest paved the way for some energetic and highly productive conversations on the topic, and katherine dacey-tsuei, whose critical eye and steadfast encouragement throughout the essay's transformations helped improve its clarity and reinvigorate its original sense of purpose. 1. debating the competing philosophies of causation would be an exhaustive undertaking and ultimately lead this essay too far astray. theories of causation (including those put forth by hume and kant) are also complex, and vary in degrees of epistemic certainty or applica­ bility. for present purposes, i suggest that causation be understood as a stronger and more necessary connection between events than coincidence, contiguousness, and contingency might imply. 2. i limit the present discussion, however, to using the terms narrative and narrativity (the latter designating the theory or dynamic principle underlying the former) and bypass the more intricate term "narratography;' which lawrence kramer defines as "the practice of writing through which narrative and narrativity are actualized, the discursive performance through which stories get told" (1995:100). 3. my use of certain elements related to a narrative generally follows the definitions that stuart i. raphael mieke bal provides. for more concise definitions of this terminology, including aspects of text, fabula, and actors, see bal (1997:5-10). 4. edward cone maintains that while persona and agent are indeed applicable to absolute music as verbally unspecified and unidentifiable concepts, these "characters" may be perma­ nent or temporary, unitary or implicit, or else leading or subordinate (1974:94-96). 5. the influence of poststructuralism and postmodernism in general has undoubtedly had much to do with the abandonment of narrative paradigms by some scholars; this important issue, however, also lies outside the scope of the present discussion. 6. jean-jacques nattiez offers some interesting thoughts on music's narrative semblance. he begins with the idea that the composer is speaking to us, further suggests that music has a "prenarrative quality of experience," and concludes that a (musical) story is brought out of its inchoate state through the listener's "narrative impulse." though nattiez also maintains that a narrative link cannot be inscribed in musical syntax, he also concedes by implication that a musical narrative exists in some rudimentary form prior to the listener's recognition or "manufacturing" of it. see nattiez (1990:242-45,250). for a related perspective, see an­ thony newcomb (1987-88:65). here, newcomb characterizes musical narrativity not only by virtue of the listener's drive to ascribe plots to works, but also by the potential to deduce and identify"paradigmatic plot" configurations-the standard or conventional series of func­ tional events in a prescribed order. 7. this idea has been suggested implicitly by edward cone (1989:77-93). 8. for a concise summary of this process, see mccreless (1988:6-15). 9. see arthur c. danto (1985:147) for additional discussion about the "fairly chaotic" use of the term "event" (e.g., applying it to occurrences of "null duration"). 10. this is frequently the case when a significant disparity exists between a narrative's "sto~y time" and "discourse time" (the former refers to the overall time span of plot events, whereas the latter corresponds to the designated time within which events are told, specific to the particular text). see seymour chatman (1978:62-84) for additional perspective on this. for a probing and more philosophical consideration of temporal organization, including story time, narrative time, and historical time, see paul ricoeur (1980:170-71). 11. for a detailed description, see gerard genette (1980:48-79). 12. foreshadowing is a particularly commonplace device and used rather explicitly in the opening movements of haydn's string quartets op. 76, no.1 and op. 50, no.4. in the latter example, haydn outlines an fn minor triad, pauses on ~, and continues a downward scalar descent through two octaves in the first violin to reach l ten measures before the close of the movement, haydn resumes and expands upon this gesture with an increased rhythmic urgency. 13. karol berger, for one, states that "causation is an asymmetrical or, more precisely, irre­ versible, relationship in which time plays an indispensable role: an earlier a causes a later b, but b does not cause a, it results from it" (1992:460). 14. in his discussion of backward causation specifically, graham oddie proposes that a back­ ward causal link would allow for a later cause to "fix" an earlier effect; that is to say, "there may be a past event the occurrence of which is not yet fixed, but will be fixed by some future event" (1990:82). the implications for oddie's proposition in music should be apparent, much like cone's suggestion that "a single chord can have no function [in which its] func­ tions merge only during the course of a progression, and our identification of them can shift according to what the progression reveals" (1989:86). 75 76 current musicology 15. seymour chatman, in fact, claims that causation in a narrative is either overt (i.e., ex­ plicit) or covert (i.e., implicit) (1978:45). i would concede, however, that backward causa­ tion is undoubtedly more covert than overt. 16. for a brief discussion of the march topic, see leonard g. ratner (1980:16). references agawu, v. kofi. 1991. playing with signs: a semiotic interpretation of classic music. princeton: princeton university press. bal, mieke. 1997. narratology: introduction to the theory of narrative. toronto: university of toronto press. berger, karol. 1992. narrative and lyric: fundamental poetic forms of composition. in musical humanism and its legacy: essays in honor of claude v. palisca, edited by nancy kovaleffbaker and barbara russano hanning, 451-70. stuyvesant, ny: pendragon press. chatman, seymour. 1978. story and discourse: narrative structure in fiction and film. ithaca: cornell university press. cone, edward t. 1974. the composer's voice. berkeley: university of california press. ____ . 1989. three ways of reading a detective story-or a brahms intermezzo. in music: a view from delft. selected essays, edited by robert p. morgan, 77-93. chicago: university of chicago press. dahlhaus, carl. 1989. nineteenth-century music, translated by j. bradford robinson. berke­ ley: university of california press. danto, arthur c. 1985. narration and knowledge. new york: columbia university press. edwards, george. 1998. papa doc's recap caper: haydn and temporal dyslexia. in haydn studies, edited by w. dean sutcliffe, 291-320. cambridge: cambridge university press. genette, gerard. 1980. narrative discourse: an essay in method, translated by jane e. lewin. ithaca: cornell university press. kivy, peter. 1984. solfnd and semblance: reflections on musical representation. princeton: princeton university press. kramer, jonathan d. 1988. the time of music: new meanings, new temporalities, new lis­ tening strategies. new york: schirmer books. kramer, lawrence. 1995. classical music and postmodern knowledge. berkeley: university of california press. lippman, edward a. 1999. the philosophy and aesthetics of music. lincoln: university of nebraska press. mccreless, patrick. 1988. roland barthes's s/z from a musical point of view. in theory only 10 (7): 1-29. nattiez, jean-jacques. 1990. can one speak of narrativity in music? journal of the royal musicassociation 115: 240-57. newcomb, anthony. 1987-88. schumann and late eighteenth-century narrative strate­ gies. 19th century music 11: 164-74. addie, graham. 1990. backwards causation and the permanence of the past. synthese 85 (1): 71-93. ratner, leonard g. 1980. classic music: expression, form, and style. new york: schirmer books. ricoeur, paul. 1980. narrative time. critical inquiry 7 (1): 169-90. rosen, charles. 1997. the classical style: haydn, mozart, beethoven. new york: w. w. norton. report from oxford: the thirteenth international congress of byzantine studies dimitrije stifanovic t he thirteenth international congress of byzantine studies was held, for the first time in england, at oxford, from september 5 to 10. some seven hundred participants from twenty-seven countries were present. the opening ceremony in the university shcldonian theatre began with the traditional processions of the vice-chancellor and the lord mayor. after the obligatory speeches a special item, the festive prelude jor organ and voices, composed for the occasion by the doyen of oxford composers and vicepresident of the congress, dr. egon wellesz, was performed. although written in a modern, tonal idiom, the prelude introduces in its middle part a 13thcentury unison byzantine melismatic setting of the magnificat. played by the organist of !'iew college, dr. david lumsden, and sung by a number of oxford undergraduates, the festive prelude contributed to the solemn opening of the congress. among the various sections (archaeology, history, history of art, literature, theology, law, demography, numismatics, etc.), musicology was more fully represented than previously: two main and three supplementary papers and six communications were read. the main and supplementary papers were printed and distributed before the beginning of the congress. professor oliver strunk, who succeeded professor varsten hoeg as director of monumenta musicae by;:::antinae, wrote a comprehensive and revealing main paper on "byzantine music in the light of recent research and publication." the paper reviewed the principal achievements of the last sixteen years under three headings: the melismatic repertory, the byzantine hirmologion, and the relationship of east and west in music. in his introduction professor strunk described the results of the expeditions to jerusalem and mount sinai carried out with the cooperation of the library of congress in washington under the auspices of the american schools of oriental research and the american foundation for the study of man, in which more than 1,750 greek manuscripts were microfilmed and placed at the disposal of interested scholars. the study of the melismatic repertory developed greatly after the appearance in 1956 of volume iv of la serie principale of monumenta musicae by;:::antinae, the magnificent psaltikon (contacarium ashburnhamense) of the biblioteca laurenziana in florence, written at grottaferrata in the year 1289, and of dr. wellesz's definitive paper and critical transcription of the akathistos hymn (mon. mus. by;:::., ser. transcripta ix, copenhagen 1957). since 1960 seven scholars from different countries have published the results of their investigations into the melismatic chant, the most recent being the thesis of the young danish scholar christian thodberg, der by;:::antinische alleluiarion::;yklus (mon. mus. by;:::., ser. subsidia vii, copenhagen 1966). d1mitri1e stefanovic is completing his dissertation on the tradition of the sticheraria manuscripts for presentation to oxford university. 177 concerning the syllabic repertory, the distinction was pointed out between the sticherarion, whose melodic tradition is extraordinarily stable, and the hirmologion, which developed independently and whose melodic tradition rapidly deteriorated. while the contents of the former were settled by the middle of the ii th century, those of the latter were closely connected with the development and revision of the office books. from an examination of the hirmologion professor strunk arrived at a number of far-reaching conclusions: that the author of the texts of the hirmoi was not necessarily also the composer of the melodies to which they were sung; that as a general rule the texts of our hirmoi are of uncertain authorship and hence of uncertain date; that the same is true of their melodies; and that we have no real way of knowing whether any of our sets or sequences are made up of hirmoi originally designed to follow one another. the third part of the main paper discussed the comparative study of eastern and western chants. while for the syllabic repertory further research calls for close collaboration between the musicologist and the philologist, in this comparative field the "considerable interdisciplinary teamwork" of musicologists and experts in comparative liturgical history is essential. despite a number of studies "we know no more about the relation of the western neumes to the eastern than we did sixty years ago, unless it is that the problem is more complicated than we at first supposed." a considerable advance in the comparative study of the two christian chants was made by wellesz's eastern elements in western chant (mon. mus. byz., ser. subsidia ii, copenhagen 1947). more recently this field has benefited greatly from the important contributions of michel huglo (paris), who has traced a number of greek melodies in various western hymns. among new publications on various aspects of byzantine music, two further editions appeared within the monumenta musicae byzantinae series in 1966. one is the useful large palaeographical atlas specimina notationum antiquiorum (sir. principale vii) prepared and introduced by o. strunk, containing nearly two hundred reproductions from more than twenty libraries together with an instructive study of the so-called coislin stage of byzantine notation. the other publication is the thesis of the secretary of monumenta musica byzantinae, jorgen raasted, intonation formulas and modal signatures in byzantine musical manuscripts (sir. subsidia vii). the first supplementary paper was given by professor giuseppe schiro (rome) on "problemi hirmologhici." professor schiro discussed the contents of the' hirmologion, arrangements of the kanons, and their authors. the other supplementary paper by michel huglo on "relations musicales entre byzance et [,occident" was divided into two parts: (a) pieces transmitted in greek by vvestem manuscripts and (b) latin pieces translated from greek. huglo lists places in the vvest where until the 12th century a number of texts translated from the greek were sung, viz., in ravenna, in benevento, in rome, and also at st. denis in france. in the first category, i.e., pieces transmitted in greek by western manuscripts, huglo quotes, among others, the following, which constitute' the .hissa greca: doxa en ipsistis, pisteuo eis en a, agios, 0 amnos, doxa patri. it appears that, generally speaking, the original melodies have been well-preserved. of the other group, latin pieces translated from greek, the most important are 178 the antiphons veterem hominem in mode seven, which gained great importance in the west whilc almost none at all in the east. the translation took place in 802 to satisfy a desire of charlemagne. another interesting discovery is the greek acclamation dolla ra £try, whose melody served as a model for kyrie xiv of the vatican gradual edition. of this group a general conclusion allows melodic dependence on the original if the latin text is a complete, not partial, translation of the greek. also, similarities are greater where a hymn was officially adopted by the west in order to imitate the eastern rite. the greek pieces and those translated from the greek did not represent an exotic note in the repertory of the west but in fact bear witness to the profound cultural and spiritual unity which existed between east and west. the other main paper, "the influence of the byzantine chant on the music of the slavic countries," was given by professor milos velimirovic of yale university. it was an unfortunate coincidence that at the same time another main paper, a collective work by three soviet scholars on the related subjcct, "the relations between ancient russia and byzantium in the 11 th and the first half of the 12th centuries," was being delivered. this in itself would not have provoked comment had the third soviet author, z. v. udaljcova, whose contribution was concerned with russian-byzantine cultural relations not written about russian church music. mme. udaljcova made the assertion that whereas byzantine influence was dominant in the spheres of theology, ecclesiastical organization, and liturgy, its influence on church music was limited. paraphrasing some russian musicologists, she stressed that the melody of the russian znamenny chant differed from the byzantine, that it was in many ways original, that for its tunes it drew on the precious treasury of folk, even pagan, slavic melos. moreover, the author stated that the comparison of the (russian) kriuki and kondakarian notations with the greek notation "shows" that both russian systems were "original aspects of the russian notation." since these statements represented a completely opposite position to that taken in the musicological section, the musicologists expressed their dissatisfaction to the program organizers for arranging the two papers to be presented simultaneously. it is to be hoped that at future congresses and conferences not only soviet historians, but musicologists as well, will take the opportunity to present the results of their investigations. the study of byzantine music obtained international recognition for the first time at the second congress for byzantine studies held in belgrade in 1927. it was only at the sixth congress in paris that the late mme. palikarovaverdeil presented her conclusions about the influence of byzantine chant on the music of the slavic countries. after outlining some of the characteristics of byzantine music, professor velimirovic went on to discuss the corresponding features of slavic chant and their relation to byzantine originals. the comparison of two slavic versions of a hymn with the greek prototype clearly showed that the second slavic version, a correction of the first, is much closer to the greek original, both in number of syllables and in notational signs. there is no longer the slightest doubt that the notation of slavic musical manuscripts is of byzantine origin. "the honour of being the first one to say so belongs to the founder of russian musicological studies in this field, the priest dimitry razumovsky, who stated this in so many words ninety-nine years ago." the first among western scholars to study the notation in slavic 179 manuscripts was h.j.w. tillyard in his article twenty-one years ago. professor kenneth levy (princeton university) was the first in the \nest to start unraveling the difficult problem of the so-called kondakarian notation. with some additional results contributed by constantine floros (hamburg), "tentative counterpoint transcriptions" of the kondakarian notation may be attempted. :-.jext were discussed notational correspondences in byzantine and slavic manuscripts and the important findings of professor strunk. the speaker came to tht' conclusion that it is now possible, by means of identical melodic formulac in both versions, to obtain partial transcriptions of some segments of the chant. furthermore, with a "vocabulary of formulae" it may eventuallv be possiblt' to transcribe parts of individual chants in slavic manuscripts for which no byzantine counterpart is known to exist. a considerablt' contribution to further rt'search is made by professor yelimirovic's revealing analysis of two hymns, stichera, in honor of the first martyrs of the russian orthodox church, ss. boris and gleb (11 th century). part of the hymns in the notations of seven slavic and four byzantine music manuscripts from different countries are reproduced in the paper. the differences between the various versions are few, while the overall resemblance is striking. moreover, velimirovic's conclusive discovery that the second of those hymns is not a hymn with a melody of its own but a direct borrowing of another hymn with a melody composed for a different feast is of great importance for further research in this field. despite a certain degree of creativity among the slavs in the 11 th century (some words not found in greek were added to the otherwise litt'fal translations), velimirovic concludes that in musical performance tht' texts were adapted to byzantine melodies. ho\\"ever, in the process of adaptation to the slavic texts these byzantine melodies retained their structural organization and their basic melodic vocabulary. in other words, russian chant had its beginnings in the musical practices of byzantium in the 11th century. the supplementary paper on the same subject ("the influence of byzantine chant on the music of the slavic countries") was given by the author of this survey. while the main paper dealt with russian, the supplementary paper concentrated on bulgarian and serbian chant for which, apart from two bulgarian manuscripts, no other musical document from the earlier period has been preserved. a new theory was advanced that in certain cases, notably in some greek and slavic hymns for the service of st. clement of ochrid (died july 27, 916), it seems possible to restore their melodies. the analysis of the greek hymns has shown that some of them arc in fact borrowings from, or partial or complete adaptations of, byzantine hymns composed by earlier authors for other saints. these hymns occur in other manuscripts with nc-umes; the possibility therefore presents itself that their tunes also might ha\'e been taken over in the service of st. clement of ochrid. moreover, the south slavonic translations follow the greek word order, grammatical construction, division into phrases, number of syllables, and accents. by finding the greek prototypes with neumes, upon which other greek hymns and their slavonic translations for the service ofst. clement ofochrid (without neumes) were adapted, and by superimposing the transcribed melodies onto the corresponding texts, it is hoped that the musical restoration may be achieved. in 180 this way we may be on the road to restoring the chant for which no other contemporary musical evidence is available. a number of hymns, and indeed whole services, for slavic, bulgarian, and serbian saints offer promising matt'rial for such an investigation. of the nine communications planned, only six were given due to the inability of three authors to attend. markos dragoumis (athens) spoke on the music of the greeks on corsica. the musical director of the monastery of grottaferrata, dom bartolomeo di salvo, discussed the various problems of the historical development, authorship, and the contt'nts of the oktoechos. the reverend nilo somma, also of grottaferrata, devoted his paper to the iambic kanons of christmas, epiphany, and pentecost, while leonardo cali (rome) examined another type of liturgical hymn, the hypakoai. dr. j0rgen raasted (roskilde) read an interesting paper on the so-called theta notation. the sign theta appears above somt' words in non-music manuscripts and perhaps suggt'sts a melodic phrase. raasted also reported on his rt'cent discovery of some other signs appearing in a non-music manuscript in the british museum which enlarge on the number and system of signs which he proposes to call theta notation. a demonstration of nco-byzantine music was given by mr. g. araouzos and six singers of the london greek church of st. nicholas. the program consisted of a number of liturgical hymns which were sung to the drone, the ison. another opportunity to hear appropriate music was provided by a recital of byzantint' and slavic music given in tht' cathedral of oxford by a choir consisting of some twenty-five singers belonging to seven nationalities. the program here contained byzantine chants and harmonized hymns of the russian, bulgarian, and serbian orthodox churches. during the congress a new series, studies in eastern chant, to be published by the oxford university press, was inaugurated. the first volume, edited by milos velimirovic, was offered as a tribute to the pioneering scholarship of h.].w. tillyard and egon vvellesz on the occasions of their respective eightieth birthdays. the fourteenth international congress of byzantine studies will be held in 1971 in bucharest, rumania. 181 the evolution oj variation form zn the music oj webern kathryn bailey in tonal music, vanation is possible merely through changing the inversion or spacing of chords. what has twelve-tone technique to set against this? -web ern, as recollected by willi reichl it is difficult to come to terms with variation form in the context of the twelve-tone system, a system which employs to such a high degree variation as a musical procedure. before all other considerations it is necessary to distinguish between variationform and variation techniques, to discover what it is that justifies calling one serial work a set of variations, while other works not so designated also follow those procedures which in traditional music are characteristic of variation form. the most essential element in variation form is a constant factor which, although it allows the possibility of a continually changing complexion, maintains a recognizable presence throughout the work.2 traditionally, this factor has been a melody or, less often, a harmonic progression, but the very nature of the twelve-tone system excludes both these possibilities. the tone row does not act as a melody3; and harmonic progressions, in the older sense, no longer exist. for the variation form to be feasible in the twelve-tone system, it was necessary to replace the tonal constant factors with new ones. anton web ern was particularly inventive in this respect. in his variations the constant element-the unifying factor-is in the nature of a principle (the word is webern's) rather than a melodic or harmonic phrase. thus he employs at various times the palindrome,4 augmentation and diminution, and rhythmic canon as bases for his movements in variation form. melody-hunting seems to be a popular sport with those who analyze the music of web ern. but in the case of his variations-none of which are variations on a melody-this approach is fruitless. 5 it is the belief of this writer that webern's motives are not, generally speaking, melodic in nature. his melodies are rarely repeated in exactly the form in which they first appear. octave displacement, fragmentation among various instruments, inversion, retrogression, and recasting so that repetitions of a rhythmic pattern encompass different segments of the row are some of the devices webern consistently employs. in his music it is some nonmelodic element of the musical fabric-rhythm, organization (i.e., the palindrome), timbre, or articulationwhich takes on the traditional function of melody. a further, perennial problem associated with variation form is that of giving some sort of symmetry and proportion to an intrinsically open-ended form. composers have met this difficulty in various ways, often by combining 55 a closed form with the iterative one. 6 webern's first experiment in combined forms was his variations for piano solo, opus 27. this work has been an enigma to analysts because of the difficulty of explaining the first two movements as part of the variation form.7 but there is, in fact, no reason to insist on this analysis. webern, in a letter to hildegard jone, said of this opus: "the completed part is a variations movement; the whole will be a kind of 'suite.' "8 the present writer suggests that "the completed part" was the third movement, that portion of the work which is obviously in variation form. the difficulties in explaining the rest of the piece disappear when it is viewed as "a kind of suite." the first movement is in three sections of equal length, all exploiting the palindrome created by simultaneous statements of any row-form and its exact retrograde, with the voices crossing at mid-point. the internal proportions are the same within all the sections; however, the two outer sections are so strongly similar and the middle section so contrasting that the aural effect is certainly that of an aba form. an interesting feature of this movement is the sequential treatment in the middle section. the material from mm. 1923 is stated again but in inversion in mm. 23-26, and it appears a third time, upright once more, in mm. 26-30. the same thing happens in mm. 30-36. this sort of treatment, which does not occur in the outer sections, is reminiscent of what one expects in a development section. this movement may be thought of as a theme and two variations, as leibowitz has suggested,9 but there are also unmistakable implications of the tripartite structure of sonata form. a similar situation exists in the second movement. it is divided exactly in the middle by the traditional double bar and repeat sign, and it exploits a mirror of another sort: the reflection caused by the nearly simultaneous statements of a row and its exact inversion. although the two sections are precisely equal in length, it would be difficult indeed to see the second half as a variation of the first. it makes much more sense to view it as a continuation. here, then, is a simple binary form with the unmistakable character of a scherzo or lively dance (passepied ?), a type of movement traditionally employed as an inner movement and one particularly suitable in a suite. the third movement of opus 27 adheres carefully to all the external requirements of variation form. it is in six sections, each eleven bars in length. this movement-analyzed in considerable detail by armin klammer, who describes it as an arch formlo-is webern's only variation movement in which no rhythmic or organizational idea acts as a constant factor. ll it is paradoxical that the outward appearance of this movement makes it the easiest ofthe three to categorize, for it isin truth the most revolutionary: it does away with that element of the form which had previously been thought fundamental. the only constant here is length. the idea of combining a set of variations and a closed form, first seen in opus 27, where one movement still pays obvious homage to traditional variation structure while the other two movements are more plausible when 56 interpreted simply as closed forms, is consolidated in webern's next opus, the quartet for strings. although no part of this work is called "variations," web ern wrote in a letter to erwin stein: the first movement is a variation movement; but the variations embody an adagio form, and that is the primary point. that is, the formal construction is based on that, and the variations have been designed accordingly . ... it can be seen right at the beginning that thematic shapes appear in augmentation and diminution . ... this has been raised to a "principle" for all variations. it will be found to be the basis of every variation.12 the particular notion of incorporating a theme and variations into an adagio form must have intrigued webern, because such a union occurs again, in an expanded and more complex version, in his variations for orchestra, opus 30. in letters to willi reich, web ern described briefly the pattern he had followed in this work: in basic principle my "overture" is an "adagio" form; but the reprise of the main theme appears in the form of a development: therefore, this element is also present ... .13 also, the theme of the vanations reaches to the first double bar; it is periodic but has an "introductory" character. six variations follow (each to the next double bar). the first presents, so to speak, the main theme of the overture (andante form) more fully developed; the second, the transition; the third, a second theme; the fourth, the reprise of the main theme-for it is an andante form !-however, in the manner of a development; the fifth, repeating the manner of the introduction and transition, is followed by a coda: variation six.14 thus, the piece exists on two formal planes. as a closed form, it is of balanced proportions. as a variation form, it is-unlike the first movement of opus 28extremely free, with variations ranging in length from 11 bars containing the equivalent of 38 eighth notes (variation 5) to 35 bars containing the equivalent of 135 quarter notes plus 11 eighth notes (variation 6). this irregularity immediately sets the work apart from all of web ern's other variation movements. the fact that the variations are of widely differing lengths makes it obvious that these are not variations on any sort of "theme" which implies a particular time dimension. rather, they are variations on the two four-note rhythmic motives (henceforth to be referred to as a and b) which are stated at the beginning of the piece. the "theme" is a continuous series of these 57 motives in ever-changing forms.l5 thus, the length of any given section of the piece (i.e., any variation) is determined by the closed form and not by the proportions of the theme. in the 3 may 1941 letter to willi reich quoted above, webern continues his description of opus 30: everything, then, that occurs in the piece comes from one of the two ideas which are stated in the first and second bars (double bass and oboe!). however, it is reduced even further, as the second figure (oboe) is already in itself retrogressive: the second two notes are the cancrizans of the first two, but rhythmically augmented. there follows in the trombone another statement of the first figure (double bass), but in diminution! and in cancrizans as to both [motives] and intervals.16 example 1 illustrates this procedure.17 example 1 lebhaft j =ca.160 1\ oboe j trombone (.) langsamer ) =ca.1l2 .j j -= . /f.l!. > ;. wieder lebhaft j' =ca. 160 .... a mit dii..mpf .. ". .. ltl, r:'i sol .. violas contrabasses ; (.) it#p ...::::i,:;;:f. pp 5j f-p the second two notes ofthe second figure do not produce an exact retrograde ("krebs") of the first two melodically, but an inverted retrograde (krebsumkehrung). the real retrograde, produced with the alteration web ern mentions, is rhythmic. therefore it is clear that webern's "gestalt" is primarily rhythmic in nature. when he says of the third figure, "und im krebs der motive und intervalle," "motive" can refer only to rhythmic disposition. robert nelson would seem to be in error, then, when he says, the theme . . . consists of a succession of melodic [my italics] motifs drawn from the row. two of these are basic, according to web ern, each formed off our notes, widely spread .... from these fundamental motifs 58 spring the other figures that make up the theme and the six variations that follow.18 the configuration of the rhythmic motives stated in mm. 1-3 is, of course, exactly analogous to that of the tone row (see ex. 2). example 2 1 * bo bo to 1 1,--° ----,_---' a bo b fho i. i i i() br (inv.) '-----:-a""'"r---,,-(i;-n-v-.')--...j }fo bo a b br (aug.) ar (dim.) \ i n.d however, succeeding statements of the rhythmic motives do not consistently utilize the same segments of the row. this can be seen as early as the second bar of the piece, where the second voice (viola) enters with the first four notes of the row, stating the second rhythmic motive. if nelson's approach were correct, this figure would have borne a close melodic resemblance to the oboe statement of the same rhythmic motive in the same bar. however, it does not. the element which does remain constant throughout the variations is the rhythm. a few general statements should be made at this point concerning webern's manipulation of rhythm in opus 30. the aspect of the rhythmic motives which retains its identity through sundry variations is the rhythm of attacks. durational patterns vary continually within this framework. motives a and b are both subjected in the course of the piece to augmentation, diminution, and retrogression. although these devices are applied similarly to both motives, each is also treated in a unique way. in the case of a, variations 4 and 5 exhibit a form which bears a positive-negative relationship to the original (see ex. 3). example 3 motive a mm. 139-140, harp, celesta. [negative: mm. 140-141, v1n. i; celesta, oboe. ar mm. 116-117, vc. [negative: m. 141, celesta, harp. 59 motive b does not lend itself to this process. it undergoes a different sort of variation-reordering, or inversion of its basic elements. the halves of the motive remain intact, but they are arranged in different ways. besides the simple prime and retrograde, there are six other combinations possible: webern makes use of all of these (see ex. 4). example 4 notive band br [n n] [no n.] [no jl] [d n] [n.n] [n.n.] [n n.;nn.]. j. j mm. 116-118, v1n. i, harp. j d. d o. mm. 123-124, cb., tuba. j'j'(.ld .j mm. 128-129, v1n. i, vc. d d.j.j mm. 122-124, vc., claro j to .... mm. 148-151, harp, b. clar., oboe. cl 0 t ¢ d . .l mm. 148-151, vc., via. d d .... mm. 149-151, clar., harp, f1. d d .. d . .l mm. 149-152, vln. i, vc. j d. ).1. mm . 115-117, c1ar. .i j d .. rj.j mm. 128-130, wi\'., vln. ii. '-" ..... two very important derivative motives make an appearance in variation 3. these motives-here labelled c and d-are derived from b and a, respectively, and are used in the manner of a second theme. they are not subjected to inversion (see ex. 5). example 5 motive c: f.1oti ve d: nn jrrm (b reordered = n n). (second form of a sholm in ex. 3, in retrograde = ) r;=n ) . retrograde forms are produced in two ways. most often the series of durations between attacks is an exact retrograde of the corresponding series of the prime form. however, a second method leads to a further degree of variation. when the series of note-values of one of the forms containing rests is reversed, it produces a new form which is not the same as the pure retrograde, since an attack after a rest will occur "late." the first such instance occurs in variation l. measures 32-34 contain the following statement of br (see ex. 6): example 6 o ... d j 01. the exact retrograde of this occurs in mm. 40-42 (see ex. 7). 60 example 7 d· j d ii 0 instead of producing the original form of b, this retrogression of the retrograde produces a variant in which blocks of time are preserved but in which the final attack occurs late within its allotted space. this principle can be extended to allow the appearance of such variants without the prior appearance of the generative form. this procedure gives rise to new forms, of which the following will serve as illustrations (see ex. 8) : example 8 v1n. i, mm. 36-38: .j j d .... d (derived from negative form of ar, see ex. 3.) .... d] fl., mm. 137-138: ) 1) )'11..j (derived from br.) a rhythmic analysis of opus 30 follows. the theme (in "an introductory character") is twenty bars in length. two rows are present at any given time, with no overlapping or shared notes, and they yield a series of canonic statements of motives a and b. the piece opens with one voice alone, and through m. 9 the texture alternates between one and two voices in a pattern which is reversed in mm. 10-20. fournote chords occur at three points. aurally the theme is perceived in three sections, internal cadences occurring at mm. 8-9 and mm. 13-14. these cadences have in common a ritard in the langsamer tempo (followed at the outset of the ensuing section by a subito lebhajt) and statements of motive a divided between the harp and a string instrument. (these are the only appearances of the harp in the theme and also the only times that a statement of one of the motives is split between two instruments.) there is a clean division of rows at each of these points. the dynamic pattern coincides with these cadences: m. 1 -<::::::: m. 9 m. 14 m. 20. instruments are doubled (tripled, in one case) on the rhythmic motive at the places where punctuating chords occur, except at the final chord, which has the role of heralding variation 1. these three sections are, however, of very unequal lengths, the first being as long as the second and third combined. although there is no cadence, the first large section divides into two halves at the point where the first row ends and the third begins (m. 4). rhythmically, the two halves of the theme are parallel, insofar as section iia states the motives of section ia in reverse order, 61 and section lib does the same with the motives of section lb. this relationship is strengthened by the fact that these reversed statements are accomplished by the exact retrograde of the rows which formed the first statements: i.e., po in section ia is answered by r o in section iia, and 10 in section ib is answered by rio in section lib. a second cancrizans situation exists within each half of the theme. section ib presents a rhythmic cancrizans of the a motives used in la, but the b motive remains in its forward position, becoming augmented rather than reversed in lb. a parallel situation occurs between sections iia and lib. altogether, the second half of the theme presents all the motives of the first half in reverse order, with one exception: wherever a motive is diminished or augmented in section i, it appears in its original form in section ii, and vice versa. texturally, the two halves of the theme form an arch. so, of course, do the row statements: po, rio, 10, ro, 10, rio, po. the following diagram shows the rhythmic structure of the theme (see ex. 9): example 9 variation ("main theme ... more fully developed") is thirty-five bars in length. the texture is that of melody and accompaniment throughout; greatly augmented forms of a and b are accompanied by repeated quarternote chords in four parts. the melody notes are occasionally reinforced by doubling. this variation divides into nine sections which form a perfect arch as illustrated in the following diagram (see ex. 10): example 10 nun :h-'73 27-31 37 -34 33-39 40-42 43-47 48-50 51:ss " ruhig ruhig lebhaft ruhig lcbhaft ruhig lcbhaft ruhig ruhig pp 1'p j ;pp f :pp f 1'p pp ar b a-ar br a-ar b* a-ar er a a-ar a-ar ar * this b is the exact rhythmic retrograde of the br in mm. 32-34. (see examples 6 and 7.) sections 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 9 of the arch are similar and contain one fournote melodic fragment each. sections 1 and 2 and sections 8 and 9 stand like pillars at either end of the variation and state between them all four forms of a and b; 8 and 9 present the retrograde forms of the motives which 62 appeared in 2 and 1, respectively. the melody in section 6 is an exact rhythmic retrograde of that in section 4. the remaining three sections are more complex and very similar to each other. section 3 contains a six-note fragment, with motives a and ar dovetailed. sections 5 and 7 both have two such fragments stated simultaneously (see ex. 11). example 11 section 3: section 5: section 7: i a .i t .... o i ar i i ar i , , 1 -d a.i ) d ___ liar l d .. , ' a d ... a \ , i 1 i : d .i d d ... 1 i ar i * see example 8 above. variation 2 ("transition") is eighteen bars long and in a character quite different from that of variation 1. there are no melodies here. the texture is very thick and not apparently contrapuntal; the entire variation is a succession of four-note chords, with eight notes sometimes sounding at once. upon close inspection, the second variation reveals itself to be a two-voice rhythmic canon, each "voice" proceeding in four-note chords. (in discussing this variation, voice is used to refer to one part-i.e., row chain, succession of stacked tetrachords-of the canon. this is not to be confused with the use of voice elsewhere to refer to a linear progression of one note at a time.) the rows in this variation form two chains, both of which progress to m. 63 and subsequently retrogress through m. 69. as always in opus 30, the rhythmic voices proceed within the boundaries of these row chains. the material of the canon consists of four statements of a-all produced by a 3: 2 augmentation (the sesquialtera of the burgundian composers)-and the first statement of c, in preparation for the variation to follow. example 12 illustrates the forms taken by a in this variation (see ex. 12). in both voices the first two motives overlap one note, the last two do not. 63 example 12 nun. 56-59; mm. 58-63: nun. 63-68: nun. 68-71: [ winds, vln.i (j. )ry j i) . .j. j . ..j .1. i\ h i str. (ii 'fr ';-y'o-7 •. )· [brass, celesta, vlns. () ..... r j:}''() rr i»), d·d. d d. str., ww., harp, low str. (j-itj j''()'(6))' ---[ brass, ww., low str., harp ()'a .. "f'f jj ,()"frj)· d. d. j. d. ww., brass, vlns., ww. .j.rj'nij. '[ low str., brass, harp, low str. j. ). ; j. f> i " » celesta, ww., vlns., ww. (,rf'f, r " '1 ) . the central juncture is treated differently in the two voices in order to preserve the correct order of pitches in the serial palindrome referred to above. the voice which reaches the axis (m. 63) last must also be the first to proceed onward. therefore, the voice which leads at the beginning of the variation, having reached the axis first, rests and begins the next motive anew, while the second voice ends its second motive and begins its third on the same (central) note. the voices proceed at the interval of an eighth note throughout. the following diagram will serve to illustrate this point (see ex. 13). example 13 a a c a a variation 3 ("second theme") is thirty-six bars long. the texture is again very thin-only two voices. two rows progress simultaneously throughout. as might be expected, the structure of this variation presents a marked contrast to that of the preceding ones. it appears to be through-composed in four sections, each of which is roughly symmetrical in itself, as shown in the diagram below. at the center of each section stands a statement of motive c in both voices (see ex. 14). example 14 mm. 74-81 mm. 82-95 mm. 95-100 mm. 100-109 64 variation 4 ("reprise of the main theme ... in the manner of a development") is twenty-five bars long. it is, as webern indicates, a very complex version of variation 1. it forms an arch exactly parallel to the one in the earlier variation (see ex. 15). example 15 mm. do-113 113-115 -115-119 118-1 "i 121-125 125-128 126-130 , 130-132 131-134 ruhig ruhig [ruhig) ruhig lcbhaft [lebhaftl lcbhaft [lebhaft) ruhig :pp [f 10 f) f =pp pp m;,!f» f "'""p/' [ff) ff [ff 1 h=pp highest complexity one one many one many one many one one complete complete over lapping complete overlapping complete complete complete statement statement statements statement statements statement statement statement again, as in variation 1, the two sections at either end of the arch are very similar to inner sections 4 and 6. each of these sections contains one statement of each of the simple forms of motives a and b (a, ar, b, and br). these statements are for the most part unaltered and do not overlap. sections 3,5, and 7, however, are dense masses of overlapping double statements and palindromes of the sort originally presented in sections 3, 5, and 7 of variation 1 (see ex. 16). example 16 section 3: i b i j. ,; j d. .j» , inv.b , rom. ils-117, clar.: mm. ils-117, harp, vc.: j a i e,j,j ,negative a , r--(ar) , ,(a) , (palindrome) rom. 116-119, horn, tpt.: i l.nv.b i rom. 116-118, vln.i, harp, via.: .1. ,; h ,j ) .1. (palindrome) br section 5: mm. 121-124, vln.i, tymp., tromb.: ar d d d j j 0 j 0 (palindrome) '-" a mm. 121-124, vln. ii, cb., tuba: d,-,o mm. 122-12s, via., oboe, harp: ° d .j .i d d ____ ____ mm. 122-124, vc., clar.: 65 example 16 section 7: mm. 127-130, h"., vln.ii: i ar i , ljlv. b i i '( ; j j ) j '1 .j d j } j. ! a ! ! '-' br , mm. 126-131, vln.i, vc.: i ar i mm. 128-129, via., cb., vln.i: jr) j ';.j (palindrome) a mm. 128-130, via.: j j r } j..} fer] the similarity between corresponding sections of the arch is not so clear here as it is in variation 1. variation 4 is continuous, and the sections overlap in nearly all cases. (for example, section 6 is comprised offour statementscello, high woodwinds, viola, and violin ii-the last of which ends on the first note of m. 128. section 7, however, has at this point already begun in violin ion the final beat ofm. 126.) variation 5 ("repeating the manner of the introduction and transition") is only eleven bars in length. the first five bars are very similar to the opening of the piece. they contain four statements parallel to those in mm. 1-3, as shown below (ex. 17): example 17 mm.o-1 m.2 m.2 ro.3 r.\ b:nn. 1'1 n. ar: j)j.l a: ) .) )' j b: bass oboe viola trombone theme :p .c.>.1'p f ,.. 5 .j'p ; ""-:=lebhaft c) = 160) ) = 112 )= 112 » = 160 a bb db e b d eb gb bb b d en f e g ab ar: .j )' ) ; b:)rntrj b:).rr»rr) a:nn viola flute celesta & str. violin i var.s p""'-3f>:f'? sf> :1':::0:p ;pp ,; :=:p lebhaft c)= 160) » = 112 j> = 112 .1' = 112 d eb gb f e g b 4-note chords bb a e cn mm. 135-136 mm. 137-138 mm. 137-138 m. 139 it can be seen that the similarities between parallel statements become less marked as the variation proceeds. by the fourth statement only the notevalues and the row-segment remain parallel to the statement in m. 3. this gradual leave-taking of reminiscences of the theme allows an easy entry into transition (variation 2) material beginning with the statement in m. 139. the remaining seven bars of the variation (mm. 139-145) have at their center (in m. 142) the exact chord (same pitch level) which acted as the axis for the palindrome in variation 2. two separate rows and two row chains proceed simultaneously throughout these seven bars; they state in mm. 139141 a flurry of a and ar motives in diminution () and )) which are so close 66 together as to produce staccato pianissimo chords on every sixteenth note of the bar, reminiscent of the second variation. following the central chord, the celesta, harp, and strings play in four-note chords on every sixteenth note of the bar the same progression of chord shapes that appeared at the end of variation 2 (mm. 70-71) but on different pitch levels. motives band d are each stated once-by the celesta and trumpet and by the first violinand the variation ends with a four-part canon on a and ar. the ar is very similar to that which opened the second half of the theme in mm. 10-11; here, the pitches are in exact retrograde two octaves higher. the two chains in mm. 139--45-110-13-18 and rlo-rs-r8-progress in rhythmic canon with two exceptions. in m. 141 the harp should have jr.l instead of r n in order to preserve the rhythmic imitation; and the four notes b, c, a, and ad have been inexplicably omitted in m. 142. a chord containing these notes is demanded by both the row structure and the rhythmic canon on the first beat of this bar, and it would seem likely that its absence is due to some error between manuscript and printed score. variation 6 ("coda") is the longest of all. in webern's brief description of opus 30 quoted earlier, he gives some clue as to the content of the preceding sections, but none whatever concerning the content of the coda. it is very difficult to see the relationship of some sections of this variation to the rhythmic motives which have generated the rest of the piece. bearing in mind webern's statement that "all that now occurs in the piece comes from one of the two ideas which are stated in the first and second bars (double bass and oboe)," the only conclusion possible is that the coda is constructed by some asymmetrical (but, judging from the rest of the piece, surely systematic) means of augmentation. note-values divisible by 3, 5, and 7 figure very prominently in this variation; for this reason, it seems likely that the sustained brass chords at the opening (0 d.) announce the key to the system used subsequently. the key, however-if indeed it is one-is so subtle as to have eluded this writer to date. this variation is in some ways reminiscent of variation 1. the material in mm. 146-68 divides into seven sections which form an arch bounded by pairs of four-note brass chords. these chords are an immediate aural reminder of the accompaniment in the first variation.19 also, the content of the remaining five sections alternates between b and a, as was the case earlier. motive b stands at the center of this arch, however, and the motives on either side appear to be very irregular, although their derivation from a is indisputable (see ex. 18). the brass chords which close the arch in mm. 167-68 at the same time begin a new and very complex section, also circumscribed by brass chords, and ending in m. 173. this section and the one following (mm. 174--77) are difficult to explain formally, as they seem to occupy the position of a closing section, but without in any way summing up what has come before.2o within this section webern's row structure becomes more difficult to follow 67 example 18 roo 146 148-152 153-157 158-160 161-165 165-166 167-173 174-177 179-180 '" o t d. [a] cl·d br d. [a] b d a 4-part 4-part 4 ]1arts 4-part 4 parts 4-part 4-part ? 4-par br 4-part chords canon canon canon chords chord b canon 3-part 3-part chord chord brass brass brass bra,ss brass .coda than anywhere else in the piece. the final two bars act as a coda to the variation and to the work, the canon on a referring to the opening of the theme. a comparison of the instrumental variations of web ern shows opus 30 to be unique. only here is there a radical departure from what variation form had been throughout its history. a form that had previously depended on successive reiterations suddenly takes on a completely new meaning in this work, uniting the complex rhythmic and metric procedures of the burgundians with the formal sense of the 19th century. webern says of opus 30 in the letters to willi reich: indeed there is again the synthesis: the presentation is horizontal formally, but vertical in all other respects .... 21 ... it would be fundamental to say that here (in my score) a quite different style is set forth. yes, but what sort? it doesn't look like a score from pre-wagnerian times-beethoven, for instance-nor does it look like bach. should one then go back still further ? yes-but then there were no orchestral scores! and yet it should still be possible to find a positive affinity with the type of presentation one finds in the netherlanders .... now it would have to be said unequivocally: this (mine) is certainly music that's based just as much on the laws at which musical presentation arrived after the netherlanders. which doesn't reject the development that came then, but on the contrary desires to continue it into the future .... thus a style ... in whose formal construction both possible types of presentation are combined.22 and to hildegard j one he wrote: ... this theme with its six variations finally produces, from the formal point of view, an edifice equivalent to that of an "adagio", but in 68 character-in content-my piece isn't that at all-only formally.-so even though i have given the piece the title "variations", yet these for their part are nonetheless fused into a new unit (in the sense of a different form).23 the affinity of the opus 30 style with the burgundian school of the 13th and 14th centuries cannot be overlooked. the roots of webern's style are not to be found in that other golden era of counterpoint, the baroque, in which dense fugues grow out of themes representing the fusion of a harmonically-based melodic figure with a metrically-determined rhythm. one must look back beyond the doctrine of the affections and the age of improvisation and ornamentation to the intellectual processes of an earlier period, one in which it was common to think of rhythm and melody separately and during which one of the important compositional procedures consisted of combining predetermined rhythmic and melodic patterns of disparate lengths. it is this age of rhythmic complexities and puzzles, this age of predetermined coincidence, that we must examine if we are to understand the rhythmic manipulations of webern, for it is this style, coupled with the linear forms of the 19th century, which produced webern's "new style." it was a marriage of pure genius. notes 1 wege zur neuen musik, ed. willi reich (vienna: universal edition, 1960), p. 63. all translations from this source are by the author. 2 george perle's "consistent referential element." see his discussion of opus 21 and opus 31 in serial composition and atonality (london: faber & faber, 1962), p. 139. 3 "the twelve-tone row is, in general, not a 'theme,''' according to webern. reich, wege, p. 59. 4 the most striking use of the palindrome as a basis for variations is the second movement of the symphonie, opus 21. for analyses, see h. wiley hitchcock, "a footnote on webern's variations," perspectives of new music 8, no. 2 (1970):123-26; and, from the same issue, mark starr, "webern's palindrome," 127--42. 5 robert nelson, in his article "webern's path to the serial variation," perspectives of new music 7, no. 2 (1969) :77, speaks of "a gently swaying melody played by the clarinet" as the theme of the opus 21 variations. he appears to be unconcerned both by the fact that this melody is a transposed statement of the inverted row and would therefore presumably have to be considered a variation itself, and by the complete disappearance of this "melody" after its initial statement. 6 see brahms's fourth symphony, final movement; the finale of beethoven's ninth symphony; and act ii, scene i of berg's tvozzeck, 7 see rene leibowitz, schoenberg and his school, trans. dika newlin (new york: philosophical library, 1949), pp. 226-38, for one analysis of these movements. 8 letters to hildegard jone and josef humplik, ed. josef polnauer, trans. cornelius cardew (bryn mawr: theodore presser co., 1967), p. 32 (letter of 18 july 1936). 9 leibowitz, schoenberg, pp. 226-38. 10 "webern's piano variations, op. 27, third movement," die reihe no.2 (1959) :81-92. 11 " ••• the variations reproduced no thematic aspect of the 'theme'. this means that in this work everything is variation, or, to put it another way, everything is theme . .•• webern's piano 69 variations are, then, a basic contribution to the 'athematic' method of composition." leibowitz, schoenberg, p. 241. 12 schoenberg, berg, webern: the string quartets. a documentary stut[y, ed. ursula v. rauchhaupt, trans. eugene hartzell (hamburg: deutsche grammaphon gesellschaft, 1971), p. 132 (letter from may 1939). 13 reich, wege, p. 67 (letter of3 march 1941). 14 ibid., p. 68 (letter of3 may 1941). 15 "such and such a number of metamorphoses of the first shape constitute the 'theme'. this, as a new unit, passes again through such and such a number of metamorphoses; these, again, fused into a new unit, constitute the form of the whole." polnauer, letters, p. 44 (letter of26 may 1941). 16 reich, wege, p. 68. the original german reads: alles nun, was in dem stiick vorkommt, beruht auf den beiden gedanken, die mit dem ersten und zweiten takt gegeben sind (kontrabass und oboe!). aber es reduziert sich noch mehr, denn die zweite gestalt (oboe) ist schon in sich riicklaufig: die zweiten zwei tone sind der krebs der ersten zwei, rhythmisch aber in augmentation. ihr folgt, in der posaune, schon wieder die erste gestalt (kontrabass), aber in diminution! und im krebs der motive und intervalle. 17 all musical examples are by the author. 18 nelson, "webern's path," pp. 88-89. 19 it should be noted here that the four-note chords which opened and closed variation 1 were also stated by the brasses. 20 serially, however, the material in mm. 167-80 is a partial summing-up of previous events. variation 6 consists of two pairs of parallel row chains. one pair of prime chains proceeds with a consistent overlapping throughout the variation. the second pair of chains-one prime and one retrograde--proceeds similarly up to m. 167, at which point the system of overlapping is changed so that each chain retrogresses through its series of transpositions to end on the same level as that on which it began. 21 reich, wege, p. 67 (letter of 3 march 1941). 22 ibid., pp. 67---68 (letter of 3 may 1941). 23 polnauer, letters, p. 44 (letter of 26 may 1941). 70 the origins of the orchestra machine emily iuliano dolan during that summer, the music of the changing of the guard delighted him more than before. when they passed by his house, he would open the middle door of the room in the back in which he lived, where he listened attentively and with pleasure. one might have thought that the profound metaphysician would have derived pleasure only from music character­ ized by pure harmony, bold transitions, elegantly resolved dissonances, or from the works of a serious composer such as haydn. but this was not at all the case, as the following circumstance demonstrates. in 1795, accom­ panied by the late g. r. von hippel, he paid me a visit to hear my bogenflugel. an adagio with the flageolet stop, which is similar to the tone of the glass harmonica, seemed rather disagreeable to him, but the instru­ ment gave him uncommon pleasure when the lid was opened and its full force unleashed, especially when it imitated a symphony with full orches­ tra. (quoted in drescher 1974:268) the eager listener described above is none other than immanuel kant, af­ fectionately chronicled by philosopher and theologian ehregott wasianski. this colorful description of kant's fascination with loud military music is suggestive on many levels. most obviously, it tells us something of his lis­ tening habits, inviting us to smile at the great metaphysician's somewhat unsophisticated musical taste. we could use wasianski's sketch to begin deconstructing kant's own musical upbringing and shed light on the infa­ mously negative valuation of music in his third critique. this passage, how­ ever, also encourages us to consider the surrounding context and examine what wasianski implies about contemporary musical aesthetics. first, he distinguishes between an intellectual mode of listening-the kind that ap­ preciates daring modulations and the nuances of haydn's compositional style-and a more immediate mode that takes pleasure in the sheer noise generated by military music. second, wasianski makes casual reference to a "bogenflugel;' one with various stops. given the variety of musical instru­ ments invented during the eighteenth century, and the fact that so many of them are lost to us, we might ask exactly what he used to entertain kant and von hippel in 1795. last, we can examine what it means for wasianski sim­ ply to be able describe an instrument as imitating an orchestra, confident that his readership would know what he means. when interrogated in this way, this passage can be the starting point of investigations that help us current musicology, no. 76 (fall 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology understand the complex and rapidly changing musical aesthetics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. bogenfli1gels, orchestrions, and other instruments with funny names since it may seem surprising to turn to the bogenflugel for information about the surrounding aesthetic climate, a few words are in order here. the eigh­ teenth century witnessed the invention of numerous ingenious instruments and musical machines, from vaucanson's automaton flute player to ornate musical clocks, from the bogenflugel to the anemochord. this rich tradition of instrument building expanded throughout the century: numerous re­ ports of new instruments in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century music journals testify to the general fascination with musical inventions. in current scholarship, however, these instruments occupy a modest position. scholars occasionally discuss mozart's and haydn's compositions for musi­ cal clock, and even devote a few studies to beethoven's collaboration with inventor malzel. l generally, however, these instruments are examined ei­ ther in isolation from the culture of their time, or else treated as musical freaks lurking in the shadows of mainstream musical culture. however, the recurrence of these instruments permits us to view them as repositories of the elements of music that captured the public's imagination. whether mechanical or automatic, they were designed to satisfy perceived musical needs, and therefore reflected the aesthetics of the time. the eighteenth cen­ tury, for example, viewed the physical motion of performance as a strong sign of emotion and passion. pierre jacquet-droz's automaton, "la musienne" -a female keyboard player-embodied this equation of move­ ment and feeling. not only endowed with flawless technique, she dazzled her audience with her life-like performance: her bosom heaved gently while she played. the barrels of automatic instruments preserve contemporary ideas of "correct" performance, since their builders were compelled to en­ gage with issues of the interpretation of musical notation in their attempts to ensure the performance was rhythmically nuanced.2 perhaps the most obvious example is the glass harmonica, whose distinctly vocal sonority helped the instrument escape criticisms commonly lodged against instru­ mental music. builders tried to replicate in their instruments what was called for by prevailing taste. by examining the motivation behind the creation of these instruments, we may gain a closer understanding of the general sur­ rounding climate. bogenflugels, too, were designed to solve particular aes­ thetic problems. emily i. dolan the bogenjlugel is a member of a family of instruments generally known as sostenente pianos-that is, keyboards with mechanisms that allow tones to be sustained indefinitely after they are sounded. acoustician and inven­ tor e. f. f. chladni considered wasianski's instrument-built by the me­ chanic garbrecht in the early 1790s-to be the most successful attempt at such an instrument, even calling the bogenjlugel the "older brother" of his clavicylinder, which he invented in 1800 (chladni 1800:308). the concept of a keyboard instrument that could both sustain tones indefinitely and vary the dynamic of individual tones after they were struck had fascinated inventors for centuries. the earliest attempt was hans haiden's geigenwerk of 1575, which worked on the principle of the hurdy-gurdy: the performer used a foot treadle to set a number of rosined wheels in motion, and when keys were depressed, the corresponding strings were lowered onto these wheels. the speed of the wheel controlled the volume, so that with maneu­ vering the performer could crescendo and decrescendo. haiden's own de­ scription of the instrument enumerated its many merits. not only did it allow for this subtle nuance of single tones, it was capable of imitating the lute, viola bastarda, shawm, and bagpipe, and, "one [could 1 play court mu­ sic and band music on it, making it sound as if twelve trumpets and clarinos were playing together" (blumenfeld 1980:70). here we find an important difference between wasianski's description of his bogenjlugel and that of haiden. though haiden recognized the geigenwerk's potential to imitate numerous instruments, including massed winds, he could not, as wasianski did, describe it as imitating an orchestra, for his invention predated the fi­ nal consolidation of the orchestra as a musical body, concept, and institu­ tion. it is here that we find an essential difference between the two instru­ ments: though one can identify basic goals shared by both instruments, the context in which wasianksi's bogenjlugel thrived was sharply different than that of the geigenwerk. his seemingly casual remark that the instrument could imitate a "symphony with full orchestra" crucially depends upon the presence of an orchestral tradition. and while it may seem natural that an instrument that captures the massed string core of the orchestra should eventually enter into orchestral discourse, the underlying impulse for this inclusion is quite revealing. 3 indeed, this discursive shift reflects a broader trend in the late eigh­ teenth century; the bogenjlugel was but one of a variety of instruments de­ signed to imitate the sounds of the orchestra. in contemporary journals, we find reports of instruments with fanciful names and amazingly elaborate mechanisms; perhaps most importantly, it is during this period that the term "orchestrion" emerged. the industrialization of orchestrion building in the late nineteenth cen9 10 current musicology tury gave rise to the standard use of this term; today "orchestrion" usually conjures a large, late-nineteenth century mechanical instrument that plays pre-programmed music from a pinned barrel or perforated "book" and uses a combination of organ stops, percussion, and often mechanically-played wind and string instruments to imitate the sounds of the orchestra. the terminology of late eighteenth century and early nineteenth cen­ tury was far more complex. in 1814, e. t. a. hoffmann published his fantastical story ''automata'' in the zeitungfor die elegante welt. in the course of the story, the main characters, lewis and ferdinand, attend a mechanical concert at the house of an unsavory professor whose automata have been on public display. they are subjected to a wind-up orchestra of musical clocks and automaton instrumentalists, including a flute-playing man and a keyboard-playing woman. "in the background:' hoffmann writes, "our two friends noticed an orchestrion (which was an instrument already known to them)." he goes on to describe the frightening performance as the au­ tomata are set in motion and begin playing, one by one, "an andante in the style of a march" with utmost precision. last of the instruments, hoffmann tells us, "the orchestrion set to work, and drummed and trumpeted fortissimo, so that the whole place shook" (1967:94). hoffmann's "orchestrion" behaves much like the later orchestrions, a clear precursor to the later nineteenth century machines. his offhand remark that the orchestrion "was an instrument already known to them," suggests that the orchestrion already had gained some notoriety; it apparently needed little explanation within hoffmann's story. just eight years earlier, however, the "orchestrion" crops up in a very different context. in his essay on the character and worth of musical instru­ ments, c. f. michaelis devotes a paragraph to instruments that he believes have genuine aesthetic value, but lack widespread use because their perfor­ mance requires specialized knowledge of a nature usually reserved for the inventor (1807:261). he mentions, among others, the euphon and the clavicylinder, two glass instruments invented and performed on by chladni, the bogenhammerklavier (another variation of sostenente piano), and the "orchestrion:' this orchestrion, however, is an instrument much different from that in hoffmann's ''automata'': it was not a self-playing instrument, but required a real musician to operate it. in other words, both the term and the notion were elastic. some instru­ ments that were called "orchestrions" were clear precursors to the later nine­ teenth century version; others with the same name were quite different. yet others functioned the same as orchestrions, but used different names, and, to complicate matters further, there was a family of instruments, loosely related to the above, with unique and fanciful names. this sundry list of emily i. dolan instruments, however, was united by a common theme: each, whether au­ tomatic or not, attempted to capture the essence of the orchestra. that a cluster of similar terms denoted a variety of related instruments testifies to a fervent interest in creating an instrument with symphonic capabilities. the first known use of the term "orchestrion" was for a combination organ and piano with swell invented and performed on by vogler in 1789. michaelis, indeed, may be referring to vogler's orchestrion in his essay. or perhaps not, as the concept-an instrument that combined several con­ trasting sonorities and had the potential for great variety of tone and vol­ ume-was taken up by a number of other inventors. thomas anton kunz used the term for an instrument he completed in 1798 (fig. 1), a similar combination organ and piano (kunz 1798). in 1812, the allgemeine musikalische zeitung reported on a recently exhibited instrument by maker hunn. it too was called an "orchestrion" and consisted of a "fortepiano with forte, piano, clarinet, bassoon, and pedal" (anon. 1812:803). the most ro­ mantic version was surely leppichs's panmelodion of 1809, which com­ bined the sounds of a fortepiano, organ, glass harmonica, waldhorn, and bassoon (anon. 1810:488) (fig. 2). the automatic orchestra machines grew out of mechanical organ build­ ing in the eighteenth century. their precursors were petite organs that were often housed in the body of a clock and played short pieces automatically from pinned barrels at predetermined times of the day. earlier musical clocks were quite limited in terms of variety of sound, but throughout the eigh­ teenth century builders began to increase the number of stops, finding in­ genious ways of expanding the number of effects in their compact mecha­ nisms. petter strand's organ clock of 1794, for example, not only had two stops, but could move gradually between them, dynamically shading the tone-an effect unthinkable for a human organist.4 by the 1790s, these clocks grew into great machines capable of grand effects. father primitivus niemecz, librarian of prince nicholas esterhazy, created a number of especially fine musical clocks for which haydn composed and arranged music. 5 these were typically smaller organs, but in 1798 he completed a large mechanical organ with forte, piano, and echo effect, that played grand overtures-an instru­ ment that clearly hovered on the threshold between mechanical organ and mechanical orchestra. it seems to have taken some time for a new name to be applied to the larger orchestral organs. in london, instrument builder george astor published a pamphlet advertising his latest barrel organs in 1799, writing he "respectfully solicits the attention of merchants, captains of ships, and the public in general, to his barrel organs with drum and triangle, which are particularly calculated for country dances, having the effect of a band" (astor 1799). though he promised his barrel organs could 11 12 current musicology figure 1: thomas anton kunz's "orchestrion" of 1798. figure 2: leppichs's panmelodion of 1809. -w-"",. j/lluw& {"i"i" \!! f emily i. dolan figure 3: johann strasser's mechanical orchestra clock of 1801. imitate a band, astor did not invent or use a name that reflected the instrument's increased capabilities. this suggests that there may have been more large barrel organs with orchestral effects in the late eighteenth cen­ tury than can be identified today. one of the first mechanical orchestras to be called such was the work of johann strasser, a viennese clockmaker living in st. petersburg. strasser spent over eight years creating an enormous mechanical orchestra with clock that he completed in 1801. housed in a mahogany columned temple, strasser's instrument used a variety of stops (reed, wood, and metal) to imitate the different sonorities of the instruments of the orchestra. though the organ's mechanism was separate from the timepiece, the massive creation nonethe­ less featured one of the most accurate clocks of its day.6 the instrument originally had fifteen barrels that played extended compositions, including the overture to the magic flute, the march and chorus from le clemenza di tito, and the allegretto to haydn's military symphony (doppelmair 1801:738). one of the few instruments to survive from this time, it was recently restored in st. petersburg and is currently on display in the hermit­ age (fig. 3). in 1810, joseph gurk (also spelled "gurck"), former apprentice to niemecz, completed a large mechanical organ that had occupied him for the better part of a decade. gurk's instrument was first exhibited in vienna 13 14 current musicology in 1810 and then in london at wigley's exhibition rooms in spring gar­ dens in 1811. when the instrument reached london, the times drummed up interest with a lengthy description of its mechanism, and even claimed that haydn saw and inspected the instrument: thus, after about seven years of incessant labor, [gurk] had the gratifica­ tion of bringing his instrument to perfection just at the propitious mo­ ment for him, which preceded the great haydn's last illness and death. that veteran orpheus ... was one of the first who viewed the result of mr. gurk's application and genius ... ''and what's to be the name of it;' asked haydn, after minutely examining every part of the work. "my child;' re­ plied gurk, "has no name as yet; might i presume to request the father of harmony to stand its godfather?" haydn promised to think on the man­ ner, and the next day sent a german note to the following purport: "dear sir, call your instrument the panharmonicon; and, if anybody ask you any question about it, tell him the name proceeds from old haydn." (times 1811:4) rather than using organ pipes to imitate orchestral sounds as strasser's creation did, gurk's organ was composed of actual instruments: in addi­ tion to a variety of percussion, the instrument contained french horns, oboes, clarinets, trumpets, and flutes in profusion, each one bored to produce a single note. the spring garden advertisement (fig. 4) for gurk's panharmonicon boasts that the machine consists of no fewer than 210 in­ struments, and is "equally grand as a full orchestral band" -a slight cheat, since gurk required a separate instrument for each pitch, with the result that it was an organ of five or six stops; in other words, gurk's instrument was a modest sized, though quite noisy, chamber organ. notwithstanding false advertising, the instrument was overstuffed with trumpets, flutes, and drums and seemed quite grand. the reviewer for the times exclaimed, "upon the whole, we confess, that both the sight of the complicated mechanism of this unique instrument, and the witnessing of its powers and effect, excited in us the strongest emotions ofrapturous surprise" (times 1811:4). johann nepomuk malzel, ingenious and infamous inventor and show­ man, also created two orchestra machines. the allgemeine musikalische zeitung enthusiastically reported on his first machine in 1800, carefully de­ tailing the instrument's features (anon. 1800). like many other early or­ chestra machines, malzel's is unnamed. however, he gave the name "panharmonicon" to his second expanded machine of 1812. though the relationship between maizel and gurk remains unclear, it is likely that malzel-who never suffered qualms about "borrowing" his contemporar­ ies' intellectual property-simply used gurk's name, since it had acquired some fame at the time. like gurk, he used real wind and percussion instruemily i. dolan figure 4: advertisement for joseph gurk's panharmonicon, 1811. roy.jll gre.jlt rooms, spring gardens, charing cross. p.alnh.albmonicon exhibition of music, by mechanical power, equally grand as a i?ull orchestra bann. performing tile most select pieces of lj-lilitarg jjfu,~ic, co~posed by mozart, haydn. krommer, romberg, &c. &c. invented by j. j. gurk, from 'chtcnna. this great drum panharmonico1l trumpets, consists of 210 bells, instruments. oboes. lll\a§§oo:.'i 8, french horns, t triangles1 kettledrums, commo1l drum. clarinets, cymbals, german flutes. commences playing precisely at 1 o'clock until 4, and from 7 to 10 ill the e'l.:clling, admittance one shilling and sixpence. k. b. the whole of the music is performed iu euch hour~ concluding with god save the king, or rule britannia. privute parties may command admission from 4, to 6, paying 38. each pel'llon. a coloured e11grm:ing of the panllarmol1icoll may be iwd at the rooms, price 6d. toppit·te. piu mtl.il. blackfrirl's, luo,'cn:ments, and his later panharmonicon included violins and cellos (achieved by means of clever organ stops). it was for his later instrument that beethoven composed the notorious battle piece wellington's victory, op. 91. the most popular piece for these instruments, however, was undoubtedly the alle­ gretto from haydn's military symphony. its grand orchestration, with its many contrasts and exciting use of turkish percussion, made it an ideal 15 16 current musicology showpiece for mechanical orchestras, while its military character helped excuse any stiffness in its performance. this sample of inventions demonstrates the flexibility of the "orchestra machine." it could take the form of an instrument anywhere along a spec­ trum that ranged from bogenflugels, to piano-organ orchestrions, to the fully automatic panharmonions-even pianos of the time were made more or­ chestral by the common addition of janissary and other stops. this wild array of concrete inventions splendidly illustrates how the ideal of the "orchestrion" had captured musical imagination. the concept of timbre the tremendous popularity of the military symphony highlights the prin­ ciple focus of these instruments: first and foremost, they were concerned with timbre. while other instruments were designed to address issues of tuning, notation, or movement, the goal of these instruments was to cap­ ture orchestral sonority. orchestra machines grew out of the development of two related areas of musical culture: the birth of the very concept of timbre and the rise of the modern orchestra. while timbre may seem to be an ahistorical concept-and surely musicians were aware of it throughout history-the idea that timbre could be discussed as a discrete concept, apart from performance, dates from the encyclopedie, in which jean-jacques rousseau defined "tymbre" for the first time. he writes, a sound's timbre describes its harshness or softness, its dullness or bright­ ness. soft sounds, like those of a flute, ordinarily have little harshness; bright sounds are often harsh, like those of the vielle or the oboe. there are even instruments, such as the harpsichord, which are both dull and harsh at the same time; this is the worst timbre. the nicest timbre is that which combines softness with brightness of sound; the violin is an ex­ ample.? rousseau's rather limited palette-harsh, soft, dull, bright-is due, in part, to the sheer difficulty of describing something as ephemeral as tone quality. science had yet to explain the acoustics behind timbre, as rousseau himself bemoaned in his entry on "sound." more importantly, timbre was not yet considered a locus of musical beauty, and indeed, many writers in the eighteenth century were downright suspicious of any music that seemed to put sheer sound ahead of loftier pursuits, such as the depiction of emo­ tions and imitation of appropriate subjects. during much of the eighteenth century, aesthetics were dominated by emily i. dolan the doctrine of imitation. precisely what art-and especially music-should or was able to imitate differed according to the taste of the writer. for some, music could mimic physical nature such as storms, brooks, and bird songs; for others, music's art lay in the more oblique imitation of impassioned speech through melody. both these modes of imitation, which we might call the literal and metaphoric, were founded on the idea that music's "mean­ ing" depended on association with the external world. the actual sounds of music, regarded in isolation, had little aesthetic worth. examples of this thinking abound in the writings of the period. kirnberger, for example, believed that: a natural, spontaneous and unaffected song is a series of impassioned notes having the character of the emotion from which it sprang. art imi­ tates these expressions of passion through notes, which by themselves are unremarkable and betray nothing of emotion. no one would say that a single tone played on the organ or harpsichord sounds passionate. (quoted in sulzer 1995:91) writers on music consistently praised vocal music's power to convey meaning and emotion-the text clarified the subject, which was then am­ plified and heightened by melody and accompaniment. since there was no framework in which one could assign clear meaning to instrumental sound, music without words was commonly criticized for vagueness when it tried to imitate human passions, and for triteness when it imitated thunderstorms or animal sounds. again and again, authors in the eighteenth century com­ plained about any music that lacked a clear subject. batteux writes "what would one say of a painter who was content to throw onto the canvas bold strokes and masses of the most vivid colors with no resemblance to a known object? the application to music speaks for itself" (1981:49). pluche, a rather harsh critic of the italian style, writes: let us proceed to the true cause of the error of so many musicians. sound is the concern of the ear, as color is of the eye. but as colors are intended to distinguish objects, they do not please one for long if they are not at­ tached to some figure, for they are out of place ... the mind does not search for colors, but for colored objects. in the same way sounds, in their vari­ ety, help us to designate an infinite number of thoughts and things. but if the sounds come one after the other without being attached to an object or thought, they make us weary without our knowing why. (1994:82) in this aesthetic climate, few could find value in musical machines that aimed primarily to reproduce orchestral timbres. orchestrions, therefore, were an aesthetic impossibility throughout much of the eighteenth century; they 17 18 current musicology appear only during that infamous shift in musical history that allowed music without words to be praised for all the reasons it had formerly been con­ demned. while it may seem obvious that machines designed to reproduce or­ chestral compositions should have been closely tied to the new aesthetics of instrumental music, their existence, far from a being a side effect of the shift, is bound to the central tenets of what made such a complete aesthetic turnabout possible. scholars offer differing accounts of the so-called rise of instrumental music, and rather surprisingly, a number explain this shift with little or no reference to music itself. instead they locate its roots in philosophical developments, such as the birth of formalism or the rebirth of idealism. mark evan bonds goes so far as to assert, "the new aesthetics of instrumental music reflected fundamental transformations in contempo­ rary philosophy and general aesthetics that were unrelated to the music of the time" (1997:389; emphasis added). i would like to argue, however, that the existence of orchestrions and similar instruments suggests these changes were rooted in the practicalities of musical culture. since orchestrions ex­ ploit the timbres of the orchestra, we might examine the development of the orchestra to explain this shift. it was during this time, as spitzer and zaslaw show, that the orchestra solidified as an institution: expanding from its string core, it became a stable body of trained musicians; the increasing numbers and varieties of wind instruments expanded the palette of sound available to the composer (2004). in other words, the orchestra rose to power during the late eighteenth century. evidence for this abounds, from compo­ sitions exploiting the variety of instruments to the appearance of the first proto-orchestration treatises. and it was in this period that the need to ex­ plain the orchestra through various metaphors diminished, while the or­ chestra itself became a powerful metaphor for the outside world. the magi­ cal combination of the ensemble's unity, expressive range, and variety of sounds appealed to the early romantics. for example, poets began to de­ scribe nature as an "orchestra" of birds, insects, breezes, and brooks (spitzer 1996:248). as people came to know the orchestra, it changed their perception of the orchestra's capacity for expression. the rise of the orchestra, and its consolidation into a powerful musical ensemble, affected the major aes­ thetic shift that gave instrumental music its status. indeed, the strength of the orchestral ensemble, with it increasingly complex use of instruments, offered a new way of listening to music, one in which the listener could revel in the beauty of sound. wilhelm wackenroder, for instance, writes ecstatically on his experience of listening to music: emily i. dolan truly, it is an innocent, touching pleasure to rejoice over sounds, over pure sounds! a childlike joy!-while others deafen themselves with rest­ less activity and, buzzed by confused thoughts as by an army of strange night birds and evil insects, finally fall to the ground unconscious; 0, then i submerge my head in the holy cooling, wellspring of sounds and the healing goddess instills the innocence of childhood in me again ... (197l:178-79) with this new mode of listening to music came a reevaluation of the me­ dium of sound. for wackenroder, sound itself was imbued with romantic spirit: no other art but music exists that has a raw material which is, in and of itself, already impregnated with such divine spirit. its vibrating material with its ordered wealth of chords comes to meet the creating hands half­ way and expresses beautiful emotions. (197l:189) johann gottfried herder argued against kant's valuation of music through his strong belief that sound itself had an inherent aesthetic worth, and that we as humans are also inherently receptive to its effects: sound, the summoner of the passions, has a power we all experience. we respond to it both physically and spiritually. it is nature's voice, an inner dynamism that draws forth a response from the entire human race; it is a harmonious movement. (1981: 146-47) other authors made it clear that it was the symphony, above all other genres of music, that offered this direct access to the power of sound. jean­ baptiste suard believed that the orchestra, with its "infinite variety [of] col­ ors and shadings" was far more powerful than the human voice (spitzer and zaslaw 2004:436); ludwig tieck, wackenroder's friend and collabora­ tor, argued that the power of art lay in its "fullness": thus, in every art blooms a full, luxuriant splendor in which all the full­ ness of life and all individual feelings unite and struggle and press in all directions and thus depict a united life with bright colors and diverse sounds. it seems to me nothing in music fills this place so well as the grand symphonies composed of manifold elements. (wackenroder 1984:351) seen in this light, the image of kant listening to passing marching bands is perhaps not quite so humorous or outlandish as it first appears. his love ofloud military music, rather than an anomaly of aesthetic taste, was repre­ sentative of contemporary sensibilities. the widespread interest in timbre 19 20 current musicology was notably a fascination with military timbre. the prevalence of haydn's military symphony on the barrels of orchestra machines cannot be ac­ counted for merely by the ease with which military music could be set for these machines: outside of the realm of automatic instruments, haydn's military symphony was his most loved and frequently performed instru­ mental composition. rather than suggesting vagueness so commonly criti­ cized in the eighteenth century, haydn's symphony terrified and delighted its listeners because of the clarity with which it depicted the military scene­ and this clarity stemmed directly from its evocative sonorities. one reviewer for london's morning chronicle noted that the "cymbals" (surely referring to the battery of turkish percussion as a whole) mark and tell the story: they inform us that the army is marching to battle, and, calling up all the ideas of the terror of such a scene, give it reality. discordant sounds are then sublime: for what can be more horribly discordant to the heart than thou­ sands of men meeting to murder each other (landon 1976:251). the military style was emotionally evocative, conceptually clear, and easy to understand, and created a forum for the rambunctious play of new, exciting, and often exotic timbres. its popularity inevitably led to grum­ bling about the overuse of percussion (the above morning chronicle reviewer had little good to say about the use of percussion in the military symphony's last movement); by 1809, e. t. a. hoffmann could complain, formerly the bass drum and the jangle of tambourine, triangle and cym­ bal were heard only rarely in the theatre, but gradually they became more and more frequent and finally even entered the concert-hall. it would have done well to lock its doors against them, for seldom is a concert-hall large or an orchestra loud enough to make the deafening sound of the bass drum and the jangle of the other so-called turkish instruments even bear­ able. (hoffmann 1989:226) seen in this light, the shift that gave rise to instrumental music, far from stemming entirely from an abstract shift in aesthetic philosophies, was fu­ eled by the development of the orchestra itself. the burgeoning symphonic style, with its myriad timbres and penchant for bombastic military expres­ sion, offered new ways of listening to music. the immediacy and transient nature of instrumental music, once dubious in the eyes of numerous critics, suddenly became the very source of music's profound power, and the raw material of music, formerly equated with meaningless splotches of color, became imbued with emotion and feeling. orchestra machines are the embodiment of the shifting aesthetics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. designed to capture or­ chestral timbre, they capitalize on the new immediacy so prized in music. emily i. dolan wasianski's description of the episode involving kant would have been un­ thinkable were not it were not for this shift-his language grew out of a new orchestral discourse. far from existing on the edge of eighteenth century musical culture, bogenflugels, orchestrions, and panharmonicons signal a striking turning point. their invention and the ensuing discourse about them herald the birth of a new era in the history of the orchestra: the objec­ tification and crystallization of orchestral sonority. just as the concept of the orchestra unified and began to be used as a metaphor to describe other objects, so too the sound of the orchestra became a discrete concept, one associated with powerful effects. no longer was the orchestra merely a copy of a copy, twice removed from nature; rather, it had become an object wor­ thy of imitation. notes i would like to thank jan jaap haspels of the nationaal museum van speelklok tot pierement in utrecht and mikhail gouriev of the state hermitage music of russia for providing me with invaluable information about many of the instruments discussed in this article. i would also like to thank neal zaslaw, james webster, lenore coral, and nicholas mathew for their generous help with the preparation of this article. 1. see richards (1999), gerlach (1998), and sloane (1997).arthur ord-hume has published several texts on mechanical instruments of all sorts. 2. several treatises were written on the art of pinning barrels, including the reverend father joseph engramelle's monograph, la tonotechnie (paris 1770), which was included whole in a later treatise by dom francios bedos de celles, l'art du facteur d'orgue (paris 1766-78). for a more detailed discussion see haspels (1987). 3. for a concise history of the sostenente piano, see chladni (1800). c. p. e. bach praised a "bogenklavier" by johann hohlfeld, writing, "the fine invention of our celebrated holefeld [sic] which makes it possible to increase or decrease the registration by means of pedals, while playing, has made the harpsichord, particularly the single-manual kind, a much­ improved instrument, and, fortunately, eliminated all difficulties connected with the per­ formance of a piano. if only all harpsichords were similarly constructed as tribute to good taste!" (bach 1949:368-69). in 1783 bach even wrote a sonata fur das bogenklavier, h280 (w6s.48). 4. this instrument is in the collection of the nationaal museum van speelklok tot pierement (catalog number 669) and is in playing condition. 5. see ord-hume (1982). 6. arthur ord-hume must have been unaware that this instrument survives, for he criticizes robbins landon for referring to strasser's instrument as a "musical clock;' writing "cer­ tainly strasser's orchestrion had no timepiece" (ord-hume 1982:38 n. 21). 7. see encyclopedie, cd-rom version 1.0.0, s.v. "tymbre" (by jean-jacques rosseau). 21 22 current musicology references anon. 1800. nachrichten [malzel]. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 2: 414-16. anon. 1810. nachrichten [leppich and the panmelodicon]. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 12: 487-89. anon. 1812. nachrichten. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 14: 797-806. astor, george. 1799. manufacturer of musical instruments and music-seller to their majes­ ties and their royal highnesses the prince of wales and dukes of york and clarence [advertising pamphlet]. bach, c. p. e. 1949. essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments, translated and edited by william j. mitchell. new york: w. w. norton & co. batteux, charles. 1981. les beaux-arts reduits a un meme principe. in music and aesthetics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, edited by peter ie huray and james day, 4056. cambridge: cambridge university press. (orig. pub. 1746) blumenfeld, harold, trans. 1980. the syntagma musicum of michael praetorius, volume two, de organographia, first and second parts. new york: da capo press. bonds, mark evan. 1997. idealism and the aesthetics of instrumental music at the turn of the nineteenth century. journal of the american musicological society 50 (2-3): 387-420. chladni, e. f. f. 1800. nachricht von dem clavicylinder, einem neuerfundenen instrumente, von e. f. f. chladni, enthaltend bemerkungen iiber einige etwas damit verwandte tastaturinstrumente. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 2: 305-13. doppelmair, d. j. 1801. strassers mechainsiches orchester in st. petersburg. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 3: 736-39. drescher, siegfried, ed. 1974. wer war kant? drei zeitgenossischen biographien von ludwig ernst borowski, reinhold bernhard jackmann, and e. a. ch. wasianski. pfullingen: neske. gerlach, sonja. 1975. haydn's works for musical clock (flotenuhr): problems of authentic­ ity, grouping, and chronology. in haydn studies: report of the international haydn con­ ference, washington d.c. 1975, edited by jens peter larsen, howard serwer, and james webster, 122-29. haspels, jan jaap. 1987. automatic musical instruments: their mechanics and their music, 1580-1820. koedijk: nirota, muziekdruk c.v. herder, johann gottfried. 1981. kalligone. in music and aesthetics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, edited by peter ie huray and james day, 251-77. cambridge: cam­ bridge university press. (orig. pub. 1800) hoffmann, e. t. a. 1967. the best tales of hoffmann, edited by e. f. bleiler. new york: dover publications. ---. 1989. e. t. a. hoffmann's musical writings, edited by david charlton. cambridge: cambridge university press. kunz, thomas. 1798. beschreibung des orchestrion's. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 1: 88-90. landon, h. c. robbins. 1976. haydn: chronicle and works, vol. iii. bloomington, in: indi­ ana university press. michaelis, c. f. 1807. einige bemerkungen iiber den asthetischen charakter, werth und gebrauch verschiedener musikalischer instrumente. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 9: 241-50,257-63. ord-hume, arthur. 1982. joseph haydn and the mechanical organ. new york: crown pub­ lishers. pluche, noel-antoine. 1994. the spectacle of nature. in music and culture in eighteenth­ century europe, edited by enrico fubini, 79-83, chicago: university of chicago press. (orig. pub. 1746) emily i. dolan richards, annette. 1999. automatic genius: mozart and the mechanical sublime. music and letters 80 (3): 366-89. sloane, davis. 1997. beethoven and maize!: a re-evaluation of malzel's character and the history of wellington's victory. the beethoven journal 12 (2): 54-64. spitzer, john. 1996. metaphors of the orchestra-the orchestra as a metaphor. musical quarterly 80: 234-64. spitzer, john and neal zaslaw. 2004. the birth of the orchestra: history of an institution, 1650-1815. oxford: oxford university press. sulzer, georg. 1995. allgemeine theorie der schonen ktinste. in aesthetics and the art of musical composition in the german enlightenment: selected writings of johann georg sulzer and heinrich christoph koch, edited by nancy kovaleff baker and thomas christensen, 25-108. cambridge: cambridge university press. (orig. pub. 1771-74) times. 1811. the panharmonicon (november 28): 4. wackenroder, wilhelm heinrich. 1971. confessions and fantasies, edited by mary hurst schubert. university park: pennsylvania state university press. ---. 1984. werke und briefe, edited by gerda heinrich. munich: carl hanser verlag. 23 harness, kelley. 2006. echoes of women's voices: music, art, and female patronage in early modern florence. chicago and london: university of chicago press. reviewed by melanie l. marshall in stephen frears's recent film the queen (2006), elizabeth ii, played by helen mirren, is deeply concerned about the boundary between private family life and public persona in the period immediately following the death of diana, princess of wales. in seeking to protect the privacy of her family and especially that of her grandsons, to allow them to grieve in private, she inadvertently projects an uncaring public persona. it falls to the newly elected prime minister, tony blair, in collaboration with the queen's long-suffering secretary, to persuade her majesty to pursue a different course of action and thus placate the mass public. whatever the fairness of this representation, the queen, while clearly in command of her role as head of state, is portrayed as a leader no longer in command of her public image and even unable to comprehend its importance. i'm tempted to recommend that frears's queen acquaint herself with the sophisticated communication tactics of other female rulers by reading kelley harness's echoes of women's voices. whether wives, widows, or nuns, early modern italian noblewomen were adept at using patronage to shape their public image. of course, sometimes they too had to practice damage control-a topic to which i shall return. echoes of women's voices is an absorbing study of female self-fashioning in early modern florence that documents successes and mishaps in the pa­ tronage strategies of women regents and women religious. the main focus is on archduchess maria magdalena of austria, widow of cosimo ii de' medici, grand duke of florence, during her joint regency of florence (1621-30) with christine of lorraine, but there are also two chapters on the institutional patronage of the convent of santa croce (known as la crocetta), home to princess maria maddalena, christine of lorraine's daughter and therefore archduchess maria magdalena's sister-in-law. the concept of patronage as a means of fashioning a public identity is familiar, but aside from william prizer's articles on isabella d'este and lucrezia borgia (e.g., 1982; 1985; 1999), and studies of convents by robert kendrick (1996), craig monson (1995), and colleen reardon (1996; 2002), there is little substantial work on women's musical patronage in italy. harness draws upon research into early modern women's patronage of the visual arts, particularly highlighting the idea from roger crum (2001) that, regardless of who commissioned a work, current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 115 116 current musicology the potential patron, recipient, or user of a work exerts influence over its production (7). harness argues that patronage took on special significance for women as a means of communication-one that perhaps did not sit easily with society's emphasis on the importance of silence as a female virtue (second only to chastity). in short, through patronage, women had a voice. the women" envoiced" through female patronage were not only the patrons but also the women characters that proliferated in their music theater. chapter 1 addresses "some of the ways in which [various aspects of] court spectacles reflected social hierarchies and also combined to convey specific, politically charged meanings in the decade before the advent of a female regency [in florence] " (9). chapters 2 through 6 look in depth at the secular and sacred objects of patronage during the regency, whether music theater, art, literature, or equestrian ballets. la giuditta, a three-act opera with intermedi to a libretto by andrea salvadori and music (now lost) by marco da gagliano, is the subject of chapter 4: '''una forte, magnanima, e generosa vedova': judith" (a strong, magnanimous and generous widow). the final chapters (7 and 8) examine the institutional patronage of la crocetta. although the convent was an active artistic patron during the sixteenth century, there seems to have been a change in patronage activity there following princess maria maddalena's arrival in 1621: polyphony or concerted music became a feature of investiture and profession ceremonies, for example, and medici court diaries more regularly note convent theater performance. indeed, "between 1621 and 1633, the crocetta assumed the status of a satellite court" (287). at the end of each chapter harness includes valuable transcriptions and translations of selected archival documents, not to mention numerous music examples. harness's view of patronage as a means of communication leads to an investigation into the messages a work might have carried ("whose message was transmitted ... and to what audience?" 300) as well as into the exchange of ideas among those involved in the creation of a work. jacopo cicognini's santa catterina and le vittorie di santa tecla (both five-act plays with choral intermedi), probably performed at la crocetta, are intriguing examples of the complexity of the issues of audience and message. on the one hand, these theatrical entertainments exhibit "reciprocal communication" in that they "at once [stress] the holiness of the spiritual life and [congratulate] those young women wise enough to have sought it." on the other, the plays and their intermedi probably formed part of cicognini's strategy to achieve a "more lucrative position" with the medici; harness notes that the plays' emphasis on the free choice of convent life in place of enforced monasticism contrasts with much convent theater written by nuns and ties in with the official medici attitude toward princess maria maddalena's calling (300). thus, there are a number of "messages" in these works: first, a laudatory melanie l. marshall message perhaps directed to the nuns of la crocetta; second, a message that reflects medici propaganda on the princess's supposedly freely chosen vocation; third, a message from cicognini to the regents that he was worthy of further patronage. cicognini's works illustrate the importance of distinguishing between the contributions of all those involved in the collaborative production of an object of patronage, whether patron (s), adviser( s), potential recipient, crafts­ people, or other authors. the nuns of la crocetta influenced cicognini's works in that they were the intended performers and audience, but there is no documentary evidence detailing their active input into the content. as a result, it is unclear to what extent these works reflect the nuns' views. the nuns had a vested interest in promoting the worthiness of the spiritual life, however, and were campaigning for the canonization of their founder around the time of cicognini's plays. harness suggests the question of authorship is thorny where the patron is female: there is a particular concern for scholars to discern the extent of the woman's contribution to the resulting work and to distinguish her influence from that of her family (especially male relatives), her advis­ ers, and others working on the project (5). (harness notes also that the documentation already privileges the patron over the others involved in a project-musicians, carpenters, painters, and designers may have been making important and significant decisions independently of the patron or other overseers, but their precise contributions and creative processes are not usually recorded in detail.) there is abundant documentation concerning archduchess maria magdalena's involvement in the realization of the art and theater works that she commissioned; she was very much a hands-on patron. for example, maria magdalena selected the subject matter, attended rehearsals, and auditioned singers for the 1624 and 1625 productions of the five-act, fully sung opera la regina sant'orsola (libretto by salvadori, music by marco da gagliano; the 1625 production included a new aria by francesca caccini). there is an illuminating correspondence between maria magdalena, her sec­ retaries, and ferdinando saracinelli (the producer), in which the archduchess resolved a dispute over who should sing the title role vacated by soprano maria botti because she failed to learn her part. after the archduchess heard the singers, she settled on a castrato (botti seems to have been the only woman considered for the role of saint ursula). she also made suggestions about which music might be sung, recommending that francesca caccini compose a new aria (87-88). viewed in light of maria magdalena's evident involvement in the preparation of theatrical entertainments, the salvadori-gagliano opera and intermedi, la giuditta (judith), performed during the politically difficult visit 117 118 current musicology of pope urban viii's nephew, proves fascinating because of the ambiguous message it sent regarding the relationship of the joint regents of florence to the pope. unlike the unintentional miscommunication between frears's queen elizabeth ii and her subjects, here the ambiguity was deliberate. maria magdalena, with her keen eye for propaganda, is unlikely to have overlooked the symbolic potency of performing an opera "whose subject matter narrates the decapitation of a powerful political and military figure by a pious widow with traditional associations to florentine civic liberty" (1) during cardinal francesco barberini's visit. the figure of judith must have appealed on many levels to maria magdalena of austria. throughout early modern europe, women rulers used artistic patronage to confirm the legitimacy of female rule; this was no less true of regents than it was of queens. indeed, in the case of regents, legitimacy was an especially important issue because such women had married into the ruling family from outside, and therefore their loyalty and allegiances might be called into question. by the seventeenth century, judith had a long history in florentine cultural life: she had come to represent the city as well as the medici family. as harness explains, andrea salvadori's plot for la giuditta exploits the richness of judith as a multivalent symbol: "this judith is at once the militant church decapitating heresy, the spirit of florence protecting its interests, and a strong and clever [and chaste 1 young widow capable of defeating a seemingly more powerful man" (128). judith is a symbolic conflation of widow-regent archduchess maria magdalena with the embodiment of florence. using an image traditionally associated with medicean florence, archduchess maria magdalena presented herself as a leader loyal to the medici and willing to fight for florentine interests. following the performance, rumors abounded that the intended mes­ sage of the opera and its attendant prologue and intermedi had been that florence, with its female regents, would brook no nonsense from rome and its allies. on october 3, 1626, the archduchess's secretary, dimurgo lambardi, drafted a letter to andrea cioli, the florentine secretary of state in rome, the purpose of which was damage control. in the letter, lambardi takes responsibility for asking cioli to raise the issue with the pope, thus distancing the regents from the request (the crossings-out in the draft are illuminating here). the secretary of state is asked to represent the work as something that was prepared in haste and therefore not carefully selected or rehearsed, but, importantly, lambardi does not deny the validity of the politically rebellious interpretation of the performance: their highnesses heard with particular pleasure the praises that the pope gave to sig. salvadori for his judith, and he truly merited the honor that it pleased his holiness to bestow on him. [theil i iighnesses also say 1 i melanie l. marshall desire very much [sig. salv ado[ i] that, if your illustrious lordship should have occasion to be with the pope and should find him unoccupied with serious business, you [vvonld not refrain from] would take some favorable moment to disabuse his holiness of the idea that the work was deliberately thought out, prepared, and performed in order to apply to the barberini, because actually it was unexpected and improvised, and put together, one can say, in just a few hours. (1) in fact, la giuditta was planned, though with some haste compared to other courtly spectacles. (salvadori probably started writing the libretto in august 1626, and the opera was performed on september 22,1626, within a fortnight of the approval of the expenditure). just as maria magdalena was almost certainly aware of la giuditta's ambiguous political implications, so she was almost certainly behind the writing of her secretary's letter. certainly in the numerous letters harness has collected and translated, archduchess maria magdalena appears to have been a formidable woman who would have embraced ambiguity when it suited her political needs. and indeed, perhaps the various messages were intended for different constituencies: the image of the "militant church decapitating heresy" would have been appropriate for cardinal barberini as a representative of the pope, while the themes of the "spirit of florence defending her interests" and "the young widow capable of defeating" a powerful man were directed to the cardinal, but also to the archduchess's local florentine audience. unlike frears's queen elizabeth ii, this ruler seems to have known how far she could go, and how to handle the inevitable diplomatic controversy. harness has written a fascinating, insightful, and well-documented study of the communicative and political strategies of early modern noblewomen's artistic and musical patronage. i recommend this work for the light it sheds on patronage as a form of communication, and for the details of the roles of the various contributors to court spectacle. far from experiencing artistic decline, as some accounts have it, the florentine regents were responsible for sophisticated and elaborate theatrical entertainments and visual arts that conveyed complex political messages to diverse audiences. thanks to harness's attention to the echoes of women's voices, regency florence can once again be seen to have had all the signs of a thriving cultural life. references crum, roger j. 2001. controlling women or women controlled? suggestions for gender roles and visual culture in the italian renaissance palace. in beyond isabella: secular women patrons of artin renaissance italy, edited by sheryl e. reiss and david g. wilkins, 37-50. kirksville, mo: truman state university press. kendrick, robert. 1996. celestial sirens: nuns and their music in early modern milan. oxford monographs on music. oxford: clarendon press. 119 120 current musicology monson, craig. 1995. disembodied voices: music and culture in an early modern italian convent. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. prizer, william. 1982. isabella d'este and lorenza da pavia, "master instrument-maker." early music history 2: 87-127. ---. 1985. isabella d'este and lucrezia borgia as patrons of music: the frottola at mantua and ferrara. journal of the american musicological society 38 (1): 1-33. ---. 1999. una "virtu molto conveniente a madonne": isabella d'este as a musician. journal of musicology 17 (1): 10-49. reardon, colleen. 1996. veni sponsa christi: investiture, profession and consecration ceremonies in sienese convents. musica disciplina 50: 271-97. ---.2002. holy concord within sacred walls: nuns and music in siena, 1575-1700. oxford and new york: oxford university press. current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf charles perrone and cristopher dunn, eds .. brazilian popular music and globalization. gainesville: university press of florida, 2001. xii, 288 pp. reviewed by samuel araujo this book addresses the dynamics oflocally emerging musical expressions in their complex creative reactions to the global politics of cultural diffu­ sion. its contents are mainly derived from selected iinterdisciplinary con­ ference papers, along with a few scholarly articles produced by members of the brazilian academic project socio-anthropology of music in bahia (s.a.m.b.a.). the theme for these academic variations is set up by a pro­ vocative essay previously published in the new york times by the prominent brazilian singer, composer, and writer caetano veloso. the introductory piece by charles perrone and cristopher dunn ("'chiclete com banana': internationalization in brazilian popular mu­ sic") stresses the importance of studying the emergence of local popular styles within brazil vis-a-vis the local transit of international musical cur­ rents. while a useful and detailed reconstruction, this introduction is built on a chronology of the development of national genres that reproduces a number of minor albeit persistent mistakes found in the more readily avail­ able historical sources for brazilian popular music (for instance, the song "pelo telefone" incorrectly given as the first samba ever recorded). in spite of the editors' disclaimer of any comprehensive coverage of the subject, one should note the politically correct undertones which pre­ vail in the book. the emphasis is on those popular genres and repertoires that have been legitimized as "meaningful" (invariably meaning "opposi­ tional") by certain intellectual discourses while the popular noises of mass consumption, expressed through musical formation:, such as samba-canr;iio ie-ie-ie, musica sertaneja, and brega, are mentioned justin passing, as a sort of opaque background. this would raise no concerns regarding the treat­ ment of the main theme were it not for the fact that it is arguably through the latter styles that the effects of globalization have been more dramati­ cally felt in the local music scene over the last century. thus from the beginning the reader will very likely be led to think that globalization has, after all, had positive effects on brazilian music through the successful creative integration of local and international values, a view that is exem­ plified-rather than actually debated-by the authors' respective selec­ tions of musical styles. apparently less concerned with possible readings of his critical stances, current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york samuel araujo 203 in chapter 2 ("carmen mirandadada") caetano veloso examines singer and actress carmen miranda's role in giving worldwide exposure to the contradictions he sees as inherent to brazilian cultural formation. above all, he stresses the dialectic between pride (authenticity) and shame (back­ wardness) embedded in miranda's hollywood artistic performances in the 1940s as an everlasting trait of brazilian musical engagement with the world­ wide scene. in his view, this dialectic has affected locally articulated move­ ments appropriating foreign symbols (for instance, the multimedia tropicalia of the late 1960s, led by veloso himself, among others) as well as the international exposure of such movements (as exemplified by the mro­ brazilian olodum band from bahia, which participated in a 1991 paul simon concert in new york's central park). in chapter 3 ("myth, melopeia, and mimesis: black orpheus, orfeu, and internalization in brazilian popular music"), charles perrone confronts two distinct moments in the encounter between local and international values as expressed by two films: black orpheus (1959), by french director marcel camus, and orfeu (1999), by brazilian filmmaker carlos diegues. both were based in various degrees on the musical play orfeu da concei(:iio, written in 1953 by poet and songwriter vinicius de moraes. perrone's analysis proceeds from the contradictory reception of camus's film within and beyond brazil, notably its widely popular interpretation abroad as a "true picture" of the country as opposed to its often politicized intellectual read­ ings as "inauthentic." revisiting the original greek myth and its ideals of hope, mission, and continuity mediated through music making, perrone proposes an interesting counterpoint of the two movies. black orpheus, centered on bossa nova as a brazilian popular musical style, demonstrates an idealized romantic stress on music's power to overcome social inequal­ ity and the alienation of the poor. in contrast, carlos diegues's orfeu, whose soundtrack (under the musical direction of caetano veloso) illustrates the local impact of such internationally diffused styles as hip-hop and reggae, points to the power of media control as the key issue confronting the con­ tinuity of a mythical brazilian culture. the relationships between the above-mentioned tropicalia movement and the cultural practices of the mrican diaspora, and especially the role of popular music in this process, is treated by christopher dunn in chap­ ter 4 ("tropicalia, counterculture, and the diasporic imagination in bra­ zil"). his discussion engages paul gilroy's idea of a "black counterculture of modernity" founded on the strength and international impact of popu­ lar music emerging from mrican american ghettoes in the u.s. dunn sug­ gests, however, that gilroy has overly circumscribed the potential of his own analysis by limiting his argument to a north american, anglophone context as well as by failing to consider the relationships between the pos204 current musicology ited cultural formation and the youth countercultural practices of the 1960s and '70s. the case oftropicalia, contends dunn, suggests the profitability of expanding the whole argument. he then reconstructs the historical threads of tropicalia; its consistent adoption and persistent defense of symbols despised as foreign and/or alienated by both leftand right-wing aesthetic stances (exemplified, for example, by the electric guitar, black power hair styles, or funk music), are viewed as an opportunity for a "broader critique of prescriptive ideologies of national identity" (89-90). caetano veloso remains on the book's center stage in liv sovik's ar­ ticle, "globalizing caetano veloso: globalization as seen through a brazil­ ian pop prism." sovik argues that as veloso's initially marginalized ideas on brazilian culture-which praise the integration of art and mass culture, and of foreign and local elements-progressively became conventional wis­ dom in public discourse, the dichotomies still persistent in certain theo­ retical debates were creatively overcome. her essay is followed by john]. harvey's historical treatment of the central band oftropicalia, os mutantes (the mutants). harvey introduces the concept of anthropophagy (or cul­ tural cannibalism), an idea first developed in the 19:20s by brazilian writer oswald de andrade, to help interpret the group's musical output begin­ ning in the late 1960s as well as their highly positive reception by north american avant-garde musicians in the 1990s. a different key is struck by idelber avelar ("defeated rallies, mourn­ ful anthems, and the origins of brazilian heavy metal"), who concen­ trates on the birth of a strong heavy metal movemenr in brazil, epitomized by the appearance of the internationally acclaimed band sepultura. avelar finds particularly suggestive the emergence of a movement that, in his view, contradicts basic rules of good conduct in brazilian popular music, which place value on folk "roots" or "tradition," at a moment (ca. 1995) when a full return to democracy, after years of military rule, was being frustrated by the political elites' defense of the status quo. the next six chapters stem from members of the s.a.m.b.a. project and concentrate in one way or another on musics emerging in salvador, the capital city of the state of bahia. in chapter 8 ("the localization of global funk in bahia and in rio"), anthropologi~t livio sansone sees the distinct responses to global funk emerging in salvador and rio de janeiro as contradicting pessimistic views of the cultural grey-out that, according to some, results from globalization. grounded in intensive fieldwork, sansone's analysis surveys some of the peculiar creative output observed in the two contexts and stresses their relative independence from patterns of youth consumption so central in north american and european countercultures. through solid historical critique, milton araujo moura's insightful samuel araujo 205 essay, "world of fantasy, fantasy of the world: geographic space and rep­ resentations of identity in the carnival of salvador, bahia," examines how the debate on ethnic origins and the interference of global culture and local political alliances have played out in salvador's carnival throughout the twentieth century. particularly intriguing is the contradiction posited between the increasing popularity of mro-bahian music, which moura perceives as having strenghtened the (oppositional?) self-esteem of salvador's black youth, and the concomitant, ever-growing legitimation of local conservative political elites. in chapter 10 ("songs of olodum: ethnicity, activism, and art in a globalized carnival community"), piers armstrong focuses on the polysemic role of olodum, the bloco afro musical unit and community en­ terprise that armstrong sees as being defined through a complex combi­ nation of mro-centric rhetoric, music, dance, and consumption. (the bloco afro is a type of carnival association emphasizing its mrican roots.) armstrong's essay provides a nice counterpoint to chapter 13 ("black or brau: music and black subjectivity in a global context"), in which ari lima analyzes the types of manipulation of ethnic origins in blocos afro such as olodum and he aye as well as in carlinhos brown's carnival group timbalada. a similarly fitting juxtaposition applies to osmun do pinho's ethno­ graphic accoun t of the place of reggae in the black counterculture of mro­ descendants in salvador and in brazil ("'fogo na babilonia': reggae, black counterculture, and globalization in brazil"), and antonio j. v. dos santos godi's historical treatment of the influence of reggae within the blocos afro, leading to the emergence of hybrid samba-reggae and the media exposure of both global and local styles in the radiophonic media of salvador and its neighboring itaparica island. the articles by ethnomusicologists larry crook (chapter 14, "turned­ around beat: maracatu de baque virado and chico science") and john murphy (chapter 15, "self-discovery in brazilian popular music") both deal with the rediscovery oflocal popular music styles (percussion-based maracatu and fiddle-derived rabeca, respectively) by the urban youth in the north­ eastern state of pernambuco, as exemplified by groups such as chico sci­ ence e nac;:ao zumbi and mestre ambrosio. in the closing essay (chapter 16, "good blood in the veins of this brazilian rio"), frederick moehn returns to oswald de andrade's concept of anthropophagy-i.e., brazilian culture's power of converting through digestion anything foreign into some­ thing of its own-to discuss the optimistic view of global interconnectedness and the creative use of new technologies represented by recent genera­ tions of brazilian popular musicians, such as fernanda abreu, chico sci­ ence, and carlinhos brown. 206 current musicology despite its shortcomings in not providing a more comprehensive and theoretically grounded coverage of its subject, this ibook will certainly in­ troduce english language readers to many ways in which globalization has affected brazilian popular music. both the bibliography and the discogra­ phy accompanying the articles should be seductive invitations to more com­ plex readings in the near future. askew, kelly m. 2002. performing the nation: swahili music and cultural politics in tanzania. chicago and london: university of chicago press. xvii, 417 pp. cd included. andrew eisenberg if the last few decades of postcolonial critique have accomplished anything, it has been to cast a bright light on certain elephants that have too long resided, invisible, in cultural anthropology's living room. the largest of these has been, of course, the nation-state. it took years of searching cri­ tiques, but citizenship, nationalism, and state fetishism have finally become stock anthropological topics. the evidence of this shift may not yet be fully felt in the academic publishing world; however, if the list of dissertation topics in north america's top anthropology departments is any indication, an "anthropology of the state" is no longer an arcane idea. ethnomusicologists have been full participants in anthropologizing the nation-state (e.g. stokes 1992; slobin 1993; sugarman 1999; turino 1999), but no musical ethnography has gone quite so far in this regard as kelly m. askew's performing the nation: swahili music and cultural politics in tanzania. this is perhaps because askew has seized upon a question well­ tailored to ethnomusicological methodologies. she asks: if a nation is a social construct, an "imagined community" (anderson [1983] 1989), then how and by whom is it imagined (askew 2002:14)?1 in approaching this question, askew follows in the footsteps of her teacher, michael herzfeld, who has argued for the importance of examining nationalism and the so­ cial construction of the nation state in various discursive fields-not just in official language, but also in everyday discourse and expressive culture, including music (herzfeld 1997). askew chooses to focus on the ways the tanzanian nation has been (and continues to be) imagined through musical performance. she deals with three musical genres, ngoma (performances of competitive dance or­ ganizations), dansi (urban, congolese-influenced popular music), and taarab (sung swahili poetry),2 which are all national in scope, largely be­ cause they are sung in the tanzanian national language of kiswahili. her aim is to examine these "swahili" genres as spaces where ideas about the tanzanian nation are made manifest and negotiated. to this end, she cre­ atively draws upon direct observations, archival records, and a range of secondary sources (both western and tanzanian). it is evident that great care was taken in shaping the overall structure of performing the nation. askew treats an immense amount of ethnographic current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york andrew eisenberg 215 and historical data without ever losing sight of her core research problem. she begins with a masterfully composed introductory chapter that sets the physical scene with descriptive passages and the theoretical scene with a lucid literature review. it is followed by a brief history of tanzania, focused metonymically on the small but historically important coastal town of tang a, a crossroads where autochthons, migrants, refugees, colonizers, and set­ tlers from mrica, arabia, and europe have for centuries interacted and become socially intertwined. this section offers a necessary contextualization of the hybrid swahili ethnoscape so central to tanza­ nian nationalism. by the third chapter we have entered familiar musicological turf, with a "limited musical ethnography and social history" of ngoma, dansi, and taarab (121), focusing on the inseparable relationship between the musi­ cal and the political in tanzania. askew also uses this chapter to position herself as the ethnographer in her study, a necessary task given her full participation in tanzanian music and politics as both a scholar and a per­ former. she discusses how her research into the politics of ngomawas aided by her role as an "honorary cultural officer," and then how she slowly be­ gan to perform with taarab and dansi groups. interestingly, she presents herself as somewhat of a passive figure when she mentions her emergence as a performer. "dpon discovering my musical capabilities," she writes, "babloom [a taarab group] set to work transforming me into a colleague" (lls). while there is no reason to doubt askew's characterization of events, it is difficult not to wonder if she is being strategic in presenting herself as more a social scientist than a performer. the next three chapters present the majority of the empirical data, ethnographic and historical. the focus of these chapters moves back and forth between the personal and the national, allowing her readers a sense of a more dialogic reality. askew's point is not to describe nationalism from below or from above, but to understand its complex, "polyphonic" real­ ity-the attempts by the state to compose and arrange its nationalist projects and "the cacophony that continually threatens to deafen state attempts at harmony" (161). chapter 5 deals with tanzania's attempts at top-down cultural politics (including its rather lackluster cultural revolution). tanzanian cultural policy has been consistently undone by its marriage to protean political paradigms (modernization, then traditionalism, then back to moderniza­ tion, etc.) and the petty corruption of postcolonial bureaucracy. askew offers another view of the inherent problems of top-down cultural policy in chapter 6, which describes at length ngoma performances at tanzania's national arts and language competitions. through step-by-step accounts of performances and rehearsals, askew delivers the distinct impression 216 current musicology that national ngoma competition has been reduced to a series of regula­ tions and standards in the name of a nationalism based in socialist unity. in what may be considered the main strand of her ethnography, askew traces the relationship between the dynamic interpersonal politics of taarab performances and the national multiparty politics in which they have be­ come ensconced. she begins seemingly far from the realm of national politics or cultural policy. relying on colorful descriptive vignettes, askew illustrates how female audience members air disputes publicly and attempt to manipulate their own and other's social positions through the histrion­ ics of kutunza (tipping), the highly performative act of bestowing money upon musicians as they perform: there is a definite art to the act of tipping-as much performance as anything on stage .... the uninitiated or very shy may unceremoniously walk up to the singer to hand him or her some money, but the vast majority will make their way from the audience to the stage with a stylized, elegant dance that enables them to stand among the seated and thus show off skill in dancing or perhaps a new dress .... when combined with lyrics that speak to a particular personal issue, tipping provides people with the means of appropriating those lyrics and claiming them for personal use. someone angered by a friend's lack ofloyalty, for example, in choosing to tip during a song about a disloyal friend appropriates the text for a personal dispute and, without transgressing local protocol, makes public a private grievance. (139-40) tipping, "the audience's medium of participation" (141), is thus shown to be an institution with a perhaps unexpected function: it provides social actors with a performative arena in which to work through (if not actually resolve) issues and disputes that are not otherwise aired for reasons of propriety (or even for fear ofviolence).3 askew's purpose for bringing this fascinating material to light is to present swahili music (perhaps taarab in particular, because of its highly metaphorical texts) as imbued with a "com­ municative potency" that opens a space for social relations to be consti­ tuted and reconstituted through their expression in performance (155). askew brings the insights gained from her examination of taarab per­ formance to bear on national cultural politics by focusing on the links that were established in the nineties between taarab groups and tanzanian po­ litical parties engaged for the first time in multiparty politics. she finds, perhaps unsurprisingly, that political parties are far more successful in appropriating the labor of taarab groups than controlling the communicaandrew eisenberg 217 tive potency of taarab songs. with multivalency of meaning an integral aspect of taarab, it would be impossible to put forward a singular interpre­ tation of any song (262). askew presents examples of performance situa­ tions where multiple interpretations of particular taarab songs coexist in obvious tension with one another. differently situated subjects accept dif­ ferent interpretations, often with full cognizance of other interpretations, creating an opportunity for strategic, performative negotiations and ma­ nipulations of various messages. askew's prime example is most stark. she describes a concert at a political campaign rally where the finale was, from one perspective, the party's rousing theme song and, from another per­ spective, a lewd commentary on female promiscuity. in the end, we are told the audience members were more interested in the latter interpreta­ tion. they "tipped according to their politics of the personal and did not, by in large, get swept up in a wave of anti-opposition sentiment" (262). what askew presents us with here is a visceral sense of the difficulty of controlling symbolic production in the tanzanian public sphere. her ob­ servations, she admits, are in direct tension with what some prominent theorists have observed in regard to the ability of those in power to ma­ nipulate public consciousness. achille mbembe, pierre bourdieu, and oth­ ers whom askew refers to as "state-centric" theorists, paint a very different picture of the workings of the cultural and symbolic in national politics (10-13,273). askew focuses on bourdieu in particular, who writes that agents of the state essentially bring the state into being by articulating what the state is (bourdieu 1999; askew 2002: 11). while accepting bordieu's basic premise, askew finds nothing in the tanzanian case to validate his infer­ ence that the agency for state-formation lies solely with the state. instead, tanzanian state-formation appears as a dialogic and highly contingent pro­ cess, just like any other performance. askew spends considerable time mapping the theoretical terrain upon which she links performance and nationalism. she begins with michel foucault's (1980) assertion that power "only exists in action," that it "is neither given, nor exchanged, nor recovered, but rather exercised" (askew 2002: 127,291). this dictum, she holds, "lays the foundation for a performative understanding of power" (291), because it tells us that power must always be demonstrated, must be made palpable, in order to exist. in the context of the nation-state, this is often done through dramatic, performative means. state power is made tangible through performances in such contexts as festivals, ceremonies, or even, as we read in the very first paragraphs of performing the nation, border crossings. this notion that the tanzanian nation is "performed" as much as "imag­ ined" emerges in the context of an effort by some anthropologists (includ­ ing herzfeld) to revise reigning theories of nationalism4 by looking be218 current musicology yond western europe for empirical data. in the view of herzfeld, askew, and other cultural anthropologists of the nation state, the most often read and cited work on nationalism lacks a nuanced perspective on culture. benedict anderson's oft-cited imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism ([1983] 1989) provides a step in the right direc­ tion by attempting to elaborate upon the cultural foundations of euro­ pean nationalism; however, anderson's culturalism still suffers from over­ simplification and a lack of broader (comparative) perspective on the role of culture in history and society. in particular, anderson's overriding focus on print media as the vector of national consciousness blinds him to the dialogical nature of the national imaginary (herzfeld 1997; askew 2002:9-13) . invoking antonio gramsci, askew writes: rather than an abstract ideology produced by some to be consumed by others, nationalism ought to be conceptualized as a series of continually negotiated relationships between people who share occupancy in a defined geographic, political, or ideological space. no amount of rhetoric can construct a nation if it fails to find resonance with state citizenry. there must be some degree of mutual engagement for nationalism to flourish, but this very element of mutuality, or sharedness, of common participation, admits the possibility of dissension from those excluded from state activities. (12) thus, askew's treatment of nationalism begins with a basic anti­ reductivist move, describing the state as a somewhat messy "work in progress" (26), rather than the miraculously cohesive social fetish others have argued it to be. she admits that this view is especially well suited to the particularities of the mrican postcolonial state. the tanzanian state in particular has shown itself to be a fluid and consistently contested entity. not only has it undergone major changes of economic and political iden­ tity in its short four decades of existence, but its very being has continually been called into question due to the fraught nature of the union between the semi-autonomous zanzibar archipelago and the rest of the republic (the mainland). still, askew means for her study to have relevance beyond the mrican subcontinent as an important addition to the growing book­ shelf of ethnographic case studies on nationalism. in the end, she con­ cludes that her "performative approach" to the state could be usefully ap­ plied more generally: " ... to my mind, it can expose the continual perfor­ mance not only required by states but required of states that, just like indi­ viduals, must continually reinvent themselves to accommodate the flux and flow of social, political, ideological, and economic change" (292). andrew eisenberg 219 defined this way, askew's performative approach may be more deeply in­ debted to previous anthropological approaches to the state than one might guess from her bibliography. after all, it has been nearly a quarter century since clifford geertz (1980) concluded that nineteenth-century balinese "pageants were not mere aesthetic embellishments, celebrations of a domi­ nation independently existing; they were the thing itself' (120). what is perhaps more groundbreaking in askew's work is the insistence on the dialogic nature of nationalism. this she brilliantly imports from the fields of performance studies and ethnomusicology, which have both come to a general consensus that the barrier between performer and audience is even more of a eurocentric myth than once thought. while i agree that askew's "performative approach" has much to of­ fer, it is hard to overlook an inherent problem when one examines it from a more musicological perspective. here i am referring to askew's tendency uncritically to conflate music with performance, as if musical performance is no different than any other type of performance. in an epigraph to chapter 4, askew quotes musical anthropologist steven feld: an ethnography of musical communication which concentrates on musical meaning and interpretation should be concerned with explicating some of these lived epistemologies, these intertwinings of form and substance, these practices full of potential or realized coherence and contradiction. (feld 1994; askew 2002:123) it is interesting that askew reproduces this quote as an epigraph, be­ cause it can be argued that what feld suggests is not exactly the direction she takes. while she affords ample attention to "lived epistemologies" and the "intertwining of form and substance," askew does not accomplish her analysis through a particular focus on musical meaning and interpretation, if we accept that the term musical refers primarily to the human manipula­ tion of sound. one could never argue, of course, that askew ignores sound. after all, performing the nation is packaged with a cd to offer readers "an appropriately aural sense" of taarab, dansi, and ngoma (327).5 still, i con­ tend that there is a lack of engagement on askew's part with sound as empirical data in her writing. recently, other ethnographers of african popular music dealing with similar connections between power relations on the micro and macro so­ ciallevels have chosen to delve deeply into the semiotics of musical sound (turino 2000; mein~es 2003). in his work on music and nationalism in zimbabwe, thomas turino employs peircian semiotic theory to analyze the unique power of music as a political tool, explaining how musical sound 220 current musicology can seem more true (unquestionable) than words alone. louise meintjes, meanwhile, focuses on the symbolic mediation of sound in the production of mbaqanga music in order to understand the ways in which discourses of race and difference in post-apartheid south mrica are made manifest in everyday expressive culture. while askew dutifully describes the sonic aspects ngoma, dansi, and especially taarab, she rarely links this technical parsing of sound to her larger points. her semiotic gaze is focused more sharply upon another aspect of musical performance-poetics. she discusses the swahili cultural predilection for subtle, artful wordplay and how highly metaphorical ngoma and taarab texts allow room for groups and individuals to reinterpret mes­ sages in tactical ways. summing up an argument that is fully treated in her ethnographic description, askew writes: "metaphor produces multivalence and transforms the songs into power-laden weapons commonly exploited in the negotiation of social relations" (126). this is an important point, but it doesn't explain why these metaphors are transmitted through music and not some other form of poetic recitation. leaving aside any meta­ physical, arguments about the relationship between musical medium and poetic message, i would contend that there are concrete ways in which a deeper focus on musical sound may have enhanced or revised the ethno­ graphic evidence presented in performing the nation. for example, take the following observation of the nationalization of taarab: it may have been officially desirable to embrace the swahili language, swahili poetry, and certain other things swahili in the early years of independence, but not the genre of music most identified with swahili coastal regions, namely, taarab. one can only suspect that the obvious musical influences from middle eastern and indian sources struck a sharp dissonance with the mrocentrism of post-independence nationalism. (280-81) why is it that "one can only suspect" that sounds perceived as foreign were at odds with post-independence nationalism? in fact, it seems that this could be a fruitful direction for in-depth research rather than mere suspicion. given her aim to focus on music as a way inside the intricate dialogics of the national imaginary, one might have expected askew to attack head on the tropes of foreignness and swahiliness in the discourse surrounding the sounds of taarab. the eventual ascendance of taarab onto the stage of tanzanian national politics must have involved a great deal of discussion and political maneuvering (amongst musicians, cultural offic­ ers, politicians, etc.) over the meanings and values associated with particu­ lar musical sounds. and yet, askew, who one would assume to be intimately andrew eisenberg 221 familiar with these discourses, elides them in her writing. all this is not to say that the material askew presents is flawed in any major way. i simply think it is worth pointing out-especially here in a journal of musicology-that there exists another, more sound-oriented direction askew might have usefully taken, a direction that would have potentially yielded other kinds of ethnographic data. the fact remains that performing the nation is one of the best ethnomusicological monographs to emerge in recent years. from the very design of the study to the small­ est articulated detail, it stands as a testament to the power of expressive culture as an object of anthropological inquiry. by constantly linking the expressive practices of individuals to the larger workings of national poli­ tics, askew is able to center on what michael herzfeld refers to as the "broadly shared cultural engagement" behind the instantiation of the na­ tion as an idea (herzfeld 1997:3). thus, performing the nation is not only a fine work of ethnomusicology but a weighty contribution to the ethno­ graphic study of the nation-state. notes l. it should be mentioned that performing the nation is also in print in tanza­ nia (mkuki na nyota press). the fact that askew is also writing for a tanzanian audience only brings greater relevance and validity to her work. it is still all too rare for a young northern scholar working in a southern area to take the pains necessary to make her work available in the region where she conducted her re­ search. i hope that kelly askew's book is a harbinger in this regard. 2. there is also some discussion of kwaya (christian "choir" music), but only a passing mention of swahili rap, which was a relatively minor phenomenon when askew conducted her field research but had by far surpassed all the other genres in popularity by the time her book was published. though i do not believe it decreases the relevance of her work, it is interesting to note that a visitor to tanza­ nia in the year performing the nation was published would have found a very differ­ ent musical landscape than askew describes. 3. this point is also elaborated upon in a recently published study by kenyan anthropologist, mwenda ntarangwi (2003). readers interested in the social dy­ namics of taarab are encouraged to examine ntarangwi's ethnography, which cen­ ters on taarab in mombasa, kenya, alongside the work reviewed here. 4. see especially anderson ([1983j 1989). 5. the cd features askew's own field recordings, mastered by german scholar and record producer werner graebner. the list of tracks, provided as an appen­ dix, is annotated and cross-referenced with the rest of the text. askew herself is featured as a singer on one track. references anderson, benedict. [1983j 1989. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london and new york: verso. 222 current musicology bourdieu, pierre. 1999. rethinking the state: genesis and structure of the bu­ reaucratic field. in state/culture: state-formation after the cultural turn, edited by george steinmetz, 53-75. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. feld, steven. 1994. communication, music and speech about music. in music grooves, edited by charles keil and steven feld, 77-95. chicago: university of chicago press. foucault, michele. 1980. power/knowledge. brighton: harvester. geertz, clifford. 1980. negara: the theater state in nineteenth-century bali. princeton: princeton university press. herzfeld, michael. 1997. cultural intimacy: social poetics in the nation state. new york: routledge. meinges, louise. 2003. sound of africa!: making music zulu in a south african studio. durham and london: duke university press. ntarangwi, mwenda. 2003. gender, identity, and performance: understanding swahili cultural realities through song. trenton: mrica world press. slobin, mark. 1993. subcultural sounds: micromusics of the west. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. stokes, martin. 1992. the arabesk debate. music and musicians in modern turkey. oxford: clarendon press. sugarman, jane c. 1999. imagining the homeland: poetry, songs, and the dis­ courses of albanian nationalism. ethnomusicology 36 (1): 1-87. turino, thomas. 1999. signs of imagination, identity, and experience: a percian semiotic theory for music. ethnomusicology 43 (2): 221-55. analysis, performance, and images of musical sound: surfaces, cyclical relationships, and the musical work john latartara and michael gardiner introduction it is not a question of junking these concepts, nor do we have the means to do so. doubtless it is more necessary, from within semiology, to transform concepts, to displace them, to turn them against their presuppositions, to reinscribe them in other chains, and little by little to modify the terrain of our work and thereby produce new configurations. (derrida 1981:24) following derrida, in this paper we hope to reinscribe the familiar musi­ cological concepts of analysis and performance, drawing them into new relationships, in order to turn them against their presuppositions and produce new configurations. through an exploration of analysis, perfor­ mance, and images of musical sound, these new configurations highlight surface details and offer an alternative approach to previous analysis and performance paradigms, leading to a reformulation of the concept of the musical "work." the relationship between analysis and performance has posed challeng­ ing questions for musicologists, theorists, and performers, generating some of the most thought-provoking discussions in the literature. the endeavors of analysis and performance are closely related, yet historically they have em­ ployed different methods and participated in different traditions. nicholas cook writes, "i would like to counterpose not so much the analyst and the performer but rather the 'writing' and the 'performing' musician, or, more precisely, music as writing and music as performance" (1999:250). for the most part, analysts write about notated music, whereas performers play or sing music. while not inherently negative, these differences of activity have contributed to the chasm that often exists between music analysis and performance. for the most part, musical conclusions in analytical articles are based upon score analyses, leaving performers' interpretations entirely out of the discussion. rarely do analytical articles base their musical conclusions on performance analyses, unless that is the specific intent of the article.! in order to focus our argument we define "analysis" as the method­ ological activity of analyzing a score as practiced in most western art music analytical journals published today. likewise, while the concept of musical current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 53 54 current musicology performance can encompass improvisation and physical gesture, we take "performance" to mean the western art music performance tradition, as practiced today, of score interpretation. although both definitions are admittedly limited, they represent typical approaches and activities within both fields. 2 why should the fields of analysis and performance be brought closer together, and how would this benefit musicologists, theorists, and perform­ ers? the simple answer is that both analysis and performance are mutually supportive endeavors that broaden our musical understanding in different but related ways. a more profound reason for bringing analysis and perfor­ mance closer is that doing so can expand our understanding of the musical "work." although a problematic term and concept, a musical "work" is generally defined within the western art music tradition as having an identity based upon a score that is used for performance interpretation and having a fixed beginning and ending (see talbot 2000:169-70). this score-based view of the musical work has exacerbated the gap between analysis and performance by drawing sharp lines between score and interpretation, and we claim that images of musical sound generated through spectrography can provide the tools to bring these fields together. the three main points we highlight are: (1) analysis and performance have had troubled relationships in musicological literature, (2) images of musical sound (spectrographs) can bring novel perspectives to analysis and performance, and (3) these novel perspectives can be used to generate a different, non -score-based conception of the musical work. we begin with an introduction to current analysis and performance research, after which we proceed to a discussion of images of musical sound, spectrographs, and the musical surface. we then compare two performances each of c. p. e. bach's fantasia in c minor, w. 63, no. 6, and beethoven's "hammerklavier" sonata, op. 106, movement 1, to demonstrate the value of spectrographic images in rendering visible and comprehensible the musical surface. our analyses highlight and compare surface details between two different performances, as well as between performance and score. in the next section we discuss the new cyclical paradigm that can be formed connecting score, performance, and spectrograph, and we show how this offers an alternative to previous analysis and performance paradigms and to widely accepted notions of the musical work. finally, drawing upon our discussion of spectrographs and musical models, we propose a new theory of the musical work as dynamic and in constant flux. john latartara and michael gardiner analysis and performance recently a growing number of publications have specifically addressed both analysis and performance. cook points out that in the field of music theory, "wallace berry's book musical structure and performance [1989] ... marked the emergence of ' analysis and performance' as a recognized sub-discipline within music theory" (1999:239). drawing on seeger (1977:168-81), rink (2002:37) provides a useful framework to separate analysis and performance literature into two types. the first approach he calls "prescriptive," which involves the analysis of a score prior to, and perhaps as the basis for, a performance. the second he calls "descriptive," which involves the analysis of an actual performance.3 prescriptive performance analyses using more traditional analytical methodologies have included those by schenker (2002), cone (1968), narmour (1988), berry (1989), and schachter (1994). all of these studies have emphasized that score analysis, within a theoretical framework, can lead to more insightful performances. berry exemplifies this view when he writes that his musical structure and performance is "about the systematic, rational examination of music toward demonstrable insights into structure as immanent meaning, and thence to concrete, pragmatic issues of tempo and articulation reflected in the myriad, subtle details of execution" (1989: ix). from this prescriptive mode, the interaction between analysis and performance is a one-way process, moving from analysis to performance. descriptive performance analyses attempt to reverse this one-way flow by beginning with the performance instead of the score. in relation to western art music, this approach was initially developed in the field of music psychology and has, for the most part, concentrated on the musical elements of time, dynamics, and articulation. gabrielsson (1999:523-50) provides a summary of descriptive performance analysis research that he separates into two eras: the early and the contemporary. the early era begins with the dynamic and articulation studies for piano by binet and courtier (1895) and continues to the 1940s, and the contemporary era begins with the work of bengtsson, gabrielsson, and thorsen (1969) on timing and dynamics and continues to the present. a number of recent studies specifically attempt to bridge the chasm between score analysis and performance analysis. cogan (1984) analyzes performances using spectrographs of musical recordings from a variety of eras and cultures. he also analyzes different performances of the same piece and uses spectrographic images as corroborating evidence for a theory of tone color. schmalfeldt (1985) attempts to bridge the analysis and performance gap by creating a dialogue between analyst and performer 55 56 current musicology (herself in both cases) that highlights how each perspective might move the other toward a better understanding of a beethoven bagatelle. both folio (1993:2) and rink (2002:39) attempt analyses using more unorthodox approaches aimed specifically at performers. folio uses the concepts of drama, narrative, and plot to analyze bartok's contrasts, and rink provides a list of methods, including tempo and dynamic graphing, that can be used to guide performances. lester (1995) draws relations between score analysis and performance, and clarke (1995) creates links between score and performance using theories of musical expression. finally, goodman (2002) and johnson (2002) analyze performance aspects of time, tempo, and dynamics by matching and comparing these elements with the score. johnson also uses a "spectrogram" to analyze vocal vibrato. while musicologists and music theorists have only recently turned at­ tention to these analysis and performance issues, ethnomusicologists have actively investigated these connections since the late nineteenth century. as stock bluntly states, "much ethnomusicology is intimately concerned with issues of musical performance; some of it even refers quite explicitly to the western art music tradition. but neither rink nor dunsby makes any mention of this large body of published research. ethnomusicology is effectively 'written out' of the history of music research" (1997:43). largely through the need for transcriptions of non-notated music, ethnomusicol­ ogy has from its inception been grappling with performance issues in relation to analysis, notation, structure, culture, and meaning (ellingson 1992), providing an important additional contribution to the analysis and performance literature. images of musical sound, spectrographs, and the musical surface "images of musical sound" refers to performance images created automati­ cally by some kind of machine or device. the history of sound imaging has been directly dependent upon advances in electronic and computer technology. the earliest studies to take full advantage of new technologies for musical analysis were by ethnomusicologists. these methods date back to the early twentieth century with the studies of pliny earle goddard (1906), densmore (1918), and metfessel (1928) (see ellingson 1992). these early devices automatically transcribed fundamental frequency content, which could then be translated into musical notation by hand. perhaps the most famous of these devices was the "melograph" developed by charles seeger (1951), which revealed not only pitch, but also amplitude and overtones from a live or recorded performance. with dramatic advances in technoljohn latartara and michael gardiner ogy and computer speed in recent decades, the spectrograph replaced the melograph and emerged as one of the more powerful and useful ways to image sound. spectrographs, also called spectrograms or sonograms, represent sound as a two-dimensional image, showing pitch on the vertical axis, time on the horizontal axis, and dynamics using shading or color. spectrographs, therefore, provide pictures of actual musical performances that show the entire sonic signal, including the fundamental, overtones, and complex noise-like sounds (for example, attack noise from piano hammers). a spectrograph is a static visual model of music, derived from the temporal process of performance.4 unlike a score, which in the western art music tradition is mostly prescriptive, a spectrograph is descriptive, providing a detailed visual picture of a specific performance. although both are visual representations of a work, the benefits of comparing the score and the spectrograph lies in their functional differences, not their similarities. we analyze spectrographic images to reveal similarities and differences between not only score and performance, but also between different performances. our analytic observations, consequently, are based upon both the score and performances. spectrographs were developed and initially used at bell laboratories in the 1940s and 1950s to study the language sounds of speech (potter 1945, fletcher 1953, potter, kopp, and kopp 1966). some of the earliest spectrographs of western musical performance are potter's (1945) image of a tenor with orchestra, and winckel's (1960) "sonogram" image of a passage from beethoven's symphony no. 8. cogan (1984) was the first to publish a book-length study devoted entirely to the analysis of music through the use of spectrographic technology. more recent studies that utilize spectrographs for the analysis of musical performance in both western and non-western traditions include huang (1998a, 1998b), cogan (1998, 1999), leech­ wilkinson (2003), and latartara (2004,2005). there is a critical distinction between the spectrographic image and musical hearing. spectrographs provide a visual representation of a physi­ cal sound signal, while musical hearing is a human perception involving both the physical and the psychophysical. for example, a spectrograph may show a fundamental pitch at 262 hz with many overtones, all with a strong intensity, and vertical bands of complex noise-like frequencies at the onset. these various details, however, would be perceived by a listener as the single pitch c4 played loudly on a piano. this is why spectrographs can be so useful for performance comparisons. in addition to hearing that one performer plays a certain passage differently than another performer, we can examine precise differences in the performances' overtone structures, 57 58 current musicology complex noise-like onset sounds, and dynamics. being able to analyze and discuss quantitative measures of frequencies and intensities provides valu­ able information for the analyst that is not available to the same level of precision from listening, and therefore allows for more detailed analytical comparison of different performances. in addition, through their detailed representations of the musical "sur­ face;' spectrographs facilitate an analytical approach that reflects postmodern insights into meaning and interpretation.5 postmodern critics often stress surface over depth, representation over reality, arguing that analysis does not uncover underlying truths but rather multiplies surface effects. in one of the classics of postmodernism, simulacra and simulation (1994), baudrillard discusses the idea of surface and depth in relation to the religious "image" and the deeper meaning that image represents. in defining the differences between "representation" and "simulation," he sets up a series of successive phases that reconceptualize the relationship between image and deeper meanmg: such would be the successive stages of the image: it is the reflection of a profound reality; it masks and denatures a profound reality; it masks the absence of a profound reality; it has no relation to any reality whatsoever: it is its own pure simulacrum. (1994:6) baudrillard argues that the conceptual space of representative meaning has been flattened, eliminating the connections between signifier (image) and what is being signified (deeper meaning). an image no longer stands for something else-something more profound-but rather stands for what it is on the surface, the image itself. in a similar fashion spectrographs can be used to examine musical surfaces. if we replace the word "image" with musical "score," baudrillard's successive phases gradually flatten out deeper, hierarchical analytical meanings in favor of the musical surface-the score or performance without reduction. the score, and thereby the performance, can be thought of as not reflecting or hiding a deeper analytical mean­ ing but merely existing on the surface as itself. this does not mean that musical surfaces are meaningless, but rather that meanings may proliferate independent of deeper musical structures. spectrographs facilitate analysis of the musical surface by creating a static picture of the surface details of a musical performance, which can then be examined.6 this process of examining musical surfaces has become increasingly popular for both composers and music analysts. stockhausen's concept of "moment-form," for example, can be viewed as a concern with the surface: john latartara and michael gardiner when certain characteristics remain constant for a while-in musical terms, when sounds occupy a particular region, a certain register, or stay within a certain dynamic, or maintain a certain average speed-then a moment is going on ... and when these characteristics all of a sudden change, a new moment begins. (1989:63) rather than reducing musical details, stockhausen describes the musical surface to develop his theory of the moment. studies by kramer, who ana­ lyzes mozart's divertimento in e~, k. 563 (1995:26-32), and fink, who draws long -range connections without underlying hierarchical levels (1999), both explore the idea of the musical surface. in one of his analyses, fink shows long-range linear connections in the credo of beethoven's missa solemnis, op. 123, created through duration and register. fink writes, [the connection] does not assign some pitches to a "deeper" level of struc­ ture; nor does it say anything about the intervening music. it is simply a consequence of the surface fact that these are the only sustained choral notes in the extreme (above g2) soprano register during that 178-bar stretch of music. (1999:112) while this approach is certainly a useful way to challenge hierarchical analytic approaches, our methodology is somewhat different. rather than scanning only the score for surface connections, we are interested in highlighting specific surface details from both the score and multiple performances of the same piece in order to reveal connections and oppositions that exist between score and performance. while it is true that spectrographs grew out of the scientific and structural linguistic fields, the visualization of musical sound need not dictate a structuralist approach. an approach that considers score, multiple performances, and spectrograph can multiply both the amount and kind of information available to the analyst. we agree with cook when he argues, "a musicology of performance really demands the integration of sound, word, and image achievable through current hypermedia technology" (2001:13). the following analyses, therefore, seek to increase the possibilities and complexities of analysis and performance relations. performances and analyses c. p. e. bach's fantasia in c minor, opening passage c. p. e. bach's fantasia in c minor, w. 63, no. 6, provides a good example for spectrographic performance analysis, both in terms of performance practice and instrumental choice. with its improvisational character and unmeasured 59 current musicology example i: beginning of bach's fantasia in c minor. allegro moderato figure la: spectrograph of beginning of fantasia played on a clavichord by benson. figure 1 b: spectrograph of beginning of fantasia played on a fortepiano by garvey. 60 john latartara and michael gardiner beginning and ending sections, the fantasia offered bach a way to "practice the declamatory [speech -like 1 style, and move audaciously from one affect to another" (bach 1949:153).7 we will analyze the opening passage played by two different performers on two different instruments. joan benson (1993) uses a clavichord and evelyn garvey (1988) uses a fortepiano, and these instrumental choices have radical consequences for the sound and perception of the performances. example 1 shows the score for the beginning of the fantasia, and figure 1a shows a spectrograph of this beginning played on a clavichord by benson.8 at the bottom of the spectrograph the corresponding fundamental pitch is shown, as well as the sixteenth note passage.9 if we focus on just the opening arpeggio, a number of characteristics regarding performance and instru­ mental sound emerge. as shown by figure la, a dramatic spectral expansion occurs, both through the rise in register and an increase in dynamics. the opening c minor arpeggio begins quietly on c2, but gradually gets louder as it moves upwards to c4. this is seen as a change from predominantly grey to black and as an increase in upper partials, moving from a narrow spectral range on c2, with upper partials reaching only 1.5 khz, to a wide, complex spectrum on c4 with upper partials reaching as high as 18 khz. moving from c2 to c4 can be perceived as a shift from darker sounds to brighter sounds. in general, lower, less intense sounds, which show fewer overtones, are often perceived and described as darker, and higher more intense sounds, which show more overtones, are often perceived and described as brighter (see cogan 1984: 1-19). these terms, however, are not absolute and are used relatively with each piece being analyzed. as the piece rises into registers 4 and 5 and increases in dynamics during the sixteenth-note passage, upper partials extend to 20 khz, the limit of human hearing. also, as the dynamics and attack density increase, complex noise-like sounds, caused by attack sounds and appearing as vertical bands of grey, emerge underneath the fundamentals. this extended upper partial range and complex spectra underneath the fundamentals corresponds with an even brighter, more complex sound. as heard in the performance and shown by the image, this opening gesture (from c2 to the sixteenth-note passage) projects a vivid spectral expansion and sonic shift from a darker and simpler sound to one that is brighter and more complex. in addition, articulation plays a crucial role in the shaping of this open­ ing. the first three pitches, c2, m2, and g2, are isolated from one another, with little overlap between partials. the remaining four pitches in the bass clef, seen as longer grey horizontal lines, are sustained into one another, creating a denser harmonic sound. the overall sound of this clavichord performance is spectrally varied and bright, achieved through instrument choice, dynamics, and articulation. 61 62 current musicology figure 1 b shows a spectrograph of the same fantasia in c minor opening passage, played on a fortepiano by garvey. for the opening c minor arpeggio, the fortepiano maintains a relatively constant dynamic level, shown by the consistent shades of grey and black, and displays less spectral difference, shown by the steady upper partial peak between 3-5 khz. there is a subtle crescendo to c3 followed by a decrescendo to c4, shown by a very slight increase and decrease in upper partials. compared with the clavichord, the fortepiano performance is characterized by a narrower spectral range with upper partials reaching only as high as 5 khz, reflecting a darker sound with much less dynamic contrast. even during the beginning of the sixteenth­ note passage, the upper partials barely rise above 5 khz. also, garvey's fortepiano is tuned one half-step lower than benson's clavichord, another factor in the darker sound. 1o similar to the clavichord, but more constant, the fortepiano projects complex noise-like sound between partials and below the fundamentals. some of these noise-like grey bands between 50-100 hz, however, are caused by ambient hiss from the auditorium recording. (benson's clavichord performance was recorded in a studio.) in addition, garvey's opening articulation is also different from benson's. rather than waiting until c3, garvey sustains each pitch into one another, starting right at the beginning with c2. the overall sound of this fortepiano performance is dark and spectrally static, achieved through instrument choice, dynamics, and articulation. looking more closely at bach's score in example 1, the notation reveals important subtleties. ll for this opening passage, bach provides no dynamic indications in the score, but does express a specific articulation. beginning on c3 in the bass voice, using the "french manner" of notation, the left hand splits into four separate voices, each sustained by a slur (bach 1949:155). bach notates the move up from c2 to c3 as part of a single voice, whereas the ascent from c3 to c4 is part of a multi-voice texture. while both performances articulate this difference, they do so in different ways. benson, playing the clavichord, carefully isolates c2, e2, and g2, and then increases the dynamic on c3, while sustaining the remaining pitches, e~3, g3, and c4. although the fortepiano does not isolate the opening three pitches, garvey does create a subtle crescendo that peaks exactly on c3 just before a decrescendo, highlighting the initiation of the multi-voice texture. also, both performers speed up when playing the arpeggio from c3 to c4. therefore, while each performer, through instrument choice and performance execution, interprets this opening passage differently, both interpretations demonstrate a remarkable sensitivity to the surface details of bach's score. john latartara and michael gardiner beethoven's ii hammerklavier" sonata op. 106, movement 1: thematic transformations while benson and garvey chose to perform on different instruments, russell sherman (2000) and wilhelm kempff (1965) both perform the first movement of beethoven's "hammerklavier" sonata on a modern grand piano. 12 the following analysis explores three occurrences of the opening theme, beginning from the eighth-note anacrusis to the second beat of m. 4, showing how sherman and kempff articulate different and even opposing approaches to the material. these differences are largely determined by the way each performer interprets beethoven's pedal, rest, and dynamic indica­ tions. example 2 shows the opening theme mm. 1-4, and figure 2 shows a spectrograph of both sherman and kempff playing these opening bars. as shown by figure 2, sherman keeps the pedal depressed throughout the passage, resulting in a continuous spectral band with a strengthening of the upper partials in the second half of the phrase. since f3 is prominent in the left hand in both halves of the phrase, the bottom of figure 2 shows an unchanging, continuous band. unlike sherman, kempff lifts the pedal between the two halves of the phrase, highlighting the notated rests in m. 2 and creating a division in the sound. kempff's decision to lift the pedal to perform the notated rests can be viewed as a foreshadowing of more radical divisions to come. whereas sherman's opening is unified in its spectrum, kempff immediately creates division. sherman's execution unifies the tonality, dynamic level, pedal marking, wide registration, and homophonic texture, only to be transformed in its subsequent appearances. kempff's divided opening promises future thematic transformation. example 3 shows the thematic appearance at mm. 34-38, and figure 3 shows a spectrograph of sherman and kempff playing mm. 34-38. in this next appearance, the theme is harmonically divided in two, the first half sounding a b~ major triad, the second a d major triad. one effect of this tonal shift is that the material is made unstable, opening up possible trajectories of development. the pedal is rearticulated to highlight the move­ ment to this new tonality. once again, however, sherman and kempff make different interpretive decisions. sherman chooses to sustain the b~ material through the notated rests, whereas kempff chooses to highlight these rests. as in the opening, sherman emphasizes unity of material by sustaining the sound, whereas kempff emphasizes division by stopping the sound. although this version contains a tonal division, spectrally this section has a similar profile as the opening, owing to common dynamics, density, and smooth voice-leading with common tones f and d in the outer voices. in both parts, there is a wide spectrum with a static fundamental and identical rhythmic punctuation. 63 64 current musicology example 2: "hammerklavier" theme mm. 1-4 . .if * figure 2: spectrograph of sherman and kempff playing mm. 1-4. kemplf pedal release -~~~~ ~-.------example 4 shows the theme at mm. 385-89, and figure 4 shows sherman and kempff playing mm. 385-89. although this texture continues until the end of the movement, for ease of comparison example 4 and figure 4 end at m. 389. the right hand maintains the original thematic texture, while the left hand plays a written-out eighth-note trill, an important element of this movement, creating two very different surface textures. this material is also vertically distinct, as the lowest and highest pitches of the phrase are separated by four octaves. unlike the previous versions of the theme, this time the score alternates between soft and loud dynamic levels. looking at figure 4, we can see that sherman and kempffhave very different ideas on how to shape this transformed theme. compared to sherman, kempff achieves far greater contrast between the soft and loud dynamics, as shown by the upper john latartara and michael gardiner example 3: "hammerklavier" theme mm. 34-38. figure 3: spectrograph of sherman and kempff playing mm. 34-38. partial peak on each forte dynamic. whereas both performers begin with an upper partial peak of about 600 hz, sherman's first forte dynamic extends to 2 khz, but kempff's extends to 4 khz. overall, sherman's performance of this passage could be characterized as more unified, whereas kempff's emphasizes dynamic contrast. these surface analyses using spectrographic images highlight the diversity of approaches performers take when confronted with a score. benson and garvey, through their instrument choice and manipulation of the surface details, construct the fantasia's opening in divergent ways. benson's performance is varied, while garvey's is unified. likewise, sherman and kempff approach the intricacies and transformations of the opening "hammerklavier" theme differently. sherman consistently emphasizes unity 65 66 current musicology example 4: "hammerklavier" theme mm. 385-89. p figure 4: spectrograph of sherman and kempff playing mm. 385-89. sherman p f p kemplf p f p and similarity, and kempff consistently emphasizes division and contrast. the spectrographic image highlights these surface performance details. cyclical relationships and models of the musical work much of the analysis and performance literature has moved either from score analysis to performance or from performance to score analysis. by adding the spectrographic image to this analytical process, an alternative to the bi-directionality from score to performance, or performance to score, is offered. the addition of the spectrograph to the score and performance paradigm can be thought of as forming a cyclical relationship, connecting all three to one another. the score has a prescriptive relationship to the performance, a performance is used to create a descriptive spectrograph, john latartara and michael gardiner and a spectrograph is a static visualization of a work, like a score, but with a descriptive relationship to the performance. in addition, a score could be created from a spectrograph by transcribing the fundamental frequencies into notated pitches and transcribing distances between attack points into notated rhythms. seen in this way, the score becomes a reduction of a spec­ trograph; only fundamental frequencies are shown and rhythmic nuances in performance are quantized away in favor of simpler ratios. the crucial juncture in these relationships is between score and spec­ trograph. the spectrographic image allows the analyst to move directly from score to analysis of a performance without necessarily hearing the performance. for instance, many readers of this paper may not have access to these specific performances, but detailed analytical discussion of each performance remains possible. the analytical discussions can include not only generalized comments about dynamics and articulation, but also specific frequency and decibel content. each aspect of the performance discussed can also be seen by the reader in the spectrographic image. music analysis has primarily focused on the score-a prescriptive map or blueprint of the piece. because the spectrographs in our analyses were created from performances, we are able to explore an individual performance with the same care and precision as we would a traditional score. just as we visually analyze the notation of each score, we may also visually analyze each spec­ trographic performance image. the relationship that these images have to our aural perception of the performance will, of course, change depending on the image and on the way we hear the piece. these new cyclical relations between score, performance, and spec­ trograph, however, must be further explored in order to achieve a more thorough reorientation of the bi-directional analysis and performance paradigm. while the gap between analytical writing and performing music exists, the underlying reason for this gap must still be confronted. the polar­ ity between analysis and performance arose, we believe, from the different understandings each field has developed regarding the musical "work." analytical literature has, for the most part, consistently used the score as the primary source for understanding the musical work. of course, analysts are certainly influenced by different performances, but few published musical analyses grant equal (or more) value to performances as to the score in coming to their analytic conclusions. the score frequently becomes the sole location of analytical inquiry, so discussion of the musical work often becomes discussion of the score.13 performers (in the western art music tradition) also begin with the score and may have specific and insightful analytical understandings, but their performance activities transform musical understanding and conclusions into the sonic realm. elements not specifically indicated in the score often take on primary importance: 67 68 current musicology articulation, phrasing, pedaling, and rubato. the performance becomes the generator for analytical inquiry, and discussion of the musical work often becomes discussion of a performance. we view these tendencies as somewhat misguided and would argue that the score-based ontology of the musical work, with a fixed beginning and end, is an illusion. many postmodern writers have already explored the idea of the work in this way. in his essay, what is an author?, the philosopher michel foucault writes: what is a work? what is the curious unity which we designate as the work? of what elements is it composed? ... a theory of the work does not exist, and the empirical task of those who naively undertake the editing of works suffers in the absence of such a theory. (1998:207) as musicologists, theorists, ethnomusicologists, and performers, it is crucial to recognize that we do not yet have a consistent theory of the musical work. depending upon who writes the book, article, review, or liner notes, the definition of the musical work shifts, transforms, and mutates to fit the needs of the author. a number of relatively recent publications do attempt to define the musical work, or at least to problematize the issue. lydia goehr's study, the imaginary museum of musical works (1992), critically examines the idea of "the work" in a musical context. through ex­ amination of period treatises, letters, and contracts, goehr details conceptual differences between the musical work before and after 1800. she views the period around 1800 as an axis point in european history where the modern musical "work-concept" was formed. the purported autonomy of the fine arts, guaranteed by their placement in museums, raised particularly interesting problems for music ... as it entered the world of fine arts, music had to find a plastic equivalent commodity, a valuable and permanently existing product, that could be treated in the same way as the objects of the already respectable fine arts. music would have to find an object that could be divorced from everyday contexts, form part of a collection of works of art, and be contemplated purely aesthetically ... the object was called "the work." (1992: 173-74) goehr, therefore, situates the formation of the work-concept around 1800 because of a shift in the understanding of art and music as "objects" of beauty and transcendence. furthermore, she details the shift of the composer's status from lowly servant to respected (idolized) artist, and also the concept of "werktreue": a hierarchy in which performers and performances were subservient to the composer and their work. just as museums collected and displayed artists' works, so too musicians began to collect and display musi­ cians' works that exist only in an "imaginary museum of musical works." john latartara and michael gardiner more recently, others have questioned goehr's conclusions. white (1997) offers evidence from the writings of johann fux and j. s. bach to demonstrate the existence of a work concept prior to 1800. as white writes about fux's gradus ad parnassum, "put plainly, the gradus derives its authority and sense of purpose from the achievement and independent existence of individual art works" (1997:101). talbot (2000) investigates the idea of "composer-centered ness;' showing how before 1800 western art music culture emphasized genre, and how after 1800 it emphasized the composer. he views goehr's work-concept as a by-product of a "composer-concept," concluding that "musical works enter their imaginary museum only because composers have already entered their imaginary pantheon" (2000: 186). strohm (2000) takes issue with both goehr and talbot, discussing, among other things, the idea that music with social function does not necessarily hinder the formation of a work-concept, and he provides evidence of a renaissance work-concept through a quote by tinctoris. strohm goes on to criticize talbot, giving specific examples of "composer-centeredness" before 1800, and cites the wide circulation of printed and written music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by famous composers as examples of composer-centeredness. finally, perkins argues that the "work -concept" was well formed by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries due to the statements of theorists and other writers of the period; the evidence of the sources; the development of new instrumental genres; the corrections of detail made in manuscripts of the period; the stop-press changes made by printers of music in the course of a run; and the anecdotal evidence ... concerning the attitudes of both the composer and contemporaneous commentators towards the music ascribed to josquin. (2003:41)14 regardless of when and how the work-concept developed, each of the formations identified by these authors depends on a score-based, object­ oriented concept of the musical work that still exists for most classical musicians and listeners today. we may disagree over what edition (urtext or schnabel) or performance (sherman or kempff) is preferred, but few would fail to identify beethoven's "hammerklavier" sonata as a musical work. problems, paradoxes, and incompatibilities arising between analysis and performance can be directly traced to our current modes of thought within this musical work concept. borrowing again from postmodern theory, the concept of the model in relation to the surface can be helpful in reconceptualizing the musical work. postmodern writers have challenged the notion that an image or model reflects some deeper reality, and they describe a conceptual framework in which there is no deeper reality but only the surface. baudrillard (1994) 69 70 current musicology describes what he calls "the vertigo of interpretation" created by the many (endless) series of possible models existing on the surface that can be used to reflect a work. it can be said that the model does not represent a deeper reality but actually creates the real, or what is taken to be the real. models are no longer a double of a real; rather, they mark "the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal" (1994: 1). the real only exists through the lens of the model and is therefore generated by the model. this flattening out of conceptual space increases complexity by allowing corroborating and opposing models to coexist on the same plane. if the model generates its own reality, there is no deeper absolute truth with which each model must correspond. corroborating and opposing models are equally valid because each forms its own reality. to return to the musical work, it too only exists through models. a schenkerian model locates certain contrapuntal and linear qualities regarded as inherent and which form the reality of the work. a set theory model locates intervallic supersets from which subsets are derived; neo-riemannian theory, narrative theory, statistical analysis, and contour theory each have their own specific analytical focus that generates possible realities of the work. performance and performance analysis have their models as well. epstein (1995) uses durational analyses of recordings that precisely measure accelerations and decelerations in tempo, while a spectrograph models a performance's frequency, intensity, and duration in a graphical format. each model creates the work, or it could be said, creates a series that extends the boundaries of a work to infinity. in our framework, models of score, performance, and spectrograph generate the musical work, which exists only through the models them­ selves. the cyclical relationship formed between score, performance, and spectrograph generates multiple models of the work that exist within the same flat conceptual plane. these models may corroborate (performances that closely follow the score and spectrographs that follow a performance) or oppose (contrasting performances and different score editions) one another, but all three are valid within the analytical surface. because there is no authoritative score, performance, or analytical approach with which all of these models of the work must correspond, opposition created through a variety of interpretations becomes acceptable. as a physical description of a performance, the spectrographic image is a particularly useful tool that applies the idea of a baudrillardian conceptual surface to the physical surface of the musical sound. this provides an answer to the question posed at the beginning of this essay: why should we try to bridge the fields of analysis and performance? bringing analysis and performance closer together allows us to dismantle the false notion that the musical work resides in either domain. analysis and performance both generate their own models of the work, and neither has precedence over the other. john latartara and michael gardiner a reformulation of the musical work as stated above, each model creates the work, or, it could be said, creates a series that extends the boundaries of a work to infinity. in other words, if the model generates the work, infinite models would generate infinite versions or series of the work. this expanding series of possible states of the work resulting from a multitude of models can be compared with the philosopher gilles deleuze's (1993: 59-75) notion of "compos sible" and "incompossible" states of affairs. deleuze defines "compossibles" as "the totality of converg­ ing series that constitute the world," while "incompossibles" are "the series that diverge, and from then on belong to two possible worlds" (1993:60). compossibles refer to the singular result (single model) from all possible variables, and incompossibles refer to all of the variables (infinite models) that are possible but did not occur. referring back to the analysis section of this essay, an example of a compossible single model would be the merging possibilities that constituted a particular performance: kempff's playing of beethoven's "hammerklavier;' recorded on a particular piano, in a particular studio, with a particular microphone, mixing console, etc. it is important to emphasize that all choices made throughout the recording process are themselves performance decisions, similar to those a conductor might make in sculpting the sound of an orchestra. the choice of what kind of microphone to use for the recording is equally as important as what type of keyboard to play. but the possibilities do not end at that point. when the listener adjusts the equaliza­ tion on their home stereo, listens on an mp3 player or to a radio station that compresses the sound files of the kempff recording to boost the signal, these actions and decisions also effect changes in the performance as perceived phenomenologically by the listener. all these possibilities intersect to form a single performance and a single model of the work. the incompossible models would therefore consist of the various permutations of choices not selected for the singular performance just described. the fact of their non-selection in no way negates their possibility; kempff could have performed on a yamaha piano rather than on a steinway, or the session could have been recorded in a different room or hall using a different microphone. as shown by the amount oflow frequency hiss in the fortepiano recording by garvey, these decisions are crucial and have notice­ able sonic consequences. thus, all the instruments, microphones, mixers, and stereos that could have been used in the creation of a performance, but were not, have become the basis of a series of possible models. is each mode of analysis; whether schenkerian, neo-reimanian, or spectral, becomes a merging series of infinite possibilities to form a single model. with this convergence in mind, what are the connections between infinite possible 71 72 current musicology models and the concept of the musical work? what type of musical work is actually being created? to answer these questions it is necessary to reformulate the concept of the musical work beyond the stable boundaries that score-based ori­ entations, urtext editions, individual performances, or singular analyses sometimes appear to demarcate. philosopher of science gilbert simondon elaborates such a principle using the term "metastability;' a state of constant becoming and transformation caused by the tension between corroborating and/or opposing models. simondon writes that "the idea of 'metastable equilibrium' had not been recognized ... in order to define metastability, it is necessary to introduce the notion of the potential residing in a given system" (1992:301-2). while each score, analysis, and performance generates a single model, the tension among all possible models (potentials coexisting on the same flat conceptual plane) produces a constantly evolving set of relations resulting in what could be called a metastable musical work. the metastable musical work exists within the potentials of all possible analyses and performances, models that may corroborate and even oppose one another. furthermore, these potentials for the work exist not only synchronically, but also diachron­ ically. the work scans ahead to further possible states through the potential of future models, and it scans back before its existence to locate traces of itself in previous scores, performances, and analyses. its boundaries form a porous membrane with the future and past inviting perpetual transforma­ tions. this ontological fluidity is the reason why the idea of a stable work proves to be so unsatisfactory at this stage of philosophical and musicological inquiry. a stable musical work is a dead system with no potentials, whereas a metastable musical work is fluid, filled with infinite potentials. through the cyclical relations of score, performance, and spectrograph, interacting with one another on the surface, the metastable musical work exists in constant flux and emerges as a dynamic, mobile system that is affected by the decisions of musicologists, theorists, and performers alike. conclusion the recent trend in analysis and performance research is encouraging, with such a large number and variety of studies being published that attempt to bring these domains closer together. images of musical sound, and spectro­ graphs in particular, can be a useful tool in this ongoing project of exploring the relationships between analysis and performance. spectrographs can be used to generate an alternative to the prevailing dialectic between score analysis and performance, where score, performance, and spectrograph are john latartara and michael gardiner reconceptualized within a cyclical relationship on a flat conceptual plane. the relationship between score and spectrograph is especially powerful because it allows for the analysis of a performance without the need to hear it first; a specific performance can be visually analyzed in the same way that a score is analyzed. this reorientation, however, demands closer scrutiny, which leads to a reformulation of the musical work. the model (whether score, performance, or spectrograph) does not describe but actually generates the musical work, so neither analysis nor performance maintains "urtext" dominance over the other. this reorientation of the musical work does not come without risk. if the musical work is a constantly shifting system, generated and defined by the chosen model, the ensuing quagmire of relativism might negate any meaningful analysis or performance. are we to accept as valid any analysis or performance no matter how much it deviates from accepted norms, including different pitches that appear in no manuscript or edition, or performances that completely alter the notated dynamic structure? our answer is no. although these potential models exist, it is the prerogative of each analyst and performer to accept those models of the work that best gen­ erate the most useful understandings. the constantly transforming musical work is defined and redefined by which models we choose to accept. these choices are performance decisions, no different than the ones that benson, garvey, sherman, or kempff might make in rejecting and accepting specific models that generate the musical work. so, while the cyclical relationship between score, performance, and spectrograph and the reconceptualization of the musical work forge closer links between analysis and performance, it is even more critical that we make careful readings of each analysis and performance to decide which models are the most meaningful. finally, we might ask, to what extent does culture influence and frame our understanding of the musical work, and where are the borders that demarcate the work's beginning(s) and ending(s)? the answers to these questions lie in the potential of research committed to exploring new methodologies, new technologies, and new relationships, which forge increasingly close ties between analysis and performance, and between analyst and performer. notes we would like to thank james mackay, alan spurgeon, and kevin swinden for their helpful suggestions on earlier drafts, which greatly improved the essay. 1. for instance, while spicer (1996), morgan (2000), and siciliano (2005), all provide new and valuable analytical insight, they do so from conclusions based entirely upon scores. of course, one may argue that the focus of these articles is not performance related, but that is precisely our point: unless overtly stated as a main goal, performance analysis and discussion 73 74 current musicology are most often ignored in the analytical literature of western art music. this absence calls into question the value performance has in generating useful analytical information. 2. we do not mean to suggest that analysts are not sensitive to performance issues, or that performers lack analytical insight. many analysts are also performers, and performers also analyze, whether they choose to write anything down in a formal way or not. our definitions are merely meant to reflect the activity in the literature. 3. according to seeger prescriptive notation is like "a blueprint of how a specific piece of music shall be made to sound:' and descriptive notation is "a report of how a specific performance of any music actually did sound" (1977:168). 4. the creation of a visual image from a temporal process could also be viewed as helping to create a musical "object:' for a lucid discussion of musical objects see butterfield (2002). 5. a profusion and variety of studies in recent years explore the relationships between musi­ cology and postmodernism, including l. kramer (1995), j. kramer (1999), horton (2001), lochhead and auner (2002), nercessian (2002), dell' antonio (2004), and yang (2006). 6. indeed, there is the danger that spectrographs can provide too much surface information, overshadowing any practical or perceptual value. as jairazbhoy warns in relation to seeger's melograph, "[ the melographl presented a profusion of visual data, involving tolerances much finer than the ear can distinguish, thus creating a new series of problems for the interpreter" (1977:264). the spectrographic image is always only a possible visualization of a musical performance that can be subtly or radically altered upon software settings. 7. c. p. e. bach's fantasia in c minor was set to text by friend and poet heinrich wilhelm von gerstenberg. for an interesting discussion of this setting, as well as bach's attitude toward the interconnections of music and text, see helm (1972). 8. all spectrographs were made from cd recordings, rendered as .wav files (44.1 sampling rate, 16 bit depth) on a computer using soundtechnology software. the horizontal axis represents time, read from left to right, and the vertical axis represents frequency, moving from low (bottom) to high (top). softer sounds are lighter grey and louder sounds are dark grey to black. it is important to note that spectral differences between recordings and live performances are much less significant than those between different performances (see cogan 1984:15). 9. notice that the fundamentals of the opening two pitches, c2 and e2, are not physically pres­ ent, but are perceived through the presence of the upper partials. the typical explanation for this is that it is the difference between partials that causes fundamental pitch perception. 10. both benson and garvey use equal temperament tuning, but elsewhere different tem­ peraments, such as mean-tone tuning, would also affect the overtone structure and therefore the spectrographic image. spectral differences due to temperament could result in different musical conclusions depending upon the analytic focus. 11. with the scores of c. p. e. bach it is, perhaps, even more crucial to pay close attention to every subtle nuance. as darbellay has noted "c. p. e. bach's musical notation far exceeds in precision and thoroughness everything before it and much in the notations of later composers" (1988:61). 12. both rosen (2002) and taub (2002) make useful comments regarding the performance of beethoven's "hammerklavier," op. 106, movement 1. rosen makes an interesting connection between instrumental timbre and beethoven's metronome mark (138) by noting the "lighter character" if played on a period instrument, thereby making the tempo more plausible. taub notes the intertextual incorporation of a baroque form (fugue) into the first movement as well as the division of the first eight measures into two parts. he does not mention, however, the john latartara and michael gardiner division ( s) of the first four bars, a point crucial to our analysis. friedmann's (1978) analysis is an attempt to fit motivic material from op. 106 into a unified framework of set theory, on local and tonal levels. although rosen's and taub's writing reflect a performer's mindset, they do not mention any individual performer's interpretations other than their own. 13. score-based analytic habits can also be seen infiltrating "aural" analyses. trombley (1995) develops a graphic nomenclature for showing a work's structure based entirely on aural analysis. trombley never mentions a single recording in the article that deviates from the score in any way. as he states, "indeed, one of the problems of aural analysis is that we are at the mercy of the performance, which, as in the present case, could vary" (1995:101). for trombley, the fact that different performances could vary is a "problem" that interferes with the prescriptive correspondence between score and performance. 14. in addition, we would also mention the pioneering work of roman ingarden writing in the early twentieth century. in his book the work of music and the problem of its identity, ingarden comes to the conclusion that the musical work is an intentional object of a higher order. he says the work is like "an ideal boundary ... [that] remains one and the same in contrast to the many concretions in specific performances" (1986: 119). in ingarden's concep­ tion, the work is still singular and remains untouched and unblemished by its many perfor­ mances. furthermore, although the work is riddled with "gaps or areas of indeterminateness;' ingarden concludes that "both the fixed and the open elements have been conceived by the composer as fully defined and fixed" (1986: 116). for us, however, the fluidity of performance points to a fluidity of the work, which cannot be resolved by a singular "intentional object of a higher order." 15. schenker is particularly sensitive to these issues: "once a performance does take place, one must realize that thereby new elements are added to a complete work of art: the nature of the instrument that is being played; properties of the hall, the room, the audience; the mood of the performer, technique, et cetera" (2002:3). references bach, c. p. e. 1949. essay on the true art of 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some observations on performance practice denis stevens medieval theorists can sometimes surprise us with an unusually modern pronouncement. franco of cologne, for example, writes: "when we see so many musicians deficient in knowledge, and wrong in so many of their ideas, especially as regards details of the science, we think they should be assisted, lest by chance, as a result of their deficiency and error, music could be exposed to harm. "1 he was not, of course, referring to performance practice, but his words fit the situation perfectly, for if one hundredth part of the violence done to early music by badly instructed performers were redirected towards the more familiar repertory of the last century-and-a-half, the music world would abandon its cold wars and be up in arms in a flash. even the greatest of the pre-classical masterpieces creates no more than a mild impression upon the minds of modern listeners, those same minds that know the 19th-century classics in depth and detail; and the farther back we go in history, the less familiar the music. it wiil be years before the musical equivalent of l'homme moyen sensuel claims the same degree of familiarity with monteverdi's nine books of madrigals as he does with beethoven's nine symphonies. violence done to the unfamiliar makes little or no impression, just as the murder of an unknown man in the antipodes shocks us less than the robbery of someone we know personally in the metropolis. music too can be murdered, and it can be massacred, mutilated, mangled beyond belief. the easiest prey for the hoodlums is that remarkable portion of music history ranging over the six centuries that separate perotin from pergolesi. performance malpractice, an expression derived in a rather negative way from the german term auifuhrungspraxis, is to some extent permissible when indulged in by well-intentioned amateurs functioning within their own limits and their own institutions. it is not permissible, nor in the remotest degree forgivable, however, when tolerated or fostered by radio and television corporations, record companies,2 and concert-giving bodies whose duty to the musical public includes provision of entertainment or instruction of the finest possible quality, born of the best possible brains. if there is to be rhyme or reason in musical performances, it is essential that they should reflect, as nearly as possible, the intentions of the composer. what these intentions were, and the correct way to interpret them, are as much the province of the professional musicologist as microphone placement and tapeediting are the concern of the professional sound engineer. when proper advice and interpretation are ignored, chaos results. the root of the evil lies, without a doubt, in the tendency of companies to drape programs around artists; and even though the program may be revealing in an altogether diaphanous manner, it will eventually do the artist no credit. reversing the procedure calls for that rarest of talents-the ability to build 159 artistically plausible programs and then to cast them in such a way as to enhance their plausibility by fine performance. this may involve the choice of talent from some other stable than the one normally frequented by the company concerned, but (contracts notwithstanding) the public will care not a bit. audiences are interested-quite rightly-in a stylish, musicianly, and historically correct version that will give them both aesthetic pleasure and a true insight into the composer's mind and message. it is therefore not enough, when performing early music, to state that we do not know how it originally sounded or how it was performed. mistakes and mutilations of the type under discussion do not always result from a lack of specialized knowledge. sometimes they can be traced to a lack of general knowledge, or even of common sense. not so long ago, a record company which rightly prided itself on its many and notable observances of aulfiihrungspraxis fell suddenly from grace, as the proud occasionally do. the event was the release of a luxurious package of penitential psalms by one of the great composers of the 16th century, and the vocal originals had been "realized" by the addition of numerous instruments, all of them accurate replicas of known prototypes. the sounds conveyed to the listener were richly-colored and kaleidoscopic, sensuous and enchanting. one thing had been forgotten, however, in this beatific blaze of historical accuracy: the fact that penitential psalms are sung during lent, when the use of instruments is either forbidden or severely restricted. in general, it is not sufficient to lay the blame at the editor's feet, for modern musical knowledge may be able to suggest a remedy for a partially unsatisfactory edition. there was the case of a set of lamentations, broadcast by a large choir which included sopranos. the originally dark-hued score had been transposed a third or fourth upwards, so that the resulting timbre was bright and massive. this was contrary not only to the intention of the composer but also to common observance, as is shown by the words of pietro cerone in his el melopeo y maestro: "the usual custom is to compose [lamentations] in the untransposed second, fourth, and sixth tones, these tones being naturally sad and doleful; they are always sung by very low and dark voices (only male singers taking part) with only one voice to a part."3 the use of a single voice to each part, a sine qua non of all madrigal performances that aspire to expressive authenticity, may be safely applied to most polyphonic music written between the 11 th and 14th centuries. yet it is not uncommon to hear choral interpretations of the magnus liber, presumably because the instigators imagine that the greatness of perotin's book of liturgical polyphony is of a purely physical kind, and that twenty or thirty singers could read from it, as from one of the huge choirbooks of the renaissance. the actual size of a typical volume containing music by perotin, leonin, and their contemporaries rarely surpasses 9 x 6 inches, and it is clearly intended for two or three soloists at the most. further proof of the employment of soloists may be found in records of early churches and cathedrals 160 throughout europe. isidore of seville also lends weight to the argument in his definition of the perfect voice as "sweet, high, and loud: loud, to fill the ear; high, to be adequate to the sublime; sweet, to soothe the minds of the hearers. if any of these qualities be absent, the voice is not perfect."4 this definition, although some 1300 years old, would serve well for a present-day operatic tenor; and it is perfectly obvious that such a musician singing florid descant under the lantern of a great cathedral or abbey would sound infinitely more like perotin and leonin than a nondescript chorus, with or without "authentick instrumentys." rudolf von ficker's arrangements of medieval masterpieces, heard at the beethoven festival in vienna in 1927, were a necessary step along the path leading to plausible performance; yet they were not themselves plausible, since all the choral portions of the music had been assigned to soloists and all the solo portions to a chorus. a classical analogy to such a situation would be to perform the beethoven violin concerto with an orchestra having only one man to each part, and with thirty violins playing the solo part in unison. beethoven's music would never be so maltreated; but with medieval, renaissance, and baroque music, matters are on a different footing. the do-it-yourself musicology kit reigns supreme. extraordinary accidents can happen even to bach and handel and vivaldi. there was a recent recording of bach's musical offering, "arranged" by a well-known conductor who took for the basis of his text the century-old bachgesellschaft edition, in which some of the canons are wrongly resolved. instead of asking a bach scholar about the state of research (which has in fact put matters right), our conductor plunged blissfully into a quagmire of error from which he found it impossible to extricate himself. but this puts only one recording out of court. the fantastic case of the concerti grossi is quite another matter, for here some ninety-five per cent of all recordings of this genre can be given immediate life sentences. contemporary reports of concerts, allied to the evidence of the music itself, prove conclusively that every decent performance of a concerto in the time of vivaldi, handel, and telemann enjoyed the extra support and contrast of a second harpsichord or an organ. usually the organ supported the tutti, while the soloists had their own continuo. but there were many variations to this pattern, such as two harpsichords, lute and harpsichord, organ and lute, and so on. this very important division of resources, which modern stereo techniques could bring out with glowing success, has so far made no noticeable impression on those capable of turning the dross of humdrum recording into the pure gold of authentic and genuinely musical monuments in sound. there is an old military adage to the effect that a good commander never reinforces a failure. unhappily, this has failed so far to persuade the musical commanders to use a little common sense when faced with defeat at the hands of the critics. there was the sad example of a set of records produced to illustrate a book of musical examples, all intended for use in classrooms. moral misleading of the young is a punishable offense; would that musical 161 misleading were similarly punishable! thousands upon thousands of students must have heard those performances, most of which are in one way or another unsatisfactory, and the consequent damage done to budding aesthetic and historical sensibilities must have been incalculable. yet when a further volume was produced by the same firm, the contract for recorded illustrations was handed to the same group as before, with entirely predictable results. the presentation of early music in terms of sound brings with it innumerable problems, but most of these can now be solved by expert minds. some problems are purely musical-the kinds of voices and instruments needed; the best interpretation of rhythm, meter, and pitch. but there are also aesthetic questions to consider, and of these by far the most important is this one: are we justified in presenting medieval music in the form of concerts, often in secular surroundings, so that the unfortunate listener hears strings of "motets," each lasting only a minute or so? surely there is a grave danger in suggesting that all early forms were short, isolated, and unrelated, and that composers of the middle ages had failed to master the broad sweep of later tonal architects. are we to suggest that medieval builders, who raised monuments in stone that still survive in something like their pristine glory, were so incredibly far ahead of their musical contemporaries? it has for many years been fashionable to admit that music lagged behind the other arts, but the evidence for this assumption, when carefully examined, does not really hold water. the plain fact is that the function of early music, especially sacred music, has long been misunderstood, and, although certain individual items have been held in high esteem, they have always looked rather sad and lonely, like jewels deprived of their rightful artistic settings. there seems to be a lack of association and continuity; and we know enough of medieval art of other kinds to attribute that lack of continuity to modern practice. once it is realized, however, that the framework of plainsong is the liturgy of the mass and office, it becomes possible to restore these apparently isolated fragments of music into an integrated whole. for many years it was thought that the earliest polyphonic setting of the ordinarium missae was by guillaume de machaut. recently a handful of possible earlier candidates has been put forward, but without doing very much to solve this extensive problem of integration and continuity. it is only when we accept the fact that composers of the 12th and 13th centuries did not want to write and did not need to write the kind of "five-movement" mass known to josquin, lassus, byrd, and their contemporaries, that we break down the first barrier between ourselves and that music. medieval composers preferred to write the sections of the mass and office in such a way that they could be combined according to the dictates of the liturgy, and some of them even composed subsections so that the possible number of combinations (within, of course, liturgical1imits) was almost inexhaustible. for the proper presentation of early music, many skills must join together: those of the paleographer, the authority on early notation; those of the expert 162 on local usages and on the singers and players who by their talents transform signs into sounds; and last but not least those of the musician. his concern must not be to perform the music as fast as possible, nor to make it sound slick and chromium-plated, or glamorized by the addition of fancy instruments. he must be the man who (to quote boethius) "has on reflection taken to himself the science of singing, not by servitude of work, but by the rule of contemplation. "5 notes 1 ars cantus mensurabilis, prologue. all translations are by the author. 2 a recent example of total falsification of a musical form may be seen and heard in volume iii of a history if spanish music in sound, recorded by hispavox in spain and released in the u.s.a. by musical heritage society. the music on side one of this disc (or 433) is drawn from la musica a catalunyafins al segle xiii by higinio angles, and begins with three sequences. they are beautifully sung, in the style of solesmes, but their impact is greatly reduced by the total omission of all repeats, i.e., the second of each pair of verses. since this pairing of verses ranks as a primary formal characteristic of the medieval sequence, it follows that performance of only the first of each pair destroys not only the musical form but also the sense of the poetry. a glance at the translations provided for cantantibus hodie, alleluia, persona nostra iocunda, and potestati magni will prove the folly of such strange tactics. imagine any poem deprived of alternate lines! the current, sometimes lamentable obsession with "olde instrumentys of musicke" creates further difficulties in the next item, hosanna, sospitati dedit, where the complete text is indeed printed and translated, but the performance allocates only the odd-numbered verses to the choir, the instruments playing the even-numbered verses. perhaps this is no worse than any alternatim organ hymn or mass of later times, when verses were not sung, but rather said in submissa voce while the organ supplied an elaboration of the chant. it would nevertheless have been preferable to hear two complete sequences than four incomplete ones. a book xii, chapter 16. 4 erymologiarum, book iii, chapter 20. 5 de institutione musica, book i, chapter 33. 163 phil pastras. dead man blues: jelly roll morton way out west. berkeley: university of california press, 2001. xx, 246 pp. reviewed by kathy j ogren author phil pastras opens his biographical study of legendary pianist jelly roll morton with an epigram from poet dylan thomas-"oh make me a mask"-and with that signal, dead man blues: jelly roll morton way out west takes us on the road with trickster ferdinand joseph lamenthe, a.k.a. jelly roll. pastras appreciates the facility with which morton, like many mrican american jazz musicians, used performative masks to strate­ gize resilient careers in a capricious music business. pastras writes: "morton was a man of many masks, especially at the beginning of his ca­ reer: pool hustler, card shark, pimp, vaudevillian, pianist, composer and bandleader. he did not focus exclusively on the music until after his five year stay on the west coast, from 1917 to 1923" (6). acknowledging the examples set by ralph ellison (1964) and albert murray (1976) in their essays on the ritual importance of donning masks in performance, pastras sets out to find "what the mask tells us about its maker" (12). and the setting for this exploration-the american west-locates jelly roll as a rambler who reinvents himself and finds his defining identity on the american frontier. any study of morton must first contend with the main source of his self­ invention (in addition to his recordings) that jelly roll left for posterity. that text is, of course, mister jelly roll: the fortunes of jelly roll morton, new orleans creole and "inventor of jazz, "which morton recorded with folklorist alan lomax at the library of congress in 1938 (lomax [1950] 1972). mister jelly roll is a classic in the jazz autobiographical tradition. morton, like many jazz musicians, followed the lead taken by louis armstrong in his 1936 autobiography swing that music, the text that inaugurated the first generation of jazz autobiographies shortly after the start of the swing era. armstrong, as well as dozens of musicians who published autobiogra­ phies after him, wrote the stories of their lives to complement their most profound autobiographical statements-musical performances. early jazzmen had clear and long memories of the public debate about jazz that characterized the jazz age of the 1920s. they remembered well the unsympathetic critics who ridiculed the music or labeled it as degener­ ate, and in their autobiographical responses many musicians developed le­ gitimating strategies, for example, opening their narratives with the promcurrent musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york kathy j. ogren 485 ise to tell "the real story." significantly, musicians often emphasized their pioneering status in jazz history as a way of acknowledging their ability to survive this racially-charged battle to legitimate their art. not only did jazzmen travel out west to the "territories," including isolated locations in texas, wyoming, and montana, they also described their role as symbolic pioneers. early jazz musicians, both in their explicit statements of intent and in the narrative strategies they employed, performed texts demon­ strating the richness of possible meanings implied by the concept of the frontier. jazz musicians also related their pioneering experiences through a legitimating narrative strategy that emphasized self-communication through a language rooted in musical performance. in his desire to claim his place in the jazz pantheon, morton was not alone. in addition to swing that music, autobiographies by sidney bechet (1975) and danny barker (1986) also testify to the beginnings of the music and are determined to provide an authentic narrative of the origins of jazz.! morton's autobiography provides a rich and provocative example of this process, and because pastras introduces the library of congress recordings in his preface to dead man blues, morton's version of his own life frames the rest of pastras's biographical text. pastras acknowledges the strengths of mister jelly roll. for example, because morton combined oral history with performance, pastras salutes morton's ability to provide direct commentary on his musical compositions, which morton discusses with in­ tellectual seriousness (xiv-xv). pastras also points to the importance of the social history morton preserves for us: "morton continued to spin his tale, with every word he spoke and every note he played, he saved from obliv­ ion another piece of american cultural history" (xiii). but as pastras notes, mister jelly roll is compromised by lomax's influence. the taped versions of the interviews are not always accurately transcribed into the written text lomax first published in 1950, and because lomax sometimes "put words into" morton's mouth, his "methods are questionable" (xix).2 thus even the main source of information for morton's life cannot be read as reli­ able. pastras's dead man blues aims to set the record straight. in so doing, pastras enters the complicated arena of oral storytelling, where even the simplest versions of the past can set off a firestorm. this is of course what jelly roll himself initiated when he challenged the asser­ tion that w. c. handy originated jazz, which was reported on a march 1938 ripley's believe it or not radio program. morton responded by claim­ ing his own stake in the question through letters to the radio program and to the press, insisting he was the real originator (1). wordsmiths like morton relished a good jam with words just as much as they did one that relied solely on their instruments, which pastras clearly demonstrates. in another example, pastras relates the well-known story of how jelly got his 486 current musicology name by essentially playing the dozens on stage with another performer (14-15). the authenticity of the jazz musician's tale is rooted in the capacity to translate mrican american oral performance into written texts through the use of jokes, anecdotes, stories, lies, folklore, and practical jokes. these autobiographical acts, despite mediation by amanuenses like lomax, illustrate the musicians' mastery of what cultural critic henry louis gates, jr. and others before him have identified as signifyin (g). gates describes the process as one in which mrican americans "revise texts in the western tradition," often seeking "to do so authentically, with a black difference, a compelling sense of difference based on the black ver­ nacular" (1988:45-46). pastras appreciates this skill in morton, noting its usefulness in vaudeville, including acts where jelly roll performed in black­ face. pastras also recognizes the conflicted legacy minstrelsy conferred on performers like morton; it would be interesting to hear more about how morton's adaptation to "masking" compares with contemporaries such as louis armstrong and bert williams. drawing on the concept of theatrical masking and oral signifying, pastras wants to test morton's performances against the historical record. he intends to bring jelly roll and his world "back to life in the minds of my readers" (xviii), and he does so in several ways. he tries to find the truth about those events misrepresented by either morton or lomax. he tests jelly roll's storytelling against the memories and documents of those who knew him, hoping to distinguish the truth from "lies." this is a process that pastras calls "prelude to a riff" in his first chapter, and each subsequent chapter asks what is true and what is performance as pastras revisits significant aspects of morton's career. pastras also explores the dy­ namics of the sporting life, which shaped morton's options, much as it did the early life of louis armstrong and other new orleans musicians. pausing to explore pivotal moments in morton's rise and fall as a prominent per­ former, pastras discusses the circumstances surrounding signature record­ ings such as "the pearls," "wolverine blues," and "king porter stomp." pastras's most innovative challenge to the norms of the historical record comes in his focus on jelly roll morton's relationship with anita gonzales. a fellow performer and entertainment entrepreneur, gonzales and morton became lovers when he moved out west; her influence continued to shape the rest of morton's life, according to pastras. pastras relies on the works of scholars who have previously filled in many of the gaps about jelly roll morton's life (e.g., lawrence gushee 1981-82,1985; peter pullman n.d.; laurie wright 1980). pastras also intro­ duces important primary sources, in particular jelly roll's scrapbook, apparently inherited by anita gonzales. these materials eventually be­ came the henry villalapando ford collection, now housed in the historic kathy j. ogren 487 new orleans collection (new orleans, louisiana). all of these sources provide corroborative information about the private jelly roll, for exam­ ple his family lineage, as determined by gushee, or the actual dates and times of performances and recordings, as provided by pullman and wright. pastras devotes an entire chapter to the scrapbook, interpreting the ways in which it served as a record of accomplishments, possibly sooth­ ing morton's wounded ego. (it is interesting to note that louis armstrong also kept scrapbooks and collages of newspaper clippings, reviews, and commentaries on his performances.) but the most intriguing aspect of pastras's study is his use of jelly's trav­ els and career in the west to reorient the dominant geography of this jazz legend. if we accept the premise that the narrative provided by morton to lomax represents the established version of jelly roll's life-i.e., that he started in new orleans and moved north with jazz-pastras complicates that pattern. pastras, intrigued by the mysteries surrounding morton's last months in los angeles, starts from the end-jelly roll's death in the arms of anita gonzales at a los angeles hospital in 1941. by working backwards, so to speak, pastras asks us to see how and why jelly would choose to end his life far away from home and his wife mabel bertrand morton, and he explains how the lure of california can illuminate the rest of morton's life and career. the biography is organized with this question in mind. pastras's focus on morton's west coast years and experiences necessarily privileges the role of two women: anita gonzales (who wrote the lyrics to "dead man blues") and his godmother laura hunter, also known as eulalie echo. pastras successfully brings the histories of these two women into the narrative in order to establish morton's family and personal con­ nections to voodoo (his godmother was a practitioner) and to anita, a woman he knew for over forty years, from 1901 to 1941. the inclusion of these two women in jelly's biography is one of the most significant ways that pastras brings unknown or unappreciated aspects of jelly roll morton's life into recorded history. and both women-anita in particular -help establish the prominence of california as a personal and musical high point for morton. as a creole of color who successfully passed as caucasian, anita mas­ tered her own masks of identity. she moved to las vegas as early as 1908, before morton would take his own first trip west. she left behind a husband and child in biloxi, mississippi, and her married name, bessie seymour. pastras explores the many ways that anita might have manipulated the color line as either a white or hispanic woman in order to establish her­ self as a successful businesswoman. the saloon (and most likely brothel) that anita ran in vegas was located on "block 16," a street that pastras recreates with photographs. it "looks like the set for a cowboy movie: the dust, the palpably bright hot desert sun, the men in cowboy hats lounging 488 current musicology on the shaded porch of the arizona club" (41). the reputation of the block reinforces the wild west stereotype of anita's frontier; it served as the home for gambling, saloons, and prostitution, "wild west central" (43-44). anita and jelly roll joined forces and traveled throughout the west, and she probably provided the backing for some of his business ventures, including the original creole band he fronted in los angeles. anita and morton both developed close ties to laura hunter, who moved west after jelly roll, settling in los angeles. she brought with her a strong reputation as a "good voodoo woman" (57). pastras finds this connection telling, since hunter's death provided the rationale for his final journey west to los angeles, despite his life-threatening heart condi­ tion. jelly himself, fearful of voodoo curses, may have been seeking help and solace in the "family" where he felt most at home-anita's. pastras provides a persuasive reading of the lyrics of "dead man blues," pointing to its possible voodoo overtones, which further supports his case that anita's influence over jelly roll remained the most important one in his life (59-60). in addition to personal connections, the west also provided morton with numerous career opportunities. pastras provides a detailed account of jelly's gigs in los angeles from 1917 to 1923, and again in the last days of 1940-41. pastras develops the interesting point that morton partici­ pated in the great migration of the early twenties by engaging in an on­ going journey across the west. morton played in numerous locations, in­ cluding los angeles, san francisco, seattle, tacoma, casper (wyoming), denver, vancouver, san diego, tijuana, and possibly alaska. pastras evalu­ ates the successes and failures of these ventures, and includes descriptions of jelly's mercurial fortunes as a gambler, fight promoter, and pimp. because morton had reasonable success on the west coast, pastras argues that these years became the golden past that morton sought to regain at the end of his life. he supports this in part by pointing to eight previously unknown compositions that morton brought west with him in 1940, which have recently been found in the william russell collection. these seem to indicate that morton hoped to bring more of his music into a big band format (182-83). pastras imbues jelly roll morton's travels with legendary purpose, com­ paring him at times to odysseus. pastras writes: "of all the various aspects of morton's persona, this one lies closest to his heart; he was, as they say, 'made for the part'-the vagabond minstrel, the man of many wiles and talents who never fails to come up with a way to get the next meal, the next gig, the next train ticket, and who has learned to exploit the role of stranger in town to the full" (76). although jelly roll morton certainly experienced some of the same unpredictable fortunes as the greek hero, kathy j. ogren 489 pastras really doesn't demonstrate that he accomplished a similar kind of quest. once jelly returned to the east coast, he found his losses out­ running his gains, his reputation underappreciated. pastras discusses morton's struggles to keep performing, to record, and to help manage the jungle inn in washington, d.c. this is the nightclub where he was stabbed by an irate patron, which contributed to morton's declining health. finally, pastras concludes, morton returned to los angeles where he hoped for better days and solace in anita's company. morton fled west through terrible blizzards for the elusive promise of opportunity and long lost affection. fans of jelly roll morton and his music will find this a fascinating read, one that offers careful evidence to compare with jelly's claims about him­ self, and with others' claims about him. pastras examines morton's will and its probate in depth. pastras himself is cautious in his own judgments. for example, he accords morton qualified support as the man who first distinguished jazz from ragtime in terms of musical criteria, although he was not, of course, the sole originator of the music (2-3). pastras does dis­ cuss important performances and recording sessions, but musical history and musicological analysis are not pastras's primary concern. the plot of dead man blues is exactly as the author promises-a "riff" about the elu­ siveness of real identity that is repeatedly improvised upon in each chap­ ter. this structure pays a playful tribute to jazz improvisation, but it means that the reader reads some of the same points over and over again, which becomes somewhat redundant. for instance, pastras makes it clear early on that he will examine the final events surrounding jelly roll's death; un­ fortunately, the actual last chapter becomes anti-climactic. pastras interviewed participants who provided valuable first-hand obser­ vations about jelly roll's activities, including musicians and friends who knew morton in his last days. pastras himself speculates at various points about the "real" story and the authentic character of morton, as is the case when he wonders about morton's sexuality (16-17) or when he relates var­ ious stories about what might have happened to morton's legendary front tooth diamond, which disappeared at his death (170-71). thus pastras, too, becomes a participant in the creation of morton's performances. such a narrative may frustrate those who would like clear chronological direction and a more straightforward recitation of jazz history, but dead man blues serves us well as a biographical tribute that communicates the inexplicable in jazz music and its creators. with dead man blues, pastras has provided a study similar to those by peter guarlnick (1989), samuel charters (1984), and donald m. marquis (1978). all of these capture the writer's performance as he recreates a legendary figure in music history­ without ever truly revealing the men behind the masks. 490 current musicology notes l. many other early jazzmen and women have written or authorized autobi­ ographies. for analyses of jazz autobiography and their contexts, see william h. kenney iii, "negotiating the color line: louis armstrong's autobiographies" and kathy ogren, 'jazz isn'tjust me: jazz autobiographies as performance personas" in buckner and weiland (1991). thomas brothers's study of louis armstrong (1999) is also very helpful on this topic. 2. alan lomax's mr. jelly roll was originally published by duell, sloane, and pearce in new york. it is based on library of congress recordings of "piano solos, singing, and talking" entitled "saga of mr. jelly lord" (lc 1638 to 1688 and 2487 to 2489, recorded may-june 1938). references armstrong, louis. 1936. swing that music. new york: longmans. ---. 1999. louis armstrong: in his own words. edited by thomas brothers. new york: oxford university press. barker, danny. 1986. a life injazz. edited by alyn shipton. london: macmillan. bechet, sidney. 1975. treat it gentle. new york: da capo press. buckner, reginald, and steven weiland, eds. 1991. jazz in mind: essays on the history and meaning of jazz. detroit: wayne state university press. charters, samuel. 1984. jelly roll morton's last night at the jungle inn. new york and london: marion boyars. ellison, ralph. 1964. shadow and act. new york: random house. gates, henry louis, jr. 1988. the signifying monkey: a theory of afro-american literary criticism. new york: oxford university press. guralnick, peter. 1989. searchingfor robertjohnson. new york: dutton. gushee, lawrence. 1981-82. would you believe ferman mouton (a second look). storyville (january-february): 56-59. ---. 1985. a preliminary chronology of the early career of ferd 'jelly roll" morton. american music 3: 389-412. lomax, alan. [1950] 1972. mister jelly roll: the fortunes of jelly roll morton, new orleans creole and "inventor of jazz." berkeley: university of california press. marquis, donald m. 1978. in search of buddy bolden: first man of jazz. new york: da capo press. murray, albert. 1976. stompin' the blues. new york: mcgraw-hill. pullman, peter. n.d. transcript of the complete jelly roll morton library of congress interviews. american folklore society. afs 2488 a and b, 2489 a and b. wright, laurie. 1980. mr. jelly lord. chigweel, england: storyville. the 20th-century performer as interpreter oj the baroque tradition anthony newman i the problems involved in the performance of baroque music have received an unusual amount of attention during the last twenty years. in this country, especially, they have involved scholars, performers, and some scholarperformers in a kind of battlefield situation, where participants attack one another with ornaments, dots, sources, and other suitable weapons. among the many subjects of discussion and dispute are time signatures, "overdotting," the problems of inequality (notes inegales) , combined duple and triple figures, tempo, articulation, and even rubato. little has been done, however, to utilize modern systems of analysis, e.g., the schenkerian method, as a means of furthering musical "realization." the purpose of this essay is to utilize various of my conclusions concerning baroque performance practice and to combine them with a linear (schenkerian) analysis, in order to arrive at a performance version for the first twenty-one measures of bach's c minor praeludium, s.537, with the areas or notes of rubato indicated in the text. before proceeding to the written-out version, it would, perhaps, be helpful to present my conclusions about baroque performance practice and to illustrate these bars with a graph. limitations of space make it impossible to "realize" the whole work or to present a complete, thoroughly documented discussion; section ii is, therefore, confined to my conclusions and a few of the important sources involved. in the many articles on baroque music (including over loo in english alone) which have been published during the past twenty years, the same passages are quoted repeatedly. yet each of the various authors interprets them according to his individual biases and perhaps his own psychic makeup. this psychological factor is an important consideration in understanding an author's conclusions. even the composer or writer under study has a psychic make-up which must be included in an analysis of his work. two questions are generally involved in dealing with music for which the performing tradition is no longer "living" : is a historically valid performance possible? is it desirable? in an absolute sense, the only truly valid historical performance occurred when the composer performed his work in a way which he considered pleasing or satisfactory. the so-called historical "stuff" is what the composer heard in his own mind. next in degree of validity would be the recollection of that performance by one of the composer's own students. the variable factors here might be the student's musical gifts, his stage of development, and, again, his psychic make-up. the third level of reliability would be a performance by a student coached by the composer. in the 20th century we are at the end of the line, with neither composer, student, nor era 145 at hand. the whole list of variables might include the quality of performance, the skill of the executant, his age, his health, any neurotic problems involved, nervousness, the temperature of the hall, and the relative accuracy of the memory of any listener recounting what he heard. certainly in an absolute sense a truly "historic" modern performance is neither playable nor hearable. the second question is whether a historically valid performance is desirable. in the last century the philosopher hegel said that history overrides the individual, that the reason for everything lies in history. the reaction to this thesis by bultmann and later by heidegger is not unlike the reaction of many musical performers and historians today when they claim that the real communication of the music, whether historically valid or not, can be achieved only by an authentic but individual statement. history's blessing is therefore peripheral at most. in my opinion, it is impossible to know whether that blessing can even be recognized. one must make choices in playing even a single note, and one therefore strives to perform in a historically plausible way. the better the restrictions are known, the easier the choice. i believe that the treatises of the baroque era imposed too few limits to permit historically valid performances, that these treatises were addressed primarily to beginning students of performance, composition, or figured-bass realization, and, furthermore, that these documents became less helpful as the music became more complex. anyone attempting to perform a work of the baroque period must bridge this huge gap, and it is the differences in approach to this problem that account for so many varied conclusions among scholars and performers. the following is my own solution. ii the time signatures employed by such composers as j. s. bach, handel, and corelli reflect a usage already employed during the renaissance and discussed thoroughly by morley in his plaine and easie introduction . .. (1597). the signature indicated tempo by means of the "tactus" and the number of beats per bar (further suggesting articulation and bowing). the clue for this is that the composers mentioned above employed the combined signatures of this system which would have no meaning in music not rooted in this older tradition. some examples are: the prelude in d major, wtc ii: <t 182 ; the fugue in e major, wtc ii: <t the copy by hoffmeister; cantata no.7, christ unser herr zum jordan kam, the tenor aria: the signatures gave a definite beat pattern dependent on the fastest moving note. in the examples just cited, with sixteenth notes had four pulses per bar; the <t limits it to two. the signature <t indicates double cut time and gives one accent per bar; with no sixteenths indicates two accents per bar, on one and three. the added gives it three accents per bar. in their earlier meaning, italian words of movement, such as vivace, allegro, or largo, alter the normal pulsation schemes of the signatures. it is only 146 later that they refer to tempo. in the third movement of the brandenburg concerto no.5, the normal one-pulse-per-bar of is contradicted by the term allegro, which means: follow the accent pattern as given by the composer, that is, two accents per bar throughout (ex. l). the first movement of the example 1 concerto in the italian style needs no italian word to change the normal pulse of the single chord in the bass of m. 1 confirms the normal pulse relationship an added allegro would have been superfluous. important sources describing these occurrences of time signatures include christopher simpson's a compendium or introduction to practical musik (first edition, london, 1667); m. praetorius's syntagma musicum (1619); ]. ]. rousseau's methode claire, certaine, et facile . .. (1678); sebastien de brossard's many articles concerning time signatures in his dictionnaire de musique (paris, 1705); heinichen's der generalbass in der musik (1728); and]. ]. quantz's versuch einer anweisung ... (1752). other authors writing on signatures include muffat, walther, c. p. e. bach, and leopold mozart. tempo was determined by means of the signature and the fastest moving note-value. most of the opinions about the value of the tactus vary from sixty to eighty on the metronome. as an example, common time or c would have four pulses per bar, each pulse worth the value of the tactus. presto doubles the speed, and largo halves it. (quantz, in chapter xvii of his versuch, also deals with the various tempo values in strict arithmetical proportions, i.e., doubling or halving.) a knowledgeable performer in the baroque era would have played any work at the "correct" tempo, given his variation of tactus. often one finds thematic writing in bach corresponding to the accent patterns of the signature (exx. 2 and 3). bach combines renaissance complexity and proportional relations with beautiful and memorable melodic ideas. example 2 prelude in clj: minor, wtc i 147 example 3 kyrie, "gott heiliger geist," bwv 674 m.2 slurs over pairs of notes (usually eighths or sixteenths) can be realized as the first note long and the second short, or the first short and the second long. this method of performance applies especially to keyboard music at a faster tempo. an early important historical source for this is frescobaldi's preface to his toccate (rome, 1614). beyond a certain tempo (c. 108 on the metronome, two pairs per beat), paired slurred notes will not sound equal in performance. an experiment at a keyboard will confirm this. dotted notes are frequently "overdotted." most baroque composers wrote the value of the note or notes following a dotted note equal to the value of the dot: oj. j or oj • .n. however, the note or note groups following the dot are frequently played faster. their "played" relationship is often mentioned in baroque sources. this so-called "sharpening" of the dot can be found as late as 1850 (ex. 4). here the composer writes what he wants the first time, and example 4 f. liszt, organ fantasia and fugue on "ad nos ... ," 3rd section, mm. 56-62 t pedal ,: j 7 ,. , r: , f1 v f ' o i i then, in a subsequent sequential repetition, the same passage appears with the older notational scheme for dotted notes. both should be played the same way. the principle of notes inegales existed outside of france as a convention. certain baroque works, including those of bach and handel, sound much more "revealed" when the principles of inequality are applied (ex. 5). example 5 g. f. handel, chandos anthem, "0 praise the lord with one consent" realized as ; j;) j j if] po j j ye bound-less realms of joy, ex-alt your ma-ker's 148 7t' fame there is a certain "corpus" of ornamentation (trills, passage work, and cadenzas) proper to all baroque composers within individual compositional styles. if not supplied by the author, it should be provided by the performer. by studying works ornamented by the composer, a student will learn to realize a nonornamented work. rubato of some kind is proper to all music. it cannot be applied mechanically except in the case of certain dance forms. a compositional or linear analysis, such as that which follows, will reveal the important structural points of a composition, and rubato should be used to highlight these situations. example 6 shows the basic text of the opening of the praeludium in c minor by j. s. bach (vol. xv, bach-gesellschaft edition, leipzig, 1867). example 7 is the graphic analysis, showing a work based predominantly on motion in thirds. the basic-line "g" is arrived at in m. 7 and is solidified in m. 21 via a descending scale passage. later, this is imitated in the bass. example 6 praeludium et fuga vii. praeludiudl (fantasia). manuale. __ peda1e. 1i=----___ --•. ______ ---•. _________ ----.. "__.... j .n j j. 10. i 1 :&1 r j'll -1&1 '" ., • * --... ... : '------------------.. 149 fj.. 150 example 7 i lr-..,. -. i if. 5rd motion :irc1 5rd 5 1\ 1 ,. ,. .,,-. j, i i i i i 5rd 3rd 5rd 4• lv i. .,.;;-_-........ n i l .l i 5rd 5rd '15 l • l <il"' etc. i 20 v i example 8 is the altered version. the alterations are based on the following: (a) the normal (this would include eighths and sixteenths); (b) slurred pairs realized as short-long patterns; (c) up-beat notes shortened; (d) ornaments supplied where needed. the rubato reasoning is as follows: nos. 1,2, and 6 highlight the motions in thirds; no. 3 the entrance of the main-line "g"; no. 4 the end of a motion in thirds; no. 5 the ending of two third motions combined; no. 7 the redundant motion; no. 8 the false bass motion; no. 9 the cadence. the amount ofrubato (usually slowing down the beat before the point of arrival) varies, as couperin said, according to "good taste." 151 example 8 j 1 i i . j-i"t1,--.. 17 t r 171 1 1. 1'=5' ...... 1 , : j : "-8............ _e:..---------1 .1 nj j.-j .. .. i) \,,; ..... -.. l i ----... --::i , ... 1 , vf.! ., _:e:.-________ _______ --:..--____ _ w w • 1.[.;d:),,j. j.. b i i .ffrl..{ ij --....;::::= y 2 • • ,... -i) ++73. ' .. ..,.. .,. '" { j i , i i .1-----i; 4 • f' i i l=/::::i:::i i .1 .l : 1 , fl". f.) u .-.:.....::::;;0 4";':'" t +-e-'# ... 152 i. -n;.-1 l( b f"'1' ./,. = 7 i l......:.j 15. .. ..a! : = ..-. ...... ""' --.. -== .j"' \--: '" ,-. ..-.j-j j .. --j.] .r j. -4-.! f7j"1'1. j i .1 i. i] i } ll...b..l..bj i' r i : i : i 153 etc. 154 eric chafe. analyzing bach cantatas. oxford univer­ sity press, 2000. xvii, 286 pp. reviewed by john ito in his article "the question of purpose in music theory: description, suggestion, and explanation," david temperley (1999) posits two main purposes that a music theory can have: it can either describe (and, usually, try to explain) hearings that are actual and prevalent among experienced listeners, or else it can suggest hearings that are novel to experienced listeners. though temperley does not raise the issue, we can also observe that theories with these two purposes have opposite initial goals: theories that are descriptive and explanatory seek primarily to eliminate possible hear­ ings, while theories that are suggestive attempt to create possible hearings. a clear example of the former is lerdahl and jackendoff's generative theory of tonal music (1983). in dealing with the structure of meter, for example, it is implicit that at a given metrical level any beat might be a strong beat. it is the job of the metrical well-formedness rules and metrical preference rules to eliminate many of these candidates for strong beat status, leaving a manageable number of possible hearings. an example of the attempt to create possible hearings is schenkerian the­ ory, at least in its treatment of deeper levels of structure. leaving aside schenker's belief that his theories represented a lost art and also con­ nected deeply with nature, it is clear that schenker introduced the possi­ bility of hearing an ursatz to twentieth-century listeners. once the initial work of introducing new ways of hearing has been done, however, the user of a suggestive theory finds herself in a position much like that of the user of a descriptive/ explanatory theory; possession of the concept of the ursatz raises the possibility of a great many potential ursatze in a given piece of music, and it is necessary to eliminate those that are untenable. suggestive theories do not often give precise guidelines for this task of winnowing the possible ways of hearing they have raised. indeed, criteria for the elimination of possible hearings produced by theo­ ries like schenker's will never be as precise as those offered by lerdahl andjackendoff, much less as exact as the algorithms found in their work's intellectual descendant, temperley's the cognition of basic musical struc­ tures (2001). it is perfectly natural that schenker spawned an analytical literature rather than a line of increasingly formal theories. indeed, the typical way that suggestive theories help the user to bring the range of possible hearings back under control is by offering heuristic current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) 141 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 142 current musicology guidelines that are illustrated in analytical practice. this purpose is often not stated explicitly, but the process is open to being viewed in those terms. mter all, every why this is, at least by implication, also a why not that. this second job of suggestive theory, that of restricting the range of the possible hearings it has raised, is central to a theory's success. ethan raimo's critique of allen forte's practice of segmentation within pitch­ class set theory, for example, deals primarily with forte's performance on this second job (raimo 1996). this analysis of the two tasks of suggestive theory help in making a pre­ cise assessment of eric chafe's 2000 book, analyzing bach cantatas. with analyzing bach cantatas, chafe continues to develop his theory of the alle­ gorical use of tonal centers in bach's vocal music, also the subject of his 1991 book tonal allegory in the vocal music of j s. bach (henceforth tonal allegory). these works advance, defend, and illustrate the hypothesis that bach used relationships among tonall centers in the allegorical representa­ tion of the theological contents of the vocal works. analyzing bach cantatas is an extremely ambitious work in that it attempts three simultaneous ad­ vances over tonal allegory: it seeks to broaden the audience for chafe's ideas; it deepens the historical contextualization of the cantatas; and it uses the concept of tonal allegory with greater flexibility. while a fuller picture of chafe's success in reaching these goals will emerge over the course of this review, an initial assessment is offered here. chafe begins his introduction by stating that his "chief purpose in writ­ ing this book was to stimulate as wide as possible a range of scholars, pro­ fessional musicians, students, and other bach lovers to become deeply involved with the bach cantatas" (ix). given his coordination of historical theology and historical music theory in subtle analyses, speaking intelligi­ bly to such a broad audience is a tall order. despite some reservations, however, it must be stated that analyzing bach cantatas makes extremely conspicuous advances in readability over tonal allegory. the prose is con­ sistently clear and straightforward, and the mystifying statements that ap­ peared occasionally in the earlier work have disappeared. (this is proba­ bly connected to the removal of the earlier book's emphasis on walter benjamin's perspectives on seventeenth-century allegory. though cer­ tainly of some interest, this philosophical approach made tonal allegory rather challenging to read in places, and seemed to contribute relatively little to the overall argument.) in general the language has been simpli­ fied, most significantly by replacing his jargon for sharpward and flatward tonal motion-"anabasis" and "catabasis," respectively-with the more straightforward "ascent" and "descent." translations have been provided for the texts discussed, and the copyediting is more consistent. for a reviews 143 reader unfamiliar with chafe's work on bach's vocal music, analyzing bach cantatas is a far better starting point than tonal allegory. the earlier book contains many interesting discussions, but these will be more readily di­ gested if the later book is read first. in keeping with chafe's coordination of theological and musicological analysis, the deepening of the historical perspective takes place in two ways, one drawn from each discipline. on the theological side, chafe dis­ cusses the liturgical calendar and the significance of the cantatas' place­ ment within it. the liturgical year, which provides a contextual frame for the cantatas, is constructed to draw the believer through a dynamic inter­ action with the latter part of the history of god's relationship with human­ ity ("salvation history"), from israel awaiting the messiah through to the final judgment. chafe's analyses often gain depth by considering the place of individual cantatas within this larger drama. he broadens his scope mu­ sicologically by considering the influence of modal chorale melodies on harmonic and tonal structure on a variety of levels. though stating very explicitly that this cannot be seen as a ubiquitous practice, chafe demon­ strates illuminating connections between the harmonic and tonal implica­ tions of modal chorale melodies and the textual and musical design in a number of cantatas. in general, these added perspectives yield results that are both historically plausible and aesthetically engaging. analyzing bach cantatas uses chafe's concept of tonal allegory more flexibly than its predecessor in a number of ways; one of the most impor­ tant is due to its defending the basic premise in different terms. tonal allegory included a somewhat unfortunate line of argumentation, an im­ plicitly statistical one that surveyed numerous cantatas that could be seen as supporting chafe's basic hypothesis. while this approach may have been appropriate to the first book-length exposition of his theories, the cursory treatment that some cantatas received in these analytical surveys probably fostered some readers' impressions of chafe as inflexible and re­ ductionistic. analyzing bach cantatas deals with only a few cantatas, and those cantatas that are analyzed receive consistently detailed attention; as chafe's hypothesis about tonal allegory seems most convincing when it is shown to work in conjunction with other aspects of musical structure, these few careful analyses are probably a better apologia than the surveys of tonal allegory. increased flexibility is also seen in the way his basic concept is used. stated most simply, chafe sees tonal centers as being allegorized primarily in terms of their relative sharpness or flatness. most typically, sharper tonal centers are associated with things that have more positive affective associations. other associations are possible, though, such as sharper with harder and flatter with softer, via the terms durus and mollis. in tonal 144 current musicology allegory, chafe seemed to view the former association as normative; he ap­ peared open to the charge of taking "major is happy and minor is sad" and turning it into "sharper is happier and flatter is sadder" via develop­ ments in the meanings of durus and mollis. in analyzing bach cantatas chafe takes a more flexible stance with regard to the possible associations of sharper and flatter tonal centers. (in fairness to chafe, it should be pointed out that tonal allegory probably contains more analyses in which sharp/flat shifts are read in ways other than positive/negative than the work at hand; what makes analyzing bach cantatas seem more flexible is that chafe does not seem surprised when these cases arise.) as a result of the deepening of the historical perspective and the in­ crease in (at least apparent) flexibility, chafe's theories as expressed in analyzing bach cantatas become even more successful at raising possible new hearings than they had been in tonal allegory. but as a direct result of doing the first job of suggestive theory better, it becomes necessary to do the second job even better as well; a richer domain of potential hearings demands a larger set of methodological controls with which to separate the gold from the dross. it is in this area that analyzing bach cantatas is dis­ appointing at times. as with most suggestive theories, these interpretive controls are not made explicit; they make their absence felt when analyses report seemingly contradictory results. to cite a few examples: in a move­ ment from cantata 18, cadencing in c minor supposedly represents both human weakness and the believers' holding onto god's word (a form of human strength) (110); the reading of cantata 77 makes a strange juxta­ position of theological messages, claiming that the cantata is about human inability to fulfill god's demands in general, but also about the impor­ tance of fulfilling god's demand to !love one's neighbor (206-19); and in cantata 60, small-scale sharpward motion represents fear and anguish very consistently throughout the cantata, and yet the setting of the final chorale in a sharper key than the preceding movements represents peace and a vision of the life to come (238). these examples do not characterize the majority of chafe's interpreta­ tions; in general his readings are coherent, and frequently they engage with the works in very deep ways. but lack of interpretive consistency and control do occur frequently enough to warrant comment. in most cases it appears that chafe has simply failed to exercise sufficient discipline in re­ jecting intriguing but ultimately untenable interpretations. it is possible, however, that chafe is attempting to deal with readings that are too com­ plex for his methodology to handle. theological texts feature many poten­ tially allegorizable dualities, and christian theology abounds with appar­ ent contradictions. regarded by the faithful as mysteries rather than as contradictions, these include god being simultaneously both three and reviews 145 one, and jesus being both fully human and fully divine (in the western church). theologians have developed methods for dealing coherently with mysteries; it will be fascinating to see if chafe is able to develop a suf­ ficiently refined interpretive method to allow him to reconcile some of his apparent contradictions. * * * the chapters of analyzing bach cantatas can be divided into two groups. in the first, which consists of chapters 1 through 4, chafe . lays out his ana­ lytical approach. chapters 1 and 2 discuss basic issues in theology and mu­ sic theory, and the interpretive approach is illustrated by an extended treatment of cantata 21 in chapter 3. chapter 4 presents his perspective on modal chorale melodies and their potential implications for tonal de­ sign. chapters 5 though 9, which form the second group, are entirely ana­ lytical. they apply chafe's theories from chapter 4 in increasingly exten­ sive and in-depth analyses, which culminate in the treatment of cantata 77 in chapters 7 and 8. chapter 9 deals with cantata 60, which is presented as a foil to cantata 77. chapter 1, "the hermeneutic matrix," begins with chafe's account of lutheran pre-enlightenment hermeneutics. he describes the belief in the fundamental unity of the books of the bible, as well as the view of the bible as having both historiographic and salvific purposes. thus scripture was subject to both historical and spiritual readings, with a primary goal of lutheran hermeneutics being movement from the former to the latter. frequently this movement would correspond to a progression through the three eras into which lutherans divided salvation history: the old testa­ ment, the new testament, and the era of the church. chafe exemplifies such a progression with the text of cantata 9, "es ist das heil uns kommen her," which quotes and paraphrases several verses of the eponymous chorale. the second part of chapter 1 deals with the liturgical year. mter explaining its construction in some detail, chafe explains ways in which placement within the liturgical year could be reflected in cantata design by discussing several leipzig cantatas from the turn of the liturgical year 1723-24. chapter 2, "the lutheran 'metaphysical' tradition in music and music theory," fleshes out chafe's concept of tonal allegory more fully and pro­ vides a plausibility argument for it. the chapter opens with a discussion of andreas werckmeister's views on music and theology. while they demon­ strate thinking about music in theologically allegorical terms, they do so for the most part by making connections between theological concepts and the basic materials of music. they thus support a theological view of music in general much more strongly than they support a program for 146 current musicology interpreting individual works theologically. the main purpose of their dis­ cussion is to establish the existence of detailed musico-theological allegori­ cal thinking in a writer near to bach. the meat of the chapter is the exposition of chafe's central notion of the allegorizing of sharp/flat shifts. his argument is essentially that in the midst of the new system of twenty-four circularly arranged major and mi­ nor keys, there were remnants in theory (and in practice, in the case of modal chorales) of the older modal system. in particular, sharpward and flatward tonal motions continued to be associated with the sharp/flat rela­ tionship between the cantus durus and cantus mollis hexachords, and this association allowed affective and allegorical connotations of the old hexa­ chords to accrue to sharpward and flatward tonal motions in general. in addition to the literal associations of durus and mollis with hard and soft, chafe posits a relationship of higher and lower, citing clear evidence that werckmeister thought in those terms. chafe is then equipped, via the hard/ soft and higher/lower associations, to map relationships such as divine/human, perfect/imperfect, and hope/despair onto sharp/flat key relationships. stated in such a bald summary, chafe's interpretive prem­ ises sound suspiciously crude, but he is careful to stress that bach did not compose "according to a designative 'system' that was invariable" (41). chafe's analyses have subtlety and nuance which my summary lacks, and, as discussed above, his conception of tonal allegory can function in entirely different terms; an example is his analysis of cantata 109 in chapter 5. the durus and mollis hexachords are introduced via their relation to the german terms for major and minor, dur and moll. throughout the book chafe juxtaposes major/minor and sharp/flat, seeming to make much of the terminological connection. frequently he reads a shift from a minor key to its parallel major as a sharpward shift. while he gives a clear sense of two systems coexisting, he does not indicate exactly what relationship he perceives between the two dualities of sharp/flat and major/ minor. some more detail on this point would be welcome, as the position in the present volume seems to soften the view expressed in tonal allegory, which argued against assigning significance to parallel major/minor rela­ tionships as such in bach's music. readers who wish to delve more thor­ oughly into issues of history of theory will find a much more thorough dis­ cussion on this and related topics in the third chapter of tonal allegory, but they may emerge unclear as to the extent to which chafe retains cer­ tain aspects of his earlier views. mter the relatively brief exposition of the core of chafe's theory, the chapter resumes its plausibility argument, comparing kuhnau's discussion of his own music with the music itself and pointing out the allegorical use of tonal centers. many of the issues in this discussion are featured in chapreviews 147 ter 1 of tonal allegory, and readers will find that chafe's arguments here are clearer, more modest always in their tone and sometimes in their scope. in particular, chafe seems to amend his arguments in response to criticism that tonal allegory made unwarranted claims in its treatment of these sources (butt 1993:291). in chapter 3, chafe exemplifies the theories set forth in the previous chapters with an extended analysis of the weimar cantata "ich hatte viel bekummernis," bwv 21. chafe offers both a broad overview of the cantata and discussions of the individual movements, and his account touches on a number of different domains: he proposes a biblical story as a source for recurrent imagery in the texts; he offers many insightful analytical read­ ings (see in particular his account of conflicts between prominent ds and d~s in the recitative that opens part two of the cantata); and he interprets theories regarding the cantata's entstehungsgeschichte in light of his analysis. chafe sees this cantata as one of bach's most eschatologically oriented, as one in which the triumph of god's eventual restoration of all things is put in dramatic contrast with the difficulties of life in this world. the texts of part one take a dark, even despairing tone, and they are set exclusively in minor keys, with flatter tonal centers for the recitative and aria, which contain the most tortured cries of anguish. the opening movements of part two, the first movements in major keys, initiate tonal motion toward sharper keys. this tonal motion is correlated with the increasingly positive tone of the texts, which climax with a declaration of joy in jesus' comfort in an aria and an outpouring of praise in the following final chorus. for chafe, the final aria and chorus have a particularly strong connection with the last aria and chorus of part one. the gradually sharpening tonal motion -after c, f, and c in part one, e~, g, f, and c in part two-brings the fi­ nal movements of part two into the parallel major keys with respect to the movements that closed part one. the account of the relationship between the final choruses of the two parts is particularly convincing, as it draws his notions of tonal allegory together with phrase structure, numerology, or­ chestration, and motivic associations. chafe makes the strongest case for his ideas about tonal allegory in passages like this one, in which his theory interacts harmoniously and profitably with other more standard methods of musical analysis. in chapter 4, chafe returns to theoretical issues, exploring shifts in views on modal harmony during bach's lifetime and their implications for the analysis of bach's harmonizations of modal chorales. chafe is particularly concerned with those chorale settings that he hears as occupying a middle ground between pure modal and pure tonal styles, both of which bach also employed. in order to analyze the remnants of the modal system in bach's harmonic practice, chafe calls on his 148 current musicology harmonic interpretation of the hexachords, which was developed at length in his 1992 book monteverdi's tonal language. chafe gives a very clear, but also very condensed, summary of this theory. those familiar with the earlier work will find it a helpful refresher, but readers who are not may wish to consult chafe (1992) for more detail. in examining modal practice, chafe focuses on the two systems, the natural and the transposed (or cantus durus/naturalis and cantus mollis) , which correspond, respectively, to the key signature with no flats or sharps and to the key signature with one flat. chafe believes that starting in the late sixteenth century, the hexachord came to function not only as a melodic concept, but also as a source of pitches with which to construct triads. each system had two primary hexachords: the natural system had the f and the c hexachords, the transposed system the m and the f. any pitch in either of a system's primary hexachords could be used as the root . of a triad. the two hexachords associated primarily with each system had, when combined, the diatonic collection as their pitch-class content, and in the diatonic collection one triad is diminished. to correct for this, each system had the adjacent sharper hexachord associated with it (in the un­ transposed system, the g hexachord). this hexachord could be drawn on for fifths and thirds of triads, but never roots. thus each system had three hexachords available as a collection of pitch classes with which to form tri­ ads: the untransposed system had the f, c, and g hexachords, the trans­ posed system the b~, f, and c. in each system, roots of triads had to be drawn from the two flatter hexachords. chafe admits that this notion is foreign to the contemporary theoretical literature and defends it purely on the basis of its explanatory value. building on the very substantial em­ pirical support amassed in chafe (1992), he reports that his theory per­ fectly accords with the chorale harmonizations in lucas osiander's 1586 collection. chafe's theory of the harmonic role of hexachords and systems serves as a guide to his discussion of the development of tonal theory and prac­ tice and of the remnants of earlier practice therein. among other things, it opens the possibility of tracking tonal progressions in terms of kircher's distinction between change of mode and change of system (82). of partic­ ular importance for the following chapters is the issue of final chords in modal settings potentially sounding like dominants; chafe points out that this tendency will be most pronounced in phrygian modes employing picardy thirds. he also discusses harmonizations in which bach suggests other tonal possibilities altogether; for example, by ending an e phrygian chorale with an a-major triad supporting the final in the soprano, bach opens the possibility of hearing this as a dominant chord supporting the second scale degree in d dorian. chafe presents an interesting survey of reviews 149 phrygian and hypophrygian chorale settings in which he shows that the final is treated as the fifth of a major triad frequently in settings of hypophrygian melodies but not at all in settings of phrygian melodies. he thus hypothesizes (based in part on remarks by luther on the characters of modes) that the hypophrygian was the weakest mode tonally for bach, and thus the one that could most vividly depict human infirmity. unfortunately, this theoretically central chapter is marred by a few un­ characteristically confusing and (in at least one case) confused passages. chafe puts much weight on a discussion by werckmeister of the hypo­ phrygian chorale "durch adams fall ist ganz verderbt" (90-91). the cen­ tral issue is that werckmeister classifies the melody as (transposed) hypophrygian, while acknowledging that "one cadences very frequently on the dorian, since the dorian closes in d" (90). this passage is both pertinent and illuminating, but in his account of the chorale itself chafe bizzarely interprets this passage as referring to the wrong melody. werckmeister did not include musical examples, and chafe discusses the passage as referring to a melody that, though not the standard melody for "durch adams fall," was sometimes associated with that chorale. this melody, given as example 4.3, is in the untransposed system, and chafe believes that werckmeister was referring to a version in the transposed sys­ tem. the reader is thus asked to coordinate the example, chafe's discus­ sion of it as transposed down a fifth, and the quotes from werckmeister. this turns out to be impossible, as the melody in example 4.3 cannot have been the one werckmeister referred to: there is no indication of either ca­ dence to pitch-class d or the dorian mode before the final phrase of chafe's melody, either as printed or transposed down a fifth as discussed; and the suggested transposition would make the melody either too high or too low for congregational singing, significantly exceeding the usual boundaries for possible ambiti of c' and e". fortunately, the reader can still profit from the discussion ofwerckmeister, provided that she applies it to the usual melody for "durch adams fall," given by chafe in example 4.4; if we assume that werckmeister knew a version with some flats, this melody fits werckmeister's remarks perfectly. (chafe acknowledges this possibility in footnote 47 to page 92, making his error truly baffling.) this example is central to his discussion of the hypophrygian mode, and while the choice of the wrong chorale melody does not affect the substance of his argument, it does place a mystifying puzzle at a point at which clarity would have been particularly valuable. chafe also creates confusion in this section by conflating senses of the word "dominant." in discussing bach's hypophrygian settings mentioned above (in which he supports the final note, which is the final of the mode, with the major triad a fifth below, thus allowing the final chord to be 150 current musicology heard as a dominant supporting scale degree two), chafe claims that this situation is "very nearly exactly," and later simply "exactly," "the situation that werckmeister objected to when he proclaimed that 'durch adams fall' could not be dorian since no mode ended on the dominant" (92). but in the context of discussing a modal melody, it certainly seems pos­ sible that werckmeister's objection could have been more to the melodic close on the fifth above the final than to the harmonic close on the har­ mony whose root is a fourth below the final. werckmeister actually leaves both possibilities open, as he illustrates the clausula minus principali (ca­ dence to the dominant scale degree), together with the cadences to the root and third of what we could call the tonic triad, with two-voice pro­ gressions in which both upper and lower voice close on the scale degree in q'uestion (werckmeister 1702:60). it is a fine point, and not one that in­ terferes with the thrust of chafe's argument. it is unfortunate, though, that it adds a degree of confusion to the most theoretically challenging chapter of the book. in chapters 5 and 6, which consist of several analyses, chafe is generally concerned with examining how modal issues in chorales can be related to larger issues of tonal relationships among movements. chapter 5 looks at five cantatas, each of which sets one of the chorale melodies discussed in the previous chapter. as two are hypophrygian and receive the kind of setting discussed above, they make particularly rich material for this kind of study. chafe's analysis of cantata 109, "ich glaube, lieber herr, hilf' meinem unglauben!" is particularly valuable for showing, as discussed above, that his theories of temal allegory amount to more than a transfor­ mation of "major is happy and minor is sad" into "sharper is happier and flatter is sadder." in this cantata, which has as its theme the conflict be­ tween faith and doubt, the arias subvert chafe's more common tonal asso­ ciations by being sharper for doubt (e minor) than for faith (f major). chafe does not try to shoehorn this cantata into one of his typical pat­ terns, such as ascent-descent, but rather sees tonal allegory taking place on another level: the tonality of the final chorale settles uncertainty about the principal tonal center for the cantata, mirroring a pattern of ambigu­ ity leading to clarity within the chorale setting itself. it also connects with the theological idea that events in human history will make complete sense only when that history is over via luther's statement, "in fine vide­ bitur cujus toni." chapter 6 takes up two chorale cantatas, cantata 121, "christum wir sollen loben schon," and cantata 9, "es ist das heil uns kommen her." a highlight of chafe's analysis of cantata 121 is a thorough defense of his interpretive method as applied in this analysis (148-49): he details the reviews 151 clear presence of ascent and descent in the theological contents of the text; he revisits his argument about paradigms of ascent being central to lutheran hermeneutics; and he recaps his coordination of theological and musical ascent and descent within the cantata. this discussion may prove helpful to those trying to decide how plausible they find his theories. the analysis of cantata 9 is rooted in an anomaly in the melody "es ist das heil uns kommen her." though predominantly in a straightforward major mode, its opening phrase suggests the mixolydian mode, and chafe sees this as the impetus for another descent-ascent tonal design. in chafe's view this tonal motion is initiated by the conflict between d# and d in the e-major chorale, so he traces this conflict throughout the can­ tata. this discussion is extremely strong, and though he is too glib in changing the associations of d in his reading of the second recitative (155), his analysis contains points which are among the most convincing for the reality of tonal allegorical devices in bach's music (the treatment of the second half of the first recitative on page 152 being particularly noteworthy in this. regard). the final setting of "es ist das heil" strongly supports the descent-ascent interpretation of the cantata, and chafe treats this remarkable movement with subtlety. readers familiar with bach's settings of this chorale will be particularly struck by his argument regarding the harmonization of the first phrase of the chorale with a move to the subdominant of the subdominant. bach usually responded to this phrase with a simple move to the subdominant, and the more dra­ matic setting creates an unusually conspicuous tonal descent and ascent within the final chorale. chapters 7 and 8 are devoted to an extensive analysis of cantata 77, "du sollt gott, deinen herren, lieben." this is in many ways the analytical centerpiece of the book. despite its title ("cantata 77: the theological background"), chapter 7 gives extensive attention not just to theology but also to textual background issues, both musical and verbal. the musical material for the first movement comes from the chorale "dies sind die heilgen zehn gebot." the chorale melody appears in instrumental parts, and it provides the head motive for the vocal parts, but the melody is never sung and its text is not used. in exploring the connotations of this melody, chafe discusses the text of the chorale, focusing on its emphasis on luther's doctrine that the purpose of the law is to bring about aware­ ness of sin and awareness of the need to rely in faith on the gospel for salvation rather than on good works. in his discussion of the hymn tune itself, chafe is particularly concerned with tracing the development of its modal shift: the melody starts in g mixolydian but introduces bbs near the end, suggesting a shift to g dorian. chafe offers a sensitive analysis of the chorale which indicates a progressive flattening: starting on g, initial 152 current musicology cadences are to c, followed by a cadence to f, after which b~s are intro­ duced. chafe connects this with the hard (durus) demands of the law and the inability of fallen human nature to fulfill them. the text sung in the first movement comes from the day's gospel reading, which is the sum­ mary of the law in luke chapter 10: "you shall love the lord your god with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." this is known in christian theology as the two greatest commandments. chafe discusses the connection of this reading with an older cantata text, of which the text of cantata 77 is a reworking. chafe's very thorough treatment of the first movement of cantata 77 in chapter 8 is perhaps the strongest analysis in the book. chafe builds on other analyses of the movement's numerological design (involving in­ stances of the number ten, connected with the ten commandments refer­ enced in the text of the chorale) by tracing a progressive motion in the movement from relatively sharp major keys to relatively flat minor keys, a motion which reaches a nadir at the minor sub dominant shortly before the end of the movement. he connects this motion with the flattening tendency and the switch to minor of the chorale melody, and he demon­ strates that bach achieves this tonal motion by exploiting aspects of the head motive. chafe's interpretation of these flattening minor tendencies as reflecting the inability of humans to fulfill god's commandments is quite convincing. later texts within the cantata will address this inability extremely explicitly, and bach's use of luther's chorale about the ten commandments prefigures this emphasis. in this regard, chafe misses an opportunity to strengthen his case, in that he neglects to point out that the two greatest commandments were less frequently associated with inability to fulfill god's demands than were the ten commandments. the two greatest commandments more often ap­ peared in texts of an aspirational character, expressing a hope, with god's help, to live a life pleasing to him. bach's use of "dies sind die heilgen zehn gebot" thus serves as a reminder that the two greatest command­ ments are a summary of the law as a whole, and that the purpose of the law was to bring recognition of sin. given this anticipation of the emphasis on human sin found later in the text, it is quite credible that bach would also employ tonal means to underline this message. as stated above, i find chafe most persuasive when he coordinates his tonal alllegorical readings with analyses of other aspects of structure, in this case clear numerological design and the purposeful use of harmonic implications within the basic melodic material. in dealing with the first movement of cantata 77, all of chafe's main points can be readily heard, and his reading is both rich and compelling. reviews 153 the treatment of the rest of the cantata has many keen insights, espe­ cially in the multifaceted discussion of bach's exceptional setting of the hypophrygian chorale "ach gott, vom himmel sieh darein" in the final movement. it is unfortunate, however, that after the brilliant discussion of the first movement, what follows is in some ways unclear as to its overall di­ rection. theological texts are often rich in dualities, and cantata 77, in addition to the opposition of god's commands and human incapacity to fulfill them, also features a contrast between love of god and love of the human neighbor. both of these could, at least in theory, be very plausibly connected with relatively sharp and flat key areas. mter having dealt with the first movement primarily in terms of the theme of the command­ ments, chafe seems to switch perspectives, stating that "on the largest scale the tonal design of the remainder of the cantata ... clarifies bach's intention of delineating a progression from love of god to love of hu­ mankind by means of the change from major to minor and sharp to flat tonal regions" (208). chafe is not consistent in taking this viewpoint, how­ ever, and in the remainder of the chapter-and through to the summary of cantata 77 that is found at the beginning of chapter 9-chafe vacillates between perspectives, stressing at times each of the two main oppositions but never making sufficiently clear which is the more important or how exactly they relate. chafe sometimes seems to be suggesting relationships, but, uncharacteristically for the book as a whole, he never manages to make clear exactly what claim he is making. in places he seems even to suggest a reading in which love of the neighbor is the solution to the problem of the human inability to fulfill the law. but in the context of lutheran orthodoxy such a statement on bach's part would seem to sum­ mon the specter of justification by works; having stressed human inability to fulfill god's commandments to the extent that this cantata does, the only orthodox lutheran solution is luther's famous dictum sola fide: justi­ fication by faith alone, apart from good works. in his treatment of the lat­ ter movements of cantata 77, chafe seems not entirely in control of his analytical approach. in particular, he falls short in fulfilling the second task of suggestive theory. when two seemingly contradictory readings are raised, they must either be coordinated in a precise and convincing way (e.g., in terms of mystery, or in terms of meaningful ambiguity) or else a choice must be made between them; unfortunately chafe does neither of these with regard to the two oppositions he finds in cantata 77. chafe closes the book in chapter 9 with a relatively compact account of cantata 60, "0 ewigkeit, du donnerwort." this work may seen as a foil to cantata 77: whereas cantata 77 features strong flattening tendencies, which in at least one interpretation are connected with discouragement and helplessness, cantata 60 features dramatic sharpening motions which 154 current musicology are connected (again not univocally) with affirmation and hope. it also features the same strengths and weaknesses as the previous analysis: many brilliant readings are offered, but the overall picture created is internally inconsistent (sharpening tendencies being connected both with fear's an­ guish and with arriving at faith-filled hope). one of the most striking as­ pects of this chapter is that the sharpward motions are in several cases connected with very clearly audible motivic transformations. though as­ pects of the story of fear-related sharpenings go beyond what musical novices could hear, instructors of courses for undergraduate non-majors could raid this chapter with profit for a lesson about how musical meaning (transformation of consonant melodies into dissonant ones by raising pitches) is coordinated with theological meaning (a dialogue between fear and faith). the final chorale, the famous setting of "es ist genug" used by berg in his violin concerto, seems particularly promising in this regard, featuring motivic transformation seemingly in conflict with the text and a progression in style of harmonization that can be readily heard (and con­ nected with the overall drama of the cantata). as discussed by chafe, cantata 60 seems to be very promising material for a lively discussion in a basic music course. * * * chafe mentions repeatedly that he has produced a body of bach can­ tata studies which will appear in future volumes; issues explored will in­ clude interrelationships of cantatas within cycles and the use of alternate basso continuo instrumentation. one topic that i would like to see ad­ dressed is the conception of tonal center. based both on intuition and on chafe's wording throughout the book, bach's allegorical use of tonal cen­ ter would seem to have been at least in part a conscious process. it would therefore follow thatthis process relied on a conscious conception of what qualified as a tonal center. this was, of course, not a clear-cut issue during bach's lifetime. chafe stresses the existence of remnants of modal theory and practice, in which system it was possible to cadence to many degrees of the mode without implying any change of mode. it was also possible to change mode, and to change system. in looking for analogies with the tonal concept of key, we could potentially choose any of these three­ cadence point, mode, or system. but if mode is chosen, then we will have a fairly robust sense of tonal stability, as cadences not on the modal final will often not disrupt our understanding of the mode. early tonal theory, on the other hand, tended to be preoccupied with small-scale local issues, as the system of the circle of keys and methods of control of chromatic pitches were still developing. concepts such as secondary dominant or tonicization would not be invented until the nineteenth century, and apreviews 155 proaches to local key center had no minimum threshold below which a tonicization would not be considered modulatory. joel lester addresses this issue in his 1992 book compositional theory in the eighteenth century. in describing analytical notations in a foreign hand in the d-minor prelude and the c-minor fugue in the manuscript of the first volume of the well­ tempered clavier, lester points out that all tonicizations are treated as full modulations, even though one of them lasts for only two eighth notes (lester 1992:82-87). though one of the annotations indicates that the keys were seen as scale steps in relation to the tonic, they are all treated equally. given these very different possible conceptions of tonal center and tonal stability in the eighteenth century, we cannot assume that bach's conception of when tonal centers changed in his compositions is the same as ours. within a movement, which of the many modulations, tonicizations, and tonal shadings should be considered a tonal change (and thus have the potential to be treated allegorically) and which not? what do we do if one detail seems pregnant with allegorical meaning but many others on the same structural scale do not? i am certainly not sug­ gesting that we need to establish one absolute threshold for tonal allegory, with everything above that threshold needing to be treated allegorically and nothing below being allowed to be. i am suggesting that increased clarity of method would be desirable. to be fair, this issue is pertinent in relatively few of chafe's analyses. certainly those that deal with relationships between keys of movements are on solid ground. in recitatives, where textual action takes place most rapidly, chafe does often follow every potential key center, and indeed these are often correlated with a conceptual progression in the text. there are also many analyses in which chafe traces general motions be­ tween flats and sharps, more concerned with lower and higher versions of scale degrees than with particular tonal centers as such. analyzing bach cantatas does also offer a few clues as to how chafe might respond to these questions. on page 96, in the context of dis­ cussing seventeenth-century compositional development, he states that "circles of fifths and secondary dominants furthered the distinction be­ tween what we distinguish as 'structural' and 'nonstructural' dominant arrivals." in general, chafe seems comfortable inferring intention from design, as in the case of his theory about the harmonic function of the hexachords which forms the basis of his study of monteverdi (1992). of course, it is possible for composers to follow theories of which they are un­ aware; the proper resolution of the second inversion dominant seventh chord, which was the embarrassment of figured bass theory until rameau's explanation, is the classic example. but intuitive allegory seems 156 current musicology at least to approach the boundaries of the believable functioning of unconscious intuition. a fuller statement on this topic would be welcome, if for no other purpose than as a guide to those who wish to use chafe's theories in their own analyses. returning finally to chafe's desire that his book be of service to "schol­ ars, professional musicians, students, and other bach lovers" (ix) and be "readable in sequence by advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and musicians generally" (xvii), it is true that a fairly broad range of read­ ers could understand this book. some knowledge of music theory is re­ quired, but a single college-level harmony course should suffice; an under­ standing of tonic, dominant, and sub dominant harmonies, and the ability to recognize them in highly modulatory music, are most of what is re­ quired. some knowledge of modal theory will be needed, but a basic un­ derstanding of the modes will be sufficient to get the gist of chafe's discus­ sions. readers will be aided by some very basic knowledge of christianity, as those with some familiarity with traditional christian doctrine and prac­ tice will certainly feel more oriented. in general, though, chafe uses simple language in his theological discussions, and he defines basic concepts re­ peatedly to help those not familiar with the lutheran thought world. the biggest obstacle to a more general readership, one which would also slow down many undergraduate readers, is the engagement with german texts. chafe is extremely conscientious in supplying translations for the texts he discusses, but, unavoidably in a detailed examination of a german text, he sometimes quotes single words in the midst of english sentences. though the words have almost always appeared in translated texts above, it will try the patience of non-german-speaking readers to deal with phrases such as "the ... passage ... unobtrusively conveys the above/below quality involved in the 'bund und treu' between god and the believer" (53), or "bach ... adds the word 'zugleich' to knauer's text ... thereby contradicting the 'zuf6rderst ... und dann' of knauer's text ... " (177). in its ability to "stimulate [readers] to become more deeply involved with the bach cantatas" (ix), i consider this book tremendously successful. chafe performs the first task of suggestive theory brilliantly, having come up with an interpretive method that consistently yields insightful and con­ vincing readings. he is, to be sure, less uniformly successful at the second task, as he sometimes fails to handle contradictory readings well, neither reconciling them nor choosing among them. but it would be ungrateful to complain too loudly about this shortcoming-though his method could benefit from further refinement, chafe offers powerful interpretive tools to his readers. that this book provides a more accessible entry into his reviews 157 theories than was previously available while simultaneously expanding the scope of those theories is truly remarkable. though i would mention my reservations, to anyone with the requisite background who wished to en­ rich her engagement with this repertoire i would recommend analyzing bach cantatas without hesitation. references butt, john. 1993. review of tonal allegory in the vocal music of j s. bach by eric chafe. music and letters 74: 289-94. chafe, eric. 1991. tonal allegory in the vocal music of j s. bach. berkeley, los angeles, and oxford: university of california press. ---.1992. monteverdi's tonal language. new york: schirmer books. haimo, ethan. 1996. atonality, analysis, and the intentional fallacy. music theory spectrum 18: 167-99. lerdahl, fred, and ray jackendoff. 1983. a generative theory of tonal music. cambridge and london: the mit press. lester, joel. 1992. compositional theory in the eighteenth century. cambridge and london: harvard university press. temperley, david. 2001. the cognition of basic musical structures. cambridge and london: the mit press. ---.1999. the question of purpose in music theory: description, suggestion, and explanation. current musicology, no. 66: 66-85. werckmeister, andreas. 1702. harmonologia musica. frankfurt and leipzig: t. p. calvisii. genius in the 18th century: c. f. d. schubart's "vom musikalischen genie" richard w. harpster in the mid-18th century there arose among diverse artists and philosophers a fascination with the notion of genius. this enthusiasm (which had its roots in thefurores of plato) reached its peak in the so-called genieperiode, or sturm und drang era, as a reaction against the view of nature held by johann winckelmann and abbe batteux: that art is eclectic mimesis. perhaps the greatest catalytic force in this reaction was voltaire's nature, dialogue entre le philosophe et la nature (1771). if nature is so worthy of imitation, he asked, how do we account for its caprices and waste; for example, how do we explain the countless acorns needed to produce just one oak tree? thus the evolution of the concept of genius in the 18th century was to a large extent coexistent with the development of a view of nature. as rudolf wittkower has pointed out in his enlightening essay "imitation, eclecticism, and genius,"l there were four approaches to nature in the 18th century: (1) the view that the closer a work of art is to nature, the more perfect it is. thus, art may never surpass nature. (2) the interpretation of nature as imperfect. in this sense the artist should choose the most perfect parts from nature and combine them in his work of art. thus, art surpasses nature and results in what batteux called la belle nature. (3) another interpretation of nature as less than perfect. here the artist uses the works of the ancients as models; combining the "virtue of his models," he then creates works of an even higher quality. the guiding ideal of this process is none other than winckelmann's epithet "stille grosse und edle einfalt." (4) the notion that, in his imagination, an artist can render concepts formed by images from nature that were stored in his mind. the explanations in defense of genius, like those of nature, were multifarious. one was the eclectic genius of batteux: first the genius, who is the father of the arts, should imitate nature. secondly, he should not imitate anything which is ordinary or commonplace. and thirdly, taste, for which the arts are made and which is their judge, should be satisfied when nature is well chosen and well imitated by the arts .... 2 and there was the reaction against this eclecticism, the "original genius": many a genius, probably there has been, which could neither write nor read. 3 human nature also el}tered into the development of the concept of genius, in the guise of the twin ideas of sensibilite and empfindsamkeit. the painter 73 jacques louis david, for example, revealed his heritage of sensibilite when he declared: "the artist must therefore have studied all the springs of the human heart .... "4 and diderot coupled sensibilite and the sublime when he offered the following definition of geni us in the encyclopedie: to be of genius it [the work of art] must sometimes be careless and have an irregular, rugged, savage air. sublimity and genius flash in shakespeare like streaks of lightning in a long night .... 5 inj. g. sulzer's opinion empfindsamkeit was the sole criterion for determining the presence of genius: [geniuses are only those who] conceive and feel more sharply and have their ideas and feelings more in their authority than other men .... 6 the last generation of 18th-century geniuses-the progenitor of the 19th century's lonely genius-was that of the sturm und drang. with this movement the aim of the genius was shifted from mimesis to originality; the watchword changed from imitation to ursprunglichkeit. and the judge of this genius's art was the heart. thus, herder could declare that the sign of a genius was a "natural or spontaneous god-like creativity and the facility to ascend to a great height while at the same time not dispensing with his originality."7 schiller echoed these sentiments in his essay "the pathetic," when he stated: poetry ought not to take its course through the frigid region of memory .... it ought to go straight to the heart, because it has come from the heart .... 8 when c. f. d. schubart's ideen zu einer aesthetik der tonkunst appeared in 1806, it stood less as a document of original thought than as a synthesis of the myriad ideas of schubart's artistic contemporaries. hence, many of the notions of genius and nature discussed above appear in the chapter entitled "vom musikalischen genie." this portion of the book is a pasticcio whose sources range from the autodidactic genius of edward young and the sensibilite genius of david to the herz-genie of herder and schiller. it was especially toward these sturm und drang figures that schubart was inclined: witness the opening statement of the chapter. here, then, is a translation of schubart's ideas on genius:9 no proverb is so true and appropriate to the nature of things as this venerable one: poets and musicians are born. as certain as it is that each man brings along into the world a musical germ, it is just as certain that this musical germ involves the tools of the ear and throat, and even the detrimental structure of the hands; sometimes even education may hinder the development of this musical germ. the musical genius has the heart as its foundation, and it receives its impressions through the ear. "he has no ear, no hearing" in musical terms means that "he has no musical mind." experience teaches that men are born without a feeling for rhythm and that they are deaf and unreceptive to the beauty of music. on the other hand, artistic virtuosity announces itself 74 already in the youth. this youth's heart is his principal chord, with strings stretched end to end, each string so fine that they all blend at every harmonic agitation. all great musical geniuses, therefore, are autodidactics; for the fire that inspires them compels them to seek, undetained, their own individual line of flight. the bachs, a galuppi, jommelli, gluck, and mozart excelled already in their childhood with the splendid productions of their spirits. musical euphony dwelled in their souls, and soon they threw away the crutch of art. the characteristics of a musical genius are thus indisputably as follows: 1. zeal, or enthusiastic feeling for musical beauty and greatness. 2. an especially delicate feeling of the heart, which sympathizes with all the noble and beautiful that music evokes. the heart is like a sounding board of the great musicians: without it there is nothing; without it the artist can never create something great. 3. a most highly refined ear, which drinks in each consonance and listens reluctantly to each disturbing sound. when a child without any instruction produces a chord on the piano; when a maiden or lad can improvise a second part to a folksong; when the brows of young listeners wrinkle on hearing dissonance and relax on hearing consonance; when the young throat trills a melody at a very early age -then musical genius is present. 4. a natural feeling for rhythm and meter. let one give a child of six or seven years a key and then sing or playa piece: if the child taps the meter by himself, even when i mix even and uneven meters back and forth-then there certainly is a musical head before us. 5. irresistible love and priference for music, which sweeps us up so supremely that we prefer music to all other joys of life-this is a very strong criterion for the presence of a musical spirit. nevertheless this characteristic is at times misleading, for there are people who fiddle all day, who strum and play the lyre, and who themselves hardly rise above the mediocre. in a word, the heavenly flash of genius is of so splendid a nature that it cannot be concealed. this heavenly flash presses, propels, pushes, and burns until it erupts in flames and, in its olympic magnificence, transfigures itself. the mechanical musician puts one to sleep; but the musical genius excites and lifts himself up to heaven. yet he has room enough on his cherub wings to carry the listener up as well. however, the musical genius without culture and practice will always remain quite imperfect. art must complete what nature presents raw. if in any of the arts there were men who were born perfected, industry and fatigue would easily become extinct in the world. the history of great artists gives evidence of how much sweat trickled off their brows as a result of practice; how much oil their nightly lamps consumed; how many imperfect attempts they let evaporate up the chimney; how, deeply hidden in solitude, they trained fingers, ears, and heart until they eventually stepped into the limelight and then, by their masterpieces, elicited from the world a jubilant bravo. the greatest strength of the musical genius manifests itself in composing and in wisely directing great orchestras. a true capellmeister 75 and music director must know all the musical styles and, at all events, prove himself as master in at least one of them. he must have studied counterpoint from the strictest approach; he must be rich in the greatest and most interesting technique of melodic motion; he must have studied deeply the hearts of men, in order to be able to play on the heartstrings [cordialnerven] as surely as on his own favorite instrument. finally, he must be an acoustician and also know how to direct, with whisper and stroke, a hundred heads as if they were one, so that by this means a great all-working whole is formed. even if one studied the perfected capellmeister only from a mattheson or a junker, he would be amazed at the wide circumference of the theoretical and practical requisites. woe unto thee, pupil of music, if you deceive yourself into thinking that you are already among the capeumeister before you have the qualities ofa good ripienist. or, as handel cared to state it: it is like wanting to be an admiral without having even the training of a sailor. the halfdeveloped musicians, these traveling he-men, who from dawn to dusk blacken the musical world like a swarm of locusts, may threaten you so that you will wear yourself out in your chamber; for you must discipline yourself in melody, modulation, and harmony-and only then can you step forth among your contemporaries in the glory of a cultivated genius. we have seen the wave of the 18th-century genius swell from the depths of the eclectic-mimetic genius to the crest of the sturm und drang original genius. there was, nevertheless, one other ripple provoked by the 18th-century genius. this was the notion of the genius in kant's sense, as one who "invents the rules which others follow."lo this sense of genius also appears in schubart's text, in the chapter entitled "von der applicatur," according to which fingering cannot be fixed exactly since the genius, who can invent new compositions, will also invent his own fingering.ll this second sense of the term is a significant testimony to a sociomusicological phenomenon of the late 18th century. for with the rise of the middle class and the concolnitant return of the amateur, when almost anyone could try his hand at musi;::.ieren, it became necessary to distinguish between the professional and the amateur, between the genie and the liebhaber, a problem not unfamiliar to our own epoch. in summary, two themes can be found under the surface of schubart's "vom musikalischen genie": his notion that "art must complete what nature presents raw" and his definition of genius as a delicate feeling of the heart which sympathizes with the noble and the beautiful. both motives have their origins in the writings of winckelmann and batteux; both reveal schubart's dependence on the concept of nature for his definition of genius. itself eclectic, the chapter translated above and, in fact, the entire ideen represent a synoptic record of the evolution of the idea of genius in the 18th century. in his frequent use of terms like her;::., empfindung, ausdruck, etc., schubart stands in the very center of the empfindsamer stil. with its concept of 76 genius, his book is representative of a line of thought which is tangent to two epochs. for, with the heart as judge, schubart's genius stands in the midst of the sturm und drang philosophy, still within the chambers of the 18th century and yet at the very threshold of the donnersturm of romanticism. notes 1 in earl r. wasserman, aspects of the 18th century (baltimore: johns hopkins press, 1965), pp. 143-63. 2 mssr. l'abbe batteux, principe de la litterature, "premier traite" (paris: durand, 1774), p. 30. translation by the author. 3 taken from edward young's conjectures on original composition, 1759, cited in logan pearsall smith, "four words: romantic, originality, creative, genius," society for pure english, tract 17 (oxford: clarendon press, 1924), p. 27. this "natural genius," incidentally, was denounced by dr. johnson as "the mental disease of the present generation" (ibid., p. 25). 4 hugh honour, neoclassicism (baltimore: penguin books ltd., 1968), p. 145. 5 ibid. 6 allgemeine theorie der schonen kunst, vol. 2 (leipzig: m. g. weidemann, 1792), p. 364. translation by the author. 7 hugo goldschmidt, die musikaesthetik des 18. jahrhunderts (zurich: rascher & company, 1965), p. 172. translation by the author. 8 nathan haskell dole, ed., aesthetical and philosophical essays, vol. i (boston: francis niccolls & co., 1903), p. 165. 9 ideen zu einer aesthetik der tonkunst (vienna:j. v. degen, 1806; reprint hildesheim: georg olms verlagsbuchhandlung, 1969), pp. 368-71. passages translated by author and dr. pierre tagmann. 10 see kant's kritik der urteilskraft (berlin: lindemann & ludecke, 1799; reprint hamburg: felix meiner, 1954), p. 160, paragraph 46. 11 schubart, ideen, p. 292. 77 approaching a history qf 18th-century music daniel heartz any attempt at a comprehensive history of music in the 18th century runs up against some deep-grained prejudices. historiography in this area has been done largely by, for, and about germans. it was perhaps inevitable that they should divide the century according to their grossmeister, with the first half being the "period" of bach and handel, the second that of haydn and mozart. the divisionis impossible as history, if history means a rational attempt to seek the interconnection between events. it ignores the fact that the well-spring for the music of haydn and mozart was a specific 18th-century heritage other than that represented by bach and handel. it ignores what 18th-century critics themselves perceived as the breakthrough to a "modern" style: the new simplicity and naturalness achieved in italian opera (also in the closely dependent area of concerted church music) early in the century. from the innovations in performance and composition of vinci, leo, pergolesi, and hasse (often in conjunction with the new poetry-the arcadian neo-classicism represented at its most refined by metastasio) 18th-century music unfolds logically as an unbroken stylistic chain. parallel movements and new discoveries there certainly were. the perennial counterpoint of french achievements, which offered another antidote to the stiffness of the older style, provides one case in point. the peculiar instrumental flare of many germanbohemian musicians that came to flower at mannheim offers another. but the basic stock remained just that to the end of the century: italianate and operatic. bach and handel had little or nothing to do with the newer melodic and harmonic fashions. their importance for mozart and haydn came late, mainly after 1780 in fact, and in the manner of a revelation. the death of bach has a sentimental meaning for all music lovers today. it meant nothing at the time. for all that the leipzig master participated upon the european musical scene of his day he might as well have died a generation earlier. he did not take the extra step that made hasse the darling of dresden and of europe (laus deal). with handel the case is different. had he remained in the north we should probably honor him now 92 no more than we do a hundred other lutheran worthies. italy coaxed him beyond his originally turgid and unvocal mannerisms. had he remained to bask in southern climes he might have joined the vinci-perglolesi thrust into the mainstream of 18thcentury music. but he went instead to augustan england. there, musical backwater though it was, he found himself in a land that led the world with regard to the freedom and dignity of the human ,spirit. to england, as professor lang has shown so eloquently, we owe thanks that handel became one of the greatest of all masters. at the same time it should be borne in mind that handel in london stood aside from the main evolution nearly as much as bach. the terms which musicology has attached to the preand post-1750 "eras" are as misleading as the periodization itself. they derive from art-historical concepts of fifty years ago that are either wrong, imperfectly understood, or hopelessly outdated. one hears on all' sides, and with the greatest confidence, pronouncements about what are "baroque music" and "classical music." the perpetrators most often have no notion about the issues involved that led initially to the choice of such terms, to what areas of endeavor they were meant to apply, or what geographical and political biases they betrayed. it would be necessary to come to terms with all these issues before an intelligent terminology could be developed. moreover, it would be necessary, when seeking helpful parallels in other arts, to rely not upon the stratifications of fifty years ago, but upon the latest thinking and upon an international spectrum of it. if "baroque" and "classical" are traps for the unsuspecting, how much more of a mare's nest is "rococo." the very word rouses our prejudices, for who does not conjure up fluttering ribbons, shells, amoretti, and all that is endemically trivial? put to the question of when, where, and how this style evolved, most would probably respond that it was a direct outgrowth or final phase of late baroque style, finding its most congenial home in germany toward the middle of the century. this is, of course, the german viewpoint. yet an american scholar, the late fiske kimball, explains the origins and spread of the movement quite 'otherwise: the style, which has to do indeed with surface ornament, did not derive directly from italian baroque (understand bernini) but as a reaction to and continuation of 17thcentury french classicism; its first phase, of incomparable light93 ness and sinuousity, went from about 1700 to 1730 (cf. couperin ie grand), and is most properly called sryle regence: its second phase, the genre pittoresque or sryle louis xv, went from about 1730 to 1760 (cf. rameau) and was an elaboration of the first in the direction of more eccentricity and distortion. if the new art historians were to go beyond this and give us a detailed picture of how french and itali::tn art interrelate during the same years, how tiepolo relates to watteau, for example, we might gain a useful perspective with which to approach the art of metastasio and his composers. it cannot but be clear in any case that we have put down the latin and mediterranean contributions to 18th-century art and civilization in favor of the germanic synthesis, with the result that a musical "rococo" has mostly come to be regarded, if regarded at all, as a somewhat unfortunate interlude between the peaks of "deutsche tiefe." a historical approach opens up far more intriguing and challenging possibilities. germany, and particularly southern, catholic germany, with austria, was one of the main battlegrounds for supremacy between french and italian art. in his recently published musical form and musical performance edward t. cone compares his tour of musical styles to a walk through a museum. "we shall begin in the room marked late baroque, go on (skipping a small one in between variously labelled rococo, galant, etc.) to the one marked classical, proceed to the one called romantic •... " he then makes a very illuminating comparison between the rhythmic styles found in instrumental pieces by bach, on the one hand, and haydn, mozart, and beethoven, on the other. there is a dimension lacking in his comparison in that it can offer no hint of how the styles of haydn, mozart, and beethoven came into being. that is one of our tasks as historians. we cannot, it goes without saying, allow ourselves to skip the "little room" in between. and we cannot place our sole emphasis upon instrumental music when the 18th century so clearly held opera uppermost in its scheme of values. this is merely to say in other terms that we must not lose sight of the fine model laid down for us nearly thirty years ago in the relevant chapters of music in western civilization. the problems of treating the earlier parts of the century are complicated by the lack of scholarly editions and studies. even major figures have yet to be evaluated. as the century grows older these lacunae diminish. the problem becomes one of where and 94 how to stop. blume would convince us that there is no dividing classical from romantic: they are two complementary tendencies within the same style. it is clear enough how this movement got started. around 1760 there was a general reaction against the mentality of the previous three decades-call them rococo, genre pittoresque, louis xv, or what we will. it involved all the arts, but not everywhere at once, for the main centers always preceded the more provincial ones. here opera, with its manifold ties to literature, dance, painting, architecture, acting, and costume serves us well as a guide (see "from garrick to gluck: the reform of theatre and opera in the mid-eighteenth century" in prma 1967-1968). one advantage of the classical-romantic formulation is that the storm and stress movements of the 'sixties and 'seventies fall into place and we achieve some ',,perspective of their relationship to preceding and succeeding styles. another advantage is that music is brought in line with more recent scholarship concerning the other arts and civilization in general. there is no paradox in the evocative cultivation of gothic ruins simultaneously with an archeologically severe greek revival, often by the same artist. the sentimental idealization is intense iii both cases. one of the more interesting aspects of the later 18th century is its linking up with the feeling for the sublime in the old pre-rococo "grand manner." the painter david reincarnates poussin, or so diderot believed and was proud to point out in the salon of 1781. music invites some similar parallels. the date of 1800 is an arbitrary terminus yet a valid one. it took a decade to realize what an immense step had been taken in 1789. the world was not the same place after bonaparte. beethoven before the eroica and cherubini before les deux journees belong in spirit to the 18th century. with these two works they went beyond its spiritual confines. 95 the quartertone system oj charles ives jderison microtonal intervals are certainly not an invention of the 20th centurytheir use has been documented in the theoretical system of greek antiquity, and certain medieval sources contain convincing evidence of microtones. some theoretical systems of the 16th and 17th centuries involved as many as thirty-one divisions of the octave, and as early as 1895 the mexican composer julian carillo (b. 1875) was using a system (sonido trece) that divided the octave into ninety-six intervals. the principal work with microtones during the first half of the 20th century was done by the czech composer alois haba (b. 1893), whose style is basically a combination of athematic serialism with scales of quarter-, sixth-, and twelfth-tones. charles ives's quarter-tone compositions are almost unique in the music of the united states in the early 20th century. his first known effort (dating from as early as 1903 and certainly no later than 19141) was the chorale for strings in quarter tones, in which his quarter-tone system is already fully developed. this was later arranged for a quarter-tone piano with two keyboards, the upper tuned a quarter-tone sharp,2 and in 1923-24 it became the third piece of the set three quartertone pieces, for two pianos, one tuned normally, the other a quarter-tone higher. the first piece ("largo") was composed for the quarter-tone piano in 1923-24; the second ("allegro") is an expansion of material from earlier pieces, in this case written specifically for two pianos, to be part of the set. 3 the first performance of chorale took place on 8 february 1925, in chickering hall in new york, with hans barth and sigmund klein performing it on two pianos. this program also included quarter-tone pieces for unaccompanied violin by alois haba. 4 the complete set was given its first performance on 14 february 1925, by barth and klein in aeolian hall in new york, as part of the second international referendum concert sponsored by the franco-american musical society, of which ives was a member. this concert included works by a number of prominent european composers, among them tailleferre, bartok, and stravinsky, and e. robert schmitz presented a lecture on quarter-tone music. reviews by w. j. henderson5 and olin downes6 indicate something less than popular acclaim for ives's pieces ("excited many of the hearers to laughter"), but both reviewers were too cautious to flatly condemn them. almost forty years passed before the next known performance. in october of 1963 the pieces were played by george pappastavrou and nicholas zumbro at the museum of modern art in new york. this time the reviewers were almost enthusiastic: 96 it was his "three quarter-tone pieces for two pianos," not heard in new york since 1925, that ignited the evening with its extraordinary pitch differential and its harmonic double exposure .... the results are akin to the distorted image one perceives of an object floating in shallow waters, or, for that matter, of someone who's had one too many trying to sing a song. 7 these pieces ... have not been heard in over forty years and it is a pity, for they are beautiful. ... throughout, the quarter-tones are organic.s arthur cohn was more conservative in his review of the odyssey recording9 ; he found the pieces "somewhat academic" and concluded that "it will take considerable work by composers, and parallel exposure to auditors, before fractional tones will not be viewed as strangers to the sonorous world."lo it is fortunate that ives at least once broke his habitual silence about the technical aspects of his music. in the march 1925 issue of the franco-american musical society quarterly bulletin there appeared an article by the composer, "some quarter-tone impressions," which revealed the theoretical basis for these pieces.ll perhaps because of the negative reaction to quarter-tone music, i ves felt it necessary to explain a system so revolutionary for new york in the 1920s. ives's interest in quarter-tones was apparently stimulated by his father. in his article he relates his father's experiments, at first with quarter-tone melodies which he attempted to get his family to sing (an attempt not totally successful-the final use of quarter-tone melodies was as punishment), and then with chords which he felt were a necessary foundation for the melodies. this led to the construction of a device capable of sustaining quarter-tone harmonies: a series of violin strings appropriately tuned and activated by weighted bows. these experiments were terminated by popular demand of family and neighbors.12 ives must have devised his quarter-tone system empirically. he has left no description of its origins, only a system of three basic chords and mention of two others which he rejected as unsuitable. he found triads inappropriate in quarter-tone music, explaining that if a triad is created by the addition of a quarter-tone interval to two notes which constitute a diatonic interval, the result sounds out-of-tune, as for example the diatonic fifth c-g with added. (the symbol t indicates one-quarter-tone sharp; s indicates threequarter-tones sharp.) 13 this chord is perceived as an unstable sound that the listener hears as out-of-tune major or minor. but if another note is added which will make a quarter-tone interval with either of the two notes which make the diatonic interval, we have a balanced chord which, if listened to without prejudice, leans neither way, and which seems to establish an identity of its own ... neither major, minor, nor even diminished.14 97 this first chord consists of four notes, all at equal seven-quarter-tone intervals (350 cents), except for the interval formed by the fourth note and the octave of the root (150 cents). i ves calls this chord "major" because its intervals are larger than those of the second chord. this chord has much of the character of the augmented triad or diminished seventh chord, with its equal spacing and resulting flexibility in inversiom, a quality that ives points out near the end of the article.l 5 its stability may derive from the presence of two perfect fifths, one between the two diatonic pitches, the other between the two quarter-tone pitches (ex. 1).16 example i i; _ i ves recognized a need for the perfect fifth, "that inexorable thing-a part of natural laws which apparently no aesthetic principle has yet beaten out." but he longed for the day when some genius would "suppress him [the fifth] with a blow from a new naturallaw."17 two other combinations are considered as "major" chords: c-e l-g-b l and the first is rejected because of the "narrow interval" between b t and the octave of the root, the second not only because of its lack of a perfect fifth, but also because of the disturbing presence of a major third, with its strong diatonic implications. is the second basic chord is similarly constructed, but now of five notes at equal five-quarter-tone intervals (250 cents) and with three perfect fourths; it too has a smaller interval (200 cents) between its highest note and the octave of its root (ex. 2): example 2 but he prefers to use it in a slightly different configuration which he does not view as an inversion but as root position. he considers it to have a "more malleable sound," and therefore to be in a "more useful form." this chord has less finality than the "major," is "absorbed readily into the fundamental," has smaller intervals, and in general has a contrasting character. in this form it is spelled (ex. 3): example 3 98 i ves's next step is to provide acoustical justification for these chords, albeit in a half-hearted manner. he bases his procedure on william pole's adaptation of helmholtz's theory of relationship between beats of adjacent partials of chord tones and the degree of aural roughncss. 19 the proof is not entirely convincing-thc degree of roughness for his chords is fairly high-and he concludes: it has seemed to me that the value of measuring "roughness" is relative. i can't see why a great deal doesn't depend on how hard the notes are struck (their amplitude) or on the instruments playing them ... i don't see how one can always measure by vibrations he doesn't always hear. 20 a third ("subsidiary") chord is proposed, one having the intervallic structure of "nine-five-five." it is "comparatively weak-sounding, and therefore pliable, but its vibration measurements are all out of whack." nevertheless, this chord is used occasionally. interpreting "nine-five-five" as intervals of quarter tones, this chord is spelled as follows (ex. 4): example 4 this chord also has a perfect fifth and a perfect fourth, but its intervals are unequal. 21 each of these chords may be constructed on any of the twenty-four pitches of the quarter-tone octave, yielding "combinations and permutations that won't do our music any harm." ives also considers each of them as far less static than diatonic chords; they may be "played quite continuously without holding you up, as a repetition of diatonic chords seems to do." this he attributes to the necessity of the ear to do "a certain amount ofadjusting."22 the paragraph that follows in ives's article suggests an awareness of the value of serial techniques in avoiding that restriction of "organic flow which we feel the need of," but it is so vague as to prevent any clear interpretation of ives's intentions in this regard. as for quarter-tone melody, ives is quite specific in requiring that it not be mere quarter-tone embellishment of a diatonic tune but one in which the notes are about equally distributed between diatonic and quarter-tone pitches. the quarter-tones must not be restricted to passing-tones, suspensions, or neighboring-tones but must be integral members of the quarter-tone chords which support or generate the melody.23 it must be noted, however, that even in the most purely quarter-tone piece, chorale, there is a great deal of diatonic melody, and that in the first two pieces there is little quarter-tone melody. i ves states that quarter-tone music, unlike diatonic music, can use parallel 99 motion just as satisfactorily as contrary motion. in fact, he uses parallel motion more extensively than contrary in pure quarter-tone sections. less need is felt for passing-tones because of the harsh dissonance they often produce. he hastens to express a hope that the quarter-tone system will not lessen contrapuntal feeling. 24 toward the end of the article ives discusses mixture of diatonic and quarter-tone materials ("the extension of diatonic chords upward into quarter-tones"), the effect of which is primarily sensuous or coloristic. one such technique includes the simultaneous sounding of augmented triads whose roots are threeor five-quarter-tones distant. an example of this may be seen in the opening measures of the first of the three qjtartertone pieces. another technique consists of piling up augmented triads whose roots are one quarter-tone apart, distributing them through several octaves. an example may be seen in the second piece, mm. 42-46; the triads here are on c, c l d, d l d#, and all arpeggiated and held by the sustaining pedal. the effect is one of "rhythmic waves similar to the sounds one hears on putting the ear close to a telegraph pole in a high wind."25 this passage intervenes between a section consisting of an interchange of diatonic material between the quarter-tone-distant pianos, and a section in pure quarter-tone harmony. the most fully-developed quarter-tone technique (although mixed with largely diatonic passages) occurs in the last of the pieces. the work is throughcomposed, with the exception of a four-measure repetition and two recurrent cadences. the entire piece is based on melodic and rhythmic fragments of america and la marseillaise, with the former predominating (an appropriate combination for a concert sponsored by the franco-american musical society). america is introduced so gradually as to be almost imperceptible at first, and only in the last thirteen measures does it become completely obvious, although it is incomplete even here. in the following discussion these conventions will be used: upper case letters indicate "major" chords, lower case "minor," underlined lower case "subsidiary"; a subscript numeral indicates inversion (1 indicates first inversion), and the lack of a subscript indicates root position. the most obvious use of quarter-tone chords occurs in mm. 10-15, where a diatonic fragment of la marseillaise is accompanied by "minor" chords. the basic pattern consists of four such chords, each complete and unaltered: f/c#/b/g. this pattern is repeated, and a cadence using the chords a/c#/b 13/c concludes this section. the motion is strictly parallel in all voices, except for passing-notes in the melody-bearing highest voice. there is a notated emphasis on the chord root in piano i which is encountered frequently, if somewhat inconsistently, in this piece. a more interesting and more complex treatment is found in mm. 48-60. here a true quarter-tone america (shared equally by the two pianos) is accompanied by root-position quarter-tone chords over a c-pedal and a fivenote ostinato (in piano ii, left hand). the basic structure is (ex. 5): 100 example 5 there is a high degree of regularity here. the first note of the melody is the third (third note above the root) of the "major" chord, and all succeeding notes are the seconds of "minor" chords in the preferred configuration. the result is strict parallel motion. following the initial chord the second phrase is treated in an almost identical manner. the initial chord is the root movement of the succeeding series of "minor" chords is varied slightly, although the approximate shape of the first phrase is preserved (ex. 6): example 6 i l .... . the third phrase abandons quarter-tone melody, but the harmony is quarter-tone in the manner of preceding phrases (ex. 7): example 7 d c4t the next phrase continues with a diatonic melody, again with quarter-tone harmony; however, "major" chords in inversion (second inversion) are used (ex. 8): 101 example 8 c .2 z there follow more inverted chords, incomplete chords (m. 58, first beat: dl 1, lacking the fourth, c), and one use of an altered "subsidiary" chord (m. 59, first beat: 3, with "2). the alteration in this last instance is dictated by the diatonic statement of the first three notes of america (appearing as the highest notes of piano ii) and the c-pedal, also in piano ii. this chord is part of a cadential formula first appearing in mm. 7-9 in conjunction with a fragment of la marseillaise that, without its dotted-figure anacrusis, is identical with the opening three notes of america. this is typical of the merging of melodic material in this piece that makes exact identification difficult. elsewhere ives's use of this quarter-tone system is less regular. many passages which are obviously quarter-tone can only be interpreted as use of nonharmonic material or altered chords. the beginning of the chorale is such a place; the first chord (c) moves through a ,,2 (alteration or passingtone) to an incomplete "subsidiary" chord on f, in second inversion, with :j!:2. the next chord is "major" on g, in root position, with "1; it resolves to "major" on c. on the other hand, this whole passage might be interpreted as an elaboration or "horizontalization" of the c-"major" sonority. measures 16-29 are based on ostinato figures derived from melodic and rhythmic elements of the borrowed tunes. this passage consists of an interchange between the two pianos of diatonic material, of course, at a quartertone differential; the effect is poly tonal. this technique forms the basis of most of the first and second pieces of the set, as well. a clear statement of part of la lvlarseillaise occurs in mm. 26-27. this brief passage is in g-major (conventional major, not "major"), but with quarter-tone alterations of the chords. a repetition of the quarter-tone cadence ofmm. 13-15 concludes this section. the next section (mm. 30-42) is based on the second part of america. this, too, must be regarded as quarter-tone extension of the diatonic system, mostly over a c-pedal. it concludes with a pure quarter-tone cadence followed by repetition of mm. 10-14. i ves defends the retention of the concept of tonali ty. 26 i t is clear that the "major" chord on c acts as a strong tonal center in the chorale, not only because it occurs with remarkable frequency but also because it articulates 102 major sections. the use of a iv-i-v-i progression (in the conventional sense) in the bass at the close does nothing to weaken the effect. the ostinato underlying the last part of the chorale is noteworthy; it begins (m. 48) as a five-note pattern which emphasizes the augmented intervals of the fourth, fifth, and sixth, and the major seventh. the pattern is gradually shortened until only the augmented fourth remains-an interval basic to all three of the pieces, but one which does not appear in any of the quarter-tone chords of the system. an assessment of the musical value of these pieces is difficult. certainly they are of historical importance, but, unfortunately, they seem to have led nowhere; ives employed quarter-tones in but a few other works. in tone roads no.3 (1915) the use of quarter-tones is limited to a six-note cluster which serves as the final sonority of the da capo first section. quarter-tones figure more prominently in the second movement of the fourth symphony (1909-16), but even here the technique is relatively undeveloped. the strings play glissando-like parallel chords or clusters producing an organum effect, and there is an eight-measure optional passage for quarter-tone piano consisting of gradual modifications of ostinato figures. it was only in the three q,uartertone pieces that ives contrived a reasonably developed quartertone system, but it is evident that even here he considered the system tentative at best: how quarter-tones will affect tonality, how they will help work out satisfactory poly tonal and atonal systems, involves so many considerations that i won't venture to say much about it-i've ventured too much already. but it strikes me that a good deal depends on whether or not satisfactory scales can be developed. 27 notes 1 john kirkpatrick, a temporary mimeographed catalog of the lvlusic nfanuscripts and related materials of charles edward ives (1874-1954) (library of the yale school of music, privately printed: 1960), p. 68. one of ives's lists gives 1903-14; others give 1913-14. 2 charles i ves, essays before a sonata and other writings, ed. howard boatwright (new york: norton, 1962), p. 112. 3 kirkpatrick, catalog, pp. 103-04. 4 sigmund klein, "quarter-tone data," franco-american nfusical society quarterly bulletin [6] (march 1925): 21-23. 5 from a clipping (dated 16 february 1925) in miscellaneous scrapbook, p. 1, in the sibley music library, rochester, n.y. it is presumably from the new rork sun, for which henderson was music critic in 1925. 6 the new rork times, 15 february 1925, p. 26. 7 ibid., 5 october 1963. 8 john ardoin, "recitals," musical america 83 (november 1963): 37. 9 odyssey, 32-16-0161 (mono); 32-16-0162 (stereo). 10 "splitting semitones," american record guide 34 (august 1968): 1086--88. 11 charles ives, "some quarter-tone impressions," franco-american musical society quarterly bulletin [6] (march 1925): 24-33. see also ives, essays (pp. 107-19), which collates three manuscript versions and the printed article. 103 12 ives, essays, p. 110. 13 after alois haba, neue harmoniclehre des diatonischen, chromatischen, viertel-, drittelsechstel-, und ,(wolftel-tonsystems (leipzig: f. kistner & c.f.w. siegel, 1927), p. 140. 14 ives, essays, pp. 111-12. 15 ibid., pp. 118-19. 16 all examples are reconstructed from charles ives, three quarter-tone pieces, ed. george pappastavrou (new york: peters, 1968). 17 ives, essays, p. 113. 18 howard boatwright, "ives' quarter-tone impressions," perspectives of new music 3 (spring-summer 1965): 22-31. (boatwright apparently overlooks the effect of the third in the last chord.) 19 william pole, philosophy of music (london: triibner & co., ludgate hill, 1879), pp. 209-22. 20 ives, essays, p. 114. 21 ibid., p. 115. boatwright misinterprets this spelling as ninth-fifth-fifth. (see his note c.) 22 ibid. 23 ibid., p. 112. 24 ibid., p. 118. 25 ibid., pp. 116-17. 26 ibid., p. i 17. 27 ibid. 104 o'meally, robert g., brent hayes edwards, and farah jasmine griffin, eds. 2004. uptown conversations: the new jazz studies. new york: columbia university press. fischlin, daniel and ajay heble, eds. 2004. the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and communities in dialogue. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. reviewed by niko higgins what is the "new jazz studies?" uptown conversations and the other side of nowhere contain a diverse array of scholarship that approaches the broad fields of jazz studies and musical improvisation through various perspec­ tives and methodologies. krin gabbard's two volume collection, represent­ ing jazz (1995a) and jazz among the discourses (1995b), is the clear prece­ dent for these new anthologies.! uptown conversations and the other side of nowhere continue this trajectory by moving away from jazz as a static object to be stylistically described, explained, and celebrated through the heroic and larger-than-life individual towards an understanding of jazz as a music in continual dialogue with the historical, social, political, racial, and gendered processes governing its creation.2 no article in either collection articulates these goals more clearly than george lipsitz's essay, "songs of the unsung: the darby hicks history of jazz," which appears in uptown conversations. in it, lipsitz argues that ken burns' documentary jazz is intended to emphasize african americans' con­ tribution to the history of modernism. but such a "partial, perspectival" approach, lipsitz argues, is problematic: in telling its own truths about time, place, and subjectivity, the film di­ rects our attention away from the many other temporalities, spaces, and subject positions that are central to the story of jazz ... in the version of modernity described in jazz, art becomes a specialized and autonomous activity detached from tradition, something created by alienated individu­ als rather than historical communities. modernist aesthetics place the value of a work of art in the work itself, not in the broader social relations and practices that shape artistic creation and reception. the aestheticization of alienation is seen as an end in itself, as an episode in the history of art rather than as an individual and collective strategy for living better in the world by calling new realities into being through performance. (12-13) broadly speaking, both uptown conversations and the other side of nocurrent musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 159 160 current musicology where are correctives to burns' approach, focusing less on individual narra­ tives and more on the "social relations and practices that shape artistic cre­ ation." appropriately, both anthologies stem from collaborative musical and academic gatherings: the former from the jazz study group that convenes semi-annually at columbia university and the latter from the annual guelph jazz festival. the anthologies overlap in their emphasis on the importance of community in shaping improvisational practice; on the mobility of jazz and improvisation across national borders; and in their use of a broad meth0dological palette to expand our understanding of how jazz and improvisa­ tion are a part of our lives. one risk for such collections-and for the new jazz studies in general­ can be overemphasis on contextual meaning at the expense of actual musi­ cians' experiences. the issue of how to negotiate the search for new, rel­ evant ways of discussing jazz and improvisation while remaining attentive to the actual experiences of musicians and audience members who consti­ tute the practice of this music remains a provocative one, and one that these two anthologies implicitly address. uptown conversations the larger mission of uptown conversations can be understood as not only a challenge to the canonical jazz narrative exemplified by burns' documen­ tary, but also a reinterpretation of what we understand jazz to be. this col­ lection situates jazz within broader fields of expressive culture, exploring jazz "across the curriculum." in their introduction, the editors ask, what is a jazz painting? a jazz novel? what is jazz poetry? what is jazz dance? what is a jazz film? what are the sources of jazz as an art form? what are the sources and meanings of art? what work does music do for the whole community? (2-3) working against the idea of jazz as a self-contained genre, the anthology shows a vast interdisciplinary, and to a lesser extent a transnational, move­ ment that identifies how and where jazz is actually practiced. part 1 offers seven examples of jazz historiography, from a reconsider a tion of individual musicians' histories to an investigation of larger musical movements. it includes both a rethinking of canonical figures such as charles mingus, thelonious monk, and miles davis, as well as essays about less familiar experimental movements, such as the union of god's musicians and artists ascension (ugmaa) in los angeles and the association for the advancement of creative musicians (aacm) in chicago. part 2 explores two themes: the international circulation of jazz and the intersection of jazz niko higgins with other media. the first theme-the movement of music across national borders -is explored in essays by penny von eschen, timothy mangin, and kevin gaines. part 2 then turns to jazz's influence on other art forms. there are articles on improvisation in romare bearden's paintings, louis armstrong's photo collages, the 1961 film paris blues (which included mu­ sic by duke ellington and acting by louis armstrong), and contemporary turntablism. by placing these two different themes together in part 2, it is possible that the editors are suggesting some affinity between these catego­ ries, but the juxtaposition isn't wholly convincing; the section on the transnational movement of jazz has little in common with the section on interdisciplinary approaches. george lipsitz and george lewis's essays represent the historiographi­ cal project of the new jazz studies in different but related ways. their dis­ cussions of the ugmaa and aacm force us to recognize not just the indi­ vidual success stories reinforced by journalism and previous jazz scholar­ ship, but also alterior modes of musical production. ugmaa and aacm members found both financial and aesthetic security and autonomy in num­ bers, forming musician-run organizations to provide venues for perfor­ mance, forums for collegial critique, and educational programs to stimu­ late community involvement. lipsitz reveals the larger implications of ex­ cluding such communal histories from ken burns' widely-viewed docu­ mentary jazz. he writes, "at stake here is not just an issue of a comprehen­ sive mainstream narrative versus the eccentric tales told by imaginative out­ siders. our entire understanding of music may hinge on what histories we valorize" (21-22). thus, lipsitz shows that the burns narrative is complicit in a particular production of knowledge about music, one that seems to stop short of rec­ ognizing the important role of collectives. burns overemphasizes the role of individuals, which reduces music to a mere vehicle for entertainment, de­ spite its connections to social history. he shows how certain individuals are capable of cultural transformation without showing how larger jazz com­ munities are complicit in this kind of transformation. in his essay "experimental music in black and white: the aacm in new york, 1970-1985," lewis counters the burns approach by providing a window into the workings of one collective. lewis discusses the organization's history, from its 1965 founding in chicago to its presence on the 1980s new music scene in new york. referencing transcripts of early aacm meetings, lewis notes that the organization always emphasized "original" music over any particular style or genre. set free from the restraints of a racist record­ ing industry, aacm musicians could draw on any number of different musical forms from around the world to spark their creativity. lewis's ar161 162 current musicology ticle stresses the importance of this genre-crossing in the aacm's self-con­ ception, and shows how such organizations help disseminate new music as well as broaden our often too-limited understanding of genre. "the example of the aacm;' he writes, "has been central to the coming canonization not of a new musical aesthetic with defined musical borders but of a new kind of musician who works across genres with fluidity, grace, discernment, and trenchancy" (91). another section of the anthology directly addresses the crossing of musical borders by looking both at the transnational movement of jazz and at black diaspora musicians. timothy mangin's essay "notes on jazz in senegal" is particularly striking. drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, mangin uses senegal as a case study for exploring the historical, social, and political forces set in motion by jazz's widespread acceptance in "the modern black atlantic:'3 mangin claims that the senegalese view jazz as an expression of their history and heritage, as well as a means of asserting their culture's modernity. his essay is revealing, exploring both the country's jazz-influ­ enced popular music and the carribean and french musical influences that shaped jazz reception in senegal. in so doing, he demonstrates how jazz can be borrowed and reinterpreted to serve myriad agendas. as mangin's essay reminds us, other cultures may view jazz as just an­ other form of world music: jazz for senegalese becomes an international music that can be appropri­ ated, commodified, and used to express their modern voice among francophone countries as well as a pan-mrican imaginary that includes french west africa, america, and europe. for senegalese, then, jazz is "world music," an international phenomenon that provides a nexus in which to participate in the global sphere. (235) this unflinching appropriation of jazz abroad illuminates a key problem underlying jazz studies's most important mission: to institutionalize jazz as "america's classical music:'4 by exploring the international circulation of jazz-its manipulation and commodification for foreign markets-schol­ ars might realize that jazz is subject to the same market forces as other forms of popular music. it might also help us answer the question, what is it about jazz's symbolic power that prevents its widespread dissemination and ma­ nipulation here in the u.s.? given the potential value of transnational jazz research, it is a shame that only mangin's essay ventures outside the familiar terrain of new orleans, new york, chicago, and los angeles. another overlooked issue-interdisciplinary collaboration in jazz im­ provisation-is the subject of travis jackson's essay, "'always new and cen­ turies old': jazz, poetry, and tradition as creative adaption." he traces the niko higgins concept of tradition in a recording made by poet amiri baraka, saxophon­ ist david murray, and drummer steve mccall. jackson shows that both this project and its inspiration, a 1979 recording by alto saxophonist arthur blythe entitled in the tradition, imagine tradition as "a malleable source for creativity, rather than as a foil to innovation" (359). jackson astutely criti­ cizes the vague descriptor "jazz poetry" (360) by showing how it fails to distinguish between jazz musicians reciting poetry, poems about jazz or jazz musicians, poems intended to be read by jazz musicians, or poems that draw on jazz performance practice. by doing so, he reveals one example of scholars' inability to address interdisciplinary collaboration, and calls for analyses not only of jazz's influence on other art forms, but also of multi­ media collaborations involving jazz. this type of cooperation demands an­ other form of analysis, since critical efforts to discuss collaborative art fre­ quently focus exclusively on jazz. jackson's essay provides a model for such analysis by emphasizing what he believes is the main purpose of the baraka/ murray/mccall and blythe albums: a reformulation of tradition "as a pro­ cess, an act of struggle and creative adaptation" (369). it is likely that valo­ rizing research on jazz abroad will radically alter the types of histories al­ ready in place, and could transform our own histories of jazz. keeping our attention on broader social and historical issues while fo­ cusing on musical sound, vijay iyer discusses the process of improvisation. he looks for new ways to think about improvisation by offering helpful suggestions for moving past a gunther schuller-style of formal analysis which combines the intention to "tell a story" with melodic and harmonic analysis imported from western musicology.5 iyer "explodes the narrative" by argu­ ing that the actual story being told can be interpreted not just on the level of one improvised solo, but through a range of time frames, from a single note to an entire lifetime of improvisation. most importantly, he sees embodi­ ment as crucial to understanding the meaning of an improvisation: "kinesthetics, performativity, personal sound, temporality-all these traces of embodiment generate, reflect, and refract stories into innumerable splin­ ters and shards. each one of these fragments is 'saying something'" (402). 6 thus, he advocates being attuned to the many non-linear, fragmented nar­ ratives that exist in the act of improvisation and encourages us to "hear" the narrative beyond the exclusively sonic limits of a single improvisation. iyer's article stands out in this collection as an exemplar of how jazz studies can welcome other modes of analysis while still focusing on musicians. iyer's main pointthat music is as culturally situated and embodied as the people creating it-is very much in keeping with this anthology's ideological ori­ entation. 163 164 current musicology the other side of nowhere the other side of nowhere embarks on a trajectory similar to uptown con­ versations. but instead of the alternate histories, transnational sites, and in­ terdisciplinary forms that together articulate a type of "jazz culture" (o'meally, edwards, and griffin 2004:2), the other side uses the process of musical improvisation as a lens for viewing a type of "improvisation cul­ ture." sherrie tucker succinctly encapsulates the collection's central theme when she asks, "can improvising communities improvise new kinds of com­ munities?" (fischlin and heble 2004:249). the essays are organized in four parts. part 1, "performers improvise;' includes essays by musicians michael snow, pauline oliveros, and dana reason, and addresses issues such as women and improvisation, embodi­ ment, and improvisation as a tool for exploring a community's social prac­ tices. part 2, "between and across cultures;' contains the collection's fresh­ est approach to the study of improvisation. this portion contains two es­ says by george lewis, the first an updated version of "improvised music after 1950: afrological and eurological perspectives" and the second a con­ cise articulation of the present state of improvisation studies. this section also includes research by michael dessen and jason stanyek, who each fo­ cus on improvisation as a site for intercultural collaboration. part 3, "social practice and identity," addresses the realm of identity politics in musical improvisation. highlights include mark anthony neal's essay "' ... a way out of no way': jazz, hip-hop and black social improvisation;' in which he persuasively traces musical and social improvisation through elements of bebop and hip-hop, and julie dawn smith and sherrie tucker's essays addressing the underand misrepresentation of women improvisers in con­ ventional jazz histories. part 4, "collaborative dissonances," features essays by eddie prevost and nathaniel mackey. a well-known member of the in­ fluential ensemble amm, prevost provides important perspective on issues such as the european/american divide in improvised music and the musi­ cal and social implications of dissonance. mackey further explores his idea of the "discrepant engagement" and its usefulness in bringing together dif­ ferent expressive disciplines. the anthology ends with a valuable biblio­ and webography that spans a remarkably diverse disciplinary range. perhaps as a result of the continuous presence of musicians in this con­ versation, the thematic foundation of the other side extends beyond the jazz-related practices of free improvisation and free jazz to embrace other forms of musical improvisation. fischlin and heble qualify their orienta­ tion by drawing a line of inclusion around community-building forms of improvisational practice: niko higgins we recognize that we have not been able to address all forms of global improvisation and all the cultural sites in which improvisation occurs. moreover, we are well aware that many of these other practices (classical indian music, for example, in which improvisation plays a crucial role) do not necessarily align themselves with antihegemonic resistance or criti­ cal strategies of alternative community building. neither do all minority communities in which improvisation is practiced necessarily exist in op­ position to dominant social structures, nor is all musical improvisation necessarily rooted in alternative communities and activist practices. none­ theless, with all these qualifications in place and in particular relation to significant (if underrecognized) strains of jazz musickings, we would ar­ gue there to be an identifiable and radical form of improvisational prac­ tices in which concepts of alternative community formation, social activ­ ism, rehistoricization of minority cultures, and critical modes of resis­ tance and dialogue are in evidence and worthy of the kind of attention they get in this book. (2) in their conclusion, fischlin and heble return to this theme, suggesting that "some of the most exciting areas of future research in improvisatory practices lie in intercultural and trans disciplinary studies" (397). though they do not substantiate this observation, i suspect that such research will extend past this anthology's overarching theme of community-building to topics that use improvisation to shed light on postcolonialism, thus con­ tinuing the work of laudan nooshin (2003) and, indirectly, robin moore (1993). the highlight of the other side is part 2, which explores the movement of improvisation across borders and cultures. michael dessen's article on the collaboration between steve coleman and afrocuba de matanzas, which resulted in a series of performances and a 1996 cd entitled the sign and the seal, uncovers issues common to intercultural collaboration. dessen shows how this project differs from other "world music" collaborations by foregrounding human agency and creativity in "global systems of commodification" (187), rather than pointing out their absence. dessen's discussion of musical form is refreshing, as is his focus on the interpersonal dynamics of this project's rehearsal. his most valuable contribution, how­ ever, is his insistence that the first encounter between musicians constitutes a site where cultural and musical difference are constructed and negotiated. continuing in a similar direction, jason stanyek pursues intercultural improvisation in the mrican diaspora, and provides a convincing argument for the study of improvisation as a musical and social process: improvisation, especially as manifested within the discourse of bebop, needs to be understood as a kind of space in which diverse participants are able to enact multiple viewpoints through understanding, a giving 165 166 current musicology over of control, trust. improvisation has as its concomitant heterogeneity and together they become a kind of moral imperative; it is this, perhaps, that allows for the strong connection between musical pan-africanism and social movements ... musical pan-africanism can be seen as provid­ ing a paradigm for the building of local forms of resistance and commu­ nication that, simultaneously, have global relevance. (117-18) both stanyek and dessen seem to be interested in the transformative po­ tential of intercultural improvisation, but never lose sight of influential power dynamics that can shape these interactions; moreover, they are aware that not all examples of intercultural improvisation can transcend these dynamics. stanyek is also interested in moving past discussions of intercultural improvisation's "hybridity" since he argues that our attention must be fo­ cused on the face-to-face embodied practices of music-making as opposed to the appropriation and sampling techniques afforded by recording tech­ nologies.7 in this respect, stanyek and dessen's articles seem to point most fruitfully toward future research on improvisation. such face-to-face col­ laboration seems best explored by musician/scholars who can research these moments of intercultural contact and write first-hand about the issues faced by musicians during musical and social interaction. george lewis's "improvised music after 1950;' published previously in 1996, is the anthology's centerpiece for three reasons: its important survey and critique of post-war american experimentalism; its commonly-cited definition/theorization of improvisation (149); and its introduction of the concepts "afrological" and "eurological." written almost a decade later, lewis's afterword revisits earlier themes and suggests some important di­ rections for improvisational studies. he critiques the second edition of michael nyman's book experimental music (1999), arguing that it ethnocentrically privileges american and british experimentalist practices to the exclusion of all others (164). in a call for "a hard look at race" in experimental music (164-65), lewis mentions the work of leo smith (1973; 1974) and anthony braxton (1985) as early examples of improvisational theories that create "a new musical order (that) will necessarily involve some degree of code-switching across traditions and genres" (165). most point­ edly, lewis pushes american experimentalism "to grow up and assert its character as multicultural and multiethnic, with a variety of perspectives, histories, traditions, and methods;' a push that i would argue this collec­ tion of essays achieves (170). after traveling uptown and to the other side, where next? one walks away from these two collections with different senses of the new niko higgins jazz studies. uptown conversations offers a much -needed expansion of what jazz is and what jazz does-as opposed to ken burns' jazz, which as lipsitz points out, seems to create a jazz to be merely honored and purchased. as is evidenced by this collection, the breadth of sites where elements of jazz can be found are truly inspiring, and have significant implications for the histo­ riographical project exemplified by lipsitz and lewis. yet it is precisely this interdisclipinarity that detracts from a sense of coherence in uptown con­ versations. in her essay "revisiting romare bearden's art ofimprovisation," for example, diedra harris-kelley does not explain how her analysis of im­ provisation in bearden's collage technique can help us move past a superfi­ cial aesthetic comparison between music-making and other creative pro­ cesses. john szwed's article "the man" similarly falls short. in discussing the truly extraordinary life of miles davis, szwed relates many compelling anecdotes, identifying the larger social need for perpetuating the davis mythology without interrogating it. thus, despite several forward-reaching essays, the anthology ironically ends up being more canon-affirming than canon-expanding, since the au­ thors do not agree on what the editors refer to as a "jazz culture." the edi­ tors' own definition of "culture" seems vague; perhaps this was an inten­ tional choice, allowing room for the multiple perspectives and methodolo­ gies that comprise the anthology. but the overall effect is are-establishment of jazz as a "thing," since the editors never offer an in-depth, anthropologi­ cally-informed argument for how jazz is a culture. such a failing is symptomatic of the new jazz studies, and stems from the faulty question at its heart: what does an interdisciplinary approach to the expressive arts have to offer jazz studies? to be sure, this approach re­ veals unexplored avenues of interdisciplinary artistic expression and makes relevant connections between jazz and social, political, and historical forces. but this approach has a serious drawback: we are left grappling with the meaning of interdisciplinarity. does "interdisciplinary" mean grounding jazz studies in cultural practices (taking its cue from african american and american studies), or does it mean incorporating aesthetic theory into jazz analysis by drawing on the visual arts, dance, film, and literature? if jazz is really "a set of cultural products and processes" as salim washington sug­ gests (28), then shouldn't our methods take the study of culture as our com­ mon base? perhaps we should turn the question around and ask, what do jazz practices in the visual arts, literature, dance, and film have to offer the study of culture? this line of investigation could provide a solid theoretical grounding for jazz studies while opening up the field to a wider audience. in contrast to uptown conversations, the other side articulates a more unified vision of jazz and improvisation, focusing less on a specific kind of 167 168 current musicology music and more on the actual process of music-making. of the twenty con­ tributors in uptown conversations, only three describe themselves as musi­ cians, whereas the other side's nineteen contributors include eleven musi­ cians, and one poet who has collaborated with musicians. these authors help blur the lines between subject and informant (robinson 2004), and i sense a stronger urgency among the other side's contributors to represent concerns of musicians. while certainly not a prerequisite for being a jazz scholar, being engaged in both the musical and the writing processes offers valuable perspectives on improvisation. not surprisingly, the large number of musician-contributors ensures that the sound of improvisation is discussed throughout the anthology. this emphasis honors the spirit of mark tucker's assertion that "eliminating sound from the study of jazz" is comparable to "avoiding reference to words and texts in literary criticisms, or ignoring visual images in studies of film and painting" (1998: 140). i disagree with tucker, however, and feel strongly that music scholarship should not be obligated to discuss musical sound. the ways in which people discuss music seldom have anything to do with sound, yet these approaches still offer important insights into musical mean­ ing. on the other hand, i do agree with tucker that there is "a widening rift" that "threatens to cut off musicologists from others working in jazz" if mu­ sicologists fail to embrace the insights of scholars working in other fields (1998: 148). at its best, the new jazz studies attempts to fill a void of every­ day relevance that previous jazz scholarship has failed to address. it is evi­ dent, however, that scholars must find a way to analyze musical sound to realize the full implications of the new jazz studies' already-provocative re­ search agenda. it is in this space that i believe ethnomusicology can help­ it is a field of study that, despite a few influential texts, has yet to shape the project of jazz and improvisation studies.8 in the introduction to uptown conversations, for example, the editors state that their collection "is strongly influenced by a variety of developments in the academy: by african ameri­ can studies, cultural studies, literary studies, the new musicology, and by insights of poststructuralism" (o'meally, edwards and griffith 2004:6). omitting ethnomusicology from this list seems curious, since what is miss­ ing from the new jazz studies is what is missing from jazz scholarship in general-that is, an ethnographic approach that explores how musicians theorize the world through their music. it is my hope that the new jazz studies will address why ethnography has been set aside as a methodologi­ cal tool. the transnational movement and reception of jazz seems to be an area that would benefit from such an ethnographic approach. e. taylor atkins niko higgins provides a helpful beginning in jazz planet (2003), a series of essays docu­ menting local jazz scenes in india, china, japan, south africa, russia, swe­ den, and other countries. mangin's work in uptown conversation creates a space for a more in-depth look at the assimilation of jazz into local scenes around the world. moving the focus of study from the u.s. to jazz scenes abroad forces researchers to ask the fundamental questions of what jazz and improvisation do in a particular place, questions that are often assumed when writing for a jazz audience here in the u.s. ultimately, there are multiple ways of thinking and writing about mu­ sic. however, both of these texts ignite important and much-needed de­ bates over the future of this decidedly interdisciplinary field. gabbard's ag­ gressive programmatic statement from jazz among the discourses still holds true for these two volumes: "jazz scholarship now faces two significant choices: it may continue developing and protecting its canon, or it may take the consequences ofletting in some fresh, if chilling, air" (gabbard 1995b:22). uptown conversations and the other side of nowhere together will no doubt keep that fresh, cold air blowing. notes 1. see deveaux (1991), gennari (1991), lewis (1996), porter (2002), sherri tucker (2000), and zorn (2000), to list a few of these recent influential monographs. for a pointed critique of the dismissal of jazz writers such as gunther schuller, andre hodier, and martin will­ iams, see mark tucker (1998). he argues that, for better or worse, these writers have had a profound influence on today's institutionalization of jazz as "america's classical music." 2. by "processes," i'm referring to a range of socially-influenced interactions in everyday life. listening and performing, for example, contain within themselves actions that are cultur­ ally complicit in shaping such categories as race, gender, and class. drawing attention to processes allows scholars to draw attention away from finished musical products; in so do­ ing, we can view music as an ongoing series of creative events. 3. see gilroy (1993). 4. see taylor (1986). 5. see schuller ([1958]1986). 6. embodiment is generally understood as the relationship between the physical capabilities and limits of our bodies and our ability to both perceive and create music. 7. stanyek's argument is indebted to slob in (1993). 8. see monson (1996) and berliner (1994). recordings blythe, arthur. 1979. in the tradition. columbia jc36300. coleman, steve and afrocuba de matanzas. 1996. the sign and the seal. rca victor 7432140727-2. 169 170 current musicology references atkins, e. taylor, ed. 2003. jazz planet. jackson, ms: university press of mississippi. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago: university of chicago press. braxton, anthony. 1985. tri-axium writings. volume 1. dartmouth: synthesis/frog peak. deveaux, scott. 1991. constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography. black american literature forum 25 (3): 525-60. gabbard, krin, ed. 1995a. representing jazz. durham, nc: duke university press. ---. 1995b. jazz among the discourses. durham, nc: duke university press. gennari, john. 1991. jazz criticism: its development and ideologies. black american litera­ ture forum 25 (3): 449-523. gilroy, paul. 1993. the blackatlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. heble, ajay. 2000. landing on the wrong note: jazz, dissonance, and critical practice. new york: routledge. lewis, george e. 1996. improvised music after 1950. black music research journal 16: 91122. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: uni­ versity of chicago press. moore, robin. 1992. the decline of improvisation in western art music: an interpretation of change. international review of the aesthetics and sociology of music 23 0): 61-84. nooshin, laudan. 2003. improvisation as "other": creativity, knowledge and power-the case of iranian classical music. the journal of the royal musical association 128 (2): 242-96. nyman, michael. 1999. experimental music: cage and beyond. cambridge: cambridge uni­ versity press. porter, eric. 2002. what is this thing called jazz? african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley: university of california press. robinson, jason. 2004. review: the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and com­ munities in dialogue. critical studies in improvisation 1 (1): 1-13. schuller, gunther. [1958] 1986. sonny rollins and the challenge of thematic improvisa­ tion. in musings: the musical worlds of gunther schuller, 86-97. new york: oxford uni­ versity press. slobin, mark. 1993. subcultural sounds: micromusics of the west. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. smith, leo. 1973. notes: 8 pieces. a new world music-creative music. new haven: kiom. ---. 1974. american music. the black perspective in music 2 (2): 111-16. taylor, william "billy': 1986. jazz: america's classical music. the black perspective in music 140): 21-25. tucker, mark. 1998. musicology and the new jazz studies. journal of the american musico­ logical society 51 (1): 131-48. tucker, sherri. 2000. swing shift: "all-girl" bands of the 1940s. durham, nc: duke univer­ sity press. zorn, john, ed. 2000. arcana: musicians on music. new york: granary. 11 ldersjjective michael rabin* musicology and the performer i believe that the performer is the re-creator of the music on the page, while the musicologist is the dissector of this written music. i do not think that the analytical approach to music is basically a musical one, since it tends to be exceedingly dry. for these reasons i feel that the performer cannot work strictly within musicological guidelines and still be a good performer. neither a totally intellectual nor a totally emotional handling of music is sufficiently comprehensive. however, a balance between the two is difficult to achieve because most performers are essentially either intellectual or emotional. the musicologist's approach to performance is usually quite different from that of the performer. once a musicologist becomes firmly convinced that his interpretation is the only one, he tends to perform a given composition the same way every time. the performer, not having to work within only a musicological framework, will usually achieve far more spontaneity and variety from one performance to the next. does the musicologist have the right to insist that only he knows the composer's true intentions? having premiered two violin concertos! and having studied the scores and parts in great depth with the composers, my personal experience has shown that composers themselves are often the first to be willing to change what they have written. the composer may also leave nuances to the performer's discretion. this is just as true today as it was in centuries past. and practical experience shows that some elements on the printed page cannot be interpreted too literally. terms such as adagio, allegro, and presto are generally taken to indicate tempos. but, at best, they can be relied upon only to indicate an approximate speed or a particular mood or style. how fast, for example, is presto? there are countless variables, such as the performer's technical ability, his musical taste, his understanding of the composer's intentions, and the ability of the accompanying artists, if any. weather conditions can also be a determinant. neither are metronome markings wholly reliable, since even metronomes of similar manufacture often fail to synchronize. there is an astonishing lack of direct communication between musicologists and performers. perhaps closing this gap would be very enlightening and mutually beneficial. musicologists often tend to consider themselves superior to "mere" performers, and, of course, this attitude tends to further alienate the performers. too many musicologists are of the self-trained variety and have an unbearable snob quotient. unfortunately, they give the genuine musicologist a very bad name among most performing artists. 155 the "purist" the self-appointed "purist," who embraces the belief that the only music worth hearing, performing, and studying is from the baroque and contemporary periods, cannot truly be recognized as a complete musician. the would-be "purist" usually cannot relate to the romantic period because of his own emotional peculiarities. the performer or musicologist who claims to be a one-composer "specialist" is usually uninteresting and uninspiring and often even unable to present a well-rounded picture of his subject. having shut himself off from other musical experiences, his musical credibility must be highly suspect. contemporary performance in the u.s.a. until the early 1960's performance practices and demands were very simply understood in the united states: the finest performances by the great artists of the day set the standards. since that time there appears to have been a rather hysterical and neurotic grasping for identification with "the star" of the moment. in such blind idolatry the music and its interpretation are forced into second place, and most other performers are pushed into the background and overlooked, only to have their musical ideas and contributions remain unheard. on the current concert stage, "star status" seems to be far more important than ability. hopefully, this situation is only a passing fashion. the concert experience the concert experience is very difficult to describe adequately, since it involves myriad personal, emotional, and intellectual forces. there are three human elements: composer, performer, and audience. essentially, a concert is an experience in musical, emotional, and personal communication. the composer, through his music, communicates with the performer. the performer and his instrument communicate this music to the audience. throughout the concert there is a constant emotional give-and-take between the audience and the performer. the music critic the chief function of the music critic, as i see it, is to report everything that occurs during a concert. he should use language easily understood by both the musician and the music lover and should always be aware of his responsibility to the music. he must write with candor and set aside all personal prejudices and predetermined attitudes. a critic must not review a concert if he knows the program is not to his liking, or if he is prejudiced in any way toward the performer. critical remarks should always be preceded by "in my opinion." when the critic stoops to the use of snide or sarcastic remarks, 156 he ceases to be a critic. during the last twenty years, there have been far too many cases of excellent conductors being forced to leave their orchestras because of brow-beating by unintelligent, unmusical, and obviously prejudiced critics. on the other hand, the critic's job does entail great difficulties. he is expected to be able to review opera, ballet, solo, chamber, and symphonic music. generally, a critic cannot know the technical and musical demands of every instrument and cannot be expected to be familiar with the entire musical repertoire. this problem is especially significant today because of the current importance of reviews, which the public assumes to be written by those completely qualified to judge. recordings recordings have been the greatest single influence in making music generally available in the united states, and their benefits have been immeasurable. with the advent of the long-playing record, recording companies began to saturate the market by offering far too many interpretations of the same basic repertoire. consequently, by 1961 these same companies were in dire financial straits and initiated price-cutting on a grand scale in an attempt to sell their huge inventory. as an economy measure, they then issued few new releases and left the listener with very little choice. this created another unfortunate situation. the listener, having become accustomed to one particular version, was frequently unable to appreciate other interpretations. let us hope that when television comes of age, concerts will become an integral part of the programing. this would certainly revitalize the recording industry, create further interest in music, and lead to better concert attendance. few people today are musically knowledgeable, and the level of teaching has unfortunately become very low. in my opinion television is the most logical medium for making the opportunity to appreciate and understand music available to everyone. of course, all schools, from kindergarten to college, should give required courses in the appreciation and understanding of music, taught by qualified people. colleges and universities should offer both applied and theoretical courses in music. government the need for the arts is apparently not understood by the united states government, which prefers to remain blind to the importance of the arts as cultural, historical, sociological, educational, and emotional phenomena. this attitude, coupled with proposed tax revisions which may sharply curtail all contributions to the arts by eliminating presently-allowed tax exemptions, may bring about the demise of our cultural life. before that time comes, the government must be made to realize that it will have to become a 157 willing and generous partner in both the preservation and presentation of the arts. at present, the united states is the only major country which does not support its arts. ideally, the government should be responsible for the preservation and maintenance of all present artistic organizations and institutions and should also realize the need to introduce the arts into areas where they are not presently found.2 the government must set up an arts administration regulated either by businessmen with an empathy for the arts, or by people in the arts who are also trained in business. this kind of commitment would allow the arts to flourish. notes 1 richard mauhaupt, violin concerto, april 1954, new york city; paul creston, violin concerto no.2, november 1960, los angeles. 2 similar views were upheld at the 84th annual convention of the american economic association (new orleans, 28 december 1971). economists john kenneth galbraith (harvard), tibor scitovsky (stanford), and hyman faine (ucla) all decried the lack of support for the arts in the united states. professor faine stated that only government and foundation support could save the arts from extinction as a result of rising deficits. professor scitovsky proposed education as the most effective means both of reordering government priorities and of changing public taste, while professor galbraith said he hoped "to live to see the day when financing the arts is as important as financing the coal industry." * the initial inspiration for "the spheres of music: harmony and discord" came from michael rabin. one of the most illustrious violinists of our time, michael had for years sought to establish just such a pattern of intercommunication within the musical community. his sudden death on 19 january 1972, just as current musicology's project was nearing completion, was a multidimensional tragedy: michael was not only a superb musician and a fine human being, but also a very close personal friend. he was, in a sense, the father of this project. with his deep commitment to and love for music, he helped me to become aware of the wide gaps which, in many instances, still separate the various fields of music. michael's concern for the future of the arts and, especially, of music in the united states was evident not only in the plans which he had begun to formulate for a special national council but also in other specific, immediate, and personal ways. his deep interest in music education and in the survival of the art of violin playing led him to teach privately, as well as at such colleges as bowdoin, the university of arizona, the university of houston, and yale. even after a demanding recital or a concert at the end of a long and exhausting tour, he never refused to see people, to discuss music and life with them, and to give help, advice, encouragement, and even financial aid to those in need. it is tragic that michael did not live to see his article in print. the entire staff of current musicology feels a deep sense of loss at his passing. l.r. 158 simon p. keefe. mozart's piano concertos: dramatic dialogue in the age of enlightenment. woodbridge, suffolk (u.k): the boydell press, 2001. x, 205 pp. reviewed by richard will as simon p. keefe's book begins, the german pedagogue heinrich christoph koch is defending the concerto from his usual authority on aesthetic values, the allgemeine theorie der schonen kunste (1771-74) of] ohann georg sulzer. the theorie complained that "the concerto appears to have more the purpose of giving a skillful player the opportunity to be heard ... than to be used for the rendering of passions," a stern judgment given sulzer's conviction that expressing emotion was tantamount to a moral responsibility in the arts (quoted in koch 1983:209). koch countered by imagining soloist and accompaniment as partners in a "passionate dialogue," in which the soloist "expresses his feelings to the orchestra, and it signals him through short interspersed phrases sometimes approval, sometimes acceptance of his expression ... by a concerto i imagine something similar to the tragedy of the ancients, where the actor expressed his feelings not towards the pit, but to the chorus" (quoted in keefe, 17-18). while not always agreeing that what soloist and orchestra share are feelings, many subsequent writers would echo koch's description of the concerto as conversation or drama. no works have been more affected than his ideal, the concertos of mozart.! most comparisons are like koch's in that they remain general; even donald francis tovey, who also evokes classical plays and, in a much-quoted phrase, the "ancient and universal experience ... [of] the antithesis of the individual and the crowd" (1936:6), does not explain how social opposi­ tions are worked out in particular concertos, but instead uses the meta­ phors to illuminate the whole genre (cf. webster 1996:107-9). keefe seeks to fill in the details. focusing on the piano concertos from k 271 in e~ (1777) to k 595 in b~ (1791), he examines "the interactive relationship between the piano and the orchestra" (1) as a compositional practice with its own history and significance. when and how does mozart make soloist and accompaniment "converse"? how do they get along when they do? do their dialogues change with the years? an original critical approach, de­ signed with such questions in mind, leads keefe to argue that solo-orches­ tra relations grow increasingly complex in the concertos of the 1780s, cul­ minating in k 491 in c minor (1786). at the same time-and equally important, in his view-the partnerships remain harmonious. mozart's orcurrent musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 216 current musicology chestra may not be so compliant as koch's, which always accepts and ap­ proves, but where conflict arises, resolution awaits. keefe's methodology draws inspiration from the traite de melodie (1814) and art du compositeur dramatique (1833) of antoine reicha, which clarify the nuts and bolts of dialogue in music (keefe, 24-34:). where earlier writ­ ers, like rousseau, speak simply of "two voices or two instruments which answer one another, and which often unite," reicha outlines types of alter­ nation (e.g., of complete periods, phrases, or motives), formal plans for distributing alternation and unification, and ways of distinguishing "people of different character or with different feelings." following reicha, keefe assumes that conversants speak in turn, and he concentrates on passages in which the piano, tutti, orchestral sections, or orchestral soloists exchange successive statements (37-38). the examples demonstrate all of reicha's types of alternation and more, and also the representation of conflict through harmonic, dynamic, and other contrasts catalogued in the art du compositeur dramatique. as for how the exchanges between instruments de­ velop, within works and over time, keefe goes beyond reicha to create new critical categories suitable specifically to mozart's concertos, the most important of which is a dramatic trajectory he calls "reinforced co-opera­ tion." it is evident above all in first movements: in the solo exposition, the piano and the orchestra engage in intimate dialogue that bonds rather than separates the two forces; in the development, they either partake in dialogue among themselves (internal dialogue), move away from dialogue all together, or engage in confrontational dialogue ... and in the recapitulation, they re-establish the intimate dialogue of the solo exposition, often adding dialogic subtleties not included in the earlier section. (75) thus in the first movement of k. 449 in e~, a particularly clear example, relations are harmonious in the exposition as the soloist takes up the prin­ cipal themes presented in the orchestral ritornello, and the two parties repeatedly exchange imitative or complementary statements. once into the development, they lapse into "contrasting dialogue" in reicha's sense, "abrasive" unisons in the orchestra alternating with arpeggios in the piano (mm. 188-203). the later juncture between retransition and recapitula­ tion is also 'jarring ... extremely abrupt," for "the piano ascends chro­ matically [from the dominant] in all three lines (bars 230-33) leading directly to the return of the main theme in the tonic (bar 234)." reconcili­ ation is then effected by the consequent of the main theme, which is played, as it had been in the solo exposition, by the piano alone with an accomparichard will 217 niment of chromatically rising thirds (m. 242; cf. m. 97). "the formerly disruptive semitone ascent is, therefore, instantly assimilated as a co-op­ erative element," and the moment satisfies structural exigencies as well, since "first-movement concerto form requires two expositions to 'come together' in a single recapitulation" (64-67). in keefe's judgment, all but a few of mozart's first movements follow a similar path of solo-orchestra relations, and several rely on the same conflation of previously separate orchestral and solo statements to pro­ duce new cooperative dialogue in their recapitulations (93). the first movement ofk. 491 represents a "dialogic apotheosis" in the number and variety of instrumental exchanges, the intensity of its famous development­ section confrontation, and what keefe sees as the symmetrical arrange­ ment of the dialogues in the two expositions as well as the recapitulation (80-94). second and third movements continue along the same lines, of­ ten "by reshaping and transforming earlier dialogic procedures" (149): in k. 488 in a, the tendency of the first two movements to connect anteced­ ents and consequents with dialogued "segues," a technique discussed by koch (keefe, 36-37), and to treat principal themes in alternation between soloist and orchestra (if not in the expositions then in the recapitulations) finds echo in the long series of thematic dialogues in the concluding rondo (161-64,171). these and other resemblances across the movement cycles emphasize the achievement of harmony in the first movements, which is often further confirmed in the last movements by a "final climactic section in which the piano and orchestra demonstrate dialogic co-operation in a free, uninhibited fashion" (174). a classic instance is the g coda ofk. 449, whose straightforward back-and-forth between piano and orchestra con­ tinues right up to the final chords (176). the close readings that substantiate keefe's thesis, comprising about two-thirds of the book, bring fresh perspective to dozens of movements. he uncovers cyclical relationships and shows the care with which mozart contrasts or coordinates the forces; "cooperative" exchanges, for instance, are made so not simply by the alternation of like material but by many shortand long-range pitch, motivic, and rhythmic connections, which keefe demonstrates (80-94 et passim). moreover, while his topics do not include orchestration as such, his approach naturally draws attention to it, whether it is mozart's exploitation of each possible pairing of piano, strings, and winds in the development section of the first movement of k. 503 in c (94), or the importance of timbral combinations in articulating the espe­ cially complex form of the first movement of k. 491 (80-94). taking dia­ logue seriously reveals much more about mozart's concertos than its long but casual use as a metaphor would lead one to suspect. dialogue might reveal still more were it construed less narrowly. al218 current musicology though consistent with reicha, restricting the inves1igation to successive alternations between instruments leaves out of account at least two events that seem crucial for the relationship between solo and orchestra. the first is the cadenza. keefe sees mozart's own written-out cadenza for k 449 as resolving a conflict late in the first movement (66), but otherwise he does not treat cadenzas as part of the sol%rchestra interchange. need­ less to say, the absence of cadenzas by mozart for six of the concertos (66, n. 5; see also p. 6) poses an obstacle that is greatly compounded by the likelihood that he and other performers would have embellished written­ out texts-when they did not improvise the entire passage. yet given keefe's thesis, that the instruments progress toward cooperation, the question of how cadenzas influence the outcome is vital. other than in k 449, the first movements are shown as having resolved their conflicts before the cadential fermata. do mozart's written cadenzas-which give an idea, at least, of what he deemed appropriate-confirm the resolution, perhaps combin­ ing with the concluding tuttis to create one last cooperative exchange? or do they cause new tension? the balance achieved in a recapitulation by, for instance, dividing thematic antecedents and consequents between the players will be lost if the soloist uses the cadenza to emphasize the idiosyn­ crasy of a voice that is already "first among equals."2 for "reinforced coop­ eration" to be preserved in such a case, the burden of reunification must at the very least be shifted to the remaining movements. or perhaps keefe's model of cooperation, based as it is on contempora.ry aesthetics and de­ tailed readings of the works, could itself be called upon to clarify what counts as appropriate in an improvised cadenza (and in concerto perfor­ mance generally, which keefe does not address but which surely also af­ fects the shape of dialogue). intangible as they are, cadenzas have too many ramifications in this context to be ignored. equally deserving of attention are passages in which solo and orches­ tra play different music at the same time, and in such a way that neither is clearly "main voice" nor "accompaniment." particularly suggestive is mozart's frequent pairing of "internal dialogue" in the orchestra with virtuosic figuration in the piano. midway through the finale ofk 451 in d, wind soloists state the opening of the main theme three times in succes­ sion, answered in each case by a piano arpeggio that modulates to a new key (mm. 172-89). the pattern changes when the oboe plays the first two measures of the theme simultaneously with the third entrance of the pi­ ano (mm. 188-89), and thereafter the oboe and flute continue to trade the thematic incipit while the piano arpeggiates around them (mm. 19099). for keefe, the piano "flourishes" in these measures "prohibit addi­ tional dialogue" (152), but i hear instead a different kind of dialogue, less richard will 219 formal and more fluid than the preceding. in speaking, perhaps, each voice must wait its turn in order to create dialogue "in the meaningful sense of one interlocutor reacting to the words of another as opposed to making a statement oblivious to whatever else is said" (38). but why should this be true of music, with its unique ability to combine voices contrapun­ tally? the characters in mozart's operatic ensembles often express them­ selves simultaneously while continuing to interact with others onstage, and concerto agents ought to have the same powers. the piano and wood­ winds in k 451 could be thought of as entering into a faster-paced discus­ sion-cuthbert girdlestone called it a "game" (l952:235-36)-that leads the main theme through numerous keys and ends, significantly, in an al­ ternating exchange preparing a joint reprise of the main theme by the piano and strings (mm. 206-14). in other words, in what seems a natural and dramatically nuanced progression, the relationship between the par­ ties intensifies just before they return to collaborating. similar textures occur at quite different structural and psychological moments (in k 491, for instance, before the confrontation in the first movement, mm. 30924), and it is worth pondering how all of them affect their protagonists' dealings with one another. keefe elaborates the literary metaphor proposed by koch, ancient trag­ edy, with examples drawn from eighteenth-century neoclassical drama and dramatic theory. occasionally mozart's works suggest more or less specific parallels in contemporary plays-for example, when the characters of voltaire, lessing, or goethe trace contours of agreement and disagree­ ment reminiscent of the concertos (69-72), or confront one another us­ ing the rhetorical device of stichomythia, a dialogue of short alternating phrases in which the participants typically repeat and reinterpret one another's words (51-56). more often, the concertos embody the general precepts of neoclassical theory by "eschewing abrupt relational transfor­ mation in favour of carefully crafted, stage-by-stage relational development" (179). the gradual unfolding of the characters' attitudes takes precedence over plot twists and even over results. lessing wrote of euripides that he "deliberately let his spectators know as much of the coming action as any god might know, ... [promising] to awaken their emotions, not so much by that which should occur, as by the mode in which it should occur" (quoted in keefe, 73). keefe argues likewise that "since the eventual outcome of mozart's relational drama is not really in doubt ... the listener can turn his or her attention exclusively to interactive processes" (149). for the audi­ ence, following concerto dialogue, like watching a play, requires intense concentration, and the effort gives access to the social meanings of the genre and to an ethical dimension it shares with the theater: "by engaging his listener in a challenging intellectual pursuit, mozart offered him or 220 current musicology her an excellent vehicle for learning about co-operation ... a value deeply cherished in the age of enlightenment. mozart's concertos thus fulfilled the single most important requirement for all late eighteenth-century music and drama: the general instruction of the listener/spectator" (73-74). what koch only implied with his metaphor, keefe delivers by showing how mozart's dramatic dialogues justify the concertos in terms acceptable to eighteenth-century aesthetics. koch would be perplexed, though, by keefe's reluctance to discuss what sulzer called "the rendering of passions," whose purported absence from concertos inspired koch to mount his defense. although the con­ certo protagonists identified by keefe live through confrontation and co­ operation, the emotional overtones of which are sometimes recognized in descriptions of "relational unease" (72) or 'joyous affirmation" (171), most of their interactions are analyzed independently of emotional and indeed of all semantic associations. difficult as those are to discuss in instrumen­ tal music, setting them aside puts keefe at odds with his eighteenth-cen­ tury authorities and disregards evidence that could enrich the book's in­ terpretations, as becomes especially evident in the chapter comparing the concertos to mozart's operas. keefe argues persuasively that the composer's technique of instrumental, vocal, and vocal-instrumental dialogue devel­ ops continuously from idomeneo and die entfuhrung aus dem serail through the concertos and into le nozze di figaro and don giovanni. similarities can be very striking, for example, between the second movement ofk. 459 in f and the duet "che soave zeffiretto" from act 3 of figaro. both forego developmental middle parts to "move immediately from establishing inti­ mate relations between the characters in the initial sections, to reinforc­ ing intimate relations in the recapitulation and 'relprise' sections"; both employ kochian segues to comparable effect; and both end with "dialogic intensification," in which previously segregated themes and phrases are newly shared. in dramatic terms, the duet also offers a good analogy for keefe's reading of k. 459 and of the concertos generally, for it enacts mu­ sically the cooperation of susanna and the countess in their effort to dupe the count (132-36). yet keefe passes over one of the most suggestive resemblances when he recognizes the "pastoral atmosphere" of the duet but not that of the concerto movement. both are allegrettos in g characterized by prominent woodwinds and by the undulating inner voices found throughout eigh­ teenth-century idyllic music (see the violins throughout the duet, and in the concerto mm. 10-14, 44-51 and elsewhere). if the concerto seems more elevated in style, thanks to a greater variety of mood and more rhyth­ mic and harmonic sophistication, its scenic associations are strengthened by alternating sixteenth-note scales in the second group and coda (see richard will 221 especially mm. 106-10 and 150-59), which have a close counterpart in another, manifestly pastoral number from figaro, susanna's aria "deh vieni" (webster 1996:122-23). since the pastoral garden is where the conflicts of figaro resolve, recognizing that the concerto evokes a related setting would strengthen keefe's claim that the instruments work toward ever greater unity. it would also help distinguish their "intimate relations" from those found elsewhere. the idyll ofk 459 follows an allegro full of march rhythms, giving the impression, by virtue of the conventional associations of each style, that it removes the players from a comparatively active, public, mas­ culine, and aristocratic world into one more sentimental, private, femi­ nine, and socially middling or neutral. the ensuing relationship differs significantly from, say, the comparably intimate union discussed by keefe in the second movement ofk 449 (131-32), whose long legato melodies and syncopated rhythms suggest a dialogue at once more effusive and less complacent than in k 459, and which follow, not a march-oriented move­ ment, but an allegro in triple meter combining lyricism with dramatic unisons and shifts to the minor. in one case the solo and orchestra seem to play with social identities as they go from movement to movement, in the other, to explore a succession of moods marked by internal contrast. the expressive difference may be open to other readings, but ignoring it ob­ scures a large part of what makes each dialogue unique. equally important, references to social standing, gender, temperament, or physical movement (e.g., marching) suggest that the concertos' "gen­ eral instruction of the listener" goes beyond the enactment of coopera­ tion. a concerto cannot be so specific as the dialogues keefe quotes from lessing's nathan der weise (1779), in which characters of different faiths work toward religious tolerance. still, it can endow its forces with enough personality and atmosphere to make their interchange convey more than simply the value of agreement, per se-to give only one example, it must say something about mozart's notion of how and where agreement is best reached, and by whom, that his players nearly always finish their transac­ tion by sharing dance rhythms in the finale. keefe also pays insufficient attention to two concertos that do not ob­ viously endorse cooperation at all, k 491 and k 466 in d minor. long singled out for their uncharacteristically dark moods (for sample comments, see 78-79), the works are seen by joseph kerman as upsetting the normal "sequence" of solo-orchestra relations in mozart, which in his terms progress "from interaction to some sort of respite to complicity" (1994:329-30). disruptive events include the soloists' initial entrances with new themes rather than the first themes of the preceding orchestral ritornellos; the orchestra's inability to repeat fully the "explosive" theme of the finale ofk 466; the piano's "haunting" of the tutti after the first-movement cadenza 222 current musicology of k 491; and its "monopolizing" of the final variation and coda of the finale of the same work (kerman 1994:330-32; 1999:105-11). keefe ar­ gues unconvincingly that motivic connections between the soloist's first­ movement entrance and the preceding ritornello in k. 466 "integrate the solo piano smoothly into the movement" (82): the connections are evi­ dent, but they hardly diminish the shock of hearing the soloist refuse to begin with the orchestra's opening theme. (the gesture is at least as con­ frontational as the "flamboyant" opening solo of k 450 in b~, which he sees as causing "relational tension" [56-64].) regarding k 491, he dis­ cusses neither the piano's first-movement entrance nor its return after the cadenza. more serious, he does not consider the second or third move­ ments of either concerto, an omission made all the more troubling by his analysis of the first movement of k 491 as mozart's "dialogic apotheosis." do solo-orchestra negotiations simply break down in th.e finale, which ends in the minor (the only concerto to do so) and with the piano, as kerman says, relegating the orchestra almost entirely to the background? or is co­ operation redeemed in some unexplained way-and if so, what is the na­ ture of reconciliation when its medium is a gloomy march rather than the usual bright dance? keefe dismisses kerman's contention that k 491 dra­ matizes a breach between mozart (represented by the soloist) and his au­ dience (the orchestra), but offers only the first movement as proof (98). nor does he address the disputed major-mode coda ofk. 466, which kerman hears as a "deflection" overshadowed by earlier turbulence, but wye jamison allanbrook reads as a genuine "comic outcome" (1994:184-86; 1996:99101). presumably keefe would agree with the latter, but the triumph of cooperation needs to be demonstrated in this most rancorous of all the finales, and the question asked how such a last-minute resolution differs, formally and expressively, from agreements established earlier and main­ tained longer in other finales. koch may have wanted to imply that the characters and outcomes avail­ able to concertos were numerous, for where sulzer wrote only of virtuosos showing off, koch populated the genre with actors, whose metier is to portray different personalities and experiences. keefe demonstrates that mozart preferred characters who resolve the tensions that separate them, and he elucidates the syntax of the resulting dialogues with a precision greatly surpassing that of any previous author. extending koch's insights further will mean asking more about who mozart's conversants are, and what their interactions may embody other than, or in addition to, ideal­ ized social harmony. it would be surprising were the formal ingenuity so thoroughly illustrated by keefe not matched by a comparable richness of expression in these works. if mozart's concertos continue to engage schol­ ars, performers, and listeners, it is because they probe human relationrichard will 223 ships with the same subtlety as the ancient tragedies that were koch's point of comparison. notes l. in volume 3 ofthe versuch einer anleitung zur composition (1793), koch cites c. p. e. bach's concertos as exemplary. the article on concertos in his musikalisches lexikon (1802) takes over much of the earlier discussion but refers instead to mozart. see keefe, 2l. 2. in this connection, the recent formulation of joseph kerman is suggestive: "in the classical concerto, the distention of cadential energy that is promoted by the cadenza is, at the very least, unclassical-to say nothing of the license granted by improvisation, the license to break with tempo and rhythm, recall themes, make modulations ... from the standpoint of musical discourse, the cadenza is a dis­ ruption, a poltergeist in the stately home of classical music" (1999:72). references allanbrook, wye jamison. 1994. mozart's tunes and the comedy of closure. in on mozart, edited by james m. morris, 169-86. cambridge: cambridge univer­ sity press . . 1996. comic issues in mozart's piano concertos. in mozart's piano concer­ tos: text, context, interpretation, edited by neal zaslaw, 75-105. ann arbor: uni­ versity of michigan press. girdlestone, cuthbert. 1952. mozart and his piano concertos. reprint. norman: university of oklahoma press. kerman,joseph. 1994. mozart's piano concertos and their audience. in writeall these down: essays on music, by joseph kerman, 322-34. berkeley: university of california press. originally published in on mozart, edited by james m. morris (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1994), 151-68. __ . 1999. concerto conversations. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. koch, heinrich christoph. 1983. introductory essay on composition: the mechanical rules of melody, sections 3 and 4. translated by nancy kovaleff baker. new ha­ ven, conn.: yale university press. tovey, donald francis. 1936. essays in musical analysis. vol. 3, concertos. london: oxford university press. webster, james. are mozart's concertos "dramatic"?: concerto ritornellos versus aria introductions in the 1780s. in mozart's piano concertos: text, context, inter­ pretation, edited by neal zaslaw, 107-37. experimental music in black and white: the aacm in new york, 1970-1985* by george e. lewis introduction since its founding on the virtually all-black south side of chicago in 1965, the mrican american musicians' collective known as the association for the advancement of creative musicians (aacm) has played an unusu­ ally prominent role in the development of american experimental music. the composite output of aacm members explores a wide range of methodologies, processes, and media. aacm musicians have developed new ideas about timbre, sound, collectivity, extended technique and in­ strumentation, performance practice, intermedia, the relationship of im­ provisation to composition, form, scores, computer music technologies, invented acoustic instruments, installations, and kinetic sculptures.! in a 1973 article, two early aacm members, trumpeter john shenoy jackson and co-founder and pianist/composer muhal richard abrams, as­ serted that, "the aacm intends to show how the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised can come together and determine their own strategies for political and economic freedom, thereby determining their own destinies" (abrams and jackson 1973:72). this optimistic declaration, based on no­ tions of self-help as fundamental to racial uplift, cultural preservation, and spiritual rebirth, was in accord with many other challenges to traditional notions of order and authority that emerged in the wake of the black power movement. the aacm's goals of individual and collective self-production and pro­ motion challenged racialized limitations on venues and infrastructure, serving as an example to other artists in rethinking the artist/business re­ lationship. a number of organizations in which mrican american musi­ cians took leadership roles, including the early-twentieth-century clef club, the short-lived jazz composers guild, the collective black artists, and the los angeles-based union of god's musicians and artists ascension, or underground musicians association (ugmaa/ugma), preceded the aacm in attempting to pursue these self-help strategies. the aacm, how­ ever, has become the most well-known and influential of the post-1960 organizations, and is still active almost forty years later.2 the art ensemble of chicago (aec), which emerged from the aacm and has been active in one form or another from 1969 to the present, is one of the groups that most radically exemplifies aacm-style collectivity, or in the words of samuel floyd, "individuality within the aggregate" (floyd current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york george e. lewis 101 1995:228). the five members of the classic art ensemble-saxophonists joseph jarman and roscoe mitchell, trumpeter lester bowie, bassist malachi favors maghostous, and drummer famoudou don moye­ represent a multi-voiced, internationalist vision, exemplifying theorist kobena mercer's notion of "plural and heterogeneous black identities" (mercer 1994:53-66). moye explains the necessity of acting in concert in order to move be­ yond simpler strategies of resistance: "along with defiance you have organ­ ization. there have been moments of defiance throughout the history of the music, but the strength of the effort and the strength of the coopera­ tion between the musicians and their unity of effort is what enables us to survive. anytime the musicians are not strong in their unity, the control factor goes over to the other side" (beauchamp 1998:56). the first activities of aacm artists in new york city, occurring roughly between 1970 and 1985, played a crucial and very public role in the emer­ gence during this period of now-standard musical and critical discourses of genre mobility and musical hybridity. as aacm trumpeter lester bowie asserted, not long after the dawn of postmodernism, "we're free to ex­ press ourselves in any so-called idiom, to draw from any source, to deny any limitation. we weren't restricted to bebop, free jazz, dixieland, the­ ater or poetry. we could put it all together. we could sequence it any way we felt like it. it was entirely up to us" (ibid.:46). having emerged from the jazz tradition, which had already problematized the border between popular and high culture, aacm musicians, by actively seeking dialogue with a variety of traditions, had placed themselves in an excellent position to recursively intensify and extend the blurring and possible erasure of this and other boundaries-or as charlie parker is reputed to have said, "man, there's no boundary line to art." to the extent that aacm musicians challenged racialized hierarchies of aesthetics, method, place, infrastructure, and economics, the organiza­ tion's work epitomizes the early questioning of borders by artists of color that is only beginning to be explored in serious scholarship on music. indeed, it may fairly be said that the aacm has received far less credit for this role in challenging borders of genre, practice, and cultural reference than members of subsequently emerging experimental music art worlds. in particular, the so-called "downtown" improvisors and the "totalist" com­ posers, two loosely-structured musical communities largely framed and coded as white by press reception, articulated similar discourses of mobil­ ity, extending them to an alliance with rock that undoubtedly furthered their respective causes (d. gann 1997:320-23, 355-56). the corporate-approved celluloid description of the aacm in the re­ cent ken burns blockbuster film contrasts markedly with the situation in 102 current musicology the real world, where the aacm's international impact has gone far be­ yond "white college students-in france" (see ken burns's jazz, episode 10). while most studies that extensively reference the aacm appear to be confined to an examination of the group's influence within an entity cul­ turally identified as the "world of jazz," the musical influence of the aacm has extended across borders of race, geography, genre, and musical prac­ tice and must be confronted in any nonracialized account of experimental music. to the extent that "world of jazz" discourses cordon off musicians from interpenetration with other musical art worlds, they cannot account for either the breakdown of genre definitions or the mobility of practice and method that informs the present-day musical landscape. in new york, the example of the aacm expanded the range of think­ able and actualizable positions for a generation of black experimental artists, such as anthony davis and james newton, and the various artists who emerged from the m-base collective, such as steve coleman, graham haynes, geri allen, robin eubanks, casssandra wilson, and greg osby. finally, the aacm's work challenged the white-coded american experi­ mental music movement to move beyond ethnic particularism toward the recognition of a multicultural, multi-ethnic base, with a variety of perspec­ tives, histories, traditions and methods. this study of the aacm in new york is intended to illustrate some of the strategies black musicians used in negotiating the complex, diverse, and unstable environment of contemporary musical experimentalism. presenting a brief summary of the group's origins, initial goals, and activi­ ties in chicago, the essay contextualizes the period by referencing a set of core aacm ideologies, including notions of collectivity; the management of difference and innovation via individualism; the importance of compo­ sition; the promulgation of a nurturing atmosphere; and border-crossing. given this preparatory context, we then follow the consequences of the at­ tempts by aacm members to hew to these ideologies and practices in the stressful musical environment of new york city in the 1970s and 1980s. here, critical reception and the members' own views of their activities coa­ lesce to provide some understanding of the effects of aacm activities on the musical world as a whole. 3 in this essay i draw in part on my own experiences and history as an aacm member who was active in that environment. but rather than ad­ vancing a straightforward version of my own oral narrative-a slave narra­ tive, if you will-i try to create a critical history as well, placing my perspec­ tives in intersection with published reports and interviews from the period. in that spirit, i also would inform the reader that rather than speaking for the aacm, i present my own perspective, in the hope that others will consider their own understandings alongside it. george e. lewis 103 the crucible of chicago in the spring of 1965, a number of chicago musicians received a post­ card from four of their mid-career colleagues-pianists jodie christian and richard abrams, drummer steve mccall, and trumpeter philip cohran -calling for a general meeting, and specifying fourteen issues to be dis­ cussed in relation to forming a new organization for musicians. the meet­ ing was held on may 8, 1965, at cohran's home on east 75th street, near cottage grove avenue on chicago's south side. the proceedings were conducted using more or less standard parliamentary procedure, and were recorded on audiotape. each participant stated his or her name for identification purposes before speaking. the participants were diverse in age, gender, and musical direction.4 some of the meeting's participants had taken part in the rehearsals of abrams's experimental band from 1961-64 (radano 1993:77-80). cohran in particular had found sustenance in the work of sun ra (shapiro 2001), with whom he had performed until ra's departure for new york in 1961. others were more traditional­ minded; in fact, the individual work of many of these musicians was too diverse to make sense of an experimental! traditional binary. the wide-ranging discussions in these early meetings, in which musi­ cians spoke frankly among themselves, rather than to any outside media, evince nothing so much as an awakening of subalterns to the power of speech. already on display was the radical collective democracy that later became a central aspect of aacm ideology. what the taped evidence does not support, however, is the understandable but erroneous notion, ad­ vanced by most critical reception, that the aacm was formed in order to promote or revise "new jazz," "the avant-garde," or "free music." rather, with the very first order of business, the focus of the meeting was on find­ ing ways to foster the creation and performance of a generalized notion of what the musicians called "original music." i include here some excerpts from the discussion: richard abrams: first of all, number one, there's original music, only. this will have to be voted and decided upon. i think it was agreed with steve and phil that what we meant is original music pro­ ceeding from the members in the organization. philip cohran: i think the reason original music was put there first was because of all of our purposes of being here, this is the primary one. because why else would we form an association? by us forming an association and promoting and taking over playing our own mu­ sic, or playing music period, it's going to involve a great deal of sacri­ fice on each and every one of us. and i personally don't want to sac­ rifice, make any sacrifice for any standard music. 104 current musicology steve mccall: we've all been talking about it among ourselves for a long time in general terms. we'll embellish as much as we can, but get to what you really feel because we're laying a foundation for something that will be permanent. melvin jackson: original music, i feel, is really based on the individ­ ual. it doesn't necessarily mean that i care to play all original music, which would be all my music. roscoe mitchell: i think, you know, it's time for musicians to, you know, let go of other people and try to start, you know, finding themselves. because everybody in this room here is creative. i mean, i think we should all try to go into ourselves and stretch out as far as we can, and do what we really want to do. gene easton: the [post]cards originally said "creative music" and what picture i hold is that creative music can only be original any­ way, in a true creative sense. "original," in one sense, means some­ thing you write in the particular system that we're locked up with now in this society. we express ourselves in this system because it's what we learned, and if you don't express in the system that is known, you're ostracized. but as we learn more of other systems of music around the world we're getting closer to the music that our ancestors played-sound-conscious musicians, finding a complete new system that expresses us. because there are far better systems, and i feel that we will be locked up for the rest of our days in this system unless we can get out of it through some means such as this. fred berry: now before we vote on whether or not we're going to play original music there has to be a clear-cut definition in every­ one's mind of what original music is. richard abrams: we're not going to agree on what exactly original music means to us. we'll have to limit-now-the word "original" to promotion of ourselves and our own material to benefit ourselves. (aacm 1965) at the next meeting on may 15, the discussion evolved toward an explo­ ration of how "original music" might interface with the venues and infra­ structure system that these musicians were about to challenge and eventu­ ally outgrow: julian priester: taking into consideration economic factors involved, as musicians we're going to be working in front of the public, and different people, club owners or promoters ... george e. lewis 105 richard abrams: no, no, we're not working for club owners, no clubs. not from this organization. this is strictly concerts. see, there's another thing about us functioning as full artistic musicians. we're not afforded that liberty in taverns. everybody here knows that. (aacm 1965a) the new organization moved quickly to fashion a formal organization, with by-laws, offices such as president, vice-president, treasurer, recording secretary, and business manager, and a board of directors. during meet­ ings, a philosophy of collective, one person/one vote governance in­ cluded debating procedures in which members were addressed as "mrs.," "mister," and "miss." the first board of directors-floradine geemes, philip cohran, jodie christian, jerol donavon, peggy abrams, richard abrams, and sandra lashley-was charged with creating a name for the new group. jacques attali has asserted that the emergence of "free jazz" was pro­ voked by "the organized and often consensual theft of black american music" (attali 1989:138). certainly this understanding of the political, economic, and aesthetic situation for black music extended right into the naming of the new organization. at a may 27 meeting, the board settled on two choices. ultimately, the name "association of dedicated creative artists" did not receive as much support as the second and eventual choice, but a question arose as to whether the name should refer to "creative music" or "creative musicians." cohran's exposition settled the matter: "if the association is to advance the creative musicians, they are the ones who need advancing ... we can all create music and somebody else can take it and use it, and the music is still ... [general laughter] ... the musicians are the ones who need the help" (aacm 1965b). the name "association for the advancement of creative musicians" and the acronym "aacm" were adopted unanimously at the next general meeting on may 29, and by august of that year the organization was char­ tered by the state of illinois as a non-profit, tax-exempt corporation. the documents submitted as part of the charter request included a set of nine purposes, to which the membership continues to subscribe in 2002: • to cultivate young musicians and to create music of a high artistic level for the general public through the presentation of programs designed to magnify the importance of creative music. • to create an atmosphere conducive to artistic endeavors for the artistically inclined by maintaining a workshop for the express purpose of bringing talented musicians together. • to conduct a free training program for young aspirant musicians. 106 current musicology • to contribute financially to the programs of the abraham lincoln centre, 700 e. oakwood blvd., chicago, ill., and other charitable organizations. • to provide a source of employment for worthy creative musicians. • to set an example of high moral standards for musicians and to uplift the public image of creative musicians. • to increase mutual respect between creative artists and musical tradesmen (booking agents, managers, promoters and instrument manufacturers, etc.). • to uphold the tradition of cultured musicians handed down from the past. • to stimulate spiritual growth in creative artists through recitals, concerts, etc., through participation in programs. (aacm 1965c) in early august of 1965, an "open letter to the public" introducing the new organization and announcing its first concerts appeared in the chicago defender, the important african american newspaper. written by richard abrams and ken chaney, the letter declared that, "the ultimate goal is to provide an atmosphere that is conducive to serious music and performing new unrecorded compositions .... the aim is universal in ap­ peal and is necessary for the advancement, development and understanding of new music" ("creative musicians sponsor," 1965; abrams and chaney 1965). the language of the announcement, which uses terms that recall high-culture, pan-european "classical music" culture-"new music," "serious music"-already distances the organization fromjazz-oriented signifiers. at first, aacm-sponsored concerts took place weekly in the black com­ munity. the first two concerts were held at the now-defunct south shore ballroom on 79th street near stony island avenue on the south side of chicago. the first aacm concert, featuring the joseph jarman quintet with bassist charles clark, drummer thurman barker, saxophonist fred anderson, and trumpeter bill brimfield, took place on august 16, 1965. the second event on august 23 featured philip cohran's artistic heritage ensemble, including claudine myers and eugene easton ("creative musicians present," 1965). the concerts took place at 8 p.m:, the standard time for concert music events. production values for the early events were guided by the goal of creating "an atmosphere conducive to serious mu­ sic," including concert-style seating, the printing and distribution of adver­ tising, attempts to obtain appearances on radio, advance ticket sales, and overall stage and venue management. all of these activities were handled by the musicians themselves.5 the abraham lincoln centre, a local community assistance institution, was host to a regular series of aacm concerts, as well as the saturday gengeorge e. lewis 107 eral body meeting. other aacm events, as well as non-aacm events fea­ turing aacm members, took place in galleries, churches, and, indeed, in lounges and taverns, whose atmosphere the music tended to transform to­ ward a concert orientation. aacm musicians performed on both the south side and the then mainly white north side of chicago. later, stu­ dents and faculty members at the university of chicago in the hyde park area, a bastion of relative whiteness within the otherwise black south side, began organizing events with aacm musicians in university concert halls and other spaces, a development that cannot be overestimated in its im­ pact on winning new and larger audiences, including a broadening in terms of race, class, and other demographic factors. by 1966, attendance at meetings had declined considerably, as the opti­ mistic financial projections of the early months were now being tempered by the difficulties of presenting and promoting events with extremely lim­ ited means (aacm 1965d, 1966). soon afterwards, however, an influx of new members transformed the organization into what is known as the aacm today. the new members, some of whom have come to be viewed as the organization's "first wave," included trumpeters john shenoy jackson, lester bowie, and leo smith; drummer alvin fielder; pianist christopher gaddy; saxophonists john stubblefield, john powell, abshalom ben shlomo, and anthony braxton; bassists mchaka uba and leonard jones; violinist leroy jenkins; poet david moore (later amus mor); singers fontella bass (of "rescue me" fame) and sherri scott; trom­ bonist lester lashley; and vibraphonist gordon emanuel, who was later ousted in a contentious meeting that resulted in the organization's mem­ bership becoming completely mrican american (radano 1993:90 n. 45). the first articles on the aacm in the united states began to appear as early as 1966 (welding 1966a; 'jazz musicians group," 1966). inter­ national attention was not long in coming: between october of 1966 and december of 1968, a series of ten detailed and highly enthusiastic reports on "the new music" by the young chicago-based producer-critics chuck nessa, john litweiler, and university of chicago microbiologist terry martin, appeared in the canadian journal coda. 6 in 1968, martin pub­ lished the first major european article on the aacm in the english jour­ nal jazz monthly (martin 1968). in 1966, the first commercial recording by an aacm composer, roscoe mitchell's sound, was released by an inde­ pendent chicago-based firm, delmark records, and in may of 1967, philip cohran released two seven-inch recordings of his music on his own zulu records label (cohran 1967). as early as 1968, the now-landmark series of delmark and nessa recordings of aacm music by abrams, jarman, mitchell, and bowie were becoming known in europe (james 1968; cooke 1968, 1968a; harrison 1969; "press release," 1969). 108 current musicology aacm members manifested a strong belief in the importance and the inevitable success of the collective mission, even in the face of the tragic deaths of two of its youngest members, christopher gaddy in 1968 ("final bar," 1968) and charles clark in 1969 ("final bar," 1969). serious finan­ cial problems, both for the organization and for most individual members, had not forestalled the fulfillment of one of the organization's stated purposes, the founding of the aacm school of music. the collective gath­ ered on saturdays at 9:00 a.m., first to conduct the aacm school's free classes in theory, composition, and various instruments (still conducted each saturday, as of 2002), and then for rehearsals and meetings. an unpublished, fictional journal/narrative by pianist claudine myers, written around this time, depicts some of the dreams and aspirations of an organization in harmony. the narrative's dramatic setting is a saturday afternoon at the abraham lincoln centre, where aacm members are go­ ing about their creative business in an optimistic, hopeful spirit. musicians such as maurice mcintyre, leo smith, and anthony braxton appear among the playfully drawn "characters," and nicknames are used for oth­ ers, such as john stubblefield ("stub"), fontella bass ("fonnie"), and roscoe mitchell ("the rock"). since the narrative carried the eponymous byline of one "ariae," a certain "claudine" herself appears as a character: i. walked in the auditorium. stub was playing the piano; anthony braxton sweeping. leo was cleaning the office. claudine proceeded to the rock's desk. she told leo that she was going to study with anthony to learn his theories on notation, sounds ... leo said, "get your own thing. you don't need someone else's. no one can say i'm playing someone else's thing." ii. while maurice's group is rehearsing, rock, braxton and leo en­ ter. "we're stealing your song, rock. you've got a hit!" (they were speaking of rock's composition, "rock suite"). rock replied, "when we get our own record company, we'll put it on a 45." iii. anthony came down with his contrabass clarinet, "the rock" had his bass sax. later fonnie and claudine sang and played the pi­ ano. fonnie and claudine threw in a little 500 rummy to make the day complete (smile). (myers 1968) fudividualism, self-realization, and atmosphere aacm members have been connected with a vast range of musical styles, including jazz, blues, gospel, r&b, rock, funk, computer music, and pan-european classical and contemporary forms. attempts by critics to identify a unitary "aacm style," however, appear to have been largely gengeorge e. lewis 109 eralized from the methods of a few of the more prominent early mem­ bers. for muhal richard abrams, "there is no uniform musical style of the aacm ... the style of the aacm consists above all in encouraging people to be self-assured. that is our style" (jost 1982:189).7 in 1977, the jazz critic whitney balliett quoted an unnamed aacm musician's answer to a query about "the" aacm sound: "if you take all the sounds of all the a.a.c.m. musicians and put them together, that's the a.a.c.m. sound, but i don't think anyone's heard that yet" (balliett 1977:92). there was, in fact, strong resistance within the aacm to overarching dogmas. as anthony braxton observed, "the diversity of its composite in­ vestigation has been the strength of the organization" (braxton 1985:420). the management of difference was indeed a critical element in maintain­ ing the life of the organization, since not only musical directions, but also social and political philosophies held by individual members, varied widely. as a result, aacm meetings could be very contentious, and ex­ tremely heated debate was common. informing aacm practice to a much deeper extent than one sympa­ thetic scholar's notion of "aesthetic spiritualism" (radano 1993:100-5) were the aacm ideologies of "individualism," "self-realization," and "at­ mosphere." in aacm parlance, the term "individualism" generally con­ noted a conflation of personality and innovation. as expressed by muhal richard abrams at a 1990 symposium on the aacm, "the aacm inspires individuals to be individuals" (de lerma 1990: 17). this focus on the indi­ vidual is consistent with mrican american musical practice generally. the notion of "sound" becomes "one's own sound," connected not with deraci­ nated, autonomous analytic morphologies, but with notions of individual expression, agency, personal responsibility, uniqueness, and the avoidance of imitation. mter all, the thinking goes, one's own sound-by definition -constitutes something as new to the world as one's very own birth, and therefore cannot have been heard before. as max roach maintained, "our music isn't one that demands, 'okay, we're going to turn out a group of charlie parkers ... ' we allow each other the luxury of being an individual ... he receives the highest praise if he does break through, but in the sense that he's an individual like parker, not that he sounds like him" (parks 1973:64). while celebrating the individual, members of the aacm, practically without exception, tended to see their membership in the collective as equally important to their creative lives. ''the organization," as it was com­ monly called, constituted the foundation of an "atmosphere" that was cru­ cial to the nurturing of creative difference within collectivity. original member fred anderson felt that "it's about everybody getting a possibility to express themselves ... because when you create that kind of atmosphere, 110 current musicology then you know that something will come out of it" (jost 1982:208). saxo­ phonist chico freeman, who would become a part of the aacm's "second wave," felt that "the purpose of the aacm remains to try to create an atmosphere where we can try to reach our own individual potentials" (gans 1980:47). the investigations of individual musicians were viewed as being un­ bound by constructions of genre, method, tradition, or race. as joseph jarman put it, "if you're a writer, it's your responsibility to find out every­ thing you possibly can so that you can find out what words are about. if you're going to be a musician, it's your responsibility to find out every­ thing you possibly can about every form of music in the whole universe." issuing an oblique, yet pointedly universal challenge to the policing and channeling of black musical artists, jarman goes on to advocate an artistic and intellectual mobility that freely crossed musical borders: "now that may be a new concept because up until the late '60s, we were always cate­ gorized, and it was only possible for you to self-realize certain situations. but then we began to realize that if you began to self-realize, you became a universal property, and then you must use the whole spectrum of con­ scious reality" (kostakis 1977:4). in a very real sense, this intellectual diver­ sity and methodological catholicity is a question of sheer survival. if the subaltern cannot speak, then he or she is certainly obliged to listen. the three waves and the move to paris the evolution of the aacm's membership has been described by many writers as a succession of waves, or groups of individuals who came to­ gether at a particular point in time in the geographic space of chicago. many of these musicians, from the first two waves in particular, became crucial actors in the mid-1970s aacm "invasion" of new york city, and it is to these musicians that i want to pay particular attention. the first wave consisted of two parts. first, there were the founding and original members who attended the initial organizational meetings and organized the first concerts. those first-wave members who were later ac­ tive in new york included co-founders steve mccall and richard abrams, as well as original members fred anderson, roscoe mitchell, amina claudine myers, malachi favors, thurman barker, joseph jarman, and maurice mcintyre. within two years of its founding, the aacm began to attract a second part of this first wave, including leo smith, lester bowie, henry threadgill, anthony braxton, john stubblefield, leroy jenkins, and bassist fred hopkins. the organization's artistically successful example of how black musi­ cians could assert control over their destinies had already inspired saxo­ phonists oliver lake and julius hemphill to take leading roles in the george e. lewis iii founding of the other important midwestern collective, the black artists group (bag) of st. louis, in 1968. bag adopted the even more radically ambitious mandate of organizing not only musicians, but visual and per­ formance artists, writers, and choreographers as well. bag established schools that featured instruction in visual art, movement, theater, and mu­ sic. its membership included visual and performance artists patricia and emilio cruz; trombonist joseph bowie (the younger brother of aacm trumpeter lester bowie); trumpeters baikida e. j. carroll and floyd leflore; theater artists portia hunt and malinke robert elliott; dance artist georgia collins; cellist abdul wadud; painter oliver jackson; drum­ mer charles bobo shaw; poets k curtis lyle and ajule rudin; and saxo­ phonists james jabbo ware, j. d. parran, and hamiet bluiett. between 1969 and 1971, bag and aacm members developed a series of exchange concerts in which each collective presented its members' work in the other's home city (cf. litweiler 1969; lipsitz 2000; looker 2001).8 by 1969, the minds of many members were on widening the audience for their music still further. john stubblefield had already decided to try to establish himself in new york-the only aacm member to do so before 1970. for several other members, moving to this traditional mecca for jazz musicians-as so many chicago musicians had done before them-proved less attractive than exploring international opportunities. these members decided to take the aacm message to paris. since the early 1960s, the french capital had become perhaps the most accommodating of any city in the world to the new black american music.9 for aacm musicians, working in paris presented a clear statement that becoming known in the wider world beyond the united states could be just as effective as being accepted in the largest american city. by pre­ senting their music in paris first, the aacm members helped to expand the range of conceivable options for their fellow chicago musicians beyond the fascination with new york that tended to define their career trajectories. 10 within days of their arrival in paris in june of 1969, four aacm mem­ bers, roscoe mitchell, joseph jarman, malachi favors, and lester bowie, billing themselves as the "art ensemble of chicago," caused an immediate sensation with the first of their regular performances at the theatre du lucernaire in the montparnasse district. the group's unusual hybrid of energy, multi-instrumentalism, humor, silence, found sounds, and home­ made instruments-and most crucially, extended collective improvisation instead of heroic individual solos-proved revelatory to european audi­ ences ("press release," 1969a). following closely on the heels of the art ensemble were leroy jenkins, leo smith, and anthony braxton, who ar­ rived in paris that same month and quickly garnered important notice for 112 current musicology their work as well. by 1972, bag artists oliver lake, julius hemphill, floyd leflore, and joseph bowie had joined the expatriate music commu­ nity in paris, receiving similar acclaim for their work. press reception in france was voluminous and overwhelmingly positive; between 1969 and 1974, citations of the work of the paris-based aacm and bag musicians abound in the pages of the two major french jazz magazines, jazz and jazz hot. already in october of 1969, a photo of joseph jarman on the cover of jazz hot announced a feature story on the aacm. on christmas eve 1969, jarman's full-page poem (jarman 1969) was pub­ lished in le monde, the major french newspaper, on the occasion of the release of the art ensemble's paris-recorded album, people in sorrow (art ensemble of chicago 1969). despite the group's slogan, "great black music," the variegated visual and sonic iconography of the art ensemble came from around the world. writer daniel caux describes the complexity of the scene facing concert­ goers at the first aec performance at the lucernaire: the stage of this curious, 140-seat theater is nearly entirely overrun by a multitude of instruments: xylophones, bassoon, sarrusophone, various saxophones, clarinets, banjo, cymbals, gongs, bells, bass drum, balafon, rattles etc. ... the first night, listeners were surprised to see joseph jarman, with naked torso and painted face, passing slowly through the aisles murmuring a poem while the bassist malachi favors, wearing a mask of terror, screamed curses at lester bowie, and roscoe mitchell operated various car horns. (caux 1969:8) jarman explains: we were representing history, from the ancient to the future. malachi always represents the oldest entity ... he would look like an mrican/egyptian shaman ... moye was really in the midst of the mrican tradition ... not a single mrican tradition, but a total mrican tradition ... i was eastern oriented. these three were the pantheistic element of mrica and asia. roscoe represented the main-stream sort of shaman, the urban delivery man ... lester was always the investigator, wearing cook clothes, which is healing, creat­ ing energy and food. (beauchamp 1998:74-75) creating relationships with more established experimentalists proved far easier in paris than in new york. jarman observed in an october 1969 interview in jazz hot, "we really tried to meet these people in new york, but apparently, there are some difficulties" (caux 1969a).11 steve mccall, george e. lewis 113 the very first aacm member to visit europe, provided entree for the new­ comers into the expatriate and itinerant musicians' community in paris (beauchamp 1998:74). mccall also provided a link to the first wave of european free jazz musicians, such as german vibraphonist gunter hampel and dutch saxophonist willem breuker. 12 aacm members living in europe vigorously promoted the aacm name and philosophy as they presented performances throughout the continent. interviews with european-based aacm members in french journals brought other, still relatively unknown chicago-based members to the attention of european promoters and journalists, preparing the ground for future generations of aacm members to receive a hearing. these interviews invariably mentioned the aacm itself as an important source of strength and nurturance. by the late 1970s, both the promo­ tional and musical efforts bore fruit; the entire december/january 197879 issue of jazz hot was devoted to the aacm. nonetheless, by 1971 most of the aacm expatriates had left europe. while it is impossible to generalize about the reasons for their departure, in 1998 lester bowie remembered that "we wanted to go back to the states because we wanted to be home ... to me it ain't no gas to be freil"ch. i like being an american negro" (beauchamp 1998:43). those who came back to chicago found their aacm colleagues, such as claudine myers, henry threadgill, muhal richard abrams, maurice mcintyre, and thurman barker, continuing to hold meetings and present aacm con­ certs. 13 in addition, a number of new members had appeared, including saxophonists chico freeman, douglas ewart, edward wilkerson, and mwata bowden; percussionist kahil ei-zabar; trumpeters malachi thompson and rasul siddik; vocalist iqua colson; pianist adegoke steve colson; and my­ self as a trombonist. this so-called "second wave" of aacm musicians had been enculturated into the set of values developed in the aacm's self­ realized atmospheric hothouse: economic and musical collectivity, a composer-centered ideology, methodological diversity, and freedom of cultural reference. but not all of the sojourners returned to chicago. in fact, a kind of aacm diaspora began to form, with some musicians trying to become es­ tablished on the east coast, in california, and in the south, while others moved to midwestern rural environments distant from major cities. some musicians attempted to replicate the aacm experience in their local com­ munities. leo smith helped found the creative musicians improvisors forum in connecticut. roscoe mitchell moved to a farmhouse near a small michigan town and founded the detroit-based creative arts col­ lective, along with guitarist a. spencer barefield, saxophonist anthony holland, drummer tani tabbal, and bassistjaribu shahid. 114 current musicology back in france, lester bowie had waxed enthusiastic, stating his inten­ tion to "establish the aacm everywhere, in every corner of the universe" (caux 1969a:17). now, both the tremendous publicity cachet and the depth of new professional associations gained from the paris experience provided a springboard for a small coterie of aacm members to try to seek performance opportunities in another particularly vital corner of the universe-new york city. scouting the territory: new york, spring 1970 john stubblefield and drummer phillip wilson(who, while not an aacm member himself, was a frequent and highly valued collaborator) were already on hand when anthony braxton and leroy jenkins returned from europe in 1970 to pursue an encounter with new york city. al­ though performance opportunities and press coverage were relatively sparse, these aacm musicians performed with many of the more estab­ lished experimentalists of the period, such as marion brown, rahsaan roland kirk, sam rivers, chick corea, ornette coleman, and archie shepp. in many cases, these encounters simply extended the relationships aacm members had initiated in paris. the first wave of new york-based aacm musicians presented their own work in concert programs of both contemporary notated music and improvised music. in may of 1970, promoter kunle mwanga organized perhaps the first aacm concert in new york, at the washington square methodist church (peace church) in the west village. featured was the "creative construction company," consisting of leroy jenkins, anthony braxton, muhal richard abrams, steve mccall, leo smith, and chicago­ born bassist richard davis (palmer 1975; primack 1976).14 by 1973, anthony braxton had managed to garner notice in the new york times for an alice tully hall performance of his chamber work, "l:j-637/c"; the year before, he had followed in the footsteps of ornette coleman by renting town hall for a performance of his work. between 1972 and 1974, the fortunes of aacm members in new york began to change, with so-called "major label" recording contracts for the art ensemble of chicago in 1972 (atlantic), and for anthony braxton in 1974 (arista). in july of 1973, the first new york concert of the art en­ semble of chicago took place at columbia university's wollman audi­ torium, as part of promoter george wein's newportjazz festival. the new york times's advance article for the festival was written by robert palmer, a member of an emerging critical advance guard that was promulgating new ways of writing about improvised music in the new york press. palmer describes some of the art ensemble's musical methods as remi­ niscent of various elements of black jazz and r&b traditions, but avoids traditional jazz journalism's tendency to deploy historical jazz icons as a george e. lewis 115 means of quickly, yet all too neatly, contextualizing a particular per­ former's work within a constructed jazz tradition. rather, evoking a post­ modernist contextualization, the article descriptively expands the frame of reference, comparing the art ensemble's work to "developments in the vi­ sual arts; themes, variations, solos and ensemble passages alternate in a continuous flow that is comparable to a collage of apparently disparate objects and images" (palmer 1973). black music of two worlds samuel gilmore's sociological analysis of the new york "concert music world" of the early 1980s (i.e., ostensibly excluding jazz, pop, or other "vernacular" genres) draws upon the methods of symbolic interactionism in identifying three major art world divisions-uptown, midtown, and downtown-that by the early 1970s, had become fairly well-defined, if "imagined," communities. while as of this writing, the terms "uptown," "midtown," and "downtown" are still used in new york, it must be empha­ sized that in the 1970s, as now, the art worlds to which they refer interpen­ etrated one another to a considerable extent to form an overall "art mu­ sic" scene in new york. gilmore sees the term "midtown" as denoting major symphony orches­ tras, touring soloists, and chamber groups active in large, well-funded, commercially-oriented performing spaces, such as lincoln center and carnegie hall. "uptown" refers to academically situated composers "of whom the public has rarely heard ... but who win the pulitzer prize every year" (gilmore 1987:213). for gilmore, these representative "uptown" composers included milton babbitt, charles wuorinen, and elliott carter; representative performance ensembles included the group for con­ temporary music, then directed by composers harvey sollberger and charles wuorinen; and speculum musicae, which then featured the very diverse and insightful pianist, ursula oppens. gilmore identifies the term "downtown" as referring to "the composer/ performer, living in small performance lofts in soho, tribeca, and near alternative performance spaces in greenwich village." representative venues included the kitchen, the multidisciplinary performance space founded in 1971 by the video artists steina and woody vasulka, which by 1975 had become a central part of new york's new music scene; inter­ media artist phill niblock's experimental intermedia foundation; and later roulette, founded by trombonist jim staley and sound artist david weinstein. representative artists active in this downtown art world included john cage, philip glass, philip corner, robert ashley, and lamonte young. these artists, and others in their circle, might be brought under the head­ ing of "downtown 1," to distinguish their putative post-cage commonality 116 current musicology from the post-1980 construction of "downtown," or "downtown ii," most prominently represented by saxophonist john zorn, vocalist shelley hirsch, sound artist david moss, and guitarists fred frith, eugene chad­ bourne, and elliott sharp, among many others.l5 both downtown i and downtown ii are generally coded in press accounts as white, and by the late 1980s, such accounts routinely portrayed downtown ii as the logical successor to downtown i's connection with pan-european high culture. between 1973 and 1977 a sudden and dramatic shift was occurring in experimental music in new york, in which the aacm was to playa crucial role. part of this shift was occurring in the critical domain. the younger times music writers, including robert palmer, john rockwell, and jon pareles, were acquainted with a wide range of musical aesthetics and prac­ tices, and thus less invested in maintaining traditional taxonomies. in a re­ view of lincoln center's 1974 "new and newer music" festival, rockwell announced (some might say "warned of") changes in the relationship of jazz with "serious contemporary music." rockwell contrasts the standard bebop-era image of "somber-looking black men wearing berets," playing in "dim, smoky clubs," with that of "short-haired white people peering in­ dustriously through their spectacles at densely notated pages of ... gen­ teelly complex music in genteelly academic environments." the writer goes on to note that the border between "experimental jazz" and contem­ porary music was routinely being crossed in the "downtown" environment. "for several years in downtown lofts, the same faces have been turning up among the performers at avant-garde jazz concerts and avant-garde 'serious' new-music concerts" (rockwell 1974). rockwell went on to present an optimistically color-blind analysis of the situation: "the national endowment for the arts, the new york state council on the arts [and] the guggenheim foundation are just as likely to give their grants to ornette coleman as to charles wuorinen" (ibid.). of course, the real situation was far less sanguine. in 1971, the 'jazz and people's movement," organized by rahsaan roland kirk, roswell rudd, and archie shepp, had staged a "play-in" at the offices of the john simon guggenheim foundation in new york, "demanding an end to the obvious and blatant racist policies ... in the allocation of awards" ("guggenheim to mingus," 1971). indeed, nea funding for music was hypersegregated according to racialized categories of 'jazz/folk/ ethnic" and "music," with the latter category apparently intended to denote, to recall rockwell's phrase, "short-haired white people" creating "genteelly complex music in genteelly academic environments." in 1973, the nea disbursed over $225,000 to 165 individuals and or­ ganizations applying to its 'jazz-folk-ethnic" category. composition grants for commissioning new works were provided; no grant exceeded $2,000, including those given to such important artists as pianist cedar walton, george e. lewis 117 saxophonist clifford jordan, and composer duke jordan. several aacm members received grants, including lester bowie ($750), malachi favors ($1,000), trumpeter frank gordon ($1,500), joseph jarman ($1,000), leroy jenkins ($2,000), roscoe mitchell ($1,000), don moye ($1,000), and leo smith ($1,000) ('jazz grants," 1973). the next year, the new "composer-librettist" category-as it happens, one of the less well-funded of several categories under which pan-european music could be supported -was allocated nearly twice the amount allotted to the jazz-folk-ethnic cat­ egory, with grants of $10,000 to george rochberg and john harbison. other grants were received by vladimir ussachevsky ($7,500), charles wuorinen ($3,500), morton subotnick ($7,000), charles dodge ($4,500), steve reich ($2,000), otto luening ($6,000), and barbara kolb ($2,000) ("$407,276 in grants," 1974).16 despite the obvious presence of the border in terms of financial sup­ port, in other respects many of the changes rockwell had announced were indeed in the air. the "new and newer music" taking place at ornette coleman's prince street performance loft, artists house, which he had been renting since 1970, featured works by coleman, carla bley, and frederic rzewski-"successive evenings of jazz and classical avant­ garde, and works that fuse the two" (rockwell 1974). by 1975, black exper­ imental music was starting to be featured at such midtown venues as carnegie recital hall. gary giddins and peter occhiogrosso, and later stanley crouch, writ­ ing for both the village voice and the now-defunct soho weekly news, were. becoming instrumental in covering this newest black experimental music, which they discursively folded into the previous decade's conception of "avant-garde jazz." their articles came sporadically, perhaps every other month or so; certainly there was no concentrated, dedicated press cover­ age of these black experimentalists that could be considered analogous to composer tom johnson's weekly voice columns on downtown i, which were instrumental in furthering the careers of robert ashley, steve reich, meredith monk, philip glass, pauline oliveros, glenn branca, and othersj7 even a small amount of publicity for a musician, however, is like an in­ fusion of life-giving oxygen in outer space-or as art blakey is said to have observed, "if you don't appear, you disappear." partially as a result of this press coverage, word was getting back to aacm members in chicago through the musician's grapevine that new york was beckoning, with po­ tential opportunities far beyond what was available in chicago at the time. the final invasion between 1975 and 1977, it seemed to a chicago-based musician like my­ self that one was hearing something exciting about new york every week. glowing, if often apocryphal, reports came back from new york about 118 current musicology playing with famous musicians, enthusiastic audiences, opportunities for foreign travel, and so on. at the same time, it was becoming clear to many who tried that it was not very realistic to organize events in new york from afar using the same techniques one used for finding work in other american cities. as one person asked me over the phone: "are you in new york? no? well, we'll talk when you get here." in a sense, the pressure was becoming unbearable, and perhaps these hopeful signs served to "set people flowin' ," to borrow farah griffin's phrase about mrican american migration narratives (griffin 1995). in the fashion of a river overflowing its banks, members of the aacm's second wave, along with the chicago-based remnants of the first wave-including, most importantly, founder muhal richard abrams-moved to new york, seemingly en masse. joining those already on the east coast, this grand wave, including kalaparusha, lester bowie, amina claudine myers, henry threadgill, steve mccall, fred hopkins, chico freeman, malachi thomp­ son, iqua colson, adegoke colson, and myself, all moved to manhattan or the new york area during this time. members of bag, including charles bobo shaw, baikida e. j. carroll, oliver lake, julius hemphill, hamiet bluiett, j. d. parran, joseph bowie, patricia cruz, emilio cruz, and james jabbo ware, had all arrived in new york before this mass migration, forming a powerful group of midwestern colleagues. in addition to this contingent, there was a group of new and exciting californians, in large part the products of pianist horace tapscott's ugmaa, such as saxophonists arthur blythe and david murray; flutist james newton; and trumpeter lawrence "butch" morris. also a product of the ugmaa was the writer stanley crouch (tapscott 2001), who presented many of the new experimentalists in his role as music director at the loft/ club on the bowery, the "tin palace" (dubin 1982:5), as well as in his own upstairs loft at the same bowery location, dubbed "studio infinity." the new music of the aacm, bag, and the californians was in the process of becoming widely influential. robert palmer wrote of the aacm and bag that "their originality becomes more and more evident. their improvisation ranges from solo saxophone recitals to little-tried combina­ tions of horns, rhythm instruments and electronics. they have rendered the clamorous playing characteristic of much of new york's jazz avant­ garde all but obsolete with their more thoughtful approaches to improvi­ sational structure and content" (palmer 1976). the arrival in new york of aacm co-founder muhal richard abrams provided an occasion for perhaps the most extensive village voice article on the aacm's growing influence on black experimentalism. in a may 1977 article, giddins declared that" [abrams's] presence here is a crest on the wave of immigrant musicians recently arrived from st. louis, los george e. lewis 119 angeles, and especially chicago." the article's focus on the history of the aacm sought "to get to the bottom of why an inner-city organization from the midwest founded in 1965 should revitalize new york's music scene a decade later." giddins observed that "a distinguishing characteristic of the new movement is that it isn't a movement at all, at least not one with closed stylistic parameters" (giddins 1977:46). the writer's quote from leo smith summarizes well the intentions of this non-movement: "[the aacm] represents the control of destiny for the music and the artist" (ibid.:48) . some aacm members were ambivalent about being based in new york. those new york-based members who did comment on their experi­ ences in the city valued above all their access to colleagues of the highest quality, and proximity to business opportunities. in a french-language in­ terview in 1977, abrams said that "it's good for work. in the united states, new york is an important market; if you want to be known beyond your lo­ cal area, sooner or later you have to have business in new york" (bourget 1977:22). kalaparusha was of the same opinion: "new york is a business center, the capital of the music business, that's all. that's why most musi­ cians who want to live from their work are in new york" (marmande 1977:33). on the other hand, in an interview with valerie wilmer, amina claudine myers noted that many of the promotional strategies and colle­ gialities that had worked in the chicago days of the aacm were far less effective in the very different and unfamiliar environment of new york: "in chicago when i wanted to do a concert, i'd just set it up. i'd go out and put up my flyers. now you can do this in new york but it's definitely not that easy. chicago has a large black population but new york is alto­ gether a different thing. the pressures are much different" (wilmer 1979:6). some of these pressures were gender-related: "i was always en­ couraged, except for one time. that was in new york about two years ago when 1 ran across a male ego ... 1 ran across some real games that some ofthe men musicians played in new york" (ibid.:5). furthermore, even as they acknowledged the central role that new york has traditionally played in musicians' aspirations, aacm members tended to challenge that role where it conflicted with their ideals of methodological mobility. as in chicago, some aacm artists in new york saw the jazz community as it was then constructed as only a part of their overall reference base. pursuing membership to varying degrees in a panoply of sociomusical and career networks, including those traditionally centering on high-culture "art music," aacm musicians in new york artic­ ulated a definitional shift away from rigidly defined and racialized notions of lineage and tradition, toward a more fluid, dialogic relationship with a 120 current musicology variety of musical practices that problematized the putative 'jazz" label as it was applied to them. for these musicians, pan-european contemporary music was not a distant, disembodied influence, nor was it something to be feared, avoided, or worshipped. rather, musicians articulated participa­ tion across genres, as well as exchanges of musical methods. advancing a notion of hybridity and mobility across and through media, traditions, and materials meant not only the freedom to draw from a potentially infinite number of musical sources, but also the freedom to explore a diverse array of infrastructures and modes of presentation. in may of 1977, the aacm, seeking to do in new york what some of its members had done in paris-that is, bring to the fore aacm musicians who were not as well known-collaborated with taylor storer, then a stu­ dent worker at columbia university's radio station wkcr, to produce an ambitious four-day concert series at wollman auditorium. wkcr was al­ ready one of new york's most adventurous radio stations, programming a wide variety of musics that rarely received a hearing through commercial outlets. as a preview of the festival, billed as "chicago comes to new york," the station broadcast ninety consecutive hours of music, interviews, and unpublished recordings of aacm members (palmer 1977). thus, one sunny chicago afternoon, a contingent of aacm members and associates loaded their instruments and suitcases onto a rented greyhound-style bus bound for new york. on board were a large number of musicians who had seldom performed in new york up to that time, or who were just then trying to become established there. is on the final evening of the series, the aacm orchestra, conducted by muhal richard abrams, gave a performance of a single untitled work lasting one and one­ half hours. the work, which included all of the members who had been present, featured an instrumental complement of eight reeds, two trum­ pets, two trombones, four percussionists, three pianists, and three singers (balliett 1977:96). this work, as well as the festival as a whole, was the subject of a long, searching article in the new yorker, written by veteran jazz writer whitney balliett, that presented a context and history of the aacm as he saw it. the article, which reports on each of the concerts in great detail, provides what is perhaps one of the most meticulous and richly contextualized ac­ counts of aacm musical performances to appear in any american publi­ cation. describing some of the music heard in the ninety-hour radio broadcast as "beautiful, infuriating, savage, surrealistic, boring, and often highly original," the writer described his conception of the aacm's com­ posite vision: "the broadcast revealed a ferocious determination to bring into being a new and durable music-a hard-nosed utopian music, without racial stigmata, without cliches, and without commercialism" (ibid.:92). george e. lewis 121 the loft period in new york, much of the most radical experimental work was taking place in small performance lofts and other alternative spaces. the loft net­ work developed for most of the same reasons as the "downtown new mu­ sic" loft movement; it was part of the general move among experimental musicians of various genres to develop alternative spaces that avoided the codes and genre-policing of conventional jazz and classical performance. thus, ornette coleman's artists house was started for many of the same reasons as the kitchen-namely (recalling the aacm press release of 1965), "to provide an atmosphere that is conducive to serious music." both art worlds needed alternative spaces in order to get their experimen­ tal work before the public, expanding the set of positions available for the music. the venues and social networks to which these new spaces constituted "alternatives," however, were vastly different according to genre, and most frequently, race as well. until the mid-1960s, "serious" (i.e., pan­ european) new music, including the early work of john cage and the new york school, was conceived largely for traditional concert halls, a legacy bequeathed by the previous generations of midtown and uptown within this overall art world. countering the dominant upper-class ideology which maintained that such halls were the venue of choice for "serious" music-and, incidentally, almost exclusively for that music and no other­ younger white artists of the 1960s began experimenting with gallery spaces, specially designed site-specific spaces, outdoor spaces, and the likej9 for the black musicians, on the other hand, the "club," rather than the concert hall, had been heavily ideologized as the ideal, even the geneti­ cally best-suited space for their music. early on, however, black experi­ mentalists realized that serious engagement with theater and perform­ ance, painting, poetry, electronics, and other interdisciplinary expressions that require extensive infrastructure, would be generally rendered ineffec­ tive or even impossible by the jazz club model. in this light, the supposed obligation to perform in clubs began to appear as a kind of unwanted surveillance of the black creative body. by 1976 the loft was being touted in the new york alternative press as the new jazz club, inheriting from its predecessor the minimal infrastruc­ ture and the related discourse of "intimacy." indeed, some of the early lofts sought to emulate traditional jazz club environments, with tables, drink minimums, and smoking, but many lofts provided some version of the concert environment, with concert seating and, at times, light refresh­ ments (giddins 1976). other musician-organized or directed lofts in­ cluded the la mama children's workshop theater, where la mama founder ellen stewart worked with bag drummer charles bobo shaw; 122 current musicology pianist john fischer's "environ"; drummer rashied ali's studio 77 ("ali's alley"); and perhaps the most adventurous and long-lived of the improvisors' lofts, sam and bea rivers's studio rivbea. loft proprietors would often band together to present "alternative" fes­ tivals featuring musical approaches that were either excluded or poorly represented by the ordinarily "mainstream" jazz policy of standard new york clubs and festivals, such as the newportjazz festival. the five-lp col­ lection wildflowers: the new york loft jazz sessions, recorded at studio rivbea's 1976 spring music festival and originally released in 1977 (wildflowers 1977, 1977a, 1977b, 1977c, 1977d) constitutes a handy sum­ mary of some of the ideas and practices about improvisation that were be­ ing explored during this period by the loosely-associated group of musi­ cians dubbed "the loft generation"-a term whose ephemerality the musicians are no doubt quite grateful for today. on these recordings, the newcomers from the midwest and the west, who were now being represented in the new york, european, and asian press as part of an emerging "loft jazz" movement, were heavily repre­ sented. among the aacm newcomers presented were roscoe mitchell, anthony braxton, kalaparusha maurice mcintyre, don moye, leo smith, and myself as trombonist, as well as the collective air, with henry threadgill, fred hopkins, and steve mccall. from the bag diaspora (the group itself had disbanded in 1972), there was abdul wadud, charles bobo shaw, oliver lake,julius hemphill, and hamiet bluiett.20 in his regular monthly column in the now-defunct men's magazine players (a kind of african american playboy), stanley crouch., who per­ formed on drums in several of the performances on "wildflowers," re­ viewed the live performances that the recordings later documented. crouch hailed the new music on these recordings as "significant for its variety, its craftsmanship, and finally, its often breathtaking beauty and clarity of its artistry." for crouch, hemphill was "masterful," while mitchell's performance was "almost as exciting and great as anything i've heard from coltrane, rollins and ornette coleman" (crouch 1977:6). it can fairly be said that the loft period provided entry-level support for an emerging multiracial network of musicians; key players in this network included not only the californians, bag and the aacm, but many others, both black and white.21 many of these musicians deeply resented the re­ duction of the diversity of their approaches to the term "loft jazz." chico freeman's reaction was typical: "then, and i don't know where it came from, somebody came up with this term, 'loft jazz.' not just me, but every musician who was involved in it vehemently opposed that" (tesser 1980:28). not only was there little or no agreement as to what methods or sounds were being described by the term, but as bassist fred hopkins related in a 1984 interview, "the funniest thing was, the musicians never george e. lewis 123 considered it a movement" (whitehead 1984:24). musicians pointed out that this label, by framing their music as demanding minimal infrastruc­ tural investment, was used to disconnect them from more lucrative eco­ nomic possibilities. a 1977 voice article reported the concerns of musicians that "constant press association with lofts has undermined their commer­ cial viability with european promoters, since lofts have come to be synony­ mous with percentage-of-the door payments" (giddins 1977a). nonetheless, critics defended the label, and felt confident in assigning musicians to this amorphous category, while at the same time admitting its descriptive inadequacies. for instance, in countering what he viewed as "misconceptions," giddins asserted the tautology that "there is neither a loft nor an aacm style of jazz. loft jazz is any jazz played in a loft." with this, the taxonomic policing mechanism that at once connected the signi­ fiers "aacm," "loft," and 'jazz" created a tightly bound, multiply-mediated corset that the aacm's mobility and border-crossing strategies were already shredding. at any rate, by the early 1980s the loft jazz phenomenon was all but dead in new york, the victim of competition for the attention of the new musicians from better-funded, higher-infrastructure new york spaces, such as broadway producer joseph papp's public theatre; midtown spaces such as carnegie recital hall; and downtown lofts such as the kitchen, all of which had engagement policies that mirrored to some extent those of the lofts (keepnews 1979). even rock spaces such as cbgb briefly featured loftjazz veterans alongside the "art-rock" of groups like the theoretical girls. moreover, the more established artists could obtain work at tradi­ tional club spaces, such as sweet basil and the village gate, to say nothing of the expanded opportunities then becoming available in europe. also important were issues of individual support; it is not difficult to imagine that it could have proved daunting for individual musicians such as sam rivers to compose and perform new work while directing an ongoing concert series. beyond a binary as early as 1975, it was becoming increasingly unclear as to exactly whose purview it was to critique the new hybrid music. voice writer gary giddins mused openly on how the blurring of boundaries that was taking place across ethnic and genre divides was affecting critical commentary. he begins with an admission: "i know something of john cage's theories, but virtually nothing of his music as a living thing. this is pretty strange when you consider how many of the people 1 write about acknowledge cage as an influence" (giddins 1975:106). giddins goes on to acknowl­ edge the asymmetrical power dynamic symbolized by the separation of genres in his own newspaper, with its twin headings of "music" (i.e., reviews 124 current musicology of work from the high culture west) and "riffs," the low-culture, diminu­ tively-imaged rest. noticing that "much avant-garde music, whether jazz or classicist, is moving in similar directions," the article suggested that tom johnson, then the voice's "downtown" critic, might move outside of his normative "music" purview to investigate anthony braxton, while he, as a "riffs" columnist, would discover philip glass. giddins even invokes a version of the one-drop rule to speculate (perhaps with a naive humor) about what would happen if glass and braxton made a recording together: "since black blood is more powerful than white, as any mulatto will attest, braxton would presumably render glass non-music and both would be filed as a riff" (ibid.). eventually, giddins and johnson, among many others, would be obliged to actually encounter music that incorporated references outside of their usual spheres of study. in particular, it was becoming obvious that aacm events were presented in a great diversity of spaces-jazz and new music lofts, clubs, concert halls, and parks. inevitably, just as the black community of chicago broke out of the south side bantustan to which restrictive covenants and discriminatory laws and customs had confined its members, the aacm was destined to run roughshod over many conven­ tional assumptions about infrastructure, reference, and place. at first, these determined efforts to produce new music that blurred boundaries and exhibited multiplicity of reference were lauded, particu­ larly in the jazz press. an important bellwether of jazz fashion and com­ mercial impact are the two annual down beat magazine popularity polls­ one a compilation of the opinions of "recognized" critics, published in the summer, the other a mail-in poll for readers and subscribers appearing just before the december holidays. in 1971, perhaps the first aacm musi­ cians to be recognized in these polls were lester bowie, joseph jarman, roscoe mitchell, and malachi favors. the art ensemble of chicago was also recognized, and anthony braxton and leroy jenkins, who were then based in new york, were also listed. over the next couple of years, jarman took first place in one of these polls, muhal richard abrams was men­ tioned for the first time, and the art ensemble, braxton, kalaparusha, and jenkins were all winners. in 1976, the number of aacm and bag musicians listed in these polls rose markedly. often listed in multiple categories, new names, such as those of the trio air, fred hopkins, henry threadgill, julius hemphill, leo smith, oliver lake, hamiet bluiett, don moye,joseph bowie, and my own, all appeared. in 1977, braxton's creative orchestra music 1976 (braxton 1976) was the critics' poll "record of the year," and over the next few years, amina claudine myers, steve mccall, abdul wadud, douglas ewart, and chico freeman found places on the poll listings. in george e. lewis 125 1980, air's "air lore" (air 1979) was also selected as the critics' "record of the year"; other new names, such as the world saxophone quartet of lake, hemphill, bluiett, and david murray, were appearing as well.22 thus, it would appear that at least at first, the business gamble of so many midwestern musicians had paid off. in time, however, some aspects of the evolution of their music met with considerable resistance from a va­ riety of entrenched sectors of new york's jazz and new music communi­ ties. bogged down in binary systems-black/white, jazz/ classical, high culture/low culture-critical reception in particular eventually became quite often frankly dismissive of the extensive engagement with extended notated form, electronics and computers, graphic scores, and traditionally­ notated works (with or without improvisation) realized by aacm musi­ cians in particular. moreover, the cultural and methodological issues that informed the work of aacm composers were often obscured by discus­ sions of whether or not the music was truly 'jazz." a voice review of a 1978 leroy jenkins concert at carnegie recital hall became the occasion for critic giddins to confront some of the same questions that had dogged ellington forty years earlier: "how does this music relate to the jazz tradi­ tion? at what point can jazz be wrenched from its idiomatic integrity?" (giddins 1978a). a related trope informing critical reception on the jazz side articulated concerns about the "authenticity" of hybrid musics-particularly those that incorporate sources from jazz's great competitor, pan-european clas­ sical music. reviewing a muhal richard abrams recording, giddins ex­ presses "some sympathy for the complaint that extrajazz influences water down the idiom" (giddins 1978b:63). in 1979, rafi zabor wrote that "one of the hazards this music may be facing now is the ingestion of a fatal dose of root-devouring western intellectual hunger" (zabor 1979:73). peter occhiogrosso, reviewing a roscoe mitchell concert in 1978, declared that mitchell's work was "uninspired, boring music, music that belongs in the conservatory, music that will hopefully soon go the way of third stream, electronic music and conceptual art ... [it] should be left to academics and people like philip glass" (occhiogrosso 1978: 111). engaging the third stream: the creolization of composition attali notes that the emergence of so-called "free jazz" represented "a profound attempt to win creative autonomy" (1989:138). in challenging the policing of the creative black body and asserting freedom of refer­ ence, ornette coleman was acknowledged by a number of early aacm members as one of the critical forerunners in asserting this autonomy. in abrams's view, "ornette is the only one that really had been an inspiration for the whole field ... ornette was the first to take the risk" (vuisje 1978:196). coleman, then as now, sought to involve himself not so much 126 current musicology in "extending the boundaries of jazz," but in erasing the barriers placed around mrican american creativity generally, and around his work in par­ ticular. seeing himself very early on as in international dialogue with musi­ cians from every field, coleman's string trios and quartets, as well as his orchestral work skies of america (1972), challenged notions of black non­ entitlement to the infrastructural means of experimental music production, and to the impulse of experimentalism itself. at first, coleman's compositions became associated with the third stream practices of composer and conductor gunther schuller; some aacm practices would later be described as congruent with this tradition. while third stream infrastructure may well have been attractive in the un­ dercapitalized field of jazz, its ideology was much less so, with its reifica­ tion of racialized notions of classical and jazz methodology that, as john coltrane observed, was "an attempt to create something, i think, more with labels, you see, than true evolution" (kofsky 1970:240). by 1974, john rockwell could quote conductor dennis russell davies to the effect that the new jazz-classical mixes were not like "the old so-called 'third stream.' " for carla biey, quoted in the same article, third stream prac­ tice meant that "the old forms of jazz were put together with the old forms of the other" (rockwell 1974). as biey clearly implies, by this time third stream concepts of musical form had already been overtaken by more rad­ ical experiments in indeterminacy and other forms of real-time music­ making, notably in the work of christian wolff, earle brown, morton feldman, john cage, and pauline oliveros. for many black artists, as "a metaphor for jazz reaching outside itself and incorporating other ele­ ments, to broaden and diversify" (ratliff 2001), third stream could be viewed as a form of liberal racial uplift. to white artists and audiences, third stream could propose a sublimated image of "miscegenation" with jazz as a source of renewal of the european tradition, proposing a way out of the dilemma of the alienated listener, for which european high modernist composition was being blamed.23 post-1960s mrican american artists like coltrane, however, were under­ standably reluctant to commit to a musical movement in which their cul­ ture was considered a junior partner. most crucially, the third stream movement failed to realize or support the complexity of black musical cul­ ture's independent development of a black experimentalism that, while in dialogue with white high culture, was, like the new negroes of the harlem renaissance, strongly insistent upon the inclusion of the black vernacular, including the imperative of improvisation. moreover, unlike the third stream movement, this independent black experimentalism challenged the centrality of pan-europeanism to the notion of the experimental itself, instead advancing the notion that experimentalism was becoming "creolized. " george e. lewis 127 in this light, the focus in most histories on the role of the improvisor, a trope that has become standard in the historiography and criticism of black american music, cannot account for the diversity of black musical subjectivity exemplified by the aacm. as we can see from the following meeting excerpt, the dominant focus of the aacm as strongly composer­ centered was fostered right from the start, eventually leading to the exten­ sive engagement with notation in so many aacm members' works. richard abrams: now, for the benefit of those who were not here last week, we decided that we in this organization will play only our own music-original compositions or material originating from the members within the group. julian priester: it would seem to be that if you put too many restric­ tions on the activities at this point, you're going to put a lot of obstacles in your way. for instance, to me, everyone in here is not a composer, so right there you exclude them. richard abrams: no, no one's excluded, you see. you may not be duke ellington, but you got some kind of ideas, and now is the time to put 'em in. wake yourself up. this is an awakening we're trying to bring about. (aacm 1965a) in the context of the 1970s, abrams's reference to bringing about "an awakening" through composition recognizes that this simple assertion by mro-americans-defining oneself as a composer-was a challenge to the social and indeed the economic order of both the music business and the aesthetics business. moreover, the reference to ellington is understand­ able on a number of levels, given the fact that throughout his career, ellington's image of himself as a composer working with and through mrican american forms was constantly challenged, stigmatized, and stereotyped.24 moreover, even mrican american composers who had grown up with so-called "classical" training were similarly burdened with ethnic stereotyping and channeling. thus, ellington could be viewed as a symbol, not only of excellence and innovation, but of optimistic persever­ ance. moreover, as some aacm composers explored the more restricted, dahlhausian notion of composition as a dialectic with notation (dahlhaus 1972:9), modernist black classical composers, such as ulysses kay, oily wilson, talib rasul hakim, and hale smith, provided models for emula­ tion and vindication.25 like the modernist black composers, aacm composers often sought to place their work in dialogue with diasporic traditions and histories from both mrica and europe. at the same time, the ongoing binary opposition between composition and improvisation, present as an important trope in 128 current musicology both modernist and postmodernist pan-european practice, lacked any real force among aacm composers, who were often drawn to collage and interpenetration strategies that blended, opposed, or ironically juxtaposed the two disciplines. thus, as with ellington, as well as later white american experimentalism, the definition of "composition" could be a fluid one, appropriating and simultaneously challenging and revising various pan­ european models, dialoguing with african, asian, and pacific music tradi­ tions, and employing compositional methods that did not necessarily priv­ ilege either conventionally notated scores, or the single, heroic creator figure so beloved by jazz historiography. roscoe mitchell's the maze (1978) was a meditative composition for eight percussionists-or rather, eight musicians who introduced the aacm-based version of "little instruments," found objects, and home­ made instruments to contemporary percussion practice. muhal richard abrams's lqoa+19 (1978) juxtaposed complex written passages with propulsive rhythms, while lifea blinec (abrams 1978a) presented multi­ instrumental, text-sound, and electronic textures. leo smith recorded a long-form notated work for trumpet and three harps, "the burning of stones" (smith 1979); chico freeman (1977) was working with conven­ tional jazz quartet forms, while the trio air was recasting older, pre-new orleans african american forms; and my own work, including chicago slow dance (lewis 1977), combined minimalism, open improvisation, and computer electronics. this kind of engagement with composition, following theorist kobena mercer, "critically appropriates elements from the master-codes of the dominant culture and creolizes them, disarticulating given signs and reartic­ ulating their symbolic meaning otherwise" (mercer 1994:62). this kind of "critical dialogism," according to mercer, "has the potential to overturn the binaristic relations of hegemonic boundary maintenance by multiply­ ing critical dialogues within particular communities and between the various constituencies which make up the 'imagined community' of the nation ... such dialogism shows that our 'other' is already inside each of us, that black identities are plural and heterogeneous" (ibid.:65). indeed, both the overturning of "hegemonic boundary maintenance" and the affirmation of heterogeneous black identity were critical elements of the projects of both ellington and the aacm. the frequent disclaimers by black musicians of the classification ')azz" can be seen as an expression of this desire for genre and methodological mobility. as ellington re­ marked in 1962, after a lifetime of evading labels, "let's not worry about whether the result is jazz or this or that type of performance. let's just say that what we're all trying to create, in one way or another, is music" (tucker 1993:326). george e. lewis 129 black classical composers (and black cultural critics) experimental musicians who were familiar with the important earlier work of the influential critic and activist amiri baraka might have been particularly surprised at the vehemence with which he denounced the hy­ brid new music of the aacm in his 1987 book, the music. baraka de­ nounces an unnamed violinist (probably leroy jenkins) as a member of what he calls the ''tail europe" school, whose members were presumably unduly influenced by european modernism. according to baraka, the project of "tail europe" was to "take music on a tired old trip, deliberately trying to declass the music, transforming it into a secondary appendage of european concert music, rather than the heroic expression of the folk and classical music of the mrican american majority as well as the spirit of a progressive and populist high art." baraka holds up the work of saxo­ phonist david murray as an example of "redefining the spiritual aesthetic of a whole people," while another unnamed saxophonist-almost cer­ tainly anthony braxton-"wants to show us that he's heard berg and webern and stockhausen ... showing white folks how intelligent he (they) is" (baraka and baraka 1987:260). even at the time that it was written, this updated dionysian/apollonian binary, along with its evocation of the "heroic" and "the majority," is diffi­ cult to understand as anything other than a certain nostalgia for a bygone moment. jazz had by this time long since ceased to be a music ofthe black majority, but here the music is re-enlisted in the quest for what andrew ross calls the "golden fleece of the intellectuals' century-long search for a democratic people's art that was both organic and post-agrarian" (ross 1989:93). moreover, this discussion points to the fact that, despite the best efforts of black scholars such as eileen southern (1983) and long-time new york amsterdam news music critic raoul abdul (1977), the black clas­ sical composer has been almost entirely ignored by black cultural critics. the reasons for this disavowal are complex, even as southern warned in 1973, "if we black folk are serious about our commitment to the rediscov­ ery and the redefining of our heritage in the fine arts, our scholars must take upon themselves the responsibility for developing an appropriate and exemplary literature" (southern 1973:6). this responsibility has not, for the most part, been taken up by the field of academic popular culture studies, which, by down playing or even ac­ tively disparaging the utility, purpose, and influence of those indigenously black musics that are not obviously or predominantly based in or repre­ sented as mass culture, has effectively ignored the diversity of black musical engagement. thus, in the age of globalized megamedia, to the extent that certain oppositional black musical forms have been generally ignored or dismissed by academic theorists, the idea is thereby perpetuated that 130 current musicology black culture, as academically defined and studied, is in fact corporate­ approved culture, and that there is no necessary non-commercial space for black musical production. the implication here is that academics accept the notion that the set of positions for studies of black music, as well as for black musicians them­ selves, is properly defined by the economic and demographic impera­ tives of media corporations. in contextualizing the development of african american music, this intellectual climate supports andrew ross's commercial/social darwinist framing of soul music as having forged "a more successful cultural union" (1989:97). in fact, ross's critique of "avant-garde jazz" as having "gone beyond the realm of popular taste" (ibid.) moves well past baraka's in advancing the notion that marginal­ ized, oppositional, subaltern, corporate-disapproved, or otherwise non­ mainstream forms of black cultural production should be ignored, if not altogether erased. in this context, the entry into classical music by black composers be­ comes, rather than bourgeois accommodation, an oppositional stance. in fact, the very existence of the black classical composer not only problema­ tizes dominant conceptions of black music, but challenges fixed notions of high and low, black and white. for the most part, black classical com­ posers active since 1930, coming out of the tradition of william grant still, have never been as dismissive of popular music as their white col­ leagues. black classical music-making, from still's "afro-american" symphony (1930) to hale smith's symphonic poem ritual and incantations (1975), continued to reference elements of vernacular black life, both as a form of advocacy for the continued relevance of the european tradition to a composite notion of black culture, and as a recognition of their own connection to an african diasporic sonic culture whose worldwide influ­ ence throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first can hardly be overstated. baraka's definition of the directions in african american music as overdetermined by "wherever the masses of the african american people have gone" (baraka and baraka 1987: 177) recapitulates the thrust of his 1966 essay, "the changing same (r&b and new black music)," an an­ them for the more prescriptive aspects of the then-emerging black aesthetic (jones 1968:180-211). in such an atmosphere, the african american composer trained in the western european "art" tradition is troped as a tragic mulatto figure-shunned by white-dominated systems of cultural support, and supposedly a non-factor in black culture as well. it seemed plain enough to muhal richard abrams, however, that "there are different types of black life, and therefore we know that there are different kinds of black music. because black music comes forth from black life" (vuisje 1978:199). what the baraka of the mid-1980s did not george e. lewis 131 notice was a certain reversed dynamic relative to the 1960s, when resist­ ance to dominant narratives included a strategy of refusal of the "bour­ geois" values of classical music in favor of the advocacy of vernacular musics such as jazz, blues, and r&b. attali's notion of the economy of rep­ etition, however, identifies the deployment of an amorphous construction of "the masses" as useful for precisely the same dominant economic inter­ ests that have, according to need, alternately exploited and erased black musical expression. far from articulating resistance or class struggle, those who import the bourgeois-versus-vernacular binary dialectic unblinkingly into the complex world of black musical expression risk serving as the ventriloquist's dummy for corporate megamedia. a conception of black cultural history that is forced to deny engage­ ment with or influence from pan-european traditions would look absurd if it were applied to black writers or visual artists. such a perspective can­ not account for the complexity of experience that characterizes multiple, contemporary black lives. thus, this particular formulation of resistance, in advancing (strategically) essentialist notions of black music practice and reference, enforced an aesthetic rigidity that minimized the complexity and catholicity of a composite black musical tradition that includes nathaniel dett, james reese europe, will marion cook, florence price, ulysses kay, oily wilson, dorothy rudd moore, hale smith, primo us fountain iii, wendell logan, and jeffrey mumford. a trope that uses overly broad strokes to posit a classicaljazz binary can­ not account for those who, like sun ra, john coltrane, miles davis, bud powell, and many others, were extremely respectful of and eager to learn from the achievements in pan-european music-and all other musics­ while rejecting western aesthetic hegemony. on this view, the aacm's engagement with europe was simply the next step in a long history of ex­ change that, as with such aacm composers as roscoe mitchell, joseph jarman, henry threadgill, malachi favors, anthony braxton, and others, included formal academic study. describing the scene at an early, pre­ aacm rehearsal of muhal richard abrams's experimental band, a group widely seen as a direct predecessor of the aacm, jarman remembered that his early compositions, influenced by his training with dr. richard wang at wilson junior college in chicago, were "real deep into anton webern and the concentrated elements of compositional form" (jarman 1998). jarman's story was hardly atypical; of course, white experimental­ ism was widely discussed, along with other world musics, particularly among the members of the aacm's first wave, a fact that should be unsurprising. aacm musicians pursued not only practices of exchange and creoliza­ tion, but also strategies of de-authorization, as expressed in lester bowie's signifying: 132 current musicology i mean most europeans' background is one of wars and colonization of africa. i mean really, they've dogged a lot of people. and they have this kind of presumed intelligence, they presume that they're really cultured. and they are in a certain sense, but in other ways they're really barbaric, crude. most western nations are like that. they didn't get to be big western nations walking on roses or no shit like that. i mean they became france by cutting off motherfuckers' heads. (beauchamp 1998:43) thus, i would advance the notion that what is particularly striking about some aacm music is not how much it sounded like european and american experimentalism, but how little. reading many of the "tail europe"-style critiques, it became clear to musicians that many jazz critics were simply not prepared for the full impact of the postmodern multi­ instrumentalism of the aacm, with its tremendous range of references from around the world. moreover, if we can take giddins's and even baraka's remarks as symptomatic, the high modernist and postmodernist music being performed in new york in the 1970s and 1980s-from sollberger to ashley to reich to oliveros to rzewski-was unfamiliar to many jazz writers, even those who were living in new york. in the final analysis, those who thought that anthony braxton sounded like karlheinz stockhausen or anton webern could not be said to have truly heard much of any ofthem. the aacm's radical individualism allowed multiple notions of the fu­ ture of music to co-exist. aacm musicians had been inculcated into a set of values that saw constructed distinctions between musicians, such as those advanced by baraka between murray and braxton, as a form of divide-and-conquer, regardless of the race of the person articulating them. thus, steve mccall, one of baraka's frequent 1980s collaborators, none­ theless said this about new york jazz writers: "something that irritates me about many people who write about jazz here is the fact that they think that when they praise one music, then they have to downgrade another. i don't like that at all! because that is completely unnecessary" (jost 1982:122). accordingly, those who were looking for divisions between aacm members based on the "tail europe" issue were undoubtedly disap­ pointed in lester bowie's response to an interviewer's claim that anthony braxton, douglas ewart, and myself "ignore a whole lot of the cultural background of jazz": "there's a whole branch of that, i call it neo-classical. they're in touch with this kind of thing and i feel it's very valid and very cool ... they are developing other areas that are just as valid and just as culturally expressive of our time and age. the music is spreading to encompass all ofthese areas" (coppens 1979:14). george e. lewis 133 where baraka sees overt class struggle in the composition, perform­ ance, appreciation, analysis, and critical writing about the music (baraka and baraka 1987:260), i would maintain that on this very view the aacm represents an indigenous working-class attempt to open up the space of popular culture to new forms of expression, blurring the boundaries be­ tween popular and high culture. as mrican american musicians sought the same mobility across the breadth of their field that (for example) mrican american writers and visual artists were striving for, engagement with con­ temporary pan-european music became a form of resistance to efforts to restrict the mobility of black musicians, rather than a capitulation to bour­ geois values. aacm musicians felt that experimentalism in music need not be bound to particular ideologies, methods, or slogans. rather, it could take many forms, draw from many histories (including the blues), confront different methodological challenges, and manifest a self-awareness as being in dialogue with the music of the whole earth. thus, lester bowie could af­ firm the excellence of his colleagues while locating himself solidly in a dif­ ferent area within this vast field of musical riches: "i am from a different kind of thing. i deal purely with ass-kicking. period. just good old country ass-kicking" (coppens 1979:14). new music and hybridity john cage's "history of experimental music in the united states," part of his early, widely influential 1961 manifesto silence (cage 1961:67), con­ tinues to serve as a "readymade" touchstone for later histories and refer­ ence works, including nyman (1999),johnson (1989), kostelanetz (1993), rubin (1994), and cameron (1996). these and other historical accounts, reviews, and retrospectives tended to define "experimental music" in terms of a set of acceptable methodologies, people, sites, and venues avail­ able to pan-european high-culture music. musics by people of color (in particular, the high-culture musics of asia) were most often framed as "sources." however, the development of a notion of "experimental" and "american" that excludes the so-called bebop and free jazz movements, among the most influential american experimentalist musics of the latter part of the twentieth century, is highly problematic. this discursive phe­ nomenon can be partly accounted for by the general absence of dis­ courses on issues of race and ethnicity in criticism on american experi­ mentalism. in later years, this aspect of denial in new music's intellectual environment tended to separate it from both post-1960s jazz and from other contemporary work in visual art, literature, and dance. more di­ rectly, it could be said that part of white-coded experimentalism's ongoing identity formation project depended in large measure upon an othering of its great and arguably equally influential competitor, the jazz tradition, 134 current musicology which is also widely viewed (and views itself) as explicitly experimental. the transcribed orature of musicians endorsing the importance of explo­ ration, discovery, and experiment is quite vast and easy to access; it spans virtually every era of jazz music, and includes nearly every improvisor of canonical stature before the rise of wynton marsalis in the mid-1980s. 26 even as both uptown and downtown musics of the 1980s sought to chal­ lenge prevailing wisdom in so many areas, the dominant response of white american experimentalism to the hybridity represented by the aacm dis­ played an ongoing fealty to the erasure of mrican american cultural pro­ duction from the very definition of "experimental."27 this stance was radically challenged by the diversity movement in ex­ perimental music. for attali, free jazz "eliminated the distinctions between popular music and learned music, broke down the repetitive hi­ erarchy" (1989:140). as we have noted, the aacm's revision of the rela­ tionship between composition and improvisation lies on an unstable fault line between the new black music and the new white music, a border that was brought to light as the work of aacm, bag, and other black experi­ mentalist composers began to receive limited exposure in some of the same venues, and support from some of the same sources, as white experi­ mental composers. thus, for a short period between 1976-78, trombonist garrett list, as music director of the kitchen, was particularly active in moving toward a nonracialized, barrier-breaking conception of new mu­ sic. members of the new generation of black experimentalists, such as anthony braxton, leo smith, oliver lake, and the art ensemble of chicago, were presented in kitchen concerts during list's tenure, though few of these events were ever reviewed. by 1980, my own two-year tenure as music director of the kitchen could be viewed as shifting the debate around border-crossing to a stage where whiteness-based constructions of american experimentalism were being fundamentally problematized. both the voice and the times announced the new kitchen regime in bold letters. the times presented a large picture of the new director in the sunday "arts and leisure" section, accompanied by the kitchen's welsh­ born director, mary macarthur (rockwell 1980). voice writer tom johnson's review of my first curated event described a double bill of a col­ laboration between synthesist tom hamilton and black artist group woodwind improvisor j. d. parran, followed by a john zorn "opera" for improvisors, jai alai. for johnson, the salient feature of this event was ex­ pressed in the headline: "the kitchen improvises" (johnson 1980). johnson admitted that while the previous kitchen concert policy had been a valuable forum for "many fine minimalist works requiring long spans of time and complete composer control," it had nonetheless "tended to shut out new music involving improvising groups" (ibid.). thus, the writer pre­ dicted that the direction of the kitchen's programming, "assuming that george e. lewis 135 these opening concerts are symptomatic, is to open the door to new forms of improvising." nonetheless, the jazz side of the voice took little, if any, notice of events at the kitchen. a full five years after the earlier musings of gary giddins (1975) about border crossing, the venue was still not consid­ ered part of the jazz "turf." my presence at the kitchen was an artifact of an era in which mrican american musical histories and practices came into dialogue with white­ coded american experimentalism's methods, practices, and not inciden­ tally, its sources of support, right in the center of one of the most publicly charged arenas in the world. the kitchen, with its relatively extensive in­ frastructure, its large presentation and commissioning budgets, and its commitment to experimental work, had a long history of supporting com­ plex projects that other spaces would not or could not bring to fruition. the new curatorial direction promised to make that infrastructure wel­ coming to mrican american artists who sought to present that kind of de­ manding hybrid work. perhaps realizing this, johnson goes on to warn his readers that the apparent broadening of scope and altering of focus was going to require some adjustments, particularly in dialogue with a cultural institution whose overall budget at the time was over half a million dollars: "when it is decided that previously neglected formats will open the season at a place like the kitchen, that means a lot. it's not just someone's opin­ ions but an actual fact, and everyone concerned must adjust to it" (johnson 1980).28 the new hybridity reflected in the kitchen's programming challenged journalistic, critical, social, and historical discourses that presented as en­ tirely natural the musical separation of black and white, low and high, up­ town and downtown, popular and serious. lacking a language adequate to the task of describing and contextualizing the new diversity, critical recep­ tion eventually settled on the notion that the kitchen was now "concen­ trating" on jazz, which seemed putatively defined as "new music by black people, and/or which featured improvisation"-a framing that updated, but ultimately preserved the old racializations. while the number of kitchen events featuring mrican americans or improvised music had indeed increased sharply from prior years, concentration was far too strong a term; the complement of artists presented could not be subsumed under any generalizations about ethnicity, race, gender, or musical method.29 eventually, the voice, which had faithfully covered kitchen events for years, virtually ceased covering them. the soho weekly news followed suit until its demise in 1981, preferring (mostly negative) articles about its "up­ town" relatives to boundary-crossing engagement with black forms that had started to come under attack on the jazz side of the paper. voice jazz critics practically never ventured to the kitchen. gregory sandow, the eventual replacement for tom johnson, bravely stepped into the breach 136 current musicology to review a 1981 julius hemphill/anthony davis double bill, where he found that "the new music crowd found at the kitchen on other nights stayed away" (sandow 1981). there are several reasons for the asymmetrical dynamic regarding criti­ cal support for experimental forms in new york. first, critical commen­ tary on the work of the downtown i avant-garde was most often written by composers who were regarded as members of that community. as a result, most voice articles were not simply non-adversarial, but were, in a sense, in­ sider reports, where the voices of the artists themselves were always cen­ tered. with the support of a sympathetic publisher, the clear purpose was to build a community, even as the articles tended to implicitly define downtown i's methodological, ethnic, and class boundaries. in contrast, writing on black experimental music came not from among the musicians themselves, but from more or less professional writers. few black musi­ cians had the kind of relatively unmediated access to publication that the white experimentalists enjoyed; for a brief period, guitarist vernon reid, later a founding member of the black rock coalition and the important heavy metal band living colour, wrote voice reviews. however, resistance to diversity, while dominant, was hardly mono­ lithic. the central role of leadership exercised by musicians themselves was vital in envisioning the end of "hegemonic boundary maintenance." the creative music studio (cms), located in woodstock, new york, was a grass-roots initiative of vocalist ingrid berger and her partner, karl berger, a vibraphonist and academically-trained philosopher who had performed with eric dolphy (sweet 1996). inspired by a combination of black mountain college and trumpeter don cherry's cross-cultural vision of new music, the bergers' creolizing conception brought together members of various experimentalisms. this hybrid conception from the 1970s con­ stituted one obvious model for john zorn's 1986 declaration that "we should take advantage of all the great music and musicians in the world without fear of musical barriers" (mcclary 2000: 148). a typical visitor to cms might encounter a conversation or perform­ ance among a diverse array of musicians, including members of the aacm, such as roscoe mitchell and woodstock resident anthony braxton; indian flutist g. s. sachdev; japanese zen shakuhachi artist watazumi-doso; senegalese drummer aiyb dieng; brazilian multi-instrumentalist nana vasconcelos; and composer and improvisor pauline oliveros, a cms neighbor and frequent participant who collaborated there with the mrican american choreographer lone in creating an opera about angolan queen nzinga's resistance to portuguese colonial domination. other area resi­ dents, such as bassist dave holland and drummer jack dejohnette, were regular visitors and instructors, as were the members of the best-known of the live electronic music ensembles, musica elettronica viva. these politigeorge e. lewis 137 cally engaged artists-alvin curran, frederic rzewski, richard teitelbaum, and trombonist garrett list-had for many years actively sought alliances with improvisors from different traditions, recognizing early on that musicians of all backgrounds and ethnicities were exchang­ ing sounds, styles, materials and methodologies (cf. teitelbaum 1972). the high point of the early diversity movement produced the new music america festival (nma) , perhaps the first attempt to codify, in a performance network, an avant-garde that drew from a wide variety of sources. the festival's immediate predecessor was 1979's "new music, new york," a week-long series of concerts and symposia sponsored by the kitchen during composer rhys chatham's tenure as music curator. beginning in 1980, the new music america festival sought to expand on the success of "new music, new york," aiming at the creation of nothing less than an annual national showcase for experimental music. over the fourteen-year lifespan of the festival, large-scale festivals were held in such major cities as chicago, san francisco, miami, and montreal, among others. while a 1992 volume summarizing new music america's history is suit­ ably multicultural in tone and presentation (brooks 1992:10), the rhetoric of inclusion never quite caught up to the reality. the fifty-four composers listed in advertisements for the original "new music, new york" consti­ tuted a veritable catalog of downtown i artists; just three, however, were african american: don cherry, leo smith, and myself ("advertisement for new music new york festival," 1979). thus, at several of the panel dis­ cussions accompanying the new york festival, criticisms were made con­ cerning the overwhelming whiteness of the version of experimental music being presented as "diverse." the few non-white composers featured, how­ ever, exercised influence far out of proportion to their numbers, not least because for perhaps the very first time, their presence obliged the "down­ town" art world to touch upon, however gingerly, the complex relation­ ship between race, culture, music, method, and art world rewards. anticipating the furor, voice reviewer tom johnson, while admitting that "the festival was clearly weighted toward white musicians," felt nonetheless that this had "more to do with recent history than with overt racism" (1979:89).johnson's acknowledgement that "the black-dominated loft jazz scene has evolved right alongside the white-dominated experimental scene throughout this decade" was perhaps the first such admission to appear in any new york paper. for johnson, however, an attempt by the kitchen to engage with this black experimental music "would be far more patronizing than construc­ tive ... a truly ecumenical festival of new music in new york would have to include some of the klezmer musicians ... along with shakuhachi players, kamancheh players, irish groups, balkan groups, and so on" (ibid.). this strategy of unfurling the banners of pluralism and color-blindness to mask 138 current musicology this astonishing conflation of diverse musics under the heading of "other" begs questions of affinity, collaboration, and competition between black and white experimentalism that were already being articulated all over new york, right under the noses of media commentators supposedly "representing" both camps. in any event, aacm and bag artists constituted a clear majority of the very few mrican american composers featured in new music america events over the succeeding years. for nma 1980 in minneapolis, the only mrican americans invited were the art ensemble of chicago, a duo of oliver lake and leroy jenkins, and former suny buffalo creative associate julius eastman, out of forty-seven events listed. despite the pres­ ence of two aacm members (douglas ewart and myself) on the advisory board of the 1982 nma festival in chicago, just four performances by mrican americans were featured, of the approximately sixty-five pre­ sented. these included an orchestral work by muhal richard abrams, and chamber works by douglas ewart and roscoe mitchell ("advertisement for new music america festival," 1981). particularly telling, in the found­ ing city of the aacm itself, with an mrican american population of over 40%, was a panel discussion, titled "new music and our changing culture," in which all of the participants-david behrman,john cage, dan graham, ben johnston, marjorie perloff, and christian wolff-were white. in the tradition? the mid-1980s saw the rise of the neoclassical movement in jazz, which placed musicians, critics, and audiences on the horns of at least two dilem­ mas: between tradition and innovation, and between classical music and jazz. trumpeter wynton marsalis, who possessed expertise in both jazz and classical traditions, soon emerged as the leading spokesperson for this movement. marsalis, who had already won grammy awards in both classi­ cal and jazz categories-in the same year-began working with new york's lincoln center, home to the metropolitan opera and the new york philharmonic, to produce a series called "classical jazz," a title that seemed tailored to marsalis's rapidly growing public image. in fact, alina bloomgarden, a lincoln center employee, had been promoting the idea as far back as 1983; for the post of "artistic advisor" she recruited marsalis, who in turn recruited writer stanley crouch (porter 2002:311-12).30 up to this point, the most unusual aspect of the debate over borders between classical music and jazz was that its most publicly prominent con­ ceptual leadership came largely from the black experimental music com­ munity. a 1987 new york times article by jon pareles, viewing marsalis's double releases of classical concertos and jazz recordings as "superficial" and "a gimmick," framed aacm composers roscoe mitchell and anthony george e. lewis 139 braxton, along with ornette coleman,james newton, anthony davis, and butch morris, as "experimental hybrids [who] have to battle on both the jazz and classical fronts," but who were nonetheless key to the emergence of a new synthesis of classical music and jazz (pareles 1987). the alacrity with which this interpretation of a classicaljazz fusion was simply swept from the chessboard is fascinating to review. the promulga­ tion of a revisionist canon that emphasized a unitary, "classic" tradition of jazz eventually took on an institutionalized cast with the 1991 creation of jazz at lincoln center (jalc), arguably the most heavily-funded jazz insti­ tution to ever exist. the jalc approach to the classicization of jazz had its antecedents in many earlier classicizing projects, but this new version sought not to problematize or transgress barriers between jazz and classi­ cal music, as the aacm and others had tried to do, but to uphold and nurture them. in a critical discursive shift, the term "classical" became less a description of a musical tradition than of an attitude-one of reverence and preservation. stanley crouch, formerly one of the most vocal support­ ers of the 1970s black experimentalists, had shifted ground by the early 1980s. influenced by the heroic modernism of writer albert murray, crouch became heavily critical of the new music (crouch 1979), and de­ clared in the liner notes to a marsalis recording of 'jazz standards" that the new challenge for black musicians would be "to learn how to redefine the fundamentals while maintaining the essences that give the art its scope and grandeur" (quoted in porter 2002:304). ironically, jalc's articulation of membership in the "canon" (at least up to 1960) would be fully congruent with that of the first-wave aacm members, who had all grown up revering the same artists-louis arm­ strong, jelly roll morton, art tatum, duke ellington, charlie parker, thelonious monk, and others-that the neoclassicists held dear. for years, prior to coming to new york, henry threadgill had been combing the joplin repertoire, muhal richard abrams was mining and recasting stride, and roscoe mitchell was making ironic references to r&b. more­ over, the issue of "standard music" versus "original music" had also been a central aspect of the discussions in the initial meeting of the aacm on may 8, 1965. steve mccall's thoughtful, ecumenical reasoning about the need for a new organization is especially valuable. the standard music, we've all played it, and not taking nothing away from no form of music at all. but for this organization, you know, for the promoting of having cats to write, you know, like the original charts, original compositions, and getting together and presenting, in concert; and as a means of a livelihood, you dig, like making some money, getting out of your things, the things that we all create 140 current musicology among ourselves. being at a concert just for standard music, you know, there doesn't have to be this kind of a group for that kind of thing. (aacm 1965) as mccall noted, "the standard music, we've all played it." thus, one can imagine the puzzlement of aacm experimentalists when a new breed of new york-based journalists, critics, and musicians advanced the claim that those who had been creating the new music had "no respect for tradi­ tion." the fact that the new musicians chose definition over redefinition, by presenting their own music as they had done since their chicago days, now became an issue for much critical reception; in fact, the presentation of "original music" was now used as prima facie confirmation of this "lack of respect." for some, this "evidence" made the "no respect" claim easier to substantiate than the simultaneous recycling of the older canard that the "free" musicians "couldn't play," since many aacm musicians had worked with some of the most traditionally respected musicians-mercer ellington performing muhal richard abrams's duke ellington arrange­ ments, lester bowie with albert king, leo smith with little milton, pete cosey with miles davis, steve mccall with dexter gordon, amina claudine myers with gene ammons and sonny stitt, my work with count basie and gil evans, and so on. a signal difference between the preand post-marsalis framings of african american musical tradition, however, was that the aacm musi­ cians were taking what was up to that time an unchallenged view: that the jazz music now regarded as "classical" was originally the product of innovation-i.e., "finding one's own sound." on this view, the musician's attitude of experiment and self-realization was one of the crucial reasons for the importance of the work itself. a 1995 article on marsalis in the new york times magazine challenges this view, accusing those who valorized in­ novation as appealing to outdated notions of "progress" in the arts: have we had progress in poetry, in the novel, in painting or in dance? i don't think so ... the way to strengthen one's ability to tell the difference between progress and evolution is to study the canon -that music which has had the longest and deepest influence­ because the canon contains the evolutionary signposts and implies how jazz can spiral outward without losing its identity ... one of the most important missions of jazz at lincoln center is to lay down a foundation for the future of jazz by presenting important works from the canon with all the passion and intelligence that can be brought to bear. (conroy 1995) 31 while the new canon seemed lacking in a number of important re­ spects, such as the apparent exclusion of the work of people like ornette george e. lewis 141 coleman, cecil taylor, and other black experimental musicians, farah griffin points out that "had marsalis not struck such a conservative stance, whereby some of the most innovative practitioners are left out of the jazz canon, it is highly unlikely he would have been able to acquire the re­ sources necessary to do the kind of work on behalf of the music that he has done" (griffin 2001:143-44). certainly, in the severely undercapital­ ized field of jazz, the advent of jalc, with the massive resources to which griffin refers, had much the same effect as the introduction of a wal-mart into a community of mom-and-pop businesses. 32 taking advantage of a regularly supportive media presence, as well as backing from major corpo­ rations for his music and his jalc events, marsalis eventually took on a role as authoritative spokesperson for the future of music itself, making his primary mission the creation of an atmosphere in which jazz was finally due to be treated with "the same respect" as classical music. prominent black intellectuals who had generally been associated with progressive po­ litical stances signed on. some, like cornel west, did so enthusiastically,33 while others, like amiri baraka, acknowledged a certain ambivalence. in a 1995 german-language interview, baraka avows that "i want to be com­ pletely honest there-i would rather hear wynton marsalis in an ellington concert than what [lester] bowie or [henry] threadgill do. even when i value them for certain things that they have brought into being." in the very next breath, baraka emphasizes the issue of self-determination, which the aacm had also sought to bring forth-an idea with which baraka himself, with his long history of political activism, had inspired many. yes, they [bowie and threadgill] should have regular stages too, and i wish that sonny rollins had one. but the problem will present itself as long as we do not have our own independent institutions. until then i can only say: it is to be welcomed that the afro-american tra­ dition is being preserved by wynton marsalis. i would even describe his work in these times as progressive. (broecking 1995:111) despite baraka's assertion that "there is no point on which we agree" (ibid.), on the issue of black experimental music aesthetics he and stanley crouch find common ground in their disapprobation of black music that exhibits too much "european influence"-a criticism that, given their own -and marsalis's-use of european tropes, appears particularly curious, even contradictory. thus, it became evident that this "progressive" motif of preservation and protection did not extend to the products of the black experimentalists. as early as 1982, discussions of black new music were beginning to disappear from the new york "alternative" press. aacm­ oriented ideas of diversity, mobility, and innovation came under withering attack, not only from an emerging politically and culturally neoconserva­ tive aesthetic movement, but from the black political left wing as well. 142 current musicology criticism of marsalis's approach to the canon was generally dismissed. by a supremely supportive new york press, and naysayers were admon­ ished to (as the title of a 1995 new york times magazine piece had it) "stop nitpicking a genius" (conroy 1995). nonetheless, many musicians were resistant to the new regime. even as he was being widely touted as an up­ and-coming "young lion in the tradition," composer anthony davis, who collaborated extensively with a number of aacm artists, expressed the views of many when he was widely quoted as saying that the notion of "tradition" was being used "essentially as a vehicle for conservatism," and "as a means of maintaining the status quo, of limiting your own personal connection" (van trikt 1985:5). a number of aacm musicians, more­ over, detected (correctly) the hand of corporate megamedia stirring the new traditionalism's soup kettle. roscoe mitchell warned that "what we've seen happen between the 60s and now is the commercial machine ex­ panding and dominating the scene ... we've seen the institutionalizing of so-called 'jazz.' we've seen a general turning away of new ideas and sounds ... [young musicians] are getting these messages from the media that they should do such-and-such to re-create the tradition. but the tradi­ tion will never be re-created as strongly as it was by the people who in­ vented it" (baker 1989: 19). indeed, the marketing strategy around the heavily advertised and corporate-supported ken burns film jazz exhibited a remarkable synergy, with videos, dvds, and cds bearing the "ken burns jazz" logo available immediately following the airing of the first episode.34 thus, mitchell was certainly expressing a common view, neatly encapsu­ lated in a 1994 new york times headline announcing a "classical jazz" event": 'jazz, classical, art, business: a series wraps all into one" (watrous 1994). it is worth noting that up to this point in time, lincoln center had never been a significant long-term supporter of musical experimentalism; why so many people in the jazz community thought that a lincoln center jazz program would be any different might be explained with reference to a certain lack of experience with the histories and practices of this and other high-culture institutions. moreover, despite marsalis's reputation as an interpreter in both jazz and classical idioms, his public pronounce­ ments regarding method and canon have somehow been essentially lim­ ited to the jazz side of his work. further, within that sphere, black musi­ cians, for the most part, have been the exclusive targets of his critiques. in contrast to the ideologically charged atmosphere on lincoln center's jazz side, its classical side has never engaged in extensive public critiques of experimental music in its chosen european-based tradition. in fact, composers seen as "fringe" elements were quietly supported, even as it was acknowledged that the public was not necessarily excited about their george e. lewis 143 music; to keep donations flowing, patrons were discouraged from attending new-music events (hersh 1980). thus, by the mid-1980s, when one of the new black experimentalists presented an event deemed as falling outside the social or methodological frame of jazz, neither the jazz writers nor the new music writers would cover it. in the jazz press, those among the black experimentalists who "re­ fused to swing" or were "too european" were routinely savaged, with little hope of succor from the "new music" press, which simply ignored them as it had done earlier. black composers framed as 'jazz" who dared to pre­ sent transgressive new work at spaces like the kitchen would be covered only when they chose to return to their "natural" home in a local club. as attali says of free jazz, the work of these musicians was "contained, repressed, limited, censored, expelled" (1989:140). however, the increasingly interdisciplinary and multicultural landscape in which present-day artists find themselves wreaks havoc with the logic of those who would confine mrican american musicians to nativist (re)pre­ sentations of a narrowly constructed "blues idiom" while arrogating to themselves the right to consider picasso, rothko, de kooning, proust, joyce, eliot, melville, kerouac, burroughs, wagner, schoenberg, and stravinsky salient to their deliberations. throughout the past century, mrican american musical artists have pursued an ongoing engagement not only with eurological forms, but with the world of art and music as a whole, in full awareness of their position in a world of art-making tradi­ tions. as with the work of earlier generations of mrican american artists, the current generation is free to assimilate sounds from all over the world, even as they situate their work in a complexly articulated mrican ameri­ can intellectual, social, and sonic matrix. in this regard, julius hemphill's challenge to the tradition bandwagon is particularly apt: "well, you often hear people nowadays talking about the tradition, tradition, tradition. but they have tunnel vision in this tradition. because tradition in mrican american music is as wide as all outdoors ... music is much bigger than bebop changes. i don't feel like being trapped in those halls of harmony" (mcelfresh 1994). epilogue before the 1950s, european high culture was the primary model for an emerging high culture in america. contemporary classical musicians were under particular pressure because of the very frequent assertions by im­ portant european musicians, including bartok, milhaud, ravel, dvorak, and stravinsky, that jazz, rather than european-based american classical music, represented "the core of american music," as well as the most likely source of new musical ideas for a truly native american music.35 as ravel 144 current musicology asserted in 1928, "i am waiting to see more americans appear with the honesty and vision to realize the significance of their popular product, and the technic and imagination to base an original and creative art upon it" (oja 2000:296). today, we find ravel still waiting for that bus, as american experimen­ tal music from cowell to cage has advanced a whiteness-based musical nativism that situates itself historically, ethnically, and methodologically in dialogue with an overall pan-european tradition, and tries to erase any connection with black american culture (lewis 1996:98-99; oja 2000:297360). even as the various forms of black experimentalism-bebop, free improvisation, free jazz, and the hybrid work of the aacm-have emerged as serious competitors for the mantle of high art, the assertion that 'jazz is america's classical music" continues to be discouraged. as we glimpse the new century, white-coded american experimentalism's gradual willingness to consider some aspects of a multicultural, multi-ethnic revision of its def­ inition is at variance with its continued disavowal of specifically mrican american perspectives, histories, traditions, methods, and people. one might want to question, however, the desirability or utility of a "classical" music to a postmodern, post-cold war, postcolonial america. given such a focus, strategies of classicization become disclosed as aspects of competition over capital, both symbolic and actual. positively put, how­ ever, a larger and perhaps more fruitful question might concern what an american classical music might look like in a postcolonial world. certainly such a new music would need to draw upon the widest range of traditions, while not being tied to anyone. perhaps, as attali would have it, such a music would exist "in a multifaceted time in which rhythms, styles, and codes diverge, interdependencies become more burdensome, and rules dissolve"-a "new noise" (1989:138-40). thus, as the new century ap­ proached, aacm musicians continued to present their radical approaches to diversity, even in the face of the loss of several of its members, includ­ ing co-founder steve mccall in 1982 and trumpeter lester bowie in 1999, as well as second-wave members, saxophonists charles "wes" cochran and light henry huff. since the late 1980s, a newer generation of aacm mu­ sicians has come to prominence from the chicago chapter, including flutist nicole mitchell, saxophonists ernest dawkins, mwata bowden, and david boykin, drummer avreeayl ra, sitarist shanta nurullah, and trum­ peter ameen muhammad. the aacm collective established a new york chapter in 1982 to complement its original base in chicago, and contin­ ued to organize and present its own events in both cities. muhal richard abrams's 1977 prediction regarding the aacm's influ­ ence proved prescient, as new york experimental music movements emerging in the late 1980s, such as the movements of downtown ii and george e. lewis 145 "totalism,"36 adopted the rhetoric of diversity, if not hybridity: "a lot of people will pick up on the example and do very well with it. a lot of peo­ ple that are not aacm people. now who those people will be a couple of years from now, who knows?" (giddins 1977:48). composer john zorn, arguably the most well-known artist to emerge from downtown ii, connects this notion of diversity directly with the aacm, an important influence on his work. in discovering braxton and the art ensemble, zorn notices that "the guy's [braxton] got a great head, he's listening to all this different music. it all connected up" (gagne 1993:511). echoing longstanding aacm premises, zorn declared that "i want to break all these hierarchies: the idea that classical music is better than jazz, that jazz is better than rock. i don't think that way" (watrous 1989). downtown ii artists, who were never subjected to the discourses of transgression and "roots" that were being used to police the work of black experimental musicians, were able to take full advantage of their relative freedom from cultural arbitration. thus, contemporaneous commentary on zorn and other downtown ii artists celebrated this diversity of sonic ref­ erence in their work, even as comparable efforts by black experimentalists were being routinely condemned. in 1988, john rockwell found no particu­ lar difficulty in declaring that zorn not only "transcends categories; better, he's made a notable career crashing them together and grinding them to dust" (rockwell 1988). in contrast, a 1982 rockwell piece could insist of anthony braxton that "however much he may resist categories, mr. braxton's background is in jazz, which means an improvisatory tradition" (rockwell 1982), an evocation in a single sentence of the eugenicist power of the one-drop rule which revokes, rather than celebrates braxton's mobility. moreover, unlike the black artists who preceded and influenced them, downtown ii artists are routinely framed as transcending race as well as genre. by 1989, a times reviewer could declare that the repertory of zorn's "naked city" project mirrors a typically modern sensibility, in which the culture of our grandparents-whether it's defined by race, religion or nationality­ is abandoned, or at least tempered, in favor of the possibilities of endless information. eclecticism isn't simply a position for some composers: it's the only position. it's the only culture that makes sense to them, that they can depend on-a culture of musical literacy. (watrous 1989) downtown ii's press coding as white, however, is not only at variance with this image of transcendence, but seems to have little basis in either new york city's geography or musical affinities. african american saxophonist 146 current musicology greg osby's acerbic observation neatly encapsulates the issue: "i played with all the downtown cats but nobody called me a downtown cat" (nai 2001:16)-a statement that some aacm members could have made twenty years before. to the extent that both downtown i and ii failed to challenge either the dominant culture's generally high levels of investment in white posi­ tional diversity, or its complementary disinvestment in black subjectivity, they cannot form the basis for a cosmopolitan, globalized, hybrid, trans­ gressive american experimentalism that confronts the challenges to musi­ cal form, transmission, and reception represented by the permeability of borders, the dynamics of post-colonialism, and the decline of the nation­ state. in that regard, as attali notes, the work of john cage, while certainly announcing "the end of music as autonomous activity," nonetheless pre­ sents "not the new mode of musical production, but the liquidation of the old" (1989:138-40). a recent article by jazz critic bill shoemaker (2000) described an al­ ready emerging post jazz, post-new music economic network for impro­ vised music that moves beyond gatekeeping authorities, aiming toward the creation of an environment where canonizing pronouncements are both powerless and meaningless. this network can be described in the same terms as those used by theorists michael hardt and antonio negri to discuss the anti-globalization movement, which for them constitutes a new form of challenge to centralized authority. for hardt and negri, the movement "is not defined by any single identity, but can discover com­ monality in its multiplicity" (hardt and negri 2001). similarly, muhal richard abrams declared more than twenty years ago: "first we make for ourselves an atmosphere, in which we can survive, in spite of this environment-simply through that which we have in common. we have something in common! for example, we are in agreement that we should further develop our music. whatever else we do outside of our central development, we will not let this central development be destroyed" (jost 1982:194). ultimately, the aacm's gamble on new york can be viewed as pointing the way toward a mobile, boundary-crossing experimentalism that exem­ plifies these notions of commonality in multiplicity and individuality within the aggregate. the example of the aacm has been central to the coming canonization, not of a new musical aesthetic with defined borders, but of a new kind of musician who works across genres with fluidity, grace, discernment, and trenchancy. mter nearly forty years of a living aacm presence, the significance of what these new musicians have done up to now, as well as what they might create in the future, is only now beginning to be understood. george e. lewis 147 notes * i am grateful to muhal richard abrams and the chicago chapter of the aacm for access to their archives. i thank abrams, jason stanyek, and doug mitchell, my editor at the university of chicago press for the aacm book project, for their helpful comments. i am also indebted to wolfram knauer, arndt weidler, and the jazz-institut darmstadt for their tremendous support in allowing me to create an extensive photocopy library of contemporaneous reviews from american, german, and french journals. i would also like to thank mary lui, now assistant professor of history at yale university, for access to the larayne black archive at the chicago historical society; and deborah gillaspie, the curator of the chicago jazz archive at the university of chicago, for access to the jamil b. figi collection. 1. a first-person account of the aacm is found in braxton (1985:410-39). other accounts of the aacm's early activity, philosophies, and musical approaches are to be found in jost (1975), wilmer ([1977] 1992), litweiler (1984), and radano (1993). 2. for a useful starter bibliography on musicians' collectives, see gray (1991:41-57). for an account of the clef club's goals and activities, see badger (1995). contemporaneous accounts of the work of the jazz composers' guild in­ clude levin (1965) and heckman (1965); for a brief personal account of the guild's practice of collective governance, see bley and lee (1999:91-97). briefer references to the guild are found in wilmer ([1977] 1992:213-15), litweiler (1984:138-39), andjost (1991:213-14). for an extended look at the ugmaa, see tapscott and isoardi (2001). 3. from time to time, i cite the theorist and economist jacques attali (1989), whose brief section on free music in his chapter on "composing" offers a number of insights that dramatically reflect the contemporary situation (133-58). attali's influential exposition on the musical implications of the "political economy of repetition," or the mass reproduction and centralization of music, explicitly in­ cludes the aacm as emblematic of the project of using music to build a new cul­ ture. i am sure that i am not the first to observe that attali's notion of "composi­ tion," proposed in the hope of finding an exit from the adornonian nightmare of repetition, resembles, in fact, not composition as it is known in the west, but improvisation: "music is no longer made to be represented or stockpiled, but for participation in collective play, in an ongoing quest for new, immediate communication, without ritual and always unstable. it becomes nonreproducible, irreversible" (141). 4. present at this first meeting were, among others, bassists charles clark, betty dupree, melvin jackson, malachi favors (later maghostous), and reggie willis; drummers jerol donavon (later ajaramu) and steve mccall; singers floradine geemes, sandra lashley, and conchita brooks; trumpeter fred berry; saxophon­ ists troy robinson, eugene easton, jimmy ellis, maurice mcintyre (later kalapa­ rusha),josephjarman (later shaku), roscoe mitchell, and gene dinwiddie; trom­ bonists julian priester and lester lashley; and pianists jodie christian, willie pickens, claudine myers (later amina) , bob dogan, ken chaney, and richard abrams (later muhal). 148 current musicology 5. other concert spaces included the abraham lincoln centre (a community service organization in the "bronzeville" district on the south side), st. john's grand lodge on south ingleside, and later the parkway community house on east 67th street. 6. see nessa (1966), t. martin (1966-67, 1968), and litweiler (1967, 1967a, 1967b, 1968, 1968a, 1968b). 7. translations ofjost (1982) and broecking (1995) from the original german; vuisje (1978) from the original dutch; and caux (1969, 1969a), bourget (1977), and marmande (1977) from the original french, are by the author. 8. this information was also compiled in part from a black artists group pro­ gram brochure (st. louis, mo., ca. 1970) with the organization's operating budget. 9. the classic french treatise on the "new thing," clearly influenced by leroi jones (1963), is carles and comolli ([1971] 2000). at this writing, this important text, already available in german and italian, still lacks an english translation. 10. despite the fact that black experimental musicians had an enormous and lasting impact on parisian cultural life, their activities are hardly mentioned in american historical accounts of the period (e.g., stovall 1996), an omission that seems particularly curious given the congruence of these musicians' histories with paris's traditional relationship with black expatriate artists and intellectuals. for an overview of the activities of black americans in paris that includes these musicians, one might try the difficult-to-iocate fabre and williams (1996). 11. in europe, aacm members developed collaborative and personal relation­ ships with many residents and frequent visitors to the continent, including trom­ bonist grachan moncur iii; pianists bobby few, mal waldron, dave burrell, burton greene, and cecil taylor; trumpeters clifford thornton and jacques coursil; saxophonists archie shepp, jimmy lyons, ornette coleman, dewey redman, kenneth terroade, arthur jones, steve lacy, robin kenyatta, byard lancaster, noah howard, and "the rev" frank wright; drummers muhammad ali, philly joe jones, arthur taylor, ed blackwell, andrew cyrille, and sunny murray; and bassists alan silva and earl freeman. see beauchamp (1998) for first­ person reminiscences by art ensemble members about the paris period. 12. other musicians active in the french-based wing of the emerging euro­ pean free jazz movement included drummers francois tusques, aldo romano, and claude delcloo (who originally invited the art ensemble to paris); trumpeter bernard vitet; german pianist joachim kuhn, then resident in france; saxophon­ ist michel portal; and bassists beb guerin, barre phillips, and jean-francois jenny­ clark. perhaps the most thorough historical account of european free jazz activity can be found in jost (1987). again, the german-language text has not been trans­ lated into english. 13. this fact casts some doubt on radano' s assertion (1993: 142) that the paris trip occasioned the collapse of aacm unity. 14. a recording of the concert was released in two volumes (creative construction company 1975,1976). 15. the terms "downtown i" and "downtown ii" were coined by my graduate student at the university of california at san diego, michael dessen, and myself. for a recent collection of the writings of artists associated with downtown ii, see zorn (2000). george e. lewis 149 16. according to gary giddins (1978), the nea disbursed $6,650,000 for sym­ phony orchestras; $3,400,000 for opera; $310,000 for "contemporary performance of new music"; $475,000 for "composers and librettists" (excluding 'jazz" com­ posers); and $640,000 for all forms classified as jazz, of which $80,000 went for 'jazz composition" and $100,000 for 'jazz performance." according to pasler (1987), nea music composition grants (and not surprisingly, the music panel as­ signments) tended to rotate among a small coterie of white academics. gilmore (1993) notes that in 1987, "minorities"-african americans, native americans, asian americans, and latino americans combined-received 6.3% of all grants for music. as diane weathers (1973) shows, many black musicians in new york, such as reggie workman of the collective black artists, saw these discrepancies as a form of discrimination. 17. for a nearly complete collection of over five hundred pages of reprinted voice articles on downtown i, see johnson (1989). 18. these included percussionists ajaramu, thurman barker, and kahil ei­ zabar; saxophonists douglas ewart, edward wilkerson, mwata bowden, and wallace mcmillan; pianist adegoke steve colson; bassists felix blackmon, leonard jones, and brian smith; singers iqua colson and bernard mixon; bas­ soonist james johnson; trumpeters frank gordon and john shenoy jackson; and myself and martin "sparx" alexander as trombonists. among the members who had become established in new york were the trio air (henry threadgill, fred hopkins, and steve mccall) as well as the trio of anthony braxton, leo smith, and leroy jenkins. 19. see goldberg (1988) for a standard account of this interdisciplinary move­ ment away from traditional spaces. 20. other new performers included pianist anthony davis, guitarist michael gregory jackson, drummer paul maddox (now pheeroan ak laff), and saxophon­ ist david murray. those newcomers were augmented by members of the existing new york experimental improvisation scene, such as pianist dave burrell; trom­ bonists grachan moncur iii and roswell rudd; drummers jerome cooper, andrew cyrille, barry altschul, and sunny murray; saxophonists sam rivers, byard lancaster, ken mcintyre, marion brown, frank lowe, jimmy lyons, and david s. ware; trumpeters olu dara, ahmed abdullah, and ted daniel; guitarist bern nix; bassoonist karen borca; and vibraphonist khan jamal. 21. these included pianists michelle rosewoman and marilyn crispell; saxo­ phonists jemeel moondoc, daniel carter, marty ehrlich, and charles tyler; trom­ bonists craig harris and ray anderson; drummers john betsch and ronald shannon jackson; guitarists james "blood" ulmer, jean-paul bourelly, and james emery; bassists mark dresser, jerome harris,john lindberg, wilber morris, william parker, and mark helias; clarinetist john carter; cellist diedre murray; violinists jason hwang and billy bang; vibraphonist khan jamal; and singer ellen christi. 22. poll information was obtained from down beat critics' and readers' polls between 1971 and 1980. 23. for an account of the "crisis of the listener" and proposed solutions relat­ ing to jazz, see henry pleasants (1955, 1962). as it happens, pleasants, whose books championed jazz as the american music of the future, had served as the cia station chief in bonn in the 1950s (d. martin 2000). 150 current musicology 24. for example, while john hammond recognized that ellington, with his extended work, "black, brown and beige" was "trying to achieve something of greater significance," the producer clearly felt that something more was needed from the composer: "no one can justly criticize him for this if he keeps up the quality of his music for dancing" (tucker 1993: 173). 25. a number of aacm members, including roscoe mitchell, joseph jarman, wad ada leo smith, muhal richard abrams, amina claudine myers, anthony braxton, and later henry threadgill and the present author, have engaged exten­ sively with this mode of composition. an early public inkling of aacm engage­ ment with pan-european experimentalism occurred with the 1966 joseph jarman/ john cage midnight concerts at the harper theater in chicago's hyde park, which received a highly unfavorable review in down beat (welding 1966). 26. see, for instance, the important interviews with mrican american improvi­ sors published by drummer arthur taylor ([1977] 1993). 27. for instance, see chatham (1992) and nyman (1999). in the second edi­ tion of his canonical history of experimental music, nyman is particularly defen­ sive, even defiant, about the fact that the second edition made no effort whatso­ ever to redress the lack of cultural and ethnic diversity in the first edition. while admitting that a sequel to his book "would have to be less ethnocentric," nyman maintains that were he writing the first edition today he "would not do it any differ­ ently" (1999:xviii). 28. for estimates of the kitchen's 1980 budget, see rockwell (1980). 29. information compiled from kitchen concert announcement mailers printed during my term as music curator (between september 1980 and june 1982) shows that the kitchen's music program presented, among others, tom hamilton, john zorn, bertram turetzky, rae imamura, carles santos, derek bailey, evan parker, takehisa kosugi, stuart dempster, william hellermann, eliane radigue, julius hemphill, anthony davis, julius eastman, michael byron, william hawley, amina claudine myers, arnold dreyblatt, gerry hemingway, robert moran, glenn branca, dick higgins, jackson maclow, ned sublette, john morton, arlene dunlap/daniel lentz, the jamaican music festival, john morton, carl stone, trans museq (davey williams and ladonna smith), roscoe mitchell, peg ahrens, defunkt, tona scherchen-hsiao, the ethnic heritage ensemble (kahil ei-zabar, edward wilkerson, and joseph bowie), frederic rzewski, rhys chatham, ingram marshall, douglas ewart, muhal richard abrams, robert ashley, diamanda galas, anthony braxton, gerald oshita, and joan labarbara. 30. for a thoughtful history of marsalis and neoclassicism, see porter (2002). for a forthright, first-person declaration of the purposes and strategies envisioned at the time regarding the promulgation of a revised canon for jazz, see marsalis (1988). herman gray (1997) has advanced the notion that marsalis's advocacy ofa highly selective version of a jazz canon recapitulates a neoconservative version of the strategies of both prescription and resistance promulgated by the black aesthetic movement of the 1970s. 31. for further elaboration on these issues from a similar viewpoint, see also piazza (1997). 32. as the saxophonist jimmy heath remarked, on the eve of a "classical jazz" concert featuring his music, "there were grants before, from the government, but george e. lewis 151 nothing like this. the budget, which, i might add, is probably minuscule com­ pared to the classical budget, is still bigger than anything i'm used to, and lincoln center itself has an aura of prestige. it's all very helpful to musicians and to the music" (watrous 1994). 33. for west, marsalis, like louis armstrong, ella baker, w. e. b. du bois, and martin luther king, jr., among others, is one of a new breed of "intellectual freedom fighters, that is, cultural workers who simultaneously position themselves within (or alongside) the mainstream while clearly aligned with groups who vow to keep alive potent traditions of critique and resistance." going further, west ex­ horts such cultural workers to "take clues from the great musicians or preachers of color who are open to the best of what other traditions offer yet are rooted in nourishing subcultures that build on the grand achievements of a vital heritage" (1993:27). 34. film and music scholar krin gabbard (2000) acidly comments that "some of my more cynical friends in jazz circles have pointed out that the only musicians we see in burns's finale are the ones with major-label recording contracts." how­ ever, the extensive sponsorship for jazz events at lincoln center has by no means been limited to media corporations. 35. for a contemporary view, see small (1987). 36. for a description of "totalism," see gann (1997). references $407,276 in grants to go to composers. 1974. new 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"who set you flowin'?": the african american migration narrative. new york: oxford university press. ---. 2001. if you can't be free, be a mystery: in search of billie holiday. new york: the free press. 154 current musicology guggenheim to mingus: protest at foundation. 1971. down beat (may 22): 8. hardt, michael, and antonio negri. 2001. what the protesters in genoa want. new york times (july 20): a21. harrison, max. 1969. review of roscoe mitchell, congliptious. jazz monthly (june): 28-29. heckman, don. 1965. caught in the act: the jazz composers guild. down beat (february 1): 37-38. hersh, burton. 1980. the secret life of lincoln center. town and country 134 (january): 71-72, 109-13. james, michael. 1968. review of lester bowie, numbers 1 & 2. jazz monthly (june): 16. jarman,joseph. 1969. gens en peine: l'art ensemble de chicago vous offre cette musique pour noei. le monde (december 24): 14. ---. 1998. interview with the author, brooklyn, n.y.,june 28. jazz grants. 1973. down beat (october 25): 46. jazz musicians group in chicago growing. 1966. down beat (july 28): 11. johnson, tom. 1979. new music, new york, new institution. village voice (july 2): 88-89. ---.1980. the kitchen improvises. village voice (september 24-30): 72. ---. 1989. a voice for new music: new york city, 1972-1982. eindhoven, netherlands: het apollohuis. jones, leroi [amiri barakaj. 1963. blues people: negro music in white america. new york: william morrow. ---.1968. black music. new york: william morrow. jost, ekkehard. 1975. freejazz. vienna: universal edition. ---. 1982. jazzmusiker: materialen zur soziologie der afroamerikanischen musik. frankfurt am main: ullstein materialen. ---. 1987. europas jazz, 1960-80. frankfurt am main: fischer taschenbuch verlag. ---. 1991. sozialgeschichte des jazz in den usa. frankfurt am main: wolke verlag. keepnews, peter. 1979. public domain. soho weekly news (september 27): 23-24, 50. kofsky, frank. 1970. black nationalism and the revolution in music. new york: pathfinder. kostakis, peter. 1977.josephjarman. coda (december): 2-4. kostelanetz, richard. 1993. dictionary of the avant-gardes. chicago: a cappella books. levin, robert. 1965. the jazz composers guild: an assertion of dignity. down beat (may 6): 17-18. lewis, george e. 1996. improvised music mter 1950: mrological and eurological perspectives. black music researchjournal16: 91-122. lipsitz, george. 2000. like a weed in a vacant lot: the black artists group in st. louis. in decomposition: post-disciplinary peiformance, edited by sue-ellen case, philip brett, and susan leigh foster, 51-61. bloomington: indiana university press. litweiler,john. 1967. altoists and other chicagoans. coda (march): 28. george e. lewis 155 --. 1967a. the chicago scene. coda (may): 36. ---. 1967b. summer in fun city. coda (september): 15. ---. 1967c. the chicago scene. coda (november): 34. ---.1968. the new music. coda (march): 33. --. 1968a. the new music. coda (july): 35. ---. 1968b. the new music. coda (december): 35-37. ---. 1969. review of oliver lake/julius hemphill event. down beat (june 12): 34-35. ---. 1984. the freedom principle: jazz after 1958. new york: da capo. looker, ben. 2001. "poets of action": the st. louis black artists group, 19681972. gateway-heritage 22 (summer): 16--27. marmande, francis. 1977. kalaparusha, alias maurice mcintyre. jazz (france), no. 260 (december): 32-33. marsalis, wynton. 1988. what jazz is-and isn't. new york times (july 31): 21, 24. martin, douglas. 2000. henry pleasants, 89, spy who knew his music. new york times (january 14): bl1. martin, terry. 1966-67. chicago-the avant garde. coda (december-january): 21. ---.1968. the chicago avant-garde. jazz monthly (march): 12-18. mcclary, susan. 2000. conventional wisdom. berkeley: university of california press. mcelfresh, suzanne. 1994. julius hemphill. bomb (fall): 46-49. mercer, kobena. 1994. diaspora culture and the dialogic imagination. welcome to the jungle: new positions in black cultural studies. new york: routledge. myers, amina claudine [ariae]. ca. 1968. ''a day in the life . .. " unpublished narrative, collection of amina claudine myers. nai, larry. 2001. interview with greg osby. cadence (may): 5-16. nessa, chuck. 1966. new music report. coda (october-november): 20. nyman, michael. 1999. experimental music: cage and beyond. 2d ed. new york: schirmer books. occhiogrosso, peter. 1978. don't stop the carnival, just keep it out of the class­ room. soho weekly news (september 21): 84,111. oja, carol. 2000. making music modern: new york in the 1920s. new york: oxford university press. palmer, robert. 1973. pop: newport newcomers. new york times (june 10): 30. ---. 1975. liner notes to creative construction company, vol. 1. muse mr 5071. ---. 1976. new jazz from the midwest moves east. new york times (may 9): 18. ---. 1977. wkcr will start 90 straight hours of jazz tonight. new york times (may 14): 34 pareles, jon. 1987. pop view: classical and jazz artists meet halfway. new york times (march 15): sec. 2, p. 27. parks, carole a. 1973. self-determination and the black aesthetic: an interview with max roach. black world 23 (november): 62-71. pasler, jann. 1987. musique et institution aux etats-unis. inharmoniques, no. 2 (may): 104-34. piazza, tom. 1997. blues up and down: jazz in our time. new york: st. martin's press. 156 current musicology pleasants, henry. 1955. the agony of modern music. new york: simon and schuster. ---. 1962. death of a music? the decline of the european tradition and the rise of jazz. london: jazz book club. porter, eric. 2002. what is this thing called jazz: african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley: university of california press. press release. 1969. jazz hot, no. 250 (may): 12. press release. 1969a.jazz (france), no. 168 (july-august): 14. primack, bret. 1976. leroy jenkins: gut-plucking revolutionary. down beat (november 16): 23-24, 50-51. radano, ronald m. 1993. new musical figurations: anthony braxton's cultural critique. chicago: university of chicago press. ratliff, ben. 2001. a pleasant swim with gunther schuller, the man who named the third stream. new york times (march 20): e1. rockwell,john. 1974. face of jazz is changing visibly. new york times (june 4): 33. ---. 1980. a new music director comes to the avant-garde kitchen. new york times (september 14): sec. 2, p. 23. ---. 1982. jazz: two braxton programs. new york times (april 23): c23. ---. 1988. as important as anyone in his generation. new york times (february 21): sec. 2, p. 27. ross, andrew. 1989. no respect: intellectuals and popular culture. london: routledge. rubin, nathan. 1994. john cage and the twenty-six pianos: forces in american music from 1940-1990. moraga, calif.: sarah's books. sandow, gregory. 1981. but is it art? village voice (march 4-10): 63. shapiro, peter. 2001. blues and the abstract truth: phil cohran. wire (may): 28-31. shoemaker, bill. 2000. avant-garde. jazziz (september): 60-62. small, christopher. 1987. music of the common tongue. new york: riverrun press. southern, eileen. 1973. music research and the black aesthetic. black world 23 (november): 4-13. ---. 1983. the music of black americans. 2d. ed. new york: w. w. norton. stovall, tyler. 1996. paris noir: african americans in the city of light. boston: houghton mifflin. sweet, robert e. 1996. music universe, music mind: revisiting the creative music studio, woodstock, new york. ann arbor, mich.: arborville publishing. tapscott, horace. 2001. songs of the unsung: the musical and social journey of horace tapscott. edited by steven isoardi. durham, n.c.: duke university press. taylor, arthur. 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[1977] 1992. as serious as your life: the story of the new jazz. new york and london: serpent's tail. ---.1979. amina claudine myers. coda, no. 169: 4-6. wilson, john s. 1972. braxton performs on alto saxophone. new york times (may 24): 55. zabor, rafi. 1979. funny, you look like ajazz musician. village voice (july 2): 72-73. zorn,john, ed. 2000. arcana: musicians on music. new york: granary books. discography abrams, muhal richard. 1978. 1qoa+1. black saint bsr 0017. ---. 1978a. lifea blinec. arista novus an3000. air. 1979. air lore. arista novus an3014. art ensemble of chicago. 1969. people in sorrow. nessa n-3. braxton, anthony. 1976. creative orchestra music 1976. arista al4080. creative construction company. 1975. creative construction company, vol. 1. muse mr5071. ---. 1976. creative construction company, vol. ii. muse mr 5097. freeman, chico. 1977. chico. india navigation in 103l. lewis, george e. 1977. chicago slow dance. lovely music vrllol. mitchell, roscoe. 1966. sound. delmark ds-408. --.1978. l-r-g; the maze; s11 examples. nessa n-14/15. smith, leo. 1979. spirit catcher. nessa n-19. wildflowers. 1977. wildflowers: the new york loft jazz sessions, vol. 1. casablanca/ douglas nblp 7045. ---. 1977a. wildflowers: the new york loft jazz sessions, vol. 2. casablanca/ douglas nblp 7046. ---. 1977b. wildflowers: the new york loft jazz sessions, vol. 3. casablanca/ douglas nblp 7047. ---. 1977c. wildflowers: the new york loft jazz sessions, vol. 4. casablanca/ douglas nblp 7048. ---. 1977d. wildflowers: the new york loft jazz sessions, vol. 5. casablanca/ douglas nblp 7049. uta g. poiger.jazz, rock, and rebels: cold war politics and american culture in a divided germany. berkeley: university of california press, 2000. xiii, 333 pp. reviewed by jeffrey h. jackson over the last several years, cultural historians have looked to jazz music as a way of talking about national identity. for historians of the united states, the logic is easy to understand. jazz is, unquestionably, an integral part of the american story. but more importantly, as historians continue to rework the narrative of u.s. history to incorporate the issue of race more completely, jazz must be discussed as a crucial point of connection between whites and blacks in this country. to exclude jazz-not just as a musical form, but as a cultural phenomenon-would be historically inac­ curate, and it would give a skewed view of how american national identity has evolved in the twentieth century.! understanding how jazz fits into definitions of european national iden­ tity, however, is a bit trickier. in the u.s., the early popularity of jazz chal­ lenged views of america as a country with distinctly "white" and "black" or "high" and "low" cultures that rarely ever met, and the music quickly came to be seen as an essential part of american life (leonard 1962; levine 1993). in europe, however, the consequences of jazz's popularity were more complicated for critics and cultural commentators-for europeans, jazz was a "foreign" music. therefore, it not only evoked conflicts about race and the boundaries between "high" and "low" culture (which were al­ ready subject to debate by the 1920s), it also raised questions about "americanization" and the invasion of foreigners at a time when discus­ sions of national identity had been energized by war and propaganda that saw "others" as enemies. jazz quickly became a part of the "culture wars" of many countries in the 1920s and 1930s as they tried to renegotiate their sense of nationhood. at that moment, war, depression, changes in inter­ national diplomacy, immigration, and the expansion of a global economy where goods and ideas easily crossed borders, all called older definitions of the nation into question. jazz did not help to make things clearer. as in the u.s., the early debates about jazz in europe were rarely only about the music itself. rather, they doubled as complex attempts to reimagine na­ tional identity. uta g. poiger's book jazz, rock, and rebels continues the story of jazz, specifically in the two germanys, into the post-world war ii era. in doing so, she not only gives us an excellent study of german youth culture in the 1950s and 1960s, but she also offers a good example of the ways in which current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york jeffrey h.jackson 519 many cultural historians use music-especially jazz-to talk about the larger issues of the moment. poiger's central argument concerns the dif­ ferent reactions by west and east germans-everyone from officials in the government to middle-class families-to the american popular culture that was in such high demand after the war. both germanys began the postwar era with an animosity towards american imports because u.s. music, films, and fashions threatened to erode gender, racial, class, and cultural hierarchies that many people believed would restore order to german society after 1945-on both sides of the iron curtain. further­ more, both the east and west wanted to be the bearer of the german na­ tion's culture and identity. negotiating between the nazi past that had corrupted conceptions of "germanness" and the influence of the super­ powers, easterners and westerners hoped to hold onto what was uniquely german. but they did not believe they could do so when throngs of young people started to wear blue jeans, dance to jazz and rock 'n' roll, and watch dangerous films like rebel without a cause, all of which seemed to promote youth rebellion and cultural turmoil. but, as poiger tells us convincingly, over time the attitudes of east and west germans changed in relationship to these imports. hoping to use the promise of mass consumption and increased leisure as a way of demonstrating the values of liberal democracy and capitalism, west german officials eventually embraced the cultural products of their american ally. liberal social scientists argued that the youth "rebellions" associated with jazz, rock, and other american cultural forms in the 1950s were not really political-and therefore not dangerous-but rather part of normal, adolescent psychological development. meanwhile, in the east, officials gradually moved farther away from american culture, claiming that it was a threat to building a socialist society-even though they some­ times tried to use it as a way of attracting recruits to communist party youth groups. by discussing the two germanys in tandem, poiger offers a rare and valuable picture of the step-by-step divergence between the two sides in the cold war. however, her use of music-both jazz and rock 'n' roll-is less innovative than instructive about how cultural historians approach music. here, one must point out the fact that poiger does not analyze mu­ sic or its performance. she offers no significant argument about changes in musical style. she gives no technical analysis of what is performed, nor does she utilize a particularly musical vocabulary in talking about jazz, whose styles are described in the most general of terms-"hot," "swing," etc. -with little sensibility to the internal developments within the jazz idiom. however, none of these sorts of musical discussions fall within the scope of what poiger has set out to do. the focus of her analysis is on 520 current musicology german culture and its transformations in the early cold war years as re­ flected in debates about jazz, something she does well. where music is concerned, poiger's attention is drawn to audiences and to how they re­ acted to what they heard. consumption and listenership are not necessar­ ily what poiger looks at; she does not describe in detail the sorts of places in which jazz or rock performances took place, for example, nor does she dwell on changes in how or when people heard music. instead, the inter­ pretation of jazz and rock is poiger's point of departure-the interpreta­ tions of the young audiences who reveled in jazz and rock, of government officials who hoped to regulate it, and of social scientists who tried to un­ derstand it. she does a very good job of getting inside the heads of those who heard this music and describing the ways in which it moved them­ both to love and to fear. a book like poiger's raises, both for european historians and for jazz scholars, the question of why jazz is a fruitful subject for approaching the question of national identity. perhaps one reason is precisely because of jazz's "foreignness." current historical literature about jazz in europe of­ ten centers around the debates that its arrival and popularity provoked among cultural critics, many of whom went far beyond musical issues in their analyses. one of the best examples, of course, is the nazi response to jazz and their subsequent labeling of it as "degenerate art," along with most other modern artistic creation. as william kater has shown, the nazis reviled jazz as much for its connection with particular racial groups -jews and black americans-as for its shocking sounds. the music would erode the foundations of german culture, the nazis feared, and one im­ portant part of that culture was german art (kater 1992). but if the nazi reaction was extreme, it was not unique. french critics also feared that jazz, precisely because it was a foreign import, threatened music and art that was native (jackson 1999 and forthcoming). this larger connection between artistic production and national iden­ tity is another important reason why an imported music like jazz is useful to european historians. europeans are not the only ones to connect art and identity, but it has long been an important way of defining national cultures (brubaker 1992; lebovics 1999; de grazia 1989). benedict ander­ son's influential definition of nations as "imagined communities" suggests -even in the phrase itself-the important role of creative, imaginative ac­ tivity in shaping national consciousness (anderson 1991). although he writes about the ability of the printed word to link people as a nation across time and space, one can just as easily imagine images and songs performing the same task-or, in the case of a foreign music like jazz, threatening such affiliations.2 in countries such as germany, france, and italy, which have prided themselves on traditions of artistic and musical jeffrey h.jackson 521 production, the popularity of a foreign music like jazz suggests a threat to an integral part of what makes the nation. one might also ask whether the ways in which europeans dealt with jazz suggests something else about their national identities. in my own work on france in the 1920s and 1930s, i argue that many musicians and fans began to "make jazz french" by redefining it as something that french musicians, not just americans, could play. in doing so, i suggest that they lived a definition of the french nation as one that, following in the enlightenment and revolutionary traditions, was open to new influ­ ences from abroad; national identity was not only inward-looking. others, too, have looked at european responses to jazz as stories about how those people put jazz to good use as a tool for crafting national identity (rearick 1997; tournes 1999). poiger's book also employs this strategy of examining europeans' cre­ ative responses to the conflict between jazz and national identity. mir­ roring an important part of the story of jazz that historians like neil leonard and kathy ogren have charted in the u.s., poiger describes how jazz became increasingly "respectable" in west germany throughout the 1950s and 1960s. "the increasing respectability of jazz," poiger writes, "was linked to narrowing definitions of jazz and to redefining the meaning of individual jazz styles-from dixieland to bebop" (137). as jazz became more commercial and more "refined," west german critics and parents found less to attack about it. but, she argues, the "taming" of jazz was also linked to the ways in which audiences' perceptions of jazz were modified, and many of these responses were powerful given the german situation and the anxieties of the day. for example, the critic joachim ernst berendt began to redefine jazz as, at least in part, a "white" music by emphasizing the contributions of bix beiderbecke-and by stressing his german her­ itage. berendt acknowledged the mrican american roots of jazz, but talked about the music as a "universalizing experience," as poiger puts it (141). jazz clubs also began to present jazz as an "intellectual" music to be dis­ cussed and appreciated by informed listeners, not just danced to in an un­ thinking, emotional, erotic frenzy. stripping jazz of its associations with race, sexuality, and juvenile delinquency made it more socially acceptable. and, more importantly, these changing perceptions removed the early fears of germans that jazz was a force of continuing upheaval at a time when peo­ ple desired to return to a "normal" life after two world wars, a crippling depression, and the horrors of nazism. even the early associations be­ tween jazz and working-class culture were attenuated, and middleand upper-class west germans began to count themselves among its fans. the story of jazz's acceptability in east germany was more complicated, mov­ ing from doubt to tentative acceptance, to rejection with the hardening of 522 current musicology cold war animosities. in the east, jazz came to be seen as an american in­ vasion, while in the west, it was "perfect for the new pluralist, postfascist west german society" (165). poiger's prose is, at times, a bit thick, and her analytical framework­ centered around numerous interlocking themes all superimposed on the cold war context-is sometimes hard to follow. jazz scholars may find this book less interesting since the focus is on germany, not on jazz, and only one chapter really treats jazz itself in detail. but her contribution to the study of germany during the cold war is noteworthy, and those inter­ ested in the interplay between music and european national identity will find it rich and rewarding. notes 1. many american historians have been working on the interplay between american culture and jazz, and i can only mention a few here. see, for example, peretti (1992), levine (1993), stowe (1994), ogren (1989), and douglas (1995). 2. the link between music and national identity in europe is growing. see, among other work, applegate (1998), weber (1992), johnson (1995), mason (1996), potter (1998), and jackson (1999). references anderson, benedict. 1991. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. 2d ed. london: verso. applegate, celia. 1998. how german is it? nationalism and the idea of serious music in the early nineteenth century. 19th-century music 21: 274-96. brubaker, rogers. 1992. citizenship and nationhood in france and germany. cam­ bridge, mass.: harvard university press. de grazia, victoria. 1989. mass culture and sovereignty: the american challenge to european cinemas, 1920-1960. journal of modern history 61: 53-87. douglas, ann. 1995. terrible honesty: mongrel manhattan in the 1920s. new york: farrar, straus, and giroux. jackson, jeffrey h. 1999. making enemies: jazz in interwar paris. french cultural studies 10: 179-99. ---. forthcoming. making jazz french: music and modern life in interwar paris. durham, n.c.: duke university press. johnson, james h. 1995. listening in paris: a cultural history. berkeley: university of california press. kater, michael h. 1992. different drummers: jazz in the culture of nazi germany. new york: oxford university press. lebovics, herman. 1999. mona lisa's escort: andre malraux and the reinvention of french culture. ithaca, n.y.: cornell university press. leonard, neil. 1962. jazz and the white americans: the acceptance of a new art form. chicago: university of chicago press. levine, lawrence w. 1993. the unpredictable past: explorations in american cultural history. new york: oxford university press. jeffrey h.jackson 523 mason, laura. 1996. singing the french revolution: popular culture and politics, 1787-1799. ithaca, n.y.: cornell university press. ogren, kathy. 1989. the jazz revolution: twenties america and the meaning of jazz. new york: oxford university press. peretti, burton w. 1992. the creation of jazz: music, race, and culture in urban america. urbana: university of illinois press. potter, pamela. 1998. most german of the arts: musicology and society from the weimar republic to the end of hitler's reich. new haven, conn.: yale university press. rearick, charles. 1997. the french in love and war: popular culture in the era of the world wars. new haven, conn.: yale university press. stowe, david w. 1994. swing changes: big-band jazz in new deal america. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. tournes, ludovic. 1999. new orleans sur seine: histoire de jazz en france, 1917-1992. paris: fayard. weber, william. 1992. the rise of musical classics in eighteenth-century england: a study in canon, ritual, and ideology. oxford: clarendon press. the hodges and newland collections in the library of congress: a preliminary report charles h. kaifman recently i had occasion to peruse two of the many personal collections in the holdings of the music division of the library of congress. previously ignored, the libraries of two 19th-century church musicians, edward hodges and william newland, help to provide an insight into the musical taste, range of interest, methods, and repertory favored along the northeast coast of the united states during the last century. the largest collection that i examined was that formerly belonging to edward hodges. it originally comprised 743 volumes, most of them standard works which have been catalogued and dispersed throughout the library's holdings. a substantial number of them, approximately 250 items, remain uncatalogued but available for study as a single entity. edward hodges was one of the many european musicians to arrive in the united states during the early 19th century. he was born in bristol, england in 1796, to a family that conducted a retail business in music and instruments. despite early evidence of mechanical aptitude, hodges studied music as a profession and later applied his mechanical ability as well as his musical skill to the improvement of the organ. the instrument in st. james's church in bristol was rebuilt to his specifications, according to which the first cc manual and ccc pedal were incorporated into an english organ. for the services inaugurating this instrument on 2 may 1824, hodges composed a morning service and an evening service, each in c major; a setting of psalm 150; and an anthem. these are his earliest known compositions. in 1825 he received the doctor of music degree from cambridge university. during the year 1835 hodges competed for the coveted post of organist at st. george's chapel, windsor. he lost to george elvey (1816-93), an organist and composer who was knighted in 1871. in reference to hodges the dean of st. george's said that he did not "fancy the broad-brimmed hat, white neck-tie, and boots with pointed toes, suggesting to him an individuality that might be hard to control." 1 officers of the toronto cathedral offered to hodges the post of organist in 1838. he accepted and passed through new york city on his way to canada. in toronto the musical situation proved to be so discouraging that he canceled his contract and returned to new york city. on 15 january 1839 the vestrymen of new york's trinity church appointed hodges organist of their institution at a salary of $300 per annum. 2 in the same year the old building in which trinity's services were held was found to be in unsafe condition, and the vestry decided to have it demolished and a new edifice erected in its place. during the seven years required to accomplish this, hodges performed his duties at st. john's, one of trinity's 79 chapels, where he officiated at the new firth and hall organ that was installed there in 1839. in 1843, under the aegis of trinity's music committee, a music department was established at the new york protestant episcopal school (for boys). the primary purpose of the department was to provide trinity church with a continuous source of choir boys. the boys were to serve at trinity in return for the yearly allowance provided them by trinity parish. dr. hodges served as music director of the school, but unfortunately "the trinity school [did] not furnish musical talent enough to feed the class," and apparently hodges had considerable difficulty in maintaining his choir, which usually comprised between twelve and fourteen members.3 on ascension day, 21 may 1846, trinity's new church was consecrated. hodges was appointed organist and provided with the following yearly payments: $500 for carrying out his duties as organist, $500 for his teaching activities at the protestant episcopal school, and $1,500 for maintenance of his choir. hodges resigned his post at the school in may of 1853, owing to his general dissatisfaction with the policies of its director. during the lenten season of 1854 dr. hodges suffered an attack of paralysis that temporarily disabled his left hand. one of his sons, john sebastian bach hodges, served as trinity's organist during the term of his father's indisposition. iii health forced hodges to take a leave of absence from trinity in october 1855. he returned in january of the following year, but by 1859 his illness had increased in severity to the point that he felt constrained to return to england. sufficiently recovered, he ventured back to new york in 1861 and lived with his brother-in-law until 1862, the year of his wife's death. john s. b. hodges, now a doctor of divinity and reverend of grace church in newark, new jersey, provided a home for his father until 1863, when the elder hodges returned once more to england. he died on 1 september 1867 and was buried in the graveyard of the church of st. mary in stanton drew, near bristol. he was survived by three sons: j. s. b. hodges; george frederick handel hodges, who served as supernumerary organist at trinity in new york; and reverend jubal hodges, a presbyter of the diocese of pennsylvania, and by one daughter, faustina hasse hodges. although dr. hodges spent a considerable part of his life in the united states, his outlook and allegiance remained essentially british. by no means may one consider him an influential american musician of his period, but rather a british musician living in america who, in all probability, helped to raise american musical standards and to foster an appreciation of older masters. this he accomplished through his many students, who scattered all over the country to fill posts as teachers and performers. 4 when one pieces together information gathered from messiter's history of the choir and music of trinity church, old trinity church programs, and the manuscripts in the hodges collection, it becomes apparent that hodges was quite conservative and narrow in his choice of sacred music for use in his 80 church, although it must be pointed out that his repertory represented a considerable broadening of that which preceded his tenure. before hodges, for example, it was not unusual to find that the same morning service by william jackson of exeter (1730-1803) was performed on twenty successive sundays. the following list contains the composers and the number of works by each that were performed at trinity during dr. hodges's term as organist and choir director: morning services: william boyce (2) john clark (1) orlando gibbons (1) edward hodges (5) william jackson (3) king (?) (1) richard langdon (1) james nares (3) rogers (?) (1) john travers (1) anthems by: william boyce giacomo carissimi creighton (?) william croft maurice green william hayes edward hodges benedetto marcello james nares henry purcell john travers funeral services: william croft (1) edward hodges (2) henry purcell (1) evening services: edward hodges (2) henry purcell (1) communion services: edward hodges (1) inspection reveals the retrospective quality of the repertory as well as its adherence to works by english composers. the works of the two italian composers represented were arranged by hodges and not used in their original versions. it would appear that edward hodges's favorite composer was edward hodges. messiter's assertion, that dr. hodges's choirs used manuscripts utilizing old (c) clefs in alto and tenor parts almost exclusively is borne out by their presence in the forty-seven volumes containing the above selections. all are punctiliously copied out in dr. hodges's hand. despite the somewhat limited range indicated by the trinity repertory under hodges, evidence in his collection and in his personal papers proves that he was a musician of wide-ranging activity. a list of subjects that he prepared, under the heading "for articles in the musical world," gives some idea of the broad extent of his interests: plain song gregorian tones numbers and definite proportions sir isaac newton and prismatic tones polarized light and analogy with sounds old hydraulic organ sol fa system practical thorough bass modulation numerical notation scale of ten octaves, 15 3/8 to 32.00 consecutive 5ths and 8ves, why forbidden? 81 g. f. bristow key note-the final bass. why? social standing of musicians pitch and its tide ancient choirs in boston, during 1864, there appeared the trinity collection of church music; containing all the psalm & hymn tunes, &c. used in trinity church, new york, or in either [sic] of its three chapels by edward hodges, mus. doc., of sidney sussex college, cambridge, england. with valuable additions by the editor, s. parkman tuckerman, mus. doc., organist and director of music in st. paul's church, boston. boston 1864. tuckerman was one of hodges's successors at trinity as well as a personal friend. in the trinity collection his editorial work consisted of eliminating the old clefs present in hodges's manuscripts and preparing what he felt were "easier arrangements" of some of the doctor's more difficult pieces. of the 344 pieces in this collection, 15 were by hodges and 89 were revised by him. among the other composers represented were franz ] osef and michael haydn, mendelssohn, beethoven, tallis, playford, handel, burney, henry purcell, ravenscroft, orlando gibbons,]. s. bach, w. a. mozart, goudimel, martin luther, telemann, gluck, and william boyce. since this list does not coincide with the names of the composers whose works hodges used for his choir, one must assume that the selections in the trinity collection include pieces that were used for general congregational singing. a "gloria in excelsis" and a "benedicte omnia opera" (f) by dr. hodges were contained in a collection of cathedral chants: including the gregorian tonesadapted to the canticles and occasional services of the protestant episcopal church. also services for the holy communion and the burial of the dead, with an easy morning service, in f. consisting of te deum and benedictus by s. parkman tuckerman, mus. doc. boston 1858. tunes by tans'ur, boyce, ravenscroft, s. p. tuckerman, and the versatile new englander h. k. oliver, as well as the anthems by dr. hodges listed below, appeared in the national lyre: a new collection of sacred music consisting of psalm and hymn tunes, with a choice selection of sentences, anthems, and chants; designed for the use of choirs, congregations, and singing schools. by s. p. tuckerman, s. a. bancroft, and h. k. oliver. boston 1848. 82 anthems by hodges included were: benevolence l. m. gloucester l. m. (two versions) kyle l. m. bristol l. m. peace s. m. double chant for benedicte omnia opera habakkuk c. p. m. among the manuscripts in the collection are the following unpublished works by hodges, all in his hand: psalm 94th (an anthem upon popish persecution (in ireland) of the so-called church reform in england) bristol 1833 psalm 136 morning service in c morning service in f morning service in d morning service in e evening service in c evening service in f communion in f kyrie in f kyrie in c kyrie in e jubilate [this is a rather unfortunate affair in which hodges set what apparently are his own texts to works composed by j. s. bach, including the magnificat in d.] anthem. 0 be joyful in god-adapted from carissimi funeral anthem-in memory of his late royal highness, frederick, duke of york. performed saturday 1 january 1827. morning service-composed for and performed at the consecration of trinity church new york on the feast of the ascenscion, thursday may 21st, 1846. by edward hodges mus. doc. late director of the music of the parish of trinity church and now organist of trinity church new york [signed and dated] edw. hodges june 8, 1846. psalm 136 [a setting for double chorus] example 1 (p. 84) is an extract from the communion in f and provides a good representation of hodges's steady, conservative, almost plodding style. the following selection of titles culled from dr. hodges's collection will further serve to verify the breadth of his musical interests. it should be noted that most of these scores bear evidence of his study; many penciled notations and marginal comments attest to the fact that he must have spent considerable time analyzing the works of his predecessors. the fitzwilliam music, being a collection of sacred pieces selected from manuscripts of italian composers in the fitzwilliam museum. 83 now for the first time published by permission of the university of cambridge by vincent novello-organist to the portuguese embassy -london 1825. example 1. hodges's communion in f, extract. kyrie eleison, 1843. ...-,:;:: t i .. -;;;::-.,-1 -e-.... "tr u ltd "1';-elc.<.,':;o,,·lwd \"'·;r 01\ iu it ·indio£. hea.l-ts -eb i i ;;.: .'" o· 0 f i i i ------. . -9(0] :;::. _f"" -e... "'-;! 0.11 4'"e", k .. 1a.1il lord :t ::r:j1 jp en ".., i . . 0 "u' u· u r i \ 1a -;;; -f-.f--f -g-. i -6"t i a.w.> 1>1 0"-1het...ls ',-i l l o· te deum, jubilate, sanctus, kyrie eleison, magnificat, et nunc dimitis, a morning and evening church service for four voices, with an accompaniment for the organ or piano forte, composed and respectfully dedicated to all choirs by samuel wesley. london [n. d. on the title page, the following dedication appears:] for dr. hodges from the author december 21 1825. selection of sacred music from the works of some of the most eminent composers of germany and italy. c. f. latrobe. london 1806. 84 the compleat psalmodist or the organist's, parish-clerk's and psalm singer's companion-5th ed. by john arnold, philo musicae. author of the essex harmony and leicestershire harmony. london 176l. the whole book of psalm tunes in four parts by several authors. with the usual hymns and spiritual songs. collected by thomas ravenscroft, batchelor of music. [n. p., n. d.] sonate a violine e violone 0 cembalo-da arcangelo corelli da fusignano. [no p., n. d. this print is dedicated to "sofia carlotta, elettrice di brandenburgo," and the dedication bears the date "il primo gennara 1700."] euphonia, a collection of glees and part songs, selected and composed for the use of musical conventions, teachers, institutes and singing clubs. charles f. heuberer and h. perabeau. boston 1854. one also notes such items as an 1801 breitkopf & hartel edition of haydn's die worte des erloesers am kreuze; an 1823 edition, also from breitkopf & hartel, of beethoven's christus am oelberge; john stafford smith's musica antigua, an anthology of music from the 13th through the 18th century (london, 1812), and a manuscript, not in hodges's hand, that contains seventy-seven catches and glees by calcott, samuel webbe, stevenson, hayes, shield, and welch, as well as madrigals by gironimo converso, john wilbye, and michael cavendish. for approximately six years, from 1820 to 1826, dr. hodges kept what he described as his humpum scrumpum or a musical commonplace book. a book which was intended to receive and retain such detached scraps of good harmony or melody as might occasionally occur in extempore effusionsnovember 12, 182l. despite the date of 1821 on the title page, the book contains several entries dated 1820. true to his keynote statement, hodges entered numerous cadences, fugue subjects, melodies, and fragments of harmonic progressions. a number of items in the hodges collection bear neither the doctor's bookplate nor his inscription. it appears that extraneous material has been mixed with the collection; in fact, an entirely separate group of items is contained within dr. hodges's holdings. these manuscripts and books are at least part of the personal library of william augustine newland, an influential but little-known catholic church musician, composer, and music seller. newland was born on 2 november 1813, in london. his parents were irish. he demonstrated a talent for music early in his life and, despite his father's objections, was educated, in part, at the royal academy of music. in october of 1832 newland and his brother emigrated to the united states; 85 after a short stay in new york city, they moved to philadelphia. although born and raised as an episcopalian, newland converted to catholicism and was baptized in 1833. his first post as organist was at st. michael's church in 1834, and there followed short periods of similar service at st. mary's church, the church of the holy trinity, st. augustine's church, old st. joseph's church, the church of st. john the evangelist, st. patrick's church, and, finally, a long tenure at the church of st. john the baptist from about 1838 to 1891. but newland's musical activities extended far beyond the perimeter of a parish organist. he organized and conducted numerous public concerts of sacred music and is credited with being responsible for the performance of works by haydn, mozart, weber, and of rossini 's stabat mater. 5 as a pedagogue he was very much in demand by "philadelphia's best families."6 newland probably had scholarly inclinations, since he was appointed by his bishop to teach gregorian chant to seminarians in philadelphia's st. charles borromeo seminary. in 1858 he engaged in a short-lived retail organ business, and in the same year the harmonia sacred music society of philadelphia conferred on him the honorary title of doctor of music. newland composed approximately twenty sacred works, most of which are in his collection in manuscript form and none of which has been published. he died on 28 november 1901 and was buried at st. john's.7 in newland's material one finds prints of bibliographical interest, such as an artaria edition (1799) of beethoven's opera 12, tre sonate per il clavicembalo 0 forte-piano con un violino (dedicated to antonio salieri) and a simrock edition (1805) of the same composer's kreutzer sonata. but of considerably greater import are the numerous manuscripts that comprise the bulk of the collection. the greater part of these consists of the works of charles zeuner (born heinrich christopher zeuner in saxony in 1795), the unfortunate german-american composer and organist who died by his own hand on 7 november 1857. zeuner was a musician of considerable stature in boston, where he settled after leaving his native germany in 1824, and later in philadelphia. in the former city he served as president of the handel and haydn society from 1838 to 1839 and was considered "one of the best educated musicians and organists in the city." in 1840 he left boston and moved to philadelphia but did not pursue his vocation with his former zeal. during his life zeuner had developed a reputation for instability and a "quick and nervous temperament" that reached the point of overt mental aberration during his last few years. this condition culminated in his taking a boat trip across the delaware river, walking into the woods on the east bank, and shooting himself.8 newland's collection appears to contain some heretofore unknown works by zeuner, including a number of chamber pieces and at least three masses. it has not yet been determined why newland, a catholic organist, should have been in possession of zeuner's manuscripts, particularly since zeuner was a lutheran church organist at the time of his death. zeuner had no family, 86 and one would have expected that his materials would have reverted to his church. in addition to the zeuner documents there are other manuscripts that invite investigation, particularly in regard to their possible inclusion in repertories of the time: vesper service, by f. buhler mass in e fiat for four voices, by rev. francis buhler these two items are probably the work of franz buhler (1760-1824). requiem, by w. tomasch-k the latter part of the composer's name is not clear in the manuscript. it is likely that this is the work of johann wenzel tomaschek (17441850). there is no requiem in compilations of his known works, however. several masses by j. w. kalliwoda (1801-66). masses are not listed among his known works. requiem, by [eugen] pausch (1758-1838). requiem no.1, by dreyer. the composer probably is johann melchior dreyer (1746-1824). joseph lederer-l78l-six masses. lederer's dates are 1733-96. a number of other complete manuscripts and loose sheets are present in the newland collection. among these are works by eduardo marzo (18521929), saverio mercadante (1795-1870), h. phillips (?), and benjamin carr (1769-1831). the latter is represented by a te deum and a mass in an arrangement presumably by newland. it must be understood that the handwriting in all these manuscripts shows a great deal of variation, and it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty whether it is newland's calligraphy at different times in his life, or whether it is the hand of one of several anonymous scribes (perhaps even the composer's). f. x. reuss, who knew newland personally, claimed that the organist had arranged a carr mass from some old manuscripts that were given to him by the reverend dr. moriarity of old st. augustine's church in philadelphia,9 manuscripts which were supposedly written during carr's lifetime. though a preliminary search did not bring it to light, the original mass manuscript may still be among newland's papers, and it seems probable that he also obtained the manuscript of carr's te deum from dr. moriarity. neither the te deum nor the mass which newland arranged appears to be among carr's published or known works. 10 the largest single entity in the newland collection is newland's sketchbook. this volume, an unbound, oblong, staff-paper notebook, appears to have been kept by newland over a long period of time. in it he transcribed the music (no texts, only incipits) to 191 popular and folk songs of his day, a number of which originated well before his birth. a few are carefully written in piano score with ink; others are scrawled in pencil, with the melody only, 87 as though hastily taken in dictation. each has been marked with a title or titles, and twelve carry composer attributions. seven are repeated. the first page contains a quasi-legible table of contents that is of some help in identifying selections with blurred titles in the body of the book. unfortunately there is not one date in the entire volume. the contents reflect the successive ethnic waves that lashed the shores of the united states: traditional english ballads, songs in black slave dialect, songs in german dialect, irish reels and folk songs, as well as a number of purely american songs, some by stephen foster and many of a traditional nature. why are there no texts? assuming that newland had access to the texts at the same time that he acquired the music, it is not in keeping with his careful workmanship (as evidenced in his manuscripts and writings) to omit an integral part of the work at hand. there are several possible reasons for this void. the first is that some of these melodies were dance tunes to be played rather than sung. this would account for approximately ten per cent of the contents. the second may be that these songs were in common currency at the time of their transcription, and that newland did not feel that texts were needed. the most important cause for the lack of lyrics may have been newland's own position. as he was a distinguished catholic musician, organist and musical director of a large philadelphia church, and a teacher of gregorian chant to seminarians, it would not have been in keeping with his position, nor possibly with his religious nature, to involve himself with bawdy texts, as some of these are. nevertheless, his musical interests were broad enough to impel him to maintain a record of a facet of philadelphia's musical life that was not directly concerned with his own professional endeavors. the completion of newland's songbook might well fill a number of lacunae.l1 there are a number of american songsters from the period, but they carry texts and no music. newland's sketchbook contains music but no words. cursory inspection reveals that there is considerable correlation between the two. newland's songbook, for example, contains the texts to many of the songs in henry de marsan's singer's journal that appeared in new york between 1868 and 1871, as well as the full melody of the american star, the war song which arose during the war of 1812 and the music for which is not currently available. as has been seen, inspection and study of collections such as those of edward hodges and william newland, each accumulated by a professional musician working in a major urban area, can enrich current knowledge of 19th-century musical practice and taste in america. undoubtedly, many more such personal collections are contained in the holdings of 10callibraries and historical societies throughout the united states. they merit the attention of scholars concerned with the history of american music. notes 1 faustina hasse hodges, edward hodges (first ed., new york 1896; reprint new york: ams press, 1970), p. 95. 88 2 trinity church vestry minutes, 15 january 1839. 3 dr. hodges's memorandum, 15 march 1847. 4 see arthur h. messiter, a history of the choir and music of trinity church new york, from its organization to the year 1897 (new york: edwin s. gorham, 1906). 5 f. x. reuss, "sketch of the life of william augustine newland. last of the old-time philadelphia catholic organists," records of the american catholic historical society 13 (1902): 285. 6 reuss, ibid.; see also american catholic historical researches 20 (1921): 44. 7 i am indebted to father george hiller, s. j., of the church of st. john the baptist in philadelphia, for his assistance in locating biographical material pertinent to newland. 8 see frank metcalf, american writers and compilers of sacred music (new york: abingdon press, 1925), pp. 220-24 and the new york musical review and gazette, 14 november 1857, p. 354. metcalf also includes biographical material. 9 see note 5. 10 an edition of both works is currently in preparation. 11 an edition is being prepared by the author of this report. 89 eric porter. what is this thing called jazz?: african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley: university of california press, 2002. xxi, 404 pp. reviewed by krin gabbard for too long, jazz writers, including the handful of academics who can legitimately be called 'jazz scholars," promoted myths of the music's au­ tonomy. according to this myth, the identity of the musicians, the venues where they performed, and what they said off the bandstand were of little or no importance. it was all about the music. this conviction led the es­ teemed jazz scholar gunther schuller to write a huge book on the swing era that consists almost entirely of record reviews. writing on louis arm­ strong in the swing era, schuller goes out on a limb and says that "one must eventually come to grips with the totality of his life and work. this can only be done in a dispassionate way, which also takes into account louis's personality and temperament, and the social-economic conditions within which he labored" (1989:160). this call, however, is in a footnote, and there is virtually nothing in schuller's book that follows through on his own suggestions about how to understand armstrong's life and work. it is also significant that schuller omits any reference to what armstrong, a highly prolific writer himself (see armstrong 1999), may have had to say about those "social-economic conditions." many of us in the jazz studies community are now likely to agree that it's never just about the music. the music only means what it is allowed to mean. for most of its one hundred year history, jazz has been colonized by critics, most of them white, who have imposed their own meanings on the music. and during much of this period, jazz artists, most of them african american, have struggled to combine their words with their musi­ cal utterances in order to create their own meanings. especially since the 1960s, african americanjazz artists have responded to myths of autonomy and other received wisdom from jazz writers with a powerful counterdiscourse. eric porter has taken this counterdiscourse ex­ tremely seriously and cast black jazz musicians as central figures in an in­ tellectual history of the music. as a book devoted to ideas in jazz history, what is this thing called jazz? is a welcome intervention. it is all the more current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 478 current musicology remarkable for concentrating exclusively on mrican american artists and for reading jazz history scrupulously through the racial discourses of the twentieth century. as porter phrases it, "i intend this book to be a correc­ tive to scholars' tendencies across disciplines either to ignore the self­ conscious aspects of black cultural production or to pay lip service to this self-consciousness without taking it seriously enough to analyze what the producers of black cultural texts think about these texts" (xvii). porter ex­ tends his intellectual history as far back as the new negro writings from the early decades of the century and concludes with the still simmering debates around wynton marsalis and his stewardship of jazz at lincoln center. porter is especially concerned with arguments about the distinctions between jazz and classical music and the even more crucial attempts to dis­ tinguish jazz from popular music. in addition to keeping issues of race and economics at the center of his analyses, he has taken the extremely welcome step of introducing considerations of gender into virtually all of his chapters. not only does porter give us unusually detailed accounts of how musician/composers such as mary lou williams and abbey lincoln dealt with gender biases during their distinguished careers, he is also sen­ sitive to how male jazz musicians developed masculinist discourses, often with profoundly misogynist and homophobic shadings. he is, for example, richly aware of how gender politics have been responsible for creating many of the myths of jazz history and how these politics have actually brought about the repression of certain realities of the music. a salient ex­ ample is the forgotten practice among the first record companies of recording black male instrumentalists only after they had proven them­ selves by performing behind black female blues singers: "scholars have noted the irony of the recorded legacy of the masculine world of instrumen­ taljazz developing out of women's blues music in the early 1920s" (31). porter's first chapter reads jazz among the discourses of "mrican­ american modernity," specifically the writings of w. e. b. du bois, alain locke, and james weldon johnson. in this context, porter is able to pre­ sent original readings of the autobiographies and critical commentaries of w. c. handy, duke ellington, and louis armstrong. for example, porter points out that in the same year that du bois wrote souls of black folk (1903), handy was first embracing black folk music in order to create "a defiantly 'american' art rooted in mrican american culture" (21). he also plots out the earliest claims that jazz was a legitimate art form, most no­ ticeably in duke ellington's efforts to separate his music from the term jazz itself. ellington was hoping to distinguish his music from the "swing" that had been so thoroughly commodified by white bands while claiming for himself a negro idiom as substantial as anything in classical music. krin gabbard 479 porter ends his first chapter in the 1930s, when critics began to become major players in the discourses of jazz; for example, writers such as john hammond criticized ellington for leaving behind the "purer" forms of jazz for western concert traditions. when porter addresses bebop in the next chapter, he enters into the thick of more recent debates about where the avant-garde jazz of the 1940s came from and what it meant for mrican americans. appropriately, porter accesses scholarship by scott deveaux (1997), david stowe (1994), and bernard gendron (1995), who have made us rethink many of the critical platitudes that once surrounded the music of charlie parker, dizzy gillespie, thelonious monk, and their peers. porter has also read deeply in the music dial, an extraordinary but short-lived music magazine run by black writers. one of the journal's con­ tributors to whom porter devotes special attention is herbie nichols, the overlooked pianist who played in dixieland bands in order to make a liv­ ing but whose own recordings show that he was the artistic equal of monk and bud powell. in 1944, nichols was arguing for state sponsorship of jazz, and he joined many black americans in hoping for the "double v": vic­ tory for democracy in europe but also for negro citizens in the united states. in his less optimistic moments, nichols summarized his up-close and personal encounters with the business of jazz by writing, "the jazz life is ninety percent sham and front" (65). in his chapter on bebop, porter is especially attentive to what he calls the "critical ecumenism" of the musicians. he defines the term as "a collec­ tive, worldly, mrican american intellectual orientation" (xx). this stance allowed the boppers to see themselves as cosmopolitan and sophisticated, the living refutation of primitivist notions of jazz. critical ecumenism did not, however, prevent many writers and record producers from bringing the old images of black musicians in through the back door. porter quotes robin d. g. kelley's accounts of how "a primitive/intellectual homology" was developed for thelonious monk, especially on album covers for his records in the 1950s and 1960s (see kelley 1999). while monk was at first portrayed as almost scholarly, the iconography of his image became increasingly idiosyncratic, even presenting him as childlike. although it paved the way for the black nationalism of subsequent decades, the critical ecumenism of the boppers welcomed musicians from other cultures, especially from latin america. it was, of course, dizzy gillespie who sat next to the cuban trumpeter mario bauza in cab calloway's band and who later helped to transform american popular mu­ sic by fusing cuban and other latino musics with jazz. mrican american bop musicians were also interested in exploring their mrican roots. boppers such as art blakey were among the first to embrace islam, search­ ing for a new form of spirituality as well as for "a weapon in the struggle 480 current musicology against the absurdities of race in american society" (79). another effect of critical ecumenism was the participation of female musicians. of course, the boppers were not always sensitive new age guys when it came to women, and someone like mary lou williams may have been an anom­ alous presence in the jazz fraternity of the 1940s. in this context, porter has benefited from the ground-breaking work of sherrie tucker (2000), whose book on the "all-girl" bands of the 1940s sheds new light on the lives of african americans before and after world war ii, especially the "survival strategies" developed by the most resourceful black musicians. for musicians who were both black and female, making a living in the 1940s was an art form as complex as the music they played. in a chapter appropriately titled "passions of a man," porter turns to the career of charles mingus, whose autobiography, beneath the underdog (1971), may be the single most powerful book by an important jazz artist. although he denounced dave brubeck for not swinging, waged war on white critics, and was immersed in the music of duke ellington, charlie parker, and jelly roll morton, mingus was capable of real generosity toward a handful of white musicians and critics. before his violent en­ counter with jimmy knepper, resulting in a broken jaw for knepper and a series of lawsuits, mingus made the white trombonist one of the most if not the most important voice in some of his more challenging works. and it was to the white critic nat hentoff that mingus turned after he made the mistake of committing himself to the psychiatric ward at bellevue hospital, where he briefly ran the risk of being lobotomized. nevertheless, porter shows how mingus's insistence that jazz was a valid form of african american art and that jazz artists must achieve economic independence from the whites who control the music business helped move the music away from critical ecumenism and toward militant black nationalism. porter is also attentive to the strategies with which mingus created a masculinist identity, even presenting himself as a pimp in sections of beneath the underdog. in a section named after one of mingus's most ambi­ tious compositions, the black saint and the sinner lady, porter explains the importance of pimping to musicians such as mingus. in a culture that emasculates black male musicians both economically and artistically, the pimp asserts powerful masculinity over women and wins the admiration of his male peers. but mingus's fascination with pimping may have been only that. there is little evidence in the mingus biographies that he practiced the profession he so flamboyantly claims for himself in his autobiography. we do know, however, that mingus could not have pursued his goal of economic independence without the help of his first wife celia, who ended up managing his business affairs in the 1950s while mingus was busy composing, rehearsing, and performing. a great irony of mingus's career is that his legacy is now almost entirely in the hands of his widow, min gabbard 481 sue graham mingus, who has recruited the best jazz musicians in new york for repertory bands that play nothing but mingus's music. the mingus big band-kept alive by sue mingus's indefatigable efforts­ has been performing on a weekly basis in a new york club for over ten years now. the chapter on abbey lincoln is among the most original in the book. lincoln's career has been justly celebrated in recent months, most appro­ priately with a day-long conference at columbia university in december, 2001, and with three days of diva treatment at jazz at lincoln center in march, 2002. but before porter, few critics and scholars devoted much energy to putting together the large collection of material with which lincoln established herself as a speaker for civil rights and feminism. in addition to a substantial body of songs, some of which are fully developed pieces of poetic writing, lincoln published the essay "who will revere the black woman?" in negro digest (1966), and was a forceful voice in a sym­ posium on black women in literature held at the new school for social research in 1965. to his credit, porter reads all of this material alongside lincoln's more notorious replies to critics such as ira gitler, who criti­ cized her willingness to bring racial politics into jazz with her album straight ahead (1961) as well as in the records she made with then husband max roach. intriguingly, it is in the chapter on lincoln that porter intro­ duces the often heated disputes about political activism amongjazz artists. by asserting herself as a woman as well as a black artist, lincoln was as rad­ ical as anyone makingjazz in the 1960s. porter's analyses tend to be somewhat diffuse in the two chapters on avant-garde musicians. by the late 1960s, the more experimental forms of jazz had ceased to have much appeal for large audiences, and however much we may admire the musicians who were most adventuresome during this time, they often marginalized themselves. porter succeeds in pulling many of their discursive practices together, but the chapter on the black arts movement of the 1970s and the subsequent chapter on theorists of improvisation, such as marion brown, wadada leo smith, and anthony braxton, are somewhat less satisfying than other portions of the book. because the projects and obsessions of these musicians tend to range widely, porter ends up stringing together quotations and summaries of what musicians have said rather than developing a compelling thesis. but here, as in so much of the book, porter has done a substantial amount of work as an archivist and as an interviewer, and he tells us much that we ought to know about musicians who have suffered more obscurity than they deserve. the final chapter, devoted to wynton marsalis and jazz at lincoln center, is one of the more balanced among the numerous accounts of this controversial figure. an unusual achievement of this trumpeter i 482 current musicology composer/educator has been his success in bringing jazz to what is proba­ bly the largest audience the music has enjoyed since the 1950s, while at the same time managing to alienate the vast majority of writers in the jazz press. porter does not overstate the intensity with which white critics have condemned one of the few institutions of american cultural life that has been controlled by mrican americans. (from the outset, marsalis has worked closely at lincoln center with two mrican american writers and critics, albert murray and stanley crouch.) porter does, however, take the original step of placing marsalis in the context of america's racialized pol­ itics of the 1980s and 1990s. when marsalis was first gaining attention for his work with art blakey and herbie hancock, ronald reagan was coding his racism with statements about "welfare queens." when marsalis was win­ ning grammy awards for his classical as well as for his jazz recordings, the first george bush was recruiting white voters by terrifying them with im­ ages of the black rapist willie horton. and when marsalis became artistic director of jazz and lincoln center, the media was portraying young black people almost exclusively as gangbangers and foul-mouthed rappers. as an artist who understood the great achievements of mrican american artists as well as the european canon, marsalis stood as a powerful correc­ tive to the racism in much of mainstream culture. but if he is willing to point out those aspects of marsalis's persona that his critics are less likely to report, porter does not let marsalis off the hook for some of his excesses. marsalis has been highly critical of developments in jazz after the 1960s, didactically insisting that the music cannot be played without elements of swing and the blues that were crucial to early forms of the music. a major irony of his career is how his celebration of classic jazz artists and his scrupulous attention to jazz history have tended to make wynton marsalis himself obsolete. why should anyone bother with young and emerging jazz artists if the greatest jazz was made over fifty years ago by ellington, armstrong, and parker? shortly after porter's book went to press, marsalis lost his recording contract with columbia records. porter's subtle analysis of marsalis's career offers abundant reasons why columbia may have decided to let him go. what is this thing calledjazz? takes a giant step beyond the limited view of jazz culture that was promulgated throughout most of the twentieth century. in examining closely what jazz artists have actually said, porter has made it much less likely that their work will go on being reduced to non-verbal musical statements, no matter how much this music ought to be celebrated. one might wonder, however, if there is enough substance to all of these non-musical statements to build a full-scale history. if porter has presented this book as a definitive answer in the affirmative, the next question might be, to what extent ought the utterances of musicians be krin gabbard 483 questioned? can we allow the musicians to be the definitive commentators on their own music? by contrast, no self-respecting literary critic would de­ fer to the author of a novel or a poem as she builds her own interpreta­ tion. perhaps we should read what jazz artists say as skeptically as we read earlier generations of jazz critics. with someone like wynton marsalis, we are dealing with a musician who may be more important as a critic and polemicist than as a performer. throughout most of his book, however, porter does read the musicians with a critical distance, especially when he exposes the sexism in the mas­ culinist rhetoric of some male jazz musicians. he is also adroit at placing artists securely within their historical moments, when the culture may be speaking through them rather than the artists themselves presenting unique views of that culture. to ask porter to be more critical than he al­ ready is would be to ask him to chip away at the foundations of the edifice he himself has so painstakingly constructed. at the moment, he stands alone in creating an exhaustive treatment of black musicians as public in­ tellectuals. my guess is that future attempts at an intellectual history of jazz will be a series of glosses on what is this thing called jazz? references armstrong, louis. 1999. louis armstrong, in his own words: selected writings. edited by thomas brothers. new york: oxford university press. deveaux, scott. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley: u ni­ versity of california press. gendron, bernard. 1995. "moldy figs" and modernists: jazz at war (1942-1946). in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 31-56. durham, n.c.: duke university press. kelley, robin d. g. 1999. new monastery: monk and the jazz avant-garde. black music researchjoumal19: 135-68. lincoln, abbey. 1966. who will revere the black woman? negro digest (septem­ ber): n.p. reprinted in the black woman: an anthology, ed. toni cade bambara (new york: new american library, 1970), 80-84. mingus, charles. 1971. beneath the underdog: his world as composed by mingus. new york: knopf. schuller, gunther. 1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford. stowe, david w. 1994. swing changes: big-band jazz in new deal america. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. tucker, sherrie. 2000. swing shift: ''all-girl'' bands of the 1940s. durham, n.c.: duke university press. notes on a postcolonial musicology: kofi agawu and the critique of cultural difference [agawu, kofi. 2003. representing african music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions. new york and london: routledge, 304 pp.] martin scherzinger kofi agawu's new book representing african music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions stands in a consciously awkward relationship to traditional ethno­ graphic writing on music. ethnomusicological discourse is characterized by a carefully plotted regimen of priorities, which tends to conduct inquiry away from western-style music analysis towards anthropological models. the strength of ethnomusicology is its sensitivity to cultural differences across the globe (demonstrated by the insistence on fieldwork, the methodologi­ cal priority placed on musical 'contexts,' and so on). thus, ethnomusicological premises serve as a persistent reminder of the limited historical and geographical scope of certain naturalized forms of thinking about western music (primarily in the west). the concrete practice of ethnomusicology largely debunks the habituated western notion of music's aesthetic autonomy no less than its analytic support system. and yet, to borrow a thought from]. m. coetzee, the strength of ethnomusicology is practically definitional (much like saying the strength of the chess player is chess), which, for a variety of its own reasons, it tries to instill at the center of all inquiry into non-western music. non-anthropological thought about non-western music, for example, is rarely published in the pages of most ethnomusicological journals. it can be useful to define the ethnomusicological project in terms of a founding prohibition, thereby problematizing its aspiration to better ac­ cess non-western reality than alternative projects. this position is prob­ lematic on practical grounds; it ensures that the most efficient way for non-western music studies to gain academic acknowledgement would be to join ethnomusicological ranks. as a result, work on mrican music driven by purely musical considerations or work driven by strategies to alleviate current political predicaments (instead of the customary epistemological commitment to describing remote contexts) is rare. work driven by an unpopular cause is rarer still.! representing african music is one of these rare and valuable interven­ tions. drawing on the work of various postcolonial writers, yet in a distinc­ tive and unique voice, agawu launches a devastating critique of western scholarship on mrican music. at times frankly informative, at times darkly current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 224 current musicology ironic, and at times passionately earnest, representing african music reads like a resource text, satire, and manifesto all at once. the book's central themes range from mapping the general archive of knowledge aboutmri­ can music to advancing critical assessments of representations of mrican music and staking out viable options for future inquiry. agawu's basic strat­ egy is to describe the relationship between various conceptual figurations of mrican music and the tilted institutional terrain that supports them. the book's impressive grasp of the mechanics of power and domination across the globe today makes possible the trenchant critique of otherwise neutral-seeming representations of mrican music. along the way, aga\\<'u makes many daring statements and reaches a series of alarming conclu­ sions. take the chapter "mrican music as text"; here agawu unequivocally claims that "the idea that mrican music is functional in contrast to a con­ templative european music is a myth" (104). this deceptively simple state­ ment has devastating consequences: it undermines the very possibility of a certain brand of mainstream ethnomusicological discourse, which funda­ mentally regards music both as and in culture. agawu links the incoherent belief in the myth of a functionalized mrica to an ideological desire to see mrica as "intrinsically different" (106). this kind of "anthropological ethos built on a search for difference" (simply put, "an epistemology of differ­ ence") is foundational for ethnomusicology (119,153): "ethnomusicological knowledge may be defined as knowledge produced by scholars from the metropolis (europe or america) about the musical practices of less-privi­ leged others (in mrica, asia, or australia) often (but not always) on the basis of (brief) periods of so-called field work." by polemically redefining the field, agawu demonstrates how ethnomusicological discourse is impli­ cated in the knowledge venture of colonialism (155). his argument goes beyond critique, offering a host of solutions to the basic predicaments identified. sometimes these solutions are technical correctives to wide­ spread misconceptions about mrican music. other times agawu offers fu­ ture-oriented solutions, which imagine possible mrican musical practices under more equitable material conditions than today. basic to agawu's political imagination is an insistence on the presup­ position of epistemological sameness on the terrain of musical culture. only through sustained acknowledgement of our shared humanity can mrican subjects become genuine political agents in the drama of repre­ sentation. "it is time," he argues, "to shun our precious mricanity in order to participate more centrally in the global conversation. it is time ... [to] free it of dense layers of attributed difference. it is time to restore a no­ tional sameness to our acts of representation" (171). the question is: can one afford-even in a political conjuncture desperately calling out for itmartin scherzinger 225 to represent mrican music under the pure rubric of epistemological sameness instead of difference? can one establish a hypothesis about the absolute value of a particular epistemological method? in so doing, does one try to work against the ruling hypothesis in one's writing, or does the rule triumph? marked by their special forms of ignorance and knowledge, textualized accounts of mrican music necessarily recoil from and add to the complexity of the experiences they attempt to depict. writing, it seems, is a surrogate and a substitute for the elusive transparency of participation in these experiences. how does one resist the irreducible limit of writing? does a double perspective allow opportunities, or does it shut them down? this review essay concerns itself with the value and the quality of the in­ sights afforded by agawu's methodological commitment to sameness as it is elaborated in his representing african music and elsewhere. in particular, i attempt to stake out the far reaches-the limits, the contradictions, the flaws, the failures-of the claims made on behalf of this commitment. my counter-arguments are advanced to better illuminate the socio-musical ideals in agawu's text with which these claims identify. from the politics of difference to the politics of sameness this review will focus on those aspects of mrican music usually granted only secondary status in ethnomusicological accounts: namely, mrican music (its structures, details and procedures) as it intersects with politics. herein lies the strength of agawu's polemics. as a reputable music theorist, agawu does not shy away from musical minutiae. on the contrary, he detects a host of broad cultural tropes and institutional biases within the textual fabric of existing analyses of mrican music. the problems agawu identi­ fies in much writing on mrican music are both structural and moral in nature, as representations of mrican music are intrinsically bound up in the economics of the institutions producing and sustaining them. con­ comitantly, agawu's own moments of structural listening are harnessed to an urgent political project aimed at dissolving institutionalized inequity on a global scale. the target of my critique is not the value of agawu's musico-political project. rather, my critique emerges in direct relation to agawu's aspira­ tions; flaws and contradictions are located insofar as they undermine these aspirations. let me introduce the issue by way of a general example. i have already mentioned agawu's suggestion of the colonial attitude inherent in the promotion of the concept of difference in the analysis of mrican mu­ sic vis-i-vis european music. this suggestion echoes a position forwarded over twenty years ago by paulin]. hountondji (1983) regarding how the conditioning ground for various disciplines in the humanities is falsely predicated on an a priori projection of cultural difference between the 226 current musicology west and the rest. it is this institutionalized will to difference that agawu scrutinizes and ultimately debunks in favor of sameness. the question is: should "sameness" become the overarching gauge for musical analysis? there are good reasons for it. in his chapter "the invention of 'african rhythm,'" agawu shows that african "rhythmic complexity" is fabricated within a discourse "defined by euro-american traditions of ordering knowledge" and signals less a musical fact than a mark of difference (2003:58). this imagined phenomenon, producing a strange and exotic africa necessarily separate from the west, resonates with imperialist discourse. consequently, agawu is less concerned here with the problem of "familiarizing" african music by imposing on it "western" categories of communication than he is with the problematic desire to persistently defamiliarize it or with the refusal to bring african music into the realm of western discourse and its "distinguished intellectual history and undeniable institutional power." by encouraging the "hunt for sameness rather than difference" in our approaches to african music, agawu implies that we may indeed bring traditional european conceptual tools to bear on african music instead of insisting on an a priori incompatibility between traditions (64). instead of dismissing the use of these conceptual tools as an inherently eurocentric imposition on african music, this view recognizes their potential political benefits in a postcolonial context. at the least, the use of these tools would resist a certain a prioristic production of cultural difference across these respective terrains of musical culture. it is the political implications of agawu's revision to which i will turn shortly. before doing so, however, i would like to briefly explore the cul­ tural context of musicological practice in the north atlantic and interro­ gate some of its recent preoccupations in light of various african political predicaments. in particular, i will focus on the concept-metaphor of inven­ tion, a category drawn from cultural studies upon which much of agawu's argument hinges. musical thinking after the paradigm of 'invention' the late modern awareness of the contestable nature of previously accepted axioms such as tradition or culture-along with their supporting concepts involving notions of nation, gender, race, sexuality, the purely musical, and so on-seems to have produced a widespread, anti-essentialist intel­ lectual paradigm in recent years. it is as if the invention of culture has become what ruth solie might call a "key to all mythologies," a cultural invention all its own. witness the titles of book releases in the 1990s, which include everything from the invention of sodomy, race and heterosexual­ ity to the invention of communication, tribalism, society, capitalism, and the west itself.2 the insight afforded by the idea that all those things that martin scherzinger 227 seem important in life are really fictions or "social constructions" risks be­ coming as blinding as it is binding. besides the point that calling every­ thing a social construction entails a notion of the "social" as an essence­ that the "social" itself is treated as a fact instead of as a negotiable determi­ nant-it is increasingly difficult to envisage forms of resistance and contes­ tation without some kind of provisional essentialism. that is, if nothing can exceed invention because invention applies "all the way down" (with deference to susan mcclary [2000]), then the manipulation of signs and conventions making up the traditions by which we live (in spite of our inventive insight) may be increasingly left in the hands of those who insist on tradition as an authentic (not invented) experience. if agawu's text opens a door to strategies that transcend the critical impulse driven by the logic of "invention," what is gained and lost via these strategies? let me begin by commenting on what is gained by one such strategy, namely the implicit call for employing western analytic methods for studying mrican music. by insisting that the use of western notation for mrican music is institutionally empowering or by encouraging the use of theoretical frameworks that can capture both western and mrican mu­ sic, agawu draws attention to the problem of power/knowledge in the constitution of disciplinary divisions. while scholars are beginning to re­ gard the anthropological study of western music seriously, the concomi­ tant aesthetically-oriented formalist study of mrican music is not consid­ ered as a progressive option-at least, not yet. meanwhile, immanent for­ malist accounts of western music have hardly disappeared because some musicologists are suspicious of their superstructural ideological significance, leaving the disciplinary terrain structurally lopsided once more. agawu's contribution is empowering because it creates a space for an mrican music that no longer rests on "a priori presumptions of differend' (qureshi 1995) that stood in the way of many western accounts of mrican music up to now. the role music theory might play in the future prosperity of mrican music has been increasingly noted by other mrican scholars as well (often inspired by agawu's example). akin euba, willie anku, zabana kongo, and others have recently called for an approach to mrican music studies in which the musical material implies the methods and not vice versa. at a recent symposium, "revitalizing mrican music studies in higher educa­ tion" (2000), kwabena nketia called for an expansion of analytic tools that would confront the music directly, while kongo endorsed the formal study of transcriptions of mrican music. sometimes this general view is coupled with a critique of ethnomusicology. in the words of euba, the current philosophy of ethnomusicology stresses music as 228 current musicology culture, music in culture, music in society and other issues surrounding music rather than music itself. the theory of music (which is the core element of music-making) receives little or no attention from ethnomusicologists. i would even venture to say that, judging from the current attitudes of ethnomusicologists, the theory of music is at variance with the philosophy of ethnomusicology. a field of study that avoids the central core of music making (i.e. creativity) is of no use to mricans. (2000:2) euba is illuminating a general institutional problem. broadly speaking, the study of mrican music encourages exclusively anthropological ap­ proaches while the study of western music is multifaceted. euba writes, "i find it baffling that anthropological dissertations that have little or no musical content continue to be presented at departments of music. this is a position that is unsuitable for mrica" (2). it should be clear from these remarks that the new musicological figuration of the "purely musical" as an ideological invention is also unsuitable for mrica. in fact, such a "cri­ tique" of ideology has the potential to become still more virulently ideo­ logical because it blocks mrican music's access to a certain elite discourse. the problem of "functional versus contemplative" music i turn now to a more detailed examination of agawu's interrogation of the opposition between "functional versus contemplative." noting how mri­ can music "is not normally described as contemplative art" (but as "func­ tional" instead), and how european music, in contrast, is "unburdened of attachment to external function," agawu menaces the opposition from both ends (98). first, he identifies and describes the contemplative aspects of mrican music. agawu addresses both various contemplative genres (such as gbaya and ewe music), and the contemplative mechanisms at play in songs (such as popular lullabies and dirges) normally considered purely functional. second, agawu identifies and describes the functional aspects of european music. using examples such as classical operas and twentieth­ century compositions, agawu demonstrates that the external functions, no less than the inner functional workings of music, are often considered purely contemplative. finally, agawu challenges the views of writers that seek to uphold the form/function distinction across the continental di­ vide. among these writers is john miller chernoff, who in the early 1980s asserted that a performance of mrican music "cannot be judged by ... an abstracted formal model of 'musical' properties or structures as defined by the western tradition" (1981:30). given the startling formal qualities of the ghanaian drumming that was the object of chernoffs study, his conmartin scherzinger 229 clusion, based entirely on his belief that africans reject "analytical" modes of thought, is inadequately prepared. it is as odd to claim that western music is structured on some abstract model as it is to claim that african music has no underlying structural patterns at all. any examination that wants to find differences between african and western music is obliged to engage the question ofform differently-to establish the points of affinity and difference within a continuum of abstract structures and contextual functional factors-if it is to avoid merely replicating the disciplinary split sustained by the form/function binary in the west. paradoxically, chernoff even extends the reach of "functional integration" to the very "form" of african music: "there are so many ways to recognize and describe what scholars call the 'functional integration' of music and culture in africa that this integration can be considered a formal and general musical char­ acteristic in its own right" (1981:33). without denying that the communal dimension of african music is essential (no less than in the west, however differently organized in its details), this is a case of the "social" being reified into an irreducible essence. we should not trivialize the prevalence of such false binaries. for ex­ ample, john bailey (1985) has argued that the perceptual focus on musi­ cal structure is an exclusively western idea that cannot be readily applied to non-western music. using the kalimba music of southern africa as an example, bailey identifies the physical patterns of fingering (instead of the sounding forms) as central to the organization of the music. his em­ phasis on the kinesthetic dimensions of african kalimba music above the formal-perceptual ones resonates with the words of gerhard kubik, who asserts that whereas "in western music the movements of a musician play­ ing his instrument generally have meanings only in terms of the sonic result, in african music patterns of music are in themselves a source of pleasure, regardless of whether they come to life in sound in their entirety, partly, or not at all" (quoted in bailey 1985:241). but does this distinction successfully divide musical-cultural continents? as suzanne cusick (1994) and andrew mead (1999) have argued, "kinaes­ thetic empathy"-in which listeners identify with a sound as an embodi­ ment of physical work done-is a central factor in the experience of west­ ern music. in addition to examples that bring the mode of production of sound into explicit formal play (like the backstage oboes or horns in sym­ phonies by berlioz or mahler), even the music of one of the west's osten­ sibly most formalistically-minded composers, anton webern, is saturated with extreme expressive directions, ponticelli, harmonics, rhythmic com­ plexities, difficult bowings, sudden dynamic changes, and angular voice­ leading that cannot but invoke a kinesthetic hearing and sometimes even obscure the formal mirrorings and symmetries that generate the pitch230 current musicology structure. formal considerations are not necessarily antithetical to kinaes­ thetic ones. mead demonstrates, for example, how the physical hand-cross­ ings in the second movement of web ern's variations for piano, op. 27, play a structural role in articulating the principal motivic returns (1999: 13). mead's example, taken from the heart of western music, serves as well as any mrican example to illustrate bailey's idea that physical consider­ ations and not simply sounding forms matter equally to the organization of music. as mead notes, music, in large part, is indeed something we do ... that the mind can be ravished by the patterns we perceive in sounds i would never deny. but how we perceive those sounds, and how we make those sounds, cannot help but carry part of the message ... the study of music has its own rewards, but it is good to remind oneself occasionally that music's path to the mind is inevitably through the body. (1999:15) it is in equal measure odd to suggest that the kinesthetic dimension of an mrican piece of music can be figured apart from any formal organization. consider the example of a simple kushaura ("leading part" in shona mbira dza vadzimu music) from tute chigamba's repertoire (ex. 1). notice how the anomalous absence of a bass note on the eighth pulse in mm. 3 and 4 coincides with the doubling ofd in the right hand. if kinesthetic consider­ ations were logically prior, we would not expect the doubling in the right hand, but we would expect the left hand to play some note or other on those silent pulses; the lower note d, however, cannot be found on either of the two left-hand manuals of the mbira. in order to maintain the integ­ rity of the harmonic motion (indicated in dyads) and the registral integ­ rity of the bass line, it is played by the right hand instead. (i should note here that the experience of irregularity in executing this passage is mini­ mal.) in effect, then, a physical fingering pattern is broken to accommo­ date a formal consideration of the music. the general idea that kinesthetic-and not formal-considerations are at the forefront in mrican music while formal-and not kinesthetic­ ones prevail in western music strikes me as false. indeed, mbira perform­ ers frequently report a sense of complete disorientation when they per­ form pieces on instruments with a different tuning layout (berliner 1971 :7071). this would be unlikely if fingering patterns were as primary as bailey suggests. shorthand cultural oppositions of this sort cannot be sustained in the face of rigorous comparative work. by rejecting the "solipsism of noncomparison that has become a permanent temptation for ethnomusicology," agawu authorizes the kind of comparative rethinking martin scherzinger 231 example 1: kushaura of ngozi yemuroora by tute chigamba, transcription by martin scherzinger. that debunks an array of seemingly obvious commonplaces about mrican music (2003:xiii). the problem of inventing "mrican rhythm" the ethnomusicological commitment to anthropological tenets, as well as its reification of the "functional" (at the expense of the "purely musical"), haunts the texts of even its most passionately progressive practitioners. citing writers from the eleventh to the twentieth century, agawu argues that all claim that the outstanding feature of mrican music is its rhythmic complexity. writing in 1927, for example, william e. f. ward wrote that, "mricans have not merely cultivated their sense of rhythm far beyond ours, but must have started with a superior sense of rhythm" (quoted in agawu 2003:56-57). agawu reads this kind of figuration not as praise but as a "racialist conferral of particular sensibilities on particular groups of people" (55). contradictory as it may seem, agawu then shows that some mrican writers (kwabena nketia, francis bebey, philip gbeho) are also party to this particular construction of mrican music: "rhythmic interest [in mri­ can music] ," says nketia, "often compensates for the absence of melody or the lack of melodic sophistication" (quoted in agawu 2003:58). from nketia's statement, agawu concludes that the reproduction ofthis truism is not a simple western misrepresentation of mrica but rather a view that emanates from "an intellectual space defined by euro-american traditions of ordering knowledge." within this field of discourse "mrican rhythm ... is always already complex" (58). in his ensuing argument, agawu harnesses writers who reject such a view of mrican music in order to indicate the errors implicit in upholding it. he identifies three problematic areas: the problem of unanimism, the retreat from comparison, and the retreat from critical evaluation. regard­ ing unanimism, agawu invokes david rycroft's criticism of chernoff for generalizing his claims about mrican rhythm and sensibility by citing mu­ sical practice in different parts of the continent. in agreement with rycroft on this point, agawu claims that the unanimist impulse signals an "ongo­ ing resistance to knowing about mrica" and claims that without such an 232 current musicology "all-purpose 'mrica'" the "practitioners [of the discourse of the west would be] deprive[d] ... of one of their most cherished sources of fantasy and imaginative play" (59-60). given the flagrant reproduction of the "met­ onymic fallacy" in any unanimist construction of mrica, however, agawu also takes this error to be more rhetorical than real (60). for agawu, the retreat from comparison is more serious. although the designation of a rhythmically complex mrican music implies compari­ son with rhythmically simpler music, the second term in this comparison (the euro-american side) is frequently suppressed. for agawu, an explicit comparison may produce "a picture [of western music] of far greater com­ plexity than anything that mricans have produced" and thus the possibil­ ity of undoing the binary altogether (61). silencing one side of the im­ plied comparison, in contrast, "ensur[es] that writers' initial prejudices reemerge as their conclusions" (60). it is as if the very narrative structure already secures a rhythmically complex mrican music. related to this is the retreat from critical evaluation whereby the scholar hyperbolically dig­ nifies every kind of musical performance in the name of equality and fair­ ness. this practice, agawu argues, is the very mystification that deprives mrican music of the critical element that would give it "scientific and hence universal status" (61). implicit in agawu's view, then, is a call for both com­ parison and criticism. agawu outlines three instances of how "mrican rhythm" has been in­ vented in various accounts. he begins by pointing out that in most mrican languages, there is no word for rhythm, which in itself should disconcert "those for whom 'mrican music' and 'mrican rhythm' have always seemed synonymous." more importantly, however, agawu argues that this absence does not mean a lack of related concepts in mrican discourse, only that these concepts have an intricate and unique configuration. for example, "ewe conceptions of rhythm often imply a binding together of different dimensional processes, a joining rather than a separating, an across-the­ dimensions rather than a within-the-dimensions phenomenon." by ignor­ ing these dimensions of discourse, agawu argues, ethnographers like a. m. jones (1959) present as a conclusion their own initial bias about the complexity of mrican rhythm. once again, agawu suggests that the prob­ lem may be averted if, instead of building their studies "on the founding premise of difference," ethnomusicologists reorient their work to the task of discovering sameness (2003:64). in the section "mrican rhythm as invented by mricans: ethical theory or epistemic violence?", agawu recapitulates an argument made in an earlier article, "representing mrican music" (1992). this is not, as the chapter title suggests, a case of mrican writers inventing rhythm, but of non-mricans attributing this invention to mricans. when jeff pressing martin scherzinger 233 claims that "in ewe terms" a w conception underlies agbadza kpoka, he is appealing to a kind of native authority. even though the ewe have no terms for meter or time signature, pressing's "foregrounding of native voices" gives the impression that the writer is "engaged in dialogue," (quoted in agawu 2003:68). for agawu, this kind of dialogue is unavoidably an illu­ sion-even in those cases where native informants give explicit mrican language equivalents for european words-because the histories of these words are often influenced by colonial and missionary discourse and thus of reduced explanatory value. instead of succumbing to the dialogic im­ pulse, agawu prefers to keep the focus resolutely political: moreover, who orchestrates the dialogue, who owns or signs the text, and who gets paid for it are troubling questions that may not be facilely consigned to the margins of our theorizing, especially when such theorizing results in confident claims about our knowledge of other (living) human beings. in effect, this reveals the nature of such a text as less of a dialogue than a monologue. for agawu, unless it culminates in "concrete political action," a monologue parading as a dialogue results in "a particularly viru­ lent form of political violence" (69). agawu asserts that any attempt to come to grips with the problems attending the representation of mrican music must engage these explicitly political questions. ideally, this work should aim for the "direct empowerment of postcolonial mrican subjects so that they can eventually represent themselves" (70). there are reasons to be wary of the predominant focus on rhythmic complexity in studies of mrican music. take the popular press. in an ar­ ticle entitled "the rhythm century: the unstoppable beat," new york times reporter jon pareles casually asserts, "rhythm is at once primal-as simple as a handclap or a heartbeat-and mysterious in its complexities." this fantasy takes a political turn when pareles demonstrates how the "rise of rhythm ... shows the receding influence of european culture in a global mix, as the western emphasis on melody and harmony gives way to the beat. mrica, where rhythm rules, has paid back its conquerors and slave traders by colonizing the world's music" (1998:1). he then elaborates this theory by asserting, "rhythm is social. ... it is also, by the same token, tribal; rhythms ... can be geographical locators, assigning a piece of music to a specific culture and country of origin" (2). pareles concocts an mrica whose music is irreducibly rhythmic and irreducibly social. one problem with pareles's ideas about mrican music is that they con­ tradict what various prominent mrican musicians believe about rhythm. as one ghanaian-born drummer explains, 234 current musicology i want people to know that the music we're playing is not a music that any ghanaian or any mrican can just sit down and play. he's got to learn it, too. see, american audiences are a little funny about me playing mrican music with white people in the band. but you can get a white person who is more rhythmic than an mrican. when i first came here, i didn't know that, because i had been brainwashed .... (quoted in darroch 1989:4) another problem is that pareles's fantasies march disconcertingly in step with some anthropological truisms. in contrast, agawu's recommendations open into the "purely theoretical" labor of challenging the binaries that separate musical parameters into ready-made worlds. agawu's text also encourages supplementing "rhythmically" oriented studies of mrican mu­ sic with technical inquiries into areas outside of rhythmic complexity. such tactical analysis may have the important political consequence of contrib­ uting to a differently focused history of relations between mrica and the west. the close study of mrican music may well contribute to questioning the historical and formal opposition between rhythm and harmony. in­ deed, some western theoretical work has explored such undoing on pre­ cisely mrican musical terrain. for example, benjamin boretz advances mrican drumming as an instance of "pure rhythm." he writes, the contents of a recording of mrican drums in concert qualifies as not only a classic, but an obvious test: what but 'pure rhythm' is there to respond to? for [an] answer, try a transcription for clavichord, or one for chicken feathers scratching glass: does the response to pure rhythm now seem separable from the responses to drum timbres, pitches, polyphonies of these, or even perhaps extramusical predispositions ... ? (1971:150-51) boretz then demonstrates how musical rhythm, of whatever cultural affili­ ation, depends on a specific interaction with the other functioning strata of musical activity as a whole. in effect, rhythm is both nothing in itself and also "every dimensional and inter-dimensional substructure" or the whole "musical world" of any piece under investigation (154-55). in short, west­ ern rhythm, as construed here, begins to resemble agawu's "across-the­ dimensions" construal of mrican rhythm. perhaps the theoretical work of eroding shorthand musical parameters in this way has a political role to play in rendering the concomitant marking of ethnicity impossible. martin scherzinger 235 toward an africanist musicology theodor adorno warns that "disaster" ensues as soon as "desiderata are elevated to the level of norms and are dispensed from th[e] confronta­ tion" with the concrete form of music to which they are applied (1973:69). this warning is pertinent not because it endorses some kind of inquiry free of desiderata, but because it reins in the desiderata by allowing musi­ cal particulars to impose themselves on their generalities. it is clear that agawu's insistence on resisting commonplace generalities about african music answers adorno's warning. but do agawu's music-theoretical per­ suasions betray an unquestioning allegiance to one form of resistance to the exclusion of another? what is the cost of his strategic essentialism? agawu does not identify which kinds of comparison between african and western music are "appropriate" and which are not. this would not matter much if his argument did not betray hidden criteria for arbitrating just this issue. for instance, he deems "problematic" chernoff's choice of the beethoven sonatina in g major as a point of comparison with african examples. while it may be true that the work of brahms, bartok, carter, reich, and stravinsky compare more "appropriately" to african music, i cannot see how this can allay the problem of designating african music as rhythmically complex. indeed, agawu asserts that stravinsky's rite of spring "exten[ds] ... conventions of metrical articulation," and reich's music for pieces of wood is an "undisguised appropriation of the identifying rhythm of a southern ewe dance" (2003:61). is the appropriateness of these examples supposed to be self-evident? for the examples that agawu implicitly rec­ ommends for comparison, on the one hand, embody a conception of rhythm that extends ordinary western usage, and, on the other, merely elabo­ rate another rendition of an african rhythm. arguably, the european side of these instances of comparison has also somewhat retreated in these examples. in face of this "retreat from critical evaluation," agawu calls for schol­ arly discrimination and value judgment (61-62). instead of the "pious dig­ nifying of all performances [including ones that are out of tune or whose performers are deceptive, inattentive or drunk] as if they were equally good," agawu recommends a "critical element" for african musicology in order to give it "scientific and hence universal status" (61). it is not surpris­ ing that agawu raises this problem last in his presentation and rhetorically aligns it more with the previous error (the retreat from comparison) than with the invention of african rhythm; he offers no reasons for such digni­ fying to be "contained in" the characterizations that invent african rhythm (60). the logic is associative. and yet, it is not easy to make the desired associations, for if the inventors dignify anything it is the complexity of rhythm. while the importance of the critique in itselfis not in dispute, it is 236 current musicology ironic that agawu's account of northern ewe culture in his earlier book african rhythm is "fictional" and includes every conceivable rhythmic mo­ ment in the ewe "soundscape," from the rhythms of sleeping and sexual intercourse to those of distant drumming and the chewing of sticks (1995b:8-9). in the apparent effort to "demystify" africa in african rhythm, to "return our view of [ewe] musical practices to a 'normal' sphere" and thus to render "those rhythmic procedures ... of everyday musical life," agawu loses sight of his own "critical searchlights" (195). hence, accord­ ing to agawu's criteria, his african rhythm becomes less the "universal" and "scientific" african musicology the author recommends than a highly par­ ticular, albeit intriguing, "fiction." moreover, it is not altogether obvious why an aesthetic evaluation (dis­ criminating "good" performance from "bad") issues forth a "scientific and hence universal status" for african music. while classical judgments of taste for european philosophers like david hume and immanuel kant involved an objective dimension, the aesthetic experience was essentially subjec­ tive, involving the faculty of imagination instead of reason. in what ac­ count then does a value judgment become science? even if such an ac­ count can be found, agawu discusses a clear case of value judgment else­ where in exactly the opposite terms. take the case of agawu's 1992 essay, "representing african music." agawu illustrates how a nineteenth-century explorer's characterization of african music as "discordant," "barbarous," and "vile" holds an "advantage" over "professional ethnomusicological dis­ course" (quoted in agawu 1992:249). this advantage is not the result of the scientific status of the judgment-as one might expect from reading his new book-but precisely the result of the way "the prejudices of [the european explorer's] own musical culture are made clear, his personal constraints situated" (249). hence, in "representing african music," agawu advances the aesthetic judgment as an accurate measure of prejudice and personal constraint, while in his new book, as in his article "the invention of 'african rhythm'" (l995a) he uses it as a measure of science and uni­ versality. i do not disavow the connections between the status of music's per­ ceived "universality" and the assignation of value (particularly ofthe insti­ tutionalized sort), but agawu's logically impossible formulation of the prob­ lem fails to create the opportunity for an authentic transformation of these practices. part of the problem may be that agawu relies on arguments made by other writers for different purposes. the question of african music's "universal status," for instance, seems to echo paulin]. hountondji's call for an african philosophical literature of "universal value" at the end of his chapter "african philosophy, myth and reality" in african philosophy (hountondji 1983:70). in his 1995 article, with reference to the issue of martin scherzinger 237 "scientific and hence universal status," agawu footnotes this work of hountondji as "a discussion of an analogous point" (agawu 1995a:387). but is it analogous? first, hountondji's construal of "universality" in this context has little to do with "science." indeed, his universality is less a "status" than a "value" that arises out of "free and rigorous discussion among african philosophers" and amounts to "enrich [ing] the common interna­ tional heritage of human thought" (1983:69-70). universality here im­ plies no more than an african access to philosophical debate of the west­ ern kind and a suspicion of ethnophilosophy. second, hountondji explic­ itly unhinges the dimension of value from the category "african philoso­ phy" by rendering it wholly empirical: "we are merely recognizing the ex­ istence of that literature as philosophical literature, whatever may be its value and credibility. what we are acknowledging is what it is, not what it says" [emphasis hountondji's]. thus, while he may be less pious than agawu's culprits of invention, hountondji recognizes all african philosophical ex­ pressions (whether inattentive, deceptive or not) without reference to how "good" they might be. for agawu's "analogous" case of african musicol­ ogy, the opposite holds. these theoretical difficulties arise because agawu omits the crux of hountondji's argument. hountondji examines how the term "philosophy" changes its meaning when it is applied to different continents. while "eu­ ropean philosophy" implies a specific discipline characterized by a set of critical tools, and so on, the conjunction "african philosophy" refers to a shared system of thought, to "a collective world-view, an implicit, sponta­ neous, perhaps even unconscious system of beliefs to which all africans are supposed to adhere" (1983:61). hountondji then advances a new and simple concept of african philosophy: "african philosophy ... [is] a litera­ ture produced by africans and dealing with philosophical problems" (63). thus the single and obvious criterion for the definition of african philoso­ phy is "the origin of the authors rather than an alleged specificity of con­ tent" (64). research conducted by africans on western philosophy is there­ fore african philosophy, while research conducted by non-africans on af­ rican philosophy, culture, or thought is not. projecting this account onto musicology, chernoff's work on dagomba drumming is western musicol­ ogy, while agawu's work on mozart is african. this is one reason several african scholars (such as kwabena nketia, jean kidula, akin euba, and meki nzewi) favor the term "african" or "africanist" musicology instead of "ethnomusicology." resisting "the label 'ethno-' ," for example, nzewi describes the ideal study of african music as "africanist" musicology, "not because it has a fundamentally different sci­ ence of music, but because its logic ... of basic musicness is authentically unique" (2000). for nketia, "african musicology" is the ideal term for af238 current musicology rican music studies (although he recognizes that ethnomusicology pro­ vides a strategic institutional entrance into the discipline for african schol­ ars). euba's position is critical: "ethnomusicology is irrelevant to african culture. what is relevant to african culture is african musicology .... let us not force african music scholarship into the field of ethnomusicology, which is really designed to promote western perceptions of non-western music" (3). what these scholars are observing is that ethnomusicological premises are not necessarily suited to african needs, and concomitantly, that scholarship by africans fits awkwardly into the ethnomusicological paradigm. thus, hountondji's origins-based approach to the definitions of philosophy may provide a helpful alternative in the domain of musicol­ ogy. still, hountondji's view is difficult to accommodate in agawu's account. not only are the african scholars nketia, bebey, and gbeho presented as equally culpable of inventing african rhythmic complexity, but agawu's methodological focus seems to be on structural and discursive dimensions rather than on the identity or the origins of the authors concerned. he claims the "'always already' complex" notion of african rhythm "has been promulgated by both western and african scholars" and thus orients his critique towards "an intellectual space defined by euro-american tradi­ tions of ordering knowledge" [emphasis agawu's] (2003:58). it is perhaps symptomatic that in "representing african music," agawu portrays nketia, "normalizing [not inventing] the exotic," with the implication that his work remains african no matter how "western" his "theoretical framework" strikes jones or others (agawu 1992:260-61). this paradoxical situation is organic to an argument that wants to have its cake of the hountondjian concept of authorial origins and eat it with a discourse-theoretical account! these antagonistic positions can, in fact, be reconciled, but not with­ out careful elaboration. it will not do, for instance, to overemphasize the scope and authority of the western disciplinary apparatus; there is an irre­ ducible mixing of "western" and "african" properties in all euro-american accounts of african material, and such accounts necessarily brush up against some form of african reality. while the american paul berliner's soul of mbira is western musicology, its contribution to african music may be politi­ cally and epistemologically significant, just as the african philosophy of the ghanaian]. e. wiredu may be a significant contribution to kant stud­ ies (hountondji 1983). as argued above, figuring "african musicology" simply as research done by africans, we free such musicology from render­ ing collective african belief systems. but this simple empirical observation can be made without forgetting that western musicology may have more to contribute to african music than reactionary navel-gazing, just as afri­ can musicology may well replicate the mythological view of an african world. martin scherzinger 239 with hountondji's origins-based distinction in place, it is thus still possible to assess various kinds of musicological contributions, african or other­ wise, in terms of their discursive-structural alliances. but it is crucial to keep these layers of inquiry distinct and (beyond the simple empirical claim) to keep the poles ofthe african/non-african opposition multi-capillaried and imbricated, if we are to avoid what hountondji describes as "uphold­ ing the peculiarities of a so-called african 'world-view'" (69). after all, for hountondji, "universality becomes accessible only when interlocutors are set free from the need to assert themselves in the face of others" (68). to this extent, hountondji's argument is deconstructive: only by limiting "af­ rican musicology" to a bluntly empirical definition, instead of a metaphysi­ cal one, do we free the conditions for a terrain of knowledge that disen­ gages from the africa/non-africa binary and can thus have, in a manner of speaking, universal value. on the politics of analytic method i turn now to agawu's critique of ethnomusicological accounts of african rhythm (and its relation to theories of rhythm and meter in the west) and assess its usefulness in an african context. agawu dramatizes the lack of an indigenous african term for rhythm to heighten the tension between afri­ can musical reality and the ethnomusicological fabrication of rhythm's primacy in african music. he argues that this "lexical gap" betrays a uniquely ewe "semantic field of rhythm [that] is not a single, unified, or coherent field, but rather one that is widely and asymmetrically distributed, perma­ nentlyentangled ... with other dimensions that discourse about western music has balkanized into separate domains" (2003:63). the lexical gap is pertinently confusing to the case of inventing african rhythm because it must disconcert any project that aims to analyze african music in theoreti­ cal terms that are not (ostensibly) native. what is needed is a distinction between terms and methods within musicological discourse that does not reify the imagined politico-cultural border between africa and the west. how else is it possible, to "bring [african] music into a sphere that is en­ abled by a distinguished intellectual history and undeniable institutional power," instead of "imprison [ing] it ... in an ostensibly 'african' field of discourse?" (67). agawu's argument is powerful, but it does not tell us when or how a method counts as enabling instead of imprisoning. reckoning with the ethical implications of different analytic methods involves more than the epistemological status of their results. take the problem of the "lexical gap" (62). while the different african language dictionaries agawu consulted may not have had an entry for the word "rhythm," it is also unlikely that those books would have had equivalents for concepts like "deep structure," "melodic archetype," "metrical struc240 current musicology ture," "topos," "generative process," and so on. yet these are central ana­ lytic concepts in agawu's african rhythm no less than representing african music. what kind of politics encourages the music analyst not to draw on the theoretical tools she has at hand on the grounds that we have no corre­ sponding dictionary entry as evidence that those who perform it, or listen to it, think in terms of these tools? after all, had schoenberg heard of set theory, or beethoven of the urlinie? and would a contemporaneous dictio­ nary have informed us either way? let me turn now to a particular case of inventing african rhythm. agawu's demonstration of how jones does so by his methods of transcrip­ tion is worth quoting in full: a cursory glance at the second volume of studies in african music confirms the complexity of african rhythmic systems. a sometimes rapid succession of meters, staggered bar lines tracing crooked paths from the top to the bottom of the texture, and unusual groupings of notes together with other features make it difficult to find the conductor's beat that would unlock the secrets of african drum ensemble playing. jones, in fact, believed in noncoincident main beats. the graphic severity and unwieldiness of his transcriptions would seem to confirm the essential difference, the otherness, perhaps even the exoticism of african music. (2003:6667) what happens when we cast more than a cursory glance at jones's studies? how unwieldy are his transcriptions? in african rhythm, agawu pro­ vides alternatives to jones's problematic transcriptions that reveals the stakes. agawu's first example, the children's play song, "devi mase nua" (ex. 2), illustrates that jones combines duple with triple with compound time while agawu notates the passage only in compound time. in agree­ ment with simha arom and others, agawu posits a divisive metric process where the two layers of rhythmic activity "are formed into a hierarchy in which 2 serves as a primary function while 3 serves as an auxiliary but indispensable function" (1995b:189). agawu explains that the body swings here, "equivalent to hand claps elsewhere, are felt in twos, which is not to deny the many triple effects that challenge and ultimately reinforce the basic duple feeling," and concludes that 'jones's !-!+! succession is ... wrong" [emphasis agawu's] (189). the first, most trivial, response to this re-transcription is that it seems like a rather small change. while jones's coupling of meters is more com­ plicated than agawu's, the latter's speech accents fit less naturally into the governing meter than the former's (as indicated by the necessity of markmartin scherzinger 241 example 2: children's play song, "devi mase nua," as transcribed by a. m. jones and kofi agawu. jones de-vi rna se nna dewoda ne, ula-ya ula-ya, dewoda ne >~de-vi rna se nna de-wo da nc, ula-ya ula-ya, de wo cia ne ing accents with ">"). at most, their "rhythmic complexity" is of a different sort. is the information conveyed by the respective transcriptions substan­ tially different? is it obvious that jones's version is "graphically severe," "unwieldy"? and is severity always "exotic"? the second response is that agawu sometimes claims that his version of mrican rhythm is paradoxi­ cally less "elegant" than the invented versions, albeit "truer to the mrican experience," because of the across-the-dimensions character of rhythm (1995a:395). if meter is not given a priori, as agawu argues in parts of african rhythm (1995b:68,70,71,llo), then why is the metric hierarchy in agawu's re-transcription regarded with such certainty and rigidity? the third response is that agawu usesjeffpressing's assertion that the music of "agbadza kpoka ... is most correctly (in ewe terms) conceptualized in [unvarying] ii time," as evidence for the "epistemic violence" of "fore grounding native voices" (via pressing's projection of "ewe terms"). agawu invokes the lexical gap-reminding us that the ewe "do not have terms in their language for 'rhythm,' 'meter,' or 'time signature"'-that captures pressing's assertion "unavoidably in a prefabricated theoretical framework" (68). but how is this different from agawu's claim that an unvarying g applies to "devi mase nua" (189)? and how can the latter move be made in the name of "more believable terms" (190)? has the prefabricated framework perhaps become a native mode of hearing after all? in his discussion of the politics of notating mrican rhythm, agawu takes the factual and political dimensions of the distinction between, say, 242 current musicology "isochrony" and "polychrony," or between using staff notation and using the tubs (time unit box system), as self-evident (2003:64-68). agawu does not explain why the former terms are respectful and appropriate towards african music while the latter are africanist hyperbole about its rhythmic complexity. relatedly, there is no explanation as to why designat­ ing schenkerian pitch models in analyses in african rhythm (1995b:79,81,182) or semiotic and generative models in analyses in repre­ sentingafricanmusic (2003:71-96,117-50) hold the moral advantage over designating complex rhythmic models in the manner of jones (66-67). the crucial question is: under what conditions can a specific african expe­ rience be articulated outside of what mahmood mamdani calls a dichoto­ mous "history by analogy?" (l996:9)? perhaps agawu's effort to "de­ exoticize" african rhythm, to return it to the sphere of "amateurs: normal, everyday people" (l995b:190,195) should be weighed against mamdani's concern that the swing from the exotic to the banal ('yes, banal africa­ exoticism be damned!') is from one extreme to another, from seeing the flow of events in africa as exceptional to the general flow of world history to seeing it as routine, as simply dissolving in that general flow, confirming its trend, and in the process presumably confirming the humanity of the african people. in the process, african history and reality lose any specificity, and with it, we lose any but an invented notion of africa. (mamdani 1996:10-11). is the impulse to exoticize the only way africa is invented? on the problem of banalizing mrican rhythm in his chapter "polymeter, additive rhythm, and other enduring myths," agawu spells out the specific ways african music has been misrepresented via ideologically charged terms in the scholarly literature. agawu places the terms "polymeter," "polyrhythm," "additive rhythm" and "cross rhythm" under particular scrutiny, arguing that the very plethora of terms registers an "incorrigible urge to represent africa as always already different" (2003:72). instead of dignifying these terms in his analyses, agawu identi­ fies various rhythmic topoi, or time lines, to describe common african rhyth­ mic patterns in less exoticizing terms. here the most significant interven­ tion is agawu's inclusion of the dancers' foot movement to access the met­ ric structure of the various dances. "for cultural insiders," writes agawu, "identifying the gross pulse or the 'pieds de danse' ('dance feet') occurs instinctively and spontaneously. those not familiar with the choreographic martin scherzinger 243 supplement, however, sometimes have trouble locating the main beats and expressing them in movement" (73). with the choreographic supplement firmly in place, agawu's time lines unambiguously elaborate basic metric schemes. the so-called "standard pattern" often heard as a bell pattern in ewe dances such as agbadza, agbekar, and adzida, for instance, falls into four main beats in 1~; while the "highlife" time line, despite being strongly off-beat centered, falls into four main beats in i (75). agawu considers the yoruba rendition of the standard pattern as "so close that [it] may be re­ garded as a variant" of the standard ewe pattern (74). as it is in western music, then, agawu posits a regulative background that enables "the ac­ centual and durational patterns that constitute a particular tapas" (78). far from the "clash and conflict" identified by jones as a "cardinal principle" of african music, agawu describes a "communal and cooperative" musical situation operating according to the familiar mechanism of "hidden back­ ground and a manifest foreground" (2003:79). agawu uses examples from mozart, beethoven, and brahms to demonstrate, vis-a.-vis the mechanics of rhythm and meter, a kinship between african and western music. agawu's analyses and re-transcriptions are entirely consistent with, if not beholden to, a particular brand of theories of rhythm and meter where the two musical dimensions have been placed in opposition to one an­ other, such as that of fred lerdahl and rayjackendoff (1983). according to these theories, rhythm is the actual flow of sounding durations, meter the abstract grid of strong and weak pulses. how effectively does the rigid opposition between meter and rhythm capture the distinctive properties of african music? indeed, how effectively does the distinction capture the distinctive properties of western music? as christopher hasty has argued, in the more extreme versions of such theories, metric beats are actually regarded as durationless instants that can be compared to "geometrical points rather than to the lines drawn between them" (1997:19). these immobile beats are inferred from various sounding rhythmic phenomena, but once this has happened the sound of the music need not always rein­ force them and may even conflict with them. lerdahl and jackendoffs claim that "even though the two structures [meter and rhythmic group­ ing] obviously interact, neither is intrinsically implicated in the other; that is to say they are formally (and visually) separate" (1983:26). likewise, in his discussion of meter and grouping in african music, agawu insists on a "non-alignment between grouping and metrical structure," an assumption that leads him to hotly contest and ultimately jettison the very concept of "polymeter" (2003:78,84-86). agawu does not question the applicability of lerdahl and jackendoffs theory to african (or any other) music. to support his argument, agawu 244 current musicology cites david temperley's work on mrican rhythm (2000), which, in turn, was inspired by agawu's research on the subject and unquestioningly per­ petuates lerdahl and jackendoffs theory. likewise, in his discussion of meter and grouping in mrican music, temperley insists that "a metrical structure is best regarded as something in the mind of the listener, rather than being present in the music in any direct way" (2000:67). what, however, is the musical cost of these theoretical assumptions? agawu seems wholly to endorse temperley's findings on both musical and political grounds. citing temperley at length, agawu makes a point about the politics of current institutional divisions in music studies: "ethnomusicology is concerned with the production of differences among world musical cultures, while music theorists tend to produce sameness" (2003: 174). music-theoretical systems, therefore, are put to political work in agawu's text. yet while agawu rhetorically upholds lerdahl and jackendoffs theory, his analyses do not in fact outline a generative process as it is understood in generative theory of tonal music. a generative process infers a metric struc­ ture from sounding patterns (that largely support it), while agawu's analy­ ses posit a metric structure (identical to the choreographic supplement) on sounding patterns (that largely contradict it). this is not to say that agawu's analyses of metric structure in, for example, either the highlife topos or the standard pattern are wrong (at least in the context of some mrican dances), but that the appropriate use oflerdahl andjackendoffs model in this context would actively undermine agawu's conclusions. ex­ ample 3 reproduces agawu's metric representation of the highlife timeline, wherein the four main beats have been determined by correspondence with the accompanying choreography. however, if one were to use metric preference rules to infer the metric structure of this sounded pattern alone, it would result in a i pattern beginning on the eighth (or perhaps the fourth) eighth-note beat of the sequence. placed in the context of the (now obviously contrametric) choreographic supplement, this result sug­ gests precisely the polymetric structure of this pattern. the appearance of a single gross metric scheme aside, the correct application of lerdahl and jackendoffs theory actually creates the conditions for undermining the case against inventing mrican rhythm. that is, the generative procedure is at odds with the choreographic supplement; the single gross meter im­ plied by the model is different to the factual one embodied by mricans. aside from the occasional tantalizing remark, agawu does not recog­ nize that it is precisely this sort of western theory of rhythm and meter that lays the conceptual foundations for the fantastical western views of mrican rhythmic and metric complexity he aims to critique. 3 unfortunately, most of agawu's analyses bear the mark of this deep contradiction. martin scherzinger 245 example 3: agawu's metric analysis of the highlife pattern. 1m'''' b,." hlghhfe time lme 0, variant perhaps close formal studies of african music can interrogate the sepa­ ration between meter and rhythm or at least serve as a persistent reminder that such general theories are documents of limited historical and geo­ graphical scope. if african music runs the risk of becoming exotic every time it stakes out a unique way to pattern time, how can it ever contribute to the broad musicological debate, let alone offer us startling musical pos­ sibilities? recalling mamdani, the point is neither to celebrate african "rhythmic complexity" nor to recoil from it in alarm. while the strategic use of western methods for the study of african music should be vigor­ ously supported on political grounds, the epistemological dimensions of the inquiry should be deeply interested in the moments that do not quite fit the theoretical archetypes. these are the moments where a consider­ ation of african rhythmic processes may force a revision of general theories of rhythm and meter in genuinely global terms. for, taken in the context of its broad implications, this is the hope that agawu's inquiry inspires. conclusion: on representing african music towards the end of his chapter "the invention of african rhythm," agawu makes a powerful statement: there is one possible solution to some of the problems addressed in this chapter, a way of countering the unfortunate effects of invention: eschew the 'soft' strategies of dialogism and the solicitation of insider viewpoints and work towards the direct empowerment of postcolonial african subjects so that they can eventually represent themselves. (2003:69-70) how can agawu's words be transformed into reality? there is a risk of taking agawu's point to mean that because western musicology is mired in inventions, it need not represent oppressed african groups, but instead allow such groups to "represent themselves" (70). i do not think that a postcolonial musicology diminishes the burden of representing african music in the west. according to gayatri spivak, the subaltern cannot speak. 246 current musicology this is partly a definitional claim-"there is something of a not­ speakingness in the very notion of subalterity" (l996:289)-and partly a claim about the way subaltern self-representation fails to catch in elite dis­ course. using the metaphor of a speech act, spivak explains that "even when the subaltern makes an effort to death to speak, she is not able to be heard, and speaking and hearing complete the speech act" (292). thus "speaking," in spivak's rhetorical sense, involves a speaker and a hearer. the question arises: to whom would one ideally want "mrican subjects ... [to] represent themselves?" and why? if the agenda is political mobility for oppressed groups within modernity, then the possibility to "represent" does not rest solely on letting others speak for themselves. indeed, elite discourse can contribute to the upliftment of others. spivak illustrates her argument with various cases drawn primarily from the work of the subal­ tern studies group. instead of trying to merely recover a native account of it (which presupposes a deliberative consciousness and trivializes the domi­ nance and dynamism of the colonial state), the group has rewritten the history of india without shying from colonial documents and reports­ "text[s] from the other side" (1996:291). this maneuver is linked to spivak's strategic use of positivist essentialism in service of a visible political inter­ est. arguing that we cannot not essentialize, spivak places no limit on the kinds of intellectual work that can advance a postcolonial ideal. "western" musicology, therefore, has a role to play in this conjunc­ ture. first, it will not do to dismiss the work of those writers who ostensibly "invent mrican rhythm" as only "construction ... fiction ... myth [and] ultimately ... lie" (agawu 2003:61). there may be specific contexts where invented concepts of mrican rhythm are politically beneficial. the politi­ cal significance of all inventions is not a matter of whether they are abso­ lute truths as much as whether they are taken as such in particular social contexts. in other words, political resistance and affirmation are radically contingent on the contexts in which they operate. second-and this for­ mulation may seem paradoxical at first-we may want to provisionally downplay the political dimension of representation in our studies of mri­ can music altogether. while agawu's disengagement from the false binary between formal studies (for some) and contextual studies (for others) is laudable, his sustained critical brilliance risks inaugurating a more surrep­ titious opposition between mrica and the west on the terrain of politics. the study of mrican music under the conditions imagined in representing african music will be obliged to position itself politically, while the study of western music will not be so obliged. perhaps this is why agawu ultimately jettisons any overarching method for approaching mrican music: how not to analyze mrican music? there is obviously no way not martin scherzinger 247 to analyze mrican music. any and all ways are acceptable. an analysis that lacks value does not yet exist, which is not to deny that, depending on the reasons for a particular adjudication, some approaches may prove more or less useful. we must therefore reject all ethnomusicological cautions about analysis because their aim is not to empower mrican scholars and musicians but to reinforce certain metropolitan privileges. (2003:196) transposing this line of thought back to my argument about the dan­ gers of politicizing mrican discourse: planting political minefields on mri­ can musicological terrain can only discourage scholars from working on that terrain. in a global context where mrica is gradually falling below the perception level of the west, a postcolonial musicology might be inter­ ested in encouraging as much diverse scholarship on mrican material as possible. if the aim is to consolidate mrica's unmarked entry into global modernity, postcolonial musicology will need to contest vigorously all meth­ odological binaries between cultural zones, however well intended. why should the difficulty of getting the worms back into the political can only befall mrican scholarship? this is why i think the over-politicization of the general mrican musicological terrain may be, paradoxically, politically dis­ ingenuous. the task of representing mrican music does not evaporate on account of the economic inequality between the northern and southern hemi­ spheres. it is worth distinguishing two senses of "representation" at this point. spivak describes these as "representation as 'speaking for,' as in politics, and representation as 're-presentation,' as in art and philosophy" (1999:256). while they are intimately related, these two senses remain "ir­ reducibly discontinuous" because the first sense pertains to persons speak­ ing on behalf of others while the second pertains to (ostensibly) present­ ing "reality adequately" (257). ernesto laclau recognizes a similar logical tension in the concept of representation. laclau notes that the condition of a good political representation is, "apparently, that there is a perfect or transparent transmission, by the representative, of the will of those whom he represents" (1996:38). this entails that the will of the representative does not impinge at all upon the will of those he is representing, or that there is a "full identification of the represented with his will" (48-49). laclau argues that this condition is impossible to meet and that this figura­ tion of the ideal representation forgets "why the relation of representation needs to be established in the first place" [emphasis laclau's]. he writes, the answer is, obviously, that it is because the represented are absent from the place in which the representation takes place, 248 current musicology and that decisions effecting them are to be taken there. and these decisions-as any decision-involve negotiations whose result is indeterminate. but this amounts to saying that, if the represented need the relation of representation, it is because their identities are incomplete and have to be supplemented by the representative. this means that the role of the representative cannot be neutral, and that he will contribute something to the identities of those he represents. ergo, the relation of representation will be, for essential logical reasons, constitutively impure: the movement from represented to representative will necessarily have to be supplemented by a movement in the opposite direction. (49) laclau's formulation of the problem is relevant to african music be­ cause it casts a different light on various representations that have been deemed distortions of the process of representation. if a certain distortion is built into the very mechanics of the process, the question of what counts as a productive representation shifts qualitatively. thus, the call for the unfettered self-representation of african subjects in musicological discourse must fail because it runs together these two senses of the term. by suggest­ ing that the representation of african music approximate the condition of a passive mirror (reflecting the pre-constituted musical practices and in­ terests of african people), it raises the stakes on representative purity to impossible heights. i am not denying that there should be more african practitioners informing the musicological scene than there are today; on the contrary, there should be many more! nor am i denying that some representations of african music are unpalatable manipulations of afri­ can people's cultural practice. indeed, agawu's critique of the politics of producing cultural difference (and, to a lesser degree, my critique of the politics of producing cultural sameness) in academic writing on african music is an attempt to locate just these moments. moreover, the urgent concern articulated by agawu, euba, nzewi, and others, that ethnomusicological premises are "unsuitable" for african music studies, reveals less that the representation process has become impure as such and more that the representation process has, in some significant political sense, failed. the point is not to take any departure from pure representation as an outright failure, but to assess the political implications of an already im­ pure representation. this is important because, in many parts of africa, social marginalization and economic inequality have shattered certain cul­ tural and musical configurations; therefore, one of the most debated is­ sues today should be how to constitute african musicological practices within global modernity. perhaps the task of africanist musicologists in the north martin scherzinger 249 atlantic is to provide the marginalized masses with an adequate language out of which it becomes possible to negotiate mrica's equal place in the international musicological arena. those in search of a genuinely global musical discourse-one that necessarily involves the concrete uplifting of mrican music and musicians-could do much worse than begin their quest by reading agawu's representing african music. his is the unmistakable voice of authentic hope. notes 1. of the academic disciplines, ethnomusicology is arguably the most attuned to music's socio-political contexts. in general, however, the role of politics in ethnomusicological accounts rarely goes beyond outlining music's ideological background; it rarely attempts to delineate political strategies for social change or resistance to unwanted change. 2. see, for example, mark d.jordan, the invention of sodomy in christian theol­ ogy, chicago: chicago university press, 1997; jonathan katz, the invention of het­ erosexuality, new york: dutton, 1995; serge moscovici, the invention of society, cam­ bridge, u.k.: polity press, 1993; christopher lloyd gogwilt, the invention of the west: joseph conrad and the double-mapping of europe and empire, stanford: stanford university press, 1995. 3. in a different context, for example, agawu asserts that "western music has balkanized [conceptions of rhythm] into different domains" (2003:63). works cited adorno, theodor w. 1973. philosophy of modern music, translated by anne g. michell and wesley v. blomster. new york: the seabury press. (orig. pub. 1958.) agawu, kofi v. 1992. representing african music. critical inquiry 18 (2): 245-66. --. 1995a. the invention of 'african rhythm'. journal of the american musico­ logical society 48 (3): 380-95. --. 1995b. african rhythm: a northern ewe perspective. cambridge: cambridge university press. bailey, john. 1985. musical structure and human movement. in musical structure and cognition, edited by peter howell, ian cross and robert west, 237-58. lon­ don: academic press. berliner, paul. 1971. the soul of mbira. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. boretz, benjamin. 1971. in quest of the rhythmic genius. perspectives of new music 9 (spring-summer): 149-55. chernoff, john miller. 1981. african rhythm and african sensibility: aesthetics and social action in african social idioms. chicago and london: university of chi­ cago press. cusick, suzanne. 1994. on a lesbian relationship with music: a serious effort not to think straight. in queering the pitch: the new gay and lesbian musicology, edited by phillip brett, elizbeth wood, and gary thomas, 67-84. new york: routledge. darroch, lynn. 1989. obo addy: third-world beat. northwest magazine 20 (au250 current musicology gust): 4. euba, akin. 2000. issues in mricanist musicology. talking points for revitalizing african music studies in higher education (conference held april 6-8, ann ar­ bor, mi: university of michigan). hasty, christopher f. 1997. meter as rhythm. new york and oxford: oxford univer­ sity press. hountondji, paulin j. 1983. african philosophy: myth and reality, translated by h. evans. london, melbourne, sydney, auckland, johannesburg: hutchinson university library for mrica. jones, a. m. 1959. studies in african music. london: oxford university press. laclau, ernesto. 1996. deconstruction, pragmatism, hegemony. in deconstruction and pragmatism, edited by chantal mouffe, 47-68. london and new york: routledge. lerdahl, fred, and ray jackendoff. 1983. a generative theory of tonal music. cam­ bridge, ma and london: mit press. mamdani, mahmood. 1996. citizen and subject: contemporary africa and the legacy of late colonialism. princeton: princeton university press. mcclary, susan. 2000. turtles all the way down. in conventional wisdom: the con­ tent of musical form, 1-31. berkeley, los angeles, and london: university of california press. mead, andrew. 1999. bodily hearing: physiological metaphors and musical un­ derstanding. journal of music theory 43: 1-18. pareles,jon. 1998. the rhythm century: the unstoppable beat. new york times (may 3): 1-2. qureshi, regula burckhardt. 1995. music anthropologies and music histories: a preface and an agenda. journal of the american musicological society 48 (3): 33142. spivak, gayatri chakravorty. 1996. the spivak reader: selected works of gayatri chakravorty spivak, edited by d. landry and g. maclean. new york and lon­ don: routledge. --. 1999. a critique of postcolonial reason: toward a history of the vanishing present. cambridge, ma and london: harvard university press. temperley, david. 2000. meter and rhythm in mrican music: a view from music theory. ethnomusicology 44 (l): 65-96. bach: luther's musical prophet? rebecca lloyd introduction it is impossible to read much theological analysis of bach without encounter­ ing martin luther. the reformer's name is ubiquitous: he is given both as source and as ultimate authority for the theological ideas supposedly expressed in bach's music. to cite just a few examples: according to two theologically minded interpreters of bach, lothar steiger and renate steiger, bach's church music "was theologically grounded solely on luther's teaching about the word of god and of the essence of music" (1992:15). bach scholars even cite luther's love of music and his assertions of its divine origin as the fundamental impulse behind bach's work: robin leaver writes that the key to "opening the door on the whole world of bach's innermost conceptions and ideas" will be found in "the writings of the reformer martin luther" (1978:30). rather less approvingly, richard taruskin argues that bach's church music "was a medium of truth, not beauty, and the truth it served-luther's truth-was often bitter" (2005, 2:363). i imagine that few scholars today would go as far as hans preub, who declared in 1922 that "bach is luther" (1922:15). however, most would agree that luther provides a vital context for interpreting bach's sacred music. perhaps it is unsurprising that musicologists have turned to luther when interpreting bach. despite many critiques of the hermeneutic method-such as that of carolyn abbate (2004)-musicologists still search out meaning in music by investigating a suitable "horizon of expectations" within which to situate music's meaning and affect historically. my own view is that hermeneutics is inescapable to most of us brought up within the musicological tradition; i tend to agree with karol berger's assertion, contra abbate, that "we cannot help it: we are hermeneutic creatures through and through" (2005:497). abbate argues for the privileging of the experience of performed music over its hermeneutic interpretation; berger counters that, while aesthetic experience is indeed an important and under-appreciated part of academic study, the hermeneutic and the experiential cannot be so neatly separated. i side with berger on this point: whether because of training, conditioning, or instinctive response, many-perhaps most-lis­ teners to bach's music seem to want to contextualize and understand their current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 5 6 current musicology responses by studying what bach himself might have thought about his music's purpose and origin. bach, of course, was a lutheran, and he wrote most of his music for that church. on the face of it, therefore, luther seems not only useful but necessary if we are to interpret bach's music historically. further, luther's writings would seem to provide a rich source for interpreters. he has long been seen as a key figure of european history, and some of the myths told about him-posting the ninety-five theses in wittenberg, his proud an­ nouncement that "i can take no other course" -have been widely understood as defining moments in the evolution of modern western culture and thought. so it is perhaps easy to assume that he is a clearly defined historical figure about whose life and work there is substantial agreement. yet his very eminence creates its own difficulties. faced with the sheer volume, complex­ ity, and frequent inaccessibility of luther's own writings, bach scholars have tended-entirely understandably-to rely on secondary literature when divining his message. consequently, their view of luther is filtered through the writings oflater (mainly twentieth-century) theologians. luther studies as a discipline is particularly rich in competing political and religious ideologies, and portraits of luther have characteristically been shaped by scholars' own confessional views. within musicology, the problem appears to be that researchers frequently fail to distinguish between two different types of luther scholarship. theologians can, very roughly, be divided into two camps: the systematic and the historical. historical theologians study the history and development of doctrine, while systematic theologians focus on forming and explaining doctrine for their own time. of course there is a wide overlap, as many historical theologians study history to illuminate belief in the present and many systematic theologians study history. but problems occur when these two methods are conflated, notably when systematic theologians impute their own ideas about doctrine to a historical figure. this can occur for a wide variety of reasons: from the simple wish for a historical icon to add weight to one's own views, to the unreflective decision that one's own beliefs must be correct, and that, as it is axiomatic that your heroes are correct, they must have agreed with you. some theologians, for instance karl holl and paul althaus, imputed their own systems to luther, making them guilty of anachronisms both deliberate and accidental (stayer 2000:28). american theologian and bach writer joyce irwin encapsulates the issue when she writes that "the problem of discussing luther is similar to the problem of discussing jesus christ" (1993:1). like christ, luther informs the religious traditions, experiences, and identity politics of many believers, including a large majority of those who write on him. yet luther himself was a passionate, inconsistent thinker who cared little for overall coherence and whose psychological and spiritual rebecca lloyd development throughout his life frequently led him to discard or repudiate his own earlier writings. just as with the bible, one can search luther's work and find support for just about any theological idea. consequently, in the twentieth century alone, scholars have painted luther as catholic, protestant, reformed, medieval, modern, ecclesiastical, existentialist, authoritarian, revolutionary, and everything in between. the concern i wish to articulate in this paper is that most theologically influenced bach scholars have claimed historical readings of luther, when in fact they rely on a view of him filtered through mid-twentieth-century german dogmatic theology. interpreters of bach from the german theologi­ cal tradition have tended to employ a particular hermeneutic which conflates past history with present christianity, emphasizing those aspects ofhistorical lutheranism which might provide points of contact with the modern liturgy and augment the piety of today's christians at the expense of recognizing the historical distance of bach's time. rooted firmly in twentieth-century protestantism, scholars such as steiger and steiger exaggerate those aspects of bach and luther which were, or could be made, familiar, while ignoring the more distant features of both. some modern anglo-american bach scholars, many of whom might not consider themselves orthodox christians, have been influenced by this tradition and similarly take theological ideas stemming from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to represent bach's religious background. while it is, of course, possible to interpret bach by way of a hermeneutics uninfluenced or only partly influenced by histori­ cal considerations, such a method seems incompatible with the claims to historicity made by these scholars. indeed, i propose that the authority accrued by theological interpreters of bach flows directly from their often entirely anachronistic appeals to history. i wish to highlight some of the more anachronistic portraits of luther which have found their way into bach studies and to question their ideological origin before suggesting some alternative ways of employing the ideas of luther and lutheran theologians in understanding bach's music. the luther renaissance and bible criticism bach's music has long been considered uniquely rich in religious symbolism. theological approaches to interpreting his music are almost as old as bach scholarship itself; the first monograph analyzing the composer's music by reference to his religious background was written by johann theodor mosewius in the mid-nineteenth century ( [1845] 2001). subsequent writers, notably philipp spitta, also took lutheranism into account in interpreting bach (1873-80). but theological investigation into bach's music began in earnest in the 1920s and 30s with the inception of the periodical musik und 7 8 current musicology kirche and the publication of the first writings setting out the links between theological and musicological methods (such as besch 1938). almost all these writers were german lutherans. confessionalists-writers whose view of luther was decisively influenced by their own religious beliefs-set the agenda for such theological bach scholarship, and their influence remains strong. such confessional bias replicates the situation in reformation studies, where reformation history was for many years a battleground of competing confessional interests. recent historians have frequently drawn attention to the anachronisms these earlier writers produced: historian r. w. scribner, for instance, criticized the "excessive concentration on luther and his theology, without regard for historical context" (1986:1; also macculloch 2004:xxii). theologian heiko oberman pointed out that "luther never called himself a reformer, and ... he never called the movement that started with him a 'reformation'" (2004:57). the term "reformation;' used in this context, actually dates from the seventeenth century (oberman [1989] 2006:79; scribner 1986:2). the later assumption, that the "reformation" was begun consciously by luther and that all its elements stem directly from him, is historically dubious and clearly ideological in origin. scholars thus risked creating an ahistorical luther to whom they imputed a whole range oflater ideas-some dating from as late as the twentieth century. church historian diarmaid macculloch writes in a forthcoming article about the problem of "ancestor-worship" in reformation studies, whereby confessional historians investigate only their own traditions and ignore others, failing to make connections between different strands of belief or to take account of gaps, silences, and dissent (forthcoming). the problem is certainly not new; luther has been revered as a german icon for centuries. his thinking was always more germanocentric than that of other reform­ ers, notably calvin and zwingli, and since the nineteenth century he has received more than his fair share of nationalistic rereading. but in the view of luther presented by many recent bach scholars, among them lothar steiger, renate steiger, eric chafe, and robin leaver, some specifically twentieth-century confessional aspects can be identified. many of the key features of this "luther" can be traced to the "luther renaissance" movement inaugurated by theologian karl holl (1866-1926). indeed, lothar steiger and renate steiger write of their theological teachers coming "from the school of karl holl" (1992:7). the most striking reflection of this heritage in bach scholarship is the perpetuation of holl's insistence on biblical exegesis as luther's mission. from the 1920s onwards, holl and his school promoted a "historicist" return to luther through detailed study of his writings. they invented a strongly internally coherent and text-bound luther as german hero in oprebecca lloyd position to what they saw as the decadent weimar republic and to secular liberalism more generally. creating a coherent luther whose reformation credentials were strong from the earliest possible point in his life and who did not change his mind later necessarily entailed selective reading. stung by germany's defeat in the first world war, holl promoted a muscular german christianity that appealed to luther for its authority. holl's "historical" reading of luther was decisively influenced by his increasingly conservative politics and his reactionary dogmatics, and he sought authority by reference back to the reformer: the reformation, in fact, enriched all areas of culture. but has it not ex­ hausted its strength with what it has accomplished to date? many would have feared this before the [first] world war, under the impression that, together with religion in general, the reformation, too, had lost its power to win a following. today a turn in the road seems to be appearing. the feeling for religion is growing among us. but the danger threatens that the new movement will lose its way in superstition and utopia. if ever, we need luther today to make us healthy. .. consciences everywhere, especially since the war, are confused; in germany as in other nations. only when sober reflection returns: at this point may one hope for a renewal of our nation. but then it will also demonstrate-i believe this confidently-that the reformation is not at the end, but only at the beginning of its world­ wide effect. (1927:1, 542-43, translation slightly modified from holl 1959:151-52)1 directly in the spirit of holl, theologically influenced bach writers have held luther to be the supreme authority for modern protestantism and consider him primarily or even solely an exegete of the bible. steiger and steiger, for instance, write of "the cantata, which, in the form encountered in bach, can only be understood as proceeding from luther's understanding of scripture and of music" (1992:15).2 scripture, identified with luther, looms large in bach theology. ruth tatlow begins her liner notes for one of john eliot gardiner's cantata pilgrimage recordings with the assertion that, "cantata composition always began with the text. but as the text-writers began with sermons, and the preachers began with luther, and luther began with the bible, the true beginning was the word" (2000:7). theologians like to analyze bach's music as "exegesis" (auslegung) of its texts. however, "exegesis" is, in itself, an anachronistic term when applied to luther, as are other trusted formulae of modern bible criticism such as "hermeneutic;' "method," and "system" (hagen 1993: 15). while luther certainly employed scholarly techniques, including thorough study of the biblical languages and the writings of church fathers such as st. augustine, he did not consider the bible a subject for detached, systematic enquiry. rather, he read it directly and personally in a manner alien to modern scholars, anxiously searching 9 10 current musicology it for what he had already conceptualized as its central evangelical message while dismissing those passages or even whole books which he thought contradicted that message. as macculloch puts it: [luther's) translation of the bible in the wartburg was an expression of a relationship oflove with the word of god, which meant that he could be as familiar with or even as rude to the bible as with the most intimate of old friends. he could treat the text in a startlingly proprietorial way. wherever, for instance, luther found the word equivalent to "life" in greek or hebrew, he would extend it in german to the phrase "eternal life." "mercy" became "grace" and "the deliverer of israel" "the saviour." when he translated a crucial proof-text in romans 3 "we hold that man is justified without works of the law, by faith;' he made no bones about adding "only" to "faith." luther also had no scruples about ranking different parts of the bible as more or less valuable depending on whether they proclaimed the message which he had discovered. st. john's gospel, romans, galatians, ephesians, and i peter were central; so were the psalms, because they were prophecies of christ. the epistle to the hebrews talks about faith in terms which did not suit him ... worse still was the epistle of james ... and he also loathed the book of esther. (macculloch 2004:133-34; see also oberman (1989) 2006:161-74,220-25) luther, therefore, did not limit god's word and revelation to the words of the bible. oberman even writes of luther's understanding of scripture as a "necessary evil" -necessary because humankind was too perverse to under­ stand god's will naturally. oberman quotes luther's comment, "god and the scriptures are two different things, as different as creator and creature" ([1989] 2006:221). scripture must be interpreted by means of grace and faith; god is not bound by the words. contrary to later biblicism, whose adherents thought that the word of god was limited to the words of the bible, lutherans viewed the bible as merely part of god's revelation. it was only the theologians of the twentieth -century luther renaissance movement who imputed to luther modern exegetical methods and the modern idea that protestantism's authority is rooted solely in text (stayer 2000:28-29). bach scholars, too, raise the importance of the words of the bible to a level luther would have found verging on the blasphemous. lothar steiger, for instance, cites bach's music in support of his argument that german christians should not update luther's bible into modern german. in his view, luther's words should not be changed, for they represent a unique godly union of sense and beauty, logos and melos: [bach) stands on the shoulders of all those before him whose musical invention and composition were forged by the biblical word: but with all these together he stands on the shoulders of him who brought the voice rebecca lloyd of a friend to our hearing in bible german. it is still speaking where there is adherence to the accurate words. it speaks not in general, it speaks [di­ reedy] to me. (1999:72)3 yet such "biblicism," such fetishizing of the german text, would have been alien to luther. it is therefore odd that the tools of nineteenthand twentieth-century bible criticism still find their way into bach scholarship today, ascribed to bach or to luther. perhaps the clearest example of this is to be found in the work of eric chafe, who has written two books finding "tonal allegory" in bach. chafe believes that bach performs a sort of historical exegesis on his texts, supposedly in the spirit of luther. many bach cantatas begin with texts about condemnation under the law followed by salvation under the gospel followed by the joy of christian belief. chafe theorizes that this progression gives a narrative of god's historical engagement with humanity. he broadly identifies the law with the period of the old testament, the gospel with the period of the new testament, and joy with the subsequent period of the christian church: the ancient concept of scripture as "salvation history" -that is, the notion that god had a plan for the salvation of humanity that was revealed pro­ gressively throughout the successive eras of biblical history-was essential to lutheran hermeneutics, as it had been to the interpretative principles employed in the middle ages. (2000:4) however, luther did not describe the process of salvation by a historical narrative in this way. moreover, the evolutionary view of history implied by such a method could not have been conceived before the nineteenth century. the term chafe uses, "salvation history;' is in fact a translation of the techni­ cal term heilsgeschichte, which was coined in the 1840s by the theologian johann christian konrad von hofmann as a way of describing the process of the events of biblical history from the sayings of the israelite prophets to the life ofjesus to the end of time (1841-44:43,47). hofmann wanted to find a method of biblical interpretation that took account of kant's philosophy of truth made manifest in history; he was also influenced by hegelianism. true, the term is used in certain types of bible scholarship up to the present day, but it owes nothing to the eighteenth century, much less the sixteenth. most historical theologians today avoid a literal interpretation of it because, as friedrich mildenberger writes, "it implies a less-than-reflective modern understanding of history."4 chafe, in fact, cites two sources for his concept of "lutheran" salva­ tion history: the mid-twentieth-century german theologians heinrich bornkamm-who was a student of karl holl's and a leading light of the 11 12 current musicology luther renaissance movement-and hans conzelmann (bornkamm 1948; conzelmann 1954). both were confessional lutherans and both sought ways of interpreting the bible for the church of their own time. bornkamm was largely motivated by a desire to find authority in luther to support contemporary biblical scholarship. since the late nineteenth century, bible criticism had taken a historical turn, and it was no longer possible for serious theologians to argue, for instance, that the old testament contained direct prophecies of christ. moreover, it had to be recognized that these hebrew scriptures were written for an audience ofisraelites or jews. such a realiza­ tion caused problems for anti-semitic christians. bornkamm-whose book was written in the early 1940s-was concerned to "rescue" the old testament from any association with judaism, both because of his own anti-judaic biases, and because he was a conservative christian who did not want to see the old testament denigrated, as the nazis were wont to do. to this end he tried, in his words, to "christianize" the old testament by explaining it as narrating an early era of "salvation history" (bornkamm 1969:221; see also nowak 1992): luther's quarrel with the judaism of his day must not be treated as a repudiation of the old testament ... no one who has even superficially looked into his writings can doubt his passionate op­ position to the jews as blasphemers of christ on the one hand, and his deep love for the old testament on the other. (1969:1) it will be shown how many historical and literary treasures [luther 1 mined out of the old testament. yet, his writings on the jews illustrate clearly enough the fury with which he denounced the jews' usurious practices ... beauty and wisdom in the old testament are adornments of the holy spirit; but the spirit of profiteering and the murderous plans of the jews were the expressions of their mad messianic arrogance. (1969:2) it is an urgent matter for christians to interpret the old testament cor­ rectly. today it is even more urgent than before because of the crisis that overshadows our relationship to it. yet, our use of luther's work has made this proper interpretation more important now than ever: his work has christianized the old testament thoroughly, as we have seen. (1969:226) given the views he expresses, it is perhaps not surprising that bornkamm's personal history during the 1930s and 40s is murky: he was briefly a member of the sturmabteiling (the brown shirts) and also joined the christlich-deutsche bewegung, a forerunner of the nazi deutsche christen movement, though later he preferred to support the mainstream evangelical church (nowak 1992:55; meier 1992:26).5 conzelmann, who supported a group comparable to the anti-nazi confessing church during rebecca lloyd the war, nevertheless put forward similar theories about the gospel of luke. in his view, the gospel was written to narrate the origins of christianity in superseding a moribund judaism (tyson 1999:76). interestingly, while bornkamm explicitly, if anachronistically, seeks to link his interpretation of the old testament to luther's writings, conzelmann never mentions luther, who does not even appear in the index to his book. conzelmann was clearly writing systematic theology, a lutheranism for his own time. chafe, however, reads him as though he were a historian, imputing conzelmann's very specifically twentieth -century views to sixteenth-century luther. while luther's own attitude to jews and judaism is notorious, he could not have conceived of an evolutionary view of historical truth such as that which underlies the anti-judaic model of "salvation history" used by bornkamm and conzelmann and cited by chafe. at a time when the issue of anti-judaism in bach is receiving much scholarly attention, it is worth separating out the history-bach's and luther's-from the historiography. while it is often worthwhile to consider a range of interpretative sources from different periods, i cannot see that it is desirable to bring into bach interpretation anachronistic descriptions of christian history written at a time when proving the superiority of christianity over judaism was a scholarly imperative. allegory as meaning? even leaving aside the historiography of his sources, however, chafe's concept of "tonal allegory" is historically dubious. the term "allegory" has long been associated with baroque music: walter benjamin first posited philosophical allegory as a defining feature of "baroque" representation, and in 1948 manfred bukofzer became the first writer of modern times to apply the concept to music (benjamin 1998; bukofzer 1948). chafe appeals to luther's "allegorical" hermeneutics to support his contention that bach used musical signs, particularly tonality, to make clear external referents and ensure that text and music were meaningful to his audience. but chafe faces several problems in claiming that allegory provides meaning. traditionally, allegory is a form of rhetoric rather than of hermeneutics: in making allegory into interpretation chafe misreads the interpretative systems of early lutheranism. according to luther himself, allegory was an ornamental device for the delight of the discerning listener, not an argument, interpretation, or technique of persuasion: ''allegories do not provide solid proofs in theology; but, like pictures, they adorn and illustrate a subject" (1538:262; translation from luther 1963:435).6 to discover a hermeneutic use of allegory, chafe has to return to the scholastic theologians of the late medieval period. they famously divided 13 14 current musicology biblical interpretation into four parts, often explained by the metaphor of four horses pulling a single cart. each bible text had literal, allegorical, tropological (moral), and anagogical (eschatological) interpretations. an example frequently given was that ofjerusalem, which could be understood literally as the earthly city, allegorically as the church on earth, tropologically as a pure conscience, and anagogically as the church in heaven. scholastic theologians believed that allegorical interpretation created new meanings or "senses" which were as valuable as the literal interpretation of the text. in fact, the so-called "spiritual" senses were generally considered more important than the literal sense, as captured in the biblical text that "the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life" (2 cor 3:6, authorized version). according to chafe, the quadripartite division is to be found throughout luther's work and survived into bach's day: as is well known, luther generally opposed the traditional four­ fold interpretative scheme of medieval hermeneutics ... prefer­ ring a simpler "literal-prophetic" sense that was christologically oriented. luther's objections centered on the fact that "allegorical" interpretations of scripture had traditionally been directed toward law and works and the institutions of the church rather than faith ... within luther's hermeneutics ... the medieval four senses were not so much rejected as they were reoriented according to the dialectical relation­ ship of law and gospel and the analogy of faith. as a result many residues of the medieval scheme persisted through the era of lutheran orthodoxy, but generally in freely flexible form. (2000:5-6) but if one reads luther, one discovers that he was in fact utterly hostile to the four levels of interpretation, as an example from the lectures on galatians of 1535 demonstrates: therefore the jerusalem that is above, that is, the heavenly jerusalem, is the church here in time. it is not, by anagoge, our fatherland in the life to come or the church triumphant, as the idle and unlettered monks and scholastic doctors imagined. they taught that there are four senses of scripture-the literal, the tropological, the allegorical, and the anagogi­ cal-and by means of these they misinterpreted almost every word of scripture. thus, according to them, jerusalem literally signified the city of that name; tropologically, a pure conscience; allegorically, the church mili­ tant; and anagogically, our heavenly fatherland or the church triumphant. with these awkward and foolish fables they tore scripture apart into many meanings and robbed themselves of the ability to give sure instruction to human consciences. (1538; translation from luther 1963:440)7 chafe's rationale for disagreeing with luther about allegory is that lutheran hermeneutics "reoriented" allegory, employing it as a means for the believer rebecca lloyd to relate the historical events in the bible to his or her own life. his solution, as we have seen, is to read the four senses as temporal rather than conceptual. he often assigns them to the times of the old testament, the new testament, the church on earth, and the church eternal, a usage which would have puzzled luther and the scholastics alike: they would not have understood the bible as divided into such discrete historical periods. it was only with the nineteenth century that the term "hermeneutics" began to imply a specifically historical method of interpretation.s chafe, however, writes: central to the articulation of such a large-scale unity of the content of scripture, therefore, was the belief that scripture possessed both literal and spiritual meanings, the latter expressed in the three so-called "spiritual" senses of hermeneutics. when subjected to allegorical, tropological, and anagogical (eschatological) interpretation, the events of biblical history moved outside their own historical time frames and became imbued with new levels of meaning for later generations. (2000:4) chafe believes that bach followed in luther's footsteps by writing music to underline the "spiritual" senses (the latter three in the above list) of his texts (2000:3-22). yet luther despised the attempts of the scholastic theologians to find "spiritual" senses in the bible. for him such senses could not exist; there was only the literal. luther continued to view allegory with deepest suspicion, especially in his late works. two short passages from his table talk [tischreden 1 demonstrate this well: when i was a monk, i was a master in the use of spiritual mean­ ings. i allegorized everything. but afterward through the epistle to the romans i came to some knowledge of christ. i recognized then that spiritual meanings and allegories are nothing, that it's not what christ signifies but who and what he is [that counts j. (1566:509; translation slightly modified from luther 1957:406)9 on another occasion, doctor martin luther said, "i can't work any more, nor can i speak any longer. when i was young i was learned, especially before i came to the study of theology. at that time i dealt with allegories, tropologies, and analogies and did nothing but clever tricks with them. if somebody had them today they'd be looked upon as rare relics. i know they're nothing but rubbish. now i've let them go, and this is my first and best art, to translate the scriptures in their plain sense. the literal sense does it-in it there's life, comfort, power, instruction, and skill. the other is tomfoolery, however brilliant the impression it makes." (1566:510; translation slightly modified from luther 1957:46)10 only when scripture proclaimed itself to be allegorical did luther and seven­ teenth-century lutheran writers such as abraham calov and salomon glass allow truly allegorical interpretation-and even then in only a few, strictly 15 16 current musicology limited, circumstances. one example was christ connecting his "lifting up" on the cross with moses lifting up a snake in the desert so that all who looked towards it would be healed (john 3:14; numbers 21:4-9). another important example was paul's allegory in galatians (4:22ff.) of abraham's slave hagar and wife sarah as representing the two covenants. ll luther was quite clear that any allegorical interpretation could not be considered a "spiritual" reading, but instead was just as dependent on the text as a literal one. furthermore, the linking of the old and new testaments in sources such as the calov bible implies nothing about time: it merely asserts the unity of the whole of scripture, making no assumptions about historical progress. (it is, after all, just as possible to interpret the new testament in the light of the old as it is to interpret the old in light of the new, or the gospels in light of one another, or the gospels in the light of the epistles, or the epistles in light of the gospels.12 ) all in all, luther was concerned to blur or even remove the boundaries between "literal" and "spiritual" meanings, declaring that the literal sense (or permitted allegory) could have both a dogmatic and an inner, experiential effect-which was a mystical proof of its truth. as bernhard lohse puts it, the mature luther "no longer tried to find the spiritual meaning of a text alongside the literal meaning but rather within it" (1986:149). for chafe, however, lutheran theology allowed "spiritual" interpreta­ tions of texts, firstly because of its view of history as the progress of salvation and secondly because of luther's "allegorical" concept of the analogy of faith. this concept-central to luther's thought-was the means by which the believer could understand the unity of scripture and find meaning in scripture for his or her own life. but chafe confuses scholastic allegory with the lutheran analogy of faith: they are not the same thing, nor are they designed for the same purpose. luther's analogy of faith dealt only in literal senses, and was concerned solely with the hermeneutic understand­ ing of the author when the meaning was unclear, focusing on the power of the literal sense to bring "life, comfort, power, instruction, and skill." older allegorical interpretation concerned itself with creating new or multiple "spiritual" meanings validated by tradition: these new meanings would then have the same-or, often, greater-validity than the literal sense. for luther, only the literal sense would do. this is not a sophistic distinction: for bach to create allegories in the way chafe suggests would, for luther, have verged on the blasphemous. to luther, the literal sense is full [sufficiensl and perfect. luther's fundamental principle of claritas scriptura means that the bible interprets itself and does not need exegesis, least of all by music. the concept of music as allegory of the bible does not fit into luther's hermeneutics; even if bach is understood as working entirely in luther's rebecca lloyd shadow, the notion that bach saw music as allegorizing theological truth remains historically implausible. why, then, does chafe assert that luther employed the quadriga, the medieval fourfold means of scriptural interpretation? one has to conclude again that he is content to echo the work of theologians of the conservative luther renaissance movement, notably karl holl. perhaps holl's most idio­ syncratic hermeneutic device was to ignore or contradict many of luther's own autobiographical statements. for instance, holl refused to accept the claim in the 1545 autobiographical fragment that luther had made his "reformation breakthrough" -his understanding of justification by faith alone-in 1519, asserting instead that luther's breakthrough was a moral insight against catholicism which predated his dictata and lectures on the psalms of 1513-15. holl saw that the dictata still contained many medieval catholic influences, notably the use of the quadriga. yet he explained this away as luther using old formulae which had ceased to hold deeper mean­ ing for him. by noting the tight concentration on the christological and moral senses in luther's interpretation of the psalms in the writings of this period, holl forced medieval interpretation to fit his notion that luther's breakthrough was a moral insight: in holl's view, luther had abandoned catholic casuistry, mortal and venial sins, and had put all the emphasis on moral regeneration as work of god (stayer 2000:35). chafe, like holl, ignores much of what the mature luther said about his own theological development. just as holl refused to accept that luther's justification by faith alone came out of his readings of paul and augustine in 1519, and counts early writings in which luther employs the quadriga as vitally important to his reformation, chafe refuses to allow that luther disavowed the quadriga at about this time. it is striking that in this instance chafe has followed a principle dear to some theologians of the luther renaissance: that luther's earliest writings and thoughts already represent his whole systematic thought. chafe cannot allow that luther turned his back on allegorical interpretation, specifically on the quadriga, and that it is therefore implausible to suggest that later figures such as bach would have been influenced by this explicitly rejected part of his theology. music theory as lutheran allegory? chafe also appeals to the writings of certain seventeenth-century lutheran music theorists to support his concept of "tonal allegory," even though these sources make no claims as to music's ability to interpret a text. he cites andreas werckmeister, notably the speculative appendix "anhang / von der allegorischen und moralischen music," in werckmeister's treatise 17 18 current musicology musicae mathematicae. werckmeister states that god, who is ineffable (unbegreifflich) and hidden (verborgen), lives in darkness, but has revealed himself not only through scripture but also through nature and art ([ 1687] 1972:141). the "allegories" which follow-relating the musical scale to the creation of the world, for example (day 1 is represented by the fundamental note, from which everything springs, and so on)-are not, however, alle­ gorical interpretations ofthe text (genesis 1, in this case) after the manner of the scholastics and other medieval theologians. they are allegorical mirrorings of god himself and of the event of the creation, understood in werckmeister's time as an independent event, not as dependent on the text ([ 1687]1972:141). werckmeister's allegories do not reveal a hidden message in the text of scripture; in fact, scripture has nothing to do with them (and many of them, such as the one connecting the four main octaves to the four elements, do not even relate to biblical narratives). instead, like scripture, these allegories reveal the nature of god. to werckmeister, the fact that music has the same ratios as solomon's temple, the creation of the world, or the trinity merely reflects its divine, revelatory nature ("mirror" or spiegel is a favorite word of his). george buelow describes him as "remain[ing] a mystic and decidedly medieval;' stating that werckmeister's view of music as a reflection of cosmic harmony comes from johannes kepler.!3 werckmeister never suggests that music may be used to interpret scripture-this idea lies far outside his "medieval" understanding. it is, furthermore, far from clear that werckmeister intended music to be understood as allegorizing god or scripture; he was merely writing rhe­ torical allegories of music itself. does music allegorize creation, or creation allegorize music? werckmeister's rather endearingly clumsy german and repeated humble apologies for any inconsistencies or errors are clear signs that he was well aware both of the speculative nature and the limitations of his work. werckmeister is perhaps best understood as one of the last in the great tradition of pythagorean music theorists, working in opposition to the subjectivization of musical aesthetics which would be articulated most clearly by the next generation of theorists, notably johann mattheson. if music to werckmeister represents a lutheran-biblical unity rather than the generalized cosmic harmony of the medieval theorists, this contrast is merely due to his different concept of theological and philosophical truth. werckmeister's philosophical and theological imaginings, in the end, only tell us about his way of understanding music, or perhaps about his personal devotions. it is unlikely that they represent a general way of thinking about music among educated people (although bach may have heard about his writings third-hand, from his cousin johann walther who was in contact with werckmeister). there is no evidence that werckmeister-or bach-expected rebecca lloyd music to interpret a text. rather, they expected music to simply reflect the glories of creation. david schulenberg (1995) has pinpointed chafe's over-interpretation of the concept of "allegory." according to schulenberg, the idea of "baroque allegory" appears not only in chafe's work but also in the writings of the "new musicologists" such as susan mcclary, who famously discovered social and gendered hierarchies in bach's music (mcclary 1987). schulenberg asks several questions about the "allegorical" method of finding meaning in baroque music: are the new types of reading legitimate? do they tell us more about baroque music or about the interpreter? despite the postmodern criti­ cal terminology adopted in some writings, do they ultimately amount to anything more than programmizing of the sort associated with nineteenth­ century music criticism? does the theological or sociological allegoresis of bach's music really constitute an exercise in modern hermeneutics, or is it an updated version of the romantic view of music as autobiography, its implicit purpose being to rehabilitate the old view of bach as a preacher or now, perhaps, to make him a politician, in tones? (1995:208-209) in an attempt to answer these loaded questions, schulenberg takes a histori­ cal overview of the whole system of "allegory" applied to baroque music. he notes that chafe's influence has led to "musical allegory" being applied to complex theological and philosophical ideas rather than-with more historical justification-to simple objects or actions. and he also questions the locus of the allegory: to hear baroque music as "allegorizing" an idea is to write an allegory. the allegory is in the musicological writing rather than in the music or in the composer's intention (1995:210). schulenberg makes an interesting point in bringing together the ap­ parently disparate writings of chafe and mcclary under the concept of "allegory." there certainly are many points of contact between bach theology and the perhaps now dated "new musicological" attempt to find the social relevance of music by giving musical forms and devices verbal meaning. it seems that one of the reasons for the level of interest in theological methods of understanding bach may indeed be because of these points of contact. methods which attempt to discover "extra-musical" meaning in music have enjoyed a certain prestige, and methods which find unpalatable or difficult meanings -such as certain types of theological dogma-might be espe­ cially congenial to scholars who prefer to designate the past as distant and unknowable. chafe believes that the theological outlook of bach's music is "more challenging than ever in our predominantly secular age" (2000:xvii). this belief might be particularly appealing to those musicologists who have an interest in relativizing musical experience as historically and socially 19 20 current musicology contingent. unfortunately, what both chafe and mcclary are discovering is often not the challenge of eighteenth-century theology expressed in music, but the challenge of early twentieth-century conservative lutheranism. historically, allegories of music form creative rhetorical ways of concep­ tualizing music. they do not necessarily uncover a unified verbal "meaning" for that music or tell us anything at all about the way the composer imagined it. it is chafe and other theological writers who are the allegorists, not bach. theologians' allegories explaining that this is how they hear the melody might make interesting reading, but their statements that this is what the melody means, that this was bach's intention based on luther's theology, claim an impossible authority for their speculations. theology by numbers most theological interpreters of bach, like the allegorists, work by framing a direct correlation between his music and his theological ideas. for them, bach distanced himself from the texts he was setting to music, considered the exact theological meanings he found, then interpreted the texts with his music, just like a modern exegetical theologian would do with words. michael marissen, for instance, finds social allegories in bach's music and relates these to luther's writings about the theological structure of society (1995). other scholars, notably renate steiger, find "rhetorical" tropes in bach's musical figures (2000). steiger usually begins her analyses of bach's music in simple fashion with an examination of bach's "exegesis" of single words or phrases. for instance, in an analysis of his cantatas on the theme of dying and death, she finds sterbenltod (to die/death) represented by tempo fluctuation (slowing down) and dissonant harmonies (2000:3-10). similarly, furcht (fear) is represented by tremolos (2000:13). steiger then moves on from this straightforward semantic method to much more complex theological ideas. she concludes, to give one example, that the absence of continuo in certain works represents the certainty and acknowledgement of death (2000:22). she stresses that the rhetorical signs she finds do not merely provide surface decoration, but form the very structure of bach's exegesis, and therefore of his music (2000:36). some theological writers who believe that most or all of bach's musical decisions were consciously theological in impulse end up mired in the con­ spiracy theory of cabbalistic number symbolism. german violin professor helga thoene, for instance, believes that almost every decision bach took, from the number of notes he wrote on a certain page in a certain manuscript to the number of dotted notes in a certain section, has direct theological significance to be decoded (1991). thoene also finds "hidden" chorales rebecca lloyd underlying the music in quasi-schenkerian manner (1994). thoene's work was the inspiration behind the cd morimur, released in 2001, in which the hilliard ensemble joins violinist christoph poppen to illustrate her theories. as poppen performs the chaconne from the d minor partita, the hilliards mistily sing chorales in the background, resulting in some alarming-and definitely un-bachian-harmonic progressions. the cd liner notes claim that "in the latter half of the twentieth century, bach scholars both during and after [friedrich] smend's lifetime collected so much evidence in this field that the only question remaining is the extent, or perhaps we should say the limits, of the encoded numeric messages in bach's music" (glossner 2001:41). however, any reasonably mathematically aware scholar will know that, given enough data, it is possible to find almost any desired "significant" pattern. (i once whiled away a long afternoon finding numerical patterns from sections of the koran in bach's scores.) truly believing that one has found religious meaning in chance numerical patterns requires a large measure of blind faith, or perhaps credulity-as luther himself pointed out. his late anti-judaic essay "vom schem hamphoras" contains a sustained polemic against the rabbinic interpretation of the old testament by numeric symbolism (a method sometimes known as arithmetic cabbala), probably motivated by his attempt to advance his own german translation and his literalist ideas on interpretation ([ 1543] 1920). luther scorned the cabbalistic interpretation of exodus 14: 19-21, in which rabbinic scholars had found seventy-two names of angels or aspects of the hidden name of yahweh by rearranging the hebrew letters and understanding them as numbers (all letters are also numbers in hebrew). to illustrate this, luther constructed a schema in latin (in which language only some letters are also numbers) and created twelve new angel names. one came out as "gott gibt heil" (god gives salvation). but luther showed that it was also possible to read "hans gibt heil" or worse, "satan gibt heil" ([ 1543] 1920:596-98). he concluded that one could come up with any hidden message in scripture by this cabbalistic method, and his essay contains a recurring polemic against understanding a text after the "poor, bare, empty letters" (ledige, blosse, arme buchstaben, [1543] 1920:592-93). and luther generally mistrusted any attempt to find coded meaning in external signs. lutheran or reformed? as the above examples show, most of the scholars who seek lutheran mean­ ing in bach's music seem to think it self-evident that such an undertaking must involve relating musical features in some way to lutheran doctrines. 21 22 current musicology yet even this project is questionable, and not merely because of the more extreme forms it can take. it is in fact a calvinist, rather than a lutheran, idea that church music must relate clearly to doctrine. as rowan williams puts it, in the reformed (calvinist) tradition: "there is an appropriate 'beauty' for christian art and utterance, but it is to be judged by how far it draws attention away from the 'real' agent, the divine agent" (1995:583). luther himself would certainly have failed to recognize such an idea-and not simply because he lived before the seconda prattica had developed with its theories about music's power to express ideas. williams believes that for luther: "the experiences of ordinary life [are] all pervaded by grace. if god does not belong with a particular set of positive 'religious' experiences, the kind of experience you may have if you perform religious duties or undergo religious ecstasy, then god is not restricted in his presence in the world" (1995:578). as i have argued above, when he read the bible, luther refused to believe that the external signs-the words-contained the whole mean­ ing. similarly, he would have refuted the idea that all aspects of a worship service, including music, must point clearly to verbally expressed doctrine. this idea comes from calvinism-a tradition which bach himself would almost certainly have understood to be the enemy of church music. scholars' attempts to tie bach's music down to the words of his texts are unhistorical and betray a later perspective, when the lines between the lutheran and calvinist traditions had blurred. luther was famous for his love of music; similarly, he was not opposed to elaborate church decoration and architecture. calvin, on the other hand, started a movement whose followers abhorred elaborate worship and ritual-and figural music-which led them to desecrate churches and destroy church organs. calvinists did this because, just as they thought that the words of the bible contained the word of revelation, so they were concerned to find the exact spiritual meaning, sacred or diabolical, of every secular sign and practice. it is a reformed approach to subject all religious ritual and symbolism to rigorous scrutiny in order to verify its orthodoxy. in calvin's austere world, nothing is innocent; all symbols must belong either to god or to the devil, and music, like other arts, creates ambiguous symbolism that distracts the senses. it is therefore suspect, so it belongs to the devil and must be destroyed.14 luther, by contrast, happily accepted that there was a secular world of innocent pleasure, or, to put it another way, that good things were sanctioned by god. in his view, divine revelation was separate from and primary to the bible, though it should crystallize out of the bible (macculloch 2004:241; oberman [1989]2006:174). for luther, therefore, flashes of divine inspira­ tion could be expected from secular things such as music, as well in the joys of marriage, the company of friends, a good meal, and so on, but such divine rebecca lloyd inspiration was not necessarily expressed in words. when luther wrote that "except for theology there is no art that could be put on the same level with music, since except for theology [music] alone produces what otherwise only theology can do, namely a calm and gentle disposition" (luther 1958, 49:427-29), he did not intend that music could give semantic meaning or provide exact analogues to theological ideas. rather, he thought that music could refresh and comfort the soul as the word does, because it is also a gift from god. is thus, when bach scholars seek the direct, scriptural meaning of the composer's musical decisions, they are invoking calvinist rather than lutheran theology. this confusion between lutheran and calvinist piety can again be traced back to karl holl and his followers, whose view of luther was so decisively influenced by their twentieth-century german nationalism. holl was a staunch lutheran, but was also troubled by what he saw as lutheranism's political weakness in comparison to calvinism. in line with the then voguish attempt to describe social movements by way of religious culture-max weber's work on the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism being the most enduring example-holl posited that germany had lost the first world war because lutherans were not used to fighting for individual freedom as calvinists were, and because the inhabitants of calvinist states tended to hold self-righteously to the belief that they had the religious duty to wage war on injustice (hoil1959:76). while deploring this self-righteousness and individualism, holl also argued for a "small transfusion of calvinist blood" to strengthen the resolve of his countrymen (stayer 2000:34). in terms of doctrine too, holl frequently preferred calvinist dogmatism to what he saw as lutheran vacillation; he chose, for instance, to describe justification primarily as a process of ethical transformation, which is a calvinist idea (stayer 2000:23-24). theologians and writers follow holl's school, whether they know it or not, in asserting that an ethical, calvinist view of music is a lutheran doctrine. in fact, lutherans from luther to bach and beyond were always well aware of the impossibility of constraining music with words. they valued music for the beauty it added to the liturgy rather than interrogating it for its fidelity to doctrine or for its ability to effect ethical transformation of the individual. bach cantatas as sermons bach scholars generally adopt the ethical view of music's power to express doctrine and thus identify his sacred music, particularly the cantatas, as musical sermons. to give one example, alfred durr begins his famous study of the cantatas with the words: 23 24 current musicology at the heart of the protestant service lies the sermon ... the history of church music from schutz to bach is thus an account of the influx into liturgical singing of sermon-like interpretative and exegetical elements ... church musicians were naturally most interested in those parts of the ser­ vice best suited to assuming a sermon-like character. (durr 2005:3-4) yet if we reject the calvinist idea that music's religious power is primarily semantic, this notion also becomes more problematic, or at least it invites us to question what a sermon really is. taruskin argues that bach's music exhorts, indeed, hectors the listener: "bach's most striking works were written to persuade us-no, reveal to us-that the world is filth and hor­ ror, that humans are helpless, that life is pain, and that reason is a snare ... when his music was pleasing, it was usually in order to indoctrinate or cajole" (taruskin 2005, 2:363-64). and yet, luther himself would not have recognized this description of music's power; i venture to suggest that neither would bach. as a pious lutheran, bach probably hoped that his listeners would gain spiritual refreshment and understanding as god chose to send it via music-or not. but he would not presume to know the specific form such refreshment and understanding might take. yet again, the idea that bach preaches in music, if this means that he intended to inspire his listeners to repentance and to change their mental state in set ways, can be traced back to holl. for holl and his followers, luther's theological ideas were based on a deep psychological understanding of humankind's existential state. 16 holl understood both luther's famous anfechtungen (times of temptation or mental anguish) and st. paul's "thorn in the flesh" as moments of psychological despair in which the sinner is closest to god, and on which salvation through grace is dependent. he identified such despair with luther's understanding of condemnation under the law, and as such understood it as a vital step on the path to the joy of justification by faith. this psychological view of luther was one of holl's most persistent legacies, yet it is of questionable use when transposed onto luther's time (or bach's). it grew more from holl's interest in kierkegaard and a post-enlightenment subjectivist understanding of religion than from a reading of luther's actual words or from luther's medieval understand­ ing of his world as populated with supernatural beings. holl wanted to understand luther and the reformation as the beginning of modernity in thought, which for him meant the beginning of the modern consciousness and the modern subjective conscience-based religion as opposed to the older objectivist view. he therefore saw in luther's early writings a justification of his own existentialist religious views in which god's love paradoxically perpetuates his anger, this anger being the paramount way of convincing sinners of their sinfulness. law and gospel are thus experienced internally and psychologically by the believer as bad or good conscience, understanding rebecca lloyd of god's wrath or of his love. holl's religion of conscience (gewissensreligion) was in fact one of the most controversial features of his theology, and was clearly informed by his nationalistic desire to see luther as founder of modern german philosophy. holl imputed his existentialist view to the early luther only after developing it independently as a piece of systematic theology (assel1994:142-63; korsch 1989:145-213). but if holl was anachronistic in identifying the process of salvation as a psychological procedure, this renders the idea that bach "preaches" in tones-that he attempts to instruct his listeners' consciences to repentance and renewal-a good deal more questionable. in fact, it is safer to assume that bach saw his texts as reflecting an objective truth. seen in that light, the idea that he was emphasizing the experiential in order to convince a congregation of those truths becomes less compelling. rather than exhorting his listeners, or writing music which underlined the emotional or "dynamic" religious experience in order to move the listeners to feel that experience for themselves, it is more likely that bach was merely composing music to illustrate the dramatic effect of various aspects of the christian message. if justification depends not on a subjective, moral response, but on the work of an almighty god no matter what the conscience of the believer, then a need to change the feelings or affective state of the believer is less obvious. the affect of music is not necessarily related to the religious meaning of the text, for such meaning would not have needed musical demonstration or proof. performing or writing church music was an act of devotion, part of religious practice, not an act of persuasion associated with religious dogma. the affect of music is not necessarily consequent on the religious meaning of the text, for such meaning would not have needed musical demonstration or proof. it is in religious practice, ritual, and drama that we should seek to contextualize his music, not by looking for its elusive doctrinal content. or, at the very least, if a cantata is a sermon, it should be heard as an imagina­ tive response to an idea or emotion, rather than, following taruskin, as an exhortation. luther commented that "god has preached the gospel through music too, as may be seen in josquin, all of whose compositions flow freely, gently, and cheerfully, are not forced or cramped by rules, and are like the song of the finch" (luther 1958,54: 129-30). preaching through music does not involve the underlining of doctrinal messages, but rather the meditation on the word that is not constrained by words. conclusion many bach scholars today continue to rely on an outdated view of luther, one which portrays him as a german hero, a bible exegete who consciously initiated the "reformation" and who inaugurated the best of german cul25 26 current musicology ture, including music, to spread his doctrinal message and win souls. while there has very recently been a move away from the more extreme aspects of this interpretation, particularly in the english-speaking world, writings which take a twentieth-century ethical and nationalist view of luther-and consequently of bach and of his music-remain highly influential in bach studies. i propose that luther scholarship should be taken more critically, not merely mined for supposedly historical, but actually confessional, contexts in which bach can be situated. yet i do not want to advocate an end to hermeneutics in bach studies; nor do i want to marginalize the importance of religion and religious experience in bach interpretation. it would be impossible, and perhaps undesirable, to remove luther and his interpreters altogether from bach studies. but it is surely possible for writers to become more aware of their scholarly ancestry, to heighten their critical faculties by understanding more about the agendas driving the various luther images down the centuries, and to be more careful about historically situating both themselves and the authorities they cite, in an attempt to understand which images they want to retain and which to reject. there are other, less confessional, interpreters whose images of luther might help to illuminate bach's music; note, for instance, theologian heiko oberman's notoriously dramatic view of luther as "man between god and the devil" ([1989] 2006). oberman portrays a luther who grappled pas­ sionately with belief, joyful and despairing by turns, and who valued music and other pleasures as gifts of god without needing to be puritanical about their doctrinal meaning. this luther can provide an antidote to the dry images of luther as the righteous exegete that plague bach scholarship. in a similar fashion, the different types of lutheran piety which had also taken hold by bach's time deserve investigation on their own terms, not merely evaluation according to how far they remain faithful to luther's supposed legacy. for instance, carol baron has recently edited a book of essays with the aim of setting bach in the cultural context of his times. in her own two essays within the volume, she demonstrates the cultural, political, and religious "tumult" of leipzig at bach's time, when pietism, lutheran orthodoxy, and enlightenment philosophy and science formed "a vortex of flux and fusions" (2006:74). in startling contrast with the traditional view of bach's world as essentially unchanged since luther's time-the introduction to one mid-twentieth-century standard work on bach is entitled ''a world without change: luther to bach" (chiapusso 1968)-baron argues that "the religious complexity of the leipzig community during the period of the early aufkliirung can be bewildering if one is looking for clear definitions of what people believed and how they worshipped. this was an intellectually dynamic period for the wealthy and educated populations of germany's rebecca lloyd courts and commercial cities" (2006:73). joyce irwin also portrays bach as an individual engaged in the musical and religious politics of his time, on the progressive side: "for understanding the context in which bach lived, it is important to observe that he was very conscious ofliving in a culture that differed greatly from that of his forebears. the people he needed to please were not the opponents of foreign culture ... but the bourgeois citizens of a contemporary society" (irwin 2006:121). enlightenment optimism about the world, according to baron, even overturned luther's "pessimistic" theology of the cross; bach's music "offers the 'taste' of joy through arrival and accomplishment, in the here and now ... the palpable quality of this affect in bach's music would necessarily have had its source in an emotion known and embraced in the reality of that epoch, and of that composer" (2006:73). by placing bach in the context of the religion of the eighteenth rather than the sixteenth (or twentieth) century, and by attempting to understand his possible reactions to the religious issues of his time, luther's grip on bach scholarship is weakened. yet even this will not detach luther entirely, simply because in bach's day, lutheranism as religious, cultural, and political identity was extremely strong, and fascination with luther prevailed even then. my own contingent solution to the problem of luther in bach studies indeed returns inescapably to luther himself. not, however, to the stern scriptural exegete anachronistically painted by later theologians, but to the ex-monk to whom the quotation about "wine, women, and song" found such an easy, if probably erroneous, attribution. l7 this luther was not calvin. he was not suspicious of the pleasures oflife; unlike calvin and his followers, he did not interrogate all worldly symbols and pleasures for the sacred or diabolical meaning to which they pointed. rather, he expected to hear flashes of the ineffable and the divine in music, as in all good things: "[music] has often revived me and relieved me from heavy burdens" (quoted in oberman [1989]2006:310). he knew how to harness music's mnemonic power for the illiterate, but he no more intended music to mediate theological doctrine than he found in the enjoyment of a good meal a sermon on the eucharist. ironically, we can expect to become more "lutheran" in listening to bach precisely by dropping the heavy weight of confessional lutheran scholarship. by looking again at luther we can challenge the historically dubious assumption that in order to be theologically orthodox, music has to express ideas. perhaps bach, like us, knew the limitations of music's semantic ability; perhaps he too knew that words and music have always signified in different ways. and perhaps this worried him not at all. indeed it may be that he took special pleasure in this form of gemutsergotzung, this "spiritual refreshment." 27 28 current musicology notes an earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the american musico­ logical society in los angeles in november of 2006. i would like to thank laurence dreyfus for reading and commenting on this paper in draft in addition to helping me develop my arguments over the past few years, john butt for his kind and lucid criticism of the thesis chapter in which i first set out my ideas about bach and luther, michael marissen for his generous remarks at the conference and for his help with some issues around anti-judaism (though he does not agree entirely with my conclusions), and diarmaid macculloch for sharing with me some of his immense knowledge of early lutheran theology. all translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 1. ''aile gebiete der kultur hat die reformation im lauf der jahrhunderte befruchtet. aber hat sie mit dem, was sie bisher geleistet hat, nicht ihre kraft erschopft? manche mochten das vor dem krieg befurchten, unter dem eindruck, dab zusammen mit der religion iiberhaupt auch die reformation an werbekraft verlor. heute scheint sich ein umschwung anzubahnen. der sinn fur religion ist unter uns im wachen. aber es droht auch die gefahr, dab der neue drang sich in aberglauben und traumerei verwirrt. wenn je, so tut heute luther uns not, urn hier eine gesundung herbeizufuhren ... die gewissen sind iiberall, zumal seit dem krieg verwirrt; auch bei uns in deutschland. erst wenn an dieser stelle eine besinnung eingetreten ist, darf man auf eine erneuerung unseres volkes hoffen. aber dann wird, so vertraue ich zuversichtlich, es sich auch erweisen, dab die reformation nicht am ende, sondern erst am anfang ihrer weltwirkung steht" (holl1927:1, 542-43). 2. "eben dies tut auch die kantate, die in der form, wie sie bei bach begegnet, nur von luthers schriftund musikverstandnis her zu verstehen ist" (steiger and steiger 1992:15). 3. "das regte einen johann sebastian an zu seiner bis dahin noch nicht da gewesenen kunst, doch steht er auf den schultern aller derer vor ihm, deren musikalische invention und komposition vom biblischen wort erfunden waren: mit dies en allen zusammen aber auf den schultern dessen stehend, der die stimme des freundes uns zu gehor brachte im bibeldeutsch. die redet noch immer, wo wortgetreues festhalten ist. nicht im allgemeinen redet sie, sie redet zu mir" (l. steiger 1999:72). 4. die religion in geschichte und gegenwart, s.v. "heilsgeschichte" (by friedrich milden­ berger). 5. it is also worth noting that the english translators of bornkamm's most influential work are disingenuous in their biographical note about him. e. theodore bachmann states that, "during the nazi era and its ideological struggles [bornkamml sided with the confessing church, maintaining his scholarly pursuits during world war ii to the extent that conditions permitted" (bornkamm 1983: preface). the evangelical church in germany split into three broad factions in response to nazism: the deutsche christen supported nazism and tried to expunge jewish influences from christianity, the mainstream evangelical church cooperated with the regime to a varying extent, and the confessing church (bekennende kirche) opposed nazism. bornkamm was involved with the first two factions; his editors' comments exemplify the way in which the reputations of theologians were "cleaned up" after the war, something which may partly explain chafe's failure to appreciate bornkamm's ideological position. 6. ''allegoriae non pariunt firm as probationes in theologia, sed velut pictuae ornant & illustrant rem" (luther 1538:262). 7. "quare hierusalem quae sursum est, id est, coelestis, est ecclesia in hoc tempore, non avaywylkw~ futurae vitae patria, vel ecclesia triumphans, ut ocioli & ineruditi monachi & scholastici doctores nugati sunt, qui tradiderunt quuatuor esse sensus scripturae, literalem, rebecca lloyd tropologicum, allegoricum & anagogicum, & secundum hos singula fere verba scripturae inepte interpretati sunt. ut hierusalem literaliter significabat illis urbem eius nominis. tropologice, conscientiam puram. allegorice, ecclesiam militantam. anagogice, coelestem patriam seu ecclesiam triumphantem. his insulsis & nugacibus fabulis, quibus discerpserunt scripturas in tot sententias, secerunt, ut de nullis rebus conscientae certo erudiri potuerint" (luther 1538). 8. see gadamer (1989: 176-77). on what paul ricoeur calls "this pact between hermeneutics and history;' see his essay "the task of hermeneutics" in ricoeur (1981), especially pages 48-49. 9. "da ich ein monch war / war ich ein meister auff geistliche deutung / allegorisirt es alles / darnach aber / da ich durch die epistel zum romern / ein wenig zum erkenntnis christi kam / sahe ich / das mit allegorien und geistlichen deutungen nichts nicht war / nicht was christus bedeutet / sondern wer und was er ist" (luther 1566:509). 10. "doct. m. l. sagte auff ein ander mal / ich kan nicht mehr arbeiten / auch nicht mehr redden / als ich jung war / da war ich gelert / und sonderlich / ehe ich in die theologia kam / da gieng ich mit allegorijs / tropologijs / und anagogijs umb / und machte eitel kunst / wenns jtzt einer hette / er trtige es umbher fur eitel beilthumb / aber ich weis / das es ein lauter dreck ist. nu hab ichs faren lassen / und ist meine beste und erste kunst / tradere scripturam simplici sensu, denn literalis sensu der thuts / da ist leben / da ist krafft / lere und kunst innen / in dem andern / da ist nur narrenwerk / wiewol es hoch gleisset" (luther 1566:510). 11. ''abraham est figura dei, qui habet duos filios, id est, duos populos, per ismael ac isaac representatos. hi nati sunt ei ex agar & sara, quae significant duo testamenta, vetus & novum" (luther 1538:261-62). 12. for one of many instances, see cox (1985:facsimile 231) on the commission to make disciples from all lands in matthew 28:19, linked to jacob's blessing of joseph in genesis 48:16. 13. the new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "werckmeister, andreas" (by george buelow). 14. in my discussion of the differences between calvinist and lutheran piety, i follow the broad outlines set out in williams (1995). 15. heiko oberman writes entertainingly about luther's joy in life and his distance from later puritan moralizing. see, for instance, oberman ([1989] 2006:282-83,309-310). 16. holl took this notion in part from max weber. scribner designates the idea that luther represented the beginning of modernity in german thought as part of the "myth-making'" which surrounds the reformer (scribner 1986:2). 17. on the attribution of this saying to luther, see oberman ([1989] 2006:310). references abbate, carolyn. 2004. music-drastic or gnostic? critical inquiry 30: 505-36. assel, heinrich. 1994. der andere aufbruch: die lutherrenaissance-ursprunge, aporien, und wege-karl holl, emanuel hirsch, and rudolf hermann (1910-1935). forschungen zur systematischen und okumenischen theologie, no. 72. gottingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. baron, carol k., ed. 2006. bach's changing world: voices in the community. eastman studies in music, no. 37. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. 29 30 current musicology benjamin, walter. 1998. the origin of german tragic drama, translated by john osborne. london: verso. berger, karol. 2005. musicology according to don giovanni, or, should we get drastic? journal of musicology 22 (3): 490-501. besch, hans. 1938. johann sebastian bach, frommigkeit und glaube. beitrage zur forderung christlicher theologie. gutersloh: bertelsmann. bornkamm, heinrich. 1948. luther und das alte testament. tubingen: mohr. ---.1969. luther and the old testament, translated and edited by eric w. gritsch, ruth c. gritsch, and victor 1. gruhn. philadelphia: fortress press. ---.1983. luther in mid-career, 1521-1530, translated by e. theodore bachmann and edited by karin bornkamm. london: darton, longmann & todd. bukofzer, manfred f. 1948. music in the baroque era, from monteverdi to bach. london: j. m. dent & sons. chafe, eric. 2000. analyzing bach cantatas. oxford and new york: oxford university press. chiapusso, jan. 1968. bach's world. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. conzelmann, hans. 1954. die mitte der zeit: studien zur theologie des lukas. beitrage zur historischen theologie, no. 17. tubingen: mohr. cox, howard h., ed. 1985. the calov bible of!. s. bach. studies in musicology, no. 92. ann arbor: umi research press. durr, alfred. 2005. the cantatas off. s. bach, revised and translated by richard d. p. jones. oxford and new york: oxford university press. gadamer, hans-georg. 1989. truth and method, translated by joel weinsheimer and donald g. marshall. london: sheed & ward. glossner, herbert. 2001. the most arcane secrets of harmony. liner notes to morimur. ecm new series 461895-2. hagen, kenneth. 1993. luther's approach to scripture as seen in his "commentaries" on galatians, 1519-1538. tubingen: mohrlsiebeck. hofmann, johann christian konrad von. 1841-44. weissagung und erfuuung im alten und im neuen testamente. nordlingen: c. h. beck. holl, karl. 1927. gesammelte aufsatze zur kirchengeschichte. 3 vols. tubingen: mohr. ---. 1959. the cultural significance of the reformation, translated by karl hertz, barbara hertz, and john h. lichtblau. new york: meridian. irwin, joyce l. 1993. neither voice nor heart alone: german lutheran theology of music in the age of the baroque. american university studies, theology and religion, no. 132. new york: peter lang. ---.2006. bach in the midst of religious transition. in bach's changing world: voices in the community, edited by carol k. baron, 108-26. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. korsch, dietrich. 1989. glaubensgewij3heit und selbstbewuj3tsein: vier systematische variationen uber gesetz und evangelium. beitrage zur historischen theologie, no. 76. tubingen: mohr. leaver, robin a. 1978. bach and luther. bach 9 (3): 9-12,25-32. lohse, bernhard. 1986. martin luther: an introduction to his life and work, translated by robert c. schultz. edinburgh: clark. luther, martin. 1538. in epistolam s. pauli ad galatas. wittenberg. ---. 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"musical allegory" reconsidered: representation and imagination in the baroque. journal of musicology 13 (2): 203-39. scribner, robert w. 1986. the german reformation. studies in european history. london: macmillan. spitta, philipp. 1873-80. johann sebastian bach. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. stayer, james m. 2000. martin luther, german saviour: german evangelical theological factions and the interpretation of luther, 1917-1933. mcgill-queen's studies in the history of religion, series 2. montreal: mcgill-queen's university press. steiger, lothar. 1999. die stimme des freundes: luthers bibeldeutsch und seine unver­ standigen revisoren in der gegenwart. in von luther zu bach: bericht uber die tagung 22.-25. september in eisenach, edited by renate steiger, 67-72. sinzig: studio. steiger, lothar and renate steiger. 1992. sehet! wir gehn hinauf gen jerusalem: johann sebastian bachs kantaten auf den sonntag estomihi. gottingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. steiger, renate. 2000. musikalische idiomatik in bachs darstellung von tod und sterben. in johann sebastian bachs kantaten zum thema tod und sterben und ihr literarisches umfeld, edited by renate steiger, 1-44. wiesbaden: harrassowitz verlag. taruskin, richard. 2005. the oxford history of western music. 6 vols. oxford and new york: oxford university press. 31 32 current musicology tatlow, ruth. 2000. four cantatas for pentecost. liner notes to bach cantatas bwv 34, 59, 74, and 172. john eliot gardiner with the monteverdi choir and the english baroque soloists. deutsche grammophon, archiv 463 544-2. thoene, helga. 1991. die architektur der drei sonaten. in]. s. bach, sei solo: sechs sonaten und partiten fur violine: interpretation, auffuhrungspraxis, authentizitat, edited by r. seiffert, 169-78. munich: ed. praxis und hintergrund. ---. 1994. johann sebastian bach: ciaccona-tanz oder tombeau? verborgene sprache eines bertihmten werkes. ciithener bach hefte 6: 15-81. tyson, joseph b. 1999. luke, judaism, and the scholars. columbia: university of south carolina press. werckmeister, andreas. [1687]1972. anhang / von der allegorischen und moralischen music. in musicae mathematicae. facsimile ed. hildesheim: olms. williams, rowan. 1995. religious experience in the era of reform. in companion encyclopaedia of theology, edited by peter byrne and leslie houlden, 576-93. new york and london: routledge. current.musicology.83.1-108.pdf hearing emerson, lake, and palmer anew: progressive rock as "music of attractions" eric hung everybody knows classical-rock (alternating with -jazz) fusions never really work. perhaps what really paved the astroturf for elp was 2001, that dopey cozzed collegiate smoker flick: not only did it star a computer that could kick ass on keith e.'s in a microsputum, but crafty kubrick saw sure the soundtrack was fattened with all the glorioski classicorn any rube could swallow. "also sprach zarathustra;' and keith emerson heard the word just like he was joseph smith shoveling off the tablets. by the time kubrick got to clockwork orange, thereby installing beethoven in the prostate projection chamber of next-up fad of trendy androhoodlum, the insidious befoulment of all that was gutter pure in rock had been accomplished. it's worse than eclecticism, it's eugenic entropy by design, and emerson and cohorts are more than mere fellow travelers. -lester bangs, rock critic, 19741 progressive rock serves as a forum in which a number of cultural opposites are reconciled: high and low culture, european and african american creative ideals. in the best progressive rock, one senses the tension that results from attempting to balance these values. when either the intel­ lectualization of classical music or the unbridled energy of rock gets the upper hand, the tension vanishes and the music loses its power, becoming either middle-brow classical music or flaccid, unenergetic rock. -edward macan, music professor, 19972 progressive rock is a loose label for music that combines some of the basic ingredients of early rock 'n' roll and elements of genres that are generally considered more prestigious, such as western art music, jazz, and indian classical music. after emerging in the late 1960s, progressive rock reached its peak in popularity in the early 1970s. since the rise of punk in the mid 1970s, the genre has retreated to the college circuit, select clubs, and fringe festivals. over the past quarter century, there have been two common stances on progressive rock. one builds upon rock critics' longstanding and overwhelm­ ingly negative view of the genre. for most critics, such as dave marsh and lester bangs, the most important element of rock is the rather ambiguous concept of "authenticity." theoretically, "authenticity" is connected with genuineness. a song is "authentic" when it is written (or at least arranged) by the performing musicians, and is about their lives and emotions. although current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 245 246 current musicology songwriting credits are easily conveyed, this notion of authenticity is not particularly useful in criticism. after all, how would a critic know whether or not the feelings expressed in a song are genuine? in practice, many critics track authenticity with more obvious qualities: a sense of rebelliousness, the inclusion of blues elements such as blues progressions and extended vocal melismas, and subtle inflections of the beat.3 given these criteria, the negative critical reception of progressive rock-exemplified by the strongly worded lester bangs quote above-is hardly surprising. after all, progressive rock musicians diluted the influence of blues in rock music by incorporat­ ing elements of many other genres. they also took away the sexuality and rebelliousness often heard in rock's hard-driving beat, replacing it with complex meters that are not suited to dancing. over the past decade, a number of popular music scholars, such as edward macan (1997) and kevin holm-hudson (2002b), have begun to attack this critical dismissal of progressive rock, leading to the second com­ mon stance. although these scholars have widely divergent views about the genre, most of them share the following contention: namely, that progressive rock is most successful when elements of "high culture" and "low culture" are carefully balanced and held in tension with each other. edward macan asserts this view in the quote above, and is echoed by john covach in his analysis of progressive rock band yes's recording close to the edge: "close to the edge" pushes at the stylistic boundary of 1970s rock by evoking the world of classical music, but ultimately it does not cross over into that world. it is, rather, the maintenance of this very tension between these two widely disparate styles that accounts for the compelling aesthetic effect of "close to the edge"; a reconciliation of these forces that would attempt to securely place the piece in either the world of rock music or that of art music would surely weaken the dynamic effect of the song. (covach 1997:23) in this article, my aim is not to dispute the fact that some progressive rock songs derive their appeal from the conflict between the high and the low-that is, the friction created when elements of more prestigious genres are mixed with the basic ingredients of rock. rather, i argue that, since this analytical method fails to explain the allure of some of progressive rock's most popular and influential works, an alternate approach that focuses on "presentness" and the "moment" can bring forth a more complete under­ standing of the genre. here, i will first analyze one of these "troublesome" works-emerson, lake, and palmer's (elp) pictures at an exhibition-and examine the piece in relation to the writings of one of the most prominent literary and cultural critics during the height of progressive rock's popularity, susan sontag. sontag's writings are useful because she suggests an alternative eric hung to formal analysis and hermeneutics, the two main methodologies employed by progressive rock scholars (and musicologists in general) and that have thus far produced an incomplete view of the genre. in my conclusion, i will present an analytic metaphor for progressive rock based on the concept of "the cinema of attractions;' an idea developed by film scholar tom gunning to describe the dominant mode of film-viewing in the earliest days of cinema. given the similarities between early film and progressive rock, i argue that gunning's concept can improve our understanding of the genre. the worlds of elp's pictures at an exhibition in 1970, three established stars from the early days of progressive rock joined together to form one of the most important "supergroups" of the 1970s.4 the de facto leader of this trio was keyboardist keith emerson. emerson received early training in classical piano, and during the early 1960s, played in various jazz ensembles and bar bands where he developed a longstanding passion for arranging classical music for jazz and rock combos. during short stints with the t-bones and the vips, he began to work on his trademark organ destruction routine which involves throwing an organ around and sticking knives into it to generate both feedback noise and enthusiastic audience reaction. later emerson achieved stardom as the keyboardist of the nice. the bassist and lead singer of elp, greg lake, received some guitar lessons in his youth, and played in a number of semi-professional bands during the mid-and-iate 1960s. in 1969, he achieved fame as bassist and vocalist of king crimson. drummer carl palmer had played in various dance bands since the age of twelve, and dropped out of school a few years later to be­ come a professional drummer. after short periods with the king bees, the thunderbirds, and the crazy world of arthur brown, palmer formed the progressive rock band atomic rooster in 1969. during the summer of 1970, emerson, lake, and palmer began rehears­ ing their first live concert and album. the band's initial repertory included pieces from the members' previous bands (e.g., the nice's "rondo" -which contains a lengthy quotation of bach's d minor toccata and fugue, bwv 565, and king crimson's "21st century schizoid man"), original songs (e.g., "take a pebble" and "tank") and what i will call "free transcriptions" of classical music (e.g., "the barbarian" and "knife-edge;' which are based on bartok's allegro barbara and janacek's sinfonietta, respectively).5 pictures at an exhibition, a thirty-five-minute "free transcription" of mus­ sorgsky's piano suite of the same name, was undoubtedly the magnum opus of elp's first summer, though it is also a work that occupies an awkward place in the group's overall repertory. on the one hand, pictures was and 247 248 current musicology remains the band's signature work. premiered at their first concert in august 1970, this extravagant piece was performed in whole or in part at every elp concert until 1998. on the other hand, the band felt that pictures was "not primarily elp's own work:' and had mixed feelings about releasing an audio recording of the piece (forrester, hanson and askew 2001 :69). of the 1972 lp release of pictures, emerson stated, "we don't look on it as a third album ... just a good vibe" (quoted in forrester et al. 2001:71). it is not immediately clear why the band had such mixed feelings about pictures. when emerson was a member of the nice, he had no qualms about releasing recordings of semi-strict transcriptions of classical works, such as "brandenburger" and the "intermezzo from sibelius's karelia suite." more significantly, elp's first album included "the barbarian" (their semi-strict transcription of bartok's allegro barbara). perhaps the band's views were influenced by the overwhelming popularity of ravel's orchestration of mussorgsky's piano work-they may have wished to avoid ravel's shadow. or they may have thought of their rendition as more of a music apprecia­ tion project than as an original album. lake once said, "if they [our fans] can enjoy pictures at an exhibition by us, it's just as good as them enjoying pictures by mussorgsky. in fact, a lot of people get to hear it that never would otherwise" (quoted in bangs 2002:51). similarly, emerson asserted, "i wanted to use [pictures] sort of as an educational piece, exposing our audiences to this great work of classical music" (quoted in forrester et al. 2001:68).6 the band's ambivalence about pictures is reflected in recent scholars' criticism of this work. while bill martin dismisses the work entirely by stat­ ing that he "would rather hear the original" (martin 1998:199), paul stump provides a half-hearted reevaluation. he writes: the cavil that elp were, like those orchestral-rock pioneers of the late 1960s, attempting to "improve" mussorgsky's work, is neither borne out by contemporary testimony nor by observance of the facts. mussorgsky's suite had been for years adapted by the great and humble alike in numer­ ous configurations. that emerson should have tried to join their ranks cannot be criticized per se. in fact, the varying dynamics of the reprises of the big "promenade" tune-even with ghastly lyrics appended to it in one instance-are intelligent and tasteful. (stump 1997: 99-100) 7 meanwhile, allan moore expresses his uncertainty about which critical ap­ proaches would best serve elp's pictures: on side 1, lake's "the sage;'with its simple acoustic guitar accompaniment, is an uneasy song that maintains the tension of the side, but its pacing is slow, continuing the contrast set up between the opening "promenade" and "the gnome." this tension is relaxed only by "blues variations." eric hung on side 2, "the hut of baba yaga" fulfils a similar function, resulting in the triumphal grandeur of "the great gates of kiev." this works well in moussorgsky's original, but because elp have excised much of the material, and thus changed the proportions, the triumphalism seems inadequately prepared. but this criticism results from the application of "art" standards. should one look only at individual songs, without relating them? they are clearly related through links in performance. to insist on considering them separately would do violence to the manner of presentation. this album, then, seems to demand the application of criteria derived from art music, to a certain extent, but it seems to set the limit at which these criteria are useful. (moore 2001:91) moore suggests that, while there is some large-scale accumulation of tension and subsequent release on side one of the original pictures at an exhibition lp, no long-term planning is detectable on side two. he is uncertain of whether the lack of tension on side two results from inadequacies in the work, or whether his expectations for connections to exist between different movements of a progressive rock suite are simply misplaced. since there are no breaks between the various movements on side two, moore is left think­ ing that there must be some sort of large-scale structure in place, but he is ultimately unable to determine what that structure might be. an analysis of elp's pictures at an exhibition moore's observations about elp's pictures, as inconclusive as they are, point to a central problem in progressive rock scholarship. his interest in this work and his voluminous writings on the genre demonstrate that he does not subscribe to rock critics' outright dismissal of this music. at the same time, he recognizes that progressive rock scholars' focus on large-scale ten­ sion and resolution patterns fails to illuminate some of the most important pieces in the genre. what is needed is a third approach, and it is with this in mind that i undertake the following analysis. elp's pictures is a sprawling eleven-movement work that contains strict and free transcriptions of mussorgsky's original, variations on themes by mussorgsky, and original elp material (see figure 1). it opens with a forceful but somewhat clunky performance ofmussorgsky's opening promenade on a hammond organ. on the last chord of this movement, carl palmer enters with a short drum solo that serves as a bridge to "the gnome." mussorgsky's "gnomus" was inspired by a painting of a nutcracker with a shrieking and waddling gnome. it contains three main motives: a scurrying idea in octaves (ex. 1), a "shrieking" melody that descends from the upper register (ex. 2), and an ominous waddling theme (ex. 3). at the beginning of the movement, mussorgsky juxtaposes the first two motives. in 249 250 current musicology figure 1: an outline of elp's pictures at an exhibition. movement title type of transcription promenade strict transcription 2 the gnome semi-strict and free transcriptions 3 promenade strict transcription, lyrics added 4 the sage original elp material 5 the old castle original elp material 6 blues variations variations on mussorgsky and bill evans 7 promenade strict transcription 8 the hut of baba yaga semi-strict transcription 9 the curse of baba yaga variations on mussorgsky 10 the hut of baba yaga semi-strict transcription 11 the great gates of kiev semi-strict transcription, lyrics added the middle section, the ominous waddling theme dominates, but it is con­ stantly interrupted by the scurrying idea. the gnome gives off an extended shriek in the last section. elp's version of "gnomus" retains the overall form of mussorgsky's original. it begins as a semi-strict transcription. this opening section, with its juxtaposition of extremely fast motion and silence, is as far away from the world of popular music as progressive rock gets. when the ominous waddling theme enters, however, the movement is transformed into a rock fantasia. carl palmer plays a heavy rock beat on the drums, and the interruptions that characterize the original take the form here of short drum solos. the final section is a semi-strict transcription with a twist: the trills in the lower register of the original are now played on a synthesizer that sounds like a pitched wind machine. in a little over four minutes, elp's version of "the gnome" gives the listener glimpses of three musical worlds: it starts with a quick glance at the world of art music, and turns to the world of rock in the middle section. at the end, it peeks into the world of modern electronic mu­ sic. "the gnome" is followed by a semi-strict transcription of mussorgsky's second promenade. here, the melody is set to greg lake's typically obscure lyrics about the ambiguities of life and the passage of time. the fourth through sixth movements are each based in different ways on mussorgsky's "the old castle;' itself an imaginary troubadour song inspired by a painting the composer saw of a medieval french castle. the fourth movement, "the sage;' is an original song by greg lake, but it shares the premise of mussorgsky's movement. as emerson recalls, "greg had the idea of the minstrel singing underneath the castle" (quoted in forrester et eric hung example 1: mussorgsky, pictures at an exhibition, "gnomus," opening theme. semprevivo meno vivo sempre vivo #~ t:'i~~ #~ ~ #~ : .ff if p .ff t:'i : -,j~~ ,*"..r .. .. 8 .~ .~ [ l : "-j if 1......1 if u ~ if if , : .~. :;t ~-,j :;t' ~ example 2: mussorgsky, pictures at an exhibition, "gnomus," "shrieking" melody. fl semprevivo " .i~i eq,~, -.~. ~~ ~ ~ ~ u i i i v : -# 0 0" -# 0 0" ~j example 3: mussorgsky, pictures at an exhibition, "gnomus," "waddling" theme. poco meno mosso, pesante fl [ 251 252 current musicology al. 2001:189). the movement opens with an introduction on emerson's synthesizers. this introduction uses material from the song's verses, but the strange harmonic turns and biting dissonances seem to place this introduc­ tion in the world of early twentieth-century western art music. as emerson's synthesizers fade out, lake-accompanying himself on an acoustic gui­ tar-sings two verses in a style that recalls singer-songwriters of the early 1970s. after this, he plays an extended acoustic guitar solo that evokes the figuration, cadential patterns, and dance rhythms of baroque music before completing the movement with the last verse of the song. in the end, "the sage" is similar to "the gnome" in that both songs present listeners with three different musical worlds in just over four minutes. the fifth movement, "the old castle," is only tenuously connected to mussorgsky's original. it opens with an avant-garde section, during which emerson showcases the sonic possibilities of the moog ribbon controller.8 eventually, a rock beat is established and this leads to a virtuosic synthesizer solo that includes passing motivic and rhythmic references to mussorgsky's "the old castle." the sixth movement, "blues variations," is the most tradi­ tionally structured multi-part movement discussed thus far. it is in an aba form. the first a section presents an accelerated version of the main theme of mussorgsky's "the old castle" over a textbook 12-bar blues progression, and five variations on this theme. in the b section, elp plays an extended quotation from jazz pianist bill evans's piece interplay. although this sec­ tion is noticeably more relaxed than the blues-rock style of the a section, the contrast is rather mild when compared with "the gnome" and "the sage." the movement closes with a second a section, which includes three additional variations on "the old castle" and a restatement of the theme. next, a strict transcription of mussorgsky's opening promenade for rock trio leads into three movements based on the penultimate movement ofmussorgsky's original. the eighth movement, the first with the title "the hut of baba yaga;' and the beginning of the ninth movement, "the curse of baba yaga," are semi-strict transcriptions of the allegro con brio and the first half of the andante mosso sections of mussorgsky's "the hut on fowls' legs:' approximately one minute into "the curse of baba yaga;' the band suddenly breaks off into an all-out jam session. after lake establishes a guitar ostinato, palmer comes in with a heavy drum beat, and emerson creates various strange electronic sounds. later on, emerson plays virtuosic licks on his sythesizers. significantly, much of this jam is based on the first two measures of the ominous waddling theme from "the gnome." this is perhaps a demonstration of the fact that the outline of the andante mosso theme is the inversion of the first two measures of the ominous waddling theme (see ex. 4). the tenth movement, the second "the hut of baba eric hung example 4: comparison of the "waddling" theme from "gnomus" and the andante mosso theme from "the hut on fowls' legs." poco meno mosso, pesante fl i andante mosso 5 "j (j f yaga," is a semi-strict transcription of the closing allegro molto section of mussorgsky's movement. the last movement of elp's pictures is a fairly strict transcription of mussorgsky's "the great gates of kiev," the two major additions being greg lake's convoluted lyrics and emerson's trademark organ destruction routine. the" presentness" of progressive rock from this analysis, it is clear that eclecticism is a salient feature of elp's pictures. the work borrows elements of baroque music, late nineteenth­ and early twentieth-century western art music, modern jazz, blues-rock, psychedelic rock, and modern electronic music. to some extent, this stylistic heterogeneity is unexceptional; many works composed in the 1960s and 1970s include elements of numerous styles. what is unique about elp's pictures and only a handful of other progressive rock pieces is the frequency of style changes: until the last movement, elp's pictures rarely stays in one style for more than two minutes.9 the above analysis also explains why elp's pictures is frequently dis­ missed by progressive rock scholars. most of these scholars believe that the success of a progressive rock piece depends on negotiating the conflicting demands of art music and popular music. judged by this criterion, elp's 253 254 current musicology pictures must be considered a failure. except for the middle section of "the gnome" and the jam session of "the curse of baba yaga;' where the heavy rock beat is opposed by the dissonant harmonies characteristic oflate nine­ teenth-century art music, this piece is simply a succession of short move­ ments in easily recognizable styles. no attempt is made to accommodate different styles simultaneously to form a coherent whole. the a section of "blues variations" is not a complicated hybrid of high art and low art; it is simply in a 1960s/70s british blues-rock style. moreover, these passages do not seem to build towards a climax in a forthcoming movement, or resolve tension generated in previous sections. the b section of "blues variations" sounds like modern jazz and not some sort of intricate jazz-rock mix. if anything, styles are being juxtaposed successively, not blended all at once. similarly, the "promenade" sections and "the hut ofbaba yaga" sound much more like western art music played on a synthesizer, guitar and drums than a fusion of the highbrow and the lowbrow. in short, elp's stylistic heterogene­ ity seems to follow not from a desire to create a new type of music balanc­ ing elements of classical and popular music in tension with each other, but rather, from a wish to make stylistic references-to quote arnold whittall's discussion of thomas ades's arcadiana-"without any hang-ups" because the band "finds it pleasurable to do so" (whitta112003:s). the popularity of elp's pictures demonstrates that many progressive rock fans shared elp's pleasure in hearing an eclectic mix of stylistic al­ lusions. as i have already mentioned, this work was performed on every concert the band gave during its first twenty-eight years of existence. the first film of the band features a performance of this work, and the original pictures lp reached no.3 on the album charts in britain (forrester et al. 2001:71). even the title of keith emerson's recent autobiography, pictures of an exhibitionist (2003), recognizes the centrality of this work to his life and career. the divergence between the views of fans and scholars is perhaps not surprising, and seems to stem from the fact that, while the writings of most recent progressive rock scholars are colored by the authors' training in western art music, during the 1970s most of the genre's fans probably had only limited knowledge of that tradition. 1o many scholars insist, for example, that progressive rock is "listening" music, rather than "dancing" or "participatory" music. yet even a quick survey of live audio and video recordings of progressive rock concerts during the early 1970s reveals that audiences sway their bodies during the more dance-like sections. they ap­ plaud, whistle, and scream not only at the end of self-contained sections, but whenever they like what they hear. on the original recording of elp's pictures, one hears cheers, shrieks, and whistles every time emerson explores eric hung strange electronic sounds. the fans are not just listening: they participate in the music making by urging emerson to create ever stranger sounds. this is especially true when he destroys the organ in the middle of "the great gates of kiev." the actions of progressive rock musicians and fans suggest that, for them, the allure of the genre is based more upon its ever-changing, chan­ nel-surfing quality than upon stylistic tension generated by the use of high and low musical styles. numerous bands happily played excerpts of large­ scale works (including elp's pictures and jethro tull's thick as a brick) at concerts and released relatively self-contained sections of suites as singles. ii meanwhile, fans freely interrupted the flow of the music to show their ap­ preciation of specific moments or brief sections; they seem to be much more concerned about what they are hearing in the present moment than about the interaction of different sections or musical elements across larger spans of time. significantly, this emphasis on "presentness" was an important com­ ponent of late 1960s counterculture. 12 in his seminal work profane culture, ethnographer paul willis writes, the hippies insisted on the importance of subjective experience and of the "now." the past had always had disappointments and the future threat­ ened with "objectives" and "plans" which might discredit their belief in something beyond. (willis 1978:90) more important for my purpose is sontag's 1964 article ''against interpreta­ tion" (published in 1966) which calls for a greater emphasis on "presentness" in art criticism. sontag argues that postindustrial consumer culture, with its loud noises and constant information overload, has a negative effect on our ability to feel. she states, "ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduc­ tion; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. all the conditions of modern life-its material plenitude, its sheer crowded­ ness-conjoin to dull our sensory faculties" (1966: 14). for this reason, she contends that one of the main tasks for contemporary critics is to promote a more spontaneous and anti-intellectual approach to arts appreciation: what is important now is to recover our senses. we must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more. our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art ... our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all. (1966:14) in regard to music, this approach dictates that we concern ourselves less with traditional analytical issues such as large-scale form and motivic development, and place a greater analytical emphasis on the musical surface, 255 256 current musicology visceral effects, and elements such as timbre and texture. j3 in analyses of elp's pictures, explorations of when the moog ribbon controller generated crowd reaction, or how the heavy drumbeats made fans bop their heads might lead to a better understanding of progressive rock. progressive rock and "the cinema of attractions" with sontag's plea in mind, let us return to moore's ambivalence about elp's pictures (quoted above). on the one hand, he indicates that elp's pictures "seems to demand the application of criteria derived from art music:' but on the other hand, he realizes that, if he were to judge the work solely in terms of art music standards and expectations, he would have to deem it a failure. here moore pinpoints the central problem for analysts of progressive rock: to date, analyses of progressive rock songs have focused on the big picture. many scholars have carefully analyzed the multi-movement suites, the extremely ambiguous lyrics, and the bizarre cover art in an attempt to decipher the meanings of specific progressive rock songs (see, for example covach 1997, macan 1997, covach 2000, cotner 2002, and holm-hudson 2002a). while this important scholarship admittedly provides many valuable insights and has created many new progressive rock fans (including myself), i propose that this scholarly search for large-scale patterns and meanings has distorted our understanding of the genre. i suggest that, for many 1970s progressive rock musicians and fans, the details and the moment are more important than the whole. in the interest of understanding this genre better, i would like to in­ voke a concept from film scholarship: the "cinema of attractions." this term, originally put forth by film scholar tom gunning in the early 1980s, describes the dominant mode of filmmaking before 1908. gunning argues that, although some of the earliest films do progress through an overall nar­ rative, story-telling is not their main appeal. rather, the main focus is on spectacle and novelty. 14 he states that, whereas narrative film-the dominant mode of filmmaking for much of the last century-depends upon "a desire for an (almost) endlessly delayed fulfillment and a cognitive involvement in pursuing an enigma:' early film "arouses a curiosity that is satisfied by surprise rather than narrative suspense" (gunning 2004:44). a classic example of a film participating in the "cinema of attractions" is george m(%~s's 1902 masterpiece ie voyage dans la lune (a trip to the moon). what makes this film interesting is not so much its ridiculous story-a cannon shoots a spaceship carrying several astronomers to the moon, the astronomers are captured by lunar inhabitants, and later make i i eric. hung their escape and return safely to earth. rather, its appeal is based on stunning visual effects and originality of situation (e.g., the notion that a spaceship can be shot out of a large cannon), and the many surprises for the viewer (e.g., the moon's human face, the spaceship's crash landing in the moon's "eye;' and the huge lobster-like object protecting the ruler of the moon's inhabitants). like these early films, progressive rock suites often tell stories. while some of these are lighthearted and simple, many others, including elp's tarkus, yes's close to the edge, genesis's selling england by the pound and pink floyd's dark side of the moon tackle serious issues such as alienation, commercialism, the perils of technology, and the meaning oflife. however serious the lyrics, though, the allure of progressive rock (like that of meiies's le voyage dans la lune) is rarely the story that the songs tell. instead, what drives the genre are the details: the surprising sounds, the sudden stylistic shifts, and the stunning virtuosity of the performers. more attention to these elements can allow us a better appreciation for the wide variety of works in the progressive rock canon. notes i would like to thank russ reising, george barth, stephen hinton, tom grey, and the editors of current musicology for their close readings of early drafts of this article. i would also like to thank ceara crandall-johnson for her technical assistance. 1. this quotation excerpted from bangs (2002:50). 2. this quotation excerpted from macan (1997:165). 3. the connection between blues elements and authenticity is discussed by numerous authors, including moore (2001a:73ff.) and pratt (1986). 4. "supergroup" is the term for bands made up of established stars. for a more comprehensive biography of the group, see forrester, hanson and askew (2001). 5. in this article, i will differentiate between three types of transcription. "strict transcription" refers to transcriptions that contain little or no change to the original melodies, harmonies, rhythms, and forms. "semi-strict transcription" refers to transcriptions with a small number of major changes to the original melodies, harmonies, rhythms and forms. "free transcrip­ tion" refers to transcriptions with numerous changes to the original melodies, harmonies, rhythms and forms. in some cases, "free transcriptions" are better understood as original compositions than as transcriptions. 6. given that elp kept playing pictures at an exhibition at every concert until 1998, some commentators have questioned the sincerity ofelp's supposed ambivalence about the work. see bangs 2002:50-55. 7. among the many transcriptions of mussorgsky's pictures are orchestrations by maurice ravel, leopold stokowski, sergei gortschakow, and vladimir ashkenazy. there are also transcriptions for brass quintet (elgar howarth), synthesizer (isao tomita), solo guitar (kazuhito yamashita), forty-four grand pianos and one prepared piano (wilhelm plate), and many other instrumental combos. 257 258 current musicology 8. a ribbon controller is a device that uses the movement of the player's finger to control voltage changes. although this device can be used to modulate many different parameters, it is most often associated with pitch bending. emerson used ribbon controllers built by famed electronic instrument inventor robert moog (1934-2005). 9. other examples exhibiting this stylistic variety include yes's the gates of delirium and elp's tarkus. 10. for example, durrell bowman states unequivocally in a recent essay that the "vast ma­ jority" of progressive rock's references to art music "went largely undetected-or at least underappreciated-by fans" (2002: 186). 11. for example, yes's "soon" is an excerpt of the gates of delirium, and elp's "karn evil 9: first impression (part 2)" is an excerpt of the larger work karn evil 9. 12. "presentness" has become a hot issue again in recent years. see gumbrecht (2004). two important articles that discuss the issue of "presentness" in music are fink (1998) and ab­ bate (2004). 13. both fink and abbate have recently made similar points. abbate (2004) uses the term "cryptographic sublime" to describe musicologists' obsession with decoding every detail in a score. fink urges us to "avoid totalizing (framing) critical gesture altogether, whether in the service of autonomous form or cultural code; stop trying to put the entire piece together (musicology) or take ittotally apart (popular music studies). get in, say something that helps convey the immediacy of the musical experience, and get out. stop marching through the music's architecture-and dance a little" (1998:167). 14. some scholars have made similar points about nineteenth-century opera. see, for ex­ ample, hibberd (1998). references abbate, carolyn. 2004. music-drastic or gnostic? critical inquiry 30: 505-36. bangs, lester. 2002. mainlines, blood feasts, and bad taste: a lester bangs reader, edited by john morthland. new york: anchor books. bowman, durrell. 2002. "let them all make their own music": individualism, rush, and the progressive/hard rock alloy. in progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm­ hudson, 183-218. new york and london: routledge. cotner, john s. 2002. pink floyd's "careful with that axe, eugene": toward a theory of textual rhythm in early progressive rock. in progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm-hudson, 65-90. new york and london: routledge. covach, john. 1997. progressive rock, "close to the edge," and the boundaries of style. in understanding rock: essays in musical analysis, edited by john covach and graeme m. boone, 3-31. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---.2000. echolyn and american progressive rock. contemporary music review 18: 13-61. emerson, keith. 2003. pictures of an exhibitionist. london: john blake. fink, robert. 1998. elvis everywhere: musicology and popular music studies at the twilight of the canon. american music 16: 135-79. forrester, george, martyn hanson, and frank askew. 2001. emerson, lake & palmer: the show that never ends: a musical biography. london: helter skelter publishing. gumbrecht, hans ulrich. 2004. production of presence: what meaning cannot convey. stan­ ford, ca: stanford university press. eric hung gunning, tom. 2004. "now you see it, now you don't": the temporality of the cinema of attractions. in the silent cinema reader, edited by lee grieveson and peter kramer, 41-50. new york and london: routledge. hibberd, sarah. 1998. magnetism, muteness, magic: "spectacle" and the parisian lyric stage c. 1830. phd dissertation, university of southampton. holm-hudson, kevin. 2002a. a promise deferred: multiply directed time and thematic transformation in emerson, lake, and palmer's "trilogy." in progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm-hudson, 111-20. new york and london: routledge. ---, ed. 2002b. progressive rock reconsidered. new york and london: routledge. macan, edward. 1997. rocking the classics: english progressive rock and the counterculture. oxford and new york: oxford university press. marsh, dave. 1989. the heart of rock and soul. new york: plume books. martin, bill. 1998. listening to the future: the time of progressive rock, 1968-1978. chicago: open court publishing. moore, allan. 2001. rock: the primary text: developing a musicology of rock, 2nd ed. alder­ shot, uk and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. pratt, ray. 1986. the politics of authenticity in popular music: the case of the blues. popular music and society 10: 55-78. sontag, susan. 1966. against interpretation, and other essays. new york: farrar, straus & giroux. stump, paul. 1997. the music's all that matters: a history of progressive rock. london: quartet books. whittall, arnold. 2003. james dillon, thomas ades, and the pleasures of allusion. in aspects of british music of the 1990s, ed. peter o'hagan, 3-27. aldershot, uk and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. willis, paul. 1978. profane culture. new york and london: routledge. 259 current.musicology.79-80.245-292.pdf caroline bithell. 2007. transported by song: corsican voices from oral tradition to world stage. europea: ethnomusicologies and modernities/ no. 5. lanham/ md/ and oxford: scarecrow press. reviewed by ruth emily rosenberg this is the fifth book in an excellent series from scarecrow press entitled europea: ethnomusicologies and modernities, edited by philip v. bohlman and martin stokes. the mediterranean island of corsica yields a particularly rich case study for this series, which seeks in part to investigate the trajectories of traditional musics in a "postnational" europe. caroline bithell's sophisticated and sensitive study of corsican musical life since the late twentieth century tells a story about a culture continually renegotiating its relationship to modernity, to the rest of europe, and to the world. bithell, a lecturer in ethnomusicology and arts administration at the university of manchester, draws on over a decade of fieldwork to produce a book of historical depth and ethnographic rigor. her analyses of ever-evolving musical practices offer insights into the contested site of "the traditional" not just in corsica, but all over the globe. the island of corsica is a region of france comprising two departements: haute-corse and corse-du-sud. its modest population of260,000 lives in the least industrialized region of france, which, thanks to its beautiful beaches and proximity to the continent, nonetheless attracts over two million visitors a year. with majestic granite peaks earning it the appellation "la montagne dans la mer;' corsica has beguiled outsiders since antiquity. its history is rife with wars and invasions, but the island's inhabitants have always persisted in asserting a distinct corsican identity. in the mid -1700s the corsicans made a vigorous bid for independence from their genoese rulers, only to ultimately lose their autonomy to france. in the twentieth century, corsica was hit hard by the world wars, resulting in severe depopulation and the loss of the island's traditional agro-pastoral economy. discontented islanders mobilizeg in the 1970s to protest their neglect by the french government. an autonomist movement was born of this new political consciousness, and a renewed sense of cultural pride spurred a revival of the island's indigenous language and culture. the swiss ethnomusicologist wolfgang laade was the first to publish a monograph about corsican traditional music, drawing on material he collected during the 1950s and 1970s. in traditional corsican society music was predominately vocal, and singing and improvising verses were widecurrent musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 129 130 current musicology spread activities. a variety of monodic song types, including laments and sung dialogues, accompanied the pastoral and domestic duties of men and women. women improvised laments for the dead and lullabies for infants; men sang secular polyphonic songs for sheep-shearing parties, hunting, or seasonal celebrations. however, by the mid-twentieth century, the rural way oflife to which such songs were integral was becoming obsolete. when laade left corsica in 1973, he had little hope that corsican song would survive this period of rapid modernization. and indeed, most of corsica's musical patrimony might well have disappeared as the population aged, had it not been for a group of politically engaged "militants culturels" (cultural mili­ tants) and musicians who became active in corsica during the late 1960s and 1970s. their efforts to revive and reconstruct the island's secular and sacred musical traditions became, along with the preservation of the corsican language, a central agenda of the cultural and political movement known as the riacquistu (or "reacquisition;' for which this period was named). since then, vocal polyphony-especially the secular paghjella genre-has become a politicized icon of the island's unique cultural identity. performed alongside overtly political chansons at nationalist events, polyphonic songs have been framed as the most profound-and profoundly local-expression of corsica's cultural heritage. with transported by song, bithell has written a chapter of corsica's musical history that laade could not have anticipated in the early 1970s. her emphasis is on the surprisingly vibrant corsican music scene of the 1990s-a scene that is the direct legacy of the riacquistu. over the course of ten years, bithell observed the activities of corsican artists dedicated to sustaining and evolving corsica's musical heritage. for the majority of them, singing traditional polyphony is not just an expression of unity and solidarity, but also, bithell argues, a way of articulating their distance from "a modern, middle class, french aesthetic" (156). while these groups were very active at the local level during the 1990s-performing at festivals, singing at funerals and weddings, and instructing younger singers in their art-they also benefited from a burgeoning world music market eager for distinctive regional sounds. corsica's polyphonic singing, with its "forced;' nasal timbre, free rhythm, and melismatic style, soon found its way into more cosmopolitan contexts. (you may have heard corsican sacred polyphony on recordings by marcel peres's ensemble organum or remember the all-female polyphony group from corsica that opened the 1992 winter olympics.) the book's subtitle, "corsican voices from oral tradition to world stage;' might imply that corsican vocal music has made a one-way trip from the craggy cradle of corsica to the cosmopolitan and commercial world music ruth emily rosenberg arena. but bithell suggests that corsican artists have sought to balance tradition and modernity, the local and the cosmopolitan. by assessing the impact of collective memory, individual creativity, and cultural policy on the island's musical life, bithell's study seeks to uncover the ways in which the cosmopolitan performance and recording culture might be able to coexist alongside the local musical practices of corsica's oral tradition. the first of the book's three sections comprises three chapters, which provide a thorough introduction to traditional corsican society and its musi­ cal heritage. because the major studies of corsican music have previously only appeared in german and french, this is a welcome english-language exposition of its characteristic features. bithell discusses several genres of monodic songs (laments, election songs, threshing songs, etc.), but focuses especially on polyphonic genres. scholars of other european "folk" po­ lyphony traditions will find this discussion particularly interesting. detailed but not excessively encyclopedic, the context provided here is relevant to understanding the conclusions bithell draws about corsica's contemporary music scene in later chapters. for example, chapter 2 introduces specific songs of the oral tradition that are often reinterpreted by contemporary groups, and the discussion of the corsican "sound" in the following chapter centers on technical aspects of the paghjella genre, which occupies an im­ portant place in both the oral tradition and the contemporary scene. chapter 3, in which bithell considers the transcendental and meta­ physical dimensions of singing polyphony, is one the most fascinating and poetic parts of the book. here bithell interweaves the voices of several informants who describe the pleasure of singing, as well as its seductive and intoxicating properties. she builds upon the work of scholars like timothy rice, jane sugarman, and gage averill, all of whom have attended to this aspect of vocal polyphony in their work. bithell's informants report that they experience extreme physiological, spiritual, and emotional states in the course of performance. corsicans, however, do not traditionally conceive of singing paghjella as "performance"-a point which is significant in shaping their aesthetic experience. corsican singers speak of "making" a paghjella rather than composing it, and describe the paghjella as an activity carried out mainly for the benefit and pleasure of the singers themselves, not an audience. in a paghjella equipe-a trio of close friends or relatives who sing together regularly-the singers typically stand in a tight circle, leaning into or onto one another, concentrating intensely on timing their entrances and blending their voices. the aim is not technical perfection but a collective experience of bliss that singers describe as something like being transported by song. bithell's informants describe the altered state brought 131 132 current musicology about by song with an eloquence that visitors to the island, both ancient and modern, have often admired among the corsicans. she quotes a singer named ghjiseppu turchini: and then there are evenings when you feel good, evenings when the wine is good, evenings when you are in good form, evenings when the climate is good, the smells are magnificent, the setting is extraordinary-there are evenings like that, or mornings, or masses, when you truly touch the inexpressible, the highest and most noble things of human experience ... because music ... is part of the intimate architecture of the world, when you not only admire it but in addition you have the privilege of practicing it, you feel like a demi-urge, someone who not only partakes of this creation but ... participates in this creation. (73) while bithell argues that the transcendental state described by corsican singers is a collective phenomenon that entails more than a shared musical aesthetic, she also investigates the details of the musical grammar internalized by corsica's best paghjella equipes. aided by recordings made at "singing schools" and workshops designed to instruct non-corsican singers in the indigenous aesthetic, the author culls the main musical concerns of paghjella singers. these include the execution of rivuccate, a term describing a variety of melismatic gestures, and the pacing and balance of melismatic and sus­ tained passages. the book's discussion of the pedagogical language employed by singing teachers helps the reader appreciate the complex rhythmic and timbral aspects of the corsican aesthetic. the second part of the book turns to historical matters, showing how the economic and sociopolitical climate following world war i impacted corsica's musical traditions, gave rise to new styles, and eventually lead to the politically charged revival of the late 1960s and 1970s. chapter 4 begins this second part by describing the rapid decline of traditional musical practices and the emergence of french-influenced chanteurs de charme in the early twentieth century. following the war, many islanders left corsica to pursue careers and opportunities on the continent, the americas, or in the colonies of north africa. french, the official language of the island, became the. language of the upwardly mobile, while the corsican language went into decline. traditional music followed suit; many islanders considered the old styles backwards or embarrassing. as singers grew old or emigrated, the systems of oral transmission that had guarded indigenous settings of the latin mass broke down. many villages lost the distinctive tradition of sacred polyphony that had been safeguarded for generations. meanwhile, the dissemination of western popular music led to more lyrical and nostalgic renderings of corsican songs on record. contemporary singers often dismiss the music of the chanteurs de charme of this period, such as tino rossi, as ruth emily rosenberg corny and "inauthentic:' nonetheless, bithell gives extensive treatment to this style and also to the folkloric groups that adapted corsican music in the mid-twentieth century, arguing rightly that these phenomena help us understand why singers of the 1970s went looking for "real" corsican voices when they did. the next chapter is dedicated to the riacquistu, the cultural and political movement that sought to protect and preserve the identity, language, ecol­ ogy, and music of the island. bithell describes how it was the "generation of 1970" that promoted the paghjella, in particular, in order to index an essential corsican identity. chapter 5 chronicles the formation and influence of canta u populu corsu (the corsican people sing), the seminal musical group of this potent political moment. the group was founded by cultural activists and singers who wanted to reconstruct the songs of corsica's em­ battled rural population. bithell shows how the political confrontations of the mid-1970s, which spawned corsica's paramilitary autonomist group, the front de liberation nationale de a corse, also had an effect on musical production. canta's early albums contained "unadulterated performances that are not far from those featuring on field recordings" (121). after 1975, a new style of protest song called cantu indiatu expressed the discontent­ ment of chanteurs engages (politically engaged singers), departing in certain ways from the traditional paghjella in order to accommodate instrumental accompaniment and texts with a militant message. chapter 6 explores how the paghjella and certain forms of sacred polyphony experienced a renais­ sance during the 1980s. the book's final section concerns musical activity in corsica since the 1990s, focusing most keenly on contemporary polyphonic groups. in the 1970s, the interests of political autonomy and cultural survival inspired strident protest music and motivated research into archaic song forms. once this crucial period of "reacquisition" passed, corsican artists of the 1980s and 1990s began to engage in "debates regarding the meaning of tradition, the legitimacy of innovation, and the vexed relationship between tradition and creation" (167). the indigenous conceptions of musical creation and performance discussed in the first half of the book come back into play here. as the informants quoted in chapter 3 make apparent, improvisa­ tion, reinterpretation, and variation are central to the indigenous musical aesthetic. for example, the singers of the polyphonic paghjella emphasize "constructing a paghjella anew on the occasion of each rendition, as opposed to simply reproducing a song that is always the same" (63). bithell points out that with principles such as improvisation and variation built into the traditional aesthetic, contemporary artists could justify moving beyond what was becoming a standardized traditional repertoire. 133 134 current musicology as part of a "determination to reinvent herself as a champion of cultural diversity:' in the 1980s france adopted a cultural policy which embraced mu­ sic that sounded multicultural or "exotic" (j. 59). bithell argues that corsican artists were therefore able to break into the world music industry without radically "smoothing out" the distinctive sound of their vocal music. access to a broader range of performance and recording opportunities inspired artists of the 1980s and 1990s to focus less on the political message of their music and more on aesthetic issues. many began to interpret the music of their oral tradition in new ways, embracing the concept of metissage (the french label for "world" or transnational musics) by integrating the music of other cultures, employing other languages, and amplifying their instruments. bithell extensively documents the specific musical choices made by these groups over the years, pointing out how they have "modernized" corsican music by experimenting with meter, instrumentation, and modality, for example (193). alongside this musical evolution emerged a cosmopolitan political position, which adopted the rhetoric of "post modern ... plurality" (173) or "global harmony" (192). chapter 7 discusses in detail the careers of several contemporary performing artists from corsica, highlighting their musical innovations. while the artists and recordings that bithell examines in detail might seem a bit remote to nonspecialists, readers should not be deterred. this book makes significant contributions in more general areas as well. for those interested in other musical cultures of the mediterranean region, for example, the corsican case will be illuminating. chapter 8 contributes to a body of recent work-notably music and gender: perspectives from the mediterranean, edited by tullia magrini (2003), and mediterranean mosaic: popular music and global sounds, edited by goffredo plastino (2003 )-that focuses not only on local musical practices of the mediterranean, but also on the "common threads, trends, the interactions among otherwise divergent traditions" of the region (xxix). bithell notes that some corsican artists have consciously established themselves as part of the broader mediterranean region by exploring what they perceive to be the oriental or arabic roots of their own tradition. this identification can be employed strategically, she argues, in order to disassociate corsica from the west, or it can be a means of "occupying a place that can be seen as liminal or reconciliatory" (207). every scholar of mediterranean music can profit from bithell's analysis of the identity politics at work here, as well as from her research into the european union's interreg programs, which support partnerships between mediterranean regions. gender is also a key aspect of this book. traditionally, the musical spheres of men and women in corsica were separated; women sang mostly ruth emily rosenberg laments and lullabies, while men sang polyphonic as well as monodic songs, including laments for animals and threshing songs. in the period of the riacquistu, bithell argues, the association of polyphonic singing with po­ litical militancy kept women at the periphery of musical activity, with few exceptions. however, the author observes that the proliferation of singing schools since the 1980s has helped to train girls and women in polyphonic singing. indeed, several successful all-female polyphony groups have been formed in the last ten years, a significant phenomenon that bithell examines in detail. she argues that singing polyphony has provided a new way for women to perform their identity as corsicans and participate in the island's musical life. this development has arguably reaped even greater rewards in the world music market. female groups such as les nouvelles polyphonies corses and donnisulana were some of the first to find international success. in turn, this success accorded them "a key role in extending the boundaries of the polyphonic tradition and securing a place for the corsican sound in the global music marketplace" (170). despite the fact that many corsican groups have gained international recognition, most continue to sing locally as well. well-established singers often perform at fairs, funerals, or weddings and have demonstrated a deep commitment to corsican charitable causes. musically, corsican artists usu­ ally retain the most typical characteristics of the indigenous sound, employ­ ing the distinctive language, intonation, timbre, and ornamentation of the island's music, even when singing new compositions. there are signs that their oral traditions have not just survived, but are expanding: some newly composed songs have been quickly taken up by younger singers along with the old chestnuts. but there are pitfalls here. can the intimate contexts of paghjella performance, for example, be translated to larger, more commercial venues? can commercial recordings and cosmopolitan performance contexts foster the same potential for transcendent musical experience? bithell's research demonstrates that most corsican singers believe that "tradition" must not be a static concept or a paghjella a fossilized museum piece. but many also have anxieties over whether commercial and profes­ sional concerns will edge out the range of musical activities that continue to persist "on the ground" in corsica. in her epilogue, written ten years after the research for this project began, bithell approaches the question, "what's next?" for corsica's musical life. in some cases, the precious old traditions hang on, as in the saint's day celebration that the author describes here in detail. on the other hand, the effects of professionalization and commodi­ fication are apparent. bithell finds that the country fairs where singers used to perfect the art of singingpaghjella have changed; spontaneous polyphonic singing is often overshadowed by new political chansons and the classic 135 136 current musicology anthems made famous by canta u populari corsu. western-style dance and pop music are, inevitably, also perceived as a threat to local tradition. the book could easily have indulged in a mournful narrative of decline or a naive celebration of musical longevity here, but after ten years spent attending concerts, reading the local press, conducting historical research and, most importantly, listening to singers discuss their art, bithell concludes that "the two poles of archaism and innovation" are in corsica often "embodied in the same individuals" (261). the tension between tradition and modernity that has become a fundamental characteristic of corsican identity is apparent in musical discourse and audible in the music itself, as skillfully demonstrated in this study. references magrini, tullia, ed. 2003. music and gender: perspectives from the mediterranean. chicago and london: university of chicago press. plastina, goffredo, ed. 2003. mediterranean mosaic: popular music and global sounds. london and new york: routledge. current.musicology.85.113-172.pdf der tod und die forelle: new thoughts on schubert's quintet 1. michael griffel introductory note: in the early years of current musicology, the only required courses beyond the ma level for phd students in historical musicology were . the two "research seminars in musicology;' one taught by denis stevens and the other by paul henry lang. these courses were designed to engage advanced students in original research, advanced methodology, and signifi­ cant writing and to prepare them for the qualifying examinations on music history and on theoretical and aesthetic writings in the required languages (french, german, italian, and latin). in the fall of 1968, professor lang selected as his topic for the research seminar (in which i was enrolled) the symphonies of franz schubert. this was the last research seminar given by professor lang, who was approaching retirement from columbia. he di­ vulged to those of us taking the course that in his opinion the three master composers of the tonal era who were most in need of scholarly attention were handel, haydn, and schubert. lang self-confidently claimed that his recently published study of handel was setting the record straight on that great composer but that similar work still needed to be done on the other two, and especially on schubert's instrumental compositions. l the seminar whetted my appetite, and i soon found that lang was quite right: there was, for example, not a single complete recording of the schubert symphonies by a major orchestra back in 1968. i decided to write my phd dissertation on the schubert symphonies, and so my interest in schubert's instrumental music got its start. 2 the "trout" quintet, d. 667, is franz schubert's best-known chamber music composition. there are myriad recordings of it, and it is often studied in music appreciation classes. the quintet's catchy and buoyant tunes appeal to listeners, and its relationship to one of schubert's most popular songs makes it a good conversation piece.3 as the music critic conrad wilson has written, "if you wish to introduce somebody to the world of chamber music, this is surely the work with which to do so" (2003:21). while the date of composition of the "trout" quintet remains an open question, i am convinced that 1819 is the "correct" date, for reasons that will become clear to the reader shortly, as well as because of the arguments in favor of 1819 provided by piero weiss (1979). legitimate reasons exist current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 55 56 current musicology for considering 1823 and 1825 as other possibilities, but in the final analysis the earlier date makes the most sense.4 this a major quintet for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass is most often described with words such as "simple," "pleasant;' "carefree;' "diverting," and "serene." while such modifiers are not altogether inap­ propriate, they do not do justice to this composition, because they do not look beneath its surface, nor do they consider its extramusical possibilities. they pay too little attention to the song that served as its inspiration, and to schubert's attachment to this song and the poem that gave rise to it. my purpose here is not to reclassify the "trout" quintet as a programmatic piece that tells a specific story but, rather, to suggest that the musical and the extramusical elements in the song may have influenced the chamber work profoundly, rendering it a more seriously conceived composition than is generally assumed. certainly, one of schubert's most popular lieder is die forelle (the trout, d. 550), and it is a song to which he kept returning between 1816 and 1821. in fact, schubert wrote five versions of this song (two between the end of 1816 and july 1817, and one each in 1818, 1820, and 1821). all of them are very similar, but only in the final version did schubert add in the familiar piano introduction, with its ascending sextuplet flourishes that suggest the merry trout darting about in the brooklet.s it is easy to hear this song as a folklike ditty that has little depth of feeling, but we must not be fooled by its apparent simplicity. its storyline, after all, is about life and death, and its title character is killed by an uncaring fisherman-death's deputy in this narration. moreover, it is clear that schubert did not respond to this tale casually, as he kept returning to it during a five-year stretch. he even altered the tempo designation in each revision, changing it from massig (moderate) to nicht zu geschwind (not too fast) to etwas geschwind (somewhat fast) to etwas lebhaft (somewhat lively) and back again to etwas geschwind. including the quintet, then, schubert concerned himself with die forelle each year between 1816 and 1821. but 1819 was a special year for schubert. his biographers tell us that he was happy that summer, on holiday in steyr in the austrian alps with the singer johann michael vogl (1768-1840), a good friend. an upbeat letter that the twenty-two-year-old franz schubert wrote from steyr to his older brother ferdinand on july 13, 1819, refers to eight girls, almost all of them pretty, who were in the home where he was lodging, and mentions one pretty girl in particular who played the pianoforte nicely and was going to sing several of his songs.6 furthermore, in a letter from linz on august 19 to one of franz's other friends, the poet johann mayrhofer (1787-1836), schubert wrote that he was in very good health and that in steyr he had already had a very good time and was looking forward to more fun there? l. michael griffel and 1819 was a time of contentment for schubert for another, more important, reason. it was the year in which he began fully to enjoy and profit from his decision the previous summer to abandon permanently the profession of school teaching, which his father had forced him into as early as the autumn of 1814 and which had prevented him from writing music for large stretches of time. schubert's comments in a letter to his friends written in zseliz on august 3, 1818, exude relief and joy: "i live and compose like a god, as though that were as it should be ... i hope that you are all merry and in the best of health, as i am. thank god i live at last, and it was high time, otherwise i should have become nothing but a thwarted musician."8 another letter, dated october 12, 1818, sheds additional light on schubert's situation after leaving his father's school. this one was sent to franz by his much older brother ignaz, who, at the age of thirty-three, was still teaching at their father's school. ignaz wrote: "you happy creature! how enviable is your lot! you live in sweet, golden freedom, can give free rein to your musical genius, may let your thoughts stray where they will: you are loved, admired and idolized ... "9 and after angrily decrying the fact that there is no longer any laughter in their father's home, ignaz continued: "you see, you are now free of all these things, you are delivered, you see and hear nothing of all these goings-on ... "10 at first, after the break in 1818, franz and his father were extremely angry with one another, but by the summer of 1819 they had mostly reconciled their differences, and the younger schubert could take delight in living his life fully as a musician. freedom to compose was life itself for schubert, and deprivation of that freedom for almost four years had meant relegation to a deadly existence. with this in mind, i cannot help but think that schubert may have identified with the little fish in the song he had written and rewritten already twice while a schoolteacher. the trout and the composer both needed their free­ dom: the fish to swim, schubert to compose. the fisherman, who muddied up the brook and caught the unlucky fish on his rod, may have reminded schubert of his father, who had "reeled in" his son and robbed him of his spiritual well-being. in the 1782 poem written by christian friedrich daniel schubart (1739-91), there are four stanzas. schubert set only the first three of these, ending his song with the words "und ich mit regem blute / sah die betrogne an" ("and i, with my blood boiling, looked at the betrayed one"). thus, the narrator in schubert's song concludes on a personal, subjective note, communicating his anger. schubart's poem, however, goes on to present a moral, advising young girls to be careful to recognize danger and flee from it and to remain cautious at all times-or else pay dearly (like the trout!). "denkt doch an die forelle" ("think, then, of the trout"), warns the poet. 57 58 current musicology schubert did not set this final strophe in his song, most likely because he was aiming for a unified, coherent musical work, focusing solely on the tale of the trout and its nemesis. the poet schubart was also a journalist, composer, aesthetician, theol­ ogy student, teacher, organist, harpsichordist, and revolutionary, who spent nearly a decade in prison because of his published "criticisms of policies pursued by the catholic church and various courts."ll it was during his im­ prisonment that schubart wrote his famous treatise on the ethos of tonalities (ideen zu einer asthetik der tonkunst [1784-85]), as well as the four poems that schubert eventually set as lieder: an mein klavier, d. 342; grablied auf einen soldaten, d. 454; an den tod, d. 518; and die forelle, d. 550-all from 1816 and 1817. schubart was a serious person, and all four poems of his that schubert set, including die forelle, are serious poems. 12 when we listen to schubert's die forelle (1821), we can hear the earnestness, concern, and passion in the music composed for the third stanza, in which the fisherman snares his victim. in this section, which opens in the relative minor key, schubert veers toward a recitative style in the vocal line, lunging up to melodic peaks for such words as "diebe" ("thief") and "rute" ("rod"). the syllabic, reiterative hammering on d~ for the text "er macht das bachlein tiickisch triibe" ("he insidiously muddies up the little brook")-caught here harmonically in a tangle of alternating secondary seventh and half-diminished seventh chords making a crescendo-com­ municates passion and drama (ex. 1). so, too, do the repetitive block chords in the accompaniment and the descent to the piano part's lowest tone, a dominant root more than two octaves below middle c, and a perfect fourth below the lowest statement of the tonic pitch in the song. the text for this lowest pitch is "zappelt" ("wriggles"), as the trout struggles on the line. this stanza finishes with the same musical refrain that ended the two earlier ones, and the song concludes with quiet and peaceful music. yet, the combination of the final words of anger and the dramatic music heard just seconds earlier draw the listener into this tiny drama of a fish, a fisherman, and a storyteller clearly siding with the trout. we know that in such chamber music compositions by schubert as the string quartet in a minor, d. 804, and the "death and the maiden" string quartet in d minor, d. 810, both written in 1824, schubert made use of one or more of his own songs. furthermore, we have learned that he did not limit the musical or the extramusical content of the song to just one movement of the quartet; rather, these spilled into the cycle as a whole. 13 when schubert used one of his lieder in a chamber work, he was prone to base some musical events in the various movements of the instrumental composition on musical and poetic issues in the song. with this in mind, l. michael griffel example 1: schubert, die parel/e, third stanza, mm. 5-9. ~ voice oj ~ f' h macht do< rich lein tiik kisch trii b,. ucd ~ 1 " 7/ '7/ '7/ '7/ 7/ '7/ '7/ '7/ 7/ 7/ 7/ 7/ piano p f ,h' _____ _ ge dacht, .~ let us see if we can discover such a relationship between song and chamber work in the "trout" quintet. 14 the origins of the quintet are well known. sylvester paumgartner, a rich assistant manager of iron mines in steyr, who was also a collector of music and musical instruments, suggested to schubert that he write a quintet to be played at paumgartner's house. his residence contained two music rooms where visiting musicians routinely gathered for entertainments. paumgartner, who played the cello, even advised schubert to write this quintet for violin, viola, cello, double bass, and piano, evidently because he liked hummel's quintet in d minor, op. 74, set for the same ensemble, and had the required players for it. actually, hummel had first composed his work as a septet for piano, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, and french horn, and both the septet and the quintet arrangement were published in vienna in 1816. paumgartner made the additional request that schubert incorporate into the new quintet a set of variations on the composer's song die forelle, a favorite of paumgartner's. thus was the "trout" quintet made to order. but schubert did more than satisfy paumgartner's requests. he created a first-rate piece of chamber music informed by schubart's poem and his own song. all five movements refer to the words, sights, sounds, and ideas of the poem and song. oddly, the most famous movement, the theme and variations on die forelle, avoids any 59 60 current musicology direct quotation of the third stanza's dramatic music, but schubert conveys that stanza's mood in the obligatory minor-mode variation of the set. nonetheless, the issues of storytelling, conflict between freedom and subjugation, the celebration of life, and grief and loss through death are all found in the five-movement quintet cycle. the first evidence occurs at the beginning of the opening movement, marked "allegro vivace." we hear a zesty tonic a major chord played by the entire ensemble. in both hands of the piano part its energy triggers a two-octave ascending arpeggio in a triplet rhythm. while the double bass clings to its opening tonic pedal point for ten bars, the triplet arpeggio is answered by a melodious four­ measure phrase in the other strings that is tentative, pianissimo, and moves slowly. as the strings cadence, the piano reiterates its arpeggio, but quietly and in the right hand only. this series of events is repeated, with the string melody slightly altered. a third arpeggiation of the piano, however, pushes the theme out of the tonic and into the flatted submediant (f major). the double bass dutifully skips down a major third to fq for its next pedal point, which lasts for twelve measures. simultaneously the piano joins the viola with the melody, while the violin and the cello alternate in sounding the arpeggio. the action picks up speed, and we hear the arpeggio not every four measures but, rather, in each and every measure from m. 18 through the end of the opening structural unit in m. 24 and the beginning of the second unit in m. 25. this propulsion toward the cadence at m. 25 is also achieved through the use of crescendo, accent marks, and the harmonic push of the augmented sixth chord into the cadential i t with m. 25, the "trout" quintet's first movement really takes flight. the music now has drive and continuity, antecedent and consequent phrases, rhythmic life in all the strings (including the double bass), melodic shapeliness, harmonic clarity, and an engagement with the dialectics of sonata form. this second beginning of the piece, then, may be said to serve as the first theme of the sonata-allegro form. if this is the case, what, then, are the first twenty-four measures trying to accomplish? i believe they serve several purposes. for one thing, they introduce the most important musical motives of the movement. these include the ascending arpeggio, the triplet figuration, the neighbor-note melodic idea, and the key relationship of tonic and flatted submediant. second, however, this opening section, in the tempo proper of the movement, is not a tradi­ tional introduction but, rather, a prologue, or menu, for what lies ahead. schubert was innovative in creating unique beginnings for some of his instrumental works. three others that immediately come to mind appear in the "unfinished" symphony, d. 729 (1822), the octet, d. 803 (1824), and the string quintet, d. 956 (1828). in each of these compositions, schubert l. michael griffel opens with critically important musical material that is neither the begin­ ning of the sonata-allegro form proper nor a mere introduction to it in the classical manner. to me, the intriguingly hesitant opening of the "trout" quintet suggests the prologue of a story, something like, "once upon a time, there was a trout that darted about happily in a brook. little did the fish know that danger was lurking nearby. let me tell you what happened one day when everything seemed so innocent and cheerful." third, these twenty-four measures suggest the descriptive pianistic figuration of the song die forelle. the chromatic tones of the lied's ac­ companiment have been temporarily removed, the range traversed is much wider, and musical continuity has given way to a more dramatic pushing ahead and pulling back of the music; however, the trout can still be perceived, propelling itself through and darting above the water. the second movement, an andante in ~ time, is more subtly related to the song. this glowingly beautiful movement is divided into two halves, each of them further subdivided into three thematic sections. a succession of six keys takes place: in the first half schubert uses f major, f# minor, and d major plus g major for his three thematic units; in the second half he employs a~ major, a minor, and f major. thus, the second half is, for the most part, a transposition of the first half up a minor third, and this transposition allows the movement to begin and end in the (traditionally) pastoral key of f major, a tonality that was already referred to in the open­ ing movement and will be featured in subsequent movements. is the key of g, with which the first half ends, is inserted for extra color and also allows the phrygian f#, with its well-documented associations with death, to be redirected as a leading tone. 16 as the midpoint between f# and a~, g in turn also serves as the leading tone to a~ for the beginning of the second half of the movement. in its pastoral key, the second movement seems to describe nature in its various moods. sweeps of musical figuration and accentuation continuously threaten the tranquility in this music, and outpourings of emotional lyricism eventually overwhelm the initial calm. the composer's fixation on the little fish is, perhaps, symbolized by the movement's inclusion of a chromatic set of tonal centers built on the pitches f-fii-g-a~a.17 while the theme in f# minor can be heard as a lament for the trout, a living fish asserts itself in the many arpeggiation figures in the andante, such as the ascents in the strings and the descents in the piano when the initial f major section makes its transition to f# minor (mm. 20-23). the third theme of the andante also suggests a trout that is very much alive by the recurrence of musical ideas derived from the opening stanza of the song-the ascending leap of a perfect fourth, dotted rhythm, sextuplet figuration, and arpeggiation all turn up 61 62 current musicology again. the movement even terminates with repetitions of a perfect fourth, the interval with which die forelle opens, perhaps implying that death has been defeated, at least for the time being. the third movement, which culminates in a fortissimo ascending a major arpeggio, is a scherzo and trio in a presto tempo. it is a wonderful example of schubert's feisty and ebullient scherzo style. its initial ascents are reminiscent of the upward surges at the opening of the first movement. these are just quicker, shorter, and friskier. this movement is indicative of the newly liberated schubert's adventurous spirit as a composer, romp­ ing through the bumpy rhythms, strings of secondary dominant chords, and kaleidoscopic harmonic connections that became such common characteristics of the new romantic style. structured in a tonally playful manner, the scherzo wavers between rounded binary form and sonata form. its monothematic first section moves from tonic to tonic at the mid­ point, and then-in a written-out repeat-from tonic to flatted mediant at the end. its second section begins somewhat as a development section would in a sonata form, and then it recapitulates the opening music. in this shortened reprise schubert remains in the tonic key throughout. the trio, whose motives and progressions are derived very subtly from those of the scherzo, has a simplicity and peacefulness about it, much like the mood of the narrator in the first stanza of schubart's poem ("i stood on the bank and watched in sweet quietude"). this scherzo and trio movement clearly exemplifies schubert's compositional craftsmanship at the age of twenty­ two: the structure of the scherzo section proper, as well as the relationship of the trio to the scherzo, reflects a composer destined to be credited by posterity for his inventive formal designs. "trout figuration" in the d major theme-and-variations movement is to be expected. and the listener is not at all disappointed. it is everywhere. a few examples should suffice. in variation 1, not only do the violin, viola, and cello play arpeggiated figures in triplets, but also the piano and later the violin, in a very high register, render a trill figure that is appropriate for suggesting a fish jumping above the water's surface. variations 4 and 5 bring to mind the narrator's anger at the fisherman and sympathy for the trout as expressed in the third stanza of the song. variation 4, in the minor mode, thumps out its d minor chords sternly and has a good number of strident dissonances, including diminished chords. furthermore, additional trill figures in this section seem to suggest a trout determined to survive. the haunting variation 5, a turn for the cello, which is set in m major/minor and their mediant partner d~ major, seems to be communicating compassion for the endangered fish, whose motion is omnipresent. is in the finale, marked ''allegro giusto;' we can hear the dancing and splashing of a vibrant and lively fish in the transitional music to the closl. michael griffel example 2: schubert, "trout" quintet, fifth movement, mm. 407-18. " ~ i" i" 1",.' ,. f': r> violin oj 3 3 3 3 pi' ~,. ~ ~ viola --pi' 3 3 'jl" ,....,...., "" "" r-t"""1 ,....,...., ,....,...., ,...,...., cello & bass : lijlulululljluwwwwwuj pp)----.., 3 ~ h ~#,. ,. ~# ,. ,. t:& .--. ;; piano i 0 • pi' j~n y--d oj -r r· ~ r r .--. ..---. . ing theme, ushered in by delightfully optimistic ascending arpeggios (mm. 399-406). the closing theme itself allows the violin and the viola to create sprays of motion (as in mm. 407-14), and the references within this trium­ phant passage to the key-area of f# minor (that is, the regular submediant of a major-which was also an important key in the slow movement) should not be overlooked, for these references can be taken to mean that joy conquers grief, safety replaces danger, and life defeats death in schubert's quintet. example 2 provides a glimpse of the music approaching the end of the quintet. here one can imagine a trout swimming freely, especially because schubert includes two musical symbols of his fish: the arpeggiated opening curve of the song's vocal line (sol-do-mi, in the viola and the violin) and the basic melodic arch of the piano accompaniment in the song's first measure 63 64 current musicology (that is, the chromatically ascending minor third leaping up a major sixth, in the same two instruments). as opposed to schubart's trout, then, schubert's trout is still swim­ ming about determinedly at the end of the work. in the midst of a section that serves as an epilogue, the trout's music is fortissimo and harmonically combative (mm. 449-54). perhaps not coincidentally, it ascends in triplet eighth-notes exactly twenty-four measures from the final bar, and then it wends its way toward one last peck at the flatted submediant, f major, before the celebratory final cadences on the tonic a. some may say that many of the ideas expressed in this essay are the result of too fanciful an interpretation. this is certainly possible, for we cannot know whether schubert had any extramusical notions in mind when he wrote the "trout" quintet (beyond the use of the song in the fourth move­ ment). the autograph manuscript is lost, and the composer left no clues in his letters. we may, of course, continue to regard it simply as an entertain­ ing work, a divertimento that is somewhat loosely constructed, filled with unbridled, youthful exuberance, and, perhaps, a bit long and repetitious. these observations notwithstanding, it is certainly not a superficial com­ position. as we judge the "trout;' let us give thought to its poetic content, optimistic viewpoint, and unified design. let us imagine that schubert may be speaking to us not only about a little fish that wanted only to swim in its brook, but also about schubert himself, a young composer who wanted only to spend all of his time creating music. 19 i believe that musicians and the public have enjoyed the "trout" quintet for almost 190 years not only because of its tunefulness and direct appeal but also because of its passion and compositional coherence. when all is said and done, it is a worthy companion to the great chamber works by schubert that were yet to come in the 1820s.20 notes this article is a revised and updated version of a lecture the author was invited to deliver at a meeting of the greater new york chapter of the american musicological society held at barnard college, new york city, aprils, 1997. 1. see lang (1966). 2. see griffel (1975). 3. the quintet's popularity was most recently indicated in the "classical countdown" broadcast by radio station wqxr 96.3 fm, new york city, on december 31, 2005, and january 1,2006. among listeners who voted for their favorite classical music compositions, schubert's "trout" quintet ranked twelfth. it was the only composition by schubert in the top twenty-five, and it was the only work for a chamber music ensemble by any composer in that group. 4. for an argument in favor of 1823, see bodendorff (2004:204-06). newbould suggests that l. michael griffel the quintet may have been written either in 1819 or 1825, but he discusses it in his chapter entitled "1818-1822" (1997:166-67). 5. one needs to keep in mind that if the quintet dates from 1819, the fifth version was com­ posed after the quintet. the experience of writing the quintet may have motivated schubert to add the frisky piano introduction, but the more likely explanation is that schubert had always played this introduction anyway, whether it was written into the score or not, and that in 1821 he decided to formalize it. 6. this and the following four quotations are taken from eric blom's english translation of the documentary biography of schubert by otto erich deutsch ([ 1946] 1977: 121). german original: "in dem hause, wo ich wohne, befinden sich 8 madchen, beynahe alle hubsch ... die tochter des herrn v. k[ eller], bei dem ich und vogl taglich speisen, ist sehr hubsch, spielt brav klavier, und wird verschiedene meiner lieder singen" (deutsch 1964:82). 7. see deutsch ([1946] 1977:124). "wenn es dir so gut geht, wie mir, so bist du recht gesund ... in steyr hab ich mich und werd' mich noch sehr gut unterhalten" (deutsch 1964:84). 8. see deutsch ([1946] 1977:93). "ich lebe und componire wie ein gott, als wenn es so seyn musste ... ich hoffe, dass ihr alle recht gesund und froh seyd, wie ich es bin. jetzt lebe ich einmal, gott sey dank, es war zeit, sonst war' noch ein verdorbener musikant aus mir geworden" (deutsch 1964:62-63). 9. see deutsch ([ 1946] 1977: 103). "du glucklicher mensch! wie sehr ist dein los zu beneiden! du lebst in einer sussen, goldenen freiheit, kannst deinem musikalischen genie vollen zugel schiessen lassen, kannst deine gedanken wie du willst hinwerfen, wirst geliebt, bewundert und vergottert .. :' (deutsch 1964:71). 10. see deutsch ([1946]1977:104). "siehstdu, von allen diesen dingen bist du nun frei, bist erloset, du siehst und horst von all diesen unwesen ... nichts mehr" (deutsch 1964:71). 11. seethe new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed. (2001), s.v. "schubart, christian friedrich daniel" (by david ossenkop). 12. for more about seriousness in schubart's poem, see porhansl (1993:69-74). 13. on the quartet in a minor, see temperley (1981:142-54), raab (1997:85-94), and rast (2003:81-88). on the "death and the maiden" quartet, see wolff (1982:143-71) and kessler (1997:27-33). 14. for an article on the strong musical relationships among the five movements of the quintet, see marx (1971:588-92). 15. musical support for the belief that schubert wrote the quintet during or just after a stay in steyr, with its magnificent countryside, is provided by the composer's significant use of f major and d major in this quintet, the two keys that best represent the pastoral in music. 16. see kimmel (1980:42-76). 17. for a discussion of the structure of the andante, as well as its semitonal ascent of keys, see shamgar (2001:150-69). 18. for a good discussion of this variation movement, see perry (2002:374-416). 19. youth sparkled when five young musicians-all of them destined for stardom-came together to make a recording of "the trout" back in 1969. hearing and watching a young daniel barenboim, jacqueline dupre, zubin mehta, itzhak perlman, and pinchas zukerman play the young schubert's piano quintet is a very gratifying experience. a 2005 dvd of the performance is available on opus arte/allegro films (oa cn0903 d). 65 66 current musicology 20. when the wiener allgemeine theaterzeitung on may 21, 1829, announced the first pub­ lication of the quintet, its notice mentioned that the musical savants who had already heard the work considered it a masterpiece. see waidelich (1993:527). references bodendorff, werner. 2004. forellenquintett. in schubert enzyklopadie, erster band: a-k, edited by ernst hilmar and margret jestremski, 204-06. veroffentlichungen des internationalen franz schubert instituts, no. 14. tutzing: hans schneider. deutsch, otto erich. [1946] 1977. schubert: a documentary biography, translated by eric blom. new york: da capo press. ---. 1964. schubert. die dokumente seines lebens. franz schubert. neue ausgabe siimtli­ cher werke, edited by the internationale schubert -gesellschaft, series viii: supplement, vol. 5. leipzig: veb deutscher verlag fur musik. griffel, l. michael. 1975. schubert's approach to the symphony. phd dissertation, columbia university. kessler, deborah. 1997. the maiden's struggle and its tonal aftermath in the first move­ ment of schubert's d-minor quartet. the tasi journal: a publication of the american schubert institute 1: 27-33. kimmel, william b. 1980. the phrygian inflection and the appearances of death in music. college music symposium 20 (2): 42-76. lang, paul henry. 1966. george frideric handel. new york: w. w. norton. marx, karl. 1971. einige anmerkungen zu schuberts forellenquintett und oktett. neue zeitschrijt fur musik 132 (11): 588-92. newbould, brian. 1997. schubert: the music and the man. berkeley and los angeles: uni­ versity of california press. perry, jeffrey. 2002. the wanderer's many returns: schubert's variations reconsidered. the journal of musicology 19 (2): 374-416. porhansl, lucia. 1993. schuberts textvorlagen nach friedrich wilhelm gotter and christian friedrich daniel schubart. schubert durch die brille 10: 69-74. raab, michael. 1997. arten von zusammenhang in schuberts liedbearbeitungen. schubert-jahrbuch: 85-94. rast, nicholas. 2003. "schone welt, wo bist du?" motive und form in schubert's a minor string quartet. in schubert the progressive: history, performance practice, analysis, edited by brian newbould, 81-88. aldershot, uk and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. shamgar, beth friedman. 2001. schubert's classic legacy: some thoughts on exposition-recap. form. the journal of musicology 18 (1): 150-69. temperley, nicholas. 1981. schubert and beethoven's eight-six chord. 19th-century music 5 (2): 142-54. waidelich, till gerrit, ed. 1993. franz schubert dokumente 1817-1830, vol. l. veroffentlichungen des internationalen franz schubert instituts, no. 10, edited by ernst hilmar. tutzing: hans schneider. weiss, piero. 1979. dating the "trout" quintet. journal of the american musicological society 32 (3): 539-48. wilson, conrad. 2003. notes on schubert: 20 crucial works. edinburgh: saint andrew press. wolff, christoph. 1982. schubert's "der tod und das miidchen": analytical and explanatory notes on the song d 531 and the quartet d 810. in schubert studies: problems of style and chronology, edited by eva badura-skoda and peter branscombe, 143-71. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ragtime and the music oj charles ives judith tick if ragtime were called tempo di raga ... it might win honors more speedily .... but neither the reproach of "reminiscence" nor the equal odium of "innovation" has ever succeeded against a vital musical idea. i feel safe in predicting that ragtime has come to stay .... it will find its way gradually into the works of some great genius and will thereafter be canonized. rupert hughes musical record, 1 april 1899 that great borrower from american vernacular culture, charles ives, utilized all kinds of music in his own compositions-minstrel tunes, revival hymns, and popular songs. one vernacular style that he particularly exploited was ragtime, a music popular from 1895 to 1920. indeed, rag rhythms, along with hymn tunes and marches, are among the most commonly quoted material in his music. the hallmark of ives's ragtime style is his use of off-beat accents and complex syncopation. according to cowell this "category of rhythm ... [was] of especial fascination to ives .... his humorous movements, which occur in almost all the larger works, are full of such irregular off-beat stresses."l "humorous works" no doubt refers to the scherzos in the piano sonata no. 1 or to "in the inn" from the set of pieces for theater or chamber orchestra. these works are directly related to ives's ragtime style. despite its sustained presence in i ves's music, ragtime has received little critical attention as a discrete factor in the development of his rhythmic vocabulary. most often writers attribute his use of syncopation to the influence of jazz,2 which postdates ragtime and much of ives's music. others tie it to his boyhood memories of minstrel songs rather than to his later exposure to ragtime. there is, to be sure, documentary evidence for this view. in the memos i ves wrote: i had even heard the same thing [black-faced comedians ragging their songs] at the danbury fair before coming to new haven, which must have been before 1892 .... [ragging was] throwing the accent on the off-beat and holding over-a thing people nowadays think was not done until jazz came along. 3 nevertheless, he distinguished between ragging and ragtime, a style that he described as a "natural dogma of shifted accents or a mixture of shifted and minus accents." 4 at yale lves played rag piano with the hyperion orchestra and was a 105 frequent customer at a tavern named poli's, where he occasionally substituted for the regular pianist. in new york, where he moved after graduation, he continued to frequent music halls. ives's undergraduate years and early residence in new york coincided with ragtime's first wave of national popularity. until the mid 1890s it was a regional phenomenon centered in the southwest. but the performing team of bert williams and george walker and the pianist ben harney seem to have stimulated a genuine ragtime craze on the east coast. 5 * * * * * the strongest evidence of ragtime's impact on ives is the music he wrote between 1902 and 1904. during this time he composed about a dozen ragtime dances for theater orchestra: a ragtime dance, 1902-03; a set of nine ragtime pieces, 1902; and a set if four ragtime pieces, 1902-04. ives took this music "more seriously" than other pieces written during this period and therefore had them copied and arranged for both public performances and private readings. 6 the keith theater orchestra played some of them at an afternoon performance sometime between 1903 and 1906, while the globe theater orchestra performed the ragtime dance in 1905. 7 even as late as 1920 these pieces commanded ives's interest to the extent that he attempted to reconstruct the original scoring of some of the dances from second-hand piano arrangements made by the pianist at keith's theater. i ves respected this music because it was less conservative than some of his works in more conventional forms, the hymn-tune sonatas for violin, for example. it could "get going good and free" partially because of its secular connotations. as ives stated in the memos: anyway, in considering my music, the secular things-that is, those whose subject matter has to do with the activities of general life around one-seem to be freer and more experimental in technical ways.s it is thus not surprising that he drew upon the ragtime pieces as a wellspring for some of his most interesting and rhythmically experimental works. his constant rewriting of this material may account for the dates of 1902-11 assigned to them in the memos. during those years the dances were rewritten as scherzos for various combinations of instruments, as sonata movements, or as separate orchestral pieces. their descendants are the scherzos in the piano sonata no. i; the second movements in the violin sonatas nos. 2 and 3; the scherzos "the see'r," "over the pavements," and "tone roads"; and the second movement of the orchestral set no. 2.9 ives also composed a "study in rag" for the opening of the fourth movement in the piano sonata no.1. it has an ostinato pattern in common with "over the pavements" that establishes the link between the latter piece and the ragtime music (ex. 1). 106 example 1: "study in rag," m. 36 and "over the pavements," m. 32 'copyright 1954 by peer international corporation. use-d by permission.' the ragtime pieces were similar in some ways to their popular counterparts. they were written in i, the common rag meter, for small instrumental groups. the set of nine ragtime pieces, for example, was scored for piano, violin (?), clarinet, cornet, trombone, and drums-an ensemble similar to the one that recorded "cakewalk in coon town" in 1903, in which piano, two clarinets, cornet, and trombone were used.l0 furthermore, the pieces were arrangements of familiar melodies, in this case hymn tunes. in ragging well-known melodies, i ves was adopting the conventions of popular ragtime. although the combination of a secular style with a religious melody may have appealed to him philosophically, we need not look to transcendentalism for a musical rationale. a rag arrangement of the hymn tune nettleton appeared in ben harney's ragtime instructor in 1897.11 ives's practice of combining more than one melody in a single piece also had its vernacular parallel. the entertainer's rag by jay roberts (1910) used dixie and yankee doodle in counterpoint.l2 given i ves's practice of liberal quotation, one attraction of ragtime was that it was a style through which preexistent melodies from multiple sources could be assimilated and recomposed. the two scherzo movements in the piano sonata no. i illustrate this point. for convenience we shall refer to them by using the divisions indicated by ives in the manuscript: ria-mm. i-57; rib-"in the inn"; iva-"study in rag"; ivb-mm. 52-158. in ria and rib the hymn tune bringing in the sheaves is dissected motivically, while in ivb the emphasis is on climactic rag arrangements of the melody. with respect to motivic transformations, rag rhythms are used to vary the successive presentations of the opening figure (ex. 2). example 2: opening figure from "bringing in the sheaves" i ii'"' ,. l....::: i 107 it is never literally repeated, and the rhythmic differences between iiam. 15, m. 19, and m. 21 (ex. 3)-are important though small. example 3: piano sonata no.1, mm. 15, 19,21 .. f=r i n-. j • ......i----r. fl , : . i i 'copyright 1954 by peer international corporation. used by permission.' if we compare those measures with later variants-for example, mm. 32 and 34 of iia and m. 42 of iib-it is clear that lves controls the detail by moving toward complexity. similarly in ivb the arrangements of the hymn tune become increasingly elaborate. in the final chorus section the texture is an exciting interplay of cross-rhythms and syncopation (ex. 4). example 4: piano sonata no.1, ive, mm. 128-29 bvg=-=r. lot. 'copyright 1954 by peer international corporation. used by permission.' =--f--despite the comparative textural simplicity of popular ragtime, it was nevertheless the inspiration for complex rhythmic textures. as lves's own comments indicate, he viewed it as a style from which new rhythmic ideas could be abstracted: if one gets the feeling ... of these shifts and lilting accents, it seems to offer other basic things not used now (or used very little) in music of even beats and accents ... at least so it seems to me. is the "basic things" were most likely the polymetric implications suggested through continual syncopation. according to gunther schuller, rag patterns 108 "can definitely be traced to african cross-rhythms ... " and should be heard additively. he interprets the pattern in example 5 as 3 plus 2 plus 3: "this pattern is unmistakably african in origin and approach, splitting the bar metrically rather than accentually."14 example 5: standard ragtime rhythm . l, ;at:; ,:f , rrn jj]] in his instruction book the school oj ragtime, scott joplin recommends the same phrasing for schuller's figure (ex. 6).15 similarly, ives interprets the same figure cross-metrically as 3 plus 3 plus 2 in the second movement of the violin sonata no.3. in mm. 38-39 the accents in the left hand support this division (ex. 7). example 6: scott joplin, school of ragtime, exercise no.4, mm. 1-2 -r,--... -. :i1f .t . ---'----example 7: violin sonata no.3, 2nd mvt., piano part, m. 38 ... ---:::::::: ... 'copyright 1951, merion music inc. used by permission of the publisher.' ives's desire to exploit cross rhythms may also explain the peculiar notation characteristic of this movement. in mm. 66-67, for example, the odd sixteenth-note occurs on the beat, but the notation emphasizes the accompaniment's off-beat accents (ex. 8): 109 example 8: violin sonata no.3, 2nd mvt., piano part, m. 66 'copyright 1951, merion music inc. used by permission of the publisher.' it is possible that this notation relates to a practice described by ben harney: ... real ragtime on the piano played in such a manner that it cannot be put into notes is the contribution of the graduated negro banjoplayer who cannot read music. on the banjo there is a short string that is not fretted and that is consequently played with the thumb .... the colored performer, strumming in his own cajoling way, likes to throw in a note at random, and his thumb ranges over for this effect. when he takes up the piano, the desire for the same effect dominates him ... and he reaches for the open banjo string with his little finger. meanwhile he is keeping mechanically perfect time with the left hand. the hurdle with the right hand finger throws the tune off its stride, resulting in syncopation. he is playing two times at once.l6 the "shifts" by which ives characterized ragtime was another effect he abstracted and exaggerated in the scherzos. the term "shifts" appears not only in the memos but also in the music itself. it occurs in a footnote at the end of lib in the piano sonata no. i: the chorus is an impromptu affair (as is also the rest to some extent)-and may be varied according to the tempo taken. the 2nd and 4th measures of the chorus may be changed each time, as suggested below, and also in the other measures the l.h. may change ten. [uto] "shifts" ad lib .... 17 the music illustrates that "shifts" were the placement of accents on a succession of different beats. to achieve the improvisatory effect the pianist could readjust the rhythmic relationships between notes, relocate the tenuto accents and add extra beats to the measure, thereby altering the meter. the instruction "ad lib.," an integral part of the whole effect, occurs also in the second movement of violin sonata no.3, a rag-derived movement. why did ives describe ragtime as a "series of shifts and lilting accents"? another example from joplin's school of ragtime suggests a possible explanation (ex. 9). according to joplin, the first ragtime effect was the second note, 110 right hand. 18 the syncopation was emphasized by the chord that was repeated on a different beat or subdivision: * * * * +-2-+ 1-+ (* = repeated chord) example 9: scott joplin, school of ragtime, exercise no.5, mm. 1-2 ,.... .,,,," . ,... ... ,.. .;i i .... -1 . r:..l..-t-r two examples from the piano sonata no.1 illustrate this interpretation of "shifts and lilting accents." in the first (ex. 10) the repeated interval c-a culminates in a series of chords that function as the climax of the phrase. if the joplin example is played rapidly and the right-hand chord accented, it suggests the rhythmic quality ives was producing. another more complicated version of this effect is illustrated in example 11. here the left hand has its own counterline, while the right is repeating one chord on different subdivisions of the beat. example 10: piano sonata no.1, 4th mvt., mm. 105-08 ? 'copyright 1954 by peer international corporation. used by permission.' 111 example 11: piano sonata no.1, "in the inn," mm. 70-71. sf a . l"'i. • .i . . " -p.. *+ .... -. . :r. "1\ !:.../ a'copyright 1954 by peer international corporation. used by permission.' thus ives's ragtime carried certain tendencies in popular ragtime to great extremes. passages in his rag idiom could include a multiplicity of syncopated figures in one hand accompanied by cross-metric ostinatos in the other. in addition, repeated chord clusters on a variety of off-beats suggested the improvisatory quality of unpredictable "shifts." if this kind of texture is what i ves heard in ragtime, small wonder that he associated it with music deceptively remote from its popular prototype. he called the new river a "rag" in the memos. similarly, the fourth movement in the piano sonata no. 1 begins with a "study in rag" in which "ragging combinations of fives, twos and sevens are tried out."19 although the "study" opens with changing accents, its relation to popular ragtime is much more tenuous. there are few recognizable rag figures in this experiment in crossrhythms. * * * * * from a historical point of view, ives's use of ragtime illustrates the continuing influence that vernacular music had upon his music as late as 1910. he appropriated a variety of conventions, not just the most obvious novelties. perhaps there are other aspects of ives's style that have been attributed to his transcendentalist disposition or regarded as compositional idiosyncracies which are in fact transplanted, though highly developed, elements from vernacular culture. thus ragtime stimulated ives's own creative impulses toward rhythmic experimentation because he was sensitive to its potential. his music thereby refutes copland's contention that "serious composers became aware of the polyrhythmic nature of afro-american music only in its jazz phases .... "20 long after his own ragtime dances had been composed, ives wrote in tribute that "ragtime may be nature's way of giving art raw material. time will throw its vices away and weld its virtues into the fabric of our music."21 notes 1 henry and sidney cowell, charles ivesandhis music (new york: oxford university press, 1969), p. 167. 2 henry cowell, "charles ives," modern music 10 (1932): 30. 112 3 charles ives, memos, ed. john kirkpatrick (new york: norton, 1972): 56. 4 charles ives, essays before a sonata and other writings, ed. howard boatwright (new york: norton, 1962), p. 94. 5 rudi blesh and harriet janis, they all played ragtime (new york: oak publications, 1966), pp. 128ft. 6 ibid., p. 64. 7 ibid., pp. 119, 328. 8 ibid., pp. 129, 130. 9 ives, memos, pp. 59, 60, 75, 119. 10 samuel charters and leonard kunstadt, jazz: a history of the new york scene (new york: doubleday, 1962), p. 14. 11 blesh and janis, they all played, p. 129. 12 ibid., p. 183. 13 ives, memos, p. 57. 14 gunther schuller, early jazz: its roots and development (new york: oxford university press, 1968), p. 24. 16 blesh and janis, they all played, p. 143. 16 ibid., p. 227. 17 charles ives, piano sonata no.1 (new york: peer international corp., 1954), p. 19. 18 blesh and janis, they all played, pp. 143-44. 19 ives, memos, pp. 60, 57. 20 aaron copland, the new music, 1900-1960, rev. ed. (new york: norton, 1969), p. 66. 21 cowell, charles ives, p. 94. 113 alexander rehding, hugo riemann and the birth of modern musical thought. new york and cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003. reviewed by youn kim for a long time, historical studies of the sciences adopted a perspective vari­ ously known by the names presentist, teleological, essentialist, or whiggish. although these expressions carry slightly different meanings, we may roughly characterize this approach as an attempt to read the past in terms of present concerns; past scientific theories that had proven to be "wrong" and dis­ placed by "right" theories are regarded as inferior fringe elements in the history of modern sciences. this approach is, of course, now passe. most historical studies of the sciences, especially since the publication of thomas kuhn's influential work, are not afraid to explore neglected scientific con­ cepts and theories, and tend to rely heavily on the conceptual and cultural frameworks derived from areas other than science itself. i find it appropriate, therefore, to begin the review of alexander rehding's hugo riemann and the birth of modern musical thought with a discussion of the historiography of science. first, the union of history and science-as well as that of history and music theory-presents some prob­ lems. although it may be naive, it is undeniable that most people still feel odd about the joining of science and history: the former is forward-looking and concerned with nature, whereas the latter is retrospective and deals with humanity. likewise, the conjunction of music theory and history raises some conceptual difficulties. in thomas christensen's words, music theory is a "subject that notoriously resists its own history" (2002: 1 ).1 second, the par­ allelism between science and music theory is significant in studies of late nineteenth-century music theory, particularly in the study of hugo riemann's ideas. given that many of these theories aspired to scientific grounding, we may parallel historical approaches to the music theory of this period with historiographies of science. in attempting to discuss the shift in perspective in the realm of music theory's history, we find riemann's notion of "harmonic dualism" the best case in point. riemann believed that "minor triads are symmetrically opposed to major triads and work upside­ down" (rehding 2003:7), an idea that was quickly discredited by many later­ generation theorists.2 contemporary scholar scott burnham points out that our interest in "constructing the pre-history of today's theory" blinds us to current musicology, no. 76 (fall 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 81 82 current musicology the potential value in examining riemann's ideas. burnham advocates a "shift in emphasis" that would involve treating all theories as systems of thought with their own integrity and as cultural/historical products with their own ways and means ... we thus move away from "why does riemann insist on dualism?" as a rhetorical question along the lines of "why does he continue to bet on a lame horse (when he has stable winners)?" to "why does riemann need dualism?" as a real question with the possibility of a revealing answer. (1993:79) burnham exemplifies the shift in difference from "constructing the pre-his­ tory of today's theory" to "understanding the history of music theory as an intellectual and cultural history" through the questions centering around riemann's harmonic dualism. it is precisely these questions that alexander rehding addresses in hugo riemann and the birth of modern musical thought. it is no wonder that riemann's harmonic dualism comes to the fore when we speak of the changing perspective in music theory history. his . writing shows extraordinary breadth, ranging from theory to analysis, aes­ thetics, history, and, at the end of his career, even ethnomusicology. his life ( 1849-1919) falls squarely within the formative period of musicology, and his scholarly works in these various realms contributed to the formation and development of musicology as a modern academic discipline. riemann's influence is enormous and still continuing. take the field of contemporary harmonic theory, for example. in germany, his theory of harmonic func­ tion is in "common currency" and "in fact replaces the roman-numeral taxonomy common in english-speaking countries" (rehding 2003:7); in north america, riemann's harmonic theory is still evident in a host of theo­ ries labeled "neo-riemannian." these two branches of music theory have different purposes-one pedagogical and the other analytical-but both commonly dismiss the idea of harmonic dualism. theories of harmonic function widely taught in germany are monistic versions, while north american neo-riemannian theory "strips" the concepts of triadic transfor­ mations and common-tone maximizations of their "dualistic residues" (cohn 1998:169).3 it is understandable that riemann's followers detached dualistic thinking from the practical teaching of harmony and the analyti­ cal practice; the idea of harmonic dualism could be a "pedagogical handi­ cap:'4 besides this element of impracticality, however, we may easily arrive at another reason for the total rejection of harmonic dualism: the notion upon which harmonic dualism is based-that is, the concept of under­ tones-could not be proven scientifically and is therefore understood to be youn kim false. rehding not only places this apparently false notion of undertones at the very center of riemann's harmonic theory, but also re-examines the meaning of falseness as such (in chapter 2). the mistaken theory that oth­ ers had treated as a fringe element is here taken as central. in order to assess riemann's theory in its own right, rehding thoroughly investigates the cul­ tural and historical context of modern musicology's formative period, iden­ tifying the rationales and motivations behind riemann's thoughts. his ap­ proach embodies burnham's "shift in emphasis" most brilliantly, and in the most convincing manner, contrasting sharply with the teleological view­ point, that, ironically, is best exemplified in riemann's own historical ac­ count of harmonic theories.5 in addition to placing the notion of undertones at the center of riemann's harmonic theory, rehding takes it as the cornerstone upon which he reconstructs riemann's whole enterprise of musical thought. several cen­ tral concepts in riemann's theory such as undertones, musical hearing, musical logic, cadence, musical syntax, and tonvorstellungen are introduced one by one in each chapter and create a complex conceptual network with the notions to which riemann often appealed, such as nature, history, cog­ nition, practice, and science. in doing so, rehding efficiently retrieves the integrity of riemann's writings ranging over various fields of musicology. the book is composed of an introduction, five chapters, an epilogue, and a valuable glossary containing riemann's key terms as explained in the musik­ lexikon (1900). chapter 1 addresses riemann's experiment to prove the existence of undertones and examines it in the framework of the develop­ ment of nineteenth-century german science. chapter 2 examines two cen­ tral ideas in riemann's harmonic theory, the grid of harmonic relations and harmonic function, using these ideas to shed light on the role of music theory as conceived by riemann. in chapter 3, rehding investigates the no­ tion of cadential order and the "musical logic" residing within it, in con­ junction with the relationship among logic, nature, and history in riemann's thought. chapter 4 looks into "musical syntax" -yet another metaphor that frequently turns up in riemann's writings-and examines the change in riemann's notion oflanguage in the context of german nationalism. chapter 5 centers around three issues that occupied the final period of riemann's career: the compositional process, the notion of tonvorstellungen, and the field of ethnomusicology. in the introduction, rehding identifies two fundamental concepts pre­ siding over riemann's musical thought. one is the notion of "musical hear­ ing"-or, to put it in riemann's own terms, "how do we hear music" (wie 83 84 current musicology horen wir musik?). the other is the concept of harmonic dualism. when we try to reconcile riemann's two basic notions, however, we confront a seri­ ous problem: we do not "hear" the minor triads upside-down. therefore, in addition to being false and impractical, the idea of harmonic dualism ap­ pears to present a serious obstacle for riemann to construct a systematic and coherent all-inclusive musicological enterprise. how then should we understand riemann's consistent claim about these two seemingly incompatible notions? rehding finds the key to resolving this apparent contradiction between riemann's two central notions by re­ interpreting the question "how do we hear music?" it is, according to him, not so much about "how we do actually hear music;' but rather, "how we ought to hear music." the famous break between riemann and max reger that is recounted at the end of the introduction gets to the heart of the matter: for riemann, music theory carries the responsibility to explain what we ought to hear, and musical compositions and practice should conform to what music theory prescribes. consequently, compositions should com­ ply with harmonic dualism, one of the ways in which we ought to hear mu­ sic. chapter 1 begins with yet another anecdote: on a night in 1875, ri­ emann experimented with his grand piano and claimed to hear the under­ tone series (untertonreihe), proving that the undertone series, like the over­ tone series (obertonreihe) , was a real acoustic phenomenon. situated in the proper context, this story gives us significant clues as to riemann's motiva­ tion. rehding describes the prestige enjoyed by nineteenth -century science, explaining how theorists such as arthur von oettingen and moritz hauptmann attempted to capture some of this prestige for music. by estab­ lishing harmonic dualism's intellectual and cultural context, rehding brings new light to the definition of harmonic dualism itself, which has not always been clear-cut. in addition to defining the "aesthetic postulate" and "levels of methodology;' rehding claims that a dimension of "historical argument" should be considered in the definition of harmonic dualism. taking all three dimensions into account, harmonic dualism is redefined as "the attempt to declare the major and minor modes as natural, in conflict with the scientifi­ cally accepted concept of nature at the time" (31). once rehding has established the definition of harmonic dualism, he poses the central question of the chapter: "why did harmonic dualism go out of fashion in the early twentieth century and become considered wrong?" (31). rehding locates the reason for this in an uneven "paradigm shift": "while musicology, or rather its epistemological aspect, has moved away from a paradigm based on acoustical science, the acquisition of knowledge in most other areas has remained firmly anchored in an unwavering faith in youn kim science" (32). this "double-layered" epistemology is best reflected in our assessment of harmonic dualism. current tonal theory does not value acous­ tical data as such; in contradiction to this epistemological move away from acoustical science, we are dismissing the notion of dualism for the very rea­ son that acoustics does not confirm it. in other words, the wrongness of harmonic dualism is not inherent in the theory itself, but a consequence caused by the paradigm shift. just as chapter 1 re-examines the "wrongness" of harmonic dualism, chapter 2 challenges us to rethink the role of music analysis and theory as a whole. the brilliantly chosen illustration opening this chapter is riemann's analysis of the waldstein sonata, which appeared in his l. van beethoven's siimtliche klavier -solosonaten (1919). rather than speaking in terms of fail­ ure, rehding writes that "riemann chose not to make this symmetrical po­ tential [of harmonic dualism] into a feature of his analysis" (37; emphasis added). the chromatically descending bass, the foremost characteristic of the passage, was not featured in riemann's analysis. from this observation, rehding surmises that riemann intentionally underplayed the particular­ ity of this passage and highlighted its general form and ordinariness in­ stead. such an approach clashes with a commonly-held view in the field today that evaluates the success of a music theory"if it can tell us something about musical practice, or a musical composition, that in turn enhances the lis­ tening experience" -what rehding calls the instrumentalist approach to analysis (36). seen from this perspective, riemann's analysis seems procrustean: instead of enhancing the distinctive features of the passage, he tries to fit the passage into the normative mold that his theory prescribes (eight-measure period). once we explore another angle, however, we begin to see that the purpose of riemann's analysis was to make the passage ordi­ nary. after the microscopic discussion of a passage from the waldstein so­ nata, the author takes a step back and discusses essays by carl weitzmann and franz peter graf laurencin, authors of the two winning entries of an 1859 competition sponsored by the neuezeitschriftfur musik.an examina­ tion of these articles helps untangle the relationship between nineteenth­ century music theory and the very notion of "modernity" in music. in mu­ sical discourse, the term "modernity" tends to maintain its historical origin in the view of progressive music history held by many nineteenth-century composers, notably by wagner. as leon botstein explains, "the art of mu­ sic was perceived to need to anticipate and ultimately to reflect the logic of history."6 such nineteenth-century composers considered themselves to be at the forefront of history, and relied on music theory to legitimize their 85 86 current musicology progressiveness. music theory, rehding concludes, was "one of the institu­ tions on which the modernity of music rests" (43). in this vein, riemann's entire theoretical enterprise can be seen com­ pletelydifferently. the two pillars of riemann's harmonic theory-the grid of harmonic relations and theory of harmonic functions-are interpreted by the author in the following manner: the grid is a demonstration of full harmonic potential (based on riemann's aspiration for a scientifically-true music theory), while the concept of harmonic function delimits how far one may move within a key. according to rehding's reading, riemann de­ mands that music theory deal with not only what is possible but also, and more significantly, what is permissible. musical compositions with which riemann did not engage, such as wagner's tristan, were considered to have gone too far beyond these permissible boundaries. the spatial image of the grid as the "maze of possible harmonic succes­ sions" and harmonic function as the "delimiting signpost" (61) is more than a mere metaphoric image: it not only continually emerges throughout the rest of the chapters, but also is a significant key to solving the initial ques­ tion concerning the conception of harmonic dualism. it is also interesting to note that the central concept to be examined in the next chapter is "mu­ sicallogic:' the notion is often referred to as the roter faden (literally, "red thread") of riemann's work, which alludes to an orientation device used in weaving textiles. a parallel can thus be drawn between riemann's harmonic function as a signpost and musical logic as a red thread, both functioning as an orientation device.? chapter 3 investigates the notion of "musical logic;' which riemann thought resided in the ideal model of cadential succession. what is denoted by the phrase "musical logic" varies, however, as his theory of harmony de­ veloped across the course of his life. among these various meanings of mu­ sicallogic, that which appears in riemann's systematische modulationslehre (1877) receives particular attention here since it was in this treatise that harmonic function and metric weights were combined together to form an ideal cadential order. the actual chord progression is compared against this "a priori model;' and the harmonic function of individual chords is thus determined. besides this, riemann rationalizes the cadentiallogic in terms of the acoustical principle: the model cadence in major (t -s-d-t) rests on the overtone series whereas the "pure minor" cadence (t -s-d-t) rests on the undertone series. the discussion of cadential order raises the epistemo­ logical problem of undertones discussed in chapter 1 and in so doing, al­ lows us to see the point of contact where the notions of nature, history, and logic meet with another. rehding writes: youn kim nature is that which is constant throughout history and which provides the unchanging rules for musical logic; history gradually reveals the na­ ture of harmony in musical compositions and perpetuates the truth about musical logic; and logic itself, finally, can be traced in "classical" pieces of music and is the living proof that reason manifests itself through nature and history. (99) in addition to identifying the three authorities to which riemann fre­ quently appealed and establishing an intimate relationship among them, rehding unearths the element commonly found at these three poles: the notion of "as-if;' an idea associated with nineteenth-century german phi­ losopher hans vaihinger. according to vaihinger, we never fully know the reality of the world: we construct systems of thought and equate this fiction with the real. (scientific theories are one example of the fictional instru­ ments we use to comprehend the real.) riemann's notion of the undertone series best exemplifies vaihinger's notion of "fiction"; after all, the very ex­ istence of undertones is motivated by their explanatory power. cadential models can be viewed in a similar vein. riemann presents the cadential or­ der "as-if" they were the normative prototypes and in doing so, presents the reader with the "chief paths" through the area of harmony, with which "ev­ erybody may find new side paths for himself" (105). the spatial image of maze and guiding signpost is resurfaced here once again. chapter 4, "musical syntax, nationhood and universality:' explores an­ other metaphor that is frequently encountered in riemann's writings. the notion of "musical syntax" is the point of intersection where the seemingly contradictory ideas of "nationhood" and "universality" meet. riemann con­ tinually modified the idea of musical syntax throughout his life. rehding traces the conceptual change against the background of the newly estab­ lished discipline of comparative linguistics, and the cultural context of ger­ man nationalism in the 1890s. in a similar vein to the comparative linguists' theory of a universal grammar, riemann posited the diatonic scale as the "basic form of all music" and a consequence of the natural kliinge (121). for riemann, every nation is endowed with the same potential to develop the diatonic scale out of natural, universal triads; some nations are capable of doing so to the fullest extent, whereas others are not. in the 1890s, riemann's argument took a nationalist tone; he attributed the origins of harmonic music to the germanic people, and claimed to have restored music-theoretical hegemony to modern germany. he championed johann stamitz as the precursor to the viennese school while marginalizing austrian composers mozart and haydn. in order to examine riemann's notion of musical language against this nationalist tendency, rehding com­ pares two musical analyses by riemann: the analysis of liszt's faust sym87 88 current musicology phony and that of berlioz's overture to benvenuto cellini. in the former, riemann reduces the "deliberately labyrinthine" passage to an example of an "open-ended minor cadence," whereas in the latter he intentionally em­ ployed the function labels in order to demonstrate that berlioz-the "french influence" -was endangering german music by deviating from a prescribed path of harmonic succession for the sake of leitmotivic effects (150-53). like language, music was considered a marker of national identity, and for riemann, the identity of german musical language was something that had to be guarded and regenerated. in chapter 5, rehding examines three at first seemingly unrelated is­ sues: 1) riemann's infamous "meddling" with scores (as illustrated by his rebarring of beethoven's piano sonata); 2) his psychological theory repre­ sented by the notion of tonvorstellungen; and finally 3) his ethnomusicological concerns. these three apparently discrete topics occu­ pied riemann in the later part of his life; through a thorough examination of all three, rehding illuminates how these were intertwined. riemann (i.e., the later riemann) presupposed a process of musical communication as follows: music originates in the composer's mind; this music of the mind is transformed into sounding music, either through no­ tation and performance or through improvisation. the sounding music is in turn re-transformed into music in the listener's mind. to put it in riemann's own words, "the alpha and omega" of music is not found in the actual sounding music but, rather, exists in the image of tonal relationships (vorstellung der tonverhaltnisse) that lives in the creative artist's imagination before it is written down in notes and reemerges in the listener's imagination. (ri­ emann 1992:82)8 in this scheme, the score is regarded as a mere transmitter; such a disrespect of notation is indicative of a strong emphasis riemann placed on the men­ tal representation of music-that is, the tonvorstellungen. it appears that this psychological turn also brought changes in riemann's formerly nationalistic tone examined in the previous chapter. his "neue beitrage zu einer lehre von den tonvorstellungen" ("new contributions to the theory of tonvorstellungen," 1917) contains discussions of slavic folksongs that demonstrate how intimately related psychological and ethnomusicological concerns were for the later riemann. in leaving the physical realm and stepping into the domain of mental representation, ri­ emann seemed to take musical logic for something that "can be subject to historical or ethnic contingencies" (rehding 2003: 169). these interests in non-western music may be construed as a complete rejection of the faith in youn kim the transcendental nature of triadic hearing and his formerly eurocentric view. rehding challenges this reading of riemann. in these studies of non­ western music, rehding argues, riemann adopted the melodic-scalar ap­ proach, instead of the harmonic-triadic one. this does not point to cultural relativism but, rather, indicates that his old contention of the primacy of major thirds is still at work: seen from riemann's evolutionary historical viewpoint, non-western music-devoid of the major third as the "wheel of progress" -was imperfect. here we find ourselves back to the topic that initiated the entire discus­ sion: harmonic dualism. rehding integrates the seemingly fluctuating and inconsistent musical thoughts of riemann: it would seem, then, that very little actually changed from the beginning ... harmonic dualism, which failed to find its place in the consciousness of contemporary composers, lived on in the purer realm, detached from the european mainstream. there it remained a keepsake of a utopia of mu­ sic ... while riemann had realized that harmonic dualism was a hindrance to the functioning of his system of harmony, the idea could live on in his tonal imagination. (176) the last part of the chapter deals with riemann's contribution to com­ parative musicology, a subject that remains contentious today. highlight­ ing the tension between riemann and his contemporaries karl stumpf and eric von hornbostel, rehding notes that riemann actually believed in the adequacy of notation against the epistemological claim of the phonograph, the newly introduced tool of comparative musicology. we can draw an­ other parallelism here with the history and philosophy of science: a scien­ tific instrument (the phonograph in this case) is not just a mere aiding de­ vice but expresses the way we conceive the object of our study. riemann was against the "direct sonic imprints" the phonograph provided: despite his apparent disrespect for the score examined at the beginning of this chapter, he believed "that the constraints of notation, the regulatory framework it provided, were fully adequate in conveying the necessary element of music" (179). given that riemann continually attempted to improve notational meth­ ods instead of completely abandoning them, such an interpretation is more convincing. rehding seems to find riemann's belief in the adequacy of no­ tation contradictory to riemann's notion of tonvorstellungen and the ad­ vent of phonograph recordings. yet a closer examination of riemann's ideas suggests that rehding missed an opportunity to reconcile these two seem­ ingly contradictory developments. riemann defines tonvorstellungen as mental images which obtain "all the attributes of actually sounding music ... 89 90 current musicology including the most subtle distinctions of timbre and also the strongest dy­ namic effects" (riemann 1992:83). nonetheless, this does not mean that tonvorstellungen are direct sonic impressions: on the contrary, they are char­ acterized by the involvement of constructive activity of the mind itself, rather than a mere passive reception of external events (i.e., helmholtz's notion of tonempfindungen). provided that the score-unlike the phonograph, which presents us with immediate sonic images-necessarily posits a mental ac­ tivity to transform the written music into the music of mind, riemann's acceptance of the score as the proper conveyer of musical thought is per­ fectly in line with his psychological notion of tonvorstellungen. the book's epilogue begins with an analysis of nietzsche's remarks on riemann. in riemann's "obsession with detail" and his "attempt to pin music down to the last facet," nietzsche saw the indication of "decadence;' against which riemann persistently battled (rehding 2003:185). in a sense, nietzsche's observation points to the fact that riemann's entire system of musical thought was at the sunset of the culture of decadence, and at the dawn of modern thought. the nietzsche-riemann relationship is also related to the analogy of archi­ tectural and musical forms to which riemann often referred. riemann fre­ quently appealed to nietzsche's authority in order to support his claim for the significance of motives, the smallest building block of musical struc­ ture, and nietzsche, who was trained in classical philology, in turn gave approbation to riemann's theory of phrase structure.9 in both the intro­ duction and epilogue, rehding cites and compares two passages in which riemann speaks of an analogy between architectural and musical forms, one excerpt from wie horen wir musik? (an aesthetic treatise) and the other from systematische modulationslehre (a composition treatise). rehding uses this analogy to reconstruct riemann's system of musical thought: just as musical hearing begins with the smallest unit, the whole edifice of riemann's musical thought is based upon the "small hypothesis of the undertones"­ the scientific fiction of harmonic dualism. the seemingly independent and even incongruent parts of this edifice are joined together around the com­ mon foundation of harmonic dualism. in other words, rehding takes the spatial metaphor which riemann used to conceptualize musical hearing and applies it to reconstruct riemann's whole enterprise of musical thought. similar statements are also found in riemann's essay "symmetrie oder parallelism us?": in the case of music hearing we are actually dealing with an accumulation (ansammeln). for the musician, listening to a piece of music is by no means youn kim only something temporally flowing, which is over once the final cadence arrives; rather, if he has listened correctly, it is a finished whole within a kind of spatial existence that stands before his soul at the end. everybody uses the metaphor of construction of a musical piece, speaks of the piling up of motives, etc., and in so doing sets up no mere futile comparison. rather, the motives grasped by the skilled listener are building blocks, nay: the smallest self-enclosed units of the art work, which he does not stack up in his memory one behind another, rather, which after he has understood them as they flow by temporarily, he collates one to another. he actually constructs as a whole from these parts first a number of smaller wholes (thematic patterns), which are collated with one another yet again and that which has come into being temporally finally stands as an actual spatial thing, for which the use of the term symmetry appears not inap­ propriate. (riemann 1900:149-50)10 i quote this passage at length since it contains an expression that does not feature in either of the excerpts in rehding's book. here riemann under­ scores the phrase "accumulation" (ansammeln) to describe the course of musical hearing. the spatial metaphor and the expression of accumulation, which characterize riemann's way of conceptualizing musical hearing, also captures the way in which rehding develops his arguments throughout the book. while beginning with the discussion of the undertones and ending with that of his theory of tonvorstellungen, rehding's book follows the chro­ nological development of riemann's theory, but only at the surface. from the undertones, to harmonic function, grid of relationships, harmonic logic, harmonic syntax, exotic music, and tonvorstellungen, the themes of each chapter are accumulated to form a complicated but coherent network of various concepts, a reconstruction of riemann's thoughts that is completed at the end. it is a clever choice to reproduce an image of cologne cathedral on the front jacket of the book: this image is suggestive of how riemann conceptualized musical hearing, how the entire system of riemann's thought may be conceived, and finally, the way in which rehding advances his argu­ ment. i believe such a shaping of the book into an architectural form en­ abled the integration of riemann's ideas on diverse areas more effectively. late nineteenth-century music theories are generally characterized by their aspiration to be "scientific:' it should be noted here, however, that the notion of "scientific" was not solid in itself at that time. the case that best exemplifies the fluctuating notion of "scientific" is the field of psychology, which had just been established as an independent discipline. referring to a passage from "natur der harmonik" (1882), rehding writes that riemann considered psychology a "hard science" (89). this statement could be mis­ leading, for riemann's conception of psychology varies. in grundriss der musikwissenschajt, riemann writes: 91 92 current musicology [musikwissenschaft] is thus rooted in the exact sciences, [such as] math­ ematics and mechanics, on one hand, and also in the purely human sci­ ences of philosophy, logic, and aesthetics, on the other; physiology and psychology must constitute the bridge connecting these extremes. (ri­ emann 1908:9)11 then again, in his 1916 essay, riemann seems to draw his psychological theory of tonvorstellungen closer to the "purely human sciences": the present work is intended to point out a new direction that differs from those previously known and available, less in its ancillary doctrines than its total aim, its point of departure and final goal. one would be inclined, not without justification, to assign this direction to the literature of musical aesthetics. however, its strong contact with the musical prac­ tice of composition as well as performance (reproduction) classifies it as music theory in the narrower sense-indeed, as a new branch of the specu­ lative theory of music, which one also calls philosophy of music. (riemann 1992:92) it should also be noted that riemann's explanations of the undertone series were in constant flux as well. rehding, of course, notes the change from something perceptible (as in riemann's experiment with his grand piano in 1875) to something inaudible due to the interferences of sound waves (as in handbuch der akustik, 1891). it is noteworthy that two years prior to the moonshine experiment, riemann attributed a physiological explanation to the inaudibility of the undertones: "i therefore claim that the fibers on the basilar membrane corresponding to the undertones of a given tone resonate [only 1 partly and hence we obtain the vorstellungen of undertones [ only 1 implicitly" (riemann 1873: 12) y as rehding rightly notes, riemann disavowed the physical existence of the undertones in his essay "das problem des harmonischen dualismus" (1905), but did not completely abandon the dualistic idea. here the notion of the undertone series (untertonreihe) are re-conceptualized into the underseries (unterreihe: the simple ratios in the increase of wave-length), whereas the overtone series (obertonreihe) becomes the overseries (oberreihe: the simple ratios in the increase in frequency). an examination of the constant changes in riemann's conception of psychology and his grounding of the undertones points toward the now widely recognized dictum of the history of science: that we should be care­ ful not to assess past theories by the present standard. rehding's examina­ tion of the undertone series in light of vaihinger's philosophy and nine­ teenth-century polemics surrounding the existence of the atom allow us to view the meaning of "being scientific" in a completely new light. the noyoun kim tion of tonvorstellungen can be regarded similarly: after all, the psychologi­ cal concept of vorstellungen, the "psychic atoms;' was treated analogously to the way "fictional" concepts in science were considered. 13 just as in physics, psychology could profit from postulating a set of fictional concepts that give rise to laws, as long as these laws could be made to conform to actual psychic phenomena. riemann's incomplete theory of tonvorstellungen was scientific in this sense. rehding's work is distinct from other recent publications such as arntz (1999), which presents a detailed biography of riemann based upon exten­ sive archival works, and bohme-mehner and mehner (2001), which is an anthology of articles. instead of tracing the change in riemann's thought chronologically or presenting us with a collection of articles that focuses on a specific issue, rehding integrates the parts of riemann's musical thought, which otherwise appear to be distant from each other either chronologi­ cally or conceptually, into a coherent configuration. this book is not only informative and insightful, but also very absorbing: it constantly challenges the reader's preconceptions and provides a new perspective from which the object of study can be seen differently. this book would be equally profit­ able to music theorists interested in riemann's theory and music historians studying turn-of-the-century musical culture, for it sets up a brilliant ex­ emplary case showing how we ought to understand past music theory. notes 1. christensen expounds the statements carl dahlhaus made in his works on the history of music theory; see dahlhaus (1984; 1985). 2. the term harmonic dualism, which is loosely defined here, is further elaborated in a multi­ dimensional analysis in chapter 1. 3. this is, of course, not to say that the notion of harmonic dualism was completely set aside. some recent studies such as harrison (1994) adopt the idea of harmonic dualism and ex­ pound a "renewed dualist theory" although they tend not to consent to it in entirety. 4. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "grabner, hermann" (by hanspeter krellmann and daniel harrison). 5. burnham (1992) discusses the historiography and underlying motivations of riemann's geschichte der musiktheorie. 6. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "modernism" (by leon botstein). blasius (2001) investigates the relationship between riemann's music theoretical system and wagner's endeavors to create a gesamtkunstwerk, taking nietzsche's philosophy as the central axis. 7. for a detailed study of the expression "red thread;' see grey (1996). 8. riemann's two articles, "ideen zu einer 'lehre von den tonvorstellungen" and "neue beitrage zu einer lehre von den tonvorstellungen" were written for the journal jahrbuch der 93 94 current musicology musikbibliothek peters fur 1914/15 and 1916, respectively. the publications of these two vol­ umes were postponed until 1916 and 1917 due to the war. for his 1916 article, marvin and wason's translation (1992) is used and the page number of the english translation are given; other excerpts from riemann's writings are my translations and the page numbers of the original german are given. 9. for riemann's reference to nietzsche, see riemann (1918:32; 1903:viii). 10. " ... dass es sich bei musikhoren thatsachlich urn ein ansammeln handelt. fur den musiker ist das anhoren eines musikwerkes durchaus nicht nur etwas zeitlich verlaufendes, was, wenn der schluss gekommen, voruber ist; hat er recht gehort, so steht vielmehr am schluss ein fertiges ganzes in einer art raurnlicher existenz vor seiner seele ... vielmehr sind die von einem fahigen horer aufgefassten motive bausteine, nein; in sich abgeschlossene kleinste glieder des kunstwerks, die er nicht in seinem gedachtnis hinter einander ablagert, sondern die er, nachdem sie zeitlich verlaufend ihm verstandlich geworden, einander gegenuberstellt. er baut aus diesen teilen wirklich ein ganzes, zunachst eine anzahl kleinerer ganzen (thematische gebilde), welche wiederum einander gegenuber gestellt bleiben, und das zeitlich gewordene steht am ende als ein wirklich raurnliches, fur welches die anwendung des ausdrucks symmetrie mir in keiner weise bedenklich erscheint" (riemann 1900: 14950). 11. "sie steht daher einerseit auf dem boden der exakten wissenschaften, der mathematik und mechanik, andererseits aber auch auf dem der reinen geisteswissenschaften, der philosophie, logik und asthetik, und die die extreme verbindende brucke haben die physiologie und die psychologie zu schlagen" (riemann 1908:9). 12. "ich behaupte daher: die den untertonen eines angegebenen tones entsprechenden fasern der membrana basilaris schwingen partiell mit und wir haben adaher die vorstellungen der untertone implicite" (riemann 1873:12). l3. a nineteenth-century german philosopher johann friedrich herbart proposed a psy­ chological program that came to be known as the "psychology of vorstellungen;' in which vorstellungen was regarded as the psychological elements that constitutes the human psyche. the term "psychic atom" is borrowed from wolman (1968). references arntz, michael. 1999. hugo riemann (1849-1919); leben, werk und wirkung. cologne: con­ certo verlag. blasius, leslie david. 2001. nietzsche, riemann, wagner: when music lies. in music theory and natural order, edited by suzzanah clark and alexander rehding, 93-107. cam­ bridge: cambridge university press. bohme-mehner, tatjana, and klaus mehner, eds. 2001. hugo riemann (1849-1919); musikwissenschaftler mit universalanspruch. cologne: bohlau verlag. burnham, scott. 1992. method and motivation in hugo riemann's history of harmonic theory. music theory spectrum 14 (1): 1-14. ----. 1993. intellectual values: interpreting the history of tonal theory. current musi­ cology 53: 76-88. christensen, thomas. 2002. introduction. in cambridge history of western music theory, edited by thomas christensen, 1-23. cambridge: university of cambridge press. cohn, richard. 1998. introduction to neo-riemanninan theory: a survey and a historical perspective. journal of music theory 42 (2): 167-93. dahlhaus, carl. 1984. die musiktheorie im 18. und 19. jahrhundert. darmstadt: youn kim wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft. ---. 1985. was heisst "geschichte der musiktheorie?" in ideen zu einer geschichte der musiktheorie, edited by frieder zaminer, 8-39. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgessellschaft. grey, thomas. 1996 .... wie ein rother faden: on the origins of 'leitmotif' as critical con­ struct and musical practice. in music theory in the age of romanticism, edited by ian bent, 187-210. cambridge: cambridge university press. harrison, daniel. 1994. harmonic function in chromatic music: a renewed dualist theory and an account of its precedents. chicago: university of chicago press. riemann, hugo. 1873. ueber das musikalische horen. phd. diss., university of gottingen. ----.1898. geschichte der musiktheorie im ix. -xix. jahrhundert. leipzig: max hesse. ----. 1900. symmetrie oder parallelismus? max hesse's deutscher musiker-kalender 15: 145-51. ----. 1903. system der musikalischen rhythmik und metrik. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. ----.1905. das problem des harmonischen dualismus. neue zeitschrift fur musik 72 (1-4): 3-5, 23-26, 43-46, 67-70. ----. 1908. grundriss der musikwissenschaft. leipzig: queue & meyer. ----. 1917. neue beitrage zu einer lehre von den tonvorsteuungen. jahrbuch der musikbibliothek peters fur 1916 23: 1-21. ----. 1918. die phrasierung im lichte einer lehre von den tonvorstellungen. zeitschrift fur musikwissenschaft 10): 26-39. ----. 1992. riemann's "ideen zu einer 'lehre von den tonvorstellungen''': an anno­ tated translation. translated by robert wason and elizabeth west marvin. journal of music theory 36 0): 69-117. seidel, elmar. 1966. die harmonielehre hugo riemanns. beitrage zur musiktheorie des 19. jahrhunderts, edited by matin vorgel, 39-92. regensburg: gustav bosse verlag. wolman, benjamin b. 1968. the historical role johann friedrich herbart. in historical roots of contemporary psychology, edited by benjamin b. wolman, 29-46. new york: harper & row. 95 beyond the beethoven model: sentence types and limits matthew baileyshea it is quite likely that no other form in the history of western music theory has been so strongly associated with a single musical example as the sen­ tence. most forms are not defined by a single locus classicus-no one piece serves as the ultimate paradigm of sonata form, no single phrase represents the virtual embodiment of the period. when it comes to the sentence, how­ ever, one example is consistently privileged above all others: beethoven's piano sonata in f minor, op. 2, no.!, first movement, bars 1-8 (ex. i). the most obvious reason that this example is so favored is that arnold schoenberg himself used it as the primary exemplar of the form.! (schoenberg, of course, "discovered" the sentence.) since then, nearly every theorist who has written about the sentence has mentioned the beethoven theme as a model example.2 it would be inaccurate, however, to assume that theorists continue to emphasize this example simply because schoenberg used it first. after all, the theme does provide an excellent example of many standard sentence features. bars 1-4 contain a common tonic-dominant alternation-what william caplin refers to as "statement-response repeti­ tion" (1998:37-39). the continuation includes typical features such as motivic fragmentation and acceleration of harmonic rhythm, and the sen­ tence concludes with a conventional half-cadence. the overall metric group­ ing, moreover, is the usual 2+2+4, and the continuation contains a typical embedded grouping of 1 + 1 + 2. yet when we consider how theorists have written about this theme, it becomes clear that the example is not privileged because of these generic qualities alone. indeed, quite paradoxically, the beethoven theme has come to represent an "ideal type" not because of the qualities that make it generic, but because of the qualities that make it unique. in all of the major sources of sentence theory-schoenberg's fundamentals of musical composition (1967), erwin ratz's einfuhrung in die musikalische formenlehre ([1951] 1968), and caplin's classical form (l998)-the sentence is ultimately de­ fined in contrast to the period; thus, the "forward-striving" aspects of the form are often accentuated in opposition to the more balanced form of the period. this is especially clear in ratz's description of the form: in the case of the period we have a symmetrical structure that has a cer­ tain "repose in itself" due to the balance of its halves, which are more or current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 5 6 current musicology example 1. beethoven, piano sonata in f minor, op. 2, no. 1, first mvrnt., mm. 1-8. piano pno. basic idea repetition ii ~. .. • • f'-. ~ .... u ~ 3 3 aa-a.. .. .... : continuation hc , :s; , ~. .. f'-. ~ .... f'-~ .. m 1':'\ 3 3' ..-aq, " ~ , ~i':'\ less equal ... the eight-measure sentence, however, contains a certain forward-striving character due to the increased activity and compression in its continuation phrase [mm. 5-8] making it fundamentally different in construction from the symmetrical organization of the period. (quoted in caplin 1994:152) beethoven's theme from op. 2, no. 1 is structured in a way that conveys this "forward-striving character" perhaps more clearly-or at least more eco­ nomically-than any other example. edward cone's discussion of the theme from 1968 is representative. he writes that: the entire phrase of eight measures naturally divides into 2 + 2 +4. an ex­ amination of the motivic structure of the second half finds a reduced pat­ tern of 1 + 1 +2 ... a linear analysis of the ascending melody supports this motivic division, for it can be heard thus: two measures of f, two mea­ sures of g, one of aj" one of b~, and two of an extended c. but now a look at the bass discovers, beginning in the fifth measure, an exact diminution of this accent! the result is that the harmony shows a steady increase in speed until the cadential measure. thus these eight measures, which su­ perficially fall into the conventional sentence-pattern, are actually bound together in a tightly unified progression. (1968:75-76) notably, cone regards the sentence structure as essentially trivial; for him, the phrase's unique and unified sense of acceleration is far more sigmatthew baileyshea nificant. ratz emphasizes this sense of directed motion even more strongly by analyzing the final measure as two separate harmonies. he thus hears the theme as a consistent acceleration of harmonic rhythm, which regularly doubles in speed from the beginning of the theme to the end: 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + v2 + ia + ia (1968:23). both of these analyses overlook the halting collapse of the theme after the melodic climax on the downbeat of m. 7, a gesture that reigns in the theme's initial forward motion, despite the continued acceleration of har­ monic rhythm. what is significant, however, is that in both cases the sen­ tence is associated with rhetoric of acceleration, goal-directedness, and for­ ward drive. in that sense, the theme from op. 2, no. 1 has come to represent an ideal example not simply because it corresponds to a generic formal plan, but also because it conveys a strong sense of forward propulsion that sharply contrasts with the more balanced form of the period. small wonder, then, that theorists such as caplin continue to present this theme as "perhaps the most archetypal manifestation of the sentence form in the entire classical repertory" (1998:9). i suspect, however, there is another reason why the beethoven theme has been so strongly privileged, a reason that has less to do with the actual theme itself than it does with the concept of the sentence in general. unlike the period, the sentence is an extraordinarily malleable form; its very nature defies strict definition.3 few themes are designed with the tightness of the beethoven model, but there are countless passages that fall under the gen­ eral umbrella term "sentential:'4 this, perhaps, accounts for the belatedness of the concept. whereas the period was recognized as a conventional form at least as early as a. b. marx, the sentence was not defined as a distinct "theme type" until the early twentieth century, and did not enjoy wide­ spread recognition in north american theory until quite recently.5 one pos­ sible reason for this is that the sentence has only two essential elements: the short/ short/long proportion and an ordered sequence of formal functions­ presentation, continuation, and cadential.6 yet these two elements appear in so many different guises that it is often difficult to recognize them as related to a single formal type. indeed, the sentence is so "loose" by its very nature that it practically demands a single, clear locus classicus to ground what is, in practice, an extraordinarily elusive concept. the beethoven model provides such an anchor and offers a distinct pedagogical value: it reduces a highly variable form to a single ideal type. it thereby simplifies our under­ standing of the form by providing a template for compositional modeling and analytical observation. what i argue, however, is that such a strategy ultimately masks signifi­ cant complications in defining the form. it also limits the range with which 7 8 current musicology the form can be effectively utilized as an analytical tool. by defining the sentence in terms of a single, tightly-knit model, and associating it with an explicit forward-striving "beethoven rhetoric," especially in contrast to the period, theorists have oversimplified some crucial aspects of sentence struc­ ture. in particular, there are a number of distinct subtypes that need to be brought out from under the shadow of the beethoven model; this is the first step in recognizing the extraordinary potential of the sentence as a tool for musical analysis. i argue that sentences are best defined not against a single abstract ideal, but as manifestations of a common compositional impulse, one shared-perhaps unconsciously-by countless composers from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. though some manifestations of this impulse are quite idiosyncratic, others recur with enough frequency to be labeled as distinct types within the larger, fuzzy category of the sentence. the following section introduces some of these types. the final section of the paper then addresses questions concerning sentence limits and "failed" forms. sentence types and the problem of normative continuation most debates about musical form boil down to a single question: what is normative and what is not? indeed, the greatest challenge in the identifica­ tion of a new formal type is to define the terms of normativity. what usu­ ally happens? what do we expect to happen? when it comes to the sentence, the challenge of defining normativity is most acute when dealing with the concept of continuation. from a hyper-rhythmic point of view, the sentence is best represented as a three-part gesture: short/short/long.? yet when considered from the perspective of caplin's formal functions, it makes more sense to define it in two distinct parts: a "presentation phrase" and "continuation phrase."s the first part, the presentation phrase, is defined by repetition; without the rep­ etition of a basic idea, there can be no sentence. the second part, the con­ tinuation phrase, is less clearly defined. it is perhaps best understood in terms of a "drive toward cadence," but such directed motion may be achieved by a variety of means. for the purposes of this paper, i will take the presentation phrase for granted. i will assume that all sentences begin with the statement of a short, basic idea (usually one to four measures) followed by one of three possible repetitions: exact (sometimes with slight variation), sequential (with the entire basic idea transposed to a new scale degree), or statement-response (according to some type of tonic-dominant alternation). these terms cor­ respond, in general, to caplin's definition in classical form. my only dismatthew baileyshea agreement with caplin's terminology is that he restricts the possibilities of a presentation phrase by arguing that it must prolong a given tonic. this approach works to a certain extent within the context of classical themes­ caplin's approach accounts specifically for the instrumental music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven-but it does not reflect the widespread use of the sentence in late nineteenthand early twentieth-century music. to put it simply, the sentence, as it developed in the baroque and classical periods, was strongly tied to specific tonal dynamics, often with distinct schenkerian implications. but tonality is not a necessary aspect of the form. indeed, it is not hard to imagine a short/short/long proportion in which an idea is pre­ sented, repeated, and dissolved into continuation without any trace of com­ mon practice tonality (the opening eight-bar theme of the "cradle song" from berg's wozzeck is a good example).9 nevertheless, though the presen­ tation phrase can be somewhat problematic, it is the continuation that de­ serves the most attention. in a recent review of caplin's book, joel galand assesses some prob­ lems associated with continuation. in particular, he cites the important dis­ tinction between the development and "mere continuation" of a basic idea (1999:154-56). neither schoenberg nor ratz spoke of the presentation and continuation phrases of the sentence (these terms were first adopted by caplin); rather, they spoke of the beginning of the sentence-the statement and repetition of an idea-and its subsequent development or liquidation. not all sentences, however, feature a thematic development, and many in­ troduce new material in their second half (usually mm. 5-8). as galand points out, this reflects the opposition between entwicklung and fortspinnung found in hans mersmann's formal theory, a distinction that galand relates to the difference between motivic development and simple continuation. in galand's opinion, caplin solves this problem by defining the continua­ tion phrase of a sentence according to four different features that mayor may not appear in any given continuation: motivic fragmentation, accel­ eration of harmonic change, increased rhythmic activity, and sequence. thus, a continuation can introduce new material, without motivic devel­ opment of the basic idea, but still convey continuation function through other processes, such as acceleration of harmonic change or sequence. for that reason, caplin identifies the mozart passage in example 2 as a sentence. although it lacks a traditional "liquidation" of the basic idea, caplin writes, "a sense of continuation function is nonetheless projected by the slight in­ crease in harmonic and surface rhythmic activity" (1998:45-47).10 another problem that caplin addresses is the potential size of a con­ tinuation. how long can a continuation be extended before it is no longer a continuation? to what degree can it be cut short? is there a normative length 9 10 current musicology example 2. mozart, string quartet in a major, k. 464, second mvmt., mm. 1-8. basic idea repetition continuation _il" violinl u <i .. <t " violin ii oj <i .. d viola violoncello : at all? here, caplin follows schoenberg and ratz in defining the sentence as an eight-bar model, adding the idea that "notated" measures often differ from what we actually hear-what caplin calls "real" measures. thus a 1 + 1 +2 grouping in a slow tempo will frequently sound like a 2+ 2+4 group­ ing. in that sense, continuation phrases are normally four "real" measures long. the only exception to this is the legitimate sixteen -measure sentence, which has a four-measure, compound basic idea (itself involving a two-bar basic idea and a two-bar contrasting idea). in those cases, the continuation is eight measures long in order to balance the larger presentation. caplin supports this premise by invoking the spectrum of tightness and looseness first developed by schoenberg and ratz. according to caplin's model, tightly­ knit sentences, such as the beethoven theme, are characterized by "harmonic­ tonal stability, a symmetrical grouping structure, form -functional efficiency, and a unity of melodic-motivic material" (1998:257). loosely-knit sentences convey the opposite: "harmonic-tonal instability (modulation, chromati­ cism), an asymmetrical grouping structure, phrase-structural expansion, form-functional redundancy, and a diversity of melodic-motivic material" (1998:255). thus any given sentence can be situated easily along the spec­ trum, either close to the ideal (the beethoven model) or far away, in a looser sentential condition. in that case, passages that either extend or compress the normative length of a continuation are heard as relatively "loose." this then feeds into a larger formal perspective in which primary themes tend to be the most tightly-knit, secondary themes tend to be looser, and transition and development sections tend to be the most loosely-knit. caplin's model is thus quite comprehensive. any sentential passage can be measured against his normative eight or sixteen-bar models and defined accordingly (either as more or less tightly-knit). yet even within caplin's highly effective system, certain issues are overlooked. one of the most sigmatthew baileyshea nificant is what we might refer to as the "spectrum of differentiation." in the introduction to classical form, caplin points out that his theory distin­ guishes grouping structure -"discrete time spans organized hierarchically in a work" -from formal function-the "harmonic, melodic, and rhyth­ mic processes that are not necessarily the same as those that create the work's grouping structure." as he states, "function and group are often congruent, but this is not always the case" (1998:4). internal grouping is especially sig­ nificant in the context of the continuation phrase. even within the classical and early romantic periods we can identify a variety of distinct sentence designs based largely, though not entirely, on the grouping structures of the continuation. four such types are discussed below. i! the sentence with a dissolving third statement the first type, the sentence with a dissolving third statement of the basic idea, is ubiquitous (see exx. 3a-3b). as we know from schoenberg, the con­ tinuation of a sentence often involves a certain degree of motivic "liquida­ tion," which he defined as a technique that "consists in gradually eliminat­ ing characteristic features, until only uncharacteristic ones remain" (1967:58). this is often achieved-as in the beethoven theme from op. 2, no. i-with motivic fragmentation, but it is also frequently expressed as an undifferentiated process of dissolution. both examples 3a and 3b create cycles of repetition that ultimately break off toward cadence after the third state­ ment. in the case of the widmann example, there is an overall arch-like contour in the melody, a characteristic feature of many sentence designs. the chopin example, on the other hand, features a descending g-line in the melody, with static, exact repetition at the outset of the phrase. neverthe­ less, in both cases, the continuation offers a sense of "release" from the pre­ ceding repetitive cycle. it is as if the opening statements attempt to set the music in motion, and the continuation fulfills this intention by breaking through toward cadence. this gesture is particularly effective as an opening gambit. examples 4a-4c, for instance, all express the same basic gestural impulse despite vast differences in compositional style. in the case of the beethoven and the ligeti examples, the gesture is more or less independent from the rest of the piece; it introduces certain characteristic qualities of the subsequent music but remains separate as a pure, introductory gesture. 12 the franck example, on the other hand, becomes the basis for a set of variations; one of the more fascinating aspects of the piece is the transformation of this simple intro­ ductory gesture into a number of more distinctly "thematic" statements. (note that the ligeti example demonstrates the degree to which sentence 11 12 current musicology example 3a. erasmus widmann, "magdalena;' from der musikalischer tugendspiel. basic idea repetition continuation (dissolving third statement) pac 1\ : : oj #r r rr r ~r r rrrr t r rrrr u • r rr r j i ~-' i ~ lij i 1 j ill ~ i : : : r ,lip i i' r rrr r' 1 ~ i r r i r' example 3b. chopin, nocture in f minor, op. 55, no. 1, mm. 1-8. repetition andante ~---------~ ~----'-------~ basic idea 1\ oj 1-p : , b~ : , b~ :: :: : . g* g* continuation (dissolving third statement) pac fj ~ <oj 'f jr : :: • ~~ : .. ~ : . <i . expression does not depend upon common practice tonality.l3) each of these examples highlights an important association between sentence types and syntactical function. as caplin argues, just as the intrathematic functions of a given theme-presentation, continuation, and cadential-occur in a specific syntactical order, so too are themes within a movement organized according to specific interthematic functions, such as main theme, transition, subordinate theme, and closing section (1998:17). caplin points out the fact that tightly-knit sentences occur most often as main themes, while "looser sentential functions" appear more often in tran­ sitional or subordinate contexts. examples 4a-4c suggest, moreover, that certain types of sentences lend themselves more easily to specific syntactical functions. sentences with a sentential continuation a second sentence type, slightly more differentiated, involves continuations matthew baileyshea example 4a. beethoven, piano sonata in a major, op. 2, no. 2, first mvrnt., mm. 1-8. allegro vivace basic idea repetition continuation (dissolving third statement) ii " ~ • i • i'c;. .. i i i 3 ~ y ...... ~ v ii ... ... ~ ."'1 ~ i~ ~ ... " i5aiieii! ~ .;. : ~ example 4b. franck, variations symphoniques, mm. 5-9. piu lento basic idea epetlhon r continuation (dissolving third statement) 1\ " ~ r--, piano oj ........ ........ "r i iir ~r ur mf ~~ ~~ ,...i i -: i r example 4c. ligeti, string quartet no. 1, vivace, capriccioso, mm. 69-80. basic idea repetition , violin i : --.:r ~~ ~ v . 5 a violin il : -.j ~~ ". i:j ~.1 i"· ni • .;-1--_: •• ·e-e· viola ••• .1 ••• .1 55 a ~ violonceilo 'oj :j q.l :j q.l continuation (dissolving third statement) ., ..,....,......, = vln.! . ~v-.r .. -. ... -~, a .......:...... -vln.1i oj :j ~ -= •• .... ~.~~ ~ ... •• .h. l ~ yla u:.:r:rr--.r = ---=-.-~ .i •• 55 i l .h a~ yc. : . oj:j v ~ 13 14 current musicology example sa. haydn, piano sonata in g major, hob. xvi/27, finale, mm. 1-8. basic idea repetition continuation (sentential) example sb. gilbert and sullivan, iolanthe, "spurn not the nobly born:' lord tolloler orchestral 1 reduction 1\ l.t. u 1\ u : 1\ u 1\ u : basic idea repetition -y 7 r' t 7 r' spurn not the no-blyborn, \i\fith 10 ve af feet-ed! nor treat with vir-tuolls scorn the well • • • . p continuation (sentential) 7 i 77 r high rank in valves no shame, w~ b03 1 st an e -~l claim with him of hum -ble name to be '" ~ i i i 1 ' . . -. r • • 1# . he r' i con neet-ed! i • i i peet ed! i 0 . that are themselves structured as a mini-sentence, presenting an embedded short/ short/long proportion (see exx. sa and sb). though this second type often conveys the sense of "development" and thematic liquidation empha­ sized by schoenberg and ratz, this is not always the case. nor does the first type always convey a sense of "mere continuation." on the contrary, these two possibilities are independent of the specific motivic processes that might take place within a given continuation. 14 a sentential continuation might introduce new material without motivic fragmentation, whereas the dis­ solving third statement might feature an extended motivic liquidation; again, the difference is in the grouping structures, not the specific formal pro­ cesses. is the presence of the familiar beethoven theme in this category (ex. 1) matthew baileyshea example 6. wagner, die fliegende hollander, overture, mm. 203-10. basic idea (a) repetition (a') winds : : continuation (8) cadence (au) 2 + 2 reveals the basic problem with its status as an ideal type; in truth, it only represents one of several default options for continuation. 16 what makes this type particularly notable is its potential for an aggressive, accelerated drive to cadence, an option that beethoven fully exploits. though it is per­ haps the most common continuation type, it is by no means the only one. i? this type also highlights the importance of the rhythmic proportion short/short/long. as many writers have suggested, there is something ar­ chetypal about this rhythm. indeed, alfred lorenz, with his theory of barform ([1924-33] 1966), argues that this proportion often pervades all levels of structure in german classical form. in a sentence with a sentential continu­ ation, the proportion appears at two different levels. this elicits a rather complicated expression of formal functions. if mm. 5-8 of the beethoven theme can be heard as a "mini-sentence," then mm. 5-6 would simulta­ neously convey presentation and continuation function, the former on a smaller level than the latter. yet the existence of a "mini -sentence" in these measures cannot go unchallenged. no matter how "loose" sentences may appear, there are, of course, perceptual (and conceptual) boundaries in terms of size. even if we disregard schoenberg's implicit prioritization of eight­ bar themes, it is impossible to define the sentence in meaningful terms if it includes drastically different sizes, whether larger or smaller than the eight­ bar scheme. as leonard meyer writes, "just as one cannot simply increase the size of, say, a mosquito tenfold and still keep its functions and activities constant, so one cannot merely augment a musical pattern fourfold and yet maintain its functional relationships" (1980:195). still, the internal recur15 16 current musicology example 7. j. s. bach, fifth english suite, sarabande, mm. 1-8. vordersatz basic idea r piano continuation i fortspinnung cadentiall epilog rence of the short/short/long proportion within examples sa and sb-even if not defined as a sentence in its own right-does underline the signifi­ cance of this rhythm as a primary impulse in the articulation of the form. sentences with an ii aabaii design a third type of sentence design, perhaps the most differentiated, involves continuations that are internally balanced and usually grouped as 2+2 (ex. 6). in such cases, the opening of the continuation often contrasts motivically with the basic idea, while the cadential portion restates the motivic charac­ teristics of the basic idea. the overall result is an "aaba" structure, despite the larger, directed motion toward cadence. 18 the tune "happy birthday" is one of the most familiar examples in the vernacular, but examples abound in the art music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (such as the "sailors' song" from wagner's die fliegende hollander). 19 in an eight-bar theme, such sentences convey an overall 2+2+2+2 met­ ric grouping, despite the continuous harmonic motion toward cadence in the latter half of the theme. what makes such sentences particularly worthy of their own designation is that unlike the other two options for metric organization, these sentences tend to be reserved strictly for thematic mate­ rial. the design has an almost periodic balance to it and thus cannot be easily incorporated into looser sentential regions like the other two types. it matthew baileyshea is also particularly notable for its folk-like simplicity and is often reserved for vocal contexts. this type, however, has been largely ignored in theoreti­ cal texts, most likely because its balanced structure seems to resists the for­ ward drive of the beethoven model. when compared with the beethoven theme, such themes appear more "periodic" than sentential. the sentence as fortspinnungtypus a fourth type, typically larger than the others and also quite differentiated, involves a sentence design that is best thought of as a particular kind of fortspinnungtypus, a form defined by wilhelm fischer in the early twenti­ eth century before schoenberg conceived the sentence. according to fischer, a typical baroque fortspinnungtypus involves three main parts: vordersatz, fortspinnung, and epilog. to a degree, these three parts correspond to the three main formal functions of the sentence as defined by caplin: presenta­ tion, continuation, and cadential. indeed, fischer's first example of a fortspinnungtypus, from the sarabande of bach's fifth english suite, is a relatively standard eight-bar sentence (with a sentential continuation-see ex. 7).20 the sentence and the fortspinnungtypus are not equivalent, how­ ever.21 most importantly, fischer does not specify that the vordersatz-which would correspond to the presentation phrase-include both the statement and repetition of a basic idea. thus many of his examples simply begin with an undifferentiated four-bar idea, followed by an extended sequence lead­ ing to a cadence. 22 nevertheless, some sentences are organized in ways that invoke fischer's concept as a result of the differentiation between an ex­ tended sequential continuation (or fortspinnung), and a subsequent cadential section (or epilog). two famous examples are given below: the opening of mozart's k. 545 (ex. 8a), and the idee fixe of berlioz's symphonie fantastique (ex. 8b). despite the obvious differences in length and thematic character, these passages are designed in similar ways. they both present a relatively "closed" basic idea and repetition (in each case, the presentation phrase ends with a melodic repose on ~). moreover, they each involve extended, se~uential con­ tinuations that conclude, again, with weak melodic closure on 3 (m. 8 of the mozart example; m. 31 of the berlioz). furthermore, each theme is closed off with a subsequent cadential section, though in the berlioz theme, it is far more extended, and is itself organized as a sentencey the most obvious, distinguishing characteristic of this fourth sentence type is its length, which extends beyond the normative eight-bar model. for that reason, it is more easily incorporated into loosely-knit contexts than other sentence types. many developmental passages and secondary themes, 17 00 example sa. mozart, piano sonata in c major, k. 545, first mvmt., mm. 1-2. piano allegro basic idea repetition continuation (fortspinnung) i: ~ : i· -; i~ ~ ~ i~ :~ ; 1 '~eff:ff::i~~g:ru~ ;::~ljl~l~l:ll:~l:l::l~fl; lj: :; cadential (epilog) n c ""i tj; ~ r+ s: c iii ~r 0" ul '< example 8b. berlioz, the idee fixe from symphonie fantastique. basic idea repetition violin continuation (fortspinnung) 16 ~ ~ ~. ----,r r i re i r r i r £ r i r r if· e i r r if £ fie fir r if· #e i #it £ r i r i ~ "lac" cadential (epilog) 30 i""-. .--3~ ,r f r e if fir £ ~ fl~ it ie 1 r fir rctferefrifl f #it ij itifrrrrrl r ii basic idea repetition continuation ..... -0 s: li ::r cd :e aj e!. id ~ ::r cd 01 20 current musicology for instance, are structured with this type of sentential design.24 it thus lends itself to specific interthematic functions within the context of the sonata. james hepokoski and warren darcy, for instance, discuss "sentences with dissolving continuations," in which the presentation phrase corresponds to the primary theme, and the "continuation-to-cadence" corresponds to the "transition-to-medial caesura" (hepokoski and darcy:forthcoming). in such cases, the transition is heard as "fully merged" with the primary theme. they cite mm. 1-12 of the mozart k. 545 piano sonata as a classic example. naturally, in caplin and ratz's system, this last type would fall under the general category of "loosely-knit sentences," a fact with which i would agree. but the dichotomy between tightlyand loosely-knit forms, however useful, should not obscure the existence of alternative sentence types, espe­ cially when they are as common as those given above. each of the above examples represents a different manifestation of the same sentence impulse. if the beethoven model serves as the representative of a single, ideal, tightly-knit form, and all other sentences are measured as ei­ ther more or less "loose" in relation to that particular theme, we run the risk of misinterpreting how any given sentence relates to a larger backdrop of similar subtypes. the mozart theme from k. 545 is not a distorted sentence, but one of many conventional manifestations of the same generic impulse. all of this suggests that the sentence is best recognized not as a rigid formal scheme, but as an extraordinarily protean formal gesture. it is worth mentioning again that these four types are not intended to represent a comprehensive list. i have no intention of displacing the beethoven model with an equally rigid-but more complex-group of ideal types. after all, the spectrum of differentiation is only one way of grouping sentences into different subtypes. we could also identify sentences in terms of conventional contour patterns or voice-leading structures (such as the l' -~~-~ pattern found in the presentation of many classical sentences).25 certain composers, moreover, tend to favor specific, idiosyncratic manifes­ tations of the form. mozart, for instance, often sets up conventional presen­ tation phrases followed by a repetitive tonic affirmation in the continua­ tion. the opening of the first movement of the jupiter symphony (mm. 123) is an excellent example. the continuation of this passage (mm. 9-23) contradicts the sense of fragmentation, liquidation, and drive to cadence that we find in the beethoven model, but such a theme is by no means un­ conventional in mozart's compositional output; it simply represents an­ other variant of the "sentential impulse."26 moreover, in two previous es­ says, i identified three different categories of sentence expression in the music matthew baileyshea of wagner, categories that were defined not in terms of a spectrum of dif­ ferentiation, but according to their dramatic and rhetorical functions within the operas (2002/2003; 2003). what is important, then, is that any given sentence should not be understood solely in comparison with the beethoven model, but also against a wide backdrop of conventional possibilities. sentence limits, "failures," and listener expectations the above examples suggest that the sentence, in all its various manifesta­ tions, is best defined as the product of a generic compositional impulse, rooted in the loose combination of two "archetypal" gestures: the rhythm shortl shortl long and the formal functions presentation, continuation, and cadential. moreover, since each of the above examples expresses the pri­ mary elements of the sentence-the proportional relationship and the form­ functional relationship-they can all be included within the general defini­ tion of "sentence" without stretching the meaning of the term beyond ana­ lytical utility. nevertheless, the question of sentence limits must be addressed. with such an explicitly loose definition, a great deal of music begins to fall under the general category of "sentential" without necessarily correspond­ ing to any conventional manifestations of the form. this issue is intimately tied to the topic of listener expectations. at what point do listeners begin to hear a passage as "sentential," and what do they expect to happen in such a passage? this topic comes up indirectly in schoenberg's discussion of the sen­ tence in fundamentals of musical composition. after defining the "practice form"-with the theme from beethoven's op. 2, no. 1 as the prime exem­ plar-he proceeds to consider a number of deviations from the norm. one of the examples he discusses is a theme from schubert's piano sonata, op. 122 (ex. 9). schoenberg devotes a paragraph of text to this example, first emphasizing the unusual cadence on vi and then raising the question of whether or not this truly is a sentence form.27 regarding mm. 9-12, he writes: these last four measures make the impression of codettas; if they are, the preceding eight measures might be considered a period. but analysis as a sentence is supported by the similarity of the two segments, m. 1-4 and m. 5-8, to tonic form and dominant form. this hypothesis would lead one to expect a continuation of eight measures. (1967:61) since this eight-measure continuation does not occur, schubert's theme might best be heard as a failed sentence, one where the continuation is dis­ placed with abrupt cadential tags.28 according to schoenberg's model, sentences begin with one of three 21 22 current musicology example 9. schubert, piano sonata in r major, op. 122, third mvrnt., mm. 1-12. " 11)1 i. ~ i i j. ~ j2 d . basic idea repetition u ~ i i piano .. .. t ~ ~~ ~ : ~t f~r~ r f~r"'f f# • ?? " .. .~ .. ,.. ~ u -3 " ,.. ~ ~ 1$ : u ~ . -.i e possibilities for repetition: exact, sequential, or complementary (statement­ response). thus if we hear one of these repetitions at the beginning of a theme, as we do with the schubert example, then a subsequent continua­ tion must be expected.29 herein lies the challenge of sentence analysis: be­ cause these types of repetition are ubiquitous in western music, an extraor­ dinarily large number of passages would elicit sentence expectations with­ out producing normative continuations. in order to hear a specific passage as a "failed sentence" or "failed continuation;' then, we need to separate those types of repetition that initiate sentential expectations from those that do not. creating a theory that would account for such a distinction, how­ ever, is nearly impossible: the degree to which a given repetition elicits sen­ tence expectations is dependent not only on the unique context in which the repetition occurs, but on the specific features of a basic idea itself. if themes were analyzed entirely through the lens of a period/sentence di­ chotomy, then any passage that begins with the statement of a brief musical idea and some form of repetition would immediately fall under the cat­ egory of "sentential;' regardless of what happens next. yet the statement and repetition of a musical idea is far too common in western music to be associated entirely with a single formal concept such as the sentence. obvi­ ously, many themes begin with a statement-repetition pattern without elic­ iting any connection to the sentence whatsoever.3o the criteria for sentence "failure;' then, are difficult to pin down. consider examples loa and lob, two themes from schumann's kinderszenen. both of these examples begin with the exact repetition of a matthew baileyshea example loa. schumann, "v om fremden landem und menschen:' mm. 1-8. basic idea repetition piano continuation (dissolving third statement) example lob. schumann, "bittendes kind," mm. 1-8. piano 1\ r----, roo-oj [ll~r [l l 1 i r l l nr rrr~r[! i l t l : i • short, two-measure basic idea. the first, the famous opening theme from "vom fremden landem und menschen;' proceeds with a relatively"nor­ mative" continuation-a dissolving third statement. the second example, the opening of "bitten des kind;' simply moves on to yet another statement and repetition of material. is this second example, then, a failed sentence? do the opening measures engender a definite expectation for continuation? 23 24 current musicology one could argue that the lack of tonic prolongation in the "presentation" of the second example diminishes our expectation for normative continua­ tion. this would be consistent with caplin's definition of the sentence, which asserts that tonic prolongation is a necessary feature of "presentation func­ tion." in "vom fremden landern und menschen;' the prolongation of the tonic in the opening measures (mm. 1-4) suggests that a more extended drive to cadence will follow in the subsequent measures (mm. 5-8). the extended dominant harmony of "bittendes kind," on the other hand, is, to a degree, "unanchored" to any specific phrase-structural expectations. but is tonic prolongation truly necessary to create a sense of "present a­ tion function?" certainly the conventions of the sentence, as it developed throughout the baroque and classical periods, were associated with specific tonal dynamics, and, in general, the "loosening" of tonal expression in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries involved a corresponding "loosening" of phrase-structure conventions. as discussed above, however, the sentence as a compositional impulse does not depend upon tonality. indeed, the two primary elements of the form-the proportional relationship and the form functional relationship-can be suggested quite clearly without traditional tonal patterns (see ex. 4c above). from that logic, the opening of "bitten des kind" could certainly be heard from a sentential perspective. with such a hearing, the lack of a genuine continuation over the course of the piece reveals an "unresolved" formal process, a feeling that is enhanced by the lack of harmonic resolution (the opening dominant harmony is prolonged throughout the piece). nevertheless, to speak of this example as a "failed sentence" would overemphasize the association between sentence structure and the generic "statement/repetition" relationship. put simply, all sentences begin with a "presentation" (the statement and repetition of a short, basic idea) but presentation alone cannot be equated with sentence form. 31 nevertheless, the concept of "failed sentences" can be quite suggestive with regard to music analysis. a simple example from beethoven's fidelia is given below (ex. 11). this passage occurs toward the beginning of act two, as rocco impatiently digs a grave for the doomed florestan. anticipating pizzaro's arrival, rocco presses fidelio/leonora to help him, saying, "nur hurtig fort, nur frisch gegraben, es wahrt nicht lang, er kommt herein:' though the sentence that accompanies this statement is unusually distorted, it begins in a relatively conventional way: it opens with a 2+ 2 metric group­ ing and a typical statement-response repetition. the continuation, how­ ever, immediately cuts to a short cadential gesture, abruptly modulating to e minor. the effect underscores rocco's impatience by eliminating any gradual process of liquidation. a more modern and particularly suggestive example of sentence failure matthew baileyshea example 11. beethoven, fidela, act two, n r. 12, duet. basic idea rocco nur hur tig fort, our frisch ge gea ben, repetition r es wahrt nicht lang, er kommt her ein, es wahrt nicht compressed continuation ~ ~ • • • r lang, es wahrt nicht lang, er kommt her ein. ttt . ---l.....j......j ............... '--i......j 3 3 3 3 3 rt"i ~ ~ ~ ~ = i 25 26 current musicology example 12. viktor ullman, piano sonata no.7, adagio, mm. 1-16. basic idea repetition continuation fl adagio rna con mota 3 i tu ~~ !!#j #~#. ~r !!#.[ ~ ~r ,,,,. ~ pp ----==== ::==l i i i : . ~# cadence? /j , i 3 u # '" ~r ~ f !!*~ '! ~ '--'" .*~* -,; !!*-f-.-# ~:;t. --==== p pp -=::::: mf pp i i i : . can be found in the adagio ofviktor ullmann's seventh piano sonata from 1944 (see ex. 12).32 ullmann studied briefly with schoenberg from 1918 to 1919 and, as a result, may have been aware of the sentence as a theoretical construct. the theme in example 12 is constructed as a sixteen-bar palin­ drome. what makes the example unique, however, is that the first half of the theme is a relatively straightforward, eight-bar sentence; a two measure basic idea is repeated with slight variation, followed by what sounds at first like a conventional continuation, complete with motivic fragmentation, acceleration of harmonic rhythm, and the use of sequence. after a brief point of repose in m. 9, however, the theme begins to turn back on itself. as a result, the sense of continuation is reopened in m. 10, and, thus, the sub­ sequent measures sound like yet another liquidation, not just of the basic idea, but of the entire sentence itself. all sentences have a certain self-de­ structive tendency, but in this case, liquidation is achieved in a very unusual manner. this concept of "failed sentences" is also relevant to large-scale struc­ tures. elsewhere, i analyzed passages in wagner in terms of satzketten, or "sentence chains;' where sentential fragments-repetitions of two-bar units and short continuation modules-continually overlap without ever com­ pleting their tendencies toward liquidation (2003: 189-209). in other words, each continuation module tends to give way to yet another repetition of n '-j essential elements proportion: formal functions (caplin): some common types dissolving 3rd statement: sentential continuation: aaba sentence: fortspinnungtypus: internal features interthematic rhetorical functions: figure 1. sentence elements, options, and common types. short short presentation long continuation ------'7) cadential short short short (a) short vordersatz common features short short short (a) short • based on "characteristic" material • short, usually two measures options • statement response • exact (slightly varied) • sequential long (undifferentiated) ------?> (short: short: b sequential fortspinnung common features • acceleration of harmonic change • fragmentation • sequence • increased rhythmic activity options • half-cadence • pac • lac • deceptive • evaded introductory, transitional, thematic, closing/cadential cadence long) n epilog s: iii :::: ::r ~ d:j !!!. cd '< vl ::r td iii 28 current musicology material. this technique has the potential to create an extraordinary buildup of tension over large spans of music, usually leading to an eventual release: an extended continuation that dissolves the prior tension of each preceding sentential fragmenty such processes are common in the music of wagner and liszt, but can also be identified in classical development sections as well. each of these cases, however, depends on an established context in which listeners would be aware-on some basic level-of what sentences are sup­ posed to do. and as i have established above, this is quite complicated, given the many diverse possibilities for sentence expression even within the rela­ tively restricted realm of tonal, tight-knit themes. all of this suggests that we need to adopt a more complex-and, hence,. more analytically effec­ tive-understanding of the form. a tentative model is presented as figure 1. here, the sentence is represented according to a variety of features, some of which are presented as essential elements (the first level), others of which exist as common default options. naturally, the "internal features" and "es­ sential elements" are derived from schoenberg's initial discussion of the form and caplin's more recent clarification. added are the distinct possibilities for overall organization-the different types discussed above-and interthematic function (given at the bottom of the figure). as previously acknowledged, other common types could be added to this model, but the four presented here, based on a spectrum of differentiation, are perhaps the most salient. it is worth remembering that schoenberg first established the sentence as a "practice form" for beginner composers. and defining the sentence for compositional pedagogy is quite different from developing the concept as a tool for analysis. whereas a single, primary example might suffice as a com­ positional model, a variety of possible options are necessary to understand the range-and limits-of the sentence as an analytical tool. though it would be futile (and foolish) to attempt a comprehensive taxonomy of sentence types, it is important to recognize the sharp differences among the com­ mon manifestations of the sentence impulse. every theorist who has writ­ ten about the sentence in depth has presented and discussed multiple themes, but the primacy of the beethoven model has implicitly defined it as the ultimate yardstick with which we measure "normativity." the sentence is a rich, complex, and elusive gesture in western music and no single example­ no matter how elegant in design-can account for its manifold realizations. matthew baileyshea notes an early version of this paper was presented at the 2002 annual meeting of the society of music theory in columbus, oh. i am grateful to patrick mccreless, david clampitt, and my three anonymous readers for their comments and suggestions. 1. it is unclear exactly when schoenberg first conceived the sentence as a formal paradigm. webern discusses schoenberg's concept of the form in lectures from 1932 and 1933, pub­ lished as the path to the new music (1963:27,30-31) and schoenberg himself began sketch­ ing ideas about' the form in 1934, now published in the musical idea and the logic, tech­ nique and art of its presentation (1995: 173-75). his clearest presentation of the sentence, however, appeared posthumously in fundamentals of musical composition (1967:20-23,5863). 2. a number of schoenberg's students used the first eight bars of beethoven's op. 2, no. 1 to define the form, includingwebern (1963), ratz ([1951]1968), josef rufer (1954), and erwin stein ([ 1962] 1989). this trend was then preserved in the more recent scholarship of writers such as edward cone (1968), carl dahlhaus (1978), walter frisch (1982), janet schmalfeldt (1991), and william caplin (1998). in addition, recent theory textbooks have begun to in­ troduce the sentence, using the beethoven theme as a model. see roig-francoli (2003) and laitz (2003). 3. stein puts it simply: "the overall shape of the sentence is loose" ([1962]1989:93). stein's definition is limited, however, by his reliance on the beethoven theme as a prototype. 4. the adjective "sentential" has seen widespread use in recent years, especially since caplin's classical form. the term, however, can be traced at least as far back as ratz ([1951]1968:40), who refers to certain passages in bach as satzartig. 5. the term "periode:' of course, appears in many theoretical texts of the eighteenth century, most notably in koch (1782-93). in most cases, however, it does not denote a specific theme type as much as a general syntactic unit (a complete passage that ends with a cadence). thus two given periods could differ quite a bit in size and structure. the "belatedness" of the sentence is obvious from its absence in most theory texts on musical form in the last fifty years. indeed, schoenberg's concept did not spread to a wide audience until carl dahlhaus clarified the term in "satz und periode" (1978: 16-26). and until caplin's classical form, the term was never entirely secure in the collective musical vocabulary of english-speaking au­ thors. a recent book on musical form, for instance, by glenn spring and jere hutcheson makes no mention of the sentence. instead, examples that correspond to the form are de­ fined as "asymmetrical periods" (1995:54). 6. caplin uses the terms "presentation, continuation, and cadential" in his excellent work on formal functions (1998). in general, i agree with his descriptions and definitions of each term. my only point of disagreement involves the necessary limits of his definitions. in short, caplin defines these terms specifically with regard to the instrumental music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven, and thus his terms do not necessarily apply to sentences in other contexts, especially the late nineteenth or twentieth century. the discrepancies between my model and his are discussed in more detail later in the paper. 7. to date there have been no significant studies on the historical origins of the sentence, but it is quite likely that the form developed out of various patterns in renaissance and baroque dance music (see ex. 3a, erasmus widmann's der musikalischer tugendspiegel [1613]). the proportional relationship, then, may have been the initial appeal of the form, separate to an extent from its later relationship with the developmental fortspinnung techniques of ba­ roque instrumental music. this would correspond with alfred lorenz's association between 29 30 current musicology barform and earlier dance types such as the italian ballata, represented by lorenz in physi­ cal terms: "due piedi, una volta;' or, "two steps and a leap." see lorenz ([ 1924-33]1966,3:185, 4:200). for a more extended account of the relationship between sentence and barform, see rothstein (1989:288-89) and baileyshea (2003:83-91). 8. these terms are caplin's, not schoenberg's, but they represent the same division into two parts that schoenberg favored; schoenberg wrote simply of a "beginning" and a "comple­ tion." erwin ratz, on the other hand, suggests a three-part division, using the terms zweitakter, wiederholung, and durchfiihrung (2+2+4). 9. obviously, our definitions of formal functions would need to be loosened in order to hear presentation, continuation, and cadential function in such cases; the different compositional syntax requires a more fluid conception of form-defining elements. 10. caplin also presents this passage as an example of an "expanded cadential progression" or "e. c. p:' in this case, the bass initiates a cadential progression at the outset of the continu­ ation instead of at the end of the continuation phrase. caplin uses the label "continuation=>cadential" to identify such passages. 11. naturally, this is not a comprehensive list of sentence possibilities; indeed, the sentence manifests itself in so many different ways that it would be nearly impossible to pin down all of the conventional subtypes within the general category of sentence design. nevertheless, it is useful to recognize some of the more common options, especially those that challenge the archetypal status of the beethoven model. in this case, examples are drawn from a wide range of historical contexts in order to best show the range with which these archetypes appear in western music. 12. the beethoven example recurs at the opening of the development and recapitulation but in each case it retains its introductory function; it is not developed as a theme in its own right. 13. naturally, themes such as this are heard against the backdrop of earlier tonal models. thus formal functions such as "presentation" and "cadential" are defined not by tonal pro­ cedures, as in the classical period, but by analogous musical gestures (statement, repetition, liquidation, etc.). 14. this assessment is consistent with caplin's distinction between formal function and group­ ing structure. 15. caplin presents examples of each of these first two types but does not explicitly set them apart as specific subtypes. 16. this formal perspective, including the concept of default options, is influenced by the sonata theory ofjames hepokoski and warren darcy (1997; forthcoming). 17. example 5b offers an interesting case in which the text has its own sentential rhythm and might thus be seen as an impetus for the sentence design in the music. 18. the bass in example 6 initiates a cadential progression, which caplin would designate "continuation=>cadential," showing that the two formal functions overlap. for that reason, we can still designate such phrases as sentences; the bass motion toward cadence creates continuity on one level, while the motivic grouping creates a sense of differentiation (2+2). this contrasts with other aaba themes, such as beethoven's famous "ode to joy;' which do not project an overall continuation=>cadential function in the final two sections. 19. caplin's example given above (ex. 2) is a rare case in which the continuation involves a 2+2 grouping without an overall aaba pattern. matthew baileyshea 20. webern also identified this theme as a sentence (1963:27). 21. caplin offers an extended account of the primary differences between the sentence and the fortspinnungtypus (1986:255-57). 22. many examples of such themes can be found in baroque ritornellos, though fischer restricts his prime examples to the bach keyboard suites. 23. meyer (1980) analyzes the berlioz theme as an extension of a particular type of sentence design. though he never actually uses the term "sentence;' he identifies an archetype based on a 1 + 1 +2 proportion with a generic voice-leading framework (t-9j-~ etc.). elements of this theory were later developed in gjerdingen (1988) and explicitly associated with the sentence in schmalfeldt (1991). 24. this form is similar, though not equivalent, to what caplin, following ratz, calls the "core" of the development. according to caplin's model, development sections often in­ volve two cores, both of which involve a model (usually 4 to 8 bars long), a sequence of that model, and fragmentation leading to cadence (1998:141-47). 25. the relationship between scale degree patterns and the sentence is discussed in schmalfeldt (1991). 26. consider the famous opening theme of eine kleine nachtmusik for a similar, typically mozartean sentence gesture. 27. with regard to the cadence on vi, schoenberg writes, "were this not the work of a master one would be inclined to call it a weakness" (1967:61). 28. schoenberg, however, never uses the term "failed sentence:' in general, he praises any deviations from the practice form and considers them an artistic progress (ultimately relat­ ing to the strategy of developing variation found in brahms). caplin, too, does not specify "failed sentences," but he does identify failure in terms of formal function, such as the "failed consequent" (1998:88-89). 29. paraphrasing the work of leonard meyer, darcy writes that "in general, the literal or varied repetition of a musical motive or figure tends to create an anacrusis ... two upbeats which lead to an expected downbeat unit or phrase" (1973:105). 30. a simple example among thousands is the opening theme from the christmas carol "silent night." 31. moreno (2000) presents an excellent overview of the perception of sequential repetition in the theories of koch, marx, and reicha. none of these theorists associate the technique with any specific phrase structural convention (the sentence, of course, was not yet recog­ nized as a distinct formal archetype) and their views are quite different with regard to the value of the technique as a compositional device. 32. rachel bergman, who brought this theme to my attention, discusses this piece in her dissertation (2001). 33. the idea of the satzkette is strongly related to william rothstein's concept of the "stollen process" (1989:296-97). references baileyshea, matthew. 2002/2003. wagner's loosely knit sentences and the drama of musi­ cal form. integral 16/17: 1-34. ---.2003. the wagnerian satz: the rhetoric of 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(orig. pub. 1782-93) laitz, steven g. 2003. the complete musician: an integratedapproach to tonal theory, analy­ sis, and listening. oxford: oxford university press. lorenz, alfred. [1924-33] 1966. das geheimnis der form bei richard wagner, 4 vols. tutzing: hans schneider. marx, adolph bernhard. 1837-47. die lehre von der musikalischen komposition, praktisch­ theoretisch. 4 vols. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. meyer, leonard. 1980. exploiting limits: creation, archetypes and style change. daedulus cxi (2):177-205. moreno, jairo. 2000. challenging views of sequential repetition: from satzlehre to melodielehre. journal of music theory 44 (1): 127-69. ratz, erwin. [1951] 1968. einfuhrung in die musikalische formenlehre: uher formprizipien in den inventionen und fugen f,s. bach und ihre bedeutung fur die kompositiontechnik beethovens. vienna: universal. roig-francoli, miguel a. 2003. harmony in context. new york: mcgraw-hill. rothstein, william. 1989. phrase rhythm in tonal music. new york: schirmer. rufer, josef. 1954. composition with tivelve notes, translated by humphrey searle. london: barrie and rockliff. schmalfeldt, janet. 1991. towards a reconciliation of schenkerian concepts with tradi­ tional and recent theories of form. music analysis 10: 233-87. schoenberg, arnold. 1967. fundamentals of musical composition, edited by gerald strang matthew 8aileyshea and leonard stein. new york: st. martin's press. ---.1995. the musical idea and the logic, technique and art of its presentation, edited and translated by patricia carpenter and severine neff. new york: columbia university press. spring, glenn and jere hutcheson. 1995. musical form and analysis. dubuque, ia: brown & benchmark publishers. stein, erwin. [1962]1989. form and performance. new york: limelight editions. web ern, anton. 1963. the path to the new music, edited by willi reich and translated by leo black. bryn mawr, pa: theodore presser company. 33 iilenin in swaddling clothesll : a critique of the ideological conflict between socialist state policy and christian music in cold war romania sabina pauta pieslak , on april 11 , 1924, the monarchic government of romania decreed, through the so-called "gheorghe marzescu" law, that the political practice of com­ munism was subversive to the national cause and therefore illegal. until the ban was lifted in 1944, the government imprisoned members of the roma­ nian communist party (constantiniu 2002:309). to raise funds for their incarcerated comrades while avoiding official detection, groups of activists belonging to red assistance international (ajutorul ro~u international) adapted certain winter caroling practices of the christian orthodox church. instead of singing star songs (cemtece de stea) or christmas carols (colinde) and carrying staffs bearing the star of bethlehem with the image of the infant jesus in swaddling clothes, the activists sang altered texts that urged listen­ ers to contribute money to the cause of the working class and carried staffs decorated with a five-pointed star emblazoned with lenin's image (cernea, radulescu, and pintean 1964:124-25).1 example 1 illustrates how the verses of a popular christian star song, "the star is rising on high" ("steaua sus rasare"), were changed to promote the activists' revolutionary platform. rather than depicting the "great joy" and abundance of the magi's gifts, the text used by the communists focuses on harsh economic conditions and on the need for workers to unite under the leadership of their perceived "savior," lenin. examples 1 a and 1 b show the transformation of this traditional carol into a declaration of communist principles. thus, the romanian communists of the 1930s began a para­ doxical, inwardly-conflicting practice-using christian carols to support their atheistic political movement-that would continue, in various forms, throughout the cold war era. although researchers have studied thousands of romanian christmas melodies,2 few studies consider the genre both as a source of national heritage and as a heavily-censored art form in romanian culture. moreover, previous scholarship has tended to exclude analysis of the socio-political contexts in which the music was and is performed.3 both within romania and inter­ nationally, this genre played an important role in romanian communist party propaganda. in this essay, i investigate how the official communist ideology appears to have sharply contradicted the realities of state practices current musicology, no. 78 (fall 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology regarding music based on christian themes. i focus on romanian christmas songs as a case study through which the course of this unlikely relationship may be brought to light and better understood. before addressing the nature of this ideological conflict, i would first like to briefly introduce the distinctive features of carols or winter solstice songs (colinde) and star songs (dlntece de stea), explaining how this music came to be considered emblematic of "romanian-ness," or specificul roma­ nesc. colinde, a term often used to refer to romanian christmas carols in general, consist of repetitive melodies punctuated by contrasting refrains. they are typically performed from christmas eve to epiphany by groups organized according to age or gender. in villages, the groups usually begin caroling in front of the house of the local priest before proceeding to other homes, while in cities, carolers visit friends and family members and, more so in recent years, sing at public institutions such as radio and television stations and schools; in exchange for their singing, carolers receive gifts of food, drink, and/or money from their hosts. in some villages, colinde melo­ dies are sung antiphonally by two or three groups, or are accompanied by percussive instruments, such as double-headed drums (dube) and friction drums (buhai). men masked as "old man christmas" (mo? craciun) with large bells (talangi) tied around their waists announce the coming of the carolers along the village streets (fig. 1). colinde are sometimes translated as "carols;' since they proclaim and celebrate the birth of christ, or as "winter solstice songs;' due to the music's association with winter solstice rites that predated the widespread acceptance of orthodox christianity in the fourth century a.d.4 star songs are generally believed to have a more recent, 200-year-old history, and are based almost entirely on religious themes, without refrains. they have often been used by the orthodox church for religious education, and are performed by groups of children or youths who represent the magi and carry a staff with the star of bethlehem from one dwelling to another (fig. 2). as carolers travel throughout a particular community, they often change colinde texts to include the names of their hosts, singing blessings of pros­ perity, joy, and health addressed specifically to their listeners. rather than reflecting the reality of the hosts' everyday lives, these texts present an idyllic world in which listeners themselves are depicted as brave, affluent, attractive, and empowered heroes (caraman [1933]1983:171), transformed through the "experience of the sacred;' which is ushered in through the musical per­ formance (marian -bala~a 2000: 18). the wishes, blessings, and portrayals of mankind's ultimate potential, which are expressed through colinde, belong to "a higher world in which we would like to be," in the words of romanian philosopher and ethnologist ovidiu papadima (moanta 2002:65). this sabina pauta pieslak figure 1. men dressed as "old man christmas" (mo~ criiciun), in the village of marga, western romania, 2002 (collection of the author). figure 2. young carolers dressed as harod and the magi, in the village of marga, western romania, 2002 (collection of the author). note the six -pointed star of bethlehem. 9 10 current musicology example lao "steaua sus rasare" ("the star is rising on high"), a variant of the traditional star song, transcribed by the author from a performance by a boys' caroling group in marga, romania, december 2003. the last line of each strophe is repeated. j1j1j1jj mf·~ stea ua sus ra sa j re ca 0 tai na rna re stea-ua stra-luce ~te ma-gi-lor ves-te~ te, ma-gi-lor ves-te~-te. steaua sus rasare ca 0 taina mare steaua straluce~te magilor veste~te, ca astazi, curata, prea nevinovata fecioara maria na~te pe mesia. magii cum zarira steaua, ~i pornira mergand dupa raza pre cristos sa -l vaza. $i dad sosira indata-l gas ira la dansul intrara $i-i se inchinara. cu daruri gatite lui cristos menite luand fiecare bucurie mare, care bucurie $i aici sa fie de la tinerete pan' la batranete. the star is rising on high like a great mystery the star shines and proclaims to the magi, that today, the pure, most innocent virgin mary gives birth to the messiah. the magi, when they sighted the star, and started following the ray of light to see the christ. and when they arrived they immediately found him entered to see him and knelt down before him. with gifts prepared especially for christ partaking, each one in great joy, which happiness may it also be here for you from youth to old age. sabina pauta pieslak example lb. "steaua muncitoreasdi" ("the star of the working class"), (cernea, radulescu, and pintean, 1964: 124), with the communists' textual changes shown in bold. the last two lines of each strophe are repeated, except for the final strophe. # giusto je 156 ~~lle j f f fir r r stea ua sus ra sa re ca 0 tai na rna re, ~ ~ii f f f f iff f f iff j f i t£ t f i es te steaua noas tra, a cla sei mun ci toa reo ~ ~ii f f f f iff f 'p iff j f i j j es te stea ua steaua sus ra.sare ca 0 taina mare, este steaua noastra, a ciasei mundtoare. steaua straluce~te ~i lumii veste~te cum se mai trude~te cel care munce~te. steaua lumineaza $i adevereaza case oropsite, bordeie prapadite. voi, de-aid din casa, nu aveti la masa piine alba ti cirnati cum au cei bogati. tineri, fete supte, care vor sa lupte, fete muncitoare zac in inchisoare. aiara, i?omerii dorm in frigul serii; ieri, nici azi, nid miine ei nu au de piine. patronul te fura ~eful te injura ~i fara dreptate te rupe, te bate. daca vrep sa-nvingeti, rindurile stringeti, muncitori uniti-va! muncitori uniti-va! noas tra, a cla sei mun ci toa reo the star is rising on high like a great mystery, it is our star, of the working class. the star shines and announces to the world how he keeps on striving the one who labors. the star illuminates and confirms poor houses, wretched shacks. you, here in this house, don't have at your table white bread and sausages like the rich people do. young people with drawn faces, who want to fight, girls who work lie in jails. outside, the unemployed sleep in the cold of the evening, yesterday, not today, not tomorrow they don't have money for bread. the owner steals from you the boss swears at you and unjustly he breaks you, he beats you. if you want to prevail, gather your ranks, workers, unite! workers, unite! ii 11 12 current musicology utopian, transcendent vision of the world would come to play an important role in the appropriation of the songs by communist authorities. romanian colinde and star songs are not simply festive christmas carols in the sense of many western european carols; rather, they possess a long­ standing history of social, economic, spiritual, and political significance in romanian culture. understanding this historical background helps elucidate why this type of music was chosen for communist propaganda, and why the communist party adapted romanian christmas music to their ideology rather than abolish the tradition altogether. the colinda is considered to occupy a sacred space within the history of romania and has played a key role in considerations of romanian ethnic, religious, and national identity. described by cultural critics as "the sound of the romanian soul" (vulpescu 1999:lo2), "deeply rooted in the existence of our people;' and "the original stamp of our life" (moanta 2002:65), these melodies are often believed to function not only as celebrations of christ's birth, but as signifiers of a uniquely romanian art form-as symbols of national identity and the essence of what it is to be romanian. this discourse on colinde, which can be traced to the romantic, nationalistic ideals that permeated romanian culture during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, is still employed in contemporary romanian scholarship. for example, in a recent collection of colinde, folklorists pamfil biltiu and gheorghe pop (1996) suggest that the appearance of their anthology is justified by an intimate relationship between colinde and what they perceive to be "the romanian soul," encompassing all social groups, age categories, and a wide variety of life experiences. they associate colinde with the birth and "survival" of the romanian nation: the publication of a collection of colinde does not require special justifica­ tions. this is, first of all, due to the fact that, in any area of romanian soil in which we might find ourselves, the colinda represents the deepest resonance of the soul of this people, which we find sounding in all circumstances of life. only for this reason can we explain the existence of colinde for bitter­ ness and troubles, those about war, those for laughter or for grudges. in the colinda, the soul of any age category has always resonated, since we find, well-represented, colinde for a child, for a young man, for the elderly. in the colinda, the souls of all social classes have sounded, since we encounter colinde for the rich man, for the "office" (mayor), for the priest, but also for the fisherman, for the hunter, the shepherd, the goldsmith, etc. the colinda is one of the most powerful symbols of our survival over time, since it is nothing other than a rich spiritual book, which was formed in accordance with the popular [folk] universe of thought and feeling. it is proven to us first of all through the cosmo gonic colinde whose age is one and the same as that of the romanian nation. (biltiu and pop 1996:5)5 sabina pauta pieslak star songs also hold a significant place in romanian culture through their connection with the romanian orthodox church, of which the major­ ity of romanians were and continue to be members, and the development of ethno-religious nationalism during the nineteenth century. church leaders were deeply involved in the struggles of the principalities to free themselves from foreign occupation, especially in transylvania, where magyarization threatened the rights of romanian communities under the austro-hun­ garian empire. it was through the united efforts of religious and political activists that the romanian nation began to be envisioned and created: the history of romanian nationalism in the nineteenth century is indeed the history of these two trends coming together: the trend of emerging national sentiment, fortified by the abiding hold of religion, among the masses of the romanian population; and the joining of hands between the religious and lay leaders of the wallachs to propel the downtrodden masses toward a national state of their own, with a national church established in the romanian capital (be it bucharest or ia~i) as the ultimate symbol of the union of nationalism and religion. (gilberg 1989:332) for these reasons, the historical identification of this music with impor­ tant national, ethnic, and religious currents in romanian society posed a challenging dilemma for romania's communist leaders, who took power at the conclusion of world war ii. as they pursued a "top-down" offensive to create a socialist state, leaders had to reconcile their aims for a scientifically atheist, industrial, and urban society with a culture that for centuries pur­ sued a predominately christian, rural, and agrarian way of life-and colinde and star songs were an outward expression and celebration of these aspects of romanian life and emblems of romanian nationalism. even before the communists' rise to power, their political ideology ran against the grain of the cultural and religious characteristics that had been in place for genera­ tions within romania. the early communist movement immediately lost favor in romanian society since its leaders-who were often bulgarian or jewish-hailed from urban, alien ethnic backgrounds.their backgrounds provoked suspicion among the peasant population that was already deeply stirred by populist and nationalist sentiment in the wake of the 1918 territo­ rial expansions into greater romania. consequently, prior to world war ii, the communist movement in romania attracted, by most estimates, between 1,000 and 2,500 members out of approximately 15.5 million people, and was often identified with "foreign-ness" and with the unwelcome interference of the soviet union. in fact, it was only with such interference, once romania was engulfed in the soviet sphere of political influence in world war ii, that the communists were able to take control; this change was accompanied by the imposed sovietization of everyday romanian life, from obligatory 13 14 current musicology learning of the russian language in schools, to the placement of russian officials on the highest rungs of the political infrastructure. during this period, romanian communist leaders attempted to balance their allegiance to the soviets with the need to legitimize their regime within romanian culture, and colinde and star songs with their deeply-rooted his­ tory and nationalistic nuances, became an important part of this balancing act. in this process of negotiation, leaders may have realized that to officially prohibit this music would have intensified the conflict between the atheistic state and the predominately christian population, proving detrimental for the regime's constant quest for legitimacy. some of their ambivalence towards religion may reflect lenin's own writings on the subject. lenin agreed with frederick engels that declaring an outright war on religion "was the best way to revive interest in religion and to prevent it from really dying out;" instead, lenin recommended that "the workers' party should have the ability to work patiently at the task of organizing and educating the proletariat, which would lead to the dying out of religion, and not throw itself into the gamble of a political war on religion" (lenin [1909] 1962:403-04). lenin outlined the kind of approach that would be most in line with marxist thought: we must combat religion-that is the abc of all materialism, and conse­ quently of marxism. but marxism is not a materialism which has stopped at the abc. marxism goes further. it says: we must know how to combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith and religion among the masses in a materialist way. the combating of religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching, and it must not be reduced to such preaching. it must be linked up with the concrete prac­ tice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots of religion. (405) romania's communist leadership did not officially declare war on religion by outlawing religious practices; it did, however, wage war against the "social roots" of religion. although religion remained a constitutional right, with no legislation prohibiting citizens from exercising that right, the state was hostile towards religion, and employed two strategic approaches to limiting the church's influence. the first approach entailed the removal or imprisonment of religious leaders and the confiscation or destruction of monasteries and church schools. then, beginning in 1962, when romanian communism acquired a nationalistic slant, the government adopted a sec­ ond tactic: rather than being abolished altogether, the orthodox church was infiltrated by communist agents and thus became a co-opted instrument of the state, a practice that could be seen most readily with respect to state­ church relations in russia, romania, and bulgaria (ramet 1989:20-22). throughout these two periods, religious music was not officially sabina pauta pieslak outlawed; instead, authorities relied on unofficial practices such as text adaptation, censorship, and propaganda-based education-practices that would have been in line with lenin's directive to attack religion at its "social roots:' the adaptation, appropriation, and censorship of this music by the communist state was a part of a larger type of initiative which involved "the decisive alteration or destruction of values, structures, and behaviors which are perceived by a new elite as compromising or contributing to the actual or potential existence of alternative centers of power" (jowitt 1971 :7). leading romanian historian vladimir tismaneanu describes such a process in similar terms, for communist parties of the region in general: to achieve those goals of economic progress and modernization, the various east european communist parties undertook a systematic de­ structive operation whose chief consequence was the suppression of the civil society. that was, indeed, the main purpose of totalitarian practice in this century: to annihilate the sources of human creativity, to separate individuals from one another while making them mutually inimical, and to replace collective bonds of solidarity and support with the supremacy of the party-state, acclaimed as omnipotent and omniscient. all previ­ ous associations and groups had to disappear. the values long held to be sacred-patriotism, family, national traditions-had to be redefined in the light of communist dogmas. an overhaul of each country's cultural tradition and a revision of the moral postulates, including those derived from the european humanist tradition, were accomplished through the marxist dogma of the class struggle. (1992:21) in the case of colinde and star songs, these were methods through which the communists attempted to insert their regime into the frame of historical and cultural inheritance represented by this music in romanian society-a frame that suited communism probably as comfortably as lenin would have actually felt in swaddling clothes. recognizing that these influential songs were emblematic of national heritage and helped to strengthen the social networks of religious organizations, the authorities seized this op­ portunity to appropriate the melodies and their traditions, to retain their social function as message carriers and community unifiers, but with a drastically different message. we have already seen how texts of existing star songs were altered to fit the communist agenda in the early years of the movement (exx. 1a and 1b). we have also seen the further practice of adaptation come into play shortly after world war ii, when the communist leadership prompted poets to create new verses to familiar carols, praising the economic and political advances of the communist party. in these new versions, which circulated in collections of christmas repertoire and revolutionary songs sponsored by the ministry for public education, the authors chose to retain some of the 15 16 current musicology repertoire's existing symbolic and metaphorical language, but reinterpreted within the new socio-political ideology, thus attempting to create a smooth transition from the christian belief system to a socialist one. just as com­ munist officials co-opted the orthodox church and transformed it into an instrument of the state, so too did they seek to benefit from the emotional resonances and specificul romanesc of colinde and star songs through their adaptation and appropriation. one of the main advantages in the process of adapting star songs is that an important precedent had already paved the way for a new use of the repertoire's symbolic language: they substituted the christian star of bethlehem with the bolshevik star, and the symbolic light of christ as the "light of the world" with the "light of socialism" emanating from the "east;' here pointing to the soviet union.6 in 1948, after the communists took power, the romanian ministry of education published another vari­ ant of the star song shown in example la, this time simply entitled "clntec de stea" ("star song," ex. 2), and set to a new, celebratory text (ministerul invatamantului 1948:12). the new verses describe the star of "liberty and justice;' presumably a reference to the communist "liberation" of romania from the fascists, the star of freedom now reclaimed and protected by the new regime against future threats. continuing the theme of starlight as the "light" of socialism, two of the most prevalent symbols belonging to the christmas repertoire-im­ ages of light and prosperity-were frequently employed in descriptions of the idealized world of romanian communism. for instance, the star song, "ziurel de zi" ("dawn of day") from the same collection (1948), reinterprets the popular refrain "dawn of day;' traditionally used to symbolize christ's birth, as a symbol for the new era ushered in by the romanian communist party-the "dawn" that would "rise into the hearts of ploughing men" and bring about abundance, a rich "summer harvest;' and electric "lights in the village." composed by constantin zamfir on verses by victor tulbure, the communist version (ex. 3) comments on the caroling custom where children sing at dawn and awaken the community to celebrate the day of christ's birth, but replaces the traditional interpretation by calling the "community" of romania to celebrate the dawn of a new regime and the victory of the working class over the "rich landowners." the well-wishing formula, which is usually found at the conclusion of colinde and star songs, is not used in this example to wish a long, joyous life to the hosts of the carolers, but to the romanian republic and the communist party. in this way, the relationship between the carolers and their hosts is transformed from the celebration of a sacred event into a salute to the communist party's perceived accomplish­ ments: "good bread;' "full bowls;' and the end of class struggles. sabina pauta pieslak example 2. "cantec de stea" ("star song"), (ministerul inviwimantului 1948:12). the last line of each strophe is repeated. r stea-ua sus ra sa re si-i stra-lu-ci toa re, slea-ua ii berla iii steaua sus rasare ~i-i stralucitoare, steaua libertatii e steaua dreptatii. noi am rasletit-o, dar am regasit-o, fiindca ori ~i unde raza ei patrunde. ~i lucirea-i treaza ve~nic lumineaza: dinspre rasarit pacea a venit. de-acum niciodata nu ne va fi luata steaua regasita ~i de noi pazita. e slea ua drep la iii, e slea ua drep la iii. the star is rising on high and it is shining brightly, the star ofliberty it is the star of justice. we let it wander away, but we found it again, since anywhere and everywhere her ray penetrates. and her awakened gleaming glows on forever: from the east peace has come. from now on, never will it be taken from us the star, recovered and by us safeguarded. the symbol of light widely found in the new colinde and star songs on socialist themes also became widely used in connection with lenin (ex. 4), as is evident in the verses by nina cassian for tiberiu olah's choral com­ position, lumina lui lenin (the light of lenin, olah 1960:8-9).7 the word "light" in this context seems to describe lenin's legacy as "inextinguishable," as a continuing panacea and source of joy in the "dream" of communism. interestingly, lenin is depicted in these verses almost as a christ -like savior, one who has the power to make the entire age "stir" and grow young at the sound of his voice, to "cure pain" and heal "tens of nations." references to the light of the bolshevik star also appeared in the con­ struction of musical instruments during communism. felicia diculescu, 17 18 current musicology example 3. "ziurel de zi" ("dawn of day"), melody by constantin zamfir, verses by victor tulbure (ministerullnviwimimtului 1948:15). su ie'n i nimi de plu gari in co ii bii de iii ran zi u rei de zi. ii di mi neli eu stea guri mari crese na dejdi ea spi eu'n ian zi u rei de zit suie'n inimi de plugari, ziurel de zit dimineti cu steaguri mari, ziurel de zit in coliba de taran, ziurel de zit cresc nadejdi ca spicu'n lan, ziurel de zit caci jandarmi nu ne mai bat, ziurel de zit ~i boerii au plecat, ziurel de zit muncitorii din uzini, ziurel de zit ne-au adus in sat lumini, ziurel de zit trageti roata de la car, ziurel de zit ca gem verile'n hambar, ziurel de zit fnc' 0 roata, inc'un bici, ziurel de zit ca plavanii sunt voinici, ziurel de zit spic de grau cu bobullin, ziurel de zit painea-i buna, blidu-i plin, ziurel de zit iar chiaburii unde sunt? ziurel de zit pumnul nostru-i darz ~i crunt, ziurel de zit catre zorii cantatori, ziurel de zit rad tarani ~i muncitori, ziurel de zit republica sa' nfloreasca, ziurel de zit ~i partidul sa traiasca, ziurel de zit rise into the hearts of ploughing men, dawn of day! mornings wifb large flags, dawn of day! in the hut of the peasant, dawn of day! hopes are growing like wheat in the field, dawn of day! for the police soldiers no longer beat us, dawn of day! and the boyars have left, dawn of day! the workers in the factories, dawn of day! brought us lights in the village, dawn of day! pull the wheel of the buggy, dawn of day! for fbe summer harvest groans in the barn, dawn of day! another wheel, another whip, dawn of day! for the peasants are brawny, dawn of day! wheat leaf with a smooth grain, dawn of day! the bread is good, the bowl is full, dawn of day! and the rich landowners, where are they? dawn of day! our fist is bold and brutal, dawn of day! towards the morning, singers, dawn of day! peasants and workers are laughing, dawn of day! may the republic blossom, dawn of day! and long live the party, dawn of day! organologist at the constantin briiiloiu institute of ethnography and folklore, describes one such case from the 1980s, when constantin bucur created an instrument in the shape of a five-pointed star, constructed from twelve flutes and played by blowing air through one's mouth and nostrils (diculescu 1998:97). the star was presented at the sixth annual national festival cantarea romfmiei (song to romania) with the letters r. s. r., which stand for republica socialista romania (the socialist republic of romania), inscribed at its center. by constructing this star "multiflute" with the r. s. r. inscription in the center, bucur was, perhaps unknowingly, implementing an idea which can be traced back fifty years earlier, when socialist groups substituted the nativity scene with lenin's image while caroling with the sabina pauta pieslak example 4. "lumina lui lenin" ("the light of lenin"), (olah 1960:8-9), verses by nina cassian. la glasullui lenin tot veacu-a tresaltat ~i lumea batrina intineri deodat crescura flamuri ~i zeci de neamuri jugull-au azvirlit. sub steagul, sub steagul comunismului slavit sub steagul, sub steagul slavit s-au infratit. lumina lui lenin nestinsa arde-n veac sadind bucuria, gasind durerii leac, suind in vreme cintari, poeme un trai imbel~ugat sub steagul comunismului visat sub steagul, sub steagul visat vis minunat. sub steagullui lenin. "star" of bethlehem.8 at the voice of lenin the entire age was stirred and the old world suddenly grew young raised were banners and tens of nations the yoke, they tossed away. under the flag, under the flag of exalted communism, under the flag, the exalted flag they became brothers. the light of lenin, inextinguishable, burns throughout the age sowing joy, finding a cure for pain, with time, lifting up songs, poems an abundant living. under the flag of the dreamed-of communism under the flag, the dreamed-of flag wonderful dream. under the flag of lenin. in addition to the tactic of adapting existing texts of colinde and star songs, the romanian communist government further attempted to insert itself into the cultural legacy of the romanian people by sponsoring the creation of new works in these genres. during the communist period, music was judged by the degree to which it supported the ideology of the regime. government-appointed review boards employed an elaborate system of rewards and punishments to goad composers into writing music compatible with socialist thought. for instance, in 1960 the institute for ethnography and folklore in bucharest and the central house for popular creation sponsored a national competition for the advancement of musical creations praising new life under communism ("creatia populara noua"). entries were judged according to "the criterion of artistic realization, ideological clarity and the folkloricity of their poetic structure" (cernea and coatu 1986:5). the sound of the music itself was irrelevant in this case; since competition organizers believed that those who composed the "new melodies" were most likely peasants who could not notate music, they only evaluated texts, such as this winning entry presented in example 5, "dormi, gazda, ori nu dormi" ("are you sleeping, host, or not"), a new colinda on the subject of abundance and rebuilding due to communism (cernea, nicolescu, and bratulescu 1966:59). 19 20 current musicology those judging this colinda may have recognized several well-known caroling formulae, such as the custom of waking up households to listen to the carols, and the image of two pigeons, which is frequently used to describe young lovers or a newly married couple building their "nest"-references that may have yielded high scores for the "folkloricity" criterion. however, since evaluators were also concerned with the ideological integrity of the song, they would have appreciated the shift from the traditional christian references to communist ones: rather than urging families to clean their homes and prepare themselves for the coming of christ, they are called to prepare for new life under communism. at the conclusion of the colinda, when carolers typically offer a blessing and wish for prosperity for their hosts, the author(s) reminded the reader that for the creation of this new life, the communist party expected people to work with even more energy and enthusiasm.9 such ideologically-based evaluations also challenged the long-standing tradition of incorporating colinde and other types of religious music into choral and instrumental works. composers who wished to continue draw­ ing on religious elements devised various strategies in order to avoid being branded anti-communist. some diverted attention by choosing vague or abstract titles, as alexandru pa~canu did in his choral poem festum hiber­ num: ancient cyclic customs (stravechi traditii ciclice, 1979). he employed several tactics for masking his piece's origins in carols such as fragmenting melodies and using nonsense syllables in place of the text. at the conclusion of the work, pa~canu uses the vowel sound "a" for the melody of a widely known star song, "0 what wondrous news" ("0 ce veste minunata"). the omitted verses, which depict the nativity scene, are well-known in romanian culture (ex. 6). writing about the ideological censorship of sacred music in romania, musicologist valentina sandu-dediu notes that since review board members were usually chosen based on their allegiance to the state rather than on their musical aptitude, they tended to judge a score "by its cover;' or title, and may not have had the skills necessary to search the score itself for passages with religious overtones. while it was more likely for fellow musicians to point out the ideological "shortcomings" of another for per­ sonal gain within the politics of cultural production, a "general (beneficial) complicity concerning these types of practices" allowed some composers to escape official censure (2002:74). the communist leadership also employed an important rhetorical strat­ egy with respect to the artistic creation of musical works, which portrayed their call for new, socialist compositions as emanating from a "desire of the masses;' rather than from a state campaign for legitimacy. at the romanian composers' conference organized on december 12-14, 1963, for instance, sabina pauta pieslak example 5. "dormi, gazda, ori nu dormi" ("are you sleeping, host, or not)" (collected by olea valer petra, telna village, hunedoara region, from informant i. haba in 1960; cernea, nicolescu, and briitulescu 1966:59). dormi, gazda, ori nu dormi, ca va yin colindatori! ia sculati-va cu toti, treziti ~i vecini de-ai vo~t', ficiori de-ai vo~t' ~i fete mari, muncitori ~i ciirturari. sa-~i descreteascii fruntile ~i sa curete curtile cu cornul catrintelor cu gurguiul cizmelor. is curate? nu te uiti? da ce curti-s aceste curti? cu casele tencuite, ~i-nauntru varuite, u~ile nezavorite, camerile cu de toate, iar in virfurile lor steag de partid ~i tricolor; joaca ~i doi porumbei, albi ~i tare sprintenei. ~i jucara ce jucara, se luara de zburara, jos spre mare se lasara, apa-n aripi ei luara, rubinele-n ghericele, venira-napoi cu ele ~i la cer se ridicara, rubinelele lasara, in flori se prefiicura ~i apa dnd 0 lasara tare mi ie parfumara. toate-s ca sa-nveseleasca asta cas a tinereasca, crescuta in zori cu roua de viata asta noua; sub steagul partidului ce ne-ndeamna-n viitor sa muncim cu mai mult spor. are you sleeping, host, or not, for the carolers are coming to you! come on and wake up, all of you, wake up, also, your neighbors, your young men and big girls, workers and scholars. to unwrinkle their brows and clean their yards with the corner of their aprons with the tips of their boots. are they clean? won't you look? but whose courtyards are these? with the plastered houses, and whitewashed inside, doors unlocked, pantries full of everything, and at their peaks the flag of the party and three-colored; also, dancing, are two pigeons, white and very lively. and dancing what they danced, they took to flight, releasing themselves down towards the sea, water in their wings they took, little rubies in their little claws, they came back with them and rose up to the sky, letting go of the rubies, they were transformed into flowers. and when they released the water strongly they were perfumed all these are meant to bring joy to this youthful house, grown at dawn with dew from this new life; under the flag of the party that spurs us, in the future, to work with greater zeal the central committee of the romanian communist party, with the state council and council of ministers, addressed the gathering by stating: the cultural revolution of our country has made the treasures of art and culture widely accessible, continually developing the spiritual desires of the 21 22 current musicology example 6. excerpt from alexandru pa~canu's festum hibernum: ancient cyclic customs (stravechi traditii ciclice 1979:23), mm. 191-201, and verses from the traditional star song "0 ce veste minunata" ("0 what wondrous news"). [l]] /9/ maestoso (ca .• = 84) p~f i~ soprano a ~ alto ~ ~ tenor f a i bass !i camp. ,oj /97 ~ io! s. ~ io! ~ a. ~ ,-, t. ifa __ b. , camp. o! o ce veste minunata in vitleem ni s-arata ca a nascut prunc, prunc din duhul sfant, fecioara maria. ca la vitleem maria, savaqind ciilatoria, in sarac loca~ l'mga ace! ora~, a nascut pre mesia. ~ -==cf in rilievo i _____ _ unis. 1 1 i i i i i ord. -------------------------------~----~ fn~ ord. inrilievo ord. o what wondrous news in bethlehem it is revealed to us that she bore an infant, an infant from the holy spirit, the virgin mary. that in bethlehem, maria, having finished the journey, in a poor place close to that city, gave birth to the messiah. sabina pau1a pieslak masses. from the creators of music, the working people are today awaiting works of high artistic value in which to find again the image of the times in which they live, the victorious fight of the new against the old, the joy oflife, their fiery patriotism, the entire spiritual universe of the construc­ tion of socialism-the inexhaustible source of inspiration for any artist. (brincu~i and ciilinoiu 1965:13)10 in the abovementioned volume, music historians petre brincu~i and nicolae c'ilinoiu (1965:261) identified composers who produced new works for the advancement of socialism by honoring them with the title "artist of the people" (artist al poporului). considered to be a group apart from "the masses;' composers were expected to believe that by aligning their creative output with the ideology of the state, they were truly serving "the people," the imagined masses who, according to state authorities, expected art to reflect the "spiritual universe" of socialism, the joyful "times" in which they supposedly lived. censorship and propaganda-based adaptation and education acquired even more importance in the communist party's efforts to underline its legitimacy in the historical course of romanian culture once nicolae ceau~escu took power in 1965. ceau~escu viewed himself-and wished to be portrayed by others-as a heroic leader who would guide romania to greatness, in the lineage of stephen the great and michael the brave. as katherine verdery explains, not only ceau~escu's speeches but all manner of newspaper articles, for example, included lengthy references to romanian history. these nearly always presented that history as an endless sequence of male heroes, strung out one after another, almost like a series of 'begats: and producing the impression of the nation as a temporally deep patrilineage. (1996:70) his cultural revolution, modeled on that of china during the 1970s, involved thousands of musicians and artists who glorified ceau~escu through their art. even kindergartners performed in musical shows and ballets in honor of ceau~escu, as can be seen in figures 3 and 4, through communist youth organizations such as pionierii (the pioneers) and ~oimii (the falcons). under ceau~escu, colin de were prohibited from public performance within romania while simultaneously utilized as symbols of romanian achievement, history, and religious tolerance through the international tours of the romanian national chamber choir, madrigal. this a cappella choir was founded in affiliation with the academy of music in bucharest by professor and conductor marin constantin in 1963, the same year as romania's proclamation of economic independence from the council for mutual economic assistance or comecon, a system of economic alliances 23 24 current musicology figure 3. kindergarten ballet, ia~i, romania, ca. 1981 (collection of the author). that included the ussr, bulgaria, czechoslovakia, hungary, poland, roma­ nia' and east germany (1950-1990). its international concerts were part of a massive, state-sponsored cam­ paign that aimed to represent romania as a progressive and tolerant nation in order to promote trade with the west and support romania's economic plans in defiance of moscow, especially after the soviet-led invasion of czechoslovakia (1968). the wide discrepancy between romania's foreign and domestic policies regarding the performance and commercialization of colinde was partly due to the economic advantages of marketing madrigal recordings to the romanian diaspora in such countries as the united states and canada. the government harbored a second, more important reason for the discrepancy. after the declaration of romanian economic indepen­ dence from the comecon in 1963, romania started to pursue relations with developed western nations such as italy and west germany. from 1960 to 1975, for example, romania's trade with the ussr dropped from 40.1 % to 18.6% (-53.6%), and, conversely, trade with western, developed industrial nations rose from 21.6% to 37.3% (+42.1%) (king 1979:163). this shift entailed a delicate balancing act: while internal control of religious expres­ sion and the pursuit of rational, scientific, and atheistic socialism within romania remained important in order to avoid losing alliances within the political sphere of the soviet union and the ultimate risk of soviet inva­ sion, the romanian government had much to gain by representing itself as sabina pauta pieslak figure 4. kindergarten choir, ia~i, romania, ca. 1981 (collection of the author). religiously tolerant to its potential western trading partners. this trend seems to correlate with the geographic distribution of madrigal's concerts during the cold war, since the romanian state orga­ nized madrigal's performances not only in communist countries, but also in non-communist nations where a positive representation of romania's image could potentially lead to cultural alliances or be translated into eco­ nomic advantages. during this period, for example, the choir performed only three tours in the soviet union versus four in the united states; most tours visited countries with which romania pursued intensified economic relations, such as italy, east and west germany, and france. colinde and star songs-a staple of madrigal's repertoire-were performed year-round on the choir's international tours. within romania, however, public performance of this music was strictly censored, and in many cases, prohibited. although the madrigal choir's colinde recordings were marketed in the united states, canada, and europe, they were illegal in romania, and broadcasts of the music back into romania through the bbc, voice of america, and radio free europe were heavily distorted by the government's static-producing stations, known as bruiaj. state leaders, on the other hand, were able to order recordings for their own enjoyment; ceau~escu even invited madrigal to serenade him with colinde at christmastime, thus suggesting that the communist leader himself may have held contradictory attitudes about the music. writing immediately 25 26 current musicology prior to the 1989 revolution, historian trond gilberg notes that many such contradictions in the cultural life of communist romania can be traced to ceau~escu's "own ambivalence on the subject of religion and ideology;' since from one perspective he had faith "in the feasibility of creating the 'new socialist man and woman' through ideological indoctrination," while at the same time he acknowledged "the enduring importance of religion for the masses and the need to enlist church leaders in his quest for personal and regime legitimacy" (gilberg 1989:342). other attempts to gain legitimacy involved education, where, rather than being officially eliminated from school curricula, colinde were altered in order to praise the supreme leader and his cult of personality. refrains that mentioned jesus christ or other christian references were replaced with more general, non-religious phrases, and the protagonists of christian stories were erased in favor of communist ones. describing her experiences in transylvania in december 1979, verdery remembers a ten-year-old girl who requested a christmas carol from her aunt for her school assignment. the old transylvanian woman began to sing a traditional colinda: we shepherds three are on our way to bethlehem this holy day with gifts for jesus christ our king o joy! our lady, joy we sing. the niece interrupted after the first verse, explaining, "comrade teacher said we shouldn't have any of those with religion in them. sing one without religion" (verdery 1983:74). as if by reflex, her aunt sang the melody again, with new lyrics: we shepherds three are on our way to bucharest this holiday gifts to comrade ceau~escu we bring. o joy! our happy joy we sing. (1983:74) in this instance, the central figure of christ in swaddling clothes is not re­ placed with lenin, but with ceau~escu, whom the state-controlled media would increasingly portray as a demi-god. through interviews and oral histories, i found that many people did not take such propaganda seriously, especially communist versions of co lin de, since the cultural legacy of the music was already deeply rooted in romanian society. also, the discrepancy between the idealized world portrayed in communist propaganda and the reality of poverty and repression in everyday life provoked sarcasm rather than adulation. along with other cultural forms of political indoctrination, the substitutions of the spiritual verses of colinde with the communist party's sabina pauta pieslak slogans were not effective tools for convincing the population of the regime's legitimacy, given the severe everyday realities of terror tactics and economic shortage that ultimately undermined ceau~escu's campaign. contrary to the designs of the communist state, colinde began to be identified as forbidden fruit and as symbols of freedom from the regime. perhaps cognizant of this fact, the national salvation front, which seized control of the television station in bucharest during the 1989 revolution, broadcast colinde and star songs sung by the madrigal choir, including the aforementioned, "0 what wondrous news;' to celebrate hopes for a liberated future-along with images of the ceau~escus, who had been executed, perhaps not coincidentally, on christmas day, 1989. once again, colinde and star songs framed the dawn of another era in romanian history, which reunited the rightful owner with his swaddling clothes and returned the songs to their publicly acknowledged status as emblems of revolution and rebirth. considering this repertoire's history within romanian political life, it may not be surprising to see that these songs continue to hold an important place in romanian national consciousness and culture. my focus has been to consider the differences between the rigidity of state policies concerning christian music during communism and the actual practices of adaptation and appropriation of colinde and star songs. i have argued that this music served important roles in communist propaganda precisely because the spiritual and national legacy of romanian christmas carols had already established deep roots in romanian culture prior to the communists' rise to power. clearly, this repertoire invites other in­ terpretations of the interplay between state ideology and christian music in romania, and valuable analyses could be approached from different perspectives. as informants become more comfortable in expressing their views with newfound freedom of speech, one could examine topics which, until recently, were impossible avenues for research. for instance, it would be interesting to document the ways in which colinde were sometimes used in protest against the government, a phenomenon on which little data is available (schuursma 1987:20), or to document the historical reception of this music in more detail. in light of new opportunities for research in this region, which have appeared since the conclusion of the cold war, i hope that what has been presented here will further scholarly interest and stimulate renewed consideration of this repertoire. notes with the exception of example la, which is transcribed from my fieldwork recordings of the caroling group in marga, all musical examples have been reproduced as they appear in the origi27 28 current musicology nal sources. all text examples have been translated by the author, and where necessary, examples and figures have been reproduced with the kind permission of their respective publishers. 1. this romanian collection and others from the communist era were previously examined by ethnomusicologist and colinda specialist marin marian-bala~a (1998). 2. these are currently housed in the constantin brailoiu institute of ethnography and folklore in bucharest. 3. for noteworthy contributions to the study of colinde and other types of romanian works censored during communism, see marian-bala~a (1997, 1998, 1999,2000), radulescu (2002), sandu-dediu (2002), and the volume sinteze (romanian ministry of culture 1997). 4. the exact period of christianization continues to be debated. it has been argued that christianity reached the daco-roman population and was practiced in hiding during the second and third centuries a.d. (ionescu 1998). 5. "publicarea unei coleqii de colinde nu necesita explicatii deosebite. aceasta, mai intai, pentru faptul ca, in oricare zona a pamantului romanesc ne-am afla, colinda reprezinta cea mai adanca vibratie a sufletului acestui neam ~i care 0 aflam sincronizata la toate imprejurarile vietii. numai a~a putem explica existenta colindelor de amaraciune ~i necaz, cele de razboi, cele de ras, ori de pricina. in colinda a vibrat dintotdeauna sufletul oricarei categorii de varsta, caci intalnim bine reprezentate colin de la copil, la flacau, la batrani. in colinda au vibrat sufletele tuturor categoriilor sociale, caci intainim colinde la om bogat, la 'birau' (primar), la preot, dar ~i la pescar, la vanator, la cioban, la me~terul aurar, etc. colinda este unul dintre cele mai puternice insemne ale dainuirii noastre prin vreme, ea nefiind decat 0 bogata carte de spirit, ce s-a alcatuit in accord cu universul popular de gandire ~i simtire. ne-o dovedesc mai intai colindele cosmogonice a caror vechime este de-o data cu poporul roman." 6. along with the portrayal of christ as the "light of the world:' light symbolism in colin de has also been traced to pre-christian traditions. in his discussion of the "frequency of'solar' images in colinde:' vasile v. filip asserts that "the survival of some elements from the cult of mithra/sol invictis in christmas traditions is beyond question," and that this "inheritance" may be observed even in church hymns, such as this christmas trope, which depicts christ as the rising sun: "thy birth, christ, our god, rising for the world the light of knowledge, so that through it, those who worshipped the stars, learned from the star to genuflect before thee, the sun of justice, and to know thee, the dawn from on high, lord, praise be to thee!" ["este neindoielnica supravietuirea unor elemente din cultullui mithra/sol invictus in datinile de craciun. in capitolul precedent am putut constata frecventa imaginilor 'solare' in colin de, ba chiar ~i unele elemente de raportare cultica la soare. dar chiar ~i in textele religioase cre~tine, biserice~ti, gasim un atare deosebit de relevant regim imagistic. sa luam ca exemplu doar cunoscutul tropar de craciun: 'na~terea ta hristoase, dumnezeul nostru, rasarit-a lumii lumina cuno~tintei, ca intru dansa cei ce slujeu stelelor, de la stea s-au invatat sa se inchine tie, soarelui dreptatii, ~i sa te cunoasca pe tine, rasaritul cel de sus, doamne, marire tie!'" (filip 1999: 138) 1 for a detailed examination of the manner in which romania's geographic location and climate have also contributed to the development of the sun's symbolism in the culture, see ghinoiu (2004:147-48). 7. for an insightful discussion of this and other works on similar themes, see crotty (2005). 8. since the airduct of a flute is sometimes called lumina (the light), there may have been a connection in bucur's creative process between the "lights" of the flutes' airducts and the bolshevik star. diculescu notes, however, that the "sonorous function" of the instrument "was sacrificed to the sake of its external shape" (diculescu 1998:98), since she recalls that sabina pauta pieslak the festival audience laughed at the unusual drone and blurred melody produced by bucur's creation. 9. those who created music on propaganda themes did not necessarily espouse the ideol­ ogy on a personal level; composers were often forced to be "inspired" by socialist ideas, and collaboration with the state occurred on many levels along the spectrum from coercion to opportunism. 10. "revolutia culturala din tara no astra a facut larg accesibile comorile artei ~i culturii, dez­ voltind continuu cerintele spirituale ale maselor. de la creatorii de muzica, oamenii muncii a~teapta astazi lucrari de inalta valoare artistica in care sa regaseasca imaginea vremurilor pe care ie traiesc, lupta victorioasa a noului impotriva vechiului, bucuria de viata, patriotismul lor infiiicarat, intregul univers spiritual al constructorilor socialismului-sursa inepuizabila de inspiratie pentru orice artist." 11. the comecon system of economic alliance, active from 1949 to 1991, included the ussr, bulgaria, czechoslovakia, hungary, poland, romania, east germany (1950-1990), mongolia (joined in 1962), cuba (joined in 1972), vietnam (joined in 1978), albania (1949-1961), and yugoslavia (occasional participant). references biltiu, pamfil and gheorghe pop. 1996. "sculati, sculati, boieri mari!" colinde din judetul maramure? cluj-napoca, romania: editura dacia. brincu~i, petre and nicolae calinoiu. 1965. muzica in romania dupa 23 august 1944, 2nd ed. bucharest: editura muzicala a uniunii compozitorilor din republica socialista romania. caraman, petru. [1933]1983. colindatulla romani, slavi,?i la alte popoare: studiu de folclor comparat. bucharest: editura minerva. cernea, eugenia, nicolae radulescu, and tudor pintean, eds. 1964. spre lumina: culegere de cintece revolutionare. bucharest: editura muzicala a uniunii compozitorilor din r. p. r. cernea, eugenia, vasile d. nicolescu, and n. bratulescu, eds. 1966. cintece?i strigaturi populare noi. bucharest: editura muzicala a uniunii compozitorilor din r. s. r. cernea, eugenia and nicoleta coatu. 1986. cintecul popular nou. bucharest: editura muzicala. constantiniu, florin. 2002. 0 istorie sincera a poporului roman, 3rd ed. bucharest: univers enciclopedic. crotty, joel. 2005. music, socialist realism and the romanian experience, 1948-1956: (re)interpreting music history in light of (re)reading, (re)listening and (re)writing for a different audience. paper, first conference of the repertoire international de lit­ terature musicale, new york, ny. diculescu, felicia. 1998. strange instruments, strange use: late political craziness haunting the folk creation. east european meetings in ethnomusicology 5: 89-102. filip, vasile v. 1999. universul colindei romane~ti: in perspectiva unor structuri de mentalitate arhaica. bucharest: editura saeculum 1. o. ghinoiu, ion. 2004. sarbiitori ?i obiceiuri romane?ti. bucharest: editura elion. gilberg, trond. 1989. religion and nationalism in romania. in religion and nationalism in soviet and east european politics, edited by pedro ramet, 328-51. durham, nc: duke university press. ionescu, ion. 1998. inceputurile cre?tinismului romanesc daco-roman. bucharest: editura universitatii. jowitt, kenneth. 1971. revolutionary breakthroughs and national development: the case of 29 30 current musicology romania, 1944-1965. berkeley: university of california press. king, robert r. 1979. romania. in communism in eastern europe, edited by teresa rakowska­ harmstone and andrew gyorgy, 145-67. bloomington: indiana university press. lenin, vladimir i. [1909] 1962. the attitude of the workers' party to religion. in collected works. vol. 15, march 1908-august 1909,402-13. moscow: progress publishers. marian-bi'ila~a, marin. 1997. folclor, economie, politica. in ministerul culturii 1997, 9-17. ___ ,.1998. manipulating the sacred: winter folk songs under communist pressures. east european meetings in ethnomusicology 5: 103-29. ___ . 1999. old sounds in the transition town. in musik im umbruch: kulturelle iden­ titat und gesellschaftlicher wandel in sudosteuropa, 293-306, edited by bruno b. reuer. munich: verlag siidostdeutsches kulturwerk. ___ " 2000. colinda-epifanie ~i sacrament. bucharest: editura minerva. ministerul culturii, centrul national de conservare ~i valorificare a traditiei ~i creatiei. 1997. sinteze, vol. 4. ramnicu valcea, prundeni: romanian ministry of culture. ministerul invatamantului public, educatia tineretului. 1948. colinde ~i dmtece pentru datinile de craciun, vol. 2. n.p.: ministerul invatamantului public. moanta, ion, ed. 2002. sus la masa raiului: culegere de colin de din fonoteca societatii romane de radiodifuziune. bucharest: editura "casa radio." olah, tiberiu. 1960. lumina lui lenin. muzica 10 (4): 8-9. pa~canu, alexandru. 1979. festum hibernum: ancient cyclic customs. bucharest: editura muzicala. ramet, pedro. 1989. the interplay of religious policy and nationalities policy in the soviet union and eastern europe. in religion and nationalism in soviet and east european politics, edited by pedro ramet, 3-41. durham, nc: duke university press. radulescu, speranta. 2002. peisaje muzicale in romania secolului xx. bucharest: editura muzicala. sandu-dediu, valentina. 2002. muzica romaneasca intre 1944-2000. bucharest: editura muzicala. schuursma, ann. 1987. colinde cu dubii in valea mure~ului, southwestern transylvania, hunedoara province, romania. ph.d. diss., university of california, los angeles. tismaneanu, vladimir. 1992. reinventing politics: eastern europe from stalin to havel. new york: the free press. verdery, katherine. 1983. transylvanian villagers: three centuries of political, economic, and ethnic change. berkeley: university of california press. ___ " 1996. what was socialism, and what comes next? princeton: princeton university press. vulpescu, mihai. [1933]1999. despre cantecele de craciun. in sarbiitori fericite! antologie de conferinte radiofonice din arhiva societiitii romane de radiodifuziune, vol. 1 (1932-1935): 102-23. bucharest: editura casa radio. pisani, michael v. 2005. imagining native america in music. new haven, et, and london: yale university press. reviewed by klisala harrison toward the end of imagining native america in music, michael pisani recounts a film scene: "pin your eyeballs, son, there's a redskin over that rock yonder!" shouts california joe to george armstrong custer in the 1942 warner brothers film they died with their boots on. as custer's wife libby replies appre­ hensively with "indians?" we hear a throbbing tom-tom along with high unison woodwinds playing a short descending chromatic figure, a figure bookended by the interval of an augmented fourth. (292) pisani asks what stereotypes of native americans are evoked by the moment described, and also how musical codes have been used throughout history to convey such stereotypes. hollywood westerns, pisani explains, combined musical signs for "indianness" like tom-toms, chromatic figures, and augmented fourths in complex ways that commented on dramatic action. these sonic commentaries negotiated tensions between native americans and european settlers involving ethnicity, land tenure, and american nationalism. the music often articulated three problematic stereotypes of native americans: the pocahontas figure (the sentimental and self-sacrificing young woman), the "noble anachronism" character (the virtuous native, doomed to cultural assimilation), and the "savage reactionary" (the indian warrior, resentful of white culture and seeking revenge). each of these types was associated with specific musical signs for "indianness." the musical signifiers for hollywood indians have diverse origins in western art music, popular songs, musical theater, and music ethnography. the rhythmic rigidity of the tom-tom in movie soundtracks, pisani submits, was unconsciously informed by nineteenth-century music ethnographers. by contrast, drum-like sounds and chromatic figures emerged as tropes for "indian" culture in early nineteenth-century euro-american and european songs that had been inspired by native american cultures. according to pisani, the augmented fourth evidences a stravinskian neoclassical influ­ ence that aaron copland and his contemporaries injected into film scores for hollywood westerns of the 1930s. such scores emphasized seconds, fourths, and lowered sevenths, intervals the neoclassicists had also privileged. other musical signifiers used in hollywood westerns to stereotype native americans included minor keys, drones, open fifths, parallel melodic fourths, current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 121 22 current musicology pentatonic modes, rhythmic inflexibility, and the rhythms of the moresca and the "scottish snap:' scholars like philip j. deloria (2004), rayna green (1975), claudia gorbman (2000), and beth ellen levy (2002) have critiqued musical repre­ sentations of native americans in twentieth-century us popular culture, but pisani's study is the first book to extensively document the emergence and development of specific musical tropes that north americans have come to hear as stereotypically "indian." pisani's book is less a critical analysis of the phenomenon of musical exoticism than a carefully crafted survey of how indianism evolved in western classical and popular music. organized chronologically and covering a wide range of topics, pisani's book traces the origins and development of the musical tropes for native americans in several contexts: european court entertainments from 1550 to 1760; anti-colonial british-american theater and songs from 1710 to 1808; parlor songs, musical theater, and concert works from 1795 to 1860 that addressed colonial conquest; ethnographic representations of native american music in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; american instrumental character pieces, string quartets, and symphonic works at the turn of the twentieth century; early twentieth-century parlor songs, concert songs, american operas, and broadway musicals; and native american music in film, especially in hollywood westerns. as this list of contents demonstrates, imagining native america in music will appeal to scholars from various academic fields working on a variety of topics and areas. the monograph bridges musicology, performance practice studies, ethnomusicology, history, indigenous studies, theater studies, and film studies. pisani's research is impressively thorough. his detailed examination of hundreds of scores of art music, antiquated popular music, and musical theater compositions took him to a number of archives including the british library, the library of congress, the american folklife center, and the smithsonian institution. his book offers evocative sonic descriptions of rarely performed american art music from the turn of the twentieth century, as well as comprehensive repertoire lists and over thirty-two music transcriptions and reprints (though the large number of musical examples and analyses may deter the non-musically trained scholar). in tracing the development ofindianist musical signs since 1550, pisani's questions take an interdisciplinary approach: what did non-native compos­ ers know about native americans? how were these peoples represented musically? what are the trends of these musical representations and their implications for history, politics, society, and nationhood, particularly in the united states? pisani argues that by the early nineteenth century, a sort of lexicon of "indianist" musical signs had coalesced in europe and the us. this complex klisala harrison of musical signs (drones, minor modes, moresca-type rhythms) existed in a different socio-political environment than had the tropes circulating in seventeenthand eighteenth-century france and britain. (musical represen­ tations of native americans in seventeenth-century france had drawn on popular notions of the "savage" (sauvage) as pagan, nude, childlike, and yet warlike creatures of an idyllic wilderness, while eighteenth-century british theater and song had reflected the ruthless realities of colonial conquest, ambivalence about an emerging euro-american identity, and a particular concept of noble savagery that aligned more with native views than with colonial ideals.) in nineteenth -century constructions of american national identity, musical compositions highlighted amerindian roles in ways that sometimes romanticized amerindians, sometimes demonized them, and almost always marginalized them. pisani points to antecedents of hollywood indian stereotypes that were depicted with consistent musical language. compositions like henry bishop's 1823 round, "yes! 'tis the indian drum;' represented native americans as warlike by using open fourths and fifths, pulsating percussive chords, and minor modes-all set in the british march style. concert works in the "war dance" genre of 1830s europe and america denoted the pagan savage with angular melodies, diminished -seventh chords, fast tempos, driving rhythmic accompaniments, and intense chromaticism. the "pagan" trope was developed further in american compositions such as robert stoepel's hiawatha: a romantic symphony (premiered 1859). by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, indianist musical tropes were informed by the research of early ethnographers of native american music including theodore baker, alice cunningham fletcher, franz boas, benjamin ives gilman, john comfort fillmore, natalie curtis, and frances densmore. pisani's fifth chapter, entitled "ethnographic encounters;' is one of the most historically astute summaries of early native americanist music research in recent years. it stands as an excellent resource for ethnomusicology students studying native american music, because it maps the roots of current trends in scholarship on first nations. for example, pisani discusses the philosophies of cultural progress that informed the establishment of ethnology and folklore study (including certain branches of native american studies), the techniques of early music fieldwork con­ ducted among indian tribes, and the position of ethnomusicology within the historiography of musicology overall. ethnographers of native american music, as well as critics and compos­ ers, held a variety of opinions as to why and how native song could be used to create distinctly american art music. alice fletcher, john fillmore, and natalie curtis argued that indian music conveyed the unique american character. this idea was also promoted widely in lecture-recitals on indian song by musicians like arthur farwell. thus "exotic" song, as documented 123 24 current musicology in early music ethnography, became the basis for "nationalist" compositions such as edward macdowell's suite no.2 ("indian") for orchestra (1895) and the character pieces by henry gilbert that accompanied edward s. curtis's photographic tribute to native america at carnegie hall (1911). antonin dvorak also famously suggested that american composers utilize "indian themes" to forge an american nationalist style, leading by example with his symphony no.9 in e minor, op. 95 ("from the new world") (1893), the string quintet in e~ major, op. 97 ("the american") (1893), and the suite for piano in a, op. 98 (1894). early ethnographies of native american music, according to pisani, had complex and not always positive implications for musical representations of first nations. stereotypes of indians as primitive, inflexible, and stoic developed as nationalist composers combined the persistent indianist mu­ sical signs from the war dance genre with the rhythmic rigidity commonly found in ethnographic transcriptions (for example, those ofjohn fillmore in alice fletcher's a study of omaha indian music, [1893] 1994). in fact, as pisani observes, this rigidity resulted from scholars' attempts to capture highly fluid rhythmic patterns in western musical notation. the trope of primitivism touched diverse music genres, including character pieces (ernest r. kroeger, march of the indian phantoms, 1904), cantatas (hans busch, the four winds, 1907), opera (victor herbert, natoma, 1911), music for silent films (john zamecnik, indian attack, 1914), wild west shows (karl king, the passing of the red man, ca. 1916), and broadway musicals (irving berlin, annie get your gun, 1946). one of the most troubling yet fascinating parts of pisani's book is his documentation of how the various indianist musical signifiers were transformed during the early twentieth century in popular culture (song, theater, broadway musicals, and hollywood films). pisani correlates the commercial exploitation of native americans in the early 1900s with the fact that native american political influence and social freedom were at their lowest point. loss of control over traditional territories and forced relocation to reservation lands catalyzed assimilation and erasure, even though us laws forbade interracial marriage in most states. by 1904, the sheet music publishing industry was churning out "indian" popular songs that used tropes from the 1830s war dance genre, pentatonic-inflected choruses in major modes, and newer musical signifiers of the exotic. neil moret's popular song (and two-step) "silver heels: indian intermezzo" (1905), for example, employed a major tonic chord with an added sixth to harmonize its pentatonic melody. almost all "indian" popular song lyrics depicted love relationships and provided urban americans with a vision of escape from the modern, industrialized city. usually the lovers were native, but some lyrics ridiculed miscegenation. pisani includes vincent bryan's lyrics for ted klisala harrison snyder's song "ogalalla," in which a white man imitates a medicine-show dialect and mocks his lover's irregular english: many moons ago, down in mexico, out upon the indian reservation, lived a redskin queen, she was just eighteen, sweetest girl in all her dusky nation. riding from the north a cowboy came, she met him and set his heart aflame, ev'ry night they'd ride 0' er the prairie wide, while to explain his love he tried. ogalalla, ogalalla, heap much lovee, you love me, soon we ride quick my tepee ogalalla, ogalalla, big chief get sore, and he make much war, but we go before, if you be my squaw my ogalalla, follow me. (255) miscegenation also fueled theater plots like those of william demille's strongheart (1905) and edwin milton royle's the squaw man (1905), which sent the message that marriages between indians and non -indians would be fraught with cultural dissonance and irreconcilabilities. victor herbert and joseph redding's opera natoma (1911) echoed this sentiment. early twentieth-century theater and opera about native americans also paired difficult indian and non-indian love topics with shifting mu­ sical representations of the "war dance" and "pagan savage." for instance, a "dagger dance" theme in act two of natoma reveals what pisani calls the "primitive savagism" coiled up within herbert and redding's music. the theme features a four-beat rhythm on the tom-tom and a minor-key, tetratonic melody that descends to a cadence before repeating-illustrating that herbert and redding were acquainted with war dance tropes as well as with the popular songs and intermezzos of the previous decade. fourand five-tone descending melodies with repeated phrase endings were common in first nations songs, which indians presented at tourist venues and which music ethnographers transcribed. composers of art music and popular song thus had ample opportunity to appropriate actual indigenous sounds and to reinterpret them in a colonialist frame. in commercially successful broadway musicals and hollywood westerns, the musical signs for native americans flooded dramatic narratives and aligned themselves with the 125 126 current musicology indian character stereotypes previously mentioned (the pocahontas figure, the noble anachronism, and the savage reactionary). hollywood westerns joined dramatic action to pastiches of indianist musical tropes, which not only reinforced old stereotypes, but highlighted twentieth-century ethnic divisions between natives and non-natives. pisani's imagining native america in music is extensively researched, well written, historically enlightened, and enlightening. his arguments are convincing, although the goals of his musicological and cultural analysis remain somewhat unclear until the last two chapters of the book. when this reader reached pisani's concluding chapters on broadway musicals and hollywood westerns, she realized that the author primarily had intended to discuss the history of those musical representations of native americans found in twentieth-century us popular culture. the book's title and early chapters had led her to expect the examination of a broader selection of musical genres and contexts. still, imagining native america in music is a rare and insightful study of the lineage of native american exoticism in western music compositions. references deloria, philip j. 2004. music: the hills are alive ... with the sound of indian. in indians in unexpected places, 183-223. lawrence: university press of kansas. fletcher, alice cunningham. [1893]1994. a study of omaha indian music. lincoln: university of nebraska press. gorbman, claudia. 2000. scoring the indian: music in the liberal western. in western music and its others: difference, representation, and appropriation in music, edited by georgina born and david hesmondhalgh, 234-53. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. green, rayna. 1975. the pocahontas perplex: the image of indian women in american culture. massachusetts review 16 (4): 698-714. levy, beth ellen. 2002. frontier figures: american music and the mythology of the american west, 1895-1945. phd dissertation, university of california, berkeley. current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf adolphe appia, les maftres chanteurs de nuremberg: an introduction and translation translator's introduction by cathy cox the swiss scenery artist adolphe appia, born in geneva in 1862, is thought by many in the theatrical community to be a forefather of modern theater, particularly for his radical ideas concerning stage lighting. his artistic in­ terest in stage production was motivated and inspired early on by his pas­ sion for wagner's music dramas; evidence for this is apparent in his first published writing, la mise en scene du drame wagnt?rien of 1895, which in­ cludes notes for a hypothetical production of wagner's ring of the nibelungen. around the same time, appia wrote scenarios for productions of die meistersinger von nurnberg and parsifal.! appia subsequently pro­ duced a performance of tristan und isolde at la scala in 1923 and staged die walkure in basel in 1925. although joseph urban's 1919 production of parsifal at the metropolitan opera in new york showed clear analogies to appia's designs of 1896 (beacham 1994:141), appia's suggestions for the production of die meistersinger remained obscure until well after his death in 1928. the essay regarding die meistersinger was not published until 1986 with the appearance of volume ii of appia's oeuvres completes under the auspices of the swiss theater society; the text following the present article marks its first translation and publication in english. although appia left behind sketches and drawings for productions of wagner's other music dramas, none for die meistersinger have been found. the lack of sketches has led some scholars to infer that appia had little interest in the work.2 die meistersinger von nurnberg does set itself apart from wagner's other music dramas: it was conceived as a comic opera, end­ ing happily with a marriage (although the actual wedding occurs only after the opera has ended); and wagner gave very specific indications in the score for both the historical time and place of the setting-sixteenth-century nuremberg. this specificity of time and place ostensibly limits the possible artistic interpretation of the work for the stage designer, should the designer wish to stay true to wagner's wishes-which perhaps explains appia's ap­ parent lack of interest in the work. but the absence of sketches does not prove that none existed; in fact, there is some evidence that appia had revis­ ited his production notes for die meistersinger as late as 1926, two years before his death. in a short essay entitled "das problem der stilbiihne bei den werken richard wagners," written for a musicological congress in current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 35 36 current musicology leipzig in 1925, appia's references to die meistersinger demonstrate that he had, indeed, been thinking about possible stage interpretations for the work (appia 1992:480-81). a reading of appia's production notes for die meistersinger can none­ theless serve both to gather further insights into the opera itself, and to gain better understanding of appia's ideas through a practical application of his theories. but first it is important to review the main points of appia's theo­ ries through a historical lens, focusing on the issues of theatrical produc­ tion to which he was reacting. wagner's 1868 premiere production and cosima's 1888 production the premiere of die meistersinger von nurnberg took place in 1868 in munich, and the production was closely monitored by the dramatist-com­ poser himself. in addition to his indications in the score, wagner insisted that the interior architectural features of the church in act i and the houses in the street scene of act ii be made of three-dimensional sets and not just painted flats, the latter being the conventional means of stage design at the time. king ludwig, who was funding the project, sent the court scenery painters angelo quaglio and heinrich doll to make sketches of churches and houses of nuremberg in preparation for the designs of both acts i and ii. this upset wagner, since the actual historical buildings to which he re­ fers in the opera were not exactly the same as the structures he wished to have in the stage production: the katharinenkirche of the first act was in reality rather plain and not the spiraling gothic structure he had imagined. hans sachs's house was not located at a street corner, as he had specified in the stage directions to act ii, but in the middle of a row of houses. in the end, wagner's wishes won out and historical accuracy was sacrificed in fa­ vor of the artist's conception. the stage production on the whole was, how­ ever, much in keeping with the prevailing naturalist -realist movement, which insisted upon close attention to stylistic detail. a reporter for the neue ber­ liner musikzeitung wrote of the production "what one sees here are ... complete cardboard buildings, copied from real life, and streets, squares and perspectives so life-like as to deceive one into thinking them real" (quoted in bauer 1983:182). thus, despite the historical inaccuracies mentioned above, the visual impression of sixteenth-century nuremberg was recreated as realistically as possible and with much attention to detail. appia was not present at the 1868 premiere of die meistersinger (he was six years old at the time). he did, however, attend the 1888 bayreuth pro­ duction while he was studying in dresden. this production, overseen by cathy cox wagner's widow cosima, was modeled after the premiere and thus preserved the realist-naturalist aesthetic of the original staging. the few changes pro­ ducers max and gotthold bruckner made to the original stage settings were in favor of increased realism and historical accuracy: most significantly, the interior of the church in act i was made architecturally plainer so it would more closely resemble the actual katharinenkirche. max bruckner was par­ ticularly well known at the time as a champion of the realist-naturalist aes­ thetic, with his painstaking attention to minute details in his painted and constructed sets. appia, however, was unimpressed by the bruckner broth­ ers' production. such painstaking detail, as practiced by max bruckner, was one of the things that disturbed appia about conventional practices in theater pro­ duction in the late 1800s. he felt that such over-attention to detail served only to distract the audience from the drama and music. he called instead for simplicity, recommending the stage to be set "only so far as is necessary for the comprehension of the poetic text; a mere indication is enough to enlighten us to the nature of the visible environment" (quoted in beacham 1994:23).3 the opulent grandeur of conventional, detail-oriented stage de­ signs, he felt, merely appealed to the fancies of the common masses and had little inherent artistic value. that most of this detail was achieved through painted flats only worsened the situation for appia, who found it absurd that real, living actors should be made to interact with flat, two-dimen­ sional scenery. in order for the audience to be convinced of the reality of the drama, appia argued, the actors must be able to interact directly with the stage setting; this can happen only if the scenery is composed of real "prac­ ticable" three-dimensional objects, which are then animated through liv­ ing, moving light. thus appia was disappointed by the 1888 production of die meistersinger he saw in bayreuth, as he was earlier by the bayreuth produc­ tions he attended of parsifal in 1882 and tristan und isolde in 1886. al­ though appia saw in wagner a great dramatist and composer-appia used the term "poet-musician" to describe the union of these two art forms in one artist-and admired wagner's operas and writings to the point of ob­ session, appia felt that wagner's creative genius failed when it came to the mise en scene, or stage production. the conventional staging of wagner's works failed to reciprocate, in appia's mind, the revolutionary essence and power of the music and drama. in a critique of the 1882 parsifal, the last production the composer oversaw before his death, wagner himself appeared to recognize the shortcomings with his words, "in this field of music dra­ maturgy, alas, all is still so new and hidden in the dust of bad routine" (quoted in beacham 1994: 11).4 appia reflected upon this issue in his retrospective 37 38 current musicology essay of 1921, theatrical experiences and personal investigations: on the one hand, the director is confronted by wagner's traditional con­ ception of staging practice; on the other, by a music-poetic text ostensibly liberated from that tradition and not influenced at all by contemporary staging. this contradiction reveals a fundamental conflict in the dramatist's thinking ... (quoted in beacham 1994:43)5 appia's distress over this contradiction, which he found in a medium and of a music for which he otherwise felt so passionate, incited him to begin formulating his own theory of stage production. this ultimate purpose of appia's theory, then, was to demonstrate how the stage production might finally be integrated and united with the musical and dramatic elements of wagnerian opera and music drama. appia's general theory on stage productions appia believed that the inner life or essence of music drama is revealed in the music, and thus all other elements in the staging of opera must in some way be hierarchically subordinated to the music. he sums up this concept in his publication of 1899, die musik und die inscenierung (music and the art of the theater): [aj dramatic conception which requires musical expression in order to manifest itself must arise from the hidden world of our inner life, because this life cannot be expressed except through music, and music can express only that life. the poet-musician encompasses this vision in his music. through language, he gives it specific dramatic form and composes the poetic-musical text, the score. this text imposes on the actor his role, which is already living and defined for him to assume. the proportions of this role determine the form of the actual arrangement of three-dimensional elements (the point of contact between the living actor and the inanimate settings); the degree and nature of these elements determine the spatial arrangement of the setting, which in turn controls the lighting and painted flats. this hierarchy is composed organically: the soul of the drama (mu­ sic) provides it with life, and by its pulsations determines every move­ ment of the whole organism in their proportion and sequence. (appia 1962:26) thus, the actor mediates between the elements of music and scenic design. appia emphasized the importance of making full use of three-dimensional space in scenic design because it facilitates the actor's ability to relate di­ rectly to the set, supporting the impression of on-stage reality in the eyes of cathy cox the audience. appia raised this same issue in his discussion of the problem of scenic realism in the production of die meistersinger: for the drama of the poet-musician, the scenic realism obviously has to have a completely different scope [from that of spoken drama l, since the music creates the environment and since this creation, which lasts as long as the drama itself, animates and justifies in the eyes of the public every minute of the spectacle. a dramatic action that needs music to express itself is of such a nature that the material notions necessary in spoken drama are superfluous to it. by renouncing the inanimate signs of the painted scenery, nothing is sacrificed that lighting cannot replace; the "prac­ tical" reality of the objects are then only justified insofar as they favor the lighting or they enter into a direct relation with the actor. (appia 1986:251)6 this theme regarding the importance of lighting over painted scenery is found throughout appia's writings. for appia, stage lighting achieves its expressive power most specifically through the creative shaping and con­ touring of shade and shadow. such subtle variance in the intensity and di­ rectionality of stage lighting, appia argues, is completely lost on painted flats, which can only be lit or unlit. in die musik, appia goes so far as to claim that lighting is the aspect of stage production that can most closely correspond to music in terms of expression: light is to production what music is to the score: the expressive element as opposed to external signs; and as in the case of music, light can express only that which belongs to 'the inner essence' of all vision ... the two elements have an analogous existence. each of them needs some external object if their activity is to be put into effect: the poet, in the case of music, and the actor (by means of the spatial layout) for lighting. both elements possess extraordinary subtlety ... (appia 1962:72)7 for appia, then, the proper and sensitive use of lighting breathes life and energy into the otherwise inanimate stage design. the spatial and temporal dimensions of appia's lighting technique serve a symbolic function, aiming to match the expression of the actors and, ultimately, the music. appia's vision for die meistersinger appia begins his discussion of die meistersinger by contrasting this work with tristan und isolde. 8 in appia's view, the dramatic action on stage in tristan und isolde was exclusively interior in nature (176), while in die meistersinger "exterior life plays the principal role on stage" (249). it is clear from the opening of appia's essay that this work caused him some difficulty in its apparent focus on exterior life both in the music and text, especially as 39 40 current musicology he found that the intensity of the music was out of proportion with text and stage indications for the work. however, once he refocused his atten­ tion away from the exterior action towards the interior soul of the main character, hans sachs, he found the inspiration he needed to proceed with his scenario for the staging of the work. appia's interpretative focus on the character of hans sachs shares many points in common with h. s. chamberlain's discussion of die meistersinger in his book on wagnerian drama (chamberlain 1892). appia and cham­ berlain were close friends who regularly discussed wagner's works with each other (appia 1986:247); indeed, chamberlain may be the "third party" to whom appia refers in the essay-that is, the one who provides the impetus for a "clear and precise formula" for understanding the work (250). while both authors characterize the work as expressing a conflict between exte­ rior and interior life, however, appia's discussion is greater in detail and nuance in how this conflict plays out in the work, while chamberlain says nothing of its staging. thus, even though chamberlain's ideas may have served as initial inspiration, appia's interpretation for the work's scenario is completely his own. for appia, the "exterior life" of the drama involves the petty, mundane concerns of the nuremberg residents apart from sachs; this includes the singing competition and the love story between eva and walther. indeed, appia divides the characters of the drama into two groups: sachs on the one hand, and everyone else on the other. appia's characterization of sachs as a genius poet-musician bears much resemblance to his idolatrous de­ scriptions of wagner himself, such that it is difficult not to draw parallels between the two throughout appia's essay. it is sachs' soul, which appia finds expressed in the music, that makes up the "interior life" of the drama. the conflict between exterior and interior life is then resolved through sachs' gradual renunciation of his own outward desires. while appia feels this conflict between exterior and interior life is evidently expressed in the mu­ sic, he sees it as his task to demonstrate how this conflict can also be under­ scored through the staging. appia points out how the conflict between exterior and interior life is represented through the regular alternation between exterior and interior settings for the scenes: the three acts of die meistersinger consist of two interior settings and two open-air settings, alternating regularly from one to the other. the lighting will have to mark these successive oppositions and the sets and the paintwork will be subordinate to it. the first interior setting, the aisle of a church of nuremberg, is in turn in opposition to the second interior setting, the small workshop of cathy cox the cobbler hans sachs. the first open-air setting, a crossroads in old nuremberg, is similarly in opposition to the second open-air setting, a clearing somewhere near the city. the four settings offer in this manner an arrangement favorable to their separate effect, and one can absorb oneself in the character of each of them without doing a disservice to the ones that frame it. (appia 1986:252)9 most of the "oppositions" appia finds among the scene settings are imme­ diately clear. the interior church setting of act i stands in opposition to the exterior setting of the street scene of act ii; and the interior setting of sachs' studio for the first four scenes of act iii stands in opposition to the open­ air setting of the final scene. the two exterior scenes may be understood in opposition to each other, as the street scene occurs as evening falls to night, while the final open -air scene occurs in mid -day; the mood of the two scenes are in opposition as well, as the street scene is full of disruptive tumult while the final scene is one of celebration. less clear, perhaps, is how the two interior settings stand in opposition to each other. appia does not explain this opposition directly, but rather elaborates on these opening statements by describing the hypothetical stage directions for each scene in succession. both interior settings are lit, at the beginning, by a ray of morning sun entering through a window, and are overtaken by light at the end. the lighting at the beginning of the first act, streaming in through a stained-glass window, helps to establish the serene nature of the church setting; appia's treatment of hans sachs' workshop in act iii similarly establishes the hero's studio as a sanctified space. in this way, the two interior settings seem to stand more in parallel to each other than in opposition. perhaps it is in the more intimate and private sphere of the latter interior setting-being more closely aligned to the interior life of the poet-musician, as opposed to the public sphere of the church-that appia's opposition between these two settings can be found. given the importance of proper lighting technique to appia's general theory of stage production, it comes as no surprise that appia gives particular at­ tention to this element in his essay on staging die meistersinger. there is a subtle difference, however, between the role he assigns to the lighting in die meistersinger and the role he assigns to this element in wagner's other mu­ sic dramas: the dramatic action of die meistersinger is set in a real-rather than mythological-time and place. appia, in his scenario for the work, transposes this attention to realism away from the inanimate elements of the stage design-which, as we recall, 41 42 current musicology were so painstakingly researched and detailed in the work's premiere-to the lighting. thus the intensity and direction of the stage lighting must be appropriate for the time of day in which the dramatic action takes place, as well as expressing differences between interior and exterior settings. the objects on stage are then to be arranged in such a way so that the shadows they cast in relation to the lighting support the overall impression of real life. in this way, the role appia assigns to lighting technique for die meistersinger is as much realistic as symbolic. although it may seem self-evident today that the lighting should reflect differences between night and day, appia's appeal to the realistic use oflight­ ing in this work's production is intended specifically as a critique of the conventional practices of his day, wherein the stage would be un differentially illuminated in full by the footlights. the lighting's realistic portrayal of the differences between indoor and outdoor settings then takes on a symbolic role when understood in terms of the conflict between interior and exterior life which, as noted above, creates the essence of the dramatic action in appia's interpretation. the double-duty of the lighting as both realistic and symbolic in function is especially cogent in the work's penultimate scene, when the ray oflight shining in through the cobbler's door serves as media­ tor between the interior and exterior setting, as well as private and public life. notes on the translation appia's essay concerning die meistersinger is divided into two sections: one presenting a scenario for the staging, and the other presenting an analysis of the drama's key characters; the two sections are presented here in the same order as they appear in the oeuvres completes (appia 1986:249-65), although appia may have intended to have the character analysis precede the scenario. this means that, when appia states at the end of the character analysis that "is it now possible to give some detailed examples" (265), he is referring to the section of the essay published at the beginning. the numbered endnotes are appia's own, which appear as footnotes in the original published edition. out of concern not to obscure the reader's attention to appia's own notes, i have chosen not to present within this translation the large volume of additional endnotes provided by the editor of the oeuvres completes; rather, much of the information provided by the latter notes have been integrated within this introduction. cathy cox notes i would like to thank walter frisch and katherine dacey-tsuei for their encouragement and support in bringing this translation to light. i would also like to thank katharina rosenberger for her assistance in contacting the schweizerische gesellschaft fur theaterkultur (sgtk), and hansueli w. moser-ehinger of the sgtk for granting me permission to publish appia's essay in translation. 1. marie bablet-hahn suggests that appia originally intended for these two scenarios to be included in la mise en scene; their ultimate omission was presumably at the publisher's re­ quest (appia 1986:245--47). 2. bauer, for example, states that "appia wasted very little time on it" (1983:184). 3. from appia, die musik und die inscenierung, as reproduced in beacham (1994:23). 4. as cited in beacham (1994: 11). 5. from appia, theatrical experiences and personal investigations (1921), as reproduced in beacham (1994:43). 6. "pour ie drame du poete-musicien ie reaiisme scenique doit avoir evidemment une portee toute differente puisque la musique cree ie milieu et que cette creation, qui dure autant que ie drame lui-meme, anime et justifie aux yeux du public chaque minute du spectacle. une action dramatique qui a besoins de la musique pour s'exprimer est de telle nature que les notions materielles necessaires au drame parle lui sont superflues. en renon<;:ant aux signes inanimes de la peinture, elle ne sacrifie rien que l' eclairage ne puisse lui remplace; la realite "practicable" des objets n' est alors justifiee qu' en tant qu' elle favorise l' eclairage ou que cela entre en rapport direct avec l'acteur:' (appia 1986:251) 7. from appia (1962:72); as quoted in beacham (1994:59). 8. evidence indicates that he originally intended for this essay to have followed the discus­ sion of tristan und isolde in the first drafts of his book on staging wagnerian drama (appia 1986:470n1), thus ordering his discussions by the chronology of the works. 9. "les trois actes des maitres chanteurs comportent deux decors d'interieur et deux de plein air, altern ant regulierement les uns avec les autres. l' eclairage aura it marquer ces successives oppositions et la plantation et la peinture lui seront subordonnees. le premier interieur, un bas-cote d'une eglise de nuremberg, fait it son tour opposition avec ie second interieur, ie petit atelier du savetier hans sachs. le premier plein air, un carrefour de l'ancienne nuremberg, en fait de meme avec ie second plein air, une prairie degagee aux environs de la ville. les quatre tableaux offrent ainsi une disposition favorable it leur effet separe, et l'on peut s' absorber dans ie caractere de chacun d' eux sans faire de tort it ceux qui l' entourent:' (appia 1986:252) references appia, adolphe. 1962. music and the art of the theatre, translated by r. w. corrigan and m.d. dirks; edited by barnard hewett. florida: university of miami press. ---. 1982. staging wagnerian drama, translated by peter loeffler. basel: birkhauser verlag. ---. 1986. oeuvres completes. vol. ii: 1895-1905, edited by m. l. bablet -hahn. bonstetten: societe suisse du theatre/1'age d'homme. 43 44 current musicology ---. 1992. oeuvres completes. vol. iv: 1921-1928, edited by m. l. bablet -hahn. geneva: societe suisse du theatre/slatkine. bauer, oswald georg. 1983. richard wagner: the stage designs and productions from the premieres to the present, translated by michael sonino. new york: rizzoli. beacham, richard c. 1994. adolphe appia: artist and visionary of the modern theatre. swit­ zerland: harwood academic publishers gmbh. chamberlain, h. s. 1892. das drama richard wagners. eine anregung. vienna: breitkopf & hartel. carnegy, patrick. 1994. stage history. in richard wagner. die meistersinger von niirnberg, edited by john warrack, 135-52. cambridge: cambridge university press. simonson, lee. 1963. aesthetic principles: the ideas of adolphe appia. in the stage is set, 351-77. new york: theatre art books. volback, walther r. 1968. adolphe appia. prophet of the modern theatre: a profile. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. the mastersingers of nuremberg* adolphe appia (ca. 1892-96}; translation by cathy cox this work forms the most violent contrast with [tristan und isolde j. what­ ever the author's dramatic intentions were, here it is evident that exterior life plays the principal role on stage, and this is not only through the con­ tents of the poetic text, but also through the extraordinary intensity the music gives to this life. the question, then, is how to communicate through the opera's staging a life analogous to that expressed by the music. a knowledge of the score-however superficial this knowledge might be-must convince us that, in this drama, the musical expression attains a power to which no spectacle can lay claim. the interior drama in tristan und isolde does not pose any limits to the musical expression; so that this expression is entitled to develop itself up to the mere limits of our nervous stamina and one knows of what stamina wagner had supposed us capable! but the case appears differently in die meistersinger; and since the music here expresses exterior life, it seems the music would have to hold back the degree of intensity that this life can reach on stage, or at least supply, through the poetic text, the exceptional possibilities for the stage production. neither of these happens at all: the poetic text comprises various scenes from the public and private life of the mundane middle class, and the music that expresses these episodes, as we well notice, greatly surpasses through its intensity that which any spectacle can suggest. wagner pursued an exclusively dramatic goal in this work as he did in his other musical dramas; that is to say that if he had so steadfastly ex­ pressed the exterior life through the music, and given to this expression a power out of proportion with the visual performance and design that one could draw from it, it is because he would consider that all of this was indis­ pensable to what he wanted to communicate to us. in other words, the con­ flict that he had in his heart to present to us was necessarily composed of this entire apparatus. the performance of this work is difficult to analyze from an emotional stand­ point. an awareness of one's impressions would be desirable yet they escape all scrutiny. then one day, either spontaneously or by the impetus given through a third party, the clear and precise formula will suddenly arrive to satisfy you and to transform the troubled and indefinable joys into a happy sense of security. current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 45 46 current musicology the hero of the drama is the cobbler hans sachs. his robust personal­ ity is inclined to disappear in the many-colored streams that surround him, and yet, strangely, these same streams seem to sing in evidence of his supe­ riority. when he is visible on stage, the musical intensity seems more legiti­ mate than in his physical absence. in the same way, the more powerful the music, the larger our feelings of intimacy and respect seem toward hans sachs; and that, far from having this music yield to the visual actions on stage, which nevertheless find expression in the music, we are obliged to consider the music as a dignified commentary on sachs' personal identity. the expression of the exterior life that surrounds our hero sachs par­ ticipates sympathetically in the nature of his character, making us under­ stand that this exterior life is only there with the following aim in mind: that the dramatic action must result from this existing relationship between this exterior life and sachs. the poetic text tells us when the relationship fails to escape the eternal conflict between a great personality and the ego­ tistical and vulgar preoccupations of those who live in contact with that personality. the equally eternal result of this lies in the hero's utmost resig­ nation and the ever-increasing calm that he acquires in contemplating the self-interested lives of others, while completely renouncing his own desires. the music, as we know, needs time to develop. prior to the need to present at length the turbulent life of the nuremberg residents, wagner-in order to express his drama-needed to seek recourse in a process that would not encroach on the duration of this life. he endowed his music with a superior power in the formal sense of representation; and as it was impos­ sible to obtain a similar intensity solely through the combination of sounds, he sought recourse for this in his hero. hans sachs sees the reality of things with all the intensity that interior silence lends to a contemplative soul. wagner, the poet, the musician, the creator of the work, could see the resi­ dents of nuremberg only in the mirror of this great soul of a poet. in this way, that is what he goes through as well as what he presents to us in his drama of die meistersinger. to arrive at the heart of the question, we need to assume the same scruples in the poet -musician as in the stage director. but if the latter can analyze the score from his point of view because he has it before his eyes in its definitive form, the dramaturgist needs to create spontaneously. i do not, however, mean to say by the preceding considerations that wagner had made the same reflections, nor that he was positively conscious of this state of things. however, the score of die meistersinger is in some ways the vision of sachs, or, if one prefers, wagner makes us experience the external life in the cathy cox same way that sachs experiences it. the stage production, then, needs to show us that this life that seems extraordinary to us is nothing but life in its most mundane manifestations. the privilege that we have in grasping the greater meaning through the medium of the music does not imply that the exhibition of this life is transfigured. much to the contrary, since it is the conflict resulting from the music's higher meaning, grasped by an elite soul and at grips with its temporal manifestations, that makes the object of the drama. the discord between the musical expression and the visual performance finds itself to be precisely the only tangible form that could take on the dramatic action of die meistersinger. even if resolution were possible, it would be necessary to keep the drama from resolving this dissonance: even then, the essence of the drama would not be any more accessible to us; but we have to maintain this essence within the limits wherein the author had found the possibility of his drama, we the audience must experience the profound harmony in the drama. the stage production of die meistersinger, however, will be realistic. only, this word must be understood in the sense provided within the drama of a poet-musician. scenic realism for spoken drama is determined by the text of the play. the director must realize the more or less coincidental places where the action is played out, in seeking to imitate their true-to-life aspect to place them in agreement with the language of the characters in the play. now, the location in which one finds oneself is only expressed very indi­ rectly by means of speech alone. and in particular, the character of realistic conversation is made up to a great extent such that those who take part in it should take the place of action for granted and only make allusion to it as it pertains to their interest. as the exact ideas on the actors' part are in this way private, the audience falls back on the stage production. the latter can only be made realistic by moving away from paintwork. in order to make up for the silence of the actors, the stage director is obliged to convey a large number of ideas to the audience by cluttering the sets with practicable objects. this excess of practicability is not motivated by the actor's performance; most of these objects do not enter into contact with him; they are only there to augment the illusion of reality. but as it is deemed necessary for the audience to see every detail of the scenery, a very perceptible part of the lighting is employed to illuminate it. this usually results in a sensation of clutter in discord with the simplicity or insignifi­ cance of the text; and the lighting-which is capable of drawing all of the scenic and textual elements into a harmonious tableau-is similarly not free in its activity. indeed, a more perfectly detailed spectacle may greatly 47 48 current musicology exceed the reach of any realistic text and destroy the dramatic effect in pre­ venting sufficient view of the actor's facial features in performance, which is indispensable to the full understanding of the play. for the drama of the poet-musician, the scenic realism obviously has to have a completely different scope, since the music creates the environment and since this creation, which lasts as long as the drama itself, animates and justifies in the eyes of the audience every minute of the spectacle. a dra­ matic action that needs music in order to be expressed is of such a nature that the material notions necessary in spoken drama are superfluous to it. by renouncing the inanimate signs of the painted scenery, nothing is sacri­ ficed that lighting cannot replace; the "practicable" reality of the objects are then only justified insofar as they favor the lighting or they enter into a direct relation with the actor. the actor, not being the unique interpreter of the author in the view of the audience, needs to interact with the inanimate tableau and to participate in its material submission vis-a-vis the lighting. the result is that if such a wagnerian drama calls for a realistic stage pro­ duction, it is not the tangible reality of things in their chance arrangement that will be of more auxiliary assistance, but only the impression of this real­ ity. it is the lighting that gives this impression. the freedom of the lighting vis-a-vis the actor and the sets, and that of the actor vis-a -vis the audience, permits us to obtain an infinite diversity on the part of realism; also this word no longer has the exclusive and limited significance for the poet-musician's drama that all other dramatic forms inflict on it. similarly, one can affirm that the stage production of this drama is always realistic.! if we said that the staging of die meistersinger must be realistic, this means that the part of realism must attain its maximum within the mise­ en-scene. the realism must be characterized such that the persons onstage achieve an exceptional independence vis-a.-vis the audience, in order to un­ derline the constant opposition between the spectacle and the contempla­ tive soul of sachs. i say "exceptional" -that is, it must be very easily sensed by the audience. this sensation will be a hallmark for the union that will reconstruct within the spectator's soul the harmony intentionally disturbed by the author. this independence of the actor gives maximum freedom to the light­ ing, which reduces the paintwork to its simplest expression. we now have a solid point of departure and we can enter into the de­ tailed composition of the mis-en-scene of this drama, without fear of ever losing our way. the three acts of die meistersinger consist of two interior settings and two cathy cox open-air settings, alternating regularly from one to the other. the lighting will have to mark these successive oppositions and the sets and the paintwork will be subordinate to it. the first interior setting, the aisle of a church of nuremberg, is in turn in opposition to the second interior setting, the small workshop of the cob­ bler hans sachs. the first open -air setting, a crossroads in old nuremberg, is similarly in opposition to the second open-air setting, a clearing somewhere near the city. the four settings offer in this manner an arrangement favorable to their separate effect, and we can absorb ourselves in the character of each of them without doing a disservice to the ones that frame it. take the first tableau at the precise moment of the curtain rise. the colossal prelude has just resounded, and it ends with a deafening fortissimo. the empty scene is dark relative to the nave of the church, on which a ray of morning sun crosses, casting upon the faithful assembly and the surround­ ing walls the vibrant colors of the stained glass windows. the music of the chorale underlines this opposition, and the knight's gesturing attracts the attention to this singular aspect of the set design. normally this scene is sacrificed by the stage director: probably because it is very short and because the view of the nave is immediately concealed by the curtains. this is unfortunate, because the poet-musician presents to us there, at the very beginning, the population of nuremberg in one of the characteristic acts of its life. this first impression has to suddenly stretch the material notions of the spectator and correspond to the sentiment of a grandiose community where the prelude had already led it. it is not the length of a scene that determines its performative importance. here, noth­ ing justifies the sacrifice of the first scene to the benefit of a stage decor that only plays-as much as it is decor-a very subdued role in the course of the act; and the considerations of symmetry are completely secondary vis-a-vis those of an effect that is of a practical need to the spectator. the left side of the stage will therefore be very developed in such a way as to provide a considerable performative importance to the view of the nave. in contrast, the right side will be foreshortened in the rear. the door in the background is found there, pushed back to the right, and does not face the audience, which is of no inconvenience and gives on the contrary a particularly realistic life to the scenes that follow. the crowd passes by, large in number, and exits the radiant light that transfigures it. the conversation of the three people who remain on stage takes on the character of a mysterious consultation in one corner of the shadow in an area remote from the vast, brilliantly illuminated nave. the 49 50 current musicology stage remains fixed up until the moment where david closes the curtain; in so doing, he diminishes the visual field of the stage and suddenly gives an air of intimacy to the aisle that represents the scene-thereby signaling to the audience that the action is about to become more focused and precise. the morning sun is supposed to change direction little by little-in such a way that the stained -glass window to the right, that was giving only a pale and cold light, starts to light up more directly. at the end of the first scene, while the three voices are united in a short trio, a first ray of the sun starts to hit this stained-glass window and cuts diagonally across the stage behind the actors. the large number of practicable objects that are going to fill the stage­ in reducing the painted sets-highly favor the lighting, which permits the actors to fully interact with the inanimate tableau. we have seen [in my previous essays], that this is one of the essential conditions of the mis-en­ scene for this drama. the following scenes up to the end of the act will possess strictly the private character of a spectacle that the audience attends by chance-and which does not necessarily take into consideration the demands from this audience's viewpoint.2 the ray of sunlight becomes fuller; it first falls on the back part of the stage, then advances imperceptibly in the following manner: from the scene among the masters to the presentation of walther, it lights up the middle of the stage; from there to the interruption of walther's song, it hits more spe­ cifically the left portion of the front stage; from there to the end of the act, the light continually spreads further in leaving only the third of the stage on the right side in a relative shadow. it goes without saying that the diffuse light will augment with the path of the ray and diminish the latter's exclu­ sive brightness. the trajectory of the light gives each episode its distinctive character. before the entrance of the masters, the scene presents only the preparations for an impending spectacle: the twilight is thus justified in preparing-by itself, in a brilliant effect-for the gathering that is going to follow. the instructions that david, sachs' apprentice, gives to walther will lose their false performative appearances that the foreground lit up by the footlights forcibly gives to them, and will gain in musical-poetic intensity. the mastersingers, before each one takes his place, form into the various groups characteristic of the start of every meeting among these men; the lighting in this moment will be of a nature to give them a very curious realistic life. beckmesser, the brilliant and awkward plumassier [feather specialist], will circumvent the light in the middle of the stage to the shadow in the fore­ ground and vice-versa, always halting in the shadow for his personal asides; cathy cox whereas walther, his rival, will be in the sunlight. on walther's return, the sun hits most directly only on the young knight who comes to present him­ self to the assembled guild. beckmesser, in rising to take up his functions as marker, will leave the shadow in order to enter into the light. the same goes for kothner, the mastersinger responsible for informing the new candidate regarding the laws of the tablature. and walther will be the only one touched by the radiant spring sun during his contest song. his failure causes a lot of confusion among the assembly; thus, the lighting, in spreading, will aug­ ment the general movement. finally, the curtain will fall on the more or less empty stage overrun by the sun. it will be easy to regulate the detail of the staging if one scrupulously observes here the private character of the spectator and his accord with the lighting. as the actors are the essential part of the staging of die meistersinger, it is important, in order to give some example of the detail, to determine with precision the distinctive traits of each of the characters. but it is first neces­ sary to prepare a plan for them on the stage for the entire duration of their role. we will thus first achieve a properly stated set-design analysis. the short prelude of act ii continues the impression of community that was brilliantly communicated to the audience in the preceding act, only the musical impression no longer simultaneously embraces the thousand faces oflife; the current we feel ourselves swept along is no longer a power­ ful and nearly universal one. the scene presents to us the respective resi­ dence of the characters, and the action-in agreement with the spectacle­ makes us participate in the distinct game of each character's personal inter­ ests. in act i, the place and action itself permitted a grandiose unity; the people there were gathered in a common goal limited by narrow conven­ tions, and it was precisely the community of this goal and its conventions that placed the personal interests of those who took part into conflict. in the present act, it is necessary to study further the principle of unity, be­ cause the streets of nuremberg and the residents who pass by, entering and exiting their dwellings, do not have a real performative unity if the musical poetry divides its expression-that is, if it does not express all of the spec­ tacle simultaneously, but rather each episode in particular. now, it is incontestable that the nocturnal din that ends the act draws its effect to a large extent from the nearly sudden concentration of all the contradictory interests onto one spot: without the preceding divisions, this scene would have no depth and the first scene of the next act would have no intensity. for it is not necessary for hans sachs to be obliged afterwards (in act iii) to comment to us about the spectacle; we need to have experienced it in the same way as he did and to consider the poet-philosopher our inter51 52 current musicology preter and not our initiator concerning the consequences of the events of the waking hours.3 we need to experience in a tangible way that the social conventions imposed on the individuals are what makes the instincts of each one of them personal, and that-beyond these conventions-egoism and brutality make up the core of these individuals in equal mass and pro­ pel them by the same interests and intentions. the splintering is indeed a favorable condition for the effect that must produce this second act and the staging needs to avoid anything that can water down this effect vis-a -vis the audience. the most disjointed action can acquire a performative unity if the ac­ tors address themselves to the audience: the spectator senses, then, that by his sole presence he provides to each of them a reason to exist since they all treat him like a confidant; and the actor knows that his role cannot be su­ perfluous or inconsequential since he only has to address himself to the spectator in order to justify his presence on stage. this fact is a task of their mutual existence especially in light-hearted plays, vaudevilles and such. if, in contrast to this, the author has the intention to present to us a succession of more or less detached episodes with the goal to merely demonstrate to us afterwards-and through a final scene-the unity of all of these diverse manifestations of life, the actor would then never be able to allow himself the expectation that the effect of this last scene would revive the intention­ ally broken threads for the audience. in the drama of act i, the actor who wanted to address himself to the audience performed a redundant act, be­ cause the music forbade him a function that it wants to fill alone.4 but if this dramatic form does not permit an actor to directly confide in the audi­ ence, there nevertheless exist many degrees of independence in the relations between the stage and the auditorium. we have seen that the maximum degree of independence must be reached for die meistersinger. in the preceding act this independence could hardly express itself except in the characters' play among themselves, because where they were gathered was not the kind of place that would be of assis­ tance to them in this. in act ii, on the contrary, the actor determines the inanimate tableau in a somewhat negative sense because the nature of his role is to let himself be determined by the place through which he passes. there is indeed reciprocal action between the actor and the set: the actor will profit from all the advantages that the set can offer him, in order to give independence to each of the scenes in which he takes part; and the set, by the sole fact that it imposes on the actor a special agency, will provide the desirable independence vis-a-vis the audience. in these conditions, one may assume-it seems-that the performative conception played a suggestive role with the author during the musicalcathy cox poetic composition, because how could the decor establish the actor with­ out this conception since the actor is subordinate to the music? wagner, in effect, placed this act in a location that leaves the stage direc­ tor with no kind of alternative, and he firmly dictated the arrangement of the stage decor through the succession of episodes. only the stage design and, more particularly, the practicable scenery alone are found to be fixed in this way. the latter is, as we know, the material point of contact between the actor and the inanimate tableau; the practicable scenery is what deter­ mines the proportions of the two other factors, the painting and the light­ ing.s in definitively fixing the way the decor is set up, the author fixed the painting and the lighting in the same way and pulls all the visual elements of the show into a determined state. wagner had nothing but an exclusively dramatic intention for this act, as he did everywhere else. if he found a good location to place his charac­ ters, but this location was of such a nature that it obliged him to determine the stage design in an absolute sense, this was in some way despite himself. as he did not go back to reflect on the performance hierarchy once he had determined the setting, he didn't necessarily watch out for the consequences that such a tableau imposed on him; and the constraint that the place of action exercised on the characters had only a dramatic signification for him. as a result, the stage director is doomed to a performative conception that, without doing complete violence to the musical-poetic expression, doesn't playa realistically suggestive role for this expression. the arrangement adopted by wagner is without doubt more ingenious, and the dramatic course of action that he drew from it is well made for the purpose of charm­ ing us. yet, on more than one page, we are forced to suffer the lack of bal­ ance between the imposed form of the spectacle and the musical-poetic form. it is this impression, made all the worse in that it initially seems inex­ plicable, that needs to be dispelled as much as possible in our task. current stage directors are strongly hindered by the construction of this tableau in the way that it breaks with the ordinary decorative tradi­ tions. they do not understand that the painting and lighting naturally re­ sult from the imposed set design, and they believe they are able to keep the former two factors designated in the role that the vertical cloths of the stage wings assign to them. for example: they will paint on the wall of sachs' house (an entirely practicable structure) the elder-tree that shades the cobbler's door. or they will make the moon rise, shimmering, against the back cloth of the scene, andwithout taking into account the effect that its light must produce within the entirely practicable decor-they will illumi­ nate at the same time the cloths that face the audience, using the "noctur­ nal" lenses of the footlights. with much attention to realism, they will pro53 54 current musicology vide medieval lanterns to the citizens who look out of the windows, but they will destroy the effect of the painting and lanterns by using the foot­ lights to excessively illuminate a scene that is meant to be tumultuous-so the neighbors nearest to the scene are not supposed to be able to make out clearly what's going on-while the most distant spectator in the audience has no need of a lantern in order to see them in detail. to add to the inevitable disagreement between the imposed performative form and the musical-poetic expression, however, a new dissonance arrives which results from that which is reciprocally falsified in the very same prin­ ciple by this decor's set up on the one hand, and its painting and its lighting on the other. the first thing to do then, prior to any design, will be to satisfy the pragmatic demands of the dramaturgy, that is to say, to set up the decor with the desirable practicability and to animate it through the characters. then the stage will be lit as indicated by the set design. a stage designer needs to possess sufficient craft in order to then create the paintwork and complete the tableau. we will see in [my essay, "the staging of wagnerian drama"], that one must proceed in this way toward the future for the stage production of a wagnerian drama; because this work of art would not know how to put a stop to any performative convention and that in this way the stage designer will never be able to acquire the necessary experience in order to paint his decor a priori. the current decorative principle [of mixing practicable struc­ tures with painted flats] will nevertheless be a great help to him in order to make him anticipate in the material arrangement what the fictive perspec­ tive of the painting could have provided. the stage director for act ii of die meistersingerpossessing a tableau imposed on him by both the author and the laws of decorative hierarchy­ will be able to measure the reciprocal influence between the actor and the decor in the aim of placing each scene in its characteristic light, and to pre­ pare the best possible performative effect to the poetic-musical form. the final scene will permit him to then cast the entire tableau into a united whole that leaves the spectator with a perfectly harmonious impres­ sion. this last scene, however, has not only the dramatic significance that we have indicated above, but also the mission to reconcile with great power the musical-poetic elements with the somewhat heterogeneous performative ones that make up the act. if we insisted on the particular case that presents this decor, it is be­ cause it seems appropriate to us to comment usefully on the theoretic prin­ ciples of the preceding chapters [from "the staging of wagnerian dramas"]. cathy cox there is without doubt a lot to say on this subject before launching straight into the concrete stage direction of this act, but we need to restrict ourselves here in order to draw from it only the characteristic trait. after these two acts, the spectator finds himself in a particular mood: the music, wholly occupying the spectator in drawing his attention to the dif­ ferent scenes presented to him on stage, carried him in along within an interior vibration that was highly superior to what an analogous spectacle would be able to provoke in him if it were left to its own resources. the feeling is greater and of higher quality. the revealing scope of the music provides him with a new depth through the nature of the spectacle. but otherwise the sound of the symphonic stream does not permit the intelli­ gible expression to neutralize its obsessive charm, and it is in the music that the spectator experiences the need to gather his thoughts. the all-powerful genius that imposes so despotically on us its manners of feeling cannot leave us in failure; if it pushed the refreshing exercise almost to orgy, it is without doubt in order to better wound us later. the prelude to act iii arrives in response to this desire. then the cur­ tain is drawn back with respect, in order to show us how our faith is justi­ fied. the handsome figure of hans sachs illuminated by the morning sun suddenly embodies the preceding thousand voices; in the hands of such an interpreter, we recover our once-more vibrant soul, and can indulge in the most intimate emotion that exists. such is the magic of the music! the warmth that tristan inspires in us on his bed of suffering is only of the most natural sort; because if a poet possesses the means to express the interior life of his hero, our emotion can only be augmented by the strength of this expression. for die meistersinger, the emotion seems to be drawn practically from a miracle; we participate not only in the passions and suf­ ferings of the hero, but in his actual soul. it doesn't get any more beautiful than this. tears, as they say, result from the pity that a person experiences for his own self; the personal identity of hans sachs provides us with the highest emotion so that we feel ennobled. it is evident that, during the chords that accompany the curtain-rise of act iii, the scene needs only to present sachs, and the decor favors this fo­ cus, because the chattering of david, the young cobbler's apprentice, serves only to augment the profound solitude of the poet. with the goal among the diverse entrances that follow being to handle each of their distinctive characters with care, it is necessary for the spectator to be filled with the calm intimacy of the locale. the reserved attitude of the knight walther, the extravagant interruption of beckmesser, the appear55 56 current musicology ance of eva-who is without doubt always welcome in the modest cobbler's studio and further profits from the situation by playing the difficult and spoiled child-all this needs to touch us directly through the contact of these persons with sachs' material surroundings. up until the moment when the noisy life from outside irrevocably invades the scene, it is sachs himself who transfigures the spectacle through the omnipotence of renunciation. how can the intimacy of the locale be expressed in the staging with enough intensity to make it into something sacred in the eyes of the audi­ ence? many things are converging here. first, sachs' comportment up until walther's entrance, placed in high relief by the lighting and kept in isolation by the closed door to the street. then that of the knight, equally favored by the lighting. the spectacle alone needs to have already ennobled the locale to such a degree that it is painful to see the cumbersome personality of beckmesser enter with ease. with beckmesser, the scene's indifferent attitude toward the street is interrupted: the upper shutter on the door remains open, and it would make for a good effect to have some residents pass by outside. our interests are focused on sachs, and we look to him to impose ever more strongly a supe­ rior form on the spectacle; for when all is said and done, the spectacle is the work of his renunciation. for this last scene, the light comes to subtly prove the creative power of the poet's soul, in casting through the open door a ray of light on which each person stands out against an expressive silhouette. this same ray of light renders the flats up front obscure and seems to be committed to reach­ ing the open air: the exit into public life is expressed in this way with preci­ sion and impartiality. the small interior becomes deserted and david, in ostensibly closing the shutters, guarantees the inviolability of this locale that has become dear to us. the essential thing, then, is not to draw the spectator's attention onto anything superfluous; that is, nothing in the entire tableau should take on an independent, performative importance. thus, the nature of the objects is secondary, because-upon reflection-it signifies what needs to be ex­ pressed for the spontaneous impression. it is not necessary to portray real­ isticallya cobbler's material domain for us to give expression to sachs' in­ fluence over all that surrounds him. the lighting alone is capable of doing this because only it can effectively radiate a personality throughout space. the personality of our hero must spread in things, rather than the things standing in relation to the personality. in a spoken drama there would be without doubt the possibility of reciprocal action between the actor and the decor because this dramatic form is only accessible to ideas that would diccathy cox tate such a reciprocity. for the particular case that occupies us, the poet­ musician infinitely exceeds these ideas and, if we want to place some agree­ ment between that which the poet-musician communicates to us and that which the scene presents to us, it is indispensable to sacrifice all the decora­ tive elements that would attract our attention without passing through the actor. the lighting is thus no longer-as in the first act-the only auxiliary necessary to the actor to assure him of the highest possible degree of inde­ pendence and expression; but it needs to come once more to the aide of the set design and practicable objects, for without proper lighting, these would be incapable of supplying the kind of expression that this tableau demands of it. whatever the composition of this decor may be, it needs to allow for a maximum of realism in lighting design. this realism will contribute toward a considerable shadow that will spread throughout those parts of the stage where the illuminating light cannot reach, and this shadow will favor a meticulous arrangement of practicable objects, keeping our goal in mind; the result will be that nothing will be able to be ordered on stage without the support of the characters. the next tableau is not-as is usually expected-a vulgar opera decor, with the inevitable banners, open space for dancing, the raised seats for the privileged, etc., all of which in the end constitute the most common of com­ mon places in our lyric scenes. on exiting hans sachs' studio, we do not fall into comic-opera. the place where the prophetic chorale of the great nuremberg poet-musician will soon resound, where the most penetrating lyricism will carry the whole population along in its flow, where all those who have a voice will soon proclaim the high purpose of music with such marvelous tones that tears of enthusiasm will stream from our eyes-this place wouldn't know how to be that site where the deplorable abuses of this same music has flaunted itself for over a century! not that, in being this kind of location, it is in any way opposed to the most elevated intentions, but it is discredited by a use that has been ridicu­ lous for an overly long period of time such that is it difficult for us to over­ come this memory. by "opera decor" one means an opulent staging that has no other goal than opulence itself, and is intended for characters whose intentions aren't settled either; where the result is a character flaw that has nearly become a synonym of its own name. it is our task for the final set in die meistersinger, then, to combat this flaw. in other words, it is necessary to seek to give character to this tableau by 57 58 current musicology every possible means. the action authorizes the complete deployment of all the director's re­ sources, and the dramatic intention itself will not be fully realized unless one gives the audience the impression of a grandiose spectacle both through its nature and through the scenic effort that it represents. from the start we are struck by a favorable circumstance: the dramatic focus-always imminent in wagner and often highly awkward in a tableau hardly made for placing it in relief-finds itself here materially sustained by the spectacle. the poet-musician is raised above the individual drama of his characters, and if he wants to focus the contents of his expression, he will only be able to do this by relating a common sentiment, not only to the population on stage, but also to the audience in the hall this fact has a great performative importance, because in this way the stage production doesn't risk being indifferent to the dramatic expression and the entire fo­ cus will be able to directly distinguish itself through the crowd that fills the decor. if this crowd does not show an interest obvious enough for the events in which they take part, the spectator will suffer an intolerable impatience and the music will cast over the spectacle an irreparable ridiculousness. one circumstance that it would be wrong to forget is that die meistersinger is very long in duration, that the expression doesn't offer as much variety as in other dramas of the same dimension, and that in this way the audience-having arrived at this last tableau-is also not its own master as at the beginning: the audience then cannot react against the flaws of the spectacle. the audience's growing passiveness makes it ever more sensitive to these flaws, and the distance between that which it hears and that which it sees destroys the enjoyment of either one. now, a commonly felt enthusiasm is the sentiment that remains in ex­ istence the longest, that to which one never resorts without success; but abstraction has no quality that can strike this chord; the lawmakers know this well. on stage, abstraction can take a kind of material form. for ex­ ample: a nuremberg resident whose costume is rigorously and meticulously historic, and which is displayed by the light of the flood lamps, constitutes an abstraction from a performative point of view; an enthusiastic crowd that dons handkerchiefs and hats, but does not utter a sound, is also an abstraction: it signifies an enthusiastic crowd, but it is not one. this same crowd that in cheering a well-loved poet does not make a step toward him is the height of abstraction. the decorative abstractions that lay the founda­ tion of the paintwork are already well known to us. if we indeed want to strike a chord of shared enthusiasm with the audience, it will be necessary to endow the spectacle with a sufficiently realistic life in order to overcome the fatigue of a long audition and the abnormal position of a passive speccathy cox tator. the character of this tableau will not be-like certain false artists would desire-in the research of a local medieval color; the coronation of the drama of die meistersinger should not pleasantly tickle the instincts of a collector, or recall the engravings "of the time"; nuremberg and the sixteenth century are nothing but pretexts. it is pure and simple humanity that is at work here; that for which the fashion and costumes are a completely exterior coat­ ing, but whose soul is our own. why do we need to lay stress on passing appearances when the music expresses to us the perfect uniformity of the desires and emotions? this uniformity expresses itself visually through the eternal magic of the lighting. the same sun that shone on us when we were climbing the hill where the theater of bayreuth rises, that had cast a powerful shadow on the build­ ing on the surrounding fields, that radiated indifferently over the cosmo­ politan crowd and the peasant at his plough, it is this sun that long ago had spread its rays over the nuremberg population, eager like us to forget exist­ ence through a divine fiction, and it is the sun that spreads again and always over all humanity. to close one's eyes to the gentle light-this means the same in every language: to die. now, this light can only be perceptible to us through shadow, its indispensable complement; it is the quality of the shadow that expresses the quality of the light, because light alone has no existence for us. in order to avoid scenic abstraction, it is then necessary to make the light perceptible; that is, to express its quality through the shadows that it will supply. in midday, and in open air, the light comes to us from above; and we only know that it comes from that direction through the quality of the shadows that it then casts on the ground and on objects. these shadows are what will give the final tableau of die meistersinger a realistic air and the character of simple humanity that-together with the musical expression­ will be able to strike the chord of shared enthusiasm with the audience. do i need to say that this tableau sets a pretext for me here for affirming one of the truths, one of the fundamental axioms of staging the wagnerian drama? we will return in the next section [in "the staging of wagnerian drama"] to the lighting's role in realizing in the visual realm that which the music so supremely demonstrates to us: knowledge of the eternal unifor­ mity of the human soul across fleeting appearances. for the moment it is important to make the reader fully comprehend why this tableau can be considered as particularly eloquent on this subject: and this is very difficult, because the pragmatic realization would be the only measure of proving my point. if in the more or less "interior" scenes and those of restrained perfor­ mance the quality of the shadows (that is, of the light) can seem a perfectly 59 60 current musicology justified source of expression for those present whose eyes are distorted by our modern spectacles, this is perhaps not the case when the scene must be filled with a population in festive attire. the individual expression of atti­ tudes, if well placed in relief by the shadow, seems superfluous when it is a question of a hundred individuals, as is the way in which this crowd is in­ differently illuminated so long as it is sufficiently well illuminated. one such manner of seeing is born from abstract reflection, and not from direct and tangible contemplation, that is, from artistic vision. in the drama of the poet-musician, simply intelligible reflection has little value to the director, because the music belongs to a world superior to this reflec­ tion. i will explain myself with an example: if one wants to set on stage the first section of the wallenstein trilogy (by schiller), wallenstein's camp, it is necessary to start from more than the contents of the text to compose the place of action and the action itself; the form of this text will remain foreign to the spectacle. those who have seen this poem performed by the meiningen troupe undoubtedly remember what curious performative perfection the stage director had achieved, and how the text seemed out of place with a similarly researched spectacle. schiller did not want to express the singular life of wallenstein's camp, and ifhe would have wanted it that way, the means in which it was arranged would not have permitted him to. he is only able to signify to us though the individual conversations the cosmopolitan state of the army and the soldiers' more or less affection for their general. it is only through a thousand touches and retouches that he arrives at interest­ ing us in the spectacle, and the curtain closes before our attention has really been captivated; that which appeared remains a form of prologue. if the stage director imposes on our eyes from the beginning-and in one fell swoop-that which the poet takes the entire duration of the play (wallenstein's camp) to communicate to us, the text will seem to us to be dreadfully slow-paced and out of proportion with the performative effect of the tableau; the poetic subtleties will be lost in this, because we will only be able to think of this text in terms of the various labels affixed to the details of the spectacle; and finally our interest for either the text or the spectacle will be destroyed by the appearance of a mahout [elephant -driver 1 which the stage director added to the dramaturgy. the author of wallenstein entitled his trilogy biihnendichtung-and not without reason-although carried by his subject he is unable to defend ar­ riving at simple tragedy. stage production is, we have seen, "the process by which we seek to realize visually some dramatic conception or another." in order to realize a conception such as wallenstein's camp, it is necessary to seek agreement in the spectacle between the form and the poetic content; and, as the poem cannot supply us with anything precise-much less the cathy cox formula-in this regard, it is necessary for us to use reflection in order to create with its support an "intelligible" stage production that corresponds if possible to the text's meaning and intelligible form. reflection plays a role here beyond the poet, then, and the stage production doesn't result directly from the written play. for a poet-musician's drama, we are obliged to take as an example one of richard wagner's dramas and, as we know, the stage direction of these dramas is fixed in the score, even though their author had not rigorously taken this into account. the reflection that we are forced to employ in order to restore the harmony neglected by the author makes our efforts without doubt relatively artificial; but nevertheless this reflection doesn't create any­ thing that is outside of the drama for the stage production. we do not make use of it in order to determine the staging (as we are obliged to do for schiller), but only in order to capture with precision the author's conception and to seek its agreement in the form that the poet-musician gives us. now, this form transports itself on the stage by means of the music, and this transpo­ sition is imposed on us by the work itself. we do not construct through our reflection, then, a harmony that does not already exist, but we reconstruct that which the dramatic intensity particular to richard wagner tends to conceal from our gaze. knowing the highly complex structure of a wagnerian drama, which fixes the hierarchy of the means of expression whose unity make up this work of art, we must no longer call on anything-in the presence of a score by wagner-but the artistic vision that this score provokes in us, and our reflection gives us nothing more than the passive service that we demand of it in order to solve an algebraic problem where, as we know, the mathema­ tician invents nothing, but seeks something that is tacitly contained in the problem, and finds it. the characters of die meistersinger to judge the characters of this drama equitably from the performative point of view, it is necessary to make two divisions. the first division will consist only of hans sachs; the second all the other characters. eva, the daughter of the rich goldsmith veit pogner, and david, the <:lpprentice of the cobbler-poet, are the only ones among the characters who, being under the direct influence of sachs, can give precious information to us about the great personality. eva said this herself to sachs, in act iii [scene 4]: "durch dich gewann ich ... ", and from the first act onward we felt the richness of this child's soul in the enthusiasm that it inspired in the knight walther's beautiful turn of phrase, and his analogy between david and the 61 62 current musicology old nuremberg master, durer. but sachs did not exercise restraint; he let his young female friend blossom freely, and limited himself to enriching his soul with all the infinite goods that a great artist spreads around him. hence the particular charm of this feminine apparition-who, we feel, can let her lively nature overflow without impoverishing by this spontaneity the con­ tents of her expression. the scene in the second act between eva and sachs gives us the exquis­ ite pleasure of practically taking part in the union of these two personali­ ties: the poet makes himself a poet once more for leaning toward the young girl, and without doubt she finds it completely natural that her friend matches his instrument with hers. but, however, how easy it is for sachs to produce the least amount of dissonance! and if he has no choice, with how much grace he does it! david, the intelligent young apprentice, is treated more harshly by the cobbler. he is not a genius; the foremost mastersinger is unable to commu­ nicate his art to him except in an aphoristic form, and the young gentleman passes it on in just the same way to those whom he wants to instruct. in the first act, ifhe presents to us the doctrine of the mastersingers with a faithful memory-which we welcome him to do-and a charming display that he must have drawn from sachs; he captivates us even more through his ro­ bust good humor that makes him the dignified student of his master. this good humor, a bit rugged and lively, joined with the profound respect that the great poet inspires in him, gives a highly distinctive fullness to the char­ acter of david, the cobbler's apprentice.6 beckmesser, the public scribe, is the uncontested mastersinger whose profession already places his theoretic skill beyond question among his col­ leagues, and one of the personalities for whom one cannot deny a certain genius, but whose character alone is a work of genius. his personal impres­ sions are much too livid and constant to allow him the time to develop anything other than his extreme susceptibility. a nature as contemplative as that of sachs could not but arouse his jealousy through the calm that char­ acterizes it-a calm that he, beckmesser, so greatly lacks. the company of the poet is nevertheless indispensable to him; he finds there the stimulation that he needs in order to maintain his irritability, his bitterness, his sarcasm, and his spirit of contradiction; all of the sensations that, in the end, make him alive. neither can he conceal the fact that he supplies sachs with a spec­ tacle that the latter far from despises. but that he chose precisely the fore­ most of the nuremberg masters as spectator already pays great honor to beckmesser and contributes not a little to the interest he inspires in us. his role is, then, not comic in the exclusive sense of the word. the baker kothner is the mastersinger entrusted with the expression of cathy cox the indispensable conventional statutes of the whole association. the mas­ ters believed to have locked in these conventions precisely the development of their art, and have undoubtedly done so with the very respectable desire to protect its integrity. the role of kothner acquires by this fact a solemnity that the music endows with classic accents and high contrast. in the pres­ ence of the knight walther, kothner represents the impassable obstacle; the powerful caliber of his song must then be embodied in an ample physique, perfectly mastered with his comportment and radiating health. the pernickety scruples of the masters vis-a.-vis the new candidate will be seen in this way nearly to be justified in our eyes by their interpreter; and veit pogner, the goldsmith, whose fortune and influence make the nature more delicate, will gain through contact with the jovial and conscientious baker a proper foil to impress them both. the entire lyrical element of the drama rests on walther; only this lyri­ cism is so enmeshed with the symphonic framework that, long before it is communicated to us by the young knight, we are in some way saturated by it, and the bright tenor does not seem to us as anything more than one of the general symphonic voices, the same as any bird in the forest. it is not, then, in musical form that walther will be able to find the character of his role. he is given an insipid guitar in every scene because it is believed that he must embody the lyrical musical form; the music is now merely a way to express the disposition of the soul that is named lyric, but the music is not lyricism. if it is in walther's nature to have this disposition, he will volun­ tarily give lyrical form to his expressions, and that is all-but his nature will remain no less that of a knight in the flesh. when he is solemnly asked which master trained him in the art of song, it is not an instrument that he tunes in response; he searches in his memory, with all the custom of a culti­ vated spirit, who may well have initiated it in the mysteries of expression; from there, stimulated by the new questions, he is stirred into remembrance of the ardent joys of his personal life, and effectively finishes through the lyric expansion that comes so naturally to him. the vulgar spirits are what always translate through their conduct the movements of their soul and thereby impose a cumbersome and disagree­ able manner on those who surround them. the situation in which walther finds himself from the beginning of act i well justifies a great intensity of expression, but not a perpetual emphasis in attitude. for example: his re­ quest to pogner, before the meeting of the masters, shows us to what mar­ velous life the poet-musician can reach through the sole musical vibration of ambient air; but this vibration must not revolve around the person of walther-the young knight does nothing but participate like the rest of the spectacle, and when he withdraws, the symphonic flow does not continue 63 64 current musicology to spread out any less. one of the charms of lyric expression in the drama is the result that comes from the extremely advantageous way the expression reveals to us the essence of a person. the more this expression concentrates itself on an individual, the more temperate this person will be in his perfor­ mance, because the inner treasure that assumes a lyric soul is enough to replace in its possessor that which others must gain through the continual activity of their presence. the role of walther is completely indicated through this. we have seen that the personality of hans sachs is what endows the musical expression with an exceptional and disproportionate power to that of the spectacle. his presence on stage must then, it seems, have a com­ pletely particular performative importance. however, he has nothing to do with it. in act i, sachs does not touch the action except when through his silence he would risk being considered as consenting to that which was just said, and he exercises no influence except that of his free opinion. through his monologue in act ii, he communicates no more than his impressions and his personal judgment without making us suspect that he could have any effect on the course of events. he acts in the same way with eva, but under a new and titillating form. finally, when he notices that it is time to seize the moment, his intervention takes the same character as the objec­ tions with which he opposed his colleagues in act i; only these objections cannot be expressed directly through words and sachs makes use of the first available means to show that he is not in agreement. in his respect for the freedom of others, he lets things go as far as possible without imminent risk to those he loves; then, his discretion not being recognized, he decides to act. when a man of this caliber directly and voluntarily touches the lives of others, the heavy responsibility that he takes upon himself does not come without suffering. we will then be entitled to wait in the following act for sachs to confide in us his projects regarding eva and walther. the old sun, always new, rising in the morning of a festival day, does not however suggest anything to the great poet except the patterns of contemplation: it is foolish illusion that seems to traitorously direct the actions of men, even in a town as richly endowed as nuremberg; or perhaps the commotion of the day before; ... who then could have provoked such a brawl?! ... hans sachs? he was only there as an instrument. nocturnal moths, intoxicated by the per­ fume of flowers, needed to lend their powerful support, because the poor cobbler, who is he to act on the events ... ! but the morning sunshine returns more penetrating: and the sun must not slumber without sachs having justified the responsibility that he had taken; without him having joyously committed the sacrifice of his bliss. what cathy cox will he do? through what decisive action is he going to quell the menacing conflict? he doesn't know himself. this foolish illusion that carries human life in its streams cannot be stopped, and even less can it be dried at the source; but it can perhaps be "directed" and can serve in its running to reach "a higher goal." this is what hans sachs it going to try to do. and the rest of the drama shows us how, with delicate consideration to this same folly, he grabs hold of its weak points. finally, at the decisive moment, the thousand voices of the people are going to strengthen the soul of the poet; the love from all of them will open a new horizon to him: that which he sees, then, he is unable to communi­ cate; but it is with a perfect serenity that he makes the last service within his power to the noble cause-which his friend eva pogner personifies for us. without wanting to raise the issue here of the superior nature this man­ ner of behavior has from the purely human perspective, let's try to infer its performative consequences by opposing sachs to the characters we already know. in act i, his arrival at the last minute, noted by beckmesser as some­ thing to which the poet is accustomed, lets it be assumed that sachs ordi­ narily avoids occasions of useless gossip. a lot of things have already passed by on stage since the curtain rise and the entrance of the cobbler does noth­ ing to change the course of the spectacle. it is not he who speaks in order to interrupt the order of the day; it is not he who introduces walther; and when he intervenes in favor of the young man, from the start he makes reference only to his song. the "personality" of which he is later guilty in front of beckmesser thus shows us the poet's characteristic trait in his rela­ tions with his fellow man-a trait that is asserted even further in the fol­ lowing acts: sachs likes to tear up wittily the lightweight tissue of conceal­ ment that hides people's true thoughts; and, what is even more characteris­ tic, he firmly believes that this should never do injury to any cause. this taste in humor is completely necessary to a contemplative stance; in it, the poet-philosopher seeks some sort of proof of that which he already knows through instinct and silence; and he must procure a certain self­ confidence in this experience never being wrong. sachs' attitude will thus be calm, discrete, self-assured; in private conversation he will never stand in the way of any expansion, letting through the most extravagant things like a man who knows their price; he will have a well-opened eye, paying atten­ tion to those whom he addresses, blending with the spectacle in order not to hamper its course-but marking with his accent, when he speaks, that none of his personal interests are ever at play. acts ii and iii justify this conception perfectly, and it is without doubt 65 66 current musicology necessary for the continuity from scene to scene. if there is an appearance of personal susceptibility in the dialogue between sachs and eva, it is be­ cause the cobbler cannot otherwise provoke the sparkle that must reveal to him the feelings of the young girl; and no onlooker is there in the room to misunderstand. we know the dramatic role of hans sachs who, scattered throughout the entire score, lifts the work much higher than the spectacle. his performative value, on the other hand, is a particular one in that it is much more concerned with that of other people than its own. the contemplative tendency and the characteristic trait that we have discussed-and that is a natural consequence of this tendency-make the poet-philosopher like a reflecting mirror that brilliantly clarifies the characters and, guided by a sure hand, places each one in the appropriate day to make contrasts out of them.7 this is why he forms in himself alone one division that is in opposi­ tion to all the other roles of the play. but does sachs, himself, have no one to push him to uncover himself to us with the same ingenuity as those around him? no; on stage there is nobody worthy of this; and that is why the music must take up the charge. the performer of this role will then look to make his isolation percep­ tible to the public. the realistic life of his entourage will come to his aid for this. if we feel it to be evident that sachs augments the contrast of his neigh­ bor without anyone being capable of doing it better for him, we will under­ stand the music of die meistersinger. the two divisions of the characters happen in this way to realize sceni­ cally the musical form adopted by the author. given that the action's various connections and the characteristics of the most important characters are firmly set, it is now possible to give some detailed examples-which must be understood keeping in mind that the characters are what comprise the essential part of the staging in this drama. notes * the original french text, "les maitres chanteurs de nuremberg" was published in adolphe appia's oeuvre completes, vol. ii: 1895-1905, edited by m. l. bablet-hahn under the aus­ pices of the societe suisse du theatre (bonstetten: l' age d'homme, 1986:249-65). this trans­ lation is printed here with the generous permission of the societe suisse du theatre/ schweizerische gesellschaft fiir theaterkultur. 1. it would have been more precise to say impressionistic, if this word hadn't taken on a particular significance that has no place here. 2. the choir of the apprentices, notably, has to be executed openly and free of care about their sound. 3. if not, what good is it to waste then in such a princely fashion the most subtle musical cathy cox resources? a most celebrated music critic accused wagner of having spent so many resources for act ii of the mastersingers that he could no longer stay for that person who would want to express on stage a serious political revolution ... evidently, if this same famous critic had been able to experience at that most insignificant moment something of the life that indi­ cates a cerebral organism such as that of richard wagner, he would have believed that one could not go further in the ardent power of the inner vision. 4. such as the bad impression that singers make in wagnerian drama when they address their role to us in the same way as they are obliged to do in opera. 5. for example, in the third act of tristan, the lighting dictated all of the tableau because the role of the actor permitted the practicable scenery to give the lighting this importance. if it had not been in this way, the superior considerations that decided the role of the light would have' had to give precedence to the formal conditions of performative means. 6. the interpreter of this character, in the 1888 performance at bayreuth, seemed to have understood this characteristic fullness. it is regrettable that this role is usually perfectly mis­ construed just as that of beckmesser. 7. in a different sense, the dramatic role of sachs, that is the musical intensity of the score, performs the same service to the ensemble of the spectacle. 67 david ferris. schumann's eichendorff"liederkreis" and the genre of the romantic cycle. oxford and new york: oxford university press, 2000. vii, 270 pp. reviewed by richard kramer in the final paragraph of his ambitious and often provocative study of schumann's great eichendorff cycle, david ferris proposes that schumann "viewed the construction of musical meaning as an interactive process, in which the performer and the listener playas much of a role as the com­ poser, since they must realize, in their own minds, what he has merely implied." schumann, he continues, composed his songs with two different audiences in mind. he marketed them widely to amateur singers, who could not be expected to partake in this process, but he also considered the liederkreis to be a private genre, intended for an exclusive circle of refined and sophisticated musicians. at the same time, schumann knew that his audience was not necessarily restricted to the handful of davidsbundler and the mass of philistines whom he saw around him. (226--27) each of these claims, avowed as if truths given to verification, is freighted with all the obscurities as to how and for whom the composer composes. to contend that schumann "viewed the construction of musical mean­ ing as an interactive process" is, first of all, to suggest that schumann sets himself apart from his contemporaries in this endeavor-that he is un­ usual in this regard. this in itself should raise suspicions. but that's the least of it. it doesn't take much imagination to suppose that a composer (schumann, if you like) might anticipate that his works will elicit a re­ sponse, and that the act of responding will constitute in some cases a criti­ cal act, even a performerly one. but ferris wishes us to believe that schumann composed as though the meaning of his works were a function of some "interactive process," by which must be meant a collaborative dia­ logue engaging any number of interlocutors with schumann's text, and all that such a text implies of some shadowy authorial presence. however we think to parse such interactivity in our own minds, it would be helpful to allow that if there is something of significance to be heard in schumann's eichendorff liederkreis, this significance must be immanent in all hearings of it, and that the way in which we construe the music is a function of what current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 182 current musicology is signified. the subjectivity, it seems to me, resides in the music, even as it sets off sympathetic vibrations in those who must contend with it. i think i know what ferris is getting at. schumann's cycle, in tune with much romantic music, intones hermeneutical riddles. to engage the rid­ dling means less to solve a mystery than to apprehend something of its obscure complexity: not to dissolve an ambiguity, but to take some plea­ sure in the discomfort that it arouses. for ferris, this "interactive process" means to insinuate a compositional strategy. as a critical strategy, as a way of contending with the dialogics of text and reader" such "interactivity" makes some sense. for the composer, it is hollow. i begin at the end because the way in which ferris formulates his con­ clusions helps to explain the underlying precepts that drive the arguments of his monograph. to have thought to use the eichendorff cycle as the work that in some measure defines "the genre of the romantic cycle" (as it goes in the title) is itself intriguing, for the work embodies an extreme instance of the coupling of poems culled from various sources that to­ gether make no pretense to cohesion, to story, to narrative in any of its modes, with a music that, even in its ordering of these twelve poems, im­ poses a continuity that the poems, on their own, do not possess. the sense in which these twelve songs constitute a cycle is of much concern to ferris. even how the text is constituted is wmething of a prob­ lem, for schumann himself betrayed ambivalence in how the cycle was to begin. in the version published in 1842, the cycle opens with der frahe wandersmann, a gruff, open-air song in d major, removed in 1849, in prepa­ ration for a second edition, in favor of the in der fremde that a fragment of the surviving autograph powerfully suggests was to have opened the cycle in its original conception. "for the moment," writes ferris, "i willjust point out that my decision to begin my discussion of the eichendorff songs with 'in der fremde' and leave out 'der frohe wandersmann' does not imply that i consider the second edition of the cycle to be the definitive version or that i have any objections to the performance of the first," in a sentence that tells us too much about ferris and too little about the problem. "it is simply that because schumann's setting is so straighlforward, 'der frohe wandersmann' is not the most apt example for my purposes" (94). that schumann had thought to inaugurate, and thereby to define, a cycle in two nearly contradictory ways, even with regard to the tonal trajectories set off by each of these two gambits, ought to have provoked some interroga­ tion. but the issue is dropped. we hear nothing more about der frohe wandersmann (which, by the way, is rather less "straighlforward" than ferris would have us believe). it is dismaying to learn that the decision to discuss the cycle in its later redaction is merely a function of what ferris considers to be a more "apt richard kramer 183 example" for his "purposes." here, as elsewhere, we want insight into schumann's "purposes," and not the author's. somewhere, we might be told that the composition of der frohe wandersmann followed only weeks after the rest of what was then published as opus 39-conceived, that is, with its function as a cycle opener very much in view. what induced schumann to withdraw from the dark, brooding melancholy of in der fremde, with its fli minor that is of such obvious consequence to the unfolding of the cycle in both its motivic (or intervalic) and its tonal mappings? was this too on the advice of clara, who evidently picked out the poems for schumann in the first place? i can understand that ferris may not wish to speculate around and about such things, but it seems to me that in a book given to fairly complex theoretical investigations of a single work, we have reason to hope for some serious engagement with schumann's provoca­ tive-and even characteristic-ambivalence. "the implication that the con­ tents of the opus need not be definitively fixed fits quite nicely with the nineteenth-century view of the cycle," ferris writes (94), claiming to be following jon finson, who alleges that to ignore the version with der frohe wandersmann is to "[miss] the subplot of the cycle and the ironic tone that pervades it." finson, unlike ferris, is indeed troubled by this ambivalence: "alternate versions actually published by the composer cannot be dismissed lightly," he smartly concludes; "if nothing else, they reveal the gulf be­ tween the older and the younger schumann" (finson 1994:168)-even if, he might have noted, the two versions were actually conceived within weeks of one another. and here is where that final paragraph-of a schumann who "viewed the construction of musical meaning as an interactive pro­ cess, in which the performer and the listener playas much of a role as the composer"-comes into play. all this circumstantial evidence tells us that schumann found himself confronting a dilemma of how to stimulate the cycle into motion. that he came to some decision in the matter-better, that he felt compelled to work through the consequences of such a deci­ sion-ought to count for something. further, there is a categorical dis­ tinction to be made between the phenomenon of a work whose entstehungsgeschichte embraces two markedly different texts, on the one hand, and an authorial intent to inscribe both texts as eternally interchange­ able. ferris, it seems to me, entangles the one aesthetic with the other. an important aspect of ferris's inquiry is in the identity of evidence that would confirm the idea of cycle. this, it goes without saying, is elusive. for ferris, dichterliebe is lacking in "narrative discourse" and, most signifi­ cantly, in "narrative closure." its famous postlude is understood as "a wist­ ful musical reminiscence that does not contradict the poet's failure to achieve psychological resolution but confirms it." and then, "it is not the vocal melody of the earlier song that comes back but its postlude, which is 184 current musicology unrelated to the vocal melody, and so ... this is music that is presented solely by the accompaniment, as an afterthought or commentary to each of the songs that it concludes" (207). but surely it is a mistake to separate out the "vocal melody" from the music sounded in the piano. to speak of "accompaniment" in a song by schumann is to set up an opposition that diminishes all the subtlety of voicing, the internal play with personae-the singer and the pianist forever coupling and decoupling-that drives this music. the postlude is all about closure, if not in the classical sense, even as the ineffable transition to d~ major is about remembering. the memory, now dim, is of the poignant c# with which the cycle begins, and of the abandoned dominant that it then supports, melting into a more literal remembering of the closing bars of am leuchtenden sommermorgen-a pro­ cess yet more complex when these bars are heard first echoed at the incep­ tion of the postlude in mein wagen rollet langsam, a song removed (with three others) from the cycle before its publication. whatever the poetic significance of this ultimate postlude, it is surely meant to be heard as an internalization of the psychological "action" of the cycle. to hold to some classical sense of closure as a criterion by which the coherence of roman­ tic cycles is gauged seems to me a tactical error, for it is precisely in the challenge to such classical verities as "closure" that romantic music achieves the eloquence of ambiguity that is at the core of its language. in his talk about frauenliebe und -leben, ferris takes the high road: "as soon as we acknowledge that the view of women that is presented in the cycle is offensive to us, then we are admitting that its artistic value is in some way impaired" (211). we must then "look to schumann's biography to help us explain why he made what we consider to be a poor artistic decision." this is patronizing. to recite the litany of works whose mores, whose politics are today found offensive is a cliche of our own time and place. even if chamisso 's biedermeier melodrama may induce embarrass­ ment in a hip, unisex society, schumann's music yet moves us deeply. i, for one, find the language of eichen dorff's "hast ein reh du, lieb vor andern" more troubling in what it avows of an animal fragility of woman, in its ominous implications of seizure by power and deceit, more repugnant in what its figures imply of a politics of sexuality. pick any of the romantic cycles and you'll find the sexes deployed in a relationship unacceptable in some measure to the sensibilities of the here and now. the eichendorff cycle evidently seems to refuse the imposition of bi­ ography: "by contrast [to the chamisso poems], the choice of eichen dorff's poems-which, we should remember, was clara wieck's and not schumann's-does not require an external explanation, because we con­ sider them to be among the finest poems that he set, and so we find ad­ equate reasons for their selection in the texts themselves" (211). what richard kramer 185 kind of distinction is being offered here? the question is all the more perplexing, because ferris, one page earlier, offers up a seductive passage from the schumann correspondence: "the eichendorff cycle is certainly my most romantic and there is much of you in it," schumann wrote to clara on may 22,1840, the day on which he completed the last of its twelve songs (auf einer burg, as it turns out). "schumann may have been thinking of the fact that it was wieck who selected the poems and wrote them out for him," ferris writes. i don't think so. schumann is conveying something of his own astonishment at what he has composed: the allusion to clara's presence in the music has an erotic message, at once obscure and sugges­ tive. to claim that schumann's effusion is merely "a personal communica­ tion and not a statement of aesthetic intent" is to construct an overly rigid opposition that misses the point. better, i think, to conjure schumann gushing in passionate sympathy with the messages embedded in the mu­ sic. ultimately, the much vexed issue of tonality is exercised. does key matter? ferris dodges in and out of the question through much of the book, and two passages will have to stand for much of the argument. hav­ ing cited a review published in 1840 of the heine liederkreis, opus 24, ferris notes: the complete succession of keys is laid out for us and the use of terms such as "connecting thread," and "key-cycle," implies that their order is of some significance to the critic. but even in this review we are given no indication that key succession plays a role in organizing the cycle ... is [the reviewer] making the ... claim that the succession creates a coherent structure out of the songs? there is nothing in the text of the review to suggest that he intends [such a] reading. (84) this, together with other contemporary reviews, is put in evidence "to sup­ port [ferris's] contention that the sequence of keys within a published collection of songs did not carry any structural implications for nineteenth­ century musicians." in the course of a revealing letter to moscheles, some six of whose songs mendelssohn was arranging for publication, mendelssohn writes: "the keys certainly ensue most madly . . . all in a muddle; but i have always found that no one thanks you for the most beau­ tiful succession of keys. so please excuse the key fricassee." this ferris takes as evidence that mendelssohn "does not consider key succession to be that important-it is a matter of preference and not of necessity." but mendelssohn's bemused apology-for a set of songs that makes no pre­ tense to cycle, please note-ought to set us to thinking quite the opposite: 186 current musicology that the tonal relationships that follow from the decision to have com­ posed a series of songs in this or that key are indeed of consequence, even if "no one thanks you" for it, and further, that key, even as a mediating aspect within a collection of songs that have no cyclic pretensions, may have some meaningful place, both as an essence of the song itself and in tension with its neighbors. "i consider this work to be one of the great artiistic creations of the nineteenth century," ferris writes, as though to reassure himself in the face of what follows: and i believe that the order in which schumann arranged the songs contributes in important ways to its greatness. but even if the order of the eichendorff songs is aesthetically pleasing, that does not mean that it is immutable ... schumann was not bound by aesthetic necessity, musical logic, or generic convention to place the songs in the order that he did ... the work that he ended up with is a whole, but it is a romantic whole, a whole that is open­ ended and fragmentary and that is characterized more by potentiality and implication than it is by a sense of closure. (92) here again, ferris confuses the aesthetic condition of a work that means to suggest itself as fragmentary with a looseness in how the composer con­ jures his work. this, it seems to me, traduces the very meaning of frag­ ment to the romantic sensibility. the fragment demanded a concentra­ tion of thought no less rigorous than did the fantasy-like improvisations of earlier decades: more rigorous, one might contend, for the "potentiality and implication" that ferris wants us to feel did not arise from a noncha­ lance about such matters as tonal relationship. rather, it is the semblance of nonchalance that is sought, and achieved only through the exercise of much imagination and wit. in the romantic fragment, there are no loose ends. finally, it seems oddly perverse to write as though friihlingsnacht does not mean to convey closure of some kind. for the pianist, it is the most demanding of the lot, its cadencing more emphatically final than those of any other song in opus 39. and then there is the key. is fl! major a mere accident? if the inclination to sing friihlingsnachtin f# major at the end of the cycle is not the function of "aesthetic necessity, musical logic, or ge­ neric convention," it would be good of ferris to tell us how schumann might have come to such a decision. clearly, this is the wrong way to go about it. even if the confluence of these twelve songs in the order dis­ played in opus 39 came only after a series of creative "acts" that do not at once reflect this order, we had better resist the temptation to conclude richard kramer 187 that opus 39 is some arbitrary catch-all envisioned by its composer to set in motion some "interactive" exchange with its audience. but then, it is hard to know what ferris wants us to think. when he alleges that "the order in which schumann arranged the songs contributes in important ways to its greatness" and yet concludes that this order is not "immutable," he is play­ ing with words. in fact, frnhlingsnacht occupies a central role in the chapter called "weak openings," in a brace of studies given to a close reading of five songs. the analyses themselves are good, solid graphings of the linear and harmonic underpinnings of songs which seem to have been chosen be­ cause they exemplify what ferris calls "open endings" and "weak open­ ings." not everyone will be persuaded by ferris's hearing of the opening phrases of fruhlingsnacht that "its key remains ambiguous ... primarily because of schumann's pervasive use of chromaticism" (123). surely, the tonic is never in doubt, even as those phrases embrace secondary and ter­ tiary relationships within it. but the larger point is well taken: that the concluding bars are made powerful in inversional proportion to the vola­ tile instability of the opening phrases (if i have put this correctly). but in some measure, it is the final sung phrase of the song that drives ferris to his most impassioned prose. there are two issues, and they are clearly related in ferris's view. first, there is the music. the full close at "sie ist deine, sie ist dein!" (other eichendorff sources have "deine .. . dein" and "deine ... dein"; in an early draft, schumann writes "deine .. . dein"), a clinching act underscored by the clarity of articulation in the piano, is undermined, following ferris, by the voice cadencing in octaves with the bass. then there is the poetic text. this ending "is among the most misunderstood moments" in the cycle (131). how so? adorno (1958:134-39), turchin (1981:279,313), thym (1974:219-20), mccreless (1986:23-25), and daverio-called upon to testify to the misunderstand­ ing-hear something akin to what daverio describes as "a great arch from melancholic alienation to ecstatic union with the objects ofthe poet's long­ ing" (1997:209,214-16). in ferris's view, all such readings "are based on a curious assumption about the relationship between schumann and his art," and in particular, about the "external circumstances of schumann's life, and not his personality" (210); the real meaning is to be gleaned from a closer study of the poetic texts. for ferris, these are poems not about the simple condition oflove and its sorrows, but about "our yearning to transcend our earthly state ... the various narrators of the cycle express this yearning, ... and although some of the narrators describe the ecstatic feeling that they have already be­ come one with nature, as in 'mondnacht' and 'fruhlingsnacht', it is merely a glimpse of the afterlife to come" (216). when our poet ejaculates-when 188 current musicology schumann's singer sings-"sie ist deine, sie ist dein," it is not, evidently, about love consummated (in even the figurative sense) but about some­ thing else: "it is again the night, and not the narrator, who speaks at the end of 'fruhlingsnacht', in part through the nightingales' song. finally, eichendorff reveals what it is that the night says: it expresses the narrator's own inner desire"-the desire, we learn in the next paragraph, "to tran­ scend our earthly state." some distinctions are in order. first, the poems are culled by the schumanns from allover the place. simating fruhlingsnacht at the end of the cycle was schumann's idea, not eichendorffs, and so the placement of "sie ist deine, sie ist dein" only amplifies, even perhaps dis­ torts, whatever sentiment eichendorff means to express. then, there is the matter off erris's "narrators." is "narrator" the right agent for the bearer of all these poetic effusions? narrator denotes narrative, and the telling of tales. but that seems contrary to ferris's reading of the poems. then, what­ ever we call this voice, it seems to me wrong to think that it is "the night, and not the narrator, who speaks at the end of 'fruhhngsnacht'." there is no change of voice here. rather, the poetic voice tells us what the nightin­ gales sing-meaning: this is what i hear the nightingales to be telling me, lonely, deluded poet that i am. underscoring the deeply mystical, transcendental themes of eichendorffs poetry, ferris brings some fresh insight into texts that we know too well. and yet we are left to ponder whether schumann's music constitutes a deepening of these themes, or whether it filters them through a lens focused less on death and redemption and more on the pain and loneliness of the lover. i do not mean that even these two foci are sepa­ rable. they blur into one another, as they must. finally, whatever the po­ ems, on the one hand, and the songs, taken individually, might mean, such meanings are subsumed under something greater and yet more com­ plex in the overarching liederkreis. if the poems, taken alone, suggest a cast of personae, in schumann's cycle this plurality melds into the single, bardic voice. "ambitious and often provocative," i wrote at the outset, meaning to signal a virtue and a flaw. ferris has much to tell us that will alter how we approach this wonderful music, even as he bravely challenges the old cher­ ished concept of the romantic cycle that he is at pains to redefine. that the eichendorff liederkreis is a major and defining work goes without much argument. even if no two of us will agree precisely why that is so, even if ferris and i (and no doubt others) will disagree strenuously as to the na­ ture of romantic song cycle, his book opens up new avenues for the pur­ suit of these difficult issues, and in the process, forces us to think freshly upon some very old questions. richard kramer 189 references adorno, theodor w. 1958. zum gedachtnis eichendorffs. in noten zur literatur, vol. 1, by theodor adorno, 105-45. frankfurt: suhrkamp. in english as "in memory of eichendorff," in notes to literature, vol. 1, edited by rolf tiedemann and translated by shierry weber nicholsen (new york: columbia university press, 1991),55-79. daverio,john. 1997. robert schumann: herald of a "new poetic age". new york: ox­ ford university press. finson, jon. 1994. the intentional tourist: romantic irony in the eichendorff liederkreis of robert schumann. in schumann and his world, edited by r. larry todd, 156-70. princeton: princeton university press. mccreless, patrick. 1986. song order in the song cycle: schumann's liederkreis, op. 39. music analysis 5: 5-40. thym, jiirgen. 1974. the solo song settings of eichendorff's poems by schumann and wolf. ph.d. diss., case western reserve university. turchin, barbara. 1981. schumann's song cycles in the context of the early nineteenth­ century liederkreis. ph.d. diss., columbia university. in search of meaning in context: bartok's duke bluebeard's castle 1 by judit frigyesi every culture is the conquering of life, the unification of all manifes­ tations of life (that is, of course, never the unification of concepts) with such force that whatever part we approach from a totality of life, we have to see, deep down, the same thing. in real culture, everything becomes symbolic, because everything is the expression­ and everything is equally only the expression-of the only important thing: the manner of reaction to life, the manner with which the to­ tal self of the individual turns toward the totality of life. (lukacs 1977:424)2 these words come from one of those uniquely personal essays that gyorgy lukacs wrote during the first decade of the twentieth century, and that provided the basis for his major book on aesthetics, soul and forms (1978). what does lukacs want to say here? first and foremost, that there is an immediate connection between life and art; accordingly, in art "the only important thing [is] ... the manner with which the total self of the individual turns toward the totality of life." but lukacs goes further: he emphasizes the fact that the connection is between the totality of life and the totality of the artwork. art is symbolic, but not because its individual el­ ements have symbolic meaning with reference to an everyday reality. the symbolism of art lies in that it is, in its totality, an emotional/intellectual response to the underlying question oflife. for lukacs, there is essentially one way to respond with a total work to the totality of life, though this allows for infinite artistic solutions. the key is in the inward-turning direction of art, meaning that it exclusively represents the struggles of the soul. this does not mean psychological drama, but rather an emotionally dense, imaginary stage for the artwork that in its symbolic connections is as complex and contradictory as reality. according to lukacs, only such a "narrowing" of the subject allows art to face the drama of reality: current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 5 6 current musicology everything happens in the atmosphere of the soul, but this is not the weakening of things but their deepening, their transformation into something inner; this is the struggling through and the suffering through of all paradoxes of the soul. because everything is ours, everything is of the soul, and everything that is tragic can happen only within it, all dissonances become sharper: precisely because they all become part of the inside and it is not possible to push them out, nor is it possible to transfer them to anything else outside of it. and the salvation-the redeeming power of form-is only at the end of all roads and all sufferings. it resides in this belief, which is impos­ sible to prove and which lies vividly beyond all proofs, in the belief that the scattered multidirectional roads of the soul do meet at the end; they have to meet because they departed from the same center. and the form is the only proof of this belief, because it is its only realization, a realization more vivid than life itself. (lukacs 1977:434-35) totality in artwork, then, means the condensation of the greatest imagi­ nable tensions in a system that reveals their inherent inner harmony, and this is, in lukacs's terminology, the meaning of "form." for lukacs, the extreme tensions of life may be explored only as the drama of the soul, for it is only in the realm of the soul where no question can be evaded. if everything happens in the atmosphere of the soul, then nothing can be pushed aside by pretending that it "does not concern us "-here every­ thing is "us." thus for lukacs, the soul is a symbol; it is the stage where the utmost tensions may be played out and brought back to their source. the time period when lukacs wrote these lines coincides with the for­ mation of bart6k's aesthetics and his first pieces in the modern style: the first string quartet (1908), the allegro barbaro for piano (1911), and the opera duke bluebeard's castle (1911). the fact that these two prominent figures of modernism created an integral conception of art at the same time and in the same place, and as we shall see, struggled with the same basic issues, suggests the presence of a meaningful relationship between their thoughts. but although i believe, and will attempt to show in this es­ say, that such a relationship exists, it is not as self-evident as it may seem at first glance. since bart6k and lukacs were working on these ideas during the same period, neither of them could have read or heard the work of the other in its completed form. nor was their personal connection particularly strong. of course, bart6k had many ties to the sunday circle, the group of intel­ lectuals surrounding lukacs. among others, he was the friend of zoltan kodaly and bela balazs, both of whom-especially the latter-frequented judit frigyesi 7 the weekly meetings of the group.3 but bartok himself was rarely present, and almost never took part in the debates. in general, bartok shied away from intellectual circles. he had difficulty expressing ideas verbally, grew bored listening to arguments, and in fact detested intellectual debates which seemed to him an empty play with words. 4 after his youthful years, he likely never read a single philosophical work, and even during his youth he seems to have read only one in its entirety: friedrich nietzsche's human, all too human. all of this does not preclude a connection between bartok's and lukacs's views. nevertheless, the apparent lack of mutual personal interest in this otherwise extremely tight intellectual milieu should make one cau­ tious. why suppose that out of the many ideologies that characterized the complex cultural atmosphere of budapest, the philosophy of lukacs would be the one to provide a meaningful context for the aesthetics of bartok? still, the similarity of their ideas is striking. lukacs stressed that the art­ work first and foremost expresses the reaction of the total self of the artist to the totality of life, a belief also held by bartok. there are numerous ref­ erences in bartok's writings to the fact that his art aims at expressing above all a "general spirit," which, as he admitted, is "difficult to describe in words."5 for bartok, "general spirit" was not to be equated with a simple emotion; it was rather the integration of emotional opposites. several of his first compositions in the modern style are in a two-movement form that expresses an opposition of characters (e.g., ideal-grotesque). as bartok wrote to his wife, "i cannot imagine that an artwork could be any­ thing but the manifestation of the infinite enthusiasm, despair, sorrow, vengeful anger, distorting and sarcastic irony of its creator."6 clearly, bartok insists here on the demand that true art express the opposing passions of the soul. the most immediate connection between bartok and lukacs that comes to mind is the composer's first large-scale piece in the modern style, the opera duke bluebeard's castle. the work was written in 1911 to the text of bela balazs, a prominent member of the lukacs circle. as if in­ tended to be the artistic embodiment of the lukacsian ideal, the piece is a symbolic drama in which everything happens inside of the soul. an understanding of duke bluebeard's castle entails two interrelated top­ ics, which cannot be fully explored in the limited scope of this article. the first, the interpretation of the symbolism of the opera, would necessitate a thorough analysis of text and music and also the exploration of the cul­ tural context in depth.7 the second topic, the definition of a "meaningful context" in relation to the symbolic world of a musical piece, is even more problematic. even if one were instantly convinced of the existence of an 8 current musicology inherent relationship between lukacs's aesthetic theory and bartok's mu­ sic, the problem remains of how to substantiate such an "insight" in the absence of demonstrable, concrete influences. in bartok's case, this latter question concerns not only his relation to lukacs, but also his cultural en­ vironment at large. we will encounter the same situation when attempting to find parallels to bartok's works in the poems of endre ady. while the meaning of influence is fairly straightforward in certain musical-technical aspects of bartok's style, his global aesthetic concepts in relation to his cul­ tural environment resist concretization. in attempting, on the one hand, to explore the basic symbolic ideas iof the opera, and, on the other, to ad­ dress the problem of finding the context that substantiates these symbols, my conclusions will necessarily remain fragmentary. the setting of the opera is confined to the dark hall of bluebeard's castle, whose closed doors hide secret chambers. the symbols correspond to this space: the castle is the metaphor for the soul, whose secrets are hid­ den. 8 when judith enters, the castile is dark, its seven doors closed. she opens the doors one after another, bringing light into the castle and thereby revealing the secrets of bluebeard's soul. but once all of the doors are opened and the secrets revealed, their love ends. judith disappears be­ hind the last door, the doors close, and bluebeard remains in darkness forever. since the work of sandor veress, the opera has been generally re­ garded as the "eternal tragedy of the dualism of man and woman." , because most scholars today share veress's interpretation, it is worth quot­ ing his summary: bluebeard and judith represent the eternal tragedy of the dualism of man and woman, the heavenly and earthly perspective of their souls. here is the drama of man's loneliness seeking complete fulfillment in woman and finding only partial satisfaction, and of woman, who, in her devotion to man, sacrifices her whole being .... [bluebeard] finds in judith the most beautiful one, the final fulfillment ... whom he adorns with his most precious jewels; but he has to lose her, too, because judith desires the disclosure of the secret behind that last door. it is in vain that he begs her not to open it ... judith insists ... and with this her fate is sealed. (veress 1949:33) taking this interpretation as a starting point, bluebeard is usually char­ acterized as wise and rational and judith as impatient, passionate, and narrow-minded. for gyorgy kroo, bluebeard is a man of "wisdom and great experience in emotional life"; in contrast, judith is "impatient, curious, jealous and stubborn" (kroo 1962:83).9 judit frigyesi 9 this interpretation-shared by veress, kroo, elliot antokoletz (2001), carl leafstedt (1999), susan mcclary (1991),10 and indeed most analysts with the exception of erno lendvai (1964)-collapses the moment we take the symbolism of the piece seriously. if the castle is bluebeard's soul, then judith is part of the castle inside bluebeard. she is an inner desire, an attitude-she is bluebeard. this symbolism precludes a traditional fem­ inist interpretation. the opera is not about man and woman in the biolog­ ical or social sense, but about a duality of desires in constant conflict within all human beings (which perhaps some would identify as masculine and feminine desires). the traditional interpretation collapses not simply because it is illogi­ cal, but because it contradicts the basic feeling with which we are left when listening to the piece. i believe lukacs is right when he says that every piece is the symbolic expression "of the only important thing: the manner of reaction to life, the manner with which the total self of the in­ dividual turns toward the totality of life." we find, in every piece, a basic feeling or attitude, and in the case of bluebeard's castle, the underlying atmosphere is not that of destruction, collapse, or disaster. there is a pas­ sionate, desperate outburst of chromatic music before the seventh door; this is indeed a tragic moment, the last dramatic turning point of the piece. ll but this climax is preceded and followed by moments of beauty and serenity. many of the key points of the opera are gentle and lyrical; they suggest serenity rather than sadness. one might recall, for example, the two scenes that act as pillars before and after the opening of the doors: the peaceful, ornamental, pastoral scene that precedes the opening of the first door and bluebeard's epic-like, calm quasi-aria chronicling his past loves. finally, the closing measures are without any harshness or dis­ sonance; they lead to the last mysterious, soft sound of the timpani and the lower strings that conclude with the last beat on the dominant, as if leaving the final question open. how can one arrive at a new interpretation of a symbolic work when prior interpretations have hardened in our minds? in this essay, i proceed in two directions: first, i consider the dramatic meaning of a few segments based on the relation of dramatic action, music and staging, and second, i turn to the cultural-poetic context in order to explore the symbolic mean­ ing of these dramatic situations. let me begin with the first approach by looking at two sections more closely: the beginning of the opera and the opening of the fifth door. the f# pentatonic theme in the opening measures is modeled on the melodic outline of a hungarian old-style folk song, and analysts normally regard it as a representation of the calm and reserved nature of bluebeard (ex. 1).12 the second theme (m. 16), following veress's interpretation, is ) ) ) 10 current musicology example 1: the two contrasting themes at the beginning of the opera, andante j;;; 92 : : ~,.,. : t:'\ : ;to : : :<e' ?;. (when the curtain rises, the stage is in total darkness.) via vc cb " " ~ ~~. ,.,. ~~. pp semp!e leg. i miste1ioso t:'\ !!~. ~. ;to #~. ~ o. ~~ ~: ;to meno mosso j=72 poco marc. dolce obs cis " "pfrl .. .. ~ >i!' l,...-j ~ ~: #~ i !!~~ ~? .6. :-:----.., t:'\ ~. ;to ~. ~~ ~ .ii'~j:'1~~ i it' • l >~ judit frigyesi 11 usually called the "menacing theme," thought of as a voice of intrusion into the calmness of the castle. at the same time, throughout the opera, f# is associated with darkness, while c serves as the tonality of light. i3 pen­ tatonicism is usually associated with peace and characterizes bluebeard, chromaticism with pain and the restless, aggressive nature of judith. a closer look at the first few measures of the opera, however, suggests a more complex dramatic design. although the melodic outline conforms to what bartok and kodaly believed to be the most ancient hungarian melodic type,i4 the theme as a whole is far removed from the atmosphere of a real folk song. according to bartok, the most striking feature of the hungarian old-style songs-the feature that distinguishes them from western music-is their specific rubato that reflects the irregular speech­ patterns of poetic declamation. i5 the performance of the old-style songs, typically sung by a solo voice, is rich in rhythmic subtleties and orna­ mentation. if we keep this in mind, it is immediately apparent that the first theme of bluebeard's castle does not aim to capture the atmosphere of a real folk song. rather, it is a conceptual redaction, the tonal essence of a song type-a pentatonic urlinie, so to speak. by reducing folk song to its conceptual essence, bartok creates a theme that contains the idea of folk song as much as it rejects it. moreover, the theme evokes a misterioso atmosphere that is hardly folk song-like, and pro­ ceeds without any change in dynamics in a deliberately exaggerated, al­ most unbearably slow tempo. this slow tempo is meaningful only if bartok's intention is carried out faithfully, namely if the theme is heard as background music to the prologue, whose last lines are recited superim­ posed on the first half of the melody. the second theme (m. 16) is composed ofthree gesture-like note pairs, the first one ascending (e with mordent-g) and the second and third de­ scending (f#-d#, e-c). contrary to the hollow sound of the f# pentatonic first theme, this second theme introduces c major and chromaticism. the harmonization is based on a series of parallel, "sweet" thirds both in the melody and harmony, and is performed dolce with changing dynamics. the minor second, which will have a central function in the opera, sym­ bolizing pain in an almost leitmotivic fashion (the so-called "blood mo­ tive"), appears here for the first time as the opening ornament of the sec­ ond theme (e-d#-e with parallel thirds). both themes are enigmatic in their dramatic function. the symmetry, uniform rhythmic flow, simplicity, and clarity of structure in the pentatonic theme evoke a feeling of perfection, beauty and peacefulness. but precisely because it is so unproblematic and perfect, and because it lacks expressive­ ness in the performing style (lack of crescendo, vibrato, ritardando, 12 current musicology etc.), the theme strikes us as something cold, abstract, and lifeless. bartok's dramatic design-the superposition of prologue, dark stage, and non-expressive music-suggests that the drama has not started yet. we hear the barely audible, extremely slow, skeletal outline of a song coming from the background, "from behind" the words of the prologue. the theme functions as a kind of creation music; it represents the mysterious depth of existence before real singing and feeling are born. the character and function of the second theme are also unclear. what are we to make of bartok's instruction that this theme is dolce but with a poco-marcato beginning? should the sixty-fourth notes at the begin­ ning be played as an ornament or as a sharp accent representing shud­ dering? conductors have come to distinctly different solutions. for instance, janos ferencsik's early recording brings out the dolce character of the theme by making the ornament gentle and bringing out the sweet sound of the clarinet as the dominating sonority. antal dorati has opted for the opposite interpretation by emphasizing the sharpness of the orna­ ment and choosing the shrieking sound ·of the oboes as the primary orchestral coior. 16 but whatever interpretation we accept, it is clear that the minor second and chromaticism are not the sole property of an aggressive judith, as they are usually interpreted. the fact that these elements appear prominently in this theme signals that they are an inherent part of the castle, that is, of bluebeard's soul-at this point, remember, judith has not yet entered the castle. the tonal symbolism is similarly ambiguous. throughout the opera, f# (minor) is associated with darkness and c (major) with light. here, however, there is a prominent statement of the c tonality while the stage is still completely dark. light first enters the stage when, after this introductory music, a door in the back of the stage opens and we see judith and bluebeard appear at the top of the stairs. the spectators, by now used to staring into darkness, are blinded by the dazzling light pouring from the stage where they see the silhouettes of two characters. the viewer of the drama experiences the same discomfort that judith will when she is blinded by the light at the opening of the fifth door ("dazzled by the radiance, judith shields her eyes with her hand"). our first experience with light in this drama is un­ pleasant and gives us little to see. could we say, after these few measures, that light and c major belong together and are positive while f# minor, chromaticism, and darkness are at the negative pole? the turning point of the drama is the opening of the fifth door: judith is dazed by the brightness and richness of bluebeard's empire. this is the most positive moment of the opera, which judith is unable to under­ stand, or so it seems. her refusal to take part in bluebeard's happiness judit frigyesi 13 and then her demand to open the last two doors bring about the return of darkness. however, here again, the music tells a more complex story (ex. 2). the majestic and yet simple theme of this scene has an awe-inspiring effect in performance. nothing really anticipates this sound: this is the first time that we hear the organ, the entire monumental orchestra, and an un­ equivocal c major with homophonic harmonization. yet after a few moments, the effect loses some of its power. we realize that the majestic theme is actually simple and repetitive, without rhythmic complications, ornaments, or chromaticism. the harmonization is naively "happy": a major chord for each note of the melo\:iy. this straightforward simplicity is truly non-organic in this piece-hence its captivating beauty, but also its failure. judith responds to this music by singing back to bluebeard the penta­ tonic theme of the beginning of the opera, without orchestration, senza espressione, and pianissimo. her melody in a~ using the black keys on the piano, as it were, opposes bluebeard's all-white-key melody.17 judith does not demand the opening of the other doors, but simply states: ''your country is beautiful and large." her emotional reaction embodies a full chain of associations: "your country," "your castle," "but what really was your castle before?" against bluebeard's c-major happiness, judith posits the tonality of darkness and the original theme of the castle. at the next appearance ([2§]), the c-centered melody is harmonized in f major, cadencing on a g-major chord. above the sustained g-major chord, bluebeard sings in a g tonality with mixolydian touches, using f~ instead of f#, thus avoiding the minor-second clash with the g-major chord. judith again insists on the castle theme, now in e~ minor penta­ tonic. the orchestral theme returns for the third time (l11l), now in a~, cadencing in e major. at this third stage, bluebeard's e-minor pentatonic melody comes very close to judith's interjections, that is, to the castle theme. however, his line carefully avoids g, the minor third of the pentatonic scale, so that his melody does not clash with the g# of the sustained e-major chord. however we may choose to interpret this section, it is certain that the opening c-major tonality stays for only a few measures before the har­ mony moves away, oscillating between subdominant and dominant. bluebeard's voice is gradually transformed. at the first appearance, his melody, though formally pentatonic, is different from the pentatonicism of hungarian old-style songs. it is essentially major-sounding, oscillating between tonic and dominant with a dominant ending, somewhat in the style of operatic recitatives. bluebeard's next entry is in the mixolydian mode, thus approaching the modal style of folk melodies. his final entry 14 current musicology l) example 2: the fifth-door scene. ) bi ) larghissimo j:::: 66 judith (stops, blinded, her hands over her eyes) 1\ ~ poco allarg. t:'i meno largo =88 t! ah! ff quasi parlando, rna bluebeard ""~,-;,-;~,-; : larghissimo j :::: 66 poco allarg \:i lasd_ ez az en ~-----------------------------------------------1\ ~ hi"' , hi "~ , ~ , ji "~ , __, ~-~~ @) .ff.f (tutti ed orga pleno) i ~ jjff mf l ~ : j: ~* h. j: ~* !i'd j: '~i j: ~"'!i'd j: ,#jqj: -< sempre grave bi ro-dal-mam, mesz sze oe zo szep ko-nyok-lom. ugy-e hogy szep nagy, nagy or-szag? 18'")._. _. i\~~malto cresco -: :~: [~ breve larghissimo j ;:: 66 t:"i allarg. a tempo judith (looking out motionless distracted) ll v, ' : t! senza espressione ,. i~)szep es nagy a te ofsza-god. 800 t:"ij: #f f :i #f ~ :i "~ :i #f ~ i\~~ arr t! -jjff : ~# meno largo j = 88 poco allarg bluebeard ff ,. jff i i i \:i~ i hreve i i i i l i • j: h~ • i . ,-; se-lyem-re tek, bar sony-er d~k, hosz szu e-zust 18'"),~ ~ ~ ~ .0 •• ~e'f~o judit frigyesi 15 example 2 (cont.) poco allarg il t:\ judith fo-lyokfoly-nak, es kek he-gyek na-gyon mesz-sze. poco allarg. 18m } :ft: =.: a tempo malto cresco _ i [22j larghissimo j = 66 most marlu-dit mind a ti-ed, ~------------------f t:"i t:"i ~~~~~~~~.~~~.~t:"i~~~~~~~~.~~.~~~~~~~~.~.~.~~~"~~.~.~ bl f s leszen ne ked jat _ szo-tar _ sad. u itt la-kik a haj-nal, al-kony, itt la kik nap, hold es csil-lag, (~}------------------------------------------------t:"i ~0 il t:"i ~~ ~f 0 "'= ~f ~t:"i :::~ h~ "~ [ill poco allarg. judith m 16 current musicology (section after [[11]), though it contains only four notes, is shaped like a melodic progression from an old-style pentatonic song (minor pentatonic, descending melody: e-d-b-a-e). both tonally and melodically, the changes follow the direction that judith's reaction gave to the music, and her reaction undoubtedly points toward the original music of the castle: a move away from c major, pentatonicism, minor mode, and a descending melody. is it that the orchestra and bluebeard gradually, perhaps subcon­ sciously, accept judith's voice? or is it rather that this c-major happiness was predestined to move toward darker tonalities because of some other inner forces in bluebeard's soul? whatever interpretation we choose, the basic direction of this scene is clear: the dramatic force represented by judith's soft, barely audible voice is stronger than the majestic sound of c major. but there is another interesting detail. at the end of the second orches­ tral statement, a cadential gesture appears twice: a quasi dominant-tonic progression from d major to g major with a counter-voice descending from fq, thus producing a minor-second clash with the f# of the d-major chord ([1§j, mm. 9-10, mm. 13-14). in the next statement, d major pro­ gresses to e major with the counter-voice touching again on fq. these are merely passing hints that a minor-second clash is unavoid­ able. but at the end of the third orchestral statement, like a sudden cloud, a sfanata string tremolo on the note g permanently darkens the bright sky of the sustained e-major chord (one measure before [1§] ) .18 g was pre­ cisely the pitch that bluebeard avoided in his e-minor pentatonic scale in order to hold on to a world without minor seconds. judith begins her final statement on g, telling us what she just heard in the tremolos of the strings: "the clouds cast bloody shadows." and with these words we return to the real tonic. as judith's motive de­ scends from g to c in a quasi dominant-tonic gesture (hinting at c mi­ nor), the string tremolo moves to an f# ([1ill). thus we hear, for the first time in this scene, the f#lc axis that together defined tonic at the beginning of the opera. the previous allusions to the fvf# minor second become meaningful at this point: under the f# tremolo, the majestic chord progression returns hauntingly in f minor, in the lower register of the brass. the fifth door opens up bluebeard's castle to a world of bliss and light­ ness. for a moment, perfect happiness reigns in his empire. the mysteri­ ous colors of the previous rooms dissolve in dazzling brightness, and the memory of the previous, delicate sound-effects of the orchestra are washed away by the sound of this monumental tutti. bluebeard would like to remain in this happiness. but could the castle (the soul) be a place of judit frigyesi 17 eternal dazzling light, a place without tears, memory, and sadness? it is im­ possible to interpret judith's act as negative when it is she who holds up the memory of a deeper and more total self, showing the road toward the original, more complex tonic. and it is this act that encapsulates judith's dramatic-symbolic role. at many points in the opera-although, remarkably, not in the scene of the fifth door-:judith's vocal lines are somewhat more chromatic, while bluebeard's melodies tend to be diatonic or pentatonic. but it would be wrong to conclude from this fact that the opposition of pentatonicism (diatonicism) and chromaticism captures the opposition of characters­ calm bluebeard versus cruel judith. bluebeard's soul is more than what he sings about; it is also what we see onstage and hear in the orchestra. the real tension is not between bluebeard and judith but between how bluebeard sings and the reality of his soul; the orchestra communicates blood, tears, and sufferings, but bluebeard insists on his tensionless penta­ tonicism. as bela baths states in a 1907 diary note in connection with sym­ bolist drama, "words can tell little of what should be said-but it is pre­ cisely for this reason that words mean more than what they actually say" (balazs 1982:408).19 judith does not bring about the bloody shadows of the clouds. but it is she who has the courage to see and to name what can be seen. she is the tormenting voice from within the soul, the voice that does not forget the soul's original confusion, cruelty, and desires-the voice from which there is no escape. she is the mirror that asks: "look at yourself. is this really you?" it is revealing to analyze the opera in this manner, considering all its local symbolism expressed in the superposition of music, text, dramatic action, lighting, and staging. however, we will not be able to penetrate the symbolism of the opera solely by such an analysis. what is the meaning of the return to the tonic: is it positive-a return to home, to one's own self-or is it negative-a return to a state of loneliness and darkness from which one hoped to break out? what is the symbolic meaning of the dual­ ity of man and woman, of light and darkness? what is the symbolic mean­ ing of the circular motion that defines the form of the drama? it is an ungrateful task to speak about symbols in a musicological article because the meaning of symbols cannot be proven or documented. they cannot even be argued about in the manner that is customary in scholarly discourse. the word "meaning" is somewhat out of place here. we cannot expect bartok or balazs to provide us, in their writings, with the possible associated meanings-for instance, of "night" in bluebeard's castle-because symbols cannot be grasped merely through logical-verbal associations. if 18 current musicology one could explore the symbolic meaning of night without arriving at am­ biguity and contradiction, then night would become a simple signifier like any word that points toward concrete things outside of it. true symbols­ and here i use the term "symbol" interchangeably with "metaphor" be­ cause in this symbolist context the two cannot be distinguished-are more like vessels. they contain (or better, they become one with) various feel­ ings and concepts. they mean more than one thing in any given context, and their symbolic content is the complex totality of meanings, sometimes even contradictory meanings. symbols are tied to a specific contextual and cultural milieu. when a word or image travels to another place it changes or loses its earlier sym­ bolic content entirely. the ephemeral nature of symbols makes an even stronger demand on the interpreter to find the relevant context, the con­ crete milieu of a particular symbol. but this demand in turn presents a se­ ries of problems that, though not insurmountable, often force the scholar to accept paradoxes and ambiguities to a degree that is not really desir­ able in scholarship. where can a scholar find the meaningful context of the symbols of bartok's opera? one possible source is the contemporary hungarian sym­ bolic literature, which, in this case, is essentially poetry. we are lucky to have access to bartok's huge personal library. but how can we delineate, out of this enormous collection, the body of literature that is relevant for this work? the scholar is inclined to look first at poems that bartok men­ tioned in letters, that bear the typical red pencil markings found in the margins of the poetry books bartok owned, or that he used as texts for his compositions.20 while one may begin with such a selective group of sources, in the end this approach leads to the artificial limitation of the material. it gives the illusion of a scientific approach where nothing of the sort exists. we know that bartok read certain volumes of poetry many times, and in these there is mostly one set of markings. is it far-fetched to suppose that certain nights, reading in bed, he did not have a pencil handy or he had no inclination to mark anything at all? indeed, bartok himself wrote in a letter that he was unable to mark the poem he loved the most among those by his favorite poet, endre ady; he was so deeply moved that any outward sign would have banalized this feeling. 21 but even if we could establish exactly what influenced him in the writ­ ing of a certain piece, it is still questionable whether this connection alone would help us penetrate his symbolism. let me give an example. it has al­ ready been noted that endre ady's poem "the castle's white woman" (a var feher asszonya) , which was marked by bartok in his volume, might have served as a model for balazs's text. the opening line of the poem makes judit frigyesi 19 the connection obvious: "my soul is an enchanted castle." the first three stanzas describe the mysterious castle, the wailing groans of enchanted spirits in the deserted halls, like those we hear in the opera. interpolated into this description are rhetorical questions, in the form of asides to an unidentified listener, about the eyes of the poet, seemingly without any connection to the description of the castle: "see how tired these eyes are?" then we arrive at the last stanza: (sometimes at secret night hours, suddenly those sad eyes light up.) the white woman walks in the castle and laughs out through the window. the problem is that by pointing out the similarity between this poem and the opera, we explain nothing. we compare something we do not re­ ally understand to something else that we do not understand; the mean­ ing of the shared symbols of poem and opera-the castle, the woman, eyes, whiteness, laughing, night, dark-remains enigmatic. like judith, the white woman in ady's poem walks in the soul of man. but are these two women the symbol of the same thing? ady's soul-castle has windows; it opens to the outside world (sympathetic or alien world?). the woman laughs, she looks out (is this the symbol of the positive act of cheering up or the sign of indifference?), she walks without words. in the opera,judith does not laugh; she cannot walk around the castle freely, she questions, she fights in order to be able to move forward. how can one symbol­ complex enlighten us about the meaning of the other? in order to penetrate the symbols of ady and bartok, like any culture of symbols, one has to consider the totality of their artistic world in the con­ text of the world of their contemporaries. context here has dual implica­ tions. first, it refers to the aspect of real life in a historical past that con­ tributed to the conceptualization of a work-something we will never be able to fully reconstruct. second, however, context also refers to the imag­ ined environment that we historians create out of a collage of existing documents. although this context is constructed, we believe it to be a mi­ lieu that is meaningful and helps us to penetrate a work of art. still, the character of modern intellectual life (and perhaps every intel­ lectuallife) makes it extremely difficult for the historian to construct this imagined milieu responsibly and relatively objectively. it is not only that "context" as it was lived-every minute of every life-cannot be retrieved. more problematic is that the collage of historical-cultural phenomena that historians select from the surviving documents is bound to be arbitrary and lacking in some of the most crucial factors that determined the 20 current musicology symbolic world of the past. this is the case for two reasons: first, because the exchange of ideas in the turn-of-the-century intellectual milieu was un­ usually dense and, second, because it was primarily oral. we have to remember that the manner of intellectual exchange that characterized turn-of-the-century paris, vienna, and budapest is very dif­ ferent from that of the intellectual milieu of our times. in these cities at the beginning of the century, intellectuals and artists formed loose circles whose boundaries were not merely institutional, if at all, and the connec­ tions among their members resulted in real, physical, day-to-dayencounters. these intellectuals did not learn about philosophy, politics, and culture primarily from books. ideas were sorted out at the coffee table, at infor­ mal meetings in each other's houses, during walks on the boulevards after concerts, at the swimming pool, during excursions. there was nothing un­ usual about bartok picking up nietzsche without ever having studied phi­ losophy, and it was also not surprising that nietzsche had a greater influ­ ence on him than most musical works composed at the time in hungary. there were dozens of cafe houses where the same group of intellectuals met regularly, several times a week, or even daily. the group formed around gyorgy lukacs normally met on sundays at the house of lukacs­ hence its name, the "sunday circle" (gluck 1985). the trio of emma gruber, bartok, and kodaly met at the house of gruber two or three times a week for several years. 22 in this context, the exchange of ideas was so dense that it is impossible to untangle a chain of influences and establish the origin of an idea, or even sort out clearly what it meant for individuals at given times. indeed, such an attempt at a genealogy of ideas becomes absurd. what, then, is the cultural context of a musical work? surely, it is much more than those direct influences where the connection can be proven as a fact. and clearly it is something much less and at the same time much more precise than the kind of schematic, general-historical surveys that we provide in textbooks under the label "cultural background." context is not background; it is an actual, living, complex environment that con­ stantly interferes in thousands of uncontrollable ways with creation. here i am struggling with a question asked by rose subotnik in her developing variations: what is the meaning of the word "and" in titles like "bela bartok and tum-of the-century budapest"? for all modern methodolo­ gies, we still feel secure only when we describe context in terms of individ­ ual influences. influence, in turn, has four conditions: (1) temporal prior­ ity: a came before b; (2) dependence: if a had not occurred, b would not have the particular character that it does; (3) awareness: a was known to the producer of b; and (4) similarity: b in some respect is similar to a (jones 1943). judit frigyesi 21 modern cultural studies, of course, go beyond a mechanical application of these conditions. we are more relaxed about the issue of temporal pri­ ority; when discussing a relatively short period of time, the fact that some­ one formulated an idea in writing at a certain moment does not mean that it was not known to certain circles earlier. it is harder, however, to loosen the requirements of awareness and similarity. the problem is that scholarly argument by its nature is designed to re­ veal similarities, whereas we make sense of our surrounding world in real life through dissimilarities as much as through similarities. in real life and in art, from which our world of symbols emerges, one internalizes diverse experiences whose sole connection may be that they are present at the same time. these experiences reflect upon and teach about an essential aspect of our world precisely because they are different. but what can a scholarly essay do with the realization, say, that a was not known to b, and a is not similar to b? the task of a scholarly argument is to bring system to disorder and to show how things are related. if the ideas of an artist were not known to another and/or if their works show no similarity in the as­ pects the scholar is scrutinizing, then there is no scholarly argument what­ soever. if we consider novels that we believe reflect their respective societies­ tolstoy's anna karenina, mahfouz's arabian nights and days, bulgakov's master and margarita, garcia marquez's hundred years of solitude-we find a very different pattern. these works convey a sense of integrity, a com­ mon spirit and worldview, even though the aspirations and fates of their characters are different, often incompatible. the stories reveal the forces within society through a web of seemingly irrational personal conclusions and actions. it is for this reason that mikhail bakhtin considered the novel, especially those of dostoevsky, to be the superior form of literature. according to him, in dostoevsky's "polyphonic novels" there is "a poten­ tial to create a plurality of equally valid consciousnesses, each with its own world." bakhtin writes: the utterly incompatible elements comprising dostoevsky's material are distributed among several worlds and several autonomous con­ sciousnesses that combine in a higher unity. thanks to these various worlds the material can develop to the furthest extent what is most original and peculiar in it, without disturbing the unity of the whole and without mechanizing it. (bakhtin 1984:16) i refer to the novel and to bakhtin because i believe that the novel in some ways reflects society better than social studies because it does not strive to systematize it. bakhtin's comments above are valid as a description 22 current musicology of society (at least modern society), and in fact all great works in the modern era bear the imprint of a plurality of worlds. looking at society and culture as a web of contrasting worlds rather than in terms of similarities in concrete details-which, of course is not a new notion­ allows us to speak about influence in a different manner, one not dictated primarily by the notion of similarity. essentially, any encounter with any event is influence. people respond to an event not only by imitating aspects of it, but also by integrating-or not integrating-it into their lives and attitudes. and we know all too well from everyday life that one can respond to an event even by doing exactly the opposite of what may seem logical. this too is influence. the governing forces of cultures are those basic ideas and problems that somehow no one is able to avoid. in standing face-to-face with these forces, people create their extraordinarily unique systems of thought. these individual systems can never be entirely shared. the connection between two art works is found not in similarities but in differences of attitude, for each artist responds to the totality of life according to his/her unique perception of it. it is for this reason that emmanuel levinas char­ acterized human relationships as non-synthetisables. in levinas's existential philosophy, the fundamental condition of human beings is captured in the moment when one stands face-to-face with another. people are never simply "together." in a true relationship one is always "facing the other," and in the act of facing another, one encounters the "face" (levinas's key word is "visage") that is in itself a totality, meaning that it is impossible to decompose it into its elements. in hebrew-a language levinas knew intimately-visage is panim, a word that comes from the verb "to turn to­ ward something."23 levinas finds in this act, turning toward or facing the other, the primary situation that defines human encounters (levinas 1982:71-72) .24 what i propose here, therefore, is that instead of focusing exclusively on the notion of influence being revealed in similarities, we devise an­ other method for the presentation of context. such a presentation would focus first on the grasping of the underlying beliefs, problems, and anxi­ eties of a society, and second, on the presentation of numerous valid but contradictory responses. this would mean looking at artistic context as a collection of potential responses, whose cohesion lies not in their similarity but in the fact that they were born from and exist in reference to the same thing. to put it differently: the cohesive force in society and culture lies in questions, rather than in responses. my point is that there is no reason to suppose that bartok was "influ­ enced" only by those writings that he liked. in fact, one can be "influ­ enced" by something that one does not even know about, meaning that judit frigyesi 23 one can receive essential ideas from a source that one perhaps did not know directly. while we reconstruct ideas from writings, the contempo­ raries received them through oral encounters and integrated them spon­ taneously and with ease. they did not need to consult the literature that forms our "historical sources" in order to understand the spirit of their times. bartok did not read the early articles of gyorgy lukacs, but this does not mean that they are irrelevant as a historical source to understand his attitude. being in constant contact with members of the lukacs circle, bartok likely integrated these ideas into his aesthetics even before lukacs formulated them in writing; he had no need to read the scholarly out­ come of what he already understood and used as an artist. however, even such a loosening of the notion of influence does not re­ solve the basic problem, namely that scholarship provides a system and clarity in describing something that is unsystematic and ambiguous. it is not only that the novel presents, in bakhtin's words, "several worlds and several autonomous consciousnesses"; it also combines these "in a higher unity" by feeling, rather than by logic. art has an advantage over scholarly discourse in that it may leave the questions it poses unanswered and may allow for widely different interpretations that together somehow contain the message of the work. mter having read marquez's hundred years of solitude, one may notice the amazing differences between the fates of the members of a family. another reader may see in these stories the same fate in variations ad infinitum. mahfouz's arabian nights and days is an even sharper dramatization of non-similarities within an integral context. the characters of this novel come from a closed muslim society, but it is pre­ cisely the narrow outer boundaries of this world that provoke fantastic and extreme personal beliefs and stories. yet on another level, these stories, too, can be seen as infinite metamorphoses of one life-essence. a recent film, my twentieth century by ildiko enyedi, excellently captures this multi­ faceted nature of sameness. the film recounts the life story of identical twins that were separated at a young age and grew up to be different char­ acters, making diametrically opposed choices in life. it is left to the viewer to see how these characters, who apparently share nothing, are really one and the same person. these works-like most artworks, in some ways-make us "feel" the integrity of a world, even though the narration reinforces the feeling of non-integrity by deliberately hiding those forces that bring oppositions together. this is in essence the lukacsian demand of art, cited above: "the salvation-the redeeming power of form-is only at the end of all roads and all sufferings. it resides in this belief, which is impossible to prove and which lies vividly beyond all proofs, in the belief that the scattered multidirectional roads of the soul do meet at the end; they have 24 current musicology to meet because they departed from the same center." in a great work, the contrast between the two forces-the one that leads the reader along the "scattered multidirectional roads" and the one that brings these roads together-may be so extreme that it allows readers to see momentarily only one or the other force. this kind of play is not allowed in scholarly writing. while every text is unfinished, reaching its final form in the mind of the reader, scholarly dis­ course gives much less freedom to the reader for creating the basic message of the writing. if the argument is not clear, if we are not sure what relates to what and what is similar to what, then the writing slips from scholarship to poetry. the inherent ambiguity of social life, cultural context, and the world of symbols cannot be matched by ambiguity in the discourse of an essay, even though this would be perhaps the most rele­ vant form of representation. one possible response to this problem is the acceptance of the limitation of scholarship that rejects the attempt to ex­ press in a study what only art can do. another approach is to experiment with an alternate scholarly discourse that stretches the limits of scholar­ ship toward ambiguity for the sake of a better reflection of reality, but without giving up the option of arguing a point. in bela bart6k and turn-of the-century budapest, i chose the second option, though today it seems to me that i did not go far enough. the first question was how to delineate boundaries, that is, how to create an integral mass of documents out of the infinite flow of sources. obviously, such a question can never be answered in an entirely objective manner. it was important, however, that the boundaries of the material should not be determined a priori. there are no absolute rules and methods that surely "work," not even the rule of influence in the traditional sense. in the end, the meaningful context turned out to be something that at first glance seemed to be "out of place": the philosophy of lukacs (which bartok barely knew) and modern hungarian poetry (mihaly babits, dezso kosztolanyi, and endre ady-the last-named being the only one bartok really liked). in this poetic world, it is irrelevant whether a symbol means the same thing for bartok that it does for someone else, and whether bartok was in­ fluenced by one person or by another. it seems crucial, however, to let the diverse artistic worlds "speak for themselves," that is, to present them in their integrity as much as this is possible, regardless of how strongly they related to one another. the idea is to present worlds that are dissimilar even though they reflect upon the same existential problems. in order to penetrate the meaning of symbols, the important thing is to discover, in a never-ending process, new meanings of symbols, and then to discover in these multiple meanings the central questions of the era to which they re­ late, and for which they were created. judit frigyesi 25 a method that attempts to interpret symbols through the presenta­ tion of multiple artistic worlds does not suit the scope of an article. even a fragmentary interpretation of the symbols of bluebeard's castle demanded two long chapters in my book, and these chapters build on the exploration of artistic views outlined in previous chapters. for the conclusion of this essay, i selected one example in order to illus­ trate the potential of such an interpretation of symbols. the example concerns the symbolic meaning of night at the end of the opera. i could never understand why bluebeard's last words, "and there will be night forever," had been thought of as tragic and pessimistic. mter all, from medieval albas to wagner's tristan und isolde, we have a long tradi­ tion of associating night with love. in this tradition, it is the morning light that brings the tragic ending, the end of love. let me turn to some excerpts from the poem, "even if the moon is cold" (hiriba hideg a hold, 1909) by endre ady: even if the moon is cold. once our time came with warmth and heat and sacred fever was beating the night, into which two, beautiful, miserable beings, were herded together by the arbitrary time, one of the many-faced times, merciful, mad, rich time, that brought me together with my woman, and that has not passed ever since. thus we fall, thus we tremble into each other, as if never-never we two had been two. it was this woman i always loved i was in her mouth and in her heart and she was my mouth and my heart. it was then when she walked here, came to me, my dear woman it was then when with great amazement two torn one-beings opened their arms for embrace, and became one again. it was not love, only the return of the spring into itself, here, again in this merciless time of separation. 26 current musicology the atmosphere in this poem is very different from that in bartok's opera. ady's poem is exalted through and through; there is exuberance, passion and pain in each line. the story is absorbed into half-spoken sen­ tences. there is some hastiness in the language; my english translation cannot capture how restless, often embarrassingly spontaneous, some phrases are. even this first encounter with ady shows the difference be­ tween ady's and bartok's basic attitudes toward life. for ady, nothing was more important than a commitment to experience every emotion to its extreme and as a reflection of the universe, even if this demanded that he sacrifice language and form. for bartok, the central question was how to create form while exploring feelings to their extreme. and yet this poem, especially when read together with many others, opens the door to their common world of symbols and ideas. the first line, "even if the moon is cold," gives the key to the interpretation of the end of bartok's opera: even if a great passion is over, some of it, perhaps its best part, remains with us. here ady intentionally superimposes differ­ ent times and concepts of time: time is "arbitrary" and "many-faced," it "herded" people together, but it is also the "merciless time of separation." most of the narration is in the past tense, but it refers to a past that "has not passed ever since." embrace is at the same time burning and cold, sep­ aration and coming together, oneness being torn apart and two separate beings becoming one, standing against the other and a "return of the spring into itself." but the memory of embrace is eternal and clear. it is sadness born from the certainty of memory: "it was this woman i always loved." the two symbolic associations of "night" are posited against each other: the night is the symbol of the greatest passion and of the state of eternal sadness. we learn from this poem that everything exists in duality, that every­ thing is itself and at the same time its own opposite. we also learn that love, understanding of the self, and a return to loneliness are all one and the same thing. the greatest love is self-realization and thus it is death; it is self-transcendence and thus it is loneliness and separation. the idea that the memory of love saturates life, even when real love is no longer possible to maintain, was not only a poetic image but also a feel­ ing ady and his contemporaries lived through in real life. about the same time ady wrote this poem, lukacs, after the death of his beloved, wrote to a friend: "the ice age has begun. i have died but she lives within me, to the extent that anything can live within me. quietly. without reproaches. without pain ... in spite of everything, only she exists-even if i no longer love her, no longer desire her, no longer want her back. it makes no difference. the memory of one episode with her means more than a lifetime spent with someone else."25 judit frigyesi 27 it is as if lukacs had written these lines about bluebeard's castle. but lukacs could not have known the opera when he wrote this letter, and bartok obviously had no access to a personal letter written by lukacs to a friend. and although the case of the ady poem is different-bartok marked it in the poetry volume he owned-it would not really be correct to say that this poem gave him the impetus for the conception of the opera. we are closer to the spirit of bartok's milieu if we look at the atti­ tudes and beliefs of lukacs and ady not as possible influences or sources for bartok's dramatic concept, but as various manifestations of the spiritual-emotional world of bartok and his contemporaries. bartok's opera opens with darkness and ends with darkness. in bluebeard's last phrase, "and there will be night forever" (an addition made by bartok to the original text), "night" is a symbolic focus into which everything collapses. night is the symbol of coldness and emotionlessness, but also the symbol of fiery love. furthermore, night is the traditional sym­ bol of womanness (here emphatically of judith, who was found by blue­ beard at night), but also the symbol of the mystery of existence (here em­ phatically of the soul of bluebeard). and finally, total darkness is the symbol of wholeness; it is the darkness of the cosmos, the source and the end of everything. bl;;'ebeard's castle is an abstract drama; in the form of a sequence of clashes between man and his other, it projects into time the timeless, ever-renewed force of love. the form of the piece, evolving from darkness and returning into darkness while being destroyed from inside by its inner forces, suggests both eternal circularity and completeness. judith's love leads bluebeard back to his origins so that he can be one with his self in beautiful loneliness. but the darkness is not complete. although the stage should be com­ pletely dark during bluebeard's final words, the music suggests a some­ what different ending. we may recall that at the opening of the opera the two themes appeared one after the other, and their contrast reflected a motion from stillness/darkness toward movement/light. the two themes recapitulate at the end, but not in succession; they appear simultaneously. fragments of the second theme are superposed on the pentatonic theme that provides a background for the floating second-theme fragments until it too disintegrates. at the end of the opera, both themes are reduced to fragments that gradually dissolve into one another, reaching the last melodic motion in pianissimo-an unfinished gesture. the opera opened with the darkness of tension, with the desire to re­ veal the unknown, to move toward light. at the end, bluebeard arrives at the darkness in which all contrasts dissolve. but the openness of the last 28 current musicology gesture reminds us that the darkness of the soul can never be complete. the soul's night is mystery and as long as life lives, this mystery desires to be revealed. bluebeard's darkness may seem eternal, but in the larger cos­ mic scheme it is merely the stillness of the soul as it momentarily suspends its eternal desire to know its depth, and-what is the same-to love. notes 1. this paper was conceived parallel to the writing of my book (frigyesi 1998), partly in order to elaborate on its approach to context, which i felt to be somewhat unusual. aspects of hungarian cultural life presented in this article in a summary manner are elaborated on in detail in the book. in this article, the musical analysis and interpretation of the opera are either entirely new or are revised versions of ideas presented in the book (especially regarding the fifth-door scene and the ending of the work). this article was originally designed as a lecture and i am greatly indebted to the faculties and students of those universities that invited me to read it and con­ tributed to its final form with comments: the university of california at berkeley, the university of california at santa barbara, stanford university, john hopkins university, columbia university, wesleyan university, the graduate center of cuny, the conference of the international musicological society, and tel-aviv university. finally, i would like to thank the fulbright foundation and the collegium budapest for grants that allowed me to work on this article. 2. all translations from the hungarian (including poetry) are mine unless oth­ erwise noted. 3. an excellent summary of the history of the sunday circle and its philosophy can be found in gluck (1985). 4. this issue is discussed in the introduction to frigyesi (1998). 5. consider bartok's insistence (in his 1928 essay "the folk songs of hungary") that he aimed at grasping the spirit of folk music in his original compo­ sitions (bartok 1976:332-33), and also the fact that he planned to devote the last lecture of his harvard series to the "general spirit" of works (tallian 1989, 1:181). the issues raised in this paragraph are explored in detail in the fifth chapter of frigyesi (1998). 6. see this letter written to his wife in 1909 from darazs (slovakia) in bartok (1981:187-88); english translation in frigyesi (1998:120-21). 7. i hope that i have accomplished much of this work in the last two chapters of frigyesi (1998). 8. some basic symbols of the opera, such as the symbolic identification of the castle with the soul, i take for granted here for the sake of brevity. these are ex­ plained in previous studies about the opera, most importantly in the analyses of antokoletz (2001), kroo (1962), lendvai (1964), and veress (1949). 9. carl leafstedt's recent study complements this image by looking at the metaphorical representation of 'judith" in twentieth-century art. he suggests that balazs might have been consciously evoking the character of the heroine of friedrich hebbel's play judith since "both judiths are placed into conflict with an judit frigyesi 29 extremely masculine man against whom they must apply all their feminine cun­ ning to obtain what they desire" (leafstedt 1999:132). 10. of course, mcclary approaches the opera from the opposite side; she criti­ cizes its message from a feminist perspective, though she does not question the truthfulness of this message. 11. this and the following sections can be found in the score as follows: the cli­ max of the development of the chromatic motive before the seventh door at 1illj­ illsl; the pastoral-like section preceding the first door at ~; and bluebeard's quasi-aria after the last door at 11271. 12. by traditional interpretation, i mean here the analyses mentioned above, most important, those by antokoletz, kroo, lendvai, leafstedt, and veress. although substantial differences exist in how these scholars view concrete musical and also some dramatic details of the opera, they agree with the basic characteriza­ tions of themes described here. 13. the tonal interpretation based on the polar opposition of c and f# has been most fully worked out by lendvai (1964). this analysis was the first large­ scale study in a series of tonal investigations that laid the foundation for the spe­ cific tonal interpretation that is commonly referred to today as "lendvai's axis system." 14. this melodic line conforms to the scheme of the so-called fifth-shifting, pentatonic type of the old-style folk songs. the term "old-style" is used here in ac­ cordance with bartok's and kodaly's terminology to designate a specific repertoire and style within hungarian vocal peasant music. 15. "in the hungarian peasant music, properly so called, the german observer is first of all struck by two types which are completely different from any western european music. one type is our ancient, so-called 'rubato' melodies. especially evident here is the free, declamatory rhythm as opposed to any uniformly meas­ ured music. the rhythm, seemingly very complex, can be reduced theoretically to a schema of eight equal eighths; the last eighth ... is augmented by a fermata. yet it is only infrequently that one hears such a simplified (perhaps 'primitive') pat­ tern, and [even] then never in actually uniform eighths." see "hungarian folk music" in bartok (1976:72-73). note that the two examples bartok gives in this ar­ ticle to illustrate his point not only have unusual rhythmic patterns but also exu­ berant ornamentation. 16. janos ferencsik, budapest national opera orchestra, with mihaly szekely and klara palankay (recorded in 1956, reissued on arlechino, arl a09); antal dorati, london symphony orchestra with mihaly szekely and olga szonyi (recorded in 1962, first released as sr90311, reissued on mercury living presence, d 101216). 17. in his analysis, lendvai (1964:91) calls attention to the significance of the opposition of "white-note" and "black-note" melodies, referring to the white and black keys of the piano. is. note that the piano arrangement does not reflect the actual dynamics and orchestration. the sustained e-major chord, played by the winds, the timpani, and the organ, creates a cold, metallic sound. in the measure in which the strings en­ ter with their g tremolo, marked sff, the chord suddenly fades away; some of the 30 current musicology strongest brass instruments, as well as the timpani and the organ, cease playing and there is a sudden diminuendo (from jjfto f). in this way, the entrance of the string tremolo is made the focus. 19. in a similar manner, balazs regarded the dialogues in a symbolist drama to be a "technique of overtones." 20. a large part of bartok's personal library is housed today in the bartok archive at the institute for musicology in budapest. i am grateful to laszlo somfai and the staff of the archive for allowing me access to this collection and for their generous help. 21. "in these two volumes [longing for love (szeretnem, ha szeretnenek) and of all mysteries (minden titkok versei)] , i have marked those strophes which speak to me­ speak from me-the most. but there is one of them that was [so close to me that it was] impossible to mark: 'my bed calls (az agyam hivogat)' ... i cannot tear myself away from it" (dille 1990:293). endre ady (1877-1919) was one of the greatest poets and journalists of the turn of the century. with his journalistic writings he created a revolutionary atmos­ phere in hungary; his articles, written in a passionate tone with literary beauty, pointed to the problems of society with a sharpness that shocked contemporary readers. this prophetic-political tone also characterizes many of his poems. at the same time, he created a symbolic poetry that, although influenced by the french symbolists, especially baudelaire, was in essence rather different from the french trend. ady's symbolic poetry is always at the same time immediate and philosophi­ cal; images of everyday life are the means to grasp existential questions in a philo­ sophical matrix of contradictions and paradoxes. ady was an amazing influence on his contemporaries, and his personality and work had a basic role in shaping mod­ ern hungarian life up to the present day. 22. i am greatly indebted to mrs. zoltan kodaly (formerly sarolta peczely) and to the late istvan kecskemeti of the kodaly archive, budapest, for allowing me to see the diary of emma gruber in which she listed, every day, the names of people she received as guests. 23. i would like to thank daniel epstein for the many stimulating ideas he shared with me about levinas and about the connection between his philoso­ phy and jewish thought. my reference to the hebrew word panim follows his interpretation. 24. the pages referred to here from levinas's ethique et infini (1982) provide a summary of the issues discussed more deeply in various parts of his totalite et infini. essai sur l 'exteriorite (1992) . 25. the letter was written to leo popper (gluck 1985:122-23). it is important to note that lukacs's beloved irma seidler committed suicide. their relationship reflects the difference between the feminine and masculine concept of human re­ lations; the above lines could not have been written by seidler. it appears that this idealized image of an eternity of past love, which is expressed in the ady poem, in lukacs's letter and in the opera, was a typically male approach. judit frigyesi 31 references antokoletz, elliott. 200l. musical symbolism in the operas of debussy and bartok. new york and oxford: oxford university press. bakhtin, mikhail. 1984. problems of dostoevsky's poetics. translated and edited by carol emerson. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. bal:izs, bela. 1982. naplo (diary). budapest: magveto. bartok, bela. 1976. bela bartok essays. edited by benjamin such off. lincoln and london: university of nebraska press. ---. 1981. bartok bela csaladi levelei (bela bartok's family letters). edited by bela bartok,jr. budapest: zenemfikiado. dille, denijs. 1990. bartok et ady. in bela bartok. regard sur le passe, edited by yves lenoir, 293-302. etudes bartokiennes, no. l. namur: presses universitaires de namur. frigyesi, judit. 1998. bela bartok and turn-of the-century budapest. berkeley: california university press. gluck, mary. 1985. georg lukacs and his generation: 1900-1918. cambridge: harvard university press. jones, w. t. 1943. on the meaning of the term "influence" in historical studies. ethics 53: 192-99. kroo, gyorgy. 1962. bartok szinpadi muvei (the stage works of bartok). budapest: zenemfikiado. leafstedt, carl s. 1999. inside bluebeard's castle: music and drama in bela bartok's opera. new york and oxford: oxford university press. lendvai, erno. 1964. bartok dramaturgiaja (the dramaturgy of bartok). budapest: zenemfikiado. levinas, emmanuel. 1982. ethique et infini, dialogues avec philippe nemo (livre de poche 4018). paris: fayard. ---. 1992. totalite et infini. essai sur l' exteriorite (livre de poche 4120). paris: kluwer academic. lukacs, gyorgy. 1977. esztetikai kultura (aesthetic culture). in ifjukori mvek (youthful works), 1902-1918, edited by arpad timar, 422-37. budapest: magveto. ---.1978. soul and forms. translated by anna bostock. london: merlin. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. subotnik, rose. 1991. developing variations: style and ideology in western music. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. tallian, tibor, ed. 1989. bartok bela irasai (the writings of bela bartok). budapest: zenemfikiado. veress, sandor. 1949. bluebeard's castle. tempo, no. 13 (autumn): 32-36. five saliences in marco da gagliano's earliest madrigals edmond strain champs in the summer of 1602, marco da gagliano's primo libra de madrigali a cinque vociwas printed in venice by angelo gardano, italy's leading publisher of madrigals. it was the first of gagliano's six books in the genre, published between 1602 and 1617; in fact, it was the earliest publication of any of his music.! in 1606, the same firm reprinted the first book.2 evidently the publisher thought a new printing would be commercially viable. such a conviction very likely arose from the florentine composer's having become, in the interim, more widely known and apparently admired through the issuing of his second and third madrigal books. as the work of a twenty­ year-old composer, the primo libra is remarkable in particular for its range and mastery of musical techniques and for its variety of musical type and expressive character, all of which are accomplished with perfect control. gagliano followed the tradition of florentine madrigalists both in his dis­ criminating choice of poetry and in his fondness for homophony or near­ homophony, although there is well-made polyphony in the volume as well. that gagliano was a progressive is strikingly evident by the ways in which his madrigals adapt the new florentine ideas about music and aes­ thetics. throughout the madrigals of book one (as in those of his other five books), words, with few exceptions, are set syllabically to declamatory and expressive motives. when they are presented in the homophonic tex­ ture he favored, the resultant ensemble recitative makes the text quite easy to hear. this style realizes a basic tenet of the florentine camerate's credo for the joining of poetry and music. as gagliano himself stated in the preface to his opera la dafne, "the true delight [of song] stems from the intelligibility of the words" (quoted in solerti 1903:79).3 one example ofthis can be seen in gagliano's setting of giambattista marino's "arsi un tempo e l'ardore," at mm. 77-83 (strainchamps 2002).4 more significant than this, however, is that the melodic lines, whether polyphonically interwoven or homophonically aligned, are very much con­ ditioned by florentine monody. many of these lines, especially those given to the canto, would work well in a monodic setting with instrumental ac­ companiment. as alfred einstein observed of gagliano's book one mad­ rigals, all "have the effect of polyphonic, imitative arrangements of mono­ dies" (1949:734). one example of this, from among many, occurs in the first madrigal of the volume, "0 misera dorinda, ov'hai tu poste ie tue speranze?" (oh wretched dorinda, where have you placed your hopes?). current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 80 current musicology example 1: marco da gagliano, "0 misera dorinda," mm. 1-11. canto " r u 0 mi se fa do rin alto " -----"if 0 mi se ra do tfnore " ~ 0 i. i i i i do rin quinto ml se ra " "i ba..<;so ~ o mi se fa do rin 6" u. da• " ~ -rin da, da, " da, 0v'hai ~u po ste le tue o -v'hai tll po ste le tue 0v'hai tu po ste le tue spe o v'hai ttl po ste le tue spe spe ran ze? spe ran ze? ze? ran ze? dorinda's monologue, in which she first speaks to herself and then to her reluctant lover, appears in act ii, scene 2 (lines 438-54) of giovanni battista guarini's it pastor fido. example 1 contains the first eleven measures of gagliano's setting, the expressive treatment of words, which, more often than not, is the chief determinant of gagliano's music, is clearly a strong shaping force for these measures. it is the reason that the two syllables at the opening of the canto part are set to a falling diminished fifth, and that the whole first phrase is set within the intervallic span of a seventh (canto, mm. 2-6). at the same time, other voices outline linear dissonances such as the tritones edmond strain champs 81 example 2: marco da gagliano, "ai mio novo martire," mm. 1-7. canto .-" fl. r u ai mio ti no vo mar re alto i'l n. '8 al mio no vo mar ti re tenore ~ e i'l 0. '8 ~ quinto al mio no vo mar ti re c i'l '8 al 1 i. mlo no vo mar ti re basso " elliii • : -between the first and last pitches sung by alto and basso in mm. 2-6, the latter of which also elongates the canto's first interval two octaves lower. these are supplemented by harmonic tritones between the alto's f' and the tenor's b' in m. 2 (an interval whose size prefigures the canto's initial leap), and similarly, between the canto and quinto in m. 10. through these dissonances, embedded in prevailing consonance, gagliano portrays the inner torment and confusion that "wretched," but gentle, dorinda feels as she is continually spurned by chaste silvio, whom she deeply loves. in "al mio novo martire" (at my new martyrdom)-the opening of which evokes the beginning of "0 misera dorinda"-gagliano was inspired by the dark word "martire" to give the monody-like canto a chromatic line that moves mostly by half steps within a narrow intervallic span. there is, of course, chromaticism in other voices as well. the linear process at work here and the dissonances that result from it, including, remarkably, disso­ nant downbeats in five measures (mm. 3-7), produce momentary harmo­ nies suggestive of gesualdo's music. the opening of the madrigal may be seen in example 2. although this is not the only instance of a somewhat tamed version of gesualdo's manner to be found in the first book, it is the most striking of them. whatever influence gesualdo's madrigals may have had on gagliano, however, was probably indirect. a more likely influence was the ferrarese nobleman alfonso fontanelli, a close associate of gesualdo's who com82 current musicology example 3: marco da gagliano, "tra sospiri e querele," mm. 5-9. canto ~ • la mia don -na, la mia don na fal la quinto la mia don na fa} la alto i '"' -re ie la mia don ho tenore .. , i na falla ie la mia don ho-ra m 'in-di-~e basso -(9 ...., i ie la mia don na ral la ho posed in a more accessible style. fontanelli was often in florence and was resident there for at least two years, first in 1599 and then in 1601.5 gagliano certainly would have met fontanelli and encountered his music-and, most likely, the music of others in the ferrara circle-at the musicians' gather­ ings that typified florentine musical life at the turn of the seventeenth century. a letter by gagliano speaks of the intense music-making occa­ sioned by fontanelli's brief visit to florence in 1608: "the lord count alfonso [fontanelli] stayed in florence three days, during which there was so much singing that i became sick of it!" (quoted in vogel 1889:55253)6 in sharp contrast to the slow-moving rhythms, the melodic movement almost entirely by step within a narrow intervallic range, and the near­ homophonic texture at the opening of "al mio novo martire," are the polyphonic measures that set the second verse of the poem "tra sospiri e querele." in the leaping melodic lines of mm. 5-9, gagliano wrote a musi­ cal illustration for "la mia donna fallace" (my false lady), with "fallace" being the key word in the phrase. the passage is contained in example 3. measure 5 begins with an imitative duet between canto and quinto on a descending c-triad arpeggio, but before the textual phrase is completed the lines break off. mter the canto leaps a ninth upward the phrase begins again, now with a descent on a d-triad arpeggio that spans the interval of an eleventh, coming to rest on an unexpected e'. at the same time, the edmond strain champs 83 imitative basso's line covers a tenth and the middle voices, quinto, alto and tenore, span a seventh, an augmented octave, and a seventh, respectively. the melodic contour and the harmony, dropping through the common­ note chords c-a-f-d until measure eight, play false at this point to our musical expectations while they make a punning surprise for the singers, who are diverted at the end from their anticipated goal to complete the phrase on a-major harmony. gagliano's setting of ansaldo ceba's "scherza madonna e dice" is an anacreontic madrigal that, despite its brevity and its lighter tone, has some unexpected dissonance and chromaticism. the poem and its translation are as follows: scherza madonna e dice, hor l'una in me girand'hor l'altra stella, mira com'io son bella. 10 miro e parte un foco, mi scend'al cor tra '1 gioco; e mi struggon duo lumi a dramma a dramma; che s'a gl'occhi son stelle al cor son fiamma. my lady jests and says, turning now one and now the other star upon me, "look how beautiful i am." i look and a fire begins, falling on my heart in the midst of the joke; and two lights destroy me bit by bit: for if to my eyes they are stars, to my heart they are flames. the seeds for the chromaticism that reach their fullest flower in mm. 28-38 are planted as early as the introduction of verse three in m. 6, with its declamatory motive that descends in stepwise motion. this motive is the basis for the setting of the next two verses of the poem, although the motive is altered somewhat during a long section of developing variations (mm. 8-39). with verse six (beginning at m. 23), a climax is reached with a chromatic version of the motive that produces sharp dissonances of sec­ onds and sevenths as it combines with itself again and again in imitative polyphony. example 4 contains these measures. the chromatic inflections and the dissonances are inspired by gagliano's interpretation ofthe verse "e mi struggon duo lumi a dramma a dramma" (and two lights destroy me bit by bit), especially by the verb struggere, which means to melt, consume, or waste as well as to destroy. if the sense here is that of destruction resulting from "a complete meltdown" 84 current musicology example 4: marco da gagliano, "scherza madonna e dice," mm. 23-39. canto quinto alto tenore basso 28 fl rna, 23 fl u -co; fl oj -co; fl oj -co; fl ~ -co; -co; mi stlljggoo duo iii mi a dram l~a a dnlm mi strug [on duo iii m'a dram-m'a dram rna, mi a dram ~i s~nlg-gon duo lu n~.:." e mi strug-gon duo lu mi strug gan duo e rna, illl a dramm'a dram e mi ,"ug-goo :;'uo lu ••• m'a <> dramm'adram lu mi adram ~~.b.m~dram mi strug-gon duo iii 3'1'! oj i'! oj -rna, i'! e iu miadram m'a jit.~,..(b),.. • mi strug-gon duo lu ma, m! mi stiujon duo lu mi-.3 dramm'a dram rna, a dram-l~a~l dram ? • mi a dram illa a dram . dmm rna; rna; mi strug-gon duo f2~ e rna; dramrna a dram-rna; mi a dram ill':.: dram ma; che s'a edmond strain champs 85 (to put it in to modern parlance), then clearly the treatment of "struggon (0)" is text-illustrative. perhaps it is also a metaphorical comment on the compositional process itself, in that the evolving motive has reached its final state and is exhausted or "destroyed," since it cannot be carried further within the style. more relevant to understanding the structure of this passage, however, is that the descending motive, so right for verse six, was prepared over a number of measures (mm. 8-24); in these measures it was fine for carrying text, but it had no text specificity (except for "falling" at the beginning of verse five). the acme achieved at last by the develop­ ing motive and the tension of the chromatic dissonance adds psychologi­ cal depth to the poem. indeed, one may say that the music has become the drama. in "un sguardo, un sguardo no," gagliano set a text by gabriello chiabrera. the poem belongs to the scherzo genre that chiabrera cre­ ated; this particular poem is number twenty-three in his scherzi e canzonette morali (1599). chiabrera's poem and its english translation read as fol­ lows: un sguardo, un sguardo no, troppa pietate e per misero amante un sguard'intiero; solo un de'vostri raggi occhi girate, o parte del bel bianco 0 del bel nero; e se troppo vi par, non mi mirate; ma fate sol sembiante di mirarmi, che nol potete far senza bearmi. a glance, a glance no, a full glance is too much mercy for a piteous lover. turn only one of the rays of your eyes, either part of the fine white or of the fine black; and if it seems too much to you, don't look at me, but only pretend to look at me; for you can do nothing without delighting me.7 the text contains some tongue-in-cheek levity that comes about by the exaggeration of several conventions of madrigalian poetry to the point of making them absurd. this trait marks verses three and four, those in which the lover asks the lady to turn only one ray from her eyes and to send either beams from part of the sclera or part of the pupil. this ·spoofing request may carry with it some jeering, too, on the part of the speaker. gagliano's setting of the poem devotes much attention to these verses; in fact, they take up more than half of the madrigal (thirty measures of the 86 current musicology example 5: marco da gagliano, "un sguardo, un sguardo no," mm. 9-38. canto a~ i tenore quinto balsa " " oj " oj " ~ " 19" oj " oj " ~ '" so -. 9 jj oj -ro; so l~mde' vo-stri rag " oj -ro; so " \' fa; -"\' -fa; -fa; 0 par te, :, o par . 10 un de' va stri rag ,....., chi gi fa ~. te, ............-. stri rag so o par -,>-• g~c chi gi te, fl ~. .... chi gi fa g~c chi gi 10 un de' stri rag te, gi oc -. ~.so 10 un de' vo stri rag tc del bel par te del fa te, o par -. so loun de'vo stri ~. gi~c chi gi ra let so-l'un ---... de' vo sui rag g~oc chi gi . bian del tel ne co, so-l'un de' vo-stri rag gi chi gi .. bel hian o del bel ne ro, so-l'un de' vo-stri rag ~~ " te, par te del bel bian co . .--. -rag gi.....-oc chi gi te, 0 fl' ~.~ h" ?~ te, 0 par te del bel edmond strain champs 87 example 5 cont. 24 fl i1'"'"ti i'""t'""'t'"" oj te, 0 par te del " oj . i ~ ;e, i gi oc chi gi fa 0 pac te del bel fl ,. ,~ .-. oj " del bel ne co, fl oj ie -par te del bel bian so-l'un vo-stri rag n fl jit ____ ~ ~ bian 0 del bel 1'0, so iolln de' vo stri 19 fj ", oj bel bian 0 del :el ne ro, 0 " oj • :*. " rf.> bian 0 del bel ne co. <0 del bel fl oj 0 par te del bel bian co 0 del :el fl ,.. ~ fl ~ .. ", oj g~)c chi ¢ ra te, 0 pac te de] bel bian ~ rag gi~oc chi gi m teo 0 par te del bel 34fl '" oj par te del bel bian 0 del bel ne ro; e 1l oj 0 ie] bel w. del bel ne 1'0; e fl ~ ~ 0 del :el ne e co, ro; " oj 0 del :el nc roo del bel ne1'0; e sc trap-po yi ~ n bian co 0 del bel ne 1'0; e 88 current musicology total fifty-seven). measures 9-38, which may be seen in example 5, have at their center an eighteen-bar contrapposto (mm. 14-31), before and after which each verse is presented individually (five and seven measures, re­ spectively). contrapposto-a term borrowed by alfred einstein from the world of renaissance art-refers to the pose of a figure twisted so that the upper body and the lower are on opposing axes (hale 1981:358). einstein used the term aptly and extensively to label a section of music in which distinct melodic lines with different texts sound simultaneously (1949). contrapposto is not a rare phenomenon; it is used elsewhere in gagliano's book one and in the works of other madrigal composers during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. monteverdi, for instance, made a telling use of it in his "filii cara e amata" from the primo libra of 1587, and in this case, contrapposto is more than a musical technique; it serves a psy­ chological purpose as well. gagliano's first book indicates his familiarity with monteverdi, although the passage in "un sguardo, un sguardo no" cannot be said to derive directly from monteverdi. rather, contrapposto was "in the air" for progressive madrigal composers of the time. while gagliano's contrapposto passage for verses three and four is mas­ terful purely as a musical construction, the impulse behind it would seem to be primarily expressive. the peculiar conceits that chiabrera employed in these verses virtually require opposition in the music. the pointed con­ trast between "white" and "black" in the second of these is realized in "eye­ music" that is brought about by the use of open and filled note-heads to set them. between the two verses, gagliano reinforced differences by set­ ting the first to quicker rhythmic values of eighth and quarter notes (mm. 9-16, for instance), while the second has predominantly longer values of half notes (see the canto in mm. 26-31). with the addition of melodic shape to the mixture, it is clear that gagliano let words, melody, and rhythm emphasize the differences between verses three and four, with each of them maintained in separate and movable strands of imitative polyphony. measures 9-38 are also set apart from measures before and after them by their contrasts in texture and harmonic motion. at the opening of the madrigal, with its declamatory setting of words, the texture is homophonic or near-homophonic for the first two verses. but in m. 9, an abrupt change in texture occurs. in the second half ofthe measure, the canto introduces a five-measure theme for the setting of verse three that is subsequently taken up by the other four voices in a polyphonic imitation with strict canonic repetition, the voices beginning in turn on g-c-g-c-g. the melodic shape of the theme (which closes somewhat differently with the individualized melismas on "girate" that are given to most of the parts), by itself and in the company of other voices, expresses a diatonic collection (with b~), primarily by descending cycles of thirds that begin on g" and edmond strainchamps 89 diagram 1: marco da gagliano, "un sguardo, un sguardo no." harmonic reduction showing the descending cycle of thirds in mm. 9-16. m.9 to 11 12 l3 14 15 16 1 i ~ ~ canto g-+e-c if-d gi g-e-c i c b~ alto :1 ii i: i ~ i i c-a -,f m ----rg c-a i a -f-.d basso quinto i c : f i i a--:-f : g-f-+c1f -+d i i i ,...-t--., ~ i d gig -e c i c a i i: i ~ i: b~---;--g c a: a f : tenore move mainly at a half-note pace (g-e-c-a-f-d-b~) in mm. 9-16. in the reduction of these measures shown in diagram 1, the dashes indicate fall­ ing melodic thirds; the vertical lines and brackets indicate simultaneous thirds that have a place in the descending cycle. with the first appearance of verse four, the pattern alters. now a new motive, rising in stepwise motion, first appears in an imitation of itself at a fifth below, producing parallel sixths (see the canto and alto beginning at m. 16). the new motive is also present for the setting of verse four, but now the dux and comes are separated by second or a fourth, and the voices move in rising thirds (tenore and basso, beginning at mm. 20-21, or alto and canto in m. 26). thus, the old and new themes with their discrete polyphonic units are simultaneously developed in mm. 14-31, either in entirety or in fragments. in the seven measures that follow the contrapposto passage (mm. 32-38)-measures in which verse four stands alone-the musical fragments that set the last words, "0 del bel nero," scattered through the contrapuntal texture, act to bring to a close the long section of imita­ tion. the intensity of the working out that gagliano gave to verses three and four perfectly suits these two anomalous and artificial verses from chiabrera's poem: gagliano matches complex music to the complex imag­ ery of the poetry. in this sense, mm. 9-38 form a prolonged madrigalism at a deeper level, a madrigalism writ large, as it were. salient moments as remarkable as the five passages examined here might be drawn from nearly every madrigal in gagliano's primo libra. in­ deed, throughout his earliest collection, the complete control ofthe musi­ cal components-melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, sonority-vis-a-vis the poetry, results in truly notable works. while the madrigals in his remaining go current musicology five books further display an evolving compositional and expressive profi­ ciency, the first already shows him to be a master. in the end, it can be recognized that gagliano's madrigals constitute compelling utterances by one of the last great composers of the genre in italy. notes 1. that gagliano's first publication consisted of madrigals is not surprising, since a beginning composer's initial publication, in florence and elsewhere, was nearly always a book of madrigals. for more on this see strainchamps (1984:31112) . 2. mter 1605, the firm was named angelo gardano et fratelli. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "gardano" (by mary s. lewis and richard]. agee). 3. "ii vero diletto [del canto] cresca della intelligenza delle parole." the pas­ sage quoted here is from the end of the first paragraph on page 79 (solerti 1903). 4. see strainchamps (2002) for a modern edition of all the madrigals in marco da gagliano's first book. 5. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "fontanelli, alfonso" (by anthony newcomb). 6. " ... il sig. conte alfonso [fontanelli] e stato in fiorenza tre giorni i quali si sono cantati tutti tal che sono infastidito." gagliano's letter, written to cardinal ferdinando gonzaga, is extant in mantua, archivio di stato, archivio gonzaga, autografi, busta 6, 487. the letter is printed (albeit with a few errors in the tran­ scription) in vogel (1889:552-53). 7. i am grateful to anthony deidonna who helped smooth my italian transla­ tion of this poem as well as the preceding one. references einstein, alfred. 1949. the italian madrigal, translated by alexander h. krappe, roger h. sessions, and oliver strunk. princeton: princeton university press. hale,]. r, ed. 1981. a concise history of the italian renaissance. new york: oxford university press. solerti, angelo. 1903. le origini del melodramma. torino: fratelli bocca. strainchamps, edmond. 1984. marco da gagliano, filli, mentre ti bacio, and the end of the madrigal in florence. in music and civilization: essays in honor of paul henry lang, edited by edmond strain champs and maria rika maniates in collaboration with christopher hatch, 311-25. new york: w.w. norton. strainchamps, edmond, ed. 2002. marco da gagliano, madrigals, part 1, il primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci (venice, 1602). middleton, wi: a-r editions. vogel, emil. 1889. marco da gagliano: zur geschichte des florentiner musiklebens von 1570-1650. vierteljahrsschrift fur musikwissenschaft 5: 396-442, 509-68. "come on in north side, you're just in time": musical-verbal performance and the negotiation of ethnically segregated social space* by t. m. scruggs all about laughter over pain .... a quartet. this singular tenor's rampages. chicago pathfinder strutting on broken glass and bricks. so much live talk and the advice of curtains. pulled over opportunities. each a night / a leap year from evolutions in his speech. -sterling plumpp every monday night in the 1970s and well into the 1980s jazz tenor sax­ ophonist von freeman led his quartet, and a later open jam session, at the enterprise lounge on chicago's mrican american south side. von, at the time in his fifties and early sixties, had matured his style of straight ahead, post-bebop jazz. l his place within the jazz scene in chicago was unparal­ leled during this period, but it was a reputation that remained localized. as is the case with many community-based jazz musicians, his current hard-won stature only gradually developed in the united states outside of his south side following-to some extent stemming from an appreciation of his talents in europe and japan. this is a distressingly familiar story within jazz, exacerbated in von's case by his remaining in chicago. a move to new york has historically been a necessary step for a jazz musician who aspires to establish a professional career. von's oft-stated claim in the 1970s and '80s, "if i'd had gone to new york i'd be famous by now," rings true given the recognition he has belatedly received in the last decade. von's choice to remain in his hometown meant that his international­ caliber musicianship was available to the local jazz community in a man­ ner unlike that of visiting outside performers, such as the high-profile new york-based musicians that regularly played at the legendary jazz showcase on the near north side. here i argue that von's contribution to the musical community, the mrican american community at large, and the metropolitan community as a whole, flowed from the unique place of his performances within the musical and social matrix of racially divided chicago. i address several important elements in this performance-generated experience. these current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 180 current musicology revolve around language, music, their interrelationship, and von's use of both to mediate the ethnically charged social space of the enterprise lounge, which itself reflects the greater social space of the city of chicago. an inquiry into these musical occasions demonstrates (again) that it can be perilous to attempt to divorce musical analysis from its performative and social context. finally, i present how a central trope of von's perform­ ance is that of a creative continuance of tradition embodied in musical performance. music and social space the historically informed social geography of these performances is es­ pecially indispensable to understanding their significance. as philip bohlman observed on the situation of music, place, and time, "mapping music on the landscape gives the latter a temporal quality while returning a spatial quality to the former" (2001:650).2 the sonic environment of a monday evening in this one part of the city represented a singular spatial and temporal circumstance. the music at the enterprise could be found nowhere else in the city, neither from live performance nor from pub­ lished recordings (a point discussed further below).3 chicago's ethnically divided demographics underlay von freeman's musical and verbal per­ formances, so that the location, while always an important part of any mu­ sical performance, in this instance was essential to the dynamics of the event itself. these musical occasions created social dynamics distinctive, unfortunately, of the more common social relations that held sway throughout most of the city. the concept of place can involve and intertwine both geographic and social meanings. in racialized north america, "knowing one's place" con­ notes socioeconomic aspects of life, such as the constraints on african americans reflected in employment opportunities and expected forms of social manners toward the white community and power structure. as in other major cities, the "place" of anyone of african descent still maps geo­ graphically onto amazingly distinct boundaries for place of residence in chicago. in 1970s and early 1980s chicago these boundaries were even more strict, and the monday evenings with von freeman's quartet and the subsequent jam session at the enterprise lounge stood out as one of the very few instances where african and european americans participated to­ gether in shared entertairi.ment.4 this era encompassed the last years of the reign of richardj. daley (not to be confused with his son, richard m., the current mayor), those of the two democratic party machine mayors that immediately succeeded him, and the beginnings of change with the election of harold washington, the city's first black and-just as importantly -first politically progressive and reform-oriented mayor. in the earlier daley (the elder) machine chicago, the nearly au-white police force blat. m. scruggs 181 tantly enforced an unwritten policy of apartheid. blacks were allowed to circulate in white neighborhoods as they commuted to some kind of em­ ployment (equivalent to holding a south mrica apartheid era work pass), but after work hours mrican americans were routinely harassed.5 this en­ forcement of racial division worked on both sides of the city: i can person­ ally attest to how the overwhelmingly white police force patrolling the south side targeted whites found in the black community. this tactic stemmed both from the more legitimate reason of suspecting drug pur­ chases as well as from a general enforcement of racial separation. as a european american musician in all-black (haitian-led) bands that played weekend nights in south side clubs during this same period, i soon learned to protectively place myself behind fellow band members when outside on break along a major street. the perfonnative social space the enterprise lounge on 75th street, for all its multiracial exception­ ality, had its own demographic divisions on monday evenings, and indeed an important aspect of these performances was the geography of ethnically­ informed social space within the club. those in attendance were divided between those who came primarily to hear the music, and those who came to experience the music but were also meeting with friends and carrying on conversations. this musically-determined division mapped substantially onto ethnic composition. often the majority of the first group were whites who, necessarily, had traveled out of their community to the club; at other times, i found myself sitting at the only white-occupied table in the club. however, the second group was exclusively black, many living close enough to walk to the club. in the club as a whole, the ratio of men to women was two to one or better, and women tended to frequent the sit-down half of the audience. this split in the audience fit the bipartite physical layout of the club. the enterprise was once a storefront. a low stage ran along the windows which were covered with heavy curtains. the need to cover the windows nicely provided the musicians with drapery for a backdrop. the rest of the area was a large square, divided down the middle with a long bar that formed a "t" with the stage. this center bar naturally separated the pa­ trons into two sections. the entry door was off to one side at the end of the windows and the stage-to the right from the musicians' point of view (stage right). there was never a cover charge at the club and patrons entered and positioned themselves at their own will. the half of the club where the door was located consisted of a series of formica tables built out from the wall surrounded with chairs. since the patrons who chose to sit in this part of the club were principally motivated to come for the music, i am labeling this half of the room the "fans" side, for ease of reference. on 182 current musicology the other side of the club (stage left), another bar, parallel to the center one, had been built into the far wall. there were a few small tables in this half, but most seats were stools placed along one of the bars. local blacks that came mostly for social interaction went to this half of the club, which i'll refer to as the "locals" side. from the knee-high stage at the end of the central bar the quartet actu­ ally faced toward the middle bar itself, which, in effect, positioned them­ selves in a neutral position vis-a.-vis the two sides of the club. von habitually sat on the edge of exactly the middle of the stage. however, as this place­ ment effectively put him facing the end of the bar not too far away, both he and the other musicians usually angled themselves to slightly favor the "fans" section. here everyone sat around tables and attention, for the most part, focused on the band. the environment was that of a commu­ nity bar with working-class clientele. the band dressed casually; only bassist david ship often wore a suit. the band members' clothes may seem inconsequential, but their visual appearance marked the distinct nature of a community-based, participatory performance as against a more formal­ ized engagement-e.g., at a downtown club with cover charge. there were no table reservations, though the first table as one entered, the one nearest the band, i dubbed "the critics' table" because of the frequent presence there of (white) jazz critic and writer john litweiler and small record label owner chuck nessa, who recorded von during this time (freeman 1975). there was an operative dichotomy between the loudness of conversa­ tions in the "locals" section-which during the evening competed to vari­ ous degrees with the music-and the careful "in the ear" conversations and respectful audience listening-mode of the "fans" part of the club. audience involvement ranged across a continuum from those passionately engaged and carefully attentive to the musical performance (mostly but not exclusively found on the "fans" half of the club) to those who had come primarily to drink and socialize and for whom the music for much of the evening was, as a jazz musician once put it to paul berliner, "like the wallpaper" (berliner 1994:457). this division melted away to a great extent when pieces ended and applause signaled the beginning of the other key part of the performance, von's verbal play, which was usually addressed to both halves of the club, and therefore to all of those present. von spoke through a microphone linked to a small amplifier placed in the middle of stage just behind him and in front of the drums. singers also used the microphone, but when the quartet played, von either switched the microphone off or pointed it toward the bass player. von re­ marked to me how playing on the south side means that one must master the ability to forcefully project sound from his tenor saxophone while still controlling the desired timbre on the instrument. t. m. scruggs 183 the position of the club's only entry off to the side of the stage forced everyone coming in to face the crowd already there and pass by the band in order to make their way to either section. this is an important element of the social geography of the club, as the funneling of new patrons across the front of the stage allowed von the opportunity to greet them in one manner or another. if the band was between numbers (as in the example given below), von had the greatest opportunity to initiate some commen­ tary based upon the recent entrant, broadcast throughout the club via the small amplifier. if the rest of the band was playing, he usually gave a loud but unamplified salutation; when actually on the saxophone he rarely modified the musical content but nodded his greeting. although the enterprise lounge hosted a variety of other attractions on other nights of the week, its economic dependence on the packed house on monday nights was so strong that an extended absence by von on a rare out-of-town tour drove it into bankruptcy in the late 1980s. it is now a church. the data for the analysis presented below comes from my regular attendance through the last half of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. while i never sat in at the club, my engagement with the jazz scene throughout chicago, as well as my recruitment into haitian bands, led to my friendship with non-haitian black horn players, several of whom sat in at one time or another. i got to know another set of musicians who went to and sometimes were able to sit in at the enterprise upon my return to finish my undergraduate degree at the nearly all-black chicago state university. without realizing it, my notes and many conversations with the musicians and patrons of all types at the club presaged my eventual entry into formal graduate education in 1981. graduate school required a move out of chicago to austin, texas. when i returned to chicago during christmas and summer breaks in the early 1980s, i asked von if i could record with my hand-held cassette recorder and its somewhat laughable add-on stereo microphone. von cheerfully consented upon hearing how i was homesick for this part of chicago for which there was nothing similar in south texas; he also correctly judged that such a small apparatus in that pre-digital era could not record at a level of commercial viability. one evening the following is a chronological overview of a typical monday evening performance. von and his quartet have brought in their instruments and equipment and are ready to begin by around 8:30 p.m. the band begins playing to a fairly sparse crowd in both halves of the club. what i, only half in jest, named the "critics' table" is usually one of the first places to receive guests. european americans tended to arrive within the first hour of the band's performance, so the fully seated, mixed-race "fans" side of the club 184 current musicology often filled up before the exclusively black locals' half of the club. the band plays intact (i.e., with no guest musicians sitting in) for around one and a _half to two hours. it is a long set, but the pace between numbers is leisurely and the time between the pieces is increasingly filled with von's own verbal performance. by the end of the quartet's set, between around 10:00 and 11:00 p.m., the club is relatively full from a steady stream of en­ tries by the door just off the side of the stage. as the evening progresses, a growing number of the entrants will be men carrying an instrument case with them. the sound level, especially from the side of the club filled with mrican american locals, incrementally rises throughout the evening. mter von's extended set, the evening enters a qualitatively new phase. the quartet has fulfilled its obligation and presented the artistry of each of its members, with a special emphasis on von's own contributions. from this point on, the focus moves to other members of the community. singers are usually the first to perform. this allows von to continue play­ ing, filling in solos along with "young" john young, the pianist. as the number of singers von authorizes becomes exhausted, the rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums) will back up other horn players who sit in. von is always in control of who is invited to perform on stage and how long they can stay. most guest performers sing or play one number; von's invitation to do another one depends to a great degree on the performance of the first one. throughout these guest performances von uses his own micro­ phone to introduce each number, talk on any number of subjects, and engage in dialogue with various members of the audience. as the evening wears on, more and more musicians will sit in. some nights the horn players waiting to play will form a line snaking into the black "locals" half of the club, and each will take several choruses of a standard blues. von's playing is the principal draw for the evening for everyone, but the "critics" really only come to hear von and his quartet and usually depart at this point. eventually all of the band will step down to be replaced by younger aspirants or guest musicians in attendance that night. white patrons, almost all of whom face a long drive back to the north side, usually depart around this time. most arrived early on during the quartet's playing and have already spent several hours in the club. it should be noted as well that late in the evening the club scene gradually takes on more of the characteristics ofa bar scene. the presence of whites becomes slightly more tenuous as the structure for the special multiracial event begins to dissipate. the musical level gradually declines as the night wears on: the earlier a guest musician is allowed to perform on stage, the more prestige von has bestowed upon that player. the crowd gradually thins out, dropping dramatically after the last call for alcohol by the bar, and the doors close in the early morning hours. t. m. scruggs 185 analytical perspectives there is some audio documentation left of these monday nights. the band made a few reel-to-reel tape recordings of themselves-none at a commercial level of production-capturing the music for their own keep­ ing. these remain the property of the musicians and have never been published or circulated. the quality of musical reproduction on my own cassette recordings falls even shorter of commercial production standards, but they have the advantage of covering the entire performance. i wanted to capture the full context and, unlike the musicians, did not shut off the recorder between numbers. recordings of the music would be sufficient to pursue a traditional musicological analysis and could supply enough material for the standard music review. however, von's total performance was not only a virtuoso musical display but also a verbal one as well, and through both he presided over an important social event involving two distinct communities that rarely engaged with one another. it was in this greater context that meanings and values were played out, with von taking a key role in this heightened arena of social negotiation. outside of these special recordings, the closest one can approach the music of these performances is through the several albums of von backed by differing lineups of supporting musicians that were released during the time the enterprise was still open. of course, these are all studio recordings done in a controlled environment somewhere in downtown chicago. even in the muffled, alienating surroundings of a carpeted studio room, master musicians like von and his sidemen can to a large degree re­ produce the intimacy and power that is typically generated by the charge of a live audience. but a long-standing challenge in music studies is to move beyond an exclusive reliance upon the text, which in this case means the musical material found in the grooves of the record or on a cd. von's style during this period is captured on studio tape, but even a text-centered analysis needs to take the performance context into account. for example, there was a strong difference in musical style between the setting on the south side and the occasional appearance of von and his quartet in clubs on the white north side. the music material differs, for in north side clubs the quartet tended to improvise more in the style of late-1960s and 1970s innovators. von and his group judged-mostly correctly-that this avant-garde, or "outside," approach would be one that the white audience probably was conscious of and measured jazz competence by. the quieter, more "sterile" environment of an almost all-white club also deprives von of one of his main functions at the enterprise lounge, that of a community-grounded host and commentator. thus, too narrow of a focus on the musical text denies the import of the social context that informed the music as well as the full performance of von freeman, a 186 current musicology display that not only encompassed musical skill but verbal skill as well. john blacking (1973) has pointed out the indispensable role of all parti­ cipants in a musical occasion, but perhaps, as don brenneis (1990) and others have noted, the dynamic between musicians and audiences has been relatively neglected due to the subdued response expected of audi­ ences in the european classical tradition. even within the two music jour­ nals that serve as principal outlets for jazz scholarship (the annual review of jazz studies and the black music research journal), the performance con­ text remains part of generalized descriptions of historical moments, or appears in often insightful, yet anecdotal accounts from interviewed per­ formers. 6 most writing on actual jazz performance remains descriptions in fiction, though even in this body of literature sustained (re)creations are surprisingly few. 7 appropriate to the broader analysis required are perspectives on per­ formance studies related to language and music (for an overview, see baumann and briggs 1990, and feld and fox 1994). this body of theory originally developed from studies of linguistic anthropology and the ethnography of speaking (baumann and sherzer 1974; hymes 1974) and soon became applied within ethnomusicology to musical performance (herndon and mcleod 1979; behague 1984; quereshi 1987). especially relevant here are the concepts of framing pioneered by erving goffman (1974). von's talking between songs is not useless banter to fill up time while the band catches its breath, but commentary that von employs to frame the musical numbers with historical and socially informed refer­ ences, as discussed below. the series of discreet musical pieces generates a space in which von's discourse functions in a manner that gregory bateson (1972) refers to as the keying of parts of a performance that heightens the meaning for the community. to better understand how these impact music as part of an emergent performance co-constructed with verbal display and audience interaction, i turn to a closer examination of several performances. signifying and significance a crucial feature of von's discourse between songs is humor that refer­ ences the racial situation in the country, with the club as an immediate example. this commentary is an important element in framing the music before and after it. an example of this kind of joking or teasing is his greeting to a couple or group of whites just entering from the nearby door: "come on in north side, you're just in time." the public verbal imprimatur of ethnicity acknowledges the racial diversity of the club, as opposed to a strategy of blurring ethnic differences. and in highly­ segregated chicago, ethnicity can be assigned with a geographic label, for t. m. scruggs 187 the odds are high that a european american probably does reside on the north side. an analysis of any of these jokes by themselves deprives them of their impact within the interracial context in which they were used. the bounded context lends a degree of safety to the telling of these jokes that might otherwise appear inappropriate. a central concern here is that sharing in laughter is a way of entering a circle, of finding acceptance. when he directed humor directly at the white patrons in a way they can participate in, von, and by extension the rest of the black community in the club, invited them to feel a part of the "circle" of the south side. through the vehicle of verbal play von is able to refer to the contradic­ tions between the groups in a non-antagonistic way. in one of the most highly segregated cities in a racially divided society, von's humor helped to relax two different groups who so rarely occupied the same space in a social setting with entertainment. such a move highlighted the shared musical aesthetic that was responsible for bringing the two groups together. particular to this context is that the subordinated group was host to members of the dominant one. part of the meaning of von's humor for the black community present in the club flowed from its demonstrating a certain level of control over phenomena in the face of which many in the community in actuality felt powerless. von has the ability to verbally iden­ tify a problem and couch it in a manner that induces those trapped by it to laugh at it. this is a powerful tool that imparts a feeling of strength to his audience and prevents them from feeling totally overwhelmed by these problems. for the whites present, there were at least two aspects to von's joking "at their expense." although already indicated by their very pres­ ence in the middle ofthe black community, their laughter at von's type of humor indicated their lack of a rigid identification with the dominant white power structure, even if they inherently continued to enjoy certain advantages from it. second, it showed they could tolerate being put in a minority situation themselves and be "ribbed," or teased about it. as part of an overall context that reaffirms mrican american values for the black community, the participation of the whites in this performance of humor­ ous verbal play contributed to an understanding of the position of the black community in white-dominated america. this dynamic paralleled the musical participation of whites in the musical jam session. like von's verbal commentary, the terms of musical participation were determined by von and other black musicians. likewise, both modes of performance, musical and verbal, affirmed the value of mrican american culture. von also reinforces the solidarity of the black community through his mode of verbal expression. in his commentary, von almost constantly em­ ploys figures of speech particular to the mrican american idiom. this strengthens the solidarity of the black community and has a particular 188 current musicology role to play in relation to the whites in attendance. the cues von employs are particular to black expression, which applies both to verbal and musical keying, as well as to certain gestures that accompany them.8 von's rhetori­ cal forms include an archetypal use of signifying, defined by claudia mitchell-kerman as "the recognition and attribution of some implicit con­ tent or function which is obscured by the surface content or function" (1972:317-18; also see gates 1988). culture specificity is particularly im­ portant at the enterprise as there are members of two different groups present. the particular selection of european americans in attendance on the south side for the most part understood and appreciated von's and others' non-"standard" (i.e., non-white) style of speech. these white enthusiasts of black music have, to varying degrees, accumulated a work­ ing knowledge of african american speech style and would anticipate it to be a part of the evening's experience in similar fashion to their expecta­ tion of the music's content. the european americans' linguistic and cul­ tural competence are crucial for von's verbal performance. an important part of von's message was ethnic inclusion and cooperation, a position substantiated by the physical presence of whites able to comprehend and participate in black cultural expression. in addition, von's humor drew upon ethnic difference and stereotyping which in part depended upon the whites in attendance as human material symbolic of the white estab­ lishment in general. von's joking in this area would have been awkward, and not furthered his goal of a message of racial inclusion, if the whites present could not understand von's teasing and join in sharing the humor with the blacks in the club. what follows is an example that demonstrates the type of verbal play in­ volved. this night was the monday that fell closest to new year's eve in 1982. while von paused in his commentary between songs, the black woman who regularly attends and takes polaroid portraits of patrons for a fee enters the club. right behind her a white male jazz fan comes in alone. as the "flicks lady" (as she was known) crosses by the front of the stage, she loudly addresses the entire club: "happy new year's everybody." her loud statement draws the club's attention and several people auto­ matically respond back. the white fan, a few steps behind her, now finds himself the focus of much of the audience's attention, and more meekly echoes the same greeting. von then provides one of his grandiose, hyper­ compliments. von often employs inflated titles in a complimentary yet comical manner to announce musicians sitting in who clearly will never move beyond local community recognition. in this case, he uses an exag­ gerated title to play with racial and class status. gesturing toward the white patron, he announces broadly: "the president of united steel." he wouldn't say this of a black person; it jokingly mediates the class differences intert. m. scruggs 189 twined with ethnicity. at the time, the steel plants were still functioning and employed many black south side residents. mter a couple of "beats" during which much of the club has looked up to look at this new white ar­ rival, the polaroid woman chimes in with the warning, "you'll get him lynched." everyone laughs: the racial divisions have been conflated with a common class identification opposed to a corporate magnate, a role von has cast the white patron into. von recovers and announces, "he didn't bring his checkbook with him or nothing, he ain't worried 'bout nothin'." he adds to the white patron, "that's why i'm laughing, you're safe, baby, you're under my protective custody." the white male, standing a little nervously in the spotlight as he looks for an open table, good naturedly re­ sponds, "thank you sir. i'm a south sider too, you know." this particular white patron confirmed to me later that he lived in hyde park, the white and mixed-race university of chicago enclave several miles east on lake michigan. von nods and says, "that's right. if you have any trouble you just tell' em you know von freeman ... (pause) ... and then run! run as fast as you can!" even though he states it in ajoking manner, von'sjoke is part of his offer of protection to this and other white fans who have trav­ eled to the club. perhaps exactly because in various ways von made his concern so explicit, neither i nor anyone i knew who went to the enter­ prise experienced or heard of a racially-based incident taking place at the club. in fact, there were very few altercations of any kind that took place during these evenings. during the same time period, i heard of and expe­ rienced threats on the street made by others not involved with the club, just as von recognized that the social mediation he can offer ends at the doors of the enterprise. however, the strength of the role von projected as emcee for the evening helped to create a feeling of encompassing com­ munity within the club that tended to ameliorate contentiousness (of any kind) among the patrons. the interplay of speech, music, performers, and audience the nature of von's twining of verbal and musical performance pre­ sents a rich area for the exploration of relationships of similarity and differ­ ence between speech and music, two separate yet linked modes of commu­ nication. we expect that words can be strategically employed to influence and direct audiences. while there certainly are many examples of this in von's verbal performance, there are many in the group's musical per­ formance as well. for example, the choice of songs helps determine the mood of the audience. von has related to me the basic musician strategy i have seen him em­ ploy of "working" an audience through repertoire. though fundamental to the overarching construction of a musical occasion, scholarly attention 190 current musicology is wanting in this area (see diaz diaz 1998 for a fruitful exception). this tactic relates to the different phases of a night's performance. for exam­ ple, during the early part of the evening the quartet concentrated on driv­ ing, up-tempo numbers with an emphasis on extended improvisations. at this point in the evening the club is only beginning to fill up and such a repertoire choice helps to fill it with energetic sounds. it is an opportunity to delve into the most complex improvisations of the evening at a time when both the seated audience, which is most attentive to this aspect of the music, has already arrived and the other half of the club's relatively low conversational sound level allows for a more unobstructed hearing of the music. i would also point out that although some drinks help to loosen up the players and audience alike, at this early point in the evening the volume of alcohol consumption was still relatively low, so that both the players and the audience were best disposed to the demands of the type of improvisation during this period of the performance. as the club gradually filled up toward the middle of the evening, von deliberately chose slow ballads as a way of lowering the volume of conver­ sation within the club. these ballads highlighted the contrast between the prevailing quiet attentiveness of the seated half of the club and the bois­ terous other half given over to locals. such a tactic left the loudest talkers standing out and thus worked to lower their decibel level, for at least the duration of the ballad. the last part of the performance, when musicians began to sit in and sometimes completely replaced the original band, usu­ ally revolved around medium tempo, well known standards and blues pieces. the familiarity of this repertoire served several purposes: it was the most likely to be known by the musicians sitting in; it offered a similar template against which their talents could be judged; and the familiarity of the repertoire fit the communitas that developed around the now ex­ tended family of "the band," extended from the participation of the vari­ ous musicians that came to the club to jam that evening. also, the accu­ mulated alcohol content at this point in the evening moved the audience toward a desire for familiar repertoire and, toward the very end of the evening, emotive music that could carry over the incrementally increased volume of conversation throughout the club. in addition to the selection of repertoire, the musical improvisation it­ self is embedded in an interaction with the audience that evokes varying responses from the audience. the verbal and musical performances do not follow a prescribed text or score, but rather in both cases draw upon forms and models in a process of recreating material recognizable by the all participants. the interaction between musicians and audience is part of the creative process.9 this emergent, unfolding quality is especially cru­ cial for analyzing essentially oral traditions, which both von's verbal and t. m. scruggs 191 musical performance are part of. take, for instance, the compositional process that guides the recreation of the verbal and musical material of the performance. perhaps because the two forms of expression exist within oral tradition within the same cultural group, there are formulas common to both; one example is given below. 10 just as some of the tactics of repertoire selection noted above are hardly unique to the enterprise lounge or even limited to jazz performance, so too did von's improvisa­ tions draw upon conventions widely used and long established within straight ahead, or mainstreamjazz. ll one example is the use of quotes, the reproduction of a distinguishable portion of the main melodic line from a standard in the jazz repertoire. sometimes the reference can be direct and specific. for example, while improvising on a ballad known for its romantic lyrics one can drop a quote from another ballad also known for the romantic content of its verses. it is even possible to reference the exact phrase in the lyrics with a specific part of the melody. but it is a stretch for audiences to make such an association and decipher the lyrical reference, and such a literal quota­ tion is rarely employed. most commonly a musical quote carries no lyric­ specific reference with it at all: the quote is employed and admired for the musical appropriateness of its placement within the improvisation. in ad­ dition, the quote demonstrates the musician's-and concomitantly, by their acknowledgment, the audience's-in-depth knowledge of the body of music that all participants identify with. such musical quotes are occasionally used in studio recordings, but they are employed more frequently in audience performance contexts. von himself employs many more quotes in live performance than in a stu­ dio setting, something in conversation with me he attributed to the imme­ diacy of audience reaction. as it simultaneously signals both an achieve­ ment of a certain level of improvisatory competency as well as a statement of broader knowledge of the music, the ability to intelligently insert a quote practically became a regular expectation of younger players invited to sit in with von's band. as ingrid monson points out, a quotation can also resemble verbal signifying in its combination of sameness and trans­ formation through reinterpretation and the move into a new musical con­ text (1996: 127). such an intra-referential treatment of musical material also emphasizes the wholeness of the repertoire over the uniqueness of a given composition. these embedded allusions to the corpus of mai~­ stream jazz parallel and underline other aspects of integrity and continuity of tradition discussed further below. another example is the move from melodic strings of improvisation to strong statements of held notes. at the beginning of a phrase, the instru­ mentalist or singer strongly attacks and holds a pitch, characteristically a 192 current musicology blue note, at a volume higher than before. this usually signals an incre­ mental increase of intensity in the performance. the band builds rhyth­ mic activity underneath and around the held note and often slightly in­ creases the overall volume. understandably, use of such a held note is especially common for blues numbers, most often well into the improvisa­ tion. it marks a new phase in the improvisation that builds in intensity un­ til the musician finishes either their solo or the song itself. the held notes themselves, and the repetitive, sometimes "honking" musical statements that often follow them, when successfully done with an emotive impact, elicit some kind of response from the audience. in fact, von uses this part of his improvisation, especially later in the evening, as a tactic to engage the half of the bar with locals more given over to conversation than the fully-seated other half. in this sense these held notes are the other side of the coin of employing quiet ballads: the "ratcheting up" of the musical vol­ ume and intensity overwhelms the audience's conversations and diverts their focus toward the musical performance. conversations are interrupted as shouts of encouragement ring out. here the division between the two sides of the bar presents a new chal­ lenge to the seated, usually majority white half of the audience. through­ out the evening, the attentiveness of this half of the bar privileges the mu­ sic over their own private conversations, which are often carefully held to a lower volume that will not compete with the music. however, in the later part of the evening when the music moves into a mode, such as the play­ ing of long, held notes, where some kind of vocalized response is most ap­ propriate, the seated, mostly white audience is usually too reticent to play the necessary role of a more interactive audience. it is the all-black, "local" side of the bar, whose conversation has competed with the music for most of the evening, that responds with shouts such as "go ahead" or simply "yeah." the musician often follows up the audience response with either another long, held note, or a short phrase or series of phrases that opens up another space for audience response. now having garnered the audi­ ence's attention, as well as moving the music into a plane where strong musical statements are the norm, the musician chooses either to move back into a general improvisational style or continue building this more emotive style that relies to a great degree on rhythmic placement of short phrases. often i have seen von turn his body toward the all-black half of the bar during such moments, recognizing the verbalized contri­ butions from the local community and entering into an interchange with them. this part of the evening offered opportunities for engagement with the half of the club whose conversations the band sometimes found distracting earlier in the performance. during blues numbers toward the end of the evening, musicians sometimes moved these held notes into a call and response pattern with the audience, where a short musical t. m. scruggs 193 phrase or single note trades off with several repeated audience shouts of encouragement. this interplay between musicians' musical "shouts" and audience mem­ bers' literal verbal shouts highlights the similarity and potential overlay of these two communicative modes. african american declamatory speech in particular has received some scholarly attention for its relation to music (floyd 1991; hartman 1991). a well known example is the gradual move of a preacher's highly intonational sermon into musical phrases, under­ scored by the organist, that eventually moves fully into a song for the con­ gregation (titon 1988). such commonality of verbal and musical pattern­ ing makes it problematic to distinguish between when the preacher has stopped "talking" and is now "singing." within the enterprise, some of von's repeated spoken comments when he holds forth between musical numbers function in a manner similar to formulas used in musical im­ provisation, such as the short phrases mentioned above. several of these repeated comments often approximate musical "riffs" or phrases in their tonal structure. the similarity is also apparent when viewed from the angle of music's potential relation to speech intonation. several times von has taken a sin­ gle note, or short descending phrase, and "spat it out" on the saxophone, treating it as if it were a verbal phrase said with emphasis for effect. these examples of "grunting" a declamation on the saxophone, or "talking" with the instrument occurred during pieces in slow tempo which are more con­ ducive to von's indexing speech patterns with his performance.12 later in the same evening described above, when he was about to signal for the final ending of a ballad, he instead drew the band to an abrupt halt with such a "grunt," a loud note in the low register that trailed off into a slid­ ing, descending phrase. two more followed, as if von was trying to get over a hump; the drummer tried to follow with a cymbal crash each time. after the first musical grunt von mumbled "ah shucks," then after the next, with a twinkle in his eye, "that feels good," clearly referencing the release of such an outburst. he then signaled the band and they took the tune out. these parts of the performance highlight the structural simi­ larities of music and speech, specifically the parallelism of their poetic indexicality which can create a synergistic relationship. of course, being music, the level of communication is limited: no mu­ sic will be able to deliver information on a sustained basis at the higher semantico-referential level, i.e., that of language. but music's indexical communicative level can carry the variety of emotional messages that von evokes throughout the performance. while speech is constantly being produced to communicate, the live production of music by its own nature draws attention to itself and sets it apart from ordinary expression. while we might be practically surrounded in a public environment of reproduced 194 current musicology music, the actual live production of music is almost always an indicator of some level of framed performance: we do not walk around playing music all day. however we do use words throughout the day and a special fram­ ing is necessary to present their meaning in a heightened context. such a framed interaction as the example of von freeman at the enterprise demonstrates how the two modes of communication-speech and music -can be mutually reinforcing and that a full consideration of the per­ formance context of one necessitates consideration of the other. facing past and future von freeman stood before the audience at the enterprise lounge within the logic of mrican american experience, as a representative sym­ bol of the expressive culture of the community and its continuity with the past. though to a lesser degree in recent years,jazz musicians have histori­ cally been recognized as cultural heroes within sectors of black america, masters in an art that expresses the values of the community and has gained the respect and admiration of the dominant european american culture. von freeman follows in the footsteps of nationally-recognized tenor saxophone masters, from coleman hawkins and lester young, to dexter gordon, up to his contemporary, johnny griffin. although monday evenings at the enterprise are centered on the music, a total environment is created that celebrates mrican american identity and reinforces the values of the community. an appeal to tradition can be seen on several levels. first, von made verbal references throughout the evening to past musicians, former pa­ trons of the club, and past events that lent a sense of continuity that linked those performances with other past ones. these references often spanned decades and embraced nationally-known jazz musicians who are identified with new york city, wherever their place of origin. this com­ mentary, so directly complementing the music, placed the enterprise per­ formances within an historical continuum where jazz is viewed as a broad symbol of mrican american identity and the club's patrons conceptual­ ized as part of a greater community. second, the music itself was within a well-established tradition, and in a style that dates back to the late 1940s. the continued recreation of this style of straight ahead, post-bebop jazz­ or what von often terms "hardcore jazz"-is a statement of tradition.l3 von keyed this reference by repeatedly noting the composer or performer who made a song famous, situating the quartet along a continuum of black cultural expression. as a dynamic tradition, the music has never re­ mained unchanged or immutable, yet its practitioners have decidedly carved out a stylistic space that essentially shows little response to the vari­ ous currents in circulation in or out of mrican american musical life. the members of the enterprise community, particularly the artists, were under t. m. scruggs 195 no illusions as to the commercial potential of this style of music, virtually absent from any radio exposure. if anything, the less-than-lucrative com­ mercial aspect of the music fortified the feelings of community and alle­ giance generated from these musical performances. von often referred to this celebration of music's intangible power and import when he dedicated a piece "to the cause. "14 on a third, structural level, the evening showed the vitality of this tradi­ tion with the sitting in of younger musicians in the later part. here, von physically stepped aside-yet the music continued. von, as emcee and clearly the arbitrator of an aspiring musician's entry onto the enterprise stage, made multiple references to this aspect of the performance. the part of the evening when musicians began to sit in was usually announced with von stating, ''i'm gonna bring up my horses now," meaning the ap­ prentices he takes credit for mentoring. he often made a jokingly refer­ ence to such a claim by introducing a musician: "i raised this man myself since he was this tall," holding his hand down to his knees. the message is that the new generation will preserve the tradition, that current values and means of ethnic identification will not die out. as more and more younger musicians replaced the original quartet through the evening, the audi­ ence was given a window onto the future, one that demonstrated the strength and perseverance of their cultural traditions. an important final point in this regard is that von freeman's concep­ tion of this tradition was one of inclusiveness, which encompassed ethnic­ ity as well as gender (he always encouraged female singers and the rare in­ strumentalist). his stance these evenings was one of an embracing humanity. white musicians were always welcomed into the jam sessions, and over time more came with their instruments. in this respect, "the cause" was one of universal appeal and suffrage .15 a concluding statement short bursts of sorrow for the joy, sermons emit over silenced glasses. von a free man quilts longings into blankets. roads for an other day. -sterling plumpp16 the examination above of monday evenings at chicago's enterprise lounge in the 1970s and 1980s illustrates how no musical performance is 196 current musicology limited to the musical material alone: all production of music is impacted by both the many aspects of the performance context as well as the wider web of social engagement that informs aesthetic creation and participa­ tion. the analysis of von freeman's use of music and speech shows how these distinct modes can intersect in their emotive and performative de­ sign. further, this convergence allows for the mutual reinforcement of these two modes' communicative power. von's synergistic musical and ver­ bal performance helped to create what folklorist roger abrahams has termed an "enactment," a "cultural event in which community members come together to participate and employ their deepest signs and symbols of the repertoire of expression" (1977:80). in this sense, the musical artistry of von freeman is only one part of a total experience, a social "enactment" of some of the community's deepest meanings and interrela­ tionships. immediate circumstances and interaction, together with the cultural history each participant brings with them will determine the meanings generated during such a heightened experience. during the time frame considered here, this history mapped onto racially deter­ mined demographics both reflected and, to some extent, superceded within the enterprise lounge. musical performance can, indeed, "define and shape particular geographical and material space" (cohen 1998:277): in this case, a space within a club that generated both a celebration of african american cultural expression, and a window onto an optimistic fu­ ture for ethnically-conflicted chicago. notes * i would like to thank paul berliner, amanda minks, laura graham, and the journal's anonymous readers for helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this article. 1. here i refer to earl lavon freeman, sr. (b. 1922) as "von," the name by which he is commonly addressed even by musicians meeting him for the first time. he is also known by the nickname "vonski," a reference to his part-polish heritage. this european element of von's heritage has never factored into the "one drop" (of mrican descent) racial alignment, chicago being the city with the largest polish population outside of warsaw notwithstanding. some biographical informa­ tion on von is available in martin (1975), corbett (2001), and hazell and kernfeld (2002). 2. music's power to evoke place has come under increasingly scrutiny within ethnomusicology (stokes 1994; feld 1996), popular music studies (lipsitz 1994), and an intersecting interest in cultural geography (leyshon, matless, and revill 1998). 3. the recently released recording live at the dakota includes some of von's in­ troductions from a 1996 concert in st. paul, minnesota (freeman 2001). even though his spoken sections are short and taken from the context of a predomit. m. scruggs 197 nantly white, more formal performance date, this album is one of the very few commercial recordings of jazz that contains some of the verbal performance of the musicians. 4. other multiracial musical venues included two internationally famous blues clubs further north on the south side that also usually included white patrons, coincidentally on monday evenings as well. 5. north side chicago is a broad area that encompassed several exceptions to the preponderantly european american population, for example, the area known as uptown, a mostly poor north side community (where i lived at the time) that was and remains the most integrated community in the city. 6. the two closest exceptions in these journals are paul rinzler's notes on in­ teraction between jazz performers (1988) and ralph eastman's consideration of performance demands on blues lyrics (1988). 7. examples in literature range from james baldwin's "sonny's blues" (1957) to jack fuller's recent depiction of a rhythm and blues-cumjazz venue (2000). 8. see maryliena morgan (1994) for an overview of literature on african american english. 9. regula quereshi's performance analysis of interaction between musician and audience in sufi music offers an insightful cross-cultural example of similar dynamics in the role of the audience (1986). also see sawyer (1996) for a model of improvisation designed to accommodate both musical and verbal performance that attempts to include practice and process. 10. perlman and greenblatt (1981) offer an example of an earlier structural approach toward language and jazz. see monson (1996:73-96) for further discus­ sion of issues of language and its metaphoric and semiotic relation to music within the context of jazz improvisation. a recent study by heble (2000:89-116) goes as far as to suggest links between improvisation and the written discourse of jazz musicians' autobiographies. 11. among several works that discuss the conventions of this style among new york-based musicians is berliner (1994). 12. i use the term "index" within the framework of peirce's semiotic tri­ chotomy of signs (peirce 1960). 13. "hardcore jazz" is the label he continued to use when recently interviewed for a down beat feature article (corbett 2001:26). 14. von first adopted this naming of "the cause" after he heard it used by fats waller, a friend of his father (personal communication). 15. in fact, by the 1990s a national upswing of interest injazz began to overtake that in the black community, and in recent years european american musicians have been just as likely as african american ones to appear at the new apartment lounge, the south side locale where von continues to host ajam session. von and other black jazz musicians now face the problematic that the continuance of main­ stream jazz is increasingly passing into white hands. although the issue is beyond the scope of this article, it should be noted that this contemporary national phe­ nomena complicates the music's earlier embodiment of cultural continuity for the african american community. 198 current musicology 16. the poetry at the beginning and end of this article is excerpted from hornman (pp. 29 and 69-70, respectively). the book is based upon the experience of its author, chicago mrican american poet sterling plumpp, at the enterprise beginning in 1981. references abrahams, roger. 1977. toward an enactment-centered theory of folklore. in frontiers of folklore, edited by william r. bascom, 79-120. boulder, colo.: westview press. baldwin, james. 1957. sonny's blues. partisan review 24: 327-58. bateson, gregory. 1972. steps to an ecology of mind. new york: ballantine books. baumann, richard, and joel sherzer, eds. 1974. explorations in the ethnography of speaking. cambridge: cambridge university press. baumann, richard, and charles l. briggs. 1990. poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language. annual review of anthropology 19: 59-88. behague, gerard, ed. 1984. performance practice. new york: greenwood press. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago: uni­ versity of chicago press. blacking,john. 1973. how musical is man? seattle: university of washington press. bohlman, philip v. 200l. the remembrance of things past: music, race, and the end of history in modern europe. in music and the ra,cial imagination, edited by ronald radano and philip v. bohlman, 644-76. chicago: university of chicago press. brenneis, don. 1990. musical imaginations: comparative perspectives on musical creativity. in theories of creativity, edited by mark runco and robert albert, 170-89. newbury park, calif.: sage. cohen, sara. 1998. sounding out the city: music and the sensuous production of place. in the place of music, edited by andrew leyshon, david matless, and george revill, 269-90. new york and london: guilford press. corbett,john. 200l. a cause without glory. down beat (march): 22-27. diaz diaz, edgardo. 1998. salsa, genero y etnicidad: ei baile como arena social. revista de ciencias sociales 4: 80-104. eastman, ralph. 1988. country blues performance and the oral tradition. black music researchjournal8: 161-76. feld, steven, and aaron fox. 1994. music and language. annual review of anthro­ pology 23: 25-54. feld, steven. 1996. waterfalls of song: an acoustemology of place resounding in bosavi, papua new guinea. in senses of place, edited by steven feld and keith basso, 91-135. sante fe, n. mex.: school of american research. floyd, samuel, jr. 1991. ring shout! literary studies, historical studies, and black music inquiry. black music research journal 11 : 265-87. fuller,jack. 2000. the best of jackson payne. chicago: university of chicago press. gates, henry louis, jr. 1988. the signifying monkey: a theory of african american literary criticism. new york: oxford university press. goffman, erving. 1974. frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience. new york: harper and row. t. m. scruggs 199 hartman, charles o. 1991. jazz text: voice and improvisation in poetry, jazz, and song. princeton: princeton university press. hazell, ed, and barry kernfeld. 2002. freeman, von. in the new grove dictionary of jazz, edited by barry kernfeld, vol. 1, 849-50. 2d. ed. london: macmillan. heble, ajay. 2000. landing on the wrong note: jazz, dissonance, and critical practice. new york: routledge. herndon, marcia, and norma mcleod. 1979. music as culture. norwood, penn.: norwood press. hymes, dell. 1974. foundations in sociolinguistics: an ethnographic approach. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. leyshon, andrew, david matless, and george revill, eds. 1998. the place of music. new york and london: guilford press. lipsitz, george. 1994. dangerous crossroads: popular music, postmodernism, and the poetics of place. london and new york: verso. martin, terry. 1975. liner notes to von freeman, have no fear. nessa n-6. mitchell-kernan, claudia. 1972. signifying, loud-talking, and marking. in rappin' and sty lin ' out: communication in urban black america, edited by thomas kochman, 315-35. urbana: university of illinois press. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: university of chicago press. morgan, marcyliena. 1994. theories and politics in mrican american english. american review of anthropology 23: 325-45. peirce, charles sanders. 1960. the collected papers of charles sanders peirce. edited by charles harshhorne and paul weiss. cambridge, mass.: the belknap press. perlman, alan m., and daniel greenblatt. 1981. miles davis meets noam chomsky: some observations on jazz improvisation and language structure. in the sign in music and literature, edited by wendy steiner, 167-83. austin: univer­ sity of texas press. plumpp, sterling. 1995. homman. chicago: third world press. quereshi, regula. 1986. sufi music of india and pakistan. new york: cambridge university press. ---. 1987. music sound and contextual input: a performance model for music analysis. ethnomusicology 31: 56-86. rinzler, paul. 1988. preliminary thoughts on analyzing musical interaction amongjazz performers. annual review of jazz studies 4: 153-61. sawyer, keith. 1996. the semiotics of improvisation: the pragmatics of musical and verbal performance. semiotica 108: 269-306. stokes, martin. 1994. ethnicity, identity, and music: the musical construction of place. oxford and providence: berg publishers. titon,jeff todd. 1988. powerhouse for god: speech, chant, and song in an appalachian baptist church. austin: university of texas press. discography freeman, von. 1975. have no fear. nessa n-6. ---. 2001. live at the dakota. premonition 66917-90750-2-0. sean gallagher, james haar, john nadas, and timothy striplin, eds. western plainchant in the first millennium: studies in the medieval liturgy. burlington, vt: ashgate, 2004. ryan w. dohoney the untimely passing of james mckinnon in 1999 remains a point of great sorrow not only among scholars of medieval liturgy and chant but also among the musicological community at large. the publication of his mag­ num opus the advent project (2000) and subsequent scholarly debate sparked by its provocative history of the composition of roman mass propers have insured that his legacy will remain vital to students of chant and reli­ gious studies for decades to come. as kenneth levy notes in his contribution to western plainchaint, the first millennium was the "lake erie of [mckinnon's] musicological boatings" (231). beginning with his publication in the first issue of current musicol­ ogy, james mckinnon wasa tireless investigator into the music of the chris­ tian liturgy from late antiquity through the early middle ages. while his initial work explored the place of instruments within the music of the chris­ tian liturgies of the first millennium (1965), his later work focused on the organization and development of the roman mass. in the mid-1980s, mckinnon began ambitious studies into the origins of the mass proper. his examination of psalmody in the ancient synagogue argued that psalmody did not have its origins in jewish practice as thought by earlier scholars such as peter wagner (mckinnon 1986). instead, mckinnon posited a late fourth-century "psalmodic movement" that popularized psalm-singing in monastic communities and led to the formation of the gradual as psalm­ singing became a greater part of both monastic and lay liturgical expression (1987; 1994). building on his earlier understanding of the development of psalm­ singing, mckinnon embarked in the final years of his life upon a daunting endeavor: to trace the development of other elements of the mass proper. the resulting study, compiled in the final months of mckinnon's life and published posthumously as the advent project (2000), argued that the proper was the result of a project organized by the schola cantorum in rome in the late seventh century. what is remarkable about mckinnon's theory is that the mass propers, far from being the result of centuries of development current musicology, no. 76 (fall 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 105 106 current musicology and transformation, were the product of a burst of focused activity that provided the temporal and sanctoral cycles with much of their textual and musical material. mckinnon's work has been met with fascination and cri­ tique, raising many provocative questions about the development of early chant.! the essays compiled in western plainchant in the first millennium are the beginning of an engagement with mckinnon's challenging ideas. this commendable, if slightly uneven, collection explores a number of method­ ologies, including manuscript studies, exegetical concerns of genre and lit­ urgy, and problems of medieval music theory and chant analysis. its breadth documents the state of the field, testifying to the depth and richness of chant studies. the eighteen essays cover a broad range of contemporary issues in chant studies. joseph dyer and peter jeffery engage with mckinnon's "psalmodic movement" thesis and explore in greater detail the processes by which con­ gregational psalm-singing arose. nancy van deusen, theodore karp, and calvin bower each explore aspects of the sequence in a particularly illumi­ nating group of essays, while kenneth levy, edward nowacki, and john boe explore sources and analytical strategies for old roman chant. essays by thomas j. talley, alejandro planchart, ruth steiner, david hiley, lazsl6 dobszay, david g. hughes, and thomas forest kelly chart the courses of development of particular feasts, offices, repertoires, and groups of manu­ scripts. charles atkinson furthers his work on the connections between music and grammar in the advent of notation, while michel huglo finds in the diagrams of the musica isidori a tantalizing connection to the scale of old hispanic chant. the collection is rounded out by richard crocker's reflections on the performance of nuance markings from the st. gall and laon manuscripts. (the volume also includes a compact disc that provides numerous musical examples from the essays sung by crocker.) both joseph dyer and peter jeffery's contributions are particularly ad­ mirable for their expansion of mckinnon's work on psalm-singing in late antiquity and the early middle ages. dyer's "the desert, the city and psalmody in the late fourth century" differentiates the types of monastic disciplines that were practiced in the fourth century. weaving together nu­ merous early sources on monastic life in the fourth and fifth centuries, dyer shows that the diversity of devotional activities which characterized mo­ nastic life ranged from inaudible rumination to deliberate and measured recitation of memorized verses that were akin to "a muted rumble or hum" (17). dyer argues that the desert monks' devotion to the psalms was great, but that credit for the development of psalm-singing in the larger christian community should be given to urban ascetics. these urban monastic comryan w. dohoney munities, especially those of palestine, syria, and cappo do cia, were directly connected to the urban churches and their lay congregations. this link be­ tween lay and monastic communities provided a crucial point of contact that popularized congregational psalmody. dyer's article is commendable both for this needed reassessment of the musical and liturgical transmis­ sion in late antiquity and its correction of our historical myopia through consultation of the widest variety of sources. in "monastic reading and the emerging roman chant repertory;' pe­ ter jeffery examines the transformation of the gradual's performance from a congregational activity to a solitary, monastic one. using many of the same patristic sources as dyer, jeffery begins his investigation by emphasizing the importance of jerusalem in the dissemination of responsorial psalmody. the liturgical practices of its churches, especially their psalmodic vigils and congregational psalm-singing, moved from east to west in the fourth cen­ tury, transmitted by the continual flow of pilgrims to and from jerusalem. drawing on mckinnon's own work with these sources, jeffery posits a mid­ fourth-century origin in the east and a late fourth-century expansion to the west. the problem, as he constructs it, is how best to understand what be­ came of congregational psalm-singing once references to it disappear from the sermons of the church fathers. jeffery notes that fourth-century homi­ letic literature ceases to be a valuable source of information because the office of preaching had been extended beyond well-educated bishops to priests and deacons. the patristic authors' sermons were recycled, compiled, and anthologized to serve the needs of these new preachers and guarantee a measure of quality. these anthologies show initial liturgical orderings of psalms that are analogous to the type of "properization" that mckinnon discusses in the advent project. citing the commentary of arnobius the younger, jeffery argues that monastic sources bear witness to an early medi­ eval exegetical tradition that transformed the psalms from a category of reading, whose status perpetuated its inclusion in homilies of the fourth­ century, to a category of prayer in which the monk offered a sacrifice of praise primarily in the celebration of the divine office. treating the psalms as personal prayer led to the reservation of psalm-singing for clerical and monastic choirs while the mass ordinary was delegated to the congrega­ tion. jeffery's view contrasts sharply with the theory of some "undocumentable mania for virtuosity" (82).2 jeffery's work indicates to no small degree that the history of roman monasticism parallels the history of roman chant. where exegetical concerns and commentary traditions led jeffery and dyer to reconsider the development of psalmody in the early medieval lit107 108 current musicology urgy, nancy van deusen uses similar psalmic commentaries to explore the meaning of the sequence to medieval christians. her essay "songs of exile, songs of pilgrimage" offers a brief yet thoughtful examination of augustine and cassiodorus' commentaries on psalm 136. van deusen argues that the sequence can be understood as a transitional song both by virtue of its li­ turgical position between alleluia and gospel and its textual content. sung at the midpoint of the mass, the sequence's "central themes are those that have roots in the old testament, and resolution and clarification in the new testament" (113). it acts as a newly-composed psalm whose poetic text is ripe for the exegetical treatment that made the psalms so rich a cor­ pus of devotional texts. though i would have liked to have seen her draw on later medieval commentaries to elaborate her use of augustine and cassiodorus, van deusen's understanding of the sequence as a song poised "between goals-the song of the lord in a strange country" remains com­ pelling (114); her essay is a fine example of how we might come to terms with religious and musical meaning in the genre of the sequence. calvin m. bower's "from alleluia to sequence: some definitions of relations" and theodore karp's "some notkerian sequences in germanic print culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries;' also enhance our understanding of issues surrounding the sequence. bower's essay reconsid­ ers the origins of the sequence from the point of view of the alleluia and identifies the earliest layer of the sequence repertoire as alleluia cum sequentia. his extensive manuscript comparisons explore three relationships between the two genres: name, melodic incipit, and liturgical association. bower's conclusion shows that at their beginning, the alleluia, verse, and sequence were interrelated as a magnificent prelude to the gospel; only later did the sequence begin to develop as a distinct genre with unique aesthetic con­ cerns. theodore karp's essay considers the printed wiirzburg graduale herbipolense (1583 a.d.) and its repertoire of sequences. after considering the variants in sequence sources, he concludes that "differences of dialect exist in the sequence repertory in a manner similar to proper chants of both mass and office" (425). the repertory in the graduale herbipolense is also a testament to the popularity of the sequence in the wiirzburg area while it declined elsewhere in europe after the council of trent banned the use of all but a limited number. kenneth levy's contribution, "tollite portas: an ante-evangelium re­ claimed?" is the first of three articles to explore old roman chant. he com­ pares three northern italian chants belonging to the old roman tradition with a text derived from tollite portas of psalm 23.3 these chants are what levy calls "multiples": chants with similar liturgical position and function ryan w. dohoney that have some musical similarities. these similarities, levy argues, are at­ tributable not to literate transition but "to independent aural descent from common aural sources" (234). levy then compares the florence tollitewith a gregorian tollite and finds that they share both a high g mode and some elements of melodic contour. he suggests that all of these chants may de­ scend from "a common gallican modal-melodic formulation that by ca. 700 was well enough attached to psalm 23:7 for it to retain something of its musical profile when given a variety ofliturgical assignments and subjected to a variety oflocal idiomatic remodelings" (237). levy's argument is meant to bolster his own theory of chant transmission: that chant repertoire flowed from gaul to rome instead of moving from rome to gaul, as is commonly accepted. thus, he views the possible common gallican origin of the tollite chants as evidence of this reversed flow that influenced the later gregorian tollite. 4 at the heart of this essay is a problematic assertion. levy hypothesizes that frankish cantors found the received roman chant presented as too prolix and repetitious; its constant melodic twistings, which were scarcely distinguishable from one another, suited it poorly for the task of memorization faced by each of the empire's choirmasters when the new gregorian edition circulated. (237) i have two objections to levy's hypothesis. first, levy's focus on literate transmission fails to take into account that the "gregorian edition;' as he calls it, was most likely not an edition of any kind but an oral tradition performed by cantors versed in the roman liturgy. second, his argument that the melodies of roman chant were too difficult to memorize seems more the result of the repertoire's novelty to the franks than anything in­ herent in the melodic structure of the roman chant.s this point is made quite forcefully in the next essay in the volume, which turns to the analysis of old roman melodies. edward nowacki also addresses the problem of memorization and mu­ sical structure in old roman chant. in "reading the melodies of the old roman mass proper: a hypothesis defended," nowacki argues that old roman chant employs trichordal structures, many of which were applicable to several modal environments and were themselves pre-modal concepts. nowacki presents a theory of the modes that considers them "labile, estab­ lishing their sure footing only at key moments in the structure, and often only at the very end" (323). he argues that this is a long-recognized feature of e mode chants which often present a "dorian physiognomy" by empha­ sizing d-f and f-a thirds, only establishing e as a focus at the end of the chant. through his analysis of other modes, nowacki is convinced that this 109 110 current musicology trichordal structure pervades the entirety of the old roman musical lan­ guage. this emphasis on the intervallic structure of these chant leads nowacki to answer the criticism, made by levy as well as mckinnon, that old roman chant is difficult to memorize. "surely;' he says, "anything that would promote distinctiveness, such as the identification of certain figures with certain intervallic structures, would make this task [ of memorization 1 more feasible" (322). the remaining essays in this collection focus on the "central question" of gregorian chant eloquently articulated by oliver strunk: "how can we control the evidence of our oldest manuscripts? to what extent does their melodic tradition reflect that of earlier times?" (1977:60-61). alejandro enrique planchart's "the geography of martinmas" and david hiley's "style and structure in early offices of the sanctorale;' attempt to exert some con­ trol of the evidence in light of mckinnon's understanding of properization. planchart's survey of the proper chants for the mass of st. martin of tours reveals that numerous projects for this saint's feast were undertaken on both sides of the alps, revealing a discontinuity between the roman and early gregorian masses. planchart sees two consequences of this discontinuity for our understanding of martinmas. first, st. martin may have been ven­ erated at st. peter's in the seventh century and at the lateran in the twelfth. second, plan chart believes that the transmission of the chants for martinmas may reaffirm bruno stablein's hypothesis that the liturgy sent to pepin and charlemagne was a papal liturgy selective in its inclusion and exclusion of particular feasts important in other basilicas. though this is a thoughtful essay, i would have liked to see planchart explore why st. martin's cult was propagated with such vigor in the communities for which these masses were composed. david hiley's contribution examines the feast of st. wolfgang (canon­ ized 1052 a.d.) as another example of the properization of particular feasts. hiley turns his attention to the stylistic description of various office chants in hopes that they may provide guideposts for an inquiry into the divine offices similar to the advent project. he examines in detail one antiphon from the office of st. wolfgang-gaudeat tota, composed by hermanus con­ tractus-as an example of eleventh -century chant style. in the music, hiley notes a general tendency for these chants to divide tonal space into distinct segments that are bounded by the finalis, upper fifth, and upper octave. hiley also argues that this new approach to tonal space is consistent with the trend in eleventh-century theoretical writing in which "modality is de­ fined in terms of scale segments, namely the fourth below the finalis, the fifth above it, the fourth between the upper fifth and the upper octave, and even the fifth above that" (159). the segments correspond to the boundryan w. dohoney aries of tonal space explored in the melodies of wolfgang's office. this segmented construction of hermannus' gaudeat tota provides what hiley calls an extreme example of this tonal tendency, linking it to the local­ ized influence of the composer-theorist at the monastery of st. emmeram in regensburg. the chants of hermannus contractus are not the onlyex­ amples of such tonal organization. the twelfth century, hiley states, is a "time of consolidation" with the appearance of rhymed offices that exhibit such melodic structures. hiley suggests that chants which offer the greatest promise of analysis are those which have been composed as "projects;' by determining if they display the particular handling of tonal space as seen in hermannus' chant. as hiley notes in his consideration of the manuscript transmission of office chants, the greatest divergences occur in series of matins antiphons, leading him to assert that "whatever archetype may have existed in the early ninth century, it did not include matins antiphons" (160). however, i would caution against too great an emphasis on the archetypes as a guiding re­ search principle for the divine office. offices such as the one for st. wolfgang were ritual performances through which local communities mediated their identities. the divine office is a much more fluid set ofliturgical practices whose individualistic nature, circumscribed by geography and community, is the rule and not the exception.6 despite these reservations, i find hiley persuasive in his argument that numerically ordered series of antiphons and pieces composed in a modern style similar to hermannus' chants for wolfgang constitute later office com­ positions. the musicians of the eleventh century, it seems, initiated their own compositional projects that achieved limited distribution. this "mod­ ern" style, however, eventually achieved dominance throughout europe and made its way into the majority of the chant repertory. david g. hughes' contribution, "from the advent project to the late middle ages: some issues of transmission;' reports on the author's recent work on the earliest manuscript traditions using computer models. by ex­ ploringvariations among manuscripts of french origin, he attempts to show that the introduction of notation, at its inception, codified a tradition that was universally stable but became increasingly varied. staff notation, he ar­ gued, only increased variations through scribal error and the introduction of aesthetic preferences such as pitch alterations of e to f and b to c. these assertions provoke numerous questions. is hughes content, for example, with mckinnon's hypothesis of the development of the unified tradition to which the earliest manuscript sources seem to attest? does the localization of musical practices lead to uniformity with early literate procedures only to become more localized with the introduction of pitch specific notation? 111 112 current musicology hughes hazards a guess as to the use of notation as a "defensive weapon by means of which a cantor could say, 'our way is the right way, and we have this notated gradual to prove it"'(185). yet this statement assumes that nota­ tion had acquired authoritative value over the coexistent oral repertory. this seems unlikely in a culture in which orality and literacy were value-free end­ points of a fluid continuum. thomas forest kelly's "the modal neumes at sens" takes an interest­ ing look at the use and abuse of tradition in printed chant collections in the eighteenth century. kelly interrogates the claim made by leonard poisson in his 1745 treatise nouvelle methode, ou traite theorique et pratique du plain­ chant that the melismas added to responsories (known as neumes) had been retained from "an ancient and uninterrupted usage." kelly argues that the chants were accretions introduced with the adoption of the neo-gallican liturgy at sens (443 a.d.). he questions how long the neumes remained in use at sens, wondering if their use persisted until the reforms of the second vatican council (1962-65 a.d.). this, i would argue, is not likely. as accre­ tions to the neo-gallican liturgy, the neumes most likely fell out of use in the latter half of the nineteenth century with the return of the french church to the roman rite. two essays by charles m. atkinson and michel huglo explore the manu­ script transmission of music theory, emphasizing the relevance of latin grammatical treatises and classical philosophy to chant studies. atkinson's "glosses on music and grammar and the advent of music writing in the west" continues his earlier exploration of the connection between latin grammatical treatises and the origin of music notation in which he argued that the latin acute accent became the paleofrankish podatus, the grave be­ came the clivus, and the circumflex became the torculus (1995). this article explores the commentary tradition on latin grammatical texts, specifically donatus' ars maior (late fourth century a.d.) and martianus capella's de nuptiis philologiae et mercurii (early fifth century a.d.) which served as gram­ matical authorities in carolingian education. in a fascinating examination of the glosses, atkinson finds not only consistent descriptions of singing but also sections pertaining to prosodic accents that were neumed. atkinson offers a compelling complement to his previous study that reveals how the intellectual and musical milieu of the carolingian era created an environ­ ment fertile for the beginnings of notation. in "the diagrams interpolated into the musica isidori and the scale of old hispanic chant:' michel huglo examines the musical diagrams that accompany the manuscripts of isidore of seville's etymologiae and finds connections not only to plato's timaeus but also to the scale used in old hispanic chant. the lambdoid diagram, as it is called, indicates a relationryan w. dohoney ship to porphyry's lost commentary on the timaeus. the diagram that gives the scale of old hispanic chant shows us a scale formed from two disjunct tetrachords, each structured as tone-semitone-tone, just as in the musica enchiriadis. from the similarities between the scales used in old hispanic and old gallican chant, huglo argues for a common source in the scale of byzantine chant. the platonic diagrams that are interpolated into the musica isidori testify to the importance of fourths, fifths, and octaves in the com­ position of old hispanic chant as well "as in gregorian chant-the heir to gallican chant" (256). the moral center of this collection, however, is lasz16 dobszay's essay "concerning a chronology for chant." railing against an "agnosticism" that has pervaded chant studies in the preceding decades and the "grapholatria" that entices some to consider chant knowable only after the advent of nota­ tion, dobszay holds up mckinnon's work as an example of what might be done to combat such trends. dobszay reiterates his call for a rapproche­ ment between ethnomusicology and chant studies, arguing that memory was powerful enough to sustain as well as shape many chronological layers of chant composition. "without the experiences accumulated in the study of living oral cultures;' he writes, "one cannot fully understand the living conditions and historical dimensions of a repertory where notation was of a secondary character in relation to sound production" (219). dobszay de­ cries positivism and agnosticism "as twin brothers" that limit scholars' ac­ tivities where documentary evidence is thin. as a remedy, he suggests that chant scholars' hypotheses should be accompanied by indices of data that allow for revision and reconsideration by others, thus allowing chant stud­ ies to be guided by "intelligentia instead of ratio" (227). the sheer bounty and diversity of scholarship contained within western plainchant in the first millennium is a fitting tribute to the life and work of james mckinnon. far from settling any debates that have invigorated chant scholarship in the past decades, western plainchant raises as many ques­ tions as it answers. from manuscript transmission, to cultural understand­ ings of ritual performance, to the transformation of theory and analysis, the essays in this volume show that there is rarely consensus on any particu1ar topic-especially regarding chant in the first millennium. but they also beautifully demonstrate the plurality of approaches necessary to gain even the simplest understanding of plainchant. the interdependence of these scholars' work, as in the clusters of articles around such subjects as the se­ quence or old roman chant, exemplify this necessity. it is the strength of our field and the direction in which mckinnon's legacy points us. 113 114 current musicology notes 1. see dyer (2001) and jeffery (2003). 2. for jeffery's summary of the theory of virtuosity as a cause for the decrease in congrega­ tional singing see jeffery (1992:112-14). 3. the three tol/ite chants are taken from verona, bc 107, fol. 92, london, bl add. 34209, and florence, bnc, conv. sopp. f iii 565, fo1.2. 4. levy has elaborated upon his theory in a series of articles elsewhere and only briefly reca­ pitulates his main points here. see levy (2003). 5. levy has discussed his theory of a notated antiphoner as early as the late eighth century in gregorian chant and the carolingians (1998). his theories have most recently been critiqued in treitler (2003). other recent writings on the interplay between orality and literacy in medieval music include boynton (2003) and karp (1998). 6. on the issues involved in the study of the divine office see fassler and baltzer (2000). see especially jeffery (2000) in this regard. references atkinson, charles. 1995. de accentibus toni oritur nota quae dicitur neuma: prosodic accents, the accent theory, and the paleofrankish script. in essays on medieval music in honor of david g. hughes, edited by graeme m. boone, 17-42. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. boynton, susan. 2003. orality, literacy, and notation of the office hymns. journal of the american musicological society 56 (1): 99-168. dyer, joseph. 1989. singing psalms in the early medieval office. speculum 64 (4): 535-78. ---.2001. review of the advent project. early music history 20: 279-309. fassler, margot e. and rebecca a. baltzer, eds. 2000. the divine office in the latin middle ages. oxford: oxford university press. jeffery, peter. 1992. re-envisioning past musical cultures: ethnomusicology in the study of gregorian chant. chicago: university of chicago press. __ . 2000. eastern and western elements in the irish monastic prayer of the hours. in the divine office in the latin middle ages, edited by margot e. fassler and rebecca a. baltzer, 99-143. oxford: oxford university press. ---.2003. review of the advent project. journal of the american musicological society 56 (1): 169-79. karp, theodore. 1998. aspects of orality and formularity in gregorian chant. evanston, il: northwestern university press. levy, kenneth. 1998. gregorian chant and the carolingians. princeton: princeton university press. ---.2003. gregorian chant and the romans. journal of the american musicological soci­ ety 56 (1): 5--42. mckinnon, james. 1965. the meaning of the patristic polemic against musical instruments. current musicology 1 (spring): 69-82. ---. 1994. desert monasticism and the later fourth-century psalmodic movement. music and letters 75: 505-19. ---. 2000. the advent project. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. strunk, oliver. 1977. essays on music in the byzantine world. new york: w.w. norton. treitler, leo. 2003. with voice and pen: coming to know medieval song and how it was made. new york: oxford university. a suggestive detail in weber's freischutz richard taruskin but in der freischiitz i could never rejoice enough or without tears at the beginning of the third act. we are still full of horrible dark impressions from the gloomy wolf's glen-and all at once the curtain goes u~a calm, tranquil room, in which, through the green window drapes, a ray of sunshine brightly gleams, and about the sun, in which the presence of god is so palpable, and about the clouds, agathe and the cello sing together! there is poetry, and scene-painting, and music-all together! (quoted in gozenpud and obram 1962:234). thus waxed the twenty-three-year-old alexander serov to the nineteen­ year-old vladimir stasov in a letter announcing his ambition to become a composer. weber's agathe is apt to strike even today's most sympathetic critics as "a little dull" (warrack [1968] 1976:227), but nineteenth-century audiences loved and admired her as weber intended. intended? but yes. his romantic opera was one of the first to draw virtually its entire cast of characters from the peasantry, in keeping with the new herder-inspired view that saw the peasantry as symbolic not merely of a class, but of the nation. and no one valued the peasant character more highly than the germans, who saw it as their national character, as exemplified by the he­ roes of the fairy tales then being collected and consumed in great num­ bers-yes, the "prince charming" values of honesty, sincerity, simplicity, and fidelity, the very ones that corrupted "french" morals saw as dull. 1 scholars never tire of pointing out that der freischutz is "really" french in form, dahlhaus going so far as to claim, rather archly, that it ought to be called not a romantische oper but an opera comiquewith german words.2 but its germanness is real enough, as is evident in the way it was seen by its audiences as embodying the national character, and the national values, that they held so dear. nor is it any secret that these values were symbol­ ized musically by quoting or (more often) imitating folklore. weber was a leader in this trend, just as he was a leader in the use of recurring motifs. strange that no one seems to have reported the way these two traits com­ bine in the portrayal of agathe as an ideal german maiden. the tender melody of her act iii cavatina begins with a transformation of the boister­ ous walzerfrom act i (exx. 1a and 1b), as if to show that her purity of heart is ofa piece with the heartiness of her people.3 and while musicologists seem to have overlooked this relationship, there is evidence that composers noticed it, and turned it, to some as yet current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 166 current musicology example la: walzer from act i. > > > > ii .. molto vivace fl, fl, ,. . , i ~ ff~ < ~ ~ ~ ~ t t ~ . . i i i i example lb: agathe's cavatina from act iii. r. l adagio ~ tj ~ " son ne bl~ibt am him ;: -p und ob die wol ke sie ver hill ie, die dolce fl tj p dolce .~ .. -li-l -i ... ... ... ... 1~ 11 11 : r i i r fl ~ i:::!!!. ~ tj ~'" " .... ~ zelt, es wal-tet dort einheil' ger wil-ie nichtblindem zu fall dient die welt n.l 1 tj -1-1 -1 ~ :i s-fl -1 ~:i .~ ¥~ .. -.1-.1 -.1 _ _ ~ .. .. j i j j : r ~ i r r i i i i undetermined extent, into a trope. is it a coincidence, for example, that schumann used a variant of the walzer motif to represent the rhine, the grandest of all national symbols, in his third symphony (ex. 2)?4 or that strauss used it (in a suitably bumptious and vulgar transformation) to rep­ resent the title character-a german hero, after all-in his heldenleben? richard t aruskin 167 example 2: weber, piano sonata no.2, menuetto capriccioso. [ fl i presto assai -.~fl. ~ fl.~ u ffj ~ .. ... .. i i ul,..j"'--i -w :-0) ~. example 3: schumann, symphony no.3, main theme of second movement. sehrmiissig ~ 9:lllr r r ip~p '>-..': ~ vel. mf example 4: strauss, hero's theme from ein heldenleben. agathe might not have approved of that swaggering lout, perhaps; but he surely prided himself on sharing her virtues (ex. 4). further than this i dare not press my point. i offer it as no more than an aper(fu, in grateful recognition of all the lovely aper(fus my conversations with chris hatch have granted me over the years. notes l. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "nationalism" (by richard taruskin). 2. see, for example, carl dahlhaus (1983) or ludwig finscher (1983-84). 3. it has been observed, for example by walter georgii (1914), and bywarrack ([1968] 1976:142-43, including ex. 31), that the type of vorhalt-melodik (appoggia­ tura-laden melody) represented by the walzer, and then by the cavatina, was just a stylistic tic that weber had inherited from the likes of dusfk or prince louis ferdinand. appoggiaturas do, of course, turn up frequently in weber's piano music, 168 current musicology especially in passagework, but also occasionally in themes: see ex. 2, from the third movement, menuetto capriccioso, from the second piano sonata, op. 39 (1816). but the cited example, and most of the others, involve complete double neigh­ bors, which the walzer theme lacks. indeed, its direct approach to the appoggia­ tura from a harmonic note, i would suggest, is precisely what gives it its slightly lumpy volkstumlich character. 4. this relationship, though more remote than the one between the walzer and agathe's cavatina, is widely recognized. it is, for example, the subject of the first chapter in manfred hermann schmid (1981:11-34). my thanks to michael c. tusa for the reference, and for valuable consultations. references dahlhaus, carl. 1983. webers 'freischiitz' und die idee der romantischen oper. osterreichische musikzeitschrijt 38: 381-8. finscher, ludwig. 1983-4. weber's freischiitz: conceptions and misconceptions. proceedings of the royal musical association 110: 79-90. georgii, walter. 1914. karl maria von weber als klavierkomponist. phd diss. leipzig. gozenpud, a.a. and v. a. obram, ed. 1962. a. n. serov. pis'ma k v. v. i d. v. stasovim. muzikal'noye nasledstvo, i. moscow: muzgiz. schmid, manfred hermann. 1981. musik als abbild. tutzing: hans schneider. warrack,john. [1968] 1976. carl maria von weber, 2nd ed. cambridge: cambridge university press. elisabeth le guin. 2006. boccherini's body: an essay in carnal musicology. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by suzanne g. cusick in early 2006, i did something i had never done before. i sent a musicology book as a gift to a friend. no, to two friends, one a former musicologist who now works as a gambist, the other a former musicologist who now works as a writer. i wrote to each of them that elisabeth le guin's boccherini's body: an essay in carnal musicology had restored my faith in musicology. boccherini's body addresses the joy, passion, and erotic impulse; the thrill at beautifully shaping sounds with the work of one's sensate body; the sheer sensual wash of such sounds; the intellectual fascination of experiencing through them a concrete, material contact with peoples and worlds long dead; the desire for something like time-travel so as truly to know the european past as the product of profoundly different values from my own that drive my best efforts as a scholar. i have been waiting all my life for a book that simultaneously explains the loves and desires that drive the musicological enterprise, and satisfies them, without requiring that i renounce my entangled loves for music and history. elisabeth le guin would never write such wild sentences as these. indeed, one of the many pleasures of her book is the clarity, elegance, and wit of her prose, even when she writes in a voice that seems as swept away in a transport of sensibilite as that of an eighteenth-century listener responding to music heard in a salon. le guin has used her impressive literary gifts to produce a rich and subtle book that is both a tour de force of embodied, historicist criticism illuminating much of boccherini's music and a sustained (if sympathetic) critique of musicology's commitment to the disembodied, transhistorical, and scientistic. moreover, in her insistent embrace of relationships, embodied knowledges, and the responsive, sympathetic ethos of sensibilite, and in her insistent refusal to admit even the possibility of unitary knowledge, le guin has written the most formally and methodologically feminist musicology i have yet read-even though neither "feminism" nor "gender" are even minimally present in its content. fascinating as an introduction to eighteenth-century ways of receiving art, replete with models of beautiful writing about music as sound and embodied action, boccherini's body merits careful reading from everyone interested in the future of our discipline. like many recent musicology books, boccherini's body exists in a tense current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 139 140 current musicology relationship with our discipline's usual genres. both its title and its close scrutiny of a single musician's work can imply a relationship to the life­ and-works genre, but it defies that categorization on at least two grounds. first, unlike most such books, boccherini's body never quite separates the composer's life and works from each other, as if the one were historically embedded while the other transcended such entrapment. second, the book is not so much about boccherini as it is about the consequences ofle guin's relationship with boccherini-the things her performing intimacy with his music have led her to investigate and thus to know. in that sense, the book's unfolding models the deepening intimacy that can follow from carnal knowledge in the biblical sense. in another sense, the book reads almost like an old-fashioned novel in its fascinating explanations of how people lived-how eighteenth -century people looked at things, how they responded physically to what they read, how they held their bodies and moved them to dance, how these things changed in the course of one person's (boccherini's) lifetime, and how the traces of eighteenth-century life can be tracked in the writings of novelists, choreographers, philosophers, and physicians, as well as in the compositions of people like boccherini. in yet a third sense the book can be read as replacing many of traditional musicology's most cherished shibboleths with the critical methodology le guin has dubbed "carnal musicology." in conceiving a "carnal musicology;' le guin has used her own embod­ ied knowledge as a cellist as the opening gambit of a post-kerman critical approach to music. sharing with kerman an interest in interpretation, she seeks a way to resist the hermeneut's tendency to reduce "pieces of music" to the musical equivalent ofliterary texts. le guin found a theoretical basis for her own critical perspective in the work of art historians svetlana alpers and . michael baxandall (1994) on the early eighteenth -century painter giovanni battista tiepolo (1696-1770). alpers and baxandall had set out to find a non-narrative way of writing critically about painting, one that would draw insights from painting's intrinsic independence of the narrative temporality that, they claimed, had dominated art criticism since the fifteenth century. they found in tiepolo an artist whose work offered them "an example of pictorial creativity from premises that are not literary" ( 1994:3) . not coinci­ dentally, tiepolo was also a well-known but not canonic painter, one whose appeal was not considered universal. as a result, without ruffling disciplinary feathers alpers and baxandall were able to use a study oftiepolo's paintings to demonstrate how an artist's work could be enmeshed in the preconcep­ tions of his own time and in his physical relationship to his materials. thus creating an approach to fine art scholarship that dodged both the culture of connoisseurship and its opposite, the tradition of studying kleinmeisters, suzanne g. cusick alpers and baxandall reveled in the freedom tiepolo's lifelong preference for frescoes gave them to elaborate a way of looking that depended on motion, not the fixity imposed by a framed painting's location on a museum wall. for, as they write, to look at frescoed ceilings "one must keep moving about, coping with the distance, eccentric angles and fluctuations in light as one is looking" (1994:7-8). although she does not say so directly, le guin may be seen to have similarly focused on a well-known but non-canonic figure whose music offered the opportunity to think critically about the gestural, visible, and dramatic elements of music as performed, without ruffling disciplinary feathers. it is as if alpers's and baxandall's work on tiepolo set her free in the "imaginary museum of musical works" lydia goehr (1992) had described two years before their book appeared-free to move about, "coping with the [historical] distance" that both separates and unites contemporary musical bodies with bodies long dead. in chapter 1, "cello-and-bow thinking," le guin presents the most literal form of carnal musicology-intimate knowledge of a piece based on what she claims as "a physically reciprocal relationship with someone no longer living" (24). playing music he wrote for his own performance as a young concert artist, le guin brings into being both the capacities of boccherini's own body and the capacities he evidently expected in other cellists' bodies (when he preserved these pieces for posterity). for le guin, such playing brings something like boccherini's presence into being, as if it were a hologram present to her. anticipating the charge that her resulting interpretation of the piece could be nothing more than "narcissistic free as­ sociation by a particularly verbose performer," le guin freely acknowledges that it is only one reading among many that are possible (25). she ends by claiming both that subsequent historical and cultural research will confirm the plausibility of her reading and that "the complex layering of interpreta­ tions that builds up around any work of art" functions as the "compost" that enables it to survive. chapter 2, ''as my works show me to be;' begins as if it were a briefbiog­ raphy of the virtuoso cellist and composer luigi boccherini (1743-1805). but in the absence of new details of how boccherini lived his mature working life in spain, it ends by using the fact of his itinerant youth as an opportunity to explore the contexts that probably formed his artistic habits. the boccherini family, we learn, was immersed in producing music for the theatre; one of luigi's brothers became a successful librettist in vienna, two of his sisters important theatrical dancers. boccherini himself spent two years in paris (1767-68) when the city was alive with debates about the representation of human emotion, and when the hottest theatrical genre was the pantomime­ ballet. le guin thus lays the groundwork for her subsequent emphasis on 141 142 current musicology social, choreographic, and theatrical gestures, and on the culture of sensibilite (or, as jane austen called it, sensibility-intensely sympathetic responsive­ ness) as the "cultural current" boccherini "imbibed" (53). in chapter 3, "gesture and tableaux," le guin literally fleshes out the implications of the material presented in the previous chapter. she extrapo­ lates from comments in diderot's essay "la mere bien-aimee (esquisse)" a working definition of sensible performance as that in which the viewer/listener is every bit as active and sensitized as the painter/executant. a performance so constituted is very much a mutual undertaking by artist and recipient-a joint "speculation;' as it were. what is being improvised ... is not any particular configuration of tones, but rather the relationship between the parties involved. (75; see also diderot 1988) showing a gift for the telling detail that informs nearly every section of the book, le guin quotes diderot's vivid description of a richardson reader to remind her own readers how physical and visually legible sensible reception could be. there he is-he seizes the book, retires into a corner and reads. i watch him: first i see tears flow, he breaks off, he sobs; suddenly he gets up, he walks without knowing where he is going, he utters cries like a desolate man, and he addresses the bitterest reproaches to all the harlowe family [of richardson's clarissa]. (81, 295n36) tracing representations of sensibilite in literature, painting, eighteenth­ century cultural theory (notably the writings of diderot and rousseau), tableaux, the detailed notes left by choreographers of pantomime-ballets, and accounts of behavior in salons and their spanish equivalents, tertulia, le guin reconstructs the elements of a fully embodied, often visible sensibilite that she believes boccherini and those who played or heard his chamber music in salons shared. le guin notes that by the early nineteenth century sensible listening's utter absorption into the performance had been supplanted (especially in germany) by a "disinterested contemplation" that seems much closer to contemporary ways of listening. continuing to develop an understanding of the sensible, she concludes by acknowledging that while sensible reception was visually legible, the sensible effects produced by the bodies of musical performers were not, confirming benito jer6nimo de feij60's claim that "to those who would know the interior of another, what is most important is not to see him, but to hear him" (82, 295n37). accordingly, in chapter 4 le guin returns her attention to the relationships of sensibilite to musical sounds. suzanne g. cusick like the book as a whole, chapter 4 ("virtuosity, virtuality, virtue") begins with an eloquent description of boccherini's music that is thoroughly grounded in le guin's own bodily experiences. she quickly moves beyond those experiences, however, to paraphrase the slow movement of the com­ poser's sonata in c, g. 17, through a fantasy identification of certain gestures with the literary and operatic character dido that is wittily reminiscent of momigny's famous reading of mozart's string quartet in d minor, k. 421 (momigny [1806]1998). the resulting close description thus recapitulates the carnal epistemologies outlined in chapters 1 and 3, arriving at last at the interpretive questions that drive this chapter. what are the artistic uses of boccherini's well-known use of cyclic repetition in multi-movement works? is the persona of the sonata in c an authentic sensible or an automaton? what relationships linked the concepts of virtuosity, virtuality, and virtue in eighteenth-century performance culture? from these questions, never fully answered, others proliferate, leading le guin to explore the conflicting eigh­ teenth-centuryvaluations of musicians who played (cantor) versus musicians who created (musicus), of poiesis (making) versus phronesis (doing), of the sensibilite that imagined middling-class people identifying with each other versus a virtuosity so athletic in performance as to preclude any listener's identification with such a masterful (or grotesque) other. for me the best part of this chapter is the section that elaborates the necessary deceptions of which sensible performances are made. le guin shows that every dolcissimo inviting a listener to sensible response results from a restraint in the performer's body that feels unnatural to the player. thus the audible effect of sensibilite results from a kind of virtuosity that does not seem athletic but is no less alienated. many readers will know this paradox from their own performing experiences. le guin historicizes it by reference to diderot's "paradoxe sur ie comedien," after fascinating excursions into eighteenth-century kinds of bodily discipline, including the instructional methods by which cellists' habits of hand were taught, and the ways one of her students has argued that scarlatti's keyboard sonatas require once-characteristically spanish gestures of the player's hands. here le guin completely fuses a historian's commitment to understand embodiment as boccherini and his contemporaries might have done with her initially abstract desire to develop body-centered critical insights about boccherini's music. one might infer that a well-executed carnal musicology would require an understanding of both how contemporary bodies "know" music and how historical bodies might have known it. rather like the sensible performance le guin theorized in chapter 3, then, carnal musicology would seem to be a "joint speculation" that improvises "relationships between the parties involved" (75), both living and dead. 143 144 current musicology chapter 5, "a melancholy anatomy:' can seem like a dark satire both of le guin's own insistence on such relationships and of musicology's fascination with the physical and aurally meaningful traces (manuscripts, scores, treatises, instruments) the dead leave behind. opening with an account of boccherini's 1993 exhumation and autopsy, le guin quickly moves beyond the morbidly biographical (the composer's apparent death from consumption, consumption's association with melancholy, and the frequent ascription of melancholy to his music) to explore seventeenthand eighteenth-century ideas about the physiological experience of sensibilite. the sympathetic resonance of one person's nerves with another's, as ifboth sets of nerves were tuned strings, turns out to have been the perceived cause of sensibilite's characteristic vulnerability. that vulnerability, sometimes perceived as effeminate, was considered both an ennobling characteristic of great intellects and a danger to one's mental and physical health. as le guin points out, such a notion of human beings' physically real relatedness to one another is profoundly foreign to twenty-first century persons, especially in a culture as radically individualistic as ours. the hardy postmodernist reader ... may smile at such quaint warnings [that music might drive a melancholic mad] but in so doing betray the extent to which her own culture has divorced soul and body-an extent undreamed of by descartes himself. we simply can no longer believe that too fine an attention to a melancholic piece of music might result in physical illness; and in this ability we see the gulf of our difference from the culture that produced and consumed such music. to attempt to cross the gulf is, at least in theory, to lay ourselves open to the possibility of making ourselves ill. (206) in chapter 6, "it is all cloth of the same piece:' le guin uses discussion of boccherini's early quartets, and of the minute differences in execution that make a single motive echoing through a texture seem to mutate under each player's fingers, to introduce a fictionalized dialogue with her colleagues in the artaria quartet that irreverently debunks the artful brilliance of her consistently carnal, richly historicized interpretations. thus she both destabilizes the imagined usefulness of historicist critical musicology to historicist performance and thoroughly dismisses the possibility that any one critical strategy (much less anyone critical interpretation) could be authoritative-not even her own. chapter 7, "the perfect listener," continues the work of problematizing the solipsistic dependence on one's own embodied experiences to which a carnal musicology might tempt. le guin points out explicitly that as soon as there is an effort to listen from an embodied subject position the pos­ sibility of generalization evaporates, leaving behind an infinite number of suzanne g. cusick possibilities. would a perfect listener be parisian? madrilenian? melancholy? consumptive? proficient in string performance? innocent of performance? an opera-goer? as she puts it, all "acts of trans-historical identification are necessarily gross compromises" (259). yet le guin confronts the aporia, writing an admittedly speculative "thought experiment" in the form of a letter that envoices how a perfect listener might respond to a particular performance. she freely acknowledges that her letter, like the dialogue that ended chapter 6, is an example of musicology as fiction, challenging us all to acknowledge that the same is true of our own work. the long introduction to this epistolary ending encouraged me to move beyond le guin's literary performance as a perfect listener, and to imagine my own responses to the music described (haydn's g major keyboard sonata, hob. xvi: 39) through my own memories of the way such pieces usually go. for me (who once knew this piece as a pianist), a deceptive cadence that le guin finds darkly troubling seemed mischievous, a deliberate if playful tug of the listener's attention away from convention and toward the unforesee­ able. as it was with that moment, so it is for me with boccherini's body as a whole. i find it a gracious, graceful invitation to experience historical musics in an ever-richer, unforeseeable variety of ways. in her erudite, imaginative survey of eighteenth-century modes of embodiment, le guin has broadened the possibilities i can imagine, broadened the field of possible encounters a twenty-first-century embodied self might have with the embodied selves that boccherini and his contemporaries knew. ultimately, the carnal musicology le guin proposes in boccherini's body is a twenty-first-century echo of sensible reception, requiring sympa­ thetic leaps of imagination to the extremely vivid places where living and no-longer-living bodies might meet. le guin makes no excuses for her method's dependence on imagination, nor does she claim that her own interpretive leaps, however based on a virtuosic accumulation of know ledges, can produce definitive, irrefutable readings. rather, in her final chapters she demonstrates the dissolution into fiction of musicology's pretense to scientific knowledge, and invites us to contemplate the extent to which all scholarly writing participates in the art of fiction, including the fond fiction that historians and performers of "classical music" share-that by skillful reading and disciplined imaginings we can know the worlds inhabited by others who have long been dead. at the same time, by writing each of these chapters' second half in a characteristically eighteenth -century literary form (the pedagogical dialogue, the letter), she articulates with brave precision the border that separates responsibly carnal musicology from the descent into sympathetic madness to which an excess of sensible imagination might lead. 145 146 current musicology no book this complex could be without flaws. one might easily quibble about any number of minor matters, not least the absence of any straightforward gesture toward the musicological neophyte who could wonder who boccherini was, or why and how anyone remembers him today. one might also question le guin's occasional use of performative writing (writing that strives to do things to its readers) to plunge readers into an eighteenth-century subjectivity, rather than simply describing such a subjectivity's components. some readers may simply find these passages bewildering; others may find that they contradict or undermine le guin's frequent protestations that she does not intend her interpretations to be authoritative. occasionally le guin seemed to me to overstate boccherini's particular suitability for study by a carnal musicology, thus making her method seem less transferable to other subjects than i think it to be. but these are quibbles: none detract from the historical and musical richness, the disciplinary importance, or the sheer beauty of this book. boccherini's body is beautifully produced, complete with a table of contents that wittily evokes the possibility that it might be read as an eigh­ teenth-century novel. the choice for endnotes rather than footnotes allowed for a spacious presentation of both text and musical examples on the page; the appendices and bibliography will prove immensely helpful to specialists. a meticulously edited cd, recorded by the artaria quartet, illuminates le guin's sometimes microscopically close descriptions of boccherini's music-if, that is, the reader succeeds in extracting it from the unwieldy plastic prison in which it is encased. i had to completely destroy that case in my copy, only to discover the cd was so gunked up by adhesive that i dared not play it; fortunately, i was able to get a second copy from someone else. finally, a website includes full texts and translations of contemporary comments on boccherini's music too long to quote in the book, along with additional recorded examples of quartets and sonatas (http://epub.library . ucla.edu/leguin/boccherini). references alpers, svetlana, and michael baxandall. 1994. tiepolo and the pictorial intelligence. new haven, ct, and london: yale university press. diderot, denis. 1988. "la mere bien -aimee (esquisse )," salon of 1765. in oeuvres esthetiques, edited paul verniere, 542-43. paris: bordas. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. oxford: clarendon press. momigny, jerome joseph de. [1806] 1998. cours complet d'harmonie et de composition, translated by wye j. allanbrook. in the late eighteenth century. strunk's source readings in music history, rev. ed, edited by leo treitler, vol. 5, 92-114. new york: norton. current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf recombinant melody: ten things to love about willaert's music peter schubert willaert's music was much celebrated in its own time. today, however, musicologists find little to praise outside of its sonorous richness and sen­ sitivity to text. l its seamlessness and contrapuntal density seem to be re­ spected but not loved. michele fromson writes that in spite of widespread and continued historical interest in his music, individual pieces have had a difficult time entering the musical mainstream. with the exception of a handful of especially tuneful chansons, madrigals and motets, few compositions have gained favor with modern performers or listeners, raising perplexing questions about the aesthetic quality of his music that still await satisfactory answers. 2 in the following pages, i propose that the powerful expressive poten­ tial of this music lies beneath the apparently seamless surface in the details of its contrapuntal complexity. singling out a handful of "especially tune­ ful pieces" is a dead end-most ofwillaert's music is melodically very uni­ form. however, it is this very uniformity that permits the contrapuntal manipulations that are the basis for an expressiveness based not on melody alone, but on combinations of melodies. performers willing to examine the details of its construction and draw conclusions about willaert's inten­ tions will discover a highly expressive music, leading to lively performance, filled with contrast. the key to these contrapuntal manipulations is the recombination of tiny melodic fragments. 3 one ofwillaert's techniques of recombination is to splice motives together in new pitch relationships. in the renaissance this technique was called inganno, and i will begin with a description of the earliest reference to it by willaert's most famous pupil, gioseffo zarlino. zarlino on inganno inganno is referred to as a type of fuga by many authors around 1600.4 we can trace its roots back to tinctoris' definition of fuga, "sameness of the parts ofa piece [cantus] as to [rhythmic] value, [solmization] name, shape [i.e. ligature or not], and sometimes as to the placement of its notes and rests" ([1495] 1983).5 inganno as a type of fuga depends solely on the seccurrent musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 92 current musicology ond of tinctoris' five elements, the solmization syllable; two melodies in which the notes have the same solmization names will be in fuga, although the notes and the contour will be different. artusi ([1603] 1968) is usually cited as an authority in connection with inganno, but it is actually zarlino who first described the technique, in a hitherto overlooked passage from the istitutione harmoniehe, which appeared nearly a half century earlier than artusi's treatise (zarlino [1558] 1965, iii:59). the passage in question, which occurs in the context of a discus­ sion of writing in three parts, is given below, divided into phrases to facili­ tate commentary: [1] si potra etiando, con grandissimo commodo, (il ehe e anco lodevole) porre in consequenza le parti tra lora; [2] non con quell'ordine istesso, & dispositione, come si usa nelle fughe legate: ma con un 'ordine interrotto; [3] ponendo parte delle figure aseendenti, & parte diseendenti; [4] & porre solamente il numero delle figure, ehe siano di uno istesso valore; [5] ponendo tallora una imitatione di figure al eontrario, eioe porre la guida, 0 prineipale, ehe proeedi per un numero di figure aseendenti, & il consequente, ehe con l'istesso numero diseendi; [1] one thing that is very easy to do (and also praiseworthy) is to put the parts in consequence with each other, [2] not with the same order and placement as is used in strict fuga, but with the order interrupted; [this can be done by] [3] placing some of the notes higher and some lower, [4] using only the [same] num­ berofnotes, which must be of the same values; [5] sometimes placing an imita­ tion of the notes in contrary mo­ tion, i.e., to put the guide, or lead­ ing voice, that proceeds with a certain number of notes ascend­ ing, and the consequent, which descends with the same number. although not named, inganno is discussed in phrase 3, and it depends upon the figurative meaning of "ascendenti" and "discendenti" as "higher" peter schubert 93 example 1: zarlino's illustrations of inganno. a) b) c) iib·y-rrij!j.llie iiib. hllj!j·rfr eiiib.j.1lh!rrrl i d) e) f) iib.l.llhl!f"rjt iiibe.<tj!jjyr l> iiibe.ji!j<liy<le i re mi fa re mi fa sol mi re re mi fa re mi fa sol mi re g) h) i) lib <> e· y r ! j·lll e iiib e <>. r y! 1"1 11 e iiib e <>.j y!r r 1 l>ii ut re mi fa la sol fa mi re ut re mi fa la sol fa mi re ut re mi fa la sol fa mi re and "lower." guy a. marco translates these words as "ascending" and "de­ scending," interpreting the phrase as a description of melodic inversion (zarlino [1558] 1968, iii:59,186). however, since melodic inversion is clearly described in phrase 5, we may wonder why zarlino would have repeated himself. a look at the musical illustration (ex. 1) that accompanies zarlino' s text proves that phrases 3 and 5 describe two different phenomena.6 the illustration consists of three short series of related melodies: a-d, e-f, and g-i. in each series, the first melody is what zarlino would call the "guide" and the following ones, which have the same number of notes and the same rhythmic values, are various possible "consequents." thus, ex­ ample la is a guide and examples ib-d are consequents; example ie is a guide and example if is its consequent; and example ig is a guide fol­ lowed by two consequents, examples ih and ii. i will focus on the second and third series for the moment because they clearly illustrate the discus­ sion in phrase 3 of the text.7 in series e-f and g-i, each of the consequents contains only one change of direction, hardly enough to qualify as examples of melodic inversion. rather, some of the notes have been shifted in space with respect to the others. given the guide (ex. ie), one constructs the consequent (ex. if) by leaving the first three notes of the guide in their original location, then placing the remainder in a lower register. each portion, or sub-motive, retains its contour, and the only change of melodic direction occurs at the dotted line, where a step up in the original is replaced by a third down. 94 current musicology the second portion of the consequent lies "lower" with respect to the first portion than it would if it were strictly transposed.8 the third series of examples (exx. 19-i) works the same way, except that both halves of the melody are transposed: in example 1h, the first half of the consequent has been shifted up a fourth and the second up a fifth; in example ii, the first half has been moved up a fourth, the second up an octave. the choice of transposition level in inganno is governed by the need to maintain the tone/semitone positions within a given segment.9 (because these patterns of tone and semi tone are expressed in the renais­ sance by names of solmization syllables, these names have been added belowexx. 1e-i. 10 ) the literal meaning of inganno is "deception," and what is deceptive about the consequents is that fa-la in the last series, for in­ stance, can appear disguised as a descending third, an ascending second, or an ascending third. the general principle is to break the guide into two sub-motives, and "splice" them together differently in the consequent. the second sub-motive "ascends" or "descends" in the same way that hills can be said to "ascend" from the sea: the hills lie above and retain their contour. 11 this figurative translation permits us to distinguish phrase 5, with its explicit mention of "imitation of the notes in contrary motion" (i.e., imitation by inversion), from phrase 3. in addition to explaining the musical examples, this distinction eliminates the worry that zarlino might have repeated himself in phrase 5. this passage has been overlooked for many reasons: the process of melodic variation is not given a name, solmization is not mentioned, and examples are not labeled. moreover, the text is misleading, and the whole discussion is buried in a chapter about composition in three parts, far from discussion of other fuga types. we may speculate that zarlino associated inganno with three-part writing because he knew willaert's three-part ricercars, remembering them as a rich source of inganni. most recent writers treat inganno as a "learned" means of generating new soggetti either for discrete subsequent sections or for "progressive de­ velopment" within a long piece.12 however, it is more than an aid to inven­ tion. i propose that it is a melodic technique that interacts with other pa­ rameters of the music in a variety of ways. but before looking at chang­ ing transposition levels in renaissance music, let us see how it functions in more familiar repertoire. splicing in a schubert waltz "musical variation" is one of the hundreds of universal human behaviors listed by anthropologist donald e. brown, along with "right-handedness as population norm," "childhood fear of strangers" and "special speech for special occasions" (1991).13 from this vantage point, taking in all of hupeter schubert 95 example 2a: reduction of schubert, trauer-walzer, op. 9, no. 2. x a b a b q) b .j b' b 4,1'1>' i jijjji ~~nj j 1 ~~ ~ 1 f.j j if" ~ 1 rj j 1 f" j 1 ;"11 example 2b: alternative mm. 9-12, with ascending step sequence as in mm. 1-4. example 2c: alternative mm. 9-12 with circle of fifths sequence. 4 ,~,' jilnf.j j 1 ;i.j j 1 ~.j i,' 1 ~.j j 1 ~ mankind, willaert's italy doesn't seem so far from schubert's vienna, and it will seem less far-fetched to compare melodic splicing in a waltz with that in a ncercar. the entire b section of schubert's little trauer-walzer op. 9 no. 2 (ex. 2a) is a variation of the a section: the one-measure sub-motives in the a section have been spliced together differently in the b section (sub-motive b' is the only exception). in example 2a, i have aligned the two sections, labeled one-measure sub-motives throughout, and sketched the bass line, with figures, under the melody. the melodic effect of splicing the b section begins with the same upbeat figure x, but the initial major sixth between x and a in the a section is transformed into a minor second. this alteration is the probable origin of the sorrowful title of the waltz, introducing a "sigh" motif and moving to the parallel minor. motive a is 96 current musicology spliced to motive b not by a descending step but by a unison. motive b is connected to the second motive a by an ascending step instead of an as­ cending sixth. in fact, the first five transformations share a common fea­ ture: melodic compression (sixths and a seventh become seconds and sec­ onds become unisons), all attributable to the mournful affect. to con­ clude the waltz, the contracted joints between motives are now opened up again: the b[,i,-~ semitone in m. 13 is replaced with whole tone bir-~ (re­ versing the order of events at the joint between the a and b sections, where the f-e~ whole tone is replaced by the semitone elr-n); and fourths be­ tween the various versions of motive b (foreshadowed by the eir-~ fourth between mm. 4-5) allow a return to the same cadence in major that con­ cluded the a section. harmony and splicing the melodic alterations introduce chromaticism and motions to distant keys. the second pair of bars in the b section (mm. 11-12) moves to ~vi of ~. (schubert notated these two bars in sharps, but i have renotated them in flats to clarify the flr-e~ relationship.) these measures recall the open­ ing sequential progression, i-iv, ii-v, but altered now to a sequence of descending thirds. in the return to~, beginning with the climactic aug­ mented sixth chord in m. 13, the interval expansion coincides with the return to the major, and it seems the sorrow passed quickly after all. to understand clearly how the splices interact with the harmony, we have to look at both melodic motions and the chord factors they embody. the first note of motive a in the b section is the ninth of the chord, which passes down to the seventh; at this point the melody is already on the note that will make the 4-3 appoggiatura over the ~, so a melodic unison fol­ lows. the last note of motive b, the c~, is already on the root of the follow­ ing chord, so it need only rise a step to achieve the 9-8 appoggiatura char­ acterizing motive a. this would not have worked if the next harmony had been as it was in the a section. in examples 2b and 2c, i propose some other splices across the boundary between mm. 10-11, with different types of sequence. 14 whether one thinks that the harmonies entail the melodic splices or vice-versa is not the point: the two domains, melody and har­ mony, are codependent. melodic splicing in a willaert ricercar in his famous three-part ricercars, willaert not only uses "pitch splices", but he inserts, deletes, telescopes and recombines motivic material. 15 we might be inclined to consider these as simply more aspects of willaert's usual tiresome learnedness, with no impact on form or expression. however, in the following analysis of the first three sections ofwillaert's fourth ricercar, peter schubert 97 example 3a: solmization names in different hexachords. notes a fifth apart: b~ f c g d a e b hexachords: hard fa ut sol re la mi natural fa ut sol re la mi soft fa ut sol re la mi example 3b: the modal fourth and fifth outlined. i 'e. j i j.. j;j • ___ '--------_ modal octave ~ f i will discuss ten techniques that depend on some type of melodic recom­ bination, and show how they function with respect to other parameters (such as mode, phrasing, range, spacing, and successions of vertical so­ norities), and how they provide expressive performance opportunities. the reader will find an annotated score in the appendix, with an explanation of analytical symbols used there, along with my rationale for dividing the piece into sections. 1) tonal answer and mode. any melodic fourth answered by a fifth (or vice-versa) qualifies as inganno, because any two notes a fifth or fourth apart can have the same solmization name in two different adjacent hexachords (see ex. 3a; in the natural diatonic system, adjacent hexachords will be the hard and the natural; in the one-flat system, the natural and the soft). in our ricercar, the opening pair of pitches of both subject (g-d) and consequent (d-g) can be called re-re (from the natural and soft hexachords, circled in ex. 3a), and the first intervals of each voice taken together out­ line the g-d-g octave of the g dorian mode, which is the mode of the piece (see ex. 3b). inganno is an ancestor of tonal answer in fugue. the original function oftonal answer (as explained by mattheson) was to make the modal fourth and the fifth correspond within the modal octave.16 the significance of tonal answer is that it anchors each line in a polyphonic fabric to a moor­ ing in the modal pitch space. in our case the moorings are the notes d and g. in example 3b, the soprano line moves from the mooring in the middle of its range, g, to that in its lower extreme, d, while the tenor moves from its upper extreme, d, to its middle, g. regardless of range, each line shares 98 current musicology example 4: different versions of the first soggetto. ~m.l i i ! j ij a j i r if j j j j ,~ o· i la i fa re re f' i i j : j i r· r it : r1r j j j ~ o· i i re re la fa m.21 j (~) j :j= ~ o· ! j ij r [for f j j i re re la fa the same fixed points with the others. this alteration of imitative entries is almost never found in the music ofjosquin, and seems to have developed in the 1530s; it is found often in early willaert and in the work ofjachet of mantua. 2) range and mode. in this ricer-car, we hear not just two, but three dif­ ferent versions of the opening soggetto (see ex. 4). the bass in m. 21 is a kind of hybrid of the original cantus and tenor. this entry starts out like the tenor, but at the sixth note it imitates the soprano version (see dotted lines). the function of this inganno is to keep the bass line within the modal octave-if it had continued imitating the tenor, the bass line would have dropped to low dp 3) a "running start." in the passage cited above, zarlino refers to inganno in terms of a guide and a consequent that are stated by different voices; however, we often find it used when a soggetto is repeated in a single line. sometimes two melodic fragments begin identically, but the second acquires more intensity-because of the addition of new material or change in some other domain, such as register-so the first sounds like a false start. 1s in the cantus, mm. 16-20, a motive begins twice on f, but the sec­ ond time the run of semi-minims (re-mi-fa-sol) is stated a fourth higher because of inganno between fa and re (see ex. 5). thus the first statement of the motive can be taken as a preparation for the eventual ascent to high c. the two alterations at the end of this soggetto result in the substitution of a (la) for the expected d (la), presumably to keep the second statement from rising too high (the soprano line never rises above c in this piece). just as interval compression and expansion in schubert create a different affect or energy, so here does the expansion of the second version of the soggetto. (a longer running start can be observed in the cantus in mm. 5156; see appendix.) several ofthe following items (nos. 4-6 and 10) involve the combinapeter schubert 99 example 5: a "running start." m.16 i :; : ;; '~j-1j!jjjj!a !uj-jj)jjjrr fa !lrj fa i re sol' la i fa fa' re sol i la i fa example 6: motives and sub-motives in the third section. fa it mi fa fa re mi hi la ,~ j j j i j ii () 4 j r !lelj j j ? ~ !' a' hl sol la @. b c c' ie fa fa mi fa re re fa fa rni fa re sol fa re mi (fa) f ~ [1d i ~ ii r-= cj 1 it (r ii j r a it (f w: it f r i r (f) ii dl d2 ell d2 ell ell d2 d 1 , , d' d+ ,~ d+ ' e tion of two motives or sub-motives into a longer whole. this technique is used most conspicuously in the third section of our ricercar. this section is twenty breves long and contains five soggetti, each two semibreves long. example 6 shows the soggetti in their various forms. for example, soggetto a exists in two forms, each containing two submotives (al and a2, shown with slurs and labeled). there are two a motives because sub-motive a l can be realized as an ascending step or a descending third; they can be consid­ ered the same and given the same name because these forms of a i are related by inganno. two other versions of soggetto a exist as well, one that has an extended ending (a+), and one (a') in which submotive a2 is re­ placed by a4 (when a4 is used, only the ascending step version of a l is used). the other soggetti have been labeled according to the same principles. inganno occurs within motives a and d, and between certain pairs of mo­ tives when they are tacked together (for instance, we find a and b, a and c, and a' and e combined more than once in a variety of ways). sub-motives that occur out of context (i.e., without their fellows) are shown in quota­ tion marks (as when c2 in the tenor, mm. 54-55 occurs without cl ). 4) the "time-shifted" ostinato. the five notes of the tenor (shown with a slur below the staff) starting at m. 53, can be analyzed into sub-motives 100 current musicology example 7: a "time-shifted" ostinato. tenor m.53, a , ~, ,a" d , a1 a4 "c2" a1 a.j "c2" a l a1 d ' (= ('2) d'l.(= a4) d:l f' --fitr:l jpi9r:j1 jj"i'if r ro r nor u ii ~~ ai, a\ and c2, which are repeated exactly, albeit in a metrically displaced fashion (ex. 7). willaert is fond of placing such direct repetitions of a motive against developing material (direct repetition of several parts simultaneously is, of course, not allowed) .19 the purpose of this repetition is not clear until we look at the following measures. there we see that the same six notes appear again, this time with soggetto d tacked on to make the ca­ dence. in retrospect, we can now see the time-shifted ostinato in mm. 5356 as an incomplete attempt to cadence, left hanging until soggetto d (whose first two notes, di, are the same as c2) completes the intended action. 20 another time-shifted ostinato may be observed at the end of section 1 (appendix, mm. 29-32), where la-fa-sol-la-reis sounded twice at the same pitch level in the bass; the final g (re) is implicit. because the long notes are shifted from the offbeats to metrically stable beats, its purpose might be to slow the momentum and to stabilize the rhythmic surface, preparing the final cadence of the section. 5) "climax" or melodic sequence. joachim burmeister calls the repetition of a melodic idea at different pitch levels (both ascending and descend­ ing) by the rhetorical term "climax" (1993:81). the tenor in mm. 48-52 consists of two statements of soggetto a and soggetto c tacked together (see ex. 8). the first time motives a and c were tacked together in the bass at m. 44, fa-mi was realized as the descending third f-d. now the connec­ tion is up a m~or third both times (f-a and bir-d, marked with dotted lines), an instance of inganno at joints between soggetti. these skips, along with the transposition of both soggetti up a fourth and the use of motive c' (containing the ascending skip of a fifth) instead of c, contributes to the overall ascent of the line from low d to high e~. the repetition is rein­ forced by the accompaniment of motive a in the tenor with motive c in the bass, and motives c' and c in the tenor with motive a in the soprano (see appendix, mm. 48-51). another climax may be observed in the soprano in the opening duo (see appendix, mm. 12-15). here entire cadential blocks are transposed up a fifth, making a harmonic move as well as a melodic one, and recalling the b motives that return to the tonic in the schubert waltz. 6) the "telescope. "some sub-motives are intervallically identical from peter schubert 101 example 8: a "climax." tenor. m.4s fa re mi :fu, mi fa, mi ~ f' -~j tll~r br rj d;1r! el ~1r. f" 1 <)' c (3 a a2 , i • c c, a a. c' a ~-r;c---"' a example 9: a "telescope." bass, m.57 c a ii one soggetto to another. willaert exploits this by eliding two soggetti on their shared pair of notes. in the bass at m. 48, for instance, a2 (a-b~) "becomes" d. the puns made on the sub-motives culminate in a thrillinglyincompre­ hensible telescoping of four soggetti in the bass, as shown in example 9. individual motives threaten to lose their individual identity and a new shape emerges: the time-shifted ostinato fa-re-mi! (the ostinato is shown by large slurs beneath the staff.) here is a blurring of boundaries that is almost romantic in its excess. 7) registral expansion in pitch space. the long opening duo contains regular waves of continuous contrary motion, creating an accordion-like effect of widening and narrowing space between the parts. this results from changes in interval of imitation coupled with changes in melodic direction. in the appendix, the intervals of the registral extremes have been indicated beneath the tenor line (wide intervals are circled, narrow ones are not). the progression from one extreme to the other is almost always continuous: "blips" in which a brief change of direction occurs are shown with parenthesized vertical intervals (always 5_6).21 in example 10, the widest and narrowest points have been extracted, revealing a surpris­ ingly regular rhythm of expansion and contraction. the widest intervals occur in mm. 2,4, 6, 8, and 10; four out of the five occur on the fourth minim beat. this kind of regular "breathing" breaks off for the cadential blocks, then recurs at a slower pace after the guide becomes the lower voice at the end of m. 16. this regularity sets the duo apart from the more 102 current musicology example 10: contrary motion in the opening duo. 10 11 12 13 14 15 / 3 (]]3 6 (]] ~~/=~ f c cad cad 16 17 18 19 20 21 3 ffids (ill 3 complex music to follow. 8) varied repetition of blocks. in section 3, a duo between the lower voices initially seems a counterpart to the opening duo between the upper voices. however, it is constructed according to entirely different principles. un­ like the opening duo, which is constantly developing new material, each voice here repeats two melodic fragments in alternation (a and b in brackets in ex. lla). the two fragments make a combination that is immediately inverted at the tenth, and then again at the tenth (vertical intervals have been labeled in ex. lla-the rhythmic alteration in the second a phrase avoids parallel fifths that would result from parallel sixths in the original) . each motive is transposed down a sixth and up a fifth. once willaert has sounded the first combination, he could splice b to a in ten different ways (any pair of intervals summing to eleven). one alternative splice (similar to those proposed for the schubert waltz) is shown in example 11 b, where the top voice moves down a fifth and the lower up a sixth. how is willaert's choice superior to ours? for one thing, moving the lower voice up a fifth allows him to tie the last note of a to the first note of b, creating more rhythmic variety and the illusion of seamlessness across the block boundary. this rhythmic elision is one rea­ son we barely notice that we are hearing the same combination of melo­ dies three times. also, since a down a seventh falls roughly into the same range as the original b and vice versa, willaert has chosen those transposipeter schubert 103 example lla: a block inverted at the tenth and reinverted. a b , ~ +5 b -6 a +5 a b example lib: an alternative splice between blocks. b a b a tions that least disturb the mysterious growling of the duo-each line in this section ends up covering a range of only a diminished fifth!22 9) the effect oflnganno on the countermelody. as we saw in example 4, the bass entry of the principal soggetto at m. 21 is a hybrid of the tenor and soprano (it begins like the tenor but continues like the soprano beginning at the fourth beat of m. 22). yet against both, willaert uses the same countermelody in the cantus, altering it to accommodate the new transpo104 current musicology example 12: inganno and the countermelody. b) f~ m.2! cantus -ei:. bass fa rni re ~ fami re sition level. these alterations create a surprising melodic effect, as i will show. the two versions have been aligned in example 12, where brackets enclose fragments of the cantus countermelody that make the same inter­ val progression against the bass. the registral placement of the three frag­ ments is revealing. the material under the first bracket is the same except that there is an extra octave between the parts because the bass is an oc­ tave lower than the corresponding tenor; in the second fragment, the bass is only a fifth below where the tenor was, and the cantus, instead of also going up a fourth, drops a fifth, so the vertical distance is the same as in the original; in the third fragment, the extra octave is restored. placing the cantus ej,-d an octave lower not only keeps the cantus in a reasonable range, it varies the overall cantus melody wonderfully. instead of hearing a descent from high b~ twice in a row (ex. 12a), it is as ifwillaert had inserted the relatively low ej,-d into the line (ex. 12b) before recap­ turing the high b~ for another descent at the end of m. 24, so that the second high b~ sounds delayed. the sleight-of-hand is possible because the opening line contains a repetition of fa-mi-re (shown under slurs). in the original (ex. 12a), it occurs in two different pitch locations, but in the new version, because it has to accommodate the inganno of the principal soggetto, it occurs in the same place.23 to drive the point home, willaert sounds bj,-a again over the beginning of the next entrance of the soggetto in the bass (mm. 25-26). 10) a harmonic signpost. the third section contains a recurring a three­ voice contrapuntal combination. it is two minims long and consists of two voices moving stepwise from a fifth to a third while the third voice skips a fifth down. (the combination has been marked at each occurrence in the appendix as double brackets labeled ri 5 .) the combination seems unrepeter schubert 105 example 13: harmonic signposts. i'j , 44 49 50 52 55 56 60 ~ -9 i '" '" -g j 1 i i i d j j j j j j j j . r i. i retro-~ade angmal . g inversion ongmal inversion retrograde transposition transposlt10n r5 markable at first, even "generic," but its transformations and deployment are suggestive. the combinations have been extracted in example 13. the prime forms (rl) frame the outer limits of an arch, and the transpositions (r2) the center. the center stands out prominently against the beginning and the end because of its tonal emphasis on re-la fifths (a-d skip and vertical g-d) as opposed to the ut-sol fifths in mm. 43 and 59 (g-c skip and vertical f-c). in the spaces between the outer limits and the middle we find other forms of the same combination loosely distributed, sometimes with voices shuffled (r3 s ). these forms are related to the original by the standard operations of inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion.24 the dif­ ferent forms of the contrapuntal signpost emerge smoothly from the nor­ mal series of motives because of puns on many two-note sub-motives: a4 is both a transposition of x and the inversion of c3 ; a3 and d2 are the same; and c2 and d1 are the same. conclusion three important general conclusions can be drawn from the foregoing discussion. one is that the different sections of the piece are distinguished not only by their soggetti, texture and cadences, but by the way the soggetti are deployed, by compositional techniques unique to each section. the first section, the long duo, is based on imitation that is constantly develop­ ing, not on a recurring soggetto. this section is divided into two sub-sec­ tions separated by repeating cadential blocks, and each sub-section is char­ acterized by a consistent widening and narrowing of the space between the parts. the second section introduces its own new, relatively long soggetto in a three-part texture. this soggetto repeats regularly in a murky duo in which the parts exchange material at regular time intervals, keeping within 106 current musicology a narrow range. the third section rotates five short soggetti and their submotives through many complex combinations, climaxing in the tele­ scoping of six submotives. another important conclusion is that it is precisely the featureless, "generic" nature ofwillaert's material that makes his motivic variation and recombination possible. the uniform melodic surface hides little fragments that are grouped into larger ideas (e.g.the fa-mi-remotive in ex. 12). once we have accepted that the lowest common denominator in this music is a mere two minims long, we can see how willaert assembles them into mo­ tives, and then how he makes puns on the sub-motives they contain. just as schubert tacked together one-measure motives with new harmonies, willaert is constantly varying the combinations of his short motives. finally, we must face the problem of how to realize the implications of such small-scale ideas in performance. just as the modulating middle sec­ tion of the schubert waltz offers opportunities for contrasting dynamics, color, rubato, and articulation, so do willaert's various gestures. it is the performer's task to find ways to reveal groups that have syntactic meaning. for instance, in the second section, to reveal the inverted blocks, one might allow a little lift between the end of motive b and the beginning of motive a, along with some kind of accent on the first note of a. similarly, glancing at the third section of this piece, we see an apparently undifferentiated march of minims. to reveal the climax in the tenor (ex. 8), the performer should make audible the two large upward swoops (rather than choosing, for instance, to group the last three notes of c' with the first two of a because they spell a g minor triad). in general, crescendo opportunities are offered by climax, by the "running start," by "telescoping," and by registral expansion;25 diminuendo opportunities are found at the ends of meaningful motives, at cadences, and in the broadening of the "time­ shifted" ostinato. willaert was one of the pioneers of the splicing techniques described here. they are not often found in the music of the josquin era, but they permeate the works of later masters such as palestrina and lassus. how­ ever, it was not only these technical innovations that earned willaert zarlino's admiration; it was also the expressivess and variety of his compo­ sitions. our appreciation of his music will be enhanced by understanding his brilliant technique and interpreting the expressive intentions behind it. notes to appendix the ricercar is divided into sections based on the traditional notions of peter schubert 107 appendix: adriano willaert, recercar quarto, mm. 1-16. see pp. llo-ll for full explanation of notation. " section 1 cantus ~, i t, -4' ',,-~ ',:.8 tenor i i i vertical intervals: 3 3 bassus -" -.; u -& i i " l! -.::r 7 -r t 3 [ill 5 iiqj : -" ~ u <-' ... , , "" , , , , , -5 , , " , , l! r;;; i· .. i 3 (6 5) ltid, (6 5),10 3 , -, : 1~ "climax" tj 7)i , , , , , , , , +8, , , , , " , , , ,+5 --, l! i i i (6 5) [[) 3 8 !ill 3 : 2 6 5 6 8 3 6 5 6 8 . ~3 __ repeating cadential blocks 108 current musicology appendix cont., illill. 17-32. 17 " u ~ /' .. / / / -/ -/ -/ / +4 / " / -~ i iiq) ic9 : 21 ic 12 fl u " i i " ~ i 3 : 25 fl u " i fl ~ i : i 29 " u "" ~ 1l ~ i : i +§---i 5 i i i -i i / i ~ (6 5) (lid (~) ?1 " i i i i i (~) (~) i i i n-'-., ~ i .. " i i i e-shifte~ appendix cont., mm. 33-48. 33 section 2 a ii tj u -~f &"" f\ ~ : 1 a 37 f\ u a b f\ ~ 1 1 : ~ b ~ a ic 10 41 -f., section 3 u "" f\ ~ ~ i i i -:::::= a l : ~ i b a 4~ ~ a l u u b l b' ii ~ c l 1 c .;::. c' .~ ~ i c a+ a' ~ i a' y---b'--i peter schubert 109 -9 ~ [i -------­iclo ~x &a:l a ~t::-. ~ ,i rl c r a l b l ~ ""~ -9'-../v c l c , '----u. a l '----------./ a l a' c1 a (~) a b a+ " a· b2 b c' c r3 f=== 1 "a3" a , a '-..../ c' g 110 current musicology appendix cont., idid. 49-61. 4j. ==l a l a 2 u '.....--(7 --:::::= 1\ a l ~ (i 1 (' ~ c' : " 'tt t 5~ d' , a l u '--------u~ 1\ a l ~ ~ a : 1'--;;4 e l 1 e' a e 5;" "a3" ~ u i -0 i i al 1\ a l ~ 1 d+ c ~ ~ ·n ~ : i (i i c2 e e a c a a 2 -=:c a4 , "" c2 =~l 1 b2 ~t--i=====j 2 r i ~ d l 1 e' , a l 1 a d+ a l a4 , d l d 2 ~ "-. ~ ~ '----' (i ~ c2 c )t::. 1 ~ e e l c , ~ ~ o'-v4 1 d l d' n. .~ ~ d l d 2 1 d ~ 14 d+ d' d' 1 1 a .---1-a2 c 1 (' characteristic soggetto and cadence. the first section (mm. 1-32) is domi­ nated by the same soggettto and ends with the first three-voice cadence (a cadence in m. 24 is evaded). the second section is characterized by a new soggetto (labeled a; labeling of soggetti begins anew in each new section), and ends with a cadence to b~ in m. 42. section 3 begins with a new soggetto peter schubert 1 11 a in the cantus (because this statement is time-shifted it is not the "nor­ mal" form of the tune and is not labeled); it ends with a three-voice ca­ dence to f in m. 6l. as in my article "a lesson from lassus," imitations are indicated with dotted lines connecting the first notes of the guide and consequent. when the pitch interval of imitation changes, a new dotted line appears with the new pitch interval of imitation (e.g., "-5" means imitation at the fifth be­ low). repeating blocks are indicated with brackets beneath the score and vertical intervals. invertible counterpoint is labeled "ic" with the interval of inversion (e.g., "iclo" means counterpoint inverted at the tenth). notes 1. robert judd notes the popularity of the music in its day, based on the number of editions, and cites some unfavorable judgments from musicologists. see the introduction to judd ([1551] 1994:xiii). 2. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "willaert" (by michele fromson). 3. another important scholar who has focused on tiny melodic bits is benito v. rivera. in a paper on willaert's "quando fra ie altre donne" given at the confer­ ence "ingenious repetition: form and expression in renaissance polyphony" (mcgill university, february 12-13, 2000), rivera concluded: "i direct my interest to imitatively recurring fragmentary, quasi-molecular, figures that are used to high­ light a particular word or group of syllables in a text. it is almost loosely analogous to pointilism, and i suggest that this is where listeners may find willaert's music very appealing indeed." 4. see artusi ([1603]1968:45-57). i have also cited examples from rodio and angleria; see schubert (1995: n.14). 5. "fuga est idemtitas partium cantus quo ad valorem, nomen, formam: et interdum quo ad locum notarum et pausarum suarum." 6. only example numbers, solmization syllables, and dotted lines have been added. 7. the series consisting of examples 1a-d illustrates a confusing mixture of melodic inversions and inganno. 8. zarlino's contrast of inganno with fuga legata suggests that legata means not only that the consequent is determined by the guide for the entire duration of the piece, but that mixing different types of fuga (e.g., changing transposition level, inserting inversion) is not allowed. 9. some composers have used inganno more freely, often disregarding accidentals. see, for example, haar (1975) harper (1978-79). but throughout this study i will maintain the strict meaning. 10. an alternative term for inganno is fuga in nome. 11. the figurative meaning of these words is also found in many sixteenth­ century italian treatises where the authentic modes are said to "ascend" above their finals, while the plagals "descend." see for instance lanfranco ([1533] 1970: 1 05, 1 07 [n .b. 107 is misnumbered as 117.]) however, it must be mentioned that some authors believed melodic descent to be characteristic of the plagal modes, 112 current musicology and ascen t of the authentic ones; see schubert (1991). 12. see jackson (1968) and (1971); haar (1975); harper (1978-79); ladewig (1987); newcomb (1991:x-xvii); sartorelli (1992); and trantham (1993-94). 13. the list is reprinted in pinker (2002:435). 14. the reader is invited to improvise the return to ai> from the resulting locations. 15. the fourth ricercaris transcribed in judd ([1551]1994:43-54). this ricercar was originally published two years earlier by giovanni tiburtino in fantesie, et recerchari a tre voci (1549). 16. see mattheson ([1739] 1981, iii:714), where he calls tonal answer "conciliatio modorum." 17. the concept of modally-determined ranges is expressed in zarlino's doc­ trine of "collateral" modes. see zarlino ([1558] 1965, n:31). zarlino's placing of clefs in example 1 suggests that he thought of inganno as a way of adapting a melody to fit in a different range or voice part. 18. this use of repetition is a bit like one of burmeister's meanings of the word pallilogia. benito rivera cites some examples of pallilogia from sixteenth-cen­ tury rhetorician melanchthon in connection with burmeister's use of the term. these examples contain repeated words at the end of a phrase, at the beginning, and between two phrases. rivera shows that burmeister changed his mind about what the term meant, and the musical examples of his latest thinking show direct repetition of a complete idea. in the examples that resemble a "running start," an incomplete phrase taken up again and intensified or completed, as in melanchthon's examples "the gaul, the gaul whose love ... " or "it cannot, it cannot, i say ... " see burmeister (1993:xvii-xx,179). 19. see my discussion of restrictions on direct repetition (2002:511). 20. i have labeled sub-motive c-b~ as c2 in example 7 because that is how it was most recently heard (mm. 51-52). thus the sub-motive gradually changes function. what we call these orphans is of course open to interpretation. 21. "blips" consisting of dissonance, like 4-3 suspensions, have not been noted. 22. the last note of soggetto b in m. 41 is altered (f replaces a) to better prepare the cadence to b~ and to foreshadow the soggetto of the third section. another imitative passage in which a motive repeats, varied by inganno and creat­ ing invertible counterpoint, has been labeled in the score-see mm. 16-18 in the appendix. 23. another example of repeating blocks, varied by inganno and combined with climax, has been labeled in the score-see mm. 12-15 in the appendix. 24. because these operations on combinations are not widely practiced, an explanation is in order. we can describe the inversion, for instance, in two ways (accidentals may be disregarded). 1) write the original on a single staff, hold the page up to the light, turn it over top to bottom, and look through the paper­ what shows is the inversion of the contrapuntal combination; 2) write the lowest line of the original (e-f) on top, and invert it melodically (blr-a); the second voice, a fifth above the lowest in the original, should be written a fifth below the highest and be melodically inverted (e-f); the third voice, a sixth above the middle voice, should be a sixth below the new middle voice and be melodically inverted (g-d). i am grateful tojon wild, christoph neidhofer, and anton vishio for their peter schubert 1 13 comments. 25. one need only read the diagonal lines in example 10 as crescendos and diminuendos. richard taruskin, directing his renaissance chorus capella nova, often asked for climaxes towards low extremes of register in the bass part. references artusi, giovanni maria. [1603] 1968. la seconda parte dellartusi overo delle imperfettioni della moderna musica. bologna: arnaldo forni. brown, d. e. 1991. human universals. new york: mcgraw-hill. burmeister, joachim. 1993. musical poetics, translated by benito v. rivera. new haven: yale university press. haar,james. 1975. a sixteenth-century hexachord composition. journal of music theory 19 (1): 32-45. harper, john. 1978-79. frescobaldi's early inganni and their background. pro­ ceedings of the royal musical association 105: 1-12. jackson, roland. 1968. the inganni and the keyboard music of trabaci.journal of the american musicological society 21 (2): 204-8. ---.1971. on frescobaldi's chromaticism and its background. musical quar­ terly 57 (2): 255-69. judd, robert, ed. [1551] 1994. italian instrumental music of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, vol. 2, adriano willaert, antonio barges . .. fantasie recercari contrapunti a tre voci. new york: garland. ladewig, james. 1987. the origins of frescobaldi's variation reappraised. in frescobaldi studies, edited by alexander silbiger, 235-68. durham, nc: duke university press. lanfranco, giovanni maria. [1533] 1970. scintille di musica. bologna: arnaldo forni. mattheson, johann. [1739] 1981. der vollkommene capellmeister, translated by e. harriss. ann arbor: university microfilms international. newcomb, anthony, ed. 1991. the ricercars of the bourdeney codex. middleton, wi: a-r editions. pinker, steven. 2002. the blank slate. new york: viking. sartorelli, fabio. 1992. la tecnica degli inganni nel primo libro delle fantasie a quattro di girolamo frescobaldi. analisi 3 (9): 20-32. schubert, peter. 1991. the fourteen mode system of illuminatoaiguino.journalof music theory 35 (3): 175-210. --. 1995. a lesson from lassus: form in the duos of 1577. music theory spectrum 17 (1): 1-26. --. 2002. counterpoint pedagogy in the renaissance. in the cambridge his­ tory of western music theory, edited by thomas christensen, 503-33. cambridge: cambridge university press. tinctoris, johannes. [1495] 1983. terminorum musicae diffinitorium: faksimilie der inkunabel treviso 1495. kassel: barenreiter. trantham, gene. 1993-94. an analytical approach to seventeenth-century mu­ sic. college music symposium 33-34: 70-92. zarlino, gioseffo. [1558] 1965. istitutioni harmoniche. new york: broude bros. ---. [1558] 1968. the art of counterpoint, translated by guy a. marco and claude palisca. new haven: yale university press. latinjazz: the other jazz by christopher washburne you have to tell it the long way. you have to tell about the people who make it, what they have inside them, what they're doing, what they're waiting for. then you begin to understand. -sidney bechet (1960:209) introduction since the mid-1940s the jazz scene in the united states has been gradu­ ally moving away from playing a significant role in mainstream popular culture to a more marginalized one, aligning itself with practices associ­ ated with western art music traditions. for jazz musicians, this shift from "popular" to "high art" status has proven advantageous in some respects, awarding an unprecedented level of respectability and increased recogni­ tion of artistic merit. this is particularly significant, though bittersweet, for many mrican american jazz innovators who after persevering for years through much racial strife, are finally receiving long overdue accolades. the road from brothels and speakeasys to lincoln center was a long and hard-fought one. l doors to institutional funding, concert halls, and uni­ versities (i.e., "the privileged white establishment") are open to the jazz world to an unprecedented extent. programs such as jazz at lincoln center certainly can be seen as a victory for those musicians and propo­ nents of jazz, such as john lewis, milt jackson, charles mingus, leonard feather, barry ulanov, stanley crouch, and albert murray, among others, who have demanded that the music be taken seriously and afforded a respectability absent in much of its history. however, on a more negative note, this alignment with art music tradi­ tions has been facilitated, in part, by the economic marginalization of jazz within the u.s. music scene. with the dwindling of performance venues and diminished market share in the record industry (present estimates range from 2 to 4%), like classical concert music styles, much of today's u.s. jazz scene has been forced to retreat to the concert hall, publicly funded venues, national public radio and television, college radio sta­ tions,2 a smattering of jazz clubs, european jazz festivals, and the ivory tower. for most young musicians, today's jazz education takes place in college classrooms and the school-affiliated ensembles that have replaced traditional institutions of jazz education (i.e., bandstands and jam ses­ sions).3 it is a great accomplishment that jazz is thought to be a serious current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 410 current musicology enough subject to be taught in universities, but this shift is indicative of jazz's financial struggles. economically, jazz music in the united states is barely an independently sustainable entity and frequently must be subsi­ dized to survive. the 1987 act of congress designating jazz "a rare and valuable national american treasure"4 worthy of support was an important acknowledgement of the art form, but it was also further proof that jazz was and is economically in trouble. along with newly-established jazz programs in colleges and concert halls has come a demand for jazz scholarship to both supply teaching ma­ terials and to determine a canon of "great works" to be preserved through performance. a subject worthy of study is also worthy of rigorous aca­ demic analysis and documentation, and accordingly, numerous doctoral dissertations in recent years have focused on jazz. no longer is the con­ struction of jazz historical narratives left primarily to musicians, journal­ ists, and critics; they are now also being written by trained scholars in musicology, ethnomusicology, history, and cultural studies. with the emergence of this new literature and strong institutional support, as well as the release of influential documentaries and compilations, such as ken burns's jazz and its spin-off recordings, we are at an important juncture in the construction of the jazz historical narrative. now is an opportune time, as the canon is being reconstructed, to stop and ask, what history is being written? what history is being unwritten? historically, latin music styles (i.e., caribbean and south and central american) have shared a common history with jazz, intersecting, cross in­ fluencing, and at times seeming inseparable, as both have played promi­ nent roles in each other's development. regardless, in much of the jazz literature, this role has been diminished or downright ignored. discus­ sions that include the names of significant latin jazz innovators, such as tito puente, mario bauza, chico o'farrill, frank "machi to" grillo, and others, are noticeably absent. this paper discusses these musicians' con­ spicuous omission-one of many, i might add-from the established jazz canon.5 it will explore possible reasons for their omission, examine what forces are at play in their continued exclusion, and attempt to identify what is at stake if they are included. the discussion begins with a definitional examination of "latin jazz." the long-standing relationship that latin and jazz styles have shared will then be historically traced. the discussion will proceed to the present, documenting the current state of latin jazz on the new york jazz scene with its recent resurgence in popularity and newly obtained prestige, and in contrast, will document its perpetual absence in past and more recent canonical works. i will then explore the unique dynamics involved in the relationship between latinjazz and the 'jazz tradition."6 christopher washburne 411 what is latin jazz? it was not until the mid-1940s, with the innovative work of dizzy gillespie, chano pozo, mario bauza, machito, stan kenton, and george russell, among others, that a separate stylistic label was deemed necessary to differentiate latin-influenced jazz from other jazz styles. previously, a separate sub-style category for latin-influenced jazz was not employed; in­ stead, a more specific terminology was used to delineate stylistic variations played by jazz groups. these often included the names of dances that were associated with a song's rhythmic structure, such as the quadrille, rumba, stomp, and tango. over time, these specific terms were used with less fre­ quency as jazz became less associated with dance, and by 1946, they were replaced by two broader labels: "cubop" and "latinjazz."7 in the mid-1940s the jazz climate was ripe for the invention of new la­ bels as musicians began using "bebop" or "rebop" to distance themselves from their swing forefathers. these new delineations, motivated by both musical and extra-musical factors, proved to be lines of contention drawn by the younger generation of jazz musicians who were seen as revolution­ ary in their musical and social vision (deveaux 1997). bebop musicians not only brought structural changes to the music, but also initiated shifts in how the music was generally perceived. they viewed themselves as artists and began making demands that their music be treated as art. in retrospect, this distinction would prove to be a significant step in moving jazz away from "popular" culture and closer to its present "high art" status. the "bebop" label accentuated this distinction and also served as a mar­ keting tool, one easily adopted by record companies to sell the latest musi­ cal trend. in some ways, bebop triggered a "label mania" in subsequent jazz historiography and marketing, where every few years new names were introduced: hard bop, cooljazz, free jazz, west coast jazz, etc. dizzy gillespie helped popularize the term "cubop" as a stylistic label, in part through his big band's acclaimed performance of the "afro­ cubano drums suite" with cuban percussionist chano pozo at carnegie hall on september 29, 1947. this concert, which featured the collabora­ tive works of pozo and gillespie (including "manteca") and included george russell's version of cubop, "cubano be cubano bop," is popu­ larly referred to as the birth of "latin jazz" (roberts 1999; delannoy 2001). indeed, the combination of this high profile concert event, the recordings that followed, gillespie's respected stature in the jazz world, and pozo's popularity among the new york latino population ensured that cuban music would continue to have an influential role in jazz for years to come. the term "cubop" itself, an elision of the words cuba and bebop, sym­ bolized a new type of musical integration. the music drew inspiration 412 current musicology equally from both styles to such a degree that it could no longer be la­ beled solely "bebop" or "cuban" music. the appellation aptly symbolizes the new equipollent level of cross-cultural musical integration that differ­ entiated the music from previous latin and jazz mixings (note the equal distribution of letters in this five lettered word, with two borrowed from each name along with the sharing of the middle letter "b"). the new man­ ner of mixing foregrounded, unadulterated, "authentic" cuban rhythms and styles (something rare in jazz up to that point) required jazz musi­ cians to develop a deeper understanding of and an unprecedented level of competency in cuban styles. as jazz musicians in subsequent years turned toward other latin music styles (most notably brazilian) for inspiration and musical mixings, the cubop name proved too limiting and was eventually replaced by the more geographically-inclusive "latin jazz." this has remained the sub-style's most frequently used label, referring to any jazz in which elements of latin american music are prominent. some, however, have objected to this reductive classification which groups musics derived from diverse tra­ ditions (cuban, brazilian, argentine, mexican, colombian, etc.) under one category.8 though the gillespie/pozo collaboration was brief (1946-48), due to pozo's untimely death, its influence on jazz history was profound. pozo be­ came a symbol of latino recognition in the jazz world; he established the conga drum's use in jazz settings (prior to 1946 it was included mostly as a novelty item), and he opened up opportunities for numerous latino percussionists to make significant contributions to jazz, such as mongo santamaria, ray barretto, sabli martinez, willie bobo, airto, and tito puente. gillespie's and pozo's compositional collaborations resulted in several latinjazz standards (e.g., "manteca" and "tin tin deo"). gillespie's stature in the jazz community legitimized and even demanded the incor­ poration of latin musical structures and principles into jazz music mak­ ing. latin jazz became an integral part of bebop where most players incor­ porated the rhythms and repertoire. some non-latino jazz musicians, like cal tjader, george shearing, and stan kenton, dedicated much of their professional energies to performing latin jazz. gillespie became an am­ bassador of sorts for the internationalization of jazz. he eventually visited cuba, performed on many state department tours, and for the last ten years of his life directed "the united nations big band," which featured mostly latino musicians. since the time of gillespie and pozo's initial col­ laboration, it has become rare to hear a jazz set without some form of latin influence. the emergence of the new style was caused in part by a growing pres­ ence of latino musicians participating on the new york jazz scene. throughout the 1930s and 1940s, cubans and puerto ricans immigrated christopher washburne 413 to spanish harlem in significant numbers, creating a greater demand for musicians competent in cuban and puerto rican styles (glasser 1995). many latino musicians who arrived at that time played with jazz groups. notable examples include puerto rican valve trombonist juan tizol, who performed with duke ellington; cuban bandleader frank "machi to" grillo, whose big band machito and his afro-cubans (formed in 1942) employed and collaborated with many non-latino jazz musicians, includ­ ing stan getz, stan kenton, dexter gordon, harry "sweets" edison, zoot sims, johnny griffin, buddy rich, and herbie mann; cuban trumpeter mario bauza, who played at the savoy ballroom with chick webb and later with cab calloway (bauza was integral in bringing pozo and gillespie together); and cuban flautist alberto socarras, who did session work for columbia records and performed in benny carter's band. simply put, the latino musicians' participation in the jazz scene in the '30s and '40s, and the exposure to latin music styles they brought to american jazz mu­ sicians, contributed to stylistic change in jazz. for instance, gillespie cred­ its his experimentation with cuban music to his friendship with bauza (gillespie 1979). stan kenton credits latin dance bandleader noro morales with inspiring his initial afro-cuban experiments, which comprised close to 25% of the arrangements in his book when he formed his rehearsal band in 1940 (roberts 1999). he later collaborated with machito and the percussionists from the afro-cubans on several recordings. even before the "birth of latin jazz" in 1947, jazz and latin music forms had already shared a cross-fertilizing relationship that reached back to prejazz styles. since jazz was connected to dance, jazz bands needed to perform music associated with the dance crazes of the day. for instance, along with foxtrots and lindies, tangos, rumbas, sambas, merengues, and congas were played. the extent to which bands incorporated latin rhythms and repertoire made demarcating a sub-style within jazz seem absurd. the music of the early jazz and swing eras can be classified stylistically on a jazz/latin continuum of sorts, where bands played music that ranged from straight swing numbers with little caribbean influence, to swing numbers with a certain degree of latin influence, to latin dance numbers with a certain degree of jazz influence, to straight ahead latin dance num­ bers. the terms cubop and latin jazz came to label a gray area that had existed since jazz's beginnings. gillespie and pozo's efforts, along with those of others, served to reinvigorate this long-term relationship. jazz ________ (latinjazz) ________ latin as jazz emerged from new orleans at the turn of the century, the city's caribbean culture served as one important component of the foundations of jazz, something which has been acknowledged by some musicians. most often noted is a comment made by jelly roll morton during an interview 414 current musicology in 1938 with alan lomax for his library of congress recordings: "if you can't manage to put tinges of spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, i call it, for jazz." at that time, "spanish" re­ ferred to music coming from any spanish-speaking region. a prominent performer and innovator throughout the early years of jazz, morton was a creole pianist from new orleans whose recordings are filled with rhythms associated with latin styles. however, he was not the first to comment on the "spanish tinge." in 1898 an mrican american composer, benjamin harney, published a book entided the ragtime instructor. in the introduc­ tion, he wrote that "ragtime or negro dance time originally takes its initia­ tive steps from spanish music, or rather from mexico, where it is known under the head and names of habanera, danza, seguidillo, etc." (quoted in roberts 1999:10). and even duke ellington commented in 1938, "when i came into the world, southern negroes were expressing their feelings in rhythmic 'blues' in which spanish syncopations had a part" (ellington 1938:14-18). as stated above, the early latin influence in jazz was most notably rhythmic, but it also effected the choice of repertoire. one illustrative ex­ ample is the "the peanut vendor." in 1930, don azpiazu and his havana casino orchestra performed at the palace theater in new york city. the group included a typical cuban percussion section (maracas, claves, bon­ gos, and timbales) and it was one of the first occasions where a main­ stream, non-hispanic, u.s. audience was exposed to an "authentic" cuban music performance. the success of that concert and rca victor's subse­ quent release of azpiazu's version of "the peanut vendor," the highlight of the performance, helped launch the rumba dance craze. "the peanut vendor" became yet another instance of jazz artists drawing on material from the popular music of the day. many jazz artists subsequendy per­ formed the piece and several were prompted to re-record the song within one year of its initial release, including ellington (1931), louis armstrong (1930), and red nichols (1931). regardless of the fact that its commercial appeal was due, in part, to an american obsession with the "exotic," this is one of numerous examples that illustrate the jazz/latin connection. "the peanut vendor" served to further entrench latin music in the jazz scene and provided groundwork for what would become known as "latin jazz." latin jazz in today's new york scene: prestige and omission within the last ten years there has been a growing latino presence in the new york jazz scene, due in part to a recent influx of cuban musi­ cians; to the 'prominence of musicians like panamanian pianist danilo perez and brazilian trumpeter claudio roditi, who have attained high re­ gard among the mainstream jazz community; and to the continued inter­ nationalization of the jazz economy, with burgeoning scenes thriving in christopher washburne 415 latin american and caribbean countries. this has led to a renewed inter­ est and resurgence in latin jazz, indications of which include: a massive reissuing of classic latin jazz recordings on cd (mirroring the jazz record­ ing industry trends);w the recording by major jazz labels of latin jazz records by well-known jazz artists not previously associated with latin styles-e.g., roy hargrove (1997) and charlie haden (2001); the publica­ tion of the latin real book, offering, according to the publisher, "detailed arrangements, exactly as recorded, to help your band play in authentic latin styles"; the new school jazz department's (1994) and manhattan school of music's (1999) hiring of percussionist bobby sanabria to direct an afro-cuban big band, in addition to their jazz big band; and the thelonious monk institute of jazz and the john f. kennedy center for the performing arts holding the international jazz hand drum competition in 2000, the first year in the competition's fourteen-year history that hand drums were included (most of the competitors were percussionists from the afro-cuban tradition). even lincoln center, which has earned a repu­ tation for upholding more traditional notions of the jazz canon, pro­ grammed tributes to latin jazz greats, including dizzy gillespie, chano pozo, machito, and tito puente.9 furthermore, at the time of this writing, there are plans for establishing a lincoln center afro-cuban big band led by arturo o'farrill. this renewed interest has further led to a push to con­ struct and record a historical narrative of this "other jazz." this has re­ sulted in the publication of two latin jazz histories (roberts 1999; delannoy 2001); the release of calle 54, a documentary film on latin jazz; and an exhibition constructed by the smithsonian institute, "latin jazz: la combinaci6n perfecta," which will be touring in the united states in the fall of 2002. regardless of these developments, only a few scholars have acknowl­ edged and explored jazz's afro-caribbean roots. martin williams pointed to the juxtaposition of creole and black culture in new orleans as provid­ ing the foundation of jazz (1970). ernest borneman (1969) boldly called for rethinking the historical studies of jazz by approaching it as an afro­ latin music tradition, based on the numerous recordings throughout jazz history that incorporate "creole beats" and "motifs" (e.g., songs with french and spanish titles). john storm roberts (1999) provides useful historical information documenting the interrelationships of latin music and music of the united states, and thomas fiehrer (1991) presents a strong histori­ cal and sociological case for the importance of creole culture in the for­ mulation of jazz. elsewhere, i have discussed how latin rhythms playa fundamental role in pre-1947 jazz styles (washburne 1997); ingrid monson has discussed their use in 1950s jazz styles (monson 2000). additionally, both juan flores (2000) and paul gilroy (1993) have questioned why caribbean contributions to african american musical forms are routinely 416 current musicology ignored. with the exception of the above writers, this connection remains relatively unexplored and omitted from most historical discussions. gary tomlinson writes: the jazz canon has been forged and maintained according to old strategies-eurocentric, hieran:hical notions behind which the rules of aestheticism, transcendentalism, and formalism are apparent .... the canon operates ... with little serious regard for the contexts in which cherished works were created and even less for those in which their meaning and value are continually discovered and revised. the jazz canon is a canon of the same serving a history of the same, and we have already lost sight of the partiality and impermanence of its structure of value. (1992:75-76) a brief examination of several influential canonical works demonstrates the pitfalls of the "same serving the same," with one cost being the omis­ sion of latin jazz. a monumental step in establishing a jazz canon of great works came by way of martin williams's 1973 compilation, the smithsonian collection of classic jazz (scc]). the long-term ramifications of the canon­ ization process set in motion by the smithsonian collection can be gauged by two frequently used college textbooks on jazz, by lewis porter and michael ullman (1993) and by mark gridley (1978), which coordi­ nate their discussions with the scc]. this alignment is a logical one be­ cause of the scc]'s commercial availability (until 2000, when it went out of print), which allowed students to purchase their own copies, easing the logistics of teaching a music course. but williams's choices reflected his own biases and no latin jazz selections or artists, with the exception of dizzy gillespie (not playing latin jazz), are included. porter, ullman, and gridley perpetuate his omission. of their nearly 500-page volume, porter and ullman devote only two paragraphs to gillespie's work with chano pozo and their latin jazz innovations (1993: 195) and bossa nova receives four pages of discussion. gridley is even more remiss devoting one para­ graph to the relationship of mro-cuban music and jazz (1978:154). in gridley's text, names such as puente and machito are entirely absent, and mongo santamaria is relegated to mention in a mere footnote. such dis­ missive treatment is significant because much of the younger generation relies on educational institutions for their exposure to jazz. if these names of latin jazz performers and their music are absent from the text, they are most likely not being taught at all, unless instructors are aware of and will­ ing to introduce supplementary texts and recordings. as a result, a jazz history without latin jazz is being perpetuated. a recent body of innovative scholarship has questioned old paradigms of jazz historical writing and offered valuable new approaches-for exchristopher washburne 417 ample, the ethnomusicological work of paul berliner (1994) and scott deveaux's (1997) social history of the birth of bebop-however, both fall short in their consideration of latin jazz artists. berliner's list of "inter­ viewed artists" does not include a single latino jazz musician, nor any mu­ sician who has dedicated much energy to playing latin jazz, with the ex­ ception of doc cheatham. likewise, deveaux neglects the innovative work by machito and other latin jazz musicians during the formative years of bebop. in spite of the value and innovation of these important contri­ butions to jazz writing, they too serve to foster the exclusion of latin jazz. also problematic was the most widely disseminated and heavily­ promoted documentary in jazz history, ken burns's controversial jazz, in which the almost total absence of discussions of the caribbean, latin jazz, or any latin jazz musician was disheartening. jazz critic peter watrous has commented, "i can't help but think how jazz writing is so provincial, the fact that ken burns's first segment says nothing about the caribbean demonstrates that and how big a role nationalism plays in the jazz scene" (personal communication). historian robin kelley has also discussed the nationalistic forces at work in burns's project. he writes that caribbean music and even mrican-infused jazz is omitted from burns's jazz because they "counter the film's burning assumptions: that jazz is exclusively american to be exported to the rest of the world as an advance guard in the struggle for democracy .... according to burns, jazz is not only the exclusive property of the united states, but it has been a premiere mani­ festation ofthis nation's democratic ethos" (kelley 2001:10). the popular media, radio, and other record industry structures have historically demonstrated a reluctance to embrace latino contributions to jazz and latin jazz in general, a practice somewhat still in place. for in­ stance, it was not until 1972, twenty years after chano pozo arrived in new york, that down beat magazine added a percussion category to its annual awards. one writer for that publication (who wished to remain anony­ mous) commented, "throughout the 1980s and 1990s, for some reason if the record wasn't straight-ahead they would penalize it. for instance, every time i would review an eddie palmieri record and give it five stars, they would publish the review with only four stars. they would only occasion­ ally let me write articles on latin jazz players. but i could never figure out why they did that with the star rating" (personal communication). it was not until the 1990s that the "latin jazz" category was instituted at the grammy awards. and according to awilda rivera, dj at new york city's main jazz radio station, wbgo, the station's long-standing policy was that no more than one latin jazz cut could be played per hour. it was not until 1999, when she acquired the nightly jazz show, that she was able to influence a programming change-reflecting in part a personal inter­ est in her own puerto rican heritage. now, two or three cuts can be 418 current musicology played per hour. she proudly stated, "they listened to me and the pro­ gramming department has now changed its policy. now i can interview you and others that play latin jazz on nights that were always reserved for straight-ahead styles. it broadens the audience for latino musicians" (personal communication). so, why is latin jazz omitted from the canon? latin songs were incorporated into the repertoire of most jazz groups of the 1930s. the savoy ballroom and other new york venues advertised dances featuring rumba bands, swing bands, and groups that played both. commenting on his six-month engagement at roseland in 1936, woody herman related, "the blues were the best thing we knew how to play, but we had to do a lot of fighting to play them. the management preferred we play mostly dance music-foxtrots, rumbas, and waltzes-to satisfy the dancers" (roberts 1999:44). latin dance bands included swing numbers in their sets as well. the ease with which these disparate dances were accommodated by musicians of the era is telling. but, the recorded history of jazz is deceptive when it comes to reflect­ ing this cross-stylistic performance practice. jazz groups tended not to record many latin numbers because latin groups were recording them, and vice versa. recorded repertory thus appears more segregated than what was actually being played on the bandstand. (how many of those re­ quired rumbas did herman record in 1936? none!) this points to one cause of latin music's diminished role in jazz histories: if historical narra­ tives are constructed through the study of recordings (a la schuller 1968, 1989), then the role of latin music is distorted, or even missed. even when latin-influenced jazz recordings are examined, historians of recorded jazz are disadvantaged by past prejudices held by the jazz indus­ try. due to the exoticism associated with latin music in the united states in the 1930s and' 40s, promulgated by the media and through performers like desi arnaz and carmen miranda, latin-influenced jazz was often viewed more as a novelty than as a serious musical venture. latin percus­ sionists, considered ancillary, were seldom given credit in liner notes throughout the 1930s and the early part of the 1940s. for instance, on louis armstrong's version of "the peanut vendor" (1930), all musicians are listed except those playing percussion. likewise, on cab calloway's 1940 recording of "goin' conga" (okeh), despite being the first jazz recording that features an extended percussion solo, no credit is given to the soloist or accompanying percussionist. the fact that an established jazz musician, mario bauza, was playing maracas (allejandro rodriguez soloed on the bongos) pointedly illustrates the jazz industry's disdainful views. when bauza played trumpet, on the other hand, he was rarely omitted from liner credits.1° in the context of these prevailing attitudes, it becomes christopher washburne 419 evident how important the efforts of gillespie, kenton, and others were in calling for proper recognition of latin musicians whose participation and musical traditions were integral in the making of the music. after the 1940s, latin musicians were indeed credited equally with more frequency. in some ways, gillespie's insistence on the "cubop" label was the worst thing that could have happened to latin jazz's prospects for incorpora­ tion into the canon because it began a move that distanced the music from the mainstream, if only by way of terminology, and relegated it as a sub-style. this new label has proven divisive when certain musicians, for exclusionary purposes, were characterized as "latin jazzers" as others were labeled "beboppers" or "swing musicians." latin jazz has been systemati­ cally "ghetto-ized" ever since, evidenced by its separate grammy category and radio programming. this stylistic pigeonholing has little to do with what jazz musicians actually played, but it still persists in the press, in the recording industry, and even among musicians. is gillespie a bebopper or latin jazzer? the answer is obvious: he is a great musician and jazz is a style of music that has since its inception incorporated a wide range of in­ fluences. as jerome harris writes, "the history of jazz supplies an open­ ness, for jazz has been a syncretic art from the beginning ... the incorpo­ ration of influences from nonjazz musics by jazz is quite substantial and it's likely to continue to be significant" (2000:116). paul berliner concurs: 'just as jazz was born from an amalgam of african, european, and african american musical elements, it has continued the practice of absorbing dif­ ferent musical influences. jazz remains a characteristically open music sys­ tem capable of absorbing new traits without sacrificing its identity" (1994:489-90). regardless of jazz's openness to new sources of influence and its long interrelationship with latin styles, the marginalization of latin jazz and latin jazz artists persists. the canonization process itself, which privileges preservation and re­ quires the delineation of a tradition in which to preserve, is fraught with inherent difficulties. since all historical texts are economies of truth (in foucault's sense), what gets economized is motivated by a complex set of factors. canonization presents a wholesale transference of nonjazz con­ cepts to the study of the music. what it often does not allow space for is the internationalization of the jazz scene and the multiplicities that jazz encompasses. in fact, the "canon" resists or attempts to expel ambiva­ lences in the definitorial field in order to create a unified narrative, which will not allow for heterogeneous trails of origin. in this context, canon building undermines the internationalization of jazz to avoid the disem­ powerment of the african american jazz legacy, or an american jazz legacy. jerome harris deftly identifies two positions taken by writers and musi­ cians. the first of these he labels the "canon position," where jazz is seen 420 current musicology as a music defined by a specific african american-originated canon and socially constituted guild. the second stance, the "process position," views jazz as the result of certain african american-originated processes and aes­ thetics manifested in the music (harris 2000:121). both are slightly prob­ lematic in their essentialism, although the latter constitutes a more porous, open-ended approach to the tradition, providing room for non­ african american contributors and innovators. the canon position is strategic because it defines jazz as a sort of endangered species and ele­ vates it to high art status, which as a result brings higher visibility and even a small, but significant, economic boost (e.g., burns'sjazz). when the jazz tradition is viewed more as a process, individual musicians are empowered to innovate through a much broader spectrum of media forces than is the case within the strictly canon-based conception of jazz as an "establish­ ment." in reality, most musicians operate somewhere between these two positions. travis jackson has explored the elasticity with which musicians bounce between these divergent strategies in order to provide definitions that best serve their needs (2001:52-54). latin jazz necessarily straddles the "canon" and "process" positions be­ cause of its constitutive role in early jazz and its use as a continual source for experimentation in the internationalization of the jazz scene. and it is this duality of positions that prevents and postpones its acceptance into the canon. for many in the jazz establishment (i.e., the community of jazz musicians, promoters, educators, writers, djs, industry people, and con­ sumers), latin jazz represents something alien, a continual disruption, which is paradoxical precisely because it shares a common origin with mainstream jazz, yet has undergone several stages of disassociation along the road. borrowing a physics metaphor from the trans-linguistic science of mikhail bakhtin (1986), one could define the impact of latin jazz on the mainstream tradition as one of centripetal (unifying) and centrifugal (dispersing or disseminating) forces respectively, constantly replaying this theme of participation without belonging. every time it comes back to knock on the door, it unsettles the tradition and it creates ambivalence. most visibly, the centrifugal dynamics inherent in latin jazz serve to promote a heterogeneous texture in the music allowing for individual mu­ sicians to explore a wide variety of styles that resist the singular aesthetics of the canon and promote globalization and internationalization. latin jazz explicitly invites the participation of other non-african american cul­ tures in jazz, as such possessing a transformational engine feeding off an ambivalence regarding musical and cultural affiliations. in other words, the latin presence in jazz history complicates the black/white dichotomy of racial politics in the united states jazz scene. conversely, an occasion where latin music served as a centripetal force onjazz was the emergence of cubop. cubans coming to new york in the christopher washburne 421 1930s and' 40s were steeped in the philosophies and sentiments associated with the negritude movement. this was an intellectual movement that was promulgated in cuba by the writings of fernando ortiz and nicolas guillen, which encouraged the exploration of the mrican roots of their culture, taking pride in their mrican heritage, and accentuating mrican elements in their arts and religion. the influence of these ideas is evident in the name that machito chose for his new york band: the "mro-cubans." chano pozo was also a key figure in introducing this mro-centric sensibil­ ity to the new york jazz world. a consummate performer who possessed a comprehensive knowledge of both sacred and secular cuban styles, pozo introduced the american jazz scene to the deep spirituality essential to so many cuban music styles and absent in the novelty approaches to latin jazz of previous eras. pozo's vocal interjections in mrican languages, his use of mro-cuban religious musics tied to his abakwa beliefs (an mrica­ derived religion practiced in cuba), and his playing of an instrument that originated in mrica (the conga drum) gave mrican american jazz musi­ cians a direct connection, by way of cuba, to an mrican homeland that res­ onated with the burgeoning civil rights movement ofthe mid-1940s. the fact that cubop's emergence coincides with political interest in the mrican diaspora in new york is not coincidental. this is evident in gillespie's comments concerning his inability to speak spanish and pozo's poor english skills. he claimed it didn't matter because they spoke a com­ mon language: "mrican" (quoted in santoro 2000:527). gillespie's explo­ rations into mro-cuban musics were explorations into his own roots: "i found the connections between mro-cuban and mrican music and dis­ covered the identity of our music in theirs" (gillespie 1979:290). as an mrican diasporic consciousness grew in the 1940s and '50s among jazz musicians-as well as an urge to articulate that consciousness in the music -mro-cuban musical traditions became central to the process of triangu­ lating between mrica and mrican america (monson 2000: 17). musicians such as art blakey and max roach, both of whom credit pozo and machito for introducing them to mro-cuban styles, adapted mro-caribbean rhythms to the drum set and incorporated them in jazz settings. l1 throughout his career, blakey used mro-caribbean rhythms as referential expressions of mrica. indeed, many of his albums that have mrican themes, such as the african beat (1962), holiday for skins (1958), and orgy in rhythm (1957), express that mrican-ness through the incorporation of mro-cuban rhythms and, following in the pozo/gillespie tradition, in­ clude collaborations with mro-cuban percussionists sabli martinez and carlos "patato" valdez. regardless, some musicians have been reticent to embrace cuba's inte­ gral role in the articulation of an mrican consciousness and, by extension, an added racial dimension in jazz. for instance, when discussing count 422 current musicology basie's use of caribbean rhythms, trombonist and basie alumnus benny powell adamantly denied any connection to the caribbean, stating that those rhythms are mrican (see washburne 1997). powell's long associa­ tion with randy weston, a musician who has extensively explored his mrican roots in jazz, must certainly have colored his response. david murray, speaking of his work with senegalese musicians stated, ''i'm not interested in going to cuba and mixing, i mean that's been done. i'm not from cuba; i'm from somewhere in mrica. i'd just like to find that place and know that i've touched home."12 it seems clear that part of cuba's appeal in gillespie's search for mrican roots was access. in the 1940s it was much easier to interact with cuba than with mrican nations, especially since many cuban musicians were living and working in new york city. today, senegalese musicians are accessible, and for murray they represent a more "authentic" home­ land. cuban musicians are no longer needed as mediators for that purpose and in some ways have been discarded for a "closer to the roots" connec­ tion. with the exception of monson, few writers have explored the role of cuban musicians and music styles when discussing this sensitive and racially charged topic. the questions that need to be asked are: how does acknowledging a caribbean component in jazz affect those who wish to accentuate the mricanisms and/or mrican americanisms in the music? how does it affect those who adopt a nationalist stance and focus on the americanisms? without the acknowledgement of its centripetal possibili­ ties, latin jazz will be seen as a purely disrupting force and therefore a threat to the mrican american jazz legacy. those wishing to promote that legacy will ensure latin jazz remains outside of the canon. jerome harris discusses the anger that mrican americans feel concern­ ing their underrepresentation in the jazz industry, arguing that "it is not surprising that some mrican americans have become vested in a defini­ tion of jazz (also held by some whites) as a cultural form in which no non­ mrican american can validly participate" (2000:118). and asjazz becomes less relevant in everyday mrican american life, with more non-black per­ formers and non-americans in the industry, "the pangs of dislocation that [these trends] engender could well increase for some of the jazz commu­ nity, putting more pressure on their narrow definitions of jazz and their exclusionist sense of cultural identity" (ibid.:120). those associated with jazz at lincoln center, for example, have discovered that the canon posi­ tion, which endows jazz with high art status, also provides access to large portions of public funds previously reserved for western art music tradi­ tions. narrowing their definition of jazz allows them to claim it as their own, and in some ways this exclusionist approach plays into predeter­ mined structures in the united states public funding infrastructure. since christopher washburne 423 funds are scarce and the jazz economy is dwindling, a protectionist atmos­ phere is encouraged by those who are presently funded. a rise in the popu­ lar appeal of latin jazz in recent years presents a threat to this fragile bal­ ance of the jazz economy, creating an even greater need to continue the marginalization of latin jazz. i3 latin jazz presents another clash with the canon position because, un­ like other newer jazz styles, it has maintained a close connection with dance, as performances frequently include audience dance participation. jazz's newly-attained high art status, which brings with it european­ derived listening practices, is somewhat at odds with this dance component -they are not dancing in the aisles of lincoln center or carnegie hall. in fact, tito puente's contract for his last performance in carnegie hall specifically stated that dancing was strictly forbidden in the aisles, due to a fire regulation. in protest, puente made sure to announce the presence of this clause, adding that he felt it was absurd to listen to his music without dancing. this compelled several members of the audience to stand up and dance to his music. they were expeditiously berated by ushers with threats of expulsion. since dancing has been divorced from most jazz perform­ ance for so long, this dance connection can create confusion among latin jazz outsiders, pushing some to ask if the music can be classified as jazz at all. conclusionary remarks in discussing jazz at lincoln center, robert o'meally (2001) observed that "its philosophy-that jazz is a black yet distinctly american art form­ is taken directly from the [ralph] ellison canon." in light of the thriving european, japanese, south american, and caribbean jazz scenes, it is ob­ vious that jazz has long ago broken out of the american borders. the beauty of jazz expression is that it can be adapted in so many contexts. that has been its nature from the beginning, as it has inherited a flexibil­ ity and ope ness from the african american culture from which it blos­ somed. promoter george wein stated, "no europe, no jazz," when com­ menting on jazz's economic reliance for survival on overseas markets (nicholson 2001:28). wein was making reference to art blakey's "no america, no jazz" comment, which blakey followed with, "we are a mul­ tiracial society" (taylor 1993:242). this raises the question of what "america" encompasses in the definition of jazz. i don't think that a "no latin america, no jazz" position is productive. but without the influence of latin styles and musicians, jazz would certainly sound different. why not acknowledge this? as sidney bechet stated, a diversity of voices needs to be heard and acknowledged. they need to reflect the diversity of those who created the music, those who innovated, and those who continue to make the music. 424 current musicology notes 1. it is important to note that in the 1940s jazz was programmed with some reg­ ularity in concert hall settings. examples include the ellington series at carnegie hall that began in 1943 and dizzy gillespie's performances at both carnegie and town halls in 1947. also, norman granz's 'jazz at the philharmonic" started in 1946. during those times, however, jazz did not attain the same level of institu­ tional support that it has recently received. 2. as of 1996 there were less than one hundred stations in the u.s. playing twenty hours or more of jazz per week. few are commercial stations (harris 2000:112). 3. the first collegiate jazz education program was founded by gene hall at north texas state university in 1947. although this program served as a model for others, similar programs did not proliferate until much later. 4. house concurrent resolution 57, 100th congress, 1st session, september 23,1987. 5. what i mean by the "established jazz canon" is the core body of jazz history texts and recordings that are used for teaching and researching. 6. see deveaux (1991) for a definitional discussion of the 'jazz tradition." 7. similarly, terms such as foxtrot, stomp, etc., were used with less frequency, falling under the larger category of swing. 8. musicians like percussionists tito puente and bobby sanabria often refer to their music as "mro-cuban" jazz in order to specify its origins. 9. the latest, the "latin tinge" concert, took place on may 5, 2001. 10. personal communication with bauza's drummer, bobby sanabria, 2000. 11. personal communication with both blakey and roach, 1989. 12. david murray in an unpublished interview with tim mangin, 2000. 13. latinjazz's recent resurgence has prompted even marsalis to program trib­ utes to machito, and, in a more symbolic gesture, perform parts written for dizzy gillespie in chico o'farrill's afro-cuban suite at o'farrill's funeral in july 2000. references bakhtin, mikhail. 1986. speech genres and other late essays. edited by caryl emerson and michael holquist. austin: university of texas press. bechet, sidney. 1960. treat it gentle: an autobiography. london: cassell. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago: university of chicago press. borneman, ernest. 1959a. creole echoes. jazz review (september): 13-15. ---. 1959b. creole echoes: part ii. jazz review (november): 26-27. ---. 1969.jazz and the creole tradition. jazzforschung/ jazz research 1: 99-112. delannoy, luc. 2001. caliente: una historia del jazz latino. mexico: fondo de cultura economica. deveaux, scott. 1991. constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography. black american literature forum 25: 525-60. ---. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley: university of california press. christopher washburne 425 ellington, duke. 1938. music is 'tops" to you and me ... and swing is a part ofit. tops (no issue): l4-18. fiehrer, thomas. 1991. from quadrille to stomp: the creole origins of jazz. popular music 10: 21-38. flores, juan. 2000. from bomba to hip hop: puerto rican culture and latino identity. new york: columbia university press. gabbard, krin. 1995. the jazz canon and its consequences. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 1-28. durham, n.c.: duke university press. gillespie, dizzy, with ai fraser. 1979. to be or not to bop: memoirs of dizzy gillespie. new york: da capo. gilroy, paul. 1993. the black atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cam­ bridge, mass.: harvard university press. glasser, ruth. 1995. my music is my flag: puerto rican musicians and their new york communities, 1917-1940. berkeley: university of california press. gridley, mark c. 1978. jazz styles: history and analysis. 2d. ed. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice-hall. harris, jerome. 2000. jazz on the global stage. in the african diaspora: a musical perspective, edited by ingrid monson, 103-34. new york: garland. kelley, robin d. g. 2001. in a mist: thoughts on ken burns's jazz. i.s.a.m. newsletter30, no. 2 (spring): 8-15. jackson, travis. 2001. jazz performance as ritual: the blues aesthetic and the mrican diaspora. in the african diaspora: a musical perspective, edited by ingrid monson, 23-82. new york: garland. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: university of chicago press. ---. 2000. introduction. the african diaspora: a musical perspective, edited by ingrid monson, 1-19. new york: garland. nicholson, stuart. 2001. europeans cut in with a new jazz sound and beat. new york times (june 3): sec. 2, pp. 1,28. o'meally, robert g. 2001. he inspired jazz in the concert hall. new york times (may 27): sec. 2, p. 20. porter, lewis, and michael ullman, with ed hazell. 1993. jazz: from its origins to the present. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice-hall. roberts, john storm. 1979. the latin tinge: the impact of latin american music on the united states. new york: oxford university press. ---.1999. latinjazz: the first of the fusions, 1880s to today. new york: schirmer. santoro, gene. 2000. latin jazz. in the oxford companion to jazz, edited by bill kirchner, 522-33. new york: oxford university press. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and musical development. new york: oxford university press. ---.1989. the swing era, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. taylor, arthur. 1993. notes and tones: musician-to-musician interoiews. new york: da capo. thompson, e. p. 1977. folklore, anthropology, and social history. indian historical review 2: 247-66. 426 current musicology tomlinson, gary. 1992. cultural dialogics and jazz: a white historian signifies. in disciplining music: musicology and its canons, edited by katherine bergeron and philip bohlman, 66-94. chicago: university of chicago press. walser, robert, ed. 1999. keeping time: readings injazz history. new york: oxford university press. washburne, christopher. 1997. the clave of jazz: a caribbean contribution to the rhythmic foundation of an african-american music. black music research journal 17: 59-80. williams, martin t. 1970. the jazz tradition. new york: oxford university press. discography louis armstrong and his orchestra. 1930. "the peanut vendor" (december 23). okeh 41478. don azpiazu and his havana casino orchestra. 1930. "the peanut vendor" (september). rca victor. art blakey. 1957. orgy in rhythm, vols. 1-2 (march 7). blue note asin: b000005h98. --. 1958. holiday for skins, vols. 1-2 (november 9). emi/blue note asin: b000025afm/b000025afp. ---. 1962. the african beat (january 24). blue note records asin: b0000420qy. cab calloway and his orchestra. 1940. "goin' conga" (august 28). okeh 5911. duke ellington and his orchestra. 1931. "the peanut vendor" (january 20). melody m12080. dizzy gillespie and chano pozo. 1947. dizzy gillespie and his legendary big band live at carnegie hall 1947 (september 29). artistry arlio. charlie haden. 2001. nocturne (april 17). universal asin: b00005aori. roy hargrove. 1997. habana (june 3). polygram records asin: b0000047ev. red nichols and his five pennies. 1931. "the peanut vendor" (january 23). brunswick 6035. musical platonism in modern culture by edmund j goehring " ... a poet, if he is to be a poet, must compose fables, not arguments." (plato phaedo 6lb) not too long ago, the atlantic monthly, one of the better-known organs of modern culture and thinking about it, ran a commentary on music in con­ temporary society by the art critic jody bottum. the main objective of "the soundtracking of america" (march 2000) is to topple music from its present-day position of cultural supremacy. bottum contends that music does not deserve its place of superiority over the poetic arts, in particular, because it is intellectually barren. incapable of generating meaning with­ out help from elsewhere, music must latch on to an external, largely ver­ bal system of beliefs for it to have coherence or utility. without such moor­ ings, music becomes a destabilizing force in society. the desire to restore music to its old subservience to poetry, a position it has not held for some two centuries, resonates strongly in many circles of contemporary social/political thought, including academic ones. not only are bottum's concerns related to ongoing questions about music's place among the other arts; more broadly, they draw on a larger academic debate about the ability of any individual discipline, not just music, to gen­ erate its own meaning. the purpose of the present essay is to examine the sources and implications of this modern effort to explain music through external, non-musical standards. first, it will excavate the philosophical roots of this anti-musical prejudice. here, the argument will be that the move to circumscribe music within the ambit of the verbal arts or a philo­ sophical system turns on a specific reading-or, more likely, a misread­ ing-of platonic thought. approaching music in this way leads both to errors about the general nature of music and also to misinterpretations of specific works. second, this essay will suggest that there are other, more compelling ways of conceiving music, including ones that grant music au­ tonomy from external standards without a loss of intelligibility or mean­ ingfulness. bottum's argument about music turns on two axes: an observation about its current use and a judgment about music itself. the observation is that music today-specifically, music fragmented into clips of sound-furrows current musicology. no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 186 current musicology into our public spaces and our private lives. this practice causes harm, bottum argues, because such fragments score our individual and collec­ tive psyches. many might indeed sympathize with bottum and, like him, want to scurry for cover from this deluge of sonic shrapnel. but then his reasoning takes an awkward turn as it goes from observation to theoriza­ tion; that is, as bottum consciously exchanges the role of cultural observer for that of philosopher about music. if presented with a line-up of sus­ pected saboteurs of music, many might finger a consumerist society as a main culprit in this act of fragmentation. bottum, instead, blames the cul­ tural misuse of music on music itself. here is one version of his striking claim that music itself causes moral decay: "people began to imagine that morality was a set of feelings rather than a system of ideas at around the time they began to be able to evoke any mood they wanted by putting a 78 on a phonograph" (58).1 our putative modern moral decline coincided with-was even caused by-the arrival of the record player. what is the philosophical grounding for this claim? although he does not acknowledge it explicitly, the deepest influence is a specific vision of platonism. platonism is an unruly term, and a good first step in getting a grasp on bottum's adaptation of it is to note that platonism can be very different from what plato actually says (a point that will return below). but at least one element of bottum's aesthetics is a common feature of pla­ tonic thought, and that is idealism. platonic idealism holds that the mate­ rial world is a mere image of the eternal, perfect realm of ideas, ideas that exist independently of the visible world. in this ontology, an idea and its representation constitute two different things, and this dualism carries important consequences for a theory of art. for if an idea is conceived as both distinct from and superior to its image, then music, or any artistic medium for that matter, must attach itself to ideas if it is to be coherent or purposeful. otherwise, art will please, but not instruct; it will move the listener, but not to any higher ethical purpose or vision. it will create an effect, but without a commensurate cause. so, it is platonic dualism that provides the intellectual framework by which bottum can criticize music for its misuse: without an idea to attach itself to, music becomes aimless, like a planet without a sun around which to orbit. from this exposition of platonist aesthetics, one might wonder why music would be singled out for special rebuke. wouldn't any art be equally corrosive were it to avert its eyes from that external, transcendent stan­ dard? much of the argument rides on how one interprets the term "idea." in bottum's view, "idea" is identical with "word." this equation helps to explain, for example, why he wants poetry restored to its earlier supremacy among the arts (a position that aesthetics and popular culture had ceded to music around the end of the eighteenth century). unlike music, verbal edmund]' goehring 187 idioms like narrative, epic, and allegory belong to what bottum calls the "explanatory arts" (59). the phrase "explanatory arts" shows bottum's com­ mitment to logocentrism in the arts, yet it is an unfortunate expression, because it shows a limited understanding of poetry, not to mention music. the phrase also marks an important instance in which bottum's platonism loses sight of what plato actually says. from a more authentically platonic view, words, like sounds, do not exist in the realm of ideas: both are im­ ages, hazy representations of pure ideas. (the platonic argument that writ­ ing impedes the genuine internalization of wisdom is most dramatically expressed toward the end of the phaedrus, in socrates' telling of the tale of theuth.) but in bottum's variant on platonic thought, words get associ­ ated with the rational faculty, music with unruly passion. hence bottum's claim that "music is not a rational art and cannot express an actual idea" (64). this is a common sentiment about music. it penetrates deeply into western aesthetics, and, whether or not it gets its plato right, thought like bottum's has often been traced to platonic dualism and ascribed to think­ ers steeped in plato. augustine offers an obvious early example of a platonist who wrestled with music as an expression of the corruptible and the ephem­ eral. to be sure, augustine shows a welcome ambivalence toward music (a virtue mostly lacking in bottum's rigid platonism),2 but he ultimately as­ signs music only an ancillary role in a spiritual life. at its best, music can be a useful tool for aiding weak minds in the contemplation of divine words. although just about everything else in an augustinian cosmology also lacks such intrinsic value, music stands out as an especially treacherous art. as augustine puts it in the confessions, music can paralyze the mind by gratify­ ing the senses (10.33). the view of music as an evil, or at least as something incapable of goodness without proper regulation or orientation, prevailed for well more than a millennium after augustine, in secular as well as ecclesiastical circles. even in the eighteenth century, a time when instrumental music began to liberate itself from theoretical and practical dependence on poetry, platonism of this sort maintained a robust presence. rousseau notoriously likened instrumental music to an incompetent representational painting, which needs subtitles to explain it: this is a tree, this is a horse (1767). kant also ranked instrumental music below vocal music in value. it is just enter­ tainment, he opines, because it allows for the contemplation ofform only, not of ideas (1790: 1.1.2 §53). joseph addison gives a useful summary of this line of thought when he argues that music does not deduce principles from itself but from general principles of taste. music, or any other art, conforms to taste, an external standard, not taste to music (1711). indeed, addison'sjudgment closely resembles bottum's own assertion that "music 188 current musicology produces its effect without demanding a philosophical frame" (64). this hierarchical view of knowledge reaches well beyond inquiry into a sensuous medium like music. one of its more recent manifestations in public discourse is in the area of higher education. taking a moment to look at how it influences debates about a liberal education can set into relief the premises and priorities of bottum's thinking about music. for example, alasdair macintyre, whose thought influences bottum's in other contexts, recently argued that an individual discipline cannot answer ques­ tions of its own significance. be it a member of the arts or the sciences, any specialized area of inquiry needs the lens of philosophy (or theology) to correct its congenital myopia.3 macintyre's thought in turn draws on that of john henry newman. from the premise that "all knowledge forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one," newman posits the need for a special discipline or habit of thought that can set the proper boundaries for these discrete areas of inquiry: the comprehension of the bearings of one science on another, and the use of each to each, and the location and limitation and adjustment and due appreciation of them all, one with another, this belongs, i conceive, to a sort of science distinct from all of them, and in some sense a science of sciences, which is my own conception of what is meant by philosophy, in the true sense of the word, and of a philosophical habit of mind. (1982:38) philosophy, so conceived, resembles a benevolent version of to ike in's one ring, which brings in all of the disciplines and binds them together. to turn back to thinking about music within this framework, bottum's distinction between representation and idea takes the form of a lament. music in the modern world occasions moral decay because it is now untethered from what he calls a "public metaphysics-a shared belief in the coherent relations among god and nature and human culture" (64). bottum's plaint has two aspects-a historical and an ideological one. there was a time, he asserts, when things were better, and they were better not because music itself was a different sort of thing then, but because a meta­ physical framework was in place to give music coherence. bottum's argu­ ment is problematic on both the historical and internal grounds. in for­ mulating an objection to the nostalgic side of his argument, one could start by asking: where was this "public metaphysics," this "shared belief in the coherent relations among god and nature and human culture"? bottum's argument never ventures out to give the content of this public metaphysics: it stays in the safe harbor of generalities. (nor does macintyre say what his philosophically grounded curriculum would look like.) he edmund j. goehring 189 does, however, tell us which works exemplify this shared belief: the saint matthew passion, for example, or the messiah, or beethoven's ninth sym­ phony. all are large works, generally public in posture, and have some kind of religious connotation. but although they are public in this loose sense (as opposed, say, to the more private world of chamber music or the intimate one of the romantic character piece), even a casual look at these pieces shows that, if they are "saying" anything at all, they do so in a way that differentiates and discriminates, as opposed to expressing a shared public metaphysics. take handel's messiah. today it accompanies any number of public ceremonies, whether sacred or secular. but charlesjennens, the author of the text (which handel took without alteration), conceived the messiah as an attack on specific factions of religious thought, especially dissenters, deists, and anti-clerics, in defense of a more orthodox view of christian­ ity.4 the existence of the messiah, then, springs from a recognition of op­ posing world views. bottum also mentions an enlightenment confidence present in, for example, mozart (69). presumably, he means the operas. this argument holds up, perhaps, for figaro, but it is hard to know what kind of optimism about human nature and its potential is present in the character of don giovanni. mozart's operas resist such univocal readings as a group and even individually. indeed, a moment in cost fan tutte offers a cautionary tale about this platonist search for a shared, idealistic view of things. early in the opera, don alfonso, a philosopher no less, equates the overblown confidence in female fidelity with the arabian phoenix: "every­ one says that it exists," he reports, "but no one knows where." bottum's public metaphysics is like the arabian phoenix. perhaps my objections will be perceived as an unwitting vindication of bottum's position. these and other pieces, one might suggest, indeed as­ pire to a shared view of things. what counts is the ambition, not its success. if it should turn out that not everyone gets the idea behind the music­ well, that is not music's fault. i think that bottum's argument cannot be saved by this more generous reading, nor would he likely want it to be. bottum argues not just for any metaphysics-a mere aspiration toward any metaphysics is not enough for him-but for the realization of a distinctly public one (however that is defined). the sense that things really were better once upon a time is integral to his argument. however one responds to the historical side of bottum's objections to music, the internal side of his argument poses a separate and potentially more intractable set of problems. the central question here is whether meaning in a musical work stems from attachment to an extra-musical framework of meaning. a way to test this theory is to look at an individual work that bottum cites as exemplary, such as the saint matthew passion. at 190 current musicology first glance, bach's masterpiece would seem like a perfect candidate for his platonist aesthetics. this work apparently conveys an idea and, what is more, a verbal one with a moral and theological purpose. but what, pre­ cisely, does this music qua theology preach? according to the historian j aroslav pelikan, the text meditates on the anselmic sacrifice theory of the crucifixion. briefly, this is how the theological argument goes: neither adam nor his descendants can provide satisfaction for original sin. only some­ one innocent can do this, and it is the death of christ that allows god to forgive the sin of adam without violating divine justice (pelikan 1986:9193). here is anselm's formulation of the doctrine: therefore hold thou most firmly, that without satisfaction-that is, without the spontaneous payment of the debt-neither can god release the sinner unpunished, nor the sinner attain to such bliss as he enjoyed before his sin; not in that way could man be restored to what he was before sinning. (cur deus homo 1.19) the glosses on the biblical narrative of bach's passion clearly invoke this view. the massive opening chorus, for example, contains this exchange between two of the choruses: sehet! was? seht die geduld. seht! wohin? auf unsre schuld. [behold! what? behold his forbearance. look! whence? to our own guilt.] or, in the recitative "0 schmerz" (no. 19), the chorus inteijects this cho­ rale text was ist die ursach' aller so1cher plagen? ach, meine sun den haben dich geschlagen! ich, ach herr jesu, habe dies verschuldet, was du erduldet! [what is the source of these sufferings? ah, my sins have stricken thee! i, lordjesus, am responsible for what you have endured.] passages like these might seem to vindicate bottum's point, that this music derives its ability to do more than evoke emotion by attaching itself to an idea. but i think that the evidence winds up showing something like the reverse. turning again to pelikan is instructive. one of the tenets of his history of doctrine is that ritual and liturgy precede theology: one pracedmund j. goehring 191 tices first, and then one afterward reflects on the belief expressed through the practice. the saint matthew passion represents a profound instantiation of this theory. as pure doctrine, the anselmic satisfaction theory is fraught with intellectual inconsistencies. for example, in so assiduously attending to the crucifixion, it renders the resurrection an afterthought. as pelikan argues, moving the satisfaction theory of the atonement "from devotion to dogmatics, from meditation to systematic theology, created enormous prob­ lems .... with the elimination of its full liturgical and sacramental con­ text, it did not make sense" (1986:100-01).5 bach's music is tied to ritual and devotion; it is not, finally, theology in sound. this claim stands bottum's theory on its head: the idea does not make the music intelligible; the mu­ sic makes the idea intelligible. music does not block off our access to ideas; rather, it is a necessary means of accessing them. there is even more to it than that: a viable theory of art needs some way of holding together image and idea. failing to do so can produce unpersuasive analytical and hermeneutical results, as can be seen in looking at the most enduring analytical legacy of a platonist music aesthetics. this is the theory of imitation. although as capacious a term as platonism itself, mimesis as historically applied to music generally codified the superiority of the ver­ bal arts over the musical ones. what is it that music imitates? for most of the history of western music, the usual answer was, the text-either an image contained in or an emotion generated by it. imitation, so under­ stood, has undeniable use for describing much vocal music. the saint matthew passion, for example, is saturated with musical images that "imi­ tate" the words of the bible and the poetic interpolations on them. in the first musical excerpt below, taken from the monumental opening chorus, the plodding bass line evokes the labored steps to gethsemane (ex. 1). the passage after that, from "0 schmerz" (no. 25), gives the pulsating bass line that imitates the "trembling heart" (ex. 2). other obvious in­ stances of music that takes its cues from the text are the renderings of earthquakes (no. 63a) and the crowing of the cock (no. 38c), as well as the halo effect that the strings provide to all but one of the settings of jesus' words. such descriptive musical language reflects the heart-felt pietism and earnest didacticism that counterbalance the mighty austerity of bach's masterpiece. but this word-based approach toils mightily to account for the majesty of the work. logocentrism taken on its own ultimately trivializes the music, making it into a kind of high lighter for the text. to take stock of the genuine value of bach's work, one must look elsewhere, to his mastery of polyphony, the power of his harmonies, his handling of rhythm, his melodic and thematic invention-aspects of bach's. style that bottum un192 current musicology example 1: bach, st. matthew passion, no. 1, mm. 1-6. r: i+ii example 2: bach, st. matthew passion, no. 25, mm. 1-2. orch. p fl.dolc7 ii l..t.:j' v. ob.dac.ii i .............. ' ._.... -_ .. ---.... _-------­ ~~ ~---~ ~ ~----~ pianissimo edmund j. goehring 193 derplays. mter all, bach was not the first or only person to set a passion text to music, nor is he exceptional in using descriptive musical imagery. so, it is not the character of the words that is decisive in giving this piece particular significance; it is the character of the music. another way of framing this objection to platonist music aesthetics is to argue that you can't judge a tune by its words. bottum, true to his pseudo­ platonist reading of music, has fun ridiculing tunes with inane texts. for example, what does it mean, he asks, that "macarthur park is melting in the rain./ i don't think that i can take it / 'cause it took so long to bake it / and i'll never have that recipe again" (66) ? this is an instance of profun­ dity without coherence, an emotional indulgence that makes us weak­ minded, according to bottum. but he is being disingenuously selective in his examples. he does not mention schubert songs set to goethe texts or monteverdi madrigals set to tasso. one can think of instances of good music set to bad texts (this has been said of picander's poetic interpola­ tions in bach's saint matthew passion), bad music set to good texts (certain madrigals), good music set to good texts (certain other madrigals), and, of course, bad music set to bad texts. in the evaluation of a vocal work, it does not matter, finally, whether the poetry is weak or strong. as edward cone reminds us, the text is the composer's to do with as he will: the words, that is, have become a part of the composer's message, utterances of his own voice. in a sense, he composes his own text. some poems are designed to be set to music, others are written with no such intent. no matter: in either case the song composer considers that the poem is his to use. (1974:18-19) the composer's principles are musical ones, and these do not always work in tandem with poetic ones. the theory of imitation shows even greater cracks when one seeks to describe and evaluate instrumental music. not that the issue was always framed as a failure of theory; for many, the fault resided in music's inabil­ ity to live up to principles of imitation. the imposition of an imitative theory onto music was precisely what allowed rousseau to equate instrumental music with a bad representational painting. the objection is misplaced, however. what needed adjusting was not instrumental music but rather a theory that, first, failed to recognize the internal sources of musical mean­ ing and coherence and that, second, faulted music for failing to live up to these externally imposed notions. rousseau's method of argumentation resembles bottum's: both put music into a box that it cannot get out of and then blame music for being unable to climb out of it. a famous ex­ ample of how greater verbal clarity and dependence on an external idea 194 current musicology example 3: vivaldi, spring, ii, mm. 1-3. "e quindi sui fiorito ameno prato/ai caro mormorio di fronde e piante/dorme 'i caprar col fido can' a lato." [trans: and then upon the flowery, pleasant meadow, to the rustling of the branches and the leaves, the goatherd sleeps with the faithful dog at his side.] 1\ " ~ violino principale u " " ~ violinoi oj " " ~ violino ii oj viola largo pp sempre mormorio di frondi e pwnti pp sempre ii capraro (he donne [the sleeping goatherd 1 solo a~ a~ n pp ii cane ehe grida [the barkingkiogj ~ ~ si rieve suonare sempre molto jarte e strappato [always to be played very loud and sharply accented] can render music not deep and meaningful, but banal, is vivaldi's four seasons. the second movement of spring, for instance, presents the musi­ cal image of a faithful dog, whose barking is rendered by the viola and whose obedience to his master is given by the repetition of two quarter notes, in every measure, at the same spot (ex. 3). the repeated viola line in imitation of the barking dog is not an aid to understanding as much as a gimmick. bottum is partly aware of the deficiencies of this form of mime­ sis, but he is also beholden to the very theory he rejects. after all, he wants music valued not as a thing in itself, but as a vehicle for transmitting verbal knowledge instead of inchoate feeling. if the argument here is that no one should shed a tear to see platonist models of musical analysis set to rest, what, then, should take their place? is there a critical framework that better attends to the relation between sound and idea? toward the end of the eighteenth century, a new concep­ tion gradually formed that began to remove music from the company of the imitative arts. thomas twining, for example, restricts imitation in music to the passions and ideas it raises. the medium itself is for him manifestly not imitative: the whole power of music may be reduced, i think, to three distinct effects;-upon the ear, the passions, and the imagination: in other words, it may be considered as simply delighting the sense, as raising emotions, or, as raising ideas. the two last of these effects constitute the whole of what is called the moral (i.e., as affecting the mind edmund j. goehring 195 rather than the body), or expressive, power of music; and in these only we are to look for anything that can be called imitation. music can be said to imitate, no farther than as it expresses something. as far as its effect is merely physical, and confined to the ear, it gives a simple, original pleasure; it expresses nothing, it refers to nothing; it is no more imitative than the smell of a rose, or the flavor of a pineapple. ([1789] 1971:49)6 twining's interest is not in lumping the arts all together under a uni­ form standard but rather in attending to their unique properties. his an­ tipathy toward a conflation of the arts prompts a barb hurled at rousseau (identified here under the alias of plato): the complaint, so common, of the separation of poetry and music, and of the total want of meaning and expression in instrumental music, was never, i believe, the complaint of a man of true musical feeling: and it might, perhaps, be not unfairly concluded, that aristotle, who expressly allows that "music, even without words, has expression" ... was more of a musician than his master plato, who is fond of railing at instrumental music, and asks with fontenelle,­ "sonate, que me veux-tu?" [sonata, what do you want of me?] (1775:49, n.s) imitation as a concept did not vanish overnight, of course, and some thinkers tried to adjust it to the perception that music was in a fundamen­ tal way a different kind of art. we see this effort in the following commen­ tary by adam smith, in which the term "subject" is largely synonymous with "the object of imitation": what is called the subject of such music is merely, as has already been said, a certain leading combination of notes, to which it frequently returns, and to which all its digressions and variations bear a certain affinity. it is altogether different from what is called the subject of a poem or a picture, which is always something which is not either in the poem or in the picture, or something quite distinct from that combination, either of words on the one hand, or of colors on the other, of which they are respectively composed. the subject of a composition of instrumental music is a part of that composition: the subject of a poem or picture is no part of either. (1980:205)7 smith might be faulted only for placing poetry and painting among 196 current musicology the imitative arts. some more modern aesthetic theories hold that, just as the subject of music is sound, so, too, are words that of poetry and colors and shapes that of painting. but smith's main point, that music is self­ referential, marks a great change from earlier theories. describing music as that which imitates other music holds together two essential but often conflicting requirements of music (or any art): that it have autonomy and that it be coherent.8 an entirely autonomous art with no frame of refer­ ence for its language would be unintelligible. meanwhile, an entirely imi­ tative conception of music-which is, basically, bottum's approach and which locates the frame of reference beyond the music-would render music trivial. these philosophical arguments about music are largely taking place on an abstract level. it is important that they not remain there: imitation began to collapse as a viable concept precisely from the recognition, based on empirical grounds, that meaning in music could be produced through music itself and characterized in musical terms. the result was a move toward more formal analytical approaches. formal analysis does not sit well with bottum, and one can see why. it is predicated on the integrity and meaningfulness of musical elements-of rhythm, timbre, texture, and harmony-a premise that runs contrary to his demand that music yield to a public metaphysics to gain coherence. the rejection of formal analysis betrays a deep anti-intellectualism. in the following passage, for example, bottum compares the analysis of music to herman hesse's glass bead game: it is "a complex and sophisticated rite filled with delicate connections per­ ceived [only] by its priestly scholastics, lacking any meaning, and consum­ ing the culture's intellectual and emotional energy" (70). one needs spe­ cific examples to counter this charge of esotericism and incoherence, and i will refer to two works, one vocal, one instrumental. in taking passages from mozart, i do not wish to imply that mozart's style is or should be normative. rather, it is composers from the mainstream of western classi­ cal music who occupy much of the contested territory in debates about music's meaning and its cultural value. the first example is "se vuol ballare" from le nozze di figaro. as with the above-cited passages from the saint matthew passion, parts of this aria can yield to a logocentric reading (ex. 4). the plucking ofthe strings imi­ tates the textual reference to the guitar; the second verse has the count, at least in figaro's imagination, leaping to the capriola (ex. 5); and the reign­ ing musical image of the text-dance-is also the prevailing poetic image. unlike the kind of imitation espoused by rousseau and exemplified in vivaldi's four seasons, however, the images evoked in da ponte's text are all related to music, either via dance or via specific instruments. mozart is not edmund j. goehring 197 example 4: mozart, le nozze di figaro, "se vuol ballare," mm. 1-8. [trans.: if you want to dance, mister count, i'll play the guitar for you.] figaro horns and strings : " l : u : se " i : p u .. ~ la re, a-: .. a: .. ~ vuol bal la .. .. ... . . si gnor con • a• i i re, si gnor con ti no, se vliol bal .. .. .. .. v staccato ~ .. ~ ~ ~ cj. .. .. {l . .. ii no, il chi tar ri no ie , a, .. -= • . , i ... example 5: mozart, le nozze di figaro, "se vuol ballare," mm. 31-42, voice only. [trans.: if you want to come to my school, i will teach you the capriola.] figaro i r r £ if r vlf f £ i se vllol ve ni re nel la mia sello-la, la ca pri 0 la 37 f 9: ~ r r r i r f £ ir r r i r £ ir r r i j ie in segne ro, sl, ie in se gne ro, si, ie in se gne roo imitating something extrinsic to music, but other music. still, even this more refined conception of imitation falls short of explaining what is most expressive about mozart's setting. although da ponte's text refers to a dance and even specifies one, nothing in it, including the poetic meter, dictates the dance that mozart ultimately chose, the minuet. the choice of the minuet is decisive for the character of the piece. it is the noblest of eighteenth-century dances, and mozart amplifies this character by adding an accompaniment of ceremonial horns, which are also not mentioned in 198 current musicology the libretto. read only as a text, "se vuol ballare" describes a man bent on revenge. we know from the words that this person is probably clever, but we do not know if he is a simpatico type, or whether his cause is just. only the musical setting tells us that figaro is to be taken seriously, that he has, literally, a measure of dignity about him. music like this creates meaning not by latching itself on to an external verbal idea but through its own medium. this is not the arcane analysis of a glass bead game. rather, it points out audible and transparent details of the aria. we also see in this example from figaro a harmony between music's numerical properties, manifested in rhythm, and its emotive sides. again, these are two realms, like idea and representation, that bottum wants to keep separate: plenty of genuine ideas exist in music, of course; they're just not what we mean by "ideas" in any nonmusical sense. they express musical techniques and music's root mathematical structure, and exactly what they have to do with what we experience while listening is something no one has ever satisfactorily explained. (65) in denying a connection between the numerical and the audible proper­ ties of music, bottum is not being attentive to mozart or to his shakespeare (not to mention plato). a long tradition views music as number made au­ dible and musical rhythm as a means of conveying character and therefore as having an ethos. the ethical nature of music has been famously cel­ ebrated in the merchant a/venice: the man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; the motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as erebus. (5.1.83-87) this is not to reduce music to a vehicle for conveying platitudes and moralisms. rather, the argument is that music can have an ethos, and that it can convey through its own medium-its rhythms and harmonies-a coherent idea. this passage from figaro shows that vocal music can have a meaning and character that are not dependent on words. can the same be said of instrumental music? i'd like to consider a passage from the first movement of mozart's clarinet concerto to show how strictly instrumental music can engage not only the heart but also the mind. the passage in question is one of the most stirring in the entire piece, a profound transformation of edmund j. goehring 199 example 6: mozart, clarinet concerto, i: mm. 128-33. cl pr (a ) vi. via v, cb u >i-~ ! u p u >ip ! p --i'-. r-r-r--, ,...,...,... ........ ~ ~ ~ ~ .. ~ -:-~-~ ~ .. example 7: mozart, clarinet concerto, i: mm. 1-2. ~ -----= <l'. ~ ~". ""' ~~ ,.~ ~~cj ~ p ih~ p the opening theme (ex. 6). in its original form at the beginning of the movement, this theme was decorative and cast in a thoroughly modern style for mozart's time (ex. 7). the later passage, by contrast, conveys so­ lemnity and dignity through austere writing and through recollecting older, venerable polyphonic practices. (the entries of the main theme in the different instrumental parts of this passage are indicated with arrows in ex. 6.) this dignity results not just from texture but also from rhythm. the turn to half notes slows down the pacing of this section, and the entry of subsequent voices at the distance of the half note creates metrical uncer­ tainty: for a few measures (around mm. 128-30), the location of the down­ beat is unclear. evoking older music and creating metrical ambiguity in this way arrest the forward progress of time, making this passage a tran­ scendent moment. at least since mozart's day, certain traits of renaissance and baroque music have been associated with the elevated and the divine. mozart's evocation of the stile antico as an emblem of the sacred continues to resonate today, contrary to bottum's concern that modern habits have 200 current musicology example 8: mozart, clarinet concerto, i: mm. 134-37. cl pi (a) 0) ~-.-~-.-~-•. ~t~' ~-.. ~-.-~-•. ~'r~' ~-7' ~-~-•• ~~-~~-.. ~"'"-.,. "" "'"-.~ ".-.~. ~ -." ~ vl. iu , ~ ~ '---'--j ...-'---'--j"'--rfi: .......:... ...:" 0) ~ ~~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ vla 1... ,. .l ~ -,. .i : r; : vc. cb. made this music unintelligible. ~-7' p-~"'"-.,. "" tr = = .l r; if the meaning of this passage is clear when viewed in isolation, its larger context creates ambiguity. immediately following this transcendent moment, a passage appears that bears little of this prior dignity (ex. 8). the units are now short and discrete, and they are repeated over a static, vamp-un til-ready harmonic pattern. the clarinet joins in this new mood by supplying busy-work in the form of sixteenth-note decorations of the harmonies. to describe this transition figuratively, we have abruptly moved from the church to the comic stage. how does one explain this juxtaposition of unlike things? seeking some external standard-bottum's "idea," in other words-is oflittle use here. even using internal critera, erasing the ambiguity of this section would breach critical decorum with no gain in the intelligibility of this mixing of styles. the meaning and character of this part of the clarinet concerto derive from the coexistence of these incongruous elements and depict a beauty that is at once remote and piercing. the balancing between the elevated and the comic accounts for the melancholy that suffuses this work and many late works of mozart. it is true that one marvels in the technical facility of this passage for its own sake-how the elevated passage can seem at once unexpected and yet deeply satisfying. but this facility and ambigu­ ity, in gratifying the senses, do not paralyze the mind. rather, they prick the intellect into action. having a piece run entirely true to convention would give it little emotional appeal by depriving it of intellectual interest. the equation of music with unruly emotion is a common move in much edmund j. goehring 201 philosophical speculation about music. there is good reason for this, of course: music holds a position as the most abstract of the arts, but also the most physical and visceral. still, the exclusive identification of music with emotion leaves one having to choose between music either as the locus of the sensuous or else as a mere servant to poetry. one can agree that allan bloom is on to something when he calls music alogon-the pre-verbal, in­ articulate speech of the soul-without saying that that defines all of the experience of music. likewise, one can marvel at the insight in kierkegaard's distinction between faust, an intellectual daemon and there­ fore a quintessentially literary type, and don giovanni, a musical and there­ fore erotic daemon, while still objecting to his exclusive association of music with the erotic. after all, every other character in mozart's opera is also musical but does not behave in the same way. to philosophize about music should presuppose the question "which music?"; otherwise, taking too glo­ bal a perspective on a musical object can obscure the details of a work, details from which meaning arises. even those popular songs that for bottum come closest to his longed-for universality are praised for their "deep," "tragic" possibilities (the very sort of fuzzy language about music he derides in others). this stance closes off other regions of human ex­ pression and experience: the comic, the epigrammatic, the heroic, and the ironic. it seems as if bottum's world has only one genre in it. in separating an idea from its medium, platonism along the lines es­ poused by bottum disallows our only access to ideas. the result is a theory that separates reason from feeling, meaning from sound. of course we might be skeptical of music that renders an emotional effect without an adequate intellectual cause, as wagner derisively said of french grand opera. but it is one thing to say that feeling is not identical to virtue, another to say that, if something is not verbal, it cannot be ethical, purposeful, or reasonable. bottum cites a passage from thomas carlyle which he errone­ ously thinks supports his own argument about the inherent meaningless­ ness of music: "who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us?" but for "music" one can easily substitute "dance," "po­ etry," "god," and many other things. in the end, these platonic arguments try to reason needs for which there might be no verbal explanation, or at least where a verbal formulation would be inadequate. people sing hymns or anthems in church or during public ceremonies rather than just recite them because singing is more than a handy aid to memory; it brings a fuller commitment of the self, and also more meaning. music speaks to a kind of experience and understanding that is inaccessible by other means. the paradox is that this platonist objection to music might simplify or misrepresent plato himself, a point that is something of a subtext in my larger argument. i would like to close with this observation by referring to 202 current musicology a few passages from some of the dialogues. the epigram of this essay, from the phaedo, gives the sense that socrates had a death-bed conversion about poetry, because it shows that he endorsed poetry on its own terms, rather than as an underling to philosophy. in the symposium, meanwhile, the char­ acter of aristophanes offers the stirring notion of eros as the soul's longing for immortality. socrates accepts this view and then elaborates on it in a remarkable way: when we finally answer the question of why we seek this immortality, the inquiry is over. "there is no need," socrates says, "to ask the further question 'why does one desire to be happy?'" this is a point where verbal inquiry cannot penetrate. finally, we see plato exploring the limits of verbal argument in the mysterious conclusion to the crito, the dialogue whose action takes place the day before socrates' death. here, socrates likens the voices of the laws booming in his head to the melodies of the corybantes, who celebrated religious rites with ecstatic dances. their music is so loud that socrates, the great dialectician, has become deaf to any verbal arguments that would dissuade him from accepting death. these texts seem to conclude that verbal argument can take you only so far. for the rest of the journey, you need the arts. notes this essay is warmly dedicated to chris hatch in gratitude for many hours of con­ versation on this and other topics. i am also deeply grateful to steven mfeldt for his careful reading of several drafts of this paper. 1. bottum draws consciously on alasdair macintyre's formulation of and at­ tack on emotivism, which madntrye defines as "the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evalu­ ative in character." see macintyre (1984:11-12). the emphasis is macintyre's. 2. for example, in de musica, augustine makes the argument, largely unprec­ edented at that time, that music and all of the arts are rational. he does so, how­ ever, by radically separating the general principles of art from its means of repre­ sentation. see ellsmere and la croix (1988:8-12). 3. macintyre voiced this view in an address entitled "catholic universities: dangers, hopes, choices," given at the conference "higher learning and catho­ lic traditions" (university of notre dame, october 1999). 4. see ruth smith (1989:181-82). 5. michael long takes a similar position in describing the ritualistic aspects of early fifteenth-century sacred music, particularly that of josquin: "[t] he late me­ dieval polyphonic mass was rarely conceived by or for theologians, and repre­ sented the artistic response of one individual to the mystery and promises of re­ demption inherent in its liturgical texts and ritual." see long (1989:21). 6. the quotation comes toward the beginning of dissertation ii: "on the different senses of the word, imitative, as applied to music by the antients, and edmund j. goehring 203 by the moderns." 7. this passage appears in section 2.31 of the essay. 8. for an elegant modern formulation of this view, see allanbrook (1983:39). references addison, joseph. 1711. the spectator 29 (april 3). allanbrook, wye jamison. 1983. rhythmic gesture in mozart: "le nozze di figaro" and "don giovanni." chicago: university of chicago press. bottum, jody. 2000. the soundtracking of america. the atlantic monthly 285 (march): 56-70. cone, edward t. 1974. the composer's voice. berkeley: university of california press. ellsmere, patricia k. and richard r. la croix. 1988. augustine on art as imita­ tion. in augustine on music: an interdisciplinary collection of essays, edited by ri­ chard r. la croix, 1-15. lewiston, ny: edwin mellen press. kant, immanuel. 1790. kritik der urteilskraft. konigsberg. long, michael. 1989. symbol and ritual in josquin's missa di dadi. journal of the american musicological society 42 (spring): 1-22. macintyre, alasdair c. 1984. after virtue: a study in moral theory. notre dame: university of notre dame press. newman,john henry cardinal. 1982. the idea of a university. notre dame: university of notre dame press. pelikan, jaroslav. 1986. bach among the theologians. philadelphia: fortress press. rousseau,jeanjacques. 1767. sonate. in dictionnaire de la musique. paris: duchesne. smith, adam. 1980. essays on philosophical subjects, edited by w. p. d. wightman and j. c. bryce, glasgow edition of the works and correspondence of adam smith. oxford: clarendon press. smith, ruth. 1989. the achievements of charles jennens (1700-1773). music and letters 70 (may): 161-90. twining, thomas. [1789j 1971. aristotle's treatise on poetry, translated: with notes on the translation, and on the original; and two dissertations, on poetical, and musical, imitation. new york: garland. how i felt on i4 march i972 susan thiemann sommer musicology and performance-just how much of a connection is there between the two? "not much" was the immediate and overwhelming answer in my informal poll of musicians i know well enough to ask for an honest reply. perhaps it would be kinder, however, to say "not enough," because surely musicologists and performers do have something to say to one another. the problem is a breakdown of communication somewhere along the line. one justification for the existence of musicology (and, concomitantly, of musicologists) is, of course, its position in the history of ideas. like the study of english literature or medieval art, the analytical and historical study of music reveals something precious of our cultural heritage, something which, one hopes, enhances the beauty and meaning of the work of art itself. but music, unlike art or literature, depends on an intermediary creator, the performer. without him there is no music at all for practical purposes. the audience needs the performer; and in order for the audience to hear the music as the composer intended, the performer needs the musicologist. from the performer's point of view the final decisions as to the interpretation of a piece of music are his and rightly so. we, the audience, can only hope that he will be as well informed as possible about the basic stylistic necessities and the options available to him in terms of contemporary practices of ornamentation and instrumentation, textual variants and their authenticity, and all the paraphernalia of the musicologist's art. one of my main jobs as librarian in a major research collection located in the heart of the performing world is to bring these people together. all i can say is that it is very difficult, especially since the musicologists are usually looking down on the performers, who are, in turn, looking in a different direction. from another point of view, as a record reviewer i get a more encouraging impression. there have been audible results from the cooperation of sympathetic musicologists and knowledgeable performers in the field of early music in particular. sometimes musicologist and performer is one and the same person; thurston dart was a perfect example. it is even more noteworthy when artists from a different sphere, victoria de los angeles or cathy berberian, for instance, can apply their skills to spanish villancicos or monteverdi operas. and more musicologically oriented groups have raised their performance levels high enough to sound authentically improvisational, as witness the early music quartet's dazzling rendition of the troubadour repertoire. the influence of musicology on the garden variety musician is not nearly so clear. of course there have been changes; we are much less likely to hear massive orchestras pounding out mozart serenades, for example, but the gap is still there. why? part of the answer lies, i think, in the difference between the performer's upbringing and the musicologist's attitude. 98 110st musicians spend the early part of their careers concentrating on technique, being able to play or sing any passage in any piece no matter what the speed, range, or other difficulties. their next concern is repertoiresimply learning enough pieces to meet the concert or ensemble demands of a professional career. at this point they do not have time to sift and weigh conflicting theories of performance practice; they just want to know how to do it-now, right here, in this measure. of course, a well-brought-up novice will want the best edition. he calls it the urtext, and he believes, naively and rather winningly, that it is in fact a perfect authentic score containing the answers to all his questions-questions musicologists and their ilk are all too willing to bring up and throw at him. "how do you ornament the repeats?" "where did you get that cadenza?" "do you follow the autograph or the first edition?" "urtext! what do you mean? there is no such thing." "all very good for them; they haven't had to spend hours and hours every day on scales and arpeggios," mutters the young musician resentfully, and the seeds of mistrust are sown. it is only the mature musician, or the extraordinarily intellectually gifted one, who has time to explore unusual repertoire, refine his ornamentation, and follow up the textual history of the score. unfortunately, by the time he is ready to enjoy the benefits of scholarship fully he is often so suspicious and afraid of the whole thing that he avoids it altogether-and then feels guilty and consequently more hostile. an endless chain is forged. this is really true. i see it behind the eyes of my friends who are performers, in the hesitant step and apologetic air of a famous opera singer approaching the librarian's desk, in the expression of a member of one of the world's great symphony orchestras who is "just inquiring for a friend." i see it and it upsets me, because i know that we musicologists are largely to blame. and we librarians, too. i realize that libraries are scary places. if i had my way, all librarians would have to do research in a strange library once every six months just to reacquaint themselves with the new reader's confusion and terror. but a library is only one of many grounds on which musicologist and performer may meet. i t is the task of the musicologist to communicate on the right levels to the audience he wants to reach. the classroom is an obvious example. will a semester spent in transcribing aquitanian neumes or its equivalent really help a conservatory student, especially if this is the only exposure to musicology he is likely to get? the point hardly needs belaboring. i can think of a few more suggestions, however, which might help the young musicologist who really wants to reach his contemporaries in the performing world. first, turn out good performing editions if you are equipped to do so. performers work from scores, not books. second, write for the musician in his own journals, trade magazines, and publications aimed at music educators. why scorn popularization? but be forewarned that it is not easy to do well. third, get to know some professional musicians personally. they will discover you are not a fabulous monster, and you, in turn, will probably learn a 99 great deal of practical information from them. finally, praise and appreciate the performing musician. a large and tender ego is the hallmark of the soloist in particular, and you may have to move carefully here, but the results of this treatment are astonishing. for a "veil praised musician can be like a well polished aladdin's lamp in responding enthusiastically to your suggestions, making beautiful music, and bringing your ideas alive in sound to a whole new audience. and isn't that what it's all about? 100 james buhler, caryl flinn, and david neumeyer, eds. music and cinema. wesleyan university press, 2000. vi, 397 pp. reviewed by katherine mcquiston the publication of music and cinema reflects the growing interest among musicologists in studying intersections of music and film, i.e., the soundtrack with its simultaneous images. scholarship concerning music and film, which enjoyed its most vigorous growth spurt from the mid1980s into the mid-1990s, seems to be largely motivated by three interlock­ ing concerns: establishing the soundtrack as an indispensable component in film analysis, a field in which visual elements have always been favored; describing, analyzing, and categorizing the ways in which music bears upon understandings of film; and championing the composers of original scores who, until the appearance of this kind of literature, have not re­ ceived due recognition for their achievements. this fecund period saw the publication of numerous monographs, which were frequently structured in two main parts: an exposition that posited a unique theory about film music's role, followed by an application of the theory to selected films. most significant to film music scholarship of this period is undoubtedly michel chion's audio-vision (1994), with its rigorous interrogation of the interactions of film image with sound, exhaustive categorization of audio­ visual relationships, and lively analyses. audio-vision seems to be at once a bird's-eye view and a prescriptive blueprint of the field that other scholars have participated in realizing.! with such vital groundwork set, analytical questions and theoretical frameworks are entering a period of intensive sharpening and reshaping, and larger questions of methodology and scope are becoming more pressing. it is into this phase of the discipline that music and cinema emerges. edited by david neumeyer, caryl flinn, and james buhler, music and cinema contains a wealth of original approaches to a variety of film-music topics. the book is divided into five sections: leitmotif: new debates and questions; beyond classical film music; style and practice in classical film music; gender, ethnicity, identity; and methodological possibilities. the articles differ greatly even within these five parts, offering glimpses into the complexity and vastness of each of these general subject areas, as well as the multitude of ways in which these areas can be negotiated. the perennial questions, however, concern identifying the objects of study; re­ lated to these are the questions of what might constitute a canon for film music studies, and whether such a body of films should be delineated at current musicology. no. 70 (fall 2000) 167 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 168 current musicology all. seeking suitable methodologies for approaching and analyzing these objects is also a crucial activity that comes to life on the pages of music and cinema. some of the authors seek patterns and models in film-music relation­ ships, while others attempt to analyze some of the best known films and their respective soundtracks, perhaps working towards the assembly of a canon of films for this still new discipline. each article, regardless of its ap­ parent scope, suggests methods that beg to be applied to other films and soundtracks, which is the book's most promising and exciting aspect. the editors' introduction neatly summarizes the most significant film music scholars' views on why films need music, reminding us how such ba­ sic questions have given rise to subsequent concerns that have shaped the trajectory of film music study to date. with great foresight, the editors point out the issue of canon formation for films and film music; with the availability of increasingly affordable technology, films can be made and distributed or transmitted quickly and easily, and it is likely that this trend will only grow. since the media of film is in flux, the notion of film as a genre is unstable. this seems of justifiable concern to the editors, who ar­ gue that the many "technologically driven options are ... disruptive to es­ tablished wisdom" (22-23), and begs the question of how scholars shall determine which films to study. the presently open-ended question of the film canon for film music studies, whether asked from a technological or an aesthetic viewpoint, is one that has yet to be answered. currently, how­ ever, this open-endedness yields a wide spectrum of writings in the pages of music and cinema. it is encouraging that while these essays are all to some degree interdis­ ciplinary, discussions and analyses of the music are terrifically solid, care­ fully crafted, and supportable-although, surprisingly, not all of the con­ tributors discuss music in a significant way. in most of the articles, the methodology at work seems implicit rather than explicit; rarely does one see a collection of essays with premises and theses that speak so clearly for themselves. across the board, the articles are captivating, representing some of the most creative and original work in the field, and at the same time, present sound observations and frames of analysis that draw on es­ tablished models in other scholarly--mostly musicological-literature. the scholars represented in this volume have chosen many different kinds of films, and strategies forstudlying them. each article seems guided by questions that present themselves most naturally about relationships between the film and music, and is shaped by previous film music scholar­ ship; absent from the articles themselves are discussions of what the canon might or might not be, though this question looms silently just beyond the margins. the variety of filj;lls and film music relationships taken as subjects reviews 169 here only opens the door further for scholars to compare films on the bases of studio, director, time period, actors, type of music, or upon points of cultural context and reception. as an acknowledgement to perhaps the most influential concept in film music scholarship to date, the first of the five parts of the book is devoted to the leitmotif. in "star wars, music, and myth," james buhler adds some careful amendments to the multitude of previous scholarship in a leitmo­ tivic reading of the film and its music, as well as a salient analysis of the score's imperial march theme. secondly, and more significantly, buhler presents a compelling argument that the complex coexistence of the force and technology in the world of the film is articulated by the coexis­ tence of sound effects and music on the soundtrack. buhler points to this construction of the mise-en-bande to point up relationships between the darkside and technology. scott paulin's "richard wagner and the fantasy of cinematic unity: the idea of the gesamtkunstwerk in the history and theory of film music," provides an excellent summary of philosophies regarding film as gesamt­ kunstwerk, or not, as the case may be. paulin brings to light a host of strate­ gies that have invited the categorization of film as gesamtkunstwerk, such as evoking wagner to elevate the status of film to high-quality entertainment, as well as minimizing film's discontinuous visual nature and down playing the fact that it is mass produced. in considering the notion of gesamtkunst­ werk more centrally than that of the leitmotif, paulin traces ideological relationships between wagner and the world of film. paulin explores the early-twentieth-century tendency among film music composers to emulate wagner, and why notions of wagner were attractive to early film audiences. paulin also identifies wagner as the force behind the debate between those who believe film music should reinforce or sup­ port the image on the screen and those who advocate a so-called contra­ puntal relationship between music and image, a debate that has since broken down into more subtle questions of how sound and image inform each other and contribute to an aggregate effect. 2 while paulin neatly packages relevant, wide ranging views, he also smartly comments, "it's hard to imagine what a truly 'redundant' musical accompaniment [i.e., the musical accompaniment would duplicate the meaning of the visual im­ age] would take" (72-73), since some of the authors he summarizes don't take into account (at least not explicitly) the different representational capabilities of the two media: film and music. ultimately, paulin reminds us that the gesamtkunstwerk was a steady goal with a frequently redefined route for wagner, suggesting that for film mu­ sic composers wagner's tenets are more symbolic than paradigmatic. this article makes significant inroads into the many questions of wagner's 170 current musicology presence in film music and film music scholarship, and suggests that wagner should not be invoked without knowing how and why. in "strategies of remembrance: music and history in the new german cinema," from part two of the book, "beyond classical film music," caryl flinn notes the omission of music in scholarship on films of the new german cinema, and displays how a refined conception of mourning (essential to these films by virtue of the centrality of grief and loss as themes) results when the music of the soundtrack is considered in con­ junction with the images. flinn brings music into lively, convincing analy­ ses of a handful of films by alexander kluge, rainer werner fassbinder, and hans:jiirgen syberberg. by way of example, flinn examines some uses of beethoven's symphony no.9 in various films. though always taken as a symbol of high german culture, flinn shows how beethoven's ninth, with various concurrent images, creates scenes of widely-ranging emotions and meanings. the interaction of the visual images with the music, and the location of the music in the soundtrack (either nondiegetic or in one of the layers of the diegesis) make for a rich palette of possible emotional meanings and interpretations, providing persuasive evidence that the model of mourn­ ing in the films of the new german cinema must be modified to include music, as flinn asserts. certainly, visual imagery has been a cornerstone in the articulation of mourning and history in the new german cinema, but flinn makes it clear that the music in these films is as important, and in many cases more effective, to achieving this end. flinn ends the article with an insightful analysis of fassbinder's lili marleen, following the life of the film's title song within the film itself. here flinn also displays the ef­ fects of repetition of music on the meaning of the film, and the mutation of familiar music into unfamiliar contexts. krin gabbard's "kansas city dreamin': robert altman's jazz history lesson" is really more like krin gabbard's jazz history lesson, since noth­ ing about the film announces that the events depicted therein are to be taken as factual. gabbard outlines the great care altman takes in present­ ing musical details true to 1934 kansas city, though the references in the film to real-life musicians are understated and often, in my view, esoteric. mter describing how the music came to be as it appears in the film, gabbard goes on to describe some of the roles the music plays in high­ lighting significant nonmusical relationships in the film. central to this part of his discussion is the way the presentation of music and musicians in the film captures and reflects aspects of white and black masculine dis­ play. beyond this, gabbard suggests altman's fascination with race rela­ tions in the film is the director's way of returning, unconsciously, to child­ hood and identifying with the young charlie parker. gabbard offers this reviews 171 original and lively psychoanalytical take on the parts of the film about charlie parker as a way of understanding altman's desire to realize his own fantasies, as well as a manifestation of altman's own feelings about race relations at large. the third and centrally positioned part of music and cinema, "style and practice in classical film music," contains essays in which classical film music analysis can be seen at work. martin marks leads the reader through an engaging comparison of the music in the maltese falcon (1941) and casablanca (1942). though the two films-widely recognized as classic hollywood movies-both came out of the warner brothers studio contem­ poraneously and star humphrey bogart, the similarities between them seem to end there. the maltese falcon is best categorized as film noir, while casablanca is a romantic drama. further, the scores were written by differ­ ent composers; adolph deutsch provided music for falcon, while max steiner heads the group of contributors for casablanca. despite all of these generic and musical discrepancies, which initially furrowed this reader's brow, marks clearly presents a framework, based of course on the music in the films, for their comparison. marks's article serves as an excel­ lent example; the differences between the films turn out to be superficial in light of the compelling way the author crafts his analysis and overall strategy. marks's writing reminds us that in determining subjects of study for film musicology, salient similarities or differences that invite the most revealing study may not always lie at the level of easily visible fact, but deep in the tissue of the film-music relationship itself. in "tonal design and the aesthetic of pastiche in herbert stothart's may time," ronald rodman expertly reveals surprisingly sophisticated musi­ cal forces at work in this light-hearted film. rodman follows a number of important intersecting threads in the complex musical fabric of the film: the significance and sequence of tonal areas, the juxtaposition of singing styles (opera, operetta, popular), and the number and order of each char­ acter's solo and ensemble songs in the film. rodman displays how these attributes all work together to support the film's dual narrative focus on the two main characters, the social differences between the characters, and areas of narrative unrest and resolution. rodman handles this abun­ dant score with great elan. his article also touches upon the appeal of early film scores to a host of techniques of western classical music, of which stothart's films are excellent examples. "that money-making 'moon river' sound: thematic organization and orchestration in the film music of henry mancini," by jeff smith, is unique in this volume in that it takes orchestration (and consequently timbre) as a topic in analyzing film music. smith traces the orchestration of henry mancini's scores as it relates to the big band of the 1940s, and 172 current musicology summarizes the connotations of the mancini sound, as it has been adopted by the cocktail nation. the other aspect of the essay deals with developments in the film and record industries in the 1950s and 1960s that influenced the way some film music composers wrote. smith authoritatively discusses the relation­ ships between industrial pressures and the musical content of soundtrack albums, including how the very format of the lp shaped the makeup of the soundtrack as we know it today. most importantly, the production of lps in connection with films resulted in a greater number of melodically distinct themes in a soundtrack, and it solidified the role of these tunes­ theme songs and source music-as accessory products to films. smith also situates the stylistic trends of the composers central to his discussion, mainly mancini, with respect to contemporaneous techniques of other film composers. i hardly mind that lucy fischer's "designing women: art deco, the musical, and the female body" discusses music only cursorily, and does not work it into the meat of her discussion. in this article, from the fourth part of the book, "gender, ethnicity, identity," fischer offers a rich view of the art deco aesthetic-its connection with modern visual arts and its preoccupation with, and alteration of, the female body-as observed in film musicals of the 1930s. the musical thread in her essay is picked up only briefly, then lost; it is not meant to be central. however, since fischer makes a strong case for art deco's suitability to intertextual flourishes, and explains art deco's visual manifestations in these films so incisively, this article will provide an indispensable source for those hoping to analyze the music in these films. each article in this book negotiates, for the most part implicitly, two in­ terrelated issues: what constitutes and defines an object of inquiry in scholarly discussion of film and music, and what questions are to be ap­ plied to the chosen object. these issues, as the articles in this volume vividly display, have thankfully not been reined into any kind of formula. it is in "disciplining josephine baker: gender, race, and the limits of disciplinarity," by kathryn kalinak (from section four, "gender, ethnicity, identity"), and in "inventing the cinema soundtrack: hollywood's multi­ plane sound system," by rick altman, mcgraw jones, and sonia tatroe (from the book's final section, "methodological possibilities") that these issues are best dissected and explored. kathryn kalinak's article is the one most committed to the matter of what questions should be asked when attempting to understand the rela­ tionships between a film and its music, not to mention situating the aggre­ gate in its social context. kalinak begins by asserting that even interdisci­ plinarity is no safe bet in attempts to uncover the richest meanings in film-music intersections, and she goes on to illustrate this by presenting reviews 173 numerous complex moments in the film and its soundtrack, consistently informed by aspects of reception history relating to race and sexuality. kalinak's article serves as a reminder to those studying music in film that borrowing investigative principles and techniques of previous scholars is a relatively blunt tool while, on the other hand, the most salient and perti­ nent observations result from inquiries in which the object of study is given maximum freedom to guide and determine the kinds of questions asked of it. the authors' main task in "inventing the cinema soundtrack: holly­ wood's multiplane sound system," is to advocate the study of finished films as texts. they do so by identifying fundamental differences between scripts as written and spoken language as heard in film, as well as the anal­ ogous relationship between film music as notated (or as heard on a sound­ track album) and as it appears in a film. numerous film music scholars come from a background in musicology in which the notion of text-in terms of a piece of music from the canon of symphonic works, for example -is still up for grabs, and every time that piece of music is performed, the text is essentially being re-created anew. this article does well to make the point that unlike a piece of music, the written texts for films (the script, stage directions, score) are enacted and recorded to create one residual object, and that this resulting film, with its sounds as heard, be­ comes the text to be studied.3 the authors go on to propose a system whereby subtle aspects of the soundtrack, such as relative dynamics and reverberation levels, can be captured and made a part of film music analyses. music and cinema will doubtless stand as a signal volume in film music scholarship; the articles are clearly indebted to earlier scholars in this field, and often turn the greatest unresolved issues of methodology and scope into the cleverest of analytical tools. the volume paints a picture of disciplinary open-mindedness that will hopefully continue to inform film music study. it has certainly yielded rich and varied results in this case. notes 1. chief among these scholars are claudia gorbman (1987) and kathryn kalinak (1992), both of whom explore the history of film music and interrogate its presence and effects in film. 2. while nearly all early-twentieth-century manuals on film accompaniment ad­ vocated parallel relationships between music and image, theodor adorno, hans eisler (1947), and siegfried kracauer (1960) later led those who not only toler­ ated but preferred disjunct relationships between visual image and music, the type of which have been celebrated in the films ofjean-luc godard. 3. in many cases, scholars do not have the option of studying the written scores or parts used in recording film soundtracks since many of these have been lost or were discarded after being recorded. 174 current musicology references chion, michel. 1994. audio-vision: sound on screen. edited and translated by claudia gorbman. new york: columbia university press. eisler, hans, and theodor adorno. 1947. composingfor the films. new york: oxford university press. gorbman, claudia. 1987. unheard melodies: narrative film music. bloomington: indiana university press. kalinak, kathryn. 1992. settling the score: music and the classical hollywood film. madison: university of wisconsin press. kracauer, siegfried. 1960. theory of film: the redemption of physical reality. new york: oxford university press. music of the gods: solo song and effetti meravigliosi in the interludes for la pellegrina nina treadwell introduction during april and may of 1589, some three thousand foreigners made their way to the city of florence to take part in the wedding celebrations for ferdinando i de' medici and the french princess christine of lorraine. because of the magnitude of the events that took place and the wealth of surviving information, historians of art, theater, and music have written much about these festivities. the set of interludes that were performed in the uffizi theater between the acts of girolamo bargagli's comedy la pellegrin ai-the high point of the wedding celebrations-have been given special attention. with a seventy-two page official booklet by academician bastiano de' rossi2 and numerous other surviving sources, the pellegrin a interludes have generated a considerable literature dedicated to explicating intertextual connections relating to the classical allusions that inspired their conception (for more recent additions, see ketterer 1999; marignetti 1996). yet, as many scholars have at least pointed out-beginning with the work of aby warburg-much of the erudite imagery that was presented went completely over the audience's heads (1932:280-81). similarly, there is evidence to suggest that many audience members did not comprehend the vocal music's sung texts on a word-by-word basis, but that the music was nevertheless meaningful to them. this study addresses the performative efficacy of the pellegrina inter­ ludes' solo songs because the songs garnered considerable attention during their performance in the uffizi theater. the sense of wonder or meraviglia that the solo songs evoked for spectators was articulated in numerous accounts, in both eyewitness descriptions (usually diary entries by foreign visitors) and in unofficial printed accounts.3 indeed, in these accounts the solo songs were typically singled out for special attention, which is striking in light of the relative brevity of many of the descriptions. conversely, in the detailed descrizione issued by the medici court, rossi rarely addresses audience response in relation to the music's affective quality (solo song or otherwise), and when he does, he projects an anticipated response, because his booklet (unavailable for the premiere performance) was written before the performances took place.4 current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 33 34 current musicology most interpreters of the pellegrina intermedi have disregarded the vari0us unofficial narratives, probably because they do not agree in precise detail with rossi's account. thus, unofficial sources have been neglected as a means of providing insight into the aesthetically and viscerally charged sensation of hearing (and seeing) the solo songs performed in the uffizi theater. in conjunction with rossi's narrative, as well as with the medici-sanctioned musical publication (malvezzi 1591), unofficial sources help to demonstrate that the spectator-auditor's perception of musical meraviglia was an essential component of the experiential dimension of the songs. indeed, various wondrous effects produced by the solo songs-mystery, awe, confusion, and surprise (to name just a few)-impressed spectators with a princely mystique of ineffable authority. while details often differ among various sources, the experiences notated in unofficial accounts concur, in general terms, with theories of political control and kingship, and with neoplatonic notions of musical magic-ideas that are explored in part ii of this study. in part i, i demonstrate the various ways in which solo song was utilized for meraviglia-inspiring effect in the interludes. first, however, it is necessary to set the stage by examining the broader fascination with effetti meravigliosi or wondrous effects in the context of two opposing literary paradigms. part i. the experience of wonder and the /i mystery of state" the aesthetic of wonder that was central to the pellegrina intermedi was read­ ily articulated in contemporaneous literary and artistic cultures as well as in the natural sciences and philosophy. in renaissance poetics, wonder was the rhetorical figure that triggered surprise and epistemological confusion (platt 1992:387). to oversimplify what was hardly a monolithic concept: wonder invoked a sense of the incomprehensible that in turn generated curiosity or desire for knowledge. drawing on the work of marvin t. herrick (1947), peter platt has shown that renaissance writers such as francesco robortello, antonio minturno, and jacopo mazzoni adopted a broadly aristotelian conception of wonder whereby confusion (or incomprehensibility) was subject to rational scrutiny and thereby ultimately dissipated. in his della difesa della comedia di dante, for example, mazzoni outlined thirty-four ways in which meraviglia could be transformed into verisimilitude (hathaway 1968:77). yet, from the vantage point of the spectator-auditor who witnessed the pellegrina interludes, little enlightenment or edification of the aristotelian sort appears to have taken place; in other words, understanding, reasoning, and knowledge among audience members remained partial. descriptions nina treadwell by foreign visitors leave no doubt that, at times, the perceiver was at a loss to describe through rational explanation that which was observed and/or heard.5 invoking what would become a familiar trope, the german diarist barthold von gadenstedt, who attended the premiere performance of the intermedi on may 2, wrote: "the splendor and great art of these intermedi cannot adequately be described, and those who have not seen this super­ human performed work cannot imagine how it could be possible" (kiimmel 1970:19).6 more specifically, gadenstedt referred to the fourth intermedio in which a sorceress in her chariot traversed the heavens followed by a large cloud full of musicians: "these two pieces were very skillfully done, so that no one could recognize how it would ever be possible that something like this could be staged, or [howl something like this could have taken place so publicly in the open air" (kiimmeli970:14).7 as i will show, the remarks by gadenstedt are typical of responses found in unofficial accounts of the performances. in practice, therefore, it appears that the aristotelian notion of wonder, with its emphasis on consequent demystification, was not at all pervasive (platt 1997:2). yet with one exception, in theoretical literature there were few challenges to the aristotelian model of wonder. one of the most vehe­ ment challenges to aristotle's system came from the (then) ferrara-based neoplatonist francesco patrizi, whose work coincides with the years leading up to the preparations and performances of the pellegrin a intermedi. patrizi rejected aristotle's concept of mimesis as the central principle of aesthetic judgment, replacing it with his own conception of meraviglia, to which he believed all poetry should aspire.8 he completed his book on wonder, la deca ammirabile, in 1587, a work that had been preceded in 1586 by la deca disputata, his most sustained attacked on the notion of aristotelian imitation. both volumes were part of his mammoth treatise on poetics, della poetica (1969). many of patrizi's ideas were likely well known to those involved in creating the pellegrina intermedi, particularly to the poet g. b. strozzi and giovanni de' bardi who created the interludes' invenzioni (plots). the friend­ ship between patrizi and bardi extended back at least to the early 1580s.9 the two men were united in their effort to defend lodovico ariosto's epic poem orlando furioso against the attacks of camillo pellegrino. 1o bardi invited patrizi to write parere in difesa dell'ariosto, which he subsequently dedicated to bardi (weinberg 1961, 2:1139). bardi himself delivered a lecture on february 24, 1583, before the florentine accademia degli alterati defending orlando furioso from the criticisms of pellegrino that centered on ariosto's abandonment of aristotelian unity in favor of varieta (variety) (weinberg 2:1116; patrizi 1975:87n3). bardi visited patrizi on his trip to ferrara and 35 36 current musicology mantua during 1584 and on june 12 of that year reported the chapter titles and parts therein of patrizi's della poetiea to the accademia degli alterati, which were then heatedly debated by the aristotelian contingent, led by lorenzo giacomini (hanning 1980:18; palisca 1994:418). further, there are notable passages in rossi's descrizione of the pellegrina interludes and bardi's diseorso that appear to be derived from patrizi's worky in his book art and power, roy strong groups patrizi with other utopian visionaries who understood the state as one element of a magical cosmology, and suggests that the intellectual framework constructed by such occult philosophers provided "a thought-context into which late renaissance fes­ tivals would seem to naturally fit, both in the sense of the ideas they purvey and in their cultivation of mystical monarchy" (strong 1984:73). although strong does not go on to develop a connection between patrizi and aspects of medicean stateor stagecraft, it is evident that patrizi's ideas provide a specific thought -context for the aesthetic and political aims of the pellegrin a intermedi. i have already noted that patrizi and his works were well known to bardi, who had a significant role in defining the conceptual framework for the intermedi. further, in patrizi's conception of wonder, the reluctance to privilege the intellect resonated with a broader humanist worldview that tempered deference to classical authority with insights gleaned from practical experience. this "new cultural relativism;' as gary tomlinson has described it (1987:8), is particularly relevant to an understanding of the projection and experience of wonder that took place within the performance context of the uffizi theater. patrizi envisioned wonder as a special faculty of the mind that medi­ ated between thought and feeling, that did not demand and, indeed, actively resisted ultimate resolution through rational explanation (patrizi 1969,2:361-62). a passage from patrizi's la deea ammirabile mirrors the spectator's experience as frequently imagined by rossi in his descrizione and as described in unofficial accounts: therefore something new and sudden and unexpected that appears in front of us, makes a movement in our soul, almost contradictory in itself of believing and not believing. of believing because one sees that the thing exists; and of not believing because it is unexpected, and new, and not before by us either known, or thought, or believed to be possible. (patrizi 1969,2:365)12 multimedia spectacle was the art form par excellence for producing unex­ pected or surprising effects, of course. here patrizi introduces the seemingly contradictory notion of "believing and not believing;' that is, the wondrous state that thrived on an absence of complete epistemological certainty. nina treadwell longinus was a chief influence on patrizi's views on wonder. as platt has noted, both longinus and patrizi "advocated a poetical form of fragmentary, scattered bursts that, on account of their wonder-full and incredible nature, had the power to take the audience 'out of themselves'" (platt 1992:393). similarly, the modus operandi of the intermedi-with emphasis on variety over unity-corresponded, on a larger scale, to the "fragmentary, scattered bursts" of patrizian -longinian (rather than aristotelian) poetics. the pellegrin a intermedi seem designed to discombobulate, to transport the audience "out of themselves." as such, they depended for their efficacy on a degree of mystification that paralleled the emergent trend toward mystical monarchy. comments by giuliano giraldi regarding the apparent inconceivability of these florentine spectacles over which duke ferdinando presided, confirm this intent: the superb decorations [apparato], the sumptuous show, the artful in­ vention of priceless machines, the wondrous spectacles, which not only surpassed the expectations of all men everywhere, but also the imagination of the most expert and wisest men; not only were they [the spectacles 1 impossible to envision in our minds before they were performed, but once performed, and seen again, they could not be grasped by our minds. (giraldi 1609:23)13 gadenstedt concluded his description of the pellegrin a intermedi by lament­ ing his unsatisfied curiosity in regard to (one presumes) the interlude's visual technologies: "we would appreciate the opportunity to see how this [the spectacle 1 could have been produced, but it was strictly forbidden to grant anybody permission to see this" (kiimmel1970: 19 ).14 as spectator-diarist, rather than medici representative (c.f. giraldi), gadenstedt's final remarks provide one explanation of why the pellegrina interludes "could not be [com­ pletely 1 grasped" by those who witnessed them. gadenstedt's comments also remind us of what is now commonplace in studies of musico-theatrical court entertainment: the assumption that rituals of production and consumption were integrally tied to the political interests of those whose sponsorship produced them. as such, the wonder that was evoked in the uffizi theater in 1589 served the interests of nascent absolutism, and was one part of a more general campaign by the newly installed duke ferdinando to posit himself as god-like, and the performance he offered as a "mystery of state." 15 despite the encyclopedic scope of rossi's official account of the production, i argue that the performances themselves remained purposefully elusive; the very nature of the genre guaranteed that they could not be fully apprehended by attendees, as giraldi affirmed. as a result, the production-which included music as a politically charged component-mapped out a division between the all-knowing, god-like duke (who seemingly enabled the production of 37 38 current musicology wonder) and the various audience members who participated in the quest for understanding that, according to the rules of the "theatrical game," could only be realized to a limited degree. 16 for the florentine courtier, the ineffable elements of the court intermedi were reflected in the courtier's daily enactment of sprezzatura, that elusive essence of courtliness that defied any exacting verbal description. as mario biagioli points out, "both the opacity of sprezzatura and the 'mystery' of the source of the prince's power were aimed at shielding his power from being discursively probed" (1993:52). for all its efficacy, then, the prince's absolute power-whether exercised through the art of musical theater or undergirded by an elaborate spy network-must perforce remain "a mystery of state." little wonder, then, that gadenstedt was denied access to the mechanisms through which the intermedi worked their wonders. solo song and the marvelous i turn now to the solo songs that were singled out by eyewitnesses and other unofficial commentators. the strategic positioning of several of the songs-three functioned as opening numbers for interludes one, four, and five-give them special structural importance. i? the solo songs also provide a key point of entry for understanding the historiographical issues involved in writing about the process-oriented experience oflistening to (and seeing) music performed in a theatrical context on the eve of the "birth of opera." while the inclusion of a number of solo songs in the pellegrin a interludes has ensured an almost obligatory reference to them in cursory histories of opera, the songs have not fared particularly well under more focused musicological scrutiny. one of the central issues concerns the prevalent use of passagework or diminution in the songs; tim carter identified this problem when he wrote that the virtuosic passagework in jacopo peri's "dunque fra torbide onde" (from interlude five) "would hardly have found approval in the camerata" (1989:117-18). the fact that in many respects the solo songs do not meet the aesthetic ideals of giovanni de' bardi's camerata, nor of the birth-of-opera narrative, seems to have influenced recent critical assessment. several of the songs have been assessed in terms that imply they possess a lack of fluidity. carter refers to the awkwardness and lack of suavity in "dunque fra torbide onde" (1989: 118-21) and warren kirkendale criticizes emilio de' cavalieri's "godi, turba mortal" sung by the castrato onofrio gualfreducci in intermedio six because of its "frigid [ity]" (2001:166), apparently finding the piece devoid of feeling. evidently, these songs do not always provide the modern-day listener with a satisfying forward-moving trajectory by comparison, one assumes, with early opera nina treadwell or chamber monody. in other words, the songs have defied a desire by the listener to perceive a succession of necessary and related moments in a musical whole. ironically, assessments such as those of kirkendale and carter touch on one element that may have made these pieces especially successful in their original theatrical performance context. in peri's song, for example, disjunctions between phrases and seemingly unwieldy, but wide-ranging, passagework within phrases may have contributed to a wondrous effect, one that emphasized fractured musical moments and an impression of musical stasis as opposed to gathering momentum. kirkendale's assessment of the pellegrin a solo songs is worth citing at length because he draws together the issues of "excessive" passagework and text audibility: the elaborate, inexpressive embellishment of vocal solos, as taught in the diminution manuals of the sixteenth century, was a practice favored more by singers than by composers. its extreme application might have some justification as an exercise in vocal pedagogy, but in musical compositions such as those of 1589 the results are questionable, becoming almost cari­ catures in their excessive artificiality. the unrelieved long melismas, often on insignificant words and thus not motivated by meaning, render the text unintelligible (anticipating bellini or donizetti). (kirkendale 2001:166) kirkendale raises a number of issues here, but i will focus on the question of text intelligibility, or lack thereof. indeed, it is true that many spectators were at a loss to fully understand the words of the sung music. this matter seems to have been of some concern to those who created the intermedi. some three years earlier, rossi had addressed the issue in his descrizione for bardi's play l'amico fido (for which bardi had composed music for the sixth intermedio). rossi stated that bardi immediately turned to the musical part, in which he principally wished that the pomp and the finesse of his poem should resplend, so that he wanted that harmony to come out, most copiously, most full, most varied, most sweet, and most artful, above every other [harmony], and at the same time (which is something that is thought to be almost impossible) that it [the music] would be most clear and the words easy to understand, and the connoisseurs will also be able to judge this for themselves through the publication. (rossi 1585:2r.)18 curiously, the concern with textual clarity emphasized in rossi's 1585 descrizione is entirely absent from the equivalent passage in 1589. in the account above it is not entirely clear why rossi suggested that it was "thought to be almost impossible" for "the words [to be 1 easy to understand:' perhaps he was implying that pragmatic concerns regarding the performance would 39 40 current musicology pose obstacles in this respect: the difficulty of producing music in the large and cavernous uffizi theater (as opposed to more intimate settings, such as the rooms of bardi's palazzo) and the frequent use of instruments to double voices and/or provide elaborate continuo accompaniment would be obvious factors, aside from the extensive employment of passaggi (passagework) in solo songs. because of this concern for textual clarity, rossi specified that the music in notated form would be sufficient proof of composers' intent that the words be easily understood, and in doing so tried to pre-empt any complaints on this point. indeed, a brief report regarding the pellegrina intermedi sent by michele priuli to cardinal montalto in rome (dated may 6) voiced this very complaint: there were "very beautiful and weighty concerti, and so many musicians and instruments that one did not even understand the words of the music" (cited in kirkendale 2001: 17 4n59) .19 it is also clear from the numerous misidentifications of characters and contexts in a number of unofficial accounts that in many instances the audience not only missed visual cues but also confused textual ones, even as the gods sometimes identified themselves during the course of their solo song or were identified by other characters. evidently, many in the audience could not either hear the sung words or understand them. despite the unintelligible words, the solo songs were nevertheless effect­ ive in performance and this fact poses a direct challenge to one of the key precepts on which musicologists' understanding of this pivotal historical moment has been based: the conception that the efficacy oflate renaissance italian music lay in the expression (and assumed intelligibility) of a verbal text. what is problematic is that this perspective was propounded in the official music-theoretical writings of musicians such as bardi and cavalieri who, as a result of their connection to the florentine court, were intimately involved with the pellegrina production (cavalieri 1600; caccini 1601; for bardi see palisca 1989:90-131). thus, key documents that have continued to inform our understanding of the musical aesthetic of this "transitional" period have been used, unconsciously or not, as the critical lens through which to assess the solo songs, when the testament of unofficial accounts, the practical realities of the performance conditions, and close readings of rossi's descrizioni suggest that the music's efficacy did not rely, in fact, on comprehension of the songs' texts. regarding the latter, rossi-as mouth­ piece for bardi-indirectly indicates as much by way of his reference (cited above) to the "almost impossible" task of making the words clear and "easy to understand."20 text clarity is not dismissed, however, but deflected to the printed (not performative) medium, which could be assessed by connois­ seurs outside of the performance context. my interest here, however, is to identify those devices associated with meraviglia that ensured an efficacious nina treadwell figure 1: cristofano malvezzi, "10 che l'onde raffreno" (from intermedio five). intermedii et concerti, canto partbook, 27. (bildarchiv der osterreichischen nationalbibliothek vienna, s.a.78.b.48, by permission.) , "t .--~-----...... ~'---~---... -------------'--~----------~----------------------.------~~------:~:::::: ==:::===., -____ = ... :::::::=== "0',,-' ............ _--------.. ---......... ------------d , 41 42 current musicology outcome during the 1589 performances. specifically, i will discuss the use of florid passagework (the appropriate symbolic language for the gods), the use of echo effects, the projection of musical stasis (i.e., the control of time), surprise effects, "invisible" music, and music's capacity to delineate space as a means of projecting a sense of the incomprehensible. i begin with one of the most problematic solo songs because the music, as it survives in notation (figure 1), is only a skeleton of what was apparently sung in performance. "io che i' onde raffreno" opened the fifth intermedio in which anfitrite, the queen of the sea, emerged from her watery kingdom to salute duke ferdinando and his bride (malvezzi 1591, nono:ll): 10 che l' onde raffreno a mio talento, e son del mar regina, a cui s'attera, e'inchina ad inchinarmi, 0 regi sposi vegno, fin dal profondo del mio vasto regno. ogni nume, ch'al mar alberga in seno i, who still the waves according to my will, and am queen of the sea, before whom bows down in reverence every divinity who dwells in the bosom of the sea: to bow down to you, 0 royal pair, 1 come from the depths of my vast realm. although the song only survives in cristofano malvezzi's syllabic five-part version in the official musical publication, the composer himself tells us that vittoria archilei, the florentine court's prima donna, sang the piece as a solo "maravigliosamente" (1591, nono:ll), likely implying that she embellished the canto part with at least some passagework. although we cannot be certain of the exact nature and extent of the passagework that archilei might have incorporated into her performance, one commentator, simone cavallino, gives us some idea of the general mood that the singer conveyed. like several other writers, cavallino mistakes anfitrite for a siren, but pays particular attention to the perceived effect that the song exerted on audience members: in the blink of an eye [the scene] became a tempestuous sea [with] hard rocks and waves that appeared so natural, that everyone was amazed by looking at them, because they made that foam that one is accustomed to [see] with the real sea. in the middle of the above-mentioned waves appeared a very beautiful siren-with nine of her prisoners-with such a sweet singing that it would not have been anything to wonder about if it had put to sleep and softened every hard heart; then after singing for a good amount of time, she disappeared. (cavallino 1589:5)21 nina treadwell cavallino's use of the verb stupefare indicates that before the singer even appeared, the audience was astonished by the visual scene or was "past all sense:' to use john florio's translation (1611:542). in essence, the audi­ ence was, in the patrizian sense, in a wondrous state of "believing and not believing:' believing because the scene existed, but not believing because of the scene's sudden appearance and its striking resemblance to reality. (while cavallino stresses verisimilitude, it is the unbelievable, seemingly impossible nature of the feat that evokes meraviglia.) in the singing that followed, cavallino paid particular attention to the perceived effect that the solo song exerted on audience members. for cavallino, the siren's song had the power to move the audience by softening their hearts, and lulling them to sleep as the legendary sirens had done to the sailors of antiquity. indeed, in cavallino's mind the song had already exerted its intended effect, because the singer was accompanied by "nine of her prisoners:' whose hearts she had already "captured." female singers were frequently likened to sirens during this period, but there was often confusion surrounding the nature of their power-did it lead men from earthly desire to ultimate destruction, or to a higher spiritual plane? that cavallino and others mistook anfitrite for a siren testifies to the prevalence of the siren's figure in the popular imagina­ tion, but it also indicates the power that the siren's (archilei's) song was perceived to exert over listeners. yet cavallino's account does not suggest that listeners were overwhelmed by the kind of flashy passagework that characterized other solos in the inter­ medi, in which the complexity of the passaggi generally increased as the song progressed; rather, archilei's singing seems to have had a more subtle, yet no less powerful effect. writing in a figurative, not literal sense, cavallino tries to convey the intensity of the experience of the performance by alluding to a dream -like state. if we follow cavallino's impressions (which are, indeed, the most detailed that we have), the sleep-inducing quality of the song must have called for a completely different approach that relied only partly on the singer's ability to articulate intricate passagework, but mostly depended on the singer's ingegno-an imaginative capacity to invent or fashion the new. in fact, archilei was renowned for her ingegno, an ability that was mentioned by several of her contemporaries, including her pellegrin a colleague, jacopo peri. in peri's words, archilei was the singer who has always made my music worthy of her singing, but adorns it not only with those gruppi and those long windings of the voice, [both 1 simple and double, that her vivezza dell'ingegno [liveliness of invention 1 can devise at any time-more to obey the usage of our time than because she regards the beauty and force of our singing to rely upon them-but also of those pleasantries and beauties that one is not able to write, and if written, can not be learnt from the written [examples l. (peri 1601 : iii-iv) 22 43 44 current musicology it is striking that peri used the term ingegno to describe archilei's imaginative acumen. ingegno was understood as a masculine attribute that suggested imagination, inventiveness, and initiative (florio 1611:253); in literary circles it was regarded as a poetic faculty par excellence and was also highly prized in the visual arts. peri's reference to the singer's "vivezza dell'ingegno" is mentioned in the context of her capacity to invent various kinds of orna­ mentation at will, but what is even more interesting for our purposes is the continuation of peri's description as he notes the current vogue for passaggi. to be sure, as a florentine court musician, archilei's livelihood depended on her ability to execute such passagework with brilliance and precision, as she did in the very opening of the set of intermedi. yet peri suggested that archilei herself did not believe that "the beauty and power" of singing solely relied upon them. indeed, the "pleasantries and beauties" that peri went on to mention would not necessarily have referred to ornamentation, as has sometimes been assumed.23 it is more likely that he meant other expressive devices for which singers from these circles were renowned and which, as peri pointed out, could "not be learnt from the written [examples j." comments by vincenzo giustiniani describing the singing of the ladies from the closely related courts of mantua and ferrara will serve to outline some of the expressive effects to which peri may have been refer­ ring. giustiniani mentions the use of well-placed passaggi, but continues by outlining more subtle effects: moreover, by moderating or increasing the voice, loud or soft, making it light or heavy, according to the sections [of a particular song], now draw­ ing it out, now dividing it with the accompaniment of a sweet interrupted sigh, now stretching passages out, well followed, detached, now gruppi, now leaps, now long trilli, now brief [trilli] , and now with sweet passaggi sung softly ... and with many other particular artifices and observations that will be of note to people more experienced than myself. (solerti 1903:lo8)24 omitted from the excerpt above are references to appropriate physical demeanor, particularly with regard to the body (trunk), hands, and parts of the face. it is difficult to know to what extent vittoria might have employed these more subtle physical gestures in her performance of "10 che l' onde raffreno" in the large uffizi theater; initially, she had to negotiate the rising movement of her machine with lute in hand (rossi 1589:56; anon. 1589a). the mother-of-pearl shell on which she was perched was intentionally tossed about by the waves (rossi 1589:55; pavoni 1589:20) but presumably the waves subsided as she sang her opening line "10 che l' onde raffreno." it seems clear, however, that the subtleties of archilei's expressive arsenal must have accounted, in part, for the song's efficacy in performance. indeed, the nina treadwell song did not require a pronounced teleology in order to evoke a sense of wonder in the auditor. the fourth intermedio, like the fifth, began with a solo song, but in intermedio four the singer was intended to represent a sorceress whose song attempted to invoke the fire demons. the sorceress in her chariot unexpect­ edly intruded upon the scene from the previous act of the comedy, a gesture observed by a number of spectators (monga 1994:114; anon. 1589a). the nature of her unexpected appearance was no doubt prompted by the popular conception of the sorceress ( or witch) as a figure of disruption and disorder, but what also garnered attention was the fact that spectators were unable to figure out exactly how the chariot flew through the air to the center of the stage, while remaining close to the heavens. one anonymous italian com­ mentator notes: "without changing the sets, a sorceress's chariot appears in the air, pulled by two dragons, a wondrous thing because one was not able to see by what means it moved" (anon. 1589a; see also katritzky 2001:233, 237; monga 1994:114; kummel 1970:14).25 likewise, rossi's descrizione stresses the visual components of the scene-with particular emphasis on the sorceress's disheveled appearance-but does not go to any lengths to describe the affective quality of the music that she sang. it is striking, however, that cavallino's comparatively brief account again emphasizes the musical dimension. he states: "the fourth intermedio gave no less amazement to the eye than wonder to the ear" (1589:5),26 suggesting that the visual and aural components of the scene were on equal footing in their capacity to evoke the wondrous. regarding the sorceress's song in particular, cavallino notes: "there was a woman who sang alone, and in such a manner that all ears were attentive [in order] to listen to her" (1589:5)y the song to which cavallino referred was composed by giulio caccini and sung by his first wife, lucia caccini: 10 che dal ciel cader farei la luna a voi, ch'in alto sete, e tutt'il ciel vedet'e voi com­ mando ditene quando il sommo eterno giove dal ciel in terra ogni sua gratia piove. i, who could make the moon fall from the heavens, to you who are on high and see all of heaven, i command you: tell us when the almighty, eternal jove will pour down his every grace from the heavens to the earth.28 as the utterance of a sorceress, both the singer's delivery and the music her husband notated seems to have been designed to suggest the sorceress's 45 46 current musicology example 1: giulio caccini, "10 che dal ciel cader farei la luna" (from intermedio four). transcribed from both florence, biblioteca nazionale centrale, magl. xix.66 and brussells, conservatoire royal de musique, ms. 704. o o che dal ciel ca 5 der farei la lu na a voi al to se te tull'il ciel 10 ve de t'e voi co man do di te ne nina treadwell (example 1 continued) 15 quan do il sam m'e ter no gio ve dal ciel in ter 20 ra ogni sua gra tia pia ve. 47 48 current musicology spellbinding powers. producing the latter may have been a difficult task for a composer such as giulio caccini, whose own reluctance to employ a consistently florid vocal style-a sure-fire technique for evoking the marvel­ ous-is well known. in many ways, caccini's compositional strategy is typical of his style, with passaggi almost invariably falling on the penultimate syllable of a phrase (see example 1). this formula was one he put into practice and advocated in print, railing against those singers whose words could not be understood because of excessive embellishment (caccini 1970:43-47). the impression of invocation would have been produced by the declamatory fashion in which lucia caccini, as sorceress, first summoned the demons, hence the speech-like setting and repetition (with slight embellishment) on the words "10" (i) and "a voi" (to you) (see example i, mm. 1-2 and mm. 5-6). the text repetitions here emphasize the sorceress's attempt to contact her demonic cohorts; to the less savvy auditor-spectator, the emphasis on "1" and "you" in the text would have at least conveyed the intensity of the singer's relationship with certain unknown, but potentially powerful, deities. in general, the setting conforms with giulio caccini's views on correct text setting. however, the use of passagework is extensive, and does not always appear to be prompted by the meaning of individual words. for the listener, the wondrous experience was likely evinced through the mounting complex­ ity of the passagework in the first half of the poem, with each successive phrase outdoing the last, culminating on "commando" (mm. 10-13). this strategy included the use of passaggi on syllables of words that did not call for any special treatment: see, for example, the passaggi on "sete" (mm. 7-8) and later in the song, on "quando" (mm. 15-16). the dramatic timing of lucia's silences between phrases would have likely created a sense of expectation in the listener and along with a commanding delivery might explain cavallino's emphasis on the audience's attentive ears. on two occasions-at m. 14 and m. 18-the continuo is silent in conjunction with the voice. these dramatic pauses would have given the sorceress's assumed listeners a moment to absorb both her spellbinding virtuosity and the implications of her demands. in this sense, too, lucia's song could make a powerful impression, without the auditor necessarily attaining word-for-word comprehension. finally, it is the suggestion of jove's power to pour down his grace that prompts her concluding flourish, with the dotted-rhythm figure "painting" the word "piove" (mm. 20-22).29 in key moments in the song the intricacy of the passagework likely became the central object of the auditor's attention to the exclusion of all else. there is an aesthetic parallel here between caccini's song as it may have been experienced in performance and rossi's explanation of the visual aes­ thetic that dominated the intermedi at the meta-level. various comments by nina treadwell rossi in his descrizione (supported by the testimony in unofficial accounts) suggest that part of the experience of meraviglia involved the trumping of one wonder by the next-to the extent that it was possible to forget almost immediately what one had witnessed only moments before (rossi 1589: 19). similarly, lighting could be designed so that it became difficult for the eye to rest on certain visual components of the scene (rossi 1589:23). the point appears to have been to keep the perceiver "off balance" and in a state of instability so that each intermedio and the performance as a whole were always just beyond the spectator's grasp. caccini's solo song demonstrates how each phrase of passagework could outdo the last (by potentially nullify­ ing the impression of the previous one), either through increased complexity over the course of the song or through a striking stylistic shift. indeed, it was those singers versed in neapolitan-style embellish­ ment-a style of passagework particularly associated with southern italian musicians-that were actively sought after by the medici. it is thus no accident that several of the soloists chosen to perform in the 1589 intermedi, including archilei and gualfreducci, had roman connections.30 the solos that include embellished versions in the official print are characterized by the kind of extensive passaggi that assumed the singer had dispositione di voce, a vocal disposition that made the singing of elaborate passagework possible (greenlee 1987). according to the roman singer giovanni luca conforti, disposition was possessed by few singers (1593:l-lv); it was a means of articulating embellishments with the throat that, when success­ fully rendered, could result in clear, precise, and rapid articulation. good disposition allowed the execution of seemingly impossible embellishment, often involving leaps and repeated notes in unrelenting scalar passages sung at lightning speed. in and of itself the experience of hearing a singer endowed with this ability seems to have been cause for certain wonderment. bardi admitted as much upon hearing an extraordinary bass singer in rome, despite criticizing the practice in his discorso (palisca 1989: 122 ).31 transfixed by the rapid glottal articulations employed to execute intricate passaggi, at times the auditor may have lost a firm grasp of the relationship between the momentary experience and the structure of the musical whole. in poetic terms, the aesthetic corresponds to the "fragmentary, scattered bursts" of patrizian -longinian poetics. a thoroughgoing example that emphasized the wondrousness of momentary experience in quite a different way was the song assigned to the legendary greek poet-musician arion in intermedio five. along with florid passagework, a double echo was introduced that became the governing principle structuring the piece. arion's song was composed and sung by the virtuoso jacopo peri, who also accompanied himself on the chitarrone. 49 50 current musicology although the poet is unknown, the poem appears in malvezzi's print (1591 nono:12): dunque fra torbide on de gli ultimi miei sospir mandero fore, ecco gentil con tuoi suavi accenti: raddoppia i miei tormenti; hai, lacrime, ahi dolore, hai morte troppo acerb a e troppo dura. ma deh chi n' assicura: o di terra 0 di cielo s'a torto io mi querelo: e s'a ragion mi doglio; movetevi a pieta del mio cordoglio. thus among the murky waves i will breathe my final sighs. gentle echo, with your sweet accents reiterate my torments alas tears! alas pain! alas, death, too bitter and too hard! but who can assure me, on earth or in the heavens, if i am wrong to complain? and if my foreboding is justified have pity on me in my plight. the power of arion's plaintive, yet meraviglia-inspiring song ultimately saved the poet -musician from his mutinous crew. after arion jumped over­ board to escape them, a dolphin carried him safely to shore, attracted by his sweet singing. echoes responded to arion at most of the line-end cadences, and were also summoned within poetic lines to emphasize dramatic excla­ mations on the word "hai" (alas) in the first stanza (see example 2, mm. 14-19) and "pieta" (pity) in the final line of the second stanza (see example 3, mm. 37-39). the wondrousness seems to have been produced, in part, by a projection of musical stasis or immobility as each line or short phrase was iterated twice before the singer could proceed. in this way, the echoes effectively delayed the perception of the passing of time; and like virtuosity, the device was self-referential, calling attention back to sound itself. the song did not provide the listener with a succession of related moments, but rather produced self-contained "snapshots" of wonder with attendant ripple effects produced by the double echoes. unexpected chordal shifts also served to produce a sense of disjunction between phrases. see, for example, the third-related chord shift in example 2 (mm. 23-24), which emphasized arion's disbelief-with the word "rna" (but)-after contemplating a death that would be "too bitter and too hard." in addition, peri's song drew on the so-called bastarda style in which the soloist not only performed florid passagework in his natural voice range-peri was a tenor-but expanded the range of available pitches, both above and below, to incorporate elements of the bass and alto parts that are found in the surviving four-part score. drawing on the alto voice was particularly appropriate toward the end of the song when arion's sense of foreboding reaches a peak. in example nina treadwell 3 (mm. 33-35) the gradually ascending eighth notes on the text, ''and if my foreboding is justified," culminating on the high e (at m. 35) reflected arion's fearfulness and dread by moving into the singer's lighter alto voice range to elaborate passaggi. the singer's ability to traverse various parts of the ambitus exemplified the kind of herculean feat that was expected of the virtuoso in this context, but may have contributed to recent scholarly criticism that describes peri's song as awkward and lacking suavity. the range explored by the singer is roughly two octaves, yet accomplished bass singers at this time were known to sing bastarda style with a range of up to three octaves. indeed, as richard wistreich has demonstrated (2002), the bass singer giulio cesare brancaccio, while criticized by connoisseurs for subverting the musical architecture of a piece, could astonish his audience by applying passagework across the entire range of a four-voice madrigal, making porous the boundaries between discrete parts of the musical texture. similarly, in the 1589 performances, the addition of extensive and wide-ranging passagework in peri's solo song likely drew the listener toward an experience of momentary effects, one that actively worked against a perceived sense of the song's larger design. i now turn to the opening number of the first intermedio to provide a more extended analysis demonstrating how perceptions of time and space were manipulated through the confluence of aural and visual media to produce a sense of wonder in the audience. the first intermedio began with an extended solo song sung by vittoria archilei, who was deployed on a cloud that emerged, very slowly, from the flyloft of the theater. archilei personified harmony of the spheres (or more specifically, dorian harmony), but we know that few in the audience recognized the singer as such, either by her visual appearance or by the self-identifying pronouncement during the course of her song "daile pili alte sfere": dane pili alte sfere di celesti sirene arnica scorta, 1'armonia son, ch'a voi vengo, 0 mortali: poscia che fino al ciel battendo l'ali l' alta fama n' apporta, che mai si nobil coppia il sol non vide, qual voi nuova minerva, e forte alcide. 32 from the highest spheres, as friendly escort to the celestial sirens, i, harmony, come [down 1 to you, 0 mortals: because, beating its wings, exulted fame has brought up to heaven [the news 1 that never has the sun seen such a noble couple, as you, new minerva and strong hercules.32 51 52 current musicology example 2: jacopo peri, "dunque fra torbide onde;' mm. 14-24 (from intermedio five). transcribed from intermedii et concerti (venice: giacomo vincenti, 1591). " 15 [sesto] ~ hai hai " [setiimo] ~ ti hai hai r-:r"i"1 [tenore] \ ahi ahi la cri me ahi " t.j " '" [nono ] ~ w 1" -e: : .. .. [ahi] do 10 re hai a nina treadwell (example 2 continued) 1\ 20 ,; i 1\ ,; .... hai .....-="1 " rnor te trop p'a cer ba e 1\ @! u u u ~v bet 1\ ,; i ~n : : 1\ ~ ,; du .. deh ra rna f'i ......."..,... ~ ~du ra rna 1\ ~ ~ trop-;o du ... ra rna deh 1\ @! :cj: v .-i~4 1\ u 53 54 current musicology example 3: jacopo peri, "dunque fra torbide onde;' mm. 33-43 (from intermedio five). transcribed from intermedii et concerti (venice: giacomo vincenti, 1591). 1\ 35 [sesto] ,; .. o;;;:z::j .. do 1\ [settimo] ,; 1\ [tenore] ~ •••• l...i..i..i .......... """'= ." e sift ra gion mi do glio 1\ ~ 1\ [nono] ~ en n 1\ ,; .,. glio til 1\ ,; do -., .. glio til 1\ ~ ,; " .,. mo ve te-v'a pie til 1\ i ~ 1\ 0 ~, ~ (1) tie! (l (l ~fr lklil n (l)orig.~c nina treadwell (example 3 continued) " 40 ,; " f " 'f <j • mo-ve ===== ....... te via pie ta del mio cor do " ~ " f n n fr f': ,., " -~ .. f to·· glio ~ " .. ,; .... do glio " ... ,; .... •• glio mo i-' 1\ ~ 1\ ,;e. 55 56 current musicology eyewitness accounts of the performances of this opening number suggest that harmony's song was meaningful, but that its efficacy was not dependent on word-for-word comprehension of the song's text.33 the most frequent point of comment concerned the affective quality of the singer's voice. the german eyewitness gadenstedt notes, for example, that she [harmony] began to sing so sweetly at the same time "beating" on the lute, so that everyone said that it was impossible that a human voice could be so sweet, [and] also so moved all the spectators with her singing that they just could not describe it. (kummei1970:7-8)34 it might be tempting to dismiss the remarks of gadenstedt and others who emphasized the ineffable sweetness of the singer's voice as poetic cliche or as part of a broader phenomenon that lorenzo bianconi has described as the "cult of ineffability" -of which it undoubtedly was (1987:61). it is important to remember, however, that archilei was experienced in singing "alia napoletana," enabling her to perform exceedingly florid embellishment with great speed. she could elaborate passagework in the upper reaches of the soprano range with ease, thus projecting an impression of superhuman virtuosity. in the broadest sense, then, the affective quality of archilei's song in performance was due to her extraordinary facility as an exponent of neapolitan-style singing. the intricate, ever-changing passagework that we see on the printed page (see figure 2) was likely experienced in perfor­ mance in terms of broad affective gestures that were delineated sectionally. indeed, through such shifts, and because of increasingly demanding and spectacular passagework, the song has impressed modern commentators by exuding an overarching impression of gathering momentum. the florid passagework that characterizes what some have assumed to be the song's final section-beginning with a second statement of the words "qual voi" -is, to judge from recent recordings, the most technically demanding and aurally breathtaking of the piece. yet i would argue that while, on the printed page, archilei's song ap­ pears to gather momentum as it proceeds, the song's forward motion was counterbalanced in the 1589 performances by the visual perception of the singer on a slowly descending cloud.35 rossi described the visual dimension of the scene thus: when the curtains fell one immediately saw a cloud appear in the sky, and on earth, at the front of the stage, a little doric temple of rustic stone. a woman in the cloud, that came little by little to the earth, was playing a lute and singing ... and while the above-mentioned cloud descended to earth little by little, and having under it some sunbeams, it seemed that by following them [the sunbeams], it gradually, as it moved, covered the sun. (rossi 1589:18-19)36 nina treadwell figure 2: vittoria archilei, "daile pili alte sfere:' excerpt of passaggi for concluding sections (from intermedio one). intermedii et concerti, canto partbook, 6. (bildarchiv der osterreichischen nationalbibliothek, vienna, s.a.7s.b.4s, by permission.) .~ --...:-,... ... ---7-,... ... --..... -,--.. -~ ..... -~-----_____ ~ __ .s....~ ....... __ -------_._------. ---~---------..:,.;-.---~-. ----------;----. ------.------------..;,t;;:: .' '_ -----~--.------------------------~-~-----.. -------... ---...... ~-------:------~-------~ ... ----.-..-------..57 58 current musicology almost all descriptions-eyewitness and otherwise-stress the barely per­ ceptible nature of the descent, leaving spectators at a loss as to exactly how the cloud moved as it gradually descended from the heavens (see especially anon. 1589b; kummeli970:7-8). this impression, to which the creators of the intermedi had given special attention,37 was part of the wonder and the theatrical game, of course, and resonated with the patrizian concept of incomprehensibility. my point here, however, is to suggest that the combined effect of aural and visual media would have produced a sense of time suspended-of time standing still-rather than projecting an impression of gathering momentum. this impression would have been fortified by the necessarily limited physical motion of archilei as she sang to her lute; indeed, the technique required for singing such elaborate passagework required the singer to remain as physically motionless as possible.38 the floating, translucent quality of archilei's passagework was reinforced by the flexible accompaniment of plucked-string instruments that included the singer's own "leuto grosso" and two chitarroni played from behind the scenes. the newly "invented" chitarrone-with its extension neck facilitating a strong and extensive bass range-was able to create a variegated textural support for the singer's extended "windings of the voice" in the upper range.39 the exclusion of a (sustaining) bowed bass instrument for accompaniment here was crucial because not only did the absence of such a sonority lessen treble/bass polarity, but it also helped to defuse the momentum of tonal directionality. thus, the over arching purpose of this opening emblematic tableau-the singer's mesmerizingly incremental descent-was to initiate the spectator into the magical world of the intermedi, providing a "psychic displace­ ment from the ordinary"40 that would prepare the perceiver for the new and unexpected sonic and visual shifts that followed. that the spectator experienced the event on a quasi-religious or mystical level is suggested by the terms used to describe the sound quality of archilei's voice. the notion of incomprehensibility was commonly associated with the mysteries of the christian faith, and the frequency with which words such as stupefare and meraviglia occur in written accounts suggests the dreamlike, otherworldly quality of the experience. thus, while archilei was not recognized as a personification of harmony, her music and visual presentation produced the intended effect. the religious connotations wrought by archilei's performance are perhaps most clearly revealed by the perception of the singer as an angel or goddess (rather than as dorian harmony). cavallino attributed this perception to both her visual appearance and her sonorous singing style (1589:3).41 the most obvious cue for many spectators was the singer's iconic status as she descended from the heavens, a perception that was intentionally nina treadwell elicited by producer emilio de' cavalieri at rehearsal when he ordered the enlargement of archilei's cloud so that it surrounded her from above (as well as below) to produce an almost halo-like effect.42 in this manner, the opening of the first intermedio mimicked the kind of spectacular scenic effects utilized for decades in larger florentine churches for the performance of sacred representationsy the mechanical devices installed as permanent fixtures in some churches enabled angels and other celestial beings to hover in midair or enact spectacular descents on important occasions. but in the artificially generated environment of the closed court theater, archilei's spatial descent was a powerful metaphor for medici control: with their stage crew literally pulling the invisible strings of wonder, the medici were able to actualize their god -like power. harmony's descent also had profound philosophical significance as sug­ gested by bardi's song text and the emblematic quality of the visual imagery. because emblems were considered talismanic, some may have understood the descent to indicate what was being brought about invisibly, according to ficinian neoplatonism, a tradition in which florentine intermedi were steeped. thus, harmony's descent functioned in performance as a kind of choreographed magic, whereby cosmic harmony was brought to earth. from a neoplatonic perspective, the spectator's awe-struck response was, in essence, proof of the performance's magical efficacy. the mysterious source of sound with these considerations in mind, i will now discuss the significance of the concluding section of harmony's song. it has long been assumed that the musical print included two possible endings for archilei's song, a florid and more extensive "first ending" and a shorter "second ending" with echo effects (see figure 2; the "second ending" begins with the decorated initial).44 i previously alluded to the so-called first ending that concluded with increasingly dynamic passagework on the text "strong hercules." the shorter "second ending," which set the same text, was characterized by repeated melodic cells and reiterated syllables in the text, suggesting that the second of each musical cell was performed as an echo. in recent recordings of the song, the echo ending has either been omitted or the endings as they appear in the musical print have been reversed. either solution allows what appears to be the more vocally spectacular ending to conclude the piece.45 but several accounts, including one from an eyewitness, confirm that the echo ending concluded the premiere performance in the uffizi theater.46 a manuscript description by an anonymous frenchman who attended the premiere outlines the details: 59 60 current musicology in front of the stage, which is very large and high, there were two cloths that covered the entire stage. when they wished to begin, all of a sudden the first, which was red, fell to the ground. the second [cloth], which was like sky blue, remained, right in the middle of which appeared a lady who was seated in a cloud holding a lute in her hand. [she 1 sang and little by little descended to the stage, where she immediately disappeared. she played and sang so well that everyone admired her, and at the end of her song there was heard an echo that responded to her, which seemed to be quite far away from the stage, a mile or more. (monga 1994:113)47 the account of giuseppe pavoni confirms the description by the anonymous frenchman: there were two cloths covering the front of the stage. the first one which went down was red; the perspective was then seen although it was still cov­ ered by another cloth that was blue, in the middle of which was a woman that was seated on a cloud, and with a lute began to play and sing a mad­ rigal very sweetly. and thus playing and singing she came, being lowered down little by little, hiding herself among certain rocks, and finishing the madrigal among those rocks with an echo so wonderful that it seemed like its bouncing back was a mile away. (pavoni 1589:15)48 additionally, pavoni's account refers to the "certain rocks" into which archilei and her cloud disappeared at the end of her descent, and from whence she concluded her madriga1.49 the final echo section was thus performed out of the audience's sight, and pavoni confirms its wondrous effect. i will comment here on the several disorienting (and thus meraviglia-in­ spiring) surprises that audience members likely experienced at this moment in the performance. many in the audience probably assumed that archilei's song had concluded with her spectacular final flourishes and her disap­ pearance into the certi scogli (certain rocks). the music that was sung out of eyesight began in a more sustained, lyrical style with a reference to "new minerva" -christine of lorraine, the new duchess of florence (see figure 2, at the decorated initial).so the opening three notes would have naturally incorporated a gradual crescendo, as the musical line slowly ascended by step. in 1589, the audience was likely caught off guard by the singer's gradually emerging disembodied voice. and, no sooner had archilei concluded this short lyrical phrase, than she began a rapidly articulated ascending motive that was immediately echoed, according to spectators, from a distance. from what is known of the theater's setup it seems likely that archilei's echo was rendered by a singer stationed at the very back of the hall (out of sight) in or behind the small balcony above the main entrance,sl a position that would explain the emphasis in both descriptions on the considerable distance from which the echo seemed to originatey for the auditor, the nina treadwell challenge and pleasure of the experience inhered simultaneously in the initial confusion engendered by the echo and in the attempt to describe the auditory experience-if only to suggest that the echo appeared to emanate from "quite far away from the stage, a mile or so." notice that the auditor does not definitively locate the echo's source. to do so would have destroyed the novelty of the auditory sensation; thus, for meraviglia to be efficacious, knowledge must remain partial. in this final echo section, the auditor may not have understood the broken syllables of the words "forte alcide" (strong hercules), which re­ ferred to duke ferdinando himself: each syllable was treated in melismatic fashion and then instantaneously echoedy but the text's conceit was surely demonstrated in the performance space by the musical effect. the duke's pseudonym "strong hercules" resounded back and forth from the stage to the far reaches of the hall, with sound actively expanding the limits of the (onstage) theatrical space, and transcending the bounds of the singer's body now hidden from the audience's view. thus, sense of space, so frequently associated with visual perception, was actively redefined by aural means. in other words, the auditor-spectator's experience of meraviglia-so frequently attached to visual perception-was here produced through the absence of "the sight of sound."54 the political implications of the effect are clear: through sound, "strong hercules" commanded the far reaches of the theatrical space, projecting an idealized vision of medicean expansion and control. 55 yet the source of sound and the means through which it was articulated remained purposefully elusive to those who might try to track its origins. in essence, pure sound, as an emblem of medicean political power, was elevated to the level of a "mystery of state." part ii. shoring up dynastic prerogative: the prince as god it is a well-known fact of medicean political history that during the transi­ tion from republic to duchy, the family pursued policies and modes of self-representation that emphasized precedent and continuity with their forebears as a means of justifying their dynastic prerogative (strong 1984; berner 1970; van veen 1984). this project-which manifested itself in medici-commissioned art works, ephemeralfeste, and written texts such as funeral orations, descrizioni, or even more blatantly propagandistic works such as g. b. strozzi's della famiglia de' medici-began with duke cosimo i and continued through the reigns of his successors. this mode of self-repre­ sentation during duke ferdinando's wedding festivities in 1589 can be readily identified through the series of arches and street decorations constructed for 61 62 current musicology the entrance of christine of lorraine into the city of florence. 56 it is evident from eyewitness accounts that spectators were generally able to "read" the political program suggested by the arches.57 furthermore, the nature of the outdoor arches and street decorations enabled the viewer to observe them at leisure, in a manner quite distinct from the act of viewing imagery in the performance context of a closed court theater, such as that of the uffizi. in a similar vein, the act of reading rossi's commemorative descrizione allowed the reader to contemplate the text at will, but it also allowed the author, through the medium of print, to create a cohesive chronological narrative in the opening pages of his booklet that masked gaps in medicean ancestral continuity (1589:1-6). indeed, the virtue of magnificence as it applied to medici rulers in general becomes the linchpin that holds the opening of rossi's narrative together, allowing him to emphasize precedent as evidence of the inevitability of medici rule. 58 by way of contrast, the performative dimension of the pellegrina interludes-as opposed to their description through the written word by rossi-made them the ideal medium for articulating another emergent strand of medicean self-representation that characterized the period of the 1580s and beyond. specifically, the projection of a distanced, god-like prince found its most powerful articulation during the performances of the pellegrin a interludes. let us begin by considering how the decorations in the performance venue helped to project this impression. what is striking is that the decorations-described at length by rossi (1589:7-17)-did not lend themselves to easy interpretation without the aide of his text, which was not available for the premiere performance. aside from a few obvious references to the bride and groom, it is notable that most commentators, including eyewitness ones, only described the very general effect of the room on the viewer, with little if any reference to precise details of iconography. in general, commentators stressed the use of color and light in the room, emphasizing its richness and magnificence. 59 evidently, the average viewer had some difficultly ascribing any precise meaning to much of the uffizi theater's decorative content. for example, a series of statues variously based on themes associated with comedy and poetry seems to have been impos­ sible to decipher without the aid of rossi's commentary.60 one also wonders whether more obvious iconographical gestures-such as the coat of arms of ferdinando and his bride attached to the sixteen chandeliers-would even have been clearly visible at such a height.61 despite his detailed descriptions, various comments by rossi suggest what is plainly evident in most other written accounts: that during the performance the sum total of these icono­ graphical details was to project a more generalized, overarching impression regarding "the extraordinary greatness and magnificence of this wedding" nina treadwell (1589: 13), thus paralleling the awe-inspired response by spectator-auditors to the performances themselves.62 the prevalence of abstract generalizations points to a new strand of medicean self-representation that historian samuel berner has tied to the late cinquecento, and particularly to the reign of ferdinando. by examining the rhetoric of ducal funeral orations, berner identifies a gradual shift in tone from a conception of the prince as a palpable, recognizable human being to one that figures the prince as someone without world concerns and thereby elevated to the celestial realm. according to berner, the funeral oration delivered by bernardo davanzati to the accademia degli alterati depicted duke cosimo i moving "through a real, historical florence and not through the nebulous sublunary expanse to which the divine-right theorists of the end of the century will assign duke ferdinando" (1970: 186). berner argues that the "lack of verisimilitude as well as the references to the divine-right theory of kingship" that emerge in lorenzo giacomini's 1587 funeral ora­ tion for duke francesco "find their full expression in the orations delivered on duke ferdinando's death in 1609" (1970:187). berner has discussed the discourse surrounding ferdinando, noting that the metaphors and images used-references to vast expanses of ocean or the mysteriousness of human events, for example-served both to distance the "real" ferdinando from his people as well as to align the duke with the infinite and divine (1970:187-89; see also rossi 1589:4-5). the visible and invisible duke the characterization of the duke as almost "disembodied" in official dis­ course found material manifestation in the make-up of ferdinando's cour~. comparatively few florentines were employed within the inner circles at court, and even fewer florentines of the patrician class found favor there (berner 1972:12-13). the physical distance that ferdinando maintained between his person and the greater majority of florentine patricians denied them regular access to the courtly sphere, the arena through which favor and privilege could be sought. only on an infrequent basis were patri­ cians invited to attend occasions at court, such as during the festivities of 1589. on these occasions, the duke and his retinue were typically visually prominent, but actual physical proximity was limited by strict codes deter­ mined by rank and gender. in all cases, ferdinando's public appearances were carefully stage-managed, and especially when such appearances were recorded by court officials, a politics of representation would have informed their descriptions of even the most mundane of obligations. for example, ferdinando's historian and genealogist, scipione ammirato, marveled at one 63 64 current musicology of the duke's most public displays when he personally took to the streets of florence unguarded and muddied, distributing grain to the needy after the floods of october 1589: you may be certain your excellency ... that i have never seen with my eyes a more noble sight than this, that of grand duke ferdinanda unguarded, with few horsemen and [even] fewer men on foot, going through the city all muddied performing that duty which is truly princely. and as i usually say, the most beautiful building that grand duke cosima made was that of the porch at the ponte vecchio in order to walk through his [aerial] corridor to the pitti [palace], because when that citizen denied him the passage above his house, he did not want to exercise his power; thus i truly say that i have no hope of seeing the grand duke [ferdinanda] in a more beautiful or more stately act than that, in which it was my good fortune to chance upon and witness that day, that it drew tears from my eyes. thus i assure you in good faith, that if my overly great timidity had not held me back i would, from the infinite affection that i felt being stirred to go to embrace him and kiss his feet. 63 the ancient belief that the actual prosperity of crops and produce de­ pended on the efficacy of the monarch's supernatural power would have made the duke's appearance on the street with grain in hand a strategic public gesture that literally demonstrated his ability to provide sustenance to less fortunate florentines. there is an aura of meraviglia imbedded in ammirato's account-the image of the magnanimous duke who in a rare public appearance deigns to descend from on high to tend to the needs of the poor. the duke's unexpected and seemingly miraculous appearance no doubt helped to bolster his general popularity. (ferdinando was generally well liked by the populace at large.) a more frequent occurrence, however, was the invisible presence of the duke. at the public baldracca theater, which could be reached via bridge directly from the uffizi, the duke commissioned bernardo buontalenti to install a private balcony and grill, from which he could view theatrical proceedings while preserving, in james saslow's words, "a sacral aura of aloof mystery" (1996:78). it was to this viewing position that the duke ap­ pears to have allowed cesare d'este access during the period of the wedding celebrations prior to the performance of the pellegrin a interludes (anon. 1589b). duke ferdinando had numerous posts, in fact, that allowed him the opportunity to engage in incognito surveillance not only of theater, but of various kinds of activities. the desire to see but remain unseen was perhaps best epitomized by the possibilities posed by the one-and-a-half mile elevated corridor built by giorgio vasari in 1565 connecting the medici residence at the palazzo pitti in the oltrarno with the family's administrative headquarters at the palazzo vecchio. the first grand duke, cosimo, had nina treadwell commissioned the enclosed aerial walkway in conjunction with the mar­ riage preparations for his first son francesco to joanna of austria, and the structure was apparently completed in record time-in a mere five months, according to vasari (del vita 1938:92). not only would the aerial scene amaze distinguished wedding guests-duke ferdinando took particular advantage of the passageway in this respect (marongiu 2002:94)-but its practical usage had been envisaged as more long-term: it allowed cosimo and his heirs to cross the ponte vecchio and other parts of the city unseen and in complete security. at the same time, the corridor's various grated windows enabled the dukes to observe others while themselves remaining unseen. on the city side, the corridor was fitted with small bull's eye windows that ensured that those inside were not seen by onlookers in nearby palaces along the lungarno degi archibusieri; the river side, on the other hand, had large square windows that gave occupants of the corridor an unimpaired view (satkowski 1979:92). despite the privacy the corridor afforded the medici, there seems to have been little attempt to hide the actual structure itself from external view, although its integration into the contours of existing buildings meant that only the portions on the ponte vecchio and along the arno were conspicuously visible. as such, the existence of the passage, with the implication of a potential medici presence at any given time, projected an image of an omnipresent duke who literally walked above his subjects in an invisible, omnipotent fashion. from the beginning, a portion of the corridor had been attached to the pitti parish church of santa felicita and a loggia was constructed to support the corridor on the church's facade. from 1565-the same year as the corridor's construction-santa felicita became closely linked with the regular religious ceremonies of the medici. in 1589, ferdinando com­ missioned buontalenti to enlarge the part of the corridor attached to the church by creating a small private room above the two chapels at the front of the church opening out to a balcony that offered an unimpaired view of the church's interior. here, the medici could attend religious ceremonies unobserved yet hear and see those below who faced the front of the church and had little or no visual access to the ducal party. the god-like presence of the medici-situated as they were, on a parallel axis to (but above) the high altar-must have sent a subtle message to parishioners regarding the nature of medicean power that was at once omniscient, yet elusive. those subjects worshipping at santa felicita may have questioned whether or not duke ferdinando was physically present in the corridor, a possibly disconcerting and unsettling consideration. in part, this was the point. while ferdinando might very well have chosen to worship within a private chapel, this semi-public, but potentially "invisible display," demonstrated 65 66 current musicology the consistent religiosity of the medici family in the wake of the council of trent at the same time that an impression of distant, yet all-knowing (all-seeing), mysteriousness was projected. most interesting for our purposes were musical practices established later by ferdinando at santa felicita (and santa niccola, when the medici were at pisa) involving the projection of "invisible" sound. from 1602, and likely earlier, the performances of the offices during holy week involved polychoral music: the music of one (or sometimes two) "choirs" would emanate from the corridor, sometimes in response to visible music making in the main part of the church.64 an element of meraviglia was present here: it would have been impossible for the auditor to predict exactly when the invisible choir or choirs would interject, or to know exactly which musical forces were involved during any given service or throughout the course of a given "performance." further, as suzanne cusick has pointed out, there was an aura of mysteriousness present through the use of women's voices, which were always produced from the corridor, and never (visibly) from the main church.65 the medici and their musicians were situated in the same location (the small room attached to the corridor above the main entrance of santa felicita), giving the impression that music literally issued forth from the medicean body. during the performance of the pellegrina interludes, the ducal party were visually present, of course. the duke, the new duchess, and their en­ tourage were prominently displayed on a raised platform with surrounding balustrade that was positioned on the floor of the uffizi theater. for the performances of bardi's l'amico fido in 1585, the box (of the then duke, francesco i) was centrally located in the orchestra at a height of twenty­ two inches and a distance of fifty-seven feet from the front of the stage. interestingly, in 1589 the ducal box remained in the orchestra area but was moved further towards the back of the hall (anon. 1589b; pavoni 1589:14; pirrotta 1975:298n102). while the re-placement of the box may have been designed to enhance the ducal party's vision of the stage action,66 it is also notable that ferdinando would have been less easily visible to the majority of male spectators in the orchestra, who presumably would have had their backs to him for most of the production.67 thus we can imagine ferdinando physically presiding over both the performance on the stage and his invited guests before him. further, the re-positioning of the platform situated the ducal party in close proximity to the small balcony above the main entrance that was reserved for the musicians who produced the miraculous offstage sound effects. that these mysterious effects issued forth from a place close to the duke's person may have been intentional; the set-up presages and closely parallels later musical practices established by ferdinando at santa felicita, nina treadwell as we have just seen. in the 1589 performances of the pellegrin a intermedi the offstage location seems to have been primarily utilized for echo effects, specifically the echo that responded to the virtuoso vittoria archilei for the concluding section of "dalle pili alte sfere" and the double-echo that reiterated each of jacopo peri's concluding phrases in "dunque fra torbide onde." it is important, then, to explore the significance of echo as experienced during the performance of the pellegrin a interludes. iiwith the admirable attention of the iisteners ll68 like archilei's (single) echo, the double-echo that responded to peri was a key point of interest for several commentators, including an eyewitness, although it is not mentioned in rossi's official account of the scene.69 the eyewitness account by the anonymous frenchman states that "two echoes answered him [arion], one after the other, such that one could have said that the echo was from more than two miles [away 1; it seemed to be far from the stage and from the sea, as if it came out of a den or from a cave" (monga 1994: 115; see also anon. 1589a). 70 the frenchman's account agrees with that of giuseppe pavoni, suggesting that the echo seemed to come from some sort of small enclosed chamber (pavoni 1589:20). perhaps the onstage scene-a seascape with surrounding rocks and crumbling mountains (from which water apparently issued)-brought to mind the idea of a cavern or cave. yet the frenchman indicates that the echo was projected from a considerable distance away from the stage, (as he had similarly stressed when describing the echo that responded to archilei), and this time he exaggerates-suggest­ ing a distance of two miles (not one)-perhaps in response to the double echo. it seems likely, then, that arion's echoes did not come from behind the stage-which would not have given the impression of "sonic distance" from the original sound source-but rather from the back of the hall. the impression of a distant, but "enclosed" sound can be explained by the posi­ tioning of the singers in a small room attached to the back wall of the theater that opened out onto the balcony for musicians. a surviving drawing by buontalenti (figure 3) gives some idea of the set-up, showing the musicians' balcony and the grated window of the small room allowing those inside both visual but, more importantly, sonic access to the main theater. to remain out of eyesight, the singers would have needed to have sung from behind the grate.71 no commentators mentioned seeing the singers involved; had they been visible there is no doubt that this information would have been incorporated into accounts, because it was part of the "theatrical game" to attempt to understand such mysterious effects. pavoni notes that the echoes were produced by two separate voices, though other accounts suggest that 67 68 current musicology figure 3: drawing in black and red pencil by bernardo buontalenti of the small balcony mentioned by rossi for the musicians (descrizione, 7) with a window that opened out into a small room from which one had visual and sonic access to the uffizi theater. (florence, gabinetto disegni e stampe degli uffizi, 2402a; by permission of the ministero dei beni e delle attivita culturali. the image may not be reproduced by any means.) nina treadwell the voices were not perceived as emanating from two distinct locations. to produce a double-echo-with the second of the two sonically mirroring the first but at a lower volume-it seems likely that the first echo would have been produced by a singer close to the grate, whereas the second singer would probably have been positioned further back in the room so that the auditory perception in the theater was of a distant second echo. peri's echo song was in fact the first of its kind to be notated, but it seems that the ingenious manner of performing the echo devised by buontalenti and his crew-producing a mysterious, cavernous sound-was in large part responsible for the sense of meraviglia that it evoked in spectators. i would like to suggest that the self-referential nature of echo itself, coupled with its "invisible" articulation in the uffizi theater, was a profound demonstration of a belief system tied to ficinian neoplatonism, the tradition that formed the basis of patrizi's own syncretism. further, the irresolvable nature of patrizi's understanding of meraviglia can be directly linked to the experi­ ence of mystical monarchy. it is therefore possible that the projection of a mysterious source of sound from a location very close to the duke was one way in which he presented himself as royal magus; in other words, his physically present body might have been understood to be infused with manna-a dynamic, supernatural power that could generate miraculous effects. i will now consider the metaphysical and political implications of these statements. the duke as neoplatonic magus as thomas greene has noted, the courts of rulers had, for centuries, been understood as nuclei of magical power (1987:637); in 1280, the italian political writer fra tolomeo stressed that kings contained "special divine influence and a participation greater than that of ordinary men in the absolute being" (bloch 1973:76). yet the medici principate was a relatively new creation in comparison with long-standing centers of monarchical rule; indeed, florence did not have the kind of venerated monarchical system that existed in france or england. but as we have seen, the divine-right theory of kingship was filtering into medici-generated written propaganda as well as receiving attention in various arts including court intermedi.72 as we have also seen, the occult or magical dimension of florentine court spectacle became especially pronounced in the latter half of the sixteenth century, at the very moment when divine-right theories began to infiltrate official discourse. from a visual perspective, the occult dimension was signaled, most notably, by a heavenly descent that represented the transmission of celestial harmony to earth. but the word "represents" diminishes what 69 70 current musicology neoplatonists understood as a profoundly significant gesture. as greene has explained, the descent dramatized that which, "according to ficinian metaphysics[,] it was invisibly bringing about" (1987:648). tomlinson has stressed the same point in his music in renaissance magic: renaissance writers who explained the world through metaphors of harmony were not merely referring to "tropes of imagined relationships where none existed in reality ... but instead discovered in their creation truths about the structure itself of the world" (1993:50). later in the same study, tomlinson addresses the ficinian notion of imitation, relating it to musical mimesis: imitation, in ficino's view ... seized and captured things. it struck up profound resonances, active affinities, among the thing imitated, the imitation, its maker, and its perceiver ... for ficino musical imitation, as indeed imitation in general, was a provocative force; for us it has come to be merely evocative. (1993:112) ficino grants special power to musical mimesis and links "the spirit and music by virtue of their similar motion and airy substance" (1993:112). tomlinson is here following d. p. walker's (1975:3-11) reading of ficino, explaining how music's similarity to spiritus-the light and airy substance that mediated between body and soul-might account for music's potent effect on the listener (1993:87). i will soon connect this discussion to the perception of the duke as magus; first, however, it is necessary to explore the significance of music through the prism of neoplatonism and its relationship to the tradition of florentine court intermedi. indeed, the ramifications of self-referentiality that lay at the heart ofneoplatonism could be discussed at length in relation to the pellegrin a interludes. i will address the self-referential aspect of the aural component, specifically the echo effects that provoked the auditor's experience of meraviglia. the invisible constitution of both music and spiritus is self-evident, although the perception of music often involves "the sight of sound." one could argue that invisible music (i.e., echoes) had an even more profound connection to spiritus because of the absence of "the sight of sound." in addition, (invisible) echo was a form of duplication that resonated with the fundamental logic underlying neoplatonism-the network of sympathies and correspondences that connected the physical and metaphysical worlds. for patrizi these correspondences were encyclopedic in breath. for ficino, music could articulate these correspondences more precisely than any other medium. further-and here tomlinson's reading of ficino diverges from that ofd. p. walker and others-"ficino spoke of music reaching the body, the spirit, the soul, and even the soul's highest faculty, the mind, by virtue of its motion, not its verbal meanings" (1993:114). thus, nina treadwell for ficino, music's force did not depend on an inextricable association with words, and patrizi's ideas reinforce this notion. while patrizi attacked the aristotelian conception of mimesis, his views on the power of music were in the neoplatonic tradition and reinforced those of ficino by elevating the elements of sound and conceit. palisca has summarized patrizi's ideas in this regard as they appear in the latter's la deca disputata: the concetti [conceits 1 of the poet pass from his imagination through the ears of the listeners to their souls and move in them the same faculties from which they arose in the poet, and they move in them the same affections that the concetti bore, with all the knowledge, fantasies, opinions, and discourses associated with them. patrizi's explanation bypasses the process of imitation by reducing the communication from poet to listener-for he considers poetry an oral-aural art-to intellectual, emotional, and spiritual faculties addressing each other directly through the medium of sound. (palisca 1986:405) in patrizi's view, there was surplus meaning(s) that went beyond the mere specificity of individual words. thus, when the listener experienced wonder there was no sense in which knowledge or affection were stable or contained: the potenza ammirativa (power of wonder) is neither knowledge, nor affection, but separate from them both and communicating between them both; and that, placed on the border between them, it is able to unleash and infuse, by its movement, quickly up to knowledge and down to affection ... one is able therefore to say that the potenza ammirativa among these two powers is almost an euripo [a place where the eddy of tides meet to­ gether 1 with the tide running to and fro from reason to affection. (patrizi 1969,2:361-62)73 as i previously demonstrated, the meraviglia that the solo songs evoked in the perceiver was not contingent on the spectator-auditor's necessary comprehension of the songs' texts. as i also intimated, this conception seems to fly in the face of the more well-known ideas of musical humanists such as bardi. yet if we are willing to accept the deep influence that the neoplatonism of ficino and patrizi exerted on the pellegrina intermedi, it is now possible to understand why effetti meravigliosi of the musical kind-as "emblems" of a profound metaphysical significance-might override considerations of textual clarity in the context of performance. to judge from eyewitness and unofficial accounts, the meraviglia created through "invisible" music was especially powerful. it is now but a small step to connect the magical musical performance to the neoplatonic magus who presided over the production. while 71 72 current musicology buontalenti-the "architect" of magic-was inconspicuously ensconced in his control booth cut into the gradi, duke ferdinando and his entourage were positioned on their catafalco-literally, their own stage-watching over those before them.74 spectators would have noticed the size of the ducal platform as they entered the theater; it dominated the uffizi by its sheer size, taking up more than half the theater's width between the two sides of the gradi. when the duke gave buontalenti the signal to begin the production, the original plan seems to have been for both the stage curtain and the hanging cloth that masked the auditorium decorations to fall instantaneously. at that moment the spectator would have been abruptly confronted with a stage set-a view of rome, with appropriate colonnades-that mirrored exactly the theater wall's decorations, thus "forming a single composition uniting stage with auditorium" (saslow 1996:151-52). the implications of the gesture are at once numerous and self-evident: one intention was to impress upon the perceiver that a god-like master plan lay behind the all­ encompassing vision. the duke's positioning-largely behind and above the spectators-would have enabled him to experience the awe-struck response of audience members.75 as scholars such as kelley harness have pointed out, "musical spectacle functioned as one means of persuasion: then, as now, political leaders manipulated imagery to confirm a position of strength to both subjects and potential allies" (1996:12). it is true that the imagery of the pellegrina interludes lent itself to allegorical interpretation vis-a-vis the duke-as-god, and that courtly audiences were apt to interpret imagery in allegorical fash­ ion (even if incorrectly!). but more than this, the performances of courtly intermedi during the principate actualized the duke's power-especially those for the newly vested duke ferdinando's wedding-with each element of the multimedia genre pushed to its extreme manifestation. 76 with an emphasis on effects, including those associated with solo song, the pellegrin a intermedi-more so than early opera77 -made manifest the duke's seemingly god-like powers. this actualization, as i will describe it-in which the duke's divine power was not merely symbolized but enacted through performance-resonated with the conceptual premise of neoplatonism. indeed, for the early modern mind in general there was no distinct boundary separating what ferdinand de saussure later described as "the signifier" and "the signified." in combina­ tion with the late-cinquecento tendency to posit the duke in terms of sacred monarch, ferdinando becomes the generating force behind the pellegrina interludes, as well as the generator of the projected semidei who would continue the medici lineage.78 as a very real demonstration of the medici family's seemingly un­ limited resources and power, it was the foreign entities79-friendly or nina treadwell otherwise-whom the medici were most concerned to impress. for foreign guests, the most relevant criterion for assessing the singular nature of the performance experience was its effect on the mind and body. stated another way, the success of the performances was attested by the extent of the wonder and awe evinced in the auditor-spectator (wisch 1990:xv). here we are not discussing ritualized behaviors of court culture whereby subjects were inculcated through patterns of iteration. on the contrary, a spectacle of this magnitude was only mounted on an occasional basis, and was designed to be "one of a kind." by stressing the singularity of the pellegrin a interludes i am not suggesting that foreign guests would have been unfamiliar with the kind of spectacle offered by the florentine court; as we have seen, the performances' efficacy depended on the spectator's familiarity with the kinds of spectacles that characterized display by european monarchs, as well as an implicit appreciation of wondrous discourse. what i am suggesting is that for most spectator-auditors witnessing the pellegrina intermedi, the event would have constituted a rare, possibly "once in a lifetime" experience and that music, and especially the effects of solo song, played an important role in the projection and experience of meraviglia. gadenstedt singled out the music in this respect when he stated: "should someone who does not have much to do, or otherwise travels far for the sake of music (to hear and see such things), he should not regret it because it [the music or performance] is almost like seeing and hearing the work of angels (so to speak) than the work of humans" (ktimmel 1970:18-19).80 like travel narratives of the period recounting experiences in distant or "exotic" lands, descriptions of the pellegrina intermedi-eyewitness or otherwise-all lay emphasis on the "truth value" of direct experience. the most persuasive evidence for the extraordinary nature of the performance lay in the indelible impression it was able to exert, through sensory perception, on those present. as such, the performance experience constituted a credible source for knowledge claims regarding the potency of the medici dynasty and helped lay the groundwork for a vision of renewed prosperity under the newly installed grand duke. notes the research for this article was supported by faculty research funds granted by the uni­ versity of california, santa cruz (2004-2006). i would also like to acknowledge financial support from an andrew w. mellon postdoctoral fellowship (2002-2004) at the humanities consortium of the university of california, los angeles. all translations are my own unless otherwise specified. i would especially like to thank ralf dietrich for assistance with german language translations. i have retained the original orthography in the italian sources; original punctuation, accents, and capitalizations have also been retained, despite inconsistencies in the original sources. the letters u, v, f, and j have been modernized where appropriate; the tilde [-] has been resolved. 73 74 current musicology 1. bargagli's comedy had been commissioned earlier by ferdinando, but was not performed until 1589 when it was adapted for the occasion by girolamo's brother, scipione. the play was only used for the first of the four performances of these intermedi. other plays were used for subsequent performances, suggesting that the relationship between play and intermedi was not integral. la pellegrina did bear a thematic relationship to the wedding celebration, however (see newman 1986). 2. rossi, along with his close friend giovanni de' bardi, was a member of the literary acca­ demia della crusca. he had previously prepared deserizioni for florentine wedding festivities including those of 1585. 3. i use the term "unofficial" loosely to refer to any sources that were not directly commis­ sioned by the medici court. some accounts, though not official, may have been indirectly sanctioned by the medici. 4. see, for example, rossi's description of the sound effects that would accompany the opening of intermedio two (1589:38). ironically, this is one of only a few passages where rossi engaged with (assumed) audience reception of the aural dimension in some detail, yet these sound effects are not mentioned in any other source. they may, therefore, have never materialized or were not striking enough (in conjunction with the visual media) to warrant the kind of attention that he anticipated. 5. i use the word "perceiver" interchangeably with "spectator-auditor" although the former is a more inclusive designation, not limited to the senses of hearing and sight. the term has been used constructively in studies of other multimedia arts such as film (kassabian 2001). 6. "dieser intermediorum herligkeitt und grose kunst kann nicht wie sichs gebhurtt be­ schrieben werdenn, und die dis ubermenschslich werk nicht gesehenn konnen bei sich nicht begreifen, wie es mueglich sein kontte" (kummeli970: 19). the diary of barthold von gadenstedt (herzog august bibliothek wolfenbuttel, cod.guelf.67.6 extrav. pp. 670-78) is transcribed by kummel (1970:1-19). 7. " ... diese beide stucklin sein gar kunstlich gemachtt gewesenn, dann niemand erkennen konnen, wie es immer mueglich where das solchs kontt regirt werden, oder wie solchs also offentlich in freier lufft hette konnen fortt kommenn" (kummei1970:14). 8. patrizi is perhaps best known in musicological literature for his views on greek tragedy­ that it was sung throughout as outlined in his la deea istoriale-and for his 1577 treatise l' amorosa filosofia, in which he extols the virtues of the singer tarquinia molza. 9. letters attest to the long-standing friendship between patrizi and bardi, especially those sent by patrizi to lorenzo giacomini tebalducci and g. b. strozzi (patrizi 1975:63-65,69,87). both strozzi and bardi collaborated and exchanged their work with patrizio patrizi mentions the exchange of ideas on ancient music that took place between bardi, vincenzo galilei, and himself in his la deea istoriale (patrizi 1969, 1:329-30,354). 10. ariosto's work continued to provoke lively debate throughout the sixteenth century because of the author's disregard for the aristotelian concept of unity. 11. the connections here deserve further investigation. kirkendale (2001: 169n43) has noted the similarity in wording between a portion of rossi's account of intermedio six (1589:61) and patrizi's la poetiea deea istoriale. in addition, there are striking similarities between bardi's description of dorian harmony in his diseorso and a passage on the same topic in la poetiea deea istoriale. 12. "per cosa adunque nuova, e sub ita, e improvvisa, che ci pari avanti, fa un movimento nell' anima, quasi contrario in se medesimo, di credere e di non credere. di credere, perche nina treadwell la cosa si vede essere; e di non credere, perche ella e improvvisa, e nuova, e non pili da noi stata ne conosciuta, ne pensata, ne creduta poter essere" (patrizi 1969,2:365). 13. "i superbi apparati, la pomposa mostra, gli artificiosi divisamenti d'inestimabili arnesi, i maravigliosi spettacoli, i quali non solo superavano l' espettazione universalmente di tutti gli huomini, rna la'mmaginazioni de' pili periti, e pili savi; non solo non si potevano avanti alla rappresentazione figurar nella mente, rna, rappresentati e rivisti, non si capivano" (giraldi 1609:23). 14. "wir hetten gern die gelegenheitt wie solchs mocht regirt werdenn, aber es whar ernstlich verboten, das man solches niemand soll sehen lasenn" (kummel1970:19). 15. on the notion of a mystery of state, see kantorowicz (1955) and, more recently, biagioli (1993). 16. the phrase "theatrical game" was coined by nino pirrotta and later used by massimo ossi to describe the relationship between the theatrical architect -machinist and the audience (pirrotta 1975:322n3, 230, 268n102; ossi 1998:16,32-33). 17. i have omitted a discussion of cavalieri's "godi, turba mortal" which is comparatively short (in relation to the other solo songs) and is inconspicuously inserted into the middle of intermedio six. as such, the song is not mentioned in eyewitness and other unofficial accounts. 18. "[bardi] fu incontanente sopra i'opera della musica: nella quale volle principalmente, che risplendesse la pompa, e la finezza del suo poema periocche, e copiosissima, pienissima, variissima, dolcissima, e artificiosissima, oltre ad ogni altra, ed insieme (ll che s'ha quasi per impossibile) chiarissima, ed agevolissima ad intenderne ie parole, volle che riuscisse quell'armonia, come anche di questo, per la pubbicazione, gl'intendenti s'accerteranno" (rossi 1589:2r). these intermedi were apparently never published. 19. there were "concerti molto belli et gravi, et per la quantita de' musici et di stromenti non s'intendevano neanco ie parolle della musica." kirkendale lists the source of this citation as i:vas, nunziatura di firenze 12a/22. this citation appears to contain an error. the archive must be vatican, archivio segreto, which is sometimes abbreviated as "vas", although most commonly "i:vas" refers to venice, archivio di stato. a fondo called "nunziatura di firenze" exists in the vatican archive but not in the venice archive. time has prevented me from clarifying this definitively. my thanks to john walter hill, beth glixon, and jonathan glixon for pointing out this information. 20. on the position of rossi's role as mouthpiece for bardi, see saslow (1996:29). 21. "divenire in un voltar d'occhi tempestoso mare & scolgi duri i'onde del quale parevano si naturali, che tutti stupivano in riguardade, che facevano quelle spume, che suole il vero mare. in mezo di dette onde apparve una bellissima serena con nove suoi prigioni con si dolce canto che senza maraviglia havria fatto adormentare, & ammollire ogni duro cuore, dopa havere un buon pezzo cantato, sparve" (cavallino 1589:5). 22. "la quale ha sempre fatte degne del cantar suo ie musiche mie, adornandole non pure di quei gruppi e di quei lunghi giri di voce semplici e doppi, che dalla vivezza dell'ingegno suo son ritrovati ad ogn'hora, pili per ubbidire all'uso de' nostri tempi, che perch' ella stimi consistere in essi la bellezza e la forza del nostro cantare, rna anco di quelle e vaghezze e leggiadrie che non si possono scrivere, e scrivendole non s'imparano da gli scritti" (peri 1601:iii-iv). 23. i would like to thank giulio ongaro for suggesting this idea to me. i have deliberately translated "leggiadrie" as "beauties" rather than using terms such as "graces" or "ornaments" which today are often equated with the idea of embellishment. in the sixteenth century, "leggiadrie" did not necessarily suggest ornamentation. 75 76 current musicology 24. "e di pili col moderare e crescere la voce forte 0 piano, assottigliandola 0 ingrossandola, che secondo che veniva a' tagli, ora con strascinarla, ora smezzarla, con l' accompagnamento d'un soave interrotto sospiro, ora tirando passaggi lunghi, seguiti bene, spiccati, ora gruppi, ora a salti, ora con trilli lunghi, ora con brevi, et or con passaggi soavi e cantati piano ... e con molti altri particolari artifici et osservazioni che saranno a notizia di persone pili espe­ rimentate di me" (solerti 1903:108). 25. "senza mutar prospettiva apparisce per 1'aria il carro di una maga, tirato da due draghi, il quale e mirabile per non vedersi donde possa esser mosso" (anon. 1589a). 26. "il quarto intermedio non die de meno stupore all'occhio, che maraviglia all'udita" (cavallino 1589:5). 27. "era una donna che cantava sola, & in tal guisa che tutte 1'orecchie eran'attente ad as­ coltarla" (cavallino 1589:5). 28. the text and translation are based on versions of the song that survive in two manu­ scripts: florence, biblioteca nazionale centrale, magl. xix.66; and brussells, conservatoire royal de musique, ms. 704, pp. 15-16. i have omitted the text repetitions that can be seen in the musical setting (see example 1) and regularized capitalization at the beginning of each poetic line. the text by g. b. strozzi provided in rossi's descriziane differs in some respects from that given in the two manuscripts. malvezzi's official print omitted caccini's song as a result of politics at court. 29. regarding the wondrousness of lucia caccini's singing, the bavarian commentator states: "wann nun solche juno in mitten des theatri khombt, da singt ein ainigs weib gar herrlich, darnach zeuchts widerumb darvon, und erscheint auf der anndern seiten ein grosser nebl, der sich, so bald er in die mitl khombt, aufthuet" (now when such a juno gets to the middle of the stage, one solitary woman sings most wonderfully, after which she goes away again, and on the other side a great fog [cloud] appears which, as soon as it reaches the middle, opens up, katritzky 2001:233,237.) 30. giulio caccini-who no doubt coached his wife lucia for her opening solo in intermedio four-was expressly recruited by grand duke cosimo i from rome in 1565 because the duke required a boy soprano with "a beautiful voice and good grace in singing with his passaggi in the neapolitan manner." see carter (1987) and hill (1997,1:62-63). 31. the identity of the bass singer that bardi heard in rome is not known. it could not have been giulio cesare brancaccio because he was in france at the time; it might have been alessandro merlo or "gio. andrea napoletano;' both of whom were mentioned by vincenzo giustiniani as active in rome during this period. i would like to thank richard wistreich for this information. 32. bardi wrote the song text. the text as it appears in both malvezzi (1591, nana:7) and rossi (1589:19) begins with "dalle celesti sfere." i have substituted the line that appears in the musical setting, but otherwise i cite the text as it appears in rossi (1589:19). 33. despite a lack of word-for-word comprehension, it is evident that in general the audience understood that the songs were alluding to the royal couple. for example, at the opening of his brief description of the intermedi, the ferrarese ambassador girolamo giliolo notes: "si vede al p[rim]o il paradiso aperto circondato da nuvole con chori di musica d'ogni sorte, et giovanetti et fanciulle che cantavano canzoni per alludere alli novelli sposi" (ledbetter 1971:216). 34. "welchs so lieblich angefangen zu singenn zugleich auf der lautten slagende, das jeder­ man sagte, es where unmueglich das eines menschen stimm so lieblich sein konne, hatt nina treadwell auch aller zuseher gemhuet also bewegett mitt ihrem singen das darvon nicht zuschreiben" (kiimmei1970:7-8). 35. the actual length of archilei's song would have been carefully timed to coordinate with her cloud's descent and eventual disappearance. 36. "cadute ie cortine si vide immantenente apparir nel cielo una nugola, e in terra, avanti alla scena, d'ordine do rico, un tempietto di pietra rustica: in essa nugola una donna, che se ne veniva pian piano in terra, sonando un liuto, cantando ... e mentre, che la detta nugola scendea'n terra, avendo sotto alquanti raggi solari, pareva, che di mano in man, seguitandogli, dove ell'arrivava, coprisse il sole" (rossi 1589:18-19). 37. for example, a copy of a list by buontalenti in seriacopi's logbook indicates the effort to disguise the visible beams and ropes that were supporting clouds with cloth and felt: "ac­ como dar ie dua prime nuvole con tele e feltri per coprir canapi e travi" (matteini 1991:203; memoriale:25r) . 38. i would like to thank richard wistreich for sharing this information. 39. the accompaniment for archilei's "dalle pili alte sfere" was presented in four-part score format in the nona partbook of intermedii et concerti; the passaggi that archilei apparently sang were included separately in the canto partbook. i have demonstrated elsewhere (treadwell 2004) that the score format is not an accurate representation of how the accompaniment would have been realized by the plucked-string instruments in the performance context. for a summary of the issues, see hill (2003). hill's findings also demonstrate that the accompa­ niments in score for "dalle pili alte sfere" (as well as peri's "dunque fra torbide onde;' and cavalieri's "godi, turba mortal") are in fact keyboard partiture. 40. the phrase is drawn from burrows (1980:189). 41. "calata la prima tela resta in aria una nube che vi era dentro una donna da angiola vestita, che a guisa d'angiola cantava si sonoro, & con bellissimi concenti che ogn'uno resta maravigliato, & stupido la qual nube, a poco a poco calata spari" (cavallino 1589:3). 42. "crescer la nuvola del primo intermedio che vada pili alta della signor vittoria [archilei l, si come si it ordinato il signor emilio" (matteini 1991:203; memoriale:25r). 43. one of the more memorable annunciations was staged for the marriage of prince fran­ cesco de' medici and joanna of austria in 1565 under the dome of santo spirito: "paradise appeared open and full of a stupendous splendour, and in it god the father sat amidst a multitude of angels and cherubim, and told the angel gabriel to descend to earth and an­ nounce to the virgin mary the incarnation of his son. then the angel gabriel in a beautiful mandorla all full of lights descended slowly to earth, and above him then was a choir of angels that descended with him half way then stopped, and the mandorla where the an­ gel gabriel was then went down slowly by itself to earth." the description (by domenico mellini) is cited in newbigin (1996:214-15); see also newbigin (1999). 44. some of the material that follows has been discussed in less detail in treadwell (2004). 45. in katelijne van laethem's recent recording of the song, the echo "ending" has been omitted, while emma kirkby's recording reverses the "endings" as they appear in malvezzi's print. kirkby's performance is found on una "stravaganza" dei medici: intermedi (1589) per "la pellegrina" (andrew parrott 1988); the rendition by katelijne van laethem is on la pellegrina (paul van nevel 1998). 46. rossi's account, with its emphasis on the visual dimensions of each scene, does not men­ tion the use of echo effects. 77 78 current musicology 47. ''au devant du theatre, qui est fort grand et hault, y avoit deux tollies qui couvroient tout ie theatre. quand l' on voulust commencer tout it ung instant la premiere, qui estoit rouge, tomba par terre. la seconde, qui estoit comme azuree, demeura, tout au millieu de laquelle parust une donna qui estoit assize dans une nuee tenant ung luct en sa main, laquelle chantoit et peu it peu descendit jusques sur ie theatre, dont elle disparut incontinant. elle jouoit et chan to it si bien que chacun l' admiroit; et sur la fin en son chant fust ouy ung esco qui luy respondoit, lequel paroissoit estre bien loing du theatre d'un mil ou plus" (monga 1994:113). 48. "inn anti alia scena vi erano due tele che la coprivano. la prima era rossa: la quale man­ data gili, rimase la prospettiva pur'anco coperta d'un'altra tela azurra: nel mezo della quale vi era una donna, che stava it sedere sopra una nuvola, & con un liuto comincio a sonare, e cantare molto soavemente un madrigale: e cosi sonando, & cantando venne calando gili it poco, it poco, nascondendosi in certi scogli, finendo tra quelli il madrigale in un'echo tanto maraviglioso, che pareva fosse discosto il reflesso un buon miglio" (pavoni 1589:15). 49. pavoni's reference to "certi scogli" (certain rocks) behind which archilei disappeared is confirmed by the anonymous author of li sontuosissimi: "e a poco a poco quasi non se n'accorgendo il popolo se ne cala cantando, e cosi si perde in varii scogli it cio fatti" (and little by little, almost without the audience noticing it, she comes down [while 1 singing, and thus hides herself among various rocks that were built for that purpose, anon. 1589b). the scogli seem not to refer to the doric temple mentioned by rossi in this scene (1589:18). according to rossi, a scene of rome opened the entertainment (of which the doric temple may have been a part), but the roman scene seems not to have materialized in the performances. it is more likely that the rocks mentioned by pavoni and the author of ii sontuosissimi referred to a rocky cave-like structure, which would concur with the myth of echo as presented in ovid's metamorphoses. i would like to thank deanna shemek for suggesting this to me. 50. associating the new duchess with the goddess minerva was fitting in several respects. the warrior goddess was known for perpetuating peace and learning, appropriate attributes in light of the political alliance that was being forged. the union of "strong hercules" and "new minerva" thus signified the peace and prosperity that would ensue as the result of the combined strength of tuscany and lorraine. in addition, minerva was a symbol of chastity, an assumed attribute of the royal bride. regarding minerva's attributes, see wittkower (1939:199). 51. "ne fu questo terrazzino fatto solamente per ornamento, rna anche, perche sopra vi po­ tessero stare i musici it risponder, cantando, all'armonia della prospettiva" rossi (1589:7). 52. although malvezzi's musical print does not include a separate partbook for the echo (which could indicate that archilei produced her own echo), i am convinced that the echo was rendered by another singer stationed at a considerable distance from archilei, which is why several of the auditors make a point of mentioning their impressions of "sonic distance." 53. i have suggested that the affective power of this scene did not ultimately rest on the audience's comprehension of archilei's sung text; this is not to suggest, however, that there was little attention to text setting in "dalle pili alte sf ere;' even within the parameters of neapolitan-style florid singing. throughout the song there is a basic strategy of repeating each short portion of text. in the opening of the piece, for example, the first phrase is sung in a comparatively unembellished manner, but is then repeated with a more elaborate musical setting. in several instances the meaning of the text is represented in musical terms by the use of word painting such as in the rising melodic gestures on the word "alte" (high); later in the song, the vocal line's undulating figures are clearly intended to depict the ''1' ali battendo" (beating wings) of the winged messenger who has "come all the way up to the sky" to deliver the news of the medici wedding. a stepwise rising bass line accompanying the repetition of this text strengthens this interpretation by depicting the messenger's heaven-bound ascent. nina treadwell 54. i draw here on the title of richard leppert's book (1993). leppert is concerned with the implications of the sense of sight in the production of music's meaning. his work pivots around specific pictorial images of music making and the social meanings they engender. his approach can be fruitfully applied to actual (historical) music making. in this instance i use his phrase to emphasize a related (though seemingly opposite) claim: that meaning also inheres in the absence of "the sight of sound." 55. the literal expansion and fortification of the tuscan state as well as the generation of propagandistic texts that helped to ensure ferdinando's fame in "far away lands" characterized the duke's reign. regarding the latter, see rossi (1589:3-4), strozzi (16lo), and the series of posthumous engravings by jacques callot that emphasized the duke's various building and engineering feats (many of which were supervised by buontalenti). 56. the second arch, for example, served the function of melding the republic and duchy together by representing a series of medici marriages from both regimes, up to and includ­ ing that of duke ferdinando 1. 57. see, for example, the account of christine's entry by a bavarian commentator in katritzky (2001:231-32,235-36). 58. the notion of princely magnificence was frequently linked to the construction of build­ ings, but could also provide a rationalization for conspicuous consumption more generally. in line with aristotle's emphasis on the correct use of wealth, magnijicenza could inspire ephemeral manifestations such as spectacles, feasts, and other activities through which the prince asserted his public image. 59. this lack of attention to the hall's iconography characterizes barthold von gadenstedt's account which otherwise tends to identify visual imagery (whether correctly or incorrectly) whenever possible. regarding the hall's decorations, the bavarian's eyewitness account merely states that: "a magnificent large room is very cheerfully decorated with gold and various colors" (katritzky 2001:232,236). 60. the program for the statues was conceived by g. b. strozzi and is described at length by rossi (1589:lo-14). 61. by the same token, i would argue that most spectators overlooked the symbolic content of the two statues of long-bearded men spouting water that framed the stage area. rossi informs us that they were intended to depict the arno and moselle rivers (florence's im­ presa, the lily, was held by one of the men), and thus symbolized the union of tuscany and lorraine (rossi 1589:35). 62. i do not mean to underestimate the tremendous thought and attention that went into devising and constructing the decor for the theater. it was of course crucial that rossi record these details so that they could be transmitted through the medium of print. what i am suggesting is that during performance these details were not experienced as details to be analyzed as such but, rather, were intended to evoke a general impression of wonder and awe, in response to the sumptuousness of the lights, colors, and textures of the whole. 63. "sia certa v. eccell., ... che non vidder mai gli occhi miei spettacolo pili nobil di questo, che il veder il gran duca ferdinando senza guardia, con poche genti a cavallo e meno a piede, andarsene tutto fangoso per la citta, facendo quello ufficio che e vero principe. e come io soglio dire che la pili bella fabbrica che facesse il gran duca cosimo fu quella dello sporto al ponte vecchio per passare col suo corridore a'pitti, perche negandogli quel cittadino il passo per sopra la sua cas a, non volle valersi della potenza; cos! veramente 10 dico, che non spero di aver a veder il gran duca in atto pili bello e pili pomposo di quello in che per mia ventura mi abbattei quel giorno a vederlo, che mi tiro ie lacrime agli occhi; cosi l'assicuro 79 80 current musicology di buona fede, che se la troppa mia timiditit non m'avesse ritenuto, sarei dall'infinito affetto che mi sentiva commuovere andato ad abbracciargli e baciargli i piedi" (letter from am­ mirato to virginio orsino, november 15, 1589, florence, archivo di stato, manoscritti, 130, fs.173r-176r;citedinaiazzi 1845:29). 64. i would like to thank suzanne cusick for sharing her sources with me regarding musical practices at santa felicita and santa niccola. they were discussed in her conference paper "performance, performativity, and politics in early 1600 florence" (2005). 65. email communication with suzanne cusick (march 18,2007). 66. it was usual to coordinate the duke's line of vision with the vanishing point of the per­ spective. 67. the same can be said for the female observers who were seated in the gradi-the tiered seating area that surrounded the sides of the hall. few women seated in the gradi would have had an easy line of vision toward the duke. 68. malvezzi used this phrase to describe the response oflisteners to peri's echo song (1591, nono:12). 69. nor does rossi identify the poet or composer of arion's song. also, the poem he provides does not correspond with that contained in malvezzi's print. it seems that preparations for the musical part of this intermedio may have been in a state of flux when rossi prepared his text, or that a last-minute change occurred. 70. "chanter et lui repondoient deux escoz, run apres l'autre, tellement que ron eust dict que 1'esco en estoit it plus de deux mil, tant il sembloit estre eslongne du theatre et de la mer et comme s'il fust sorty d'un antre ou d'une caverne" (monga 1994:115). 71. i disagree with the hypothesis of matteini, who argues that the musicians were likely "bumped" at the last minute to allow the invited cardinals to use this incognito viewing space because the windows of the (above) galleria had been covered with cloth as ordered by duke ferdinando (matteini 1991:88-89). during the period leading up to the performances, the duke was actively showing guests the meraviglie contained in his galleria, so it is likely that he did not want guests touring the gallery to observe the preparations and rehearsals that were taking place in the theater below. there is no reason why the cloth might not have been moved aside for the performances. indeed, ten days later on april 22 there is a note in the memoriale suggesting that the galleria was indeed to function as a viewing area with "box seats," as it were: "il signor emilio vorrebbe n.o xxiiii sghabelli n.o 24, quali ii vuole su in paradiso nelle stanze della galleria." not only was there a large contingent of cardinals pres­ ent for the festivities (very few of whom could have gained an adequate view from the one grated window), but a dispatch by girolamo giliolo to the duke of ferrara (april 29, 1589) indicates that all the cardinals and other guests who were then present attended the dress rehearsal with duke ferdinando. the document is cited in ledbetter (1971:211). 72. as berner notes, however: "one does not find a book, sermon or oration exclusively devoted to it [the divine-right theory of kingship 1, where its implications are worked out in detail." see berner (1970:191-93). 73. "la potenza ammirativa ne conoscente sia, ne affettuosa, rna da ambedue separata e ad ambedue communicantesi; e che, posta di quelle in sui confino, sia atta a diffondere, e ad infondere, il moto suo tostamente allo 'n su nelle conoscenti, e allo in giu nelle affettuose ... e si puo percio dire la potenza ammirativa essere tra queste due potenze quasi uno euripo, per 10 quale la marea, dalla ragione agli affetti correndo e ricorrendo" (patrizi 1969,2:361-62). 74. the term catafalco-used by several commentators-can actually refer to a stage. nina treadwell 75. that the effect is only mentioned by rossi, and in no other accounts, suggests that the idea-to begin the production by instantaneously producing a vision of rome that united the stage and auditorium-was likely abandoned at the last minute, perhaps due to technical difficulties. nevertheless, the intention recorded how ferdinando wished to impose his vision on the spectator-auditor, by blurring the division between artifice and reality. 76. lain fenlon has suggested that duke ferdinando used both bardi and buontalenti to create the pellegrina intermedi out of more than mere convenience; both had been involved in the production of the intermedi for duke francesco's l'amico jido four years earlier, so they were in a position to ensure that the pellegrina intermedi were far superior to their predecessors in every respect (1989:259-81). 77. indeed, tim carter makes the point that it was intermedi, not early opera, which contin­ ued to be the favored genre at florence during the early decades of the seventeenth century (carter 1983:93-94). 78. in the concluding ballo from the pellegrina intermedi the royal progeny were described as semidei. see malvezzi (1591, nono:20). 79. by the word "foreign;' i refer to non-florentines. 80. "der sonst nicht viel zuschaffen oder etwas zuverseumen der musica zugefallen (wann einer dergleichen hoeren oder solche sachen sehen kontte) viel reisenn es soltte ihm nicht gereuenn, denn es fast engelischs (also zu reden) als menschslich werk anzusheen, und anzuhoern" (kiimmei1970:18-19). references aiazzi, giuseppe. 1845. narrazioni istoriche delle piil considerevoli inondazioni dell' arno. florence: piatti. anon. 1589a. li artijicio e dilettevoli intermedii rappresentati nella comedia fatta per ie nozze della serenissima gran duchessa di toscana. rome: tito and paulo diani. ---. 1589b. li sontuosissimi apparecchi, trionji, e feste, fatti nelle nozze della gran duchessa di fiorenza . .. et la descrittione de gl'intermedii rappresentati nella comedia nobilissima, recitata da gl'intronati senesi. aggiontovi l' ordine, e modo che s'e tenuto nel coronare l'altezza della serenissima gran duchessa. florence and ferrara: baldini; venice: larduccio. berner, samuel. 1970. florentine political thought in the late cinquecento. ii pensiero politico 3: 177-99. ---. 1972. florentine patriciate in the transition from republic to principato, 1530-1609. studies in medieval and renaissance history 9: 3-15. biagioli, mario. 1993. galileo courtier: the practice of science in the culture of absolutism. science and its conceptual foundations. chicago and london: university of chicago press. bianconi, lorenzo. 1987. music in the seventeenth century, translated by david bryant. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. bloch, marc. 1973. the royal touch: sacred monarchy and scrofula in england and france, translated by j. e. anderson. london: routledge and k. paul. burrows, david. 1980. on hearing things: music, the world, and ourselves. musical quarterly 66 (2): 180-91. caccini, giulio. 1601. le nuove musiche. florence: marescotti. carter, tim. 1983. a florentine wedding of 1608. acta musicologica 55: 89-107. ---. 1987. giulio caccini (1551-1618): new facts, new music. studi musicali 16 (1): 13-32. 81 82 current musicology ---. 1989. jacopo peri, 1561-1633: his life and works. new york and london: garland. caccini, giulio. 1970. le nuove musiche, edited by h. wiley hitchcock. madison: a-r editions. cavalieri, emilio de'. 1600. rappresentazione di anima e di corpo. rome: n. mutii. cavallino, simone. 1589. le solennissime feste nel sponsalitio della serenissima gran duchessa di toscana. rome: paolo blado. conforti, giovanni luca. 1593. breve et facile maniera d' essercitarsi a far passaggi. rome. cusick, suzanne. 2005. performance, performativity, and politics in early 1600 florence. paper presented at the conference structures of feeling in seventeenth-century cultural expression, part 4: "performing bodies." university of california, los angeles, june 3. fenlon, lain. 1989. preparations for a princess: florence 1588-89. in in cantu et in sermone: for nino pirrotta on his 80th birthday, edited by fabrizio della seta and franco piperno, 259-81. florence and perth: olschki and university of western australia press. florio, john. 1611. queen anna's new world of words. london: bradwood. giraldi, giuliano. 1609. delle lode di d. ferdinando medici gran duca di toscana. florence: giunti. greene, thomas m. 1987. magic and festivity at the renaissance court. renaissance quarterly 40 (4): 636-59. greenlee, robert. 1987. 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bianca maria antolini, teresa m. gialdroni, and annunziato pugliese, 569-82. lucca: libreria musicale italiana. kantorowicz, ernst h. 1955. mysteries of state: an absolutist concept and its late medieval origins. harvard theological review 48 (1): 65-91. kassabian, anahid. 2001. hearing film: tracking identifications in contemporary hollywood film music. new york and london: routledge. katritzky, m. a. 2001. aby warburg and the florentine intermedi of 1589: extending the boundaries of art history. in art history as cultural history: warburg's projects, edited by richard woodfield, 209-58. critical voices in art, theory, and culture. amsterdam: g+ b arts international. ketterer, robert c. 1999. classical sources and thematic structure in the florentine intermedi of 1589. renaissance studies 13 (2): 192-222. kirkendale, warren. 2001. emilio de' cavalieri "gentiluomo romano": his life and letters, his role as superintendent of all the arts at the medici court, and his musical 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"real basses, real men": virtu and virtuosity in the construction of noble male identity in late sixteenth century italy. trossingen jahrbuch fur renaissancemusik 2: 59-80. wittkower, rudolf. 1939. transformations of minerva in renaissance imagery. journal of the warburg institute 2 (3): 194-205. discography nevel, paul van. 1998. la pellegrin a: music for the wedding of ferdinando de' medici and christine de lorraine, princess of france, florence 1589. huelgas ensemble. vivarte s2k 63362. parrott, andrew. 1988. una "stravaganza" dei medici: intermedi (1589) per "la pellegrin a." taverner consort. emi 7 47998 2. current.musicology.83.1-108.pdf richard m. sudhalter. lost chords: white musicians and their contributions to jazz, 1915-1945. new york: oxford university press, 1999. xxii, 890 pp. reviewed by david sager lost chords: white musicians and their contributions to jazz, 1915-1945 is fascinating historical criticism, both extremely well written and well re­ searched. it is a work that intends to shed light on white and supposedly "forgotten" players of jazz from the pre-bebop era. its author, richard m. sudhalter, sets out to make clear the enormous contributions and talents of these important white musicians. his intention to do so in a balanced way, so as not to cast aspersions on any black musicians, is not wholly successful. in his introduction, sudhalter asks, "are we entitled to judge another age from the viewpoint of our own, informed as it is by knowledge of the outcomes of past thought and practice?" (xv). the implication, therefore, is that anything discussed shall be viewed in the light which shown during its existence. if jazz grew up in a largely racist world, then there shall be no juggling of social rules to make the story fit our contemporary prefer­ ences. doing so would result in an "outcome oriented" jazz historical text, one that would be molded to the prejudices of the author. we are then in­ troduced to what sudhalter calls the "noble lie," which basically states that black musicians, having been deprived of the social status that whites were afforded during the early twentieth century, need to be wholly recognized as the true pioneers, creators, and upholders of jazz and its traditions­ white musicians are merely imitators. this notion, he says, will become 'junk food history for young minds." what would be much more laudable, according to sudhalter, would be to teach that throughout the history of jazz, we can find both blacks and whites working side by side, often defy­ ing social norms of the day. however, sudhalter has some of his own pref­ erences and cannot wholly ignore shaping an outcome. to approach a sense of balance, sudhalter has written himself a small provocation at the end of his introduction, encouraging the reader to go back to the music, to investigate and see what it is he is talking about. it is then, after the reader has gone to investigate, that sudhalter believes his mission shall be fulfilled. in nearly 900 pages, sudhalter details and gives an essence of approxi­ mately thirty musicians and several sub-genres of early jazz. he does so with enormous zest and clarity, giving the reader a real sense of what these people and styles were about-and they are mostly about music. the book's sections run roughly chronologically. they consist of "the current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 510 current musicology sophisticates," which describes the heady music of red nichols, miff mole, and adrian rollini; "the hot lineage," a description of the "austin high gang" and their disciples; and two sections devoted to the "big bands." the second of these "big band" sections is comprised of re­ printed interviews that sudhalter conducted with benny goodman and artie shaw. a recurring annoyance for me in lost chords is the frequent compari­ son of black and white musicians, apparently designed to shed light on overlooked aspects of white jazz, hence the full title of the work. however, such comparisons often make the black artists in question the subject of embarrassment, and these comparisons, in turn, embarrass me. for in­ stance, sudhalter points out white arranger elmer schoebel's thoughtful touches on the new orleans rhythm king's 1922 recordings "farewell blues" and "discontented blues." these arrangements, he states, bespeak rehearsal and behind-the-scenes work aimed at achieving a polished and varied band sound. nothing on any record by a black band of the early '20s is anywhere near as aesthetically venturesome. (33) is the second sentence of this excerpt necessary? couldn't it be left at cit­ ing the under-sung talents and achievements of elmer schoebel? the notion of "aesthetically venturesome" seems to imply a classical sensibility -carefully sculpted, varied in tonal colors and dynamics. are these hall­ marks found in music that is primarily white? is this a rejoinder to albert murray's insistence that jazz cannot exist without the blues? i am not cer­ tain as to why sudhalter must quality the statement racially, for it stands perfectly well on its own. another example is in the chapter on tenor saxophonist bud freeman, where sudhalter discusses the relative merits of freeman, eddie miller, coleman hawkins, and chu berry: chu berry also tended to ride the rhythm, but in a far less elastic manner-and with a heavy tone and legato attack which often cre­ ates the impression of a solo being played on ball bearings. (253) the remarks about "ball bearings" sounds like a put-down. true, chu berry favored the heavier "belly" sound of coleman hawkins as opposed to the lighter approach of eddie miller. but then, wasn't freeman's tone and attack of the heavier type as compared to miller, or for that matter lester young? sudhalter turns the tables at times and quotes from a variety of mrican american musicians who asserted white influences. saxophonist eddie david sager 511 barefield memorized jimmy dorsey's famous "tiger rag" variations and "doc" cheatam recalled the relative merits of not only king oliver and freddie keppard but also of white cornetist/trumpeter louis panico: "what a wonderful player he was" (184). sudhalter seems to want to show the reader that racial prejudice as it existed in the "real world" did not live in the world of jazz musicians, at least not to a high degree, perhaps in de­ fiance of social norms of the day. his underlying point here is that jazz musicians tended and tend to influence each other across all sorts of cultural boundaries. sudhalter does, however, give even-handed treatment to biracial phe­ nomena such as the cross influence between the isham jones orchestra and the king oliver creole jazz band. all too often history has relegated players such as trumpeter louis panico, who was featured with the isham jones orchestra, to the "novelty" category of popular music. panico was a highly-skilled player who used "freak" effects such as "baby cries" and "laughing" without descending into caricature. his solos always remained well poised and partially derivative of the hot style played by king oliver. sudhalter offers some remarkable testimony from long-time isham jones manager jim breyley via james t. maher (91). apparently, the entire jones outfit would frequent the lincoln gardens on the south side of chicago to hear oliver's band. as sudhalter points out, the jones records, such as "aunt hager's children blues," bear this out. also insightful are sudhalter's comments regarding panico's admission to jazz historian john steiner that he was not a true jazzman since he did not improvise. sud­ halter reminds us that in the context of an early 1920s dance band, trum­ peters regardless of race were "melodic embellishers, rather than impro­ visers. for the pre-armstrong new orleans hornmen, as for louis panico, the task was to playa strong, lively melody lead" (93). he also gives credence to the idea that the ensemble writing style often credited to don redman was perhaps not so much attributable to a black or white precedent, but rather "appears, after a time to have been a matter of independent and spontaneous gravitation toward universally accepted principles of ensemble organization" (90). sudhalter is probably basing this statement on recorded evidence and perhaps somewhat on "stock" arrangements published during the early 1920s. there were indeed some prominent black arrangers-charles "doc" cooke comes to mind. but be­ fore 1925, although there were a large number of black jazz composers, their material had been published as arrangements by white orchestrators. most notably, it is the evidence found on phonograph records that seems to weigh in more heavily on the white side of things, at least within the covers of lost chords. white bands such as the original memphis five seem to have a smoother and more relaxed approach to the music than 512 current musicology do mamie smith's jazz hounds or wilbur sweatman's jazz band. is this because the only black bands invited to record were the ones with greater novelty appeal? this does seem a bit at odds with, or at least complicates, the almost reverse discrimination practiced by record companies that sudhalter describes. apparently the jean goldkette band suffered the fate of "the black band gives us the 'hot' stuff and the white bands will record the straight dance stuff" syndrome (303-4). in a footnote, sudhalter makes the case that bix beiderbecke's devo­ tion to the repertoire of the original dixieland jazz band, as shown by his choice of recorded material, would have been "unthinkable" by a black jazzman. for example, louis armstrong did not choose to record material by his mentor king oliver for the hot five sessions (785). the disparity is noteworthy. but didn't armstrong participate on those oliver dates? in contrast, beiderbecke did not play on the odjb sessions. this does not, however, nullify sudhalter's comparison, which calls attention to the fact that black jazz musicians almost exclusively recorded original material in the 1920s. the book's first section, "in the beginning: new orleans to chicago," contains the most soberly written discussion of cornetist emmett hardy to date. hardy's legend is based purely on anecdotal evidence since he died in 1925, barely twenty-three years old, having never recorded. but those anecdotes are not ones to ignore. testimonials came from the boswell sisters, bandleader and drummer ben pollack, cornetist paul mares, drummer monk hazel, and even bix beiderbecke, who all remembered hardy's music as something wonderful and different from all else. in fact, those who knew hardy generally felt that bix beiderbecke formulated his style with hardy as a model. hazel remembers hardy's "legato style," which sudhalter contrasts with the "raggy" or old-fashioned staccato style of freddie keppard and nick larocca. i can't agree about larocca being "raggy" in his approach; if anything, larocca had fairly smooth execution and played in a somewhat "rolling" manner. still, this chapter is one of thoughtful speculation and research. sudhalter does not, however, refer to something i feel is quite obvious: a "white" new orleans school of cor­ net playing not based on the blues and primarily diatonic, with which hardy might be associated. this approach shows up in the early recorded work of stirling bose, sharkey bonano, paul mares, johnny wiggs, and others. it is even the mainstay of a much younger new orleans cornetist, connie jones, who once told me that his playing reminded monk hazel of emmett hardy. righting some errors committed by past chroniclers of jazz, sudhalter turns in a fine chapter devoted to the dorsey brothers. the brothers, es­ pecially tommy, have repeatedly been the targets of left-handed complidavid sager 513 ments and misunderstandings by writers such as gunther schuller. sudhalter cites, then quickly rebukes, schuller's remark from the swing era that tommy frequently ran into "note trouble" during his recorded hot choruses of the 1920s. "in truth, few brassmen of the era are as free of such blemishes as tommy dorsey" (362), sudhalter counters, providing several examples for the adventurous listener to pursue. he cites dorsey as a fine hot trombone soloist, albeit, "not a particularly original one" (363). we are then shown a comparative table of jazz trombonists who could eas­ ily fall into the same category: jimmy archey, claude jones, and sandy williams-all fine jazz players and all black! i agree with sudhalter's sum­ mation, but why could he not also list white players, such as ai philburn, joe yuki, moe zudekoff, or even glenn miller? such digs taken at black musicians in order to point out the various virtues of important white musicians grow tiresome over the course of the book. perhaps there have been too many books, articles, and television documentaries that have ig­ nored the rich and vital contributions by white players, but turnabout as in lost chords becomes rather tedious and unnecessary. it is tommy dorsey's skill as a hot trumpeter that commands center stage here. in this matter, sudhalter seems to be on very agreeable terms with gunther schuller. both men in a sense give a nod to dorsey's "de­ pendable" work on trombone, but rapture is reserved for the hot trumpet work that graced so many okeh recordings of the 1920s. "rough, rugged, passionate, badgering" are the terms used by sudhalter to describe td's trumpet work and some excellent examples are given, ones which, hope­ fully, readers will go to the trouble of seeking out-although some (even in this age of almost everything being available on cd) may be quite diffi­ cult to find. one of these, the obscure "it won't be long now" is ajewel. tommy's muted horn nearly bursts forth in response to legato phrases sung on a baritone saxophone. at the recording's end it is unmuted for a raw, bluesy statement that sounds like, in sudhalter's words "no other hot trumpet player-white, at least-making records at the time" (362). the chapter on trombonist miff mole is beautifully written. the sad de­ nouement of mole's career is juxtaposed with a vivid account of mole tak­ ing the new york music scene by storm in the early 1920s. there are also musical excerpts to read and follow along with while listening to the recordings, such as on page 103 where we are given a "before and after" example of the introduction to "original dixieland one step"-"before" being the standard approach with a two-bar trombone glissando. "after" is miff mole's version taken from a 1927 okeh recording. mole's is swift, lithe, and inventive. the example sets up the old cliche about how in the early days of jazz the trombone was "a kind of musical falstaff," contribut­ ing crude ground bass figures, comical glissandi, and "lowing cattle 514 current musicology noises." sudhalter is exaggerating here to set up mole's importance. mole indeed was a pioneering force behind the trombone's emergence from the "tailgate" style. however, things were not all that bleak before his ap­ pearance. eddie edwards, the man whose glissando provided the "before" example, was actually quite a nimble player. bellowing like a cow or mak­ ing broad glissandi were exceptions to his aggressive, single-tongued style. the reader need only sample a title such as "at the jass band ball" or "skeleton jangle" for confirmation. tom brown was also an inventive player of countermelodies, capable of graceful swing. sudhalter puts trombonist honore dutrey in the "tailgate" category. however, close lis­ tening to his playing on the 1923 king oliver records reveals his parts to be well thought out and smoothly executed. dutrey plays rather long lines similar to published cello parts of the time. sudhalter never mentions white trombonist roy maxon, whose swift, fleet style is heard on records by russo and fio rito's oriole orchestra as early as 1922. maxon was later featured in paul whiteman's orchestra and recorded an impressive solo on that ensemble's victor recording of "mama loves papa." sudhalter does, however, have the right idea. given the extraordinary virtuosity of band soloists like arthur pryor, leo zimmerman, and others during the early 1900s, it is surprising that a miff mole did not come along sooner in jazz, demonstrating a crossover of highly developed technique to this new music. mole's genius is hinted at in a transcription of his solo from the jam session at commodore version of "a good man is hard to find" (127). sudhalter describes it as being like "a cadenza over a steady pulse, so unre­ strained are its phrases by beat or bar line." sudhalter reminds the reader that accurate notation of such rubato playing is no substitute for hearing the performance. the same goes for brad gowans. like many others in this volume, gowans is given long overdue praise. the man whom trumpeter max kaminsky described as "a sweet soul and an extraordinarily talented musi­ cian" is otherwise not even a footnote today. a multi-instrumentalist and inventor, gowans is probably best remembered as the valve-trombonist on the stand at nick's in the village, or at eddie condon's first night club. sudhalter pays him fine tribute and includes a transcription from a live 1940 recording of the dixieland standard 'ja-da." the transcription re­ veals gowan's penchant for using major ninths and thirteenths to striking effect. one very delightful chapter is devoted to guitarists. it begins with a story told by the late george van eps, one of the great performers and in­ novators of the jazz guitar from the 1930s through the '90s! van eps re­ called being twelve years old when he met his idol, jazz guitar pioneer david sager 515 eddie lang. lang, duly impressed with the lad's prodigious banjo tech­ nique, offered to lend young george his gibson l-4 guitar overnight. sudhalter recounts the story in a charming way, making the reader keenly aware of young van eps's awe of lang and his devotion to playing the in­ strument. one can almost feel the excitement in van eps's voice as he tells of building a crystal radio set the mid 1920s and picking up the roger wolfe kahn band over vvjz: 'joe venuti and eddie lang were in that band. even as horrible as the sound was on our little crystal set, i could hear the sound of the guitar. it had a singing quality ... the first time i heard that sound i decided, 'that's for me. that's what i want to do' " (518). van eps went on to develop the seven-string guitar. other musical temperaments and technical innovations are detailed. carl kress's unusual tuning, george barnes unique style and tempera­ ment, and django reinhardt's adaptive use of his injured fretting hand are but some of the fascinating examples. sudhalter writes about texas guitarist bob dunn, who played the "pedal-steel" instrument in the pio­ neering western swing band of milton brown. dunn experimented with ways to amplify his instrument and also incorporated horn-like phrasing, chiefly inspired by trombonist (and fellow texan) jack teagarden. sud­ halter relates how such pioneering black guitarists such as oklahoman charlie christian, eddie durham, and floyd smith (also from the south­ west) most likely heard dunn over the radio. this time the fact is stated simply, without the impression of a backhanded compliment. still, there is the implied documentation of "who came first." black guitarist lonnie johnson also comes under scrutiny. both lawrence cohn, a noted blues historian, and doug caldwell, a contribu­ tor to guitar magazine, rank johnson alongside lang as the major guitar innovator of the 1920s. sudhalter for once steps a bit more gingerly and makes his point well, arguing that "such claims seem altogether too inclu­ sive in their implications of musical range and depth." johnson was cer­ tainly a powerful blues man with a nimble technique and large sound. but according to sudhalter there were problems with being "pattern bound and lacking in harmonic or melodic variety" (522). in this instance, i agree with sudhalter. i do, however, think he goes a bit overboard in claiming that johnson's contribution to the 1928 "star dust" by the chocolate dandies "all but derails the performance." true, it is a bit clunky, but the claim of "wrong accidentals" seems less valid, at least to my ears. innovator and inventor les paul is seen as a true adventurer, a fine player who was in fact an explorer, traveling the country to seek out leg­ endary musicians such as new orleans guitarist snoozer quinn. paul, upon hearing about quinn's ability, took off for the crescent city in 516 current musicology search of him. paul found quinn sitting on his front porch! we also see paul taking off from his job in chicago to jump on a greyhound bus to oklahoma city to hear eldon shamblin of the bob wills texas playboys. paul got more than he bargained for by also meeting young charlie christian. paul was also one of the early experimenters in the use of electri­ cal amplification for the guitar. whereas players such as george van eps quickly forsook the electrified instrument because it distorted the guitar's natural timbre, paul took the idea and ran with it. paul experimented with radios and movie projectors-anything with an amplifier-to transform the guitar into an instrument that produced a whole array of new sounds. shortly after beginning work on lost chords, sudhalter realized that he was writing "two books in one." one tells several stories "combining biog­ raphy, reminiscence, commentary and ... narrative." the other is a tech­ nical work with musical examples to help illustrate the "specifics of [white musicians'] achievements." he exhorts the non-music readers to "stay with" him and not let the narrative "become lost in the particulars of music making." perhaps being musically literate i am prejudiced, but i do believe that this kind of illus­ tration is most important. what i find disagreeable in the musical excerpts in lost chords is the transposition for the various instruments on which the given examples were played. for example, the transcription of bud free­ man's bluebird recording of "the eel," originally played on the tenor sax­ ophone in m, is shown in c (246). similarly, jimmy dorsey's famous "tiger rag" variation is found on page 141 in the transposed key of f. what purpose do these transpositions serve? sudhalter explains that few musicians playing transposing instruments actually think in terms of con­ cert pitch while improvising. i suppose a heated discussion could ensue about jazz musicians consciously thinking about chord changes while deep in improvisation mode, but for now it is safe to say that there is no widely­ accepted rule on the subject. to me, the importance is where the original sounds. it seems senseless to have an excerpt transcribed unless one can easily go to the piano and reproduce the excerpt. lost chords is an important and even great work. i, for one, have gone back to the music and have become enlightened through some recordings that i somehow missed before. the volume is elegantly written, well re­ searched, and above all musical. i found only a few factual errors in the book-for example, on page 25 he quotes from ray lopez who states that blossom seeley did not record until 1921 when in fact she did record one side for columbia in 1911-and in any event, sudhalter has made it clear in subsequent correspondence that he is gladly accepting corrections to be used in future printings. david sager 517 where i am disturbed lies in mr. sudhalter's own use of his ground rules. he comes close to successful exposition of neglected white jazz pioneers and then lapses into the very tendency he was trying to avoid­ criticizing non-white musicians. will the "noble lie" be righted and will those learning about jazz get a balanced viewpoint? if lost chords makes a lasting contribution to the future of jazz education it probably won't be as a whole work. the enduring value of this book will be what others can glean from it as a research tool, for there is a great deal of valuable and in­ sightful material within. but will it teach us that blacks and whites coex­ isted peacefully? that richard sudhalter has gone to great lengths to show that jazz musicians have traditionally been the exception to the rule is perhaps the true hallmark of this book. hopefully, someday we will see these rules change. from the center in the middle: working tambura bands and the construction of the in­ between in croatia and its intimates ian macmillen prelude: miroslav skoro's twentieth anniversary concert in november 2009, croatian pop singer miroslav skoro performed in front of some twenty thousand fans at arena zagreb, the capital city's much lauded new sports hall. this was the second largest audience drawn by a croatian act since the hall's opening the previous december, i a testament to skoro's continuing status as one of croatia's most popular patriotic performers (as well as television star and, in recent years, politician and record mogul). aside from the notably large attendance, the concert in zagreb was of particular significance to skoro for its timing: held on the twentieth day of november, his performance celebrated twenty years' work in the music industry as a professional singer and songwriter. accompanied by his band (on backup vocals, tenor saxophone, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboard, drums, and electric bass) and a number of guest musicians from past projects and from his family, skoro performed repertoire from throughout his career and thereby commemorated his twenty years of hit songs and his many musical collaborations with these and other musicians. skoro spoke to those of us in the audience about the significance of several of these individuals to his life and career, drawing particular atten­ tion to one who, although unable to attend, loomed large over the event: legendary pittsburgh-born player oftraditional tambura chordophones, jerry grcevich. this longtime musical collaborator of skoro's had arranged most of the singer's early hits and had singly performed the accompaniment (of overdubbed melody and rhythm tamburas) to each of the songs on skoro's first and third albums. skoro singled out for us a song ("ne dirajte mi ravnicu" "don't touch my plain") that he had written and recorded with grcevich twenty years earlier while studying in pittsburgh, pennsylvania (where the singer had joined his newly wedded croatian-american wife kim ann skoro, nee luzaich). upon their release in the early 1990s, skoro's original 1989 recording of"ne dirajte mi ravnicu;' as well as an immensely successful cover version by tambura band zlatni dukati, had resonated strongly with his newly independent but heavily war-torn country. skoro current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 20j j by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 87 88 current musicology acknowledged the song's widespread popularity, announcing that it had become "a song that is no longer mine, but all of yours;' and crediting it with inaugurating his musical career.2 skoro also credited grcevich as the other person responsible for writing the song and told us that the famed tamburas (tambura player3 ) unfortunately could not be there to play it himselfbecause of illness in his family. in lieu of a personal appearance, skoro then had a video that grcevich had recorded projected onto a large screen that was suspended above and behind the stage and flanked by two enormous installations of led light-panels in the shape of the roman numeral "x" (identifying the twentieth [xx] anniversary concert). high above the musicians, grcevich's face appeared on the screen, expressing his regrets in english and sending his best wishes for the concert, all to loud cheers from the audience. as skoro then sang the song that they had written twenty years prior to the november twentieth concert, twenty thousand fans sang along through each of several verses, choruses, and even instrumental breaks. skoro, however, had planned yet another iteration of the number 20: although grcevich could not be there, he announced, twenty local tamburasi would accompany his singing. skoro had invited semiprofessional tambura bands slavonski beeari, ravnica, and lyra, all from his city of birth, osijek, to perform with him. in the middle of the concert, they assembled on stage in a long row, relieving the regular band for a short set of songs from this early period of skoro's career when he sang almost exclusively to the ac­ companiment of tambura groups.4 tambura fans generally consider these the three best ensembles in osijek, and two of them share a long history of performance and mutual influence with skoro. slavonski becari invited skoro to join them on two tours organized by the croatian fraternal union of north america and thus enabled his acquaintance with both croatian­ american publics and his future wife, whom he met on the second of these tours in 1988. shortly after returning to croatia from pittsburgh in the early 1990s, skoro performed extensively with ravnica and recorded his second album with them. both a former and a current member of this ensemble (electric!tambura bassist antonio krupilnicki and prim [first melody] tam­ bura player aleksandar homoky, respectively) now play in his regular band and accompanied him in the concert's other sets that night. the twentieth anniversary concert thus celebrated skoro's entire career by way of returning to the musical style and indeed the musicians who launched it. skoro performed many of his best-known hits with these twenty tamburasi and, although fairly brief, this acoustic interlude occasioned some of the concert's most intimate moments. hundreds of fans packed the standing room in front of the stage in the arena and, along with thousands ian macmillen of others who had risen from their seats in the bleachers, stood swaying with arms around each other's shoulders and singing along earnestly. in my position, seated on the stage-left side of the arena, i would have been hard pressed to avoid joining in, as the seat-row of the bleacher itself was rocking from side to side in time to the music of the tamburasi, and the bodies of those around me gently but firmly coaxed my own into motion. down below us on the arena floor, fans in their teens and twenties raised large croatian flags, patriotic banners, and the bodies of friends into the air. audience members of several generations demonstrated great familiarity with, and enthusiasm for, these then twenty-year-old songs and for skoro's singing to the accompaniment of traditional croatian instruments. the twenty tamburasi were thus significant to the concert not merely for their number but for the atmosphere that they cultivated with skoro in commemorating his career and the songs that they had popularized together. tambura bands, commercial success, and positioning 'in the middle' in this article, i examine recent economic strategies and difficulties of croatia-based semiprofessional tambura bands in light of their relations with musical celebrities such as skoro and with croat fans in both domestic and international contexts. drawing on fieldwork conducted with numer­ ous bands at rehearsals and concerts between 2007 and 2011, i situate their present endeavors and concerns in a deeper historical context, focusing especially on musical trends and economic changes (and their continuing role in musicians' discourses on the state) since croatia's secession from the socialist federal republic of yugoslavia in 1991.5 i argue that the circula­ tion of tambura music and mobility of ensembles in foreign extensions of the croatian tambura scene have become integral to the current social positioning of croatia as both occupying an economically and culturally intermediary position (in relation to its more "balkan" and "european" neighbors) and constituting a musical center (related constructs that i explicate below). i further analyze the commercial limitations that working tambura bands face in establishing their music within croatian popular culture and examine the impact of these conditions on the construction of a croatian tambura "sound:' ensemble performance of tamburas-traditional plucked string instru­ ments historically played by individual performers throughout much of southeastern europe but now typically combined in ensembles of melody, harmony, and bass tamburas-initially rose to popularity among croats during the nationalist illyrian movement of the 1840s and was particularly 89 90 current musicology prevalent in east croatian cities such as osijek (march 1984:111). by the early twentieth century, towns throughout present-day croatia (including several along the dalmatian coast) had established tambura orchestras in recognition and aid of this bourgeoning nationalism.6 the presence of tambura musicians of other ethnic backgrounds (especially hungarians, roma, and serbs) in continental croatia and northern serbia throughout this period, the subsequent prominence of the radio tambura orchestras of novi sad and sarajevo in post-world war ii yugoslavia, and the historical importance of other folk instruments in dalmatia complicated construc­ tions of the tambura as exclusively the instrument of croats and of croatia; yet, following the death of yugoslavian president josip broz tito in 1980, croatian separatists (particularly the country's first president franj 0 tudman and other members of the croatian democratic party) were quick to promote the tambura as an instrument of distinct croatian culture. furthermore, the forcible expulsion of serbs from croatia-controlled territory by the croatian government and army in the 1990s helped to realize a new nation-state in which, with very few exceptions/ tamburasi were exclusively croats. the government's strategic deployment of croat tambura bands such as zlatni dukati in this wartime context fostered a flourishing popular music scene for croatia's "national instrument" in the 1990s that was still quite active during my fieldwork. 8 i consider this a popular music scene inasmuch as, to this day, tambura bands enjoy many of the same types of experiences (and avail themselves of the same strategies) as other croatian bands that play musical styles such as rock and pop typically marketed as "popular" musics across the globe. similar to their rockand pop-band counterparts, tambura bands write and record songs, release albums and singles for radio play, perform in public and televised concerts, play private functions such as weddings and corporate parties, travel widely for both single appearances and (to a limited extent) longer tours, and perform regularly in venues dedicated to their music (particularly in slavonian locales such as slavonski brod's cafe boa, osijek's old bridge pub and the national restaurant "city basement;' and dakovo's sokacki disko "tom-tom"). such tambura bands' activities within mainstream popular culture and their distinction from ensembles that still perform for folklore groups have earned them the common designation "neotraditional" tambura ensembles of croatian scholarship (bonifacic 1998; ceribasic 2000). 1bere is significant overlap between croatian tambura and croatian pop/rock in terms of both musical practice and the musicians involved. many popular croatian singers have featured tamburasi on their record­ ings and in their concerts, and miroslav skoro has retained tamburasi in ian macmillen his regular band even while largely adopting amplified instrumentation as his accompaniment. in his recent autobiography, skoro also writes that, no matter what song he releases and with what sort of instrumental accompani­ ment, it seems to end up on the tambura charts (skoro 2010:191).9 similarly, tambura bands occasionally incorporate amplified or percussion instruments for certain songs, and both tambura and rock/pop acts commonly play one another's hit songs to fill out set lists at lengthy private engagements. for many of these bands, familiarity with one another and with each other's repertoire extends back through two decades of performances at patriotic music festivals such as slavonski brod's brodfest, at which organizers have emphasized commonalities of patriotic lyric content over differences in instrumentation (baker 2010:41).10 what distinguishes tambura bands is largely their instrumentation. while the texts of their original songs do tend to address themes of rural life in slavonia (the east-croatian region that is home to the greatest number of tambura bands) more so than do those of croatian pop/rock bands, tamburasi perform so wide a variety of musical styles as to make it difficult to draw generic divisions based on repertoire alone. ll in addition to their own songs and the music of current croatian star singers and pop/ rock bands, tambura bands performing at private events typically play sets of classic yugoslav, british, and american rock 'n' roll; "evergreen" songs popularized by singers such as frank sinatra; american country music; "starogradske pjesme" ("old-city songs") from the nineteenth century; older and more traditional croatian folk songs; newer "folk" music from throughout the former yugoslavia; and recent hits by klapa ensembles from the dalmatian coast. klapa ensemples are a cappella vocal groups, most typically all-male, that have long rivaled the continental tambura bands (and recently surpassed them in popularity) with their own adaptation of a traditional croatian music practice for the popular market. in the past decade, as the popularity of klapa groups has soared throughout croatia, the demand for live performances by tambura bands has waned dramatically everywhere but in slavonia. tambura bands have subsequently settled into a frustratingly limiting niche of performance; instead of featured concerts of their own music, they play private engagements at which patrons expect an ever-expanding array of popular croatian musical styles. it is in this context that i examine current semiprofessional tambura bands and their activities within and across croatia's borders. i begin with an overview of three such bands' participation in the skoro concert because in the span of a few hours the performers raised each of the issues that i address here: the role of the diaspora for croatian music scenes, the continuing demand for patriotic tambura music, and 91 92 current musicology the disparity between the successes of working tambura bands and those enjoyed by singers such as skoro who have crossed over into more strictly popular music. this last matter was particularly troubling to the tamburasi who played in the twentieth anniversary concert because, despite their long recording careers, numerous radio hits, and personal histories with skoro, they had (and have) yet to achieve even a small fraction of skoro's commercial success. in recent years, slavonski becari, ravnica, and lyra have not been able to draw enough fans to justify holding their own concerts in venues of this size; they have rarely profited from those concerts that they have played; they instead have played mostly at private functions, at which they work much longer hours and can only briefly feature their own songs; and their income from the latter has been insufficient to allow them to abandon their primary, non-musical professions (let alone to achieve the wealth enjoyed by popular singers such as skoro). i turn now to a discussion of this disparity's context and resulting power dynamics and will return shortly to questions of the diaspora, musical patriotism, and the role that each of these plays in croatia's ambiguous intermediary positioning. exacerbating the issue of commercial success was the inability of tamburasi to profit even from performing at such gainful (for skoro) events as the twentieth anniversary concert. skoro, claimed several tamburasi, did not pay the majority of them for their services, which also included a joint tambura rehearsal in osijek, a three-hour drive each way between osijek and zagreb, and a pre-concert rehearsal at the arena. when i spoke to one of these ensembles' tamburasi (whom i will call marko) about this, however, he directed his frustration with the situation less at skoro than at his country and what he considers its immature forms of democracy and capitalism­ words he used interchangeably. this conversation occurred after one of his ensemble's rehearsals that i attended near osijek in early december 2009, at which he and two other members had vexedly discussed their non-salaried labor at the zagreb concert two weekends earlier. as he drove me back to my apartment in osijek en route to his own home just outside of the city, marko explained to me that he and the rest of his band were generally unable to profit directly from accompanying singers such as skoro (for whom they would again play without compensation in osijek a few days later) because everyone knows that they will work for free "just for the chance to play with stars [sa zvijezdama l:' playing in televised concerts with stars such as skoro was necessary in order to charge a decent rate for the weddings and private parties that were their only musical sources of income. although clearly upset about not being paid, marko rationalized his ensemble's arrangement with skoro not as a failed negotiation with the star but as a regrettably normal part of the national musical and economic ian macmillen system. in his account of this system, a tambura band must seek out certain types of publicity in order to ascend to and maintain a higher celebrity status and pay grade for private performances (an account that i heard repeated by many tamburasi from both well-established and relatively novice ensembles). according to marko and the members of other ensembles with whom i discussed this, "everyone" (pop stars, tamburasi, fans, and potential patrons) recognizes the value to a tambura band of publicity from accompanying a star singer at a televised concert, and tamburasi therefore have little leverage to negotiate wages for this type of labor. when i interviewed miroslav skoro in march 2011, he informed me that he is currently pursuing a doctorate in economics at the university of osijek and therefore views his hiring practices and relationships with tamburasi in terms of his field of study. he stated that one can explain these relation­ ships entirely through "marketing:' which he conceptualized for me as the process of creating, recognizing, and capitalizing on various forms of "value" (skoro 2011 b). 12 there are certain tambura musicians such as jerry grcevich and aleksandar homoky, he explained, whose work he values very highly because of their superb musicianship: specifically, their ability to replicate quickly and faithfully any melody that he dictates to them, their technical precision both on stage and in the studio, and the depth to which they "feel" and "love" the music (ibid). because both of these tamburasi recognize their value to skoro (multiplied due to the scarcity of such musicians in skora's view), they can wait for him to seek them out (they, not he, are in demand). they as well as skoro therefore expect that the latter will compensate them for their labor (ibid)y in skoro's opinion, however, most tamburasi currently playing in croatia are neither as musically talented nor as musically motivated as homoky and grcevich. he said that most play because they believe that performing in a band can be highly lucrative, and they do not develop great skill on their instruments (ibid). because of their prioritization of money over musician­ ship, he added, they do not "feel" and "love" tambura as do homoky and grcevich-and as he himself feels and loves his music. "1 can still make myself cry with my songs:' he proclaimed (ibid), referring generally to the emotional performances that he prides himself on delivering, and likely also to a specific recent concert in zagreb's vatroslav lisinski concert hall in which he famously cried throughout his performance of"majko jedina" ("mother, one and only"), a song dedicated to his deceased mother (skoro 2010:223). those whom he judges incapable of feeling the music so deeply-who, by (his) extension, value profit more highly than an emotional connection to the music-are not of great value to skoro. in his opinion, such musicians are abundant and easily replaceable, and the chance to perform together is 93 94 current musicology much more valuable to them (for the potential such a performance holds for marketing their ensembles to potential patrons) than it is to him. therefore, based on the principles of marketing, he explained, he can wait for them to come to him and can expect that they will be willing to perform without salary (skoro 2011b). skoro's explanation of his process of contracting work from tamburasi, however, struck me as somewhat figurative: his relationships with different tamburasi vary considerably, and his description of all of them coming to him for work generalized an array of negotiations and arrangements that was almost certainly equally varied. indeed, throughout the interview, with the exception of this explication of "marketing;' he described a much more active role for himself and his management team in dealing with tamburasi, from organizing the twentieth anniversary concert to planning future proj­ ects that would "give the tamburasi something to do" (ibid). that in reality many tamburasi may have been waiting passively, if eagerly, to accept the singer's offers (rather than actively approaching him about appearing in his concerts) did not enter into the value-based "marketing" schema that skoro presented to me. marko's and his band-mates' objection to the terms of their participation in the anniversary concert appeared to stem in part from just this sort of assumption: that although skoro clearly valued the way in which their participation and musicianship enhanced his own performance, as evidenced by the role in the concert that he allotted to them, when it came to negotiating compensation he acted as though they alone were looking to gain from the performance. as noted above, however, marko placed the lion's share of the blame on the croatian state for its part in creating and regulat­ ing a musical economy in which "everyone" takes these assumptions (and perhaps also a willful blindness to the complex, intersubjective processes involved in assigning value) for granted. that is, although upset at the terms of his band's performance and the attitudes responsible for them, marko voiced the greatest displeasure at what he described as a national economic system that left him and his colleagues with no recourse to profit directly from (or to turn down an offer of) this type of musical labor. marko expressed similar frustrations over their inability to profit from cds, which in recent years have also served only to promote the band and to justify higher fees for private performances. on the same ride back from the rehearsal to osijek i had told him that i would be interested in purchasing a cd from his band. rather than answer my request, he launched into a controlled but earnest invective against the cd market in croatia. although reluctance to accept money from someone whom he viewed as a guest of the band and/ or as a patronizing foreigner could explain marko's refusal to even acknowledge my offer, the speed and despondency with which he segued ian macmillen into his critique suggested rather a sense of futility at the prospects of selling a single cd in light of their general inability to profit from them. he added that, in this respect, the roles of cd production and of live performance in marketing and financing musical enterprises are "upside down" in croatia. the rolling stones go on tour, he explained, in order to promote an album and subsequently sell more records-their main source of income. in croatia, however, the opposite is true: bands are only able to profit significantly from live performances, and the release of an album is merely ancillary to their search for high-paying private and public appearances. 14 marko's simplification of the supply and marketing logic of a global music industry in which the rolling stones operate reflects, in part, the experiences of croatian tambura bands such as his own that the croatian fraternal union of north america (hereafter, the cfu) has brought on its annual tour of the united states and canada. each year for more than two decades, one tambura band from croatia (in combination with a popular singer) has toured croatian fraternal lodges of north america for three weeks in late august and early september (the cfu postponed the tour of the next scheduled band-garavuse, the first all-female band invited on the tour-in 2009 and then again in 2010 due to the recent economic recession, but the musicians remain hopeful that the cfu will be able to reschedule the tour for fall 20 11). as in the imagined album tours of the rolling stones, the focus for many of the musicians on the cfu's recent tours has been the promotion and sale of newly recorded songs. damir "budo" butkovic-director of slavonski brod's city tambura or­ chestra and berda (tambura bass) player and vocalist for the well-established berde band, who played on both the 1998 and 2007 cfu tours-explained to me that the compensation that they had received for performing on the tour's seventeen stops was rather meager and only a secondary consideration in accepting the cfu's invitation (butkovic 2010). moreover, the cfu, he claimed, had not increased its salaries between 1998 and 2007, and he and his fellow musicians had therefore earned significantly lower nightly wages on the second tour than they were accustomed to receiving for private parties in croatia by that time. is as butkovic and members of several other bands that had participated in the tours noted, they had also had to forgo premiering songs at the annual televised "zlatne :lice slavonije" ("golden strings ofslavonia") festival in pozega, croatia, in early september. for over a decade, this festival has been a primary publicity opportunity and a regular source of new tambura songs for state radio stations seeking to add to their programming, and it remains an important yearly event in the business lives of semiprofessional tamburasi. thus, in terms of both wages and schedule, touring for the cfu meant sacrificing lucrative opportunities in croatia. 95 96 current musicology in the eyes of most tamburasi with whom i spoke, what justified making these sacrifices for the tour was the opportunity to sell cds. bands could usually sell large quantities of cds on these tours, provided that they had new material to offer croatian-american fans familiar with their oeuvres and already in possession of their previous albums. when i attended berde band's performance for the cfu tour on september 3, 2007, at the "st. lawrence" croatian home in steelton, pennsylvania, i was one of many audience members who lined up at the band's merchandise table to pur­ chase a copy of the new cd that they were selling during a break between sets. entitled "usa & canada tour: special edition;' the album was a new product intended for the 2007 tour, and rather than the band's own well­ known hits it included a variety of newly-recorded traditional songs from southeastern europe and popular songs from croatia, western europe, and north america. during my 2010 stay in slavonski brod, tamburasi from berde band and other ensembles that had toured for the cfu such as sirok sor and zvona told me that they would typically enter the recording studio before embarking on the tour, and cited the unique opportunity to promote and sell a new album on tour as their main reason for going. as butkovic commented to me, tamburasi also valued the chance to have the spotlight and to play short, self-programmed concerts in the style of american tamburasi such as jerry grcevich (ibid). in comparison to these limited (and highly selective) opportunities in north america and the seemingly inaccessible careers of western rock stars, the prospects for marketing and selling records in croatia appeared rather dire to most tambura bands. 1ne combination of the stagnating domestic cd market and expectations that tambura bands would accompany star singers without salary left many tamburasi whom i interviewed with an extremely dissatisfied opinion of their country's economic status. marko argued that croatia-in contrast to the united states, great britain, and other "western" countries-is still a young country new to democracy and does not yet have the infrastructure or organization for a large number of touring and recording bands. instead of being rewarded for their musical authorship and concert appearances­ which most tamburasi consider the more artistic and more enjoyable sides of their musical endeavors-they must use these activities to secure other work, which is profitable but much more exhausting. most evening events that i attended or that tamburasi described to me (including parties for weddings, football [soccer] clubs, private firms, and birthdays) lasted until 5:00 or 6:00 am. at this point, the musicians would spend roughly an hour's time putting away instruments and equipment. this was the "hardest part" of the job, as zeljko dankovic, one of berde band's vocalists and brae tambura players, noted to me as we carried mic stands ian macmillen back to the ensemble's van following their performance at a promotional raille in slavonski brod's supernova shopping center (dankovic 2010). bands typically arrived and began setting up for these engagements between 5:00 and 6:00 pm and played from 7:00 pm onwards, though weddings sometimes required musicians to arrive as early as 8:00 am. bands normally charged between 1,000 and 2,000 euros for an evening event and received an ad­ ditiona1200 to 500 euros in tips from guests who requested songs and/or special attention (such as having the band play directly around their tables). 16 divided among five to seven musicians (typically), this income provided each tamburas with a few hundred euros. this was a decent daily wage in croatia and a valued source of income, but did not begin to rival the gross gains that miroslav skoro drew upon selling 20,000 tickets at nearly 20 euros apiece. for bands that had not accompanied pop stars or released an album, the difference was even more substantial. marko and members of several other ensembles complained frequently that the only step that croatia had taken toward adopting "western" musi­ cal practices was to regulate and heavily tax private gigs, all of which they officially must register. "for 25 years i played for cash and never had to pay taxes;' he told me, referring to life in socialist yugoslavia, and comparing its relative liberalism for enterprising musicians to the current levying of taxes on musicians' wages. he cited his own dues at 35 percent, the tax rate for artists with an annual tax base of96,000-268,800 kuna, approximately 13,000-36,000 euros (porezna uprava 2007:13). marko acknowledged that, in reality, they regularly took advantage of both legal and illegal means of reducing the amount that they lost to taxes, and he estimated that on aver­ age they paid the state about 15 percent of their performance income. 17 he posited that in another 25 years croatia would sort out a better system­ presumably more like the idealized one enjoyed by the rolling stones and one that would (once more) "require" no cheating of the system. but by then, he grumbled, he would be a djed, a grandfather. such feelings of in-betweenness-of having acquired the tax-heavy bureaucracy but not the increased opportunities of the capitalist "west" -are quite common among croatians who have worked both domestically and abroad. these feelings are particularly common among musicians whose regular and frequent international travel keeps them in constant flux between the regulations and experiences of their own country and those of foreign states. they have come to imagine croatia stuck, both temporally and spatially, in the middle: between a yugoslavian past (with its own particular amalgamation of capitalist and socialist structures) and a fully capitalist/ democratic future; between their more "backwards" balkan neighbors and the lands of record sales, radio stars, and rolling stones farther west. 97 98 current musicology in her book imagining the balkans, maria todorova notes that the discursive construction of "europe" has long placed the "east" on the far end of an axis with elided temporal and spatial vectors (todorova 1997: 11-12; see also wolff 1994, as cited in todorova 1997:11). in this discourse, eastern europe is not fully "other" with respect to western europe, but rather appears to the "west" as an image of its own past. todorova introduces the term "balkanism" to describe the situating of the balkans as europe's incomplete self along this axis in between the "west" and its more clearly "oriental" others. her argument that balkanism treats differences within and not between racial and religious types (and thus situates the balkans incompletely as part of white, christian europe) helps to explain the ambigu­ ity of croatia's own positioning in between normative europe and europe's incomplete self. most religious croatian citizens and nearly all ethnic croats are catholics, and readily point to the historico-geographical divide between catholic and orthodox christian europe as distinguishing their central­ european country from balkan serbia; however, the idea of a genetically close though non -homogeneous south slav entity encompassing both serbs and croats18 remains prominent and is closely tied to the racial imagining of the balkans as transitional but, in todorova's words, "positioned on this side of the fundamental opposition: white versus colored, indo-european versus the rest" (todorova 1997:19). in this way, croatia occupies religiously and racially (as well as musically) its own particular in-between position as what catherine baker has called a "borderland" (baker 2010:2). balkanist constructions of religiouslracial difference and similarity are deeply rooted in the region's history of empire and statehood. todorova posits that "the balkans are [ ... 1 tantamount to their ottoman legacy;' and this legacy is a source of heated contention among those who wish to distance themselves from the balkans, particularly in croatia (todorova 1997:13). croatia's centuries-long history as a "borderland" and zone of conflict between ottoman and austro-hungarian forces offers evidence to both those who assert and those who deny croatia's place in the balkans. more recent historical periods offer similarly ambiguous evidence. those in countries situated more squarely within the balkan peninsula and those more distinctly outside of the "balkans" often see shared history with other former yugoslav republics as proof of croatia's balkanness, while croatians typically blame these past ties for their country's inability to progress evenly with other, more "advanced" territories of the former austro-hungarian empire. in discussing traditional music, however, croatian tamburasi often speak inclusively of their southern neighbors and declare the balkans (croatia included) europe's richest musical region. they emphatically qualify such ian macmillen statements with a denigration of turbofolk music, a largely non-acoustic popular music genre that they see as a balkan mixture of european and turko-orientalist elements and as a foreign, pernicious threat to the tra­ ditional musical wealth of croatia (and to the pocket money of potential tambura patrons). a number of croatian tamburasi referred to this music as ''§und,'' a common slang term for (musical) "trash" that, perhaps tellingly, is an appropriation of the german word "schund" (katarincic 2008; zderic 2010). aversion to turbofolk music builds on a much older ambivalence in yugoslavia toward newly composed folk music [novokomponovana narodna muzika], a genre of songwriting that peaked commercially in the 1980s and that was characterized by the combination of aspects of several local musical styles and the incorporation of elements considered foreign and more "eastern:' of its mixed reception, ljerka rasmussen writes: "at the same time that ncfm [newly composed folk music] prompted issues of the homogenization of folk music's regional and ethnic diversity, it crystal­ lized internally divisive issues, chief among them the distinction between yugoslavia's east and west. the dominant position, that ncfm embodied an "eastern" cultural model of yugoslavia, drew on two facts of regionalism: the greatest concentration of ncfm's audience (and commercial produc­ tion) in the southeast (serbia, bosnia, macedonia, and montenegro), and its "orientalist" features, most prominently expressed in singing styles" (rasmussen 1999,4). at the time of its development, croatian musicians tended to (and largely still do) see this sort of music as a deterioration of authentic folklore styles such as tambura music and as yet another move toward the 'true balkans' and turkey, and away from the 'high' culture of the austro-hungarian empire, which had introduced the very methods of folklore study that led to the tambura's initial rise as a national instrument in the nineteenth century (march 1984:94-98, 108-111; forry 1990:109-110). croatian tamburasi therefore typically see shared history with yugoslavia as a negative influence and hindrance not only economically but also musically. such negotiations of croatia's ambiguous balkan status contribute to the processes of balkan ism and incorporate its tropes into the constructions of croatia as in the middle. in attempting to distance themselves from newly composed folk music and turbofolk, as well as from the balkans more generally, croatian tamburasi reinforce discourses on the in-betweenness and incompletely european status of southeastern europe and its music that in turn reinforce the ambiguity with which central and western europe view croatia. the fact that bulgaria and romania have joined the european union and that macedonia's prospects of doing so sometimes seemed better than croatia's own during my fieldwork, further complicates the ways that 99 100 current musicology croatians view "europe" as a normative space in relation to their country. one of the clearest indications of croatia's own distinctly intermediary position that i encountered in my research was anxiety over "europeanness:'19 antun zderic, the president of osijek's slavonian tambura society "pajo kolaric;' emphasized to me several times how "europski" ("european") the city ofosijekis visually and culturally (zderic 2009). tamburasi whom i in­ terviewed in austria never expressed a need to say the same to me of vienna, whose european status they took for granted; musicians that i met in bosnia and farther south and east seemed equally comfortable with their distance from "europa;' which they often referred to as a (foreign) destination to the north and west. in croatia, however, anxiety over exclusion from europe and inclusion in the balkans constantly informed constructions of the country's intermediary status and balkanist denigrations of croatia's music industry. following milica bakic-hayden's introduction of "nesting orientalisms" to describe "a pattern of reproduction of the original dichotomy upon which orientalism is premised" by which any given society can readily locate its own relative "orient" (bakic-hayden 1995:918), one can note within such anxious discourse corollary patterns of nesting occidentalisms (and perhaps, specifically, europeanisms) and balkan isms. in croatia, tamburasi, other individuals, even whole societies avail themselves of gradations of selves/ europes (both normative and incomplete) to soothe their own anxieties and justify the culturo-geographical distinction necessary for orientalizing their neighbors. as michal buchowski argues, however, constructions of difference in formerly socialist states of eastern europe have depended less and less on models of geographic distinction and distance since 1989, and have increas­ ingly located alterity within or across (rather than simply between) societies. he contends that for those in poland "still thinking in "orientalizing" terms a mental map has morphed into social space, or, that they have found "other­ ness" in their sisters and brothers" (buchowski 2006:466; original emphasis used). they have done so largely by employing three parallel dichotomies: "urban vs. rural, educated vs. uneducated, and winners vs. losers of trans­ formation" (ibid). independent croatia differs from buchowski's polish case in that the dissolution of the socialist federal republic of yugoslavia and wartime expulsion of serbs that comprised transformation have facilitated new constructions of others "confined" or "incarcerated" in foreign space (appadurai 1988:37: as cited in buchowski 2006:465). yet, differences within and across croatian societies themselves have also registered over the past twenty years. at the november 20 concert, such differences were apparently at work in the relations between skoro (who now lives in the zagreb urban center, has ian macmillen pursued post -secondary education both in croatia and in the united states, and has repeatedly succeeded in his commercial music endeavors since 1992) and the members of lyra, ravnica, and slavonski becari (who continue to live in heavily agricultural eastern slavonia, have on average undertaken less advanced education, and earn too little from their activities in these bands to abandon their daytime professions). in my experience, the "winners" of croatia's political and economic transformation are not typically so blunt as to label their sisters and brothers "losers;' but the differences register in such matters as the understanding that top popular performers need not compensate accompanying musicians monetarily for their musical labor. skoro, for his part, introduced and used these terms freely (in english) in my interview with him (skoro 2011b). he told me that while he would not like to name anyone as a "loser" of the transformations following croatia's secession in 1991, he does consider himself a "winner:' "i have won certain things for myself;' he told me, and he proceeded to list the following highlights of his successful career: freedom from the 9 am to 4 pm routine; the ability to wake up when he wants; and the ability to dress and care for his personal hygiene as he desires. skoro's appearance at our interview seemed to support this: his face-always immaculately shaved for performances-was covered in stubble. he had also, he made clear, won the right to perform what, where, when, and with whom he wants, and to carry out his hiring practices based on his understanding of (and ability to control) "marketing:' disparities between "winners" and "losers" also registered in a reaction­ ary reversal of these roles that tamburasi performed in discoursing on the state's immaturity: they described croatia as young and new to democracy/ capitalism, and argued that they themselves had a much more advanced understanding of how things could and should operate in the future than did the country's government and bureaucratic institutions. in the meantime, they also knew and boasted of many ways of bypassing the bureaucracy of the state.20 in these ways they emphasized their own successes in comprehending and envisioning the future outcome of transformation vis-a-vis the failures of the state and society as a whole to do the same. in each case (le., both that of the tamburasi and that of the state), the one side positioned himself in between the stagnated progress of the other and the future possibilities already realized in the "west:' in a critique of anthropologists' (as well as croatian society's) focus on locating the "initial moment" of post-socialism in transition's inceptive event, ines prica writes that such reactions to economic difficulties are also typical of a broader (i.e. not only musical) population of croatian society that considers itself the losers of the processes of transition and therefore "is 101 102 current musicology inclined to negative assessment of the newly-arisen situation and to seeking a "sacrificial goat" for its own condition;' (prica 2007:41 [my translation]). citizens, she continues, are in position neither to explain their own failures at "comprehending and executing the changes" brought by transition, nor "to understand them with respect to [the tact that] they skew the reality of transition as the crisis and problem of society" (ibid). in employing transition as the societal scapegoat, both croatians and the anthropologists who theorize them also often skew the reality of social­ ism itself, prica argues, for croatia differs significantly from poland and other former satellite states of the ussr in another significant respect: it belonged to the socialist federal republic of yugoslavia and its (and tito's) own particular, nonaligned mixture of socialism and capitalism. as prica writes, "contrary to transitional societies with the experience of deprivation of material goods, here materialism is exactly the consequence of a continuity of consumers of undeserved goods:' indeed, familiarity with and consumption of "western" culture, such as the music of the rolling stones, in croatia far precedes the post-socialist period (prica 2007:44). this continuity extends beyond consumerism to include conceptions of the value of labor. citing ivan rogic's work on transition (rogic 1998:54), prica adds that "it turns out that (yugoslav) socialism is an obstacle of transition exactly because it is some form of "corrupted capitalism" in which, aside from deceitful intel­ lectuals, exist also "deceitful workers in deceitful factories", "mannequins of the epochal program of liberation': who thought that "every banality that they perform must be very expensively paid for" (prica 2007:44). while deceit is perhaps too strong (and unfair) an accusation to make of current tamburasi who quite rightly point to discrepancies in the rewarding of musical labor in comparison to both pre-transition practices in croatia and contemporary foreign music scenes, there is certainly a (self)deception at work in their pronouncements about the way things were, are, and ought to be. at a rehearsal of the city tambura orchestra in slavonski brod that i attended in april, 2010, director butkovic was attempting to schedule an extra rehearsal in preparation for an upcoming performance. when he expressed surprise and dismay that several members would be unavailable for an afternoon rehearsal on a sunday (historically a free day for workers) because they had non-musical, professional commitments, one of these players humorously shouted out across the orchestra: "vidis, kapitalizam je stigao u hrvatsku!" ("you see, capitalism has arrived in croatia!" -i.e. new capitalist practices have resulted in employees working through the weekend).21 this comment played on an irony well-accepted by the musi­ cians, that despite requirements to work more, capitalism still has not truly arrived. the joke also points to a second irony: capitalism (in a perhaps ian macmillen corrupt, if more agreeable form) had already arrived in croatia before the "transition:' the treatment since the 1990s of transition as a sudden, "sur­ prising event" obscures continuities maintained over several decades and distances the present from the past. in so othering their own yugoslav past, croatian tamburasi construct a space and period in the middle that is nested in between east and west, past and present, in gradations of orientalismsl balkanismsloccidentalisms. turning to emigrants, constructing a center typically accompanying these constructions are both a strong opinion of how the music industry and infrastructure ought to be once croatia catches up with its western companions and a clear idea of the many unlawful means of sidestepping bureaucratic and financial hassles in the meantime. this often involves travel and work in the very regions between which musicians see their country positioned, whether geographically, culturally, or economi­ cally. indeed, it is the mobility of tamburasi in neighboring countries serbia, bosnia and herzegovina, and hungary, and farther abroad in austria, in germany, and on the aforementioned north american tour, that allows them their particular perspective and almost patronizing air of authority on requisite national changes. i turn now to a discussion of these musicians' activities beyond croatia's borders and to the alternative positioning of croatia as a musical and ethnic center in relation to the diaspora and other foreign communities. the surge of patriotism during the war years bolstered skoro's rise to stardom, increased the demand for tambura bands such as ravnica and slavonski becari, and spurred the founding of numerous ensembles through­ out croatia. scores of new semiprofessional bands, almost exclusively all­ male, began recording with pop stars, releasing their own songs on cassettes, and performing this new material at new festivals of patriotic domoijubne pjesme ("songs for the love of the home[land]"). the end of the wars saw a decrease in domestic interest in patriotic tambura groups, however, and left a diminished performance market in a country saturated with bands. they could rarely profit from their recordings or performances with pop stars, and, as foreign croat enclaves once again became accessible with the cessation of fighting, these bands began to compensate for low numbers of domestic gigs by working abroad (see figure 1 for a map of the movement of ensembles outward from croatia discussed in the following pages). croatia-based bands have played increasingly in herzegovina, where croat fans of tambura music were accustomed to hearing local tamburasi before the war but have since looked eagerly to croatia as their main source 103 104 current musicology figmre 1: foreign travel routes taken by working tambura bands based in croatia of music for private parties and weddings. one osijek tamburas told me that they can get away with not registering their work or paying taxes when they play in bosnia and herzegovina and that the long trip allows them to charge higher rates. another in slavonski brod added that purchasing food and alcohol at cheaper rates to bring back to croatia is another benefit of crossing the bosnian border for work. the same advantages attract bands to work in the burgenland and baranya regions of hungary, where they commonly out -compete local, relatively amateur ensembles. another result of the wars, though also of yugoslav financial troubles fol­ lowing the end of communism, was the hyperinflation of the dinar currency. this prompted tambura bands to seek payment in deutschmarks and, since 1999, in euros (now standard despite the adoption of the relatively stable kuna). many tambura fans relocated during this period to germany, whence they and earlier immigrants were able to send foreign currency to family in croatia and where, just as importantly, they now often hire croatian tambura bands for organized events. refugees similarly relocated to canada and the united states, where they joined fourthand fifth-generation croatian­ americans in supporting bands on north american tours. in my 2008-2009 fieldwork in pittsburgh and in subsequent research in chicago, cleveland, harrisburg, and toronto, i witnessed patrons from both croatian-american and recent croatian immigrant communities (which mix and interact quite readily in many north american cities) avidly supporting tamburasi ian macmillen from croatia. much longer established croat diaspora communities in the austrian and slovakian burgenland provide similar opportunities and are regular sources of income for several croatian ensembles. regular, if less frequent, work in croat enclaves of slovenia and northern serbia fills out the musico-geographical framing of croatia constructed through these bands' activities. work in these countries joins croatian tambura bands and foreign patrons in imagining croatia as an ethnic and musical center. tamburasi view their country from a different geographical and sociological perspective; if constructing croatia as 'in the middle' relies on musicians looking outward while living within the country, viewing it as a center involves looking back in from an acquired external perspective and incorporates the experience of repeated physical departure and return to and from several foreign countries. this dual perspective is, of course, not unique to tamburasi in croatia. indeed, it is very similar to what, following mikhail bakhtin, one might call the dialogic relationship of the insider and outsider perspective (1981). what is important in this case is the ever-increasing complexity oflocating the margins along which this duality persists. as the geography (human and cultural, as well as physical) of foreign croat enclaves becomes more fragmentary, as it incorporates more and more formerly isolated individu­ als via new technologies of communication, and as the resolution of tenets of ethno-nationalism with the realities and practicalities of intercultural mixing becomes more thorny, constructing croatia as a center takes on greater import. those who listen to and particularly those who hire the bands help to finance and reinforce this perspective among croatian tamburasi. such patronage existed prior to the 1990s to some extent, but croatia's secession from yugoslavia and the subsequent war bolstered patriotic support. the creation of a politically autonomous croatian entity that, following the expulsion of serbs and influx of croats from bosnia and serbia throughout the 1990s, became much more ethnically homogeneous than had been the yugoslav republic of croatia realized a long-imagined ethnic homeland. this served to center the transnational movement of certain ensembles that had previously relied on much more lateral and ethnically diverse musical networks. this re-centering of transnational musical and ethnic flows transpired within and partly constituted what, in a redirection of arjun appadurai's model, i propose was the reterritorialization of an (ultimately croatian) ethnoscape (appadurai 1996:33-38). the realization of the croatian state's sovereignty over its present-day territory took nearly seven years, from the republic's declaration of secession and subsequent war with yugoslavia in 105 106 current musicology 1991 to the eventual united nations-supervised demilitarization ofslavonia (croatia's easternmost region) that concluded in early 1998. during this time, croatian emigrants in countries across the globe spent (and sent) consider­ able amounts of time, attention, effort, and money as they followed and supported the endeavors of the croatian government and army to achieve this sovereignty.22 in the 1990s, what had been a somewhat deterritorialized diaspora in central europe, and in more peripheral locations such as the united states, became a group quite engaged and invested in the construction of a central croatian homeland in terms of both geographic reunification and an emergent social imaginary. lbe issue of territory and sovereignty was no less important to populations of croats in other republics of the former yugoslavia, who found themselves separated by new national borders (many of them difficult to penetrate due to the battles lining them) from the nominal homeland and governmental seat of their "nation:' many of those who left these republics (primarily bosnia and hercegovina and the north-serbian province ofvojvodina) for croatia because of the war, and those already living within the republic of croatia, focused their concerns and efforts largely on what they considered croatian lands occupied and/or damaged by the yugoslavian armyy as catherine baker (2010:42) has demonstrated, the issue of regaining specific occupied lands and territory in general was a primary theme in the songs of many slavonian tambura bands such as slavonski becari during this period, and the recording ofskoro's own "ne dirajte mi ravnicu" by zlatni dukati (now known as najbolji hrvatski tamburasi-the best croatian tamburasi) resonated with contemporary political messages about "returning" to the "ravnice" ("plains") of slavonia (bonifacic 1998:138; ivankovic 1993). the transnational flows of people and money into, within, across, and because of the war zones, and the cultural forms such as tambura songs that promised and celebrated the return of croats to all their territories, took part in the re-invention of a croatian homeland to which its citizens and expatriates related, not on the plane of the fantastic (appadurai 1996:38), but through deeply personal and intimate connections to territory. james ferguson (2006) argues that the introduction of this sort of sovereignty also contributes to the invention and reification of the state by fostering a blindness to the very transnational connections that made possible and sustain its (uneasy) existence. he writes: where the national frame of reference has enjoyed an unquestioned legitimacy, economic grievances have tended to be seen as "problems" that are essentially local and internal to a national economy, and economic critique has been largely channeled into discussion of whether or not ian macmillen "the nation" is pursuing "the right policies." in this way, the wider system of economic relations that is constitutive of many of these "problems" is removed from view, thus localizing and depoliticizing the discussion in a very fundamental way from the start. (ferguson 2006:64-65) croatia, as a newly sovereign nation, has been a ripe place for these sorts of narrow economic critiques from both within and outside ofits borders, and not least from tamburasi. the musicians' construction of croatia as a musical, economic, and territorial center from which they move outward to foreign enclaves has, in part, built upon the very idea of croatia's responsibility for their economic hardships, even as they have witnessed (and participated in) firsthand the economic connections that extend beyond its borders. these connections are imbricated with conditions of significant economic inequality. while more peripheral enclaves in western europe and north america are often able to spend money on trips to the "center" or to bring over musicians from croatia, the opposite case (i.e., tamburasi traveling as tourists or financing tours of american musicians) is rarely true. as ferguson argues, such conditions of inequality are not simply indexes of coincidental differences between completely independent political and economic units but, rather, symptoms of actual economic relations that get lost in the focus on countries (ibid.). thus, while the creation of a sovereign ethnic homeland fed the demand for patriotic music that initially enabled the rise of many tamburasi to celebrity status and commercial success in croatia, it also eventually fed into constructions both of croatia's "domestic" problems (its position 'in the middle') and of foreign enclaves in which tamburasi began to work and network as distant, independent sites for sidestepping croatia's economic policies and bureaucratic institutions. the current network of which croatian tambura bands avail themselves configures a sort of geographically fragmentary "imagined community" (anderson 1991:6) beyond but centered through the nation-state: what i have come to call "croatia and its intimates:' by "intimates" i refer to those enclaves that, across varying degrees of geographical and historical separa­ tion from the current nation -state of croatia, participate in its construction as center. some of croatia's intimates are in the diaspora, and some of them are merely separated from croatia by what their populations commonly consider unfortunate national boundaries (either recently solidified, as in those with bosnia and hercegovina, or present throughout the history of yugoslavia, as in those with hungary). these intimates take part in a number of intimacies with their nominal homeland: familial, as receiving family members from abroad forms the basis of many of these connec­ tions; marital, or sexual, as travelers form new families and remain abroad; 107 108 current musicology spiritual, as croatian catholic churches provide spaces and occasions for travelers to commune in worship; and, finally, what michael herzfeld has termed "cultural intimacy:' cultural intimacy is a theory that identifies non-official discourses of externally embarrassing national stereotypes that citizens employ in blam­ ing state ideologies and structures, but that somewhat paradoxically also reinforce reifications of the state by reinscribing the latter's presence within these discourses (herzfeld 1997:3). in the case of tamburasi, discourses of croatia's balkanness and status in the middle are embarrassing but not easily avoidable, particularly as they take compensating measures that to many outsiders, including croats abroad, place them culturally in league with their "balkan" neighbors (e.g. the use of non-state-issued currency and the avoidance of taxation abroad and, when possible, at home). their work and consumption among croatia's intimates buttresses the structure and presence of the state by both making up for its economic short-comings (preserving a functional status quo) and serving the state's ambitions of maintaining connections with croats abroad (many of whom it calls upon as citizens but only irregularly serves in any official capacity).24 the perspective from these intimates of croatia as an ethnic and musical center helps to legitimize distinctive national stereotypes and practices as quintessential; in this way, foreign enclaves contribute to the complex negotiation of stereotypes and officialdom that are vital to the intimacies shared by state and citizens based in croatia. musical styles and strategies within the center itself, croatian bands have developed a particular style of tambura playing and song-writing that many refer to as the "slavonian sound" [slavonski zvukl due to the prominence of bands from osijek, slavonski brod, dakovo, and other cities in this easternmost croatian region. from fieldwork that i have conducted in pittsburgh and in the austrian burgenland, it is evident that exponents of this slavonian sound, such as berde band, lyra, ravnica, and slavonski becari, are still quite popular among a number of croatia's intimates and are the most common non -local tambura acts to perform there. tambura musicians from the slovakian and hungarian burgenlands also claimed a preference for slavonian bands (over local groups and those from other intimates and other parts of croatia), and slavonian bands affirmed in interviews that their songs and their style of playing gave them an advantage abroad. in this section, i discuss sonic characteristics of their musical practice in order to elucidate the limitations ian macmillen and opportunities that they recognize from their complexly intermediary positions in the center/middle. to speak of a slavonian style of tambura is a fictive action that risks both obscuring internal differences and ignoring cross-regional and transnational consistencies in tambura practice. many slavonian tamburasi advised me on how to distinguish aurally musicians from such nearby slavonian cities as dakovo, vinkovci, and osijek, and then retreated into the vagueness of musical relativity, asserting that borders do not exist for music and that they share a continuity of tradition with other regions of croatia as well as throughout the greater pannonian basin (a lowland area that also includes vojvodina, much of hungary, and even part of northern bosnia). most tamburasi, however, were equally aware that certain political borders and combat zones did erect and constitute musical borders during the wars, and that it was economically sound practice to continue to construct such boundaries. distinctions in performance and songwriting style that solidified during the war years (when isolation from tambura practices of other yugoslav republics was at its greatest) continue to playa role in the way croatia-based tamburasi position their music in relation to both foreign tambura styles and competing genres of popular performance. for the present argument, it is therefore useful to identify a few features of the general tradition and of the slavonian style of tambura music that became particularly salient in the 1990s. i begin with an overview of instrumentation and performance techniques and then proceed to an analysis of common song structures in order to discuss the musical expectations of domestic and foreign patrons. semiprofessional ensembles throughout the former yugoslav republics employ a variety of combinations of the most common tambura instruments. these range from the small, round-bodied lead prim tambura (also known as bisernica or sometimes simply tam burica ) to hourglass-shaped secondary melody (such as the eelavie, the eela, and the basprim, also known as brae) and harmony (i.e. the kantra, also known as bugarija) tamburas, and finally to the largest, berda (also known as bas), which resembles a double bass in appearance and function. a working tambura band features a minimum of berda, kontra, basprim, and one other melodic instrument, but many en­ sembles have one, two, or three additional tamburas. some bands incorporate violin and/or accordion into their lineups, although this is less common in slavonia, where many croat patrons associate these instruments with roma from vojvodina and with serbian musical practice (see pettan 1998: 16-18). musicians use plectra for all tambura types and, with the exception ofberda and kontra players, typically play all note values longer than an eighth note 109 1'10 current musicology with tremolo. the berda and kontra players most typically play alternating strokes on, respectively, the strong and weak beats of the bar. characteristics that tamburasi in slavonia as well as in northern serbia and bosnia confirmed were particular to the slavonian style of tambura performance include close, tertian, often parallel vocal harmonies within the baritone range; frequent chromatic passages on the lead prim tambura (including short, stepwise fills between successive notes of the vocal melody and longer runs when the vocals are silent); heterophonic doubling of the vocal parts on tamburas in multiple octaves; and what many tamburasi refer to as an "aggressive" plectrum technique consisting of hard attacks, quick tremolos, and stricter duple division than one tends to hear in northern serbia or bosnia. these characteristics, several musicians told me, were typi­ cal only of people on the plains of slavonia. geography and genetics-tropes that relate closely to wartime (and subsequent) discourses on the croatian ethnic group's territorial claims to formerly occupied eastern slavonia-were common explanations for both the ability and the sensibility of slavonian tamburasi in this performance style (butkovic 2010; zbiljski 2010). in addition to these characteristics of slavonian tambura performance, a number of recurring, archetypal harmonic and melodic structures also emerge from the newly written tambura songs of this period. i argue that these archetypal structures factor in the ways fans recognize, enjoy, and participate in the slavonian tambura tradition. skoro's "ne dirajte mi ravnicu" utilizes one such archetypal structure, and, in addition to the aforementioned distinctive musical characteristics, his performance of this and similar songs at arena zagreb exemplified the new style of slavonian tambura songs that emerged during the early period of his career (i analyze only the second verse and chorus, as these representat well the general melodic structure of the song, though each verse has minor nuances that accommodate stresses in the text).25 the verses are harmonically and melodically static, employing only triads within the key signature of e major and repeating a phrase that, on a structural level, moves only slightly (to the second scale degree) and then returns to the tonic on which it began (see example 1, measures 1 through 8). as is common in many songs from this region, however, the refrain moves to the subdominant via characteristic instrumental runs that tonicize a major: one from the tonic of e up the scale to a and one from e down chromatically to c# (measures 8 and 16). the melody that subsequently enters consists of a simple descending pattern (measures 9 and 10) that repeats sequentially (measures 11 and 12) over harmonies more adventurous than those of the verse. structurally speaking, this melody elaborates a linear progression (measures 9 through 16) descending stepwise to the tonic (from 2nd verse: " u h tenor "sl r ~ jos u sl'-hi " h .---------melody tamhuras ~-.-.-.. harmony and bass tmnburas 5 " ~ ij t v u : ! f e: i ".'... r "kad ~c jcrjnom ~ir. ---------. -_._,. u tamb. e ! ! : r ~ r i t tamb. j.!" h t ~ u ! 1 r ._. vra ~ tis w e ~ ian macmillen i i .. l-. i i r cu-y..'lll maj lu k,\ ko tll2-lla 1;o-vo ,f , ~-h. 19~ ~"'._ ..•.. _._w ==..j i.,....-j 1 u i~ ii: i\ j e e ! ! ! j ! 1.-+4 -~ _.r ~ r ~ i ~ r~ .~ ii iv rv r r j .......... i .. i i i~ r si-ne ja ell te ~e-ka lj" .. '" .._. 19'" --~ o....j w..w i~ r~ a j e e)'i7e7 ! ! ! j ! ! ' r ~ r ~ i ~ ~ rr r r if iv i 17v7/1v i i i 13" ne diraj-ie mi rav ill ell jer jd cli sc vra ti ti h ---------.. ",.h. ~~h. 19tj l.-j t:::::w i.--' tamb. e e r# it a j e em7127 ! ! ! ! j_.j ! ! r ~ r 1r ~ r ~ v i ~--~ r r r i i ii iv ~! i 17 v7/iv example 1: "ne dirajte mi ravnicu" ("don't touch my plain"). music and lyrics by miroslav skora, arranged by jerry grcevich. 111 1'12 current musicology tenor c~trl g~7 a tambura bass ami harmony e: vi v71vi iv example 2: alternative linear progression [2nd verse:] jos u sebi cujem majku, kako tuzna govori: "kad se jednom vratis, sine, ja eu te cekati" [refrain:] ne dirajte mi veceras uspomenu u meni ne dirajte mi ravnicu jer ja eu se vratiti e r7 e b7 e v7 ( v7 ii still within myself i hear mother, how, sad, she is speaking: "when once you return, son, i will be waiting for you" dodt touch, tonight, the memory in me don't touch my plain figure 2: "ne dirajte mi ravnicu" ("don't touch my plain") scale degree 4 in this case, though 6 and the upper tonic are also common). 26 other common song structures employ similar sequential elaborations of linear progressions (with different harmonic patterns) in the refrain, such as those from the upper tonic that set structurally prominent scale degrees 1, 7, 6, and 5 over, respectively, vi, v7/vi, iv, and i harmonies (see example 2). the progressions then typically proceed stepwise down to scale degree 3 (e.g. berde band's "hrastovi slavonije ravne" "oaks of flat slavonia") or, in some cases, all the way to the tonic (e.g. skoro's "sumi, sumi javore" "rustle, rustle maple"), employing v-i harmonic cadential formulas. in both these and other archetypal song structures, recognizable tran­ sitions to the refrain cue an audience acquainted with the style to join in singing phrases that are easily accessible because of their internal sequential repetition, frequent recurrence, and similarity to other songs. this allows audience members and other fans to learn and then recall the song readily and to join the musicians on stage, and the swaying fans around them, in an intimate performance of these songs' lyrics of nostalgia for home and the rural countryside (see figure 2 for a translation of the second verse and chorus of"ne dirajte mi ravnicu"). indeed, the audience in arena zagreb ian macmillen on november 20, 2009, followed the cues each time, even when skoro fell silent during several instrumental repetitions of the refrain. when a croatian tambura band plays a song such as "ne dirajte mi ravnicu" at private gigs, even among foreign fans who do not understand the croatian lyrics, the musicians elicit the same sort of participation and cultivate an intimate rapport with their patrons and the guests. this is important for a band's reputation and future success, as well as for its immediate earnings, particularly with regard to tips. choosing (and being ready to play on request) those songs that are familiar or familiar-sounding and suitable to fostering such intimacy requires attending to the desires of particular audiences and has a significant impact on the repertoire and sound of any given ensemble. patrons in croatia's intimates usually expect a strictly slavonian (i.e. not vojvodinan and not bosnian) performance in terms of both style and repertoire, and in this way reinforce these musicians' perception (from without) of croatia as musical center. as tambura bands struggle to remain competitive and profitable, they often find the demand for standard favorites and newly written songs in the standard style difficult to reconcile with the need to set themselves apart from dozens of similar ensembles. members of working bands, especially those new on the scene, stressed to me the importance of "pioneering" something musically. yet, they were often hard pressed to find time for experimenting after rehearsing the hundreds of requisite songs in the canon, arranging songs requested in advance by certain clients, traveling and performing internationally, and working fulltime jobs. with inexpensive, local, one­ person singer/synthesizer performers as well as serb and roma tambura bands (which have increasingly been entering croatia from vojvodina in recent years) putting more and more pressure on the market, even some long-established ensembles have contemplated new musical strategies. antun tonkic ofberde band, the most famous group in slavonski brod, told me that he thought that they needed to adopt the melismatic style of popular bosnian singers such as halid bdlic (tonkic 2010). beslic rose to prominence in the early 1980s as part of the largely bosnian "new wave" of newly composed folk music and estrada, and quickly began drawing large audiences throughout yugoslavia (rasmussen 2002: 117 -118). tonkic noted that, whereas the patriotic song festival "brodfest;' at which berde band and other tam bur a and pop-rock bands had recently played, had only filled slavonski brod's kazalisno-koncertna dvorana (theater-concert hall) to half capacity, bdlic's upcoming (july 2,2010) concert would pack the much larger brod fortress. bdlic's concert in slavonski brod proved to be as successful as tonkic had predicted and added to a long list of at-capacity appearances in croatia, including two performances at the arena zagreb 113 114 current musicology (on october 23 and 24, 2009, a month before the skoro concert) which claim the highest and second highest attendance of any act at that venue (lokas and simic 2009a and 2009b). tonkic added that the current recession demonstrated that they were still stuck in the period of hardship that began in the early 1990s and that bdlic's remarkable ability to nonetheless sell tickets demonstrated the potential that this style of music held for croatian musicians (tonkic 2010). tonkic also admitted, though, that uhlizing a bosnian singing style reminiscent of newly composed folk music would likely alienate many fans in slavonia. in fact, the organizers of many croatian patriotic song festivals­ most of which feature tambura music heavily if not exclusively-originally saw these as a chance to offer an alternative to popular bosnian and serbian folk music styles. catherine baker writes that tamburas veljko skorvaga (who remains a prominent conductor of tambura orchestras) relaunched the zlatne :lice slavonije festival in pozega in 1992 in order to promote tambura music "as a functional replacement for ncfm" (baker 2010:67). tonkic was well aware of the significance of adopting the singing style of a musician such as bdlic, which is the most recognizable (and most recogniz­ ably "eastern") element of much newly composed folk music (rasmussen 1999:4). he reasoned, though, that the money ultimately was going to stars with distinctive voices, and that there was a larger fan base for musicians of this sort than for tambura bands.27 tonkic was willing to sacrifice some of berde band's established fans for the thousands of concert -goers who frequent halid bdlic's performances. from the center in the middle, in conclusion when i asked filip pdut of the osijek band hrvatski sokol about perform­ ing in bosnia, he spoke eagerly of the opportunities there (particularly of those in herzegovina) but quoted me a cautionary croatian saying: "don't sing through bosnia, don't play through serbia, and don't dance through macedonia" ("nemoj pjevati kroz bosnu, nemoj svirati kroz srbiju, i nemoj plesati kroz makedoniju;' pdut 2010). for all the interest in adopting "western" market practices in order to realize a croatian state and music in­ dustry on equal temporal and geographical standing with normative europe, tamburasi in croatia also perceived superiority to the south and east in musical ability as well as in commercial musical appeal. pdut explained that, while skilled, his band's vocalist and croatian musicians in general could not compete with bosnian singers, and so they relied on their slavonian reper­ toire to distinguish themselves from bosnian and herzegovinan performers. should berde band attempt to incorporate bosnian singing technique into ian macmillen its performances they would do so at risk of disaffecting not only croatian fans (who either preferred the original repertoire and style ofthese bands or would hold them to the high standards of halid beslic), but also croats in herzegovina who would expect proper slavonian performances when paying for bands to come from croatia. pop stardom and commercial success continue to elude all but a few musicians in the tambura scene. perhaps the one band that was able to build a truly professional music career in tambura music, zlatni dukati (now called najbolji hrvatski tamburasi), did so largely by gaining the affection of the croatian public and army (bonifacic 1998: 138) and the support of president franjo tudman's croatian democratic party (baker 2010:60). this band's activities have diminished considerably in the past ten years, and the niche that they left open to succeeding ensembles has narrowed considerably. a small number of tambura ensembles such as the band gazde has combined elements of croatian pop bands (mainly the use of drums and specific repertoire) with their playing of tamburas. gazde have achieved noteworthy success playing concerts in zagreb, though they have yet to rival skoro and other popular singers who have performed to tambura accompaniment but have staked out individual careers. other bands are currently experimenting with incorporating repertoire and techniques from western european, russian, and southern balkan classical music traditions (such as the ensemble opus trio, based in otocac near lika) and still others with jazz and ragtime (such as zagreb's kvartet corona). their ventures have found more critical acclaim than commercial success, however, and bands that seek steady musical employment still must rely on standard croatian/ slavonian repertoire. such attempts at hybrid musical styles raise the issue of genre in the reception of tambura music. the tamburasi with whom i spoke about the importance of pioneering new approaches to tambura performance conceptualized their endeavors for me as attempts to "update;' "modern­ ize;' or otherwise "move on" with their tambura music (pdut 2010; skoro 2011b; tonkic 2010). they did not express a desire to locate within hybridity itself an empowering "third space" for innovation (bhabha 1990:211) or an opportunity to curate the otherwise unknown and unappreciable musics of subalterns (taylor 2007:142-43, 160). certainly their emphasis on the tambura and activities associated with it ("tamburanje" -see note 1 0) over particular canons of songs evinced a preoccupation with a "genre" defined primarily by the use and sound of croatia's "national instrument:' other instruments or musical styles that they brought to their projects were thus quickly subsumed into the category of tambura music, hence skoro's continu­ ing tendency to rank in the tambura charts despite "moving on" and utilizing 115 116 current musicology the instrument relatively very little in his songs since 1998 (skoro 2010). however, the tambura's status as a "national instrument" ties it not only to patriotism but to the folk music of slavonia. as skoro (2011) noted, many listeners have grown tired of hearing songs (whether old or newly written) "about pigs and cows;' and have come to associate the music with a degree of backwardness far more extreme than any "outdated" economic policy. skoro's fans may join him in singing short sets of well-known patriotic tambura songs from the war years, but many of them attend for his more recent pop/rock hits and are less concerned with "new" ventures in tambura songwriting and performance. efforts on the parts of tamburasi to pioneer and "move on" with the music, while important for competing for the attention of established fans and patrons in a saturated market, may have little effect on those for whom the mere sound of the instrument connotes a genre that they associate with rural, conservative lifestyles. the two perspectives that croatian tamburasi gain through performing in croatia and its intimates offer no easy insights on how to turn higher profits. the positioning of croatia in the middle leaves musicians feeling more in stasis than in transition: the current recession has erased many hopes that, in the near future, croatia can simply continue to improve its economy and fulfill its development upon entering the european union. musicians recognize a number of possible musical approaches throughout the territories in which they work but see no clear direction forward toward greater profitability. performing in croatia's intimates has fostered construc­ tions of croatia as a musical center and established reliable networks of patronage for croatian bands, but has done nothing to urge the state to reward these bands monetarily or otherwise recognize their centrality to its own efforts. in this state of in-betweenness, musicians do what they can do: skirt the law and officialdom, play with the ambiguities of balkan ism to continue securing gigs in croatia and its intimates, enjoy the artistry and comradeship of their practice when they can, and take all the unpaid work accompanying pop stars they can find. notes 1. croatian rock band prljavo kazaliste reportedly had 22,400 fans in attendance at the hall's first concert on january 17th , 2009 (cuzic 2009). 2. "pjesma koja vise nije moja, nego vasa" (miroslav skoro's introduction of the song as i transcribed it in my fieldnotes at the arena zagreb concert on november 20th, 2009). 3. it has been common to translate "tamburas" (a player of a traditional tambura chordo­ phone-plural "tamburasi") into english as "tamburitzan:' however, "tamburitzan" comes from the diminutive term for the instrument, "tamburica;' and is largely associated with the duquesne tamburitzans (duquesne university's dance and music ensemble based in pitts­ burgh, pennsylvania, that primarily performs traditional music of southeastern europe) and the junior croatianand serbian-american tambura ensembles that feed into it. tambura ian macmillen players in croatia often use "tamburica" as a term of endearment for their instrument but see outsiders' use of it as a condescending and belittling term for the system of instruments and musical practice in general. due to this somewhat negative connotation of the word "tamburica" i have chosen to avoid translating "tamburas" as "tamburitzan:' a suitable english equivalent might be "tamburist;' but for the sake of clarity i have used "tambura player" or the original croatian words "tamburas" and "tamburasi:' 4. he performed almost exclusively with tamburasi from 1989 through 1997, and has per­ formed with his band of drums, acoustic/electric guitars, electric bass, and keyboard since 1998. 5. i am grateful to the american council of learned societies for funding a year of research in croatia through a dissertation research fellowship in east european studies. this fellow­ ship allowed me to conduct participant observation and archival research in croatia as well as in austria, bosnia, bulgaria, hungary, and serbia from july, 2009 through june, 2010. i also wish to acknowledge the association for recorded sound collections, whose research grant financed additional interviews (particularly those with miroslav skoro) and archival work in zagreb, croatia in march and april, 2011. 6. mihael ferie's new book on croatian tambura music is the most current source on the history of tambura orchestras and their spread throughout the croatian lands (ferie 2011). see also andric (1958) and march (1984). 7. serbs and roma played tambura quite actively in croatian territory up through 1991 but only roma musicians (many of whom live in vojvodina and travel into croatia to perform in bars and restaurants on the weekends) had fully reestablished themselves on the slavonian tambura scene by the time of my fieldwork. the serb tambura ensemble vucedolski zvuci, which operated in conjunction with the serbian cultural society prosvjeta in vukovar (in yugoslav-occupied eastern croatia until 1998), proclaimed itself the only consistently as­ sembled and active serb tambura band in croatia, and although i sought for evidence of others i never succeeded in locating another such ensemble. 8. for information on how politicians and state radio programming constructed the tambura as croatia's national instrument (to the exclusion of other countries and ethnic groups with strong tambura traditions, as well as of other prominent croatian traditional instruments), see pettan (1998). also, see bonifacic (1998) on the role ofzlatni dukati in the war of inde­ pendence and on their involvement with the croatian democratic party. 9. he also referred to himself as a "tamburas koji to nije" ca tamburas who isn't one") and a "tamburas medu zabavnjacima i zabavnjak medu tamburasima" ca tamburas among party­ music people and a party-music person among tamburasi") and noted that he straddled dualities such as these his entire life (skoro 2010:11,191). 10. nacionalist and nacionalisticki cnationalist" and "nationalistic") are highly charged words in croatia that, when applied to musicians, connote specific repertoires of songs that ustasa and other croatian supporters of germany's national socialists utilized in their bid for separa­ tion from yugoslavia during world war ii. although nationalism in the more general sense plays a role in the tambura music scenes in which i conducted this research, most tamburasi construct their personae and compositions around the conception of patrioti ("patriots") performing domoijubne pjesme ("songs for the love of the home [land]"). in order to avoid confusion, i use the word "patriotic" throughout this article to refer to musical practices and ensembles for which support and love of their country are primary characteristics and/or motivations (but which do not incorporate these wwii-era songs). 11. many tamburasi whom i interviewed during my fieldwork in croatia boasted of the 117 118 current musicology tambura's suitability for "all" styles of music. in fact, what many tamburasi claimed to love most was the instrument itself, rather than any particular bands, songs, or song styles. in 2009 and 2010 i heard a number of prominent tamburasi refer fondly and humorously to what they do as "tamburanje;' a gerund form of the invented verb "tamburati" ("to tam­ bura"). this verb itself derives from a play on the fact that "-as" can be both a suffix meaning "one who plays" (thus, "prim as" is "one who plays prim tambura") and the second person, singular ending of verbs with the infinitive ending" -ati" (thus, "sviras" means "you play," and, by extension, "tamburas" means "you tambura"). "tamburanje" ("tambur-ing"), as they explained it, consisted not only of performing in bands or orchestras but of playing for themselves and for/with their friends, of listening to other musicians, of writing songs, and of partaking more generally in the celebrated (if sometimes financially unsustainable) merriment of the tamburas lifestyle. this emphasis on music as activity, performance, and lifestyle rather than as a static cultural object or text resonates strongly with christopher small's (1998) idea of musicking. 12. the english term "marketing" has become a part of common parlance in croatia. skoro switched often and with evident ease between english and croatian in the interview, and used the english term "marketing" in both languages (rather than the croatian equivalent, "tr±nistvo"). he used the croatian verb "cijeniti" ("to value") to explain his conceptualiza­ tion of this term. 13. skoro added that one reason that he values homoky and grcevich (and likes them per­ sonally) is that they play for love of the music and not just for money. indeed, in a phone conversation with grcevich a few days before he performed in skora's february, 2011, con­ certs near toronto, ontario, the pittsburgh-born tamburas volunteered to me that he had not discussed payment with the singer, but that he was sure that they would work something out. he emphasized that other matters (accompanying his longtime collaborator and friend, playing with other talented musicians, and seeing other croatian friends from canada and croatia) were more important to him (grcevich 2011). it was just grcevich's prioritization of playing over money (the recognition of tambura's non-monetary value) in concerts that (somewhat paradoxically) skora would claim six weeks later to value highly enough to reward monetarily. both musicians were clearly concerned that i understand that their motivations extend beyond personal finances, and one can of course view their statements as deliberate attempts to construct and convey their personae as artistic and not merely entrepreneurial in the context of conversations in which i stated an interest in the economics of tambura performance. while it would be naive to simply take these statements at face value, the regularity with which these and other musicians repeated such sentiments to me evinced a consistent dedication to these constructs that surely informed their personal and financial relationships with one another (and not only with an american researcher). 14. the difficulty with cd sales extends beyond struggling tambura bands to some of the most popular musicians and bands currently active in recording and performing in croatia. skoro himself complained of significant drops in cd sales in his recent autobiography, claiming that the cd, as both a medium of transmitting songs and a musical concept (an "album"), "has died" because fans can simply download songs that they like from the internet for free (skoro 2010:218-19). that the internet has posed a similar challenge to foreign bands such as the rolling stones, however, did not enter into marko's comparative analysis of croatian and foreign marketing systems. 15. butkovic estimated thatthey had earned between 100 and 150 euros per person per night on the 2007 tour, whereas, at a private party in croatia they could each typically earn over 300 euros per night, depending on tips. ian macmillen 16. these figures represent averages based on financial arrangements that i discussed with several relatively obscure bands (those with no recordings or significant concert appearances to their credit at the time of this research) such as hrvatski sokol and granicari, on the one hand, and those of well-established bands (those that have recorded many cds, had hit songs play on the radio, and appeared with popular singers as skoro) such as berde band and ravnica. in my experience, the latter bands could often charge twice the fee of the lesser­ known groups, although the larger size of ensembles such as berde band (with seven members, rather than the more common five or six) often meant that they individually earned about 50% more than a member of an obscure tambura band would for a comparable event. 17. tamburasi can, for example, deduct expenses incurred while playing, such as the cost of replacement strings. by far the greatest reductions, however, were achieved through illegal actions that i am not at liberty to discuss here. is. "the children of two brothers;' as i once heard zoran mileta-a tamburas of mixed ser­ bian and croatian parentage raised in vukovar but living with his serbian wife in the largely croat town ofparndorf (pandro!) in the austrian burgenland since the war-metaphorically refer to them (mileta 2010). 19. slovenia and vojvodina (northern serbia) participate in somewhat similar negotiations of balkan i austro-hungarian status but with much less ambiguity due to their proximity and strong cultural ties to (respectively) the germanic lands and serbia. 20. in addition to marko's comments about finding ways to reduce the percentage of their income that went to taxes, i was privilege to a discussion that damir butkovic led with several members of the city tambura orchestra in slavonski brod in which they bragged that none of them ever has to pay for anything related to music (i am not at liberty to provide more specific details) (butkovic 2010). 21. it is important to note at this point that the universally non-salaried members of the city orchestra in slavonski brod (most of whom also play in semiprofessional bands) as well most tamburasi in croatia have motivations other than income for playing tambura music. while this article focuses on economic concerns and strategies, it is worth mentioning that most also claim love of the music, artistic excellence, and interacting within a group of peers of their own (almost exclusively male) gender as primary factors. 22. the croatian fraternal union of north america, for example, organized and sent dona­ tions of clothing, medical supplies, and money to croatian victims of the war. by its own estimates, the value of these donations totaled more than $150,000,000. for more information on its activities, consult the "about" link off of the main croatian fraternal union website: www.croatianfraternalunion.org (croatian fraternal union 2011). also, see paul hockenos (2003) on instances of expatriate support of the "balkan wars:' 23. see kardov (2007) on the role of occupied territories on memory and the social imagi­ nary during the war. 24. this sometimes happens through state-sponsored performances in foreign embassies, although by and large tamburasi perform abroad without either the support or knowledge of the croatian ministry of culture. hrvatski sokol in particular has played for a number of embassy events in spain and slovenia, work that is indicative of their association with the national sport and culture organization from which they take their name. 25. music and lyrics used with permission of the author (skoro 2011a). 26. i transcribed the music for this example from a televised recording of skoro's nov. 20th , 2009, concert, beginning at the second verse of the song "ne dirajte mi ravnicu" (approxi­ mately 1 minute and 25 seconds from the beginning of the song). at present, one can view 119 120 current musicology and listen to this recording online by searching for the title, artist, and venue (arena zagreb) and clicking on one of several uploaded versions. note that this is not a full transcription of the song in terms of either length or orchestration; rather, it presents the lead vocals, bass (berda), harmony (kontra), and the two main melodic tambura parts as played by many of the 20 tamburasi that evening (but excluding some of the individually improvised runs), as these suffice for the argument i develop in this section. 27. it is important to note that newly composed folk music (especially the songs of the "new wave" such as those ofhalid beslic) is now well established and enjoys a following by many who disdain turbofolk music, against which the members of berde band still vehemently position their music. references anderson, benedict. 1991. imagined communities: reflections on the origins and spread of nationalism. rev. ed. london: verso. andric, josip. 1958. "razvoj tamburaske glazbe:' tamburaska glazba 3: 15-26. appadurai, arjun. 1988. "putting hierarchy in its place:' cultural anthropology 3 (1): 36-49. __ . 1996. modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis, minnesota: university of minnesota press. baker, catherine. 2010. sounds of the borderland: popular music, war and nationalism in croatia since 1991. surrey: ashgate. bakhtin, mikhail. 1981. the dialogic imagination: four essays. edited by michael holquist. translated by caryl emerson and michael holquist. austin: university of texas press. bakic-hayden, milica. 1995. "nesting orientalisms: the case of former yugoslavia:' slavic review, 54 (4): 917-31. bhabha, homi k, 1990. "the third space: interview with homi bhabha." in identity: community, culture, difference, edited by jonathan rutherford, 207-221. london: lawrence and wishart. bonifacic, ruza. 1998. 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"tranzicijski trokut: muka s nedovrsenoscu:' in privitizacija i modern­ izacija, edited by ivan rogic and zdenko zeman, 36-53. zagreb: ivo pilar institute of social sciences. skoro, miroslav. 2010. stoput bih isto ponovo: autobiografija. zagreb: vecernji posebni proizvodi d. o. o. __ . 2011a. personal email granting me permission to use the music and lyrics of "ne dirajte mi ravnicu:' january 11, 2011, from zagreb, croatia. __ . 2011b. personal communication, march 28, 2011, zagreb, croatia. small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. hanover, nh: university press of new england for wesleyan university press. taylor, timothy. 2007. beyond exoticism: western music and the world. durham: duke university press. 121 122 current musicology todorova, maria. 1997. imagining the balkans. new york, ny: oxford university press. tonkic, antun. 2010. personal communication, june 27, 2010, slavonski brod, croatia. wolff, larry. 1994. inventing eastern europe: the map of civilization on the mind of the enlightenment. stanford: stanford university press. zbiljski, mario. 2010. personal communication, january 27, 2010, antunovac, croatia. zderic, antun. 2009. personal communication, september 12,2009, osijek, croatia. __ .2010. personal communication, june 25, 2011, en route between osijek and nijemci, croatia. john s. powell. music and theatre in france, 1600-1680. oxford: oxford university press, 2000. xvil , 582 pp. reviewed by john hajdu heyer the seventeenth century in france, an era in which lfrench dramatic arts reached a pinnacle of development, has inspired tomes of writing, both in french and in english, on the literature and theater of the period. but despite the importance of music and dance in this time, and particularly despite their prominence in the theater, there remain relatively few books available to the english reader on the subject. major english monographs on the music are few and can be listed easily: james r. anthony's compre­ hensive french barqoue music (1978), robert isherwood's music in the ser­ vice of the king (1973), louis auld's the lyric art of pierre perrin (1986), norman demuth's french opera (1963), and caroline wood's music and drama in the tragedie en musique, 1673-1715 (1996). scholars have recently contributed to several significant collections of essays, and a growing num­ ber of tools for research and critical editions have been published, but few book-length works serve the english reader. john s. powell's music and theatre in france, 1600-1680, the most recent installment of oxford's mono­ graphs on music, presents a significant new contribuilion to this small bib­ liography. powell's impressive 582-page book, which addresses the musical practices of comedy, tragicomedy, tragedy, and mythological and non-mytho­ logical pastoral drama during the period, offers the first m.yor work in english to thoroughly investigate these rich and momentous topics, all of which contributed significantly to the development of french opera. the challenges confronting powell in preparing this volume were sub­ stantial. while much has been written on the drama, the musical and dance practices of the era in question are not addressed in the standard refer­ ence works, such as lancaster (1929-42) or adam (1949). recent scholar­ ship has produced some articles and james r. anthony (1978) contributes a meaningful survey, but powell's comprehensive study brings together a critical examination of the dramatic literature together with a complete review of the surviving musical sources. this study is the first of its kind in any language. powell's study is in fact three studies. part 1 addresses music and pub­ lic theater in paris; part 2 examines the place and function of music and dance in french plays; and part 3 is devoted to music and the theater of moliere. thus the volume reads less as a chronological history than as a series of essays, several of which give linear histories on salient topics-for current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york john hadju heyer 225 example, the rise of the theatre du marais (1629-1658), the fusion of comedy and ballet, and the musical practices in moliere's theater. powell addresses these topics by offering detailed illustrations, musical and po­ etic, drawn from the works in question, along with perceptive and pen­ etrating discourse. the author defines the boundaries of his study (1600-1680) from the establishment of repertory theaters in paris at the turn of the seventeenth century to the formation ofthe comedie-fran<;:aise in 1680. he places his primary focus on secular drama as it was performed in the public theater, but adds substantial examination of the court theater and ballet activity at court during that time. the study reaches beyond those time boundaries upon occasion, as, for example, in his discussion of charpentier's revi­ sions for the 1685-86 version of le malade imaginaire. musical examples, which are generously provided in the volume, are happily of a legible size. indeed, the book provides the equivalent of an anthology of music from the period under study. these examples will be of great interest to scholars to whom much of this music has not been readily available. some highlights, for example, include the full air de move­ ment "0 giornata," presumably by cambert for montfleury's le mary sans femme (1663), along with lully's setting of moliere's le sicilien (1667), both which give early examples of the exotic pseudo-turkish music that would become popular in later theater and opera. also noteworthy is the full premier intermede from moliere's psyche (music by lully) on page 216, and the excerpt from act 1, scene 2 of perrin's pomone (music by cambert) on page 299. an excellent concise essay summarizing musical and theatrical aspects of the beginnings of french opera is found at the end of part 2 (293-320); it presents important reading for students of music history who can easily be distracted by the zesty politics of that historical episode. another im­ pressive feature of this book is the inclusion of the full text in french of important dramatic passages relevant to the points raised in the essays. these passages, signaled in the main text by an alphabetical superscript that differentiates them from footnotes, are supplied in an appendix. the thorough indexing of the volume offers another feature that will be most welcome to research scholars. the publication has been carefully prepared and thoroughly edited with virtually no errors. exceptions include a reference to "plate 8" on page 64 that surely should be directing the reader to "plate 9," and a graph on page 376 that could have been scaled differently to give better repre­ sentation of the data. scholars will be pleased to find the footnotes through­ out the volume are on the same page as the notes themselves and are judiciously chosen-though more than a few readers will find they need a 226 current musicology magnifying glass in order to read them. the generally excellent layout throughout the volume runs aground at the very end of the main text where the last chapter ends with a musical example, thus a few lines of the final paragraph of the main find themselves somewhat orphaned in the examples on page 433. while powell has done a masterful job of deciding which terms should be translated and which are better left in the original, terminology still presents the reader with significant challenges. for example, the term "pastorale heroique," also appears hyphenated as "pastorale-heroique" (cf. pp. 162 and 225), and is indexed in both forms, but if a distinction is intended, it is not explicitly stated. indeed, the range of this book, with its attention to matters of music, theater, and dance, is such that many read­ ers, including scholars not familiar with the french genres, would benefit from a glossary of the untranslatable french terms. while some of the more esoteric terminology can be understood from the context of the vol­ ume, certain terms (e.g., divertissement, privilege, or comedie episodique) will require non-french-speaking readers to undertake some background study if they wish to understand the precise meaning of powell's discourse. it would have been helpful to have non-translatable terms like ballet de cour, comedie-ballet, tragedie en musique, mascarade, and air dg cour in a glossary to help the less initiated readers, since this book shoulld attract students of dance history and theater history as well. since no glossary is provided in the volume, english readers will prob­ ably turn to the new grove, only to become entangled in confusion at times. for example, new grove ii identifies the pastorale-hiiroi"que as a "type of bal­ let-heroique whose plot often turns on the loves of nobles or gods (or goddesses), usually in disguise, for shepherdesses (or shepherds) in arcadian settings." when the reader turns to ballet-heroique for clarifica­ tion, we find it to be a "type of french opera-ballet during the reign of louis xv, distinguished by having as its principal characters heroic, noble figures, often from antiquity, classical gods and goddesses, or exotic per­ sonages, rather than the comic bourgeois and tender heroines of other operas-ballets." and we find in the grove article no reference to the genre before 1723. powell explains on page 162 that the genre emerges in the mid-seventeenth century, and his discussion of the topic expands as he deals in some detail with ballet-heroique in the context of the pastorale op­ era and the mythological machine play in later chapters. there are, in fact, more than a few articles in new grove ii that warrant revision in view of powell's work. despite the few issues noted above, it must be emphasized that there is a large amount of new information that powell has unearthed or brought to light through his research. for example, part 2 of the volume, titled john hadju heyer 227 "the place and function of music and dance in french plays," offers a wealth of information on a host of topics ranging from, for example, "the play-within-the-play," to "musical exoticism," to "madness and delusion." in the section on the latter, powell offers a penetrating overview of the interaction of music and mental health ranging over, among other works, corneille's le berger extravagant (1653), rotrou's l'hypocondriaque, ou le mort amoureux (1631), beys's l'hospital desjous (1636), poisson's les fous divertissants (1680), and of course moliere's monsieur de pourceaugnac (1669) and le malade imaginaire (1673). a thorough discussion reveals how the dramatic portrayal of madness can establish, as powell explains, "a parallel reality that appears veridical to the afflicted, but chimerical to the other characters in the play." to give a sense of the ground covered in the book, other topics explored in this chapter alone include "the musical set-piece," "ballet as dramatic device," "the musical world of lovers," "enchantment and illusion," and "apparitions, dreams, and the supernatural." the scope of this volume is not easily summarized. music and theatre in france 1600-1680 presents us with a new major work. it lays out for the first time in any language the fullest discussion of the interactions of music and theater in seventeenth-century france and of the foundations of the french opera that developed is the second half of the century. it furthermore brings forward important issues in the english language for the first time. john s. powell and oxford monographs in music are to be commended for their excellent scholarship and publishing. references adam, antoine. 1962. histoire de la litterature frant;aise au xviie side. paris: del duca. anthony,james r. 1978. french baroque music from beaujoyeulx to rameau. new york: norton. auld, louis. 1986. the lyric art of pierre perrin, founder of french opera. henryville, pa.: institute of mediaeval music. demuth, norman. 1963. french opera: its development to the revolution. sussex: artemis press. isherwood, robert. 1973. music in the service of the king: france in the seventeenth century. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. lancaster, henry. 1929-42. a history of french dramatic literature in the seventeenth century. baltimore: johns hopkins press. wood, caroline. 1996. music and drama in the tragedie en musique, 1673-1715. new york: garland. rob van der bliek, ed. the thelonious monk reader. new york: oxford university press, 2001. xvii, 286 pp. reviewed by brian priestley the music of thelonious monk has evoked increasing interest in the twenty years since his death. his themes, which used to be thought unap­ petizing for others to play, are now eagerly lapped up by performance stu­ dents, as well as by those professionals for whom honoring "the tradition" is an important activity. already since the 1960s, when the concept of avant-garde jazz meant so many different things to different people, monk's combination of surface irregularity with a ruthless inner logic has been consistently influential; in particular, the organic and unstilted use of motivic development in his themes is widely seen as an ideal to aspire to. meanwhile, his own documentation of these themes-both the original recordings dating principally from 1947-56 and the later extended ver­ sions representing his live performance methods-have been remastered and reissued in great profusion. it is understandable that, especially among those absorbed in the mu­ sic, and among those less captivated by it too, there is also still consider­ able curiosity about monk's history. the thelonious monk reader, a collec­ tion of previously published journalism and criticism, usefully focuses on a life of marked contrasts, as far as his public reputation and visibility were concerned, but one balanced by a private existence that was seemingly more stable and unruffled than that enjoyed by most jazz musicians. brought up from the age of five in the san juan hill area of new york city, he continued to live in the same apartment with his widowed mother after marrying his wife, who supported him financially until his earning capacity increased significantly in the 1960s, by which time monk was in his forties. his third important female protector was the 'jazz baroness," nica de koenigswater (by birth, a member of the british branch of the rothschild family), who offered monk hospitality, space to compose, and finally a permanent room within her own house. his career, on the other hand, seems to have developed by fits and starts. obscurity still beckoned while he was already in his mid-twenties and, were it not for his employment by the forward-looking coleman hawkins and the early recording of two of his pieces by cootie williams, it might have definitively claimed him. mter world war ii, however, his in­ novative work a few years before in the house-band of minton's playhouse became public knowledge, first as a by-product of the promotion of rising star dizzy gillespie and then through the release on disc of informal sescurrent musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the tmstees of columbia university in the city of new york brian priestley 501 sions actually made at minton's with charlie christian. though this led to him recording officially and fairly regularly, he was still regarded as an ac­ quired taste for odd-ball listeners until 1957, when he suddenly became flavor of the month in critical circles. a few years later, he achieved a wider popularity, a comparatively lucrative recording contract, an increas­ ing number of engagements and, more unexpectedly, a cover story in time magazine. by the end of the 1960s, however, frequent illness and a stultified muse led him to withdraw gradually into the safety of the baroness's house, where he spent his last decade not composing and rarely playing. one of the more inexplicable comments in the reader ap­ pears in gerald early's otherwise instructive essay, which includes monk among a group of jazzmen who "died without having the luxury of ceasing to work" (235). monk was, in fact, highly unusual in experiencing precisely that luxury. there is also the fascination of his frequently inscrutable public per­ sona. though he was articulate and could apparently be talkative at times with trusted friends, these included few performing colleagues and virtu­ ally no journalists. most of his published statements were lapidary, to say the least, and many were positively delphic. as early as the mid-1940s, tan­ talizing hints were being dropped that monk was perhaps a little un­ hinged. his own rejoinder to barry farrell, the writer assigned by time to profile him, was "i can't be crazy, cause they had me in one of those places [mental hospitals] and they let me go" (153), which, incidentally, under­ mines the anthology editor's assertion that "farrell came up with virtually no significant quotes from monk that had not been published before" (150). it wasn't until the appearance of the posthumous documentary film straight no chaser in 1989 that there was some official acknowledgement of the pianist's clinical depression, in interviews with his manager and his son.! initially, it may seem surprising that no written biographies of monk were published before the late 1990s, at least in english (fitterling 1997; de wilde 1997; gourse 1997). as it happens, the first two such books were translations of works from western europe (where important jazz musi­ cians are often taken seriously sooner than they are in the u.s.), but both are more suitably described as extended monographs than full-fledged studies. the focus of thomas fitterling's work is squarely on monk's albums, with cover illustrations reproduced and with the comments on musical details taking second place. sadly, too, fitterling shoots himself in the foot by claiming that monk is not present on the key minton's record­ ings, a rumor now laid to rest in a new publication (sheridan 2001). the approach of de wilde's book is that of a fellow pianist, one who grew up when monk was already in the pantheon; but, alongside many astute musi­ cological comments, his gallic version of journalistic language sits rather 502 current musicology awkwardly. gourse's standard-issue biography, on the other hand, is only capable of dealing with the music-and, indeed, with some aspects of the life-at the intellectual level of a press release, despite her valuable origi­ nal interviews. meanwhile, the promised book by peter keepnews, whose chapter on the pre-minton's monk is included in the present compilation, seems still a long way from being published, and the monk research of the late mark tucker may not be in pubishable form. one of the factors that strongly commends the reader to the con­ stituency of this journal is its musicological content. though they only constitute a portion of the book, the extremely useful contributions by max harrison, ian carr, ran blake, and scott deveaux (and, at a more speculative level, andre hodeir) range widely over monk's output, and concentrate on compositional and improvisational tactics that not only identified his style but influenced others. one can question individual statements, of course: it's a gross oversimplification for harrison to call monk's delightfully convoluted "skippy" "a version of tea for two" (39), while deveaux makes a little too much of monk's minor-ninth chords in two specific contexts (274-76), since monk uses them all over the place. nevertheless this new article by deveaux (who just happens to be the series editor of o.u.p.'s readers) makes the point, far more forcefully than other writers, that the pianist's approach to the interpretation of american popular song is central to his procedures.2 by contrast, the one piece described as "ethnographic in nature" (the book's editor trained as an ethnomusicologist) is rather disappointing, if seen in that light. indeed, this martin williams report for down beat maga­ zine, describing monk's semi-participation in a rehearsal directed by hall overton of overton's large-ensemble arrangements of monk material, could be positively misleading. should anyone be tempted to think that this rather commonplace collective endeavor was in any way typical of the gestation of the composer's music, they would be mistaken. as a recently published interview extract with saxophonist charlie rouse makes clear, monk always wanted to be in total control of how his themes were played,3 and john coltrane told of similar experiences in an interview that is only partially quoted in orrin keepnews's contribution here (233). of course, williams quotes some fine examples of musicians' humor, as when thad jones says of a particularly difficult phrase, "it is kind of ignorant, ain't it?" (198), though one should be alert to the irony intended in such comments. the reader includes relatively little pertaining to the role of improvising sidemen in monk's music-except for gunther schuller's strictures about rouse, donald byrd, phil woods, and pepper adams at the 1959 town hall concert, and max harrison's implied criticism of everyone on the classic 1947-52 recordings, apart from milt jackson, art blakey, and lucky brian priestley 503 thompson. schuller seems much more interested in the overton arrange­ ments and, in particular, balks at the concept of orchestrating monk's ear­ lier recorded improvisation on "little rootie tootie," on the grounds that, in the first place, many of us have admired monk for years because, among other things he seemed to write for the instruments not as an arranger but as a composer. the instrumental parts of many of his compositions of the late forties seemed to be part and parcel of the original inspiration; they were truly independent yet integrated parts of the composition, and well suited to the character of the instru­ ments chosen. (96) it is a pity there was no space in the book for dissent from this view, since both the account of rouse referred to above, and the findings of other commentators who have merely listened to these works, tend to support the diametrically opposite view: namely, that monk wrote at the piano and for the piano and, in his groups, used whatever instrumentation was at hand. nor, by the way, is andre hodeir's 1959 assertion still tenable that "because the world of music is now based on the notions of asymmetry and discontinuity [hodeir refers to boulez and stockhausen and adds a plug for painter paul klee] ... monk is to be hailed as the firstjazzman who has had a feeling for specifically modern aesthetic values" (125). gene santoro, typically, tries to go one better and compares monk's music withjohn cage's 4' 33". one imagines that the pianist, whose preferred painters are rumored to have been the french impressionists, would have greeted such theories with dismissive monosyllables. 4 the "blindfold test" interview by leonard feather includes monk's notorious reaction to a record by an un-favorite pianist: "which is the way to the toilet?" (186).5 other examples of monkish wit are to be found throughout, from the early profiles by somewhat baffled journalists to later, more aware pieces; his bans mots were clearly worth the writers' patience. equally amusing, but in a different way, is the tone of self-confident ignorance characterizing some of the early 78-rpm record reviews, for instance a vintage example from down beat containing the phrase: "[well you] needn't doesn't require a juilliard diploma to un­ derstand, but {'round] midnight is for the super hip alone" (31). given the endless possibilities of gee-whiz writing about this subject, which infects even the martin williams piece described above, the general seriousness of the writers is welcome, the only major exception being the pre­ superstar manifestation of albert goldman (how did he get in here?). the introduction also reassures us that "not represented is the small body of fictional and poetic writings that use themes from monk's life and titles 504 current musicology of his compositions as inspiration" (xvii), for which relief one offers much thanks. having shown enthusiasm for the idea of this reader when it was a mere proposal, the present reviewer is gratifyingly stimulated by the eventual contents while experiencing some dissatisfaction with their arrangement. introducing a piece from harper's magazine, van der bliek underlines the journalist's division of monk followers into the "hip"-fanciers, the image­ fanciers (is there really such a distinction between these two?), and the music-lovers. the editor then observes that "in reality, of course, many lis­ teners would easily fit all three categories simultaneously" (113). as so of­ ten in subject "companions" or "readers," many of the compiler's choices would also fit into one or more of his own chosen categories. the gener­ ally beneficial decision to reprint whole articles, rather than excerpts, leads to the inclusion of pieces covering more than one aspect of the sub­ ject, so that there is a considerable and welcome overlap between what van der bliek files under "reports from selected venues," "critics," "critical summaries," and "the music." what does work well is the largely chronological order of the material, giving an insight into the evolution of writing not just about monk, but about jazz itself. i am puzzled as to why the two late 1950s articles by "critics" are printed with their chronology reversed, since michael james's thoughtful insights (if read first) would have aided comprehension of andre hodeir's patrician philosophizing, in particular providing the con­ text for hodeir's unfootnoted reference to the "famous solo in the man i love" (126). van der bliek might usefully have commented on two in­ stances of hodeir translating from the english into his native french, only to be re-translated incorrectly in the u.s. edition of his book. without any editorial demurral, hodeir has monk saying, "i sound a little like james p. johnson" (126), whereas peter keepnews (6) has the accurate quote, "i sound just like james p. johnson"-irony or no, there is a difference. hodeir also gives miles davis's statement about monk as "i like the way he plays, but i can't stand behind him" (121). what miles actually said referred to monk's accompaniment: "i can't stand him behind me." the editor's introduction includes the conventional bromide: "obvious factual errors have been footnoted with corrections" (xvi). given this in­ tention, the preface to his first chapter gets off to an unfortunate start by stating that "back in new york between 1936 and 1939, [monk] seems to have worked sporadically at a number of musical jobs, including work with cootie williams" (1). this assertion is seemingly founded on no less an authority than dizzy gillespie's autobiography, which, like most oral history­ based works, is no authority at all as far as chronology is concerned. the relevant section of gillespie's book, later quoted in full, asserts that he brian priestley 505 "first met monk during the early days, 1937 and 1938. monk used to be with cootie williams up at the savoy, and then, in 1939, he got the gig down at minton's" (19). van der bliek notes that the latter reference is a year too early, but fails to mention that every day of williams's life be­ tween 1937 and october 1941 is accounted for by his employment with first duke ellington and then benny goodman, as shown in the relevant reference works. it has been amply documented that williams first formed his own band after leaving goodman, thus employing monk subsequent to the minton's period. when another williams, mary lou, is quoted as claiming that the move to minton's post-dated a short-lived rehearsal band for which "monk was writing arrangements and bud powell and maybe milt jackson" (12), we are not informed that in 1940 powell and jackson turned seventeen and sixteen, respectively, nor that jackson moved to new york only in 1945. there is an unfortunate tendency in such anthologies, perhaps espe­ cially when the editors are academics, to neutralize the material they include. this trap, which van der bliek does not entirely avoid, consists in writing sectional introductions that sometimes go too far in telling the reader what to expect. instead of merely situating the author and his cho­ sen contribution, we are directed to what the editor finds most important, thereby diminishing our response to whatever else the original may be say­ ing. in the most egregious cases, the editor, having decided on a salient phrase that he believes encapsulates the item to follow, will extract it and, beating his contributor to the punch-line, quote it verbatim in his intro­ duction. it's probably unworthy to suggest that this is ever done for an editor's self-aggrandisement, when a more likely explanation is that of pandering to college students' need to have their sources filleted and pre­ digested. if so, surely this is to be deplored; if they're interested in monk, then let them read the whole book, not just the chapter that addresses their essay problem. as hinted already, the editorial approach veers from over-zealous to de­ ficient. at the more laid-back end of the scale, the introduction claims that tracing the usage of the "meager set of facts and stories [about the pianist's early life] that are perpetually recycled and restated ... would in itself be a laborious undertaking" (xiv). one can't, however, expect the average biography to go into such matters, so it would be useful, for in­ stance, to show that the reference to monk's "claims to have played bop since 1932" (5), quoted from a 1951 edition of the british melody maker, which is highly unlikely to have done its own research, clearly derives from paul bacon's 1949 interview included here. equally, it should not be be­ yond the editor's scope to query the stories of monk sleeping on the job, the earliest reference to which is in the 1948 comment by minton's 506 current musicology manager, teddy hill: "monk would fall asleep at the piano all the time. he'd stay there hours after the place closed, or get there hours before we opened" (55). so, one might ask, was gillespie corroborating or fancifully elaborating in his 1979 statement: "monk'd be asleep at the piano. to wake him up, i'd mash the quick of his finger and wake him up right quick" (l9)? and was leonard feather being merely partisan or gratu­ itously offensive in 1949, when he wrote that "monk, who has been touted as a 'genius' and a 'high priest of bebop,' would wander in and out of minton's, often falling asleep at the piano" (2)? then again, if van der bliek is content not to follow up such matters, why create a footnote to illustrate the blue note company touting their artist, when the same sixty­ nine words are quoted in ira peck's 1948 piece a few pages later? for much of the time, van der bliek is intent on giving record catalog numbers for individual tracks mentioned in the text, but later thinks bet­ ter of it (and, indeed, there was surely a better way to accommodate this information). the comparative wealth of footnotes also contrives to rob the impact and in-period relevance of those footnotes that were part of the original author's piece, as in the contributions of hodeir, raymond horricks, and grover sales, or martin williams's comment about monk playing songs associated with bing crosby (who is not indexed, by the way). a typically unnecessary note calls into question paul bacon's men­ tion of a recent return engagement at minton's, with the portentous words: "there are no other accounts of monk's having played at minton's after the 1940-1941 period" (62). this seems unwise, as bacon was one of the pianist's only boosters at the time, and especially as sheridan (2001), who lists van der bliek in his acknowledgements, is able to give exact dates and personnel for the engagement in question. on the other hand, it would have been worth a footnote to explain that martin williams is wrong about "let's call this" being based on the chords of "sweet sue." another might have pointed out that of the few early writers on monk, bill gottlieb is the only one to claim that the owner of minton's was not henry minton, but one morris milton (who duly appears in the index). van der bliek also seems unaware that lorraine gordon and lorraine lion, both indexed, are one and the same person. when it comes to the time section, the footnoting service switches off for a dozen pages or more. is the magazine's publisher henry luce (men­ tioned six times by different authors, but only by his surname or in hu­ morous formations such as luceland) really so proverbial across the world that those spoon-fed students don't deserve an explanatory comment? ditto rock hunter, as in "success-spoilt rock hunters" (172)? in addition to not mentioning that thelonious monk, j r. (as he was called in 1971) is brian priestley 507 now a professional drummer known as t. s. monk, the editor asserts he was born in 1951 (69), despite printing two contributions confirming the published birthdate of 1949 (76, 161). the ellington piano piece de­ scribed as 'jimmy blanton's blues," and alleged to be "typical of the ma­ ture monk" (204) is actually called "mr. j. b. blues." a footnote stating that "there is no double-time playing" on the blue note record of "misteri­ oso," contradicting an anonymous reviewer (32), is illjudged, considering art blakey is heard doing just that from the outset, and most audibly be­ tween 2'40" and 3'10". monk's description of the bridge of a tune as the "inside" of the piece is hardly "a very revealing comment" (77), when this was already a common colloquial usage found elsewhere in the book (186). in addition, one learns that monk's 1964 bassist is influenced by oscar peterson (168) rather than oscar pettiford, who was correctly cited in the original, while the standard song "april in paris" is credited not to its composer vernon duke, but to duke ellington (274). clearly, some minor revisions would be desirable if the book runs to a reprint, which its selection of material would certainly justify. there is, however, one long-standing biographical problem which van der bliek does at least tackle head-on, namely the question of monk's possible atten­ dance atjuilliard, on which even the present reviewer has hedged his bets before now (priestley 1999). despite reporting the findings of peter keepnews (which i am happy to accept) that there is no evidence for this, the editor feels obliged to point to the program notes for monk's funeral, which claimed that "contrary to popular rumor that he was a self-taught musician, thelonious studied theory, harmony and arranging at the juilliard school of music while he was in his late teens." van der bliek's comment is gentle and judicious: "it seems plausible that the organizers of the funeral service used this story to enhance a formal occasion" (224). however, the missing piece of the jigsaw, recently posted on the internet, probably came too late to be of use. namely, the suggestion that hall overton was, at the time of his abovementioned monk arrangements, on staff at the college and that, when the pianist visited him there, comments on the musicians' grapevine (e.g., "did you hear that monk went up to juilliard?") got a bit out of hand. despite the feeling that aspects of this anthology might have been bet­ ter handled, its general excellence is not in doubt. not only will it be es­ sential reading for any future biographer, but it constitutes a challenge for the next book on monk to deal with the detail of his music. the impend­ ing arrival, as this review is completed, of two musicological volumes, on billy strayhorn (van de leur 2002) and charles mingus (bayley, forth­ coming), makes the lack of such a study of monk all the more regrettable. 508 current musicology notes 1. straight, no chaser, directed by charlotte zwerin (warner, 1988). 2. deveaux's essay first appeared in the issue of black music research journal (fall 1999) edited by mark tucker and entirely devoted to monk. its other contri­ butions also deserve to be read in conjunction with the present anthology. 3. rouse's salient comments include the following: "he would sit down [at the piano], he would say, 'rouse, play this an octave higher' ... and then eventually it would start meshing. because i'm listening to how he's playing it, and automati­ cally it just comes together" (quoted in keepnews 2001). 4. one imagines, too, that his wife nellie didn't waste her time reading his re­ views to him, especially as time revealed that she was subtly dismissive herself (as well as affectionate), referring to him as "melodious thunk." 5. interestingly perhaps, this famous quotation was not restricted to this one occasion, but was also uttered in order to evade a well-wisher and would-be inter­ viewer, in the person of the present writer. references bayley, lynne rene. forthcoming. mingus in the pantheon: portrait of a great american composer. milwaukee: hal leonard. de wilde, laurent. 1997. monk. translated by jonathan dickinson. new york: marlowe. fitterling, thomas. 1997. thelonious monk: his life and music. translated by robert dobbin. berkeley: berkeley hills books. gourse, leslie. 1997. straight, no chaser. new york: schirmer. keepnews, peter. 200l. liner notes to thelonious monk, the columbia years: 1962-1968. columbia/legacy col 503046 2. priestley, brian. 1999. monk, thelonious sphere. in the international dictionary of black composers, edited by samuel floyd, 832-39. chicago: fitzroy dearborn. sheridan, chris. 2001. brilliant corners: a bid-discography of thelonious monk. west­ port, conn.: greenwood. van de leur, walter. 2002. something to live for: the music of billy strayhorn. new york: oxford university press. alexander rehding, hugo riemann and the birth of modern musical thought. new york and cambridge: cambridge university press, 2003. reviewed by youn kim for a long time, historical studies of the sciences adopted a perspective vari­ ously known by the names presentist, teleological, essentialist, or whiggish. although these expressions carry slightly different meanings, we may roughly characterize this approach as an attempt to read the past in terms of present concerns; past scientific theories that had proven to be "wrong" and dis­ placed by "right" theories are regarded as inferior fringe elements in the history of modern sciences. this approach is, of course, now passe. most historical studies of the sciences, especially since the publication of thomas kuhn's influential work, are not afraid to explore neglected scientific con­ cepts and theories, and tend to rely heavily on the conceptual and cultural frameworks derived from areas other than science itself. i find it appropriate, therefore, to begin the review of alexander rehding's hugo riemann and the birth of modern musical thought with a discussion of the historiography of science. first, the union of history and science-as well as that of history and music theory-presents some prob­ lems. although it may be naive, it is undeniable that most people still feel odd about the joining of science and history: the former is forward-looking and concerned with nature, whereas the latter is retrospective and deals with humanity. likewise, the conjunction of music theory and history raises some conceptual difficulties. in thomas christensen's words, music theory is a "subject that notoriously resists its own history" (2002: 1 ).1 second, the par­ allelism between science and music theory is significant in studies of late nineteenth-century music theory, particularly in the study of hugo riemann's ideas. given that many of these theories aspired to scientific grounding, we may parallel historical approaches to the music theory of this period with historiographies of science. in attempting to discuss the shift in perspective in the realm of music theory's history, we find riemann's notion of "harmonic dualism" the best case in point. riemann believed that "minor triads are symmetrically opposed to major triads and work upside­ down" (rehding 2003:7), an idea that was quickly discredited by many later­ generation theorists.2 contemporary scholar scott burnham points out that our interest in "constructing the pre-history of today's theory" blinds us to current musicology, no. 76 (fall 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 81 82 current musicology the potential value in examining riemann's ideas. burnham advocates a "shift in emphasis" that would involve treating all theories as systems of thought with their own integrity and as cultural/historical products with their own ways and means ... we thus move away from "why does riemann insist on dualism?" as a rhetorical question along the lines of "why does he continue to bet on a lame horse (when he has stable winners)?" to "why does riemann need dualism?" as a real question with the possibility of a revealing answer. (1993:79) burnham exemplifies the shift in difference from "constructing the pre-his­ tory of today's theory" to "understanding the history of music theory as an intellectual and cultural history" through the questions centering around riemann's harmonic dualism. it is precisely these questions that alexander rehding addresses in hugo riemann and the birth of modern musical thought. it is no wonder that riemann's harmonic dualism comes to the fore when we speak of the changing perspective in music theory history. his . writing shows extraordinary breadth, ranging from theory to analysis, aes­ thetics, history, and, at the end of his career, even ethnomusicology. his life ( 1849-1919) falls squarely within the formative period of musicology, and his scholarly works in these various realms contributed to the formation and development of musicology as a modern academic discipline. riemann's influence is enormous and still continuing. take the field of contemporary harmonic theory, for example. in germany, his theory of harmonic func­ tion is in "common currency" and "in fact replaces the roman-numeral taxonomy common in english-speaking countries" (rehding 2003:7); in north america, riemann's harmonic theory is still evident in a host of theo­ ries labeled "neo-riemannian." these two branches of music theory have different purposes-one pedagogical and the other analytical-but both commonly dismiss the idea of harmonic dualism. theories of harmonic function widely taught in germany are monistic versions, while north american neo-riemannian theory "strips" the concepts of triadic transfor­ mations and common-tone maximizations of their "dualistic residues" (cohn 1998:169).3 it is understandable that riemann's followers detached dualistic thinking from the practical teaching of harmony and the analyti­ cal practice; the idea of harmonic dualism could be a "pedagogical handi­ cap:'4 besides this element of impracticality, however, we may easily arrive at another reason for the total rejection of harmonic dualism: the notion upon which harmonic dualism is based-that is, the concept of under­ tones-could not be proven scientifically and is therefore understood to be youn kim false. rehding not only places this apparently false notion of undertones at the very center of riemann's harmonic theory, but also re-examines the meaning of falseness as such (in chapter 2). the mistaken theory that oth­ ers had treated as a fringe element is here taken as central. in order to assess riemann's theory in its own right, rehding thoroughly investigates the cul­ tural and historical context of modern musicology's formative period, iden­ tifying the rationales and motivations behind riemann's thoughts. his ap­ proach embodies burnham's "shift in emphasis" most brilliantly, and in the most convincing manner, contrasting sharply with the teleological view­ point, that, ironically, is best exemplified in riemann's own historical ac­ count of harmonic theories.5 in addition to placing the notion of undertones at the center of riemann's harmonic theory, rehding takes it as the cornerstone upon which he reconstructs riemann's whole enterprise of musical thought. several cen­ tral concepts in riemann's theory such as undertones, musical hearing, musical logic, cadence, musical syntax, and tonvorstellungen are introduced one by one in each chapter and create a complex conceptual network with the notions to which riemann often appealed, such as nature, history, cog­ nition, practice, and science. in doing so, rehding efficiently retrieves the integrity of riemann's writings ranging over various fields of musicology. the book is composed of an introduction, five chapters, an epilogue, and a valuable glossary containing riemann's key terms as explained in the musik­ lexikon (1900). chapter 1 addresses riemann's experiment to prove the existence of undertones and examines it in the framework of the develop­ ment of nineteenth-century german science. chapter 2 examines two cen­ tral ideas in riemann's harmonic theory, the grid of harmonic relations and harmonic function, using these ideas to shed light on the role of music theory as conceived by riemann. in chapter 3, rehding investigates the no­ tion of cadential order and the "musical logic" residing within it, in con­ junction with the relationship among logic, nature, and history in riemann's thought. chapter 4 looks into "musical syntax" -yet another metaphor that frequently turns up in riemann's writings-and examines the change in riemann's notion oflanguage in the context of german nationalism. chapter 5 centers around three issues that occupied the final period of riemann's career: the compositional process, the notion of tonvorstellungen, and the field of ethnomusicology. in the introduction, rehding identifies two fundamental concepts pre­ siding over riemann's musical thought. one is the notion of "musical hear­ ing"-or, to put it in riemann's own terms, "how do we hear music" (wie 83 84 current musicology horen wir musik?). the other is the concept of harmonic dualism. when we try to reconcile riemann's two basic notions, however, we confront a seri­ ous problem: we do not "hear" the minor triads upside-down. therefore, in addition to being false and impractical, the idea of harmonic dualism ap­ pears to present a serious obstacle for riemann to construct a systematic and coherent all-inclusive musicological enterprise. how then should we understand riemann's consistent claim about these two seemingly incompatible notions? rehding finds the key to resolving this apparent contradiction between riemann's two central notions by re­ interpreting the question "how do we hear music?" it is, according to him, not so much about "how we do actually hear music;' but rather, "how we ought to hear music." the famous break between riemann and max reger that is recounted at the end of the introduction gets to the heart of the matter: for riemann, music theory carries the responsibility to explain what we ought to hear, and musical compositions and practice should conform to what music theory prescribes. consequently, compositions should com­ ply with harmonic dualism, one of the ways in which we ought to hear mu­ sic. chapter 1 begins with yet another anecdote: on a night in 1875, ri­ emann experimented with his grand piano and claimed to hear the under­ tone series (untertonreihe), proving that the undertone series, like the over­ tone series (obertonreihe) , was a real acoustic phenomenon. situated in the proper context, this story gives us significant clues as to riemann's motiva­ tion. rehding describes the prestige enjoyed by nineteenth -century science, explaining how theorists such as arthur von oettingen and moritz hauptmann attempted to capture some of this prestige for music. by estab­ lishing harmonic dualism's intellectual and cultural context, rehding brings new light to the definition of harmonic dualism itself, which has not always been clear-cut. in addition to defining the "aesthetic postulate" and "levels of methodology;' rehding claims that a dimension of "historical argument" should be considered in the definition of harmonic dualism. taking all three dimensions into account, harmonic dualism is redefined as "the attempt to declare the major and minor modes as natural, in conflict with the scientifi­ cally accepted concept of nature at the time" (31). once rehding has established the definition of harmonic dualism, he poses the central question of the chapter: "why did harmonic dualism go out of fashion in the early twentieth century and become considered wrong?" (31). rehding locates the reason for this in an uneven "paradigm shift": "while musicology, or rather its epistemological aspect, has moved away from a paradigm based on acoustical science, the acquisition of knowledge in most other areas has remained firmly anchored in an unwavering faith in youn kim science" (32). this "double-layered" epistemology is best reflected in our assessment of harmonic dualism. current tonal theory does not value acous­ tical data as such; in contradiction to this epistemological move away from acoustical science, we are dismissing the notion of dualism for the very rea­ son that acoustics does not confirm it. in other words, the wrongness of harmonic dualism is not inherent in the theory itself, but a consequence caused by the paradigm shift. just as chapter 1 re-examines the "wrongness" of harmonic dualism, chapter 2 challenges us to rethink the role of music analysis and theory as a whole. the brilliantly chosen illustration opening this chapter is riemann's analysis of the waldstein sonata, which appeared in his l. van beethoven's siimtliche klavier -solosonaten (1919). rather than speaking in terms of fail­ ure, rehding writes that "riemann chose not to make this symmetrical po­ tential [of harmonic dualism] into a feature of his analysis" (37; emphasis added). the chromatically descending bass, the foremost characteristic of the passage, was not featured in riemann's analysis. from this observation, rehding surmises that riemann intentionally underplayed the particular­ ity of this passage and highlighted its general form and ordinariness in­ stead. such an approach clashes with a commonly-held view in the field today that evaluates the success of a music theory"if it can tell us something about musical practice, or a musical composition, that in turn enhances the lis­ tening experience" -what rehding calls the instrumentalist approach to analysis (36). seen from this perspective, riemann's analysis seems procrustean: instead of enhancing the distinctive features of the passage, he tries to fit the passage into the normative mold that his theory prescribes (eight-measure period). once we explore another angle, however, we begin to see that the purpose of riemann's analysis was to make the passage ordi­ nary. after the microscopic discussion of a passage from the waldstein so­ nata, the author takes a step back and discusses essays by carl weitzmann and franz peter graf laurencin, authors of the two winning entries of an 1859 competition sponsored by the neuezeitschriftfur musik.an examina­ tion of these articles helps untangle the relationship between nineteenth­ century music theory and the very notion of "modernity" in music. in mu­ sical discourse, the term "modernity" tends to maintain its historical origin in the view of progressive music history held by many nineteenth-century composers, notably by wagner. as leon botstein explains, "the art of mu­ sic was perceived to need to anticipate and ultimately to reflect the logic of history."6 such nineteenth-century composers considered themselves to be at the forefront of history, and relied on music theory to legitimize their 85 86 current musicology progressiveness. music theory, rehding concludes, was "one of the institu­ tions on which the modernity of music rests" (43). in this vein, riemann's entire theoretical enterprise can be seen com­ pletelydifferently. the two pillars of riemann's harmonic theory-the grid of harmonic relations and theory of harmonic functions-are interpreted by the author in the following manner: the grid is a demonstration of full harmonic potential (based on riemann's aspiration for a scientifically-true music theory), while the concept of harmonic function delimits how far one may move within a key. according to rehding's reading, riemann de­ mands that music theory deal with not only what is possible but also, and more significantly, what is permissible. musical compositions with which riemann did not engage, such as wagner's tristan, were considered to have gone too far beyond these permissible boundaries. the spatial image of the grid as the "maze of possible harmonic succes­ sions" and harmonic function as the "delimiting signpost" (61) is more than a mere metaphoric image: it not only continually emerges throughout the rest of the chapters, but also is a significant key to solving the initial ques­ tion concerning the conception of harmonic dualism. it is also interesting to note that the central concept to be examined in the next chapter is "mu­ sicallogic:' the notion is often referred to as the roter faden (literally, "red thread") of riemann's work, which alludes to an orientation device used in weaving textiles. a parallel can thus be drawn between riemann's harmonic function as a signpost and musical logic as a red thread, both functioning as an orientation device.? chapter 3 investigates the notion of "musical logic;' which riemann thought resided in the ideal model of cadential succession. what is denoted by the phrase "musical logic" varies, however, as his theory of harmony de­ veloped across the course of his life. among these various meanings of mu­ sicallogic, that which appears in riemann's systematische modulationslehre (1877) receives particular attention here since it was in this treatise that harmonic function and metric weights were combined together to form an ideal cadential order. the actual chord progression is compared against this "a priori model;' and the harmonic function of individual chords is thus determined. besides this, riemann rationalizes the cadentiallogic in terms of the acoustical principle: the model cadence in major (t -s-d-t) rests on the overtone series whereas the "pure minor" cadence (t -s-d-t) rests on the undertone series. the discussion of cadential order raises the epistemo­ logical problem of undertones discussed in chapter 1 and in so doing, al­ lows us to see the point of contact where the notions of nature, history, and logic meet with another. rehding writes: youn kim nature is that which is constant throughout history and which provides the unchanging rules for musical logic; history gradually reveals the na­ ture of harmony in musical compositions and perpetuates the truth about musical logic; and logic itself, finally, can be traced in "classical" pieces of music and is the living proof that reason manifests itself through nature and history. (99) in addition to identifying the three authorities to which riemann fre­ quently appealed and establishing an intimate relationship among them, rehding unearths the element commonly found at these three poles: the notion of "as-if;' an idea associated with nineteenth-century german phi­ losopher hans vaihinger. according to vaihinger, we never fully know the reality of the world: we construct systems of thought and equate this fiction with the real. (scientific theories are one example of the fictional instru­ ments we use to comprehend the real.) riemann's notion of the undertone series best exemplifies vaihinger's notion of "fiction"; after all, the very ex­ istence of undertones is motivated by their explanatory power. cadential models can be viewed in a similar vein. riemann presents the cadential or­ der "as-if" they were the normative prototypes and in doing so, presents the reader with the "chief paths" through the area of harmony, with which "ev­ erybody may find new side paths for himself" (105). the spatial image of maze and guiding signpost is resurfaced here once again. chapter 4, "musical syntax, nationhood and universality:' explores an­ other metaphor that is frequently encountered in riemann's writings. the notion of "musical syntax" is the point of intersection where the seemingly contradictory ideas of "nationhood" and "universality" meet. riemann con­ tinually modified the idea of musical syntax throughout his life. rehding traces the conceptual change against the background of the newly estab­ lished discipline of comparative linguistics, and the cultural context of ger­ man nationalism in the 1890s. in a similar vein to the comparative linguists' theory of a universal grammar, riemann posited the diatonic scale as the "basic form of all music" and a consequence of the natural kliinge (121). for riemann, every nation is endowed with the same potential to develop the diatonic scale out of natural, universal triads; some nations are capable of doing so to the fullest extent, whereas others are not. in the 1890s, riemann's argument took a nationalist tone; he attributed the origins of harmonic music to the germanic people, and claimed to have restored music-theoretical hegemony to modern germany. he championed johann stamitz as the precursor to the viennese school while marginalizing austrian composers mozart and haydn. in order to examine riemann's notion of musical language against this nationalist tendency, rehding com­ pares two musical analyses by riemann: the analysis of liszt's faust sym87 88 current musicology phony and that of berlioz's overture to benvenuto cellini. in the former, riemann reduces the "deliberately labyrinthine" passage to an example of an "open-ended minor cadence," whereas in the latter he intentionally em­ ployed the function labels in order to demonstrate that berlioz-the "french influence" -was endangering german music by deviating from a prescribed path of harmonic succession for the sake of leitmotivic effects (150-53). like language, music was considered a marker of national identity, and for riemann, the identity of german musical language was something that had to be guarded and regenerated. in chapter 5, rehding examines three at first seemingly unrelated is­ sues: 1) riemann's infamous "meddling" with scores (as illustrated by his rebarring of beethoven's piano sonata); 2) his psychological theory repre­ sented by the notion of tonvorstellungen; and finally 3) his ethnomusicological concerns. these three apparently discrete topics occu­ pied riemann in the later part of his life; through a thorough examination of all three, rehding illuminates how these were intertwined. riemann (i.e., the later riemann) presupposed a process of musical communication as follows: music originates in the composer's mind; this music of the mind is transformed into sounding music, either through no­ tation and performance or through improvisation. the sounding music is in turn re-transformed into music in the listener's mind. to put it in riemann's own words, "the alpha and omega" of music is not found in the actual sounding music but, rather, exists in the image of tonal relationships (vorstellung der tonverhaltnisse) that lives in the creative artist's imagination before it is written down in notes and reemerges in the listener's imagination. (ri­ emann 1992:82)8 in this scheme, the score is regarded as a mere transmitter; such a disrespect of notation is indicative of a strong emphasis riemann placed on the men­ tal representation of music-that is, the tonvorstellungen. it appears that this psychological turn also brought changes in riemann's formerly nationalistic tone examined in the previous chapter. his "neue beitrage zu einer lehre von den tonvorstellungen" ("new contributions to the theory of tonvorstellungen," 1917) contains discussions of slavic folksongs that demonstrate how intimately related psychological and ethnomusicological concerns were for the later riemann. in leaving the physical realm and stepping into the domain of mental representation, ri­ emann seemed to take musical logic for something that "can be subject to historical or ethnic contingencies" (rehding 2003: 169). these interests in non-western music may be construed as a complete rejection of the faith in youn kim the transcendental nature of triadic hearing and his formerly eurocentric view. rehding challenges this reading of riemann. in these studies of non­ western music, rehding argues, riemann adopted the melodic-scalar ap­ proach, instead of the harmonic-triadic one. this does not point to cultural relativism but, rather, indicates that his old contention of the primacy of major thirds is still at work: seen from riemann's evolutionary historical viewpoint, non-western music-devoid of the major third as the "wheel of progress" -was imperfect. here we find ourselves back to the topic that initiated the entire discus­ sion: harmonic dualism. rehding integrates the seemingly fluctuating and inconsistent musical thoughts of riemann: it would seem, then, that very little actually changed from the beginning ... harmonic dualism, which failed to find its place in the consciousness of contemporary composers, lived on in the purer realm, detached from the european mainstream. there it remained a keepsake of a utopia of mu­ sic ... while riemann had realized that harmonic dualism was a hindrance to the functioning of his system of harmony, the idea could live on in his tonal imagination. (176) the last part of the chapter deals with riemann's contribution to com­ parative musicology, a subject that remains contentious today. highlight­ ing the tension between riemann and his contemporaries karl stumpf and eric von hornbostel, rehding notes that riemann actually believed in the adequacy of notation against the epistemological claim of the phonograph, the newly introduced tool of comparative musicology. we can draw an­ other parallelism here with the history and philosophy of science: a scien­ tific instrument (the phonograph in this case) is not just a mere aiding de­ vice but expresses the way we conceive the object of our study. riemann was against the "direct sonic imprints" the phonograph provided: despite his apparent disrespect for the score examined at the beginning of this chapter, he believed "that the constraints of notation, the regulatory framework it provided, were fully adequate in conveying the necessary element of music" (179). given that riemann continually attempted to improve notational meth­ ods instead of completely abandoning them, such an interpretation is more convincing. rehding seems to find riemann's belief in the adequacy of no­ tation contradictory to riemann's notion of tonvorstellungen and the ad­ vent of phonograph recordings. yet a closer examination of riemann's ideas suggests that rehding missed an opportunity to reconcile these two seem­ ingly contradictory developments. riemann defines tonvorstellungen as mental images which obtain "all the attributes of actually sounding music ... 89 90 current musicology including the most subtle distinctions of timbre and also the strongest dy­ namic effects" (riemann 1992:83). nonetheless, this does not mean that tonvorstellungen are direct sonic impressions: on the contrary, they are char­ acterized by the involvement of constructive activity of the mind itself, rather than a mere passive reception of external events (i.e., helmholtz's notion of tonempfindungen). provided that the score-unlike the phonograph, which presents us with immediate sonic images-necessarily posits a mental ac­ tivity to transform the written music into the music of mind, riemann's acceptance of the score as the proper conveyer of musical thought is per­ fectly in line with his psychological notion of tonvorstellungen. the book's epilogue begins with an analysis of nietzsche's remarks on riemann. in riemann's "obsession with detail" and his "attempt to pin music down to the last facet," nietzsche saw the indication of "decadence;' against which riemann persistently battled (rehding 2003:185). in a sense, nietzsche's observation points to the fact that riemann's entire system of musical thought was at the sunset of the culture of decadence, and at the dawn of modern thought. the nietzsche-riemann relationship is also related to the analogy of archi­ tectural and musical forms to which riemann often referred. riemann fre­ quently appealed to nietzsche's authority in order to support his claim for the significance of motives, the smallest building block of musical struc­ ture, and nietzsche, who was trained in classical philology, in turn gave approbation to riemann's theory of phrase structure.9 in both the intro­ duction and epilogue, rehding cites and compares two passages in which riemann speaks of an analogy between architectural and musical forms, one excerpt from wie horen wir musik? (an aesthetic treatise) and the other from systematische modulationslehre (a composition treatise). rehding uses this analogy to reconstruct riemann's system of musical thought: just as musical hearing begins with the smallest unit, the whole edifice of riemann's musical thought is based upon the "small hypothesis of the undertones"­ the scientific fiction of harmonic dualism. the seemingly independent and even incongruent parts of this edifice are joined together around the com­ mon foundation of harmonic dualism. in other words, rehding takes the spatial metaphor which riemann used to conceptualize musical hearing and applies it to reconstruct riemann's whole enterprise of musical thought. similar statements are also found in riemann's essay "symmetrie oder parallelism us?": in the case of music hearing we are actually dealing with an accumulation (ansammeln). for the musician, listening to a piece of music is by no means youn kim only something temporally flowing, which is over once the final cadence arrives; rather, if he has listened correctly, it is a finished whole within a kind of spatial existence that stands before his soul at the end. everybody uses the metaphor of construction of a musical piece, speaks of the piling up of motives, etc., and in so doing sets up no mere futile comparison. rather, the motives grasped by the skilled listener are building blocks, nay: the smallest self-enclosed units of the art work, which he does not stack up in his memory one behind another, rather, which after he has understood them as they flow by temporarily, he collates one to another. he actually constructs as a whole from these parts first a number of smaller wholes (thematic patterns), which are collated with one another yet again and that which has come into being temporally finally stands as an actual spatial thing, for which the use of the term symmetry appears not inap­ propriate. (riemann 1900:149-50)10 i quote this passage at length since it contains an expression that does not feature in either of the excerpts in rehding's book. here riemann under­ scores the phrase "accumulation" (ansammeln) to describe the course of musical hearing. the spatial metaphor and the expression of accumulation, which characterize riemann's way of conceptualizing musical hearing, also captures the way in which rehding develops his arguments throughout the book. while beginning with the discussion of the undertones and ending with that of his theory of tonvorstellungen, rehding's book follows the chro­ nological development of riemann's theory, but only at the surface. from the undertones, to harmonic function, grid of relationships, harmonic logic, harmonic syntax, exotic music, and tonvorstellungen, the themes of each chapter are accumulated to form a complicated but coherent network of various concepts, a reconstruction of riemann's thoughts that is completed at the end. it is a clever choice to reproduce an image of cologne cathedral on the front jacket of the book: this image is suggestive of how riemann conceptualized musical hearing, how the entire system of riemann's thought may be conceived, and finally, the way in which rehding advances his argu­ ment. i believe such a shaping of the book into an architectural form en­ abled the integration of riemann's ideas on diverse areas more effectively. late nineteenth-century music theories are generally characterized by their aspiration to be "scientific:' it should be noted here, however, that the notion of "scientific" was not solid in itself at that time. the case that best exemplifies the fluctuating notion of "scientific" is the field of psychology, which had just been established as an independent discipline. referring to a passage from "natur der harmonik" (1882), rehding writes that riemann considered psychology a "hard science" (89). this statement could be mis­ leading, for riemann's conception of psychology varies. in grundriss der musikwissenschajt, riemann writes: 91 92 current musicology [musikwissenschaft] is thus rooted in the exact sciences, [such as] math­ ematics and mechanics, on one hand, and also in the purely human sci­ ences of philosophy, logic, and aesthetics, on the other; physiology and psychology must constitute the bridge connecting these extremes. (ri­ emann 1908:9)11 then again, in his 1916 essay, riemann seems to draw his psychological theory of tonvorstellungen closer to the "purely human sciences": the present work is intended to point out a new direction that differs from those previously known and available, less in its ancillary doctrines than its total aim, its point of departure and final goal. one would be inclined, not without justification, to assign this direction to the literature of musical aesthetics. however, its strong contact with the musical prac­ tice of composition as well as performance (reproduction) classifies it as music theory in the narrower sense-indeed, as a new branch of the specu­ lative theory of music, which one also calls philosophy of music. (riemann 1992:92) it should also be noted that riemann's explanations of the undertone series were in constant flux as well. rehding, of course, notes the change from something perceptible (as in riemann's experiment with his grand piano in 1875) to something inaudible due to the interferences of sound waves (as in handbuch der akustik, 1891). it is noteworthy that two years prior to the moonshine experiment, riemann attributed a physiological explanation to the inaudibility of the undertones: "i therefore claim that the fibers on the basilar membrane corresponding to the undertones of a given tone resonate [only 1 partly and hence we obtain the vorstellungen of undertones [ only 1 implicitly" (riemann 1873: 12) y as rehding rightly notes, riemann disavowed the physical existence of the undertones in his essay "das problem des harmonischen dualismus" (1905), but did not completely abandon the dualistic idea. here the notion of the undertone series (untertonreihe) are re-conceptualized into the underseries (unterreihe: the simple ratios in the increase of wave-length), whereas the overtone series (obertonreihe) becomes the overseries (oberreihe: the simple ratios in the increase in frequency). an examination of the constant changes in riemann's conception of psychology and his grounding of the undertones points toward the now widely recognized dictum of the history of science: that we should be care­ ful not to assess past theories by the present standard. rehding's examina­ tion of the undertone series in light of vaihinger's philosophy and nine­ teenth-century polemics surrounding the existence of the atom allow us to view the meaning of "being scientific" in a completely new light. the noyoun kim tion of tonvorstellungen can be regarded similarly: after all, the psychologi­ cal concept of vorstellungen, the "psychic atoms;' was treated analogously to the way "fictional" concepts in science were considered. 13 just as in physics, psychology could profit from postulating a set of fictional concepts that give rise to laws, as long as these laws could be made to conform to actual psychic phenomena. riemann's incomplete theory of tonvorstellungen was scientific in this sense. rehding's work is distinct from other recent publications such as arntz (1999), which presents a detailed biography of riemann based upon exten­ sive archival works, and bohme-mehner and mehner (2001), which is an anthology of articles. instead of tracing the change in riemann's thought chronologically or presenting us with a collection of articles that focuses on a specific issue, rehding integrates the parts of riemann's musical thought, which otherwise appear to be distant from each other either chronologi­ cally or conceptually, into a coherent configuration. this book is not only informative and insightful, but also very absorbing: it constantly challenges the reader's preconceptions and provides a new perspective from which the object of study can be seen differently. this book would be equally profit­ able to music theorists interested in riemann's theory and music historians studying turn-of-the-century musical culture, for it sets up a brilliant ex­ emplary case showing how we ought to understand past music theory. notes 1. christensen expounds the statements carl dahlhaus made in his works on the history of music theory; see dahlhaus (1984; 1985). 2. the term harmonic dualism, which is loosely defined here, is further elaborated in a multi­ dimensional analysis in chapter 1. 3. this is, of course, not to say that the notion of harmonic dualism was completely set aside. some recent studies such as harrison (1994) adopt the idea of harmonic dualism and ex­ pound a "renewed dualist theory" although they tend not to consent to it in entirety. 4. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "grabner, hermann" (by hanspeter krellmann and daniel harrison). 5. burnham (1992) discusses the historiography and underlying motivations of riemann's geschichte der musiktheorie. 6. see new grove dictionary of music, 2nd ed., s.v. "modernism" (by leon botstein). blasius (2001) investigates the relationship between riemann's music theoretical system and wagner's endeavors to create a gesamtkunstwerk, taking nietzsche's philosophy as the central axis. 7. for a detailed study of the expression "red thread;' see grey (1996). 8. riemann's two articles, "ideen zu einer 'lehre von den tonvorstellungen" and "neue beitrage zu einer lehre von den tonvorstellungen" were written for the journal jahrbuch der 93 94 current musicology musikbibliothek peters fur 1914/15 and 1916, respectively. the publications of these two vol­ umes were postponed until 1916 and 1917 due to the war. for his 1916 article, marvin and wason's translation (1992) is used and the page number of the english translation are given; other excerpts from riemann's writings are my translations and the page numbers of the original german are given. 9. for riemann's reference to nietzsche, see riemann (1918:32; 1903:viii). 10. " ... dass es sich bei musikhoren thatsachlich urn ein ansammeln handelt. fur den musiker ist das anhoren eines musikwerkes durchaus nicht nur etwas zeitlich verlaufendes, was, wenn der schluss gekommen, voruber ist; hat er recht gehort, so steht vielmehr am schluss ein fertiges ganzes in einer art raurnlicher existenz vor seiner seele ... vielmehr sind die von einem fahigen horer aufgefassten motive bausteine, nein; in sich abgeschlossene kleinste glieder des kunstwerks, die er nicht in seinem gedachtnis hinter einander ablagert, sondern die er, nachdem sie zeitlich verlaufend ihm verstandlich geworden, einander gegenuberstellt. er baut aus diesen teilen wirklich ein ganzes, zunachst eine anzahl kleinerer ganzen (thematische gebilde), welche wiederum einander gegenuber gestellt bleiben, und das zeitlich gewordene steht am ende als ein wirklich raurnliches, fur welches die anwendung des ausdrucks symmetrie mir in keiner weise bedenklich erscheint" (riemann 1900: 14950). 11. "sie steht daher einerseit auf dem boden der exakten wissenschaften, der mathematik und mechanik, andererseits aber auch auf dem der reinen geisteswissenschaften, der philosophie, logik und asthetik, und die die extreme verbindende brucke haben die physiologie und die psychologie zu schlagen" (riemann 1908:9). 12. "ich behaupte daher: die den untertonen eines angegebenen tones entsprechenden fasern der membrana basilaris schwingen partiell mit und wir haben adaher die vorstellungen der untertone implicite" (riemann 1873:12). l3. a nineteenth-century german philosopher johann friedrich herbart proposed a psy­ chological program that came to be known as the "psychology of vorstellungen;' in which vorstellungen was regarded as the psychological elements that constitutes the human psyche. the term "psychic atom" is borrowed from wolman (1968). references arntz, michael. 1999. hugo riemann (1849-1919); leben, werk und wirkung. cologne: con­ certo verlag. blasius, leslie david. 2001. nietzsche, riemann, wagner: when music lies. in music theory and natural order, edited by suzzanah clark and alexander rehding, 93-107. cam­ bridge: cambridge university press. bohme-mehner, tatjana, and klaus mehner, eds. 2001. hugo riemann (1849-1919); musikwissenschaftler mit universalanspruch. cologne: bohlau verlag. burnham, scott. 1992. method and motivation in hugo riemann's history of harmonic theory. music theory spectrum 14 (1): 1-14. ----. 1993. intellectual values: interpreting the history of tonal theory. current musi­ cology 53: 76-88. christensen, thomas. 2002. introduction. in cambridge history of western music theory, edited by thomas christensen, 1-23. cambridge: university of cambridge press. cohn, richard. 1998. introduction to neo-riemanninan theory: a survey and a historical perspective. journal of music theory 42 (2): 167-93. dahlhaus, carl. 1984. die musiktheorie im 18. und 19. jahrhundert. darmstadt: youn kim wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft. ---. 1985. was heisst "geschichte der musiktheorie?" in ideen zu einer geschichte der musiktheorie, edited by frieder zaminer, 8-39. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgessellschaft. grey, thomas. 1996 .... wie ein rother faden: on the origins of 'leitmotif' as critical con­ struct and musical practice. in music theory in the age of romanticism, edited by ian bent, 187-210. cambridge: cambridge university press. harrison, daniel. 1994. harmonic function in chromatic music: a renewed dualist theory and an account of its precedents. chicago: university of chicago press. riemann, hugo. 1873. ueber das musikalische horen. phd. diss., university of gottingen. ----.1898. geschichte der musiktheorie im ix. -xix. jahrhundert. leipzig: max hesse. ----. 1900. symmetrie oder parallelismus? max hesse's deutscher musiker-kalender 15: 145-51. ----. 1903. system der musikalischen rhythmik und metrik. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. ----.1905. das problem des harmonischen dualismus. neue zeitschrift fur musik 72 (1-4): 3-5, 23-26, 43-46, 67-70. ----. 1908. grundriss der musikwissenschaft. leipzig: queue & meyer. ----. 1917. neue beitrage zu einer lehre von den tonvorsteuungen. jahrbuch der musikbibliothek peters fur 1916 23: 1-21. ----. 1918. die phrasierung im lichte einer lehre von den tonvorstellungen. zeitschrift fur musikwissenschaft 10): 26-39. ----. 1992. riemann's "ideen zu einer 'lehre von den tonvorstellungen''': an anno­ tated translation. translated by robert wason and elizabeth west marvin. journal of music theory 36 0): 69-117. seidel, elmar. 1966. die harmonielehre hugo riemanns. beitrage zur musiktheorie des 19. jahrhunderts, edited by matin vorgel, 39-92. regensburg: gustav bosse verlag. wolman, benjamin b. 1968. the historical role johann friedrich herbart. in historical roots of contemporary psychology, edited by benjamin b. wolman, 29-46. new york: harper & row. 95 boris's bells, by way of schubert and others mark devoto we define "bell chords" as different dominant-seventh chords whose roots are separated by multiples of interval 3, the minor third. the sobriquet derives from the most famous such pair of harmonies, the alternating d7 and a~7 that constitute the entire harmonic substance of the first thirty-eight measures of scene 2 of the prologue in musorgsky's opera boris godunov (1874) (example 1). example 1: paradigm of the boris godunov bell succession: a~7 _d7. ah d7 , ~~j,il' !fiio do:y7 g:y7 the boris bell chords are an early milestone in the history of nonfunctional harmony; yet the two harmonies, considered individually, are of course abso­ lutely functional in classical contexts. this essay traces some of the historical antecedents of the bell chords as well as their developing descendants. dominant harmony the dominant -seventh chord is rightly recognized as the most unambiguous of the essential tonal resources in classical harmonic progression, and the v7 i progression is the strongest means of moving harmony forward in immediate musical time. to put it another way, the expectation of tonic harmony to follow a dominant-seventh sonority is a principal component of forehearing; we assume, in our ordinary and long-tested experience of tonal music, that the tonic function will follow the dominant-seventh function and be fortified by it. so familiar is this everyday phenomenon that it hardly needs to be stated; we need mention it here only to assert the contrary case, namely, that the dominant-seventh function followed by something else introduces the element of the unexpected. that too is a resource of forward motion in time; the misdirected v7 can signal the temporary postponement of a tonic closure, or it can indicate a new tonal departure whose progress demands further attention and elucidation, which we call development. the ordinary deceptive cadence is in the first category: the expected tonic can be delayed by so slight an interruption as a single harmony, or by current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 131 132 current musicology example 2: schumann, 12 poems of justinus kerner, 0p. 35, no. 11, "wer machte dich so krank?"] 1\ ~ sie las-sen mich nicht ruhn. 1\ : .. : 0 t.j a:, ,. i::: ,-: t: ~t ;jt l! ===-pp .. i : .. ~. ~. ~ v' iv6 example 3: john b. dykes, melita (sailors' hymn). 1\ t.j ~ ... .. ~ • "7: --.. --.i·: .# hear us when we cry to thee for those in per il on the sea. fl ,. ,. ,. i : v ~ iii r v c: v'iiv iv v'n v' example 4: schubert, string quintet in c major, op. 163, d. 956, third movement. 1\ ~. i i : o· i ••••• : ~i i ii i fz fz jz ktz fz jz p ,. p' : i i i i c: i v2/iv viii viii ii something more substantial, even an entire phrase, and yet the ear recog­ nizes that the true closure is within reach (example 2). the strength of the dominant function resides in the energy with which its resolution is either confirmed or evaded. harmony textbooks identify a category of irregular resolutions, of which such deceptive cadences such as y7 -vi or y7 iy are the simplest and most familiar types. these are diatonic successions. with the use of secondary dominants, a chromatic element is introduced. a typical irregular resolution involving a secondary dominant is y 7/y_i, a useful ingredient of a strong cadential formula (example 3). an additional chromatic element exists in the progression of one secondary dominant to another secondary dominant mark devoto example 5: schubert, symphony no.6 in c major, d. 589, second movement. 25 andante /1: cresco ab: y7 y02(h=h) (or yo'j/vi?) f: (example 4). the roots of these two dominants are a minor third apart, but what is more noteworthy here is the smooth stepwise connection, coordi­ nated with maintenance of common tones. the bass motion is strong, the uppermost voice stays fixed-the open strings helping to accentuate this. the progression occurs at the midpoint of a rapidly changing phrase. the element of surprise is less important, perhaps, than the tonicization of the supertonic that occupies nearly half the phrase. the next example shows a different situation: two dominant sevenths enabling a modulation (example 5). here again the roots are separated by a minor third, but the surprise is particularly amiable because it is carefully prepared and then misdirected. the dominant seventh in a~ major is fol­ lowed by a diminished-seventh chord that is very likely the same dominant function (e~ = f~), but the d~ changes to d~, the major ninth of the dominant in f major that forms the cadential harmony. the two examples by schubert illustrate paired dominant sevenths with roots a minor third apart, but with two different common tones between them. musorgsky's bell chords have roots differing by two minor thirds, that is, they are a tritone apart; but they likewise have two different factors as common tones. we will come back several times to schubert, who is probably not widely singled out as a master of unexpected harmony, but that is certainly what he is. 133 134 current musicology example 6: bach, fantasia in g minor for organ, bwv 542. " i i l j "1 h i 1_ 1 ___________ r--1 r:1 ~ ri 1 tj ---r t t '1 l~j bj ~d : l : 1j:i:j~ ab: iv i "i ~ ~ vo 6 5 1 lj i vo~ e: vo~n i~ l::j 'r ."==== example 7: mozart, don giovanni, act i, no. 2, duet (voices and orchestra reduced). allegro 149" ~ ij j i ~ u "i 1 "i i 9 9 ifp fp p ~ ~ : 1 i 1 1 1 1 1 1 n~ v7/n (= ger.) i~ complex dominants in diatonic harmony i i the present essay approaches its main focus via two different kinds of harmony, both of them forms of complex dominants that are functionally different but contrapuntally related: the diminished-seventh chord, and the family of augmented sixths. there are many examples of remote modulations brought about through shortcuts, such as by enharmonic reinterpretations of diminished sevenths and augmented-sixth chords. some of the finest examples of the former are found in bach, as in the abrupt modulation from a~ minor to e minor in the g minor fantasia for organ (example 6). (one wonders how bach managed it on organs that had not yet submitted to tempered tuning.) as a linear artifact under the control of a chromatic scale, the diminished-seventh chord (in classical practice at least from bach's time) is a parliamentary motion to suspend the tonal rules of order for a single purpose: to get from one place to another. chromatically consecutive diminished sevenths, abounding in music from 1700 to the present, allow the ear to retain the memory of a prior stable tonal center until a new point of stability can be defined. (for a spectacular example, see chopin's etude in e major, op. 10, no. 3.) mark devoto example 8: schubert, mirjams siegesgesang, op. posth. 136, d. 942 (piano accompaniment only; choral parts omitted). 131 f: v (7) ·6 14 vo9/iv iv it. v (vi) v (dominant pedal) (passing) 137 1 decresc. p -==== ~ ~ . f: (n: -ii) (ger. 6th of m) 142 p (v /iv) (iv) v with the augmented-sixth chord the situation is somewhat different. the use of the german sixth as a connector depends on its enharmonic re­ interpretation as a dominant -seventh chord, most typically as the dominant of a key a semitone higher. bach wrote the augmented-sixth chord on rare occasions, but he did not use it as a pivot chord in modulation. that felicity was a discovery of later periods. there are many examples of dominant­ of-neapolitan relationships, both in the short and long term, from haydn and mozart (example 7) through 1940s popular song, when the third verse shifts up a half step. so this discussion will really begin with an atypical example of the augmented-sixth relationship, one that involves enough harmonic disguise to evoke a fine knowing smile. it is from schubert's late choral cantata mirjams siegesgesang (example 8). here the tonic is f minor, followed by an emphatic g~ major triad (the neapolitan in root position) to which is then added a minor seventh f~, as though it were the dominant seventh of ck this f~ is then re-spelled e~, which would indicate a german sixth chord leading to an f major triad, like the dominant of bi>-the semitonal relationship being 135 136 current musicology example 9: paradigm of dominant-ninth chords (piston 1987: examples 21-26). example 10: beethoven, piano concerto no.4 in g major, op. 58, first movement. i t.i (pp) & ~ ----------~ f: v 7(9) iv f: v7(9) vo~ d: vo2 & & -------­v 7(9) iv -------------------~ d: v7(9) voj b: vo2 "1 ~-------------------------------------b: v 7(9) mark devoto example 11: grieg, piano concerto in a minor, first movement. fl /i,d ~j ~.1 i j u jw ~ r ~ "ow r r i i i = = ~;b; ,d~ b, • i i j. .6. ~ i : 'i~'i r }r ~-e . l-j . e: vo9 then b~ major and c~ major. neither of these probabilities comes to pass; schubert causes the g~ to rise to g~, forming an ordinary diminished -seventh chord; the d~ then falls to c, an internal resolution of the dominant minor ninth to form the much more stable dominant seventh of f. consider the two dominant sevenths in this equation: the dominant sev­ enth on g~, and the dominant seventh on c. remove the diminished seventh that connects them, and what remains is the boris bell relationship. from schubert to boris to see how the boris chords are related tonally, we will go back to the dimin­ ished-seventh chord for a moment. we will need to rely on the analytical designation of v09 endorsed by piston's harmony rather than the more common, but less aurally logical, designation of vif.2 the v09 paradigm is best given as four enharmonic ally equivalent dominants over four different roots that aren't there. example 9 shows them with their theoretical roots, as complete dominant ninths. beethoven's g major piano concerto illustrates this paradigm perfectly (example 10); the chords involved are dominants in root position, with their minor ninths prominent only as neighbor notes and through arpeg­ giation. this passage loses none of its modulatory magic through being very familiar. it stands at the beginning of a development section, where ongoing modulation is often to be expected. (one wonders if beethoven was aware that the succession of dominants is from v of f minor to v of d minor to v of b minor, a root motion of two minor thirds summing to a tritone, which is melodically adumbrated in the piano's rising tritone melody before the succession begins.) a modulating passage in the development section of another well­ known piano concerto, the one by grieg, uses common-tone enharmony within a complete dominant ninth ofb minor (with f# root) and a dominant seventh of f minor, to effect a modulation between e minor and f minor (example 11). 137 138 current musicology example 12: musorgsky, boris godunov, prologue, scene 2. paradigm and "slava" chorus. t--, t ii -"/ ~ d7 uzh kak: na nye bye solo tsu kras no mu sla va example 13: paradigm of diminished chords and octatonic set. four dominant-seventh chords octatonic set: two diminished-seventh chords 4, ~:b 11111111 11 110 ii d ~i ~j iif j f d r c7 eh f#7 a7 example 14: chart of dominant-seventh chords with roots separated by minor thirds. ~~--------------------------------------------~~ " ~ ~ ~ u " \ i ~ ~u 1 enharmonic " ~ ,l~ . ~ ~ 1 " ~ ~ tj ~ i " ~r n ~ rsame diminished seventh chord in harmony books, and even in music appreciation texts, the bell chords in boris godunov have been repeatedly cited as an early paradigm of nonfunctional harmony--or, perhaps better said, of alternating dominant­ seventh functions that, in thirty-eight measures, are never ratified by their respective tonics. that this very famous passage is one of the most convincing proclamations of a new kind of tonality in the nineteenth century should now be accepted by everybody; yet these bells are within a domain that is still identifiable as c major, whether we consider musorgsky's original version or rimsky-korsakov's popular version. whatever the foreshadow­ ing--and it is a strong one, because the c is right there--of a c centricity in the bell-chord prelude, the tonal strength of c major in the coronation scene depends on the plain triads of the "slava!" chorus, harmonizing the mark devoto same russian folksong that beethoven used in his second "razumovsky" quartet (example 12). cycling dominant sevenths successive transposition by minor thirds of a dominant seventh results in a restricted cyclicality. a complete cycle of such dominant sevenths, such as c7 _e~7 _f#7 _a7, with roots spelling out a diminished-seventh chord, rotates the other chord factors to yield two diminished-seventh chords, thereby constituting an octatonic set (example 13). between any two chords in the cycle, there will always be two common factors, and these common factors will always be either a minor third apart or two minor thirds apart, that is, a tritone apart-or, to put it another way, if the root of the dominant seventh is chromatically raised it forms a diminished-seventh chord which has three common factors with the other three dominant sevenths in the octatonic set (example 14). harmonic successions incorporating these dif­ ferent chords are typically identified with russian harmony of the second half of the nineteenth century, but we shall see that they are also of wider occurrence. we are traversing much well-tilled ground here, and it is easiest to cite richard taruskin's several earlier and splendid milestones of russian analysis, especially chapter 4, subtitled "harmonic sorcery:' in volume 1 of his stravinsky and the russian traditions (1996). to quote briefly: thanks to the coronation scene from musorgsky's boris godunov, all the world knows that two dominant -seventh chords with roots a tritone apart have a tritone in common. and thanks to the reinforcement the lesson has received in some equally famous pieces like scheherazade, the progression is often thought of as being peculiarly russian. (taruskin 1996:283) through the omnibus to the bells we may now go back to a more limited harmonic context, the very familiar harmonic formula known as the "omnibus progression" that has been elu­ cidated in great detail in a book by victor yellin (1998). yellin identifies five steps in the classic omnibus, numbered 1 through 5 in example 15. the root analysis is as given in the fifth edition of piston's harmony, a stern reminder that the analysis still cries out for a better explanation. the progression from step 2 to step 3 is entirely characteristic of augmented-sixth voice leading; step 4 is enharmonically equivalent to an inversion of step 2 but involves notational indigestion if we insist on uniform chromatic scales in the outer parts. composers, as always, have more sense than this ungainly theoretical model demands. one can put roman numerals under any of these chromatic 139 140 current musicology example 15: paradigm of the five-step omnibus. five-step omnibus (5th raised and lowered) example 16: musorgsky, boris godunov, act iii, scene 1, mazurka (rimsky-korsakov version; voice and orchestra reduced). a: ger.ofii .. 6 114 (5th raised and lowered) .. 6 114 (5th raised and lowered) y1 e: y1/ii > y1 b: ger. ofii > yi1 fr. example 17: tchaikovsky, symphony no.6 ("pathetique"), op. 74, first movement. 34 1l "k j i : 'i .; r j ~ ~ ...----.... ~r-t'""""t""""""1 i i 1 1 b~ i i j mark devoto example 18: schubert, winterreise, op. 89, d. 911, no. 20, der wegweiser. fl 0) fl 0) : fl 0) fl ~ : ei-nen wei -ser seh ich ste hen un-ver riickt vor mei-nem blick: ei-ne stras -se muss ich '~ ~ ~ ~ fj pp ~ g: i --= geh-en,eine strasse muss ich ,~ ih~'" , , b,: vo~/v cl: vo9/v '~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ger. 'fj ~ -' .... cresco .6 14 ge hen, die noch kei l.....i::::::j . ner _gmg zu ruck ih~ '~ f-=:::::' ~ p ~ j.-~j~ jlj j 1 .... rrn iii r i ~ r ~ g: v7/v ger. v; i vi 1 n6 1~ v 1 chords, but their functional interpretation is bound to be contortionist because of the altered factors and the transparent melodic significance of the voice leading. the three-step modulating omnibus allows us to approximate the cyclicality of the bell-chord cycle by means of chromatic passing tones, which musorgsky did effectively in the act iii mazurka in boris, with descending bass (example 16). tchaikovsky did it similarly, but with ascending bass, in the first movement of the "pathetique" symphony, following the well-known model of schubert's "wegweiser," which substi­ tutes diminished-seventh chords for some of the augmented-sixth chords. it is worth while to compare examples 17 and 18. a familiar omnibus example from schubert's a minor piano sonata of 1825 (op. 42, d. 845) might suggest a shortcut to the bell chords (example 19). the remainder of the omnibus in the example is not so interesting as the alternation of dominant and augmented sixth, as though schubert were reluctant to decide where to go next. the alternating chords are, enharmoni­ cally considered, two dominant sevenths, g7 and b~7, a minor third apart; there are two common tones, and the other factors move by semitonal step in opposite directions. from the standpoint of this essay, these relationships summarize the essence of bell ness; one chord is ding and the other is dong, so 141 142 current musicology example 19: schubert, piano sonata in a minor, op. 42, d. 845. f\ i i nil'l ~ ~~ ... ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 'r fz fz cresco fz : --t • ti":' ::t f) c: v~ ger. v~ ger. v~ ger. ii ii~ v +ii~ i~ of ii of ii of ii (5th raised and lowered) example 20: glinka, overture to ruslan and lyudmila. f\p~esto =135 pp.w~q~) ~) w ~i 'l ~qj ~ ~----i--~ .------1---------------horns strs. pizzo pp 1~ $ ~ : ~ 111 1 i ~ i 1 ~) ~) to speak, like a bell swinging on its headstock, facing us at one moment, and facing away from us at the next. (let's consider these as english or french bells for the moment, or those in the fifth movement of mahler's third symphony; other german-speaking bells, which are normally threefold, won't do for our purposes.) russian predecessors among the ancestors of "harmonic sorcery" we will cite first of all an example of actual sorcery on stage. glinka's opera ruslan and lyudmila is identified as a seminal work of music in the nineteenth century by the composer's biographer david brown (1974), who ranks it in seminality, though hardly in intrinsic value, with beethoven's ninth symphony and wagner's tristan. stravinsky's appraisal of glinka is perhaps more realistic: "his music is minor, of course, but he is not; all music in russia stems from him" (stravinsky and craft 1959:48).ruslan, with no actual bells in the score, gives us the earliest russian example of bell chords thus far identified, and these are, naturally enough, at a dramatic high point in the poorly conceived libretto of a long and sprawling stage spectacle: the magic moment where lyudmila, in the midst of a wedding revelry, is abruptly spirited away by the evil magician chernomor. glinka attached sufficient importance to this music to include it in the middle of the overture, where it certainly sounds mysterious, surrounded by a rossini-like texture (example 20). example 21: tchaikovsky, romeo and juliet. andante non tanto quasi moderato 5 pocopiuf 119 191 ~ii --"i 117 ~ f) strs... .. pp : i i mark devoto allegro giusto 272 284 ~n.i,ii 'fl fl fl fl fl r i i i r ifzpp h ___ pp .. i , i trp.,3 trb. the ruslan premiere was in 1842. twenty-six years later came one of the first undoubted masterpieces by the then twenty-eight-year-old tchaikovsky. romeo and juliet, which he called an "overture-fantasy;' has for too long been imprisoned in the popularity of its d~ major cello theme, which still strikes many as a lapse of good taste worthy of the most saccha­ rine rachmaninoff; yet on its own terms, romeo and juliet is a triumph of formal and harmonic originality, and a significant milestone in the history of concert music in russia. formally as well as tonally, romeo and juliet foreshadows tchaikovsky's even greater achievement in the first movement of the "pathetique" symphony. we will look at the motivic oscillating chords that are first suggested in the opening theme, are pushed further forward in the allegro giusto, and come to full flower in the d~ major accompaniment. when the allegro resumes, with a chromatic development, tchaikovsky takes 143 144 current musicology example 22: brahms, symphony no.3, op. 90, second movement. andante vla.(p) dolce bn. via., ve. ve'r r c7 a7 example 23: tchaikovsky, nutcracker, op. 71, dance of the sugar plum fairy. andante non troppo up the bell chords where glinka left off, and develops them into musorgsky's boris chords (example 21). note how both glinka and tchaikovsky isolated their bell chords over a common-tone pedal point, specifically to emphasize them. what is equally emphasized is the neighbor-note quality of the non­ common tones. certainly musorgsky knew the glinka score; it is likely that he also knew tchaikovsky's. it is especially interesting to compare these with an example from brahms (example 22), but not because one might imagine a very unlikely connection between brahms of 1883 and any of his russian contemporaries or predecessors.3 the appoggiaturas are what make all the difference, and yet it is interesting that brahms isolates his remote dominant sevenths texturally as well as coloristically, as did both glinka and tchaikovsky. from boris to stravinsky at the end of his career in 1892, tchaikovsky, following a visit to mustel's store in paris, composed for his nutcracker the most famous music ever mark devoto example 24: skryabin, the poem of ecstasy, op. 54. example 25: lyadov, the enchanted lake. andante j = 58 46 ci. ;o~la.sord. ~ mmmm !elf) !e ~ . nm j1 j ..... ve. div. written for the recently invented celesta. we give here an excerpt worthy of a second look (example 23). the first progression, from d7 to b7, is of the type identified by piston as a supertonic six-four with raised and lowered fifth, the d~ written enharmonically for clc-though one may scratch one's head at that analysis (piston and de yoto 1987:443). the second progression is like n7 to y7; the same progression in the same key occurs at a climactic moment (mm. 276-84) in the first movement of beethoven's "eroica", though with somewhat more conventional voice leading. after tchaikovsky, the bell relationship persisted in russian music, but with expansions, especially with the dominant seventh expanded to the complete dominant ninth. skryabin's the poem of ecstasy (1905) offers perhaps the most convenient illustration of tritone-related dominant ninths carried to extremes. example 24 shows a relatively uncluttered instance. the later prometheus allows the relationship to survive even within the most attenuated tonality. a prettier example is from lyadov's the enchanted lake of1909 (example 25). both of these examples lead directly to stravinsky. he was twenty-seven years younger than lyadov, whom he liked personally, but only ten years 145 146 current musicology example 26: stravinsky, the firebird, introduction. molto moderato fl. 2fi. example 27: borodin, symphony no.2, second movement. strs. pizzo prestissimo 0 = 10 8 if " _____ -----_____ --------:j t ~ f brass rr r r horns ~----~---~-----~~p : hu _____ u _____ u _____ u _____ ~~ b: f: v7 example 28: debussy, la damoiselle elue. chorus ssaa pp ob. -*! -*! -*! -*! -*! -*! -*! -*! la younger than skryabin, whose self-centered personality and music he found repellent. stravinsky referred to ecstasy and prometheus as "those severe cases of musical emphysema" (stravinsky and craft 1962:86), and stated emphatically that he was never more than superficially influenced by skryabin's music. yet on the evidence of tritone-related ninth chords alone, firebird contradicts his denial. a pellucid example occurs as early as m. 15 (example 26). the neapolitan-to-dominant relationship is easy to show on paper, but the voice leading is so different from the classical neapolitan convention that one hears it only with difficulty. backtrack a bit historically to the scherzo ofborodin's second symphony, which begins with a v9 of b minor (the dominant of the just-ended first movement) resolving to c7, the dominant off major, the new key (example mark devoto 27). this is a remote-key overlap situation between movements, such as dvorak in the "new world" symphony, rachmaninoff in his second and third piano concertos, and even debussy in his string quartet, were to exploit in some of their best-known works. (this v9 of b minor was added by borodin at the suggestion of balakirev, supposedly to make clearer the junction from b~ to c~ between the movements.) take the g~ ninth out of borodin's almost complete v9, and include the c# fifth, and you have the boris chords in f# and c; take the sevenths out of those and you have the petrushka relationship. other writers have remarked on the relationship of the boris chords to petrushka. stravinsky of course always esteemed the original boris godunov highly, but he deplored what he called rimsky-korsakov's "meyerbeerization" of the opera, an epithet that applies particularly to the coronation scene. one early enthusiast of musorgsky's music outside of russia was claude debussy. as we know, while he was a student at the conservatoire, debussy had a personal connection with russia as early as his nineteenth year, when he spent two summers there in 1880 and 1881 as household pianist for nadyezhda von meek, tchaikovsky's "beloved friend" and protector. in later years debussy told stravinsky that he had first become familiar with musorgsky's songs when he found the scores on von meek's piano (stravinsky and craft 1962:158). it is not certain when, or how, debussy came to see the score of boris, but the progression turns up in his music as early as his unfinished triomphe de bacchus of 1882, and there is no mistaking the bell-chord relationship of a well-highlighted passage in one of the finest works of debussy's early maturity, the cantata la damoiselle elue of 1889 (example 28). this is only one of several comparable passages in that work. there are others like it in the fantaisie for piano and orchestra, composed at about the same time and even more seldom heard today. not long before this, probably in 1888, debussy had composed the song "1' ombre des arbres" as one of his ariettes oubliees. pianists and singers confronting this song for the first time may be nettled by the unusual key signature of seven sharps, which was very seldom used by any composer until debussy and ravel. the song begins with a c#7, immediately followed by a g7 (example 29). there is a subtle but quite direct connection of this beginning with a passage in ravel's daphnis et chloe of 1912 (example 30). the common tones are band e# ( = f~). between debussy's song and ravel's ballet scene, the melodic elements are entirely different, with ravel's melody a well-highlighted flourish for a pair of clarinets. but the effect of key change is the more magical in ravel's example, because the c# major tonality has been well established for a longer stretch, and the change is graphically illustrated by the removal of the key signature, with seven naturals one bar before the 147 148 current musicology example 29: debussy, l'ombre des arbres. lent et triste pp l'om-bre des e example 30: ravel, daphnis et chloe, mm. 370-71. 1\ ~ !t. .. ~ i i i i i i t.j li".".~~.~ )~~h6 .~ strin~ij. p pp 0 : example 31: stravinsky, octet for wind instruments, first movement. lento )=76 il ~ :t "1 t.j ~'~--===---===~ ~ ~~ ~'1' t~ >'!!>w ~ . .·b. ~. ~. ~:j: ~~ ~ ~;~ : 1'1 • change to g meter. the b in the first violins-the seventh of the c# chord and the third of the g chord-is subtly but definitely prominent. third-related dominant sevenths are abundant in daphnis et chloe, possibly as much as in skryabin's ecstasy, but this proves nothing, for the two composers are about as different as could be. another good example is found in the finale of roger sessions's the black maskers of 1923, eleven mark devoto example 32: stravinsky, symphony in three movements, first movement. ve., cb. pizzo p years later. by then it is possible to think of the phenomenon as well esta­ blished and familiar. perhaps sessions had a russian aural image in mind; the black maskers was originally composed as incidental music to leonid andreyev's play. what was stravinsky doing at that time? in 1922 he composed one of his most lovable works, the octet for wind instruments. the introduction includes a tritone bell that is one of the nicest surprises in the whole piece (example 31). twenty-three years later, with world war ii and two changes of citizenship intervening, stravinsky had not forgotten his roots in glinka when he wrote the familiar chords in his symphony in three movements (example 32). another example, not at all russian or bell-like but certainly a happy example of surprise, using major ninth chords a tritone apart, is found in the final "neptune, the mystic" movement in holst's the planets, at the moment of the first harmonic change after the entrance of the wordless female chorus. bach to schubert to wind up this necessarily limited tour of bell chords, we may begin with two examples of simple irregular resolution, by one of the most romantic and visionary harmonists of all. it may be doubted that johann sebastian bach was looking ahead to his admirers in tsarist russia a century later, let alone to the russia two centuries later that would occupy his native saxony; but there is no doubt that he recognized the value of minor-third-related dominant sevenths as a source of expressive chromatic voice leading as well as expressive harmonic misdirection (examples 33 and 34). nor should we be surprised to find exactly the same relationship of dominant sevenths in the no. 4 recitative of bach's cantata 198 ("trauer-ode") near the words 149 150 current musicology example 33: bach, magnificat, bwv 243, et misericordia. y'/ii b: y'n y' example 34: bach, concerto for two violins, bwv 1043, second movement. largo rna non tanto 29 ;. (pi) f: i y2/iy y'/ii ii y'/iii (passing 7th) example 35: vierne, carillon de westminster. (9) ~----------~. ------------~----------------mark devoto example 36: schumann, 12 poems of justinus kerner, op. 35, no. 6, ''auf das trinkglas eines verstorbenen freundes." mit-ternacht' ge stun de, ~ "der glocken bebendes get6n;' but this is an example oflesser force, if only because bach's bells here, though very colorful, are more like sleigh bells. next we can consider two bells from different worlds. organists, but few other musicians, are well acquainted with the expertly crafted and imaginative music of louis vierne, the blind pupil of widor who carried the french symphonic organ into the world of post-impressionism. as a dedicated student also of cesar franck, vierne would likely have noted the succession of tritone-related dominant sevenths in franck's last work, the choral no.3 in a minor.4 the best known of vi erne's 24 pieces de fantaisie, completed in 1927 ten years before his death, is the carillon de westminster, which precedes its dramatic climax with a prominent bell progression (example 35). some eight decades earlier, in 1840, robert schumann had commemorated his marriage to clara wieck with an annus mirabilis of over 120 songs, including the relatively little-known twelve poems of justinus kerner, op. 35. one of these is the poignant but not unseemly sentimental "auf das trinkglas eines verstorbenen freundes" (example 36). note the text: "quietly the moon rises along the valley / solemnly the midnight hour sounds. / the glass remains empty." 151 152 current musicology example 37: schubert, symphony in c major ("great"), d. 944, second movement. 148 2 horns " t t ~ ! ui > f > > r > > r > > r > ~" vd., via. ~..., : r vc.,cb. but the patriarch of schumann's bell chords surely is the ding-dong passage that everybody knows, from schubert's c major symphony of 1825, our final example (example 37). the g in the unison horns is the descriptive bell, but the chords are what identify it. this whole formally connective passage of superb subtlety certainly transcends campanology. one may fancifully imagine schubert gazing into his own unimaginable future and legacy; his bells toll for the tonal world to come. though neither of them knew it, schubert made it easier for musorgsky. notes 1. i will apologize in advance for choosing several examples in this paper that have already been used in my revised fifth edition (1987) of walter piston's harmony, when i might (though i might well not) have found another equally appropriate and telling illustration. for the use of l'exemple juste i hope the alert reader will forgive me. i also thank w. w. norton & co., inc., for granting permission for the use of these examples. 2. the other kind of familiar diminished sevenths will not be discussed here, namely the raised supertonic and submediant sevenths, but these are treated in piston and devoto (1987), chapter 25. 3. brahms and tchaikovsky did meet in person in leipzig in 1888 and enjoyed each other's company, but all evidence indicates that each detested the other's music. 4. franck himself had written a nice pair of non-boris church bells, on am7 and d7, in ie chasseur maudit, composed 1882. references brown, david. 1974. mikhail glinka: a biographical and critical study. oxford and new york: oxford university press. piston, walter and mark devoto. 1987. harmony, 5th ed. new york: w. w. norton. stravinsky, igor and robert craft. 1959. conversations with igor stravinsky. garden city, ny: doubleday. ---. 1962. expositions and developments. garden city, ny: doubleday. taruskin, richard. 1996. stravinsky and the russian traditions: a biography of the works through mavra. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. yellin, victor fell. 1998. the omnibus idea. detroit monographs in musicology, no. 22. warren, mi: harmonie park press. current.musicology.83.109-188.pdf peter szendy. 2008. listen: a history of our ears. translated by charlotte mandell. new york: fordham university press. reviewed by brian kane peter szendy's first translation into english has appeared on the shelves not merely by chance. it arrives in the wake of two recent trends in the academic world: an intense interest in all things having to do with the history and culture of the senses, and the sudden accession of jean-luc nancy as the academy's philosophe du jour. of course, these two trends are not unrelated, for few philosophers have questioned the senses, especially the sense of touch, in the way that nancy has over the past two decades. nancy's foreword to szendy's book is guaranteed to draw attention to the new release, especially coming immediately on the heels offordham's translation of nancy's short volume, listening. its "positioning" couldn't be better. however, unlike the terse, heideggerian-inflected prose of nancy, szendy's work appears far more sober. at first glance, it is little more than a piecemeal work, centered around three topics: a sketchy history of musical copyright, a rehashing of the rise of the work concept, and another critique of "structural listening" in the name of benjaminian distraction. and distrac­ tion appears to be a formal commitment as well-the ideas are doled out in small servings, a few pages each, typically featuring a historical anecdote, a quick textual reading, or a suggestive morsel of musical description. swerving away from the grand abstractions of late-deconstructive thinking, the book has no labyrinthine close-readings, no world-historical pronouncements, and ties itself in no tortured linguistic knots. szendy begins by posing the question, "who has a right to music?" like a keynote, continually developed throughout the text, it initiates a sustained investigation that is more than it first appears. szendy, echoing nancy, reformulates this question by playing with its prepositions-auscultating its various senses: who has a right to music? this question can also be reformulated thus: what can i make of music? what can i do with it? but also: what can i do to it, what can i do to music? what do i have the right to make of, do with or to music? (8) essentially, szendy is trying to outsmart a problem that is inherent in any history oflistening: what is the artifact? without direct access to the listening current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 145 146 current musicology of others, how can a history of listening be constructed? how do i share my listening, how do i make it available to others? how can i hear others hearing? using a deconstructive method that never becomes overly narcissistic, szendy develops an argument about the ecstatic structure of listening­ listening as a practice whose essence always requires the presence of another: another listener, another work, another performer, another instrument. listening is never reduced to sensory stimuli, or even a perceptual phenom­ enology. the investigation is philosophical in nature (which may come as a disappointment to readers craving a new contribution to the anthropology of the senses): less a history of the sense of hearing than the philosophical structure of the listening self. within this horizon, listen is a suggestive meditation. the history of musical copyright, the ontology of the musical work, and the eclipsing of structural listening, are linked within listening's interrogative horizon: ... i can copy (plagarize, steal, divert) music; i can rewrite (adapt, arrange, transcribe) it; i can, finally and especially, listen to it. schematically, i'll take the risk of regrouping these three possibilities under the generic term appropriation. (8) in this history of our ears, listening carves out a space inside the work, where the listener can appropriate it; the essence of the musical work is not indifferent to this space of appropriation, but is perpetually on the horizon yet-to-come, constituted by the ongoing history of such appropriations. these are all clever ideas. and even when they are echoing work already done in literary theory and philosophy (lacoue-labarthe, nancy, benjamin, de man, derrida), one is delighted to see them brought to bear on questions oflistening. however, suggestive meditations, while often intriguing to read, are not always convincing-but i'm getting ahead of myself. organized into four chapters, with a prelude and epilogue, listen treats three main themes. chapters 1 and 3, organized like a series of journal entries or a scrapbook of historical anecdotes, deal primarily with the question of musical copyright as an indicator of the history oflistening practices. chapter 2 works through the question of musical works from the perspective of "transcription" or "arrangement." chapter 4 and the epilogue form a unit on "the making of the modern ear;' one that moves beyond "structural listening" towards a listening supplemented with all sorts of electronic and computerized tools-an earful of remixes, mashups, and montages. i will address each of these themes in turn. brian kane 1. musical laws and introjection if there can be no direct history of listening, if listening possesses no im­ mediate artifact, a history of our ears must search out different, often covert routes to uncover its historical traces. szendy posits that scenes from the history of musical copyright afford precisely such a covert history of the ear by reflecting the changing habits and demands oflisteners in relation to the consolidation of the musical work. the year 1835 marks a "great change" in musical copyright (22). in that year a lawsuit was initiated by the directors of the paris opera and opera-comique which would deny the rights for public performance of selected excerpts of current operas in arrangements by unaffiliated orchestras. essentially, it marked a "shift of music towards the paradigm of the theater" (24), where every musical performance is considered to be a representation, subject to rules of exclusivity, ownership, and authorial interpretation. arrangement becomes illicit in relation to the authorized work. but it also marks a shift in our habits of listening, in that this autho­ rial right becomes introjected into our ears. exhibit a: a legal case initiated in 1853 by a count tyskiewicz, who tried to sue the paris opera for its performance of an arrangement of weber's der freischutz. szendy sees in this suit evidence of something remarkable: a trial initiated by a listener in the name of the work-a demand for the authenticity of the work in the name of authorial privilege. the law has been introjected into our ears. consolidation of musical copyright in the hands of authors and publishers discourages the malleability found in musical work before the "great change" of 1835. rigidity stifles the work's reception: " ... the increasing restriction on music's adaptability ... goes along with, and gives rise to, a concomitant reduction of its critical space" (31). szendy coins the term polemology to describe the struggles over who has a right to music, when it can be played, where it can be performed, and to what degree it can be altered. musical listening is always shaped by some interest or demand. "our private thoughts as listeners are dependent on a polemology of listening ... a form of polemology always haunts our listening" (31). if the work-concept has become second nature to us, szendywants to remind us that its formation was itself polemical, even dogmatic in nature. it comes from outside, and we lend our ears to it when we accede to its polemics, or when we come to believe in its truth. but be forewarned, " .. .if we are more readily tempted to take the side of someone like tyskiewicz, we should not forget that his pleading for the work is also a taking by violence" (31-32). in summary, "that there is a history of the notion of the work is not self-evident; but i hope that i have convinced you that the seemingly 147 148 current musicology obvious idea according to which individual musical works exist has emerged only slowly, in close correlation with the constitution of author's rights and with the consolidation of certain practices of performance" (lo2). let me stop the account right here and inquire, what reader still needs to be convinced of this claim? isn't there a terrible anachronism in trying to persuade us that the work concept is a construct? moreover, are we so na'ive as to think that the space oflistening is not a political space? to put it bluntly, i am puzzled why szendy feels the wheel of new musicology needs to be reinvented. despite szendy's fascination with the legal history of musical copyright, the reader might be less captivated. the historical anecdotes presented (which are amusing and well-written in their own right) are unable to support szendy's central claim that one can read the shaping oflistening in the history of musical law. 1 there is no specificity about the demands of the listener, about what the ear is actually hearing; szendy offers no articulation of this listening, no insight into what tyskiewicz might have been hearing. demanding that a work remain intact means something quite different in the mouth of a dilettante, amateur, snob, or connoisseur-but szendy subsumes such differences under the introjections of musical copyright. the use of historical anecdotes could have been greatly elaborated, providing a rough facture to the story, rather than forcing them to assert a schema. as it stands, the argument sticks out like the ribcage of some scrawny animal. simply claiming that the demands of the work eclipsed a critical space of listening does not amount to proving it. unfortunately, this critical space is not explicated in szendy's recounting oflegal history. thus, the reader feels no pathos when it gets replaced by a polemology. what one receives instead is a bygone ideology critique-a toothless nip at a dying work concept-and something far less ambitious than a critical history of listening. 2. arrangement as translation szendy's best work concerns the topic of arrangement, or transcription.2 the premise is surprisingly simple: arrangements afford an opportunity to listen to listening. the arranger is able to appropriate the works of others in the name of a listening; they "sign their names inside the work ... [setting] their names down next to the author's" (35). szendy posits this thesis: now, it seems to me that what arrangers are signing is above all a listening. their hearing of a work. they may even be the only listeners in the his­ tory of music to write down their listenings, rather than describe them (as critics do). and that is why i love them, i who so love to listen to someone listening. i love hearing them hear. (36) brian kane szendy's premise that arrangement inscribes a listening opens the horizon to other works which we may never have considered to be arrangements: remixes, plunderphonics, mashups, etc. (szendy address the consequences of these modern forms of arrangement in the final two chapters, in relation to structural listening. see part 3, below.) arrangements, like listening, possess an ecstatic structure. we listen to them as they point away towards another work-a structure of referrals, with a borrowed essence. there is always a "desire for the original in the hollow of the transcription" (57). conventionally, arrangements have been understood as peripheral to musical works-a kind of degraded reflection­ or simply a functional means of transmitting a work from the concert hall to the salon before the age of mechanically reproduced sound. they do not occupy the same ontological space as the musical work proper. lydia goehr describes the logic of devaluation that dogs arrangement: "transcription, orchestration, and arrangment ... [were 1 described as being bound and limited by the presence of an already existing work and, therefore, as not being strictly creative" (goehr 1992:223). szendy interrogates the derivative status of transcription to reveal its under-appreciated aspects. by reorienting transcription from the perspective of listening, szendy moves beyond a historicist critique of musical ontology, to argue that the musical work has always already been complicated by a shadowy double­ arrangement. by proliferating copies that are not merely copies, versions that challenge the unity of the ideal, arrangement undermines the autonomy of the musical work. in szendy's line of questioning, the work necessarily involves its appropriation by listeners, arrangers, performers, liebhabers, and opportunists. "the original and the arrangement are complementary, contiguous in their incompleteness and their distance from the essence of the work" (38). if at first glance this sentence seems to reinscribe the original and the copy as both equidistant from a unified essence of the work, let me suggest that the word "complementary" should be read in the sense of derrida's use of the word "supplementary." in fact, szendy is adamant in rejecting any concept of transcription that encloses it within a "functionalist horizon" (44). transcription cannot simply be understood as subordinated to a nineteenth -century demand for piano reductions or other instrumental arrangements for the purpose of wider circulation. nor can they be simply understood as adaptations, which allow works of one culture to be transported to the tastes of another, as in the adaptations of mozart's and weber's works for french audiences. for szendy, there is always something about arrangement that is in excess of this functionalist horizon. 149 150 current musicology in an arrangement, our listening is "torn between two parallel lines, one present and the other ghostly or spectral, our listening is stretched to the breaking point like a rubber band, between the transcription and the original" (58). it forms a space where listening oscillates, bounding and rebounding in a series of referrals. (this line of thinking is very close to nancy's concept of the renvoi elaborated in listening.) in szendy's terms, an arrangement reveals our listening as malleable, plastic, capable of forming to the contours of the "hollow." "tension" is a distinguishing characteristic of arrangement even in "the most simplistic or the kitchiest" (58). using stokowski's arrangement of bach's toccata and fugue in d minor as an example, szendy elucidates arrangement's complex phenomenology: "my ear is continually pricked up, torn between the actual orchestration and the imaginary organ that keeps superimposing itself like the shadow of a memory. i hear, inseparably, both the organ screened by the orchestra and the orchestra screened bya phantom organ ... we are hearing double" (36). this is a wonderful phrase, and szendy puts his finger on a strange consequence of transcription for any logic oflistening: our listening is "divided;' "doubled," "oscillating" between the original and its arrangement. franz liszt often drew an analogy between his own work as a transcriber and the work of literary translation. szendy, explicating the analogy, recon­ ceptualizes transcription using the lens of recent theories of translation. in particular, szendy borrows heavily from walter benjamin's essay, "the task of the translator," which dismisses functionalist notions of translation in favor of translation as a critical act. benjamin understands translation not as a carrying-over (literally "ubersetzung") from one language to another, but as revealing the historical nature of the original. literary works, like musical works, are constructed in a medium undergoing constant historical changes-they are plastic in nature-and develop, mature, and alter with the medium. according to benjamin, artworks must be envisioned as living things that possess an "afterlife:' in its afterlife-which could not be called that if it were not a transfor­ mation and a renewal of something living-the original undergoes a change. even words with fixed meanings can undergo a maturing process. (benjamin 1969:73) maturation would not be possible if works possessed a fixed, ahistorical essence. if so, translation would simply be a derivation or diminution of the original. but if arrangements appropriate works and articulate ways of hearing the original, we are forced to recognize that the work's essence is fluid, on the horizon, coming to be. arrangement supplements the work, articulating the "plasticity of the original" (52); it discloses the variety brian kane of possible senses of the work, senses which are always in the process of formation, yet-to-come. this benjaminian perspective guides szendy in his analysis of arrange­ ment and it is one of the most productive marriages of literary theory and musicology in recent memory. unlike the material on copyright, with its bygone conclusions, szendy manages to radically transform some very well-entrenched ideas about transcription. it is suggestive in the best sense of the term, and, if read closely, will act as a spur to further ·musicological and music-theoretic projects concerning transcription. this reviewer has yet to encounter better writing on the topic. it is reason enough to read this book. 3. beyond structural listening, again the final sections of the book are dedicated to "the making of the modern ear" (99), and trace the transformation of arrangement from the end of the nineteenth century into the twenty-first. it is a provocative idea-who else has drawn a connection between concatenated digital mashups and romantic transcription? the connection is convincing, given szendy's perspective on arrangement. one can agree that all these practices articulate listenings by making them available to others. however, there is a method­ ological problem that dogs szendy's analysis. instead of maintaining the supplementary relationship between arrangement and work, szendy retreats to a pre-deconstructive bifurcation, where modes of listening are sorted along musico-ontologicallines: the work concept leads towards a mode of structural listening, while transcription (and contemporary digital practice) leads towards a mode of distracted listening. starting with the former, szendy offers a reading of adorno's music sociology. "[the work] seems to be for adorno the only objective pole on which can be propped a sociology of musical listening that threatens oth­ erwise to be lost in the elusive and infinite variety of subjective individual reactions" (101). the mode oflistening adequate to the work is found in the "expert" listener, and is called "structural hearing" (adorno 1976:4-5). structural hearing designates a form of plenitude that admits of no void, no distraction, no wavering in listening ... it is a functional listening (it is a function of the work); it is a listening that, even though it analyzes (in order to grasp "simultaneous complexities ... separately and distinctly") is finally aiming at a synthesis. (103) 151 152 current musicology as in the chapter on arrangement, the term "functional" is szendy's personal f-word. to listen structurally is to submit oneself to the demands of the work, to have one's listening determined by the work, rather than from a critical relation to the work. the aim of expert listening is to hear everything, to make all relationships available and audible. szendy provides two examples. first, he describes schoenberg's arrangements as subject to this law of expert listening, a demand for total transparency. schoenberg said one reason for orchestrat­ ing brahms's g-minor quartet was that "i wanted to hear everything, and i succeeded" (127). thus, arrangement is functionalized: orchestration is deployed in order "to make the work absolutely transparent to listening."3 rather than a listener appropriating a work by parsing it, by giving it articulation and emphasis, the expert listener's desire for total transpar­ ency de-differentiates the work, willingly submitting the ear to the work's absolute autonomy. second, szendy addresses the idea of total audibility in the wagnerian reception of beethoven. wagner theorized beethoven's deafness as a withdrawal from the "phenomenal world" which afforded him a hearing "undisturbed by the bustle oflife" (121). paradoxically, beethoven's deafness, by detaching him from the distractions of the phenomenal world, afforded him access to the absolute transparency of the structural laws of the work. the deaf composer hears nothing but the essential. szendy coins this paradigm oflistening, clairaudience (121). a dialectical reversal comes at the very moment when szendy equates the expert listener with clairaudience and the demands of the work: but since the equal sign that wagner implicitly draws between deafness and total listening is reversible, we are right to wonder, in turn if this total listening isn't precisely a form of deafness on the part of the listener. to listen without any wandering, without ever letting oneself be distracted by 'the noises of life: is that still listening? shouldn't listening welcome some wavering into its heart? shouldn't a responsible listening (which can account for itself as well as for the work, rather than simply respond to an authoritative law) always be wavering? (121-2) in fact, distraction is what szendy is after:" ... distraction, lacunary listeningy might also be a means, an attitude, to make sense of the work; that a certain inattention, a certain wavering of listening, might also be a valid and fertile connection in auditory interpretation at work" (104). distraction entails an articulation and emphasis on various parts of a musical work. against the de-differentiation entailed by clairaudience, szendy encourages a listening that makes sense of the work by reorganizing its relations according to the listener's demands. brian kane the distracted listener acts like an arranger who submits the work to his own law. szendy identifies himself as precisely such a listener, "a discophile;' early in the book; he describes, in a hyperbolic paean, " ... the masterpiece i dream of, that suite articulating my best, favorite moments" (21). he describes his love of turning knobs on the stereo, to emphasize a particular passage, to place an accent on some musical turn of phrase or particularly captivating moment. rather than a functional submission to the work, distracted listening is a critical appropriation-a modern, technologically­ mediated reinscription. i cannot help but read szendy's defense of distraction as benjaminian in nature. the conflict between structural and distracted listening echoes these lines from benjamin's essay, "the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction" : distraction and concentration form polar opposites which may be stated as follows: a man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it ... in contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art. (benjamin 1969:239) this opposition of concentration and distraction maps directly onto the expert listener and the discophile. the hegemonic demands of the work absorb the expert listener in contrast with the discophile's distracted ab­ sorption of the original in the reinscribed piece. even the critical motif is an echo of benjamin; a distracted listener does not identify with the work because" [distraction 1 permits the audience to take the position of a critic" (benjamin 1969:228). could it be that listen secretly attempts to add an additional round to the adorno-benjamin debate? i think so. but the rebuttal is problematic because szendy fails to characterize expert listening as anything other than a caricature. let me pose the reader a question: have you ever recognized yourself in the expert listener? does adorno's description of the expert listener adequately represent his own transcribed listenings as evidenced in his other musicological writings? i think the answer is-on both counts-no. perhaps it should be recalled that the expert listener, as part of any typology of listening, is an "ideal type" (adorno 1976:3). adorno offers an example of an expert listener as someone who, "on their first encounter with the second movement of web ern's trio for strings can name the formal components of that dissolved, architectonically unsupported piece" (4). however, adorno's own listenings, as captured in his critical writing on mahler, berg or beethoven, move far beyond such formalism. szendy, like so many critics of adorno, reads structural listening 153 154 current musicology as formalism, plain and simple. yet, the straitjacket of formalism doesn't fit the rest of adorno's output. considering szendy's love of arrangement, perhaps he is upset over adorno's harsh flogging of arrangers in the essay "on the fetish-character in music and the regression of listening" (adorno 2002). but this should not stop him from recognizing that adorno-in the very best of his musicological writings-oscillates between whole and part, creating a productive tension that mutually illuminates the philosophical claims and the musical details. like many critiques of the "expert listener;' it is easy to get a mouthful of hay when biting a straw man. if szendy makes a case for distraction to underscore the listener's ap­ propriation of the work, a few more issues need to be addressed. first, he ignores the line where appropriation becomes identification with the given. appropriation is one of the surest means of control, as adorno analyzed in the culture industry. power over the individual is dissimulated when the distracted listener mistakes forced consumption with appropriation. adorno wrote, "the fetish character of music produces its own camouflage though the identification of the listener with the fetish" (adorno 2002:305). second, szendy's dream of a "suite articulating my best, favorite moments" (21) may sound nice as a music lover's discourse, but it veers dangerously close to valorizing only what is already known. in this dream there is no space for difference, nowhere for the listener to encounter what is unfamiliar. it remains unclear how one can conceive of a musical work whose ontology is yet to come if such room for the unknown is excluded; and that is ~ shame, because it was one of the best theses in the book. lastly, if listening is an act of appropriation, the proof should be in the listenings that one shares. after reading adorno, beethoven sounds different. but unfortunately, one could not say the same after completing szendy's book. at the very best, after reading it, we conceptualize arrangements dif­ ferently. and that is to be celebrated. but szendy never attempts to share an extended listening with the reader. 4 sadly, we never get the opportunity to listen to szendy listening. notes 1. i am not saying the claim is false, just that szendy does not provide enough evidence to make the case. 2. "arrangement" and "transcription" will be used interchangeably in this review. 3. one could also support this with adorno's claim that, "the total construction of music permits constructive instrumentation of an undreamt-of degree. schoenberg's and webern's arrangements of bach : .. translate the most minute motivic relationships of the compositions into those of timbre and thus realize them for the first time" (adorno 2006:69). 4. the one exception is a very schematic reading of don giovanni, which plays out the simply binary opposition between two regimes of listening: distracted listening vs. clairaudience. brian kane references adorno, theodor. 1976. introduction to the sociology of music, translated by e. b. ashton. new york: seabury. ---. 2002. essays on music, selected and edited by richard leppert. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. ---.2006. philosophy of new music, translated and edited by robert hullot-kentor. minneapolis: minnesota university press. benjamin, walter. 1969. illuminations, translated by harroy zohn, edited by hannah arendt. new york: schocken books. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum of musical works. oxford and new york: oxford university press. nancy, jean-luc. 2007. listening, translated by charlotte mandell. new york: fordham university press. 155 current.musicology.86.101-184.pdf heffley, mike. 2005. northern sun, southern moon: europe's reinvention of jazz. new haven: yale university press. reviewed by george e. lewis with the publication of mike heffley's northern sun, southern moon: europe's reinvention of jazz, yale university press joins the ranks of the few american academic presses that have published serious scholarly work on post -1965 experimental improvised musics in europe. this book documents an important period in recent european music history that is only begin­ ning to be addressed by scholars writing in english, and in the process, uses a unique combination of historical inquiry and ethnographic practice that brings out a series of fascinating and contentious issues surrounding this network of players and their music. between roughly 1957 and 1965, no sound was seen as alien to the in­ vestigations of ornette coleman, don cherry, albert ayler, cecil taylor, marion brown, roswell rudd, sunny murray, and many others who were scandalizing audiences and critics with their "free jazz." as amiri baraka remembered in the autobiography of leroi jones, we knew the music was hip and new and out beyond anything anyone downtown was doing, in music, painting, poetry, dance, or whatever the fuck. and we felt, i know i did, that we were linked to that music that trane and ornette and c. t., shepp and dolphy and the others, were mak­ ing' so the old white arrogance and elitism of europe as center art was stupid on its face. (1984:266-67) these wide-ranging challenges to musical form and cultural hegemony, however, have received relatively short shrift by anglophone academic mu­ sic historians, even given the recent rise of jazz studies as a potent metadiscipline. in particular, the historical record between 1965 and the emergence ofwynton marsalis in the early 1980s appears to have been swal­ lowed by a black hole. john litweiler's survey of the period (1984) still stands out among the popular histories written in english that do cross over into the relatively uncharted waters of post -1965 free music. in recent years, aca­ demic publishers have belatedly followed suit with detailed studies of par­ ticular issues of the period, instead of the usual, more commercially ori­ ented jazz survey texts. two excellent early entries were david such's eth­ nography of 1980s free jazz musicians living on new york's lower east side (1993), and ronald radano's important study of the work of anthony current musicology, no. 78 (fall 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 77 78 current musicology braxton (1993). since the turn of the new century, the study of post -1965 improvised music has slowly been gathering critical mass in anglophone scholarship, with eric porter's analysis of the writings of african american experimen­ tal musicians such as braxton, leo smith, and marion brown (2002), and canadian literary theorist ajay heble's set of critical essays, landing on the wrong note (2000). most recently, sociologist herman gray's work has fo­ cused on steve coleman and other younger-generation experimentalists (2005), while ethnomusicologist deborah wong has extensively documented histories and practices in asian american jazz and improvisation move­ ments (2004). other recent and important studies are published in two notable anthologies: daniel fischlin and ajay heble's the other side of nowhere (2004) and uptown conversation: the new jazz studies (2004), edited by robert g. o'meally, brent edwards, and farah jasmine griffin.l one reason for the apparent dearth of american writing on this period in music history can be read profitably through the reception of the work of john coltrane. in the wake of his 1964 four-movement suite, a love su­ preme, coltrane had reached a pinnacle of public acclaim and international influence that crossed lines of genre and practice2 , influencing not only jazz­ identified artists, but early minimalists terry riley and lamonte young, as well as rock bands the doors and the byrds. nonetheless, starting around 1965, coltrane-who like nearly all black musicians, had no presence in the cozy cold war academic consensus that insulated white american compos­ ers from the financial consequences of their musical actions-bet his career on his embrace of the even more transgressive and hotly contested work of his younger colleagues-most notably albert ayler, archie shepp, and pha­ raoh sanders. four important tropes that emerged to describe the work of coltrane and his experimentalist colleagues were "anger;'''noise,'' "insanity;' and "fail­ ure." a 1966 new york times magazine headline combined the first two tropes, announcing to its largely white middle-class readership that the new music was "black, angry and hard to understand" (hentoff 1966).3 how­ ever, charges of a lack of basic musicianship, routinely ascribed to free jazz musicians at the time, could not be applied to coltrane, whose mastery was evident and widely admired among both musicians and listeners. as a re­ sult, "insanity" was frequently asserted to "explain" his post -1965 work. the important jazz critic dan morgenstern, faced with a post-1965 coltrane concert at lincoln center that featured ayler, sanders, carlos ward, and alice coltrane, wondered impassionedly, "is he the prisoner of a band of hypnotists? has he lost all musical judgment? or is he putting on his audi­ ence?" (1966:35)4 george e. lewis the trope of failure was exemplified by morgenstern's conclusion that the coltrane event was "saddening" and "unworthy of a great musician" (1966:35). some thirty years later, the "failure" trope continues to be worked in some circles with no small degree of alacrity. for instance, what cultural historian gerald early heard as a "despairing 'cul-de-sac' quality about a good deal of coltrane's late-period music of 1965 to 1967" constituted merely a prologue to his wide-ranging 1999 attack on coltrane's music, spiritual conceptions, and even his personality. around the same time, critic john mcdonough, referring to the free jazz musicians as "the lost generation," called coltrane "a profoundly false prophet who used his prestige and cha­ risma, even in death, to lead jazz down a dead end from which it would not begin to emerge for 20 years" (1998:378). mcdonough dated the period of coltrane's "decline" from 1964, and it should not be lost on readers that his notion of jazz's emergence from an ensuing two-decade "dead end" appears to coincide with the advent of the neoclassical revival in jazz, which is still in progress. 5 as mike heffley's work makes abundantly clear, these portrayals of coltrane as a great artist in decline (which appear to be at considerable variance with the saxophonist's ongoing influence among listeners in the united states, where coltrane's recordings remain in print) were certainly not shared on the other side of the atlantic ocean. in fact, around 1964, free jazz, far from being seen as a failure, was providing the spark for the emer­ gence of a new generation of european jazz musicians. if prior to this pe­ riod european jazz musicians were said to inhabit a landscape in which aesthetic, methodological, and stylistic direction flowed for the overwhelm­ ing part from america, after 1964, a new move toward aesthetic self-deter­ mination was taking shape, with a new generation of european musicians promulgating a specifically european practice of free jazz that succeeded in breaking away from american stylistic directions and jazz signifiers. borrowing from a critically important event in nineteenth-century american history, the end of chattel slavery, this declaration of difference and independence has entered german jazz history as die emanzipation. heffley sees the term emanzipation as having been introduced by the ger­ man critic joachim ernst berendt in 1986; in fact, berendt uses and ex­ plains the term in his 1977 book ein fenster aus jazz (222). in any event, by the time the post-1965 european improvisation movement began in ear­ nest, jazz was already serving as an international symbol of freedom and mobility. thus, it seems entirely fitting that jazz, among the most powerful and influential symbolic expressions of one emancipation, would become in turn the inspiration for another. heffley's book focuses on the emanzipation of the german free jazz 79 80 current musicology scene, and draws substantially from his massive, 1,700-page dissertation on freie musik produktion (free music production), the important musicians' collective and record label founded in the late 1960s by jost gebers, his part­ ner dagmar gebers, and the saxophonist peter brotzmann (heffley 2000). most of the author's interviews in northern sun are with musicians who are either part of that scene or have had close associations with it. in contrast to the situation in the united states, serious musical analy­ ses of the music of coltrane and his colleagues were in relative abundance in the europe of the mid-1970s. not coincidentally, one of the first such analyses of american free jazz was written (in english) in 1975 by a ger­ man scholar, ekkehard jost, and published in the united states in 1981. it is no exaggeration to say that jost's body of work constitutes one of the most important historical and critical contributions to scholarship on black american experimental music. nonetheless, none of jost's other important books on american music, such as his 1991 sozialgeschichte des jazz in den usa, have been translated into english. in fact, french, german, japanese, and italian studies of improvised music rarely make it to the united states. in a globalized environment, american scholars' neglect of very well-developed writing on improvisa­ tion by people like jost, wolfram knauer, bert noglik, hans kumpf, chris­ tian broecking, and the late peter niklas wilson (one of the few whose writ­ ings have been rendered in english) can be seen as a serious lacuna that impoverishes stateside scholarship. indeed, this is one of the major issues that the heffley book addresses, and for which his book provides a welcome corrective. the classic french-language treatise on the "new thing;' philippe carles and jean-louis comolli's 1971 free jazz/black power is still practically un­ known in the united states. more of a scholarly than a journalistic work, yet written in accessible language, free jazz/black power articulated a proto­ postcolonial emphasis which stood in sharp contrast with nearly all ameri­ can accounts of the history of black music. the two authors draw upon the work of amiri baraka and frank kofsky in identifying in black music a dynamic of resistance to colonization, in direct opposition to "white ameri­ can capitalism, its ideology and its system of values" (carles and comolli [1971] 2000:49).6 furthermore, the two french writers maintained that mainstream american critics were essentially complicit in these race-based systems of domination-a topic that was rarely addressed in the united states until baraka's famous essay "jazz and the white critic" placed the issue squarely on the table (baraka [1963] 1998). carles and comolli found baraka's analy­ sis particularly compelling for its inclusion of the social at a time when george e. lewis american jazz writing followed traditional musicology in relying upon apo­ litical constructions of the radical autonomy of the artwork. in this respect, carles and comolli maintained that for many years, "european criticism has played-on the cultural plane if not directly on the commercial plane­ a relatively more important role than american criticism." ( [1971] 2000:83).7 northern sun is refreshingly ecumenical, refusing the polemical stance that marked british critic ben watson's hefty volume on guitarist derek bailey (watson 2004). heffley draws from bailey's lasting contribution to theorizing on improvisation, the notion of improvisation as having "idi­ omatic" and "non-idiomatic" practices (bailey 1992). this binary is most often used by later commentators to create a distinction between free jazz­ deemed idiomatic and therefore bound to particular histories and codified practices-and free improvisation, which is said to eschew precisely those codifications. commentators who compare european and african ameri­ can improvisors most often place the african americans on the "idiomatic" side of the line-placing europeans in the mobility position, and allowing white identity free rein.8 those advocating a similarly bright line may be annoyed at the way heffley freely mixes and conflates the two terms, thereby denying a racialized cast to them. nonetheless, heffley's position on this "free jazz versus free improvisation debate" at times appears to support a commonly asserted evolutionary narrative in which british improvisors, according to british writer kenneth ansell, used free jazz "as merely a developmental stage to a yet more radical form of music making" (heffley 2004:90). interestingly, notions of tempo and rhythm often playa decisive role in establishing the evolutionary taxonomy. in particular, the absence of fixed tempi is often framed as a sign of "advanced" music. for instance, the claim made by a number of european free players (as reported by heffley), that the work of drummers tony williams and elvin jones in "confounding the steady beat in the drums opened up the door to the complete 'no-time' percussive col­ or isms of paul lovens and tony oxley," draws upon this framing. at the same time, the presumption of the anteriority of european free jazz musi­ cians regarding the "liberation of time" is at variance with berendt's 1976 observation that first-generation european free musicians-who by 1965 had heard at first hand not only the tempo-based work of williams and jones, but also the "no-time" work of albert ayler, roswell rudd, and drum­ mers sunny murray, milford graves, and beaver harris-were particularly impressed with the way that american free jazz pursued a freedom from fixed rhythmic pulses that had yet to be explored in their own work (berendt 1976:370). heffley's dissertation does not really cover any scenes other than the 81 82 current musicology german, but the book expands this focus to europe proper. at the same time, the relatively brief treatment of the non-german scenes provoked this reader to wonder why the work was expanded to include material whose implications could not be more fully explored. while the sketches of free jazz scenes in france, scandinavia, and particularly eastern europe and the soviet union are welcome and valuable, certainly the german scene, with its large number of players who came to prominence in the wake of the emanzipation and the substantial theorizing that continues to inform its history, was sufficiently diverse to merit a book on its own. hopefully the author did not feel undue pressure to produce more of a survey text than a detailed study; in any case, the majority of the book leans quite effectively toward the latter, while at the same time prompting a reader's reflection on the need for further work on the post-1960s internationalization of jazz and improvised music. readers expecting a straightforward chronological narrative of euro­ pean free music will be disabused of that expectation within the first hun­ dred or so pages. the organization of the book is episodic, traversing a wide range of discourses and histories. in particular, large swathes of the narra­ tive are devoted to the exploration of origin stories, or what heffley calls "big history"-not only the immediate geopolitical environment, which is well covered, but also the large-scale historical and cultural network within which european free jazz can be situated. perhaps inspired by curt sachs's popular 1961 text the wellsprings of music, heffley's origin narratives range across vast tracts of european history. the effect is bracing. the seeming torrent of references sprinkled throughout the book establishes the author's familiarity with subjects rang­ ing from neuroscience to the masons to sociobiology. the points of refer­ ence are too many to count, and yet one seems to move rapidly through them, sometimes barely stopping to smell the flowers. then, suddenly and without warning, we zoom in from heffley's frequent and often fascinating disquisitions into the symbolic, the arcane, the occult, and the generally spiritual, to the microlevel of the actual subject, the musicians. for instance, heffley's references to the work of musicologist and com­ poser jacques chailley, known for his contention that the magic flute's li­ bretto was written to incorporate masonic ritual, amply establish heffley's method with respect to the relationship of history, sound, and spirit (1971). as heffley sees it, chailley's work illuminates the "relationship between har­ monic moment and the west's unfolding of it into temporal flows" (heflley 2004:34). later, heffley zooms in, hearing the "big and dirty" timbre of brotzmann's tenor saxophone as an example of"chailley's first-octave om" (138). at the same time, while one understands how the history of western george e. lewis harmony might inform an understanding of the overall historical context from which european free jazz emanated, a more proximate connection between these histories and the work of these players remains, in my view, tantalizingly undertheorized by the author. one quibble that i have with heffley's account concerns the lack of attention to the continuing and intense ferment in the african american community regarding the place of jazz in both american society and afro­ american culture. to claim that african americans "did not ply their own minds and voice to [jazz's] body of print until the 1960s" (5) overlooks a great deal, including most prominently, the work of the philosopher and aesthetician alain locke, who wrote extensively on jazz despite his ambiva­ lence about it ([ 1936] 1969). ted vincent's book on black reception of 1920s and 1930s jazz (1995) also contradicts northern sun's thesis, as does paul burgett (1990).9 the absence of an account of this ferment affects heffley's analysis of european free jazz. in particular, the lack of theorizing of the relation between first -generation american free jazz musicians and ameri­ can black cultural nationalism (except as this is filtered either through amiri baraka, or through the work of european writers on jazz) makes it more difficult to see how european free jazz musicians actually drew upon the example of black cultural nationalism, aligning themselves with a comple­ mentary european nativism as part of their identity construction process. in fact, several of heffley's interviewees draw upon this trope of europeanl white cultural nationalism, and even heffley himself identifies the search for his own german heritage (7) as a primary motivation for his research. heffley's interview with east german drummer gunter "baby" sommer, makes the german strategy plain: how could we, with all that we had developed in european music culture, develop something of a worthy response to american jazz culture? and that was the moment when i, with [pianist] ulrich gumpert, began to dig around in german soil just as america had the blues, we felt, so have we ancient german folk music, prussian marches. (2004:212)ld one of the more interesting aspects of the book concerns the alacrity with which european free jazz musicians asserted the oedipal regarding their african american influences. one important theme in the book concerns bassist peter kowald's exhortation to "kill the fathers" -in more genteel terms, combating the anxiety of influence. both this anxiety and heffley's analysis of it, however, seem predicated upon an underestimation of the impact of race on musical reception and practice. if we decide to acknowl­ edge the potential impact of race here, it is difficult to avoid the possibility that at least part of that anxiety had to do with the source of the influence, 83 84 current musicology an afrodiasporic music that, in world war ii germany in particular, had been regarded as a locus of the primitive-certainly not to be taken seri­ ouslyas a source of culture. in any event, one way to "kill the fathers" would be to write them out of your history; heftley's narrative, to its credit, rather substantially writes them back in. nonetheless, heffley prefers to discuss class in analyzing the european musical situation-for example, framing the connection between pianist alexander von schlippenbach, a hereditary graf, and brotzmann, a "local grassroots working man" as emblematic of "the class unity the west needed to forge for itself before unifying with the rest of the world" (158). here, heftley's analysis might feel pressure from stuart hall's observation that "race is the modality through which class is lived" (1996:55)-itself an at­ tempt by hall to turn conventional marxism toward a confrontation with the reality that the dislocations of race could not simply be subsumed un­ der the class struggle. the fruits of heffley's own research, in fact, could lead one to side with hall. heftley points out that free improvisation, despite its problematization of the divide between high and low culture, is nonetheless classified by the german performing rights society gemni as a form of u-musik­ unterhaltungsmusik, or music for conversation, as opposed to e-musik­ ernst or serious music from the european high culture (2004:216-17). this fact indicates the degree to which even european free jazz musicians, with few or no african americans around, still experience the reception of their art through the modalities of race; in europe, as in the united states, jazz performances on recordings, radio, and television are paid at a much lower rate, reflecting the connection between the music's lower class status and its presumed racial origins. in this context, it is hardly surprising that, as heffley notes, "as euro­ pean jazz players have turned to their own cultures to find their musical identities, they have turned more to art music than folk tradition" (233). as heffley recounts, a similar development was envisioned by von schlippenbach as early as 1975, when he advocated that his globe unity orchestra receive "the opportunity to work with art music composers," a development that would take free improvisation "into the common cul­ tural discourse" (155).12 in this context, it is tempting to entertain the pos­ sibility that one pragmatic reason for these prodigal sons to kill their adopted black fathers was to regain acceptance by their "natural" white ones. more recently, the retrospective folding of european improvisors (but not their black american colleagues) into a revised high-culture consensus has been a critical feature of recent european scholarly and popular writing, as in any recent issue of the popular british music magazine the wire. george e. lewis the drive to de-emphasize race leads heffley to rather uncritically en­ dorse a contention that appears consistently among the european musi­ cians-namely, that europe, unlike the united states, had "no race prob­ lem." this recapitulates, at least in part, the experiences of earlier genera­ tions of visiting african american jazz musicians, some of whom found in europe a measure of acceptance for their art and for themselves as persons. curiously, however, the book never references the extensive literature on the experiences of african americans or other persons of color in europe, preferring to draw conclusions regarding european racial attitudes directly from europeans themselves. in this light, this declaration of "no racism" may be meant either to foreclose considerations of race as a factor in the production of european free music, or simply to assert european identity through distance and dif­ ference from the conditions of production of black american music. this presumed absence of racism, however, can also be viewed as a critically im­ portant mediating factor, in that european free improvisors were appar­ ently free to pursue their art unburdened by the dynamics associated with being part of a minority people or a racially oppressed or otherwise subal­ tern group. heffley is rather unkind to jacques attali, accusing him of calling free jazz a "dated dead end" (307n5), when in fact the theorist saw free jazz as representing "a profound attempt to win creative autonomy" (attali 1989:138). perhaps the author is referring to attali's view of the ultimate fate of free jazz-to be "contained, repressed, limited, censored, expelled" by the dominant culture (1989:140). similarly, at times, heffley's generally careful field notes fail him, as when he reports on a lecture i gave in which i was said to assert that brotzmann's 1967 "machine gun" was a "blatant imitation" ofjohn coltrane's 1965 "ascension" (heffley 2004:134). in fact, the piece in question was the first movement of coltrane's 1966 "medita­ tions"; heffley treats the (misreported) contention as fanciful, and an in­ formed reader can be forgiven for doing the same. !3 heffley's interviews elicit much of interest regarding the connection european free musicians feel to history. sometimes, however, this reader longed for a sense of the evolution of the artists' thinking and practices. how did their ideas on their chosen practice-improvisation-develop, change, and grow over the years? were there any doubts about the practice and its creative possibilities? did they rethink the ambivalence of their rela­ tionship with the tradition of european composition, as both a source of national, even racial pride, and a standard against which they defined them­ selves? it should be kept in mind that these artists are part of an internationally 85 86 current musicology recognized movement that has elicited a vast amount of recordings, com­ mentary, and interviews over a forty-year span. few of these earlier inter­ views with the improvisors were referenced in the heffley text, however. in their stead we have a very helpful series of interviews from 1997, done by the author, for which, nonetheless, the function of hindsight-enhanced memories becomes an issue for the reader to sort out. of course, researchers working on jazz are eventually obliged to con­ front philosopher theodor adorno's scathing critique of jazz and popular music. one of the most thoroughgoing critiques was published in german in 1992 by the german sociologist heinz steinert, whose work is not refer­ enced in northern sun's encounter with adorno's ideas. steinert's book­ length critique thoroughly contextualizes adorno's jazz writing at length; byway of contrast, practically all english-language work on the subject con­ sists of essay-sized contributions.14 various commentators have attempted to explain (or to explain away) the shrillness, vehemence, and frequent ahistoricism connected with adorno's views on this matter. to that end, some critics have settled on the justification that adorno never heard "real jazz," meaning the transgressive avant -garde modernism that emerged either with ellington, parker, coltrane, or ayler, depending on the critic's affinities. heffley is in this category, in­ sisting that adorno's work is actually in sympathy with the spirit of "the post-free aesthetic" (183), and in particular, with the music of anthony braxton. the author even optimistically suggests that adorno, had he lived long enough, would have written a book "lauding the ways the free-jazz movement in both america and europe addressed concerns and righted wrongs he had declared throughout his life" (185). steinert is not as generous as heffley, pointing out that despite the fact that the philosopher could have heard not only bebop, but also the earliest stirrings offree jazz, "ware er wirklich interessiert gewesen" (1992:17), his "polemic" against jazz extended well into the 1960s. moreover, heffley's op­ timism could be said to miss adorno's contention that the transgression attributed to jazz was merely a chimera in any case, its notion of the pri­ macy of the "individual voice" a mere fiction concealing the howling pain emanating from the wound of (black) castration that constituted the fun­ damental psychological basis of the music. is on this view, it seems just as likely that adorno would have denounced european free jazz musicians, not only for succumbing to the blandishments of the music's ephemerality, but also for a kind of social and intellectual self-mutilation unworthy of their historical and ethnic provenance. with the exception of tuvan singer sainkho namchylak, women im­ provisors, and the analysis of gender more broadly, playa relatively minor george e. lewis role in the book. uschi bruning was the only woman musician interviewed for the book; other important women improvisors, such as singer maggie nicols, saxophonist and bassoonist lindsay cooper, and the swiss pianist irene schweizer-despite her status as "the one woman in europe's emanzipation history with as much stature as the men" -are marginalized to a footnote (heffley 2004:323n28). moreover, the author's contention that free jazz "served to defuse glaring polarizations and imbalances of power, including those of patriarchal heterosexuality as normative" (88) is contra­ dicted by the recollections of schweitzer and nicols, as recounted in julie dawn smith's 2004 article on women in post -emanzipation free improvisa­ tion. valerie wilmer's much earlier and better-known survey of black ameri­ can free jazz, as serious as your life (1977), recounts the difficulties african american female musicians encountered with their male peers, while her 1989 book mama said there'd be days like this discussed similar issues with both patriarchy and heteronormative thinking in the european free improvisation theater of operations. while heffley seems content to "out" cecil taylor and sun ra, his otherwise careful tiptoeing around issues of gender and sexuality seems at variance with his stated purpose of uncover­ ing the nature of eros as a "big history" musical determinant. finally, as i read this intriguing and very valuable narrative, i was left with the impression that for all the talk of emanzipation, african american musical culture and its experimental musicians still loom large in the dis­ cussions with these european musicians-whether as revered antecedents, favored colleagues, as objects of critique or ambivalence, or as foils for a negative aesthetic. indeed, the centrality of african american culture to the narrative of european free music cannot be overlooked, and heffley, unlike some commentators, is not at pains to disguise this evident fact. with that in mind, i give the final word to muhal richard abrams, a musician who, like most members of the aacm, the other important ex­ perimental musicians' collective that emerged in the mid -1960s, never col­ laborated with any of the emanzipated europeans. ekkehard jost, interview­ ingabrams for a volume published in 1982, engages the pianist-composer on the question of european jazz. in fact, abrams is far more accepting than jost on the question of the centrality of the european experience: what they did in reality is finally, that they mixed in something from their own culture, so that there, another direction came about. and they should do that. but then, it's not about black creativity any more. it's a process of blending ... i think that what they are doing is a hybrid ... and this hybrid is exactly what you in germany, the german musicians, have before you. 87 88 current musicology i'm sure that these musicians are developing something. but they're de­ veloping it on the basis of who they themselves are as germans. (jost 1982:199-200; translation author's)16 notes 1. among the younger scholars represented in these two anthologies, jason robinson, julie dawn smith, michael dessen, dana reason, stephen lehman, salim washington, tamar barzel, kevin mcneilly, ellen waterman, and jason stanyek explore experimental improvi­ sation by combining ethnographic and historical practice. 2. see kahn (2002). 3. this reflection of critical reception in the jazz field, ominously linking the music to black power and other black political movements, can be read in light of historian jon cruz's observation that the trope of "noise" not only characterized white overseers' reception of slave music during the period of american chattel slavery, but continued to be asserted throughout the jazz age and beyond. see cruz (1999). 4. as rap artist chuck d put it, comparing his own experience with that of his predecessor, "writers treat me like coltrane, insane" (public enemy 1988). 5. curiously, however, mcdonough undercuts his own argument by deploying leonard meyer's notion of "fluctuating stasis;' a kind of multiple-canon theory that proposed a fu­ ture in which no single movement or approach would dominate a given artistic field. in­ deed, beneath the notice of the powerful american megamedia's embrace ofwynton marsalis as the quintessential jazz hero, revised practices of free jazz and its offshoots continued to proliferate, gather adherents and audiences, and exercise considerable influence. many of these ongoing developments were indeed taking place in europe, mostly unnoticed by ameri­ can publishers and editors, if not by musicians and audiences. in that light, kevin whitehead's popular history/ethnography of experimental music in the netherlands (1998) is perhaps a natural precursor to northern sun. 6. "le capitalisme blanc americain, son ideologie et son systeme de valeurs." 7. " ... la critique europeenne a joue-au plan culturel sinon directement au plan commer­ cial-un role relativement plus important que la critique americaine:' an excellent recent review of french reception of post -1960s black experimentalism is found in lehman (2005). 8. see, for instance, lebaron (2002). for an account of this history that is less ideologically invested in asserting black/white binaries, however cryptically, see couldry (1995). 9. vincent's book (1995) is cited in heffley's bibliography. 10. in a way, the adoption of african american free jazz by europeans more or less auto­ matically brought race to the table of european music history in a new way, even as more historically distant eruptions of musical race-consciousness in europe are only beginning to be explored, notably by musicologists such as jann pasler (2004). increasingly, younger schol­ ars working on musical topics are beginning to avail themselves of the tools that scholars in other fields, such as michael omi and howard winant, henry louis gates, herman gray, stuart hall, paul gilroy, robin d. g. kelley, hazel carby, and emanuel chukwudi eze, among many others, have developed for accounting for the dynamics of race. this integration of race is particularly trenchantly exemplified in born and hesmondhalgh (2000). 11. the acronym gema stands for "gesellschaft fur musikalische aufftihrungsund george e. lewis mechanische vervielfaltigungsrechte." 12. i discuss this attempt to enter the european cultural consensus at greater length in lewis (2004). 13. for a discussion of the brotzmann/coltrane gloss, see lewis (2004). 14. see, for example, gracyk (1992) and witkin (1998). for a more recent and more philo­ sophically oriented critique of adorno's jazz interpretations, see bethune (2003). 15. "the aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'give up your masculinity, let yourselfbe castrated; the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite:" (adorno [1953j 1981:129). 16. "was sie in wirklichkeit getan haben ist letztlich, dass sie etwas von ihrer eigenen kultur hineingemengt haben, so dass da eine andere wendung entstanden ist. und das sollen sie auch machen. aber dabei handelt es sich nicht mehr urn schwarze kreativiuit. es ist ein verschmelzungsprozess ... ich glaube, was sie machen, ist ein hybrid ... und dieses hybrid ist genau dass was ihr in deutschland, die deutschen musiker, vor euch habt. ich bin ganz sicher, dass diese musiker etwas entwickeln. aber sie entwickeln es auf der basis dessen, was sie selbst als deutsche sind:' references adorno, theodor. [1953j 1981. perennial fashion-jazz. in prisms, translated by samuel weber and sherry weber, 119-32. cambridge, ma: mit press. attali, jacques. 1989. noise: the political economy of music, translated by brian massumi. minneapolis: university of minnesota. bailey, derek. 1992. improvisation: its nature and practice in music. london: british library national sound archive. baraka, amiri. [1963j 1998. jazz and the white critic. in the jazz cadence of american culture, edited by robert g. o'meally, 137-42. new york: columbia university press. ---. 1984. the autobiography of leroi jones. chicago: lawrence hill books. berendt, joachim ernst. 1976. das jazzbuch: von rag bis rock. frankfurt am main: fischer taschenbuch verlag. ---. 1977. ein fenster aus jazz: essays, portraits, reflexionen. frankfurt am main: s. fischer verlag. bethune, christian. 2003. adorno et ie jazz: analyse d'un deni aesthetique. paris: klinksieck. born, georgina, and david hesmondhalgh, eds. 2000. western music and its others: differ­ ence, representation, and appropriation in music. berkeley: university of california press. burgett, paul. 1990. vindication as a thematic principle in the writings of alain locke on the music of black americans. in black music in the harlem renaissance: a collection of essays, edited by samuel a. floyd, 29-40. knoxville: university of tennessee press. carles, philippe and jean-louis comolli. [1971 j 2000. free jazz/black power. paris: gallimard. chailley, jacques. 1971. the magic flute: masonic opera, translated by herbert weinstock. new york: knopf. couldry, nick. 1995. turning the musical table: improvisation in britain 1965-1990. rub­ berneck 19: 3-38. cruz, jon. 1999. culture on the margins: the black spiritual and the rise of american cul­ tural interpretation. princeton: princeton university press. early, gerald. 1999. ode to john coltrane: a jazz musician's influence on african american 89 90 current musicology culture. antioch review 57 (3): 371-85. fischlin, daniel and ajay heble, eds. 2004. the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and communities in dialogue. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. gracyk, theodore. 1996. rhythm and noise: an aesthetics of rock. durham, nc and lon­ don: duke university press. gray, herman s. 2005. cultural moves: african americans and the politics of representation. berkeley: university of california press. hall, stuart. 1996. race, articulation, and societies structured in dominance. in black brit­ ish cultural studies: a reader, edited by houston a. baker, manthia diawara, and ruth h. lindeborg, 16-60. chicago: university of chicago press. heble, ajay. 2000. landing on the wrong note: jazz, dissonance, and critical practice. new york: routledge. heffley, mike. 2000. northern sun, southern moon: identity, improvisation, and idiom in freie musik produktion. phd dissertation, wesleyan university. hentoff, nat. 1966. the new jazz: black, angry and hard to understand. new york times magazine (december 23): 34-39. jost, ekkehard. 1981. free jazz. new york: da capo press. ---. 1982. jazzmusiker: materialien zur soziologie der afro-amerikanischen musik. frank­ furt am main: ullstein materialien. ---. 1991. sozialgeschichte des jazz in den usa. frankfurt am main: wolke verlag. kahn, ashley. 2002. a love supreme: the story of john coltrane's signature album. new york: viking. lebaron, anne. 2002. reflections of surrealism in postmodern musics. in postmodern mu­ sic, postmodern thought, edited by judy lochhead and joseph auner, 27-73. new york: routledge. lehman, stephen h. 2005. i love you with an asterisk: african american experimental composers and the french jazz press, 1970-1980. critical studies in improvisation 1 (2). http://repository.lib.uoguelph.ca/ojs/index.php. [june 29, 2005] lewis, george e. 2004. gittin' to know y'all: improvised music, interculturalism and the racial imagination. critical studies in improvisation 1 (1). http:// repository.lib.uoguelph.ca/ojslindex.php. [july 12,2005] litweiler, john. 1984. the freedom principle: jazz after 1958. new york: w. morrow. locke, alain. [1936]1969. the negro and his music. new york: arno press. mcdonough, john. 1998. dissin' the trane: john coltrane's legacy-a dissenting view critical of free jazz and his last years. down beat 65 (6): 26. ---. 1999. a skeptic among his worshippers. wall street journal (january 26): 1. morgenstern, dan. 1966. caught in the act: titans of the tenor sax. down beat 33 (6): 4445. o'meally, robert g., brent hayes edwards, and farah jasmine griffin, eds. 2004. uptown conversation: the new jazz studies. new york: columbia university press. pasler, jann. 2004. the utility of musical instruments in the racial and colonial agendas of late nineteenth-century france. journal of the royal musical association 129 (1): 24-76. porter, eric. 2002. what is this thing called jazz? african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley: university of california press. radano, ronald m. 1993. new musical figurations: anthony braxton's cultural critique. chicago: university of chicago press. sachs, curt. [1962]1977. the wellsprings of music, edited by jaap kunst. new york: da capo press. smith, julie dawn. 2004. playing like a girl: the queer laughter of the feminist improvis­ ing group. in the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and communities in diageorge e. lewis logue, edited by daniel fischlin and ajay heble, 224-43. middletown, ct: wesleyan uni­ versity press. steinert, heinz. 1992. die entdeckung der kulturindustrie, oder: warum professor adorno jazz-musik nicht ausstehen konnte. wien: verlag fur gesellschaftskritik. such, david g. 1993. avant-garde jazz musicians: performing "out there." iowa city: uni­ versity of iowa press. vincent, ted. 1995. keep cool: the black activists who built the jazz age. london and boul­ der, co: pluto press. watson, ben. 2004. derek bailey and the story of free improvisation. london and new york: verso. whitehead, kevin. 1998. new dutch swing. new york: billboard books. wilmer, valerie. 1977. as serious as your life: the story of the new jazz. london: allison & busby. ---. 1989. mama said there'd be days like this: my life in the jazz world. london: women's press. witkin, robert w. 1998. adorno on music. london and new york: routledge. wong, deborah. 2004. speak it louder: asian americans making music. new york: routledge. recordings public enemy. 1988. don't believe the hype. it takes a nation of millions to hold us back. def jam 27358. 91 a composer reacts to musicologists edmund haines in considering the interrelationship between musicologists and composers on the musical scene, i tend to think in broad generalities and to appreciate greatly the impact of research carried on in the past generation or so. this aura of warmth toward musicologists and their work is undoubtedly due to the kind of music history study to which i was subjected in my youth. this study, it should be added, took place about a generation ago with professors who used texts, such as waldo selden pratt's, that have by now been supplanted. in these texts leonin and perotin were little footnotes in fine print, if any mention of them occurred at all, and the bamberg motets had not yet found their way via pierre aubry into many books. there were precious few recordings of nonconcert music, and one had to get pretty far off the beaten track to locate any scores that were not in the standard repertory. fortunately, just before that era, there was a flowering of musicological research; and by the time i was engaged in what might be called the advanced study of music, some aspects and periods of music history had been better dealt with, and more and more material was being made available in print and on recordings. as a graduate student, i was lucky enough to gain access to excellent libraries, such as the sibley in rochester. while i was still in this formative and impressionable stage, i saw and heard various kinds of music that excited me and made me realize that there had been ways to achieve musical expressivity different from those i had known, ways other than the tonal means of the stylistic periods of the 18th century, or even the practices of the hindemiths and bart6ks of the 20th. i was entranced, for example, by the unpulsed melismas of the notre dame composers, the fresh harmonic unconcern of 13th-century motets, and the self-conscious sonorities and literary-musical form of gesualdo, just to mention three disparate examples. without the expansion of interest in musicological research that has been, at least in terms oflong-range history, a fairly recent development, this music would not be available. there is one other thing i must say by way of prefatory remarks, namely, that composers, among all the segments of the professional music population, are the least subject to categorization, although they often segregate themselves into cliques. even though they are almost all eclectic and usually erudite in some fashion, they feed their creative impulses in different ways. some composers draw almost entirely upon the very recent past and shun older traditions and techniques. i have known only one person who could be called a nonliterate but "useful" composer, and he created pieces chiefly for the theater. although he was almost entirely illiterate, he was able, by ear and instinct, to come up with electronic tapes done with buchla patches. composers, made as they are from such varied and individual component traits, will react differently to and with musicologists, and occasionally some 88 will not respond at all. a good many other composers, and i think i am one of these, tend primarily to react, hot after information, but also to push specific scholarly information back somewhere into the recesses of the intellect. they float the iceberg of data so that only the factual tip is visible, while the effective mass which becomes idiomatic influence is merged synthetically into a part of the general personality profile. in my opinion, most composers do not believe that any amount of theoretical analysis can describe a good piece completely, or that any amount of historical research into a given period or style can explain the usefulness of that material to them. but i, for one, still rely heavily on information gleaned from the research or thoughts of others. the universities and colleges, which, as a group, provide an important protective umbrella for the arts in the united states, offer an arena for easy communication among composers, performers, and music historians. solely from my own experience, i think that, for the most part, the contacts are functional and travel primarily in one direction-outward from the musicologist. perhaps this is a normal meaning of research and scholarship. a performer, let us say a pianist, might find, through someone else's research, certain works of wagenseil, cannabich, or soler which he wants to present in public. he may, on the other hand, discover something in the jumpy little rhythms of landini that he can sense and project in a 20th-century piece. although musicologists are performing early music in concert halls and salons more frequently than they used to, the taste for living music history often seems, at present, to be largely missing. i remember talks i had with hans david over roman dinners in which i felt that he took little from me except chatter and amusement, since he admittedly cared nothing for any music of the past century and a half. he, on the contrary, was stimulating for me, as he talked, for example, about the musical offering and made it more accessible to me. i still refer to his edition of the work. from what david said, i gathered that his work on bach was pretty much a straight research job and that bach's music was a little late stylistically for his own preferences, and a bit decadent at that! i like to say that once upon a time i, too, was a musicologist for a while, but i doubt that i properly deserved the label in terms of career professionalism. yet i carried the designation publicly, and my topic was contemporary spanish music, one that led me into earlier music and into nonmusical but tangential fields as i acquired a background in the subject. having read just enough about recent events in spain to know that something was afoot which was new and vital and very different from flamenco and other folkprovincial music, and also different from defalla and granados, i had developed a "research curiosity." i could not satisfy this curiosity readily at a distance, since practically nothing pertinent and recent about spanish music had been written in the english language except for one article by arthur custer, in the musical quarterly.1 i applied for a grant to go to spain and lived there for two years while engaged in "research." as a composer and a 89 "nonprofessional" musicologist, i had some trouble getting myselfhyphenated, i.e., becoming a composer-musicologist. on the musical scene one is always one or the other. i t was stimulating to have the fertilization from two directions, to be both the giver and taker, to bring my composing experience to bear upon the new material, at the same time to accept some influences, and, all the while, to accomplish my main purpose of obtaining the information i wanted and writing about it. a good deal of the research was almost journalistic, since it dealt with active composers and conductors and involved interviews with the ministry of popular culture personnel. i did, however, spend much time in certain archives, such as those of the national radio-television. one peripheral pleasure was having my articles relating to spanish musical life published almost immediately. this probably parallels the satisfaction a careful historical researcher gleans from having the results of his work appear in print. my involvement with spain became more intense than i had anticipated, partly because my introduction to the core of musical happenings was immediate and spontaneous, but more importantly because of the unique characteristics of spain's music history, past and present. the most striking fact i found is that composers in spain have partially skipped a phase of development that was pronounced elsewhere: the epoch of stravinsky, hindemith, and bartok. in composers such as luis de pablo, cristobal halffter, and carmelo bernaola, the schism with the traditions of defalla and granados is complete, and there was no generation of preceding composers to bridge the idiomatic gap between the national-folklore tradition and what is termed the current international avant-garde. undoubtedly, some of the reasons lie in the political-economic realm-spain's internal difficulties in the 1930's and 1940's. other explanations have to do with deeper and more permanent conditions. spain has undergone a unique national development, having its own wars at its own times, and not participating openly in this century in the major international conflicts. its music history has been its own as well. there were high points in the 16th century and bright moments in the 17th. the 19th century saw no great parallel to the growth of the symphony and opera that occurred elsewhere. spain has had orchestras of international repute for only about half a dozen years, and the most significant event in this realm has been the founding of the national radio-television orchestra. furthermore, in spain nationalism versus internationalism is not so much the real issue; rather, it is provincialism versus modernity. whether it is healthy or not, perhaps the outstanding feature of spanish culture has been, after all, the artistic autonomy of the provinces. to be the most distinguished composer, the most revered of one's own province, has been the goal of many otherwise unknown spaniards, and this ambition must at least have kept creators in touch with audiences. i would venture to say, for example, that cabezon was concerned mostly about the status he 90 had in burgos! certainly this individuality of the provinces has made possible the most varied and colorful folk-related music in all of europe. for the past few years spain has been changing rapidly; she is now in a period oftremendous growth and is joining the modern world. there are those who nostalgically resist this direction, but i prefer to think of the changes as a sort of renaissance. my involvement in my main research effort and inevitably related subjects was intensified by the scrambling of my historical preconceptions. most of us are oriented toward the germanic view of history as logical movement and growth through historical necessity. causes and effects can be discovered in spanish history as well, but they are less apparent and more evanescent. some events even appear to occur only by chance. it is not my intention in this article to give a detailed account of what i found in spanish music, for i have written much of this information in other periodicals.2 my aim here is to indicate the satisfaction i found in being my own researcher. i cannot quite understand the vitriolic competition and violent disagreement that is often evident between some composers and some musicologists. composers should not be unduly concerned or upset by musicologists' occasional tendencies toward limitation and microscopic focus. research, taken as a totality of its little pieces, should expand vistas. in any event, a good piece of research can either be used or ignored. i have one concluding thought relating to vistas, perspectives, and the proper influences of musicological research. in all other areas of historicalscholarly research, particularly those concentrating upon sociological, economic, and political questions, certain titans of scholarship have appeared on the scene who not only exposed the results of their research but were also able to synthesize their thinking to such an extent that they influenced the course of human events. this must be the ultimate task for musicology, too. notes 1 "contemporary music in spain," the musical quarterly 51 (january 1965): 44-60. 2 "report from spain," the musical quarterly 52 (july 1966): 380-83; "the new dada in spanish music," antioch review (spring 1967); "report from spain," the musical quarterly 53 (october 1967): 576-80; "ei nuevo dadaismo en la mlisica de espana," humboldt 33 (1968). also a series of reports from spain during 1966-68 for high fidelity/musical america which included "in spain, new music on the rise," 16 (august 1966): ma 18-19; "notes from our correspondents. madrid," 17 (aprii1967): 18-22; and, with a. de larrocha, "granados," 17 (december 1967): 56-58. 91 a view from death: ariadne auf naxos as failed totality chadwick jenkins i have the feeling that hofmannsthal begins each of these pastiches of a past time with an ironic design but that his admirable virtuosity carries them off with such success that he always ends by taking them seriously. and it is a pity: a pastiche subject, like ariadne, only has its value through irony, and this irony must especially come out in the end. -romain rolland (cited in ward 2002:248; translation author's)l originating as a divertissement in hugo von hofmannsthal's adaptation of moliere's ie bourgeois gentilhomme, ariadne aufnaxos stemmed from the poet's attempt to create a work wherein "the buffo element ... is throughout interwoven with the heroic." as he explained it to his collaborator richard strauss, the poet saw in this synthesis of opera seria and commedia dell' arte elements a "new genre which to all appearances reaches back to a much earlier one, just as all development goes in cycles" (strauss and hofrnannsthal 1961:76).2 embedded in gentilhomme, the work reached back towards the divertissements familiar in the comedie-ballets of moliere's time while si­ multaneously looking forward to a proto-postmodern aesthetic.3 the question that has bedeviled numerous commentators has been whether or not this synthesis is successful (and concomitantly, what consti­ tutes a success in this case). the opera's conclusion has given rise to the most serious contentions (forsyth 1982:194-203). on the one hand, those who identify the opera with the postmodern tend to see the synthesis as successful-a success predicated upon its perceived lack of cohesion, its ten­ dency towards the fragmentary, the incommensurable. on the other hand, critics such as karen forsyth, concentrating on the historicism of the work, condemn it as a failure. forsyth, in particular, feels that the opera fails ow­ ing to hofmannsthal's inability to reconcile his reversion to lyric drama with the divertissement structure of the original conception (1982:56-61). however, such condemnation fails to consider the opera within the larger context of hofmannsthal's increasing concern with the ethicality of his aes­ thetic project. by placing ariadne within the early twentieth century's-and particu­ larly hofmannsthal's-ambivalent stance regarding the ethical and politi­ cal nature of aesthetic form, the successful realization of the opera's synthe­ sis emerges as an inherent impossibility; its failure is a direct result of its current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 69 70 current musicology author's ethical position. in this paper, i argue that the conclusion of the 1916 version of the opera is an enactment of this impossibility. this re­ quires that we first explore hofmannsthal's developing concern with the "language crisis" announced by his prose work bin brief (1903) and his efforts to reinscribe within his oeuvre the lost wholeness that bin brief de­ scribes. second, we must turn to the opera's protracted genesis to under­ stand how the opera reached its 1916 form and what those alterations im­ ply for an interpretation of the work's meaning. tracing the work's genesis is no simple task and has been more thoroughly broached in numerous other accounts (bottenberg 1996; forsyth 1982; greene 1986). the "work­ ing friendship" of hofmannsthal and strauss was often vexed; if ariadne can in some ways be seen to exemplify the virtues of mutual non-compre­ hension, then nowhere in real life was this virtue better enacted than within their difficult collaboration on this project. while this paper is primarily concerned with hofmannsthal's aesthetic goals (and it is incontrovertible that hofmannsthal himself wasted no opportunity in attempting to foist those concerns and goals upon his collaborator), it must necessarily occupy itself with some of the ways in which the poet's vision was refracted through strauss's musical setting-a setting at times in stark contrast to hofmannsthal's stated desires.4 third, we shall turn to the opera's seem­ ingly intransigent conclusion, not to "solve" its contradictions, but rather to hermeneutically engage them. in sum, my paper revisits a work that began as an elegant ironic pastiche until its poet started "taking [it] seriously" and transformed what he originally termed a "slight interim work" into a pro­ jection of his ethical/political ideals (strauss and hofrnannsthal1961:77).5 securing spiritual space: the search for a new totality hugo von hofrnannsthal's youthful poetry (written between 1890 and 1898 when the poet was between 16 and 24 years old) regales its readers with visions of unity and wholeness, a great chain of being in which all things are connected. the opening of his 1893 poem ich ging hernieder provides a strik­ ing example of this joyous, mystical sense of the connectivity of all things: ich ging hernieder weite bergesstiegen und fiihlt im wundervollen netz mich liegen, in gottes netz, im lebenstraum gefangen. die winde liefen und die vogel sangen. [i once walked down the distant mountain stairways and felt that i swayed in a sparkling web, in god's net, caught in life's half-dream chadwick jenkins the winds rushed and the birds sang.] (translated in underwood 1988:150-51) throughout much of his lyric poetry, the young hofmannsthal attempts to reveal this "sparkling web" to which all things cohere. the artist is attuned to a neo-platonic harmony between the ego and the world, between signi­ fier and signified. however, four years later in an allegorical verse drama entitled das kleine welttheater (the little theater of the world), hofmannsthal begins to cast doubt upon one's ability to perceive or even experience the unity that had been at the center of so much of his earlier work. in the play, the character of the madman represents the artist. during a soliloquy, the madman characterizes the artist's role as transcending the mere artful description of nature's unity to become the very act of bringing order into being: hierhin und dorthin darf ich, ich bin hergeschickt zu ordnen, meines ist ein amt des namen tiber aile namen ist. [from here, from there onward i may go; i am sent to order things; mine is an office with a name above all names.] (translated in underwood 1998:151) another character, identified as the servant, admiringly explains how the madman struggles to establish this order: mit dem ungeheueren gemenge das er selbst im innern tragt, beginnt er nach dem ungeheueren gemenge ausseren daseins gleichnishaft zu haschen. [with the monstrous tumult he carries within, he begins to grasp for the monstrous tumult of outer existence, as if through allegory.] (translated in underwood 1988:155-56) by positing a direct relationship between the inner/spiritual world and the external/political world, the artist/madman attempts to order the cosmos by ordering himself. hence, the political role of the artist is ultimately that of the visionary. the poet projects the totality the world requires (perma­ nence being the only guarantor of value for hofmannsthal), thus paving the way for its political/social realization. the fact that hofmannsthal des­ ignates this character a madman may indicate his growing doubt in the 71 72 current musicology possibility of success. and then came total collapse. in 1903, hofmannsthal completed his prose work ein brief, a fictive letter of lord chandos to lord francis bacon, sometimes translated as the lord chandos letter. with this enigmatic fic­ tional epistle, the writer simultaneously broke with the lyrical poetry that had been his primary form of expression and provided a ratiqnale for that break, thus inaugurating his so-called "apocalyptic" middle period. ein brief expresses hofmannsthal's anxiety issuing from his vision of the unbridge­ able gap between the ego and the world, and between the word and the thing that it represents. hofmannsthal, one of the most autobiographical of all writers, models lord chandos's "language crisis" after his own. writing to a friend who inquires into why he has given up literature, chandos ex­ plains that as a young man: the whole of existence struck me as one vast unity ... everywhere i felt myself at the center; never was i conscious of deceptive appearances. or rather it seemed to me as though everything were simply metaphor, each creature a key to the next. (hofmannsthal 1986: 16-18) but from this rarefied sense of wholeness, hofmannsthal's chandos fell into despair. words such as "spirit," "soul," and "body" "fell to dust in [his 1 mouth like decaying mushrooms" (19). he was no longer able to see the divine connections between lofty concepts and the degraded state of the empty words bandied about thoughtlessly in quotidian discourse. the connections between language and the world were torn asunder; shattered and mean­ ingless, all communication was the tattered refuse of a fragmented exist­ ence. chandos declares religious concepts to be "but some of the cobwebs through which my own thoughts dart on their flight out into the void, while so many of their fellows catch there and come to rest" (18). whereas nine years prior he had born witness to the interconnection of all things, hofmannsthal now saw his thoughts breaking through the torn cobweb (all that remains of the cohesiveness that he once believed gave meaning to the world) and drifting off endlessly into the void. where he can no longer speak of connections (the primary goal of hofmannsthal's poetics being identification with the object-the sublation of ego and non­ ego), the poet must fall silent. indeed, hofmannsthal's turn away from lyric poetry towards dramas and essays, both thoroughly public genres, may be a demonstration that he recognized the "poetic injunction" (broch 1984) raised by the felt incommensurability between the object world-which, in his understanding, included concepts-and the words used to describe it. the question for hofmannsthal became: where does one go from here? a precocious artist raised in turn-of-the-century vienna, with its peculiar chadwick jenkins revivification of historical architectural styles and its venerated cultural past constantly on display in the burgtheater, hofmannsthal was deeply con­ cerned with maintaining strong ties to the aesthetic ideal of bildung-an aesthetic ideal that was always equally an ethical ideal. he had already be­ gun formulating his answer to the question with das kleine welttheater; it is no accident, of course, that the title of that play is a german rendering of the term theatrum mundi. hofmannsthal, raised in what michael steinberg has termed the "ideology of the baroque" with its dual interest in totality and theatricality (indeed a totality that is represented through theatrical instantiation), used the theatrical stage as means of testing and projecting the instauration of a new totality (1990:7). as the servant states in das kleine welttheater (quoted above), the means of achieving this projection was sought within allegory. in 1916-the same year in which he and strauss drastically revised ariadne auf naxos, setting it free of its moliere frame-hofmannsthal en­ gaged himself in a rather peculiar exercise in self-exegesis. his essay h. v.h., eine interpretation constitutes an attempt to examine and explicate his own artistic development. although he intended this essay (along with his ad me ipsum begun in the following year) to prevent future misunderstand­ ings of his work, it is perhaps more fruitful for modern readers to view the essay as a creative form of self-misunderstanding, a fashioning of his own past into a clear trajectory that would justify his current position and self­ image. hofmannsthal traces his development as moving from what he terms "pneexistenz;' characterized as a "glorious but dangerous condition" in which one feels "the 'i' as a universal;' to "existenz" and the search for a reconsti­ tuted totality, a totality achieved precisely through the artist's efforts to project it. hofmannsthal described the move from the earlier phase to the later as "connecting up with life. forcing through from pre-existence to existence" ("verknupfung mit dem leben. durchdringen aus der prreexistenz zur existenz") (underwood 1988:157-58). that is, he believed himselfto have moved from a naive but essentially valid view of the world as connected towards an effort to truly make it so. manfred hoppe claimed that this 1916 essay first clearly articulated hofmannsthal's concern for what he would come to term a "conservative revolution" (1968:2). it is with this re-imagin­ ing of his own literary past that hofmannsthal initiates the final phase in his move toward securing a new totality. by turning to allegory as the vehicle for the projection of a new totality (a totality that must in its essence recapture yet transform the lost totality of the past), hofmannsthal positioned himself firmly within the austro-ba­ varian tradition he so venerated. allegory is an inherently conservative mode of discourse in which iconic relationships are inherited from a tradition73 74 current musicology the application of those relationships is the co'ntinued exertion of the au­ thority of an honored past. allegory here becomes a political gesture, mar­ shaled to buttress hofmannsthal's conservative agenda of creating a "re­ turn to an image of absolute value and ultimate stasis" (steinberg 1990:xxi). according to steinberg, "symbolic discourse for hofmannsthal retained an indeterminate referentiality; allegory explained the cosmos. in this mode he never ceased to think in terms of totalities" (1990:144). moreover, hofmannsthal's concentration on the myths of greek antiq­ uity (in sharp contradistinction to the wagnerian reliance on german myth) further connected his efforts to what he saw as a distinctly austrian form of artistic renewal. the poet dismissively rejected what he termed the nine­ teenth-century obsession with "historical and ethnographic accuracy" in favor of a return to the universal and eternal aspects that he believed con­ nected ancient myth through shakespeare to goethe (strauss and hofmannsthal1961 :323; ward 2002:245-46). hofmannsthal angrily decried a treatise by bernhard diebold that connected the libretto of ariadne with "(north-german) romanticism;' when he insisted that his treatment of the ariadne myth stems "from the bavarian-austrian baroque" (strauss and hofmannsthali961:324). it was through austria and his allegorical use of ancient myth, according to hofmannsthal, that the german-speaking people would find a source of renewal, a mirror in which they would see them­ selves in "strange and purified reflection" (cited in ward 2002:245). the concise essay das schriftum als geistiger raum der nation (litera­ ture as the spiritual space of the nation), published in 1927 in die neue rundschau, best exemplifies hofmannsthal's politicized conservative aes­ thetic. in it hofmannsthal depicts his generation "confronting the totality oflife." that confrontation, although intended to build a community, is not a collective effort but rather "everything in the rent world of exteriority must be drawn into the interiority of each and there composed into one, making a unity of the exterior." this ambiguous statement is clarified when read against the above-cited passage from das kleine welttheater. hofmannsthal equates an individual, spiritual impulse with a nation-build­ ing political effort. in his formulation, "spirit becomes life and life spirit; in other words becomes the political comprehension of the spiritual and the spiritual of the political" (i 997:341). this securing of spiritual space is effected by means of a synthesis of dualities; everything is integrated into the whole and the relationships are rigidified. this process hofmannsthal terms a conservative revolution whose "goal is form, a new german reality:' novelistand cultural critic hermann broch-twelve years hofmannsthal's junior and, like hofmannsthal, con­ cerned with the ethicality of modern austrian life-clarified hofmannsthal's chadwick jenkins demand for ethical and political renewal in his insightful study of the poet cum dramatist. according to broch, a revolution for hofmannsthal demands the renewal of the whole. this must be a whole achieved through the cessa­ tion of becoming and the attainment of true being-that is, the relation­ ships achieve permanence, an ideal form that will not change (broch 1984:54). the projection of this attainment-secured through allegory in which the relationship between the signifier and the signified is made rigid­ was a political and ethical gesture for, as broch notes, "the ethical resides in the inalterable" (51). confronting what broch deemed "the value-vacuum of german art" ("das wert-vakuum der deutschen kunst"), hofmannsthal sought to "rec­ oncile all the component parts of a disintegrating culture" by embracing a tradition that could vouchsafe continuity and wholeness (hamburger 1961 :xxiii-iv). as hamburger states, hofmannsthal attempted to "produce not only works, but a literature": that is, by self-consciously invoking the cultural past and by having continual recourse to myth, hofmannsthal en­ deavored to continue what he saw as the aesthetic/political project of the unique austrian past. it was the artist's ethical duty to present a new totality but this could not be fantasy-it must be projected, not imagined. in the search for artistic knowledge beyond rationality-the only knowledge ca­ pable of perceiving a totality since rationality (bound up with language) has failed-both hofmannsthal and broch sought a view from death. this realm was, of course, impenetrable and yet intimately bound to the work of both artists. broch's 1945 novel, the death of virgil, follows the eponymous hero up to the moment of death, to the cusp of knowledge, but can go no further-it would be ethically inexcusable to go further, for to do so would be to assume a knowledge of the totality to which one can have no access (broch 1984:22-26). likewise for hofmannsthal, from his earliest work to his last, death is present to give meaning without ever revealing its meaning. in broch's words, hofmannsthal saw "death as an element of ethicality" (1984:97), but it was an element to which he did not have true access. in a world that was no longer the innocent totality of prceexistenz but not yet the reconstituted whole hofmannsthal hoped to achieve, the artist faced a paradoxical dilemma: only art that projects a valid totality is ethical and therefore beautiful. but in a value vacuum with no access to the view from death-a value system that is at best "not yet"-any representation of that totality would be false and therefore corrupt. the only option left open to the artist is to attempt to present the ethically required totality and then allow the representation to fail. as we shall see, hofmannsthal's refusal to fully realize a true synthesis within ariadne auf naxos is but one demonstration of the necessity of fail75 76 current musicology ure. as suggested above, the years that span the completion of ein brief (1903) and the final version of ariadne aufnaxos (1916), although generally thought to constitute the middle apocalyptic period, can hardly be thought of as a separate, self-standing period at all. rather, these years witnessed the gradual transformation of hofmannsthal's view on how to secure the lost totality that was required for both artistic expression and an ethically justifiable relationship to society. after what hofmannsthal perceived as the failure of language as a viable means of communication, he sought a supplement that would allow his words to once again reach towards totality. he turned first to gesture with elektra; the conclusion of the original, non -operatic version of the play ends with elektra insisting that everyone fall silent, ceding ex­ pression to her dance. when that did not satisfy him, he turned to music. although steinberg sees strauss's music as a bulwark against the in­ creasing rigidification of hofmannsthal's employment of allegory, the latter's move towards writing libretti was inspired partially through an attempt to secure form (1990:151,161-62). a concern with form pervades hofmannsthal's exchanges with his collaborator. when strauss designated the moment in the scenario where he foresaw a coloratura aria for zerbinetta, he offhandedly suggested that hofmannsthal might invite the soprano selma kurz to sing him some sample coloratura arias-from bellini and verdi to mozart and louis-joseph-ferdinand herold-that might serve as models for the poet. strauss soon had reason to regret the suggestion, for hofmannsthal seized upon it with alacrity and continually beseeched the composer to send sample texts-a demand that strauss repeatedly dismissed as unnecessary. however, hofmannsthal saw in such formal constraints a means by which to construct an aesthetic cohesiveness that circumvented language's inherent slipperiness. contrary to steinberg's assertion, music did not serve to efface the in­ creasingly rigid quality of the poet's post-ein brief allegorical style; rather, hofmannsthal marshaled operatic form to underwrite the aesthetic totality he sought to create: an aesthetic totality that to his mind was a projection of a needed and still possible political/ethical reality. in other words, hofmannsthal's conservatism sought out musical structure as a way to in­ sure meaning. music, to hofmannsthal's mind, provided a wholeness that language in its fragmented state had lost. for the poet, "musical structure appeared as a fixed pole" (broch 1984:155). this explains both hofmannsthal's disdain for the "formlessness" of wagner and his insistence on a return to the number opera paradigm of mozart. the restoration of the musical tradition of the viennese past (here represented by mozart) and the rejection of wagner paralleled the writer's return to the poetics of chadwick jenkins goethe in refutation of stefan george. in the following section, we shall read ariadne's revisions in light of hofmannsthal's ever-developing quest for a new totality, his attempts to shore up the fragmentation of modernity, and-like his heroines elektra and ariadne-his desire to remember and honor the past while stepping into the future. separate but equal: "ironic equipoise" in the szenarium and the 1912 premiere hofmannsthal first mentioned his concept for ariadne to strauss in a letter dated march 20, 1911, referring to the project as a zwischenarbeit (an in­ terim work-that is, between der rosenkavalier and die frau ohne schatten) that would allow him to become more familiar with the formal demands of libretti.6 he claimed to be devising a play consisting of a "combination of heroic mythological figures ... [and 1 characters from the commedia dell' arte" (strauss and hofrnannsthai1961:76). the opera was meant to serve as the entertainment for the characters of moliere's le bourgeois gentilhomme-a play within a play. the characters arranging the entertainment originally designed it to consist of a lyric drama (the ariadne story) followed by a comic performance by the troupe led by the flirtatious zerbinetta. how­ ever, jourdain (the gentilhomme to whom moliere's title refers) demands that the two performances take place simultaneously in order to save time. this is the conceit upon which hofmannsthal constructs his "new genre." the szenarium, written in 1911, provides the first complete sketch of the entire dramatic plan.? ariadne, alone on her desert island except for the company of three nymphs, laments the treachery of her lover theseus; he has deceived and abandoned her. suddenly the comic troupe inexplicably intrudes upon the scene, attempting to improvise humorous lines around ariadne's monologue while ostensibly trying to cheer her up. zerbinetta and her followers insist that love is fleeting and that another lover will al­ ways come along; the mythological heroine resolutely ignores their imper­ tinences. finally, bacchus arrives and ariadne finds a new love. what to ariadne is true love is for zerbinetta confirmation that she was right all along. towards the close of the szenarium, zerbinetta, serving as a lady's maid, helps ariadne to dress in preparation for the arrival of bacchus. although ariadne does at first insist that the approaching god must be hermes ("der todtenfiihrer"), there is no indication that she remains confused once bacchus enters. rather, hofmannsthal describes them as falling immedi­ ately in love-they join hands and enter the cave "like a king and a prin77 78 current musicology cess" ("wie ein konig und eine prinzessin").8 her new relationship is a com­ promise: she is aware that she is starting again after theseus's betrayal but her new romance with bacchus is not simply a new affair; it is described in terms of marriage. zerbinetta turns to the audience and asserts, "it has come to pass as we said" ("wie wir es sagten ist es gekommen"). the com media figures and the nymphs then reenter and a joyful dance ensues. zerbinetta is paired with harlekin while the remaining comic characters are paired with each of the nymphs. as they dance, bacchus leads ariadne back out of the cave and the entire company exits together-what forsyth terms "ironic equipoise": "the scenic symbol of the allegoric unity" (1982:35).9 thus love itself was shown to be ironic, containing both the erotic and the spiritual; fidelity personified by, but not identified with ariadne, is here carefully bal­ anced with infidelity personified by zerbinetta. the sexual, bodily side of love counterbalances the lofty, spiritual side. hofmannsthal's ironic stance depends upon what he considered the paradox oflove itself: his fastidious­ ness drove him to view the physical aspects of love as a contradiction of the spiritual nature of love. ideologically, they are mutually exclusive and yet they coexist: the very nature of paradox. the szenarium reveals both sides of love as necessary and the various characters join together at the end and exit as a group-united if not unified. here, as forsyth declares, "irony means no more than an equipoise of conflicting impulses" (35). formally, the 1912 libretto remains close to the szenarium model. the libretto retains the interaction between zerbinetta and ariadne as well as the final dance. however, the latter moment underwent an alteration that, although seemingly slight, is reflective of hofmannsthal's efforts to forge an ever-greater division between the worlds of the heroic and the comic. as the poet feels increasingly obliged to defend his conception and as he deepens the "psychological motives of the action" (strauss and hofmannsthal 1961 :86) 10, hofmannsthal seems to forget the balance that he had envisioned, reveling instead in the fact that he was pushing the libretto towards "a higher spiritual plane from something which was merely meant to amuse" (91),u zerbinetta is now described as merely "earthbound" and thereby unable to comprehend the miracle that she sees before her. hofmannsthal relegates the comic troupe to "base figures" and "the merely human group" (94),12 equating the commedia with base sexuality through their concupiscent ex­ ploits' hofmannsthal disdains them. as broch explains in another context regarding the poet's fastidiousness: "when the human appears it already means the sub-human, that is, the partly horrifying, partly comical charac­ teristics of the 'lower' orders" (1984:294). thus, while hofmannsthal still concludes the piece with a final commedia dance, he has the troupe appear alone-the heroic couple never chadwick jenkins reemerges after their love duet. the ironic equipoise is abandoned in favor of the apotheosis of ariadne and bacchus while the commedia group re­ mains on stage, unable to comprehend what has passed. indeed, hofmannsthal envisioned the staging of this moment in a manner designed to overwhelm the audience, to wrest their attention away from everything else, including the moliere play to which the opera was supposed to be sub­ ordinate: [hjere the small stage must grow to limitless space, at bacchus' entry the doll-like sets must disappear, the roof of jourdain's room rises up, night must enfold bacchus and ariadne and stars must shine down from above, no trace may be left of the 'play within a play; m. jourdain, his guests, his lackeys, his house, everything must be gone and forgotten, and the lis­ tener is to remember as little of these things as the person in a deep dream is aware of his bed. (translated in forsyth 1984:98-99) the librettist additionally increases zerbinetta's single line of the szenarium to a lengthy, mocking reprise of her rondo. while the two worlds are here drawn ever further apart, the 1912 libretto still retains some interaction (in the dressing scene) and allows the commedia group to have a substantial final scene to balance the love duet. with the drafting of the libretto, the opera's characters became increas­ ingly allegorical (in the sense in which steinberg uses the term, that is, to mean that all space between signifier and signified is eliminated); therefore the rigidification of the form mirrored the rigidification of the characters' symbolic functions. although hofrnannsthal's original conception of the work entailed "the buffo element ... throughout interwoven with the he­ roic," he soon came to see the spiritual import of the opera exclusively within the heroic couple and shifted his emphasis away from the balance between the two different groups. strauss, on the other hand, failed at first to see the spiritual meaning of the allegory at all and urged the librettist to make the conclusion "soar higher" (strauss and hofmannsthal 1961:92)y hofmannsthal was distraught by the lukewarm reception his work had re­ ceived from his collaborator and wrote a long explanatory missive subse­ quently dubbed the ariadne brief (1961:93-95).14 in this letter, hofrnannsthal insists that the theme of the opera is transformation. but it is a transforma­ tion in which one is "to preserve one's essence, to remain a human being and not to sink to the level of the beast, which is without recollection." put simply, the theme of the opera became the ethical project that hofmannsthal had set himself within his aesthetic production. strauss's reaction to the letter is telling. he claimed that he only understood the meaning of the libretto after reading the missive, "which is so beautiful and explains the 79 80 current musicology meaning of the action so wonderfully." he goes on to ask: "but isn't this a little dangerous? and isn't some of the interpretation still lacking in the action itself? if even i couldn't see it, just think of the audiences and-the critics" (95-96)y in a subsequent letter, strauss proposed that hofmannsthal's ariadne briefbe revised and staged as part of the introduc­ tion to the opera itself-a proposal that would later be adopted during the 1916 revision (100) .16 this misunderstanding between the collaborators points to a shift in their respective estimations of the project itself: for strauss ariadne remained "a trifle" while for hofmannsthal it had become some­ thing much more; it had become an attempt to project an ethical totality. succumbing to the apotheosis: removing the frame and opening onto totality almost immediately after the 1912 premiere, hofmannsthal began forging plans to jettison the moliere frame and present the opera as a self-sufficient work. "imagine:' he urged the dubious strauss, "how crystalline and com­ plete, how harmonious our beautiful ariadne will emerge once she is placed on this pedestal" (1961:169).17 strauss, at first reluctant to revise the work, finally acquiesced. with the loss of the framing device, the ironic equipoise was totally abandoned. as yet another attempt to verbally explain the libretto's meaning, the collaborators expanded the spoken zwischenspiel of 1912-a short scene that set up the conceit of simultaneously presenting the lyric drama and the comedy-to become the justly celebrated vorspiel. however, as we shall see below, the vorspiel served a greater function than a mere motivator for the conceit of the plot; it was essentially an enactment of the ariadne brief within the opera itself (that is, disregarding the excised frame and the new vorspiel) , the collaborators curtailed the interaction be­ tween zerbinetta and ariadne and eliminated the dance finale, thereby fur­ ther limiting the interactions between the two worlds. the opera consists of an overture and three scenes: the second scene, featuring the commedia players, serves as an intermezzo between the first and third scene, devoted to the seria characters. is thus, on the formal level, hofmannsthal has segregated the two worlds. one might here object that the worlds do interact, albeit briefly. however, these moments of"interac­ tion" demand careful scrutiny. the first occurs during ariadne's monologue in the opening scene. three of the commedia players (zerbinetta, harlekin, and truffaldin), later augmented by a fourth (scaramuccio) interject short comments on ariadne's grief framing the first section of her aria ("ein schones war"). at their initial entrance, ariadne is instructed to sing to herchadwick jenkins self, without heeding them. the interjections of the commedia players cul­ minate in the assertion that ariadne has gone mad ("toll"). she responds, "mad but wise" ("toll aber weise"), but the libretto's instructions here are crucial: "to herself, without turning her head, as if she heard the last words in a dream." despite the efforts of the commedia group to address the heroine's misery, ariadne refuses to acknowledge them. the strict segregation of the heroic and commedia worlds is maintained in hofmannsthal's and strauss's positioning of the first full statement by a commedia character: harlekin's strophic song that interrupts ariadne's so­ liloquy. walter frisch suggests that ariadne's entire aria may have been loosely modeled after the italian double aria (2005:233). if so, the strophic song occupies the position of a tempo di mezzo, the section of the double aria that divides the adagio from the cabaletta and is therefore responsible for breaking the mood of the slow section and dramatically justifying the faster tempo of the cabaletta. in other words, the tempo di mezzo-the propor­ tions of which were greatly expanded by verdi and his contemporaries­ often contains a jarring moment, something far removed from the estab­ lished mood and hence the perfect position for harlekin's song; it is con­ tained, separated from ariadne's aria as such. 19 strauss further emphasizes the separation between ariadne and the commedia through his instrumen­ tation. he employs the harmonium in connection with the eponymous heroine while using the piano exclusively in conjunction with the commedia group. strauss strikingly sets the second scene off from the first. the second part of ariadne's aria ends firmly in b~ major, a key that operates as the controlling tonality throughout most of the last part but the actual tonic of which arrives forcefully after much delay at rehearsal number 73.20 the sec­ ond scene opens without transition in the minor dominant: f minor, ac­ companied primarily by the commedia sonority of the piano. hence the troupe has musically wrested our attention away from ariadne and although she remains onstage until the beginning of zerbinetta's aria, she utterly ig­ nores them-a fact upon which the commedia players themselves comment. once zerbinetta-the allegorical embodiment of infidelity-takes center stage, ariadne retreats to the isolation of her cave; there is nothing zerbinetta can say to reach her. the move to the third scene is equally jarring. the buffa quintet ends with a clear perfect authentic cadence in d major. im­ mediately the strings sound an octave on cn against which a trumpet tattoo outlines a cn major chord-thus without preparation the music lurches away from the buffa world and back to the heroic. the abrupt musical shift both into and out of the commedia intermezzo serves to hermetically seal the scene. as a mere intermezzo it has no formal bearing on the remainder 81 82 current musicology of the opera. the comments made regarding the first two scenes of the opera apply equally to both the 1912 and the 1916 versions. however, what in the 1912 version created an ironic balance between the two worlds-a balance that would be further explored through the interactions contained in the third scene-in the 1916 revision established the rigid separation of the commedia and heroic figures. in the latter version, the commedia world is all but ab­ sent from the final scene. even zerbinetta's intrusion on the finale, the only moment that could be considered an interaction between the commedia and heroic worlds, is undifferentiated from the context of the love duet. both strauss and hofmannsthal, although in quite different ways, felt the weakness of the ending. strauss suggested bringing the character of the composer, the central character of the vorspiel, back onstage to replace the framing technique-a proposal vehemently rejected by hofmannsthal. he could not allow anything to spoil the "lofty atmosphere which we have striven so hard to reach" (strauss and hofmannsthali961:242)-a comment that betrays hofmannsthal's allegiance to his theme of transformation and his abandonment of any sense of ironic balancey in the end, nothing would emerge to deflate the mystical conclusion focusing on the noble lovers. it is perhaps to hofmannsthal's credit that not even he was totally satis­ fied with such a heavy-handed finale: but-it would be a shameless betrayal of the work and its future for me to concede-out of pusillanimity-that the human counterpart (zerbinetta) should be deprived of some last word! ... i will only insist that the counter­ voice, represented by the sole figure of zerbinetta, should be heard at the end for a second. something like this: while to the rear of the stage the couple step down towards the sea, and before the orchestra opens the epilogue, zerbinetta appears in front, right, in the wings, but visible, waves her fan mockingly over her shoulder towards the back and proceeds to sing her couplet ... if need be let her only begin to sing, sing the first line-then let the orchestra drown her, so that the rest is to be found only in the libretto; i am satisfied with her symbolic, mocking presence and exit. (246-47)22 however, this is a highly ambivalent letter. one cannot help but feel that hofmannsthal would just as soon do without zerbinetta altogether. he moves from firmly stating that the loss of zerbinetta's final remark would be "a shameless betrayal of the work;' to a position that would allow her to be immediately overwhelmed by the orchestra, rendering her final words inaudible. when strauss set her "last word" it was reduced to just one line: "when the new god comes, we surrender silently" ("kommt der neue gott gegangen, example lao zerbinetta's last word. orchestra reduction example lb. opening, zerbinetta's rondo. als ein gott kam je cler ge gan gen und sein schritt schon chadwick jenkins orchestra (~~~~~fiiiff~li~~~~~~~~f~ei~~~~9 reduction hingegeben sind wir stumm"). she now enters briefly, nearly unnoticeable and certainly ignored by the noble couple. the score instructs zerbinetta to sing "softly and discreetly" ("leise und diskret") and her melodic line is un­ differentiated from the mood of the love duet. this is not the mocking re­ prise (it is not even a partial one) that hofmannsthal seemed to have in mind. the opening gesture of her line (ex. la) resembles her rondo theme (ex. 1 b ) but this reprise soon smoothes out the striking contour of the rondo. instead of outlining the tonic triad as in its original appearance, her line here outlines the subdominant. the latter chord soon resolves to the tonic d~. in essence, zerbinetta gives her blessing to the love duet over an ''amen'' 83 84 current musicology plagal cadence instead of mocking it (greene 1991: 171). her characteristic descending fourths from the rondo are first replaced by a more conjunct line and then widened to a descending minor seventh setting the last part of "hingegeben" (we surrender )-a means of expression associated more with ariadne than zerbinetta. zerbinetta musically disappears in this passage, an interpretation sup­ ported by the stage directions. she points over her shoulder at ariadne and bacchus, singing her line but not disturbing the action. she remains on the periphery and then quickly departs. in the szenarium and 1912 versions of the plot, zerbinetta was to sing her remark after the conclusion of the love duet, but in the 1916 revision she is briskly brushed aside by a brief final statement of the love duet, and several concluding lines sung by bacchus. far from providing ironic equipoise, zerbinetta is here engulfed by the heady rapture of the love duet. in this version, it is the romantic hero who gets the "last word." during his final line, the moment of transcendence, the score directs the commedia players and the nymphs to reappear at the side of the stage and listen in silence while the heroic lovers vanish beneath the canopy. there is no ironic equipoise here-this is absorption; the commedia presence is so immersed within the apotheosis of the lovers that it is only slightly noticeable. throughout the course of preparing the 1912 libretto and the 1916 revisions, the collaborators shifted the opera away from alle­ gory as ironic equipoise towards the baroque allegorical practice described by steinberg wherein "the relationship between the symbol and the sym­ bolized is made rigid" (1990:144). in the process, ariadne was no longer merely associated with fidelity, but rather she embodied it, while zerbinetta stood in the same metonymic relationship to infidelity. in other words, ariadne is not merely a faithful woman; she is fidelity. with this rigidification came the increasing impossibility of forging a balance, however ironic, be­ tween the opposing forces. the commedia group, having become the source of some embarrassment for the fastidious hofmannsthal, was relegated to the confined spaces of the tempo di mezzo and the intermezzo. as norman del mar describes the 1916 revision, "the comedians often seem left out on a limb" (1986:72). in their final versions, the intermezzo and the final scene create an in­ triguing symmetry that further reinforces the separation of the heroic and commedia worlds. the frivolous solution to ariadne's problem represented by the commedia group's opening quintet balances the trio of scene iii in which the nymphs allude to the true solution to ariadne's woe: the coming of bacchus. zerbinetta's aria occupies the same position as bacchus's less impressive soliloquy. the final section of the intermezzo, the conclusion of which features three commedia figures juxtaposed with the temporary couple chadwick jenkins comprised of zerbinetta and harlekin, adumbrates the end of the opera wherein the love duet is set against the trio of nymphs. whereas in the 1912 version hofmannsthal balanced scene i, focused on ariadne, and scene ii, focused on the commedia, so as to create a sort of unity (the ironic equi­ poise achieved by having both groups interact) in scene iii, in the 1916 revi­ sion the intermezzo serves as a comic adumbration of the heroic finale dem­ onstrating the ludicrous distance between the contrived nature of infidelity and the transcendental, authentic mode of being embodied by the ever­ faithful ariadne. fidelity and the view from death hofmannsthal's interest in achieving a totality in ariadne aufnaxos never­ theless remained unabated-he merely shifted the focus of that totality away from the ironic balancing of the two worlds towards the mystical union of ariadne and bacchus. in other words, this ending still explored the problem of fidelity and infidelity but the focus turned away from the irresolution of paradox (love as both spiritual and corporeal) towards ariadne herself (fi­ delity embodied) and what for hofmannsthal had become the central ques­ tion of the opera: [w] hether to hold fast to that which is lost, to cling to it even unto death­ or to live, to live on, to get over it, to transform oneself, to sacrifice the integrity of the soul and yet in this transmutation to preserve one's es­ sence, to remain a human being and not to sink to the level of the beast, which is without recollection. (strauss and hofmannsthai1961:94)23 this is the totality which hofmannsthal now sought to project-that is, the totality that would allow the faithful "one in a million" to fall in love again and yet maintain her essencebut in a world without a "total worldview;' in a world that was no longer fully tied to tradition (a world reduced to a value-vacuum), it was unethical for the artist to represent what he himself could not access. from his earliest poetry, hofmannsthal viewed death as both an ele­ ment of life and that which gives meaning to life. death is what seals life shut, transforms it from becoming into being. the whole of life does not exist until the moment of death. with death, life acquires permanence, is made complete. repeatedly in hofmannsthal's plays, the main character only understands life when confronted irrevocably by the personification of death. at the close of his play der tor und der tod (the fool and death) (1893), the eponymous fool, claudio, proclaims to death: 85 86 current musicology ... [alcross this larger stage oflife i passed, without conviction, strength or worth. why was this done to me? why, tell me, death, did i need you to teach me to see life? this poor and faded life will not be missed: dying, at last i feel i exist. when a man sleeps, often his dream will break with too much dreamed emotion, dream's excess; so from the dream of life i now may wake, cloyed with emotion, to death's wakefulness. (translated by hamburger 1961:134-35) only death teaches the fool (all of humanity) to see life and, concomitantly, life only truly comes into being (is made a whole, a totality) at the moment of death; one awakes from the dream oflife to the reality of death. however, it was not possible for hofmannsthal to represent the view from death so he consistently led his audience as far as he could, to the brink of that death. after the speech reproduced above, claudio collapses dead. death rumi­ nates on the strange lot of mankind and then leads claudio's silent spirit away. we never hear claudio's voice from the beyond. indeed, we could not hear it; it is unintelligible to us and yet, for hofmannsthal, it is that voice from the beyond (that view from death) that grants meaning to our exist­ ence.24 ethically, hofrnannsthal could not portray the actual moment of transformation; he could only project it. the vorspiel written for the 1916 revision of ariadne textually and mu­ sically prepares the listener for an understanding both of the necessity of the view from death and the artist's inability to represent the totality such a view would provide. the use of a prologue to frame the following playas a moral lesson was typical of hofmannsthal and was prominently featured in a play he considered among his most important: jedermann (everyman), completed in 1911 around the time the poet began working on ariadne. just as hofmannsthal's everyman is declared "the human paradigm who is to be judged" (steinberg 1990:36), so ariadne is proclaimed by the charac­ ter of the composer to be the allegorical embodiment of fidelity-"the one in a million; the one who cannot forget." in his confrontation with zerbinetta, the composer attempts to disabuse the commedia leader of her frivolous misunderstanding of the opera's plot by asserting, "[ariadne 1 be­ lieves she will die! no, she truly dies:' the first part of which is sung to the hermes motive that will pervade the second part of ariadne's lament (ex. 2). the motive symbolizes the coming of death that ariadne (and the com­ poser and hofrnannsthal) sees as the only solution to the question she poses chadwick jenkins example 2. the "hermes" motive, vorspiel. hermes motive composer ,ij# e "i p jl. ~ r=lr j sie meint zu ster ben? example 3. the "transformation" motive, vorspiel. 3 transformation motive \ to the concept of fidelity: how can she simultaneously remain faithful to the past (inasmuch as it is the past that underwrites hofmannsthal's bildung­ informed notion of wholeness) and yet move beyond her fractured state of existence after her lover theseus abandoned her? later, in her aria, ariadne refers to her past identity as "theseus-ariadne." the two names are inextri­ cably combined; the union with theseus constituted the fullness (the whole­ ness) of her existence. without theseus, she does not wish to hear the name ariadne alone for that name "is with another grown intertwined so closely." severed from the plenitude granted by that lost love, she no longer fully lives and seeks refuge in death. as the composer continues in his explanation during the vorspiel, other themes that will become associated with ariadne's misery and longing for death appear and become interwoven with motives -representative of the composer himself-the artist is ineluctably wrapped up in his desire to achieve a totality, one that can only be achieved through ariadne's tran­ scendence of the fractured state of the world into death. the composer explains (the stage directions say "to himself," fur sieh, -much like his hero­ ine): "she gives herself to death-is no more-wiped out-plunges herself into the mysteries of transformation-is born anew" ("sie gibt sich dem tod hin-ist nicht mehr da-weggewischt-stiirtz sich hinein ins geheimnis der verwandlung-wird neu geboren"). just as he intones the words "is born anew;' the second violins play the transformation motive, which will reappear near the opera's conclusion to symbolize ariadne's tran87 88 current musicology scendence through death (ex. 3). zerbinetta then convinces the composer that she too is looking for someone to be "faithful to unto death." for a moment the composer is transported and, addressing the music teacher, he sings his paean to music as "a holy art" ("ein heilige kunst"), for while poets can write good words for music, only music itself can unite "all varieties of courage" ("alle arten von mut"). clearly this aria reflects hofmannsthal's aesthetic justification for his turn to gesture and music after the publication of bin brief indeed, for a moment music seems capable of realizing the unity to which the com­ poser alludes. here strauss brings the harmonium (already representative of ariadne and the composer) together with the piano (representative of zerbinetta and the commedia group) for an extended passage. prior to this moment, strauss fastidiously separated the two, at times emphasizing the sudden exchange of one for the other.25 however, this totality of instrumen­ tation is short-lived. the composer, watching the commedia group scatter­ ing about, becomes enraged. claiming that the comic element will pollute his work, he bemoans his fate-the piano quickly vanquishes the harmonium. the totality the composer thought he achieved in "real" life has failed. in the first part of her aria, ariadne neatly summarizes the opera's di­ lemma: she was so intimately tied to the totality of the past, her union with theseus represented by her reference to theseus-ariadne, that she is unable to extricate herself from it. she cannot connect with her own past, cannot remember the maid she once was, and yet is unable to move on for her existence is fragmented without the lost totality.26 when the nymphs call ariadne by name she cries out: "not any longer" ("nicht noch einmal")­ she doesn't truly exist outside of the lost totality. her only option is death. after harlekin's interruption, ariadne returns to this thought, claiming: "here nothing is pure;" the only way to cleanse oneself of the past is through death. she proclaims, "from all pain must my life be purified;' a purification that can only be achieved in the land of death. first appearing in the bass, the hermes motive pervades the texture of"es gibt ein reich," quickly mov­ ing to the oboes, then appearing in ariadne's vocal line as she describes the coming of hermes, the herald ("bote") or messenger of death (ex. 4). hearing bacchus sing his soliloquy in scene iii, ariadne believes it to be the voice of hermes and she uses similar language in anticipation of his arrival, describing the voice as the "todesbote:' when bacchus appears be­ fore her she cries out "theseus;' mistaking the new god for her old lover­ confusing the possibility of a new totality with the memory of the old one. musically, this passage is striking. for the first time since the vorspiel, piano and harmonium play simultaneously, along with a full consort of brass, chadwick jenkins example 4. the "hermes" motive, "es gibt ein reich." f\ ~ fpariadne o) i i r bald a ber naht ein bo te, her mes fl .oj . 0) '\---... ---f\ ;-; ;--; ;--; ...;..., • : 0) i ~ hermes motlve f harps, and celesta. strauss thus returns to the orchestration he employed when the composer praised music as the art capable of realizing a whole­ ness unavailable to other forms of creation. ariadne here remembers that lost totality underwritten by her relationship with theseus while yearning for a renewed wholeness through death. realizing her mistake, yet still mis­ taken regarding his identity, she greets bacchus as the "bote aller boten;' and the music returns to the hermes/death motive. bacchus is equally con­ fused and, believing ariadne to be another circe (the temptress of his youth) he asks if she too has a cask of magic wine. ariadne replies, "i know not what thou sayest" ("ich weiss nicht, was du redest"); as zerbinetta noted earlier in a similar context, these two are not speaking the same language. the hermes motive returns as ariadne assures the man she believes to be the messenger of death that she has long been awaiting him. bacchus un­ wittingly encourages her in her misunderstanding. ariadne asserts that he is lord of a "dark ship" and he rejoins, "i am the lord of a ship." that ariadne is convinced she is dying is touchingly conveyed in nearly every line: she begs him to take her on his ship; her stage directions instruct her to "continue with apparent terror;" she asks how he will transform her, whether by a wand or the wine he mentioned. this last inquiry launches another set of misunderstandings. forgetting his earlier reference, bacchus insists he knows nothing of wine. ariadne takes this to be an indication of the forgetfulness that she will experience after death. even when bacchus assures her that the stars would sooner fall than she die in his arms, ariadne persists in her misconception. she draws back in fear, believing bacchus's assertion to be an incantation that will end her life-even this most death­ obsessed of heroines nearly recants as she faces her demise exclaiming, "what! so soon!" ("weh! so schnell!") she feels her life passing from her; the or­ chestra doubles her voice as she sings the transformation motive-most of the remainder of her music is derived from this motive (ex. 5). 89 90 current musicology example 5. the "transformation" motive. transformation motive " ~ ~3~ ~3~ ariadn e oj ent fernt sich al les von mir? die son ne? die ster ne? ~ ~. .i ~ • .. .n ,...4., oj 3 3 mj 3 3...-----1 --:;~3~~7 ~ .or.i. i ~j~d m~! ,b~~= reduction : , ~3 ariadne remains deaf to bacchus's repeated efforts to disabuse her. she thinks she sees the eyes of her mother in his mantel. this is a most signifi­ cant image: after death, upon achieving the new totality, she will be able to reconnect with her past, to attain a complete identity; she sees it now shin­ ing forth from beyond the brink of death. as she asks if she shall be free of the needs of the world, the horns perform the hermes motive, which im­ mediately gives way to the transformation motive-the two musical ges­ tures become increasingly commingled, as do the concepts they represent. this passage serves as a transition marked by a modulation to a limpid c major. as ariadne sings, "is there no passing over? are we already there?" ("gibt es kein hintiber? sind wir schon da?"), the orchestration again re­ turns to the full consort (including both piano and harmonium). once again this "totality of instrumentation" derives from ariadne's belief that she is entering a realm of permanence vouchsafed by death itself. the transformation motive sets her final statement, "let my sorrows not be in vain; allow ariadne to be near you" ("lass meine schmerzen nicht verloren sein, bei dir lass ariadne sein"). as she sings her last note, the hermes motive once again appears (ex. 6). it is with death that she longs to be. it is in the realm of death that she can forget what she was ("who abides there quickly forgets""wer dort verweilet, der vergisst gar schnell"), that she will be transformed into something else. it is in death that she yearns to attain being. this is hofmannsthal's only solution to the riddle of fidelity after loss: "to hold fast to that which is lost" and to move on-but to move on through transformation, a transformation that not only resembles but truly is a form of death. her voice is no longer heard; her last statement leads to the musical representation of death. to the conclusion of the opera, ariadne believed she was dying. as the composer would have it, she did die. the opera took us up to the moment of death but, like broch's the death of virgil, like hofmannsthal's the fool and death, was ethically unexample 6. the "transformation" and "hermes" motives. transformation motive f'l ,. . ~j ariadne ~ 3 \0000' sein, bei dir, 3 bei fj .,.. ~ .,. .bacchus 1'0) i war, dei ner, dei ner f'l .( d ~ ~ .(. ~ .( ~ reduction i~ 3 3 ~ 3 .(~m ii d---m~-m .oj m= = -0 ..... ~3~ .--.------3~ ............ ., ., i dir __ lass_ a ria dne .hab' ich urn a1 les be • ii i i j i 1 'i 1 ~ 3 3 3 33 j~n,j~..r:tj ~~..rn ~~.jii"l seinl durft! hermes motive i n, • :0 . i ~ i }! m . ~.~ ~t~ =. i..---=i 7 ! .oj .( ~ n :::r­ ib a.. :e ;:r ~ c... td :::j ~ :r 1/1 92 current musicology able to take us any further-we are not allowed access to the new totality that the artist is able only to project, not represent. "and sooner shall the eternal stars perish, than you shall die in my arms." ("und eher sterben die ewigen sterne, eh' denn du stiirbest aus meinem arm:') these are bacchus's final words as he embraces ariadne and the canopy closes over them. zerbinetta, the rest of the commedia group and the nymphs have retreated to the sides of the stage; they have joined the audience as spectators, observing the apotheosis of the heroic couple. bacchus promises ariadne a new permanence wherein her position shall be secured, as the stars are fixed within their constellations. the wholeness he offers her is a new ethical/political reality. in that new totality, fidelity will have a place and a purpose; faithfulness unto death will not be in vain. bacchus intones his final line in the resplendent d~ major of the finale. his voice then subsides, ceding the focus to the orchestra and a last climac­ tic appearance of the transformation motive-the harmonium and piano united until the very last chord. hofmannsthal described the union of the comic and heroic as operating through non-comprehension and indeed the union of the lovers equally relies upon misunderstanding. but the ritualiz­ ing effect of their union and withdrawal (while the other characters are reduced to mere spectators) coupled with strauss's overwhelming music for the duet augurs a new beginning, a beginning that redeems the frag­ mented state of the present. this was the effect that hofmannsthal strove so hard to create: a continual dramatic crescendo from the "problem" voiced in the vorspiel, through the depiction of ariadne's fallen state to the "almost mystical heights" of the finale (strauss and hofmannsthal1961:242). we are left at the brink, unable as yet to follow ariadne and bacchus into the new world-representation, as such, has failed. but according to his own ethical/political program, hofmannsthal ( through strauss's music) has pro­ jected the possibility of a new sense of wholeness, a new "totality oflife;" it is left to the audience to realize that possibility. the opera points the way to the new totality; it is to its credit that it does not pretend to actually arrive there. notes this paper was originally written for a 2002 class conducted by lydia goehr and walter frish at columbia university entitled ''aesthetics and politics." i would like to thank the anonymous readers at current musicology, cathy cox, chika matsuzaki, and walter frisch for their many insightful suggestions during the revision process of my own zwischenarbeit. lowe a particular debt of gratitude to katherine dacey-tsuei for her patience and critical acumen; her assiduous efforts, working with the various incarnations of this essay, have chadwick jenkins helped to refine and clarify its content immeasurably. 1. rolland's intriguing comment stems from a letter to strauss dated 6110/24. "rai ie senti­ ment que hofmannsthal commence chacun de ces 'pastiches' d'un temps passe, avec un dessein ironique, mais que son admirable virtuosite les reussit avec tant success qu'il finit toujours par les prendre au serieux. et c'est dommage: un sujet-pastiche, comme arianna, n'a toute sa valeur que par l'ironie; et cette ironie doit surtout s'epanouir it la fin." 2. letter to strauss, 3/20/11. 3. for a discussion of ariadne's historical genesis and its ties to the commie-ballet, see forsyth (1982:15-54). for references tying ariadne to the postmodern see, among others, konneker (1972), kuhns (1999), and frisch (2005). 4. the correspondence is rife with evidence that hofmannsthal was at times dissatisfied with strauss's understanding of his poetry as well as with the composer's setting of it. in a letter of 115116, hofmannsthal mentions the "resulting misrepresentations and disparagement" that results from collaboration with a musician (1961:237). and in a letter dated 6111116 but wisely never sent, hofmannsthal accuses strauss of treating "quite a few things in the wrong style altogether" (1961 :251). 5. letter to strauss, 3/20/11. 6. in his original conception, hofmannsthal clearly sees this project as an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the structural aspects of the libretto in preparation for "some­ thing important:' that is, die frau ohne schatten. in this letter, hofmannsthal assesses der rosenkavalier-which he conceived as a stage play setto music as opposed to a true libretto­ as somewhat inferior to what they could achieve with die frau. as hofmannsthal writes: "i am also inclined to think that this interim work [ariadne] is necessary, at least for me, to make myself still more familiar with music, especially with your music, and to achieve some­ thing which brings us even closer together than in rosenkavalier-which as a fusion of word and music satisfies me greatly, but not wholly" (strauss and hofmannsthal1961 :76-77). 7. the szenarium is contained, without translation, in appendix b of forsyth (1982:27377). 8. all translations from the libretto are my own. these translations have benefited from many helpful suggestions made by cathy cox. 9. it should be immediately obvious that forsyth's use of the term "allegory" is at variance with the rather pejorative use employed by steinberg and throughout most of this study. lo. letter to strauss, 5/28111. 11. letter to strauss, 517111. 12. letter to strauss, 7/11 (exact date unknown). 13. letter to hofmannsthal, 7114111. 14. letter to strauss, 7/11 (exact date unknown). 15. letter to hofmannsthal, 7119111. 16. letter to hofmannsthal, 7/24/11. 17. letter to strauss, 3/6113. 18. david b. greene proposes a three-part division for the first scene consisting of the over­ ture, the trio, and ariadne's aria. this division further shows that all three scenes break down into three parts each. in the effort to demonstrate symmetry, he mistakenly ignores 93 94 current musicology the divisions in her aria and harlekin's interjection while incorporating the overture into the scene. i believe one could consider the overture an integral part of scene i but it would then be part of the trio to which it is so intimately tied. see greene (1991:120). 19. one of the best examples of this effect can be found in leonore's aria from verdi's ii trovatore. while i am not implying that hofmannsthal modeled his aria after this one spe­ cifically, it is probable that the poet was aware of the italian double aria format. he was researching opera libretti at this time, primarily mozart -da ponte libretti but also those used by verdi-for instance, strauss recommended he look at "caro nome" to get a sense of coloratura arias. additionally, hofinannsthal was an admirer of verdi's works and could not have been blind to the dramatic implications of the double aria's form. 20. one of strauss's most remarkable harmonic effects, used to heighten the emotional ca­ tharsis of the arrival on b~, is his use first ofd major to the dominant f (at rehearsal number 72) and then b major to the dominant (the two measures prior to 73). after such a tantaliz­ ing withholding of tonic, the b~ seems more firm in our ears and therefore the sudden shift (one cannot really call this a modulation) to f minor is all that more shocking. the rehearsal numbers are consistent in the various publications of the score. 21. letter to strauss, 4113116. 22. letter to strauss, 5115116. 23. letterto strauss, 7111 (exact date unknown). 24. there is a similar gesture in ingmar bergman's the seventh seal, in which death claims not to have knowledge of god (the guarantor of meaning that the hero of the film seeks). death merely serves as the means of conveyance from one world to the next but can provide no information concerning what one will find in the latter. 25. for this reason among others it is most lamentable that the harmonium is rarely audible in recordings of the opera. 26. in this ariadne resembles elektra who, when confronted with the loss of her past through the treachery of her mother, ritualistically reenacts the death of her father, forging a rela­ tionship with a past that no longer exists. references bottenberg, joanna. 1996. shared creation: words and music in the hofmannsthal-strauss operas. berlin and new york: peter lang. broch, hermann. 1984. hugo von hofmannsthal and his time: the european imagination, 1860-1920, translated, edited and with an introduction by michael p. steinberg. chicago and london: university of chicago press. del mar, norman. 1986. richard strauss: a critical commentary on his life and works. vol. 2. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. forsyth, karen. 1982. ariadne auf naxos by hugo von hofmannsthal and richard strauss: its genesis and meaning. oxford: oxford university press. frisch, walter. 2005. german modernism: music and the arts. berkeley: university of cali­ fornia press. greene, david b. 1991. listening to strauss operas: the audience's multiple standpoints. new york: gordon and breach. hamburger, michael. 1961. introduction. in hugo von hofmannsthal: poems and verse plays. chadwick jenkins new york: pantheon books. hofmannsthal, hugo von. 1986. the lord chandos letter, translated by russell stockman. marlboro: the marlboro press. (orig. pub. 1903) ---. 1997. literature as the spiritual space of the nation. in revolution from the right: politics, class, and the rise of nazism in saxony, 1919-1933, edited by benjamin lipp, 341. atlantic highlands: humanities press. hoppe, manfred. 1968. literatentum, magie und mystik im friihwerk hugo von hofmannsthals. berlin: de gruyter. kbnneker, barbara. 1972. die funktion des vorspiels in hofmannsthals ariadne aufnaxos. germanisch-romanische monatsschrift 12: 124-41. kuhns, richard. 1999. the rebirth of satyr-tragedy in ariadne aufnaxos: hofmannsthal and nietsche. musical quarterly 15 (3): 437-50. schorske, carl. 1981. fin-de-siecle vienna: politics and culture. new york: vintage books. steinberg, michael. 1990. the meaning of the salzburg festival: austria as theaterand ideol­ ogy, 1890-1938. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. strauss, richard. 1993. ariadne auf naxos. new york: dover publications. strauss, richard and hugo von hofmannsthal. 1961. a working friendship: the correspon­ dence between richard strauss and hugo von hofmannsthal, translated by hans hammelmann and ewald osers. new york: vienna house. underwood, von edward. 1988. a history that includes the self: essays on the poetry of stefan george, hugo von hofmannsthal, william carlos williams and wallace stevens. new york and london: garland publishing. ward, philip. 2002. hofmannsthal and greek myth: expression and performance. oxford: peter lang. 95 william t. dargan. 2006. lining out the word: dr. watts hymn singing in the music of black americans. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press; chicago: center for black music research, columbia college. reviewed by kiri miller william t. dargan's methodologically diverse and elegantly written book engages with numerous musical genres, historical moments, and modes of social analysis, but it revolves around a single core idea: that we can trace the development of all african american music back to the produc­ tive tensions between lined-out hymnody and the ring shout. dargan argues that the "lining out-ring shout continuum" provides the key to understanding the historical provenance, functional efficacy, and cultural distinctiveness of black spirituals, the blues, jazz, r&b, and rap. a thesis of such all-encompassing scope can only be supported through considerable speculative theorizing, as dargan acknowledges; he states at the outset that lining out the word will not lead to "semantic certainty" about the tradi­ tions and theories under discussion (14) but will remain "open-ended and inconclusive" (19). nevertheless, the depth and complexity of his historical and musical analysis have a significant persuasive impact over the course of the book, gradually retuning the reader's ear through repeated explication of a particular theoretical vocabulary. when it comes time to apply the lining out-ring shout theory to several well-known recorded jazz performances near the end of the book, dargan's nuanced assessment demonstrates the power and flexibility of his meticulously assembled critical apparatus. while dargan gives lined-out hymnody and the ring shout equal importance as ritual and aesthetic "polarities" in his theoretical model, it is lining out that receives the lion's share of his attention. in the book's preface he explains how lined-out "dr. watts" singing made its imprint on his own ear during his 1950s childhood in the south carolina sandhills. (african american practitioners of lined -out hymnody often refer to this tradition using the name of the hymn-text author most prominently represented in their repertoire, the english dissenter isaac watts [1674-1748].) dargan recalls, "i could hear in these hymns the gestures and intonations that would mark my developing sense of rhythm and blues and black gospel;' and he draws attention to the grandeur, stability, solemnity, soulfulness, "gorgeous familiarity," and "unhurried yet gracious movement" of this music, which instilled in him an "awe of the sacred" (xii). one goal of this book seems to current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 121 122 current musicology be the inculcation of this same awed and respectful response to this tradition in his readers, in compensation for long neglect. dargan suggests that dr. watts singing has been sidelined or dismissed by music scholars, many african american worship communities, and some prominent black intellectuals (e.g., zora neale hurston) because of a wide­ spread perception that the tradition is not authentically african american and has persisted as a legacy of the enforced illiteracy of the slavery era. the line-by-line intonation of british hymn texts, with each line followed by a drawn-out, heterophonic congregational response, has been stigmatized as backwards, unmusical "barbaric chant" (171, hurston's term). anglo­ american lining out has also borne these stigmata throughout its history; its apparent disorderliness helped to inspire various movements to regularize and improve american church music, including the development of shape­ note hymnody and gospel (each figured as modern and progressive in its early years). but african american lining out carries additional ideological baggage, not only because of racist stereotypes of illiterate, primitive, and "barbaric" musicality, but because of the origins debate that has beset the study of black american sacred music over the years. faced with syncretic new world worship practices, scholars obsessively parsed various musical features as either african or european in origin, seeking to identify the official progenitors of various american vernacular traditions. (dargan discusses george pullen jackson's major contributions to this debate, as well as dena epstein's criticism of jackson; interested readers might also consider consulting garst [1986] and bealle [1997] on this subject.) in the course of these quests the ring shout has been embraced as authentically african -derived; lining out, by contrast, has the taint of white domination, the words of the master repeated in the mouths of the enslaved. dargan shows how dr. watts singing has been regarded as both too black-indeed, "so utterly black ... that few middle class or well-educated blacks care to contemplate it for long" (238)-and as insufficiently african. in dealing with this legacy, dargan invokes both du bois's concept of "double consciousness" and kwame anthony appiah's discussion of the "myths and lies" at the roots of cultural identities (3). the "lining out-ring shout continuum" refers not only to musical features but to entrenched mythological dichotomies between adaptation and assimilation (7), african retentions and european impositions, and "black self-determination" and "white control" (2). with these foundational myths and lies always in view, dargan sets out to demonstrate "the primacy of the dr. watts tradition" in the long cultural transition from african to african american musical identities (4). where hurston saw evidently distasteful "negroized white hymns" (171), dargan sees a complicated "blackening" process of funda­ mental importance to african american cultural history, in which dr. watts kiri miller singing comes to represent houston baker's "mastery of the mask" and the ring shout represents a "deformation of mastery" (280n4). lining out the word is divided into two parts, designated as "the pro­ verbial trees" and "the proverbial forest." dargan's "trees" are the musical and textual styles that constitute dr. watts singing. the subsequent "forest" section presents several different takes on broader "webs of significance in african american music making" which are informed by dr. watts singing and the lining out-ring shout continuum. both parts of the book continually return to five themes identified in the introduction: the "unified diversities" of regional and local styles; processes of cultural adaptation; musical change and continuity; slavery-era language contact as a generative source of african american musical styles; and black music as ritual (4-13). the first two chapters of the book introduce the congregational wor­ ship ethos and diverse regional performance practices that constitute dr. watts singing, identifying it as "both an in-the-moment creative interaction and a received tradition with african and european sources" (25). dargan chooses to focus on missionary baptist contexts, in which a local lining-out repertoire typically consists of about ten hymn texts and a similar number of tunes. (he appears to be referring to contemporary practice in making this assessment; it is unclear whether local repertoires were larger in the past.) while lining out is both more common and more integrated into the entire worship ritual among primitive baptists than among missionary baptists-owing to primitive baptist doctrinal proscriptions against the use of musical instruments in worship-dargan focuses on missionary baptists because they have historically constituted "the largest black church body" (28). when dr. watts singing takes place in missionary baptist contexts, it occurs during "devotions" or "the devotional," a period of congregational worship that precedes the formal preaching service. this binary worship format lies at the heart of walter pitts's two-frame model for afro-baptist ritual practices, in which a relatively contemplative and private/secret/ esoteric devotional frame is followed by an expressive, celebratory, service frame that employs repetition, percussive rhythm, and body movement to inspire possession trance states. dargan builds on pitts's model throughout lining out the word, initially by associating these two mood frames with "moaning" and "shouting" styles in hymn-singing. moaning styles employ a rich palette of vocal timbres, heterophonic textures, and flexible rhythms; shouting styles have an urgent rhythmic pulse accentuated by syncopated or cross-rhythmic hand-clapping and body movement. these fundamental stylistic distinctions represent "the two ends of the continuum between relative reflection and relative intensity" (35), which in turn underpins the "lining out-ring shout continuum" that dargan explores in later chapters. 123 124 current musicology dargan's second chapter introduces a corpus of thirty-three recorded performances that serve as exemplars in a regional typology of rhythmic styles and ensemble textures in dr. watts singing. most of these recordings appear on a twenty-one-track compilation produced by the author, which presumably was meant to accompany the book. for reasons left unreported, this did not come to pass; instead, dargan's dr. watts hymn singing among african americans is listed in the discography as an "unpublished record­ ing available at the center for black music research, columbia college, chicago." chapter 2 includes twenty-eight pages of transcriptions of the performances included on the compilation recording. prefatory comments on these transcriptions indicate that they are intended to walk the line between prescriptive and descriptive notation, clarifying "constituent ele­ ments of melody and harmony" while occasionally including more detailed representation of a lead singer's intricate melismas and uses of vocal color (61). however, the transcriptions were made by three different people (dargan is responsible for eleven, judith gray for eight, and jeff todd titon for two) and they demonstrate different approaches to the task. moreover, the transcriber is not always the person who made the field recording-and since the recordings were made in the 1940s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, it is difficult to ascertain whether differences in style represent regional distinc­ tions or historical shifts. all this makes chapter 2's stylistic typology hard to assess, although the central idea that different regional styles might be likened to speech communities is effectively articulated. chapters 3 and 4 work as a pair, addressing the history of dr. watts singing in english and african historical perspective, respectively. dargan lays out some basic historical information on isaac watts and his contemporaries, describing watts's verse style as "deeply invested in the mastery oflanguage as a godly yet practical form of social empowerment for a dispossessed religious minority" (93). this description has obvious resonance for the subsequent adoption of these texts by african americans. similarly, dargan's discussion of "sweeping movement ... balanced by a complementary depth of perspective" (98) in watts's verse recalls his description of the musical qualities of the dr. watts singing he heard as a child. these subtle thematic connections keep this chapter from feeling like an obligatory rehearsal of watts's biography; instead, dargan establishes stylistic continuities between watts's texts and american black baptist worship, including the importance of plainspokenness, biblical symbolism, and "the new personal voice of experiential religion" (100). chapter 4 fleshes out these continuities, addressing the historical development of african american dr. watts hymn singing from a culture­ contact perspective. dargan focuses on african-derived orientations to kiri miller ritual, celebration, and vocal performance (e.g., "the african preference for speechlike singing and variegated timbres," 105) and on how these orientations might have shaped slaves' performances of standard english hymn texts. in this way dargan develops the argument that dr. watts singing played a pivotal role in the transition from "african to slave to american;' describing black lining out as a "genotype" that was phenotypically expressed in diverse singing styles and subsequent musical genres (104; a note clarifies that dargan does not intend any association "between physical genetics and a certain way of making music;' 271nl). he uses scholarship on bantu language influence in the southeastern us to support speculations about links between african language areas and african american singing styles, acknowledging that considerable additional research would be required to substantiate these claims. dargan also suggests that slaves acquired a taste for iambic, ballad-form english texts from their experience with the watts repertoire, and he tentatively links the unaccented-to-accented iambic stress pattern of the hymns to the "backbeat feeling" in much african american music, with its "dominant emphasis on two and four" (118). here i feel dargan may be asking too much of dr. watts, since so many of the tunes employed in both black and white lining-out traditions clearly place the iambic stresses of the texts on the strong beats of the measure. however, i am more sympathetic to his broader conclusion that slaves in the southeastern us were uniquely positioned to "develop a range of forms and a rhythmic style associated directly with neither africa nor england but with the plight of how to sing what became their lord's song in a strange land with its own tongue" (119). chapters 5 and 6 go into considerable analytical detail about the nature of this acculturation process, focusing on the relationship between speech and song as demonstrated in dr. watts, other congregational songs, blues, and (briefly) rap. dargan suggests that "hymn singing is the primordial form of speechlike song in african american culture;' noting important parallels between his own work and kofi agawu's research on northern ewe speech and song rhythms (122). this claim is bolstered by the presentation of an abstract typology of rhythmic categories represented in dr. watts singing, termed the "speech-movement continuum:' as dargan explains, this con­ tinuum ranges from "subtlety of rhythm to extreme emphasis;' employing four categories: portraiture sound, poetic rhythms, speech rhythms, and percussive rhythms (125). space does not permit a thorough explanation of this system here, but dargan's analysis of specific examples does much to affirm its usefulness. speech rhythm and percussive rhythm are relatively straightforward; they are strictly measured rhythmic styles derived from metrical texts or from body movement, such as clapping. the two categories 125 126 current musicology of freely measured rhythm draw more attention to the distinctive expressive qualities of dr. watts singing. portraiture sound refers primarily to timbral effects (used not only in singing but in preaching and prayer) and to liquid pitch inflections (e.g., "bent" notes and portamento). poetic rhythm refers to formulaic melismas, the repetitive licks that "shape the rhythmic contours of song to implicate speech" (127). dargan links all four rhythmic concepts to west and central african musical phenomena, including the time-line concept, dirge singing traditions, and musical speech surrogates (e.g., drum languages) (133). these two chapters should be of great interest to scholars who work on theories of rhythm and/or text-music relationships. the remaining three chapters make up what dargan calls "the proverbial forest," but they strike me more as individual buildings constructed from the aforementioned trees. chapter 7 presents the life history of the preacher and songwriter c. j. johnson, told mostly in his own words. this portrait, which includes some sociological context and a brief analysis of recurring themes in johnson's narrative, is the only part of the book in which a singer of dr. watts hymns speaks for him-or herself about the significance of this tradition; it is a refreshing interlude that left this reader wanting more first­ person accounts throughout the book. chapter 8 returns to a theoretical orientation, laying out the lining out-ring shout continuum as a model of complementary expressive polarities that can account for "all the musical genres and styles developed by african americans in north america" (198). here dargan returns to pitts's binary frame system for afro-baptist worship, which he overwrites with a "five-key sequence" of progressive ritual stages: inspiration, rapport building, momentum, quickening, and ecstasy-freedom (202-5). chapter 9 applies the five-key sequence, the lining out-ring shout continuum, and the speech-movement continuum of rhythmic categories to several blues performance styles and three classic jazz recordings: billie holiday's "strange fruit" (1945), charlie parker's "parker's mood" (1948), and ornette coleman's "free jazz" (1961). (while many of dargan's chapters work well alone, the piecemeal reader should not attempt chapter 9 without also reading chapter 5 and chapter 8.) one might expect this final musical analysis to feel forced, being so weighed-down with newly coined terminology, but in fact chapter 9 shows dargan at his best. evocative description and careful integration of the book's key ideas work together to bring the music to life. inevitably, dargan's critical interpretation of these performances sometimes has the flavor of self-fulfilling prophecy; for example, it seems a little unfair to hold up the five-key sequence as the benchmark of "aesthetic 'success'" in african american music and to fault ornette coleman for failing to complete its stages (232). nevertheless, dargan's theoretical models present a persuasive account of how music can "make extraordinary things happen" (232) in both kiri miller sacred and secular contexts, and of how the "unified diversities" of african american musical expression have developed since the slave era. while dargan accomplishes much in lining out the word, it is the reviewer's duty to identify some things that he does not accomplish (or chose not to attempt). first, this book is not an ethnography. the personal, reflexive preface, the references to "fieldwork" in the introduction, and the early historical chapters allied me to expect on-the-ground accounts of specific contemporary dr. watts performances around every corner-if not among the "trees;' then surely in the "forest." but only a single ethnographic moment of this kind presents itself in the entire book: chapter 8 closes with a description of a song performance that perfectly exemplifies dargan's five-key sequence. (even here, the account seems more like allegory than ethnography: the lead singer is identified only as "brother unknown;' a man whose appearance was "odd and out of joint" but who nevertheless brought the congregation to redemptive "ecstasy-freedom" by the end of his song.) the life story of c. j. johnson does something to close the gap between theory and lived experience in lining out the word, but one wonders why dargan could not have included more voices like this one. in introducing johnson's story he notes that "it is beyond the scope of this book to closely examine the dynamics of personal interaction within communities;' and instead offers this individual narrative as a paradigmatic example (169 )-fair enough. still, given this book's emphasis on aesthetic and religious values, creative agency, and collective musical improvisation, dargan's argument might have been considerably strengthened through the inclusion of more specific evidence of how these communities interact and why they continue to sing dr. watts. while his conclusion outlines his reasons for undertaking a genre study rather than investigating "a specific ethnographic instance" (235), i feel that these two approaches are eminently compatible within a single volume. a second line of "what's missing" criticism might revolve around the community of scholars that is brought together between the covers of this book. dargan does a beautiful job of drawing on important research about both african and african american music and culture to develop his own arguments: along with pitts, appiah, agawu, and baker, notable influences include samuel floyd, dena epstein, jacqueline cogdell djedje, gerhard kubik, geneva smitherman, and henry louis gates, jr. but as the author notes several times, lining out the word was substantially completed by 1997, and the gap between that year and the 2006 publication date is sometimes noticeable. only a handful of citations in the bibliography reach into the new millennium. for example, ronald radano's lying up a nation (2003), which has many themes in common with dargan's book, came out too late to be addressed. more surprisingly, the black atlantic (gilroy 1993) makes 127 128 current musicology no appearance, though one gilroy article is cited. in general, diaspora is somewhat under-theorized throughout, considering its central importance to the topic at hand. the continuing "hemispheric turn" in american studies, which has brought significant attention to african diaspora communities outside the united states, does not playa role in lining out the word; dargan rarely strays from the west african-southeastern us geographical axis. as an ethnomusicologist, i would also like to know what dargan thinks about some theories of rhythm, aesthetics, and text-music relationships that are often cited in my own discipline, such as keil's concept of participatory discrepancies (e.g., 1987), feld's work on "aesthetics as iconicity of style" (1988), and turino's application ofpeircian semiotics to music (1999). all this is not meant to imply that the book is dated, nor to castigate dargan for failing to mention my favorite authors. it is rather to affirm that lining out the word could be read side-by-side with any of this other scholarship to productive effect. the syllabus-designers among my readers would do well to pull chapters from this book for a wide range of courses­ surveys of american music and african american music, obviously, but also courses on historical ethnomusicology, music and ritual, theories of rhythm, language-music relationships, transcription methodologies, musical acculturation, and the history and sociology of religion, among other topics. i have provided a fairly detailed chapter walk-through to encourage readers in this direction, because this book deserves to be read and to be used in the classroom. dargan has given long overdue attention to a musical practice that "has often been perceived as a regressive if not expendable cultural expression, of which race men and race women have often been ashamed before the bastions of the larger society" (240). in his book the complex, compelling, and deeply influential practice of dr. watts singing takes its rightful place beside the ring shout in the history of american music. references bealle, john. 1997. public worship, private faith. athens: university of georgia press. feld, steven. 1988. aesthetics as iconicity of style, or "lift -up-over-sounding": getting into the kaluli groove. yearbook for traditional music 20: 74-113. garst, john. 1986. mutual reinforcement and the origins of spirituals. american music 4 (4): 390-406. gilroy, paul. 1993. the black atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. keil, charles. 1987. participatory discrepancies and the power of music. cultural anthropology 2 (3): 275-83. radano, ronald. 2003. lying up a nation: race and black music. chicago and london: university of chicago press. turino, thomas. 1999. signs of imagination, identity, and experience: a peircian semiotic theory for music. ethnomusicology 43 (2): 221-55. current.musicology.85.113-172.pdf special project the spheres of music: harm.ony and discord part ii fabian holt. 2007. genre in popular music. chicago and london: university of chicago press. reviewed by elizabeth k. keenan the concept of genre has often presented difficulties for popular music studies. although discussions of genres and their boundaries frequently emerge from the ethnographic study of popular music, these studies often fail to theorize the category of genre itself, instead focusing on elements of style that demarcate a localized version of a particular genre. in contrast, studies focusing on genre itself often take a top-down, adorno-inspired, culture-industry perspective, locating the concept within the marketing machinations of the major-label music industry. both approaches have their limits, leaving open numerous questions about how genres form and change over time; how people employ the concept of genre in their musical practices-whether listening, purchasing, or performing; and how culture shapes our construction of genre categories. in genre in popular music, fabian holt deftly integrates his theoretical model of genre into a series of ethnographic and historical case studies from both the center and the boundaries of popular music in the united states. these individual case studies, from reactions to elvis presley in nashville to a portrait of the lesser­ known chicago jazz and rock musician jeff parker, enable holt to develop a multifaceted theory of genre that takes into consideration how discourse and practice, local experience and translocal circulation, and industry and individuals all shape popular music genres in the united states. this book is a much needed addition to studies of genre, as well as a welcome invitation to explore more fully the possibilities for doing ethnography in american popular music studies. holt outlines his flexible framework for studying genre in the first chapter, after which he embarks on a series of musical tours of the american past and present that demonstrate the construction and maintenance of, interventions into, and divergences from genre conventions. each chapter blends history and ethnography and offers a different application of holt's theory of genre. chapter 2, "roots and refigurations," uses ethnographic material to explore the reception of the soundtrack to the film 0 brother, where art thou? (2000) as a part of a roots-music revival. chapters 3 and 4 form a "double session" and examine reactions to rock 'n' roll. holt intro­ duces these two chapters with a concise "model of genre transformation;' which uses the emergence of elvis presley and rock 'n' roll as an example for understanding how genres change in response to one another. chapter 3, current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 113 114 current musicology "country music and the nashville sound;' and chapter 4, "jazz and jazz­ rock fusion," each supports its historical perspective with present-day interviews, tracing the transformations that took place in country and jazz in response to rock 'n' roll. after these historically focused chapters, holt considers genre in present-day, local contexts in "double session ii: urban boundaries;' which contains chapters 5, "jeff parker and the chicago jazz scene," and chapter 6, "a closer look at jeff parker and his music." these two chapters provide complementary views of a musician who straddles the canyon between rock and jazz, and demonstrate the importance of local identity for the articulation of genre. the final chapter, "music at the american borders;' looks at three musical examples whose genre blending leaves them outside what is perceived as "american popular music;' despite having been produced in the united states. in general, the book's layout works well, as the portraits of genre formation and boundary crossing flow nicely into each other to give a sense of past and present experience. in developing his framework for reconsidering genre, holt draws on the contributions of simon frith (1996) and keith negus (1999), among others, to reassert the importance of genre studies in the face of increasing scholarly concern with hybridity. central to holt's approach is the idea of genre culture, "a concept for the overall identity of the cultural formations in which a genre is constituted" (19). the addition of "culture" to the concept facilitates a holistic approach for comprehending genre formations not only as simple markers of musical style, but as totalities informed by local values and traditions, as well as by national audiences, each of which responds to the influence of broad, historical contingencies. as the above outline of the case studies indicates, holt endeavors to integrate theories of genre into an exploration of its practiced realities. to develop his model, holt draws on both structural linguistics and bourdieu's ideas of structured practice to create "explanations of fundamen­ tal connections and moments in the trajectory of a genre" (20). holt's genre cultures develop from social networks with center and peripheral collectives; they operate through conventions-codes, values, and practices-that can be parsed; and they circulate through mass-media representations. these structural elements provide a means for understanding genre along various axes, and they account for both smalland large-scale cultural interpretations of musical styles. despite the structuralist approaches that inform his model, holt's genre cultures are neither static nor determined. rather, holt places emphasis not on the genres themselves-the element most characteristic of a structuralist system-but on their interpretations. he writes, "in sum, categories have little value in themselves. what matters is how they are used and embodied in communicative relations to become structuring forces in musical life" (29). elizabeth k. keenan with this sensitive approach to genres in cultural practice, holt positions his task from the very beginning as "understanding rather than defining genres" (8), and most of the book is consistent with this goal. however, the introduction contains a list defining nine separate genres (15-16). the list seems all the more puzzling for what holt leaves out, most notably the category of "pop music." holt writes that pop music is a category i am reluctant to define as a genre in the strict sense. george michael, madonna, celine dion, sugababes, backstreet boys, justin timberlake, britney spears, and other contemporary pop stars specialize in similar forms of production, with professional teams of producers and managers, and their music shares certain conventions and forms a component of certain kinds of collectivity. but the culture has a different social structure, with its heavy focus on mass-media texts and the individual celebrity. it also stands out from genre cultures, if sometimes only in an imagined sense, by reason of its high-volume sales and massive public exposure, which is a source of tension in genre cultures and underground scenes ... many artists are attracted to mainstream success, but also to smaller musical spheres and categories that embody a different kind of authenticity and prestige. (17) if pop music is not a genre, then what is it? i find this analysis troublesome for two reasons. first, it seems to be a slide back toward armchair studies of popular music, in which texts, not people, determine musical meaning for the masses. second, it reifies the imagined categorical divide between the "real" experiences of genre cultures and underground scenes and the "false" world of pop music. if musicians eschew the "pop" category and/or mainstream success, that is just as much a genre consideration as the blur­ ring of boundaries between jazz and rock; if audiences base their listening choices on mass-mediated texts and celebrity culture, they are still making decisions that help shape the musical styles that constitute "pop." for these reasons, denying "pop music" standing as a genre seems contradictory to the book's aim of understanding how people create musical meaning through musical categories. despite the problem raised by his description of pop, holt's framework provides an excellent entree into the comparative study of genre across musical styles and a compelling means for confronting the music that mass culture produces. the flexibility and usefulness of his theoretical framework first becomes apparent in chapter 2, "roots and refigurations;' which introduces holt's adroit ability to synthesize the products of mass culture with individual experience and interpretation. as others have noted (e.g., fox 2004), the success of the film soundtrack to 0 brother, where art thou? contributed to the construction of a "traditional" american identity based on a sense of nostalgia, an appeal to simpler times. holt connects the filmmakers' 115 116 current musicology use of digital visual techniques to their careful selection of music, arguing that the images and soundtrack fabricate an idealized past that softens the consequences of racism in the early twentieth-century american south. as the chapter expands beyond the scope of the film, holt surveys reactions to the success of the soundtrack, both in local productions of roots-music discourse and in the national marketing of roots music and "americana;' a related phenomenon. the examples that holt uses in this section illustrate the ways that both discourses and consumer goods circulate. in the first example, participants at a small, roots-music night at a san francisco club "exoticized music from their own country;' cultivating a revival culture that absorbed a number of traditions, including cajun, bluegrass, and swing, into the category of "roots" (42). in the second example, holt relates that, following the success of the 0 brother soundtrack, the marketing representa­ tive of one tower records store in new york city dedicated a room to roots music and americana, complete with animatronic musicians and an "object representing the oracle chicken:' in contrast, the product manager at a tower records store in chicago dismissed the soundtrack as a novelty, the result of successful marketing rather than a sign of roots music's popular­ ity as a genre. in the same conversation with holt, the product manager demonstrated his insider knowledge of roots music by dropping jimmie rodgers's name, reinforcing both the insider/outsider dichotomy and the concern for authenticity in roots music's genre culture that holt traces throughout the chapter. the first "double session" examines the pivotal moment in the history of us popular music when rock 'n' roll emerged in the 1950s. holt opens with a section entitled ''a model of genre transformation" that asks, as one of his interlocutors puts it, "so basically you want to talk about what happened to country music when elvis came along?" (53). of course, while holt is interested in talking about what happened to country music, he is even more interested in finding similarities between the ways that different genre cultures confronted rock 'n' roll. holt argues that rock 'n' roll acted as a catalyst for the transformations of both country and jazz, but rock 'n' roll's own formation remains somewhat in the shadows in holt's discussion. what made rock 'n' roll so threatening to both jazz and country? would rock 'n' roll's focus on teenage rebellion have, indeed, appealed to the same audience demographic as country music or jazz? and where is the place of rhythm and blues-whose influence made rock 'n' roll sound "black" to holt's interlocutors (54)-in all this? while it influenced rock 'n' roll as much as country did, rhythm and blues receives little mention here. in fact, holt writes nothing about its popular 1950s incarnation, instead mentioning blues (via charles keil's work in chicago) and soul, a genre that did not elizabeth k. keenan come into its own until the 1960s. the success of major black artists such as chuck berry, little richard, and fats domino on the 1950s pop charts disappears in holt's paraphrase of keil: "african american artists did not benefit from the rock 'n' roll boom" (58). such a statement, while certainly true of chicago blues, neglects the success of rhythm and blues in the 1950s and flattens out the complicated processes of rock 'n' roll's appropriation of rhythm and blues styles. further, it diminishes the importance that rhythm and blues artists had in shaping popular music, including rock 'n' roll, and, unfortunately, it reinforces the reductive, segregated historical narratives about rock 'n' roll that have evolved over the years, ironically something holt writes against. "a model of genre transformation" contains an idea worthy of its own chapter, and holt would perhaps have contributed even more to the fine discussions of country and jazz that follow ifhe had further developed this introductory section as a framework for understanding genre formation, and not just an example of the distress that the emergence of a new genre can cause for musicians in other genre cultures. chapter 3, "country music and the nashville sound;' examines country· music's sonic move toward pop music as a response to the rise of rock 'n' roll. holt observes that early rock 'n' roll often overlapped with country, and the very name "rockabilly" indexes not just a close connection to country roots but a subgenre of "hillbilly" music. holt argues that early rock 'n' roll took a significant share of country's audience, forcing its producers to regroup, remarket their music, and reestablish the genre. in this process, the sounds of the fiddle and banjo fell away from country music, leaving it sounding less "authentic" to many traditionalists, but appealing to a slightly older, non-rocking, white crowd who desired smoother vocals and lush, string­ laden production styles that refused any musical reference to the kinds of "black" music that were emerging at the time. but i question whether the remarketing of country to presumably older, white audiences is the only difference between country's "authentic" pre-rock days and its nashville sound incarnation. in particular, holt's discussion neglects the implications of gender in this sonic shift. despite mentioning that earlier iterations of country, namely honky tonk, had appealed to a displaced, "newly urban male subject" (65) (as did rock 'n' roll, at least in its rockabilly form), holt never considers gender in his discussion of the reformation of country music. certainly an account of the integration of pop production into country music should include mention of the redirection of the genre toward a white, female audience-still the audience of commercial country today. unlike country music, jazz had little to do with rock 'n' roll in the 1950s, the bebop generation already having repositioned the genre as artistic rather than popular. thus, holt takes a different approach in chapter 4, 117 118 current musicology "jazz and jazz-rock fusion," first tracing the disconnect between jazz and rock, and then seeking to understand why a major jazz artist, miles davis, would attempt to mix the genres. holt locates davis's decision within a conventional jazz community discourse that continually predicts the death and decline of the genre culture. in this chapter, holt makes good use of jazz criticism and scholarship to tease out this structure of negative feeling, citing illuminating passages from nat hentoff, ralph gleason, albert goldman, and eric hobsbawm. holt explores how miles davis's bitches brew (1969), which sold over 500,000 copies, demonstrated the commercial possibilities of fusion, and changed jazz's response to rock from one of siege to one of attack. holt subsequently charts the ripple effect this record set in motion, both for miles davis and for other jazz artists, who began to include fusion tracks on their own albums. the second "double session" focuses on jeff parker and the chicago jazz scene. not only do chapters 5 and 6 build on holt's discussion of the relationship between jazz and rock music, but they also provide a model for integrating studies oflocal scenes with larger genre formations. this section volleys a much -needed response to the recent work of david hesmondhalgh (2005), who has advocated jettisoning the term "scene" in favor of "genre." as the fine work in these two chapters shows, though both concepts can be problematic and deserve attention as such, the two are not equivalent in use for either popular music scholars or their interlocutors. chapter 5 explores chicago jazz as an intensely local scene that contains its own ideologies, exists in the space between jazz and other popular musics, and survives without either national or even local radio airplay. key to this chapter is an understanding of "scene" as a local formation of a genre culture that creates "a close and fairly straightforward connection between the abstract notion of genre and its concrete relation with practices occurring in a particular place" (117). with this specific, succinct, and useful definition of "scene;' pop music scholarship again is indebted to holt for bringing out the term's most common usage among musicians while reasserting its importance for understanding local and translocal relationships to genre. in chapter 6, ''a closer look at jeff parker and his music;' holt applies his theories of genre to the experience of the individual, thereby adding a final element to his structural framework. jeff parker may at first seem an odd choice for such narrow focus in the second "double session": he is not a major artist in jazz or in indie rock (his two genres of choice), and, further, he takes part in a jazz scene that is somewhat marginal to mainstream us jazz, which, holt stresses, focuses on new york city. but, in fact, holt takes parker's position as a midlevel success in a local scene as an opportunity to describe how career musicians use genre to define their own work and elizabeth k. keenan their relationships to music on a daily basis. holt brings keen insight to this matter through extensive use of interviews with parker, and integrates the themes of these interviews into his thorough examination of parker's jazz and indie rock music. although this chapter is very well written and takes musical culture, performance, and practices into its purview, its lack of attention to the ways that race and class have shaped the music of jeff parker (not to mention how they shape parker's perspective on the music he plays) presents a significant stumbling block. holt acknowledges that he rarely explored the issue of race with parker, and he does not raise the issue of class at all. parker is one of few black men in in die rock, where middle­ class, white participants comprise the overwhelming majority, and one is left wondering how race and class influence his experience of the genre. the absence of conversations with parker about race is especially striking in light of holt's direct confrontation of miles davis's antipathy toward white rock culture in chapter 4. because race and class are social structures that help to define both jazz and in die rock cultures, they deserve more serious consideration here. the final chapter, on music at the american borders, raises intriguing questions about how some musical categories become ''american'' genres and how some music retains the identity of an internal "other." this chapter uses three different songs-ricky martin's "the cup of life;' jimmy peters and the ring dance singers' "j'ai fait tout ie tours du pays," and flaco jimenez's "indita mia" (representing latin pop, creole jure, and mexican conjunto)­ to examine what happens to music that comes from the united states' geographical and discursive borderlands. holt's discussion demonstrates that genre formations involve not only identifications but dis-identifications as well. for the sake of space, i focus here on just one song, martin's "the cup of life." holt points out that, by employing a blend of latin and anglo pop rhythmic conventions, the song refused easy generic categorization and allowed martin to move between audiences. with this useful musical analysis, holt builds a case for the importance of genre to understanding social realities as he traces the song's circulation from the world cup to martin's performance at president george w. bush's inauguration. the first use of this song as the 1998 world cup theme is cause enough for othering in the us: in marked contrast with the american-as-apple-pie cliches of baseball and football, soccer rarely appears outside the context of spanish-language television networks, and the world cup is no exception. the song's subsequent circulation moved it more toward an american audience via prestigious events such as the grammys. finally, holt argues, martin's controversial performance of the song at the presidential inaugura­ tion displayed the difference between "privileged anglo american and the 119 120 current musicology domestic other" (166). these performances suggest that genre boundaries are not just marketing ploys, but reflections of social realities. holt reinforces this last point throughout the chapter, ending the book with a strong call to consider genre across boundaries as part of a changing social fabric. in concluding this review, i would like to focus more attention on the book's goal of integrating ethnography and historical approaches for studying popular music's broad categories. within studies of contemporary popular music, and particularly within the united states, the perceived bar­ riers toward conducting ethnographic research have often become excuses for armchair scholarship of the "i watched a madonna video, and here's what i think" variety. while a researcher's personal cultural analysis has its place, it adds little to the understanding of the meanings that music and, more importantly for this book, musical categories take on as they circulate among different groups of people. the chapters of holt's book offer varying amounts of ethnographic detail-and at times i definitely wanted more­ but each offers a model for moving between the mass-mediated, large-scale structures typically associated with the marketing of genre categories and the audiences who imbue them with meaning. further, holt consistently situates this ethnographic material within history, answering any potential criticisms that ethnography, with its present -day focus, provides too limited a scope for studying genre transformation. with his sophisticated, histori­ cally grounded application of ethnographic detail to the seemingly faceless concept of genre, holt has done popular music studies a great service. references fox, aaron a. 2004. ''alternative'' to what? 0 brother, september 11, and the politics of country music. in country music goes to war, edited by charles k. wolfe and james e. akenson, 164-91. lexington: university press of kentucky. frith, simon. 1996. performing rites: on the value of popular music. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. hesmondhalgh, david. 2005. subcultures, scenes, or tribes? none of the above. journal of youth studies 8 (1): 21-40. negus, keith. 1999. music genres and corporate cultures. london and new york: routledge. current.musicology.85.113-172.pdf meter and word setting: revising machaut's monophonic virelais by david maw monophonic virelais constitute a significant proportion of guillaume de machaut's compositions in the formes fixes; together with the complainte and chanson roial of the remede de fortune and the lais, they represent the zenith of a medium which has not since been pursued with either such creative variety or such compositional resource. at first glance, the virelais seem simple, naive even. yet closer analytical attention has revealed that they harbor a range of sophistications, whether a subtle interplay of melodic phrase and poetic line,! or a variety of different tonal procedures and motivic reworkings.2 this is no surprise given the remarkable technical skill and creative imagination of machaut's other compositions. but it is a timely reminder that the monophonic songs are an integral part of his lyric output, rather than a marginal curiosity betraying indebtedness to the trouvere tradition at a time when the lyric genres were focused on the development of polyphony. the transcriptions of the monophonic virelais given in the two extant complete editions of machaut's music3 are nearly identical in substantive matters, and the manuscript sources differ very little in the texts that they present of them. 4 the word underlay, which can be one of the most trouble­ some causes of variants in the melismatic polyphonic songs, is on the whole clearly indicated. even where it is sometimes unclear-as in a, for example; see earp (1983:220)-the generally syllabic manner of the word setting makes the intended alignment of poem and music easy to recover. despite the basic textual consensus of the two editions, there is one area of tran­ scription on which they disagree: that of meter. eighteen of the monopho­ nic virelais are notated in major-imperfect tempus, and the other seven are in minor-imperfect tempus. friedrich ludwig's edition differs from leo schrade's in transcribing seven of the songs (six of which have minor-im­ perfect tempus) also in imperfect modus. schrade's eschewal of the modus level is characteristic of his edition as a whole, and is indicative of an edito­ rial retreat from the imposition of anything that might seem to result from subjective judgment in the transcription of old notations into new.s any decision about the use of the modus level in the virelais arises from a consideration of its metrical function, since longs are not present in the rhythmic notation. the regular tempus groupings that satisfied schrade in current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 70 current musicology his transcriptions reinforce the superficial view of these songs as being simple, bucolic settings with a regular duple meter. a systematic investiga­ tion of the metrical aspect leads to a rather different picture, one that supports and enhances ludwig's use of modus but which reveals manipula­ tion of meter as a further level of sophistication in the songs.6 this re­ newed metrical understanding of the repertory leads also to a reevalua­ tion of certain textual decisions made by the former editors. their expec­ tation of a regular meter led them to iron out apparent irregularities in the notation of the songs; such emendation can be shown to be unneces­ sary in the light of revised transcriptions that are consistent with the metri­ cal practice of the corpus as a whole. medieval music theory did not develop a concept of meter. mensura­ tion often coincides with meter for practical purposes, but does not invari­ ably do so, and the two remain conceptually distinct in either case. metri­ cal thought is thus not explicit in the notation, but implicit in the compo­ sitional design. it is possible to imagine playing, say, the first movement of mozart's piano sonata in a minor, k. 310, from a score without barlines. the meter of the music could still be worked out-from the rhythmic con­ figuration, texture, rate of harmonic change, etc.-and this would still have an important effect on the way that the music was played; there would just be more thought needed to arrive at that understanding of the rhythm. an examination of meter in machaut's virelais follows more or less the same course as this. various compositional features must be analyzed for their latent metrical properties: the rhythmic form and pitch contour of the melodies; the syllabic rhythm of the word setting; and the placement and treatment of rhymes. such laborious analysis is merely a compensa­ tion for the temporal distance at which we stand from the musical prac­ tices of the middle ages, an attempt to reconstruct the unconscious pro­ cesses by which medieval performers comprehended the rhythm of the music. beyond its ostensibly narrow focus, this study is also a contribution to the broader debate concerning the relationship between the practical and theoretical sides of music. an implicit warning is voiced against the temp­ tation to reduce musical works to the conceptual frame of the theory cur­ rent at the time of their composition. musical practice often exceeds or is at odds with theory, since its focus is the aesthetic end of music making rather than the means by which that is achieved. so while the theory of mensuration supplied a quantitative understanding of musical time suffi­ cient to make sense of rhythm for the purposes of notation, metrical thought provided a supplementary qualitative understanding of musical time nec­ essary in practice to make sense of rhythm for the purposes of musical effect. to view the rhythm of this music solely in terms of the theory of david maw 71 mensuration is to impoverish it. meter is understood here as a structure of temporal units each containing two or three beats of which the first, the "strong beat," is qualitatively dif­ ferentiated through accentuation. there is sufficient evidence to justify the recognition of it in machaut's songs, and in other kinds of medieval music too, despite the concept's absence from medieval music theory. machaut's virelais are dance songs. this is not to say that they would neces­ sarily have been used for dancing; in fact, the analysis pursued here will suggest that their metrical schemes are often irregular, rendering the songs unsuitable for dancing except of a stylized nature. nonetheless, theyem­ ploy the style of songs that were danced to. a metrical rhythm is thus ge­ nerically apt for them (earp 1991; arit 1982:263-64; leech-williamson 1991:16). several of the songs begin with rests indicating an anacrusis, a phenomenon not recognized by contemporary mensural theory7 but one that dearly points to a metrical practice underpinning the rhythm. some system of metrical accent seems to have been a general part of modal­ rhythmic thought, as the difference between second and anacrustic first modes attests.8 these two rhythms alternate longs and breves in the same way and so have the same agogic accentuation deriving from the longs. in the first rhythmic mode, this agogic accentuation serves a metrical pur­ pose. the second mode requires a compensatory dynamic or articulative accentuation to align metrical accent with the breves, against the rhythm's intrinsic agogic accent. consequently, the second mode has a more level accentual profile than the first, owing to the juxtaposition of agogic and dynamic accents.9 despite their rhythmic differences, they are metrically equivalent, a fact born out by their interchangeability in the technique of modal transmutation (wilson 1977:135-78). a feature enhancing the metrical effect of the songs is the rapid tempo that seems to have been intended for them. they are written in what were then the "modem" note values of prolatio and they represent the new ethos of the ars nova lyric, based on the style of the dance song. it is unlikely that the rhythmic levels of fourteenth-century notation would have corre­ sponded to absolute tempi. but machaut's use of notation in prolatio for the virelais, in contrast with the tempus or modus that he used for the chan­ son roial and complainte of the remede de fortune and for the lais, suggests that he intended to convey some general indication of tempo. two of machaut's ballades make transitions from tempus to modus that place at least practical constraints on the choice of tempo. in pour ce que tous mes chans (b12), modus organization is present throughout, but the decorative layers of tempus and prolatio are stripped off at the refrain, leaving move­ ment solely in the modus level. presumably, the tempo would not have been 72 current musicology example 1: first part of he! dame de vaillance (vi), melody only. z y x frutltlbg'ii,j1j 'i'p j l"ii,j' ij ii > = pitch accent > > > so slow as to hinder recognition of the melodic quotation that serves as the song's refrain; tempus and prolatio would have been correspondingly faster, and perhaps even decidedly quick io the same conclusion is suggested by ne pensez pas (bi0), in which there is a similar change in movement at the refrain. of course, these relative criteria do not carry over automatically into songs without the higher levels of rhythmic articulation; yet there is no ready justification for the use of prolatio rather than tempus to notate the rhythm of the virelais unless the connotation of its faster movement in songs with a metrical groundswell in modus is borne in mind. since metrical structure was not indicated by medieval notation, it must have been apparent to performers in the music itself if they were to project it in performance. it is beyond the scope of this article to speculate as to the nature of such projection; indeed, this makes little difference here, where the aim is only to recover the performer's perspective on the musi­ cal texts-that is, to identity those features of melodic design that have inherent metrical properties and that would have oriented the performer's understanding of the rhythmic form. accentual effects arise in melody from pitch contour (tonic accent) and rhythmic duration (agogic accent). if these accentual effects are appropriately disposed, they yield the metri­ cal impression of a strong beat. this impression, if it is regular, may be maintained in effect through the absence of any specific accent, where no other accent conflicts with the regularity to dispel the impression. a very clear example of the way that melodic design in itself results in the impres­ sion of a metrical order is the first part of hi! dame de vaillance (vi), 11 the melody of which is given in example 1.l2 the metrical unit, hereafter more conveniently designated "bar," is demarcated by the recurrent rhythmic figures (bracketed and identified as x, y, and z in the music example) and further reinforced by pitch accents at the beginnings of all except the second and ninth bars. the metrical effect of this melody would be clear even from a performance completely lacking in dynamic emphasis or ar­ ticulation. it would have been part of the musical experience for the medidavid maw 73 eval audience, even if performers of the time were unaware of its presence because of the lack of a theoretically articulated concept. in song, word setting may also contribute to a metrical effect through the percussive rhythm of consonantal articulation and word stress. consid­ eration of word setting is particularly pertinent here, as there is good evi­ dence that machaut composed his songs from ready-made poems. several times in the voir dit, machaut states or implies that he is adding music to a poem that he has already written.13 in the machaut manuscripts, the po­ ems of one rondeau and six virelais are included without music amongst the collection of songs, les chansons notees, but there is no evidence that they were ever set; their inclusion in this collection may attest to an unre­ alized intention to set them to music, while confirming the priority of the poem in this procedure. la louange des dames, an anthology of some two hundred or so poems, demonstrates the fecundity of machaut's lyric muse beyond song, yet no corresponding body of musical pieces was composed without words as a starting point. the poems of twenty-two of machaut's songs14 are included in la louange des dames, and for five of these,15 the manuscripts preserving the poems predate those giving the musical set­ tings, suggesting that the poems may have been written sometime before they were set as songs. the only piece by machaut that lacks the starting point of a verbal text is the hoquetus david. many of the ballades and rondeaux are written to common versification patterns so that their musi­ cal settings are interchangeable from a purely technical point of view. this is not true of the monophonic virelais, each of which has a unique poetic form. 16 the interdependence of music and poem is stronger in these songs; their basically syllabic word setting produces a closer-knit connection of musical phrase and poetic line than is generally found in the polyphonic songs. nevertheless, the formal priority of the poem in the song is main­ tained through the regularity of syllabic declamation that is employed in the setting. as the starting point for the composition of song, the poem repre­ sented for machaut a basic rhythmic form from which the musical rhythm of the song was developed. the exact nature of this rhythmic form is a matter of controversy in linguistic scholarship, depending on whether or not intralinear word accent is thought to have had any function in verse composition.17 this is not the place to discuss the various positions that have been advanced, as the question is not of central importance here. the view according to which a rhythm of alternating accent underlies old french verse certainly goes some way to explain the propensity for syl­ lables to be set in pairs (klausenburger 1970: especially 25). but by the fourteenth century, word accent is thought to have lessened to a large extent, ceding to a stronger group stress (pope 1952:82-83 [§§ 170 and 74 current musicology example 2: setting of two lines from dame, se vous m 'estes (b37). iii: 5 vous souf frez a tout ie ii:3 te, va lour, biau te sou vrein ne 171],102-3 [§223]), so that by this time the pairing of syllables need have been nothing more than a convention of musical setting. group stress in the guise of end-line rhyme accent, which is clearly attested by fourteenth­ century poetic theory, is of uncontested importance to the poetic rhythm.18 rhymes were distinguished according to whether word accent fell on the final syllable ("masculine" or oxytonic rhyme) or the penultimate syllable ("feminine" or paroxytonic rhyme), where the final vowel was reduced e. so a poetic line constituted a certain number of syllables, possibly con­ ceived in pairs, leading up to the rhyme accent. this can be illustrated by two octosyllabic lines from machaut's single monophonic ballade, dame, se vous m'estes (b37): / / iii:5 que vous souffres a tout ie me ins / / / / ii:3 bonte, valour, biaute souvreinne,19 the first has an oxytonic rhyme, the second a paroxytonic one, of which the final unaccented syllable is supernumerary. these lines have been se­ lected for the regularity of their word-accentual patterns, a dominant but not a consistent feature of the poem as a whole (maw 1999, 1:47-49). if each syllable is given the same length of time, pairs are formed, the first accented, the second unaccented. a simple duple meter follows from this, with the first syllables of the two lines as anacruses. this scheme forms the model for machaut's own setting, his only change to it being elongation of the anacrustic initial syllables to the length of complete bars (ex. 2). machaut rarely set poetic lines in so simple a way and more often im­ posed a modal rhythmic pattern on the syllabic pairs. the result of this, in david maw 75 example 3: setting oflines 1 and 5 of c'estjorce (v16). a) f n 'r j. 1. c'est for i ' . i p j\ f p f ce, fai re ie vueil b) feil lij 5. chie re da me,et d'a com jilir the virelais at least, is not to convert the duple rhythm into a triple one; rather, the triple rhythm is inserted within the duple one. so in the first line of c'est force (v16), which has seven syllables, the second and third syllabic pairs are set in the second rhythmic mode within the duration of the first syllabic pair (ex. 3a). the basic model of the line is subjected to a different kind of alteration in the fifth line, where the first syllable of each pair is elongated in relation to the second (ex. 3b). these examples show that the word setting, while respecting a basic rhythmic order in the poetic line, may manipulate the syllabic rhythm within the meter. all four of the lines so far considered have placed their accented rhyme syllables so as to coincide with metrical accents-strong beats, in other words. paroxytonic rhymes occupy complete bars, the unaccented syllable forming the weak beat. treatment of rhymes in this way is only to be ex­ pected, given that they represent positions of fixed word-stress within the stanzaic form. their alignment of accented syllables with strong beats may in turn serve to reinforce the song's metrical effect in performance. but how consistent a feature of machaut's word setting in the virelais is place­ ment of rhymes in this way? table 1 analyzes the correspondence of rhymes and strong beats in the monophonic virelais as transcribed by ludwig and schrade. of the twenty-six songs, ten represent a complete correspondence, while seven others have a complete correspondence in one part. overall, there is a clear majority of rhymes aligning with strong beats: 136 of the 189 rhymes do so. the proportion represents a significant tendency and invites fur­ ther investigation of the stylistic circumstances that give rise to it. rhymes are situated most often at the ends of musical phrases. when this is the case, they are matched by distinctive cadence types. example 4a illustrates the most typical examples of these: oxytonic rhymes are set to single notes on the strong beats at phrase-ends; paroxytonic rhymes are set to figures occupying a full bar, the first a strong beat, the second a weak beat. in some cases, the phrase end does not represent a stopping point in 76 current musicology table i: correspondence of rhymes and strong beats in machaut's virelais as in the extant editions. virelai meter 1st part 1 /a 2iii p p p p 0 2 2iii 0 0 p 3 /a 2iii 0 0 0 0 4 aa ii2ii p p p 0 5 aa 2iii p 0 p 0 6 2iii 0 0 p p 7 2iii p p p 0 8 2iii 0 0 0 p 9 aa 2iii 0 0 p p 10 2iii 0 0 p 0 p 11 aa 2iii 0 0 0 0 0 12 2iii 0 0 p 0 13 ii2ii 0 p 0 p 14 a 2iii p 0 p 0 p 0 15 1i2ii 0 0 p p p 0 16 2iii 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 2iii p p 0 18 a 2iii p p 0 19 2ii p p p p 20 aa 1i2ii p p 0 23/21 1i2ii 0 p 0 0 p 25/22 ii2ii 0 0 0 0 0 0 28/25 aa 1i2ii 0 0 0 0 p 29/26* 2iii 0 0 0 0 0 0 30/27 /a 2iii 0 0 0 p rf6/33 2iii 0 0 0 0 0 0 a = anacrusis aa anacruses to both parts / a anacrusis to second part ii imperfect modus (not used in schrade's edition) 2 imperfect tempus ii = minor prolatio iii major prolatio o oxytonic rhyme coinciding with metrical strong beat o oxytonic rhyme not coinciding with metrical strong beat p paroxytonic rhyme coinciding with metrical strong beat p == paroxytonic rhyme not coinciding with metrical strong beat 0 0 2nd part 0 p 0 p p 0 p p 0 p 0 0 0 0 0 0 p 0 p 0 0 p p 0 0 0 0 0 0 p 0 p p 0 0 0 p 0 0 0 0 0 p 0 0 0 p p p 0 p 0 p 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 p 0 0 0 p p 0 0 0 0 italic type indicates that all the rhymes in one or both parts of a song coincide with strong beats. schrade's edition does not use modus and so yields complete correlation in the songs where ludwig uses it. *v29/26 is monophonic in c only; the other sources have a two-part version. david maw 77 example 4: characteristic examples of cadences matching rhymes. oxytonic rhymes: v3 a) fjd i j et de ill v4 £ . ii ~ j ,lid i e vii ii p r i j ii seu -ie ~ la do lour paroxytonic rhymes: vi v17 v20 f ~ p [ i rr ii p [i rrii p r pip ['li ip it v7 ii ~ p j i p f j ii sirn pie chie-re de bon nai re oll que je sui e -loura g~e v30/27 ii ~ p j i j. j) i j. t· ii ma-la dl e -ment rna ell re griefpoin-tu re ii vii b) w ~ rque vo fi ne doll cour me fait sen tir hum-ble ment vi6 c) f ~ [r pip r p [ i p r p tr i j car volls me fai tes sen ill et conjo it the melody, as the following phrase continues directly from the cadence without a break. this lessens but does not remove the cadential effect (ex. 4b). not all rhymes occurring on strong beats are positioned at the ends of phrases; two poetic lines may be concatenated within a single phrase, so that the rhyme of the first line makes an emphasis within the phrase (ex. 4c). ludwig's reason for using imperfect modus with minor imperfect tem­ pus becomes apparent in the correspondence between the paroxytonic cadence figures in that meter and those in major imperfect tempus. 20 in fact, the correspondence runs deeper than that, as comparison of the open­ ings of douce dame jolie (v 4) and comment qu 'a moy (v5) shows (ex. 5) . both begin with a hexasyllabic line that culminates in a paroxytonic rhyme. m­ ter an initial anacrustic syllable, the next four syllables are paired within beats, then the stressed rhyme syllable is placed at the beginning of the second full bar and extended for the full duration of the first beat. the 78 current musicology unstressed syllable of the rhyme begins the second beat and leads directly into the anacrustic syllable of the second line, which fills out the rest of the beat. the second line in each case follows a similar pattern to the first, differing in comment qu 'a may at the cadence, which is this time oxytonic. these cases illustrate the extent to which the monophonic virelais correspond to a simple model of word setting, the rhyme scheme of the verse providing a basic metrical framework that is developed by the song. yet table 1 reveals fifty-three instances in which rhymes and strong beats do not align, a significant minority that complicates the model of word setting elaborated so far. in all but two of these instances, the rhymes are set on the weak beat.21 so the question that must be addressed is why the other fifty-one rhymes are set on weak beats. one cause is a distinctive aspect of machaut's approach to lyric song: his exploitation of the potential independence of corresponding musical and poetical elements, setting them in a dynamic relationship to one an­ other.22 the particular element of this that is relevant here is "cross-ca­ dencing," where an oxytonic rhyme is set as ifitwere paroxytonic, and vice versa. the simplest form of this can be seen when an oxytonic rhyme en­ compasses a melodic figure typical of a paroxytonic cadence (ex. 6a). as with the normal oxytonic rhyme, the stressed syllable is placed here on the strong beat. the difference is that it is stretched over the second note, which would set the unstressed syllable of a paroxytonic rhyme. this phe­ nomenon occurs quite commonly in both monophonic and polyphonic songs. more complicated, and less common, are cases where the oxytonic rhyme is set in the position of the unstressed syllable of a paroxytonic rhyme (ex. 6b) .23 here, then, the oxytonic rhyme falls on the weak beat, and the accented strong beat coincides with the syllable two positions pre­ vious, a syllable that is not necessarily stressed linguistically. a similar re­ versal of word stress and metrical accent occurs in se ma dame (v6) , where a paroxytonic rhyme is set as if it were oxytonic, the accent of the strong beat falling on the unstressed syllable (ex. 6c). according to the extant editions, this is the only case in the monophonic virelais of a phenomenon that is more common in the polyphonic songs.24 cross-cadencing inevita­ bly complicates the relationship between rhyme, cadence, and meter; the musical cadence defines the meter in such instances, and the stress of the rhyme syllable falls on a weak beat. it is thus not possible to assume that rhyme stress always coincides with metrical accent. aside from the exceptional case of se ma dame (v6), there are just three songs in which paroxytonic rhymes occur on weak beats,25 and these are all of the same type: the stressed syllable is set on the beat and the unstressed one within the beat (ex. 7). so the accentual hierarchy of the rhyme is retained in the setting but observed at a lower metrical level than david maw 79 example 5: metrical correspondence of imperfect modus and imperfect tempus. v4 f ~ b r i r j j j i p j )d j i j r 0 r pip j )j doli ce da me jo ii e, pour dieu ne pen ses mi e v5 f ~ ~), in), ) n i r' p u l u 0 p r if' com ment qu'a-moy ion tem ne soi es, da-me d'on nour, example 6: examples of "cross-cadencing." a) ~ ~ u 0 p r i fda 'i v30/27 joi e et sans de jill!1 b) ~~ 0 r 10 ~ p p f i ~. f' ii vi 1 1 ii ii} ta. e ! ! doulz ri ant vair oueil sim-ple chie re ~~ )1 j \ j ij\ j\ je vueil li e ment compare p u i j j. ii vs ma-ia ~ c) ~~ )1 j j. i;. ha don ne e example 7: weak-beat paroxytonic rhymes. j\ v14 or m'est du re sans me su re 80 current musicology in the other cases. there remain to be considered thirty-nine rhymes not set on strong beats, and these are all oxytonic. the bias suggested by this number may indicate that paroxytonic rhymes are more metrically distinc­ tive than oxytonic ones; their very clear correlation of a stressed syllable with a strong beat and an unstressed syllable with a weak beat would sug­ gest as much. yet the oxytonic cadence in its pure form is no less metrically definitive than this, a fact that has a particular bearing on dame, a vous (rf6/v33). as revealed by table 1, this is the only song in which none of the rhymes aligns with a strong beat. all the rhymes are oxytonic and they are mostly set in the same way as the oxytonic rhymes that occur on strong beats in other songs. there is no reason why they should not be sung with a metrical accent, and this, of course, results in a complete alignment of rhymes with strong beats, resulting in semibreve anacruses at the begin­ nings of the two parts. such a commencement is not indicated in the origi­ nal notation by an initial rest, but machaut's notation of these songs, as it now survives, is not consistent in the indication of anacruses. eleven of the songs listed in table 1 utilize anacruses to their imper­ fect tempus or modus meters. only three instances are fully notated in the sources in relation to the current transcriptions: the first part of j'aim sans penser (vi4), the second part of he! dame de valour (vii) , and the first part of helas! et comment (vis). in j'aim sans penser (vi4) , the half-bar displace­ ment is shown by an initial semibreve rest. curiously, the semibreve rest is preceded by a breve rest, but this seems to be redundant, as no modus grouping is discernible. the second part of he! dame de valour (vii) be­ gins with a minim anacrusis to the weak beat, prefaced by two minim rests. it is the only instance recognized by ludwig and schrade of a minim anacrusis in major imperfect tempus to the half bar. the metrical align­ ment is confirmed by a semibreve rest after the final semibreve.26 helas! et comment (vis) begins with two minims (the second altered) as anacrusis to the first bar, and a semibreve rest indicates the displacement of this. the alignment of rhymes and metrical stresses is clearly indicated by the origi­ nal notation in these three cases-and, of course, in the songs without anacrusis. in the other songs using anacruses, the alignment results from an interpretative judgment on the part of the two editors. in the majority of these cases,27 the anacrusis is a minim lead into the first bar. this is prefaced in the sources by two minim rests, completing the semibreve. the editors have implicitly supplied an additional semibreve rest to com­ plete the bar, though the conventions of modern notation do not require any initial rests to be shown.28 douce damejolie (v4) has similar cases where the anacrusis is a semibreve to a bar of minor moduswith minor imperfect tempus and an initial semibreve rest is given; here, ludwig (but not schrade) has understood an initial breve rest to complete the modus bar. tuit mi david maw 81 penser (v28/25) is also in minor modus with imperfect tempus, but in this case the anacrusis comprises a minim and two semibreves. an initial minim rest is given and ludwig understood an additional semibreve rest. in three cases,29 ludwig (and, in the first case, schrade as well) has added anacruses that are not notated by displacing half of the first bar in each case. these cases are significant because they show the editor making specifically metrical decisions solely on the basis of the melodic design and word setting; he! dame de valour (vii) is especially interesting for schrade's retention of ludwig's interpretation. as table i shows, the songs using anacrusis, when taken as a group, display a high tendency to align rhyme and metrical strong beat. six of them do so completely,30 and another four have just one or two rhymes that do not align;3! only dame, je vueil (v9) shows a low level of alignment. all three of the cases where ludwig intro­ duced anacruses result in complete alignment of rhymes and strong beats, and this may have been a factor that he had in mind. in tuit mi penser (v28/25), anacrusis to the second part brings out the melodic identity of the cadences setting the paroxytonic rhymes at the ends of the two parts. the same figure occurs at the end of the second part of se d'amer (v20), where anacrusis of the first part is indicated by the syncopated rhythm in the penultimate bar. cadential rhyme between first and second parts indi­ cates the supplied anacrusis to the first part in he! dame de valour (vii), but this is indicated by other rhythmic and melodic features too: the cadential figure at the end of the first phrase typically sets paroxytonic rhymes, but here sets an oxytonic one; the pair of semibreves at the end of the third phrase and start of the fourth outlines a distinct bar. the evidence of the notational approach to anacrusis in the machaut sources, and in particular the example of the last three songs, further sup­ ports the anacrustic version of dame, a vous (rf6/v33), proposed above and shown here in example 8. 32 pitch accents at the beginning of the song reinforce the anacrusis too, providing points of orientation for the first, third, fourth, and fifth bars. the meter is straightforward at this point, but as the song progresses complications are introduced. pitch accents tend to occur on the weak beats in the second half of the first part and in the second part, undermining the metrical effect previously established. addi­ tionally, the phrasing of the music becomes dislocated from the poetic lines, with the cadences of the third and fourth phrases both falling within the sixth line of the poem. three phrases of the melody set four lines of the poem in a cross-rhythmic effect. the regular meter articulated in the first two phrases is maintained throughout the song by the positioning of the rhymes, which all fall on the strong beats of this scheme. this regular­ ity provides the framework for the song's rhythmical play. without it, the compositional design would be meaningless. 82 current musicology example 8: dame, a vous (rf6/v33). valls sans re tol lir dong euer, pen-se-e, de , >~ > j i j )1.. p i corps et a mouf, camme a tou te la milf~j h > ~[4l >~[5l > > > )1 j j ij j j j p ip r r )1 1j,j j jlj. lour qu'on puist choi ill, ne qui vi vre ne mo ill puist a ce jour me cloit a fo lour tour-ner, se je volls a our, car sans men ill > = pitch accent ~ = phrase end ii like dame, a vous (rf6/v33), foy porter (v25/22) has a large number of oxytonic rhymes in the first part that are set on weak beats. two consid­ erations make this anomalous: the metrical difference between similar cadences in the two parts; and comparison of the syllabic rhythm at the song's opening with that in tuit mi penser (v28/25), which uses lines of similar length. addition of an anacrusis to the first part brings these into alignment with one another but throws the last two rhymes off the beat, and does not correlate with the long clearly notated for the end of the first part in the sources. in fact, machaut has introduced an interruption of the imperfect modus here by protracting the first syllable of the penultimate line, creating a bar of perfect modus (ex. 9a). reexamination of the other songs reveals four more instances of a similar metrical shift: in both parts of loyaute vueil (v2) , where pitch ac­ cents reinforce initial anacruses; in the second part of puis que ma dolour (v7); in the first part of dou mal qui (v8), where the anacrusis is again reinforced by pitch accent; and in the first part of de bonte (vio). these are shown in example 9b. in each case, the meter is set up by oxytonic cadences and elongated in the final line by a shift in accent arising from a terminal paroxytonic cadence. david maw 83 the first part of dame, je vueil (v9) appears to follow the same form, if the anacrusis at the outset is treated as being fully notated in the sources (ex. 9c). there is a complication here, though, arising from a notational detail: the final note of the first part is given in all the copies of the song as a breve, which should occupy a complete tempus bar. ludwig and schrade changed it to a semibreve, so that the closing falling-third paroxytonic cadence is the same as in other songs. if taken at face value, the notation of the sources yields another instance of cross-cadencing, with the paroxytonic cadence being set as an oxytonic one, similar to the falling­ fifth cadence noted above in se ma dame (v6). however, the close succes­ sion of two paroxytonic cadences renders this an unlikely possibility, and the editors' emendation would seem to be welljustified here. the second part of this song is almost identical in rhythmic form with that of he! dame de valour (vii); in particular, it commences with the same anacrusis and has the same closing cadence of semibreve followed by a semibreve rest. nonetheless, ludwig and schrade transcribed it differently from the other song, treating the anacrusis as if it were only partly notated, leading to the first strong beat. by regarding the minim anacrusis as fully notated, like the anacrusis to the first part, the two oxytonic rhymes align with strong beats and the final semibreve rest completes the bar at the end. the pitch accent on the first g reinforces the metrical effect of this version.33 a different sort of metrical displacement can be seen at the beginning of liement (v30/27), where again ludwig and schrade barred in regular imperfect tempus. comparison of the song's first and second phrases, which are melodically parallel, shows the metrical fluctuation of the start, result­ ing from a quasi-caesural melismatic lengthening of the third syllable (ex. 10).34 in the second phrase, imperfect tempus is maintained because the cadence falls one beat later. the cases of metrical irregularity encountered so far have depended on recognizing the intrinsic metrical design of the melodies as they stand in the current editions. machaut's one monophonic ballade, dame, se vous m 'estes (b37), 35 presents an instance of metrical irregularity that requires a more substantive alteration to the text as given there. the version pre­ sented by ludwig and schrade, in consistent major imperfect tempus, devi­ ates from the notation of the manuscripts at the ouvert and clos cadences of the first part. example ila gives the cadences in schrade's transcription and a diplomatic transcription of the original notation following a and g. if the word underlay of the sources is followed literally, then a change from imperfectto perfect-tempus meter is indicated at the clos cadence. this is directly comparable with the change from imperfect to perfect modus at the closcadence of the two-part ballade, s'amours (bl), shown by ludwig's 84 current musicology example 9: some instances of metrical irregularity, a) ~ti r n ij '0 a aij d1j j idjjj r i~r 'd r r i foy por k,[, hon-neur gar cler et pals que ill, 0 be 1i, doll-tef, ser~ r 'p uoi b r £ d r r ffll6 mjld p d 10 'j j j i ii ii y!! et hon noll rer valls vuell jus-quesau rna -nr. da-me sans ~. b) ~ > , s ' > v2 ~ r' i ell ~p 0 i jl jl rid $ r' i w pol ~ loy au te vuell tous jours mem-te mr et de cuer ser ~ n .jl j ji j )1 j i ~ j j ii ylr ma dame de bon nal reo > ~ 0 d 01 p r d r i u r' 0 r p j i u r' j :11 mod euery vuell et monde ill met-tre sans re tral-re v7 ~ ~ u p rid r d r i tj!5'o d1r i p j p ji u j p ;ilj1j i ji j j ii si ne plemgpas mon la bour, car ce me sam-hie doll ffi!!i, fme et es-me re e, v8 ~ ~ g p rio f dol jl t r' i p 0 jl s i j\ l j i dou mal qui m'a lon-gue ment fait lan-guir plai sam ment mer ~ r' p r in ji £ jl j )1 jig , j ii ~ , j cl bon-ne mrn.t ma da me jo l~, vio ~ ~ u r r de de ~ ~ ~ 113. ~ clos h! jl j sens, de r ip j bon-te, rna-nie )1 j ma dame jl j grace est p j ij j. de va illy!:' de re, d'a 1q!!r, de j5 j 1m r' est pa re 1i j1 j i~ j cou ron ne ollvert i jl j biau-te j e; j. e, jj j i~ de dou :11 ii david maw 85 example 9 (cont.) c) v9 f ~ g ji f· i p j p j i j. ji j i)d p j i ~ dame, je vueil en-du rer, tant com je por-ray duf ~ m j. j1 j )d i ~ l } a i j. j. ii rer, sans pen-ser lai ~e, m'ar du re, f~ • ~ ~ ~ • or (?) ~. j1 j ud l i} n j. ij ii , rer, sans pen ser lai du re, m'ar du reo f ~ i j;i=)d i)' j jd i j. p ji}l 1)1 n )i lj ia. :11 sai ge, loy ai, doll ce, plai sant, tres bon ne et bel ie <# sans ~, compare en vas ser vi ce fai sant vueil tou te rna vie u ser. vll f i ~ i, r ip r p f ij. f f i (~p j p j ij. :11 'pji tres douce da-me, de bon .ii pleinne et de plai sant a tour, de sens, d'orhleur, de biau .ii, en qui sont tuit rni re tour, example 10: metrical irregularity at the start of liement (v30/27). i;; [i] i v~ ~ r j1 i l li e ment me de .(!qi1 par f ~ f f f 0"1 r , u i r r r f r i cr f p r 1 rsj 'i sam blant, mais je .j1q!1. sans joi e et sans de }2q!1 edition but not by schrade's. as in dame, se vous m 'estes (b37), the remain­ der of the song is in a regular duple meter. the 'jumping-off point" from the melody of the first part to the clos cadence is easily determined from the musical text alone,35 and in fact, the manuscripts do not show the word underlay correctly at this point of the song. if the clear word underlay of the sources is insufficient to establish the metrical change in dame, se vous m'estes (b37), there is a direct melodic similarity between it and s'amours 86 current musicology example 11: ouvert and clos cadences in dame, se vous m'estes (b37). a) from schrade's transcription ~--i 1 i 2 ;1 i j j j j :11 j de volls loin teins, j j j ii de volls pro cheins; after ... i ij! ·i ii!.l a: f.473v. ~ib ~ i ~ and de voils loin teins g: f.l47r. de voils procheins. ~ ouvert clos b) ~ g' i pig err. pw :iu f rre rrg pl~ f' de volls 10m tems ii b37 de valls pro cheins; ~*elw~f~' §f' r§" igf' ~fd~df~pr~i"~' ~:iel §~i r~' cz:~rfmp~cy~f~dil~r !~t. ~ii bl w a qui sui don nes ouvert clos d'es tre refu ~f~w~p~(~)m~r€j~mfp~' r~~e;dmp rnl~~"'~:~11 i~i' r~' !jrnl:pifpf~'\'r;~ojml w~"'~ii b7 mour ie prent en ~ j'aim sans faus se (bl) at this point too: the melodies of both move from c to jbefore de­ scending to e at the ouvert cadence and c at the clos. another two-part bauade,j'aim miex (b7) provides a similar instance of such metrical varia­ tion at the ouvert and clos cadences, and shares the underlying melodic outline of these other two songs. example llb sets out these three in­ stances for comparison. the word underlay of ouvert and clos cadences presents a problem also in two other monophonic songs, aymi! dame (v3) and c'estjorce (v16). the machaut music manuscripts notate ouvertand clos cadences in two ways for the monophonic songs. the more explicit of these has the notes of the clos cadence written to the right of the ouvert, with the appropriate syllables set beneath.37 the other method has only the notes of the clos written to the right of the ouvert, not the syllables set to them.38 though less explicit, this david maw 87 example 12: word underlay for the clos cadence of c'est force (v16). a) fn ~ f pj iey.jijji(~f1jjjnlj. hum ble ment, se dleus se g;:w; ii as given in the editions . of ludwig and schrade compare v17 f ~ f r f d f i f r f p u iff f ~ f !r i f" f" i que riens ne m'i puist des b) after :miib~l~.~i~~u~~ 1~1l~i~1iiitt~+ ~ vg:f.327v.~ ~ ~ • _i ~ ~u~. doulz riant regart: ment se diex me gart: fn ~ f pj iii j ) j ieffml(~mmlj. " hum ble ment, se diex me ggn. compare v17 f e jl r p firr f r i r f r ~ flo f f f rip f d firri da-me, vo-stre doulz vi ai-re de-bon nai re second method is not problematic so long as the melodic correlation and implied word setting of ouvert and clos are obvious, as in songs where the clos differs from the ouvert by just one or two notes. on the whole, the manuscripts agree with one another on the notation of these cadences for a given song. ludwig and schrade treated aymi! dame (v3) and c'est force (v16) as if they had been notated in the second way. this judgment was guided, it seems, by a stylistic sense of how the pieces should read, but it led to significant alteration of what the manuscripts actually present. the clos cadence of c'est force (v16) is much longer than the ouvertbut has only one syllable underlaying it. in other virelais in which the clos is much longer than the ouvert, such as je vivroie (v23) , words are written out beneath. nonetheless, ludwig and schrade set words to the clos cadence of c'est force (v16), matching the setting of similar musical figures in the second part of dame, vostre doulz viaire (v17) (ex. 12a). in c, the melisma for the clos cadence is grouped in triplets, which could indicate syllabic changes, but there is otherwise no direct basis for the syllabic underlay adopted by the transcribers here. what the manuscripts seem to indicate most clearly, though, is a melismatic extension of the penultimate syllable at the clos cadence (ex. 12b). there is no clear precedent in the monopho­ nic songs for such a treatment of the clos cadence, but machaut's music 88 current musicology admits a high level of technical and stylistic uniqueness, and this case could be representative of that tendency. the nearest equivalent is the melisma on the sixth syllable of dame, vostre doulz viaire (vi7). as this occurs in the refrain, and is melodically integrated into the song, it does not, on its own, present a very close parallel. examples of clos cadences that are melismatic and significantly longer than their corresponding ouvert cadences do oc­ cur in the polyphonic ballades, such as amours me fait (big). this seems to be a unique case of the same phenomenon amongst the monophonic songs. in dealing with aymi! dame (v3), the editors changed two notational features of the second part: the rest in the middle of the phrase, which is clearly a semibreve in all the manuscripts, but which they replaced with a minim; and the final note of the ouvertcadence, which is clearly a semibreve, but which they altered to a breve. example i3a shows the second part in schrade's transcription and a diplomatic transcription of the original no­ tation ofvg. the second part begins with a minim anacrusis, and the de­ scending fifth here recalls the opening of the song's first part, so that the anacrustic minim leads directly to the first strong beat. if the paroxytonic rhyme and its associated melodic figure are taken as coinciding with the strong beat, then imperfect-tempus meter results. if the semibreve rest given by the manuscripts is assumed to be the correct reading at this point, the f' semibreve must enter halfway through the next bar. consequently, the final note of the ouvert cadence occurs halfway through the final bar, and its notation as a semi breve can be viewed as resulting from this. this be­ comes another case of cross-cadencing, with the oxytonic rhyme being set to the paroxytonic cadential pattern found in the first two phrases of puis que ma dolour (v7) (ex. i3b). the phrase of the clos cadence is not underlaid by syllables of the poem, so there is uncertainty about where in the melody it should take over. ludwig, and schrade following him, maintained the syllabic under­ lay that dominates the song, thus making the jumping-off point the first c', with the word mono the resulting ouvert and clos cadences have the same length, but this is contradicted by the notation of the final note of the clos as a breve rather than the semibreve of the ouvert. in vg and g, the five notes of the clos cadence are grouped as two pairs and a singleton. if this grouping indicates the word underlay-which would mean a slight depar­ ture in the setting from its previously syllabic manner-then the jumping­ off point would be the second c', with the word et. following this, the final g comes at the beginning of the final bar, and the notational difference between it, a breve, and the a of the ouvert, a semibreve, is justified. ex­ ample i3c shows the resultant version of the second part of aymi! dame (v3), setting it for comparison alongside the end of the first part of dame, a qui (vi2), which is melodically similar. david maw 89 example 13: the second part of aymi! dame (v3). a) from schrade's transcription tu re, du re, if' d f com ment puet quant mon euer, f~ ~ i p f p ~r i j vo fi ne doll cour "! oj m 2. tres 3. es ~ :11 p ~r 1)1 j )1 j dou-ce ere a tre vers moy si mon corps et m 'a mour 1 • 11. 11.1tres douce crea tu re: comment puet vo fi ne doucour estre vers truly si du re: quant mon cuer mon corps et rna mour b) vg: f.323r. ip r j ment puet vo ii ne doll coof compare v7f~~p j rna do ~ j i p r aura gre j e :11 'i ' ouvert clos v ~ ~ £ pl)1 j )1 j i j]j i £-f' i d f p f i prj :11 p r ji r i j ii tres dou-ce ere a -~, commentpuetvo fi nedoucour e stre vers may 51 ~ quant mon cuer,moncorps et m'a mour i;. compare ouvert clos v~ g p j p a ij jij]j.lr· ip jp alj j ij £. :iij jijtl1 de euer, sanz pen-ser lai -~ ie n'ay mi e des-ser yi vas cuers qu'a aes con-fi -~ ~oi e pourl'a-mour de ii. a similar case of a semibreve rest that ludwig and schrade thought textually problematic occurs in the first part of helas! et comment (vis). the rest in question is clearly indicated by all the manuscripts,39 and as virelai form reuses the music of the first part at the end of the stanza, this music is written out twice in each of the manuscripts. the copies in the related sources vg and b omit the rest in this repeat, but all of the other sources have it there. in this case, ludwig and schrade concluded that the rest was erroneously given by the sources, disrupting the meter and break­ ing the poetic line, and so they ignored it (ex. i4a). yet if the rest is indeed go current musicology an error, it is one that succeeded in being systematically introduced into the text at an early stage in its transmission. moreover, it is clear by now that metrical regularity is neither a necessary nor invariable feature of the monophonic songs, and any objection to the rest for breaking the poetic line must confront similar and undisputed cases in liement (v30 /27), dame, se vous m'estes (b37), and se d'amer (v20) , as well as many of the polyphonic songs. so it is worth investigating what sense may be made of the text as it stands in the sources. the rest cannot be fitted into a consistent imperfect tempus, as the final note of the part is a breve and the initial semibreve value is displaced by a semibreve rest, leaving nineteen semibreves in between. an obvious possibility is simply to interrupt the imperfect tempus meter with a single bar of perfect tempus at this point (ex. i4b); but the metrical effect is crude and unmotivated by comparison with the more sophisticated metrical schemes in the other songs. a possibility that accords the rest a more cru­ cial metrical role and renders the metrical change more consequential is to effect a temporary switch from major-imperfect to minor-perfect tem­ pus. oscillation of this sort occurs in the triplum and cantus voices of rose, lis (rio) .40 here, as in helas! et comment (vis), the metrical changes (which are also mensural changes) are not explicitly indicated by time signatures or coloration but are implicit in the use of rhythms characteristic of the respective mensurations, such as the minim followed by two minim rests which first indicates that minor-perfect tempus has given way to major-im­ perfect tempus in the cantus. the polyphonic texture ensures continuity through the metrical changes that are apparent in the individual voices. in helas! et comment (vis), the change from major-imperfect tempus to mi­ nor-perfect tempus is indicated by the sequence semibreve, semibreve rest, and semibreve. the word setting at "me venroit baudour" reinforces note­ grouping in minor-perfect tempus. the version of the first part of the song resulting from this interpretation is shown in example i4c. this reading may not seem an obvious one to us now-and it was not obvious enough for ludwig and schrade to adopt it-but would it have been obvious to a medieval singer, or would he too have omitted the rest to yield a regular imperfect tempus meter? certainly medieval performers would have been extremely sensitive to the nuances of medieval notation, being able to construe mensuration directly and easily from rhythmic fig­ ures and groups. machaut considered the metrical changes in the similar notation of rose, lis (rio) obvious enough for contemporary performers, and the significance of this was only understood by modern scholars quite recently. both helas! et comment (vis) and rose, lis (rio) survive in the earliest of the machaut sources, c (i350s). helas! et comment (vis) is amongst the virelais and ballades that are in the earlier of the manuscript's david maw 91 example 14: the first part of helas! et comment (vis). a) from schrade's transcriptiol} f ~ £. d ~r if" r i w r pc i d r d~r i j. j. i) iij )1 j i r 1. s. he _ las! et com _ ment a _ roi e bien ne joi-e, quant fai re ne puis que j'oy e ne que voi-e, ne dont me ven roit bau dour, da me, fi ne dou· · 1_. helas et com-ment a soie bien ne ioie ne dont me q].lant faire ne puis que ioie ne que voie da me vo ~ :11 t:ffll j -cour? venroit fi·ne baudour dou· :11 -cour cf ~ £. d r if" r i w rio f i p r d~f i j. l i ji j ) j ii he las! el com ment a roi e bien ne j~ quant fai re ne puis que j~ ne que voi-e, clos :iij ii ne dont yen roit bau dour, da me, vo fi doucouf? two collections of musical compositions (identified by ursula gunther (1963:96-97) as ci, compiled before 1349), while rose, lis (rio) is with the rondeaux in the later collection (cn, before 1356). the reason for collect­ ing the rondeaux with further ballades and virelais in the later part of the source need not indicate a later date of composition for them.41 helas.' et comment (vis) is one of the most developed of the virelais and most likely, therefore, to have been composed close to the time of ci's compilation, so there might not have been much time between its composition and work on rose, lis (rio); the two may even have been roughly contemporaneous. it seems plausible that machaut would have experimented with the ap­ pealing rhythmic device in more than one song. the melodic contour of helas.' et comment (vis) is unusual by comparison with the other virelais, suggesting that it was experimental in other respects too. perhaps, then, there is no need to omit the semibreve rest; the notation may stand as the sources give it. ses mesdisans (vi5) and diex, biaute (vi9) are unique in ludwig's edi92 current musicology example 15: ses mesdisans (vi5) fir rid r p ill p i j j ~r i j ) 1jj jib j j ))d oj ii se mes di sans en a cort sotit pour moy gre-ver a tort, c'est par leur enf 6 (~jp oj )d 1 i j j j j i oj (~r j j 1£ j'. ~p r rib ~_-_e, car des ser vi ne l'ay~; pour ce de leur f \ \ \ b dr p eerp ) jl(~p j111 )1 j )ij sii r r i it rr d u 01 gen gle-~ bien me re-con fort. mais po~r eaus met-tre en e et 5l a ray ie cuer tion: the first because he twice interrupted imperfect modus with single bars of imperfect tempus,42 the second because it is the only virelai in mi­ nor-imperfect tempus that he did not transcribe in modus units. these cir­ cumstances suggest that the songs are metrically unusual. there are, cer­ tainly, metrical irregularities in both, but in the light of the picture emerg­ ing here of machaut's treatment of meter, they can be seen as developed instances of the tendency, rather than unusual cases. the metrical deviation introduced by ludwig into the second part of ses mesdisans (vi5) is unnecessary, as a regular imperfect modus follows once the necessity of an initial anacrusis has been recognized (ex. 15). this brings out a close melodic similarity to the second part of foy porter (v25/22). the first half ofthe first part also begins with an anacrusis, but the imperfect modus is interrupted by a bar of perfect modus in the third phrase, where a paroxytonic cadence shifts the metrical accent forward in the phrase one beat, another instance of the phenomenon noted above (ex. 15; cf. ex. 9b). the second half of the first part repeats the metrical pattern of the first half but without the anacrusis. here the rhythm be­ comes more complicated, as the phrasing shifts within the meter. the first three phrases cadence on strong beats; the fourth phrase, though it has the same length as the first phrase, has no anacrusis and thus cadences on a weak beat, causing the next two phrases to run together into one, the rhyme of the first being swallowed into the phrase, the word setting of the second changing on the minim. the way in which the simple phrasing of the beginning of the first part is complexified towards its end is reminisexample 16: diex, biaute (v19). a) from schrade's transcription 11 12 fiv 00 d lor ow ow :11 f ii e. b) ~~~~.328r. jiib~l~l gl~1~i~.1~.·1~.~' ~i, da-me de-si-re e: c) r r i diex, biaucar tant de vous ne june e: d te, est •• •• o rr 0 f da me de si re e, de volls ne fu d-ice~:-----" r p i uj p 0 0 jj p doll ceur, na-tu-re mi rent plai sant et :q!!..:.ie, saige en -~. i r' bien port, david maw 93 ii v v r ~o i a tou-te leur bel-ie en fi f re \ voo ouvect cio' a [if j\ p p p p i r r d 0 r 0 i s f' 0 f :11" ii ell re en vo dou-ce pour-trai tu re, da me de si re e, gu re qu'eins plus gen-te ere a til re de vous ne fu ~ -~. bien e stes com ii dou-ceur est fa v p p r r g~ et tant a s~ et tou te pa-re-e au troll ve e, ver d 0 r 0 puis-san plai-san cent of dame, a vous (rf6/v33). ouvert is f' ce, temps fleur, p f ~ui tant fruit et clos :111 ii -!;&. a­ rouii ludwig's avoidance of modus barring in diex, biaute (v19) may have resulted from his decision about the word underlay of the ouvert and clos cadences, which are shared by the song's two parts. he put the final syl­ lables of the paroxytonic rhymes on the final notes of each cadence, as did schrade after him (ex. 16a). this follows the word underlay of a, e, and g for the cadences at the end of the first part; but this underlay is not given consistently in these sources at the points where the cadences are written out again.43 by contrast, the word underlay given in vg, b, and c is clearer 94 current musicology than that in the other sources and it is also internally consistent, the ca­ dences being set in the same way each of three times they are written out. this consistency counts in favor of the word underlay in these sources. moreover, the imperfect modus indicated by this word underlay makes sense of the distinction conveyed by all the sources between the terminal breve of the ouvert cadence and the terminal long ofthe clos (see example 16b, which shows the cadences as they are given by vg). the whole song can be barred in a regular imperfect modus, but only one of the rhymes coincides with a strong beat, the second of the first part. for the ouvert and clos cadences, this is attributable to cross-cadencing in the setting, a further instance of a paroxytonic rhyme set as an oxytone. the rhyme of the third line is set at the cadence of the third phrase, and the setting echoes the cadence of the preceding phrase, which occurs at a strong beat. an effect of hemiola results here, as the cadence creates the effect of a metrical strong beat in the middle of three bars of imperfect modus (example 16c). the same cadence type is used for the first two lines of the second part of the song, creating an initial anacrusis and a change of meter just before the cadence. once these derivations from metrical regularity are recognized, it is only the rhyme of the song's first line that avoids the strong beat. a basic assumption of this study has been that simple oxytonic and paroxytonic cadences project word stress in order to create the metrical effect of a strong beat. in other words, the musical figures which match the two types of rhyme have been chosen by machaut because they pre­ serve in the musical setting the accentual properties of those rhymes as they occur in the poetry, and these accentual properties are harnessed to a metrical purpose when the poems are turned into songs. this assumption is controversial only in so far as it leads to metrical changes, since it has already been accepted, at least implicitly, by ludwig and schrade in their editions as the basis for handling anacruses in major imperfect tempus, and in he! dame de valour (vll) in particular. ludwig additionally, and to my mind quite rightly, pursued the consequences of this assumption to the recognition of meter at the modus level in the songs with minor imperfect tempus, orienting this anacrustically where necessary. schrade's barring in minor imperfect tempus is more an obstruction to musical sense than an aid to the eye in these songs. the metrical changes that have resulted in this study from generalizing the assumption emerge as a stylistically inte­ grated feature of the repertory; a number of the cases fall into the same type of metrical pattern, deriving from the use of a paroxytonic rhyme after one or more oxytonic rhymes. that this should be so ought to come as no surprise, since metrical variation is already known in machaut's polydavid maw 95 phonic songs, even if it has proved a controversial aspect of these. 44 discov­ ery of it in the monophonic songs as well is a further sign both of the consistency of machaut's song style throughout his oeuvre and of the inte­ gration of the monophonic songs into that larger oeuvre. the setting of rhymes in machaut's monophonic songs retains the accentual effect of these far more often than is indicated by the current editions. rebarring of the editions may seem a relatively trivial alteration, but it is one that has brought with it two significant repercussions. first, it has enabled an important clarification of machaut's lyric tech­ nique, drawing a clear distinction between the majority of cases where rhymes do coincide with strong beats and the small minority where they do not. the conditions obtaining in the latter cases may be attributed to two types of cause: cross-cadencing,45 a specific feature of the dynamic re­ lationship between poetic and musical forms that is more generallyappar­ ent in machaut's lyric songs; and exceptional setting arising from peculiar aspects of design in individual cases.46 second, it has enabled a reassessment of some of the emendations made by the editors to the texts given in the manuscript sources. metrical regularity need not now be regarded as an essential prerequisite for an intelligible text. the semibreve rest in helas! et comment (vis) can be ac­ commodated by a switch from major imperfect tempus to minor perfect tempus. the word underlay indicating a change of meter at the ouvert ca­ dence of dame, se vous m'estes (v37) may be taken as it stands. the question of word underlay has occurred also in relation to the ouvert and clos cadences of three other songs,47 where again the plea has been to take literally what the sources indicate, rather than to emend, as ludwig and schrade did. although there are numerous and significant differences between the copies in the word underlay of certain of the poly­ phonic songs, this aspect of the musical texts is on the whole unusually consistent and clear within the machaut sources. there is, then, good rea­ son to follow the alignment of notes and syllables that the sources show when they are sufficiently clear and in agreement with one another. barring is a valuable tool in modern musical notation for indicating meter, and it has proved invaluable here for demonstrating the metrical variations that machaut employed in his music. so the question must arise of how machaut could have employed a notation that lacked barring for the composition of music in which metrical structure apparently played so important a part. an answer is in part supplied by an aspect of medieval notation that has tended to be overlooked: the word setting. this is not simply a matter of how individual syllables relate to notes in the sources, but it is more fundamentally a matter of the rhythm of the song. florid and melismatic styles of syllable setting provide groupings of notes that 96 current musicology should be investigated for their significance in the overall rhythmic de­ sign. they would have presented an important visual guide for the medi­ eval singer reading through his voice part. the position of rhyme accents would also have presented important rhythmic-and as i contest, metri­ cal-information about the shape of the music. certain melodic gestures would have guided the singer as well, such as the rising third at the begin­ ning of dame, a vous (rf6/v33), which invites performance as an anacrusis to the metrical accent on the upper note. by these means, the meter of the music would be, as i suggested at the outset, obvious to the medieval singer directly in the musical design. it is thus a mistake to regard word setting as ancillary to musical notation, certainly in the context of the machaut sources. the grouping of the notes required by word underlay is an inte­ gral part of the notation of the song, indicating its basic rhythmic form. the approach adopted in this article has risked anachronism by bring­ ing present-day musicianship to the study of medieval music, where the bases for musical understanding and the conventions of musical practice were very likely different from ours in many ways that we cannot tell. it is, of course, important to avoid distorting medieval music by the imposition of our own preconceptions and values, if we can; we should not deny it the chance to be heard on its own terms, even if we can never be sure of the extent to which such a chance exists. yet there is also a danger-recog­ nized perhaps insufficiently these days-of not bringing our musicianship to bear in the study of medieval music and consequently of belittling it as music. the human impulses that gave rise to musical activity in the middle ages were not fundamentally different from our own, and our duty to medieval music is as much to respond to it in the light of those impulses as in the light of theoretical dicta. the differentiation of strong and weak beats which we now under­ stand by the term meter is a musical phenomenon that may be appreci­ ated in listening and reproduced in performance directly in sound with­ out the necessity of theoretical exegesis or conceptual mediation. it would have been as important a part of medieval dance music as it is of modern dance music, even though no medieval theorist troubled to explain the phenomenon; and for that matter, it is hard to see how the rhythm of machaut's songs assumed the form it did without the regulation of a met­ rical practice. we need not suppose that machaut meant something so very different from what we might by the words, "et musique est une sci­ ence/qui vuet qu'on rit et chante et dance."48 notes 1. the shifting relationship of musical phrase and poetic line found in aymi! dame (v3) , dou mal qui (v8), and diex, biaute (v19) is discussed in gollner (1989: david maw 97 especially 61-67); the phrasing of douce dame jolie (v4) is discussed in edwards (1996: especially 13-14). 2. a thorough study has been made by daniel leech-wilkinson (1996; an extension and amplification ofl991). see also plumley (1996:91-111). 3. ludwig (1926-54) and schrade (1956). although i give the titles of machaut's songs as much as possible, it is sometimes more convenient to refer to them by their numbers in the editions. for the most part, the editions use the same numbering; where they differ, the number of ludwig's edition is given first, followed by that of schrade's edition after an oblique line. 4. the manuscripts will be referred to in the conventional way: a, b, c, e, and f /g are paris, bibliotheque nationale, fonds franc;ais 1584, 1585, 1586, 9221, and 22545/6, respectively; vg is the manuscript now owned by the wildenstein galler­ ies in new york. summary details about the sources are given in earp (1995:7779,84-94). 5. compare the remarks of ludwig (1926-54, 2:46) with those of schrade (1956: commentary notes, 14). 6. the account presented here extends, refines, and develops observations of arlt (1982: especially 262-71) and weber-bockholdt (1992). 7. anonymus iv came close to it with the concept of principium ante principium, though this relates specifically to cases in polyphonic music where one voice en­ ters in advance of the others on the upbeat, and could not be applied to mono­ phonic song. see reckow (1967, 1:88) and roesner (1990:52). 8. david fenwick wilson argues that accentual meter was introduced during the transition from modal to mensural rhythm, around the time of franco of cologne. modus became the metrical level, marked by accent, while maximodus became a hypermetric level of phrase. rhythmic organization during what he re­ fers to as the "mensural period" was still, as franco acknowledged, modal. see wilson (1977: especially 326-32). 9. jean beck also observed this feature of the second rhythmic mode (1927, 2:58). 10. richard sherr has argued that all rhythms in machaut's music would have been construed upwards from the minim, thus making that value the fastest dura­ tion countable (1992:327-28). while this view certainly accords with the theory of mensuration, it seems unrealistic from a practical point of view. the manuscripts frequently group short notes together into the values of semi breves or breves. as these groups often conform to standard rhythmic patterns, they would surely have been read as distinct units, not assembled laboriously from the smallest constitu­ ent. from a historical point of view, the minim originated as a species of semibreve, that is, as a division of the breve; it is unlikely that by the time of machaut the entire mensural system would have been reconceived for practical purposes to build up the semibreve by addition of the minim. the simultaneous use of both minims and longs, which is common in machaut's polyphonic music, would have required that the two values were both directly intelligible as durations and re­ lated to each other. this would not have been possible if the (roughly similar) tempi proposed by willi apel (1961:343) and richard sherr (1992:330) were ac­ cepted as having been normal. 11. the term "part" is used throughout to refer to the two musical compo98 current musicology nents of virelai form, the first corresponding in the poem to the refrain and sec­ ond half of the stanza, the second to the first half of the stanza. 12. the texts of both music and poetry are based on those of schrade's edi­ tion. there are, of course, frequent differences with regard to barring. note val­ ues of the original notation are reduced by two rhythmic levels (a breve becomes a half note, and so on.) for consistency, dame, se vous m'estes (b37) is notated, like the other songs, in the tenor clef. ligatures are indicated by slurs. the character w, though used extensively in the machaut sources and retained by ludwig and schrade, has been replaced by vu. accented terminal eis shown bye. one or two slight changes have been made to syllabification in the interest of consistency. rhyme syllables are underlined in the examples to make clear their positions in the settings. 13. this is the case for nes qu'on porroit (b33), quant theseus (b34) (where machaut was apparently writing in response to a ballade by thomas paien), and dix et sept (r17); see letters 4, 31, and 35 in machaut (1998:76--79, 400-1, 44041;). 14. sixteen ballades (3,9,14,16,19,22,23,25,27,28,32,33,35,36,37, and 39), five rondeaux (4, 15, 19,20, and 21) and one virelai (26/23). 15. ballades 35,37, and 39 and rondeaux 19 and 20. 16. machaut duplicated only one virelai pattern, that used by dame, a vous (rf6/v33), which occurs elsewhere in three poems that were not set to music and three that were given two-voiced musical settings. a full formal analysis of the poetic forms ofthe virelais is given in maw (1999, 1:232-34). 17. a helpful summary of recent work in this area is given by switten (1995:8294). 18. two treatises in particular are relevant: dart dedictier (1392) by eustache deschamps and the chapter "des rymes et comment se doivent faire" of jacques legrand's l'archiloge de sophie (c. 1405): deschamps (1891, 7:266--92) and langlois (1902:1-10), respectively. though both postdate machaut, they are close enough to him in time and technique to be taken as representative. dechamps was a pu­ pil, and possibly nephew, of machaut. 19. the manuscripts have "souvereinne," but this gives the line nine rather than the regular eight syllables. the additional syllable is retained by schrade but bracketed by ludwig. it is eliminated here. 20. je vivroie (v23/21) is unique amongst the virelais with major prolatio in having suggested to ludwig the necessity of a transcription in imperfect modus. three factors seem to have prompted this: the use of breves rather than semibreves at the ends oflines; the word underlay, which moves here unusually for songs with major imperfect tempus in semi breves and breves; and the setting of the paroxytonic rhymes. the latter may well have been the decisive factor. the two syllables of the paroxytonic rhymes are set in equal breves, pointing to a binary organization of breves at the modus level, analogous to that in the songs with minor imperfect tempus. while this meter aligns all the accented syllables of the paroxytonic rhymes with strong beats, the oxytonic rhymes, which terminate over half of the lines in the song, are not so aligned. this seems to have been an intentional effect of "cross-cadencing" (a term explained below). 21. the exceptions are the first and third lines of aymi! dame (v3), each of david maw 99 which is concatenated within a phrase to the following line. their oxytonic rhymes are effectively ignored in the setting, being placed within the beat, the onlyocca­ sions in these virelais where rhymes have absolutely no bearing on the setting. 22. a full exposition of this is given in part 3 of maw (1999, 1). 23. in addition to he! dame de vaillance (vi) and dou mal qui (v8), this type accounts for the two displaced oxytones in quant je sui mis (vi3) and the four in je vivroie (v23/2i). 24. two further examples emerge from the reevaluation of the transcriptions given here below: one possible, but unlikely, in dame, je vueil (v9), and one more or less certain, in diex, biaute (vi9). 25. the first two lines of the refrain of j'aim sans penser (vi4), the fourth and fifth lines of se mesdisans (vi5) (discussed below), and the second line of helas! et comment (vi8). 26. but see also dame, je vueil (v9) , discussed below. 27. vi-ii, v3-ii, v5-i and -ii, v9-i and -ii, and v30/27-ii. 28. in this respect, ludwig's edition is consistent. schrade's, however, adopts a variety of approaches: in v5, v9, vi4, and vi8 the initial rests of the sources are transcribed; in v28/25 the initial rest of the sources is supplemented by an edito­ rial rest in brackets; in v 4 the initial rest of the sources is not transcribed; in vii he gives no initial rest, in the same way as ludwig. 29. vll-i, v20-i and -ii, and v28/25-ii. 30. v4, v5, vll, v20, v28/25, and v30/27. 31. with one exception: vi and vi8; with two exceptions: v2 and vi4. 32. the copy of the song in manuscript e (f.33v.) provides implicit support for this by giving the final note of the first part of the song as a long rather than the semibreve found in the other sources. the long would have to be taken as nota finalis, commencing on the beginning of a bar, and this would require the anacrustic shifting of the beginning of the song. admittedly, this evidence is weak, as the repetition of the first part that terminates the stanza has a semibreve at the end in that source. 33. these metrical corrections enhance the resemblance between this song and puis que ma dolour (v7) noted by leech-wilkinson (1996:134-35). 34. uniquely among the virelais, this song presents some significant differ­ ences in the word underlay. comparison of the different versions leads to a prefer­ ence for the copy in c, being the one with the most consistent setting. ludwig and schrade followed the word underlay given in vg, a and g, while deviating from these sources at the ouvert and clos cadences; the copy in b is now missing. these differences between the sources are discussed and evaluated in maw (1999, 1:9495). c and e differ from the other sources in giving the first note of the second phrase as g rather than a'. c's copy alone provides an internal check by notating the first part a second time for the end of the stanza, and here too g is given. as c appears to be the most reliable source for the word underlay, i have opted to incorporate its different reading for this note. ludwig and schrade give the a' of the other sources. 35. though considered a ballade by machaut, this song may be examined here with the virelais both because it is monophonic and because its form is not fundamentally dissimilar to that of the two exceptional virelais, quant se sui mis 100 current musicology (v13) andj'aim sans penser (vi4). in any case, machaut seems to have been the first to make a clear formal distinction between ballades and virelais, which are thoroughly intermixed in the collection of "balettes" in the manuscript oxford, bodleian library, douce 308. see hoepffner (1920). 36. see apel (1961:350-51), though like schrade, he does not observe the modus meter here. 37. virelais 6, 10 (except in c), 12 (1st part slightly inconsistent in notation), 15 (except in c), 17, 18 (1st part), 20, 23 (except for 2 syllables), 25, and 30, as well as ballade 37. 38. virelais 4, 7, and 19. virelais 3 and 16 may also be of this type, as discussed here. 39. e has staves but no notes in its copy of this song. 40. a revised transcription of the piece, taking into account richard hoppin's comments on the notation (1960:20-23), is given in leech-wilkinson (1984:1417). see also ape! (1961:349). 4l. this view is shared by alison bullock (1997, 1:79-81), though she, follow­ ing lawrence earp (1983:140-41), maintains that rose, lis was most likely com­ posed close to the time of cii's compilation. the evidence for this, depending on details of manuscript layout and musical style, is suggestive but not conclusive. it does not, in any case, affect the argument here: the employment of similar metri­ cal flux in the virelai and rondeau does not depend on proximate dates of compo­ sition for them, and the date of cii's compilation, which might affect the time between composition of the two pieces, is not precisely known. 42. schrade comments on this case: "the modus upon which ludwig's tran­ scription is based is not justified in the notation" (1956: commentary notes, 140 -41). it is not clear whether, in singling out this example, schrade is conceding that ludwig's use of modus in the other virelais is justified in the notation, if not essential for transcription, or whether his avoidance of it in transcription is an implicit generalization of the reserve expressed in this case. in any event, much depends on what exactly is meant by "the notation." the view pursued here is that word underlay is an integral component of the notation of the song and that this presents a justification for ludwig's use of modus. the pulpose of transcription is not simply the replacement of one set of symbols by another, but a rendering of the compositional thought expressed in one set of symbols according to a differ­ ent set of symbols. 43. a gives the same word underlay for the cadences at the end of the first part where this is repeated as the second half of the stanza, but e and g agree with the other sources here. all six sources have the same setting for the cadences of the second part. 44. this can be seen in the differences between ludwig's and schrade's use of modus in transcription of a number of the songs. see also the discussion in hoppin (1960:23-26). 45. v1-ii, v3-ii, v6-i, v8-ii, v13-i, v19-i and -ii, and v2~:/21-i and ii. 46. v3-i, v12-i and ii, vl4-ii, v15-i, v18-i, and v19-i. 47. v16, v18, and v19. 48. prologue, lines 198-199 (machaut 1973:10). david maw 101 references apel, willi. [1953] 1961. the notation of polyphonic music 900-1600. 5th ed. cam­ bridge, mass.: mediaeval academy of america. arit, wulf. 1982. aspekte der chronologie und des stilwandels im franzosischen lied des 14.jahrhunderts. in aktuellefragen der musikbezogenen mittelalterf(ffschung. forum musicologicum: basler beitrage zur musikgeschichte 3, edited by hans oesch and wulf arit, 193-280. winterthur: amadeus. beck, jean. 1927. le chansonnier cange. corpus cantilenarum medii aevi 1 ere sene. 2 vols. paris: librairie ancienne. bullock, alisonjulia. 1997. the musical readings of the machaut manuscripts. 2 vols. ph.d. diss., university of southampton. deschamp, eustache. 1891. oeuvres completes. edited by gaston raynaud. 11 vols. paris: f. didot. earp, lawrence. 1983. scribal practice, manuscript production, and the transmission of music in late medieval france: the manuscripts of guillaume de machaut. ph.d. diss., princeton university. ___ .1991. genre in the fourteenth-century french chanson: the virelai and the dance song. musica discplina 45: 123-41. .1995. guillaume de machaut: a guide to research. new york and london: garland. edwards, warwick. 1996. phrasing in medieval song: perspectives from traditional music. plainsong and medieval music 5: 1-22. gollner, marie louise. 1989. musical and poetic structure in the refrain forms of machaut. in liedstudien: wolfgang osthoff zum 60. geburstag, edited by martin just and reinhard wiesend, 61-76. tutzing: h. schneider. gunther, ursula. 1963. chronologie und stil der kompositionen guillaume de machauts. acta musicologica 35: 96-97. hoepffner, eruest. 1920. virelais et ballades dans ie chansonnier d'oxford. archivum romanicum 4: 20-40. hoppin, richard h. 1960. notational licences of guillaume de machaut. musica disciplina 14: 20-23. klausenburger,jurgen. 1970. frenchprosodics andphonotactics. tubingen: niemeyer. langlois, m. e., ed. 1902. recueil d'arts de second rhetorique. paris: imprimerie nationale. leech-wilkinson, daniel. 1984. machaut's rose, lis and the problem of early mu­ sic analysis. music analysis 3: 9-28. ___ 1991. not just a pretty tune: structuring devices in four machaut virelais. sonus 12: 16-31. ___ 1996. the well-formed virelai. in trent'anni di ricerche musicologiche: studi in on(ffe dif. alberto gallo, edited by patrizia della vecchia and donatella restani, 125-41. rome: torre d'orfeo. ludwig, friedrich. 1926-54. guillaume de machaut musikalische werke. 4 vols. leipzig: h. besseler. machaut, guillaume de. 1973. poesies lyriques, vol. 1. edited by vladimir chichmaref. reprint. geneva: slatkine. _____ . 1998. le livre dou voir dit (the book of the true poem). translated by r. barton palmer and edited by daniel leech-wilkinson. new york & lon102 current musicology don: garland. maw, david. 1999. words and music in the secular songs of guillaume de machaut. 2 vols. d.phil. diss., oxford university. plumley, yolanda. 1996. the grammar of 14th century melody: tonal organization and compositional process in the chansons of guillaume de machaut and the ars subtilior. new york and london: garland. pope, mildred k [1934] 1952. from latin to modern french with especial consider­ ation of anglo-norman. london: manchester university press. reckow, fritz. 1967. der musiktraktat des anonymus 4. ~~ vols. beihefte zum archiv fur musikwissenschaft 4-5. wiesbaden: laaber. roesner, edward. 1990. the emergence of music a mensurabilis. in studies in musical sources and style: festschrift for jan la rue, edited by edward roesner, 41-74. madi­ son, wis.: a-r editions. schrade, leo, ed. 1956. the works of guillaume de machaut. vols. 2-3 (and com­ mentary notes) of polyphonic music of the fourteenth century. monaco: editions de i'oiseau-lyre. sherr, richard. 1992. tempo to 1500. in companion to medieval music, edited by tess knighton and david fallows, 327-28. london: dent. switten, margaret. 1995. music and poetry in the middle ages: a guide to research on french and occitan song, 1100-1400. new york and london: garland. weber-bockholdt, petra. 1992. beobachtungen zu den virelais von guillaume de machaut. archiv fur musikwissenschaft 49: 263-8l. wilson, david fenwick. 1977. the motet of the late thirteenth century and its relation­ ship to the development of rhythmic polyphony. ph.d. diss., case western reserve university. scat singing: a timbral and phonemic analysis* by william r. bauer jazz, especially the bop-derived styles to which that term now largely refers, is generally considered an instrumental idiom; far less often the term 'jazz musician" conjures up an image of a singer. in this context, scat singing, the usual medium for jazz vocal improvisation, is usually under­ stood as singers imitating instrumentalists (e.g., robinson 1994:1093). there is ample evidence for this view. as milton stewart has shown, the vo­ cables used by such notable exponents of scat as ella fitzgerald and sarah vaughan often mimic the tonguing, phrasing, and articulation of instru­ mentalists (1987:65, 68, 74). furthermore, by dissociating the vocal line from verbal meaning, scat singers venture into the realm of so-called "absolute" music where musical sounds are apparently free of the extra­ musical associations that words create, a realm typically identified with in­ strumental music. jazz singers who explore this realm do so by adopting the role ofthe horn player in the ensemble. l while acknowledging this view, paul berliner reminds us that the ex­ change of ideas between jazz players and singers has flowed abundantly in both directions (1994:125). scattered throughout his monumental study thinking in jazz are references to instrumentalists drawing upon vocal ex­ pression and technique in both forming and communicating their musi­ cal ideas. generalizing about the ways master musicians guide the forma­ tion of their students' musical imaginations, for example, berliner states that, "many experts advise learners to practice singing tunes initially with nonverbal or scat syllables-to master the melodies aurally without relying on physical expression such as fingering patterns or the visualization of an instrument's layout" (ibid.:66). many other authors have also recognized the importance of vocal expression in instrumental jazz. 2 perhaps because of the extensive crossover of ideas between instrumen­ talists and vocalists-a crossover that has been considered by some to be a defining feature of jazz-scat singing has received little consideration as an expressive medium in its own right.3 indeed, there has been precious little musical analysis of jazz singing in general, let alone scat. in order to address this lacuna, my study illustrates an analytic approach to scat that grows from the distinctive features of jazz vocal performance practice. the analysis will focus largely on timbre, an important element that generally receives inadequate attention in the jazz literature. current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 304 current musicology the idea that singers can provide us with a deeper understanding of the role timbre plays in jazz is not new. robert cogan offers some insight into the expressive potential timbre has for jazz singers in his spectrum analysis of billie holiday's 1946 recording of "strange fruit" (1984:35-38). a large part of cogan's analysis is dedicated to the song's lyrics-an aspect of the performance not contributed by holiday-so it does not have much direct bearing upon this study.4 more relevant is barry kernfeld's manner of introducing jazz neophytes to the concept of timbre and how it is used in jazz. in what to listen for in jazz, kernfeld presents listeners with the scat syllables, or vocables, of louis armstrong's solo from "hotter than that" (1995:167-68), opening up an intriguing line of inquiry. perhaps kern­ feld was picking up on a strand initiated by mezz mezzrow in really the blues, when mezzrow included a phonetic transcription of the vocables armstrong invented for his scat solo on "heebie jeebies" (reprinted in schaal 1988:3). despite such promising beginnings, however, none of these authors explores the vocalist's manipulation of timbre in much depth. due to certain acoustical features of the human voice, an especially rich array of sonic resources is available to singers. the sounds singers produce fall into two broad categories depending upon whether or not they carry definite pitch. voiced sounds, which include all vowels, are produced by sending air through the vocal cords. at the voice source these sounds are often quite complex (i.e., they contain a large number of partials), de­ pending on their pitch and intensity. voiceless sounds result from con­ stricting the air flow at various places along the vocal tract, from the glottis (lh/) to the tip of the tongue (it/). while all consonants entail some constriction of the air flow, voiced consonants such as fbi, /d/, and /g/ incorporate some definite pitch as well.5 as a sound proceeds through the various cavities of the vocal tract, it is modified and amplified in ways that alter its overtone structure. this process of resonation generates the formants that are characteristic of each person's voice.6 imposing other formants upon the sound, a singer may vary its tone color further by altering the shape of the vocal tract, which is governed by the position of the articulators-the tongue, the lips, or the jaw, for example. articulator positions are largely responsible for the wide diversity of phones, the smallest units of speech, used by speakers and singers. because each position produces a distinct timbre with its own radiated spectrum and characteristic formant frequencies, there are mea­ surable differences in darkness or brightness among vocal sounds (sund­ berg 1980:82-84; taylor 1980:557-58; cogan and escot 1977:457-60). the vocables singers invent when creating a scat solo are built up from phones. using phonetic symbols, we can therefore notate the wide palette of vocal timbres available to scat singers and examine in detail how these william r. bauer 305 singers employ their sonic raw materials. phonetic transcriptions of scat solos reveal that, for such singers, timbre serves not only to embellish melodic gestures with subtle coloristic nuances-as it often does for jazz instrumentalists-but also to organize the flow of singers' musical ideas into cohesive, dramatically effective statements. for the analyses that follow, i have adapted the trager-smith phonemes (smith 1979), which, unlike those from the international phonetic alphabet, are specific to the sounds of the english language (see tables 1, 2, and 3). i have chosen these phonemes because they give the reader graphic markers for several linguistic features, including a vowel's length and its brightness or darkness.7 for example, a semi-vowel glide iyl after a short vowel indicates the lengthening and brightening of a simple vo­ calic nucleus8 that is caused by moving the tongue forward and higher (ibid.:xxviii). the timbral relationship between the words "bit" and "beat," therefore, becomes more apparent when they are spelled phonetically: the presence of a iy i in ibiyt/ (beat) indicates that the vowel is longer and brighter than the one in ibit/. similarly, the trager-smith phonemes register the difference in articulator positions and sound between the words "full" and "fool." the iwl in ifuwl/ (fool) indicates that, as the jaw moves forward and the lips round, the vowel in iful/ (full) lengthens and darkens. serving both as prescriptive and descriptive notations, the trager-smith phonemes-especially when read aloud-indicate the ma­ nipulations of the vocal apparatus necessary to produce speech sounds, in addition to notating the sound that results from such manipulations. (for a detailed look at these relationships, compare the short vowels ii/, lei, la/, lui, 101, and ixl in table 1 to their corresponding long vowels and diphthongs in table 2.) the vowels in the english language can be arranged to form a timbral scale according to the relative height of each vowel's formant (cogan and escot 1977:459). the following sequence of vowels, produced toward the front of the mouth, gradually increases in brightness: 1;)1, lxi, lei, ley/, ii/, fiyl (as in the words putt, pat, pet, paid, pit, and peat, respec­ tively). produced in back of the mouth, the following sequence-also starting with the neutral schwa-grows increasingly dark: 1;)1, la/, loh/, low/, lui, luwl (as in putt, pot, bought, boat, put, and boot). in each se­ quence, the addition of a semi-vowel glide iyl or iwl moves the preced­ ing vowel sound one degree further on the scale. the first six rows of table 3 present alternating sets of voiceless and voiced consonants. arranged in columns from left to right, each consonant is situated in the table accord­ ing to the articulator(s) required for its production. studying phonetic transcriptions of scat solos with these sequences in mind, we can observe the ways scat singers can create sudden timbral contrasts or smooth timbral transitions with vowels.9 306 current musicology ii! lei leel liyl leyl layl pit pet pat table 1 trager-smith phonemes: short vowel sounds ipitl ipetl ipeetl igl lehl cut pail icgtl ipehl/ table 2 lui put lohl caught lal pot trager-smith phonemes: long vowels and diphthongs beat ibiytl lyuwl dispute idispyuwtl luwl boot bait ibeytl loyl boy iboyl lowl boat bite ibaytl leewl bout iputl ikohtl ipatl ibuwtl ibowtl ibeewt! louis armstrong's use of vocables in his influential scat performance on "heebie jeebies" (ex. 1)10 illustrates how vocal timbre contributes to the music's movement and "shape" (larue 1970).1l much of the solo's playful unpredictability comes from the vocables he chooses: imagine how much less compelling the solo would be if he had sung it entirely on ilal or some other syllable. the element of surprise is immediately heightened at the outset of the solo by the novelty of armstrong's vocables leh/iyfl geef/gmf/. initially, the freshness of these sounds serves to grab the lis­ tener's attention. but as the solo unfolds, this feature will also fulfill an­ other purpose, which will be discussed below. in the context of the whole solo, the unusual character of these first sounds becomes even more ap­ parent for elsewhere i dl is the prevailing initial consonant. the phones idl and ibl used as initial consonants became the staple of virtually every scat singer who followed in louis armstrong's footsteps. this circumstance has more to do with the mechanics of singing into a mi­ crophone than it does either with armstrong's direct influence or with the fact that the syllable i duw i (doo), which horn players typically use to ar­ ticulate a legato attack, begins with i dl (stewart 1987:65). produced at the front of the mouth, the consonants idl and ibl allow for a clear ar­ ticulation of the pitch's attack-unlike their sustainable counterparts inl and im/. significantly, using the aspirated it i as an initial consonant has not gained much favor among scat singers, even though horn players use the syllable ituwl to articulate an accented sound. the puff of air re­ leased in the production of it i and ip/, both voiceless plosives, can produce unwanted noise when directed at a microphone. one of the alternatives a scat singer has for accenting a pitch is to sing a relatively brighter vowel on it. armstrong illustrates this technique in william r. bauer 307 table 3 trager-smith phonemes-consonants and semi-vowel! semi-consonant glides bilabial labiodental dental alveolar palatal velar l. /p/pop it/tight /k/kick /pap/ /tayt/ /kik/ 2. /b/bob /d/did /g/gag /bab/ /did/ /gceg/ 3. ie/church /eure 4. /jljudge /j;")ji 5. if/fife /8/thin is/sass is/shush /fayf/ /8in/ /sces/ /s;")s 6. lv/valve la/this /z/zebra /z/measure /valv/ /ais/ /ziybr;")/ /mdur/ 7. /m/mum in/nun /lj/sing /mum/ /nun/ / silj/ 8. /i/lull /r/rear /hi/ /rihr/ semi-vowel/semi-consonant glides /y/yay /h/hah /w/wow /yey/ /ha/ /wcew/ measures 4-5 of example 1, using the long vowel liyl (ee) to highlight several of the higher pitches in the line. conversely, he uses i uw i (00) to darken the tone of many of the lower pitches. although the vocable i duw i on the downbeat of measure 5 seems an exception to this pattern, armstrong lends the vowel a certain brightness by modifying it slightly to resemble idii/. his frequent alternation of contrasting vowel sounds­ often such strongly contrasting ones as liyl and luw/, as in measures 4-5-helps generate the movement so essential for swing. likewise, at the midpoint of his scat solo on "hotter than that" (ex. 2), armstrong reinforces the line's contour rhythm, which results from pairs of ascending pitches, by performing a relatively brighter vowel 308 current musicology example 1: "heebiejeebies," louis armstrong scat solo (february 26,1926). transcribed by william r. bauer. f eb7 ~ &"ii~ r i ~ • i • ~ ~ r i i i 't 't eh iyf gref amf diy ba 3 a, $ w'i'~ ( j' r . i r r ~ ( . r i 't d diy da la bam rip ip di duw diy duwt 5 eb7 f &iiii~ r ~ r r • i ~ r j j; i j 't ~ duw duw diy duw da diy da da dow diy 7 a, $ &iii~ ~j j j 't ~fgt;;-j ( . j j ~ i j ;;j dow di dow duw duw ba duw biy dey da 9 eb7 f &iii~ ( j' i r r 't ~ j j j i r skiyp skrem ski bap diy da di da 11 a, f &j,ii~ j j -----... r ) r 't ~ i ~ ~ r dip drew diy dip duw da drew da example 2: "hotter than that," louis armstrong scat solo (december 13, 1929). from reeves (2001). boh b~ boh ba b;;l biy b:il biy bow btl bow ba ba biy ba biy on the second pitch of each pair. the momentum this treatment imparts to these note-pairs helps to propel the line along, amplifying the swing created by armstrong's superimposition of 3 meter against the rhythm section's common time. sung entirely with the initial consonant /b/, the william r. bauer 309 vocables here create four-note groupings that recur every three beats, adding an additional layer of polymeter to the passage. in "heebie jeebies" (ex. 1), armstrong uses unusual scat vocables in measure 9 to draw attention to a key structural moment. the sounds he chooses for the solo's midpoint-/skiyp/sk~m/ski/b;}p/-recall the solo's opening measures, which share the same vowel sequence: /iy/~/. this phonemic recapitulation reinforces the return of the opening rhyth­ mic idea, helping to give the solo its memorable shape. 12 while there is some question concerning armstrong's role in the origin of scat,13 his ap­ proach to the genre undoubtedly established many of the methods ex­ plored by later scat vocalists. one such vocalist was betty carter (1929-1998). carter came of age musically when bebop arrived in detroit in the mid-1940s. her early expo­ sure to the bop-oriented work of such established artists as dizzy gillespie, charlie parker, ella fitzgerald, and sarah vaughan-as well as to that of many musicians from her own generation such as barry harris and tommy flanagan-laid the groundwork for her lifelong commitment to bebop and the principles that inform it. bebop's breakneck tempos and complex harmonic language, in addition to its use of a richly interactive rhythm section, stemmed from, and in turn spurred, musicians' quest for ever greater extremes of technical virtuosity. it is hardly surprising, then, that vocalists who sought jazz credibility were inspired by the new style to display their improvisational gifts. delivering a song's lyrics ostensibly limits vocalists' improvisational choices because doing so normally entails staying close enough to the melody as written that listeners can recognize it. nevertheless, some singers transformed melodies, often boldly, while singing lyrics-especially arm­ strong and holiday, but also sarah vaughan at times, and, later in her career, ella fitzgerald. 14 under the influence ofthese singers, betty carter was already somewhat free in her approach to a song's melody when she began her career. still, she respected the song's essential melodic con­ tour, restricting her full-out improvisations to scat choruses. 15 after the mid-1960s, however, she took a decidedly improvisational approach to singing lyrics, as well as to scatting. for carter's generation, scat had been popularized chiefly by gillespie and fitzgerald, performers whose scat singing helped spark the short-lived bebop craze at the end of the 1940s. by this time, the scat vocabulary had expanded beyond the outlines established by louis armstrong; the new rhythmic and melodic possibilities opened up by the distinctive personal styles of such singers as cab calloway, leo watson, and, later, slim "bulee" gaillard precipitated a flowering of phonemic invention. 16 their work 310 current musicology set the stage, in turn, for ella fitzgerald's bop-oriented scat singing­ exemplified by her remarkable version of "flyin' home" (october 4, 1945) -and for dizzy gillespie and kenny "pancho" hagood's boisterous scatting, illustrated by their renditions of "oop-pop-a-da" (august 22, 1947) and "001ya-koo" (december 30, 1947). while also grounded in the bebop idiom, sarah vaughan's scatting was cooler, less frantic than her predecessors'.l7 betty carter's early scat singing owed much to these influences. her earliest recorded efforts with lionel hampton, heard in 1948-49 on jubilee broadcasts of armed forces recording service disks,ls as well as other recordings, were peppered with references to gillespie's scat vehicles and vocal licks out of fitzgerald's vocabulary such as the rapid alternation of syllables that start with inl and id/. in such recordings as "confess," "i'll dance at your wedding," "nothing in view," and "gladys's idea," as well as "benson's boogie" and "the hucklebuck," which hampton recorded for decca, we get a clear sense of the young singer ex­ ploring the bebop terrain via the melodic and phonemic means provided by these older singers. carter expanded the terrain considerably in her melodically and rhythmically adventurous scat explorations from the 1960s to the end of her career. incorporating post-bop instrumental id­ ioms such as hard bop, these excursions in turn have been profoundly influential to a whole new generation of scat singers such as ai jarreau and bobby mcferrin. 19 developments in scat have therefore paralleled those injazz, with singers' rhythmic and melodic gestures echoing the pre­ dominant styles (stewart 1987). as we shall see, even the choice of syllable had stylistic ramifications. by the time the peacock record label recorded betty carter's version of randy weston's composition "babe's blues," released on out there with betty carter in 1958, she had earned the respect of the best musicians of her day. arranger gigi gryce assembled and directed the band for the recording date, and trombonist melba liston probably arranged "babe's blues" for this recording. 20 jon hendricks's witty lyrics to the song implic­ itly encourage listeners to be as hip as children-who, "unlike adults," take life's hardships in stride. hendricks's text serves largely to set an ironic, detached tone consistent with the bop aesthetic. in some ways, the nonsense syllables of carter's scat solo also suggest a cool version of baby talk. isolating the vocables carter uses in her scat solo on "babe's blues" (ex. 3) reveals the way she organizes them purely as timbral elements, apart from any function they may serve in relation to other musical mate­ rials. in example 3, the vocables have been arranged in lines and stanzas and punctuated in order to clarify the phrasing that results both from carter's handling of her phonemic materials and from her approach to other musical materials such as rhythmic duration (indicated by a horiwilliam r. bauer 311 example 3: "babe's blues," betty carter scat solo (1958). (3) 1 2 3 (1) (2) 1. [1:09] suw buduw bap. 2. suw buduw bap. 3. wi di~, 4. wi di bg, 5. wi bg, buw bap. 6. duwdg wi dl i, di dl e, de dl g, 7. wadi e, dedi e, de dl g, 8. wadle, de dl e, de dl g, 9. dow ba, dow bwa. di. 10. de wi bi, bg wi bow, we bow, 11. we be, w;:)bg, 12. wi be, wg 13. [1:26] ... yuw (diy) bap. 14. 5;:) duw bwiy, bwiy, ___ diy dl iy 15. duw ___ bap. 16. sg duwbwiy (k;:) , wiy( g) , __ liy (g), da __ , 17. widl diy, wiy di, 18. di ba ba duw, 19. dg heh ya. 20. da di dl a da. 21. sg di dl a dey. 22. sg di dl a dey. 23. n dey ndg da __ da [1:45] zontalline) and legato or staccato articulation. the numbers at the top of the diagram indicate the beats of the measure in which each phrase is situ­ ated, while the numbers in parentheses designate beats that lie beyond the primary measure. the lines of scat "text" do not correspond exactly to measures; clearly, some lines are longer or shorter than a measure. but their vertical alignment on the page illustrates how each line relates to the tune's ~ meter. the timings in the left margin are from the recording and indicate the start of each blues chorus. the diagram makes certain features of the timbral organization in carter's solo readily apparent. for example, note that carter creates phonemic patterns by repeating certain vocable phrases. immediate repe­ titions of line 1, line 7, and line 21 contribute significantly to the small dimension shape of the stanzas that contain them. these repetitions also 312 current musicology reinforce the lines' memorability, enabling the listener to hear in line 21 traces of lines 1 and 7, specifically the lsi as an initial consonant and the triplet figure i de dlg/, respectively. lines 7 and 21 are themselves each variations of the phrases that imme­ diately preceded them. carter generates small dimension movement in them by slightly modifying lines 6 and 20, respectively. this movement is then stabilized by the literal repetitions that follow. here and elsewhere­ as in lines 3, 4, and 5, or in lines 10, 11, and 12-carter varies phonemic content cumulatively. through variation she also creates an oblique paral­ lelism in lines 13-16, with line 13 echoed in line 15 and line 14 elaborated in line 16. the interlocking of phrases here, which reinforces a correspon­ ding melodic parallelism, effectively sustains the solo's momentum into the second blues chorus. perhaps the most significant way carter continually creates small di­ mension movement is by introducing fresh vocables throughout the solo. these vocables are indicated in example 3 with italics. more than two thirds of the twenty-three lines in example 3 contain at least one syllable heard for the first time, and some contain as many as three or more. in such an ever-evolving sonic environment, repetitions take on a heightened significance. later in her career, carter's arrangements for her own en­ sembles were marked by a comparable sensitivity to the capacity fresh tim­ bres have for keeping the music constantly moving and growing. she would often reserve instrumental timbres until crucial moments in a chart, and she frequently advised her sidemen to withhold certain sounds, such as the click of the sock cymbal or the middle register of the piano, and build the arrangement by introducing such sounds gradually.21 despite the wide array of sounds carter uses in her short scat solo on "babe's blues," there is an underlying cohesiveness to them because she has spun all of her vocables out of a limited number of phones. for ex­ ample, of the twenty-four consonants in the english language, just nine occur in the solo as initial consonants. consistent with other singers in the scat tradition, she uses predominantly ibl and idl, with each of them occurring in nine vocable classes. taken together, these two consonants initiate more than half of the vocable classes used in the solo. the conso­ nants, lsi, 11/, ikl, and inl, and the semi-consonants iyl, ihl, and iwl, occur as initial consonants with significantly less frequency, lending them a greater capacity for generating movement in the small dimension. com­ bining this limited set of initial consonants with an assortment of vowels makes for a surprising variety of vocables, although even here carter nar­ rows her options somewhat. of the sixteen possible vowels at her disposal, including four diphthongs, she avails herself of only ten, six of them short (li/, lei, ig/, lehl, lui, la/), and four long (leyl, liyl, luwl, and low/). william r. bauer 313 it is not unusual for a scat singer to construct a stylistic vocabulary from a limited set of phonemes. as her personal style developed, carter became increasingly aware of the stylistic implications of specific timbral choices. later in her career, for example, she made a point of expanding her phonemic vocabulary to include more idiosyncratic sounds, such as /1/ as an initial consonant (bauer 2002:315-18). further timbral and phonemic analysis of scat solos by carter and others will reveal how specific to this performance is the vocabulary carter uses in her solo on "babe's blues." only one consonant, /p/, occurs in the solo in the final position­ appropriately enough in the vocable /bap/-the scat syllable from which the term "bop" derives (owens 1994:137). consistent with bebop phras­ ing, carter's use of this vocable produces a clipped phrase ending in lines 1 and 2, in line 5 when the harmony moves to the jv7 chord, and later in lines 13 and 15. while these instances of /bap/ serve as a style marker, carter gives them large-dimension significance in the solo as well. by combining /bap/ with references to the long /uw/ vowel in the vocables /suw /, /buw /, /yuw /, and / duw /, and by confining nearly all of these vocables' occurrences to the first four measures of each blues chorus, carter uses timbre to reinforce the large dimension shape created by rep­ etitions of the blues form. in the solo's last eight measures, at lines 16, 18, and 20-23, carter returns to the same vowel /a/, both alone and with the initial consonants /b/ and /d/, gradually inducing closure in the solo's final phrases. in lines 16, 20, and especially 23, when / da/ occurs on long notes at phrase endings, the vowel-minus the truncating /p/ that ends the earlier /bap/-has an open quality less typical of bebop's clipped phrasing. this reinforces the idea that at this point in her artistic develop­ ment carter was not limiting herself to that idiom's vocabulary, but rather was incorporating the more lyrical gestures of later bop idioms. there are other ways in which the scat vocabulary carter has devised for "babe's blues" gives the solo's timbral language a distinctive sound and provides cohesiveness. of the thirty-five different vocable classes used in the solo, the following ten are used only once: /buw/, /i/, /bwa/, /bi/, /yuw/, /k;}/, /liy/, /heh/, /ya/, and /n/, causing them to sound especially fresh. 22 such freshness enables carter to draw attention to three crucial downbeats, in lines 5, 13, and 19, which mark the arrival points of the phrases that precede them. the rhyme between line 5 (/buw/bap/) and line 13 (/yuw/ (/ diy /) /bap/) reinforces a large-dimension connec­ tion between these arrival points. in addition to introducing two new vocables in line 19, carter incorpo­ rates a vocal ornament into the phrase /d;}/heh/ya/, increasing its nov­ elty. similarly, the fresh syllables /b/ and /liy/ in line 16-the elabora­ tion of line 14 pointed out earlier-amplify the impact of the passage's vocal ornaments and intentionally unmeasured plasticity, or purposeful 314 current musicology disruption of the vocal line's coordination with the rhythm section. each of the vocables on the three downbeats discussed above, as well as those occuring in line 9 (lbwa/, which incorporates a smear) and in line 23 (ln/) come at the moment when carter interrupts a repeating sequence of vocable phrases, helping her to redirect the music's movement out of the cycles these sequences create. certain vowels occur only in particular passages in the solo, giving each stretch its own characteristic tone color. the short vowel lei occurs only in lines 6-8 and 10-12, relating these two passages by timbre. carter's in­ sertion of vocables with the long vowel lowl in lines 9-10, the only pas­ sage in which this vowel sound occurs, initially creates a timbral contrast with the predominantly brighter vowels heard immediately before. moving through lines 9-11, the alliteration caused by the initial conso­ nants iwl and ibl helps to accomplish a transitional return to the brighter vowels in lines 10-12. the short vowels that predominate in lines 6-8 and in lines 10-12 also relate to the relatively shorter rhythmic values in these passages, enabling carter to generate rhythmic momentum that she then releases in the long vowels and relatively longer rhythmic values in lines 9 and 13, respectively. in this way, she uses vowel length to rein­ force the agogic rhythm of each phrase. first hinted at on a ghost note in line 13, the long liyl sound has been reserved to cast its brightness over the climactic passage in lines 14-17. carter introduces the vocable i dal at the end of line 16, when the move to the iv chord, the defining harmonic gesture of the blues, occurs. as mentioned earlier, this vocable will gain significance as a closing sonor­ ity in lines 20 and 23. in lines 21-23, the contrasting long vowel ley i lends brightness to the vocable i dey i, even as the syllable's alliteration with idal helps lend consistency to the solo's closing lines. as a rule, carter chose to reject certain sounds associated with various scat singers: the loy i diphthong that fitzgerald used at times, for example, or multiple repetitions of the phoneme /uw/, which dizzy gillespie used-typically with a glottal stop.23 but certain sounds in carter's arsenal may be attributed to the influence of other singers. her use of inl and i dl in the solo's closing line, for example, may have been inspired by ella fitzgerald, who also used these consonants in alternation.24 similarly, her use of the palatal-fricative lsi (sh) reveals her debt to sarah vaughan, who popularized its use (stewart 1987:67-68). at this stage in her career, carter was still under the older singer's spell, but by the mid-1960s, she would distance herself from vaughan's influence with regard to her choice of vocables. 25 berliner (1994:254, 804) has described how he over­ heard carter give advice to a young scat singer backstage after a concert at northwestern university in december 1978: "why are you using scat syllawilliam r. bauer 315 bles like 'shoo-bee-doo-bee'? those belong to sarah [vaughan], and they belong to the fifties. what you have to do is find your own syllables." speaking to leonard lyons a few months later, carter elaborated on this: "i do everything i can, when i scat, to not, say, start a phrase as most scat singers do with shababadoo or shababadoo-wa or -wee. a lot of scat singers start a phrase off with that sh sound" (carter 1979). nevertheless, al­ though in "babe's blues" lsi is clearly a borrowed sound, the way carter uses it later in the solo-in line 14 shortly after the second chorus begins and in line 21 to recall the solo's opening in her closing phrases­ contributes to the solo's large-dimension shape, giving the sound a formal function as well. as mentioned earlier, each line of vocables in example 3 is vertically aligned with the meter, with secondary metric positions indicated in parentheses. for example, line 1 begins on the second beat of the solo's first measure and extends to the first beat of the following measure. the alignment clarifies carter's technique of establishing a cyclic regularity by having successive passages each begin on the same beat of the measure, as occurs in lines 1-3 and lines 7-9 (as well as at other times). in using meter to generate rhythmic shape, such passages of cyclical regularity are essen­ tial foils for the contrasting passages that follow in lines 3-5 and 10-12, re­ spectively. these disruptions are accomplished by shortening the lines' duration to two beats, a hemiola effect that makes each successive line come a beat sooner than expected. by returning to the vocable lwil in the latter passage (lines 10-13), carter makes it refer back to the earlier one (lines 3-5), again using timbre to reinforce large-dimension connec­ tions. similarly, a variant of the vocable phrase lwi/dl/i/ heard in line 6 occurs in line 17, i wil dl/ diy i, displaced by one beat. each of these pas­ sages mark the beginning of the tune's characteristic harmonic gesture: a chromatic descent of #11 chords beginning in measure 6 of the 12-bar form. preceded by the climax in lines 14-17, the cyclical regularity estab­ lished in lines 18-23 helps to stabilize the rhythm. coupled with the timbral factors mentioned above, this stabilization helps to bring about closure. turning to example 4, it becomes clear that many of the patterns carter created with vocables correspond to repetitions, sequences, and variations created by pitch and rhythm. for example, carter strengthens the shaping force of the opening melodic gesture, which echoes the clos­ ing pitches of the trumpet's set up, by repeating not only its pitch and rhythm, but also its vocables. the descending melodic sequence in meas­ ures 3-4 is similarly reinforced by the phonetic similarity of each figure, as is the sequence in measures 6-8. both sequences gain a subtle increase in momentum from the phonetic modifications carter introduces into each repetition. the vocables in measures 11-12 help give definition to the 316 current musicology example 4: "babe's blues," betty carter scat solo (1958). transcribed by william r. bauer. medium tempo jazz waltz (j = 126-132) f7 3 $ & i ~ d, ) j j i u suw bu duw bap. d j j j i ~ r l£j , < suw bu duw bap. wi 3 di do, b>9 e,7(#1l) 3 ij j 3 3 3 3 oj 1m j#3 j jjj i wi di b~, wi ba, buw bap. duw da wi dl i, di dl e, de dl d, 7 07(#11) n7(#ii) gm7 , & dill j 1 j jhl j i jd j j j j i -~ -liil 'f. ~j i jjj oj j ' , wa dl e, de dl e, de dl 0, wa dl e, de dl e, de dl 0, dow ba, do bwa. di. 10 c7 f c $h ;--3.., ;--3.., ,.-3., ;--3.., ;--3.., v r hj j i }i j )1 jd idlj jij hj do wi hi, bo wi bow, we bow, we bow, wo bo, wi be, wo 13 f7 b>7 f7 $&(&2) ,-3..., iif -i;' 'f. 'f. }i i js, r r !j ij j\ 'f. 'f. ) i f yuw diy bap sa, duwhwiy, bwiy, diy dl iy duw bap sa, hang back b>7 m7(#1l) , ;--3.., j j ~ r i.j -j j=3 ~ duw bwiy ka wiy liy da wi dl diy, wiy di, di n7(w) gm7 l'to 3 i j 'f. ~i ij j j j. }i 19 07(#11) ,&d j ba ba duw, d<:> heh ya da di dl a da. so f 3 c ;--3., f }i i j j j j. ji i j. ji )d ii j. i di dl a dey. so di dl a dey. n dey, do da da. william r. bauer 317 pairs of descending pitches. they do nothing, however, to mark the con­ tour rhythm articulated by the four-note descending pattern that creates the hemiola effect in lines 10-12, referred to above. carter gives each modified restatement of the descending major third figure in measure 18 fresh vocables, which helps to sustain the momentum generated by the cli­ max that has just come before. the return of the lsi sound in the closing measures of the solo highlights the references that these measures make to the pitches and rhythm of the opening idea. within the framework established by this short scat solo, pitch is also a factor in creating large-dimension growth, especially in its capacity to create contour rhythms. in this regard, the solo follows an outline similar to that of other early scat solos carter took on such tunes as 'jay bird" (1948), "thou swell" (1955), and "you're driving me crazy" (1958). in those solos as well, an initial burst of energy releases itself in a drop to carter's low register at the solo's midpoint, allowing her to build to a strong finish (bauer 2002:247-48,251-54). in "babe's blues," this arche­ typal contour takes a less extreme form, perhaps due to the moderate tempo and the l meter, which was still relatively unusual for jazz at that time. several ways in which carter interacts with the band's arrangement sug­ gest that she may have prepared certain elements of her solo before recording it. for example, in the opening measures and at the correspon­ ding passage in the second chorus, carter's rhythmic patterns interlock neatly with the rhythmic patterns that pianist wynton kelly plays. carter's arpeggiated augmented chords in measures 6-8 are reinforced by the pi­ anist's voicings of the chromatically descending sequence of #11 chords. the singer's rhythms are reinforced as well by several of specs wright's snare drum hits, especially those in the first chorus turnaround at meas­ ures 11-12. despite carter's reputation for improvising, she herself has suggested that she took fewer risks at this time in her career, and being in the studio environment made her more cautious than when she per­ formed before an audience. regardless of the degree to which betty carter devised this solo on the spur of the moment, the above analysis makes it clear that throughout the solo she used timbre in a variety of ways to give her scatting structure and flow. we have observed, for example, how, by introducing fresh voca­ bles throughout the solo, she generated small-dimension movement; how, by reserving certain vowels for specific passages, she gave each passage its own distinctive sound; how, by limiting the number of phonemes she used in forging the solo's timbral vocabulary, she gave the solo its own particular character, as well as its underlying cohesiveness. 318 current musicology furthermore, while the patterns and contrasts carter created with voca­ bles become more audible when we consider the timbral element in isola­ tion (ex. 3), they are ultimately inseparable from the musical designs she created with rhythm, pitch, and dynamics. example 4 clarifies how several of her timbral choices correspond to repetitions, sequences, and varia­ tions created with other musical elements. in the small dimension, for example, vowel length often serves to amplify the agogic rhythm of a pas­ sage, and to provide a vehicle for phrasing and articulating the line in the post-bebop idiom. as in louis armstrong's scat solo on "heebie jeebies," the freshness or return of certain syllables draws attention to such ele­ ments as the recurrent harmonic cycle, elements that give the solo its large-dimension shape. several other aspects of this solo are consistent with the practice of other scat vocalists. many singers correlate pitch with timbre, for example, using brighter vowel sounds such as /iy/ on higher pitches, and vice versa. nevertheless, carter's performance of "babe's blues" is particularly notable for the extent to which she uses timbre as a structural tool. the work of scat singers gives us an important avenue for exploring the ways in which timbre can be used to generate musical growth, both by cre­ ating memorable shapes and by generating compelling movement. manip­ ulating the radiated spectrum of their sound through the continual modu­ lation of vowels and consonants, singers control with remarkable precision the degree of timbral brightness and darkness they produce. the analytic approach presented above demonstrates that the invention of scat voca­ bles is an essential way in which certain singers mold sound. the phonetic transcription of these vocables provides a concrete representation of timbre, a typically elusive musical element. for many vocalists, then, timbre is much more than a vehicle for adding coloristic touches to a melodic line. but while singers' distinctive use of timbre sets their work apart from that of instrumentalists, the crossover of ideas between instrumentalists and vocalists indicates that the timbral analysis of scat vocals may offer insights that are applicable to in­ strumental music (cartwright 1995). regardless of this potential applica­ tion, however, it is evident that by closely examining how singers exercise mastery over timbre as well as other musical raw materials we can increase our understanding of singers' accomplishments and deepen our apprecia­ tion of their contribution to jazz. notes * many thanks to stephen blum, sigmund levarie, lewis porter, krin gabbard, joseph straus, elliott hurwitt, robert abramson, mark burford, and marjorie bauer, who have all helped me refine my thinking on this subject. william r. bauer 319 1. there are jazz vocalists who do not scat but who nevertheless invite listeners to experience their renditions of songs as absolute music. the improvisational ap­ proach of such singers causes their lines to sound as if they were being played on a horn. 2. writers often point out how jazz players vocalize on their instruments. for examples, see jones (1963:30), schuller (1968:127), and porter and ullman (1993:290), as well as berliner (1994:109, 140, 179-81, 187). 3. significantly, aside from a few isolated cases such as katharine cartwright's work (1995), those who have written on jazz singers have not built upon each other's research. this fact, as well as the paucity of jazz vocal transcriptions, is an indication of how much the study of jazz singers lags behind that of instrumental­ ists. four articles that use transcriptions to illustrate what various singers do are bennett ([1972] 1997), stewart (1987), bauer (1993), and huang and huang (1994-95). lara pellegrinelli's forthcoming research, which investigates how and why jazz vocalists position themselves vis-a-vis instrumental jazz, promises to shed further light onjazz singing. 4. removing holiday's rendition of "strange fruit" from the context of her en­ tire output, cogan erroneously assigns motivic status to her signature bending of pitch. he also ignores the fact that electronic amplification frees holiday to apply the singer's formant selectively. 5. notice the absence of pitch in these phones' voiceless counterparts, ipl, itl, and ik/. consonants, especially plosives, can also introduce into the flow of speech striking changes in envelope shape (taylor 1980:555, 557). 6. defined by the relationship between the amplification, frequency, and over­ tone structure of any sound, a relationship that produces that sound's characteris­ tic timbre, a formant is determined by the partial or group of partials that are rela­ tively sonorous due to the sound-producing device's distinctive resonant qualities. 7. jazz singers, by definition, also improvise-to varying degrees-while singing words. phonetic analyses of singers' renditions of standards can therefore help us understand how timbre figures into the musical choices they make while deliver­ ing lyrics. while it is beyond the scope of this article to explore this subject, my use of the trager-smith phonemes, which are specific to the sounds of the english lan­ guage, lays the groundwork for its future exploration. 8. a simple vocalic nucleus is what linguists call short vowels. they do this to clarify that a long vowel (complex vocalic nucleus) results from the combination of a short vowel and a semi-vowel such as iy i or iw i. 9. aside from a few unusual symbols, the trager-smith phonemes for conso­ nants (table 3) correspond largely to the alphabet. the phoneme ihl is used ei­ ther as a semi-vowel or as a semi-consonant, so it is not combined with icl, lsi, or it i to indicate the voiceless "ch," "sh," or "th" sounds. instead, each of these frica­ tives is assigned its own symbol: lei, lsi, and 18/, respectively, maintaining a strict sound-to-symbol correspondence. likewise, 101 is used for the voiced "th" sound heard in the word "the." 10. this solo is usually misidentified as the first scat recording. schuller (1989:166, n. 8) has observed that don redman's recording of "my papa doesn't 320 current musicology two-time, no time" predates "heebie jeebies" by over a year. the error's resilience no doubt owes to the popular success of armstrong's recording. 11. beginning his guidelines for style analysis by stating, "music is essentially movement," jan larue underscores the profound significance change has in cer­ tain kinds of music, including jazz (larue 1970:1). his method gives us an alterna­ tive to the many approaches that focus on form, which tend to analyze musical works synchronically, as though they had already elapsed. to reinforce this point, he replaces the term "form" with "shape": "at the same time that a piece moves forward, it creates a shape in our memories to which its later movement inevitably relates" (ibid.). i have adopted larue's use of the term "dimension," speaking of the music's small-dimension shape, for example, when discussing immediately preceding events. 12. the formal parallelism created by these factors offers internal evidence that armstrong may have been prepared to scat at this point in the performance, notwithstanding the fanciful story of scat's origin. this story, which alleges that armstrong started scatting because he dropped the lyric sheet, seems designed more to underscore the solo's spontaneity than to report events accurately. 13. in his library of congress interview with john lomax, ferdinand 'jelly roll" morton challenged armstrong's supposed invention of scat. 14. one can gain a sense of just how great was armstrong's influence in this re­ gard by comparing ethel waters's (december 22, 1932), billie holiday's (novem­ ber 19, 1936), and ella fitzgerald's (june 4, 1957) renditions of "i can't give you anything but love, baby" with armstrong's version (march 5, 1929). (for a tran­ scription of the latter, see feather 1994:1126.) 15. some singers gave their scatting varying degrees of forethought before per­ forming (stewart 1987:71), making it difficult to gauge how much of the solo was improvised. 16. recordings that reflect some of the changes scat underwent include calloway's "the scat song" (february 29, 1932), watson's 'ja-da" and "it's the tune that counts" (august 22,1939), and gaillard's "hit that jive jack" (april 22, 1946). 17. listen, for instance, to vaughan's "shulie a bop" (april 2, 1954). 18. many thanks to lewis porter for drawing these recordings to my attention. 19. one can hear echoes of betty carter, dizzy gillespie, slim gaillard, and louis armstrong in the imaginative use these younger singers make of scat singing, with jarreau incorporating percussion sounds and hebraic cantillation and mcferrin imitating the babbling of a newborn child. listen, for example, to jarreau's "take five" (january/february 1977) and mcferrin's "donna lee" (march 19, 1984). 20. liston arranged the tune for weston's recording of the song in october of the same year. 21. this was a recurrent theme in several interviews i conducted with betty carter's sidemen (see bauer 2002:100,114-15). several of carter's arrangements, including those on the album inside betty carter (1964), also illustrate such strategic deployment of instrumental timbres. william r. bauer 321 22. while bob stoloff's development of technical exercises for scat singers (1996) is helpful in some respects, the approach he offers lacks the timbral variety that carter and other singers display, indicating that budding scat singers need to supplement their technical studies with an intensive examination of established singers' recordings in order to develop a rich phonetic palette. refreshing in this regard is denis diblasio's approach to teaching scat singing (1996). 23. the notion that certain scat vocables belonged to certain people recalls the association of particular instrumental timbres with specific musicians, such as the way a stemless harmon mute on a trumpet can evoke the sound of miles davis. 24. for example, fitzgerald sings inl and idl in alternation when coming out of the bridge of "flyin' home" in her jazz at the philharmonic performance on september 18, 1949. carter used this alternation in other scat performances, in­ cluding the closing measures of her solo on 'jay bird" (1948). 25. carter was always vehemently opposed to the moniker "betty bebop" that lionel hampton had given her when she was touring with his band, but i believe her fiercest efforts to shake the name were during the mid-1960s. references bauer, william r. 1993. billie holiday and betty carter: emotion and style in the jazz vocal line. annual review of jazz studies 6: 99-152. ---. 2002. open the door: the life and music of betty carter. ann arbor: university of michigan press. bennett, richard rodney. 1997. the technique of the jazz singer. in jazz: a century of change, edited by lewis porter, 57-67. new york: schirmer. originally published in music and musicians (february 1972): n.p. berliner, paul f. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago: university of chicago press. carter, betty. 1979 interview with leonard lyons. audiotape held at the institute of jazz studies, rutgers university, newark, nj. cartwright, katharine. 1995. if you can't sing it. jazz educator's journal 38, no. 3: 27-30. cogan, robert. 1984. new images of musical sound. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. cogan, robert, and pozzi escot. 1977. sonic design: the nature of sound and music. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice-hall. deveaux, scott. 1991. constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography. black american literature forum 25: 525-60. ---. 1997. the birth of bebop: a musical and social history. berkeley: university of california press. diblasio, denis. 1996. scat singing: imitating instruments. jazz educators journal 38, no. 5: 33-35. feather, leonard, with barry kernfeld. 1994. singing. in the new grove dictionary of jazz, edited by barry kernfeld, 1123-30. new york: st. martins press. huang, hao, and rachel v. huang. 1994-95. billie holiday and tempo rubato: understanding rhythmic expressivity. annual review of jazz studies 7: 181-99. 322 current musicology jones, leroi [amiri barakaj. 1963. blues people: negro music in white america. new york: morrow quill. kernfeld, barry. 1995. what to listen for in jazz. new haven, conn.: yale university press. larue, jan. 1970. guidelines for style analysis. new york: w. w. norton. owens, thomas. 1994. bop. in the new grove dictionary of jazz, edited by barry kernfeld, 137-38. new york: st. martins press. pellegrinelli, lara. forthcoming. the song is who?: doubleness and the voice in contemporary mainstreamjazz. ph.d. diss., harvard university. porter, lewis, and michael ullman, with edward hazell. 1993. jazz: from its origins to the present. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice-hall. reeves, scott. 200l. creative jazz improvisation. 3d ed. upper saddle river, nj.: prentice-hall. robinson, j. bradford. 1994. scat singing. in the new grove dictionary of jazz, ed­ ited by barry kernfeld, 1093-94. new york: st. martins press. schaal, hansjurgen. 1988.jazz speaks. jazz podium 37, no. 6: 3-4, 6-8,10. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and musical development. new york: oxford university press. ---.1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. smith, henry lee, jr. 1979. dialects of english. in the american heritage dictionary of the english language, edited by william morris, xxv-xxx. boston: houghton mifflin company. stewart, milton l. 1987. stylistic environment and the scat singing styles of ella fitzgerald and sarah vaughan. jazzforschung/jazz research 19: 61-76. stoloff, bob. 1996. scat!: vocal improvisation techniques. brooklyn: gerard and sarzin. sundberg, johan. 1980. acoustics §v: the voice. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, edited by stanley sadie, vol. 1, 82-87. london: macmillan. taylor, charles. 1980. sound. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, edited by stanley sadie, vol. 17,545-63. london: macmillan. discography armstrong, louis. 1926. "heebiejeebies." okeb 8300. ---.1927. "hotter than that." okeh 8535. ---. 1929. "i can't give you anything but love, baby." okeh 8669. calloway, cab. 1932. "the scat song." brunswick 6272. carter, betty. 1948. "confess." armed forces recording service transcription. jubilee broadcast no. 307. ---. 1948. "i'll dance at your wedding." armed forces recording service transcription. jubilee broadcast no. 32l. ---.1948. 'jay bird." lionel hampton and his orchestra, 1948. alamac qsr 2419. ---. 1949. "benson's boogie." lionel hampton 4: seeds of swing (1945-1949). mca (f) 510-112. william r. bauer 323 1949. "i'll dance at your wedding." armed forces recording service transcription. jubilee broadcast no. 319. ---. 1949. "gladys's idea." armed forces recording service transcription. jubilee broadcast no. 327. ---. 1949. "the hucklebuck." on hamp: the legendary decca recordings of lionel hampton. decca grd-2-652. ---. 1949. "nothing in view." armed forces recording service transcription. jubilee broadcast no. 319. ---. 1955. "thou swell." on meet betty carter and ray bryant. columbia/legacy ck64936,6. ---. 1958. "babe's blues." on out there with betty carter. peacock progressive jazz plp 90. ---.1958. "you're driving me crazy." on i can't help it. impulse grd-1l4. fitzgerald, ella. 1949. "flyin' home." on jazz at the philharmonic: the ella fitzgerald set. verve v6-8826, mgv8234. ---.1957. "i can't give you anything but love, baby." verve 815-147. gaillard, slim. 1946. "hit that jive jack." mercury 11033. holiday, billie, with teddy wilson. 1936. "i can't give you anything but love, baby." brunswick 7781. jarreau, ai. 1977. "take five." on look to the rainbow. warner brothers wb66059. mcferrin, bobby. 1984. "donna lee." on the voice. elektra/musician 60366. vaughan, sarah. 1932. "shulie a bop." on swingin' easy. emarcy mg36109. waters, ethel. 1932. "i can't give you anything but love, baby." brunswick 6517. watson, leo. 1939. "it's the tune that counts." decca 2959. ---. 'ja-da." decca 2959. weston, randy. 1958. "babe's blues." little niles. united artists ua 5011. iistructures of fantasy and fantasies of structures ll : engaging the aesthetic self austin clarkson after completing my poems, i am curious to review them in the light of their own (at the time unconscious, or mostly unconscious) intentions, with certain unfoldings of the thirty years they seek to embody. these lines, therefore, will probably blend the weft of first purposes and speculations, with the warp of that experience afterwards, always bringing strange devel­ opments. -walt whitman, a backward glance o'er travel'd roads 1. first purposes the past and present interflow as the years scroll by since the first issue of current musicology came off the press. the welcome invitation from the present editor to contribute an essay to celebrate the fortieth anniversary en­ courages me to knit together those beginnings with current doings. recently i offered some fugitive thoughts on the founding of cm (clarkson 2000), but here, borrowing a leaf from walt whitman, i shall look for the larger patterns that emerge from the warp of these days and the weft of those. to begin with, please forgive a brief memoir of my days in dodge hall before i explore "experience afterwards, bringing strange developments." born in england and raised in canada, i was educated on the shores of lake ontario-a bachelor's degree in science (with music studies on the side) from the university of toronto on the north shore, and a master's in music theory from the eastman school at rochester to the south. my first teaching post took me to the canadian prairies for three years, after which i opted for a doctorate in musicology at columbia university. i was inducted by paul henry lang, erich hertzmann, edward lippman, and denis stevens into historical musicology, by william j. mitchell into schenkerian theory, by w. t. h. jackson and paul oskar kristeller into medieval and renaissance studies, and by robert austerlitz into linguistics. eventually i completed a dissertation on the poetic structure of the medieval motet-"eventually;' because completion of the degree was long delayed by efforts attending the founding of cm, a burgeoning family, and teaching. today i see that another factor distracted me from tending to historical studies. i had once had vi­ sions of being a composer, and for my master's thesis i chose a recent work by stravinsky. the courses at columbia hardly satisfied my interest in new current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 67 68 current musicology music, so i was intrigued when i heard from the pianist zaidee parkinson that she was organizing an analysis class on contemporary music with the composer stefan wolpe. stefan wolpel about four years before, i had been flipping through the bin of new releases in a toronto record store, when i stopped to look at a cover with a collage of portraits of a middle-aged man dressed casually in rumpled sweater and open shirt. the four photos of different sizes, two ver­ tical and two horizontal, captured a long, mobile face with thick eyebrows and a balding head in expressions that were variously surprised, pensive, emphatic, and laughing heartily. composers were usually pictured in suits and ties, with serious, even severe, expressions, looking like businessmen or civil servants. anyone who presented himself so informally and conge­ nially must, i thought, be exceptional. the impression was confirmed when i turned the cover over and read: "stefan wolpe is in the words of aaron copland, 'one of the most remarkable of living composers ... his music is strikingly original ... some pounding natural force brings it forth and gives it reality ... wolpe is definitely someone to be discovered»' (wolpe 1955). i took the lp home and was dumbfounded. nothing by bartok, schoenberg, or stravinsky prepared me for the wild eruptions of david tudor playing the passacaglia and the violin sonata (with frances magnes), or the jazz-tinged concatenations of the quartet for trumpet, tenor saxophone, percussion, and piano. to study with the maker of such extraordinary music seemed a rare opportunity, and i agreed to join the class. five of us gathered at a brownstone on seventieth street just west of broadway. wolpe greeted us warmly on the third-floor landing, and as we took our places in the living room it was like entering an ongoing seismic event. wolpe's enthused presence and emphatic voice irradiated the room with vibrant energy. we began with the first of schoenberg's three piano pieces, op. 11. at the start of a lesson one of us would venture comments on the assigned passage until wolpe picked up on a suitable cue and took off. he suffused the notes on the page with ideas and images that brought them to vivid life. he revealed how the shapes and intervals, the gestures, the rate of circulation of the total chromatic, the pitch-class sets (he called them "autonomous fragments"), and so forth, were in a dialectic of be com­ ing. wolpe analyzed the piece as though it were emerging fresh from the composer's mind, and he taught us to connect music with painting, poetry, dance, food, and even sex. wolpe's personality was overpowering, even in­ timidating, but ultimately affirming. my notions of music and of how and what to teach were utterly transformed. wolpe also had a hand in more personal affairs. i had just written the comprehensive exams in the fall of 1961, when he said after a lesson, "you austin clarkson should get to know my friend beverly. she's working at columbia:' beverly bond, with a master's in composition from mills college and a fulbright year in paris, had come to new york to study with wolpe. she had a job as secretary in the music department and was sitting behind a desk in the office, when i introduced myself. six months later we were married. the wolpe clan at columbia also included charles wuorinen and harvey sollberger, who were students of otto luening. they founded the group for contemporary music in 1962, programmed wolpe regularly, and commissioned him to write for their concerts in mcmillin theater. and two alumni of the musicol­ ogy program, cheryl seltzer and joel sachs, who founded the performers committee for 20th-century music (now continuum) gave several wolpe restrospectives. i was becoming better acquainted with the intense sounds, abstract shapes, and fractured continuities ofwolpe's pieces, which seemed to exist in some dimension beyond familiar musical time and space. there was no question in my mind as to his greatness, and when a particularly obtuse review by a second-string critic appeared in the new york herald tribune, i wrote a letter of protest to the editor. professor lang, the paper's chief music critic, remarked on my letter, seemingly amused that a wolpe fan should be lurking among his students. as members of the wolpe, clan we attended concerts, lectures, exhibi­ tions, and receptions all over manhattan. uptown he was known as "shtefan;' in midtown as "stefan," while downtown he was "steve."we caught glimpses of painters mark rothko, willem de kooning, franz kline, and esteban vicente, jazz musicians eddie sauter and johnny carisi, and composers edgard varese, john cage, morton feldman, and earle brown. these occa­ sions were intimations of another world from the stacks of butler library and the reading room of the music division of the new york public library (then at forty-second street). in that era live composers occupied a kind of terra nullius on the map of the known musicological world. about all we knew was "there be dragons:' a dissertation on a living composer was out of the question. it is fruitless (though tantalizing) to speculate that had i had the temerity to even contemplate a dissertation on wolpe, fought for it and prevailed, many questions about his life and work that will now never be laid to rest might have found answers. wolpe asked me to prepare a lecture of his for publication in a book of writings by contemporary composers (wolpe 1967). it was a fateful in­ troduction to a role that occupies me to this day. 1 as i assembled a version of "thinking twice" from his handwritten and typed copies, i struggled to make sense of his words. the lecture begins: no one can blur the evidence of the light's ravishing speed. no one can dissuade an apple from falling as no one has the strength to withhold his 69 70 current musicology breath. laws of nature can't be bent into modifying the nature oflaws. but one can sit out history and its yesterday's implications. many have tried so. but having taken their judgments for granted, alas, they find themselves confronted by the turntables of history, and being like waves that try to stick to the ground, they fight, or give up, or wither away. (2002:167) the strange syntax and the surreal images flowed together with the numer­ ous musical examples in a kind of hyper-discourse far removed from the usual prose of composers and theorists. to render the text clearer, i regret that i persuaded wolpe to conform a few passages to ordinary usage.2 the dutch critic dick leutscher notes that wolpe's language, like that of the philosopher ernst bloch, has a long tradition that originated in talmudic and hassidic "ways of showing things by means of an anecdote, a 'witz' with a striking metaphor. the rhetoric comes from the bible; it is the language of the old prophets of israel" (leutscher 2003:137). on occasion wolpe's points were utterly clear: don't get backed too much in a reality which has fashioned your senses with too many realistic claims. when art promises you this sort of reli­ ability, this sort of prognostic security, drop that baby i will say! good is to know not to know how much one is knowing. and all the structures of phantasy and all the phantasies of structures one should know about-and one should mix surprise and enigma, magic and shock, intelligence and abandon, form and antiform. (wolpe 2002:191) he sought to free music from the burden of history and to liberate the imagination from rampant rationalism.3 but it was the era when young music scholars were fascinated with behaviorism, structuralism, analyti­ cal philosophy, and symbolic logic. armed with the tenets of kulturund stilgeschichte, we sallied forth to teach students to identify snippets of music from the procession of european periods according to the gospel of norton and to analyze style and form according to structural theory. it was difficult to cultivate "surprise and enigma, magic and shock" when there was seldom even time to cover the few twentieth-century items in the norton reliquary. eventually i took to traversing music history in reverse order, but it was many years before i found ways of teaching and conducting research that incorporated structures of fantasy with fantasies of structure. we moved to new haven in 1967 and kept in close touch with the wolpes, as his health was declining rapidly from the effects of parkinson's disease. i was teaching music history at yale and completing the dissertation when the news came in 1969 that fire had ripped through the wolpe apart­ ment. they had just moved to westbeth, the artists' housing cooperative in the west village, and his papers were mercifully still packed in boxes. austin clarkson after the firemen drenched everything, they threw the smoldering boxes and furnishings out of the window into the courtyard three floors below. a platoon of friends and students arrived to help with the dismal task of spreading thousands of soaked and singed sheets of paper out to dry on the still-vacant top floor of the westbeth building. reassembling the soiled sheets of paper into their original order fell to a few helpers, among whom cheryl seltzer (a classmate from columbia and an associate editor of em) played a major role. 4 bringing order to the catastrophic and incalculable mess went on for many years. when wolpe died in april of 1972 just short of his seventieth birthday, only fifteen of his songs and works for solo instruments and chamber en­ semble were available in published form. he died without a will, and it was several years before the estate was settled. the stefan wolpe society was incorporated in 1981 to supervise the publication of scores and recordings, at which time the peer-southern organization (now peermusic classical) took a major interest in publishing the wolpe catalogue. thanks to a team of devoted editors, almost all ofwolpe's music is now available in authoritative editions. in 1993 the paul sacher foundation of basel purchased the papers from wolpe's widow, the poet hilda morley. the scores, correspondence, and sundry other materials now reside in the foundation's vaults on the miinsterplatz, high above the rhine. there, in the company of the scores of many twentieth-century masters, the restoration of the wolpe materials continues in expert hands. 2. on structures of fantasy in 1972 i returned to toronto to teach in the fledgling music department of york university, a newly-founded campus with a faculty of fine arts. programs in electronic music, south indian music, ethnomusicology, and jazz set york apart from the more traditional offerings at the neighboring university of toronto. david rosenboom taught composition, and when he left to become dean of the california institute of the arts, his place was taken by james tenney. between them they invited many leading avant -gard­ ists to the campus, among them john cage, max neuhaus, david behrman, richard teitelbaum, fred rzweski, alvin lucier, david tudor, and pauline oliveros. biofeedback experiments and improvisations of all kinds opened up new vistas: neuhaus's "water whistle" (in the campus swimming pool), tudor's "rainforest" (in a dining hall), and the premiere of cage's "essay on the weather." as the only full time musicologist in the wolpe circle, it had fallen to me to take a major role in dealing with his legacy. i under­ went a mid-career change, and in any case there was little call for medieval 71 72 current musicology and renaissance studies on this new campus. nevertheless, training in paleography and source studies came in handy as i set to work to decipher handwriting, match ink and paper types, and describe the wolpe papers for an inventory. pauline oliveros came to york for the summer sessions of 1973 and 1974 and i sat in on her classes. her sonic meditations and other exercises that tapped into the creative musical imagination were liberating. until then i had not questioned packing courses so full of concepts, facts, and skills that there was no time for evoking personal musical experience. i began to apply pauline's ideas and found that reflective exercises provided a valuable respite from the cognitive demands of the coursework. in order to explore the role of body movement in music learning i studied dalcroze eurhythmics and laban analysis of movement. i also qualified to administer the myers briggs type indicator in order to enable students to identify the pattern of preferences that influence their approach to teaching and learning. some questioned spending classroom time on such extra-curricular doings, but most seemed to benefit from an approach to learning that valued individual experience. it was on my personal journey under the care of practitioners of c. g. jung's analytical psychology that i learned how activating the imagination releases symbolic images that are guides to the individuation process. when i was given the opportunity to design an interdisciplinary fine arts course in the school of part -time studies, i put forward a proposal for a course that would focus on the creative imagination. "foundations of creative imagination" somehow survived collegial scrutiny and was accepted into the university calendar. i gathered together a team of specialists in expressive movement, visual art, voice and story-telling, and the psychology of jung, while i took care of music and administration. we offered the two-semester course for the first time in 1984, and it was received so warmly that we gave it every year or two during the next decade. i shall describe the course briefly, for its consequences have mushroomed to take up a major portion of my time and energies.s the curriculum can be summarized in some seven concepts: (1) creativeness is a drive directed to the realization of the innate potential of the individual (jung [1921]1971). (2) the creative imagination bridges the primary process of the uncon­ scious and the secondary process of conscious ego awareness (jung [1928] 1970); the threshold zone between the primary and secondary processes is variously named the "transcendent function" (jung [1916]1960), "aesthetic experience" (dewey [1934]1958), the "presentational state of awareness" (langer 1942), the "tertiary process" (arieti 1976), and the "flow experi­ ence" (csikszentmihalyi 1990). austin clarkson (3) activating the creative imagination in various expressive media releases emergent symbolic images, metaphorical compounds of sense data, thoughts, feelings, memories, and intuitions (jung [1921] 1971); such authentic formations have an adaptive, homeodynamic, and life­ enhancing tendency (stevens 1995). (4) discovering correspondences between emergent personal images and primordial (archetypal) images from cultures past and present, and learn­ ing the vocabulary, grammar, and effects of symbolic images develops the symbolic attitude (whitmont 1991). (5) the stages of the creative process-preparation, incubation, illumina­ tion, and verification (wallas 1926)-engage the primary, secondary, and tertiary processes. (6) the creative process is cognate in structure with the ritual process; self-created rites of passage evoke in the group a sense of "existential or spontaneous communitas" (turner 1969). (7) personality type identifies individual preferences among the attitudes (extraversion and introversion) and the functions of perception (sensing and intuition) and evaluation (thinking and feeling) (jung [1921]1971); personality type indicates the individual's approach to teaching, learning, and creativeness, and how he or she relates to individuals in the group (myers 1980). the experiential component involved exercises for activating the imagi­ nation in various media that gave rise to strange encounters for a university classroom. at first students treated their images as though they were signs with a defined, dictionary meaning. instead of unpacking images at once, they learned to "backpack" and dialogue with them until significant mean­ ings arrived, usually with a shock of recognition. in time they developed the symbolic approach, which edward whitmont described as mediating "an experience of something indefinable, intuitive or imaginative, or a feeling-sense of something that can be known or conveyed in no other way, since abstract terms do not suffice everywhere" (whitmont 1991:16). the response to the course indicated that these mature students-many of whom were accomplished artists, dancers, musicians, writers, and teach­ ers-discovered that their education had lacked something fundamental (clarkson 2005:12). the course evoked a strong sense of community, so much so that the class of 1994-95 decided to stay together. the group continues to meet three to four times a year, has put on public shows of artwork, and has provided workshops for adults and young people.6 since 2003 the artist-teachers of the group have given a program on the creative imagination to some two thousand school children. having retired from 73 74 current musicology active teaching at the university, i now find myself working with school teachers and their students. the theme of musicologist as educator emerges from the warp and woof of memory with startling force. while at columbia i noted the disdain with which musicologists thought of music educators, and so as editor of em i planned an issue on musicology and music education.? in the editorial i critiqued the notion of music literacy, stating that "much new educational and musicological research in hearing, learning, and musical concept for­ mation is required for an empirically well-founded program for musical literacy" (clarkson 1966:133). forty years on i find myself still engaged in this campaign, for the culture of testing and accountability that now dominates education across north america has put arts education in more jeopardy than ever. a report from the council for basic education surveyed the effects of the "no child left behind" act of 2002. the one thousand elementary and secondary school principals from four representative states who were polled reported that while more instructional time is being spent on literacy, numeracy, and science, the overall curriculum has narrowed drastically. there is a widespread decrease in time for social studies, civics, and geography, with the largest cutbacks in the arts, especially in schools with a high-minority population. some principals pointed out despairingly that the arts are what keep many students in school (von zastrow 2004). though the situation seems bleak, it is possible to hope that a paradigm shift may be in the wind, and that arts education may become part of a larger enterprise, namely, the education of the imagination. during the last two decades, stimulus-response behaviorism and the computational theory of mind have been replaced by the notion that thought is a flow of images, defined as patterns in any sense modality or combinations of sense modali­ ties-vision, hearing, taste, smell, and the bodily senses (touch, muscles, temperature, pain, the viscera, and inner ear). "thought is an acceptable word to denote such a flow of images ... images are the currency of our mind" (damasio 1994:280; 1999:303-04). the reciprocal effects of mind and body are being demonstrated with functional magnetic resonance imaging. for instance, the intentional act of forming the mental image of an object with the eyes closed selectively activates the same place in the brain as see­ ing the object with the eyes open. it has also been shown that a receptive mental state contributes to the final perception even more powerfully than the stimulus itself. the mental and spiritual force that sustains attention in meditation and other reflective practices can produce "plastic and enduring changes in the brain and hence the mind. intention is made causally effica­ cious through attention" (schwartz and begley 2002:336-37,360, emphasis added). i should now like to report on programs that have enhanced the intent to engage in aesthetic experience by heightening the attention of the austin clarkson participants. one program was for viewing a painting in a museum setting, while the other, conducted with a small group of graduate students, was for music. both made use of exercises that were developed in the course on the creative imagination. 3. activating the imagination with visual art while consulting on the redesign of the canadian historical wing of the art gallery of ontario (ago), i proposed an exhibit that would provide several interpretive approaches to a selected painting. the plan was approved, and a booth was constructed so that two people at a time could view the painting "the beaver dam," a wilderness landscape by j. e. h. macdonald. when visitors sat in the booth and put on a headset, they selected from among three audio programs: a three-minute discussion of the painting by the curator; a three-minute description of the artist by friends and relatives; and a twelve-minute reflective program for activating the imagination.8 the exhibit opened in 1993 and was in operation for ten years. at the end of the twelve-minute exercise visitors were invited to record their responses on "share-your-reaction cards" and leave them in the booth. during the decade of operation, some fifteen hundred cards with words and drawings that pertained to the painting were collected. an audience survey conducted with 198 visitors found that only two percent left cards, which suggests that tens of thousands had used the facility. the survey and the cards affirmed that an imaginative engagement with an artwork resulted in meaningful and memorable experiences for a broad range of the visitor population. youngsters, teens, adults, and seniors from many walks of life, educational backgrounds, and nationalities said that the program showed them a fascinating method for viewing an artwork. novice museum-goers said that the program gave them confidence in approaching an artwork, and museum professionals applauded the exhibit as a bold and important initiative. visitors who would normally spend only a few seconds in front of a painting as they browsed through a room with many other works of art discovered that spending twelve minutes with a canvas generated a re­ markable range, depth, and intensity of meanings. heightening attention and focusing the intent to engage with the artwork intensified the energy level of the experience. there were many reports that the painting at first seemed dull and boring, but that during the exercise it came alive. one card had two diagrams, one before the exercise, with a few rays of energy between the viewer and the painting, and one after the exercise, with more direct and stronger rays. the exercise increased receptiveness and constellated a process of bonding with the artwork. many cards said that the exercise reduced and 75 76 current musicology even eliminated the distance between the viewer and the painting. one visi­ tor wrote that the painting "became a part of me and i a part of it." another, "i have learned to hold the moment-enter into it-and to be with it. the distance between myself and the painting is no longer." another realized that, "art is also the experience, giving a whole new dimension to it." several visitors wrote that they had forgotten that they had an imagina­ tion' or didn't know they had one. many cards expressed gratitude for the program, and ninety percent of the visitors surveyed recommended that similar installations be installed in the other galleries of the museum. art students left cards with formal analyses of the painting and comments on its structural processes without indicating that the exercise had diminished their intellectual capabilities. for john dewey, "esthetic experience" entails a bonding of the subject with the artwork: "the unique distinguishing feature of esthetic experience is exactly the fact that no such distinction of self and object exists in it, since it is esthetic in the degree in which organism and environment cooperate to institute an experience in which the two are so fully integrated that each disappears" (dewey [1934] 1958:249). the bond that unites viewer with artwork becomes the conduit for felt meanings and symbolic images that the viewer experiences as authentic, creative, and beneficial. dewey described this as the outcome of a blissful, procreative union as "when varied materi­ als of sense quality, emotion, and meaning come together in a union that marks a new birth in the world" ([1934] 1958:267). aesthetic experience in the deweyan sense would not call for third-party intervention were it not for the fact that the education of the imagination has been so neglected in the culture at large. the twelve-minute audio program showed that great numbers of people appreciated being shown how to have an aesthetic experi­ ence with a painting, and that such experiences could produce powerful and transformative effects. one visitor wrote: "for a few minutes i was a part of the painting. i truly experienced an epiphany. i feel wonderful." another: "there is power and spirit in this painting that i never even glimpsed be­ fore sitting down. communion." an artist sketched the scene with flowing biomorphic forms and wrote: "est une oeuvre spirituelle-une priere pour la nature." a young woman sketched herself floating nude in the pond, and wrote: "free of pain and conflict ... glorified with simplicity/listening to the choir of nature & dancing with my spiritual self. this is freedom" (clarkson and worts 2005:271-72). when aesthetic experience engages the mind, body, and spirit so fully, it constellates the experience of the self as the totality of the personality. the disparate parts of the individual seem to unite in a state of plenitude and wholeness. dewey's new birth in the world may thus, at least in part, be austin clarkson the sense that the aesthetic experience has brought into being the aesthetic self. dewey warned that while aesthetic experience that is so solipsistic may be enjoyable and worth having, it is not "an enjoyed perception of the object" (dewey [1934] 1958:276). but aesthetic experience once initiated cannot be regulated by the artist or the curator and must run its course. we can only assume that an artwork that was the medium for such power­ ful experiences will persist for a long time in the memory. this particular landscape had received scant attention in the literature, but now it has an extensive archive of interpretations from a vast array of viewers. while many of the cards contribute relatively little to the understanding of macdonald's "beaver dam;' many do provide original and insightful contributions to the painting's reception history.9 4. activating the imagination with music a set of exercises for activating the imagination with music were incorpo­ rated in a project that i conducted with four graduate students. the purpose was to test a variety of means for heightening aesthetic experience in a controlled environment. three of the four participants were trained musi­ cians, while the fourth did not have extensive musical background. they are identified as follows: participant a (female, non-musician, candidate for master's in holistic education, canadian-born); participant b (female, singer, candidate for master's in women's studies and music, us-born), participant c (female, zheng player, candidate for phd in musicology, chi­ nese-born); participant d (female, pianist, candidate for phd in musicology, canadian-born). each session began with physical warm-up exercises and vocal toning, after which the participants engaged in the various exercises. a post-session interview with each participant discussed the overall effects of the program. the sessions were tape-recorded and transcribed, and the responses are excerpted in the appendix. the three exercises selected for this discussion were designed to stimulate the musical imagination and had been tested with many different groups prior to the project. the instructions were as non-directive as possible, so that much of the time during the exercises was spent in silence. exercise 1: letter-sounds the exercise is in three phases. vocalizing. participants voice the sounds of vowels and consonants while standing and moving about the room. while vocalizing, the partici­ pants let each letter-sound shape their bodies in spontaneous postures and gestures. 77 78 current musicology group improvisation. participants improvise a vocal melody with letter-sounds. the improvisation may last ten to twelve minutes. letter-sound fantasy. each participant selects a letter. after a brief relax­ ation' the participants are asked to imagine that the letter-sound is entering the body, moving, and transforming. after twelve to fifteen minutes the exercise concludes with a pre-arranged signal, such as striking a drum or gong. participants record their experiences with crayons and paper. responses to the letter-sound fantasy. 10 a chose the letter "a;' b chose "e;' while d chose "0." (c did not do this exercise.) a first imagined letter­ sound "it' as the sigh of pleasure of getting into a bath, which was followed by a shriek in response to a lightning strike. the lightning blew everything into fragments, cracked things open, shook things up. the "x' then became the "aha!" of a new idea, as in turning on a light bulb. the resolution or lysis of the fantasy was the image of screwing the light bulb into the earth, which brought the pleasant feeling of warring, disparate elements now working harmoniously together. b experienced letter-sound "e" as the curved shape of the cursive let­ ter. it became a continuous flow of energy of tiny particles or molecules of sound energy. against this background emerged a dance of waves lapping like water and licking like fire. the interplay of the waves of fire and wa­ ter continued as the sound energy renewed. the process had a surprising conclusion when, as b was making her drawing, the waves of "e" were so energetic that they ran off the page. the letter "0" brought d memories of childhood games with a beach ball and rolling downhill inside a tire. the "os" became tiny and entered her body, flowing through it as though in tiny droplets of sound energy. she recognized that many features of her body were in the shape of "0." the fantasy concluded with the image of being enclosed within the "0" while giving birth to the "0;' an image of polarities in harmonious balance. exercise 2: fantasy journey the exercise was adapted from one of pauline oliveros's sonic meditations (1971). after a relaxation for getting in touch with their breath, participants were asked to imagine leaving the room and going to some place in the country, lying down, placing an ear to the ground, and listening for sounds coming from the earth. after a while they stand, see a hill in the distance from which a sound is coming, and go toward the sound to discover the source. after twelve to fifteen minutes the exercise concludes with a pre­ arranged signal, such as striking a drum or gong. participants record their experiences using crayons and paper. responses. a and d went to known places, b went to a place that recalled her chinese heritage, while c found herself in an unfamiliar scene. a heard austin clarkson a deep hum from the earth and a bell from the hill. b at first heard wind chimes, then a deep sound from the tree. c heard tiny drops of water in the dry riverbed that became a noisy flood, and then from a sand dune she heard a voice reciting a poem that she had memorized as a child in school. d heard from the earth a humming sound that made her think of water flowing deep in the earth, and from the hill she heard a bell. the scenes were so fascinating and pleasurable that when the signal was given to conclude the exercise, none of them wanted to leave. a brought back a sense of the seawater and forest smells; b enjoyed being inside the tree so much that she remained inside it as she returned; c began to leave the scene by walking backwards, until she realized that she had to turn around and walk forwards; d wished to remain at the wooden chapel where the man was ringing a bell that was drawing her and all the animals together. exercise 3: silent solos-silent duets this exercise was adapted from a program in transpersonal communication (reed 1996). it consisted of two phases. silent solo. participants sit in pairs face to face, knees nearly touching. they are asked to imagine a musical solo in silence. after five or six minutes they record the experience with crayons and paper, then share with their partner. silent duet. partners resume sitting face to face and are asked to imagine a musical duet with the partner. after five or six minutes they record the experience with crayons and paper and share with the partner. 11 for the first time they did the exercise, a was partnered with b, and c with d. responses. during the solo a and b experienced a high degree of mu­ tuality already during the first solo. b (a trained vocalist) imagined that she began to sing, but then ceased singing and let the silence become the music. she felt that sound was surrounding the two of them, but not coming from either of them. a also ceased to imagine music and enjoyed the harmonious closeness with b. during the duet b experienced an energy form between herself and a that began as a giant column of sound and became a round form of colored lights and music that combined both their sounds together. a sensed the combined music less vividly as a non-personal source ofhar­ monious sound. during the solo c and d were amazed by the fact that they simultane­ ously imagined sending energy to each other, that they both were playing folk-like music on stringed instruments, and that they both were dancing. during the duet c imagined that she was engaged in a lively improvisa­ tion with d, which became long, lyrical lines on a bowed instrument, then a vigorous dance during which she struck a timpani. d imagined a duet between papagena and papageno with lively, amusing, alternating phrases. d 79 80 current musicology imagined that c was playing long, lyrical lines on the cello while she played the piano. the slow, serious music kept interchanging with the fast, amusing mozart. c and d were again astonished by the synchronicity of imagining an alternation of lively music with lyrical music on a stringed instrument. the participants repeated the silent solos-silent duets exercise with different partners in subsequent sessions. whereas the music they imag­ ined and the nature of the interactions were markedly different each time, the participants continued to report intense mutuality and reciprocity of communication, colorful energy forms, and highly inventive musical and gestic play. discussion these three exercises reduce external stimuli to a minimum. 12 this places the focus on autochthonous images and fantasy processes that provide access to the authentic musical imagination. the responses tend to follow a certain pattern. the initial images are generally more familiar, while the final images are more strange; the energy level increases; the initial opposition between images resolves into a balanced condition; the feeling tone proceeds from tension to relaxation and balance. participant a's experience with the letter "1\' typifies this process. the "aah" of getting into the bath and the shriek of alarm at the lightning ''aaaah!'' were polar aspects of the given letter-sound ''a.'' the opening situation was disintegrated when the lightning broke it up. the disparate elements came together in the image of screwing a lightbulb (an image of a new idea, "aha!") into the earth. the opposed sounds for the bath and the lightning, which a described as a "duel to the death;' resolved into the "aha!" of the new idea. the extreme tension of the opening situation had become an image of harmony between the light (bulb) and the dark (earth). the feeling tone came from realizing that opposed feeling states could coexist in harmony, and that that was ok. d's exercise with the letter "0" resulted in an experience that was transformative. during the post-session interview d expanded on the experience: it was a primal feeling of oneness. the circuity of it makes me think of connections with the earth, the sun, time, the cycle of the seasons that keep returning. you know what, it was almost like a mode of worship. i know that sounds bizarre. it was like a ritual to the god "0;' an acknowledge­ ment that that essence exists. you know, like a shaman will take on the personality of an animal. in a sense i felt it was a ritual in which i took on that "0," and i think that's why i can't identify it as a specific emotion. it was more an experience. austin clarkson correspondences between "0" and the cycles of the cosmos brought the ego-system in touch with the plenitude of the self-system, where the self is understood as the over-arching totality of the personality. d added that she would like to have explored different letter-sounds in a similar way: "it would be that aha! feeling that i knew it was in me all the time, but i never acknowledged it, or had words for it." she said that never before had she been able to connect with or express such an experience. the exercise mo­ tivated d to work with other letter-sounds, because she realized that they were within her, waiting to be unearthed. allowing the imagination to play in silence awakens the recognition that a world of images residing deep in the psyche is waiting to be explored. the fantasy journey exercise calls up primordial images of sound but places them within a narrative context. the exercise sets up a simple frame­ work: go to the country, lie down on the ground, listen to sounds from the earth, see a hill from which a sound is coming, go to the hill and find out what is making the sound, and return. the earth-hill pairing evokes clusters of contrasting images for sound that seem to arise from the deepest layers of the imagination. having given this exercise to dozens of groups, i am able to predict that the sounds from the earth will usually be deep, dull, hollow, humming, rumbling, and unvarying. the sounds of moving earth, water, and sand, vegetation (grasses and trees), insects, horses hooves, but no man-made instruments may be heard. the sounds from the hill, by contrast, will usually be bright, high, separated, variegated, and piercing, including sounds of flutes, harps, violins, wind chimes, birds, human voices, and various fantastic instruments. flutes and harps predominate to an ex­ traordinary extent and far exceed all other instruments combined. around the harp-flute dyad cluster a number of qualities such that the harp is always associated with female figures and usually with the color gold, while the flute is always associated with male figures and usually with the color silver. the sound of silence is occasionally heard: "the sound was an absolutely crystal clear silence, so real it could almost be felt. it's a very wonderful thing to know that sort of total absence of sound and to hear it as a sound itself" (clarkson 1993:44-45). many fascinating narratives have come from this exercise. they proceed from the familiar to the strange and unexpected, but leave the individual with pleasurable feelings. the words "beautiful;' "heavenly," "spiritual," "serene;' "wonderful;' "entrancing," "startling;' and "alluring" provide a constant re­ frain. the meditation puts participants in touch with a place of idyllic peace where they often experience a state of merging and being in flow with nature. synaesthesias are commonplace, as when sounds are imagined as streams or fountains of colored lights. some narratives convey extraordinarily powerful experiences of initiation and rebirth (clarkson 1993:41). 81 82 current musicology the four participants reported sounds that were typical of the earth­ hill dyad: deep, sustained humming sounds, wind blowing, waves crashing against the shore, a sustained clap on a tuning fork or bell (a); deep sound from the ground, wind chimes (b); tinkling drops and a rush of water, horses' hooves, a voice reciting poetry (c); low humming sound of water deep in the earth, church bell (d). though the sounds were not unusual, the images from the narratives were unique: energies spiraling up and down between the earth and sky (a); jumping into and becoming one with a tree (b); walking to a chapel along with wild animals, drawn by the sound of a man striking a bell (d). c's narrative was especially eventful. she found herself in a parched river valley, surrounded by high cliffs in which was carved a statue of the buddha. the water began as droplets and became a deluge that flooded the valley and brought sounds of horses and battle. the hill was a dry sand dune beyond which was a turquoise lake, a scene that seemed to illustrate the poem that she heard declaimed on peace and fighting in a field of sand. the feeling tone at the culmination of these narratives was such that they did not wish the journey to end. the exercise of silent solos-silent duets was adapted from a program in transpersonal communication conducted with large numbers of partici­ pants who reported imagining spiraling energy forms, heightened states of awareness, synchronous images, synaesthesias, and intense felt meanings (reed 1996:220). this exercise impressed the participants with the intensity of the images, the frequent simultaneities, and the sheer pleasure of joyful, inventive, spontaneous play. for a (the only non-musician in the group) imagining music with another person took some getting used to. after she became more familiar with what was expected, she was deeply affected by the exercise. she discovered that communication was no longer a two-way engagement, but was contained within a larger, trans personal entity, "a third thing that is really one thing." the experiences from the exercises and the discussions produced a har­ vest of images that merit further study. during the post-session interviews a said that what impressed her most was how the duet exercise changed her idea of how to communicate. it took communication beyond "the simple exchange of words and ideas" and gave it a spiritual context. b said that the program had shown her "how mind, body, and spirit are blended" and had renewed the sense of the importance of experiencing the unknown. she had learned "the non-judgmental waiting for things to arise." c brought her drawings to the debriefing session, as she was concerned to know more about how they revealed the personal journey she had undergone during the project. she was also trying to find ways of including personal material in her doctoral studies. for d the program reconnected her with the musiaustin clarkson cal part of herself. as a professional pianist and a candidate for the phd she had become alienated from music. the program had enabled her to relax, to let music happen, and to discover that music was no longer an object of study but had a place as a natural part of herself. "i guess that what i can really say in summary is that i felt it was within me and music was a part of who i was, who i am."13 the four participants variously concluded that the program had brought the ego-system in touch with the self-system, where body, mind, and spirit interflow. 5. the aesthetic self subjectivity, whether that of the composer, the piece, the listener, or the aesthetic experience itself, has received increasing attention of late. naomi cumming's path-breaking book the sonic self: musical subjectivity and signification (2000) opened up fresh vistas, which jairo moreno has broad­ ened and deepened with a comprehensive and incisive critique (moreno 2005). moreno remarks on the belated arrival of musicology to the debate on subjectivity, a topic that has been current in the humanities and social sciences for several decades. he puts his finger on the paradox at the heart of such enquiries, namely, "the dual functionality of the individual as unit of lived experience (i.e., the self) and as the main category for the analysis of that experience (i.e., the subject)" (2005:285). this concern lies at the core of the empirical and pragmatic approach to aesthetic experience that i have been pursuing here. if the individual is valued as the unit of lived experience, then we must also value his or her account and analysis of that experience. this was not at all the case during the era of stimulus-response behaviorism, when self-reports of personal experiences were dismissed as "mentalistic." data from studies that could be replicated were acceptable, but data from unique and unrepeatable personal experiences were not. and the taboo lingers on, as we found when the curators of the museum objected to the concept of the exploring a painting in depth exhibit. they feared that the production of personal meanings would undermine their authority and encourage an "anything goes" approach to art (clarkson and worts 2005:262). in the epigraph to this essay walt whitman explained that at the time he wrote leaves of grass he was to a great degree unconscious of his inten­ tions. he went on to suppose that the word that best typified his method was "suggestiveness:" the reader will always have his or her part to do, just as much as i have had mine. i seek less to state or display any theme or thought, and more 83 84 current musicology to bring you, reader, into the atmosphere of the theme or thought-there to pursue your own flight. ([1888]1945:378) during the latter part of the nineteenth century it was widely understood that the unconscious had a part to play in the creative process. whitman could expect his readers to understand that both the author and reader should take flight, and that while in flight unconscious processes would playa part. for whitman the author's text and the reader's response shared a similar ontological status. today we can say that when we are "in flight," the creative imagination brings the primary process of the unconscious in touch with the secondary process of everyday conscious awareness in the so-called "tertiary process;' the site of imaginal cognition. cumming seeks to dissolve the dichotomy between the listening subject and the musical object and proposes that a reciprocal process of signification gives birth to what she refers to as the "sonic self" (moreno 2005:301-02). however, as moreno points out, cumming focuses on the cognitive level of musical experience and does not admit a role for the imagination in the constitution of the musical subject (2005:302). as the exercises for activating the imagination have shown, the imagination has an essential role to play in affirming and even creating a sense of self. moreover, they show that engaging the deep structure of aesthetic experience involves many sense modalities, so that what appears in consciousness to pertain to one art form or another emerges from a synaesthetic ground. to analyze such reports of aesthetic experience, whether to works of visual art, music, or any other art form, we must adopt the attitude that the symbolic images may confirm existing, known meanings, but that they may also carry some new meanings that have yet to be determined. whereas individuals with extensive experience of the given medium will have highly differentiated responses to the artwork, so-called naive respondents may have experiences that contribute substan­ tively not only to the reception of the artwork, but to their understanding of themselves and of aesthetic experience as such. moreno also takes issue with cumming's unitary concept of the self, which he describes as "a conservative ideal of selfhood" (2005:303). the current survey of hundreds of responses to a single painting and of a hand­ ful of participants to a series of exercises with music provides evidence that activating the imagination produces an aesthetic experience that can evoke an expanded sense of self. many reported that they experienced themselves (the subjects) and the artworks (the objects) as being incorporated in an inclusive entity. in the words of the visitor to the ago, "art is also the ex­ perience, giving a whole new dimension to it;' and as participant a said, "it became a third thing, and also just one thing:' if the self is identified with the ego-system, this may be experienced as a de-centering of the self. but if austin clarkson the self is regarded as the totality of the personality, this may be experienced as being in touch with body, mind, and spirit. it is unusual to invoke the no­ tion of "spirit" in a secular, humanistic enterprise, but enough respondents refer to the outcome of the aesthetic experience as "spiritual" that we must address this as a natural result. by referring to transpersonal dimensions beyond the categories of mind and body, "spirit" suggests that the aesthetic experience has put the ego-system in touch with the ineffable totality of the self-system. the "aesthetic self" is the outcome of a dynamic creative process. it is not prescriptive, but rather refers in simple, pragmatic terms to the reciprocal engagement of the creative imagination with an artwork. when the deep structure of the creative process is engaged, the outcome will be a mutual subjectivity that enlightens and enthuses both the artwork and the respondent. when we endow the work of art with the gifts of our creative imaginations, we give birth in turn to our aesthetic selves. appendix responses exercise 1: letter-sound fantasy participant a. "x' for some reason came really strongly to me ... i started on this whole "x' polarity at top and bottom. aaah! getting into a bath. then all of a sudden this image of lightning came in, aaaaaah! [yell] so there's the tranquility of the bath and then all of a sudden the lightning strikes and sends these fragments all over the place. then i thought of cracks. i went into this whole thing. lightning hitting a crack, and an egg cracks, and when you go through the crack and there's always something in there, or you discover something. i thought of caves, and cracks in caves, and going in there to find things. and the sense of sometimes that shaking up is good to move you into some new experience. then i thought of aha! then a light bulb and the realization, then screwing the light bulb into the earth. very rich! it wasn't like this duel to the death. it was ok. this is how this part feels, and this is how this part feels, and when they work together they do this. i was exploring all the possibilities participant b. my vowel was "e." the "e" i was picturing was not the straight linear "e" it was the "e" like this [cursive]. i was imagining things like a dance, a hand motion which was sometimes water, sort of lapping, sometimes fire, sort of licking, and sometimes dancing. or it was sort of all three. the "e" was sort of always there, like a stream of non -interrupted "e" sound. it was more like a recognition of all the molecules in that, all the little bits, like renewing every second that sound. and that's sort of what it was like. in this sound, that was always new. always these lapping motions ... it was both fire and water. they had the same kind oflapping, 85 86 current musicology licking, the same motion. i think there must be some connection between the roundness of those and the roundness of the small "e" i was imagining. they started being much smaller and kept getting bigger until they went off the page. i don't think i've ever gone off the page. participant d. i felt like i really got to know the letter "0." [laughs] i was on it and i was rolling over it like it was a big beach ball. then i was inside of it, i was experiencing that. you know when you were a child and you get inside the tire, and you go to the top of the hill and you roll down, we used to do that a lot. kind of like that ... and this is lying on my back on the "0." so it's a physical experience of it. then i realized it was getting smaller. it wasn't just this big beach ball any more. it was getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and then it was entering me through my eyes, through my ears, through my mouth, and it was going through my body. the "0" became like my blood running through my veins very much. i could see almost droplets of "os" everywhere, and flowing everywhere. i realized that my eyes are like "os," my mouth is an "0;' my head is an "0," and various other things. [laughs] so i drew these first. and then me, this. and then i realized that i was enclosed in this "0;' and that i was kind of giving birth to this "0." there was just lots of "os." exercise 2: fantasy journey participant a. [went to an island off the west coast, with forest, beach, rocks, and puddles with bugs in them. sits on grass overlooking the ocean.] when i put my ear to the earth, i could hear a deep hum-solid, comfort­ ing' sustaining. the sounds around me were more powerful in a vibrant way-wind blowing, the water crashing against the rocks. i could feel the warmth from the sun. the vastness of the water felt different than the one coming from the earth, which was more from a place of solidness and rest. i felt everything, rather than heard it. the power and vibrancy of the outer world was different. when i went over to the mountains, i felt an energy of sound-like a tuning fork sort of, a bell with one sustained clap. the mountain was reaching the sky, so i felt like moving in this same way-digging into the ground and reaching up. spiraling down and up. this was different again from the earth and wind and water. lingered a bit going back. i brought a sense of the seawater with me, and the smells of the forest. i left a part of my picture blank-to leave room for something new, a sense of discovery. participant b. [went to field with one tree and grass. it was very flat. the sky was sunny with some clouds. sat in the shade of the tree.] and i guess when you asked us to put our ear to the ground, the sound that i heard was sort of like wind chimes. but it was also reminding me of the other day i was just lying down and i started to hear this sound in my ear, which was like wind chimes, but it's not, sort of tinkly but it's not. i guess it's a richer sound than the sound i normally associate with wind chimes. it's not the austin clarkson sound of ceramic cats, for example, [laughs) it's a much better sound than that. so that's the sound i heard. [the land was fiat, so there was no hill. instead she faced the tree.) i turned around to face the tree that i had been sitting under and listened to the sound of that tree instead, which was sort of like the sound of the ground except it was much deeper. i had a sense that where it was coming from was way far below, or that the person that was listening was expanded try­ ing to listen to that sound ... then when you were asking about going to see the mountain, or going closer to it, i just stepped into the tree, sort of jumped into it, and the whole time i could sort of feel the bark against the tree, even when i was underneath it. i could feel the roots and the ground and where the grass had been worn away. so i just jumped into the tree. and when you asked us to come back, i didn't jump out of the tree, i just sort of came back, sort of with the tree. so i also didn't really want to go, but came back easily enough. participant c. [a scene of cliffs on both sides of a dry river bed. the day is very cloudy, cold, but not windy. there is a tall, looming, larger-than-life-size statue of the buddha carved in the cliff and chinese style trees with lateral branches and leaves. she walked on the riverbed, lay down, and put her ear to the earth.) what i heard was the tinkling of tiny drops of water, but then, right away, it turned into a very big flood with water gushing towards me with sounds so loud that the ears couldn't bear. [she saw a sand dune in the distance.) i hear very loud resonance, like a thousand horses racing and people fighting. and i try to climb up the sand dune and reach the summit there. and over the lee of the sand dune i saw a lake in a crescent form which is turquoise in color and murky. and suddenly a very loud voice comes articulating a chinese poem that i know, i mean long before, which says: nice grapes, nice wine in a jade bowl which is so translucent that you can see through the jade when light comes through it. and i want to drink of it sitting on a horse playing a p'i-p'a. and then if you see on lying and sleeping in a fighting field all filled with sand, don't laugh. ask yourself a question, "how many of these people, in historic times, will return after a battle?" ... i came back very quickly, but as i left, i was lingering and with my head turned back every time i made a step forward, or rather backwards to where i was. i walked backwards, looking at what i saw, and eventu­ ally there came a time that i said, "i really have to walk forward." i turned round and got back to where i am. participant d. [went to a place from childhood, sat on a favorite rock, with a brook, forest, bulrushes, swampy.) when i put my ear to the earth, i hear a very low rumbling sound. it comes to me that it's probably the water underground and i'm hearing very, very deep in the earth. and the closer i 87 88 current musicology am to the earth, the closer i am to hearing that water. and it has a very low kind of hum, which is the sound of the earth, this 'mmmm aahh' sound. and it's very comforting, this sound. [sees a small hill, not easy to get to. to reach it follows a winding path through trees, meadow, by a pond.] what's drawing me towards this hill, i realize, is the sound of a bell. it's a church bell on the hill, and it's an old wooden building with wooden planks inside and a bell when you enter. and there's a man, and he's pulling this string of this old bell, and you can hear it echoing off into the distance. and not only is it drawing me to it, but it's drawing all the animals from all over the place to it, too. and we're all coming there to meet. and it's great. i don't want to leave. it's very nice. and it smells really good, the wood in the church and the trees and the grass ... i came back quickly, because i didn't want to leave. so i just didn't look at anything and came back as quickly as i could. exercise 3: silent solos-silent duets during the first session a partnered with band c with d. in subsequent sessions the exercise was repeated but with different partners. here is the discussion from the first time they did the exercise. for the silent solos exercise the partners had the palms of their hands touching. silent solos participant b. [imagined singing a very clear and beautiful sound that became silence.] i was noticing the quality of silence and how that was changing. and i think at one point we started breathing together, which i noticed at one point just in the way your hands were moving. a breakthrough. then the quality of silence between us, because i do think that silence has texture and color. at the very end i felt that it wasn't me singing any longer. it was the two of us. then there was sound around us filling the space, but still in a context of silence. or the main thing was a sound around us that wasn't coming from either of us. it was very rich. participant a. i was wondering how hard it is to send music out and re­ ceive it at the same time. i was feeling like a celtic harp and every once in a while [it] sounds my voice. at some point, when we were breathing together, i felt our hands kind of sank into each other, so the music wasn't so prominent any more, feeling the togetherness ... it was so beautiful for me to feel our hands harmoniously touching. harmony was happening with our hands and energy. c and d both imagined playing a string instrument, producing folk­ like music and dance. they both had the urge to send energy to each other. their hands got warmer. participant d. i was trying to send you energy too. you were dancing. we were dancing. it was a folksong ... not a jig, but a dance folk element to it. austin clarkson participant c. mine was ... a dance, very folkloric, chinese, fa and ti, with all those vibrations of the fourth. it's amazing that i was trying to send energy to her and she was sending it to me. participant d. i was thinking energy to c. energy. and then this idea of the dance came into my head. participant c. i am not quite sure of how you respond to my energy. the tingling. i feel the coldness of our hands but it got warmer now. participant d. it got warmer and warmer. it was very cold at first. participant c. at the last bit i was very amazed when you [ac] said to come back. we opened our eyes and smiled at each other, a recognition of communication. silent duets participant a. it was very strange for me, because the first exercise we did, for some reason, i had very clearly had music happening inside me. but as soon as we had two doing it, it wasn't known so much, because there was a sharing thing. i would do something and you would respond with your voice. i would play something and make certain sounds in connec­ tion with what you were making. so there was this play back and forth, so it was the same as all coming from me. what i found was the fact that it just became incredibly light and energized, like i just found there was this other energy there. participant b. i didn't in my mind have a clear idea of what it was you were playing to me. but i knew that you would do something, and i would respond with a short vocal phrase, descending, high register. and then that went on for a little bit, and then what i felt was more sort of turbulence, more not feeling a strong connection. eventually near the end i felt that our knees were together and there was a sound coming up from below us, coming through us like some giant column. and then i felt that right between us there was this round thing, in some ways like what we were doing. it was light made out of lights and blues and purples. it was music also, it was both of our musics together, so it wasn't one answering the other, it was both of them occurring at the same time as one. i could really feel like it was right here, like it had its space. it was a big, oval, round, egg-like kind of thing that was between us. but it wasn't anything from a particular instrument, it wasn't even necessarily a melody. i knew that both our sounds were together. participant a. that's sort of close to what i was feeling. it was more like this thing happening together. and it was almost like the music started to come from somewhere else, as it wasn't so much generated from me and from you but there was this sense of harmony. participant b. yes. that's what i felt. it wasn't an individualist effort, it wasn't me making some sound, and me listening to you your ego-self making some sound. it was a greater thing than that. participant c. it was a kind of an improvisatory kind of thing, and i wait for d to start. she gives me a signal and i begin to respond in very short 89 90 current musicology detached phrases [sings] and wait for her to respond. she gives me a kind of heterophonic melody embellishment around that. the theme gets longer. i am trying to trick her. i'm going to a different mood, and give a more lyrical, long, legato type of violin-like bowed instrument this time. long, long phrases, very expansive [sings], something like that, and then i wait for her to respond. she comes on again with the same light-hearted [sings] thing. then i think, well it's time to do something together, and we begin to swirl around, and we dance, like a tango. then we come together, i go around you, you go round me, turn around each other, then i want to give her kind of surprise, i hit a tympani. she responded by giving me a gong. then i kind of feel the fun of the energy. we kind of talk and chant in musical terms. when we come to a close we recap some of those themes and make a kind of coda in musical terms. participant d. we were papagena and papageno. we were singing [sings] the short little ... it was mozart. we were doing that mozart. it was funny and we were laughing. and i was doing a short phrase, and then you would do it, and then i would do it, and then you would do it. but this image kept coming into my mind, no that's silly, that's silly. then in the background i saw you playing cello, this long lyrical beautiful phrase, and i was playing piano. and it was serious and beautiful. and yet we kept going back to the mozart too. it was like the two images kept intertwining. we would go from one to the next, one to the next. and then finally we decided this is really fun. yeah! we were playing, basically, just playing together. and then when you [ac] said come to an end, i thought how is this going to end, [sings] all these cadences [sings]. because in the magic flute there is the xylophone. post-session interviews four to six weeks after the series of sessions concluded i interviewed the participants on the effects of the program. the following passages were excerpted from the transcript: participanta. the duets really spilled over into my everyday life. brought an element into my life that was missing. first time, just doing my solo piece and not being really sure of the other. when we were doing the sharing part it was like something inside me kind of shifted so that i was able to still have that part of myself and send it to the other person but also be able to receive from that other person in my imagination. just the awareness of doing a duet with somebody changed the whole communication process, because rather than my idea coming out and then their idea coming over to me, instead of having two separate things, it became a third thing, and also just one thing ... it became a living breathing entity or something like that. i mean we created another life or another experience or another energy. that felt really tangible to me in all three experiences. this flow starts to happen, and i guess if i'm more aware of it being there, then i kind of honor the exchange a little bit more, or i can take it deeper to another level. it creates a kind of sacredness about life or about the conaustin clarkson nection between people. it takes it beyond the simple exchange of words and ideas. participant b. it does remind me of a meditative practice. the same sort of emptiness, the same sort of non-judgemental waiting for things to arise. i see it as connected to that ... i would say that in this work it becomes much more apparent how body, mind and spirit are blended. i don't think they exist separately. trying to think of it, trying to talk about it means you bump into that. the other aspect is some desire to go into the unknown, to experience the unknown, which also why i call it spiritual. going into the unknown is work. and that is what we were doing. participant c. [most of the session was spent discussing her process as shown in her series of drawings. the project also raised the issue of how to incorporate personal, subjective material into her doctoral studies.] i was reviewing in a presentation [for a course] aspects of my life, my experiential encounters with a special piece of music which i feel closely connected to. i am not very convinced to relate it to my colleagues yet, but i make myself do it. that is one of the ways i am incorporating the subjective in academic writing, which i think i am doing with some success. the subjective is not being accepted in the academic world yet, but i feel i have to insist. when it came to my presentation it went well ... the feedback from my colleagues was that they were dumbfounded. i was referring to a pair of trees growing in beijing. those trees were really there. i showed the class the picture. how can one differentiate between real and not real? participant d. i didn't know at that point what my relationship with music was, if it was as an academic studying it, or if it was as i always thought as a performer, or if it wasn't music at all, if it was something completely different, like therapy. i guess what the workshops allowed me to do was give me the time and the peace to ask these questions which i probably wouldn't have asked ... i can't say scientifically that it made it clearer what direction i was going to take in my life, but i did feel a kind of a recon­ nection with the musical part of myself. i didn't feel as much as if it was me here and music over here. i felt that the music was within me. i was the music in a sense. and that the decision wasn't such a hard one, in a sense that it wasn't a decision i needed to make outside myself. the music was already there, and it was a question of just letting go, and relaxing, and letting it happen. and it didn't seem to matter then whether it was academic, or whether it was performing, or studying it through symbols or whatever. i guess that what i can really say in summary is that i felt it was within me and music was a part of who i was, who i am ... i didn't feel again that it was an object of study. it was just very natural. the hands on approach, the drawing, and the talking, and the singing, and the chanting, what we did. because i was doing it with others and they were doing it, it created a sense of connection to the others. they're all humans too doing the same things, on the same journey. we come from different points, but we're exactly the same. as opposed to therapy, which is so here, it was a chance to explore bodily aspects, musical sound, auditory aspects 91 92 current musicology that you don't get to do. there's a limit when you write things down, put things in words. you get to a limit where you can't go any further, and you want to, but how do you do it? this seems to help. and i guess that's why i equate it with a kind of a spiritual experience, because i don't know how else to call it, how else to characterize it. notes this essay is dedicated to beverly, companion on the way. 1. works ofwolpe keep turning up from unexpected sources. within the last year an article on film music from 1926, an agitprop song from the early 1930s, and a suite of dance music· for two pianos from 1940 have been uncovered. 2. a new edition presents the original text with more fidelity (wolpe 2002:167-97). 3. leutscher had met wolpe at darmstadt in 1957 and understood that he was advocat­ ing a music of freedom in response to the total serialism then the vogue. he believes that adorno developed his idea of musique informelle from hearing wolpe's lectures and music (leutscher 2003:136-37). 4. cheryl seltzer edited the 1967 project on "musicology and the musical composition" (current musicology 5), which featured articles by richard crocker and patricia carpenter, with responses by leo treitler, rudolf arnheim, ruth halle rowen, edward t. cone, bernard stambler, and david burrows. the respondents focused on carpenter's iconic essay, "the musical object." 5. for more on the curriculum, see clarkson (2003 and 2005). 6. twelve members of the group wrote personal accounts of their experiences of the course for a book in preparation on the curriculum. 7. the 1966 special issue (current musicology 4) has articles by alexander ringer, claude palisca, frank d'andrea, barry brook, and rose rosengard, and reviews of four dissertations in music education. s. the twelve-minute program was adapted from an exercise in the foundations of creative imagination course. for a description of the exercise, see clarkson and worts (2005:26364). 9. an essay on the interpretation of the painting is in preparation. 10. see the appendix for excerpts from the responses and the debriefing interviews. 11. if participants are musicians, they can bring instruments. instead of sharing their ex­ periences after the silent duet, the pairs go to practice rooms and prepare a two-minute piece from the material they imagined. after thirty minutes or so they return and perform these improvisations for the group. the performances are recorded, then played back and discussed. this version of the exercise is the basis of a research study with four professional musicians for a master's thesis in interdisciplinary studies. 12. other exercises, such as listening to recorded music, made use of external musical stimuli. 13. d's response was cited in connection with john cage's idea that music should provide a moment when "the multiplicity of elements which make up an individual become integrated and he is one" (clarkson 2001:102). austin clarkson references arieti, sylvano. 1976. creativity: the magic synthesis. new york: basic books. clarkson, austin. 1966. introduction: musical literacy and the teaching of music in school, college, and university. current musicology 4: 129-35. ---. 1993. uncursing the silence: an exploration of sonic imagination. musicworks 57: 38-46. ---.2000. current musicology now and then. current musicology 69: 180-85. ---. 2001. the intent of the musical moment: cage and the transpersonal. in writings through john cage's music, poetry, and art, edited by david w. bernstein and christopher hatch, 62-112. chicago and london: university of chicago press. ---. 2003. a curriculum for the creative imagination. in creativity and music educa­ tion, edited by timothy sullivan and lee willingham, 52-76. toronto: canadian music educators' association. ---. 2005. educating the creative imagination: a course design and its consequences. jung: the e-journal of the jungian society for scholarly studies 1(2): 1-17. http://www. thejungiansociety.org/jung%20society/ e-journallvolume-i/clarkson -2005.html. [may 24,2006] clarkson, austin, and douglas worts. 2005. the animated muse: an interpretive program for creative viewing. curator: the museum journal 48 (3): 257-80. csikszentmihalyi, mihaly. 1990. flow: the psychology of optimal experience. new york: harper and row. cumming, naomi. 2000. the sonic self musical subjectivity and signification. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. damasio, antonio. 1994. descartes' error: emotion, reason, and the human brain. new york: putnam. ---. 1999. the feeling of what happens: body and emotion in the making of conscious­ ness. new york: harcourt. dewey, john. [1934] 1958.art as experience. new york: capricorn books. jung, c. g. [1916] 1960. the transcendent function. in vol. 8 of the collected works of e. g. jung, edited by herbert read, michael fordham and gerhard adler, 67-91. princ­ eton, nj: princeton university press. ---. [1921] 1971. psychological types. vol. 6 of the collected works of e. g. jung, edited by herbert read, michael fordham and gerhard adler. princeton, nj: princeton uni­ versity press. ---. [1928]1970. the relations between the ego and the unconscious. in vol. 7 of the collected works of e.g. jung, edited by herbert read, michael fordham and gerhard adler, 123-304. princeton, nj: princeton university press. langer, susanne. 1942. philosophy in a new key. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. leutscher, dick. 2003. a composer sitting between the chairs: wolpe, cage, adorno. in on the music of stefan wolpe: essays and recollections, edited by austin clarkson, 133-38. hillsdale, ny: pendragon press. moreno, jairo. 2005. review essay: naomi cumming, the sonic self: musical subjectivity and signification, indiana university press, 2000, 370 pp. music theory spectrum 27 (2): 283-307. myers, isabel briggs. 1980. gifts differing. palo alto, ca: consulting psychologists press. oliveros, pauline. 1971. sonic meditations. baltimore: smith publications. reed, henry. 1996. close encounters in the liminal zone: experiments in imaginal com­ munication. journal of analytical psychology 41 0): 81-116; 41 (2): 203-26. 93 94 current musicology schwartz, jeffrey m. and sharon begley. 2002. the mind and the brain: neuroplasticity and the power of mental force. new york: regan books. stevens, anthony. 1995. private myths: dreams and dreaming. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. turner, victor. 1969. the ritual process. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. von zastrow, claus, with helen jane. 2004. academic atrophy: the condition of the liberal arts in america's public schools. washington, dc: council for basic education. wallas, graham. 1926. the art of thought. london: jonathan cape. whitman, walt. [1888]1945. a backward glance o'er travel'd roads. in the portable walt whitman, edited by mark van doren, 365-84. new york: viking press. whitmont, edward c. 1991. the symbolic quest. princeton, nj: princeton university press. wolpe, stefan. 1967. thinking twice. in contemporary composers on contemporary music, edited by elliott schwartz and barney childs, 274-307. new york: holt, rinehart, and winston. ---.2002. das ganze oberdenken: vortrage iiber musik, 1935-1962, edited by thomas phleps. saarbrticken: pfau verlag. discography wolpe, stefan. 1955. stefan wolpe. esoteric lp 530, reissued as hatart cd 6182 (1996). i am/was the walrus by daniel beller-mckenna i. for most of his adult life, john lennon fought to define himself against his public identity as "beatle-:john." that image, crafted by the beatles' manager brian epstein and the pop music industry became a burden to all four of the beatles during the group's seven years of international star­ dom. in place of the rough leather-clad rock and roll band that played rambling one hour sets in the hamburg kaiserkeller and the liverpool cavern club during 1960-61, epstein forged a more commercially viable group of four well (and uniformly) dressed young men whose stage act was reduced to twenty minute carefully scripted sets. over the course of the next few years, all four of the beatles assumed clean-cut, safe personae in accordance with the necessities of marketing the group to a broad, middle-class audience. willing though he and the others were to take part in the group's public transfonnation, lennon later claimed to have felt uncomfortable all along with selling out the beatles' rock and roll roots: "what we generated was fantastic when we played straight rock, and there was nobody to touch us in britain. but as soon as we made it, the edges were knocked off. brian epstein put us in suits and all that, and we made it very, very big. we sold out" (wenner 2000:20). lennon's reflections are born out by a contemporaneous witness, paul mccartney's brother michael, who spent a great deal of time with the group during their liverpool days: the others didn't have john's resentment of having to do what he was doing to be a beatle ... they thought they were just bloody lucky they were getting away with it for so long. but john always had that drive, something ticking over, the need to do something else. it was "ah, so this is what we have to do to be bigger than elvis? ok, let's go. but i'm not going to give one hundred percent of me." (quoted in coleman 1992:311) submitting to epstein's plan forced lennon (and all of the beatles) to current musicology. no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 48 current musicology suppress aspects of both their public and private personae (gone, for in­ stance, were the days of lennon performing with a toilet seat around his neck and hurling expletives at his german audience). for lennon, most commentators then and now agree that his primary sacrifice was the rebel­ lious anger that drove him to achieve the very success epstein offered. (epstein himself wrote of lennon, "there is in the set of his head a con­ trolled aggression that demands respect" [epstein 1964:21].) lennon chronicler john wiener expands on this idea: '1ohn was a genuinely angry young man. his anger may have been inchoate, expressed through the stereotyped working class macho, but it was real. when he played the cheer­ ful wit, he had to repress a vital part of himself' (j. wiener 1991:51). the beatles' famous wit was emblematic of the intellectual promise many heard in their music and sensed in their demeanor. in one of the first social critiques of the beatles, for example, literary theorist terry eagleton ar­ gued in 1964 that the beatles' middle-class mentality distinguished them from their tougher pop music predecessors. the songs of a previous wave of elvis-spawned british rockers of the late fifties (adam faith, cliff rich­ ard, marty wilde, and billy fury) expressed a social bitterness engendered in the singers' working-class backgrounds: "'i feel so blue, i don't know why' ," writes eagleton, "was the equivalent, at this level, of the intellectual's inability to rationalize his angst. aggression became a built-in reflex in the pop song and the singer's technique" (1964: 175). eagleton goes on to argue that the beatles represented a grammar school mentality in distinc­ tion to the "secondary-modern" world of their british rock precursors: the real cultural shift which [the beatles'] arrival effected was not from london to liverpool, but from secondary modern to grammar school. one of the beatles attended a liverpool grammar school and the college of art uohn lennon]; two others attended the liverpool institute [paul mccartney and george harrison], and one of these got a pass at 'a' level english [mccartney]. (ibid.:176)1 eagleton is biographically correct, as lennon would be the first to admit. 2 but whatever the reality of their upbringings, as teenagers the beatles had thoroughly adopted rock and roll's rebellious stance. their middle-class intellectual fac;:ade, whether true to their roots or not, was not how the four (least of all lennon) saw themselves or wanted to be seen. rather, it represented a social background that epstein was able to tap into as he molded the group into a marketable commodity. as the beatles' music became ever more complex and self-consciously artistic through the mid1960s,john lennon's intellectual cache grew ever stronger. this was, howdaniel beller-mckenna 49 ever, merely one part of the larger pop star persona that defined the beatles through the middle and late 1960s. above all else, they were defined by their friendy accessibility and approachable charm. upon epstein's death in august 1967, lennon effected a radical change in his public persona, moving sharply away from the epstein-inspired beatles image and depicting himself instead as a rebellious champion of various counterculture political agendas. from the demise of the beatles in 1970 on, lennon sought to present himself as an unpackaged "real" person. at first (in the years around 1970) this move towards recapturing his own public persona manifested itself in a series of political stunts, aimed at displaying his uncompromising expression of ideals, and such symbolic acts of stripping away his previously false persona as appearing naked with partner yoko ono on the album jacket of their two virgins lp (1968). beatles fans and the media either applauded his agitprop antics with yoko ono towards the end of the decade as a responsible and necessary reac­ tion to the tenor of the times or criticized them as lavish, naive, and self­ absorbed attempts to use lennon's pop star celebrity as a vehicle for ex­ pressing the couple's political views. in either case, lennon had success­ fully shattered his "beatle:john" self by the early 1970s, and presented in­ stead ajohn lennon more in line with the rebellious youth lennon had suppressed to achieve stardom in the mid-1960s. lennon's death in 1980 only raised the stakes for those who saw him as either the hero or the villain of the 1960s. ironically, the debate over lennon since then has hinged on the discrepancies between his private and public self, the very dichotomy lennon had sought to destroy by pre­ senting himself as direct, truthful, and unpackaged. take, for example, the battle that raged over his legacy eight years after his murder. in 1988 albert goldman released his scathing biography, the lives of john lennon, in which he depicted lennon as a drug-diminished "nowhere man" who allowed those around him to manipulate his identity. goldman had long been a harsh critic of pop culture and its icons, having written equally damning books on lenny bruce and elvis presley (1974, 1981), as well as several articles criticizing various other rock stars or aspects of youth cul­ ture. his critique of lennon, therefore, was itself widely criticized as part of his ongoing assault on rock, and the mean-spiritedness towards lennon that permeated goldman's book added credence to those critiques. in any case, goldman's depiction is largely a media-based fabrication. for whereas, according to his own account, he and his research assistants conducted around 1,200 interviews over six years, the first source he cites is the body of published interviews with lennon. he adds to this "available documents in the national press of england, the united states, and japan," as well as previously published biographies (goldman 1988:700). goldman is either 50 current musicology unable or unwilling to recognize his 'john lennon" as a public media figure, and his claim to portray his as the real john lennon behind the public image remains unconvincing. shortly after goldman's book appeared, lennon's widow yoko ono initiated the film-and-book project imagine, which buttressed the estab­ lished media image of lennon as peaceful-revolutionary-turned-mellow­ family-man (solt and egan 1988; solt 1989). fred fogo goes so far as to label imagine: john lennon "an official counter document to the lives of john lennon" (1994:122). like goldman's book, ono's projection of her late husband can be understood as an act of mass media manipulation. working from a wealth of privately held film and tape footage, ono chose to depict lennon in the best possible light, and we can easily see her 'john lennon" as a self-consciously constructed fiction-one (very positive) in­ terpretation ofthe public figure who was john lennon. john lennon had been very much aware of and actively concerned with questions of public and private personae and their uncomfortable co­ existence during his life. indeed, presenting himself as a real person (not beatle:john) became a theme in some of his later songs with the beatles and most of his early solo work. given lennon's continued centrality in interpretations of 1960s pop and counter-culture, coming to a better undertanding of his various self-portrayals will help to illuminate his role in the culture of his times. this essay traces lennon's attempt to dissociate himself from his beatles image between 1966 and 1970, the year of the beatles' breakup. i take as my terminal points two songs, "i am the wal­ rus," written for the beatles' 1967 film magical mystery tour, and "god," the final song on lennon's premiere solo album in 1970, john lennon/plastic ono band. the first song dismantles lennon's beatle-image by challeng­ ing the basic notion of identity, especially as the song is rendered visually in the movie magical mystery tour, while the second overtly rejects a litany of established cultural icons including and culminating with the beatles. lennon had begun to dismantle beatle:john before writing "i am the wal­ rus," and his public persona would continue to evolve beyond his first solo album. yet each of the two songs at hand recommends itself as a signifi­ cant juncture in that evolution. "i am the walrus" marked the end (and arguably the pinnacle) of lennon's psychedelic musical explorations dur­ ing 1966-67, a phase in which the beatles' traditional methods of compos­ ing were severely altered, thereby radically changing the group's musical profile and popular perception. "god" ends a stark album of simple means and (sometimes) violent expression in which lennon attempts to thor­ oughly purge his beatle-self. near the end of that song lennon claims "i was the walrus, but now i'mjohn." lennon thereby completes a process begun in 1967, entirely removing the walrus mask once and for all to osdaniel beller-mckenna 51 tensibly reveal his real and pure self: 'john." i will consider each song as part of that process. ii. at the beginning of 1966 there was little to suggest to the public that john lennon would have any need or desire to undo his beatles identity. the previous three years had witnessed the group's unprecedented rise in popu­ larity first in england and then worldwide. after six albums, eleven num­ ber-one singles, two successful movies, and numerous well-received tours, maintaining the status quo would have seemed a reasonable strategy. yet the status quo was already in flux by the end of the previous year. live performances, the group's forte prior to beatlemania, had become ex­ tremely difficult and unrewarding due to the ecstatic behavior (and noise) of their audiences. as a result, the beatles began experimenting in the studio during mid-1965 with the use of a string quartet on the song ''yester­ day," a flute on the album help!, and later in the year with still more exotic instruments on the album rubber soul: sitar, fuzz bass, and harmonium, as well as unusual recording effects like the backwards guitar solo on "i'm only sleeping" and backwards vocals on "rain. "3 as their studio explorations intensified during the spring of 1966 on the album revolver, the beatles' relationship with the public began to change as wel1.4 that summer, controversy surrounded the group for the first time on the world tour that followed the recording of revolver. after run­ ins with the press and dignitaries injapan and the philippines, the beatles suffered their greatest fall from grace to date over the "more popular than jesus christ" flap that developed in the united states during july and au­ gust. several months earlier, in a february 1966 interview with maureen cleave of the london evening standard, lennon had remarked: "christian­ ity will go, it will vanish and shrink. i needn't argue about that, i'm right and i will be proved right. we're more popular than jesus christ right now. i don't know which will go first-rock and roll or christianity. jesus was alright, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. it's them twisting it that ruins it for me" (reprinted in the beatles 2000:223). his remarks touched off an uproar in the united states when they were reprinted in the july 1966 issue of the fan magazine datebook. before the beatles arrived for a tour in august, mass record burnings were held in several cities and thirty­ five radio stations banned their records (a. wiener 1986:96; j. wiener 1991: 11-16). by the time the summer tour ended on august 29th at candle­ stick park in san francisco, the group had decided to cease touring. lennon's public reaction to the controversy over his jesus remark is noteworthy. when the beatles first came to the u.s. in early 1964 amid the onset of beatlemania, their press conferences were famous for cheeky wit 52 current musicology and brash irreverence, an earthy sincerity that won over the press and helped secure their popular success in this country.5 three years later, however, at an august 11 press conference in chicago near the end of the beatles' long summer tour, lennon's tone was quite different: i am sorry i opened my mouth. i just happened to be talking to a friend and i used the word "beatles" as a remote thing-"beatles", like other people see us. i said they are having more influence on kids than anything else, includingjesus. i said it in that way, which was the wrong way. i'm not anti-god, anti-christ, or anti-religion. i was not knocking it. i was not saying we are greater or better. i think it's a bit silly. if they don't like us, why don't they just not buy the records .... when i first heard about the repercussions i thought "it can't be true-it's just one of those things." and then when i realized it was serious i was worried stiff because i knew how it would go on, and the things that would get said about it, and all those miserable pictures of me looking like a cynic, and it would go on and on and on and get out of hand, and i couldn't control it. i can't answer for it when it gets that big, because it's nothing to do with me then. (reprinted in beatles 2000:226) watching and listening to the excerpt of this press conference on the video portion of the beatles' anthology project, the bitterness and frustration be­ hind lennon's words are readily apparent. upon returning from the summer tour, lennon immediately set off for germany (and spain) to play private gripweed in the film how i won the war, directed by richard lester, who had also directed the beatles' first two films. whereas lennon had played his beatle-self in a hard day's night (1964) and help! (1965), in how i won the war he portrayed a relatively secondary and pathetic character in a dark parody of hollywood war films. working on lester's film, therefore, served two immediate purposes for lennon. first, the film carried a strong anti-war message that gave lennon's public aura the political slant it would maintain until the end of his life. secondly, it was a professional venture that allowed lennon to work out­ side of the beatles.6 indeed, from the fall of 1966 until the beatles dis­ banded in 1970, much of lennon's activity can be understood as an at­ tempt to escape his beatle:john persona. and if the much discussed per­ sonal and artistic union he began with yoko ono in 1968 fostered lennon's most iconoclastic behavior, his political statements and activities in 1966 indicate that he was already well on his way to shedding his beatle per­ sona. daniel beller-mckenna 53 iii. all four beatles had gone on separate vacations after the 1966 summer tour. they reunited in emi's abbey road studio on november 24 to begin recording lennon's "strawberry fields forever," which he had written in spain while filming how i won the war (lewisohn 1988:87). in many ways this song can be seen as the direct precursor to "i am the walrus," which they would begin recording about nine months later. between those re­ cordings the beatles noticeably changed their public image (visually as well as figuratively) and their musical style. generally, the group no longer appeared in public wearing matching clothes and haircuts (excepting of course, the victorian military-band attire of sgt. pepper, which was itself a self-conscious identity transformation device). musically, the decision to stop touring led to a freedom to expand the studio experiments begun in early 1966, and the soundscape of sgt. pepper and magical mystery tour is defined by a nearly complete freedom from producing songs that could be replicated on stage. "strawberry fields" and "i am the walrus" exemplity this freedom, and the two songs are frequently compared for their use of orchestral instru­ mental overlay and complicated tape-mixing effects. 7 more importantly for present purposes, "i am the walrus" carries further themes of identity dissociation that had surfaced in "strawberry fields" which, like its later counterpart, comprises ajumbled collage of images and psychological ref­ erences. questions of identity emerge haphazardly throughout "strawberry fields forever"; such phrases as "it's getting hard to be someone," and "always, no, sometimes, think it's me" are the most obvious cases. here, for the first time in his songwriting, lennon raises the issue of identity in a self-conscious fashion. between "strawberry fields" and the recording of "i am the walrus" in september 1967, two decisive events changed lennon's (and perhaps his bandmates') attitude toward his participation in the beatles. in august their manager brian epstein died of a drug overdose, just as the group began their brief but intense association with maharishi mahesh yogi and his spiritual regeneration movement. epstein had met and begun manag­ ing the group in late 1961, and had been singly responsible for transform­ ing the group's rough and rebellious image into the cleaner, less threaten­ ing, and more marketable "mop-top" package by which they achieved their initial fame and fortune. s although epstein's absence left the group rela­ tively rudderless as a business concern and entertainment act, it conversely allowed any lasting creative fetters on the four members to fall away. bear­ ing witness to the bonuses and pitfalls of such freedom are the beatles' next two projects, the film magical mystery tour and the double album the beatle> (the "white" album). the film, produced and directed by the beatles 54 current musicology example 1: "i am the walrus"; opening melody of verse 1. a a/g c d die a a/g i am he as you are he as you are we and we are all toge ther, _ c d a see how they run like pigs from a gun see how _ they run_ i'm cry iog._ themselves, aired the day after christmas 1967 in the u. k shown in black and white, many of its colorful effects fell flat. moreover, the amateurish writing, directing, and composition were panned by the british press, mark­ ing the beatles' first public failure. the white album, while more sympa­ thetically received, also contained numerous songs that have never been embraced by one or another contingent of beatles fans: from the avant­ garde tape compilation "revolution #9" to the treadey-sweet "honey pie" and "ob-ia-di, ob-ia-da," to cite two extremes. in any case, these efforts (the film and the extremes of the white album-including its length) would not likely have taken the shape they did had they occurred under epstein's management of the group. by the fall of 1967, then, the beatles were well on their way towards obliterating their earlier "fab four" identity, and "i am the walrus" illus­ trates clearly that lennon was at the front of the line. lennon immedi­ ately announces the theme of identity-dissipation in the opening line of "i am the walrus": "i am he as you are he as you are me and we are all to­ gether" (0:21-0:28). not only do these personal equations dissolve the distinct identity of all members (i, he, you, me, we), but the sonic equiva­ lence of he-me-we (mono-syllabic two letter words ending on a long -e vowel) projects an aural sameness as well. just two notes-an undulating semi-tone, e-d#--form the sparse melody here (ex. 1). such a tense, static delivery of the lyrics throws the identity relationships in the song's text into strong relief against the shifting harmonies below. those harmonies seem to be unable to help direct the melody beyond its remarkably narrow daniel beller-mckenna 55 example 2: "1 am the walrus": refrain. b c d e i am the egg man they are the egg-men i am the wal-rus goo-goog':..joob range, as if the melody resists being pulled into any recognizable pop con­ tour just as strongly as the lyrics defy a strict identity association. even when the chords c and d are lengthened in the next strain ("see how they run like pigs from a gun") to one chord per-bar, the melody clings to the e-d# dyad. and no matter how the pacing of the chords is altered in the ensuing strains (0:38-0:54), little changes melodically; the unremitting semi­ tone alternation in the melody is relieved only by the falling cadential figures on the words "together," "how they fly," and "crying" and by its transposition to the pitches a and b and its slight expansion (now a whole tone apart) at the line "corporation tee-shirt, stupid bloody tuesday" (etc., in subsequent verses). "detachment" best describes the relationship between the terse melody and the chord changes that accompany it;just as the ego in the song defies identification, the vocal line refuses to take melodic shape around the song's underlying harmonies. it is as if the multiple i-he-you-me-we per­ sona refuses to form into a recognizable, distinctive melody and thus com­ mit to one or another of its constituent parts. perhaps the only strongly directed melody occurs in the refrain ("i am the eggman ... "), where the voice follows major chords up diatonically from b to e (0:54-1 :03, ex. 2). again we are confronted with an identity jumble: "i am the eggman / they are the eggmen / ... " as the melody rises we anticipate some sort of textual conclusion or resolution, but are left instead with the song's enig­ matic title statement: "i am the walrus." the song's structure does not give any clearer sense of where it is headed. like many lennon songs from 1967-68, "i am the walrus" dwells on descending (and also in this case ascending) bass lines and chord pro­ gressions.9 yet unlike some more clearly directed examples, these linear patterns in "i am the walrus" occur only after false starts and/ or abrupt changes in direction, producing a formal sense of randomness to match the disjointed images and identity scramble of the text. for example, the descent begun with a to g in the bass under the words "i am he as you are 56 current musicology he" is twice interrupted by the upwards progression c-d, first in the space of one bar (" ... you are me and we are all together") and later across two full bars ("see how they run ... "). amore complete descentfromais only realized in the second half of the verse at the words "sitting on a cornflake," where the bass descends a-g-f#-f over the chords a~~ d~ -f (0:390:49). when that f major chord gives way to b major, the resulting ascent from b up to e not only incorporates the c-d progression from the first half of the verse, but also provides a context in which to make tonal sense of the song's opening instrumental descent from b-e (now reversed), which recurs as a bridge after verse two, now with words added ("sitting in an english garden waiting for the sun"; 2:10-2:24). in essence then, the song rests on a linear descent in the bass from a to e and a linear ascent (also a chord progression) from b to e, which also appears inverted in the bridge, and extended in the introduction. but lennon breaks down and scrambles these progressions, thereby obscuring any tight formal scheme to the song. some frequently repeated stories about how lennon wrote the song might shed light on the meaning (or lack thereof) of the song's structure and its title. at one point, lennon claimed he had originally wanted to write an entire song on an ambulance siren sound. the opening electric piano riff embodies his original inspiration (f#-d# alternating with b), and the vocal dyads, therefore, represent an edgy and strained variation of the introduction. 1o as for the genesis of the text, two separate (though not mutually exclusive) accounts have been given. lennon himself commented that "the first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. the second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after i metyoko" (golson 1981:156) lennon's old liverpool friend pete shotton recalls that lennon made up the mostly non-sequitous lyrics to the song upon hearing that a literature class at their old high school was analyzing beatles songs. such bizarre concepts as "semolina pilchard climb­ ing up the eiffel tower" were lennon's attempt to confound and thwart those who would try to make sense of his lyrics (especially the masters at his old school) (shotten 1983:216-17). finally, lennon traced the general dream-like quality ofthe song's imagery to lewis carroll's alice in wonder­ land (carroll was a favorite author and one who frequently inspired lennon's literary efforts). in particular, lennon's song draws on the story of "the walrus and the carpenter" from chapter 4 of through the looking glass ("tweedledum and tweedledee"). the latter reference might ex­ plain the repeated refrain ''i'm crying" that frequently halts the verses of "i am the walrus," since in the story it is the walrus who repeatedly weeps for the young oysters whom he and the carpenter have tricked into com­ ing to dinner (only to eat them). in light of the role identity plays in "i am the walrus," lennon's attraction to alice may not have been inconsequendaniel beller-mckenna 57 tial, given her own malleable form and size. even within the vignette he chose, lennon himself seemed to have been confused with the identity of the characters: i was the walrus, whatever that means. we saw the movie in l.a. and the walrus was a big capitalist that ate all the fuckin' oysters [laugh], if you must know ... i always had this image of "the walrus and the carpenter"-and i never checked what the walrus was. i've been going around and saying "i am the walrus," that it's something, but he's a fucking bastard [laugh] ... the way it's written everbody presumes that it means something. i mean even i did, so we just presumed, just cause i said, "i am the walrus" that it must mean that i am god or something, but its just poetry. but it became symbolic with me. (wenner 2000:88) 11 in addition to exchanging the identity of the characters in the story, here lennon suggests that the walrus and the concept of god are somehow related to him, a connection that will be played out obliquely in the song "god" from his first album (which had been released shortly before he made the previous comment). i will return to the latter song below. whereas the carroll inspiration accounts for the title of the song, all four elements in these accounts of the song's genesis (the siren, the first line written separately, the attempt to confuse his old school masters, and the lewis carroll inspiration) resonate with the feeling of detachment that exists between the song's siren-like melody and its chord changes. two parts of this account also confirm that lennon was concerned with an identity-distortion project in "i am the walrus." to begin with, the isola­ tion on the first line, as written separately from (literally a week before) any other text in the song suggests that the identity dissolution it expresses (i-he-you-he-you-me-we) formed the seminal idea for the song. secondly, shotton's story about fooling the masters at their old school directly raises lennon's frustration with how other's perceived his public self while also vividly depicting his efforts to escape from his beatle image, ducking out from under the disguise, as it were. i use the image of a disguise here because it pertains to the visual image of "i am the walrus" that the beatles created for their movie magical mystery tour. the made-for-television film was a quasi-surreal, plotless romp across the english countryside, containing five "music videos" (to use the somewhat later term and idea), not including the title song, which was played to the cinematic introduction and closing credits. of these, only "i am the walrus" makes any attempt to depict an actual "performance" of the song by the beatles as a rock group (that is, in stage position, playing 58 current musicology their instruments, lip-syncing the words, etc.) that, however, is as far as the realistic depiction goes. throughout the "i am the walrus" video, the members of the group don a variety of costumes and guises. they are shot from a number of camera angles with various effects, and their stage set stance is interlaced with shots of them standing in a variety of poses: with interlocked arms on each others' backs; swaying to the song with fingers snapping as if coolly detached from the performing beatles; directing the cameramen; etc. as the group performs, several images from the song's lyrics are realized visually: the "policemen in a row," the "eggmen" (and perhaps lennon, who wears a white skullcap, as the "eggman"), and the "walrus" (again, lennon), as one animal costume among four that the group members wear. putting on masks and costumes is a central theme in magical mystery tour. although the film was critically trashed, it gives a much better idea of how the group thought and where their interests lay at the time than did either of their previous, commercially successful films with richard lester. lennon later remarked of a hard day's night. "we were a bit infuriated with the glibness and shiftiness of the dialogue [,] and we were always try­ ing to get it a bit more realistic, but they wouldn't have it." he added that in help! the beatles felt like extras in their own film (wenner 2000:56). bob neaverson, whose book the beatles movies provides a thorough account of how the group's film efforts fit into their musical development as well as film trends of the 1960s, considers in detail how the beatles played with their identity in magical mystery tour: perhaps the most striking aspect of the beatles' image in magical mystery tour is that it broke with their previous tradition of appearing in films as "themselves", and attempted to scramble any sense of identificatory perception by mixing footage of dramatic action in which they appear as actors who play characters within a dramatic context, sequences where they appear as themselves in a dramatic or performance-based context, and sequences where the distinction is unclear ... moreover, when the group do [sic] appear as "themselves" (either within the dramatic context or when "performing" songs), their image marks a total departure from the imposed boyishness and cheeky conformity of their previous cinematic excursions. (neaverson 1997:48) following the filmjust beyond the video of "i am the walrus," one sees a scene on the bus with lennon and the little girl (named nicole), which exemplifies neaverson's point. in "i am the walrus" lennon is beatle:john daniel beller-mckenna 59 the performer, nonchalant beatlejohn swaying and snapping his fingers with his bandmates, john lennon helping to choreograph and direct the film's various sequences in the interpolated outtakes, the eggman, and, of course, the walrus. on the bus, however, he presents himself as john lennon, the "real" person, sharing a laugh with a small child, playing the children's rhyme-game "five little dickie birds," and blowing up a bal­ loon, while his friend "the real" george harrison sits by. these representa­ tions (of lennon and harrison) are, of course, strongly filtered; they are also staged scenes intended to portray particular versions of the two beatles' personae. yet their stark distinction from the surrealistically portrayed char­ acters of the preceding music video and the everyday nature of their play­ ful banter with nicole clearly is intended to mark these as more genuine characters than their alter-beatle-egos. whether or not we accept this lennon and harrison as "real" is less important than the fact that we un­ derstand them to be intended as such. as the song fades out in the movie, the walrus, the three other ani­ mals, the eggmen, the policemen, and a shutterbug midget dance into the distance behind the bus. this provides a fitting visual metaphor for the breakdown of identity that occurs in "i am the walrus" and for the musical structure of the song's fade-out. the fantastical characters behind the bus are part of the show. happily oblivious, they trail the "real" people on the bus, dancing and singing into eternity (if you will), while the "real" people get on with their journey. lennon's homey little scene with nicole into which the audio of "i am the walrus" fades aims to make the stark differ­ ence between characters of the song and the "real" john lennon abun­ dantly clear. immediately preceding that scene, the visual imagery that accompa­ nies the musical fade-out of "i am the walrus" directs the viewer to see the john lennon depicted on the bus as a separate entity from the various john lennons encountered in the song's video. musically, the song ends over a repeated wedge pattern, as a cycle of diatonically descending major chords and bass line (from a back to a) is countered by a diatonically rising line in the violins, also from-and-to a (ex. 3). all of this extends into perpetuity the generic descending and ascending linear progressions on which the song is based, now pitted directly against each other. whereas many pop songs end in a fade-out, this one seems to imply something endless and irreversible through that gesture. the two contrary lines are headed in different directions; the fade-out implies that they cannot be reconciled. identity is not meshed in this song, but rather it is divided and blown apart. beatlejohn, the walrus, and john lennon must all go their separate ways from now on. against that closing pattern, lennon's nonsense syllables 'juba,juba" 60 current musicology example 3: "i am the walrus": closing 'wedge' theme. (harmonies on the middle staff are a generalized representation of the accompanying chords, not a literal notation of what any particular instrument is playing.) violins cellos are joined by a cacophony of chanted phrases and miscellaneous excerpts from a performance of shakespeare's king lear, which happened to be aired on the bbc on the night lennon re-mixed the recording of the song. just as the musical wedge provides an abstraction of the elements that made up the song, the accompanying textual mayhem is only a more extreme version of the senseless lyrics of the song. whatever meaning might have been gleaned from the text in the rest of the song disappears into a surrealistic jumble at its end. and with it disappears beatlejohn, allowing the "real" john lennon (on the bus that is) to ride off without the media circus that trails behind. iv. lennon treated the walrus as a mask. once behind this disguise (a more enigmatic and fully concealing artifice than that offered by the sgt. pep­ per garb from earlier in 1967) lennon could slip away unnoticed from his previous beatle image. thus when he sings a year later (almost to the day) in the song "glass onion" on the white album, "well here's another clue for you all, the walrus was paul," he is yet again confounding those who would try to unravel the supposed hidden meaning of his songs. it is clear daniel beller-mckenna 61 enough from the video in magical mystery tour that the walrus is lennon. his statement here, then, is one of affinity with mccartney, or another manifestation of the fluid sense of identity suggested by the opening line of "i am the walrus (or, as lennon later claimed, a knock at all those beatles fans who read too much into the group's songs).12 during 1968-69, the beatles' last two years of recording, lennon be­ gan to peer out from behind that mask. many of the songs on the white album, let it be, and abbey road hint at the stark realism of the 1970 album john lennon/plastic dna band, his first solo studio project. songs like ''yer blues," "i'm so tired," "don't let me down," and "i want you-she's so heavy," all carry a hint ofthe autobiographical and directly personal style that would strongly color lennon's solo efforts.13 moreover, each of these songs uses a scaled-back rock band scoring in contrast to the various tape effects and orchestration of "strawberry fields forever," "i am the wal­ rus," "glass onion," and some other lennon songs (not to mention many of mccartney's efforts) on these later beatles lps. first, however, according to lennon, he went through a christ-like ego resurrection, centered on his use of lsd. when asked in his 1971 rolling stone interview whether he had ever had any bad trips, lennon explains: oh yeah, 1 had many. jesus christ. 1 stopped taking it cause of that. 1 mean ijust ... couldn't stand it. 1 dropped it for 1 don't know how long. then 1 started taking it just before 1 met yoko. 1 got a message on acid that you should destroy your ego, and 1 did. 1 was reading that stupid book of leary's and all that shit ... and 1 destroyed myself. 1 was slowly putting meself together after maharishi, bit by bit over a two year period. and then 1 destroyed me ego and 1 didn't believe 1 could do anything. 1 let paul do what he wanted and say, them all do just what they wanted. and 1 just was nothing, 1 was shit. and then derek [taylor] tripped me out at his house after he'd got back from l.a. he said, ''you're alright." and he pointed out which songs i'd written and said, ''you wrote this, and you said this, and you are intelligent, don't be frightened." the next week 1 went down with yoko and we tripped out again, and she freed me completely, to realize that 1 was me and it's alright. and that was it. 1 started fighting again and being a loud-mouth again and saying, "well, 1 can do this," and "fuck you, and this is what 1 want," and "don't put me down. 1 did this." so that's where 1 am now. (wenner 2000:53-54) this re-emergence of lennon's assertive side was at least partly exhibited 62 current musicology by a series of avant-garde recordings made by lennon and ono that were released between 1969 and 1970, which moved completely outside the realm of pop music. a series of tape collage pieces were released as four unbro­ ken sides on two separate albums entitled two virgins (1968) and life with the lions (1969). although most people were probably more aware ofthe hue and cry over the full frontal nudity on the cover of two virgins (where the naked lennon and ono posed holding hands) than ever actually heard either of the albums, these releases and the couple's highly publicized bed-ins and other off-beat demonstration gimmicks unmistakably signaled lennon's departure from the beatles as a purposeful public phenomenon. lennon had recreated his public persona as a peace movement artistic radical, an image that could never be reconciled with his beatles pre-sgt. pepper identity. despite these more roughly presented songs and iconoclastic projects with ono, little could have prepared lennon's listening public for the bleakness of his first conventional solo studio album, john lennon/plastic dna band, released in december 1970. this is an album that pares away any aural opulence in favor of sparse arrangements, largely unfiltered in­ strumental sounds, and a plain, often anguished vocal quality in lennon's mostly unharmonized voice. most of the songs on plastic dna band were written in los angeles during lennon's primal scream sessions with psy­ chologist arthur janov and recorded shortly thereafter. 14 janov's method aimed at liberating one's feelings from the painful realization that our parents do not really love us for who we are. john lennon had been aban­ doned in turn by each of his parents; his father freddie lennon left the family shortly after john was born, and his mother julia lennon left john as a small child to the care of her sister and brother-in-law, mimi and george smith. what's worse, in 1958, after seventeen-year-old john had established a mature and friendly relationship with her, julia lennon was run over by a car and killed. there was still more injanov's published theories with which lennon could relate. in particular, janov wrote that lsd stimulated intense real feelings," but that it also produced "a wild flight of ideas ... that is also a race away from feeling." and heroin (to which lennon had graduated during the late 1960s) completely deadened feelings. primal scream therapy, janov argued allowed one to come to terms with their feelings and, more importantly, to recognize their pain. "feeling," janov wrote, "is the antithesis of pain. the more pain one feels, the less pain one suffers" (1970:99; quoted in]. wiener 1991:136). pain has a very real presence on plastic dna band, nowhere moreso than in the opening song, "mother." a series of death knell-like bells pre­ cedes the song in which lennon sings a plain and simple melody against a daniel beller-mckenna 63 barely existent accompaniment from his sparse ensemble: a bass guitar and drum along with lennon's piano. pain becomes visceral at the end of the song as lennon gives us a brief glimmer of what his primal scream sessions probably sounded like. only a few other moments on the album match this intensity (the end of "i found out," for example). but the theme of honest and direct con­ frontation with one's demons is a constant thread across the entire album. at the end of plastic dno band, lennon begins the last full song, "god," with the words "god is a concept by which we measure our pain." lennon's cryptic remark is likely connected to the primal scream therapy he was undergoing at the time. "god," for lennon, had long been a "concept," as witnessed in his remarks at the 1966 chicago press conference quoted above. having long known what he did not believe in, lennon seems to have been in search of something believable in order to fill the ego-void that had been created by his loss of self to beatlemania, his subsequent campaign to eradicate beatle:f ohn, and his drug use through the late 1960s. lennon's concept of god might reflect the comfort people take in the divinity figure as a way to compensate for suffering pain. lennon sets the opening lines of the song to a highly conventional rock and roll chord pattern, i-vi-iv-v, with an ensemble and a piano ar­ ticulation that evoke a gospel blues sound, as if he is preaching to us. as a parody, this song is unique on plastic dno band. during the beatles' last few years, lennon had occasionally followed paul mccartney's penchant for parodistic styles, as in lennon's doo-wop tinged closing section to "hap­ piness is a warm gun" or the rockabilly sound of "the ballad of john and yoko." plastic dno band, however, was practically dedicated to a revival of pure rock, and the throwback style of "god" sounds conspicuously familiar and thereby evocative. the preachy quality of the song's opening verse is partly conveyed by the ensemble, especially billy preston's gospel-like piano chords. lennon's vocal delivery also suggests a confessional, even evangelical atmosphere, as in the exclamatory interjection "i'll say it again" (0:34) and the closing "yeahs" (over a plagal c major [iv] chord, no less; 0:53-0:57). but any religious reference in the sound is merely a set up for the bridge. that long middle portion of the song (1 :02-2:52) comprises a descending vi­ v-iv ostinato in which lennon delivers a litany of all the things he doesn't believe in, culminating in the beatles. 1 ching bible tarot hitler 64 current musicology jesus kennedy buddah mantra gita yoga kings elvis zimmerman beatles by setting this laundry list of false idols to a brief, incessantly repeated musical figure, lennon evokes a chant-like spiritual mantra-indeed, "man­ tra" is one ofthe items further down the list. the bridge, then, works as a credo (an anti-credo, really) by accessing a religious aural image that in­ vites us to hear each element as some sacred object. lennon's reversal through the phrase "i don't believe" is rendered that much stronger by the religious association. many items on the list form small groups or progressions of related ideas. for example, by beginning with "magic" and "i ching," two con­ cepts that clearly lie outside of faith according to the judeo-christian cul­ ture in which he lived, lennon is able to relativize and thereby cut down the bible, embedding it within a group that also contains tarot, a less lofty form of mystical prophesying. similarly, the presence of hitler amidstjesus, kennedy, and buddha taints them all by associating the latter three icons with a cultic figure widely held to be the western embodiment of evil. the quasi-spiritual group that follows, "mantra, gita, yoga," all eastern-based fads of the 1960s, prepares for the final group in which a series of 1960s pop idols are renounced. "kings" seems entirely generic, but may obliquely draw on the name of martin luther king, who had been murdered only two years earlier. more importantly, however, "kings" alludes to the 1960s pop status of the next three figures: elvis (who was known as "the king"), zimmerman (bob dylan's real last name), and finally the beatles. as he approaches the latter word, lennon's voice becomes suddenly more present, both louder and lacking the studio echo that had been applied through the preceding portion of the song. at the word "beatles," the music comes to a complete stop. thereafter the song returns to its earlier chord changes and lennon's voice temporarily remains in its dry, unenhanced state as he announced his creed: "i just believe in me, yoko and me."15 lennon had much to say about the genesis of this song in his 1971 rolling stone interview. specifically explaining the litany of the bridge, he daniel beller-mckenna 65 says: well, like a lot of words, they just came out of me mouth. it started off like that. "god" was stuck together from three songs almost. 1 had the idea, "god is the concept by which we measure our pain." so when you have a [phrase] like that, you just sit down and sing the first tune that comes into your head. and the tune is the simple [sings] "god is the concept-bomp-bomp-bomp-bomp" cause 1 like that kind of music. and then ijust rolled into it. [sings] "i don't believe in magic"-and it was just going on in me head. and "i ching" and "the bible," the first three or four just came out, whatever came out. (wenner 2000:10-11) as for the beatles' place at the end of the list, lennon said: 1 was going to leave a gap and say, just fill in your own, for whoever you don't believe in ... but beatles was the final thing because it's like 1 no longer believe in myth, and beatles is another myth. 1 don't believe in it. the dream's over. i'm not just talking about the beatles is over, i'm talking about the generation thing. the dream's over, and 1 have personally got to get down to so-called reality. (ibid.:11) having torn down the false gods of religion and of the sixties, he returns to the earlier, 1950s-tinged music of the verse to close off the anti-credo and initiate the end of the song. gone, however, is the preachy tone of the opening verse; the beatles, lennon implies, were just another false reli­ gion, a matter of faith. without them (which is where we stand at the end of the song and the end of the album), there is no pulpit left from which to preach. nevertheless, he maintains the religiously loaded musical parody and textual imagery at the end of the song, but merely as an ironic ges­ ture-ironic because he effects a series of what might be called inverse­ religious transformations. he is "reborn," but as the earthy john, no longer the dream weaver, and no longer the walrus. we are left to "carry on," like zealots without their messiah, perhaps like the strange cohorts of the wal­ rus who were left following the bus in magical mystery tour. lennon be­ lieves only in himself and yoko qno. such a strong focus on individuals is a direct affront to the greatest legacy of the beatles: the myth of the group persona. jon wiener writes: "god" rejects political, religious, and cultural false consciousness. john undertakes a deliberate shattering of the illusions of the 66 current musicology sixties, starting with the dream of the beatles as the representation of a genuine community, a harmonious group of equals, filled with creative energy. this is a false dream,john says, and it is finished now. he can't and won't serve as our god any more; he declares that he is a person, like we are-he's just 'john." for us to carry on, we need to find a way to shatter these gods outside of us, to transfer power from our mythical heroes to ourselves, to each other. (wiener 1991:6) lennon had long been "transferring power" from one identity to another: from the apolitical beatle:j ohn to the anti-war character of sgt. gripweed, and from the mop-top beatle:john to the psychedelic walrus of the song and the movie magical mystery tour. transferring power from "mythical heroes" to oneself was a natural step for lennon in the year of the beatles' breakup. lennon's message at the end of "god" became central to his public comments during the 1970s. he repeatedly exhorted his listening public not to follow him, but rather to lead themselves, to make their own deci­ sions. although "i am the walrus" may have blended stylistically into lennon's psychedelic experiments around 1967, it occurs in retrospect to have been a beginning of his active efforts to get out of the beatles. and it even presaged the religious connotations of "god" (or anti-religious, if you prefer). revelatory scriptures and mystical ceremonies frequently employ masks, indecipherable prophecy, and wondrous vestments. if "i am the walrus" involved the donning of these trappings as a prelude to revelation, "god" provides the apocalypse-only it reveals a sober and earthly message, that we are all individuals after all, and that our "gods" are mere mortals. a few months after recording plastic ono band, lennon was busy work­ ing on the song and album imagine, in which many of the 1960s ideals would be resurrected in his music. within the next two years he would embrace a series of radical political causes, all of which emphasized the legacy of the 1960s. his message in the song "god" then, must be under­ stood in the context of the beatles and his ongoing disengagement from the band after 1966. by naming the walrus as the last mask to be removed, the last idol to be set aside, he points back to the critical role "i am the walrus" had played in starting the process of dissociation from his beatles­ image. notes 1. the british secondary-modern school is rougly the equivalent of the ameri­ can technical high school. daniel beller-mckenna 67 2. in an interview for playboy magazine in the fall of 1980, shortly before his death, lennon remarked: "my childhood was not all suffering. it was not all slum. i was always well dressed, well fed, well schooled, and brought up to be a nice lower-middle-class english boy. you know? and that's what made the beatles dif­ ferent, the fact that george, paul, and john were grammar school boys. up till then [sic], all rock-and-rollers basically had been black and poor, rural south or whatever, city slums. and the whites had been truckers like elvis ... but the so­ called thing of the beatles was the fact that we were pretty well educated and not truckers" (golson 1981:138). 3. of course the beatles' use of drugs also increased during these years, be­ ginning with marijuana in 1965 and moving on to lsd in 1966. 4. on the beatles' recording of revolver; see lewisohn (1988:70-84). 5. the beatles' friendly rapport with the u.s. press is witnessed most famously in the press conference held upon their arrival at new york's kennedy interna­ tional airport on february 7, 1964. film of this event can be seen in the video imagine:john lennon (solt 1989) and in the beatles anthology video recording, part 2. 6. for a cogent discussion of the political import of lennon's involvement in how i won the war, see wiener (1991:25-32). 7. charts of both songs may be found in the beatles complete scores (beatles 1993). 8. epstein visited a lunchtime performance by the beatles on november 9, 1961, and began managing the group shortly thereafter. 9. other lennon songs featuring descending bass lines are "lucy in the sky with diamonds," "being for the benefit of mr. kite," "a day in the life," "dear prudence," "cry baby cry" (in the bridge), and "all you need is love." 10. in a november 23, 1968, interview with jonathan cott for rolling stone, lennon stated: "i had this idea of doing a song that was a police siren, but it didn't work in the end: ... 'i-am-he-as-you-are-he-as ... ' you couldn't really sing the police siren." reprinted in cott and doudna (1982:51). 11. later, in the 1980 playboy interviews, lennon added: "i never went into that bit about what [carroll] really meant, like people are doing with the beatles' work. later i went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. i thought, oh shit, i picked the wrong guy. i should have said, 'i am the carpenter'. but that wouldn't have been the same, would it?" (wenner 2000:156). 12. on the recording of "glass onion," see lewisohn (1988:155). 13. in 1971, lennon remarked: "i didn't sit down to think, 'i'm going to write about this, that or the other.' they all came out, like all the best work of anybody's ever does. all this came out because i had the time. if you're on holiday or in therapy and you spend the time-like in india, where i could write a lot, i wrote the last bunch of my best songs. 'i'm so tired,' and 'yer blues' were pretty sort of realistic. they were about me[.]" (wenner 2000: 12). 14. janov's ideas and lennon's encounter with them are described by jon weiner (1991:136-38) and ray coleman (1992:513-16). 15. lennon need not have focused such attention on the beatles at this point in the song, as illustrated in an earlier version of the song released on the 1998 68 current musicology john lennon anthology. on that recording, the vi-v-iv ostinato continues right through the lines "i just believe in me / yoko and me / and that's reality," deemphasizing the final position of"beatles" in lennon's litany of dis-belief. thus, whereas the beatles may not have loomed as large in one earlier concept of "god," the decision to contrast them as part of a lost dream as against the reality of lennon's self-identity (and his identification with ono) in 1970 was apparently a carefully calculated and self-conscious decision by lennon. references the beatles. 1993. the beatles complete scores. milwaukee: hal leonard. ___ .2000. the beatles anthology. san francisco: chronicle books. coleman, ray. 1992. lennon: the definitive biography. new york: harper perennial. cott,jonathan, and christine doudna, eds. 1982. the ballad of john and yoko. garden city, nj.: rolling stone press. eagleton, terry. 1964. new bearings: the beatles. blackfriars 45: 175-78. epstein, brian. 1964. a cellarful of noise. new york: pyramid. fogo, fred. 1994. i read the news today: the social drama of john lennon s death. lanham, md.: rowman & littlefield. goldman, albert. 1974. ladies and gentlemen-lenny bruce!!. new york: random house. ___ .1981. elvis. new york: mcgraw-hill. ___ . 1988. the lives of john lennon. new york: william morrow. golson, g. barry, ed. 1981. the "playboy" interviews with john lennon and yoko ono. conducted by david sheff. new york: playboy press. janov, arthur. 1970. the primal scream. new york: coward-mccann. lewisohn, mark. 1988. the beatles recording sessions: the official abbey road session notes, 1962-1970. new york: harmony books. miles, barry. 1982. beatles in their own words. london: w. h. allen. neaverson, bob. 1997. the beatles movies. london and new york: cassell. shotten, pete. 1983. john lennon in my life. new york: stein and day publishers. solt, andrew, and sam egan, eds. 1988. imagine:john lennon. new york: macmillan. solt, andrew, dir. 1989. imagine:john lennon. burbank, calif.: warner home video. wenner,jann s. 2000. lennon remembers. london: verso. wiener, allen]. 1986. the beatles: a recording history. jefferson, n.c., and london: mcfarland & company. wiener, jon. 1991. come together: john lennon in his time. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. michael cherlin. 2007. schoenberg's musical imagination. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reviewed by gordon root in the introduction to his insightful new book, schoenberg's musical imagination, music theorist michael cherlin describes his approach as an alternative to the kind of formalistic analyses of schoenberg's music that once dominated the pages of american music theory journals. considering this anti-formalist bent, readers who would anticipate a book thin in analytic detail may be somewhat surprised by the density of cherlin's analyses, which are often comparable to even the most stringent of formalistic studies. indeed, such unapologetic excavation of pitch-structure and form may seem to contradict an alleged critique of formalism, but cherlin's point seems to be that an expansion of cultural and philosophical context need not altogether preclude technical analysis. in this sense, cherlin offers a critique of formalism but not of analysis itself. in his quest to provide a broader context for analytical observation, cherlin argues that certain musical and dramatic conflicts form a persistent thread throughout schoenberg's music and theoretical ideas. it is this persistence that leads him to explore the influence of dialectical thinking on schoenberg's musical rhetoric in chapter 2. cherlin begins this chapter by identifying two broad historical schools of dialectical thought. one branch, which includes pythagoras, hegel, and others, has tended to view dialectical opposition merely as an essential stepping stone along the path to higher unity or synthesis. the other branch, which includes heraclitus and william blake, has tended to view dialectical opposition as a state of balance between concord and discord, peace and war, and so on. in this latter view, it is dialectical opposition that maintains the precarious balance of the universe and it is only through the tension of opposition that harmony becomes possible. consequently, harmony is considered not as a pleasing agreement of separate entities, but as a tenuous friction between opposing forces. as cherlin explains, most musical theories have stemmed from the hegelian, or synthetic, camp of dialectics. schoenberg's theoretical concepts, however, seem to repudiate synthetic thinking altogether and to veer instead toward a heraclitean conception of dialectical balance. the heraclitean view may bring to mind the "negative dialectics" of theodor adorno (1973), which shunned the positivism of hegelian synthesis in order to reveal the tenuously balanced oppositions that he believed com­ prised western society. considering the frankfurt critic's well-documented current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 147 148 current musicology relationship with the second viennese school and his fascination with schoenberg's music-not to mention the fact that dialectics is the subject of this chapter-it would be reasonable to expect some discussion of his theories here. surprisingly, however, this is not the case. cherlin explains in an endnote that he de-emphasizes adorno's theories because the philoso­ pher's claims about schoenberg's music are too general and lack the kinds of musical analysis and musicological grounding that could substantiate them (348n23). cherlin's point is well taken, but the lack of evidence in adorno's claims does not preclude their relevance to a discussion of schoenberg and dialectical philosophy. still, even with this omission, cherlin's discussion of the place of schoenbergian dialectics in the history of western philosophical thought proves to be quite enlightening. while many other authors have isolated aspects of dialectical thinking in schoenberg's music, such as the composer's predilection for inversional balance or his insistence on perpetual motivic variation, few have delved into this subject with as much depth and acumen as cherlin does in this chapter. dialectical opposition seems in many ways to be at the heart of the "tropical nexus" of "conflict, flux, and imperfection" that cherlin identifies as a constant thread in schoenberg's music and theoretical writing. as cherlin explains, european art music from the medieval to the late romantic era had been based on the assumption that perfection was achievable. this is most evident in sonata form, in which thematic and tonal conflict is resolved during the obligatory recapitulation. by avoiding facile resolutions, cherlin argues, schoenberg's music reveals the illusory nature of the ideal of perfection. like his discussion of dialectical opposition, cherlin's argument here is reminiscent of adorno's claim that schoenberg's music, unlike beethoven's, points to the impossibility of coexistence between individual freedom and societal constraints. adorno reads beethoven's middle period works as suggesting that these two forces can amicably coexist, while he reads beethoven's insistence on harmonious resolution during the late period as an admission that such reconciliation is ultimately impossible. for adorno, it is schoenberg's music that explicitly announces this impossibility (subotnik 1991). thus both cherlin and adorno claim that schoenberg's music reveals the falsity of a deeply entrenched philosophic belief. for adorno, this belief regards the utopian cohabitation of freedom and law, while for cherlin it has to do more generally with western ideas of perfection and closure. in each case, however, schoenberg's music is the prophetic voice that unveils the illusory nature of a utopian ideal. one of the most refreshing aspects of cherlin's approach is the way he couches even the most detailed analyses within a larger argument about gordon root schoenberg's musical imagination and its significance in the context of european culture at that time. in this manner, analytical detail is used to support a broad argument rather than as an end in itself. in chapter 6, for example, cherlin develops an intricate analysis of competing row partitions in order to demonstrate the dramatic conflict between the two protagonists in schoenberg's moses und aron. beyond the immediate manifestation of conflict between characters, cherlin explores the idea of conflict in general as a recurrent trope in schoenberg's music-one that is essential to the composer's views on composition and that occupies a central position in his worldview. while interpreting the theme of conflict in moses und aron within the larger context of schoenberg's oeuvre, cherlin discusses some of the ways in which conflict is invoked in the ideas of schoenberg's contemporaries, including kafka and freud. regarding the latter, cherlin cites freud's char­ acterization of the human psyche's competing id and ego as a quintessential example. in this way, cherlin situates the theme of conflict in moses und aron within schoenberg's theoretical and philosophical framework, which is, in turn, situated within the broad historical and cultural environment from which it emerges. readers may here be reminded of schoenberg's bold portrayal in the harmonielehre of a single tone, a seemingly unified entity, as a complex conglomeration of conflicting elements and impulses. of course, with this statement schoenberg may have been serving a larger agenda, that is, to de­ fend the conflicted sound of atonality to squeamish early twentieth-century listeners. for, if even the smallest musical unit was inherently dissonant, and if dissonance therefore formed an integral part of consonance itself, then perhaps the jarring musical language of schoenberg and his generation was not so far removed from the natural principles of tonality; perhaps dissonance could be more neutrally characterized in terms of its remoteness from consonance, and perhaps the chromatic, rather than the diatonic, col­ lection could be more accurately explained as the true foundation of we stern pitch-systems. this would all become possible if conflict were framed as an essential, albeit latent, characteristic of every isolated, apparently stable pitch. but even without this sprawling modernist agenda, so many of schoenberg's theoretical ideas-including schwebende tonalitiit, developing variation, and even the notion of the gedanke itself-are so unmistakably imbued with the idea of conflict that cherlin's claims regarding the prominence of dialectical thinking in schoenberg's music may seem commonsensical to some readers. in addition to moses und aron (a work without an opus number), cherlin covers in detail pelleas and melisande, op. 5 (1903), erwartung, op. 17 149 150 current musicology (1909), the third string quartet, op. 37 (1927), and the string trio, op. 45 (1946). one of the highlights of cherlin's book is his insightful analysis of the seldom discussed tone-poem, pelleas und melisande (chapter 3). cherlin remarks that this piece, completed in 1903, has been characterized as less successful than other works by schoenberg from this period. citing a 1918 letter from schoenberg to zemlinsky in which the composer oscil­ lates exaggeratedly between disparaging the work as a flawed experiment and defending it as an unalterable organic whole, cherlin notes that even schoenberg himself was ambivalent toward this composition. however, in light of the composer's tendency to embrace an evolutionary view of history in which each successive generation of composers is considered to have improved upon the works of the previous generation, and in which his own earlier works were valued primarily as stepping stones to later ones, cherlin cautions that this mixed appraisal should not be taken too literally. cherlin attributes contemporary musicologists' lukewarm response to this transitional work to their neglect of dramatic and musical interaction in the piece. he argues that, even when taking this interaction into account, analysts from derrick puffet to schoenberg's own student, alban berg, have tended to overemphasize the purely musical aspects of this work at the expense of its dramatic expression. in contrast, cherlin focuses on "the correlation of drama and form," which he maintains comprises the work's central achievement (79). according to cherlin, the trope of conflict is as central to pelleas und melisande as it is to moses und aron, manifest most evidently in the triangular dramatic struggle between pelleas, melisande, and golaud. in addition to this self-evident, inter-character conflict, cherlin explores the internal conflicts that consume each of these characters: melisande's passion for pelleas versus her guilt at the thought of betraying her husband golaud; golaud's bitter feelings at having been betrayed versus his genuine love for melisande despite this betrayal; and pelleas's outwardly cavalier attitude versus his spellbound attraction to melisande. the bulk of cherlin's analysis focuses on the way in which schoenberg's complex leitmotivic language enables the portrayal of these dramatic conflicts. perhaps the most striking sonic contrast that cherlin notes in pelleas und melisande is the one that corresponds to the dramatic conflict between melisande and golaud. cherlin observes that golaud's harmonic language is essentially tonal and directed-despite its frequently surprising resolutions. he describes the golaud motive's rhythms as emphatic yet shifty, thereby demonstrating a comparable blend of goal-directedness and surprise.! through such apparently contradictory characterizations, according to cherlin, the listener gets the sense that golaud is strong-willed but impetuous and emotional. gordon root by contrast, melisande's musical language is essentially directionless, non-tonal, and in many ways predictive of schoenberg's subsequent atonal idiom. for example, melisande's whole-tone canon (mm. 20-31), which precedes golaud's debut in m. 30, features several instances of the kind of transformational relationships that were to preoccupy schoenberg in later years. cherlin argues that the imitative use of the atonal melisande motive creates a reflexive texture and that, combined with the inversionally symmetrical structure of the motive itself, the imitative passage "gives the music a self-reflective quality" that "results in a depth of complexity that seems fathomless" (102). it is this boundless effect, cherlin argues, that indexes melisande's mysterious character. for, in comparison to the relatively transparent musical language of pelleas or golaud, that of melisande, with its self-referential "contextuality"2 and organic chromaticism, can seem con­ templative, opaque, and somewhat enigmatic. therefore seemingly abstract musical elements such as free atonal chromaticism and inversional symmetry take on an expressive purpose that reaches beyond a typical formalistic description. in cherlin's analysis, it is precisely this expressive purpose which motivates the wealth of musical variety in the work, from stark diatonicism, to tenuous tonality, to the total obscurity of tonal centers. like "conflict," cherlin revisits the trope of imperfection at several points in his study, but he reserves the most focused examination of this concept for discussions of the late string trio (1949) and the expressionist monodrama erwartung (1909 )-two works that, despite the large historical gap between them, feature a similarly fragmented musical language. in both works cherlin interprets this language as a symptom of imperfection, of a concession of the impossibility of closure. in erwartung, this is most clearly exemplified in the work's final measures. here, the orchestra "plays a sweep of chromatic scales in contrary motion, at an extremely soft dynamic level," and the result is one of "vanishing upwards and downwards simultaneously" (208). cherlin's description, which is not unlike herbert h. buchanan's observation that "the work virtually dissolves into thin air at its conclusion" (1967:440), is significant, but to this we might add that the effect may also be attributable to schoenberg's failure to deliver the anticipated downbeat. listeners are more likely to hear the lengthy chromatic glissandi of the final measure as an extended upbeat which they anticipate will be followed by a point of rhythmic repose on the downbeat of a subsequent bar. while there may be some uncertainty regarding the precise location of this bar and its downbeat, the final thirty-second-note subdivision of beat four is certainly unsatisfying in this role. finally, as cherlin explains, the closing words of the monodrama, "ich suchte" ("i searched;' "longed for;' or "tried") sug­ gest that "the seeking, longing, and struggle continue as all vanishes into nothing" (208). therefore the incompleteness of the musical ending forms 151 152 current musicology an analogue to the open -ended nature of the text. the effect of this ending is indeed suspenseful, and the sense of incompletion that cherlin notes is quite unexpected and tangible. in chapter 7, cherlin considers the similarly confounding motivic language of the much later string trio, op. 45 (1949), which he claims not only exemplifies the idea of imperfection, but treats it as a theme. while in erwartung this trope seems to depict the fragmented mental state of the protagonist, in the string trio it is programmatically related to schoenberg's nearly fatal heart attack of 1946. this connection was explored by walter bailey in his 1984 dissertation, programmatic elements in the works of schoenberg, and was noted even earlier by schoenberg himself in his un­ published essay, "mein todesfall" (bailey 1984). cherlin's analysis begins with an overview of bailey's study, which relies heavily on the recollections of schoenberg's students and friends. according to one student, leonard stein, schoenberg described "the many juxtapositions of unlike material within the trio as reflections of the delirium which [he 1 suffered during parts of his illness" -as "alternate phases of 'pain and suffering' and 'peace and repose'" (bailey 1984:156). expanding upon this idea, cherlin likens the fragmented musical lan­ guage of the trio to seeing one's life pass before one's eyes at the moment of death. accordingly, for cherlin, the trio is as much about memory and recollection as it is about death. the focus on recollection helps to explain both the sense of fragmentation in the work and its allusions to earlier musical styles. while several authors have described this referential character, including silvia millstein, who has found the work's "abandonment of clas­ sical phrase-construction ... and its replacement by a kind of musical prose" to be "reminiscent of the expressionist period" (1992:157), few, if any, have convincingly interpreted it within the context of the trio's autobiographical program. for this reason, cherlin's effort to suggest a broader meaning for what might otherwise constitute a series of dry technical details is one of the principle strengths of this analysis. the point here is not merely that this work is formally self-referential-that it seems to borrow from each of schoenberg's principle stylistic periods and from a nostalgically remembered european tradition-but that this self-referentiality serves an expressive purpose. that is, it evokes the image of accelerated recollection that precedes the moment of death. according to cherlin, these musical memories in the trio seldom finish in any coherent way. schoenberg achieves this sense of imperfection "by composing musical ideas that suggest a continuation that is somehow diverted, disturbed, or disrupted" (309)-a feature that cherlin, like dalhaus (1987) before him, plausibly links to the rhetoric of beethoven's late period. "the real work" of interpreting the fragmented musical language of the gordon root trio, cherlin explains, "lies in formulating a convincing sense of the flow of musical ideas, so that crowding-in, breaking-off and dozing-off become convincing variables in the overall flux of the work" (309). cherlin's analysis of the recapitulation of the "cantabile theme" during the final measures of the string trio is illustrative. according to cherlin, this passage strongly suggests a period structure. but unlike a typical consequent phrase whose function is to provide a relatively conclusive answer to the open-ended query of the antecedent, this self-conscious homage to classical phrase design "begins to unravel" and "never achieves closure" (328). here, the viola's cadential figure is elided with an imitation of the figure in the first violin. the imita­ tion triggers a series of overlapping imitations passed from instrument to instrument such that the anticipated phrase juncture is obscured. as a result, the phrase concludes with a gesture that is more analogous to a grammatical ellipsis than a period, and in this way the consequent segment is robbed of its conclusive rhetorical function. of course, in the music of the classical era a chain of imitations is often indicative of a phrase extension and, here too, the listener has a sense that material has been added or "tacked -on." but the use of this phrase extension as the closing gesture of the piece is unusual at the very least. that this gesture simply dissolves, as buchanan and cherlin point out, contributes to the sense of incompletion, or imperfection, that characterizes the piece. regarding this elusive conclusion cherlin writes, "schoenberg composes his 'non-ending,' to my ear one of the most beautiful in all music, by virtuosic manipulation of his tone rows. yet one need not be aware of the twelve-tone logic to hear the musical idea drifting from voice to voice, unable or unwilling to find closure" (328). for those who are interested in exploring how the work's twelve-tone structure contributes to this sense of imperfection, cherlin's analysis is revealing. like many other passages in schoenberg's trio, including the waltz segments to which cherlin devotes a section of his study, the finale alludes strongly to tonality while simultaneously avoiding any tangible sense of resolution. in cherlin's analysis, this passage strongly implies a d minor centricity, a tonal center reinforced by oblique reference to an a (dominant) sonority and a symmetrical circumvention of the d minor tonic (i.e., sur­ rounding of the pitch by its lower and upper chromatic neighbors d~ and e~ ). according to cherlin, the d minor tonic took on symbolic proportions in schoenberg's music, and cherlin returns to discuss its special status at several points in his book, including the sections on pelleas und melisande, the first string quartet, and erwartung. as cherlin elaborates in his discussion, tonal allusions such as the finale's d minor would scarcely be possible if the trio's serial pitch structure did not itself feature a quasi-tonal capacity. here, cherlin relies heavily on the work of silvia millstein to shape his argument, and it is perhaps because he 153 154 current musicology assumes a certain fainiliaritywith her work that his analysis can be somewhat cryptic. in describing the serial structure of the work, cherlin reproduces schoenberg's row sketches as transcribed in millstein's 1992 study. although these sketches show eighteen pitches in each row, cherlin refers only to the "twelve-tone structure" of the passages in question, which he analyzes extensively. he annotates the excerpts in such a way that the sketches, which are meant to be illustrative, seem only distantly related to the passages in question. nowhere does cherlin mention that the source row of the trio is a highly anomalous eighteen-element set, or that schoenberg usually makes use of only the first twelve elements of this set-which is why an analysis of "twelve-tone" structure is even possible. as millstein has noted, the eighteen-element structure of these sketches is far from intuitive, and "only those analysts who have knowledge of schoenberg ['sl set-tables" have been able to identify this puzzling feature at all (1992:169). cherlin's analysis of the work's pitch-structure could have been clarified significantly by a more explicit summary of some of these points, but once readers are aware of this omission they should have little difficulty following the remainder of the discussion. one of the greatest strengths of cherlin's analytical approach is that its interpretive conclusions remain compelling even when technical details such as the one just described remain incomplete. the interpretations themselves, as cherlin claims in his discussion of the trio, are broad enough that they are seldom dependent upon myopic readings of technical minutiae. by the time cherlin begins to delve into these kinds of details, he has usually made his point clear enough through an analysis of tangible, perceptible features that require very little in the way of technical knowledge. the unfinished period structure in the trio, which helps to illustrate his larger argument regarding the work's theme of imperfection, is a case in point. one of the most interesting features of this book, in fact, is cherlin's general avoidance of set-class theory, which, when used without an aware­ ness of its limitations, tends to steer analysts toward the rather bland and self-evident conclusion that works of music cohere in some way or other. fortunately, cherlin insists that technical analysis be used in the service of interpretation, rather than as an end in itself. for this reason alone his work deserves recognition as one of the most important contributions to the analysis of schoenberg's music in recent years. notes 1. perhaps in honor of his teacher, david lewin, cherlin uses lewin-esque capital letters to designate motives in pelleas, a notation that he similarly adopted in his 1983 dissertation to label partitioning schemes in moses und aron. gordon root 2. in a well-known essay from words about music, composer and music theorist milton bab­ bitt discusses what he terms the "contextuality" of modernist music. unlike traditional pieces, new compositions shun the accepted formulae of tradition, but as a result, they forfeit the shared, familiar meaning of tonal patterning and must therefore seek meaning in their own terms. the highly motivic environment that gives each new work its unique form may be applicable only to that particular work. a motive may be described as "contextual" because, unlike tonal motives whose shapes imply harmonic functions shared by thousands of other works, it is possible for an atonal motive to reside in only one work. the work itself is con­ textual because its associations and its syntax are generated by motivic connections that can only be found in that particular work. cherlin does not use this term specifically, but it is a useful adjective to describe the unique, abstract musical language that accompanies melisande and that ultimately accounts for the enigmatic, introspective effect that he describes. references adorno, theodor. 1973. negative dialectics, translated by e. b. ashton. new york: seabury press. babbitt, milton. 1987. words about music, edited by stephen dembski and joseph straus. madison: university of wisconsin press. bailey, walter b. 1984. programmatic elements in the works of schoenberg. phd dissertation, yale university. buchanan, herbert h. 1967. a key to schoenberg's erwartung (op. 17). journal of the american musicological society 20 (3): 434-49. cherlin, michael. 1983. the formal and dramatic organization of schoenberg's moses und aron. phd dissertation, yale university. dahlhaus, carl. 1987. schoenberg and the new music, translated by derrick puffet and alfred clayton. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. millstein, silvia. 1992. arnold schoenberg: notes, sets, forms. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. subotnik, rose rosengard. 1991. developing variations: style and ideology in western music. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. 155 current.musicology.85.113-172.pdf ~~ldfj'j ~t1, 's! ~ 2003 festschrift in honor of christopher hatch guest edited by glenn stanley ernest h. sanders 7 preface christopher hatch 11 a selected bibliography leeman l. perkins 15 concerning the ontological status of the notated work in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ernest h. sanders 51 "are my ears on wrong?" hearing polyphony of ca.1375-ca.1450 edmond strain champs 79 five saliences in marco da gagliano's earliest madrigals peter schubert 91 recombinant melody: ten things to love about willaert's music edward lippmann 115 musical articulation: a synoptic view of baroque form christopher h. gibbs 117 writing under the influence? salieri and schubert's early opinion of beethoven janna k. saslaw 145 the concept of ausweichungin music theory, 1770-1832 richard taruskin 165 a suggestive detail in weber's freischutz david w. bernstein 169 "paths of harmony" in the first movement of brahms's cello sonata in e minor, op. 38 edmund j. goehring 185 musical plationism in modern culture book reviews: music and politics in africa brett pyper 205 louise meintjies. sound of africa! making music zulu in a south african studio andrew eisenberg 214 kelly askew. performing the nation: swahili music and cultural politics in tanzania martin scherzinger 223 kofi agawu. representing african music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions contributors in the next issue call for papers corresponding editors australia mark carroll university of sydney margaret]. kartomi monash university, clayton andrew d. mccredie monash university, melbourne belgium francis e. maes state university of ghent philippe vendrix universite de liege croatia vjera katalinie croatian academy of arts and sciences ghana ]. h. kwabena nketia international centre for african music & dance hong kong greta olson chinese university of hong kong ireland harry white university college, dublin italy paul terse pontificio istituto de musica sacra, rome portugal manual carlos de brito universidade nova de lisboa salwa ei-shawan castelo-branco universidade nova de lisboa slovenia svanibor petan university of ljubijana south africa winfried ludemann university of stellenbosch switzerland laurenz lutteken university of zurich united kingdom stephen d. banfield university of bristol barry a. r. cooper university of manchester jonathan m. dunsby editor-at-large, reading david r. a. evans university college of north wales, bangor mark everist university of southampton piers hellawell queen's university of belfast sarah s. hill university of southampton david wynjones cardiff university elaine kelly university of edinburgh nicholas marston king's college, cambridge university gerald r. seaman st. antony's college, oxford university editor's preface the papers in this festschrift honor christopher hatch in a way that says something crucial about the nature of his contributions to the music de­ partment of columbia university for more than four decades. their diver­ sity with respect to discipline, period, and approach reflects not only the breadth of his scholarly interests but also his wide-ranging expertise. in addition to his years as editor of the musical quarterly, chris served as men­ tor-editor to several generations of fellow and later students as well as professional colleagues within columbia and in the field. he read with the greatest empathy for the values, methodologies, and writing styles of his authors. while maintaining the highest of standards, he never tried to impose his own point of view but rather succeeded in making his critique from within, thinking, as far as this is possible, with the mind and soul of the author. his success as mentor-editor depended greatly on his unwa­ vering sympathy and respect for his students and colleagues and his unsurpassable, although reserved affability and patience. he was also a great teacher. understated, decidedly (and no doubt purposefully) not stirring or dramatic, he was, nevertheless, an inspirational teacher whose humanism embodied the ideals of a liberal arts education to the highest, most idealistic degree. and he also educated when the talk-walking down broadway or in tom's restaurant-was about municipal politics, german literature, new england yankees and so many other topics. he was always a rare bird; it is difficult to imagine that many, if any, of his breed still survive. ernest sanders, who was at columbia with chris from the begin­ ning, tells us more about him in his profile. i close by wishing him and lois many years of good health and intellectual vigor. and good reading of these papers! i am sure that the contributors to this book and its readers who know and treasure him will join me. glenn stanley the university of connecticut preface ernest h. sanders it is my great good fortune to have known christopher hatch since the fall of 1950, when both of us entered columbia university as graduate stu­ dents of historical musicology. his superior qualities became readily ap­ parent to fellow students and faculty alike. during his entire subsequent teaching career at columbia, chris was sought out by students and col­ leagues for his perspicacious, yet always tactful instruction, comment, and advice. "he makes us think," 1 heard students say, as they became engaged by this gifted teacher. the combination of his musicality and keen intelli­ gence, often laced with a fine sense of humor, has been of great benefit to all. while his specialty became what is known as theory, his numerous writ­ ings show that the term "theory" is quite inadequate to define his interests, knowledge, and competence. very few of his articles could be described as music-theoretical (one example being his contribution to the book edited by him and david w. bernstein in honor of patricia carpenter). most of them, as well as his numerous reviews, reveal the mind and the learning of a cultural historian of perceptive musicality, often conveying insights go­ ing well beyond the expectations generated by their titles. one of the many examples is his elegant essay on "the 'cockney' writers and mozart's op­ eras" in the opera quarterly (1985), which gives evidence of his wide read­ ing-referring, for instance, to a recent edition of mary shelley's franken­ stein. six years later, on the occasion of the bicentenary of mozart's death, the journal's editor wrote: "i take particular pleasure in making [this one] the first of the journal's original articles ever to be reprinted in the quar­ terly" (1991:27). his essay on hugo wolf's fussreise (1988), in citing corroborating ex­ amples by schumann, henschel, mendelssohn, and ives, enriches the listener's experience through the investigation of the conceptual realm in which this lied arose. and his opera quarterly article on "the wondrous trumpet call in beethoven's fidelia" (1999)-stimulated by his review in the same journal the previous year (1998)-compellingly shows its author as a man of insightful musicality and eloquent humanity. 1 can think of no other contemporary writer on music whose probity and intelligence would cause him to make a contextually apt comment on "the current low re­ spect for the holy estate of matrimony" (1999: 16) . current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 8 current musicology all the articles are relatively brief (averaging about 15 pages), but hardly seem so in the reading, being concentrated and, like their author, spare­ multum in parvo. his numerous reviews evince the breadth of his interests and knowledge, attracting, informing, and persuading the reader by means not only of their multifarious competence, but also of the pithy elegance of his prose and at times by the display of his civilized good humor. the reader will often be gratified by the startling and illuminating recall of items of relevant information from areas of knowledge at times quite far removed from the topic at hand. some reviews (e.g. 1991) attain a scope and a depth admirable vis-a-vis the books under discussion. the biblio­ graphic care and control is consistently impressive; see, for instance, his citation of a wonderfully apt passage from berlioz's essay on beethoven in his review in the opera quarterly (1998) or his truly recondite mention of an unaccounted omission (2003:116, n.3). for his colleagues-first the graduate students, later many of the fac­ ulty-he was and is an invaluable reader, whose acquaintance with a great variety of topics (musical and others) is combined with sympathetically critical insight into authors' thinking. those are the traits that qualified him well for his editorial activities. some of the contributors to this vol­ ume-many of them former graduate students in columbia university's department of music-have communicated to me their fond insights into chris, the man and the scholar. one describes him as a person of out­ standing intelligence, knowledge, generosity, kindness, sincerity, gentlemanliness, and wit-both teacher and friend; the last three words recur in another communication. and a third writer, characterizing him as "a scholar and teacher with one of the keenest musical intellects," refers to the "quiet and unassuming way" in which "as teacher and colleague he selflessly ... help[ed] advance the careers of others." his new england background surely accounts in part for his reticence, modesty, and probity. i cannot imagine chris hurting anyone. i do, how­ ever, remember faculty meetings, when as a departmental citizen he was clearly hurt and angered by thinking or actions inconsonant with his im­ peccable libertarian and moral standards. political matters-departmen­ tal or otherwise-can occasionally ignite his eyes, glittering through the lenses of his glasses, when it is clear to him that issues or people are going indefensibly astray. chris is someone who doesn't know how not to think right, whether professionally, politically, or in personal relations. for a number of years he and his wife, lois, have been living in ver­ mont, the home state of his forebears, where he has been devoting some of his time to floral gardening. having admired the success of his horticul­ tural efforts, i,jointly with my fellow contributors and the editor, dedicate this volume to chris-truly a gentleman and a scholar-and offer admirapreface 9 tion and best wishes to our vermont voltaire and his wife in this year of their golden wedding anniversary. june 22, 2003 references hatch, christopher. [1985] 1991. the 'cockney' writers and mozart's operas. the opera quarterly 8 (1): 27-40. 1988. tradition and creation: hugo wolf's 'fussreise.' college music symposium 28: 70-84. 1991. review of the early romantic era: between revolutions, 1789 and 1848, edited by alexander ringer. 19th century music 15: 80-85. 1998. review of paul robinson, ludwig van beethoven: "fidelio, " cambridge opera handbook. the opera quarterly 14 (4): 121-25. 1999. the wondrous trumpet call in beethoven's fidelio. the opera quarterly 15 (1): 5-17. 2003. review of opera: a history in documents, edited by piero weiss. the opera quarterly 19 (1): 113-16. 10 current musicology varese in vitro: on attention, aurality, and the laboratory benjamin steege 1. in his 1936 lecture on "new instruments and new music," edgard varese insisted: "there should be at least one laboratory in the world where the funda­ mental facts of music could be investigated under conditions reasonably conducive to success. the interest in music is so widespread and intense, its appeal so intimate and poignant, and its significance for mankind so potent and profound, that it becomes unwise not to devote some portion of the enormous outlay for music to research in its fundamental ques­ tions." (1967:197) though varese was quoting this entire paragraph from a 1928 popular­ science monograph by john redfield, former physics lecturer at columbia university, the composer made the sentiment and argument very much his own in other writings and interviews from the period. 1 yet some uncertain­ ties remain as to the laboratory's value for varese. did his vision of music as an "art -science" stem simply from infatuation with scientific authority? what were the specific "conditions reasonably conducive to" a laboratory's suc­ cess? in what would this "success" consist? i would like to suggest in this essay that we can begin to appreciate varese's flirtation with laboratory research by considering the situation on three levels: first, the peculiar societal function and position of the labora­ tory, which has been suggestively addressed within the field of science stud­ ies by bruno latour (1983); second, the special forms of aural attentive observation a laboratory can facilitate; and third, the aesthetic possibilities afforded by stimulating the latter modes of attention in the contexts of musical composition. in exploring these various levels, i will consider as­ pects of varese's laboratory listening in a sequence of related scenes and scenarios: the composer's attempts in the late 1920s through the mid-1930s to gain access to a research laboratory; some particular conditions and in­ struments of the ersatz "lab" varese inhabited in his manhattan apartment from 1925 on; and, finally, a brief passage from the 1923 chamber piece, current musicology, no. 76 (fall 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 25 26 current musicology octandre. laboratories, and the scenes of attentive observation that often inhabit them, are valuable resources because they are technologies for transform­ ing interests. according to latour, to whom this claim owes a great deal, laboratories can enable a transformation of people's interests because they are designed to translate the uncontrollable and often unobservable things of the outside world into things easily manipulable by individuals inside a lab; such individuals can easily learn a limited set of skills in order to bring observed objects into measured and calibrated relations with one another. while nothing cognitively or technologically mysterious need unfold inside a laboratory for this to happen, the overall effect is of a lever shifting the observational capabilities of otherwise constrained individuals from a weak point to a relatively strong point, so that unruly objects can be brought under sustained attention in the lab. once sustained attention has been nurtured within that protected interior space, this situation can then be inverted in order to re-translate knowledge constructed in the lab back out into the world. what results from this arrangement is the "short circuit es­ tablished between many groups usually uninterested by what happens in­ side laboratory walls and laboratories usually isolated and insulated from such attention and passion." ultimately, argues latour, "the very difference between the 'inside' and the 'outside' ... is precisely what laboratories are built to destabilize or undo" (1983:142-43). if the laboratory function sketched here results in a certain destabiliza­ tion of distance or of the "inside" i"outside" distinction, we will also find that the modes of attentive observation often at play in this environment coincide more generally with a simultaneous shrinking and expanding of experience. it is that specific paradox-the capacity to perceive immensity in domains of intimate intensity and thereby to unsettle a given sense of scale in the world-which constitutes the form of attention i claim is present in each of the scenarios explored here. it is also a characteristic facet we find varese exploring in his rather distinctive aurality (by which i mean, in anal­ ogy with "visuality;' a loose family of discourses, knowledge, and experi­ ences of hearing and the ear). yet, while i find it valuable in this context to seek a degree of narrative continuity through an abstract model of atten­ tion, i would caution that it is not tenable to ascribe an overriding transhistorical regulative function to anyone particular concept of atten­ tion. 2 attention is no less multifarious as a historical notion than it is as a mode of engagement with the world. indeed, the very multiplicity of attentional modes becomes highly significant in the context of listening to varese's music, as we will find at the end of this essay. in the partial narrative i present ofvarese's abortive communications benjamin steege with, first, the research labs of bell telephone systems and, a few years later, the studios of the national broadcasting corporation, we will see how these institutions promised just the kind of neutralization of distance latour saw in the social technology of the modern lab. even ifvarese failed or refused to align his own aesthetic and material interests with the interests of those institutions, i suggest that we can still see the habits and values of sustained attention at work in the composer's own private practices of observation. moreover, we need not see this effort as entirely wasted. rather, we can take the characteristic image of varese enacting a peculiarly "scientific" atten­ tion at home as a goad to complicate our own listening to his music. what we discover in considering the practices of attention familiar to varese is that, for all the leverage afforded by laboratory-like observation, attention remains a profoundly fragile disposition, one rooted in the contingency and finitude of the physiological body. having situated varese's domestic em­ piricism provisionally in the context of broader problematics of attention, including those raised indirectly by one ofvarese's scientific heroes, physi­ ologist hermann von helmholtz, we might hope to intuit better how such topographies of scientific attention, with all its vulnerabilties, could have expanded the compositional strategies available to varese. 2. in 1929, soon after varese had begun to correspond with harvey fletcher, the acoustical research director at bell telephone laboratories, fletcher published an influential book entitled speech and hearing, which surveyed research conducted at bell in the previous fifteen years. the book's intro­ duction, written by h. d. arnold, director of bell's research laboratories, immediately conveys a sense of the profound changes such research wrought in aural experiences of scale and distance. arnold opens by evoking an epiphanic attention to the "marvelous mechanism" of audition, toward which humans had previously "come to feel, if not contempt, at least indif­ ference." in the relative state of nature arnold saw before the advent of tele­ phone and radio, we had been able to "trace the sound to its source to hear its perfect form, for that is the method we have used from childhood in investigating the sounds of our immediate neighborhood." arnold appears half-consciously to equate a child's intuitive sense of real physical distance with the same originary sense possessed by the whole species in the days before mass communication technologies. with the development of such technologies, though, not only does the organic experience of distance be­ tween a sound and its origin evaporate, but, arnold suggests, the privileged 27 28 current musicology position of the acoustic origin is no longer assured: now with one broad sweep the barriers of space and time are gone and all the world becomes our vocal neighborhood. no longer can we transport ourselves to the origin of a sound and thus become convinced that we are hearing it aright, for that origin may be thousands of miles away or may have vanished years before; and so we must establish a new method to measure the accuracy of the copy which reaches our ears. (fletcher 1929:xi) if such rhetoric was representative of the feeling at bell labs in the late 1920s, it is not difficult to imagine that its expansive confidence could only have strengthened varese's resolve to join ranks with the researchers at bell be­ fore other composers had the chance. one pictures him reading such a text all agog. yet arnold's globalizing rhetoric need not distract us from the labs' day­ to-day work, which consisted of a series of carefully observed, minute acts of measurement. these were undertaken on the assumption that our ears are, after all, "only machines to translate air waves into a form suited to stimulate the auditory nerve; and as machines we may measure and de­ scribe them in the same terms that apply to devices we ourselves construct" (xi-xii). arnold continued: some important factors relating to the process of hearing we can, how­ ever, determine by measuring the least changes in sound which can be detected under a variety of conditions of pitch, loudness, and accompa­ nying noise. thus we may obtain a quantitative means of comparing in­ dividuals in this respect, and establish a standard of average hearing. (xii) in emily thompson's recent study of early twentieth-century architectural acoustics, the historian describes how comparative measurements, like those arnold mentions, were carried out in similar work fletcher had directed at western electric in 1923 using an "audiometer." the fordist rhythms of such research emerge in the image of one test subject after another donning headphones, attentively listening to a sequence of pure tones of gradually increasing intensity, and signalling to researchers when the tones first be­ came audible (thompson 2004:146-47). "while the basic parameters of the limits of human hearing had been known before;' thompson writes, the large-scale precision testing made possible by the new audiometer en­ dowed [the subjects' response 1 curve with a statistical relevance that it had not previously possessed. the experience of being tested additionally became a new element of aural culture for increasing numbers of people over the course of the decade. (147-48)3 benjamin steege nothing in varese's own rhetoric suggests sympathy to a research cul­ ture that founded its work on the goal of establishing what arnold called "a standard of average hearing:' we might be left to wonder what would com­ pel a composer, who still prided himself on having been a model for the genius eponym in jean-christophe, romain rolland's 1912 bildungsroman,4 to seek a position at an industrial institution like bell labs where the horri­ fyingly sterile prospect of "forty-eight normal ears" could undermine the authority of solitary, subjective listening.s still, my intent in dwelling on fletcher's research methods is not only to evoke the potentially incongru­ ous image of a composer entering into a factory-like research atmosphere that would efface his place of distinction. what is also worth appreciating is how varese, famously and perhaps uniquely fascinated with the alternating vastnesses and microscopicisms of modern science, found himself knock­ ing on the door of an institution that managed to disrupt the "natural" scale of things in two distinct ways. the first was simply in appearing to create the sort of "vocal neighborhood" to which any communications en­ terprise must aspire. the second disruption was a result of bell's capitaliz­ ing on the transformative leverage latour ascribes to the modern lab. the translation of unmeasurable "ear" into measurable "machine:' followed by the creation and extension back outwards of new machines based on the initial measurements-for example, telephones-exemplifies the way in which labs can both claim a privileged societal position and neutralize their distance from the world. once ears were understood to be machines and it was understood that machines could be produced and manipulated only in bell labs, the interests of those dependent on communication technologies would come to be dependent on the interests of those working the levers at bell. varese need not have explicitly approved of the underlying market ori­ entation in this view of things, although, notably, he did remark to a friend in 1930 that he was "abandoning music" to "become a businessman" be­ cause "music does not interest anybody today." "i will offer my services to a large enterprise," he said. "with my acquaintances, in mathematics and in physics, i will succeed" (carpentier 1967:26).6 in any case, the transforma­ tive potential of the laboratory had multiple implications of great interest to the composer-businessman. one was that a lab could be exploited to create new technologies and instruments that could renew compositional materials and thereby embody the translation of others' interests into one's own technical language. it is almost too easy to intuit how varese would have found himself sympathetic to bell's goal of developing "better and more precise instruments" (fletcher 1929:v). in the same 1936 lecture quoted earlier, varese wrote, 29 30 current musicology the new musical apparatus i envisage, able to emit sounds of any number of frequencies, will extend the limits of the lowest and highest registers, hence new organizations of the vertical resultants: chords, their arrange­ ments, their spacings-that is, their oxygenation. not only will the har­ monic possibilities of the overtones be revealed in all their splendor, but the use of certain interferences created by the partials will represent an appreciable contribution. the never-before-thought-of use of the infe­ rior resultants and of the differential and additional sounds may also be expected. an entirely new magic of sound! (1967:197-98) another implication of the laboratory, more broadly speaking, was that the naive understanding of music as an abstraction symbolized in notation could be translated into something felt, perhaps just as naively, to be closer to the physical reality of sound. both themes, the development of instru­ ments and the revalution of compositional material into raw acoustic reso­ nance, informed varese's correspondence with laboratory directors, as we will see. something else, however, first stood in the way of capitalizing on these advantages, namely a debilitating disciplinary specialization that ap­ peared to preclude productive communication between musicians and other skilled professionals. varese's suspicions about this problem were loudly confirmed in redfield's music: a science and an art (1928). redfield's book linked other­ wise unremarkable statements to the effect that music consists not merely of "lame and halting hieroglyphics" but of "thousands of lilliputian musi­ cal forces acting every instant with the rapidity of thought on every air par­ ticle in the musical field" (5-6) with the firm conviction that multiple indi­ viduals must contribute to musical production: "the composer, the instru­ ment maker, and the intepretative [sic] musician" (1). for redfield, the ac­ tualization of sound's raw materiality was not just a physical phenomenon but also a unique product of the social relations behind musical produc­ tion: "not until all three [individuals] have been brought into intimate col­ laboration, and the air between the instrument and the listener's ear is dis­ turbed by the actual playing of the instrument, is music produced" (1). redfield's insistence that collaboration was the only means toward real and immediate contact with sound reveals the great extent to which a crude but undeniable division of labor was seen to be complicit in clouding the image of music's true substance. the problem, according to the physicist, was that musicians refused to acknowledge this arrangement and were there­ fore unable first to remove themselves from the detrimental specialization that confined them and then to hear sound for what it was. in one of two lengthy chapters on "the musical laboratory" and "the laboratory study of music:' redfield drew an unfavorable comparison between musicians benjamin steege and "other manufacturers:' noting that as compared with other manufacturers, the musician assumes a very sur­ prising attitude. other manufacturers find it advantageous to study their raw material. if something is wrong with their finished product, they know that the fault must lie either with their manufacturing processes or with the material they are using; and they can not be sure the fault is with their processes until they are certain it is not in their raw material ... not so, our musician manufacturer ... he thinks it quite unnecessary to know anything about the raw material he uses ... to be sure, things sometimes turn out badly, but it never occurs to him that there is anything to be gained by a study of sound. (1928:105-06) in a 1955 interview, varese echoed redfield by affirming that a composer, "if he wants to obtain the results which his conception demands, should not forget that his raw material is sound" and that he "should understand not only the mechanism and the possibilities of different sound machines [machines sonoresl that make his music live; but he should also familiarize himself with the laws of acoustics" (charbonnier 1970:71).7 elsewhere, varese had complained that "by its education, the human ear has been disciplined or trained to produce an abstraction" from immediate acoustic phenomena (varese 1930: 127-28).8 what varese imagined, then, was a kind of listening that could reach back past status-quo disciplining of perception to create a new kind of aural discipline, unfettered by specialized training. like varese, redfield believed the constraints of specialization could be mitigated by creating a laboratory that was more accessible to musicians who lacked, but sought, technical knowledge. with evident faith in the re­ demptive potential of collaboration similar to redfield's, varese addressed the issue of specialization in a long and passionate 1936 letter to edward j. nally, who was then the president of radio corporation of america. (rca was the parent company of nbc, where varese was seeking an advisorial position.) "specialization," varese wrote, while deepening a person's knowledge of one's subject, too often tends to limit, not only his knowledge but his sympathies and imagination to his special subject. in broadcasting and the sound-film, the music adviser, with his specialized knowledge of the art of music, has probably never before turned his thoughts to the basic sound-principles of his art; and the scientist has probably, heretofore, thought of the esthetics of music as remote from his particular sphere of sound. now these two specialists are brought together with a common goal in view, and must learn to speak a common language which does not yet exist. (edgard varese collection, paul sacher foundation) 31 32 current musicology the letter clarifies that varese's resistance to specialization did not demand a radical end to fragmentary disciplines, but instead inclined toward a type of individualism or particularism that would orient the "synthetic imagi­ nation;' as varese said, toward intersubjective communication both in new educational settings and also in new laboratory spaces. the very arrange­ ment of collaboration varese envisioned would presumably have promoted verbal exchange-and literally learning "to speak a common language" -as a means toward glimpsing beyond "the backyard" of traditionally isolated composerlyproduction (paul sacher foundation). we can make this out again in his first fellowship application letter to henry allen moe at the guggenheim foundation in september, 1932. the project description was framed in terms of a collaboration with technician, rene bertrand, with whom varese had developed a friendship and working relationship in the 1910s. varese wished "to present [his] ideas to techni­ cians from different organizations in order to proceed with these verifica­ tions and also to convince them of the necessity of a close collaboration between the composer and the scientist" (varese 1983:67). in a follow-up letter a few months later, varese was more focused, listing specific technical goals, which included the production of "pure fundamentals," manipula­ tion of harmonic spectra, experimentation with combining bertrand's "dynaphones" into a new compound instrument, and production of in­ struments with increased frequency range and intensity. "the practical re­ sult of our work;'varese assured moe, "will be a new instrument which will be adequate to the needs both of the creative musicians and of the musi­ colo gist" (paul sacher foundation). when varese asked fletcher to write in support of the fellowship, fletcher agreed, replying that he saw "a great need for some institution to set up an organization for doing the type of work which you outlined in your [guggenheim] application and where the workers could proceed with the investigation in an uninterrupted fashion" (paul sacher foundation). yet in varese's next letter to fletcher of december 1, 1932, the composer, perhaps realizing that the guggenheim foundation would reject his application, inquired whether it would be possible to work with someone at bell or any another company known to fletcher, as varese wished to offer his "regular collaboration" (varese 1983:67-68).9 fletcher's subsequent letter of decem­ ber 15 bluntly rejected varese's offer on the grounds it lacked commercial application: "it is very questionable even in normal times [that is, beyond the depths of the depression] of these companies employing someone of your abilities ... i doubt whether your venture of this sort would ever pay in the commercial sense, but i am sure some very great contributions would be made to the musical art" (paul sacher foundation). benjamin steege from the tone of these letters, it is evident that varese failed to give either bell labs or nbc a good reason to be interested in his work. at nbc, for example, the consensus among executives and engineers was that his research would not benefit the company, since varese tended to confuse economic limitations for technical ones. (varese recommended that nbc develop a technique for broadcasting over a wider frequency to preserve sound fidelity, not realizing that such a method was impracticable because of the prohibitive cost of bandwidth.) and his musical taste was, well, a turn-off. one executive wrote a memo in january, 1937, expressing what is now probably unsurprising but was evidently not a foregone conclusion to varese at the time: no one is impressed with him or his ideas. they feel that he is radical and extreme in his thoughts on music and sound reproduction, and for sev­ eral years has been considered a bit eccentric. those who know him agree with [0. r 1 hanson [nbc's chief engineer], that he does not have any­ thing we could use. (paul sacher foundation) in all fairness, the laboratories varese coveted were neither simply sci­ entific ventures, nor simply business ventures, nor simply aesthetic ven­ tures, but tended to sit at a precarious intersection of all three domains. the trick was to position oneself in such a way that one seemed to have an eye on each of the three (or more) roads leading to the laboratory door-a nearly impossible proposition. perhaps this explains why it was that varese never really got the knack of it and always came out seeming a bit out of place. whatever the reasons for his failed business propositions, one thing remained clear and urgent for varese: composers, at least, would profit from a space, indeed an actual place, where acoustic materials were no longer perceived as floating around willy-nilly in the world at large, or in that awk­ ward netherworld between compositional aspirations and disappointing re­ alizations at the hands of fallible performers. in the laboratory space, the very scale of sound would be variable, so that not only could instrumental capabilities be extended, but sounds could be repeated and sustained freely, with minimal exertion and with license to make mistakes, technical, com­ positional, perceptual. in spite of research methods we saw in fletcher's work, repetition need not always come down to a case of fordism, of reducing the supposed authenticity of an original object or experience to an empty series of exchangeables. in reproducing or sustaining a sound indefinitely with keenly focused attention, it is not only that one might gradually begin to pick out the unobserved through a constantly renewed set of comparisons, but also that the peculiarity of the frame of observation itself would alter its 33 34 current musicology everyday objects in such a way that they could come, as if for the first time, to have value. an opportunity to explore in more detail the sort of attention varese was evidently able to practice on a daily basis arises in the next section of this essay, as we turn to the specific scene ofvarese's workspace and con­ sider one of his arcane laboratory instruments, the siren, which had attracted varese's attention since at least the 1910s. 3. varese's efforts to collaborate with a laboratory physicist on acoustical re­ search and gain access to a well-funded lab were, of course, rewarded to a degree in the 19 50s. 10 by that time, though, varese had long since been forced to compensate for unforthcoming institutional support by developing his own somewhat isolated domestic "laboratory:' as bell labs technicians max mathews and newman guttman called it after visiting varese's home in 1959.11 in exploring some topographical detail of the varese apartment, my initial aim is to draw out certain structural similarities between the setting ofvarese's private attentiveness and the forms of institutionally sanctioned attention we have already seen. through, first, a detailed observation of the scene by the writer anais nin, one of the vareses' close friends, and, second, an account of the siren in helmholtz's work, we can infer a great deal about the modes of attentive observation available to the composer. we again find not only a neutralization or destabilization of distance in multiple registers but also that distinctive simultaneity of narrowing and expanding percep­ tion that typifies one form of attention. nin's recollection of her frequent visits to the varese home in the 1940s gives us a vivid sense oflocality. as latour has emphasized the unmysterious quality of most lab settings, it is little surprise to find the setting for varese home laboratory low-key and bourgeois, with a hint of the old downtown charm: edgar and louise varese live on sullivan street, near bleecker street. their house is built of red bricks. the back of it gives onto a series of gardens belonging to houses of the same style and period. it looks european. the neighborhood is italian. at number 188 i walk down a few steps and push a red door. inside i ring two doorbells, one for varese's studio, which is on the level with the garden, and the other for the floor above, where the living room, dining room, and kitchen take on a green tint from the trees in the back yard. benjamin steege and yet, nin shows us, the scale of the setting is all out of proportion with the scale of the perceptual activity taking place there. varese "looks too big for the small house in the village. the sounds he plays shake the old walls." most pertinent, though, is the way in which nin's prose funnels suc­ cessively inward, textually enacting the very experience of absorption as­ cribed to the composer and his visitor: when he takes you down the narrow turning stairway to his studio, it is a cave of sounds, coming from tapes, recordings, gongs ... he wants one possessed, absorbed into its oceanic waves and rhythms. varese demon­ strates a new bell, a new object capable of giving forth a new tonality, new nuance. he is in love with his materials, with an indefatigable curiosity. in his room one becomes another instrument, a container, a giant ear, en­ closed in his flights into sound. (1969:61-62)12 varese's visitor brings out a carefully structured relationship between mul­ tiple resonant enclosures. a labyrinthine downward path toward the locus of the sounding bodies arrives with a distinct accent on the punctual site of a bell, whose resonance in turn re-animates the whole scene from inside out. the image of another sort of "labyrinth," the "giant ear" that asserts itself as the rude emblem of aurality, finally subsumes or substitutes for each other resonating object: ear, instrument, the cavernous studio, and the entire apartment whose walls shake precariously.13 my point in scrutinizing the poetics of this diary account is not to pay gratuitous homage to a quaint encounter between two authoritative mod­ ernist figures. in the ambiguous border between sound and ear-are we "containers" for sound or ourselves "enclosed" in sound?-we rediscover the undoing of the "very difference between the 'inside' and the 'outside'" transferred to an intimate scene. this situation delicately persists here de­ spite the apartment studio's obvious relative lack ofleverage for transform­ ing outside interests. beyond recommending varese's "indefatigable" com­ mitment to the "materials" of his sounds, then, and beyond embedding varese's persona in a grossly lived aurality, nin shows us how the varesian image of attention depends on the unsettling explosion of a pointed focus of perception. yet where arnold had earlier celebrated the effacement of acoustic origins in favor of the "copy;'varese's engagement with his instru­ ments works from a different relation of the old to the new. his attentive listening, generally deprived of techno scientific wonders until the 1950s, sought to coax novelty from the banal, insignificant, and arcane. despite having little more than gongs, bells, and sirens to work with, the sounds seemed "to come from other planets" (61). i suggest that it was partly the very monotony of sustaining, repeating, restriking, and replaying that would 35 36 current musicology defamiliarize such aging objects and bring varese's laboratory practice into a recognizably mimetic relationship with the defamiliarizing translation latour sees in the measured manipulation of scientific objects. since varese's practice was intimately bound to specific technological and cultural arti­ facts, however, it will now be worthwhile "to pay closer attention to the materiality of the [artifacts] themselves and to the manner in which they are actually constitutive of the signifying scene;' as science historian timo­ thy lenoir puts it in an essay on helmholtz's research (1994:205). in 1959, varese wrote that, as a student, he had "studied helmholtz, and was fascinated by his experiments with sirens described in his [on the sen­ sations of tone] :' "i went to the marche aux puces;' varese recalled, "where you can find just about anything, in search of a siren, and picked up two small ones" (1967:205).14 this object, both curious and modest, was radi­ ant with significance in the context ofvarese's work. if the siren eventually came to specify a certain urbanicity through its association with traffic, tug­ boat fog-horns, and other sonic signs of the american city, this was not the only value adhering to the instrument. in a different vein, douglas kahn has suggested that the siren, for varese and other modernists (including luigi russolo and henry cowell), also represented a doubly-significant line, which inscribed both sonorous curves resembling movements through space and also the very difference between noise and tone. that is, in tracing a continuous transition through an infinity of tones, a siren's glissando might be thought to occupy, and therefore destabilize, precisely that slim, curvi­ linear boundary between the rational, discrete pitch space of common-prac­ tice european music and the expansive, unruly space outside of that prac­ tice, inhabited by noise, or everything that music was thought to exclude (kahn 1999:88-91). such interpretations doubtless enfold a good deal of productive think­ ing, but i would like to take a step or two back and consider how varese's probable awareness of a more particular context for the siren, one that has little to do with the varesian glissando, could have graced this object with yet another layer of meaning for him. it is worth taking a detailed look at the role of the siren in helmholtz's work for a couple of reasons. first, the historical episode of helmholtz's siren research exemplifies the leverage gained by employing specific laboratory technologies to support and regu­ late attention. second, one sees in on the sensations of tone the almost moral imperative attached to aural attention in acoustic research, and particularly siren research. in helmholtz's plan for developing a psychophysiological theory of harmony, the siren occupied a special place as an emblem for the modern­ ization of aural perceptual models through the new physiological acousbenjamin steege tics. is one of helmholtz's primary projects in the 1850s and 1860s was to create greater empirical access to the phenomena that underlay contempo­ rary knowledge of acoustics and its physiological ramifications. he exem­ plified some strategies for accomplishing this through his response to re­ cent work in acoustics, where the siren had emerged as one of the instru­ ments driving research. in the mid-1840s, two acousticians, georg simon ohm and august seebeck, had disagreed over an essential matter in acous­ tics. 16 briefly put, ohm believed that all periodic sounds, no matter what their composite wave patterns, could in theory be reduced through fourier analysis to simple sinusoidal waves. but seebeck's work with early models of the siren, like that in figure 1 and the more powerful one in figure 2, convinced him not only that the behavior of sound was more complex than ohm's theoretical image of it had allowed, but also that this image did not seem to reflect accurately the relative intensities of harmonics above the fundamental (or, in some cases, that of the fundamental itself). many of the sounds predicted by ohm's theory, more remote from the fundamental tone, were not readily apprehensible to the ear. when helmholtz revived some basic issues from the ohm-seebeck dis­ pute a decade later, he came to believe that each physicist failed to appreci­ ate the complex relationship between the raw physiological impact of sonic sensations and the psychological mechanisms that render those sensations intelligible. on the sensations of tone rests on the assumption, not always explicitly stated, that most tone sensations are in fact repressed by a synthe­ sizing unconscious mechanism, which behaves like a stimulus shield to de­ flect the shocks and superfluities of our chaotic acoustic environmenty phenomena such as upper partials, beats, and combination tones were gen­ erally not consciously perceived because the dissolution of rational bundles of consistently associated sensations would have led to perceptual chaos. 18 but if the utilitarian unconscious functioned to reduce experience in some sense, a listener could still respond to those involuntary mechanisms by claiming a certain limited analytical agency, which helmholtz specifically and repeatedly entrusted to a state of empirical attentiveness. in the final pages of the book, the physiologist reflected that in our usual observations on external nature our attention is so thoroughly engaged by external objects that we are entirely unpractised in taking for the subjects of conscious observation, any properties of our sensations themselves, which we do not already know as the sensible expression of some individual external object or event. (368) turning attention away from the semiosis of external events toward the physics of sensory-physiological events was helmholtz's unspoken resis37 current musicology figure 1: rotating disk from an early, simple siren used by august seebeck. fig. i. figure 2: views of a stronger siren used by hermann von helmholtz. fig. 3. fi~. 4. 38 benjamin steege figure 3: "polyphonic siren" custom built for helmholtz. figure 4: "resonators" designed by helmholtz. a b a b 39 40 current musicology tance to the means-ends trivialities of everyday life. helmholtz, in sum­ mary, felt that ohm's and seebeck's difficulties (and, by extension, the in­ sufficiency of the whole field of acoustics) resulted from an inability to ap­ preciate that the phenomena they strained to comprehend were beyond the purview of "the conscious perception of everyday life" (368), which in fact relied upon the unconscious and uncritical consumption of external ap­ pearances. it was therefore necessary to learn new modes of listening that were themselves simultaneously aided, entailed, and regulated-in short, disciplined-by new technologies of aural attention. the siren was one such technology. unlike earlier instruments, scien­ tific or musical, it could produce an indefinitely sustained tone, more regu­ lar and certainly louder than the tone of most other contemporary devices, including most pipe organs. helmholtz described the siren tone at its most resonant as "full, strong and soft" and at times "piercing" (163). both in­ definite duration and intensity were critical, since sheer volume made it possible to observe beats and combination tones in a steady-state tone (or tones as in the "polyphonic siren" in figure 3), and to sustain the requisite attention.!9 as helmholtz said, a propos of seebeck's siren research, "where the experiment succeeds, it gives the best proof of the essential dependence of the result on varying activity of attention" (61). yet if the siren repre­ sented the elimination of irregularity in the means and modes of sound production, it tended to foreground the laboring listener's perceptual fa­ tigue.20 one can only pay so much attention to long-enduring sensation. of necessity, helmholtz was acutely conscious of potential observational fatigue, which the siren would have made especially evident. in response to the problem, he devised a modest but effective new research instrument, the so-called "resonator" (fig. 4), which aptly models the mode of aural attention helmholtz practiced and promoted.2! the glass or brass appara­ tus, which was held to the ear like a conch shell, like another "giant ear;' came in many graduated sizes, each tuned to a different frequency, so that each frequency was amplified when present. helmholtz would coat the smaller end (at b, fig. 4) with melted sealing wax, allow it to cool without entirely hardening, and then fit the wax -covered end into his ear creating an air-tight funnel for sound into the middle ear. in effect, the resonator regu­ lated specific aural attention to even the most fragile strands within the interweaving mass of sonic events, especially higher, weaker overtones (helmholtz 1954:43-44). if the polyphonic siren made the causes of disso­ nance-that is, combination tones and beats-loudly accessible to the in­ quisitive ear, the resonators, which could be used effectively in conjunction with the siren, gave perceptual acts a specificity and precision previously undreamed of.22 in bringing unruly sound objects into easily manipulable, benjamin steege calibrated relations with one another, and in disseminating a limited set of observational skills through popular-lecture audiences and university acous­ tics lecture halls, helmholtz's sirens and resonators collapsed the distance that had separated listeners from the inaccessible aura of tone. it is true that in varese's recollection of finally laying hands on his own pair of sirens, he spent more time manipulating the "marvellous parabolas and hyperbolas" they sonorously inscribed than becoming absorbed in steady-state timbre. still, his apparently close reading of the helmholtz text could only have imparted or strengthened a sense of the value in observing a loud, sustained tone (or tones) in order to discover renewed possibilities of sensation even in the banality of such tones. in turning now to the last scenario, a compositional one, i wish to focus on a moment in varese's work where the values of helmholtzian attention play out in an unsettling man­ ner by interrupting the flow of a very different sort of attentive engage­ ment. 4. the transition between the first and second movements ofvarese's octandre (ex. 1) depends on a sudden shift between at least two disparate modes of engagement. in the final gestures of the first movement, as the oboe briefly recapitulates its opening cantabile gestures, the listener's relationship with the music seems staked on traditional expectations. underlying the integ­ rity of the phrasing is something like sentential repetition: statement, var­ ied counterstatement, and fragmentary elaboration of an idea common to two preceding utterances. (what is missing, of course, is a concluding idea, a classical sense of closure.) subphrases move to evident points of rhythmic and expressive climax; points of initiation and local closure sharply differ­ entiate themselves. the tune itself seems to indicate its own most interest­ ing moments. agogically accented bb6s, for example, locate the intensive centers of things. deep breaths locate the ends of things, becoming the be­ ginnings (c6) of the beginnings (b5) of new things. we might, during these utterances, feel assured that there is little ambiguity about how our atten­ tion is to align with the rhetorical codes in play. this is not to deny the complexity of the phrasing. for now, though, it is worth noticing how lei­ surely our encounter with the line can be, despite its expressivism: the oboe does half the work. the mode of attention, of engagement and investment, which this field enables, is arguably more venerable than the one we have been exploring in the context of laboratory scenarios. in the vocal, song-like quality of the 41 42 current musicology oboe line, one might discern the passing illusion of a mutuality between a musical subjectivity beckoning from within the tones and a willing and re­ ciprocally attentive listener. the seeming transparency of the situation re­ calls rousseau in its bluffed naturalism. that is, the very singularity of the singing solo line purports, with willful naivety, to guarantee perfect engage­ ment between subject and object: what is uttered would be apprehended through a thin veil that separates no more than it brings together. 23 quaintly enough for varese in 1923, the oboe utterances are even marked by senti­ ment, and specifically one "a bit anguished" (un peu angoisse). even the cae­ sura between movements functions on at least two levels: both on the level of sentiment, since the very interruption of utterance and denial of an im­ plied continuation might have an affective, "anguished" resonance; and on a formal level, the level of form articulated by silence, which, paradoxically, is to be executed "without interruption" (sans interrompre). but then the situation obviously changes, as we hear how the "anguished:' with its psy­ chological implications, gives way to the "nervous" (nerveux), a crassly corporeal condition. at the same time, the composed and self-evident gives way to the conjured and enigmatic. at first, frantic solo piccolo noises (mm. 1-9) render the nerveux ex­ pressive marking superfluous. audible (and presumably visible) signs of nervousness accumulate as the piccolo-player executes several rapid series of fortississimo attacks in a low register and quickly becomes breathless. rhythmic irregularity in the piccolo solo sends a distracted ear to seeking regularity in ictus. the sudden fortissimo entrance of the & clarinet in m. 10 paralyzes the piccolo; but paralysis in the sound seems to trigger a trans­ feral of movement from the instruments to the fully attentive ear. during mm. 10-15, my indecisive interest leaps agitatedly between ~5 and f6. even as attention flutters between piccolo and clarinet, we can return to an aware­ ness of the raw sensation of a single, fused sound. that awareness might become stronger over the course of the diminuendo as the clarinet's higher partials, which are at first very harsh and tend to make f6 stand out above ~5, soften relative to the lower fundamental. yet, largely because the two instruments are not quite an octave but only a major seventh apart, the fusion is fairly weak. far from fixing the object of my attention, the frozen sonority inspires a keen indecision about which simple tone to isolate. an attentive effort ends, as it must have begun, in inattention.24 in forfeiting the sense of perceptual center to the dissipating energies ofvarese's dyad, one may intuit what art historian jonathan crary has called "the idea of a perception that can be both an absorption and an absence or a deferral" (1999:lo). but surely all this emphasis on the purely sustained does not say everyexample 1: edgar varese, octandre (second movement). tempo i (j= 63-66) dans ie sentiments du debut (un peu angoine) ii tres vif et nerveux (j= 132) pte f1. r ci.mi~~ ~1 oj ~. .> --'> ff.f ~ oj pte fli ci.mi~ ~ 1 2 3 4 oj ~~ -~ ~; ~; oj .ff benjamin steege > > 5 -~ long silence-sans interrompre, attaquez 2me mouvement 3 ~ > 6 f[ 43 44 current musicology thing about varese's poetics of sound or his expectations for positive aural experience-especially when we so often find the composer making com­ ments like this: the periodicity of "normal" sound puts the listener to sleep. i do not dis­ tinguish between tone and noise. if one says noise (to oppose it to musical tone) it has to do with a refusal of a psychological order: the refusal of all that turns away from purring, from "pleasing:' from "lulling:' (charbonnier 1970:44) in other words, varese knew that noisy attack could be a primary condition of attention. that is no doubt why the second movement of octandre be­ gins by dancing around a neurosis which helmholtz had written out of his book: where helmholtz began on the sensations of tone by dividing all sound into noise and musical tone and then proceeding to exclude noise from his subsequent writing (1954:7), varese made his own beginning by fixating on the inevitable breathy noise that signals the onset of a piccolo tone. indeed, the most striking difference between helmholtz's account of timbre and more recent ones probably lies in helmholtz's singular attention to steady­ state timbre to the repressive exclusion of "irrational" acoustic contingen­ cies not captured by the model of the sustained attention requisite for aural fourier analysis. but if helmholtz's own engagement with sound found him slipping imperceptibly into contact with the already-there-deftly maneu­ vering his ear to alight on thin, continuous streams of this third -order com­ bination tone or of that sixteenth partial, both of which he imagined had long been waiting to be found-varese confronted head-on the eventful beginnings of sounds. varese's invitation to attend for the first nine mea­ sures of octandre's second movement, then, appears in an extended effort to overcome that awkward and paradoxical moment of suspension in which the imperative "listen!" is unheard because nobody is yet listening. and yet, despite varese's obvious inversion or dissolution of the helmholtzian noise-tone dichotomy, octandre's smooth dyad continues to share a significant quality with helmholtz's sustained polyphonic siren tones in that, unlike octandre's oboe solo and the sirens' homeric namesakes, neither was meant to beckon from afar. at least part of the effectiveness of this inter-movement transition, arguably, is that, once again, it manages a shift of scale and distance, which is not immediately perceptible, but has enormous implications for the modes of attention we devote to it. as in nin's narrative funnel from outside in, the trajectory here seems to be from a distinctly exterior singing voice in the oboe to a dyad that presents a sen­ sation whose location can only be found in the resonant tympanic ear, if not deeper in the aural labyrinth. i cannot think of many moments in modbenjamin steege ern music where the sense of flatness, of no distance at all, or even of nega­ tive distance, is so clearly evoked as in mm. 10-15 of this movement. and the complete eradication of distance has everything to do with the kind of sensation helmholtz had in mind: to the extent that the human sensorium (and not external objects or their qualities) had the last word in the produc­ tion of perception, the question of how far our bodies were from what was acting on them became, to a great extent, a moot point. when i attend care­ fully to this dyad, i cannot help but become keenly-painfully-sensitive to the interiority of the sensation, to the sense of my head vibrating and reso­ nating, and to the feeling of becoming a "giant ear!' this, i believe, is the aurality that helmholtz's sirens and resonators pull into focus. though it was usually clear to helmholtz whether what we heard resided in exterior acoustic modifications of the air or in interior acoustic modifications of the ear and its associated nervous pathways, the emphasis in the last analysis was always on the inside, or at least on the inside exteriorized to the physi­ ological gaze. 5. after our concern with the laboratory space, the laboratory's transforma­ tive generation of interests, interest's legitimation of attention, and, finally, attention's resistance to utilitarian perception, what are we to make of this awkward exchange between varese and a friend in 1955, which recapitu­ lates all of these themes in an unsettlingly inconclusive manner? george charbonnier: when i consider the sentiment of nature for jean­ jacques rousseau, the utilitarian side of signs disappears completely. or when i consider the sentiment of nature the pre-romantics may have had. what i want to say is that sentiment, disengaged completely from any utili­ tarian consideration, contains an auditive image, a visual image. edgard varese: the physicists of our epoch live in a realm very different from ours ... they receive visual images, auditive images different from those which struck m. jean-jacques rousseau, and which interest them nevertheless. for example, the images collected in the tunnels where they do experiments on supersonic or ultrasonic models. the machine sends images to the lone physicist. and it is in these images that the physicist interests himself. [la machine propose des images au seul physicien. et c' est a ces images que le physicien s'interesse.] (charbonnier 1970:41)25 why does varese coyly sidestep the issue of rousseauan "sentimen t" when it 45 ~6 current musicology seems that he was at one point quite willing to raise it musically (at least between himself and octandre's oboist)? here, as between the first two movements of octandre, we slide effort1essly from the airy world of "natural" signs and sentimental empathy to the speechlessly corporeal in varese's fantasy of a particle physics experiment, where anonymous images seem to stare blankly back at the attentive physi­ cist. it is intriguing to see how varese's oblique response to charbonnier's question lands him back in an amniotic space inhabited by the isolated sci­ entist, the seul physicien, of anomalous interest, passively "receiving" images rather than creating or even manipulating them. sadly, by the mid-1950s, although varese was just then beginning to find points of entry into some labs equipped for composers, his vision of the laboratory laborer has lost something of its earlier optimistic, collaborative character. despite the hint of despair in the latter vision, varese had been justified in hoping that a laboratory would be a site of transformation where musi­ cians could re-align the values of symbolic notations with respect to the materialities of acoustic phenomena. i have explored possible motivations for varese's faith in the potential oflaboratory collaboration to bring atten­ tion, even in its contingency and fallibility, to bear on the transformation of compositional materials by re-scaling the registers in which aural percep­ tion unfolds. such transformative negotiations would apparently be only mediable through close listening of the awkward kind that confronts us when we try to get something other than "static dyad" out of the second movement of octandre. as we have seen, "real" or "natural" acoustic events rarely if ever reveal themselves through the kind of transparency that atten­ tive engagement may at times promise; access to such phenomena always presupposes a specially trained sensorium heavily marked by habit and im­ plicit knowledge. to see that the aurality of the laboratory is always bound up in a network of technologies both visible and invisible is to grasp and grant that no attentive observation is ever entirely transparent or natural. 26 indeed, the laboratories that housed such attentive labors were nothing if not extensions of an unusually modern fantasy: railroad -like means to shift everything constantly around in relation to everything else, such that the movement is disconcertingly imperceptible. in varese's transposition of "laboratory" techniques of listening into composition, though, these shifts of distance come to have a slightly different value. by giving us a moment's pause, such points of suspended attention as that in octandre, or any num­ ber of similar events in varese's music, present a vital opportunity to re­ mind ourselves both of attention's vulnerability to outside, extensive forces and also of its capacity to make intensive, musical perception our own. benjamin steege notes this article has profited from many private conversations about varese and helmholtz with a number of individuals, including robert brain, christopher hasty, myles jackson, david lewin, david pantalony, and alexander rehding. i am grateful to the organizers of the co­ lumbia university graduate student conference in music scholarship in january, 2004 for allowing me a chance to air some initial thoughts on this topic. many thanks also to the current musicology editorial staff and brigid cohen for patient and critical readings and discussion of the article's various drafts. finally, i am thankful to dr. felix meyer of the paul sacher foundation in basel, switzerland, for making the new edgard varese collection avail­ able and for permitting me to publish some excerpts from correspondence held there. 1. see, for example, varese (1930; 1967:198-201) and charbonnier (1970:69-79). 2. a wealth of recent scholarship across many humanities disciplines indicates just how complex and multivalent notions of attention can be. see crary (1999), daston (2001), hagner (1998), hamacher (1998), johnson (1995:53-70), riley (2000), and wheelock (1992:15492). 3. thompson's chapter on "noise and modern culture, 1900-1933" provides fresh and com­ pelling context for varese's new york (thompson 2004: 115-69). 4. in a 1939 lecture, varese proclaimed, "jean christophe, the hero of [rolland's] novel, was a prototype of the modern composer and was modeled on different composers whom romain rolland knew-among others, myself" (varese 1967:199). (rolland had already been writ­ ing the novel before he metvarese in 1909.) 5. fletcher's reference to "forty-eight normal ears" occurs specifically in the context of de­ scribing experiments to establish the lowest threshold at which gradually increasing inten­ sity of tone becomes "sensed by the ear" as sound (1929:142). 6. in alejo carpentier's words, '''j'abandonne la musique, declara varese. la musique n'interesse plus personne aujourd'hui. je deviens businessman. ne riez pas. j'ai ie sens des affaires. je vais de ce pas offrir mes services it une grande entreprise. avec mes connaissances, en mathemathiques et en physique, je peux reussir." 7. "un compositeur, s'il veut obtenir les resultats que sa conception appelle, ne doit jamais oublier que son materiau brut est ie son ... ii doit comprendre non seulement ie mecanisme et les possibilites des differentes machines son ores qui font vivre sa musique, mais il doit etre aussi familiarise avec les lois de l'acoustique." 8. "de par son education l' oreille humaine a ete discipline ou entrainee it faire abstraction de ce resultat." 9. "pour presenter mes idees it des techniciens de differentes organisations afin de pro ceder it des verifications et aussi pour leur prouver la necessite d'une collaboration etroite entre ie compositeur et i'homme de science:' 10. he worked on deserts in 1954 at the club d'essai of radiodiffusion-television fran<;:aise in paris and later touched up that piece's tape components at the columbia-princeton elec­ tronic music center in new york. poeme electronique was composed in 1958 at philips labo­ ratories in eindhoven. 11. mathews and guttman expressed their approval of the "laboratory," however crude it may have been, in a thank-you note sent after a dinner party at the varese home. the note is in the edgard varese collection, paul sacher foundation. 12. nin's momentous entrance into the varese home-laboratory was not unique. younger 47 t8 current musicology composers, including david lewin, have related parallel anecdotes. lewin told me (in pri­ vate conversation, april 22, 2003) that when he visited varese in the early 1960s, the older composer was very excited about the particular resonances produced by a certain metal rod and told his guest to hold an ear up to the instrument while varese struck the rod forcefully with a hammer. as young lewin's eardrum vibrated violently in (sympathetic?) response to the quivering tube, varese grinned with pride and enthusiasm. i take this story to convey how varese located the experience and close empirical observation of complex isolated reso­ nances not only at the center of his solitary laboratory life but even at the crux of his social interactions. it does not seem too much to imagine this otherwise casual encounter as an­ other instance ofvarese's attempts to use even his makeshift laboratory to capture outside interest in his activities by focusing attention on objects he created in his own interior space. l3. for a unique and provocative evaluation of "aurality" and the metaphor of the "aural labyrinth" in postmodern cultural production, see docherty (1997). kahn (1999) also takes certain constructions of "modern aurality" as an interpretive point of departure for a range of cultural artifacts from the 1870s to the 1960s. 14. for relevant discussions of the siren, see helmholtz (1954: 11-14, 161-65). it is well worth noting that one of helmholtz's most accomplished instrument-builders, an acoustician named rudolph koenig, lived and worked in paris and, from the 1860s on, constructed sirens of several models, attesting to the siren's great popularity as a research instrument at that time. according to david pantalony, the siren remained "quite popular" in paris after koenig's death in 1901 (2002:87). little surprise, then, that varese would have found two specimens in a paris flea market in the first decade of the century. 15. several recent publications on the siren in nineteenth-century research have manifested a fairly broad current interest in helmholtz's siren experiments. for a thorough discussion of the sources and significances of helmholtz's acoustic research instruments, see pantalony (2002:54-117). the siren (especially in connection with on the sensation oft one ) sits promi­ nently amid wider cultural-historical arguments in welsh (2004) and hilgers (2004). also see vogel (1993). 16. summaries of this debate can be found in helmholtz (1954:58-63), turner (1977), vogel (1993), and hilgers (2004). vogel points out that the siren's mode of sound production in itself heralded a new conception of sound: rather than the wave form, let alone the medium of vibrating bodies, determining the quality of tone, this would now be observed to vary purely with the upper partials' vibrational periodicities, whether periodicity was imaged sinusoidally (ohm) or otherwise (seebeck) (vogel 1993:263). hilgers extends this point to argue that sirens put the theoretical notion of sound's fundamental continuity into question by contesting the dominant sinusoidal image of sound with a discretely pulsive one (i.e., a nearly isochronous series of puffs). the latter would find a more comfortable place within the systems of discrete signs (zeichensysteme) helmholtz postulated as enabling an intelli­ gible external world, despite his ultimate validation of ohm's law (hilgers 2004). 17. see, for example, the discussion of difficulties in observing upper partials (helmholtz 1954:56-67). 18. helmholtz's notion of "unconscious inference" was apparently developed first in his work on physiological optics. discussions of the helmholtzian unconscious, with varying emphases, appear in boring (1929:308-11) and more recently in krauss (1993:l33-37) and hatfield (1993:547-51; 2002:128-31). 19. while early sirens of the 1820's through mid-century were operated manually by wind bellows and crank-but, critically, with minimal human physical exertion-later sirens of benjamin steege the 1870s were often powered electromagnetically, confirming their place within a canon of modest but modern sound technologies. see pantalony (2002:85-88). 20. the siren was not the only, nor even the most spectacular, of helmholtz's devices for producing tones of indefinite duration in the laboratory. the "vowel synthesizer;' composed of several tuning forks, which were caused to vibrate electromagnetically and tuned to each of the first several partials of a particular fundamental, was used to demonstrate the rela­ tionship between the various partials' amplitudes or intensities and the overall timbre of the full, sounding series, and was fundamental to helmholtz's research on vowel quality. see the discussions of this instrument in lenoir (1994) and pantalony (2002:73-76). 21. this instrument was to become perhaps the most common feature of psychology labo­ ratories as well as of acoustics lectures in the second half of the nineteenth century and represented a significant material extension of helmholtz's scientific authority across the discipline of physical acoustics. see the discussions of resonators in helmholtz's and later research in pantalony (2002:70-73,92-109). 22. ultimately, the aim of helmholtz's book was to indicate the ramifications of these now­ observable sensations, first in their influence on the perception of dissonance and conso­ nance and then on the unconscious logic of european triadic harmony. the hidden struc­ ture of the upper partials, once revealed through technologically-supported perceptual vigi­ lance, could be heard not only to cause the unpleasant disturbances of dissonance that we had for centuries sensed but failed to understand, but also to provide the rationale upon which composers proceeded to make aesthetic decisions. 23. the sentimental mutuality and empathetic structure of this attention surely recapitu­ lates rousseau's vision of the compassionate citizen. as terry eagleton has written: "the root of this civic virtue is the pity we experience for each other in the state of nature; and this pity rests on a kind of empathetic imagination, 'transporting ourselves outside ourselves' ... at the very root of social relations lies the aesthetic source of all human bonding. if bour­ geois society releases its individuals into lonely autonomy, then only by such an imaginative exchange or appropriation of each other's identities can they be deeply enough united" (1990:24). 24. "g. c.: mais si je pense au sentiment de la nature pour jean-jacques rousseau, ie cote utilitaire des signes disparait completement ... je veux dire que ce sentiment, degage de toute consideration utilitaire, se contentait de l'image auditive, de l'image visuelle. "e. y.: les physiciens de notre epoque ... reyoivent des images visuelles, des images auditives differentes de celles qui frappaient monsieur jean-jacques rousseau, et qui cependant les interessent autant. par exemple, les images recueillies dans les tunnels ou l'on fait des experiences sur les modeles supersoniques ou ultrasoniques. la machine propose des im­ ages au seul physicien. et c'est a ces images que ie physicien s'interesse." 25. i am by no means the first to linger on this moment. james tenney, in his history of "consonance" and "dissonance," observes the f-gj, sonority closely in illustration of the rela­ tionship between timbre and dissonance in hermann von helmholtz's theory of beats (1988:90-91). i thank bob hasegawa for referring me to this book. helga de la motte-haber intuits a very different, more unified, gambit from this modest dyad, arguing that "even if beats are intended, no dissonance is meant:' she then discusses how certain "inferior resultant tones" present during the dyad's sounding are picked up as fundamentals in the music's continution. this supports her argument that varese's physi­ calist orientation is distinct from a non-relational aesthetic that would value the sounds in themselves without regard to their specific formal, compositional implications (motte-haber 49 50 current musicology 1993:59-61). 26. to say this unqualifiedly does no justice to a great amount of recent thinking that has sought to explore the so-called "materialities of communication." but that is another study in itself. here, i simply cite three relevant publications, each of which distinctively under­ takes to re-evaluate the constitutive roles of technology in nineteenth-century listening: timo­ thy lenoir's analysis of an influential acoustic research instrument of helmholtz (1988), jonathan sterne's compelling history of sound and techniques oflistening (2003), and john durham peters' exploration of helmholtz's and thomas edison's reconceptualization and, quite literally, reactualization of "voice" (2004). references boring, edwin g. 1929. a history of experimental psychology. new york: the century co. carpentier, alejo. 1967. edgard varese vivant. le nouveau commerce 10: 13-28. charbonnier, george. 1970. entretiens avec edgard van?se. paris: editions pierre belfond. crary, jonathan. 1999. suspensions of perception: attention, spectacle, and modern culture. cambridge, ma: mit press. daston, lorraine. 2001. eine kurze geschichte wissenschaftlicher aufmerksamkeit. munich: carl friedrich von siemens stiftung. docherty, thomas. 1997. after theory. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. eagleton, terry. 1990. the ideology of the aesthetic. oxford: blackwell. fletcher, harvey. 1929. speech and hearing. new york: d. van nostrand. hagner, michael. 1998. aufrnerksamkeit als ausnahmezustand. in liechtensteiner exkurse iii: aufmerksamkeit, edited by werner haas, rainer nagele, and hans-jiirg rheinberger, 273-94. eggingen: edition isele. hamacher, werner. 1998. bogengebete. in liechtensteiner exkurse iii: aufmerksamkeit, ed­ ited by werner haas, rainer nagele, and hans-jiirg rheinberger, 11--43. eggingen: edi­ tion isele. hatfield, gary. 1993. helmholtz and classicism: the science of aesthetics and the aesthet­ ics of science. in hermann von helmholtz and the foundations of nineteenth-century science, edited by david cahan, 522-58. berkeley: university of california press. ---. 2002. perception as unconscious inference. in perception and the physical world: psychological and philosophical issues in perception, edited by dieter heyer and rainer mausfeld, 115--44. new york: john wiley & sons. helmholtz, hermann von. 1954. on the sensations of tone, translated by alexander j. ellis. new york: dover. (orig. pub. 1863) hilgers, philipp von. 2004. sirenen: liisungen des klangs vom kiirper. in parasiten und sirenen: zwei zwischen raume, edited by berhard dotzler, henning schmidgen, and cornelia weber, 103-21. berlin: max planck institute for the history of science. johnson, james. 1995. listening in paris: a cultural history. berkeley: university of califor­ nia press. kahn, douglas. 1999. noise, water, meat: a history of sound in the arts. cambridge, ma: mit press. koenigsberger, leo. [1906] 1965. hermann von helmholtz, translated by francis a. welby. new york: dover. krauss, rosalind e. 1993. the optical unconscious. cambridge, ma: mit press. latour, bruno. 1983. give me a laboratory and i will raise the world. in science observed, edited by karen knorr-cetina and michael mulkay, 141-70. new york: sage publica­ tions. benjamin steege lenoir, timothy. 1994. helmholtz and the materialities of communication. osiris 9:185207. motte-haber, helga de lao 1993. die musik von edgard varese: studien zu seinen nach 1918 entstandenen werken. hofheim: wolke verlag. nin,anais. 1969. the diary of anais nin (1939-44). new york: harcourt, brace & world. pantalony, david. 2002. rudolph koening (1832-1901), hermann von helmholtz (1821-1894) and the birth of modern acoustics. phd dissertation, university of toronto. peters, john durham. 2004. helmholtz, edison, and sound history. in memory bytes: his­ tory, technology, and digital culture, edited by lauren rabinovitz and abraham geil, 177-98. durham: duke university press. redfield, john f. 1928. music, a science and an art. new york: alfred a. knopf. riley, matthew. 2000. attentive listening: the concept of aufrnerksamkeit and its signifi­ cance in german musical thought, 1770-1790. phd dissertation, royal holloway, uni­ versity of london. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, nc: duke university press. tenney, james. 1988. a history of "consonance" and "dissonance." new york: excelsior mu­ sic publishing company. thompson, emily. 2004. the soundscape of modernity: architectural acoustics and the cul­ ture of listening in america, 1900-1933. cambridge, ma: mit press. turner, r. steven. 1977. the ohm-seebeck dispute, hermann von helmholtz, and the ori­ gins of physiological acoustics. the british journal for the history of science 10 (34): 124. varese, edgard. 1930. la mecanisation de la musique. bifur 5: 121-29. ---.1967. the liberation of sound. in contemporary composers on contemporary mu­ sic, edited by elliott schwartz and barney childs, 196-208. new york: holt, rinehart and winston. ---. 1983. ecrits, edited by louise hirbour. paris: christian bourgois. vogel, stefan. 1993. sensation of tone, perception of sound, and empiricism: helmholtz's physiological acoustics. in hermann von helmholtz and the foundations of nineteenth­ century science, edited by david cahan, 259-87. berkeley: university of california press. welsh, caroline. 2004. die sirene und das klavier: vom mythos der spharenharmonie zur experimentellen sinnesphysiologie. in parasiten und sirenen: zwei zwischen raume, ed­ ited by berhard dotzler, henning schmidgen, and cornelia weber, 57-85. berlin: max planck institute for the history of science. wheelock, gretchen. 1992. haydn's ingenious jesting with art: contexts of musical wit and humor. new york: schirmer. 51 disciplinary movements, the civil rights movement, and charles keil's urban blues matt sakakeeny if it is the task of the historian to question the dead, who then will question the living? for unless someone questions the living ... then the historian, when he comes to accomplish his work, may ask his questions in vain, for there would be no voice from the past to help him find the answers. -gilbert chase (1958) charles keil was in his midtwenties when he published his first book, urban blues (1966a), based on his master's thesis in anthropology at the university of chicago. in many ways, it was the summation of his experiences and encounters up to that point: a childhood in rural connecticut where his grandfather raised pigs; a love of jazz that began with drum lessons from his uncle (an example of what colleague steven feld described as "white male bonding through black music" [keil and feld 1994:2]); undergrad­ uate schooling at yale that included travel to the west indies and nigeria; 1960s countercultural activism intensified by a relationship with malcolm x; a tumultuous graduate school experience under the tutelage of clifford geertz, david schneider, and marshall sahlins in anthropology, leonard meyer in musicology, and alan merriam in ethnomusicology; and finally fieldwork in the theaters, nightclubs, radio stations, recording studios, and tour buses connected to the bustling blues scene in chicago. l the appearance of urban blues was not revolutionary because it came from the hand of a humanist prodigy, but because keil approached a mod­ ern, urban african american musical style with such rigor. in the current disciplinary climate of critical musicology, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and black studies, it is difficult to grasp that urban blues was not only one of the first scholarly texts based on fieldwork in urban afro-america, but was also one of the first ethnographic monographs dedicated to an american popular music form, and was the first to eschew transcription and detailed musical-structural analysis in favor of a sociocultural approach.2 by making urban blues his object of inquiry, keil confronted the erasure of african americans as anthropological subjects. by researching musicians like b. b. king and ray charles in chicago, keil went against established disciplinary practices that valued "primitive" folk culture in remote areas over commercial forms in urban centers. by calling these musicians "culture heroes" from the urban ghetto, keil positioned his work in opposition to the current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 143 144 current musicology dominant "culture of poverty" theories that pathologized african americans. finally, by interpreting musical meaning in the daily life of musicians and audiences and relating practices within these musical networks to broader political movements, keil was breaking ground in the fields of musicology and ethnomusicology, which in the 1960s continued to treat music as an autonomous object to be analyzed with formal theoretical models. at the broadest level, this essay is an attempt to situate urban blues within a genealogy of anthropological and ethnomusicological studies of african american popular culture, as well as the specific social and political context of the civil rights era. keil's monograph appeared at the beginning of a major paradigmatic shift in recognizing african american expressive practices, popular culture, and urban ethnography as appropriate forums for research. however, in subsequent assessments of black music research, urban blues has been mostly disregarded. i will conclude by linking this exclusion to a historical pattern of institutional "forgetting:' whereby dis­ ciplinary expansions are undervalued because of their inability to conform to accepted narratives. before surveying the discursive matrix from which urban blues emerged in 1966, consider the implications of the brilliantly economical title of keil's book: "urban" (a modern, heterogeneous, fragmentary ethnographic site); "blues" (a distinctly african american musical form and cultural trope); "urban blues" (a popular, contemporary african american expressive prac­ tice). keil was able to condense the progressive and interventionist nature of his project into two simple words that suggested multiple possibilities of signification and interpretation. early anthropological and sociological study of african americans in 1978, anthropologists john szwed and roger abrahams published an annotated bibliography of research on african americans, which they assembled in response to the lingering myth that african americans did not have a culture of their own: afro-american cultures exist, cultures which are neither entirely african nor european in origin, but which contain elements of both, plus the inevitable developments attendant on enslavement, the plantation expe­ rience, native american contact, poverty and racism, as well as the vigor and creativity of human beings. (szwed and abrahams 1978:ix) decades later, the argument that ''afro-american cultures exist" seems im­ possibly unnecessary. in recognizing, however, that szwed and abrahams matt sakakeeny found it necessary to justify the discussion of race in cultural terms a full decade after the height of the civil rights movement, we are made aware of the themes that dominated academic discourse before and after urban blues. a brief consideration of these themes will allow for a greater understand­ ing of the process through which african americans gradually emerged as appropriate anthropological subjects. beginning this historical trajectory with franz boas is fitting not only be­ cause he is the "father" of american anthropology, but also because his views in this area are prismatic for the field in general during the early twentieth century. boas led an effective anthropological assault on the american racial worldview, authoring dozens of publications that theorized racial difference in terms of culture, not biology (e.g., boas 1911; mukhopadhyay and moses 1997 :518). a founding member of the naacp and frequent supporter and colleague of w. e. b. dubois, boas defended african americans against racial determinism, and yet he systematically avoided black culture in his ethnographic research.3 for boas, the primary mission of anthropology was to reconstruct the past of isolated societies. as melville herskovits, boas's student at columbia university, later surmised, "the comparative study of culture ... has in the past attempted to base its hypotheses on data from the nonhistoric peoples-those nonliterate folk termed 'primitive' -who are relatively but little disturbed by european influence" (herskovits 1941:9). african americans as a group did not conform to any of these criteria, and boas and most of his contemporaries believed that processes of expropria­ tion, enslavement, and enforced inequality had stripped them of their past. "the tearing away from the african soil and the consequent complete loss of the old standards oflife;' wrote boas, "are sufficient to explain the inferiority of the status of the race" (boas [1938] 1968:240, cited in szwed 1972:156). as szwed discussed in his article "an american anthropological dilemma: the politics of afro-american culture" (1972), this mode of thought domi­ nated "new world negro" studies for the first half of the twentieth century, including the work of the "strict" boasian ruth benedict, who concluded in 1940 that "the negro race has proud cultural achievements, but for very good reasons they were not spread before our eyes in america" (benedict 1940:87, cited in szwed 1972:158).4 theories of "deculturation;' or "cultural loss;' were partially informed by quantitative studies in sociology, where the study of race and ethnicity in urban areas was more prevalent than in anthropology. the center for sociological investigation before world war ii was the university of chicago, where robert e. park and his student e. franklin frazier laid the groundwork for what became the "culture of poverty" school.s with few exceptions, these theorists assumed the pathological nature of african americans and immi145 146 current musicology grant groups to be self evident and linked "aberrant" behavior to economic impoverishment (omi and winant 1986).6 many sociological depictions of ghetto life-rationalizations of "the negro problem" conducted from a safe distance-were not based on ethnography but derived from quantitative statistical data collected through surveys with a discernable a priori agenda (cerroni -long 1987:445-46). the chicago school was subsequently dubbed "the pejorative tradition" by anthropologist charles valentine in his culture and poverty: critique and counter proposals (1968:20-24). valentine was part of a new wave of scholars-including keil, sidney mintz, roger abrahams, and john szwed-who were attempting to iden­ tify african american cultural contributions while undoing biological and cultural associations between race and pathology. in his article "race and the embodiment of culture" (1975), szwed lamented the shortsightedness of his predecessors in the "cultural loss" and "culture of poverty" camps: early scientific anti-racists in the united states addressed the folk equation of race and culture by specifying and delimiting the concept of race ... they attempted to dispel the negative euro-american readings and valuings of culturally different behavior of afro-americans by denying the existence of the behavior itself. this meant that they were forced to treat black dia1ects, music, dance, interpersonal style and the like as non-existent just at the point where these phenomena were beginning to flood the country through the mass media, when they were in fact becoming the basis of an american vernacular culture. (szwed 1975:28) a circular dialogue about race and culture was occurring in the social sciences: sociologists and others piled up quantitative data to bolster their thesis that discrimination and structural inequalities had produced a "culture of poverty:' while the anthropologists, unable to locate african american culturalisms within a history of white domination, saw only a "poverty of culture:' in anthropology, it was herskovits who first articulated a progres­ sive anti-racist argument that african american culture was reducible to neither a culture of poverty nor a culture of loss, subservient to the norms of dominant culture. though he never questioned the fundamental boasian construct of cultural anthropology, which insisted on detaching biological concepts from cultural concepts, herskovits set out to destroy impressions of african americans as a disorganized people with attenuated cultural re­ sources by demonstrating the historical depth and continuing force of their african heritage. his model of acculturation-detailed in his monumental the myth of the negro past (1941; see also herskovits 1937)-theorized culture as a dynamic process of combination and recombination, which he viewed through an ethno-historicallens based on empirical fieldwork in africa and the black atlantic. matt sakakeeny herskovits's groundbreaking and radical work was widely misinterpreted and ultimately dismissed by his contemporaries. anthropologist gunnar myrdal took issue with herskovits's retentionist claims by reiterating the liberal anti-racist axiom that afro-america was "a distorted development, or a pathological condition of the general american culture" (myrdal 1944:928-29). along-lasting debate between herskovits ande. franklin fra­ zier was aired in public throughout the 1940s (whitten and szwed 1970:28), but herskovits's findings of cultural continuities between africa and the new world were unable to sway frazier and others from the conviction that "the most conspicuous thing about the negro is his lack of culture" (frazier 1934:194, emphasis added). as a result of this critical backlash, many of the main themes of the myth of the negro past were neglected until the height of the civil rights era in the 1960s, establishing a precedent of institutional "forgetting" in african american cultural research. according to szwed and abrahams, the lack of cohesive and sustained dialogue within the small as­ semblage of scholars "permitted the same arguments and rationalizations to be explored by each [generation 1 of investigators" (szwed and abrahams 1978:xi). i will explore this pattern further in my conclusion, but i will first offer a limited overview of research on african american music prior to urban blues. early studies in african american music many early researchers of black culture in africa and the black atlantic were drawn to aesthetic expression, and as herskovits noted in his discussion of the arts, no cultural form was given more attention than music: "it has long been held that the principal contribution of the negro to the culture of the americas, and most particularly the culture of the united states, lies in the expression of his musical gift" (1941 :261). the first landmark study of af­ rican american music was slave songs of the united states (allen, ware, and garrison 1867), a collection of religious songs transcribed and annotated by educator william francis allen and two of his colleagues. the associa­ tion between black music and sacred singing defined most works until the mid-twentieth century. in his thorough analysis of music in the myth of the negro past, herskovits criticized slave songs of the united states and its followers for perpetuating the idea that "the songs of the negroes represented a welling forth of the anguish experienced under slavery" and thus had no identifiable relationship to africa (1941:262). the pioneering comparative musicolo­ gist erich m. von hornbostel's paper ''american negro songs" (1926) was faulted by herskovits for its conclusion that "the outstanding aspects of 147 148 current musicology the negro spirituals are european:' a position echoed in the "white origin theories" of newman white (1928) and george pullen jackson (1944). herskovits attempted to strike a balance, proposing that we "speak of 'af­ rican' music in about the same degree as ... 'european' music" (1941:267). he also took issue with music researchers who did not substantiate their claims with ethnographic data. h. e. krehbiel's afro-american folksongs: a study in racial and national music (1914) suffered from its reliance on "what he could glean from travelers' accounts and other nonmusical works" (1941:267). herskovits pleaded for more meticulous fieldwork on the full breadth of african american music. the scarcity of rigorous study was noted years later by norman whitten and john szwed in their volume afro-american anthropology: these commentators ... were far from being ethnographers. they were ministers, abolitionists, educators, military officers, and members of the freedmen's bureau, all intent on making the negro appear a pitiable creature in the hands of white slave owners ... in effect, they created a new stereotype: that of the humble, god-fearing, simple folk. (whitten and szwed 1970:31) a legacy of neglect and misapprehension stemmed from this foundational research on african american culture, but there were notable exceptions. john lomax and his son alan were among the first to study african american secular music seriously, along with anthropologist and author zora neale hurston (one of boas's students at columbia university), who figured music as part of a larger african american cultural framework in mules and men (hurston 1935). the lomaxes made extensive recordings of black music throughout the south in the 1930s for the library of congress and published transcriptions of the songs of blues legend huddie ledbetter, or "leadbelly" (lomax and lomax 1936). this project began alan lomax's sixty-year career as a folklorist, ethnomusicologist, and documentarian of a strikingly broad range of traditional musics from around the world. throughout the twentieth century, a devoted group of ethnomusicolo­ gists, enthusiasts, and record company entrepreneurs tracked down blues musicians in the rural south, speculating on the african and european roots of the idiom and positioning it as a "taproot" for virtually all other african american expressive cultural practices. the valorization of the "country blues" reached its apex in the 1960s folk revival, when several elderly per­ formers, particularly from the mississippi delta region, were resurrected as bearers of an authentic folk tradition. ethnomusicologist christopher waterman questioned the racial politics of the revivalists and the ideology underpinning their "folklorization" of the blues, pointing out that the urban matt sakakeeny folk revival "centered on icons of rural american, caribbean, or african negritude not threatening to white leftists" (c. waterman 2000: 189; see also keil1985; wald 2004). in broader terms, cultural studies theorist nestor garda canclini has suggested that particular genres are reified as "praised residue" and folkloric practices are positioned in opposition to modern­ izing practices: "in deciding that the specific character of popular culture resides in its faithfulness to the rural past, [researchers 1 are blinded to the changes that were refining it in the industrial and urban societies" (garda canclini 1995:148-49). the country blues embodied everything the liberal white researcher was looking for: a rural, acoustic ("primitive") music that was linked to an imag­ ined africa by its vocal stylings and sparse arrangements. accepted logics of folk authenticity were verified by plaintive wailing and shouting, effects of both the torturous legacy of enslavement and sacred rituals designed to "catch the spirit." modern styles, such as urban blues and rhythm & blues, were seen as commercialized, contaminated mongrelizations of "authentic" folk music. and worse, these urban black styles were too close to rock en' roll, too influential on elvis presley and a generation of white rockers who changed the face of popular music in the us and europe, too identifiable with exactly the type of "mainstream" popular music that musicologists, ethnomusicologists, and folklorists had built their work in opposition to. in the minds of many of the salvage-oriented ethnographers, urban blacks and their electrified and electrifying music exemplified the pervasive forces of modernization that alan lomax feared would bring about a "cultural greyout," or the homogenization of distinct forms (lomax 1968:4).7 urban ethnography and popular culture the social sciences grew dramatically after world war ii, and in parallel with the growth of the civil rights movement there developed a sizable body of ethnographic literature on black culture in the united states. with the exception of roger abrahams's study of black speech in philadelphia, deep down in the jungle (1964), however, there was little fieldwork being done in urban areas. anthropologist sidney mintz detailed the multifaceted problems facing the anthropologist in 1970: urban north american neighborhoods lack homogeneity of the sort typi­ cal of rural proletarian communities; they lack the physical isolation and boundedness often characteristic of rural communities ... anthropology has its own preoccupation with purity, and this is the purity of primitiv­ ity. 149 150 current musicology the marked sociological significance of "race;' though by no means fully understood in such cases, is nonetheless real, creating additional complex­ ity for both fieldworker and social analyst ... informants are members of an oppressed minority, while the ethnographer-like it or not-is a member of the oppressing majority ... most of us ... have been far readier to study afro-american cultures elsewhere than to study afro-american culture in our own area. (mintz 1970:12-14) as mintz indicated, the difficulty of retrofitting ethnographic methodolo­ gies that had been designed for work in isolated, relatively homogeneous cultures to include larger, more variegated urban groups was compounded by complex negotiations surrounding race, ethnicity, and class. research in north american cities was traditionally left to sociologists, criminologists, economists, and political scientists. even at the height of the civil rights era in 1967, when the american anthropological association conference organized the symposium "negroes in the new world;' charles valentine noted "nearly all of these papers deal exclusively with negro communities that are exotic and/or marginal in one sense or another. conspicuously omitted from systematic attention here are the masses of urban and largely northern negroes ... " (quoted in whitten and szwed 1970:49). popular culture studies faced many of the same problems. academicians were largely unequipped or unwilling to engage with mass-mediated culture, especially in music, where commodified entertainment was anathema to both musicology and ethnomusicology. in general, musicologists entrenched themselves in western art music of the past, while ethnomusicologists studied the traditional music of "primitive" peoples, who were inscribed as: 1) physically removed from modernity in space; 2) culturally distant in practice; and 3) developmentally distant in time. traditional yet modern, rooted in oral and aural transmission but often written out in musical notation, labeled "popular" but comparable in many ways to "folk" music of non-western subjects, urban african american music was too exotic for musicologists and not exotic enough for ethnomusicologists. jazz is a useful entry point for considering the dearth of popular music scholarship in this period. currently invoked as ''america's classical music" (taylor 1986), jazz was all but ignored in the academy until the establishment of popular music studies in the 1980s, with important exceptions including marshall stearns's the story of jazz (1956). at the time, stearns was the lone scholar of jazz in an english department (where many jazz scholars make their home today), but he was not completely alone in the academy: a hand­ ful of other scholars made early contributions, including alan merriam and richard waterman, both ethnomusicologists who studied with herskovits and played jazz. 8 merriam, known more for his disciplinary writings on the field of ethnomusicology than for playing jazz clarinet, contributed three immatt sakakeeny portant studies on jazz, but they were mostly bibliographical and sociological in nature (merriam and benford 1954; merriam and mack 1960; merriam and gamer 1968). when it came time for his major fieldwork projects, he abandoned jazz for studies in native american music and the music of zaire. waterman played jazz bass and dedicated much of his research to african american music, but his overall body of work is small and contains little ethnography of jazz (r. waterman 1948; 1952; 1963). by the time charles keil began his graduate studies in anthropology at the university of chicago in the early 1960s, there was not a single ethno­ graphic monograph on jazz or any other urban black music in the united states. in 1966, this omission would be rectified by the appearance of ur­ ban blues. chicago was a center of the urban blues scene where popular practitioners such as b. b. king, bobby bland, and ray charles performed extensively. keil's monograph situated these popular performers and their audiences within the current social climate and the practice of daily life in 1960s urban black america. movements in african american ethnography keil's insistence that urban african american entertainers were appro­ priate subjects for thorough ethnographic and musicological study separates urban blues from its predecessors inside and outside of ethnomusicology. keil writes, "the field of afro-western music offers an ideal laboratory for the study of diffusion, acculturation, syncretism, and the emergence, ac­ ceptance, rejection of styles through time-all matters of importance to anthropology both theoretical and applied" (1966a:31). in the academic climate of the time, this was equivalent to tipping anthropology on its head and attacking institutional perceptions of acceptable subject matter, which had sedimented into the binary oppositions previously mentioned in this essay and reproduced in table 1. in each case, keil chose the second member of the pair when status quo dictated the first as the proper focus for ethnography. urban blues deals primarily with style, symbols, and meaning in elec­ tric blues music and masculine roles in urban, working -class black culture. the introduction was a sociopolitical manifesto in which keil argued that racial and ethnic struggles in the united states were principally concerned with cultural difference and the recognition of plural identities: "can a shared gene pool riot? no ... nor can races conflict; but cultures can" (keil 1966a:3). to support his thesis and locate music's position within the civil rights movement, keil followed his mentor clifford geertz in using "thick description" to unravel complex webs of symbols (geertz 1964; 1972), in151 152 current musicology table 1: urban blues was part of a representational shift in ethnography in the 1960s. criteria for inscribing ethnographic subjects as typiethnographic subjects as subjects cally represented in the 1960s represented in urban blues development: primitive modern group make-up: cohesive, monolithic diverse, heterogeneous locale: rural urban ethnographer's remote nearby relationship to locale: musical classification: folk popular musical dissemination: oral tradition commercial distribution terpreting the meaning of a backstage interview with b. b. king, a bobby blue bland performance, an episode of a talk radio program dedicated to the "soul" concept, a recording session at the fabled chess records studios, and the roles of blues stars, preachers and hustlers. working without the benefit of a substantial body of empirical literature, keil accumulated his own data and drew theory from sociology, psychol­ ogy, philosophy, linguistics, media studies, literature, music criticism, and radical/pacifist/anarchic propaganda, as well as musicology and anthro­ pology. in situating his own work among that of others, a pattern is detectable whereby keil acknowledges an epistemological debt while finding his own voice through polemical acts of writing and research. this is particularly evident in the relationships with his advisors at chicago, clifford geertz and david schneider in anthropology and leonard meyer in musicology. keil retrofitted meyer's theories of syntax, style, and meaning-applied to classical music in emotion and meaning in music (1956) and subsequent works-to serve his own agenda. style and meaning were two focal points of urban blues, but in his article "motion and feeling through music" (1966b), keil criticized meyer's syntactic analysis of music as an autonomous object, an approach that keil believed did not fully explain musical meaning in performance situations. in a later exchange with colleague steven feld in their book music grooves: essays and dialogues (1994), keil remembered his rejoinder to meyer as a pivotal moment in the shaping of a new analytical framework: [meyer 1 provoked not so much a dialogue as a kind of angry reaction ... i was deeply angry about this version of what music was about because it didn't explain john coltrane at all . .. the stuff that was dull syntactically was absolutely the greatest processually ... (keil and feld 1994:11-12)9 matt sakakeeny keil also had confrontational but productive relationships with his teachers in the department of anthropology at the university of chicago. geertz and schneider were pioneers of symbolic anthropology, interpreting symbols as vehicles of culture, with an emphasis on "culture" rather than "society" or "personality;' and on symbolic structures rather than on patterns of behavior (for example, see ortner 1984:129). keil revealed his debt to his mentors in the introduction to his second major work, tiv song (1979), in which he described searching for the "visions of cultural systems floating symbolically above the events of everyday life" (1979:6).10 in urban blues, geertz's "thick description" method was applied to an urban african american context in keil's interpretation of the "soul" as an "unspeakable essence;' which "both guides and is embodied in any contemporary blues ritual" (l966a:164)y not surprisingly, keil had his share of disagreements with his advisors in anthropology and even lost his fellowship after submitting a marxist paper about fieldwork-as-praxis that was dismissed as insufficiently rigor­ ous (christgau 1996). keilleft chicago for a year to study ethnomusicology at indiana university with alan merriam, who he praised in urban blues for being "consistently concerned with the relationship between music and culture" (1966a:204). but merriam, too, would disappoint keil for devoting too much space in his monographs to formal, structural analysis of music­ as-object, instead of probing how social structures and musical structures were intimately related. at odds at one level or another with many of his colleagues and teachers, keil felt most closely aligned with popular critics such as nat hentoff, martin williams, and particularly leroi jones. keil called jones-the playwright, poet, music critic, and author of blues people (1 963)-"the allen ginsberg of black nationalism" (keil1966a:39). with blues people, jones (who soon after took the muslim name imamu amiri baraka) made a monumental contribution to african american studies, crafting a narrative of musical development from enslavement to the civil rights era and the free jazz move­ ment. both keil and baraka were motivated and informed by struggles for racial equality; both were countercultural rebels with a mandate to inscribe the previously uninscribed; both centered expressive culture as the master trope for social and political change; and both operated under the principle that the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge had the potential to in­ spire action and bring about change. (unfortunately, both also constructed a male-centered thesis that largely eradicated the role of women from cul­ tural production and discourse, a problem i will address in my conclusion). beyond these similarities, the relationship between the work of keil, a white social scientist, and baraka, an african american culture critic, may be de­ scribed as complementary. published while keil was doing fieldwork, blues 153 154 current musicology people is a comprehensive history of black music in the united states and an expansive consideration of all classes of african american social order. urban blues is a synchronic case study, using a specific musical practice (ur­ ban blues) of a particular group (urban working class african, americans) in a single location (the south side of chicago) as a prism to investigate the nation's social and political climate. in the postscript to the second edition of urban blues ([1966] 1991), keil praised baraka for celebrating "blues as a core metaphor in process, the center of a worldview that incorporates jazz, literature, aesthetics, philosophy, criticism, and political strategy;' and referred to blues people as "probably the one blues book to have if you're having only one" ([ 1966] 1991:236). keil, however, faulted baraka for drawing boundaries between negro music as representative of negro america and white music as representative of "mainline" (white) america. keil saw american music as a conversation across racial lines, a dialogue marked by appropriation and imbalance, but a dialogue nonetheless. he observed, "it is simply incontestable that year by year, american popular music has come to sound more and more like african popular music" (l966a:45). in this way keil aligned himself with two african american literary icons: albert murray, who argued that african americans were "omni americans," an inextricable part of "mainstream" us culture (murray 1970), and ralph ellison, who, in his review of blues people, asserted that american music was essentially american negro mu­ sic (ellison 1964:247-58). ellison's review relentlessly criticized baraka's understanding of authenticity as inflexibly linked to class and color, and launched a contested dialogue that ran in public for years. when asked after ellison's death in 1994 ifhe had any "poignant memories" of the esteemed author, baraka responded with a single sentence: "ralph and i were always on opposite sides of the fence-from the time that i was a young man and he criticized blues people as being overly concerned with social relations in society rather than music" (baraka, et al. 1994:37). just as keil could not fully embrace blues people, he also found fault with ellison's critique of blues people, and positioned himself somewhere in between the two authors. keil saw ellison as representative of the black bourgeoisie, speaking for himself and not "the man in the street." he elaborated: "the secular values ellison has in mind are freedom, justice, and equality rather than wine, women, and song" (l966a:10, 11). though this statement unambiguously essentializes gender roles (men as seekers of free­ dom and justice, women as purveyors of pleasure), it somewhat paradoxically relates keil's progressive understanding of the tension-filled dialectics that define black-white relations: "most urban negroes have both goals-white acceptance and negro identity-dimly in view"(l966a:12). or, to rephrase matt sakakeeny using keil's problematic analogy, his version of black urban identity included freedom, justice, and equality and wine, women, and song. the competing discourses about class division, representation, and the cohesiveness of african americans as a group has only become more heated in the ensuing years; the constructed nature of blackness as a fixed category has been the subject of piercing interrogations by cornel west and stuart hall, among others (e.g., west 1990; hall 1988). seen as a continuation of the debates between w. e. b. dubois and booker t. washington about the stratification of african american society, the triangular conversation be­ tween ellison, baraka, and keil offers an interesting window into this debate at a particularly turbulent historical moment. what complicates this conversation is the issue of subjectivity and repre­ sentation. keil's whiteness bestowed him with privilege within the academy at a time when the authority of the white male subject position was rarely questioned. in the decades that have followed, however, the hierarchical relationship between those in this position and the various "others" they study has been problematized. in her canonical article "can the subaltern speak?" gayatri spivak traced how researchers become masters and au­ thorities of subaltern peoples through the process of inscription, and are thus "complicit in the persistent constitution of other as the self's shadow" (spivak 1988:280). the specific case of white male researchers representing african american music was discussed by ethnomusicologist kyra gaunt (2000) in her review of keil and feld's music grooves (1994). gaunt was particularly attuned to the authors' racial and gendered reflexivity in a dia­ logue about "growing up white in a world of black music" (keil and feld 1994:2) and how their interpretations obscure the historical exclusion of other possible views: i am deeply concerned that one of the hooks of music grooves-white male bonding through black music-insidiously becomes the hook that draws readers attention away from critiquing the unconscious complicity of whites, limiting the participation of african american and african women and men in vanguard musical scholarship and discourse within the so-called ivory tower. (gaunt 2000:180) there is no question that keil and feld avoided addressing the lack of par­ ticipation of black scholars in discourse about black music in their dialogue in music grooves. in urban blues, written nearly thirty years earlier, keil occasionally takes an essentialist stance in his representation of african americans as a group (a topic i will address in my conclusion), but he is also outspoken-bordering on confessional-about his subject position as a liberal white male. urban blues was the first ethnomusicological monograph 155 156 current musicology written in the first person, a stance which is made clear in the first sentence of the preface: "much of who i am comes out in this book;' writes keil. "white liberals, black militants, and others of varying pigmentation and persuasion hear in the blues essentially what they want to hear ... i claim no exemption from this pattern" (1966a:vii). keil writes with authority in urban blues, but the voices of urban blues musicians are not silenced. the musicians are speaking subjects whose conversations are quoted and whose lyrics are analyzed; they are named subjects who populate the book as fully modern individuals; they are socially-constituted subjects and keil is candid and unapologetic about his role in constituting them. keil's identification as a white radical was not a defensive position but a constructive one from which he conceived of music as inseparable from political and social practice. urban blues and civil rights keil's ultimate goal was to abolish racial designations altogether: "i use the term 'negro' in connection with a way oflife, a culture, and in no other sense" (1966a:4). he added in retrospect, "it was not that i wanted to be black. my motive was simply to playa clear and strong part in righting the wrongs of american racism by celebrating black alternatives to the 'great white way'" ([1966] 1991:226). the civil rights movement served as much more than a backdrop to urban blues, it was decisive in its making. keil was the first white author to contribute an essay to muhammad speaks, the black muslim publication. urban blues is dedicated to malcolm x, and the relationship between the ambitious white graduate student and the revolutionary black leader evidences how keil's progressive racial politics stimulated his ethno­ graphy of urban black expression. as an undergraduate student, keil sought out malcolm x and brought him to yale and later to chicago: going down to the temple restaurant and being escorted in by brother joseph, the bodyguard, to sit with malcolm for an hour, hour and a half, two hours at a clip to just talk with him. those were the dialogues that sure as hell shaped my life at the same time coltrane's music was getting my whole head to think differently. (keil and feld 1994:14) the civil rights movement, and particularly malcolm x's militant leadership, impelled keil to consider african american entertainment as appropriate for anthropological study. keil went further in distancing himself from white liberal colleagues who sought to ease racial tensions in the distant south while remaining oblivious to the inequalities in their own backyard: matt sakakeeny the idealistic undergraduate students who flock to a folk-blues concert at the university of chicago are not particularly interested in slum con­ ditions, but can be overheard at intermission discussing last summer's crusade in mississippi or a forthcoming church reconstruction project somewhere in the deep south. it is so much easier to reminisce with old bluesmen, collect rare records, and write histories than it is properly to assess a career-conscious singer, analyze an on-going blues scene, and at­ tempt to understand the blues as a chicago negro in 1966 understands them. (l966a:38) keil leapt across ideological and institutional boundaries that could no longer be perceived as anything but racist, and questioned whether it was a less formidable task for "well-meaning" researchers to traverse the mason­ dixon line than venture outside the confines of the university campus in the predominantly black south side of chicago. more controversially, he questioned the motivations and goals of the black assimilationist leaders that white liberals most admired: there is a fantasy, a dream, an ideal, a plan current today which is based on the notion that the negro problem can be solved by making the negro white, by assimilating and integrating him in the same manner that every other immigrant has been assimilated and swallowed up in monolithic america ... an end to segregation is one thing; achieving a lasting sense of one's humanity as a black man or a white man living in america is another and more difficult problem. (l966a:196-97) in the process of consecrating martin luther king jr. and malcolm x, the conflicting ideas of the assimilationists and the separatists have become blurred over time. but in a few paragraphs written from the front lines, keil showed the division with prescient clarity and connected it to hypocritical patterns within the intellectual left. in a prismatic episode mentioned without awareness of its eventual historical potency, keil described passing the time before his interview with b. b. king by watching martin luther king jr. give a speech on television: now as i waited for b. b. to come off stage i began to draw comparisons in my mind between the two kings-the preacher and the bluesman-both leaders in their respective fields, both eloquent spokesmen for their people, both from the deep south ... the preacher used two phrases over and over again as he improvised the conclusion of his address, "let freedom ring ... i have a dream" ... gradually mov[ingj the audience to an emotional peak ... b. b. king rarely fails to give his listeners much the same kind of emotional lift ... more than a singer or guitarist-he is a personality, a spokesman, a culture hero perhaps ... with martin luther king, the com­ plaints are general, political, and phrased in terms of a call to action; b. b. 157 158 current musicology king's concerns are specific, deeply personal, and have little or nothing to do with social protest. (l966a:96, 98) keil was similarly able to find commonalities between the adamantly radical black nationalists and the typically more moderate audiences in the "soul" movement: both muslim and soul movements are attempting to achieve the same end-self-respect ... the soul brothers seem to be saying: "let us fight for our rights ... because we value our cultural identity and wish to be able to develop it and express it without fearing punishment from the white majority" ... to say, "b. b. king is my main man," is to say, "i take pride in who i am." (l966a:189) keil drew parallels on issues of ideology and representation between the overtly political movement and the intentionally apolitical entertainers. his ability to make these connections between politics and popular culture is still remarkable today, in an age when research on embodied meaning and coded messages in contemporary forms like hip-hop is commonplace. fieldwork in urban blues the ethnographic settings described in urban blues are richly diverse and the methodologies innovative (it must not be forgotten that the book was based on a master's thesis). whether socializing with musicians backstage at the regal theatre, or attending a bobby bland show at the ashland au­ ditorium in chicago with "perhaps two white faces in the crowd;' keil was approaching new sites in novel ways (1966a:96, 11s). in one of the earliest ethnographies of a commercial recording session, keil gleefully surmised that "one afternoon at a recording session can often reveal more about a current style than all the books, interviews, and performance observations put together" (l966a:ss-93). in another episode, he turned the interna­ tional blues festival at the ashland auditorium into an ethnographic site, interviewing ninety-seven audience members and collecting quantitative data about the reception of urban blues (1966a: 155). urban blues was keil's debut as an ethnographer and author, begin­ ning a career that would take him to africa, middle america, macedonia, and elsewhere. it was also the end of a process of occupational searching that started in his undergraduate years: "i began thinking of myself as a fieldworker during a two-week study cruise in the west indies, in the spring of 1960, and a summer work-study experience in nigeria that same year" (keil and feld 1994:32). in the postscript to urban blues, keil described these trips as instigating a process of "blackening" himself, which "probably matt sakakeeny culminated in the writing of urban blues and that ended in nigeria, 1966, where a massacre of igbo citizens ... punctured my beliefs that the black ways were better and more beautiful than white, that africa is essentially superior to europe morally and aesthetically" ( [1966] 1991 :225). this return trip to nigeria for dissertation fieldwork coincided with the biafran civil war that became the basis for keil's second book, tiv song. keil refused to publish tiv song until 1979, unwilling to make public any ethnographic data that could be used to support the ethnic cleansing of igbos. in the introduction to tiv song, keil described his conundrum as the product of "a triple ambivalence or sense of contradiction that is built into the profession of anthropology:" i don't like the imperialist way of the world, the ever-tightening exploi­ tive grip of our greedy economy on the rest of humanity, but i enjoy the specialist's benefits from this system each day ... i don't like anthropology's role in this systematic oppression, but here i am making my second report on the poor and the powerful. (1979:4) in his reflexive and revelatory admission about the ethnographer's mediating role in issues relating to public policy, keil was yet again prophetic: policy concerns and the place of the ethnographer have become central to ethnomusicology and anthropology since the shift towards globalization studies in the 1980s. reaction to urban blues researchers from across disciplines and outside the academy took note of urban blues on its publication in 1966. the new york times book review, the chicago tribune, and the atlantic monthly gave glowing reviews. africanist robert farris thompson wrote of his friend, "he makes us mistrust some of our deepest assumptions about a basic 'culture of poverty'" (thompson 1967:259) and musicologist gilbert chase favorably compared keil to herskovits in his article ''afro-american anthropology and black music" (1971). however, negative reactions were inevitable considering keil's unwilling­ ness to limit his treatment to musical analysis. musicologist ernest borneman was "let down by a work which promises to tell us something about music and then tells us, at best, something about the behavior of musicians and their audiences:" what i want to learn from it, if i spend my money to buy a book on this subject, is something about the musical structure of urban blues; and this precisely is what the book does not give me. there are no musical examples 159 160 current musicology at all; no musicological analysis is provided beyond the standard informa­ tion about the chord structure of the twelve-bar blues. if the author can as much as read music, he does not reveal that knowledge. (borneman 1970:169-70) it was not in the arena of formal musicological study where the most heated debates on urban blues occurred. more substantive grumblings came from those who had taken up the mantle of e. franklin frazier and gunnar myrdal, as keil noted in his 1991 postscript: "the best debate growing imme­ diately out of urban blues was between sociologists bennett berger (1967), reviewing the book critically for its lack of class analysis, and robert blauner, defending it in his essay 'black culture: myth or reality' (1970)" (keil [1966] 1991 :236). berger, writing from the "poverty of culture" school, believed that the path out of poverty for mrican americans was through the adoption of white norms, and faulted urban blues for not equating racial uplift with assimilation. blauner situated these comments within a broader pattern of academic treatment of african american subjects: "the positive assertion of negro culture has been confined to nationalist and political circles ... it has not been defended through analysis and evidence in the academic field" (1970:349). blauner further inflamed berger and other scholars by suggest­ ing that their pursuits amounted to a form of neo-racism: superficially, this argument seems to say that blacks are as american as whites and therefore, their cultural orientations reflect their social class position ... this position is historically tied to past patterns of negating or appropriating the cultural possessions and productions of black people. (1970:364) by 1970, keil's urban blues was integral to a scholarly awakening of the distinctive and positive characteristics of african american culture. the civil rights movement provided the impetus for keil and others to take up black cultural practices with seriousness and rigor. in conclusion, i will pursue whether keil's work has remained relevant in the decades following the movement. situating urban blues much has changed in the years since urban blues was published. keil was prescient in choosing his topics: urban ethnography, popular culture, and afro-america have all become widely accepted areas of study. the mere ap­ pearance of an ethnographic case study focusing on urban african american cultural practices in the united states would no longer constitute a sub stan tial disciplinary disruption. yet it is worth surveying recent activity within matt sakakeeny various disciplines and questioning why there remain comparatively few monographs alongside urban blues and why keil's work is rarely referenced in contemporary black music research. research on african american culture has become established within the academy and professional opportunities for black scholars have increased. an interdisciplinary movement has loosely gathered under the banner of black studies, and music is often upheld as the preeminent trope of black expressive culture (e.g., gilroy 1993). the parallel emergence of gender studies has created an important space for dialog about women, race, and music, particularly the exclusion of women from the study of african american music (e.g., davis 1998; tucker 2000; griffin 2001). these recent shifts offer a pertinent, if indirect, critique of urban blues, which focused exclusively on male performance and offered an analysis of masculine "hustler" and "preacher" roles that essentialize black male identity (keil 1966a:143-163). keil's undertheorizing of gender roles led him to make sweeping assumptions that border on the paternalistic: "the traveling life and its attendant woman troubles (or role conflicts, it you prefer) provide of course the source material for the most typical blues lyrics and, more important, enable the singer to deliver those lyrics night after night with absolute conviction" (1966a: 181). this statement not only undermines keil's objective of demonstrating the diversity of black culture, it also circumscribes black performance according to ethnocentric notions of authenticity, as if urban blues singers were incapable of projecting emotions that didn't spring forth from immediate experience. work in cultural studies-and particularly in gender studies and black studies-has sought to offset the essentialist understandings that often underlie our most basic assumptions about identity. however, there is a recognizable disconnect between disciplines, evidenced in the scarcity of ethnographic work on african american culture outside of anthropol­ ogy. gender studies and black studies often privilege critical theory and historical excavation at the expense of the more empirical and experiential method of ethnographic fieldwork. a committed and sustained dialogue between the established and emergent disciplines could only benefit both (harrison 1995:47). within anthropology, the discourse on race diminished after flourish­ ing in the 1960s and early 1970s. in a comprehensive review article, paye harrison blamed this silence on the "progressive" act of debunking racial determinism: the new understandings of race as a social rather than a bio­ logical construct led to the abandonment of race as a scientific category (harrison 1995; see also mukhopadhyay and moses 1997:520-21). studies of racial groups were decentered by studies of ethnic groups until the late 161 162 current musicology 1980s, when a revitalization of race-centered analysis emphasized the con­ struction of "racial formations" and the "racialization" of ethnic groups (e.g., omi and winant 1986). in much of the recent anthropological writing on race and afro-america, however, there has been a general failure to pursue a discursive engagement with music despite the efforts in cultural studies and historiography to valorize black music. in historical musicology and ethnomusicology, a major paradigmatic shift in the early 1980s recognized popular culture as a suitable object of inquiry, and thus greatly altered both disciplines. the ethnographic and sociocultural study of music making and reception in ethnomusicology has thoroughly overtaken formal musical analysis as the principal means of understanding musical meaning. yet, as ronald radano and philip v. bohl­ man point out in their introduction to music and the racial imagination (2000), those in musicology and ethnomusicology have failed to theorize race as an important dimension to musical study (2000: 1_5).12 the polemical reassessment of the place of race in music studies achieves critical mass in radano's lying up a nation: race and black music (2003). positioning urban blues within radano's valuation will provide an appropriate conclusion to my own reappraisal of keil's work. in his opening chapter, radano covers the landscape of black musical study with exhausting comprehensiveness, and urban blues could be clas­ sified within at least two of the epistemological strains he outlines. radano conceivably envisions keil as an "emancipatory scholar" who sought to free black music from what he calls the narratives of exclusion and/or contain­ ment in the academy (2003:30-32). several researchers of gospel and other african american genres have "opted for an assertive, affirmative scholastics that celebrates perceived racial unities" (2003:32). according to radano, these afrocentric interpretations are "merely inverting the assumptions of european superiority and disavowing the historical and cultural complexities of africa in the name of a hegemonic black america" (2003:33). yet, urban blues resists categorization as an afrocentric project in several ways: 1) in its focus on a thoroughly urban, modern, assimilated music as opposed to more "rooted" genres such as gospel or rural blues; 2) in its emplacement of the music within a highly politicized american social movement; and 3) in its recognition of the multiplicity of black identities, or the "unstable ideological formation" of blackness that radano finds missing in much afrocentric scholarship (2003:36). keil's work might also be included within radano's epistemo­ logical genealogy of scholars who attempted to identify an african past within the cultural practices of an african american present, such as herskovits, merriam, waterman, abrahams, szwed, etc. (radano 2003:9; matt sakakeeny 33-36). while radano acknowledges the necessity of "claiming 'pastness'" in order to refute claims of cultural deficiency or erasure, he faults the re­ tentionists for reducing the "complexity of lived experience to a static and oversimplified phenomenology of blackness" (2003: 1 0) and for disregarding histories of rupture and displacement in the search for continuities. 13 this scholastic reconstruction leans towards presentism: a thorough consider­ ation of the particular historical moments and research conducted within those moments would acknowledge the battle faced by past researchers in dismantling the institutional and societal barriers supported by racists and anti-racists alike. the interventions of these scholars forced the recognition of racial practices that had been systematically disregarded, and contempo­ rary claims of oversimplification or the inherent essentialism of these efforts must be seen in this light. the development and ideational change that has taken place between herskovits's the myth of the negro past and lying up a nation reflects the shifting tides of racial ideologies within and beyond the academy over several tumultuous decades. determining precisely where urban blues fits within radano's schema necessarily involves speculation, as keil's work is not referenced in the text (secondary themes of urban blues are cited in two footnotes). can this omission be explained by the difficulty in positioning urban blues as rep­ resentative of a larger body of work because of its defiance of disciplinary boundaries and its challenge to established methodological and theoretical constructs? or was radano unable to polemically deconstruct urban blues with the same force that he tackled "emancipatory" and "retentionist" works because of keil's rigorous fieldwork, theoretical engagement, and prescient argument? radano's decision not to include urban blues in his extensive disciplinary review is unfortunately indicative of a larger pattern. though keil's book has never gone out of print and remains popular among blues audiences, it has not secured a prominent place in the academy. once the civil rights movement began to fade from public consciousness in the early 1970s, ur­ ban blues ceased to be identified as a transformative agent in the study of music, african american culture, and urban ethnography. why, for example, were bruno nettl's 1978 edited volume eight urban musical cultures and adelaida's reyes-schramm's "ethnic music, the urban area, and ethnomu­ sicology" from the following year considered pioneering works upon their appearance, more than a decade after the publication of urban blues? why do these works continue to be cited as foundational contributions to urban studies of music to the exclusion of urban blues? urban blues is simply not representative of a larger body of literature and has not spawned any identifiable descendants in ethnomusicology or 163 164 current musicology anthropology. as of this writing, it remains one of a handful of ethnographic monographs of an urban black music in the united states, a body of re­ search inversely proportional to the privileged position of african american popular music in the marketplace.14 regardless of the fact that keil was at the forefront of a disciplinary movement, spurred by a widespread political movement, the work he produced fits uneasily into subsequent paradigmatic taxonomies, disciplinary genealogies, and epistemological narratives. in 1978, john szwed and roger abrahams lamented the institutional pattern of under-recognizing previous scholarship, which they saw as espe­ cially pervasive in the research of african american culture. decades later, there is little evidence that the abundance of scholarship on racial practices, both inside and outside the field of black studies, has altered this pattern of forgetting. this essay is intended as one corrective, with the aim of recogniz­ ing keil's vision and reserving a space for urban blues in a more inclusive, less regimented disciplinary framework. notes thanks to aaron fox and john szwed for their comments on this essay. 1. keil's biography taken from keil and feld (1994:2,9,15,32) and christgau (1996). 2. a note on two choices of terminology: 1) ethnomusicology/anthropology: the terms occasionally appear interchangeably as i am focusing on ethnographic accounts of mrican american music by both anthropologists and ethnomusicolgists at a time when ethnography was not as central to ethnomusicological projects as it is today. 2) african american/black! negro/negro: i use the terms ''african american" and "black:' except when referring to previous writings which used "negro" or "negro," hence the appearance of loaded phrases such as "new world negro." 3. though boas did no ethnographic research on african americans, he frequently spoke out against racial injustice against blacks. in 1906, boas was invited by w. e. b. dubois to give the commencement address at atlanta university, where he spoke out against discrimina­ tion. see hyatt (1990:85-88). 4. much of john szwed's early work in african american anthropology has been collected in szwed (2005). 5. frazier was one of the few black social scientists employed by a white academic institution in the mid-twentieth century. for a discussion of the forces that limited black participation in anthropology, see drake (1978). 6. the phrase "culture of poverty" was later coined by sociologist oscar lewis in his book about families in a mexico city barrio (lewis 1961). 7. lomax maintained a contradictory relationship with contemporary black music, simul­ taneously fearing the transformation of "traditional" musics and celebrating the vitality of jazz and urban blues. 8. stearns was a professor at hunter college and founded the institute of jazz studies at rutgers university in 1966. other early academic jazz writings include: borneman (1944); slotkin (1946); m. berger (1947); and cameron (1954). matt sakakeeny 9. feld said of keil's article: "here's chuck, way out there, twenty years before critical cul­ tural studies, saying that analysis and criticism do have something to do with each other and that, contrary to the ethnomusicologists and cultural relativists who don't want to evaluate anything, there is a way to talk about what's a good groove completely apart from meyer's deferred gratification. it's an article that could have been as seminal twenty or twenty-five years later" (keil and feld 1994:158-59). 10. it is possible that schneider encouraged keil to pursue ethnographic research in the united states, as he was working on a major study of american kinship as a symbolic system at the time. see schneider ([1968]1980). 11. tellingly, there was no empirical data of urban blues practices to extend geertz's find­ ings, so keil convinced the host of a local talk show on chicago's largest black radio station, wvon, to devote a call-in program to the theme of "what is soul, how do you define it, who has it?" (1966a:166-170). 12. the critique of the absence of racial discourse in musicological study is also explored in born and hesmondhalgh (2000). 13. radano aligns himself here with the important intervention of sidney mintz and richard price, who argued in 1976 that because slaves did not share a unified african past or a unified experience once in america, "the africans in any new world colony in fact became a com­ munity and began to share a culture only insofar as, and as fast as, they themselves created them" (mintz and price [1976]1992:14). 14. though ethnography of urban black musical performance in the united states has in­ creased, i am only aware of a handful of published monographs: berliner (1994); monson (1996); mahon (2004); schloss (2004); and the ethnographically-informed texts, ramsey (2003); and rose (1994). references abrahams, roger d. 1964. deep down in the jungle: negro narrative folklore from the streets of philadelphia. hatboro, pa: folklore associates. allen, william e, charles p. ware, and lucy m. garrison. 1867. slave songs of the united states. new york: a. simpson. baraka, imamu amiri, et al. 1994. remembering ralph ellison. american visions 9 (4): 34-39. benedict, ruth. 1940. race: science and politics. new york: modern age books. berger, bennett. 1967. soul searching. transaction/society 4 (7). berger, monroe. 1947. jazz: resistance to the diffusion of a cultural pattern.journal of negro history 32: 461-94. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago and london: university of chicago press. , blauner, robert. 1970. black culture: myth or reality? in afro-american anthropology, edited by norman e. whitten and john e szwed, 347-66. new york: free press. boas, franz. 1911. abstract of the report on changes in bodily form of descendants of im­ migrants. washington: government printing office. ---. 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"hot" rhythm in negro music. journal of the american musicological society 1: 24-37. ---. 1952. african influence on the music of the americas. in acculturation in the ameri­ cas, edited by s. tax, 207-18. new york: nendeln, liechtenstein. ---.1963. on flogging a dead horse: lessons learned from the africanisms controversy. ethnomusicology 7: 83-87. west, cornel. 1990. the new cultural politics of difference. in out there: marginalization and contemporary cultures, edited by russell ferguson, martha gever, trinh t. minh -ha, and cornel west, 19-38. cambridge, ma and london: mit press. white, newman. 1928. american negro folk-songs. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. whitten, norman e. and john f. szwed, eds. 1970. afro-american anthropology. new york: free press. music analysis and the social life of jazz recordings by matthew w butterfield recorded music long ago relieved us of the hard labor of perform­ ing what we wanted to hear. it relieved us of the necessity of going to a concert hall. and now it has even relieved us of any need to listen. in the sound tracking of america-in the constantly segueing frag­ ments that fill our public and private spaces-music is merely the in­ escapable background, the relentless mood-setter, the arbiter and signal of proper behavior. -j. bottum elaine: but jerry! i'll be ostracized from the community! jerry: there's a community? all these years i've been living in a community and i never knew about it. -seinfeld music analysis and musical community in recent years, music theorists have taken an increased interest in jazz and produced more and more analytical studies of improvised jazz solos. 1 for many involved in jazz research, this has been an encouraging sign. most obviously, it has signaled the respectability jazz has attained within the musicological disciplines since the mid-1980s as a music worthy of de­ tailed criticism. it has also expanded the range and depth of jazz scholar­ ship, providing new points of entry into the field for emerging scholars who may otherwise have pursued a different course. more importantly, however, the growing sophistication of contemporary analytical methods has enriched our understanding of the nature of jazz improvisation, enabling us to ask better questions about the music than in the past. the expanding repertory of analyses also reflects the increased pres­ ence of jazz scholars in academic music departments. until fairly recently, analytical studies of jazz were relatively rare, and the possibility of making a career teaching and researching jazz from within the musicological disci­ plines was slim, at best. in the last twenty to thirty years, however, jazz edu­ cation has largely moved beyond the traditional community-based system of apprenticeship, documented in paul berliner's thinking in jazz (1994:36-59), and taken up residence inside the academy.2 music theocurrent musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 200l-spring 2002) © 2002 by the tmstees of columbia university in the city of new york matthew w. butterfield 325 rists who specialize in jazz, such as myself, are increasingly finding homes for themselves in music departments seeking either to develop a jazz stud­ ies curriculum or simply to diversify their range of course offerings. often working alongside jazz performance faculty, we now play an active role in training jazz musicians and in cultivating an audience for them among non-musicians. in this context, we have a better opportunity than ever be­ fore to affect the ongoing evolution of the jazz tradition, to influence its musical values, and thereby claim a position of greater relevance for local jazz communities.3 our involvement in those communities is paradoxical, however, for our analytical activities implicitly advance their dissolution. musical perform­ ance involving two or more participants typically serves an integrative so­ cial function. it is a form of face-to-face social interaction, which is to say that musically interacting individuals negotiate social relationships through performance, just as they do in other social-interactive contexts. the social bonds emanating from musical interaction tend to be particu­ larly strong, however, because making music requires that performers co­ ordinate a host of temporal and acoustic processes seldom shared in non­ musical interactions. for example, locking into a rhythmic groove with others, participating with them in the mutual articulation of time, typically implies a profound interpersonal connection: we rarely share the experi­ ence or expression of specific temporal processes with others for they tend to be personal, bound up with intimate processes of the body such as breathing or the beating of one's heart. when we breach this rhythmic privacy and participate with others in the maintenance of an exacting rhythmic groove, we signal some sort of visceral social connection that often feels quite intimate.4 this connection can extend to listeners and dancers as well to the extent that they are cognitively and emotionally in­ volved in the musical event and open to the shared experience it projects.5 musical performance itself is thus an "erotic" social practice-an ex­ pression of eros, the principle of attraction, union, and involvement which binds together-because participation in musical activity tends to encour­ age the formation of particularly intense social bonds among participants, thereby favoring the development of community.6 this is especially true of jazz. more than just a musical style, jazz is also a system of values shared by members of a community brought together by the socially productive forces of its musical activities. ideally, live jazz performance is social inter­ action par excellence: performers interact musically (and thus socially) with one another and with their audience, whose members participate in turn by evaluating the music and communicating their critical responses to one another and to the musicians as the music unfolds. the recurrence of this 326 current musicology collective interactive process in a series of musical performances with the same participants consolidates social relationships and ultimately fosters the formation of community.7 by contrast, analysis works against the erotic social function of music, for it is a solitary pursuit that privileges social isolation in listening: ana­ lysts work alone with scores, transcriptions, or sound recordings. the vari­ ous underlying musical processes and connections to which analysis typi­ cally addresses itself are accessible only through the elimination of face-to-face interactive contexts, which are distracting and inhibit the for­ mation of analytical insights. hence, as a component of the professional activities of music theorists, the doing or reading of analysis advocates a solitary musical experience, ideally a private "performance" situation in which specifically "musical" values are held distinct from and privileged over social ones. i am not suggesting that analysis is entirely noninteractive. mter all, an­ alysts do in some sense interact with composers or performers, as well as with their own readers. such interactions are mediated, however, and not face-to-face; their erotic potential is therefore attenuated. on the other hand, one might argue that communities of scholars do emerge after the fact of analysis when analysts engage in face-to-face exchanges of ideas at conferences, symposiums, or in other less formal contexts, even online through special-interest discussion groups. but there is a qualitative differ­ ence between the erotic effects of social interaction about music and social interaction through music. the former is really not so different from con­ versation about other things, like sports or fine dining, with regard to its integrative social potential. by contrast, the latter is more visceral, more immediate and direct, more emotional, and ultimately more powerful in terms of its erotic effects. the crucial point here is the actual fact of being there, where music itself serves as an interactive medium through which strong social bonds are formed and collective experience is shared and af­ firmed. the solitary listening contexts privileged by analysis thus largely result in the loss of the integrative social function of jazz performance practice, and thereby imply the dissolution of local jazz communities. this may perhaps seem trivial. mter all, what harm can mere music the­ orists do? does anyone outside of our field actually read music analysis anyway? the density of analytical writing, the complexity of our tech­ niques, and the impenetrability of music-theoretical jargon have effec­ tively instituted a barrier, shrouding our activities in mystery, ensuring that no one without the proper credentials (not even our parents) will have any idea what we do, much less suffer the pernicious effects of our influence. but the power of music theorists to affect the social function of music on a large scale lies less in our published accounts of musical works matthew w. butterfield 327 than in the musical values we advance in the classroom for both under­ graduate music majors and non-majors. analysis lies at the core of formal education in music. college and uni­ versity music departments generally require undergraduate majors to complete a more or less standard music theory sequence that incorporates some form of analysis, whether they intend to pursue a career in applied music or musicological research. most students find analysis to be quite difficult, often even painful, but we make them suffer through it because we see it as an invaluable mode of inquiry, a practice that makes one a better listener and a better musician. if nothing else, through analysis stu­ dents acquire a deeper and more detailed understanding of a specific mu­ sical work. ideally, however, they also learn the value of analytical think­ ing: they discover how the concepts of music theory can both illuminate and enliven their experience of music, and they learn to use the tools of analysis to enhance their skills at performing, composing, or just listening to music. in addition to theory courses for music majors, jazz theorists are often called upon to teach jazz history courses in order to accommodate the curricular multitasking needs of their departments. such courses have be­ come increasingly popular as general education offerings, for they tend to attract substantial numbers of non-majors and thereby bring increased funding to the department.8 students typically come to these classes with little or no background in music. consequently, like musicologists and ethnomusicologists who also provide such courses, we typically teach ac­ tive listening skills through a kind of informal style analysis. at the most basic level, students learn to discern the distinct timbre of each instru­ ment and to identify the prevailing mode, meter, and tempo of a tune. they also learn to recognize rhythmic grooves, textural types, and styles of accompaniment; to distinguish solo choruses from ensemble passages; to differentiate between improvised and composed melodies; and eventually, even to identify the form of a given tune. more importantly, they learn to analyze the relationships between these parameters in order to draw con­ clusions about musical style, such that they can situate a performance in an appropriate historical or cultural context. ideally, however, they move beyond simple categorization as they develop their listening skills and ultimately attain some degree of aptitude in evaluating the aesthetic quali­ ties of the music we ask them to listen to. thus music majors and non-majors alike get practice doing some form of analysis in their music courses. the difference between them at the un­ dergraduate level is really a matter of degree, however, and not kind. it lies primarily in the purpose and scope of their analytical activities, the level of sophistication and detail their analyses attain, and the degree of 328 current musicology formality each exhibits (music majors, after all, must actually write their analyses, while for non-majors analysis is primarily an aspect of listening). whether or not students ever achieve a high level of proficiency, however, the lesson they learn in the classroom is clear: music itself rewards analysis. it merits close scrutiny, for there is more to it than first meets the ear. as a form of highly focused, rigorously organized, active listening, analysis pro­ vides the most direct and thorough access to all the layers of meaning and emotional expression found in a musical work. it leads to very deep and moving experiences with music. analysis is thus positioned in both theory and history courses as a privi­ leged mode of listening, a highly valued way of experiencing music. if our teaching is successful, our students will continue to practice it in some form beyond the classroom. they may not actually write analyses or take any interest in reading them, but they may well find that doing a bit of analysis-however informally-helps them get to know individual pieces of music better and enhances their experience of them. this is surely a desirable outcome, but it carries with it significant social costs: we are training students today in ever greater numbers to deal with jazz in solitary analytical situations, but not in interactive performance situations. moreover, we are fostering their dependence on and preference for recordings, for conventional analytical practice positively requires record­ ings for the analysis of jazz improvisation: they enable repeated listening, which favors the kind of in-depth exploration that characterizes analysis; they guarantee the potential for intersubjective corroboration of analytical insights; and their textualization through transcription facilitates the ap­ plication of common analytical tools. indeed, from an analytical perspec­ tive, live performance can be quite maddening: the music simply flies by too quickly to grasp everything, such that the experience often feels in­ complete or inadequate, as though one has missed something important. recordings, however, allow one to capture and fully experience an abun­ dance of musical relationships unavailable to perception in live music con­ texts; one gains a greater sense of awareness and control over detail, en­ hancing the depth of the experience. thus recordings often seem more accessible and substantive, ironically more real than live performances. in this way, a music curriculum rooted in analysis tends to support and affirm a musical economy dominated by recordings. it does not cause that dominance, but it does not resist it either, and this has enormous implica­ tions for the well-being of local jazz communities, which depend on thriv­ ing live music scenes both for the financial survival of musicians and for the community-building function of their performance activities. the recording economy, like analysis, has tended increasingly of late to work against the erotic social potential of jazz performance practice for a variety matthew w. butterfield 329 of reasons: it transforms the social relations of jazz music-making activities; it has had a significant impact on the way americans value jazz and relate to jazz musicians; and it has had far-reaching effects on the social life of jazz performance events. accordingly, before examining how we might use analysis to challenge and subvert the implications of this economy rather than sustaining its dominance, we must evaluate the social life of recordings. transfonnations: the social, economic, and political effects of recording the history of jazz is coterminous with and inextricably linked to the history of radio and recording technology. jazz musicians have always de­ pended to a greater or lesser extent on these media for their survival­ they have an obvious financial stake in the commodity market they sup­ port. since radio stations adopted the disk jockey format in the late 1930s, airplay on jazz radio has served two interrelated economic functions for jazz musicians: (1) it advertises a performer's new and old recordings, thereby generating royalties for the artist and profits for the record label; and (2) it popularizes individual musicians and bands, thus maintaining their value and demand on the performance circuit. conversely, live per­ formance events themselves advertise an artist's recordings. high sales then ensure further recording opportunities, and the cycle starts again when these recordings reach listeners through jazz radio. this economy has been present throughout much of the history of jazz; in fact, it has been largely constitutive of that history. but advancements in recording technology have ultimately transformed the social value of recorded music. recordings of early jazz generated considerable excite­ ment as a result of their novelty and the increasingly wide range of music they made available to listeners. because of their poor sound quality, how­ ever, they could only serve as an impoverished simulacrum of live per­ formance; they could not supplant the real thing.9 today, on the other hand, modern digital recording technology and high-fidelity stereo play­ back systems make possible flawless performances with the most exquisite experience of musical sound imaginable. due to the situational vagaries of live performance contexts and the fallibility of human performers (and sound technicians), recorded listening often offers a better acoustic experi­ ence of the music today; in this way, it is actually the performance that provides an imperfect simulacrum of the recording. in part for this rea­ son, recordings have become the dominant mode of reception for music in the united states; many people simply find them more fulfilling than live music. this state of affairs is extremely profitable to those on the production side of the recording business. when musicians compose or perform on 330 current musicology commission, they typically receive income for their services only once, and from a single source: the individual or organization who commissioned the work or performance. the cost to this party is usually quite steep, of course. on the other hand, public concerts for which a fee can be charged to each individual in attendance enables musicians and others involved in the production of the concert to receive payment from a much larger pool of consumers (potentially hundreds or even thousands) for a single performance. the cost per consumer is thereby reduced, but the profits generated can be considerably higher. with recordings, however, each performance can be heard and purchased by an infinite number of con­ sumers at a relatively low cost. one performance then generates as many payments as there are consumers. recordings thus have the potential to generate the maximum profits per performancejo costs of production are much higher and the financial risk is unquestionably greater, but the pos­ sible payoff makes it worthwhile. most of the money goes to the record la­ bel, of course, for contracts in the music business are typically structured to exploit the performers. but musicians do at least gain notoriety from recordings, especially when they receive air time on jazz radio, and this es­ tablishes their marketability on the live performance circuit. thus, as everyone in the music business knows, the real money ultimately lies in recordings, and the challenge for musicians is to land a recording con­ tract with a major label that has access to a national or international distri­ bution network. there are significant social implications to the dominance of recorded music today, however. to begin with, jazz musicians tend to take a more compositional approach to improvisation in the recording studio. they leave less to chance, for there is quite a lot at stake: recordings give a jazz musician's peers and other knowledgeable members of the jazz commu­ nity the opportunity for repeated listening and intense critical scrutiny; poorly received recordings can be very damaging to an artist's career. consequently, in the studio, jazz musicians are more likely to plan their solos in terms of motivic development and broad dynamic, registral, tex­ tural, and rhythmic intensifications. modern recording technology then allows them to edit errors or blemishes to ensure the highest quality for the product they will ultimately present to the jazz market. ll this has not always been the case, however. it took time for musicians to adjust to the situational particularity of the recording studio and the unique social and musical potentials it offered. according to jody ber­ land, this is the way new cultural technologies seem to work in general: [marshall mcluhan] contends that each new medium adopts the "content" of its predecessor and thereby disguises its real historical efficacy. another way of putting this is that cultural hardware prematthew w. butterfield 331 cedes the software that will constitute its content. as brecht said of radio, it finds a market, and then looks for a reason to exist. the hardware is initially promoted through software appealing to a tar­ geted market on the basis of already-established tastes: early gramo­ phone records, for instance, were mainly recordings of classical music, because it was the middle class who could afford the gramo­ phones, and classical music made gramophones respectable .... similarly early cds were either classical music or re-releases from the 1960s. as the hardware becomes more widely available, new software (radio programs, video games, cds) emerges for a larger, more frag­ mented market. (berland 1992:43-44) berland speaks here in terms of the larger economy from the perspective of marketing and the technological development of new commodities. but we can adopt this framework to illuminate how musicians themselves approach working with new technologies. in the early days of sound recording, musicians initially treated the recording studio (i.e., the new "hardware") as they had always treated a conventional theater or concert hall: a microphone merely substituted for an actual audience. in other words, they brought the concert frame (i.e., the old "software") with them into the recording studio.12 time in the studio was expensive, and record­ ing techniques were initially quite primitive, so the performers were under some pressure to make an adequate recording in just two or three takes; imperfections abounded, much as in live performance. as the technology developed, however, musicians and recording technicians became aware of new possibilities for ensuring high quality performances. multi-track recording equipment made possible the recording, mixing, and mastering of a performance part by part, thereby eliminating the need to pretend in the "liveness" of the studio situation. a new framework (i.e., new "soft­ ware") has thus emerged governing musicians' understanding of perform­ ance activities in the studio. this has allowed new social patterns and com­ positional possibilities to arise, such that it is now feasible to record and release "performances" that never actually took place as performances.13 this is a well-known aspect of pop music recording practices, but it has become increasingly common in jazz as well. for example, in recording his 1995 album mmtc (monk, miles, trane & cannon), freddie hubbard had saxophonist vincent herring and drummer carl allen "[lay] down many of the tracks so hubbard could record his parts in various sessions over a ten-month period" (shuster 1995:22). guitaristjohn scofield em­ ployed a similar procedure to accommodate wayne shorter on the for­ mer's 1996 cd quiet. scofield and most of his ensemble recorded their parts in february of that year and then sent the tapes to shorter in los angeles, where he overdubbed his parts: "we just comped when there was • 332 current musicology to be a solo, pretending wayne was playing. then, when he recorded, he responded to that" (quoted in stewart 1996:26). what is telling here is that neither scofield nor his down beat interviewer zan stewart express the slightest surprise or embarrassment that shorter never actually played his part with the other performers-the practice of overdubbing has be­ come that mundane, even in jazz. listeners, on the other hand, still expe­ rience the recording as though the musicians were all co-present during the recorded performance. the final product thus effectively masks from public view a radical transformation of the social relations of jazz perform­ ance practice. this is truly an extraordinary state of affairs: recording not only eliminates face-to-face interaction with an audience, but also absolves musicians of the need to interact with other live bodies while making mu­ sic, should such interaction prove to be inconvenient! technological ad­ vancements have thus altered the social meaning of jazz performance as it takes place in the recording studio. musical interaction there is largely mediated; as a result, it loses much of its erotic social potential. according to richard bauman, however, mediated communication does often serve one function that conventional dyadic, face-to-face social interaction does not: it tends to enact the authority of the "source utterance" -the original statement that is relayed through a mediator to a secondary target audience. that is, through mediation, the original speaker (or per­ former) acquires power and authority: [m]ediational routines ... play out the process of authorization in­ sofar as they demonstrate by their very design the dominance of the temporally prior source utterance over the target utterance [i.e., the relayed message]. the mediator's replication of the source utter­ ance, by preserving its integrity and displaying special care in its re­ production, amounts to an act of discursive submission, the subordi­ nation of present discourse to discourse that emanates from the past. moreover, i would suggest, submission to the form of the source ut­ terance has a concomitant effect on the rhetorical power of the text: upholding the integrity of the form opens the way to acceptance of the validity of the message. in this way ... mediational routines ... are reflexive enactments of the process by which discourse is in­ vested with authority. (bauman 2001) with recording, the source utterance takes place in the studio. it is repli­ cated and relayed to its ultimate target audience through lp, cassette, or compact disc via some playback device. this mediation invests the per­ former(s) and the performance with authority in several ways. first, the performance acquires significance as a message targeted not at a mere in­ dividual, but at millions of anonymous potential listeners. second, the abmatthew w. butterfield 333 sence of the musicians during the playback of recordings sets them apart socially, for they are unavailable for social interaction with ordinary listen­ ers. instead, they are defined as a special class of people with social access to one another, but to whom the general public may not communicate di­ rectly. third, the availability of the recorded performance in commodity form testifies that someone with some degree of control over the techno­ logical media of sound reproduction-i.e., someone with power-has al­ ready evaluated the performance and deemed it worthy of recording and distribution. fourth, the performance carries a price tag: it is not just a val­ ued utterance, but one worthy of financial sacrifice on the part of the con­ sumer. note that commodification here in no way undermines or contra­ dicts the authority or artistic value of the recorded performance, as lewis hyde (1979) would argue. instead, commodification itself actually enacts the authority and value of this performance. thus in addition to transforming the social relations of jazz perform­ ance, recording alters the social stature of musicians fortunate enough to obtain contracts with good record labels. they become "recording artists," celebrities within the larger jazz community. their activities thus acquire a special significance beyond that of ordinary musicians, for it is these indi­ viduals who get interviews in jazz trade magazines like down beat or jazztimes, whose music is played and discussed on jazz radio and is sub­ jected to critical review by music theorists and others who practice music analysis. more importantly, because recording invests jazz musicians with authority, it is generally only recording artists who play consequential roles in jazz history; other musicians participate in this history only insofar as their influence ultimately infiltrates the recording studio in some tangi­ ble form. lastly, it is primarily recording artists whose activities are typi­ cally documented by historians, ethnomusicologists, and journalists, by whom they are thus understood and represented as the principal culture­ bearers of the jazz tradition. for these reasons, recording artists today comprise the core constituency of what is commonly understood as the jazz community; they are its honorary members, and their activities and practices define what it means to be a jazz musician. oddly, then, it is the fact of recording that ultimately produces this community as a social group, and not necessarily active participation in musical activity-especially outside of new york. this has had profound social ramifications at the local level, however, for "local" musicians (i.e., those of limited renown without widely distributed recordings) have little cachet on the jazz market. they lack the authority of the recording artist, for as locals, they are too available to ordinary folk to be perceived as ex­ traordinary musicians; few people in general seem to go out of their way to hear them play. instead, jazz fans are drawn increasingly to concert 334 current musicology events featuring established recording artists from out of town in lieu of casual nights out at local jazz clubs. those musicians with serious talent and ambition are usually forced to go to new york in pursuit of success, thus draining the local talent pool and diminishing the attractiveness of local jazz as a nightlife commodity. fewer and fewer jazz clubs are then able to survive in this financial climate, so fewer employment opportuni­ ties remain available for local jazz musicians. the net result, i believe, has been a decline in participation at the local level and the steady dissolution of local jazz communities. 14 there are further social effects of the dominance of recorded music in america today bearing more on the experience of listeners. as observed above, recordings are essential for the analytical practices commonly culti­ vated in college music courses, and they do offer the potential for very deep, emotional experiences with music. the more compositional ap­ proach taken by jazz musicians to improvisation in the recording studio is intended in part to accommodate the kind of focused, or "active," listen­ ing undertaken in these contexts. but we need not attend to music actively when listening to recorded music. recordings free our musical experiences from performance events, such that we can listen to music anywhere at any time to supplement any conceivable activity. we might listen alone or in the company of others. our attention may rest on the music itself, or on any number of extramu­ sical pursuits-after all, the performers cannot be offended if we ignore them for a while, or stop paying attention altogether. as a result, we begin to separate musical sound from the conventions of audience social behav­ ior traditionally associated with music of a given style. for example, we do not need to sit quietly in rapt attention while listening to a recording of a brahms string quartet, nor is there any reason to applaud at the end of a fine improvised jazz solo on a cd. in fact, with recordings, listeners fre­ quently look to music not for the richly textured musical experience ac­ quired through analysis, but for the mood that it sets, the atmosphere it creates as accompaniment to our various nonmusical activities, such as ex­ ercising or cleaning one's dingy apartment. in this "muzakification" of our listening habits, music recedes rapidly into the background of our social experience of musical situations rather than constituting the main line of activity in the foreground of those circumstances. record producers and radio station programming directors have taken note of this trend on the part of consumers and have begun building radio playlists around this mode of listening. they rely on the marketing re­ search of agencies like the new jersey-based firm broadcast architecture (ba), founded in 1988. ba applies the "mix-master" test to new record­ ings to determine their potential to attract listeners and improve ratings. as reported in down beat, the test works as follows: matthew w. butterfield 335 about 100 people gather in a hotel ballroom. each cradles a little remote control box in their hands with a dial. music plays over a speaker system in 10-second sound bytes. occasionally, it's longer12 seconds, maybe 15. the participants listen to about 600 sound bytes in two-and-a-half hours. they turn the dial one way if they like the song, the other way if they loathe it. the scores range from zero to 100. a score of 70 or better means airplay is likely. below 70 and it's usually history. in a nearby room, station officials and ba consultants stare at a video monitor with lines that dance across its screen. jokingly called the ekg, the lines show listeners' real-time reactions to the sound bytes as grouped by demographics: avid listeners, part-time listeners, men, women, age, ethnic groups. the lines also show when squeal­ ing saxophones break the mood, solos drone on too long and when listeners want to changes stations. pass the test, you get on ba's recommended airplay list, delivered weekly to its 26 client stations, nine in the top 10 radio markets na­ tionwide. weekly trade papers report ba's decisions, and non-client stations follow its lead. (ba isn't the only consultant on the scene but unquestionably the most successful.) to paraphrase one san francisco bay area musician, if ba gives your song a thumbs up, nationwide airplay is guaranteed-thumbs down and it's time to take up plumbing. (levin 1999a:38) those ba client stations who have adopted the firm's "smooth jazz" playlist have witnessed a dramatic rise in their arbitron ratings. as a result, this genre has emerged in the past ten years as one of the most successful programming formats in practically every radio market in the nation. in principle, this has brought more listeners to jazz than at any time since the swing era. but many well-known jazz musicians (including those who, like pat metheny, chick corea, and the yellov\jackets, originated the smooth jazz format in the late 1980s) have found their music increasingly left out in the cold. they fail the test and are then unable to get airplay. dore steinberg, a former music director at san francisco's kksf, explains why: "there is a formula, a real value system to what works .... if you go off on a synth guitar solo that rocks out or your saxophone bleeps or you punc­ ture that atmosphere for a moment, you either have to find an edit to get that out or it's not going to get play" (ibid.). the procedure described in the following anecdote is typical of the kind of on-air editing radio stations do today: kenny garrett's alto saxophone spills from the speakers inside the sacramento, california, studios of kxjz. over a soothing latin 336 current musicology groove, garrett caresses the frank sinatra classic "it was a very good year." meanwhile, dj paul conley, his right hand on a volume fader, keeps his eyes glued to a compact disc player's clock. at ex­ actly 3 minutes and 15 seconds, conley slides the fader down, slowly taking garrett to a whisper and then to nothing. the ending is premature. garrett and his general music project ii still had another 2 minutes and 13 seconds of blowing. conley has left the sound of garrett up in my headphones, while he brings up the next cut, art pepper's 1956 ballad, "diane." as pepper now booms out to thousands of listeners in the sacramento valley and lake tahoe, garrett takes a sharp left from poetic tonality into more dissonant territory. "it becomes a little edgier," says conley, an occasional producer of national public radio's 'jazz profiles." the fade was no accident. kxjz music director gary vercelli designed it in advance, believing that a more frenetic solo might scare off listeners. in fact, vercelli has marked the cd's jewel box with a small yellow post-it, noting the dj should fade by exactly 3:42-the point at which garrett takes his solo "out." (levin 1999b:44) with much contemporary jazz today, however, such live in-studio edit­ ing is unnecessary. to survive, many musicians take it upon themselves to accommodate the stylistic demands of the market in advance. the enor­ mous popular success of smooth jazz suggests not only that a system of atmospheric or ambient values governs musical reception for a large por­ tion of today's jazz market, but that this aesthetic increasingly prevails in the domain of musical production. there is nothing unusual about this sort of self-censorship, of course, as adorno suggests: the customary invectives against commercial mischief in music are superficial. they delude regarding the extent to which phenomena that presuppose commerce, the appeal to an audience already viewed as customers, can turn into compositorial qualities unleash­ ing and enhancing a composer's productive force. we may phrase this in the form of a more comprehensive legality: social compulsions under which music seems to be placed from without are absorbed by its au­ tonomous logic and the need for compositorial expression, and are trans­ formed into an artistic necessity: into steps of the right consciousness. (adorno 1976:208; emphasis added) under present market circumstances, however, there is considerable cause for concern among mainstream traditional jazz musicians for whom smooth jazz carries little appeal, and who consequently resist "absorb [ing] matthew w. butterfield 337 ... its autonomous logic." since kjaz of alameda, california, went off the air in 1994, no single commercial, twenty-four hour, alljazz fm radio sta­ tion outside of the smooth jazz format has graced the airwaves anywhere in the united states. furthermore, during the 1990s, most public radio stations significantly curtailed their jazz programming or eliminated it al­ together in favor of classical, folk, or talk-radio formats (levin 1999b). there are thus fewer and fewer media outlets available to these musicians to get their music to the public. meanwhile, the popularity of smooth jazz continues to rise, and its market power dictates an aesthetic in which many mainstream jazz musicians find no expressive potential. with few marketable alternatives available, their resistance to this aesthetic leaves them in an increasingly precarious financial position. the smooth jazz format has been so successful because it is designed to accommodate the passive listening practices fostered by recordings. as suggested by dore steinberg above, anything in this style that grabs a listener's attention and unsettles the soporific mood it sets must be assidu­ ously excised. the "fusak" that emerges from this surgical "melodectomy" just barely distinguishes itself from traditional muzak by cloaking itself in a pale fa<;ade of jazz style. its social function is the same, however: it sets the mood for a particular activity or occasion without asserting itself as the main line of attention in that situation. but passive listening practices are possible (and increasingly common, it appears) with virtually any kind of music, no matter how interesting or exciting it may be. my jazz history stu­ dents, for example, often interpret moments when i play them recordings in class as opportunities to chat with their neighbors-i either have to re­ mind them to listen, or head off their disattention by giving them some­ thing specific to listen for. they have simply grown accustomed to the idea of music-especially instrumental music-as a "background" accom­ paniment to some other activity. this is not surprising, of course, for recorded music today saturates our lives: we hear it virtually everywhere we go, from the dentist's office to the mall to the bar or cafe. its very omnipresence, according to j. bottum, "has even relieved us of any need to listen" (2000:59). but beyond the financial implications for mainstream jazz musicians, this widespread muzakification of listener behavior has significant ramifications for the so­ cial life of live jazz performances: audiences today frequently bring con­ flicting social agendas, musical values, and behavioral framing practices to jazz clubs. a performance by the wallace roney quintet i attended at zanzibar blue in philadelphia will serve as an example. at the time of this show in late december 1996, zanzibar blue, philadelphia's most prestigious jazz club, had just moved from its home of six years on 11 th street in center city to a new location at the bellevue hotel on broad street. the new space was larger, allowing zanzibar to 338 current musicology augment its patronage, and also more distinguished, for at the time, broad street just south of city hall in philadelphia was undergoing a cul­ tural renaissance as the "avenue of the arts." the bellevue, a luxury hotel in the heart of center city, sits next to the academy of music (home of the world famous philadelphia orchestra), the merriam theater of the university of the arts, the clef club of performing arts, and the new wilma theater. krin gabbard has written of the elite stature that jazz has attained in re­ cent years. he observes its presence as background music for luxury car, credit card, and banking commercials: "advertisers no longer use jazz to connote the nightlife and slumming that can be purchased along with their products-jazz can now signify refinement and upper-class status, once the exclusive province of classical music" (gabbard 1995:1-2). this lofty standing is certainly evident at the new zanzibar, where the music complements the club's exquisite (and quite expensive) cuisine. zanzibar's decor is elegant and plush, with fine wood paneling articulating the dark oxford green color scheme. the management maintains a strict dress code: sneakers and athletic gear are forbidden, and blue jeans are offi­ cially "discouraged." thus in contrast to nightspots like the very informal ortlieb's jazzhaus in north philly, zanzibar blue clearly targets an upscale clientele. this is reflected in their hefty entertainment fee of fifteen dol­ lars per person per set-rather inexpensive compared to the thirty to forty dollar minimum one can expect to pay at some of the more prestigious new york clubs, but quite pricey for the philadelphia market nonetheless. the stage at zanzibar is elevated about one-and-a-half feet above the main floor of the dining area. a wall borders the stage on the right, oppo­ site a massive pillar that articulates the front left corner, and unfortunately blocks the view of those seated on that side. several rows of tables line the main floor in front of the stage, arranged perpendicular to it such that pa­ trons on either side get a view of the musicians. to the left of these tables sits a row of booths separating the central dining room from the kitchen area. on the night of the wallace roney performance, my friends and i ar­ rived at zanzibar about fifteen minutes before the set began. the six members of our party were seated in one of the booths to the left of the stage, three of us facing the musicians, the rest with our backs to them. we ordered drinks, but mostly passed on food since, as we were graduate stu­ dents at the time, we really could not afford it. at nine o'clock sharp, the band walked on stage, the emcee introduced them, and the music began. the ensuing set was remarkable not so much for the music that was performed, but for the sheer difficulty of attending to it amid a host of dis­ tractions. the band had to compete with waiters and waitresses who conmatthew w. butterfield 339 tinued serving dinners and cocktails to patrons shouting their orders above the music, as well as with kitchen sounds such as blenders, dish­ washers, and the occasional broken glass or plate. the audience itself dis­ played an almost complete indifference to the musical events taking place. throughout the performance, they continued their dinner conversations, albeit at a higher volume to rise above the level of the music. the family on one side of us was consumed by a discussion of the chicago bears (who evidently were not very good at the time). on the other side, a group of three couples interrupted their conversation to clap politely only when they observed our enthusiastic applause at the conclusion of a good solo­ without our cues, i cannot imagine they would have taken any notice of the music whatsoever. in fact, more often than not, we found ourselves to be the only table in the restaurant actively attending to the music, and be­ cause of this the performance never really got off the ground. there was little interaction between the band and the audience, our table notwith­ standing, as we were not seated to advantage near the stage. unfortunately, this was not the first time that the new zanzibar had had problems with noise during a performance. in early december of that year, about three weeks prior to the wallace roney show, the legendary abbey lincoln was scheduled for a four-night stint there. she sang one set and was so appalled and offended at the inattentiveness and general lack of respect she received from the audience that she canceled the rest of her philadelphia engagement. to its credit, the zanzibar management was sensitive to the problem. sometime after the wallace roney performance, they installed a wall clos­ ing the kitchen off from the main dining area in hope of reducing kitchen noise. and they began placing small placards on their tables requesting that their patrons remain quiet out of respect for the musicians and other customers. but beyond that, there was little they could do to control the behavior of their patrons. the fact of the matter is that zanzibar blue is a business whose ultimate goal is to make money. their income derives pri­ marily from food and drink orders, and not from the entertainment fee. thus, they can ill afford to discipline their customers for making dinner conversation at dinner. this tension between commerce and art is not unique to zanzibar blue, of course. it is an increasingly common feature of jazz club perform­ ance throughout america. since the bebop era, jazz clubs have been the proper milieu of the music, where it is most at home. the informality of the setting and the availability of alcohol in particular have traditionally favored the erotic social potential of the music. but the noise associated with drinking and dining at zanzibar and elsewhere has never been so great a problem for live jazz (which can actually accommodate a fair 340 current musicology amount of audience clamor and extramusical activity) as the high degree of disattention from its patrons. such disattention testifies to a new social function and aesthetic value for the music, and new patterns of audience social behavior. in such contexts, the principal focus of the evening for most of the customers-what they interpret as the main line of activity in the situation-is not the music at all, but the meal. some treat the music as an aspect of the background decor that lends upper-class stature to the occasion. it is a piece of apparel, a fur coat in sound, clothing the meal and those partaking of it in elegance and refinement. prestige arises not only from the fact that this "background" music is live, but also that it is per­ formed by world-class jazz musicians. for others, however, the music is supposed to set a relaxing mood conducive to dinner conversation with­ out drawing attention to itself. when the musicians challenge their defini­ tion of the situation by playing a louder, more assertive style of music, the diners respond by simply raising their voices. the frame confusion that has emerged at jazz clubs like zanzibar blue has led many jazz musicians to prefer concert performance over nightclub events. their reasons may be both personal and economic, as suggested by pianist keith jarrett in explaining why his trio does not generally play small-room venues anymore: unfortunately, there's much more than the setting itself. for exam­ ple, we can't go into a club and play one night. and we're not get­ ting younger, and we have other things we do. plus, you don't want people tearing down the doors, and the socioeconomic implications of playing not enough nights for the amount of people, and the ticket prices go up-all that bunch of baloney. (quoted in ephland 1996:20) sonny rollins, on the other hand, makes more explicit his preference for the prestige of concert performance over the lack of dignity he associates with nightclub gigs: jazz needs some dignity. it needs to be looked at as a serious, impor­ tant art form. and if you're going to be playing in nightclubs, i don't care what you say, you're not going to get that kind of respect for it. not that the respect is even the thing that's going to put jazz over the top-i don't know. but it's just the idea that if you're just playing nightclubs, it just diminishes the music in some kind of way. at this time, 1997, i think it's just not enough to be playing nightclubs. it's just not enough, you know. it wasn't for me 20 years ago. it's not proper. if you want to do it, ok. but you shouldn't have to do it. (quoted in belden 1997:25) mattheww. butterfield 341 jazz concerts do certainly provide professional jazz musicians with a better opportunity to display their craft to an appreciative, attentive audience­ one whose behavior is guided largely by the conventional social structure of concert events, and not by extramusical concerns. thus for many jazz musicians and jazz fans, concerts have become the ideal format for live performances-one in which their music is properly evaluated and given the respect it deserves as an artistic achievement. the association of the concert hall with prestige has been an element of jazz history almost since its inception. indeed, jazz musicians have al­ ways borne something of a chip on their collective shoulder, an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the cultural establishment of "legit" western art music, and have always coveted the prestige associated with the concert hall. they typically perceive performances at prestigious venues like carnegie hall or lincoln center as milestones not just for themselves, but for the music in general. for example, paul whiteman, widely hailed as the "king of jazz" in the 1920s, believed that the only way to prove the value of the new music he was performing was to present a concert at new york's aeolian hall: i believed that jazz was beginning a new movement in the world's art of music. i wanted it to be recognized as such. i knew it never would be in my lifetime until the recognized authorities on music gave it their approval. my idea for the concert was to show these skeptical people the ad­ vance which had been made in popular music from the day of the discordant early jazz to the melodious form of the present ... my task was to reveal the change and try to show that jazz had come to stay and deserved recognition. (whiteman and mcbride 1974:94) wynton marsalis's acclaimed jazz at lincoln center concert series is merely the latest (and evidently most successful) effort to date to establish jazz firmly as "america's classical music." the repertory jazz movement has emerged with considerable momentum in the past two decades in re­ sponse to this classicizing impulse; ensembles such as the smithsonian jazz masterworks orchestra are dedicated to performing note-for-note recre­ ations of the masterpieces of duke ellington, count basie, and others. but the listening practices and social behaviors that emerge in the concert hall bear little resemblance to those described in much of the jazz literature or represented with such nostalgic yearning in films like robert altman's kansas city-they lack the erotic social potential of traditional jazz night­ club performance. historian scott deveaux perhaps expresses it best: "as 342 current musicology jazz acquires degree programs, piano competitions, repertory ensembles, institutes, and archives, it inevitably becomes a different kind of music­ gaining a certain solidity and political clout, but no longer participating in the ongoing formulation of meaning; no longer a popular music in the best sense of the word" (1991:553). conclusion: new roles for analysis for a variety of reasons, then, recording and the music culture it has produced work against the integrative social function of jazz music-making activities. in the studio itself, recording has led to the compartmentalization of performance practice, such that jazz musicians no longer need to be co­ present during the recording process. the very act of recording then transforms the social stature of musicians, investing their activities with au­ thority as recording artists, thereby setting them apart from average citi­ zens while simultaneously devaluing the activities of "local" jazz musicians. moreover, the omnipresence of recorded music in recent decades has pushed the role of music into the background "soundtrack" of our lives, where it frequently lends ambience to extramusical activities, much like muzak. in this context, smooth jazz has come to dominate the jazz market, especially on radio, leaving fewer and fewer media outlets for mainstream -much less avant-garde-jazz musicians to get their music to the public. as a result, frame confusion abounds in jazz nightclubs today, as listeners accustomed to hearing jazz as background music on recordings fail to un­ derstand conventions of audience behavior at live performance events. this has led many prominent jazz musicians out of the nightclub and onto the concert stage, where a different economy and social architecture prevail, positioning the music itself as the main line of activity rather than as accompaniment to something else, but significantly curtailing its erotic efficacy. because it cultivates active listening practices, training in analysis does offer a means for resisting the growing muzakification of our students' listening habits, thereby subverting the passive modes of listening so often elicited by recordings. but, as we have seen, both the social isolation re­ quired for analysis and its actual dependence on recordings work toward the dissolution of local jazz communities in a variety of ways. instead of challenging the negative social implications of the recording economy for jazz musicians, analysis supports and affirms that economy by fostering a preference for cds over live performance events. it is not that jazz as a musical tradition is in any danger of extinction from the effects of analysis and recording. young musicians are still finding their ways to the music and succeeding, still attracting audiences and making a decent living at it. in fact, down beat magazine recently made a point of forecasting a bright mattheww. butterfield 343 future for jazz by devoting their issue of june 1999 to a cast of twenty-five "rising jazz stars" all under forty years old. their editorial motives were clear: "we feel the need to take stock and watch for those young players who not only ensure the music's survival, but promise to take it to the next level" (enright 1999). but the social appeal and erotic efficacy oflive jazz performance events, especially at the local level, disappear within an ana­ lytical practice that can only accommodate recorded music. i have chosen to explore an essentially negative critique of the present jazz scene in or­ der to understand not how jazz seems tenaciously to survive against all odds, but why so many jazz performances today fail as integrative social events when evidently they were so successful in the past. we are thus confronted with a predicament: how can we analyze jazz without negating its social foundation? how can we avail ourselves of the insights gained from analysis and simultaneously advocate the erotic social power of the music? how can we use recordings in analysis to resist the negative social effects of the recording economy, and thereby support local jazz musicians and the communities their performance activities sustain? i believe that music theory can best promote the integrative social func­ tion of jazz by developing practical tools for the real-time analysis of music in the context of live performance events. the specific goal of such analy­ sis would be to reinvigorate the social life of musical events by cultivating strate­ gies for cognitive and social involvement. listeners are "involved" in a per­ formance when the music sustains their attention as the main line of activity, leaving them open to its aesthetic and erotic effects (and in effec­ tive jazz performance, i believe these are inextricably related). analysis would be a means of critical engagement with the event as a whole, elicit­ ing and maintaining involvement in the process. it would proceed by eval­ uating the contextual relationships between music perception, social be­ havior, and situational structure-a function of the social, economic, temporal, spatial, and acoustic organization of the event. the configura­ tion of these elements in a given musical situation sets the terms for analy­ sis, for it determines a social organization in which music functions a par­ ticular way, in which certain musical values are perceptually relevant and others not. bound by situational constraints, analysis would then be geared toward criticism, as analysts would draw on an array of techniques and concepts to evaluate how effectively the musician(s) play the situation -i.e., how they respond to the situational constraints of the event both musically and socially. ruth stone's let the inside be sweet (1982), a music ethnography of the kpelle people of liberia, can be viewed as a precedent for the "situa­ tional" paradigm for analysis proposed here. 15 stone sets out to develop a unitary approach to ethnography that will bridge the gap she perceives 344 current musicology between those ethnomusicologists who study musical sound and those who focus on musical behavior. her answer to this intradisciplinary schism is ethnography centered on the musical event itself, rather than on the ex­ plication of either musical or cultural systems. event-centered ethno­ graphy, she contends, provides empirical grounding for statements about both musical sound and behavior, each of which is relevant for the pro­ duction and comprehension of musical meaning in a given situation. the analytical aims of stone's event-centered ethnography differ from the situational approach i am proposing here, however. the goal of the former is to generalize from an analysis of a society's paradigmatic musical events to an understanding of its culture, where culture appears as the more or less stable set of practices and values embodied by that society. the particular musical event then constitutes an exemplary part or prod­ uct of broader musical and cultural systems. by contrast, the goal of a performance-centered music-analytical practice is less to read culture through the musical event (or even to uncover the production of culture as an outcome of the event) than to examine the perceptual and social possi­ bilities generated in specific musical situations: how the structure of the sit­ uation shapes the possibility for music perception and the emergence and maintenance of musical community. culture functions in this approach not as the endpoint of analysis, but as a background context for the specific situation, a provisionally stable field of practices and values by which par­ ticipants infer musical meaning and adopt appropriate social behavior.16 i am ultimately advocating an informal analytical practice-one that serves a practical purpose for listeners, but that need not be written up formally. in order for this mode of analysis to move beyond "active listen­ ing" on the one hand, or mere anecdotal accounts of performances on the other, however, we will need to develop analytical techniques by theo­ rizing about possibilities for musical experience in the context of live per­ formance situations. preliminary written accounts, which will be experi­ mental in nature and undertaken after the event as a means of reflecting upon its success or failure as an integrative sociomusical occasion, will ad­ vance this purpose, illuminating aspects of experience that require more theorizing. 17 the goal, however, is to arrive at a cogent theoretical frame­ work with practical pedagogical applications. because it seeks to integrate aspects of music perception and social be­ havior, a situational analytical paradigm requires an interdisciplinary ap­ proach. music theory, of course, offers an array of practical techniques through aural skills training that can be cultivated to sustain cognitive in­ volvement in ongoing musical processes. without scores or recordings, one loses access to a considerable volume of musical detail, for many of the pitch structures we commonly identify in analysis are not accessible in live performance contexts-this is not to say that they are inaudible, but matthew w. butterfield 345 that their audibility is a function of situational structure. other musical parameters, however, are more cognitively available and socially relevant in performance. listeners respond to mode, texture, timbre, tempo, regis­ ter, and rhythm in particular; they are also sensitive to dramatic shape, processes of intensification, as well as elements of continuity and disconti­ nuity. we need to develop practical tools to facilitate tracking such elements in real time and evaluating their effects. theories of music perception could also be adapted for practical ana­ lytical applications, and concepts drawn from cognitive psychology, cogni­ tive semantics, and music semiotics, as well. though developed and typi­ cally illustrated with reference to musical scores, such theories implicitly address real-time musical experience, and can be used to provide explana­ tory frameworks for understanding how music produces its aesthetic ef­ fects. is research in sociology, anthropology, ethnomusicology, and per­ formance studies would provide theoretical grounding for analyzing the social organization and situational structure of performance events, illu­ minating their erotic potential, while also addressing rhetorical practices for writing about performance events.19 there are, of course, significant consequences to a situational para­ digm for analysis. most obviously, the object of analysis must change. con­ ventional analytical practice typically concerns the illumination of a musi­ cal work that putatively exists in an objective sense, that is self-identical through time, independent of the contexts of its creation and continued reception-in a word, autonomous. works are thus attributed a universal status above and beyond their specific realization in performance, such that what one says of a piece is said in a general sense, pertaining to all its potential performances at the cost of the particularity of any single per­ formance. such reliance on the "work-concept" enables analysts to escape the dependence of a piece of music on the contexts in which it is encoun­ tered; it sustains a clear opposition between the musical and the extra­ musical, and thereby provides a way of rationalizing away the vagaries of particular performances.20 however, from a situational perspective that emphasizes the interrelat­ edness of musical sound and situational structure, the formation of the musical! extramusical opposition is itself a contextual matter; understand­ ing of immanent context is then a precondition for an understanding of the notes and for evaluating the relationships among them. we cannot assume the objective existence of the work as such, but must explore the situational structure through which the work is presented as an object­ that is, through which the illusion of its autonomy is maintained and promulgated. this entails a fundamental shift in the underlying theoreti­ cal aims of analysis: instead of theorizing about pitch structures and ana­ lyzing particular musical works to illustrate our claims, we theorize about 346 current musicology situational structures and use particular performances to illustrate them. for jazz analysis, this also implies a shift in the way we use recordings: in­ stead of treating the recording itself as a work, it becomes a vehicle for practicing the techniques of real-time analysis that will be employed in live performance events. a more important consequence of a performance-centered analytical paradigm is the loss of the potential for intersubjective corroboration. in analyzing works, theorists have access to scores, transcriptions, or record­ ings. in analyzing specific performance events, however, we often have none of these. unless we take steps to document the event through audio or video recording-a complex process requiring considerable foresight and planning (not to mention securing permission from a number of parties)-nothing remains to enable the verification of our analytical claims or critical conclusions. it would be a mistake, however, to imagine that such documentation would adequately solve the problem of intersubjective corroboration for the analysis of live performance events, for documentation is less signifi­ cant in this regard than the transformation of situational structure. con­ ventional analytical practice treats listening as an experimental pursuit and sets up situational constraints to control musical experience, to de­ limit its focus and circumscribe the perspective from which the music is beheld. this enables us to isolate and magnify particular details in order to test their effects. the solitary listening contexts we adopt for analysis thus resemble artificially constructed lab situations; they promote the best conditions for intersubjective corroboration of analytical claims. by contrast, live performances typically offer an abundance of angles from which to approach the music. perspectives vary according to the spa­ tial positioning of participants and their immediate acoustic environ­ ments, the background knowledge and experience they bring to the event, their individual social motivations for being there, and the availabil­ ity of side activities to occupy their attention. a video or audio recording can provide only a limited point of view that cannot adequately represent the range of possible perspectives. thus even with recorded documenta­ tion, not only are the situational constraints of live performance events not conducive to intersubjective corroboration, the sheer diversity of perspectives available at such events renders it less meaningful. under such conditions, analysis necessarily becomes a different kind of activity; no longer able to accommodate the requirements of a quasi­ scientific mode of inquiry, it becomes more of an ethnographic pursuit, a kind of music-theoretical fieldwork. rather than falling back on a record­ ing and taking the performance event out of its context to consider it from an "armchair" analytical perspective, we bring analysis into live permattheww. butterfield 347 formance events, as something we can do while there, rather than some­ thing done after the fact. analysis then becomes a form of participant ob­ servation, the ultimate practical application of the concepts and skills we develop in music theory and cultivate in our students. it relinquishes the kinds of claims that require intersubjective corroboration, and seeks in­ stead to advocate for the social life of musical events, to recapture the atmosphere of carnival that live jazz should possess, and thereby inspire participation and motivate listener involvement. in this way, it resists the domination of recordings, the social structures they produce, and the modes oflistener behavior they entail. a situational paradigm for analysis would broaden the scope of our in­ volvement with jazz and extend the relevance of music theory to others in jazz studies with less knowledge of our discipline. it would bring theory into interdisciplinary dialogue with fields such as ethnomusicology, sociol­ ogy, anthropology, and communication studies, which have not tradition­ ally held much relevance for music theorists. we could then enter into real discussions over the present and future state of jazz, and take a proac­ tive stance in ensuring not so much the preservation of the music as the continued health and viability of the musical situations in which it is en­ countered, thereby enablingjazz to grow both musically and socially. notes 1. since 1990, these include, among others: block (1993), brownell (1994), charry (1997-98), folio (1995, 1997-98), kurzdorfer (1996), larson (1997-98, 1998), lindeman (1997-98), martin (1996, 1997-98), murphy (1998), potter (1990), smith (1991), strunk (1996), waters (1996), and williams (1997-98). 2. for an account of jazz education in colleges and universities, see butterfield (2000:269-83) . 3. there are, to be sure, many kinds of communities. throughout this essay, however, i shall be concerned primarily with localized, "face-to-face" communities -communities whose members generally inhabit the same (relatively small) geo­ graphic area, and who, for the most part, know (or at least know of) one another. such communities are to be distinguished from larger, more anonymous commu­ nities defined by, say, ethnicity (e.g., the african american community) or profes­ sion (e.g., the medical community). hence, i am less concerned with the 'jazz community" as a largely anonymous, global assemblage of jazz musicians and jazz fans defined by their love of and concern for this music than with more local com­ munities comprised of individuals who develop social relationships through the socially productive forces of jazz music-making activities. 4. this interpersonal negotiation of groove and the social connection it im­ plies also underlies charles keil's theory of "participatory discrepancies." see keil (1994a, 1994b). this, incidentally, explains why it is often so difficult to make good music with a person one does not like. 348 current musicology 5. for a detailed account of music as an agent of community formation, see butterfield (2000:119-69). 6. i derive this usage of "erotic" from lewis hyde, who views gift exchange as an "erotic commerce" opposed to commodity exchange, which derives from logos, the principle of differentiation (1979:xivn). gift exchange, asserts hyde, unites its participants in a social bond with one another, whereas commodity exchange draws a boundary between them. 7. on musical interaction in jazz and its social implications, see monson (1996:73-96) and berliner (1994:416-46). 8. down beat reported in 1995 that up to five hundred students per semester would typically take gerald wilson's jazz history course at ucla (helland 1995:24). i have had similar enrollments in my courses at eastern illinois univer­ sity and the university of virginia between the fall of 2000 and the spring of 2002. 9. to be sure, our perception and evaluation of these recordings must be rela­ tive, conditioned by the high-fidelity playback equipment available today, but i do not believe we should assume that they were easier on the ears back in the 1920s. 10. this is true, of course, with printed music, which like recordings, is infi­ nitely reproducible and generates income with each sale. but the profits are on a lesser scale, for printed music appeals only to those with musical instruments who can read and play music; it takes work on the part of the consumer to realize the musical product. recordings, on the other hand, require no musical skill. they of­ fer an instant visceral experience to anyone who purchases them, provided they have some kind of playback device (and most people in america today do). 11. sonny rollins makes this explicit in an interview in down beat: i became very self-conscious about recording around the '70s. i wanted to do a lot of takes on everything and try to put out the best representation of what i could do. of course, i was doing that in the '60s also, so i shouldn't say that. i mean, when i was with rca, i had access to the rca studios up on 24th street, and i used to go by there 24 hours a day, you know, whenever i wanted to, and practice. then, i also was able to do a lot of different tracks. i remember i was up there with george avakian, who was producing me at that time, and i had the option of doing as many tracks as i wanted to-he deferred to me. so that was something i started doing before. but in the '70s, i also wanted to have that kind of control. i always wanted to have con­ trol, of course, over what i did, for one thing because i wanted to make sure that what came out was the best representation of sonny rollins, and i thought i knew what that is. now, i might not be perfect in that. some peo­ ple hear things in my playing that i don't hear, you know. but nevertheless, i felt that i wanted to be able to have the final say in what came out. (quoted in belden 1997:24-25) 12. the same could be said of early cinema: actors, directors, and producers initially brought theatrical practices with them to the film studio. it took time for them to realize the distinctly cinematic possibilities the new medium had made available. 13. cf. cook (2001:20): "but it is in the case of recordings that product and process have become most inextricably intertwined. the recording (a marketable matthew w. butterfield 349 product) purports to be the trace of a performance (process), but is in reality usu­ ally the composite product of multiple takes and more or less elaborate sound processing-in other words, less a trace than the representation of a performance that never actually existed." see also shumway (1999:192). 14. chicago is a case in point. in a 1996 interview in down beat, tenor players fred anderson and von freeman reminisced about the 1940s and '50s, when "63rd street, 58th street, 61st street, 55th street, 43rd street, 47th street, 38th street-these south side streets all had taverns and places with jam sessions." this thriving scene collapsed in the 1970s, and since then, as freeman observes, "it's hard to find cats who can play" in chicago. the "difference between new york and other places [is] the competition. and everybody migrates there who wants to make it." the interview, appropriately entitled "tenacity," reflects anderson and freeman's continuing survival in chicago, decades after the disintegration of its jazz scene, as the exception to the rule (corbett 1996:29). for a discussion of von freeman's role in chicago's south side jazz community during the 1970s and early '80s, see the article by t. m. scruggs in this issue (pp. 179-99). 15. two other precedents worth noting here are rose (1994) and howard (1994). 16. although an account of the social production of culture is beyond the scope of the present argument, it is important here to acknowledge the potential for feedback from specific musical situations to the general level of culture: back­ ground cultural values can be generated and transformed by individual events in the social foreground. this is an underlying theme in the work of anthropologist victor turner. see, for example, the many fine essays in turner (1986). 17. for a preliminary example of situational analysis in this direction, see butterfield (2000:247-63) where i provide an account of a live performance of ron carter's "blues for d. p." and compare it to a recorded performance from his 1994 cd jazz, my romance (blue note d106382). 18. see, for example, meyer (1956, 1973), narmour (1990, 1992), lerdahl and jackendoff (1983), rozin (2000), and zbikowski (forthcoming). 19. on the social organization of performance situations, see especially goffman (1959, 1974), harrison-pepper (1990), turner (1986), schechner (1977), schechner and appel (1990), and small (1998). for discussions of ethno­ graphic writing and strategies of presentation, see van maanen (1988) and marcus and fischer (1986). 20. the "work-concept," according to lydia goehr (1992), is a "regulative idea" that has governed the production, commodification, and circulation of musi­ cal objects since the early nineteenth century. goehr offers this view as a historical corrective to the analytic theories of nelson goodman (1969) and jerrold levinson (1980), both of whom she critiques at length (goehr 1992:13-86). see pages 89-119 for a detailed account of the work-concept's op~ration. references adorno, theodor w. 1976. introduction to the sociology of music. translated by e. b. ashton. new york: continuum. bauman, richard. 200l. mediational performance, traditionalization, and the authorization of discourse. in verbal art across cultures: the aesthetics and 350 current musicology proto-aesthetics oj communication, edited by helga kotthoff and hubert knoblauch, 91-117. tiibingen: gunter narr verlag. belden, bob. 1997. sonny rollins: jazz artist of the year. down beat (august): 18-25. berland, jody. 1992. angels dancing: cultural technologies and the production of space. in cultural studies, edited by lawrence grossberg, cary nelson, and paula treichler, 38-51. new york and london: routledge. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art oj improvisation. chicago: university of chicago press. block, steven. 1993. organized sound: pitch-class relations in the music of oruette coleman. annual review oj jazz studies 6: 229-52. bottum,]. 2000. the soundtracking of america. atlantic monthly (march): 56-70. brownell, john. 1994. analytical models of jazz improvisation. jazzjorschung/ jazz research 26: 9-29. butterfield, matthew w. 2000. jazz analysis and the production oj musical community: a situational perspective. ph.d. diss., university of pennsylvania. charry, eric. 1997-98. freedom and form in oruette coleman's early atlantic recordings. annual review oj jazz studies 9: 261-94. cook, nicholas. 2001. between process and product: music and/as performance. music theory online 7, no. 2: 1-31. corbett, john. 1996. tenacity: fred anderson, von freeman, and the chicago tenor tradition. down beat (july): 28-33. deveaux, scott. 1991. constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography. black american literature forum 25: 525-60. enright, ed. 1999. twenty-five for the future. down beat (june): 18. ephland,john. 1996. why play standards? down beat (february): 16-20. folio, cynthia. 1995. an analysis of polyrhythm in selected improvisedjazz solos. in concert music, rock, and jazz since 1945: essays and analytical studies, edited by elizabeth west marvin and richard hermann, 103-34. rochester, n.y.: university of rochester press. ---. 1997-98. "the great symphonic theme": multiple takes on stella's scheme. annual review oj jazz studies 9: 3-24. gabbard, krin. 1995. the jazz canon and its consequences. in jazz among the discourses, edited, by krin gabbard, 1-28. durham, n.c.: duke university press. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum oj musical works: an essay in the philosophy oj music. new york: oxford university press. goffman, erving. 1959. the presentation oj self in everyday life. new york: anchor books. ---. 1974. frame analysis: an essay on the organization oj experience. new york: harper and row. goodman, nelson. 1969. languages oj art: an approach to a theory oj symbols. indianapolis: bobbs-merril. harrison-pepper, sally. 1990. drawing a circle in the square: street performing in new york s washington square park. jackson, miss.: university press of mississippi. helland, dave. 1995. those who can, teach. down beat (may): 22-24. matthew w. butterfield 351 howard, jessica h. 1994. participatory discrepancies, live from lincoln center: towards a terminology for looking at music in performance. indiana theory review 15, no. 2: 41-7l. hyde, lewis. 1979. the gift: imagination and the erotic life of property. new york: random house. keil, charles. 1994a. motion and feeling through music. in music grooves: essays and dialogues, by steven feld and charles keil, 53-76. chicago: university of chicago press. ---. 1994b. participatory discrepancies and the power of music. in music grooves: essays and dialogues, by steven feld and charles keil, 96-108. chicago: university of chicago press. kurzdorfer, james. 1996. outrageous clusters: dissonant semitonal cells in the music of thelonious monk. annual review of jazz studies 8: 181-201. larson, steve. 1997-98. triple play: bill evans's three-piano performance of victor young's "stella by starlight." annual review of jazz studies 9: 45-56. ---. 1998. schenkerian analysis of modern jazz: questions about method. music theory spectrum 20: 209-4l. lerdahl, fred, and ray jackendoff. 1983. a generative theory of tonal music. cambridge, mass.: mit press. levin, charles. 1999a. you can't do that ... or can you? market testing in jazz radio, part 1. down beat (march): 36-39. ---. 1999b. reconfiguring the public radio puzzle: market testing in jazz radio, part ii. down beat (april): 42-46. levinson, jerrold. 1980. what a musical work is. journal of philosophy 77: 5-28. lindeman, steve. 1997-98. miles's "stella": a comparison in the light of the two quintets. annual review of jazz studies 9: 57-76. marcus, george e., and michael m. j. fischer. 1986. anthropology as cultural critique: an experimental moment in the human sciences. chicago: university of chicago press. martin, henry. 1996. charlie parker and thematic improvisation. lanham, md., and london: scarecrow press. ---. 1997-98. the nature of recomposition: miles davis and "stella by star­ light." annual review of jazz studies 9: 77-92. meyer, leonard b. 1956. emotion and meaning in music. chicago: university of chicago press. ---. 1973. explaining music: essays and explorations. berkeley: university of california press. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: university of chicago press. murphy, frank. 1998. thematic metamorphosis in the early recordings of ernest loring "red" nichols (1905-1965).jazzforschung/jazz research 30: 171-79. narmour, eugene. 1990. the analysis and cognition of basic melodic structures. chicago: university of chicago press. ---. 1992. the analysis and cognition of melodic complexity. chicago: university of chicago press. 352 current musicology potter, gary m. 1990. analyzing improvised jazz. college music symposium 30: 64-74. rose, jeremy harold. 1994. playing out: a multiple case study of coordination and presentation in nightclub bands. ph.d. diss., university of minnesota. rozin, alexander. 2000. the intensity of musical affect: a model of experience and memory. ph.d. diss., university of pennsylvania. schechner, richard. 1977. essays on performance theory, 1970-1976. new york: drama book specialists. schechner, richard, and willa appel, eds. 1990. by means of performance: inter­ cultural studies of theatre and ritual. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. shumway, david r. 1999. performance. in key terms in popular music and culture, edited by bruce horner and thomas swiss, 188-98. malden, mass.: blackwell publishers. shuster, fred. 1995. freddie hubbard: when your chops are shot. down beat (october): 22-25. small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. hanover, n.h.: wesleyan university press. smith, gregory. 1991. in quest of a new perspective on improvised jazz: a view from the balkans. world of music 33, no. 3: 29-52. stewart, zan. 1996. john scofield: my unplugged romance. down beat (october): 24-26. stone, ruth m. 1982. let the inside be sweet: the interpretation of music event among the kpelle of liberia. bloomington: indiana university press. strunk, steven. 1996. linear intervallic patterns in jazz repertory. annual review of jazz studies 8: 63-115. turner, victor witter. 1986. the anthropology of performance. new york: paj publications. van maanen, john. 1988. tales of the field: on writing ethnography. chicago: university of chicago press. waters, keith. 1996. blurring the barline: metric displacement in the piano solos of herbie hancock. annual review of jazz studies 8: 19-37. whiteman, paul, and mary margaret mcbride. [1926] 1974. jazz. reprint. new york: arno press. williams, james kent. 1997-98. oscar peterson and the art of paraphrase: the 1965 recordings of "stella by starlight." annual review of jazz studies 9: 25-44. zbikowski, lawrence. forthcoming. conceptualizing music: cognitive structure, theory, and analysis. new york: oxford university press. rumph, stephen. 2004. beethoven after napoleon: political romanticism in the late works. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by nicholas mathew beethoven is moving steadily rightwards. after a century or so of criticism that has taken beethoven's revolutionary convictions and enlightenment utopianism for granted, the last decade of beethoven scholarship has wit­ nessed the beginnings of a revisionist trend. most importantly, several schol­ ars have given unprecedented critical attention to the neglected group of compositions that beethoven composed in the reactionary political climate of the congress of vienna-the notorious wellingtons sieg foremost among them. 1 with stephen rumph's splendid new book, this revisionist sensibil­ ity has finally blossomed into a thesis: beethoven's late music, argues rumph, partakes of the counterrevolutionary politics, nostalgic medievalism, and anti-enlightenment attitudes of german "political romanticism." rumph gives us a beethoven more at home with friedrich schlegel than immanuel kant. rumph's study is doubly radical insofar as he primarily takes on the late music-the very compositions that critics have traditionally portrayed as the most unworldly products of western music. nowadays, to be sure, crit­ ics are armed with the kind of rarefied hermeneutic equipment that can detect power relations in the most unworldly places; as one might expect, there is some hard hermeneutic labor in this book, often leading to a view of politics that seems too abstract or immaterial to be considered political at all. but for the most part rumph permits constructive dialogue between the intellectual and material world of beethoven's music. indeed, the inter­ play of concrete political conditions and contemporary intellectual responses to them is at the heart of rumph's musical-historical premise: the stylistic and political characteristics of the late style emerged during the last years of the napoleonic wars and the congress of vienna. "to put it bluntly," writes rumph, "the same ideology that shaped beethoven's late style helped create the restoration" (107). before he arrives at the late style, however, rumph wants to straighten out the "heroic style," a critical category that his own periodization requires him to uphold, even reinforce, rather than query. rumph accordingly be­ gins with three chapters that stand apart to some degree from the main thrust of the book. the most relevant to his wider argument about beethoven's late style is the opening chapter, ''a kingdom not of this world;' current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 123 124 current musicology a reassessment ofe. t. a. hoffmann's canonic beethoven criticism.2 rumph has two aims here: first, to lay bare the politics underlying hoffmann's aes­ thetic of musical autonomy; and, second, to show that hoffmann's criti­ cism has little in common with the heroic beethoven compositions that were its most famous subject. rumph achieves both aims convincingly, pro­ posing a range of romantic political contexts for hoffmann's critical imag­ ery even as he claims that the exhortative manner of beethoven's heroic symphonies is out of keeping with hoffmann's otherworldly romanticism. in many respects, this chapter serves as a propaedeutic to the rest of the book; by freeing hoffmann's romantic politics from their association with beethoven's heroic music, rumph can argue that it is beethoven's late works that more faithfully reflect hoffmann's values. the subsequent two chapters present a view of the heroic style that complements and refines an existing scholarly consensus: until 1808 beethoven was an idealistic kantian, persisting with unfashionable enlight­ enment convictions. it is perhaps to be expected that rumph begins with a discussion of the sublime in his second chapter, "the heroic sublime": the sublime was routinely invoked to describe beethoven's music, and the con­ cept itself was an aesthetic with widely recognized political connotations. rumph's route into beethoven's musical sublime is unexpected, however: the six gellert songs, op. 48, which, as only rumph seems to have noticed, contain the one composition that beethoven headed "erhaben," "die ehre gottes aus der natur." the amount of discussion that rumph wrings from this little song is impressive, given that it comprises a strophe of fewer than fifty measures. he traces several connections between its exalted c-major stile antico and other heroic compositions, as well as moments from haydn's creation. rumph also spots an early instance of the common-tone modula­ tion (in this case, a unison g giving way to a series of pianissimo a chords) that kinderman dubbed beethoven's "symbol for the deity" -a harmonic maneuver that crops up in both the choral fantasy and the ninth sym­ phony. equally persuasive is rumph's reading of all six songs as a formal and expressive chiasmus, which nevertheless retains a more typically beethovenian teleology. rumph's portrayal of beethoven's sublime as "the gateway to a supersensible realm of moral freedom" (51) is utterly believable, particu­ larly as a contrast to the political romanticism that he has already claimed for hoffmann; still, one occasionally has the feeling that the more oppres­ sive side of the sublime-always an aesthetic of untrammeled power-goes unmentioned. indeed, a few minor contradictions emerge from rumph's whirlwind tour of beethoven's martial passages in c major. rumph is quick to cite the line "erhaben unser muth!" ("sublime is our courage!") from one nicholas mathew of beethoven's friedelberg settings; yet this was one of a pair of songs that practically foam at the mouth with bloodthirsty anti-french sentiment.3 add to this the opening reference to "ein grosses deutsches volk" (a great german people), and its politics appear much closer to hoffmann's reac­ tionary romanticism than rumph would surely like. likewise, in his dis­ cussion of the chorus "heil sei dem tag" from the finale of fidelio, rumph does not mention that beethoven only added this music in the 1814 re­ viva1.4 1814 was not only well after the period that rumph identifies with beethoven's heroic sublime, but was also the year in which the congress of vienna began-a festival of newfound monarchist zeal that many critics have seen reflected in beethoven's and treitschke's revisions to the opera. while rumph's dash through a decade of sublime beethoven offers many novel connections, it also exemplifies one of the book's few blemishes: the tendency to overlook the differences between musical genres and their so­ cial functions in pursuit of a broader aesthetic or political point. a certain historical blindness is sometimes the corollary of rumph's philosophical insight. to flesh out his discussion of the sublime, rumph draws examples from the domestic sphere of the gellert songs, the pseudo-public sphere of friedelberg's war song, and the overtly public sphere of the choral fantasy, as well as from opera, oratorio, and symphony. moreover, rumph claims that his account of the heroic sublime "sheds new light on the marcia funebre [from the eroica], the dungeon scene of leonore, and the slow movements of the 'waldstein' sonata, first 'razumovsky' quartet, and the fourth piano concerto, as well as the scherzo of the fifth symphony" (51). one is left questioning the usefulness of a concept so universally applicable. in the third chapter, "promethean history," rumph bites the bullet and takes on the eroica, modestly talking down the prospect of finding "any unturned stone" (58). a few pages later, this self-effacement seems like a bluff; rumph has something quite new up his sleeve. ten years ago, scott burnham discussed the uncanny consistency of eroica interpretations, re­ marking that "there has never been a reaction against the basic heroic trope, no deconstructive readings of the eroica as antihero or antiwar or antiself" (1995:27). rumph comes up with something approaching precisely this topsy-turvy reading: in the face of the symphony's copious reception his­ tory, he argues that "from the perspective of 1803, it seems dubious that beethoven intended anything even vaguely militaristic" (75). instead, rumph maintains that the symphony partakes of a narrative structure that per­ vades beethoven's heroic style: the universalgeschichte-a trope of enlight­ enment thought that rumph traces briefly through rousseau, kant, and schiller, and as far as fichte and hegel. the universalgeschichte is, in rumph's account, an underlying narrative about human history that describes 125 126 current musicology humanity's development from a harmonious state of nature to a condition of absolute rational freedom. the universalgeschichte certainly provides a coherent discursive link between the eroica and the score of prometheus, where the contredanse of the symphony's finale originated.s more radically, however, it lets rumph argue that the eroica has more in common with the pastoral symphony than most critics would care to admit. much of his reading of the eroica's first movement hinges on the idea that its bucolic a horns have been con­ sistently misheard by war-mongering critics and musicologists. rumph ul­ timately portrays the whole symphony as a dialectic between nature and culture, between pastoral meandering and galant periodicity. a successful synthesis is effected only in the final contredanse variations: "beethoven's savage enters civilization through the ballroom" (77). there is a lot to recommend rumph's reading. although he is a little unfair to burnham, who was writing precisely about the eroica's reception after all, we should welcome any account of the symphony that can direct our attention away from the now-sterile napoleon debates or identify pre­ viously unnoticed connections with works outside of the "odd-number" canon. but it strikes me that to argue so trenchantly that the eroica has or had nothing to do with war or militarism requires a more sustained histori­ cal examination than rumph provides; there is not a single quotation from a beethoven letter or any other source close to the composer himself, no reference to the conflicted political messages of the manuscript score, and little discussion of the symphony's early reviews or performances. yet rumph is prepared to cite the e~ opening of das rheingold as evidence that the eroica is a pastoral, even as he discounts the e~ militarism of the fifth piano concerto. such arguments set critical abstraction against historical con­ creteness unnecessarily. rumph's universalgeschichte can comfortably co­ exist with almost everything that scholars already know about the compo­ sitional and performance history of the eroica; material history and intel­ lectual history are not mutually exclusive. that there is relatively little at stake in the context of rumph's overall argument only makes his insistence on the point seem somehow artificia1.6 besides, the universalgeschichte might not be as radical a hermeneutic device as rumph thinks: for all his rhetoric of subversion, at the end of the chapter we are still left with a dialectical, end-oriented view of the eroica. that rumph turns to dahlhaus's hegelian reading of the first movement to support his own reading of the finale seems problematic to me (88). one might question how easily the final variations can be incorporated into a dialectical vision of the piece: the parataxis of variations, even so dramatically modified, is not the formal procedure that one associates with the heroic style and its ceaselessly developmental fornicholas mathew ward motion-which is perhaps why readings of the eroica have so often confined themselves to the first movement? the fourth chapter has a single date as its title: "1809." it is, in my view, one of the most valuable contributions to beethoven historiography that has been published for some time. its pleasingly unfashionable insistence on a particular historical, stylistic, and political watershed year will ensure that it is cited and discussed for years to come. rumph's thesis is simple: 1809 was a turning point, a year which saw a surge of patriotic and political feeling in viennese society.8 the war and occupation, as well as the financial instability they produced, bred in beethoven a deep personal resentment of the french. rumph argues that this change of heart is not only recorded in the handful of patriotic compo­ sitions and sketches from 1809, but also prompted a more fundamental stylistic transformation. rumph discusses this transformation in four sec­ tions. first, from 1809 onwards, beethoven began to show an increased in­ terest in music history, collecting old works and copying out portions of music treatises. second, his music became more contrapuntal, particularly in the most overtly learned ways. third, as critics widely recognize, beethoven's music became more lyrical, turning away from the dense the­ matic processes of the heroic style. and fourth, he began to write out the cadenzas for all of his concertos-an undertaking that reflects a more gen­ eral impulse to incorporate improvisatory elements into his music, even as he asserted ever-greater authorial control. individually, none of these ob­ servations are wholly new to beethoven scholarship; together, however, they constitute a compelling new argument about the genesis of the late style. the 1809 hypothesis permits rumph to make his most important claim, that the late style was not a resigned protest against metternich, the police state, or the res­ toration at all. that course was charted long before during an entirely different political climate. beethoven's turn to archaism, to counterpoint, to lyrical introspection, and to textualism coincide with the most engaged, active period of his political life in vienna. (107) thus, what maynard solomon calls the "dissolution of the heroic style" was actually "a proclamation of new allegiances" (rumph 2004: 107). this is superb stuff, all the more engaging for its profusion of simple theses and straightforward marshalling of evidence. of course, any periodization is susceptible to revision, but beethoven scholars would do well to explore the potential of rumph's paradigm. it offers a new way into the late style-via the worldly matters of the befreiungskriege-as well as a new, bipartite reading of beethoven's political and creative life, in which 127 128 current musicology periods of gestation or transition (in both politics and musical style) are followed by "stable" periods of roughly equal length: the heroic style (180208) and the late style (1820-26). some critics will no doubt balk at rumph's underlying assumptions: at the division of a creative life into transitions and plateaux, with its teleological conception of style development; at the attendant need to name the precise dates on which musical styles reached maturity; at the univalent conception of the composer's voice, which ig­ nores the possibility that different styles can co-exist, overlap, compete, or simply change according to genre. these are all legitimate concerns-ones that i am sure that rumph is well aware of. but they do not make the revi­ sionist thrust of his argument any less radical, timely, or persuasive. the subsequent two chapters-"contrapunctus i: prelude and fugue" and "contrapunctus ii: double fugue"-focus predominantly on the musi­ cal and ideological role of counterpoint, particularly in the late piano sona­ tas and string quartets. it is here that rumph finally unites hoffmann's ro­ mantic aesthetics with beethoven's late compositions. a series of close read­ ings explore the awkward musical confrontations between beethoven's dy­ namic sonata style and his newly static contrapuntal manner. topical analysis also plays its part, notably when rumph identifies beethoven's tendency to combine military topics with fugal textures, as he does most explicitly in the "dona nobis pacem" from the missa solemnis. the musical clashes in this movement, argues rumph, represent the wider tensions of beethoven's late politics: worldly strife versus divine peace, heroic action versus mystical contemplation, and revolutionary activism versus ancien regime orthodoxy. the two chapters conclude with the claim that, like hoffmann's fifth sym­ phony review, beethoven's stylistic disjunctions follow from an attempt "to inscribe a timeless ideal (archaic counterpoint) within a revolutionary dis­ course (heroic sonata form)" (153)-although rumph sensibly warns that, while beethoven's music has many affinities with contemporary romantic philosophy, it should by no means be reduced to it. two further chapters continue the ideological dissection of beethoven's late style. "androgynous utopias" is a study of the stylistic and ideological connections between wellingtons sieg and the ninth symphony, although rumph's discussion ranges widely across beethoven's works and romantic political philosophy. he begins with a brief history of viennese composi­ tions that, in his opinion, present utopian scenarios founded on the synthe­ sis or eradication of gender oppositions, beginning with the magic flute, passing through adam and eve of haydn's creation, and ending with beethoven's leonore. before long, rumph is busily examining the gendered language of early nineteenth-century political and aesthetic theory, oppos­ ing the dynamic "masculinity" of the kantian sublime (which, as he has nicholas mathew already argued, underlies the radical politics of the heroic style) to the burkean faith in established order and the beautiful, "feminine" constraints of the social world. rumph maintains that the political romantics built on the latter, burkean tradition, which culminates in adam muller's elemente der staatskunst, completed in the watershed year of 1809. rumph's argument is rich indeed, and extremely resistant to summary. its ultimate aim, however, is to suggest that the ninth symphony, in the intellectual tradition of muller, gradually asserts a feminizing (beautiful) and divine influence over the masculine (sublime) world of the heroic style. this is effected by its overall trajectory towards simple lyricism, and also by the vicissitudes that the symphony's freude theme famously undergoes­ not least its incorporation into the final double-fugue apotheosis. rumph can thus maintain that the ninth trumps the liberal vision of the heroic style with the higher authorities of both tradition and the divine. moreover, it is an aesthetic and political program that is presaged, he argues, in wellingtons sieg-in its progress from battle to hymn, and from hymn to fugue. rumph's account of the political ambience of the ninth is both impor­ tant and hard to refute-the ninth's is "hardly a liberal vision;' he warns, even as it insists on "a vigorous, humanistic element in the commonwealth" (194). also of lasting importance is his argument that the symphony has a stylistic and ideological precursor in wellingtons sieg-in its stark opposi­ tions and dramatic musical deus ex machina, and its hymns, marches, and culminating fugue. indeed, rumph brilliantly carves a passage through which the formerly aberrant wellingtons sieg can re-enter the mainstream of beethoven's oeuvre. rumph's decision to frame his discussion in terms of gender strikes me as less successful, perhaps because the chapter is already so full of musical and political discourses. certainly, critics have long recognized the gender implications of the sublime and the beautiful, and these implications have yet to be examined in connection with wellingtons sieg, if not the ninth symphony.9 but in rumph's larger narrative about political romanticism, not to mention the story of beethoven and the napoleonic era, one would have thought that questions of gender could at least have been anchored more firmly in an immediate political context. as it is, "gender" turns out to be a strangely apolitical abstraction, allowing rumph to skip across the full decade from wellingtons siegto the ninth without mentioning what changes might have occurred in between; and it permits a discussion of wellingtons sieg that makes no mention of wellington or any victories. the discussion of the ninth continues in the next chapter, "vox populi, vox dei;' which addresses the apparent confluence of populism and reli129 130 current musicology gious mysticism in the finale of the ninth and other late compositions. the discussion begins with the 1809 sonatine, op. 79, which, according to rumph, reveals a new populist side of beethoven's music. rumph wants to show that the almost mechanical crudeness of the material in the opening alla danza tedesca is at odds with beethoven's developmental impulses­ the result being its humorous swerves, disjunctions, and stops and starts. further, rumph insists that these tensions pervade the late music: after 1809, "naive object" and "subjective process" are not synthesized as they appar­ entlywere in the contredanse of the eroica finale: "if the 'eroica' finale vindi­ cates naive melody as the sole and sufficient end of utopian history, the 'ode to joy' portrays it as raw material in need of civilizing completion" (204). rumph goes on to provide a context for the recitative and learned coun­ terpoint of the ninth among the later piano sonatas such as op. 101, with its fugal development and improvisatory digressions and recollections. the uncanny moments of self-awareness so common in late beethoven-the musical swerves that seem to take place outside of the prevailing narrative space-acquire, in rumph's narrative, a broadly political significance. for rumph, the ninth finale has "an unmistakably hegelian shape" (214): it not only develops towards a fichtean new world, but it absorbs its musical past as it goes, retaining a "contemplative space outside of dramatic time" (211). moreover, the mystical pseudo-plain chant of the "seid umschlungen;' introduced by the male voices in the same tessitura as the preceding recitatives and combined with the freude melody in a double fugue, under­ pins the entire conception with the voice of the divine. this confluence of naive melody and religious mysticism is hoffmann's politics made musical. once again, it is hardly a liberal vision, even though it would seem to en­ dorse a sort of populism: "the voices of the 'ode to joy' by no means vindi­ cate the free individual of enlightenment imagination," concludes rumph. "on the contrary, they crawl backwards into the womb of a pre-individual­ istic, feudal christendom" (221). with this unsettling political reading of the ninth ringing in our ears, we are perhaps more receptive to the message of rumph's final chapter. his "modernist epilogue" briefly summarizes key figures in late beethoven re­ ception: walter riezler, heinrich schenker, joseph kerman, charles rosen, maynard solomon, and theodor adorno. this chapter is a valuable guide to the canonic figures of twentieth-century beethoven scholarship, and will doubtless furnish reading material for innumerable beethoven classes across britain and north america. although rumph relaxes the strict contours of his argument in order to assess each critic in turn, his central point is clear: beethoven scholarship has inherited a modernist view of late beethoven, in nicholas mathew which the music either retreats into self-sufficient abstraction or implicitly criticizes the saccharine frivolity of biedermeier music through dizzying technical sophistication and introspection. rumph's tone is polemical but even handed. charles rosen comes in for some of the harshest criticism. rumph takes him to task for his insis­ tence on beethoven's unstinting "classicism" and picks apart his analytical attempt to domesticate the "hammerklavier" sonata. but rumph is wise not to throw the baby out with the modernist bathwater, recognizing his own scholarly debts, especially where solomon and kerman are concerned. most significantly, however, rumph breaks the chronological ordering of his discussion to conclude with a short critique of adorno. while rumph recognizes that adorno's view of the late style provides a "counterbalance to the totalizing strategies of modernist criticism," he nevertheless declares: "i find little else of value in his interpretation oflate beethoven" (243). having spent the greater part of his study demonstrating that beethoven's late works constitute an open embrace of reactionary politics, rumph is understand­ ably impatient with adorno's notion of a resistant and radical late style, where the free musical subject retreats behind "arrested conventions." but rumph also intends to be provocative-a dissenting voice in a critical cli­ mate that has successfully recast adorno's own resistant dialectical thought as a monolithic source of authority. still, one senses that rumph has no desire to keep the reactionary company of some of adorno's more vocifer­ ous recent critics; after all, without adorno, rumph's own brand of cultural criticism would not be possible. rather, rumph's critique is a bold asser­ tion of his own voice, brushing deliberately against the grain of current critical fashion. but what does rumph offer in place of this modernist heritage? the answer: history. "mythology will have to give way to history," he intones in his concluding sentences, "the cultic beethoven to a more human figure. then perhaps these fascinating works can tumble from their pedestal of absolute music into the melee of real human discourse" (245). given the nature of his own brand of criticism, however, 1 remain a little troubled by the word that rumph chooses for the conclusion of his entire book: "dis­ course." beethoven's music tumbles off its pedestal and lands-in "dis­ course"? true, rumph attaches two coercive adjectives to this discourse: it is both "real" and "human." but, having surveyed rumph's elegant and so­ phisticated readings, 1 find it hard to shake off the impression that-"real" and "human" aside-it is actually just the "melee of discourse" that rumph enjoys most of all. there is nothing wrong with that, of course: the humani­ ties need people who are concerned foremost with ideas as well as the mate­ riality of things. 1 am not convinced, however, that we should mistake 131 132 current musicology rumph's discursive melee for history. it is useful for our purposes that rumph explains his methodology in his introduction, sketching a scholarly approach that is rapidly becoming the prevalent mode of historical musicology. rumph is interested in "in­ tellectual constructs that, while they partake of musical and political mean­ ing, remain independent from both," or, as he also puts it, "junctures where the history of ideas and the history of composition might intersect" (7). this immaterial brand of foucauldianism is rumph's default methodologi­ cal setting. while such an approach is frequently convincing and produc­ tive, and often has a historical feel, its guiding discourses sometimes neglect context. it is worth noting, for instance, that beethoven's own voice is al­ most entirely absent from the book, whether in the form of letters, conver­ sation books, or, indeed, the tagebuch, which covers many of the key transi­ tional years that rumph discusses. the finest moments in the book show beethoven in dialogue with the world around him; the weakest points turn rumph's subjects into mere receptacles for discourse. when the interpre­ tive going gets tough, rumph occasionally dismisses authorial intention altogether: we are told that it "hardly matters" if beethoven was not up to speed with schiller's aesthetics, even after rumph goes to great lengths to demonstrate the composer's possible contact with schillerian ideas (65); we are likewise told that hoffmann's personal politics "do not particularly matter;' even as the politics of his criticism is skillfully dissected (25). more­ over, rumph habitually quotes from beethoven song-texts without indi­ viduating their authors or mentioning beethoven's considerable ambiva­ lence about many of the poets with whom he collaborated. not only do rumph's discourses diminish the importance of genre, but they are necessarily blind to the circumstances in which any piece was per­ formed; indeed, for all his protestations against the modernist critical tra­ dition, there is a distinctly modernist textualism at the heart of rumph's approach. he identifies the motifs of political romanticism across all of beethoven's late music, whether in piano sonatas or symphonies, without considering why beethoven might have engaged in a particular kind of cul­ tural dialogue in one genre (i.e. string quartets) rather than another (i.e. oratorios). the resulting discussion of beethoven's music seldom strays from the most canonic and frequently discussed works. apart from wellingtons sieg, the rest of the congress-period compositions get scant attention, de­ spite their obvious relevance to the politics of romanticism-indeed, the lack of any sustained discussion of der glorreicheaugenblick, with its juxta­ position of folksong and march topics with archaic counterpoint, seems a real omission. even the missa solemnis hardly features-surprising, given rumph's critique of adorno, and the opportunity his own ideas would seem nicholas mathew to afford of domesticating this "alienated masterpiece." rumph is clearly more interested in hunting the big game of the late quartets, the late piano sonatas, and the ninth. this is fair enough, but the attention to "discourse" means that the book neglects other musiciansdiabelli, spohr, weigl-or compositions that might also represent strains of political romanticism. and even though rumph raises the question of the rossini-beethoven bi­ nary opposition early on, he never suggests where italian opera might stand in relation to the nexus of problems that he discusses. likewise, he has little to say about beethoven's musical forebears. haydn appears briefly, while cherubini is completely overlooked. rumph's discussion of learned coun­ terpoint rarely touches on the variety of beethoven's stylistic models-to s. bach, c. p. e. bach, handel, and palestrina-and their diverse cultural sig­ nificance, nor does it reflect richard kramer's important research on late beethoven and counterpoint. 10 in short, rumph is keener to investigate in­ tangible parallels between beethoven's music and german philosophers than tangible but messy musical-cultural collisions, which are not so easily ex­ pressed as underlying discursive structures. musicological quibbling over which beethoven symphony is most like hegel or fichte seems fruitless to me; it risks reducing rich cultural polyphony to the bland discursive unison of music and philosophy. history punctures myths. it is, as rumph points out, a problem for beethoven and his critics-history topples beethoven from his pedestal, compromis­ ing our hero. beethoven is compromised when he declares his ambition to lay works on the alter of the fatherland, when he directs a concert eulogiz­ ing all the crowned heads of europe, or when he professes to name a sym­ phony after napoleon. this is the melee of real human history-moments that still make some beethoven scholars uncomfortable. but i wonder whether beethoven is truly compromised when he is discursively linked with one or another german philosopher. the melee of discourse sometimes manages to shade aesthetics elegantly into a rather abstract kind of politics without ever confronting the central problem: that the historical reality and the aesthetic reality of beethoven's works are invariably at odds. the fact remains, however, that no beethoven scholar, however skepti­ cal of rumph's approach, will feel shortchanged by his book-it is simply bursting with new ideas. rumph offers an utterly convincing new intellec­ tual context for beethoven's late works and many more new things besides: a new reading of hoffmann's famous beethoven reviews, an impertinent and provocative new view of the eroica, a new periodization of beethoven's life, and myriad new observations about the form and style of the late com­ positions. moreover, rumph has created a compelling new avenue of re133 134 current musicology search for others. he has written an important, even paradigm-shifting book; every scholar of beethoven and german romanticism will need to have a view on it-whatever the view might be. notes 1. three notable examples are buch (2003:66-86), cook (2003), and kinderman 0995:16788). 2. this chapter expands on rumph's article of the same title (995). 3. the lyrics come from a song for the austrian militia, "ein grosses deutsches yolk sind wir" (1797). 4. indeed, rumph actually implies that it belongs to an earlier version by referring to leonore, as if following the scholarly convention of reserving this title for the pre-1814 versions of the opera (53). 5. rumph's contribution to the literature on the ideological background of beethoven's prometheus follows from those of floros (978), geck and schleuning (989), and, most recently, rice (2003:248-52). 6. richard will has already presented a sensitive reading of the first movement that takes into account the apparent clash of pastoral and military topics. see will (2001:188-241). 7. the absence of any reference to elaine sisman's work on the variation finale (1990; 1993) seemed a real omission. 8. rumph professes to build on the periodization proposed in pestelli (1984); his account of the political watershed is indebted to langsam (930). 9. rumph disdains to conjure up mcclary's visions of the ninth's final pelvic thrusting (mcclary 1991). 10. particularly relevant, especially when it comes to hoffmann's direct influence on beethoven, is kramer (1998). see also kramer (987). references buch, esteban. 2003. beethoven's ninth: a political history, translated by richard miller. chicago: university of chicago press. burnham, scott. 1995. beethoven hero. princeton: princeton university press. cook, nicholas. 2003. the other beethoven: heroism, the canon, and the works of 18131814. nineteenth-century music 270): 3-24. floros, constantin. 1978. beethovens eroica und prometheus-musik. wilhelmshaven: heinrichshofen. geck, martin and peter schleuning. 1989. "geschrieben auf bonaparte." beethovens "eroica": revolution, reaktion, rezeption. reinbek bei hamburg: rowohlt. kinderman, william. 1995. beethoven. berkeley: university of california press. kramer, richard. 1987. gradus ad parnassum: beethoven, schubert, and the romance of counterpoint. nineteenth-century music 11 (2): 107-20. ---. 1998. in search of palestrina: beethoven in the archives. in haydn, mozart, and beethoven: studies in the music of the classical period. essays in honour of alan tyson, nicholas mathew edited by sieghard brandenburg, 283-300. oxford: oxford university press. langsam, walter. 1930. the napoleonic wars and german nationalism in austria. new york: columbia university press. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender and sexuality. minneapolis: univer­ sity of minnesota press. pestelli, giorgio. 1984. the age of mozart and beethoven, translated by eric cross. cam­ bridge: cambridge university press. rice, john a. 2003. empress marie therese and music at the viennese court, 1792-1807. cam­ bridge: cambridge university press. rumph, stephen. 1995. a kingdom not of this world: the political context of e. t. a. hoffmann's beethoven criticism. nineteenth-century music 19 (1): 50-67. sisman, elaine. 1990. tradition and transformation in the alternating variations of haydn and beethoven. acta musicologica 62 (2(3): 152-82. ---.1993. haydn and the classical variation. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. will, richard. 2001. the characteristic symphony in the age of haydn and beethoven. cam­ bridge: cambridge university press. 135 in search of meaning in context: bartok's duke bluebeard's castle 1 by judit frigyesi every culture is the conquering of life, the unification of all manifes­ tations of life (that is, of course, never the unification of concepts) with such force that whatever part we approach from a totality of life, we have to see, deep down, the same thing. in real culture, everything becomes symbolic, because everything is the expression­ and everything is equally only the expression-of the only important thing: the manner of reaction to life, the manner with which the to­ tal self of the individual turns toward the totality of life. (lukacs 1977:424)2 these words come from one of those uniquely personal essays that gyorgy lukacs wrote during the first decade of the twentieth century, and that provided the basis for his major book on aesthetics, soul and forms (1978). what does lukacs want to say here? first and foremost, that there is an immediate connection between life and art; accordingly, in art "the only important thing [is] ... the manner with which the total self of the individual turns toward the totality of life." but lukacs goes further: he emphasizes the fact that the connection is between the totality of life and the totality of the artwork. art is symbolic, but not because its individual el­ ements have symbolic meaning with reference to an everyday reality. the symbolism of art lies in that it is, in its totality, an emotional/intellectual response to the underlying question oflife. for lukacs, there is essentially one way to respond with a total work to the totality of life, though this allows for infinite artistic solutions. the key is in the inward-turning direction of art, meaning that it exclusively represents the struggles of the soul. this does not mean psychological drama, but rather an emotionally dense, imaginary stage for the artwork that in its symbolic connections is as complex and contradictory as reality. according to lukacs, only such a "narrowing" of the subject allows art to face the drama of reality: current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 5 6 current musicology everything happens in the atmosphere of the soul, but this is not the weakening of things but their deepening, their transformation into something inner; this is the struggling through and the suffering through of all paradoxes of the soul. because everything is ours, everything is of the soul, and everything that is tragic can happen only within it, all dissonances become sharper: precisely because they all become part of the inside and it is not possible to push them out, nor is it possible to transfer them to anything else outside of it. and the salvation-the redeeming power of form-is only at the end of all roads and all sufferings. it resides in this belief, which is impos­ sible to prove and which lies vividly beyond all proofs, in the belief that the scattered multidirectional roads of the soul do meet at the end; they have to meet because they departed from the same center. and the form is the only proof of this belief, because it is its only realization, a realization more vivid than life itself. (lukacs 1977:434-35) totality in artwork, then, means the condensation of the greatest imagi­ nable tensions in a system that reveals their inherent inner harmony, and this is, in lukacs's terminology, the meaning of "form." for lukacs, the extreme tensions of life may be explored only as the drama of the soul, for it is only in the realm of the soul where no question can be evaded. if everything happens in the atmosphere of the soul, then nothing can be pushed aside by pretending that it "does not concern us "-here every­ thing is "us." thus for lukacs, the soul is a symbol; it is the stage where the utmost tensions may be played out and brought back to their source. the time period when lukacs wrote these lines coincides with the for­ mation of bart6k's aesthetics and his first pieces in the modern style: the first string quartet (1908), the allegro barbaro for piano (1911), and the opera duke bluebeard's castle (1911). the fact that these two prominent figures of modernism created an integral conception of art at the same time and in the same place, and as we shall see, struggled with the same basic issues, suggests the presence of a meaningful relationship between their thoughts. but although i believe, and will attempt to show in this es­ say, that such a relationship exists, it is not as self-evident as it may seem at first glance. since bart6k and lukacs were working on these ideas during the same period, neither of them could have read or heard the work of the other in its completed form. nor was their personal connection particularly strong. of course, bart6k had many ties to the sunday circle, the group of intel­ lectuals surrounding lukacs. among others, he was the friend of zoltan kodaly and bela balazs, both of whom-especially the latter-frequented judit frigyesi 7 the weekly meetings of the group.3 but bartok himself was rarely present, and almost never took part in the debates. in general, bartok shied away from intellectual circles. he had difficulty expressing ideas verbally, grew bored listening to arguments, and in fact detested intellectual debates which seemed to him an empty play with words. 4 after his youthful years, he likely never read a single philosophical work, and even during his youth he seems to have read only one in its entirety: friedrich nietzsche's human, all too human. all of this does not preclude a connection between bartok's and lukacs's views. nevertheless, the apparent lack of mutual personal interest in this otherwise extremely tight intellectual milieu should make one cau­ tious. why suppose that out of the many ideologies that characterized the complex cultural atmosphere of budapest, the philosophy of lukacs would be the one to provide a meaningful context for the aesthetics of bartok? still, the similarity of their ideas is striking. lukacs stressed that the art­ work first and foremost expresses the reaction of the total self of the artist to the totality of life, a belief also held by bartok. there are numerous ref­ erences in bartok's writings to the fact that his art aims at expressing above all a "general spirit," which, as he admitted, is "difficult to describe in words."5 for bartok, "general spirit" was not to be equated with a simple emotion; it was rather the integration of emotional opposites. several of his first compositions in the modern style are in a two-movement form that expresses an opposition of characters (e.g., ideal-grotesque). as bartok wrote to his wife, "i cannot imagine that an artwork could be any­ thing but the manifestation of the infinite enthusiasm, despair, sorrow, vengeful anger, distorting and sarcastic irony of its creator."6 clearly, bartok insists here on the demand that true art express the opposing passions of the soul. the most immediate connection between bartok and lukacs that comes to mind is the composer's first large-scale piece in the modern style, the opera duke bluebeard's castle. the work was written in 1911 to the text of bela balazs, a prominent member of the lukacs circle. as if in­ tended to be the artistic embodiment of the lukacsian ideal, the piece is a symbolic drama in which everything happens inside of the soul. an understanding of duke bluebeard's castle entails two interrelated top­ ics, which cannot be fully explored in the limited scope of this article. the first, the interpretation of the symbolism of the opera, would necessitate a thorough analysis of text and music and also the exploration of the cul­ tural context in depth.7 the second topic, the definition of a "meaningful context" in relation to the symbolic world of a musical piece, is even more problematic. even if one were instantly convinced of the existence of an 8 current musicology inherent relationship between lukacs's aesthetic theory and bartok's mu­ sic, the problem remains of how to substantiate such an "insight" in the absence of demonstrable, concrete influences. in bartok's case, this latter question concerns not only his relation to lukacs, but also his cultural en­ vironment at large. we will encounter the same situation when attempting to find parallels to bartok's works in the poems of endre ady. while the meaning of influence is fairly straightforward in certain musical-technical aspects of bartok's style, his global aesthetic concepts in relation to his cul­ tural environment resist concretization. in attempting, on the one hand, to explore the basic symbolic ideas iof the opera, and, on the other, to ad­ dress the problem of finding the context that substantiates these symbols, my conclusions will necessarily remain fragmentary. the setting of the opera is confined to the dark hall of bluebeard's castle, whose closed doors hide secret chambers. the symbols correspond to this space: the castle is the metaphor for the soul, whose secrets are hid­ den. 8 when judith enters, the castile is dark, its seven doors closed. she opens the doors one after another, bringing light into the castle and thereby revealing the secrets of bluebeard's soul. but once all of the doors are opened and the secrets revealed, their love ends. judith disappears be­ hind the last door, the doors close, and bluebeard remains in darkness forever. since the work of sandor veress, the opera has been generally re­ garded as the "eternal tragedy of the dualism of man and woman." , because most scholars today share veress's interpretation, it is worth quot­ ing his summary: bluebeard and judith represent the eternal tragedy of the dualism of man and woman, the heavenly and earthly perspective of their souls. here is the drama of man's loneliness seeking complete fulfillment in woman and finding only partial satisfaction, and of woman, who, in her devotion to man, sacrifices her whole being .... [bluebeard] finds in judith the most beautiful one, the final fulfillment ... whom he adorns with his most precious jewels; but he has to lose her, too, because judith desires the disclosure of the secret behind that last door. it is in vain that he begs her not to open it ... judith insists ... and with this her fate is sealed. (veress 1949:33) taking this interpretation as a starting point, bluebeard is usually char­ acterized as wise and rational and judith as impatient, passionate, and narrow-minded. for gyorgy kroo, bluebeard is a man of "wisdom and great experience in emotional life"; in contrast, judith is "impatient, curious, jealous and stubborn" (kroo 1962:83).9 judit frigyesi 9 this interpretation-shared by veress, kroo, elliot antokoletz (2001), carl leafstedt (1999), susan mcclary (1991),10 and indeed most analysts with the exception of erno lendvai (1964)-collapses the moment we take the symbolism of the piece seriously. if the castle is bluebeard's soul, then judith is part of the castle inside bluebeard. she is an inner desire, an attitude-she is bluebeard. this symbolism precludes a traditional fem­ inist interpretation. the opera is not about man and woman in the biolog­ ical or social sense, but about a duality of desires in constant conflict within all human beings (which perhaps some would identify as masculine and feminine desires). the traditional interpretation collapses not simply because it is illogi­ cal, but because it contradicts the basic feeling with which we are left when listening to the piece. i believe lukacs is right when he says that every piece is the symbolic expression "of the only important thing: the manner of reaction to life, the manner with which the total self of the in­ dividual turns toward the totality of life." we find, in every piece, a basic feeling or attitude, and in the case of bluebeard's castle, the underlying atmosphere is not that of destruction, collapse, or disaster. there is a pas­ sionate, desperate outburst of chromatic music before the seventh door; this is indeed a tragic moment, the last dramatic turning point of the piece. ll but this climax is preceded and followed by moments of beauty and serenity. many of the key points of the opera are gentle and lyrical; they suggest serenity rather than sadness. one might recall, for example, the two scenes that act as pillars before and after the opening of the doors: the peaceful, ornamental, pastoral scene that precedes the opening of the first door and bluebeard's epic-like, calm quasi-aria chronicling his past loves. finally, the closing measures are without any harshness or dis­ sonance; they lead to the last mysterious, soft sound of the timpani and the lower strings that conclude with the last beat on the dominant, as if leaving the final question open. how can one arrive at a new interpretation of a symbolic work when prior interpretations have hardened in our minds? in this essay, i proceed in two directions: first, i consider the dramatic meaning of a few segments based on the relation of dramatic action, music and staging, and second, i turn to the cultural-poetic context in order to explore the symbolic mean­ ing of these dramatic situations. let me begin with the first approach by looking at two sections more closely: the beginning of the opera and the opening of the fifth door. the f# pentatonic theme in the opening measures is modeled on the melodic outline of a hungarian old-style folk song, and analysts normally regard it as a representation of the calm and reserved nature of bluebeard (ex. 1).12 the second theme (m. 16), following veress's interpretation, is ) ) ) 10 current musicology example 1: the two contrasting themes at the beginning of the opera, andante j;;; 92 : : ~,.,. : t:'\ : ;to : : :<e' ?;. (when the curtain rises, the stage is in total darkness.) via vc cb " " ~ ~~. ,.,. ~~. pp semp!e leg. i miste1ioso t:'\ !!~. ~. ;to #~. ~ o. ~~ ~: ;to meno mosso j=72 poco marc. dolce obs cis " "pfrl .. .. ~ >i!' l,...-j ~ ~: #~ i !!~~ ~? .6. :-:----.., t:'\ ~. ;to ~. ~~ ~ .ii'~j:'1~~ i it' • l >~ judit frigyesi 11 usually called the "menacing theme," thought of as a voice of intrusion into the calmness of the castle. at the same time, throughout the opera, f# is associated with darkness, while c serves as the tonality of light. i3 pen­ tatonicism is usually associated with peace and characterizes bluebeard, chromaticism with pain and the restless, aggressive nature of judith. a closer look at the first few measures of the opera, however, suggests a more complex dramatic design. although the melodic outline conforms to what bartok and kodaly believed to be the most ancient hungarian melodic type,i4 the theme as a whole is far removed from the atmosphere of a real folk song. according to bartok, the most striking feature of the hungarian old-style songs-the feature that distinguishes them from western music-is their specific rubato that reflects the irregular speech­ patterns of poetic declamation. i5 the performance of the old-style songs, typically sung by a solo voice, is rich in rhythmic subtleties and orna­ mentation. if we keep this in mind, it is immediately apparent that the first theme of bluebeard's castle does not aim to capture the atmosphere of a real folk song. rather, it is a conceptual redaction, the tonal essence of a song type-a pentatonic urlinie, so to speak. by reducing folk song to its conceptual essence, bartok creates a theme that contains the idea of folk song as much as it rejects it. moreover, the theme evokes a misterioso atmosphere that is hardly folk song-like, and pro­ ceeds without any change in dynamics in a deliberately exaggerated, al­ most unbearably slow tempo. this slow tempo is meaningful only if bartok's intention is carried out faithfully, namely if the theme is heard as background music to the prologue, whose last lines are recited superim­ posed on the first half of the melody. the second theme (m. 16) is composed ofthree gesture-like note pairs, the first one ascending (e with mordent-g) and the second and third de­ scending (f#-d#, e-c). contrary to the hollow sound of the f# pentatonic first theme, this second theme introduces c major and chromaticism. the harmonization is based on a series of parallel, "sweet" thirds both in the melody and harmony, and is performed dolce with changing dynamics. the minor second, which will have a central function in the opera, sym­ bolizing pain in an almost leitmotivic fashion (the so-called "blood mo­ tive"), appears here for the first time as the opening ornament of the sec­ ond theme (e-d#-e with parallel thirds). both themes are enigmatic in their dramatic function. the symmetry, uniform rhythmic flow, simplicity, and clarity of structure in the pentatonic theme evoke a feeling of perfection, beauty and peacefulness. but precisely because it is so unproblematic and perfect, and because it lacks expressive­ ness in the performing style (lack of crescendo, vibrato, ritardando, 12 current musicology etc.), the theme strikes us as something cold, abstract, and lifeless. bartok's dramatic design-the superposition of prologue, dark stage, and non-expressive music-suggests that the drama has not started yet. we hear the barely audible, extremely slow, skeletal outline of a song coming from the background, "from behind" the words of the prologue. the theme functions as a kind of creation music; it represents the mysterious depth of existence before real singing and feeling are born. the character and function of the second theme are also unclear. what are we to make of bartok's instruction that this theme is dolce but with a poco-marcato beginning? should the sixty-fourth notes at the begin­ ning be played as an ornament or as a sharp accent representing shud­ dering? conductors have come to distinctly different solutions. for instance, janos ferencsik's early recording brings out the dolce character of the theme by making the ornament gentle and bringing out the sweet sound of the clarinet as the dominating sonority. antal dorati has opted for the opposite interpretation by emphasizing the sharpness of the orna­ ment and choosing the shrieking sound ·of the oboes as the primary orchestral coior. 16 but whatever interpretation we accept, it is clear that the minor second and chromaticism are not the sole property of an aggressive judith, as they are usually interpreted. the fact that these elements appear prominently in this theme signals that they are an inherent part of the castle, that is, of bluebeard's soul-at this point, remember, judith has not yet entered the castle. the tonal symbolism is similarly ambiguous. throughout the opera, f# (minor) is associated with darkness and c (major) with light. here, however, there is a prominent statement of the c tonality while the stage is still completely dark. light first enters the stage when, after this introductory music, a door in the back of the stage opens and we see judith and bluebeard appear at the top of the stairs. the spectators, by now used to staring into darkness, are blinded by the dazzling light pouring from the stage where they see the silhouettes of two characters. the viewer of the drama experiences the same discomfort that judith will when she is blinded by the light at the opening of the fifth door ("dazzled by the radiance, judith shields her eyes with her hand"). our first experience with light in this drama is un­ pleasant and gives us little to see. could we say, after these few measures, that light and c major belong together and are positive while f# minor, chromaticism, and darkness are at the negative pole? the turning point of the drama is the opening of the fifth door: judith is dazed by the brightness and richness of bluebeard's empire. this is the most positive moment of the opera, which judith is unable to under­ stand, or so it seems. her refusal to take part in bluebeard's happiness judit frigyesi 13 and then her demand to open the last two doors bring about the return of darkness. however, here again, the music tells a more complex story (ex. 2). the majestic and yet simple theme of this scene has an awe-inspiring effect in performance. nothing really anticipates this sound: this is the first time that we hear the organ, the entire monumental orchestra, and an un­ equivocal c major with homophonic harmonization. yet after a few moments, the effect loses some of its power. we realize that the majestic theme is actually simple and repetitive, without rhythmic complications, ornaments, or chromaticism. the harmonization is naively "happy": a major chord for each note of the melo\:iy. this straightforward simplicity is truly non-organic in this piece-hence its captivating beauty, but also its failure. judith responds to this music by singing back to bluebeard the penta­ tonic theme of the beginning of the opera, without orchestration, senza espressione, and pianissimo. her melody in a~ using the black keys on the piano, as it were, opposes bluebeard's all-white-key melody.17 judith does not demand the opening of the other doors, but simply states: ''your country is beautiful and large." her emotional reaction embodies a full chain of associations: "your country," "your castle," "but what really was your castle before?" against bluebeard's c-major happiness, judith posits the tonality of darkness and the original theme of the castle. at the next appearance ([2§]), the c-centered melody is harmonized in f major, cadencing on a g-major chord. above the sustained g-major chord, bluebeard sings in a g tonality with mixolydian touches, using f~ instead of f#, thus avoiding the minor-second clash with the g-major chord. judith again insists on the castle theme, now in e~ minor penta­ tonic. the orchestral theme returns for the third time (l11l), now in a~, cadencing in e major. at this third stage, bluebeard's e-minor pentatonic melody comes very close to judith's interjections, that is, to the castle theme. however, his line carefully avoids g, the minor third of the pentatonic scale, so that his melody does not clash with the g# of the sustained e-major chord. however we may choose to interpret this section, it is certain that the opening c-major tonality stays for only a few measures before the har­ mony moves away, oscillating between subdominant and dominant. bluebeard's voice is gradually transformed. at the first appearance, his melody, though formally pentatonic, is different from the pentatonicism of hungarian old-style songs. it is essentially major-sounding, oscillating between tonic and dominant with a dominant ending, somewhat in the style of operatic recitatives. bluebeard's next entry is in the mixolydian mode, thus approaching the modal style of folk melodies. his final entry 14 current musicology l) example 2: the fifth-door scene. ) bi ) larghissimo j:::: 66 judith (stops, blinded, her hands over her eyes) 1\ ~ poco allarg. t:'i meno largo =88 t! ah! ff quasi parlando, rna bluebeard ""~,-;,-;~,-; : larghissimo j :::: 66 poco allarg \:i lasd_ ez az en ~-----------------------------------------------1\ ~ hi"' , hi "~ , ~ , ji "~ , __, ~-~~ @) .ff.f (tutti ed orga pleno) i ~ jjff mf l ~ : j: ~* h. j: ~* !i'd j: '~i j: ~"'!i'd j: ,#jqj: -< sempre grave bi ro-dal-mam, mesz sze oe zo szep ko-nyok-lom. ugy-e hogy szep nagy, nagy or-szag? 18'")._. _. i\~~malto cresco -: :~: [~ breve larghissimo j ;:: 66 t:"i allarg. a tempo judith (looking out motionless distracted) ll v, ' : t! senza espressione ,. i~)szep es nagy a te ofsza-god. 800 t:"ij: #f f :i #f ~ :i "~ :i #f ~ i\~~ arr t! -jjff : ~# meno largo j = 88 poco allarg bluebeard ff ,. jff i i i \:i~ i hreve i i i i l i • j: h~ • i . ,-; se-lyem-re tek, bar sony-er d~k, hosz szu e-zust 18'"),~ ~ ~ ~ .0 •• ~e'f~o judit frigyesi 15 example 2 (cont.) poco allarg il t:\ judith fo-lyokfoly-nak, es kek he-gyek na-gyon mesz-sze. poco allarg. 18m } :ft: =.: a tempo malto cresco _ i [22j larghissimo j = 66 most marlu-dit mind a ti-ed, ~------------------f t:"i t:"i ~~~~~~~~.~~~.~t:"i~~~~~~~~.~~.~~~~~~~~.~.~.~~~"~~.~.~ bl f s leszen ne ked jat _ szo-tar _ sad. u itt la-kik a haj-nal, al-kony, itt la kik nap, hold es csil-lag, (~}------------------------------------------------t:"i ~0 il t:"i ~~ ~f 0 "'= ~f ~t:"i :::~ h~ "~ [ill poco allarg. judith m 16 current musicology (section after [[11]), though it contains only four notes, is shaped like a melodic progression from an old-style pentatonic song (minor pentatonic, descending melody: e-d-b-a-e). both tonally and melodically, the changes follow the direction that judith's reaction gave to the music, and her reaction undoubtedly points toward the original music of the castle: a move away from c major, pentatonicism, minor mode, and a descending melody. is it that the orchestra and bluebeard gradually, perhaps subcon­ sciously, accept judith's voice? or is it rather that this c-major happiness was predestined to move toward darker tonalities because of some other inner forces in bluebeard's soul? whatever interpretation we choose, the basic direction of this scene is clear: the dramatic force represented by judith's soft, barely audible voice is stronger than the majestic sound of c major. but there is another interesting detail. at the end of the second orches­ tral statement, a cadential gesture appears twice: a quasi dominant-tonic progression from d major to g major with a counter-voice descending from fq, thus producing a minor-second clash with the f# of the d-major chord ([1§j, mm. 9-10, mm. 13-14). in the next statement, d major pro­ gresses to e major with the counter-voice touching again on fq. these are merely passing hints that a minor-second clash is unavoid­ able. but at the end of the third orchestral statement, like a sudden cloud, a sfanata string tremolo on the note g permanently darkens the bright sky of the sustained e-major chord (one measure before [1§] ) .18 g was pre­ cisely the pitch that bluebeard avoided in his e-minor pentatonic scale in order to hold on to a world without minor seconds. judith begins her final statement on g, telling us what she just heard in the tremolos of the strings: "the clouds cast bloody shadows." and with these words we return to the real tonic. as judith's motive de­ scends from g to c in a quasi dominant-tonic gesture (hinting at c mi­ nor), the string tremolo moves to an f# ([1ill). thus we hear, for the first time in this scene, the f#lc axis that together defined tonic at the beginning of the opera. the previous allusions to the fvf# minor second become meaningful at this point: under the f# tremolo, the majestic chord progression returns hauntingly in f minor, in the lower register of the brass. the fifth door opens up bluebeard's castle to a world of bliss and light­ ness. for a moment, perfect happiness reigns in his empire. the mysteri­ ous colors of the previous rooms dissolve in dazzling brightness, and the memory of the previous, delicate sound-effects of the orchestra are washed away by the sound of this monumental tutti. bluebeard would like to remain in this happiness. but could the castle (the soul) be a place of judit frigyesi 17 eternal dazzling light, a place without tears, memory, and sadness? it is im­ possible to interpret judith's act as negative when it is she who holds up the memory of a deeper and more total self, showing the road toward the original, more complex tonic. and it is this act that encapsulates judith's dramatic-symbolic role. at many points in the opera-although, remarkably, not in the scene of the fifth door-:judith's vocal lines are somewhat more chromatic, while bluebeard's melodies tend to be diatonic or pentatonic. but it would be wrong to conclude from this fact that the opposition of pentatonicism (diatonicism) and chromaticism captures the opposition of characters­ calm bluebeard versus cruel judith. bluebeard's soul is more than what he sings about; it is also what we see onstage and hear in the orchestra. the real tension is not between bluebeard and judith but between how bluebeard sings and the reality of his soul; the orchestra communicates blood, tears, and sufferings, but bluebeard insists on his tensionless penta­ tonicism. as bela baths states in a 1907 diary note in connection with sym­ bolist drama, "words can tell little of what should be said-but it is pre­ cisely for this reason that words mean more than what they actually say" (balazs 1982:408).19 judith does not bring about the bloody shadows of the clouds. but it is she who has the courage to see and to name what can be seen. she is the tormenting voice from within the soul, the voice that does not forget the soul's original confusion, cruelty, and desires-the voice from which there is no escape. she is the mirror that asks: "look at yourself. is this really you?" it is revealing to analyze the opera in this manner, considering all its local symbolism expressed in the superposition of music, text, dramatic action, lighting, and staging. however, we will not be able to penetrate the symbolism of the opera solely by such an analysis. what is the meaning of the return to the tonic: is it positive-a return to home, to one's own self-or is it negative-a return to a state of loneliness and darkness from which one hoped to break out? what is the symbolic meaning of the dual­ ity of man and woman, of light and darkness? what is the symbolic mean­ ing of the circular motion that defines the form of the drama? it is an ungrateful task to speak about symbols in a musicological article because the meaning of symbols cannot be proven or documented. they cannot even be argued about in the manner that is customary in scholarly discourse. the word "meaning" is somewhat out of place here. we cannot expect bartok or balazs to provide us, in their writings, with the possible associated meanings-for instance, of "night" in bluebeard's castle-because symbols cannot be grasped merely through logical-verbal associations. if 18 current musicology one could explore the symbolic meaning of night without arriving at am­ biguity and contradiction, then night would become a simple signifier like any word that points toward concrete things outside of it. true symbols­ and here i use the term "symbol" interchangeably with "metaphor" be­ cause in this symbolist context the two cannot be distinguished-are more like vessels. they contain (or better, they become one with) various feel­ ings and concepts. they mean more than one thing in any given context, and their symbolic content is the complex totality of meanings, sometimes even contradictory meanings. symbols are tied to a specific contextual and cultural milieu. when a word or image travels to another place it changes or loses its earlier sym­ bolic content entirely. the ephemeral nature of symbols makes an even stronger demand on the interpreter to find the relevant context, the con­ crete milieu of a particular symbol. but this demand in turn presents a se­ ries of problems that, though not insurmountable, often force the scholar to accept paradoxes and ambiguities to a degree that is not really desir­ able in scholarship. where can a scholar find the meaningful context of the symbols of bartok's opera? one possible source is the contemporary hungarian sym­ bolic literature, which, in this case, is essentially poetry. we are lucky to have access to bartok's huge personal library. but how can we delineate, out of this enormous collection, the body of literature that is relevant for this work? the scholar is inclined to look first at poems that bartok men­ tioned in letters, that bear the typical red pencil markings found in the margins of the poetry books bartok owned, or that he used as texts for his compositions.20 while one may begin with such a selective group of sources, in the end this approach leads to the artificial limitation of the material. it gives the illusion of a scientific approach where nothing of the sort exists. we know that bartok read certain volumes of poetry many times, and in these there is mostly one set of markings. is it far-fetched to suppose that certain nights, reading in bed, he did not have a pencil handy or he had no inclination to mark anything at all? indeed, bartok himself wrote in a letter that he was unable to mark the poem he loved the most among those by his favorite poet, endre ady; he was so deeply moved that any outward sign would have banalized this feeling. 21 but even if we could establish exactly what influenced him in the writ­ ing of a certain piece, it is still questionable whether this connection alone would help us penetrate his symbolism. let me give an example. it has al­ ready been noted that endre ady's poem "the castle's white woman" (a var feher asszonya) , which was marked by bartok in his volume, might have served as a model for balazs's text. the opening line of the poem makes judit frigyesi 19 the connection obvious: "my soul is an enchanted castle." the first three stanzas describe the mysterious castle, the wailing groans of enchanted spirits in the deserted halls, like those we hear in the opera. interpolated into this description are rhetorical questions, in the form of asides to an unidentified listener, about the eyes of the poet, seemingly without any connection to the description of the castle: "see how tired these eyes are?" then we arrive at the last stanza: (sometimes at secret night hours, suddenly those sad eyes light up.) the white woman walks in the castle and laughs out through the window. the problem is that by pointing out the similarity between this poem and the opera, we explain nothing. we compare something we do not re­ ally understand to something else that we do not understand; the mean­ ing of the shared symbols of poem and opera-the castle, the woman, eyes, whiteness, laughing, night, dark-remains enigmatic. like judith, the white woman in ady's poem walks in the soul of man. but are these two women the symbol of the same thing? ady's soul-castle has windows; it opens to the outside world (sympathetic or alien world?). the woman laughs, she looks out (is this the symbol of the positive act of cheering up or the sign of indifference?), she walks without words. in the opera,judith does not laugh; she cannot walk around the castle freely, she questions, she fights in order to be able to move forward. how can one symbol­ complex enlighten us about the meaning of the other? in order to penetrate the symbols of ady and bartok, like any culture of symbols, one has to consider the totality of their artistic world in the con­ text of the world of their contemporaries. context here has dual implica­ tions. first, it refers to the aspect of real life in a historical past that con­ tributed to the conceptualization of a work-something we will never be able to fully reconstruct. second, however, context also refers to the imag­ ined environment that we historians create out of a collage of existing documents. although this context is constructed, we believe it to be a mi­ lieu that is meaningful and helps us to penetrate a work of art. still, the character of modern intellectual life (and perhaps every intel­ lectuallife) makes it extremely difficult for the historian to construct this imagined milieu responsibly and relatively objectively. it is not only that "context" as it was lived-every minute of every life-cannot be retrieved. more problematic is that the collage of historical-cultural phenomena that historians select from the surviving documents is bound to be arbitrary and lacking in some of the most crucial factors that determined the 20 current musicology symbolic world of the past. this is the case for two reasons: first, because the exchange of ideas in the turn-of-the-century intellectual milieu was un­ usually dense and, second, because it was primarily oral. we have to remember that the manner of intellectual exchange that characterized turn-of-the-century paris, vienna, and budapest is very dif­ ferent from that of the intellectual milieu of our times. in these cities at the beginning of the century, intellectuals and artists formed loose circles whose boundaries were not merely institutional, if at all, and the connec­ tions among their members resulted in real, physical, day-to-dayencounters. these intellectuals did not learn about philosophy, politics, and culture primarily from books. ideas were sorted out at the coffee table, at infor­ mal meetings in each other's houses, during walks on the boulevards after concerts, at the swimming pool, during excursions. there was nothing un­ usual about bartok picking up nietzsche without ever having studied phi­ losophy, and it was also not surprising that nietzsche had a greater influ­ ence on him than most musical works composed at the time in hungary. there were dozens of cafe houses where the same group of intellectuals met regularly, several times a week, or even daily. the group formed around gyorgy lukacs normally met on sundays at the house of lukacs­ hence its name, the "sunday circle" (gluck 1985). the trio of emma gruber, bartok, and kodaly met at the house of gruber two or three times a week for several years. 22 in this context, the exchange of ideas was so dense that it is impossible to untangle a chain of influences and establish the origin of an idea, or even sort out clearly what it meant for individuals at given times. indeed, such an attempt at a genealogy of ideas becomes absurd. what, then, is the cultural context of a musical work? surely, it is much more than those direct influences where the connection can be proven as a fact. and clearly it is something much less and at the same time much more precise than the kind of schematic, general-historical surveys that we provide in textbooks under the label "cultural background." context is not background; it is an actual, living, complex environment that con­ stantly interferes in thousands of uncontrollable ways with creation. here i am struggling with a question asked by rose subotnik in her developing variations: what is the meaning of the word "and" in titles like "bela bartok and tum-of the-century budapest"? for all modern methodolo­ gies, we still feel secure only when we describe context in terms of individ­ ual influences. influence, in turn, has four conditions: (1) temporal prior­ ity: a came before b; (2) dependence: if a had not occurred, b would not have the particular character that it does; (3) awareness: a was known to the producer of b; and (4) similarity: b in some respect is similar to a (jones 1943). judit frigyesi 21 modern cultural studies, of course, go beyond a mechanical application of these conditions. we are more relaxed about the issue of temporal pri­ ority; when discussing a relatively short period of time, the fact that some­ one formulated an idea in writing at a certain moment does not mean that it was not known to certain circles earlier. it is harder, however, to loosen the requirements of awareness and similarity. the problem is that scholarly argument by its nature is designed to re­ veal similarities, whereas we make sense of our surrounding world in real life through dissimilarities as much as through similarities. in real life and in art, from which our world of symbols emerges, one internalizes diverse experiences whose sole connection may be that they are present at the same time. these experiences reflect upon and teach about an essential aspect of our world precisely because they are different. but what can a scholarly essay do with the realization, say, that a was not known to b, and a is not similar to b? the task of a scholarly argument is to bring system to disorder and to show how things are related. if the ideas of an artist were not known to another and/or if their works show no similarity in the as­ pects the scholar is scrutinizing, then there is no scholarly argument what­ soever. if we consider novels that we believe reflect their respective societies­ tolstoy's anna karenina, mahfouz's arabian nights and days, bulgakov's master and margarita, garcia marquez's hundred years of solitude-we find a very different pattern. these works convey a sense of integrity, a com­ mon spirit and worldview, even though the aspirations and fates of their characters are different, often incompatible. the stories reveal the forces within society through a web of seemingly irrational personal conclusions and actions. it is for this reason that mikhail bakhtin considered the novel, especially those of dostoevsky, to be the superior form of literature. according to him, in dostoevsky's "polyphonic novels" there is "a poten­ tial to create a plurality of equally valid consciousnesses, each with its own world." bakhtin writes: the utterly incompatible elements comprising dostoevsky's material are distributed among several worlds and several autonomous con­ sciousnesses that combine in a higher unity. thanks to these various worlds the material can develop to the furthest extent what is most original and peculiar in it, without disturbing the unity of the whole and without mechanizing it. (bakhtin 1984:16) i refer to the novel and to bakhtin because i believe that the novel in some ways reflects society better than social studies because it does not strive to systematize it. bakhtin's comments above are valid as a description 22 current musicology of society (at least modern society), and in fact all great works in the modern era bear the imprint of a plurality of worlds. looking at society and culture as a web of contrasting worlds rather than in terms of similarities in concrete details-which, of course is not a new notion­ allows us to speak about influence in a different manner, one not dictated primarily by the notion of similarity. essentially, any encounter with any event is influence. people respond to an event not only by imitating aspects of it, but also by integrating-or not integrating-it into their lives and attitudes. and we know all too well from everyday life that one can respond to an event even by doing exactly the opposite of what may seem logical. this too is influence. the governing forces of cultures are those basic ideas and problems that somehow no one is able to avoid. in standing face-to-face with these forces, people create their extraordinarily unique systems of thought. these individual systems can never be entirely shared. the connection between two art works is found not in similarities but in differences of attitude, for each artist responds to the totality of life according to his/her unique perception of it. it is for this reason that emmanuel levinas char­ acterized human relationships as non-synthetisables. in levinas's existential philosophy, the fundamental condition of human beings is captured in the moment when one stands face-to-face with another. people are never simply "together." in a true relationship one is always "facing the other," and in the act of facing another, one encounters the "face" (levinas's key word is "visage") that is in itself a totality, meaning that it is impossible to decompose it into its elements. in hebrew-a language levinas knew intimately-visage is panim, a word that comes from the verb "to turn to­ ward something."23 levinas finds in this act, turning toward or facing the other, the primary situation that defines human encounters (levinas 1982:71-72) .24 what i propose here, therefore, is that instead of focusing exclusively on the notion of influence being revealed in similarities, we devise an­ other method for the presentation of context. such a presentation would focus first on the grasping of the underlying beliefs, problems, and anxi­ eties of a society, and second, on the presentation of numerous valid but contradictory responses. this would mean looking at artistic context as a collection of potential responses, whose cohesion lies not in their similarity but in the fact that they were born from and exist in reference to the same thing. to put it differently: the cohesive force in society and culture lies in questions, rather than in responses. my point is that there is no reason to suppose that bartok was "influ­ enced" only by those writings that he liked. in fact, one can be "influ­ enced" by something that one does not even know about, meaning that judit frigyesi 23 one can receive essential ideas from a source that one perhaps did not know directly. while we reconstruct ideas from writings, the contempo­ raries received them through oral encounters and integrated them spon­ taneously and with ease. they did not need to consult the literature that forms our "historical sources" in order to understand the spirit of their times. bartok did not read the early articles of gyorgy lukacs, but this does not mean that they are irrelevant as a historical source to understand his attitude. being in constant contact with members of the lukacs circle, bartok likely integrated these ideas into his aesthetics even before lukacs formulated them in writing; he had no need to read the scholarly out­ come of what he already understood and used as an artist. however, even such a loosening of the notion of influence does not re­ solve the basic problem, namely that scholarship provides a system and clarity in describing something that is unsystematic and ambiguous. it is not only that the novel presents, in bakhtin's words, "several worlds and several autonomous consciousnesses"; it also combines these "in a higher unity" by feeling, rather than by logic. art has an advantage over scholarly discourse in that it may leave the questions it poses unanswered and may allow for widely different interpretations that together somehow contain the message of the work. mter having read marquez's hundred years of solitude, one may notice the amazing differences between the fates of the members of a family. another reader may see in these stories the same fate in variations ad infinitum. mahfouz's arabian nights and days is an even sharper dramatization of non-similarities within an integral context. the characters of this novel come from a closed muslim society, but it is pre­ cisely the narrow outer boundaries of this world that provoke fantastic and extreme personal beliefs and stories. yet on another level, these stories, too, can be seen as infinite metamorphoses of one life-essence. a recent film, my twentieth century by ildiko enyedi, excellently captures this multi­ faceted nature of sameness. the film recounts the life story of identical twins that were separated at a young age and grew up to be different char­ acters, making diametrically opposed choices in life. it is left to the viewer to see how these characters, who apparently share nothing, are really one and the same person. these works-like most artworks, in some ways-make us "feel" the integrity of a world, even though the narration reinforces the feeling of non-integrity by deliberately hiding those forces that bring oppositions together. this is in essence the lukacsian demand of art, cited above: "the salvation-the redeeming power of form-is only at the end of all roads and all sufferings. it resides in this belief, which is impossible to prove and which lies vividly beyond all proofs, in the belief that the scattered multidirectional roads of the soul do meet at the end; they have 24 current musicology to meet because they departed from the same center." in a great work, the contrast between the two forces-the one that leads the reader along the "scattered multidirectional roads" and the one that brings these roads together-may be so extreme that it allows readers to see momentarily only one or the other force. this kind of play is not allowed in scholarly writing. while every text is unfinished, reaching its final form in the mind of the reader, scholarly dis­ course gives much less freedom to the reader for creating the basic message of the writing. if the argument is not clear, if we are not sure what relates to what and what is similar to what, then the writing slips from scholarship to poetry. the inherent ambiguity of social life, cultural context, and the world of symbols cannot be matched by ambiguity in the discourse of an essay, even though this would be perhaps the most rele­ vant form of representation. one possible response to this problem is the acceptance of the limitation of scholarship that rejects the attempt to ex­ press in a study what only art can do. another approach is to experiment with an alternate scholarly discourse that stretches the limits of scholar­ ship toward ambiguity for the sake of a better reflection of reality, but without giving up the option of arguing a point. in bela bart6k and turn-of the-century budapest, i chose the second option, though today it seems to me that i did not go far enough. the first question was how to delineate boundaries, that is, how to create an integral mass of documents out of the infinite flow of sources. obviously, such a question can never be answered in an entirely objective manner. it was important, however, that the boundaries of the material should not be determined a priori. there are no absolute rules and methods that surely "work," not even the rule of influence in the traditional sense. in the end, the meaningful context turned out to be something that at first glance seemed to be "out of place": the philosophy of lukacs (which bartok barely knew) and modern hungarian poetry (mihaly babits, dezso kosztolanyi, and endre ady-the last-named being the only one bartok really liked). in this poetic world, it is irrelevant whether a symbol means the same thing for bartok that it does for someone else, and whether bartok was in­ fluenced by one person or by another. it seems crucial, however, to let the diverse artistic worlds "speak for themselves," that is, to present them in their integrity as much as this is possible, regardless of how strongly they related to one another. the idea is to present worlds that are dissimilar even though they reflect upon the same existential problems. in order to penetrate the meaning of symbols, the important thing is to discover, in a never-ending process, new meanings of symbols, and then to discover in these multiple meanings the central questions of the era to which they re­ late, and for which they were created. judit frigyesi 25 a method that attempts to interpret symbols through the presenta­ tion of multiple artistic worlds does not suit the scope of an article. even a fragmentary interpretation of the symbols of bluebeard's castle demanded two long chapters in my book, and these chapters build on the exploration of artistic views outlined in previous chapters. for the conclusion of this essay, i selected one example in order to illus­ trate the potential of such an interpretation of symbols. the example concerns the symbolic meaning of night at the end of the opera. i could never understand why bluebeard's last words, "and there will be night forever," had been thought of as tragic and pessimistic. mter all, from medieval albas to wagner's tristan und isolde, we have a long tradi­ tion of associating night with love. in this tradition, it is the morning light that brings the tragic ending, the end of love. let me turn to some excerpts from the poem, "even if the moon is cold" (hiriba hideg a hold, 1909) by endre ady: even if the moon is cold. once our time came with warmth and heat and sacred fever was beating the night, into which two, beautiful, miserable beings, were herded together by the arbitrary time, one of the many-faced times, merciful, mad, rich time, that brought me together with my woman, and that has not passed ever since. thus we fall, thus we tremble into each other, as if never-never we two had been two. it was this woman i always loved i was in her mouth and in her heart and she was my mouth and my heart. it was then when she walked here, came to me, my dear woman it was then when with great amazement two torn one-beings opened their arms for embrace, and became one again. it was not love, only the return of the spring into itself, here, again in this merciless time of separation. 26 current musicology the atmosphere in this poem is very different from that in bartok's opera. ady's poem is exalted through and through; there is exuberance, passion and pain in each line. the story is absorbed into half-spoken sen­ tences. there is some hastiness in the language; my english translation cannot capture how restless, often embarrassingly spontaneous, some phrases are. even this first encounter with ady shows the difference be­ tween ady's and bartok's basic attitudes toward life. for ady, nothing was more important than a commitment to experience every emotion to its extreme and as a reflection of the universe, even if this demanded that he sacrifice language and form. for bartok, the central question was how to create form while exploring feelings to their extreme. and yet this poem, especially when read together with many others, opens the door to their common world of symbols and ideas. the first line, "even if the moon is cold," gives the key to the interpretation of the end of bartok's opera: even if a great passion is over, some of it, perhaps its best part, remains with us. here ady intentionally superimposes differ­ ent times and concepts of time: time is "arbitrary" and "many-faced," it "herded" people together, but it is also the "merciless time of separation." most of the narration is in the past tense, but it refers to a past that "has not passed ever since." embrace is at the same time burning and cold, sep­ aration and coming together, oneness being torn apart and two separate beings becoming one, standing against the other and a "return of the spring into itself." but the memory of embrace is eternal and clear. it is sadness born from the certainty of memory: "it was this woman i always loved." the two symbolic associations of "night" are posited against each other: the night is the symbol of the greatest passion and of the state of eternal sadness. we learn from this poem that everything exists in duality, that every­ thing is itself and at the same time its own opposite. we also learn that love, understanding of the self, and a return to loneliness are all one and the same thing. the greatest love is self-realization and thus it is death; it is self-transcendence and thus it is loneliness and separation. the idea that the memory of love saturates life, even when real love is no longer possible to maintain, was not only a poetic image but also a feel­ ing ady and his contemporaries lived through in real life. about the same time ady wrote this poem, lukacs, after the death of his beloved, wrote to a friend: "the ice age has begun. i have died but she lives within me, to the extent that anything can live within me. quietly. without reproaches. without pain ... in spite of everything, only she exists-even if i no longer love her, no longer desire her, no longer want her back. it makes no difference. the memory of one episode with her means more than a lifetime spent with someone else."25 judit frigyesi 27 it is as if lukacs had written these lines about bluebeard's castle. but lukacs could not have known the opera when he wrote this letter, and bartok obviously had no access to a personal letter written by lukacs to a friend. and although the case of the ady poem is different-bartok marked it in the poetry volume he owned-it would not really be correct to say that this poem gave him the impetus for the conception of the opera. we are closer to the spirit of bartok's milieu if we look at the atti­ tudes and beliefs of lukacs and ady not as possible influences or sources for bartok's dramatic concept, but as various manifestations of the spiritual-emotional world of bartok and his contemporaries. bartok's opera opens with darkness and ends with darkness. in bluebeard's last phrase, "and there will be night forever" (an addition made by bartok to the original text), "night" is a symbolic focus into which everything collapses. night is the symbol of coldness and emotionlessness, but also the symbol of fiery love. furthermore, night is the traditional sym­ bol of womanness (here emphatically of judith, who was found by blue­ beard at night), but also the symbol of the mystery of existence (here em­ phatically of the soul of bluebeard). and finally, total darkness is the symbol of wholeness; it is the darkness of the cosmos, the source and the end of everything. bl;;'ebeard's castle is an abstract drama; in the form of a sequence of clashes between man and his other, it projects into time the timeless, ever-renewed force of love. the form of the piece, evolving from darkness and returning into darkness while being destroyed from inside by its inner forces, suggests both eternal circularity and completeness. judith's love leads bluebeard back to his origins so that he can be one with his self in beautiful loneliness. but the darkness is not complete. although the stage should be com­ pletely dark during bluebeard's final words, the music suggests a some­ what different ending. we may recall that at the opening of the opera the two themes appeared one after the other, and their contrast reflected a motion from stillness/darkness toward movement/light. the two themes recapitulate at the end, but not in succession; they appear simultaneously. fragments of the second theme are superposed on the pentatonic theme that provides a background for the floating second-theme fragments until it too disintegrates. at the end of the opera, both themes are reduced to fragments that gradually dissolve into one another, reaching the last melodic motion in pianissimo-an unfinished gesture. the opera opened with the darkness of tension, with the desire to re­ veal the unknown, to move toward light. at the end, bluebeard arrives at the darkness in which all contrasts dissolve. but the openness of the last 28 current musicology gesture reminds us that the darkness of the soul can never be complete. the soul's night is mystery and as long as life lives, this mystery desires to be revealed. bluebeard's darkness may seem eternal, but in the larger cos­ mic scheme it is merely the stillness of the soul as it momentarily suspends its eternal desire to know its depth, and-what is the same-to love. notes 1. this paper was conceived parallel to the writing of my book (frigyesi 1998), partly in order to elaborate on its approach to context, which i felt to be somewhat unusual. aspects of hungarian cultural life presented in this article in a summary manner are elaborated on in detail in the book. in this article, the musical analysis and interpretation of the opera are either entirely new or are revised versions of ideas presented in the book (especially regarding the fifth-door scene and the ending of the work). this article was originally designed as a lecture and i am greatly indebted to the faculties and students of those universities that invited me to read it and con­ tributed to its final form with comments: the university of california at berkeley, the university of california at santa barbara, stanford university, john hopkins university, columbia university, wesleyan university, the graduate center of cuny, the conference of the international musicological society, and tel-aviv university. finally, i would like to thank the fulbright foundation and the collegium budapest for grants that allowed me to work on this article. 2. all translations from the hungarian (including poetry) are mine unless oth­ erwise noted. 3. an excellent summary of the history of the sunday circle and its philosophy can be found in gluck (1985). 4. this issue is discussed in the introduction to frigyesi (1998). 5. consider bartok's insistence (in his 1928 essay "the folk songs of hungary") that he aimed at grasping the spirit of folk music in his original compo­ sitions (bartok 1976:332-33), and also the fact that he planned to devote the last lecture of his harvard series to the "general spirit" of works (tallian 1989, 1:181). the issues raised in this paragraph are explored in detail in the fifth chapter of frigyesi (1998). 6. see this letter written to his wife in 1909 from darazs (slovakia) in bartok (1981:187-88); english translation in frigyesi (1998:120-21). 7. i hope that i have accomplished much of this work in the last two chapters of frigyesi (1998). 8. some basic symbols of the opera, such as the symbolic identification of the castle with the soul, i take for granted here for the sake of brevity. these are ex­ plained in previous studies about the opera, most importantly in the analyses of antokoletz (2001), kroo (1962), lendvai (1964), and veress (1949). 9. carl leafstedt's recent study complements this image by looking at the metaphorical representation of 'judith" in twentieth-century art. he suggests that balazs might have been consciously evoking the character of the heroine of friedrich hebbel's play judith since "both judiths are placed into conflict with an judit frigyesi 29 extremely masculine man against whom they must apply all their feminine cun­ ning to obtain what they desire" (leafstedt 1999:132). 10. of course, mcclary approaches the opera from the opposite side; she criti­ cizes its message from a feminist perspective, though she does not question the truthfulness of this message. 11. this and the following sections can be found in the score as follows: the cli­ max of the development of the chromatic motive before the seventh door at 1illj­ illsl; the pastoral-like section preceding the first door at ~; and bluebeard's quasi-aria after the last door at 11271. 12. by traditional interpretation, i mean here the analyses mentioned above, most important, those by antokoletz, kroo, lendvai, leafstedt, and veress. although substantial differences exist in how these scholars view concrete musical and also some dramatic details of the opera, they agree with the basic characteriza­ tions of themes described here. 13. the tonal interpretation based on the polar opposition of c and f# has been most fully worked out by lendvai (1964). this analysis was the first large­ scale study in a series of tonal investigations that laid the foundation for the spe­ cific tonal interpretation that is commonly referred to today as "lendvai's axis system." 14. this melodic line conforms to the scheme of the so-called fifth-shifting, pentatonic type of the old-style folk songs. the term "old-style" is used here in ac­ cordance with bartok's and kodaly's terminology to designate a specific repertoire and style within hungarian vocal peasant music. 15. "in the hungarian peasant music, properly so called, the german observer is first of all struck by two types which are completely different from any western european music. one type is our ancient, so-called 'rubato' melodies. especially evident here is the free, declamatory rhythm as opposed to any uniformly meas­ ured music. the rhythm, seemingly very complex, can be reduced theoretically to a schema of eight equal eighths; the last eighth ... is augmented by a fermata. yet it is only infrequently that one hears such a simplified (perhaps 'primitive') pat­ tern, and [even] then never in actually uniform eighths." see "hungarian folk music" in bartok (1976:72-73). note that the two examples bartok gives in this ar­ ticle to illustrate his point not only have unusual rhythmic patterns but also exu­ berant ornamentation. 16. janos ferencsik, budapest national opera orchestra, with mihaly szekely and klara palankay (recorded in 1956, reissued on arlechino, arl a09); antal dorati, london symphony orchestra with mihaly szekely and olga szonyi (recorded in 1962, first released as sr90311, reissued on mercury living presence, d 101216). 17. in his analysis, lendvai (1964:91) calls attention to the significance of the opposition of "white-note" and "black-note" melodies, referring to the white and black keys of the piano. is. note that the piano arrangement does not reflect the actual dynamics and orchestration. the sustained e-major chord, played by the winds, the timpani, and the organ, creates a cold, metallic sound. in the measure in which the strings en­ ter with their g tremolo, marked sff, the chord suddenly fades away; some of the 30 current musicology strongest brass instruments, as well as the timpani and the organ, cease playing and there is a sudden diminuendo (from jjfto f). in this way, the entrance of the string tremolo is made the focus. 19. in a similar manner, balazs regarded the dialogues in a symbolist drama to be a "technique of overtones." 20. a large part of bartok's personal library is housed today in the bartok archive at the institute for musicology in budapest. i am grateful to laszlo somfai and the staff of the archive for allowing me access to this collection and for their generous help. 21. "in these two volumes [longing for love (szeretnem, ha szeretnenek) and of all mysteries (minden titkok versei)] , i have marked those strophes which speak to me­ speak from me-the most. but there is one of them that was [so close to me that it was] impossible to mark: 'my bed calls (az agyam hivogat)' ... i cannot tear myself away from it" (dille 1990:293). endre ady (1877-1919) was one of the greatest poets and journalists of the turn of the century. with his journalistic writings he created a revolutionary atmos­ phere in hungary; his articles, written in a passionate tone with literary beauty, pointed to the problems of society with a sharpness that shocked contemporary readers. this prophetic-political tone also characterizes many of his poems. at the same time, he created a symbolic poetry that, although influenced by the french symbolists, especially baudelaire, was in essence rather different from the french trend. ady's symbolic poetry is always at the same time immediate and philosophi­ cal; images of everyday life are the means to grasp existential questions in a philo­ sophical matrix of contradictions and paradoxes. ady was an amazing influence on his contemporaries, and his personality and work had a basic role in shaping mod­ ern hungarian life up to the present day. 22. i am greatly indebted to mrs. zoltan kodaly (formerly sarolta peczely) and to the late istvan kecskemeti of the kodaly archive, budapest, for allowing me to see the diary of emma gruber in which she listed, every day, the names of people she received as guests. 23. i would like to thank daniel epstein for the many stimulating ideas he shared with me about levinas and about the connection between his philoso­ phy and jewish thought. my reference to the hebrew word panim follows his interpretation. 24. the pages referred to here from levinas's ethique et infini (1982) provide a summary of the issues discussed more deeply in various parts of his totalite et infini. essai sur l 'exteriorite (1992) . 25. the letter was written to leo popper (gluck 1985:122-23). it is important to note that lukacs's beloved irma seidler committed suicide. their relationship reflects the difference between the feminine and masculine concept of human re­ lations; the above lines could not have been written by seidler. it appears that this idealized image of an eternity of past love, which is expressed in the ady poem, in lukacs's letter and in the opera, was a typically male approach. judit frigyesi 31 references antokoletz, elliott. 200l. musical symbolism in the operas of debussy and bartok. new york and oxford: oxford university press. bakhtin, mikhail. 1984. problems of dostoevsky's poetics. translated and edited by carol emerson. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. bal:izs, bela. 1982. naplo (diary). budapest: magveto. bartok, bela. 1976. bela bartok essays. edited by benjamin such off. lincoln and london: university of nebraska press. ---. 1981. bartok bela csaladi levelei (bela bartok's family letters). edited by bela bartok,jr. budapest: zenemfikiado. dille, denijs. 1990. bartok et ady. in bela bartok. regard sur le passe, edited by yves lenoir, 293-302. etudes bartokiennes, no. l. namur: presses universitaires de namur. frigyesi, judit. 1998. bela bartok and turn-of the-century budapest. berkeley: california university press. gluck, mary. 1985. georg lukacs and his generation: 1900-1918. cambridge: harvard university press. jones, w. t. 1943. on the meaning of the term "influence" in historical studies. ethics 53: 192-99. kroo, gyorgy. 1962. bartok szinpadi muvei (the stage works of bartok). budapest: zenemfikiado. leafstedt, carl s. 1999. inside bluebeard's castle: music and drama in bela bartok's opera. new york and oxford: oxford university press. lendvai, erno. 1964. bartok dramaturgiaja (the dramaturgy of bartok). budapest: zenemfikiado. levinas, emmanuel. 1982. ethique et infini, dialogues avec philippe nemo (livre de poche 4018). paris: fayard. ---. 1992. totalite et infini. essai sur l' exteriorite (livre de poche 4120). paris: kluwer academic. lukacs, gyorgy. 1977. esztetikai kultura (aesthetic culture). in ifjukori mvek (youthful works), 1902-1918, edited by arpad timar, 422-37. budapest: magveto. ---.1978. soul and forms. translated by anna bostock. london: merlin. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. subotnik, rose. 1991. developing variations: style and ideology in western music. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. tallian, tibor, ed. 1989. bartok bela irasai (the writings of bela bartok). budapest: zenemfikiado. veress, sandor. 1949. bluebeard's castle. tempo, no. 13 (autumn): 32-36. brooks, tim. 2004. lost sounds: blacks and the birth of the recording industry, 1890-1919. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. reviewed by sandra jean graham the post-civil rights era gave rise to a surge in revisionist scholarship de­ voted to african american music, much of it inspired by eileen southern's seminal music of black americans ([ 1971] 1997). southern and the scholars who followed in her wake restored lost musicians, lost images, lost words, lost scores, and lost experiences to the historical record, which radically changed how we study, perceive, and teach american music. tim brooks's magnificent new book on america's earliest black recording artists, lost sounds, is a treasure chest of new information that reminds us, should we feel complacent, that there is still much work to be done in recovering and understanding america's musical past. brooks is the executive vice-president of research at lifetime television and the recipient of the association for recorded sound collections' 2004 lifetime achievement award and the society for american music's 2005 irving lowens award for best book (for lost sounds). he identifies and profiles thirty-seven pioneering black artists who began recording between 1890 and 1919, before the 1920s boom in race records. the chapters-each devoted to an artist's biography-are arranged chronologically and illus­ trated with rare photos, many from the author's personal collection. the book addresses a motley group of recording artists, encompassing a street musician performing "coon" songs, jubilee groups singing folk music, stars from musical theater, monologuists performing comedy and oratory, classical artists, novelty performers, and syncopated orchestras playing early jazz. not only has brooks illuminated little-known performers-at least a third of whom have never received scholarly scrutiny-but he significantly augments what we know about more familiar figures, such as bert williams, harry t. burleigh, james reese europe, and nathaniel dett. reading lost sounds with cds at hand is highly recommended. in fact, archeophone records has produced a companion two-cd set (arch 1005; it shares the book's title and cover art), containing fifty-four tracks by forty­ three artists. in addition, reissued recordings are available for the majority of the performers profiled, and these are listed in the book's discography. the variety of performance styles displayed in the recordings of these performers contrasts markedly with the homogeneous quality of recordings by whites in the same era. because early recording technologies had only current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trnstees of columbia university in the city of new york 135 136 current musicology rudimentary capabilities for capturing sound, mainstream white recording companies initially used a small group of in-house professionals to record all their music. the song, not the performer, sold the record. in the case of recordings of blacks, however, the opposite was true. white listeners wanted to hear the slides, slurs, and dropped consonants of black music exactly as it was presented on the streets and in theaters, concert halls, and clubs. this more "natural" performance style also appealed to black consumers when they later emerged as a market force. therefore, brooks argues, despite ac­ commodation$ for technology (e.g., the use of voices with strong, penetrating timbres, avoidance of drums, small number of performer's), recordings by blacks in this era are more reflective of live performance in their respective genres than are those by whites. chapter 4, devoted to the unique quartette, the first black group to record commercially, nicely illustrates the issue of performance practice. organized in 1886, the quartette recorded black-themed minstrel songs for three different companies between 1890 and 1896. they continued to tour after their last known recording was made, and public clamor for their repertory persisted. this apparently encouraged the edison label to reissue six of the uniques' songs, ca. 1897-this time recorded by its white male house quartet. brooks compares the unique and edison recordings of one song, "mamma's black baby boy;' noting that the infectious performance of the uniques-with its "momentary pauses and bursts of enthusiasm, similar to those of the child who is the subject of the song" -is countered with a deliberate, almost parodic inflection by the edisons that seems to ignore the emotional underpinnings of the lyrics (80). such comparative analyses pepper the book and offer tantalizing prospects for future research. of all the biographies in lost sounds, the most captivating is that of george w. johnson, the earliest known black recording artist, to whom brooks devotes the first part of the book (three chapters). brooks sets the stage in a present-tense prologue describing the scene of johnson's trial for the murder of his mulatto mistress: suddenly the room erupts, and the judge gavels repeatedly. "order, order! order, or i'll clear this courtroom." he glares down at the prosecutor, a small inept-looking man, who looks back and shrugs as if to say, "don't ask me what's going on." the judge has never seen such a turnout for a case like this. (15) in the midst of this mayhem "the judge leans over to the court clerk and whispers, 'who is he, anyway?' the answer, if any, is lost in the din." this colorful re-creation of johnson's trial (he was acquitted) from newspaper accounts and trial transcripts can be read as a metaphor for many of the sandra jean graham stories that follow: black men and women who seized the public's atten­ tion during their careers, but whose names were likewise lost in the din (or indifference) of history. johnson, whose fame rested on the wild success of two recordings, is one of the more interesting characters in the book. at the instigation of part-time employee victor emerson, the new jersey phonograph co. set out to rival the faint recordings that the north american phonograph co. had begun supplying for coin-operated machines. emerson needed musicians. the bottom line required they be cheap, and technology dictated they be loud. emerson discovered johnson, a street performer whose specialty was whistling, and signed him as his second artist, for twenty cents per song. johnson made the trip across the hudson river to newark, where he spent entire afternoons singing and whistling the same song over and over again into six machines at once (copies of recordings could not yet be mass­ produced). the first song he recorded-at emerson's urging-was "the whistling coon," written by white minstrel performer sam devere in 1878 and containing the derogatory caricatures of african americans typical of its genre. his other big number was in the same minstrel vein: "the laughing song" (which johnson may have written) featured johnson laughing in time to the music. both songs are included on the archeophone cd. in three and a half years johnson made 25,000 original recordings of these two songs, meaning that he sang them multiple times at approximately 300 recording sessions. one newspaper article reported hearing that johnson once sang "the laughing song" fifty-six times in one day, and that his laugh was as fresh at the end as it was at the beginning (35). both the recording of "the laughing coon," which preserves johnson's infectious laugh, and the photograph of johnson that appears on the book cover-smiling broadly with eyes closed-freeze johnson in an attitude from which he was never able to break free, despite his best attempts. he recorded other songs, but these were the two that became coin-slot hits and defined the rest of his career. although brooks calls attention to the degradation johnson must have felt in winning fame by mocking his own race, greater emphasis on this situation would have been welcome. for example, early in the first chapter brooks writes that johnson "would become wily under the veneer of affa­ bility" (19), but he never returns to this point. brooks instead observes that johnson "was able, it seems, to make friends in social classes far above his own" (25), using as an example new york governor levi p. morton, who raised $100 to start johnson's performing career. brooks seems to equate popularity among white audiences with personal friendships with white individuals; although it seems certain that johnson did have some white friends (recording artist len spencer is one example), none of his friendships 137 138 current musicology represented a relationship of true equals. although brooks acknowledges this inequality when he quotes one of columbia's attorneys, rollin c. wooster, who noted, "johnson is what you would call a good coon;' brooks fails to explicitly state what made him "good" in wooster's eyes: the fact that he could earn $35 to $100 a week singing and whistling (57). once johnson lost his earning power, his life degenerated. he died in obscurity, an alcoholic and has-been whose outmoded "coon" songs represented an embarrassment to new yorkers in 1914. brooks closes his section on johnson with these lines: "george w. johnson was, for most of his life, a happy, easygoing man with a ready laugh who wanted nothing more than to get by in a hostile world. he made many friends and brought pleasure to millions more" (71). if brooks's earlier statement about johnson's veneer of affability is correct, then these concluding statements do not do justice to the psychic torment of putting on the mask, which was a necessity not only for performers but for all african americans. certainly brooks does not ignore the role of racism in johnson's career, but his inconsistent conclusions about johnson's relationships with whites leave the reader with an ambiguous impression. if race overtly defined johnson's career, it more subtly but just as dramatically influenced the life and career of charley case (chapter 13), a monologuist with a delightfully understated style of humor. although there was nothing in his appearance or family history to suggest that he was african american, for some unknown reason rumors about his racial identity followed him everywhere, and his life and death remain shrouded in mystery: was he black, passing for white? was his death an accident or a suicide prompted by his mixed-race identity? brooks suspects that these questions will never be answered. case first developed his storytelling tal­ ents as a lawyer beginning in 1880, but he abandoned law and a string of short-lived business ventures for show business around 1887. working in blackface, but not in dialect, he told stories on the vaudeville stage, mining his family life for material, for example: "nobody was ever sent away hungry from my mother's house kitchen. they would go to the kitchen door, take one look, and go away of their own accord" (175). he built a successful career in vaudeville, and in 1909 victor recorded three of his monologues, one of which is included on the archeophone cd. brooks provides com­ plete transcriptions of the recordings and evocatively reconstructs case's performance style. he also portrays the loneliness of case's life on the road away from his (white) wife and children. when case died, the new yorkage, a black newspaper, printed an article that begins as an obituary but evolves into a sympathetic meditation on passing for white; brooks wisely reprints the long article in full instead of interpreting it through selective quota­ tion. it is a poignant close to a profile of a man who remained a second-tier sandra jean graham performer throughout his career, living an isolated life on the road under the shadow of perceived mixed-race heritage. chapters 14 (on the fisk jubilee singers) and 15 (on polk miller and his old south quartette) are excellent studies that offer insight into the multiple and conflicting images of "slave music" that were circulating around 1909. the earliest fisk recordings were made by a male quartet in 1909 for victor, and many of the songs came from the repertory that had secured the fame of the original jubilee singers during their tours of 1871-78. in 1915 columbia lured them away from victor; brooks estimates that the fisks were the second best -selling african american vocal artists of the pre-i920 pe­ riod, surpassed only by bert williams. although they did not produce "hits;' their recordings remained in print and sold steadily for many years, selling over two million copies, according to brooks's estimates. one of brooks's more interesting conclusions is that the fisk recordings were meant for the white market, since they were issued "in the general numerical series rather than in a specialty 'ethnic' series" (206). he posits that they made their way into middle-class homes throughout the us. most black consumers were likely too poor to buy record players and recordings at this time, and the major black press (or what survives of it in archives today) did not mention the fisk recordings. this conclusion is consonant with the image the fisk singers had projected historically as models for the "cultivating" influences of education on the freedmen. although the original fisk jubilee singers have received considerable academic scrutiny, brooks is the first to painstakingly research the earliest fisk group recordings. polk miller and his quartet offer a vivid contrast. brooks opens this chapter with the obvious question: "why, you might ask, would a wealthy, white, southern businessman, former confederate soldier, and apologist for slavery be the subject of a chapter in this book?" he goes on to offer a fascinating and persuasive answer. polk entered show business late in life, catering to the same nostalgia for the pre-civil war south that stoked the public's desire for the fisks' jubilee songs (215). born in 1844, miller grew up on a plantation absorbing slave songs and banjo picking. he began as a solo act in the 1890s, and then took the exceptional step of adding a black quartet around the turn of the century. miller, who recorded with his quartet in 1909, was one of the few civil war veterans ever to record commercially. the group recorded both religious and secular songs, in a "loose and lively" manner that contrasted sharply with the disciplined renderings of the fisks (221). it would be easy to assume that they appealed to different audiences, but even "enlightened" northerners were drawn to the music and magnetism of miller and his quartet. mark twain, who was a big fan of the jubilee singers, doubted that america could furnish anything more 139 140 current musicology enjoyable than polk miller and his "wonderful four" (221). the troupe's plantation material was a big success among northerners who found the style of the fisk singers pretentious and the "stage negroes" portrayed by bert williams and george walker artificial. (by the latter half of the 1870s a segment of the northern white audience was becoming disenchanted with the fisk jubilee singers, asserting that their sound was becoming too "refined" and that the jubilee songs were losing their "fervor" and "rude­ ness"-a point that brooks does not make but that gives foundation to his conclusions about audience.) miller, who as brooks points out was a racist, nonetheless had a compli­ cated relationship with african american expressive culture. he eschewed the minstrel custom of blackening his face with burnt cork, he avoided the most degrading repertory, and his group performed in social clubs, lecture halls, and conventions as opposed to variety halls, which were considered less respectable. miller wanted to preserve a folk music from a bygone era, not just because it represented a social order he wanted to restore but be­ cause it was music he loved; it had been part of his enculturation. his goal of presenting "authentic" folk music through auditioned performers who were thoroughly rehearsed was, in that sense, as "artificial" as the fisk jubilee enterprise. the difference was that the fisk singers were using their slave songs to dismantle the very myth of the old south that miller was trying to recreate, a point reinforced in sound on the archeophone cd. both the fisk and the miller troupes-in addition to being valuable links to nine­ teenth-century folk repertory and performance practice-offer fascinating examples of the complexities of interpreting racial responses to african american music at this time. chapter 16 focuses on jack johnson, the inflammatory prizefighter noted for defeating "the great white hope," james jeffries, in 1910. johnson recorded an extended description of that fight, which was used to accompany a silent film-not of the fight itself, which was deemed too inflammatory, but of johnson dressed in street clothes describing the fight. the sound recording revealed a man who treated his opponent with respect and whose pronunciation was "impeccable," which astonished a large portion of the white audience, who believed it impossible for a black man to appear so cultivated. the recording led to a touring vaudeville act in which johnson described fights; he eventually added humorous stories to his repertory. in 1913 he made a recording on "physical culture" that gave advice on how to get in shape. brooks's wonderful chapter debunks many of the stereotypes that plagued johnson and offers glimpses into america's early twentieth­ century interest in boxing and physical fitness, the brute image of african americans that was pervading popular culture at that time, and the use of spoken word in vaudeville and recording. sandra jean graham bert williams and george walker (chapter 8) are among the better­ known performers covered in the book: williams has been the subject of full-length biographies, and in 2004 archeophone released williams's com­ plete recordings. nonetheless, brooks's examination yields much of interest. williams was the best -selling black recording artist of the pre-1920s period, and even though sales figures are incomplete, brooks believes that williams "was undoubtedly one of columbia's best -selling artists from the day he set foot in their studios" (142). one interesting indication of his popularity is the fact that in 1906, in the wake of his overwhelmingly popular recording of "nobody" (first recorded by white "coon" singer arthur collins for victor, columbia, and edison), columbia released a new song by williams, "let it alone;' in three different formats simultaneously: a lo-inch disc, a standard 4-inch cylinder, and the new 6-inch cylinder-striking proof of columbia's confidence in his popularity. most stars of the stage did not record, because the emphatic delivery necessary for the theater was too extreme for the re­ cording studio. williams was among the few who adapted readily, recording most of his songs in only one or two takes. brooks also identifies recordings on which williams served as pianist. the chapter concludes with a detailed treatment of williams's involvement in ziegfeld's follies, and a helpful epi­ logue summarizes williams historiography and identifies songs of his that lived on in the repertories of other musicians. brooks's frustration with attitudes that have excluded certain artists from jazz histories forms a common thread in the chapters on james reese eu­ rope and his contemporaries (will marion cook, dan kildare, noble sissie and eubie blake, opal d. cooper, ford t. dabney, and the four harmony kings). brooks argues that some jazz critics and historians have failed to give appropriate recognition to early innovators like sissie and blake, whose novelty orchestra the sizzling syncopators (formed in 1920) used jazz in­ strumentation. in a comparison of recordings of "the dancing deacon" by dabney and by europe, brooks notes that despite similar instrumentation and performance style, dabney's band makes sharper attacks, which he at­ tributes in large part to cricket smith's strong cornet. (smith had formerly served as europe's lead cornettist.) thus, brooks argues, "such comparisons illustrate how important it is for historians of early jazz to consider all re­ cordings involving key players of the era, not just those officially admitted into the 'jazz canon'" (405). since these musicians worked together and were friends, these interest­ ing chapters are marred somewhat by narrative repetition: we must read repeatedly about jim europe's assassination by a deranged band member, for example. of course, this is noticeable only if one reads the book front to back, as i did, which is not what the author and publisher intended. 141 142 current musicology designing the book as a reference work is an understandable decision, but it is too bad, because this is a book worth reading cover to cover. judi­ cious cross-referencing (there is some, but not nearly enough) would have alleviated this problem. canon revision is only one of the challenges that brooks issues in this book. his careful scrutiny oflabel numbers, for example, counters received opinion about w. c. handy's discography. in november 1919 the periodi­ cal talking machine world announced recordings of four of handy's most famous songs, all previously unissued. although these have never been located, they have been assumed to exist and are listed in several discogra­ phies. brooks demonstrates that the talking world announcement was an error, for the label numbers for these recordings were assigned to a different orchestra in the january and february issues; this was likewise confirmed by the record company's (lyric) own sales literature. brooks's most serious and important challenge, however, is for revision of copyright laws that stifle scholarship and, by extension, censor history. one might expect the early recordings that brooks has discovered to be in the public domain by now, and a few are. most, however, are owned by corporations who succeeded the original recording companies. as a result of the sonny bono copyright term extension act of 1998, recordings from 1890 will be under corporate control until 2067. by contrast, european countries generally have a fifty-five-year copyright term for recordings, and thankfully many excellent recordings of american music have been reissued by european labels. brooks estimates that african american artists made about 800 commercial recordings before 1920, most of which still exist. the corporations that control the rights to the 400 still under copyright will not release them, or grant others that right. brooks knows of only two recordings that have been reissued in the cd era. his plea deserves the widest possible dissemination: "i hope that our scholarly, archival, and political communi­ ties will wake up to the outrageous suppression and in some cases actual destruction of our earliest sound heritage" (ll). despite the rewards to be found in every chapter of lost sounds, musico­ logists are likely to experience occasional frustration with brooks's vague terminology when describing music, and his failure to explain certain conclusions. for example, brooks claims that the fisk jubilee singers' 1909 victor recording of "roll, jordan, roll" is "notable here for its oddly shifting harmonies" (197); yet the harmonies consist only of tonic and dominant and, to my ears, are not at all odd. (this recording is available on document records, fisk jubilee singers in chronological order, vol. 1, 1909-1911.) he writes that the tuskegee institute singers were the first to record choral ver­ sions of the spirituals, when the fisk jubilee singers had in fact preceded sandra jean graham them on record. it took me some time to realize that by "choral" he meant there was no solo or lead voice and hence, presumably, no call and response pattern (320). (i should note that this wording was significantly improved in his excellent and extensive liner notes to the archeophone recording of lost sounds.) in that same chapter brooks writes that the tuskegee troupe's "focus on carefully wrought harmonies did not preclude putting emotion into the music" (326). the assumed link between "carefully wrought har­ monies" (another ambiguous term) and lack of emotion is, in my mind, without foundation, and requires further explanation. as for the consistent misspelling of "a cappella" throughout the book, one can only sigh. occasionally logic seems to fall prey to the pursuit of colorful prose. brooks writes that dancer joan sawyer, who hired dan kildare and his persian garden orchestra to play at her club, changed dance partners with "alarming" frequency, but does not explain this choice of adjective (319). when sawyer dismissed rudolf valentino as a dancing partner after six months, he writes, "that would prove to be a mistake." why? it's unlikely that valentino would have achieved international heart-throb status by remaining a dance partner in sawyer's club. (despite these two examples, brooks's coverage of dancers irene and vernon castle as well as sawyer, and of the importance of dance clubs as a patron for these early orchestras, is excellent and most welcome.) if i could wish for one modification to the book, it would be for a stronger interpretation of its contents in a summary essay. brooks has grouped the chapters into six parts identified perfunctorily by decade and relation to world war i (1890-99, 1900-09, 19lo-15, and 1916-19), yet there are no descriptive titles or part introductions to help make sense of these groupings (if they are not merely arbitrary). an epilogue that reprised some of the many ideas that emerge in the individual chapters would help the reader make sense of these seminal nineteen years. brooks identi­ fies only two overarching themes in his introduction: the ways in which technology provided new opportunities for black artists, and the ways in which whites and blacks interacted in the recording industry (2-4). these issues can be considered more critically. technology may have opened some doors, but business practices (some but not all of which were motivated by racial prejudice) shut others. for example, roland hayes "chose" to make his recordings with columbia instead of a smaller outfit like paramount because victor and columbia held the patents for lateral-cut recording, which is what most phonographs played. the smaller companies had to produce vertical-cut discs, which required specially equipped machines and thus reached a smaller audience. likewise, victor's caste system of red, blue, purple, and black labels separated artists by genre. black recording artists, 143 144 current musicology even if they were recording classical music, would not be admitted to the elite red label. brooks makes both of these points in individual chapters, but this information is valuable in interpreting his profiles as a whole. in addition, a more detailed overview of the recording industry in the introduction would lay a better foundation for interpreting the biographies. brooks announces on the first page of his introduction that, "as tempting as it might be to focus solely on the racial injustices of early twentieth-century america, it is arguably more productive-and helpful to our own time-to examine the ways in which those injustices were gradually ameliorated." although i am in complete sympathy with this aim, it is equally important that this project be carried out without ignoring racial injustice, and it is hard to balance the two. the booklet accompanying the archeophone cds does this nicely through the inclusion of trenchant observations on race and musical performance by isaac fisher (a member of the tuskegee quartet), stanley crouch, james weldon johnson, and eubie blake. an epilogue that attempted to assess to what degree injustices were ameliorated would have been a welcome ending to this book. space precludes discussion of all the remarkable recording artists covered in brooks's volume; those whom i have not mentioned are louis "bebe" vasnier, the standard quartette, the kentucky jubilee singers, cousins and demoss, thomas craig, the dinwiddie quartet, daisy tapley, the apollo jubilee quartette, edward sterling wright, the right quintette, wilbur c. sweatman, opal d. cooper, edward boatner, florence cole-talbert, and clarence cameron white. there is an excellent chapter on broome special phonograph records, a concluding chapter on miscellaneous recordings, and an appendix of caribbean and south american recordings contributed by dick spottswood. the appendix covers early recordings made by us labels in cuba, puerto rico, trinidad, and brazil, a fascinating topic, although the section seems like more of an afterthought-it is not integrated into brooks's conclusions. since the publication of lost sounds, two more rare recordings have surfaced, both of which are included in the archeophone anthology: george w. johnson's "carving the duck" (1903) and the unique quartette's "brother michael, won't you hand me down that rope" (1895)-the lat­ ter discovered by some collectors who recognized its importance only after having read lost sounds. it is exciting to know that the book is having an immediate impact upon collection and preservation. lost sounds is a thrilling book; it is rare to encounter a work of this length that supplies so much new information, causing us to reevaluate and reinterpret our understanding of american music and social history. equally important is the imagination and passion infusing each biography. sandra jean graham the book's subtitle promises an overview of blacks and the birth of the recording industry, but brooks has given us much more: biographies that present multidimensional human beings, profiles of entire musical careers (and not simply the recordings that represent them), and an assessment not just of the black actors in this history but their white collaborators as well. the thirty years of scholarship that contributed to this book's creation are evident in every chapter, and brooks deserves our deep thanks. references southern, eileen. [1971] 1997. music of black americans, 3rd ed. new york: w. w. norton. 145 current.musicology.81.109-169.pdf struggling withjazz by scott deveaux as a musicologist, i'm accustomed to forming opinions that nobody in particular wants to hear. so when ken burns's mega-documentary jazz first aired on pbs in january 2001, it was an interesting time to be an aca­ demic specialist in jazz. suddenly everyone, from close friends to casual acquaintances, was asking what i thought, and a surprising number actually wanted to hear the answers. and i was eager to talk. i'd already done my homework. armed with an advance copy of the tapes, i had sat through all 17 % hours not just once, but twice, the second time taking detailed notes. i had read as much as i could find in the press and on the internet about the documentary-how it was made, what burns and his collaborator geoffrey ward had to say about it, along with preliminary reactions by various jazz insiders. but when it came down to it, i felt an odd sense of constraint about ex­ pressing myself. in part, that was because my feelings about the film were too complicated and ambivalent to reduce to a socially acceptable sound­ bite. beyond that, i felt keenly the vulnerability of my position as an aca­ demic evaluating what was, after all, a form of television entertainment. to be sure, some might be glad to hear from me that the show was less than wonderful, if only to justify their own decision to change channels af­ ter the first episode or so. but others undoubtedly found ken burns's jazz an engrossing and enlightening experience, leaving me the unpleasant role of spoilsport. any negative reactions would sound cranky and elitist­ just the sort of thing you would expect from a self-appointed expert who happened not to be consulted for the film. you have to hand it to burns. expecting nothing but trouble from the jazz experts, he skillfully preempted any such criticisms from that quarter. in a way, it's as if he's baiting us-dismissing us contemptuously as the 'jazzerati," granting us our mastery of petty detail while chiding us for our failure to see the big picture. "this is too important a subject," he told larry blumenfeld of jazziz magazine, "to let, as we said in the civil war, the buckle-collectors tell the story" (blumenfeld 2000)-"buckle-collectors" being his shorthand for those who "do the regimental histories and know the caliber of every gun in the civil war" (burns 2000a). the clear impli­ cation is that there is nothing particularly intellectual, or musical, or even current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 354 current musicology ultimately very useful, about this knowledge. "we don't have an intellec­ tual community that surrounds our music," wynton marsalis has chimed in in burns's defense. "it's kind of like a barbershop argument; you don't have to know anything to argue about it" (robischon 2000). it would be one thing if this disgruntled back talk were merely an ir­ relevance to burns and ward; but they go further to decry the jazzerati as a positive hindrance. expecting loyal allies, they found instead a "dysfunc­ tional family" of scholars, enthusiasts, journalists, and musicians prone to squander their energies in internecine quarrels (cocks 2001:72). "these people in their 'academic purity,''' says burns (more in sorrow than anger), "basically are not being friends of the music they purport to love" (blumenfeld 2000). were they true friends of jazz, they presumably would have long ago put aside their petty differences to help find a mass audi­ ence for this inexplicably neglected music. instead, thanks largely to their obsession with specialist knowledge, the general public has come to mis­ trust jazz. the potential audience, burns says, is put off by a "critical dis­ course [that] has reached a level disproportionate to its importance. it's become a tower of babel, splintering and clouding our appreciation of the music" (blumenfeld 2001:52). less biblically, burns has comparedjazz experts to pigpen, the character in the comic strip peanuts who carries a cloud of dust around with him wherever he goes (wilonsky 2000). there's apparently no pleasing such people. in making jazz, burns has decided simply not to worry about the jazz experts, aiming his film instead at the american heartland-the "little old lady in dubuque" or "farmer in nebraska" (burns 2000a), people who could learn to love jazz if we would all quit pretending that it's so damn difficult. there's a certain logic to burns and ward's position. perhaps it is churlish, not to say ungrateful, to snipe from the sidelines when so much time and effort, years of people's lives and hundreds of thousands of foun­ dation dollars, have been devoted to the single task of placing jazz, if only temporarily, at the center of american attention. and there is no denying that burns and his colleagues are highly skilled and indefatigable at what they do, which is to pull out of a near infinitude of sounds, images, and commentary a single, readily comprehended, and cinematically effective narrative. all this is cause for celebration. the problem is that any sense of gratitude is nearly impossible to separate from frustration, exasperation, and outright anger. one musician involved with the production privately summed up his feelings about jazz to me as "a horribly flawed film with some truly great and beautiful things about it." the same peculiar con­ junction of "horrible" and "beautiful" came up in conversations with the jazz trumpeter john d'earth, my colleague at the university of virginia. which raises the question: how can we register our considerable discom­ fort without seeming to undo any good the film might have done? scott deveaux 355 one way out of this dilemma is to take the advice not to get lost in de­ tails. it is indeed the big picture that counts. by enlisting the help of a wide range of jazz critics and musicians (if not scholars), burns and ward clearly see themselves as presenting jazz history as consensus. just as jazz it­ self is not hard to understand-all you have to do is pat your foot, right?­ so, too, should its history be uncomplicated. all that is necessary is to cut through the tangle of jazz discourse to get to the underlying human narra­ tive. thus, according to one press account,jazz "was not going to be a the­ sis, but a tale, and those interviewed for and consulted about the film were not allowed to offer theories or make accusations. they were brought aboard for very simple reasons: to tell stories" (wilonsky 2000). unfortunately, history is never so uncomplicated. for its own reasons, jazz tells the story in its own distinctive way; and to the extent that one can speak of a consensus in the jazz world (by which i mean not simply the "experts," but all those who have a deep, ongoing relationship with the music), it is a story so at odds with that consensus in certain respects that many find it bizarre and almost unrecognizable. but because of the power of mass visual media to combine compelling images with the power of myth-in short, because it's television-burns's version will inevitably have a wide influence. there's not much we can do about it-just as some of my musicology colleagues could say little about mozart and beethoven to displace or modify the equally bizarre (and entertaining) impressions left by hollywood in amadeus and immortal beloved. the question that re­ mains is: what are the implications of ken burns's jazz for teaching jazz history? in what ways does it constitute a revision of the basic historical narrative? * * * any historical project is inevitably shaped by its author's methods and priorities. burns's own are readily deducible from his numerous film proj­ ects. over the years he has also become comfortable making them explicit in interviews. he is fond, for example, of referring to himself as an "emo­ tional archaeologist" (pult 1999)-a term that neatly conveys his knack for involving audiences in distant historical events through the vivid personal anecdote (think of his use of shelbyfoote in the civil war), as well as his corresponding disdain for an overtly intellectual mode of explanation: "analysis kills poetry and emotion! it's the texture of emotion that [is] im­ portant to me" (edgerton 1995:5). the preference for the emotional pervades the film, determining its re­ lentlessly earnest tone. it is certainly behind the emphasis on the biogra­ phical, a device that allows burns and ward to bypass abstract explana­ tions for the development of jazz in favor of life stories, in particular that of the ubiquitous louis armstrong. the metaphor is planted early in the 356 current musicology second episode when wynton marsalis introduces armstrong as "the em­ bodiment of jazz music." thereafter, no opportunity is lost to bond view­ ers emotionally to armstrong's life, thereby assuring their emotional at­ tachment to jazz itself. jazz is an irony-free zone, in which sentimentality trumps detachment and skepticism. "i've seen [armstrong's] death scene in the editing room 50 to 60 times," burns told usa today, "and it still gets to me" (jones 2000a). what better reason can one have for including such a scene-or the touching tale of armstrong's first christmas tree? in point of fact, jazz history has always had a skewed relationship to bi­ ography. not surprisingly, personality has been crucial to an art that is popularly thought to be unmediated expression. in certain instances­ lives tragically cut short by illness or accident, or cases of melodramatic de­ terioration-biographical details are crucial to critical and historical inter­ pretation. but the real subject of jazz history is jazz itself, and it is essential that jazz seem forever young. new artists, carrying new stylistic innova­ tions, must continually arrive at regular intervals to demonstrate the music's vitality. a few, like miles davis, maintain an ongoing presence in the story by periodically reinventing themselves. otherwise, jazz musicians tend be defined rather narrowly by their moment of "influence," the point at which they contribute signally to the broader narrative: louis armstrong in early jazz of the 1920s, benny goodman in the swing era of the 1930s, dizzy gillespie in bebop of the 1940s, horace silver in the 1950s, ornette coleman in the 1960s, and so forth. the fact that these musicians led (or continue to lead) long and active careers is, from a narrative standpoint, an inconvenience, summed up by the cliche that if so-and-so had been hit by a truck at an early age, he or she would still have a place in jazz history. a callous sentiment, but honest. burns is interested in a different kind of story. as is clear from his re­ peated invoking of jazz as a national icon (in nearly every interview, he cites as his inspiration for the film gerald early's observation that "2,000 years from now, this country will be known for only three things: the constitution, baseball and jazz" [wilonsky 2000]), he is less concerned with aesthetics than with the future of america itself. in an analysis of the pre-jazz films, gary edgerton has underscored burns's preference for sweeping narratives with strong political and moral implications. "i feel connected to the homeric tradition," he quotes burns as saying, "where we might be singing our epic verses to one another, no longer around a campfire, but maybe around this electronic campfire." in epics, the lives of heroic individuals loom large. "the epic form tends to celebrate a peo­ ple's shared tradition in sweeping terms," edgerton notes, "while recount­ ing the lives of national heroes is the classical way of imparting values by erecting edifying examples for present and future generations" (edgerton scott deveaux 357 1993). needless to say, it is an inherently monumentalizing approach. in one interview, burns even muses on who would be on a jazz "mount rushmore": "i would say it's armstrong, ellington, [charlie] parker, and then i'd probably put miles davis but for obvious reasons-so there are no arguments-we need to have a woman and we need to have someone who's dramatic as billie holiday" (burns 2000b). in populating his mount rushmore with black faces, it's clear that the central issue for burns is race (not gender, as the transparent tokenism of including holiday "for obvious reasons" shows). one might have guessed as much from his previous films. the civil war consistently focused on slav­ ery as the crucial moral issue. even baseball devoted a generous portion of its time to the negro leagues. "jazz is an opportunity to see how we are as a people," burns has said. "in many ways, i've made the same film over and over again, just asking that question of different subjects" (considine 2000). gene santoro, in his review for the nation, concurs: "this isn't re­ ally a movie about jazz history .... like the civil war and baseball,jazz for burns and ward is a lens to focus on basic questions: who are americans, and how do they manage to get along-or not? and their central query concerns race" (santoro 2001 :36). such an approach has enraged some viewers, who came to the show ex­ pecting music per se to take center stage. and it is certainly true that music often seems pushed to the margins. burns seems to mistrust our attention spans, seldom allowing us to hear more than a brief passage of music be­ fore hurrying to gloss it with commentary. but one has to consider the whole package. is television the best way to actually experience music in any case? those whose curiosity has been piqued by the film can turn to the impressive series of cd reissues burns has devised to accompany the film, which provide direct access to, and draw unprecedented attention toward, the musical performances themselves. besides, in jazz the cultural/political narrative doesn't necessarily dis­ place the aesthetic one. often the two run side by side. a good example is louis armstrong's 1928 "west end blues," one of the few performances accorded the honor of being played without interruption. "west end blues" is introduced simultaneously as an aesthetic gem-"the most per­ fect three minutes in music," according to an astonished music professor -and as an emanation of an american ethos: "a perfect reflection of the country in the moments before the great depression." all this perfection is then adduced to a single heroic figure. "west end blues" is the piece that "would once and for all establish louis armstrong as the first great solo genius of the music." the problem is not that the film scants "the music" in order to give us a history lesson or to subject us to the filmmakers' peculiar obsession with 358 current musicology race. anyone with a serious interest in jazz needs that lesson. to the ex­ tent that jazz situates its subject within the tangled history of american racial politics (as it often does, and very effectively), it lives up to its ad­ vance billing. the problem, rather, is that all this piling on of rhetoric does little to help us understand jazz as we know it today. it may seem perverse to suggest that a history should be responsible for explaining the present. and indeed, in response to the film's famously skewed proportions (while earlier episodes often linger over only a few years at a time, the final episode hurries to cover the four decades from 1961 to the present), burns is quick to defend his prerogatives as a histo­ rian: "i consider the later years no less important, but more the province of journalism. history itself, the making of history, requires a certain kind of triangulation to take place, and the essential ingredient in that triangu­ lation is distance from the subject, something we don't have in the modern era" (pult 1999). this answer overlooks an important point. although history is told forwards-that is, stories begin at some point in the past and proceed to­ ward (without reaching) the present-it is necessarily written backwards. it is a story told from a contemporary perspective, offering a vision of the past in the service of the present. in burns's earlier films, none of this needed to be made explicit. his epic retelling of the civil war affected american audiences as it did precisely because that conflict has such a vivid presence in modern politics and culture. similarly, with millions at­ tending games every year, burns could afford to assume that anyone watching baseball would bring with them a sense of the game itself: how it is played, and, perhaps more unconsciously, what its cultural meanings are. alas, such is not the case for jazz, which for most americans remains a puzzling noise and an impenetrable mass of sub-cultural practices. curious viewers turned to the film to find out what jazz is, not merely what it has been. they certainly (and rightly) expected a historical perspective to provide much of the answer. and since historical narratives carry im­ plicit definitions, in the process of telling their stories about what jazz was burns and ward did indeed convey their own highly idiosyncratic impres­ sion of what the music is today. in the end, it is an impression that may not necessarily earn our gratitude. * * * a basic assumption underlying jazz, as indeed virtually any such com­ prehensive history, is that something called 'jazz," a musical tradition sep­ arable from other currents in twentieth-century american culture, pro­ vides a stable subject for the narrative. what this means in practical terms is that whatever is called 'jazz" at the beginning of the story should be rec­ ognizably the same as what we call 'jazz" today. it takes only a moment's scott deveaux 359 reflection to see what a stretch this is-if nothing else, there is an enormous qualitative difference between a scrappy, street-wise dance music with no cultural capital (which is certainly how most people early in the century, musicians included, would have thought of it) and the monument of american culture deserving of a massive pbs special at century's end. one of the first tasks of the documentary, then, is to erase such differ­ ences. thus jazz, almost from its very inception, is declared to be art-a status that both raises it above the ordinary and ensures a certain brand­ name consistency of quality and integrity. the contexts for this assertion vary. in the first instance, which comes so early in the film that the histori­ cal narrative has barely gotten underway, it grows out of a statement of american exceptionalism. as gary giddins explains: jazz is the quintessential american music. and the important thing that you have to begin with is that it could only happen in america. it's not an mrican music, obviously; it's not a european music, obvi­ ously; it's something that comes right out of this soil. out of influ­ ences that come from all different cultures. and all of those come to­ gether. but in jazz, unlike all of the other folk musics of the world, it blossoms into an authentic art. the claim that only jazz, of all the world's "folk musics," has proven capa­ ble of such a transformation is startling. but so is the assumption that "au­ thentic art" is a category so self-evident that no further explanation is re­ quired. (giddins, presumably, knows it when he sees it.) later passages flesh this out somewhat. in episode 2, 'jazz" is introduced in the context of the 1920s jazz age as a novelty music, good for frenetic dancing but arguably an ephemeral trend. the narration explains: "it would take the soaring genius of musicians such as louis armstrong to broaden its mes­ sage, deepen its emotions, turn it into art." indeed, as it turns out, arm­ strong is the focus. giddins returns in episode 3, introducing armstrong's "west end blues" with a litany of aesthetic principles: for the first time, we know that jazz is an art. what does he bring to this music that has not previously existed? first of all, he establishes almost single handedly that jazz is going to be a soloist's art, not an ensemble music. he affirms for all time that a fundamental basis for this music is going to be a blues tonality, which is gonna be as funda­ mental to jazz as the tempered scale is to western music. it's the blood, it's the life of the music. third, and most significant, ... maybe the most astonishing to contemplate, armstrong invented what we call swing. he created modern time. the music that louis armstrong improvised in 1928 excites us today. and if that's not classical music, i don't know what is. 360 current musicology is art, then, recognizable mainly through its enduring aesthetic im­ pact? if so, perhaps the beatles are also "classical," since so many obviously continue to find their music "exciting" thirty-five years later. i doubt that's the conclusion giddins wants us to draw. but it is worth noticing that his criterion acknowledges that "art" is a category imposed on the past from a later vantage point. the obvious relevance of the assertion 'jazz is art" is for us today: it explains and justifies the efforts made to pull jazz toward the center of official american artistic culture, whether on public televi­ sion, at lincoln center, as a genre officially recognized by the national endowment for the arts, or as a staple of the academic curriculum. that declaring jazz as art might have a different, perhaps more political pur­ pose, is indicated only in passing. in episode 4, for example, james t. maher explains a powerful motivation for many early jazz critics: it was depression era, mind you, and they were pretty much leftist in their feelings and their politics and so on, so they approached jazz with this in mind and that the black musician who after 300 years of maltreatment in america, it's time we open the doors and windows and recognize that they created a great art. maher's comments point the discussion in a more historicist direction, reminding us that categories such as "art" are social constructions, not timeless realities. and in fact, the idea that jazz not only is art, but also al­ ways has been, is relatively recent. throughout the period covered by the film, definitions of 'jazz" were highly fluid and hotly contested. on its first appearance in popular discourse in the years immediately following world war i, the term was a free-floating signifier that did not necessarily even derive from the musicians' community (many early 'jazz" musicians pre­ ferred to call what they played "ragtime"). it was a term so broadly and promiscuously associated with all kinds of popular entertainment that "for most americans it had no precise location or independent existence" (hobsbawm 1993). only when certain musical practices were seized upon by critics for special attention (whether first by americans or europeans is the subject of some debate) was any effort made to set jazz apart as distinc­ tive, usually as "hot jazz" as opposed to other kinds of jazz (e.g., "sweet" or "symphonic"), or to define its aesthetic qualities. by the time referred to by maher (the 1930s), 'jazz" had been joined by a new term, "swing." today, swing is understood to be a sub-category of jazz: a "style" or "period" (or, in the inflated rhetoric of american popular culture, an "era"). at the time, no such consensus existed. indeed, the very economic conditions that raised the stakes-the unprecedented boom in commercial dance music-prompted a vigorous and, at times, scott deveaux 361 hysterical debate over definitions that bernard gendron has characterized as a "battle of jazz ancients and moderns" (gendron 1995:32). is jazz a static folk practice that commercial exploitation or the influence of aes­ thetic modernism can only degrade or corrupt? is swing an emblem of progress, the laudable evolutionary fulfillment of "primitive jazz"? what­ ever the outcome, gendron has noted, the mere fact of arguing helped to solidify the discourse through which jazz would ultimately be considered an "art music." the coming of bebop in the 1940s only reshuffled and refocused the terms of debate, providing an even more self-consciously modern form of jazz to target or champion. the modern notion of a jazz tradition, with 'jazz" now not just referring to dance music of the 1920s but reconfigured as an overarching genre em­ bracing a succession of deeply interrelated styles, did not emerge until mid-century. at first, the dominant ideology for the jazz tradition was col­ orblind. while acknowledging the "negroid" origins of the music, the consensus among (predominantly white) critics and historians was that jazz, in becoming a "universal" art music, had necessarily transcended lim­ iting racial categories. a further modification, then, came in the wake of the civil rights movement: the jazz tradition became celebrated as black music, a crucial cornerstone in the conception of a multicultural america. and this is the point, more or less, where burns and ward come in. they heartily subscribe to the idea that jazz is a continuous, uninterrupted tradition and that it is, in some basic sense, african american. to this they add a heavy overlay of nationalism-or rather, they put a different spin on an already heavily americanist discourse. in the cliche 'jazz is america's classical music," america is usually invoked to bolster the prestige of jazz. burns reverses this, using jazz (as he did with baseball) as a way of articu­ lating what is great-or, with a liberal's sense of self-critique, what may be great-about this country. "though it is a look backwards into the 20th century," he has said, "[jazz] is in a way a look at the redemptive future prom­ ise of america [italics in original], because embedded in the perfection of jazz is all that we might become as americans" (pult 1999). and for burns, the strongest hints of a perfectly realized america are to be found in the big band style known as swing. * * * the swing era-roughly, from 1935 to 1945-is the film's apotheosis. it is a historical moment when jazz is simultaneously a fully-realized "au­ thentic art," a source of "pure pleasure" for the masses, and, with the out­ break of world war ii, a symbol of america's special mission abroad. here, burns as emotional archaeologist is most fully in his element. footage of ecstatic dancers accompanied by the splendid music of 362 current musicology ellington, basie, and goodman shows artists and the masses in perfect syn­ chrony. the wild enthusiasm with which both black and white audiences greeted swing proves that music can transcend even the most entrenched racism, ultimately revealing the goodness at the heart of new deal america. although the economic underpinnings of swing can easily be characterized as exploitative-black dance styles marketed to the white mainstream, with economic reward going disproportionately to whites-in jazz the process by which jazz traveled from the margins to the center is presented as wholly benign. to quote an episode title, through swing music, black americans offer "the true welcome" to sympathetic whites. the result is that "swing, which had grown up in the dance halls of harlem, would become the defining music for an entire generation of americans." as a portrait of a music culture, this is vivid, involving, and (assuming one has the stamina) well worth the time devoted to it. no knowledgeable jazz fan would deny the music of basie, ellington, or goodman a place of honor in the triumphant narrative of jazz. so what's the problem? simply that after a dozen or so hours of leisurely documentary coverage of jazz up through 1940, that same knowledgeable fan would be eager, not to say im­ patient, for the story to move on to new heights, to the further triumphs of jazz as embodied by miles davis, john coltrane, thelonious monk, charles mingus, sonny rollins, art blakey, and other giants of the 1950s and beyond. only gradually does it become clear that this story has a different plot. swing, it turns out, is the peak. all else is decline. the issue is not necessarily aesthetic: in the relatively brief time allot­ ted, the music of davis, coltrane, monk, et ai., is treated with all due re­ spect. instead, the criterion by which post-swing jazz is judged and found wanting is popular appeal-a quality evident enough in the faces of those ecstatic dancers, but also quantitatively measurable by sales figures. at the beginning of the sixth episode, we are informed that by the late 1930s, "big band swing ... accounted for almost 70% of the profits in the music industry." the obvious implication is that with swing, artistic achievement converged completely with commercial success. when the 70% figure is invoked later in the film, it is only to throw into sharp contrast the de­ pressingly paltry sales figures of our own time (by most accounts, jazz cur­ rently accounts for about 2-3% ofthe total market in recordings). clearly, the relationship between jazz and its audience has suffered a catastrophic collapse. i have no idea where burns or ward got the 70% figure (the film of course doesn't say, but neither does the accompanying book). the issue in any case is not the accuracy of statistics, but the vexed question of cate­ gories and definitions. not even jazz pretends that everything that passed under the label "swing," and that presumably was included in that 70%, scott deveaux 363 should count. "when we talk about 'swing,' " james lincoln collier ob­ serves on-camera, "it's pretty dicey whether we're going to call this jazz or not. because a great deal of that music was pretty commercial stuff." at various times in the film's discussion of swing, "commercial" music is excoriated (particularly by artie shaw, notorious for his contentious rela­ tionship with the workings of the music industry). even glenn miller­ responsible for more than his share of the 70%-is dismissed with faint praise. nor is burns above using concerns over creeping commercialism as a merely dramatic device to keep the narrative from flagging. at the end of episode 5, over music that suddenly turns somber and moody (benny goodman's "clouds"), the narrator informs us that for all "its overwhelm­ ing popularity, swing music had not captured the heart of every musician, or every jazz fan. some found the big bands too stiff or too regimented." the same aura of gloom is picked up again at the beginning of the next episode: by the late 1930s, swing was big business. but commerce had too of­ ten led to compromise. the individual expression that had been at the heart of jazz was too often kept under wraps. musicians grew im­ patient playing the same thing the same way every night. chafed at not being able to tell their own stories. all of this, however, is merely a way of setting up the second act of the drama: a new swing sound that, like mr. smith going to washington, ar­ rives from the hinterland just in time to keep the democratic promise of swing from going stale: but in the middle of the country, in the black dancehalls and road­ houses and juke joints of oklahoma, kansas, and missouri, a new kind of music was being born. pulsing, stomping, and suffused with the blues and played by men and women who had honed their skills in cutting contests that sometimes went on all night. the man who had come to epitomize this new sound and would bring it to the rest of the country, the man who had helped return swing to its roots, was count basie. in short, as with most jazz histories, an implicit line is drawn in jazz between the merely "commercial stuff" and the "real" swing bands-the latter comprising the usual short list of ellington, basie, goodman, shaw, chick webb, fletcher henderson, jimmie lunceford, tommy dorsey, and gene krupa. but when it suits the film's purposes, that line is often 364 current musicology blurred. the exhilarating footage of the 1938 festival at randall's island in new york city, a remarkable outdoor event that gathered 24,000 swing fans on a warm spring day, leaves the impression that everyone was there solely to enjoy the "hot" instrumentals of count basie, rather than the more varied fare of any of the two dozen other bands on the bill, some of which, like kay kyser's and "swing and sway with sammy kaye," are sel­ dom categorized by anyone as jazz. rather than probing the meaning of swing in all its robust and tacky variety (as krin gabbard has done in an intriguing discussion of kyser [gabbard 1996:19-33]), or acknowledging that the narrative of jazz as conventionally understood is based on a nar­ row definition of "swing," jazz disingenuously tries to have it both ways. furthermore, any discussion of the popular appeal of jazz or swing must take into account dramatic changes in the nature of consumer prod­ uct marketing over the past century. swing exemplifies the phase in the modern economy that richard tedlow (1996) calls "unification": the cre­ ation of a national mass market, featuring single products (like coca­ cola) designed to appeal to as many people as possible. the same trend held true for popular culture. hollywood films and radio networks also sought out the broadest possible audience-the latter literally "broadcast­ ing" its shows indiscriminately to everyone who could afford a radio re­ ceiver. thus, in the swing band, elements now regarded as 'jazz" were pre­ sented to the public in a package in which instrumental improvisation was inseparable from popular song, dance, entertainment, comedy, and fashion. such marketing strategies make the 70% figure seem credible. by contrast, jazz as we know it today is a product of the subsequent phase in the maturation of mass market capitalism, which tedlow calls "segmentation." the new strategy has also been called "narrowcasting"-a dividing of the mass market into a near infinitude of small, distinct con­ sumer groups, each of whom can be assured that their tastes are unique. as i have written elsewhere (deveaux 1997:299-306), this trend was evi­ dent in the music business as early as the 1940s, with profitable niche markets for recordings emerging in country, rhythm and blues, and jazz, and has only intensified since. the current market share for jazz may be uncomfortably small, but a figure considerably lower than 70% is not out of line for a music whose appeal-its distinctive market presence-has always been that it's "not for everyone." in an interview that burns chose not to use in the film, james t. maher explains: one of the very peculiar things about falling in love with jazz is that you accidentally joined a cult, whether you liked it or not. and sooner or later you became acquainted with other zealots, who i call jazzniks, for want of a better word. and of course they are instantly scott deveaux 365 telling you that all the people that you like and admire, they all stink. they don't play jazz, see. so, you have this cult problem to deal with. and it went on and on and on and still goes on through the history of jazz that "i know what jazz is, you don't know what jazz is."! by contrast, burns and ward seem to regard mass popularity as the nat­ ural condition of jazz. in subsequent episodes, the handful of commercial successes among jazz recordings (dave brubeck's time out, miles davis's kind of blue, john coltrane's "my favorite things," stan getz's "desa­ finado") are held up as hopeful reminders that such popularity could come again. but in general, the failure of modern jazz to regain a central place in american popular culture casts a deep shadow over the music's artistic successes. in the following passages, all drawn from the film's narration, the loss of audience becomes something of an incantation: • the singular genius whose startling innovations came to epitomize the new music was charlie parker. but those innovations came at a great cost. the jazz audience shrank as young people, both black and white, found other forms of music to dance to. (episode 8) • dizzy gillespie struggled always to make bebop accessible to every­ one. but for all his showmanship, his brilliant playing, and the drive and precision ... he failed to find a wider audience. (episode 8) • in the years following charlie parker's death .... jazz of every kind survived but it struggled to find an audience. (episode 9) • now white teenagers had a new dance music of their own: rock 'n' roll. and the audience for jazz, once the most popular music in america, shrank still further. (episode 9) • art blakey made it his life's work to bring back to jazz the audi­ ence it had lost to rhythm and blues. (episode 9) • nothing that the art ensemble of chicago did seemed able to win back a black audience. (episode 10) this begs an important question: if swing held the key to mass appeal, why did musicians from charlie parker on abandon it? no coherent an­ swer is ever given. we hear the cliche that bebop was a reaction to the commercialism of swing, its creators "dissatisfied" and "defiant," eager to rebel "against all those blue suits we had to wear in the big swing bands." the influx of heroin in the 1940s is continually invoked, although whether as a symptom of malaise or its cause is not clear. (nor is much 366 current musicology said about alcoholism in earlier jazz.) mostly, we get a distinct shift in tone. if swing was joyful and exciting, a matter of "pure" physical "pleas­ ure," modern jazz is about "risk" and "danger." stanley crouch describes charlie parker's sound as "hard, brittle, devoid of pity," the sonic equiva­ lent of being pricked in the leg by a pin. gary giddins speaks' of sonny rollins's music as "tear[ing] the hair off your head," or coltrane's as "pin­ ning your ears back." even billie holiday, praised earlier for her "insou­ ciance," is eulogized four episodes later for the "pain" and "heartbreak­ ing" quality of her singing. in short, a new aesthetic paradigm has taken hold: instead of the artist playing the role of genial entertainer (as exemplified by armstrong, de­ scribed on-camera as a "special messenger" sent "to this earth ... to make people happy"), we are now face to face with modernism in all its prickly complexity. in episode 8, as a way of justifying the notorious failure of charlie parker and dizzy gillespie to draw audiences to bebop during an ill-fated trip to california in 1945, wynton marsalis patiently explains that jazz is yet another art requiring diligent, informed effort from its audi­ ence: "when an art form is created, the question is how do you come to it? not how does it come to you. like beethoven's music is not going to come to you. or the art of picasso is not going to come to you. shakespeare­ you have to go to it. and when you go to it you get the benefit of it." coming so late in the film, after hours and hours in which jazz has been celebrated as uncomplicated and immediately accessible, this art-as­ medicine line of reasoning is neither logical nor convincing. at the same time, the film strongly implies that jazz has lost its way. once a coherent art form, it has splintered into "a tower of babel bitterly divided into schools" (that biblical image again) as artists, interested only in pleasing themselves, have pursued their separate, irreconcilable agen­ das. as "the definition of what was jazz and what was not began to blur," jazz entered a state of crisis from which (to judge by sales figures) it has yet to fully emerge. as i have already indicated, this overlooks the noisy confusion over "what was jazz and what was not" that has marked the en­ tire history of jazz-or at least, ever since 'jazz" was thought worth fighting over. in some ways, burns has things exactly backwards: the coherence that he imagines for jazz in the first half of the century has been imposed upon it from the present, and the imagined moment of crisis is in fact the point at which jazz "becomes itself"-that is, when it acquires enough cul­ tural weight to establish itself as an art. if jazz today seems a kaleidoscope of styles, that is not because 'jazz" has no meaning, but that each different kind of jazz, whether fusion, avant-garde, or marsalis's determined histori­ cism, claims for itself the legitimizing heritage of the jazz tradition. to the extent that the film suggests that jazz shivered into pieces when it became modern, it indulges in reactionary myth-making. interestingly, scott deveaux 367 that's not how burns himself sees it. in an interview, he offers an extended analogy with the history of painting in which he claims the mantle of mod­ ernism for the kind of jazz he prefers. bebop, no matter how "fantastic," is simply a bad bargain that has earned its exile to the margins. for hundreds of years painting was representational. round the turn of the century, at the height of the impressionist era it got into a sort of modern thing ... there's fauvism, there's pointillism, all this sort of stuff. hugely energetic. picasso is leading the way, right? and the equivalent of picasso is louis armstrong. the ultimate-and sig­ mund freud and albert einstein and the wright brothers. you're dealing with the essence of modernism and jazz is born out of that tradition. it's still representational painting, as impressionistic as it becomes ... and that's what painting is until 1945. now suddenly in 1945 this 'new thing,' throwing out all the rules, comes in, calling itself ab­ stract expressionism. the audience for art just hits bottom. people don't get it, harry truman complains that it looks like scrambled eggs, blah blah blah blah blah. what happened in 1945 in jazz music? bebop came in and the hugely popular-let's put it in quotes-"representational" music of swing-art in itself-is overthrown by this new revolution. and most people could not get with it. so they gravitated to the people who wanted to dance and move their bodies around ... and make love after they listen to music, went to rhythm and blues and all that sort of stuff. but the art was still great and we made a huge case for how fantas­ tic bebop was, but the audience dwindled. (burns 2000a; ellipses in original) the only way out of this impasse, burns suggests, is a turning back: then all of a sudden in painting you've got a kind of neo-realism coming back-you've got people not imposing the same old same old but they're saying, "i'm going to go back to the figure." you've got the hottest movement among the british, the lucien fords, that echo to another era but are completely their own. and you know, you could easily say that this is very much like a wynton marsalis with the neo-traditionalists .... * * * as noted earlier, jazz banks heavily on the narrative power of biogra­ phy. in an interview, ward admitted: "i think history is biography .... that may be a failing on my part, but i can't get interested in history 368 current musicology unless i read about people doing things. so we deliberately looked for those whose lives stretched the longest and could tell the story of jazz best" (reich 2000). as a result, the narrative arc of the film inevitably aims toward death. in its last episodes, jazz gives us a heart-wrenching portrait of artists in decay. as the founding figures of jazz grow old and die, the portrait of an art form in crisis is made inseparable from mortality. jazz itself is dying. the most striking moment in the final episode is what i think of as the funeral scene, which immediately follows the death of ellington in 1974. to the melancholy music of ellington's "in a sentimental mood," the camera slowly pans over a jazz club, candles flickering on the tables, pho­ tographs of now-dead artists on the walls. there are no people in the club: the tables are empty, and the instruments stand mute on the bandstand. a voice-over narration explains why: in the 1960s, the city of new orleans tore down the house in which louis armstrong was born to make way for a police station. by then, the lincoln gardens on the south side of chicago, where arm­ strong had played with king oliver, had long since closed its doors. law and order had come to kansas city, and most of the wide-open clubs in which lester young and count basie and charlie parker once played ... vanished. the cotton club in harlem, where duke ellington first broadcast his jungle music was gone. so was the savoy ballroom, where chick webb once took on all comers and ella fitz­ gerald first became a star. birdland, the club named for charlie parker, abandoned jazz for rhythm and blues. in 1968, the last club on 52nd street finally closed its doors. even the five spot, where ornette coleman and john coltrane first performed their demand­ ing music, eventually went out of business. during the late 1930s, jazz and swing had provided 70% of the profits in the music indus­ try. by the mid 1970s, it was less than 3%. in 1975, miles davis him­ self said that jazz was dead, the music of the museum. of course, all of this is a set-up for the drama of resurrection-the so­ called 'jazz renaissance," which according to the film began when dexter gordon returned from self-imposed european exile in 1976, and hit full stride with wynton marsalis's dramatic appearance in the early 1980s. since the idea of a jazz renaissance is so indelibly associated with marsalis, it only seems appropriate to let another musician debunk it. brad mehl­ dau is a brilliant pianist in his early thirties, a decade younger than marsalis. understandably, he is ill at ease with a narrative that erases so much of his formative experience as a musician. in one of the typically scott deveaux 369 erudite essays that accompany his cds (published, one must note, before jazz was broadcast), he exposes its hollow core: i have a built-in wariness towards the term "renaissance" when ap­ plied to jazz music being played and recorded in recent years. a resurgence of interest took place, perhaps. but should we really paste a normative historical term to a music that evades the burden of history? ... people with this kind of backward longing are blind to their own irony. they feel that they missed an event that's no longer possible and, with their heads in these gray clouds, miss the present event. the lover of classics will always miss his art object in frustra­ tion because art can't achieve high or classical sainthood until at least a couple generations of posterity-testing. a dubious claim to jazz's legitimacy is its own watery-eyed parody of this species: the drunk at the bar .who talks through the set, whining about how jazz will never be like it was in the days when coltrane played here, oblivi­ ous to the music taking place in front of him .... if we're in a renaissance, when exactly were the dark ages? the unspoken implication, of course, is the 70's, a time when jazz suc­ cumbed to "lower" influences like rock 'n' roll and infected itself with electric instruments. what jazz in fact was doing was what it had always done: taking leads from pop music of its day, and reanimating the stylistic garment into something transfigured by the force of its composition and improvisation .... an endgame attitude toward jazz gives us a premature, peanut­ sized parody of the entire western tradition in art. there's the famil­ iar defeatist implication that the music degenerates over time, with a kind of faustian inevitability, until it can be redeemed, which pre­ sumably is taking place now. jazz never lost itself, so a redemption isn't necessary. the prelapsarian myth of art as a fallen thing from some earlier grace-state is a vestige of high art criticism that jazz need not willfully inherit. the fall myth is usually less about art than it is a stapled-on projection, a misplaced anxiety about the mortality of the culture in which that art is created, which is in itself another evasion, fear of one's own mortality. (mehldau 1999) mehldau's indignation seems on target. i am not as young as mehldau, but i still object strongly to the claim that jazz died during my lifetime. in fact, the 1970s was when i first became aware there was such a thing as jazz and began imagining my place as listener, performer, and historian in the jazz community. the music i heard seemed simultaneously contemporary and historical, taking its meaning from a rich and storied past. i didn't 370 current musicology separate my discoveries of coltrane, mingus, and ellington from my enjoy­ ment of new music in clubs and on records, or from the challenge of learning to create my own music with fellow novices of staggeringly varied tastes, talents, and temperaments. as much as i respected jazz as a culture with its own traditions, i was also immersing myself in contemporary popu­ lar music (especially funk) and the traditional music of west mrica and didn't distinguish among them much: there was too much pleasure to be had in hearing connections and cross-influences to bother with policing boundaries. whatever jazz was, it didn't seem dead or dying. like all living art forms, it was up for grabs. the near-complete erasure of the 1970s in jazz prompted me to try to recall all the musicians i heard in person during that decade-mostly in the latter half of the 1970s, on a graduate student's budget. a pleasant exercise in nostalgia, perhaps, but also a useful point of reference. here is my list: john abercrombie dave brubeck* jaki byard betty carter richie cole chick corea (and return to forever) charlie haden * herbie hancock* sir roland hanna earl hines* keith jarrett eddie jefferson eric kloss art lande chuck mangione charles mingus* joni mitchell's mingus band (with michael brecker andjaco pastorius) oregon art pepper sonny rollins* sunra weather report mccoy tyner* randy weston joe williams phil woods scott deveaux 371 needless to say, only a few of these musicians and groups are mentioned in jazz (those marked with an asterisk). some of the omissions are stun­ ning (jarrett, corea, weather report), but burns is within his rights to argue that a good film cannot also be an encyclopedia or a telephone book. what is inexplicably absent from his film is a sense of the diversity and vitality of music in the 1970s, and by extension, of a continuous tradi­ tion of creativity that continues to inform the jazz of today. perhaps not all of the music from that decade has aged well (in particular, i'm willing to publicly disown my youthful infatuation with the music of chuck mangione). but the above list is still evidence of a musical culture that is both remarkably diverse and consistently excellent. furthermore, all of it was live. burns's emphasis is on jazz as a heritage that must be revisited-in short, music as museum. "we've simply told the story of jazz as best we can, and hope that it might stimulate people to read lots of books, see lots of films and buy lots of cds. that should make everybody in jazz happy" (wilonsky 2000). but what about "go out to a club"? there may be fewer venues for jazz today than in years past, and those venues may face increasing financial pressures; but the music is still performed, and that is where the focus should lie, not on books and films. for that matter, how will the heavy promotion of reissues help artists try­ ing to release and promote new recordings? ron goldstein, president of verve records, could muster only cautious enthusiasm at the prospect. "if you get somebody, say a college student, who maybe never heard ella fitzgerald but is really taken with her because of this show, they may be compelled to buy a diana krall album," he says. "they may like hearing armstrong playing trumpet and wonder if there is someone more contem­ porary that they could get into. we don't know how strongly this will con­ nect with the consumer" (jones 2000b). unfortunately, an impressionable youngster searching for another louis armstrong will be disappointed. there will be no more louis arm­ strongs, and not just because his genius was unrepeatable, but because the day of the jazz musician as charismatic pop entertainer has passed. for at least a generation, the "embodiment of jazz music" has been someone more like john coltrane, or thelonious monk, or miles davis: introverted, fiercely individualistic, and perhaps less immediately loveable. but for many of us who came of age in the past forty years, that is precisely the jazz that we have come to love. just because we have also come to love the sunnier music of armstrong and ellington does not alter this basic fact. obviously, there is no reason why my experience should be the subject of burns's narrative. but there's a basic misunderstanding in his cop-out ending and in his justification for pulling up so short of the present. burns admits that the final episode is "impressionistic" (pult 1999), but 372 current musicology claims that he had no other choice: ''i'm relinquishing control of the nar­ rative to journalists, and saying that the last forty years deserves journalis­ tic attention much more than historical attention" (blumenfeld 2000:39). perhaps my response to this is colored by my experience as a college teacher constantly faced with people who can barely recall the reagan ad­ ministration, but the time span yielded up to journalism simply seems too large. more important, any historian-especially of a "living subject"-has the responsibility of acknowledging the dialogic relationship between the present and the past. burns owed us an honest portrait of a musical scene that is informed, but not cowed, by its traditions. to paraphrase ralph ellison: the gloom at the end of jazz "is enough to give jazz the blues." as for myself, i prefer the liberating sense of being in the present that i get from the following passage from john chernoff's african rhythm and african sensibility. chernoff, in northern ghana to study traditional mrican drumming, asked his teacher about the origins of the genre known as takai. the response is a bracing lesson in the limits of historical thinking: you want to know who introduced the beating, and i can tell you that no one introduced takai. any time you hear a dondon beater beating, and someone is dancing, then you must know that the don­ don beater introduced the playing. he is the one who introduced the beating of the drum .... (chernoffl979:61) so as the takai dancers who are dancing now are becoming old, they will train another set after them, and another set. ... no one knows the original beat of takai, and by that time the beat we take as takai will die. it may be a new one altogether. by that time, i and the others will not be there. and those people who will be there at that time, they will think that they are dancing the real thing because they will not know the original beat as before. before me alhaji was leading the takai group .... but alhaji has now given it over to me. at present if we are drumming and he comes there, he says that we have changed the beat so much that we have spoiled it. and what­ ever happens, in the future it will also change. even in our time it is not the original beat. that is what will keep on happening. so how do you feel about the fact that they will be changing the takai beat? to me, i feel it is better. the change is better because i have come to the stage that i feel that what we are drumming is good. if an old man says that at the time they were drumming, the beat was good, i don't know what the beat was at that time, so i feel that what we are doing at present is good. and in the future they will feel that scott deveaux 373 what they are doing is better than what we have been doing now. that is what will keep on happening. note and what will you tell them? i won't tell them anything because by that time i will not be there. but if you are there, what will you say? i'll tell them that they are spoiling it. (64-65) 1. transcripts of all of the interviews for the making of jazz can be found on the pbs web site, http://www.pbs.org/jazz/. references blumenfeld, larry. 2000. 20th-century bop. jazziz (december): 38-47. ---. 2001. burns-eye view of jazz: living history or death sentence? village voice (january 16): 48-49, 52-53. burns, ken. 2000a. interview with ashley kahn, october 30. ---. 2000b. interview with ashley kahn, december 7. the transcripts of both burns-khan interviews can be read online as "the complete ken burns interviews." jazzhouse. http://wwwjazzhouse.org/files/kahn1.php3/ [april 5,2002]. chernoff, john. 1979. african rhythm and african sensibility: aesthetics and social action in african musical idioms. chicago: university of chicago press. cocks, jay. 2001. fascinating rhythms. time (january 8): 69, 72. considine,]. d. 2000. minding the music of ken burns' 'jazz." baltimore sun (november 24): n.p. deveaux, scott. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley: uni­ versity of california press. edgerton, gary. 1993. ken burns's america: style, authorship, and cultural memory. journal of popular film and television 21 (summer): 50-62. ---. 1995. ken burns-a conversation with public television's resident historian. journal of american culture 18 (spring): 1-12. gabbard, krin. 1996. jammin' at the margins: jazz and american cinema. chicago: university of chicago press. gendron, bernard. 1995. "moldy figs" and modernists: jazz at war (1942-1946). in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 31-56. durham, n.c.: duke university press. hobsbawm, eric]. 1993. thejazz scene. new york: pantheon books. jones, steve. 2000a. america'sjubilation. usa today (october 13); n.p. ---. 2000b.jazz reissues count on big play. usa today (october 13): n.p. mehldau, brad. 1999. liner notes to brad mehldau, art of the trio 4: back at the vanguard. warner brothers 9 47463-2. pult, jon. 1999. backtalk with ken burns. ojjbeat: new orleans' and louisiana's music magazine (may). http://www.offbeat.com/ob2005/backtalk.html [april 5,2002]. 374 current musicology reich, howard. 2000. the heat's on burns' 'jazz." chicago tribune (november 26): sec. c, p. l. robischon, noah. 2000. the 'jazz" messenger. entertainment weekly (december 8): n.p. santoro, gene. 200l.all thatjazz. the nation (january 29): 34-37. tedlow, richard. 1996. new and improved: the story of mass marketing in america. boston: harvard business school press. wilonsky, robert. 2000. he got rhythm. dallas observer (november 16): n.p. outside forces: "autumn leaves" in the 1960s by keith waters is there a problem of form in the jazz tradition? does the reliance upon repeated 32-bar frameworks create an unavoidable formal, harmonic, and metric redundancy? how do jazz improvisers transcend or evade this cyclic regularity? these are crucial questions. jazz players have extended privilege to the 32-bar aaba and abac song form (along with 12-bar blues structures) since at least the 1930s, when the 32-bar song form replaced the 16-bar sectional forms of ragtime and early jazz. yet repeated cycles of thirty-two bars result in a hypermetric consistency on several levels: single measures group into four-measure units, which then combine into eight measure sections; the four eight-measure sections comprise the 32-bar form, which becomes repeated, normally for the duration of the composition.! in the western european tradition (with the occasional exception of the theme and variations genre and dance forms) form is typically not generated by regularly repeating structures, structures that are consistently built from measure groups of 4, 8, 16, and 32 bars. yet this formal model, with its foursquare regularity and its repeated harmonic and metric organization, has been one of the primary vehicles for jazz improvisers and composers. historically, jazz players have kept the structure, merely renovating it peri­ odically through stylistic change. thus, while stylistic development and evolution has rapidly taken place in the area of instrumental technique, harmony, and rhythm, the domain ofform has remained relatively static.2 the manner in which improvisers overcome the limitations of a peri­ odic structure varies, and players have developed a variety of strategies to mask this regularity. in the larger abstract sense-and in the hands of ca­ pable improvisers-improvisations may be goal-oriented and develop to one or more points of arrival, which may be articulated by a number of factors, such as a registral or dynamic high point, or a point of rhythmic or harmonic complexity. this development toward a climax then superim­ poses a linear dramatic design over the cyclic form. on a smaller level, many improvisers attend to the problem of a re­ peated form by temporarily disrupting or altering the given harmonic and metric fabric. in the harmonic dimension, pitch resources may be expanded through techniques of harmonic alteration, extension, substitu­ tion, and insertion. example 1 shows a characteristic harmonic substitu­ tion, one that subsequently became axiomatic in the approach to improvi­ sation over the blues. it contains three excerpts of charlie parker's solo current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york keith waters 277 example 1: harmonic insertion in "tiny's tempo" (1944). m 2nd chorus, 3rd take 9 (dm7 mm7) em7 , &1, (~ i j ~ j ij"4j d a i wf r) )1 0/ 3rd chorus, 3rd take 3 9 (dm7 mm7) em7 & &ir eel i 1 i """1~ ~ oj* er8 j j 'ej""qwfo/=3rd chorus, 1st take 9(dm~ mm7) em7 #11 i ffl efi"ej" i,j {3 i wf n )1 j from his 1944 recording of "tiny's tempo." each excerpt contains the eighth to tenth bar of the 12-bar blues form. in this bb blues, the passage shows parker's conversion of the move to the ii chord. typically the ii chord is preceded in the ninth measure either by the tonic b~ chord, or by a secondary dominant leading to ii (viii). instead, parker consistently inserts an arpeggiation of iii (dmin 7) to ~iii (d~min 7) en route to ii.3 parker's harmonic change here is significant, altering both the harmonic progression and the harmonic rhythm. in addition to pitch techniques, players may disrupt the given rhythmic and metric structure, overr iding the metric regularity of a composition. one early example comes from the stride piano tradition. by changing the standard left hand device of bass note on the first and third beat of the measure and midrange chord on second and fourth beat, pianists could overturn the perception of a regular meter. example 2a shows a schematic left hand reduction for the standard stride formula which regu­ larly alternates bass pitch (indicated by downward stems) and midrange chord (indicated by upward stems). example 2b shows a reduction of the final eight measures from pianist james p. johnson's "keep off the grass," recorded in 1921. in johnson's passage, even while all four beats of the ~ measure are being articulated, the grouping structures in the left hand help overturn the perception of a regular ~ meter.4 particularly through the 1950s, improvisers used these and other tech­ niques for creating local alterations to the harmonic and metric structure, and these strategies helped overcome the limitations of periodicity in compositional frameworks. but by the late 1950s and early 1960s, ques­ tions of formal redundancy were answered differently in some corners. players and composers offered differing solutions to the problem of form. for some, a reliance on standard forms was a weakness, and one solution 278 current musicology example 2a: left-hand stride piano pattern. (down stems = bass pitch, up stems = chord) i i i example 2b: james p.johnson, "keep off the grass" (1921), final eight bars. i i i i i i i involved the cultivation of larger, extended formal structures: as pianist john lewis of the modernjazz quartet noted in 1958: "the audience for jazz can be widened if we strengthen our work with structure." lewis's in­ terest in merging the american jazz tradition with the forms and proce­ dures of european classical music reflected the aesthetic trend commonly described by gunther schuller's term "third stream."5 free jazz-the "new thing"-solved the problem of form differently around 1960. ornette coleman, cecil taylor, and others explored the possibility of abandoning pre-determined formal structures and their accompanying harmonic and metric schemes. within this aesthetic of a freer collective improvisation, form, whether pre-determined or spontaneously gener­ ated, avoided hypermetric and cyclic regularity.6 but despite the third stream and free jazz attempts to enhance or elimi­ nate standard forms, there remained a mainstream jazz tradition in the 1960s committed to deriving its material and structures from the standard­ tune repertoire. for these performers who clung to the 32-bar templates of the jazz standard, the problem still remained of how to mask the for­ mal, harmonic, and metric regularity within improvisation. some of these players took their cue from the avant-garde free players, and imported some techniques of free playing into the context of standard-tune improvi­ sation in what eventually came to be described as "outside" playing. outside playing as it gained currency throughout the 1960s, outside playing typically applied to the dimension of pitch: the use of pitches outside the prevail­ ing harmonic scheme in a hard bop or modal context.7 the notion of out­ side playing also depended on its opposite, inside playing, in which pitch structure conformed to the harmonic scheme of the composition. thus a soloist could develop and explore the continuum between inside and out­ side playing, at times adhering to and at other times avoiding the har­ monic progression. within the context of standard tunes, this represented keith waters 279 a tremendous expansion of materials and resources. it allowed the soloist to shift freely between inside and outside playing, permitting a wider sphere of operations, and generating possibilities for tension and release strategies within extended improvisation. while the harmonic structure could be masked or obscured through outside playing in the pitch dimension, similarly the cyclic metric struc­ ture could be hidden by the superimposition of rhythmic structures that conflicted with the fundamental meter of the composition. this could be achieved through the use of polymeter, cross rhythms, and accentual and metric displacement. clearly these solutions differed in degree, not in kind, from the har­ monic and metric strategies developed by players prior to 1960. however, the appropriation of avant-garde techniques into standard compositions allowed for larger-level disruptions of the form. the changing role of the rhythm section in the 1960s was also crucial. rhythm sections often culti­ vated a freer accompanimental role, one that was able to suppress the reg­ ular harmonic and metric flow, while at the same time maintaining the underlying compositional form. in the mid-1960s, both the charles lloyd quartet and the miles davis quintet responded strongly to these outside forces. both groups made sig­ nificant use of standard compositions; each had soloists who developed strategies for outside playing in both the pitch and the metric dimension. importantly, both groups featured the early careers of two pianists­ lloyd's pianist keith jarrett and davis's pianist herbie hancock-who were to become among the most influential jazz pianists for several decades. jarrett and hancock combined many of the techniques of the jazz avant-garde with more traditional approaches to improvisation. jarrett and hancock each acknowledged the influence of the jazz avant­ garde. for jarrett, the influence of pianist paul bley was paramount.8 hancock cited a couple of early factors responsible for his own interest in outside playing. prior to joining davis's quintet, hancock had played with eric dolphy, and he described his experiences on the bandstand with dolphy: i didn't know anything about avant-garde jazz and i had never played away from the chords ... i didn't even know they played tunes. i thought they just got up and played. i got scared and said, "what do you want me to play?" he gave me some music and i said to myself, "he doesn't want me to play chord changes." so i said, "what do you want me to play?" he told me, "play anything you want." i decided to break some rules i had been accustomed to using with rhythm, harmony, and melody. it seemed to be the right thing. (townley 1974:14-15) 280 current musicology hancock and drummer tony williams both joined the miles davis quintet in 1963. hancock also credited williams with broadening his in­ terest in the jazz avant-garde, and with using those techniques in the rhythmic and metric domain: tony williams turned me on to different rhythms, overlapping this and that. tony was really into paul biey, gary peacock ... ornette­ like i never paid that much attention to ornette when he first came out, but tony got me interested in ornette and got me to the point where i could get into it. (ibid.:15) how did these players carry avant-garde techniques into the context of the 32-bar standard form? following a presentation of terminology for metric strategies, the musical analyses will consider the standard composi­ tion "autumn leaves" and examine transcriptions of solos on the tune by both pianists. the first transcription is of keith jarrett's solo from the charles lloyd quartet recording dream weaver (atlantic sd 1459). the second transcription is of herbie hancock's solo with the miles davis quintet, from the recording miles in europe (columbia kcs 8983). jarrett's and hancock's improvisations consistently maintain the re­ peated 32-bar form of "autumn leaves," but the pitch and metric strate­ gies of the solos frequently create conflicts with the composition's under­ lying harmonic progression and meter. by these local alterations to the harmonic and metric structure, both jarrett and hancock deftly solve a number of the key problems of form and formal redundancy in popular­ song form improvisation. metric strategies: some tenninology hancock's quote above, describing the use of "different rhythms" and "overlapping this and that"-although somewhat vague-provides some insight into rhythmic and metric strategies consciously developed by those players. the analyses here will provide terminology for two general categories: polymeter and accentual shift. polymeter in improvisation involves the superimposition of a meter or meters above the given meter of a composition. this is often achieved through one of two ways, distinguished here as either tactus-preserving polymeter or measure-preserving. example 3 illustrates measure-preserving polymeter, in which 2 is stratified above ~. with measure-preserving poly­ meter, the integrity of the barline is maintained, but the quarter note pulse is compromised. in contrast, example 4 demonstrates tactus-preserving polymeter. again 2 is stratified over t but now the larger metric organiza­ tion is disrupted while the quarter-note pulse is maintained. abstractly, these two types of polymeter are related-the conflicts of example 3 are keith waters 281 example 3: 6:4 measure-preserving polymeter. ,----3 -----, ,----3 -----, ,----3 -----, ,----3 -----, ,----3 -----, ,----3 -----, ~ c~ j j j j j ij j j j j j ij j j j j j i i i i i i i i i i i example 4: 6:4 tactus-preserving polymeter. :> :> j---j j j ij j j-j ij j j ---.j &i i i i i i i i i i i i stated in augmentation in example 4-but because they are composed out on different rhythmic levels, they are perceptually very distinct. polymeter arising from the conflict with smaller subdivisions compli­ cates the issue somewhat since potentially neither barline nor tactus may be preserved. this is the case in example 5, which shows the conflict of ~ and ~. in example 5, the eighth note value remains constant while both the quarter-note pulse and the barline are contradicted. example 6 shows another realization of ~:~; here both the pulse and the barline are main­ tained. given that there is no conflict at the level of pulse or barline, this may be considered "trivial polymeter." in addition to polymeter, a second tactic arises from accentual shift. with accentual shift, the prevailing meter may be maintained, but the per­ ceptual downbeat moves to another place in the measure. this can come about through differing factors, but especially through conditions for ac­ cent that can give downbeat status to another pulse within the meter. accent and accentual shift may come about through various musical cues, including pattern beginning, contour accent, durational accent, textural accent, or harmonic rhythm.9 example 7 shows three abstract realizations of accentual shift, labeled according to the new position of the perceived downbeat. example 7a shows a "2-shift," which moves the perceptual downbeat to the second beat, 7b shows a "3-shift" to the third beat, and 7c a "4-shift" to the fourth beat of the measure. finally, example 8 shows the potential for combining both metric shift and polymeter. in example 8, 2 is stratified over the ~ meter, and the pat­ tern shifts over to the middle of the measure, creating a 3-shift. "autumn leaves" "autumn leaves" remains a perennial standard among jazz players. while it has a number of conventional features, it also possesses some un­ usual formal elements. a 32-bar tune, it is not in the characteristic aaba 282· current musicology example 5: ~:t. example 6: ~:t "trivial polymeter." >3 3 >3 3 >3 3 >3 3 2.rj"l .rj"l .rj"l .rj"l 1.rj"l .rj"l .rj"l .rj"l i ~i iii iii i example 7a: accentual shift: 2-shift. ~~ ~ ~ ~ i~ ~ > > example 7b: 3-shift. ~~ ~ ~ i~ ~ > > example 7c: 4-shift. ~~ ~ ~ ~ i~ ~ > > example 8: polymeter and accentual shift. keith waters 283 or abac form of many standards. instead, it is composed in an aab form, in which two eight-measure a sections are followed by a sixteen-measure b section.l° a skeletal reduction of the melody and bass motion is given in example 9. the overall organization of the tune seems neatly to divide into two sixteen-measure halves, yet the voice-leading structure of the melody reveals some interesting correspondences that cut across the 16-measure symme­ try. the harmonic progression of the a section is based upon a descend­ ing fifths sequence (c-f-b~-e~-a-d-g) in the key of g minor, begin­ ning on the iv chord. the progression is made of a chain of interlocking seventh chords, and the skeletal melody and the bass forms a 10-7 linear intervallic pattern. the bottom stave of example 9 (marked a section) interprets the melodic motion as initiated by an upper neighbor 6 to the fifth scale degree (5), which then descends stepwise to the third scale degree (3).11 the harmonic progression within the first half of the b section (mm. 17-24) redistributes that of the eight measures of section a. the harmony of the first four measures of the b section (mm. 17-20) repeats that of the previous four measures (aminn5, d7, gmin7). the second four measures of b, mm. 21-24 (cmin 7, f7, b~maj7, e~maj7), restate the first four measures of section a. the bottom stave of example 9 shows that whereas the skele­ tal melody of the a section describes a descent from 5, to 3, the first eight measures of the b section reverses the direction and ascends from 3 to 5. this inversional relationship is further strengthened by the lower neigh­ bor 2 which initiates this ascent, mirroring the upper neighbor 6 which launched the a section descent. additionally, the a section and the first half of the b section exhibit an exact inversional symmetry: the directed interval pattern of <-1 -2 -2> at mm.1-8 is then mirrored by <+1 +2 +2> at mm. 17-24. example 9 further indicates that the final eight measures of the b sec­ tion (mm. 25-32) begin by emphasizing the same pitches as section a. like mm. 1-4, the upper neighbor e~ at m. 25 descends to 5, which ap­ pears two measures later. at m. 29, however, the descent is accelerated in order to reach the first scale degree and close the composition. the melodic structure of the composition as shown in example 9 sug­ gests that, in contrast to the two-part "temporal" symmetry of two sixteen­ measure sections (aa and b), the overall melodic construction suggests instead a three-part design. these three parts consist of (1) the repeating eight measure a section, (2) its inversion at mm. 17-24, and (3) the final eight-measure section. as performed by jazz players-perhaps to counterbalance the simplicity of the harmonic structure, which is based almost entirely on descending 284 current musicology example 9: "autumn leaves" cm7 f7 10 ,m j am"",' do • • cm7 f7 d7 b section (mm. 17-24) ::::inversionla mmaj7 ebmaj7 10 : • ii• .:: : . a • • mmaj7 ehmaj7 gm (c7) (f>7) (m7) :. mm.25-32 m.l cm7 c7#ll keith waters 285 table 1 standard chord progression (upper row) and chord substitutions for mm. 1-8 of "autumn leaves"12 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 f7 b~maj7 e~maj7 a0 d7 gmin f7(alt) bmin7 e7 mmin7ep a7(alt) d7 gmin g7(alt) bp e~maj7 a0 bmin7 mmin7 e~7 a0 b~maj7 b~min7 e~7 a0 bmin7 e7 ep fifths-a number of harmonic additions and substitutions have arisen. these alterations embellish the original progression. some of these substi­ tutions for the opening eight measures are given in table 1. note that some merely alter chord quality, such as the replacement of cmin7 by c7, or b~ 7 for b~maj7. tritone substitution is also used when e~ 7 replaces amin 7(~5). other alterations involve harmonic insertion: for example, bmin7-e7-b~min7-h7 replaces b~maj7_e~maj7 in the third and fourth bar. jarrett's solo keithjarrett's "autumn leaves" solo, taken from a 1966 recording with the charles lloyd quartet entitled dream weaver, features jarrett on piano, lloyd on saxophone and flute, cecil mcbee on bass, and jack dejohnette on drums. the solo lasts four choruses; the analysis focuses on the last chorus and a half, beginning with the b section of the third chorus. (measure numbers are given in the left hand measure of each system, fol­ lowed by a slash and number of the chorus: for example, the first measure of the transcription (ex. 10) is labeled as 17/3, indicating the seventeenth measure of the third chorus.) within the first three measures of the b section (mm. 17-19/3), the pitches clearly outline the harmonic progression. the roots of the first two chords are approached chromatically: a, corresponding to the amin7(~5) of the harmonic progression, is reached through g and g# (17/3, beats 3-4); d, corresponding with the d7 harmony, is attained through c and c# (m. 18/3, beats 1-2). a comparison of example lla with example llb shows the melodic motion to be slightly out of phase with the harmonic progression-example lib moves the motive one beat earlier-creating a slight accentual shift. as the asterisks in examples lla and lib reveal, this 286 current musicology example 10: keith jarrett's "autumn leaves" solo. from charles lloyd, dream weaver (atlantic sc 1459). ~ : tactus-preserving --c ............. . m.2113(cm7) (f7) (mmaj7) (am7,5) ----------------------5. m.26/3 (07) (gm7) (fm7 bb7) (e>maj7) f7(alt) b,maj7 e,maj7 ~ffr 3 am7(,5) 07(alt) gm7 keith waters 287 example 10 (cont.) cm7 f7(ajt) bh7 ebmaj7 ~,~ ij p= @: m!!: efp"c!~ t!ff:&:~ef"1 i!{m':-io t;("~l!: f i :; l :: q:1 j l f t-2 (mm. 17-18/4) ~---, -----, m.17/4(am7h5) (gm7) r--. • t-2 _______ j t-2 t-2 --------------------------, --------------------------, m. 2114 (cm7) m.25/4 m.29/4 6. am7(h5) (f7) d7(alt) (am7h5) 07(alt) (bhmaj7) gm7 ,..--. ,..--.gm7 .n,.-----8va __ -_____ ---, ~ ~ jlti~ 288 current musicology altered version aligns the harmonically driven lines with the metric strong beats, and chordal roots fall on the third beat at m. 17/3 and on the downbeats ofmm. 18-19/3. however, this is a mild shift in comparison with what follows. jarrett soon departs radically from both the harmonic structure and the metric structure of the composition. as the next melodic gesture carries over into m. 21/3, jarrett asserts the pitches implying c~ major and then launches a series of related motives which carry over for the next twelve measures, until m. 32/3. during these measures-the remainder of the b section­ the harmonic and the metric implications of jarrett's solo are severely out of phase with the composition. against the backdrop of the g-minor/b~­ major tonality of the composition, the solo asserts c~ major, using the first, second, third, and fifth scale degrees of the key between mm. 22-32/3. here, rather than outlining and negotiating each of the har­ monies of the composition, jarrett instead freezes the pitch material on the implied tonality of c~. by itself, the limited pitch material (g~, c~, e~, d~) might be consid­ ered banal, but it richly conflicts with the harmonic structure of the origi­ nal composition. in addition to moving outside of the composition's tonality, the repeated motive likewise moves outside the composition's 1 meter. the g~ at m. 21/3 receives a registral accent (it is the highest pitch up through m. 32/3), and in subsequent appearances of g~ (mm. 23, 24, 26, 27, and 29) the pitch class is stated in octaves, reinforcing the registral accent with a textural accent. the textural and registral accent repeatedly emphasizes the g~, shifting the perceptual downbeat to each instance of g~. the entire passage then groups into a series of seven motives, numbered one through seven in the transcription and indicated with dotted slurs. with these seven statements of the motive, jarrett stratifies 2 above the 1 meter of the composition. this then coincides with the tactus-preserving polymeter earlier presented in example 2, but with a crucial difference. in example 2, the groupings of 2 are initiated either on the first or the third beats of the measure; injarrett's solo, the groupings are instead begun on the fourth and second beats of the measure. as long as the motives are preserved, they are unable to align with the barline, uprooting both the composition's 1 meter and undermining the metric hierarchy of strong (one and three) and weak (two and four) beats. the motive is somewhat altered between each statement, however. in its first three iterations-mm. 21, 23, and 24-the motive's rhythmic iden­ tity is consistent, but jarrett reconfigures the limited pitch material be­ tween motives 1 and 2. additionally, motives 4 and 6 are each truncated by an eighth note, allowing motives 5 and 7 to begin with an eighth-note anticipation. yet, since the 2 meter has gained repetitive power through keith waters 289 example lla: accentual shift, mm. 17-19/3. (*=chordal roots) m. 1713 am7(>s) 07 gm7 ~ ~" 0~ i -~ u a,ld j example llb: mm. 17-19, rhythmically normalized. m.17/3 d7 gm7 ~ v' e$ i j j j the first four statements of the motive, these pitches at the beginning of motives 5 and 7 operate as anticipations, playful upbeats to the downbeat of the prevailing 2. only within motive 7 is the motive altered sufficiently to dissolve the 2 polymeter. the harmonic and metric conflicts of mm. 21-32/3 having played themselves out, a large-scale pitch resolution takes place by the end of mo­ tive 7: the g~ which initiated each of the seven motives yields to g directly before the beginning of the fourth chorus (m. 32/3, final quarter note) .13 in addition, jarrett articulates the formal division at the new chorus (m. 1/4) by abandoning the 2 of the previous twelve measures. we may read the shift to triplet subdivisions at this new chorus as a metric transfor­ mation down a rhythmic level. with this interpretation, there occurs a move from the 2 to the ~ "trivial" polymeter earlier modeled in example 6, and thus the shift from one polymeter to another generates a relationship between different rhythmic levels. particularly since jarrett's solo operates primarily with eighth-note subdivisions, this move to triplet subdivisions is striking. moving ahead in this final chorus, jarrett again uses the b section to move outside the harmonic progression. at mm. 17-18/4, jarrett's right hand outlines the pitches of a c-major triad, played above a left-hand statement of perfect fourths a whole step apart (a-d, g-c). the left-hand transpositional move of t-2 within mm. 17-18/4 is then subsequently transferred to the entire motivic structure: mm. 19-20/4 transposes the material from mm. 17-18/4 down a whole step. arguably, in these four measures between mm. 17-20/4, jarrett still al­ ludes to the harmonic progression of "autumn leaves" by projecting the whole-step move of the original composition. in this reading, amin7 is stated between mm. 17-18/4 and gmin7 between mm. 19-20; thus jarrett 290 current musicology ignores the original descending fifths progression at the measure level (a-d-g), but traces the composition's a to g whole-step progression at the two-measure level. (the original progression is indicated in parenthe­ ses between the staves.) but now the t-2 transpositional scheme takes over and subsequently overrides the harmonic progression of "autumn leaves." at mm. 21-22/4, the motive is transposed down another whole step, a process repeated again at mm. 23-24/4.14 thus, the t-2 move introduced in the left hand at mm. 17-18/4 is mag­ nified onto the entire eight-measure passage, providing its transpositional scheme at the two-measure level. this motion is summarized in example 12. but does this transpositional operation relate to the composition, or does it merely flout the harmonic progression? we may hear these eight measures as cyclically reinterpreting the diatonic structure of the original composition. example 13 indicates that these eight measures reinterpret the melody of the a section of "autumn leaves." example 13a shows that the skeletal voice-leading of the melody of the a section of "autumn leaves" describes a descent in diatonic space, moving downward by step each two measures. the compound melody, indicated by downward and upward stems, creates a motion in parallel sixths. by comparison, example 13b shows the melodic move from mm. 17-24/4 of jarrett's improvisation descending cyclically each two measures by whole step. again, parallel sixths create a compound melody, and a comparison of examples 13a and 13b shows that while the same name classes are retained, the specific pitch classes are sometimes altered for the cyclic transformations in 13b: at mm. 17-18/4 eq replaces m, and at mm. 23-24/4 d~ replaces the dq of the originalj5 thus the final chorus and a half of jarrett's solo shows several disrup­ tions of the harmonic and metric scheme of "autumn leaves." within the b section of the third chorus, the solo moves outside both the harmonic and the metric framework of the composition, juxtaposing c~ major and 2 meter; and in the b section of the fourth and final chorus, jarrett uses a t-2 transpositional scheme which negates the harmonic progression. nevertheless, despite these disruptions, both jarrett and the rhythm sec­ tion maintain the integrity of the composition's overall form. hancock's solo herbie hancock's solo is taken from the album miles in europe, recorded live at the antibes jazz festival in 1963. in addition to miles davis on trumpet and herbie hancock on piano, the group consists of tenor saxophonist george coleman, bassist ron carter, and drummer tony williams. hancock's solo (ex. l4) lasts six choruses; the analysis will focus on hancock's last chorus and a half. 16 keith waters 291 example 12: t-2 transpositional scheme (mm. 17-24/4). t·2 (mm. 17-18) t-2 t-2 -------------, ----------, ----------, ------------, m. 1714 (am?,5) (d7) t-2 (gm?) -& example 13a: a section, "autumn leaves." (cm?) (f?) example 13h: reinterpretation, jarrett mm. 17-24/4. m.17/4 i~~i (bomaj?) (eomaj?) at the onset of the b section of the fifth chorus, beginning at m. 17/5, it is possible to trace the melodic course of the solo through stepwise con­ nections, indicated in the transcription above the score. the surface dis­ ruptions between mm. 17-19/5 organize a four-note descending arpeggio into groupings of eleven. here, the accented c7 of mm. 17-19/5 yields to the octave bq, which anticipates m. 20. in each of the subsequent mea­ sures, we can hear in the right hand the embellishment of a whole-step gesture which continues to descend: m. 21/5 embellishes a5-g5, m. 22 elaborates a~5-g~5' m. 23/5 f5-e~5' and m. 24 connects eb5-d~5' within the following eight bars, the final measures of the b section, hancock abandons his clear allegiance to the harmonic progression. instead, the section is dominated by the <0147> tetrachord, stated in chro­ matic ascent in a series of seven motives, numbered one through seven in the score. not only does the chromatic planing here stymie the harmonic progression, but the quarter-note triplet value also stratifies a 2 polymeter over the i of the composition. in these measures, the 2 polymeter is measure-preserving .17 following the motive's first two appearances at mm. 25-26/5, hancock shifts the motive to the middle of the measure. for the remainder of the 292 current musicology example 14: herbie hancock's "autumn leaves" solo. from miles davis in europe (columbia kcs 8983). from hancock (1992). 8vq __ 0::l... ___________________________ -, (b) eb9 d7(alt) gm7 g7(alt) ~[j 'i;::: ~:::::i~;~k;~~::::;!::~;~:~~=::: 11 (a-g) ii ~ 11 ---------.-.j (a~-m) (f-h) (h-m) ::: :::; ::1 ":,::::;::: c7(#ii) i: measure-preserving 1. 2. a 7(~9) d7(~9) ,---------3 -----, ,--3 ~ ,--3 -------, ,.--3 --, 5. eb7(#9) 6. d7(#9) ,3 ---, .--3 ------, ~ + accentual shift 3. g?c'9) ,---3----; 7. g7(~9) 4. f7(~9) * .---3 ----; keith waters 293 example 14 (cont.) bm7 e7 m.9/6 gm(~7) it;p'";' ; "f::."'::;:!! ; ,~:m':~:: eb7 d7(alt) gm7 em7 i!!:/::,; ,$::f::::j~~. ;:m~ ~~'r: : 294 current musicology passage, between motives 3-7, each of the motives begins in mid-measure, initiated with an eighth-note upbeat in the left hand. motives 3-7 thus create two levels of conflict with the 1 meter of the composition. first, these motives assert a 2 polymeter above the primary 1 meter of the com­ position; second, the pattern beginnings of motives 3-7 create an accen­ tual shift to the third beat of the measure, creating a 3-shift. hancock here achieves the double level of conflict initially shown in example 8. with its 2 polymeter, 3-shift, and chromatic planing, the eight-measure section at mm. 25-32/5 strongly disrupts the harmonic and metric fabric of the composition. however, while the analysis above presents the pas­ sage as moving both outside the metric and the harmonic structure, the chromatic planing is not completely independent of the composition's harmonic structure. the asterisks in the score between mm. 25-32 (marked between treble and bass clef) indicate where hancock's <0147> harmonies allude to the harmonies of the composition. the left-hand eighth-note upbeats to each motive offer a clue, too, by providing the root or fifth of these implied harmonies. nevertheless, the chromatic planing of the <0147> tetrachord throughout the section strongly suppresses the harmonic structure of "autumn leaves." in the sixth and final chorus, hancock abandons the 2 meter and the chromatic planing. between mm. 1-4/6, the melody forms a clear melodic ascent to b~5 and c6. the metric identity of the solo here is am­ biguous, particularly in comparison with the 2 polymeter discussed above, and these four measures lack a strong commitment to any meter. in order to highlight this metric ambiguity, table 2a indicates the eighth-note intervals between all of the chordal attack points at mm. 1-4/6. the first chord, the anticipation of m. 1/6, is set at zero, and the upper line of table 2a contains the eighth-note intervals between the first chord and all subsequent chords. the second line in table 2a calculates eighth-note intervals between the second chord and all subsequent chords, the third between the third chord and all subsequent chords, and so on. table 2b is a vector which tallies all the eighth-note intervals be­ tween attack points. ls a time-point vector can indicate the dominance of one or more rhyth­ mic values. those rhythmic values used extensively-the higher cardinali­ ties in the vector-suggest one or more implied metric strands. a larger metric hierarchy may be implied when multiples of a rhythmic value simi­ larly accumulate: for example, higher cardinalities of three, six, and nine eighth notes may imply a higher metric organization of ~; similarly, higher cardinalities of two, four, eight, and sixteen eighth notes might suggest a meter of i. the time-point vector in table 2 shows an uneasy coexistence of several contending metric strands, none of which organize readily into a larger keith waters 295 table 2a time-point intervals in eighth notes for all chords (mm. 1-4/6) 1st chord: 0 3 6 10 14 18 21 23 25 26 28 29 31 2nd: 3 7 11 15 18 20 22 23 25 26 28 3rd: 4 8 12 15 17 19 20 22 23 25 4th: 4 8 11 13 15 16 18 19 21 5th: 4 7 9 11 12 14 15 17 6th: 3 5 7 8 10 11 13 7th: 2 4 5 7 8 10 8th: 2 3 5 6 8 9th: 1 3 4 6 10th: 2 3 5 11th: 1 3 12th: 2 table 2b time-point vector for all eighth-note values eighth-note ints. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 cardinality of: 2 4 7 5 4 3 4 5 1 3 eighth-note ints: 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 cardinality of: 4 2 2 2 4 1 2 3 2 2 eighth-note ints. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 cardinality of: 2 2 3 x 3 2 x 2 1 x eighth-note ints. 31 cardinality of: 1 metric hierarchy. the highest value in the vector, three eighth notes, is heard seven times. on the surface, this implies one metric strand of ~, and this strand is the strongest due to its highest cardinality. but beyond this surface level, at multiples of three, the high cardinality of triple groupings quickly evaporates. thus, despite a relatively high cardinality of the primitive rhythmic value of three eighth notes, a higher-level triple metric organization is denied. 296 current musicology triple groupings: 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 cardinality of: 7 3 1 2 4 3 2 x x x the next-highest value appears at four and eight eighth-notes, implying a metric strand of i, a meter that conflicts with the ~ discussed above. however, beyond these first two quadruple groupings of four and eight eighth-notes, a higher-level metric organization is again unfulfilled. quadruple groupings: 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 cardinality of: 5 5 2 1 2 x 2 in addition to these competing metric strands of ~ and i, notice, too, the consistency of quintuple groupings, implying~. quintuple groupings: 5 10 15 20 25 30 cardinality of: 4 3 4 2 3 x thus at least three competing metric strands operate in mm. 1-4/6, contributing to the metric ambiguity in these measures. nevertheless, the triple grouping of three eighth notes is dominant, and the promise of those triple groupings between mm. 1-4/6 becomes fully realized in the following four bars, at mm. 5-8/6. the triple groupings of mm. 1-4 have generated enough potency to dominate the succeeding four-bar section, and mm. 5-8 coalesce into g meter, expressed through the repeated eighth note/quarter note grouping. the upper pitch of the right hand os­ cillates between d~ and f, clearly organizing the g polymeter. at mm. 5-6, the d~ is supported by n3(,9) and the f by d7(19); mm. 7-8 finds both d~ and f harmonized by the altered c7 chord. i've indicated the move to g meter at mm. 5-8 as being generated by the implied triple groupings of the previous metrically ambiguous section. taking a slightly larger view, we can see a process of metric transformation at work, and metrically, the solo traverses a path which shifts between dif­ fering levels of polymeter. the final eight measures of the previous chorus (mm. 25-32/5) clearly established 2 meter; after passing through the met­ rically ambiguous mm. 1-4/6, the solo then sifts down to g, moving down a rhythmic level. interestingly, this metric transformation-the move from 2 to g­ occurred in the jarrett solo as well, but in comparing jarrett's solo to hancock's, we see different qualities of polymeter at work. example 15 in­ dicates the difference. in the jarrett solo, the 2 tactus-preserving poly­ meter in the b section of the penultimate chorus (mm. 21-32/3) moved to the g "trivial" polymeter at the beginning of the final chorus. by comkeith waters 297 example 15: ~ to ~ metric shift. jarrell, b section (mm. 2lff.l3) : ~ ------r r ~~i ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~ i ~ ~l etc. r 3 a section: § ,~ j hancock, b section (mm. 25ff.l 5) : ~ r-----3 ---------, ,--3 ~ j j i j r r a section (mm. 1-4/6) metric strands, incl. ~ r j ~ ,--3_ i ~ j j r 3 3 j j ~ j i r j ~ 3 j j ,--3_ ~ j j etc r i parison, in the hancock solo the ~ measure-preserving polyrneter in the b section of the penultimate chorus (mm. 25-32/5) moved to a "non-trivial" ~ in the final chorus (mm. 5-8/6). the metric strategy for both solos is similar but composed out through differing qualities of polyrneter. in ad­ dition, the formal placement is strikingly similar. in each solo, the ~ occurs in the b section of the penultimate chorus, changing to ~ within the a sec­ tion of the final chorus. this says much about the similarity of formal de­ velopment and dramatic design: in both solos, the soloists place the point of highest metric conflict at the juncture between the penultimate and fi­ nal chorus before winding down. but hancock's solo does not wind down immediately. although the ~ polyrneter ceases, the solo continues to build dynamically and registrally. having committed to the ascending third motive d~-f in the upper voice of the ~ passage at mm. 5-8/6, the solo continues to ascend, stating an­ other ascending third motive of f#-a in the upper voice for the entire sec­ ond a section (mm. 9-15/6). hancock uses a number of harmonic substi­ tutions here to support the f#-a third: c7#1l, b13, bmin7, e7, a7, d7, gmin#7. furthermore, the line continues its ascent at the beginning of the b section: f#6-a6 ofmm. 9-16 connects with m6 at m. 17 before reaching its registral peak at c7 in mm. 17-18. this position of c7, the registral high point of the solo, shows a remark­ able control of register at work, and this control ties in with both the formal and the dramatic pacing. this is summarized in example 16, which shows the solo's overall directional design. the b section of the previous fifth 298 current musicology example 16: directional design from m. 17/5 to m. 17/6. c7 , &i'"f ffi. 17/5 ,&" iij~r fllr i ne. i i tee i ffi. 5/6 (g) chorus (m. 17/5) was initiated by the same c 7; this then launched an overall descent for the next eight measures. the chromatic planing in 2 between mm. 25-32/5 attempts a corresponding ascent, but the actual as­ cent starts at the beginning of the sixth chorus. stepwise between mm. 1-4/6, the ascent yields to the ascending third motives, d~-f at mm. 5-8/6 and f#-a at mm. 9-16/6, before ultimately reclaiming the c7 at mm. 17-18. significantly, the return of c7 at mm. 17-18 occurs at the be­ ginning of the b section, the identical point at which it was initiated in the previous chorus. 19 this overall motion from and to c7 arches from the b section of the fifth chorus to the b section of the sixth chorus, revealing the large-scale formal and dramatic pacing that is an important component of hancock's improvisational style. perhaps more significantly, it also shows the seam­ less interaction of inside and outside materials within a larger design. the superimposed materials outside the harmonic and metric environment of the composition-the chromatic planing of the <0147> tetrachord, the 2 and ~ polymeter-are all nested within a larger directional design, and this design moves effortlessly between inside and outside playing. hancock opens wide the window between inside and outside. for the remainder of the solo, between mm. 21-32/6, the solo winds down dynamically and registrally. additionally, the rhythmic identity of the final measures aligns very clearly with the notated barline, moving to quarter note values at mm. 21-23 and 31, as well as the two-note group­ ings which support the quarter-note pulse at mm. 25-30. keith waters 299 coda certainly much of the jazz tradition and repertoire has been predis­ posed toward generating form from regular metric and hypermetric groupings, particularly four-, eight-, sixteen-, and thirty-two-bar segments. in quadruple meter, this results in what richard cohn (1992) has de­ scribed as a "pure metric complex," in which metric groupings multiply evenly. exceptions occur, but these frequently appear as ad hoc formal solutions and innovations in the works of jazz composers such as duke ellington, charles mingus, or wayne shorter. nevertheless, jazz evolution and development is often guided by the creation of improvisational strate­ gies that overcome the limitations of a regularly recurring formal structure. bothjarrett's and hancock's solos appeared at a crucial historicaljunc­ ture. within the context of 32-bar standard compositions, the two pianists merged traditional improvisational techniques with those of the jazz avant­ garde, expanding widely the musical resources available for improvisation. these improvisational resources operated in both the domain of pitch and meter, allowing both pitch and metric materials that align or conflict with the primary harmonic and metric scheme of the composition. the recordings of "autumn leaves" are from the first albums of both lloyd's quartet (with jarrett, jack dejohnette, and cecil mcbee) and davis's quintet (with hancock, ron carter, and tony williams). lloyd's group was to last for three years, from 1966-69, while davis's group re­ mained together between 1963-68. both groups continued to use stan­ dard compositional frameworks and further explore techniques of outside playing. but this particular path seemed rather short-lived, and within the next several years these performers and groups had moved away decisively from 32-bar standards. by 1965, much of davis's repertoire was composed by tenor saxophonist wayne shorter, many of whose compositions pro­ vided alternatives to 32-bar structures; after 1968 davis's electric groups were working with different formal frameworks altogether. very possibly, once having worked out many of the implications of outside playing in the standard tune 32-bar context, the stresses placed on standard composi­ tional structures led these players to other formal and harmonic designs for their improvisational strategies.20 by the following decade, innovative approaches to standard tune improv­ isation seemed less plausible. thirty-two-bar structures were abandoned with the rise of fusion and the continuation of the jazz avant-garde. hancock and jarrett's work in the 1970s reflected these two aesthetic positions, with hancock's work taking place in the realm of jazz-rock fusion, and jarrett's quartet (with ornette coleman's sidemen charlie haden and dewey red­ man) aligning with the jazz avant-garde. yet since 1983,jarrett's "standards" trio has been devoted solely to standard-tune improvisation, showing a resurgence of interest in standard-tune improvisation over 32-bar forms 300 current musicology and a connection back with improvisational solutions that emerged in the 1960s. since the 1960s, techniques for outside playing have been absorbed into improvisational strategies. meanwhile, 32-bar forms have shown them­ selves to be both highly pliable and remarkably sturdy structures. notes 1. for discussion of hyper meter, see lerdahl andjackendoff (1983), rothstein (1981,1989), and schachter (1976, 1980, 1987). 2. there are exceptions. introductions, interludes, and codas may be ap­ pended to the form, but these might not be included within the improvisational frame. radical alternatives to 32-bar song form appear in some of the music of duke ellington: see schuller (1989) and rattenbury (1990). other notable excep­ tions include charles mingus's "fables of faubus" (1959), which has a 71-bar theme, and horace silver's "the outlaw" (1958), which contains a 54-bar theme made up of measure groups of 13 + 13 + 10 + 18. for a discussion of trumpeter booker little's unusual formal solutions, see waters and diamond (forthcoming). 3. three takes of "tiny's tempo" were recorded at the session; in at least seven choruses from these takes, parker makes the same iii-~iii-ii harmonic move be­ tween mm. 8-9. for a further discussion of the solo, see deveaux (1997:376-80). deveaux also has an interesting discussion of the role of harmonic deletion in the solos of lester young (ibid.:112-14). 4. example 2b is taken from schuller (1968:218). schuller discusses the pas­ sage in greater detail and provides a metric interpretation to the passage. 5. lewis's quote continues: "i do not think, however, that the sections in this 'structured jazz'-both the improvised and the written sections-should take on too much complexity. the total effect must be within the mind's ability to appreci­ ate through the ear" (lewis 1958; see also ostransky 1977). schuller's term "third stream" was first given during a 1957 talk at brandeis university; schuller's own writings on third stream music are well summarized in several of his essays, includ­ ing "third stream," "third stream revisited," and "the avant-garde and third stream," all collected in schuller (1986). 6. for an overview of the music created by the central figures of free jazz, see jost (1994). with his 1949 recordings "intuition" and "digression," lennie tristano's experiments with free collective improvisation predated ornette coleman's by a decade. 7. outside playing seems to have been associated early on with the recordings of eric dolphy and booker little, whose album titles outward bound, out to lunch (dolphy, 1960 and 1964), and out front (little, 1961) toy with the term. dolphy, having participated on ornette coleman's free jazz recording, was associated with the free jazz movement, but he also frequently recorded standard compositions. 8. "a record i've listened to a thousand times is footloose by paul bley" (quoted in carr 1991:28). bley (b. 1932) led a group that contained ornette coleman and don cherry between 1956-58; his album footloose was recorded 1962-63. bley has been profoundly influential on a number of musicians but has received scant at­ tention in writings on the jazz avant-garde. keith waters 301 9. these accentual conditions are discussed extensively in lester (1986), espe­ cially chapters 2-4. 10. this aab form is perhaps more closely allied with bar form than with the characteristic aaba standard-tune framework. 11. applications of schenkerian analysis to jazz composition and improvisation can be found in strunk (1975, 1985), larson (1987), and stewart (1974-75). 12. these substitutions are taken from hancock's and jarrett's solos, which will be analyzed below. see bill dobbins's complete transcription of hancock's solo in hancock (1992). 13. this resolution to the pitch class g at the end of m. 32/3 is reinforced an octave higher in the following measure, where g6 (m. 1/4, third beat) becomes the highest pitch of the gesture. 14. jarrett also introduces a lower bass note: b~ between mm. 21-22/4, and a~ between mm. 23-24/4. 15. name class refers to equivalency based upon retention of pitch name inde­ pendent of chromatic alteration: c, c~, and c# all share the same name class. the notion of name class is derived from brinkman (1990:124-26). 16. the transcription is taken from hancock (1992). 17. it is interesting to note that the upper melodic pitch that ends each of the first two statements-c# at m. 25/5 and e~ at m. 26/5-revisits the e~-d~ whole­ step melodic motion of m. 24. 18. tables 2a and 2b are indebted to lewin (1981). lewin, however, does not provide metrical interpretations, but observes implied downbeats through a statis­ tical tally of attack-point intervals. 19. it is worth noting that, despite the metric and harmonic disruptions, hancock adheres to the four-bar and eight-bar hypermeter throughout these measures: mm. 17-20/5: c-b mm. 21-24: stepwise dyads mm. 25-32: 2 polymeter; <0147> tetrachords mm. 1-4/6: stepwise ascent mm. 5-8: ~ polymeter; n-f mm. 9-16: f#-a mm. 17: return to c 20. henry martin (1997-98) discusses further harmonic and metric liberties that davis's group takes with a standard composition. references brinkman, aleck. 1990. pascal programming for music research. chicago: university of chicago press. carr, ian. 1991. keithjarrett: the man and his music. new york: da capo press. cohn, richard l. 1992. the dramatization of hypermetric conflicts in the scherzo of beethoven's ninth symphony. 19th-century music 15: 22-40. deveaux, scott. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley: university of california press. 302 current musicology hancock, herbie. 1992. herbie hancock: classic jazz compositions and solos. trans­ cribed by bill dobbins. rottenberg, germany: advance music. jost, ekkehard. [1975]1994. freejazz. new york: da capo press. larson, steven. 1987. schenkerian analysis of modern jazz. ph.d. diss., university of michigan. lerdahl, fred, and ray jackendoff. 1983. a generative theory of tonal music. cambridge, mass.: mit press. lester, joel. 1986. the rhythms of tonal music. carbondale and edwardsville: southern illinois university press. lewin, david. 1981. some investigations into foreground rhythmic and metric patterning. in music theory: special topics, edited by richmond browne, 10137. new york: academic press. lewis,john. 1958. the jazz musician's views. world of music 4 (may): 3. martin, henry. 1997-98. the nature of recomposition: miles davis and "stella by starlight." annual review of jazz studies 9: 57-76. ostransky, leroy. 1977. understandingjazz. englewood cliffs, n).: prentice-hall. rattenbury, ken. 1990. duke ellington: jazz composer. new haven, conn.: yale university press. rothstein, william. 1981. rhythm and the theory of structural levels. ph.d. diss., yale university. ---. 1989. phrase rhythm in tonal music. new york: schirmer books. schachter, carl. 1976. rhythm and linear analysis: a preliminary study. in the music forum, vol. 4, edited by felix salzer and carl schachter, 281-334. new york: columbia university press. ---. 1980. rhythm and linear analysis: durational reduction. in the music forum, vol. 5, edited by felix salzer and carl schachter, 197-232. new york: columbia university press. ---. 1987. rhythm and linear analysis: aspects of meter. in the music forum, vol. 6, edited by felix salzer, carl schachter, and hedi siegel, pt. 1, 1-59. new york: columbia university press. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and musical development. new york: oxford university press. ---. 1986. musings: the musical worlds of gunther schuller. new york: oxford university press. ---. .1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. stewart, milton. 1974-75. structural development in the jazz improvisational technique of clifford brown. jazzforschung!]azz research 6/7: 141-273. strunk, steven. 1975. the harmony of early bop: a layered approach. journal of jazz studies 6: 4-53. ---. 1985. bebop melodic lines: tonal characteristics. annual review of jazz studies 3: 97-120. townley, ray. 1974. hancock plugs in. down beat (october 24): 13-15,44. waters, keith, and david diamond. forthcoming. out front: the art of booker little. annual review of jazz studies ii. sets and the city: serial analysis, parisian reception, and pierre boulez's structures 1 a ben parsons in april 1952, subscribers to the latest edition of the paris-based journal la revue musicale could, for the first time, have read the following declaration, separated from the main text by asterisks: * ** affirmons, a notre tour, que tout musicien qui n' a pas ressenti-nous ne dissons pas compris, mais bien ressenti-la necessite de la langage dodecaphonique est inutile. car son toute ~uvre se place a de<;:a des necessites de son epoque. (boulez 1952d:1l9)! * * * the statement has since come to caricature our experience of high musical modernism. its uncompromising tone has ensured the author's place in a narrowly defined historiography that continues to see him as the defender of a universal ("toutmusicien"; "son toute oeuvre") and abstract ("la langage dodecaphonique") musical system. the author, of course, was the then still relatively unknown pierre boulez, writing here in his early article "eventuellement ... ".2 his ambition was to "link rhythmic to serial struc­ tures through a common organization which will also embrace the other characteristics of sound: dynamics, mode of attack, timbre; and then to ex­ pand this morphology into an integrated rhetoric" (boulez 1991:115). in an analysis of the pre-compositional sketch material from his own recent structures la for two pianos (1952), boulez went on to describe what such a "useful" (that is to say, not "useless") serial music might be like. his was an exclusive musical system, presented in terms borrowed from contemporary mathematical, acoustic, and linguistic research. for boulez, as for milton babbitt across the atlantic, neither the creative act nor the language used to describe it ("i have a horror of discussing what is so smugly called the problem of aesthetics ... i prefer to return to my lined paper;' 1991:54) should be contingent on the composer's intuition or the taste his audiences.3 boulez wanted to avoid the received national and historical mod­ els that he criticized so sharply in the thinking of rene leibowitz, his recurrent musicology, no. 76 (fall 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 53 54 current musicology cently estranged teacher, and in the other post -war schoenbergians in paris­ those he denounced in "eventuellement ... " as "champions of clarity, elegance and refinement: such eminently french qualities (they love mixing descartes and haute couture)" (1991:112). for boulez, the system demonstrated in structures 1 a was something above the flux of parisian intellectual and po­ litical fashion. boulez's commentary has been influential, and unsurprisingly so: it has given us reassuring points of analytical entry into a repertoire that even over fifty years later remains very difficult to listen to, perform, and write about.4 but we tend not, in fact, to listen to structures la-still less perform it-as much as we read it; more precisely, as we read it in the pages of "eventuellement ... ". as boulez's readers we do not even have to understand the complex theory that boulez presents, only, in some existential sense, "truly experience" the need for it. as suggested by his choice of the verb ressentir (literally "to re-feel," in the sense of interiorizing a given idea or set of values), boulez's recommended serial experience demands first of all a leap of faith, an unshakable belief in the authoritative "royal we" so typical of this kind of french polemical rhetoric.s (with all its implications for his own accession, boulez had declared literally and figuratively "schoenberg is dead" in print only three months before). discourse about structures la has concentrated on characterizing the pre-compositional processes that boulez himself described, often to the point where a theoretical knowledge passes for a post-compositional experience of the music itself or a critical engagement with its cultural-historical con­ texts. in his 1958 analysis of the work in die reihe, the principal journal of the so-called "darmstadt school," gyorgy ligeti even dispensed with the need for music examples, taking it for granted that "[its] anatomy is re­ vealed of its own accord, so it can be analyzed as a textbook example" (1958:36). on karlheinz stockhausen's advice he focused instead on the work's sketches and on boulez's "eventuellement. .. " analysis. as an analyst ligeti had only to access this material in order to "let it 'be itself; so to speak" (41), to reveal "the beauty in the erection of pure structures" (62). paul griffiths has more recently suggested that the piece is "a kit of serial forms that have almost invented themselves" (1995:36). for older and, as described below, some "new" musicologists alike, "use­ ful" serial music is analyzable music and "useful musicians" those, like ligeti, who know how to analyze it. there can be few other repertoires that are so thoroughly disciplinary in this sense. we have formulated analytical strate­ gies that legitimate boulez's unitary model and prove the supposed univer­ salism and aesthetic self-sufficiency that his statement in "eventuellement ... " promised. in doing so, [we] have reached closure for serial music.6 we have ben parsons marked out what richard taruskin has characterized as "a cordon sanitaire, a decontaminated space" within which we experience it "in a cultural and historical vacuum" (2000:368), shutting out questions about what this music might mean on the outside of the analytical boundary. none of this would be of very great concern if boulez's passionate, fren­ zied and often very beautiful early music actually sounded like the rational system presented in "eventuellement ... ". but it does not. the american com­ poser george perle has put the problem well in one of his several critiques of allen forte's the structure of atonal music (1973): my critique of the forte system does not begin with an objective and rea­ soned appraisal of it, and i think it would be worthless if it did. my cri­ tique begins with the subjective, intuitive and spontaneous response of one who has spent a lifetime listening to music, composing it, playing it and thinking about it, and then finds himself confronted with ways of talking about and analyzing music that have nothing whatever to do with what i would call this "common sense" experience. (1990:151) if we are honest as serial listeners, perle is probably not alone here in feeling some disparity between his own "common sense" experience of serial mu­ sic and the sort of formal approaches of much serial analysis-although as a composer interested in twelve-note organization he may have more at stake. not being useless to the needs of your time let us return to paris in the spring of 1952 to consider more appropriate (more useful?) terms that might begin to bridge the gap between our own experience as listeners and the more conventional disciplinary responses to it. "eventuellement. .. " and structures 1 a were produced in a city balanced precariously between the liberation and the early cold war, a paris that heard nascent serial music not as the neat disciplinary utopia of forte-style pitch-class set analysis, but as a deeply contemporary and political reaction to these times. post-war paris itself was a defining influence on the develop­ ment of boulez's early thinking. in the final line of his statement in "eventuellement. .. ", boulez empha­ sized this crucial aspect of his serial experience, more often put into shadow by the famous capital letters in the previous sentence. it begs an obvious question, rarely asked, one that challenges our still-fervent modernist faith in boulez's stated compositional processes: why should non-serial musi­ cians have been judged so emphatically "useless"? because, boulez wrote, "their entire work brings them up short of the needs of their time" (1991: 113). 55 56 current musicology later he again directly attached the need for a serial language to the wider concerns of his age: "at a time of transformation and reorganization ... we assume our responsibilities unflinchingly. no sham emotionalism is going to prevent our practical working-out of the feeling, the felt necessity, of our time" (115, emphasis added). unless we agree with georgina born, among many, who holds that boulez's "formalism, linked to an absence of critical concern with social and political dimensions of culture" did indeed mean to enforce a bourdieu­ like "necessary alienation from the public" (1995:64)/ then we must ask whether structures 1 a can be other than that which a modernist reading of "eventuellement ... " suggests. can serial music be something different from serial analysis? the circumstances surrounding the publication of the ar­ ticle and the very public premiere of the work it profiled raise questions about boulez's place in an analytical discourse that continues to protect him from such contexts. what were these "needs of his time" and why should serialism have been the medium-emphatically the only medium-through which they might be experienced, on paper and, crucially, in performance? moreover, what did such an ambition for usefulness mean, both for him and for his listeners, at a time and place in european history in which to be useful as a creative individual was, for the intellectual left at least, to be used? the arts listings of the april 26, 1952 weekend edition of the left-wing newspaper combat carried the following short announcement for a forth­ coming concert: "structures" pour deux pianos (pierre boulez). pierre boulez et olivier messiaen (ler audition)." (anon. 1952:14) the details of the premiere are the stuff of conspiracy theory. it took place on may 7, 1952 as part of l'oeuvre du vingtieme siecle, an arts festival staged by the "congn:~s pour la liberte de la culture" and funded covertly by the cia. the american use of front-organizations in the arts during the early cold war has been well known since the new york times' expose in 1966 (wicker 1966) and has in recent years received increased scholarly atten­ tion (stonor saunders 1999; wellens 2002; carroll 2002, 2003). american intelligence had become concerned about the spread of communism in post-war france, where slow economic growth, hampered by a succession of harsh winters and provisional governments, had left the countryvulner­ able to ideological cooption. by mounting arts festivals, overseen by the composer, musicologist, and impresario nicholas nabokov, american pro­ pagandists hoped to engage the support of the influential but undecided ben parsons left-wing parisian intellectuals. they wanted to demonstrate political links between, on one side, the curtailment of civil liberties under communism and the prescriptions of socialist realist art, and on the other, the freedom of western liberal democracy and the laissez-faire of its cultural life. "the real fear for the soviet government;' wrote nabokov in 1948, "is the state of mind which may grow within a closed body of specialists ... this state of mind is creative individualism-which is still tied on many ways to the west­ ern european tradition. it may lead to political individualism" (quoted in wellens 2002:31). the programming of the festival was accordingly broad-structures 1 a was performed at a three-week long fringe chamber series along side works by composers as stylistically and aesthetically "individual" as vaughan wil­ liams, constant lambert, virgil thomson, and henri dutillieux-although the event as a whole was dominated by the neo-classical stravinsky, hailed, in nabokov's memorable assessment of symphony in c, as a reminder to audiences of "the meaning of homo sapiens" (quoted in carroll 2003:13).8 the schoenberg school was represented to lesser extent-most importantly in the belated french premiere of wozzeck. 9 but the festival was more a ret­ rospective of earlier modernisms than it was a showcase for the younger generation. certainly the presence of a cutting-edge modernist like boulez in a festival of such partisan and, at the time, well-known politics is surpris­ ing, especially given nabokov's own conservative taste and the publication of boulez's analysis in "eventuellement" the same month. but the timing was no coincidence. the issue of la revue musicale that carried "eventuellement ... " was also produced "sous les auspices du congres pour la liberte de la culture," as the front cover advertised, as an introduction to the music performed at the festival. boulez's statement of musical modern­ ism was guest edited by nabokov himself. before considering how this au­ dience might have experienced boulez's music as it was performed to them at the festival, it would be well to examine more critically the related context of its commentary. re-reading "eventuellement ... " until 1952, boulez had published in journals of narrow and specialist read­ ership, primarily in contrepoints and polyphonie (1948a; 1948b; 1949; 1951). as dominique jameux argues, these articles were written is such a way "as to exclude the uninitiated" (1991:34) in their discussion of recent composi­ tional developments (in particular the debate provoked by leibowitz's in­ terest in schoenberg and messiaen's experiments in rhythm). we would expect this trend to have continued for the publication of 57 58 current musicology "eventuellement ... ': boulez's most technically demanding (and, jameux would say, most exclusive) piece to date. indeed, robert piencikowski ar­ gues for article's inclusion as the apogee of what he defines as boulez's first publication "stage" (1948-53), "the period in which the idea of generalizing the series takes shape, crystallizing in the study called 'eventuellement ... '" (1991 :xviii). had boulez's initial version of the article been published in la revue musicale-written originally in response to a request from henry cowell for an abstract of his current research-we might well be tempted to agree with piencikowski's categorization. lo but there are some interesting differ­ ences between the two. the earlier piece is more concise (just over four pages), omitting the extensive prefatory remarks and conclusions of "eventuellement ... '" and getting to the technical theorizing within a few introductory lines. while the analyses are sometimes less involved than in the later version, the transposition tables used for structures la are pre­ sented with all the interval vectors given, where in "eventuellement ... '" only three completed permutations are printed both horizontally and vertically, 11 the remaining values blocked out as if to suggest that the transpositional detail itself was not as important as knowing the series had indeed been transposed. this is serial theory "experienced" rather than "understood:' the cowell version also offers a fuller graph of transpositions repre­ sented as displaced sounds within a given frequency band. ("mathemati­ cians call it modulo;' boulez reminds us helpfully in '«eventuellement ... " [1991:118].)11 by contrast, "eventuellement ... " itself has more musical ex­ amples and although boulez makes few concessions to the non -specialist, the article eases us in through a polemical introduction that establishes its parisian context, then takes us step-by-step through the basic principles and application of serial ordering, finally concluding with a defense of his analyses against charges of intellectualism set in surprisingly poetic terms: it is the need to pin down what one wants to express that directs the evo­ lution of technique; this technique reinforces the imagination ... and in this way, in an endless play of mirrors, creativity pursues its course; a liv­ ing and lived organization, allowing every discovery, enriched by every new experience ... is a conclusion necessary? once more the unexpected: "the heart, an intestine which replaces everything:' (1991:139-40). the readers of cowell's american journals would doubtless have been familiar with the scientific meta-language of many contemporary writings on serial research, not least with those of babbitt. certainly boulez supplied an abstract whose exclusively theoretical approach would seem to suggest a degree of assumed technical knowledge on their part. but writing in 1952 ben parsons in la revue musicale, boulez faced a different sort of reader, one more used to articles of very general, even popular, interest (recent issues had included pieces on film music, jazz in paris, francis poulenc, jean cocteau, and erik satie) and certainly with little curiosity for the latest international develop­ ments in the effort to generalize the series. that the journal appealed to such a large and non-specialist readership doubtless explains the congress's interest. but there are aspects of "eventuellement ... " that are not so comfort­ ably explained by a difference of publication medium and a concession to a lay readership. despite their apparently opposing aesthetic positions-dif­ ferences mark carroll emphasizes by polarizing structures la and stravinsky's symphony in c (carroll 2002, 2003 )-boulez and nabokov can be seen, at least between the covers of la revue musicale, as having shared a conviction that musicians had a special responsibility to be useful as spokesmen of their age. as nabokov wrote: during this coming arts festival, dedicated to l'ceuvre du xxe siecle, we will not hear any scores that do not owe their qualities, their very soul, to the fact that they are the music and the art of men who know the value of liberty ... and those who live today know this value of their times better because they have seen it ... if a music festival has a purpose and a virtue, it must be to combat hopelessness and discouragement ... totalitarian ideologies ... cannot diminish one inch the master-works that speak for themselves-and for the civilisation that gave them birth. (1952:8)12 by contrast, the prescriptions of "provincial" socialist realist dogma made "one despair of the human race and of artistic progress" (nabokov 1952:8 ).13 boulez stopped short of employing such explicitly political terms in "eventuellement ... ". but given its explicit context, readers of this issue of la revue musicale would almost certainly have read boulez's universalist language as part of the same case for a broad western liberalism over the restrictions of soviet communism. nabokov, like boulez in his italicized snub at the "french" schoenbergians, was concerned not so much with the politics of national identity after the war, but with the wider challenge of "knowing better the value ... of their times" (nabokov 1952:8); what boulez called not being "useless" to "the needs of his times." but what did being useful as a musician mean in the context of the festival? at least part of the answer, as suggested in quite different ways by both nabokov and boulez, was concerned with the performance of new music. nabokov stressed that the criteria for inclusion in the festival was "to enter into communication with the public, perhaps through new ways of expression and original techniques" (1952:5). compositional usefulness59 60 current musicology in so far as nabokov and the congress was concerned-meant attracting an audience for "the works of their time": to lead twentieth-century audiences towards twentieth-century music­ there's a task, and perhaps the most urgent, which falls now to musicians, to organizers, to educators. many are conscious of this task. thus hindemith has tried, not without success, to bring together music lovers and the works of their time: taking into account the new conditions of musical life in his aesthetic as a composer. (nabokov 1952:8)14 boulez's early serial music could not, of course, be described as functional in the sense of hindemith's weimar-period gebrauchsmusik, and nabokov's reading of hindemith's music as "humanist," somehow transcendent of the national politics of its aesthetic foundations, is not without its problems. is nevertheless, nabokov's concern to promote new works had much in com­ mon with boulez's, both in "eventuellement ... " and indeed, throughout his career as a composer, conductor and cultural spokesman for contempo­ rary music up to the present day. prefacing his analysis in that article, boulez admitted crucially that "all these possibilities [of serial encoding] might well be regarded as pure theory;' but went on to stress his concern for "deploying such virtuosity in performable works ... as we shall see, the time cannot be far off when such speculations will gain practical recognition" (1991: 119; emphasis added). boulez's article certainly emerges as a defense of serialism against its conservative critics like nabokov. but it is not a case made only on the os­ tensibly value-neutral theoretical premises of the main body of analysis. indeed, it was boulez's parisian contemporaries like leibowitz-"falsely doctrinaire, absurdly conservative ... enthroned like fat idiots to the greater glory of the avant-garde" (boulez 1991: 111 )-that he accused of the very charges of "frantic arithmetical masturbation" in "some shadowy semi-se­ cret society" that he himself would be asked to counter in the next decades (112). nabokov's own 1948 critique of leibowitz in the congress's journal, partisan review, written in reply to leibowitz's critique of stravinsky in an article entitled "two composers: a letter from hollywood" was written in terms that could well have come from boulez himself: "[schoenberg] cre­ ated a strange kind of fetish, a hermetic cult, mechanistic in its technique and depressingly dull to the uninitiated listener" (nabokov 1948:580). as i argue below, boulez's own alternative in these early years was far from that of leibowitz's viennese school salon evenings in paris, modeled on schoenberg's verein fur musikalische privatauffurungen.1t may be stretch­ ing the point to suggest that "eventuellement. .. " could be read as boulez's case for aesthetic inclusion in the festival's plan. certainly its portentous ben parsons title, with the loaded " ... ", fits well, positioned at the end of an issue in which the articles are connected by a concern for the performance of new works and by the language and aspirations of universal humanism, what­ ever the politics of individual authors might have been. and although boulez and nabokov disagreed over the aesthetic worth of serial music, boulez's inclusion in the journal suggests that they were presented as having had basic principles, if not necessarily politics, in common. boulez's political sympathies at the time are unclear and a thorough survey is beyond the scope of this paper. 16 when pressed today to side with either of the power blocs, he says tentatively that the americans were less prescriptive; "the better option" (2003). and yet he has also described him­ self as "very leninistic," continuing, ''i'm all for the efficiency of the revolu­ tion, by going to the important organizations to change the sense of them and to convince them of my existence" (quoted in carroll 2003:192). so too, as carroll implies, boulez's relationship with the outspoken conductor roger desormiere, barred from the congress's festival for his communist party membership, challenges his claimed independence of real-world po­ litical affairs (carroll 2003:35). and it may be that his gradual revising-out in 1950, 1958, and 1965 of the revolutionary textual associations in his origi­ nal 1948 setting of poems from rene char's le solei! des eaux (first con­ ducted by desormiere in 1950) might suggest an early interest in expressing through serial music socio-political ideas that may have been controversial in cold war paris.l? the political context of issue 212 of la revue musicale gives us a problematized base for "reading" the structures 1 a presented in "eventuellement. .. ", one that leaves boulez's intentions in publishing the article and his own personal politics open to question. "eventuellement. .. " emerges not just as a statement of abstract theoretical process (in so far as purportedly abstract theoretical languages are invariably invoked in response to sectarian pressures, perhaps without its practitioners realizing it); it can also be read as a compelling response to the american politics of the festi­ val, even as boulez was ostensibly distancing himself from the extra-musi­ cal compromises he attacked in leibowitz's teaching. but to look for musi­ cal meaning here is, perhaps, to risk reinscribing the assumption made by much formal serial analysis about the closed relationship of serial music to its various commentaries, be they theoretical, aesthetic, or political. i8 struc­ tures 1 a aspired, in boulez's words, to "practical recognition" under the ae­ gis of the festival. as such a "performable work;' therefore, a wider network for understanding it might be found in the contemporary reception of its first performance. before going on to discuss what how this audience re­ sponded to the piece, i second paul attinello's recent suggestion about con61 62 current musicology sidering meaning in this repertoire: it would be useful for readers to go and hear the pieces i cite-even those who know them well-in order to remind them of the sensual impact of their experience of sound, rather than of score, abstract memory, or theo­ retical construct. (attinello 2004:156) listening in on the premiere of structures 1 a areas of the paris press certainly invested the work with very different po­ litical meanings than did boulez or nabokov. far from interpreting it as an aesthetically disunited and yet apparently "universal" freedom, many turned blind eyes to the compromising american associations of the festival and heard it instead as a way of protecting french cultural-political identity from appropriation by the super powers. many intellectuals of the disaffected left, including albert camus and, in the early 1950s at least, jean-paul sartre, felt frustrated at being pulled into a power struggle in which they, and france, wanted no part. as founding editor of the newspaper combat, originally a clandestine resistance publication and one of the leading political dailies in post-war france, camus wrote a series of articles under the umbrella title "neither victims nor executioners;' which drew an early comparison be­ tween nazism and stalinism. memories of the nazi occupation were still fresh, and with the trials ofpetain, laval, and other officials in the late 1940s, the full extent and consequence of vichy-french collaboration was only be­ ginning to be understoody simone de beauvoir's memoirs are rich and graphic sources of parisian reactions to revelations brought daily by news­ papers and the first american newsreels of the camps at birkenau and auschwitz. she wrote: i had been living in a prison; now the world was restored to me. a ravaged world. immediately after the liberation, the gestapo's torture chambers were discovered, mass graves unearthed ... the brutal revelation of the past thrust me back into horror; one's new delight in life gave way to shame at having survived ... victory was a costly commodity. (1965:10) later, she reflected, "the war was over; but it remained on our hands like a great, unwanted corpse, and there was no place on earth to bury it" (30). considering the implications of the marshall plan (1947) and faced with new political compromises in the early 1950s, many did not want to be boxed into another either/or decision. they heard the restorative neo­ tonalism representative of both american and soviet ideology as danger­ ous. it brought to mind the values of a time that, far from having been the ben parsons age of innocence that stravinsky's symphony in c was meant nostalgically to recall, had witnessed two world wars and threatened a third-only this time on a previously unthinkable scale. the most remarkable press account of the premiere is a front-page re­ view by the dramatist and critic guy dumur, carried in the may 14 edition of combat. dumur began by pointing out what he saw as the irony of the congress's programming of the rite of spring, premiered in the same the­ atre thirty-nine years earlier almost to the day. conservative newspaper edi­ tors all too forgetful of its shock value, he complained, now embraced the work and stravinsky himself was "wildly acclaimed"20 as the naturalized french doyen of a parisian society that not so long before had considered him as unacceptably radical. "one can only imagine [stravinsky's] memo­ ries coming back to him;' dumur reflected, "how did he now find this coun­ try that for so long was his own, before the war ... cut him off from france and europe?"21 for dumur it was the negative public reaction to stravinsky's modernity, to his "youth and strength" (1952:1), that had made him so im­ portant in 1913. by 1952, he lamented, stravinsky had lost his edge and his strategic role in the american politics of the festival had reduced even the previously sensational paris ballets to the level of american propaganda. by contrast, twelve-note music was still considered unconventional enough to have been under-represented at the festival. as dumur wrote, "one would have hoped ... for a more important place for the dodecaphonic school whose works-those by berg, schoenberg and web ern, as well as those of the younger composers-are still too ignored by the french pub­ lic" (1).22 for dumur it was now boulez's music, symbolically enough per­ formed the evening before stravinsky's in the same theater, that had come to embody the scandal and spirit of this peculiarly french sort of avant­ garde. "on the evening before [rite]," he wrote, "it was essential to have heard a work for two pianos from the most original of the young french composers, pierre boulez, performing his structures with olivier messiaen, whose students had booed stravinsky's most recent works before the war, judging them too academic" (1).23 structures la was heard as a rallying cry not only for musical revolu­ tion, but also for socio-political change. even the conservative newspaper le figaro appreciated the cultural-political force of boulez's generation­ "the troops of shock dodecaphonists" (les troupes de choc dodecaphonistes) as it dubbed them in its short review of the premiere printed two days later (baigneres 1952:6). linking serialism and political radicalism (to recall boulez's words, "the dodecaphonic language" with "the needs of [the composer's] time") dumur went further in combat, suggesting that boulez was indeed using music directly to subvert the pre-war values that nabokov 63 64 current musicology and the congress sought to reaffirm: "thus go the times. thus goes the old europe. since it's this [the old europe) that it's all about" (1952:3).24 for the undecided left, concerned as they were to secure french identity independent of the overtures of the superpowers, the music's rappel it l' ordre, its self-conscious aural subversion, was the whole point. dumur concluded: in normal times, in ordinary circumstances, this music festival would only have interested the musicologists, conservatoire students and snobs who are the regular audiences at these concerts. neither humanite, nor combat, nor le figaro would have taken part in the affair. the malaise today comes from elsewhere.25 as if to emphasize combat's conviction that the french were indeed living though extraordinary times ("a time of reorganization and transformation;' to recall boulez's words), times in which few could afford to ignore the message of this music, dumur's review shared the front page with two other articles that reflected the unsettled political climate of the time: one on the division of post-war germany and the other calling for france to defend its autonomy in cultural terms, as in international relations: "culture frans:aise en peril ... de l'influence grandissante des u.s.a." (1). but beyond its context in the festival and place in combat's own self­ evident political agenda, what was it about boulez's music itself that en­ couraged newspaper editors to relate it so directly to contemporary politi­ cal concerns? mark carroll has recently applied sartre's model for socially committed art engage to argue that in subjugating himself in a system of abstract signs, leaving compositional decisions to be settled by pre-compo­ sitional processes, boulez raised music to a level that could resist anything real-in sartrean terms, anything of "existence" -to offer a glimpse of the utopian (carroll 2002; 2003). sartre's long preface to leibowitz's l'artiste et sa conscience (1951) disagreed with the book's conclusion that schoenberg had achieved such musical-political engagement in his cantata the survi­ vor from warsaw (1947). for sartre, leibowtiz's schoenberg was too inter­ ested in signifying. the true and unique political potential of music, he argued, lay in its transcendence from the contingencies of physical exist­ ence. in his 1938 novel la nausee, the character antoine roquetin reflects "what summits would i not reach if my own life were the subject of a melody" (1968:60). later he is drawn to the example of transcendence offered by a record-sophie tucker's 1911 hit some of these days-that he hears in a cafe: "the voice, deep and husky, suddenly appears and the world vanishes" (149). in his critique of leibowitz's argument, sartre envisaged contempo­ rary music in similar terms: ben parsons is it so impossible that an artist will emerge today, and without any ... interest in signifying, still have enough passion ... that he will transform even this world? ... and if the musician has shared in the rage and hopes of the oppressed, is it possible that he might be transported beyond him­ self by so much hope and so much rage that he could sing today of this voice of the future? and if this were so, could one still speak of "extra­ aesthetic" concerns? ... would the raw material of music be distinct from its treatment". (1951 :35-36) carroll's sartrean boulez did not hold up a mirror up to his first audience to reflect their own world back at them as adorno's and leibowitz's schoenberg had done-in hanns eisler's words, forcing them to "think about the chaos and ugliness of the world" (1978:75). rather, he challenged their underlying codes and practices to clear space for a new and brave vision of what it could be like. but there is a problem with this reading, one that overlooks the impor­ tance of the work's performance reception. were sartre's raging "op­ pressed" -arguably those in post-war paris who stood to gain most from such an experience-really intellectually and aurally equipped to identify "the needs of their time" in what carroll calls "the recesses of ... serial abstraction" (2003:142)? were they able to hear ligeti's abstract "beauty in the erection of pure structures" (ligeti 1958:42) in structures la and define such structures as serial? and assuming for a moment that they were indeed subscribers to la revue musicale and could reconcile the american political context to follow boulez's analysis of the piece like a program note, what would such a definition have meant? moreover, why should they have put their efforts into boulez's music at all, since in sartre's argument sophie tucker's song offers an easier-listening version of existential transcendence? carroll argues that this first audience sought to understand the implica­ tions of the music rather than react against it. his is certainly a very wel­ come approach to thinking about meaning in this music, one that freely admits to suggesting what this work might have meant for a hypothetical audience that understood its socio-musical consequence (2003: 141-42). but the opposed responses of the conservative nabokov and the radical dumur were not provoked by an underlying order buried deep inside an analyti­ cally exposed and rational compositional process. it came instead from the sound of the music as it was performed to them. detailed accounts of the premiere can tell us more about these reac­ tions. as suggested by dumur (although oddly not mentioned by him), structures la provoked a scandal of the sort perhaps unique to european audiences. claude baigneres' report in le figaro-a keen right-wing sup­ porter of nabokov's neoclassical stravinsky programs-headlined 65 66 current musicology '''l'oeuvre du xxe siecle" premier concert de musique de chambre ... premier incident": pierre boulez's structures, played on two pianos by olivier messiaen and the composer himself, made the public restless-their patience has its le­ gitimate limits! having shown with some irony her surprise at such child­ ishly hermetic music, a lady in the audience was borne down upon by the do dec aphonic shock troops who lead a violent punitive strike against her, necessitating the intervention of a policeman. (baigneres 1952:6).26 everett helm's account in the july 1952 musical america was more even­ handed: if one could not sense the basic mathematical formula and was not aware of the musical science in possession of the performers, he might have thought that they were playing the piano for the first time ... about half way through, a woman in an orchestra seat, unable to contain herself any longer timidly cried "bravo!" instantly a husky youth in the back row leaped over several rows of seats and bore down menacingly upon the frightened woman. a section of the audience rose to its feet, and a policeman appre­ hended the youth, who received a blow from the woman's bag as he was being led out. the audience commented upon the incident excitedly, while the two performers, unperturbed, continued their counting and hammer­ ing. (1952:20) what was the woman in the orchestra seat reacting to? was it the sight of messiaen, himself a well-known musical figure, and his young protege play­ ing together? was it perhaps more than a coincidence that, as dumur noted, the premiere took place at the comedie des champs elysees, the setting in 1913 for the most infamous parisian succes de scandal of all? was this how, denied stravinsky's cultural-capital-affirming codes, she was expected-and expected herself-to behave in such a place, thereby aligning herself with a distinguished tradition of parisian concert hecklers including leibowitz and boulez himself in this same venue only a few years earlier?27 she, like the other listeners discussed, was reacting fundamentally to the sound of the music she heard-to what paul attinello has called its "sonic violence" (2004:154)-and to the experience of being there at that particular time in that particular city. for her, the music found meaning in its performance and in her very physical reaction to it. when i asked boulez in a recent interview about the incident he remarked with a smile "but of course she shouted out, this was what one did!" (boulez 2003). seeing and being seen (and hearing and being heard, of course) were important aspects of what it meant to be avant-garde in paris at this time, both for artists and for their publics. in this parisian sense, avant-garde ben parsons implied not a denial of access, but an invitation to engage with society in contexts that were specifically public. 28 intellectual and personal disputes­ between boulez and leibowitz, boulez and messiaen, nabokov and leibowitz, sartre and camus-took place openly in the press. such public­ ness explains in part why sartre and beauvoir worked in literary rather than conventional philosophical forms and why, as philosophers, they needed to be visible, writing at the cafe tables of saint germain-des-pres. according to beauvoir, sartre even had a telephone line installed at les deux magots. beauvoir wrote in her memoirs of the public response to their work: a week never passed without the newspapers discussing us ... in the streets, photographers fired away at us, and strangers rushed up to speak to us. at the flore, people stared at us and whispered. when sartre gave his lec­ tures, so many people turned up that they couldn't all get into the lecture hall, there was a frenzied crush and some women fainted. (1965:38-39) the implications of such a public reception context challenge the function of structures la in a discourse that defends it as meaningless in any context outside of itself (or outside a modernist reading of"eventuellement ... "). boulez emerges less as an icon of musical abstraction, at odds with real world concerns, than as a contemporary thinker understood by the intel­ lectualleft, at least, as having been actively engaged with them. for anglo-americans, thinking within a tradition in which, to borrow from hans werner henze's assessment of serial music, the intellectual has long been "a thing apart from life, better kept that way" (1982:49), the no­ tion of boulez's early serial avant-garde as such a public and interdiscipli­ nary phenomenon is a paradox. indeed, in a strictly modernist definition it makes no sense that structures 1 a should be performed at all, let alone have been premiered at an event of such known political consequence. the avant­ garde aesthetic that defines boulez at this stage of his career was very differ­ ent from that of darmstadt, ircam, and certain areas of the american university scene where boulez's music would be "institutionalized," to bor­ row from georgina born, in an aesthetic of the new that sought to preserve the autonomy of the art work against the values of a society from which it had sought to alienate itself. 29 yes, boulez's early music was subversive, anti­ bourgeois the qualities so admired by dumur in his review. but cru­ cially, the challenge was perceived as coming from within the social orders that it meant to critique, hence the heckler's reaction to boulez's aural sub­ version of the bourgeois values that dumur saw as having been enshrined at the come die des champs elysees. 67 68 current musicology re-hearing structures 1 a helm's account of boulez's succes de scandale focuses the attempts that have been made to distinguish between the two emerging methodological re­ sponses to this music-what fred lerdhal has called "compositional" and "listening grammars" (1988:231). the woman with the handbag behaved according to her own aural response, or "common sense," as perle would say; like many since, the young man-a student of the conservatoire, as ie figaro noted-put his faith in the exegesis of"eventuellement..."-in, as helm reported, "the musical science in possession of the performers." where she heard indeterminacy and chaos, following a "listening grammar," he looked to boulez's "compositional grammar" and found order. ligeti, too, in his article discussed above, countered the accusation of intellectualism in his analysis by suggesting that certain hierarchical features of the row are indeed aurally perceptible, notably the "homogeneity of the intervallic struc­ ture" (1958:37).30 we return here to perle's methodological problem discussed at the be­ ginning of this paper: structures 1 a just does not sound in performance like the archetype of integral serialism proposed in boulez's formal analysis. in his critique of what born calls the "cognitive opacity" (1995:318) of serial music, lerdahl argues "it is of course possible to organize the combinations and sequences of individual rows on a hierarchical basis ... but these higher­ level hierarchies are extremely difficult to cognize in a hierarchical fashion" (1988:253). if we are honest with ourselves, can we really hear the kind of deep compositional-structural rationale we read in "eventuellement. .. "? according to boulez, the answer is no, even given his encouraging ad­ vice in a letter to cage to suggest to the pianist david tudor (with whom boulez gave the new york premiere of the work in november 1952) to "have some aspirin at the ready-i am doing the same--for structures is not easy to listen to" (nattiez 2002:229).31 in closing "eventuellement ... " he antici­ pated the difficulties experienced in listening to his music, suggesting that "i mean no paradox when i say that the more complex the formal means, the less they are perceived intellectually by the listener" (1991:139). as if to reassure any remaining doubting thomases he went on: even when one has analyzed a complex structure, it is a fact of experience that the best-made, and therefore least ostentatious, forms recombine when one hears them and once again defy the analytical spirit by submerging it. one cannot say so much of works that are consciously simple, and whose schematic design one perceives-in this case very much intellectually­ precisely because it is predictable. (1991:139) ben parsons complex forms are indeed present in the music, he says, but it is a quality of the work's value in performance-measured in the oddly functional terms "best-made, and therefore least ostentatious"; terms, moreover, that could just as well have been nabokov's own-that prevents us from hearing them. if we do perceive the structural details of a work, as ligeti tells us he can, then the work has failed. mcclary turns boulez's logic against him, suggesting that structures la failed as a sonic experiment because the music is just too discontinuous to be aurally understood. its claimed total control of compositional param­ eters sounds like aleatoricism. listening to boulez and cage side-by-side, she concludes in her conventional wisdom that to the ear the works of john cage may not sound all that different from those rigorously ordered by means of combinatorial sets. yet this is why cage posed such a threat, for he presented the possibility that underneath the discontinuous surface there lurks ... nothing at all. the container that had held the subject (even if we only knew that on faith) was now demon­ strated to have no walls; moreover, its uncanny resemblance to those ves­ sels we had taken to have depth also called them retrospectively into ques­ tion. (2000:136). such an argument is problematic, not least because it both advances a cri­ tique that, as georgina born points out in her discussion of lerdhal's psycho­ acoustic work, presumes certain universals of human perception (1995:318) and because it oversimplifies the nuance in the debate about indeterminacy in boulez's early music and about his relationship to cage. for its first listeners, structures 1 a was an unknown. it set out to desta­ bilize any remaining cognitive footholds of harmonic and rhythmic expec­ tation, its aural strangeness urging listeners to rationalize it and to give it narrative form. but where dumur attached his own leftist agenda to his hearing of the work, mcclary uncritically accepts boulez's ordered compo­ sitional system as her narrative of the work, shifting to a different percep­ tive "grammar" -essentially that of tonal music-to analyze the aural re­ sult. as m. j. grant argues, mapping a predetermined compositional system onto the sound of the music-rational process onto irrational outcome­ tends to muddy comprehension (2001:219). mcclary's conclusion, like ligeti's and carroll's, hinges on a listening aesthetic that takes for granted our ability to hear structural (that is, compositional) development of the complexity of that in structures 1 a. moreover, assumes that boulez the theo­ rist and boulez the composer (not to mention boulez the performer) were necessarily thinking along the same lines. following with her tonally-trained ears the logic, if not the literal analysis, of "eventuellement ... " she cannot 69 70 current musicology but find boulez's music wanting. ironically, her argument functions com­ fortably within the model she set out to deconstruct. but when we hear structures la as a work whose ambition was to achieve "practical recognition" in a public context, the paradox that troubles mcclary as between determinacy and indeterminacy-between perle's "common sense" and forte's analysis-becomes evidence not of the failure of this mu­ sic, but of its success. as grant argues, chance was a crucial aspect ofboulez's music, even at the time of the supposed total control of structures la (2001: 131,154-56).32 our hearing of chaos in an apparently controlled musical space may be just the point: it is attack and dynamic-the most perfor­ mance-contingent and, as ligeti concedes, most compromising of the os­ tensibly compositional parameters that boulez defines-that most obvi­ ously neutralize the forward-moving functions of pitch and rhythm. to re­ call boulez's statement from the beginning of"eventuellement ... ': it is these parameters that most effectively "expand [serial organization] into an inte­ grated rhetoric." as grant argues, if we "take into account that the 'rational' procedures of serialism were first employed to create an 'irrational', unfore­ seeable music ... it follows that the method of pitch and duration ordering in structures la is effectively irrational .. [serial technique] was a method of dissolving particular ties, so that others could come to the fore; its con­ straint was, not so paradoxically, its freedom" (154-56). rather than being understood as the apogee of boulez's total serial phase (if, indeed, we can still say such a phase existed), structures 1 a might there­ fore be more usefully heard as anticipating a period of composition from the mid -19 50s in which he was increasingly concerned with the role of the performer in the creative process.33 in his 1955 article ''a la limite du pays fertile (paul klee) "-according to boulez the original and rejected title for structures 1 a34-he made clear his interest in "an imprecision that goes be­ yond the limits of notation": what the machine can do is at once much and little compared to the performer: measurable precision as against an imprecision that is impos­ sible to note exactly ... it is, above all, this irreducible margin of error which interests me, rather than the possibility of a definitive performance not subject to the fantasy or everyday inspiration of a human being. the dis­ appearance of the performer would be nothing to get worked up about, if some part of the 'miraculous' in music did not go with him. would this freedom so much desired by the composer in relation to his material get the better of him? .. we may spare the nostalgia and avatars of a new 'total art work'. (1991:161) in the third piano sonata (1955-57) boulez exercised such a level of per­ former freedom. the pianist-boulez himself in the premiere at darmstadt ben parsons in september 1957-is presented with more fragments of simultaneously sounding material on the page than is possible to play in one performance, and so must choose a particular sequence. quite in keeping with the lan­ guage invoked to describe structures 1 a, the performer is the "operator" of a set of choices that boulez selected at the compositional stage (boulez 1991:143-54). in this work and in more proto-typical form in the param­ eters of dynamic and attack in structures la, boulez empowered the per­ former as part of this creative process. he explored a level of compositional imprecision that could only be realized, only really make sense, under the conditions of controlled freedom of a performance. the apparent automa­ tism of the compositional procedures revealed in "eventuellement ... " is not restrictive and opposed to the discontinuous aural effect that the lady with handbag so objected to, as mcclary suggests. rather, such discontinuity suggests boulez's acknowledgement in 1952 of the limits of complex pre­ compositional ordering in a work perhaps more suited for performance and listening than for ligeti's "textbook example" analysis. making serialism dangerous again exiled in paris in the 1930s, walter benjamin wrote of the "dream city" imagined by paul ernest ie rattier, a fltmeur and author of the utopian prose work paris n'existe pas (1857): "[he] evokes a dream paris': benjamin sug­ gested, "which he calls "false paris" -as distinguished from the real one: "the purer paris, ... the truer paris, ... the paris that doesn't exist" (1999: 13 7). the post-war "paris that doesn't exist" has taken many forms: in vincente minelli's an american in paris (1951) gene kelly dances his way through a city unrecognizable as that which beauvoir describes. and audrey hepburn in funny face (1957) falls in love with a dashing, roll-neck-sweatered phi­ losopher who is far from the figure cut by sartre himself. there is a similar reassuring nostalgia about nabokov's post-war paris that echoed with the neoclassicism of the pre-war salons doubtless known to benjamin himself. the "paris that doesn't exist;' the "dream paris;' is a placeless and time­ less version of the city, constructed by the needs and critical agendas of those who dream it up. the paris of much serial discourse is one other "dream city;' a place similarly constructed by critical agendas. for its various insti­ tutional and political reasons, our discipline has so often sought to shield the young boulez and his music from the extra-musical scandals and politi­ cal complexities of the "real" time and place in which both developed. (as benjamin continues, quoting rattier, "the false paris has the good taste to recognize that nothing is more useless or more immoral than a riot" [1999: 138].) we know serial music as a totally controlled, "pure" music not 71 72 current musicology so much because boulez suggests that we do, or because it autonomously demands that conclusion, but because in music such a condition is, to bor­ row again from taruskin, "precisely what is necessary to clear space for such utopian visions ofrational order as modern analysts propose" (1997:374). as gary tomlinson has debated in the pages of this journal, it is indeed "the act of close reading itself that carries with it the ideological charge of mod­ ernism" (1994:22). the paris premiere of structures 1 a represents a special moment of se­ rial reception in which the sonic impact in performance of apparently ab­ stract serial systems was understood independently of the utopian visions of our discipline. but what can boulez's music mean today, if this historical moment and its underlying definition of the parisian avant garde are so contextually contingent? writing the year before boulez's premiere, the re­ alist in sartre had foreseen the redundancy of even his own model of socio­ musical engagement: "it is certain that modern music is shattering forms, breaking away from conventions, carving its own road, but to whom ex­ actly does it speak of liberation? ... [tlo a stale and genteel listener whose ears are blocked by an idealist aesthetic" (quoted in carroll 2002:135). like dumur's conservative parisian audiences who found social dis­ tinction in nabokov's programming of the rite of spring, we have become a discipline of "genteel listeners" to boulez's early music (if, indeed, we re­ ally listen to it at all). deaf to anything outside the reassuringly rational processes we read in the analysis of"eventuellement ... ", we find comfort in the kind of idealism that was anathema to sartre and to so many of his left­ wing contemporaries present at the premiere in 1952. even sartre himself succumbed to his own prophecy. remarking in her diary after attending one of boulez's domaine musical concerts in 1956, beauvoir admitted that "we couldn't make head nor tail of it ... we didn't know where to clap, but that didn't seem to bother anyone ... sartre felt quite piqued at finding himself out of things" (1965:455). in 1989, mcclary more critically sug­ gested the same. "by retreating from the public ear, avant-garde music has in some important sense silenced itself. only to the tiny, dwindling com­ munity that shares its modernist definitions of the economy of prestige does the phenomenon make the slightest sense" (66). to deny this music the cultural-political and aesthetic contexts she is rightly so keen to restore to other musics is to mishear it. serial music like structures la, she concludes, "retreated from the public ear." but i would like to suggest that it is perhaps through an emphasis on the public ear­ the listening and performance space that resonated with so many of the needs and possibilities of boulez's post-war paris-that we might readmit its sensual impact and begin to make more sense of its paradoxes and chalben parsons lenges. if we are to experience the high modern repertoire differently, we need first of all to listen to it. having listened, we should behave more like the parisian lady with the handbag: we should be more critically vocal, both literally and, as arnold whittall has recently suggested (2004:82), in the meth­ odological sense of carolyn abbate's "voice:' examining our responses to the music, its commentaries, and the theoretical premises of our own disci­ pline in terms that acknowledge the connectedness of each. there was, of course, no single "real paris" (hence the need for so many inverted com­ mas), but a network of competing discourses that reconnect in this way to evoke a complex historical period that is all the more "real" for its confu­ sion, disorder and riots.35 abbate urges us to make music dangerous again­ and as the parisian reactions to boulez's music attest, serial music sounds perhaps more dangerous than most: "[music] brings an ambiguous com­ fort. far from being a refuge from worldly questions of meaning, it is the beast in the closet; seemingly without any discursive sense, it cries out the problems inherent in critical reading" (abbate 1991:xv). in his editorial "rethinking the century" in the final 1999 issue of musical quarterly, leon botstein reflected on millennial anxiety and how we had defined the cultural paradigm shifts of the last century: simply because the year 2000 will come and go does not entitle us to con­ sider the twentieth century-if it constitutes a coherent era-to have come to an end ... a decisive turn of events may yet take place that in retrospect will serve as the proper demarcation between the twentieth and the twenty­ first centuries. let us hope that the break is not as violent and catastrophic as world war i. (145) botstein could not have anticipated the tragic irony of his words, read now in the new century that, from his desk in the old, must have seemed some­ how beyond the uncertainties of the era whose needs had shaped boulez's generation. neither could he have guessed at how close to the beginning of the literal new century the "decisive turn of events" might be. as we con­ tinue to adjust to a world post -september 11, an era of new uncertainties and new needs, the time indeed seems right for us to quit the refuge of serial analysis to rethink as a discipline how musicians of the early cold war re­ sponded to the forced revelations of their time. boulez's call to his readers in 1952 for musicians to not be "useless" can rarely have appeared so contemporary or more necessary. 73 74 current musicology notes this research has been funded by an arts and humanities research board graduate studentship (u.k.) 1. "let us state, in our turn, that any musician who has not experienced-i do not say under­ stood, but truly experienced-the necessity of dodecaphonic language is useless. for his entire work brings him up short of the needs of his time" (boulez 1952d:115). translated by stephen walsh (boulez 1991). for reasons of context, this extract has been quoted in its original french. hereafter english translations are given in the main text. unless otherwise indicated, page references to boulez's early writings refer to the current english translations by stephen walsh, collected in stocktakings from an apprenticeship (boulez 1991). the origi­ nal french citations are given in the reference list under boulez, pierre. 2. translated in the current english version as "possibly ... " see boulez (1991:111-40). 3. see brody (1993) for a discussion of babbitt's scientific meta-language. 4. it is no coincidence that the other work most commonly used as an introduction to serial processes is messiaen's proto-serial mode de valeurs et d'intensites (1949), whose first edition also included an analytical guide by its composer. 5. the language of faith has been important in boulez scholarship. for boulez, at a private salon performance conducted by leibowitz in 1945, listening to schoenberg for the first time was "a revelation ... that marked [him] for life:' messiaen remembers boulez's "conver­ sion of immense passion" to twelve-note methods (peyser 1977:31); peter heyworth says that schoenberg "came to [boulez] as a revelation" (heyworth [1973]1986:10). describing what he calls boulez's "vision of history" jean-jacques nattiez proposes "we might say that boulez needed only a very short time (somewhere between 1945 and 1950) to receive the revelation of what the evolution of twentieth-century music meant" (1990:21; emphasis added). 6. susan mcclary puts the situation in the following terms, although, as discussed later in this paper, she arrives at a pessimistic conclusion about meaning in this music: "beneath these surfaces that seem to attest radical decentering, the serialists found a way of ensuring the continued presence of centered subjectivity. in pieces by boulez or babbitt, we know (because we are told, because we know how to analyze scores) that an idiosyncratic but rigorously integrated subject controls the events, however incoherent they may sound. thus the urgency of set theory and analysis" (2000:136). 7. paul griffiths, among many, suggests the same: "to boulez it might have appeared that abstention from politics was necessary in order for him to bring about the musical revolu­ tion" (1995:7). 8. nabokov's assessment can be found in a letter to robert craft dated march 22,1946. see carroll (2003:13). 9. see carroll (2003: 177-85) for full details of the festival program. 10. boulez's abstract was published in musical quarterly (boulez 1952a) as "transforma­ tion: arts, communication, environment" (boulez 1952b). see boulez's letters to john cage in nattiez (2002:176;177-82). 11. see example 3 in "eventuellement ... " (boulez 1952d:117). 12. "si une exposition de la musique a un sens et un vertu, c'est de contrebattre desespoir et decouragement ... les ideologues totalitaires ... ne peuvent diminuer d'un pouce les chefs­ d'ceuvres qui parlent pour eux-memes et pour la civilisation dont ils sont nes" (nabokov ben parsons 1952:8). 13. " ... des textes serviles, ie style ie plus plat, et des lignes de conduite 'racistes' et des esthetiques 'progressistes' manifestent imaginees pour faire desesperer de la race humaine et du progres artistique" (nabokov 1952:8). 14. "d'entrainer les auditoires du xxe siecle vers les musiques du xxe siecle-c'est la une tache, et peut -etre la plus urgente, qui incombe maintenant aux musiciens, aux organisateurs, aux educateurs. beaucoup sont conscients de cette tache. ainsi hindemith a tente, non sans succes, de rapprocher les amateurs de musique des oeuvres de leurs temps: en tenant compte dans son esthetique de compositeurs des nouvelles conditions de la vie musicale" (nabokov 1952:8). 15. nabokov treats bartok in a similar way. national folk music becomes the music of everyman, its non-westerness "othered" to the point that it envoices a universal human experience. see nabokov (1952:8). 16. boulez is notoriously silent on political matters, stressing his concern for the revolution of musical, rather than explicitly political, institutions. doubtless referring to his conservatoire classmate serge nigg, boulez has put the situation as he remembers it facing young composers: "very early on, differences began to appear among us, stemming from the fact that some refused, in the name of humanism and the need to communicated with oth­ ers, to advance further into territory where they might risk not being understood-an ide­ ology that filled me with horror, and that appeared to me above all to serve as a screen for conformity" (boulez 1990:7). he remembers attempts by jean-paul sartre, leibowitz and others to find a middle ground between socio-political responsibility and a commitment to artistic development (known in france as engagement) as not only ill-advised, but also em­ barrassing (boulez 2003). yet aspects of his own musical background were fundamentally connected to these ways of thinking. often overlooked in accounts of boulez's contempo­ rary dispute with leibowitz is the influence of leibowitz's involvement with the sartre circle after the war and the explicitly anti-communist (although that is not to say pro-american) politics behind his reading of the schoenberg school. it may be that nabokov's decision to program a work by boulez over leibowitz himself was a point of personal politics, particu1arly given their disagreement over leibowitz's stravinsky article in partisan review. 17. certainly boulez's critique of what we might call nigg's "socialist serialism" becomes all the more defensive for such political associations. 18. as georgina born and david hesmondhalgh argue: "paradoxically, the very treatment of these contexts as explanatory factors in understanding musical texts can reinforce the tendency to privilege the text itself. what is lost here is any sense of the dialectical relation­ ship between acts of musical communication on the one hand and political, economic and cultural power-relations on the other" (2000:5). 19. see especially beevor and cooper (1994). 20. "follement acclame" (dumur 1952:1) 21. " .. .1' on se perd a imaginer comment les souvenirs revenaient en lui; comment il avait retrouve ce pays qui lui avait ete si longtemps ie sien, avant que la guerre ... 1'avait definitivement arrache a la france et a l'europe" (dumur 1952:1). 22. "et l' on aurait souhaite, entre autres choses, qu'une place plus importante rut accordee a l' ecole dodecaphoniste dont les oeuvres, tant de berg, de schoenberg ou de webern, que des jeunes compositeurs, sont encore trop ignorees du public fran<;:ais" (dumur 1952:1). there is an irony, of course, in dumur's case for the more prominent inclusion of twelve-note 75 76 current musicology music. as clement greenberg and the new york intellectuals group argued at the time, radical art of this kind was subversive only so long as it was critically distanced from bour­ geois acceptance. see especially broddy (1993). 23. "la veille, il avait tenu it entendre l'ceuvre pour deux pianos du plus original des jeunes compositeurs franc;:ais, pierre boulez, qui interpretait ses structures avec olivier messiaen dont les eleves avaient siffle, au lendemain de la guerre, des ceuvres recentes de strawinsky, jugees par eux trop academiques" (dumur 1952:1). 24. "ainsi va ie temps. ainsi va la veille europe. puisque c'est d'elle qu'il s'agit" (dumur 1952:3). the resonances with boulez's own later modernist declaration are striking: "i be­ lieve that a civilisation which tends towards conservatism is a declining civilization because it is afraid to go forward and ascribes more importance to its memories than to its future. strong, expanding civilizations have no memory: they reject, they forget the past. they feel strong enough to be destructive because they know they can replace what has been destroyed . . . . the french revolution decapitated statues in churches; one may regret this now, but it was proof of a civilization on the march. when people will even collect the least knickerbocker-button from the eighteenth century that is something i personally find pro­ foundly distasteful" (boulez 1976:33). 25. "en temps normal, en des circonstances ordinaires, ce festival de musique n' aurait interesse que les musicologues, les eleves du conservatoire et les snobs, qui sont les habituels auditeurs des concerts. ni i'humanite, ni combat, ni le figaro n'auraient pris partie dans l'affaire. le malaise vient d'ailleurs" (dumur 1952:3) 26. "les structures de pierre boulez, interpretees it deux pianos par olivier messiaen et l' auteur, avaient mis en fuite ie public dont la patience it toute de meme des limites legitimes. vne spectatrice ayant prematurement manifeste avec quelque ironie sa surprise devant une musique aussi puerilement hermetique, les troupes de choc dodecaphonistes les dirigerent contre elle une violente expedition punitive qui necessita 1'intervention rapide de la garde municipale" (baigneres 1952:6). 27. see jameux (1991:15) and peyser (1976:33). 28. so much was the avant garde part of public life that in 1952 elle magazine even devoted its april issue to the pressing question of what the style-conscious parisienne should wear to the congress' music festival the following month, although she would doubtless have been more likely to attend the more main-line stravinsky concerts than boulez's premiere. 29. even today, boulez enjoys an authority and presence in cultural-political life in conti­ nental europe that jars with what british and american scholars expect of their avant garde icons. disciplinary reaction to his momentary arrest in switzerland on suspicion of interna­ tional terrorism following the september 11 attacks is a startling case-in-point. see parsons (2003:161-62). 30. in prime form, the frequency of the interval vector 11, lack of 8 and all intervals below 6, the placing of 6 at the end of the row and symmetrically placed 7s; the lack of intervals below 7 in inversion. 31. "dis bonjour it david tudor ... qu'il se prepare quelque cahets d'asprine-j'en fais autant de mon c6tecar les "structures" ne sont vraiment pas commodes.' (letter to cage dated '2 sept. [1952]', crossed out and corrected by boulez to '2 nov.', no. 42 in nattiez [2002:229]). 32. as boulez wrote to cage at about the time he composed structures la, "i believe chance should be extremely controlled: by using tables in general, or series of tables, i believe that it would be possible to direct the phenomenon of the automatism of chance, whether written ben parsons down or not ... for after all, in the interpolation and interferences of different series, there is already quite enough of the unknown:' ("je crois que ... le hazard doit etre tres contr6le: en se servant des tableaux en general, ou des series de tableaux je crois qu' on peut arriver a diriger ie phenomene de l'automatisme du hazard, ecrit ou non ... car finalement dans les interpolations et les interferences des differentes series, il y a deja suffisament d'inconnu.") (letter to cage dated "posterieure au 28 novembre 1951", no. 36 in nattiez [2002:193].) piencikowski sums up the issue well: "if cage meant to provide time spans within which each sound event is free to occur in coexistence with its environment, boulez meant to define a functional space through the sound objects destined to evolve within it" (2002:52). 33. it was also during this time that he began conducting and founded the domaine musical concert series. 34. see boulez (1975:69-70). 35. the city described in sources by sartre, beauvoir, dumur and others was no less a narra­ tive coloured by critical and political agendas as was serialism. any historical contextualization necessitates an understanding of the interconnectedness of the different versions. the cru­ cial point in contextualizing musical meaning, suggests lawrence kramer, is accordingly "to uphold the semantic end, but in terms that incorporate the autonomous one; to acknowl­ edge the historical, ideological, functional importance of the experience of autonomy in the context of a view in which the primary term is contingency. i want to take autonomy seri­ ously by finding its indispensable place in the network of indispensably contingent prac­ tices" (2002:5) references abbate, carolyn. 1991. unsung voices: opera and musical narrative in the nineteenth cen­ tury. princeton: princeton university press. attinello, paul. 2004. passion/mirrors (a passion for the violent ineffable: modernist music and the angel/in the halls of mirrors ). in beyond structural listening? postmodern modes of hearing, edited by anthony dell' antonio, 154-72. berkeley and los angeles: univer­ sity of california press. baigneres, claude. 1952. "l'oeuvre du xxe siecle": premier concert de musique de chambre ... premier incident. le figaro (may 9): 6. beauvoir, simone de. 1965. force of circumstance, translated by r. howard. harmondsworth: penguin. beevor, anthony and artemis cooper. 1995. paris after the liberation: 1944-1949. london: penguin. benjamin, walter. 1999. the arcades project, translated by h. eiland and k. mclaughlin. cambridge, ma and london: belknap press. born, georgina. 1995. rationalizing culture: ircam, boulez and the institutionalization of the musical avant-garde. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. born, georgina and david hesmondhalgh. 2000. introduction: on difference, representa­ tion, and appropriation in music. in western music and its others, edited by g. born and d. hesmondhalgh, 1-58. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. botstein, leon. 1999. notes from the editor: rethinking the century. the musical quarterly 86: 145-49. bbsche, thomas. 1999. auf der suche nach dem unbekannten oder zur deuxieme sonate (1946-48) von pierre boulez und der frage nach der seriellen musik. in die anfange der seriellen musik, edited by o. finnendahl, 82-91. berlin: institut fur neue musik. boulez, pierre. 1948a. propositions. polyphonie 2: 65-72. 77 78 current musicology __ . 1948b. incidences actuelles de berg (a propos de la quinzaine de musique autrichienne a paris). polyphonie 2: 104-08. __ . 1949. trajectoires: ravel, stravinsky, schoenberg. contrepoints 6: 122-42. __ .1951. moment de j.-s. bach. contrepoints 7: 72-86. __ .1952a. current chronicle. the musical quarterly 38 (1): 123-36. __ . 1952b. pierre boulez: four musicians at work, transformations: arts, communication. environment 1 (3): 168-70. __ . 1952c. schoenberg is dead. the score 6 (february): 18-22. __ . 1952d. eventuellement .... la revue musicale 212 (may): 117--48. __ . 1953. stravinsky demeure. in musique russe, edited by p. souvtchinsky, 151-224. paris: presses universitaires de paris. __ .1955. "an der grenze des fructlandes" (paul klee). die reihe 1: 19-39 __ .1964. "sonate, que me veux-tu?". meditations 7 (spring): 61-75. __ . 1975. par volonte et par hasard: entretiens avec celestin deliege. paris: editions du seuil. __ . 1991. stocktakings from an apprenticeship, translated by s. walsh. oxford: oxford university press. brody, martin. 1993. "music for the masses": milton babbitt's cold war music theory. the musical quarterly 77: 161-92. carroll, mark. 2002. commitment or abrogation? avant -garde music and jean-paul sartre's idea of committed art, music and letters 83 (4): 590-606. __ . 2003. music and ideology in cold war europe. cambridge: cambridge university press. dumur, guy. 1952. "l'oeuvre du xxe siecle" et ses lacunes: la partie musicale ne peut subir que des critiques en detail. combat (may 14): 1,3. eisler, hans. 1978. on schonberg. in a rebel in music: selected writings, edited by m. grabs and translated by m. meyer, 75-76. new york: international publishers. flanner, janet. 1952. letter from paris. the new yorker (may 31): 74. forte, allen. 1973. the structure of atonal music. new haven: yale university press. grant, morag josephine. 2001. serial music, serial aesthetics: compositional theory in post­ war europe. cambridge:cambridge university press. griffiths, paul. 1995. modern music and after: directions since 1945. oxford: oxford univer­ sity press. helm, everett. 1952. the paris festival: two views. musical america 72 (july): 25-36. henze, hans werner. 1982. music and politics: collected writings 1953-81, translated by pe­ ter labanyi. london: faber and faber. heyworth, peter. 1986. the first fifty years. in pierre boulez: a symposium, edited by will­ iam glock, 3-39. london: ernst eulenberg ltd. jameux, dominique. 1991. pierre boulez, translated by s. bradshaw. london: faber and faber. kramer, lawrence. 2002. musical meaning: toward a critical history. berkeley and los an­ geles: university of california press. leibowitz, rene. 1948. music chronicle: two composers -a letter from hollywood. par­ tisan review 15: 361-65. __ .1951. l'artiste et sa conscience: esquisse d'une dialectique de la conscience artistique. paris: editions du seuil. lerdhal, fred. 1988. cognitive constraints on compositional systems. in generative pro­ cesses in music, edited by j. sloboda, 253-57. oxford: oxford university press. ligeti, gyorgy. 1958. pierre boulez: entscheidung und automatik in der strucutre 1a. die reihe 4: 38-63. mcclary, susan. 1989. terminal prestige: the case of avant garde music composition. ben parsons cultural critique 12: 57-81. __ .2000. conventional wisdom. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. nabokov, nicholas. 1952. introduction it l'oeuvre du xxe side. la revue musicale 212: 5-8. nattiez, jean-jacques, ed. 1990. on reading boulez. in pierre boulez, orientations: collected writings, 11-28. london: faber and faber. __ , ed. 2002. pierre boulezljohn cage: correspondance et documents. basle and mainz: schott. parsons, ben. 2000. interview with pierre boulez (london). __ .2003. interview with pierre boulez (paris). __ . 2004. arresting boulez: post-war modernism in context. journal of the royal musi­ cologicalassociation 129 (1): 161-76. perle, george. 1990. pitch-class set analysis: an evaluation. journal of musicology 8 (2): 151-72. peyser, joan. 1976. boulez: composer, conductor, enigma. southampton: cassell. piencikowski, robert. 1991. introduction. in stocktakings from an apprenticeship, edited by p. thevenin and p. boulez, xiii-xxix. oxford: oxford university press. __ .2002 .. .iacta est. in boulez/cage correspondance et documents, edited by jean-jacques nattiez, 13-39. basle and mainz: schott. sartre, jean-paul. 1951. preface in r. leibowitz l'artiste et sa conscience: esquisse d'une dialectique de la conscience artistique, 9-38. paris: editions du seuil. __ . 1984. nausea, translated by j. lehmann. london: penguin stonor saunders, francis. 1999. who paid the piper? the cia and the cultural cold war. london: granta books. taruskin, richard. 1997. defining russia musically historical and hermeneutical essays. princeton: princeton university press. tomlinson, gary. 1994. musical pasts and postmodern musicologies: a response to lawrence kramer. current musicology 53: 18-24. wellens, ian. 2001. music on the frontline: nicholas nabokov's struggle against communism and middlebrow culture. aldershot: ashgate. whittall, arnold. 2004. uneasy evaluatives: perspectives on babbitt. the musical times 145: 75-82. wicker, tom. 1966. cia spies from 100 miles up. new york times (april 27): 28. 79 the idea of transfiguration in the early german reception of mozart's requiem elizabeth kramer over the past two hundred years, authorship disputes have dominated schol­ arly discussions about mozart's requiem. from the analysis of handwriting to the provenance of manuscript evidence, much debate has occurred over who wrote what when and about the relationship of these details to the larger contexts for the work. l in our attempts to present new evidence and theories regarding the requiem, however, we have largely ignored the very reasons for investigating its genesis and composition in the first place. our motivations as scholars, given mozart's canonical status and the continual influence of the work, may seem obvious today. but what inspired the initial conversation? this essay works from the premise that early nineteenth­ century interest in the authorship of the requiem grew out of a wider move­ ment of kunstreligion (art religion) in german musical aesthetics of the time. in connection with kunstreligion, the idea of transfiguration entered music criticism and writings on aesthetics around 1800 and played a pivotal role in early texts about the requiem. initially employed in vivid comparisons of the requiem to raphael's transfiguration of christ, the idea of transfiguration shaped the debates about the authenticity of mozart's composition in the 1820s. critics such as friedrich rochlitz, e. t. a. hoffmann, gottfried weber, and adolf bernhard marx understood the requiem as the transfiguration of its composer, listeners, and of music itself. the composition was imagined to be a site of mozart's own transfiguration, and concert reviewers described the heightened "spiritual listening" of some of the requiem's first performers and audiences, whose profound experiences were seemingly evoked by presentations of the work. drawing on a slightly different sense of the idea of transfiguration, the requiem itself was at the center of a transformation of existing generic categories: what previously would have been considered "church music" ("kirchenmusik") now fit into a newer category of "reli­ gious music" ("religiose musik"). these manifestations of transfiguration, which developed out of the broader movement of early nineteenth-century kunstreligion, led commentators to express concerns about the authenticity of mozart's final work. after a survey of the ideas of kunstreligion and transfiguration in early nineteenth-century writings about music, this es­ say traces the role of the concept of transfiguration in the reception of the requiem, from the early anecdotes to the later controversy. current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 73 74 current musicology kunstreligion, transfiguration, and the pantheon of composers around 1800 the strong inclination toward spiritual ideas in early nineteenth-century writings about music significantly shaped the early german reception of mozart's requiem. this proclivity toward spirituality stemmed from both a revival of platonic idealism and new expressivist theories of romanticism. idealism fixed its aspirations on the higher world of spirit (geist) as it had been theorized by ancient greeks such as pythagoras, plato, and plotinus (neubauer 1986; bonds 1997). the expressivism of early romanticism focused on the psychological transmission of ideas and feelings through composing and listening, in effect naturalizing the supernatural (abrams 1953; 1971; taylor 1989). the emergence of the new category of the musical sublime likewise fostered spiritual language in writings of the time (webster 1997). however, while each of these movements is indeed related to the spiritual language ever-present in writings on aesthetics around 1800, the idea of a kunstreligion or "art religion" better accounts for the breadth and depth of the influence of spiritual ideas at the time. as a relative of idealism, romanticism, and the sublime, kunstreligion is, most simply put, the belief that art manifests the divine.2 in kunstreligion, art is thought to express divine feelings, artistic experience is compared to religious ritual, and artistic works are seen as divine presences on earth, whether as divine in and of themselves or as striking manifestations of the divine.3 particularly important to the field of music, early nineteenth-century kunstreligion inspired beliefs that the concert, composer, and musical work each embodied aspects of the sacred to varying degrees. audiences were depicted as listening with devotional contemplation, composers were described as deities, and the musical work was thought more capable than any other artistic form of revealing the divine. transfiguration (verklarung) was on~ of the most important spiritual ideas associated with kunstreligion. originating in religious writings of antiquity, the concept of transfiguration entered musical aesthetics around 1800. in german-language writings after luther, the state of transfiguration, in which an individual appears in heavenly garb, was most commonly evoked in connection with christianity, whether in descriptions of jesus's trans­ figuration (matt. 17: 1; mark 9:2; luke 9:28) or as the spiritual transformation of the christian believer (2 cor. 3:18).4 in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, transfiguration was increasingly used in secular arenas. friedrich schiller, for instance, employed "verklart" in both secular and sacred contexts in his drama maria stuart ([ 1800] 1984). in act three, the queen's admirer, mortimer, is "transfigured" by mary's charms during her encounter with elizabeth kramer elizabeth, likening the former to the "most beautiful woman on the earth" ([1800] 1984:362).5 later in the drama, as mary receives her last rites, the priest, melvil, assures her of her salvation-that she will, "as a transfigured angel, be eternally joined with god" (ein schon verkhirter engel, dich / auf ewig mit dem gottlichen vereinen, [1800] 1984:408). likewise, goethe frequently used the word "verklart" in place of "verstorben" (deceased).6 in kunstreligion, ideas of transfiguration were often employed alongside ideas of apotheosis (''apotheosis'' or "vergotterung"), their differences notwithstanding. eighteenthand nineteenth-century german speakers used the idea of apotheosis in connection with the ancient pagan custom of regarding emperors and other respected persons as gods after, and sometimes even before, their deaths? the apotheoses of ancient mythological and historical figures such as aeneas, julius caesar, and julius caesar's successor, augustus, inspired later generations of artists and writers and, significantly for the present purposes, inspired music commentators of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. while german dictionaries of the time clearly associated apotheosis with pagan contexts and transfiguration with christian ones (zedler 1732; adelung 1811), in writings about music both acts were invoked to open up metaphorical passages between mortality and immortality through which composers might be imagined to proceed, adored by human and angelic admirers along the way. although musicians, and occasionally composers, had been character­ ized as spiritually-inspired or spiritually-possessed for hundreds of years and mythological figures such as orpheus had been enthroned in the clouds by artists and poets, the attribution of transfiguration to real, living composers seems to begin around 1800 (kramer 2005:176-79).8 and while early critical reception of mozart's requiem is the context in which a composer is first described as undergoing transfiguration, the characterizations emerging there would quickly be applied to other composers.9 in 1802, for example, johann nikolaus forkel, who wrote of j. s. bach as a pious steward of god's creation, asserted that when it came to his organ compositions, bach ap­ peared to him "more like a true, transfigured spirit than like a human being" (forkel [1802]1999:19).10 almost ten years later, a writer for the allgemeine musikalische zeitung referred to several composers as transfigured deities (august 1810:364-65). in his dream of a new musical year, the author wrote of passing among pyramids and gigantic buildings worthy of temples toward rows of transfigured composers. the poem he heard recited in his dream mentioned gods of music in the service of the "great female ruler of the universe:' named specific composers, and defined their relationships to each other. of the many divinities reigning in the heavens, handel is the "messiah of the singers:' the "stars" of graun and pergolesi glimmer mildly as the 75 76 current musicology initiation rites continue, their path illuminated by the mystical palestrina. beethoven's lyre shimmers on earth. he is marked as one of the initiated, even though he is not yet transfigured like the composers who have already died. the "trinity of beauty, truth, and goodness"-"mozart, haydn, and [j. s.] bach"-have"wrested new worlds from chaos" (august 1810:365),u haydn is characterized as the father, bach as the son ("the cornerstone of the temple"), and mozart as the holy spirit. in the trinity, mozart is clearly first among equals, receiving more praise than haydn and bach. the transfigured mozart was also given a place of honor in musical monuments such as the "temple of harmony" in the english garden ofjoseph anton bridi of tyrol. between 1810 and 1827, bridi, a banker, amateur singer, and friend of mozart's, erected a cupola on which was frescoed a scene of the apotheosis of music (clive 1993:30). mozart was depicted as the first composer to receive his laurel wreath, although he was chronologically the youngest of the group. bridi's garden was detailed in a book, which itself was reviewed by the allgemeine musikalische zeitungin 1828. the reviewer's description of the musical memorial and speculation about its meaning is worth quoting at length. [herr] bridi chose seven individuals from the celebrated masters of compo­ sition, and in seeking to demonstrate their immortality in a fitting manner, he also indicated that this place was one devoted to divine harmony. the chosen artists, whose painted busts are presented in magical dimness, and decorated with sensuous emblems are: mozart, palestrina, gluck, jomelli, handel, haydn, and sacchini. their earthly hulls removed, one sees them as ideal images of lovely child -geniuses, to whom apollo hands their earned laurel wreaths ... mozart's genius is the furthest from apollo and the first to be crowned. he sweeps through the air and has already reached the temple of posthumous fame and holds in a hand raised high a sheet on which may be read the name of the heavenly singer who was animated and inspired by him. his star is adorned by the bestowed laurel. after mozart, palestrina's genius has reached the same goal and realm in the temple; then one immediately sees in a charming group two geniuses, jommelli's and haydn's. these two spirits have also already received their crowns and hurry to the temple and their honor, first jommelli, then haydn [followed by gluck, handel, and sacchini in the reviewer's description] ... the artist's idea was, without a doubt, this: to show that the human spirit must first work through diligence, study, and steadfastness to achieve this summit, in order to become worthy of immortality; once his genius has been fulfilled and has received heavenly consecration before the judgment seat, he has no need of any lever to another transfigured existence, and like apollo travels through the ethereal, olympian fields. (haser 1828:678-80)12 elizabeth kramer the individuals whom bridi honored with immortality included composers of sacred music, opera, and instrumental music spanning three centuries and several european regions. from the reviewer's perspective, these human geniuses had worked diligently to attain their immortality and heavenly consecration. somewhat paradoxically, it was mozart, the epitome of the divinely inspired child-genius, who was envisioned as the guardian of the other divinized composers. although beethoven had been present in the fantastic vision of composers as deities (published several years earlier in the allgemeine musikalische zeitung and discussed above, august 1810:364-65), he is conspicuously absent from bridi's garden. the tributes to mozart in the first three decades of the nineteenth century would also be bestowed upon beethoven after his death in 1827 (strikingly, the authenticity disputes over the requiem culminated during this period). a multitude of critics ascribed immortality to beethoven, and beethoven's divine transfiguration is a central theme running through correspondence, poems, essays, and accounts of the composer, beginning with reports from his deathbed, as is well documented by primary and secondary sources (schlosser 1828; arnim [1835] 1986; sullivan 1927; schmitz [1927] 1978; comini 1987; eggebrecht 1994; chua 1999; kramer 2005). for instance, the composer anselm huttenbrenner, who apparently was with beethoven in his final hours, described the master's death to alexander wheelock thayer in 1860, using language echoing accounts of the deaths of great figures from the ancient world (excerpted in thayer 1967,2:1049-51; see co mini 1987:71). two month's after beethoven's death, his doctor ended a lengthy report on the composer's medical history by likening his death to the apotheosis of a deceased emperor in classical rome (nettl1956).13 other accounts, such as bettina brentano von arnim's in her "memories of beethoven," alluded to aspects of divinity in beethoven's compositional abilities, such as omnipo­ tence and the ability to create ex nihilo (arnim [1835] 1986:345-46, 350). the predominantly invented nature of her letters in no way detracts from their usefulness as a register of her own impressions of the composer. in her estimation (and in the thinking of many of her contemporaries), with his death, beethoven had passed from earthly life to a realm more appropriate to his being. from these early nineteenth-century accounts, it is clear that richard wagner's well-known "musical creed" from the 1830s painting the composer and his work as divine was one chapter in a longer tradition of composer "worship:' in the statement from the short story "an end in paris," wagner's persona affirmed belief in god, mozart, and beethoven and in the eventual transfiguration of all "true disciples of high art." 77 78 current musicology i believe in god, mozart, and beethoven ... i believe in the holy spirit and the truth of the one, indivisible art ... i believe that through this art all men are saved, and therefore each may die of hunger for her. i believe that on earth i was a jarring discord, which will at once be perfectly resolved by death. i believe in a last judgment, which will condemn to fearful pains all those who in this world have dared to play the huckster with chaste art, have violated and dishonoured her through the evilness of their hearts and the ribald lust of their senses. i believe that these will be condemned through all eternity to hear their own vile music. i believe, on the other hand, that true disciples of high art will be transfigured in a heavenly veil of sun-drenched fragrance and sweet sound, and united for eternity with the divine fount of all harmony. may mine be the sentence of grace! amen! (wagner [1841] 1912:135, translation adapted from chua 1999:240)14 the tongue-in-cheek nature of much of wagner's prose before and after the creed suggests the presence of a substantial degree of irony. ironic or not, his rhapsodic panegyric registers the idea that the composer might be confessed in much the same way as the christian god-an idea that may have developed from earlier evocations of the transfigured composer. where wagner's creed started with belief in the composer as divine, it eventually led to a belief in the divinity of music itself. implicit in many accounts of the transfigured composer was a connection to the transfiguring potential of music. this connection extends back at least to comments by friedrich rochlitz, long-time editor of the allgemeine musikalische zeitung, about immortal composers and immortal works (is00a:417 -is) .15 rochlitz drew attention to the ephemeral nature of music in relation to the other arts, in order to emphasize its spiritual aspects: "the works of no artist have so great a perishability amidst their imperishability, so much mortality amidst their immortality as the works of a musician" (is00a:417-1s).16 indeed, the musical work and the composer were in similar situations: as a creation in sound, music was ephemeral, and as human beings, compos­ ers were mortal. while there was nothing a deceased composer or a work itself could do to ensure the continued attention of an audience, human beings could erect memorials to music and composers so that they would be remembered by future generations. rochlitz's hope was that if listeners remembered composers as individuals, they would also remember their works. accordingly, he applauded the monuments erected to great german composers such as haydn, memorials that testified to the "esteem" in which the composer was held, and "thus [testified] to his service and his works" (lsooa:417).17 as early nineteenth-century audiences contemplated musical works, it is conceivable that they expected to hear a divine message or to experience the divine presence of a divinely-inspired creative composer. elizabeth kramer through such acts of devotion, the transfiguration of great composers and their music, first glimpsed by musical connoisseurs, might be experienced for years to come by a wider public. transfiguration in the earliest reception of mozart's requiem the idea of transformation fundamentally shaped the early reception of mozart's requiem through repeated comparisons of the work with raphael's transfiguration of christ (figure 1). comparisons between the history and mythology surrounding raphael's famous altarpiece and mozart's requiem mass were irresistible to early nineteenth-century music critics. both art­ ists had died young while completing the works that would in time come to exemplify their highest creativity. as would prove to be the case with mozart's earliest critics, raphael's earliest biographers had nothing but praise for his final work. 18 in 1525, italian historian paolo giovio singled out the transfiguration for its excellence, admiring in particular raphael's depiction of the possessed boy (shearman 2003:804-20). some twenty-five years later, the famous biographer giorgio vasari wrote that the figures in the painting were "so varied and original that it is the accepted opinion of artists that of all the many works [raphael] made, this painting is the most glorious, the loveliest, and the most inspired." raphael had brought the transfiguration "to perfection," and "having finished this, the last thing he was to do, he died without taking up the brush again" (vasari [1550]1986:637).19 historical distance and changing styles in painting gave rise to growing suspicions that raphael had died before finishing the work and that it had been finished by one of his students, a notion that appears in written form in the eighteenth century. antonio raffaello mengs, whose writings about art were dispersed throughout europe in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, doubted that raphael had executed any of his oil paintings entirely by himself (gould 1982:480). nineteenth-century commentators such as quatremere de quincy and johann david passavant reported rumors that giulio romano, one of the most successful members of raphael's workshop, had in fact painted the best of raphael's last works (gould 1982:480).20 some critics expressed doubts about the authenticity of the transfiguration alongside criticism of the combination of two subjects in one work: the transfiguration of christ on mount tabor and the healing of the lunatic boy.21 others, such as goethe, defended that combination and in so doing implicitly supported raphael's authorship of the work. goethe insisted that the theme of liberation from human suffering unified the scenes: 79 80 current musicology how can one separate the upper and lower halves? both are one: below, the suffering and needy, above, the active and helpful, both relating to each other and mutually acting upon one another ... no! raphael, like nature, is always right and especially most thoroughly there, where we understand him least. (goethe 1967:454)22 goethe understood the disciples as witnesses of two revelations of freedom: the demons were miraculously cast out of the boy, and their rabbi, jesus of nazareth, was for a moment revealed to them as transfigured-unencum­ bered by the common lot of humanity. comparing raphael to nature, goethe explained negative criticism of the altarpiece as the simple misunderstanding of a genius by his audience. although making no direct reference to mozart's requiem, wilhelm heinrich wackenroder was one of the first writers to compare the genesis of raphael's transfiguration to that of a work of music. in his collection of poetry and prose entitled outpourings from the heart of an art-loving friar ( [1797] 1991), wackenroder described the circumstances of raphael's final painting and those of a fictional composer's final composition. this volume and its sequel, fantasies about art for the friends of art ([ 1799] 1991), were two of the first texts to articulate the new phenomenon of kunstreligion as it pertained to visual and musical art. in these essays, the artist was repeatedly depicted as divinely inspired and the work of art took on a mystical aura. in a colorful account of raphael's death, wackenroder wrote that the artist's corpse lay in his studio next to the transfiguration, a painting "in which we still today see the misery of earth, the solace of noble men, and the glory of the kingdom of heaven portrayed in such magnificent union,-and the master by whom it was conceived and carried out cold and pale beside it" ([1797] 1991:122, translation adapted from wackenroder 1971: 140).23 in the collection's fictional memoir of the "remarkable musical life of the composer joseph berglinger,"wackenroder implicitly compared the production of raphael's transfiguration with the more agonized "birth" of the final work of a young composer whom wackenroder named joseph berglinger. in wackenroder's story, berglinger began the passion music he had been asked to write shortly after his father's death. his efforts were mired in deep depression, when suddenly he flung himself open forcefully and stretched his arms up toward heaven with the most intense longing; he filled his spirit with the highest poetry, with loud, jubilant singing and, in a marvelous state of enthusiasm, but with continuous, violent swings of emotion, he wrote down a passion composi­ tion which, with its penetrating melodies that embrace all the pains of suf­ fering, will eternally be a masterpiece. his soul was like a sick man who, in a wonderful paroxysm, shows greater strength than a healthy one. ([ 1797] 1991:143-44, translation adapted from wackenroder 1971:159)24 elizabeth kramer figure 1: raphael's transfiguration of christ. © polaroid corporation, courtesy of the polaroid collections. 81 b2 current musicology soon after completing his composition, berglinger would collapse from exhaustion, dying young as had raphael. other than this similarity, the composer's traumatic experience writing his masterpiece was markedly different from the apparently peaceful genesis of the "most highly spiritual" work, "produced in all innocence and naivete by raphael." in reference to the differences in raphael's and berglinger's experiences, wackenroder speculated that while human beings might not "comprehend the ways of heaven," they could at least "admire the variety of exalted spirits which heaven has placed into the world for the service of art" ([1797]1991:144).25 in his "biographical" accounts of mozart's life, friedrich rochlitz em­ phasized similarities between raphael and mozart and the significance of the idea of transfiguration for composers and their art. rochlitz's anecdotes, like wackenroder's lives of the artists, reflect the spirit of their time, even though they are of dubious veracity. in one of the more famous stories, rochlitz dramatized the circumstances of the commission of the requiem and the composer's final days: he immediately began to work on the commission. with each bar his interest in the matter increased; he wrote day and night. his body could not endure the strain, and several times he collapsed in a faint from his labors. all exhortations to moderate his work were fruitless. after several days his wife took him to the prater. he remained constantly quiet and turned inward. finally he denied it no longer-he was certain that he was writing this work for his own funeral. he could not rid himself of this idea; he worked, therefore, like raphael on his transfiguration, with the constant awareness of his approaching death, and delivered, as raphael had, his own transfiguration. (rochlitz 1798a:ls0-sl)26 like wackenroder's berglinger, rochlitz's mozart strained to complete what would be his final composition. the struggles of rochlitz's mozart, however, were tempered by the composer's own realization that he, like raphael before him, was producing his "own transfiguration." rochlitz articulated this transfiguration by juxtaposing traditional interpretations of transfigura­ tion and the requiem mass (the use of the language of transfiguration to describe both christ's experience on mount tabor and the changes a believer undergoes during his life and at his death, and the function of a requiem mass as a means of the transfiguration of a departed believer).17 rochlitz's joint evocation of christ's transfiguration and the requiem mass intensifies the sense of transfiguration ascribed to raphael and mozart and their works. his emphasis on transfiguration here complements his efforts toward the erection of memorials for composers and their works, as discussed above. indeed, beginning with a performance of part of the work at mozart's own memorial service, the composer's requiem was performed numerous times elizabeth kramer throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in honor of a departed soul, often the departed soul of another musician or composer (anon. 1818:286; anon. 1820; thayer 1967, 2:1056; wolff 1994:114-74; gruber 1994: 111).28 perhaps there was a trace of the celebration of mozart himself in each of these memorials, given the immediate association of the composition with mozart's own transfiguration. a year and a halflater, rochlitz extended his comparison in a five-page article, in which he again drew on the idea of transfiguration and also introduced the idea of liberation. here the requiem emerged as symbolic of the transfiguration of its composer, its listeners, and of the style and genre of church music. the perception of these transfigurations was based in the requiem's music rather than in associations of transfiguration with the traditional text and function of the requiem mass, though admittedly, those elements were noted too. both [mozart and raphael] felt the cold hand of death, which they even seized; both wanted to establish monuments to eternity. both chose the transfiguration-raphael, of the liberator, mozart of the liberated. with the fervor of those who see the mask of death hovering around them, and with the effort of those who sense that "this is your last;' both worked and gave, in this instance, the essence of their holy feelings, as it were. both transformed the transfigurations themselves. raphael's work was the first of the new paintings, mozart's, the first of the new religious music; still, most connoisseurs find several aspects of both a bit too black. (rochlitz 1800b:651, emphasis in original)29 rochlitz's description of raphael's work as the transformation of the libera­ tor and mozart's as the transformation of the liberated resonates with the theme ofliberation from earthly suffering that goethe noted in his critique. in the case of raphael's depictive altarpiece, the identity of the liberator as christ may seem straightforward enough, but the referent of "liberation" in mozart's requiem is more ambiguous. is it mozart the composer, mozart the believer, or both? or was rochlitz simply thinking about any believer celebrated by or celebrating a requiem mass? the "liberated" might also refer to the audience of any performance of the requiem, an audience who might be construed as musically and spiritually liberated. early reviewers of the requiem often commented specifically on the audience's and orchestra's senses of devotion, peace, and freedom, along with the dignity and power of the music, and the intimate, deep, and sublime spirit of the work. in hamburg, the entire audience was "carried away" by mozart's "masterpiece" (von diesem meisterstucke hingerissen, rochlitz 1799:176). in berlin, "the large audience shared, with true devotion, the beautiful wishes and the enthusiasm of the orchestra, 83 84 current musicology which one seldom encounters so strongly and well and with such intentions" (z. 1805:85).30 in konigsberg, a reviewer commented on the "infinite, high spirit" of the work and the "deeply-moving impression that it left" (anon. 1805a:362).31 and in leipzig, the requiem was given with "power" and "dignity" and seized its reviewer with its "sublime spirit of the new, deep and intimate" (anon. 1805b:413 ).32 of the four performances mentioned here, only the one in berlin was a memorial service (given after the death ofthe prussian queen mother), a fact that suggests that the spiritual impact of mozart's music went beyond the response one might expect of listeners attending a funeral ceremony.33 indeed, the reviewers' direct statements about the spiritual nature of the requiem most likely stemmed as much from listeners' perceptions of mozart's music as spiritual and new habits of spiritual listening as from the traditional text and function of the requiem mass (kramer 2005:95-133). or could rochlitz's "liberated" here refer to the music itself? according to him, mozart's requiem was the "first of the new religious music." the idea of transfiguration seemed to encapsulate the trends that rochlitz heard in the music of his day, especially the perceived changes in what until then had been classified as church music ("kirchenmusik"). writers had been debating the qualities of true church music ("wahre kirchenmusik") since the middle of the eighteenth century in a discourse that reflected elements of enlightenment thought and that by the end of the century was absorbing the concerns of romanticism (krummacher 1979; dahlhaus 1984; kramer 2005:217-26). some writers argued that true church music was only the music of the old masters like palestrina, hearing little that was sacred in the music of their own time. others, such as rochlitz, defended at least some contemporary music, including mozart's requiem. in another biographical anecdote, for instance, he reported, from this work [the requiem] one can see that mozart, like so many other great men, was unable to find a place for himself during his lifetime. it was he who sought to raise up religious music, which is presently debased, to where it belonged-on the throne above all other music. in this field he became the leading artist in the world-for those who have heard his last work, according to the unanimous judgment of all connoisseurs, even those who are not particularly fond of mozart, place it among the most perfect that the most recent art has produced. his existing masses are mostly early works which he himself made nothing of and which he, justly for the most part, would rather have forgotten. (rochlitz 1798b:178-79, translation adapted from solomon 1991:34)34 while complaining of a general dearth of fine spiritual music (and even criticizing some of mozart's early offerings), rochlitz found hope in the elizabeth kramer requiem, which he perceived as mozart's attempt to "raise up religious music." his choice of words is telling. instead of polemically speaking of mozart's contributions to church music, rochlitz evoked "religious music," a classification that, along with the idea of "spiritual music," was gradually becoming as common in music criticism as references to "church music" and "sacred music" (krummacher 1979:365-68). by avoiding the term "kirchenmusik" and writing more generally of "religious music;' rochlitz and others transformed the concerns of church music into those of religious music, a new category that included what had formerly been understood as church music but that would be judged by different criteria.35 religious experience was a key element of this new genre of religious music. elsewhere, rochlitz characterized mozart as a defender of the experience of religious music, portraying him in a conversation in which the works of composers of church music were compared to those of the old painters whom they described as having to depict "spiritually-deadening, church-imposed subjects": mozart at this point turned to the others and said (at least, this is the sense, if not the manner of it): this is some more of the usual mindless chatter about the arts! perhaps for you enlightened protestants, as you call your­ selves when you remember your religion, there may be some truth in such a statement; i cannot say. but for us, it is a different matter. you have no concept of what it means: agnus dei, qui tal/is peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem, etc. but if someone like myself, who from earliest childhood was introduced into the mystical sanctuary of our religion; if someone, not yet knowing where to go with his dark yet urgent feelings, full of heartfelt inner passion, sits through the holy service without really knowing what his purpose was, and leaves with his heart lightened and exalted without really knowing precisely what has happened to him ... then it is a different matter. of course, this admittedly tends to get lost as one goes through life on this earth; but-at least in my case-if one looks once again at those words heard a thousand times over with the intent of setting them to music, all of this revives and stands before you, and moves your soul. (rochlitz 1801:494-95, emphasis in original, translation adapted from solomon 1991:39)36 as maynard solomon has pointedly observed, "rochlitz manages to achieve in a few lines what leopold mozart could not accomplish in a lifetime of written and spoken exhortation-to implant in mozart an unswerving reverence for and conscientious observance of the church's sacraments of confession and communion" (1991 :40). although mozart was an observant catholic, the intensity of the words rochlitz put in the composer's mouth here does seem excessive (solomon 1991 :40).37 the anecdote can nevertheless be understood to reflect its author's priorities: rochlitz's mozart criticized 85 86 current musicology enlightened protestantism, emphasized the mystical aspect of religion, told a berglinger-type story of music as redemption for an individual, and posited a direct connection between personal piety and the compositional process. rochlitz's mozart, like rochlitz himself, avoided directly entering the fray over church music, writing instead about more general religious ideas that outline a broader category of religious music. transfiguration, mozart's requiem, and the writings of e. t. a. hoffmann e. t. a. hoffmann's assessment in 1814 of the requiem in his "old and new church music" was strikingly similar to rochlitz's. hoffmann, too, criticized the early masses, argued for the requiem's superiority, regretted the frivolous nature of recent art, wrote of music for religious worship as the highest type of music, and stressed the religious life of the composer ( [1814] 1967). although hoffmann retained the term "church music" throughout his historical survey, he focused on its more generically religious traits over particular connections to christian tradition. more significantly for the present purposes, hoffmann expanded the ideas of transfiguration that had first appeared in rochlitz's accounts. for hoffmann, true and dignified church music (wahre, wiirdige kirchenmusik, [1814]1967:231) could come only from the pen of the genuinely pious composer, and it was through the act of composition that a composer experienced "spiritual transfiguration" (geistige verklarung, [1814]1967:210). using the categories of critics before him, hoffmann drew distinctions between the "most glorious period of church music" (die herrlichste periode der kirchenmusik) exemplified by palestrina, and the era of his imitators in later generations ([1814]1967:214). according to hoffmann, palestrina's descendents had departed from the earlier composer's deep seriousness and homophonic simplicity. composers such as pergolesi, jommelli, durante, and marcello developed a style midway between church music and the oratorio, while other composers yielded to a sentimental and secular oratorio style. while there was much to be lamented in the current state of affairs, wrote hoffmann, the fault lay not with haydn, mozart, and beethoven, but with their imitators. hoffmann's descriptions of mozart's requiem suggest the broader category of religious music already articulated by rochlitz. hoffmann summarized his observations about the effect of mozart's requiem on listeners with a simple, rhetorical question: "who could remain unmoved by the fervent devotion and spiritual ecstasy radiating from it?" ([1814] 1967:214, translation adapted from charlton 1989:370).38 combining "the power and dignity of the old music with the rich ornament of the elizabeth kramer new," the requiem, for hoffmann, exhibited two attributes-power and dignity-which other critics had found lacking in church music ([1814] 1967:233).39 even though there might be elements of the oratorio style in the requiem (itself an observation questioning a simplistic assignment of the requiem to the category of church music), "the music remains genuinely devotional throughout; pure devotion resonates through these awe-inspiring chords which speak of another world, and which in their singular dignity and power are themselves another world" ([1814] 1967:233, translation adapted from charlton 1989:374-75).40 the devotion, power, and dignity heard by hoffmann and others in mozart's requiem became important characteristics of the new religious musicy mozart's requiem, the paragon of religious music, found its home in the "invisible church" (unsichtbare kirche) that hoffmann introduced in the opening paragraphs of "old and new church music!' perhaps influenced by the "invisible" and "aesthetic" churches found in the writings of kant, holderlin, hegel, and schelling, hoffmann's invisible church consisted of "servants of art" whose "earthly demise meant spiritual transfiguration" ([1814] 1967:210)42 and was a particularly resonant context for music, an art emerging "more purely from human spiritual nature" than any other ([1814] 1967:212).43 the invisible church of hoffmann's essay on church music was strikingly similar to the "one church" of poets and composers referred to in the poet and the composer (1813) and to the description of an "unknown realm" in hoffmann's 1810 review of beethoven's fifth symphony ([ 1810]1967). both the invisible church and the unknown realm were spaces in which the deepest and most inexpressible feelings might be embraced ([1810]1967:34-37; [1814]1967:210).44 both represented a "world beyond" that was revealed by the musical work, a musical home marked by freedom, strength, peace, love, and joy ([1810]1967:36; [1814]1967:235).45 the imagery and ideas common to the invisible church and the unknown realm thus suggest a more unified aesthetic approach to music contexts and genres than most recent scholars have read in hoffmann's writings.46 it appears that for hoffmann the best of the music discussed in the essay on church music no longer existed solely in the church's domain but rather was imagined to reside in a world beyond that might be alternatively described as an "invisible church" or an "unknown realm." indeed, this metaphorical world of religious music hosted not only compositions such as mozart's requiem but also the new instrumental music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven. at the core of this new category of music was a concern with the musical transfiguration of the composer, listener, and work, a prerogative that went beyond the parameters of eighteenth-century debates over true church music to broader concerns about musical authenticity. 87 88 current musicology authenticity and transfiguration in the requiemstreit commentators after hoffmann thus inherited the association of mozart's requiem with ideas of transfiguration-a tradition underlying the contro­ versies about the work during the 1820s (known as the requiemstreit). for the composer, music theorist, and music critic gottfried weber (1779-1839), the application of the metaphor of transfiguration in mozart reception initially rang false. perhaps triggered by reflection on his own composition of a requiem or by his close review of anton friedrich justus thibaut's essay, on purity in music (1825 )-a review that recognized thibaut's critical attack on the operatic elements in haydn's and mozart's church music-weber launched a provocative query into the authenticity ("echtheit") of mozart's requiem in the pages of the music journal ciicilia, which he had founded in 1824 (weber 1825a).47 to date, most scholarly attention to the requiemstreit has been given to the sometimes vitriolic polemics set off by weber's article, and in particular, to the debates between weber, the composer abbe maximilian stadler, and the publisher johann anton andre (jahn [1891]1970,3:361-93; moseley 1989:229-33; gartner 1991:155-72; wolff 1994:7-14). the significance of the idea of transfiguration to the origins of the requiem and its reception are most strikingly encountered, however, in the contemporaneous interchange between weber and music critic adolf bernhard marx. over the past two hundred years, few musical questions have been as tantalizing for audiences as the composition history and provenance of mozart's requiem, and yet, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the essential facts of the actual case had been publicly acknowledged (albeit alongside a plethora of more mythical ideas): young countess anna von walsegg had died on february 14, 1791, and her husband, count von walsegg, an enthusiastic musical amateur who would from time to time put on private performances of compositions that he claimed as his own, discreetly commissioned a requiem from mozart for the fee of fifty ducats in the summer of 1791.48 when mozart died on december 5, 1791, the work was not yet finished, and in order to honor the commission, constanze mozart arranged for its completion, turning to a succession of other composers. mozart's student, franz xaver siissmayr, eventually made the final revisions and delivered the piece to the count, who had it performed as his own work on december 14, 1793. portions of the requiem, however, had already been performed by this time: excerpts were sung on december 10, 1791, at a memorial service for mozart at st. michael's, the parish church of the hofburg. the complete work was first heard by the public on january 2, 1793, in the jahn-saal in vienna, as part of a benefit concert for constanze and her children, arranged by baron gottfried van swieten, and elizabeth kramer three years later the work was given in leipzig. performances in london, hamburg, konigsberg, dresden, and paris followed in the early years of the nineteenth century, as well as publication of the full score, vocal score, and performing parts from a copy of the score sent to count von walsegg. 49 when the allgemeine musikalische zeitung reviewed the full score in 1801, the journal published a letter from siissmayr, which explained that he had been in communication with mozart about the requiem before the composer's death. siissmayr gave an outline of which movements mozart had written and which movements he had written. his clarification, however, did nothing to calm the subsequent investigation into the degree to which siissmayr's musical contributions reflect mozart's ideas, suggesting that, for its early critics, the authenticity of the work had repercussions beyond the editorial issues involved in creating a publishable version. weber highlighted the role of transfiguration in the reception of the requiem from the very first sentence of his initial article, "on the authenticity of the mozart requiem" (182sb), in a claim meant to advance his argument that the historical facts of the genesis of the requiem had been ignored by most listeners: "of all works of our magnificent mozart, there is hardly one that enjoys such universal, such adoring worship as the requiem ... yet it can hardly be called a work by mozart" (l82sb:20s-6, emphasis added).50 noting that the genesis of the piece had been shrouded in a "mystical, almost romantic obscurity," weber hypothesized that mozart's complete or nearly complete manuscript of the composition had been lost and that the published requiem was actually the work of mozart's student, siissmayr. weber went on to call for the compilation of fragments of mozart's sketches and manuscripts that were circulating as "dear relics" (theure reliquien), so that the world might have a "true" facsimile (treues facsimile) of mozart's composition. it was at this point that weber appropriated the language of transfiguration, hitherto used almost mockingly, to support his cause, writ­ ing that it was the "holy duty" of those holding fragments (heilige pflicht des inhabers) to bring them forward (182sb:216). ideas of transfiguration were equally crucial to weber's reservations about the musical style of the requiem-he used musical and theological reasoning to support his attribution of the weaker passages to siissmayr's pen. he felt, for example, that the contrast between the "wild unison" of the final judgment and the sweet depiction of the blessed believers in the confutatis maledictis was too strong. in his opinion, the petition of the believers for grace sounded like mere "slithering" flattery, and he reasoned that had mozart ever asked grace from god while he was alive, he would have certainly prayed for the healing of all humanity rather than selfishly begging for personal forgiveness of sin (l82sb:221).51 on the other hand, 89 90 current musicology weber praised the sanctus and benedictus-two movements attributed to stissmayr-as pious and even sublime, suggesting that perhaps stissmayr had based them on unacknowledged sketches of mozart's. given the situ­ ation-which, as weber explicitly pointed out, was not unlike the case of a painting that had been planned by raphael but executed by a student-weber hoped for the eventual publication of the original sketches and drafts of the requiem, a project that he viewed as the "dear duty of every friend of art" (l825b:227,229).52 adolf bernhard marx quickly responded to what he heard as a challenge to the greatness of mozart's spirit and of the requiem (marx 1825; 1826a). whereas the straightforward tone of weber's article is seemingly concerned with factual and scientific claims, spiritual connotations of transfiguration pervade marx's essay. for marx, music criticism of the requiem should be motivated by a desire to demonstrate that the whole work as well as each of its parts were "composed in mozart's spirit" rather than having to validate the "worth of the work" (1825:379).53 one might say that in marx's estimation, the goal of criticism was to display the musical work as a transfiguration of its composer's spirit. as a manifestation of the composer's ideas and emotional states, the best music was more than a simple vehicle for the expression of ideas and emotional states. to this end, marx stressed that the significance of vocal music exceeded the opportunity it provided for interpreting a text, and he offered a litany of rhetorical questions regarding the web of relationships connecting the text and music of vocal compositions, their composers, and their audiences (1825:379-80). of the requiem he asked: is it the medita­ tion of the one who prays or the meditation of the composer who writes for the one who prays? he likewise emphasized close connections between other famous composers and their religious contexts: did not palestrina administer the holy mass as an unshaken believer in the catholic church? did not handel the protestant triumph by wresting the word from the old church and delivering it into the hands of the people? did not the evangelist sebastian bach unite holy and earthly things? (1825:380). marx's comments about the critic's task of hearing music as the manifes­ tation of its composer's spirit led to his articulation of a new compositional mandate that he perceived to have flourished during mozart's lifetime: the belief that a composer should imbue his work with a true expression of his individuality (treuen abdruck seiner eigenthtimlichkeit geben, 1825:380). mozart, even more so than palestrina, handel, and bach before him, distinguished himself by expressing his individuality in his music. in particular, mozart had offered a gift of "warm love for human kind" (ein geist warmer liebe zum menschen, 1825:380-81). marx heard this "warm love" in the composer's operas as well as in the requiem. he speculated elizabeth kramer that mozart must have recognized that the requiem would convey his own transfiguration and that this recognition inspired him to endow the work with his "pronounced individuality." without his inner sympathy and child­ like love, the work would have been reduced to a coldly-dignified product like so many others (1825:381).54 as one might expect (given marx's concern with originality in music), the critic took exception with the tendency of many of his contemporaries to valorize old church music for setting a universal standard at the expense of modern styles of composition and instrumentation (1825:381). he apparently read weber's stylistic complaints about the requiem as fodder for those who would deny the worth of contemporary church music. thus, he systematically addressed each of weber's music-stylistic issues, often, as weber had, using theological reasoning. weber had argued that the interlude for violin and wind instruments near the end of the tuba mirum at "quid sum miser tunc dicturus?" (what then shall i, poor wretch, reply?) was much too sweet for the serious nature of the text. marx countered: mozart's loving, childlike sense seems fitting and natural, like that of a child of an honorable father ... is this idea, if here in the image of a childlike and naive mozart, not the sense of the christian religion? ... could mozart pray without childlike love? he would have to silence his heart, kill his soul, and bring back the truly dead pharisaical forms. (1825:382)55 on the other hand, marx downplayed weber's difficulties with the vast divide between the redeemed and the damned in the confutatis, reminding his readers that the belief that some would be deemed unrighteous in the final judgment was a part of catholic theology, and noting that, as an artist, mozart's goal was to depict the contrast as vividly as possible (1825:389).56 in the final analysis, marx stressed his rejection of those standing "against the new church music," whom he associated with weber. they were misunder­ standing both mozart and modern religion. indeed, by rejecting works such as the requiem they were participating in the modern erosion of religious consciousness (1825:382). one might say that marx perceived a dangerous disregard among his contemporaries for the possibility of transfiguration through music. a slightly less theoretical and more empirical rebuttal of weber's argument came from abbe maximilian stadler. stadler, who had assisted constanze mozart and her second husband, georg nikolaus nissen, with the ordering of mozart's estate in the late 1790s, drew on his own examination of mozart's manuscripts of the requiem in his defense of the authenticity of the mozart requiem, dedicated to the "admirers of mozart" (verehrern mozart's) in the spring of 1826. using the manuscript sources as evidence, 91 92 current musicology stadler demonstrated that more of the requiem was mozart's than weber had allowed and noted parenthetically that mozart had borrowed musical material from handel. the language in which he staked his claims, however, was not that of a dry empirical report. on the contrary, it reflected stadler's high respect for mozart as a composer and the requiem as a composition. stadler insisted, for instance, that the requiem was still mozart's most perfect and most finished work: ''as far as he was able to execute it before his death, [it is] a genuine and pure work of mozart's" (1826:11).57he also seemed to suggest that weber's hypothesis about the composition had been colored by the critic's misunderstanding of the catholic liturgy and was a misplaced attempt to "reform and improve" catholic ritual. 58 marx's and stadler's contributions, among others, inspired weber to publish a hundred-page response in ciicilia that was dedicated to mozart's "true admirers" (wahren verehrern) and that engaged ideas of transfigura­ tion even more than his previous essays had (weber 1826). responding to stadler, weber now theorized that even if the composition was partially mozart's work, the composer had not intended it for public circulation. his essay focused, however, on a different concern: his belief that the authenticity of the requiem was being judged on aesthetic rather than historical criteria (weber 1826:320).59 weber introduced his argument by suggesting that others had misinterpreted his research as a depreciation of mozart's creativ­ ity and that these critics had responded with a "vindication" of mozart's "divinity" (ehrenrettung des gottlichen, 1826:258). after summarizing the communications of the now almost year-long discussion, weber complained that historical objections to his claims had not yet been raised (1826:313), and in their place incoherent criteria had been proposed for what it meant to be a true admirer of mozart (1826:322-24). seeing the "unmistakable stamp of mozart's divinity" in the composition, his interlocutors had proclaimed the "authenticity of the entire work," a claim that weber found completely invalid (1826:324).60 stadler's recognition of the borrowings from handel in the requiem now became ammunition for weber's offensive. weber noted that the two sides apparently agreed that mozart's genius had shone in the use of handelian quotations in the requiem. why, then, could they not accept that traces of mozart's divinity might coexist with the student work of a composer such as siissmayr? and if siissmayr's contributions were sizable, how could stadler legitimately subordinate the pupil's role and herald the authenticity of the requiem as a composition of mozart's? throughout the essay weber stressed that the presence of mozart's genius in the work was simply not enough to establish the composition's authenti­ city, and, as the critics before him had, turned to raphael (1826:324-25). his argument climaxed in an extended allegory in which raphael becomes a surrogate for mozart in a thinly disguised recounting of the debates of elizabeth kramer the past year (1826:325-34). weber told the story of a hypothetical painting embarked on by raphael (inspired by the painter's studies of peru gino ) and left unfinished at his death. a student of the "transfigured, divine disciple" (that is, raphael's student) completes the figures and groups of figures in the empty half of the canvas, perhaps drawing on ideas of the master. later a "friend of art" stands before the great painting of raphael's and bemoans the fact that it has been poorly completed by an apprentice and that the untouched work of the master has not been preserved for the world to see. an art expert enters and declares the entire work to be raphael's because it contains traces of "raphael's divinity;' the owner of an art gallery acquires the painting and passes it off as raphael's, and an admirer of raphael slanders the friend of art because the latter does not find everything in the painting "divine." the friend of art naturally wants to defend himself but believes that any subsequent confession of his admiration for raphael would sound hollow in contrast to the far more holy admiration in his heart. he explains that, like honesty ("ehrlichkeit"), true admiration is only with great difficulty self-proclaimed and cannot be an "extorted confession of faith" (1826:328-29). in weber's narrative, this honest admiration also entails that the friend of art not assume that the painting is as raphael would have completed it, had he been able to, so as not to blaspheme the "transfigured" (1826:333)y the allusion to both raphael's transfiguration-its allegedly unfinished state, its two halves, and its figures and groups of figures-and to the requiemstreit could scarcely be clearer.62 the fantastic nature of this allegory allowed weber to replace the more historical language of his earlier essay with the spiritual vocabulary of transfiguration. like wackenroder, rochlitz, hoffmann, and marx, weber harnessed the associative power of ideas of transfiguration as he compared the creation of visual art and music. but where his predecessors had mostly focused on transfiguration in the composition of works of art, weber drew attention to the role of transfiguration in the reception of works of art. weber simultaneously acknowledged the presence of transfiguration in references to raphael as transfigured and his work as divine, as he subjected the friend of art's experience of transfiguration to critique. he cautioned against the often misplaced admiration of the masses and searched for a truer admira­ tion for transfigured artists and divinity in art, an admiration grounded in historical honesty. as weber emphasized yet again in his conclusion to the article, historical research should inform one's contemplation of music and ensure that works such as the requiem continue to be studied in the future (1826:351-52). marx's final contributions to the debate over the composition (1826b; 1827) were much more sympathetic to weber's project and developed 93 94 current musicology weber's critique of the superficial type of transfiguration that he believed many listeners had heard in the requiem. while marx thanked weber for his historical insights, it was clearly weber's insistence that the musical public consider the real "content" of the work rather than simply judge the requiem by mozart's name that marx most admired (l826b:269).63 marx noted that weber's demand had not been well-received: unable to reconcile weber's claims with their own beliefs about the composition, members of the public had protested, even attributing weber's comments to artistic jealousy (l826b:270).unfortunately these opinions were not only held by ignorant laypeople; generally respected commentators and musicians such as abbe stadler had been among the most outspoken defenders of the composition, and marx acknowledged his own initial opposition to weber's ideas. from marx's perspective, it seemed to be very difficult for musicians to accept that the requiem was not what they had thought; they preferred to ignore the issue in an attemptto protect their artistic "confession offaith" (1827:186).64 in short, like weber, marx believed that listeners had been more interested in their own experiences of transfiguration than in the thoughtful application of ideas of transfiguration to mozart and his music. although pessimistic about the reception of mozart's requiem, marx was optimistic about the progress of "scientific and artistic explanations" demonstrated by the requiemstreit, declaring fruitless any attempts to oppose that progress (1827:186).65 he was most concerned that musicians might learn to more clearly perceive and express their feelings and ideas about music (1827:186). marx noted that when historical knowledge about a composition was lacking, the work must "support itself," and the critic must look for relationships between the work and its composer's spirit (1826b:2 70).66 while such an approach might be preliminary-marx acknowledged that it would be foolish to pursue it exhaustively before the completion of historical research-it had been productive. marx saw his earlier essays as representatives of this approach because they helped listen­ ers to become more "conscious of the work;' an aim that marx repeatedly highlighted in these final two essays.67 with the hope that listeners might continue to become more conscious of works of music, marx pledged to write no more about mozart's requiem, leaving the "final judgment for a future time of more lively and universal practice" (1827:180).68 transfiguration as a music-critical stance during the 1820s, the ideal of authenticity joined the ideal of transfiguration in the reception history of the requiem and within the larger matrix of kunstreligion. the earliest reception of the requiem, as found in rochlitz's elizabeth kramer anecdotes, had reflected the ideas of a transfigured artist who, at his death, left his greatest work as a transfiguration of himself. performance reports from the first decades of the nineteenth century suggested that the requiem's audiences had participated in this transfiguration through their spiritual listening. in e. t. a. hoffmann's writings, the value of transfiguration had spread from the confines of the church -music debates to the broader category of religious music, where the transfigurations of composer, listener, and work each played a role. by the end of the requiemstreit, both weber and marx had proclaimed themselves mozart devotees and had written about inspired music coming from an inspired composer and about the spirit of a composer spreading into the work of student collaborators through the processes of imitation and organicism. both critics also strove for a greater sense of authenticity as they attempted to better understand the historical facts and musical content of the requiem. their applications of the ideas of transfiguration and authenticity, however, varied in scope and emphasis. marx initially approached the requiem with confidence in its general authenticity as a work of mozart's spirit. his critical perspective was focused on the human, or perhaps superhuman, transfiguration of the composer. for marx, the requiem stood in a long tradition of works in which composers interacted with religious concerns. understood as a work that aroused the best of the spiritual currents of its day, the requiem deserved the utmost admiration and respect from commentators who might hear it as a profoundly transcendent, aesthetic product. when further research proved the requiem to be less a product of mozart's than previously thought, marx acknowledged the facts and encouraged his readers to do likewise. authenticity in music was to be pursued by becoming more conscious of the work, a process that included historical thinking but that was based in an understanding of the work as an expression of its composer's spirit. thus articulated, the authenticity of the composer, listener, and work became components of the wider phenomenon of early nineteenth-century kunstreligion. if over the course of the requiemstreitwe see marx growing to appreciate weber's historical agenda, we also see weber eventually embracing the ideas of transfiguration initially championed by marx, while remaining critical of more superficial instances of transfigured reception. in the end, however, weber preferred to ground his judgments of the requiem in historical and empirical authenticities; he insisted that one could express admiration of mozart through careful evaluation of the manuscript sources, so that only that which was truly worthy of the great composer would be attributed to him. pondering whether the authenticity dispute had benefited art in and of itself, weber concluded that his investigation had brought purity, excellence, 95 96 current musicology and understanding to this "holy antique;' and that it had resulted in promises of a new musical score and a refined understanding of the historical origins of the piece. weber's concern with the work of art itself can be seen as the mildest beginnings of an aestheticism in which the material of art becomes the object of a religion, a kunstreligion less holistic in focus than the matrix suggested by marx's writings, but still historically significant.69 taken collectively and from a broader vantage point, marx and weber may be seen as inaugurating a new era of music history and criticism, which at some moments has located transfiguration as much in the act of document­ ing historical and aesthetic authenticities as in the composer, listener, or the musical work itself. weber's search for the manuscript evidence and marx's reflections on the music-critical process have shaped music scholarship to the present day. our awareness of these historical and critical tendencies might lead to greater self-reflexivity about the perspectives that we bring to our considerations of new musical phenomena and reconsiderations of influential works of favorite composers, such as mozart's requiem. it also might lead us to ponder why we, more often than not, have refrained from characterizing our own endeavors as acts of transfiguration. notes i wish to thank evan bonds and current musicology's readers, especially editor karen hiles, for their helpful criticisms of this essay. all translations are mine unless otherwise indicated. 1. notable contributions include, among others, wolff (1994), bauman (1991), moseley (1989), maunder (1988), marguerre (1962-63), blume (1961), hess (1959), and fischer (1951). 2. kunstreligion also has connections to the idea of absolute music (dahlhaus 1978) and the work-concept (goehr 1992). 3. throughout this essay my use of the word "divine" corresponds to the german word "gottlich," a word that johann christoph adelung defines as "coming from god, or from that which is similar or the same as god, in whom being is grounded" (gott, oder einem gotte ahnlich, gleich, von demselben herriihrend, in dessen wesen gegriindet, 1811:co1. 762). interestingly, adelung's entry is particularly critical of more casual uses of the term: "it is a great misuse when this word is used by particular, rather witty authors for that which is excellent or highly exquisite, where one thus often must hear of divine un­ derstanding, of divine thoughts, and even of divine beauty" (ein groger migbrauch ist es, wenn diese wort von einigen, besonders witzigen schriftstellern fur vortrefflich, in einem hohen grade vorziiglich, gebraucht wird, da man denn oft von einem gottlichen verstande, von einem gottlichen gedanken, ja wohl gar von einer gottlichen schonheit horen mug, 1811:cols.762-63). 4. see the oxford dictionary of the christian church, 3rd. rev. ed., (2005) s.v. "transfigura­ tion." 5. "wie dich der edle konigliche zorn / umglantze, deine reize mir verklarte / du bist das schonste weib auf dieser erde" (schiller [1800]1984:362). 6. see a historical dictionary of german figurative usage, (1994), s.v. "verklaren." elizabeth kramer 7. see definitions in zedler (1732) and adelung (1811). on emperor worship, see gradel (2002). on relationships between ancient christian and pagan understandings of apotheosis, see the oxford dictionary of the christian church, 3rd. rev. ed., (2005), s.v. "apotheosis" and s.v. "deification." the title "divus" (the same title applied to roman emperors on their apo­ theosis) was given to saints on the occasion of their canonization in medieval christianity but with very different resonances. while the gnostics and eastern mystics sometimes used the greek term an08tcocl'li; ("apotheosis") for divination in the sense of "union with god," most of the time this religious union was described as 8tcocl'll; or 8£onoillcn~ ("deification"). 8. for a summary of these references to composers, see chapter four of my dissertation (kramer 2005:175-216). on the relationship of some of these descriptions to the concept of musical genius, see kivy (2001). slightly earlier references to the apotheosis of a composer may be found in franyois couperin's programmatic suites of the 1720s and in the english reception of handel from the 1780s. 9. in addition to the references to mozart's transfiguration, mozart was ascribed immortality and was proposed as an object of worship in writings dating from as early as the first three years of the nineteenth century ([rochlitz ]1801:8). see also the book published anonymously and attributed to i. f. arnold, mozarts geist: seine kurze biografie und iisthetische darstellung seiner werke. eine bildungsbuch fur junge tonkunstler, mit dessen portrait: "das wunder seiner zeiten, und der gegenstand der verehrung aller zeiten" ([arnold] 1803:viii). 10. "so dab er mir hier nicht mehr wie ein mensch, sondern wie ein wahrer verklarter geist vorkommt, der sich uber alles irdische hinaus geschwungen, hat" (forkel [1802]1999:19). 11. "die dreyeinigkeit seh ich des schonen, des wahren, des guten; mozart, haydn und bach.-der du mit machtiger hand neue welten dem chaos entriesst" (august 1810:365). 12. "hr. bridi wahlte unter den gefeyertesten meistern der tonkunst sieben, und indem er auf eine wurdige weise ihre unsterblichkeit andeuten wollte, zeigte er damit auch an, dass dieser ort der gottlichen harmonie geweiht sey. die auserwahlten kunstler, deren gemalte brustbilder man hier von magis chern halbdunkel umgeben, und mit sinnreichen emblemen geschmuckt, bewundert, sind: mozart, palestrina, gluck, jomelli, handel, haydn und sacchini. ihrer irdischen hulle entnommen, erblickt man diese grossen meister in idealen gestaltung lieblicher kinder-genien, denen apollo den verdienten lorberkranz darzureichen im begriff ist ... der von apollo am weitesten entfernte genius, und von ihm zuerst gekront, ist mozart's genius. er schwebt durch die lufte, hat den tempel des nach­ ruhmes bereits erreicht, und halt in hocherbobener hand ein blatt, auf welchem der name des himmlischen sangers zu lesen ist, welchen jener beseelte und begeisterte. seine stirne ist mit dem empfangenen lorber geziert. nach mozart's genius bewegt sich, freudig, das gleiche ziel und gleichen ruhm errungen zu haben, palestrina's genius nach dem tempel; unmittelbar darauf erblickt das auge in reizender gruppirung die zwey genien jomelli's und haydn's. auch diese beyden geister haben schon fruher die krone der unsterblichkeit erhalten, und eilen dem tempel des ruhmes und der ehre zu, zuerst jomelli, nach ihm haydn ... des kunstlers idee war ohne zweifel diese: damit anzuzeigen, dass der menschliche geist, urn zur moglich hochsten vollkommenheit, die ihn der unsterblichkeit wurdig macht, zu gelangen, sich erst durch fleiss, studium und beharrlichkeit zu diesem gipfel empor schwingen mussen; wenn sein genius aber einmal zu der vollendung gelangt ist, und vor dem gottlichen richterstuhle die himmlische weihe empfangen hat, so bedarf er keines hebels, urn gleich andern verklarten wesen, ja wie gott apollo selbst, die olympisch-atherischen gefilde zu durchwallen-" (haser 1828:678-80). the volume reviewed had been published in june of 1827, only months after beethoven's death. 97 98 current musicology 13. the doctor asked, "would not a roman augur, in view of the accidental commotion of the elements, have taken this apotheosis for granted?" (netti1956:43). the doctor's state­ ment was reported on may 20,1827, and first published in the wiener zeitschrijt fur kunst, literature, theater, und mode (april 30, 1842). 14. "ich glaube an gott, mozart und beethoven, ingleichen an ihre junger und apostel;-ich glaube an den heiligen geist und an die wahrheit der einen, unteilbaren kunst;-ich glaube, dab diese kunst von gott ausgeht und in den herzen aller erleuchteten menschen lebt;-ich glaube, dab, wer nur einmal in den erhabenen genussen dieser hohen kunst schwelgte, fur ewig ihr ergeben sein mub und sie nie verlaugnen kann;-ich glaube, dab alle durch diese kunst selig werden, und dab es daher jedem erlaubt sei, fur sie hungers zu sterben;-ich glaube, dab ich durch den tod hochbegluckt sein werde;-ich glaube, dab ich auf erden ein dissonierender akkord war, der sogleich durch den tod herrlich und rein aufgelaset werden wird. ich glaube an ein jungstes gericht, das alle diejenigen furchtbar verdammen wird, die es wagten, in dieser welt wucher mit der hohen teuschen kunst zu treiben, die sie schandeten und entehrten aus schlechtigkeit des herzens und schnader gier nach sinnen­ lust;-ich glaube, dab diese verurteilt sein werden, in ewigkeit ihre eigne musik zu haren. ich glaube, dab dagegen die treuen junger der hohen kunst in einem himmlischen gewebe von sonnendurchstrahlten, dustenden wohlkangen verklart, und mit dem gattlichen quell aller harmonie in ewigkeit vereint sein werden.-moge mir ein gnadig los beschieden sein!-amen!" (wagner [1841]1912:135). 15. as will be seen below, rochlitz drew these connections between immortal composers and immortal works around the same time that he published his mozart anecdotes. 16. "die werke keines kunstlers haben wohl so viel verwesliches bey dem unverweslichen, so viel sterbliches bey dem unsterblichen, als die werke des musikers" (rochlitz 1800a:41718). 17. "das sie auf den kunstler, auf die werthschatzung desselben, und eben dadurch auch auf seine verdienste und werke hinweist" (rochlitz 1800a:417). 18. raphael's transfiguration of christ is currently held by the pinacoteca vaticana in rome. the transfiguration had been commissioned for the cathedral of narbonne by cardinal giulio de medici after he was appointed archbishop of narbonne in late 1516, and the artist probably started his work sometime during 1517. the cardinal was so impressed with the finished project that he had it kept at his residence, the palace of the cancelleria, instead of taking it to the cathedral. when the cardinal became pope clement viii in 1523, he donated the transfiguration to the church of san pietro in montorio. the altarpiece remained in san pietro until 1797 when napoleon transported it to paris to be placed in the louvre. it remained in paris until 1815 when the italian sculptor antonio canova secured its return to the pope. it has been displayed at the vatican since 1816 (fogg art museum 1981:5-6). 19. "e nel vero egli vi fece figure e teste, oltra la bellezza straordinaria, tanto di nuovo e di vario e di bello, che si fa giudizio commune de gli artefici che questa opera, fra tante quante egli ne fece, sia la pili celebrata, la pili bella e la pili divina ... nella perfezzione della arte di rafaello ... che finitolo, come ultima cosa che affare avesse, non tocco pili pennelli, sopragiugnendoli la morte" (vasari [1550] 1986:638). 20. although vasari insisted that raphael finished the transfiguration and that it was his own work, many theorists down to the present day assume that most or all of the lower half of the painting was executed by giulio romano (gould 1982:479). 21. in 1725, jonathan richardson, for instance, found the two scenes completely unrelated (gould 1982:480). elizabeth kramer 22. "wie will man nun das obere und untere trennen? beides ist eins: unten das leidende, bedurftige, oben das wirksame, hulfreiche, beides aufeinander sich beziehend, ineinander einwirkend. lagt sich denn, urn den sinn auf eine andere weise auszusprechen, ein ideeller bezug aufs wirkliche von diesem lostrennen? ... nein! er hat wie die natur jederzeit recht, und gerade da am grundlichsten, wo wir sie am wenigsten begreifen" (goethe 1967:454). 23. "dies gemahlde, worin wir noch jetzt das elend der erde, den trost edler manner, und die glorie des himmelreichs in so herrlicher vereinigung dargestellt sehn,-und der meister, von dem es erdacht und ausgefuhr war, kalt und bleich daneben" (wackenroder [1797]1991:122). 24. "endlich rig er sich mit gewalt auf, und streckte mit dem heigesten verlangen die arme zum himmel empor; er fullte seinen geist mit der hochsten poesie, mit lautem, jauchzendem gesange an, und schrieb in einer wunderbaren begeisterung, aber immer unter heftigen gemuthsbewegungen, eine passionmusik nieder, die mit ihren durchdringenden, und alle schmerzen des leidens in sich fassenden melodieen, ewig ein meisterstuck bleiben wird. seine seele war wie ein kranker, der in einem wunderbaren paroxismus grog ere starke als ein gesunder zeigt" (wackenroder [1797]1991:143-44). 25. "wir begreifen die wege des himmels nicht.-aber lagt uns wiederum die mannig­ faltigkeit der erhabenen geister bewundern, welche der himmel zum dienste der kunst auf die welt gesetzt hat. ein raphael brachte in aller unschuld und unbefangenheit die al­ lergeistreichsten werke hervor, worin wir den ganzen himmel sehn" (wackenroder [1797] 1991:144). 26. "er fing sogleich an, an dem verlangten zu arbeiten. mit jedem takt schien sein interesse an der sache zuzunehmen: er schrieb tag und nacht. sein korper hielt die anstrengung nicht aus: er sank uber dem arbeiten einigemal in ohnmacht. alles zureden zur massigung in der arbeit war vergebens. nach einigen tagen erst erhielt es seine frau uber ihn, dass er mit ihr in den prater fuhr. er sass immer still und in sich gekehrt. endlich verleugnete er es nicht mehr-er glaube gewiss, er arbeite dies stuck zu seiner eignen todesfeyer. von dieser idee liess er sich nicht abbringen; arbeitete also, wie raphael seine verklarung, stets im gefuhl seines nahen todes, und lieferte, wie dieser, die verklarung seiner selbst" (rochlitz 1798a:150-51). 27. it should be noted that luther's translation of the bible uses both the idea ofverwandlung (transformation or metamorphosis) and that of verklarung (transfiguration) to describe the changes a christian believer experiences during his life and at his death. see, for instance, 1 cor. 15:51 and 2 cor. 3:18. 28. memorial performances of the requiem abounded in cities such as leipzig, hamburg, paris, berlin, and vienna in the first thirty years after mozart's death. in addition to those cited in the body of this article, see anon. (1823) and gruber (1994:65-66, 160). 29. "beyde fuhlten die kalte hand des todes, die sie schon ergriff; beyde wollten sich erst noch denkmahler fur die ewigkeit stiften; beyde wahlten die verklarung-raphael, des erlosers, mozart der erloseten. mit dem eifer deren, welche die larve des todes urn sich schweben sehen, und mit der anstrengung deren, welche fuhlen 'das ist dein leztes,' arbeiteten beyde und gaben hier gleichsame die quintessenz ihrer heiligsten gefuhle. beyder verklarungen verklarten sie selbst. raphaels werk wurde das erste der neuern mahlerey, mozarts, das erste der neuern religiosen musik; doch finden manche kenner die haltung einiger theile in beyden etwas zu schwarz" (rochlitz 1800b:651, emphasis in original). 30. "das zahlreiche auditorium theilte mit wahrer hingebung den schonen willen und die begeisterung eines orchesters, das man nur selten so stark, so gut und mit solchen intentionen antrift" (z. 1805:85). 99 100 current musicology 31. "dab nichts den unendlich hohen geist dieses werks und seinen tieferschutternden eindruck schwachte" (anon. 1805a:362). 32. "ward es doch mit kraft und wurde gegeben, und ergiff mich mit seinem erhabenen geiste vom neuen tief und innig" (anon. 1805b:413). 33. in addition to the concerts in hamburg, konigsberg, and leipzig cited in this paragraph, there were several other performances of the work without explicit funerary ties (rochlitz 1799; anon. 1800; anon. 1805a; anon. 1805b:413; gruber 1994:34, 116). 34. ''aus dies em werke siehet man, dass mozart-wie so mancher grosse mann-zeit seines lebens nicht an seinem platze war. er war der mann, die jezt so gesunkene religiose auf den thron uber alle musik. in diesem fache ware er der erste kunstler der welt geworden, denn jenes sein leztes werk gehort schon, nach dem einstimmigen urtheile aller kenner, selbst derer, die sonst nicht mozarts freunde sind-unter das vollendetste, was die neueste kunst aufzuweisen hat. die vorhandenen messen von ihm sind meistens machte, und die er grossentheils mit recht, lieber vergessen wissen wollte" (rochlitz 1798b:177-80). 35. although prevalent in descriptions of performances and publications of other masses and service music in the allgemeine musikalische zeitung, the term "kirchenmusik" is conspi­ cuously absent from many early reviews of mozart's requiem. 36. "ganz umgestimmt und trube wendete sich mozart hier zu den andern, und sagte-dem sinne nach, obschon nicht auf diese weise: das ist mir auch einmal wieder so ein kunstge­ schwatz! bey euch aufgeklarten protestanten, wie ihr euch nennt, wenn ihr eure religion in kopfe habt-kann etwas wahres darin seyn; das weis ich nicht. aber bey uns ist das anders. ihr fuhlt gar nicht, was das will: agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem u. dgl. aber wenn man von fruhester kindheit, wie ich, in das mystische heiligthum unsrer religion eingefuhrt ist; wenn man da, als man noch nicht wusste, wo man mit seinen dunkeln, aber drangenden gefuhlen hinsolle, in voller inbrunst des herzens seinen gottesdienst abwartet, ohne eigentlich zu wissen was man wollte; und leichter und erhoben daraus wegging, ohne eigentlich zu wissen was man gehat habe ... dann ist's anders. nun ja, das gehet freylich dann durch das leben in der welt verlohren: aber-wenigstens ist's mir so-wenn man nun die tausendmal gehorten worte nochmals vornimmt, sie in musik zu setzen, so kommt das alles wieder, und steht vor einem, und bewegt einem die seele-" (rochlitz 1801:494-95, emphasis in original). 37. a fine overview of mozart's thoughts about religion can be found in the catalog from an exhibition on mozart's requiem at the austrian national library. see leibnitz (1991). 38. the entire statement reads: "er hat indessen in einem einzigen kirchenwerke sein inneres aufgeschlossen; und wer wird nicht von der gluhendsten andacht, von der heiligsten verzuckung ergiffen, die daraus hervorstrahlt?" (hoffmann [1814]1967:227). 39. "die kraft, die heilige wurde der alten musik mit dem reichen schmuck der neueren verbindet" (hoffmann [1814] 1967:233). a prime example of music found lacking in power and dignity may be found in the reception ofpergolesi's stab at mater around 1800. see ruiter (1990:8-12), will (2004), and kramer (2005:228-32). 40. "sonst bleibt die musik uberall reiner kultus, und nur als solcher ertonen die wunderbaren akkorde, die von dem j enseits sprechen, ja, die das jenseits selbst sind, in ihrer eigentumlichen wurde und kraft.-das requiem, im konzertsaal aufgefuhrt, ist nicht dieselbe musik; die erscheinung eines heiligen auf dem ball!" (hoffmann [1814]1967:233). 41. one could argue that richard wagner was also concerned with ideas of power and dignity as he emphasized one commonly recognized vehicle of these attributes-a composition's elizabeth kramer musical structure-in his comments about mozart's requiem: in the requiem, "religious music really touched its apogee in point of structure" (wagner 1896: lo3). 42. "ihr [die kirche] irdischer untergang war indessen die geistige verklarung, in der sie mit den getreuen in bestandiger gemeinschaft bleiben" (hoffmann [1814] 1967:2lo). 43. "keine kunst geht so rein aus der inner vergeistigung des menschen hervor, keine kunst be­ darf so nur einzig reingeistiger, atherischer mittel, als die musik" ([ 1814]1967:212). on ideas of "aesthetic" and "invisible" churches see chytry (1989:121-22) and kant (1998:111-12). 44. hoffmann's "invisible church" provides a space for composers to "express the feelings deepest in their hearts" (das tiefim innersten empfundene auszusprechen, [1814]1967:210). the feelings of the "unknown world," described in hoffmann's review of the fifth symphony, are so profound that they are cognitively inexpressible (aile durch begriffe bestimmbaren gefuhle zuriicklabt, urn sich dem unaussprechlichen hinzugeben, [1810]1967:34). 45. commentators on hoffmann's review of the fifth symphony have most often focused on the sinister characteristics of the unknown world opened up by beethoven's instrumental music. while this dark imagery is quite striking, the unknown world may also be interpreted more broadly to include the less terrifying descriptions of haydn, mozart, and beethoven's music: the "eternal youth" of haydn's contributions; the mixture of love and sorrow in mozart's; the consumption but not destruction oflove, hope, and joy in beethoven's (hoff­ mann [1810] 1967:35-36). hoffmann's descriptions of the invisible church in his essay are equally concerned with love, hope, joy, and infinity, although these descriptions clearly rep­ resent a less troubled world than the unknown world: "mag die zeit der erfiillung unseres hoffens nicht mehr fern sein, mag ein frommes leben in friede und freudigkeit beginnen, und die musik frei und kraftig ihre seraphsschwingen regen, urn aufs neue den flug zu dem jenseits zu beginnen, das ihre heimat ist, und von dem trost und heil in die unruhvolle brust des menschen hinabstrahlt!" (hoffmann [18l4] 1967:235) 46. scholars have tended either to read "old and new church music" through the ideas of hoffmann's review of beethoven's fifth symphony or to cordon off "old and new church music" to its own sacred space. influenced by dahlhaus's emphasis on the idea of absolute music found in hoffmann's review of beethoven's fifth symphony, lippman (1992) argues that the essay on church music should be read through the lens of absolute music. dahl­ haus (1978) himself tends toward this view, but much more subtly. charlton (1989) is also perplexed by hoffmann's interest in church music, hypothesizing that hoffmann avoided the church at all costs. garratt (2002), on the other hand, identifies a space for hoffmann's ideas about church music separate from the space that hoffmann creates for his ideas about music such as beethoven's fifth symphony, but provides little evidence of a truly distinct perspective in the church music reviews as opposed to the symphonic reviews. 47. weber's review ofthe first edition ofthibaut's ueber reinheit der tonkunst (thibaut 1825) appeared in june of 1825 in the third volume of the journal cacilia (weber 1825a:73-88). the next issue included an article by weber in which he reflected on requiem composition more generally. the publication of weber's own requiem had been reviewed in the first volume of the allgemeine musikalische zeitung mit besonderer rucksicht auf den oster­ reichischen kaiserstaat (anon. 1817). mozart's requiem also received negative criticism in ludwig tieck's well-known phantasus ([1812] 1985), where the character ernst praises mozart's music with the explicit exception of the requiem. 48. for more detailed documentation of the events discussed in this paragraph, see wolff (1994). 101 102 current musicology 49. breitkopf & hartel published the first edition of the full score in the summer of 1800. johann anton andre published the vocal score in 1801, and the chemische druckerei released the performing parts in 1812 (wolff 1994:116-17). 50. "von allen werken unsers herrlichen mozart, genieset kaum irgend eines so allgemeine, so vergotternde anbetung, als sein requiem ... ja kaum wirklich ein werk von mozart zu nennen ist" (weber 1825b:205-6). 51. "wenigstens im hochsten grade unwahrscheinlich ist es mir, dass mozart, der so edel aufzufassen verstund, dessen ganzes innere so herrlich und gross, und einer solchen, ich mogte sagen, ohrenblaserischen, selbstsuchtigen idee so gradezu entgegengesetzt gewesen sein muss, der, hatte er sich im leben yom lieben gott eine gnade zu erbitten gehabt, sicherlich weit eher heil fur die gesammte menschheit erbeten und vielleicht grade nur sich dabei vergessen, als sich eine gnade auf kosten der sunder erfleht haben wurde,-dass mozart, sag' ich, solche behandlung beabsichtet haben konne, ist mir wenigstens im hochsten grade unwahrscheinlich" (weber 1825b:221). 52. "und dass es daher theure pflicht jedes kunstfreundes ist, zur unverbruchlich treuen bekanntmachung jener original-manuscripte auf jede ihm mogliche art beizutragen" (weber 1825b:227, 229). weber was clearly interested in cacilia's potential involvement in this endeavor. 53. "wir hoffen grundlichere ueberzeugung aus einer untersuchung, ob das ganze requiem in mozarts geiste komponirt und in seinen theilen diesem geiste gemass ausgefuhrt worden sei . .. nicht der werth des werkes, sondern seine abstammung aus mozarts geist, seine aechtheit als mozartsches produkt ist zu prtifen" (marx 1825:379). on marx's music criti­ cism, see burnham (1990). 54. "wurde mozart aus seinem vornehmsten wirkungskreise, der liebewarmen darstellung des menschlichen lebens und treibens, berufen, eine kirchliche feier zu begehen, gab ihn das vorgefuhl des nahen todes die u eberzeugung, dass sie zu seiner verklarung bestimmt sei, so konnte sein bisheriges leben, seine ausgepragte eigenthumlichkeit damit nicht verloscht werden, sondern es musste sein erster entschluss sein, seine hochste kunstlerkraft diesem wtirdigsten und ehrendsten gegenstande zuzuwenden ... ohne jene sinnliche erregbarkeit, ohne jenes innige mitgefuhl und die kindliche liebe wtirde mozarts requiem, wie so viele werke anderer kunstler, auch nur jene kalte wurde" (marx 1825:381). 55. "dem kindlichen liebevollen sinne mozarts scheint es so eigen und naturlich, wie ein kind dem hohen vater ... 1st denn diese idee, wenn gleich hier von mozart kindlich naiv gestaltet, in ihrem grunde nicht dem sinne der christlichen religion gemass? ... konnte mozart anders beten, als kindlich liebend? er hatte also sein herz schweigen, das leben seiner seele todten und wahrhaft pharisaisch todte formen zuruck bringen sollen, deren leben !angst entflohen war?" (marx 1825:382). 56. "dass einen theil der geister im letzten gerichte verdammniss treffen werde, ist, soviel wir wissen und dieser text bezeugt, als feststehender glaubenssatz der katholischen kirche zu betrachten" (marx 1825:389). 57. "es ist sein vollkommenstes, sein, so weit er es vor seinem tode ausfuhren konnte, vollendetestes, ein echtes, reines werk mozart's" (stadler 1826:11). 58. "wie sich herr weber zum verbesserer und reformator des kath. rituals aufwarf" (stadler 1826:7). 59. "also nicht von historischer seite-wohl aber von asthetischen gesichtspuncten aus, haben manche versucht, ihren glauben an die durchgangige echtheit des requiem zu be­ grunden" (weber 1826:320). elizabeth kramer 60. "so hort ja auch eben darum dieser stempel [mozartscher gottlichkeit] auf, ein beweis der durchgangigen echtheit des ganzen werkes zu sein" (weber 1826:324). 61. "honesty" is subtly incorporated into weber's repeated references to raphael as the trans­ figured one on page 333: "und wer, wenn er die grosse des verklarten meisters wahrhaft zu verehren und zu begreifen vermag, wird solche behauptungen wagen mogen, welche, unter umstanden wie diese, nichts anders als lasterungen gegen den verklarten sind, ja sogar factisch unwahre anschuldigungen sein konnen" (weber 1826:333). 62. allusions to questions of authenticity in art history and literature can be found elsewhere in the requiemstreit but are most extensively developed in weber's essay. 63. "diese ausfiihrung musste nun zwiefach [sic] anregen: einmal zur historischen diskussion; dann zur vertheidigung der meinung, die man bisher von der fraglichen komposition gefasst und oft genug mit ostentation, aber ohne griinde ausgelegt hatte. in beiden beziehungen musste herrn gottfried weber's unternehmen dankenswerth er­ scheinen" (marx 1826b:269). 64. "wie schwer entbehren die musiker die fahigkeit dazu, ohne die keine gross ere schopfung mehr durchzufuhren ist" and "nichts haben die musiker gethan, urn ihren liebling unversehrt und ihre sonst vielfach in allgemeinen exklamationen kund gegebene verehrung, diesen artikel ihres kiinstlerischen glaubensbekenntnisses zu schiitzen" (marx 1827:186). 65. "wie fruchtlos es in unsern tagen und unserm volke gegeniiber ist, den gang wissen­ schaftlicher und kiinstlerischer erorterungen durch niedrige einmischungen hemmen zu wollen" (marx 1827:186). 66. "sollte der geschichtliche beweis iiber die aechtheit des requiems unvollkommen bleiben; so kann es dar auf an, aus dem werke selbst denselben zu unterstiitzen; es musste dann erortert werden, wieweit der inhalt der komposition mozarts geist und kiinstler­ karakter entsprechend sei" (marx 1826b:270). 67. the formulation first appears in the essay of 1826, where marx speculated that even "enthusiasts" might become more conscious of the musical content of the requiem (damit sie nur endlich sich bewusst wiirden, was sie am requiem hatten, 1826b:270). in his essay of 1827, marx noted that few musicians were able to raise their ideas about music to con­ sciousness (sich von ihren gefuhlen und gefahren meinungen zu klarer anschauung, zum bewusstsein zu erheben, 1827:186). in this essay, he suggested that his earlier writings had been beneficial, even though they had been in opposition to weber's ideas, because through them the public had become more conscious of the work: "der unterzeichnete trat bei dem beginn der untersuchung diese opposition gegen weber an ... und sah sich getauscht. gleichwohl ware dies der erspriesslichste weg gewesen. in jedem falle ware man iiber das werk zum bewusstsein gekommen" (1827:180). 68. "und so scheiden wir denn von der sache-ihre letzte entscheidung von einer kiinftigen zeit regerer und allgemeiner thatigkeit zu erwarten" (marx 1827:186). 69. for more on aestheticism, see chytry (1989) and biirger, biirger, and schulte-sasse (1979). references abrams, m. h. 1953. the mirror and the lamp: romantic theory and the critical tradition. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 1971. natural supernaturalism: tradition and revolution in romantic literature. new york: w. w. norton. 103 104 current musicology adelung, johann christoph. 1811. grammatische-kritisches worterbuch der hochdeutschen mundart . .. von johann christoph adelung. vienna: b. ph. bauer. anon. 1800. kurze nachrichten. allgemeine musikalische zeitung 2: 296-97. anon. 180sa. vermischte nachrichten: konigsberg in preuben. berlinische musikalische zeitung 1: 362. anon. 180sb. nachricht uber die concerte der thomas-schule zu leipzig von winterhalbjahr, 1805-06. berlinische musikalische zeitung 1: 412-13. anon. 1817. recension. requiem. den manen der sieger bey leipzig und la belle alliance geweiht ... von gottfried weber. allgemeine musikalische zeitung mit besonderer rucksicht auf den osterreichischen kaiserstaat 1: 229-32. anon. 1818. todtenfeyer. allgemeine musikalische zeitung mit besonderer rucksicht auf den osterreichischen kaiserstaat 2: 285-86. anon. 1820. gedachtsnissfeyer in leipzig. allgemeine musikalische zeitung mit besonderer rucksicht auf den osterreichischen kaiserstaat 7: 49-51. anon. 1823. miscellen. allgemeine musikalische zeitung mit besonderer rucksicht auf den osterreichischen kaiserstaat 7: 80. arnim, bettina von. 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[1799] 1991. phantasien tiber die kunst, fur freunde der kunst, edited by ludwig tieck. in samtliche werke und briefe: historisch-kritische ausgabe, vol. 1, edited by silvio vietta and richard littlejohns, 147-252. heidelberg: carl winter universitatsverlag. ---. 1971. confessions and fantasies, translated by mary hurst schubert. university park: pennsylvania state university. wagner, richard. [1841] 1912. ein ende in paris. in samtliche schriften und dichtungen: volks-ausgabe, 6th ed., vol. 1, 114-36. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. ---.1896. pergolesi's "stabat mater." in pilgrimage to beethoven and other essays. wagner's prose works, vol. 7, translated by william ashton ellis, 102-7. london: kegan, paul, trench, and trtibner. weber, gottfried. 1825a. review of ueber reinheit der tonkunst by anton friedrich justus thibaut. cacilia 3: 73-88. ---. 1825b. dber die echtheit des mozartschen requiem. cacilia 3: 205-29. ---.1826. weitere nachrichten tiber die echtheit des mozartschen requiem. cacilia 4: 257-352. webster, james. 1997. the creation, haydn's late vocal music, and the musical sublime. in haydn and his world, edited by elaine sis man, 57-102. princeton, nj: princeton university press. will, richard. 2004. pergolesi's stabat mater and the politics of feminine virtue. musical quarterly 87: 570-614. wolff, christoph. 1994. mozart's requiem: historical and analytical studies, documents, score, translated by mary whittall. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. z. 1805. untitled. berlinische musikalische zeitung 1: 85-86. zedler, johann heinrich. 1732. grosses volistandiges universal-lexicon alier wissenschaft und kiinste. halle: johann heinrich zedler. 107 current.musicology.81.1-108.pdf the manuscript of the schumann piano concerto malcolm frager of what benefit is musicological research to the performer? in my own experience i have often found that musicological methods have helped me to better realize the original intent of a composer. has anyone ever noticed, for instance, the unusual metronome marking in the major section of the schumann piano concerto: andante espressivo (d. = 72)? this metronome marking is precisely the same as the metronome indication of the finale: allegro vivace (d. = 72). for years i wondered if these markings were authentic. it seemed logical that, whatever the speed of schumann's metronome, if the markings were authentic, he intended these two passages to be played at the same tempo. one day about six years ago i decided that the only way to ascertain the authenticity of these markings was to take a look at the manuscript, but i had no idea where it was, nor had i ever met anyone who knew of its existence. oddly enough, it was a photograph in georg eismann's schumann biographyl which led me to the manuscript. this photograph had a caption, "schumann halls, zwickau," and i decided to write to the director of this landmark, the house in which schumann was born, and ask ifhe knew where i could find the manuscript of the a minor piano concerto. a few months later i received a reply saying that i should get in touch with the owners of the wiede collection. until recently, this collection, which contains over seventy schumann manuscripts, was in the possession of mr. alfred ancot in aigenstadl, near passau, germany. my only reason for wanting to see the manuscript of the concerto was to verify the authenticity of the metronome indications. i was not really expecting anything unusual and was therefore very much surprised when mr. ancot handed me the manuscript in aigenstadl. i saw, first of all, that i was looking at two orchestrations of the first movement, one superimposed upon the other. what i had before me was not only the manuscript of the concerto but also the manuscript of what once was the fantasiafor piano and orchestra, a one-movement work which schumann had written in 1841 but never published. i had always assumed that this fantasia later became the first movement of the concerto without any alteration. but here i saw that the orchestration of the fantasia was more symphonic and in many ways more imaginative than the orchestration of the first movement of the concerto. the fantasia, i.e., the first movement of the concerto, is in robert schumann's hand with the exception of the solo part, which is extremely neat and may have been written out by clara schumann. the second and third movements are entirely in robert's hand. in all three movements there are a few pencil markings, which appear to be a third party's emendations. clara may have used this manuscript when she played through the fantasia at an informal orchestral rehearsal in leipzig in 1841; the piece was never performed in public during schumann's lifetime. by studying a fac83 simile of the manuscript, which mr. ancot later sent me, i was able not only to reconstruct the original orchestration of the fantasia, which i have since performed in a number of countries, but also to correct several misprints which appear in almost every edition of the concerto. these include the following: * first movement (allegro affettuoso) mm. 3 and 4: the last two chords in the right hand of the piano should be (ex. 1): example 1 the chords printed in all scores are written in the manuscript in very small notes and appear to be merely an indication to the soloist of what the orchestra is playing. third measure before a: fourth beat is if (see parallel passage in reca pitulation). animato: accents in the left hand are missing in all editions. in the ms. the left hand reads (ex. 2) : example 2 mm. 26-28 of the animato: the original diminuendo has been scratched out in pencil, -=-::::::: i::::::::-:=added in mm. 26 and 27, and fp penciled in at m. 28 in the horns and strings. m. 29 of the animato: p scratched out in pencil. 8 mm. before b: p missing in all editions. mm. 14-17 ofb: accents in the right hand are missing in all editions. in the ms. the right hand reads (ex. 3) : example 3 andante espressivo: strings are marked sempre p, not sempre pp. fifteenth measure ofd: 4th beat in the right hand should be dfb, not bfb as in most editions. 84 three measures preceding change of key signature to a major (ex. 4): example 4 mm. 26-28 of the second animato: see note for mm. 26-28 of the first animato. mm. 44 and 45 of the second animato: the grace note, missing in the first edition, is in the ms! (ex. 5): example 5 m. 5 of the un poco andante section of the cadenza: espressivo. intermezzo (andantino grazioso) m. 2: last three sixteenths in the right hand should read (ex. 6) : example 6 mm. 23-24: staccato, corresponding to violin i (ex. 7): example 7 m. 86: ditto. m. 98: the solo part pp. allegro vivace eighth measure before g: the soloist's part piano. mm. 33-36 of g: one phrase per measure in the left hand (see parallel passage in the exposition). mm. 53 and 54 before k: right hand originally (ex. 8): example 8 -------ret it; 85 mm. 5 and 93 of the coda: mordent on first note in right hand. m. 144 of the coda: the solo part is marked cresco the metronome markings which appear in the first edition of the concerto and in almost all subsequent editions are substantiated in the manuscript. in her later years clara schumann appears to have felt no compunction in changing her husband's metronome markings. in her edition of, among other works, the scenes from childhood and the davidsbundler dances, she alters almost every one of the metronome markings printed during schumann's lifetime. in the second of the davidsbundler, for instance, she changes the marking from .i = 138 to .i = 96, and she slows down the "traumerei" in the scenes from childhood from .i = 100 to .i = 80. she does this time and again and in almost every case radically alters the mood of the music. and yet even clara, in her edition of the a minor piano concerto, does not change the metronome indications which we find in the manuscript and the first edition! in spite of years of differing tradition, i believe that these original metronome markings have validity. the opening allegro affettuoso is marked d = 84, which is very fast. the ad major section in the first movement and the opening of the last movement are both marked d. = 72. i have come to believe that schumann did not originally intend the andante espressivo to be played too slowly nor the finale too fast. the intermezzo, which is marked andantino grazioso, j = 120, should not be too slow. i know that a musical passage can be played at many different speeds and still sound convincing, and i realize that the matter of tempo is a very personal one. but i believe that the metronome markings which schumann gave indicate the tempos he originally intended. even if he later changed his mind (although there is no evidence to this effect), i think we should at any rate take his original ideas into consideration. in his denkund dichtbiichlein schumann wrote: "die erste konzeption ist immer die nattirlichste und beste. der verstand irrt, das gefuhl nicht." ("the first conception is always the most natural and the best. the intellect errs, feeling does not.") and three pages later we find this little dialogue between eusebius and master raro: eusebius: oft konnen zwei lesarten von gleichem wert sein. (two versions can often be of equal value.) raro: die ursprungliche ist meist die bessere. (the original is usually the better.)2 true enough, master raro, but how can the performer tell what the original reading is ifhe has never seen it? here may i make a plea to anyone who has the time and resources at his disposal to do for schumann what kochel did for mozart or jahns for weber: to compile a catalogue of all schumann's works and list the whereabouts of all extant manuscripts and the facts concerning early printed editions. the schumann catalogues now available are woefully incomplete and inaccurate. for the benefit of both 86 performer and musicologist, the compilation of a new catalogue is indispensable. notes 1 robert schumann: eine biographie in wort und bild (leipzig: veb deutscher verlag fur musik, 1964). 2 see schumann's gesammelte schriften iiber musik und musiker (leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, 1914), vol. i, p. 25. see also georg von dadelsen's article, "die 'fassung letzter hand' in der musik," acta musicologica 33 (january-march 1961): 1-14. • measure numbers and letters conform to those found in the third volume of the complete works, edited by clara schumann (leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, 1883). 87 review essay: lullaby for broadway? grant, mark n. 2004. the rise and fall of the broadway musical. boston: northeastern university press. knapp, raymond. 2005. the american musical and the formation of national identity. princeton, nj: princeton university press. swayne, steve. 2005. how sondheim found his sound. ann arbor: university of michigan press. reviewed by walter frisch i. latecomers to high culture, americans are obsessed with identifying and canonizing indigenous art forms. in recent years, much of this attention has been lavished on jazz. musical theater is beginning to catch up, to judge from the recent rash of companions, readers, and reference works.! as stephen banfield, a dean among scholars of the american musical, observed in a 2004 review essay, "so many academic books and articles have by now lamented 'that the musical has been neglected by academics as an area of study' that it has to be patently untrue" (2004:83).2 one challenge in the study of both jazz and musical theater is locating the specific historical moment or the precise works in which the genres assume an identity, especially an ''american'' one, distinct from their influences. for musical theater, those sources would include european operetta of the later nineteenth century-specifically the works of johann strauss, offenbach, and gilbert and sullivan-as well as vaudeville, burlesque, revue, minstrel shows, variety shows, melodrama, and british musical comedy. in the first few years of the twentieth century, these traditions coalesced in the works of victor herbert (notably his babes in toyland, 1903) and george m. cohan (his first big hit, little johnny jones, 1904). herbert (1859-1924) had been born in ireland, raised in london, and trained in germany, but arrived in the united states in 1886 and made his career in this country. cohan current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 123 124 current musicology (1878-1942) was a yankee doodle dandy from the start, born, as the world knows, on (or near) july 4 in rhode island. just over a century later, the american musical has had a spectacular run. as with jazz, most accounts stress a "development" or "evolution," in this case toward greater integration of music and drama, and greater con­ nection with social-cultural context. the landmarks are usually seen as je­ rome kern's and p. g. wodehouse's shows at the princess theater (1915-18); kern's and oscar hammerstein ii's show boat (1927); richard rodgers's and hammerstein's oklahoma! (1943); stephen sondheim's company (1970); and jonathan larson's rent (1996). the historiography of the american musical also exhibits a special tension, not shared by other art forms, between the whole and the part, between the shows (or movies) and the individual numbers. in general, the highest value has been placed on the "book" musical, one in which the elements are subsumed within an overall musico-dramatic design. yet for many people, the songs, not the framework, embody the american musi­ cal. indeed, although a musical is the product of many collaborators, we usually (as i have done above) identify it by its composer, or by composer and lyricist. tin pan alley, the popular song industry that flourished in new york from the last decade of the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth, became intimately connected, but not completely coex­ tensive, with staged shows. harold arlen never wrote a hit show (his music was featured in several successful movies), but is rightly acknowledged as one of the greatest composers of american popular music. another tension in the scholarly treatment of the american musical, as in much writing about other american art forms (including the novel and film), arises between what might be called internalist and contextualist approaches. internalists tend to look at the works (or individual songs) for their structural and expressive qualities. contextualists seek to embed the works and their creators within the american social, cultural, and political milieu. since many musicologists are formalists at heart (we fetishize our objects, as one ethnomusicologist tartly remarked some years ago), the inter­ nalist approach has dominated in writing on american musicals. of course, these perspectives are not mutually exclusive: scholars and commentators will often move back and forth from work to context. the authors of the studies under review here handle these tensions in different ways according to their backgrounds and scholarly temperaments. mark grant describes himself as a writer and "composer [of] concert music and theater pieces"; his previous book was a history of classical musical criticism in america (1998). steve swayne is a young academic who received his phd in 1999 and teaches at dartmouth college; this book is a comprewalter frisch hensively revised version of his dissertation. raymond knapp is a senior musicologist at ucla who has written extensively on late nineteenthand early twentieth-century european concert music; his book has grown out of an undergraduate course that he teaches. ii. as the title of grant's book makes clear, he has an axe to grind. for him, the american musical experienced a golden age that extended from about 1920 to 1970, roughly from kern to early sondheim, and it has since been in decline. in the golden age, creators of musicals strove for an integration of book, lyrics, music, choreography, and stage direction and design. in recent decades, broadway has given us mainly vapid, flashy shows engineered by director-producers who are little more than "conceptual showmen."we are in an age of "mcmusicals" (called megamusicals by others), which grant defines as "corporately franchised stage happenings that are actually music videos packaged for theatre" (309). take that, lion king! what makes grant's book well worth reading is his thoughtful, multi­ pronged analysis of the golden age musicals. his study is organized accord­ ing to elements (i.e., book, lyrics, music), rather than by works, composers, or eras, as so many surveys are. this structure allows grant to treat aspects that have rarely been addressed in the literature on musical theater, including vocal production and technique, amplification, sound design, orchestration, rhythm, stage direction, and choreography. one of grant's bugbears, sound amplification, became common on the stage only in the 1950s, first with foot mikes, and eventually extended to all parts of the music-theatrical enterprise. the spread of amplification, grant argues, has fundamentally altered the sonic experience for performers and listeners. as he explains in a chapter on sound design, one of the best in the book, the first sound-mixing console appeared in the back of a theater in the late 1950s, and by the 1980s the equipment was standard. grant provides a number of quotations from interviews with arrangers or conductors who bemoan the loss of control to sound engineers. one experienced conductor reports: "sometimes you have to go back and say to the sound designer, 'you know, i rehearsed a diminuendo there. don't dig them out,' because the guy who's mixing the show is undoing everything you told him" (201). grant notes that at the time of his writing in 2003, every singer on the stage wore a wireless microphone, every musician in the pit was miked, loudspeakers surrounded the theater, and "the sound operator who sat in the rear of the theater at the mixing console was arguably more important than either the stage manager or the conductor in running the show" (199). 125 126 current musicology grant is equally illuminating on the subject of orchestration, which has been largely invisible in literature on the broadway musical. early composers like john philip sousa, victor herbert, and reginald de koven prepared their own orchestrations. over time, the pressures of revision and collaboration, as well as the fact that composers like kern or berlin had no skills in instru­ mentation, led to the rise of the professional orchestrator-arranger. even the classically trained leonard bernstein relied on such figures. grant focuses on "the dean of broadway orchestration;' robert russell bennett (1894-1981), who worked on some 300 shows, including many by berlin, gershwin, kern, and rodgers. the terms "orchestration" and "ar­ rangement" barely begin to capture bennett's activities. much of the score that we tend to attribute to the composers actually came from the pen of bennett, who was "the ghost composer of broadway's golden age, having been largely responsible for the harmonies, accompaniments, and god-knows­ what -else of many of the scores of the canonical tunesmiths" (177). grant offers ear-opening anecdotes about bennett's involvement in some of the most fundamental aspects of the music of show boat, including perhaps its most famous number, "01' man river." bennett noted in later years that when "kern handed me his sketch [of the song] it had no name and no lyric. it was thirty-two not wholly convincing measures that sounded to me like they wanted to be wanted" (178). bennett went to work, filling in the ends of phrases to help create musical balance; then the song was handed over to hammerstein. likewise, in rodgers's "shall we dance?" from the king and i, the "boom boom boom" that forms the orchestral response to the first vocal phrase and that is for every listener indelibly associated with the song, is, as grant astutely observes, pure bennett, not rodgers. having read grant's chapter, one is struck by how even the best writing on american musical theater may give the composers-great tune writers though they were-too much credit. in enchanted evenings: the broadway musical from show boat to sondheim, for example, geoffrey block wor­ shipfully analyzes quasi-wagnerian aspects of show boat ("a vast network of thematic foreshadowing and reminiscences") and admires "structural integrity" and "organicism" in on your toes (1997:33, 101). these features, which block credits to kern and rodgers respectively, may well be primarily the work of the orchestrator-arrangers bennett and hans spialek. like orchestrators, directors and choreographers have played a major role in musical theater, albeit one that has received more recognition in playbills, on posters, and by critics. again, grant focuses on certain key figures from the golden age, including rouben mamoulian, whom he calls the first significant "total vision" stage director on broadway, responsible for porgy and bess (1935), oklahoma! (1942), and carousel (1945). grant walter frisch argues that the renowned "carousel waltz" that opens the show, although often credited solely to the choreographer agnes de mille, was really "pure mamoulian" in its conception, its pacing, and its almost cinematic exposi­ tion. (the number was also in large part the work of the highly trained composer trude rittmann, who arranged ballets for several rodgers and hammerstein shows and is another unsung heroine of grant's book.) grant sees mamoulian as the first great director to work against what he calls "song presentationalism:' that is, the practice of having a character step forward, either actually or metaphorically, to sing a number. mamoulian "took the downstage footlight out of the musical comedy song, integrating its performance within the total canvas of narrative" (242). conspicuously underrepresented in grant's book is stephen sondheim, to whom he devotes a brief section of commentary entitled "the martyrdom of saint stephen." for grant, sondheim's work is "perceived rightly as an elegy for the great musical theater of the past." grant admires a little night music for its "parity" of music and lyrics, but tends to dismiss sondheim's other scores as "recitatives built on rifflike repetitions of vamps" (98). grant is also put off by the hagiographic appreciation of sondheim, which has "led to a certain unwillingness to entertain further development of the artistic possibilities of the musical, as if american musical theater history ends with sondheim, or as if sondheim worship somehow purges broadway of its larger creative failure" (97-98). in his assessment of sondheim we can detect the limitations of grant's book, for he fails to make clear what the "artistic possibilities of the musical" might be or why we are in a period of "creative failure." sondheim himself may not be in sympathy with a lot of what has gone on in musical theater over the past twenty years, but he does not seem to share grant's pessimism. in 1998, sondheim said in response to swayne's question about the future of musicals: "i don't know if they're going any particular place. what's nice about it is that (as far as i can tell) virtually all the categorical rules have been broken, torn down, and dissolved" (179-80). this comment sounds like neither sour grapes nor schadenfreude. almost by definition, golden ages are finite. the economic, social, and cultural conditions that enabled the broadway musical were special and unrepeatable, as was the confluence of talented composers, lyricists, arrangers, directors, and choreographers. but golden ages-the "good old days" are also to some extent fictional; they are nostalgic constructions by those who come after and look back. decline-and-fall scenarios like grant's are rhetorically attractive but also very restrictive. 127 128 current musicology iii. the elephant in the room of grant's book is the prime subject of swayne's. the critical and scholarly literature on sondheim is by now far larger than that on any other composer of musical theater of the past fifty years. sond­ heim is eminently "musicologible;' if i may coin a term, in part because he has a large oeuvre that has extended beyond half a century; he is highly articulate about his work and about the traditions of musical theater; and he has seemed ready to grant interviews to scholars. swayne's goal is a traditionally musicological and internalist one: he is searching to define and trace the origins of sondheim's "sound," which is really a catchy euphemism for style. swayne initially focuses on sondheim's work before 1970 (before company), and on the influences that helped form him. swayne has combed archival materials exhaustively, among them sondheim's own record collection and card catalogue, and documents from the composer's days as a williams college undergraduate, includ­ ing a paper on ravel's piano concertos and sondheim's early unpublished compositions (musicals and a piano sonata from 1949-50). swayne posits the main classical influences, all acknowledged by sondheim, as those of ravel, rachmaninoff, hindemith, and (more obliquely) copland. among musicals, sondheim himself points to show boat, porgy and bess, and carousel as his "three favorites" (51). swayne details the song composers most admired by sondheim, including kern, berlin, and rodgers, and especially gershwin and arlen. swayne understands that "influence" is no simple, innocent concept, and in his introduction he pays some lip service to joseph straus's recent theory of musical influence (1990). but instead of problematizing the concept, he assesses it the good, old-fashioned way, without the psychological component. the two meatiest chapters in swayne's book, and ultimately the most original, are his close readings of individual sondheim numbers. one chapter looks at the song "what can you lose?" from the film dick tracy (1990), the other at "putting it together" from sunday in the park with george (1984). swayne is a diligent and gifted analyst. the chapter on "putting it together" is a tour de force, perhaps the most comprehensive discussion (at sixty pages) of any number from musical theater now in the critical literature. swayne calls "putting it together" the "pinnacle of sondheim's abilities" (198). a complex ensemble taking place during a cocktail reception at a contempo­ rary art gallery, it occupies nearly a fifth of the printed score of sunday in the park and some eleven minutes of continuous music. swayne approaches it not as a "song" but as a musico-dramatic entity, discussing what he calls "cinematic" techniques of sondheim and his collaborator james lapine: "the intent is for the eleven-minute sequence of musical events to play walter frisch as a unified whole, a single scene comprising many discrete shots, joined through skillful montage" (207). the term "unified whole" betrays swayne's basic analytical approach, as well as its potential limitations. in this book, swayne examines sondheim's music according to the organicist precepts that have dominated musical analysis since the nineteenth century: unity and coherence. while these principles have always seemed applicable to the music for which they were developed (that of the austro-german classical tradition, especially beethoven), we have seen in recent decades how ill-fitted they are to other repertories, such as french and italian music, let alone most popular, folk, and non-western musics. this is a debate with which swayne chooses not to engage, and with some justification. sondheim seems to identify himself as a composer in the organicist tradition. he is quoted as saying he aims for music that is "closely structured," and he even appears as a quasi-schenkerian: "i generally make a kind oflong line reduction in the music, because i was trained in a sort of conservative school of composition about the long line. i ... know what the key relationships are going to be in the various sections of the song" (197). it may thus be reasonable for swayne as analyst to follow sondheim's lead, especially since the overall theme of sunday in the park with george is how great art, like seurat's painting la grande jatte, is assembled out of many disparate elements that are "put together" by the creator. at the same time, we might question whether unity is the proper crite­ rion for analyzing the scene "putting it together." swayne identifies a modu­ lar technique, acknowledged by the composer, in which sections are moved around, added, and omitted. "there is no song per se;' swayne explains, "only pieces of songs that are assembled and disassembled throughout the course of a show, or even the course of an individual song" (231). coherence and unity may be less helpful paradigms for understanding this kind of structure than some contemporaneous postmodern models (lyotard or bakhtin, for example) that account for fragmentation and multiple perspectives, and that question metanarratives. swayne-and-sondheim-as-organicists is a fairly minor quibble, however, since sondheim's "putting it together" and swayne's explication of it creatively engage one of the tensions in musical theater identified at the opening of this review-that between the part and the whole. iv. grant and swayne adopt internalist approaches to the american musical, which is to say that they are concerned mainly with the creators, collabora129 130 current musicology tors, and the works themselves. there is little about audiences, the market­ place, or the broader cultural, social, and political issues that have shaped the genre. knapp sets out from a strongly contextualist perspective, arguing that to understand a form like the american musical, we must understand how it is "connected in vital ways to its american constituency." the musical, he argues, "provided what audiences wanted" and "draws heavily on elements of society much lower than its well-educated, more aesthetically minded elite; it appeals broadly to educated and uneducated alike; it responds shamelessly to commercial stimuli" (4). knapp never quite supports this large set of claims. we learn little about either the "educated" or "uneducated" to which the musical appeals, and little about its "shameless" responses to the commercial world. nor is there much about critics or actual audiences. knapp's book is really concerned to demonstrate-and this it does very well indeed-how the integrated book musicals from the golden age reflected certain core social, cultural, and political values. that those values may ultimately come from the creators, and not necessarily from the vaguely defined "audience" or "constituency," does not diminish knapp's achievement,3 the strength of his book is apparent when it is compared with a 2003 study of which knapp was apparently unaware, musical theater andameri­ can culture. in it, two british sociologists, david walsh and len pratt, seek to provide geertzian "thick" description of the american musical, to "offer a sociocultural analysis of [it] as a phenomenon of popular culture specifi­ cally originating in american society" (walsh and pratt 2003:11). in fact, despite their social science pedigrees, the authors' theoretical approach fails to illuminate the american musical or its context. popular culture remains a rather inchoate entity in their book. the authors have little new to say and rely on secondary literature in their examination of the musico-dramatic aspects of the musicals. by contrast, knapp has clearly studied and thought a great deal about the works he discusses, and his greatest insights come from the balance he achieves between internalist and contextualist perspectives. knapp has two basic goals. the first and more traditional one, carried out in part 1 of the book, is to explore the american musical's roots in operetta, minstrel shows, and the early tin pan alley era. the second, more ambitious goal (parts 2 and 3) is to "define america" by looking at certain key shows for their "mythologies," and then to consider how america "manages" its "others" through three perspectives: race and ethnicity, the second world war, and exoticism. each of these topics is grounded in an exploration of individual musicals, including show boat, porgy and bess, oklahoma!, guys and dolls, the music man, west side story, the sound of music, cabaret, hair, pacific overtures, and assassins. walter frisch in his account of show boat, knapp demonstrates how the "white" and "black" musical numbers are deployed dramatically to reflect the show's central concern with "the difficulty of achieving true racial blending in america" (185). "can't help lovin' dat man" is analyzed as "partial fusion": a standardaaba form, in which the a section itself has a blues form (aab). knapp points out that the "verse" for the song ("oh, listen, sister"), modeled directly on the blues, is sung by julie, the black woman passing as white. knapp suggests that by beginning the song with the chorus ("fish got to swim") rather than the more obviously "colored" section, "julie attempts to bypass the most obviously 'colored' part, consistent with her attempt to pass more generally as white" (192). as in this commentary, knapp often makes perceptive analytical points by showing how conventional song structures or patterns are subverted for dramatic effect. thus tevye's "if i were a rich man" from fiddler on the roofbegins as anaaba form, but the b section ("i'd build a big tall house") keeps extending and repeating itself as "tevye's imaginings become ever more elaborate" (222). in "ya got trouble" from the music man, end-rhymes and tunes emerge only halfway through, when harold hill's musicality begins to affect the townspeople (144-45). in "willkommen" from cabaret, an insinuating atmosphere is projected by pungent, unresolved dissonances that appear on normally weak syllables ("willkommen;' "bienvenue," etc.) (243). knapp analyzes oklahoma! as a "kind of morality play about the path to adulthood, both culturally and in term of its characters." the western lands of the us are dividing into states; farmers and cowboys are learning to get along and share land, as exemplified by the characters laurey and curly. the opening number of oklahoma!, "oh, what a beautiful mornin'," is essentially a waltz-song in the viennese operetta tradition, the kind of number that has been present throughout the history of the musical, from kern's and hammerstein's "you are love" in show boat, to rodgers's and hart's "lover" in the film love me tonight, to rodgers's and hammerstein's "this nearly was mine" in south pacific, to the entire score of sondheim's a little night music. the idea to begin oklahoma! with a waltz, which would be nostalgic both for the audiences actually hearing the show in 1943 and for the characters within the show, was clearly a departure from the origi­ nal lynn riggs play, green grow the lilacs, in which curly comes on stage singing a cowboy song, "git along, little doggies!" this song would also have had some nostalgic or sentimental value, but rodgers and hammerstein went a step further to fit the conventions and associations of musical theater. here, as in much of the book, knapp draws on previous commentary-in this case the excellent dissertation by graham wood (2000), which analyzes 131 132 current musicology the song forms in rodgers's shows through oklahoma! from textual, musi­ cal, and cultural perspectives. knapp acknowledges his sources in endnotes or in the helpful bibliographic supplements at the back of each chapter. but he also offers new insights on each work and writes in an accessible, engaging style. in his chapter on "dealing with the second world war;' knapp treats the sound of music and cabaret in tandem. each show, set in the pre-war 1930s, offers a different "version of europe that supports our evolving myth of national origin." the former depicts an apparently innocent, natural, and rural nation (austria), a "latter-day version of who we imagine our true ancestors to have been" (the von trapp family does in fact emigrate to america at the end). cabaret portrays a corrupt, unnatural urban context (berlin), thus "the decadent branch of our european heritage, spinning off out of control, potentially seducing us if we're not careful" (229). knapp argues that the screen versions of both musicals enhance these messages. in the film version of cabaret, the camera's gradual pull backwards during "tomorrow belongs to me" reveals that the number is sung by a nazi youth; then, as the tune modulates upward ("a traditional device to generate en­ thusiasm;' knapp points out), it is taken up by a wider crowd. in passages like this, knapp is the most effective of the three authors under review at negotiating the tensions i outlined earlier: between work and context, and between part and whole. v. ultimately all three studies accomplish what they set out to do. we learn from grant that the golden age musicals were the unique result of col­ laborations between great creative talents; from swayne, that sondheim is a late, great master of that kind of musical theater; from knapp, that the golden age musicals and those of sondheim are special and compelling products of american culture. i am left wondering, however: what next, or really, what now? already in 1998, sondheim, as noted above, announced the dissolution of "virtually all the categorical rules" of musical theater, a situation which, moreover, he found "nice:' that suggests we should not lament the demise of american musical theater; reports of its death may be greatly exaggerated. we need more sympathetic, informed commentary on the present day. in the final chapter of the cambridge companion to the musical (2002), paul prece and william everett attempt a brief overview of what they perceive to be recent trends, including "pastiche" scores that invoke styles from the earlier twentieth century (i.e., the 1996 revival of chicago); walter frisch works with music and lyrics by rodgers's grandson adam guettel (whose light on the piazza is currently enjoying a long run at lincoln center); and michael john lachiusa's marie christine (1999), which "includes mu­ sical complexities atypical of most broadway musicals" (prece and everett 2002:264-65). opera, not treated by prece and everett, may be a place to look for the legacies of the golden age and of sondheim. andre previn's a streetca~ named desire (1997), jake hegge's dead man walking (2000), and tobias picker's an american tragedy (2005) suggest that lyricism, tunefulness, coherent musico-dramatic structure, and american cultural values-all topics treated by grant, swayne, and knapp-are alive and well in american opera. that lineage was suggested already fifty years ago by leonard bernstein in his chapter/broadcast on american musicals in the joy of music (1959:178-79). as i complete this review (march 2006), a new music theater work by lachiusa, bernarda alba, based on a lorca play and musically inspired by flamenco, is about to open for a month's run at lincoln center, one day after his new short opera premieres at the houston grand opera. a new york times profile on the forty-three-year-old lachiusa emphasizes how he moves comfortably and frequently among broadway, off broadway, the opera house, and television. lachiusa has been critical of current broadway shows, arguing that "all sense of invention and craft is abandoned in favor of delivering what the audience thinks a musical should deliver" (green 2006:6). the continuing disneyfication and lloyd-webberization of broadway (yet another multimillion dollar disney show, tarzan, is about to open as i write) would seem to support lachiusa's complaint. that the crystal ball is clouded should neither surprise nor dismay us. but surely we need sharper criticism of contemporary directions than the vapid concluding pollyannaism of prece and everett, who report that "the rich traditions" of the musical "continue to be developed and transformed by creative artists who strive to combine music, words, dance and other theatrical elements into an art form that continues to entertain, edify and enchant audiences throughout the world" (2002:265). such commentary hardly begins to address some of the central issues i have tried to sketch here, including part versus whole, internal versus contextual, opera versus musical theater. we should be bound by neither grant's gloomy eschatol­ ogy nor prece's and everett's cockeyed optimism. the next generation of scholarship should be less restricted by conventional categories of musical theater, perhaps incorporating some of the pan-generic perspectives outlined by nicholas cook in his stimulating study of musical multimedia (1998). ranging from films and concert music to car commercials and madonna's "material girl" video, cook explores how music permeates different forms 133 134 current musicology of cultural expression today. musical theater must be understood-and celebrated-as part of this complex if messy picture. notes 1. among noteworthy studies in these genres are richard norton (2002); geoffrey block (2002); robert wyatt (2004); and everett and laird (2002). 2. another recent review essay which discusses the grant and knapp books reviewed here is charles hamm (2005). i am grateful to rose rosengard subotnik for bringing hamm's article to my attention, and for many other helpful suggestions and references. 3. knapp notes that this volume is the first of a projected pair on american musical theater. the second will deal with the more "personal" aspects of musicals, rather than with politi­ cal/national ones (283-84). references banfield, stephen. 2004. in the finest tradition: new books on musical theatre. musical times 145: 83-92. bernstein, leonard. 1959. the joy of music. new york: simon and schuster. block, geoffrey. 1997. enchanted evenings: the broadway musical from show boat to sond­ heim. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 2002. the richard rodgers reader. oxford and new york: oxford university press. cook, nicholas. 1998. analysing musical multimedia. oxford and new york: oxford uni­ versity press. everett, william and paul laird, eds. 2002. the cambridge companion to the musical. cam­ bridge and new york: cambridge university press. grant, mark. 1998. maestros of the pen: a history of classical music criticism in america. boston: northeastern university press. green, jessie. 2006. so many musicals to write, so little time. new york times (march 5): arts & leisure. hamm, charles. 2005. omnibus review: five recent books on american musical theater. kurt weill newsletter 23 (2): 9-15. norton, richard. 2002. a chronology of american musical theater. 3 vols. oxford and new york: oxford university press. prece, paul and william a. everett. 2002. the megamusical and beyond: the internationalisa­ tion and impact of a genre. in the cambridge companion to the musical, edited by william everett and paul laird, 246-65. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. straus, joseph. 1990. remaking the past: musical modernism and the influence of the tonal tradition. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. walsh, david and len pratt. 2003. musical theater and american culture. westport, ct, and london: praeger. wood, graham. 2000. the development of song forms in the broadway and hollywood musicals of richard rodgers, 1919-1943. phd dissertation, university of minnesota. wyatt, robert. 2004. the george gershwin reader. oxford and new york: oxford university press. current.musicology.81.109-169.pdf louis gruenberg: a forgotten figure of american music robert f. nisbett forgotten by many long before his death on 9 june 1964, louis gruenberg was one of the most important american composers in this century. his significance and tragedy were summed up precisely by claire reis in a letter to the new york times, written shortly after the composer's death: to the editor: when louis gruenberg died a few weeks ago, a plan had just been launched to celebrate his 80th birthday on aug. 3 by programing some of his earlier compositions. in one of his last letters he wrote: "i'll have none of this 80-year old stuff! i was forgotten on my 70th, my 60th, my 50th birthdays (where in hell was everybody when i needed this kind of treatment), but now i don't need anybody. if my stuff is to be played, it will be because it is worthy of being played, and not because i am an old dog who is thrown a bone! basta!" ... he helped to establish the league of composers and he was a president of the united states section of the international society for contemporary music. discouraged by the constant efforts required to retain the position of renown he had won, he withdrew from the new york scene to lead a solitary life, and for many years dedicated his entire time to his compositions .... 1 gruenberg was one of the first innovators in the use of jazz in serious music. although at times he composed in an impressionistic style and often experimented with chromaticism, he developed a unique, personal, musical language, especially notable in his later works. unpublished pieces include six symphonies, seven operas, and numerous chamber and vocal compositions. unfortunately, his early works are rarely heard, and most of his later ones have yet to be performed. born in brest-litovsk, russia, on 3 august 1884, the son of abraham and clara gruenberg, he was brought to this country at the age of one. his strong musical talent was apparent quite early, and he began his studies with adele margulies. a gifted child, he was quickly put to work by his father and in the early l890s was giving numerous recitals including appearances on the keith vaudeville circuit.2 desiring to study in europe, he gradually saved enough money and arrived in berlin in 1905. even though gruenberg had written many compositions, his goal at this time was to study with busoni and pursue a concert career. unable to meet with the latter, however, he studied for a short time with friedrich koch but soon returned to new york because of financial problems. in december 1907 gruenberg again returned to europe and settled in vienna. here he made contact with busoni and was accepted as one of the master's pupils. this started his long association with busoni, first as a student and later as a friend. 90 gruenberg remained in europe for seven years and sustained himself through concert performances, composing, and occasional teaching. his success at this time is evidenced by a news item appearing in musical america on 23 december 1911 : in the young american, l. t. gruenberg, who gave a piano recital in the harmonium hall on wednesday evening, we heard the possessor of talent far above the ordinary .... where mr. gruenberg excels is in his really pronounced talent for constructing, for outlining a work. with the infallible judgment of the thorough musician, this pianist may be relied upon to bring out every effect contained in the composition .... 3 in london when the world war started, gruenberg made plans to return to the united states. he had left many of his manuscripts in berlin, and much of this early work has never been recovered. describing his return to the united states in 1914, gruenberg wrote the following entry in his notebook: i soon found out that a european reputation alone did not guarantee a penniless musician a welcome reception. i am quite sure there wasn't a manager, publisher or even a piano firm whom i did not try to interest in my career, with unsuccessful results. during my three years stay i wrote continually-my own experiences, i would rather not enlarge on; they do not form very pleasant recollections.4 in 1919 gruenberg's life took an upward turn. his composition hill oj dreams won the $1,000 flagler prize, and with this success he decided to devote all his time to composition. a strong leader and advocate of contemporary music, gruenberg was, together with varese and salzedo, a founding member of the international composers guild. at the first concert on 19 february 1922, he performed his piano work polychrome.5 the most important of the early concerts of the guild was the one in which the u.s. premiere of schoenberg's pierrot lunaire was given. gruenberg was selected to conduct because he had attended the rehearsals and the concert conducted by schoenberg the previous year. after twenty-two rehearsals the concert was given at the klaw theater in new york on 4 february 1923 with great success. it was soon after this that the guild broke up and the league of composers was formed, with gruenberg as one of the leaders. for many years gruenberg was very much intrigued by the jazz idiom and in 1921 wrote: a matter which has often interested me, and which always eluded practical application, has been the possibility of adapting the fresh and unspoiled rhythm, so-called jazz atmosphere to serious music. it was this interest that produced a series of pieces with such titles as jazzberries, jazzettes, jazz suite, and daniel jazz. 6 along with this interest in jazz, gruenberg had a very strong love for the negro spiritual. in 1926, after 91 much research on his part, universal-edition brought out four volumes of spirituals which he had transcribed. culminating this period was gruenberg's most famous work, the opera emperor jones, based on the play by eugene o'neill. gruenberg spent two years of negotiations with o'neill before finally securing his permission to convert the play into an opera. without doubt one of the most important operas in american musical history, it enjoyed ten performances with the metropolitan in the 1932-33 and 1933-34 seasons. in his memories if the opera, guilio gatti-casazza wrote: this work was in every sense an american achievement. it was a drama on an american theme by one of the finest playwrights of america. it was set to music by an american. the chief protagonist was an american. and i must add a word for the striking and effective sets designed and painted by still another american, jo mielziner. 7 it was soon after the success of this work that gruenberg made a decision to leave the new york scene. he was invited by rudolf ganz to become head of the composition department at the chicago musical college. he stayed there for two years, but his desire to compose would not permit him to remain a teacher. he described his state as follows: the gradual feeling of drudgery, the hopelessly incompetent pupils, the meaninglessness of this kind oflife, the severe winters, full of ills and worries, the over-animation and stimulation of the morning's work and the afternoon's teaching-making it almost impossible to sleep. helena creeping along slowly, too slowly, already 3 years for a one-act opera.s gruenberg decided to move to california in 1937 and support his family primarily through his compositions. always concerned and dejected because composers had to struggle so hard for their existence, he attempted to start an organization called the composers society of america. its purpose would be to provide the means through which composers could have their music performed and published. he called a meeting and invited the leading composers in los angeles at that time. these included achron, copland, antheil, weil, toch, schoenberg, and hansen. in his notebook he made the following comment: they all came with the exception of schoenberg who insisted to be made president before the society started. oscar levant came along with copland and he kept disrupting any serious talk. it was a successful tea party, but nothing else followed. his own work continued to meet with success in the closing years of the 1930s. his quintet won the lake placid prize in 1937, and in the same year his radio opera, green mansions, was successfully broadcast by cbs. but these successes at this stage in his life (he was now fifty-three) had the opposite effect from what one would have expected. they prompted 92 his movement toward greater isolation and bitterness. certainly, financial gain was not of the utmost importance to him; the utter frustration which he felt after a work was received with great praise and then put aside to gather dust made him turn more and more away from the public and his fellow composers. his attitude was expressed clearly in a speech he gave at the berkshire festival in september 1938, an event which he attended because his second string quartet, written under commission of elizabeth sprague coolidge, was being performed. referring to "the appalling lack of practical help to the creative writer of music in america," he had this to say: i don't know how many of you are aware of what will happen to the works you have heard tonight and which mrs. coolidge brought to life through her commission. well, this is exactly what will happen, nothing. it was immediately after this, in 1939, that gruenberg accepted his first job to compose for films. his first important film composition was his score for pare lorentz's documentary fight for life (1940). the film received wide critical acclaim, and gruenberg stressed the importance of his score in an article in the new york times: it is generally accepted that serious music today has no place in the scheme of screen plays. in this case i have made no attempt to write down to the level of usual screen music. the film itself is of such importance that anything trivial or light would be completely out of place. therefore i have written as good music as i am capable of writing and can find no difference in its quality from either my symphonic or operatic compositions.9 although involved with film music from 1939-49, gruenberg continued writing his concert music and completed his second,lo third, and fourth symphonies and the americana suite for orchestra. one of his most important works, the violin concerto, was commissioned by jascha heifetz and completed in 1944. the piece is one of the few compositions by gruenberg still played (although only irregularly). 11 utilizing negro spirituals and the sounds of a hillbilly fiddle, the concerto marks a returning interest to the so-called american music style. gruenberg documents this return in his notes: regarding the americana suite written in 1945, this was one of a series of compositions which started in about 1923, with daniel jazz, in which i endeavored to create an 'american idiom' in music completely disassociated from european influences. this period concluded with emperor jones in 1933. when jascha heifitz approached me for a violin concerto with a request to be in an american manner the old flame was revitalized and in quick order the concerto, americana, and finally the fourth symphony in 1948 were finished. 93 in 1947 gruenberg was elected to the national institute of arts and letters. however, this honor did not change the fact that none of his music had been published since emperor jones in 1933. his thoughts and feelings are summed up in the following statement which he wrote later: i am working constantly, passionately and carefully, and i firmly believe that i am doing my best work now .... i could use a publisher, a record company; but the world of yesterday seems to have forgotten me and the world of today does not know me. the 1950s were very fertile years and, no longer working on films, he was able to devote all of his energy to composition. among his more important works were the operas volpone and antony and cleopatra. the latter he considered his finest opera. another major work of this period was a song if faith. begun in 1951 and completed eight years later, the score shows gruenberg reaffirming his own belief in mankind. dedicated to mahatma gandhi, the preface reads: the theme of this work is to reveal the underlying oneness of all religions, the universality of god. its purpose, therefore, is not the glorification of a particular religion, but of all religions, its goals are the unification of men of all faiths under the author of all their beliefs. gruenberg tried to attain this universality of religions by using texts from all the important faiths of the world. the work can be classed as an oratorio for chorus, soloists, orchestra, narrator, and dance groups. though the 1950s were years of important creative achievements, they were also years of disappointment. emperor jones, after its opening success at the metropolitan opera, ran into trouble continually. in 1950 nbc announced plans for presenting the opera with william warfield in the lead role. but in november of that year gruenberg received a note stating that it was best not to perform the work at that time because of the probable reaction of the average black.12 the critic olin downes later wrote: it is hard to perceive the logic in this objective especially in view of the history of the drama .... let us hope that the opera, which in its conception and dramatic technique is by far the most mature and adult of any american work for the lyric theatre which appeared up to 1933, will find a proper and effective place in the television opera schedule.13 nonetheless, the opera was never given, and this disappointment, which began the last phase of gruenberg's life, continued until his death in 1964.14 despite the neglect his music faced in his last years, gruenberg maintained an optimism and love for life which is to be envied. his own words best summarize this feeling: why do i write so much music? is it for posterity? well, what will posterity do for me? i write because nothing else, and really nothing else gives me a sense of joy, of power, when i succeed; of frustration when i fail; beauty when i am inspired, of all the elements of human 94 emotion that exist; and when i take pains, i can create in my brain and in my heart all things the world has to offer. where else can i get all this just sitting at my desk? notes 15 july 1964, sec. 2, p. 9, col. 3. 2 madeleine goss, modern music-makers (new york: e. p. dutton, 1952), p. 93. this is also discussed in gruenberg's personal notes. 3 vol. 15, p. 27. 4 all statements attributed to gruenberg, unless otherwise noted, are taken from his unpublished notebooks in the possession ofirma gruenberg, his widow, and are used with her kind permission. 5 published as polychromatics (vienna: universal-edition, 1924). this work was recently recorded by zola shaulis and is available on composers recordings, cri s-295. 6 danieljazz, as performed by the kohan ensemble with william lewis, tenor, is scheduled for release by amrex records. 7 new york: charles scribner's sons, 1941, p. 224. 8 opera after philip moeller's play, helena's husband. 9 14 april 1940, sec. 9, p. 5, col. 3. 10 the second symphony was taped by the bamberg symphony orchestra for a broadcast by the bayerische rundfunk, munich, on 10 october 1965. 11 it can be obtained through rca's personal music service catalog under the "vault treasure label," lvt-1017. 12 the new york times, 26 november 1950, sec. 2, p. 11, col. 6. 13 the new york times, 9 august 1953, sec. 2, p. 5, col. 1. 14 ironically, just before gruenberg's death the opera was considered by the national company of the metropolitan opera association but was rejected again for the same reasons. 95 da ponte in new york, mozart in new york otto biba one might be surprised to learn that relatively few of lorenzo da ponte's letters have been preserved. in one of these, written in new york in 1824 to an unknown recipient, da ponte names what he considered to be five of his most important and successful libretti: la cosa rara, l' arbore di diana, la capricciosa corretta, le nozze di figaro, and don giovanni. cost fan tutte is not mentioned, nor does he name the composers of the stated titles­ martin y soler and w. a. mozart (zagonei1995:228ff.). when i quote this letter today in order to describe da ponte's self-regard, i am always asked the same two questions: who is martin y soler? and why does da ponte's letter come from new york? i answer that martin y soler was born in spain, and in the mid-1780s he was, next to mozart and salieri, the most successful opera composer in vienna. then i am asked whether da ponte did not also write libretti for salieri, or why da ponte did not include any libretto for salieri among his most important and successful. indeed, he did write libretti for salieri, and i do not know why he did not mention these. finally, whereas da ponte lived in vienna for ten years and in london for twelve, he spent thirty-three years in the united states. in fact, he lived one year longer in the us than in italy, where he was born. it is not just the fact that da ponte spent so much time in new york that surprises even educated music lovers and listeners today-it is also that, contrary to popular belief, da ponte did not devote himself to making mozart, his friend and artistic partner, famous in north america. l in fact, the sources show us an entirely different picture. lorenzo da ponte allow me to summarize the most important biographical facts in an overview: lorenzo da ponte was born emanuele conegliano in 1749 in the ghetto of ceneda (now vittorio veneto), near venice.2 after his family was baptized in 1763, he called himself lorenzo da ponte. he studied theology, became a catholic priest, and taught in a theological seminary. in 1779 he was anonymously accused of leading a lifestyle unfit for a priest. he fled the region and in his absence was sentenced to prison. in 1781 he settled in vienna. in this city of enlightened absolutism, no one was interested in why he continued to use the title abbe. in 1783, emperor joseph ii ap­ pointed da ponte to the position of court theater poet. it was in these years current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 109 110 current musicology that da ponte famously collaborated with mozart on le nozze di figaro (1786), don giovanni (1787), and cost fan tutte (1790).after several theater scandals-jealousies, intrigue, love affairs, and prima donna behavior (see nettl1953 and 1966)-the police banished da ponte from vienna. despite petitioning emperor leopold ii, he was ultimately banished to trieste (though his debts and travel expenses were paid by the imperial court). in trieste, da ponte continued to fight for his rehabilitation, but when it was granted he decided not to return to vienna. da ponte married nancy grahl in 1792 in trieste. he and his wife travelled via prague to london, where they settled and began to raise a family. in time, two daughters and a son were born. da ponte worked for the italian opera in the king's theatre as a poet, translator, and editor, and he also worked as a bookseller. in 1800 he declared his bookseller's business bankrupt and was arrested. his italian relatives came to his rescue: his brother paolo came to london and opened a printing business and bookshop, which the brothers ran under lorenzo's name. eventually da ponte was again overwhelmed by unpaid debts and london became very uncomfortable for him. in 1804 his wife and their children travelled to the us, where his wife's mother and other family members lived. on april 7, 1805, da ponte himself followed on the freighter columbia. after a crossing lasting fifty-seven days, he set foot on american soil in philadelphia. he reunited with his family in new york and opened a grocery shop, but, after only three months, he fled. according to his memoirs, he left to escape an epidemic, but in fact was again avoiding his creditors-in this short time, he had already posted a loss of $300. he and his family then moved to elizabethtown, new jersey (now elizabeth), where he opened another grocery shop and went bankrupt again. he returned to new york in 1807 and worked as an italian teacher, but four years later he moved to sunbury, pennsylvania, where he bought a house and sold self-distilled brandy, worked as a druggist, and traded in cleaning utensils. in 1818, facing bankruptcy yet again, relatives and friends in philadelphia helped him pay his debts, and he finally returned to new york in april of 1819 (krehbiel 1898; lazare 1950; cohen 1987; biba 2005; 2006). here he sold italian language books and opened a small language school, the manhattan academy for young gentlemen, where he gave italian lessons. the school also offered lessons in spanish and french. french was taught by da ponte's wife, who soon opened the manhattan academy for young ladies. lorenzo da ponte was by this time seventy years old. now he returned to his literary and poetic talents. one of the first students at his academy was fitz-greene halleck (1795-1867), who became a recognized american author and poet. it is possible that halleck introduced da ponte in new otto biba york literary circles, or led him back to literary pursuits. at any event, da ponte published an extract from the life of lorenzo da ponte, with the history of several dramas, written by him in 1819 (zagonel1999:52) and began writing his detailed memoirs, which he published in three volumes beginning in 1823. a second enlarged edition was published in 1829-30 (da ponte 1829-30; see zagonel1999:52, 55ff., 63ff.). these memoirs make fascinating reading, but they are works of literature rather than historical source materials. in 1821 da ponte published an italian translation of lord byron's english dante edition (da ponte 1821; see zagonel1999:53), and in the following years he published other works of italian literature. his book storia della lingua e letteratura italiana in new york, published in 1827, is still available in a reprint today (da ponte 1827). it is significant that he saw himself as the father of italian language and literature in new york. in 1824-25, this seventy-five-year-old italian poet and author even conducted a duel of magazine articles with the twenty-eight-year-old american his­ torian and novelist william hickling prescott about the definition ofitalian narrative poetry.3 mozart in the new world thus, in 1824 when da ponte was asked, in the midst of his flourishing second literary career, which of his libretti were the most important and successful, his list was based on literary, not musical, considerations. neither figaro nor don giovanni had been staged in new york by that time. scores and piano/vocal reductions from these operas could, however, be bought in any music store, either in imported editions from london and europe, or in american editions of individual numbers.4 indeed, the first american edition of a number from le nozze di figaro ("non pili andrai") appeared as early as 1794-96 in philadelphia, at first without mention of the opera's title (sonneck 1945:249). in 1795 the first numbers from die zauberflote appeared in philadelphia (sonneck 1945:146). the first single numbers from la clemenza di tito and don giovanni were published in the same city in 1802-3 and 1817, respectively. these first publications were quickly followed by others, in philadelphia as well as in baltimore, new york, and boston (wolfe 1964,2:602-18). staged performances of opera in new york during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were oriented entirely towards the london repertoire. singers from london were engaged to supplement, reinforce, and lend international glamour to the local casts in new york opera productions.5 these first performances were often presented in distorted arrangements. the first mozart opera to be staged in new york was le nozze di figaro at the park theatre on may 10, 1823 (ireland 1866-67, 1:429; ritter 111 112 current musicology 1884:152ff.). the opera was performed in english in a musical arrange­ ment by henry bishop which had been created for the london stage in 1819. the lead singers also came from england, notably william pearman from manchester, who sang the role of figaro. marriage of figaro, as it was billed, became mozart's most popular opera in new york, and indeed in the united states. the melody of "non pili andrai" had long been heard in the popular folk song "you'll roam no more" (unattributed to mozart) and was even adopted into the military music repertoire (fenner 1972:28). over the next several years, the opera continued to appear on new york stages: productions were staged at the park theatre in 1827-28 and 1828-29, the bowery theatre in 1830-31, and the national theatre in 1838. the first italian-language performance of ie nozze di figaro in new york took place as late as 1858 (ireland 1866-67, 1:544,595,654; 1866-67,2:282,479). in 1826, three years after the arrival of figaro, don giovanni was first performed in new york, in the original italian. productions followed at the bowery theatre in 1827 and at the park theatre in 1831 (ireland 1866-67, 1: 476-77,494,529,646). new york's first staging of die zauberflote occurred in 1831, translated into english and with music arranged by charles horn (ireland 1866-67, 2:50). thus the three most important mozart operas to english-speaking audiences became part of the new york opera scene, and, returning in new productions, established their present positions in the repertoire.6 by comparison, beethoven's fidelio was first staged in new york in 1840 (ireland 1866-67, 2:298; ritter 1884:209). just as beethoven's opera was incorporated into new york programs comparatively late, local editions and public performances of his instrumental music lagged noticeably behind those of mozart. after all, mozart was "the celebrated mr. mozart;' as he was called just five years after his death on the title page of a mozart edition published in philadelphia.? the first known public performance in the us of an instrumental work by mozart took place on december 14, 1786, in one of the twelve city concerts at the city tavern in philadelphia. the work was simply described as "piano sonata." on october 6, 1789, the second of three new york subscription concerts of vocal and instrumental music was performed in the new york city tavern. included on a program of overtures by stamitz, vanhal, dittersdorf, and a variety of works by other composers was a "duett, piano forte and violin, of mozart" (sonneck 1907:82, 188). mozart's orchestral works seem to have been introduced to americans slightly later, and further south: the first recorded performance of an orchestral work by mozart in the united states took place in charleston, south carolina, in 1797. the program presented a "grand simphonie" along with compositions by gluck, pleyel, krumpholz, and others (sonneck 1907:37). in these early otto biba years, audiences mainly became acquainted with mozart's music in vocal and chamber music performances in semi-public concerts at residences and in musical salon circles, a fashion that had been copied from europe. publishers had these genres in mind for their customers as they printed the first editions of mozart's music in the us. i have already mentioned the first american publications of his vocal music (single numbers from his operas). published in baltimore in 1800, zwolj variationen uber ein menuett von johann christian fischer for piano, k. 179, was the first piece of mozart's instrumental music published in the us (wolfe 1964, 1:280; sonneck 1945:518). the first edition of this work had appeared in paris in 1778, but surprisingly, the first print in vienna, mozart's home town, was not published until 1792, only eight years before the first us edition appeared. the two sonatas for violin and piano, k. 330 and k. 378, were published in philadelphia between 1804 and 1814 (wolfe 1964,2:614).8 by contrast, the range of mozart's vocal music (including arias, duets, and ensembles from his operas) available in early american editions increased rapidly after 1794. there were individual series of publications called, for example, "canzonet [s 1 composed by w. a. mozart;' published by john and michael paff in new york between 1803 and 1807; "select airs from the celebrated operas composed by mozart," published between 1819 and 1823-24 in philadelphia; and "a selection from the vocal compositions of mozart, united to english verses," published in philadelphia in twenty-three volumes between 1815-16 and 1820-21 (wolfe 1964,2:605,613). in 1815, the handel and haydn society was founded in boston. its main aim, following its english model, was the concert performance of music by handel and haydn for chorus and orchestra. shortly after its founda­ tion' the society received an offer of several sacred choral compositions in manuscript copies for publication, including works by mozart. the offer came from lowell mason (1792-1872), a bank clerk from savannah, georgia, who owned copies of these works (johnson 1943:214,237; 1965:54). this transaction initiated the society's publishing ventures; their first volume appeared in 1821 (handel and haydn society 1821). this volume, which also lists three sacred choral works wrongly attributed to mozart in addition to the authentic works,9 soon became the standard repertoire for episcopalian churches throughout the us and went through nineteen editions. thus, on the one hand, mozart's church music had reached america by the early nineteenth century (as evidenced by mason's offer); on the other hand, his music was being distributed in the united states by means of handwritten copies. while the early presence of haydn's music in the us in the form of imported and locally produced manuscript copies has been researched,1o such research has yet to be undertaken for mozart's music. 113 114 current musicology da ponte and opera in new york we have seen, then, that even ten years before da ponte arrived in new york, the local music scene and the music business regarded mozart as "the celebrated mr. mozart." by 1800, eight works by mozart had been published in the united states, and in the next quarter-century, some 170 pieces would appear (sonneck 1945:518; smith in wolfe 1964, l:x). the year that da ponte finally settled in new york, 1819, also marked the publication of a series of arias from "celebrated operas by mozart" in philadelphia. ll this is in addition to all the imported and local sheet music and manuscript copies already circulating. mozart's music arrived and spread in the us before da ponte arrived on american shores and without his help. he was not needed to promote mozart, and da ponte recognized this. in 1831, the italian tenor and opera impresario giacomo montresor was preparing a new york tour of his company, and asked da ponte for advice on what to perform. da ponte answered that mozart and rossini were the most popular composers in america. montresor should, therefore, include le nozze di figaro and don giovanni as well as ii barbiere di siviglia and la gazza ladra in the repertoire of his company (zagoneli995:447). da ponte transitioned from advisor to organizational and commercial partner for the tour in the autumn and winter of 1832-33, acting "in behalf of a committee of subscribers" (ireland 1866-67,2:60). the tour's program, however, for which da ponte was partly responsible, did not include mozart. under the direction ofda ponte and montresor, four rossini operas and one work each by bellini and mercadante were performed at the richmond hill theatre and the bowery theatre (ireland 1866-67, 2:6lff.; krehbiel 1898:18ff.; ritter 1884:20lff.). we see then that the tour repertory included music by (in da ponte's opinion) only one of the two most popular composers in new york, alongside examples of contemporary italian opera. incidentally, montresor's and da ponte's opera business was bankrupt by the end of the season. nevertheless, even as his venture with montresor was failing, da ponte was busily making his next grand plan. he found sponsors to build an "italian opera house" at the corner of church and leonard streets, near broadway in lower manhattan. this was intended to be the first theater solely for opera performance in new york. it opened on november 18, 1833, under the direction of da ponte, his friend rivafinoli, and carlo salvioni of milan. the first season consisted of one opera by salvioni, one each by pacini and cimarosa, and six rossini operas. although mozart's italian operas would have been right at home in a season that also included cimarosa, mozart was not programmed at da ponte's theater. the season of sixty-eight performances showed a loss of $30,000, not for lack of public interest, but because of the extravagant sums invested in the productions otto biba (ireland 1866-67,2:95-96; krehbiel 1898:34ff.; ritter 1884:203ff.; dizikes 1993:71-80). da ponte was bankrupt yet again and finally withdrew from the music business. his theater continued without his involvement for a second season of fifty-seven performances. in 1836 the opera house was sold. the new owners of the building named it the "national theatre;' and it was under their ownership that the theater originally built by da ponte finally included mozart on its program. in march of 1838, they performed figaro (ireland 1866-67, 2:282-83; ritter 1884:203ff.) .12 this set of circumstances is remarkable: in london, da ponte was closely involved in the italian-language repertoire of the king's theatre and even edited older italian-language operas. yet during his employment at the king's theatre, not one mozart opera was performed. in the season immediately after he left, la clemenza di tito was staged (kochel [1862] 1964:721). and later in new york, wherever da ponte had an active part in opera productions, no work of mozart was staged. we do not find even the slightest evidence in any of a variety of sources that da ponte ever promoted mozart's music. he only represents himself as a champion of mozart and his music once-in an expanded edition of his memoirs. let me explain briefly how this notable instance came about: in the fall of 1825, manuel garcia, a spanish tenor and composer famous throughout europe, had come to new york with an opera company he had put together. during the season of 1825-26, they gave seventy-nine performances in the park theatre of five rossini operas, three of garcia's own operas, and mozart's don giovanni (ireland 1866-67, 1:465-77; ritter 1884:186-88). in his memoirs, da ponte explains that he introduced himself to garcia in new york as the librettist of mozart's don giovanni and convinced him to stage this opera. indeed, he claims to have even offered garcia financial support to include mozart's opera on his program. but why now? why for garcia? and why didn't da ponte offer such assistance earlier to other theaters or opera companies? according to da ponte, garcia accepted the offer and his company rehearsed the opera (livingston 1929:448; gugitz 1924,3:261-63; see also dizikes 1993:72). this would imply that the new york premiere of don giovanni happened entirely because of da ponte. there is, however, no source which confirms da ponte's claim, and no evidence to show that the opera was included in the tour program at such short notice. da ponte's claim has been questioned in the specialist literature ever since the 1884 publication of frederic louis ritter's book music in america (1884: 183-84; see also dizikes 1993:72). in any event, the first performance of don giovanni took place on may 23, 1826. next to rossini's barbiere di seviglia, which opened the season, and rossini's tancredi, don giovanni was the most successful of the nine operas performed by garcia's company during that 115 116 current musicology season (ireland 1866-67, 1:476-77). the opera orchestra which had been assembled in new york for this guest season was unusually large for new york, numbering seven violins, two violas, three cellos, two double basses, two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets, horns and trumpets, one bassoon, one timpanist, and a musician at the piano. the concertmaster conducted the orchestra (ritter 1884:186). such information about the performances themselves, gained from press reports, is more valuable to us today than the questionable claims found in da ponte's memoirs. why would da ponte have found it necessary to represent himself in just a single instance in his memoirs as mozart's champion in new york? and this, despite his evident promotion of performances ofitalian contemporary opera in this city? i suspect these are psychological issues, difficult to get to the bottom of. mozart was dead and world-famous. da ponte, alive, and despite his many bankruptcies living fairly well in new york, still never achieved similar fame. he probably knew that even his historic collabora­ tion with mozart would not make him famous, since a librettist is always overshadowed by the composer. perhaps being seen, just once, as promoting the more famous man was exactly the position which would elevate him in the eyes of his readers-if not in the united states then in europe. 13 it is particularly interesting that whenever da ponte spoke of his past as court theater poet, he did not especially emphasize his collaboration with mozart. rather, he listed mozart-one of the two most popular composers in new york-alongside a number of other composers who were certainly not more famous, and who in any event were much less well known in new york. i began this essay with one example, but there are others. in a letter of 1835 he wrote, "i was the poet of joseph ii. i wrote thirty-six libretti which inspired compositions of salieri, weigl, martin, winter, and mozart" (zagonel 1995:491). in the same year he also recalled, "i wrote thirty-six libretti for salieri, martin, weigl, winter, storace, and for mozart" (zagonel 1995:495). and in a letter written in the year of his death, 1838, he wrote, "i am the author of thirty-six libretti, the poet of emperor joseph ii, of salieri, martin, mozart" (zagonei1995:508). when, however, the viennese poet nikolaus lenau met da ponte in new york in the 1830s, da ponte immediately found it necessary to explain why he was not, or indeed could not be, concerned with mozart in new york. he said that soon after his arrival in new york, he had revealed himself at a reception as the librettist of don giovanni. he had tried to explain what had moved the two collaborators to create this work, what they wanted to express, and what their aims were. he was told that no one in new york was interested in how he or mozart had earned their living in europe, nor in how their works had come to be created (kiirnberger 1855:471). one otto biba apparently appreciated art in new york but did not need prophets from the old world to explain it. this mayor may not have happened exactly as da ponte claimed. da ponte will have seen that he could neither make mozart more famous nor gain personal fame by associating himself with mozart. this, of course, is no reason for him to have effectively ignored mozart in all his activities in new york, but we should not hold this against him. mozart certainly did not need promotion by da ponte in new york, and da ponte had to make his way in the new world without mozart's help. from the perspective of many europeans, on the other hand, da ponte needed to either pretend to champion mozart or at least heavily exaggerate his promotion of the composer. this he did in his memoirs, which were not written for english readers in the us but were instead intended for italian readers in new york or in europe. they were also soon translated into german (da ponte 1847). da ponte's explanation for nikolaus lenau may have been a rare and honest indication of why he had not presented himself as a mozartian in new york. da ponte at columbia the area in which da ponte aspired to fame and achieved some success was italian literature. he was proud of being "creator of the italian language in america" (krehbiel 1898:180). out of patriotic fervor for italian language and literature he applied for the as yet non-existent post of professor of italian language at columbia college on may 2, 1825. in september of that year, he was awarded the post, but the registered students, and not the college, had to pay his fees (krehbiel 1898:175).14 thus da ponte established an honorable and unique position for himself, similar in some respects to his position as court theater poet in vienna or to mozart's appointment as chamber composer for the emperor, a post which was especially created for mozart. an important factor in da ponte's appointment was certainly the influence of clement clarke moore (1779-1863), one of the curators of columbia college. moore and da ponte had been acquainted since 1807 and became close friends around 1819. moore, a poet and author (he wrote the children's poem the night before christmas), also founded an episcopalian theological seminary in new york and published a dictionary of the hebrew language. he was a wealthy member of new york society and his friendship with da ponte indicates the new york social circles in which da ponte felt at home. the association with moore also suggests where da ponte secured sponsorship for his opera enterprises which, after all, were first and foremost a means of promoting italian language and culture. 117 118 current musicology it is remarkable how much energy da ponte expended in his old age to promote italian language, literature, and culture through a variety of activities. by the mid-nineteenth century, it was said that "more than two thousand scholars have been initiated in the language of italy by him" (francis 1858:260). between 1826 and 1829 he sold entire portions of his personal collection of italian literature to the columbia college library and even worked on a new catalogue for the library (cohen 1987:21ff.; krehbiel 1898:176). he also worked for other new york libraries, was still active as a bookseller, and published stock catalogues of his inventory which mainly consisted of italian titles but also included works in french and german. 15 before i close, i would like to eradicate yet another popular legend: it has repeatedly been maintained that da ponte died impoverished, unknown, and forgotten in new york. there is no evidence to support this; indeed, all evidence proves the contrary. on august 17, 1838, da ponte died in new york. on september 29, the new york mirror published a portrait ofda ponte on its front page along with an obituary which filled more than the entire page (ward 1838). the requiem mass was celebrated in the old st. patrick's cathedral on august 20. among other music, the cathedral choir sang allegri's miserere, the work which mozart had heard during his visit to rome as a boy and written down from memory. this was, however, not a deliberate allusion to da ponte's connection to mozart. rather, the miserere had first been published by charles burney in london and quickly became one of the best known and most popular pieces for choir; this popularity spread from london to new york. furthermore, we have detailed descriptions of the city's formalleavetaking of da ponte. the funeral service, the long funeral procession, and the graveside ceremony, all organized by the italian community in new york, were clearly impressive to the eye-witnesses. 16 in its obituary of da ponte, published august 18, 1838, the day after his death, the new york evening post described him as having retained the enthusiasm and fire of youth even into old age. the funerary coat of arms, which was carried at the head of the funeral procession, bore the latin inscription "lorenzo da ponte, exceptionally valued by the sciences, by the state and among the muses, a great lover of his native country and an eager christian" (ward 1838:106). this last characterization may refer to da ponte's having, in his old age, reconciled himself to the church he had left without dispensation in his youth. these, however, are purely biographical questions which did not concern us in this essay. i have instead tried to describe the complicated relationship between a famous composer and the librettist who worked with him, and who for nearly a half-century struggled with that relationship even from the remove of the new world. otto biba notes an earlier version of this paper was read at the colloquium commemorating the 200th anniversary of lorenzo da ponte's arrival in the new world, organized by the da ponte institute of vienna and the italian academy for advanced studies in america at columbia university, in new york on october 11,2005, in the teatro of the italian academy. sections of this paper were recently published elsewhere in german as biba (2005) and (2006). 1. this misleading picture (that da ponte devoted himself to making mozart's reputation in america) has been perpetuated by many scholars, most of them writing in german but also some writing in italian and english. 2. this overview follows da ponte's very subjective and not always truthful memoirs as well as literature about da ponte. for two editions of the memoirs with careful annotations, see gugitz (1924) and livingston (1929). from the literature i mention russo (1922), hodges (1995), rescigno (1989), lanapoppi (1992), and goertz (1985). 3. these debates are reprinted in prescott (1824) and (1845). 4. see sonneck (1945) and smith (in wolfe 1964). 5. the first complete mozart opera performed in london was la clemenza di tito in 1806. die zauberf/ote followed in 1811, le nozze di figaro in 1812, and don giovanni in 1817. see kochel ([1862]1964:721, 713, 546, 599). 6. the new york premiere of die entfuhrung aus dem serail took place in 1862 as part of carl anschutz's german opera season in the old wallack theatre (ritter 1884:332).la clemenza di tito and cos! fan tutte were only premiered in new york in the twentieth century. 7. "the fowler. a favorite song by the celebrated mr. mozart. printed and sold at g. willig's musical magazine no. 165 market street, philadelphia." sonneck dates the edition 1795, while upton dates it 1795-97 (sonneck 1945:146). 8. the first piano sonata by mozart published in new york appeared in 1810 and was, un­ fortunately, not authentic (wolfe 1964,2:614). 9. these were "the saffron tints of morn appear," "thou who lov'st the desert wild;' and "holy, lord god of hosts" (the sanctus from the mass k. anh. 233/c1.06). 10. see norton (1932), lowens (1979) and (1981), and kidd (1987). 11. see wolfe (1964,2:613): "select airs from the celebrated operas composed by mozart. arranged for the piano forte, with an accompaniment for the flute ad lib., by j. f. burrowes, philadelphia;' published by bacon & co. wolfe dates the edition 1819. 12. it would be interesting to know what da ponte thought and felt about this. 13. he took for granted that the readership of his memoirs would be widespread and not limited to new york. 14. da ponte's son-in-law henry james anderson was appointed professor of mathematics and astronomy at columbia college in 1825, the same year da ponte accepted his post. 15. when columbia college celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on april 13, 1837, the cer­ emony included a canon by william byrd, a te deum by an unnamed composer, and the rex tremendae majestatis and benedictus from mozart's requiem (columbia college 1837: 16). yet not even this unusual combination of works can have originated with lorenzo da ponte, who was eighty-eight at the time and was not represented on the committee of professors preparing the ceremony. 119 120 current musicology 16. "his remains were followed to the grave by many of our most distinguished citizens" (francis 1858:263). see ward (1838:106) and tuckerman (1868:536) for other eye-witness accounts. references biba, otto. 2005. lorenzo da ponte in new york, 1805-1838. musikbliitter der wiener philharmoniker 59: 335-56. ---. 2006. lorenzo da ponte in nordamerika. in lorenzo da ponte: aufbruch in die neue welt, edited by werner hanak, 99-112. wien-ostfildern: hatje cantz-verlag. cohen, paul. 1987. lorenzo da ponte in new york. american book collector 8 (5): 17-22. columbia college. 1837. an account of the celebration of the first semi-centennialanniversary of the incorporation of columbia college, by the legislature of new-york. new york: g. & g. carvill. da ponte, lorenzo. 1821. profezia di dante. di lord byron. tradotta in terza rima da l. da ponte. nuova-jorca: r. e. w.a. bartow. ---. 1827. storia della lingua e letteratura italiana in new york. new york: gray & bunce. ---. 1829-30. memorie di lorenzo da ponte, da ceneda, in tre volumi, scritte da esso. nuova-jorca: pubblicate dall'autore, gray & bunce. ---. 1847. memoiren von lorenz da ponte von ceneda. von ihm selbst in neuyork heraus­ gegeben. aus dem italienischen, edited by carl spindler. 2 vols. stuttgart: franckh. dizikes, john. 1993. opera in america. new haven and london: yale university press. fenner, theodore. 1972. leigh hunt and opera criticism: the "examiner" years, 1808-1821. lawrence: university press of kansas. francis, john w. 1858. old new york; or reminiscences of the past sixty years. new york: charles roe. goertz, harald. 1985. mozarts dichter lorenzo da ponte: genie und abenteurer. wien: osterreichischer bundesverlag. gugitz, gustav. 1924. denkwurdigkeiten des venezianers lorenzo da ponte. 3 vols. dresden: paul aretz. handel and haydn society. 1821. the boston handel and haydn society collection of sacred music: consisting of songs, duetts, trios, choruses, anthems & c: selected from the works of the most celebrated authors: arranged for the organ or piano forte, vol. 1. boston: handel and haydn society. hodges, sheila. 1995. lorenzo da ponte: the life and times of mozart's librettist. foreword by h. c. robbins landon. london: granada. ireland, joseph n. 1866-67. records of the new york stage from 1750 to 1860.2 vols. new york: t. h. morrell. johnson, h. earle. 1943. musical interludes in boston, 1795-1830. new york: columbia university press. ---. 1965. hallelujah, amen! the story of the handel and haydn society of boston. boston: bruce humphries publishers. kidd, ronald b. 1987. jefferson's music library, his catalogue of 1783, and a revision of lowens's "haydn in america." studies in eighteenth-century culture 17: 319-44 kochel, ludwig ritter von. [1862] 1964. chronologisch-thematisches verzeichnis siimtlicher tonwerke wolfgang amade mozarts, 6th ed., edited by franz giegling, alexander weinmann, and gerd sievers. wiesbaden: breitkopf & hartel. krehbiel, henry edward. 1898. da ponte in new york. in music and manners in the classical period: essays, 2nd ed., 159-87. new york: charles scribner's son. otto biba kiirnberger, ferdinand. 1855. der amerika-miide. frankfurt am main: amerikanisches kulturbild. lanapoppi, aleramo. 1992. lorenzo da ponte: realtii e leggenda nella vita del librettista di mozart. venezia: marsilio. lazare, christopher. 1950. da ponte in new york: portrat eines abenteuerlichen lebens. der monat 2: 282-9l. livingston, arthur. 1929. memoirs of lorenzo da ponte, translated by elisabeth abbott. philadelphia: lippincott. lowens, irving. 1979. haydn in america. detroit: college music society. ---. 1981. haydn in america. in haydn studies: proceedings of the international haydn conference, washington, dc, 1975, edited by jens peter larsen, howard serwer, and james webster, 35-48. new york and london: w. w. norton. nettl, paul. 1953. da ponte in vienna. opera news 17 (14): 8-11. ---. 1966. der fall abbe da ponte. mitteilungen des osterreichischen staatsarchivs 19: 170-209. norton, m. d. herter. 1932. haydn in america (before 1820). musical quarterly 18: 309-37. prescott, william h. 1824. italian narrative poetry. north american review 45: 337-89. ---. 1845. italian narrative poetry, october 1824. in william h. prescott biographical and critical miscellanies, 410-85. new york: harper & brothers. rescigno, eduardo. 1989. da ponte: poeta e libertino tra mozart e il nuovo mondo. milano: bompiani. ritter, frederic louis. 1884. music in america. london: william reeves. russo, joseph louis. 1922. lorenzo da ponte, poet and adventurer. new york: columbia university press. sonneck, oscar george theodore. 1907. early concert-life in america. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. ---. 1945. a bibliography of early secular american music (eighteenth century), revised and enlarged by william treat upton. washington, dc: library of congress. tuckerman, henry t. 1868. lorenzo da ponte. putnam's magazine 2 (11): 527-36. ward, samuel. 1838. original biographical sketches: lorenzo da ponte of ceneda. new york mirror 16 (14): 105-6. wolfe, richard j. 1964. secular music in america, 1801-1825, a bibliography. 3 vols. introduction by carleton sprague smith. new york: new york public library. zagonel, giampaolo. 1995. lorenzo da ponte: lettere, epistole in versi, dedicatorie e lettere dei fratelii. vittorio veneto: dario de bastiani. ---. 1999. lorenzo da ponte (ceneda 1749-new york 1838): bibliografia. vittorio veneto: dario de bastioni. 121 current.musicology.81.109-169.pdf a context for mozart's french ariettes: the wendling family and friedrich schiller's kabale und liebe paul corneilson this essay examines mozart's relationship to the wendling family and the french ariettes he wrote during his visit to mannheim. through documen­ tary evidence we glimpse the underside of court life, involving an affair between elisabeth augusta wendling and elector palatine carl theodor. six years after mozart's visit, friedrich schiller's kabale und liebe was performed at the mannheim national theater in 1784. the goal of the essay is first to draw connections between mozart and the wendlings, and second to consider schiller's fictional luisa miller, her father, and mother-a family possibly modeled on the wendlings. the wendling family among the friends mozart made during his visit to the mannheim court in 1777-78 were the wendlings-johann baptist, his wife dorothea, and their daughter elisabeth augusta-whom mozart first met on november 8,1777, a few days after his arrival: today after lunch at about two o'clock i went with cannabich to the flautist wendling. there everyone was extremely polite. the daughter, <who was once the elector's mistress>, plays the keyboard quite nicely. after that i played myself. i was in such an excellent mood that i cannot describe it. i played nothing but from my head, and three duets with violin which i had never seen in my life, and whose author i had never even heard of. they were all so content that i had to kiss the women. with the daughter it was not hard for me, for she is no dog. (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:110)1 the flautist johann baptist wendling had joined the mannheim or­ chestra in 1751 or 1752, and in a short time became principal flautist at the court. he gave private flute lessons to elector palatine carl theodor, and eventually visited london and paris, where he performed and published his own music.2 dorothea wendling was born at stuttgart in 1736 to a family of musicians named spurni, and she married johann baptist wendling on january 9, 1752. according to an early biographer, she "lived with him in a happy marriage" (lebte mit ihm in glucklicher ehe, lipowsky 1811:386). later that year she was appointed a singer at the mannheim court, and at the current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 53 54 current musicology age of sixteen she made her debut in baldassare galuppi's antigona (1753). she appeared as prima donna for the first time in 1758 in ignaz holzbauer's nitteti, and for the next twenty years she was the most celebrated soprano at the mannheim court. her last and most famous role was ilia in mozart's idomeneo (munich, 1781).3 the concert aria (k. 294a) that mozart wrote for her in mannheim in 1778 was undoubtedly an impetus for holzbauer's one-act opera, la morte di didone (1779), based on metastasio's didone abbandonata and which featured dorothea in the title role.4 elisabeth augusta, the only surviving daughter of the wendlings, was born on october 4, 1752. at the age of ten, she made her stage debut in tommaso traetta's sofonisba as the young son of sofonisba, with her mother in the title role.5 by the time she was seventeen, she had appeared in several comic operas, including the role of la cecchina in niccolo piccinni's la buona figliuola in november 1769.6 in a letter of november 20,1777, maria anna mozart mentions: yesterday, on st. elizabeth's day, wolfgang and i ate with herr and madame wendling, namely, the flautist; wolfgang gets along well with them; they have an only daughter who is very beautiful, and whom bach in england wanted to marry; she has been sickly for more than a year and a half, because she has not been cured completely of a fever; it is too bad about this person. (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:136)7 both wolfgang and his mother indicate that elisabeth augusta wendling was very beautiful, and that at some point she had been the mistress of carl theodor. furthermore, we learn that johann christian bach, who had befriended the mozarts during their trip to london in the 1760s and who subsequently wrote two operas for the mannheim court in the 1770s, had wanted to marry her. mozart's ariettes wolfgang enjoyed the company of the wendlings, especially the good­ looking daughter, and mainly out of friendship wrote two french ariettes (k. 307 and 308) for elisabeth augusta. these are the only two songs mozart is known to have composed with french texts, and they served as preparatory work for his anticipated trip to paris; there he wrote several sets of keyboard variations based on french songs, including "lison dormait" (k. 264), ''ah, vous dirai-je maman" (k. 265), "la belle fran~oise" (k. 353), and "je suis lindor" (k. 354). on february 7, 1778, mozart wrote to his father: paul corneilson the wendlings are all of the opinion that my compositions will be ex­ traordinarily well received in paris. that doesn't cause me any fear, for i can, as you know, quite easily adopt or imitate any kind and any style of composition. i composed for mlle. gustl (the daughter), shortly after my arrival, a french song, for which she gave me the words, and which she sings extremely well. here i have the honor to send it to you. at the wendlings it is sung every day; they are completely crazy about it. (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:265)8 although mozart neglects to mention the words, it has been assumed that the first song he wrote was "oiseaux, si tous les ans;' k. 307.9 elisabeth augusta selected the text, by antoine ferrand (1678-1719), from a chanson anthology.lo (the complete text and english translation are given below.) oiseaux, si to us les ans vous quitter nos climats, des que ie triste hiver depouille nos bocages; ce n' est pas seulement pour changer de feuillages, ni pour eviter nos frimats. mais votre destinee ne vous permet d'aimer qu'a. la saison des fleurs. et quand elle est passee, vous la chercher ailleurs, afin d' aimer toute l' annee. you birds, if every year you leave these climes as soon as dreary winter strips our groves; it is not only for a change of foliage, nor to avoid the frosty weather. but your fate only allows you to love in the season of flowers. for when springtime is gone, you look for it elsewhere in order to love all year round. mozart's charming setting in c major captures the mood oflost innocence inherent in the poem. after setting up a dominant seventh on "mais votre destinee" (in m. 27), an abrupt shift to the minor mode creates a chilling effect on the words "ne vous permet d' aimer / qu' a la saison des fleurs" (mm. 28-34; see example 1). but the major mode is restored in the next measure, the frosty weather dispelled. mozart even introduces a bird call in the keyboard accompaniment (mm. 43-46) and freely repeats the affirmative final line, "afin d'aimer, d'aimer toute l'annee, toute l'annee" (mm. 47-53; see example 2). on february 28, 1778, mozart wrote, "i have promised the daughter a few more french ariettes, of which i began one today. when they are finished, i will send them on small paper like the first" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75, 2:305).11 he apparently only completed one other, "dans un bois solitaire;' k. 308.12 as with k. 307, the text by antoine houdart de la motte (1672-1731) was probably selected by elisabeth augusta. the pastoral mood and content of the poem descends from battista guarini's pastor fido, as well as the galant painting subjects of antoine watteau and his followers. 55 current musicology example 1: mozart, "oiseaux, si tous les ans," k. 307, mm. 26-34. 26 , oj mais vo ire de sti ne, ne vous ___ pee met, ne , '-' 3 3 3 3 oj c~sc. <--;~ ~ ~ ~ ~ i '-' i : a , ~~ '-' oj volls per met d'ai mer quta la sai son des fleurs: 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 '-' ) oj *~ *~ ~ . ~ *~~ =l/ ~ • i '-' : a ,. :;t ~ ;~ ~ example 2: mozart, "oiseaux, si tous les ans;' k. 307, mm. 43-53. 43 , :-.. oj et quand ejle est pas see. valls la eherchez ail leurs, a fin d'ai '-' ) , .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ................................ : oj sy ji .1\ f., '-' oj . . • . . , ~ ::--. ~ ::--. oj -mer, d'ai mer toll te j'an nee, toll ie iran nee. n ~ 1\ 1\ ~ ll 1\ ~ ~ oj .~ ii . ii cresco . '-..: 1\ f., ~ ~ ~ f : u . . 56 dans un bois solitaire et sombre, je me promenais 1'autre jour: un enfant y dormait it 1'ombre, chait le redoutable amour. j'approche, sa beaute me flatte, mais j'haurais du m' en defier, j'y vis tous les traits d'une ingrate que j' avais jure d' oublier. il avait la bouche vermeille, le teint aussi beau que le sien. un soupir m'echappe, il s'eveille: l' amour se reveille de rien. aussit6t deployant ses ailes et saisissant son arc vengeur, d'une de ses fleches cruelles, en partant, il me blesse au coeur. va, va, dit-il, aux pieds de sylvie, de nouveau languir et bruler: tu l' aimeras toute la vie, pour avoir ose m' eveiller. paul corneilson in a lonely and gloomy wood i walked the other day; a child slept in the shade, it was the fearsome cupid. i approach; his beauty fascinates me. but i should have been careful, he has the traits of a heartless maiden whom i had sworn to forget. he had ruby lips, a complexion as beautiful as hers. a sigh escapes me, and he awakes; love wakes at the slightest thing. immediately spreading his wings and grasping his vengeful bow, one of his cruel arrows wounds me in the heart, as he leaves. go, go, he says, at sylvia's feet will you languish and burn anew; you shall love her all your life, for having dared to awaken me. this second french ariette (k. 308, example 3) is much more sophis­ ticated and vocally challenging than the first (k. 307). for one thing, the female singer assumes a male persona, to "languish and burn" at sylvia's feet. although mozart could have set this as a strophic song (five stanzas of four lines each), he instead created a modified da capo form. the first stanza (mm. 1-15) begins in ab major, with a cantabile theme, and the three middle stanzas form a continuous, contrasting section. the penultimate stanza modulates through a variety of keys and tempos in sturm und drangfashion before coming to a stop on the word "coeur" (mm. 42-57; see example 3). mozart uses the first line of the last stanza ("va, va, dit -il") as a transition (presto, mm. 58-62), returning to ab and the opening thematic material for the last stanza (mm. 63-77). this song comes on the heels of three italian concert arias that mozart had recently composed for aloysia weber, anton raaff, and dorothea wendling (k. 294, 295, and 295a, respectively). all of these are mentioned in a letter of february 28, 1778, in which mozart talks about tailoring the music for each individual singer. as with these arias, mozart wrote the french ariettes to suit the taste and voice of elisabeth augusta. she and her mother were especially fond of french culture, and two years later, when mozart was completing idomeneo in munich, mozart warned his father and sister in a letter of december 5, 1780: "you must accustom yourself a little to kissing ... here as often as you come to dorothea wendling's (where everything is half in the french style) you must embrace mother and daughter-but nota bene 57 current musicology example 3: mozart, "dans un bois solitaire;' k. 308, mm. 42-65. allegro oj aus si tot deploy-ant '" a1 les et sai-sis san! son arc ven-geur, ~ i't""t"i rrn i i ) oj jp ........... u..w jp'.-j...i jpi-i.....j f ~# : 4 u 7.j ~ _h oj d'u ne de ,e, neches. de ses i1e ches cru el les, en par i i i i i i l ) oj p f p f~~~q~~~~ el.j...j~ .• ~# . ~,. .~,. . ~{! ~ ~,. : oj tan!, en pac tant, ;] me bless __ " au_ rn rttl n-n iti itti iii ) oj ~ fl....j...j f ~ , p--p f i p 1 . "i : i i i presto " e j '-' oj coeur, il me bles ,e au couer. va, va. va, ~ r1"1 .......... '-' ) oj ••• l....j....j ",--v ••• ere scendo '-' : .. .. e ...... ...... :;t:;t:;t '-' primo tempo ~ oj ....va,_ dit ii, va, dit ii, aux_ pieds de syl v; e, ~ '-' rtt"1 i""t"'i'""'1 r--r-.--. r-r-t'""'1 ) oj ~ ~ -------~ .. ~~ .:;t jp '-' : .it .. u 58 paul corneilson on the chin, so that the make-up does not become blue" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75, 3 :49).13 although the two ariettes are not as technically demanding as his opera arias, neither would be out of place in an opera-comique or at the concert spirituel. mozart could have written an italian aria for "gustl" as well, but he obliged the mother and daughter's francophilia, no doubt with an eye on his impending trip to the french capital. mozart had originally planned to accompany j. b. wendling and the oboist friedrich ramm to paris during lent in 1778. however, mozart's infatuation with aloysia weber got the better of him, and he decided he would rather accompany her to italy than go to paris. as a rationalization for the change of plan, mozart (and his mother) vilified the wendling family. on february 4, 1778, mozart wrote to his father: "wendling is a thoroughly honest and very good man, but unfortunately without any religion, and so is his entire house. it is enough to say that his daughter was a mistress" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:252).14 although leopold refused to give his blessing to wolfgang's trip to italy, he agreed with his wife and son about the wendlings: ''as i said already, it is a good thing that you, my son, did not travel to paris in that company. a father who discards his daughter in his own interests is detestable, and how can you rely on his friendship, when he has sacrificed his own flesh and blood to self-interests, and his honor squandered throughout the entire country as well as in neighboring lands?" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:298).15 the sordid details that leopold only hints at (discussed in the next section) do not leave a favorable impression of the wendlings. the wendling affair during the summer of 1772, the elector did have an affair with elisabeth augusta, who from early may was singing in a comic opera titled l'isola d'amore by antonio sacchini. the diplomatic reports of count andreas von riaucour, saxon ambassador to the palatine court, make specific reference to the affair and the machinations behind the scenes. the first reference comes on may 12, 1772, when riaucour writes from schwetzingen, the summer palace of carl theodor: there is every indication that the elector palatine has decided to take a new mistress, and the choice has fallen on the daughter of a singer, who combines very great beauty with the attractions of youth and a cultivated mind, which will certainly develop further with age. her mother, who has sacrificed this young person for her own ambition, is of a malicious character, arrogant and unscrupulous in the methods that she employs to succeed in her plans. no doubt she has been involved in this affair and 59 60 current musicology has permitted it to happen, and in addition is gaining a certain advantage by means of her daughter's influence on the elector.16 is it possible that dorothea wendling was primarily responsible for getting her daughter involved in the relationship? if so, where was her father, johann baptist? during the spring of 1772 he was in london, where he made the acquaintance of j. c. bach and performed in several concerts that season. in any event, dorothea's aim to gain more influence with the court opera must have been transparent to an insider like riaucour, who had been in residence at mannheim longer than the wendlings had been on the payroll. by mid-july the affair had already begun to take its toll on the electress, who was spending most of her time at her own palace at oggersheim, rather than with the elector at schwetzingen. riaucour reports: madame electress palatine and princess christine arrived here the day before yesterday to dine with the elector and returned that evening to oggersheim, after having seen the italian intermezzo calledl'isola d'amore. we observed that madame electress was not terribly happy during the performance, and [it was because of) the choice that the elector made for the young wendling to take the place of his former mistress named seifert; this princess had marked kindness toward this young person, and especially for her mother, who is prima donna and who performed in the above-mentioned piece. as this last one is very conniving, one fears that in time she will have too much power over the elector. madame electress has enough sense to close her eyes to all this, however, since the elector provides for all the extraordinary expenses she has at oggersheim and he continues to have feelings for her; but in her heart she is deeply hurt and does not hide it from her confidantes. i? the former mistress, josepha seyffert, countess von heydeck, was the mother of three daughters and a son, carl august von bretzenheim-all natural children of carl theodor. she had died in 1771. josepha had been a dancer in the ballet corps, and she and her children were provided a comfort­ able palace dose to the elector's residence. (mozart gave the children lessons while he was in mannheim, hoping to improve his chances for a permanent appointment at court.) thus, dorothea wendling must have expected that an affair with the elector would be an excellent means of social advancement for her daughter. according to riaucour, however, elisabeth augusta's tastes were much more sophisticated than josepha's, and in a short time she began to tax the elector's purse. paul corneilson it is said that the elector is beginning to be extremely embarrassed by his new mistress, who has had an education quite different from her predeces­ sors, who had been plucked from poverty and obscurity. she has a great desire for expensive things, which this prince does not like at all since he is particularly frugal, especially since he has four children, and it is rumored, that to avoid an even greater number, he will be giving her a husband; however, we do not know whether she will remain in her position or be forced to follow her future husband's path. is we do not know to whom the elector might have intended to marry elisabeth augusta wendling, but her father clearly hoped that she would marry his new friend from london, j. c. bach. having been commissioned to write an opera for mannheim, bach arrived on september 12, 1772, to complete and rehearse his opera and to conduct the premiere, as was the cus­ tom. within a month of bach's arrival, the elector's affair with mademoiselle wendling was over. again, we learn from riaucour: everyone is happy that the elector has given up his new mistress, not so much through any fault of her own, but rather because of her father and mother who are very intriguing and very malicious. they have already hatched a plot to reform the court and get rid of a great number of per­ sonnel and are anticipating their future credit and grandeur. 19 here riaucour implicates both father and mother in the disastrous affair. what changes of personnel would have been worth risking their daughter's future happiness? riaucour provides no further information, and opera at mannheim seems to have continued as before. bach's opera, temistocle, had its premiere on november 5, 1772. it was so successful that bach was commissioned to write a second one, lucio silla, based on the libretto that mozart had set for milan.20 schiller's drama of "intrigue and love" one other connection to the wendling family has not yet been put forward. on april 15, 1784, schiller's kabale und liebe received its premiere in frankfurt and was performed two days later at the mannheim national theater, two years after his first drama, die rauber, had created a sensation there.2l students of german literature have sought to identify historical figures as models for the characters in the play, but have generally concluded that the miller family-father, mother, and luisa-were schiller's invention. the resemblance between the fictional millers and the historical wendlings, however, seems more than coincidental. schiller originally intended to call his play luisa miller, and as in gotthold lessing's emilia gaiotti (1772), 61 62 current musicology schiller was more concerned with developing the character of the title role than with the others. the tragic ending is a rewriting of romeo and juliet, with a series of misunderstandings and a delayed entrance leading to the accidental murder of luisa and the suicide of her lover ferdinand. for our purposes here, the most striking aspect is the domestic tragedy of the millers' family life: a domineering mother, a protective father, and a daughter's lost virtue.22 as in the novels of jane austen, schiller subtly shows how music permeated the leisure time of the middle classes and the aristocracy. herr miller is described as a "city musician, or, as they are called in some places, a town piper" (stadtmusikant oder, wie man sie an einigen orten nennt, kunstpfeifer), and there are references to music and music-making sprinkled throughout the play.23 miller uses musical analogies several times, most dramatically when confronting the president in act 2, scene 6: "saving your grace. my name is miller, if you want to hear an adagio-with mistresses i cannot serve you. as long as the court has its own supply, the delivery is not up to us middle-class people. saving your grace."24 this is one of the scenes depicted by daniel chodowiecki in his illustrations of the play in 1786.25 at the beginning of the second act, lady milford "sits at a keyboard and improvises" (sitzt vor dem hugel und phantasiert), and in the penultimate scene luisa asks ferdinand to accompany her on the fortepiano. the unnamed duke in kabale und liebe is supposedly modeled on karl eugen, the music-loving duke ofwurttemburg.26 schiller knew him well, having attended the elite karlsschule in stuttgart. the corrupt president in the drama was likely modeled on a court minister, count samuel friedrich von montmartin, and wurm on his assistant, lorenz wittleder. lady milford (who is british in the play) seems to be a composite of a number of the duke's mistresses, but especially countess franziska von hohenheim, who eventu­ ally became karl eugen's consort in 1785 and was supposed to have had a benevolent influence on him (see table o. no doubt there were courtiers like chamberlain von kalb at every court, foppish and self-important and ready to say or do anything that might enhance their status. but the most interesting parallels are between the miller family and the wendlings. miller, luisa's father, is a musician in the play and in the first scene is practicing a violoncello, but there are also references to the violin and flute. although we are not told so explicitly, herr miller probably spends his days rehearsing and performing music in a variety of venues at the court, teach­ ing pupils in his home or around town, and possibly composing music on demandp near the end of kabale und liebe there is an oblique reference to flute lessons, wendling's principal instrument: paul corneilson table 1: characters in kabale und liebe and possible historical models. character model prasident von walter, am hof eines count samuel friedrich von montmartin deutschen fiirsten ferdinand, sein sohn, major hofmarschall von kalb lady milford, favoritin des fiirsten wurm, haussekretar des prasident miller, stadtmusikant oder, wie man sie an einigen orten nennt, kunstpfeifer dessen frau luise, dessen tochter [references to duke offstage 1 ferdinand: miller, ich weib nur kaum noch, wie ich in sein haus kam-was war die veranlassung? miller: wie, herr major? sie wohten ja lection auf der flote bei mir nehmen? das wissen sie nicht mehr? franziska von hohenheim, mistress and later wife of karl eugen lorenz wittleder, assistant to count montmartin johann baptist wendling, principal flautist at mannheim court dorothea wendling, wife of j. b., and singer at mannheim court elisabeth augusta wendling, daughter of j. b. and dorothea duke karl eugen von wiirttemberg ferdinand: miller, i scarcely remember how i came to your house.-what was the reason? miller: how so, major? you wanted to take lessons on the flute with me? you no longer remember? the most obvious attribute common to luisa miller and the wendling's daughter, elisabeth augusta, is her uncommon beauty. c. f. d. schubart singles her out as the "erste schonheit" (most beautiful, schubart 1806:144) in the mannheim orchestra.28 miller's remarks about his daughter are equally applicable to wendling's daughter (act 1, scene 1): miller: das madel ist schon -schlank-fuhrt seinen net­ ten fub. unterm dach mag's aussehen, wie's will. daruber guckt man bei euch weibs­ leuten weg, wenn's nur der liebe gott parterre nicht hat fehlen lassen. miller: the maiden is beau­ tiful-slender-turns a nice leg. under the roof it can be as it may. one overlooks that in you women, as long as the dear lord has not left you lacking on the ground floor. 63 64 current musicology in act 1, scene 5 (again referring to luisa): wurm: (lebhaft) das schonste exemplar einer blondine, die, nicht zu viel gesagt, neb en den ersten schonheiten des hofes noch figur mach en wiirde. and in act 2, scene 4: miller: du aber auch mit deinen vergibmeinnicht­ augen! (lacht voller bosheit.) das hat seine richtigkeit, wem der teufel ein ei in die wirthschaft gelegt hat, dem wird eine hubsche tochter geboren-jetzt hab' ich's blank. wurm: (animated) the finest example of a blond, who, it is not too much to say, can still cut a figure beside the first beauties of the court. miller: but you with your forget-me-not eyes! (laughs full of malice.) there is a reason, whenever the devil really has laid an egg in your household, a pretty daughter is born to them. -now it's become clear. at first glance, it would appear that frau miller has little in common with dorothea wendling. however, schiller's audience would have been struck by the role frau miller played in encouraging her daughter to advance in society through a match to a higher class. her rather naive view stands in stark contrast to herr miller's, who from the beginning (act 1, scene 1) understood the incompatibility of the president's son and his daughter: miller: nehmen kann er das madel nicht-vom nehmen ist gar die rede nicht, und zu einer-dab gott erbarm? -guten morgen! -gott, wenn so ein musje von sich da und dort, und dort und hier schon herumbeholfen hat, wenn er, der henker weib! was als? gelost hat, schmeckt's meinem guten schlucker freilich, einmal auf sub was­ ser zu graben. gib du acht! gib du acht! und wenn du aus jedem astloch ein auge strecktest und vor jedem blutstropfen schildwache standest, er wird sie, dir auf der nase, beschwatzen, miller: marry the girl he cannot. there is no question of his marrying her, and as for having her for a [mistress 1 ... god help us! good morn­ ing! -god, if one of these monsieurs has already made the rounds here and there, and there and here, through the hangman knows what else, then my fine scamp has a taste for digging for fresh water. be careful! very careful; even if you look through every keyhole and stand watch for every drop of blood, he'll sweet talk her right under your nose, and give the girl one, and escape, dem madel eins hinsetzen und fuhrt sich ab, und das madel ist verschimpfiert auf ihr lebenlang, bleibt sitzen, oder hat's handwerk ver­ schmeckt, treibt's fort. (die hand vor der stirn) jesus christus! paul corneilson and the girl has a bad reputa­ tion for the rest of her life, and remains behind; or else, if she has a knack for work­ ing with her hands, she'll do it. (hand on his brow) jesus christ! mannheimers were well aware of the elector's predilection for beauti­ ful women, and of course he could not marry his mistresses as long as the electress lived. a visitor to mannheim during the autumn of 1772 confirms the outcome of the recent events related by riaucour: the elector is extremely fond of women; one can always see lots of little electors or electresses at schwetzingen. he had an italian mistress [josepha seyffertl who died a short while ago. now the position is vacant. the daughter of the flautist wendling had pursued him and was tested for several weeks, but the elector became disgusted with her. the father had not wanted anything to do with it, so people say, but the mother had wanted it all the while. (obser 1907:150)29 compare this with miller's accusations of his wife (act 1, scene 1): miller: das blutgeld meiner tochter? -schier dich zum satan, infame kupplerin! -eh will ich mit meiner geig' auf den bettel herumziehen und das con­ cert urn was warmes geben­ eh will ich mein violoncello zerschlagen und mist im sonanzboden fuhren, eh ich mir's schmecken lass' von dem geld, das mein einziges kind mit seel' und seligkeit abverdient. miller: blood money for my daughter? go to satan, infamous procuress! i will go begging with my violin and give a concert for something warm ... i will destroy my cello and put dung in the sounding-board before i'll eat from the money my own child has earned with her soul and her salvation. later, in act 2, scene 5, miller curses both the seducer and his wife who pandered to him. to which frau miller replies, "do i deserve a curse, my daughter?" (miller: fluch tiber das weib, das ihm kuppelte! / frau miller: verdien' ich diesen fluch, meine tochter?) by october 1772, elisabeth augusta was an attractive young woman of twenty whose reputation had become tainted. an independent witness confirms that, "bach wanted to marry the young augusta wendling, but the elector had spoiled his right. the father was upset. [bachllodged with the 65 66 current musicology wendlings, and therefore all the arias that [dorothea] wendling sang were especially good. she sang beautifully and created the leading role of aspasia" (obser 1907:165).30 although bach's opera was a success (in no small part because of the interpretation of the prima donna), he must have been bit­ terly disappointed about elisabeth augusta's affair with the elector, which ruined his chance to form a mutually agreeable alliance with the wendlings. apparently, it was an open secret that johann baptist was upset. if this is true, consider miller's lament (act 1, scene 1) in this context: miller: das madel setzt sich alles teufelsgezeug in den kopf; tiber all dem herum­ schwanzen in der schlaraffen­ welt findet's zuletzt seine heimath nicht mehr, vergibt, schamt sich, dab sein vater miller der geiger ist, und verschlagt mir am end einen wackern ehrbaren schwieger­ sohn, der sich so warm in meine kundschaft hinein­ gesetzt hatte. conclusion miller: the girl gets all sorts of devil's stuff into her head; above all, with all that wandering around in fools' paradise, she cannot find her way home any more; she forgets, she is ashamed that her father is miller the fiddler, and in the end she'll cheat me out of a decent, honorable son-in-law, who could have worked himself so warmly into my patrons' favor. although the wendling family could have seen a production of kabale und liebe at munich in the 1780s with theobald marchand in the role of miller, no direct documentary evidence of their knowledge of the play or their reaction to it has come to light. if schiller had explicitly modeled frau miller on the local prima donna, everyone at mannheim would have known exactly who his models were. in fact, schiller does hint at the identities in the following passage in act 2, scene 4, when miller blurts out, "orchestra! yes, where you, procuress, will howl treble and my blue hind end will perform the bass! ... god in heaven!" (orchester! ja, wo du kupplerin den discant wirst heulen und mein blauer hinterer den conterbab vorstellen! ... gott im himmel!) the term discant (treble) is a synonym for sopranistin, the professional title of a court singer. unfortunately, we do not know for sure whether schiller knew the wendling family history. yet it seems likely, given the location of the work's premiere and the distinctive traits of the wendlings, that schiller used poetic license to transform this family of musicians into fictional characters caught up in a plot of "intrigue and love." paul corneilson the question remains: did her mother and father sacrifice elisabeth augusta's future happiness in an attempt to gain greater influence at carl theodor's court? probably. her health was poor, and she was never able to become a successful opera singer. she never married, and leopold mozart later mentioned that she had become the mistress of the intendant, count johann anton von seeau in 1784.3! ultimately, she died at the age of forty­ two in 1794 (her father and mother died in 1797 and 1811, respectively). if mozart had known schiller's play, would he have made the connection between the millers and the wendlings? again, we will probably never know. mozart and the wendlings crossed paths several more times, most notably in munich in 1780-81, while he completed idomeneo. years later, constanze mozart claimed, "the most happy time of his life was whilst at munich during which he wrote idomeneo which may account for the affec­ tion he entertained towards the work" (novello and novello 1955:94). he also planned to write to the wendlings about some concertos in january of 1783 (possibly the three he was completing to sell by subscription, k. 413,414, and 415).32 on his trip to frankfurt in october 1790 to attend the coronation of leopold ii as holy roman emperor, mozart met some of his mannheim friends, including "old wendling and his dorothea."33 mozart's gift of the french ariettes must have given elisabeth augusta and her parents many hours of pleasure. at the same time, they give us a vocal portrait of an eighteenth-century singer.34 the ariettes provide a small window into elisabeth augusta's intimate feelings just after a tumultuous time in her life: she chose the texts and must have influenced mozart's musi­ cal setting, since we know he preferred to tailor music to his singers. mozart says the ariettes were sung every day at the wendlings, and thus we have a glimpse into the domestic life of a family of musicians. elisabeth augusta also happened to be the daughter of the soprano who created mozart's ilia. the desire for power and influence may have caused dorothea to make poor choices, but elisabeth augusta apparently bore no grudge against her parents. (at least no letters or diaries with a contrary view have survived.) schiller's kabale und liebe also depicts a family of musicians, and while we have no proof, there is an undeniable parallelism between the family of elisabeth augusta wendling and that of schiller's luisa miller. notes i read a version of this paper at the american society for eighteenth-century studies in philadelphia in april 2000. i want to acknowledge margaret butler, dexter edge, daniel heartz, john rice, arthur w. mcardle, and michael ritterson for their many helpful com­ ments. i also want to thank karen hiles and the anonymous readers for their help in shaping the revised version of this essay. any weaknesses that remain are my responsibility. 67 68 current musicology 1. "hetit nach tisch gleich urn 2 uhr gienge ich [mit] canabich zum flutraversist wendling. da war alles in der grosten hoflichkeit. die tochter, welche <einmal maitresse von dem curftirsten war> spiellt recht htibsch clavier. hernach habe ich gespiellt. ieh war hetint in so einer vortreflichen laune, dab ich es nicht beschreiben kann. ich habe nichts als aus dem kopf gespiellt; und drey duetti mit violin die ich main lebetag niemahlen gesehen, und dessen author ich niemahlen nennen gehort habe. sie waren allerseits so zufrieden, dab ich-die frauenzimmer ktissen muste. bey der tochter kam es mir gar nieht hart an; denn sie ist gar kein hund" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:110). the phrase in brackets, about the daughter having been the mistress of the elector, was written in the family code to avoid potential trouble with authorities. all translations, unless otherwise indicated, are my own. the punctuation and orthography of the texts follow the original. 2. on wendling's life and work, see gunson (1999). 3. for a summary of her singing career, see corneilson (2001). 4. see corneilson (2000:38-39,44--45). 5. this was not a mute role, but rather the young girl had to sing a short aria. when the opera was revised by galuppi for turin, this arioso was omitted, although the child portraying sofonisba's son received a small fee. see butler (2001:158,165). 6. because of their similar names and since both appeared on stage at the electoral court, elisabeth augusta and her aunt elisabeth wendling (nee sarselli), the first elettra in mozart's idomeneo, have often been confused in the secondary literature. the mozarteum in salzburg owns a portrait said to depict dorothea's sister-in-law, elisabeth wendling. this is reproduced in color in mtinster (2002:131, fig. 72) and in leopold and pelker (2004:80). however, little is known of the provenance of this painting, and it could possibly depict elisabeth augusta wendling. unfortunately, no other portraits of elisabeth augusta or her aunt are available for comparison. 7. "gostern als an elisabetha tag hab ich und der wolfgang bey herrn und madame wendling gespeiset, nemlich bey den flautraversisten, der wolfgang gilt alles bey ihnen sie haben eine einzige tochter die sehr schon ist, und die der bach in england hat wollen heurathen, sie ish schon tiber 11/2 jahr kranklich, weil sie von einem fieber ist tibel curiert worden, ist woll schade urn dise pehrsohn" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:136). 8. "beym wendling sind sie aile der meynung das meine composition ausserordentlich in paris gefallen wiirde. das ist gewis das mir gar nicht bang ware, denn ich kann so ziemlich, wie sie wissen, alle art und styl vom compositions annehmen und nachahmen. ich habe der mad:"u, gust!, i die tochter i gleich nach meiner ankunft ein franzosches lied, wozu sie mir den text gegeben hat, gemacht, welches sie unvergleichlich singt. hie habe ich die ehre damit aufzuwarten. beym wendling wirds aile tag gesungen. sie sind vollig narrn darauf" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:265). 9. kochel ([1862]1964) assigns the song the number 284d, with the remark: "komponiert angeblich anfang november 1777 in mannheim." mozart's letter of february 7,1778, im­ plies that the song had existed for some time by then, but he neither gives a specific date of composition nor identifies its text. he sent a copy of the song-copied gratis by fridolin weber-to leopold, who acknowledged receiving it in a letter dated february 16, 1778. the wendlings presumably kept the autograph. constanze eventually sent copies of the songs k. 307 and 308 to breitkopf & hartel in march 1799; see her list in bauer and deutsch (1962-75,4:229). 10. according to kochel ([1862]1964), an exemplar is located in florence at the biblioteca del conservatorio "luigi cherubini:' shelf mark, b 2949/1. paul corneilson 11. "der tochter habe ich noch einige franzossche ariettes versprochen, wovon ich heiit eins angefangen habe, wenn sie fertig sind, so werde ich sie, wie die erste, auf klein papiere schicken" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:305). 12. kochel ([ 1862]1964) assigns this song the number 295b, with the remark "komponiert angeblich ende februar oder anfang marz 1778 in mannheim." 13. "das kussen mussen sich schon ein wenig angewohnen ... hier werden sie so oft sie zur dorothea wendling kommen i: wo alles noch halb franzosisch fub ist:1 mutter und tochter embrabirn mussen-aber nb: auf das kinn-damit der schminck nicht elau wird" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,3:49). 14. "der wendling ist ein grund ehrlicher und sehr guter mann, aber leider ohne aile religion, und so das ganze haus. es ist ja genug gesagt dab seine tochter <maitresse> war" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:252). 15. "dab du, mein sohn, mit <diser compagie nicht> nach paris gereiset, hab schon ge­ meldet, ist ganz gut geschehen. <ein vater der seine tochter> aus interesse so hinwirft, ist verabscheuungswurdig, und wie kann man auf seine freundschaft bauen, da er sein aigenes blut dem eigennutzen aufopfert, und seine ehre dadurch in einem ganzen lande und auch in benachbarten landern in die schanz schlagt" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,2:298). 16. riaucour's report dated may 12, 1772: "<ii est des indices qui font presumer, que l'elect' palatin s'est decide pour une nouvelle maitresse, et que ie choix est tombe sur la fille d'une chanteuse, qui reunit it une tres grande beaute les agrements de la jeunesse, et un esprit cultive, qui se developpera certainement avec l'age. la mere, qui a sacrifie cette jeune per­ sonne it son ambition, est d'un caractere mechant, hautaine, et peu scrupuleuse sur ie choix dex moyens qu'elle employe, pour reussir dans ses projets. ii n'est pas it douter, qu'elle ne veuille se meier des affaires, si on la laisse faire, et qu'elle gagne un certain ascendant par ie credit de sa fille sur l'esprit du souverain.>" the passages in angle brackets were written in a numerical code and transliterated in dresden. i want to thank dr. ulrich leisinger, who checked my transcriptions of the unpublished riaucour correspondence on location in dresden: riaucour, andreas. 1772. acta, des geh: raths, gr: von riaucour, abschickung an der churpfiilzischen hof und dessen daselbst gefuhrte negociation betr: anna 1772. loc. 2627, bd. 25, sachsisches hauptstaatsarchiv dresden. 17. riaucour's report dated july 14, 1772: "madame l'electrice palatine et la princesse christine vinrent avanthier ici diner avec msgr. l'electeur, et retournerent ie soir it oggersheim, apres avoir vu la representation de !'intermezzo italien, nomme l'isola d' amore. <on a observe, que madame l'electrice n'etoit pas trop gale pendant ce spectacle, et on al­ lege pour raison, ie choise, que l'electeur a fait de la jeune wendlin, it la place de sa defunte maitresse nomme seifert; cette princesse ayant toujours eu de bontes marquees pour cette jeune personne, et surtout pour sa mere, lacquelle est premiere chanteuse, & qui joua precise­ ment dans la surdite piece. comme cette derniere est fort intriguante, on craint beaucoup, qu'avec ie terns elle ne gagne trop d'ascendant sur l'electeur. madame i'electrice it trop d'esprit, pour ne pas fermer les yeux it tout cela, tant que l'electeur fournit it la depense extraordinaire, qu'elle fait it oggersheim, et qu'il continue d'avoir pour elle, au moins en­ terieurement, les attentions qui lui sont duer; mais dans la fond elle s' en chagrine beaucoup, et ne ie cache pas it ses confidantes.>" 18. riaucour's report dated july 18, 1772:" <on dit, que l'elect. commence it etre extremement embarrasse de sa nouvelle maitresse, laquelle a eu une education bien differente de celie de ses predecetrices, qui etoient tirees de la misere et de l' obscurite. elle incline beaucoup pour la depense, que ce prince n'aime pas trop, etant singulierement econome, surtout depuis qu'i! a quatre enfans, et on se dit it l'oreille, que pour en eviter un plus grand nombre, illui 69 70 current musicology donnera un mari, sans qu' on sache cependant, si elle restera sur ie meme pied, ou, si elle sera obligee de suivre ie sort de son future epoux.>" 19. riaucour's report dated october 13, 1772:" <tout ie monde est enchante, que l'electeur se foit defait de sa nouvelle maitresse, non pas tant a cause d'elle, que pas rapport 11 ses pere et mere, qui sont tres intriguans, et tres mechants. lis avoient deja forme ie projet, de reformer la cour, et de disposer des employs les plus considerables, et avoient annonce au dehors leur credit et leur grandeur future.>" 20. naturally, mozart wanted to see bach's setting, which was performed in 1775, and bor­ rowed a copy of the score from georg joseph vogler. see corneilson (1994:206-18). 21. today, schiller's bourgeois tragedy of "intrigue and love" is probably best known, at least in non-german-speaking countries, as the source of verdi's luisa miller, first performed at the teatro san carlo in naples, on december 8, 1849. as is often the case, the operatic ver­ sion bears only passing resemblance to schiller's original drama. verdi also based operas on schiller's die rauber (as i masnadieri), lungfrau von orleans, wallerstein's lager, and don carlos. 22. on schiller's early career, see alt (2000). for an overview of early performances of schiller's plays, see rudloff-hille (1969). 23. the musical references and allusions in kabale und liebe are documented in fahnrich (1977:68-77). see also longyear (1967). 24. "halten zu gnaden. ich heisse miller, wenn sie einadagio horen wollen-mit buhlschaften dien' ich nicht. solang der hof da noch vorrath hat, kommt die lieferung nicht an uns burgersleut'. halten zu gnaden:' the german text of schiller's play is based on the projekt gutenberg-de available at http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/schiller/kabale/kabale.htm. 25. in the background of this scene, a violin hangs on the wall. other illustrations feature a violoncello and often show a trio of instruments in the background (violin, cello, and hunting horn). this series is reproduced in henning (1976) in the unnumbered pages im­ mediately following the facsimile of the first edition of the play, published by c. f. schwan in mannheim, 1784. 26. charles burney wrote of karl eugen: "his passion for music and shews, seems as strong as that of the emperor nero was formerly. it is, perhaps, upon such occasions as these, that music becomes a vice, and hurtful to society; for that nation, of which half the subjects are stage-players, fiddlers, and soldiers, and the other half beggars, seems to be but ill governed. here nothing is talked of but the adventures of actors, dancers, and musicians" (burney 1775,1:107). 27. for studies of the status and daily activities of german court musicians in the eighteenth century, see mahling (1983) and busch-salmen (1991:128-30). 28. "die tochter dieses musikalischen ehepaars war zwar ehemahls die erste schonheit im orchester; aber die naturliche kalte ihres charakters makte sie im sang und flugelspiel beynahe unbedeutend" (schubart 1806:144). schubart does not comment further on the "natural coldness of her character" that made her only of minor importance in singing and keyboard playing. 29. ''l'electeur aime extremement les femmes, l'on voit 11 tous mom ens des petits electeurs ou electrices 11 schwetzingen. ii avait une maitresse italienne, qui est morte depuis peu. itzt vaciret der platz. die tochter des flutenisten wendling hat ihn briguiret und sich einige wochen auf die probe gegeben, mais l'electeur s' en est degoute. der vater hat es aber nicht zugeben wollen, wie man sagt, die mutter hat es aber durchaus gewollt" (obser 1907:150). paul corneilson 30. "bach hat die junge auguste wendling heyrathen wollen, der churfurst hat ihm aber das gericht versalzen. le pere en est au desespoir. er hat bei wendlings logirt, und daher sind auch aile arien, welche wendling sang, vorzuglich gut. sie sang sehr schon und machte die hauptrolle der aspasia" (obser 1907:165). hardenburg later became staatskanzler at the pruss ian court. 31. "die august wendling itzt die geliebte des gr: seeau ist etc: etc: etc:" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,3:341). 32. "nun mue ich schlussen wei! ich noch einen brief an die wendling nach mannheim wegen mein concerten zu schreiben habe" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75,3:252). 33. "auch der alte wendling mit seiner dorothe" (bauer and deutsch 1962-75, 4:116). however, this letter does not survive in autograph, and it might be at least partially corrupt. mozart attended the local premiere of figaro at mannheim on october 24, 1790, and also visited friends in munich before returning to vienna in november. 34. in 1777-78, mozart was particularly interested in musical portraits, and in addition to these french ariettes, he depicted rosa cannabich in a keyboard sonata (k. 309) that he wrote for her in late 1777. see mozart's letter of december 6, 1777. the work is discussed in finscher (1992:76-78). references alt, peter-andre. 2000. schiller: leben-werk-zeit. 2 vols. munich: c. h. beck. bauer, wilhelm a. and otto erich deutsch. 1962-75. mozart: briefe und aufzeichnungen. 7 vols. kassel: barenreiter. burney, charles. 1775. the present state of music in germany, the netherlands, and united provinces. or, the journal of a tour through those countries, undertaken to collect materials for a general history of music, 2nd ed., corrected. 7 vols. london: t. becket. busch-salmen, gabriele. 1991. zur sozialen situation von musikern im 18. jahrhundert am beispiel mannheim. in 176 tage w. a. mozart in mannheim, edited by karin von weick and liselotte homering, 128-39. mannheim: reiss-museum. butler, margaret ruth. 2001. operatic reform at turin's teatro regio: aspects of production and stylistic change in the 1760s. lucca: libreria musicale italiana. corneilson, paul 1994. the case of j. c. bach's lucio silla. journal of musicology 12 (2): 206-18. ---. 2000. an intimate vocal portrait of dorothea wendling: mozart's "basta, vincesti-ah non lasciarmi, no," k. 295a. mozart-jahrbuch: 29-45. ---.2001. mozart's ilia and elettra. in mozarts idomeneo und die musik in munchen zur zeit karl theodors: bericht uber das symposion der gesellschaft fur bayerische musikgeschichte und der musikhistorischen kommission der bayerischen akademie der wissenschaften, munchen, 7.-9. juli 1999, edited by theodor gollner and stephan horner, 97-113. bayerische akademie der wissenchaften, philosophisch-historische klasse, no. 119. munich: c. h. beck. fahnrich, hermann. 1977. schillers musikalitat und musikanschauung. hildesheim: gerstenberg verlag. finscher, ludwig. 1992. mozart und mannheim. in die mannheimer hofkapelle im zeitalter carl theodors, edited by ludwig finscher, 71-96. mannheim: palatium verlag im j. & j. verlag. gunson, emily j. 1999. johann baptist wendling (1723-1797): life, works, artistry, and influence, including a thematic catalogue of all his compositions. phd dissertation, university of western australia. 71 72 current musicology henning, hans. 1976. schillers "kabale und liebe" in der zeitgenossischen rezeption. leipzig: zentralantiquariat der ddr. kochel, ludwig ritter von. [1862] 1964. chronologisch-thematisches verzeichnis siimtlicher tonwerke wolfgang amade mozarts, 6th ed., edited by franz giegling, alexander weinmann, and gerd sievers. wiesbaden: breitkopf & hartel. leopold, silke and barbel pelker, eds. 2004. hofoper in schwetzingen: musik, buhnenkunst, architektur. heidelberg: universitatsverlag winter, heidelberger akademie der wissenschaften. lipowsky, felix joseph. 1811. baierisches musik-lexikon. munich: jakob giel. longyear, rey m. 1967. schiller and music. university of north carolina (chapel hill campus) studies in the germanic languages and literatures, no. 54. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. mahling, christoph-helmut. 1983. the origin and social status of the court orchestral musician in the 18th and early 19th century in germany. in the social status of the professional musician from the middle ages to the 19th century, edited by walter salmen, translated by herbert kaufman and barbara reisner, 221-64. new york: pendragon press. mtinster, robert. 2002. "ich wurde munchen gewis ehre machen": mozart und der munchner hoj weibenhorn: a. h. konrad. novello, vincent and mary novello. 1955. a mozart pilgrimage, being the travel diaries of vincent and mary novello in the year 1829, edited by rosemary hughes. london: novello. obser, karl. 1907. aufzeichnungen des staatskanzlers ftirsten von hardenberg tiber seinen aufenthalt am oberrhein im jahre 1772. zeitschrift fur die geschichte des oberreins 22: 145-67. rudloff-hille, gertrud. 1969. schiller auf der deutschen buhne seiner zeit. berlin and weimar: autbau-verlag. schubart, christian friedrich daniel. 1806. ideen zu einer asthetik der tonkunst, edited by ludwig schubart. vienna: j. v. degan. current.musicology.81.1-108.pdf opera at columbia: a shining legacy margaret ross griffel introductory note: opera has always been central to my life. listening to the saturday afternoon broadcasts from the metropolitan opera was a ritual in my parents' home, and we talked about our visits to the met (albeit in the "nosebleed" seats) for weeks afterward. my love for opera was further nourished by my years at new york city's high school of music and art, then some twenty blocks north of columbia university, during which time handel oratorios were semistaged at the school's major concerts and aaron copland's the second hurricane (1937) was revived at carnegie hall in a 1960 performance by m&a students conducted by leonard bernstein. in the 1960s, it was my good fortune to attend barnard college and then do graduate studies in musicology at columbia, where chances to hear contemporary as well as older operas abounded and opera compos­ ers such as douglas moore, otto luening, henry cowell, and jack beeson were members of the faculty. sadly, such opportunities diminished in the following decades, breaking columbia's tradition of being a major source for the creation and performance of operas, which had reached its height in the 1940s and 1950s-the heyday of the columbia opera workshop. after a brief history of the workshop, the present article examines what it was like to be an opera -loving student at columbia in the mid -1960s when current musicology was launched. surrounded by the prominent compos­ ers mentioned above and other former participants of the workshop who still taught courses in the department of music, including willard rhodes and howard shanet, we students had the chance to hear new and rarely performed works on campus or at nearby music conservatories and opera houses. in addition, this essay explores the contributions of columbia graduates, particularly composers, to the world of opera. the article's final two sections detail the operas given at various co­ lumbia locations from 1941 to 2004. the first lists operas presented by the music department and the workshop. it also includes those operas that were put on independently during the same period at venues such as mcmillin theatre (later renamed miller theatre), barnard college's minor latham playhouse, and brooks hall, which featured mozart operas in honor of his bicentennial year of 1956. the second section describes operas that were given at various columbia locations after the workshop closed. current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 95 96 current musicology brander matthews hall and the columbia opera workshop brander matthews hall was opened on december 7, 1940, at 420 west 117th street between amsterdam avenue and morningside drive. the new home of the columbia theatre associates (cta), its purpose was to present "original plays, revivals of classic works and of american and european plays of recent vintage, the musical plays to be given in cooperation with the department of music" (new york times 1940:67). the hall (sometimes referred to as brander matthews theatre) was described by later critic joel honig as "the crucible of american chamber opera" (honig 1997:10).1 its first operatic offerings were a double bill on february 13, 1941: arthur benjamin's the devil take her and vittorio giannini's blennerhasset. on may 5 of that year, benjamin britten's paul bunyan received its world premiere with the columbia opera workshop. the workshop was founded at the school of general studies in 1943 as a four-credit course that met twice a week and was open to budding singers, conductors, composers, librettists, and stage directors who were students at the university, as well as those who had already turned professional. ac­ cording to a contemporary account, it was to be "devoted to the study and performance of opera in its relation to the modern theatre" (new york times 1943:26). jack beeson, macdowell professor emeritus at columbia, who participated in the workshop, noted that it "encouraged new works and ideas and the revival of neglected operas of interest to the university community and the new york public at large" (knubel 1997).2 beeson himself wrote an article on the workshop in 1961, copies of which he made available on request, but his account remained unpublished until it appeared with slight revisions in current musicology in 2000.3 the workshop was supported by the music department, the cta, and the alice m. ditson fund (beeson 2000b:194).4 it presented two perfor­ mances a season, mostly at brander matthews hall, including revivals of long-forgotten eighteenth-century works by composers such as giovanni battista pergolesi, johann schenk, andre-ernest -modeste gretry, giovanni paisiello, etienne-nicolas mehul, and john pepusch, and usually a new work by an american composer.5 performances were given in english and also included revivals of ralph vaughan williams's sir john in love and igor stravinsky's the soldier's tale. in its first year the workshop presented gretry's the two misers and bernard wagenaar's pieces of eight. brander matthews hall was torn down in 1958 to make room for columbia's expanding law school, and the workshop came to an end shortly thereafter. margaret ross griffel student opportunities in the 1960s graduate students entering the music department at columbia in the mid -1960s, whether they were aspiring musicologists, ethnomusicologists, theorists, or composers, were able to augment their studies by getting a hands-on "course" in writing and editing-joining the staff of the newly created journal current musicology. at the same time, they had the chance to learn firsthand about the developments then occurring in american op­ era. i had already had my own introduction as a student at barnard, when i took otto luening's course "the opera," described in the 1961-62 barnard catalogue as "a rapid survey of the development of opera from monteverdi to the present!' luening's course enabled students to hear guest lectures from columbia-based composers including moore, cowell, and beeson. i also took cowell's "contemporary music;"'a survey of contemporary music from debussy to the present," which included many of cowell's own anecdotes. if memory serves, he told the class that both he and arnold schoenberg were terrible tennis players, and he personally demonstrated one of his own more famous pieces, the banshee, on the strings of the battered piano in the journalism lecture hall. moore, luening, cowell, and beeson a page from the 1964-65 columbia college bulletin lists the faculty of the music department at the time of current musicology's birth (figure 1). doug­ las moore, not present there, is included in the barnard catalogue of that year as professor emeritus. professors paul henry lang and denis stevens, teaching on the graduate level only, are not included either. douglas moore (,63hon) chaired the department from 1940 until his retirement in 1962 and was a great supporter of opera at columbia in the 1940s and 1950s.6 the workshop gave the premieres of moore's giants in the earth (1951) and gallantry (1958). the ballad of baby doe (1956) and carry nation (1966), though not premiered at columbia, were heard at the new york city opera in march 1968 and april 1969, respectively/ otto luening (,81hon) became chair of the barnard music department in 1944. he conducted several workshop performances, led the summer workshop with willard rhodes, and composed one of the operas given by the group, evangeline (1948). luening taught composition at the graduate level in the 1960s and retired in 1970. henry cowell was at columbia from 1949 to 1965. he composed three operas, only one of which was performed in his lifetime: the building of bamba (1917). o'higgins of chile, commissioned by the ditson fund, was composed but never performed.8 97 98 current musicology figure 1: faculty of the columbia university department of music as listed on page 127 of the columbia college bulletin for the 1964-65 academic year. music departmental representative: mr. beeson. 601 journalism departmental consultant: mr. newman, 601 journalism professors otto luening (barnard) william j. mitchell willard rhodes (general studies) vladimir ussachevsky (general studies) associate professors jack beeson hubert a. doris (barnard) douglas f. fraser (art history) edward lippman (graduate faculties) howard s. shanet assistant propessors nicholas england peter flanders (general studies) joel newman assistant professors (continued) ernest sanders (general studies) peter westergaard instructors patricia carpenter gordon crain christopher hatch charles wuorinen adjunct professor henry cowell lecturer . elias dann associate m. searle wright on leave: for the academic year, messrs. hatch and westergaard; for the spring term, me luening. jack beeson joined the faculty in 1945, becoming macdowell professor of music in 1965 and retiring in 1988 after serving as music department chair from 1968 to 1972, having succeeded william j. mitchell. beeson, luening, and jacques barzun (cc'27, gsas'32), then university provost, started the d ma degree in composition in 1965. beeson's most widely performed opera, lizzie borden, received its premiere at the new york city opera in 1965.9 i had seen lizzie borden when city opera revived it on october 26, 1967, and i was beeson's teaching assistant in 1969, when he taught the under­ graduate opera course. the students, who sometimes seemed uninterested in my listening section when i played the standard repertoire, sat in rapt attention during class when beeson offered an in-depth look at his work. two of his other operas, hello out there (1954) and the sweet bye and bye (1957), were first presented by the opera workshop, for which beeson had been a coach, rehearsal pianist, and assistant conductor. my heart's in the highlands (1970) received its first stage performance in 1988 at the newly refurbished and recently renamed miller theatre. his graduate courses in the 1960s included the "proseminar in musical composition" and the "composition conference." margaret ross griffel rhodes, shanet, westergaard, wuorinen, and lewin willard rhodes (gsas'25) was musical director of the opera workshop from 1944 to 1954 and conducted many of its performances. he was suc­ ceeded by rudolph thomas. in the 1960s, rhodes taught the undergraduate opera course as well as "folk music" and "ethnomusicology;" he retired in 1969. howard shanet (cc'39, gsas'41) was the long-time conductor of the columbia orchestra and led several opera performances at columbia in the 1950s and 1960s. he joined the music department in 1953, became chair in 1972, and served as the first director of music performance in 1978. he was named professor emeritus in 1989. composer-theorist peter westergaard, today professor emeritus at princeton university, was at columbia from 1958 to 1966. his undergraduate courses included those on counterpoint and analysis. his opera mr. and mrs. discobbolos received its first performance in 1966 at mcmillin theatre. charles wuorinen (cc'61, gsas'63), at columbia from 1964 to 1971, taught the "composition conference" and the "proseminar in musical composition." his operas include the politics of harmony, first given at mcmillin theatre (1968); w of babylon (1975, new york); and haroun and the sea of stories (2004, new york). in more recent times, opera composers who have taught at columbia have included frank lewin, who taught the course "music in modern media" at the school of the arts. he has written the operas gulliver (1975, minneapolis), which includes some music by easley blackwood and elliot kaplan, as well as burning bright (1993, new haven). columbia-educated opera composers, et al. among the columbia graduates who studied composition just before or at the time of current musicology's debut were several who, like wuorinen, also went on to write operas-marvin david levy (gsas'56), john corigliano (cc'59), wendy carlos (gsas'65), and alice shields (gs'65, gsas'67, soa'75). levy was commissioned to write mourning becomes electra, which received its premiere by the metropolitan opera on march 17, 1967, to much fanfare. lo another columbia graduate, john kander (gsas'54), the composer of such musicals as cabaret (1966) and chicago (1975), was an assistant conductor for some of the workshop productions. opera composers ulysses kay and ezra laderman (gsas'52) studied composition at columbia, too. i! john crosby, who studied conducting with rudolph thomas at columbia, was an assistant conductor for the workshop 99 100 current musicology in the 1950s; he founded the santa fe opera in 1957. crosby said of his columbia years, "whenever and wherever devoted artists are led to work together, significant things will happen. this was columbia in the 1940s and 50s" (knubel 1997). new york opera performances in the 1960s aside from rubbing shoulders with opera composers then at the university, columbia graduate students who actually wanted to see operas were often to be found in the famed standing-room section of the metropolitan opera (the met had moved to its new home at lincoln center in the fall of 1966). their experiences fueled heated discussions between classes the next day or at the many cm parties that were held each year, when arguments about plicas and performance practice made way for debates over high c's and what the diva was wearing backstage, if anyone had been lucky enough to be allowed into the dressing room. one event that triggered such excitement was the return of "la stupenda" (joan sutherland) to the met in donizetti's lucia di lammermoor on december 12, 1966. my grandmother giza rewarded me for my music studies with one of her prized family circle subscription tickets, and together we had the thrill of seeing sutherland's triumph first-hand. new york city opera, which was founded in early 1944, shortly after the columbia opera workshop's creation, moved to the new york state theater at lincoln center on january 3, 1966. aside from the standard fare, it offered contemporary operas and operatic rarities, ranging from works by robert ward, beeson, and moore to those of alberto ginastera and handel. ward's the crucible was revived there on march 8, 1968, eight years after its premiere. ginastera's controversial bomarzo-banned in buenos aires because the mayor, who had not even seen the work, charged that it was "obsessed with sex, violence and hallucinations" -received its new york premiere on march 14, 1968 (schonberg 1968a:28). ginastera himself was invited to one of the columbia graduate student parties, this one hosted by chilean pianist carla hubner (gsas'70), and we felt as though we were a part of operatic history just by speaking with the composer. his don rodrigo had opened the city opera's first season at lincoln center on february 22, 1966, with newcomer placido domingo in the title role. rarely heard older works performed at city opera during this time included handel's giulio cesare in fall 1966 conducted by julius rudel, with a stunning beverly sills as cleopatra and a commanding bass-baritone norman treigle in the title role, the castrato part having been rescored for this production. the arrangement was certainly not authentic musically and margaret ross griffel was a great deal shorter than the versions being performed today, but it was wonderful nonetheless-and the packed houses and frenzied fans attested to its continuing appeal when it was brought back the following october. to the "horror" of students who were taking paul henry lang's "proseminar in musicology" that year, however, the composer was listed in the program as "georg friederich handel," not as "george frideric handel," the name the composer adopted and preferred (and that is generally used in the english -speaking world; mgg still prefers the german form of the name). 12 lang's students did not dare to use an umlaut in handel's name in their papers and heard the same "warning" in most of lang's courses, including those on pergolesi and j. s. bach. 13 handel's semele was revived at the nearby caramoor festival in katonah, new york, in 1969, with rudel conducting and various city opera singers in major roles. the program actually cited a couple of passages from lang's 1966 book on handel (and spelled the composer's name without the umlaut!). monteverdi's incoronazione di poppea, in raymond leppard's lush realization, was presented at caramoor on june 22 and 28, 1968. according to the notes by alan rich in the program book, leppard edited the work not with any idea of tampering with the score as a sop to modern ears ... [but with 1 shrewd and respectful underlinings here and there to adjust the proportions of the score to a stage of contemporary size and an orchestra of musicians trained in contemporary techniques. such practices constitute authenticity in its best sense. (rich 1968:7) this version, trimmed to a prologue and two acts, nevertheless raised eye­ brows in denis stevens' monteverdi course. closer to home, juilliard, which at this time was still located on clare­ mont avenue at 122nd street, offered the first us performance of richard rodney bennett's the mines of sulphur, on january 17,1968. the work was revived in 2005 by the city opera, to great enthusiasm (see below). juilliard also gave the us premiere of francesco cavalli's ormindo (1644) on april 25, 1968, "in a new version realized by raymond leppard:' as harold c. schonberg noted in his review, "how much of leppard and how much of cavalli there is in the version there is no way of telling" (schonberg 1968b:32). new life for operas at columbia when steven mackey's ravenshead received its new york premiere at co­ lumbia university's miller theatre on november 12, 1998, it was the first . of three operas performed there to mark the miller's tenth season;14 1998 101 102 current musicology was also the first year in which several operas had been performed in one season at columbia in quite a few decades. an article by the new york times critic anthony tommasini that same year noted that forty american operas, several of them still on the boards, were mounted by the columbia opera workshop in the 1940s and 1950s, a history that had been all but forgotten. he quoted jack beeson on the subject of new operas returning to campus: "everything else seems to be coming back these days ... why not opera at columbia?" (tommasini 1998b: sec. ar, 41). columbia's historic contributions to american opera had, in fact, been showcased the previous year, in a well-attended concert at miller theatre on april 6, 1997, which was organized by alumnus and composer jim steple­ ton and presented by the friends and enemies of music. this memorable event, which the present writer was fortunate enough to attend, was billed as "a music department centennial concert honoring columbia university's contribution to american opera in the 1940s and 1950s."15 the columbia press release marking the occasion noted that twenty-one music theater works were "commissioned, written, or premiered between 1941 and 1959 at columbia, and music historians have called many of them pioneering contributions to the development of an american opera tradition" (knubel 1997). while the number of performances and premieres given at colum­ bia varies according to different accounts, the university's significance for opera, particularly american opera, is not in doubt (though this is another story). operas at columbia, 1941-2004 although the workshop closed in 1958, live opera has survived in recent decades at columbia university, though performances have diminished in number. the following pages offer a closer look at the many new operas and revivals (mostly american) that graced columbia auditoriums in the heyday of opera production, from the first efforts in the 1940s until 1958-at spaces such as brander matthews, mcmillin theatre, and minor latham playhouse. many of these productions involved columbia performers. built in 1923, mcmillin was renamed the kathryn bache miller theatre (usually referred to as miller theatre) in 1988, after its redesign. some of the performers in the opera productions, including columbia-educated teresa stich-randall, dorothy dow, and james mccracken, went on to have significant careers on the operatic stage, while others made and continue to make important con­ tributions to all aspects of music, including musicology and education. 16 margaret ross griffel the following list of operas associated with columbia includes all of the works that were supported by the columbia-based alice m. ditson fund, whether or not they received their premieres on campus and whether or not they were ever performed. a second section lists operas given at columbia since the close of the workshop. operas are presented in chronological or­ der, with their titles preceding the date and location of their premiere, and a brief bibliography is included for each work. l ? the brander matthews-theatre associates era-columbia opera workshop the devil take her (1931, london; 1941, brander matthews) opera in one act by arthur benjamin; libretto by alan collard and john b. gordon; lyrics by cedric cliffe. first performance december 11, 1931, london, royal college of music. first complete us performance february 13, 1941, new york, brander matthews hall, with lilyan crystal, armand harkless, leonard stocker, and paul quartin; conducted by jacob schwarz­ dorf; designed by richard bernstein. presented by the cta and the juilliard institute opera players, with blennerhasset. blennerhasset (1939, cbs radio; 1941, brander matthews) radio opera in one act by vittorio giannini; libretto by philip roll and norman corwin. first performance november 22, 1939, cbs radio. first stage performance february 13, 1941, new york, brander matthews hall, with tracy silvester and derna de pamphilis; conducted by the composer; designed by richard bernstein. originally commissioned by cbs. beeson (2000b:199); n. s. [noel straus], "juilliard players give operas;' new york times, february 14,1941,14. paul bunyan (1941, columbia, brander matthews) "choral operetta" in a prologue and two acts by benjamin britten; libretto byw. h. auden. first public performance may 5,1941, new york, brander matthews hall, with helen marshall (tiny), william hess (inkslinger), bliss woodward (hel helson), charles cammock (slim), milton warchoff (paul bunyan), and mordecai bauman (narrator); chorus of the schola canto rum; conducted by hugh ross; directed by milton smith. presented by the cta and the music department. commissioned by the ditson fund. the roles of tiny and slim are not listed in the downes review but appear in other sources, such as the new kobbe's opera book (ed. the earl of harewood and antony peattie, new york: g. p. putnam's sons, 1997),96. 103 104 current musicology beeson (2000b:199); olin downes, "official opening for 'paul bunyan:" new york times, may 6,1941,25; louis e. schaefer and gilbert y. steiner, '''paul bunyan: reincarnated at brander matthews, proves refreshing operetta:' columbia spectator, may 6,1941,1. the music master (ii maestro di musica) (1752, paris; 1942, columbia, brander matthews) opera buffa in two acts, formerly attributed to giovanni battista pergolesi, with music from pietro auletta's orazio, and two arias by pergolesi; anony­ mous libretto. first performance september 19, 1752, paris. possibly the first performance in english, in a translation by edward eager and robert bamberg and adaptation by richard falk, february 16, 1942, new york, brander matthews theatre; conducted by falk; directed by milton smith. presented by the columbia chamber opera players and the cta. beeson (2000b:200); d. h., "about town: 'the music master:" barnard bulletin, february 20,1942,2; "pergolesi opera:' new york times, febru­ ary 8, 1942, sec. 10,7. the burglar's opera (1942, columbia, brander matthews) comic opera by john mundy; libretto by edward eager and alfred drake. first performance may 4, 1942, new york, brander matthews theatre, with helen marshall (salesgirl), leonard stocker (head floorwalker), william blake (president of lacy's [a pun on macy's]), william gephart (the burglar), and ivy scott (head scrubwoman). presented by the cta. drake is probably the same alfred drake who starred in musicals such as oklahoma! (1943), kiss me kate (1948), and kismet (1953) and is listed in the internet broadway database (www.ibdb.com) as a "writer, director, performer." beeson (2000b:199) (who indicates a fall 1941 performance, but the eta archives give only the may date; see note 4); e. w., "about town: the burglar's opera:' barnard bulletin, may 8,1942,2. the village barber (der dorfbarbier) (1796, vienna; 1942, columbia, brander matthews) comic opera in one act by johann schenk; libretto by joseph and paul weidmann. first performance october 30, 1796, vienna. first us perfor­ mance in english on december 16, 1942, new york, brander mathews hall, in a translation by edward eager, with philip duey (the barber), wallace house (the apprentice), jayne cozzens (the barber's ward), marco sorisio (her lover), and jan lindermann (the schoolmaster); conducted by nicho­ las goldschmidt; directed by milton smith. presented by the cta and the margaret ross griffel music department. the work had been given in german in new york on december 15, 1847 (loewenberg 1978:528). beeson (2000b:200); miriam burstein, "about town: brander matthews;' barnard bulletin, december 17, 1942,2; n. s. [noel straus], "'village bar­ ber' given at columbia;' new york times, december 17, 1942,42. a tree on the plains (1942, spartanburg, sc; 1943, columbia, brander matthews) musical play in two acts by ernst bacon; libretto by paul horgan. first performance may 2,1942, spartanburg, south carolina, converse college opera workshop, commissioned by the league of composers. first new york performance may 5, 1943, brander matthews hall, with hannah walker (corrie), ted [theodor] uppman (lou), and herbert norwell (jeremiah); conducted by nicholas goldschmidt; directed by milton smith. presented by the cta and the music department. sponsored by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:200); "choruses will present opera," barnard bulletin, february ii, 1943,3; olin downes, "ernst bacon work is presented here;' new york times, may 6,1943,24. the two misers (les deux avares) (1770, paris; 1943, columbia, brander matthews) operetta in two acts by andre-ernest-modeste gretry; libretto by charles georges fenouillot de falbaire. first performance october 27, 1770, fon­ tainebleau. performed in an english translation by edgar eager on december 8, 1943, new york, brander matthews theatre, with jean gordon (the servant girl), lloyd linder and helen marshall (the lovers), jeanne gordon (the servant), and hugh thompson and hubert norville (the misers); conducted by nicholas goldschmidt; directed by milton smith. presented by the cta and the music department. beeson (2000b:200); nancy edwards, "about town: the two misers;' barnard bulletin, december 9,1943,2; '''two misers' presented: columbia theatre associates give andre gretry opera;' new york times, december 9,1943,30. pieces of eight (1944, columbia, brander matthews) chamber opera in two acts by bernard wagenaar; libretto by edward eager, after harold w. thompson's body, boots and britches (1940). first perfor­ mance may 10 1944, new york, brander matthews theatre, with louisa mara (lydia) and william gebhart (cutlass); conducted by otto luening; 105 106 current musicology directed by milton smith. presented by the cta and the music department. commissioned by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:200); nancy edwards, "at brander matthews:' barnard bul­ letin, may 11,1944,2; noel straus, "columbians offer operatic comedy:' new york times, may 11, 1944,25. the jealous husband (ii geloso schernito) (1732, naples; 1944, columbia, brander matthews) comic intermezzo in three acts, once attributed to giovanni battista per­ golesi (now considered to be by pietro chiarini, with sinfonia composed by baldassare galuppi); anonymous libretto. first performance 1732, naples. first performance in english, in a translation by edward eager, decem­ ber 10, 1944, new york, brander matthews theatre; conducted by otto luening; directed by milton smith. presented by the opera workshop and the cta. beeson (2000b:201); "opera and concert programs: columbia university opera," new york times, december 10, 1944, sec. 10,9. the scarecrow (1945, columbia, brander matthews) opera fantasy in two acts by normand lockwood; libretto by dorothy lockwood, after percy mackaye's play (1908), itself based on nathaniel hawthorne's feathertop (1852). first performance may 19,1945, new york, brander matthews hall, with jean carlton (rachel), berthe keresey, willard cross, robert lande, lloyd linder, and george bakos; conducted by otto luening/willard rhodes; directed by milton smith; jack beeson, assistant conductor. presented by the cta and the music department. commissioned by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:20l); mark a. schubart, "lockwood opera given at co­ lumbia:' new york times, may 10,1945,19. the barber of seville (ii barbiere di siviglia) (st. petersburg, 1782; 1946, columbia, brander matthews) opera in four acts by giovanni paisiello; libretto by giuseppe petrosellini, after beaumarchais. first performance september 26, 1782, st. petersburg. first us performance, in english, in a translation by phyllis mead, february 13, 1946, new york, brander matthews hall; conducted by otto luening; directed by milton smith; jack beeson, assistant conductor. presented by the cta and the music department. beeson (2000b:201); "music notes:' new york times, february 13, 1946, 30. margaret ross griffel the medium (1946, columbia, brander matthews) tragedy in two acts by gian carlo menotti; libretto by the composer. first performance may 8,1946, new york, brander matthews hall, with evelyn keller (monica), claramae turner (madame flora), leo coleman (toby), beverly dame (mrs. gobineau), jacques la rochelle (mr. gobineau), and virginia beeler (mrs. nolan); conducted by otto luening; directed by robert horan; jack beeson, assistant conductor. presented by the cta and the music department. commissioned by the ditson fund. revived 1991, new york, miller theatre (see below). beeson (2000b:202); olin downes, "menotti 'medium' in premiere here: chamber opera presented on campus at columbia u.;' new york times, may 9,1946,37. the soldier's tale (l'histoire du soldat) (1918, lausanne; 1946, columbia, brander matthews) dramatic work in two parts by igor stravinsky; text by charles ferdinand ramuz. first performance september 28, 1918, lausanne. stage perfor­ mance, in an english translation by frederic cohen, may 18, 1946, new york, brander matthews theatre, with adolph anderson (narrator), herbert voland (the soldier), jack bittner (the devil), and atty van den berg (the king's daughter); conducted by dimitri mitropoulos; directed by cohen; choreography by elsa kahl; sets by nina tryggvadottir. presented by the american section of the international society for contemporary music and the cta. beeson (2000b:202); mark a. schubart, "stravinsky work concert feature: mitropoulos leads 'soldier's tale' in stage performance," new york times, may 19, 1946,40. the old maid and the thief(1939, nbc radio; 1946, columbia) "grotesque opera" in fourteen scenes (three acts) by gian carlo menotti; libretto by the composer. first performance (nbc radio) april 22, 1939. performed august 14, 1946, new york, summer school opera workshop; conducted by willard rhodes; directed by elemer nagy. beeson (2000b:202). the warrior (1947, new york, ditson fund) opera in one act by bernard rogers; libretto by norman corwin, after the book of judges. first performance january 11, 1947, new york, metro­ politan opera, with regina resnik (delilah) and mack harrell (samson); 107 108 current musicology conducted by max rudolph. winner of the ditson fund and metropolitan opera association prizes. beeson (2000b:202); olin downes, '''warrior' is given at metropolitan;' new york times, january 12, 1947,53. stratonice (1792, paris; 1947, columbia, brander matthews) opera in one act by etienne-nicolas mehul; libretto by fran<;:ois-benoit hoffman. first performance may 3, 1792, paris. probably the first us perfor­ mance, in an english translation by winthrop palmer, february 6, 1947 , new york, brander matthews hall, with joseph williams (antiochus), stanley jaworsky (seleucus), michael therry (eristratus), and gladys kuchta (stra­ tonice); conducted by willard rhodes; directed by john wolmut. presented by the cta and the opera workshop, on the same program as the man with the terrible temper. beeson (2000b:203); noel straus, "columbia offers two mehul operas," new york times, february 7,1947,30. the man with the terrible temper (rirato) (1801, paris; 1947, columbia, brander matthews) opera in one act by etienne-nicolas mehul; libretto by benoit-joseph marsollier. first performance february 17, 1801, paris. probably the first us performance february 6,1947, new york, brander matthews theatre, with lawrence ehrlich (scapin), richard ehrlich (lysander), everett an­ derson (pandolf), andrew jelnik (dr. balouard), and alexandra belugin (isabelle); conducted by willard rhodes; directed by john wolmut. given with stratonice. the mother of us all (1947, columbia, brander matthews) opera in two acts by virgil thomson; libretto by gertrude stein. first per­ formance may 7, 1947, new york, brander matthews hall, with dorothy dow (susan b.anthony), ruth krug (indiana elliot), teresa stich [ -randall] (henrietta m.), robert grooters (virgil t.), william horne (j 0 the loiterer), bertram rowe (daniel webster), and carolyn blakeslee (angel more); conducted by otto luening; directed by john taras; jack beeson, assistant conductor. presented by the cta and the music department. commissioned by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:203); olin downes, "new stein opera;' new york times, may 8, 1947,30. margaret ross griffel evangeline (1948, columbia, brander matthews) dramatic opera in three acts by otto luening; libretto by the composer, after longfellow. composed 1931. first complete performance may 5, 1948, new york, brander matthews hall, with teresa stich [-randall] (evange­ line), alfred kunz (gabriel), and josh wheeler (felicien); conducted by the composer; directed by nona schurman; jack beeson, assistant conductor. the work opened the fourth annual festival of contemporary american music. presented by the cta and the music department. assisted by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:204); olin downes, "opera by luening has its premiere," new york times, may 6, 1948, 31. the belle of new york (1897, new york; 1948, columbia, brander mat­ thews) operetta in two acts by gustave kerker; libretto by hugh morton. first performance september 27, 1897, new york. revived "for the first time since its premiere;' with a revised text by irving dobbs, december 1, 1948, new york, brander matthews theatre, with david poleri (blinky bill mcguirk); conducted by willard rhodes; directed by milton smith; albert rivett, musi­ cal assistant; louise grifford, stage assistant. presented by the cta and the columbia opera workshop as part of the new york golden jubilee. beeson (2000b:205); "columbia revives an old-time musical;' new york times, december 2,1948,36; "play revived for jubilee;' barnard bulletin, november 1, 1948, 1. sir john in love (1929, london; 1949, columbia, brander matthews) opera in four acts by ralph vaughan williams; libretto after shakespeare's the merry wives of windsor, love's labours lost, much ado about nothing, and other works. first performance march 21, 1929, london, royal col­ lege of music. first us performance january 20,1949, new york, brander matthews theatre, with josh wheeler (falstaff), esther korey (mrs. ford), mary deheus (mrs. page), gene symes (mrs. quickly), joseph hester (ford), ruth witwer (anne page), and mario lalli (fenton); conducted by willard rhodes; directed by felix brentano; albert rivett, musical assistant. presented by the columbia opera workshop and members of the school of dramatic arts. beeson (2000b:205); h. t. [howard taubman], "columbia offers 'sir john in love;" new york times, january 21,1949,24. 109 110 current musicology a drumlin legend (1949, columbia, brander matthews) folk opera in three acts by ernst bacon; libretto by helena caruso first per­ formance may 9, 1949, new york, brander matthews theatre, with frank sherman baker (the aviator), joseph scandin (pennypacker), john powell (the farmer), ruth krug (the mother), and jean swetland (norah); con­ ducted by otto luening; albert rivett and anley loran, musical assistants; directed by milton smith; choreographed by oreste sergievsky. the cast consisted of students from the columbia opera workshop and professional singers. presented by the cta and the music department. commissioned by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:205); olin downes, "columbia offers 'drumlin legend,'" new york times, may 10, 1949,29; "group to give musical play:' barnard bulletin, may 2, 1949, 1. o'higgins of chile (composed 1949, ditson fund) opera by henry cowell; libretto by elizabeth lomax. composed in 1949. commissioned by the ditson fund. the work was never orchestrated or performed. the barrier (1950, columbia, brander matthews) music drama in two acts by jan meyerowitz; libretto by langston hughes, after his play mulatto (1935). first performance january 18, 1950, new york, brander matthews theatre, with robert goss (bert), muriel rahn (cora lewis), and paul elmer (colonel norwood); conducted by willard rhodes; directed by felix brentano; designed by h. a. condell; albert rivett, musical assistant. presented by the cta and the opera workshop. beeson (2000b:206); cecil smith, "columbia university stages musical drama by meyerowitz;' musical america 52 (february 1950): 244; how­ ard taubman, '''the barrier' given by columbia opera," new york times, january 19,1950,34. giants in the earth (1951, columbia, brander matthews) opera in three acts by douglas moore; libretto by arnold sundgaard, after the novel by ole e. rolvaag (1927). first performance march 28, 1951, brander matthews theatre, with josh wheeler (per hansa), brenda miller (beret), viviane bauer (sorrine), helen dautrich (kjersti), and james cosenza (henry); conducted by willard rhodes; directed by felix brentanto; albert rivett, musical assistant. presented by the cta and the music department. assisted by the ditson fund. the work received the pulitzer prize in 1951. margaret ross griffel beeson (2000b:207); olin downes, "new moore opera is presented here;' new york times, march 29, 1951,25; kay munzer, "douglas moore's opera runs through sat. at b. matthews;' barnard bulletin, april 5, 1951,2. acres of sky (1951, fayetteville, ar; 1952, columbia, brander matthews) folk drama in two acts by arthur kreutz; libretto by zoe lund schiller, after the play by charles morrow wilson (1930). first new york performance may 7, 1952, brander matthews hall, with milton cardey (the traveller), frances lehnerts (omy caldwell), stephanie turash (nan caldwell), and lorenzo herrara (hal gunter); conducted by otto luening; jack beeson, assistant conductor; john kander, musical assistant. presented by the cta and the music department. assisted by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:20s); james hinton jr., "kreutz ballad opera produced at columbia;' musical america 72 (may 1952): 20; howard taubman, "co­ lumbia offers new ballad opera;' new york times, may s, 1952,35. sweeney agonistes (1953, columbia, brander matthews) musical setting by richard winslow oft. s. eliot's poem (1932). first new york performance may 20, 1953, brander matthews theatre, with john geister (sweeney agonistes), joan payne, alice tobin, frances oliver, rich­ ard botton, curtis kent, and thomas miller; conducted by willard rhodes; directed by felix brentano; john kander, assistant conductor. presented by the opera workshop. beeson (2000b:20s); j. b., "workshop offers work by winslow," new york times, may 21,1953, 3s. the beggar's opera (1728, london; 1954, columbia, brander matthews) ballad opera in three acts, arranged, adapted, with airs by john pepusch; libretto by john gay. first performance january 29,1728, london. performed in celebration of columbia's 200th anniversary, in manfred bukofzer's version, april 6, 1954, new york, brander matthews theatre, with patricia bybell (lucy), walter farrell (macheath), bern hoffman (mr. peachum), anne polen (polly peachum), leonard ceeley (lockit), charlotte jones (mrs. trapes), alice tobin branagan (mrs. peachum), and murat somay (jailor); conducted by willard rhodes; directed by felix brentano; john kander, assistant conductor. presented by the cta and the columbia opera workshop. beeson (2000b:209); olin downes, "'beggar's opera' seen at columbia;' new york times, april 7,1954,40. 111 112 current musicology malady of love (1954, columbia, brander matthews) "sham" in one act by lehman engel; libretto by lewis allen (pseud.). first performance may 27, 1954, new york, brander matthews theatre, with ruth fleming, stephanie turash, and warren galjour; conducted by wil­ lard rhodes; directed by felix brentano. presented by the columbia opera workshop and the school of dramatic arts, on the same program as hello out there. both works sponsored by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:209); olin downes, "columbia stages two new operas: 'malady of love' and 'hello out there' are performed at brander matthews hall;' new york times, may 28,1954,18; irving kolodin, "the spring crop of new premieres," saturday review 37 (june 12, 1954): 28. hello out there (1954, columbia, brander matthews) chamber opera in one act by jack beeson; libretto by the composer, after william saroyan's play (1942). first performance may 27,1954, new york, brander matthews theatre, with lena gabrieli, stephanie turash, ralph farnsworth, marvin worden, and lorenzo herrera; conducted by willard rhodes; directed by felix brentano; john kander, assistant conductor. given with malady of love. the cask of amontillado (1954, columbia, mcmillin theatre) opera in one act by julia perry; libretto by the composer and virginia card, after edgar allan poe. first performance november 20, 1954, new york, mcmillin theatre; columbia university orchestra, with harold bertelson, walter carringer, and alice wieland; conducted by howard shanet. "concert and opera programs of the week;' new york times, november 14,1954, sec. 10,8. the stronger (1952, lutherville, md; 1955, columbia, mcmillin theatre) opera in one act by hugo weisgall; libretto by richard hart, after august strindberg's play den starkare (1889). first performance (concert) august 9, 1952, lutherville, maryland. first stage performance january 10,1955, new york, mcmillin theatre, with adelaide bishop (estelle) and irene gabriel (the stronger woman); conducted by siegfried landau. presented by the composers forum. r. p., "composers forum gives first opera;' new york times, january 10,1955,26. bastien and bastienna (bastien und bastienne) (1768, vienna; 1956, barnard, brooks hall) margaret ross griffel singspiel in one act by wolfgang amadeus mozart; libretto by friedrich wilhelm weiskern, after charles s. favart's les amours de bastien et bas­ tienne (1753), itself a parody of jean-jacques rousseau's le devin du vil­ lage. first performance september 1768, vienna. presented as part of the mozart bicentennial celebration by opera essence, march 11, 1956, new york, brooks hall, with students karen gumprecht (bastienna) and donald schwartz (colas); and annina celli (bastien), a member of the columbia opera workshop; directed by arthur komar. "musicale features early mozart work;' barnard bulletin, march 8, 1956, 1; "music notes;' new york times, march 10, 1956,9. la clemenza di tito (1791, prague; 1956, columbia, mcmillin theatre) opera seria in two acts by wolfgang amadeus mozart; libretto by pietro metastasio. first performance september 6, 1791, prague. performed in a concert version april 25, 1956, new york, mcmillin theatre, with frances bible (sesto), howard fried (tito), brenda lewis (vitellia), shirley russell (servilia), william g. hogue (annio), and louis quilico (publio); conducted by thomas scherman. part of columbia university's mozart festival, with the little orchestra society and the columbia university chorus. howard taubman, "music: opera by mozart: 'la clemenza di tito' is heard at columbia," new york times, april 26, 1956,39. pantaloon (he who gets slapped) (1956, new york, juilliard-columbia) opera in three acts by robert ward; libretto by bernard stambler, after leonid andreyev's play (1915). first performance may 17, 1956, new york, juilliard school, with paul ukena (pantaloon), regina sarfaty (zinida), and ewan harbrecht (consuelo); conducted by rudolph thomas; directed by felix brentano; john crosby, assistant conductor; thomas degaetani, stage assistant. presented by the cta and the columbia opera workshop. aided by the ditson fund. the work was performed at juilliard because brander matthews was deemed too small to accommodate the orchestra. renamed he who gets slapped in 1959. beeson (2000b:209); howard taubman, "opera: 'pantaloon' has its pre­ miere;' new york times, may 18, 1956,20. the abduction from the seraglio (die entfuhrung aus dem serail) (1781, vienna; 1956, barnard, minor latham) singspiel in three acts by wolfgang amadeus mozart; libretto by gottlob stephanie, after bretzner. first performance july 16, 1782, vienna. performed 113 114 current musicology may 30,1956, new york, opera essence, minor latham drama workshop; directed by arthur komar . . "programs of the current week;' new york times, may 27,1956,100. panfilo and lauretta (the visitors) (1957, columbia, brander mat­ thews) opera in three acts by carlos chavez; libretto by chester kallman. first performance may 9,1957, new york, brander matthews theatre, as panfilo and lauretta, with sylvia stahlman (lauretta), mary mcmurray (elissa), frank porretta (panfilo), thomas stewart (dioneo), craig timberlake (a monk), and michael kermoyan (a physician); conducted by howard shanet; directed by bill butler; kurt saffir and walter baker, musical assistants. presented by the cta and the music department. revised and produced in a spanish version as el amor propiciado, october 28,1959, mexico city, and renamed the visitors. beeson (2000b:210); review, opera news 22 (november 11, 1957): 16; howard taubman, "opera: first by chavez," new york times, may 10, 1957,21. love is a game (feu de i' amour et du hasard) (1946, paris; 1957, brander matthews) opera in one act by pierre petit; libretto by charles clerc, after pierre de marivaux's play (1730). first performance july 3, 1946, paris. first new york performance, in a translation by milton feist, may 24,1957, brander mat­ thews theatre, with carol day, diego pazdera, and lila herbst; conducted by rudolph thomas; directed by felix brentano; piano accompaniment by donna brunsma; john crosby, assistant conductor. presented by the co­ lumbia opera workshop. the evening also included four short scenes from samson and delilah, the marriage of figaro, otello, and la boheme. beeson (2000b:210); h. c. s. [harold c. schonberg], "opera students offer one-acter: columbia workshop gives first performance here of french 'love is a game,'" new york times, may 25, 1957, 19. the sweet bye and bye (1957, juilliard, ditson fund) opera in three acts by jack beeson; libretto by kenward elmslie. first perfor­ mance november 22,1957, new york, juilliard school, with shirlee emmons (sister rose), ruth kobart (mother rainey), and william mcgrath (billy wilcox); conducted by frederic waldman; produced by frederic cohen. the columbia opera workshop ended with the 1956-57 season, but this work was produced through a ditson fund grant. margaret ross griffel beeson (2000b:210); howard taubman, "opera: debut at juilliard;' new york times, november 25,1957,26. the committee (1958, columbia, mcmillin theatre) comic opera in one act by matt doran; libretto by bettina mae dobrin. first performance march 15, 1958, new york, mcmillin theatre, with patricia brooks (the secretary) and james tippey (the candidate); conducted by joseph liebling. the story, significantly, takes place in the office of a music department "in any large american university." a doctoral candidate is comforted by the pretty department secretary as he waits to take his quali­ fying examination. edward downes, "satirical opera sung at columbia," new york times, march 17, 1958,21. gallantry (1958, columbia, brander matthews) "soap opera" in one act by douglas moore; libretto by arnold sundgaard. first performance march 19, 1958, new york, brander matthews hall, with bonnie murray, david atkinson, joseph sopher, and cecilia ward; conducted by emerson buckley; produced by day tuttle and john olon-scrymgeour; kurt saffir, musical assistant. presented by the music department and the cta on a program with argento's the boor, and supported by the ditson fund. beeson (2000b:211); h. c. s. [harold c. schonberg], "moore's opera, 'gallantry,' in premiere," new york times, march 20, 1958,34. the boor (1957, rochester, ny; 1958, columbia, brander matthews) opera buff a in one act by dominick argento; libretto by john olon-scrym­ geour, after chekhov. first performance may 6,1957, rochester, new york. first new york performance march 19, 1958, brander matthews theatre, with mary henderson, grant williams, and hugh thompson; conducted by emerson buckley. given with moore's gallantry. post-brander matthewslworkshop operas at columbia six characters in search of an author (1959, new york, ditson fund) opera in three acts by hugo weisgall; libretto by denis johnston, after luigi pirandello's play (1921). first performance april 26, 1959, new york, city center, with adelaide bishop, paul ukena, patricia neway, robert trehey, and beverly sills; conducted by sylvan levin; directed by william ball. commissioned by the ditson fund. 115 116 current musicology howard taubman, "music: weisgall's 'six characters,'" new york times, april 27, 1959,22. the unicorn, the gorgon, and the manticore (1956, washington, dc; 1959, teachers college, horace mann) "madrigal fable" in one act by gian carlo menotti; libretto by the composer. first performance october 21,1956, washington, dc. concert performance may 6,1959, new york, teachers college, horace mann auditorium. per­ formed together with the telephone. "music notes;' new york times, may 6,1959,49; "on campus;' barnard bulletin, may 4,1959,7. the telephone (1947, new york; 1959, teachers college, horace mann) opera buffa in one act by gian carlo menotti; libretto by the composer. first performance february 19, 1947, new york, heckscher theatre. con­ cert performance may 6,1959, new york, teachers college, horace mann auditorium. performed with the unicorn. revived 1991, new york, miller theatre (see below). "music notes;' new york times may 6, 1959,49. el capitan (1896; 1965, columbia, mcmillin theatre) comic opera in three acts by john philip sousa; libretto by charles klein; lyrics by the composer and tom frost. first performance april 13, 1896, boston. revived january 10, 1965, new york, mcmillin theatre, with richard clark (el capitan), marc vanderwerf, price browne, gene allen, william christoffels, judith wininger, anna koninsky, and florence mercurio; conducted by howard shanet, with the columbia university orchestra and performers from the manhattan school of music. "bulletin board;' barnard bulletin, january 7, 1965,4; harold c. schonberg, "music: 'ei capitan': shanet leads revival of sousa operetta," new york times, january 11,1965,29. mr. and mrs. discobbolos (1966, columbia, mcmillin theatre) chamber opera in two acts by peter westergaard; libretto by the composer, after edward lear's poem (1877). first performance march 21,1966, new york, mcmillin theatre, with valarie lamoree and jack d. litten; conducted by harvey sollberger. sponsored by the columbia university group for contemporary music. harold c. schonberg, "music: miniature opera: contemporary writer recalls edward lear;' new york times, march 22,1966,32. margaret ross griffel acis and galatea (1718, cannons, england; 1967, barnard, minor latham) "english pastoral opera" in three acts by george frideric handel; libretto by john gay and others, after ovid's metamorphoses, xiii, 750-897. first performance, as a masque, summer 1718, cannons, england. first public performance, as a pastoral, march 26, 1731, london. "first fully staged production in n.y.c. since 1842" (according to the program) january 12, 1967, minor latham playhouse, the collegium musicum, with josephine mongiardo (galatea), larry bennett (acis) , tom neugebauer (damon), and joseph chounhard (polythemus); conducted by kenneth cooper; directed by ellen terry; amy kaiser, chorus master; michael griffel, piano. ''acis and galetea [sic]:' barnard bulletin, january 12, 1967, 7; "music notes," new york times, january 12, 1967,47. amahl and the night visitors (1951, new york; 1968, columbia, st. paul's chapel) opera in one act by gian carlo menotti; libretto by the composer, inspired by hieronymous bosch's painting adoration of the magi (1498). first perfor­ mance december 24, 1951, new york, nbc television. revivals at columbia were frequent, including a presentation by the barnard theatre company on february 9, 1968, at st. paul's chapel, with robert puleo (amahl), ja­ net mcneill (the mother), and jeffrey kurmit, philip ramey, and george alexander (the three kings); conducted by keith shawgo. the cast consisted of members of columbia university except for the part of amahl. "entertainment events;' new york times, february 9, 1968,54; ellen shul­ man, "welcome visitors;' barnard bulletin, february 14,1968,4. the politics of harmony (1968, columbia, mcmillin theatre) masque in one act by charles wuorinen; libretto by richard monaco, after an ancient chinese story by ssu-ma-ch'ien. first performance october 28, 1968, new york, mcmillin theatre, group for contemporary music. the story concerns a monarch who disregards his music tutor's warnings and brings a catastrophic storm upon himself and his surroundings. the work opened a few months after the student uprisings at the university originally protesting columbia's plans to build a gymnasium in morningside park. william hibbard, "charles wuorinen: the politics of harmony;' perspectives of new music 7 (spring-summer 1969): 155-70; "who makes music and where;' new york times, october 27,1968, sec. d, 17. 117 118 current musicology susanna (1749; 1969, barnard, minor latham) oratorio in three acts by george frideric handel; anonymous libretto after the apocrypha. first performance february 10, 1749, london. new york stage premiere (according to the program, and review, which called the work an opera) february 20, 1969, new york, riverside church theater, with josephine mongiardo (susanna) and robert shiesley (joachim); conducted by kenneth cooper; directed by albert john takazauckas. the performers included the barnard-columbia chamber chorus, directed by daniel paget, and was in honor of incoming barnard president martha peterson and paid tribute to retiring columbia professor of musicology paul henry lang. susan gould, "handel's 'susanna' totally enjoyable;' barnard bulletin, march 5, 1969, 7; "who makes music," new york times, february 16, 1969, sec. d, 14. from captain cook's diary (1969, columbia, mcmillin theatre) micro-opera in six sections by bo lawergren; libretto by the composer, after cook. first performance may 1, 1969, new york, mcmillin theatre, with jon bauman and antonia lavanne; brian trentham (trombone), zita carno (piano); sophie sollberger (flute); robert routch (french horn); conducted by david gilbert. part of a "concert of new music" by columbia composers. "entertainment events;' new york times, may 1,1969,52. larinda e vanesio (1726, naples; 1971, barnard, minor latham) comic intermezzo in one act by adolf hasse; libretto by antonio salvi and/or angelo carasale, after moliere's le bourgeois gentilhomme. first performance december 1726, naples. "revived and staged for the first time since the eighteenth century" march 4, 1971, in english, in a ver­ sion by gordana lazarevich, new york, minor latham playhouse, with susan davidman (larinda) and jeffrey caiman (vanesio); conducted by lazarevich; directed by albert john takazauckas. presented by the barnard college chamber music society, in cooperation with the barnard college theatre company and the barnard and columbia music departments. given with drusilla e strabone. the performances were based on recently discovered scores by lazarevich. donal henahan, "barnard group offers novelties;' new york times, may 6,1971,20. drusilla e strabone (1735, naples; 1971, barnard, minor latham) comic intermezzo in one act by giuseppe selitti. first performance january margaret ross griffel 29, 1735, naples. "revived and staged for the first time since the eighteenth century" march 4, 1971, in english, in a version by gordana lazarevich, new york, minor latham playhouse, with salvador tomas (the quack) and josephine mongiardo (drusilla); conducted by lazarevich; directed by albert john takazauckas. given with larinda e vanesio. hin und zuriick (1927, baden-baden; 1971, columbia, mcmillin theatre) "sketch mit musik" by paul hindemith; libretto by marcellus schiffer. first performance july 17, 1927, baden-baden. revived, in an adaptation of the english translation by marion farquhar, on march 17, 1971, new york, mc­ millin theatre, with gail august (aunt emma), diana hoagland (helen), michael best (robert, her husband), lorna lable (the maid), elliot levine (the doctor), a. g. murphy (the orderly), and david smith (a sage). the orchestra was composed of kim haley (flute), robert marikson (clarinet). peter lefferts (alto saxophone), bruce taub (bassoon), david malman (trumpet), douglas anderson (trombone), michael griffel and judith zessis (pianos), and walter hilse (piano and harmonium); conducted by joel sachs; directed by albert john takazauckas. the piece was presented as part of a retrospective of paul hindemith's works, by the performers' committee for twentieth-century music, led by cheryl seltzer and joel sachs. the cast and orchestra consisted mostly of columbia graduate students. "entertainment events," new york times, march 17, 1971,34. treemonisha (1915?, new york; 1972, columbia, mcmillin theatre) opera in three acts by scott joplin; libretto by the composer. composed 1908-1911. first performance (concert) 1915?, new york. excerpts per­ formed at an all-joplin concert on march 15, 1972, mcmillin theatre, performers' committee for twentieth-century music, with clamma dale (treemonisha); cheryl seltzer and joel sachs, pianos. "notice;' barnard bulletin, march 9, 1972, 6; "who makes music and where," new york times, march 12, 1972, sec. d, 16. polly (1777, london; 1974, barnard, minor latham) ''an opera, being the second part of the beggar's opera"; libretto by john gay. first performance june 19, 1777 (the 1729 premiere was suppressed). revived february 1974, new york, minor latham playhouse, with ellen savette (mrs. trapes), omara leary (damaris), kathleen armstrong (polly peachum), bert rochelson (mr. ducat), and cristina palacio (jenny); di­ rected by kenneth janes. 119 120 current musicology daphne merkin, "performance, production distinguish janes' 'polly;" barnard bulletin, february 28, 1974, 5, 8. down in the valley (1948, bloomington, in; 1976, new york, columbia, st. paul's) folk opera in one act by kurt weill; libretto by arnold sundgaard. first performance july 15,1948, bloomington, indiana. revived february 1976, new york, st. paul's chapel, with the barnard-columbia madrigal choir; conducted by peter schubert; directed by penny h. parkhurst. most of the performers were barnard and columbia students and alumni. randy c. banner, "down in the valley: weill's 'sparkling' opera;' barnard bulletin, march i, 1976, 11. the rake's progress (1951, venice; 1976, barnard, minor latham) opera in three acts by igor stravinsky; libretto by w. h. auden and chester kallman. first performance september 11, 1951, venice. revived march 16, 1976, new york, minor latham playhouse, with the barnard college theater company and voices of the twentieth century; conducted by laurel miller; directed by kenneth janes. vera stravinsky, widow of the composer, was guest of honor at one of the performances. "stravinsky visits," barnard bulletin, february 9,1976,7. the new diana (1984, barnard, minor latham) multimedia work, on a play by kenneth koch; music by lara crete; set by reuben nakian. first performance october 12, 1984, new york, minor latham playhouse, with kate farrell and taylor meade; directed by donald sanders. presented by the playhouse, new york theater institute, and co­ lumbia university's oscar hammerstein ii center for theater studies. richard f. shepard, "going out guide;' new york times, october 10, 1984, sec. c, 16. the bus to stockport and other stories (1986, barnard, minor latham) theater piece by eric valinsky and peter schubert; text after john cage's silence and a year from monday. first performance february 20, 1986, new york, opera uptown, minor latham playhouse, with cage narrating; directed by rhonda rubinson. presented by the barnard college theater program. tim page, "stage: musical homage to works of john cage;' new york times, february 24,1986, sec. c, 13. margaret ross griffel my heart's in the highlands (1970, national educational television; 1988, columbia, miller theatre) chamber opera in two acts by jack beeson; libretto by the composer, after william saroyan's play (1939). first performance march 17, 1970, new york, national educational television, net opera theater, with beeson (the young husband); conducted by peter herman. first stage performance october 25, 1988, new york, miller theatre, center for contemporary opera, with adam plotch (johnny), john schackelford (the father), steven owen (macgregor), maro partamian (the grandmother), peter loehle, and robert ferencz; conducted by richard marshall; directed by john olon­ scrymgeour. john rockwell, "with the immigrants in the world of saroyan;' new york times, october 29,1988,15. the proscenium ( ... on the demise of gertrude) (1991, columbia, miller theatre) chamber opera in one act by meyer kupferman; libretto by the composer. first performance november 3,1991, new york, miller theatre; conducted by the composer. "music;' new york times, november 3,1991, sec. h, 39. the medium (1946, columbia, brander matthews; 1991, columbia, miller theatre) tragedy in two acts by gian carlo menotti; libretto by the composer. first performance may 8, 1946, new york, brander matthews hall. revived december 20, 1991, miller theatre, american chamber opera, together with the telephone, in honor of the composer's eightieth birthday and the forty-fifth anniversary of the medium's premiere at columbia. "opera watch;' opera news 56 (december 21,1991): 7. the telephone (1947, new york; 1959, teachers college; 1991, columbia, miller theatre) opera buffa in one act by gian carlo menotti; libretto by the composer. first performance february 19, 1947, new york. revived december 20, 1991, miller theatre, american chamber opera, together with the medium. don pasquale (1843, paris; 1992, miller theatre) dramma buffo in three acts by gaetano donizetti; libretto by giovanni ruffini and the composer. first performance january 3, 1843, paris. per121 122 current musicology formed in an abbreviated version january 12, 1992, new york, miller theatre, in phyllis mead's english translation, with joan shephard (malates­ ta's aunt); conducted by paul nadler. presented by the metropolitan opera guild education department. brian kellow, "new york city;' opera news 56 (june 1992): 5. how to make love (1994, columbia, miller theatre) opera in one act by lawrence widdoes; libretto by c. c. widdoes. first per­ formance january 13, 1994, new york, miller theatre, with laura hemphill (sharon), elena commendador and alan hineline (mannequins), bejun mehta (street musician), tony dillon (shop proprietor), kyle pfortmiller (sex-book author), elizabeth weigle (his companion), and lawrence har­ ris (masher); conducted by glen cortese; designed by adam mead faletti; directed by pamela cederquist. bernard holland, "of romance, sex and fashion;' new york times, janu­ ary is, 1994, sec. i, 11. der kaiser von atlantis (composed 1944, terezin concentration camp; 1998, columbia, miller theatre) viktor ullmann's devastating satire, which received its posthumous premiere in amsterdam in 1975, some forty years after the deaths of the composer and the librettist peter kien at auschwitz, opened the tenth miller theatre season with its performance on september 17, 1998, in german, with richard lewis (emperor), daniel may (death), patrick jones (harlequin), janice meyerson (drummer girl), david ossenfort (soldier), roxane lacombe (bubikopf), and robert mcloud (loudspeaker); conducted by petr kotik; directed by gregorij h. van leitis. the choice to perform the work in its original german, without supertitles, left many in the audience bewildered, according to anthony tommasini. anthony tommasini, "from the doomed, an ode to life and a warning not to insult death;' new york times, september 19, 1998, sec. b, 7. rasa (1998, columbia, miller theatre) monodrama for soprano, chamber orchestra, and electronic tape by shirish korde, after the novel jasmine (1989) by bharati mukherjee. first perfor­ mance october 25, 1998, new york, miller theatre, da capo chamber players and new york virtuoso singers; conducted by eric culver. "music;' new york times, october 25,1998, sec. ar, 47; "world premiere of music opera 'rasa,'" news indiatimes, october 23, 1998, 32. margaret ross griffel ravenshead (1998, penn state; 1998, columbia, miller theatre) one-person electro-acoustic opera by stephen mackey; libretto by rinde eckert. first performance november 5, 1998, penn state. first new york performance november 12, 1998, miller theatre, with eckert (donald crowhurst) and the paul dresher ensemble; conducted by george steel. ann midgette, "in review: from around the world-new york city," opera news 63 (april 1999 ): 90; anthony tommasini, "reclaiming a rich history of new opera;' new york times, november 8, 1998, sec. ar, 36, 41. the great houdini (1989, copenhagen; 1999, columbia, miller theatre) "street opera for four singers and six musicians" by andy pape; libretto by erik clausen. first performance 1989, copenhagen. first us performance, in english, october 29, 1999, new york, miller theatre, den anden oper, with jan lund (houdini), edith guillaume (his mother), lise-lotte nielsen (his girlfriend), and jorgen ole borch (police officer); conducted by henrik vagn christensen. paul griffiths, "of houdini in essence but not quite all about him;' new york times, november 5,1999, sec. e, 6. the noblest game (composed 1975; 1999, columbia, miller theatre) opera in a prologue and two acts by david diamond; libretto by katie louchheim. composed 1975. first performance (excerpts) may 4, 1999, new york, miller theatre, new york city opera orchestra. presented as one of six works (with pope joan, dora, blood on the dining room floor, welfare, and liule women) by showcasing american composers, through the new york city opera. anthony tommasini, "help for opera composers;' new york times, may 4,1999, sec. e, 8. pope joan, an operatic heresy (1999, columbia, miller theatre) opera by john musto; libretto by denise lanctot. first performance (excerpts) may 4, 1999, new york, miller theatre, new york city opera orchestra. dora (1999, columbia, miller theatre) opera in two acts by melissa shiflett; libretto by nancy fales garrett, after sigmund freud's first analysis. first performance (excerpts) may 5, 1999, new york, miller theatre, new york city opera orchestra. first complete performance aprils, 2002, new york, lamama annex. 123 124 current musicology blood on the dining room floor (1999, columbia, miller theatre) opera in one act by jonathan sheffer; libretto by the composer, after ger­ trude stein's detective novel and alice b. toklas's cookbook. first perfor­ mance (excerpts) may 5, 1999, new york, miller theatre, new york city opera orchestra. first complete performance april 16,2000, new york, peter norton space. welfare (1999, columbia, miller theatre) opera by lenny pickett; libretto by david stavitt. first performance (excerpts) may 6, 1999, new york, miller theatre, new york city opera orchestra. little women (1998, houston; 1999, columbia, miller theatre) opera in two acts by mark adamo; libretto by the composer, after louisa may alcott's novel (1868), john bunyan, and goethe. first performance march 13, 1998, houston. performed may 6, 1999 (excerpts), new york, miller theatre, new york city opera orchestra. le jongleur de notre dame (1978, kirkwall, scotland; 2000, miller theatre) masque by peter maxwell davies; libretto by the composer, after a medieval french legend. first performance june 18, 1978, kirkwall, scotland. revived february 11,2000, new york, miller theatre, da capo chamber players. paul griffiths, "classical music and dance guide;' new york times, febru­ ary 11, 2000, sec. e, 6. don quixote (1996, chicago; 2000, columbia, miller theatre) "theater piece for musicians" by john eaton. first performance june 6, 1996, chicago. first new york performance may 9,2000, miller theatre, with jean kopperud (don quixote); conducted by james baker. composed for the new york new music ensemble. john w. freeman, "in review: from around the world-new york city;' opera news 65 (sept. 2000): 104; james oestreich, "off with pomp and circumstance," new york times, may 15, 2000, sec. e, 5. the bread & roses opera (2000, barnard, minor latham) "love story set to music" by gene glickman and mike shen, based on mozart's don giovanni; libretto after steve friedman's play (1980), with additions by friedman. first performance october 27, 2000, new york, minor latham playhouse; conducted by mimi stern-wolfe; directed by denny partridge. margaret ross griffel barnard college press release, october 10, 2000, http://www.barnard .edu/newnews/newsl 0 1 oood.html. transcendent voices (2000, columbia, lerner hall) theater-opera piece, with music and text by darnel jones (soa'o 1); text after harriet beecher stowe's uncle tom's cabin. first performance december 6, 2000, new york, lerner hall, roone arledge auditorium, with george shirley (tom) and kristin linklater (stowe). supported by the school of the arts theater division and other university groups. bram alden, "new 'voices' to reach new audiences;' columbia spectator, december 4, 2000,1,9. faustus (2002, barnard, minor latham) puppet opera conceived of and directed by amy trompetter; music by ralph denzer; libretto after christopher marlowe's doctor faustus (1604). first performance april 19, 2002, new york, minor latham playhouse, barnard theatre department. barnard college press release, march 21, 2002, http://www.barnard.edu/ newnews/news0321 02.html. bertha (1973, new york; 2003, columbia, miller theatre) opera in one act by ned rorem; libretto by kenneth koch, after his play (1966). first performance november 26, 1973, new york, alice tully hall. excerpts performed at memorial tribute for kenneth koch, professor of english and comparative literature, october 10, 2003, new york, miller theatre, given with depart malgache and the gold standard. "campus calendar;' columbia spectator, october 10, 2003, 3; caro­ line ladhani, "fans salute former professor and poet kenneth koch in a literary, musical extravaganza," columbia university record, http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_events/look_back/kenneth_koch.html. depart malgache (composed 2000; 2003, columbia, miller theatre) first section of opera by roger trefousse; libretto after kenneth koch's brief play (1988). composed 2000. first performance october 10, 2003, new york, miller theatre. the gold standard (2000, new york; 2003, columbia, miller theatre) opera for soprano, mezzo-soprano, and ensemble by scott wheeler; libretto after kenneth koch's play (1975). first performance february 2000, new york, joe's pub. commissioned by sequitur. scenes performed october 10, 2003, new york, miller theatre. 125 126 current musicology wake her up (2004, columbia, roone arledge auditorium) "rocking opera" by janine mcguire (bc'os); text by emily paul, after the story of psyche and eros. first complete, staged performance november 12, 2004, new york, lerner hall, roone arledge auditorium; directed by noah steiner; produced by lyz crane (bc'os). the work has its own web site. for the columbia performance, see http://www.wakeherup.com/nov04.htm. opera at columbia today while classical music, not least of all opera, occupies a much smaller place in this country than it did in the heyday of the columbia opera workshop and in the decade of current musicology's birth, things are not quite as bleak as some doomsayers claim. the so-called graying of the classical audiences is also accompanied by a healthy dose, at least in new york, of younger audience members eager to attend such performances as the october 2005 revival of richard rodney bennett's gothic the mines of sulphur at the city opera. (juilliard had given the premiere in 1968). the columbia spectator, which provides extensive coverage of classical music performances, described the work as "operatic gold," and juilliard's november 2005 presentations of benjamin britten's a midsummer night's dream played to sold-out houses (goldmann 2005:3). and columbia is still turning out successful opera composers. among those in the younger generation is eve beglarian (gsas'83), a student of charles wuorinen and of fred lerdahl, who has composed the electric theater piece typopera (1994, phoenix) and the opera the man in the black suit (2000, new york). tan dun (gsas'93), who studied with chou wen-chung, mario davidovsky, and george edwards, has written marco polo (1996, munich), peony pavilion (1998, vienna), tea (a mirror of the soul) (2002, tokyo), and first emperor (scheduled for the metropolitan opera's 2006-07 season). another chou wen-chung student, bright sheng (gsas'93), has penned the song of majnun (1992, chicago), the silver river (1997, santa fe), and madame mao (2003, santa fe). columbia continues to highlight its opera composers, past and present. in the summer 2000 issue, columbia magazine, the alumni magazine of the university, featured beeson's fascinating study"da ponte, macdowell, moore, and lang: four biographical essays" as part of its "living legacies" series (2000a),l8 a spring 2002 columbia magazine article on the grawemeyer award for music composition noted that columbia had more award-winning alumni than any other university worldwide, and pointed out that "much of today's most compelling and influential music comes from columbia commargaret ross griffel posers."19 and as part of the celebration of the university's 250th birthday in 2004, otto luening was included in the series "c250 celebrates columbians ahead of their time." columbia has also kept opera vibrant through its curricula and outreach efforts. the graduate school of journalism has an arts concentration in the ma degree program, and its course offerings include "cultural affairs reporting and writing." from 1997 through 2005, the journalism school housed the nondegree national arts journalism program, the purpose of which was to "improve the quality and availability of arts coverage in both print and broadcast media by enabling mid-career arts journalists to expand their knowledge and skills" (2006 graduate school of journalism bulletin, 16). with assistance from the national endowment for the arts, the program launched its first arts journalism institute october 17-28, 2004, which elicited the following spectator article by elise baker: "journalists come to nyc to gain knowledge of music: najp brings 25 writers to new york city in an attempt to spread knowledge of classical music" (september 16, 2004). another nea-supported institute took place october 16-27,2005, and involved another twenty-five participants.2o in these ways, columbia university has continued its long and admirable tradition of promoting and preserving opera. one hopes that those who have been the beneficiaries of the najp program and similar projects will increase general interest in classical music, working as critics, journalists, and educators to help instruct the public, and attracting new audiences to various kinds of opera. notes 1. joel honig was a classmate of john corigliano's at columbia. 2. fred knubel was director of public information for columbia university. 3. in his introduction, beeson says, "my purpose forty years ago was simply to record a short but vibrant period in the history of american opera through my experience as coach and conductor in the columbia opera workshop and the closely related series of american opera premieres" (2000b: 193). beeson's thirteen tables list all of the performances, including plays with newly written music. concerning the accuracy of the information, beeson notes that "at this late date, it would be difficult to find and correct any errors in the production data" (2000b: 193). for a detailed history of the workshop with numerous photographs and much of the information found in beeson's tables, see sponaugle (2002). 4. the cta was directed by milton smith, chair of the theater department, who was also the director of the brander matthews theatre. smith retired in 1959. beeson notes that works by cowell and paul nordoff were supported by the ditson fund but not presented by columbia (beeson 2000b:205). sponaugle (2002) specifies the works. programs and playbills of cta productions are available in the manuscript collection columbia theater associates papers, 1893-1958 (ms coll\columbia un.c.t.a); see also milton smith script collection (ms coll\ smith, milton), which covers the years from 1927 to 1946 and includes scripts, newspaper clippings, and programs of productions during smith's time as director. 127 128 current musicology 5. the two "pergolesi" operas, the music master and the jealous husband, were later found to have been falsely attributed to him. see their entries in the present article. 6. abbreviations used in this article are as follows: bc: barnard college cc: columbia college cm: current musicology cta: columbia theatre associates gs: general studies gsas: graduate school of arts and sciences hon: honorary degree najp : national arts journalism program soa: school of the arts 7. douglas moore's operatic output included the headless horseman (premiered 1937, bronxville, ny), the devil and daniel webster (1939, new york), the emperor's new clothes (1949, new york) , white wings (1949, hartford, ct), giants in the earth (1951, new york) , the ballad of baby doe (1956, central city, co), gallantry (1958, new york), wings of the dove (1961, new york), and carry nation (1966, lawrence, ks). 8. in addition to the buildingofbamba (1917, halcyon, cal, cowell wrote the commission (composed 1954 for the league of composers; performed 1992, woodstock, ny). 9. beeson's output of operas includes jonah (composed 1950), hello out there (1954, new york), the sweet bye and bye (1957, new york), lizzie borden (1965, new york), my heart's in the highlands (1970, new york, national education television), captain jinks of the horse marines (1975, kansas city), dr. heidegger's fountain of youth (1978, new york), cyrano (1994, hagen, germany), and sorry, wrong number (1999, new york). see also hawkshaw (2002). 10. levy's other operas include the escorial (1958, new york), sotoba komachi (1957, new york), and the tower (1957, santa fe, nm). john corigliano's ghosts of versailles was given its first performance at the metropolitan opera on december 23, 1991. his naked car­ men, written together with david hess, was composed in 1970; it was recorded that year by mercury records (mercury srm 1-604). wendy carlos (walter carlos before 1979) was an early composer of electronic music and a student of luening and vladimir ussachevsky, who founded the columbia-princeton electronic music center (now the computer music center) in 1959. carlos wrote the opera noah (1965). alice shields composed the electronic operas odyssey (1975), shaman (1987), mass for the dead (1993), and apocalypse (1994). 11. kay, who was luening's student from 1946 to 1947, composed the juggler of our lady (1962, new orleans), the boor (1968, lexington, ky), the capitoline venus (1971, quincy, il), jubilee (1976, jackson, ms), and frederick douglass (1991, newark, nj). laderman, a student of luening and douglas moore, has composed a number of operas and opera­ cantatas, including jacob and the indians (1957, woodstock, ny), sarah (1958, new york), goodbye to the clown (1960, new york), the shadows among us (composed 1968; performed 1979, philadelphia), galileo galilei (1979, new york), and david wept (1980, new york), and marilyn (1993, new york). 12. lang calls this the "battle of the umlaut" (1966:682-83). in the brochure for the 1967 rca recording ofthe opera (r67-3791), rudel explains that "we sought authenticity forthis production in spirit and intent rather than in literalness. we have, as i believe handel would margaret ross griffel have wanted, performed his julius caesar for your enjoyment rather than your reverence" (11). the brochure spells the composer's name "georg frideric handel:' 13. another thing they heard in every course he taught was that trombones were indicated in the score for the mozart requiem because there were not enough basses available at the time to balance the texture properly, but that in a modern performance it is not only unnecessary but actually wrong to double the basses with the trombones. see lang (1997:20). 14. the others were rasa and der kaiser von atlantis (see entries in the present article). 15. a tape of the concert is available at the new york public library music research division (nypg98-r4). the lengthy program included selections from paul bunyan, the visitors, he who gets slapped (pantaloon), the sweet bye and bye, the medium, the mother of us all, six characters in search of an author, hello out there, malady of love, and the ballad of baby doe. 16. beeson lists the following names: everett anderson, ellen faull, alice howland, gladys kuchta, james mccracken, leopold simoneau, teresa stitch-randall, and david thaw, but not dorothy dow (2000b:199). 17. performance information and descriptions for these entries come from my own operas in german and operas in english (griffel1990; griffe11999) as well as beeson (2000b), eaton ([ 1961]1974), lowenberg (1978), and contemporaneous newspaper and magazine accounts from publications such as the barnard bulletin, columbia daily spectator, and the new york times. unsigned articles are listed by the name of the publication in which they appeared. i have tried to be as inclusive as possible and apologize in advance for any omissions. 18. da ponte was appointed professor ofitalian at columbia in 1825. beeson's article (2000a) is included in the forthcoming book living legacies at columbia, edited by wm. theodore de bary and scheduled to be published in fall 2006 by columbia university press. 19. see http://www.columbia.edu/cu/alumni/magazine/spring2002/composers.htm!. 20. one of the participants, roger a. cope, who writes for the online publication classical voice of north carolina, offered his ideas (nurtured by the institute) on how to build a wider audience for classical music. see cope (2005). references alden, bram. 2000. new "voices" to reach new audiences. columbia spectator (december 4): 1,9. (transcendent voices) baker, elise. 2004. journalists come to nyc to gain knowledge of music: najp brings 25 writers to new york city in an attempt to spread knowledge of classical music. columbia spectator (september 16). banner, randy c. 1976. down in the valley: weill's "sparkling" opera. barnard bulletin (march 1): 11. barnard bulletin. 1943. choruses will present opera. (february 11): 3. (a tree on the plains) ---.1948. play revived for jubilee. (november 1): 1. (the belle of new york) ---.1949. group to give musical play. (may 2): 1. (a drumlin legend) ---. 1956. musicale features early mozart work. (march 8): 1. (bastienne and bastienna) --. 1959. on campus. (may 4): 7. (the unicorn) ---.1965. bulletin board. (january 7): 4. (el capitan) ---.1967. acis and galetea [sic]. (january 12): 7. ---. 1972. notice. (march 9): 6. (treemonisha) 129 130 current musicology barnard college press release. october 10, 2000. http://www.barnard.edu/newnews/ newslo1000d.html [november 21, 2005] (bread & roses) ---. march 21, 2002. http://www.barnard.edu/newnews/news032102.html [november 20,2005] (faustus) beeson, jack. 2000a. da ponte, macdowell, moore, and lang: four biographical essays. columbia magazine. living legacies series. (summer). http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/cu/ alumni/magazine/summer2000/beeson.html [november 20, 2005] ---. 2000b. opera at columbia university, 1941-1958. current musicology 70: 193211. burstein, miriam. 1942. about town: brander matthews. barnard bulletin (december 17): 2. (the village barber) columbia magazine. 2002. columbia university grawemeyer award. http://www.columbia .edu/cu/alumni/magazine/spring2002/composers.html [november 20, 2005] columbia spectator. 2003. campus calendar. (october 10): 3. (bertha, depart malgache, the gold standard) cope, roger a. 2005. nea notebook: your tax dollars at work-a level-nine call for awareness, and other thoughts & reflections. http://cvnc.org/reviews/2005/features05/ najp.html [december 26, 2005] d. h. 1942. about town: "the music master:' barnard bulletin (february 20): 2. downes, edward. 1958. satirical opera sung at columbia. new york times (march 17): 21. (the committee) downes, olin. 1941. official opening for "paul bunyan." new york times (may 6): 25. ---. 1943. ernst bacon work is presented here. new york times (may 6): 24. (a tree on the plains) ---.1946. menotti "medium" in premiere here: chamber opera presented on campus at columbia u. new york times (may 9): 37. ---. 1947. "warrior" is given at metropolitan. new york times (january 12): 53. ---. 1947. new stein opera. new york times (may 8): 30. (the mother of us all) ---. 1948. opera by luening has its premiere. new york times (may 6): 31. (evangeline) ---. 1949. columbia offers "drumlin legend." new york times (may 10): 29. ---.1951. new moore opera is presented here. new york times (march 29,1951): 25. ( giants in the earth) ---.1954. "beggar's opera" seen at columbia. new york times (april 7): 40. ---. 1954. columbia stages two new operas: "malady of love" and "hello out there" are performed at brander matthews hall. new york times (may 28): 18. e. w. 1942. about town: the burglar's opera. barnard bulletin (may 8): 2. ear! of harewood, the and anthony peattie, eds. 1997. new kobbe's opera book. new york: g. p. putnam's sons. eaton, quaintance. [1961] 1974. opera production. a handbook. 2 vols. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. (reprint new york: da capo press.) edwards, nancy. 1943. about town: the two misers. barnard bulletin (december 9): 2. ---.1944. at brander matthews. barnard bulletin (may 11): 2. (pieces of eight) freeman, john w. 2000. in review: from around the world-new york city. opera news 65 (september): 104. (don quixote) goldmann, a. j. 2005. american opera stars shine in mines. columbia spectator (november 3): 3. gould, susan. 1969. handel's "susanna" totally enjoyable. barnard bulletin (march 5): 7. griffe!, margaret ross. 1990. operas in german: a dictionary. wesport, ct: greenwood press. margaret ross griffel ---.1999. operas in english: a dictionary. westport, ct.: greenwood press. griffiths, paul. 1999. of houdini in essence but not quite all about him. new york times (november 5): sec. e, 6. (the great houdini) ---. 2000. classical music and dance guide. new york times (february 11): sec. e, 6. (le jongleur de notre dame) hawkshaw, susan. 2002. a master of the american opera. columbia magazine (spring): 45-48. www.columbia.edu/ cu/alumni/magazine/spring2002/beeson.html [march 17, 2006] henahan, donal. 1971. barnard group offers novelties. new york times (may 6): 20. (larinda, drusilla) hibbard, william. 1969. charles wuorinen: the politics of harmony. perspectives of new music 7: 155-70. hinton, jr., james. 1952. kreutz ballad opera produced at columbia. musical america 72 (may): 20. (acres of sky) holland, bernard. 1994. of romance, sex and fashion. new york times (january 15): sec. 1,11. (how to make love) honig, joel. 1997. is it curtains for american chamber opera? opera news 62 (august): 10-15. j. b. 1953. workshop offers work by winslow. new york times (may 21): 38. (sweeney agonistes) kellow, brian. 1991. new york city. opera news 56 (june): 5. (don pasquale) knubel, fred. 1997. american opera tradition to be celebrated in concert at columbia april 6: young opera vocalists of today will perform works pioneered at the university at mid-century. columbia university office of public information. http://www.columbia .edu/cu/pr/97/l9078.html [november 4, 2005] kolodin, irving. 1954. the spring crop of new premieres. saturday review 37 (june 12): 28. (malady of love, hello out there) ladhani, caroline. 2004. fans salute former professor and poet kenneth koch in a literary, musical extravaganza. columbia university record, http://c250.columbia.edu/c250_ eventsllook_backlkenneth_koch.html [november 4, 2005] lang, paul henry. 1966. george frideric handel. new york: w. w. norton. ---.1997. musicology and related disciplines. in musicology and performance, edited by alfred mann and george j. buelow, 11-23. new haven and london: yale university press. loewenberg,alfred. 1978. annals of opera: 1597-1940. 3rd rev. ed. totowa, nj: roman and littlefield. merkin, daphne. 1974. performance, production distinguish janes' "polly." barnard bulletin (february 28): 5,8. midgette, ann. 1999. in review: from around the world-new york city. opera news 63 (april): 90. (ravenshead) munzer, kay. 1951. douglas moore's opera runs through sat. at b. matthews. barnard bulletin (aprils): 2. (giants in the earth) new york times. 1940. columbia finishes its new theatre: brander matthews hall to serve also as a modern workshop. (november 3): 67. ---.1942. pergolesi opera. (february 8): sec. 10,7. (the music master) ---.1943. columbia u. will start a workshop for opera. (september 17): 26. ---. 1943. "two misers" presented: columbia theatre associates give andre gretry opera. (december 9): 30. ---.1944. opera and concert programs: columbia university opera. (december 10): sec. 10,9. (the jealous husband) 131 132 current musicology ---.1946. music notes. (february 13): 30. (the barber of seville) ---. 1948. columbia revives an old-time musical. (december 2): 36. (the belle of new york) ---. 1954. concert and opera programs of the week. (november 14): sec. 10, 8. (the cask of amontillado) ---.1956. music notes. (march 10): 9. (bastienne and bastienna) ---. 1956. programs of the current week. (may 27): 100. (the abduction from the seraglio) ---. 1959. music notes. (may 6): 49. (the unicorn, the telephone) ---. 1967. music notes. (january 12): 47. (ads and galatea) ---. 1968. entertainment events. (february 9): 54. (amahl and the night visitors) ---. 1968. who makes music and where. (october 27): sec. d, 17. (the politics of harmony) ---. 1969. who makes music. (february 16): sec. d, 14. (susanna) ---.1969. entertainment events. (may 1): 52. (from captain cook's diary) ---. 1971. entertainment events. (march 17): 34. (hin und zuriick) ---.1972. who makes music and where. (march 12): sec. d, 16. (treemonisha) ---. 1991. music. (november 3): sec. h, 39. (the proscenium) --.1998. music. (october 25): sec. ar, 47. (rasa) news india-times. 1998. world premiere of music opera "rasa." (october 23): 32. oestreich, james. 2000. off with pomp and circumstance. new york times (may 15): sec. e, 5. (don quixote) opera news. 1957. review. opera news 22 (november 11): 16. (panfilo) ---. 1991. opera watch. opera news 56: 7. (the medium, the telephone) page, tim. 1986. stage: musical homage to works of john cage. new york times (february 24): sec. c, 13. (the bus to stockport and other stories) r. p. 1955. composers forum gives first opera. new york times (january 10): 26. (the stronger) rich, alan. 1968. program notes, monteverdi's incoronazione di poppea, in a version by raymond leppard. caramoor, june 22 and 28. rockwell, john. 1988. with the immigrants in the world of sa roy an. new york times (october 29): 15. (my heart's in the highlands) schaefer, louis e. and gilbert y. steiner. 1941. "paul bunyan;' reincarnated at brander mat­ thews, proves refreshing operetta. columbia spectator (may 6): 1. schonberg, harold c. [h. c. s.] 1957. opera students offer one-acter: columbia work­ shop gives first performance here of french "love is a game." new york times (may 25): 19. ---. 1958. moore's opera, "gallantry;' in premiere. new york times (march 20): 34. ---. 1965. music: "ei capitan": shanet leads revival of sousa operetta. new york times (january 11): 29. ---. 1966. music: miniature opera; contemporary writer recalls edward lear. new york times (march 22): 32. (mr. and mrs. discobbolos) ---. 1968a. the opera: ginastera's not-so-wicked "bomarzo" arrives here. new york times (march 15): 28. ---. 1968b. music: juilliard's opera theater presents "ormindo:' new york times (april 26): 32. schubart, mark a. 1945. lockwood opera given at columbia. new york times (may 10): 19. (the scarecrow) ---. 1946. stravinsky work concert feature: mitropoulos leads "soldier's tale" in stage performance. new york times (may 19): 40. margaret ross griffel shepard, richard f. 1984. going out guide. new york times (october 10): sec. c, 16. (the new diana) shulman, ellen. 1968. welcome visitors. barnard bulletin (february 14): 4. (amahl and the night visitors) smith, cecil. 1950. columbia university stages musical drama by meyerowitz. musical america 52 (february): 244. (the barrier) sponaugle, harlie. 2002. columbia university, the columbia opera workshop and the efflorescence of american opera in the 1940s and 1950s. parts i-iii, appendix, us opera web (autumn), http://www.usoperaweb.com/2002/september/columbia.htm [november 9, 2005] straus, noel [n. s.]. 1941. juilliard players give operas. new york times (february 14): 14. (the devil take her, blennerhasset) ---.1942. "village barber" given at columbia. new york times (december 17): 42. ---.1944. columbians offer operatic comedy. new york times (may 11): 25. (pieces of eight) ---.1947. columbia offers two mehul operas. new york times (february 7): 30. (stra­ tonice, the man with the terrible temper) stravinsky visits. 1976. barnard bulletin (february 9): 7. (the rake's progress) taubman, howard [h. t.]. 1949. columbia offers "sir john in love." new york times (janu­ ary 21): 24. ---.1950. "the barrier" given by columbia opera. new york times (january 19): 34. ---. 1952. columbia offers new ballad opera. new york times (may 8): 35. (acres of sky) ---. 1956. music: opera by mozart: "la clemenza di tito" is heard at columbia. new york times (april 26): 39. ---.1956. opera: "pantaloon" has its premiere. new york times (may 18): 20. ---.1957. opera: first by chavez. new york times (may 10): 21. (panfilo) ---. 1957. opera: debut at juilliard. new york times (november 25): 26. (the sweet bye and bye) ---. 1959. music: weisgall's "six characters." new york times (april 27): 22. tommasini, anthony. 1998a. from the doomed, an ode to life and a warning not to insult death. new york times (september 19): sec. b, 7. (der kaiser von atlantis) ---. 1998b. reclaiming a rich history of new opera. new york times (november 8): sec. ar, 36, 41. ---. 1999. help for opera composers. new york times (may 4): sec. e, 8. wake her up. http://www.wakeherup.com/nov04.htm [december 13,2005] discography rudel. 1967. george frideric handel. julius caesar. rca r67-3791. 133 danielle fosler-lussier. 2007. music divided: bartok's legacy in cold war culture. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by joshua s. walden during the cold war, the ideological split between east and west manifested itself in a stark divide in the critical response to the works of bela bartok. throughout much of his career, bartok had developed a compositional style that incorporated modernist aesthetic techniques with melodic and formal attributes of the rural folk music that he collected during his ethnomusico­ logical fieldwork in east central europe and elsewhere. many critics in the west praised his modernist compositional innovations but associated his use of folk music with antiquated methods and reactionary soviet policies; cultural critics in the eastern bloc, on the other hand, typically rejected bartok's modernist techniques as decadent cosmopolitanism, while, at least temporarily, hailing his use of folk themes. in a new book, music divided: bart6k's legacy in cold war culture, danielle fosler-lussier addresses this intriguing but under-explored chapter in the history of the reception of bartok's music. as fosler-lussier explains, bartok's reception during this period is unique among his peers' through an "accident of biography" (xiii): because of his early death in 1945, bartok, unlike stravinsky and others, did not have the opportunity to exercise control over the reception of his composi­ tions by writing prose and adapting his compositional techniques to new stylistic developments and tastes. instead, music critics, composers, and musicologists throughout europe and the united states were able to discuss bartok's music freely and speculatively, offering revisionist readings of his works from opposing political and aesthetic perspectives. in music divided, fosler-lussier deftly wades through a variety of documents to demonstrate the subtle changes in individuals' opinions and government policies regard­ ing bartok's music in hungary and some western nations during the 1940s and 1950s. fosler-lussier compares and juxtaposes the approaches to bartok ad­ opted by central cultural figures in the movements of aesthetic modernism in the west and socialist realism in the east. she posits that this ideological divide in culture and politics, which she identifies as the dominant binary of cold war aesthetic modes, colored all european and american musical activity during this period, including composing, listening, and performing. current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 113 114 current musicology she explains, "these metamusical meanings played a crucial role in listeners' experiences on both sides of the cold war conflict" (xii). music divided is a valuable addition to the current body of scholar­ ship on bartok, which, despite the relatively broad range of analytical and historical perspectives available, rarely addresses his posthumous reception. david e. schneider has addressed bartok's reception among his contempo­ raries in his essay "hungarian nationalism and the reception of bartok's music 1904-1940" (2001), as have tibor tallian in "bartok's reception in america, 1940-1945" (1995), and malcolm gillies in bartok in britain: a guided tour (1989). there is, however, a paucity of scholarship addressing bartok's reception after 1945; music divided fills a conspicuous lacuna. l rachel beckles willson's book ligeti, kurtag and hungarian music during the cold war, which also deals in part with the reception of bartok's music after his death, was published in 2007 as well. music divided is also a welcome contribution to the musicological genre of reception history, joining a handful of books dealing with the posthumous discourse surrounding individual composers. most of the books in this genre thus far have considered the reception of ludwig van beethoven and other eighteenthand nineteenth-century composers from the german tradition; examples include scott burnham's beethoven hero (1995) and david b. dennis's beethoven in german politics, 1870-1989 (1996). in its focus on a twentieth-century composer-and one from an east central european country-fosler-lussier's book is particularly revealing of the ways in which music and biography have been appropriated by critics from both eastern bloc and western anti-communist political perspectives. in her study, fosler-lussier alternates her focus between discussions of reception in the east and west and clearly demonstrates the ambivalence of cultural and political figures towards bartok's music after his death. chapter 1 addresses the hungarian reception of bartok during the first few years after the end of world war ii. chapter 2 explores western european approaches to bartok, focusing particularly on the writings of theodor w. adorno and rene leibowitz. in chapter 3, fosler-lussier brings together documents from both sides of the ideological divide, as she discusses the broadcast of bartok's music on american and hungarian radio. chapter 4 investigates the treatment of bartok's works as "modern classics" in western europe and the united states; and in the following chapter, fosler-lussier returns the discus­ sion to hungary to interpret hungarian socialist realism. the sixth chapter describes in detail the hungarian government's case against the composer and music critic andras mihaly. finally, music divided ends with a pair of epilogues in which fosler-lussier looks at changes in bartok's reception in hungary, western europe, and the united states after the middle of the joshua s. walden 1950s. fosler-lussier's methodology leads her to a conclusion that will be important to scholars of music during the cold war: "it seems advantageous to regard the competing paradigms of east and west not as separate cultural systems, but as two parts of a single, larger system in which musical values were determined by global processes of engagement and negation as well as by local judgments about music" (165). with her chapter structure, she is able to represent the important role that the analysis of musical meaning plays in the development of political systems, and the malleability of music as an object of interpretation. in chapter 1, fosler-lussier explains the precarious situation of bart6k's oeuvre in relation to the developing musical policies of the communist government of hungary during the years after world war ii. bart6k's incorporation of hungarian musical folklore and his fame as a hungarian composer suited the government's early goals to create a quintessentially "hungarian" national musical style. for several years during the second half of the 1940s, many hungarians sought to define a "third road," hungary's unique brand of communist government, which would differ from western european and russian models. these cultural leaders hailed the more "accessible" style of bart6k's late works, such as his concerto for orchestra and a number of pieces based on folk music, as models for a corresponding musical "third road." the modernist compositional techniques bart6k had employed earlier in his career, by contrast, were rejected as formalist and bourgeois, and thus antithetical to the guidelines for the creation of a socialist realist style of music in russia and the eastern bloc states laid out in the 1948 decree by the central committee of the soviet communist party. by the end of 1948, stalin insisted that hungary adhere more directly to the soviet model, and the concept of the "third road" was abandoned, leaving bart6k's legacy in doubt. while some hungarian composers, such as mihaly, continued to cling to bart6k's late style as an example for the way hungarian socialist music should sound, the increasing pressure to follow soviet standards meant a turn away from bart6k's influence, as composers were discouraged from modeling their music on bart6k's. the second chapter of music divided outlines the western european approach to bart6k during the early post-war years. many critics involved in undertaking the resuscitation of musical culture in germany-in the wake of nazi restrictions against compositions that did not represent a clear commitment to the state, and in opposition to the developing tenets of socialist realism in eastern europe-favored the concept of art for art's sake, promoting an ideological turn to a musical practice that maintained au­ tonomy from social and political life. fosler-lussier examines the writings of adorno, leibowitz, hans heinz stuckenschmidt, bruno maderna, karlheinz 115 116 current musicology stockhausen, olivier messiaen, and others, tracking the development of these new standards of musical taste and their influence on the reception of bart6k's music. treating writings by adorno and his contemporaries as historical documents allows fosler-lussier to identify the political ideologies that colored their aesthetic theories. under the influence of these authors, a dominant view developed among western intellectuals that a more austere musical modernism, as represented by the works of arnold schoenberg, anton web ern, and their followers, was ethically preferable to music incor­ porating folk elements that could be associated with the musical policies of fascist and stalinist governments. in chapter 3, turning again to the east, fosler-lussier shows that hungarian radio under the communist government instituted a selective ban on bart6k's works: while station managers continued to play many pieces that were based on folk music, they cut from their repertoire any works in­ corporating chromaticism and dissonant harmonies that appeared to reflect what they viewed as the bourgeois, decadent modernism of schoenberg and stravinsky. thus, western and eastern cultural leaders engaged in a tug-of­ war over which of bart6k's works they preferred, and as a result both circles advocated against the use of bart6k as a model for new composition: "for the hungarian workers' party no less than for stockhausen, bart6k was to be consigned to history" (65). the legacy of schoenberg's musical innovations plays a prominent role in the development of the reception of bart6k's music in these chapters, and indeed it is critical again in chapter 4, in which fosler-lussier addresses "bart6k and his publics" in western europe and the united states. bart6k's compositions became popular among general audiences, with the increasing availability of higher education and the growing value placed on cultural literacy after the war. the accessibility of much of bart6k's music made it useful for educational programs aimed at raising awareness of modern music among listeners and performers. countering this movement to popularize modern music, commentators and musicians such as pierre boulez argued that bart6k's greatest achievements were his compositions that appealed to more rarified audiences-that is, those works that incorporate dissonances and chromaticism that resemble schoenberg's techniques. this argument resulted in the labeling of bart6k's works as "modern classics;' and, in the united states, with the class-based description "middlebrow." fosler-lussier tracks a trend in musicology in the 1940s and 1950s, in which the influential writers alan forte, leo treitler, milton babbitt, and george perle-who recognized bart6k to be an important figure in twentieth-century music, but found it difficult to reconcile this with his more "middlebrow" appeal­ justified bart6k's importance by analyzing his works according to a "serialist joshua s. walden yardstick;' purporting to find resemblances between his compositions and schoenberg's twelve-tone techniques (89). the next two chapters return to the subject of bartok's reception in hungary. in chapter 5, fosler-lussier describes the complicated nature of hungarian socialist realism and the government's nearly indecipherable policies regarding the use of folk music in the creation of new composi­ tions. the problem stemmed in large part from the difficulty in applying to musical composition stalin's pronouncement that art must be "natural in form and socialist in content" (95); it also arose from the party's ambivalent assessments of the potential utility of employing the music of the hungarian rural peasantry in new works to represent and prescribe how life should be for urban workers. in this context, bartok's use of rural musical artifacts in simple musical arrangements, as in his romanian folk dances and romanian christmas carols, appeared to contradict the ideals of hungarian socialist realism. chapter 6 continues this discussion, detailing a critical turn in the cold war history of hungarian music: the party's case against mihaly. his trial dealt directly with what some called the "bartok question"-the problem of evaluating bartok's legacy and determining whether or not hungarian composers should use bartok's music as a stylistic model for their new works. fosler-lussier's two concluding epilogues address later changes in the reception of bartok's music. in "epilogue east," she demonstrates that in the lead-up to and aftermath of the 1956 revolution in hungary, bartok's more "difficult;' dissonant music, such as the previously banned miraculous mandarin, was adopted by revolutionaries as a potent icon of the struggle for freedom. whereas in this instance eastern listeners reappropriated bartok's dissonant music, "epilogue west" tells of the r~consideration of bartok's more "accessible" compositional techniques among the composing avant­ garde in the west. specifically, fosler-lussier shows the influence of bartok's compositions on rochberg's string quartet no.3 and his anti-modernist essays. rochberg found in bartok's style the potential for emotional expres­ sion; furthermore, he considered pastiche and the return to music that had been condemned by modernist commentators to be valuable for critiquing the cold war. music divided summons a wealth of perspectives, addressing composi­ tion, writings on music, and recital and radio programming, and brings to light important documents from the 1940s and 1950s, many of which fosler-lussier has translated from hungarian for the first time. she has found many of these sources in european archives, and in her study she introduces readers to several prominent hungarian musical figures of the time who are generally unknown to english-speaking musicologists. indeed, 117 118 current musicology a vast number of the essays, letters, and lectures she has quoted have never before been printed in english. in revealing these less familiar hungarian musicians and music commentators to readers, this book is likely to inspire future study into the roles played by mihaly, szabo, endre szervanszky, and others in the development of musical life in cold war hungary, as well as into the ways in which bartok's own essays on music were influential to the pronouncements of his critics. music divided also has the potential to motivate musicologists to question the ways in which the treatment of bartok and his works during the cold war, on both sides of the iron curtain, has affected the current academic approaches to the study of bartok and assessments of his place in the history of western music. note 1. fosler-lussier published an earlier chapter on the subject of bartok's reception during the cold war, "bartok reception in cold war europe;' which appeared in the cambridge companion to bartok (2001). references beckles willson, rachel. 2007. ligeti, kurtag and hungarian music during the cold war. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. burnham, scott. 1995. beethoven hero. princeton, nj: princeton university press. dennis, david b. 1996. beethoven in german politics, 1870-1989. new haven and london: yale university press. fosler-lussier, danielle. 2001. bartok reception in cold war europe. in the cambridge companion to bartok, edited by amanda bayley, 202-14. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. gillies, malcolm. 1989. bartok in britain: a guided tour. oxford and new york: oxford university press. schneider, david e. 2001. hungarian nationalism and the reception of bartok's music 1904-1940. in the cambridge companion to bartok, edited by amanda bayley, 177-89. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. tallian, tibor. 1995. bartok's reception in america, 1940-1945. translated by peter laki. in bartok and his world, edited by peter laki, 101-18. princeton, nj: princeton university press. current.musicology.86.101-184.pdf current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 9 voice as action: towards a model for analyzing the dynamic construction of racialized voice nina eidsheim vocal timbre is commonly believed to be an unmanipulable attribute, akin to a sonic fingerprint.1 because the voice arises from inside the body, quotidian discourse tends to refer to someone’s vocal sounds as inborn, natural, and true expressions of the person. what, then, are we to make of the common notion that a person’s race is audible in her voice? while it has been conclusively demonstrated that many of the physiognomic aspects historically employed as evidence of a person’s race—including skin color, hair texture, and dialect or accent2—actually evidence nothing more than the construction of race according to the ideological values of beholders, vocal timbre continues to elude such deconstruction.3 recent critical thought on the intermingling of the physical senses, including the so–called sensory turn in anthropology, “new materialist” philosophies, and recent advances in science, technology, sound studies, and media studies, underscores the need for scholarship that recognizes the voice and vocal categories as culturally conditioned material entities.4 trends such as the metaphorical notion of “having voice”5 have to some degree obscured the material and multisensory aspects of voice. conceived within the specific context of musicology and the general context of the humanities, this article seeks to demonstrate how the re–framing of voice implied by sensory and material inquiries redraws the topology of voice. i believe that this exercise may offer a deepened understanding of racial dynamics as they play out in our interactions with voice. firstly, i oppose the common metaphor that equates voice with unified subjectivity—an association that “assum[es] myths of constancy, coherence, and universality”6 (ira sadoff, quoted in wheeler, 2008:37)—and instead examine the voice in its concrete specificity, as an unfolding event articulated through a particular sensing and sensed body. secondly, i take issue with musical research that has traditionally construed voice as sound (or even shirley verrett once asked an interviewer: “when you hear my sound, would you think it’s a black voice?” the interviewer replied without hesitation: “no.” verrett responds, “that’s it. and people told me this a long time ago. so, it mixes me up a little bit.” (schmidt – garre 2000) nina eidsheim 99 conflated it with notations in a score), and instead suggest that because voice is always already materially grounded across all points of contact, we might understand it as corporeally enacted throughout all acts of voicing, transduction, and reception.7 in short, i wish to offer vocal research that centers on the material, sonorous, and sensory voice as it is produced and imagined. encouraged by the critical discourse enabled by the aforementioned sensory turn in anthropology, history, and philosophy, i submit four contentions about the ways in which vocal timbre is racially framed, and offer two interventions in the form of analytical models. the first two contentions address distinct, but nonetheless intermingling and reinforcing, perceptions of vocal timbre as an indicator of race, bearing in mind the fact that vocal sounds are never experienced in a purely sonorous realm, divorced from contextual information. rather, non–sonic aspects, including preconceptions of race, tend to influence how sound is perceived. my third and fourth contentions deal with the definition and subsequent analysis of voice. both claims account for the fact that each vocal sound uttered is materially produced and through that process imprinted onto the vocalizer’s body and therefore, in time, becomes part of the vocalizer’s vocal sound; and both recognize the complexity that this adds to any attempt at thinking through voice and race. i hence propose, drawing on concepts from dance and choreography, a theoretical and analytical framework that can address voice as the product of both societal shaping and individual articulation and materiality. this framework foregrounds the ways in which vocal timbral character is mistakenly attributed to race.8 thus, we may consider how the sound of a singer’s voice is in fact a co–creation to which listeners significantly contribute. contention one: hearing is guided by non–sonic information, including preconceptions in part, it is because no single type of sensing takes place in isolation that voices are perceived as racial indicators. while it may seem that a listener’s assessment of a voice is based purely on the voice as it is heard, this evaluation is actually made on the basis of an informational composite, parts of which may more strongly influence the listener’s judgment. what we refer to as “sound” is in reality a composite of visual, textural, discursive, and other kinds of information. in other words, the multisensory context surrounding a voice forms a filter, a “suggestion” through which we listen. as such, our contexts and our attitudes determine what we hear. while the sound of the current musicology 10 voice is indeed experienced and described as objectively meaningful, we cannot but perceive it through filters generated by our own preconceptions, which together constitute a compass that we use to navigate between vocal input and extra–vocal context. when the informational composite that comprises “voice as heard” seems to point toward what a listener understands as “difference,” what she presumes to hear is precisely that: difference—including racial otherness. a number of studies confirm the effects of social information on the perception of sociolinguistic variables.9 for example, nancy niedzielski (1999) concluded that listeners tend to hear according to stereotypes suggested by current sociocultural circumstances. forty–one detroit residents were asked to choose, from a set of synthesized vowels, the token they felt best matched the vowel presented to them on a recording. all of the recordings were of a fellow detroiter, but half the subjects were told that the speaker hailed from michigan while the other half were told that the person was from canada, directly across the detroit river. the subjects who believed that the speaker was canadian tended to choose the raised–diphthong token /aw/, while the subjects who thought the speaker was from michigan tended to chose the unraised diphthong token /a/ (in words like “about” and “house”).10 the only difference between the two respondent groups was in how they perceived the nationality of the speaker. niedzielski therefore concluded that each listener “uses social information in speech perception” (1999: 62). her experiment suggests that listening is informed more by what people believe they hear than by what they actually hear.11 just as knowledge about the social context surrounding this sound sample framed listeners’ perceptual strategies, so might a photograph effect the way in which a sound is heard. donald l. rubin (1992) addresses the impact of visual aspects of the listening experience. in his experiment, a native speaker of american english recorded a lecture. this single recording was paired with a picture of what appeared to be either an asian lecturer or an anglo–american lecturer. subjects, drawn from a pool of american college undergraduates,12 were asked to listen to the tape, paired by random selection with either picture. questions were asked regarding the clarity of speech, level of accent, and coherence of the lecturer. although the lecture was identical for each picture, the recording paired with what appeared to be an asian lecturer was, in comparison with the recording paired with a caucasian lecturer, rated less clear in speech, higher in level of accent, and poorer in coherence. here, again, we see how extra–sonic information affects perception of the voice more than does sonic information.13 nina eidsheim 11 contention two: correlation is not to be confused with causality where word choice, accent and pronunciation—things one does with one’s voice—are being judged, it is relatively easy to pinpoint the prejudices of judges. however, where timbre (the sound of the voice itself) is concerned, identifying perceptual patterns is more challenging. there is, for example, a lack of consensus about whether the race–voice correlation is always present, even among expert vocalizers and listeners such as opera singers. african–american opera singers (as well as members of other ethnic groups) differ in their abilities to distinguish african–american singing voices from those of other ethnicities. regarding the issue in general—the question of whether race is recognizable in voice—these singers also maintain a wide range of positions; their responses range from “yes, always” to “no, that’s not possible” to “sometimes.” soprano grace bumbry says: “i can always tell when there is a black singer, or a black speaker. i can always tell. maybe i’ll be wrong one time out of a hundred” (schmidt–garre 2000). in comparison, soprano shirley verrett believes that she can identify a black singer most of the time, but she recounts seeing marilyn horne, a singer she had previously thought was black, for the first time. she recalls: “when i found out it was a white person i said, ‘hmmm, there goes that.’ but that doesn’t happen very often, i do admit. it’s very rare when i would mistake a white singer for a black singer, but i have mistaken black singers for white singers many times, especially the lighter voices. when you get down to the mezzo voices, the dramatic soprano voices, somehow the weight of the voice gives it away” (story 1990: 187). at the other end of the scale, the celebrated african–american tenor vinson cole admits that he heard martina arroyo’s voice—considered by many to be the quintessential representative of african american timbre—on the radio for many years before he learned from a picture that she was black. “you come into this world like a blank page,” says cole. “you don’t know what you like or don’t like. you don’t come into the world with prejudices. they depend on what you’re taught and brought up with” (smith 2002). these perceptions bring us to my second contention: when we hear a voice that happens to align with our preconceived ideas of racial differences, this correlation is not to be confused with causality.14 that is, a correspondence between what is visually and sonically understood as representative of a particular racial category in a given time and place is not necessarily caused by an essential body of an essential ethnicity in question. that is, the vocal timbre that might be perceived as evidencing racial correspondence is only one of many vocal timbres that body, that voice can emit. so, when vocal current musicology 12 timbre happens to correlate with other markers that we associate with race (skin color and so on), we need to interrogate this correlation rather than simply assuming it to be a causal correlation. we can divide the output of the voice into two general categories: first, that which is carried by the voice (words, pitch and so on)—or, to imagine this slightly differently, that which can be articulated by many different voices while retaining a singular identity;15 and second, that through which the linguistic or paralinguistic content is articulated—in other words, the vocal timbre. we might also imagine timbre as that which cannot be articulated by another person; that is, as that which a person attempts to copy when trying to imitate another’s voice, rather than simply repeating the content of the utterance. the perception of content has been grounds for much scholarship, exemplified by rubin’s work. timbre, however, has proved challenging to study in relation to race. therefore, even though current scholarship16 affords no evidence that one’s vocal timbre results directly from one’s race, researchers have yet to identify explanations or concrete examples of this apparent non–relationship.17 in general, timbre is notoriously difficult to study. especially in regards to the perception of identity, we do not yet possess satisfactory analytical tools that may address timbre with the nuance it deserves. my long–term objective is to work toward a means of untangling confusions about timbre that may lead to racialized conceptions of voice. such a project is crucial given the voice’s heavy metaphorical burden of essence, subjectivity, and presence18 is both consciously and unconsciously taken as innate evidence of race. my strategy is to approach the fraught relationship between race and vocal timbre from multiple angles, one of which is performance. to develop an understanding of voice as material and action, i have relied on my own experience as a singer, which i regard as a mode of research and explicit analysis. i will now turn to my performance work, specifically to the voice box project (1999–2012), my work in vocal pedagogy and contemporary dance, and the connections thereby illuminated between dancing and singing. through voice box, i explored the material singing body; and through contemporary dance and vocal teaching i investigated how the body’s actions give rise to sound. contention three: the material of body and voice never exists as such the material that is the singing voice, i.e., the body in its material dimension, never exists in a pre–cultural state. the vocal, material body is always already formed by the cultural and social context within which it vocalizes.19 each nina eidsheim 13 utterance (made by one’s own body and by others’) leaves imprints on one’s ligaments, tissue, and flesh. as a result, voice is never heard in a state prior to the impact of cultural, social, and other outside forces. in collaboration with french fashion, textile, and object designer elodie blanchard, i explore these notions by creating devices that reshape the form and restrict the movement of the body, making apparent the connection between the shape of the vocal apparatus and the sonic result. the voice box project consists of three vocally restrictive devices.20 at the intersection of functional sculpture, accessory, and performance piece, each device focuses on a different area of the vocal system, modifying its airflow and resonating spaces. because the physical and material activities and changes that constitute vocal usage take place internally and are mostly invisible (excepting a few visible changes such as bulging veins), this project intends to make visible and tangible the processes regularly undergone by voices. while manipulation of the throat area is a sensitive process that may be considered risky, and although my project’s primary intention is not to provoke physical discomfort,21 an important goal of voice box is to viscerally convey the stakes involved in the shaping of the voice through the manipulation of the body, which goes on in everyday, common, and typically non–strenuous vocal interactions. i intend to use voice box in musical vocal performances, and to show it in interactive art exhibits where audiences can experiment with their own bodies and voices. each component of voice box targets different areas of the body. the throat sleeve reshapes the throat area; the squeeze constricts the entire body into a very small space; and blow up/pumped forces the body into an erect, expanded posture. as such, the three different “voice boxes” target three of the main areas of the vocal apparatus: the throat, the mouth and nose cavities, and the overall body which—despite the popular idea that vocal production is restricted to the lungs, throat, and mouth—indeed constitutes a part of the vocal apparatus. when wearing the throat sleeve, the user can modify the diameter and shape of the throat in different ways. (see figure 1 below.) unlike, for example, a cello, which cannot be reduced to the size and shape of a violin, the voice is an acoustic instrument that can radically change its shape. as a result of the modification caused by the throat sleeve, the voice changes in pitch, amplitude, and spectrum—and these are the fundamental properties of sound. that is to say, if the parameters of pitch, amplitude, and spectrum are altered, a wholly different sonic character results. the throat sleeve can be worn on any throat, therefore anyone can acquire the ability to form her throat into the positions required to produce a variety of vocal timbres. current musicology 14 the throat sleeve. inspirations modification 2a: pressure to the side objects, still or not…, are inserterd into the side pockets of the throat sleeve. depending on the pressure and shape desired, objects can be inserted. side view pocket front view back view front view neck f i front view front view the throat sleeve ressembles a lycra neck warmer. objects can be added into hidden pockets that create different shapes by adding pressure on the neck. the throat sleeve has grommets and pockets at the top and bottom into which sticks (akin to tent poles) can be attached. the neck without modification. modification 1: warmth the throat sleeve worn without modifications. this warms the neck. tight lycra sleeve, zipped in the back, with four seams that follow the contour of the neck. velcro id i pocket neck velcro nina eidsheim 15 new throat shape indicated by dotted pink line modification 2b: pressure to the front the objects are inserted into the front pocket of the throat sleeve. depending on the pressure and shape desired, objects can be inserted. side view side view side view + plate modification 3: head protruding forward sticks are inserted into the pockets, akin to tent poles. modification 5: all the above in different configurations side view + plastic easter eggs side view + sticks new throat shape indicated by dotted pink line figure 1: the voice boxes, throat sleeve sketches for construction. © elodie blanchard, 2012. current musicology 16 the squeeze, as its title indicates, squeezes the entire body into the smallest possible space, compressing the body mass. the effects include a minimization of all bodily expansion, which entails constricting the lungs and the opening of the trachea. while the most immediate effect is on the amount of air it is possible to inhale, control of exhalation and the size of the resonating cavities are also affected. additionally, and perhaps less intuitively, the squeeze affects the overall relationship between the body’s flesh and frame. besides limiting the lengths of phrases that it is possible to sing, this intervention also affects vocal timbre. while the length of the vibrating vocal chords determine the pitch of the voice, its timbre is determined in large part by the tautness of the flesh surrounding the vibrating cavities (i.e., the neck and face). an analogy might be the tautness of the skin drawn over a drumhead. as this skin is tightened, whilst the diameter of the drum head remains the same, the pitch and timbre of the drum gradually changes. similarly, as the body is squeezed, the flesh and skin drawn over its bony frame become slack. this alteration to the areas through which vocal sounds vibrate affects the timbre of the voice. blow up/pumped forces the body into another posture: erect, expanded, and in many ways the opposite of the pose enforced by the squeeze. while the squeeze constricts all areas of the body, this voice box expands the body as much as possible. this also affects airflow control and vocal timbre, but in a contrasting manner: blow up/pumped eases the process of airflow control. pulled by the frame, the body’s internal reverberant spaces are maximally expanded. the sonic effects include a tauter and more reverberant sound and the possibility of longer vocal lines. while my idea for these devices arose from feeling vocally “boxed in,” unable under given sociocultural circumstances to produce the sound expected of me, it developed into the general notion that the vocal apparatus is already restricted when the tools necessary to shape it are unavailable. the physically restrictive harnesses that are the voice boxes externalize the inner, typically hidden conflict between corporeal restrictions and sonic expectations. voice box is thus a meditation on the gap between preconceived or desired vocal sounds, and the degrees of (in)ability of the given vocal instrument to produce such sounds. the voice box project also stages, and brings to the forefront of attention, the physical alteration of the vocal instrument that results from repeated and limited vocal production. an analogous, yet hardly successful, project is the physical alteration—in this case, a dire injury—induced by robert schumann’s nineteenth–century mechanical device that was intended to lengthen and strengthen the fingers.22 generally, then, acting material bodies may be formed and physically altered by mechanical devices, deliberate impediments, and even repetitive imitations of sonic nina eidsheim 17 ideas. repeated action literally forms the body.23 additionally, these harnesses materialize metaphors for the ways in which quotidian expectations reinforce certain vocal modes and, as such, limit vocal identity, output, and possibilities. the body that sings takes on these limiting parameters, which thus are no less restrictive than our voice boxes. however, the extreme nature of voice box promotes awareness of the vocal instrument, its materiality, and the limitations we place upon it, all of which would be challenging to decipher by simply observing the vocal instrument in quotidian or practice–specific contexts. while each of our devices constitutes an extreme example of oral and vocal restriction, they are not metaphors; these devices are heuristics which are quite literal in modeling how the throat and mouth are physically shaped by external corporeal forces. even if a figurative voice box were to be imposed upon and then removed from a singer, the ways in which it restricted her body would leave its mark—just as a callus or a limp might not fade even after the conditions that created it had disappeared. in other words, each person is born with a physical body which, throughout its lifetime, is never left to its own devices—and even if a particular pressure on that body is eased, physical imprints of the trauma remain; and these become integral aspects of the body’s sounding. the ways in which a body is physically shaped by vocal expectations and restrictions, affirmative as well as restrictive, are no less violent or intrusive than our voice boxes. this leads us to the play of names which the title of this project seeks to evoke. our voices are physically and metaphorically bent into certain corporeal and sonic molds so that they may fit certain preconceived sonic identities. contention four: singing is not sound, but action in addition to my work with voice boxes, my research included extrapolating, from observations of involuntary sounds due to bodily movement, the relationship between physical movement and deliberate sound production. observing modern dance classes, i noticed small sounds that resulted from certain motions. the close study of and engagement with the body during two different activities—singing and dancing—strongly influenced my current theorizing of voice, which centers on questioning basic assumptions about singing. informed by these two bodily practices, my objective while singing shifted from attempting to produce a particular sound in order to sing a particular type of music—thereby imprisoning my body within ideals—to exploring the following question: if i carry out an action with my body, current musicology 18 what is the sonic result? in short, i realized that the framing and definition of an action or event may shift, even while the event remains the same. via one frame, we understand an event as, for example, a landing after a leap; employing another frame, we understand the same event as a thumping sound. a sound–focused model of singing would say: our goal is to create a sound that is similar to the “thump,” while an action–focused model would say: our goal is to leap and discover which sonic ranges this action can create. considering sound in this way allows us to radically rewrite notions of sound and action in relation to cause and effect (see figure 2). i contend that scholarship has been unable to fully analyze the situation of vocal timbral identity not only because timbre resists analysis, but also because we have thus far operated under mistaken notions of the voice in general, and singing in particular. singing, i argue, is not sound but a dynamic interaction, a co–creation of action and what we typically think of as “sonic material.” intervention one: sound is a symptom of preceding actions as we will see below, if singing is an action and sound its result, we may think about sound from the perspective of perception, as opposed to production. thus, if we apply insights from voice box and the observation of dance to the question of racialized vocal timbre, we may realize that our notions of visual racial norms often match up with our notions of vocal timbral racial norms precisely because deep–seated beliefs correlate both aural and visual phenomena with race as an essential category. however, we tend to posit a relationship of cause and effect between these norms. merely because our notions of vocal–timbral racial norms often align with our notions of visual racial norms, we mistakenly extrapolate and assign a causal relationfigure 2: sound–versus action–based notions of singing. nina eidsheim 19 ship, firstly to a notion of an essential racial category, and secondly to a cause–and–effect matrix wherein a racial innateness is vocally sonified. this correspondence, which may well arise only during reception, seems to take two different forms. the first possibility is that, as niedzielski and rubin have shown, extra–sonic information overrides actual sound, leading listeners to project onto sound what they expect to hear. the second possibility is that the (constructed) visual and sonic categories really do correspond; but, the correspondence has come about as a result of a (deliberate or unconscious) effort on the part of the vocalizer to use her voice in accordance with societal expectations associated with racial categories. racial difference is perceived in voices if contextual information suggests that they are non–normative (e.g., non–white, or foreign). but we must take into account that the voice is infinitely malleable—it tends to adapt according to the ways in which it is heard and defined. therefore, while visual and timbral notions of race do sometimes correspond, the concept of singing as action can help us to understand that these aspects may correlate for reasons other than a sound’s genesis in “innate” racial difference. sociocultural conceptions of race may function as centrifugal forces that funnel the act of singing into prescribed choreographies. this vocal choreography enacts the idea of race perpetuated by the surrounding sociocultural circumstances. in other words, people seen as belonging to a certain race are thus assigned particular vocal choreographies; and in performing these choreographies, these persons’ voices sonically align with the racial categories that society assigned to them. in part, what complicates our understanding and ability to analyze any given situation that concerns voice and race is that, in many cases—unlike in niedzielski’s and rubin’s studies where difference was perceived rather than actual—there are often actual, discernible, vocal differences. however, rather than arising from innate physical differences, i argue, these sounds are the results of socially imposed choreographies, the performance of which physically alters the vocal apparatus in ways akin to schumann’s hand device, and the idea that voice box seeks to illustrate.24 in short, when voices seem to exemplify racial vocal norms it is because they act out a choreography that gives rise to these sounds; it is not because their bodies are limited, able to emit only these sounds. the correlation between race and vocal timbre is not due to innate physical qualities; rather, it is identifiable precisely because societies categorize others according to constructed notions of race. moreover, people often identify themselves in racial terms, and their vocal actions are prescribed accordingly through this structural choreography adopted by or imposed upon them.25 it is when timbre is believed to sound innate qualities, rather than qualities articulated by a vocal body that has been formed by structural hierarchies, that bodies current musicology 20 are correspondingly categorically organized. therefore, in order to reimagine relations between race and sound in general, and race and timbre in particular, we must first radically rethink the most fundamental notions of sound and timbre, as well as the theoretical and analytical tools we use to address them. considering voice as action rather than as sound affords us a productive entry into this important undertaking. the first intervention enabled by such a conception is the possibility of disentangling vocal timbres from the notion that they are innate rather than constructed. intervention two: play within the structure considering singing from the complementary perspectives of material and action not only offers ways to think through and beyond voice as timbre, but also shows us a way into theorizing voice as it functions in tension between structurally imposed bodily practices and individual play or agency. we have established that singing is not a noun (sound) but a verb—an action that gives rise to sound. while i have long considered singing to be a hidden choreography,26 this notion might be refined by drawing on william forsythe’s ideas on the work of the choreographer and dancer. i will now offer a model through which we may think about singing in relation to the structural limits imposed upon voices and bodies. forsythe, himself a choreographer and dancer, considers choreography—or, more specifically, what he terms the “choreographic object”—as “elicit[ing] action upon action.” he views choreography as “an environment of grammatical rule governed by exception,”27 and demonstrates how this plays out in the history–, genre–, and style–based concerns of ballet and other western dance practices. for forsythe, choreography and dance inhabit two distinct realms. he puts it simply: “they are not the same.”28 while i understand this to mean that although, traditionally, choreography is thought to determine how some body dances—i.e., the choreography shapes the dancing, both moving towards the same end—for forsythe choreography and dancing do not necessarily share goals. for him, then, choreography is about a basic condition—as fundamental to the determination of movement as, say, the restrictions imposed on (and the possibilities offered to) a person wearing skis—and its horizon is that condition in relation to the body. the art of dancing—whether it occurs within a pre–established choreographic condition or outside such a context—is realized through a continuously maturing ability to differentiate between what, for most people, will remain subterranean gradations of difference, the global effect of which is felt but which would, in most instances, prove impossible for a layperson to perform or pinpoint. while “choreography is an organizational skill,” forsythe explains, dancing is about “accumulating expertise in difference” (forsythe, nina eidsheim 21 2012)—that is, it is about developing the ability to distinguish between two very similar, yet distinct bodily positions or movements. loosely adapting forsythe’s model, i understand choreography, then, as an external structural force that—with a decisive power that ranges from “coercion” to “suggestion”—funnels the body through certain movements and stances rather than others. it is a condition within which we carry out actions, whether those actions are considered dance or, as we will see, song. forsythe asks whether choreography must either reside in or be funneled through the body alone. his own answer is “no,” and to this end he develops a practice involving the choreographic object. one example of a forsythean choreographic object can be seen in the piece white bouncy castle, which indeed consists of a giant white bouncy castle.29 the physical properties of the environment provided by the bouncy castle offer certain options for activity (bouncing, falling) rather than others (walking, standing still).30 a feather duster is another choreographic object. holding it perfectly still, for example, requires a particular range of bodily stances. “if you hold a feather duster, you realize that you are vibrating the entire time. it tells you something about yourself physically. that’s what makes something a choreographic object,” says forsythe. “you’re looking at how you move unconsciously, and you try to engage with that.”31 the choreographic object is a channeling of (subconsciously) unfolding bodily activity. it is a significant departure from the definition of traditional choreography—a prescribed set of movements—since it fails to offer directives on a micro level. for example, it dose not tell the body to bounce around in this particular way, at this speed, with this quality of movement. rather, it offers a meta–condition that renders these movements, speeds, and qualities the only options. in forsythe’s words, a choreographic object is “a perfect ecology” that offers an “ideal logic.”32 this is useful for my thinking about singing as an action carried out through a choreographic directive because it also envisions choreography as a set of actions called forth by a set of conditions. in white bouncy castle, forsythe offers his cast of dancers, which consists of audience members, the condition of a physical environment with a wobbly, uneven surface that will figure 3: movement that calls forth vocal sounds ranges from coerced to lightly suggested action. current musicology 22 cushion potential falls. particular types of movements, their qualities, and so on arise as a result of inhabiting the castle’s condition. similarly, the minute inner movements giving rise to vocal timbres that have been organized into various racial categories are not innate, but rather situational. in this case, the condition is the situation of a given person within a structural concept of race. to be clear, the participants in the bouncy–castle–as–choreographic–object scenario do not always bounce and wobble outside the bouncy castle; in fact it would be close to impossible to do so. the experience of being defined by a given racial category is an equally strong and indeed formational choreographic object. one’s performance of a racial category, then, is not determined by innate qualities, but takes place within and as a direct result of the condition of racial categorization that holds the body within its movement–action structure. the white bouncy castle within which voices and the acts of singing are formed is race. while the choreographic situation locks in the meta–structure of movement, the dance is the particular way in which a person moves through that structure, and the way in which she tackles minute options and choices within the landscape. similarly, to realize that singing takes place through the funnel of the choreographic object, which is seemingly an impenetrable condition (exemplified by the power and importance of racial categories, in this case), is not to suggest that voice is completely locked within a hegemonic structure, such that each person only vocalizes within a fixed, formative grid. while i believe that voice is commonly heard and articulated within such a configuration, i would like to consider the possibility of room for agency, even within this tightly confined structure. thinking about singing as an interlocking dynamic of choreography and dance (rather than as sound) opens a space for thinking about agency in this situation beyond sheer subversion, disruption, sabotage, destabilization, and other such forces. while i will not explore this idea in the detail it deserves here, i find forsythe’s notion of dance productive in considering these types of counter–forces against a choreography or hegemonic structure that is also controlled by those very forces. forsythe defines dancing, in contrast to choreography, as “differentiat[ing] between different qualities.”33 this means that one can find room for play within the structure of the choreography. to me this seems to be a more productive way of conceptualizing agency in singing as dance than the idea that individual expression in dance is merely the subversion and disruption of choreography. “a life in dancing,” to quote forsythe again, “is an accumulation of sensitivities to very small differences” (forsythe, 2012). similarly, a person’s voice is an accumulation of experiences which allows us to find and articulate individual agency within a structure that itself consists of many nuances. nina eidsheim 23 thus, the dance that is vocal micro–choreography is constituted by the particular way in which the vocalizer moves through concrete limitations determined by structural forces. the way in which, for example, we are expected to vocalize as women or as men within a given culture may be seen as choreography. the dance, in this example, would be the specific ways in which we choose to vocalize, through and despite these limitations. the dance of singing is the particular way in which one moves through, vocalizes within, and inhabits a choreographic situation or ecology. the dynamic i wish to tease out exists between enclosed structural limitations and the individual timbres it is possible to create given those limited options. in other words, each action is a composite, each deriving impetus and impulse from the choreography and the dance, the meta–structure and micro–articulation. this format for thinking through racialized voices allows us to account for the top–down enclosure of vocalization, while leaving room to pinpoint individual agency in this admittedly limited situation of negotiation. moving from an understanding of singing as sound to singing as materially unfolding action has allowed us to propose a new, dance–based model for the analysis of voice and vocal phenomena. this model enables us to think about voices as materially structured and materially shaped through action, while remaining aware of the potential for play within that strict structure. additionally, as i will discuss in the following section, such insights allow us to understand the role of the listener or audience in greater detail, especially in regard to the ways in which the listener partakes in the production of what he or she perceives. with the “nested circles of singing” sketched in figure 4, i offer perspectives on the relationship between what the singer herself brings to her voice (in other words, the physical materiality of the voice) and the listener’s input into what is nonetheless the singer’s voice. layer 1 contains the singer’s actions (for example, the movement of her ligaments); layer 2 contains any change effected by, or any outcome of, an action, such as increased heart rate, sweating, or vocal cord vibration and sound production. while the entirety described by the three circles appears to a listener as a single package, only the two innermost layers are provided by the singer; the listener herself creates layer 3. in rubin’s experiment, the listeners’ composite impressions were formed in part by a photograph of a person, which strongly influenced what the listeners subsequently heard. the same recording, then, could be heard in two different ways—the same experience could be diagrammed with two different “third circles”: as an eloquent lecture or as a disorganized lecture. however, the two innermost circles, the material and the action/output, remained the same. we can see, then, that layer 3 is not unmediated output current musicology 24 produced by the singer, but is rather created by the listener based on her experiences, values, and beliefs. this model suggests that when the listener ceases to imagine that singing is passively received sound, and instead accepts that it is action, the listener may come to understand that what she experiences as the voice (layer 3) is the result of combined contributions by the singer as well as the listener herself. thus, singing is not unmediated material supplied only by the singer. re–conceptualizing singing as material– and action–based clarifies the limitations involved in understanding singing as sound. action–based thinking provides a more productive understanding of the dynamic structure within which voices are produced and perceived as they are made to signify (racially and otherwise). in addition, considering singing in terms of choreography and dancing illuminates the important role of the interlocking relationship between the hegemonic structures that funnel the body into certain types of actions that in turn produce particular vocal timbres, and the way we act within these given choreographies, each of us with a different tongue, row of teeth and oral, nose and throat cavities. as both dancing and choreography, a single voice can present itself as multiple phenomena with particular characters determined by perceivers. voice as sound and voice as action, then, are themselves nested definitions of voice; the predominance of one definition or the other depends on the values and preconceptions harbored by individual perceivers (hence the existence of layer 3). figure 4: nested circles of singing. nina eidsheim 25 in summary, while action–based thinking and the choreography–dance model offer ways in which to understand voice and insights into its production, the nested circles suggest a way of understanding the strong role of the perceiver and her beliefs. we could even say that the listener calls forth the voice according to her beliefs. conclusion this project is part of my ongoing effort to think about how music, sound, and voices are conceptualized, theorized, and analyzed, and about what kind of knowledge such definitions and analyses have enabled and closed off. in particular, i have an ongoing interest in how the sensorium beyond sound feeds into conceptions of voice and race that, on the surface, seemingly take place in the sonic register. because “blackness” as it is “smelled, heard, and felt” (in the words of mark m. smith; 2006: 47), has been so difficult to “explain,” and has been considered an aspect of human existence that is not “definite or tangible,” perceptions of race have for the most part been left unchallenged. nella larsen writes exactly about this in passing, her 1929 novella on the multisensory registers of race. in a conversation with (a white character) hugh wentworth, irene, who has passed into white society, replies to his reflection on not being able to tell whether a person is white or black: [irene:] “well, don’t let that worry you. nobody can. not by looking.” [hugh:] “not by looking, eh? meaning?” [irene:] “i’m afraid i can’t explain. not clearly. there are ways. but they’re not definite or tangible.” (1929 [2004]: 206) what irene means here is that although it is clothed and explained in such sensory terms, race is not simply performed or detected in the visual sensory realm alone. rather, the sum of what we process multi–sensorially is trained, by virtue of existence in social environments, to carry out the work of corroborating socially constructed racial distinctions. to understand the social and sensory structures wherein race is constructed, we need to carefully deconstruct, point by point, how precisely race eludes the “definite or tangible.” this important and challenging work has been carried out by a number of scholars from several disciplines. i’ll name just a few. john cruz (1999) listens in to abolitionists listening to slave songs, and hears how the reinterpretation of the black singer (seeing him no longer as a slave but as a potentially christian convert or religious subject) changes the sound of his voice and song from “unintelligible noise” to “mournful spirituals” (59). deborah wong’s (2000) theorization of race, through a performance–studies framework, reveals how “[t]he somatic realization of current musicology 26 race is one of the great performative, destructive accomplishments of any society” (87). and, most recently, daphne brooks’s brilliant subterranean feminist history of porgy and bess opens infinite possibilities of thinking through the performance of race, as did her book bodies in dissent (2006).34 by shifting the question at hand from whether or not african american singers should refuse to perform bess because of her one–dimensional character, to the question of how to recover the character bess as a site of “black women’s avant–garde musicking,” brooks changes the premise upon which african–american singers are perceived. these scholars bring to light various facets of a great white bouncy castle, the sociocultural conditions within which twenty–first–century voices are formed: a condition that we call “race.” in my own way, through analysis that takes the multisensory dimensions of vocal culture seriously, i try to understand the complex material history present in bodies, vocal timbres, and listening practices. my contribution, then, is an attempt to think through specific multi–sensorial analytical strategies that address vocal timbre, with the ultimate goal of better understanding both sonic offerings and listening practices. *** deep gratitude is extended to elodie blanchard for more than a decade of collaboration and conversation, to tildy bayar, david gutkin, mandy–suzanne wong, and an anonymous reader for reading and providing feedback, to anaar desai–stephens and sam dwinell for inviting me and responding to my paper–in–progress at the cornell university department of music’s musicology colloquium series, to participants at the cornell university society for the humanities spring workshop “sound: culture, theory, practice, politics,” and to elisabeth springate for designing the elegant and communicative figures. this work has benefitted greatly from conversations with the members of the university of california humanities research institute residential research group (uchri rrg), “vocal matters: technologies of self and the materiality of voice,” which i co–convened with annette schlichter during fall 2011, as well as my colleagues at the cornell society for the humanities (2011–12). this research is supported in part by a grant from the university of california institute for research in the arts (ucira). finally, i wish to thank current musicology editor–in–chief, matthew d. morrison, for prompting me to write this piece, providing feedback and for shepherding it through the publication process with grace and kindness. notes 1. steven connor sharply exposes this fallacy in the opening page of his monograph on ventriloquism (2000:1). nina eidsheim 27 2. for foundational work on race as socially constructed, see omi and winant (1986); on the same topic from anthropological and historical perspectives, see smedley and smeldey (2005); and on the legal construction of race, see, for example, haney–lópez (2006). 3. many have discussed timbre’s elusiveness and the high levels of subjective and extrasonic information that contribute to the perception thereof, including fales (2002), olwage (2004) and wallmark (forthcoming). additionally, see hajda et al (1997) for a review of timbre research undertaken in the last fifty years. 4. also see annette schlichter’s close reading and apt critique of judith butler. schlichter argues “that the repression of the sonoric aspects of the voice can be read as a symptom of the role of materiality in the theory of gender performativity. despite butler’s attempts to attend to the material body within a discourse of the performative, the notion of materiality is constrained through the economy of the sign and remains subordinated to the realm of intelligibility, a hierarchy that butler explicitly rejects” (2011:31). 5. described in carson 1995 [1992]: 119–137; cavarero 2005; connor 2000; daughtry, forthcoming; weidman 2006), and the oculocentric clinical understanding of the vocal apparatus common in medicine and classical vocal pedagogy (including rodgers 2010; sterne 1999). 6. ira sadoff specifically addresses the metaphor of the poet’s voice, a metaphor that is derived from the human voice. i find her description succinct and applicable to the sonorous voice, as i believe that similar sentiments regarding the “poetic voice” as a metaphor are projected back onto the sonorous human voice. in sadoff ’s words recounted by lesley wheeler (2008): “what we extract from the page is a series of inscriptions analogous to a voice” (221); voice as “workshop cliché,” he continues, “assumes myths of constancy, coherence, and universality,” and these myths enable the reader’s desirable illusion of intimacy with the poet” (wheeler 2008:37). 7. please see eidsheim (2011) on a detailed reading of the transduction and reception of voice. sound cannot exist in a vacuum; for sound to perpetuate, it needs a material through which to transduce. in my study of juliana snapper’s underwater opera practice, i consider sound’s differing transduction in water versus air, and how singers’ and listeners’ material bodies interact differently with water versus air. this means that sound takes on a distinct character when it is transduced through water, and another character when it moves through air. the most notable difference is that, through water, sound transduces around four times faster than it does in air (although there are variables, depending on the saltine level of the water, its temperature and pressure, etc.). additionally, because singing and hearing are materially bound, the material body immersed in water hears differently from bodies immersed in air. for details see eidsheim (2011). 8. while a thorough discussion is beyond the scope of this paper, i would like to suggest that this model may also be useful in understanding how socially sanctioned categories other than race—such as, for example, gender and class—impinge on voice. 9. it is interesting that the power of such seemingly subtle differences and the way in which they place the speaker in dynamic relationships of power or intimacy, or in “us versus them” situations, is also evident in the extent to which one’s interlocutor “accommodates” one’s speech. (see giles, coupland, and coupland (1991) for additional information on accommodation theory.) oprah winfrey’s television interviews have been analyzed for the presence of such accommodation. winfrey pronounces the vowel of words like i and my with either a monophthong or diphthong. when she discussed or introduced african american guests on her program, the monophthong pronunciation was used 38% of the time; whereas in the presence of non–african american guests, the same pronunciation was only used 10% of the time (rickford and rickford 2000: 106–7). while it is believed that the difference is current musicology 28 below the conscious threshold of all parties involved (and when it is detected, it most likely has the effect of mimicry or making fun), similar accommodations can be found in other social dynamics as well. for example, see gregory and webster (1996) in relation to class. 10. according to niedzielski, the majority of white, middle class detroit residents consider their speech standard american english. however, the raised diphthong is dominant in their speech. besides that social information informed the respondent’s listening, niedzielski’s study also showed that with the label “canada,” detroit residents were able to hear the raised diphthong of a recording that indeed was of a detroit resident with a raised diphthong. however, they did not hear raised diphthong when the recording’s label read “michigan.” 11. niedzielski concludes the study saying, “the results of this study suggest social information must be included in future research in phonetics, sociolinguistics, and social psychology, particularly in the areas of speech perception and language change” (1999: 84). i would add vocal timbres to that list. 12. the information regarding the subjects is limited to that they were recruited from basic speech communication classes at a large southeastern university. 13. ronald radano has also observed that we never “let the music speak for itself ” (2003:xi). this is so, as he continues, because “all we hear in black music, or indeed in any kind of music, is inevitably invested in words; in the stores we tell, in the histories we recite, in the associations we make” (xi). 14. this is of course far from a new argument, however, but one that has received less regular attention in a visual-centric discourses. 15. while pitch indeed does contribute to timbre, a pitch can be sung or otherwise articulated without the voice losing its distinct timbre. 16. including dillard 1972: 39–72; 186–228; eidsheim 2008: 7–12, 30–103; 158–70; mann 2008; miller 2004: 218–22. 17. walton and orlikoff (1994), however, argue the opposite. excerpting one–second acoustic samples from a sustained /a/, from 50 black and 50 white adult males (newly admitted inmates at the mississippi department of corrections state penitentiary at parchman), the study reports that acoustic analysis showed that “although within ranges reported by previous studies of normal voices, the black speakers had greater frequency perturbation, significantly greater amplitude perturbation, and a significantly lower harmonic–to–noise ratio than did the white speakers.” listeners were able to “identify the black and white speaker in a voice pair 60% of the time,” which the researchers point out is “a level significantly greater than chance” (741). however, there were “no significant differences in the mean fundamental frequency or formant structure of the voice samples.” the researchers therefore concluded: “listeners relied on difference in spectral noise to discriminate the black and white speakers” (738). to the work i present here, these findings are not contradictory. firstly, it is exactly because the voice is an organic instrument and matter, infinitely malleable and shaped by daily usage, formed by the way a given society identifies a person and the way a person identifies herself, that it can sound according to the social groups identified by a given society. secondly, the researchers note that while previous studies have examined whether listeners can identify “black and white speakers” in the context of contextual speech (which contain “phonological, morphological, lexical, and/or syntactical information” – and here the studies baugh, 1983; dillard, 1972, 1977; fasold, 1981; hanley, 1951; labov, 1983; tarone, 1972; wofram & fasold, 1974 were referenced), they would like to identify the difference between black and white speakers “from isolated vowel samples and to provide more detailed analysis of the acoustic characteristics of those samples as they relate to voice quality” (739). i read that nina eidsheim 29 to mean that they seek to identify race present in voice “prior” to the vocal level of accent, which they recognize is a social factor. however, while the acoustic analysis and the listener identification analysis were undertaken with the vowel /a/, isolated and decontextualized, that vowel /a/ was produced by a person who learned to pronounce that vowel /a/ within the context of speech and therefore, although the sound sample represented an isolated /a/, the quality of that vowel /a/ cannot be isolated from larger contexts. thirdly, while the researchers mock george krapp’s (1924) “undocumented ‘experiment’” and conclusion, which states that “negro speakers cannot be distinguished from white speakers merely by the quality of their voices” (quoted on 738), walton and orlikoff rely on a 1945 study from apartheid south–africa, comparing “102 cadaveric larynges from bantu south african blacks with those obtained from 23 white south africans” wherein the study’s author, boshoff, “noted several cartilaginous and soft tissue differences relating to both size and biomechanics.” walton and orlikoff cite boshoff ’s conclusion: “on the whole, as demonstrated by the musculature in particular, the south african negro larynx is a more powerful organ than that of the caucasian. those muscles which are the same in the two races are broader, stronger, and often of more complicated attachment in the negro. the finding in the negro of distinct differences from the caucasian anatomy of the vocal apparatus would naturally lead one to suspect similar differences in function, more especially vocalisation. (pp. 49–50).” considering the apartheid context within boshoff ”s study took place, it is difficult to imagine any other outcome than stark difference. to the contrary, a leading american otolaryngologist has stated that by examining vocal folds, it oftentimes is difficult to distinguish men from women, let alone one so–called races, from another (eidsheim 2008). 18. see weidman (2006) and daughtry (forthcoming). 19. even prior to birth, the neonate is formed by and through the soundscape that is created within the uterus and penetrates it from without. while most experiments with neonates’ listening abilities are performed after 26 weeks of gestation, the onset of hearing, arabin notes, “does not seem to be an all or nothing phenomenon” (2002: 425): responses have been observed as early as 20 weeks. speculations on the centrality and impact of such relation to the sonic world is even considered by psychotherapists, who may therefore postulate that relationships with the mother’s voice as presence and absence begin prior to birth and might even present proto–experiences of presence and absence, thus may be important to analytic work with borderline and psychotic patients (maiello 1995). 20. the voice box project is currently in production; currently only prototypes exist. the project is scheduled to première in fall of 2012. 21. while it is not my motivation nor primary intention to reference the “máscara de flandres” (or iron mask) used as punishment of slaves and prisoners in brazil and elsewhere, or other mask–like contraptions used during slave trade, i recognize that voice box cannot but evoke such histories of oral control. for the history of a discussion of jacques arago’s image of a man wearing the “máscara de flandres,” see j. handler and a. steiner (2006). for the appropriation of the image to stories about martyred female slaves in brazil, see j. handler and k. hayes, (2009). i thank kariann goldschmitt and jason stanyek for talking with me about this. 22. i thank mandy–suzanne wong for reminding me about this. 23. we are familiar with this idea in the context of sport. for example, we see that the distinct training associated with a particular sport, say, long distance running versus sprinting, conditions and shape the long distance runner’s or sprinter’s bodies differently. current musicology 30 24. here, i come to a conclusion that opposes that of walton and orlikoff (see endnote 17). i would argue that when difference is discernable, rather than due to innate racial difference, it is due to the way in which the vocal apparatus is physically and materially used and performed. 25. with grant olwage (2004), i don’t necessarily seek to “wish away ‘the black voice’” (208). within the context of his study, “the black voice is something very real that has a history.” in the face of colonizing and civilizing project within the south african context, maintaining a distinct vocal culture can both be thought through as an act of subversion as well as “the desire for a reformed, recognizable other [was] a subject of a difference that [was] almost the same, but not quite” as homi k. bhabha has argued (quoted in olwage 2004:209). 26. see eidsheim (2008). 27. forsythe, william, “choreographic objects.” http://www.williamforsythe.de/essay.html (accessed march 9, 2012). 28. in a private conversation on march 7, 2012, and during a public interview with tim murray, on march 10, 2012, william forsythe described the realization that dancing and choreography “are not the same.” 29. “the choreography,” according to forsythe’s official website, “is the result of complete physical destabilisation [sic.] and the resulting social absurdity. the inadvertant [sic.] euphoria that results from the situation is infectious and, in some cases, addictive.” http://www.williamforsythe.de/installations.html?&no_cache=1&detail=1&uid=30 (accessed march 12, 2012). 30. see the promotional video for the white bouncy castle http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ingbbj_cmpo, (accessed march 9, 2012). 31. public discussion of “forsythe’s artistic practice, his development of choreographic objects, and their relationship to the choreographic work, nowhere and everywhere at the same time.” “a conversation with william forsythe and timothy murray. milstein and rand halls. sponsored by the a. d. white professors–at–large program.” march 10, 2012, cornell university. http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/shc_events.html (accessed march 9, 2012). 32. ibid. 33. for forsythe this means: a skilled dancer can both differentiate between and articulate or carry out minute physical differences. an unskilled dancer would notice that, say, an arm had moved from a position alongside the body to one horizontally extended from the body, while a skilled dancer, or differentiator, would see the fine details of how the arm was held alongside the body and the quality of the movement to a horizontal position, and would decipher the cues and impetus that had given rise to the movement. she would also be able to carry out infinite variations of this movement. a less–skilled dancer or differentiator would only be able to see, in that movement, two crude positions. 34. see daphne brooks, bodies in descent. references arabin, b. 2002. music during pregnancy. ultrasound in obstetrics and gynecology 20 (5):425–430. brooks, daphne. 2012. one of these mornings you’re gonna rise up singing: the secret black feminist history of porgy and bess. paper presented at the spring lecture series, co–sponsored by the society for the humanities, department of music, and feminist, gender, & sexuality studies, cornell university, april 11, 2012. _____. 2006. bodies in descent: specatular performances of race and freedom, 1850-1910. durham: duke university press. nina eidsheim 31 eidsheim, nina s. 2008. voice as a technology of selfhood: towards an analysis of racialized timbre and vocal performance. dissertation, music, university of california, san diego, san 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effects on the violin beyond the reach of anyone else. others thought he was possessed by the devil and coaxed the violin to produce what they took to be the devil's music. still others, encouraged by the spectacle of him literally "lashing" the violin with his bow, considered him "demonic" in the gothic sense of being corrupt and perverted, a licentious criminal in the tradition of the marquis de sade and byron's hero-villains. faust, magician, satan, sadistic villain: the faces of paganini were interrelated but not equivalent. this article aims to sharpen definitions of paganini's "demonism" by examining contemporary reviews, caricatures, and audience reactions in their cultural context. by surveying the diverse monikers by which paganini was known ("zamiel;' "mephistopheles," etc.), by tracing their origins, and by exploring their inherent nuances, i reveal that the nicknames often carried specific subtexts that would have been meaningful to his audiences-whether by reference to literature, theater, opera, or instrumental music. it was in the context of romanticism, as shaped by goethe, byron, and others, that paganini's "demonic" image proliferated, especially due to the popularity of faust and rumors of the violinist's deviant behavior. this image was reinforced by medieval folkloric depictions of the violin as mysterious, enchanted, and feminine, exemplifying another facet of romanticism-the resurgence of interest in the dark ages. altogether, what emerged was a disturbing picture of the violinist as an agent of death and of the violin as a victimized, eroticized woman. throwing sex and death together in one explosive image, this gothic archetype captured the imagination of artists and echoed yet another medieval trope, death and the maiden. paganini's "demonic" image was thus multi-layered, resonating with a variety of rich cultural overtones, some of which are examined here for the first time. for while the image of paganini as demonic is well known and often repeated current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 85 86 current musicology in literature on the performer, scholarship to date has neglected to examine the construction and social currency of that image.! i will also consider what made paganini's performances "demonic." it was not only the violinist's eradication of technical difficulties that suggested occult forces at play, but also the spectacle of striking the violin with the bow and making it "cry" that helped people imagine him as a demonic figure. this was an unprecedented way of performing, rich with connotation, that relied on the unique techniques and effects paganini developed, rather than on the devices of "musical diablerie" then in vogue amongst contemporary composers. thus paganini's virtuosity in performance and particularly his visually arresting style played a key role in creating the image of a demonic monster. paganini and connotations of the "demonic" in nineteenth­ century europe paganini's "demonic" quality as a person and as a performer was remarked upon often by many people, yet the fact that it manifested in manifold ways (rather than singularly) is evidenced by the diversity of appellations by which he was known. selected monikers ranging over three decades (spanning most of his performing career) and four countries (where he garnered the most press) are shown in table 1.2 while these nicknames all connote devilry in some way, they are obviously not synonymous-rather, each name stems from a particular context. the most popular labels were those identifying paganini as a "magician" or a "wizard;' especially during his tour of europe in the years 1828-34. "let us rejoice that this enchanter is our contemporary;' wrote castil-blaze in the journal des debats (march 15, 1831), and "let him be glad of it himself; ifhe had played his violin like that two hundred years ago, he would have been burned as a magician" (quoted in metzner 1998:131). the similar epithets "sorcerer" and "charlatan" had been used early in his career, perhaps carrying the connotation of trickery and the use of artificial or dishonest methods to acquire special powers-akin to cheating at, say, gambling (one of paganini's favorite pastimes, as it happens).3 some commentators identified the violin bow as an instrument of sorcery: "paganini has been recently waving his magic wand," wrote one reviewer for the harmonicon after a leipzig performance in 1829 (anon. 1829), and the poet heinrich heine remarked that "waving his bow in the air, he appeared more than ever like a wizard commanding the elements" (heine 1933:48). the french caricaturist jean ignace isidore grandville even depicted paganini's bow as a witch's broomstick in one of his humorous illustrations of the violinist. maiko kawabata table 1: paganini's "demonic" monikers. appellation from whom (where known), where, when, and citation sorcerer italy is00-5 (saussine 1953:42) charlatan italy is00-5 (saussine 1953:42) carbonaro italy is00-5 (saussine 1953:42) genoese wizard lipinski, warsaw c. is29 (halski 1959:275) wizard spohr, italy is16 or is17 (spohr [is65] 1969, 1:2s0) magician castil-blaze,journal des debats (march 15, is31) (metzner 1995:131) magician heine, hamburg is30 (heine 1933:4s) hexensohn zeiter, berlin is29 (saussine 1953:113) goethe's mephisto rellstab, berlin is29 (courcy 1957, 1:31s) hexenmeister rellstab, berlin is29 (saussine 1953:114) dr. faustus a. b. marx, berlin is29 (marx is29; saussine 1953:114) mephistopheles d'ortigue, paris is33 (d'ortigue is33:247) demonic goethe, weimar is31 (courcy 1957, 1:361-62) zamiel athaeneum, london is31 (prod'homme 1911:41) satan l'entracte, paris is31 (johnson 1995:267) devil's spawn vienna is2s (courcy 1957,1:259) wandering jew incarnate vienna is2s (courcy 1957,1:259) attributing paganini's remarkable abilities to supernatural sources reflected viewers' helplessness in explaining how paganini made difficulties of violinistic technique and execution vanish. notably, such comments were made not only by audiences and critics but also by other violin virtuosi: karol lipinski admiringly called him the "genoese wizard" (quoted in halski 1959:275) while ludwig spohr said, "he is a complete wizard, and brings tones from his violin which were never heard before from that instrument" (spohr [1865]1969, 1:280).4 the german nicknames "hexensohn" (son of a witch) and "hexenmeister" (witch-master) not only linked paganini to witchcraft but also referred to one of the compositions he performed most often, "le streghe" ("the witches"). this variation set takes its theme from franz xavier stissmayr's ballet il noce di benevento (1802), in which the theme signals the witches' entrance onto the stage. paganini composed the piece shortly after he saw the ballet in 1813 and frequently programmed it on his tour of europe; in his 1829 concerts in berlin it was billed as "hexentanz" ("witches' dance"). 87 88 current musicology figure 1: johann peter lyser, "karikatur auf die wiener konzerte" (c. 1828) from kapp (l922:plate 9). each of these labels (magician, wizard, sorcerer, charlatan, witch's son, witch-master) were variations on the popular theme of paganini as a maleficus-a person who makes a pact with satan. viennese artist johann peter lyser's illustration captures this perfectly (figure 1). it depicts the violinist balanced at mid-skip, hair on end as if charged with electricity, inside a "magic circle," having supposedly gained entry into the secrets of witchcraft. talismans associated with satanism surround him such as a black cat, a magic sword, a human skull, a pyramid, the bones of a human hand, and a snake wrapped around a staff, along with various occult symbols from alchemy, astrology, and the artist's own imagination including the star of david, mars, gemini, and approximations of signs for sun, fire, and the black mass. floating in the background like apparitions are images from folklore and legend: a possessed nun with hands outstretched in the act of devil-worship, a languishing maiden cradling a skeleton (death and the maiden), a number of monstrous creatures at various stages of materiali­ zation, and a round of skeletons dancing the totentanz (or "dance of death") where the central figure parallels paganini's posture with his violin. in its detailed references to occult mystery, this caricature provides a visual expression of the famous legend that paganini had sold his soul to acquire superhuman powers on the violin. maiko kawabata while that explanation was by far the most popular, some people con­ cluded that the violinist was actually possessed by the devil. these were not quite the same thing. a maleficus entered into the pact voluntarily, whereas alternatively, the devil could inhabit bodies without permission. stories of extraordinary musical virtuosity arising from demonic possession can be traced to the middle ages; for example, a monk named caesarius at the monastery of heisterbach (in present-day germany), wrote in the early thirteenth century that, there was once a priest whose singing was a joy to all-until one day another priest heard it, and realized that such perfection must come not from a human being but from a demon. so he exorcized the demon, which promptly departed-whereupon the singer's body fell lifeless to the ground, showing that for some time it had been animated by the demon alone. (quoted in cohn 2000:27) for a demon to take possession of someone, the person had to already have died. thus when people remarked that paganini was possessed, they implied that he was dead-a claim buttressed by countless observations of his "cadaverous" appearance. indeed, to heine, he resembled "a corpse risen from the grave, a vampire with a violin" with his "cadaverous face" and his bow arm guided by the devil himself (heine 1933:38,42).5 by all accounts paganini was extremely pale, his complexion accentuated by his dark hair and attire. his unusual countenance and rumored diabolical collusion, when placed in the context of ethnic stereotyping in certain parts of europe, elicited derogatory assertions that paganini was jewish (despite the fact that he was an italian catholic). remarks about his "jewish cast of features" or his "large black eyes, hooked nose, and jet black hair, which is long and more than half hides his expressive jewish face" recycled alarming stereotypes and reinforced negative associations with jewishness, especially in vienna, where one journalist went so far as to call paganini "the devil's spawn, the wandering jew incarnate."6 paganini's cadaverous appearance was elsewhere interpreted as a symptom of cholera (an epidemic struck paris in 1832) and his contorted posture was said to mimic the death throes of an afflicted patient writhing with stomach cramps. as art historian nina athanassoglou-kallmyer has shown, the horrors and degenerative effects of the paris cholera epidemic provided a metaphor for contemporary aesthetics. this was embodied in the grotesque, death-like figure ofpaganini (iconized by delacroix's portrait of 1832), especially in his anti-normative music and bizarre performance style: "in the popular imagination, the violinist merged with the diabolical disease, became its live embodiment" (athanassoglou-kallmyer 2001:699).7 89 90 current musicology in numerous cases, paganini was understood to be a manifestation of the devil himself, and since the line between demonic collusion and demonic personification was not always distinct, the critic fran<j:ois-joseph fetis's observation is typical: "in reality, everyone had noticed and had guessed for a long time that paganini and satan were in the most intimate relationship, that is, provided they are not one and the same thing" (fetis 1981:40). the french journal l'entracte proclaimed, "he's satan onstage, satan knock­ kneed, bandy-legged, double-jointed, twisted ... fall to the knees of satan and worship him" (quoted in johnson 1995:267). similarly, london's athenaeum described him as "truly a zamiel [sic 1 in appearance" -a reference to weber's der freischutz, in which the devil is known as samiel-"and without doubt a demon in performance" (quoted in prod'homme 1911 :41).8 paganini was also identified as an anti-muse in the story of baroque violinist giuseppe tartini's dream, popularized in the early nineteenth century. a french critic wrote, "tartini saw in a dream a demon, who played a diabolical sonata. that demon could have been none other than paganini." but the critic appears to have changed his mind already in the next sentence: "and yet tartini's sprite, with his double trills, his weird modulations, his rapid arpeggios, was the merest tyro compared to the virtuoso we now possess" ([ castil-blaze 1 1831). as we have seen, paganini was sometimes viewed as a maleficus and at other times as the devil himself, a situation which, when framed in terms of goethe's faust, meant that he could be construed as both a faustian and a mephistophelean figure. indeed, the popularity of faust, part one (1805) influenced paganini's reception greatly. the berlin music critic a. b. marx called him "dr. faustus" (probably referring to goethe's version rather than christopher marlowe's play of 1620). heinrich heine's description of paganini's entrance on stage accompanied by satan "disguised as a black poodle" referred to the first appearance of the devil in the guise of a dog in goethe's version of the tale. other critics invoked faust but assigned paganini the part of mephistopheles rather than the title role. joseph d'ortigue wrote: "yes, it's him, it's mephistopheles ... i saw him and heard him play the violin" (d'ortigue 1833:247). ludwig rellstab remarked, "never in my whole life have i heard an instrument weep like this ... i never knew that music contained such sounds! he spoke, he wept, he sang! ... there is something demonic about him. goethe's mephisto would have played the violin like this" (quoted in courcy 1957, 1:318). faust-mania provided a setting that would prove receptive to paganini-nowhere more so than in paris. after the first french edition of the drama appeared in 1814, it quickly became very popular in the french capital, resurfacing in numerous translations, stage productions, operas, and other enactments throughout the 1820s.9 by 1830 it had thoroughly maiko kawabata captivated the public and its particular attraction for composers had reached fever pitch: spohr's opera faust opened in april of that year, for example, and berlioz's symphonie fantastique, a work inspired in part by faust (and also by victor hugo's ronde du sabbat and weber's der freischiuz) received its premiere in december. therefore, by the time paganini debuted at the paris opera in march 1831, the city's music-lovers had already been swept up in the craze. paganini's parisian audiences were thus primed for a "mephistophelean" performer before he had even set foot in the city. no one knew this better than the ambitious louis veron, who had just become the newest director of the opera in early 1831. veron had his own agenda (to popularize the institution as a symbol of bourgeois power) and saw a way to entice the public by offering entertaining spectacles of marauding devils and witches' sabbaths. 10 he was already busy developing meyerbeer's robert ie diabie, an opera that would premiere in november of 1831 and featured, in the words of james johnson, a scene of "debauched nuns who slid out of their habits to swivel and gyrate and guzzle down wine" (1995:240).as far as veron was concerned, paganini's arrival could not have come at a more opportune moment: as paganini biographer renee de saussine has suggested, "here was the mephistopheles of veron's dreams, the very person for his scenes of hell" (1953:158). moreover, paganini fit the bill perfectly because of the french tendency to sensationalize the image of the devil. the french moved away from the philosophical elements of goethe's original (which they considered bizarre, immoral, and incomprehensible) towards a more visually oriented interpre­ tation of the story, tending to simplify the character of mephistopheles and preferring dazzling special effects and elaborate stagings of dancing demons. such emphasis on spectacle and display prepared audiences for paganini's abnormal appearance and magnetic performance style. where french audiences gravitated towards the view of paganini as a sort of "mephistopheles lite" the devil reduced almost to caricature-the german romantics emphasized the parallel between paganini's quest for virtuosity and faust's thirst for power and knowledge. goethe himself used the word "demonic" in describing paganini, pointing to a quality he also detected in the most power-hungry historical figure of the era, napoleon: the demonic is that which cannot be explained in a cerebral and a rational manner. it is not peculiar to my nature but i am subject to its spell. napoleon possessed the quality to the highest degree. amongst artists one encounters it more often with musicians than with painters. paganini is imbued with it to a remarkable degree and it is through this that he produces such a great effect. (eckermann 1925:373-74, quoted in courcy 1957, 1:361-62)1l 91 92 current musicology in contemporary german aesthetics, the word "demonic" (damonisch) signified a quality that, together with the "divine" (himmlisch), described the dual nature of music itself, as musicologist mario puppo has shown (puppo 1984). e. t. a. hoffmann, for example, spoke of music's "divine miracles and diabolical magic": on the one hand exalting "the capacity of music to transport man's spirit to a 'luminous, ultra -terrane an' life filled with a divine force" and on the other evoking "the terror, thrill, and pain of beethoven's music, which can link up to the diabolical and the sinful, to madness and death" (quoted in puppo 1984:83-84). this opposition also echoed the dual aesthetic of the demonic and divine identified by w. h. wackenroder in his treatise phantasien uber die kunst fur freunde der kunst of 1799. 12 in faust, this duality can be seen in the union of faust and gretchen-the "demonic" man who mercilessly removes all obstacles in the way of his desires, and the "angelic" woman who radiates pure innocence. the duality is also personified by the title character of robert ie diable: he is endowed with both his mother's angelic nature and his father's satanic one. but if the "demonic" comprised only half of a double aesthetic, and it was a quality identified with paganini, then who or what served as his "divine" or "angelic" counterpole? ironically, paganini himself was praised by a few of his listeners for precisely those celestial qualities, but these comments were often overlooked or ignored because they contradicted his prevailing image. for instance, after hearing paganini play in vienna in april 1828, schubert claimed, "i have heard an angel sing in the adagio" (quoted in hanson 1997:110). the paris correspondent of the frankfurt journal gushed over paganini's little-known composition adagio religioso (which he often performed as a prelude to his concertos): he played an introduction which he modestly described as "religious" but which his audience unanimously acclaimed as divine. to compose melodies so sweet he must have been carried away in an ecstasy to hear the singing of the cherubim. it vibrates with the awe, adoration, and love that nature feels in the presence of the creator. (quoted in saussine 1953:97-98) 13 it was generally agreed upon, however, that characteristics related to the "divine" were exterior to paganini. one might expect, based on the number of "diabolical" violinists throughout history who had been paired with "angelic" ones (because of contrasting playing styles), that the demonic paganini would have been set into relief by his own opposite figure. in 1728, for example, pietro antonio locatelli's virtuoso performance at the court of kassel prompted the comment, "he runs over the violin like a rabbit." jean-marie leclair played next; the critic paired them by explaining that maiko kawabata "one plays like an angel, and the former plays like a devil" (dunning 1981, 1:118-19, quoted in schwarz 1983:94). earlier in the century, arcangelo corelli was apparently so impressed by the nimble playing of german violinist nicolaus adam strunck that he is supposed to have said, "if my first name is arch-angel, then yours should be arch-devil" (quoted in schwarz 1983:53 ).14 despite such historical precedents, however, no one was put forward as paganini's "heavenly" counterpart, 15 undoubtedly because it was clear that no other violinist played on his level, as even pierre baillot, his french contemporary, conceded. 16 but that was not the only reason the critics positioned him as a singular figure. in fact, paganini already had a marguerite to his faust-his own violin. just as marguerite ends up deranged and a perpetrator of infanticide under faust's maleficent influence, the violin was understood by the romantics to symbolize an "angelic" woman vicitimized by destructive forces. gender, sexuality, and the violin one meaning of the word "demonic" as it was applied to paganini pointed to the moral corruption of the archetypal gothic villain; in such cases the word denoted an intent to harm women physically and sexually for selfish pleasure. paganini's apparently altered state while performing was seen to resemble a deviant's extreme excitement while in the midst of a criminal act, as attested by reviewers' comments: he seemed to be striking his instrument, like the unhappy youth, who after conjuring up the image of his murdered mistress, destroys it again in a fit of amorous rage; then once more seeks to revive it with tears and caresses. (marx 1829, quoted in saussine 1953:114) his bow shimmers like a steel blade; his face is as pale as a crime; his smile is beautiful, like dante's inferno; his violin cries like a woman. (quoted in johnson 1995:267) here the unusually charged quality ofpaganini's performance was explained in terms of a dramatic spectacle, of eros and murderous destruction. this spectacle comprised a rich conjunction of metaphors and symbols for gender, sexuality, and the body: the violin was figured as an innocent woman subjected to the licentious assaults of a vicious criminal using the bow as a phallus/weapon. while some of this imagery arose specifically in response to paganini's virtuosity, much of it drew on the violin's ancient folkloric associa­ tions. it was the combination of these elements that created an explosively violent and pornographic allegory out of musical performance. 93 94 current musicology the violin had always radiated an aura of mystique, seeming to contain hidden powers waiting to be unleashed; its mysterious origins in the middle east promoted its status as a "magic box" whose deepest secrets could only be unlocked by the most gifted virtuosos.17 in medieval folklore the violin was associated with the grim reaper, who led the totentanz playing a pair of human bones, a mythology that became popular again with the romantic in­ terest in the middle ages. 18 in seventeenth -century northern italy, cremona violins coated with special varnishes concocted from secret recipes recalled alchemists' attempts to transform common metals into rare ones. some violins were said to be "ensouled" via occult procedures with the spirits of dead women, whose intestines were used as strings, and whose voices could be heard emerging from the instrument in tortured wails and screams. the historical identification of the violin as feminine also stemmed from the fact that the instrument's body was seen to resemble the female form. indeed, its components are known by the same names given to parts of the human anatomy: belly, back, shoulders, ribs, and neck. long before man ray made explicit the visual pun between the violin and a naked woman with his famous photograph, ingres's violin (1924), the violin stood in for the female nude-a favorite subject of early nineteenth-century painters such as ingres, whose la grande odalisque (1814) epitomized sensuality, the erotic, and the exotic. the shared origin in the "orient" of violins and odalisques (virgin slave-girls employed in turkish harems) may also have helped to reinforce the connection. moreover, the passivity implied by the violin's resemblance to a woman without arms or legs reflected the subju­ gated status of the odalisque, and contributed to the idea of the violin as a helpless victim in the arms of its player.19 such subtexts provided ample fodder for romantic fantasies that cen­ tered on the violin as an object of erotic desire subject to the discipline and/or punishment of a patriarch. in e. t. a. hoffmann's story "councillor krespel" of 1816, for example, an eccentric violin-maker crafts instruments only to play them once, and longs to dispossess his own daughter of her virginity. as heather hadlock has argued, the violin -maker's desire to penetrate both bodies is tinged with dark psychological undertones of "incestuous desire sublimated through music" (hadlock 2000:40). the untouched violin as a metaphor for chastity was well known, for example, through the legend of stradivari's masterpiece "le messie" ("the messiah"); long silent since its creation in 1716, the early nineteenth-century italian violin-maker carlo bergonzi compared "le messie" to a woman who is not only beautiful but also pure.20 the violin was thus loaded with centuries-old symbolic baggage primed for reinterpretation under the aegis of romanticism. by contrast, the maiko kawabata imagery of a violinist as a violent murderer emerged for the first time with paganini. certainly, the stereotype of violinists as morally loose, low-class scoundrels because of the violin's associations with dancing and the beer-hall had existed for more than a century. for instance, in 1711 jonathan swift explained that he assumed a certain man accused of rape was guilty solely on the grounds that the man "was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue" (swift [1897]1948:203). fiddlers were considered morally suspect because their music provided an incentive to dancing, an activity abhorred by pious individuals because it resembled or even led to debauched behavior. 2! but to construe a violinist as a wicked brute whose performance staged a vicious attack was new with paganini. here was a man whom fellow violinist charles lafont described as "a woman-hunter, with a face like a vulture" (quoted in saussine 1953:160) and whose performance prompted the london athenaeum to report, "the poor violin was a transformed victim in the demon's hand, uttering the anguished complaints of his inflicted torture" (quoted in codignola 1935:340nl). numerous contemporary illustrations and caricatures depict paganini holding his bow high in the air, triumphantly, like a talismanic weapon (e.g., figure 2).22 broken strings hang limp from the scroll of his violin-strings supposedly made from the intestines of murdered lovers, or those of their husbands who had perished attempting to defend their honor in duels. the dangling strings give the appearance of having snapped under excessive force brought on by excessive passion (echoed later in accounts of piano strings giving out under liszt's overpowering hands). the weapon paganini used to perpetrate such violent acts was said to be loaded with "magic pellets"-reminiscent of max's "magic bullets" in der freischutz and their attendant symbolism of seminal, destructive, and supernatural powers.23 rumors of paganini's violent, criminal past created the image of a remorseless sadist who piled abuse onto women and violins. stories of evisceration, in particular, led people to draw parallels between the violinist and the marquis de sade by speculating that paganini had practiced the violin to wile away his time in prison just as the marquis had written ies infortunes de la vertu (1787) inside the walls of the bastille. indeed, such stories, popularized in writing as well as through lithographs depicting imaginary scenes of paganini in captivity, conflated his identity with that of another violinist-libertine, giacomo casanova.24 it is well known that paganini went to the trouble of denying such rumors about his past and in doing so only inflamed the press and public. what is not so well known is that he was in fact jailed on charges of rape and abduction, an experience he managed to hide from journalists and audiences all his life. in 1814, when he was thirty-two, he became romantically involved 95 96 current musicology figure 2: anonymous illustration from the gertrude clarke whittall foundation collection, library of congress, music division. reproduced with permission. with angelina cavanna, a twenty-year-old prostitute in genoa. after she became pregnant, paganini took her to nearby parma with promises of marriage and, doubting his paternity, made her drink a homemade potion that led to the stillbirth of the baby. when angelina's father discovered what had transpired, he accused paganini of kidnapping and dishonoring his daughter. now branded a cad, paganini spent eight days imprisoned in the tower of genoa and paid damages to both father and daughter. traces of this incident were probably at the root of the exaggerated rumors that later earned paganini his reputation as an immoral rake in the mold of lovelace, the licentious hero/villain of samuel richardson's 1748 novel clarissa. 25 paganini's reception in fact also bore the imprints of the english gothic novel, a popular early nineteenth -century literary genre. he was once referred to as the "magician of the south;' a play on the nickname for sir walter maiko kawabata scott, "the wizard of the north," so-called because of the enormously popular gothic novels that scott published anonymously. paganini seemed to exemplify the figure of the brooding villain who attacked innocent women, consorted with depraved monks and nuns, and personified the catholic "south" as a diabolical "other."26 his aura of villainy as an artist paralleled rumors of his behavior in private, putting him in the league of lord byron, the poet whose sexual ex­ cesses were so legendary that in the words of one historian, "his promiscuity seemed almost superhuman" (gay 1995:93).27 moreover, the violinist shared a number of "byronic" traits with the writer's fictional hero-villains such as the corsair and the giaour-men characterized by pale countenances, dark passions simmering beneath a calm veneer, and a "satanic smile!' further parallels could be found with the title character of the dramatic poem manfred (inspired by goethe's faust), who says of astarte (his mistress, his victim, and possibly his sister), "i loved her, and destroy'd her"-the kind of words audiences might have imagined paganini to have uttered about his violin after an impassioned performance.28 the graphic symbolism of violin performance layered with paganini's reputation as a dangerous boor served to exemplify a gothic archetype: the close links between sex and death, and pleasure and pain. if there is a single image that emblematizes this archetype, it is surely delacroix's painting the death of sardanapalus (1827), "a sado-masochistic fantasy" (wilson-smith 1992:82) according to art historians, "with its provocative intermingling of sexuality and death, voyeurism and erotic pleasure" (fraser 2004:134).29 inspired by byron's play sardanapalus (1821), the painting depicts sardanapalus, the notoriously perverted king of assyria, watching the slaughter of his harem women. the gory foreground depiction of a voluptuous concubine having her throat slit by one of the tyrant's henchmen juxtaposes "life and death, voluptuousness and cruelty;' thereby highlighting "carnality under the knife, orgiastic passion flaring up briefly before extinc­ tion overwhelms it" (hemmings 1987:185-87).30 this image of a male assailant taking the life of an eroticized female figure echoed the medieval theme of death and the maiden, probably best known in schubert's settings as a lied for baritone and piano (1817) and in his string quartet in d minor, d. 810 (1824). the poem schubert originally set, by german poet matthias claudius, comprises an exchange between a terrified young girl-"go away! don't touch me" (voriiber! ... und riihre mich nicht an)-and death, whose creepy words of reassurance culminate in the line, "you will sleep softly in my arms!" (sollst sanft in meinen armen schlafen!). here death is a seducer whose "embrace" carries the double­ entendre of sexual ownership and forced expiration (like the erlkonig in 97 98 current musicology figure 3: melchior von hugo, "der geiger;' from fuchs (1922-26, 1:405). another well-known schubert lied), as implied by lyser's depiction of a young girl overcome by the skeleton in her lap.3l as we have now seen, paganini's "demonism" brought together a variety of rich themes and images to construct violin performance as a fatal, eroticized assault on a helpless, innocent victim.32 connotations of murder and rape attached to the act of violin playing and implicit in paganini's performances were made explicit in a drawing by early twentieth-century artist melchior von hugo: "der geiger" depicts death dragging a grotesque phallus-bow across a naked female torso (figure 3).33 this image brought together with disturbing intensity cruelty, sexual arousal, violence, the gender symbolism of the violin and bow, and the death and the maiden archetype-all the cultural references underlying paganini's boorish displays. regardless of the hypocrisy or moral complications operating beneath the surface as audiences derived sadistic pleasure from these violent, pornographic spectacles in the guise of musical performance, paganini's concerts gave audiences the same kind of thrill they experienced from reading gothic literature. literary critics have considered readers' enjoyment of the transgression of behavioral codes as a central element driving the reception of byron's writings, while historians have emphasized the role that his works played in the psychology of fantasy.34 attending paganini's performances likely offered a similar outlet for fantasy and aggressive impulses that might otherwise have manifested in more troubling ways. maiko kawabata example 1: paganini, concerto no.1, third movement, opening. virtuoso performance the central piece in the puzzle of what made paganini "demonic" was his characteristic manner of performing: a dazzling display of awe-inspiring techniques such as double-harmonics, playing entire pieces on a single string, and new ways of using the bow. since many of these legendary techniques have already been discussed in the literature on paganini (penesco 1982; 1997; salzedo 1946), i will focus here on those that have received less at­ tention from scholars. his trademark bowings such as jete and ricochet involved "throwing" the bow at the string, thus motivating the impression of the player "lashing" at the instrument with a weapon.35 paganini used bouncing bowstrokes in numerous compositions, notably in the finale to his concerto no.1, where he employed a ricochet stroke of four notes to a single bow (example o. paganini left no written clues as to how he executed these bowstrokes­ despite his best intentions he never got around to writing his treatise-but others did. pierre baillot, for one, explained "how to play the ricochet" as follows (with surprisingly precise measurements): the player throws the bow at the [lower] end of the middle [third], and from about 2.13 inches above the string; the bow rebounds and "bites" several notes by itself ... in order to articulate a greater number of notes in a single up-bow or down-bow in the ricochet, the player has only to let the bow fall from higher above the string. this will increase the number ofrebounds made by the bow. (baillot [1835]1991:184-85) baillot went on to note that paganini was the first violinist he had witnessed executing the multiple-rebound ricochet. he then directed the interested reader to carl guhr's treatise on paganini's playing style, the relevant section of which employs telling language: paganini allows the bow ... to make a jumping, whipping [springende, peitschende] movement and uses for that purpose almost the middle of it 99 100 current musicology example 2: paganini, "le streghe:' variation 2. var. ii , ~i 9 !uffferefl etitijijjjj! fffffdf(tl frtff4jjajjl ... '$'~' ..... ++ +rn • • '."1+++ + + ++++ +++ + @ ~n f a f racee ,~r fe rr rt .. rr' . tt . . ., j eb ' · rq f frr.~n4jj" .. and only as much of its length as is necessary to put the string into vibra­ tion. (guhr 1829:11, quoted in brown 1988:105) another technique that helped create the illusion of assault was paganini's use of the bow in the midst of passages employing left-hand pizzicato. in variation 2 of"le streghe," for example, where bowed sixteenth­ notes are interspersed with plucked ones indicated by a cross (+) (example 2), paganini would have touched the bow to the string momentarily, with more of a vertical motion (dropping the bow) than a horizontal one (draw­ ing the bow). because the bow would have hit the string so rapidly and in such an irregular pattern (on the first, second, third, and fifth eighth-note beats of measure 2; on beats 1,21/2,4, and 5v2 of m. 4; on beats 1,2,4, and 6 of m. 6, and so on), the viewer would have seen a blur of repeated and erratic "lashings." this effect, which becomes more pronounced the greater the height from which the bow is dropped, has been exploited by some modern performers of paganini's music who exaggerate the bow's height for show.36 it may have occurred to paganini to do this as well, judging from the caricatures mentioned earlier.37 perceptions of paganini's "demonism" were thus largely dependent on the visual dimension of his performances. this point, while interest­ ing in itself, becomes especially significant alongside the observation that paganini's music lacks the usual cues that would have connoted demonism. paganini, unlike many other composers of his day, never exploited the rich musical vocabulary of "musical diablerie": tritones (the so-called "diabolus in musica"), diminished-seventh chords, and quotations of the medieval plainchant dies irae. berlioz's "ronde du sabbat" from the symphonie fantastique (1830) and liszt's totentanz (1839-65) exemplified "infernal" music, as did numerous operas associating diminished sevenths with sinister characters: bertram in meyerbeer's robert ie diabie (1831), samiel in weber's der freischfttz (1821), and supernatural forces in spohr's zemire und azor (1819). weber's euryanthe (1823) even had a section that the critic joseph maiko kawabata d'ortigue described as the "violins shrieking in triplets expressing their diabolical joy" (1833:231).38 such devices had no place in paganini's music, however, and the dies irae was not used in a solo violin work until eugene y safe's sonata no.2, "obsession;' of 1924. paganini's compositional language therefore could not have contributed to his demonic image (except inasmuch as prescriptions for "violent" bowings and all the other virtuoso techniques comprised aspects of composition). impressions of paganini's "demonic" virtuosity stemmed from his performance of seemingly impossible feats, and, beyond that, from the spectacle of his bravura showmanship. conclusion as we have seen, what made paganini "demonic" was not one factor alone but rather an array of different elements: his biography, specific connota­ tions of the "demonic" as a cultural category in nineteenth -century europe, contemporary gender issues, popular gothic themes, and the symbolism of the violin. grounding all of these different factors were his remarkable performances, which brought the cultural moment into focus. even more specifically, it was his spectacular virtuosity and physical presence on stage that shaped this image. as we have also seen, the word "demonic" was polysemous, used by people for the most part to describe aspects of paganini's unusual comportment and performance style, but also to describe attributes they wished to project onto the violinist according to private agendas-whether fueled by fantasies (of a fictional world), by fears (of cholera), or by prejudices (such as racism). paganini can be said to have exemplified romanticism because his performances pulled together a constellation of romantic elements, includ­ ing faust-mania, byronism, and gothic medievalism. he epitomized the figure of the "romantic artist" (as many have claimed) not through his compositions, understood as unperformed abstractions, but by embody­ ing virtuosity as a performance aesthetic.39 finally, paganini's actions and appearance while playing, in conjunction with the cultural discourse surrounding him, together form convincing evidence that much of what we hear as present "in the music" is actually dependent on the rhetoric and images surrounding the music. in other words, much of the "demonic" force attributed to paganini himself emanated from external sources, even while giving the illusion of originating in him. though it is doubtful that paganini consciously cultivated such an effect (there is nothing in his biography to suggest that he was that conniving), the image of the "demonic" violinist as self-fashioned is nonetheless a seductive illusion. 101 102 current musicology notes i am grateful to kevin lavine of the music division, library of congress, for his generous help with the paganini materials in the gertrude clarke whittall foundation collection, and to michael beckerman, tyler bickford, keith chapin, dana gooley, karen hiles, elisabeth le guin, susan mcclary, anne mellor, mitchell morris, robert walser, and my anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback and suggestions. 1. recent treatments of the violinist-as an exemplar of the virtuoso as a cultural pheno­ menon (metzner 1998), as an innovator of specialized violin techniques (penesco 1997), and as biographical subject (neill 1994)-touch on the "demonic" without exploring it as a central issue, since their aims (and considerable rewards) lie elsewhere. meanwhile, sugden's (1980) study is an entertaining book without scholarly pretensions. 2. my primary focus here on paganini's reception by urban, educated classes in italy, england, france, and german-speaking areas reflects the geographic and social reach of the violinist's tours (notwithstanding his brief forays to prague and warsaw-thorough considerations of which are beyond the scope of this article). 3. these terms originated in a series of pamphlets circulating in lucca (saussine 1953:42). another nickname from this time, "carbonaro;' branded paganini a member of the carbonari, a secret revolutionary society similar to the freemasons and struggling to unify italy. the name probably referred to paganini's liberal stance and pro-jacobin views (one of his first compositions was a set of variations on the revolutionary song "la carmagnole"), although there is no evidence to suggest that paganini was ever involved in political subterfuge. 4. interestingly, paganini himself spoke of having been inspired as a boy by the "magic" playing of polish virtuoso auguste durand (also known as duranowski): "paganini, as he himself related to fetis, credited durand-duranowski with his consecration in all of the marvelous magic, with which he later astonished the public in every country" (quoted in moser 1967:145). 5. paganini was a walking compendium of medical ailments, eliciting comparison to another "threadbare" musical virtuoso, the castrato giovanni battista velluti. as recent research has shown, castrati were understood to have had "weak heartbeats, poor eyesight, almost no pulse and lacked blood pressure. medically, their absence of inner heat, susceptible temperaments, pale countenances and enervated sensibilities bore out their emptiness of being" (davies 2005:279). according to davies, the manager ofthe king's theatre in the 1820s reported that velluti's customary breakfast was only a cup of coffee and a little dry toast, and that his other meals were similarly sparing; paganini was also said to require minimal nourishment. 6. comments from colonel maxwell montgomery's memoirs, my adventures (1814), weimar writer friedrich von matthieson (1829), and an anonymous viennese journalist (1828) are quoted in courcy (1957, 1:356, l31, and 259, respectively). meanwhile, jewish authors in eastern europe (writing mainly in yiddish) had their own set of iconographic meanings associated with paganini; i am grateful to one of current musicology's anonymous readers for pointing this out to me. 7. i am grateful to one of current musicology's anonymous readers for this reference. 8. after its 1821 premiere in berlin, weber's opera had arrived in london by 1824 in a num­ ber of knock-off productions, well in advance of paganini's first appearance there in 1831. notably, the violinist is compared with samie! rather than with max, the faustian character who barters with samie! for a magic bullet that will enable him to win the competition and marry his beloved. 9. this summary draws on the work of sarah hibberd (2001). maiko kawabata 10. for more on veron's mission to associate the opera with an increasingly powerful eco­ nomic and political class on the heels of the july revolution, see petrey (2001). 11. interestingly, goethe also proposed a "demonic" source for mozart's creative powers, thus instigating an alternative to the traditional attribution to divine inspiration (solomon 1995:117-18). 12. wackenroder's "divine/demonic duality," according to puppo, "describes music as being divine-but with an ambiguous turn, reflecting together joy and pain, joking and a shudder of fear, innocence and crime, light and darkness" (puppo 1984:83, my translation). 13. paganini had originally composed this work for a concert in berlin on may 13, 1829, the so-called day of penitence. according to the critic ludwig rellstab in the journal vossische zeitung, "paganini composed an introduction stemming from the monastic forms and cus­ toms of his fatherland in the naive belief that only such a prelude was appropriate for the day of penitence" (quoted in courcy 1957, 1:326). 14. the comments about locatelli and leclair are attributed to kassel's court jester. the corelli story is quoted from a dutch translation of charles burney's music in the netherlands. such pairings can be found even earlier in music history: of marin marais and antoine forqueray, france's most accomplished viol players, for example, it was said ''lun jouait comme un diable et l'autre comme un ange" (the one plays like a devil and the other like an angel, hubert le blanc, quoted in pougin 1924:37). 15. one exception to this circumstance was the description of the violist chretien urhan as "the seraphic pendant of the diabolical paganini" by german music historian reinhold sietz, a play on the image of urhan as the pious counterpole to the demonic berlioz. urhan had served as soloist in berlioz's harold in italy after paganini (who originally commissioned the work) abandoned the project. see kawabata (2004). meanwhile, d'ortigue's observation of "the antinomy that existed between the musical personality of baillot and that of paganini, the countenance of the first opposing itself to the eccentric attitude of the second" compared and contrasted the violinists but never identified the frenchman as "angelic" or "divine" (d'ortigue 1833:266, quoted in fauquet 1986:66). 16. he wrote, "we saw from the very first that his manner of playing the violin was generally his own, and had but very little resemblance to that of any other virtuoso ... the violin in his hands becomes a different instrument, just as the artist himself has gained a place which is out of the ordinary" (baillot [1835]1991:9). 17. the violin's origins can be traced to the medieval rebec, a small twoor three-stringed instrument primarily used for dance music and first brought to europe around 1000 ad. the rebec was a descendant of the even older rabab, a bowed stringed instrument of arab origin. for more on this topic, see cooke, dick, and others (1989:129-36). 18. for more on the iconography of "death as a fiddler;' see the excellent study by rita steblin (1990). 19. fran<,:ois girard's recent film the red violin (1998), in which a violin-maker uses his dead wife's blood to varnish an instrument and thereby gives it her soul, shows that the is­ sues under discussion still have resonance today. the "red violin" arouses and escalates the virtuosity and sexual desire of a fictional violinist character modeled on paganini. 20. bergonzi apparently told luigi tarisio (the violin dealer who discovered and disseminated many priceless cremona instruments, including "le messie"), "remember, 'le messie' has never been played, therefore one can only guess at the voice. you have looked upon women who were pure and women who were just beautiful. no? ... so, when you look up on the face of purity, somehow you know it. your eyes say something to your heart. it is the sort 103 104 current musicology of feeling one has when one gazes upon the features of a sleeping infant. that will be your impression when you finally feast your eyes on le messie." allegedly, the violin was not played until as late as 1855, when delphinalard, the son-in-law of french violin-maker jean baptiste vuillaume, finally touched a bow to its strings. see silverman (1981:115,245). 21. heinrich heine wrote a poem in which "a ghostly fiddler entic [ es 1 a young maiden to dance herself to an early death" in the "heimkehr "series of 1823-24 (steblin 1990:286-87). 22. n.b.: the desk with the open score that stands behind paganini in figure 2 was an element of the artist's imagination-there is no evidence to suggest that paganini ever performed from scores. 23. silverman relates an interpretation circulating in the early 1830s: "the reason paganini can play staccato so marvelously is that his bow is hollow and filled with little leaden pel­ lets which run up and down the bow when required to, and stop at once when so desired" (1981:77). 24. such stories were printed in, for instance, g. imbert de laphaleque's collection (1830:4849). one of the best known lithographs imagining paganini in prison is by louis boulanger (1831). casanova was in reality a professional violinist briefly incarcerated in 1755 by the authorities on suspicion of witchcraft, an imprisonment which temporarily interrupted the amorous adventures for which he is best known today. 25. see courcy ( 1957, 1: 133-42). the much -publicized story of paganini supposedly abduct­ ing singer charlotte watson could not have shaped his reception on tour in europe because it allegedly took placed in june 1834 (at the end of his tour). moreover, the incident was most likely a publicity stunt staged by john watson, the girl's father, with a view to gain­ ing access to paganini's fortune. watson, along with the french police and officials from the british consulate, intercepted paganini at boulogne-sur-mer, where the violinist and charlotte had planned to be reunited. journalists from both sides of the channel picked up the story, depicting paganini as a "roue" who had "abducted" charlotte, whom they erro­ neously reported as being underage (courcy 1957, 2:161-68). 26. for discussions of matthew gregory lewis's the monk (1796) as an instance of the anti-catholic, pornographic, and transgressive bent of gothic literature, see tuite (1997), tienhooven (1997), and whitlark (1997). 27. according to peter gay, byron was said "to have committed incest with his half-sister, sodomized his wife, conducted a string of love affairs with women of all ranks, and varied them with homosexual flings" (1995:93). 28. see praz (1970:53-94) for more on byron's hero-villains. it is perhaps worth noting here that in spite of his habit of breaking strings and bow hairs (which were easily replace­ able), paganini was not a violent man. he did not actually destroy his instruments-in fact, he took care of them lovingly and was especially attached to certain violins. according to a famous story from the early 1830s, he took his favorite guarneri, "the canon;' to the luthier vuillaume for repairs following an accident in which it fell off the front bench of a horse-drawn carriage (paganini having entrusted it, uncharacteristically, to two women who did not observe his custom of carrying the instrument inside the passenger coach on his lap); when vuillaume began to work with his tools, paganini reportedly began "moaning and grimacing, uttering loud exclamations which plainly revealed the affection he had for his violin" (silverman 1981:73). 29. see also spector (1974:89-lo5). 30. for a color reproduction of the painting, see huyghe (1963:123).as a side note, delacroix's focus on "the female body as an object of violence as well as pleasure" (fraser 2004:134) was, maiko kawabata interestingly, mirrored in his own life. he recorded the frequency of his copulations with his models along with how much he paid them. according to spector, he described these encounters using the "italian slang expression 'io ho fatto una chiavatura: probably learned from an italian helper, and meaning 'i've had sexual intercourse.' chiavatura is a substantive of the verb chiavare, literally 'to nail' but colloquially 'to fuck:" and spector concludes that "the double meaning of this word-probably known to delacroix-provides one more link between the erotic and the painful" (spector 1974:98). 31. two related points emerge, touching on themes already mentioned above. first, the theme of death as a molester recurred in the form of an incubus, a demon who sexually abuses sleeping women. henry fuseli's the nightmare (1781) depicted an incubus hovering over a naked woman, an arrangement echoed in james marshall's painting, tartini's dream, or the devil's trill sonata (1868), in which tartini lies prone as the devil plays the violin above him, thereby recycling the theme of "demonic" virtuosity. second, paganini was also associated with death through his connection with the cholera epidemic, itself personified in contemporary culture as a death-like skeleton; the disease exposed the "medieval" state of medicine (cholera was still incurable despite scientific advances) and provoked fears of death on a massive scale (athanassoglou-kallmyer 2001:691). 32. various binarisms emerge from this construct-performer/instrument, man/woman, attacker/victim, and so on. the pairing of demonic violinist/angelic woman was even dramatized, several years after paganini's death in the ballet le violon du diable, a "ballet fantastique" with music by cesare pugni. it was first staged in venice in 1848, revised for a paris production in 1849, and presented in various european cities through the 1850s. the story concerned a violinist who makes a faustian pact with the devil for a magical instrument which he plays to win over the girl he loves. its star, the extraordinary arthur saint-leon, was a leading dancer particularly known for his athletic leaps and spins; he was also a virtuoso violinist. the ballet was designed to showcase his dual talent. his real-life wife, the ballerina fanny cerrito, played his love interest-wearing a costume with angelic wings. 33. i am grateful to lisa parkes for bringing this illustration to my attention. 34. mario praz has described what he calls byron's "criminal erotism" as hinging on the act of transgression (1970:53-94). anne williams has posited the eroticization of "obsession with transgression, with violating taboos" as one of a set of literary conventions underpinning gothic poetics (1995:172); jacques barzun has suggested that the byronic hero appealed to women readers because he represented the seducer they secretly longed for (2000:485-86); and peter gay has written about the ambivalence of bourgeois men and women in their attitudes towards the libertinism of exhibitionistic romantics like byron-outraged and enthralled at the same time (1995:93-94). lastly, punter (1980) points out that one characteristic feature of gothic novels (and every other popular art form for that matter) is "precisely that they are not realistic" (20), thereby underscoring the element of fantasy. 35. of interest here is the modern bowing directive "battuto" (from the italian battere, to hit or beat) but which does not appear to have arisen again until a later historical period (in schoenberg's string trio, for example). in his treatise, baillot discusses detache, martele, staccato, perle, spiccato, ricochet, and specialized strokes such as saccade and bariolage but does not mention battuto (baillot [1835)1991:158-226. 36.the extraordinary alexander markov, for example, whips his bow theatrically through the air in rendering the left-hand pizzicato variation to the caprice, no. 24, in bruno monsaingeon's film, the art of the violin (ideale audience, 2000). 37. meanwhile, paganini's penchant for improvising wretched cries may have contributed to his "demonic" image-albeit by mistake. contemporary accounts state that paganini "imitated 105 106 current musicology with extraordinary truth the nasal sounds of a scolding old witch" (anon. 1828:211) so that one "imagined a pale old woman, dancing and whining, with a sort of ghastly affectation of the ridiculous" (leigh hunt, quoted in courcy 1957, 1:123-24). these comments were made in response to improvisations paganini inserted into performances of "le streghe:' although it is not known exactly how or why he produced such effects (he never notated his improvisations), it is clear that he was motivated by comedic intent within a performance aesthetic stemming from the eighteenth-century commedia dell' arte tradition (gooley 2005). the violinist's link to this tradition was probably lost on most of his audiences outside of italy, however, leading them to (mis)interpret his improvisations through the filter of ro­ manticism as being "demonic:' 38. d'ortigue was probably referring to the duet "komm denn, under leid zu rachen" for eglantine and lysiart in act ii of that opera. 39. recent studies of liszt's virtuosity and models of the "self" in performance have made similar points (albeit via diverse approaches), espousing the view of performance as a site for generating meaning, rather than understanding musical meanings as being present in scores and "transmitted" through performance. see for instance gooley (2004) and cumming (2000). references anon. 1828. foreign musical report. 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[1865]1969. louis spohr'sautobiography, translated anonymously. 2 vols. new york: da capo press. steblin, rita. 1990. death as a fiddler: the study of a convention in european art, literature, and music. basler jahrbuch fur historische musikpraxis 14: 271-323. sugden, john. 1980. niccolo paganini: supreme violinist or devil's fiddler? kent: midas books. swift, jonathan. [1897] 1948. journal to stella, edited by j. k. moorehead. london: j. m. dent and sons. tienhooven, marie-jose. 1997. all roads lead to england: the monk constructs the nation. romanticism on the net 8: http://www.erudit.org/revue/roni1997/v/n8/005777ar.html (online article, accessed march 1,2007). tuite, clara. 1997. cloistered closets: enlightenment pornography, the confessional state, homosexual persecution, and the monk. romanticism on the net 8: http://www.erudit .org/revue/ron/1997/v/n8/005766ar.html (online article, accessed march 1,2007). whitlark, james. 1997. heresy hunting: the monk and the french revolution. romanticism on the net 8: http://www.erudit.org/revue/roni1997 /v/n8/005773ar.html (online article, accessed march 1,2007). williams, anne. 1995. art of darkness: a poetics of gothic. chicago and london: university of chicago press. wilson-smith, timothy. 1992. delacroix: a life. london: constable. current.musicology.83.1-108.pdf fan fare: an investigation of recent jazz biographies by evan spring john kruth. bright moments: the life and legacy of rahsaan roland kirk. new york: welcome rain publishers, 2000. x, 404 pp. gene santoro. myself lvhen i am real: the life and music of charles mingus. new york: oxford university press, 2000. x, 452 pp. eric nisenson. open sky: sonny rollins and his world of improvisation. new york: st. martin's press, 2000. xvi, 216 pp. nick catalano. clifford brown: the life and art of the legendary jazz trumpeter. new york: oxford university press, 2000. xv, 208 pp. linda dahl. morning glory: a biography of mary lou williams. new york: pantheon books, 1999. viii, 463 pp. safford chamberlain. an unsung cat: the life and music of warne marsh. lanham, md.: scarecrow press, 2000. xv, 395 pp. expert music scholars have long derided most jazz books as glorified fandom, or at best inflated magazine articles. especially suspect is jazz bi­ ography, the sycophantish fan's most likely entree into book publishing. unfortunately, these biographies under consideration, with one or per­ haps two exceptions, will do little to dispel highbrow suspicions. in jazz studies, "fandom" at its worst implies hackneyed prose, preten­ tious hipsterism, petty infighting among cliques and camps, prurient slum­ ming and sensationalism, unearned license to call musicians by their first names, amateurishness in the historian's craft, and, most of all, musical il­ literacy. countering such problems, however, need not require all the trappings of "legitimate" scholarship. in other words, jazz biography can raise its standards of rigorousness, historical methodology, and musical lit­ eracy without being tempted by all the traditional tokens of respectability. our fandom prototype will be john kruth's biography of rahsaan roland kirk (1936-1977), the blind, charismatic multi-reed instrumental­ ist and bandleader. kruth's casual, vernacular style should not disqualify his book from serious consideration. when he writes that a kirk solo "burned down the house," he should be free to use idioms favored by the music's creators. if kirk's music is accurately described as "kick-ass," "ballsy," or "freaked-out"-even a "funky big butt bump"-then accuracy can trump decorum. most of kruth's writing, however, is simply pointless, current musicology. nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york evan spring 447 gooty, and irritating: "the man was a nonstop gushing fountain of fresh improvisational ideas. a whitman's sampler of sound. kirk had more 'flava' than a good humor truck. mistuh chock full of notes" (78). in this passage, kruth intones kirk's name: "rahsaan" sounds mythical, like a blind apocalyptic lion god whose volcanic roar causes the populace to panic. it is "rahsaan" that the natives placate nightly, leaving offerings of nervous virgins and snow­ white fleeced goats chained, shivering outside the city gates. (256) this breed of ostentatious writing is often associated with jazz magazine journalism. serious biographers, however, should not be unduly afraid of taint by association with the genre. kruth, for instance, adopts the celebrity profile convention of chronicling each interview: which cafe they meet in, what the interviewee is wearing, the twinkle in her eye as she tells a story. this procedure could actually be instructive for scholarly work, which too often isolates the quoted word from its contextual meanings. kruth, however, is really only calling attention to himself, and disrespect­ fully caricaturing his interviewees. one has a "weary, wrinkled roadmap of a face" (76), and another is described as a "pretty gooty dude" (164). serious biographers also need not make a fetish of avoiding the first person or the confessional mode-better to have the author's perspective out in the open. once again, however, kruth abuses the privilege. the first time he hears kirk's music, "the flute poured through my dashboard speaker like mercury, swimming cold and delicious, tickling my ears like a lover's sweet and sticky tongue after a mouthful of that delicious ice cream ... " (311). kruth will dream up any referent for kirk, as long as it makes him into an "xxl persona." kirk is compared to a "mad bull," a "monstrous chip­ munk," a "mad yak," "a grizzly clawing his way through the primeval for­ est" (257), quasimodo, thor, an old testament prophet, a wild west sheriff, king kong, a chef at a japanese steak house, "ali baba's pimp," and "a sumo wrestler bounding into the ring like a mad panda." if kirk's musical mission is "ascending an everest of emotion," "scouring your soul like a cosmic q-tip," or striving to "maintain the positive vibration of the planet," he is more "sonic shaman" than discriminating artist. the mantle of 'jazz historian" doesn't even interest kruth, who devotes more space to jimi hendrix, kirk's "psychedelic soul brother" (215), than to any of kirk's other colleagues. they both burned a mad path across a sad, square world at break­ neck speed and one bright moment later, they were gone ... this pair of "uppity niggers" detonated a sonic bomb that helped 448 current musicology demolish the tired old cliches of both jazz and rock. neither one of them knew any limit to their expression. they were simply, as rahsaan often said, "too heavy for most people." (215-16) there is nothing wrong with this comparison, of course, if it would only extend beyond hippie solipsism and sixties generational vanity. kruth's sloppy research methods suggest that book publishers do not hold jazz biographers to the standards of biographers in other fields. to begin with, casual license should not extend to spelling, copy editing, and fact-checking. kruth could hardly be bothered to check the biographical dictionary and spells at least nine musicians' names wrong. another methodological problem is kruth's persistent failure to attribute or verify quotations. for example, he quotes archie shepp claiming that john coltrane first played the soprano saxophone after borrowing one from kirk. the story probably stretches the truth (see porter 1998 for details), but deferring to shepp shields kruth from factual liability. also, the reader often doesn't know whether a quote was transcribed from a tape, lifted from a magazine page, or recounted secondor third-hand by an­ other person. kruth, for his part, would probably have no patience for my hang-ups about research methodology. mter an iffy story in which mingus blindfolds himself in order to fistfight the blind kirk on equal terms, kruth offers this convenient research timesaver: "in the long run it's really irrelevant if the story is true or not" (142). completing our fandom prototype, kruth seems to have little or no technical understanding of the music. jazz researchers bicker constantly over whether non-musicians should qualify as critics and historians-a de­ bate far too complex to dwell on here. clearly, non-musicians have plenty of valid contributions to make. however, books like kruth's suggest that for jazz biographers, at least, prevailing expectations of musical knowledge are too low. in a typical example, kruth's complete definition of ornette coleman's "harmolodics" theory is: "a recipe of one-part harmony, one-part motion and one-part melody" (90). biographers with more of a musical background can take extended breaks from the life chronology to explore ongoing musical themes in es­ sayistic form. for kirk, here are just a few of the recurring musical issues which kruth might have developed in depth: kirk as "simultaneously a futurist and a traditionalist"; the contention that kirk should have surrounded himself with equally capable musicians to remain challenged and focused; kirk's strengths and limitations as a composer; grover washington, jr.'s comment that kirk's concerts were like a "communion or a religious service"; the question of taste, and whether kirk's borrow­ ings from funk, rock, and psychedelia have held up well; producer joel evan spring 449 dorn's imprint on kirk's later lps; andy statman's comment that "his per­ sonality got in the way of his artistic vision. he cast himself in an adversar­ ial position. he tried to out-avant-garde the avant-garde ... coltrane had a clear vision, as did albert ayler. i'm not sure what his vision was"; and another statman critique: musically kirk was disciplined. he really worked his butt off. rahsaan was an amazing improviser. he was a colorful showman but it was often detrimental to the music. you didn't see anything like it in ellington's band. two guys playing the saxophone sound better than one guy playing two or three horns at once. (124) this is a critical issue, but kruth can only respond with platitudes, such as "rahsaan tirelessly jumped whatever hurdle life threw him on his endless quest to express himself" (124-25). a similar catalogue of missed opportunities could be assembled for gene santoro's biography of charles mingus (1922-1979), the masterful bassist and gargantuan personality. mingus is usually ranked among the greatest composers and bandleaders in jazz history. santoro, however, is inspired less by jazz than by the beat poets, whose adventures we are con­ stantly apprised of. unsuspecting readers will get the impression that mingus,jack kerouac, allen ginsberg, and timothy leary formed a close­ knit salon. terms like "the system" and "the man" appear without irony. santoro's prose style is so affected that the reader is on constant alert for historical license. among his writerly conceits are banal, folksy platitudes -"creativity isn't necessarily straightforward in its dealings with the world" (ix); "nobody, not even a genius, is 100 percent right" (7); or "part of what culture does is create ideals, goals, and aspirations, the glue that binds society" (61)-and portentous, melodramatic one-sentence para­ graphs: "he was a romantic" (39); "nobody thought quite like he did" (99); "he stood on the cusp of greatness" (119); "the die was cast" (213); "they fell quickly into torrid love" (222). the line "mingus was feeling the zeitgeist again" is repeated at least ten times throughout the book, with minor variations. in santoro's excitable narrative, everyone becomes a character; one person is introduced as "straight out of goodfellas" (95). ideas are con­ stantly forced into other people's heads: for charlie parker, "heroin was a self-destructive way of saying fuck you" (72). santoro also makes the common mistake of assuming jazz musicians approach "standards" with snickering condescension: for bop's imitators, this was a way to make art from american pop the way bartok made compositions from hungarian gypsy melodies 450 current musicology -an ironic blues inversion. it was payback. you made the man's hit tunes vehicles for your voice. it was what happened to the slavemas­ ters' hymns. (88) other passages read like a film noir voice over: most jazz clubs in new york dealt with the mafia. they had to. prohibition had made the mob booze overlords, and they'd never fully let go, police monitoring or no. anyway, jazz had always been surrounded by gangsters and pimps and whores, and even its stars walked the edges of respectability. who but other outcasts would deal with blacks? for a lucrative cash flow, the mob supplied them with drugs and booze and records, and numbers to play, and places to score and hear music. (95) santoro also naively trots out conspiracy theories about jfk's assassina­ tion, and says the killing of malcolm x by black muslims was "never proved" (245). of mingus's childhood, santoro writes: "then there were the boys at school, who called him names and left him out of recess games and stole his lunch almost every day. they inspired only dreams of revenge" (21). this is fable writing, not history. santoro might not even object to the charge. if, as santoro claims, mingus's "whole life was a series of parables waiting for explication and music" (159), and mingus "liked his history to be mythic" (133), then perhaps mingus is best conjured and illuminated by a biographer who can appropriate his worldview and artistic methods. unfortunately for santoro, biography as mythic parable is very hard to pull off, especially with a subject still so viscerally amongus. parables generally conform to an overall dramatic arc. so when santoro says mingus in the mid-sixties "was on top of the world" (241), without quoting mingus to this effect, we suspect we've reached that point two­ thirds of the way through the book, where our hero has reached a height from which he must fall. in the final chapters, santoro continuously re­ peats the sentence "he [mingus] was closing circles everywhere," when in fact the author is closing circles everywhere. santoro's portrayal of mingus is often admirably frank: "multiracial by birth, black in america, mingus fought for recognition and belittled racial copouts. but he also knew how to mau-mau the flak-catchers: he could in­ ject race into any situation to try to fix it so he came out the aggrieved party" (7). unfortunately, santoro's fanciful projections take over. initially, he promises not to write a mingus "psycho biography," but soon comes around, with observations such as: "women were his muses. they distracted him from the magnetic gaze of his own death" (45). mingus is overly cast in the language of primal essence; terms like "soul" and "core evan spring 451 of his being" pop up constantly. mingus becomes a force of nature-"he was constantly giving off vibes, like the san andreas fault" (268)-or a sonic shaman: "everything in his life was an instant cosmic metaphor" (7). by dwelling on mingus's "dionysiac" side, santoro neglects the apollonian virtues of his music-form, balance, poise, discipline, and classic beauty­ especially in his orchestral masterpiece, the black saint and the sinner lady. santoro also pushes some rather severe revisionism in his subject's favor, implying mingus was the uncredited originator of cannonball adderley's "soul jazz," miles davis's "modal" concept for kind of blue, and ornette coleman's "free jazz." as for research methodology, santoro is only somewhat more conscien­ tious than kruth. once again quotations are not properly attributed or verified. historical sources are left untapped-mingus surely had an fbi file, but santoro apparently didn't think to request it under the freedom of information act (kruth also neglected this for kirk). the book is rid­ dled with factual errors, which any proofreader versed in jazz history could have spotted. a musically literate proofreader could have also spared santoro considerable embarrassment. here he almost gets his definitions right: there was pedal point-a bass note extended over measures and chord changes. there was poly tonality-more than one key signa­ ture to a piece. there was striking counterpoint that wound two songs against each other, often ironically. and there was extended form, where measures were added or subtracted (69). but when mingus comments, "[thelonious] monk and i play similar mu­ sic. perhaps it's because we both dug duke at the same time, and the old­ time piano players, and we both like the use of 'pedal points' in composi­ tions" (173), santoro could have traced these musical genealogies for several pages. instead he moves on, in his breathless fashion. kruth and santoro are both identified as musicians on the book jacket, but you have to imagine they were the ones holding the tambourine. eric nisenson's biography of sonny rollins (b. 1930), perhaps the pre­ eminent tenor saxophonist of the late 1950s, reads like an extended maga­ zine article. as mentioned above, journalistic prose can be perfectly appropriate for jazz biography. even if nisenson had given rollins a "blindfold test," or asked him to name his "desert island discs," the results might have been very interesting. this book, however, is simply not rigor­ ous in any respect. even the spelling hits a new low: nisenson mangles poor trumpeter lowell lewis into lewis lowell, louis lowell, and lowell louis, all within two pages (30-31). 452 current musicology today's jazz biographers may feel constrained by the sins of past writ­ ers: the voyeurism, the odd projections onto racial otherness, the sensa­ tionalizing of addiction and criminality. nowadays, these exploitative ten­ dencies are often inverted, resulting in reflexive boosterism or unctuous genuflection, which leaves the "real person" equally obscured. nisenson in particular is far too toadyish. everything rollins says and does is cast in a relentlessly positive light. if rollins currently refuses to listen to anyone else's music, that can only be proof of his artistic integrity. the reader is constantly sifting through nisenson's idealizations: "sonny thinks of him­ self as being just an 'average joe'" (xvi), "sonny has never had the slight­ est interest in being trendy" (162), or "sonny has always been too inde­ pendent a thinker (and not just in terms of his music) to care much about being fashionable" (72). rollins becomes a force of nature, or a benevo­ lent god: "but it is his eyes that draw us in; his eyes are sad and wise, an­ cient and compassionate" (2). aesthetic value is measured in terms like "emotional immediacy," "ecstatic joy," and putting one's "soul on the line" -all of which would disqualify an artist like warne marsh from serious contention. nisenson also tries his hand at self-serving revisionism, claim­ ing rollins was the real inspiration for "free jazz." the early 1950s are sim­ plistically characterized as "the cool era," so that rollins can rescue us from it. a certain sense of desperation and futility underlies all descriptive mu­ sic writing, but few writers seem as helpless as nisenson, who hopes to get by on vague, impressionistic commentary and raw enthusiasm. "we almost feel we can touch the notes," "the atmosphere becomes molten," or "the lights dance over his golden saxophone." the principle of "finding your own voice" is blandly rephrased over and over. in a typical instance of con­ fusion, nisenson writes that the rollins composition '''oleo' is based on the chord changes of 'i've got rhythm'; what makes it a fascinating vehi­ cle for improvisation is the arrangement" (62). never mind that the correct title is "i got rhythm"-there is no "arrangement" for the improv­ isations, other than the rhythm section keeping the form. drawing on gunther schuller's famous analysis of rollins's "blue seven" solo on the 1956 lp saxophone colossus (schuller 1958), nisenson tries to develop the concept of "thematic improvisation," defined as "in­ stead of simply ignoring the melody and creating an improvisation based solely on the harmonic structure, the musician improvises with the melody itself as well as with the harmony" (90). this general idea could certainly be tailored to some of rollins's improvisational strategies. however, nisenson slaps the term on any kind of sequential motivic development in a solo, with no distinction as to whether the original motives are embed­ ded in the theme or improvised on the spot. this assessment of rollins's extended composition "the freedom suite" is simply baffling: "sonny had evan spring 453 to be consciously aware of the principles of thematic development in order to have written the suite. he didn't compose this long, complex piece solely through intuition" (127-28). nisenson implicitly admits defeat by quoting sufi writer hazrat inayat khan: "we may certainly see god in all arts and all sciences, but in music alone we see god free from all forms and thoughts ... sound alone is free from form" (53-54). if so, i guess nisenson is offthe hook. nick catalano brings promising credentials to his biography of clifford brown (1930-1956), one of the most dazzling and influential soloists of the 1950s. catalano is a university performing arts director and professor of music and literature at pace university. unfortunately, this only demonstrates that academic titles and musician status are no guarantees against amateurish writing and scholarship. here is a typically slapdash at­ tempt at sociology: "although the atmosphere at home was characterized by the 'yes sir/no sir' form of address joe [clifford's father] required, there was no sense of the repression that occurred in many other cultures of the period. religion, for example, did not induce fear" (20). catalano's overarching thesis is encapsulated in this passage from the in troduction: what brown and [max] roach achieved in their group of the early 1950s was unique. at a time when the art music of the great boppers was being diluted at 'jazz at the philharmonic" blowing sessions de­ signed to excite the appetites of screaming audiences, clifford and max turned elsewhere. drawing upon training that had strong classi­ cal roots, brown had found an unusual jazz colleague-a drummer who listened to stravinsky. the two musicians spent long hours dis­ cussing new concepts of jazz performance that would incorporate many traditions inherent in classical forms. it soon became clear that only in the context of intellectually crafted compositions containing tapestries of exquisite improvisational design could the music achieve the artistic heights brown and roach desired. solos, the rai­ son d'etre for any improvisational virtuoso, had to be economical, serving the needs of the compositional framework rather than the demands of egocentric players or hero-worshipping fans. (xiii) a certain dichotomy emerges here, and solidifies throughout the book. on the bad side are egotism, appetite, unreflectiveness, screaming, dilu­ tion of art, and hero-worship; on the good side, classical traditions and forms, serious discussion about artistic intent, intellectually crafted com­ positions, improvisational design, and economical solos. these good qual­ ities seem to be inspired by classical music, even though all can easily be found within the jazz tradition prior to brown's arrival on the scene. as 454 current musicology the book progresses, other positive buzzwords appear: brainy, academic, sophistication, subtlety, understatement, discipline, logic, order, cohesive­ ness, balance, symmetry, etc. of course catalano should be allowed to privilege and defend these virtues, and brown is a good foil for doing so. however, catalano's critical preferences are often wrapped in the mantle of historical necessity, or crudely projected onto brown himself. assessing a 1954 jam session recording, catalano writes: despite the artistry of brown and roach in this session, the sheer length of the pieces removes any feeling of drama or subtlety. the long jam session is directly opposed to the kind of music that brown and roach wanted to play, so they were very uncomfortable on the date. the session goes right for the gut without pausing at the brain. (128) no evidence is cited indicating that brown or roach felt long jam sessions were "directly opposed" to their artistic goals. two pages later, brown's wife reports that clifford was thrilled and humbled to be asked to partici­ pate in ajam session with clark terry and mr. "right for the gut" himself, maynard ferguson. once again, an editor somewhere is not upholding basic standards of historical authentication. catalano quotes some critical plaudits for brown, noting "such extravagant praise was rare from critics such as [ira] citler and leonard feather" (69). flip to the endnote, and you discover the plaudits were taken from liner notes, where "extravagant praise" is not exactly rare. more practiced historians might also have avoided imposing contemporary perspectives on historical figures. when catalano writes, "in 1948 delaware state college was an institution caught in the time warp between old time segregation and the new civil rights struggles" (30), the time warp is in catalano's period scheme, not in the minds of delaware state college students. again, we see exaggerated claims for the subject's musical influence. brown is portrayed as the real pioneer of "modal jazz," a style usually cred­ ited largely to trumpeter miles davis. catalano, who continually picks on miles, also asserts: "what was happening with brown-roach was infinitely more interesting to sonny [rollins] than his work with miles davis ... during his time with miles davis, he had languished, feeling unchallenged by miles" (166-67). "infinitely more interesting" is quite a claim, but catalano offers no evidence. catalano's musical proficiency is sometimes put to good use. he can truly appreciate, for example, how brown adapts to a last-minute key change during a recording session. catalano also knows musicians' shop talk, and the physical challenges of trumpet playing. an educator himself, he includes good detail on brown's pedagogical training and practice evan spring 455 techniques. however, catalano is not good at describing music, especially to the layman. terms such as "the release," "subtoned," and "turnback se­ quence" are dropped without explanation or glossary. musically untrained readers, making an honest effort to follow along, deserve more than "they proceed from eights to fours to twos and then ones" (127) or "he reconstructs the head rhythm" (129). for each of brown's recordings, catalano's tune-by-tune commentary reads like mumblings into a dictation machine, in preparation for a future attempt to write liner notes. phrases such as "premeditated spontaneity" or "countermelodic approach to improvisation" appear unceremoniously, without further elaboration. often, catalano will note simply that brown's solo had content-"the arrangement reflects some new thoughts, even though brown has not quite fully developed them yet" (90)-and then flip to the next track, as if his job is done. his most absurd dodge is to ca­ sually pass work off to "scholars," as if no one should expect him to be one. brown's cover of "donna lee," catalano writes, "has been the subject of much scholarly analysis-that he had created a new improvisational standard is the consensus opinion" (159). on to the next track. or an unissued live recording "will certainly evoke much discussion" if it's re­ leased. leading this discussion is left to brown's next biographer. the book includes one page of music notation, a transcription of short exchanges between brown and tenor saxophonist harold land on blues changes. surely, catalano could analyze at least one complete solo tran­ scription, since he repeatedly emphasizes how perfectly designed brown's solos are. catalano also likes to point out where brown repeats licks from previous solos, and notation could have been used to illustrate the evolu­ tion of brown's working vocabulary. such omissions from an already short book suggest that publishers think the very sight of music notation scares off book buyers. sad to say, the publishers are probably right. of the six authors represented here, linda dahl is best able to recreate the broader environment in which her subject lived and worked. this is especially welcome in the first biography of mary lou williams (1910-1981), who is arguably the most accomplished female pianist and composer­ arranger in jazz history. dahl is a meticulous and sound researcher, with a flair for tangential detail (e.g., whether a club employing williams admit­ ted unescorted female patrons to the late show). dahl also unearthed all kinds of fascinating documentary material, including wage and royalty fig­ ures, other contractual details, and correspondence with friends, lovers, agents, and the musicians' union. dahl's historical analysis is not without occasional missteps or over­ reaching. as with the four books above, too much can be inferred from incomplete evidence-dahl cannot be certain that williams "never tried 456 current musicology heroin" (185), or that she never told "anyone else what had happened to her" (75) after a gruesome encounter with a pervert. here the narrative veers into uncharacteristic dramatic license: "aboard the queen elizabeth, ... [williams] must have felt a great sense of relief as the liner pulled away from shore. how bracing the sea air must have been-breathed alone, in the blessed quiet that feeds an introvert's soul" (223). for all dahl knows, williams was schmoozing happily in the pool. drawing a breath and gaz­ ing inward are the needs of dahl's storyline, projected onto the subject, as dahl enters into the tale of williams's religious awakening. when dahl writes "the pit band, with the awful name of 'the chocolateers'" (157), she is too anxious to display current racial sensitivities, obscuring how such a name was construed in its own time. dahl handles the gender implications of williams's career judiciously, but gets in her own way somewhat, when she stresses "the whole dilemma for women artists who must perform not as women but as men in order to be taken seriously" (77). the problem is that alternative norms for playing jazz "as women" have not been clearly established, and williams herself never expressed interest in developing any. dahl can only offer a brief de­ tour into piano technique, noting that williams learned to relax properly and generate a strong sound through "balance points" rather than "brute strength." but this is simply good technique for any pianist, male or female. oddly, dahl never mentions a song called "the lady who swings the band," a tribute to williams written by sammy cahn and saul chaplin and recorded by andy kirk's orchestra in 1936, with vocals by harry mills: in kansas city there's a pretty gal named mary lou and she plays the piano ["pianuh"] in a manner ["mannuh"] that is ultra-new here oflate she's playin' with the band let me tell you of this baby at the baby grand when you hear a hot trombone, who's the power behind the moan? [piano fill] it's the lady who swings the band when you hear the saxes drive, who's the reason why they glide? [piano fill] it's the lady who swings the band when the rhythm section gives you action the lady at the keys is the main attraction who makes dancers on the floor beat their feet and yell for more? [piano fill] it's the lady who swings the band [various solos and ensemble pas­ sages, plus the band sings in unison: "she's the lady who swings the band"] now we've introduced you to kansas city mary lou [piano fill] she's the lady who swings the [brass fill] she's the lady who swings the [reeds fill] she's the lady who swings the band she's the lady who swings the band evan spring 457 dahl might have used this lyric to illustrate how williams was pressured to "out-male" the males. yet the words also seem to convey sincere respect for her musical abilities, as well as certain advantages to being female in such a male-dominated art form. dahl consistently refers to her subject as "mary," which raises the issue of first-name usage, a pervasive practice amongjazz fans and writers. in my opinion, calling musicians by first name should be a matter of context and taste, rather than strict rule. the given name "miles," for instance, by now has a respectable, self-contained iconic status, like "michelangelo." dahl should feel free to use "mary," if only to help the reader distinguish her from her first husband john williams. on the other hand, catalano should probably not refer to "quincy [jones]," or nisenson to 'jackie [mclean]," even if they are on a first-name basis. lack of musical expertise is the major flaw in dahl's otherwise solid work. having an orchestral arranger for a subject is especially tough for a non-musician. for williams's intricate 1936 arrangement of "walkin' and swingin'," dahl observes that the band "loved the second chorus, a witty, winding 8-bar road of melody" (94). never mind that the chorus is actu­ ally 32 bars-"road of melody" is simply inadequate for what might be williams's best arrangement for andy kirk's orchestra. dahl compensates for her inexperience by remaining focused on the music, and relaying good information from other sources. often she defers to better-trained scholars, quoting them at length before adding a graceful touch of her own. at other times, she quotes incompetent critics without knowing the difference. safford chamberlain, meanwhile, has demonstrated that musical knowledge can elevate one jazz biography above the majority. his subject is warne marsh (1927-1987), the reclusive and underappreciated tenor saxophonist, whom new yorker critic whitney balliett called "one of the most original and daringjazz improvisers alive" (1986:381). chamberlain played a few instruments as a teenager, then gave them all up to teach writing, english, and american literature. at age 45, he de­ cided to study tenor saxophone seriously, and took some lessons with marsh. readers may find the following passage from chamberlain's book excellent, or merely good. in any case, it's a better description of the 458 current musicology subject's music than anything written in the other five biographies under consideration. the passage is also accessible to the layman without conde­ scending to the specialist. something of the same hermetic flavor can be found in marsh's playing, especially in that most personal aspect of a jazz player's ex­ pression, his tone. most players strive for a more or less convention­ ally attractive tone. they know that their adherence to generally ac­ cepted standards of tone will sustain them when inspiration fails, will please the audience even when the notes they play are ordinary. warne marsh refused to rely on a conventionally "pretty" tone as a substitute for ideas. as his frequent colleague lee konitz said, tone for marsh was a function of the depth of his inspiration at any partic­ ular moment. he was committed to the process of improvisation, and tone was an aspect of that process. he did not start with what his instrument would let him do and work within that, as one imagines players with consistently pleasing tone like zoot sims or ben webster or stan getz did. sound, like everything else, came from within, and in the moment. there is, of course, an intensely personal substratum through all the variations that is constant, and that one can acquire a taste for, a sound that is extremely distinctive but somewhat odd. as one listener said, it is as though the sound is not happening in the horn but in marsh's head. another characterized him as a kind of ventriloquist, with the sound seeming to come from another part of the room. he could sound, as on the 1983 a ballad album, as accessi­ ble and pretty as getz, or he could sound harsh and aggressive, as on the records made on his first european tour in 1975-76. or he could, as in his late duos with bassist red mitchell or with his quintet of 1956-57, strike a highly idiosyncratic balance between acerbity and warmth that many find thrilling. but when one enters the circle of warne marsh admirers, one must make room for a unique, at times almost perverse tonal conception quite different from that of other great tenor players. frequently marsh seems to have deliber­ ately sacrificed tonal appeal in order to force the listener to focus on the energy of his ideas . . . he will sometimes find only an abstract skeleton of the tune, and little of himself except the fierce integrity that says, "if! find nothing, i will play nothing." (10-11) some of chamberlain's technical passages will put off general readers. other passages, however, are explained very well to readers with rudi­ mentary music literacy-as in this comparison between marsh and his colleague, the alto saxophonist art pepper: evan spring 459 marsh's and pepper's rhythmic differences, also quite noticeable, provide a fascinating contrast. pepper's characteristically buoyant, dancing time-feel appears to be achieved by sometimes playing the eighth notes almost classically even, sometimes just a hair behind the beat, and by tonguing them separately, with fairly uniform accents. marsh, on the other hand, "swings" his eighth notes more radically, in a long-short manner, at the same time establishing an accentual pattern that is usually heavier on beats one and three, but on which he plays variations that sometimes seem to "turn the time around." (113) many other musical issues receive the extended treatment they deserve: marsh's position, or anomalous standing, within the jazz tenor saxophone lineage; what "playing across the bar lines" actually means for marsh; why marsh stuck with certain standard repertoire; how marsh's intonation problems were related to faulty reeds; how marsh's embouchure deviated from standard pedagogy; and the aesthetic philosophy of marsh's teacher and guru, the blind pianist lennie tristano. chamberlain is not afraid to stress how tristano's theories could veer into dogma, or how tristano could psychologically exploit and debilitate his students. at the same time, chamberlain understands tristano's musical achievements, and skillfully dismantles the stereotype of his music being overly cerebral and stiff. describing a particularly affectless marsh solo, chamberlain writes: "if one finds an added interest, it lies in the very lack of emotion, as if something this intellectually correct, this well executed, must contain somewhere the emotion that it withholds" (75). this observation did not require musical training-only chamberlain's keen sensitivity to the lis­ tening experience. chamberlain is the only author here to include notated music exam­ ples or solo transcriptions (with the partial exception of catalano, noted above). chamberlain includes seven complete solo transcriptions, each followed by a written analysis. four transcriptions and four analyses were contributed by other musicians, including two of marsh's colleagues, saxo­ phonists ted brown and gary foster. perhaps more jazz biographies should become collaborative efforts, like the music itself. the transcriptions and analyses have several minor faults. chamber­ lain's own transcriptions occasionally omit notes, or indicate rests where none exist. sometimes the transcriptions are overly restricted to notes, with­ out enough ties, swoops, accents, breath marks, or symbols for characteristic gestures and timbral effects. arrows could have been used to indicate notes played sharp, flat, ahead of, or behind the beat. in one of the transcribed solos-a 1980 recording of the ballad "body and soul"-marsh plays so far 460 current musicology behind the beat that his notes actually fall as much as a quarter-note apart from where they "should" be. the transcription, however, places the notes as if they were all played "on time," thus presenting a kind of auditory mirage rather than the actual rhythmic placement of the notes. chamberlain does include the following disclaimer: "there are times here when marsh plays so far behind the beat that it is difficult to hear where the downbeats fall. no attempt has been made to notate this 'lag-along' characteristic on the page" (226). the analysis, however, fails to appreciate the fascinating ways in which marsh seems to deliberately exploit this rhythmic "double vision." the interactive elements of jazz improvisation are also underplayed, as if marsh's solos are purely self-contained. rhythm section accompaniment is barely mentioned in the analyses, and never transcribed. despite these drawbacks, however, chamberlain has clearly demonstrated that transcrip­ tion and solo analysis are essential tools for understanding the art of improvisation from a practitioner's perspective. in short, chamberlain, for specialists and laypersons alike, has done a very good job of making us better listeners. depressingly, only a specialty publisher (scarecrow press), with poor distribution and exorbitant hard­ cover prices, has met this basic requirement of a musical biography. at the very least, all these books are valuable repositories of personal testimony. nisenson enjoyed the full participation of sonny rollins, whose perceptive, candid, and self-analytical remarks are quoted at length, even when he and nisenson disagree. this alone will be treasured in the long term. santoro has assembled an extensive and well-chosen collection of interview material. mary lou williams was an eloquent and prolific mem­ oirist, and dahl knows when to let her subject tell her own story. maybe williams's memoirs will now be published on their own. merely collecting stories between two covers is a service, and what sto­ ries! clifford brown sneaks out of his paris hotel room to record his own group, unbeknownst to his employer, lionel hampton (78-79). sonny rollins finds a late-night practice spot on new york's williamsburg bridge (145-46). warne marsh tells a stunned composition department at a norwegian academy, "schoenberg was probably the worst crock of them all, because he was the first composer that managed to write music to death" (253). mary lou williams lobbies the roman vicariate to commis­ sion ajazz mass (304-6). charles mingus writes to j. edgar hoover after being evicted from his manhattan apartment-as mingus explains, "i've always written him. if anything goes wrong, i wanna tell all the fellas, all the white folks, i'm trying to be a good boy ... i'm all for the fbi. basically, i'm a cop. all kids are" (262). rahsaan roland kirk composes a evan spring 461 mambo in his first encounter with touch-tone phones, eats money on stage to rile a cheap club owner, disrupts the merv griffin show to protest the dearth of jazz on commercial television, holds a note on the saxo­ phone for two hours and twenty-one minutes, almost without pause (while officials from the guinness book of world records are preoccupied with a pie-eating contest), and gets arrested in cleveland for boarding a plane with a ceremonial dagger and a tear gas pistol-"they held me two days in akron before they decided to let me go. if i had been able to lay my hands on my tenor sax, adjust the mouthpiece, and playa couple of choruses of 'lizajane' or 'prelude to a kiss' or maybe thelonious' 'round midnight,' even an fbi man would've seen that this blind, black musician ain't gonna hijack no airplane" (153). it may seem like idolatry or gossip-mongering -i.e., "fandom"-but we jazz enthusiasts are interested to know mingus and williams both loved horror movies, brown and marsh both excelled in chess and scrabble, kirk loved dionne warwick records, and mingus loved all in the family. in the end, we need not fear for the future appreciation of these glori­ ous artists, whose presence and stature somehow emerge intact. the music itself-telling its own story-will remain the primary link to new generations of listeners and biographers. fandom may threaten to devour its objects. but surely rahsaan roland kirk, even from the grave, has out­ witted his first biographer: y'know music is a beautiful thing! when i'm reincarnated i'm gonna come back as a musical note! that way can't nobody capture me. they can use the hell out of me but ain't nothin' too much they can do to me. they can mess me up. they can play the wrong note. they can playa c but they can't really destroy a c. all it is, is a tone. so i'm gonna come back as a note! (374) references balliett, whitney. 1986. american musicians: fifty-six portraits in jazz. new york: oxford university press. porter, lewis. 1998. john coltrane: his life and music. ann arbor: university of michigan press. schuller, gunther. 1958. sonny rollins and the challenge of thematic improvi­ sation. jazz review (november): 6-11. reprinted in musings: the musical worlds of gunther schuller (new york: oxford university press, 1986), 86--97. fox, aaron. 2004. real country: music and language in working-class culture. durham, nc: duke university press. reviewed by david sanjek one of the principal tools for acquiring and maintaining cachet in the so­ cial commonwealth of the barroom or roadhouse springs from a person's capacity to tell a story, and the more humorous or idiosyncratic the better. ethnographic efforts to convey the ethos of just such an environment and means of communication often, sadly, sap the life out of this kind of infor­ mal discourse and render routine what would otherwise be irregular and idiosyncratic. aaron fox's real country: music and language in working­ class culture constitutes one of those rare occasions when conjuring up a world most readers, certainly those from the academic domain, rarely en­ counter does not compromise either its citizens or their self-determined means of communication. even the form into which fox lays out his transcriptions of their con­ versations toys purposefully with the conventions of the written record. he employs typographical tools and spacing on the blank page in order to con­ vey stresses, pauses, elisions, and overlaps so as not to lose that "high-in­ volvement style" that gives this dialogue its funkiness and flavor (xiv). in the following passage, miss ann roose-a divorced military wife, mother of three, committed country music fan, and legendary saloonkeeper in the outskirts of austin, texas-recounts the familiar trope of the rural naif col­ liding with the complexities of urban sophistication: you heard the story 'bout this guy this hilly that went up north you know and went into this high class restaurant ... and he was boy he was puttin' on the dog thing he was really rich [confidentially 1 course he was just a country picker didn't know too much and he was talkin' 'bout how good he was and how honest he was as he was walkin' out of the restaurant he picked up the toothpick picked his teeth current musicology, no. 78 (fall 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 105 106 current musicology and put it back in there and he says, "y'know, i'll bet there's a lot of people stealin' these things!" (102) to this, the book's author responds affirmatively, "old country!:' as a means of conveying how a wealth of social practice and cultural praxis lies embed­ ded in what superficially comes across as the absentmindedness of a down home dimwit. the comic trope of the rural rube alienated from the customs and con­ cepts of urban life litters the repertoire of several generations of country comedians. whether groundbreaking figures like rod brasfield and minnie pearl, who shook the rafters of the ryman auditorium, or more contempo­ rary sketch artists like archie campbell or junior samples featured on hee haw, their punchlines pivoted on the collision between naive protagonists and worldly-wise interlocutors. miss ann's anecdote, however, amounts to much more than another cornpone kneeslapper. what resonates through­ out this exchange is how it epitomizes the manner in which abstract con­ cepts can come in many packages, sometimes disguised as colloquial chit­ chat. moreover, the vehicle of the joke permits the participants to debate about behavior and beliefs they hold close to their hearts, while the author's rejoinder reinforces how the central expressive medium in their lives, coun­ try music, can separate the real from the ersatz. that conundrum of what distinguishes the true-to-life and the artifi­ cial has plagued the scholarship, as well as the informal social discourse, attached to country music-if not popular music altogether-for quite some time. in the recent collection a boy named sue: gender and country music, i contributed an introductory essay that attempts to draw attention to the fact that "whenever we overlook the complexity and contradiction in co un try music, we simply encourage the desire joli jensen eloquently dubs 'pu­ rity by proxy' -the insistence that 'other people and forms manifest and maintain virtue for us'" (200s:xv). we do not clarify anything about the subject when we attempt to make sense of it by demonizing that which we dislike, or by conveniently overlooking considerations that do not yield easy answers. what distinguishes aaron fox's challenging and commandingly constructed real county is that he tackles this disorienting state of affairs by tackling head-on the very consumers of country music, examining the way in which a particular subgroup of fans use the genre to make sense not only of what is "true" and "false," but also to make sense of their lives. aaron fox's intellectually engaging and elegantly composed study of this environment and its habitues possesses a profoundly humanistic di­ mension in that it grants dignity and complexity to a body of overlooked individuals too often tarnished with the denigrating stereotype of "whitedavid sanjek trash." academic literature that investigates everyday behavior of ordinary individuals typically loses something of the human pulse in the process, despite the best intentions of the author. by contrast, fox never denies his subjects their full range of expression. he may concentrate on transcribing empirical evidence yet, at same time, fox successfully manages to incorpo­ rate all the messy drama of daily life so as not to suffocate the activity under examination or discourage its productive agitation. as a consequence, real country pulses with the dense detail and narrative momentum of a well­ paced novel. we turn its pages as much anticipating the revelation of an­ other aspect of its characters' consciousnesses as much as we anticipate the theoretical implications that can be drawn from that evidence. fox's organization of the rich body of observation and assessment con­ tained in real country guides the reader in a clear and thoughtful manner. after introducing his setting, cast of characters, and set of theoretical ques­ tions in the first two chapters, he tackles the modes through which this community articulates space, subjectivity, and the stereotype of the coun­ try rube in his third and fourth chapters: "out the country" and "the fool in the mirror." the fifth chapter, '''feeling' and 'relating;" takes up the tricky matter of affectivity, how the "feeling" embodied in a country song conveys significant matters through allusions to memory, emotionalism, and the groove created by a collection of musicians. as fox observes, 'feeling' infuses sociable relationships between musicians and listeners, and among listeners themselves, refining intense affects of nostalgia and loss. 'feeling' is, ultimately, essential for the production and curating of social memory. in this sense, 'feeling' is a quality that transcends lexicalization and abstract recognition. (188) subsequently, in "bring me up in a beer joint," the author tackles with greater specificity the actual repertoire performed by these individuals and how the textures of speech and song interfuse and intersect. the next chap­ ter, "the women take care of that;' addresses the gender dynamics of both the country genre and its fans, how the material often allows for critique in what is customarily assumed to be a thoroughly misogynistic arena. "the art of singing" focuses on the performative dimension of this setting, the ways in which country performers "routinely produce intonationally height­ ened 'speech' that is metrically closer to the rhythm of 'ordinary' talk, with in the boundaries of song performances" (274). he concludes with "i hang my head and cry," emphasizing that the more a musical performance em­ bodies the social complexity of its performer, the more "authentic" it will be. in other words, "knowing all the words did not mean knowing a song. the right words had to be saturated with the sweat and specificity of a par107 108 current musicology ticular body, a particular life, and a particular voice" (315). throughout this compelling and often superbly written commentary, real country stretches our intellectual muscles, staking out a body of inno­ vative tools for making sense of some crucial, and often fuzzy, concepts, like "authenticity" or "community" that get tossed about willy-nilly by fans of country music in particular (though the notions preoccupy aficionados of virtually all forms of popular culture). fox accomplishes this act of concep­ tual resuscitation in part by examining how seemingly random and uncon­ sidered banter conveys a significant quotient of sophistication. at its core, real country endeavors therefore to unpack the extensive and allusive mean­ ings of "voice," and all that notion conveys whether sung, spoken, or spit out without aiming to convey any particular meaning whatsoever. he writes, for working-class texans, the voice is a privileged medium for the con­ struction of meaning and identity and thus for the production of a dis­ tinction "class culture:' song and singing comprise the expressive apo­ theosis of this valued vocality, and song, in turn, is locally understood as a consciously elaborated discourse about (the) voice. (20) what fox therefore attaches his considerable powers of compassion and intellect upon is "the cultural life of sound" as the active agent generating "voice" (x). the members of miss ann's extended community are not pas­ sive consumers of culture. songs matter to them not only as telling com­ mentaries upon their lives but also as elements in an ever-expanding reper­ toire that they perform with and for one another. that repertoire comes to life and continues to bear resonance among his subjects for "speaking and singing artfully, improvisationally, and with minimal reference to exchange value have remained essential to the social construction of history, identity and sociability for these texans" (20). the principal locale for fox's investigations is the town of lockhart, texas, located on the outskirts of austin, where he did his graduate studies. over the course of his research, lockhart was slowly becoming assimilated by the suburbanization of the capital city, for the area's population growth at the time ranked amongst the fastest-growing in the country. in the 1990s, when fox established his alliances, lockhart was losing many of its rural associations while its working-class constituency increasingly gave way to an influx of the middle-class. its surrounding county, caldwell, possessed a deceptively low population density-roughly 25,000 residents in 544 square miles-for more than 50 percent resided in just two towns, lockhart and luling. roughly three-quarters of the county was classified as farmland, with average individual residences ranging between 200 and 300 acres and earning less than $20,000 a year. as a consequence, few residents survived david sanjek on that income alone, one of an array of factors eroding the region's pasto­ ral veneer. nearly 30% of all persons and 38% of all children barely sur­ vived below the federal poverty line. during the time of fox's involvement, crime increased, educational standing tenuously held its own, and more than a quarter of the county's residents lacked health insurance. roughly two-thirds of the population was dubbed "white," the remaining individu­ als being predominantly hispanic. racial violence remained sporadic or inconsequential, though the small number oflocal african americans pos­ sessed the least political power and the greatest degree of poverty of any single segment of the region (65-73). the locus of community identity and the focal point of the residents' "tightly valued, deeply personal sociality" for many years had been miss ann's place, formerly called the little bottle; when she retired in 1994, the moveable feast transferred to the garage and show place run by larry "hoppy" hopkins (73). becoming a valued member and active participant in these spheres permitted fox to ground his investigations in a determined locale with a more or less consistent population. that group was unified by an indefatigable allegiance to what barbara ching has dubbed "hard coun­ try": the repertoire performed by such icons as george jones, merle hag­ gard, johnny cash, patsy cline, dolly parton, and loretta lynn (ching 2000). what marked the population of these two establishments was also the fact that they remained active, not passive consumers of commercial culture­ learning their material of choice by heart and performing it with and for one another. many of the dialogues fox transposes take place as guitars are strummed, harmonies ironed out, and precious lyrics recalled from memory as, once again, this circle of peers, parents, and progeny take up the music that amplifies their lives. by choosing this kind of performance-centered social sample, fox separates himself from the ample literature that focuses on the articulation of identity through consumption alone (fiske 1989; lewis 1992) and allies himself instead with works such as ruth finnegan's study of british amateur and part -time professional musicians (1989) and barry shank's analysis of the professional music community of austin, texas (1994). fox immerses himself within the social sphere of lockhart and the ex­ tended family that established a collective residence at miss ann's and hoppy's. his goal was to address important questions about the social prac­ tices surrounding country music: how were working-class fandom, musical consumption, and local appro­ priation actually socially practiced? what creative possibilities for subjec­ tive identification and agency emerged from the mediated encounter be­ tween song and social practice? what roles were played in this encounter 109 110 current musicology by the voice, by conventions of musical and verbal and danced perfor­ mance and by musical metadiscourse-discourse about music? (48) what particularly impresses me about the manner in which fox answers these and other inquiries comes down to the degree to which he trusts that the answers would come cloaked in language and assumptions that others could consider vacuous or incoherent and enunciated by individuals that could be dismissed as inarticulate or insufficiently self-conscious. instead, he remained convinced that "you lived for people in stories of the crazy and the idiosyncratic and artful things you did which carried the reciprocal ob­ ligation to tell stories of the crazy and idiosyncratic and artful things that other people did" (11). he recognizes as well the necessary and inevitable oscillations between proximity and distance, articulation and incoherence that mediate their lives. these shifts arise not only because of fox's contrary roles of participant and analyst, but also because of the way his subjects convey and withhold emotion and understandings. he writes, this shifting between depth and distance was the rhythm of so many of my relationships with country people, but i was coming to understand that it was a working-class way of managing 'feeling' that was sublimely and adoptively rooted in a cultural dialectic of intensity and commitment. (14) fox's willingness to understand and bridge gaps that could prove lethal for anyone who adopts a condescending posture remind one that, at a moment in our social history when citizens divide themselves on the basis of ideo­ logical commitments so razor sharp that even simple encounters amount to bleeding, the emotional openness fox strove to embody illustrates a kind of empathetic democracy that our society sorely requires. the other compelling dynamic at work in fox's analysis reflects his com­ plex comprehension of the phenomenon of music as a commercial com­ modity and the fraught relationship between the marketed artifact and the consumer's hankering about authenticity. at first, one gets the uncomfort­ able impression that fox wants to erect an indissoluble boundary between "genres of popular music as fields of production and consumption" and "genres of popular music as fields of popular practice mediated primarily by ritualized forms of intimate social interaction" (30). however, as he en­ gages his subjects in dialogue, he recognizes that when they deliberately and energetically distinguish between performers (particularly denigrating most slick contemporary country artists), they emotionally and conceptually transfer their engagement in the cash nexus into an exchange between feldavid sanjek low citizens. recordings they admire validate an "intense personalization of the performer/audience relationship in memory" so that they can conceive "the figure of the singer or a metaphoric old friend or lover" (174). this leads inevitably to a social dynamic of emotional and aesthetic exchange that lies at the heart of their "vision of perfection: a live performance in a timeless utopian beer joint" (150). an "authentic" performance and a genu­ ine interpersonal encounter therefore occurs when someone outside their customary sphere of reference, such as fox himself when he first entered the doors of these establishments, validates their role in this universe by "talkin' shit" during their performance of a country song, allowing the cre­ ative exchange of musical performance to solidify their incorporation in a complex, and initially inhibiting, arena. some theoretically-inclined individuals may denigrate this formulation as an overly personalized and, therefore, facile approach to creative exchange. yet the dynamic gets to the heart of fox's very project: the effort to locate the affective investment that motivates much everyday speech and the con­ sumption of popular culture. the pursuit of the genuine possesses for fox and his subjects both a formal dynamics as well as an interpersonal pen­ etration of the barriers of race, class and creed. "'real' country;' fox writes, "had to face both inward towards conventions of musical style and outward toward the deep relationships that music constructed, and to face both ways in the same artful moment" (17). that said, it should be added that fox chooses not to focus as much on the element of race in that definition as some would wish. he neither ignores nor dismisses the presence of his­ panic individuals at miss ann's or hoppy's, but as their role in the social spheres he examines was marginal, so too is their part in the definitions laid out in real country. nonetheless, fox's valuable, eminently readable book opens up avenues of inquiry and observation that potentially can take the academic study of popular music into novel and productive directions. those committed to country as a genre, authenticity as an issue, ethnography as a practice or "voice' as a conundrum will benefit from fox's "coronary intervention"-a lovely phrase-into the lives and points of view of the citizens of miss ann's and hoppy's establishments (157). these simple but far from simple-minded citizens of the working class possess skill at "talkin' shit" and constructing home-grown theories that illuminate some of the most vexing and impor­ tant themes in the study of popular music and the people whose lives are enriched by it. 111 112 current musicology references ching, barbara. 2000. wrong's what i do best: hard country music and contemporary cul­ ture. new york: oxford university press. finnegan, ruth. 1989. the hidden musicians: music making in an english town. cambridge: cambridge university press. fiske, john. 1989. reading the popular. new york: routledge. lewis, lisa, ed. 1992. the adoring audience: fan culture and popular media. new york: routledge. sanjek, david. 2005. muddying the clear water: the dubious transparency of country music. in a boy named sue: gender and country music, edited by kristine m. mccusker and diane pecknold, vii-xv. jackson: university of mississippi press. shank, barry. 1994. dissonant identities. the rock 'n' roll scene in austin, texas. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. "you know what i mean?" the pedagogical canon of "cannonball" adderley ryan patrick jones "those who can, do. those who can't, teach." so reads a familiar adage often relayed to prospective teachers. its appeal derives from a curious discon­ nect-namely, that those who teach are compelled to do so by, or even in spite of, incapacity. usually passed along by outsiders, this observation is rarely borne out by practical application in the educational field because the most effective teaching models lead directly by example, relying upon inspiration to make lasting impressions upon students. such was the approach favored by julian "cannonball" adderley (192875), a hard bop alto saxophonist who exemplified a brand of music education rare for a jazz figure of his time and stature. a former music teacher, adderley combined virtuosity, idiosyncratic pre-concert remarks, and a knack for discovering, promoting, and surrounding himself with innovative musicians. throughout much of his career, he demonstrated concern for the future of jazz. he directed and participated in youth concerts, lectured in collegiate demonstrations with his band, and debated fellow artists in forums over the status of jazz and its projected viability. as a band leader, adderley seemed similarly driven to promote musical awareness in his audience. guided by these instructional impulses, his career offers a moving counterexample to cliches affirming the inherent ineptitude of pedagogues. while pedagogy formally unites educational theory with practice, in simpler terms, it refers to the art of teaching. it is the resulting merger of training and the subsequent application of that training, without which, no successful learning scenario can coalesce.! pondering pedagogy can quickly result in a splintering of broader issues. how will the teacher transfer his or her knowledge to students? how can that transfer be measured accurately? which techniques are appropriate to a given student's age, experience, or cultural awareness? which procedures best suit transmission of the subject matter at hand? these are expressly pedagogical concerns-issues with which educators grapple daily, if not hourly. we learn by doing, as educator john dewey believed, and any seasoned teacher knows that one never truly learns something until he or she has confronted the necessary thinking required to teach that something to another learner (dewey [1916]1965). as we will see in each stage of adderley's career, charisma plays a central role in pedagogical success. indeed, the varied, colorful educational experi­ ences of jazz musicians demand that we expand our understanding of pecurrent musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 169 170 current musicology gogy to include a broader, perhaps less traditional, set of relevant learning scenarios under this rubric. in adderley's case, though he left formal teach­ ing early, he nevertheless carried his unique set of pedagogical experiences directly into the world of professional music making-whether participat­ ing in an exchange of ideas with other musicians, leading and managing his own groups, promoting up-and-coming musicians, or interacting with an audience. with its highly improvisatory and adaptive environment, the mid-century jazz scene provided an intriguing, natural parallel to any formal school setting and the young, voracious adderley treated it as such. taking adderley's outlook as its focus, this study explores the variety of ways in which this perspective informed his musicianship, and, vicariously, his audience of learners. citing the words as well as the work of adderley and his collaborators, this article traces the pedagogical strain that wove through his training and professional life in music. from this standpoint, adderley's career assumes a considerably more prominent place within the historiographical jazz landscape of the last half-century than scholars have generally observed.2 though his affability was well known among musicians, enthusiasts, and scholars alike, few have found deeper implica­ tions in this facet of adderley's stage persona. in the context of particular events in his career, i propose that this agreeable disposition bespoke a much broader agenda. more a symptom of his didactic proclivities, adderley's famed joviality functioned as an extension of his long-term pedagogical commitment. indeed, as his career matured and became bound up with the soul jazz movement throughout the 1960s, so too did adderley become increasingly committed to bridging the gap between jazz aficionados and popular music enthusiasts.3 auspicious beginnings: the band teacher from florida born in tampa, florida on september 15, 1928, julian edwin adderley be­ gan studying piano and trumpet in elementary school. "[my parents 1 got me a trumpet when i was in fifth grade," remembered adderley. "i started out immediately trying to play jazz. you know when all kids wanted to be sheriffs, and cops and robbers? well, i wanted to be a jazz musician" (gitler 1959:199).4 adderley's first student was most likely his own brother, trum­ peter nat adderley (1931-2000). as the younger adderley recalled: julian was trying hard to make me into a musician. i thought that read­ ing music was a drag. we had a band where there really wasn't any music, because nobody but julian could read. i thought that the way to do it was to hear what was happening and then just sit down and play it by ear. so julian decided that i had to learn and, when i fought it, he went to the ryan patrick jones old man and said: "pop, i taught nat to play the trumpet, but he refuses to read music." "that was that," declared nat. "i learned" (n. adderley 1960:18).5 a familiar cannonball anecdote details the early pedagogical impact made by his impression oflegendary tenor saxophonist coleman hawkins at a fletcher henderson concert in tampa. reflecting on factors that may ultimately have led him to the saxophone, adderley recalled his youthful reaction to hawkins's own charisma: man, it was a great day for me ... i think he was the most interesting look­ ing jazz musician i've ever seen in my life. he just looked so authoritative. i kept looking at him. i never did look at fletcher. i said, "well, that's what i want to do when i grow up." (hentoff 1975:47)6 by age fourteen-only a year before he left for college-adderley had taken up the alto saxophone.7 because of a hearty appetite, he had also acquired the nickname "cannibal"-the corrupted source for his life-long moniker, "cannonball." in 1944, at the age of fifteen, adderley matriculated at florida agricul­ tural & mechanical college.8 he graduated a bachelor of arts in august 1948 with a major in music and a minor in secondary education. table 1 reproduces the course of study he completed in music and education from 1944 through 1948, including summer sessions. a contemporary scrutiny of adderley's degree program in music registers few discrepancies from the core musicianship training offered by most collegiate institutions today. the complementary dual-semester battery of aural skills, theory, history, and piano at work here is a familiar sequence. (in light of his subsequent teaching applications-as discussed below-note that adderley's keyboard aptitude presumably necessitated that he twice repeat "mus 102 piano.") a reference letter written by his college band director mentions that adderley was "the leader of two woodwind sections and solo clarinetist for the concert band," which partially accounts for one of his six ''applied music" courses.9 this latter role offers rationale for the preponderance of clarinet lessons in adderley's collegiate tenure-includ­ ing an apparent double-dose during his 1946 summer semester. though an early exposure to the clarinet is common for many saxophonists, it is interesting to document here adderley's advanced study with this instru­ ment-one for which he was not even remotely known in his professional recording career. similarly, a glance over adderley's training in education reveals little change in related degree programs over the last sixty years. supplemented 171 172 current musicology table 1: adderley's courses in music and education at florida a & m college, 1944-1948. years 194445 194546 194647 194748 fall mus 101 music appreciation mus 101 piano: preparatory mus 101 sight singing mus 10 1 applied music mus 101 choir mus 201 ear training, sight singing mus 201 harmony mus 201 public school music mus 411 conducting: band mus? applied music ed 318 high school methods: band mus 401 music theory mus 403 applied music mus 403 applied music mus 403 piano mus 405 conducting and arranging ed 307 principles of secondary education ed 320 educational psychology spring summer mus 101 voice mus 102 piano mus 102 sight singing mus 104 music appreciation mus 102 piano mus 102 piano mus 202 ear training, mus 201 applied music sight singing mus 302 clarinet (1) mus 202 harmony mus 302 clarinet (2) mus 202 public school music ed 201 introduction to education mus 292 history mus 302 music theory of music and mus 304 harmony appreciation mus 302 applied music mus 303 harmony mus 404 clarinet ed 512 adolescent mus 406 conducting psychology and arranging mus 406 piano ed 318 high school methods ed 400 student teaching source: adderley's collegiate transcript, florida a & m college, tallahassee, florida, 1944-48. ryan patrick jones by courses like "high school music" and "conducting and arranging," adderley's formal pedagogical exposure was hardly more than a musical variation on the common intermingling of traditional introductory and psy­ chological courses that culminates with a semester of student teaching. the lone course of ''adolescent psychology" completed during adderley's final summer semester surely constituted the ever-elusive, lingering requisite. following graduation, adderley-on the advice of his father, a profes­ sional jazz musician himself-avoided pursuing a performing career and assumed work as a high school music teacher in fort lauderdale (nisenson 2000:114).10 the nineteen-year-old adderley became the band director at dillard high school on september 1, 1948-a position he would hold until the korean war led to service in the us army from 1950 to 1953 (bradley 2005b ).11 following his discharge, adderley resumed teaching at dillard high through early 1956 (bradley 2005a)y dated may 23, 1948, in his own hand, adderley's first teacher appli­ cation to dillard provides some sense of his initial teaching load. listed by order of preference, the high school subjects and grades he wished to teach were "music appreciation;' "government," and "history" alongside "eleventh;' "twelfth;' and "tenth;' respectively. under "fields in which [he was j especially qualified," adderley underscored "chorus;' "glee club," "orchestra;' "music appreciation;' and "band." by the time of his second application with the same school (june 2,1953), adderley declared "band and orchestra" his "field of specialization" and designated only musical areas ("band;' "chorus;' and "school music") among preferred subjects. 13 on both applications, adderley also agrees to sponsor "at least one extra curricular activity" and, curiously, indicates that he cannot play piano. 14 in response to the question "what professional publications do you read regularly?" adderley recorded the etude and the international musician in 1948 and music educators journal and fsta bulletin in 1953.15 adderley's teaching style was warm but disciplined. "he was a no­ nonsense teacher;' recalls family friend james bradley, who graduated from dillard a year before adderley's arrival. "i would come [to j visit the high school and ... i got that from the kids that he taught." an obvious motiva­ tion for adopting this posture lay with adderley's age. "when he started in 1948;' bradley remembers, "he was only nineteen years old. but there were students here [who j were eighteen years old. so there wasn't much difference in their ages. but he didn't mix with them, he was more like a big brother ... but when it came down to doing business with the music, he was no-nonsense." in many ways, this approach must have seemed a survival tactic as the teenage adderley sought to establish roles essential to effective student-teacher relationships. as bradley further characterized 173 174 current musicology this overcompensation, "when it came down to work, it was no play ... he was a humorous type [of] person, but he was still serious too, for his age ... he was a young teacher, but he was always more advanced [than] his age. he acted older than actually what he was. he was more mature" (bradley 2005b). pedagogical maneuvering aside, this maturity had long played a part in adderley's drive and commitment to learning. certainly, adderley's youthful motivation and success as both a college student and a high school teacher are striking. immediately working within an underprivileged school system, he also quickly learned to be resourceful. 16 considering both the instinct and talent that guided his formative experiences with education, it is easy to understand how adderley could so adeptly integrate and espouse a peda­ gogical outlook throughout his professional music career. the compulsion that marked his teenage years helped adderley maintain an unwavering level of commitment to education in many forms and proved an essential component to his lifelong success. in addition to playing in the military during this period, adderley quali­ fied: "i did play in ... some regional and florida bands. also, my school bands had a chance of going out in the summer and doing it. we had a taste of honey, but i never went anywhere like new york or chicago with a band-i never got heard like that" (wilson 1972:12). during the 1954 christmas season, adderley-then twenty-six-finally visited new york city. "i went ... to see [nat] play with the [lionel hampton] band ... i sat in with the band, and hamp offered me a job" (demichael 1962:14). despite yielding a legitimate offer from the elder jazz statesman, adderley's encounter with the jazz capital was cut short. when hampton's offer failed to materialize, adderley quietly returned home to florida. his next trip to new york-only six months later-would prove considerably more eventful. "overnight" success a second and more widely known cannonball anecdote concerns his immediate discovery upon relocating to new york and the success that followed virtually overnight. adderley had enrolled in summer classes at new york university to finish his master's degree and, together with nat, returned to the city in june 1955 (sheridan 2000:xxiv). on their very first night in manhattan, june 19, the adderley brothers entered the cafe bo­ hemia-one of the most popular jazz clubs of the period. renowned bassist oscar pettiford was between sets with his sextet. at the start of the second set, the band's saxophonist, jerome richardson, had inexplicably vanished. spotting adderley's saxophone in the crowd, pettiford presumptively disryan patrick jones figure 1: chord changes for 'tll remember paris" by don raye. gm7 g6 bm 7l>5 f g g7i>9 cm7 f b~m7 gm7 cm7 p7 am7 d7 gm7 g6 fllm7 b7 g pensed another saxophonist, charlie rouse, to borrow it. rouse returned empty-handed claiming that adderley did not lend his horn but would be happy to sit in himself. irritated, pettiford agreed but deliberately counted -off the opening tune, "i'll remember paris;' well above tempo, intending to expose adderley's incompetence. to the astonishment of the bandstand, adderley thrived, tackling the chord changes with ease. figure 1 reproduces the progression for ''i'll remember paris" to provide a sense of this accomplishment. while the chords comprising this tune are standard enough, one must remember that their sequence was initially designed as a ballad. naturally, the average player's ability to react accordingly amid even the most basic of harmonic patterns becomes increasingly inhibited at faster tempi. by the end of the night pettiford had hired adderley. following this incident, the unknown musician gained a reputation that immediately spread throughout the city's jazz community. as he reflects below, adderley undoubtedly recognized the educational primacy of this gigging opportunity over any graduate classroom: i had enrolled in new york university. i never went to class. i sat in at the bohemia on a sunday evening and i was due to go to class on monday, but i said, "i got a job at the bohemia? playing with oscar pettiford and those cats? ummmmph!" that was a dream come true. (demichael 1962:14)17 adderley was playing under pettiford at the bohemia by the following tues­ day, june 21, 1955. justification and consequence for this choice resulted immediately, for adderley cut his first recording under savoy by june 28. his first as leader followed on july 14 (schaap 1987).18 despite his sensational success, adderley was forced to leave new york behind a second time to resume teaching in florida. 19 still, the "cannonball" phenomenon had been unleashed. his second visit to new york had resulted in the biggest splash for any artist in jazz history to date. his third would keep pace with this momentum, marking the next step in adderley's artistic, professional, and pedagogical development-leadership of his own band. 175 176 current musicology cannonball's learning curve "it was a scene getting (julian] back [to new york] again;' wrote nat. "somebody would offer him a job here, but it wouldn't come up to what he was getting in florida. but i sneaked around and worked all kinds of deals to get him to come back. and he did" (n. adderley 1960: 19). back in florida, cannonball busily prepared for a return that would ensure success worthy of the mark he had made during the previous summer months.20 on january 18,1956, he submitted the following letter of resignation to his superintendent: dear mr. phillips: i wish to submit my resignation as band director of dillard high school. this resignation will become effective on february (lst-8th) 1956. i have been given the opportunity of furthering myself professionally in the field of popular music and feel that i should no longer postpone taking this step. i have enjoyed working in broward county, and i appreciate all the co­ operation and encouragement i have received during my stay here. i wish for you and broward county continued success. sincerely yours, julian adderley21 within a year, adderley would be collaborating with many of the leading jazz figures of his day. in hindsight, his formal justification for resignation here-namely, an "opportunity of furthering myself professionally in the field of popular music"-seems an especially poignant understatement. following his recent experiences gigging and recording as a new york professional, adderley assembled a group of local floridian musicians into the first, relatively short-lived, "cannonball" combo:22 i had been in florida after my first trip to new york to finish my teach­ ing assignments. i formed my first band toward the end of 1955. having worked in new york, i was naively-sure that the best florida musicians could meet the challenge of the major club circuit ... we had a few warm­ ups in florida, and then my manager ... booked us in philadelphia. we had rehearsed two-and-a-half weeks. we spent a couple of days in new york before hitting philadelphia, and during that time my florida men heard the new york musicians. "in philadelphia, they also had to cope with the fact that philadelphians like john coltrane and red garland ... were standing around listening;' adderley added (1979:258). "it was soon clear;' he conceded, "that being ryan patrick jones competent in florida had nothing to do with new york competition ... by the second day in philadelphia, [my manager] decided to fire everyone ... i found out that you can't fool anybody in philadelphia" (1979:258,259). a stronger set of sidemen were promptly hired: junior mance, piano; sam jones, bass; and charles "specs" wright, drums.23 from its outset, adderley's first group was also plagued by financial difficulties. in a rare glimpse of the demands placed upon a bandleader, adderley detailed the strains commonly facing any group in this period with specific figures: we were getting about $1,000 a week for five men. out of that came [aj $150 commission for my manager and booking office, $75 in union taxes, a third of which we eventually got back, about $125 in federal withhold­ ing taxes, and maybe another $15 in social security taxes. now we should have deposited the money due the government in a separate account every week. but after a while, we began spending that money because we also had gasoline bills, ... etc. we were paying the sidemen $125 out of which they had to pay their hotel bills. by september of the next year, 1957, although we had been working steadily, we were about $9,000 in debt. ''anyway, we finally broke up that first band," recalled adderley. "after twenty months, we still couldn't get more than $1,000 a week" (1979:259-60). despite careful planning and the knowledge he had gleaned from his brief but educational professional experiences, adderley found himself looking for work once again after only a year back in the northeast. "at that time;' he recounted, "nobody was really making it except for miles [davis], [drummer] chico [hamilton] and [dave] brubeck ... i was opposite miles at the bohemia, told him i was going to join dizzy [gillespie], and miles asked me why i didn't join him. i told him he'd never asked me" (1979:260-61). adderley recalled, "i finally decided to cut loose in october 1957 ... [and] joined miles. i figured i could learn more than with dizzy. not that dizzy isn't a good teacher, but he played more commercially than miles. thank goodness i made the move i did" (1979:261). the miles davis finishing school speaking about two of the many sidemen whose careers were assured under his leadership, miles davis once wrote, "i don't think any group ever had two saxophone players who could compare with cannonball adderley and john coltrane" (1989:49-52). despite the authority of davis's rare commendation, scholarly discussion of adderley's contribution to the legendary davis sextet has, understandably, paled in comparison to that of his tenor counterpart.24 as he had with so many musicians, davis wielded an incomparable influence 177 178 current musicology over adderley during a crucial period in his stylistic development. arguably, this formative experience effected the most significant sway over the course of the young artist's career. when adderley first joined davis in october 1957, he rounded out a quintet with tommy flanagan, piano; paul chambers, bass; and philly joe jones, drums. however, the first recording of adderley under davis (february 4) did not occur until after coltrane had rejoined the group in early 1958-following his brief but significant respite with thelonious monk-and after william "red" garland had replaced flanagan to form the first great miles davis sextet. equipped with exceptional technical facility, adderley possessed a notable aptitude for stylistic adaptability. in concert with his personal investment in music education, this rendered him an ideal davis disciple. according to davis: cannonball caught on quick, just like snapping your fingers, that's how fast he picked things up. he was like a sponge; he just absorbed everything ... once cannonball caught on to what was happening, he was right in there, playing his ass off. he and trane were very different players, but both of them were great. when cannonball first joined the band, everyone liked him right away because he was this big, jovial guy, always laughing and real nice, a gentleman, and smart as they come ... trane would play some weird, great shit, and cannonball would take it in the other direction, and i would put my sound right down the middle or float over it. (1989:222) as this collaboration peaked, adderley's strength lay in his knack for bridging the relative stylistic extremes of davis and coltrane, synthesizing elements of both in his playing while maintaining his own distinctive voice. by the time he emerged from davis's tutelage in late 1959, adderley boasted a more well-rounded improvisatory style and a refined musical sensibility, the latter of which would serve him well as a leader in his own right during the 1960s and 1970s. still, adderley initially resisted certain elements of davis's direction. the trumpeter was, after all, only two years his senior and, unlike adderley, had never taught music in a formal classroom setting. "miles began telling me something musically about chords, but i sort of ignored him. i was a little arrogant in those days:' adderley confessed. "then, about three months later, i saw an interview in which miles had said i could swing but [that] i didn't know much about chords. but by that time i'd begun to listen to sonny rollins and others, and i had realized i knew very little about chords." as adderley would come to realize during his tenure with davis, "you can play all the right changes and still not necessarily say anything" (1979:261). ryan patrick jones stylistically, davis was perhaps best known for his innovative, liberal use of space while improvising. in an era of bebop and hard bop trumpet virtuosos like dizzy gillespie and clifford brown, davis's contemplative approach to soloing demonstrated that a less overtly technical, more lyrical style could prove forward-looking. less was more with davis-a contrast he delighted in as technicians like coltrane and adderley offered natural foils to his sound. "cannonball, you don't have to play all those notes;' miles commanded. "just stay close to the sound of the melody. those substitute chords sound funny" (carr 1998:122). responding to davis's instruction, adderley observed, "i gained a lot of experience from miles ... he chooses his notes carefully, everything is well thought out. i learned a lot about musical economy from him" (adderley 1963:7),27 compare an excerpt from adderley's first professional recording on june 28,1955 (example 1a) with another recorded april 6, 1959 (example 1 b ). the latter was made near the end of his period with davis. in the earlier solo, adderley's playing operates as a succession oflengthy, similarly shaped eighth-note runs with little time for more than a breath between them. by contrast, the phrasing of the later solo is punctuated by rests with almost regi­ mented zeal. the increased prominence of space is striking even on a visual level. less immediately apparent are the more sophisticated harmonic and motivic choices adderley makes here-no doubt a response to the stylistic complexities of davis and coltrane. "you can't repeat yourself night after night when you're working with miles davis;' adderley asserted. "miles and coltrane are creating all the time, and the challenge is tremendous. miles's group is as it should be. it's a laboratory. new and exciting music is played each night. i learn so much being around him" (adderley 1963:7). unsurprisingly, adderley credited coltrane for the most visceral impact upon his developing musicianship at this time. 28 "i think that i learned more through listening and playing with john than any other musician i ever heard;' stated adderley. "when we were first together, it seemed that john was playing more of what i wanted to play than anyone i have ever heard" (kernfeld 1981:194). in fact, there were times when each saxophon­ ist clearly reflected prominent stylistic aspects of the other. while it is not at all uncommon for a jazz artist to experiment with another bandmate's style in the course of exploring his own-exploiting those traits that catch fire from one player to the next is central to any combo-coltrane and ad­ derley enjoyed an especially close rapport under davis. indeed, this shared affinity for experiment rendered elements of their playing styles almost indistinguishable from one another during this period. "it was interesting being in miles's band with coltrane," adderley explained, "because trane at that time had an extremely light, fluid sound; and my alto sound has always 179 180 current musicology example la: adderley, opening solo excerpt from "with apologies to oscar (take 3)" (savoy) recorded june 28,1955.25 alto soxophono(e') ~@~e~~i~r~;~ll-r!f~r~llr~tifj~~-~i ~m;j~~ijhj~g~1 (~r~r~r ~~r f§~~' §e:~r i d7 @tie ffd iiij j j j £e73 1e£i1e j j iij j ij j j f i c7 @oj 'ill c' ~ [eo fjjij 1t;j we ~r r r [eo f f example lb: adderley, opening solo passage from "all blues" (columbia) recorded april 6, 1959.26 e7 3 e@r i cj b] d r r ~f r v or (f" r i i em7 e7 r f ierr ¥~;, null e7 ryan patrick jones been influenced by the tenor, so it was heavy, and sometimes it was difficult to tell where one instrument stopped and the other instrument started, it would sound like one continual phrase" (winter 1982:5). this effect owed much to the atmosphere of cross-pollination davis promoted as a leader, often leaving instruction entirely to his players. according to adderley, "re­ hearsals [under davis] were quite direct, like, 'coltrane, show cannonball how you do this. all right, now let's do it'" (carr 1998:122).29 one example of this continuity is particularly acute on "dr. jackie;' released on one of adderley's most important recordings with the davis sextet, milestones (recorded march 4, 1958). toward the end of their exchange, as adderley and coltrane trade measures with increasing frequency, they almost sound as one player. indirectly, at least part of this collaboration was fueled by davis himself. he purposefully exploited his sidemen's stylistic differences, playing ad­ derley and coltrane against one another in order to encourage the mutual growth of each saxophonist. "listen to how cannonball gets in all his lyrical ideas without playing as long as you," davis would whisper into coltrane's ear. "you should learn how to edit your ideas from him" (nisenson [1982] 1996: 156). conversely, davis directed adderley to "listen to coltrane's har­ monic ideas;' recommending that he "should learn to play with [coltrane's] type of harmonic thinking" (nisenson [1982] 1996:156). while evincing the merit of davis's reputed antagonism, this anecdote also vividly displays the brand of innovative leadership adderley regularly encountered under the trumpeter-one that would doubtlessly influence the young sideman as he led groups of his own. in fact, what adderley learned from davis as a band leader was just as significant as adderley's own early professional development. as he ex­ plained, "i certainly picked up much advantage as a potential leader from the exposure of being with miles" (1979:262). "from a leader's viewpoint;' he recalled, "i learned, by watching miles, how to bring new material into a band without changing the style of the band. and when it was necessary at times to change the style somewhat, miles did it subtly so that no one knew it" (1979:261). this was most evident as adderley maintained his musical vision while numerous musicians of varying styles and talents were integrated into his second group over its fifteen-year run. finally, it was under davis that adderley cultivated a high regard for the audience-perhaps in direct opposition to the disrespect the former band leader often notoriously extended to his own. adderley took issue with davis's demeanor as it contrasted with his own affability on stage: "[davis] really does care what the audience thinks, but he just doesn't be­ lieve in bowing, etc. i feel it's o.k., so i smile or something. he would tell 181 182 current musicology table 2: personnel of the second adderley brothers group. piano 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 george duke 1972 1973 1974 1975 bass sam jones walter booker drums other woodwinds guitar note: i gladly acknowledge the detailed documentation in sheridan (2000), which made the compilation of this table possible. shaded portions indicate periods in which the corresponding instrumentation was not in use. us to leave the stand if we had nothing to do up there" (1979:262). in fact, as adderley addressed his audiences at greater lengths even before playing, listener recognition became a defining attribute of his stage persona. quintets and sextets: the second cannonball combo after two years with davis's group-following landmark recordings such as milestones (1958) and kind of blue (1959)-adderleyleftin october of 1959 to form a second band with his brother. before this move however, adderley enjoyed two opportunities to test his leadership skills. on february 3,1959, adderley led a recording of davis's group in a rare impromptu session with­ out its leader. though this recording date also seems to have been co-led by coltrane, the elder saxophonist remained uncredited (adderley 1959, quin­ tet in chicago). 30 given that the session was released by mercury-adderley's first label-this may very well have been an intentional oversight designed to revitalize their young investment as he ventured beyond lucrative ties to players like davis and explored new leadership roles of his own. thanks in no small part to his high-profile association with davis, adderley enjoyed considerable success during his second run as a leader.31 amidst an ever-changing avant-garde jazz scene and the onset of third ryan patrick jones stream, rock en' roll, and fusion styles during the 1960s, adderley's group remained one of the most popular bands of its day. it hosted no fewer than fifteen regular sidemen over as many years. (see table 2 for an overview of the band's original sidemen and their successors from 1959 through 1975.) adderley owed much of the group's achievement to his own flex­ ibility and a willingness to welcome players of varied interests, talents, and backgrounds-those affiliated with experimental jazz and popular music alike. excepting nat, bassist sam jones returned as the only sideman from the first adderley quintet. joe zawinul assumed his entrenched role as the group's keyboardist by 1961-a position he would retain for nearly a full decade-and remained one of adderley's longest and most important collaborators, save his own brother. with the acquisition of yusef lateef by 1962, adderley's quintet became a sextet and settled into a stable set of personnel for the next two years. the increasingly popular direction adderley's group would pursue after signing with capitol records in 1964 makes it difficult to refute the artistic heights reached during the two years of lateef's tenure with the band (and adderley's last years with riverside records). by the time he encountered his new woodwind player, adderley was still relatively fresh from his condition­ ing by davis and coltrane, and lateef was a musical innovator of comparable magnitude. the special nature of his timbral and rhythmic contributions to the former adderley quintet were not replaced following his departure. already a well established musician by 1962, lateef (born william emanuel huddleston) had worked for gillespie, led his own groups with trombonist curtis fuller, and played with other innovators such as bassist charles mingus before joining forces with adderley. "cannonball and i both had the same manager, john levy:' recounts lateef: levy told me that cannonball would like me to join the group, so ... being the fine manager that he was, i took him up on that. i thought it would be a good thing for my development and education. in fact it was my first opportunity to travel abroad ... with the cannonball adderley group, so it was for my benefit as well as cannonball's. (lateef 2005) as an educator himself, lateef offers a valuable perspective-unique for ad­ derley's collaborators-on his former band leader's didactic approach:32 cannonball was a very astute musician. he was well versed in the history of music . .. there were times when he would elaborate ... on music techniques ... [or the 1 history of composition. it was like going to school being in his company. .. he possessed a great deal of technique in terms of composition and performing ... you can truly say that he had a romance 183 184 current musicology with the history of american music-african american music if you will-and he was constantly in search of discovering new ways to express himself. (lateef 2005) certainly, this search served adderley well, for lateef's explorations of tim­ bre through unconventional jazz instrumentation were perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his engagement. he soloed with equal proficiency on tenor saxophone, flute, and oboe while supplying the band with fresh compositions. noting similarities in their pedagogical aims, lateef states, "my peda­ gogical bent is that i try to help the student discover what their interest is. and ... cannonball ... gave me the freedom to express myself ... he played my compositions that i would compose, and i played the solos as i saw fit to do. so i think we shared that type of pedagogical [mode of] teaching" (lateef2005). while lateef represented the exploratory extreme of his side­ men, adderley's early 1970s work with zawinul's successor, george duke, or rock-tinged jazz guitarist sonny sharrock, testified to his continued inquisitive spirit. by 1965, when lateef's successor charles lloyd was not replaced, the group reverted to a quintet.33 in the summer of 1964, having held out against riverside's impending collapse, adderley signed with capitol records and, in so doing, further pushed his work into the popular realm. according to adderley scholar chris sheridan: capitol, not insignificantly, was based in hollywood and pursued dif­ ferent imperatives than had riverside records. at a time when jazz was hurtling unknowingly towards a collision with the commercial pressures generated by the pre-eminence of rock and pop music, capitol would seek to expand the commercial potential of so-called soul jazz and, slowly but surely, the wide jazz repertoire of the cannonball adderley band would be obscured in its studio output by music designed to appeal to a wider, fashion-conscious audience. (sheridan 2000:153-54) it was under capitol that adderley released the overwhelming zawinul hit, "mercy, mercy, mercy" -a widely embraced anthem that seemed to secure the group's financial future as early as 1966. it was also during this period that criticisms of "selling-out" emerged in regard to adderley's output-not coincidentally, after lateef's creative voice had moved on.34 tellingly, ad­ derley also lost both jones and hayes, his original bassist and drummer, shortly after signing with capitol. (the former had worked with adderley since his days in florida.) the bankruptcy of riverside signaled a shift in marketplace tastes and adderley clearly recognized the need to shift along with it to maintain a living as a performer. while this led to some strange ryan patrick jones bedfellows in rock en' roll, it nonetheless demonstrated adderley's viability in arenas beyond the jazz market and hinted at the increasing success he would find in reaching a wider audience.35 despite its commercial conquests over the next eight years, the group left capitol in 1972 and signed with its final label, fantasy records-a deliber­ ate return to a distributor as committed to traditional jazz as the former riverside records.36 as nat adderley evaluated, "capitol weren't interested in making good jazz records. because of this we got a lot of pressure after mercy, mercy, mercy and we let them steer us in directions that were foreign to us" (sheridan 2000:211). cannonball's professional "students" arguably more significant than adderley's long-term sidemen collabora­ tions were those performers for whom he offered nurturing and promotion. these artists became his most direct legacy (see table 3). adderley was well known in this regard, and one may count wes montgomery, nancy wilson, and chuck mangione among his many discoveries. in addition, adderley "rediscovered" numerous elder jazz figures (denoted in table 3 by an aster­ isk), introducing their talent, and consequently, their earlier body of work to younger audiences. the preponderance of performers from the early 1960s bears witness to adderley's collaborative drive during this period. regrettably, capitol's marketing campaign impinged upon this spirit, for the practice shows signs of decline around 1964-the same year adderley was compelled to leave riverside. many of these musicians, including his own long-term sideman joe zawinul, went on to careers as leaders after their exposure with adderley, much as adderley had following his time with davis. zawinul's later col­ laborations involved an especially high degree of crossover, since it was davis who, after hearing zawinul's work with adderley, tapped him for involvement with his own seminal fusion album, bitches brew (1969).37 in another prominent tribute to adderley's impact, chuck mangione has been similarly credited with successfully crossing over from jazz to other styles of popular music-in essence, exposing wider audiences to jazz-inspired styles. additionally, in light of the attention trumpeter wynton marsalis has drawn to music education in recent years, one is not surprised to note the name of his father, ellis, among this list of adderley's collaborators. indeed, adderley's example continues to instruct generations of new players through his recordings. one of adderley's most well-known proteges, nancy wilson, communicated her approval of alto saxophonist daniel higgins as he played with john williams and the boston pops orchestra, remarking backstage, "there's a lot ofjulian in this one" (wilson 2003).38 185 186 current musicology table 3: championing talent new and old: adderley's discoveries and "rediscoveries." artist instrument first collaboration wes montgomery (1923-68) guitar 1959 nancy wilson (b. 1937) vocals 1959 james clay (1935-95)* tenor saxophone 1960 david "fathead" newman (b. 1933)* tenor saxophone 1960 dick morgan* piano 1960 don wilkerson (1932-86)* tenor saxophone 1960 joe alexander tenor saxophone 1960 roy mccurdy (b. 1936) drums 1960 clifford jordan (1931-93)* tenor saxophone 1960 chuck mangione (b. 1940) trumpet, flugelhorn 1960 gap mangione (b. 1938) piano 1960 budd johnson (1910-84)* tenor saxophone 1960 eddie "cleanhead" vinson (1917-88)* alto saxophone 1960 joe zawinul (b. 1932) piano, keyboards 1961 ellis marsalis (b. 1934) piano 1962 alvin batiste (b. 1932)* clarinet 1962 bessie watson (a.k.a. toby clark) vocals 1962 ernie andrews (b. 1927) vocals 1962 charles lloyd (b. 1938) tenor saxophone 1964 vic gaskin (b. 1934) bass 1966 letta mbulu vocals 1969 ernie watts (b. 1945) woodwinds 1971 airto moreira (b. 1941) percussion 1971 source: i gratefully acknowledge the invaluable resource sheridan's monograph (2000) provided in my assembly of this information. asterisks denote elder jazz figures "rediscovered" by adderley. such extensive concern for budding musicians was particularly rare for a high-profile figure like adderley and surely stemmed from his instincts as a former teacher.39 moreover, when one compares the work of his earlier colleagues with younger musicians during the same period, adderley's outreach draws some important distinctions. for instance, davis proceeded with his second great sextet much as he had with his first-building through ryan patrick jones the exchange of ideas and styles with little reliance upon past achievements. likewise, coltrane's later work in free jazz with saxophonist pharoah sand­ ers and drummer rashied ali-the latter of whom succeeded elvin jones in the coltrane quartet by 1966-and his well-known assemblage of play­ ers for ascension (1965) reflected his commitment to the avant-garde.40 in each scenario, both leaders turned to youth for fresh ideas, new currents, novel approaches, and open-mindedness. in short, these interactions were expressly directed toward the usual experimental pursuits that defined the respective careers of these two legends. adderley neither experimented at the level of his former bandmates, nor did he regularly reinvent himself stylistically. to a large extent, his development peaked with davis and, in light of his previous struggles as a leader, adderley was likely reluctant to alter this winning stylistic formula. instead, he focused on other musicians, doing what he could to assure each one of them an opportunity to discover his or her own stylistic voice while making a living-just as he had. furthermore, adderley's playing style never bore appreciable signs of influence as a result of these encounters-at least, not as directly as one may observe in davis or coltrane, who drew heavily upon those players with whom they surrounded themselves. though an engaging player, adderley was no stylistic innovator. rather, his innovation lay in the art-the peda­ gogy-of guiding other musicians through the jazz profession. ultimately more concerned with advancing the voices of others than continuing to refine his own, adderley also matched his devotion to these artists by cul­ tivating the diverse audiences for whom they would play. liyou know what i mean?1i cultivating stage persona and iiteachingll to an audience on stage, adderley commanded attention not only for his playing, but also for his lively demeanor. it was perhaps during his pre-concert lectures more than any other time that adderley gained fan loyalty. in a profession where most artists rarely acknowledged, let alone addressed, their audience, adderley relished the opportunity to talk about music with his listeners. a former teacher, reputedly successful used car salesman, and glib conversa­ tionalist' adderley was primed for this task. he succeeded largely because of his ability to use simple, casual language to present otherwise complex musical matters within a general, entertaining context. even in transcripts of these preambles, one senses the passion adderley felt for his work and, more importantly, his desire to relay that enthusiasm to his audience. one of his longer and more characteristic introductions follows below, recorded a month after reforming his quintet with nat. consider the 187 188 current musicology pedagogical intimation of adderley's ubiquitous rhetorical question-"you know what i mean?"-as it permeates his discussion: thank you very much ladies and gentlemen. now it's time to carryon some. could we have the lights out please, for atmosphere? now we're about to playa new composition by our pianist, bobby timmons. this one is a jazz waltz, however it has all sorts of properties. it's simultaneously a shout and a chant, depending upon whether you know anything about the roots of church music and all that kind of stuff. i mean it's soul church music. i don't mean bach chorales ... that's different! you know what i mean? this is soul. you know what i mean? ya know what i mean? all right. now we're going to play this by bobby timmons. it's really called "this here." however, for reasons of soul and description, we have corrupted it to become "dish 'ere." so that's the name, "dis here:' (adderley 1959, quintet in san francisco) here one can appreciate adderley's humor and comfort in addressing his audience. the ease of his bach reference and the casual distinction he draws between european and american sacred music traditions confirm the historical facility that collaborators like lateef pointed to in characterizing adderley's strengths. equally at home with crowds abroad, adderley applied a similar self­ effacing humor to reach new audiences in japan: "we're going to playa new tune written by an american musician who's name is cannonball adderley. [pauses to laugh with the audience.] you know we're making a record? we want to make the first record in tokyo by an american jazz group and we'd like for you to be on it. you know what i mean?" (adderley 1963, nippon soul). here adderley applies an effective tool of disarmament in learning scenarios-no doubt honed from the earlier years adderley spent teaching his peers at dillard high. this brand of humor was especially characteristic of his onand off-stage persona. as a cornerstone of his talks, adderley usually explained something about the genesis or musical basis for the composition at hand. "we're going to playa new composition based on the argentine dance rhythm known as the tango;' adderley once explained. ''a kind of a jazz tango that my brother calls, 'tengo tango»' (adderley 1963, nippon soul). another introduction shared personal, insider insight as a means of currying outsider interest: this one is based on the blues and it's got something else besides that. you see, this one is dedicated to a friend of ours in new york who is a dear friend of everyone in the band. kind of a jive cat, but a beautiful cat. his name is weaver. lee weaver. so the tune sounds something like 'lee weaver.' it's soulful. it's mean. it's called 'the weaver,' by yusef lateef. (adderley 1963, nippon soul)41 ryan patrick jones moments like this reveal adderley's willingness to welcome listeners into his band, to let them "in" on the band's internal references, if only momentarily. in explaining cryptic jazz titles, adderley attempts to demystify the inner workings of a professional jazz unit. this consideration flies in the face of more obstinate approaches-such as those employed by miles davis-and readily accounts for adderley's broader appeal. the final excerpt reproduced here nicely summarizes much of adder­ ley's performing philosophy specifically as it privileges engagement with a crowd: we've made a lot of records in nightclubs, especially in california at the famous lighthouse in hermosa beach and at the jazz workshop in san francisco. and the reason we selected those rooms were [sic] because the audiences were so hip that we could, you know, just play what we wanted to play without being bothered and everybody dug it. you see? we've never made a live album in new york because for some reason we have never really felt the kind of thing that we wanted to feel from the audience, which has nothing to do with acceptance, applause, or appreciation. it's the at­ mosphere. you know you get a lot of people who are supposed to be hip, you know, and they act like they're supposed to be hip, which makes a big difference. you see what i mean? now we have especially been impressed with the audience here at the matinee performance at the village vanguard. we think that this is the kind of audience that is the real jazz audience and we want to thank you for making it possible, for being so really hip. you know, hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life. you see what i mean? you don't decide you're hip. it just happens that way. you see what i mean? so, today we're doing our first new york live album courtesy of you, the audience. thank you very much. (adderley 1962) the vulnerability adderley displays here is noteworthy. in fact, this address reads almost as a confessional. adderley thoughtfully lays bare admissions that, though rarely expressed to patrons, were nevertheless apparent to, and often guarded by, most jazz performers.42 seeking to dismantle barriers be­ tween performer and audience member, he also manages to communicate these professional nuances to amateur enthusiasts without undermining their import. ever mindful of the role listener awareness must play in suc­ cessful music making, adderley made manifest his premium upon audi­ ence ~ngagement, grounding this investment in sincere appreciation and respect. the jazz ambassador in 1964, adderley participated in an extensive panel discussion regarding the status of jazz with a host of prominent musicians and criticsy its cover189 190 current musicology age was wide-ranging, thorough, and, for its time, surprisingly sensitive to matters of historical perspective and legacy. transcribed as an article, the publication submitted the following summation of adderley's career: julian "cannonball" adderley is an urbane alto saxophonist and leader who has achieved sizable popular success during the past five years. he is also a recording director and has helped many musicians get their first chance at national exposure ... through his lucid, witty introductions at concerts, festivals, and night clubs, adderley has become a model of how to make an audience feel closer to the jazz experience." (walser 1999:262) many of adderley's responses on this panel elaborate upon a number of his pedagogical beliefs and articulate his concern for the future of jazz as it relates to reaching and maintaining an audience. for example, in one ex­ change, while responding to a reply offered by gunther schuller, adderley succinctly expresses his views on audience, contending that it must remain a necessary, even crucial, component of the jazz experience: [interviewer]: there appears to be a paradox in the current jazz situation. the international stature of the music has never been higher, and jazz is receiving more and more attention in print. yet musicians are complaining that work is becoming harder and harder to find. is jazz de­ clining economically, and if it is, how do you reconcile that decline with all the publicity it is receiving? [gunther] schuller: i believe that jazz in its most advanced stages has now arrived precisely at the point where classical european music arrived between 1915 and 1920 ... [an area] marked by such things as atonality, or free rhythm ... by ... moving into this area-and i believe the move was inevitable-jazz has removed itself from its audience. adderley: i don't know about that. there is an audience out there now, a sizable audience. but you have to play for it. when we go to work, we play for that audience because the audience is the reason we're able to be there. of course, we play what we want to and in the way we want to, but the music is directed at the audience. we don't play for ourselves and ignore the people. i don't think that's the proper approach, and i've discovered that most of the guys who are making a buck play for audiences. one way or another ... i think the audience feels quite detached from most jazz groups. and it works the other way around too. jazz musicians have a tendency to keep themselves detached from the audience. but i speak to the audience. i don't see that it's harmful to advise an audience that you're going to play such and such a thing and tell them something about it. nor is it harmful to tell something about the man you're going to feature and something about why his sound is different. (walser 1999:263,265-66)44 ryan patrick jones despite his quick contention, adderley's need to contextualize his perfor­ mances could be seen to validate schuller's view and may even signal a wish to distinguish his own output from the pervading free jazz styles of the 1960s. still, as a pedagogue, adderley naturally embraced new ideas-even if they challenged accessibility. "thank god for ornette coleman and such players;' adderley exclaimed, "because, whether or not you're an ornette coleman fan, his stimulus has done much for all of us." nevertheless, the same pedagogical outlook also tempered his admiration with telling reser­ vation: "i don't discount the maturity that has come with experience and discipline. as i say, many of us have been stimulated by what's going on, but we're also aware that often emotion is missing in all this emphasis on freedom. too many of the newer players are interested in just being differ­ ent. i don't think it's necessary to be different so much as to be right. to be felt. to be beautiful" (walser 1999:270).45 though he may generalize in his assessment of "newer players;' the merit of adderley's intention here can­ not be dismissed. in this first exchange, adderley also plainly sets his outlook apart from most. many prominent and equally successful jazz artists of the period held views that stood in stark contrast to adderley's own stance with regard to audience. for example, in a recent article, sonny rollins defended such a perspective: [interviewer]: how do you feel about your relationship to your audi­ ence? do you feel like you're there to inspire them, to educate them, to challenge them, to entertain them? rollins: right, well, i would say all of the above. but you've got to be careful: you don't want to play for your audience. i don't. i don't want to play for my audience. i'm playing for myself. if, in playing for myself, the audience gets it, then i know that i succeeded. [interviewer l: you have to respect your audience, and you're grateful for your audience, but you have to play your own feelings and your own truth. play for yourself because that's ultimately what the audience wants to hear. they want to hear what you're feeling-that's the music. that's jazz. rollins: very well put. (redman 2005:130) this exchange, while reflecting more contemporary notions about the relationship between jazz and its listeners, privileges the interests of the individual player over those of his or her audience. it also underscores the thin line between self-expression and pandering that players like adderley often negotiated. adderley knew his appeal rested with his listeners' tastes. more importantly, as a pedagogue he recognized the need for hooking his 191 192 current musicology audience-in short, satisfying their expectations-through regular, positive encounters with music performance if he was to cultivate a welcoming, ef­ fective atmosphere of learning. this debate also exposed one of adderley's more clever and somewhat more insidious motivations as a jazz artist. the following response betrays his pedagogical agenda perhaps more candidly than any other statement he recorded: [interviewer]: whether abroad or at home, has the scope of jazz widened to the point at which the term "jazz" itself is too confining? adderley: the word doesn't bug me in the least ... i like to be identified with all that "jazz" represents. all the evil and all the good. all the drink­ ing, loose women, the narcotics, everything they like to drop on us. why? because when i get before people, i talk to them and they get to know how i feel about life and they can ascertain that there is some warmth or maybe some morality in the music that they never knew existed. (walser 1999:278) adderley's answer here provides important insight into the careful think­ ing that guided his efforts as an ambassador of jazz. it also reveals a great deal about how adderley viewed himself and the solemnity with which he regarded his work. through his special brand of edification, he sought to reform general public opinion about jazz and those who create it-to affirm positive examples of expression, collaboration, and individuality. adderley strove to create opportunities in which casual listeners could seek out, as he termed it, the "morality in the music." in a subsequent reply, adderley critiques the jazz establishment on a point with which his career was becoming increasingly concerned: the gulf between jazz aficionados and the popular music audience. in adderley's mind, this was an illusive, ultimately self-defeating distinction. arguing for the value of his individual approach, here adderley specifically rejects the smugness that is often perceived as a requisite component of the "true" jazz performer's profile: [interviewer]: while we're talking about popularity, is there a meeting ground somewhere for the multimillion-viewer audience required by tv and the more specialized attractions of jazz? most efforts in the past have been either financial or artistic failures, or both. adderley: well, so far all of you have been talking about jazz as a separate thing on television. i don't really see why jazz has to be shunted off to be a thing alone. i don't see why it's not possible to present dave brubeck as dave brubeck, jazz musician, on the same program with della reese. we in the community of jazz seem to feel that we need our own little corner ryan patrick jones because we have something different that is superior to anything else that's going. but it's all relative, and there's a kind of pomposity involved in that kind of attitude when you check it. i think that i could very easily be a guest on the ed sullivan show or the tonight show along with the other people they have. like allan sherman. let me do my thing, and there's a good chance i might communicate to the same mass audience that he does. the same thing is true of miles davis or dizzy or anyone else. i think there's a place for us on television-once we get admitted to the circle. (walser 1999:286-87)46 of course, while his optimism is encouraging, one must concede that ad­ derley was only invited to express these sentiments among such an esteemed company because of his own early exposure beside figures like miles davis. despite adderley's oversimplification, davis at once openly exemplified the antithesis of earnest outreach and irrefutably epitomized jazz. seeking venues of expression beyond debate forums, adderley devoted much of his professional time to formal educational pursuits, often return­ ing to his former training as a classroom teacher. through his career he organized and performed in numerous youth concerts, regularly judged youth competitions, and toured colleges with his band to lecture and play concert demonstrations. "we're hoping, with our college tours, to stimulate young musicians into wanting to improve themselves;' adderley claimed (1969:32). detailing these tours, he emphasized the importance of collab­ orative learning to his approach: we do a formal presentation on the development of jazz, emulating the styles and so forth, telling anecdotes about the people and maybe why things worked out the way they did. it's not designed to be a course, nor do we intend to lecture at the people. we want to exchange, and that's all ... our seminars aren't just for musicians, but for general students. like we were at the university of california for three days just doing that, and at one of our sessions we had something like 4,000 people. so that's a really fantastic response, and it makes it all worthwhile. we were artists in residence at ucla for a week, and we did a full spectrum of things there-clinics, seminars, concerts, and rap sessions at night in the various dorms. just exchanging ideas about social issues, political things, about music, and things about our personal lives. in all our formal sessions, we had in excess of 2,500 to 3,000 people. they were telling me at ucla that they had other groups like the julliard string quartet, poets, and painters, but that the students weren't really using them. that really made me feel good, because they really used us. (wilson 1972:12) one can only imagine the impression made upon young players as they witnessed a jazz figure of adderley's prominence and accomplishment will­ ingly sitting in on their student rehearsal 193 194 current musicology an avid philanthropist, adderley also used his status to promote aware­ ness for charities such as "save the children" and bolster support for the civil rights movementy as gene a. williams observes: [an] important chicago session occurred in conjunction with the ap­ pearance of the [adderley] group before rev. jesse jackson's "operation breadbasket" audience. jackson had been appointed director ... by dr. martin luther king, jr. the adderley performances represented a hookup between the black artist and the black social-activist-between adderley and jackson. symbolically, this was also a hookup between the physical! social aspects of the civil-rights movement and its cultural component. out of the king-jackson-adderley meeting in chicago came the great country preacher album, which was recorded "live" at one of the saturday morning sessions of operation breadbasket. breadbasket and the rev. jesse jackson were all about, among other things, jobs, freedom and justice for blacks. adderley's "movement" was all about black cultural identity and the development of black pride through awareness of the positive values of the afro-american musical heritage. (williams 1976:309-10)48 this partnership represented one of adderley's most consequential collabo­ rations. adderley's alliance with civil rights leaders asserted a further degree of commitment to his audience-one with wide-ranging implications, for the objectives of this union embodied similar values of awareness and dis­ semination that adderley had long practiced in exclusively artistic domains. just as he had cultivated musical appreciation among his listeners for years, adderley's example now promoted social awareness in an analogous fashion for an even wider, more general audience. according to williams, "[adderley 1 was a main streamer who assimilated ... jazz and popular music idioms to create his own brand of jazz, which was soulful and 'down home' but also enlightened and, on many occasions, progressive. [his 1 ... life and music reinforced the dignity of traditional black culture in a period of social change and innovation" (williams 1976:311). speaking about the relationship of his music to civil rights, adderley poignantly recalled one particular college lecture series that coincided with a corresponding national observance: we ... spent a week in residence at albany state college [in georgia], dur­ ing black heritage week. we found out that the kids there, all black, had no concept of what jazz represented ... they didn't know anything about any of the music that they danced to or sang. they take for granted that there is going to be a new james brown record, that there is going to be a good choir at their church ... they're all wearing dashikis and natural hairdos and saying "i'm black and i'm proud;' but proud of what? are you proud because your skin is black? ... i don't think that skin color is any reason to be proud or sorry ... i say, "well, you have a lot of things that are part of ryan patrick jones your everyday existence that you have reason to be proud of-you should be proud of this music that is black-oriented, that was begun, nurtured, and developed by black people, in essence. and you don't know anything about it. why don't you? if you're really proud of being black, why don't you know something about it-you should." (albertson 1970:13) oddly enough, in his efforts to call attention to race through his celebrity, ad­ derley may have resonated most with the spirit and statement of band leader sun ra, whose whimsical, other-worldly "solar" explorations were shrewdly designed to illustrate the extent to which african americans felt marginal­ ized. differences in approach and character nothwithstanding-where ra emphasized difference, adderley accentuated potential-both artists iso­ lated inequality in their work, lectured in collegiate settings, and remained committed to the same cause. addressing how his workshops incorporated issues of race in a music lecture, adderley explained: our seminar workshops consist of lecture demonstrations on jazz, styles in jazz, and why jazz is a little bit different. we also go into the sociological aspects of jazz and why we talk black. we don't talk black about militancy or any such things ... we never suggest that there is anything wrong with any other music. it's ironic that one of our teachers and members is joe zawinul, who is white and has a great concept of expressing this black­ oriented music-anybody can do it if they love it and get involved with it. racial orientation has nothing to do with the performance of the music. we talk about its origins and development on the basis of its blackness, simply because that's the way that it has to be, but we don't say that this is something which is peculiar to black people, because that is ridiculous. (albertson 1970:13) adderley's sensitivity to race in jazz history expresses the core of his educational purpose. in tandem with his participation in the civil rights movement, here adderley cleverly dovetails casual music discussion with exploring larger issues of cultural pride and "racial orientation:' certainly, adderley's pedagogy extended well beyond the bandstand. at the heart of his teaching lay tolerance-the key to uniting seemingly disparate musical styles or social perspectives and the basis for learning, and ultimately, for understanding. pedagogical bookends: evaluating adderley's career arc in many ways, julian "cannonball" adderley's lifework in jazz emulated that of a professional educator. his career was framed by a pedagogical sensibility that formed a clear arc from his humble beginnings as a schoolteacher to 195 196 current musicology later experiences as a professional who came to regard and actively engage his audiences like no other jazz musician before him. adderley's early failures as a leader, the impact of his eye-opening collaborations with davis and coltrane upon his own style and sidemen, his selfless promotion of fledgling perfor­ mers, and his commitment to musical youth were each important facets of this pedagogical canon. equally effective were adderley's transparent stage persona and his participation in socially conscious organizations. in these latter two capacities, his artistry reached the largest audience-one with the potential to realize differences that transcend the world of music. adderley referred to himself as a "modern traditionalise' acknowledging his reverence for the past while accepting the need to evolve with the music of his own time. indeed, the facility with which he modified a traditional blues-based language to complement his diverse stylistic surroundings re­ mained central to his musical signature.49 but his musical legacy is more far­ reaching. while his instruction took numerous forms, adderley's teaching example demonstrated how far and how effectively one pragmatic educator can showcase personal achievements upon which his students-formal or otherwise-may model themselves. in short, adderley's impact dramatically argued that "those who can" do, after all, teach successfully. his role within the soul jazz movement of the 1960s and early 1970s represented the ideal union of willing students-those select listeners-eager to enhance their experience and understanding of jazz with a teacher who not only matched them in enthusiasm but who possessed the necessary musical and personal gifts to reach them. though adderley pursued a diverse set of career goals throughout his professional life, no doubt the greatest of these entailed securing a healthy future for the music he loved. notes 1. john s. brubacher offers the following helpful elaboration upon the distinctions among educational theory and practice, the science of education, educational philosophy, and pedagogy: "the relation between theory and practice is of particular interest to pedagogy, the art of education. the art of education lies in actual instructing or teaching of live boys and girls. it should be obvious at once that the art of education, or pedagogy, differs from the science of education. the latter is concerned with universal principles which are applicable to all learners. the art of education may be and usually is based on such principles, but often there is some slack between principle and practice. it is through the art of the teacher that this slack is taken up, that an adjustment is made between general principle and the peculiarities of the individual learner. there is a similar relation between pedagogy and the philosophy of education. thus it is on philosophy that the art of education must wait for a design of action. conversely, educational philosophy, whose solutions can be achieved only in action, will have urgent need for the art of education. philosophy cannot bring its theories into existence merely by thinking them. this the art of education can do and in so doing can make education a laboratory where philosophical distinctions can be empirically tested. a philosophy of education that constantly appeals its validity to practice is in that degree necesryan patrick jones sarily dependent on the art of education. in fact only a philosophy truncated from practice can be clearly distinguished from education as art" ([1939]1962:16-17). in fact, "for most of the twentieth century:' as education historians denis lawton and peter gordon point out, the value of pedagogical awareness was "largely ignored by educationists. the term 'pedagogue' had come to be associated with pedantry and dogmatism, a teacher with a limited and nar­ row view" (2002:201). surely this dismissal was fueled by the irony that pedagogy can not only be difficult to define, but even more difficult to teach. as many experienced teachers will agree, it is more acutely learned in the natural course of teaching itself. 2. drawing comparisons with prominent jazz figures from the same period, eric nisenson recently offered his perspective on one of adderley's most common criticisms: "although no one would deny his technical facility, his style betrayed certain deficiencies. perhaps the most outstanding problem with adderley's playing was taste . .. is it tasteless because he plays so many notes? well, charlie parker and dizzy gillespie played a lot of notes, yet only 'moldy figs' ever called them tasteless. certainly coltrane played vast mountains of notes ... but ... [he] paints on a vast canvas and needs those countless notes to 'get it all in: tasteless­ ness, at least in jazz improvisation, occurs when one plays more notes than are necessary to make a musical point. this was a large part of adderley's problem ... for cannonball adderley, then, his great technical facility perhaps stood in the way of his developing into a major jazzman." see nisenson's coverage of adderley (2000:112-127). 3. scholar barry kernfeld offers the following definition of soul jazz: "a gospel-influenced adaptation in the mid 1950s to early 1960s of bebop. this funky style emphasized subdomi­ nant-oriented progressions evoking church hymns; 'soulful: minor harmonies; moderate tempos; and catchy, symmetrical melodies, in combination with bebop structures (e.g., 12bar blues or 32-bar popular bar forms), format (theme-solo-theme), and instrumentation (a small group led by saxophone or trumpet)." see the new harvard dictionary of music, rev. ed., s.vv. "soul jazz" (by barry kernfeld). 4. adderley relayed another formative source of musical exposure common to african ameri­ cans raised during the first half of the twentieth century-the church. "we were episcopalians, but we'd go down on the corner on sunday night and listen to them get into it. tabernacle baptist church. sunday night after church they'd have a fish fry. we'd go down there and get some of that fresh fish. they'd be inside poppin' ... be swinging. and we'd dig it. we'd be outside dancing and carrying on. we didn't consider it sacrilegious" (demichael 1961:20). see also nat adderley's account of this activity in stokes (2000:11). 5. james bradley, a former friend to both adderley brothers, offers the following on their closeness: "talk about being a big brother ... [julian] was a big brother to his brother. his brother looked up to him as more than a mentor-a friend, a mentor, and a big brother. when he passed [in 1975], nat wasn't the same anymore. he still continued but it wasn't like when he and cannon were together. it took a lot out of him" (bradley 2005b). 6. because hawkins was with henderson's band only through 1934, scott deveaux points out that this incident must have occurred before adderley's sixth birthday (deveaux 1997:453-54). regarding this event, see also ward and burns (2000:142). 7. adderley stated that he "started playing alto [saxophone] about 1942" (gitler 1959:200). 8. nisenson incorrectly documents that adderley graduated from florida state university rather than florida a & m college (2000:114--115). james bradley points out that segrega­ tion laws enforced during the period would have blocked adderley's matriculation at the former institution (bradley 2005a). 9. william p. foster to s. meredith moseley, "julian edwin adderley personnel records;' the school board of broward county, florida, february 28, 1948. 197 198 current musicology 10. adderley succeeded george a. dean as band director at dillard high school. the former teacher had started the school's band program around 1946. in a testament to his impact as a teacher, adderley was later succeeded by his own protege, rufus curry (bradley 2005b). 11. a standard introductory employment form from this month, entitled "personnel infor­ mation-instruction staff, board of public education, broward county, florida:' records adderley's residential address and various other vital statistics as of september 24, 1948. "julian edwin adderley personnel records:' the school board of broward county, florida, september 24, 1948. in a subsequent teaching application letter, adderley notes that he "was formerly employed as band director at dillard high school 1948 to 1950." adderley to o. k. phillips, "julian edwin adderley personnel records," the school board of broward county, florida, june 1, 1953. 12. as of fall 2005, bradley was curator of the old dillard museum in fort lauderdale. the building that now houses the museum formally served as the original dillard high school from 1924 to 1950, at which adderley first taught. according to bradley, adderley served in special services during his conscription (bradley 2005b). adderley's final resignation from the second dillard high school (opened in 1950) took effect february 3-8,1956. m. l. ashmore to adderley, "julian edwin adderley personnel records," the school board of broward county, florida, january 30,1956. l3. adderley to o. k. phillips, "julian edwin adderley personnel records:' the school board of broward county, florida, june 1, 1953, and "teacher's application form:' june 2, 1953.by the time of his second application, adderley had also acquired a florida teaching certificate, become a member of the florida teachers retirement system, and-as listed among the vital statistics he recorded on his application-gained thirty-two pounds. 14. this latter confession may have had something to do with the number of times adderley enrolled in "mus 102 piano" while at college. see table l. 15. adderley, "teacher's application form." "julian edwin adderley personnel records," the school board of broward county, florida, may 23, 1948 and june 2, 1953. first published in 1883 and self-billed "for music lovers:' etude, the music magazine was started with the meager savings of music teacher and subsequent music education philanthropist theodore presser. published from october 1883 through may/june 1957, the magazine reproduced canonical european art music scores alongside those of american contemporary and popular sources, and regularly disseminated practical suggestions for music educators-especially those at the secondary level. the acronym "fsta" may have referred to the florida state teacher's association, which was active during this period and boasted a prominent african american membership. both music educators journal and the international musician are still in publication today. 16. bradley's account of his experience as a dillard student offers a poignant picture of adderley's first professional teaching environment: "there were a lot of things lacking. a lot of things lacking. we got secondhand books, things like that. we didn't have access to typewriters ... [and] my class, the class of 1948 ... [tried] to get ... business courses started. i mean things were real rough here because we were denied a lot of things that we should have had [that] we didn't get. but the main thing: we had good teachers. we had good teach­ ers" (bradley 2005b). 17. as adderley added, "i wouldn't have made it in class; it was preparation to make more money teaching" (demichael 1962:14). 18. "the evening when julian played at the cafe bohemia:' remembered nat, "everybody wanted to know julian's name." as testimony, he cited the following incident: "a man came to ask me julian's name. at the time, you couldn't make a living freely, and i thought that ryan patrick jones the man was a union inspector. 1 replied, 'i don't know, 1 think he comes from florida and he's called cannonball.' for six or seven years, julian hadn't been called that, but it's the first name that came into my mind. the man 1 took for a union inspector was the proprietor of the bohemia. he told his customers, 'he's called "cannonball.'" in town, it was an explosion. you heard nothing but the phrase, 'there's a young fellow at the bohemia who calls himself "cannonball" and who plays like charlie parker!' (jean louis ginibre quoted in kernfeld 1981:189). only three months prior, on march 12, 1955, legendary alto saxophonist charlie "bird" parker had died suddenly at the age of thirty-four. since adderley's arrival on the new york scene had followed so closely upon parker's death, his first record label, emarcy records, quickly branded adderley "the new bird" to augment sales. ("emarcy" was a pho­ netic, abbreviated reference to the three initial letters of the mercury record company.) unfortunately, adderley's parker tag did not abate, and, as chris sheridan observes, "such marketing led too few reviewers to look beyond the influence of charlie parker to see the whole adderley, so he became pigeonholed as a parker popularizer" (2000:xxx). sheridan also relays a telling anecdote recorded in 1985 by saxophonist phil woods: "bird had just died and jackie [mclean] and i were kind of thinking now we're gonna get all the glory. he looked a little dejected and took me over to the bohemia. we just sat there, listened to a couple of tunes then he looked at me and i looked at him and we just said 'oh shit' 'cause [adderley] was the baddest thing we'd ever heard" (2000:5). while his style was clearly indebted to parker's, no saxophonist of the time escaped similar charges, and on many occa­ sions adderley himself rejected the promotion as "foolishness." as he put it: "take anybody and say, 'this is the new bird or the new dizzy'-when people hear them, they've got to come out second best" (sheridan 2000:xxv). sheridan further observes, "to mr. adderley, the circumstances [of emarcy's marketing ploy], especially given the parker connection with the cafe bohemia, made the hype distasteful and potentially damaging by causing re­ sentment" (2000:xxvi). unfortunately, critics bought into this marketing campaign as well. as a result, early evaluations of adderley failed to measure his style on its own merits-as distinct from parker. as sheridan has noted, "fellow musicians were quick to recognize the talent, but many reviewers, unfortunately, never saw past [adderley's] convenient handle to make the proper distinction between the bebop that died with charlie parker a few months earlier and emerging hard bop as represented by julian adderley, horace silver, art blakey, and others" (2000:5). 19. as nat indicated, "[julian] had signed a contract to teach in florida, and he had to go back" (n. adderley 1960: 19). ever practical, cannonball appraised his financial predicament: "i could have worked with somebody else, gone back to new york and taken my chances freelancing, but by this time i was making ten grand a year in florida. i had this teaching at five grand, and i was making $150 a week playing at night, plus i had a couple of side hustles. i sold automobiles, and i did quite well too. i had that gift of gab. old ladies, i could sell them any kind of car. it was hard to turn my back on all that and come to new york with nothing" (demichael 1962:14). 20. adderley did perform briefly in new york during this period. he flew to new york city to record with ernie wilkins's orchestra and sarah vaughan on october 25 and 26,1955. he also recorded a separate solo album "with strings" on october 27 of the same year under the direction of conductor richard hayman. see sheridan (2000:9-11). 21. adderley to o. k. phillips, "julian edwin adderley personnel records;' the school board of broward county, florida, january 18, 1956. adderley's principal responded to his resigna­ tion, writing "best wishes for continued success in the field of popular music." s. meredith moseley to adderley, "julian edwin adderley personnel records," the school board of broward county, florida, january 19, 1956. 199 200 current musicology 22. the "floridian" generation of adderley's first quintet consisted of nat; ray bryant, piano; bob fisher, bass; and norman mcburney, drums (sheridan 2000:13). 23. junior mance had actually replaced bryant while the group was still in florida. as nat recalled the replacements in philadelphia, "we had opened philadelphia on the monday. [julian's manager] john [levy] came down to hear us on the wednesday and fired them all after the first set. we persuaded him that it wasn't junior's fault because he had just joined, and he sent for sam jones and specs wright who joined us the next day:' see sheridan (2000:13). 24. still, seminal scholarship on adderley's career has made important strides. two signifi­ cant resources include barry kernfeld's 1981 dissertation, adderley, coltrane, and davis at the twilight of bebop: the search for melodic coherence (1958-59) and, more recently, chris sheridan's exhaustive bio-discography, dis here: a bio-discography of julian "cannonball" adderley (2000). kernfeld's coverage consists of an appendix of selected primary sources com­ piled from interviews with both adderley brothers, arranged in a loose chronology without supplementary or editorial commentary. sheridan's treatment is more thorough, interlacing discussion of adderley's musical development across a complete account of his professional recording career. sheridan's compilation is an unparalleled resource, including, among other reference materials, an impressively detailed diary of adderley's daily activities-rehearsal, recording, performance, and general whereabouts-from his legendary appearance in new york in the summer of 1955 until his death two decades later. 25. transcription by charles mcneal. see <http://charlesmcneal.com/webpatterns.htm>. [accessed june 13,2004] 26. transcription by rob duboff, mark vinci, mark davis, and josh davis (duboff et al. 2001:61). 27. elsewhere adderley added, "musically, i learned a lot while with [davis]. about spacing, for one thing, when playing solos" (1979:261). 28. later in his career, adderley even took up the soprano saxophone-following the example set by coltrane in the early 1960s. 29. davis documented a similar application of this teaching approach in his autobiography: "i told trane after the set to take cannonball in the kitchen and show him what he was doing. he did, but we had substituted so many things in the twelve-bar mode that if you weren't listening when it started off, where the soloist began, then when you did start to pay atten­ tion, you might not know what had happened. cannonball had told me that what trane was playing sounded like the blues, but that it really wasn't, it was something else altogether" (davis 1989:221-22). 30. significantly, this session proved to be the last time coltrane was recorded as a sideman. interestingly, adderley had also led davis's last recording as a sideman on the earlier blue note album, somethin' else (adderley 1958). 31. bradley notes that adderley's phenomenal success at this early stage in his career "didn't change him personality-wise. he [was] still the same cannon. it didn't change him in a way. you know sometimes guys change, but not cannon. ifhe changed, he changed for the better because he was maturing more, but he always had that sense of humor" (bradley 2005b). 32. eventually leaving the road behind, lateef pursued graduate studies in education and earned his doctorate in 1975. see lateef (1975). 33. the group would briefly become a sextet once more-with the addition of sharrock-and return to a quintet yet again before disbanding after adderley's untimely death from a stroke at the age of forty-six on august 8,1975. ryan patrick jones 34. down beat critic barbara gardner took early note of this trend toward a thinning-out of adderley's purer jazz roots when she penned the following about a capitol vehicle designed to promote singer ernie andrews in may 1965: "it is crass exploitation of an explosive, virile jazz unit to harness it behind a vocalist who has lots of homework to do" (gardner quoted in sheridan 2000:157). reviews (from september 1968 and march 1969, respectively) of later releases were tinged with similar disappointment: "adderley's group has really become showbiz. their african tunics made them look like a commercial gospel group" (ira gitler quoted in sheridan 2000: 182); "this is very much a hollywood travelogue of africa" (brian priestly quoted in sheridan 2000:181). sheridan responds to this reception and appraises adderley's career in the conclusion of his monograph: "[the] admiration [of many young alto players today] demonstrates that mr. adderley's contribution to the jazz mainstream was much misunderstood-the cross borne by many of those who consolidate rather than innovate ... julian first appeared on the scene in the aftermath of charlie parker's death, and was thus cast unfairly as an imitator ... mr. adderley's two years with [davis and] the most creative modern combo of its period aroused expectations of innovative jazz ... unfortunately, there is no more potent kiss of death in the eyes of so-called 'purists' than a taste of popular and therefore financial success ... perhaps it is time to start over, bearing in mind the happy-go-lucky philosophy that guided mr. adderley's life through largely­ secret setbacks and adversities" (2000:238-39). in april 1962, don demichael anticipated these attacks and defended adderley, writing, "cannon ... has suffered (unjustly, i think) in recent comparisons with ... almost any artist who has not met with financial success. that this man is a jazzman of great ability can be heard in his soaring 'gemini' solo" (demichael quoted in sheridan 2000:121). 35. in february 1968, for example, adderley's group appeared with the who. in late 1971, toward the end of their tenure with capitol, they shared a week at the popular los angeles venue, the troubador, with various rock musicians, including guitarist mike deasy, who would later briefly join the adderley band itself. later, adderley even recast some favorite standards from the band's past in a fusion style. 36. prior to signing adderley's band, fantasy records had also acquired the rights to half of its previous riverside library. this purchase not only provided a clear indication of the corporation's investment in jazz recording, but must have appealed to adderley as a conve­ nient means for reissue possibilities. 37. during this experience, zawinul also met saxophonist wayne shorter, with whom he would later form the renowned fusion group weather report. 38. higgins, for his part, had acknowledged his debt to stylists like adderley in a conversation with the author beforehand (higgins 2003). 39. of course, coltrane was similarly selfless, if not as prolific as adderley, in his support of younger jazz figures of the avant-garde such as archie shepp. 40. while he worked primarily with younger artists on ascension, coltrane's earliest experi­ ments in free jazz occurred with peers such as ornette coleman and eric dolphy. 41. weaver, a prominent actor still active today, met adderley as a fellow student at florida a & m after matriculating around 1946. he served as adderley's best man when the latter married actress olga james on june 28,1962 (bradley 2005b). 42. branford marsalis once shared a related perspective on the john coltrane quartet-whose members experienced arguably one of the most intimate relationships in all of jazz perfor­ mance. his anecdote offers insight into the inner workings of a jazz combo and its values: "a lot of younger musicians were hanging around with [the quartet's former drummer] 201 202 current musicology elvin jones, and they were talking about, 'man, you know the intensity you guys played when you were playing with coltrane? i mean, what was it like? how do you play with that kind of intensity?' and elvin [looked] at them and [said], 'you gotta be willing to die with the motherfucker.' and then they started laughing like kids do waiting for the punchline and then they realized somewhere in the middle of that: he was serious. how many people do you know that [sic] are willing to die, period-die with anybody? and when you listen to those records, that's exactly what they sound like. i mean, they would die for each other" (cited in burns 2000). 43. other panelists included dave brubeck, dizzy gillespie, ralph j. gleason, stan kenton, charles mingus, gerry mulligan, george russell, and gunther schuller. 44. adderley develops this outlook in a similar response: "[interviewer]: in some of your statements so far, the term 'art music' has been used in connection with jazz. the french critic andre hodeir would agree that jazz is becoming more and more of an art music. he also says, however, that jazz was never really a popular music anyway ... he claims that now, as jazz is inevitably evolving into an art music, its audiences are going to be small and select ... do you agree? adderley: i don't agree with hodeir. i don't think jazz ever will cease to be important to the layman, simply because the layman has always looked to jazz for some kind of escape from the crap in popular culture. anybody who ever heard the original form of stardust can hardly believe what has happened to it through the efforts primarily of jazz musicians. listen to the music on television. even guys who think in terms of delius and ravel and orchestrate for television shows draw from jazz. the jazz audience has always existed, and it always will" (walser 1999:272,273). 45. adderley also expressed a related perspective on third stream music: ''as much as i respect and admire the willingness of the third-stream people to work hard, their music misses me most of the time ... when you deal with something like third stream, which mixes jazz with classical music, you're going to weaken the basic identity of jazz" (walser 1999:270-71,272). 46. naturally, there were alignments between the type of outreach adderley extended and the educational spirit or message of his colleagues. for instance, muhal richard abrams similarly valued and encouraged an awareness of jazz history and context. however, abrams largely confined his advocacy to practicing musicians. though fellow musicians like lateef did equate adderley's company to "going to school;' adderley embraced both musicians and non-musicians-exhibiting an increased devotion to the latter as his career progressed (lateef2005). surely, his most significant impact may be measured in the legions of generalist audience members, including popular music enthusiasts, who developed an appreciation for jazz, however indirectly. 47. according to sheridan, one charity concert of adderley's for "save the children" in­ volved performances by roberta flack, quincy jones, ramsey lewis, and nancy wilson (2000:205). 48. sheridan estimates the date of the concert event to which williams refers as october 17, 1969 (2000: 191). williams further observed that, "on another level the combination of can­ nonball adderley and rev. jesse jackson at operation breadbasket represented a link between the black cultural tradition in jazz and blues and the black political tradition of protest. one of the results of the jackson -adderley meeting was the establishment of a permanent alliance between afro-american art and politics, which carried over dramatically into the middle seventies with the gigantic p.u.s.h. (people united to save humanity) expositions. these ryan patrick jones 'expos' featured black stars, who raised revenue by lending their talent to help further the political struggle. p.u.s.h. was founded by rev. jackson with the assistance of others-among them, julian 'cannonball' adderley" (1976:310). 49. davis often attributed the value of adderley's playing specifically to its blues roots: "i could almost hear [adderley] playing in my band the first time i heard him. you know, he had that blues thing and i love me some blues" (1989:192-93); "the ideal had for this work­ ing sextet was to keep what we already had going with trane, red, joe, paul, and myself and add the blue voice of cannonball adderley into this mixture and then to stretch everything out. i felt that cannonball's blues-rooted alto sax up against trane's harmonic, chordal way of playing, his more free-form approach, would create a new kind of feeling, a new kind of sound" (1989:220-21). one davis anecdote is particularly revealing along these lines: "that first night [on tour] in chicago, we started off playing the blues, and cannonball was just standing there with his mouth open, listening to trane playing this way-out shit on a blues. he asked me what we were playing and i told him, 'the blues.' he says, 'well, i ain't never heard no blues played like that!' see, no matter how many times he played a tune, trane would always find ways to play it different every night ... that just fucked [adderley] up because cannonball was a blues player" (1989:221-22). responding to davis's justification for working with adderley, (namely that "cannonball had a certain kind of spirit"), nisenson expounds upon the seminal, crowd-pleasing blues element so often observed in adderley's playing style. "adderley buoyantly celebrated the moment. the blues were always present when adderley played but were rarely the melancholy blues; rather, they were the music of a man who reveled in the totality of life ... miles was also referring to adderley as a jazz populist. that is not the same thing as a jazz popularizer like herbie mann or, for that mat­ ter' kenny g ... adderley believed that jazz was still a 'people's music' and strove to make it accessible, especially to black audiences-although he had many white fans as well ... if jazz had become a more elitist music since the rise of bebop, adderley's mission seemed to be to make it once again a music for dancing and celebration" (2000:113-14). critical response to adderley's bluesy style was often negative. as nisenson offers, "when somebody whose playing was as steeped in blues as much as cannonball adderley's arrived on the east coast, he was immediately embraced for his commitment to the black roots of jazz. perhaps this encouragement led adderley to rely too heavily on blues licks. their overuse made some musicians and critics doubt his sincerity, as they similarly doubted the sincerity of other musicians ... martin williams, hailed as the dean of american jazz critics, put it this way: 'i find adderley's work unsatisfying ... at the end of his solos, i usually find myself asking just what he has said-in form, in melody and rhythm, and in content ... adderley seems to toss off casually what he can play within the technical form of each piece but not within its emotional form or musical implications.' in a review of a live adderley album, williams wrote that the tunes have 'more blue notes per four-bar phrase than you might have believed possible. indeed, the whole occasion has the air of a communal celebration in which a black middle-class determinedly seeks out its musical roots'" (2000:120). references adderley, julian. 1963. now we're moving back to where we belong. melody maker 38 (september 21): 7. ---.1969. jazz on campus. down beat 36 (november 13): 32. ---. 1979. paying dues: the education of a combo leader. in jazz panorama: from the pages of the jazz review, edited by martin t. williams, 258-63. new york: da capo press. adderley, nat. 1960. cannon and 1. metronome 77 (12): 18-19. 203 204 current musicology albertson, chris. 1970. cannonball the communicator. down beat 37 (january 8): 12-13. brubacher, john s. [1939]1962. modern philosophies of education. new york: mcgraw-hill book company, inc. carr, ian. 1998. miles davis: the definitive biography. new york: thunder's mouth press. davis, miles with quincy troupe. 1989. miles: the autobiography. new york: simon & schuster. demichael, don. 1961. inside the cannonball adderley quintet: part 1. down beat 28 (june 8): 19-22. ---. 1962. the responsibilities of success: cannonball. down beat 29 (june 21): 13-15. deveaux, scott. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. dewey, john. [1916] 1965. democracy and education: an introduction to the philosophy of education. new york: macmillan. duboff, rob, mark vinci, mark davis, and josh davis. 2001. miles davis: kind of blue. mil­ waukee, wi: hal leonard corporation. gitler, ira. 1959. julian "cannonball" adderley: part 1. jazz: a quarterly of american music 3: 197-209. hentoff, nat. 1975. the jazz life. new york: da capo press. kernfeld, barry. 1981. adderley, coltrane, and davis at the twilight of bebop: the search for melodic coherence (1958-59). phd dissertation, cornell university. lawton, denis and peter gordon. 2002. a history of western educational ideals. london: woburn press. lateef, yusef. 1975. an overview of western and islamic education. edd dissertation, uni­ versity of massachusetts. nisenson, eric. [1982] 1996. 'round about midnight: a portrait of miles davis. new york: da capo press. ---. 2000. the making of kind of blue: miles davis and his masterpiece. new york: st. martin's griffin. redman, joshua. 2005. newk's time. jazztimes 35 (5): 46-55,130. schaap, phil. 1987. liner notes from discoveries: cannonball adderley, savoy jazz sjl 1195. sheridan, chris. 2000. dis here: a bio-discography of julian "cannonball" adderley. westport, ct: greenwood press. stokes, w. royal. 2000. living the jazz life. oxford and new york: oxford university press. walser, robert. 1999. a jazz summit meeting. in keeping time: readings in jazz history, edited by robert walser, 261-93. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ward, geoffrey c. and ken burns. 2000. jazz: a history of america's music. new york: alfred a.knopf. williams, gene a. 1976. julian "cannonball" adderley (1928-1975). black perspective in music 4 (3): 307-12. wilson, pat. 1972. conversing with cannonball. down beat 39 (june 22): 12-13. winter, jack. 1982. julian cannonball adderley. coda magazine 186: 4-7. interviews bradley, james. 2005a. telephone interview with the author, october 18. ---. 2005b. telephone interview with the author, november 7. higgins, daniel. 2003. personal communication with the author, may 27. lateef, yusef. 2005. telephone interview with the author, june 7. wilson, nancy. 2003. personal communication with the author, may 28. ryan patrick jones discography adderley, cannonball. 1955. with apologies to oscar (take 3). bohemia after dark. savoy mg12017. ---.1958. somethin' else. blue note 7243 4 95329 2 2. ---. 1959. this here. the cannonball adderley quintet in san francisco. riverside ojccd-035-2 (rlp-ll57). ---.1959. quintet in chicago. verve 314 559 770-2. ---. 1962. introduction-by cannonball. the cannonball adderley sextet in new york. riverside ojccd-142-2 (rlp-9404). ---. 1963. nippon soul, the weaver, tengo tango. nippon soul. riverside oj ccd-43 5-2 (rlp-9477). ---. 1966. mercy, mercy, mercy. live at "the club." capitol jazz records cdr 7243 8 2991526. burns, ken. 2000. episode ix, the adventure. in jazz, a film by ken burns. washington dc: florentine films, weta, & warner home video. davis, miles. 1958. dr. jackle. milestones. columbia 85203. ---. 1959. all blues. kind of blue. columbia ck 64935. wilson, nancy and cannonball adderley. 1962. nancy wilson/cannonball adderley. capitol records t 1657. 205 the filth and the fury: an essay on punk rock heavy metal karaoke jason lee oakes lauren is a photographer who lives in new york city. the daughter of a urologist, she grew up in westchester county and graduated cum laude from nyu. lauren's master's degree in photography has served her well at punk rock heavy metal karaoke (pmk), a live band karaoke night in new york city she attends almost every week. l the gaze of her camera is frequently trained on friends and strangers as they sing, scream, and pose on stage. with over one hundred of her photos posted online, this is still only a small portion of the thousand-plus pmk photos on the photo-sharing website filckr.com. in documenting this amateur event, lauren is also joined by a host of videographers, including a number of professionals. pmk has inspired a documentary film that played the independent festival circuit, punk rock heavy metal karaoke: the movie (2001), and videos of individual singers have been uploaded on youtube. 2 the joy found in looking and being looked at is a big part of pmk's appeal, and, as one might expect, hearing and being heard is also central to the event. every week the voice is "gazed" upon by listeners much as the body is gazed upon by spectators. a great deal of attention focuses on how individual singers emulate the original vocalist of a song and the degree to which they stake out a vocal identity of their own, as well as how they present themselves in relation (or contrast) to familiar rock star visual codes. the power of this bodily and vocal display is illustrated one monday night as lauren prepares to venture into the more aggressive reaches of the punk songlist. having previously limited herself to a handful of pop-tinged songs-songs that are in keeping with her friendly offstage demeanor­ lauren has taken a bit of ribbing for her ever-present smile and what one pmk regular, rico, calls her "aura of niceness." so when rico dares her to sing "something with the words 'fuck; 'cunt; or 'abortion;" whether intended as a joke or not, she decides to accept the challenge. after the emcee calls lauren's name, she nervously accepts the micro­ phone and the beer-stained plastic-sheathed lyric sheet. as the band launches into a stampeding, overdriven two-note riff lauren's eyes intensify and she spits out the words: current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 73 74 current musicology i've fucked a sheep and i've fucked a goat! i rammed my cock right down its throat! so wot?! so wot?! so wot so wot yew boring little cunt! in the act of singing "so what" by anti-nowhere league ([1981] 1996),3 lauren's entire demeanor changes. the smile remains but there is a visible gleam of malice in her eye. on the small stage her body is propelled forward as she moves aggressively toward the audience. likewise her voice is cast out of her body with a shrieking force that twists the simple melody of the song into new shapes. the reaction of the audience to lauren's new persona is overwhelming positive. those nearest the stage gaze up and scream the next lines together, ending with an accusatory "who cares about you! you! you! you!" as they point alternately toward the stage and each other. at the song's end, after lauren has sung about her further adventures "spewing up on a pint of piss;' "jacking up until [she] bleed[ s];' "suck[ing] an old man's cock;' and "fuck[ing] a schoolgirl's crack," the audience breaks out into rapturous applause and approving catcalls. by her own admission, singing "so what" for the first time destabilizes lauren's sense of discrete selfhood. afterwards, she describes feeling "mo­ mentarily possessed" by her newly discovered "dark side;' letting out "a devilish fit of laughter" when she left the stage. even a couple of years later, in a quote taken from her wedding announcement (she married the karaoke band's drummer), lauren describes the pmk experience in similar terms: "it unleashed something i never knew existed:' drawing on imagery appropriate to a horror movie, she could just as easily be describing the exorcist and its depiction of a young girl whose body and voice become instruments of the devil. still, despite such malevolent metaphors, lauren uses them to frame the experience in affirmative terms: "i used to sing poorly on purpose, just because i didn't want people to know who i was. your voice is just your voice for everything. what binds everybody at [pmk] is that everybody's doing that, letting their voices out, saying 'this is who i am.'" shifting from being "momentarily possessed" to "this is who i am;' and shifting from a discourse of horror to therapy-speak, pmk is alternatively portrayed as something akin to a satanic ritual and a particularly effective form of group psychotherapy, with voices "let out" like repressed memories on a therapist's couch. what can account for these seeming contradictions? how does a weekly regime of singing and screaming about humiliation, horror, and hate-deliberately disfiguring one's own voice and perhaps vocal chords in the process-come to be understood as "instant therapy" (or, in a neologism coined by lauren, as "karaotharsis")? in this article i will attempt to unravel the power that lauren and many others attribute to pmk. drawing on my participation in the event from 2001 to the present, i examine the relationships between abjection, noise, karaoke, gender, and the genre of punk rock at pmk. jason lee oakes the karaoke revolution: i'm not ok, you're not ok jt gets all fucked up in some karaoke bar. after two drinks he's a loser, after three drinks he's a star. getting all nostalgic as he sings "i will survive." hey baby can you bleed like me? c'mon baby can you bleed like me? -garbage "bleed like me" (2005)4 in one brief stanza, the lyrics of "bleed like me" by pop collagists garbage effectively capture the image of karaoke as it is portrayed in much of popular culture in the english-speaking world. in this setting, karaoke is an activity strongly associated with bars and with the excessive drinking that can provide "liquid courage" to those unaccustomed to singing in public. much like bars themselves in societies where drinking is alternately encouraged and condemned, karaoke is met with a great deal of ambivalence. on the one hand, it is often portrayed as a debased form of expression catering to "fucked up ... losers" prone to unseemly nostalgia, sentimentality, or narcissism. on the other hand, karaoke is often portrayed as a poignant and occasionally transcendent outlet for the common (wo )man who is merely trying to make their way through life, and consequently is beheld as a truly democratic art form where everyone gets their chance to be a "star" (if not for fifteen minutes as forecast by andy warhol, then at least for the three­ to-four-minute duration of a pop song).5 these seemingly contradictory representations are in keeping with what is perceived (implicitly or explicitly) to be the contradictory, boundary-blurring nature of karaoke itself. taking place in liminal settings where many patrons use alcohol and music to achieve an altered state-to escape and to more fully inhabit "the self"-a fine line is negotiated between being a "loser" and being a "star;' between expressing dignity and determination ("i will survive") or depression and desperation ("fucked up" and "nostalgic"). the core metaphor used throughout the garbage song is self-induced bleeding-ambivalently positioned as both harmful and healing. in the song's lyrics, the penetration of stable boundaries (most prominently, the skin) brings to mind the medieval practice of healing by drawing blood, and the analogous psychoanalytic practice of "bleeding out" anxieties through controlled purging of repressed, debased desires. the karaoke landscape is characterized by a tension negotiated between locally based scenes and global media conglomeration. for a practice that is unusually enthusiastic about popular music's status as a mass-mediated, commodified form, there is a common tendency for local, "grass roots" scenes to build up around regular karaoke nights (much more commonly than scenes build up around "original" live music scenes, in my experience). sara cohen defines "scene" as "a shared musical activity or taste ... used to 75 76 current musicology describe situations in which distinctions between informal and formal music activity, and between the activities and roles of music audiences, producers, and performers, are blurred" (1999:239). working from this definition, pmk easily meets the criteria for a "scene;' given that many stable, established boundaries are violated at the event, most obviously in the fact that the audience are the performers. these are only a few of the distinctions that are blurred at pmk and other karaoke events-e.g., distinctions between live and mediated (keili984), amateur and professional, public and private, global and local, and degradation and transcendence. in the realm of sound, the dividing line between music and noise is often challenged, given that novice singers routinely violate established boundaries of pitch and rhythm. at pmk, the timbral distortions of punk and metal music, and of voices pushed to their limits, further test the line between noise and music. furthermore, pmk challenges the categorical integrity of karaoke itself, as it inhabits a grey area between karaoke and not-karaoke. while karaoke is defined in large part by the use of pre-recorded musical accompaniment, at pmk the pre-recorded background music is dropped in favor of a live rock band. pmk is held at venues that otherwise host rock shows and other live music labeled as original-giving singers the experience of fronting an actual band at an actual rock club. these facts, taken together with a popular discourse that often disparages karaoke, leads some participants to claim that pmk is not "karaoke" at all, notwithstanding the inclusion of the word in the event's name. yet despite these important distinctions, pmk is structured like a typical karaoke night: willing participants sign up to sing a song chosen from a list, and over the course of an evening they are called to perform by an emcee. singers follow along with printed lyrics-although lyrics are read from a piece of paper rather than a video screen-and most make no pretense of being professional vocalists or aspiring to be. the karaoke band's monday-night residency at downtown nightclub arlene grocery-often referred to as ''arlene's'' and located within walking distance of cbgb (aka cbgb's), the acknowledged birthplace of punk­ lasted over five years. the long-running regular timeslot did much to nurture the scene, unlike other live music clubs that have largely dispensed with the practice of regular band residencies. in fact, the event has kicked off a national and to some extent global network of related music scenes. inspired by pmk, other live karaoke nights have taken root elsewhere in new york city, in chicago, seattle, and atlanta, and overseas (one dutch event uses exactly the same name). many strong social bonds have formed among individuals who have met at the event, and some seek out other live karaoke events in new york city and elsewhere. the bonds extend far beyond the karaoke gatherings and have been reinforced in the multiple discourses jason lee oakes that the "regulars" (as they call themselves) produce around the event. since august 2002, a dedicated pmk internet discussion board has tallied over one hundred thousand postings-divided into po stings that deal directly with pmk ("karaoke chatter"), music more generally ("rock and roll ... whooo!"), social happenings among group members ("other events"), and other topics ("general discussion"), with a special category set aside for movies ("cinematic genius").6 in addition to the internally produced discourse on the scene, there is a substantial external discourse on pmk, including a plethora of journalistic pieces, radio segments, and tourist guidebook profiles of the event. as with the discourse around karaoke more generally, these profiles often portray the event in diametrically opposed terms. in 2002 the village voice included the event in its "best of new york" issue, promising the reader they could "forget screens with silly music videos or the sinking sense of embarrassment that most karaoke events induce" and instead commune with "angry but loyal would-be stars" and "brave and talented singers" (cole 2002). in the same year, the competing alternative weekly new york press named pmk "the best reason to stay home on mondays," bashing it because "it's in all the tourist guides ... it attracts every yuppie dork from 96th to houston ... [and 1 it sucks" (new york press 2002). such commentary simply piggybacks on the contradictions embodied by the event itself, explicitly alluding to the "art vs. commerce" binary so frequently invoked in popular music (and especially rock music) criticism that finds no overlap or ambiguity between "authentic" or "inauthentic." according to the village voice, pmk is authentic because it plays host to "genuinely honest" forms of self-expression, whereas the press links in authenticity to an audience made up of tourists and "yuppies" who presumably treat music as just another consumer product. this perceived tension between art and commerce is heightened at pmk, given the self­ proclaimed anti-commercialism of many punk/metal musicians and fans (notwithstanding the commercial success of key artists). in general, the genres are closely linked with a rebellious and anti -authoritarian image that is very much at odds with north american karaoke and the commercially successful "pop" music that makes up its repertoire. this categorical confusion may arise in part from karaoke's relative novelty. compared to a country such as japan, which has a long tradition of public, non-professional singing (mitsui 1998) and where karaoke is conceptualized more in terms of "participation" than of "performance" (yano 1996: 1), the us has no such tradition or contextualizing discourse except in isolated pockets and primarily among immigrants. in this setting, there is no well-defined ideological or social space for karaoke, which as a result is often viewed as one of the lowest among low-brow forms of entertainment. 77 78 current musicology from the "cheesy" canned music and accompanying videos to the bars full of the "drunk, desperate, and deluded;' such cliches about karaoke position it as an abject form of music-making. furthermore, karaoke is sometimes criticized for being a cheap form of entertainment that takes gigs away from "legitimate" musicians, with karaoke disc jockeys disparaged as "no­ talents with a machine" whose musical knowledge does not extend beyond "pushing buttons and setting things up."? even george h. w. bush got into the act of karaoke-bashing during his failed 1992 reelection campaign, in one speech labeling bill clinton and ai gore "the karaoke kids" for their willingness to "sing any tune they think will get them elected" (quoted in drew 2001:18). closely related to the perceived violation of professional/amateur and authentic/inauthentic binaries, karaoke may also be considered debasing for blurring distinctions between originality and mimicry-a distinction that for many consumers organizes music aesthetically and in the marketplace (e.g., "original" songs versus "cover versions"). while karaoke is sometimes viewed as a way to express individuality, it is more often criticized for encouraging slavish imitation. karaoke ethnographer robert drew notes that the word "karaoke" itself has become shorthand for any seemingly derivative form of expression: in the anglo-american lexicon, karaoke often serves as a metaphor for anything deemed shopworn or soulless. a shot-for-shot remake of hitchcock's psycho is "the film equivalent of karaoke." an italian designer's japanese-influenced fashion line is "karaoke couture." and any musician whose live performances parrot her recordings, or who uses recorded material in her live shows, or who simply sounds too much like some other musician evokes instant comparisons to karaoke. (2001:21) if an activity as seemingly innocuous as karaoke is frequently disparaged in such vehement terms-terms that focus on the integrity of discrete self­ hood-perhaps karaoke poses a deeper threat to widely shared ontological distinctions that posit an unmistakable, inviolable boundary dividing "me" from "not-me" (and, in capitalist terms, between "mine" and "not-mine"). such a threat can provoke anxiety even among karaoke devotees. while karaoke practitioners seem to take the uniqueness and distinctiveness of recording artists for granted (songs are typically listed by artist), at the same time they undermine these qualities by temporarily inhabiting or "renting out" the songs for the duration of a performance. in a posting to the internet message board, one pmk regular poses a question in the subject line, "persona or reality?": jason lee oakes i had a conversation with [another regular 1 a few weeks back ... she was of the opinion that everyone on the stage wears a certain persona for the act, i.e. a contrived stage personality. i, on the other hand, feel the exact opposite: the three minutes a week i get on stage at arlene's are the three minutes a week i get to lose all social inhibition and behave like a complete ass, i.e. myself, and not get judged for it. that's what i love about punk metal karaoke, you get to live out every little rock and roll impulse you have no matter how idiotic, and have the crowd love you for it. rather than wearing a facade at pmk, this individual sees it as the one place where he can remove the facade. framing his argument in sociological terms as a loss of "social inhibition," and in psychological terms as a full inhabitation of (my) self, self-actualization is paradoxically effected through the fusing of one's own voice with the implied voice of the original singer. the framing of such experiences takes on a wider significance as pmk-like musicking has become common in the realm of virtual reality. the advent of live karaoke events served as a "real world" harbinger of hugely popular video games such as karaoke revolution, guitar hero, and rock star (harmonix music systems) that are now played by millions worldwide. in terms of western popular music, this "karaoke revolution" can be traced back to the beginnings of punk rock and its much-heralded diy (do it yourself) ideology. whether framed in terms of amateurization, democratization, or co-optation, the fan-centered discourse around diy encouraged musical novices to pick up instruments, form bands, and record songs-in effect learning in public and creating a network of venues and labels as they went. while these goals were realized to a greater or lesser extent in different settings, and in varying degrees of distinction to the "mainstream;' the diy mindset has only become more entrenched in the current era of mp3s, myspace, and a financially unstable music industry. as a genre that anticipated emergent approaches to popular music-making more generally, punk rock began as a kind of "karaoke before karaoke." for example, in the mid-1970s, when nobody in the rock scene or the coun­ terculture wore leather jackets or got bowl haircuts, the ramones adapted this look as their uniform in a self-conscious nod to 1950s media images of rebels and hoods. the formalist rigor of the ramones, regarded by many as the first punk rock band, turned pop into a twisted form of performance art. joey ramone's voice was an unlikely fusion of imitation british inflections and thick queens dialect, and the band's music made reference to british invasion and garage rock, early-1960s girl group melodicism, and stooges­ like primitivism. while the ramones were certainly not the first to imitate their musical idols, they did help to popularize a newly reflexive approach to imitation-an approach that took the amateur enthusiasm, the unashamed 79 80 current musicology homage, the sense of irony, and the evident self-invention of "the fan" and placed them at the center not only of pop music consumption, but also of pop music production. in the uk, punk developed along similar lines that also presaged karaoke. sid vicious took up the bass and his new image in emulation of dee dee ramone, and johnny rotten auditioned for the sex pistols by miming a manic, parodic version of alice cooper's ''i'm eighteen" played on a jukebox. given the strong link between punk rock and karaoke, and the position­ ing of pmk between the two, in the following pages i will briefly historicize punk as a genre culture before moving on to pmk itself and the ways that female regulars negotiate gender at the event. given the breadth of these topics, however, it is first necessary to theorize an underlying architecture that links them together. in the following section, i will suggest that abjection provides a common conceptual framework that can be meaningfully applied to karaoke, punk rock, femininity, and their interaction at pmk. defining abjection: making a mess of surfaces much of the discourse around karaoke and pmk bears an uncanny resem­ blance to "the abject" as theorized by julia kristeva. in her formulation, the abject has an "almost-there" presence that "beseeches a discharge, a convul­ sion, a crying out" (1982:2) through ritual expulsion. kristeva outlines three distinguishing traits of the abject. first, abjection is produced when a seem­ ingly stable boundary is crossed and threatens to dissolve. it is this "collapse of the border between inside and outside" (1982:53) that "disturbs identity, system, order" (1982:4). the abject "does not respect borders, positions, rules;'but rather "the in-between, the ambiguous, the composite" (1982:4), where one sphere is penetrated, polluted, or possessed by the other. second, abjection stems less from an outside threat than a threat from within that confuses stable boundaries. in efforts to expel the abject, the danger is that one will only be partially successful, resulting in "something rejected from which one does not part" (1982:4). the half-expelled object then exists in an uncomfortable space of both one and the other, challenging the clear distinction between inside and outside, between "me" and "not-me:' third, the abject manifests itself most literally in the physical realm-it is both of the body and discharged from the body. viscous fluids occupy an uncertain space between liquid and solid and between containment and expulsion. examples include feces, urine, blood, menstrual discharge, semen, vaginal secretions, mother's milk, pus, bile, and ultimately the body itself in the form of a decaying corpse. revulsion, shame, and horror are the socially instilled responses to abject "waste" products-the muck, garbage, and refuse of jason lee oakes the body-that are labeled unclean. according to kristeva, these expelled bodily substances are considered vile, degraded, and taboo not only for their surface messiness, but for the mess they make of surfaces themselves. likewise, encounters with the abject are also known to confound either/or categorization, often provoking responses that sit uneasily between repulsion and attraction, or between experiences of pleasure and pain. in many accounts, the voice is viewed as another of the abject "bodily secretions" that penetrates and potentially disrupts boundaries. in the act of singing, especially when electronically amplified, the voice is put on display both as sound that resides within the body, and as sound expelled from the body and projected into space. according to elizabeth tolbert, the voice is interpreted as abject when heard both as "a direct and unmediated expres­ sion" and as "a symbolic representation" (2004: 1 08). in unsung voices: opera and musical narrative in the nineteenth century, carolyn abbate explores how the voice crosses permeable boundaries, taking "audible flight from the continuum that embeds it" (1991:29). in a psychoanalytic analysis of music and its bodily and cultural effects, david schwarz draws on abbate in analyzing how "musical voices cross and enunciate thresholds" (1997:3). in the "audible gaze" (1997:17) of intensive listening, he describes instances where "the boundary separating the body from the external world seems dis­ solved or crossed in some way" (1997: 7). while it is open to debate whether this sensation is a widely shared experience based in physiology or a unique culturally and discursively mediated phenomenon, the origins of abjection interest me less than its experiential component at pmk. critical and casual discourses around popular music include frequent reference to the crossing and enunciation of thresholds. "good" music is often praised for taking the listener to a realm outside their own conscious­ ness, and at the same time for helping listeners to better inhabit their own physical beings and personalities. as one pmk regular, cindy, puts it, "we almost all do the same thing with music, including the guys in the band, where we use music to sort of connect with ourselves, and escape, and for protection and all those kinds of things." in the drawing and displacing of boundaries, there is a constant interplay between what schwartz labels primary and secondary abjection: "primary abjections are produced when boundaries are drawn. secondary abjection fantasizes a return back across these thresholds. these secondary abjections are produced when boundaries are erased" (1997:150). in the psychosexual stages of development outlined by freud-a model disseminated through the medical establishment and widely filtered into popular culture-the first experience of abjection comes at the point where the infant recognizes himor herself as an individual. at this point, they begin to differentiate between a discrete "me" that can be 81 82 current musicology distinguished from the "not-me" from which they emerged (i.e., the mother). from a freudian perspective, if all primary abjections are framed in relation to this separation from the mother and the womb, then secondary abjections likewise act as a symbolic return to the womb and its "sonorous envelope" (schwarz 1997). thus, as kristeva and others have noted, the abject is com­ monly gendered feminine. the abject is discursively linked to otherness in terms quite similar to the traditional (and perjorative) representation of femininity-e.g., impurity, instability, irrationality, ambiguity, physicality, unfathomability, and so on. however, the feminine associations of primary abjection are complicated by the masculine, implicitly phallic penetration enacted in secondary abjection where borders are temporarily violated. taken together, there is an undeniable common theme of abject penetra­ tion at pmk, both literal and figurative, where one sphere is momentarily possessed by the other. consider the various types of threshold-crossing in lauren's performance of "so what." the lyrics, in graphically (yet facetiously) depicting acts of bestiality, infections of crabs and lice, drug-and-alcohol induced vomiting and bleeding, and sex with underage girls and elderly men, focus on violating boundaries between human and animal, between old and young, and between bodily expulsions and infestations. in lauren's perfor­ mance, thresholds of sex and gender are also crossed when a woman sings about her various phallic adventures. in her own telling, lauren describes her karaoke experience in terms of both primary and secondary abjection. she is "momentarily possessed" at the same time that she uses music to express "this is who i am" -as ontological boundaries (distinguishing "me" and "not-me") are dissolved and asserted at the same time. the music that accompanies lauren's performance at pmk aurally mirrors this abjection, featuring "dirty" distorted guitar that is as much noise as music, a bass line that precisely mimics the guitar and thus blurs any distinction between the instruments' functions, and repetitive pummeling drums meant to penetrate the body as much as to keep the beat (at pmk and in other live rock settings the drums are often felt as much as they are heard). a seismic explosion of sound is produced by the musicians at pmk who appear to physically attack their instruments, forcibly expelling the songs. likewise, in "letting their voices out;' lauren portrays singers in the act of abject expulsion where voices are not merely activated but rather are unleashed. these kinds of descriptors, which appear to make direct reference to abjection, are echoed by many other regulars at pmk as well. for instance, a regular named wellington gives this description of the cast of regulars at the event: it's just that there's something almost trapped in each one of them ... i think each one of them has a certain-well, this isn't quite the right wordjason lee oakes but a certain rage. certainly for myself, there's something that i can get out there that i haven't felt anywhere else. i don't care if it's sex, or if it's hitting somebody playing hockey, there's just something not quite there. whether the semantic slippage is deliberate or not, there are a number of compelling categorical ambiguities in this statement. wellington describes something that is only half-there that is nonetheless expelled-as witnessed in the ambiguity of something "not quite there" but still there, something that is "almost trapped" that one can still manage to "get out." seemingly, the voice does not come forth willingly; it must be forcibly expelled. this effort is observable not only in verbal representations after the fact, but also in the singers' own voices and in the faces and bodies that are equally on display. singers tug at their own clothing, pound their chests, or stab invisibly at the air, as if trying to pierce some unseen boundary, trying to let something out, and it is not always easy to tell if these faces and voices are contorted in pleasure or pain (figure 1). the discourse of abjection utilized by many at pmk is not invoked at random, but rather draws on and extends a longstanding appropriation of the abject (and more broadly of psychoanalytic discourses) in the genre of rock and especially of punk rock. it is to this subject that i now turn. the powers of punk: diy and musical abjection in this section, i consider the contribution of punk rock, as a musical genre, to themes of abjection at pmk. while in the interest of space i am neglecting the role of heavy metal at the event, there is a case to be made that pmk (which was inspired by and began as strictly a punk rock event) is aesthetically and ideologically rooted in punk rock much more than in metal. the best supporting argument to be made here is that pmk embraces the punk-derived diy approach that prizes amateur inspiration over the virtuosity and grandiosity associated with cultures of heavy metal. thus, in keeping with more recent theorizations of "genre;' i am defining punk here less in terms of specific musical style than in terms of the genre's "implica­ tions for how, where, and with whom people make and experience music" (holt 2007:2)-specifically, how punk has been aligned with abjection. in but is it garbage: on rock and trash, steven hamelman delivers a treatise on the "trash trope" of rock 'n' roll, which "assumes the guises of trash, garbage, rubbish, waste, debris, junk, and other synonyms that describe the disposed-of products of a throwaway society" (2004: 13). expressed in "metaphors of waste" (2004:17), hamelman finds garbage to be a common image and metaphor used in rock lyrics, criticism, consumerism, and culture; for instance, the book jacket refers to "throwaway tunes, wasted fans, crappy 83 current musicology figure 1: screaming at pmk. photographs by the author. 84 jason lee oakes figure i (cont.) 85 86 current musicology reviews, [and] junk bins of remaindered albums." this fascination with waste is framed as both celebration and critique, perched on a boundary that is abject in its ambiguity. hamelman argues that punk-"knee-deep in garbage, dreck, debris, waste, and junk" (2004:56)-amplified the "trashy" discourse of rock even beyond what had existed before.s one of the most notorious pieces of writing on punk is a newspaper article titled "the filth and the fury!" which ran in the british tabloid paper the daily mirror on december 2,1976. it opened with the following paragraph: a pop group shocked millions of viewers last night with the filthiest language heard on british television. the sex pistols, leaders of the new "punk rock" cult, hurled a string of obscenities at interviewer bill grundy on thames tv's family teatime programme "today." the thames switch­ board was flooded with protests ... lorry driver james holmes, 47, was outraged that his eight -year-old son lee heard the swearing ... and kicked in the screen of his tv. "it blew up and i was knocked backwards:' he said. "but i was so angry and disgusted with this filth that i took a swing with my boot. i can swear as well as anyone, but i don't want this sort of muck coming into my house at teatime." (greig, mccarthy, and peacock 1976, quoted in vermorel and vermorel [1978]1987:32) this article played a major role both in popularizing punk rock and in creat­ ing an instant backlash against the genre.9 more important than the actual details of grundy's "interview" is its iconic status and the lasting impact of the notorious headline on punk cultures (not to mention the indelible image of the lorry driver violently penetrating his television screen). punk scholar dave laing maintains that "along with the sex pistols' 'god save the queen' record, [the grundy interview] was the most effective piece of provocation of the punk era" (1985:35). decades later, the filth and the fury (2002) was the title used for the definitive documentary on the sex pistols. in the uk, the purported "filth," "fury," and overall "muck" of punk rock struck a loud chord, creating a moral panic that sought to cast out the abject element from british society. due to the on-air swearing and the publicity it created, the sex pistols were largely banned from most concert venues in the uk, and even in the us "punk" was turned into a dirty word that for many years guaranteed any band labeled as such a lack of radio airplay and major record label support. 10 following the sex pistols' brief existence, many punk acts carried on the tradition of abject shock tactics. punk filth perhaps reached its apogee in the 1980s and early 1990s with gg allin (whose song "die when you die" is included on the pmk songlist). notorious for physical attacks against audience members, bloody self-mutilation, onstage defecation, and jason lee oakes invitations to fellate, urinate on, and brutalize his body, allin usually ended shows covered in a thick layer of his own filth, giving him an appearance more like a creature from a horror movie than a human being. one pmk regular, aaron, who was present at allin's final show and the subsequent riot, describes it as the one time in his life that was even more frightening than being in downtown new york on 9111. while most punk musicians and fans do not approach the grand guignol excesses of gg allin, the genre is still defined in large part by the linkage of obscenity (filth), anger (fury), and amateurism (noise). of course, each of these three elements has been interpreted variously across different historical periods, locales, and subgenres, and by different individuals. still, the constant negotiation of "filth and fury" expressed in music that borders on noise is central to how punk is produced and interpreted. i i in fact, this grounding in filth and fury invites chaotic confusion and radically different interpretations of what punk "means" and who it stands for and belongs to. notably, the word "muck;' invoked by the lorry driver quoted in the daily mirror, is used not only to describe filth, dirt, or slime, but also a state of chaos or confusion (e.g., "to make a muck of things"). along these lines, many have noted the confusing vacillation of punk cultures between far left and far right politics and outright nihilism that shuns political engagement. punk historian jon savage highlights the "arresting ambiguities" of punk rock cultures in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, and other markers of identity. praising songs that jump "into the abyss" oflyrical contradiction, vocal glossolalia, and assaultive noise with "no tune just relentless punk" (1992:415), savage explicitly heralds the genre in freudian terms when he writes of punk's "real return of the repressed" (1992:138). while rock as a whole has long been alternately heralded or criticized in similarly pseudo­ freudian terms, before the advent of punk it had never been so unequivocally positioned as an expression of pure id with no recourse made to rational explanations such as juvenile delinquency or clear political aims. in the sex revolts: gender, rebellion, and rock 'n' roll (1995), simon reynolds and joy press devote an entire chapter to "flirting with the void: abjection in rock." in a book suffused with psychoanalytic readings of rock music in relation to gender, the chapter on abjection is devoted entirely to proto-punk, punk, and post-punk bands. 12 positioned both as a wallowing-in and a "ritual exorcism" (1995:85) of abject muck (i.e., as both primary and secondary abjection), the stooges' "lust for abasement" manifests itself in music that "rollick[sl in the primordial ooze" with its "turgid torrent of brackish guitars" (1995:87). likewise reynolds and press describe the sex pistols' "ferocious confrontation with the realm of maternal horror" in their song "bodies" -a "threatening and incoherent song" with" [johnny 1 rotten 87 88 current musicology practically gargling the imagery of gurgling discharges" (1995:90). finally, they focus on nirvana's final album in utero and its first single "heart­ shaped box;' which "oscillates between womb-nostalgia and dread of sexual! emotional engulfment:' the suicide of kurt cobain is likewise ascribed to his "desire to retreat from the world into numbed-out sanctuary," eventually "blossom[ing] into a full-blown death wish" that had its roots in "what freud called the nirvana principle, a tendency in all organic life to revert to the lowest possible level of irritation, to become inanimate" (1995:97). with the consistent references to psychoanalytic notions of the abject in the discourse around punk rock, how might this abjection be communicated in musical terms? one common strategy is to translate the notion of "filth and fury" into music that sounds messy and angry-even if the resulting noise is produced in a deliberate, exacting manner. the deliberate amateur­ ism of many early punk records-limited to a few chords, no solos, sloppy playing, and rough timbres-quickly became sonic signifiers of the diy aesthetic, with its stated aim of transcending one's musical and personal limitations. this led to efforts by even trained and experienced musicians to try to sound unstudied, indifferent, or at the very least "spontaneous." this indifference and spontaneity is signified in part by the messy overspilling of established musical boundaries-playing out of tune, rushing ahead of the beat, singing outside the natural vocal register, and straining at the limitations of the human voice or instrumental technology-that signals abjection in the sonic realm. 13 for detractors, noise is likened to pollution in support of claims that punk (or metal, rap, etc.) is not music at all. for supporters, noise can serve as a sonic signifier of liberation from musical and social strictures, or even as a harbinger of emergent social formations where "what is noise to the old order is harmony to the new" (attali [1977] 1985:35). for singers in genres such as punk and heavy metal, the primary strategy of achieving the transcendence of noise is through screaming. screaming is truly diy par excellence in that anyone can do it, and it does not require anything outside the body. the scream, ambiguously positioned between musical expression and noise, is also perched on a bodily threshold. while the forceful expulsion of the voice makes the body audible across long distances, at the same time it is more rooted in the muck of the body's materiality. once the voice crosses a certain threshold in screaming, the materiality of the vocal chords becomes audibly apparent. in the view of allen weiss, screaming serves as the "nonmaterial double of excrement, [which] may be both expression and expulsion, a sign of both creation and frustration" (1992:287). what's more, one can hear the inside of the body being disturbed, pushed beyond normal capacity, to the point where repeated crossings of this threshold may cause actual damage-mutilation of the vocal cords in jason lee oakes the form of polyps or nodules. for punk and metal singing, however, the vocal timbre such damage produces is often considered desirable,14 and it is this abject physicality that makes the voice visceral, able to express strong emotion and especially emotional duress. with its basis in filth and fury-and its emphasis on the materiality of the human body and the voice-punk rock has from early in its history drawn substantially on the "trash aesthetics" of horror and pornography. while even "mainstream" punk commonly draws on discourses of horror, this link is made even more explicit in the rp.ovement of "horror punk" bands who distill imagery, lyrics, and sounds from horrific films, literature, and fashion. many horror film analyses-especially of the splatter variety that became dominant in the 1970s-could just as easily be discussing heavy metal or punk rock. for instance, barbara creed draws on kristeva to explain the modern-day "ritual" of horror films-where ritual is "the means by which societies both renew their initial contact with the abject element and then exclude that element" (1993:1). michael grant-building on creed's work-describes horror films as "a kind of modern defilement rite" that "bring about a confrontation with the abject such that the abject (the zombie, the vampire, etc.) is finally ejected and the boundaries of the symbolic, of the human, are re-established" (2004: 179). whereas many critics view horror movies as nothing more than ugly nihilism, others argue that horror movies serve as a meaningful index of the deepest fantasies and fears of a given time and place. 15 in addition to horror, early punk culture was also directly inspired by the relative main streaming of pornography in the 1970s. the word "punk" itself was originally used to refer to young, male hustlers (usually homosexual prostitutes). in london, the nascent punk scene was centered at the king's road boutique sex run by malcolm mclaren and vivienne westwood, notorious for selling fetish gear and other sexual paraphernalia, not for its functional component, but as a fashion statement and (arguably) social critique. in both horror and pornography, such ambiguities are highlighted in stock images that provoke simultaneous fascination and revulsion-the so-called "money shots" that feature the spewing of sexual fluids or the splatter of blood. in these scenes, abject bodily "wastes" penetrate the surface of the bodily container, accompanied by screams of pleasure or pain on the soundtrack (again, not always so easy to tell apart). linda williams notes with regard to pornography that "it was not until the early seventies, with the rise of the hard-core feature, that the money shot assumed the narra­ tive function of signaling the climax of a genital event" ([ 1989] 1999:93). interpreting this new convention as a contradictory sign of both abundance and lack, where "escalated visual evidence of pleasure suggests an uneasiness, a lack of belief in the previous standard for representation of pleasure;' 89 90 current musicology williams suggests that the money shot was a highly ambivalent response to "the new challenge of a different clitoral pleasure" during the feminist era ([1989)1999:119). such ambivalences are often associated with this particular historical period in the us and uk-a post-peace-and-love era marked by a mixture of growing political extremism and pop culture escapism, by unprecedented material excess and overall economic decline, and by feminist empowerment and a reassertion of male privilege and machismo (an era that in certain respects resembles our own post-9/11 world). taken together, it appears more than coincidental that the newly explicit displays of bodily abjection in pornography and horror during the 1970s-where the body is literally turned inside out, and which both exercise a fixation on bodily pleasure and pain experienced by women-directly coincided with the dawn of punk rock and heavy metal. in a sense, these two genres turned musical aesthetics inside out at the same time they turned the voice inside out, expelled in the form of the scream, at the same time that the ideals of the boomer generation were arguably turned inside out. flashing forward about thirty years, at pmk everything from karaoke to punk rock are turned inside out, set against the backdrop of post-economic bubble new york where the city has grown both observably richer (in financial terms) and less affordable for the majority of its populace. in the following section, i trace the history of pmk and its participants in order to examine how and why abject discourses-often expressed through horrific and pornographic explicitness-may act as a response to a new era of uncertainty and contradiction. punk rock heavy metal karaoke: we love you ... but not that much in 1997, guitarists greg hetson (redd cross, circle jerks, bad religion) and eric melvin (nofx) spearheaded a group of west coast punk luminaries who formed the first punk rock karaoke band. an attendee at one of these shows described the idea to bassist rob kemp, who was playing casually in a non -career band with guitarist devin emke (both are originally from louisville, kentucky) and drummer david richman (originally from subur­ ban ohio).16 they decided to try a similar event in new york. in april 1999, having learned about twenty-five punk songs, they held the first punk rock karaoke night at the lower east side nightclub arlene grocery. stripped of its hollywood invite-only glamour and all-star celebrity band, their version was considerably grungier but no less popular. in fact, it was soon more popular, and before long the band had garnered a core of regular attendees and write-ups in the local press. jason lee oakes despite the event's punk pedigree, guitarist devin emke had not heard many of the punk songs before he learned them for pmk and made a habit of inserting heavy metal-style two-handed tapping and whammy-bar divebombs into the songs. within a year there was a spin-off heavy metal night that was soon better attended than the punk rock night. weekly gigs were then scheduled, alternating between punk and metal, and within a year the two nights were fused into punk rock heavy metal karaoke-a name which hints at the abject violation of strict genre boundaries and associated audiences. in recent years, the band has treated the genre parameters of the event with ever-increasing looseness, adding "corporate rock" numbers by bands such as journey and styx (songs that briefly got their own "corporate rock karaoke" night) and recent punk-influenced pop songs such as "since u been gone" by kelly clarkson (which was met with a bit of controversy among some regulars). although members of the band profess not to care about such labels, songs lists for punk and metal were kept separate until recently, and most singers still favor one genre over the other in their song selections. in this and other respects there is a constant erasing and redraw­ ing of boundaries at pmk, as genre boundaries are continually elided and reinforced. related to this negotiation of labels, the karaoke band has never given itself an official name, despite playing together for nine years and counting; instead, regulars refer to them simply as the karaoke band or the unnamed band. since naming practices are a central ontological strategy in rock and popular music-groups of musicians effectively become bands by taking on a name-the pmk band inhabits an uncertain, liminal space. positioning themselves at the margins of the stage, their presence is marked by stoic expressions and a minimum of stage patter, all while taking aggressive songs and amping them up with faster tempos, increased distortion, and assaultive volume. despite their obvious musical skill in appealing to an audience of discerning punk and metal fans, bassist rob kemp seems to view what they do as abject on some level when he confesses in the pmk documentary, "sometimes i have a little bit of trepidation about what we're doing. i mean, are we a real band? we don't write our own songs. we don't have a regular singer. that's why we don't have a name. i feel like we really shouldn't have a name if we're just sort of like a very brutal bar band or something." between 1999 and 2005, the de facto frontman of the unnamed band was the event's emcee, owen comaskey, who also worked as manager and booker at arlene grocery during this time. raised in a council flat in birmingham, owen was a participant in the first-wave punk rock explosion in the uk, both as a fan and in a band called the nervous kind. an internet review of pmk entitled "my night in the dirty spotlight" describes comaskey as 91 92 current musicology figure 2: emcee owen comaskey at pmk at the continental (january 31, 2005). photograph by the author. "an abrasive clown, taunting the audience and wait-staff, in a straightedge suit and short hair, [and] full-on no-foolin' working class english accent" (hoffman 2000). judging from this and other similar portrayals, the "au­ thenticity" of the event is established straightaway through owen's punk background, appearance, and english working-class accent. during the height of pmk's popularity from 2001 to 2004, owen comaskey consistently plays upon pmk's contradictions. dressed in the same shiny matching-burgundy jacket and trousers week after week, with a t-shirt underneath that says "huge" in tiny letters (figure 2), owen warms up the audience with intentionally painful comic banter and provocation. he then sings the first song-fronting the band in a performance of the sex pistol's "god save the queen" or led zeppelin's "rock 'n' roll" that is "stunningly urgent and unsentimental" (hoffman 2000) following the preceding silliness. after the songlists are circulated, owen calls songs in random order for the next three hours. when no one claims a song he mercilessly harangues the absentee or reticent singer ("don't fahkin' sign up if you're not gonna get up!") and moves on. if the singer is accounted for, he or she is handed a lyric sheet and the band counts off. one by one, the singers lurch around the stage and scream along to the band's sonic assault. at some point in the evening, owen usually bestows the unnamed band jason lee oakes with a temporary name, which typically draws on some mixture of profanity, sacrilege, and sarcasm-e.g., god's cock, diane sawyer's underwear at 8:30 am, two jew bastards and one wasp bastard, and (the week of gregory hines's death) final tap. in keeping with the abject associations of punk and karaoke, owen constantly introduces satiric, grotesque, and perverse humor into the proceedings. at the conclusion of a particularly effusive performance, he will exclaim (in a parody of a stoned hippie's voice), "it was just like a concert, maaaan!" another regular quip apropos of nothing is, "i may have the smallest penis you've ever seen, but i've got the world's largest pair of balls. imagine them, slapping against your thighs!" sexual dysfunction, together with antidepressants, makes for another bawdy and irreverent source of humor: "do you know that song [by norah jones l, 'don't know why i didn't come.' well i'll tell you why ... zoloft!" putting himself in the position of an audience member listening to one of his spiels, he asks "is he gay? or is he fey? no, just english!" finally, following a performance that is particularly charged, owen's patented response is to invoke the "playful hard-on" it gives him, always quick to emphasize it's not "a full rager" but more like "eh ... maybe." in a final touch of ambiguity, after introducing the members of the band at the end of each week's show, he pronounces in a grand voice: "remember, we love you-" (and the crowd joins him to shout the punchline) "-but not that much!" like the halfway erection described by owen and the halfway camara­ derie of his final address, journalistic portrayals of pmk highlight arresting ambiguities. an article in the entertainment section of the satirical weekly the onion (love 2007) demonstrates a fascination with boundaries and borders, and particularly with their violation. individual performers are described as having one personality offstage and another onstage, where they are "pos­ sessed" by the song and the setting. for instance there is "a sweet-faced tv writer named dan" who, taking the stage to sing iron maiden's "the number of the beast," seemingly transforms into the subject of the song, "practically belching flames as his eyes glowed in their sockets:' likewise, there is a description of "a pretty first timer" who "crank[ s 1 led zeppelin's 'whole lotta love' into a startlingly confident orgasmic crescendo." following her performance, she is described in a state of post -coitallanguishment and slight embarrassment: "flushed beneath her floppy hat, she shyly thanked the crowd for 'letting me masturbate on stage.'" consistent with this depiction of pmk as a staging ground for repressed desires and exhibitionist tendencies, the author describes the audience as "a particular subset of rabid dorks with a flair for the dramatic" and a "penchant for confession [and 1 yowls of pain." likewise, a 2004 radio profile of pmk by john flansburgh of the band they might be giants that aired on local public radio station wnyc described the 93 94 current musicology event in similarly therapeutic terms: "i was fully expecting to find a sullen mob of faded rockers doing their wallflower routine. but it wasn't that at all. instead, they had somehow replaced the ever-present fear of public shame with this kind of support group vibe. it was as unlikely a center of spiritual empowerment as i could have possibly imagined."]7 why might this "particular subset of rabid dorks" be in need of therapy? are there abject circumstances in their daily lives that lead them to seek out the singing cure of pmk? answering any such questions in broad strokes is impossible, seeing as each individual has different motivations and desires. still, i will venture a few general observations given my own longstanding status as a pmk regular. first of all, many of the regulars paradoxically consider themselves "insiders" in the group due to their self-perceived status as "outsiders," "misfits," or "freaks" in their everyday existence. this percep­ tion comes across clearly in cindy's description of the pmk crew, observing that many of the soon-to-be regulars first attended pmk alone or with a group of peers who did not return again: "all these people were sort of solo and just kept sort of going ... i have this feeling that, and maybe i'm projecting here, but i have the feeling that almost all of us were outsiders. i mean, the joke now is that everybody was an outsider in high school, but i really have the feeling that this crowd were particular outsiders in high school." designations that may be considered derogatory or debased in other contexts are welcomed. on the message board one regular describes a friend who will be attending pmk as "a total fucking freak (which is one reason we got along so well), so he'll fit riiiiight in." when another regular was recently called a "douchebag" by an unknown person in the crowd, the message board was split between those who felt this comment was insulting and those who merely saw it as consistent with "punk rock" (leading another regular to adopt "douchebag" as his online tag). while the abject status described above is often proudly owned, there are other sources of abjection at pmk that are not as welcome. besides the personal rivalries and failed romances that inevitably occur in almost any tightly knit peer group, such everyday drama has had far less impact than the near-fatal blow pmk suffered several years ago-a blow that perhaps took the abject dissolution of boundaries at pmk too far. despite the unanticipated success ofpmk-for several years arlene grocery saw larger crowds on monday nights than on most weekends; at pmk simply trying to push one's way to the bar and purchase a drink could be a thirty-minute undertaking-the karaoke band was dismissed by the club's management in late 2004. in short order they were replaced by another karaoke band that had "filled in" for them on a couple of previous occasions (rumor suggests that the new band was willing to take the gig for less money). there is an unfortunate irony here in a karaoke band being replaced by a facsimile who jason lee oakes "stole" their concept, their venue, some of their repertoire, and part of their audience. the more committed regulars took to calling them the" scab band" and vowed never to set foot in arlene's again. they followed the original karaoke band to new residencies at crash mansion (2005) and continental (2005-6), and to more recent venues such as southpaw in brooklyn and midway (the current home of pmk, which as of this writing just changed its name to rehab). despite continued efforts by band members and regulars to promote pmk, the audience has steadily dwindled during the past few years. after increasingly sporadic appearances at pmk in 2005 and 2006, owen comaskey has also departed the scene. having lost his job at arlene's at the same time that the band was let go, comaskey went on to book occasional nights at crash mansion but had to leave his new job and his role as karaoke host due to health problems. is the emcee role is now filled by comedian vadim newquist. with an irreverent and free-associative sense of humor he ably continues the model established by owen and is well received by both regulars and new attendees. however, some longtime regulars cannot help but feel a sense ofloss with the departure of the man who epitomized pmk for over five years. this sense of loss is compounded by the fact that pmk currently attracts fewer and fewer first time attendees and has lost many of its younger regular attendees (during the apex of karaoke at arlene's, audi­ ences were remarkable for the unusually wide and relatively even dispersal of attendees from their early twenties to late thirties). most of the remaining regulars are now well into their thirties and moving into their forties. while there were once scores of regulars at pmk and dozens who regularly posted on the discussion board, now these numbers are in the single digits. a recent posting on the board admitted that "there was a time back at arlene's when we were a strong and large group of people but that heyday has long since passed and will not return no matter how we feel about it." to the surprise and chagrin of the remaining pmk regulars, monday nights at arlene grocery have flourished, and the "scab band" continues to this day. shedding the punk metal tag, the event has been re-dubbed "world famous live rock 'n' roll karaoke." the audience at arlene's continues to be sizable on most mondays, and overall it tends to be younger than the current pmk audience. even if it has lost some of its underground buzz, the producers and the band have compensated by taking a more explicitly campy approach. 19 furthermore many tourists and other attendees have no idea, and perhaps do not care, that the event was initiated by a different band (it is not a fact the club or the band readily volunteers). to be sure, the abjection described here is pretty far removed from the abjection of first-wave punk rockers in new york city, but at the same time there are some striking and significant parallels that may help to 95 96 current musicology explain why the genre still finds vitality in pmk thirty years after its birth. during the initial cbgb's era, punk rockers in new york city (and soon elsewhere) responded to the pervasive abjection of their surroundings. the city, and especially the lower east side (les), was economically depressed, crime-ridden, and overrun with the homeless, the drug-addicted, and self-marginalized dropouts. this marginality was in keeping with the long history of the les as a haven for "outsiders;' most specifically the waves of immigrants who called the neighborhood home through much of the nine­ teenth and twentieth century. more recently, however, the les has become home to a very different, wealthier type of resident, and its topography has been rapidly and radically altered. cbgb's could not cover its rent and shut down in october 2006,20 meeting the same fate as other manhattan live music venues driven out of business by the real estate boom and the aggressive incursion of high-rise condos, chain stores, and luxury hotels plopped down incongruously in their new environment (tonic, sin -e, luna lounge, the fez, tramps, brownies, and others)y in this climate, the east village and lower east side are again described in terms of degradation and marginalization, but of a very different sort from the past. abject revulsion stems from the "gentrification" of manhattan's once-grungier reaches. residents express a sense of violation, not by aggressive beggars or squeegee men, but by the penetration of their neighborhoods by the idle rich and the upwardly mobile (berman and berger 2007; freeman 2006). driven by a rapacious real estate market and upwards-spiraling hous­ ing rates (the recent subprime mortgage collapse has yet to trickle down as cheaper rents for most new yorkers), one can witness almost daily the shifting demographics and displacement of the lower and middle classes in manhattan and in "outer" boroughs and suburbs, from williamsburg and park slope in brooklyn to jersey city and hoboken across the hudson river. suddenly, the threatened demographic of the east village and les is not only the immigrants and the indigents, the punks and the poor who were once labeled with the blanket moniker bowery bums, but also the bohemian and hipster middle-class who more recently moved into the neighborhood. the two-hundred-year legacy of the bowery as a zone of alterity and abjection has been nearily erased in the span of ten years. whereas first-wave punk at cbgb's was often rooted in primary abjection-alternately wallowing in and revolting against their abject surroundings-pmk follows a strategy of secondary abjection where individuals attempt to rejoin the abject milieu through "a kind of modern defilement rite." in both cases, although moving along opposite trajectories, the "therapy" of singing punk rock has responded at least in part to the anxieties created in attempting to "make it" (or simply to survive) in new york city. jason lee oakes like most new yorkers, many pmk regulars struggle to make ends meet (although their standards of living vary widely), and discussion of employment and unemployment woes are not unusual among regulars. for those at pmk who remain on the fringes of bourgeois lifestyles and remunerative jobs (those who do not self-deprecatingly label themselves "sell-outs" and "executive tools"), new york city forces the constant weigh­ ing of "alternative" identifications against financial security, a stable career, owning property, and starting families. despite the wide variety of careers and personal aspirations among those at pmk, this struggle to balance unconventional lifestyles and nonconformist values with economic neces­ sity is a common concern that bonds the pmk regulars together. over the years, as some regulars have shifted their focus more to family and career, or simply moved out of the city, the core constituency of pmk has dwindled further. the decrease in pmk attendance has been especially severe among the women who once regularly attended the event-responding to a variety of factors that may include the pressure to "settle down" into domesticity before it is "too late," and the pressure applied by a genre culture that is not always welcoming to women who have passed a certain age. is pmk a form of resistance to these abject conditions-however effective? many would not see performing karaoke as "resistance" under any circumstances, instead viewing the performance of someone else's songs strictly in terms of conformity. however, in a mass-media infused culture, individuals often develop a sense of ownership of recorded music, even if they are made to feel shame (and sense of violation) for doing so. this process of making a song one's own, and expressing the self through consumer choices and interpretations of shared cultural texts, is similar to what new york apartment-dwellers experience as they make a rented space "their own" and alter the space to meet their own desires-what michel de certeau has described as the "subtle art of 'renters' who know how to insinuate their countless differences into dominant texts" (1984:xvii). while these spaces may be fully occupied by their denizens, they still straddle a sometimes uncomfortable line dividing "mine" from "not-mine." even individuals who are relatively far up the economic ladder in new york city commonly reside in rented apartments, and thus it is quite common for the middle-class to experience abjection-both in terms of encountering literal filth on a semi-regular basis (it is still new york) and occupying a liminal and abjected space which as a result has potential for transgression (e.g., potentially subversive of "ownership" itself). linking this renter's existence directly to other types of resistance enacted through "productive consump­ tion;' certeau theorizes a "tactics of consumption, the ingenious ways in which the weak make use of the strong, thus lend[ing] a political dimension 97 98 current musicology to everyday practice" (1984:xvii). one can see this linkage at pmk, as singers who "rent out" and "take over" songs for their own purposes, draw on tactics familiar to urban dwellers for whom renting is an ever more fraught yet still potentially subversive way of life. punk rock girl: listening through the male gaze one group who can well understanding the abjection of "renters" at pmk are women. out of the roughly two hundred and fifty songs on the pmk karaoke list, only twenty-two were originally sung by female artists.22 of these, only six of the female-fronted songs include other women musicians on the record (and only two male-voiced songs are accompanied by a female instrumentalist-songs by the cramps and the velvet underground). perhaps unsurprisingly, male singers make up the majority of performers at pmk, but there is a sizable contingent of women who do not by and large limit themselves to the scant offering of female-voiced songs. therefore, most female singers are put in the position of temporarily inhabiting songs written and originally voiced by men. given that many of these songs contain lyrics that are not only from but also explicitly about a masculine subject position, it puts these women in the position of renting out sonic spaces with a masculine floorplan. phallocentrism is explicitly manifest in some of the lyrics heard at pmk. women who perform songs such as led zeppelin's "whole lotta love" ("gonna give you every inch of my love"), the scorpions' "rock you like a hurricane" ("give her inches and treat her well"), or buzzcocks' "orgasm addict" ("now your mother wants to know what are those stains on your jeans") take on an imaginary phallus and effectively perform "in drag." this gendered crossover enacted by women at pmk extends far beyond the occasional lyric. in examining not only the words of rock but words about rock, it becomes apparent that there are also "phallic" musical codes and discourses associated with rock-a phallocentrism that is taken for granted to the point where "analysis of gender and rock has often begun with the premise that rock is created and performed by men or that it exemplifies a masculinist perspective" (leonard 2007:1). thus, anyone who seeks to critique this premise is compelled to first consider how rock and masculin­ ity became so closely intertwined in popular, journalistic, and scholarly discourses (leonard 2007:23-41; fast 2001:159-202). with the rare exception, this premise is accepted even when it is cri­ tiqued. for instance, there is a common argument that the electric guitar in rock is "virtually seen as an extension of the male body" where guitar players sometimes explicitly "mime masturbating their 'axes'" (bayton 1997:275). jason lee oakes more generally, reynolds and press maintain that "rock is riddled with the idea of phallus power ... penetration, self-aggrandizement, violation, acceleration and death-wish are conflated in a single existential thrust" (1995:117). they go on to label punk rock as even more hyper-masculine than rock in general: with its "directionless aggression and unbridled veloc­ ity ... there was an appetite for destruction in punk that has as much to do with the darkest recesses of the (male) psyche as with the specific social conditions of england in 1976" (1995:119). however, there is a dissonance here in that the punk movement is often credited with opening up rock to greater participation by women musicians (and not just singers). with a diy perspective that encouraged and enabled women to bypass the male gatekeepers of rock culture (in theory at least, but certainly more than before), a unique opportunity was presented for women to engage with the anger and outrageousness of rock. this opportunity was seized, if one is to judge by the list of notable female punk musicians including patti smith, deborah harry, tina wehmouth, penelope houston, siouxsie sioux, x-ray spex, the slits, the raincoats, exene cervenka, lorna doom, gayle advert, lydia lunch, poison ivy, wendy o. williams, kim gordon, and their many inheritors. not only is the list substantial, but it is also notable that some of the most adventurous, innovative, and experimental music within punk rock has been created by women musicians who took the notion of self-invention to heart, and who often directly confronted "gender trouble" in their lyrics, performances, and music. with this relatively high level of participation, and with the female­ centered creativity that pervades punk rock, why is it that fan-based event such as pmk is still overwhelmingly dominated by a masculinist orienta­ tion? while the genre of punk rock may have led to slightly more equitable practices of musical production, this was not necessarily the case for the music's consumption. punk rock has often been analyzed as "subcultural" music par excellence, and the subcultures that form around the consumption of punk rock-and other subcultures ranging from mods to bikers-have overwhelmingly been assumed to be mostly if not entirely male enclaves. as early as 1980, angela mcrobbie took dick hebdige's classic subcultural exegesis to task-subculture: the meaning of style (1979), a book whose analysis of the "mess" of punk is still often cited-for his failure to engage with "subculture's best kept secret, its claiming of style as a male but never unambiguously masculine prerogative" ([ 1980 1 1990:73). diane railton has observed how the rock/pop split is conceived in gendered terms, not in terms of who performs the music but in terms of how consumers (and the practices and spaces associated with consumption) are positioned in terms of gender (2001). in a study of female punk musicians, helen reddington observes that 99 100 current musicology "it is hardly surprising that girls are seen as consumers of pop whereas boys are seen as connoisseurs of rock ... [where] male adolescence and deviance are often perceived to go hand-in-hand" (2007:3). as a result, any female participation in rock music and especially "hard" rock music-whether as fans or as musicians-still strikes many observers as paradoxical. susan fast confronts the supposedly exotic status of female fans of hard rock in her writing on led zeppelin-a band routinely and dismissively labeled as "cock rock." as an opening gambit, she recounts one scene in the led zeppelin concert film the song remains the same (1976). the scene, a montage of various audience members listening to and looking at led zeppelin, includes one extended shot of a woman who stares intently at the band, "riveted" by the performance with an expression of "pleasurable wonder." this leads fast to pose the question: "given the popular image of women fans of rock music as hysterical, how do we account for her composure, her controlled (controlling?) gaze?" (2001:159). framing the question of "women in rock" in terms of the visual and audile "gaze" of the fan engages longstanding debates in film scholarship, specifically laura mulvey's concept of the "male gaze" (1975). mulvey argues that most films are shot from a point of view that is unambiguously masculine-stemming from the preponderance of male directors, cinema­ tographers, and editors who determine where our "gaze" is focused, and who depict the gazes of various characters. if most films are indeed produced through a male gaze, the corollary to the argument is that viewers (from whatever subject position) can only view the film through the lens of this built-in male gaze and its attendant bias. this theory leaves the female film viewer in a somewhat untenable position. film scholar mary ann doane asks, "even if its is admitted that the woman is frequently the object of the voyeuristic or fetishistic gaze in the cinema, what is there to prevent her from reversing the relation and appropriating the gaze for her own pleasure?" one common answer is that the female spectator takes on the male gaze in drag-given that "the reversal itself remains locked in the same logic ... and an essential attribute of that dominant system is the matching of male subjectivity with the agency of the look" ([1982] 2003:63). is there an equivalent to the "male gaze" for music? or is the gaze a meaningful metaphor for certain types oflistening? at pmk, the visual gaze is very much a part of the event, as audiences gaze at the singer much as they would gaze at a famous rock star, taking on the behavioral cues of rock audience behavior (including photography). there is likewise a concentrated focus of listening that takes place at pmk. the vast majority of those in attendance are intimately familiar with at least some of the songs they will hear-knowing the songs "inside out" -and they are highly attuned to how a singer adheres to or departs from the recorded version. this concentrated, jason lee oakes even voyeuristic, mode of listening shares much in common with the visual gaze. in the case of film-where women are increasingly prevalent as producers and screenwriters, and have always had a major presence as actresses-men still dominate the roles that allow the most direct mediation of the gaze (e.g., directors, cinematographers, camera operators). similarly, in recorded popular music, women may be increasingly prevalent as musi­ cians, songwriters, and music industry personnel. however, the roles most dominated by men are precisely those that most directly mediate how music is heard-sound engineers, record producers, and music critics (notably, these are the full-time careers pursued by the musicians in the pmk band). if most music is framed by this male-directed auditory gaze, how is possible for women to avoid hearing music from a masculinist perspective? at pmk, does the female fan of phallic hard rock unavoidably hear music "in drag:' through the ears of the patriarchy? a scream of one's own: the women of pmk when questions are posed in these terms, it leaves women fans of punk or heavy metal in a double bind. for if they enjoy the genres on their "own terms:' they risk being accused of complicity with a patriarchal phallic perspective. but if they avoid rock (and especially if they lean towards "pop"), they only reinforce the stereotypical rock-is-to-masculine as pop­ is-to-feminine equation. either way, women musicians and fans of these genres are forced into confronting and positioning themselves in relation to their gender, whether they want to or not. this is a dilemma that is not faced by male rockers who occupy the default (and thus invisible) subject position. just as with "women in rock" in general, the women regulars at pmk are marked off as "other" in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways. message board threads have been formed around the "ladies of pmk." owen or vadim sometimes specifically request or choose a female singer, or make a statement along the lines of "ramones songs always sound best when women sing them and i don't know why" (hoffman 2000). among regulars, the presence of women is often noted in a way that it is not for men, even among the women themselves. to give one example, when asked exactly what sold her on pmk during her first visit, cindy responds: the first person i remember seeing up onstage was this little four-foot­ nothing asian girl with pigtails. so cute, just absolutely adorable. and she kicks out [motorhead'sl "ace of spades" with a voice that clearly came from hell! everybody was just like [jaw drops l, and i don't think i've closed my mouth ever since. there was something about that, and then the way everybody was just like, "yes, right on!" 101 102 current musicology it is questionable whether cindy or the rest of the audience would have found the performance quite as compelling had it been given by a male singer, even ifhis appearance and demeanor were at odds with motbrhead's and lead singer lemmy kilmister's recorded performance ([1980]1996). in this and other cases, the power that female singers may potentially wield is double­ edged, as it is directly wedded to their disempowered status. the power associated with an abject violation of boundaries is instantly achievable by women who convincingly "cross over" to an aggressive, masculine subject position. however, this secondary abjection of border-penetration is depen­ dent upon the preexisting primary abjection associated with the feminine, where women are assumed to be already lacking in clear boundaries-e.g., unstable, ambiguous, oceanic, and open to penetration. thus, one might view the female singer's channeling of motbrhead as empowering for its break with expectations and stereotypes, or conversely one may argue that the performance is viewed as remarkable precisely because these stereotypes are still firmly in place and her otherness is taken for granted. in this instance, dissonance was magnified through the double-othering of gender and race, which made her performance of motorhead perhaps even more powerful and appealing for those in the audience (and perhaps for herself as well). further complicating matters, punk and metal can be empowering for some women precisely because of the genres' association with hyper­ masculinity and male consumership. co-opting this masculine privilege is potentially more empowering than aligning oneself with the music of more "sensitive" or "enlightened" male performers or female performers. the day after lauren's first performance of "so what;' cindy praised her performance and concluded that the song "has so much more force as done by a woman." when i asked her later to explain her comment, she clarifies, "i don't know that it's more powerful as it is empowering to sing 'i rammed my cock right down its throat.' it's the sometimes aggressive attitude towards oral sex on a man that is humiliating sometimes. you know, 'blow me' 'suck my cock' that sort of thing. it gives a girl a chance to send it back out there." this reversion to (and reversal of) the more extreme reaches of unequal gender roles makes the impact of their violation all the greater, and increases the level of dissonance that results. as argued in the opening sections of this article, "dissonance" is central to the aesthetics of karaoke, punk, and pmk: dissonant gender roles; dissonances between original and version, between star and fan, between live and mediated; and dissonant pitches, rhythms, and timbres. at pmk, singers and other attendees seek out and even amplify this dissonance. thus, what on the surface appears as a masculinist, phallocentric perspective may be intentionally reinforced and even exaggerated in order that it may be spectacularly torn down in "a kind of modern defilement jason lee oakes rite." when it comes to the ultimate "cock rock" band, pmk regular allegra says that for her "it's always nice to see women sing led zeppelin songs ... when women sing zeppelin i'm enthralled by it, whereas when guys sing it, it's always a fucking mess. like somebody hand me some hand sanitizer!" according to allegra, in performance, where there is seemingly no violation of established gender roles, where male singers perform an exaggerated form of masculinity, the result is an obscene overkill that she equates to a sort of musical money shot (where overabundance suggests a doubt in its own reality). for women performers, however, there is little doubt that singing led zeppelin is a performance just as masculinity itself is a performance. here, then, is an instance where the male gaze seems to lose its supposedly infallible power-subverted by women performers who do not simply inhabit the gaze or directly counter it, but instead magnify and intensify the gaze to a point where it becomes hyperreal. whether this results in a unrealistically sharpened or an incoherently blurred depiction of phallocentric masculinity, the mediating role of the gaze is made obvious-so that it is not only the gazed upon and desired subject who is made apparent. when the gaze is reversed, turned inside out, the desiring viewer/voyeur is equally exposed. in the realm of sound, the scream appears to be a primary strategy for flipping around the male gaze. as frequent karaoke singer nina puts it: "when you scream you scream to be cathartic ... it's genderless." screaming is a hyperreal form of vocal production that is often used to sharpen and intensify whatever message or emotion is being carried by the voice, but it just as often blurs any potential message or emotional content into inco­ herency. while the abject ambiguity of the scream may for some offer an opportunity to escape the male auditory gaze, others have noted a gendered component when it comes to screaming in punk rock. for instance, pmk regular bev is well known among her friends for what she calls her "very wild and screamy" vocal style. her frequent straining at the confines of the voice, and the voices of punk singers familiar from recordings is matched by her movements onstage where she appears to be straining at the confines of her own body. in these respects, bev's singing shares much in common with influential early female punk singers, many of whom introduced unusual singing techniques such as portamento slides beween and around pitches, disjunct melodies, and the use of an extremely wide ambitus-singers such as ari up of the slits, poly styrene of x-ray spex, ana da silva and gina birch of the raincoats, and exene cervenka ofx. bev singles out cervenka as a particularly strong influence. as co-lead singer of la punk band x, exene cervenka's voice works in counterpoint to the voice ofjohn doe-his steady, throaty, and "cool" rockabilly delivery is contrasted against her vocal pyrotechnics. referring to the x song "los angeles" on the pmk songlist, bev says, "i really really admire exene because you can sing that song and 103 104 current musicology it's one of the few times where it's perfectly acceptable to sing totally off-key and off-pitch and off-the-mark like she does. i don't think she really cared about being technical at all. i think she was just somebody who needed to put out noise." how does exene's "noise" differ from that of, say, lemmy of motorhead, another of be v's favorite singers? while lemmysings in a noticeably lowered vocal register, within a narrow ambitus that is almost monotone, and using an open, guttural vocal timbre (common techniques used by many, although certainly by no means all, male punk rock singers), exene cervenka and many other female punk singers produce noise through vocal techniques that are almost directly the opposite. their singing voices are often deliberately thin and shrill, sliding between pitches and bending pitches noticeably out of tune. as early as 1978, simon frith and angela mcrobbie noted that punk was unique in "allow [ ing] female voices to be heard that are not often allowed expression on record, stage, or radio-shrill, assertive, impure individual voices" that expressed a "strident insistency" ([ 1978] 1990:384). likewise, caroline o'meara has noted how "the raincoats took advantage of punk's ideology of amateurism to shatter traditional (read: masculine) subjectivi­ ties in rock music" (2003:299). o'meara locates their musical subversion of gender roles most clearly in their approach to the voice, and the unusual choice not to designate a single full-time lead singer. in one of their iconic songs, "fairytale in the supermarket;' vocalist ana da silva does "not hold onto single declamatory pitches, in fact they resemble sprechstimme at times in their seeming spontaneous bends and turns" (2003:308). while o'meara acknowledges that this technique in grounded to some extent in the style of other punk singers-most specifically johnny rotten, who "used this tech­ nique to accent the ends of phrases and important words" -the raincoats went a step further by moving the vocal technique from the margins to the center, "diffus[ing] it [and] making it the primary mode of signification" which "creates an effect of dizzy uncertainty" (2003:308). in the next and final section i analyze a performance by one female regular at pmk, a singer who is well-grounded in the history of female punk rock and who deploys this vocal history in her own performances. in this discussion, i will consider how vocal style itself can serve as a commentary (although always open to different interpretations) on gender, punk rock, and abjection. "beat on the brat": the brat strikes back caroline teaches the third grade, and one of her favorite songs to sing at pmk is the ramones 1976 punk classic "beat on the brat" ([1976] 2001). jason lee oakes in the ramones original, joey sings in his patented nasal inflection, "beat on the brat, beat on the brat / beat on the brat with a baseball bat / oh yeah / oh yeah / oh oh." the line is repeated throughout the a sections, with the only lyrical variation appearing in the b section: "what can you do? / what can you do? / with a brat like that always on your back / what can you lose?" each individual phrase is confined to a limited ambitus and the articulation is clipped-to the point where the word "back" is reduced to an aspirated "b;' and "yeah" is enunciated almost without vowel sounds. the a and b sections repeat in the same streamlined and precise fashion, with little discernable difference between each iteration. in terms of vocal timbre, there is nothing that remotely resembles screaming; joey ramone is known for producing melodicism rather than noise, in contrast with the overdriven guitars. in a performance of the song that was recorded on june 14, 2004, caroline breaks with many of the characteristics described above.23 her words are elongated rather than clipped; vowels are extended rather than omitted; her vocal ambitus is extremely wide rather than narrow; the noise of vocal distortion is introduced as she pushes her voice to its limits; and perhaps most striking, caroline does not repeat a single vocal phrase in the same way twice-introducing new melodic variations, inflections, and accents each time she repeats a line. in her first iteration of "beat on the brat" she adds a slight trill to the "r" in "brat" that builds on, but departs from, joey ramone's discernable british inflections. in her second iteration of the phrase, she spits out "brat" in a growling low voice that suddenly and briefly registers a death metal vocal style, and finally her third repetition is sung in a more throaty style-thus taking on three distinctly different voices in the span of about eight seconds. she sings the "oh yeah" section fairly straight this first time through, though the final "oh oh" is more yelled than sung. in the second repetition of the "beat on the brat" section, caroline introduces subtle variations on the melody and phrasing of the original verse, singing the second of the three with what sounds like a chiding inflection (whether aimed at the audience, or herself, or the child who is the subject of the song, or perhaps taking on the voice of the child, is uncertain). then, in the final "oh oh" leading into the first b section, she elongates the final "oh" into an anguished (or ecstatic?) downward-sliding portamento "ohhhhhhhhuuuugggghhhhh!" this elongated guttural growl punctures the tightly woven fabric of the original song, just as it sounds like the vocal effect (a loose glottal closure) punctures the fabric of her singing voice and her vocal cords. the abject penetration effected here can be interpreted in the context of the song's lyrics (and caroline's career as a schoolteacher), as it sounds as if she is being pulled slowly down into the 105 106 current musicology pits of hell by a demon child. or it can be interpreted in the context of her performance, which is akin to a vocal form of graffiti-where she doesn't so much "sing" the song as offer a vocal commentary on the song, enacting a voiced dialogue with the song. in the first b section, caroline sings "what can you do?" slightly sharp­ ironically since it already appears to be too high for her vocal range. again in contrast to joey ramone's delivery, caroline extends the vowel sounds rather than cutting them out ("what can you deeeewwww?"). the sharpness of the pitch and the strain of the voice lends the question an urgency, a desperation even, not present in the original version. the screaming, unsteady delivery also reorients the lyric, so that a song about a brat-petulant, whiny, alternately pleading and demanding-sounds like it was voiced by that very same brat. moving through the b section, caroline continues twisting her voice into new subjectivities-moving into a piercing upper register on the second iteration of "deeewww" and on the word "that" ("with a brat like that"), and then suddenly dropping into a sneering, half-spoken sprechstimme ("always on your back what can you deew-uuuh?") redolent of classic uk punk vocal style. in the second run­ through of the a and b sections, caroline continues twisting each phrase into new shapes, with new implications for each inflection, in a virtuosic and galvanizing performance that collapses decades of punk singing style into two-and-a-half-minutes. the "seeming spontaneous bends and turns" of vocal timbre extend also to pitch, as caroline rarely lands on a pitch and stays there. rather, she constantly pulls stable pitches out of their orbit-e.g., the ascending portamento she applies to the final "deew-uuuh," the descending "ohhhhhhhhuuuugggghhhhh!:' and again an ascending portamento when she repeats the a-to-b-section transition the second time through. in effect, caroline takes the ramones' "beat on the brat" and turns it inside out. drawing on a shifting array of vocal styles-her voice careening from joey ramone to johnny rotten, from a frustrated teacher to a third­ grader throwing a temper tantrum-one can hear the collision of multiple subjectivities. while this may seem to be consistent with the abjection of punk rock as widely understood-the violation of stable categories of self and other-the very binary model that abjection depends upon is shattered in her performance. in other words, what we hear in caroline's voice is not the trading of one voice for another and the interpenetration this implies, but rather a shattering of any notion of stable, consistent boundaries that are available to be violated (whether related to pitch, rhythm, timbre, or vocal identity). this multivocality dismantles the very idea of a norm existing at all. furthermore, as with some of the female punk singers mentioned above, this multivocality does not reside on the margins but lies at the very center jason lee oakes of caroline's vocal technique, creating "an effect of dizzy uncertainty." this can serve then as a strategy for becoming "ungendered" and for dispensing with the male auditory gaze. instead of attempting the impossible task of removing gender from the picture, multiple genders and subject positions are overlaid to the point of confusion and breakdown. in creating this hyperreal vocal landscape, there is a blurring of stable boundaries that is instigated not only through exaggeration but also through a rapid-fire proliferation of multiple perspectives-which effectively shifts the emphasis from the subject of the auditory gaze (the "original" song) to the agency of the fan's auditory gaze (i.e., caroline). here, then, opposition to phallic domination rests not in a single unified position of resistance, but rather in a "multiplicity offorce relations" (foucault [1978] 1990:92). conclusion as noted earlier, "musical voices cross and enunciate thresholds" (schwarz 1991:3). along these lines, i have attempted to map some of the thresholds that are crossed and enunciated by singers and other participants at pmk. these thresholds are diverse, with boundaries negotiated between and around musical genres, gender roles, ontological notions of subjectivity, and shifting geographic significances in new york city. to examine these boundary negotiations, i chose abjection as an interpretive frame for a number of reasons. first, the event is grounded in two performative lexicons-the genre of punk and the practice of karaoke-that are already discursively situated in terms of the abject. also, given that abjection, as theorized by kristeva, is centrally concerned with the body, and especially with horrific and sexualized experiences of the body, it provides a useful lens for analyzing the vocal and bodily display, and the bawdy humor and horrific imagery, found in abundance at pmk. finally, and most importantly, the regular participants utilize the terms of the abject in their own speech and in their own interpretations of the event. indicating their fluency in the psychoanalytic discourses that pervade modern subjectivity (and much of the discourse around rock music), participants describe the voice as some­ thing "almost trapped" that is "expelled," a conduit for releasing repressed rage and ecstatic/erotic potential, and a manifestation of abjections they experience in their everyday lives. while different attendees find different pleasures in participating in pmk, they are nonetheless collectively informed by the specific musical, performative, generic, historical, and gendered configurations of abjection that i have outlined in this article. this "multiplicity of force relations" gives the event a richness and complexity that could be unraveled for many 107 108 current musicology more pages. while this multiplicity might sometimes lead to incoherence or "noise" (as with the subversion of gendered perspectives described here), it just as often leads to instances where multiple trajectories inform and build upon each other. the abjection of karaoke, of punk rock, of femininity, of fandom, of "amateur" performance, of economic marginality, of aging in a youth-oriented society, and of living in new york city are all intertwined at pmk. while the screams that result may be valued for their lack ofliteral meaning, the production of noise is never meaningless. notes 1. these opening paragraphs are written in the present tense but describe a period between 2004 and 2005. 2. links to these photographs, videos, and information about the documentary film can all be found at http://www.punkmetalkaraoke.com. 3. "so what" first appeared on record in 1981 as the b-side to the anti-nowhere league's debut single, a cover of ralph mctell's "streets of london;' released on wxyz records. however, the flip side proved more popular than the purported single, and it subsequently became the band's trademark song. the band's first full-length album, weare . .. the league, was released in 1982 but did not include "so what." the song was appended on a cd reissue of the album in 1996. "so what" was exposed to a new and sizable audience when it was covered by metallica-released as the b-side to the "sad but true" single (1992) and on their covers compilation album, garage inc. (1998). 4. "bleed like me" was written by the members of the band garbage (duke erikson, shirley manson, steve marker, and butch vig) with lyrics by shirley manson. 5. karaoke as a telling metaphor for the human condition has acted as the central conceit in theatrical films such as duets (2000) and jackpot (2001), and in pivotal scenes karaoke has fulfilled a similar function in major hit films such as lost in translation (2003) and high school musical (2006). 6. unfortunately many of these postings have been deleted to save disk space. 7. these statements are representative of the substantial anti-karaoke discourse one can find online. the specific quotations come from http://www.karaokesucks.net and http://www . pianoworld.com/ubbl cgi -bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=gectopic;f=3 7 ;t=ooo 173;p=0 (accessed april 6, 2008). 8. the label "punk rock" itself did not originate from a particular record or musician, but instead came from a mimeographed fanzine out of new york called punk. co-founder legs mcneil explains: "on tv, if you watched the cop shows, kojak, baretta, when the cops finally catch the mass murderer, they'd say, 'you dirty punk.' it was what your teacher would call you. it meant that you were the lowest. all of us drop-outs and fuck-ups got together and started a movement" (savage 1992:131). the founders of punk saw their publication as "a combination of everything we were into-television reruns, drinking beer, getting laid, cheeseburgers, comics, grade-b movies, and this weird rock and roll that nobody but us seemed to like: the velvets, the stooges, the new york dolls, and the dictators" (mcneil and mccain 1996:203). in other words, they placed on a pedestal the lowest oflow trash culture at the time, especially in light of the hippies' rejection of lowbrow american "junk culture" in favor of the folkies' idealization of "nature;' the protest singers' "peace-and-love" politics, jason lee oakes and progressive rock's co-optation of "high art" musical aesthetics. the velvets, stooges, and dolls were about as far from all of this as you could get, dragging rock 'n' roll back into the "muck" and getting thoroughly rejected in the process. 9. never mind that television host bill grundy admitted on air he was drunk during the segment, that he provoked the "filthy" language by insisting that johnny rotten repeat a mut­ tered four letter word and encouraging steve jones to "say something outrageous:' or that he blatantly made sexual advances on pistols' fan siouxsie sioux by suggesting "we'll meet after, shall we?" the interview is transcribed in laing (1985:35-36) and can be found online at http://www.televisionpersonalities.co.uklpistols.htm (accessed april 6, 2008). 10. in this respect, the actual roots of the genre in the diverse stable of cbgb's bands such as the ramones, blondie, and television were oflittle consequence. after the grundy interview, the association of punk rock with filth was further cemented by the continued outrageous behavior of the sex pistols, perhaps now playing to type, and especially bassist sid vicious. viewed by many as the embodiment of punk, vicious replaced original bassist and primary songwriter glen matlock in 1977. addicted to heroin, sid became notorious for acts such as beating up a music journalist with a bike chain, vomiting onstage and on a record company executive's desk, cutting himself with glass at concerts to the point of drawing blood, and allegedly murdering his girlfriend nancy spungen. in the musical realm, vicious produced four minutes of vocal abjection in his karaoke-style version of "my way!' gleefully defiling the self-aggrandizing anthem, he turned paul anka's lyrical message and frank sinatra's assured vocals inside out. sung with an audible sneer, the song reemerges as an anthem of debasement with abject lyrical alternations: "my friend, i'll say it clear" becomes "you cunt, i'm not a queer"; "i ate it up" becomes "i shot it up"; "to think 1 did all that and ... not in a shy way" becomes "to think 1 killed a cat and ... not in a gay way"; and "the record shows 1 took all the blows" becomes "the record shows, 1 fucked a bloke" (seemingly contradicting his earlier statement). meanwhile, the music behind vicious seethes with its martial punk drum beat and out -of-tune guitar and string section, opening with an ascending portamento string figure that sounds like a cue from a horror movie. the song accompanies a set piece in the film the great rock 'n' roll swindle (1980) with a tuxedo-sporting vicious perform­ ing before a rapt audience that includes his mother ("i can't believe it's my sid up there!") whom he shoots dead at the song's climax. 11. likewise, it is these same qualities that have led to widespread criticism of "hard rock" genres, i.e., punk and metal. tipper gore, appearing before a 1985 senate subcommittee as co-founder of the parents music resource center, gave a presentation titled "the smut and sadism of rock:' a rough paraphrase of "filth and fury" (us congress 1985:83). the presentation can be read at http://www.joesapt.net/superlinklshrg99-529/p83.html (accessed april 6, 2008). 12. these include the stooges, sex pistols, throbbing gristle, birthday party, scratch acid, henry rollins, devo, the smiths, alice in chains, and nirvana. 13. noise is a central element in the metal aesthetic as well. this noise however is usually based around extreme volume and a manicured approach to timbre-clean, white noise rather than rough, dirty noise. the overspilling of boundaries derives not from studied amateurism but instead from an effortless (in appearance, that is) virtuosity, the rush of finger-twisting figurations in a guitar solo, for example. 14. entire sub genres are marked in part by the different types and techniques of screaming with which they are associated-for instance, the expulsive "barking" style of hard core punk versus the guttural "cookie monster" growl of death metal. 109 110 current musicology 15. examples range from the cold war paranoia that informed movies such as the original invasion of the body snatchers (1956) and the blob (1958), to the internal "body horror" of aids-era films such as john carpenter's remake of the thing (1982) and david cronen­ berg's remake of the fly (1986), to current anxieties relating to terrorism and government­ sponsored torture reflected in recent "torture porn" such as the saw and hostel series and the passion of the christ (2004). 16. besides pmk, all three have professional careers in the music industry in new york city-respectively, as a music critic, audio engineer, and director at a record label special­ izing in retrospective releases-jobs based not in literal music-making, but in shaping how music is heard. 17. the audio and a full transcript of the segment is available at http://www.wnyc.org/music /articles/28694 (accessed april 6, 2008). 18. comaskey currently resides in new milford, connecticut. in addition to working as a music mentor for road recovery, an organization that helps musicians and music industry personnel who struggle with addiction, comaskey is currently performing with the adam roth challenge, a stump-the-band show with a weekly residency in new york city. 19. with the stage shrouded in darkness, each week's show begins with a portentous recorded voice reciting the following monologue: "welcome to monday night at arlene grocery. you are about to enter a world of rock and/or roll. if you are pregnant, have heart conditions or a weak stomach, we are not responsible for your lost or stolen items. rock 'n' roll karaoke may not be for everyone, so please consult your bartender before taking action. side effects may include drunkenness, nudity, euphoric states of mind, delusions of grandeur, perspira­ tion, anal bleeding, hoarseness or loss of vocal production, and all-out rock stardom." the accent and cadence of the voice are reminiscent of vincent price's prologue to iron maiden's "number of the beast." the monologue concludes with a "karaoke ten commandments." the full recording can be heard at http://video.aol.com/video-detaillrock-n-roll-karaoke -commandments/925260000 (accessed april 6, 2008). 20. the space has been turned into a men's clothing boutique. today, cbgb only survives as a brand of clothing and as a retail outlet on st. mark's place that sells items such as ramones flip-flops and air freshener. 21. just up the street from cbgb's is the continental, host to pmk between 2005 and 2006. having frequently hosted punk rock shows by the likes of joey ramone, johnny thunders, murphy's law, and countless no-name punk bands passing through town, the club ceased hosting live music in 2006. the decision was based on the impossibility of meeting rising rents, which were driven up by the continental's new neighbors including mcdonald's, starbucks, and k-mart. remodeled as a nyu undergraduate bar, the owners now more easily cover their margins. 22. these include songs by blondie, bow wow wow, the donnas, elastica, go-go's, heart, joan jett, kelly clarkson, lita ford, pat benatar, the pretenders, runaways, scandal, x, and x-rayspex. 23. a recording of this performance in archived at http://www.punkmetalkaraoke.com /media/2004-06-14/beacon_the_brat.mp3 (accessed april 6, 2008). references abbate, carolyn. 1991. unsung voices: opera and musical narrative in the nineteenth century. princeton, nj: princeton university press. jason lee oakes attali, jacques. [1977j 1985. noise: the political economy of music, translated by brian massumi. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. bayton, mavis. 1997. women and the electric guitar. in sexing the groove: popular music and gender, edited by sheila whiteley, 37-49. london and new york: routledge. berman, marshall, and brian berger, eds. 2007. new york calling: from blackout to bloomsberg. london: reaktion. certeau, michel de. 1984. the practice of everyday life, translated by steven rendall berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. cohen, sara. 1999. scenes. in key terms in popular music and culture, edited by bruce horner and thorn swiss, 239-50. oxford: blackwell cole, lori. 2002. best place to see mulletheads strut their stuff. village voice (october 4): http://www.villagevoice.com/bestof/2002/detail.php?id=3283 (accessed april 6, 2008). creed, barbara. 1993. the monstrous-feminine: film, feminism, psychoanalysis. london and new york: routledge. doane, mary ann. [1982 j 2003. film and the masquerade: theorizing the female spectator. in the feminism and visual cultures reader, edited by amelia jones, 60-71. london and new york: routledge. drew, robert. 2001. karaoke nights: an ethnographic rhapsody. new york: rowan and littlefield. fast, susan. 2001. in the houses of the holy: led zeppelin and the power of rock music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. foucault, michel. [1978 j 1990. the history of sexuality. volume 1: an introduction, translated by robert hurley. new york: vintage books. freeman, lance. 2006. there goes the 'hood: views of gentrification from the ground up. philadelphia: temple university press. frith, simon, and angela mcrobbie. [1978 j 1990. rock and sexuality. in on record: rock, pop, and the written word, edited by simon frith and andrew goodwin, 371-89. new york: pantheon books. grant, michael. 2004. "ultimate formlessness": cinema, horror, and the limits of meaning. in horror film and psychoanalysis: freud's worst nightmare, edited by steven hay schneider, 177-87. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. grieg, stuart, michael mccarthy, and john peacock. 1976. the filth and the fury! the daily mirror (december 2). hamelman, steven l. 2004. but is it garbage? on rock and trash. athens: university of georgia press. hebdige, dick. 1979. subculture: the meaning of style. london and new york: routledge. hoffman, jordan. 2000. my night in the dirty spotlight. leisuresuit.net (april 10): http:// www.leisuresuit.net/webzine/articles/punk_karaokel.shtml (accessed april 6, 2008). holt, fabian. 2007. genre in popular music. chicago and london: university of chicago press. keil, charles. 1984. music mediated and live in japan. ethnomusicology 27 (1): 91-96. kristeva, julia. 1982. powers of horror: an essay on abjection, translated by leon s. roudiez. new york: columbia university press. laing, dave. 1985. one chord wonders: power and meaning in punk rock. milton keynes and philadelphia: open university press. leonard, marion. 2007. gender in the music industry: rock, discourse, and girl power. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. love, michael. 2007. stage moves: get your licks at punk rock/heavy metal karaoke. the onion (april 26). 111 112 current musicology mcneil, legs, and gillian mccain, eds. 1996. please kill me: the uncensored oral history of punk. new york: penguin. mcrobbie, angela. [1980] 1990. settling accounts with subcultures: a feminist critique. in on record: rock, pop, and the written word, edited by simon frith and andrew goodwin, 66-80. new york: pantheon books. mitsui, tom. 1998. the genesis of karaoke: how the combination of technology and music evolved. in karaoke around the world: global technology, local singing, edited by tom mitsui and shuhei hosokawa, 31-44. london and new york: routledge. mulvey, laura. 1975. visual pleasure and narrative cinema. screen 16 (3): 6-18. new york press. 2002. best of manhattan 2002. (september 24): http://www.nypress .com/15/39/news&columns/entertainment.cfm (accessed april 6, 2008). o'meara, caroline. 2003. the raincoats: breaking down punk rock's masculinities. popular music 22 (3): 299-313. railton, diane. 2001. the gendered carnival of pop. popular music 20 (3): 321-31. reddington, helen. 2007. the lost women of rock music: female musicians of the punk era. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. reynolds, simon, and joy press. 1995. the sex revolts: gender, rebellion, and rock 'n' roll. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. savage, jon. 1992. england's dreaming: anarchy, sex pistols, punk rock, and beyond. new york: st. martin's press. schwarz, david. 1997. listening subjects: music, psychoanalysis, culture. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. tolbert, elizabeth. 2004. theorizing the musically abject. in bad music: the music we love to hate, edited by christopher j. washburne and maiken derno, 104-19. london and new york: routledge. us congress. senate. committee on commerce, science, and transportation. 1985. record labeling. first session on contents of music and the lyrics of records. washington, dc: government printing office. vermorel, fred, and judy vermorel. [1978] 1987. sex pistols: the inside story. sydney: omnibus. weiss, allen s. 1992. radio, death, and the devil: artaud's pour en finir avec ie jugement de dieu. in wireless imagination: sound, radio, and the avant-garde, edited by douglas kahn and gregory whitehead, 269-307. cambridge, ma: mit press. williams, linda. [1989] 1999. on hard core: power, pleasure, and the frenzy of the visible. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. yano, christine. 1996. the floating world of karaoke in japan. popular music and society 20 (2): 1-17. discography anti-nowhere league. [1981]1996. weare . .. the league. dojo records dojo 3007-2. garbage. 2005. bleed like me. geffen records b0004195-12. mot6rhead. [1980] 1996. ace of spades. castle music esm cd 312. ramones. [1976] 2001. ramones. rhino entertainment company r2 74306. current.musicology.85.1-112.pdf roger freitas. 2009. portrait of a castrato: politics, patronage, and music in the life of atto me/ani. new perspectives in music history and criticism. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reviewed by emily wilbourne roger freitas firmly situates his book, portrait of a castrato: politics, patronage, and music in the life of atto melani, as biography, yet the text aspires to something more: both the blurb and the introduction promise to clarify "what music at this time actually was." more properly, freitas offers an articulate analysis of the social valence of musical performance within the elite circles of the seventeenth-century italian courts; he focuses on music as a skill with material benefits. the subject of freitas's book, atto melani (1626-1714), was a castrato, trained as a singer, although eventually he moved away from performance, spending the latter years of his life as a diplomat. according to freitas, atto-referred to by his first name, as per contemporary convention-was the "most highly documented" musician of the seventeenth century (2). with few exceptions, the documents that survive are letters written by atto, and addressed to a cross-section of the most important political figures in italy. in his relationship to courtly culture and as a court musician, atto participated in an increasingly anachronistic model of "musical performance:' one which persisted in contrast with newer, recognizably modern patterns of profes­ sionalization associated with the public operatic stage. this is, perhaps, one of the most valuable aspects of this study: freitas has ably and coherently mapped out the way in which the intricate and asymmetrical obligations of patron and client functioned in seventeenth-century italy, situating atto's musical skills within a broad range of courtly services and deftly portraying the castrato's gradual shift from court musician to courtier. acknowledging the co-existence of courtly patronage alongside public performance is an important task for scholars who would take the seventeenth century on its own terms. in attempting to do just that, freitas faces several other challenges-not least the codifications and assumptions inherent in the genre of musical biography. as freitas points outs, musical-biographical writings focus almost exclusively on composers rather than performers, where the subject's "life" is valued for the extent to which it illuminates the subject's "work." if this model works most efficiently for nineteenth-century composers and their oeuvres, it has frequently been applied to composers such as claudio monteverdi with little modification. current musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 87 88 current musicology in choosing to write about a seventeenth-century performer, however, freitas is not alone. richard wistreich's recent book on giulio cesare brancaccio (2007) is an obvious example, along with a number of texts dealing with female subjects. suzanne g. cusick's long-awaited book on francesca caccini (2009) treats caccini's compositional achievements as one facet of a musical career that included performance, as do a number of stud­ ies of barbara strozzi, and by the time this review goes to print, amy brosius will have defended a dissertation on female singers in rome (2009). to this list, we can add anne macneil's work on the late sixteenth-century singer, actress and poet, isabella andreini (2003), and my own work (wilbourne 2008) on the early seventeenth-century career ofisabella's daughter-in-law, virginia andreini. each of the above authors deals differently with the question of writing about performance. in freitas'$ case, he chooses to sidestep the issue of specific performances and their impact or meaning entirely. instead, as is implied above, he focuses on the use value of performances for atto and for his patrons in a courtly milieu where "work" was socially inappropriate and favors were exchanged according to a complicated etiquette. in addition, freitas spends a substantial portion of the book discussing the fifteen extant compositions attributable to atto; this is, in my opinion, the least convincing part of the monograph, a topic i will discuss in more detail below. alongside biography and court culture, freitas provides a careful reas­ sessment of the role of castrati within italian society. atto melani was the second of seven sons-all of whom became musicians-and the first of four who were castrated with the intention of preserving the beauty of their youthful singing voices. in chapter i, "creating a castrato," freitas details the known facts of atto's early life, placing the individual singer firmly within a particular family, and the melani family within a seventeenth-century context of blood relations, family honor, and parental responsibility. he argues for the importance of the family as a whole over the individual and emphasizes the principle of "indivisible inheritance": parents knew that if they parceled out their assets to all the children, the family would never accumulate wealth and standing. accordingly, one male child, usually the eldest, was designated sole inheritor of the fam­ ily's titles and fortune, leaving his siblings in less secure circumstances ... [t]he most common consequence of the indivisible inheritance was the imposition of a "'sacred' or 'profane' celibacy" on the younger sons and daughters of the family. (27) read alongside research into the frequency of the surgical procedure of castration and anecdotes of individual cases from a variety of social strata, freitas's focus on the family manages to detach the decision made by atto's parents from the expressions of outrage and offended sensibilities typical of modern commentators. emily wilbourne freitas continues his project of normalizing the practice and lived experience of castration in chapter 4, "the sexuality of the castrato," much of which appeared previously in his 2003 article, "the eroticism of emasculation: confronting the baroque body of the castrato:' while the argument of the earlier article-that the castrato represented the highly eroti­ cized figure of the adolescent boy, an age thought particularly suited (and vulnerable) to the delights oflove-remains essentially unchanged, freitas brings the generalizations admirably to bear on the specific circumstances of atto's life. freitas discusses an affair between atto melani and carlo ii gonzaga-nevers, duke of mantua, and another between atto and a young, unnamed italian nobleman who also seems to have had an affair with the duke, along with evidence of heterosexual assignations. taken together, chapters 1 and 4 argue convincingly for the ubiquity and normality of the castrato within seventeenth-century italian society. if chapters 1 and 4 theorize outward from the exemplar of atto melani to suggest ways in which the category "castrato" can be better understood, chapters 2, 3, 5, and 7 deal with the specific biographical circumstances of atto's life. throughout these four chapters, which are rich in their use of documentary material, freitas maintains an admirable deftness of touch, conveying the twists and turns of complicated political machinations with clarity. these chapters are remarkably easy to read and should reward seventeenth-century scholars who desire a concise yet detailed explication of specific italian political events alongside less well-versed readers hoping for an insight into the world of the seventeenth-century courtier. atto's transition from musician to diplomat is fascinating, although at times i wished for some comparison with other performer/politicians. the traveling commedia dell' arte performers of the early part of the century would have made a nice foil. useful and pertinent parallels exist not only at the level of patronage, but also at the level of informant. flaminio scala (1547-1624), for example, who directed the confidenti troupe, exchanged vital political information on the cities they visited in exchange for the patronage of don giovanni dei' medici. the details are evident in scala's letters, readily available in modern edition (burattelli, et al. 1993); as a point of comparison with atto's behavior they would have helped the t"eader to determine when and where his actions deviated from the norm. chapter 6, ''atto melani and the cantata;' shifts the focus from bio­ graphic detail, political intrigue, and the social acceptability of castration to that of specific musical pieces and compositional style. surprisingly, while freitas is keen to emphasize structural differences between traditional musico-biographical models and his own book-in particular, the familiar "life and works" template-his choice to devote an entire chapter to atto's compositions, without devoting similar attention to other works in which atto merely performed, replicates too neatly the "life and works" divide. 89 90 current musicology a significant portion of the eighty-five-page chapter situates the cantata within its social milieu and rehearses the arguments about cantata poetry and the function of wit that freitas published in music & letters in 200l. it does so as a means of valorizing the genre within which atto composed: all fifteen extant works are chamber cantatas. from there, freitas discusses the texts of atto's oeuvre and analyses the extent to which poetic form is represented in his musical settings. a large portion of the chapter is devoted to an articulation of atto's musical style, tracing similarities with and dif­ ferences from the main "schools" of contemporary cantata composition, namely that of luigi rossi versus antonio cesti. this in itself is useful work; however, the evidence of atto's reputation as a composer is scant, and freitas never quite manages to justify his interest in the extant works as evidence of compositional intent. this where i want to quibble most dramatically with freitas's goals and his musicological conclusions. my issue is not that freitas wants to see compositional value in music by someone other than a first-tier composer, but rather that he does so at the expense of an improvisational performance tradition. among the most evident challenges for those who wish to write about seventeenth-century performers and performance is the difficulty of knowing what, when, and where a given singer performed; such details are only infrequently recorded. even where the pertinent information can be ascertained with any precision, a second problem concerns the relation­ ship of extant scores to their sounding representations: the importance of improvisation and ornamentation cannot be overstated. to my mind, the compositional efforts of someone predominantly trained in improvisation provide an extraordinary opportunity to uncover improvisational and musi­ cal elements of the performance repertoire of a specific singer, and i would have liked to see freitas engage with that possibility. instead, he dismisses it quickly. of atto's musical style, he writes: perhaps [attol was just aiming to turn out standard, if unexceptional, embodiments of a rossian heritage. or perhaps his use of formulas is a sign of improvisation, his extant works representing little more than notated extemporizations. other aspects of the works argue against both conclusions and suggest instead that atto devoted considerable care and imagination to his compositions. (262) this is an oddly loaded statement, and one that implies that improvising musicians performed with a lack of care and imagination-although i don't believe that freitas intended to make such a blatant claim. i do believe, however, that a convincing argument could be made linking atto's composiemily wilbourne tional strategies to his improvisational practices without downgrading them to the second-class status of notated extemporizations; the same evidence freitas marshals in order to bolster atto's claim to compositional skill can be thus re-interpreted with very little difficulty. indeed, one could argue that improvisation was a compositional skill and that singer-performers who notated the occasional piece of music might have done so in order to showcase their distinctive style such that "their" music making could be enjoyed elsewhere. the elements of atto's musical style itemized by freitas include a char­ acteristic use of formulaic bass figures (such as the descending tetrachord), his text setting (in particular the rhythmic values assigned to stressed and unstressed syllables and the occasional moments where atto breaks with the pattern in order to create rhetorical effect), unconventional text repetitions and rhythmic disjunction in passages of recitative, and particularly piquant dissonances in the lead up to important cadences: "in each instance, atto breaks the rules of counterpoint and dissonance treatment to create quick but deliciously shocking effects" (265). none of these techniques exclude improvisation. in fact, tim carter (1999) has suggested that the distinctive rhetorical repeats that structure monteverdi's lamento d'arianna may well delineate the influence of the singing actress who first performed it­ accustomed as she was, to improvising dialogue. in one sustained musical example, freitas discusses the aria, "se il mio cor non sa ridere;' from scrivete, occhi dolenti, where atto composed four related melodies to set the four strophes of the poem. freitas charts out the slight variants in cadence points (e.g., g minor versus e!. major) and stacks the four melodies in score format so that the myriad points of similarity and difference are easily identified. in his analysis, as the different melodic lines and harmonic goals indicate, the technique here amounts neither to strophic repetition nor to variation. yet so many melodic and formal elements recur that the general impression of a strophic structure remains ... [atto 1 has simply written a pleasant minor­ mode tune that, subjected to a kind of permutation, avoids monotony while respecting the poetic form. (267,269) this ability-to unfold remarkably similar and yet independent melodies over related chordal structures-could also be thought of as improvisatory. the other melodic gestures freitas discusses, including free bass ostinati and contiguous melodies that start the same only to branch off towards a different melodic close, could be categorized in a similar fashion. 91 92 current musicology my point is not to suggest that the compositional choices archived in these cantatas are any less valid because of their possible link to improvisation-quite the opposite. i also want to stress that i found freitas's analytical observations fascinating and pertinent; the comparison with the standards of cantata composition was particularly useful. my objection is merely that freitas has automatically linked atto's musical and structural idiosyncrasies to a privileged assessment of composition without taking improvisation seriously. portrait of a castrato is engagingly written, clear, and easy to follow. it makes compelling arguments about the ordinariness of castration within seventeenth-century italian culture and articulates the complicated relation­ ships between patrons and clients during that time; the first chapter alone should prove invaluable to anyone teaching baroque opera to undergradu­ ates. roger freitas has written a book that is both useful and interesting; he is to be commended. references brosius, amy. 2009. ii suon, 10 sguardo, il canto: virtuose of the roman conversazioni in the mid-seventeenth-century. phd dissertation, new york university. burattelli, claudia, domenica landolfi, and anna zinanni, eds. 1993. comici dell'arte: corrispondenze. g. b. andreini, n. barbieri, p. m. cecchini, s. fiorillo, t. martinelli, f. scala. 2 vols. florence: le lettere. carter, tim. 1999. lamenting ariadne? early music 27: 395-405. cusick, suzanne g. 2009. francesca caccini at the medici court: music and the circulation of power. women in culture and society series. chicago and london: university of chicago press. freitas, roger. 2001. singing and playing: the italian cantata and the rage for wit. music and letters 82: 509-542. freitas, roger. 2003. the eroticism of emasculation: confronting the baroque body of the castrato. journal of musicology 20: 196-249. macneil, anne. 2003. music and women of the commedia dell'arte in the late sixteenth century. oxford and new york: oxford university press. wilbourne, emily. 2008. la florinda: the performance of virginia ramponi andreini. phd dissertation, new york university. wistreich, richard. 2007. warrior, courtier, singer: giulio cesare brancaccio and the performance of identity in the late renaissance. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate. current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf powrie, phil and robynn stilwell, eds. 2006. changing tunes: the use of pre-existing music in film. ashgate popular and folk music series. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. reviewed by giorgio biancorosso this twelve-essay anthology is a collection of papers first presented at two conferences on music and film held in 2000 and 2001 in the united kingdom. 1 it brings together a diverse group of scholars-musicologists, film scholars, media and communication scholars, literature and area specialists-around one topic: the use of "pre-existing music" in film. though the anthology is somewhat inconsistent in quality and type of contribution, its appearance is welcome, for it provides not only the most extensive treatment of the subject to date but also the most convincing proof of the topic's significance and intrinsically interdisciplinary, collaborative nature. the book is divided into two sections: "pre-existing classical film scores" and "popular music and film." the term "scores" in the heading of the first section suggests that it deals only with classical music used nondi­ egetically; in fact, both sections touch on diegetic and nondiegetic uses of the repertories. notwithstanding the division into two headings, the book brings together three areas of research under the rubric of "pre-existing music": instrumental art music, opera, and popular music (xiii). this grouping results in more than breadth of content; it is an implicit acknowledgement that "pre-existing music" is an aesthetic category in and of itself that cuts across genres and repertories. the volume's title, changing tunes, expresses a fundamental methodological assumption sustaining the collection: a commitment to the study of emergent musical meaning as music crosses social, political, and cultural contexts that transform, sometimes radically, its impact and reception. the essays range significantly in style and content. after a short and lucid introduction by the book's editors, phil powrie and robynn stilwell, claudia gorbman's treatment of the use of music in stanley kubrick's eyes wide shut and mike cormack's essay on the ambiguity of classical music in film serve almost as secondary introductions. we are then treated to chapters on the use of mascagni in the godfather iii (lars franke), the history of carmen on the big screen (ann davies), mozart as film music (jeongwon joe on the film amadeus), and a close look at three different cinematic uses of grieg's peer gynt (kristi a. brown). the section "popular music and film" is equally diverse, consisting of six chapters on such topics as the queer and current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 167 168 current musicology camp qualities of the bolero in pedro almodovar's films (vanessa knights), the pastiche score of mel brooks's young frankenstein (raymond knapp), popular song as leitmotif (ronald rodman), and the accordion in french cinema (phil powrie). the last two chapters are interesting departures from the rest of the collection in that they deal with musical objects as much as they do with sound: stilwell explores the importance of records in girls' rites­ of-passage films and timothy warner considers the pop video in relation to sampling techniques. 2 the book ends with a useful and detailed filmography and, as befits the vast area of inquiry opened up here, a long bibliography. the latter is bound to be an important starting point for research in this field, but it would have perhaps been kinder to the reader to divide it into different sections, either by chapter or by subdiscipline, so as to facilitate retrieval. it is beyond the scope of this review to offer a detailed, critical account of each chapter; accordingly, i would like to limit the discussion to two chapters that are closer to my own areas of specialization and which will convey a sense of the collection as a whole: "ears wide open: kubrick's music" by claudia gorbman and "the fabulous destiny of the accordion in french cinema" by phil powrie. gorbman's analysis of eyes wide shut is at once an elegant and il­ luminating look at the role of original and pre-existing music in kubrick's final (and probably unfinished) film. gorbman also makes an important contribution to auteur theory, a mode of interpretation that stresses the artistic responsibility of the director in the film's design and execution. she argues convincingly that the selection and manipulation of the soundtrack within the narrative is a personal expression on the part of the director, and she identifies the 1960s as the decade when this practice came into its own.3 moreover, she shows the relevance of that practice to our understanding of contemporary cinema, pointing to the carefully selected, personal, and sometimes idiosyncratic soundtracks made up of pre-existing music in the work of such filmmakers as wim wenders, quentin tarantino, aki kaurismaki, and tsai ming-liang. as the title ("kubrick's music") of gorbman's chapter suggests, not only does the music heard in kubrick's movies become wholly the director's own, but his active engagement with the soundtrack reflects an openness ("ears wide open") to all that the world of commercially recorded music has to offer (and she is careful to stress that it is recorded music that kubrick, and other filmmakers like him, have in mind for their films, 18).4 this agency in the film's musical design is an act oflistening first and foremost, rather than a mode of compositional practice in the traditional sense of the concept. whether or not one agrees with gorbman's unapologetic director-centered approach, her understanding of a filmmaker's alertness to, and ability to giorgio biancorosso carefully select different kinds of music seems particularly appropriate in the context of a single volume dedicated to pre-existing music. indeed, the collection as a whole bears witness to the fact that the development of a certain musical sensibility for a film, the selection of pre-existing works, and the combination of those works with images are productive forms of musical behavior, heretofore unduly neglected by scholars because they don't fit into the normative view of musical creativity. indeed, gorbman's main point about eyes wide shut is that the soundtrack conveys, in a manner at once visceral and cerebral, "the very pres­ ence of kubrick's narrational agency, godlike in its aloofness and audaciously heterogeneous taste" (18). this authorial "presence" is made manifest subtly through the carefully selected diegetic songs or tunes that accompany the emotional odyssey of bill, the tormented protagonist played by tom cruise, spanning a range of genres and styles from mozart's requiem to "strangers in the night." but this presence is also asserted even more overtly, as when one hears ligeti's musica ricercata for piano solo throughout entire segments of the film, as if marking the different "stations" in bill's journey. gorbman provides a clear and lucid exposition of the use of ligeti's music in the film, but wonders what the original intent behind the most insistent repetitions of ligeti's piece may have been. she cannot be blamed. i, for one, suspect those passages to be little more than a temp-track that no one dared to rework after kubrick's death. arguably the most memorable use of pre-existing music in eyes wide shut, the inclusion of the waltz 2 from the suite for variety stage orchestra by shostakovich, frames the film at its beginning and end credits and also appears during a poignant montage sequence halfway into the film.s gorbman views this piece-a parody at once mocking and elegiac-as evidence of an "aesthetic intelligence behind the film, so historically richer and deeper than tom cruise" (18). while gorbman's statement can be read as praise for kubrick in his choice of shostakovich's waltz, it also emphasizes, if only in an epigrammatic form, the role of music in film as a shorthand for a particular sensibility, a pool of readily available cultural references, and ultimately a worldview. to be sure, shostakovich's music carries rich cultural and historical associations. it is removed from a traditional waltz both temporally-the piece was composed in the late 1930s at a time when the waltz's popularity had faded-and geographically. shostakovich's use of the saxophone (and thus the instrument's inclusion in the film), while helping to reestablish the sexual overtones the waltz possessed in its early life, also calls up a musical style (jazz) and a milieu (the dance hall) at odds with those traditionally associated with the waltz. whether the choice of this particular piece had anything to do with the author of the novella on 169 170 current musicology which the film is based (arthur schnitzler), his city (vienna), or kubrick's own tormented relationship with his jewish-mitteleuropean roots remains an open question. underlying phil powrie's essay on the role of accordion music in french cinema is the provocative and, in my judgment, entirely persuasive suggestion "that 'accordion music; whatever the form it takes, is in essence a [sic] pre­ existing music because of its cultural connotations" (138). in the first half of the essay, powrie describes just what those connotations are, how they have accrued throughout history, and what the future of accordion sound as a rich field of associations may be. he provides a clear and concise history of the accordion in french-and especially in parisian-history as well as an account of its uses, both as sources of sound and as images in french cmema. the most important association powrie uncovers is that between ac­ cordion and guinguette culture. famously depicted in several impressionist paintings as well as in films of the 1930s, guinguettes (from guinguet, cheap wine) were french countryside inns where people used to go for an inex­ pensive meal in good company, surrounded by the sounds of dance music. found near the banks of the marne and the seine, or at the outskirts of the cities, guinguettes became common gathering places for the working-class population in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, all the more so after sunday was officially recognized as a day of rest in 1907. but it was in the 1880s, with the introduction of the accordion to france by italian immigrants, that the instrument became associated with the guinguettes. in pre-war films such as rene clair's under the roofs of paris (1930) and julien duvivier's they were five (1936), the ideals of community and inte­ gration and the principle of circulation symbolized by the accordion were documented by and recreated for the big screen. guinguette culture came to an end after world war ii and the accordion's decline followed within decades-both "casualties of post-war consumer culture" (139). the 1950s saw both the decay of working-class culture and the apogee of the accordion's presence in french cinema via the presence of its most famous practitioner, andre verchuren, who starred in three well-known features. since an adequate account of french film during the period between the 1950s and the 1980s is beyond the scope of his essay, powrie focuses instead on the appearance of the accordion as an object of the past-either reminisced, mythologized, or both-in two contexts: first, the so-called cinema du look, as exemplified by diva (france, 1981) and subway (france, 1985), and second, in a number of "heritage" films, adaptations of classical plays or novels which powrie interprets as instances of a retrospective "mu­ seum aesthetic" (145). among these, emphasis is given to une dimanche it la giorgio biancorosso campagne (a sunday in the country, france, 1984), directed by the prolific and eclectic bertrand tavernier.6 in both groups of films, albeit in different ways, we are very, very far from the beginnings of the instrument's history on the big screen, let alone its history in the city of paris, and powrie conveys that distance effectively. powrie contextualizes what he calls the "rebirth" of the accordion as a dynamic element of french cinema (which itself is perhaps a reflection of the instrument's revival in a number of young rock and folk bands). yann tiersen's score for the film amelie (jean-pierre jeunet, france, 2001), the focus of the second half his chapter, is the culmination of this development. 7 powrie's thorough and nuanced close reading of the score for this film is informed and therefore strengthened by the historical and critical material presented in the early part of his chapter. while stressing the significance of tiersen's background as an eclectic musician from brittany, one whose status is marginal on account of both his provenance and his blending of styles (rock, folk, and even classical), powrie is ambiguous as to who is responsible for the editing and mixing of the score itself. but this issue becomes less important as he launches into a complex and poignant interpretation of the music, and through it, the film as a whole. his reading leaves the traditional sites of agency-the director, the writer, the composer-at the margins of the discussion, focusing instead on the "work" done by the accordion music as a shared, dynamic cultural agent. amelie, powrie concludes, "is a gigantic trompe l'oeil" (150), whose threatening immobility is undermined by the music alone. music "is like the girl with the glass in the renoir, whom dufayel [a character in the film] can never manage to capture; the girl and the accordion are the center around which everything else circulates, and which causes everything to circulate" (150). as with gorbman's essay and a number of other contributions to this anthology, this reading implicitly acknowledges that a soundtrack is as good an entry point into a film's in­ terpretation as any other, and in some cases is the best mode of accessing the hermeneutic core of a film. 8 as mentioned earlier, powrie claims that because of its rich baggage of connotations all accordion music is pre-existing music. there is still an important difference, however, between a repertory taken as a whole, one whose status is indelibly linked to the sound of an instrument, and a recognizable work by an individual composer with a rich and distinctive reception history of its own. consider mozart's works as discussed in joe's essay on amadeus or grieg's music as interpreted by brown in her essay on peer gynt: might these cases warrant the use of the word "quotation," despite the radical recontextualization these works undergo as they become part of a film? 171 172 current musicology as gorbman's essay illustrates, pre-existing music in film is employed as a means of presenting a deep, thought-provoking picture of a complex, multifaceted problem; as one reads in robynn stilwell chapter on girls' rites-of-passage movies, it is capable of expressing a character's voice; as deborah knight's essay on the bolero in almodovar's films suggests, finally, it is like a musical magnet, lending itself to both absorbing and representing the sensibility of a character who happens to like it or a milieu in which it is frequently heard or performed. the use of pre-existing music, in other words, calls up a whole constellation of related phenomena, in both literary fiction and the performing arts: voice, polyphony (in bakhtin's sense), al­ lusion, borrowing, parody, and intertextuality-to name but a few. as each of the chapters focuses on repertories and films, the theoretical questions implicit in the material are adumbrated rather than worked out explicitly. this is meant as a compliment, not a criticism, to the volume. but it is hoped that scholars will soon engage with the individual essays in changing tunes from this perspective as well, thus helping to galvanize the growth of what appears to be a vast and fascinating terrain of theoretical speculation as well as historically informed criticism.9 notes 1. one conference was called "see/hear" and was held in newcastle-upon-tyne in november of 2000, and the other was the royal musical association's annual conference at the university of southampton in april of 200 1. one of the essays, however, jeongwon joe's "reconsidering amadeus;' was presented on a different occasion. 2. by "rites-of-passage" films stilwell means films that depict "the acquisition of a voice, the mastering of personal symbols, or the inability to do so" on the part of a teenager or very young woman (166). examples discussed by stilwell include heavenly creatures, directed by peter jackson (new zealand/usa/uk, 1994), little voice, directed by mark herman (uk, 1998), ghost world, directed by terry zwigoff (usa/germany/uk, 2000), and the virgin suicides, directed by sofia coppola (usa, 1999). 3. as powrie and stilwell point out in their introduction (xiv), kubrick's 2001: a space odyssey (uk/usa, 1968) was in this respect a watershed moment in film history. remarkable pre­ cedents for kubrick's use oflong stretches of classical works, however, are found throughout luchino visconti's oeuvre, pier paolo pasolini's early films (accattone [italy, 1961], mamma roma [italy, 1962], la ricotta [italy, 1963], and the gospel according to st. matthew [italy, 1964]), and jean-luc godard's pre-1968 films. godard's whimsical and provocative use of beethoven's quartets set a precedent for a whole generation of european filmmakers. preston sturges's unfaithfully yours (usa, 1948) is an overlooked gem in the history of pre-existing music in film. an early example of classical music used "against type" is the appearance of brahms's fourth symphony in luis bunuel's terrifying documentary, tierra sin pan (land without bread, spain, 1932). 4. as if stressing a similar point, the title of sergio bassetti's (2002) brilliant monograph on the music of kubrick's films reads "music according to kubrick" (la musica secondo kubrick). 5. by mentioning the waltz as a movement of the jazz suite [sic], composed in 1938 and thought lost during the war, gorbman unwittingly perpetuates a misattribution (the work's giorgio biancorosso complete title is suite for jazz orchestra no.2). the mistake originated in the recording used for the film (shostakovich: the jazz album, the royal concertgebouw orchestra, r. chailly, decca 33702). kubrick and his collaborators, evidently trusting decca's attribution, did not amend it. 6. though i am less skeptical than powrie is of the relative value of "heritage" films in general and of tavernier's film in particular, i found the advantages of his approach particularly convincing. in an older article of mine i analyze the same scene from une dimanche a la campagne as powrie does here without, however, taking into account the context he so richly reconstructs (biancorosso 2004:199-202; see also powrie 1997:42-43). 7. ame/ie is the english version of the original title, which reads le fabuleux destin d'amelie poulain and which powrie paraphrases for the title of his chapter ("the fabulous destiny of the accordion in french cinema"). 8. it would be very interesting to be able to confirm the rumor that in 2001 the film was screened by gilles jacob, the director of the cannes festival, in an early cut without music. jacob rejected the film, and its exclusion from the festival eventually caused an uproar. 9. a sign that the topic of pre-existing music may soon be coming into its own is the ap­ pearance of two recent monographs on german cinema by caryl flinn (2004) and roger hillmann (2005). references bassetti, sergio. 2002. la musica secondo kubrick. torino: lindau. biancorosso, giorgio. 2004. film, music, and the redemption of the mundane. in bad music: the music we love to hate, edited by christopher j. washburne and maiken derno, 190-211. new york and london: routledge. flinn, caryl. 2004. the new german cinema: music, history, and the matter of style. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. hillman, roger. 2005. unsettling scores: german film, music, and ideology. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. powrie, phil. 1997. french cinema in the 1980s: nostalgia and the crisis of masculinity. oxford: clarendon press. 173 current.musicology.83.109-188.pdf solving elgar's enigma charles richard santa and matthew santa on june 19, 1899, elgar's opus 36, variations on a theme, was introduced to the public for the first time. it was accompanied by an unusual program note: it is true that i have sketched for their amusement and mine, the idiosyn­ crasies of fourteen of my friends, not necessarily musicians; but this is a personal matter, and need not have been mentioned publicly. the varia­ tions should stand simply as a "piece" of music. the enigma i will not explain-its "dark saying" must be left unguessed, and i warn you that the connexion between the variations and the theme is often of the slightest texture; further, through and over the whole set [of variations 1 another and larger theme "goes" but is not played ... so the principal theme never appears, even as in some late dramas-e.g., maeterlinck's "l'intruse" and "les sept princesses" -the chief character is never on the stage. (burley and carruthers 1972:119) after this premier elgar give hints about the piece's "enigma;' but he never gave the solution outright and took the secret to his grave. since that time scholars, music lovers, and cryptologists have been trying to solve the enigma. because the solution has not been discovered in spite of over 108 years of searching, many people have assumed that it would never be found. in fact, some have speculated that there is no solution, and that the promise of an enigma was elgar's rather shrewd way of garnering publicity for the piece. others have even argued that the larger enigma was a joke or a hoax; that elgar never had any enigma but instead tricked people to search in vain (rushton 1999:64). elgar refused to validate any solution offered during his lifetime, and therefore no solution can ever be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt. however, the composer offered a series of hints that provide a rubric for evaluating the plausibility of various solutions. julian rushton (1999) establishes a set of five requirements based on elgar's hints, arguing that any solution must satisfy each and everyone of them. the composer's first two hints are given in the program notes quoted above. first elgar writes that there is a "dark saying" involved; and second, he notes that the "theme goes throughout the piece but is not heard." later, elgar gave a third hint when he said on several occasions that it was extraor­ dinary that no one had guessed the enigma because it was so "well known." the composer's fourth hint was given to his close friend dora penny (who later wrote about elgar under her married name, mrs. richard powell). he current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 75 76 current musicology example 1: elgar's "enigma" theme, mm. 1-6. said that she, of all people, should have guessed it. in 1929 elgar offered a fifth hint in a note that accompanied the "duo-art" pianola rolls of his variations published by the aeolian company. he drew attention to the pairs of notes in the first and second bars before adding that "the drop of the seventh in the theme [bars 3 and 4] should be observed" (kennedy 1968:91). the first six measures of the "enigma" theme are given as example 1. two more hints will be explored by us here, and one of those hints provided the impetus for this article. in october 1911, elgar wrote additional program notes for a performance of the "enigma" variations. he included the qualifying phrase, "this work, commenced in a spirit of humour ... " (kennedy 2004:68), suggesting that the solution might be lighter in character than many writers on elgar's music have presumed until now. we argue that a seventh hint could be found in the wording of his dedication, "to my friends pictured within;' since it could be considered a "variation" of "to my circle of friends." it is this hint that led us to a new solution. this article explores the possibility that pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, is the solution to elgar's enigma. it will be shown in the pages that follow how pi satisfies all of elgar's hints: the five hints that rushton identifies as well as the two other possible hints identified above. we also discuss the implications of "solving" the enigma, especially as they relate to the piece's popular reception and understanding elgar's compositional process. previous solutions although the majority of enigma solutions offered in the past were based on identifying a countermelody, elgar never said that the enigma was a melody or a tune.! indeed, it is possible-and even probable, as we will argue-that the solution is something entirely unmusical. one popular theory, originally suggested by dora penny's husband richard powell, was that the enigma theme is a countermelody to "auld lang syne." elgar flatly denied that "auld lang syne" was the solution, and, in october 1912, was so annoyed that penny persisted in suggesting "auld lang syne" as the hidden theme in the "enigma" variations that he ended their friendship on the spot (kennedy 2004:134). in the first edition of her elgar biography published in 1937, penny wrote, "my husband's solution ... is admittedly plausible and is supported by cogent argument. nevertheless, i personally have never found charles richard santa and matthew santa example 2a: the "enigma" theme with "auld lang syne" in b~ major. 1\ .. 1 ~ --. u 1 i,.....j ...... 1\ -. .1 '---.:j -= -.....:i ... '---.:j ~ -.....:i -1\ 1 "._ .. u t 1 1\ .j it convincing!' in the 1949 reprint of the book, penny wrote that due to some new evidence of a "rather private nature," she believed that the case for "auld lang syne" was much stronger than she had originally thought. however, she stated that she did not feel justified in publishing the new evidence, and, even if it were made known, she did not suppose that everyone would be convinced (powell 1949:130). this solution does not make much musical sense. two possible pair­ ings of "auld lang syne" with the enigma theme are given as example 2; example 2a shows the ''auld lang syne" in b~ major against the g minor enigma theme, and example 2b shows both melodies in g minor. in both examples, the pairings hardly sound convincing. in addition to the awkward counterpoint each of the pairings create, there are two main reasons why ''auld lang syne" is not a viable countermelody in either of these keys: (1) the length of the two melodies are incompatible; and (2) where "auld lang syne" ends, the enigma theme does nothing to support its final cadence gesture of dominant to tonic.2 theodore van houten (1976) put forth another solution based on the fact that the first five scale degrees of the enigma theme are the same as those found in the chorus of "rule britannia" where the words, "never, never" are sung. van houten suggests that in the hint "so the principal theme never appears," elgar is telling us, "the principal theme, 'never,' appears." van houten suggests that when elgar said "dorabella, of all people, should have guessed it:' he was making a reference to her surname "penny:' and on the back of the new victorian penny there was a depiction of britannia ruling the waves. he finds significance in the thirteenth variation, which he hears as depicting a voyage on a steam ship because of a distinctive quote 77 78 current musicology example 2b: elgar's "enigma" theme with "auld lang syne" in g minor. fl ~ . 1 oj i i,.....j ...... fl ......, ,... ......, ~ .... ......, t.! --"--" 1 fl ,....., -=-+=r f . ~r----+oj fl t.! . from mendelssohn's "calm sea and prosperous voyage;' and because elgar instructs the percussionist to roll the timpani utilizing two pennies on the drums' heads, creating a metallic rumble reminiscent of a steam ship's engine. van houten writes that this is meant to remind us that britannia rules the waves. he also calls on the fact that the friend depicted in the fifth variation, richard p. arnold, had a house on britannia square where elgar stayed just before writing the variations. although van houten suggests that "never" is a "dark saying," the connection is tenuous because it is highly conjectural. he makes no attempt to relate it to the 1911 hint about the work being "begun in a spirit of humour;' nor does he address the hint given by elgar in 1929 regarding the "crochets and quavers" and "the drop of the seventh." thus, van houten's theory has several compelling elements, but falls short of satisfying all of elgar's hints. a third theory, offered by james m. nosworthy (1977), is that the enigma is related to the slow movement from mozart's "prague" symphony, k. 504. he does not claim a countermelody solution, but simply that a melody was the inspiration: the first five scale degrees of the enigma theme are the same as those found in the slow movement of the mozart. moore (1991) cites elgar's well-documented love of mozart, and the fact that the premiere of the enigma variations in 1899 shared the program with mozart's "prague" symphony as evidence, however it is likely that hans richter, who conducted that concert, was the one who chose the 1899 program, and richter never claimed to know what the solution to the enigma was. rushton addresses some of the other flaws in this theory: "the mozart theory involves neither a dark saying nor 'another and larger theme'; nor does it meet the 'dorabella' criteria, for the 'prague' is surely not so well known as to be considered obvious" (1999:69). charles richard santa and matthew santa example 3: elgar's "enigma" theme with "twinkle, twinkle little star." fl r--, . 1 tj i i..-i ....... 4 2 2 4 2 2 8 " ,.--., tj ...... ...... " ,......, 1 tj i i 2~2 2 " tj ........ '--j ...... a fourth theory that answers several of the hints is a solution of "twinkle, twinkle little star;' detailed by patrick turner (1999). this solution answers the hint about a dark saying because its text implies a clear night sky and it is humorous because its source is a common children's song. it is impossible, however, to relate to this solution to the 1929 hint about the "crochets and quavers" and "the drop of the seventh." example 3 illustrates how the enigma theme would fit as a countermelody to "twinkle, twinkle, little star." while this solution pairs a melody of a suitable length, it still must be suspect because the listener must imagine the tune of "twinkle, twinkle, little star" in minor. this is not as difficult to accept, however, as is the poorly crafted counterpoint that results from the pairing.3 elgar stressed many times that his solution was simple, and while the tune to "twinkle, twinkle, little star" is very simple, the counterpoint (which must be imagined) is not. if the correct piece in a puzzle is supposed to reveal itself based on how well it fits, then the awkward fit of this pairing suggests that we try something else. only a year later, stevens belittled the idea when he wrote: if you have a friend who prides himself on his musical knowledge, try this one: 'tell me the solution of elgar's enigma-and no wild guesses, like "god save the queen," or a mozart symphony, a brahms sextet, or (heaven forfend) "twinkle, twinkle, little star." (2000:3) the solutions offered above have compelling elements, but they only work if one is willing to dismiss some of elgar's comments; that is, if the hints are read selectively. 79 80 current musicology finding pi in the enigma theme in his book on the "enigma" variations, rushton writes: "in 1899 elgar referred to the appearance of 'the principal motive (enigma)' at a point in the finale, marked grandioso (cue 68) where the melody is derived only from bars 1-4" (1999:1). elgar introduced the word "enigma," but did not do so in the work's title. patrick turner writes: "the word appears over the theme at the very start of the work, and it is clear from the way it was added at a late stage to the manuscript full score, where it appears just alongside the metronome marking for the theme, the word applies only to the theme and not to the whole work" (1999:43). this is also supported by elgar's notes on his 1912 cantata music makers (a work in which he quotes his "enigma" variations in several places): "i have used the opening bars of the theme (enigma) of the variations ... " (moore 1989:249). on the original full score, the word "enigma" was written directly above the second bar line, exactly in the center of the first four measures. the position of the written word, "enigma;' could indicate that the enigma was hidden in the first four measures. it is in these measures that the pi solution first appears. the enigma theme contains two different representations of pi. the first four notes are the scale degrees 3-1 -4-2 in g minor, a pattern that matches the "decimal" approximation of pi, 3.142 (see example 4). the second, "fractional" approximation of pi is 22/7. this is a little more difficult to find, but elgar's statement that "the drop of the seventh should be observed in bars 3 and 4" directs attention to it. there are exactly eleven notes before the two drops of the seventh occur. said another way, eleven notes times two sevenths, or 11 x 2/7 = 22/7, which is the fractional approximation of pi. there is also a second way that 22/7 can be found in his first four mea­ sures. elgar's reference to two crotchets and two quavers could be a hint at 22 and in the last sentence elgar refers to bar 7, which could be a hint at a denominator of 7. putting together the 22 and the 7 again gives us 22/7, the fractional approximation of pi. his 1929 hint gives us two different ways to arrive at fractional pi. the pi solution, in addition to satisfying the composer's hints, offers a deeper understanding of how the work is related to elgar's preference for mixing humor, friendship, and composition. to be convinced that elgar would use such an esoteric idea for his work, we must know more about his interests outside of music. why pi? pi is the mathematical constant defining the relationship between the circumference of a circle and its diameter. it is the concept of the circle that brings together pi, the structure of the variations, and the dedication. elgar charles richard santa and matthew santa example 4: musical representations of pi in the "enigma" theme. 11 notes 2 sevenths (217) ~ 2217 (~pi) scale degrees: 3-1-4-2 (3.142 ~ pi) dedicated his opus 36, variations on a theme, "to my friends pictured within." this wording could be a variation of the more idiomatic "to my circle of friends." elgar sometimes used the term "circle" in writing and conversation to refer to his group offriends. on may 3, 1911, elgar wrote to mrs. sidney colvin, "it is terrible to think how many human beings will be spared out of our little life's circle so much easier than my confidant & advisor, pietro d' alba" (kennedy 2004: 121). later, speaking of his friend george bernard shaw, elgar told sidney colvin, "he is the kindest-hearted, gentlest man i have met outside the charmed circle" (nice 1996:84). clare wortley, who exchanged several letters with edward elgar, described her mother's com­ panions as "a little circle of constant friends" (moore 1989:5). why did he not use the phrase "circle of friends" in his dedication? perhaps he thought that would be too great a hint. if the hints are too direct, the puzzle is quickly solved and forgotten. a puzzle that is difficult to solve surely offers greater satisfaction than does an easy one. pi was in the news just one year before elgar composed the enigma variations, due to the infamous indiana pi bill of 1897, which tried to legislate the value of pi (hallerberg 1977). the indiana pi bill claimed that the value of pi was not accurately known, but could be calculated by"squar­ ing the circle." not only had this method been disproven by ferdinand von lindemann in 1882, but the value of pi had been calculated accurately to 152 decimal places by william rutherford in 1841. this lapse in judgment by the indiana legislature attracted worldwide attention and ridicule. the absurd story of the indiana pi bill may have come to elgar's attention and sparked his imagination; the situation would have delighted him, which would explain the impetus of the piece that "commenced in a spirit of humour ... " (kennedy 2004:68).4 how likely is it that elgar would have heard about the indiana pi bill? elgar enjoyed working on newspaper crossword puzzles when he traveled, and thus it was common for him to have a current newspaper handy. dora penny was also known to always have a newspaper with her when she traveled from town to town.s she recounts a story about the time she sent elgar a newspaper clipping about a football match involving his favorite team. he enjoyed the newspaper article so much that he thanked her by sending her a short musical note written to accompany the words of the sports writer, "he 81 82 current musicology banged the leather for goal" (powell 1949:4). during a visit to elgar's home in malvern, r. j. buckley observed, "tacked to the wall was an uproarious illustrated joke cut from a german newspaper ... " (powell 1949:34). elgar was an avid collector of newspaper absurdities and jokes. elgar's wife alice scanned newspapers daily for articles related to elgar's music and kept a detailed archive of newspaper clippings and musical pro­ grams containing mention of his work. penny assisted alice in this work and sometimes they spent entire afternoons scanning newspapers and clipping articles for the archives.6 eventually alice asked penny to take over the sole responsibility of keeping the archives, and dora frequently received large packets of clippings from alice for her to add to the archives. if elgar himself did not find a news article about the indiana pi bill of 1897, it is very likely that either his wife, penny, or his friend august jaeger would have seen such an article and shared it with elgar. if penny in fact collected the story about the indiana pi bill of 1897, it would explain why elgar later said, speaking of the enigma, "dorabella, i thought you of all people would have guessed it" (van houten 1976:130). while this connection is admittedly speculative, there are additional reasons for suspecting that elgar was interested in mathematical expressions of naturally occurring patterns such as pi. elgar had a sustained interest in puzzles of all kinds, including secret codes, anagrams, acrostics, and crossword puzzles (kennedy 2004:31). elgar's close friend billy reed wrote, "[elgar 1 was a walking enigma, always doing and saying the unexpected" (reed 1939:54). elgar biographer robert buckley noted that "during railway journeys, he [elgar 1 amused himself with cryptograms; even solved one by john holt schooling, who defied the world to unravel his mystery" (buckley 1905:41). robert anderson traced elgar's love for riddles and describes this in more detail:7 he [elgar 1 had collected articles by john holt schooling in the pall mall gazette of january to may 1896. these dealt chronologically with various types of ciphers "from late-elizabethan days" until "the present day." there was simple substitution of classical names for current ones, with queen elizabeth as penelope and sir robert cecil as solon; a musical cipher from the reign of george ii, which produced an absurd melodic line and arbitrary rhythms from "i have received yours of the sixteenth"; the numerical cipher of the russian nihilists; and finally a declaration by schooling that "the meaning of the cipher which now follows will never be solved by anyone."8 (anderson 1993:113) although this interest in cryptograms does not directly point to pi as the solution, it makes the likelihood of a solution like pi seem much more plausible, since the pi solution is based on a substitution cipher like those described above. charles richard santa and matthew santa figure 1: the "dorabella cipher." elgar's most frequent games were those with language.9 the most famous of elgar's language games is his 1897 note to dorabella that was encoded in a cipher. this note (figure 1), is widely known as the "dorabella cipher;' and has been studied by cryptographic experts and cipher enthusiasts ever since. like the enigma theme, it has never been solved to everyone's satisfaction (jones 2004:56). note that the cipher (specifically the first three lines) is made up entirely of semi-circles joined together and presented in different orientations. even though penny never solved the dorabella cipher, elgar may have believed she was the best suited to solving the enigma's puzzle, especially if it involved a 3-1-4-2 cipher based simply on translating scale-degrees into numbers.!o if pi is in fact the solution to elgar's enigma, elgar may have also believed she would have been especially able to solve the enigma's puzzle because she likely would have spent some hours (maybe even days) trying to solve the dorabella cipher before giving up, and thus would have likely formed a mental association with elgar's puzzles and the circle, since the dorabella cipher is composed entirely of semi-circles. penny saw the mischievous element of elgar more than did others, so she should have considered looking for a humorous, not a serious, solution to the enigma. penny was twenty years younger than elgar and came to know him because her stepmother was a close friend of elgar's wife alice. when the pennys would come to visit, elgar would entertain dora while alice would visit with dora's mother. in october 1901, elgar sent two letters to penny, and at the end of each letter elgar signed not with his name but with the first four notes of the "enigma" variations (powell 1949:38 ). this could have been another hint to penny that the solution to the enigma was pi, since the first four notes form the scale-degree pattern 3-1-4-2. she had asked him many times about the enigma, but he always refused to tell her the answer or to even answer any of her questions on the subject. perhaps in spite of his firm outward stance he was discreetly trying to give her extra help. 83 84 current musicology it is also worthwhile to look at a few of elgar's jokes in order to un­ derstand the mind of the man who created the enigma. jokes (or "japes" as elgar called them) were high points of enjoyment and pleasure in the composer's life, and some of these are even included in his musical scores. to cite just one example, kennedy writes about elgar's earliest surviving piece of music: "it opens in g major and the second of its two four-bar phrases ends in f sharp minor, a semitone down. 'jape; elgar wrote in his sketchbook" (2004:12).11 this contextual information supports a nonmusical solution, and especially the quirky, contemporarily relevant solution of pi. the "dark 5aying" the "dark saying" hint has caused many researchers to go off into the dusty corners of the library or to look through their glass darkly,j2 but as it turns out, this could be a pun based on a familiar nursery rhyme "sing a song of sixpence": sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye; four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. (pie = pi) blackbirds are certainly dark, and the reference to pi is cleverly concealed. one could even tie the number of blackbirds to the number of crochets and quavers in the first six measures: there are twenty-four "black dots" in the first six measures. penny wrote, "at times, he would play all sorts of amusing things; bits from this and that, old songs, nursery rhymes-altered to suit his mood or in imitation of some other composer" (powell 1949: 123). it could be that "sing a song of sixpence" was on elgar's mind when he wrote the theme to his variations. using the phrase "a dark saying" to hint at this nursery rhyme and through it, to hint at pi, would be the kind of misdirection that elgar seemed to appreciate in riddles, puzzles, and jokes in general. "50 the principal theme never appears" elgar wrote that the "theme 'goes' but is not played ... so the principal theme never appears, even as in some late dramas-e.g., maeterlinck's l'intruse' and 'les sept princesses'-the chief character is never on the stage." elgar may have been using the term "theme" in the literary sense: a unifying idea in a work of art. this would be the case if the solution were pi. charles richard santa and matthew santa penny wrote that "critics have complained that elgar never used the word 'tune' and that, consequently, the word 'theme' which he did use opens the door to the conclusion that the solution is an idea and not a tune at all" (powell 1949: 120). she also remembered that when she talked with elgar about the enigma, "we always spoke ofthe hidden matter as 'it,' never as tune or theme" (powell 1949:119). those thinking only in musical terms would be confounded by the thought of a theme that is never played and never appears, and that is why a counter melody was so often offered as the solution. however, if a counter melody really were the solution, logic dictates that the counterpoint it formed with the enigma theme would be conventional enough to make its identity as the correct solution clear to anyone who heard the two played together. so far, no such counter melody has been suggested. conclusion elgar shared his enigma secret with only two people: his wife alice and his friend, august j. jaeger. jaeger said that the enigma was "a bit of elgar's humour" (kennedy 2004:68). elgar may have had regrets about it later when people took it so seriously that the enigma took on a life of its own. many people may have wrongly attributed great depth to his enigma and elgar might have realized it would be disappointing if the secret were revealed to be a joke. on october 24,1898 he revealed his work to jaeger using his own idiosyncratic style of prose, "since i've been back i have sketched a set of variations (orkestry) on an original theme: the variations have amused me because i've labeled 'em with the nicknames of my particular friends-you are nimrod ... it is a quaint idea & the result is amusing to those behind the scenes & won't affect the hearer who 'nose nuffin'. what think you?" (kennedy 2004:61). to think that pi is the answer to elgar's enigma should not diminish the music in any way, though elgar's concern that revealing the solution to the enigma might affect the work's reception is understandable (if that was indeed his reason). rushton (1999) speculates: "perhaps, when the puzzle was not quickly resolved, elgar became embarrassed by the solution, either because of its contrived complexity or, on the contrary, because of its banality" (65). elgar might have become embarrassed if there was something comical about the nature of the solution, as has been suggested by reed (1939:53), burley and carruthers (1972:120), newman (cited in kennedy 1968:96), and young (1955:279). if there was a joke, the joke may have been that there was no solution, but referring to pi as part of a "dark saying" if 85 86 current musicology the intended reference was "sing a song of sixpence" would have probably been equally embarrassing for the composer, at least when presented to the public. though that kind of humor on elgar's part was commonplace while he was among his circle of friends, elgar may have believed it to be inappropriate for a concert hall. if the solution were pi, would the music sound any different to listeners who were in the know? it is doubtful that anyone listening to the "enigma" variations would hear anything more or less than one of the most popular orchestral masterworks of the nineteenth century, regardless of whether or not they were aware of and believed in a particular solution to the enigma. from a musicological position, however, the solution pi does explain certain compositional choices. just as the awareness of musical ciphers in other pieces (such as using b-a-c-h to signify j. s. bach) illuminates aspects of compositional process, so too would the pi solution shed light on how elgar arrived at the interesting and unusual theme of the "enigma" variations. another relevant question is: if the solution were pi, would the work's reception change? on this point norman del mar writes, "there would be considerable loss if the solution were to be found, much of the work's attrac­ tion lying in the impenetrability of the riddle itself" (1998: 1). because the "enigma"variations have been popular for over 100 years, it would be hard to imagine a solution having a significant effect on the reception of the work today. del mar asserts that a great deal of the work's current "attraction" is tied to the fact that the enigma was not solved during elgar's lifetime, but we would argue that what attracts people to the work is its sound, not its origins. the "impenetrability of the riddle" might have been appealing to those programming orchestral concerts at one point in the work's history, but if the work had not been appealing to listeners, few would have cared about the enigma behind it, and it is doubtful that it would have found its way onto many orchestral concerts regardless of how cleverly conceived the enigma may have been. the enigma may have initially been a "foot in the door" that led to more performances shortly after the work was written. however, the work is now an important part of the orchestral performing canon, and it is unlikely that the enigma alone was ultimately responsible for securing the work's place in that canon, and thus, a correct solution to the enigma is unlikely to threaten its continued popularity. the solution we offer veers away from the musical path chosen by others, but it addresses the hints more thoroughly. it also fits elgar's personality and reputation as they emerge from the recollections of his friends and biographical details. far from a simple musical joke, the pi solution itself is potentially elegant. it makes use of the ancient relationship between music and numbers, and is touching in that it relates the circle, as a universal symbol of unity, eternity, and equality, to the feelings elgar had for his "friends pictured within." charles richard santa and matthew santa notes 1. in 1998, norman del mar wrote an excellent summary of the current feelings about elgar's enigma: "the enigma variations, as this work is always called, is without doubt the best known and most often played of all elgar's compositions. apart from its intrinsic qualities, which are certainly of the first rank, its popularity is to some extent due to the subtitle 'enigma,' which has given rise to so much speculation over the possible solution to the riddle of the theme, conjectures ranging foolishly enough from mozart to 'auld lang syne' played backwards. the controversies, which have arisen quite recently all over again (as commentators continue to discover that the melody can be made to 'fit' with yet another motif from the inexhaustible repertoire), have fortunately not reached any conclusive solution. elgar himself, who loved conundrums, merely said that with the melody 'goes' a well-known theme, which is not al­ luded to in the variations themselves. it would be safe to say that had elgar had any intention that the mystery should one day be solved, he would have helped to bring about such an end to the arguments instead of further confusing the issue by implying that the 'theme' forming a counterpoint need not necessarily be musical at all" (1998:1). 2. in m major, while ''auld lang syne" jumps from f to b~, the enigma theme jumps from f down a seventh to g, effectively eliminating the possibility of hearing the authentic cadence there that is part of the original setting. in g minor, while "auld lang syne" jumps from d to g, the enigma theme jumps from f down a seventh to g, and while they do end on a unison, the denial of g minor's leading tone, f#, by the presence of a sustained fi once again undercuts the cadence. the g minor setting of ''auld lang syne" also requires the listener to not only imagine a tune that isn't there (as all of the countermelody solutions do) but to imagine it in a minor key when the melody is in fact in a major key. 3. the counterpoint created disobeys many of the basic rules of composition at the time, including: (1) the first two measures each end with a dissonant fourth that is unresolved; (2) there are parallel seconds on the third and fourth beats of m. 2; (3) there are unprepared and unresolved seconds on the second beat of m. 3, and m. 3 also ends with similar motion into a consonance (with the upper voice leaping down into it); (4) an unresolved second ends m. 4; and (5) there is a dissonant voice exchange between g and a on the third and fourth beats of m. 6, where one should find an authentic cadence instead if these melodies were truly intended to work as a counterpoint. 4. the story of the indiana pi bill (#246) of 1897 was amusing to anyone who appreciates the folly of government trying to meddle in academic affairs. indiana's proposed law would have legislated the method to be used for calculating pi and it would have inaccurately fixed the value of pi anywhere between two and four depending on how the wording was interpreted (hallerberg 1977). the bill was passed in the house but was stopped in the senate by the efforts of professor c. a. waldo, a well-respected mathematician, who was in attendance to monitor progress on pending educational legislation. professor waldo lobbied many of the senators explaining that the proposal was ludicrous. he pointed out that the indiana pi bill of 1897 was based upon a theory which had been disproven thirteen years earlier by ferdinand lindemann. professor waldo was shown a copy of the bill and asked if he wanted to meet its author. he replied that he was already "acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know." all those involved in promoting the indiana pi bill suffered public ridicule. 5. dora penny mentions in her own biography of elgar that she had stopped to buy a news­ paper along the way home sometimes because her family "would have thought it odd if she had not done so" (powell 1949:20). 6. dora's diary entry on may 4, 1899 states, "did news-cutting nearly all day. home at 7" (powell 1949:17). in november 1899, dora noted in her diary that she and alice sat by the 87 88 current musicology fire and "did newspaper cuttings all the evening" (powell 1949:25). in dora's diary on may 10, 1901 she wrote, "did (newspaper) cuttings most of the day" (powell 1949:35). 7. anderson also provides two more anecdotes regarding elgar's fascination with ciphers. in 1912, "when about to arrive (visiting the stuart wortleys), elgar enciphered the word 'walls' by means of the russian nihilists' numerical square and wrote the message 'am coming'" (anderson 1993:121-22). at the end of 1924, "perhaps to entertain a child, elgar made use again of cryptic symbols similar to those in the dorabella letter of 1897. he showed how they could be made to write 'marco elgar' and also 'a very old cipher'" (anderson 1993:156). 8. elgar's progress toward the key-word "courage;' can be seen on a discarded sketch for cockaigne; and in his "cryptogram box" (now at his birthplace museum) are nine sheets of lucid explanation on how elgar solved the supposedly insoluble problem (anderson 1993: 113). 9. he created the name "carice" for a song's dedication by constructing an anagram from his wife's name, caroline alice. he later gave that created name to his baby daughter. he used a similar technique in creating a name for the larger house he moved into after the success of the "enigma" variations. burley and carruthers write, "edward called the place craeg lea and challenged me to guess how he had found the name. but by some stroke ofluck, i real­ ized that the key lay in the unusual spelling of 'craeg' and immediately saw that the thing had been built up anagrammatically from (a) lice (c)arice (e)dward elgar. i think he was a little annoyed that this mystification had fallen flat" (burley and carruthers 1972:132). 10. at the time elgar was writing the variations, dora was very active musically. she wrote, "i was so mixed up with tunes in those days; choral music, church music, and orchestral music-and then my own solo singing, scenes from opera, songs, ballads, and so on" (powell 1949,119). 11. the literature on elgar thoroughly documents the composer's life-long pursuit of humor. after studying scores of beethoven symphonies in july 1873, elgar was inspired to write the credo for the st. george's choir where his father was the organist and accompanist (ken­ nedy 2004: 17). this credo drew heavily from the themes of three beethoven symphonies. he ascribed the work to "bernhard pappenheim" (pope's home). in may of 1901, elgar called to dora, "child come up here. i've got a tune that will knock 'em-knock 'em flat." then he played his military march no.1 in d, and afterwards pointed out with delight that it started on e-flat (powell 1949:35). while interviewing elgar in preparation for his excellent biography, william h. reed apparently did not realize that he had been pulled into one of elgar's jokes. reed wrote, "he (elgar) was busy orchestrating the two folk songs of eastern europe (paraphrased by pietro d'alba and edward elgar)" (1939:109). pietro d'alba was the name elgar used to call his daughter's pet rabbit. elgar used the "talented" rabbit in several other jokes. in 1907, elgar composed a part-song, "owls;' which he dedicated "to my friend pietro d'alba" (kennedy 2004:108-109). two songs written in 1909-1910, "the torch" and "the river" were attributed to pietro d'alba (kennedy 2004:114). "on the evening of 2 june 1927, elgar conducted the bbc chorus and orchestra in a program of his works. he closed the broadcast with a very personal valediction: 'good night, everybody. good night, marco'" (anderson 1993: 159). marco was elgar's beloved spaniel. 1 2. adams (2000) has attempted to relate the "dark saying"to the biblical reference "for now we see through a glass darkly ... "in corinthians 12: 12, and uses the possible relationship as a starting point to explore how victorian attitudes toward sexuality might have influenced elgar's idiosyncratic modes of expressing himself. charles richard santa and matthew santa references adams, byron. 2000. the "dark saying" of the enigma: homoeroticism and the elgarian paradox. 19th-century music 23 (3): 218-35. anderson, robert. 1993. elgar. new york: schirmer books. atkins, wulstan e. 1984. the elgar-atkins friendship. london: david and charles. buckley, robert j. 1905. elgar. london and new york: j. lane. burley, rosa and frank carruthers. 1972. edward elgar: the record of a friendship. london: barrie and jenkins. craggs, stewart r. 1995. edward elgar: a source book. aldershot: scholar press. del mar, norman. 1998. conducting elgar. oxford: clarendon press. de-la-noy, michael. 1983. elgar: the man. london: allen lane. elgar, edward and jerrold northrop moore. 1991. edward elgar: letters of a lifetime. oxford and new york: oxford university press. harper-scott, john paul edward. 2006. edward elgar, modernist. new york: cambridge university press. hallerberg, arthur e. 1977. indiana's squared circle. mathematics magazine 50: 136-40. jones, kevin. 2004. breaking elgar's enigmatic code. new scientist magazine (december): 56. kennedy, michael. 1968. portrait of elgar. oxford and new york: oxford university press. kennedy, michael. 2004. the life of elgar. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. moore, jerrold northrop. 1979. music and friends: seven decades of letters to adrian boult. london: hamish hamilton. moore, jerrold northrop. 1989. the windflower letters. oxford: clarendon press. moore, jerrold northrop. 1991. the enigma solution. sunday telegraph (november 3). nice, david. 1996. edward elgar: an essential guide to his life and works. london: pavilion books limited. nosworthy, james m. 1977. letter to daily telegraph (march 26). powell, mrs. richard. 1949. edward elgar: memories of a variation. london: methuen & co. ltd. reed, william h. 1939. elgar. london: j. m. dent & sons ltd. riley, matthew. 2007. edward elgar and the nostalgic imagination. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. rushton, julian. 1999. elgar: "enigma" variations. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. stevens, denis. 2000. preserve harmony. newsletter of the musicians' company (march). turner, patrick. 1999. elgar's 'enigma' variationsa centenary celebration. london: thames publishing. van houten, theodore. 1976. "you of all people": elgar's enigma. the music review 37: 130-42. young, percy m. 1955. elgar o. m. a study of a musician. london: collins. 89 bennett zon. 2007. representing n.on-western music in nineteenth-century britain. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. reviewed by sindhumathi revuluri bennett zon's representing nonwestern music in nineteenth-century britain surveys british primary sources from the "long" nineteenth century that describe, theorize, and react to various types of music from around the world. through detailed descriptions and discussions of these sources, zon shows how discourse around non-western music in this time and place was shaped by and indebted to broad intellectual trends in anthropology and psychology, as well as musicology and travel literature. as zon states in his preface, this study is meant to rectify the lacuna around how composers or the general populace may have perceived non-western musics, not simply the way they were imagined in classical compositions (xii-xiii). a parallel aim of the study appears explicitly in the epilogue and deals with establishing a history of british ethnomusicology and redeeming previously overlooked innovators as particular agents in that history. the contribution of this book comes mostly in bringing to light a vast array of primary source material that will be relatively unknown to most readers. zon is able to construct a convincing chronology of the types and methods of writing on non-western music that intertwines nicely with currents in other disciplines, especially anthropology. as a larger intellectual history, this study offers a sense of how theories of evolution, monogenism and polygenism, and degeneration manifested themselves in musical writings and in musical terms. the book is divided into four parts that reflect both chronology and methodology. beginning with discussions of music in anthropological writings, the volume then moves to specific music writing and closes with two detailed case studies of the work of charles myers and a.h. fox strangways. zon's early chapters on travel literature rely on brief and individual ac­ counts. through these, he introduces ideas prevalent at the time, including perceptions of the savage as simplistic, the common origin of man (called monogenism, versus the polygenist approach), and the claim of degenera­ tion to account for current states of non-western people. by zon's own admission, music figures only marginally into most of these accounts, but the chapters do provide some "first -hand" descriptions of what was heard and how it was understood. current musicology, no. 87 (spring 2009) @ 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 227 228 current musicology as zon moves through his chronology, we begin to see how non­ western musics became a larger preoccupation in both anthropological writings and the musical press. contemporary scholars must have also maintained their interest in the topic, since certain strands are later included in general music histories. unlike the travel literature, it seems that those who chose to include non -western music in these types of writing may not have had any direct contact with said music and instead theorized on the basis of extant literature. (zon does not make clear what the path of access or reception was, but this timeline can be plausibly reconstructed from his other discussions.) the second half of the book consists of two in-depth case studies of charles myers and a.h. fox strangways. by the epilogue, it becomes clear that zon's mission is, at least in part, to recuperate the reputations of these figures as more than mere stepping stones on the way to contemporary ethnomusicology. indeed, much of his discussion reads as a defense of their approaches and as an introduction of their work to a broader public. in the case of myers, zon diligently reports on his psychological writings, claiming that the theories developed there also influenced his approach to music. recognizing this connection, zon argues, allows us to see myers as an innovator who was willing to hear and treat non-western musics as counterpoints to european music, rather than the primitive ancestors of contemporary western musics. notably, it is only in the final case study that "actual" music (in the form of transcription) is included and discussed in any detail. in dealing with fox strangways, his approaches to translation, and the transcriptions ofindian music he produced, zon argues that fox strangways worked to "foreignize" the music he was recording (261-62), a term, as i discuss later, that requires further critical pressure. finally, zon's epilogue takes on the meanings and objectives of contemporary ethnomusicology. it is only in this last section that zon reveals a crucial part of his argument throughout the book: that myers and fox strangways, as well as many of their predecessors, anticipated the current concerns of the discipline of ethnomusicology. in zon's many close readings, he touches upon recurring issues, includ­ ing evolutionism and individualism versus universality. though the book is arranged chronologically, with the earliest sources appearing near the beginning and moving to the later nineteenth-century sources towards the end, it is also implicitly progressive in the methodologies it describes. while a progression of thinking, not only in music scholarship but also in the other disciplines from which zon draws, is certainly to be expected, there is little to no attention paid to other factors that may have affected these developments. for example, it is not surprising that sources describing non -western music would shift from travel literature to more academic texts as the possibilities sindhumathi revuluri for travel became more widespread throughout the century and music-or any cultural artifact, for that matter-from faraway became less of a novelty and more an item to be studied. this would have been especially true in an imperial capital, a fact that zon never mentions. given the praise that zon bestows upon many of the primary source authors for their situating of music in context, it is surprising that zon does not do the same for these writings. that is, if we are to look at music in cultural context, should we not also look at writing about music in its cultural, political, intellectual, and social context? zon spends much of the first half of the book elaborating upon theories of evolution, monogenism and polygenism, and development and degeneration. but what of the larger context of nineteenth-century britain? that there was so much writing about non-western musics at this time owes a great deal to britain's posi­ tion as an imperial capital. how did the dynamics of the metropole affect perceptions of the margins? indeed, the frame of the book, while stated, is never justified in a way that explains the sources marshaled or structure imposed. given all of the implications of the title, it is more than surprising that the words "imperial," "empire;' or "colonial" do not appear in the index in any form. i was left wondering why the particular task of this book was important, if not in the broader socio-political context of empire and the brand of representation it engenders. this lack of context showed up in a number of ways, including the missing definition for "non -western;' and a heavy use of the word "racist" without a sense of its implications. indeed, if racism and orientalism are to be the undercurrents of the book, as zon suggests in the introduction (2-3), then each must be subject to further pressure. without a sense of how these positions came to be articulated during the nineteenth century, and in britain especially, the significance of this project is very much obscured. similarly, the terms of the primary texts are rarely interrogated. when henry chorley and carl engel say "national music," how are they defining nation? was there an accepted definition at the time? was the use of the term in any way political? was it actually a code word for "race"? confusion around the idea of national music resurfaces throughout the book, and in later cases it comes to mean folk, ethnic, or nationalistic-all terms with unique histories and connotations requiring further discussion. in his consideration of fox strangways's attempts to "foreignize" music through transcription, zon does not tackle what "foreign" might mean-or have meant. given that source material is available, it would have been helpful to have an elucidation of how this process worked in zon's view. instead, we seem to get a surface understanding of "foreign" (perhaps read simply as "difference"?): 229 230 current musicology again, in translating an aural experience of foreignness into domestic understanding, it is the foreignness that must be maintained, as in fox strangways's view of foreign songs retaining foreign texts, or foreign music retaining foreignizing notational meaning in whatever way pos­ sible. (288) zon ties this intention to an attitude towards ideal translation, without a sense of what fox strangways meant by "foreign:' this final section is perhaps the most provocative of the entire book and deserves serious elaboration. again, the larger context of the british empire (and the fact that the subject here was the music of india) suggests that there may have been more at stake. on a related note, while zon's professed aims include revealing how various "othering" discourses were embraced, responded to, and eventually debunked in a variety of disciplines (3), it would be important to know how each of the authors he discusses were received in the broader intellectual community, or even simply by future "ethnomusicologists." without this piece of evidence, their observations-however liberal or astute-do not necessarily have the weight of influence that he ascribes to them. an example of how reception may have added nuance to the discus­ sions included in the study comes in the penultimate case study on myers. what seems extraordinary about myers is the degree to which he privileges listening over fundamental principles. zon discusses myers's favoring of "individualism" over "universality," but that this comes across musically through listening rather than in theoretical approaches or empirical data seems significant given the time in which it emerged. a revolutionary aspect of myers's work seems actually to lie in his attitude towards recording technology. through various citations, it is clear that myers privileged the live over the recorded, but that he also understood human impulses more honestly than most of his contemporaries. for example, he acknowledged that we are guided by our previous experiences and should therefore use the phonograph to check-and re-check-our transcriptions (246). but he also claimed that while music may be recorded either by writing or the phonograph, only detailed, reproducible impressions from live (actual) performances have any "scientific value" (220). it is not difficult to see why, faced with the phonograph, myers would add this requirement to his ideal of research. but how, then, did he read the earlier work of the many authors zon discusses? that is, what did myers make of early attempts to describe, represent, or engage with non-western music? as zon shows us, understanding from earlier in the century came mostly from travel literature and tended not to include much musical detail. where did myers get his information when it was clearly not gleaned from personal experiences? a sindhumathi revuluri sense of the reception of the earlier works-and their philosophical and theoretical bases-would have greatly enriched zon's discussion of myers and allowed for a reflective moment in the chronology of british writings on non-western music. some of these may seem like criticisms aimed at arguments and material simply beyond the scope of this book. indeed, this study stands on its own as a treatment of the history of a discipline (ethnomusicology) before it was even a discipline. because of the small amount of secondary literature in this area, the author is required to provide descriptions that would be tedious in other contexts, simply to situate his readers. in assembling these primary source texts and providing us with detailed summaries and inter­ pretations that contextualize them within the british intellectual tradition, zon has done us a great service. his volume has laid the groundwork for future studies that may pursue those questions that remain unasked and unanswered here. 231 brandon labelle. 2010. acoustic territories: sound culture and everyday life. new york and london: continuum. reviewed by luke fischbeck where do sounds come from, and where do they go? is the framing question of acoustic territories: sound culture and everyday life, brandon labelle's wide-ranging investigation into the function of sound as a binding, relational medium. this core query is answered with a series of gestures: self-touching, gesturing to the air, touching others. over the book's course, labelle amply demonstrates how much about the acoustic paradigm can be read into this simple (silent) interaction: how sound-and listening-attaches us to one another and to our environments, and the ways in which these attachments are woven into the shared condition of the everyday. in a book about subtle and fleeting connections, any attempts at narra­ tive continuity seem overwrought. often acoustic territories reads more as a collection of standalone essays-three of the six chapters presented here have appeared on their own and carry perceptible shifts in attention and scope-that, when placed together, seem to shatter into myriad discrete points of departure, courtesy of the great wealth of examples. each fragment begs further interest. in some ways it follows from where labelle began in his 2006 historical survey of sound art practices, background noise, now juxtaposing case studies and theoretical writing on sound with examples of artistic intervention, intentionally blurring the already vague boundaries between "sound culture" and "sound art," traveling from site to site without historical linearity. in another sense the text is a targeted contribution to the slippery and expanding field of sound studies that examines "the exchanges between environments and the people within them as registered through aural experience" and takes into account the "careful consideration of the performative relations inherent to urban spatiality;' proposing "sound studies as a practice poised to creatively engage these relations" (labelle 2010, xviii). is there any way to speak precisely about sound studies? constructed as scaffolding onto an open-ended array of established fields (including musicology, sociology, history of art, performance studies, and the study of science and technology), it eschews strict formal boundaries, taking the shape of correlative networks. the 2010 society for ethnomusicology an­ nual meeting, held in los angeles shortly after the publication of acoustic territories, took the theme "sound ecologies," foregrounding music's link to discussions of human rights, social action, identity, and environmental current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2(10) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 111 112 current musicology issues. the question of how an ethnomusicologists' study of sound is shaped by certain of sound's fundamental characteristics-transitory, relational, subjective-resonates with many: the study of sound, hailed as an "emerging field" for the last hundred years, exhibits a strong tendency to remain that way, always emerging, never emerged ... whispering unobtrusively in the background while the main action occurs elsewhere. this would echo the position that most writers on the topic attribute to sound itself-constantly subjugated to the primacy of the visual, associated with emotion and subjectivity as against the objectivity and rationality of vision, seen as somehow more "natural" and less constructed as a mode of communication. (hilmes 2005:249) labelle identifies the revolutionary immanence of that thing which is always emerging. in writing acoustic territories, he repositions sound studies as radically engaged-a listening science with the potential to reveal sound's social materiality as it draws transformative meaning out of the background noise of the everyday: [wjhat is at stake for me is to explicate a position that is also already unfixed-a position that is in tune with the material and paradigmatic energy found within sound, that weave of intensity and ephemerality, of animate flexibility and charged spatiality, and importantly, within listening as a central and organizational perspective. it is my sense that an audi­ tory paradigm is tacitly embedded within the contemporary condition and offers a compelling structure for elaborating what is already in play. (labelle 201 o:xviii) the problem at hand is the dual nature sound acquires when examined as social material: it is both a thing that can be pointed to and described-an ecological balance, a stasis, a shape that informs-and a binding process, continually in flux, rending and repairing, seeking out, affecting, resounding, and decaying. conjuring a description of this elusive materiality, labelle writes in the foreword to his earlier book that: sound is intrinsically and unignorably relational: it emanates, propagates, communicates, vibrates, and agitates; it leaves a body and enters others; it binds and unhinges, harmonizes and traumatizes; it sends the body mov­ ing; the mind dreaming, the air oscillating. it seeminly eludes definition, while having profound effect. (labelle 2006:ix) by choosing to elaborate on those relational networks that arise through the act of listening, labelle avoids direct overlap with other contemporary investigations into the materiality of sound per se, such as david toop's sinister resonance (2010, also published by continuum)-which constructs luke fischbeck a history of listening, unpacking the literary and artistic use of sound as a metaphor for the intangible and uncanny. whereas toop's writing, with its engaging flow, approaches the feel of a lyrical memoir, acoustic territories operates through a kind of disruptive pulsing-forcing links between associ­ ated threads, doubling back on itself to reiterate a point, spiraling outwards to avoid easy conclusions. acoustic territories is part of labelle's wider set of occupations: sound artist, publisher of errant bodies press, and part of the curatorial project "surface tension" -all practices that emphasize direct engagement, col­ laboration, and site-specific experimentation. there is little evidence that labelle is content to occupy any kind of objective distance from which to construct an analytical framework for his subject matter, opting instead to situate his writing within what he terms the "relational frame" of listening, " ... whose focus, clarity, and directness are endlessly supplemented and displaced by the subtle pulses, mishearings, and fragmentary richness of relating. that is to say, listening may be so intensely relational by operating as a weak model of subjectivity, to ultimately nurture more horizontal or distracted forms of experience" (labelle 2010:182-3). labelle, as a writer, is occupying steven connor's "modern auditory i," wherein "the self, defined in terms of hearing rather than sight, is a self imaged not as a point, but as a membrane; not as a picture, but as a channel through which voices, noises and musics travel" (connor 1997:207). what is most interesting here is the confluence of labelle's choice of style-itinerant, associative, disjunctive, and yet forcefully intentional-and the subject matter at hand. how is it possible to write about sound culture and everyday life, to stay focused, to decide where to begin and where to end, what to include (and exclude)? labelle makes it clear that this problem of focus, inherent in the act oflistening, is precisely what guides his investiga­ tion on its wild path: [t]he ear veers and slips, focuses and drifts; i follow your words, and at times, i grow distracted, by the sounds outside, by my own thinking. rather than strictly occupy the clear channel, the center of language, to engage the primary spatial event, listening imparts meaningful experiences through a fluctuation of focus that brings one in and around the mass and verve of so much sonic materiality, of otherness. the audible spatiality of the near and the far endlessly shifts attention from what is in front to what is behind, bringing the abstract and the concrete, the said and the unsaid into fruitful contact. (labelle 2010:184) 113 114 current musicology in order to trace this contact with otherness that listening promises to open, labelle moves through a series of shifts in scale, with each chapter devoted to a particular type of site: underground, home, sidewalk, street, shopping mall, and sky. by approaching each site as a virtual and actual space, labelle engages cultural, philosophical, and environmental aspects of urban life, leaving ample room for both concrete examples and free as­ sociation. "underground;' for instance, becomes a space for subway buskers, air-raid shelters, resistance fighters, and reverberating cisterns, but also for a construction of self by way of the "acousmatic" echo-making, as: ... every sound [is 1 a voice that breaks from its source to become something greater, more powerful and suggestive, a sound no longer bound to earth. that is to say, the echo is a sound that comes back to haunt, returning as transformed through its diffusion and ultimate regrouping into an alto­ gether different expression. the echo delivers our own alter-ego. (15) beginning here, and continuing throughout the book, labelle strategically employs "the particular effect of , dec entering' focus ... to bring forward an entire scene" (40) that he is identifying as a property of the acousmatic event, in which sound is experienced without reference to any identifiable source. from the underground, there is a disjunctive shift into the home or, more broadly, the psychic state of home. following gaston bachelard's poetics of space (1969), labelle describes home as "a syntax for commonality, placed in contrast to the verve of urban life and all its differentiating fragments" (49), in examining the ways in which sound creates territories-in particular the contrast between public and private space-labelle presents one of the book's most beautifully explicated arguments. calling for a more nuanced understanding of the spectrum between silence and noise, he invites the reader to rethink the "simple formulation that 'noise is a form of acoustic violence;" thereby "considering how silence might also perform violently" (80) when used "to separate, ward off, and contain" (66). in defense of sound's potential to produce fruitful connections, even as it creates conflict, labelle invokes emmanuel levinas's understanding of responsibility as beginning in face-to-face confrontation with one another, as well as chantal mouffe's "agonistic space," in which the unresolved tension of confrontation serves as a requisite platform for plurality, discourse, and democracy. the third chapter, "sidewalk: steps, gait, and rhythmic journey-forms;' introduces the aspect of scale and charts the relationships between bodies and their surroundings, from immediate physical contact to entrainment within global patterns. labelle does well to apply the acoustic paradigm to theoretical writing that does not explicitly refer to sound, from philosopher michel de certeau's view of walking as a means of re-writing that which luke fischbeck has been inscribed on the body by the built environment; through urban theorist jane jacobs's description of the sidewalk as a mediating space; to the "journey-form" where, as nicholas bourriaud writes in the radicant, "the finding of forms takes place through the composition of a line of flight, or even a program of translation, more than the elaboration of a plane or volume" (bourriaud 2009:114). the extended metaphor of the car is the basis for chapter four, "street: auditory latching, cars, and the dynamics of vibration:' in which the machine becomes a sensing and signifying extension of the skin (and the self) and, as a heavily constructed interior space, a stand-in for exterior soundscapes. labelle's term "auditory latching" expands on tia denora's study of the ways in which music provides the listener with scaffolding for an embodied awareness, describing the tactile sensation of listening that connects us to the material world. by placing focus on the physicality of sound at the threshold of hearing, as vibrations felt across the body, labelle arrives at a definition of listening in terms of a total engagement between individual and environment, albeit an engagement which remains fluid, in motion. having established the various dynamics by which sound engenders contact between listeners-through confrontation or echo, through direct or mediated engagement with the environment-labelle enters into an in­ depth discussion of distracted listening, or the way meaning is constructed out of a shared, ambiguous background. chapter five, "shopping mall: muzak, mishearing, and the productive volatility of feedback," returns to the foundational work of r. murray schafer and barry truax in the field of "acoustic ecology" -specifically, the characterization of our connection to the sounds that surround us as through a communicational feedback network-in order to better understand the poetics of sound, how it sustains complexity even in its instability: ... as a communicative medium sound carries information that is in­ herently temporal and evanescent-it can only communicate by always already disappearing into the environment. it thus supplies communica­ tion with a vital medium-to truly hear the world and each other-while unsettling signification with instability-to listen is to also confront the voluptuous richness of ambiguity. (labelle 2010:200) in its ambiguity, sound's elliptical and expansive qualities find productive interaction with the background material of "the everyday," a term which, in labelle's usage, draws implicitly from the work of henri lefebvre, who describes "the most universal and the most unique condition, the most social and the most individuated, the most obvious and the best hidden. 115 116 current musicology a condition stipulated for the legibility of forms, ordained by means of functions, inscribed within structures" (lefebvre 1987:9). it is to labelle's credit that throughout acoustic territories he is able to convey the effect of this ever-present ambiguity by means of concrete examples-alarm bells, pedestrian sounds, the development of muzak (and its parallels with musique concrete )-and leaps from site to site without succumbing to the desire to neatly contain what he finds within a larger descriptive framework. as paul carter writes in ambiguous traces, mishearing and auditory space, ''auditory space is durational, but it lacks music's (and writing's) commitment to linear development. without a sense of ending, it is not located between silences" (carter 2004;59). the book's final chapter-an ethereal fantasy on radiophonic space, projected subjectivities, spirit recording, and utopian transmissions-leaves behind the physical aspects of acoustic space. by stripping sonic materiality of its connection to bodies and the built environment, labelle creates an inversion (acutely shown here in the example of the "unitary urbanism" advocated by constant nieuwenhuys and the situationist international), in which the immanent forms and itinerant networks implied by sound frame the construction of a city in flux and always at play. without a clear conclusion or resolved tautology, acoustic territories functions best as a proposal for a mode of listening (and writing about listening) that "considers that sounds begin and end in noise" (carter 2004:62). for "noise ... may feature as a communicational link by support­ ing the passing of often difficult or challenging messages ... heard to give form to the radically formless, creating space for the intensities of diversity, strangeness, and the unfamiliar" (labelle 2010:xxiii). by locating this space, labelle creates an echoing chamber for henri lefebvre's message in critique of everyday life: it is then that consciousness of alienation-that strange awareness of the strange-liberates us, or begins to liberate us, from alienation. this is the truth. and at the moment of truth we are suddenly dis orientated by others and by ourselves. to look at things from an alien standpoint­ externally and from a reasonable distance-is to look at things truly. (lefebvre 1991:20) luke fischbeck references bachelard, gaston. 1969. the poetics of space. boston: beacon press. bourriaud, nicolas. 2009. the radicant. new york: lukas and sternberg. carter, paul. 2004. "ambiguous traces, mishearing, and auditory space." in hearing cultures: essays on sound, listening, and modernity, edited by veit erlmann, 43-64. oxford: berg. connor, steven. 1997. the modern auditory 1. in rewriting the self histories from the renaissance to the present, edited roy porter. london and new york: routledge. denora, tia. 2000. music and everyday life. cambridge: cambridge university press. hilmes, michele. 2005. is there a field called sound culture studies? and does it matter? american quarterly 57(1): 249-259. labelle, brandon. 2006. background noise. new york and london: continuum. lefebvre, henri. 1991. critique of everyday life. new york and london: verso. lefebvre, henri. 1987. "the everyday and everydayness." yale french studies 73: 7-11. toop, david. 2010. sinister resonances. new york and london: continuum. 117 carol oja. making music modern: new york in the 1920s. oxford university press, 2000. xii, 493 pp. reviewed by elliott s. hurwitt carol oja's making music modern is a rare achievement, at once an es­ sential musicological study and a major contribution to our general fund of knowledge on america in the twentieth century. over fifteen years in the making, and encompassing a vast amount of knowledge, it is a prodigious labor of organization and distillation of materials. many crucial figures, works, and artistic milieus of the early twentieth century are discussed in its pages, and much of the information presented is new, long-forgotten, or only vaguely familiar. carol oja is margaret and david bottoms professor of music and profes­ sor of american studies at the college of william and mary, and the former director of the institute for studies in american music at brooklyn col­ lege. she has been publishing important articles on music of the 1920s since her student days over twenty years ago. much of that work has now been re-deployed in making music modern, and she has crafted a coherent, if discursive, story, in part from the disparate strands of her earlier research.! there is much to praise here, but pride of place must go to oja's mar­ shalling of original research material, particularly from archives such as the robert schmitz papers and other previously unplumbed resources, and from the pages and archives of unjustly forgotten publications and organizations such as eolus, the musical courier, the musical leader, and modern music. 2 she has also dug deep into the popular press of the 1920s, including the most influential magazines of the time, such as the new republic, vanity fair, and the literary digest, as well as the famed "little mag­ azines" of the period, such as the dial and the little review. most of all she has had repeated recourse to musical america, also the source of many of her illustrations, and makes extraordinary use of correspondence housed in numerous archives. as a serious scholar, oja tells us only as much about her (often color­ ful) cast of characters as she feels we need to know in order to appreciate who they were and what their work was in its time. her holistic approach, emphasizing context, is the freshest aspect of oja's text. too much cul­ tural history is written from a mount rushmore or "big man" perspective.3 this book fills in our map of the neighborhood, giving us the lesser­ known musicians, patrons, critics, magazines, and new music societies, not to mention selected painters, philosophers, mystics, and cranks. oja is vir­ tually unique in her ability to fill in the picture in this way. current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) 179 © 2001 by the trustees ofcolurnbia university in the city of new york 180 current musicology that said, there are some minor flaws in this book, as in any study of its size and breadth. these fall into two general groups: minor errors of fact or interpretation, evidently a result of the effort required to assemble this mind-boggling assortment into a single volume; and a tendency to skate over the careers of some of the best-known figures in american music, as if the reader must already know everything about them. it is not, in any event, in her discussion of these relatively well known figures that oja's book is at its most valuable. rather, it is in chapters on lesser-known composers, patrons, and institutions, that this study makes its greatest contribution. oja's book is organized into twenty chapters divided among seven larger sections with large general themes: "enter the moderns"; "the machine in the concert hall"; "spirituality and american dissonance"; "myths and institutions"; "new world neoclassicism"; "european modern­ ists and american critics"; and "widening horizons." a succinct introduc­ tory chapter is followed by individual chapters on particular composers and cultural milieus. the first musician examined is pianist and composer leo ornstein (b. 1893, and, amazingly, the last of these figures still among us, at an extremely ripe old age). he figures first in oja's story for good reason: his period of great prominence came early, coinciding with the world war i era, and in a sense his vogue was a precursor of the mod­ ernist wave of the 1920s. this chapter is strong on several counts: in the discussion of ornstein's early career and the patronage and press cover­ age he enjoyed; on the importance of philosopher henri bergson for the young composer; and on the "anxiety of influence" in composers of his generation, who arrived in the wake of debussy, schoenberg, and stravinsky, but were as likely to be influenced by composers we tend to dis­ count today, such as scriabin. next in oja's chronology comes edgard varese (1883-1965), another crucial early modernist, who emigrated to new york in 1915 and spent the balance of his life there. varese has long enjoyed a deserved reputation as an original and radical composer, and has accrued a considerable mys­ tique as a musical loner and outsider. oja deflates this aspect of varese's reputation, showing him to have been a canny showman and careerist. indeed, it is one of the strengths of this book that we come to see how iso­ lation (and its assumed corollary, integrity) were built into the myths con­ structed around several of the american modernists. instead, as oja shows so clearly, men like varese and carl ruggles enjoyed considerable support from a variety of sources, and what little they wrote was quickly and ea­ gerly performed and often published. their supposed "heroic loneliness" was really a holdover of pop romanticism.4 in discussing such charismatic figures as ornstein and varese, there is an inevitable danger that the narrative will become personality-driven, dereviews 181 spite oja's serious intentions. the danger is only compounded, tenfold, when oja arrives at george antheil (1900-1959), a vivid, bumptious char­ acter who stirred up the press and the public wherever he went in the 1920s. antheil was like a brilliant, precocious, and very irritating boy of about sixteen; alas, he was in his twenties at the time. with his outrageous public pronouncements, ridiculous pretenses, monomania, and comical self-promotion, the man practically begs for fictional or cinematic treat­ ment. antheil's star burned bright in the 1920s; he was touted as the suc­ cessor to stravinsky by no less a cultural avatar than ezra pound. yet his career burned out suddenly, following a round of exaggerated publicity, at a poorly executed concert at carnegie hall in 1927. oja's treatment of antheil (chapter 5) is provocative, but raises more questions than it answers. for example, in a december 1921 letter to his patron mary curtis bok, antheil claimed to be perusing music by mem­ bers of "les six," a loose confederation of composers who were then the newest craze in european modernism: georges auric, louis durey, arthur honegger, darius milhaud, francis poulenc, and germaine tailleferre. oja ties antheil's claim to an article on this group that had appeared in vanity fair that fall (74). but antheil specifically wrote that he was examining scores by these musicians. does oja assume he lied in the letter? or was he actually receiving printed scores (perhaps by milhaud) at this early date? it seems possible. granted, antheil was in philadelphia at the time, occasionally visiting new york, and had not yet gone to europe, where he would spend much of the 1920s. yet he was in contact with emi­ gre artists in new york: ernest bloch, marcel duchamp, francis picabia, and leo ornstein, whom he had known for over two years by this time. (he was also in touch with margaret anderson and jane heap, editors of the progressive little review, and others at the center of new york's artistic vanguard.) none of this would be relevant to oja's general argument if she did not, throughout her text, ably describe a nascent avant-garde in new york before the 1920s, one that included a wide variety of both native-born and immigrant talent. these networks of early modernists, and the tendrils they sent out toward each other, either mattered or they didn't. oja's discussion of antheil at least attempts to track his development, from early, musically conservative training to his exposure to more forward­ looking movements. in dealing with his less musically outre contempo­ raries, such as copland and virgil thomson, oja neglects to sketch in this part of their development, although it parallels antheil's to some de­ gree. granted, the stories of these composers have been dealt with more thoroughly in other texts, and it is a salient feature of this book that oja prefers to give fresh information rather that reiterate twice-told tales. still, 182 current musicology it would help to remind the reader that this is what she is doing. on the whole, her discussion of copland is fresh, although she greatly exagger­ ates the neoclassical element in his earlier work; indeed, she tends to mix up neoclassicism with the primitivism and brutalism of early stravinsky and mid-to-iate 1920s copland generally. in this regard, much of what she has to say about the piano variations (1930), while it may be new, strikes me as a curious misinterpretation. the "austerity" she identifies is clearly there, but it (and the great structural power of the piece generally) de­ rives from a unique amalgam of several modernist breakthroughs, includ­ ing schoenberg's twelve-tone method, welded together through the force of copland's genius. on the other hand, oja's observations on neoclassi­ cism elsewhere in the book are insightful, particularly her general discus­ sion in chapter 13, relating music to such disparate artistic movements as international style architecture. one of the most curious chapters is on virgil thomson, a composer oja herself interviewed at least once, and one on whom she has done valu­ able work in the past (1990). her chapter on thomson here is so brief as to be almost a throwaway; another reviewer has suggested that the discus­ sion might have been incorporated into another chapter (nicholls 2001). the obvious candidate would be chapter 16, in which oja deals with four other neoclassical composers of the period. yet this curious combination already has problems of its own, quite apart from the reductivism of the neoclassical label generally. the four composers-roger sessions, roy harris, walter piston, and carlos chavez-are more interesting for their distinctive features than for their similarities. (unfortunately, it is difficult to get a firm sense of each composer's style from these brief discussions of a single work by each.) for that matter, chavez was mexican, and might have been dealt with as a visitor to new york, like some of the touring europeans. granted, chavez was an important figure, and the pan­ american musical orbit, a cause dear to the heart of copland, cowell, and nicolas slonimsky, was a welcome antidote to american nativism. but oja still manages to leave a number of interesting foreign-born new york com­ posers out of her book altogether, including a few fairly important ones, such as bernard wagenaar. even so, a grand if shadowy parade of forgotten and dimly-remembered names passes fleetingly through the pages of this book: all the minor and secondary composers who vied (often quite successfully) for space on con­ cert programs that also introduced the great talents of the era. thus, we are reminded of such american composers as theodore chanler, richard hammond, a. walter kramer, and bernard rogers, and an even larger contingent of their european contemporaries, such as nina koshetz, daniel lazarus, and georges migot. some immigrated to these shores, reviews 183 others had their works played here. most made only a secondary impres­ sion even then; a few, such as lazare saminsky, loomed quite large at the time. today's listener might find little in their work to justify a revival. but there are definitely exceptions. chief among these redeemable composers would be those featured in .oja's chapters 6 and 10. dane rudhyar, the subject of chapter 6, wrote some excellent music during the period of oja's study, and had a consid­ erable and widespread influence on other composers of the time. born daniel chenneviere in 1895, rudhyar was intellectually precocious in the extreme, publishing a monograph on debussy at the age of eighteen; he would prove a prolific writer on music and spiritual matters, particularly during the 1920s. rudhyar was deeply immersed in what we today refer to as "new age" pursuits; in his day these included theosophy and rosicrucianism, among other fads. these brands of "knowledge" have be­ come so prevalent today that serious readers may feel a certain reluctance to read about them. but oja connects rudhyar's immersion in arcane ideas with his approach to dissonance in music, a kind of spiritual disso­ nance, as she calls it. this discussion is among the most masterly in the en­ tire book. curiously, rudhyar joins a considerable list of interesting com­ posers in this book who seem to have petered out or given up at some point. they included some of the biggest names of the era, including ornstein, ruggles, and varese. also outstanding is chapter 10, on the "forgotten vanguard," a group of composers about fifteen years older than copland and henry cowell. while none of these figures individually is as compelling as rudhyar, all four (marion bauer, louis gruenberg, frederick jacobi, and emerson whithorne) are unjustly forgotten today. in part this is because stylistically they fall somewhere between familiar camps; neither true modernists nor traditionalists.5 whithorne, in particular, wrote some wonderful things, such as the piano set new york days and nights (1920-23). oja ably dis­ cusses the "chimes of st. patrick's" movement from this charming work; i wish she had gone further and discussed other movements as well. this is music that deserves to be far better known.6 oja is superb on the institutions and groups that supported and promoted new music, particularly in her chapters 11 ("organizing the moderns") and 12 ("women patrons and activists"). it is only quite re­ cently that patronage issues in american music have gotten the attention they deserve, and oja is sensitive to the need to honor the tireless and gen­ erous women, such as claire reis and blanche walton, who made so much happen through their advocacy. oja does a better job than anyone before her in untangling the complex networks of musicians and supporters who made up the competing new music groups of the period, the league of 184 current musicology composers, international composers' guild, and the rest. for those of us who care deeply enough to follow this crowded story, oja provides a valu­ able service in debunking some of the myths that have plagued prior dis­ cussion of these associations, particularly a tendency to try to divide them into neoclassical and ultramodern camps. here henry cowell emerges as a real hero of the period for his organizational work, as much as for his other contributions to music. in other institutional matters, however, oja sometimes stops short of fully investigating new areas of research that she has opened up. what, for example, of the modern music shop? we are told that this important busi­ ness operated for much of the 1920s, both from a midtown store at 14 east 48th st. and from another at 219 east broadway. this latter address is a most unlikely site for such an enterprise, located as it was in the jewish ghetto of the lower east side. in fact there were two businesses with this name, and only the one in midtown carried any avant-garde materials. 7 oja has seen a catalog put out by the modern music shop; its reproduc­ tion would have made a valuable appendix to her book. there is a considerable appendix in the book listing concerts of mod­ ern music held in new york in the 1920s, and also concerts held else­ where, including paris, if they were connected to the new york new music societies of the period. much of this information is reprinted from earlier sources (e.g., oja 1979). however, there are errors in these listings, such as the references to martha whittemore as a "vocalist" (373, 394, 404). whittemore was a cellist with a long and distinguished career, and was still teaching as late as 1970. the abbreviation "vc." continues to bedevil musi­ cologists and discographers in this manner. but did no one notice that there was already a singer listed for these concerts, and that none of the music in question called for more than one vocalist? a related shortcom­ ing is the discography, which is valuable, but too small. chapters 3 and 17 treat the advent of european modern music in new york, first via critical coverage, later through the arrival of major modernists on tour. in the former case oja gives an excellent historical overview, particularly regarding the early american reception of satie, schoenberg, and stravinsky. however, in emphasizing such events as the flonzaley quartet's world premiere of stravinsky's concertina in 1920 she may exaggerate the importance of new york as a modernist center in this period. it would take the rise of hitler and the cataclysm of world war ii to turn new york into the capital of the international avant-garde. and while it is fitting that we be reminded of the anti­ german sentiment lingering in the post-world war i era, to infer that this helps explain why stravinsky was favored over schoenberg in the 1920s (50) seems far-fetched. to this day many concert-goers find the reviews 185 russian master ingratiating, while the austrian remains a pill too bitter to swallow.s here, oja's reading of general history for context may ob­ scure more than it enlightens. however, this lapse is more than balanced by the overall strength of her discussion of the european modernists. in chapter 17, discussing the american tours of stravinsky, bartok, ravel, and others, she is ably sup­ ported by a wealth of little-known materials, such as the robert schmitz papers and several now-forgotten publications of the time. chapter 18 is even more valuable. here oja restores to us the early work of carl van vechten, still famous as an advocate of african-american music and litera­ ture (if less so for his novels). but who knew that van vechten was in the vanguard of american criticism, ca. 1915-20, when it came to figures such as satie and stravinsky? one vexing aspect of this book is a certain american chauvinism that creeps in from time to time. we need hardly credit, for example, antheil's claim to originality, or to superseding stravinsky, to admire his ballet me­ canique and jazz symphony. the former, while an exciting piece, is clearly dependent on the rhythmic jaggedness of le sacre du printemps and espe­ cially of les noces. 9 the music of bartok may have also entered his con­ sciousness by this time. as for the jazz symphony, it is a lot of fun, and de­ serves to be better known, but some of its best moments are in its use of old pop and ragtime songs, and an unfortunate letter of antheil's, quoted in oja's text, makes it plain that the composer used such elements sarcas­ tically, and regarded them with contempt and revulsion. lo antheil's ambivalence was only one of several troubled attitudes toward popular culture that plagued composers of the period, from both sides of the classical/popular divide. granted, there were a few, such as copland, who used jazz elements in a few of their works with no apparent discom­ fort. but equally common were love/hate relationships, such as antheil's, or cases of intense anxiety over not measuring up to high art standards, such as george gershwin's. oja makes as good a case for gershwin's concerto in f as one can, given the extremely uneven quality of that work. the piece has had brilliant advocates before her, beginning with the critic abbe niles (1925), and more recently charles hamm (1990).11 but virgil thompson, marc blitzstein, and lawrence gilman were not wrong in judg­ ing it inferior to the rhapsody in blue. other composers of the period, such as louis gruenberg and john alden carpenter, used musical elements that they identified as jazz but that we may have trouble recognizing as such today. oja is too willing to give carpenter, and his co-creators of skyscrapers, the benefit of the doubt in racial matters; i detect depressingly familiar stereotypes in the photo­ graph of performers in the work (337), and some of what oja reveals in 186 current musicology her text only confirms this. she also gives carpenter and his co-creators too much credit for originality in their conception of the work generally; relating the generic character names in carpenter's ballet skyscrapers to those in blitzstein's later the cradle will rock makes a certain sense if we limit our discussion to american works, but that seems unrealistic in deal­ ing with 1920s new york modernism. both in the character naming and in the use of pop culture "play" scenes-here related to coney island-one is reminded inevitably of parisian precursors, such as les mariees de la tour eiffel (cocteau/les six, 1921), or the earlier parade (cocteau/satie/ picasso, 1918). nothing carpenter could offer in this vein measures up to similar work by poulenc, or for that matter, by such contemporaries as jacques ibert, in the 1920s and 1930s. in creating her broad overview of the 1920s, oja faces a dilemma that haunts academic specialists generally: how to maintain one's primary focus while also relating our work to, and offering something of interest for, cul­ ture and society as a whole. one finds abundant evidence of oja's breadth of reading in the background material with which she astutely introduces cultural eras, movements, and contexts (e.g., the writings of iconic 1920s figures such as sherwood anderson and malcolm cowley, and more re­ cent cultural/historical work such as ann douglas's terrible honesty [1995] ). yet once in a while oja has trouble pulling together the disparate strands of her great tapestry. it's a labor that would probably defeat anyone. most of the problems in this book concern petty details, rather than broad concepts, but they come up as often in relation to musical matters as the more general contextual ones. in her discussion of george antheil, oja misstates his age in 1927, and cilaims that his use of percussion in the ballet mecanique "takes pride of place next to" that of varese in ionisation a few years later, and of john cage a decade later still (73),12 but in fact antheil's piece, unlike ionisation, includes pianos and piano las as well as both pitched and unpitched percussion, a very different matter from the more revolutionary scoring of the varese work. moreover, milhaud had written entire movements of pieces (les choephores, 1915-16, l'homme et son desir, 1918) with no instruments other than unpitched percussion several years before either antheil or varese did. more troubling is a patchwork quality that occasionally becomes evi­ dent in this book, a sign that the author has taken on so much material that the finished product resists thorough editing. thus, on the same page on which antheil (1900-59) turns twenty-four in 1927, we find a reference to the painter fernand leger as a "spanish cubist."13 in fact, leger was as french as they come, and while he went through a cubist phase around 1909, he is best known for his "machine" style art, drawing on tubing and reviews 187 other industrial forms and applying them to humans and other organic subjectsj4 what makes the misrepresentation doubly unfortunate is the reproduction (66), of some of his wonderful decor for milhaud's ballet la creation du monde. this is some of the finest faux primitive art of the twenti­ eth century, and it shows clearly that cubism was just one of the styles leger was playing with by the 1920s. contradictions of this nature trouble the text repeatedly. on page 119, oja mentions the remarkable instru­ mentation ("only trumpets") of angels by ruggles. yet on the facing page she also reproduces the opening of the score (one of many valuable music examples in the book), and there, for all to see, is a score for four trum­ pets and two trombones. there is also one really glaring example of runaway ambition in this book, in oja's discussion of henry adams's philosophical memoir the education of henry adams (64). in her consideration of adams's famous di­ chotomy between the "dynamo and the virgin" (modern mechanization versus medieval faith), oja refers to his story as that of "a young american" encountering a dynamo at the paris exposition of 1900. in fact, adams had two such mind-bending confrontations: at the chicago world's fair of 1893 as well as at the later exposition. adams was a rueful, alienated old man at the time of these incidents-still guilty over his fail­ ure to serve in the civil war, haunted by the ghastly suicide of his wife clover in 1885. his book (a posthumous best-seller) is the philosophical (and selectively evasive) rumination of a man who felt old, failed, and a throwback to an earlier age that was dead and unlamented. it isn't as if oja fails to understand the themes of adams's book. the broad concepts are handled quite well, yet a single error of fact is so egregious as to call the entire discussion into doubt. on the whole, however, the book's discursive, contextual approach serves oja well. her brief discussions of the artistic/intellectual climate surrounding her composers is superb, and will keep the non-specialist glued to the page. like any pioneering study of its magnitude, making music modern provokes the reader to wonder about possible future av­ enues of exploration, in this case a great many of them. ultimately this fine book, which gives such importance to hitherto forgotten figures such as rudhyar, will be judged more as a catalyst than as a summa of our knowledge of this exciting decade. it will not, for example, allow future historians to arrive at an accurate appraisal of the many important figures discussed in its pages. how could it, when many of them wrote their finest pieces after the 1920s had ended? this is obvious in the case of someone like copland, less so in the case of george antheil; after the dust of the latter's career had settled, he went on to write, in relative obscurity, such wonderful works as la femme 100 tetes (1933), a set of forty-five piano 188 current musicology preludes inspired by the work of surrealist max ernst. oja's book has the unintentional effect of returning antheil to the prison of his youthful vogue as an enfant terrible; with its disastrous denouement, this makes for a depressing story. it is also unfortunate that oja takes for granted the hoary assumption that the truly forward-looking, revolutionary composers of the period were the experimentalists (who practiced a type of modernism that would largely die with them) and the mystics and spiritualists of the era, such as rudhyar. it is true that there are more recent composers (oja cites peter garland) who revere the "ultra" camp, and have extended their tradition, and oja has plenty of company-e.g., h. wiley hitchcock and kyle gann (2000), david nicholls (2001), and paul griffiths (1985)-in viewing the extreme modernists as harbingers of things to come. but to some degree this entire line of development petered out during the war between the stravinsky and schoenberg camps. more recently, young composers seem blissfully undaunted by (sometimes unaware of) any of these groups and developments. reception of oja's book has been mixed. within the musicological community it has been greeted with a range of comments running from respect to rapture. critics have been less unanimous. in a flippant and highly negative review, gregg sandow (2001) trotted out the most shop­ worn of critical cliches, using a george bernard shaw quote to poke gratu­ itous fun at oja for using musicological jargon (there is little enough of it in the book). allen hughes (2001) was far more positive, although he was puzzled that oja did not make more of charles ives, who for hughes (and others) was clearly the most important american musician of the early twentieth century.15 for my own part, although i find fault with this book on more than one score, on balance it is unmistakably a major achievement. as she works her way through the veritable mountain of material that has gone into this study, oja corrects innumerable errors that have gone unchallenged in the past, and sheds considerable new light on her subject in general. the book restores to view a great many important persons and institutions of the 1920s, the era when musical modernism, in all its glorious multiplicity, burst upon the new york scene. thanks to this extraordinary book our knowledge of this vanished world is much enhanced. i, for one, will never view the 1920s in quite the same way again. notes l. this includes oja's work on the copland-sessions concerts (1979) and fine articles on such diverse figures as george gershwin (1994) and the mystical dane rudhyar (1999). oja's dissertation on the canadian-american ethnomusicologistreviews 189 composer colin mcphee is not brought into play here. mcphee had little effect on musical new york in the 1920s. 2. it is largely to oja's collaboration with pioneering magazine editor minna lederman (1983) that we owe a suberb digest of the best articles in modern music, published as the life and death of a small magazine, "modem music," 1924-1946. 3. to be sure, there are a few figures in our musical history who tower over the rest, and in america's classical tradition they certainly include ives, copland, and barber. and to some extent we need to indulge those who perpetuate personal­ ized legends of heroes, since it is increasingly difficult to engage a wider public in these matters at all. 4. the obvious contrast here is with someone like aaron copland, who strove to bring composers together for their mutual benefit, and worked tirelessly to pro­ mote and assist younger musicians he believed in. while he was clearly the most gifted member of his cohort, critics had difficulty crafting an image for him that would be good box office, and sought a more suitable rival to dub the great american composer. roy harris was deemed the perfect alternative: ruggedly handsome, a westerner, heterosexual, and something of a loner, he lived up to the image in every way, except in producing a catalog of great works. 5. in this regard, it is interesting that oja also mentions, in chapter 11, the group of painters, including arthur dove and georgia o'keefe, who clustered around alfred stieglitz. these painters to some extent parallel the "forgotten van­ guard" composers both chronologically and stylistically, and it is fascinating to note that their works, and those of european contemporaries, were shown in exhi­ bitions connected with the early seasons of the international composers' guild. this in turn echoes the first season of diaghilev's ballets russes in paris years ear­ lier, when an exhibition of russian paintings was an important component in the troupe's initial foray west. 6. a good place to start is with john kozar's 1990 recording of whithorne's piano music (preamble prcd 1786), which is, in fact, in oja's discography. 7. the other, which sold musical instruments, records, sheet music, and other ordinary merchandise, was organized as the modern music shop, inc., in 1920. its certificate of incorporation is in the municipal archives, county clerk's office, new york. 8. oja herself quotes critic paul rosenfeld (1922) as follows in a review of the new york premiere of schoenberg's five orchestral pieces: "the assemblage sat like patients in dentist chairs, submitting resignedly to a disagreeable operation." 9. in fact, oja herself notes that rosenfeld noticed this derivativeness even at the time (305). oja's discussion of rosenfeld is valuable, although i think she is somewhat hard on his writing style. 10. oja misrepresents the reaction to the jazz symphony at antheil's disastrous 1927 carnegie hall concert when she states: "even the sensational stroke of having the work performed by w. c. handy's orchestra did not seem to affect the overall impression" (356). true, the concert as a whole was a critical debacle, but the jazz symphony had been extensively rehearsed, at great expense, through the deter­ mined patronage of harlem hair products heiress a'lelia walker, and the audi­ ence greeted it with an ovation. 190 current musicology 11. in his essay "a blues for the ages" (1990), hamm focuses his praise on the concerto's central slow movement, much the strongest section of the piece. 12. the frequent references to cage and other later figures in the book even­ tually come to seem somewhat anachronistic. 13. this curious error also cropped up in a pre-concert lecture given by cori ellison at st. paul's chapel at columbia university around 1997; i have yet to lo­ cate the ultimate source of this double misconception, which seems, unfortu­ nately, to be spreading. 14. oja clearly knows all this, and discusses it quite ably on pages 65-67. her editors seem to have let her down at some point. 15. it may be that oja sometimes assumes too much about what her readers al­ ready know of her subject. in this case, for example, hughes, a knowledgeable and experienced critic, may simply not know or remember how iowa public profile ives actually had as a musician before the 1940s. references antheil, george. 1945. bad boy of music. garden city, n.y.: doubleday, doran, and company. berger, arthur. 1953. aaron copland. new york: oxford university press. copland, aaron, and vivian perlis. 1984. copland: 1900 through 1942. new york: st. martin's press. douglas, ann. 1995. terrible honesty: mongrel manhattan in the 1920s. new york: farrar, straus, and giroux. friede, donald. 1948. the mechanical angel: his adventures and enterprises in the glittering 1920s. new york: alfred a. knopf. griffiths, paul. 1985. modern music: a concise history from debussy to boulez. new york: thames and hudson. hitchcock, h. wiley, and kyle gann. 2000. music in the united states. 4th ed. upper saddle river, nj.: prentice hall. hamm, charles. 1990. a blues for the ages. in a celebration of american music in honor of h. wiley hitchcock, edited by richard crawford, r. allen lott, and carol oja, 346-55. ann arbor: university of michigan press. hughes, allen. 2001. modern thinking. chamber music (june): 42-43. lederman, minna. 1983. the life and death of a small magazine, "modern music," 1924-1946. i.s.a.m. monographs, no. 18. brooklyn: institute for studies in american music. nicholls, david. 2001. modern music. i.s.a.m. newsletter 30/2 (spring): 11, 15. niles, abbe. 1925. lady jazz in the vestibule. the new republic 45 (december 23): 138-39. oja, carol. 1979. the copland-sessions concerts and their reception in the contemporary press. musical quarterly 65: 212-29. ---. 1990. virgil thomson's harvard years. in a celebration of american music in honor of h. wiley hitchcock, edited by richard crawford, r. allen lott, and carol oja, 323-45. ann arbor: university of michigan press. reviews 191 ---. 1994. gershwin and american modernists of the 1920s. musical quarterly 78: 646-68. ---. 1999. dane rudhyar's vision of american dissonance. american music 17: 129-45. pollack, howard. 1998. aaron copland: the life and work of an uncommon man. new york: henry holt. rosenfeld, paul. 1922. musical chronicle. the dial 72 (january): 111-13 sandow, gregg. 2001. bring in the noise. new york times book review (february 18): 18. thomson, virgil. 1966. virgil thomson. new york: alfred a. knopf. tommasini, anthony. 1997. virgil thomson: composer on the aisle. new york: w. w. norton. whitesitt, linda. 1983. the life and music of george antheil, 1900-1959. ann arbor: umi research press. philip rupprecht. britten's musical language. cambridge: cambridge university press, 2001. x, 358 pp. reviewed by lloyd whitesell in this wonderful book philip rupprecht develops a new, unified theoreti­ cal approach to britten's dramatic vocal music. to that end, he assembles a chronological series of close readings of major works, some extremely well-known (peter grimes, billy budd, the turn of the screw, war requiem), others less familiar (curlew river, death in venice). his approach draws on speech-act theory, as expounded by j. l. austin (1975) and john searle (1969) , conceiving linguistic utterance as a performative act. this concep­ tual basis resituates traditional concerns of text-setting, tonal structure, and leitmotivic development by promoting the dramatic context as the central topic of analysis. the focus shifts from details of objective struc­ tural integrity to rhetorical effects. music, words, and gesture are treated not as separable symbolic media but as elements of a composite interac­ tional discourse with "social and institutional force" (3). broadly speaking then, the book aims toward a renewed evaluation of britten's stature as a dramatic composer while arguing persuasively for the value of linguistic and literary theories in music scholarship. there was an intense flourishing of such cross-disciplinary explora­ tions about ten or fifteen years ago, led by scholars such as lawrence kramer (1984,1991), fred everett maus (1989, 1991), and carolyn abbate (1991). loosely grouped under the rubric of "narratology," its inspiration in anglo­ american circles can be traced back to edward t. cone's influential book, the composer's voice (1974). (a comparable inspiration on the continent was the "semiology" of jean jacques nattiez [1973,1987].) rupprecht's project is a major contribution to this quest for convergent perspectives. flexible and syncretic rather than programmatic, rupprecht adapts ana­ lytical distinctions from the fields of linguistics (in the work of mikhail bakhtin, romanjakobson, ferdinand de saussure, and others), narrative theory (gerard genette, paul ricoeur, gerald prince), drama criticism (walter benjamin, manfred pfister), sociology (erving goffman), and an­ thropological theories of ritual (roy rappaport, stanley tambiah) . yet this wide-ranging erudition is elegantly integrated into an argument very much the author's own. the theoretical heavyweights, when they appear, are handled with a light touch, sometimes furnishing a well-crafted analytical model, sometimes just a handy turn of phrase. in fact, one of the pleasures of this book is its detail work. rupprecht's current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york lloyd whitesell 191 prose is beautiful, chiselled, and evocative. speaking of generic allusion in the blake song "a poison tree," rupprecht writes: "here, at the opening, is a sacred genre twisted into something unholy-hymnody as private nec­ romancy, not collective praise" (29). on the verbal specification ofleitmotif: "once draped over something, names themselves become objects" (83). on the sensory effects of harmonic processes in death in venice: "the freez­ ing of the musical action here is a cessation of harmonic motion, and a clarification of the penumbra of dense chromatic cluster-sounds, into one glittering tonally suggestive form" (269). musical examples are numerous and handsomely set, with rich analytical glosses carefully engineered for clarity. (the only lapse i encountered was in example 5.12 [232-33], where the order of musical excerpts is jumbled.) the endnote discourse itself forms a tantalizing weave of subsidiary critical threads, behind-the-scenes snapshots, and analytical expansions. the "language" of rupprecht's title is conceived as musico-verbal "ut­ terance"-that is, "the performative terms of speech acting within a given social situation" (30). each chapter explores a specific aspect of this con­ ceptual frame, with reference to a particular musical work. chapter 2 fo­ cuses on the act of naming in peter grimes, tracing the "enormous musical energies" (30) invested in that act within the opera, as a vehicle for the borough's aggression toward grimes, as well as the latter's self-alienation. chapter 3 reexamines leitmotivic discourse in billy budd, probing its role in the projection of narrative agency and point of view. chapter 4, on turn of the screw, explores the ambiguities haunting thematic utterance as a whole in this work and the children's performance of innocent nursery songs in particular. chapter 5 considers two works intended for church performance (war requiem and curlew river) in order to theorize britten's problematic enactment of social ritual. finally, chapter 6 moves in the opposite direc­ tion, showing how the aural discourse of death in venice is inextricably bound to the psychological terrain of the protagonist's interior subjectivity. rupprecht introduces the most basic concepts of his approach by means of well-chosen examples from the song cycle our hunting fathers. in the second song, "rats away!" the vocal line breaks up into a polyphony of diverse "speech events" (6): stage whisper, pious chant, stylized shriek. attending to the rhetorical function (or in austin's words, "illocutionary force" [33]) of the utterances allows the mode and purpose of vocal deliv­ ery (in this case, "command," "prayer of exorcism," "parody," etc.) to be included as a central term of the analysis. this approach is meant to rem­ edy the blind spots of traditional attitudes toward text-setting that "isolate questions of semantic reference from the other factors that make up the speech event" (14). furthermore, focusing on the actional aspects oflan­ guage-its ability to lament, exclaim, or summon, for instance-allows one 192 current musicology to conceive of wordless instrumental music itself as utterance, with similar illocutionary powers. britten's rhetorical delivery is not limited to the se­ mantic field, nor is it restricted to the verbal element of the dramatic ges­ ture; meaning circulates between sung words and "mute pitched articula­ tions" (13). rupprecht uses this fluid, cooperative model of multimedia interac­ tion subtly and productively. but i was distracted and even misled by how the model is first introduced: there are good reasons, as i will claim, to resist the familiar critical trope that pits words against music as separate media, and it is via the fused and composite notion of the utterance-rather than by an oppositional view of separate strands of the complex single event-that i will approach the coexistence of text and music in britten's case. (4) this position seemed to be opting for an impoverished understanding of word/music relations whereby the two media can only operate in parallel, with no gaps or crosscurrents of meaning. as i worked my way through the following arguments, it became clear that rupprecht's notion of "fused" utterance does not preclude ambiguous, layered signification. perhaps i was confused into thinking that words and music were to be seen as fusing into a single signified. then again, i realized that i was still caught up in habitual metaphors of thinking of the two media as intertwined objects ("strands" or "tracks" of meaning) rather than modes of action, as rupprecht emphasizes. a fused utterance-"words and music forged, in the heat of the dramatic situation, into single, 'multimedia' events" (2)­ can no doubt do several things at once. but then does the notion of "fu­ sion" merely refer to simultaneity? later, in discussion of the leitmotif, music and words are provisionally paired as a "fused signifier" in relation to a single signified. this is wagner's model, which rupprecht is careful to move away from: "an adequate account of the operatic leitmotive must pay careful attention to the interaction of musical and verbal signifiers" over time (82). fusion has misleading implications of unity and singularity that get in the way of rupprecht's flexible theoretical practice, in which words "impinge" on music, meanings arise "via a chain of verbal-musical relays," and "arbitrary linguistic signs are coordinated with motivated mu­ sical symbols" (83-84). rupprecht shows the usefulness of austinian theory through its appli­ cation to specific scenes in peter grimes, for which he analyzes the performative force of the unfolding utterances according to broad func­ tional distinctions (directives, assertives, declaratives) as well as dramatic lloyd whitesell 193 detail (refusal, dismissal, blame). this has the immediate effect of high­ lighting the relations of power or affection between characters. the ag­ gressive choruses in acts 2 and 3, for example, are profitably examined in light of judith butler's recent treatise on injurious utterance or "hate speech" (butler 1997). such distinctions are far from incidental to the music; at every step of the argument we are shown how britten projects and amplifies the dramatic rhetoric through discourses of tonality, timbre, textural relations, and the like. the fresh perspective this book offers is conveyed by placing these familiar discourses in the service of an analysis parsed in units of action. the distinct utterance is dynamically conceived, taking its place within a processual span. this approach is thus ideally suited to the study of britten's dramatic planning. rupprecht lays out the tragic arc encompassed in the successive acts of naming the protagonist ("peter grimes!"), from the opera's opening words fixing him as the subject of legal authority, through the terrifying cries of his neighbors, thirsty for blood, to the self-lacerations in the scene of his madness. rupprecht knows his britten through and through; his analyses show remarkable acumen and sensitivity. especially impressive is his analysis of the way in which long-range tonal and thematic implications contribute to britten's grip on the audience. his discussion of the famous "interview" chords in billy budd, for instance, reveals their significance in terms of such extensional energies. thematically, the strange emptiness ofthe pas­ sage acts "as a release from the almost obsessive leitmotivic undertow of preceding scenes" (133). tonally, the chords work to nullity an insidious chromatic progression that has plagued the opera since the prologue, thus cleansing or banishing claggart's symbolic influence (131). the focus on powerful utterance leads rupprecht to examine pivotal, epiphanic ges­ tures in the operas, "moments that underline cardinal dramatic points in a single stroke" (5). such a moment, rupprecht observes, occurs at the vio­ lent climax of the quarrel between peter grimes and ellen ("god have mercy upon me," act 2, scene 1): "peter's prayer, as i will call it, is at once the culmination of one event (the quarrel) and-as taken up by the eaves­ dropping chorus after his exit-the catalyst of an entirely fresh chain of actions" (48-50), actions which are embodied in verbal, tonal, and the­ matic gesture. another lynchpin moment is the unpremeditated love vow uttered by aschenbach at the center of death in venice. the analysis of britten's dramatic artistry here is multilayered and truly illuminating. the force of this moment as a "climactic speech act" depends on a mustering of multiple intensities: styles of vocal performance, harmonic and rhyth­ mic tensions, and an unbearable "crowding-in of motivic references" (277), all of which crystallize in a complex gesture of somatic release. these ana­ lytical insights are used to point up distinctions between literary or theatri194 current musicology cal genres and "opera's precise control over the pace, density, and flow of dramatic events ... a sense of sudden epiphany can be rooted in more dense overlay of reference than is possible in the les.s polyphonic world of the play, or the linear sequence of literary narration" (277). refreshingly, rupprecht's holistic approach to musical utterance also takes in subtleties of timbre and texture. the appearance of the rainbow in britten's one-act opera noye's fludde enacts a promise between god and the congregation through the stratification of a familiar hymn and gamelan­ like bell sounds: the hymn's "daring tonal stasis ... forms the earthly foun­ dation for a celestial canopy of glittering percussion" (28). his description of aschenbach's arrival in venice deserves extended quotation for its dense, evocative prose and its attention to textural detail: with sinister urgency, [the barcarolle] arrives at a grotesquely dilated form, its three component melodic strands precariously situated over a gaping registral expanse. in the brass fanfares that follow, registral coherence is restored, only to be abruptly curtailed by the five 0' clock chime of san marco, at once thrillingly realistic timbrally, and yet, in context, deeply forbidding. it is a fissured moment-here are two imposing "views" of the city, related but antinomic ... the soundscape is antiphonal--an authentically venetian coro spezzato gesture-but riven by schematic oppositions. warm harmonic consonances (brass, in sixths) are answered by cruder-sounding dissonances (bells and winds, in parallel elevenths). mter the liquid but still coherent two-part counterpoint of the barcarolle, these venetian phrases are alien polyphonies. (260-64) aside from such felicities, rupprecht's performative approach enables him to formulate some very intriguing and unconventional categories of gestural analysis, a few of which i would like to mention. in the prologue of peter grimes, as peter is sworn in, he repeats the words of the oath, while nearly every musical parameter (harmony, textural spacing, rhythm, tim­ bre, vocal style) marks his speech and his character in sharp contrast to that of swallow, the mouthpiece of the court. in rupprecht's gloss: "with its carefully constructed ... conflicts, the prologue ajrticulates the 'seman­ tic reversals' that animate a dialogue between two speakers" (40; quoting manfred pfister quoting jan mukarovsky). the notion of "semantic rever­ sal" appears as a delightfully fresh conceptual tool pregnant with implica­ tions for the study of operatic dialogue. the example here is provocative in its dual performance of exactly the same words which, through contra­ dictory musical gesture, are held at a distance. lloyd whitesell 195 another concept which rupprecht makes important use of is the "dis­ cursive shift" (first introduced on p. 15). this is not a new concept; it follows, for instance, on abbate's accentuation of "discursive disjunction" as a necessary condition of narrativity. as rupprecht uses it, however, the term is less exceptional, more broadly conceived. "in a musical sense, dis­ course arises when a given utterance (a theme, say) is set off from sur­ rounding utterances by discernible articulations or shifts (in mood, topic, or stylistic register, for example). discourse forges a link between a given event and the circumstances of its enunciation" (15). the concept pro­ vides leverage for an inquiry into the fluid dynamics of (vocal) quotation in an instrumental piece, lachrymae: reflections on a song of dowland. rupprecht is not after narrative voice per se, but he is after the perception of an uttering voice or "speaking presence" (14), asserted in this case in­ strumentally. the drama in this piece consists in the unfolding "sequence of moves along a continuum between dowland's unmediated voice" and an "indirect discourse" in which the voice from the past is assimilated into britten's reflective utterance (15). through stylistic and textural shifts, britten enacts the emergence of a discursive agent, more or less directly apprehended, mediated, or disguised. the discursive shift is also central to the performative patterns of the war requiem, in its interleaving of cho­ rus and soloists, standardized latin liturgy and graphic world war i po­ etry. rupprecht probes this troping pattern for its "rhetoric of disturbance." by the interruptive opposition of "a sanctioned and a rogue text" (200), britten "challenges the canonical authority of the sacred" (215), opening it up to secular, sceptical, and urgently personal interventions. when rupprecht does confront the issue of narrative (diegetic) voice in opera (as distinct from the mimetic voices of the dramatic present), it is in the context of an extended discussion of the second act of billy budd. he chooses this moment in order to introduce the genettean questions "who sees?" and "who speaks?" (108). where genette (1980:186) makes a case for the strong demarcation of these questions into two separate cat­ egories of narrative analysis-perspective (or mood) and voice, respec­ tively-rupprecht blurs the two into a consideration of "point of view." this blurring is arguably appropriate for the relative indeterminacies of operatic utterance, where modes of musical "telling" are not always dis­ tinct from present-tense "perceiving." but no such argument is explicitly offered, and rupprecht seems to be sacrificing a potential articulation in his theoretical model. (for more on the usefulness of the voice/perspec­ tive distinction in music, see whitesell 1993:14-36.) discussion hinges on the abbatean search for narrative "distance," which is located in voice-orchestra relations: "the key to an operatic point of view would appear to lie in the 'distance'-if any-perceptible to an 196 current musicology audience between a singing character who is verbally articulate and a word­ less orchestral utterance more or less freighted with leitmotivic references pertaining to actions on the stage" (110). rupprecht is interested in a supple rather than static model of such textural! symbolic relations. he develops a concept of "voice placement" to document the relative degree of distance or "intimacy" among vocal and instrumental "speakers" (116). intimacy is established through conjunctions of texture (on a graduated range from disjunction through chordal coordination, heterophony, and various degrees of doubling; see the schema on page 117) and motivic association. his example-billy's stammering response to claggart's accu­ sation of mutiny-reveals the aptness of the model for scenic complexity and ambiguities of voice/viewpoint. "by simultaneity of viewpoint, the or­ chestra encompasses the situation of the three men at this supremely tense moment. the orchestral gestures seem poised between simple enactment of billy's and vere's attitudes (the stammer trill, 'vere's' trumpets) and utterance that is more distanced (the string fifths, as echoes of claggart's accusations)" (116). according to rupprecht, the perception of orches­ tral distance fluctuates constantly in a score like billy budd, resulting in an indeterminate play of verbal! dramatic action and commenting orchestral utterance. britten exploits such ambiguity as a reflection of the ironic "dual­ voiced discourse" (118) common to many of his librettos; within budd's pattern of secret motives and blocked powers of articulation, it has the­ matic force as well. building on his well-honed concepts of textural placement, perspec­ tival intimacy, and diegetic presence, rupprecht arrives at a climactic scene of analysis: the scene of billy's trial. this passage exerts a powerfully un­ canny aural effect; claggart lies inert and dead before us, while the orches­ tral utterance is saturated with echoes of his voice. such an effect ("hear­ ing a voice that issues from a corpse" [136]) provides the clearest evidence within the opera of an instrumental narrative agent. rupprecht's analysis is masterful in its unpacking of long-range motivic networks, its situation of the posthumous force of this utterance within the complex field of power relations between characters, and its sensitivity to the resonant ambigu­ ities of agency and temporal reference. it also draws on another uncon­ ventional category of gestural analysis: the scene of hearing. at several key moments in his book, rupprecht calls attention to the spatial configura­ tion of aural perception, both as represented within the world of the drama and as it impacts on actual listeners in the theater. such dispositions have crucial symbolic significance, not least for matters of audience identifica­ tion with and access to the consciousness of the characters onstage. in the trial scene, the issues are clarified when one asks the question "who hears the uncanny orchestral voice?" as always, rupprecht is receptive to mullloyd whitesell 197 tiple possibilities (though hampered by his diffuse approach to "viewpoint"; this is an instance where a foregrounded distinction between narrating voice and perceiving position would have provided useful leverage ). it could be that vere's sudden awareness of claggart's influence is being repre­ sented by his hearing of the wordless voice; but this is problematic in that he never directly heard claggart's private statements which the orchestra is now recounting. or the unusual perceptual access here could refer to the opera's dramatic frame as a flashback: "as scenes recalled by the old man, the murder and trial might be imagined as playing out from his view­ point" with the wisdom of hindsight (123). but perhaps vere is not really aware of the orchestral burden, in which case responsibility for receiving it falls solely on the audience. the symbolic interpretation of aural relations will affect our complicity with or distance from claggart and vere as agents in the drama, as well as our consciousness of a separate narrating voice. another analysis of spatial relations occurs in reference to the chorus in peter grimes, which often appears only sonically, as chanting congrega­ tion or approaching mob. "the role of the chorus is always indirect, yet powerfully coercive" (43), enacting fatal consequences by mere offstage proximity. the entire chapter on death in venice is in fact geared to the question of perceptual position-whose awareness is being represented through orchestral utterance? rupprecht shows how the audience is re­ stricted almost exclusively to a position of identification with aschenbach's sensory and psychological viewpoint. in this context, the moments when the listener is granted greater access stand out as achieving a kind of tran­ scendence. at the opera's conclusion, as aschenbach dies, his utterance detaches from his body and migrates to the orchestra, "revoiced at the distanced level of myth ... [e]loquence resides beyond the word, and finally, in a prolonged dying-away motion, the orchestral voice recedes to an aural vanishing-point, beyond hearing" (295-96). all in all, the book succeeds extremely well at both intended goals: the contribution of a fresh critical perspective to well-known britten works, and the detailed elaboration of a performative-theoretical approach to opera in general. the first three chapters in particular present a tour de force in their seamless blending of the two goals and their crescendo from fundamental concepts to authoritative reexaminations ofleitmotivic signi­ fication and musical diegesis in light of the new approach. i found that the book's overall design faltered with chapter 4, on turn of the screw. rupprecht was not as successful here at establishing a truly new perspective on famil­ iar interpretive territory. his focus on adult constructions of childhood as inaccessible interiority, indebted to arguments by carolyn steedman (1995), does not have the same heft or applicability of the issues framing other chapters. nor is it as clear here how his specific reading of the opera con198 current musicology nects to and furthers the general conceptual framework already established. he recovers his impressive balancing act for the final two chapters. the concluding discussion of death in venice is especially welcome for its bril­ liant technical and rhetorical analyses of a work which has received com­ paratively less close attention. another drawback of the turn of the screw discussion is its awkward handling of the homoerotic and pedophilic undercurrents in the opera as bearers of meaning. for instance: the homoerotic implications of quint's threat to young miles may be stronger these days than they were for britlcen's first british audience. it is not simply that we see the opera today aware of the composer's complex sexual identity ... [w] e must consider the very specific cultural conditions attendant on all interpretations ... quint's ability to "corrupt" the boy, in other words, need not be understood solely-or even primarily-in terms of an active homoerotic desire. (183) the logic of this syllogism is not apparent. it comes too close to a program of returning to the willful ignorance and enforced restrictions about sexual knowledge in place at the time of the opera's writing. (rupprecht goes even further, implying that we should project ourselves back to the atti­ tudes of 'james's late victorian readers" [183].) surely the cultural condi­ tions shaping our own interpretations are not always contaminating accre­ tions to be stripped away? rupprecht cites critics who have related the thematic discourse in the opera to britten's personal sexual identity, but he is ultimately dismissive of such a direction, seeing in it nothing more than "a kind of encoded personal history" (156). this is a serious over­ sight. the private details of britten's life may not be legible in his works, but his perspective as a member of an oppressed sexual minority undoubt­ edly is. the challenge in this area is to define how britten transformed private concerns into public discourse (about sexual subjectivity, proscribed knowledge, societal oppression, etc.) through his dramatic compositions. the fact that rupprecht forecloses such theorizing jis doubly disappoint­ ing given that he has been interested from the start in the situational as­ pect of the artwork: "to recognize that all utterance is, to an extent, social and interpersonal in nature, is to understand language as political" (2-3). it follows that the critic may ponder how britten found ways to bring his urgent concerns to voice in a forbidding, hostile cultural environment. this can be seen as a question of authorial voice (compare the "s3" or third-tier sender position in his model of artistic communication [109]), as distinct from narrative voice. in other words, his theory already makes lloyd whitesell 199 room for such theoretical connections-his foreclosure of them in favor of a more narrowly circumscribed textual meaning is an unfortunate blind spot. nevertheless, at many points throughout the book, rupprecht's strong and provocative readings suggest possible keys to a queer authorial inter­ pretation. as he points out, britten's dramas overwhelmingly thematize the problematic utterance: the secret that must be revealed in a fatal, cli­ mactic speech act (turn of the screw, death in venice), the "yearning for what is absent" (21), the "utterance occluded or held back" (21), the "melodra­ matic failure" (208) of canonic forms of reassurance. such tropes are ripe with meaning for a queer-sensitized listener. but in a symmetrical way, rupprecht has left the contingent details of the actual spectator/listener (the "r3" receiver position of the model) unexamined. he seems to re­ gard his readings as more powerful when they are geared to a generic listener stripped of ideological resolution. for instance, while some listen­ ers sense in peter grimes "a drama of fairly precise [homosexual] symbol­ ism," the "alluring specificity of such readings does not ... account for the opera's continuing hold over audiences" (34). this reasoning is spurious and question-begging. later: "a problem with such [homosexual] read­ ings ... lies in their very specificity; to put too fine a point on peter's utterance is to risk misrepresenting the raw force of the moment" (51). too specific for whom? rupprecht appears to object to such interpreta­ tions as coming from a particular ideological or experiential perspective. but this objection is hardly tenable, since all interpretations derive from a particular perspective. it should not be too hard for us as listeners to rec­ ognize the impact and conviction of a well-defined subjective experience whether or not we identify with that experience. the queer interpreta­ tions he cites (by philip brett and clifford hindley) are intended to en­ rich our understanding of authorial and character motivations, not re­ duce them. to frame this issue in terms of the jakobsonian model of the speech event (13), our awareness of britten's (and our own) sexual subjec­ tivity forms part of the "context" by which his operatic messages may be sent and understood. the contingent, partial, and volatile nature of this context, and the degree of autonomy open to the addressee in responding to (or constructing) it, are not subjects that rupprecht confronts. none of this means that his theoretical framework is flawed. rupprecht develops a model of signification that is sound, well-articulated, and highly flexible, with conceptual resources that can easily accommodate further explorations and refinements. in fact, if i may conclude on a speculative note, i found myself perversely wondering if the framework ought to be more flawed. that is, given the preponderance in britten's dramatic works of failed communications, of utterances that come up short, i wonder if a robust, confident model of messages sent and received is altogether ap200 current musicology propriate. rupprecht in his critical practice is completely attuned to nu­ ances of "semantic unreliability" (in war requiem, 210), "evasion and dis­ placement" (in turn of the screw, 148), thematic "uncertainty" and "inar­ ticulacy" (in billy budd, 77, 131), and the like. but perhaps it would be productive to fold some of this skepticism back into his conceptual model. at the moment, i only have vague ideas of what thls might entail, other than gesturing in the direction of those theorists (such as deconstructionists and certain queer theorists) who emphasize the slipped gears or gaps in the chain of communication: the unreliable, arbitrary, and uncontrollable aspects of utterance. a haunting sense emerges from working through the sophisticated and finely-balanced interpretations in this book that not all is well with the scene of signification. the same things that make meaning possible are the things that persist in going awry. illocutionary force es­ capes intentions: "what is disturbing ... is the ease with which ellen and balstrode ... by uttering [peter's] prayer theme, affirm an active role in his destruction" (52). leitmotivic specificity arises by association-except when associations overload and infect the musical surface with "confu­ sions of reference" (168). in turn of the screw's sinister allegory, the "fu­ sion" of musical and verbal powers escalates into a fusion of friendly and hostile agents. audiences and critics have long been aware of the cryptic, double-edged impact of turn of the screw's climactic speech act, when miles shouts one set of words at two interlocutors, and gives up the ghost. per­ haps we could pay more attention to the cautionary message of the penultimate scene, where flora is caught in a similar tug of war. the gov­ erness, oversure of her own perspective, points with such force to the bale­ ful sign appearing to her ("look! she is there!") that her little charge breaks down, protesting: "i don't know what you mean." references abbate, carolyn. 1991. unsung voices: opera and musical narrative in the nineteenth century. princeton: princeton university press. austin, j. l. 1975. how to do things with words. 1962. edited by j. o. ormson and marina sbisil 2d. ed. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. butler,judith. 1997. excitable speech: a politics of the performative. new york: routledge. cone, edward t. 1974. the composer's voice. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. genette, gerard. 1980. narrative discourse: an essay in method. translated by jane e. lewin. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. kramer, lawrence. 1984. music and poetry: the nineteenth century and after. berke­ ley and los angeles: university of california press. ___ . 1991. musical narratology: a theoretical outline. indiana theory revifmj 12 (spring and fall): l41-62. maus, fred everett. 1991. music as narrative. indiana theory revifmj 12 (spring and fall): 1-34. lloyd whitesell 201 maus, fred everett, ed. 1989. edward t. cone's the composer's voice: elaborations and departures. college music symposium 29: 1-80. nattiez,jeanjacques. 1973. y a-t-il une diegese musicale? in musik und verstehen, ed. peter faltin and hans-peter reinecke, 247-58. cologne: arno verlag. ___ . 1987. musicologie generale et semiologie. paris: christian bourgois. searle, john r. 1969. speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. cambridge: cambridge university press. steedman, carolyn. 1995. strange dislocations: childhood and the idea of human inte­ riority, 1780-1930. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. whitesell, lloyd. 1993. images of self in the music of benjamin britten. ph.d. diss., state university of new york at stony brook. current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 121 hillel schwartz. 2011. making noise: from babel to the big bang and beyond. brooklyn: zone books. reviewed by shannon mattern hillel schwartz’s making noise: from babel to the big bang and beyond is not merely a text to be read; it’s also an object to be grappled with. one must create space for it, adopt a proper reading posture to accommodate it, and listen to it—both to the words on the pages and to the pages themselves. at 9 ¼ in. x 6 ¼ in. x 2 3/8 in., making noise is not the kind of book one can easily tuck into a bag for subway reading. in fact, in the two months i spent working through the text, not once did i manage to find sufficient spare space in my bag to lug it to school or to a coffee shop; consequently, i read the book entirely in my apartment—in a familiar and relatively quiet acoustic environment, which may have set schwartz’s babble and bang into acoustic relief. in addition, making noise is not the kind of book one can easily read while lying on the couch; its 2.5 pounds tired my wrists far too quickly. as a result, i read the entire book sitting or standing up, or while lying on my stomach on the living room carpet. i never experienced schwartz with my head cocooned in a pillow, down and cloth providing acoustic insulation. consequently, as i read, i became more conscious of the symphony of white noises—humming refrigerators and whirring hard drives—filling my seemingly quiet brooklyn apartment. the main text alone is 859 pages; with the index, it is 912. yet even that number doesn’t include all bibliographic components. because of the book’s length, the publisher decided to make the 349 pages of endnotes, along with a 51–page bibliography of “noisy” children’s books (including a panoply of intriguing titles, such as don’t wake the baby and croak! hoot! squeak! buzz!), downloadable from the zones books website. i regard the endnotes, when they’re more than mere citations, as an integral part of any text; when i read i typically maintain two bookmarks—one in the main text, one in the end matter—so that i can continually reference relevant notes and citations. with schwartz’s book, i often found myself so intrigued by a particular tale or provoked by a specific claim that i sought to follow his trail of inquiry by consulting his source material. alas, the printed text itself required such a physical commitment that i simply couldn’t manage simultaneous consultation of the endnotes. i couldn’t keep running back and forth from reading chair to computer, or juggling the physical book and an ipad full of notes. current musicology 122 as a result, in the moment of reading, i missed the fecund end matter and lost an opportunity to hear the myriad voices informing and foretelling the arrival of schwartz’s noisy tale. yet a subsequent perusal of the endnotes revealed the astounding range of resources that the author consulted over the course of two decades. according to the book’s distributor, mit press, schwartz drew upon such diverse sources as the archives of antinoise activists and radio advertisers, catalogs of fireworks and dental drills, letters and daybooks of physicists and physicians, military manuals and training films, travel diaries and civil defense pamphlets, as well as museum collections of bells, ear trumpets, megaphones, sirens, stethoscopes, and street organs. (n.d.) published resources include scholarly texts from, among countless fields, anthropology, architecture, art history, biology, literature, material culture, musicology, otology, physics, sensory history, soundscape studies, urban history, and, my own field, media studies—and scholars and practitioners from all of these fields constitute the book’s potential audience. we can hear the work of emily thompson, jonathan sterne, jacques attali, mark m. smith, alain corbin and countless others echoing throughout making noise, and perhaps placed in conversation with one another for the first time. given the breadth and eclecticism of his resources, schwartz’s work represents a monumental convergence of often disparate voices on sound and noise. these voices live not only on the book’s pages, but also in its form. with so many sheets bound into such a large volume—and these aren’t your typical norton anthology onion skins, as this volume rivals the weight of a nicely published mass–market fiction hard–cover—there’s a distinctive depth to its flutter as i flip through its pages. when i drop it on the floor, what a nice round thud it makes—not the strident crack of less substantial volumes! making noise is a tenor. yet it’s a discordant tenor, with its somewhere–between–mint–green–and–robin’s–egg–blue cover featuring, in fluorescent orange (which imparts the effect of being printed in negative), a blown–up print of j.j. grandville’s “katzenmusik” (“rough music”), and type in an elegant brick–red serif font. quite a noisy contrast of graphic elements. inside the cover, past the black endpapers; past an image of michael barton miller’s “aroundsound #2 (elpasoyodel),” sculptures resembling the ear canal; past the copyright information and dedication, we encounter schwartz’s “note to reader”: “this book is meant to be read aloud.” there is indeed a lyricism to the writing that schwartz manages to sustain throughout all 800+ pages. even if my lips weren’t moving as i read, i heard schwartz’s shannon mattern 123 words resonate in my inner ear—something that rarely happens when one reads tone–deaf academic prose. schwartz has divided the book into three main sections, or “rounds”: (1) everywhere: on apprehensions of noise on all sides. how this comes to be, and from which directions. (2) everywhen, everyone: on ears of all sorts. on who is hearing noise, under what conditions and at what time of day or year of life. (3) everyhow: on hearing what had not been heard, could not be heard, should not be heard. calibrating and recalibrating noise. toward what end? while working my way through the book, the rounds resonated only very faintly for me; they felt more like cryptic titles of symphonic movements. but after completing the book and allowing it to echo for a while, the rhetorical functions of these titles did eventually make some sense: the focus on where, when, who, and how suggests that schwartz regards his work as that of a storyteller. and the regular use of the “every–” prefix prepares us to accept the broad, encompassing breadth of these stories; schwartz’s story of noise has multiple protagonists and antagonists, widely distributed agency (implicating a variety of inanimate objects and bio–technical systems), and is inflected by the place, time, and identity of his characters and informants. the story’s telling also depends upon the methods those various culturally and historically situated subjects use to define, measure, and represent noise. structuring the book in “rounds” seems fitting for a story that cycles through time, continually revisits subjects (some, perhaps a bit too frequently), and appreciates their echoes. even the book’s polychronic subtitle—which starts with babel, then listens back for echoes of the big bang, then listens forward to the beyond—suggests that this is not a linear, teleological story. the three rounds are preceded by “consonances,” schwartz’s acknowledgments of resonant minds and voices; and “bang (a beginning),” his introduction on “hearing out noise,” “origins auricular and oracular, mythic and metaphoric,” and “hardness of hearing.” this bang isn’t the “big” one, however; it refers instead to the booms, breaths, brouhaha, and babble in various vedic and judeo–christian genesis stories. it is here that schwartz establishes the “every–”ness and, at the same time, the contingency of noise: noise is never so much a question of the intensity of sound as of the intensity of relationships: between deep past, past, and present, imagined or experienced; between one generation and the next, gods or mortals; between country and city, urb and suburb; between one class and another; between the sexes; between neanderthals and other humans. (20–1) current musicology 124 noise, schwartz proposes, has a fourfold history: first, the chronicle of changing soundscapes: how each era and culture lives within its own ambience of sounds. next, the annals of sounds earmarked as pleasant or obnoxious: how each era, culture, and rank hears (or does not hear) and welcomes or disdains the sounds around it. next, the career of noise itself as variously apprehended: how each era, culture, occupation or discipline reconstitutes the notion and nature of noise. contingent upon these, finally, are narratives of noisemaking and noise–breaking: how noise in each era, culture, and class has been denounced or defended, defiantly produced or determinedly deadened. (21) in a book this large, in which readers are likely seeking orientation and a guide to navigation, this four–part model might seem to promise a map or score of the text—but no; these are simply four refrains to listen for throughout the three rounds. there’s much to be heard in the silences, too. in the “sound–shadow,” schwartz says, we can discern “four reciprocal histories”: “the history of elected or commanded silence; the history of the deaf and deafness; the history of arcadian idylls and millennial kingdoms; the history of stillness—of portraiture and death, sedation and paralysis, inner reserve and outward desolation” (21). this set of reciprocal histories can in turn be contextualized within (and is often unfortunately “masked” by) the “ostensibly larger stories of civilization, urbanization, industrialization, mass distribution, and mass communications” (21). these eight reciprocal histories—as well as others not named here, like the histories of medicine, fashion, children’s literature, and war—and the five larger historical contexts are intertwined, together composing the multivocal history of noise. i’ll highlight just a sampling of the connections drawn in the introduction and each of the three main sections; to offer a full listing of the topics schwartz addresses would require far more space than we have here. in “bang,” we hear about epidemic diseases with ototoxic side–effects, “low noise” cassette tapes, the evolving role of the encore in the performing arts, and the many challenges of being a sonarman on a submarine, where a mishearing can have devastating consequences. the sonarman reminds us that “the meanings we assign to noise are no less consequential than the meanings we assign to other sounds. noise may be unwanted or incomprehensible sound; it is never insignificant sound” (28). schwartz also mentions humans’ vain search for an ur–language, “root of all other tongues spoken by humanity,” and the cultural biases inherent in anthropologists’ early studies, among ancient or isolated communities, of what it means to “hear well” (30). recognizing the futility of these endeavors, and “abandoning… any claim to imperturbable sanctuary or impeccable hearing, we are free to move on to what is left: the history of noise” (36). shannon mattern 125 and move on we do, into round one: everywhere. here we hear about the history of reading aloud and the textual conventions—spaces between words, punctuation, capitalization—that thwarted or facilitated this practice. we hear town criers in the street; conversations in the medici–era court; echoes represented visually in cliff paintings and cave walls; and echoes reverberating around mayan pyramids and greek amphitheaters. we learn of the integration of zones of publicity and privacy, of sound and silence, into the renaissance domestic sphere, where various architectural solutions were designed to keep noise out, and often failed. in the old world, [echo] was active in the stone corridors of narrow city streets, in the hallways of country houses, in the lyrics and staging of songs and operas, in artificial grottoes hollowed out for aristocratic gardens and public amusement, in the echo–organs of cathedrals whose vaulted domes sometimes (as at st. paul’s) had whispering galleries. (65) echo echoed in baroque music, and in the sounds of war and the cacophony of the underworld. the righteous had to “listen through noise . . . for the lord’s guidance” (90–1)—but what, precisely, constituted the medium through which they listened was a matter for debate: was it pneuma, or ether—either or neither? we also consider in this round how flatulence, laughter, and weeping were received in various contexts, and wonder what it means to speak with angels or through machines. we map a new geography, and a new soundscape, shaped by iron furnaces and steam engines. we think about practices of “educating the senses”—particularly in the penitentiary, where, as the prevailing penal theories had it, “it was solitude [and silence] that conduced toward repentance” (182). we hear the noises of slavery and freedom, and consider how they sounded different in relation to one another. we imagine doctors pressing ears and stethoscopes to ailing patients, and telegraphers making sense of the “dit–da of morse code” (227). we consider how the rise of these new technologies—telephones, radios, radar—installed “a new mode of listening that entailed a heightened sensitivity to the ubiquity of noise,” and we watch victorian architects work toward isolating interior life from the cacophony outside (230). early in round two: “everywhen, everyone,” schwartz presents a concise “lesson”: each generation inhabits a different acoustic universe, constituted by different musics and memories of sound, by different thicknesses of walls and densities of traffic, by different means of manufacture and broadcast, by different diets and ear–damaging diseases, by different proportions and preponderances of metal rattling in kitchens, clanging on the streets, or ringing in the (differently polluted) air above. (314) current musicology 126 we begin this round with the “loud dress” of the dandies, then we later address the onomatopoeia of the futurists and acknowledge that others were composing with silence long before john cage. we’re stumped by acoustic shadow (topographical obstructions to the propagation of sound) on civil war battlefields, and made to wonder if the “acoustic density” of our industrializing cities—a function of demographics, traffic, and urban heat, which “[sped] sound along”—is an inevitability. to some, the only recourse seemed to be a search for sonic retreats in cemeteries and parks, or “rest cures” in japan and other foreign lands (274). meanwhile, officials experimented with new street–paving materials to cut down on traffic noise. florence nightingale reminded us of the healing powers of quiet, and various anti–noise parties set out to enforce it, in part by encouraging the establishment of acoustic zones. later in the round, we hear about new scientific studies of sound (by bell, doppler, edison, faraday, maxwell, sabine, and others), and about architects who learned from these scientific discoveries as they strove to soundproof homes and hospitals. meanwhile, urbanites watched overhead wires overtake their cities. we consider hearing loss and tinnitus, particularly among factory workers. we think also of the significance assigned to ears—how they were once used for the “typing of personality”—and how, nevertheless, they’ve been subject to all sorts of abuse (355): add it all up—the endemic diseases, epidemics, and childhood “fevers” with their otological after–effects, often permanent; the ototoxic drugs used to treat those afflictions; the boxing of schoolchildren’s ears and the familial tugging or cuffing at home; the injury done by industrial noise to the inner and middle ears of working adults, year after year, and more swiftly by the cannonade of battle to the ears of soldiers and sailors; the tinnitus and earache from impacted wisdom teeth, dental decay, and gum disease; the cigar and cigarette smoke, sulfuric ash and coal dust, lead–laced paint and arsenical wallpapers in the most genteel of homes, and the soot and smog outside in the thick city air . . . add it all up and the heard world was widely compromised. (383) while concert halls and upper– and middle–class homes were more insulated from the din, working–class ears were not. in round 3, “everyhow,” we begin with anthropologists studying the hearing of “savage and semi–civilized races,” and learn that some western researchers came to understand that their own hearing was neither superior nor inferior to that of the other; rather, “[the savages’] senses,” like their own city–tuned hears, “were honed by minds that grasped the ecology of their milieu” (556). we hear again about the sounds of war—about shellshock and terrifying silences—and about assaulting sounds emerging from new shannon mattern 127 loudspeakers, even in peaceful territories. we overhear politically charged deliberations on the cause of deafness. we talk of sound therapies: freud’s “talking cure” and hearing aids. again, we consider how architecture and construction devise new strategies—“electrically amplified sound–transmitting infrastructure[s]” and “sound–absorbent wall and floor coverings” like celotex—to seal out the noise (635; 638). sometimes, as before, those solutions “redoubled the problem” (632). we again consider urban zoning and the spread of litigation against noise—even in the depths of the ocean. in one particularly fascinating segment, schwartz addresses the audition of fish and sound–making of whales and recounts activists’ efforts to prevent their disruption by deleterious naval activities. we heard inside other aquatic environments, too; ultrasound transformed how parents listened to their children—both in utero and throughout their development. meanwhile, we also began to listen to the universe, to hear static in cosmic rays and to search for radio transmitted from afar. we started to think of noise in terms of wave patterns, and we classified those patterns by color: white, “patternless sound,” perhaps the most familiar; black; brown; orange; and pink—along with blue, violet, grey, and green, which aren’t mentioned here (834). pink, perhaps the most trivial–sounding of all, is “moderately correlated over all time scales and so, on the average, it should display ‘interesting structure’ over all time intervals” (839). we eventually recognized the power of pink: “1/f noise was suddenly found to be flickering almost everywhere that things or beings were in motion. it was in fact intrinsic to perception and judgment” (840). [pink noise] seems to be the optimal noise for catalyzing phase transitions and rescuing systems out of whack. when added to a weak signal, pink noise can nudge it over a threshold crucial to awareness or stability; when introduced to a system in turmoil, pink noise can shepherd it back to homeostasis . . . [p]ink noise allows organisms to “hear” and respond more aptly to their environs; in physical and otological terms, it restores balance. (843) the ubiquity and utility of pink noise explodes the commonplace notion that noise is simply “unwanted sound.” schwartz writes: “not only was the world literally shaped by noise; our brains required noise. pink noise. measured at the peripheries, the noise of the nervous system is white; in the brain, electrical fluctuations approach 1/f ” (845). this noise is very much wanted and necessary sound. “the intentional making of noise was an ontological statement: i substantiate my historical being through the noise i can make” (846). in other words, “without noise, we would not be in the world” (859). encountering such incontrovertible evidence near the end of the book, current musicology 128 for the “every–”ness and crucial importance of noise, we might be led to reconsider the constructive, and perhaps even essential, roles played by the other noises echoing throughout the book: babble and static, gunfire and steam whistles, street music and sirens. we might say that something like “rhetorical pink noise” also plays an integral role in the maintenance of balance in schwartz’s book. as my recounting of the variety of topics visited in each of the rounds might suggest, the logic by which particular topics or tales are sorted into each of the three rounds (and the coherence of those rounds) is often elusive, and occasionally it seems that schwartz’s fluid prose smooths over odd leaps in logic and strained connections. (for example, how, exactly, did we move from the primal scream to seti to the d.c. post–hardcore band rites of spring to sonocytology within the space of five pages?). but every once in a while, we’ll hear one of schwartz’s refrains—the fourfold histories and their “silent” reciprocal counterparts—which allows us to reconnect with the book’s underlying rhythm. the “flicker noise” of these refrains “nudge[s] [schwartz’s looping lyric tale] over a threshold crucial to awareness or stability” (843). perhaps even the unwieldy physicality of the book–object itself cultivates a particular reading experience, with particular sonic character, that contributes to this awareness and stability. we require a certain stability of attention to follow schwartz through his 859 pages in order to appreciate, ultimately, that among the few stable qualities of noise are its everywhere–, everywhen–, an everyhow–ness. the rest is vibrational, conditional, provisional, historical; the rest is noise: bound up with bone and tissue, with solids, liquids, gases, and plasmas, with the tactile and cortical, with the chthonic and the cosmic, all those vibrations that are soundmusicnoise have been historically re–cognized, from era to era, within a cultural logic as nonlinear as the coils of the hairs of our inner ears. distinctions between sound and noise, or noise and music, or music and sound, can only be provisional—not because they are matters of taste but because they are matters of history and histrionics: of what becomes audible through time and how the acoustics are staged, in auditoria, or bedrooms, in laboratories or courtrooms . . . (858) . . . or in beautifully typeset tomes with noisy covers, like making noise. references attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music, trans. brian massumi. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. corbin, alain. 1998. village bells: sound & meaning in the 19th–century french countryside, trans. martin thom. new york: columbia university press. mit press (n.d.). making noise: from babel to the big bang and beyond. <http: //mitpress. mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12640>. accessed 10 march 2012. shannon mattern 129 smith, mark m. 2001. listening to nineteenth–century america. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham: duke university press. thompson, emily. 2002. the soundscape of modernity: architectural acoustics and the culture of listening in america, 1900–1933. cambridge: mit press. matthew gelbart. 2007. the invention of "folk music" and "art music": emerging categories from ossian to wagner. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reviewed by julian onderdonk a focus on the historical causes of normative social assumptions and every­ day patterns of thought has been one of the many important consequences of the structuralist revolution. from claude levi-strauss's groundbreaking anthropological work of the 1950s to the deconstructionist approaches of jacques derrida in the 1960s and beyond, the focus on language, ideas, and social behaviors as interrelated forms of cultural expression has had a major impact in helping us understand why we view the world the way we do. among music historians, one early manifestation of this relativizing project occurred with the application of literary theories of reception to the discipline-the realization that long-cherished beliefs about everything from composers' critical reputations to established historical narratives are in fact constructed over time, and as such are subject to further discussion and revision. from this beginning, structuralist skepticism about received opinion has come to permeate every corner of the discipline, with the result that the largely positivist methods of the past have given way to a new historiographical focus that sees music in broader social and cultural terms and, thus, as part of an ever-evolving history of ideas. matthew gelbart's the invention of "folk music" and ''art music" represents a landmark publication in these developments, for it calls into question long-held assumptions about folk and art music. these are terms of enormous significance to western musical culture. they frame our entire approach to the classification of music, from the way the academic musical curriculum is organized to the value judgments we variously attach to the labels "high" and "low." the terms would also, at first glance, seem to possess a strong and secure meaning in our musical culture-"universal" categories of invariable significance that have existed for centuries. such assumptions are far from accurate, however, as gelbart convincingly shows through a wide-ranging historiographical examination of two centuries' worth of writings on culture and musical aesthetics. according to this analysis, the emergence of "folk" and "art" categories dates to the first glimmerings of cultural nationalism in the mid-eighteenth century-a period when nascent ideas of political self-determination necessitated the identification of a nation's "communal property" that could, in turn, aid the struggle for political and cultural independence. while this cultural need naturally currellt musicology, no. 87 (spring 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 207 208 current musicology focused attention on a given region's folk music, gelbart makes it clear that art music was no less important to this development-indeed, that art and folk categories were made meaningful only in relation to one another. this is not only because both form a linked binary opposition, familiar from structuralist discourse, but also because the new nationalism developed alongside new, fundamentally romantic ideas about human creativity that valued the individual as part of a larger racial and ethnic whole. in these terms, the "individual genius" and the collective "folk genius" were cut from the same cloth-products, in their different ways, of post-enlightenment society and politics. the emergence of the folk/art dichotomy hinged on the question of origins. whereas music had previously been categorized by function-for dancing, for domestic use, for formal occasions, etc.-the eighteenth century initiated the tendency, now taken for granted, to classify music principally by authorial source. this trend reflected the growing sophistication of eighteenth-century copyright laws, but ultimately emerged in response to geographical and political needs. thus the idea of "national music," the term which gave way to "folk" music over time, first arose in scotland, which in the eighteenth century was embroiled in a long and tortuous struggle with england, its powerful neighbor to the south. the controversial 1707 act of union and the harsh english reprisals following the mid-century jacobin uprisings prompted scots to emphasize and promote elements unique to their national culture. for music, this fundamentally meant establishing the scottish authorship of specific musical works. gelbart traces the winnow­ ing process-in-reverse from the 1720s to the 1770s whereby specific songs (words, music, or both) were ascribed first to david rizzio, a sixteenth­ century italian musician attached to the scottish court, then to james i of scotland (r. 1406-37), then to putative third-century scottish bards like ossian, and eventually to the anonymous scottish "folk" themselves. from here, the idea of a "national music" that had been communally evolved within endogamous societies over centuries quickly spread abroad, especially to germany, where the concept of the volkslied coined by johann gottfried herder gave the concept its most lasting formulation. it was in germany that the other side of the binary-"art" music­ came into play, but only after far-reaching shifts in musical aesthetics and cultural attitudes that took nearly a century to work themselves out. the new conception of national music initially existed in categorical opposition to "cultivated" music, traditionally associated with science and craft (i.e., artifice). in part, this was because the influx of italian and french baroque music into the british isles around 1720 prompted worried commentators to look for "national" alternatives. ultimately, though, the opposition stemmed julian onderdonk from music's usefulness to the new enlightenment concept of "conjectural history"-the theory that civilizations passed through progressive "stages of mankind" so that different world cultures at anyone time occupied differ­ ent stages of development. here, national music was linked to ancient, and so-called oriental and savage music as expressions of "primitive" musical cultures in contrast to the more "complex" music of advanced european societies. while some commentators used the primitive label to condemn this music, others like jean-jacques rousseau saw national music-or natural music, as it was significantly also called-as inherently superior for reasons familiar from his "noble savage" concept: such music represented a state of innocence and purity that more "advanced" civilizations had permanently lost. indeed, the very fact that "natural" music existed outside of the "rules" of cultivated music and yet was beautiful in its own right gave evidence of a collective "folk genius" that stood in opposition to traditional conceptions of musical craft and learning. if the folk genius concept established an opposition between folk and art categories, it also signaled a rejection of traditional ideas of art that would lead to a mutual dependence and dialectical tension between these categories. seventeenthand eighteenth-century paradigms had linked art directly to nature, whose "universal" rules and "scientific" basis represented the ideal that art sought to emulate. (the scientific and "artificial" orienta­ tion of cultivated music, mentioned above, related directly to this mimetic theory of art.) and yet here, in the concept of national music, was a "nature" that was valued precisely for its avoidance of rules and artifice-a nature, moreover, that was universal in its own right by virtue of its resemblance to other primitive musics found throughout the world. the implications of this realization were enormous, for in essence it asserted that musical creativity consisted of something more than simply divining and emulating scientific nature. nor was such creativity limited to folk and "primitive" artists, for the discovery of local national musics, existing within the lowest stratum of all societies, meant that even cultivated musicians could tap into their ethnic roots for creative purposes. in this way, the racial and ethnic orientation of the "folk genius" become bound up with new conceptions of "individual genius" that quickly became central to romantic ideas of the rule-breaking artist. (it is of course true that the romantics themselves did not limit "inspira­ tion" to purely ethnic forces. idealist philosophy famously attributed genius and creativity to the quest for the "infinite" -abstract and transcendental truths that could never fully be identified, much less enumerated. to the extent that this quest was dependent on the values of an authenticity, purity, and universality that was now identified with "unschooled" nature, however, 209 210 current musicology the romantic concept of the individual genius emerged in connection with the idea of folk genius. the fact that both forms of genius mystified and obscured the details of their respective origins-attributing authorship in the one case not to the individual singer but rather to orally transmitted "tradition," locating the process of individual creation in the quest for transcendence born of personal and/or ethnic "authenticity" in the other­ simply gives further evidence of the two categories' interdependence.) this linking of folk and artistic genius occurred principally in germany, and set the stage by which the dialectic reached the form that prevails to this day. the needs of cultural nationalism, again, drove these developments, for while the folk/art "question" was a literary as well as a musical topic of debate in france and great britain, in the german lands it was the musical angle that was addressed most intensively. if rousseau had privileged primitive music over cultivated music, german pride in its musical traditions sought to redress the balance by synthesizing the new emphasis on "pure" nature with traditional ideas of "science" (i.e., musical craft). this synthesis took the form of the "organic" artwork-the notion, promoted by herder and others, that an individual composition might grow from a single thematic kernel or seed so that all aspects of the work related to each other in the same way that all aspects of nature did. organicism thus empowered the constructive skill of the individual composer even as it encouraged him or her to use folksong, the most "natural" and "universal" form of musical expression, as the "raw material" of art. the quick success of the concept in the cultural marketplace helped to solidify the prestige and influence of nineteenth-century german (and austrian) music, a development that in turn inspired non-german nationalist composers to challenge german hegemony by basing compositions on their own native folksong. the irony, of course, is that this compositional strategy was itself a german prescription, and to the extent that these nationalists themselves embraced the organic work concept, they not only strengthened that hegemony but also unwittingly ensured that their own music would be granted secondary status. certainly, aestheticians like a.b. marx and eduard hanslick viewed such nationalists as "newcomers" to the field: unlike german composers reared on the great "folk-influenced" music of bach, schutz, and others, they could not help but invoke their folk music self-consciously and thus superficially. only german musicians, as richard wagner argued, could intuitively compose "as the folk" -an assertion that at once proclaimed the more thorough-going organicism of the german tradition and formed the basis of its claims to universality. non-german nationalist composers thus found themselves in a double bind: those who deliberately based their styles on their own folksong were accused of not being "organic" (i.e., universal) julian onderdonk enough, while those who avoided folksong altogether were criticized for their lack of "authenticity" by superficially imitating a german musical style whose folk "layer" they were ill-equipped to perceive. thus by a circuitous route did the relative values of "art music" and "folk music" assume the aesthetic positions that they hold today-with the former essentially occupying a position superior to the latter. this is not to say that folk music is lacking for champions (in an interesting final chapter, gelbart demonstrates how folk and art music have been grouped together and mutually elevated at the expense of a "meretricious" commercial popular music since the mid-nineteenth century), only that in general terms it has been placed at a lower level of cultural significance. the more important point, however, is that the relationship between the two that prevails today is basically the product oflate eighteenthand nineteenth-century german discourse. as gelbart points out, the few twentieth-century nationalist composers who have been accepted into what richard taruskin calls the "panromanogermanic" mainstream have been composers like benjamin britten, who notoriously attacked the "provincial" use of folksong and stressed the cosmopolitanism of the english baroque composers who in flu enced him. bela bartok is an even more striking case, for this champion of folksong essentially took the german view that the greatest music was that which assimilated the folk completely and distilled it through the individual genius. that bartok should take this position-one that clearly represents how he viewed his own music-in the face of the enormous importance he placed on folksong and his collecting work in general testifies to the lasting power of the folk/art dialectic as molded by german romantic aesthetics. this overview of the book's main argument does scant justice to its breathtakingly panoramic focus or to the impressive learning of its author. in less than 300 pages, gelbart discusses eighteenth-century scottish political and cultural history, the evolution of enlightenment and post­ enlightenment thought, the emergence of anthropology as an academic discipline, german literary theories of sentimental versus naive poetry, the controversies swirling around the authenticity of the ossian fragments, and the relationship between anglophone and german discourse about oral transmission and folk culture generally. (on this last point, interestingly, gelbart down plays the significance of herder's volkslied concept, which he traces to earlier english and scottish writing on national music, but makes an impassioned claim for herder as the originator of the conceptual synthesis of nature and science that resulted in the organic work concept.) gelbart closely examines the composition and complicated receptions of works such as beethoven's scottish folksong settings, mendelssohn's hebrides overture, and niels gade's im hochland overture. he incorporates critical perspectives 211 212 current musicology like genre theory, edward said's orientalism discourse, and william weber's work on the relationship between patterns of middle-class concert life and canon formation. the attention given to weber is especially refreshing, for gelbart reminds us that the high-minded and often arid exchange of aesthetic ideas that forms the core subject of his book were also rooted in social class and the everyday practical needs of making a living. he shows, for example, how the incompatible goals of academic folksong collectors and publicists (many of them gentleman amateurs) and creative professional musicians (many from middle-class backgrounds, and under pressure to carve a niche for themselves within the music business) were reflected in the different ways the two groups actually handled folk material. the focus on the details of folk music-its invention and mediation by "outsiders" -is another strength of the book. in a crucial chapter on "the invention of folk modality;' gelbart examines the long-standing european obsession with the unusual scales of different national musics (pentatonic, modal, and variously gapped), and itemizes the strikingly similar ways that commentators from rousseau to bart6k used their observations of scalar patterns to link the "primitive" musics of the ancients, the orient and the "folk." the story is fascinating not merely because the perceived musical parallels formed the justification for the "universality" of european (and especially german) folksong, but also because the various views of this music were in fact not entirely consistent and reflected the preoccupations of specific commentators and their times. thus, to cite a few examples, benjamin franklin attributed gapped scales to the limited capabilities of early instruments, charles burney focused on the parallels between scottish and ancient greek music as gleaned from plutarch, abbe roussier saw both greek and oriental scales as emanating from ancient egyptian tetrachords, and george thomson (the man who commissioned beethoven's scottish song settings) theorized that the seemingly different pentatonic scales found "in the field" were in fact a single scale that possessed five possible cadential pitches. even the few writers, like thomas dauney in the 1830s, who rejected outright the theory of a pan -universal scale, felt the need to establish ancient origins by treating modal scottish tunes as modern "survivals" of medieval plain chant. gelbart's painstaking reconstruction of the details of the debate over time does justice to its richness and variety while never losing sight of its fundamental uniformity, one born of the enlightenment project of comprehensive "world learning" that was itself part of a larger strategy to flatter modern european cultural achievement. and since that achievement was fundamentally identified with "art" music, we can again see how the folk/art binary, here reflected in the theory of modality, ultimately served the purposes of high culture. nor has this "strategy" materially changed julian onderdonk in the two centuries since the question of modality first arose. according to gelbart, twentieth-century writers on mode as diverse as bartok, cecil sharp, hugo riemann, erich von hornbostel, bertrand bronson, and even harold powers have essentially presented updated versions of theories first propounded between 1760 and 1840. some of these scholars, it is true, incorporated into their work darwinian and spencerian methodologies dating from the later nineteenth century. but as gelbart points out, theories of biological and social evolution, far from upending enlightenment ideas of conjectural history, in fact strengthened those ideas by recasting them in seemingly irrefutable scientific terms. the examination of modal theories is but a small component of gelbart's comprehensive treatment of the history of european folksong scholarship past and present. (the book begins with a discussion of the historical disagreements among scholars about folksong definitions and method­ ologies, and includes an entire chapter on the emergence of "tradition;' a shadowy concept that not only made the idea of folk genius possible but also determined many of the period's collecting and editorial practices.) such comprehensiveness is not reserved exclusively for the folksong and ethno­ musicological literature but extends to nearly every subject. his handling of the crucial theme of "nature" is a case in point, for gelbart draws on a wide array of primary and secondary writings on literary, musical, and intellectual history to show how changing ideas of nature-specifically its separation from science and art, detailed above-resulted from the eighteenth-century focus on the primitive. strikingly, he chooses to demonstrate the shift by tracing changing attitudes towards the pastoral, the age-old literary genre whose depictions of a "timeless" landscape had always stood as a metaphor for humans' complex relationship to nature. referencing classic studies by twentieth -century literary critics like william empson and paul alpers, and undertaking close readings of eighteenthand early nineteenth-century poems by alexander pope and william wordsworth, gelbart divines a rift in the traditional fabric of the genre during the period in question, one caused by the "discovery" of the primitive. the result is a new sense of human separation from nature, and the morphing of the fundamentally affirmative values of pastoral into the more tragic ethos of the picturesque, whereby the traditional golden age of pastoral art is rendered ultimately unrecoverable. suddenly, from being a place of assured consolation and permanent residence, nature becomes a metaphor for the modern european's lost innocence, a landscape now occupied solely by the primitive "other:' the stage for the idealization-and invention-of the "folk" has been set. the importance of this conceptual shift to gelbart's entire thesis is obvious, and has undeniable merit in establishing the aesthetic basis for the 213 214 current musicology emergence not merely of "folk" music but of the entire folk/art dialectic. and while i would agree that the picturesque-and, as gelbart also acknowledges, the near-contemporaneous concept of the sublime-is a crucial stage in the development of both categories during this period, the author's handling of the pastoral nonetheless represents a missed opportunity. writers like alpers and empson may emphasize the flexibility of a genre that can cover a wide spectrum of human experience in a remarkable variety of contexts, but there is another critical tradition, forwarded by raymond williams (1973) and laurence lerner (1972) among others, that subordinates this variety to a uniform cultural politics forwarded by social elites. in this reading, the pastoral idealization of nature has always been sponsored by the powerful who seek, consciously or otherwise, to maintain their standing in society precisely by appearing to reject the sophistication and urbanity that are the inevitable consequence of power. put another way, the pastoral embrace of the simple signals a kind of mystification of the truth of social relations, and its loud lament for humanity's "loss" constitutes a strategy specifically designed to preserve the elite from the hardships that a true return to nature would entail. the applicability of this paradigm to one of the central points of gelbart's study-that the folk/art divide ultimately served the purposes of art music-will be clear. for despite the tremendous shift in attitudes that he rightly traces in his book, the fact remains that "nature," variously defined, consistently shaped elite conceptions of music throughout this entire period. this was true both before the shift occurred, when mimetic theories of art prompted composers to follow the "rules" of "scientific" nature, as well as after, when notions of "unschooled" nature gave rise to a new "organic" conception of music. the result, in both cases, was a continued and unbroken emphasis on musical learning, craft, and integration of materials, the traditional tools of cultivated music since perhaps the dawn of human societies and the ultimate source of its aesthetic "superiority" and influence. it seems surprising that gelbart, whose careful readings of the modal debate and of the rise of conjectural history show real sensitivity to the political uses of culture and whose own observations about the centrality of musical craft both before and after the shift clearly point the moral, should miss this. perhaps the problem arises from the difficulties of genre definition, in particular the handling of the gray area that inevitably exists between related genres. underestimating the depth and seriousness of the lament for nature imbedded in even the earliest pastoral poetry, the author consequently overestimates the "newness" of the lament as reformulated in the eighteenth-century concepts of the picturesque and the sublime. doubtless the "discovery" of the primitive did give an added jolt to the european expression of loss, but the commonality of that lament julian onderdonk with traditional pastoral forms and attitudes points to the shared grounding of all three sensibilities in the cultural and ultimately political needs of the social elite. this observation in no way undermines the core of gelbart's thesis or the value of his book. (for one thing, the lament embodied in the picturesque resulted in the invention of a new concept, the "folk," that did, after all, hugely affect the way art music came to conceive of itself. and to the extent that the lament sparked interest, admittedly idealized and subjectively colored, in actual artifacts of lower-class culture, it arguably also marked the first hesitant steps towards the genuine appreciation of social difference that presumably characterizes western democratic ideals today.) the same can be said of the very few other points, generally minor, that gelbart either overlooks or misrepresents in the book. his observation that mendelssohn's "scottish" works iron out the musical eccentricities of their "local" material in favor of the more streamlined processes of mainstream compositional practice usefully illustrates the german tendency to privilege traditional concepts of art and craft over those of folk expression. but in tracing­ rightly, i think-one aspect of this streamlining process to mendelssohn's student exercises in harmonizing old german chorales, gelbart overlooks the probability that the composer saw a parallel between scottish melodies and german chorales, which were beginning to be perceived in this period as fundamentally akin to folksongs. many chorales were modal and of un­ known authorship and, as church music and folksong scholars were actively pointing out, specific details of melody and form were in the process of evolving over time. in this context, mendelssohn's decision to apply chorale harmonization techniques to scottish material can be seen as yet another example of the germanocentric view that the central-european tradition was uniquely qualified to mediate between different folk traditions. as the author himself points out, it was on its supposed ability to mediate between all folk traditions that german music staked its claim to an unmatched universali ty. also of mostly secondary concern are the somewhat exaggerated claims gelbart makes for the uniform adoption of nineteenth-century german conceptions of music by non-german nationalist composers. edvard grieg and antonin dvorak clearly did integrate the local features of their national folksong into large-scale organic works on the german model, but the same is emphatically not true of modest mussorgsky, igor stravinsky, and others of the russian school, who deliberately subjected their vernacular materials to non-developmental processes. that stravinsky derived this technique, at least in part, from claude debussy's music, meanwhile, renders gelbart's assertion that the late-nineteenth-century french counterattack on 215 216 current musicology german (and especially wagnerian) hegemony was unconsciously infused with central-european organic ideals equally problematic. (sorting out the complex relationship between debussy and wagner would require much more space than gelbart gives it; significantly, this portion of his argument omits any mention of debussy and invokes instead the likes of vincent d'indy and julien tiersot, lesser figures of french music who remained far more strongly influenced by german ideals than debussy.) finally, there is very little discussion of opera in all of this, the genre that arguably did more to promote national ideals than any other. a seminal nationalist work like mikhail glinka's a life for the tsar (1836) owes as much if not more to the italian bel canto and french rescue-opera traditions than to "organic" methods of german construction, for example. it is true that wagner's innovations in operatic form cast an enormous shadow over nineteenth­ century operas-even to some extent verdi's-but this did not happen until the late 1850s at the earliest. in fact, methods of organic construction came to infuse purely instrumental works in germany and austria well before they did operatic works, with the result that those methods likewise found their way first into the instrumental music of non-german composers and only eventually into their operas. future editions of gelbart's book will want to clarify this time lag by more carefully addressing the varied history of these different genres as they developed in the german-speaking lands. these are small objections, however, compared to the one truly serious problem with this book-its lack of a concluding bibliography. a study as rich as this in its scholarly reference needs a bibliography if only to allow those readers who wish to keep sources straight or pursue further study to put their fingers on specific citations easily. gelbart's closely-argued text requires the constant revisiting of sources over the span of many pages. since these second and third citations naturally refer to the source only in abbreviated form, the reader must leaf backwards through the book to find the first cita­ tion with its full bibliographical information. in a lightly-researched volume, this might not normally be a problem, but it emphatically is needed here, where the sheer volume of footnotes, many with illuminating commentary, often makes it difficult to locate the desired source. nor does the index help. i found it to be very inconsistent and sometimes wholly lacking in references. none of this is the author's fault, of course, and cambridge university press should rectify the omission in the event of a second edition. these few issues aside, this is clearly a very remarkable book. examining the shifting conceptualizations of music throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth (even to some extent, the twentieth) centuries in great detail, matthew gelbart has uncovered the crucial yet hitherto underappreciated significance of a folk/art dialectic that lies at the very heart of our current julian onderdonk aesthetics of music. in the enormity of its subject matter and breadth of its learning-delightfully leavened by an almost colloquial writing style that somehow manages to combine informality with precision-the invention of "folk music" and "art music" is an indispensable addition to the general history of western musical culture. references lerner, laurence. 1972. the uses of nostalgia: studies in pastoral poetry. london: chatto and windus. williams, raymond. 1973. the country and the city. oxford and new york: oxford university press. 217 current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 55 contextualizing hip hop sonic cool pose in late twentieth– and twenty–first–century rap music regina bradley in considering the cultural significance of rap music in (mis)conceptualizations of american identity, it is important to point out commercialized rap’s attachment to notions of blackness that are presumed irrefutable. likewise, constructions of racial discourse in popular culture cannot be divorced from the effects of capitalism and enterprise on the framework of a twenty–first century black american experience. while it would be overly simplistic to dismiss commercial rap music as socially and ethically bankrupt due to the mass consumption and (over)production of corporatized black narratives, it is important to identify rap’s corporatization as a mutual investment by both record labels and artists themselves. employing regurgitated and thus normalized scripts of blackness and black manhood is rewarded by monetary gain and popularity. the artists’ investment in such scripts sustains public visibility and thus relevance. the commercialization of rap music simultaneously enables rap to become a gauge of the post–civil rights experience while it becomes commodified and stereotyped. thus, hip hop is important in providing alternative forms of negotiating the manifestations—visual, sonic, and political—of blackness that are mass consumed by a multi–ethnic audience. one way we can complicate our understanding of the impetus behind rappers’ performance and identity politics is to examine their negotiations of “black cool.” of particular interest to this essay are the intersections of enterprise and sonic manifestations of black masculine cool in commercial rap music. arguably, the most visible script of popular black masculine performance is cool pose. cool pose, the performance and positioning of the black male body as a symbol of coolness, in its present form leans heavily upon stereotypical and often uncontested expectations of black masculinity. a litany of scholarship has theorized how black cool establishes the visible significance and presence of black men in american popular culture. richard “cool is so individual that one man’s cool won’t work for other men” —guthrie ramsey “you might think we all beats and rhymes . . . but you don’t hear me” —lil’ flip, “game over” current musicology 56 majors and janet bilson’s seminal study cool pose: the dilemmas of black manhood (1992) broke ground for teasing out manifestations of cool pose in a post–civil rights american cultural landscape. todd boyd (1997) reads cool pose as a survival mechanism and the antithesis of white masculinity, opining that “cool is about a detached, removed, nonchalant sense of being. an aloofness that suggests one is above it all. a pride, an arrogance even, that is at once laid back, unconcerned, perceived to be highly sexual, and potentially violent” (118). bell hooks asserts in we real cool that black cool “was defined by the ways in which black men confronted the hardships of life without their spirits being ravaged . . . it was defined by black male willingness to confront reality, to face the truth, and bear it . . . it was defined by individual black males daring to self–define rather than be defined by others” (138). donna britt renegotiates cool as a collective response of black men within this contemporary moment of history, coining the term “brothercool.” “brothercool is demonstrating black men’s increasing diversity in income, interest, and attitude. the ‘new cool’ that black men are forging could be more like the old: deriving its edge from the risks that accompany growth, expansion, the embrace of other culture, the hot breath that signifies life” (author’s original emphasis). rebecca walker, editor of 1000 streams of black cool, situates black cool as both a gauge and limitation to understanding a contemporary african–american experience: “black cool can be emulated, co–opted, and appropriated, but its ownership can’t be denied . . . it’s our language of survival. it’s our genius . . . black cool is forever.” still, composing a working definition of cool pose as it has presented itself in rap music of the last twenty years proves to be an arduous and complex task, considering the numerous, often conflicting intersections of blackness, masculinity, and enterprise that frame commercial rap music. greg tate points out the complexities of hip hop, while acknowledging that the convergence of enterprise and hip hop culture construes it as a “hip–hop marketplace”: the omnipresence and omnipotence of hip–hop, artistically, economically, and socially, have forced all within black america and beyond to find a rapprochement with at least some aspect of its essence. within hip–hop, however, as in american entrepreneurship generally, competing ideologies exist to be exploited rather than expunged and expelled—if only because hip–hop culture and the hip–hop marketplace, like a quantum paradox, provide space to all black ideologies, from the most antiwhite [sic] to the most pro–capitalist, without ever having to account for the contradiction. (7) regina bradley 57 the lack of accountability in commercial rap that tate points out is interpreted through a gender–dominant lens in hooks’ discussion, where she argues that “ [in] hip–hop packaged for mainstream consumption, many of its primary themes—the embrace of capitalism, the support of patriarchal violence, the conservative approach to gender roles, the call to liberal individualism—all reflect the ruling values of imperialist white–supremacist capitalist patriarchy, albeit in black face” (142). similarly, john l. jackson observes the conflicting and blurred lines of reality and relevance in rap, noting how “hip–hop is considered a rendition of performative blackness with roots in everyday urban struggles against marginalization” (177). if we read jackson’s discussion of authenticity and blackness as a demonstration of black male cool, it appears that commercial rap music situates black men’s coolness in a vacuum of violence, materialism, and apathy. the lack of discourse and space available to complicate black men’s experiences creates a limited range of experiences by which to “stay black” and “stay real.” in keeping with tate’s observations about the hip–hop marketplace, it is important to note that male rappers’ and consumers’ mutual investment in coolness and black manhood pivots upon restricted access to experiences believed to occur within the black working class. in a scene from paul beatty’s novel the white boy shuffle (1996), a satiric coming of age story about a black boy growing up in 1990s california, a fictitious rap group named stoic undertakers records a music video to accompany their album, closed casket eulogies in f major. beatty’s narrator gunnar observes the video shoot: carloads of sybaritic rappers and hired concubines cruised down the street in ghetto palanquins, mint condition 1964 impala lowriders, reciting their lyrics and leaning into the camera with gnarled intimidating scowls. “cut!” the curled lips snapped back into watermelon grins like fleshy rubber bands. “how was that massa? menacing enough fo’ ya?” (77) aside from the tensions between black youth and the “just the way it is” mentality beatty addresses as a problematic gangsta rap aesthetic, even more problematic is the commodification and consumption of such an aesthetic as an uncontested reality in one’s daily life. beatty subverts mark anthony neal’s observations about hip hop’s initial purposes—that it “allowed [african american youth] to counter the iconography of fear, menace and spectacle that dominated mass–mediated perceptions of contemporary black life” (138). this passage highlights the romanticized inner city aesthetic within current musicology 58 mainstream american popular culture, which creates a fetishistic bubble of black poverty within which african americans and, specifically, black men are forced to exist. removal from that commercial bubble of poverty voids one’s blackness and manhood, to which tupac shakur retorts “they ask me if i’m still down/i move up out the ghetto so i ain’t real now?” gunnar, with his actual experience of residing in the same ‘hood where the video was being produced, was dismissed by the video’s casting director as “too studious.” his lack of a “menacing and despondent” appearance strips him of his visibility, blackness, and, ultimately, masculinity. because gunnar does not satisfy expected performance scripts of black masculinity, relevance is forcefully taken from him. this passage not only highlights the pathological implications of gangsta rap, but shows that such pathological performances are, in fact, performances. the rappers’ exaggerated “minstrel” response, though satiric, forces the reader to confront his investment in the exaggerated realities of black cultural consumption, and their own investment in such pathological peculiarities. gunnar, aware of the awkwardness of the video shoot’s fetishizing of ‘hood life and it’s parlaying of “hood cool” masculinity, is still invested in the stoic undertakers performance. in part, this is because of the sound of the music video itself, the instrumentals inducing gunnar to “reflexively” vibe to the song: “eyes closed halfway, my shoulders hunched toward the ground, my right foot tapped softly on the stair, and my head began a faintly perceptible bob” (78). at play here is not only the projection of black male coolness by the stoic undertakers, but gunnar’s responding cool pose, in which he demonstrates a grimacing authentic black masculinity that is left unavailable to him. gunnar renegotiates boyd’s definition of cool, detaching himself from his lived experiences in order to sustain the arrogance and menace needed to survive. the disjunctive and peculiar reading of black masculinity gunnar attempts to negotiate is embodied in his response to sound. his angst about the dismissal of his manhood and the blackness attached to it is lessened through gunnar’s head bobbing to the music. while the rappers’ lyrics and bodies may not speak to gunnar’s experiences or anxieties, the sound itself provides him an alternative reading of his blackness, as he falls in rhythm with the music and becomes aware of the commodified worth of his manhood. both gunnar and the stoic undertakers’ anxieties reflect a dilemma that successful commercial rappers face in balancing lived experiences with expected performance. jackson argues that such angst is an example of how “hip–hop artists attempt, however fleetingly and unsuccessfully, to challenge external categories of social authentication (2006:177).” he acknowledges a complex and often unarticulated angst that simultaneously fosters and regina bradley 59 resists popular conceptions of black manhood. a dearth of traditional race and gender scholarship addressing such anxieties points towards a need for a more unorthodox method of analysis. one pivotal and underutilized approach to such analysis is through sound. theorizing hip hop sonic cool pose while numerous studies of cool pose have relied on visual and (popular) cultural interpretations of black manhood, there is a paucity of scholarship that addresses the sonic implications of black masculinity. considering black male coolness as a fulcrum of realness and performance, this article furthers discussion of black male performance by positing a concept of “hip hop sonic cool pose,” (hereafter hhscp)—a sonic redressing of black masculine performance in the hypercommodified and commercial space of rap music. hhscp is the relentless grappling and maneuvering of the type of hip hop richard schur (2009) defines as “the world of sounds, images, texts, and commodities through which african americans and others experience contemporary life” (47). building upon schur’s definition of hip hop, hhscp negotiates complexities of black masculinity through presenting sonic signifiers of black manhood, experiences, and coolness. the crux of my theorizing hhscp lies in an understanding of sound as musical and nonmusical, and posits a sonically manifested space to interpret and explore aspects of black identity unavailable in other mediums. framing black men’s narratives through a combination of instrumentals, vocals, and other relevant sounds like grunts, laughter, and wails—hhscp negotiates signifiers of black male life through a sonic framework. it is the improvisation of black masculinity through sound, making space for the performance of otherwise silenced, supposedly non–normative feelings and expressions. take, for example, the laugh of tupac shakur. throughout the track “i ain’t mad at cha” shakur frequently chuckles, at times forcefully. while the expectations of his youth and black manhood at the beginning of the song—“heard ya’ll tearing up shit out there/kicking up dust/giving a mutha fuck”—shakur gives a subtle but powerful laugh. it embodies the conflicts of shakur’s reality, pathological impositions, and static performances of his manhood. because shakur grappled with and was frequently engulfed in the west coast gangsta rapper mentality milieu during his career in the early and mid 1990s, he frequently used laughter as a signifier of the peculiarities of commercial black masculinity. shakur’s laugh simultaneous marked his imposed cool and inability to fully articulate his angst as a black man. a sonic cool pose framework makes room for teasing out conflicting and peculiar dimensions in which black men exist in the united states. current musicology 60 thus, hhscp offers a discursive space of varying and frequently conflicting performances of cool and its attachment to blackness as commodity and lived experiences. one immediately acknowledgeable restriction, however, to the development of hhscp in this context is its limiting heteronormative approach to black masculinity that frames commercial rap music. still, hhscp is useful in troubling commercial rap music discourse, because it denotes enterprise as unrestricted to visual and narrative expressions of black manhood. tricia rose’s discussion of commodified rap is particularly useful in addressing hhscp’s poignancy as an alternative frame work for gender expression. rose writes: “hip hop has always been articulated via commodities and engaged in the revision of meaning attached to them” (41). by regarding sound as a commodity, hhscp identifies the commodification of black masculinity through sound and what black masculinity culturally and sonically represents in the american popular imagination. hhscp is in conversation with michael p. jeffries’ theorization of complex cool, an application of cool pose that speaks specifically to a post–civil rights black (masculine) experience. jeffries defines complex cool as: more transparent than previous manifestations of black coolness. it openly foregrounds and sustains the conflicts of black american masculinity rather than concealing them, saturating these struggles in an appealing marinade of pride in one’s hip–hop skills and sensibilities. that is, hip–hop’s complex coolness is what allows commercially successful representations to simultaneously contain narratives about collective racial identity, political injustice, god and the afterlife, cadillac escalades, strip clubs, and drug money. (60) in addition to the literal reading of lyrics as an indication of coolness, hhscp adds complexity to the conflict jeffries’ calls an “appealing marinade of pride” through instrumentation, sampling, and other sonic markers of black masculinity found in commercial rap music. rapper rick ross, for example, heavily grunts “ugh” as an introductory ad lib during his raps. this sonic signifier alerts the audience to his identity and “brand,” establishes a steady tempo for his lyrical delivery, and sustains expected performances of black masculinity as forceful and hard hitting. ross’ grunting is accompanied by similar hard–hitting beats grounded in crashing symbols, synthesizers, and sonic booms, signifying not only the bass of the instrumental accompaniment but the low register and therefore menacing markers of his own voice. arguably on the opposite end of that spectrum is rapper drake, whose sing–song lyricism is frequently interrupted with an emphatic “ah!” drake’s vocals are accompanied by a staple blend of strings, piano, and “soft” instrumentals, drawing attention to a vulnerability often lacking in commercial rap narratives. both rappers manipulate sound to construct a regina bradley 61 discourse that simultaneously engages their (materialistic) privilege while addressing the limitations of their experiences within rap as a corporatized space. the polarity of ross’ and drake’s performances of hhscp is in fact representative of the complex and frequently conflictive range of cool that hhscp encompasses as a sonic site of expression. this sonic scripting of the black male body and experience engages ronald jackson’s related work in which he points out how “script[ing] someone else’s body is to actively inscribe or figuratively place one’s self, worldview, or ascriptions onto another projected text, which often requires dislocating the original text and redefining the newly affected or mirrored text as counterpositional or oppositional other” (53). the sonic qualities of rap complicate the static black masculine existence within popular music and culture, sounding what jeffries observes as a “publicly conflicted discourse of black masculinity, far more complex and far more forthcoming about vulnerability and connectedness than cool pose theory allows for” (62). the subaltern reading of hhscp provides a blueprint for understanding the present moment of popular and cultural black manhood. it allows for materialism and resistance, frequently and restrictively regarded as individual and un–touching, to be comprehended as flourishing and colliding in sonic performances of black masculinity. as jeffries points out, “even in the context of the restrictive political economy of the record industry, black masculine conflict and vulnerability are exposed in contemporary hip–hop in a way that is not explained by previous theories of black coolness” (61). “sounding commodities,” a key concept in fred moten’s theorizing of race and capitalism, is heavily utilized in addressing hhscp. moten generally considers the sounds of blackness and black cultural expression as “sound commodities” in american capitalism. blackness as a performance, he asserts, is “the extended movement of a specific upheaval, an ongoing eruption that anarranges every line, a strain that pressures the assumption of the equivalence of personhood and subjectivity” (1). what blackness sounds like in commercial rap signifies its worth. the performance of this expected type of commodified and commodifiable black identity as normal strains any type of black experience outside of this context in the popular imagination. the upheaval that moten designates as a marker of blackness’ performance is shunned if not overpowered by the push for racial ambiguity in public spaces. situating black performers as a commodity in this current social climate, then, is to speak to how those ambiguities relegate blackness to a position of essentialized discourse tethered to profit. moten suggests sounding blackness as a commodity in an effort to address these peculiarities. focusing on black performers’ speech, moten argues “what is at stake is not what the commodity says but that the commodity says or, more properly, current musicology 62 that the commodity, in its inability to say, must be made to say” (9, original emphasis). in the context of white hegemonic privilege in rap, there are tensions that exist between the ability to speak, forced silence, and power in speaking or lack of power through being silenced. emphasis is placed on presence and being given the opportunity to perform a rap narrative—albeit manufactured but authenticated through mass consumption. as jelani cobb astutely states, “a rapper without a record deal is a commercial without a time slot” (9). hhscp extends the vocalizing of black male rappers as commodities to include non–vocal sounds as markers of intersections with corporatization and privilege. a primary catalyst for such intersections is the technological production of sound and, ultimately, blackness, in rap. thus, one possible way for rappers to overcome the “inability to speak” beyond corporate control is through the distortion of one’s voice through production tools like autotune. aside from the overt ‘coolness’ of shifting one’s voice electronically, autotune provides a space for black male rappers to distance themselves from the expected “hardness” of a characteristically black masculine sound. although constituting an innovative niche for alternative modes of black masculine expression, autotune is still nevertheless tied to the commodification of blackness through sound. t–pain (tallahassee pain), for example, branded himself through the nearly exclusive use of autotune in his performances, while also selling cellular phone applications and a microphone that similarly distorts the user’s voice. the use of technology to alter and modify pain’s voice signifies ronald jackson’s assertion that new media and technology have been imposed upon rap as a signifier of the black masculine body. access to ideas of blackness via the constructed sounds of “black manhood”—granted by consumer products such as t–pain’s microphone, and media outlets like youtube and worldstar—is given to a wider audience. public scripts of black masculinity are continuously renegotiated and manipulated to both commodify the (popular) black experience while feeding into static, often one–dimensional representations of black american men. this conflict is heightened within the sound spectrum, sonically pushing against expectation and profitability amongst rappers themselves. rapper shawn “jay–z” carter, for example, sought to attack t–pain’s autotune modification of his voice and music, releasing “d.o.a (death of autotune)” on his 2009 album the blueprint 3. in a looped sample of janko nilvic and dave sucky’s “in the space,” jay–z dismisses autotune as irrelevant and raps: “this anti–autotune, death of the ringtone/this ain’t for itunes/ this ain’t for sing alongs.” while jay–z lyrically decimates auto–tune as an easy cop–out for a lack of talent, his vocal rebuke is re–emphasized by the sample, a deliberately extended horn representing the awkwardness (and regina bradley 63 annoyance) of an auto–tuned voice. jay–z utilizes sound to ‘trump’ t–pain’s narrative as the truer representation of acoustic realness while discounting the significance of autotune—and ultimately dissing t–pain—as an alternate reading of voice and black masculine narratives. the use of sampling in rap music is a prominent practice in its production and branding. sampling borrows from previous recordings to create a ‘new’ sonic backdrop. this provides a unique filter for understanding hip hop sonic cool pose as it allots space for renegotiations and interpretations of black manhood in sound. joe schloss’ making beats: the art of sample based hip hop is a seminal text in understanding the craftwork behind sampling as it is used to mark this contemporary moment of commercial rap’s production. “hip–hop production constitutes an ideal value for developing a tactical sense of when to make knowledge public,” schloss observes. “the constant struggle that producers face between using their work to display their esoteric record knowledge to each other and making beats that appeal to a broad audience that wants to dance” (81). sampling allows for the manipulation of sound to create a specific aesthetic, frequently catered to the expectation of the consuming audience. it provides space for both hidden and public scripts of race and gender to sonically parlay, intersect, conflict, and consume. richard schur writes that “sampling as a creative method or framework bridges the acts of consumption and production” (46). both consumers and critics, then, should pay special attention to the hip hop producer who presents any departure from the norm. in addition to establishing and identifying the artist’s work through a unique cobbling of sounds, producers shift negotiations of coolness away from simple beats and accompanying rhymes. “for hip–hop producers—who are highly attuned to the origins of particular samples—the significance tends to lie more in the ingenuity of the way the elements are fused together than in calling attention to the diversity of their origins,” schloss asserts (46). moten’s marxist reading of the production of black music aptly frames the purpose of sampling in hip hop: the intensity and density of what could be thought here as his [marx] alternative mode of preparation make possible a whole other experience of the music of the event the object’s speech. moving, then, in the critical remixing of nonconvergent tracks, modes of preparation, traditions, we can think how the commodity who speaks in speaking, in the sound—the inspirited materiality—of that speech, constitutes a kind of temporal warp that disrupts and augments not only marx but the mode of subjectivity that the ultimate object of his critique, capital, both allows and disallows. (11) sampling, like hhscp, forms a lens through which to understand intersections of commercial black cultural expression with american (popular) current musicology 64 culture. for the purposes of this paper, the ‘remixing’ and preparation of seemingly unrelated tracks to produce a new framework for black musical expression adds emphasis to the manufacturing and mass consumption of black manhood through sound. hearing hip hop sonic cool pose in watch the throne sounding and sampling tensions among black masculinity, cool, and enterprise in rap music reflect an unsettled and constantly shifting twenty– first–century social–cultural landscape of racial and gender politics in the united states. in addition to the shifting politics its soundscape represents, hip hop sonic cool pose pivots on discourses of power and whiteness. in effect, it is the claiming of power on and within the black male body. of particular interest for explicating the significance of sampling in the construction of hhscp is jay–z and kanye west’s collaborative album watch the throne (2011). a tribute to “tight” productive and vocal work, watch the throne (hereafter wtt) is a sonic foray into interventions and limitations of coolness and black manhood within commercial rap music. it is critical to point out the commercial and figurative intersections of both jay–z and kanye west’s masculinity with popular discourse. this is achieved in large part by the unorthodox use of sound throughout the album, which not only demonstrates a form of commercial elitism that both jay–z and west have attained but the limitations in which this elitism is (dis)regarded through sound. for example, the brief carnival–esque sounding ‘outros’ of “no church in the wild,” “new day,” and “welcome to the jungle” sonically highlight the use of obscure european rock samples to speak to their (global) accessibility to wealth. the sample, taken from the song “tristessa” originally done by italian rock band, orchestra njervudarov, sonically highlights west’s awareness of hip hop as a global market. the obscurity of the sample signifies not only west’s affinity for european genres of music like progressive rock, but his ability to access, reclaim, and re–contextualize it within commercial rap to speak to their privilege. the spotlight on producers such as swizz beats and west himself sonically opens up alternative means of discussion about commercially successful rappers’ negotiations of social–political responsibility and corporatism. to date, wtt is one of the most comprehensive representation of jeffries’ concept of complex cool and hhscp, utilizing overarching tropes of materialism and capitalist impulse alongside retorts of protest and resistance. the crux of the sonic and lyrical black masculine coolness is situated within a tense tug/pull relationship between status and agency, offering an understanding that both jay–z and west are afforded—literally and figuratively—the opportunity to speak about regina bradley 65 oppression because of their position within a corporate soundscape. wtt’s “protest” discourse is made visible and exists between realities of rap music as a bankrupt resistance discourse and commercial rap as a portal to wealth and opulence. the result is seemingly conflicting narratives and sounds of black manhood, privilege, social agency, and american degeneracy. as both a rapper and a mogul, jay–z’s verses on wtt signify not only a shifting commercial and cultural production framework for black (male) rappers to maneuver, but also shifting social implications of progress and political agency. he was in the executive board room as well, helping found roc–a–fella records and serving as ceo of def jam recordings from 2004—2008. jay–z’s position as a hip hop mogul undoubtedly influences the consumption and appreciation of the sonic signifiers of his identity as well as his brand, maneuvering both corporatized and ethnic discourses of black masculinity. christopher holmes smith describes how the iconicity of black hip hop moguls is a gauge of social responsibility for minorities: [the hip hop mogul] raises the issues of “representation” in both a semiotic sense—as may regard the codes and symbols through which these figures generate social recognition—and in terms of an ethical responsibility to serve as stewards for the thoughtful composition of these codes as they may “stand in for” the desires and values of those individuals who are not eligible to occupy similar positions of mass mediation and discursive credibility . . . the hip–hop mogul is not intelligible without credible accounts of the lavish manner in which he leads his life, nor is he intelligible unless his largesse connotes not only his personal agency but also a structural condition that squelches the potential agency of so many others. (673) jay–z’s juxtaposition of performances of power, as a black businessman and rapper, collapses boundaries of (white) power as static and impenetrable by minorities, while remaining hinged to the ‘hood aesthetics that helped jay–z enunciate and retain his essentialized and visible blackness. his management of image and performance—sonic and textual—must remain aware of expected and often conflicting performances of his own idea of blackness and manhood. holmes smith further observes how jay–z’s mogul status situates him within the black (popular) imagination as “a visual signifier for the ‘good life.’” the hip hop mogul, holmes smith asserts, “identifies growth–mediated forms of social uplift as rapidly normalizing black political discourses, as opposed to the support–led communal development blueprints from the civil rights era” (674). wtt inundates its audience with social and cultural critiques enveloped within narratives of luxury and (lack of) access. yet these narratives are accompanied and complicated by samplings of soul music, popular culture, and instrumentation that create a map for maneuvering current musicology 66 what 21st century black manhood looks and sounds like in a hyper–commodified and mass–consumed cultural space. the album’s first single, “otis,” samples soul singer otis redding’s “try a little tenderness.” the majority of redding’s sample is limited to a loop of his emphatic “got ta get to her now now now!,” derived from the ad–lib that precedes the chorus, “got ta try a little tenderness!” not only does the sampling of redding’s music place wtt into a broader trajectory of black american popular music, it taps into the influence of one of the initial forays into sonic cool pose previously afforded by soul, jazz, and blues singers. this type of cool, which is often considered a resistance to white privilege and oppression, was undeniably imitated by nonblack fans and consumers as the epitome of what greg tate calls american discontent: once the music of marginalized minorities, they [african–american musicians and music] have become the theme musics of a young, white, middle–class male majority—due largely to that demographic’s investment in the tragic–magical displays of virility exhibited by america’s outsider, the black male. this american manhood began to be defined less by the heroic individualism of a john wayne and more by the ineffable hipness, coolness, antiheroic, antiauthoritarian stances of bona–fide genius black musicians (9). redding’s agency for love and acceptance geared towards his lover is redressed by jay–z and west to boast about their acquiring of wealth, privilege, and judgment through their utilization of hegemonic privilege. the discontent tate acknowledges as a sort of black masculine ‘crossover’ into a mainstream white american public is thrust into this contemporary moment of consumption and commodification in which jay–z and west perform a subversive script that collides black and white male privilege. the still prevalent connection of the white middle class’ and, more specifically, white middle class youth’s embrace of commercially successful rappers like jay–z and kanye west speaks to the viability of profit and black popular discourse in which jay–z and west cohabitate. the murkiness of race and identity politics that resonated and framed scripts of black cool amongst black musicians of previous eras is no longer concrete. the antiestablishment agenda that resisted white privilege, thus pushing it on the radar of white consumers, is no longer the primary focus of contemporary black popular music. the agency, vulnerability, and political prowess of black male performers like otis redding, curtis mayfield, and isaac hayes, among others, is subverted to represent the collapse of historicized black cool to current, more capitalistically implied constructions of black cool. this shift is slyly and cunningly acknowledged by jay–z, prompting the reader to consider the changes in black music soundscapes with his lyric, “sounds so soulful, don’t you agree?” regina bradley 67 carter and west’s cognizance of rap as an industry, and their participation in commercial black masculinity, are blended through sound and lyricism. one of the most engaging aspects of wtt is how the complexity of black masculinity, often underplayed or overlooked by a track’s lyrical delivery and content, are sustained through their sonic markers and accompaniments. on the track “niggas in paris,” an initial listen can be interpreted as a celebration of excessive spending and luxury. jay–z questions his audience: “i ball so hard muthufuckas wanna fine me/first niggas gotta find me/what’s 50 grand to a muthufucka like me please remind me.” his aggressive delivery is a literal challenge to his audience: who can stack up enough authority and has enough stacks (money) to challenge his power or wealth? jay–z’s lyrics and their belligerently sonic delivery reflects his ability to expatriate himself in paris—a nod to the similar actions of preceding expatriate black male artists like james baldwin or richard wright. jay–z’s cool lies in his ability to self–define—make his own rules—via the ability to literally and figuratively remove himself from american scrutiny. aside from the subversion of expatriatism as a lap of luxury instead of a form of social protest and agency, “niggas in paris” samples a scene from the comedy blades of glory, which features primarily white actors. sampling this movie is an acknowledgement of commercial rap’s intersections with mainstream and, in effect, white popular culture. whiteness’ connection to rap music is brazenly present in this song, offering tense and often subverted markers and performances of white male privilege by west and carter. the song opens with the lines “we’re gonna skate to one song and one song only,” while the instrumental track plays in the background. an awkward yet humorous sampling of will ferrell’s lines, the opening could be heard as using ferrell’s voice and lines to poke fun at the misconception of commercial rap music as a white corporate entity. sampling ferrell, then, gives whiteness a tangible and culturally recognizable voice. in this respect, ferrell’s demand for “one song and one song only” sonically signifies the monolithic and corporatized manufacturing of rap music, thus pointing out the awkwardness of the lack of creativity in rap music that carter and west seek to rectify throughout wtt. after west delivers a verse about buying luxury labels, world travel, and “suffering from realness,” the second blades of glory interlude resituates the audience with a satirical interpretation of rap as a black–white cultural production. west’s affirmation of his associates “going gorillas” in paris is interrupted by sampling jon heder’s character’s response to ferrell’s initial demands with a high and awkward “i don’t know what that means.” ferrell responds, “no one knows what it means, but it’s provocative . . . it gets the people going!” heder and ferrell’s “private” exchange signifies carter and west’s awareness of commercial rap music as a sustained produccurrent musicology 68 tion of white voyeurism. if west introduces “going gorillas” as a new slang term for excessive spending or “balling out of control,” for example, it sustains west’s popularity as a black rapper, while “authenticating” his blackness to a white and multicultural audience. situating heder and ferrell’s exchange in this sonic moment reintroduces carter and west’s intent to highlight multiple layers of consumption, production, and associated privileges. wtt’s most telling manipulation of sound and sampling as hip hop sonic cool pose is the brilliantly produced “murder to excellence.” the track bridges commercial rap with an international audience through the sampling of romanian music. the role and prowess of the producer in “murder to excellence” is key to the construction of hhscp, connecting that “esoteric knowledge” of obscure and unfamiliar tracks with the worldliness and privilege afforded jay–z and west through their commercial rap success. another unique component of the integration of the producer’s sonic cool is the understanding of “digging in the crates” to find the music with which to sample. dj kool herc once emphasized the significance of crate digging as groundwork for branding one’s identity and, therefore, cool with unique music tracks. the choice to sample “fetele de la capalna” and quincy jones’ “katutoka corrine” from the color purple soundtrack (1986) demonstrates the blurring of cultural discourses through production in “murder to excellence.” the background accompaniment of guitars, percussion, and the sample of the women’s chorus “la, la, la” from “fetele de la capalna” is somber and steady, a sonic signifier of the exposition of “murder.” a crashing cymbal plays consistently on every other down beat in the first half of the song suggests a forceful urgency in the delivery of a critique of the murder of young black men. the crashing cymbal, at this moment, sonically reiterates the agency in addressing black murder. the guitars and percussion of the first half of the track become more sparse during the transition to an accelerated sample of “katutoka corrine,” signaling a change to a celebration of “excellence.” similar to the changes that occur in the lyrical content of murder to excellence, there is a shif in the seriousness of the track as the crashing cymbal is replaced with an e–flat minor piano sample. perhaps most penetrating about this transition is the use of sound to grapple shifting representations of agency in rap music. tensions between the “agency” and significance of materialism—jay–z’s description of excellence—and the social–political agency of black america struggle expressed in west’s verses are made visible through sonic reflections of “murder” and “excellence” via the shift from the crashing cymbal to the piano. the children’s chorus of “na na, na corrine” is accelerated to sound like the progression of the “la, la, la” of the first half of the song. incidentally, (or a stroke of brilliance), as the sample is sped up, the “corrine” might sound like “money,” which regina bradley 69 caters to carter’s discussion of opulence and wealth. the integration of these two samples blends global culture with local, culturally recognizable ideas of blackness. this negotiation of black and cool in rap is complicated however, because the sampling is embedded in such a way that suggests a full, organically developed accompaniment. as separated tracks, each song does not speak to nor align with the intentions of “murder to excellence.” the blending of these vastly different songs, however, alludes to not only carter and west’s accessibility to the world, but their own experiences as men of color. “murder to excellence” juxtaposes the social awareness of acknowledging the challenges inner city african americans face—“i feel the pain in my city wherever i go/314 soldiers died in iraq/504 died in chicago” with opulence (personified by jay–z). the song’s sonic impositions of west and carter’s blackness and masculinity teeter between juxtapositions of black protest and blacks’ accessibility to (white) opulence. “it’s a celebration of black excellence/black tie, black maybachs/black excellence, opulence, decadence/tuxes next to the president/i’m present,” carter raps. here he plays on the multi–dimensionality of blackness through signifying class, “the new black elite,” color, “black tuxes,” and enterprise “black maybachs/ black excellence, opulence, decadence.” this plays on current manifestations of black cool, materialistic attainments that are in conflict with historicized markers of black cool—social protest, resistance, and individualism. west’s verse rebukes black cool as pathologically violent and shallow, toying with altruistic intonations of social respectability, while jay–z’s discussion of blackness ebbs and weaves through materialism and opulence as pliable lenses of cool black manhood. the fluid exchange of discourses through lyrics and background accompaniment reflects the complexity of hhscp, as well as through this sliding social–cultural landscape that black male rappers such as jay–z and kanye west attempt to maneuver. returning to the sonic exchanges between gunnar and the stoic undertakers in the explicated scene from the white boy shuffle, an overarching trope that connects the men together is performance and reaffirmation of normalcy. while the stoic undertakers were infused, performed, and invested in the performance of pathological scripts of black manhood as normal, gunnar’s response to the undertakers’ sonic cool pose reaffirmed the performance’s normalcy. in considering hip hop sonic cool pose as a gauge of normalcy for black masculine performance, the challenge lies in being able to incorporate an understanding of black masculinity as both an improvisational performance and commodity, as moten argues. while sonic cool pose can be historicized and invoke preceding black male artists like curtis mayfield, marvin gaye, and isaac hayes (and undoubtedly current musicology 70 further back), this current moment of hip hop sonic cool pose is unique in that it attempts to exist between hypercommodification, essentialism, and lived experiences of the last twenty years. the benefit in utilizing hip hop sonic cool pose as a tool to analyzing constructions of black manhood and ultimately blackness in commercial rap is its ability to adapt to the fluidity of the commercial–social climate landscape in which mainstream rap music exists. there is room for revision of what hhscp encompasses as a reflection of not only the market, but shifting negotiations of black manhood in the american public and popular imagination. most importantly, sonically reading commercialized black manhood provides an alternative space for interpretation and execution of black manhood with contributions from the artists—and other black males—themselves. references beatty, paul. 1996. the white boy shuffle. new york: picador. britt, donna. 2006. the hard core of cool. washington post (december 30). cobb, william jelani. 2007. to the break of dawn: a freestyle on the hip hop aesthetic. new york: new york university press. holmes smith, christopher. 2011. i don’t like to dream about getting paid: representations of social mobility and the emergence of the hip hop mogul. in that’s the joint!: a hip hop studies reader. eds. mark anthony neal and murray forman. new york: routledge, 672–689. hooks, bell. 2004. we real cool: black men and masculinity. new york: routledge. jay–z. 2009. d.o.a. the blueprint 3. def jam records. cd. jay–z and kanye west. 2011. watch the throne. def jam records. cd. jackson, john l. 2005. real black: adventures in racial sincerity. chicago: university of chicago press. jackson, ronald. 2006. scripting the black masculine body: identity, discourse, and racial politics in popular media. new york: suny press. jeffries, michael p. 2011. thug life: race, gender, and the meaning of hip hop. chicago: university of chicago press. moten, fred. 2008. in the break: the aesthetics of a black radical tradition. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. neal, mark anthony. 1999. post industrial soul: black popular music at a crossroads. new york: routledge. schloss, joe. 2004. making beats: the art of sample based hip hop. middletown: wesleyan university press. schur, richard. 2009. parodies of ownership: hip hop aesthetics and intellectual property law. ann arbor: university of michigan press. shakur, tupac. 1996. i ain’t mad atcha. all eyez on me. deathrow/interscope records. cd. tate, greg. ed. 2003. introduction: nigs r us, or how blackfolk became fetish objects.” in everything but the burden: what white people are taking from black culture. new york: broadway books. walker, rebecca. 2012. what is it exactly that makes being black so special? ebony, (march): 116–118. curious intersections, uncommon magic: steve reich's it's gonna rain martin scherzinger 1. methodological conundrums 1965 was a watershed year in the life of steve reich. following numerous experiments with magnetic tape, he had, while creating his tape piece it's gonna rain, identified a fascinating process that would serve as the basic compositional tool of his output until about 1971, and as a foundational component of his output thereafter. l reich's preoccupation with process­ oriented music in turn helped define a musical trend that shifted the stan­ dard historical narrative of twentieth -century concert music away from the reigning high modernist serialism of the 1950s toward minimalism. defenders of the new style emphasize the cultural triumph of mini­ malism. for susan mcclary, minimalism is "perhaps the single most viable extant strand of the western art-music tradition;" for k. robert schwarz, a specialist in this style, minimalism is "a potent force ... its influence is pervasive and enduring;" and for the composer john adams, minimalism is "the only really interesting, important stylistic development in the past 30 years" (mcclary 2004:289-98; schwarz 1997:1-17; adams quoted in schwarz 1996a:177). these writers often attend to minimalism's program­ matic reaction to the perceived structural complexities of high modernism with its ametric rhythms and pervasive intervallic dissonances. in contrast to high modernism, minimalism offered musical structures dearly audible to the listener; its rhythms were pulse-based, often elaborated in the context of extended repetition of short musical figures, and its pitch structures were simple, usually associated with, though not identical to, traditional diatonic constellations. commentators may differ on the relationship minimalism takes to modernism-mcclary argues in terms of a qualified oedipal "reaction formation" to modernism; wim mertens argues in terms of a nega­ tive dialectical "final stage" of high modernism-but few commentators fail to situate high modernism as the central referent in describing the emergence of minimalism in music (mcclary 2004:292; mertens 2004:308). whether the argument hinges on a theory of history beholden to freud or one be­ holden to hegel, modernism under these readings remains minimalism's basic condition of possibility. most minimalist composers have themselves been outspoken about their aversion to certain forms of modernism, especially institutionalized current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 207 208 current musicology modernism. reich, for example, describes his early attempts to write twelve­ tone music during a three-semester enrollment at mills college (1962-63) in somewhat sardonic, and ultimately dismissive terms: "i would just repeat the row over and over" (betraying evident indifference to the transformational operations underlying row formation); it was "a very unproductive time" (quoted in potter 2000:157-58). reich's recollection of the institutional musical climate in the late 1950s provides further evidence of his apprehen­ sion about modernism. at mills, reich claims, "you either went like cage or you went like stockhausen, and there was nothing else; otherwise you were on the moon, you were irrelevant" (schwarz 1996b:12). reich had written a host of twelve-tone pieces before 1965, including his final piece written at juilliard, music for string orchestra (1961), and his graduation piece at mills, four pieces (1963). perhaps it is this kind of engagement with serial­ ism that led commentators like mertens to conclude that reich's project was in fact the apogee of a high-modernist preoccupation with "non-directed [musical] evolution" (mertens 2004:308).2 but the main reason high mod­ ernism is granted pride of place (however negatively) in most histories of steve reich, and of twentieth-century musical minimalism in general, is more complicated than this line of thinking would suggest. this paper takes an excursion into the vexing terrain of parallel his­ tory-telling. it offers two opposing strands of thought, each with its own inner tensions and convolutions, to articulate the musical and technological conditions as well as the diverse cultural and political contexts that made possible reich's landmark work. while these strands are by no means exhaustive, it is hoped that their mostly contradictory elements create an­ tagonistic pressures on historical interpretation.3 furthermore, the paper simultaneously threads a critical review of the current literature on the subject. of particular interest will be the task of dismantling false narrative tropes that have become widespread or commonplace in these texts. to this extent, then, the paper concurrently unfolds both a dual historical narrative and a critique of current modes of narrativization. what distinguishes my account from a postmodern reading (such as that proposed by jann pasler in her article "boretzian discourse and his­ tory;' for example) is my desire to bring out facets of the story that are routinely overlooked by contemporaneous debates in musicology (pasler 2005/2006:177-91). as will become clear in the context of it's canna rain, crucial facets of the work's story can be obscured by the very impulse to dichotomize and then re-integrate the opposition between the "music itself" and its "social context:' debates guided by this opposition can mislead the historian as they risk reifying the dichotomy instead of rendering each side negotiable. in other words, juxtapositions of this sort tend to create disinmartin scherzinger terest in the constructedness of the basic poles of the opposition, and thus deflect attention from the embedded ethical commitments that produce them in the first place. the very act of situating the music itself, no less than locating its appropriate social context, is no small task. it involves idealiza­ tions at every methodological turn, and even allowing a narrative interaction across the dichotomy does not guarantee its undoing. let me explain. how do we situate "the music itself" in it's gonna rain? in this work the very concept of music, as constituted in reich's emerging aesthetic, partakes of the structural and the historical-of immanence and documentary. it's gonna rain is not solely engendered by abstract processes (the utopian mini­ malist vision of a music referring only to its own production, regenerating itself via phase shifting out of its own resources), it is necessarily qualified by the documentary reality (the impassioned sound of the preacher brother walter's recorded voice and the desperate content of his plea) as well as by a looming historical reality (the raging civil rights movement, the emergence of rock en' roll, and the cuban missile crisis).4 likewise, how do we identify the "social context" of it's gonna rain? here too the very concept of context partakes of the historical and the structural. do we emphasize the work's particular musical style, for example, in historical context? do we thematize, as has been done, the constitutive role of modernism for minimalism-the music's "obsessive repetition" as reaction to strict modernist prohibitions, say, or as the culminating point of an "anti-dialectic movement" that began with schoenberg-and thus permit a technical musical aspect to insert itself into contextual analysis (mcclary 2004:292; mertens 2004:308)? or does the technical bias obscure a more complex set of possible contexts?5 in fixing a contextual enclosure, then, do we emphasize cultural allegiances, mo­ dalities of place, factors of class and race, political developments, economic conditions (local or global), or some combination of these? to paraphrase questions i have raised elsewhere: by what inscription do we isolate music's salient contexts? and what are the political aspirations entailed by the choice of these borders?6 what follows is a brief account of two intersecting but contradictory contexts for understanding it's gonna rain as a unique cultural product of its time. these two contexts are distinguished by the size of their respective geographical and historical reach. one may therefore speak of the work's local context, on the one hand, and its global one, on the other. the work's local context takes into account the role of the cultural scene in new york city in 1965, particularly developments in the visual arts-a context in which reich's early minimalist music found sympathetic resonance. the work's global context takes into account the role of cultural globalization in 1965, particularly developments in the ethnomusicology of african music 209 210 current musicology (writings, transcriptions, recordings, etc. )-a source from which reich drew considerable inspiration. of course there are many additional ways events and currents of the mid 1960s shaped it's conna rain-television footage of the civil rights movement which helped introduce white america to the sound of african american preaching, the political crises engendered by a country on the brink of nuclear war, the broad epistemological shift in the arts away from the aesthetic trends inherited from pre-war europe, and so on. instead of offering an exhaustive set of possible contexts, however, i will-for strategic reasons that will become clear-limit the discussion of it's conna rain to aspects of the work's contradictory local and global contexts. these intersecting stories are preceded by a discussion of the work's specifically musical effects. in this section, i will present a gradually inten­ sifying description of the work by circling through layers of paradox and contradiction in the music itself. finally, instead of merely presenting these contradictory narratives as so many possible avenues toward understanding the work, the argument will ultimately attempt to arbitrate their antagonistic results: an attempt, in edward said's terms, to recover "a history hitherto either misrepresented or rendered invisible" (1983:158).7 2. situating the work it's conna rain is the piece in which musical minimalism finds one of its first exemplary instances. it introduced to the discourse on minimalism one of its representative modi operandi: phase-shifting. this technique, in which two or more identical musical patterns are played simultaneously but at different speeds, came to be closely associated with a new philosophy of music, which, in reich's lexicon, was called "music as a gradual process" (reich 2002:34-36). reich considers it's conna rain to be "the purest process piece that [he] ever did" (quoted in potter 2000:169-70). he is also acutely aware of its unique place in music history: "it's conna rain is the first piece ever to use the process of gradually shifting phase relations between two or more identical repeating patterns" (quoted in alburger 2004:7).8 in his essay "music as a gradual process;' reich laid out the basic conceptual foundation for this kind of music. the essay bears all the marks of the dual relationship to modernism outlined above. on the one hand, reich begins with a nega­ tion, disclaiming a (modernist) preconception we might have about what the title means-"i do not mean processes of composition but rather pieces of music that are, literally, processes"-and goes on explicitly to distance his music from a fundamental fault common to then-dominant strains of modernism: cage's indeterminacy and european serialism, wherein "the compositional process and the sounding music have no audible connection" martin scherzinger (quoted in alburger 2004:34, 35).9 on the other hand, the tone of reich's essay, written in short aphoristic paragraphs reflecting the influence of lud­ wig wittgenstein, recalls the no-nonsense declarative mode of a modernist manifesto. furthermore, the essay, first published in the catalogue to the 1969 exhibition anti-illusion: procedures/materials at the whitney museum of american art in new york city (featuring the work of bruce naumann, richard serra, and michael snow, amongst others), embraces various key modernist motifs in the visual arts.lo for example, reich's effort to create "perceptible processes ... a compositional practice and a sounding music that are one and the same thing" resonated with the taboo on painterly "illusion" (or representation pointing beyond the texture of the painting's surface) in the work of these visual artists (potter 2000:34-5). modernist musings aside, it is the phase-shifting technique that lay at the heart of the aesthetics outlined in reich's essay. in his steve reich: a bio-biography, d. j. hoek accurately calls it an "aesthetic-cum-technique" (2002:6). reich occasionally describes shifts in his compositional career in terms of dramatic discoveries: major epiphanies that surface almost unexpectedly, "like being in front of a tidal wave" (quoted in wasserman 1972:48).11 one such moment occurred while working on it's canna rain, initially a collection of recordings of brother walter preaching in san francisco's union square which reich intended to mix into some kind of collage-style piece, but which instead led him to discover the phasing process apparently "by accident" (reich 2002:21). reich describes how he happened upon this technique: i had two tape recorders with two loops of him saying "it's gonna rain:' both loops were exactly the same length, and i ran them on two machines at the same speed ... i noticed that ... the imperfections in the loops and the small differences in the motor speeds caused a slight change of phase to happen. i let them go and they began gradually to separate; when i heard that, i realized that this was a solution to what a composer thinks of as a problem of musical structure: how to begin someplace and go somewhere else. this struck me as a way of going through a number of different relationships with the same thing, without ever having any transition. it would be a seamless continuous process. (2002:44) while reich's recollection of this moment of creation has, like his music, shifted gradually over time (his iterations in interviews, writings, and con­ versations constantly change points of emphasis and perspective), there is one consistent motif: the fortunate failure of the tape loops to synchronize. it is as if, in the process of re-telling, the aesthetic stakes have gradually shifted away from documentary realism, which formed part of his initial essay on the work, and toward the consequences of infinite circling. for reich 211 212 current musicology in 2002, "what's important about the piece is that this repeating pattern is played against itself, and gradually slips out of sync with itself, and goes out of phase" (quoted in zuckerman 2002). i will return to this point shortly. in addition to the structural clarity and unity offered by the phasing technique, reich was also drawn to the unintended effects created by two recordings of the same music drifting further and further apart. these are the constantly evolving "psychoacoustic fragments" that each listener "organizes in different ways" to produce radically different emotional results (reich 2002:21). in "music as a gradual process;' reich places a high premium on these mysterious moments: even when all the cards are on the table and everyone hears what is gradu­ ally happening in a musical process, there are still enough mysteries to satisfy all. these mysteries are the personal, unintended, psychoacoustic by-products of the intended process. these might include submelodies heard within repeated melodic patterns, stereophonic effects due to listener location, slight irregularities of performance, harmonics, difference tones, and so on. (2002:35) herein lies one of the many paradoxes of reich's key aesthetic tenets: the curious co-habitation of structural clarity with inexorable ambiguity. on the one hand, we are presented with a straightforward musical process, apparently lacking all "secrets of structure;' and, on the other, we find the unguessed-at "mysteries" that lie at the core of the music's aesthetic appeal (2002:35). in his chapter on reich, "secrets of structure;' richard taruskin plau­ sibly argues against the possibility of creating musical structures without secrets, and thus against reich's aspiration toward this goal: "nothing, it turns out, not even a minimalist structure, is ever devoid of ambiguity" (2005, 5:374). taruskin associates the mysterious/ambiguous aspect with the music's non-retrogradable large-scale structure, of which, he thinks, reich was likely not aware. 12 not surprisingly, taruskin goes on to subtly associate reich's structures with modernist ones: of course, the last three words of the maxim ["i don't know of any secrets of structure that you can't hear"] are another escape clause, since-as milton babbitt has always argued-once anything has been pointed out and conceptualized, it can be heard. (emphasis in the original, 2005, 5:374)13 from the precise context of his writings, however, reich's reference to the music's mysteries is attuned not to the macro-palindrome produced by the process (about which, ironically, reich seems rather viscerally aware, as martin scherzinger evidenced by his description of it's canna rain), but to the symptomatic "submelodies" and "irregularities" that emerge in its micro-details. 14 these are the very musical results that cannot readily be "pointed out and concep­ tualized" (ala babbitt); they emerge as if in excess of the structural process. it is important here to de-dichotomize the terms encouraged by taruskin. the unintended moments in reich's music are mysterious precisely because they depend upon the apparent audibility of the structures producing them. what seems plain and clear is suddenly filled with mysterious design; the music issues tricks and chimera that mark a liminal crossing from the obvious to the obscure. this, for reich, is a component of the music's "uncommon magic" (reich 2002:21). where reich's self-description does call for qualification is in connec­ tion with the idea that the process and the sounding music "are one and the same thing' (emphasis added, reich 2002:35). here reich misrepresents the fundamental mechanism of the phasing process. far from the align­ ment between them, it is the mismatch between the motor process and the sounding forms that grants the music its remarkable aesthetic power. for at the center of his phasing pieces (and especially in it's canna rain) lies the epiphany of a phenomenological reversal: the paradoxical moment of transition not only from the interpretation of musical content (attending to its signs) to the experience of musical content (attainment of the power to listen to the signs as vibrantly patterned sound alone) but also a transi­ tion from one form of consciousness (referential, directed, transparent) to another (autotelic, immediate, visceral). 15 inherent melodies emerge as the words submerge and then emerge again. one might at the very least speak of a shift from the phonemic to the phonetic to the phonic (or from text to texture) and back again. the orientation of this music is thus directed less toward whatever messages the text is able to engender from its circling combinations and more toward an intriguing phenomenology of circling as such, whose regularly patterned displacement yields acoustic byproducts that are not quite real and never quite predictable. for the listener, the music comes not as a dialectical journey of full dramatic closure, but as passing moments of slippery rhythmic repetition punctuated by shifting instants and intensities. paradoxically, it is not until the listener submits her/himself to the looping process itself that her/his unique psychological reaction can materialize-a reaction, says reich, that will "vary from person to person" (reich 2002:21). thus the final effect of it's canna rain is to qualify the impression left by walter's pleading report of noah warning that rain will consume the earth. herein lies another paradox of reich's aesthetics of phase-shifting in the context of taped speech: on the one hand, by relinquishing one's hold on walter's lexical meaning and sub213 214 current musicology mitting to the process itself (in reich's terms, "shift [ing] attention away from he and she and you and me outward toward it"), we witness the dissolution of the preacher's basic message (reich 2002:36) .16 on the other hand, reich also acknowledges that he "wanted people to hear the words," carefully dis­ tinguishing his work from the modernist practitioners of musique concrete, who seemed intent on disguising the original sound source (reich 2002:21). thus, in his account of it's gonna rain, reich calls special attention to the uniquely sonorous qualities of walter's preaching: "pentecostal preaching," he states, "hovers between speaking and singing" (2002:21). reich is also unafraid to connect the meaning of the work to the apoca­ lyptic mood of the day: "i recorded brother walter in 1964; this was in san francisco shortly after the cuban missile crisis, and i thought we might be going up in so much radioactive smoke" (2002:21). the composer even comments on his own personal circumstances to explain its emotional tone: "personally, at that time, i was going through a divorce, and the piece is ex­ pressive of an extremely dark mood" (2002:21).17 in short, the piece is rich with intertextual and contextual meaning. historians and commentators have expanded on the music's extra-musical and contextual significance, calling attention not only to local personal and political themes but to global and philosophical ones as well. locally speaking, for example, reich's work is plausibly construed as engaging racial stereotypes via a vivid confronta­ tion with the musical intricacies of the african american voice. globally speaking, reich's work has been construed, with a nod to historian francis fukuyama, as a kind of emblem of the "mythical ending of history" that characterizes our age (mertens 2004:311) .18 does it's gonna rain musicalize walter's testimony or does it testimo­ nialize reich's music? or does it oscillate precariously between these alter­ natives? reich himself sustains a paradoxical shuttling between music and extra-music in his own statements and writings about the work, but this is, finally, a lopsided back-and-forth. for despite distinctive nods toward the music's documentary articulation with racial politics as well as the cold war, reich gives the non-musical resonance less rhetorical attention than the purely musical dimension (the impersonal process mechanism in particular). he frequently qualifies references to personal and socio-cultural dimen­ sions with a proviso: "i never would have thought [of myself as politically engaged at that time] ... but remember, it's gonna rain is 1965 and i was living in san francisco in 1962, during the cuban missile crisis" (emphasis added, quoted in alburger 2004:7). in contrast, music-technical aspects are elaborated in painstaking detail, and in the end are granted fundamental aesthetic significance: "i realized [the shifting relationships were] ... more interesting than anyone particular relationship, because it was the process (of gradually passing through all the canonic relationships) making an entire martin scherzinger piece, and not just a moment in time" (reich 2002:21).19 by the time reich published "music as a gradual process" in 1968, socio-political motifs have all but disappeared from reich's commentaries. and yet, the "added emotional layer" that comes with the music's ver­ ism cannot quite be spirited away from an interpretation of it's gonna rain (quoted in potter 2000:162). the clash of the technological/technical and the factual/real is one of the curious intersections within the work itself. at the time of its conception reich wanted it both ways. yet, already here, there is something unexplained about this desire. in his essay on the piece, reich simply states: "the incessant repetition intensified [the words'] mean­ ing and their melody at one and the same time" (emphasis added, reich 2002:19).20 this is the only sentiment in the essay that is repeated twice, almost verbatim, as if to insist on what seems to resist interpretation, or, at the least, what calls for further comment. how can we account for this dual intensification? it is probably easier to comprehend how the "melody" (rather than the "meaning") is intensified by repetitive looping in it's gonna rain: the way subtle quasi-metric shifts illusionistically take hold as emergent phonemes-sometimes by literal accent, sometimes by melodic crest, constantly jostling for downbeat formation (especially in part one), or the way embedded speech patterns gradually merge into trembling inner­ voice melodies (especially in part two) . walter's peculiar exertion on the word "rain" produces a lunging effect in the loop of part one that, after a while, can become marked as a downbeat on a kind of f#. the words "it's gonna" (or, more accurately, "it's gon"'), in contrast, then seem to soften the esophogal strain on f#'s "rain" by way of two diatonic steps downward to a tonic-like d. is this a farewell motif? similarly, the phasing process of the surreal verbal passage (built on shreds strung together from a longer passage) in part two with the lyrics glory to god god had been sealed couldn't open a door say: ohh, noah they cried would you just open the door couldn't open the door but, shorenuf haleluya gradually produces the sound of a lengthy inner voice, somewhere between the sound of a siren of an emergency vehicle and the distant call of a bird, 215 216 current musicology when we connect the inherent pattern borne out of words with similar vowel content-"door, ohh, noah, etc."21 but how does walter's meaning intensify through the technique of repetitive looping? does the phasing effect obliterate the text, substituting, in mark alburger's words, "cacophony, no longer heard as discrete words" (2004:6)? perhaps the original texts for the music provide the clue to this puzzle. walter himself frames the words "it's gonna rain" by a repetition of a different fragment: the words "after a while" appear before and after the statement about the coming rain. reverberations of this sort are char­ acteristic of such evangelical speech. consider the internal repetitions of the spoken material for part one as a whole: he began to warn the people. he said: after a while, it's gonna rain after a while. for forty days and for forty nights. and the people didn't believe him. and they began to laugh at him. and they begin to mock him. and they begin to say: it ain't gonna rain! for reich, the recording of a person's spoken voice, its rhythmic inflections and its rising and falling cadences, is as much a personification of that per­ son as a photograph: "when other people listen to that [voice 1 they feel a persona present. when the persona begins to spread and multiply and come apart, as it does in it's canna rain, there's a very strong identification of a human being going through this uncommon magic" (reich 2002:21).22 what distinguishes reich's literal repetition from the characteristic repeti­ tions of the preacher, however, is that the latter usually repeats the same string of words to bring to them a different cadential inflection. walter's first "after a while;' for instance, sweeps upward (accenting the last syllable in the manner of "it's gonna rain" to follow) and then swoops downward, back to its starting point, a rise-and-fall contour (echoed in the sentences "and they began to laugh at him / and they begin to mock him") to unify the flow. this is repetition of a different psychological order. where walter alters the music of his repetitions, reich offers blunt literalism. far from providing poetic intensification through sing-song repetition, then, the lin­ gering sense of the words in reich's work gives way to a phenomenological study of their sound-content alone: under these conditions it's canna rain becomes aestheticized phonology. perhaps, after all, text has been effaced, or even replaced by texture. martin scherzinger and yet this is not entirely the case, for the music's words become more than texture. they become other things, too. toward the beginning of part one, for example, reich subjects the three words of the title to "a kind of monophonic sampling," by which he means a phasing process in which one single voice is heard at a time (quoted in potter 2000:169). the music is controlled by flipping a preamplifier switch at a different rate to the sample. reich explains that the loops are stereophonically divided, exactly 180 degrees out of phase, so that the word "it's" falls on top of "rain" ... sampling each channel in synchronization with the voice rhythm will give you "it's gonna, it's gonna ... " over and over again. speed up the sampling rate, however, and the result will move from "it's gonna", inch­ ing into the "r" of "rain" then into "ain", "nnn", and finally back into "it's gonna." (quoted in potter 2000:169) as the tapes go out of phase, then, one half of a repeated fragment gradu­ ally morphs into the other: to be precise, "it's gon''' progressively yields into "rain."23 interestingly, the transformation takes place in the reverse direction -reich's description of the passage, while conceptually accurate, is in error: "it's gon'" becomes "nnn it's g" and then "ain it's:' and so on. this is one of those moments where the creeping encroachment of"nnn" suddenly sounds alarming, exerting pressure to reinterpret walter's voice as radically other. as disturbing as it is vivid, we hear the sound of what can only be described as an animal or an anxious bird. along with the muffled drumming produced by a real bird flapping its wings and the brief offbeat coo of a dove or pigeon, walter's voice (now a feverishly inspired duck­ squawk) becomes a desperate plea in the face of impending catastrophe. this is music becoming animal: through recapitulation, reich's musical texture intensifies the drama of the text. message and medium, initially at odds, yield to one another. walter's warning, at first neutralized by the loop, eventually becomes the musical embodiment of a desperate scene, filled with the harsh shudders of creatures confronting catastrophic environmental disaster. this is where reich's extra-musical thinking and his aesthetics are able to come together in it's canna rain. what is at stake ideologically when a process, whereby a white composer gradually transforms the voice of a black man into animal sound, is read as modern compositional technique? reich's descriptions of brother walter's role in the making of it's canna rain are disarmingly technical. walter's voice is either drafted into a narrative about the phasing process itself or, to the extent that he addresses the actual characteristics of his voice, into a generalization about verbal vocalization. in a 1999 radio interview on na­ tional public radio, for example, he explains the principles he was working with in it's canna rain thus: 217 218 current musicology well, i guess the reality, the bottom line principle, was that sometimes when people speak they almost sing. and there's no better example of that than a black pentecostal preacher, who is really-it's impossible to say if they are singing or speaking-it's hovering between the two of them. (gross [1999]2001) reich then goes on to describe the "technical level" of it's gonna rain in the predictable context of tape loops subjected to the phasing technique. the first point about reich's formulation is that brother walter, about whom reich seems to know very little, stands in for two compositional principles-a limen liminus between speech and song, on the one hand, and a mechanical process, on the other. walter's voice becomes an instrumental abstraction in service of new musical subject matter and compositional technique. walter's own field of referents and coordinates is thereby set adrift, if not banished, and the disruptive interrogations that walter's sermon potentially pose, as well as the historical conditions of discrimination, inequality, and poverty (within which reich, probably without permission, is able to amplify and transform the voice of a black street preacher), are thereby disavowed. the second point is that, according to reich, the threshold point be­ tween speech and song is best exemplified by "black" voices. to the extent that he is granted specificity then, walter stands as an emblem for a tapas, as arbitrary as it is generalizing, about those racialized as "black." african american vocalization is here sent up into the service of an age-old preoc­ cupation with the originary unity of speech and song, a site of what hal foster calls "symbolic plenitude" and "natural vitality," all too often associ­ ated with the "primitive" other (foster 1985:58). not only is walter's voice evacuated as it is elevated in the name of musicality, but the tonal quality of that musicality-the inarticulate animalistic frenzy produced by an assault of mechanical repetition-risks recapitulating commonplace stereotypes of blacks as wild and savage. the western fascination with the nexus between speech and song, the modern articulation of which dates back to the essays of jean-jacques rousseau, associates the inarticulate, song-like voicing of language with natural anthropological man (rousseau 1998). under this reading, black america is thus cast as primal man, with a special endowment toward natural vocalization. at this point it is important to acknowledge that my own verbal descrip­ tion of it's gonna rain necessarily compresses the music's elusive meanings into the very object of my critique. this is because language inevitably limits music's equivocal hermeneutic field. furthermore, the contextualist rebuke, precariously premised on brother walter's cultural difference, deflects atten­ tion from the ideas that such decontextualization might produce in it's gonna rain.24 how, for example, might walter's voice be thought of as disruptive martin scherzinger (instead of recuperative) of ossified musical ideas, historical narratives, and so on? unfortunately, reich's descriptions of his early music offer no clues to this question as they tend toward processes of technical manipulation alone, often portrayed as intentionally anti-psychological and anti-expres­ sive. and yet, the sonic effects of walter's circling vocal fragments are any­ thing but anti-expressive, issuing instead a vivid portrait of psychological trauma-intrinsically expressive, and even expressionistic. arguably, reich's specific manipulations of brother walter's sermon turn what foster describes as "the 'trauma' of the other" into "an 'epiphany' of the same" (foster 1985:56). in foster's terms, one might argue that reich's intervention in music history seems to disrupt the reigning ideology of modernism but only so as to reaffirm it; the transgressive other is recognized only to be again extracted. that is to say, the aesthetic elevation and exhibi­ tion of walter's voice (buttressed by reich's pronouncements of apparent praise about its song-like aspect) is ultimately deflated, if not silenced out­ right. walter's agency is characterized only in technical musical terms-his voice embodies an ahistorical process that jumbles his specific operational referents-and is thereby assimilated into, what one might call (following michel foucault), a "historical-transcendental" musical tradition. 25 the ideological effect is to incorporate the other into tradition-first causing a rupture with tradition and then overcoming it-which ultimately serves the interests of a progressive music history, characterized by a quasi-deductive logical line of formal innovations.26 how, in the specific case of it's gonna rain, does the technical musical narrative congeal into this kind of progressive history? 3. situating a local context it seems that reich was not yet fully aware of the aesthetic stakes of it's gonna rain at the time of its conception in san francisco. when reich completed the work he initially thought, "that's the end of phasing. the first part is from unison back into unison and the second part goes out of phase as much as possible; i've done it all; the process is completed. that's the end of that" (quoted in suzuki 1991:447). but an exciting new discourse on art, which received its first major theorization in 1965, awaited reich's return to new york city in that same year. this discourse in the visual arts was gradually shifting between the labels "systemic painting;' "one-image painting;' "unitary forms;' "reductive forms," and so on, ultimately settling with "minimalism."27 the minimalist artist donald judd laid out the first extended theoretical formulation for this movement in an article aptly titled "specific objects;' which appeared in arts yearbook in 1965. with reference 219 220 current musicology to frank stella's striped canvases (dating back to 1961), judd pointed the way toward a new three-dimensional art-form that lay beyond the inevitable "illusionism" created by traditional easel painting. "three dimensions are real space ... that gets rid of the problem of illusionism and ofliteral space, space in and around marks and colors" (quoted in foster, kraus, bois, and buchloh 2004:493). for judd, the conventions of painterly illusion were a product of an outmoded rationalist philosophy ("based on systems built beforehand, a priori systems") associated with european art (quoted in foster et al. 2004:493). stella's work, in contrast, had a unitary quality (a single all-over shape) crafted with a minimum of the composed manipulation normally aimed at achieving compositional proportion, balance, and so on. the formal reduction of elements in service of a unitary whole canceled both the hierarchical arrangement of elements associated with traditional composition as well as the authorial intentions or feelings that were said to underpin it. in his "notes on sculpture" from 1966, robert morris honored such anti-illusionism with reference to the minimalist work's gestalt, beyond or behind which nothing lay: "one does not seek the gestalt of the gestalt" (quoted in foster et al. 2004:493). the new art created the conditions for a new kind of viewing experience. in morris's terms, by taking relationships out of the work, [the new art] makes them a function of space, light, and the viewer's field of vision ... even [the work's] most patently unalterable property, shape, does not remain constant, for it is the viewer who changes the shape constantly by his change in position relative to the work. (quoted in foster et al. 2004:493) morris's untitled (three l-beams) of 1965-66 dramatizes the point. in this work, the same huge l shape is repeated three times and placed in three dif­ ferent positions on the gallery floor. the arrangement makes it impossible to view the objects as identical because, in the words of art historian hal foster, "the effect of real space means each shape takes on a different meaning according to the way a sense of gravitational pull or luminous release affects our experience of the actual thickness and weight of the different 'arms'" (foster et al. 2004:494). judd's "specific" objects (also dubbed "literalist" by the critic michael fried) were likewise experienced in what foster describes as a kind of "real time within which its existence unfolds-a 'just one thing after another' that is temporal as well as spatial" (foster et al. 2004:495). the transparency of construction in these works (as in works by frank stella, dan flavin, sol lewitt, carl andre, and others) opened into an experience of space without a hint of traditional forms or figures. the affinities between minimalism in the visual arts and reich's early music (especially his pronouncements about it) appear obvious. reich, for martin scherzinger example, like the minimalists, placed a high premium on transparency of construction where "compositional process" precisely recapitulates "sound­ ing form," opening into an experience of temporal process (in analogous real time) without a hint of traditional form (reich 2002:35). technically speaking, the patterned uniformity stressing repetition of identical units in the works of stella, andre, and morris resembles the patterned repetition of identical loops in it's canna rain (as well as in works like come out, piano phase, violin phase, and others). moreover, the phenomenological consequences of the viewing/listening experience of these works and the subtle perspectival shifts of emphasis produced in the context of repetitions are analogous. conceptually too, the resonance between minimalist art and reich's music is evident. as with judd's rejection of "a priori systems" or morris's emphasis on a unitary gestalt without hidden ideas, there are, for reich, no "secrets of structure" (reich 2002:35). the minimalist artists emphasized the impersonal quality in generating their work, and sought to downplay the position of authorial intentions and feelings. likewise, reich emphasized the term "process" over "composition" in describing his music. on impersonality, he writes, i began to see [my phase pieces] as processes as opposed to composi­ tions. i saw that my methods did not involve moving from one note to the next, in terms of each note in the piece representing the composer's taste working itself out bit by bit. my music was more of an impersonal process. (2002: 32)28 on canceling expression, he writes, "so the attention ... [that] mechanical playing asks for is something we could do more of, and the 'human expres­ sive quality' that is assumed to be innately human is what we could [do] with less of right now" (2002:54). reich associates non-expression with a particular mode of playing: a performance for us is a situation where all the musicians, including myself, attempt to set aside our individual thoughts and feelings of the moment, and try to focus our minds and bodies clearly on the realization of one continuous musical process. (2002:81-82) strikingly, reich's emphasis on the "uncommon magic" of process music, its "mysteries" and its ability to "put all within listening range into a state of ecstasy" (2002:21, 35, 82), though seemingly at odds with the matter-of-fact immediacy of minimalism, also resonates with the moment of illumina­ tion and transcendence michael fried identifies in the work of minimalist artworks in 1966. "presentness;' fried poignantly declares at the end of his essay, "is grace" (quoted in foster et al. 2004:21, 35, 81).29 even reich's 221 222 current musicology study of the german philosopher ludwig wittgenstein at cornell univer­ sity in the 1950s seems relevant in the context of the emerging aesthetic of minimalism. hal foster argues that the introduction of wittgenstein's model of meaning in the united states of the mid 1960s, which "seemed utterly to alter the parameters of aesthetic experience;' was a fundamental underpinning for minimalism (2004:493). art critic barbara rose's 1965 discussion of minimalism in ''abc art" (rose 2000) stresses the relevance of wittgenstein's notion that language is irreducibly contextual (that its meanings are dependent on "use" and to some degree escapes and exceeds its speakers' intentions), for a full understanding of works by the minimalists morris and judd. with such common ground, it is no wonder reich found a receptive audience in the galleries of new york city in the late 1960s. the consequences of the technical, conceptual, philosophical, and espe­ cially institutional affiliations between reich and the minimalists have been enormous for music history. less a historical description of an artistic ethos than a conceptual apparatus through which history becomes possible, the myth of minimalism has practically eclipsed empirically-grounded historical accounts that lie outside of its logical and conceptual reach. musical mini­ malism likes to celebrate its uncompromising immediacy as well as its lack of hidden structural devices and narratives. it is as if the discourse of music's unhidden structural workings (which ostensibly present material processes free of authorial interference) almost by definition hides the complex inter­ textual material history of its sounding forms. if, as philip glass maintains, "music must be listened to as pure sound-event, an act without dramatic structure;' then this music's extramusical references, cultural meanings, and historical and geographical origins seem aesthetically off limits (quoted in suzuki 1991:52). this sentiment is echoed in the musical literature. it is as if the widespread historical narrative of musical minimalism emphasizing stylistic traits like authorial non-interference, non-representation, anti-il­ lusionism, flattening of surface, the prevalence of all-over pattern, repetitive structures, and the like, becomes the very authorial interference writ large of a discourse about the meanings of minimalism that, through sheer force of repetition, effaces a broader set of the music's enabling social conditions and thereby also effaces the possibility of writing an authentic history. the myth of minimalism flourished on the basis of tacit contracts between visual artists, critics, historians, and musicians about how a new movement in the arts of the mid-to-iate 1960s might be represented. not infrequently one can see writers trying, with only partial success, to bend the story of specific works of minimalist music to fit a scriptural pattern of ostensible stylistic characteristics. with its origins in the artistic production of various visual artists (such as solie witt, frank stella, michael snow, and richard serra) as well as the writings of contemporary critics (such as martin scherzinger barbara rose, michael fried, richard wollheim, tom johnson and michael nyman), the public discourse on minimalism in music has tended to em­ phasize features associated with minimalism in the visual arts of the 1960s. these features include severity of means, clarity of form and simplicity of structure and texture. like its counterpart in the visual arts, minimalist music was said to be produced with a minimum of compositional maneuvering, which, in turn, resonated with the emerging post -structuralist skepticism towards regulative concept-metaphors like "authorship," "subjectivity," "expression," and "originality" no less than did new modes of criticism valuing formal analysis over what susan sontag in her 1964 essay ''against interpretation" called the "rough grip of interpretation" (sontag 1966).30 sontag's appraisal of the new art involves a polemic against the legacy of mimetic theories of art, which-by way of a condition of "dissatisfaction" which desires something else in the artwork-tend to "deplete" the world of the work into a "mental scheme of categories" (sontag 1966:10). in con­ trast to this two-fold hermeneutic conception of art, sontag advocates an "erotics of art" that is acutely attuned to the "pure untranslatable, sensu­ ous immediacy of [the artwork] itself" (1966:14). this kind of thinking is carried over into musical discourse on minimalism with modernism as its contrast case. thus, minimalism asserts an absence of hidden mathemati­ cal "structures" behind its surface (characteristic of modernists like boulez, babbitt, and even cage), and claims instead to issue forth various clearly audible depersonalized perceptual processes, which thereby deflect atten­ tion away from the composing self toward the living context of music's sensuous "happening."3l in reich's words, "while performing and listening to gradual musical processes, one can participate in a particular liberating and impersonal kind of ritual" (2002:36). this last statement was made in the context of reich's essay, "music as a gradual process;' first published, as mentioned, alongside sol lewitt's "paragraphs on conceptual art" (le witt 1967). in the 1960s, reich as well as phillip glass and lamonte young established close contacts with visual artists associated with minimalism in new york city. this contact involved personal friendships, shared exhibition/performance spaces (both reich and glass gave concerts at the whitney), intellectual and artistic exchanges, and even mutual financial support. reich's first major concerts in new york were given in march 1967 at the park place gallery operated by paula cooper, one of the most important galleries exhibiting minimal art at the time. his next major concert was at the whitney, while drummingwas given its world premiere at the museum of modern art (moma).32 reich, who attempts to preserve a distinction between his own artistic output and that of his contemporaries in the visual arts, admits a kinship between the two domains: "there is;' he tells emily wasserman in 1972 "some 223 224 current musicology relationship between my music and any minimal art" (quoted in suzuki 1991:150). of the connection between serra's sculptures specifically and his early work, reich says, the analogy i saw with serra's sculptures ... was that his works and mine are both more about materials and process than they are about psychology. i spent some time with serra just preceding the time he started working with lead, so i was around when he did the first pieces of the lead sheet on the wall being propped up by the pole. now, again analogies between sculpture and music are hard to make, but he could have had a pole cast from lead. but he didn't, he chose to take the same material and roll it up-which is very difficult to do-so there was a kind of deadpan work­ ing out of a process: lead holding up lead. this also had a very powerful effect i hope my early pieces had. they too were the deadpan working out of process ... (quoted in suzuki: 183-84) thus, the material and media may have differed (making analogies difficult because of the minimalist interest in the specifics of artistic "material"), but reich acknowledged the affinities his early music shared with the aesthetic aims and technical procedures used by serra. in a 1984 interview with dean suzuki, reich further acknowledged the creative debt he owed to the "art world context" of new york city: "'music as a gradual process' might not have been in the shape that [it was] in had it not been for the kind of com­ munity i was in at that period of time" (quoted in suzuki 1991:198). grounded in these often guarded statements by the composer, writings emphasizing minimalist motifs drawn from the visual arts have proliferated. dean suzuki devotes a 100-page chapter to the connection between minimal­ ism in music and the visual arts. suzuki describes how "minimal music was derived ... from minimal art, with which it shares numerous aesthetic and technical characteristics" (1991: 122). for example, comparing reich's music with the work of lewitt, suzuki offers an argument framed by the evident similarity of the artists' respective statements as well as the procedural and experiential parallels between their various works. suzuki quotes reich: "at the time i was writing in 1968 much of the stress in new music was on chance and free improvisation and i was trying to separate myself from that and to show that one could work in a more impersonal way" (1991: 163). he then offers a similar comment by sol lewitt in which the artist offers an analo­ gously dismissive attitude towards traditional understandings of the creative process: "if the artist wishes to explore his idea thoroughly, then arbitrary or chance decisions would be kept to a minimum, while caprice, taste and other whimsies would be eliminated from the making of the art. to work with a plan that is preset is one way of avoiding subjectivity" (1991:163). suzuki demonstrates these shared preoccupations in the context of actual works. for example, lewitt's arcs, circles, and grids is sectional, as is piano phase. martin scherzinger both use a single, gradually unfolding process. both processes are easily understood and perceived, and both yield very rich and unexpected results which become focal points, conforming, at least in part, to statements made by lewitt. the "side effects" which "may be used in new works;' mentioned by lewitt in "sentence 28" of his "paragraphs on conceptual art;' can, for suzuki, "be likened to reich's discovery of resulting patterns. the resulting patterns were a by-product of the phasing process and became important, indeed [they became 1 focal points, in the works such as violin phase and drumming" (1991:169).33 the key categories of suzuki's argument are widespread in the litera­ ture on minimalism. edward strickland's 1993 book exploring the origins of minimalism is practically predicated on the shared concerns of visual artists and musicians active in the 1960s and 1970s. likewise, keith potter launches his account of minimalism in music with reference to sol lewitt's "paragraphs on conceptual art;' and, in his discussion of reich, devotes a section to the composer's connections to minimalist artists (potter 2000:1, 17l-76). even where the visual arts are not overtly mentioned, the central argumentative tenets still cohere around motifs drawn from the artworld. noting that "it is not surprising that reich mixed with a like-minded group of minimalist painters and sculptors who also nurtured young and, later, glass;' k. robert schwarz, in his 1996 book minimalists, describes reich's works in overtly minimalist metaphors. drumming, for example, involves performers who "soberly carry out the musical process. playing from memory, they are asked to sacrifice individual spontaneity" (schwarz 1996a:75). schwarz goes on to explain that the use of ensembles of identical instruments "allowed the phasing process to emerge more clearly and preserved a minimalist unity of timbre;' claiming that, despite broadened instrumental resources in it, drumming"remains a minimalist work, for it is harmonically and rhythmi­ cally static" (1996a:75). at this point it is worth mentioning how a minimalist motif falsifies an aesthetic experience of the musical work; how, whatever else might be said of it, drumming simply cannot be construed as a rhythmically static piece. with the gradually expanding and contracting rhythmic configurations, the constantly changing relationships between parts, the irrational rhythms produced when one player speeds up against the fixed tempo of another player, the irregular resultant patterns produced by the interaction of parts when they lock back into a shared pulse, and the constantly shifting sense of downbeat, drumming counts as one of the most, if not the most vibrant explorations of rhythmic complexity in the history of western music. the severity of such descriptive errors tends to increase with the amount of emphasis on the music's supposed connection to the visual arts. even the titles of various books and articles on the subject betray the attachment to 225 226 current musicology this connection. the title of the edited volume perceptible processes: mini­ malism and the baroque (swan 1997), for example, is taken from a statement reich makes in "music as a gradual process:'34 schwarz, who contributed the first essay for the book, writes that "although it was meant to apply only to his music, it conveys the dogmatism of minimalism at its purest" (schwartz 1997:5). consider also simon shaw-miller's visible deeds of music (2002), which similarly describes minimalist music in the metaphorics of "work­ as-process." in a section entitled "the emphasis on surface," shaw-miller demonstrates how stella attempted to "eliminate the illusion of space by using a regulated surface pattern ... arrived at by following the form of the edge of the canvas" and thus, in stella's six mile bottom (1960), for example, "there is no background, all is foreground without interiority" (shaw-miller 2002:197). shaw-miller preserves this interest in the anti-illusionism of all­ over pattern (emphasizing horizontal surface instead of vertical depth) in his discussion of minimalist music. he therefore praises the concern with "melodic rather than harmonic manipulation, with horizontal rather than vertical development" in the early works of glass and reich. using reich's piano phase of 1967 and glass's two pages of 1969 as representative examples, shaw-miller notes how through the use of limited rhythmic values, pitch spaces and instrumentation, these works "produce an effect of musical surface" (2002:200). shaw-miller also notes that, as stella used manufactured paint, so the aural, and sometimes textual, impression of much musical minimalism is likewise "premanufactured;' a quasi-industrial process of familiar musical units "bolted" together. the feeling of surface is also invoked through the constant pulse and repetition of much minimalist music, which sets up a screen of expectation while placing in the foreground only limited change, giving a sense of "flat­ ness" -continuity in time as the music "unfolds," as there is continuity in space with minimal art. (2002:200) the emphasis on motifs from the visual arts leaves shaw-miller's actual hearing of a work like piano phase impoverished. his emphasis on anti­ illusionistic flatness of the "musical surface;' for example, no less than his emphasis on "only limited change;' is amply discredited by the sound of piano phase. in reality, with the startling and sudden perceptual re-orienta­ tions, which impel shifting one's very modality of hearing every time the music locks into a new phasing relationship (sometimes we hear hocketing motives, sometimes contrapuntal weaving, sometimes homophony, and so on) replete with hidden inherent patterns and other aural riddles, piano phase is far from "anti-illusionistic." in fact, piano phase is practically a study in patterned illusionism. martin scherzinger for all of their attempts to resist the "rough grip" of interpretation by focusing the perceiver on the "pure untranslatable, sensuous immediacy" of these works, minimalist metaphors drawn from the visual arts, when applied to the musical counterparts, in fact seem to deflect our hearing from what is really going on in the music qua music. to paraphrase frank stella, what we hear in piana phase, for example, is in fact not quite what we hear. whether the inherited conceptual apparatus from the visual arts fails to capture the purely musical aspects of it's canna rain (to the extent that these can be identified) remains an open question; that the apparatus fails to capture both the textual concretions and the contextual accretions of it's canna rain should, by now, be beyond doubt. this failure is surprising in the context of reich's claim that it's canna rain is "the purest process piece" he ever wrote. notwithstanding the interwoven textual and contextual texture of its signifying practice, it's canna rain, in fact, uses a variety of musical techniques. part one begins with an unmodified presentation of walter's text, followed by a non-phasing loop on the words "it's gonna rain." this loop is repeated twenty-eight times before yielding to the aforementioned "monophonic sampling" section. only then does reich present a full cycle of two taped loops of the same words in a pure gradual phasing process. but part one ends suddenly with the unforeseen appearance of the words "after a while." these words jolt us back to the textual matter at hand. it is as if the phasing process itself thereby brings us to experience as inexarable the temporal passage ("a while") before the flood to which walter's noah refers. the abrupt return of the initial documentary presentation of walter's words yanks the listener away from the by now well-established automatic mode ("run [ning] by itself") of the formal phasing process (reich 2002:34). walter's untreated final words in part one reposition the role of repetition in it's canna rain, offering a new detail of content, or what roland barthes in the context of photography might call a punctum, "a floating flash." on the punctum, barthes writes, "it is what i add to the photograph and what is nonetheless already there ... it is acute yet muffled, it cries out in silence" (quoted in foster et al. 2004:494-95). likewise, in it's canna rain, walter's suddenly added though already heard "after a while" acutely if briefly rup­ tures the structural norm of the piece, obliging us to revisit the real content of his mechanically patterned speech. this return creates the paradox of a music that is both referential and simulacral, connected and disconnected, critical and complacent, affective and affectless. perhaps, to the extent that an analogy is warranted, this places reich's it's canna rain (as well as came out) in closer proximity to the repetitions found in andy warhol than to those found in the work of the minimalists 227 228 current musicology proper (donald judd, sol lewitt, and so on). warhol's compulsion to re­ peat traumatic images (a police dog attacking a black man, a burning white car with a man impaled on a telephone pole, jackie kennedy in a state of mourning), which are not unlike the fragments chosen by reich (brother walter's vision of an apocalypse, daniel hamm's account of his attempt to make himself bleed after being arrested by police), puts into playa simulta­ neous draining of significance and denial of affect that nonetheless cannot be reduced to mere simulation or pure image.35 these are repetitions that wear down their distressing representations in order to invigorate them. they register the social shock they absorb. similarly, part two of it's canna rain, while presenting straightforward phasing relationships, is itself com­ prised of a mishmash arrangement of walter's text, another case of surreal, compulsively repeating, traumatic realism. in short, the compositional processes in it's canna rain are not as pure as reich's hindsight assessment would have us believe, nor are reich's connections to the minimalist visual artists as self-evident as might first appear.36 how can we expand the work's possible contexts? 4. situating a global context there is a conspicuously anomalous moment in reich's essay "music as a gradual process." after making a point about the naturalized connection be­ tween artistic technique and current technologies, reich declares: ''all music turns out to be ethnic music"(2002:35). in the context of an essay otherwise preoccupied with impersonality and structuralist processes, this idea seems curiously off-topic and tacked-on as an afterthought. and yet its figuration of musical processes discernibly shifts rhetorical emphasis from autogenous production to cultural production. by organically linking musical processes to the peculiarities of a specific brand of electromechanical equipment, reich draws attention to the historically and geographically localized conditions for such a discovery. despite its potential for referencing non-western culture, the word "ethnic" is here applied to a particular north atlantic context. as such, reich deftly relativizes any claims of western cultural superiority. but what is the question to which this conceptual linkage between context and technique seems to respond? it is a question about origins, about where the music might come from, and so, finally, about the mechanism of inspiration. this, reich seems to claim (in language that intriguingly blends determinism and chance), is music borne out of a homespun preoccupation with avail­ able technology. this is not, one is encouraged to conclude, music derived from resources outside of that context.3? reich's statement is strikingly resonant with then-current themes in the emergent field of ethnomusicology. taruskin, for example, points martin scherzinger out the correspondence between reich's claim, ''all music turns out to be ethnic music:' and that of john blacking, ''all music is folk music" (black­ ing 1973:4).38 indeed, taruskin reads reich's words as polemical critique of western musical practice and its overly elitist and individualistic value systems-a critique inspired by reich's own acquaintance with african and asian music. taruskin contrasts reich's description of his own performance with blacking's description of venda performance, quoting reich's words, "the pleasure i get from playing is not the pleasure of expressing myself but of subjugating myself to the music and experiencing the ecstasy that comes from being part of it:' alongside blacking's words, rhythms such as these cannot be performed correctly unless the players are their own conductors and yet at the same time submit to the rhythm of an invisible conductor. this is the kind of shared experience which the venda seek and express in their music making. taruskin proposes a speculative analogy between these trains of thought: "[blacking] could just as well have been describing reich's drumming" and concludes that "reich sought not to express concepts found in other features of his own culture, or other types of 'urban european art music' ... , but to propose an alternative to them that implied both a musical contrast and a social critique." in taruskin's assessment, this critique ultimately "produced historical change" (taruskin 2005, 5:383). even if it is clear from the context of reich's statement (condensing all music into "ethnic music") that he was in fact pointing precisely to "features of his own culture" (a local technologi­ cal milieu instead of a foreign one), taruskin effectively connects reich's association with non-western music to a critique of established institutions and social relations in the west.39 most historians of minimalism comment upon the multicultural ele­ ments of reich's music and, in particular, upon his exposure to african music. the non-western sources of reich's music, however, are often men­ tioned in a cursory and mostly belated way, conforming to reich's claim that his exposure to african music in 1970 counted as mere "confirmation" for what he had been doing all along: "the question often arises as to what influence my visit to africa in the summer of 1970 had on drumming? the answer is confirmation" (2002:67). the question that does not seem to arise often is how reich's music was influenced by african music before his visit to africa in 1970. a cursory survey of texts mapping reich's development as a composer reveals a patterned chronology consistently disinterested in this question. reich's output, the story goes, was essentially homegrown until he traveled to africa in 1970, where, in the words of schwarz, "reich discovered that the structure of west african music was not that different 229 230 current musicology from his own" (emphasis added, schwarz 1996a:72). likewise, in hoek's re­ telling of reich's compositional trajectory, we read: as reich was already aware, the patterns he was studying [in mrica] were closely related to his own compositions. "the trip to africa was very instructive, not really for new information ... , but as confirmation and encouragement" ... [reich's] time in africa ... reinforced his predilection with repetition, polyrhythms, and slowly changing processes and moti­ vated reich to create his first large-scale work. (emphasis added in external quote, hoek 2002:9)40 african music, it seems, was curiously related to reich's pre-1970 work, yet most commentators fail to ask why this might be so; his contact with music in africa merely appears to have established reich's already-present proclivities and achievements more firmly (it "confirmed;' "reinforced," "encouraged;' but it did not produce). reich himself advances this interpretation when he writes in 1988, "the influence of my trip to africa on my composition was more in the nature of encouragement than change of direction. since i had composed the forma­ tive works in my style (it's gonna rain, come out, piano phase, violin phase, etc.) in the 1960s prior to going to ghana in 1970, my trip there basically confirmed the direction i was already going in" (2002:149).41 with reference to the trip to ghana alone, this statement may be accurate, but it remains misleading about the general influence on these early works of african music culled from books, journals, conversations, lessons, transcriptions, etc. long before the trip to africa. thus, an increasingly entrenched narra­ tive pattern-a period of early invention followed by later confirmation in ghana-has led to a limited assessment of african music's place in the reichian oeuvre. mertens, for example, writes, another possible line of investigation would have been to draw attention to the open influence of non -european, so-called primitive music ... steve reich had adopted certain rhythmic principles from the music of ghana and the ivory coast ... but this use of non-european techniques should not be regarded as the foundation of [his] work ... (2004:308) likewise, in a checklist of eleven key categories of minimalism ("ideas, devices, and techniques through which early minimalist music found expression"), kyle gann lists the "influence of non-western music" after everything else. furthermore, this influence, writes gann, "is far from a uni­ versal component of minimalism, nor a necessary one ... " (gann 2004:302). more dramatically, suzuki, in a dissertation covering over 700 pages, barely mentions the african influence on reich, reserving mention of africa for a martin scherzinger single sentence informing the compositional context of drumming.42 even taruskin's laudable excursion into african musical practice as it relates to reich's aesthetic project bears the marks of the same narrative pattern: first, the relationship is raised in the predictable context of drumming (whence reich's "style underwent a change"), and second, the relationship largely hinges on a speculative resonance noted in statements made by both the com­ poser and john blacking (taruskin 2005, 5:379-80). for all its insightfulness, taruskin's account of the "social meaning [on the occasion of a performance of drumming] that arose directly from its african antecedents;' ultimately remains in taruskin's words "implied (or metaphorical)" (emphasis added, 2005,5:379). beyond the metaphorical shift in the context of performance, taruskin does not, for example, list any shared technical features, quotations, or precise appropriations by which we could properly assess the degree of influence african music had on drumming. some recent musicological work has genuinely attempted to address this problem by bringing non-western discourse into explicit conversation with reich's work. sumanth gopinath, for example, quotes reich's experience of ewe music at the university of accra as "overwhelming," "like being in front of a tidal wave," and "the result-a year after his return-was drumming" (gopinath 2004: 1). while gopinath is not concerned with empirically exca­ vating the african musical influence in reich's oeuvre, we nonetheless find the trope that reich's african experience "resulted" in drumming. gopinath intensifies the narrative topos of the composer's compositional career, argu­ ing that drumming marked reich's conscious" shift to a non -western based musical aesthetic," one that could "match the 'cultural capital' of electronic technology" which reich would now leave behind (2004:3). gopinath lists a range of factors (the black liberation movement, the immigration act of 1965, and so on) to show how reich may have come to value "the idea of a genuine musical-cultural fusion" over "electronic-based composition;' which had hitherto "played a significant role in the composer's output" (2004:3). to demonstrate the limited scope of reich's purposeful ethnographic turn in drumming, gopinath emphasizes the "constructed" nature of this effort. unlike ewe drumming, reich's use of vocalized "nonsense syllables" is not "to communicate linguistically, but rather to imitate the sounds of instruments" (2004:9)y reich's imitations are related to "the various re­ sulting patterns that arise out of the phasing process;" they are not, as in africa, used "in the transmission oflanguage" (2004: 1 0). for gopinath, this is a "completely inverted use of vocality" and reich's drumming has more to do with his own past-"the music sounds quite similar to his earlier pieces piano phase (1967) or violin phase (1967)"-than with his african encounter (2004:11). in the final analysis, "one might view drumming as 231 232 current musicology an ethnographic fantasy of self-validation, in which the narrative subject transcribes and analyzes the 'music' in question only to 'find' (i.e. construct) himself-perhaps playing his own music in a vaguely 'exotic' context" (2004: 11). although gopinath suggestively connects the ethnographic aura of reich's work to the music industry and its niche markets, the fundamental story about the composer's path remains the same.44 as with the commentary of others, we find here a perceived african ethnographic turn around the time of drumming (though not before), which might bestow a certain ritual enchantment on its performance context but is ultimately non-essential (in this case imagined) to reich's aesthetic paradigm.45 what these interpretative and historical accounts overlook are the overt african elements in reich's output before his trip to accra in 1970. reich's early works, piano phase (for two pianos, 1967), violin phase (for four violins, or violin and three channels of tape, 1967), pulse music (for the phase shift­ ing pulse gate, an electronic device constructed by the composer with help from larry owens that permitted performers to play together at different speeds, 1969), and phase patterns (for four electric organs, 1970), all draw to some extent on distinctly african compositional principles traceable to specific local communities in africa ranging from ghana to mozambique.46 this is not the place to give a full account of the african sources for these early works. for the purposes of this essay, it suffices to note that reich's own descriptions of these early pieces explicitly reference ideas and mo­ tifs extracted from then-circulating ethnographic writing on these music traditions. for example, reich's concept of "resultant pattern"-coined to describe the "psychoacoustic by-products of the repetition and phase-shift­ ing" in his early work-is in fact an undisguised appropriation of terminol­ ogy describing african music, then circulating in the ethnomusicological literature under the label "inherent rhythm" (2002:26).47 ironically, it is just the fact of reich's pursuit of resultant patterns (instead of patterns used to "communicate linguistically") in drumming that leads gopinath, apparently unaware that the concept is indigenously african, to conclude that reich's piece was an invented "ethnographic fantasy;' his ensemble a "pseudo-ethnic" one (gopinath 2004:9,10). not surprisingly, "some optimistic predictions (1970) about the future of music;' the essay that forms the bridge in writings on music between discussions of reich's early works and the trip to africa explicitly and in­ sightfully thematizes the new importance of non-western music for the future of western music: non-western music in general and african, indonesian, and indian music in particular will serve as new structural models for western musicians. not as new models of sound. (that's the old exoticism trip.) those of us martin scherzinger who love the sounds will hopefully just go and learn how to play these musics. music schools will be resurrected through offering instruction in the practice and theory of all the world's music. young composer/perfor­ mers will form all sorts of new ensembles growing out of one or several of the world's musical traditions. (reich 2002:51 )48 close inspection of reich's various descriptions, writings, and interviews of his pre-1970 period in fact reveals considerably more interest in african music than the aforementioned narrative tapas implies. in his essay on "slow motion sound" (1967), for example, reich relates the story of an african girl learning english by rote: "since african languages are generally tonal, and learning the correct speech melody is as necessary for understanding as is the correct word, this was simply carried over into the teaching of english" (2002:29). years later reich would explore and expand upon this kind of intimate relationship between language and music in an essay on the subject and in a host of compositions (tehillim, 1981; different trains, 1988; the cave, 1993; and others). still, it is dear that his interest in the importance of african speech patterns became a guiding compositional idea in his very first tape pieces: "since the early 1960s i have been interested in speech melody. that is the melody that all of us unconsciously create while speaking ... this relationship between spoken language and folk music ... has been written about ... by the ethnomusicologists a. m. jones and simha arom in their studies of african music" (2002:194-95). a vivid presenta­ tion of the unique rhythms and cadences of human speech was dearly one of reich's primary quests in it's ganna rain: "using the voice of individual speakers is not like setting a text-it's setting a human being;' he writes in 1965."a human being is personified by his or her voice" (2004:21). with an african american voice as raw material, reich's idea to explore the unique signature inflections of that voice in it's ganna rain came from his studies of african music. as alburger explains, william austin (then teaching at cornell univer­ sity) likely introduced reich to mrican music as early as the 1950s (alburger 2004: 1) .49 reich's interest in west mrican music specificially dated back to at least 1962 (three years before it's ganna rain) when he encountered a. m. jones's two-volume studies in african music (1959) upon the recommenda­ tion of gunther schuller during a seminar in california. in contrast to the common historical account, reich acknowledges this chronology: "my first discovery of non-western music was at the time when i was working with tape loops for the first time in 1962-63" (2002:3).50 on encountering jones's studies, reich recalls, "i had heard african music but ... i didn't know how it was put together. so to see in notation overlapping rhythmic patterns put together so their down-beats do not coincide showed me a radical new way 233 234 current musicology of making music" (quoted in ford 1993:63). "this, in simplified miniature;' reich declares in his writings, "is the essence of african rhythmic structure: several repeating patterns of the same or related lengths and each with its own separate downbeat" (2002:57). reich is referring here to what jones identifies as a trans-continental characteristic of african music in his studies. on comparing the drumming styles of the ewe people in west africa with the lala people of central africa, for example, jones finds a fundamen­ tal consistency between them vis a vis the phasing relationships set forth by different drummers of an ensemble. the following description of the behavior of the icibitiku drum in the leila dance is typical: when he introduces his variant in bar 29 he slips one quaver, thereby making a permanent cross-rhythm with gankogui. not only is this typical of ewe practice [the contrast easel but the cross-rhythm he sets up is the exact counterpart of that made by the ewe small drum kagan. there are two ways of crossing two similar triple times: you can slip one quaver or you can slip two. (jones 1959,1:199) jones goes on to demonstrate the phasing relationships in this situation with a diagram of a short g pattern, lined up against itself, in all three pos­ sible positions. for jones, setting a pattern against itself at a staggered time interval so that its downbeats do not coincide is a staple of african music. indeed, jones's transcription of the leila dance in the second volume of studies in african music reveals phased rhythmic relationships between various sets of drums. herein lay the origins of reich's idea to line up the spoken material from brother walter's address in union square in an out-of-phase relationship with itself. seduced by the happy chance of the tapes' running at different tempi, however, nearly all commentators on reich's early tape pieces do not notice the fact that reich specifically aimed to set up the tape loops in it's canna rain in a particular africanized phase relationship. following jones's account of drumming from west and central africa, reich writes, "my first thought was to play one loop against itself in some particular relationship, since some of my previous pieces had dealt with two or more identical instru­ ments playing the same notes against each other" (2002:20). reich clarifies what he means later in the same essay: "i had intended to make a specific ' relationship: 'it's gonna' on one loop against 'rain' on the other. instead, the two machines happened to be lined up in unison and one of them gradually started to get ahead of the other" (2002:21). after 1971 reich would return to this more precisely african compositional practice, employing notched rather than sliding phase relationships in the context of quoted fragments of african music in clapping music (1972), music for pieces of wood (1973), and six pianos (1972). martin scherzinger reich can be vague about the precise details of his discovery of afri­ can rhythmic phasing relationships. in the introduction to his writings on music, he suggests that his work with tape coincided with his discovery of jones's book: [studies in african music] was like looking at the blueprint for something completely unknown. here was a music with repeating patterns (similar to the tape loop material i was beginning to fool around with), which were superimposed so that the downbeats did not coincide ... i began listening to what happens rhythmically when you make shorter and shorter loops-and this was right at about the time when i discovered a. m. jones's book on african music. i was fascinated by what i was hearing in the tape loops and the african use of independent repetition of simul­ taneous patterns (2002:10). in the context of a lasting antagonism between reich and terry riley about who first discovered tape loops, however, reich is more emphatic about his very early connection to african compositional practice: "i ordered [stud­ ies in african music] from oxford university press, which was a big com­ mitment in those days. basically what i saw was repeating patter,ns in w or subdivisions of w superimposed so that their downbeats do not coincide. this was before i met terry. i had the ingredients: african music, coltrane, tape loops, and jr. walker" (quoted in alburger 2004:3). furthermore, in c (ostensibly one of riley's works that prompted reich to experiment with tape loops) was itself indebted to african music, a point reich himself oc­ casionally asserts. 51 as with his explorations of tonal inflection, it is evident that the par­ ticular brand of patterned displacement in it's gonna rain was derived from reich's studies in african music. in 1988 he finally writes, "[african music] was clearly a radically different way of making music. it also suggested the multiple simultaneous tape loops i was beginning to experiment with at the time" (reich 2002:148). here reich patently acknowledges the music's radical difference (presumably from what he was accustomed to at that time), his exposure to it before composing it's gonna rain and come out, and its evident influence on those works. most important, for reich, were the music's structural procedures: "repeating patterns (often in what we would call a w meter) superimposed on each other so that their individual downbeats did not coincide" (reich 2002:148). "structural" borrowing, in reich's lexicon, is associated with ideological neutrality. unlike the use of non -western "models of sound:' which reich dismisses as "the old exoticism trip:' african and other non -western "structural models" are considered ac­ ceptable and desirable by the composer (emphasis added, 2002:51). aware that some forms of appropriation can "seem like a kind of musical rape:' 235 236 current musicology reich is careful to distinguish inappropriate from appropriate borrowings. the ideological distinction turns on the musical one between sound and structure: "my interest was in the rhythmic structure of the music. i didn't want to sound . .. african, i wanted to think .. . african" (2002:148). thus, for reich, "structural;' "technical;' or "formal" phenomena are unsullied in the context of cross-cultural transactions: "that information, it seems to me, travels more easily through customs, as it were. because, in a sense, it's completely neutral information" (quoted in zuckerman 2002:13).52 leaving aside the question of whether "structural" borrowing is in fact less ideologically charged than is "sonic" borrowing, or whether reich's particular brand of borrowing from african music is in fact "structural" at all (even as this is understood by the composer), it is worth noting how the emphasis on "structure" in his discussions of the african presence in his own work (a necessary emphasis for shielding the composer from "musical rape") contradicts one of the basic aesthetic dicta in "music as a gradual process:" resistance to the very dichotomy between structure and sound. thus, reich's writings convey a more equivocal presentation of the music's philosophical import, which sometimes will vividly conflate "compositional process" and "sounding music" and other times must vividly oppose them, than the tersely logical run of ideas suggests. it's canna rain, at least, bears the marks of this contradiction. for the purposes of this essay, what seems certain is that reich's pro­ grammatic statements in "music as a gradual process" and elsewhere can thus conspire to deflect attention from the african models to which his earliest works were deeply beholden. for it is the structural properties of african music laid out in jones's book that were at issue in the creation of it's canna rain. in the words of reich, "[jones's transcriptions were] a very potent piece of information, especially for someone fooling around with tape loops, which i began to view as little mechanized africans" (emphasis added, quoted in alburger 2004:3). reich's dehumanizing attitude toward africans in this quote reveals the way african compositional ideas are viewed as found objects, abstracted from their own field of referents, to be freely used as formal elements in musical composition. here it suffices to point out that, reich's self-generating ambitions notwithstanding, african music is one of it's canna rain's basic conditions of possibility. likewise, for all its aspira­ tion toward pure processes, reich's uncommonly magical oeuvre, produced in a curious set of intersecting contexts, is deeply beholden to african music from the start. today, in an age of expansive globalization, it is an ethical duty to recover this multicultural heritage. perhaps it is not surprising that an artistic vision thriving on depersonalized artistic processes presented so triumphantly in 1968 should grow muted by the end of the century. martin scherzinger 5. afterword the diminished role of african music in most accounts of reich's overall output, and the complete silence about its role in the context of it's canna rain, is understandable given the self-generative focus of reich's articulated aesthetics. but historians attuned to contextual factors and who wish to link these aesthetics to broader social forces, may be equally distracted by examining reich's institutional, philosophical, and personal involvement with a particular cultural moment in a local american context. here one might speak of the way one kind of cultural and historical analysis obscures the genuine cultural historical contexts at play in reich's work, or, more specifically, how descriptive frameworks and associations from the visual arts obscured the truth in music history. in the specific context of it's canna rain, one might say that while the african american aspect (walter's voice) is perhaps the most obvious content and source material of the piece, mini­ malism in the visual arts is the most talked about of the music's cultural contexts. in contrast, african music, while foundational, is largely ignored and written-out of the music's cultural contexts. although it values multiple lines of inquiry, the "methodological doubleness" to which i referred at the outset of this essay is mediated here by an ethical commitment, which ar­ bitrates antagonisms arising in telling different versions of the same story. this is a commitment to the genuine integration of non-western musical lineages with the history of western music history. in this writing, i have thus attempted to address a political predicament weighing upon twenty-first -century writings on music in general, namely the problem of the excluded non-west in forging a genuinely global history. in order to offer a more even-handed and inclusive account of western music's hybrid sources and compositional techniques, this article points toward a fuller integration of non-western culture in this history than has so far been possible in the literature on minimalism. in particular, this argument emphasizes the african elements that had taken up continued residency in reich's compositional practice from the very beginning of his remarkable output. ultimately, this essay forms part of an attempt to elevate the role played by the african continent in shaping the evolution of western music history. this is not an attempt to discredit the forces shaping reich's output (the civil rights movement, the political crises of the mid -1960s, the changing aesthetic trends in the united states, and so on), nor to dismiss the multiple lines of influence on reich's output (igor stravinsky, j. s. bach, john col­ trane, terry riley, ludwig wittgenstein, frank stella, sol lewitt, to name a few), nor to discount the growing literature on reich and the minimalists; 237 238 current musicology it merely joins the struggle for clarification of one of the twentieth century's most significant musical styles. notes 1. although it is reich's first major work, it's gonna rain was issued along with violin phase by columbia masterworks only in 1969, two years after come out (1966) was released on odyssey's anthology new sounds in electronic music (1967). the work has subsequently been reissued by elektra nonesuch as part of steve reich: early works (1987) and then as part of the retrospective cd set steve reich: works, 1965-1995 (1997) by nonesuch. 2. musically speaking, reich's connection to the conventions of high modernism is slight. potter recognizes an interest in static harmony and repetition already in reich's experiments with twelve-tone procedures, although he is quick to qualify the connection between reich's music and serialism with reference to the jazz idioms of john coltrane and gunther schuller (potter 2000:158-59). 3. this kind of historical "doubleness" shares with new historicism a non-teleological incli­ nation as well as a suspicion of grand narratives, opting instead for what jann pasler calls "question-spaces:' pasler describes these spaces thus: "the pleasure of using question-spaces to write history comes from holding many diverse elements in one's mind at once and from watching connections emerge and concurrent stories unfold .. :' (pasler 2005/2006:184). the respect both for immanent and historical aspects of musical production is a crucial ingredient of pasler's doubleness. (pasler encourages responsibility for both "thought in music" as well as "reflective output," quoting benjamin boretz.) i aim to respect these duel­ ing aspects as well. 4. reich's recordings of walter preaching in union sqaure in san francisco are the musical building blocks for it's gonna rain. the absence of biographical information about brother walter is striking. although he refers to walter frequently in his extensive writings and interviews, reich does not offer any concrete details about him. we do not know whether reich knew the preacher personally, whether walter was his real name, whether reich asked for permission to record him, or, if so, what agreements might have been reached regarding the use of the material. brother walter is simply described as "a black pentecostal preacher" of whom reich became aware in late 1964. 5. mcclary's analysis of minimalism in context gestures toward an "overdetermined" meth­ odology, whereby many "possible explanations jostle for our attention" (2004:289-296). she situates minimalism's particular preoccupation with repetition as part of a broad zeitgeist, in which "cyclic repetition" typifies the "structures of rhythm" that characterize much twentieth-century music (2004:287,296). while this kind of global overview must quickly encounter its limit, mcclary's open-ended method allows her to raise to particular promi­ nence the colonial rupture that transformed the western musical landscape in the twentieth century. this forms a central preoccupation of my argument to follow. mertens also suggests the "open influence of non-european, so-called primitive music" on the minimalists as a possible line of inquiry in describing minimalism, albeit with much less enthusiasm than mcclary. ultimately, for mertens, "non-european techniques should not be regarded as the foundation of [the minimalists'] work ... ;' a position i attempt to refute in the argument to follow (2004:308). 6. see, for example, scherzinger (2001). 7. not all possible interpretive strands capture the empirical realities of a unique cultural moment with equal validity. it therefore becomes necessary to weigh their respective relmartin scherzinger evance. nor do all possible interpretive strands articulate equally with dominant narratives. thus it is necessary to pay special attention to those readings that do not readily fit within the limits of materialized elite discourse with its own inertial forces. it is true that gaps and silences in the dominant discourse, especially those involving alterity, speak more loudly today than they did in the 1960s. following the post-structuralist turn in america in the late twentieth century our sensibilities are finely attuned to what is written out of discourse. our craft today involves excavating from cultural phenomena the absences, the veilings, the other. at the same time, like all triumphant subversion, such reading is also always in danger of becoming the dominant in turn. this essay attempts to be vigilant about these methodological conundrums. 8. terry riley contests reich's view that he introduced the technique into music history: "when two identical modules are played simultaneously by either tape machines or live performers, imperfections in speed or pitch result in 'phasing.' i introduced the process into music composition; steve correctly labeled it" (quoted in alburger 2004:5). 9. the idea that minimalism differs from modernism, and especially from serialism, by virtue of its straightforward rendition of structures is often echoed in the popular literature. see, for example, gann (1987:76). 10. "music as a gradual process" was re-published in source magazine (1972) and as the accompanying notes to the deutsche grammaphon recording of drumming, six pianos and music for mallet instruments, voices, and organ (1974), and, most recently, in reich's writings on music (2002). see potter (2000:352). 11. the reference to the tidal wave is made in connection with reich's discovery of african muslc. 12. citing reich's reference to "mysteries;' taruskin writes, "and indeed, there is a mysterious corollary to this or any other strict phase process: as a moment's reflection will confirm, its second half is (and must be) automatically the retrograde of the first half, with the relation­ ship between the two players reversed" (2005, 5:374). 13. there is a tension between the idea that palindromic structures need to be pointed out to be heard (as taruskin maintains, in the manner of babbitt) and that they are simply confirmed in a "moment's reflection" (as taruskin also maintains) (2005,5:374). 14. on the effect oflistening to the two increasingly unaligned tape recordings, reich writes: "the sensation i had in my head was that the sound moved over to my left ear, down to my left shoulder, down my left arm, down my leg, out across the floor to the left, and finally began to reverberate and shake and become the sound i was looking for-'it's gonna/it's gonna rainlrain' -and then it started going the other way and came back together in the center of my head" (reich 2002:21). 15. quoting ivanka stoianova's term "iterative monadism;' mertens effectively describes the latter mode thus: "what matters is not what the sound may stand for but its physiological intensity" (mertens 2004:310). 16. reich repeats this formulation of a suitably impersonal mode of concentration in various contexts. see, for example, his first interview with michael nyman (reich 2002:55). 17. given his evident interest in the music's local historical resonance, it is not surprising then that reich initially seemed to construe the work as a dedication piece to terry riley. its original title was to be it's gonna rain; or meet brother walter in union square after listen­ ing to terry riley. 18. the former reading might tally with themes raised by sumanth gopinath in a talk on 239 240 current musicology reich's satirical tape collage piece oh dem watermelons! at a princeton university composers' symposium in the fall of 2005; the latter view is held by mertens. 19. in his writings on music, reich does not offer an essay on oh dem watermelons! even though it postdates it's conna rain by a few months. written in collaboration with the overtly political san francisco mime troupe, the production explores and then deconstructs racial commonplaces across the terrain of two stephen foster songs ("massa's in the cold, cold ground" and "oh dem watermelons"). in oh dem watermelons! the phasing technique, while present, plays a diminished role while political parody takes center stage. perhaps this is why the increasingly structuralist composer did not offer an essay on the work. 20. the repetition of this sentence appears almost verbatim one page later with the italicized conjunctive. 21. the effect is of course enhanced by the internal repetition of words in the initial loop. (spelling is according to reich's transcription of the longer passage.) 22. alburger calls this kind of phasing process "ontology in motion" (2004:6). 23. potter incorrectly notates the fragment (which is approximately comprised of two eighth notes and a quarter on e, d, and f# respectively) as being in a time. perhaps in deference to reich's spelling of the word, he adds an extra eighth note on the "na" of "gonna;' when an accurate representation would render the word simply as "gon"'-a syllable approximately as long as "it's". hence, the fragment should be notated in i (2000:169). 24. the problem with inscribing notions of authentic difference (rooted in the illusion of a biological idea of "race" at odds with the goal of integration, and incompatible with the liberal ideas of american democracy), must be weighed against the aspiration towards po­ litical solidarity (the commitment to defeating racism, eliminating racial inequality, etc.) in the context of the civil rights movement. 25. foucault describes the impulse toward the "historical-transcendental" thus: "an attempt to find, beyond all historical manifestation and historical origin, a primary foundation, the opening of an inexhaustible horizon, a plan which would move backward in time in relation to every event, and which would maintain throughout history the constantly unwinding plan of an unending unity" (foucault 1972:227). 26. here i am indebted to hal foster's analysis of the moma exhibition-cum-book "primitiv­ ism" in 20th century art: affinity of the tribal and the modern, which he describes in terms of a "fetishistic recognition-and-disavowel of the primitive difference" (foster 1985:65). 27. for a list of names applied to this new art, see strickland (1993:17). 28. elsewhere reich writes, "one hardly needs to seek out personality as it can never be avoided" (2002:81). 29. compare also fried's juxtaposition of depersonalized directness and transcendence with reich's description of performances of process music: "the pleasure i get from playing is not the pleasure of expressing myself, but of subjugating myself to the music and experiencing the ecstasy that comes from being a part of it" (reich 2002:82). 30. regarding the new skepticism toward the notion of "authorship;' it should not come as a surprise that roland barthes's influential essay "the death of the author" was brought into the american intellectual discourse in 1968 by brian o'doherty, a second-generation minimalist (and critic for the new york times). 31. the term "happening" is used by michael nyman in his various descriptions of experi­ mental music (nyman 1974). martin scherzinger 32. the personal interactions between reich and this generation of minimalist artists were generally supportive: sol lewitt bought various manuscript scores and a sketch from reich, the proceeds from which reich used to buy instruments for the first performance of drum­ ming. reich also exchanged the manuscript of pendulum music for richard serra's candle piece (1967-68), one of serra's first process sculptures see suzuki (1991:152, 183). 33. suzuki demonstrates a host of insightful affinities between reich's music and the work of other minimalist artists, notably richard serra and michael snow. he also describes reich's own output as a visual artist, including the etchings reich made of his scores for clapping music and pendulum music to be sold as artworks, as well as reich's drawings on four sheets of paper with two different watermarks for crown point press in 1978. the resulting works, four freehand watermark tracings (1978) are generated by a characteristically simple process, which nonetheless produces unexpected patterns. revealingly, reich encourages an analogy between the visual arts and his music here. of his tracings, he claims "i thought to myself this might, in fact, work better than the essay i had been working on" (quoted in suzuki 1991:201). if the visual demonstration of the simple (but never quite predictable) process in his tracings better represent his musical aesthetic than do words, then reich thereby ac­ knowledges an aesthetic congruity between musical and visual minimalism-a resonance that is underscored by the overt likeness between the tracings and lewitt's drawings, such as six thousand two hundred and fifty-five lines (1970). 34. reich's statement reads: "i am interested in perceptible processes ... i want to be able to hear the processes happening throughout the sounding music." these sentences from "music as a gradual process" are quoted in swan (1997:5). 35. come out (1966), which employs the voice of daniel hamm, one of six african ameri­ can men convicted of murdering a jewish store owner during the harlem riots in 1964, was composed for a benefit to support the retrial of these men (known as the harlem six). after being beaten by police, the convicted men were told that only those bleeding would be taken to the hospital. in hamm's words, "i had to, like, open the bruise up, and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them." 36. perhaps because, while much discussed, the work is not much listened to, analytic de­ scriptions of it's gonna rain in the literature on minimalism can be remarkably slipshod. taruskin, for example, writes, "it's gonna rain . .. was based on just the three titular words, spliced out of a recording of a gospel sermon delivered by brother walter ... " (taruskin 2005,5:369); likewise, k. robert schwarz describes it's gonna rain as "a landmark of musical minimalism, for the entire seventeen-minute composition is based on that single, melodi­ ous three-word fragment" (schwarz 1996a:61). only part one, about eight minutes long, employs the three-word fragment (but not exclusively), and part two, about ten minutes long, does not employ the fragment. even discussions of part two can be oddly inaccurate. in his book minimal-music: entwicklung, komponisten, werke, fabian r. lovisa transcribes the text fragments of part two as "knocking upon the door / let's showing up / alleluia / god / i didn't see you" (lovisa 1996:67)-a verbal constellation bearing almost no resemblance to the actual textual fragments in the music, which are "glory to god / god / had been sealed / couldn't open a door / say: ohh, noah, they cried / would you just open the door / couldn't open the door / but, shorenuf / haleluya." 37. reich underscores this reading of the quotation in a later essay on piano phase: "looking back on the tape pieces that preceded piano phase;' he writes, "i see that they were, on the one hand, realizations of an idea that was indigenous to machines, and, on the other hand, the gateway to some instrumental music that i would never have come to by listening to any other western, or for that matter non-western music" (emphasis added, reich 2002:24). 241 242 current musicology 38. blacking's ethnomusicological research took place amongst the venda people of south africa. in his book how musical is man? (1973), an argument about the value of music in human culture, blacking makes universal claims: "if some music can be analyzed and un­ derstood as tonal expressions of human experience in the context of different kinds of social and cultural organization;' the first chapter concludes, "i see no reason why all music should not be analyzed in the same way" (quoted in taruskin 2005, 5:381). 39. reich's comment about "ethnic music" was made in 1968, a fact that puts strain on reading its meaning in tandem with a performance of drumming, composed only in 1971. this is not to say that taruskin's reading is therefore wrong. first, reich's early writings are surely not as systematic as the phenomena they describe aspire to be. second, the features taruskin highlights in the performance of drumming are arguably present in reich's earlier works as well. 40. lovisa likewise only mentions reich's contact with african music (itself "relativized" by the fact of his past experience as a drummer) solely in connection with the work drumming (lovisa 1996:74). 41. reich goes on to drive home the fact of his own invention: "my basic insight into change of phase between two repeating patterns was made by observing two tape loops on two tape recorders. however, seeing the book of african transcriptions by a. m. jones [1959] undoubt­ edly helped prepare me to take a strong interest in the phasing process when i discovered it" (2002:149). careful reading of the second sentence, however, reveals that reich was actually attuned to jones's transcriptions before he discovered the tape loop phasing. 42. the sentence reads: "with reich's experience of studying african drumming fresh in his memory, the next logical step was work for drums and other percussion instruments. the resulting work was drumming . .. " (suzuki 1991:487). 43. gopinath relies on an account of ewe drumming from john miller chernoff (1979) and, with qualification, from david locke (1987). 44. gopinath writes, "when we recall that reich's music both directly inspired ambient and new age musicians and generated a market for itself, one begins to realize the important links between ethnomusicology and the music industry, which were realized in more ways than simply the creation of a nascent 'world music' market" (2004:11). 45. gopinath writes, "the fact that drumming begins with the 'transcription' moment, suggests to me a state of ethnographic discovery, in which the music is 'put together' by the ethnomusicologist-composer protagonist. however the music that is 'discovered' is not ewe music (or any non-western music) but rather the music of the composer (steve reich) himself ... " (2004:10). of course, gopinath seems to be primarily interested in elaborat­ ing a reception context for drumming, rather than mapping the actual african presence in reich's work. in this respect, his insight that drumming is no more african than the works predating it is an astute revision. 46. significantly, one phasing piece not derived from an african model, reed phase (for any reed instruments and two-channel tape), completed a year before piano phase (1966), was withdrawn by the composer: the phase relationships created by the non-african ten-note module were not musically effective. this is because the african rhythmic modules employed by reich in his early works tend to exhibit specific rhythmic and metric ambiguities whereby all pulse points in the pattern are equal candidates for downbeat formation. the maximally ambiguous metric situations associated with african rhythmic patterns are not found in reich's ten-note module. 47. see, for example, kubik (1962). martin scherzinger 48. reich repeats the sentiment in his "postscript to a brief study of balinese and african music ( 1973)" two years after his trip to ghana: "i studied balinese and african music because i love them/and also because i believe that non-western music is presently the single most important source of new ideas for western composers and musicians" (reich 2002:69). 49. reich acknowledges his early exposure to african music: "i first heard african music on recordings while i was at cornell university in the mid-1950s" (reich 2004:147). 50. reich, as mentioned, also corresponded with jones and studied with the ewe master drummer, alfred ladzepko, in new york city before embarking on his trip to ghana. 51. see, for example, reich's statement in alburger's article: "in c took these various strands­ tape loops, african music, john coltrane-and it tied them all together" (emphasis added, alburger 2004:5). riley had frequently traveled to morocco, where he became fascinated by the dynamic music produced by short repeated modules elaborated in staggered rhythmic relationships. on riley's visits to morocco, see, for example, potter (2000:103). 52. interestingly, structuralism is not the only site of "neutrality" in the reichian text. in the specific context of it's gonna rain, he sometimes even regards its three recycled words as just such neutral information: "it just comes along for the ride. it's just, 'it's gonna rain'" (quoted in zuckerman 2002: 17). references alburger, mark. 2004. steve reich: early phase. 21st-century music 11 (4): 1-9. barthes, roland. 1985. the grain of the voice. in the responsibility of forms, translated by richard howard, 267-77. berkeley and los angeles, university of california press. blacking, john. 1973. how musical is man? seattle: university of washington press. chernoff, john miller. 1979. african rhythm and african sensibility: aesthetics and social action in african musical idioms. chicago and london: university of chicago press. ford, andrew. 1993. composer to composer: conversations about contemporary music. london: quartet. foster, hal. 1985. the "primitive" unconscious of modern art. october 34: 45-70. foster, hal, rosalind kraus, yve-alain bois, and benjamin h. d. buchloh. 2004. art since 1900: modernism, antimodernism, postmodernism. new york: thames and hudson. foucault, michel. 1972. history, discourse, and discontinuity. salmagundi 20: 225-48. gann, kyle. 1987. let x=x: minimalism v. serialism. village voice (february 24): 76. ---.2004. thankless attempts at a definition of minimalism. in audioculture: readings in modern music, edited by christopher cox and daniel warner, 299-306. new york and london: continuum international publishing group. gopinath, sumanth. 2004. ''a composer looks east": steve reich and discourse on non­ western music. glendora review: african quarterly on the arts 3 (3-4): 134-45. hoek, d. j. 2002. steve reich: a bio-bibliography. westport, ct: greenwood press. jones, a. m. 1959. studies in african music. 2 vols. oxford and new york: oxford university press. kubik, gerhard. 1962. the phenomenon of inherent rhythms in east and central african instrumental music. african music: journal of the african music society 3 (1): 33-42. lewitt, sol. 1967. paragraphs on conceptual art. artforum 8 (5): 79-83. locke, david. 1987. drum gahu: a systematic method for an african percussion piece. crown point, in: white cliffs media. lovisa, fabian r. 1996. minimal-music: entwicklung, komponisten, werke. darmstadt: wis­ senschaftliche buchgesellschaft. mcclary, susan. 2004. rap, minimalism, and structures of time in late twentieth-century 243 244 current musicology culture. in audioculture: readings in modern music, edited by christopher cox and daniel warner, 289-98. new york and london: continuum international publishing group. mertens, wim. 2004. basic concepts of minimal music. in audioculture: readings in modern music, edited by christopher cox and daniel warner, 307-12. new york and london: continuum international publishing group. nyman, michael. 1974. experimental music: cage and beyond. london: studio vista. pasler, jann. 2005/2006. boretzian discourse and history. perspectives of new music 43 (2) and 44 (1): 177-9l. potter, keith. 2000. four musical minimalists: la monte young, terry riley, steve reich, philip glass. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reich, steve. 2002. writings on music, 1965-2000, edited with an introduction by paul hillier. oxford and new york: oxford university press. rose, barbara. 2000. abc art. in minimalism, edited by james meyer, 214-17. london and new york: phaidon. rousseau,jean-jacques. 1998. essay on the origin of languages and writings related to music, translated and edited by john t. scott. hanover, nh: university press of new england. said, edward. 1983. opponents, audiences, constituencies, and community. in the anti­ aesthetic: essays on postmodern culture, edited by hal foster, 135-59. port townsend, wa: bay press. scherzinger, martin. 2001. negotiating the music theory/african music nexus: a political critique of ethnomusicological anti-formalism and a strategic analysis of the har­ monic patterning of the shona mbira song nyamaropa. perspectives of new music 39 (1): 5-117. schwarz, robert k. 1996a. minimalists. london and new york: phaidon. ---. 1996b. outside it's america: composers john corigliano and steve reich trace the forms of the nation's current musical landscape. classical pulse 18: 12. ---. 1997. minimalism/music. in perceptible processes: minimalism and the baroque, edited by claudia swan, 1-17. new york: eos music, inc. shaw-miller, simon. 2002. visible deeds of music: art and music from wagner to cage. new haven and london: yale university press. sontag, susan. 1966. against interpretation and other essays. new york: picador. strickland, edward. 1993. minimalism: origins. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. suzuki, dean paul. 1991. minimal music: its evolution as seen in the works of philip glass, steve reich, terry riley, and la monte young. phd dissertation, university of southern california. swan, claudia, ed. 1997. perceptible processes: minimalism and the baroque. new york: eos music, inc. taruskin, richard. 2005. the oxford history of western music. 6 vols. oxford and new york: oxford university press. terry, kenneth. 1977. profile: steve reich. downbeat 44 (august 11): 38-39. wasserman, emily. 1972. an interview with composer steve reich. artforum 10 (9). white, robin. 1978. steve reich. view 1 (4): 11-12. radio broadcasts gross, terry. [1999] 2001. minimalist composer steve reich. fresh air, npr, january 12. www.npr.org/templateslstory/story.php?storyid=1116949 [march 16,2006] zuckerman, gabrielle. 2002. an interview with steve reich. american mavericks. american public media. http://m usicmavericks. publicradio. orglfeaturesl interview _reich.html [march 16,2006] neil lerner and joseph n. straus, eds. 2006. sounding off: theorizing disability in music. london and new york: routledge. reviewed by sarah schmalenberger this collection of essays announces the assembly of music scholars who have incorporated disability studies into their research. although the hybridiza­ tion of disciplinary perspectives is hardly new, the careful preparatory arguments in the introduction and elsewhere throughout this collection nevertheless remind us of the palpable schism between "traditional" music scholars and those who have embraced more liberally the intersections of music and cultural theory, literary criticism, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. the seeming impenetrability that historical musicology and theory have represented in the past may well be further refuted by the addition of dis­ ability studies into the field of musical scholarship. both the foreword (rosemarie garland-thomson, xiii-xv) and introduction (lerner and straus, 1-10) prepare readers for the speculative premises of the essays in this volume. immediately the layers of inter­ disciplinary collaboration are apparent, first in situating the collected essays within the field of "cultural disability studies" that grew out of identity studies (xiii), and then in aligning the "lens of disability" used to assemble these essays with a similar agenda that produced examinations of musical subjects using the lenses of race, class, and gender (1). garland-thomson perceives these subjects as a challenge or corrective outlook that "understands and investigates disability as a cultural product ... [arguing] against dominant traditional understandings of disability as medical pathology or individual inadequacy" (xiv). lerner and straus do not necessarily intend to correct or, in their word, "police" language about the topic of disability, but rather to use this particular scholarly lens to focus attention on "music as a physical manifestation of our embodiment, whether that be as listeners, composers, or performers" (1). thus there is a very broad area to cover, which makes for an inclusive environment to display various investigations of how disability has been represented musically. such breadth of coverage carries a liability, however, of seeming vague to the point of incredible relativism. garland-thomson's quip that "disability is everywhere in culture once you know how to look for it" (xiv) suggests that the boundaries of this new field of inquiry are defined locally by individual case study or subject. perhaps this merely confirms the nascent stage of the dialogues developing between music and disability, but even so this current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 153 154 current musicology should caution readers to be especially thorough in assessing the merits of speculation and preliminary research that promise further investigation. on the other hand, a new field of inquiry can hardly be expected to have fully formed criteria and methodologies. statements like the above are hallmarks of this newness, as are some of the less successful applications of analytical models wholesale in order to navigate through new ideological territory. in sketching the preliminary discursive parameters of this new inter­ disciplinary field, the editors proffer topics that "chart the cultural and social construction of disability in relation to many different kinds of non­ normative bodies and minds" (2). the emphasis on theorizing the cultural and social constructions surrounding disability is, they argue, different from studies that typically limit discussion to describing physical impairments such as blindness, deafness, bodily disfigurement, and mobility issues. offering different views on what "disability" means in terms of musical sensibilities, sixteen authors present a myriad of subjects that generate far more questions than answers. overall, these questions are generally lively and interesting, although some provoke serious reservations about the feasibility of further development in selected topics. the editors have grouped the sixteen collected essays into three sections: "narrating disability musically;' "performing disability musically," and "composing disability musically:' each section of essays addresses a diverse range of topics related to the group heading. for example, the six authors in the first section describe musical narrations of experiences with aids, cancer, stuttering, bereavement, blindness, and amputation. the authors cite musical styles and genres that narrate these experiences, and the repertoire encompasses popular song (past and present), film music, and "classical" music. the second section, comprised of five essays, presents essentially case studies of specific conditions affecting the performance, cognition, and perception of music. probing the unique peculiarities of conditions (mental and physical) that connote how an individual engages with music, these authors examine the disabilities of celebrities like glenn gould and julie andrews, but also the interior auditory world of people who are autistic, blind, or socially ostracized for other reasons. this middle section contains an essay by adam ockleford, the only scholar whose disciplinary specialty is not music. the five authors of the final section model methods of discerning disability encoded in musical form, rhetoric, and reception in specific musical repertoires. there are numerous topical cross-references throughout the anthology, which seem to be intentional strategies to prevent readers from classifying musical disability along an exact continuum or set of criteria. obvious spill­ overs of topics include the prodigious amount of attention paid to stuttering roles and lyrics (which appears in essays featured in both the first and second sarah schmalenberger sections) and the divergent interpretations of autism that figure into essays from both the second and third sections. the resulting effect of these and other linkages is one of confounding any tendency (conscious or otherwise) to construct from this collection a singular narrative argument that could constrict the field of inquiry before the scholarly community has thoroughly considered the ramifications of all that has been suggested here. in lieu of offering an extensive critique of each essay in this anthology, the following highlights of its more cogent hypotheses affirm the benefits of theorizing disability in music as a rewarding avenue of research. some cautionary comments are also offered in the hope that authors and readers alike will interrogate specific points that require clarification and correction. readers new to disability and music studies may wish to begin with essays that examine conditions familiarly understood as disabling or essays that address repertoire and genres that are familiar to them. working outward from known concepts, and noticing the connections between related topics, readers can then chart their own path through the concepts presented in the collection. those familiar with concert repertoire composed for one-handed pianists, for example, will comprehend easily the implications of demon­ izing this condition in neil lerner's critique of the 1946 horror film the beast with five fingers ("the horrors of one-handed pianism: music and disability in the beast with five fingers"), that featured a murderous disembodied hand that plays a quasi-brahmsian chaco nne when not strangling people. lerner argues convincingly for the "anxiety-provoking connotations attached to one-handed pianism" (75) by documenting the musical and dramatic precedents that led to the film project, and by noting the important contributions of film composer max steiner. in another effective essay on how film music can be read as encoding disability, kelly gross ("female subjectivity, disability, and musical authorship in krzystztof kieslowski's blue") considers the disability of disempowerment as rendered by bereavement in the film blue. carefully and clearly, gross narrates points in the film score where the bereaved widow strives at first to cling to her husband by preserving his compositions. as the score shifts from sounding his music to that of the bereaved protagonist's own emerging compositional voice, the debilitating effect of her grief that initially disabled her eventually succumbs to the power of new musical sounds discovered by "composing herself" a life without her husband and their daughter. in the second section of essays, dave headlam ("learning to hear autistically") and laurie stras ("the organ of the soul: voice, damage, and affect") reinterpret conditions of disability that have been understood as tragically excluding an individual from "society": autism and vocal damage. headlam argues persuasively for rejecting the simplistic notion of autism 155 156 current musicology as a developmentally disabled medical condition of social disengagement, and he describes autistics as comprising a richly diverse culture of people who simply exist and engage with their world on different behavioral and sensory planes. his speculation-that research on the musical cognition and perception of pitch in autistic people reflects a high-functioning mental and social capacity-suggests some truly enticing possibilities for developing new ways to engage with atonal and post-tonal music more deeply. stras offers some equally thoughtful observations comparing the socialization of medical diagnosis upon specific groups of people, in this case the different social values bestowed upon trained voices. whereas the misfortunes of maria callas and julie andrews, both of whom "lost their voices;' are interpreted as tragic losses among classical music connoisseurs, stras notes that audiences for other stylistic traditions interpret physically altered, damaged, or damaged-sounding voices (e.g., bessie smith and joe cocker) as gaining cultural credibility or "authenticity:' if stras were to reinforce her observations with additional data from research in medical trauma and from methods of reception theory more clearly, then she would not need to rely so heavily on references to barthes and freud, which seem tangential to her argument. several authors document the psychological traumatization of the dif­ ferently abled through various musical markers of their social stigmatization. daniel goldmark ("stuttering in american popular song, 1890-1930") and andrew oster ("melisma as malady: cavalli's ii giasone (1649) and opera's earliest stuttering role"), discuss stuttering in popular song and opera respectively, and they position music as a not-so-subtle reinforce­ ment of the social discomfort in seeing or hearing a person who moves or sounds unique from a group. the extent to which music has been crafted to humorize conditions of difference (not only stuttering in and of itself, but also the connotation of the stutterer as mentally or socially subfunctional) that are not funny to those castigated as different denotes the power of music to broadcast a community's methods of social wounding. their work, along with the work other authors in this collection who acknowledge the painful experiences of public response to difference (s. timothy maloney on glenn gould, stephanie jenson-moulton on "blind tom" wiggins), depicts the mean-spirited nature of societies whose members' fear and loathing of impairment, disability, or "other" conditions contribute to their need to contain and reject anyone perceived as too different for majority inclusion. moreover, these authors link the familiar or common understanding of music's representational capacity to the social construction of disability, and in so doing illustrate methods conducive to unpacking the contextual underpinnings of music and disability studies simultaneously. sarah schmalenberger readers who wish to explore how disability can be discerned in musical structures should consider carefully the essays that are grounded in analyzing "the music itself." some of these more traditional approaches to musical scholarship constitute the most problematic essays in this collection. most points of contention involve instances where the authors have conjectured too extensively about the interpretive gestures of a work, adopted analytical models too uncritically, or assumed an easy transference of perspective and method between disciplines. although these problems do not negate entirely the authors' basic hypotheses, some issues warrant further substantiation and/or explanation of their theories. the fashionable application of the "close reading" technique from literary criticism to music scholarship has benefits, but not without the risk of validating the interpreter's perspective as absolute. maria cizmic offers a close reading of musical representations of pain in the film adapta­ tion of margaret edson's play w;t ("of bodies and narratives: musical representations of pain and illness in hbo's w;t") about a terminal cancer patient's debilitating treatment. in detailing correspondences between the dramatic gestures and measures of the film score comprised of music by shostakovich, gorecki, and part, cizmic's interpretations seem rather micromanaged if she assumes others would perceive the same inferences. l. pundie burstein's provocative essay ("les chansons des fous: on the edge of madness with alkan") suggests correspondences between the virtuoso pianist charles-valentin alkan's stylistic eccentricities and his reportedly "mad" comportment. burstein could substantiate further his arguments that alkan's nonnormative musical gestures signify mental or emotional malady by identifying more clearly how they articulate difference beyond what others have documented as an overarching musical rhetoric of challenge to norma­ tive structures (both in the score and in performative displays of virtuosity) in nineteenth-century repertoires of concert music. diagrams intended to illustrate disability in music pose additional problems, as seen in two essays that are in dialogue with existing theoretical models in music. stephen rogers ("mental illness and musical metaphor in the first movement of hector berlioz's symphonie fantastique") distorts the intended meaning of "deformation" in sonata theory beyond the conclusions of the scholars he has summarized in his essay. in tracking the autobiographical structures in the symphonie fantastique, rogers has done little more than summarize the work of brattan, hepokoski, and darcy, and it would be best if readers consult those sources for a more thorough discussion of the work. similarly extending existing models beyond reasonable potential, joseph straus con­ flates to extremes schoenberg's concept of a "tonal problem" with embodied states of balance and symmetry ("inversional balance and the 'normal' body 157 158 current musicology in the music of arnold schoenberg and anton webern"). to be sure, new scholarship pushes the boundaries of existing theories; nevertheless, the process of illustrating the advantages of extending current concepts demands substantial documentation and explanation in order to project realistic new trajectories toward their logical and practical applications. among the more global theoretical models offered here for exploring disability in music, an ambitious one proposed by marianne kielian­ gilbert ("beyond abnormality-dis/ability and music's metamorphic subjectivities") advocates for a method that will explicate the rich texture of intersecting methods, perspectives, and critiques as transforming ("meta­ morphically") the fundamental nature of scholarship in this field. arguing against affixing perceived qualities of disability to one-dimensional physical signifiers, keilian-gilbert suggests blending "the aesthetic and material together in the sparks of unfamiliarity, contingency, and unforeseen connec­ tions that underlie their potential interactions" (232). unfortunately, these kinds of statements do not lead to clear enough applications of her ideas to either music or disability, and the crux of the essay remains grounded in proposal only. the imbalance between speculation and feasible pragmatic applications in subsequent research may signal problems in further defining the tenets of scholarly inquiry in this new area of interdisciplinary thought. theorizing disability in music, however, can offer opportunities for exploring new ideas and reinterpreting old ones, and this collection of essays suggests some of these possibilities. additional critique and scholarship will certainly test and refine what has been presented here. perhaps these preliminary explorations will encourage scholars to consider other constructions of disability, such as aging and its impact on musicians and musical repertoires, or the connections between music and healing that ethnomusicologists and music therapists have conducted in their research. finally, the need for critical documentation of the lived experiences of those who struggle with the social constructions of disability could expose the barriers to musical participation by people with disabilities in general. this would move the dialogue more toward advocacy and away from speculation about the role that music plays in representing these experiences, which perpetuates the access that able-bodied scholars have to musical and academic forums that substantiate (implicitly perhaps) their privilege to examine the disabled at their discretion. just as the impact of previous interdisciplinary collabora­ tions in music scholarship could not be predicted from the reception of their representative introductory anthologies alone, it will take time for sounding off to reverberate through the scholarly community before we can assess its full effect. current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 95 “melanin in the music”: black music history in sound and image charles d. carson in a power stronger than itself, george lewis undertakes the arduous task of “writing back in” to history a story that had, for the most part, been excluded. the resulting narrative casts new light on heretofore marginalized modes of african–american creativity, altering our conception of not only the jazz canon, but the entirety of (at least) the american musical tradition. in doing so, lewis forces us to ask one of the most difficult questions: what else have we missed? more than that, however, lewis’s project reveals an unwavering faith in the ability of music, art, literature, and dance to actively engage—and affect—ideas about community, identity, and history (xxxii). the aacm used the arts as a means of enacting change, and lewis’s account demonstrates the potential—if not the efficacy—of such work. the arts and the artists who create them form part of a conversation amongst all americans, one in which negotiations about who we were, are, and hope to be take place. with respect to african–american expressive practices, these conversations seem especially important, influenced as they are by discontinuities in historical narratives, legacies of oppression, and the increasing cooptation of black cultural practices. while lewis’s work is motivated by a need to question, and eventually revise, accepted narratives within the jazz tradition, such moves have become increasingly common among a variety of genres of black music in recent years. in jazz, soul/r&b, rock, pop, and hip–hop, contemporary musicians are attempting to draw attention to the systematic cooptation of black music by both the music industry and popular culture at large. ... take as a case in point mos def, a rapper who initially gained attention as one half of the underground hip–hop duo black star. while modest critical reception and the gold record status of his 1999 solo debut, black on both sides (rawkus records), did not make mos def a household name, it did provide evidence that the public was amenable to his thoughtful black nationalist–inspired philosophies and laid–back style of flow (posten 1999). among the album’s high points is the track, “rock n roll,” which—while predating lewis’ work by a decade—draws from the same critical and historiographic traditions. this song highlights what some might call inac“if you find yourself written out of history, you can feel free to write yourself back in…” —george lewis, a power stronger than itself current musicology 96 curacies in the historical record by reasserting the role of black musicians in the development of popular music. mos def seeks to set the record straight about popular music history, and offers into evidence a number of black artists he feels have been overlooked in favor of their lighter counterparts (table 1). many of the artists mos def singles out as those who “ain’t got no soul” belong to the pop pantheon, including the rolling stones and elvis presley. (curiously, smooth jazz saxophonist kenny g is also included in this category, likely as a foil to john coltrane.) moreover, the not un–ironic insistence that the black musicians listed under “is rock ‘n roll” are, in fact, rock n roll musicians sits in sharp contrast to the wide range of musical styles and genres that they represent: from jazz, to soul and r&b, to rock n roll itself. mos def ’s performance highlights not only the fact that the contributions and legacies of these (black) musicians have been largely ignored (or at the very least, coopted), but also how the influences of their associated genres have been overlooked. the implication is that this “whitewashing” has facilitated the arrogation of black musical genres. mos def ’s track is overtly concerned with this process, and issues a call for the reclamation of black music. “rock n roll” further complicates the relationship between these genres by foregrounding a sample from mobb deep’s 1999 track “allustrious,” in which rapper prodigy refers to hip–hop as “heavy metal for the black people” (murda musik). this statement has a dual meaning. by drawing together hip–hop and heavy metal in the same breath, the sample underscores the shared socio–political functions (such as giving voice to a dispossessed group) of these seemingly disparate musics. at the same time however, this statement can be read as a call to arms: a sonic reclamation of a coopted genre. in this case, prodigy and mos def (by proxy) seem to be calling for a re–appropriation of a musical lineage that often goes unremarked upon within the music industry, one that includes not only rock n roll, but even related genres like heavy metal. mos def appears to confirm this reading when, towards the end of the track, the style shifts from hip–hop to what can perhaps best be described as speed metal. speed metal (or perhaps thrash metal), as a sub–genre of rock n roll, is most often associated with white youth culture, and its use here represents what i believe to be a conscious effort on mos def ’s part to draw attention to the processes of appropriation, and—in effect— to take back the music (walser 1993, mahon 2004, pillsbury 2006). such acts of reclamation form the core discussion of this paper. the impetus behind this project concerns the ways in which important voices in black music history (and in this article, the united states specifically) have been ignored, overlooked, written out, or silenced in favor of what seem to be more or less widely accepted teleological narratives. perhaps charles d. carson 97 just as problematic, however, is that when black artists and their works are discussed, they often serve merely as romanticized reminders of the past—as nostalgia. in the following discussion, i would like to explore these ideas with respect to the relationship between african–american music and visual art. i will examine some ways in which contemporary artists and musicians use black music—as an index for black culture as a whole—to reclaim african– american history and memory. rather than focusing on loss, these artists celebrate the continued immediacy of the works they reference (and the past they represent) as a means of sidestepping the impotence of nostalgia. my reading of nostalgia is heavily influenced by film theorist paul grainge, who defines it as “a socio–cultural response to forms of discontinuity, claiming a vision of stability and authenticity in some conceptual ‘golden age’” (2002; 21). moreover, grainge sees—among other things—the commodification of memory as a primary motivation for the “culture of nostalgia” that developed around the middle of the twentieth century in the united states. the feelings of distance and loss, part and parcel of contemporary theories of nostalgia, are omnipresent in discourses surrounding popular music: reunion tours, compilations albums, or common tropes like “oldies,” “classic,” or “retro.” for recent examples in black popular music, one only has to look as far as the black eyed peas’ “they don’t want music” (monkey business, 2005) or—more prominently—the title track from prince’s 2004 double–platinum and double–grammy–winning album, musicology.1 both tracks invoke the past merely to lament how far current popular music has fallen. in glorifying the past as lost, such works promote seemingly unproblematic historical narratives, ones in which processes of appropriation are either ignored altogether, or helplessly shrugged off as a matter of fact. nostalgia can be very powerful from an emotional perspective—as a means of maintaining connections to an often meaningful past—but its weakness lies in its unquestioning romanticizing of that past. by continually looking backward, we forget to act now. instead of building upon that past, we fetishize it. scholars and artists like lewis and mos def seem to offer an alternative. like the best historians, they posit readings of the present that integrate re–readings of the past, and in doing so, expose both the discourses that inform the contemporary black experience, and the often hidden power structures that sustain those discourses. let me be clear: this approach is not new. lewis and mos def are certainly not the originators of this form of critique, but perhaps only among its most recent (and gifted) practitioners. it can be argued that such a relationship to the past is a constituent part of the african–american experience, with roots that can be traced back to the west african concept of sankofa—or, current musicology 98 “return and reclaim” (mbiti 1991). as a literary tradition, it extends at least as far back as gil scott heron, amiri baraka, or langston hughes. these writers resonate with the current discussion in that they worked, in various ways, to place music in a central position with respect to the formation and articulation of african–american identity. however, such critiques seem to have taken on greater urgency since the mid–twentieth century as the increased commodification of african–american cultural practices—music chief among them—continues to contribute to the speed of both their dissemination and appropriation (lott 1993, phinney 2005). in turn, the pace at which black musical practices are being unquestionably absorbed into the pop music repertoire threatens to weaken the recognition of the cultural ties between these expressive practices and the african–american community and its culture, which might be interpreted as a continuing act of oppression. no doubt for this reason we have seen a significant growth in the number, determination, and creativity of such critiques in a variety of modes of african–american cultural expression recently, and it is this thread i would like to take up in the remainder of this article. in his recent work, cultural codes (2010), william banfield takes such questions as a starting point for an exploration of african–american modes of expression. banfield articulates what he sees as a central concern among many members of the african–american arts community; namely, the growing disconnect between african–american cultural products and culture from which they are derived. as an african–american composer, performer, and educator, banfield’s discussion takes on a tone of urgency—he is particularly invested in these issues—but perhaps the most remarkable aspect of his argument is that it is even being made in the first place. nearly half a century after amiri baraka’s blues people, it would seem that we are still grappling with the relationship between black music and black identity within the larger context of american society. banfield, in more of a continuation of these earlier ideas than a revision of them, argues that such connections are vital not only to the creation of music, but also to understanding african–american contributions to the american cultural landscape. banfield’s ideas are useful for the current discussion on a number of levels. first, extending the work baraka began with blues people and black music, banfield places the music in a prominent position in his discussion. while obviously a result of his background, the current ubiquity of black music in the culture industry writ large enables him to connect to other areas, including economics, media, fashion, and—especially useful for the current discussion—visual arts. second, banfield draws on a number of approaches—from the aforementioned music–centeredness of baraka, to charles d. carson 99 asante’s afrocentrism, to gilroy’s critique of commodification—and in doing so, illustrates the continued relevance of these issues in the second decade of the twenty–first century. thus, banfield’s project makes a useful tool in that it ties together a number of ongoing critical approaches to black music, and underscores their present usefulness in both academic and popular contexts. at the center of banfield’s project is the outlining of “a philosophy driven by practiced codes, supported by an overarching aesthetic, and created by connected artists” (49). these codes both shape and result from the ideals and aesthetics of a culture, disseminated through its various art forms, whether consciously or not. though banfield gives artists and musicians the job of marking and maintaining these codes, his theory is grounded in populism. banfield insists upon a symbiotic relationship between the artist (including his/her works) and the culture (as practiced by “the folks”) to which the artist belongs. banfield’s philosophy is motivated by a concern for history, the recognition of unique artistic voices, an engagement with social themes, and the construction and distribution of the images, rituals, and expressions of black culture (23). black expressive forms—like music—both contain and inform black cultural codes. moreover, black music’s ubiquity in contemporary american society (and in the market) both extends its reach and heightens its impact within this context. taken together, these factors place black music in a central position with respect to the processes of culture formation. thus, references to elements of black music—whether forms, structures, practices, repertoires, or merely intertextual allusions—can be used to tie non–musical artforms to these black cultural codes through what banfield calls “the unique aesthetics of black musical expression (94).” visual artists, like the ones discussed below, can use black music as a means of tapping into the aesthetics, processes, and values of black culture in the u.s. my interest in the relationship between african–american music and contemporary african–american visual art began in earnest in the fall of 2008, when i was approached by julie mcgee, a colleague at the university of delaware, to collaborate on a project exploring this theme, which resulted in an exhibition entitled sound:print:record: african american legacies. rather than just showcasing works inspired by or featuring music and musicians, we spent the better part of a year reading, listening, and meeting with black artists, while discussing with them the role that music plays in african–american visual arts. for many of the artists we spoke with or studied, music seemed to provide a framework for the creation, performance, and interpretation of black identit(ies), both individual and collective. (mcgee and carson 2009). the emphasis in this paper is on performance and interpretation, as the wide variety of artistic expressions current musicology 100 we observed demonstrated the multiple readings and articulations of blackness available to individuals at the close of the second millennium. in the works we surveyed, there seems to be a division: whereas many works by earlier artists appear to capture or depict romanticized elements of a now lost past, contemporary works of the twenty–first century are more apt to attempt an engagement with black histories—real or imagined—as a means of making political and/or personal statements about that past.2 grainge’s “golden age” has been replaced by a more insistent criticism of the legacies we, as a society, have inherited. what changed? our experience in curating the exhibition suggests that many african–american contemporary artists and musicians are, generally, hyper–aware of processes of commodification, and are mindful of the ways in which the reception of their works is affected by the kinds of cooptation of black culture addressed in banfield’s work. thus, many tend to use their art to police, undermine, and ultimately reclaim control over ideas of history and memory, whether personal, communal, or cultural. this was evident in several recent (post–2000) works we included as a part of the sound:print:record exhibition.3 as one example, i would point to after an afternoon, a 2008 installation by whitfield lovell (figure 1). lovell is a new york–based african–american artist and a 2007 macarthur fellow. lovell’s works show a preoccupation with bygone eras, often integrating period artifacts that he repurposes to make powerful personal statements about the past (otterness 2005). he is perhaps best known for his life–sized portraits based on african–american vintage photographs, which he reproduces on large pieces of wood, furniture, or other found objects. at first glance, the work appears to be intensely nostalgic, constructed as it is of distressed vintage radios. bakelite and wood grain are punctuated by shocks of pastel pink and seafoam green. but upon closer inspection, the work appears to critique notions of a fixed and romanticized idea of the past. to begin with, sound is central to the work. it includes a soundtrack ostensibly emanating from the radios themselves, despite the fact that the radios are not plugged in. this literal disconnectedness highlights the gulf that exists between then and now, and offers a clue about how this work engages with the past. the sounds, it seems, are merely echoes; past as it is recalled, not as it was. we are discouraged from trusting what we see, hear, and, thus, remember. the piece utilizes three superimposed sonic layers: a walter winchell broadcast, an excerpt of cbs radio’s the beulah show, and two performances by billie holiday. the inclusion of walter winchell, the ever–present voice of wwii–era radio, seems to situate us in a particular historical moment charles d. carson 101 (the 1940s) as a sonic–temporal reference point. the foundations of this reference point are shaky, however, given winchell’s reputation for gossip, scandal, and dubious reportage. again, the past as we know it is not to be taken at face value. the beulah show, which ran on cbs radio from 1945 until 1954, also presents us with a complicated picture of history. the series focused on the weekly adventures of the henderson family, viewed from the perspective of their african–american “domestic,” beulah brown. though the character was created in 1939, it was not until the third season of the radio show (1947) that beulah would actually be voiced by an african–american woman (initially, academy award winner hattie mcdaniel, though ethel waters would play the character after its move to tv). prior to that, the role was performed by a series of white males (dates and barlow 1993, kolbert 1993). thus, the beulah soundtrack represents both the media’s (quite literal) appropriation of african–american culture and identity, and an early attempt by african–americans to wrest back control of their own representation. these sounds are woven together by recordings of billie holiday’s figure 1: whitfield lovell, “after an afternoon.” courtesy of whitfield lovell and dc moore gallery. current musicology 102 performances of “yesterdays” and “strange fruit.” one of the most iconic african–american performers, the mere inclusion of holiday’s highly recognizable voice in the sonic landscape of after an afternoon ties that work to the kinds of black expressive practices that are highlighted in banfield’s philosophy. as we grapple with the issues of representation stirred by references to the beulah show, the presence of holiday’s voice—as an index of the (missing) black performing body—enables the installation as a whole to draw upon black aesthetics in a way that highlights the absence of the black subject. furthermore, while kern & harbach’s “yesterdays” seems a rather straightforward evocation of the past, its pairing with “strange fruit”— jewish–american songwriter abel meeropol’s musical response to a lynching photograph—forces a re–reading of it that complicates the impulse to hear it as nostalgic. taken together, these works certainly recall the past, but it is not a past to be lamented as lost. our relationship to that past is ambiguous: it is a past that we both want to forget it, and need to remember. here, music works to evoke and disrupt our view of the past, compelling us to confront the darker moments of our history. lovell’s piece references modes of nostalgia that are familiar to us, but its self–awareness enables it to avoid being nostalgic itself. through the work’s intertextuality, the past, history, and memory collapse upon themselves, leaving behind the question: what does the past have yet to teach us? to that end, the piece can be read as a cautionary tale about the limitations, ambiguities, and even dangers of nostalgia. one might consider the musical group the carolina chocolate drops to be the musical analogue to lovell’s visual approach, incorporating—in their own way—a sort of “found object” aesthetic. in the same way that lovell reconfigures discarded or forgotten materials, the carolina chocolate drops draw from discarded or forgotten musical traditions—namely, black string bands. currently built around rhiannon giddens, dom flemons, adam matta, and hubby jenkins, the predominately african–american quartet (giddens is of mixed heritage) has built a solid reputation within roots and folk music circles as gifted interpreters of string band music. or should we say re–interpreters? beginning in 2005, several of the musicians who would come to be known as the carolina chocolate drops began an informal apprenticeship under joe thompson, considered to be one of the last of the black piedmont fiddlers.4 in subsequent years, the group—no doubt riding the wave of the roots music revival of the past decade—continued to perform a mixture of their mentor’s repertoire, original works, and even roots–inspired covers of songs from other genres (farris 2008). while they themselves recognize that (what some may perceive as) the charles d. carson 103 novelty of african–american roots music performers may have lead to their early and rapid success, they represent a continuation of a tradition, not a departure. the contributions of african–american genres and musicians to american folk, traditional, or roots music have been largely underappreciated of late, displaced by more the common narratives of blues and jazz development (with one of the few exceptions being conway 1995). while it is true that the folk revival of the 50s and 60s was critical in helping gain recognition for an entire generation of african–american blues and folk musicians, the largely white faces of that revival (odetta notwithstanding!) and the rock music that came out of it have contributed to an erasure of the black influence in the ensuing years.5 as performers, the carolina chocolate drops reclaim some of this lost legacy, reinserting african–american voices in places where they have typically been absent or silenced. like lovell’s work, however, this is not an expression of loss or longing, but rather a corrective. take, for example, the performance of “snowden’s jig” from their 2010 grammy–winning effort. subtitled “genuine negro jig” (also the name of the album), it refers to a composition attributed to the prominent blackface minstrel performer, daniel decatur emmett. some disagreement exists as to the true authorship of this piece, however, with some claiming that emmett took the song—as well as his most famous composition, “dixie”—from his black neighbors, the snowden family of ohio (fiskin 1995). the carolina chocolate drops’ re–christening of the melancholy tune is therefore an overtly political act of re–appropriation, one intended to recover lost historical narratives. such a move not only sheds light on the roles played by black composers and performers in early american music, but also forces us to confront the means and reasoning behind their exclusion in the first place. discontinuity and disjuncture are common enough elements of african–american conceptions of history, influenced as they are by that discontinuity par excellence, the middle passage. with this in mind, one must consider the effects of such ruptures upon individual or community identity formation. what is the end result of gaps in the historical record? how are our experiences of the present affected by the histories we have been given? or, put more plainly: what would the present look like if the narratives of our past included things like black roots music? while their acoustic cover of african–american r&b singer blu cantrell’s 2001 single “hit ‘em up style” (from so blu) may at first seem to be a tongue–in–cheek answer to such lofty questions, the carolina chocolate drops’ performance of this song goes a long way towards reshaping our understanding of the relationship between the past and the present in black music. a call for jilted women to get back at their lovers by spending all current musicology 104 of their money, “hit ‘em up style” was the breakout hit of cantrell’s debut album. in the carolina chocolate drops’ version, however, the aural mismatch of the fiddle, beatbox (adam matta), and gidden’s take on cantrell’s lyrics may initially seem somewhat unusual. listening closely, however, we realize that these two performances are, in fact, not that far apart. in terms of content, the song belongs to a long tradition of “woman scorned” songs, stretching back at least to works like ma rainey’s “don’t fish in my sea”, bessie smith’s “ain’t gonna play no second fiddle,” and countless others. the natural minor outlined by the melody gives the song a modal tinge, one that connects this song to the earlier folk songs that form the core of the carolina chocolate drops’ repertoire. both versions have a distinct rhythmic groove, the result of moderate tempo and significant inflection on weak beats. the clarity and power of gidden’s voice certainly doesn’t take away from the carolina chocolate drops’ performance, either. but the point is not that the carolina chocolate drops’ version can sound like contemporary r&b. rather, in this track, the carolina chocolate drops recover some of the possibilities of black musical expression perhaps lost by the exclusion of roots music from the narrative of black music history. bringing their tradition in line with contemporary black musics, they emphasize both the continuities and discontinuities between them. if nostalgia entails looking back at the past through the lens of the present, this example inverts such a definition. the carolina chocolate drops offer us a view of the present—or at least a potential present—viewed from the perspective of a newly rediscovered past. again, the effect is decidedly un–nostalgic. its themes are not distance and loss, but immediacy and recovery. this instills in both the music and its history a sense of novelty, vitality, and relevance that is key to the performers’ sustained engagement with the politics of representation. as the carolina chocolate drops themselves say: “it is ok to mix it up and go where the spirit moves” (carolina chocolate drops 2011). if, as scholars such as banfield argue, commodification, focus groups, and marketing departments have severed (or at the very least, concealed) the ties between black musics and black cultural codes, then examples like this represent an attempt to attenuate the effects of such processes. but the goal is not to show how this or that music or genre is or is not “black.” superficial similarities like lyrical content or mode do not go very far. rather, it is a question of understanding the roles that such performances play in constructing alternative representations of blackness, and how we might use these alternatives to create an awareness of the methods and meanings behind black representation in popular media. the “methods of popular media” lie at the heart of african–american artist jefferson pinder’s multi–year work, entitled the missionary project.6 charles d. carson 105 part performance–art, part social experiment, the missionary project addresses issues of black identity and representation on the subways of mexico city. central to this project is a mix tape, created by pinder, which contains audio examples representing many facets of black identity. donning a backpack with built–in speakers, pinder spends days riding the city’s transportation system, the sounds of “blackness” emanating from him—a black male—as he sells these cds to passengers on the train for ten pesos each. in pinder’s own words: i went forth to create a “mix–cd” of music that would represent my culture, my home [the us], and myself . . . a product that represents identity in a way that is truthful to my knowledge of what “blackness” is . . . (pinder 2009; quoted in mcgee and carson 2009, 21) pinder continues, noting that he: . . . use[s] music to inform and enhance the listener’s understanding of the depth of the afro–american experience and in some way present a complete and dynamic non–commercial interpretation of the power of black music . . . (21) by doing this, pinder hopes to create a space for public dialogue about identity writ large. pinder’s focus on mexico city is motivated, in part, by that country’s complicated past vis–à–vis its indigenous peoples, its role in the african slave trade, and contemporary immigration issues. these issues are heightened by the government’s socialist philosophies, wherein pinder believes “minorities and their interests are swallowed up by mainstream culture” (pinder 2009). pinder sees himself as an “ambassador, ” a role which he considers to be both a “burden and a privilege” (pinder 2009). music’s part in this is vital, since it is through the normally highly commodified medium of music that he makes statements about the commercial nature of black representation. by using the industry’s own products—recombined and repackaged—he contradicts commercialized representations of black identity. the mix–cd contains, among other things, tracks by seminal black artists like james brown and gil scott–heron, shaggy’s “chica bonita,” and excerpts from martin luther king, jr.’s “i have been to the mountaintop” speech. it also includes a mexican folk song for children and audio from the apollo 11 launch. while pinder’s works adds a global perspective that is somewhat beyond the purview of this article, it is important to note the variety of works he considers to be “black.” like the carolina chocolate drops’ set list, this variety complicates common notions of blackness and reveals the exceedingly personal nature of identity formation. current musicology 106 this complexity is made visible in another of pinder’s works, music missionaries (2008), a woodblock print which adorns the front of the cds pinder makes and sells (figure 2). iconic representations of african– american musicians (including robert johnson and billie holiday), scenes from black life, and images of slavery are juxtaposed against african folk elements and mexican calaveras. as in his live “performances,” these themes are unified by a train motif signifying motion, change, or progress. art historian julie mcgee sums it up thusly: pinder’s work activates cultural constructions of african american culture and deploys aural and visual codes of signification that at once invoke a ‘black familiar’ and then destabilize tautological relationships between african american art and sound. (mcgee and carson 2009, 21) such “destabilization” is the focus of the present study. by placing elements of african–american culture in a broader (international) context, pinder questions us–centric ideas of blackness, while simultaneously using those same conceptions to challenge problematic post–racial policies in mexico. figure 2: jefferson pinder, “music missionaries.” courtesy of g-fine art. charles d. carson 107 thus far, i have tried to uncover some shared elements between african–american visual arts and music—elements through which artists and musicians reshape conceptions of the past. my final pair of examples, i hope, will illustrate just how entwined art, music, and history can be, and how this interconnectedness can be used to great artistic, intellectual, and political effect. ellington robinson, an african–american visual artist specializing in mixed media, often turns to musical topics or materials in his projects. the son of a us diplomat, he spent much of his youth divided between washington, d.c. and st. croix. in the virgin islands, his family lived on a former plantation—which robinson considered to be “a constant reminder of our past”—a fact which is evident in virtually all of his works (robinson 2011). similarly, jazz pianist and composer jason moran describes his music as “music that starts from a historical place” (macarthur foundation interview 2010). moran, a houston–born musician who was later mentored by jaki byard at the manhattan school of music, has built a solid reputation in the jazz world based on his unique mixture of old and new approaches to the music. both artists are concerned with history and its meanings, and—born in the same year (1975)—they share similar musical interests and influences. they grew up alongside contemporary american popular musics (most notably, hip–hop), but both cite genres like blues and jazz as important influences, too—robinson through his father’s record collection, and moran through his enduring fascination with thelonious monk. this musical eclecticism proved to be influential on their artistic development, as many of their projects involve an assimilation of these elements. despite their different artistic areas—visual arts and music, respectively—a common thread between their works is a processual approach. that is, many of their pieces actively engage their subject matter and perform a re–reading of it staged specifically for us—the audience. thus, history is not past; it is immediate. each artist sees himself as a participant in a history that is constantly being (re)written. works like robinson’s 2007 sculpture the last is preparing to leave (figure 3) or moran’s recording of “planet rock” (from modernistic, 2002) reflect each artist’s eclecticism, blurring the lines between genres, styles, or historical period. the last is preparing to leave is a sculpture constructed of a metallic cassette tape, gel, toys, and hip–hop cassette labels. the image of the train reappears here, symbolizing the movement of the music (in this case, the hip–hop alluded to in the affixed labels) that helped robinson retain connections to his african–american community in the us while living in the virgin islands. moreover, the juxtaposition of hip–hop and the train also recalls the prominent role of subway cars in early urban hip–hop culture: tagging trains as a means of gaining recognition for your crew outside of current musicology 108 your local neighborhood. thus, these tracks (in both senses of the word) served as a primary means of communication both within and beyond a given community. though music is not present here in a sonic sense, its use as a symbol points to its power as a means for forging connections between individuals and their communities or cultures. moran’s music is a bit more overt in its nod to the past—he directly quotes his musical progenitors. memories and influences are re–enacted and reconsidered in a very present way. as a cover of a track by the seminal early hip–hop dj, afrika bambaataa, moran’s version begins with a recreation of the original track’s signature roland 808 beat, reproduced on acoustic piano figure 3: ellington robinson, “the last is preparing to leave.” courtesy of ellington robinson. charles d. carson 109 through the insertion of paper between the instrument’s strings. moran continues by not only playing the track’s melodic hook—a sample taken from “trans–europe express” by german electronic pop pioneers kraftwerk—but also by emulating the rapped call–and–response vocal interjections of the mcs (members of bambaataa’s group, soulsonic force). in an interesting take on the straight–ahead jazz practice of improvising on a given chord progression, moran uses these elements as a starting point for an exploration of the sonic (not harmonic) world of “planet rock.” this cover therefore lies at the intersection of jazz, early hip–hop, electronic pop music (through the kraftwerk reference), and the art music avant garde (through the use of prepared piano). while the allusions contained in moran’s “planet rock” are perhaps more obvious to the casual observer than those in robinson’s work, they are no less effective. both works speak by layering references to earlier works and disparate genres, and infusing them with highly personalized experiences, associations, and connections. this reconfiguring of the familiar challenges master–narratives of style and genre development, and—often linked to these concepts—temporality itself. ellington’s and moran’s works are always intensely present, despite their frequent references to earlier times, places, and musics. moran’s performance of “you’ve got to be modernistic” (also from modernistic), first recorded by james p. johnson in the 1930s, shows the younger musician’s indebtedness to early virtuosos like johnson. but, despite the original’s place in the canon, moran doesn’t just “cover” the tune; this is not a rehearsal of obsessive nostalgia. rather, moran engages the earlier recording in a conversation, quoting it, repeating its figures, but just as often stopping to give a particular musical fragment special attention. in some instances, he fixatedly repeats a fragment, turning it over and over in his hands—seeing what makes it tick—before picking up where he left off. this process results in a work that may sound different than johnson’s original, but that difference is more a result of a process of interrogation than a conscious departure. obviously, moran draws from the jazz tradition (improvising on a harmonic model), but he also departs from it in fundamental ways. he frequently interrupts the harmonic progression, rhythmic flow, and pulse in a way that clouds the form and structure of the original work. the effect is telling: rather than using the original as a vehicle for improvisation, his version specifically refers to johnson’s version through quotation and reference. both versions remain vehicles for virtuosity. moran’s is a new and separate reading, to be sure, but it is a reading that is acutely aware of its relationship to it predecessor, to an extent that goes beyond mere homage. moran deconstructs the earlier work out of curiosity, respect, or even reverence. current musicology 110 here, we are hearing the process of engaging with the past. moran succeeds in retaining that which is “modernistic” about the piece, but he does so for a contemporary audience. a similar move informs the final work i would like to consider. robinson’s 2006 collage, melanin in the music i (figure 4), is a visual work constructed of material elements taken from old lps, mostly from his father’s collection. album covers, inner sleeves, and even the vinyl itself comprise this dense and textured work. the album art is barely visible, obscuring the individual recordings included in the collage like so many familiar yet forgotten tunes. nevertheless, a cursory glance may reveal a few of the more iconic jazz cover art examples of the 1960s, including dexter gordon’s go, lee morgan’s the sidewinder, and eric dolphy’s out to lunch—albums which evoke a particular moment rooted in mid–century afromodernist aesthetics. figure 4: ellington robinson, “melanin in the music i.” courtesy of ellington robinson. charles d. carson 111 but this evocation is layered. in addition to the impressionistic use of the cover art images, the backs of the albums are arranged so as to form a regular, geometric pattern. with its mixture of strict grids, angled intersections, and large circles, the pattern recalls the footprint of robinson’s own washington, dc. built by slaves, and labeled a “chocolate city” since the late–1950s, dc has long been a lightning rod for issues of race and class—heightened by its political importance. the thick layering of sepia in this work—melanin, perhaps—serves to remind us of dc’s black legacy by quite literally re–inscribing blackness onto the geography of a city whose white–washed domes and monuments often overshadow the struggles of the large, mostly black population (a population which still lacks voting congressional representation). through his use of musical artifacts and materials, robinson succeeds in offering a corrective to established narratives of american history that recognize dc as a seat of power without acknowledging the ongoing struggles of its least powerful residents. like in the mos def example with which we began, robinson seeks to reclaim a history that has been systematically ignored, erased, and rewritten. and— similar to moran’s performance, as well—he does this by confronting this history from a highly individualistic point of view. black music, both as a product of african–american culture and an increasingly transcultural commodity, lies at the center of debates about race, culture, nationalism, and capitalism. each of the works considered here engages with music in different ways, but their shared concern is an awareness of music’s role in offering a re–interpretation of an african– american past—or, perhaps more to the point—ideas about that past: art as historiography. as in the earlier discussion of nostaligia , it could be said that the works included in this discussion are not so much “black” (whatever that may mean) as they are “about blackness.” they attempt to illustrate and challenge the many ways blackness, or even history, can be performed. in contrast to the hollow rehearsal of the past—nostalgia—the works discussed above invoke the past as a challenge to our way of thinking. consequently, the past is made present, and its legacy is not one of loss, but of potential. current musicology 112 notes 1. in the track, prince laments: “don’t you miss the feeling music gave you back in the day?” 2. to be fair, many of these earlier works are products of different times, and as such had different goals—the work of photographer p.h. polk (1898–1984) being a telling example. polk’s oeuvre, which is dominated by portraits of prominent african–americans taken during his tenure as the official photographer of the tuskegee institute, reflects an interest in representing the variety of black experiences, and as such are exceptional works of their time. for contemporary audiences, however, they perhaps lack the urgency of post–civil rights era activism. 3. the majority of the exhibition was drawn from works in the paul r. jones collection housed at the university of delaware. to this, we added works by artists whose approaches to the relationship between music and visual art reflected or enhanced the spirit of the exhibition, with particular attention to living artists (mostly from the mid–atlantic region). 4. the piedmont region is located along the eastern part of the united states, between the appalachian mountains and the coastal regions along the atlantic. it stretches at least as far north as eastern pennsylvania/new jersey, and as far south as alabama. the musical traditions of this region, while certainly related to those of the upland south (appalachian music), are distinct in that they show more influence of blues and early ragtime. 5. a telling example of this can be seen by comparing the original release of harry smith’s anthology of american folk music (1952)—a racially varied recording which helped launch the folk revival—with the 1999 tribute album the harry smith project: an anthology of american folk revisited. the latter album features covers of several of the works that appeared on the original anthology, now performed by mostly white musicians. moreover, despite the inclusion of a number of works by black performers on the soundtrack to the 2000 coen brothers film o brother, where art thou?, the roots revival it sparked was certainly coded white, as made evident by the concert film down from the mountain, which documented a concert of music from the film performed at the historic grand ole opry in nashville, tn. 6. videos documenting this project are available via jefferson pinder’s website, www.jeffersonpinder.com/newsite/work/missionary–project [accessed 10–01–2011]. references asante, molefi k. 1998. the afrocentric idea. philadelphia: temple university press. black eyed peas. 2005. monkey business. a&m b0004341-02. cd. baraka, amiri [le roi jones]. 1963. blues people: negro music in white america. new york: morrow quill paperbacks. baraka, amiri [le roi jones]. 1967. black music. new york: w. morrow. cantrell, blu. 2001. so blu. arista 07822-14703-2. cd. carolina chocolate drops. 2011. carolina chocolate drops. website. <http://www.carolinachocolatedrops.com>. conway, cecelia. 1995. african banjo echoes in appalachia: a study of folk traditions. knoxville: university of tennessee press. dates, jannette lake, and william barlow. 1993. split image: african americans in the mass media. washington, dc: howard university press. farris, lynn. 2008. carolina chocolate drops: the kids are all right. in making notes: music of the carolinas. a. wicker, ed. charlotte, nc: novello festival press. fisher fiskin, shelley. 1995. interrogating “whiteness,” complicating “blackness”: remapping american culture. american quarterly 47 (3): 428-466. charles d. carson 113 gilroy, paul. 1993. the black atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. gilroy, paul. 2000. against race: imagining political culture beyond the color line. cambridge, ma: belknap press of harvard university press. grainge, paul. 2002. monochrome memories: nostalgia and style in retro america. westport, ct: praeger. kolbert, elizabeth. 1993. from beulah to oprah: the evolution of black images on tv. new york times (15 january). lewis, george. 2008. a power stronger than itself: the aacm and american experimental music. chicago: university of chicago press. lott, eric. 1993. love and theft: blackface minstrelsy and the american working class, race and american culture. new york: oxford university press. macarthur foundation. 2010. macarthur fellows interview: jason moran. <http://www. macfound.org/fellows/36>. mahon, maureen. 2004. right to rock: the black rock coalition and the cultural politics of race. durham: duke university press. mbiti, john s. 1991. introduction to african religion. 2nd rev. ed. oxford, england; portsmouth, nh: heinemann educational books. mcgee, julie l., charles d. carson. 2009. sound:print:record: african american legacies. [exhibition catalog] university of delaware, university museums. mobb deep. 1999. murda muzik. loud ck 63715. cd. moran, jason. 2002. modernistic. blue note 7243 5 39838 2 6. cd. mos def. 1999. black on both sides. rawkus p2-50141. cd. otterness, tom. 2005. artists on artists: tom otterness on whitfield lovell. bomb (91): 8-9. phinney, kevin. 2005. souled american: how black music transformed white culture. new york: billboard books. pillsbury, glenn t. 2006. damage incorporated: metallica and the production of musical identity. new york: routledge. pinder, jefferson. 2009. missionary project statement. unpublised. [reprinted in sound:print:record catalog]. posten, kem. 1999. mos testifies, monch eats. the village voice. <http://www.villagevoice. com/1999-11-09/music/mos-testifies-monch-eats/>. prince. 2004. musicology. npg ck 92560. cd. robinson, ellington. 2011. ellington robinson website. <http://www.ellingtonr.com>. walser, robert. 1993. running with the devil: power, gender, and madness in heavy metal music. hanover, nh: university press of new england. current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 73 come out to show the split subject: steve reich, whiteness, and the avant–garde siarhei biareishyk steve reich’s come out (1966) begins with articulated speech—a mere sentence—and in the span of 12 minutes and 54 seconds, by way of looping and phasing, it deteriorates into utter noise. come out is a tribute to the harlem six case (1964) in which six african–american youths were falsely accused of murder. the voice in the composition belongs to one of these six men, daniel hamm; the noise at the end is a product of reich’s experimentation in the development of what was then a new avant–garde technique. jacques attali theorizes music as an “organization of noise,” arguing that music is “inscribed between noise and silence, in the space of the social codification” (attali 11;20). in order to transcend the musical tradition and its own time, many avant–garde composers appeal to this sphere of noise—a sphere identified as the “other” of music; through the composer’s intervention, such noise becomes the avant-garde’s music. in reich’s come out, the composer ostensibly identifies the noise as the signifier in the sphere of technology, namely, in tape recordings; and yet, one must insist on the question, why is the recorded voice that of a black man—of the domain that whiteness constructs as its other? as i will argue, this sphere of noise, for the avantgarde musician, shares functional equivalence with what jacques lacan theorizes as the function of the “big” other. it is nevertheless necessary to insist that the lacanian field of the other is a battery of signifiers; it is the field of the symbolic order that is understood as the other of being, which is by no means synonymous with racial otherness. if the lacanian other then overlaps with racial otherness, as i contend it does in the case of steve reich’s come out and the avant–garde music more generally in a greater scope, it is a result of historical contingency and not structural necessity. but this historical contingency is a reason enough to insist relentlessly on the conditions of such historical manifestation; one must question all the more “through the effects of speech, the subject always realizes himself more in the other, but he is already pursuing there more than half of himself. he will simply find his desire ever more divided, pulverized, in the circumscribable metonymy of speech.” – jacques lacan “i didn’t want to sound balinese or african, i wanted to think balinese or african.” – steve reich current musicology 74 rigorously: why, in the development of the western avant–garde music does the field of the other fall on the voice of racialized otherness? what is the function of this other in reconstituting a subjectivity in crisis? these are just a few of the questions that i address in this essay as i interpret reich’s come out within a ternary constellation of whiteness studies, theories of the avant–garde, and psychoanalysis. i demonstrate a functional isomorphism between the constitution of the contemporary whiteness subjectivity considered by wiegman and the subjectivity of the avant–garde (developed through both bürger and groys), while locating both cases as a manifestation of an ontological split in the constitution of the subject of secular modernity (lacan). this homology is most succinctly summarized in the fact that the subjectivity in question—both the avant–garde and that of contemporary whiteness—seeks to transgress its own constitutive condition; in other words, it attempts to negate that which defines it at the most profound level. the psychoanalytic approach furthermore allows one to interrogate the necessity of such a split, yet it also accounts for the contingent and historical dimensions of the split manifested in the subject’s transferential investment in racialized otherness. a close reading of reich’s exemplary text, come out, demonstrates the function of racial otherness at work both in the development of the avant–garde music, as well as in the reconstitution of contemporary whiteness. constructing non–racist white subjectivity, retaining its privilege in his essay “a report from occupied territory,” james baldwin describes the overwhelming presence of the police as a physical means of control over african americans and puerto ricans in 1964 harlem—a situation characteristic of other major cities throughout the unites states at that time. baldwin illustrates the function of the law as representing whiteness, whereby the senseless violence against racial minorities serves as a token of power that seeks to subdue and to maintain the dominance of whiteness in the united states. baldwin insists that the police in harlem “are present to keep the negro in his place and to protect white business interests, and they have no other function” (baldwin 1966). these conditions determine the context for the case known as the harlem six, in which six african–american youths were falsely accused of the murder of a jewish storekeeper. after the arrest, the accused were brutally beaten and forced to confess to the murder; the outcome of the initial trial resulted in life sentences, in which the authorities denied each of the accused independent representation. the actions of the police in arresting the young men in the harlem six case and subsequently submitting them to torture explicitly represents the broader siarhei biareishyk 75 function of the power apparatus of whiteness. reich composed his come out—an early work seminal to reich’s career to be recognized as a major western composer—as a part of a benefit concert that raised funds so that the youths could afford an independent lawyer. yet, one is left wondering: is come out merely a testament to the legacy of the harlem six, or is it much more telling about the developing sound of avant–garde music of the time? as a result of the benefit show, in which reich was one of many participants, enough money was raised for a retrial of the accused, this time with independent representation in court. the harlem six case was dropped after it came to light that the evidence used in the original trial was fabricated—the case, along with other significant civil rights cases during this period, grew to symbolize the corruption and racial discrimination of the judicial system in new york and the united states (gopinath 2009:121–128; reich 2002e: 22). in come out, reich chooses a single sentence from hours of recorded interviews with all six of the accused juveniles as the only material for the entire composition. the recorded voice of daniel hamm, one of the harlem six, says: “i had to, like, open the bruise up and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them.” whereas hamm’s voice is directly audible in the utterance, the work also entails the latent voice of the composer—a voice embedded in the structure of the piece, inaudible but nonetheless present in the compositional choices of the author in manipulations of hamm’s statement. running parallel to the relation between hamm’s voice and reich’s authorial choices in the musical composition is the relation of their respective positions in society. whereas the harlem six find themselves on trial largely judged based on the black identity of the accused, reich’s compositional choices—not unlike the function of whiteness—remain invisible/inaudible, despite their ubiquitous presence. while the privilege of whiteness and racism are not to be thought apart, considering the relation between reich and hamm’s voice shifts the question to the privilege of whiteness and the construction of non–racist white subjectivity. robyn wiegman locates the desire for non–racist white subjectivity as predominant in contemporary whiteness and, furthermore, articulates this problem in the context of whiteness studies in the academy as the limit case of contemporary whiteness. because the main critique lodged against whiteness has localized its privilege in its assumption of invisibility and universality, wiegman locates the predominant strategy of whiteness studies in the construction of a non–racist white subject in that it seeks to expose whiteness as particularity, thereby denying its status of an empty category. yet wiegman also points to the fact that this desire is in part complicit in the perpetuation of white privilege, insofar as it is a component in the structural constitution of contemporary white subjectivity. wiegman describes this current musicology 76 contemporary white subjectivity as split “between disaffiliation from white supremacist practices and disavowal of the ongoing reformation of white power and one’s benefit from it” (120). she then proceeds to demonstrate that the two sides of the split—the first, non–racist particularity, and the second, universal privilege of whiteness—are codependent. as wiegman points out, “the political project for the study of whiteness entails not simply rendering whiteness particular but engaging with the ways that being particular will not divest whiteness of its universal epistemological power” (150). thus, the mission of contemporary whiteness studies to diffuse racism may surface as yet another manifestation of an attempt to construct contemporary non–racist whiteness, whereby even in rendering whiteness as particularity it unwittingly reconstitutes whiteness as a category of privilege. in all this, it is crucial to note the formal paradox underlying contemporary whiteness: the construction of a non–racist white subjectivity seeks to disavow the very condition (racism and white privilege) that constitutes this subjectivity. theorizing the avant–garde the structure of the split in contemporary whiteness that wiegman describes can be further located, in a subtler way, in reich’s come out. while it is also true that reich does share the sentiment of contemporary whiteness that seeks to construct a non–racist white subject, more importantly, the parallel between reich’s composition and contemporary whiteness is one of functional equivalence, rather than of composer identity. this functional equivalence becomes evident if come out is considered in the context of developments in twentieth–century western classical music belonging to the avant–garde tradition. reich’s work is usually discussed as pivotal to the development of the american minimalist music emerging in the 1960s (incidentally, the very period to which wiegman traces the advent of the phenomenon of contemporary whiteness in question); along with the music of la monte young, terry riley, and philip glass, reich’s work belongs to a greater tradition of radical aesthetic practice going back to the historical european avant–garde. peter bürger, in his book theory of the avant–garde, characterizes “avant–garde” not according to a certain style, but rather as an attack on the function of art as an institution which guarantees “apartness of the work of art from the praxis of life” (25). a double paradoxical objective outlines the avant–garde’s ambition to destroy the art institution: that art become integrated in the praxis of life and at the same time that it escape the means–ends rationality of the social order (1984:49). paradoxical, because the means–ends rationality altogether defines the social life praxis of the bourgeois world: the injunction to introduce art in the praxis of life signals siarhei biareishyk 77 the contradiction of the original demand that art remain outside means–ends rationality. this is but one manifestation of an irreducible split—one, i argue, that is the formal condition of avant–garde subjectivity. while bürger claims that his analysis only applies to the historical avant–garde movements and their failure (in particular, dadaism, early surrealism, and russian avant–garde), the post–world war ii “neo– avant–gardes” nonetheless inherit avant–gardiste gestures by the token of similarity in their constitutive structure (109). it is unclear whether the task of the avant–garde in the music scene of 1960s new york can be said to be the same as that of the historical avant–garde—whether, indeed, the main emphasis lies in integrating art in the praxis of life; the fact that come out was produced as a part of the benefit concert for social justice would certainly point this way.1 one thing, however, remains clear: reich’s work shares the ambition of overstepping the limits of its own immediate context, and the disparateness of “institutionalized art” and “life” is merely one aspect of this context, even if it is not central to reich’s work. i argue therefore that it is not despite the failure of the historical avant–garde (as bürger would have it) that post–wwii experimental music shares its gestures, but because of the failure to integrate art and life praxis. as the consequence of this failure the two spheres still remained radically separated in the post–wwii aesthetic terrain. more importantly, however, avant–garde music in 1960s new york still shares a formal split present in the historical avant–garde, and therein lies the structural homology with contemporary whiteness: much like contemporary white subjectivity, avant–garde seeks to transgress the constitutive condition of its own subjectivity. in his essay “weak universalism,” boris groys claims that characteristic of the avant–garde is an attempt to transcend its own time by means of destruction and reduction. drawing on giorgio agamben and walter benjamin, groys aptly points toward the avant–garde’s similarity to messianic knowledge—“knowledge of the coming end of the world as we know it” (4). while groys insists on the centrality of “contracting time,” and its use in avant–gardiste strategies, what this conception reaffirms is that what bürger calls the attack on the art institution can be understood as the avant–garde’s self–annihilating gesture—the end of its own world as it knows it. no doubt, reich’s come out shares this discourse of “weak signs” of messianic knowledge that “impoverishes, empties all our cultural signs and activities” (ibid). the aforementioned split of the avant–garde is reflected in its dual position of belonging and not belonging to its historical moment: the avant–garde attempts to transcend its own time, but nonetheless appears in the context of its time, thereby, as groys argues, engendering both clarification and confusion with regard to its own temporal/spacial location. “clarification,” groys current musicology 78 writes, “because it revealed repetitive image patterns behind the changes in historical styles and trends; but also confusion, because avant–garde art was exhibited alongside other art production in a way that allowed it to be (mis)understood as a specific historical style” (2010:9). the avant–garde must repeat its self–annihilating gesture as a response to the necessary institutionalization of its practices (for instance, its exhibition in a museum alongside other historically specific art); it must perpetually renew itself by means of negating its immediate context. although bürger heralds the end of the avant–garde with its initial failure, the same structure necessarily resurfaces. as groys notes, “weak, transcendental artistic gesture could not be produced once and for all time,” it must be repeated in a different manner (ibid). i maintain that reich’s come out must be understood precisely as one of these avant–gardiste repetitions, as an attempt to interrogate and annihilate the conditions of its own historical embeddedness. the avant–garde’s anti–institutional stance, emphasized in bürger’s account, thus can be understood in a broad sense, if “institution” connotes the material conditions defining art at a given historical moment. consequently, institutionalization is a process, one which divests the avant–garde’s reductive gesture of its negating force by incorporating a radical practice as a norm belonging to the history of art—as groys would have it, “every … discovery of the unoriginal was understood as an original discovery” (7). in this respect, institutionalization once again necessitates the avant–garde’s renewed “weak sign” that would signal the annihilation of the world (i.e., institution) as we know it. but in this formal characterization of the avant–garde, one must specify that this discourse centers on the practice of western art, and that the avant–garde composer seeks to transgress the institutionalization of what has historically been designated as traditionally western, whose producers have been not only white but also predominantly male. western classical music has come to occupy the position of universal epistemological power—often implicitly determining what counted as music and what counts as noise. richard dyer would call this a position of whiteness. what is at stake is not simplification of nominalistic arguments about positive entities (e.g., avant–garde, whiteness, experimental music), but rather the elucidation of the relational functions of institutionalization, transgression, transcendence, and self–annihilation. with the advent of the avant–garde, the historical manifestation of these relational functions gain racial specificity, and, as becomes evident in reich’s work, occupy a central role in its constitution. hence the central question: what role does racial otherness play in negoting the split constitutive of avant–garde subjectivity? siarhei biareishyk 79 ontological split and the subject of secular modernity the split that wiegman identifies in the contemporary white subject and the one that defines western avant–garde subjectivity are just two instances of the manifestation of the ontological split that, according to jacques lacan, characterizes the subject of secular modernity. this split is produced by the movement lacan calls alienation, which results from a forced, losing choice that can be formalized as possibilities inscribed into two overlapping sets (figure 1). these two sets are joined by the token of having at least one common element—the common element being a necessary condition to the totality of each set. thus, because of the forced choice, the common element is necessarily lost upon the decision, meaning that the choice “has as its consequence neither one, nor the other [set]” (lacan 211; emphasis in the original). the split emerges as the vacillation of the subject between being and meaning—constituting two overlapping sets—due to the introduction of the signifier. lacan stresses the point that the signifier is “that which represents a subject,” not for another subject, but “for another signifier” (207). the signifier that represents the subject emerges in the field of the other, in language, wherein meaning can be located.2 consequently, “if we choose being, the subject disappears, it eludes us, it falls into non–meaning” (lacan 211). if, on the other hand, we choose meaning, because there is something in being that always eludes language, “it is of the nature of this meaning,” lacan says, “to be eclipsed by the disappearance of being” (211). the split in the subject of the western avant–garde musician can be mapped out in the opposition of the western musical tradition and the avant–garde as realized in the field of the other (figure 2). the avant–garde musician must maintain the split as both a western composer, and as the one who transcends traditional western musical norms. when choosing figure 1: lacan 211. current musicology 80 the avant–garde as otherness, as the transgression of the western tradition, the subject loses its constitutive part as a western musician. hence, because the western tradition has defined the composer on the most profound level, choosing the avant–garde triggers the disappearance of the subject’s being as a musician. the other choice—the side of the western tradition—leaves the avant–garde composer eclipsed, losing the desire for innovation imperative for avant–garde tradition. in this way, whatever the choice, the western avant–garde musician remains doubly lacking: neither a western musician (since the musician in question must transcend the present conditions of art), nor avant–garde musician (since avant–garde positions itself outside of what western canon defines as “music”). this disappearance occurs with the introduction of a signifier that represents a subject; lacan emphasizes that the emergence of this signifier, insofar as it represents the subject for another signifier, devoid of meaning in itself, functions in its signification only to “reduce the subject in question to being no more than a signifier, to petrify the subject in the same movement in which it calls the subject to function, to speak, as subject” (207). the question then arises, in the scheme that i outline: what is the signifier that represents the avant–garde musician as subject, which calls it to speak, to compose, and at the same time marks the subject’s own fading? attali’s insight that music must be understood as an “organization of noise” proves useful in answering this question. prior to the moment that music is to emerge as organized noise, however, comes the noise—not yet music, but a signifier that simply points to more meaningless signifiers. attali writes: “music localizes and specifies power, because it marks and regiments the rare noises that cultures, in their normalization of behavior, see fit to authorize” (21). in other words, music, as the organization of noise, is the process of conjuring meaning in the proliferation of the signifiers in figure 2: my adaptation of lacan’s diagram. siarhei biareishyk 81 the field of the other—the meaning that arises at the cost of certain repression, normalization, and constitution or assumption of authority. it must be ascribed to the task of the western music institution, understood in the broadest sense possible, to bestow value on musical organization, designating certain sounds as appropriate for the musical canon while marginalizing and devaluing other sounds as non–music. hence, the western music institution must be understood as a totality of everything that is considered music—a totality constituted by the exclusion of everything deemed to be noise. although this division is simplified, the duality of inside and outside must be in place for the avant–garde to appeal to noise in order to transcend the musical formations of its own time. in this sense, this emergence of music from noise does point to lacan’s field of the other. it is possible now to return to the question posed in the introduction: if the lacanian other has nothing to do with racialized otherness, why do the functions of the two overlap in the case of the avant–garde music? thus, the hypothesis: it is because the western classical music institution prior and to the point of 1960s (and at least until the 1990s) was heavily driven by white males that the noise in the other may be thought to be located in non–western or racially specific music. it is by way of noise that the latter becomes the signifier for which the subject (the white western classical composer) is represented to another signifier (more noise)—the very signifier that calls the subject to compose as an avant–garde musician and at the same time splits the subject, triggering its disappearance as a musician. split in the process of alienation, the subject recovers its being through desire, in the movement subsequent to alienation, which lacan designates as separation. in its disappearance, the subject is lacking (being), which marks a point at which desire emerges. for in addition to the lack of its own eclipsed being, the subject locates a lack in the field of the other—this gap in the other is the lacking meaning, the fact that the signifier representing the subject has no fixed signified. lacan illustrates the lack of the other in the subject’s reaction to the message that it receives from the other: “he is saying this to me, but what does he want?” (214). he is saying to me “i like the way your stuff sounds,” but what does he want (me to be)? it is clear, therefore, that the desire that emerges in the subject is the desire of the other, but only as an unknown, as lacking. the separation then proceeds as a superimposition of the two lacks: “the subject . . . brings the answer of the previous lack, of his own disappearance, which he situates here at the point of lack perceived in the other” (214). confusing its own lack for the lack in the other, the subject is able to imagine the other’s desire as its own. in order to find its own desire in the field of the other, however, the subject has to make a leap: the meaning and the certainty that the subject has to posit is current musicology 82 essentially ungrounded. the lack of ground in the formation of subjectivity must be repressed–repression in the domain of the unconscious. the sense in the field of the other, therefore, comes with the cutting off of the original non–sense, which splits the subject in the first place. by analogy, in order for music to emerge, the noise as non–sense that is the original signifier has to be repressed, for what we designate as music is noise with meaning attached to it. from the point of this leap, of this repression, having given up the non–sense, the subject emerges as the subject of the unconscious. subject looking for his certainty: singularity, transference, racial otherness in this light, “steve reich” transpires as a text—as a subject of the unconscious—defined by the network of signifiers that determine him as a western avant–garde composer from the outside. because the unconscious emerges as a result of the leap in the subject’s relation to the signifier, to the symbolic order, lacan says that “the unconscious is the discourse of the other . . . it is outside” (131). “the unconscious,” lacan continues to argue, “has already in its formations . . . proceeded by interpretation” (130). although the signifiers in the world determine the subject on the most profound level, because the interpretation of these signifiers is not objectively predetermined, the subject arises as a singularity, which precludes complete immersion in a single symbolic order. in other words, although the signifier that is outside determines the subjectivity of the composer, the latter is not reduced to the outside that determines him; in the formation of the unconscious the composer already provides a singular interpretation of the constellation of signifiers that determine him. “singularity,” kojin karatani writes, “has nothing to do with bourgeois individualism; paradoxically enough, singularity is inseparable from society, from being ‘in between’ communities” (152). that is precisely the position that avant–garde subjectivity attempts to occupy and sustain—a position of both, belonging and not–belonging, of the transcendence of immediate present and the necessity of belonging to this present. although reich belongs to a community as a western composer—community understood as “a space enclosed within a certain system of rules”—the traditional values of western music no longer can fill the split in his subjectivity (1995:133). whether reich’s attempt to transgress the space of his community can be judged successful or not, what is undeniable is the persistence of the desire to navigate the space “in between” communities—whether by the use of jazz, african music, or new technology in classical composition, or by means of daniel hamm’s voice. what defines the singularity of reich’s siarhei biareishyk 83 own composition—what he called “music as a gradual process”—is the influence reich derived from the field of the racialized other. during his college years in the mid–1950s reich had already begun studying african music at cornell university while completing his masters in jazz. this influence persisted through his early works and resulted in a trip to ghana in the summer of 1970 to study drumming with musicians from the ewe tribe. in addition to taking drumming lessons, reich recorded the lessons and transcribed the rhythmic patterns of ewe drumming, which he later incorporated into his own scores. reich also studied balinese gamelan in 1974 and 1975 in order to explore the rhythmic structures inherent in this music. in his article “steve reich and discourse on non–western music” sumanth gopinath demonstrates that reich’s interest in non–western music was by no means an exception in his social milieu; in fact, other pioneering minimalist composers of the time, such as glass, riley, and la monte young, showed deep interest in non–western music. gopinath further notes that reich’s immediate context was instrumental to a shift that occured in his music during the 1970s, marked by the composition drumming (1970): “the historical moment is also central to reich’s career, redirecting his enduring preoccupation with (and possible self–definition through) the other, from an ‘internal other’ (african americans) in his pieces of the early to mid–1960s to an ‘external other’ (west africans) in drumming and beyond” (gopinath 2001:141). what is significant is the sheer persistence in reich’s search for otherness as a means to negate the community that constitutes him as a composer. while reich is just one such case among others, i treat him as exemplary in demonstrating this movement in the formation and development of avant–garde subjectivity in negotiating and sustaining its own split. but it is not enough to demonstrate mere appeal to the sphere of otherness, it is important to ask: how, and by what means does the formation of avant–garde subjectivity proceed? what types of mechanisms are at work in this movement toward racialized otherness in the formation of western avant–garde music and in the work of reich in particular? in “non–western music and the western composer” (1988) and other articles and interviews, reich continuously emphasizes that his interest in studying non–western music does not lead him to absorb a non–western sound.3 he writes, “i didn’t want to sound balinese or african, i wanted to think balinese or african” (reich 2002b:148). in making this distinction, reich outlines his usage of what he learned through non–western music: he refuses to absorb the non–western scales or instruments, but by studying the structure of non–western music he finds new venues for a contemporary western sound to develop. “the structure remains,” says reich regarding the rhythmic patterns in african drumming and balinese gamelan that he current musicology 84 chooses to borrow and use in his composition, “but the sound is (hopefully) new and expressive of the times and place the composer lives in” (reich 2002b:149). the influence of non–western music illustrates reich’s relationship to the racialized other, and locates reich in what psychoanalysis calls transference [übertragung] with this other. transference emerges as means to resolve the split induced in alienation; lacan emphasizes that “[t]ransference is established with the emergence of the subject who is supposed to know” (232). transference must be understood as an intersubjective formation emerging with an appearance of the desired (and imagined) knowledge in the other; it is through this sphere, lacan emphasizes, that the subject seeks to derive its certainty in filling the split induced by the signifier. it must be noted that transference is both the cause and the effect of the unconscious formations. hence, if this peculiar position of the subject of the unconscious is to be articulated, it is in the analysis of transference. as lacan argues, it is only through the encounter with the other who is supposed to know, in the phenomenon of transference that the unconscious becomes accessible: “this primary position of the unconscious that is articulated as constituted by the indetermination of the subject—it is to this that transference gives us access” (129). because the subject is determined from the outside, according to signifiers in the world, the famous lacanian formula follows: “the unconscious is structured like a language” (lacan 20; emphasis in the original). thus, the telling of the subject’s unconscious as singularity through transference is also telling of political and ideological structures of the signifiers that determine the subject. consequently, insofar as reich as a singularity is subject of and to contemporary western classical music and, on a broader scale, the subject of and to whiteness, his unconscious is telling of these structures. it is these structures that i will try to explore in the manifestations of transference in reich’s music. come out belongs to a formative stage of reich’s compositional development. today this piece is marketed in a collection under the title of “early works,” just as the scholarly literature on reich places it in the “early” stage of reich’s composition, characterizing the piece as a precondition to his more complex and influential work. the late 1960s, therefore, is a period that illustrates reich’s pursuit for a style, which would determine him as a western avant–garde composer; this period in reich’s life can be said to coincide with what lacan terms as “a subject looking for his certainty”–that is, the process by which the subject learns to negotiate the split in his subjectivity. the early pieces more than any others, therefore, show how the subject is able to deal with the alienation induced by the necessity to transgress the tradition that defines that subject—the necessity present in both, the split siarhei biareishyk 85 of the avant–garde as well as the subjectivity of contemporary whiteness. indeed, through the tape loops, particularly in come out and it’s gonna rain—the latter of which is another tape piece recorded a year earlier that features the voice of brother walter, a black preacher—reich discovers the process of repetition with complex rhythmic patterns that he would later adapt to acoustic instruments, incorporating them into his scores. reich writes, “what tape did for me basically was on the one hand to realize certain musical ideas that at first just had to come out of machines, and on the other to make some instrumental music possible that i never would have got to by looking at any western or non–western music” (reich 2002c:54). whereas it is true that phasing in tape loops allowed reich to adapt the same technique to acoustic instruments, it is also significant that in order for reich to recognize new musical patterns in his tape pieces rather than mere noise, he already had to have studied and recognized the patterns in west african drumming. although reich’s intensified engagement with ewe music and his trip to ghana with the purpose of learning west african drumming date to 1970 (several years after the composition of come out), his engagement with non–western music prior to this time is well documented.4 west african drumming makes use of the downbeats that do not coincide, a possibility previously not explored in western classical music. this is, incidentally, the innovative structure that reich achieved through phasing in tape loops—the divergent speeds at which reich plays two tape loops simultaneously creates the effect of non–coinciding downbeats constitutive of west african drumming. in other words, reich’s technique that innovates or transgresses the tradition that defines him emerges by means of implicit interiorization of otherness: first, identification with the signifier that belongs to the field of the other (“noise” of the racialized other); second, recognition of the structure of this noise (either in tape loops or in study of drumming); finally, incorporation of this structure in the sphere of western classical music as means to innovation.5 one of the traces of this dynamic between the internalized otherness and innovation in western canon is evident in the tension between the impersonal nature of reich’s composition and the necessity of the authorial function of the composer. in his tape pieces, reich emphasizes that the technique he employs, which the composer designates as “a gradual process,” develops independently from its author. reich writes that the “experience of that musical process is, above all else, impersonal; it just goes its way” (reich 2002d: 20, emphasis in the original). this is yet another example of an attempt to negate the legacy of western music characterized by the bourgeois individualism that romanticizes the achievement of a single composer as the author. reich proceeds to compare the impersonal nature of his gradual process to the non–western music, making his transference current musicology 86 in accepting the racialized other as the subject who is supposed to know apparent; “[i]n african drumming,” he writes, “all the musicians have fixed parts, with the exception of the master drummer, who improvises on traditional patterns” (reich 2002: 69). in the discourse on non–western music—in the case of reich, balinese gamelan and west african drumming—indeed, an impersonal character persists in the production of the music, and rather than the name of the author, a geographical region or the historical context of its production is used to identify the sound (the classification that is already a part of the production of western knowledge); in reich’s own discourse on non–western music, the name of the tribe is the limit of the particular. in case of the western composer, however, the name of the individual author clings to the piece as a necessary structural component even at the point when the composer tries to diminish his or her own significance; reich certainly puts his name on the record and collects the royalties. what is at stake, however, is not to criticize reich or to point out some kind of hypocrisy and contradiction inherent in his method and persona, neither is the point to defend him.6 on the contrary, i insist that this apparent contradiction is a manifestation of necessary precondition to materialization of the avant–garde subjectivity; this paradoxical duality inherent in reich’s musical composition is yet another manifestation of the split induced in alienation in encountering the other. this split manifests itself in the transference with the racialized other in the insistence of the impersonal (non–bourgeois sphere of west african drumming), on the one hand, and the necessity of the “complete control” that belongs to the authorial “i” (bourgeois individualism of the western musician) on the other. from transference to interpretation if reich as the avant–garde composer thus embraces the split constitutive of the avant–garde subject, thereby triggering the necessity of transference, it becomes increasingly clear that the composer finds the point of transference in the very material of his composition–namely, in daniel hamm’s voice. in contrast to hamm’s voice, reich’s position of whiteness is evident: since it was the racial motivation that drove the harlem six case, the privilege of whiteness would not have allowed reich to be in the position of hamm. it is more than obvious to say that reich and hamm occupy a different position in the society; but it is also significant to point out that the two occupy different subjective positions, if the subjectivity is constituted by the material conditions and the position of embeddedness in the world. although perhaps it is not a position to be desired, hamm’s subjective embeddedness in the world is radically inaccessible to that of the privileged position of whiteness, siarhei biareishyk 87 not merely by choice–e.g., it is not enough to assume an anti–racist stance to change one’s subjective position–but by historical contingency. indeed, while hamm is the victim of police violence and social injustice, he nevertheless possess a desirable quality: hamm holds certain knowledge inaccessible to reich, insofar as he finds himself in the world under a gaze different from that of a privileged position of whiteness—the subjective position that reich cannot obtain. if avant–garde’s self–annihilating imperative is to transcend the constitutive conditions of its subjectivity, the sphere of what whiteness constructs as the other becomes the desirable sphere of knowledge. in this light, the sentence that reich utilizes in come out lends itself to musical as well as to semantic interpretation. having transcribed hamm’s voice, gopinath points out that it fits western tonality and scale and, therefore, “in excerpting the testimony in a particular way according to his aesthetic preferences—and not due to some ‘essential’ musicality of black voices—reich rendered hamm’s recorded voice in an abstracted, ‘musical’ way” (gopinath 2009:129). the content of the excerpt, however, is no less powerful for the composer. the piece repeats the excerpt in its entirety—“i had to, like, open the bruise up and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them”—only three times; after the initial repetition, it then proceeds to loop only the last part of the phrase: “come out to show them.” this statement gives a promise “to show.” to show whom?—the police, the representatives of the apparatus of whiteness par excellence. to show what? that is precisely what steve reich is after in his manipulation of hamm’s voice–hence, the transference. although reich excerpts hamm’s sentence from the interview in which hamm describes the cruelty inflicted on him by the police, the action of the police is present in the excerpted sentence only indirectly. the reason that hamm has to “open his bruise up” is that the police were only taking those with open wounds to the hospital; hamm points out that puncturing his own skin becomes the only way for him to receive much needed medical attention. the entire project of come out was initiated by truman nelson, a white novelist and anti–racist activist, who provided the recordings of the interviews to the composer. in addition to creating come out, reich also produced a dramatic sound collage out of the interviews, as was originally suggested by nelson. in producing come out, however, reich insisted on having a full freedom in using these interviews, despite nelson’s initial disagreement (gopinath 2009:127). certainly, reich’s sympathies lie with hamm in condemnation of the action by the police, which is consistent with wiegman’s articulation of contemporary whiteness as disavowing white supremacy. the question however arises, out of hours of interviews describing the beating by the police, why does reich choose the point at current musicology 88 which the victim is hurting his own body? this choice may be further telling of the transferential relation between reich and the other. while the broader context of the harlem six shows the violence done by the system in an attempt to subjugate the youths and situate them in a passive position, in the excerpt that reich chooses, hamm, although hurting himself, is the one who is in the position of action. because the description of the police brutality in the narrative of come out would turn hamm into an object of violence, this portrayal would preclude the transference with hamm’s voice as the subject who is supposed to know. while this distinction is not a structural one, it nevertheless further points to the imaginary function central in transference. it primarily shows that the composer, although addressing the issue of institutionalized injustice and racism inherent in the symbolic order, primarily takes interest in his own split. that is, reich’s come out, rather than reflecting the narrative of the harlem six, first and foremost points to the composer’s own vacillation as an avant–garde musician. reich’s composition produces the split of hamm’s voice through playing the recording on two different channels, at first in unison and then at slightly different speeds. this phasing technique—originally developed in it’s gonna rain, also in manipulation of a black male voice—at first creates an effect of a voice echoing itself, but soon enough, the interval between two channels becomes significantly greater and the split becomes perceptible. this point marks the introduction of the non–western patterns in the piece; gopinath notes that the repetition in come out shifts from “discursive repetition (repetition of phrases or sections, characteristic of many european–derived musics of the west) to musematic repetition (immediate repetition of short riff or units, particularly common in african–diasporic musics)” (gopinath 2009:29). in this change of repetitive patterns, the vacillation of subject between western and non–western sides of the split becomes apparent in the sound produced (thus, also vacillating between “noise” and “music”). in manipulating hamm’s voice reich exploits the split to its limit: looping the recording once again to create a repetition of four voices, and then with another loop dividing the recording into eight voices, at which point the voice can no longer be heard, vanishing into utter noise. what is the function of this noise? how can this disintegration of the voice into complete chaos be interpreted? it is in this last part of the piece, when hamm’s voice becomes completely incomprehensible, that lloyd whitesell locates the function of whiteness. whitesell says: “the music moves toward an abstract, metaphorical whiteness, mesmerizing in its unfathomable remoteness from the material black vocality of the opening” (177). whitesell’s critique is predicated on dyer’s claim that in its invisibility, whiteness assumes the position of universality. he siarhei biareishyk 89 says, at the level of racial representation . . . whites are not of a certain race, they are just human race” (dyer 3). whitesell sees the trend of self–erasure in avant–garde movement as a whole; he writes, “in these quests for the irreducible background we can see the ideals of ‘art without history’ and ‘man without qualities’ converging under the sign of racial identity. that is, the blank page comes to serve as a medium of white self–representation” (175). by the mere token of sounding like background noise, whitesell seems to imply that the music disappears—and by being invisible occupies the position of whiteness. does this claim, however, not presuppose and perpetuate the division of “music” and “non–music” established by the western classical (read: white) hegemony? does the minimalist music in its silence and repetition indeed disappear? rather than disguise and disappear, the minimalist aesthetic and a piece like come out especially, on the contrary, in its conspicuous harshness, if anything, renders whiteness particular—even if, as wiegman points out, it does not automatically dislodge it from the privileged position. while whitesell correctly points toward the self–annihilating and reductive tendency of the avant–garde, i think that he does not account for the ambiguity inherent in this self–erasure—an ambiguity that i have characterized as a split in the avant–garde subjectivity. as groys points out, the reductive tendency of the avant–garde art “produces transcendental images, in the kantian sense of the term—images that manifest the conditions for the emergence and contemplation of any other image” (6). the avant–garde produces transcendental sound in the reduction of its music to noise, in order to demonstrate that, as attali would have it, music is nothing but ordered noise and presupposes the exclusion of unordered noise in the first place. the avant–garde does not erase itself, but produces self–annihilating gestures that remain ever present. in this respect, reich’s come out articulates the transcendental conditions of music, and does this within the context of a benefit show; or, as groys aptly puts it: “the avant–garde places the empirical and transcendental on the same level” (7). in other words, what is at stake is not a process of assuming a position of universality, but a method of investigating the conditions that make any universality possible (transcendental), and rendering these condition as part of the social practice (empirical). if the avant–garde’s functional equivalence with whiteness is to be admitted, i argue, it does not consist in self–erasure of avant–garde. for this self–erasure is of a different order, leaving its own traces in the empirical. the structural homology that emerges is to be sought in the transference with the racialized other in order to fill the split of its own subjectivity. it is furthermore possible to argue that therein lies the most significant difference between whiteness and avant–garde: while whiteness perpetuates current musicology 90 its privilege by means of disguising the unquestioned presuppositions of its privilege in assuming an anti–racist stance, avant–garde first and foremost investigates and interrogates its own split, therefore sustaining rather than erasing this split. consequently, while whiteness is at bottom a conservative force, avant–garde (while also conservative in respect of perpetuation of western sound) aims at a certain productive surplus evident in its aesthetic innovation. i would like to insist on a different interpretation of come out, one that stresses the transferential relationship between reich and hamm’s statement: through repetition, reich reenacts the movement of alienation in the split of the western avant–garde composer. at the point of transference, the subject seeks its desire in the field of the other who is supposed to know. but precisely because the other’s knowledge is imagined, lacan points out, the subject “will simply find his desire ever more divided, pulverized, in the circumscribable metonymy of speech” (188). in other words, just because the subject finds signifiers in the other, these signifiers do not concretely outline what the subject must desire. reich’s studying west african drumming or encountering hamm’s utterance does not clearly define new possibilities in music or in the reconstitution of racial subjectivity. insofar as come out belongs to reich’s early work in which he attempts to establish himself as an avant–garde composer, his own uncertainty in the face of disappearance as a musician is reflected in the choices of the composition. the noise of come out, which in turn is retroactively to become music, is not characteristic of the erasure of whiteness or presence of the western composer, but of their reconstitution in the moment of crisis by means of detour through the racialized other. if the split in the avant–garde subjectivity occurs upon the identification with the non–sense signifier (noise), this signifier renders the western canon as not–all–encompassing; consequently, hamm’s voice, standing for the constructed otherness to whiteness (thus also projected onto non–western music) is mutilated by the western composer: it departs, taking a piece of the totality of western music with it. this split is evident in reich’s treatment of the voice, which he redoubles through phasing—the effect that surfaces by means of repetition. lacan notes that “the endless repetition that is in question”— referring to the repetition during transference that acts out the gap induced in alienation—“reveals the radical vacillation of the subject” (239). this vacillation persists throughout the composition. by the end of the first section (at about 2:58 into composition), the words “come out” break away from “to show them.” this split does not yet get to the bottom of the matter—reich then takes the split even further by looping the entire thing; in this second part, the duality is manifested in a different way, between siarhei biareishyk 91 “come ma–ma–ma” and “to sh–sh–show them” (evident after 4:00). even when the composer redoubles the voices once more, taking hamm’s enunciation to radical reduction, thereby rendering it incomprehensible (at 8:37), the split endures as an opposition of two phonemes that sound something like “tsh” and “c–ma.” this finding illustrates what lacan designates as the function of interpretation; interpretation in transference, lacan says, “is not open to any meaning,” but rather the “effect of interpretation is to isolate in the subject a kernel . . . of non–sense” (250). the interpretation targets the non–meaning that lies at the root of the emergence of the unconscious—it is the cut off signifier that splits the subject in alienation. in come out, having pursued the signifier in the field of the other, reich arrives at noise and silence—two phonemes, “tsh” and “c–ma,” and the momentary silence that separates them—denoting the movement of the subject between sense and impeding non–sense. it is significant to note that come out was reich’s last tape piece through which he discovered new ways of manipulating scores for acoustic western instruments—it allowed him to navigate the split of the avant–garde subjectivity, finally emerging a successful western classical composer. to attach a concrete meaning to the noise that lies behind reich’s discovery would be a mistake and an inconsistency in my argument. instead, this analysis reveals the mechanism by means of which western music reconstitutes itself in the face of its own fading. rather than a single meaning, the compulsive repetition outlines the movement of the subject: first, split with the signifier that emerges in the field of the other; then, concerning itself with the noise of otherness; finally, having internalized the other—injecting noise with meaning—it comes back to itself in a new form. this mechanism manifest in come out also heralds the development of white subjectivity after the 1960s, which turns to non-whites in order to sustain the imaginary of itself as anti–racist white subjectivity. this noise as non–sense in come out, however, does not remain outside of music for long; on the contrary, it becomes institutionalized at the point when the composer attaches his name to it. meaning, then, emerges retroactively. for instance, viewed in the light of whiteness studies, whitesell sees the piece as a manifestation of white privilege in its disappearance. gopinath, on the other hand, produces a multitude of interpretations made possible by historical contextualization of the piece; he maintains that the sound in come out, among others, may be interpreted as broader violence and paranoia (whether white, black, left or jewish) of the historical period, the aftermath of a riot, interpellation of a listener as a “cop fighter,” sexualization of black masculinity, or, superimposed onto contemporary issues, a composition outlining the “prison–industrial complex” (gopinath 2009:134–9). all of the above interpretations stand current musicology 92 contingent on the gaze of the interpreter, making the multitude of interpretations possible and by no means false—but what is important to point out is that these interpretations emerge only after a fundamental suppression of what reich produces as non–sense, after the institutionalization of noise as music. while taking interest in racialized other, the avant–garde subject first and foremost betrays the crisis of its own subjectivity, seeking a way to reconstitute it. with the arrival of the avant–garde western composer, the lack of ground behind the emerging subjectivity manifested in a gesture to negate all such ground becomes the locus of its meanings and serves as the condition that grants it the power of fluidity and flexibility. notes 1. the same politically charged and democratic, if not utopian vision rings true in the closing words of reich’s famous essay “music as a gradual process”: “while performing and listening to gradual music one can participate in a particular liberating and impersonal kind of ritual. focusing in on the musical process makes possible that shift of attention away from he and she and me outwards towards it” (306). reich gestures toward the potential of music as a transformative force, as a force that either changes the material conditions of the everyday (benefit concert) or reforms the conditions of perception. in his book experimental music: cage and beyond, while discussing cage’s 4’33’’ as exemplary to what he calls “experimental music” (a tradition in which he places reich), michael nyman further indicates the prevailing attempt of this tradition to align experimental practices in music with life rather than with art, or at least to point toward the subversion of this duality: “henceforward sounds (‘for music, like silence, does not exist’ [citing cage]) would get closer to introducing us to life, rather than art, which is something separate from life” (26). while perhaps not the dominant trait of 1960s new york avant–garde scene, the discussion of the collapse of “art” and “life” nevertheless remains a major topic. 2. it is necessary to insist that lacanian field of the other is a battery of signifiers; it is the field of the symbolic order–language, law, cultural codes and so on. hence, it must be understood as the other of being. the lacanian other is therefore not synonymous with racial otherness; but if the lacanian other overlaps with racial otherness, as we shall see can be the case, it is due to functional equivalence and is a result of historical contingency and not structural necessity. 3. see, for instance, “interview with michael nyman (1970)” or “postscript to a brief study of balinese and african music (1973).” 4. see, for instance, gopinath “steve reich and discourse on non–western music.” in this article, gopinath suggests that reich’s knowledge of these patterns may be traced back to a.m. jones’s studies. 5. the temporality of these events must be understood in terms of logical causality, and not linear causality. in other words, although i point to certain steps as logical presuppositions to one another, it does not mean that they must be understood diachronically, that is, happning one after another in a temporal order; rather, the siarhei biareishyk 93 temporality is one of synchrony. for this reason it is justified to claim, as gopinath argues, that in transcribing west african drumming, reich “constructed” and not merely “discovered” the aforementioned rhythmical structures (see “steve reich and discourse on non–western music”). nevertheless, i maintain, that all the aforementioned steps are logical necessities, which exemplify the constitution of the avant–garde subjectivity. 6. furthermore, reich himself is more than ready to acknowledge the tension of the authorial and the impersonal; in his “music as a gradual process,” reich writes: “musical processes can give one a direct contact with the impersonal and also a kind of complete control . . . i completely control all the results, but also . . . i accept all that result without changes” (305). it is clear that one must not be logically consistent in order to produce music. references attali, jacques. 2004. listening. hearing history: a reader. ed. smith, mark m. athens: university of georgia press. baldwin, james. 1966. a report from occupied territory. the nation (11 july). bürger, peter. 1984. theory of the avant–garde. theory and history of literature. trans. michael shaw. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. dyer, richard. 1997. white. london: routledge. gopinath, sumanth. 2009. the problem of the political in steve reich’s come out. in sound commitments: avant–garde music and the sixties. ed. adlington, robert. oxford: oxford university press. ___. 2001. steve reich and discourse on non–western music. glendora review. (3.3,4 ): 134–145. groys, boris. 2010. the weak universalism. e–flux journal. 15. <http://www.e–flux.com/>. karatani, kojin. 1995. architecture as metaphor: language, number, money. in writing architecture. michael speaks, ed. trans. sabu kohso.. cambridge, mass: mit press. lacan, jacques. 1981. the four fundamental concepts of psycho–analysis. trans. alan sheridan. new york: norton. nyman, michael. 1999. experimental music: cage and beyond. cambridge: cambridge university press. reich, steve. 2002a. first interview with michael nyman (1970). writings on music, 1965–2000. ed. hillier, paul. oxford: oxford university press. ___. 2004. music as a gradual process. audio culture: readings in modern music. ed. cox, christoph, and daniel warner. new york: continuum. ___. 2002b. non–wesetern music and the western composer (1988). writings on music, 1965–2000. ed. hillier, paul. oxford: oxford university press. ___. 2002c. postscript to a brief study of balinese and african music (1973). writings on music, 1965–2000. ed. hillier, paul. oxford: oxford university press. ___. 2002d. it’s gonna rain. writings on music,. ed. hillier, paul. oxford: oxford university press. ___. 2002e. it’s gonna rain. writings on music, 1965–2000. ed. hillier, paul. oxford: oxford university press. whitesell, lloyd. 2001. white noise: race and erasure in the cultural avant–garde. american music (19. 2): 168–189. wiegman, robyn. 1999. whiteness studies and the paradox of particularity. boundary 2, 26, no. 3 (fall): 115–150. george lipsitz. 2007. footsteps in the dark: the hidden histories of popular music. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. reviewed by mark burford on june 18, 2008, a judge on the pretoria high court ruled that south africans of chinese descent will be henceforth redefined as "black" -an um­ brella term referring in south africa to black africans, south asian indians, and other groups that have been subject to ethnic discrimination-thereby extending to them the benefits of black economic empowerment legislation. the widely-publicized, much satirized, and, for many racially black south africans, controversial judgment was a victory for chinese-south african activists who argued that their constituency had been "discriminated against because they were being treated as whites;' which disqualified them from business opportunities reserved for legally black victims of apartheid (canaves 2008). i beyond attempts to achieve socioeconomic equity, however, the landmark court decision also pointed suggestively to other questions, among them the social constructedness of racial categories, the legacy of transnational migration, and the confluent and divergent histories of colonial exploitation experienced by seemingly disparate communities. somewhere george lipsitz must have been smiling. what popular music can teach us about such issues is his subject in footsteps in the dark: the hidden histories of popular music, a book in which lipsitz calls for "reading popular music as history and interpreting history through popular music" (xvi). addressing a rich counterpoint of musical cultures and sociopolitical questions with the author's characteristic candor, commitment, and acuity, footsteps in the dark is a volume few scholars other than lipsitz would have been able, or willing, to write. the book, his eighth, provides further, more contemporary evidence to support arguments he has developed over the years. central preoccupations of each of his previous books are prominent in his latest: history and memory in popular culture (lipsitz 1990); working­ class cultural politics (1994a); social movements combating inequality and injustice (1988); systems of privilege predicated on biologically-based hierarchies (1998); the local and global politics of places and the panethnic communities that inhabit them (1991, 1994b); and the disciplinary and methodological challenges of scholarship seeking to address these and related concerns (2001). footsteps in the dark adds to a corpus that has firmly established lipsitz as one of the seminal and most widely influential scholars in the field and subfields of cultural studies. current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 125 126 current musicology lipsitz was trained as a historian-his earliest activism and scholarship focused on labor and working-class issues-and popular music history has held prominent place in his work. structurally, footsteps in the dark communicates lipsitz's deep interest in popular music as a text that "can be read historically, dialogically, and symptomatically" (xi). in theory, each of the book's ten central chapters, six of which (chapters 3-8) are expanded or revised versions of writings published over the past decade, addresses a particular repertory and social phenomenon; in fact, the topic suggested by each chapter title is more a point of departure than a restrictive focus. chapter 1, "pop stars: the hidden history of digital capitalism," assesses the manipulation of (primarily) female desire by "the music­ television-internet industry" through the production, distribution, and consumption of music by boy bands and the reality tv-created all-girl band eden's crush. in chapter 2, "crossing over: the hidden history of diaspora," lipsitz discusses the fugees' 1996 album the score to highlight longstanding interactions among and between members of the caribbean, african, and asian diasporas. the early-1990s explosion in popularity of the mexican dance music banda, and in particular banda's emergence as a "reg­ ister of the social dislocations" (57) and new economic and political realities faced by low-wage migrant workers in the united states, is addressed in the third chapter, "banda: the hidden history of greater mexico." chapters 4 and 5 seek to highlight the importance of communal spaces where cultural expression occurs apart from "the conduits of commercial culture and foundation-supported expressions" (124), sites guthrie ramsey (2003) has fruitfully characterized as "community theaters." "jazz: the hidden history of nationalist multiculturalism;' a critique of ken burns's nineteen-hour serial documentary jazz, considers how the single-minded celebration of heroic individuals, american exceptionalism, and the triumph of modernity that mark jazz and many jazz historical narratives overshadows the cultural hybridity, internationalism, and community-based traditions that have always informed the work of jazz musicians. the chapter that follows, "weeds in a vacant lot: the hidden history of urban renewal;' looks at the activi­ ties and ideals of the experimental arts collective the black artists group (bag) and ry cooder's 2005 album chavez ravine to explore the legacy of communities in st. louis and los angeles uprooted and dispersed by urban expansion. chapter 6, "merengue: the hidden history of dominican migration;' considers how merengue, a music that has for the past century been freighted with the notion of a pure, essential dominicanness, docu­ ments the experience of migration, particularly to new york city, in the process expanding its manifestations and meanings in a manner that reveals the true heterogeneity of the dominican republic itself. mark burford lipsitz's seventh chapter, "the hip hop hearings: the hidden history of deindustrialization:' assesses, on the one hand, the early-1990s uproar that culminated in an inquiry, led by the black congressional caucus, into the social threat posed by violent and misogynistic hip-hop lyrics; and, on the other, the ways in which hip-hop and rap, "as much as any institution in our society" (173), have functioned as "repositories of social memory:' providing commentary on the very inner-city challenges to which hip-hop lyrics testify and from which such moral panics distract. theorizing from, while seek­ ing to push beyond the limitations of, gayatri spivak's frequently-invoked concept of strategic essentialism, in chapter 8, "masquerades and mixtures: the hidden history of passing," lipsitz calls upon his notion of strategic anti-essentialism, "identifying with a group to which you do not belong" (204, emphasis in the original; see also lipsitz 1994b). his focus here is the insight into a more effective, intercultural antiracist activism offered by musicians who are either mixed-race or "members of one aggrieved group [who] masquerade as members of another" (190), and who, by choice or accident of birth, identify with multiple groups at once. documenting "the transnational history of salsa music" (213) and the ways in which puerto rican identity has been shaped by the island's status as a united states commonwealth, chapter 9, "salsa: the hidden history of colonialism," traces the "relentless waves of transnational and interracial antagonisms, alliances, identifications, and affiliations" (236) created through the reverberations of puerto rican popular music in new york, hawaii, cuba, colombia, and the congo. on the surface, chapter 10, "techno: the hidden history of automation:' describes how "techno music emerged from the de industrialization of detroit and the deterritorialization of its neighborhoods" (242); black teenagers in detroit, transformed from consumers to producers, appropriated the very computer technology enabling the factory shutdowns that devastated the city in order "to make a 'new' recombinant music assembled from fragments of their tape and vinyl music collections" (239). but lipsitz also interprets the rise and international diffusion of techno's beat-driven aesthetics as reflective of an extensive, if hidden, "history of percussive time," of "the growing presence and even predominance of african understandings of time in popular music" (253). these brief summaries convey only the crux of the book's main chapters; they cannot do justice to the extensive ground covered in each. this review will, therefore, highlight footsteps in the dark's essential claims, which, i believe, also communicate some of lipsitz's core beliefs as a scholar and political thinker. lipsitz's introduction opens with a metaphor: the ocean's waves, which crash with powerful and immediate force but "begin their journey thousands of miles out at sea." the currents hidden beneath the ocean, "the distance 127 128 current musicology between a wave's point of origin and its point of arrival," are a wave's "long fetch." in part, this metaphor serves as a methodological provocation for historians. footsteps in the dark, "a book about hidden histories and long fetches;' can in some ways be read as an episodic essay on historiography and the raison d' etre of the historian: "the purpose of studying history is to train ourselves to look for its fetch, to realize that things that appear suddenly in our lives have a past, and to appreciate that part of what things are is how they came to be" (vii-viii). the book's title comes from the 1977 isley brothers recording of the same name, a song that registers the anxieties, possibilities, and repercussions of the unseen and unknown in a foundering love relationship-and, lipsitz argues, in the uncertain social climate of the late 1970s: the isleys' "footsteps in the dark" and other late-1970s forms of african american popular culture "serve as one of the few repositories of the memory of this period of rupture" (x). a keynote for the ensuing chapters, lipsitz's reading of the song, in which he hears "changes caused by history but only rarely connected to recognized historical narratives" (xi), is intended to elucidate "the truths hidden by surface appearances in popular music" (xviii). in footsteps in the dark, popular music-more specifically, "forms of popular music that became popular during the 1990s and early 2000s" (xv)-is the playing field on which these truths, communicated through four primary themes, are repeatedly addressed. one of these is the systemic injustice and inequality perpetuated by those who control powerful and largely unaccountable socioeconomic forces that include u.s. domestic and foreign policy, transnational free market economies, multinational corporations, and elite self-interest. the displacement and subsequent migration often precipitated by such agents, a second theme, has resulted in a decreasing significance of the nation-state and a growth in importance of transnational structures. more specific to musical expression is a third theme: the hybridity of identities and cultural forms that emerges (or is revealed) from the intersection of individuals and communities through the process of migration. for nearly two decades, lipsitz has written about the "collective past that escapes notice in more conventional accounts" (1991:1). accordingly, footsteps in the dark relentlessly argues that each of the abovementioned phenomena-systemic injustice, dislocation, and hybridity, one stemming in turn from the other-has a "hidde~ history" that is archived in popular music. indeed, the book's fourth thematic strand may be its primary message: the importance of history and memory and the moral imperative "to access the parts of the past that are unwritten" (265); "historical changes that are only remotely registered in history books, newspapers, or the pronouncements of politicians can appear in vivid relief mark burford and full complexity within products of the popular music industry-if we learn to read them correctly" (xv). lipsitz's chapter on the fugees is illustrative of how these four themes come into play in his discussion of the music. the acclaimed hip-hop band consists of the haitian-born and brooklyn-raised wyclef jean and pras michel, and lauryn hill, whom the two haitians met when they moved to northern new jersey as teenagers. jean's and michel's presence in the us at­ tests to the massive migration of haitians to miami and new york stimulated by the repressive duvalier regimes, the chaos surrounding the election and us-orchestrated ousters of president jean-bertrand aristide, and destabi1izing international economic policies. the fugees' multiplatinum-selling second album, the score, in some ways renewed the cleverly eclectic spirit of late-1980s crossover hip-hop projects like de la soul's 3 feet high and rising (1989). the score was just as important for what it represented to hip-hop culture at the time: a change of subject from the east coast vs. west coast feud that reached a tragic climax with the murders of tupac shakur and biggie smalls in 1996 and 1997, respectively. lipsitz's discussion of the album focuses more on the intersection of african american, haitian, and, espe­ cially in the albums' cover of bob marley's "no woman, no cry;' jamaican influences. lipsitz does not, however, limit himself to "the pan -african world that produced the fugees" (43). the crossover referenced in the chapter's title is multilayered: the ever-expanding ripples of connections include those within the caribbean (haitian interest in jamaican reggae as well as "kreyol-spanish hybridity"[33]); within nations (the chinese presence in jamaica that had a significant influence on the production of jamaican popular music); and between african and asian diasporic communities worldwide.2 the omnipresent but often overlooked contributions of people of asian descent to global popular music is a recurrent issue in footsteps; the latter half of the fugees chapter is devoted to this topic. the work of filipino american musicians in particular is acknowledged throughout the book: besides joe bataan, whose 1967 cover of the impressions' "gypsy woman" is sampled on the score, lipsitz recognizes the contributions and talents of afro-filipina soul singer sugar pie desanto, allan pineda (better known as apl.de.ap of the black-eyed peas), and virtuosic turn tab list richard quitevis (a.k.a. dj q-bert), among others. even while acknowledging the message of songs like "no woman, no cry," which "enables the fugees to fuse the history of haitian immigrants with the history of deindustrialization and economic restructuring in urban ghettos in the united states" (31), lipsitz is hardly pollyannish when it comes to the potential of popular music to act as an agent for change. "the fugees are a commercial act, not a political organization;' lipsitz advises, and despite 129 130 current musicology their apparent social consciousness, "their music and lyrics should not be read as political manifestos or even as guides to the actual political stances and beliefs of the artists who create them" ( 41-42). as evidence, he points to what he calls "indefensibly racist characterizations of asian store owners" on the score (45) and later, in the chapter on the hip-hop hearings, to "hip hop's ties to sweatshop labor" (181) as contradictory, counterprogessive elements of hip-hop culture. nonetheless, the chapter makes an effective contribution to the book's primary goal: to illustrate how identifiable political inequities are a catalyst for migration, through which emerge "interethnic coalitions and conflicts in north american cities" and, in turn, uniquely transcultural products that testify to the complex histories of their making. another concept introduced early on is what lipsitz describes as "containerization." he points to two developments that have marked the age of digital capitalism: the eclipse of economies of scale (mass production of identical items) by economies of scope (the production of a wide range of differentiated but largely interchangeable items intended for different target markets); and the "emergence of fully linked and integrated forms of production, distribution, and consumption" (238). inspired by the use of automated cranes and interchangeable crates for shipping, containerization enacts a "social pedagogy" geared toward "training consumers to desire difference and distance from the tastes of other consumers" (21), which, ironically, because these are in fact "differences without a difference" (14), leads to homogenization. the effects of containerization on popular music cut both ways. there can be "logical outcomes" -for example, "the growth of prefabricated musical acts" like 'n sync and reality shows like pop stars, on which young female contestants eagerly competed for membership in eden's crush facing "the dilemma of proving that they were special, different, unique, completely individual by proving their mastery of exactly the same shared social codes that construct each of them as interchangeable parts of a mass market" (10). there can also be unexpected results: african american teens in detroit crafted techno in the 1980s and 1990s using "computers to monitor, audit, sequence, and control sounds-the same computers that made containerization possible by monitoring, auditing, sequencing, and controlling the unloading of ships" (245). much as digitization and inte­ grated marketing transformed senses of place by creating new, virtual sites of consumption trafficked by worldwide consumers of girl/boy-band pop, techno artists responded to the neglect of actual urban sites by summoning new market-bridging communities in ad hoc dance spaces through digitized fusions of parliament, kraftwerk, and the monkees. lipsitz draws heavily on existing scholarship, bringing into dialogue the essential points of others' work-his chapter on merengue and dominican mark burford migration is the only one that seems slightly overly reliant on summarizing information published elsewhere. the first half of "weeds in a vacant lot" is, however, based on his own mid-1990s interviews with three former bag members-saxophonists oliver lake and julius hemphill, and spoken-word artist and actor vincent terrell-and builds on his earlier work focusing on st. louis (lipsitz 1991; see also looker 2004). lipsitz cares deeply about the fate and dynamics of cities. the techno chapter argues that the music's emergence implicates its context: deindustrialization "transformed vibrant and lively neighborhoods into block after block of abandoned houses and storefronts" (241). similarly, lipsitz's discussion of bag documents the thriving cultural and civic activity in the musicians' neighborhoods, the dispersal of residents through urban renewal, then the reflowering of community ideals in other places through new musical collaborations. bag was in fact created in the image of another multi-media cooperative, chicago's association for the advancement of creative musicians (aacm), whose participants included transplants from st. louis like lester bowie and phil cohran. the chapter highlights the broad stylistic fluency of bag associates who "drew deftly on the classical, jazz, and gospel music of their community" having "honed their craft as performers in rhythm and blues combos" (114). later in the chapter, the scene shifts to los angeles, where the construction of dodger stadium in the late 1950s was expedited by labeling as "blighted" the tight -knit, predominantly mexican american rural community already at that location. even while describing cooder, who also produced the mega-hit movie and recording buena vista social club, as "a romantic white interpreter of'lost' music created by people of color," lipsitz expresses admiration for the "extraordinary, energy, passion, and power" of chavez ravine, an "album [that 1 may well be american studies' greatest (and, so far, only) hit" (125-27). the album's fourteen tracks, performed by musicians that include tex-mex conjunto accordion wizard flaco jimenez, chicano bassist and rhythm and blues bandleader don tosti, and david hidalgo of los lobos, "evoke the lively dynamism of the barrio before urban renewal" (127). "perhaps more important:' lipsitz writes, "chavez ravine identifies urban renewal as one of the main sources of enduring interracial enmity in los angeles and as one of the main culprits in the destruction of interracial and intercultural cooperation" (127-28). to lipsitz, popular music lays bare the legacy of policies that undermine potentially liberatory alliances yet also points to the hope for their regeneration. this journal's readers may note that despite being a book about popular music, and in spite of lipsitz's obviously deep and long engagement with popular music, "the music itself" that vexed and invariably scare-quoted phrase by which i mean music in its primarily sonic aspects-has an ambigu131 132 current musicology ous and, occasionally, not entirely satisfying place in footsteps in the dark. lipsitz has consulted the most authoritative english-language scholarship on the genres of music he discusses-elizabeth mcalister on rara, helena simonett on banda, deborah pacini-hernandez and paul austerlitz on dominican popular music, lisa waxer on transnational salsa, etc. at times, however, it is difficult to determine when observations about musical style or specific recordings come from the author's own listening and when they are passed on from his sources. it is fair to say-and i suspect lipsitz would agree-that, while there are many references to instrumentation, performance contexts, and, in some cases, representative repertory, for one in search of in-depth information about, say, banda or merengue or salsa-for instance, what these musics sound like and what stylistic features distinguish them from other types of music-this is not intended to be the book to consult. that said, with so many illustrative cases to consider, there may be mo­ ments when one finds him/herself wanting more specifics about the music under discussion, especially when lipsitz moves in fairly quick succession from example to example and style to style. in the salsa chapter, for example, lipsitz begins by discussing the debate over the posthumous repatriation of the iconic salsa singer hector lavoe, who died in new york in 1993; the question of where the puerto rican-born singer's body belonged is invoked allegorically to consider puerto rican music and migration in light of the island's status as a us territory. far from focusing on salsa-or colonialism, for that matter-lipsitz also touches in varying degrees on jibaro music (the music associated with white, rural-dwelling puerto rican farmers); bomba and plena (the traditional music associated with afro-puerto ricans); cuban son and latin jazz; the world war i military brass band of james reese europe, which recruited several of its members from puerto rico; cachi cachi (a hawaiian party music "played on the quarto and derivative of the puerto rican jibaro style" [228, (sic) 1 ); bugalu, the 1960s style popular among nuyoricans that fused rhythm and blues and soul with afro-cuban dance music; the strongly latin-influenced music of the los angeles-based, congolese-angolan singer ricardo lemvo and the "complicated cultural politics of congolese music" (233); and, finally, hip-hop and the at-once progressive and "extremely retrograde" politics of the late, bronx-born, puerto rican mc big pun. "in the face of direct colonization and economic exploitation, military conquest, cultural marginality, and poverty," lipsitz summarizes, "the puerto rican culture created overseas and at home has taken a part of puerto rico to the rest of the world and in turn has absorbed back into puerto rico ideas and influences unavailable through other means" (233-34). mark burford if such a gamut seems somewhat myriad and unwieldy, if compelling, then you get some sense of reading footsteps in the dark. lipsitz can be positively virtuosic in his ability to weave together observations and insights from a range of scholarship. one often gets the sense that he provides the depth of analysis and metacritique absent from his sources, individually and collectively. still, the expansive compass of each chapter may be a chal­ lenge to some readers, who might be uncertain of the intended takeaway, particularly with regard to music. the chapter titles themselves, whose formulaic structure looks so neat and tidy in the table of contents, can even sometimes feel like a distraction since they raise unmet expectations of specificity. lipsitz might, however, argue that thinking about ostensibly discrete musical styles in terms of their shifting contexts, motley influences, mutable forms, and shades of gray is exactly the point. a solution to the problem, if one chooses to think of it that way, may lie in the four themes described above. the chapter on merengue is about migration, but so are the chapters on banda, salsa, and haiti. the discussion of bag and chavez ravine addresses deindustrialization, but so too do the chapters on hip-hop and techno. the issues of transnationalism and hybridity recur in most chapters. in some ways, this gives the book a strong sense of cohesion and purpose; in others, it is difficult to encapsulate the book's musical argument since a range of styles are discussed in similar ways through reference to a seemingly inexhaustible trove of provocative evidence. i found myself pondering what the book would look like if it were structured around the handful of thematic strands, supported with stylistically various musical examples, instead of ten separate studies whose subjects multiply over the course of each chapter. the chapters on pop stars and techno, for example, were purportedly about the hidden histories of digital capitalism and deindustrialization, respectively; both, however, address containeriza­ tion, the epistemic shift to economies of scope from economies of scale, and the cognitive remapping of space and time facilitated by digital technology. consolidating these discussions somehow might have made the mutually reinforcing effects of de industrialization and digital capitalism even more stark and compelling. on a handful of occasions, coverage of so much stylistic territory resulted in what i felt were oversimplifications of musical issues. on page 30, for example, lipsitz states that rara music, heard during six-week-iong street festivals in haiti that begin immediately after the end of carnival and continue until easter week, "shares many affinities with hip hop;' citing only rara's "performative orality." from an afro-diasporic or african retentions perspective, one could very plausibly make this argument; in certain field recordings of rara one might hear repeating, looped grooves reminiscent of 133 134 current musicology hip-hop beats. and it is true that some haitian rara and mizik rasin (roots music) groups have embraced and incorporated elements of hip-hop-the self-produced debut album by the rara band djarara (2007), which leads processions every sunday in brooklyn's prospect park during the summer, is one example. but if one listened to representative hip-hop and rara recordings side-by-side, it would be a stretch to link so casually the sound of the hocketing kane trumpets and bambau horns, hand-held percussion, and collective singing of a rara procession to a hip-hop jam. the underlying "affinities" that are theoretically demonstrable through careful analysis are not, to my ears at least, so sonically self-evident as to preclude delineating them. the sonic and the social frequently offer different bodies of evidence, a distinction that merits acknowledgement. elsewhere, lipsitz claims that rafael hermindez and other puerto rican musicians recruited by james reese europe came to the band having gained "considerable experience as improvisers playing cantradanzas and danzanes" (218). in fact, these tightly arranged, rondo-structured creole dance musics, usually performed in bour­ geois ballroom settings, typically would have offered limited opportunities for improvisation, unlike other vernacular musical styles (see, e.g., manuel 1998: 128). likewise, the characterization of the trinidadian popular music soca as "a genre that is a blend of soul and calypso" (149) is a frequently repeated claim, though, as shannon dudley (1996) has noted, likely an apocryphal one.3 only glancing consideration of certain stylistic questions results in an occasional resort to statements like "lyrics of merengue songs often chronicle the experiences of workers and refugees" (145), a claim that, while true, is both too general-being one that could apply to virtually any style of popular music-and too specific, since the topical range of merengue lyrics is certainly far broader than this. whether one considers such matters undermining flaws or pedantic niggles, they should not distract from the book's trenchant analysis of the social forces and historical legacies to which the various musical phenomena point. because lipsitz finds history encoded everywhere, there are fascinating insights on virtually every page. this is especially true when he turns his attention to detailing the biographical histories of individual musicians, savoring "the relentless delineation of particularities" (103), a phrase that conveys one of the book's greatest strengths. lipsitz focuses on those who, despite surface appearances and reductionist dichotomies, cross b~rders to willfully and strategically occupy what christopher waterman (2000) has described as "the excluded middle," individuals who, as lipsitz puts it, problematize preconceived categories and combat "the everyday indignities of racial discrimination by carrying social construction to an extreme" (208). thus we read about patrick shannon, the irish american cableman from brooklyn who grew up on heavy metal but later became a successful mark burford merengue singer; rick murphy, an anglo-american who sang vietnamese folk songs, ballads, and vqng co (songs from southern vietnamese musical theater) at an orange county, california, club catering to vietnamese refugees; african american keyboardist john roland redd who passed as mexican (adopting the pseudonym "juan rolando") before transforming· himself into a turban-wearing south asian "indian" who gazed seductively into the camera as host of the popular 1950s television show adventures in music with karla pandit; and lee brown, who, like redd, reinvented himself first as "indian" to avoid anti-black racism, then as a maxwell klinger-like cross-dresser to avoid military service, and finally as a "mexican" named babs gonzales, who went on to enjoy a successful and influential career as a bebop vocalese singer. throughout footsteps in the dark-and especially in the chapter "masquerades and mixtures," for this reader the highlight of the book-lipsitz skillfully deploys such examples of musicians and musical styles with composite histories and fluid cultural affiliations to highlight the inescapable hybridity of cultural expression, the fundamental connectedness of aggrieved groups in an increasingly transnational world, and the political efficacy of strategic anti-essentialism and multiracial activist coalitions. the use of popular music, blurred boundaries, and reconstructed identities for the purpose of pointed political critique is an ongoing strategy. in 2007, shawn kiehne, a white new mexican who became immersed in mexican culture working on his family's cattle ranch near el paso, texas, released alga sucedi6, an all-spanish cd of nortefio music and corridos. emphasizing the immediacy of his relationship to the music, kiehne said, "i am not some manufactured record label idea. this is music that i love. this is a culture that i love. this is me." at the same time, kiehne's chosen stage name, "el gringo," expresses his keen awareness of the social distance that separates him from the culture that he has fully embraced as his own. he recalled his experience working side-by-side with mexican seasonal laborers: "i learned to see the world through the eyes of those vaqueros. if i had five kids and couldn't support them in mexico, i would do the same thing that they are doing ... anyone who leaves their homeland to come here and look for a better life and work that hard should be admired, not criticized." the lyrics (in translation) of one of the album's tracks, "el corrido del gringo;' communicates the social activism of kiehne's adopted identity: "i respect immigrants and of this i'm sure / we need to be good neighbors and not build a wall / to my illegal friends who live in the u.s. / as a gringo i want to tell you to keep dreaming and fighting / this country needs your effort and your work" (kun 2008).4 lipsitz addresses these very issues head-on in his chapter on banda, one of three chapters that examine how popular music has archived the experience of latin american migration to the united states. banda, which 135 136 current musicology originated in the mid-nineteenth century from brass band traditions in rural northwest mexico, especially the state of sinaloa, became, in a newly urban­ ized, transregional, and commercial form, part of a bona fide musical move­ ment among mexican americans in the western us during the early 1990s. hundreds of banda social clubs sprouted in los angeles, lipsitz's geographic focus, where members performed the quebradita, banda's signature dance, at weekend parties that became "an arena where mexicanidad was honored, cherished, and prized" (58). the "horn-heavy instrumentation;' including banda's characteristic oom-pahing tuba, was a symbolically significant sonic marker that distinguished banda from "u.s. songs sung in english and accompanied mainly by electric guitar" (65)-though a subsequent offshoot of banda, tecnobanda, embraced more synthesized sounds. clearly, lipsitz argues, the banda phenomenon was "more than merely about music." the "power and greed of big business interests in mexico and the united states" (73), in particular "a brand of economic fundamentalism favoring 'free' markets" (70), triggered displacements through which "banda music emerged as a subtle and significant register of the social dislocations engen­ dered by the rapid mobility of capital and the mass migrations oflow-wage workers across national borders in an age of hypermobile capital" (57). as one banda club member testified, in the face of hostilities faced in the u.s., including exploitative wages, unsafe working conditions, harsh policing, hate crimes, and anti -immigration sentiment, "the banda movement helped young people to address the issue of being mexican. to tell who they are or to fight against injustice and discrimination" (64).5 i wanted lipsitz to complicate his claim that prior to the banda boom mexican cultural nationalism "had relatively little meaning in mexico" (63). in the decades following the mexican revolution, and stimulated in large part by the 1921 centennial of the country's independence, nativist music and culture played a significant role in a comprehensive, state-sponsored nation-building project intended to bring unity to a historically fragmented population (vaughan and lewis 2006). nonetheless, the chapter paints a vivid picture of the reasons for migration and of the ways in which banda dances served a range of social functions, from renegotiating gender relations, to appreciating the heterogeneity of mexican immigrants' histories, to facilitating intra-group "physical movement across neighborhood boundaries" (62). similar historical narratives inform the chapters on salsa and merengue, though with more emphasis on hybridities contained within and called into being by these musics. both chapters deal with working-class migration from the caribbean to new york city and the ways in which musical elements deemphasized in homogenizing nationalist contexts in puerto rico and the dominican republic were made more openly manifest following migration. mark burford through musical interaction with african americans and afro-cubans in new york, for example, many puerto rican musicians began to foreground ''afro-latin elements that were muted sometimes in puerto rican music"; thus "by moving from san juan to harlem ... spanish-speaking puerto rican musicians had become 'black' in a new way" (219, 222). likewise, the racial ideology driving rafael trujillo's aggressive cultural policy that established jazz-tinged big band merengue-based on a style of merengue originally associated with the white spanish population living in the cibao region, a style known as merengue cibaeno (misspelled in the book "merengue ciabeno" [138 ])-as the national music of the dominican republic was defused by dominican migration: "the transnational nature of dominican society reveals that nation to be more complex and more connected to other nations than the old nationalist merengues could ever admit" (151). a theoretical concept to which footsteps in the dark repeatedly returns is juan flores's notion of "branching out" (flores 1985), which lipsitz sum­ marizes as "changing through contact but moving in all directions toward other people of color" (227), "a fusion of cultures and styles that has little to do with assimilation into an anglo center" (65). in addition to "puerto ricans [who 1 become more aware of the african elements in their culture when they move to new york" (227), instances of "branching out" cited by lipsitz include the variety of popular musics-"techno, house, rock, merengue, bolero, ranchera, and cumbia" (65)-played at banda dances in los angeles; and the dominican-born musician and founder of fania records johnny pacheco, who, after coming to new york in 1946, gained "entry into puerto rican culture;' leading to additional "contact with dark­ skinned afro-cuban musicians, creative interaction with african american jazz musicians, and cultural and political alliances with the civil rights and black power movements" (144-45). a musical example that would have supported-and, again, complicated-lipsitz's use of flores's ideas is dominican singer and trumpeter kinito mendez's 2000 pop merengue hit "nueva york pasando lista" (new york calls the roll), which gives shout outs to a number of constituencies in new york's spanish-speaking community, asking "que seria de nueva york sin ese sabor hispano?" (what would new york be without this hispanic flavor?). mendez's song both branches out, proclaiming alliances with geographically dispersed countries ranging from mexico to peru to panama, and, by emphasizing linguistic ties, conspicuously leaves out, among others, its most immediate neighbor haiti, reinforcing the longstanding hispanocentric, anti-haitian bias that fueled trujillo's iron-fisted purge of any trace of afro-dominican national identity. the messiness of alliances forged and alliances more tentatively embraced might have also been fruitfully probed by considering, for instance, not only the 137 138 current musicology ways in which the banda movement "represents a powerful rejection of as­ similation" (64) but also the ways in which its enthusiasts "were symbolically fighting for citizenship;' as sydney hutchinson (2007:208) has suggested. in these discussions, lipsitz seeks above all to "bring to the surface many of the heterogeneous realities that the homogeneity of nationalism once obscured" (152). this message lies at the heart of his observations on jazz, and in particular jazz, an american triumphalist project that "occludes the internationalism that has informed the art of so many jazz musicians" and "obscures the history of the nation's role in the world and the presence of the whole world within the nation" (81, 90). footsteps in the dark's tendency toward analysis of "concrete case studies, not philosophical abstraction" (271), highlighting underexplored connections between and within these specific examples, is in line not only with lipsitz's earlier work but also with provocative scholarly trends with important implications for the study of music's relationship to society, politics, culture, and identity. even as many college and university music departments have become more open to scholarship that bridges what have traditionally been their three principal domains, of research-historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory-and even as interdisciplin­ ary approaches to studying music have multiplied and been mainstreamed (initially under the banner of the now somewhat quaint-sounding "new musicology"), lipsitz and other scholars, mostly outside of music depart­ ments, have pointed to other important ways of complicating the purview of musical study. decades ago, commentators as philosophically disparate as albert murray and amiri baraka noted the "inescapably mulatto nature of american culture" (murray 1970:22) and the "hopelessly interwoven fabric of american life where blacks and whites pass so quickly as to become only grays" (jones 1963:111).6 more recently, several writers have suggested that rather than delimit how we think and study along the axes of nation, culture, race, ethnicity, sex, or gender, we instead acknowledge the heterogeneity of origins previously considered pure and the compositeness and interdepen­ dence of identities that are too often thought of as discrete. paul gilroy, for example, has asked if, instead of an approach that "typically identifies music with tradition and cultural continuity," we might explore that same music in terms of "transnational structures of circulation and intercultural exchange" in order to consider how "a self-consciously synthetic culture can support ... novel political identities" (gilroy 1993:82-83, 87). at an even more fundamental level than the transnational flows linked to globalization, robin kelley and vijay prashad eschew the insidiously pat feel-goodness of "multiculturalism" for polyculturalism: ''a polyculturalist sees the world constituted by the interchange of cultural forms, while mulmark burford ticulturalism sees the world constituted by different (and discrete) cultures that we can place into categories and study with respect" (prashad 2001:67). according to such a view, hybridity is less the exception than the rule. our lines of biological descent are about as pure as oj.'s blood sample, and our cultural lines of descent are about as mixed up as a pot of gumbo .... [s 1 o-called "mixed race" children are not the only ones with a claim to multiple heritages. all of us, and i mean all of us, are the inheritors of european, african, native american, and even asian pasts, even if we can't exactly trace our blood lines to all of these continents. (kelley 1999:6) multiculturalism, in other words, aims to teach us something new about others. polyculturalism challenges us to learn something new about ourselves.? though less focused on individuals than on the potential of collec­ tivities, legal scholars and critical race theorists lani guinier and gerald torres's concept of "political race" insists upon racialized identities, not for the purpose of "a cultural or race nationalism that made one's personal identity their political project," but rather to theorize how "individuals who do not share characteristics traditionally associated with biological race may, through their conscious association and participation, identify as members or allies" (guinier and torres 2002:21). as footsteps in the dark persuasively insists, this is particularly true in an age of transnationalism and globalization that has seen an "evaporating congruence of physical place and cultural space" (234). despite their differing emphases and goals, these various conceptual frameworks, along with waterman's "excluded middle;' flores's "branching out;' and lipsitz's "strategic anti-essentialism;' all accept the galvanizing and organizational power of tactical essentialism but only insofar as it pushes us toward recognition of the complexity of our histories and identities and of the broader political nexuses in which our respective experiences situate us.s for music scholars, this would necessarily entail something more than the inclusion of a charlie pride track on a country music compilation cd, a sidebar on machito in a jazz history text, a vague acknowledgement of the classical music backgrounds of countless jazz musicians, painstaking documentation of ''africanisms'' in african american popular music, or passing mention of the fact that western swing pioneer bob wills credited his early music education to his interactions with the black sharecroppers his family lived and worked alongside. and despite a substantial body of literature on the topic, music history survey courses might consider more centrally how the eighteenth-century viennese fascination with "turkish music" and the alla turca style, a vogue rooted in the shifting balance of 139 140 current musicology power between the ottoman and habsburg empires, was audible in musical discourse that can be more fully comprehended in light of this history and through which categories that include "the west," "europe," "civilization," "classical style;' and "art music" were negotiated and understood. the goal of such approaches to studying music becomes the documentation of not just hospitable and artistically productive cultural encounters but also of truly generative and defining intermixtures. footsteps in the dark is george lipsitz's most ambitious book to date exclusively on music, and perhaps his most passionate, candid, and unflinch­ ing period. despite an occasionally precarious balance of meticulousness and synopsis, the heart of the book is lipsitz's cumulative message, and that message-about deepening our understanding of historical processes through the study of popular music, about the relationship between histori­ cal knowledge and social justice, about how transnational realities produce "new cultural forms speaking to new social identities" with the potential for new social relations-is timely and of critical importance. lipsitz's own gravitation over the course of his career from american studies to transna­ tional cultural studies-or perhaps post-national american studies-reflects his view, conveyed in footsteps in the dark, of "the problems with studying music in just one city or nation" (233). as he explains in his eloquent epilogue, these methodological questions stem from political ones: "in an increasingly interdependent world it is difficult to see how any substantial problems can be solved only one nation at a time" (277). to progressive-minded, activist scholars, the relationship between musical experience, culture, and social change is consequential to consider. even if popular music can help express our politics, and even if the lessons of history gleaned from popular culture should guide our politics, as guinier and torres remind us, "culture does not do the work of politics" (2002:20, emphasis added), a point to which lipsitz alludes as well. listening to-or, for that matter, studying-dead prez or bob marley or banda does not make us "political" any more than it defines who we are. since identities are endlessly hybrid, heterogeneous, and polymorphic-with the now­ black chinese south africans providing a case in point-whereas one's political convictions and ethical compass are, hopefully, more stable, "we cannot draw our politics from our identities but instead must construct our identities through our politics" (202). but if, as lipsitz believes, "our entire understanding of music and society may hinge on what kinds of histories we valorize" (104), the next step is determining how hidden histories, once revealed, can at least become part of the official record. mark burford notes 1. several headlines read: "in south africa, chinese is the new black." on comedy central's the colbert report, stephen colbert quipped before the 2008 presidential election that as a member of a group that has experienced discrimination, senior citizen john mccain could become the first black president of the united states. see also ho and mullen (2008). 2. for a compelling analysis of the relationship between the african and asian diasporas from a global-historical perspective, see prashad (2001). 3. dudley writes: "while the term 'soca' is most often said to derive from 'soul calypso,' imply­ ing the influence of black music from the us, [trinidadian folklorist selwyn 1 ahyoung cites lord shorty [the calypsonian generally credited with originating socal as saying that he in­ tended the word to be spelled 'sokah,' 'to reflect the east indian influence'" (1996:286-87). 4. my thanks to naomi zeichner for drawing my attention to this article. 5. in a monograph that appeared since the publication of footsteps in the dark, sydney hutchinson (2007) describes the significance of 1990s banda/tecnobanda music and que­ bradita performance within border youth cultures. hutchinson also discusses the related though more self-consciously transnational musica duranguense popularized in the following decade by chicago's mexican american communities, a response, she argues, to renewed anti-immigrant backlash following september 11 tho 6. interestingly, even larry neal's manifesto "the black aesthetic," a touchstone ofthe black arts movement characterized most often as quintessential cultural nationalist rhetoric, makes multiple references to "the third world of which black america is a part" (1968:39). 7. taking into account as well power relations and the terms of manifesting shared culture is, however, essential since opportunities to express or even inhabit one's polycultural identity are highly contingent. les back (2002), for example, seeking to rebut "critics and writers [who 1 seem obsessed with reducing white involvement in black music to a very limited range of archetypal possibilities" (230), has highlighted the interracial collaboration at fame recording studios in muscle shoals, alabama, where some of the greatest southern soul records were made. "i want to argue," back writes, "that the studio itself became a context in which a kind of innocent nonracialized world was lived and realized in sound." back makes the crucially important point that as southerners who grew up in close proximity to black culture, white house band members steve cropper, donald "duck" dunn, spooner oldham, and others, backing singers like aretha franklin and wilson pickett, "carried diversity within themselves" (251). however, back mentions but applies no critical pressure to the fact that african american musicians-for instance, urban blues singer bobby "blue" bland, who noted "i still know more about hillbilly tunes than i do about blues" (26s)-had virtually no opportunity to appear on country music records of comparable stature. here is a clear case where ownership of the means of production made it possible for certain embodied diversities to emerge and not others. this should invite more complex analysis of both the degree to which white "involvement" in the making of iconic soul records was a matter of racially transcendent cultural hybridity laid bare and the extent to which it was also a reflec­ tion of structures of power. george lewis (2001-2) has raised related issues in his discussion of "black" and "white" experimental music in new york city in the 1970s and 80s. 8. it is important to note that spivak, who defines strategic essentialism as "a strategic use of positivist essentialism in a scrupulously visible political interest" (spivak 1988:13), proposed the tactical use of essentialism as a political tactic, not a theory. she in fact acknowledged that embracing strategic essentialism was a temporary position, the trade-off of which was 141 142 current musicology "to jettison one's own purity as a theorist": "you pick up the universal that will give you the power to fight against the other side, and what you are throwing away by doing that is your theoretical purity" (spivak 1990:12). references back, les. 2002. out of sight: southern music and the coloring of sound. in out of whiteness: color, politics, and culture, by vron ware and les back, 227-70. chicago and london: university of chicago press. canaves, sky. 200s. in south africa, chinese is the new black. wall street journal online (june 19): http://blogs.wsj . com/ chinajournali200s/06/ 19/in -south -africa-chin ese-is-the­ new-black (online article, accessed october 9, 200s). dudley, shannon. 1996. judging "by the beat": calypso versus soca. ethnomusicology 40 (2): 269-9s. flores, juan. 19s5. que assimilated, brother, yo soy assimilao: the structuring of puerto rican identity in the u.s. journal of ethnic studies 13 (1): 1-16. gilroy, paul. 1993. the black atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. guinier, lani, and gerald torres. 2002. the miner's canary: enlisting race, resisting power, transforming democracy. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. ho, fred, and bill v. mullen, eds. 200s. afro asia: revolutionary political and cultural connections between african americans and asian americans. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. hutchinson, sydney. 2007. from quebradita to duranguense: dance in mexican american youth culture. tucson: university of arizona press. kelley, robin d.g. 1999. people in me. colorlines 1 (winter): 5-7. kun, josh. 200s. born in america, heart in mexico. new york times (july 20): http://www. nytimes.com/200s/07/20/arts/music/20kun.html (online article, accessed october 9, 200s). lewis, george. 2001-2. experimental music in black and white: the aacm in new york, 1970-19s5. current musicology, nos. 71-73: 100-57. lipsitz, george. 19s5. a life in the struggle: ivory perry and the culture of opposition. philadelphia: temple university press. ---. 1990. time passages: collective memory and american popular culture. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. ---. 1991. the sidewalks of st. louis: places, people, and politics in an american city. columbia: university of missouri press. ---. 1994a. rainbow at midnight: labor and culture in the 1940s. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. ---. 1994b. dangerous crossroads: popular music, postmoderism, and the poetics of place. new york: verso. ---. 1995. the possessive investment in whiteness: how white people profit from identity politics. philadelphia: temple university press. ---. 2001. american studies in a moment of danger. critical american studies. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. looker, benjamin. 2004. point from which creation begins: the blacks artists' group of st. louis. st. louis: missouri historical society press. manuel, peter. 1995. improvisation in latin american dance music: history and style. in in the course of performance: studies in the world of musical improvisation, edited by bruno nett! with melinda russell, 127-4s. chicago and london: university of chicago press. mark burford neal, larry. 1968. the black arts movement. theater drama review 12 (4): 28-39. prashad, vijay. 2001. everybody was kung fu fighting: afro-asian connections and the myth of cultural purity. boston: beacon press. ramsey, jr., guthrie p. 2003. race music: black cultures from bebop to hip-hip. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. spivak, gayatri chakravorty. 1988. subaltern studies: deconstructing historiography. in selected subaltern studies, edited by ranajit guha and gayatri chakravorty spivak, 3-32. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 1990. the post-colonial critic: interviews, strategies, dialogues, edited by sarah harasym. london and new york: routledge. vaughan, mary kay, and stephen lewis, eds. 2006. the eagle and the virgin: nation and cultural revolution in mexico, 1920-1940. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. waterman, christopher. 2000. race music: bo chatmon, "corrine corrina;' and the excluded middle. in music and the racial imagination, edited by ronald radano and philip v. bohlman, 167-205. chicago and london: university of chicago press. discography djarara lot bo dio. 2007. patesho, volume 1. djarara lot bo dio 837101402033. 143 current.musicology.86.101-184.pdf being home: jazz authority and the politics of place * by vijay iyer horace tapscott. songs of the unsung: the musical and social journey of horace tapscott. edited by steven isoardi. durham, n.c.: duke university press, 2001. xvi, 254 pp . . bill kirchner, ed. the oxford companion to jazz. new york: oxford university press, 2000. xii, 852 pp. songs of the unsung: the musical and social journey of horace tapscott sets forth an astonishing, searingly honest view of one segment of music his­ tory that is indeed unsung. tapscott (1934-1999) was a pianist, composer, bandleader, and social activist who spent most of his life in the mrican american communities of los angeles. in 1998, sociologist steven isoardi collaborated with several generations of los angeles jazz musicians to compile a vital oral history of that city's rich, undervalued role in mrican american music and culture (bryant et al. 1998). among isoardi's interview subjects was tapscott, who also served as a co-editor of the compilation. several hours of conversation with tapscott were distilled into a handful of pages for his entry in that volume. subsequent to tapscott's death, isoardi arranged these transcribed recollections into a coherent, com­ pelling autobiography. the resultant memoir reminds us with stunning candor that too much has happened under the radar of the jazz industry. the narrative begins by relating the powerful sense of belonging and purpose that tapscott experienced as a child in segregated, depression­ era houston. tapscott connects this sense to formal and informal cultural institutions such as the church, the familial cohesiveness of his neighbor­ hood, and most of all, the omnipresence of music. "you've got to have the music all the time; it was part of the fabric of the community" (10). as a child, he learned elements of music from his mother and moved with his family to southern california in 1943, shortly after beginning the trom­ bone. exposed as a teenager to l.a.'s busy central avenue jazz scene, tapscott found himself learning from melba liston, gerald wilson, buddy collette, wardell gray, and many other mentor figures. he counted ornette coleman, don cherry, frank morgan, and eric dolphy among his young peers. while in high school, he had extensive private music lessons and began performing around town. later, he had a brief stint at los angeles city college: "that was a big thing for black folks in the 1940s and 1950s. it didn't matter what college, just as long as you went current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york vijay iyer 463 to college .... you'd get free bread at the store. 'this boy is going to col­ lege. and a male, at that!'" (39). possessing advanced abilities in music theory, harmony, sight reading, and ear training, he soon grew frustrated with the continual condescension he experienced dealing with white pro­ fessors and students, and returned to "the u of s, university of the streets, on central avenue" (41). the period that followed saw the decline of the central avenue scene, the dissolution of the local mrican american chapter of the musicians' union (subsumed under the white-run chapter in the name of integra­ tion), and the proliferation of narcotics. tapscott joined the air force to be in the band and was stationed in wyoming, where his natural leader­ ship skills and confrontational nature both became crucial to his survival. in 1958, out of the service, he joined lionel hampton's band as a trom­ bonist and occasional pianist, traveling around the country on a grueling schedule for decent pay. then one night, he had an important change of heart, related in typically hair-raising fashion. with [lionel] hamp[ton] , we played mostly in the south and new york. those were two racist places and still are. i thought, "well, there's no point. what's the point of playing this music here? these people don't pay any attention to it and don't have any idea what we're playing." and the band was playing great music ... but i wasn't satisfied ... because i didn't feel the music was making any point. then the band came to los angeles for a gig out on sunset boulevard. i'll never forget. mter the last performance, we were get­ ting ready to head back to new york. at four o'clock that morning, i got off the bus. oliver jackson, the drummer, said, "where you going, horace?" "this is it, brother. i've had it." i wanted to do something else. i wanted my own thing; i wanted to write it and i wanted to help preserve the music. the music was just going off, and nobody knew who wrote the music or cared .... and that's why my feelings got to the point where these people, these men and women who really were in the music ... should be recognized and their contribution to this whole scheme of things should be recognized. this is when i first started thinking about putting the arkestra to­ gether and that's why i got off the road to start my band, to preserve black music. i wanted to preserve and teach and show and perform the music of black americans and pan-mrican music, to preserve it by playing it and writing it and taking it to the community. that was what it was about, being part of the community, and that's the 464 current musicology reason i left hamp's band that night. i decided that what my family had gone through for me to get into the music was for this particular reason, to make a point, to say something with it, for it to be ac­ cepted as good music and to be accepted as part of the fabric of the whole society that we all dream of having. and that meant being home. (79-80) the rest of the book depicts the subsequent four decades as a realiza­ tion of this dream. back home in his community in l.a., he brought to­ gether a group of musicians that became known as the pan mrikan peoples arkestra (nicknamed the "ark," with biblical connotations intact). together they began working on music constantly, organizing their own concerts, providing educational programs, and presenting music as a so­ cial occasion and a focal point for community activities. "[w] e said, 'why don't we pull this together and put on functions and show how we feel, where we've been, where we are, and where we want to go' " (107). tapscott became a nurturer of young talent, creating a space for them to develop and committing to them as if they were family. though remarkably exten­ sive, the arkestra's activities went largely undocumented by the main­ stream media: "all this was going on in the community, but no newspaper, no news, no writers" (107). his fixation on grass-roots activities took priority over more traditional dealings with the jazz industry: "so why don't you stop all this business, man, and go to new york and make a record?" i had forgotten all about that; it had left my mind. i had no idea what was happening in that world. records and all that, i didn't even think about it. (121) over the years his organization, ugma (the underground musicians' association) transformed into ugmaa (the union of god's musicians and artists ascension), a major grass-roots institution with an interna­ tional reputation. tapscott was not just a pianist-composer-bandleader but also an educator and healer, an agent for social change, whose musical ac­ tivism ultimately functioned as a guiding light in his stricken community.! burton peretti observes that in jazz musicians' oral histories, the dis­ course that unfolds reveals the speakers' "notions of power, will, beauty, and politics, and stimulate [s] readers to confront their own ideology" (1995:130). but in the course of his oral history, tapscott does more: he challenges the reader with his agency. what may appear at the outset to be a straightforward narration of his life experiences becomes, in retrospect, the tracing of a path of action-a sketch of a revolutionary trajectory. the book goes beyond jazz autobiography as a commodity, transcending the anecdotal setting, in the same way that tapscott's actions extend bevijay iyer 465 yond lp records, beyond jazz, beyond music. circumventing the conven­ tions of the jazz industry, tapscott's path of action breaks the cycle of commodification and erupts into the reader's own reality. the reader be­ comes intensely, even painfully conscious of a continual process of struggle and activism, radically integrated into everyday life. with monumental conviction, tapscott articulates his commitment to place, in the sense sug­ gested by george lipsitz (1994) and others: a global awareness wedded to a specific cultural rootedness that is radically local. tapscott speaks and acts from the vantage point of a socioculturally situated musician. his under­ standings of what music is about and what it is for are traced directly to his early immersion in a living community that operated under the same principles-and these were principles he could not leave behind. building an institution on these tenets is something he describes as an unavoidable path. the inextricably rooted functionality of tapscott's work "answers back" to the forces of globalization by insisting on the primacy of the local and the particular, the importance of being home. * * * released in time for the holiday season in 2000, the oxford companion to jazz (hereafter oc]) endeavors to be viewed as "the one indispensable publication in the field," to quote a highlighted phrase in the back-of-the­ jacket testimonial by seasoned producer george avakian. editor bill kirchner commissioned sixty brief thematic chapters by fifty-nine different contributors, including journalists, critics, scholars, and musicians. many of the chapters take the form of mini-histories, covering important indi­ vidual figures of jazz, single canonical stylistic eras by decade and genre, notable musicians by instrument, or specific jazz histories by region. to begin a critical reading of this book, we first need a sense of what it means to be an oxford companion to anything. in addition to this vol­ ume, there are oxford companions to english literature, philosophy, wine, the earth, crime & mystery writing, the bible, food, united states history, american literature, fairy tales, classical civilization, the year, irish history, the theatre, canadian literature, the english language, twentieth-century literature in english, aboriginal art and culture, german literature, western art, and a great many others. this astonish­ ing list raises a question: is the oxford companion to jazz more like the oxford companion to wine, or rather similar to the oxford companion to twentieth-century literature in english? that is to say, is this a book by and for collectors and enthusiasts, or for scholars and students? "highly rec­ ommended for everyone interested in jazz" (according to saxophonist benny carter, on the book jacket), the ocj appears, from a cursory leaf­ through, to be aimed precisely at the novice customer, the adrift ameri­ can consumer logging on to amazon. a typical entry contains dozens of 466 current musicology brief mentions of relevant musicians and recordings, ranging from the cel­ ebrated to the obscure; these allusions are apparently meant to function as pointers for the interested reader to chase down elsewhere, perhaps in a record store or coogle search. indeed, the whole effort could be viewed as an attempt to boost saggingjazz record sales. mter a closer reading, however, one cannot help but see this giant volume above all as a deeply ideological effort, disguised in the rhetoric of neutrality. kirchner's introduction belies, if not misrepresents, the ultimate message of the book. he writes: throughout the-roughly speaking-century-old history of jazz, there have been numerous attempts to "define" what the music is or isn't. none of these has ever proven successful or widely accepted, and invariably they tell us much more about the tastes, prejudices, and limitations of the formulators than they do about the music. you'llfind no such attempts here. (5; emphasis added) but like ken burns, kirchner (along with the oxford machine behind him) makes implicit pretensions of completeness, suggesting (in its pub­ licity, as well as its girth and other tacit parameters) that its pages are as thorough as they need to be. indeed, "you'll find no such attempts" on anyone page, because the whole book is precisely such an attempt. plenti­ ful cues as to the "tastes, prejudices, and limitations of the formulators" are scattered throughout its pages and its jacket. we need to read a phenomenon like gc] as an entity larger than the book itself, dressed in a cloud of subliminal messages and situational codes. to "define," to be "definitive," is to wield the power of information, and despite kirchner's disclaimer, that is exactly what is at work here. like a seventeen-pius-hour documentary, this book certainly contains a vast amount of information-enough to overwhelm anyone who is drawn in at any particular point. such totalism-also apparent in the jazz record in­ dustry's recent spate of "complete" and "definitive" box-set reissues­ begins to resemble a form of punishment or hypnosis, which fits right in with this volume's sense of authority. confronted by this tome, the in­ tended reader, presumably a novice jazz consumer, surely experiences a sublime awe-reminiscent of the novice's sense of helplessness in the jazz section of the local record store, and equally reminiscent of the "sado­ masochistic experience" in classical music spectatorship described by edward said (1991:3). this consumer (who must spend $50 on the hard­ cover volume) is never empowered to differ with the "authoritative" sweep of a large number of "experts." consider a passage like this one, from don heckman's earnest, humor­ ously brief entry on "the saxophone in jazz": vijay iyer 467 the most visible saxophonists of the [nineties]-branford marsalis, joshua redman, steve coleman, greg osby, joe lovano, james carter-all performed at a superior level of competence, drawing in­ spiration from hawkins, young, parker, rollins, and coltrane in varying composites. yet none, as yet, has disclosed the urgent drive, the passionate spark of originality, that has been at the heart of all the great creative jazz saxophonists. (611) such question-begging seals this music off from further study or analysis, revealing a discourse of jazz criticism that is guided by forces of nostalgia, desire, and ultimately power. who decides what constitutes the "great," or indeed what lies "at the heart of all" noble practitioners? the ocjhardly addresses such concerns. instead, a typical chapter serves as a sort of index to a certain style, decade, or instrument. it begins with loving attention to some specific period, passes through a litany of hallowed or obscure semi­ nal musical figures, and ends with a comical explosion of names of more recent vintage. who speaks for these artists and why? with the preponderance of jazz autobiography (tapscott 2001; davis 1989), interviews (taylor 1993), and available writings by living musicians (e.g., braxton 1985; bryant et al. 1998; coleman 1999; lateef 1985-88; zorn 2000), there was ample oppor­ tunity for musicians to trade choruses with the oel's authors. but perhaps such a gesture would have undermined the latter group's claims to au­ thority. the jacket copy notes that the articles were "specially commis­ sioned from today's top jazz musicians, scholars, and critics." indeed, kirchner boasts of his success in recruiting so many musicians-"fully half" of the fifty-nine contributors-calling it "a definite coup" (6). kirchner counts among his musician recruits bill crow, dick katz, max morath, randy sandke, bob belden, and himself. however, there are no names like sonny rollins, max roach, cecil taylor, randy weston, abbey lincoln, or wayne shorter. it is not our place to guess why not, but it surely could not have been because of lack of access (kirchner works and teaches in new york city) or resources (oxford can surely afford them). issues of inclusiveness arise in other ways as well. to my eyes, despite its lip service to jazz's diverse profile and its roots in mrican american cul­ ture, this book's roster of contributors is jarringly, overwhelmingly white. i do not by any means wish to suggest that white authors writing on jazz al­ ways advance some kind of "white agenda," but rather to confess to my own vigilance in this regard. it is worth noting here that the book's con­ tributors include one who has famously distinguished himself elsewhere as an apologist for ai jolson's blackface minstrelsy (gioia 2000; see tate 2000 for a critical response), and another who believes that mrican american innovation in jazz has been increasingly overrepresented 468 current musicology (sudhalter 1999). in fact, the latter author helped kirchner select the contributors (x). so, despite the editor's introductory message of inclu­ sion, balance, and celebration, my own critical biases led me to subject this book to a certain kind of scrutiny. perhaps to stave off such criticisms, kirchner follows his introduction with samuel floyd's digest version of his own body of work on mrican aes­ thetics and stylistic dispositions in mrican american musics (see, for ex­ ample, floyd 1995). however, this chapter becomes a straw man for what follows, a sermon on the european roots of jazz by william youngren. youngren's emphasis on the presence of tonality injazz purports to prove "its status as a member of the large family of tonally based european mu­ sics" (28). ignoring kirchner's opening quotation of bill evans that 'jazz is not a 'what,' it's a 'how' " (3), youngren proceeds to dismiss notions of mrican-derived aesthetic or structural elements in jazz, suggesting instead that jazz's origins lie purely in the "what" of tonal music. stating that "gen­ uine survivals from mrican music are more likely to have been preserved in latin america" (24; emphasis added), he implies an adherence to the tabula rasa theory of mrican american culture. this point of view has been challenged convincingly and repeatedly by anthropologists from melville herskovits (1947) to robert farris thompson (1983), and by music schol­ ars such as oily wilson (1974), christopher small (1987), and gerhard kubik (1999), among many others. but instead of acknowledging this vast body of work, youngren focuses on the supposedly influential roles of klezmer, opera, and the french and german composers of the early twen­ tieth century, employing anecdotal evidence and quotes pulled out of con­ text from louis armstrong, sidney bechet, and jelly roll morton. given floyd's ongoing efforts to build a case for an understanding of jazz as pri­ marily an mrican diasporic music, it is difficult not to see him as the vic­ tim of a set-up. in his introduction, kirchner essentially confesses this opening gambit. "that isn't to say that our contributors always agree," he parries. "for example, you need examine only the first two essays to dis­ cover that two eminent scholars ... have often differing viewpoints on the roots of the music. for me, such differences are part of the stimulation of this book" (5-6). but this particular difference cannot be treated as one of many "such differences." for the difference in question is in fact the most ideologically charged debate in all of jazz studies-the ways in which race, ethnicity, and culture contribute to the structure and content of american music. not just one of many differences, this is the difference; it is difference itself. i was deeply dissatisfied with the throwaway fashion in which this issue is relegated to these two chapters, even if they do open the volume; it feels as though kirchner fails to contend adequately with the sensitive status of race in the authoring of jazz history. vijay iyer 469 in any case, with its overreliance on contributions from critics and jour­ nalists, this volume neglects the work of many committed contemporary scholars of jazz, such as ingrid monson (1996), ajay heble (2000), jon panish (1997), eric porter (2002), sherrie tucker (2000), robin kelley (forthcoming), and farah griffin (2001). those few scholars who have been included, however, have produced good work here, suggesting that a more judicious balance might have been struck concerning the range of backgrounds of the contributors. mark tucker (1991), lewis porter (1998), and scott deveaux (1997) ably reduce their book-length studies of ellington, coltrane, and "bebop," respectively. gerald early's even­ toned survey of literature with ties to jazz provides a trenchant reading of the mythically american, patently racialized white desire for black authen­ ticity in influential works such as dorothy baker's man with the horn, con­ trasting it with the more complex renderings in james baldwin's pivotal story "sonny's blues." early makes passing mention of a moment in the great gatsby in which one "vladimir tostoff" and his bombastic paul whitemanesque orchestra perform "ajazz history of the world"-which could be read as a subtle jab at the dc] itself. in a chapter on jazz criticism, ron welburn notes that "white writers have dominated jazz critical journalism" (749). he gives an etiology of this peculiar prose genre, noting its origins among collegiate white record col­ lectors and hobbyists who lavished attention on the symphonic jazz of the 1920s, "missing altogether the performances of king oliver, louis arm­ strong, fletcher henderson, jelly roll morton, and duke ellington" (748). in a historical treatment that dwells mostly on the first few decades of jazz reporting, welburn's contribution nonetheless sheds indirect light on the current, politically charged landscape of music journalism. discussingjazz education, charles beale addresses (however briefly) com­ mon concerns of content emphasis, overall purpose, marginalized ethnici­ ties, and the ever-increasing disconnect between jazz education and con­ temporary musical styles. however, he stops short of a severe analysis of today's climate, especially in economic terms. for example, he fails to ad­ dress the problem faced by a surplus of college-educated jazz journeymen with few employment opportunities. having the artistic interests that i do, i expressly sought out the portray­ als of progressive and recent music in this book. lawrence kart's history of the avant-garde from 1949-1967 employs a useful application of renato poggioli's framework (1968). but then kart ascribes undue importance to composers such as george handy and bob graettinger, whom he de­ scribes, along with charles mingus and george russell, as "perhaps even more significant to the development of the nascent avant-garde" (449) than thelonious monk and charlie parker. to be sure, the former artists 470 current musicology used modernist techniques for innovative large-group jazz orchestration and formal innovation, but ultimately the avant-garde became best known for creative approaches to small-group improvisation, more influenced conceptually by monk and parker. we can ascribe this in part to the kind of resources that were available to artists like albert ayler, ornette coleman, cecil taylor, and roscoe mitchell (who all get significant space in kart's discussion). these artists' opportunities came-when they came at all-mostly in the form of club gigs for small groups. orchestrational matters took on a very different nature in these contexts. the main excep­ tions grew out of and functioned in african american urban communi­ ties, such as the aacm's experimental band and horace tapscott, sun ra, and their respective arkestras (of whom kart mentions only the last). these were situational concerns, having at least as much to do with race and class as with aesthetics and influence. with kart's emphasis on form, sound, and rhythm, he does not adequately ground his reasoning in social issues of this sort-nor do enough of the book's authors. peter keepnews's entry on jazz since 1968 initially foregrounds the art ensemble of chicago and the world saxophone quintet, and acknowl­ edges the rampant jazz-industry conservatism in the "post-marsalis wave," but mainly addresses mainstream, major-label artists, with passing men­ tions of steve coleman and john zorn. keepnews and many other authors speak more about records than they do about other real-world phenom­ ena; their bodies of knowledge seem predicated on their vinyl and cd col­ lections. one of the book's most impressive set pieces is dan morgen­ stern's "recorded jazz," a lengthy and encyclopedically detailed prose chronology of major jazz labels and the artists on whom they profited. overwhelmingly concerned with cataloguing and tracing the lineages of jazz recordings, this book generally leads one to believe that jazz only exists to the extent that people make records. in fact, an outpouring of recent scholarship has shown us that record­ ings are barely half the story. as testified in work by sherrie tucker (2000), paul berliner (1994), george lipsitz (1994), ajay heble (2000), jed rasula (1995), and scott deveaux (1997), as well as in art taylor's interviews (1993) and in the first-person memoirs and captured observa­ tions of armstrong (1999), rollins (nisenson 2000), and especially horace tapscott, this music called jazz has existed and thrived in corners of american and global life untouched by the mainstream, fulfilling im­ portant functions beyond its status as leisure-time pursuit for the collector. observations of this kind resonate with my experiences as a musical spec­ tator and participant. perhaps as something of a jazz "insider" (a perform­ ing musician, composer, and recording artist who collaborates with other vijay iyer 471 performers, improvisors and composers), i can't help but wish that this music were treated as a real-world activity, rather than a subterranean entity enlivened by the fictions of the record industry. but such a view requires the voice of more jazz insiders-artists and other participants with a neces­ sarily critical stance toward the music business and its hero-makers. this volume could have used a healthy dose of such first-person cri­ tique. an organization like oxford university press surely could have com­ missioned max roach or sonny rollins or ornette coleman or abbey lincoln to contribute a chapter; at the very least, it could have included musician-to-musician interviews, in the brutally honest style of taylor (1993). there also could have been an attempt to cut through conven­ tional media-received wisdom about the evolution of "styles." we ought by now to have moved beyond the decade-by-decade litany of stylistic geneal­ ogy (blues, swing, bebop, cool, hard bop, avant-garde, and fusion, all duti­ fully rendered chapter by chapter); in recent years, many have begun to chip away at this master narrative (see especially deveaux 1991 and gabbard 1995). we could have benefited from an acknowledgement and critique of the role of history, hindsight, and context in determining what is or is not "great." there could have been more significant gestures to­ ward inclusion of women and minority writers, or of marginal and con­ tested viewpoints. under their cover of authority, all of these glaring omis­ sions point to the central problem with this book and so many other completist efforts like it. as it conceals its own acts of domination and its internal power imbalances, the dc] has all the hallmarks of ideology. as such, it imagines itself to transcend place, claiming inclusiveness and uni­ versality while failing to acknowledge its own, highly contingent specificity. so why is an academic press issuing a tome like the dc] and hyping it as "the ultimate guide" from "the premier publisher of books on jazz"? oxford currently has in print nearly seven hundred books on music. most of these texts are academic in tone and have an intended audience of scholars, but of the few percent of their titles that cover jazz, almost none of them would fit this description; gunther schuller's major analytical works (1968, 1989) and floyd's the power of black music (1995) serve as ex­ ceptions, though the latter does not focus solely onjazz. these, along with the occasional collections of useful primary sources (armstrong 1999; walser 1999), are sorely outnumbered by more standard fare: fact-based chronological biographies (catalano 2000), collections of articles by jazz critics (mandel 1999; giddins 1998; gioia 1997), and of course, grand sur­ veys like the dc] one is led to suppose that the sales of these jazz titles, often big sellers aimed at a popular audience, provide support for ox­ ford's scholarly music publications, which are almost all european in 472 current musicology emphasis. for insightful scholarship on african american music, the track records are better with publishers such as california, chicago, mississippi, wesleyan, and duke. i do not intend to draw a sweeping distinction between scholarship and journalism, or to imply that one style of writing carries more value than another. the point here is that for the most part, the gc] gives us jazz journalism as a hegemony of the banal, whereas we know that jazz journal­ ism has so often done so much better, in the hands of frank kofsky, amiri baraka, a. b. spellman, valerie wilmer, john litweiler, graham lock, and many other writers. certainly some of these people's work is ideologi­ cally charged, but unlike too many of the gc] authors, they never pretend otherwise. for an anthologized journalistic survey of jazz to omit such a broad range of contributors, we have to suspect that something problem­ atic is afoot-something akin to a motive, a desire, an anxiety. * * * interlude. on june 16, 2001, i stopped by the jazz gallery, a soro venue where i perform occasionally, and noticed a stack of copies of the july issue of ]azziz magazine. these issues are distributed to some of the clubs in town for free, presumably one of the perks of living in new york. i grabbed a copy and skimmed it on the train on the way home. at a certain point i wondered if i had somehow pulled a van winkle, for i found my­ self reading glowing, positive reviews of the jvc jazz festival-which, as far as i knew, was to commence the following day. they were clearly jvc-sponsored puff pieces, advertisements mas­ querading as journalism-in fact, a disguised festival program with all the verb tenses changed-but they took it rather far. seamlessly integrated into the magazine's glossy pages and delivered in the past tense by well­ known journalists, the articles dutifully and glowingly described the artists' then-forthcoming festival engagements. with no trace of irony, one pro­ claimed, "there was even more bracingly fresh mainstream jazz" (mandel 2001) performed by artists like joshua redman and eric reed at the festi­ val that hadn't yet begun. (what if redman were to cancel his concert at the last minute, due to a broken finger, contractual disagreement, or missed flight?) a second article described "the four-hour blockbuster con­ cert" at the beacon theater that also had yet to transpire (blumenfeld 2001). yet another observed, "matt wilson, as usual, stripped jazz of any undue seriousness with antics such as his bandstand 'survivor' spoof" (mercer 2001). bleary-eyed on the late-night train, i considered the metaphor. these pages betray a dark mix oj desire and anxiety, i half-dreamt-jor jazz to have already happened, to be finished before it starts, to end, to expire. vijay iyer 473 * * * as it appears in the title the oxford companion to jazz, the term 'jazz" refers evidently to jazz recordings and artists discussed and arranged by era, region, and instrument. elsewhere, however, it can refer to a collec­ tion of musical practices and behaviors (berliner 1994; monson 1996); a complex site for celebration and critical inquiry (heble 2000); an endur­ ing, multi-disciplinary collection of social and aesthetic phenomena (o'meally 1998); or part of a much broader continuum of art forms emerging from the mrican diaspora (small 1987; tapscott 2001). the word 'jazz" has been viewed as a pejorative, media-created designation to be resented (by max roach, in taylor 1993:109-11) and as a rallying cry for which one must fight to the death (by wynton marsalis, in milkowski 2000:35). if one can say that jazz "is" anything at all today, it is above all an unstable concept, a contested territory, a locus of conflicting discourses. however, in the course of its dutiful nods to jazz globalism, the oc] treats jazz as a unity. many of the book's authors conclude their chapters by stat­ ing that 'jazz" continues to expand and grow and thrive-seemingly un­ aware that by this process, the definitions and functions of 'jazz" bifurcate, often undergoing irrevocable transformations and discontinuities, becom­ ing many musics under one increasingly problematic umbrella. today, the concept of jazz as a coherent unity persists only because of the jazz culture industry-via survey texts, glossy jazz magazines, and big-ticket jazz festi­ vals. in the carefully-arranged display lines under the title of his jvc­ sponsored ]azziz article, mandel eulogizes, "the mainstream may feed on rivulets / from the radical fringe or bog down in commercial fluff, / but unworthy ideas are flushed out / and jazz itself remains unadulterated" (mandel 2001 :68). but if you take an unfiltered look at jazz microcosms around the world, you see how multivalent and multivoiced it is. you un­ derstand that 'jazz" is used to describe a vast collection of local musics, with a wide range of antecedents and points of reference. you don't at all get the sense of jazz as a stable or finished concept. you see jazz as some­ thing that happens, that is happening, that will continue to happen. people par­ ticipate in these jazz microcosms, which unfold in tandem with the world around them. in his memoir and in his creative work, horace tapscott addresses us with the humility of true accomplishment, treating every achievement as a collaborative effort that was deeply situated in, contingent upon, and inex­ tricable from its community setting. on the other hand, the oc] treats jazz predominantly as a series of de-situated musical objects, commodified for consumption. ultimately, as we play these two texts off of one another, tapscott's path of action subjects the oc]'s veiled ideology to a devastating critique. his profound sense of place handily deconstructs the claims to 474 current musicology authority brandished by kirchner and company. in the shadow of tapscott's awesome purpose, the oc] barely supports its own weight. we need more books like songs of the unsung, by which we can come to understand creative musicians as agents of change at home, effecting local pockets of activity with universal ramifications. for tapscott provides us with an unwritten truth behind this radically unfinished music called jazz. perhaps, quiet as it's kept, this music has always been about these things: modest selves making exalted sounds, small acts that tell tall tales, notes and tones from a song that never ends. notes * i thank george e. lewis and the journal's anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on this article. 1. in a private communication, one hip-hop artist remarked that tapscott's self-effacing activities could be read as a gender role reversal. tapscott assumed what is viewed as a stereotypically maternal nature, staying in one place, providing a symbolic home, and sending his message around the world indirectly through the people he nurtured. on the other hand, tapscott readily admits to siring a large number of children by different mothers, clearly problematizing any mythic notion of gender-role subversion. references armstrong, louis. 1999. louis armstrong, in his own words: selected writings. edited by thomas brothers. new york: oxford university press. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation. chicago: u niversity of chicago press. blumenfeld, larry. 2001. streets of jazz, son, and salsa. jazziz (july): 72-74. braxton, anthony. 1985. tri-axium writings. lebanon, n.h.: frog peak music. bryant, clora, buddy collette, william green, steve isoardi, jack kelson, horace tapscott, gerald wilson, and marl young, eds. 1998. central avenue sounds: jazz in los angeles. berkeley: university of california press. catalano, nicholas. 2000. clifford brown: the life and art of the legendary jazz trumpeter. new york: oxford university press. coleman, steve. 1999. liner notes to steve coleman, the sonic language of myth: believing, learning, knowing. bmg 74321-64123-2. davis, miles, with quincy troupe. 1989. miles: the autobiography. new york: simon & schuster. deveaux, scott. 1991. constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography. black american literature forum 25: 525-60. ---. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley: university of california press. floyd, samuel. 1995. the power of black music. new york: oxford university press. gabbard, krin, ed. 1995. jazz among the discourses. durham, n.c.: duke university press. vijay iyer 475 giddins, gary. 1998. visions of jazz: the first century. new york: oxford university press. gioia, ted. 1997. the history of jazz. new york: oxford university press. ---. 2000. a megastar long buried under a layer of blackface. new york times (october 22): sec. 2, p. 1. griffin, farah jasmine. 2001. if you can't be free, be a mystery: in search of billie holiday. new york: free press. heble, ajay. 2000. landing on the wrong note: jazz, dissonance, and cultural practice. new york: routledge. herskovits, melville j. 1947. problem, method, and theory in mro-american studies. afroamerica 1: 5-24. kelley, robin d. g. forthcoming. misterioso: the art of thelonious monk. new york: free press. kubik, gerhard. 1999. africa and the blues. jackson: university press of mississippi. lateef, yusef. 1985-88. the pleasures of voice in improvised music. views on black american music 3: 43-47. lipsitz, george. 1994. dangerous crossroads: popular music, postmodernism, and the poetics of place. new york: verso. mandel, howard. 1999. futurejazz. new york: oxford university press. ---. 2001. modern not monolithic. jazziz (july): 68-70. mercer, michelle. 2001. mainstream's next wave? jazziz (july): 70. milkowski, bill. the future, two views: conversation with wynton marsalis/ conversation with john zorn. jazz times (march): 28-39, 118-121. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago: university of chicago press. nisenson, eric. 2000. open sky: sonny rollins and his world of improvisation. new york: st. martin's press. o'meally, robert., ed. 1998. the jazz cadence of american culture. new york: columbia university press. panish, jon. 1997. the color of jazz: race and representation in postwar american culture. jackson: u niversi ty press of mississippi. peretti, burton w. 1995. oral histories of jazz musicians: the nea transcripts as texts in context. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 117-33. durham, n.c.: duke university press. poggioli, renato. 1968. the theory of the avant-garde. translated by gerald fitz­ gerald. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. porter, eric. 2002. what is this thing called jazz?: african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley: university of california press. porter, lewis. 1998. john coltrane: his life and music. ann arbor: university of michigan press. rasula, jed. 1995. the media of memory: the seductive menace of records in jazz history. in jazz among the discourses, edited by krin gabbard, 134-162. durham, n.c.: duke university press. said, edward. 1991. musicalelaborations. new york: columbia university press. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and musical development. new york: oxford university press. 476 current musicology ---.1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930-1945. new york: oxford university press. smail, christopher. 1987. music of the common tongue: survival and celebration in afro-american music. london: calder press. sudhalter, richard. 1999. lost chords: white musicians and their contribution to jazz, 1915-1945. new york: oxford university press. tate, greg. 2000. the king of coonology. village voice (november 1-7): 51-53. taylor, art. [1977j 1993. notes and tones: musician-to-musician interviews. new york: da capo press. thompson, robert farris 1983. flash of the spirit: african and afro-american art and philosophy. new york: vintage books. tucker, mark. 1991. ellington: the early years. urbana: university of illinois press. tucker, sherrie. 2000. swing shift: "all-girl" bands of the 1940s. durham, n.c.: duke university press. walser, robert, ed. 1999. keeping time: readings in jazz history. new york: oxford university press. wilson, ollie. 1974. the significance of the relationship between mro-american music and west-mrican music. black perspective in music 2: 3-22. zorn, john, ed. 2000. arcana: musicians on music. new york: granary books/hips road. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 33 correspondences gascia ouzounian and marianthi papalexandri–alexandri in this series of letters, the musicologist and violinist gascia ouzounian (writing from belfast) and the composer marianthi papalexandri–alexandri (writing from berlin and stuttgart) discuss the latter’s music, touching on such topics as: graphic notation; existential therapy; collaboration and communication; “energy” and “live–ness” within musical composition and performance; and site–specific sound installation. their discussion is supplemented with images, excerpts of scores, and video of papalexandri–alexandri’s compositions and installations since 2005. 26 october 2012 dear marianthi,   just yesterday i was speaking on the phone with a friend of mine, the pianist matt bourne, who mentioned your name by chance. he didn’t know we knew each other; he didn’t know that i had been interviewing you for a while or that i wanted to write about your work. we were talking about notation, about how, in realizing a score, a performer is normally executing a representation of the composer’s ideas rather than the ideas themselves. this can be an unsettling problem for some people. i wonder if you ever find this problematic.   the first composition i ever heard of yours was b as i eye us be. i was at the premiere, when scott wilson played it at ucsd in 2005. you scored this piece for a bass player and an imaginary performer: an imaginary performer who also contributes, in the actual performer’s mind, to the execution of the piece during the live performance. the actual performer and the imaginary performer each have their own parts; they share the same instrument, and, the actual performer plays as though the imaginary performer were also playing. i thought this was a pretty wild idea . . . not only because it asks the performer to engage with the live performance situation but to respond to a simultaneously occurring, imagined performance as well, but because it takes common experiences like listening, responding, imagining, playing with others, and interrupts these; reveals them as something other than mundane, as “givens”; exposes the private act of thinking within the public act of performing; allows the subconscious to enter the realm of the conscious . . . current musicology 34 i’m sure i didn’t think all these things when i first encountered that work. i probably only thought it was an interesting idea and that the performance was interesting, too, but, having come to get to know you and your work over the years, i feel more confident in making this claim: that your music, to my mind, anyway, has a certain power that can only belong to that which is first broken . . . a revelatory power. i guess it’s a fact, or maybe a feature of existence that, in order for something to be exposed, something else must first break or give way. in this case there are concepts, habits, behaviors, conventions, and even languages that break and give way to underlying, perhaps unexamined or unknown concepts, habits, behaviors, languages . . . i suppose this is what most critical acts want to accomplish, but are most critical acts creative like yours? i don’t know. did you know that there is something called «existential therapy»? it is a branch of psychoanalysis wherein the therapist attempts to expose those «given facts of existence» that have resulted in some kind of inner conflict for the patient. one of those given facts of existence is, apparently, the inevitability of death. the others given facts of existence are, i think, somewhat more contentious. they are: the responsibility that comes with personal freedom, existential isolation, and meaninglessness. i think it could be argued that these latter are features, and not facts, of existence. then again, perhaps our common understanding of death is limited such that we will one day have a conception that does not view death as inevitable, either. do you remember when we played your piece models for the composition jury at ucsd? you wrote it for our group, bye bye butterfly—aiyun huang on percussion, kathleen gallagher on flute, katalin lucaks on piano, me on violin. well, you wrote this composition for us, and one of your premises was that you wanted to re–examine the nature of the different instruments in the ensemble: re–examine them in terms of rethinking and retooling their conventional uses, functions, appearances, relationships, and so on. you had me attach a bow hair to one of my violin strings and bow the hair, which produced this deep, rumbling sound. at another point you asked me to take the tip of that attached bow hair and move it across the strings, lightly plucking the strings with the hair. it was this very beautiful, delicate, intimate kind of sound, the kind of sound that you would imagine could only result from an act of caressing. you also took a common action like bowing, in which the violinist typically moves the bow horizontally across the strings of the violin, and asked me to instead move the violin underneath the bow, while the bow itself remained still. displacing the action of bowing from the bow to the violin itself unsettled the way i moved, approached and even conceptualized my instrument. i believe this was part of your intention. ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 35 another one of your premises in models  was that you wanted the four players to be intimately connected to one another’s movements. you wanted us to respond to, incorporate and even complete each other’s actions, such that a gesture might begin in one instrument and end in another. and, you confounded conventional instrumental roles by, for example, asking the percussionist to make typically pianistic gestures on percussion objects. so here was a composition that deconstructed conventional instrumental techniques as well as other conventions of musical language. well, we played the piece, and afterwards, i remember the first question you were asked by composition jury, the group of composers who were tasked with evaluating your work. the first question, posed by a senior professor of composition at ucsd, an institution that is itself considered among the most established centers of contemporary music research within higher education, was the following: marianthi, who are you and how do you live in the world? well, marianthi? who are you and how do you live in the world?   this is a troubling question. at the time i thought it might be vaguely offensive, though i’ve come to view it more generously. if you as a composer are continuously questioning the musical conventions within which your work operates—or more broadly, if you as a person are continuously questioning the world within which you exist—how do you yourself relate to it? probably with some difficulty. i remember you once telling me that you arrived at composition through a somewhat circuitous route. i believe you had gone to goldsmith’s college in the early 2000’s not to study composition, but to study music therapy. knowing you as i do now, this is hard to imagine. frankly, marianthi, i cannot really picture you as a music therapist, although i now wonder if your compositions perform a kind of existential therapy for music itself. if we depart from the premises of existential therapy—that there are underlying facts of existence that lead to inner conflict, and that exposing and examining these underlying facts can have a positive or therapeutic effect—then i suppose we have to ask: what are the given facts of music, how can they be exposed, and what might this exposure accomplish? i believe this question has been at the heart of many of those musical practices that we have come to associate with experimentalism: exposing the «given facts» of music in order to recover and recuperate music from those norms current musicology 36 and conventions that may, on some level, be damaging to music itself. do you relate to this? i think i do.  i have come to understand music not as a set of practices—acts of composition, performance, reception, etcetera—but rather as a field of relations, between people, modes of cultural production, ways of thinking, and, yes, even ways of being. yes, more and more i think that music is a way of being in the world, a way of relating to it. if one of the given facts of human existence is the inevitability of death, is there a salient musical equivalent? is there an inevitability of death, some kind of lack or absence that is implicit within the existence of music itself? do we damage our lives by hastening death? do we damage music by hastening this inevitable absence? or do we enrich life, and music, by exposing and integrating this eventuality such that we are not «in conflict» with it? how does one integrate death in such a way that it does not diminish or destroy life? figures 1–2: excerpts from the violin instructions and violin part from the score for models (2005) by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri. here the violinist is asked to hook a single bow hair behind the fine tuner, and bow behind the bridge and on the body of the violin. the instructions for the right hand (r.h.) indicate rhythms for bowing, using the single hair, within a general time frame (i.e. 7 seconds); the left hand pulls a different bow hair attached to one of the strings of the violin. thus the right hand and left hand are activating different preparations, and simultaneously operating within different time frames in this section. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2005. audio: http://www.marianthi.net/audio/models.mp3 ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 37 i remember in our conversations you would often speak of an «energy» within music that you sought to foster within your compositions. you spoke, for example, of observing what is normally thought of as «extra– musical» communication between performers: eye contact, nods, breathing, etcetera. you said, «how can i borrow this energy and make it part of my music, so that there is no separation between playing and not–playing»? on another occasion, you spoke about wanting to create a bridge between your experiences as a composer and improviser: «in composition you have to strictly follow someone—a score, a conductor—be synchronized with performers. there is a kind of agony as to whether you will reach something or not. i was looking for something else: how can i create a situation, a specific kind of energy, where performers are not necessarily improvising, but can observe and react to what’s there?» still another time you said, «i like my performers to stay active all the way through while they’re playing the music. i like them to maintain the energy. quite often in concert music when people have to be silent or wait, the kind of energy they were producing or reflecting sometimes escapes very quickly . . . they’re waiting for a cue to re–join the ensemble, and so on. for me, there is no gap.» and finally, you once told me that you were «attracted to sounds that were not part of the music but that came from the performer». you gave the example of a clarinetist blowing into the blowhole, and you said, «those sounds were not part of the music . . . they came with a different kind of energy. not the energy of performing». you said that it was this energy, this kind of sound, that you were attracted to, and that it was this energy that you wanted your music to create. for me, the energy you are describing is a kind of being alive in the world. can life be created? or can it only be lived? 12 november 2012 dear gascia ever since i was a student at goldsmith’s college, i have been going to libraries, looking for books about notation, looking for the right symbols. it can be really frustrating to have a great idea you’re enthusiastic about, and then: what do you do with it? you have to put it on a piece of paper. and not even that. what you put down on the paper has to make sense to somebody else. if you’re lucky, you’ll hand that paper to a performer, and you’ll have the chance to explain what it’s about. in many cases you’ll have to send it away, mail it, and often there’s a very limited time to go through the score. so you really have to find the ideal visual presentation of an abstract sonic idea. it’s bizarre. current musicology 38 as a student, most of my questions—75% or 80% of my questions—were about notation. my professors often had reasonable, practical, and interesting suggestions, but right there i would think, “hmm, this is great, but i wouldn’t have thought of that.” i remember when i was working on b as i eye us be, the composer roger reynolds suggested that i look at vinko globokar’s scores. then the next day he said, “no. don’t go. don’t take a look. you are really somebody who needs to go through a struggle. you have to find your own way.” for years i was actually very much into not putting on the paper the actual sound, but, instead, notating the physical action which would lead to this sound. so it was a graphic representation of how to move, how to use the instrument, and out of this the performer would discover the sound i had in mind. the ideal situation is creating a piece that will not be executing a representation of the composer’s idea. in my case i’m always looking for a way for the piece to develop and unfold in a very natural way. my intention is to create a situation wherein performers act and react. the ideal is to have plenty of time, get together, and work in the same room. when you don’t give performers a score in advance, they have nothing to rely on other than that very moment when you get together and work. one thing i always had a problem with was handing in parts. giving out this part, that part, and so on. i never really understood this. how can you create a collaborative work, something that involves everyone, and you’re just giving out one part here, one part there? it’s very important to bring everybody together in the same room, make them aware of who is doing what. i want the performers to share the moments they’re creating together. it’s not “who is going to play the solo” or “who is going to play this part”? it’s about how what you’re doing as a performer has an impact on the other performers, and the connections between them. i had the chance to go through this process when i worked with the percussionists steve schick, ross karre and justin dehart for kein thema, which schick commissioned for the ucsd percussion ensemble redfish bluefish. we had almost an entire year together. steve would give me a small case, and i would ask him to put a few instruments in the case every two weeks. i would go back home, try things out, take notes, make videos, select the things i thought should be there, and eliminate the things that i thought were less attractive. then the four of us would come together, and ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 39 i would explain one by one to each performer what i was trying to achieve. and there—right there—i could see the reactions. i could sense what should come next. through observation. when you get performers together in the same room, they learn the piece differently. they’re even able to memorize it. also, they relate to each other in a different way. they’re engaged with each other as if they’re connected with invisible strings. this way of working gives you direct access to what the other performers do. it’s not a secret. it’s there for you to access, and, somehow, this makes you more curious. it becomes a creative process. some musicians get extremely nervous about working this way. they feel, “what do you want me to do?” very often they say, “why can’t you just tell us in advance”? it’s important for me to be there and face one question after the other from the performers. “is this what you want?” “do you want to keep this?” “why is this happening?” and so on. i think this is a way to question the basics of performance. why do we do what we do, and why do we want to keep things, video 1. the video for kein thema (2007) by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri is intended to serve both as a documentation of the work, and as a notational device. kein thema aims to investigate micro–movements involved in the creation of sounds that are acoustically and visually perceptible at a close distance. through various videography techniques, the micro–details of movements and sounds that audiences cannot normally access in the context of a live performance become perceptible. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2007. video: http://www.marianthi.net/video/kein_thema.mov current musicology 40 or why do we want to change things? from these reactions, i understand more about the psychology of the performer. their character. when you get together, you really examine not just the instruments themselves, but also the performer’s habits, their behaviours. i try to point them out in such a way that this will add something to the piece itself. in general, i treat the instruments as objects. this is something i’ve always been interested in: changing the conditions that will allow me to transform an object into an instrument, and an instrument into an object. i think that’s one of the reasons i focus a lot on the performer’s behaviour, the “how” in “how we do things”. i’m very curious to know how we do things, and how the anatomy of the instrument trains a certain kind of behaviour—a bodily behaviour—but also how it trains the mind. gascia, i remember very well the first question i was asked by the composition jury after you played models. i also remember very well the second question or comment, that the score looks more like a sketch or an incomplete score. it was a rather shocking comment for me. right there i questioned myself: what have i done to the jury? some of them seemed to be irritated by me, the work, or both. why? how? models is a fragile, sensitive, peculiar, friendly, beautifully notated piece. “this is not what we call a score,” they said. in fact they said this to me in advance. two or three weeks before the premiere took place, they asked me to reconsider my notation style and to turn my sketch into a real score. i refused, because for me this didn’t make sense. graphical notation has been used for years and years now. the use of a graphical score was absolutely necessary here. perhaps you remember there is a point where you were asked to attached a bow hair to one of your violin strings and bow the hair while trying to reproduce the melody written in the score. of course it’s impossible for you under these conditions to reproduce the melody. the final sonic result depends on your movement, interpretation, and perception. simultaneously the other members of the quartet were asked to imitate your actions, rhythm and sounds. this process encourages the performer to listen proactively and become aware of the possibilities latent between him or her and the instrument. my feeling was that the jury did not really know what to say about the work. or perhaps they didn’t like it. on the other hand, during and after the performance, i could sense that both audience and jury had enjoyed the piece. but maybe joy is not part of what we call academic work. a few hours after the jury i received an email from another professor who thanked me ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 41 for creating a piece that invites both audience and performer into a private, provocative sound world. i was pleased to see that someone could sense and read my artistic intentions. perhaps the question should not have been “who are you?” but “who would you like to become?” i was very confused by the jury’s question. it took me a long time to understand the meaning of that question. “you are not a composer. you are not like us. you are different.” well, i do think like a composer in the sense that i bring elements together (synthesis), but i also work as a director, choreographer, and simply as an artist. i like to experiment with materials and take things apart. i am interested in the process. i always look for aspects that unify the work. so i look for connections. i want things to be related to each other, and they can be related either sonically or visually. the connections can be invisible and visible. for example, in my work yarn, two string instruments are connected by a fishing line. this connector string is bowed to transmit sound between the two instruments, which now becomes a single percussive instrument. the percussionist (who bows the central string) and the two string players have to co–ordinate their bodily gestures in order to achieve the ideal sound. the fragile equilibrium that is born out of this compound instrument necessitates a heightened sensitivity among the performers, and a very particular form of listening and bodily reaction. silence can be achieved only through the most careful sympathetic balance, reflecting an active rather than an inactive performer state. sound is often replaced with visual energy. the performers are locked in constant physical movement. so, in this way, yarn examines the conditions under which physical gesture can affect a renewal and redefinition of the most basic musical elements. it also suggests that “energetic silence” can lead to a completely transformed musical syntax. this could only be achieved through a very precise iconographic notation depicting physical gesture alongside musical function. more recently i developed a specific graphic notation for untitled ii that was presented in the form of a written score and a clear acrylic glass template. the template here acts both as a tool to write scores, as well as a sculptural object, which i called schablone (which is the german word for stencil). it is very important for me to know how things work and operate. how do they function. what is what! current musicology 42 figures 3–4: excerpts from the score for yarn (2008) by marianthi papalexandri– alexandri, for flute, piano, percussion, two violins, viola, and cello. in section 11, the second violinist is imitating the movements of the violist, who is instructed to move a double bass peg through which a fishing line is threaded that connects the second violin and viola. the numbers above each part indicate distance from the peg to the bridge of the instrument. another fishing line connects the cellist and first violinist, who create sustained sounds on the thread. at section 13, the viola and second violinist pass the pegs to the percussionist, who then manipulates the pegs on the fishing line that connects those instruments. images used by permission, ©2008, marianthi papalexandri–alexandri. ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 43 figure 5: photo of schablone (2011) by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri. schablone is a sculpture created from the acrylic glass templates used to score untitled ii (2010). schablone was exhibited at the gallerie mario mazzoli in berlin for their group show decay (january 20 – march 12 2011). photo by pe lang, courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2011. video 2. video documentation of untitled ii (2010) by marianthi papalexandri– alexandri. untitled ii builds on modified membraphones developed by paplexandri– alexandri as instrument that utilize pe lang’s motor–activated devices. the sound of untitled ii can be influenced by manipulating the tension of the nylon lines, changing the speed of the motor, turning the motors on and off, and by depressing the membrane with the fingers while it is vibrating in order to vary the pitch. untitled ii can be presented both as a sound sculpture and as an instrument in the context of a solo live performance. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2010. video: http://www.marianthi.net/video/tubes.mov current musicology 44 1 december 2012 dear marianthi, i watched a video the other day in which the guitarist derek bailey spoke of improvisation as a way of “inhabiting a live situation”. it strikes me that, in your music, you also seek to inhabit and perhaps enable a live situation, that you seek to create a profound sense of live–ness. i think this is important because it points to a quality of your work that is not strictly “musical”, but that is nevertheless a fundamental part of your compositional approach. what is a “live” moment versus a “dead” one in the context of a musical composition or performance? what differentiates the two? how does one enable live–ness to emerge? the things you describe that are important to you—being in close contact with the performers throughout the process of creating a work; answering their questions—not just technical questions, but fundamental questions about things like purpose and intention; your interest in the performer’s behaviour, and their character and habits, and your idea that your music reflects these; your approach towards exposing and undermining different kinds of habits and musical training; your insistence upon developing a sense of connectedness and awareness among performers in an ensemble; your desire to create an ensemble “connected by invisible strings”—and even literal strings, as in yarn; your desire to encourage the performer, as you wrote, to “listen proactively and become aware of the figure 6: photo of a revised version of untitled ii, exhibited as a sound sculpture in 2012. by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri with pe lang for akademie schloss solitude, as part of the event lange nacht der museen in stuttgart, 17 march 2012. photo by pe lang, courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2012 ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 45 possibilities latent between him or her and the instrument”—all of these things, for me, point towards something that is fundamental to your work as a composer, and that makes sense to me on an intuitive level, both as a musician who has come into contact with your music and as a listener or observer, but that nevertheless remains beyond the normal scope what we talk about when we talk about music. i am fascinated by this: the limits of discourse, how these limits arise, how they are formed, how they are breached, and what are the different factors that determine these things. what would it take for live–ness to be a commonly understood element of a musical work? is the quality of live–ness something that could be taught or learned, or appreciated in a way that is not wholly personal? how would this change what we know or understand about music? i know that your work began to shift in a very distinct way when you started collaborating with pe lang on mechanical instruments and instrument modifications for compositions and installations. the first one of these i heard in concert was untitled i, which the flautist erik drescher premiered at the coma gallery in berlin in 2009. in that performance, erik stood at a table upon which a number of instruments and devices were assembled, and performed a series of modest actions with them . . . his performance was striking in the context of that concert, which was otherwise full of invigorating and quite spectacular works for flute; by contrast, this was relatively spare, still, and quiet . . . i remember becoming very aware of the whiteness of the gallery walls during the performance of untitled i, and figure 7: photo of preparations and devices for untitled i (2009) by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri. untitled i uses prepared acoustic instruments (bass flute, alto and soprano flute head joint) and mechanised sound devices created in collaboration with pe lang, which function both as preparations and as independent musical instruments. these devices later formed the instrumental approach to a series of works that included untitled ii (2010) (see video 2) and untitled iv (atemlos) (see video 3). current musicology 46 thinking that we were in a place that is typically reserved for looking and observing. for me, untitled i illustrated the idea that, even in its quietest moments, music is never visually silent . . . i know you have also created several other works in this vein: operator, which you wrote for ensemble mosaik, which also uses motor–driven sound sources and instrument preparations; untitled ii, which can also function as a sound sculpture as well as an instrument in the context of a live solo performance; untitled iv for prepared recorders and motors, which was commissioned by the recorder ensemble ensemble qng; and finally, extensions, your most recent work, which is a site–specific sound installation for the akademie schloss solitude. so your work has shifted from strictly acoustic compositions for standard acoustic instruments to compositions for prepared instruments, to compositions for instruments with mechanical preparations and mechanical devices, to standalone mechanical devices and sound installations. do you think that, through this shift, you have maintained a concern for the “live–ness” of the moment or the situation? if so, how do you achieve this in the case where there is no instrumentalist, i.e. it is not up to the performer to maintain a sense of vibrancy or alertness, or perform what you called an “energetic silence”, etcetera? can you create live–ness without the contribution of the human performer? i would be fascinated to know this. 4 december 2012 dear gascia, indeed you can. i believe that you can maintain liveness as long as your creations or mechanisms have an organic character and behaviour. to give you an example, my most recent work, solo for motors and resonant body, is using motors prepared with a wooden wheel and placed on different locations inside the piano (on the strings, next to the nails, etc.) in such a way that it will allow them to move, spin—to behave in a way that is similar to a live organism, producing an enormous variety of rhythms and sounds. the wheels have been modified and shaped to produce different angles, such that they come into contact with the strings in a variety of ways. at the same time the sound of the engine is amplified by the body of the piano. the performer can influence the sound by changing or operating the speed controller, which changes the engine sound of the motor. ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 47 figure 8: images of preparations used in operator (2010) by marianthi papalexandri– alexandri in collaboration with pe lang. in operator, motor–driven sound devices function both as sound sources and as active preparations that determine the speed, dynamics and other musical parameters. one of the preparations developed for operator (shown in the bottom–right image) consists of a plexiglass tube prepared with an active loudspeaker connected to an ipod, and attached to the end of a wind instrument. the sound (white noise, square wave, random noise) travels from the computer through the speaker and inside the instrument, which functions as a resonant body that the performer can “play” using the keys. lastly, the ipod is connected to a four–channel speed controller operated by the conductor. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2010. audio: http://www.marianthi.net/audio/operator.mp3 current musicology 48 so each time either i prepare the cylinders or the blockfluten, or place the motors on the piano—or anything i do—it’s a different case. i choose my materials carefully. often they have some small imperfections so they won’t presuppose perfect regularity. therefore, they will not sound artificial or purely mechanical. this is a conscious decision. you can tell that i’m fascinated by the idea of using the same materials and objects under different conditions, and the ways in which the context can influence these materials. we carry our bodies around with us everywhere we go, but in each moment they are never the same. 12 december 2012 dear marianthi, if imperfections and irregularities are features of live–ness does it follow that there’s some kind of death embodied in perfection? i remember the cellist charles curtis speaking about the materiality of the instrument, and how he is attracted to the sound of materiality, say, when listening to a recording . . . as a violinist i’m also very connected to this—the instrument is in a constant state of flux, as are our own bodies, as you wrote. it took me a long time to understand that, instead of having a sound–image in my mind that i would try to make the violin adhere to, to allow the sound video 3. excerpt of performance of untitled iv (atemlos) (2012) by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, performed by qng (quartet new generation) at musikinstrumenten museum berlin on 25 january 2012. untitled iv (atemlos) extends the principal behind the mechanical device constructions used in untitled ii to the recorder. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2012. video: http://vimeo.com/39907455 ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 49 of the violin at any given moment to reveal itself, and respond to that. i don’t think of my violin as an object or a “thing”, in the sense that it is always evolving . . . so what you describe as the organic character of your instruments and mechanical devices makes sense to me—incidentally, i believe the root of the word “organic” has something to do with the word “instrument” . . . organic (adj.) 1510s, “serving as an organ or instrument,” from l. organicus, from gk. organikos “of or pertaining to an organ, serving as instruments or engines,” from organon “instrument” (see organ). organ (n.) fusion of late o.e. organe, and o.fr. orgene (12c.), both meaning “musical instrument,” both from l. organa, plural of organum “a musical instrument,” from gk. organon “implement, tool for making or doing; musical instrument; organ of sense, organ of the body,” lit. “that with which one works,” from pie *werg–ano–, from root *werg– “to do,” related to gk. ergon “work” and o.e. weorc (see urge (v.)). 14 december 2012 figure 9: the preparation with motors and wooden wheels for solo for resonant body (2012) by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri– alexandri, ©2012. current musicology 50 dear gascia, i’m glad you pointed this out. these are the exact connections i discovered in my last project, which was an installation called extensions. it was a site– specific installation in a large room on the ground floor of the akademie schloss solitude in stuttgart. i used the same mechanisms as for untitled ii, but instead of activating membraphones or acrylic tubes, the motors activated a set of wooden panels that covered a series of windows along the walls. the panels blended with the walls, so it wasn’t apparent what was making the sound—it seemed simply that the walls and the space were vibrating. what happened with extensions was that the space itself seemed to become a live organism through sound: the space was turned into an instrument, and vice–versa. here i had the chance to be inside an instrument, an organ— it was as though the whole room had been turned into a body. it was very sensitive, and i was constantly making adjustments—it needed to be tuned figure 10: marianthi papalexandri–alexandri performing solo for motors and resonant body (2012) at the akademie schloss solitude in stuttgart as part of the symposium rhythmanalysis, 22 november 2012. photo by vera nebolsina. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri, ©2012. audio: http://www.marianthi.net/audio/soloformotors.mp3 ouzounian and papalexandri-alexandri 51 figures 11–12: video 4. extensions (2012) by marianthi papalexandri–alexandri. site– specific sound installation with motors, steel wire, wood, and aluminum. installed in the unterer hirschgang of the akademie schloss solitude, as part of the group exhibition horch!/listen! (14 june – 29 july 2012). top photo from video by youki hirakawa. bottom photo by frank kleinbach. courtesy of marianthi papalexandri–alexandri ©2012. video: https://vimeo.com/56871797 current musicology 52 and retuned, because it would change with the temperature or according to the number of people in the space. it also seemed to be alive in the sense that it couldn’t be adequately captured or recorded. it was constantly in flux. when i tried to record it i felt like one of those nature photographers who sets out to capture an exotic animal—there’s very little chance of capturing it. for me this was proof that it’s alive. you don’t have control over it. in thinking of working with a site–specific space, i realized that when i compose for instruments, in a similar way i have to deal with a “site–specific” situation, because the musical instrument has a specific form. you always have some parameters that are already set, and the only way for me to stretch these parameters is to modify the instrument, to prepare it, and so on. so it was a similar process in terms of working with the space itself. it made me realize that this is why some composers work with installations, or why an installation itself is not as foreign to my process (of working with instruments) as i thought. there’s a connection there. now i have access to the interior of the instrument, which is the space itself. this is also true of the human performer, and the living body. as a composer, you have to be aware of the specific conditions of that body, and of that person. i consider this my job: to be aware of these conditions, to respond to them, to create for them—whether the instrument is an object, whether it’s a space, or whether it’s a person. leech-wilkinson, daniel. 2002. the modern invention of medieval music: scholarship, ideology, performance. cambridge: cambridge university press. reviewed by thomas irvine in memory of lenore coral it is probable that we who suffer from the malady of history will have to suffer from the antidotes. -friedrich nietzsche, on the uses and disadvantages of history for life anyone who has heard medieval music in live performance or on record in the last fifty years knows the sound that medieval music used to make: the joyful yowling of a mixed crew of instrumentalists, bowing, tooting, honking, and plucking, and-in the best performances-above it all, a single, ec­ static voice. anyone who has listened to such music in the last twenty knows the sound it tends to make now: a blended and-again, in the best rendi­ tions-no-iess-ecstatic combination of purely intoned a cappella voices. the former is now widely regarded to be "unhistorical"; it is a model that has been "superseded;' thanks to "progress" in historical research. the modern invention of medieval music tells the story of how a music changed its sound because scholars re-thought its history and how a music changed its history because musicians re-thought its sound. in this review i will begin by sketching leech-wilkinson's gripping nar­ rative of the "invention" of medieval performance practices in the early twen­ tieth century (chapter 1), their "re-invention" in the century's last decades (chapter 2), and his innovative and, at times, even compelling attempt in the book's third chapter-the book's heart-to relate issues normally seen as attendant only on performance to the concerns of musical analysis (i.e. whether late-medieval polyphony was sung by one voice accompanied by groups of instruments). in the second part of my review i will consider leech-wilkinson's main critical message, laid out in the book's fourth chapter and the epilogue that follows: that writing the history of the musical perfor­ mances of the distant past is a dangerous game, even a fool's errand, liable to ideological misuse. part of leech-wilkinson's argument hinges on the misdeeds of influential german medievalists between 1933 and 1945, and the analysis here makes for sobering reading. nonetheless, some parts of current musicology, no. 77 (spring 2004) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 147 148 current musicology leech-wilkinson's larger argument left me with more questions than an­ swers. in the last part of my review, i will attempt to come to terms with some of these questions. the critical moment in chapter 1, "the invention of the voices and instruments hypothesis," is hugo riemann's reassessment of the relation between voices and instruments in fourteenth and fifteenth century music, first set forth in his handbuch der musikgeschichte of 1905. the problem is familiar to students of medieval music: how to perform polyphony with only one texted voice (as in many motets, or much notre dame conductus). leech-wilkinson shows that around 1905, riemann began proposing that one voice was sung and the others played. thanks to some historiographi­ cal sleuthing, leech-wilkinson is able to trace riemann's argument to the british scholar sir john stainer's work in the 1890s, particularly a paper stainer read to the royal musical association in 1895. in it, stainer argued that the oxford manuscript canonici misc. 213 contained a large number of pieces that began with untexted music; moreover, as leech-wilkinson ex­ plains, the "frequency of untexted phrases within and at the end of pieces" made it obvious to stainer that these were solo songs, to be accompanied by viols, which would "supply short symphonies" when the singing voice was silent (24). in a delicious serving of historiographical detail typical of this book's pleasures, leech -wilkinson reports that stainer ended his presenta­ tion with what were probably the first modern-day performances of dufay's songs, which stainer shortened to "symphonies" performed on "three or four violas," since he could not find a singer capable of handling old french (24-25). stainer's lecture-recital was to have profound consequences for leech­ wilkinson's story, consequences that speak volumes about the "historical" part of musicology as a discipline. leech-wilkinson pursues not only the unacknowledged sources of riemann's theories, but also their ideological underpinnings. riemann, he explains, seized on stainer's hypothesis be­ cause it fit into the grander narrative he was retelling in his own panoramic history of music, which goes something like this: medieval music was in crisis, and the florentine contribution of a discrete repertoire of instru­ mentally-accompanied vocal music revealed a path whose ultimate goal was the nineteenth-century german art song. thus, riemann's widely-read as­ sertion that the performance of much medieval secular music ought to be on instruments comes down to his "massive cultural prejudice;' as a ger­ man reacting against the perceived decadence and theoretical fussiness of french vocal music (31). the rest of the chapter reads like james thurber's old parable of the "very proper gander" in which a barnyard compliment results in the fowl in thomas irvine question being run off the farm for "propaganda!' in the years following riemann's "invention" of the instrumental hypothesis, it evolved from con­ tentious theory to scholarly consensus to unchallengeable fact. this is a story that others have told before-especially the instrumental hypothesis's de­ bunkers, who are the subject of chapter 2-but leech-wilkinson's survey is remarkable both for its detail and for its synthesis. he provides a compel­ ling account of arnold schering's "conversion" to riemann's hypothesis, a conversion that led schering to propose that trecento polyphony was really pure organ music (44-45). later in the chapter, leech-wilkinson describes the origins of the so-called "oriental hypothesis;' which proposed that the "lost" instruments of the middle ages were to be "found" among the "less advanced" cultures of the middle east and north africa (64-66). finally, leech-wilkinson explains that under rudolf von ficker, "organum and by extension other medieval polyphony ... became orchestral" (36). he goes on to suggest that ficker's re-imaginings were probably influenced by the dutch medievalist j ohan huizinga's seminal book the autumn of the middle ages ([ 1924) 1996), whose carnevalesque, technicolor visions of medieval life were brought to sound by ficker's arrangements (leech-wilkinson 2002:58-59). although i have some reservations about how ficker istreated, i find leech -wilkinson's ability to link the ideological perspectives of indi­ vidual scholars with specific "sounds" of medieval music to be one of this book's most impressive achievements. l chapter 2, "the re-invention of the a cappella hypothesis;' is the story of the decline of the instrumental hypothesis. the theory always had its doubters, beginning with guido adler and continuing with the influential heinrich besseler, who wrote enthusiastically of a cappella performance in the 1920s but developed a more ambivalent attitude thereafter (89-90).2 the real demolition work began only in the late 1970s, with the publication of craig wright's first articles and the beginning of christopher page's "gothic voices" project. here, the story takes on a different flavor, for as leech-wilkinson readily admits, he himself was a participant in these de­ bates (102). his openness about his own role is as refreshing as it is abso­ lutely necessary. soon page's increasingly successful attempts to perform medieval polyphony take center stage, flanked by musicology's efforts to keep up with them. once again, leech-wilkinson is eager to follow the give­ and-take between scholarship and performance; at times scholars lead the way, but more often than not, it is the other way around. writing as an eye­ and -ear-witness, leech -wilkinson states that page's work "came as a revela­ tion' converting interest into belief, making the music comprehensible for the first time, no longer thin and quirky but rich and lyrical" (113). some of this chapter's passages have a decidedly anecdotal flair, such as the account 149 150 current musicology of david fallows's "invention" of a medieval instrument, the "dulzaina" or "dou<;aine;' for the american performer/scholar thomas binkley (144-45). at first this anecdote sounds silly, like stainer's violists doing their best with dufay's "symphonies," but the point is an earnest one. fallows later repented of his invention in print and became one of the most vocal supporters of the a cappella hypothesis, delivering much important scholarly research in its support. if leech -wilkinson had ended his study with the eclipse of the old hy­ pothesis by the new one, the modern invention of early music would stand as an impressive survey of recent musicological history. leech-wilkinson goes further, however, offering an ideological critique of the debunkers. his tone borders on the penitential as he reveals how a small group of academ­ ics around page-including fallows, leech-wilkinson himself, mark everist, tess knighton, and knighton's fellow editors at the journal early music­ worked with influential bbc producers to erase instrumental performance from the public and scholarly imagination (133). leech-wilkinson shows empathy for the losers here, among them established performing groups like the medieval ensemble of london, instrument makers, and amateur instrumentalists who were now excluded from much performance as the field came to be dominated by highly professionalized a cappella singers (138-39). leech-wilkinson is even able to trace the enthusiast-milieu's de­ cline empirically, using the uk's register of early music and advertisements in early music (141-44). in chapter 3, "hearing medieval harmonies;' leech-wilkinson drives the "then" and the "now" even closer as he explores how music theory, espe­ cially the growing field of medieval music analysis, follows performance's lead. once again, he displays a talent for synthesis, boiling his argument down to a simple message: the more instrumental the performance, the more horizontal the analysis, and the more vocal, the more vertical. he again serves deftly as his own witness, since, as he admits in the introduction to the book, much of his own work has been based on a "view of the harmony as purpose-directed" (11-12). vocal performance, he writes on many occa­ sions' makes this view seem "true." an adequate summary of leech­ wilkinson's investigation of the tangled relations between theory and prac­ tice is beyond the scope of this review. it is enough to say that his survey, which considers everything from raphael georg kiesewetter's disgust with machaut's harmonies to the latest blends of contextual music theory and neo-shenkerian linear reductive analysis, is both perceptive and often sur­ prisingly sympathetic. as in the previous chapter, however, sympathy itself is not enough to save an argument from critique. having already exposed the a cappella hythomas irvine pothesis as problematic, leech-wilkinson is forced to admit that his own preferred vertical/vocal analytical paradigm is problematic too. in this re­ spect, his discussion of the concept of "anachronism" is especially interest­ ing. "anachronism" is the sin of analyzing historical music without refer­ ence to the music theory of its own historical context, and as leech­ wilkinson shows in this chapter, the charge of "anachronism" is an effective tool for disciplining those who stray beyond the boundaries of "contextual correctness" (my term) agreed upon by most medievalists. many of the failures of historical scholarship exposed here result from using appeals to "context" to win historical arguments. in the first chapter, for example, ficker and his followers saw medieval music's context as the colorful panorama depicted in the autumn of the middle ages; huinzinga's carnevalesque was the noise the music made and should make. that leech­ wilkinson is able to draw this connection so clearly is one of his book's signal achievements. in the second chapter, it is christopher page who goes too far, re-imagining the disciplined, professional medieval singer-scholars as trans-historical doppelgangers of the crack singing professionals of the 1980's early music scene; here again, the context itself determines the sound of the re-imagined music. in the third chapter, context appears in the guise of the disciplining discourses of "anachronism;' which are used as sticks by guardians of "historical" interpretation to beat back any hermeneutics that does not define itself in appropriately "historical" terms. in each of these instances, leech -wilkinson reveals these contexts to be at best wishful think­ ing and at worst pernicious ideologies, going so far as to deploy a disciplin­ ing stick of his own, the stick of neuroscience and cognitive psychology (210-11). on an evolutionary scale, as leech-wilkinson reports, the differ­ ence between hearing music today and hearing music 700 years ago disap­ pears. i guess this is the ultimate human context; next to it all the others look tiny and insignificant. the remainder of the book is concerned with the dangerous slippage between imagining historical "context;' that is, imagining history as a nar­ rative, and the assumption that contexts are somehow as "true" as the facts they explain. leech-wilkinson, of course, has a story to tell himself, in which nazi musicology has a big role to play, for it was the nazis who brought the manipulation of history to new lows, all in the name of their chosen narra­ tive. one of leech-wilkinson's main villains here is ficker, who we learn was not above re-casting his research in a mold distinctly favorable to those in power after 1933-most egregiously claiming that there was something "northern" and "germanic" about notre dame polyphony. leech-wilkinson, keen as always to keep our focus on how ideology sounds, even draws a suggestive connection between ficker's lush orchestrations of leonin and 151 152 current musicology perotin and carl orff's bavarian-monumentalist carmina burana, which is, of course, a piece of "imagined" medieval polyphony (57). striking as this line of argument is, i'm not sure that it is entirely fair. ficker's fantasies about leonin and perotin's gothic "germanness" (16769) could have just as much to do with a nietzschean north-south divide than with irridentist nazi designs on certain parts of neighboring western europe. that musicologists like ficker were somehow tainted seems be­ yond dispute. in ficker's case, however, the ideological positions he adopted to show loyalty to the nazi regime predate the machtergreifung by at least a decade: i would venture to guess that much of his scholarly work would have been the same had hitler not come to power. there is now a broad consensus that there were many continuities between the weimar republic and the national socialist era; the problem is how to portray these without whitewashing nazi barbarity. the availability today of high-quality research on academia under the hitler regime makes it possible to draw more nu­ anced conclusions about the extent of a given musicologist's cooperation with the regime. such nuances are missing in leech-wilkinson's telling, and his arguments are somewhat weaker for it.3 ficker's story is a parable about how power (over narratives and over people) can corrupt historians. this parable is central to the message of chapter 4, "evidence, interpretation, power and persuasion." one of the things that leech-wilkinson has done here is to make "nazi musicology;' which was doubtless morally compromised, into an "other" for some kind of morally defensible scholarly practice. indeed, the pernicious uses to which musicology can be put are a recurring theme in the book, from leech­ wilkinson's account in chapter 2 of how the a cappella hypothesis destroyed britain's cottage industry for fanciful medieval instruments, through his explication of ficker and besseler's compromised hermeneutics, to a direct comparison, in chapter 4, of the academic situation in today's britain with 1930s germany: it would be optimistic to suppose that circumstances conducive to per­ verted research will not arise again ... it is not hard to see how pressures from society and government can turn research in one direction or an­ other whenever scholars find it convenient, when it increases their power or protects their work from attack. the case of academics' response to the uk government's research assessment exercise ... is just one example. (252) this is provocative indeed; and, in my opinion, wrong-headed. it is without a doubt worth debating if the brave new academic britain created by the research assessment exercise (a kind of simultaneous national tenure rethomas irvine view and accreditation process) is worth the trouble. surely some colleagues have lost their jobs, and others may have been driven to conduct more con­ formist research. but there have been no midnight knocks on the door, no threats of bodily harm-thinly-veiled or open-to non-conformists, and no souls dragged off into "protective custody." a comparison of the two situations is at best naive; at worst it has the effect of making what hap­ pened in germany in 1933 seem somehow a little less monstrous by an implicit comparison to the current situation, however regrettable, in tony blair's british academia. it is a shame to find this metaphor in an otherwise admirable study. by the time the reader reaches the middle of chapter 4, it is clear that one of leech-wilkinson's main purposes is to warn about the dangers of claims built on historical "facts": historical musicology has ... a dangerous tendency towards absolutism, grounding it in the truth of securely established facts about the past and therefore in the special value given to such facts. at its most extreme, the historicist project views facts as recoverable, and, once recovered, as hav­ ing absolute authority over us ... from this follows inevitably the insis­ tence that there are valid and invalid ways of handling the surviving ma­ terial, appropriate and inappropriate, historical and modernist, and that these equate to right and wrong in absolute moral terms. i stress that such a view is extreme, but it is only an extreme realization of a tendency that we have been able to see at work in much of the musicology we have examined. (252) true enough: facts are matters of interpretation, as he demonstrates again and again. this realization seems perhaps naive, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the modern invention of medieval music as a simplistic work. indeed, leech-wilkinson's stubborn insistence on the question, "what do we really know about medieval performance, and how do we know what we know?", leads to some unsettling answers. nonetheless, the lack of a clear definition of "historicism" hampered my understanding of leech-wilkinson's wider argument. as i read chapter 4, it occurred to me that leech-wilkinson uses the word "historicism" in a different sense than the one to which i am accustomed. for him, "histori­ cism" is a kind of historiography that depends on claims to "historical fact:'4 many historians and philosophers of history, however, associate "histori­ cism" with the german historismus. 5 the legacy of historismus includes the notion that all human actions are historical, that we as humans are swim­ ming in history's currents, that all historical situations are inherently unique, and, most importantly, that history means something. figures like wilhelm von humboldt, g. w. f. hegel, leopold von ranke, and johann gustav 153 154 current musicology droysen, contributed to the formation of the historicist philosophical posi­ tion in the nineteenth century. some of them, especially ranke and droysen, who were also founders of the professional discipline of history in ger­ many, stressed the importance of what they called the "historical-critical method," that is, the methodologically-regulated search for facts. but they and their followers-and these would certainly include every german and german -influenced scholar whose work leech -wilkinson considers-would never have considered fact -collection their only business; indeed, they would have been repelled by the notion. the idea that there is really no such thing as objectivity belongs squarely to the tradition of which leech-wilkinson's inventive music historians were a part. it is important to understand that the german idealist-historicist­ way oflooking at history is not really oriented toward getting at the "facts" as they "actually" were. for the historicist must admit, when telling it wie es eigentlich gewesen (ranke's famous, much -misunderstood phrase) the "facts" are only there for the sake of the story.6 or to put it another way: there are no facts without geist. is it really so terrible that generations of medieval music lovers were able to sense some of history's powerful current, byimag­ ining that they might be a part of it-even if they were imagining it incor­ rectly? however misguided they were, they were partaking of a grand nar­ rative, that has informed much historical thinking in the west since the enlightenment, particularly in germany. from riemann to binkley there was simply no other alternative available. and isn't just this feeling of being able to recognize the flow of history's currents, and one's own place in them, one of the joys of reading leech -wilkinson's book? "progress" is another commonly-held notion that is subjected to a strin­ gent critique in the book. leech-wilkinson argues that the arrival of instru­ mental performance of medieval music is a "beautiful example" of thomas kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions, in which steady "progress" is inter­ rupted by violent "paradigm shifts," causing profound consequences (225). but he claims that the arrival of the a cappella paradigm is not such a shift, since it "has not been universally accepted, by any means." instead, it is a "rather particular instance of the impossibility of improving knowledge." since "what we 'know' is what we agree to know" -and since here we do not agree-it follows that we do not "know" medieval music, nor can it be ar­ gued that we have made any progress in all the years of research we have spent getting to know it (231). max weber discussed this problem in his famous essay "science as vo­ cation:'7 in it, weber argues that in scientific inquiry "progress" is the wrong goal to have. the right goal is clarity-clarity about the limits of our inquir­ ies, but also clarity, it is to be hoped, about the questions we are asking, thomas irvine which can and should be big ones. for example, the medievalists of the 1930s seem to have ignored weber's warnings, seeking grander implications for their work than their projects ought to have had. but their lack of clarity is not enough to consign their inquiries, and indeed an entire historical project, to the methodological dustbin. by challenging claims of "progress" leech-wilkinson suggests that there is a simple thing called "progress," in which research moves forward by "sorting out" problems, thereby eliminat­ ing questions. i disagree. real progress, in the human sciences at least, ought to raise more questions than it answers.8 these are trying times for the philosophy of what was once known as "historical performance practice" (if not for the practice itself, which is rela­ tively resilient to the blows occasionally dealt it by academics). the modern invention of medieval music is a logical successor to richard taruskin's cel­ ebrated yet controversial essays of the 1980s and 1990s. if taruskin's well­ taken point was that the exigencies of performance need to be separated from the imperatives of scholarship, leech-wilkinson's message is that schol­ arship itself is a kind of performance; this is the meaning that i take away, at least, from his final conclusion: "good musicology is whatever musicolo­ gists do interestingly as musicologists" (260). ironically, despite a valiant attempt to avoid ending up here, we find ourselves at the bottom of historicism's relativist slippery slope. leech-wilkinson seems to suggest that the best way back up is to embrace the present and the empirically verifi­ able. his agenda establishes present performance as a major concern, if not the major concern, of musical scholarship, while de-emphasizing the past's traces in it; or at least those traces not accessible though recordings. past performances are too ineffable, too unreachable, and too liable to be pressed into the service of this or that ideology to be of much use to "presentist" scholars. the modern invention of medieval music is an important book. it raises fundamental questions about the relation among music, performance, and historical writing. it belongs on the reading lists of every graduate course in musicological methods, and by extension in the hands of any musicologist interested in how and (more importantly) why we write about music. if the diagnoses here can be applied, and i think they can be, to any historical approach to musical composition, performance, listening practice, recep­ tion, and thinking-in short to any historical approach to music in its broad­ est sense-it follows that much of what we call "historical musicology" is at worst useless and at best a kind of enjoyable game, a pleasant and stimulat­ ing pastime. anyone who studies music history ought to confront this ver­ dict, which i find a bit bleak. nonetheless, this book is an encouraging sign of readiness to examine basic premises, a necessary step in any journey to 155 156 current musicology weberian clarity. finally, no study of which i am aware brings performance into the panorama of music historiography so well, while at same time cut­ ting the gordian knot of historical thinking and historical performance so cleanly. i cannot praise this book enough for its imagination, daring, and elan. it is a book that hits us where we live. notes 1. i am grateful to dr. christian thomas leitmair for sharing an unpublished paper on ficker with me; see leitmair (2004). 2. besseler, leech-wilkinson reports, never moved beyond ambivalence because the instru­ mental hypothesis was so deeply ingrained (90-91). 3. leech-wilkinson depends almost exclusively on pamela potter's research into the role of musicology on hitler's germany; see, for example, potter (1998). his arguments might have profited from a look at recent german-language literature on nazi academia like the essays in oexle and schulze (1999). 4. for an introduction in english, see iggers (1983), cf. also dahlhaus (1983). 5. leech-wilkinson uses robert d. hume's definition of "arch eo-historicism": "an approach to studying the past that takes as its primary aim the reconstruction of historical contexts" see leech-wilkinson (2002:295n4) and hume (1999:1-11). 6. see iggers and von moltke (1973:ix-x). 7. this essay was originally delivered as a lecture to a german student group in the closing months of world war i. available in english translation in weber (1946:129-58). 8. i borrow this image of "problem solving" from taylor (2002:127). references dahlhaus, carl. 1983. foundations of music history, translated by j. b. robinson. cambridge: cambridge university press. huizinga, johan. [1924]1996. the autumn of the middle ages, translated by rodney j. payton and ulrich mammitzsch. chicago: university of chicago press. hume, robert d. 1999. reconstructing contexts: the aims and principles of archeo-histori­ cism. oxford: oxford university press. iggers, georg g. 1983. the german conception of history: the national tradition ofhistori­ cal thought from herder to the present. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. iggers, georg g. and konrad von moltke, eds. 1973. the theory and practice of history. indianapolis: the bobbs-merill company. leitmair, christian thomas. 2004. alternative embodiments of medieval music now and then: rudolf von ficker's sederunt principes reconsidered. birmingham, england: an­ nual conference of the royal musical association. oexle, otto gerhard and winfried schulze, eds. 1999. deutsche historiker im nationalsozialismus. frankfurt: fischer-verlag. potter, pamela. 1998. most german of the arts: musicology and society from the weimar re­ public to the end of hitler's reich. new haven: yale university press. thomas irvine taylor, charles. 2002. gadamer on the human sciences. in the cambridge companion to gadamer, edited by robert j. dostal, 126-42. cambridge: cambridge: university press. weber, max. 1946. science as vocation. in from max weber: essays in sociology, edited and translated by h. h. gerth and c. wright mills. oxford: oxford university press. 157 editor’s note 5 the impetus for compiling this issue followed from my encounter a few years ago with nathaniel mackey’s 1986 epistolary jazz novel, bedouin hornbook. in a series of letters addressed to a friend called “angel of dust,” mackey’s protagonist, n., recounts his travels as multi–instrumentalist with the mystic horn society, later renamed the molimo m’atet. n.’s facility at rendering musical experience in crystalline verbal images is virtuosic, even uncanny. at the same time, he is prone to an almost dorky interpretive prolixity. (when we meet n., he has just started a group called the deconstructive woodwind chorus. they haven’t played yet, but they’ve had “an interesting series of discussions about duende . . . ”) for instance, in djbot baghostus’s run—sequel to bedouin hornbook, and the second of four volumes in mackey’s ongoing cycle, titled from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate—n. comments on a performance by his bandmate, djamilaa: her impersonation of nancy wilson began to break down. . . . my own guess at the time was that a curious compound play of identity and difference had intervened. djamilaa’s faltering reproduction of nancy wilson’s voice seemed to obey a namesake negative dialectic and a nominal near– identity with aunt nancy [another member of the band] rolled into one. this is a not untypical example of n.’s theoretical riffing. these ruminations on music, at once insightful and comically strained, spurred me to consider recent critiques of musicological hermeneutics. in carolyn abbate’s influential 2004 essay “music—drastic or gnostic,” for example, we are told that rather than painstakingly trying to extract supposedly latent meanings from musical works, we might do better to turn toward temporally fleeting sensations and intensities that attend actual experiences of listening or performing. although the ostensible target of abbate’s polemic is a specific mode of exegetical musicological discourse, she almost suggests that we stop writing and speaking about music altogether. at the very least, abbate’s essay does not provide much guidance about how language might be employed in discussing the “drastic” dimension of musical performance, which, she writes, “involv[es] a category of knowledge that flows from drastic actions or experiences and not from verbally mediated reasoning.” this use of “drastic” was borrowed from philosopher vladimir jankélévitch, whose great 1961 meditation on music (translated into english by abbate) is titled 6 la musique et l’ineffable. a little over a decade after the publication of that book, roland barthes—friend and occasional chamber music partner of jankélévitch—suggested in his much–cited essay “the grain of the voice” that while music should not necessarily resign us to silence, the moment it is treated as a subject of criticism we inevitably fall into a predicative mode reliant on that “poorest of linguistic categories: the adjective.” but the presumption implicit in all this—that among all phenomena, music poses a unique challenge to verbal description—is far from self–evident. (i recall music theorist joseph dubiel beginning a semester–long course in tonal analysis with the following remark: “people often say that music is a particularly hard subject to write about. i don’t know. what’s easy to write about?”) to me, mackey’s work signified a two–pronged rejoinder of sorts to this line of thought. first, before conceding so much of musical experience to the realm of the ineffable, we might work as hard as n. to hone our words (adjectives included). second, the many kinds of meaning that have been ascribed to music may not reside in the music as such, nor fully correspond to the moment–to–moment experience of listening, but the presumption of meaning and the corresponding interpretive act are nevertheless themselves a part of the plane of experience. certainly, mackey’s novel does not pretend to resolve the great tensions between presence and meaning that arise in writing about music. and i do not think the incisive polemics against the tyranny of hermeneutic–linguistic reductionism can be discounted. nevertheless, upon reading bedouin hornbook i keenly felt that to better think about music and its complex relationship with language we might do well to pay more attention to the literary styles, forms, and genres we employ in our writing about it. the guiding editorial intention behind this issue, then, is to thematize this relationship with an eclectic body of texts that experiment with linguistic form. hence: “experimental writing about music,” a special issue of current musicology which i am pleased to kick off with an excerpt from mackey’s forthcoming fifth volume of from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate. what do i mean by “experimental writing about music”? i am reminded that bruno latour once wrote that there were four problems with the “actornetwork theory” that he had helped elaborate and which subsequently became a trendy catchphrase within academia: namely, the words “actor,” “network,” “theory,” and, finally, the hyphen. i do not wish to imply any meaningful parallel between that well-established contribution to sociology and this as yet unread issue of current musicology, but i would like to take a note from latour and try to clarify the present use of these terms in order to preclude some misunderstandings. 7 in recent writing on the arts, few words verge on meaninglessness more than “experimental,” and, alas, this issue may do little to rectify this. by placing the pieces collected here under the rubric of the “experimental” i do not wish to inscribe them within a now semi–canonical “experimental tradition”—although some certainly have connections to that by no means unambiguous historical concept. rather, i use the word to concisely indicate that the diverse array of exceptional pieces published here depart from the stylistic norms of contemporary academic writing. in one sense, this is an overly context–dependent justification. (since this is a peer–reviewed scholarly journal, does that mean any text appearing in it that does not read like a standard article or book review is experimental?) but it is, anyway, the case that many of the contributors included here are academics of one kind or another, and that academic style constitutes a background against which their pieces can be taken to represent a self–conscious experimentation with form. while the pieces included here should not be preemptively tethered to any single tradition, they have not extricated themselves from tradition altogether. in fact, as i suggest in the overview that follows, these texts draw upon all kinds of written genres spanning centuries. as creative attestations to the many ways that music has been written about, i believe the pieces in this issue may provide some perspective on the possibilities, constraints, and contingencies of any given style. at this point, the reader should feel free to skip the rest of this somewhat lengthy introduction and dive in! *** experimental the ideas underpinning the compilation of this issue owe a significant debt to the work of benjamin boretz, elaine barkin, and j. k. randall. for decades now, these composer–theorists have been exploding conventions of musical analysis in a body of verbally dexterous, philosophically penetrating, and at times visually striking writings: first in the pages of perspectives of new music, and more recently in the open space magazine. i am pleased to be able to acknowledge this enduring movement with the inclusion of a selection of pieces (older and more recent) by all three. decades on the scene, they are still innovating. randall, for instance, may be in his twenty–third year of retirement, but one could scarcely imagine a more inventive contribution to a new “genre” or medium (e–mail) than his “to astonish the roses: 7 e–mails to walter branchi.” (all the author’s 8 characteristic humor is on display. to grab an excerpt almost at random, “roses #3” begins: “dear walter, let’s back up to the sound of all that crap in my room (atcrimr). clearly the locus of my psychic integration is my own idiosyncratic head, whatever may have accumulated in my room.”) also included are responses to this trio by younger writers. dorota czerner calls her “listening in poppies” a “dia–phonic poem,” written in “parallel” with the poet’s experience of some of boretz’s piano music, but not intended as a representation of it. (this again raises the matter of predication mentioned by barthes, a topic i will return to toward the close of my introduction.) scott gleason’s “improvising compose yourself” begins in a vein of erudite scholarship, with a brief contextualization of the work of boretz and randall. but then the text suddenly mutates. as if he has become infected by his subject matter, gleason adopts elements of randall’s linguistic–philosophical–typographical style in a performative meta–analysis of the latter’s landmark text, compose yourself—a manual for the young. another figure whose dual influence on postwar experimental music and experimental writing can scarcely be overstated is john cage. (and here, the term “experimental” might be invoked with greater historical precision.) the conceptual vistas that cage’s work have opened up may be detected throughout this issue, but nowhere more clearly than in the excerpt from joan retallack’s errata 5uite—a polyphonic text composition in the shape of the five–line music staff. retallack writes that her piece is an “homage to cage; an exploration of phonemic sound and silence as it plays itself out in the procedural music of fortuitous chance, fortuitous error.” the reader will notice that many pieces in this issue exemplify a playful disposition toward typography, orthographical convention, and other visual properties of language. one of the most elaborate and conceptually challenging manipulations of typographical layout is found in michael gardiner and jon sakata’s “in memory, theory: concluding unscientific postludes,” designed by binu tulachan. the authors carry out what could be called a “critical obituary” for the discipline of music theory through four distinct types of “serialized writing” placed side–by–side. these four kinds of writing are: “1) the authors’ thoughts on musical networks 2) examples of networks drawn from other disciplines 3) poetic graffiti 4) an inspection of louis couperin’s f major harpsichord suite.” taking inspiration from leibniz’s conception of a universe comprised of monads that “reach out confusedly to infinity” as they form ever–new aggregations, gardiner and sakata write that each of the four series should be considered as “a monad that can be blended or cross–referenced with the others (or not), following one’s appetite.” 9 other pieces featured in this issue are inadequately described by the term “writing.” in igor’s goriest tune, for example, elaine barkin plays with cartoon–y captions, musical notation, and illustration. barkin’s piece seems to suggest that notating music, writing (about music), and drawing (about music?) are all forms of what she calls “doodling,” and perhaps only imperfectly distinguished from one another. if this last lesson constituted one of the recurrent themes in avant–garde musical scores of the last half–century, it was also presaged in some way by some of the classics of musical analysis—heinrich schenker’s famous “graphic” analyses come to mind. brian alegant’s “a picture is worth a thousand words: road maps as analytical tools” is a particularly valuable contribution to this analytic literature. in his piece, alegant describes the pedagogical utility of what he calls a “road map”: basically, a representation of one’s hearing of a musical work that might employ some combination of “text descriptions, symbols, staff notation, rhythms, colors, and shapes.” alegant also includes nine road maps by former oberlin students. all these verbal–graphical fireworks notwithstanding, an approach to writing informed by an overtly poetic or visual sensibility was by no means a necessary (nor, i should add, sufficient) condition for inclusion in this volume. a broader aim of this issue was to provide a venue for a diverse array of exceptional pieces that might not easily fit into already existing scholarly publications. i was, then, especially pleased to receive daniel albright’s wonderfully quirky essay, “nonsense and unmusic,” accompanied by the warning that the piece is “seriously experimental in so many different ways that it may be publishable in no journal on the face of the earth.” but once again, the departures from academic or scholarly stylistic norms in this issue do not exclusively draw on an avant–garde or experimental tradition of writing and might instead bring to mind a wide range of historical precedents. i will proceed to introduce the remaining contributions to this issue with glances at a few of these historical forms. writing a quintessentially twentieth-century format that engendered much innovative and sometimes unusual writing on music was the record liner note (now in decline for obvious reasons). for his 1963 album the black saint and the sinner lady, for example, charles mingus solicited an essay from edmund pollock, his psychologist. other jazz records of the era were accompanied by criticism of an exceptionally high standard—by the likes of martin williams, leroi jones (later, amiri baraka), and whitney balliett. notably, michael ives observes that his remarkable set of vignettes (published here) about a trio of jazz musicians, although “informed by the 10 absurd sophistications of ronald firbank (whose dialogic exchanges call to mind the snare drum accents of roy haynes) or the underground classic, a nest of ninnies (ashbery–schuyler) . . . means to serve as something like a parodic homage to that dandy of jazz writing, whitney balliett.” and indeed ives’s trio, quite evidently afflicted by a “fondness for cannabis and an addiction to refined banter,” easily enfold all these precursors in their theme-and-variations conversation. a typical scene: the trio sits around coming up with substitute captions for a newspaper photo of vladimir putin. “vladimir putin tames wild pony,” gibbs said, “with help of local boy while traveling on one foot in the mountains of the siberian tyva region, referred to as bambi, russia.” “vladimir putin seen boiling root vegetable,” i followed, “while reading pushkin aloud to local boy and pony in the foothills of the siberian toyota region during his unusual junket.” “vladimir putin,” klaus said, pushing the pinner toward hayes, “force feeds pony in the mountains of the tuva recreation sector while local boy bathes with a sponge his slick flanks in the steely waters of the khemchik.” they go on. record liner notes have also been a place for musicians and composers to publish their thoughts, and to make public their often less well–known verbal artistry. for the notes to his 1966 unit structures, cecil taylor published a text in which the surreal, burroughs–esque biological–mystical imagery almost rivals the album’s musical compositions in inventiveness. the creative writing of a composer like taylor (or cage, or boretz, etc.) should alert us to the centrality of writing for numerous musicians. this may partly stem from the “conceptual” drift of much music from the last half– century or so, but seminal earlier examples should be recalled: schumann’s adoption of semi–imaginary personae (with names like florestan and eusebius) in his work as a music critic, or wagner’s voluminous corpus of socio–aesthetic writings. (the latter’s lengthy exposition of a metaphysical, music–centered philosophy of history might be seen to have its twentieth– century successors in karlheinz stockhausen’s seventeen–volume texte zur musik and anthony braxton’s three–volume tri–axium writings.) it is with this rich tradition of composer–writers in mind that i introduce the contributions to this issue by two of the most original composers of recent decades, anne lebaron and marianthi papalexandri–alexandri. lebaron’s “composing breathtails” is a collection of thirty fragments that trace the development of her piece breathtails, for baritone, shakuhachi, and string quartet, on an original text by charles bernstein. her essay is at once a highly informative glimpse into one composer’s creative process 11 and an exquisite piece of prose. bernstein’s text is included here not only as a useful accompaniment to lebaron’s, but as a piece of writing that, while not “about music” per se, is profoundly concerned with sound and audition—in its fragmentation of words into phonic particles (“eth/ettle/ on/etern/ut/nly . . .”) and in its sustained thematic investigation of breath: “breath is the door/ from life to death / on the border of/ hearing i hear not hearing/ on the border of / death and life/ hear not hearing.” (bernstein has edited a volume of essays on sound and poetry titled close listening: poetry and the performed word, and is co–director of pennsound, the premiere archive of recorded poetry and conversations with writers.) while the aforementioned contributions by mackey and randall depicted one side of a conversation about music (the former fictive, the latter presumably real), the series of letters between berlin– and stuttgart–based composer papalexandri–alexandri and belfast–based musicologist gascia ouzonian gives us both sides. thus we have the pleasure of learning about an important body of new music through the questions and instigations of an especially perceptive interlocutor. indeed, dialogue forms are adopted by numerous authors featured in this issue. in addition to the three examples mentioned above, we have philosopher achille varzi’s dialogue between “ali” and “babba” on the problems that musical “covers” pose for the ontology of music, and music theorist alexander bonus’s impressively researched dialogue between a “master alejandro” and a “doctor bueno” on the subject of musical time. although both pieces stage conversations between imaginary characters, their use of the fictive register belongs more to the tradition of a mode of rhetorical argumentation—namely, the platonic dialogue—than to that of narrative literature. that said, one should not ignore the interweaving of rhetorical, narrative, and representational levels in interpreting the argument of plato’s dialogues. likewise, the experimentation with different modes of philosophical writing that has long been evident in varzi’s work— including fictions and forays into the realm of philosophy for children—is not wholly ancillary to the substance of his contributions in contemporary logic and metaphysics. varzi’s insurmountable simplicities: thirty–nine philosophical conundrums, written with roberto casati, begins: “perhaps not all the stories that follow are true. they could, however, be true, and the reader is invited to ponder this.” emily h. green’s “memoirs of a musical object, supposedly written by itself: it–narrative and eighteenth–century marketing” also plays with the semblance of fiction. green discusses the significance of a now obscure eighteenth–century score by imitating the form of an “it–narrative,” a predominantly eighteenth and early–nineteenth–century genre in which 12 objects and animals narrate their wending passages through human society. it–narratives have garnered much attention over the last two or three decades, unsurprising given the concurrent proliferation of discourses in the humanities about “materialities,” objects, and things. indeed, green invokes some of these recent fields, such as bill brown’s thing theory. but what does her essay gain by taking a peculiar form when it could be transformed without much trouble into an excellent “normal” scholarly essay? the piece concludes with a rhetorical flourish (“the object’s final thoughts”) in which the moral is stated outright for any reader too dense to interpret the allegory unaided: “the goals of the it–narrative—to give voice to the material in order to understand the human—are likely not new to you; as i retreat to the solitary vacuum of the beinecke collection, it may be time for you to make your investment in them more apparent.” but the question remains: other than providing considerable amusement, what does aping an it–narrative really do for her theoretical argument if it can just be stated outright? i won’t pretend to speak for the author, but i’d like to offer a couple thoughts. green’s play with the it–narrative form implicitly points to intriguing connections between recent materiality studies and the philosophy of historiographic representation. doesn’t the idea of objects speaking for themselves bear a certain affinity to the style of nineteenth– century historical discourse in which, as historiographic theorists like hayden white and reinhart koselleck have observed, everything transpires as if history were narrating itself? (“i would like to efface myself entirely,” leopold von ranke wrote, “and allow only things to talk…”) but while this nineteenth–century historical realism operated precisely by concealing its own rhetorical and linguistic techniques of representation, green’s comic play with narrative voice obviously calls attention to its formal artifice. indeed, the piece’s stated intent to “give voice to the material” notwithstanding, green’s adoption of a genre of imaginative literature complicates the matter and points to a salient qualification of this project that is only ambiguously and even evasively treated in much of the recent discourse on objects and things: namely, the bandying around of phrases like “object agency” or questions like “what do objects want?” remains a metaphorical discourse that too often only partially admits or apprehends its own figurative language (or worse, passes itself off as radical precisely by evading the concerns of tropology). by way of moving on to other pieces in this issue, i’d like to mention one last element of green’s essay: the opening “dedication.” it begins: “to the nobility, gentry, and public at large . . . .” borrowed from an actual early nineteenth–century it–narrative (the life and adventures of toby the 13 sapient pig), the dedication raises a question that might be asked of any writing: what kind of audience is this text addressed to? or retrospectively: what kind of an audience did a given text actually assemble? such concerns occupy a prominent place in studies of literary style and genre, and especially in recent decades have led scholars to ask how texts have functioned in the construction of the “public” spheres integral to “modernity.” perhaps no genre of writing has brought the connection between the concepts of style, public, and modernity to the level of self–awareness as explicitly as the “manifesto.” while this issue includes no manifestos—see, however, gascia ouzonian’s “soundspace: a manifesto,” written with sarah lappin— it does feature a related genre that is similarly disputatious and, at least originally, public–oriented: “theses.” in his “eleven theses on sound and transcendence,” brian kane combines liberal quotation from diverse sources (perhaps a nod to walter benjamin’s “theses on the philosophy of history”) with the serial assertions typifying the “theses” genre. thus, kane’s argument about the interlocking histories of the metaphysics of sonic transcendence and the division of the sensorium is structured as an intertextual web of propositions and critiques. in “ambient drone and apocalypse,” joanna demers also juxtaposes numerous texts drawn from the history of western philosophy and literature (plato, aristotle, herodotus, boethius, and hegel, among others). but while the theses style that kane adopts required that he subsume these sources within an apparently non–subjective, almost axiomatic discourse, demers’s rumination on recent electronic drone musicians, environmental destruction, and the apocalyptic imagination is essayistic and personal. in one passage, demers abruptly cuts off an overview of various failed military campaigns in afghanistan with a new paragraph beginning: “when i was eleven years old, i spent two weeks at a summer soccer camp on catalina island.” the essay’s tending toward a solipsistic inwardness is not an extraneous stylistic quirk, however, but follows from demers’s observation that the image of universal destruction implicit in the idea of apocalypse is already presaged in the contemplation of one’s own death. a further variation on the private/public interplay that permeates the history of writing might be found in jake marmer’s series of poems featured here, which represent (or “reimagine”) the author’s personal experiences of a communal ritual. marmer tells us in his preface of a tradition of mostly wordless chassidic songs, sometimes employing nonsense syllables (“a sort of somber scat”), called “nigunim.” he quotes a rabbi nachman of breslov, who was said to have stated at the climax of a sermon: “and even to this, too, there’s an answer. but that answer is necessarily a song.” yet marmer’s answer to his experience of listening to nigunim takes the form of writing. 14 in the poet’s “attempt to reimagine the sensation of locating oneself inside a nigun” we return, once again, to the porous boundary that would separate the utterable and the ineffable. about music if these introductory thoughts have danced around an old form/content argument—with all the deficiencies attending that distinction—this charge might already be leveled at the volume’s title: “experimental writing about music.” indeed, perhaps the most misleading word in respect to certain pieces featured here is not “experimental,” “writing,” or “music,” but the preposition that holds the phrase together: “about.” it hardly seems the right term, for example, to denote the relationship between retallack’s errata 5uite and music. retallack’s text, after all, resembles a kind of music more than a discourse about music. in fact, the errata 5uite was performed under the title variations i for john cage (for two voices, motion sensitive microphones, with a wall installation of the text staves). in his 1978 text language ,as a music: six marginal pretexts for composition (not included here), ben boretz sought to break down the distinction between music as a potential object (the “about”) of semantic reference and music as a part of language’s being. on the first page we read: “what is about, is also of, also is : / within :” it belongs to the conceptual level of this proposition that it must also be demonstrable on the level of immanent form, and it is to boretz’s credit that he invented a musico–linguistic poetics that seems to convincingly enact its own meanings. thus, when we get a kind of recapitulation of the statement above in the concluding passage, the sixteen intervening pages of extraordinary rhythmic–phonic–philosophy have transformed it (in my reading, anyway) from a speculative assertion to a retrospective, almost self–evident observation: to be a language, now; to be a music, now; to be an utterance within, now; to be within a worldnow, irreducibly reshaded; to be an image of now; to be metabounded, nowhere; to be: of; to be: about; to be: now; to be: is: to mean. to boretz’s lines we might add something j. k. randall said in conversation with dorota czerner (quoted in gleason’s piece): [w]hen we talk about musicalizing words that means to some people getting rid of their dictionary meanings—out of the way, deal with them for their sonic value. well, to me, their dictionary meanings are precisely part of their sonic value. . . . to me the sound of grammar is one hell of a sound, and that i don’t want to get rid of. 15 of course, the meeting of music and language is nothing new. and their many points of confluence, found in innumerable cultures and dating to antiquity, is such that even the word “confluence” is in danger of misrepresenting the relationship by presupposing the stable existence of these concepts as autonomous categories in the first place. nevertheless, this assertion hardly dissolves the tensions between what, for pragmatic, everyday purposes we continue to designate as music and language. i believe the productive potential of these tensions is well attested to by the imaginative and eclectic body of writings collected here. i should add that latour eventually revised his position and decided that he liked his phrase, “including the hyphen.” whether my silly phrase “experimental writing about music” has any usefulness i’ll leave to the judgment of the reader. it has no bearing on the value of these superb pieces by so many talented writers. i would like to thank them. i should also acknowledge brent hayes edwards, who introduced me to some of the work that inspired this project. finally, i’d like to thank the “special editorial board”—comprised of paula horner, will mason, joshua navon, lauren flood, galen degraff, and thomas fogg (this issue’s assistant editor)—who took on the difficult task of finding suitable criteria to assess the many submissions. in typesetting this volume fogg and i have tried to strike a balance between our usual house style and the idiosyncrasies of each piece. david gutkin hearing glenn gould's body: corporeal liveness in recorded music paul sanden introduction: liveness, mediatization, and glenn gould's recordings live music does not exist without its recorded other. in other words, the concept of liveness in music was unknown until there was something not live-recordings-with which to compare it. sarah thornton describes the conventional ideology of liveness, which derived from a live/recorded binarism, as historically giving "positive valuation to ... performed music. [the word 'live'] soaked up the aesthetic and ethical connotations of life-versus-death, human -versus-mechanical, creative-versus-imitative ... liveness became the truth of music, the seeds of genuine culture. records, by contrast, were false prophets of pseudo-culture" (1995:42). liveness, at least as historically constructed, signified the authenticity of human musical production and performance, always considered in contrast with the artifice of electronic reproductions. while this rather straightforward livelrecorded binarism still informs some western concepts of liveness today, many recording and performance situations are far more complex than such a binarism will allow. so-called live recordings provide a simple example: on the one hand, those who listen to such recordings are not immersed in the same atmosphere of sights, smells, tactile sensations, or even sounds (because, despite the best intentions of its producers, no recording can ever exactly reproduce the sounds it supposedly captures) that the attending audiences experienced at the time of perform­ ancelrecording. on the other hand, the liveness of these recordings is thought to consist in their apparently faithful representations of performances that took place in the presence of these audiences. television broadcasts, rock music performances, and various forms of electro acoustic music (among many other musical contexts) all similarly present mixtures of electronic mediation and some semblance ofliveness. 1 in many instances, then, liveness persists even within what i will call mediatized music, or more specifically mediatized performance. i borrow the term mediatized from philip auslander, who in turn bor­ rows it from jean baudrillard (1981) to indicate "that a particular cultural object is a product of the mass media or of media technology" (1999:5). current musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 auslander, like baudrillard, recognizes the mass media as the dominant form of cultural production, and thus as a "vehicle of the general code in a way that live performance is not (or is no longer)" (1999:5). use of the term mediatized thus indicates not only the deployment of electronic technology in the production of culture, but also the ways in which this very deployment brings that cultural production into a much wider network of dominant social and economic practices. mediatization recognizes the deeper implications of technology's ubiquity in a way that a more neutral term like mediation cannot. my own use of the term mediatization is slightly but significantly reconfigured from that of auslander, in that while i still rely on the term's ability to denote the profound effects of electronic media on the musical process, i also believe there are many forms of mediatized music that in fact challenge the "dominance of a single code" (auslander 1999:5) informing baudrillard's thinking and to a lesser extent that of auslander himself. this is mainly because much mediatized music exists largely outside the economies of mass circulation so prominently explored in their usage, even though much of it is produced using popular contemporary forms of media technology. so much of our performance tradition has become mediatized that we must, as music scholars and practitioners, re-examine old distinctions between "live" and "not live." in this sense, then, i propose that we understand liveness not so much as a designation of"non-mediatization:'but rather as a designation of a trace of that which could be live, in the face of the threat of further or complete mediatization. as simon emmerson (2007:93) suggests, this trace of liveness may even be imagined. arguably, the important thing is not whether sound was actually physically produced by a living being, but whether we perceive some sort of live presence in those sounds. liveness is a perception, guided by the different ways it may be evoked inside cultural discourse and practice. in trying to understand our perceptions of liveness, we may be guided by auslander's suggestion that the "exact meaning and cultural importance [ of liveness 1 are subject to change, especially in relation to technological development" (2005:8). liveness exists as a fluid concept among different people and at different times, rather than as a concrete ontological category with well-defined essential characteristics. this very fluidity of the concept of liveness is, in part, what makes this issue so complex and worthy of further scrutiny. as auslander argues, understandings of liveness may change as the technologies implicitly invoked by this concept change. under such circumstances, the complexities of the current art music soundscape are no longer fully served by the simplistic understanding of live music as "not recorded." current musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) 8 © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york paul sanden in light of its fluidity, how should we define liveness, if not simply as an absence of obvious electronic mediation? i suggest above that liveness be understood as a designation of a trace of that which could be live, even within a mediatized musical context. in any given set of circumstances, this trace may be manifest in a number of ways. elsewhere (sanden 2008) i enumerate seven different potential categories of liveness, according to different ways that liveness has been discussed within the scholarly literature.2 in this essay, i will focus on what i call corporealliveness: liveness invoked by music's con­ nection to an acoustic sounding body, usually that of a human performer. of all the accounts of musicalliveness within the literature, most rely at least in part (if not always explicitly) on definitions oflive performance as somehow corporeally based. this is primarily because it is difficult (if not impossible) to discuss concepts of live performance without eventual recourse to the body's role in-or conspicuous absence from-the musical contexts under discussion. in many cases, the dislocation of sound from its physical source (the musician originally producing that sound) causes observers to lament the loss of liveness from the recorded musical experience. a focus on musically performing bodies calls attention to another highly entrenched binarism within musical discourse: what suzanne cusick (1994) and others have identified as the "mind/body problem." this ideological binarism leads to an understanding of music as a collection of works, ideas, and interpretations (products of the mind), but not of actions, tactile sounds, and physical gestures (experiences of the body). the mind/body binarism in musical discourse is problematic in its denial of individual performing bodies, which results in the neglect of the social act of performance in much of our musical scholarship. this essay, then, will engage in what elisabeth le guin (2006) calls a "carnal musicology" -a study of music as a physically enacted phenomenon-by discussing the mind/body binarism with respect to the pianist glenn gould. gould has long been characterized, by himself and by others, as a thinking musician. the recording studio, he felt, offered him the greatest opportunity to construct performances that reflected his best ideas-interpretations formulated in his mind-about musical works, particularly because it afforded him the ability to reflect on his different recorded interpretations during the production process. yet his recordings also present us with very tangible traces of corporeality, so much so that to listen to them is to hear a body performing, as long as we make room in the gould mythology for a musician whose playing is as important as his thinking. moreover, by address­ ing the corporealliveness so evident in gould's recorded work, i present a reading of recordings-those so-called agents of disembodiment-in which a body still sounds. in what follows, i will discuss the mind/body problem in 9 10 current musicology music, first broadly, and then with respect to gould. i will then address the place of recordings within a mind/body context, arguing that despite many assertions to the contrary, recording and disembodiment are not necessarily inextricably linked. finally, i will discuss several of gould's recordings, with an ear for traces of gould's own performing body-his corporealliveness. glenn gould: mind and body the centrality of musical thinking (at the expense of musical physicality) is not unique to the case of glenn gould; rather, it is part of a long tradition. within the history of western art music, and particularly within scholarly writing associated with that history, music's most significant properties have long been linked to the realm of mental activity. people who adhere to this concept view music as the communication of ideas, abstract structures, complex patterns, etc., all of which are situated in musical works. once composed, these works take on metaphysical properties, existing somehow in and of themselves, awaiting their representation in performance.3 yet until recently, these performances were not often considered important on their own-as physical processes of sound creation and communication, carried out by musically laboring bodies. rather, each performance was (and often still is) judged according to how successfully it communicated the ideas that constitute the composer's work. the primacy of mind in musical discourse has emerged in various guises, as has been demonstrated convincingly by several writers. in addition to cusick's (1994) condemnation of the mind/body problem, and le guin's (2006) commendable example of carnal musicology, the issue is neatly ad­ dressed by richard leppert (1993 :96-1 0 1), who demonstrates that in many eighteenth-century treatises the "essential" qualities of music were held to exist in the mathematical relationships between the intervals of the western tonal scale. this reduction of music to its mathematical properties presents an entirely knowable music, in line with the wider appeals to order and reason so prevalent during the european enlightenment. the association of music and mind was also prominent within romantic musical aesthetics, even if the nineteenth-century rhetoric surrounding this concept was more concerned with genius than with the rationality of the eighteenth century. writing in 1813 about beethoven's instrumental music, for example, e. t. a. hoffmann repeatedly remarks on beethoven's unrivalled genius, citing the "inner continuity" and "internal structure" of beethoven's compositions as the true marks of their worthiness. hoffmann emphasizes that the structural relationships found in beethoven's compositions (for example, the unity of motivic materials across different movements of a work) are products of a paul sanden superior intellect and, furthermore, that "a deeper relationship which does not reveal itself in this way speaks at other times only from mind to mind, and it is precisely this relationship that ... imperiously proclaims the self­ possession of the master's genius" (1998:1195-6; myemphasis).4 reference to the nineteenth-century cult of genius, with beethoven as its central figure, also raises the issue of the contemporaneous cult of the virtuoso, whose central figures were franz liszt and nicolo paganini. although virtuosi's physical attributes were highly fetishized in the popular imagination (for instance, liszt's hands were cast in molds several times during his life), i suggest that bodies remained "weaker" symbols of music's significance than brilliant minds. this can be explained best, perhaps, in light of jacques derrida's concept of phallogocentrism: the privileging of reason and mind, and the patriarchal hierarchy of that privileging, in western epistemology.5 as leppert (2007) demonstrates, music became gradually remasculinized throughout the nineteenth century, after centuries of association with feminine qualities. while liszt did much in his own right to masculinize the piano, his gender image as a performer remained somewhat ambiguous, as did those of nineteenth-century performers in general. furthermore, the individual responsible for masculinizing music more than any other at this time was not a virtuoso figure ( or at least not just a virtuoso figure) but beethoven, the brooding and brainy musical genius par excellence (leppert 2007:151-63).6 these arguments depict a tradition in which the most important aspects of canonical western art music (what is transmitted "from mind to mind") are found in its abstract compositional structure, created by relations between pitches (and to a lesser extent, rhythms). within this scenario, anything not associated with these organizational structures-any noise, to use jacques attali's (1985) term-is an unwanted distraction, at best. in attali's usage, noise does not refer just to the sonic phenomenon of "unmusical" sound, but also to whatever detracts from the organizational principles of music as they have historically been observed in western musical practices.7 gould comes quite honestly, then, to his own firm entrenchment within a mind­ centered concept of music, which is clear in his writings and interviews. he adheres to such a paradigm to the extent that he considers the noise of his body (both literally and in attali's sense) to be quite incidental to his mental approach to music. before delving too far into gould's own remarks, it is worth considering the way he has usually been presented in the popular and scholarly media, for our perceptions of gould the icon (informed largely by these media) most definitely influence how we listen to gould the musician. consider the following promotional lines, included by columbia masterworks on the back of several of gould's lps from the 1960s: 11 12 current musicology when mr. gould made his recording debut, with the immensely difficult and demanding goldberg variations of bach, his performance was so masterful that it elicited bravos from critics who found it difficult to believe that a young artist could offer such probing, sensitive interpretations. mr. gould has further demonstrated his rare understanding of bach's music with recordings of the complete partitas ... an avid reader, he prefers the works of mann, kafka, tolstoy, dostoyevsky and nietzsche, and is himself a writer of several works on the masters of the viennese school. (gould 1963)8 not only are we told that gould's greatest musical strengths lie in his "prob­ ing" intellect and in the depths of his "rare understanding:' but also that when he is not playing the piano, he further engages his mind by reading some of the most intellectually challenging literature in the western canon and writing about the most cerebral music of the twentieth century.9 a few years earlier, ross parmenter of the new york times had presented a similar portrayal of gould, following an engagement at the stratford summer music festival in which gould spoke to the audience about the music he was performing. parmenter attributed the success of the evening both to gould's abilities on the piano and to his gifts as a "thinker": mr. gould is as gifted a musical thinker as he is a pianist ... mr. gould's comments [about the music of berg, schoenberg, and krenek 1 gave the key to his own playing of the works. he understood their motivic coherence so well that each note seemed a vital part of a satisfying and emotionally expressive unit. (1956:26) focus on the significance of gould's intellectual abilities has reached beyond popular journalism. it has also become central to many of the lengthier studies of gould's work, particularly those that deal more with his writings than with his playing. for instance, the first book-length study of gould, geoffrey payzant's glenn gould: music and mind (1978), announces its bias in its title. john p. 1. roberts's the art of glenn gould: reflections ofamusical genius (1999) expresses a similar bias in its title while also promoting a compatible image-one of gould in contemplation-through its cover art. even though gould sits at the piano in this picture, he sits sideways with his left arm resting on the music stand and his gaze averted from the instru­ ment, giving the impression perhaps that the instrument itself is merely the necessary tool by which he imparts to his audience his deep understanding of the music. lo in other words, gould playing is not nearly as important as gould thinking. 11 for all of this focus on gould's mind, however, it is important to note that his performing body has seldom been ignored. rather, gould's physical actions have been cause for much concern and criticism; his body has thus been portrayed as an obstacle for his mind to overcome. 12 to be sure, gould's paul sanden physical command of the piano was never questioned and regularly received acclaim from critics and other listeners. i suggest, however, that praise for his manual dexterity has often been overshadowed by praise for his mental dexterity and certainly by criticism of his other physical mannerisms. in this way gould's body is depicted not so much as an essential part of his music making, but rather as a potential distraction from it. gould's unusual stage demeanor during his performing years seems to have drawn the most negative press in this respect. reviewers typically began by drawing attention to his idiosyncratic performance mannerisms (whether they enjoyed the program or not). only after going through an entire litany of his physical quirks would they proceed to evaluate the recital. new york times critic harold c. schonberg offers a particularly engaging description: at about 8:45 last night glenn gould, the cadaverous canadian, shambled from the wings at carnegie hall, managed to get to the piano (which was mounted on small blocks), slumped back on a bench that seemed about three inches off the ground, put his feet on the pedals and also a throw rug underneath them, put a look of ecstatic suf­ fering on his face, and played much of his program very beautifully. he subsequently went through his familiar eccentricities, which included singing (he was not in especially good voice this time), conducting, and crossing his left leg over his right. (1959:14) perhaps the most effective promotion of this dual image of gould-one of formidable mind and imperfect body-came from gould himself.13 gould repeatedly stated in interviews and in his own writings that for him the most important aspect of any piece of music was its structure. he asserted, moreover, that his interpretation of such structures was primarily a mental process, quite distinct from the physical act of playing the piano. he often told his friend and colleague, john p. l. roberts, that he could "practise in his head:' and that he "believed the piano had to be played with the mind" (roberts 1999:26). corporeal activity, then, become secondary to cerebral activity. this is not to say that gould completely ignored the tactile aspects of playing the piano, or that he never spoke of them. on the contrary, his own views on the performance of the piano itself were based far more on how the instrument felt under his fingers than on the sounds he could get from it (bazzana 2003:197-98). he often stated that his own distinctive ap­ proach to playing the piano grew out of the tactile way in which he learned to play the organ. he explains that when playing the organ, the whole effect of clarity ofline, of detached sound, has got to be achieved by a lifting of the finger after the note has been struck and not an attack on the note before it has been struck. 13 14 current musicology this was the method of playing which of course i learned on the organ and which i simply transferred to the piano, a method which involved minimal movement of the fingers, really, and which-i'm sorry to reduce this to something so physical, but this is really what it was-and a method which began by starting at the key rather than above it, and [in] which no amount of excessive force could be brought to bear on the piano. (gould and rich 1999:139; my emphasis) gould reveals two crucial points here. first, even his physical approach to the instrument is only as "physical" as absolutely necessary, in that it involves as little movement as possible. in addition to the "minimal movement of the fingers," he avoids any "excessive force" in his playing. 14 second, and i think more significantly, gould feels the need to apologize for speaking about his playing in such blatantly physical terms. he does modify this account some­ what in other interviews, making clear that the physical demands of playing the piano are worked out in the mind long before they are ever acted out at the instrument. in one instance, he speaks of "practicing" mentally while away from the piano for long periods of time, and states that "one carries the fingerings in one's head at all times" (gould and aikin 1999:269-70). gould was able to further reconcile his tactile approach to the instru­ ment with his mind-centered concept of music because he felt that since the real business of music making went on in the mind, it was not tied to performance on any particular instrument. put another way, physicality was important to gould only insofar as it allowed him to realize a piece on the piano, which was secondary to understanding the piece in its own abstract and disembodied state. gould's praise of pianist sviatoslav richter resonates very strongly with the image he projected of himself. as such, it helps to further clarify his views on the physical mechanics of making music. he argues that musicians can be divided into two categories: "those who seek to exploit the instruments they use, and those who do not:' richter, he believes, belongs to the second category, which includes musicians who try to bypass the whole question of the performing mechanism, to create the illusion, at any rate, of a direct [mental] link between themselves and a particular musical score and who, therefore, help the listener to achieve a sense of involvement, not with the performance per se, but, rather, with the music itself ... [it] is possible ... to achieve such a perfect liaison with the instrument that the mechanical process involved becomes all but invisible-totally at the service of the musical structure-and that the performer, and consequently the listener, is then able to ignore all superficial questions of virtuosity or instrumental display and concentrate instead on the spiritual qualities inherent in the music itself. (gould 1999b:52-53) paul sanden in a similar vein, gould's comments about the tactile aspects of any particular piece were often quickly followed by a comment about the more important issue of analysis. gould's description of jacques hetu's variations for piano provides an example: hetu's flair for the instrument is unmistakable. everything works and sounds and lies rewardingly beneath the fingers. yet, the impressive thing about these variations is that despite their unabashedly theatrical inclina­ tion, they are held together by a sure sense of the purely musical values inherent in their material. (gould 1967) gould then explains that the material in question is a twelve-tone row and goes on to discuss the tonal qualities inherent in this row. to gould, then, "purely musical values" are to be found in the analysis of a piece; not in the physical act of playing it. gould's views on the importance of analytical thought in music must also be understood in relation to his thoughts about the limitations and frailty of his own body. as a particular extension of his admitted hypochon­ dria' gould lived in constant fear oflosing all control of his hands. is he made headlines in 1960 when he sued the steinway and sons piano company for an incident involving one of their technicians, who purportedly greeted gould with a "thump" on the back, causing injury to gould's left shoulder and hand. 16 cbs itself was quite eager to share with gould's listeners his constant concerns about blood circulation in his forearms and hands, in a press release issued with gould's first goldberg variations recording (1956; reprinted in page 2002). regarding his physical eccentricities in performance, gould also con­ sidered them necessary only to the point that they helped him achieve his ideal performance. he once told an interviewer that when it first came to his attention in 1956 that his singing and conducting were distracting to his audiences, he became very self-conscious because he had never before given any thought to his physical appearance during performance. "the whole secret of what i had been doing:' he explained, "was to concentrate exclusively on realizing a [mental] conception of the music, regardless of how it was physically achieved" (gould and asbell 1999:186). gould establishes a clear hierarchy, then, regarding his thoughts about music and his subsequent bodily efforts to represent those thoughts in sound. clearly, to gould, a musician's physical actions are only important insofar as they serve his or her mental conception of how a particular work should sound. gould's views are by no means unique or radical, as they simply reflect the mind"centered concept prevalent for centuries within western musical epistemology. gould is notable, however, for how explicitly 15 16 current musicology he explains this hierarchy. he is also notable, paradoxically, for how much of an inadvertent physical response he clearly had to music despite his own devaluation of music's existence in the physical realm. gould's willing and almost perverse refusal to acknowledge the significance of his body in his own musical practice, in spite of the overt physicality of his playing, further parallels the immense lack of attention paid to corporeal meaning in so much western musical thought. disembodied music or corporeal liveness? performances on record if gould was uninterested in music's corporeal qualities, audio recording would seem to be the perfect medium through which he could exercise his mind -centered approach to performance. while gould never explicitly stated as much, many others have argued that recorded sound is essentially disem­ bodied sound. john corbett's description of an "audio-visual disjunction" (1990:84) in recorded music provides a useful introduction to this discussion. for corbett, popular music consumers' various attempts to reconstitute a visual element in their encounters with recordings (through music videos, album cover art, and audio imagingl7 ) are a result of the desire to "negotiate the menacing void" left by the removal of the body from recorded musical experiences (1990:85). in popular music, according to corbett, this body is removed not only visually, but also aurally by echo, compression,18 and other recording studio techniques. ultimately for corbett, these aural traces also become visual: the sound of fingers, lips, legs, and nose are all traces of the performer, the absent performer, and they foreground the visual. echo, by doubling the sound upon itself, and compression, by doing away with unseemly transients, wrench the sound of music from the body of the performer and erase its trace ... [recordings] appeal to a fantasy of absolutely independent music, where concerns of the image never enter the picture. lullaby, close your eyes, and good night. (1990:92) this "fantasy of absolutely independent music" can be linked to the general logo centrism that n. katherine hayles argues is indicative of the digital era. she traces this logo centrism back through western thought to the liberal humanist subject of the late seventeenth century.19 hayles argues that to many modern thinkers, the universe is composed essentially of information, which thus encourages a fantasy comparable to that identified by corbett: [tjhat because we are essentially information, we can do away with the body. central to this argument is a conceptualization that sees information and materiality as distinct entities. this separation allows the construction paul sanden of a hierarchy in which information is given the dominant position and materiality runs a distant second. as though we had learned nothing from derrida ... embodiment continues to be discussed as if it were a supple­ ment to be purged from the dominant term of information, an accident of evolution we are now in a position to correct. (hayles 1999:12) the parallels between hayles's examples and those from within western art music (gould, beethoven, etc.) are evident. yet, for many musicologists concerned with ·reconstituting the value of corporeality in accounts of western music, their arguments about disembodied sound, like corbett's, nonetheless revolve around a lack of a certain kind of visual information in a given musical experience. in these cases, perception of performing bodies is equated with seeing those bodies (or at least with constructing mental images of those bodies). 20 for some writers, the danger of a mind -centered musical perspective coupled with recording is that these recordings thus become an easy method by which listeners "can have the pleasure of the sound without the troubling reminder of the bodies producing it" (mcclary 1991:136). while productive, such accounts of recordings as agents of disem­ bodiment promote an overriding technophobia that ignores the very real potential for sound technology to further increase a listener's engagement with corporeality in mediatized music. when we consider the historic development of sound recording and reproduction technologies, we realize that these technologies were modeled after our own bodies' methods of hearing sound-after the physiology of the human ear (indeed some early sound technologies created by both clarence blake and alexander graham bell involved the use of real, dissected, human ears). as jonathan sterne argues, "the body is the first communication technology, and ... technolo­ gies oflistening ... emerge out of techniques oflistening" (2003:92). many such techniques were developed inside the human body (sterne calls them "techniques of the body") long before technologies outside of the human body were ever conceived of. to assume that sound technologies interrupt the corporeal significance of sounds simply because they remove these sounds from their visual sources is thus to ignore corporeally sensitive techniques of listening that have little if anything to do with sight. to help rectify this omission, i turn to other writers who have suggested how we might begin to recognize and appreciate performing bodies, even when we lack any visual clues about them. phenomenologists have long argued that everything we perceive is rooted in a sense of embodiment, since even our minds are physically situated in the world. this idea has also been taken up by music cognition scholars. marc leman, for instance, argues that "the subjective world of mental representations is not an autonomous category but a result of an embodied interaction with the physical environ17 18 current musicology ment" (2008:13).21 several writers have followed this line of argument to suggest that, in perceiving music, listeners relate the sounds they hear to their own embodied understandings of their environment. variations on this argument bear several different labels, including "kinematic empathy" (todd 1995), "bodily hearing" (mead 1999), "the mimetic hypothesis" (cox 2001), and "corporeal signification" (leman 2008:17-19),22 whatever the label, these concepts all describe a listener making sense of music not abstractly, but through corporeal involvement. the body acts as a mediator between physical sound and mental cognition (leman 2008). in this way, for instance, a regular rhythmic pulse within a given piece of music may engage a listener's experiences of regular rhythms within her own body, such as the beating of her heart, or her experiences of walking and running. moreover, music perception also relies on a listener's embodied understanding of sound production itself. in other words, the recognition that someone struck a drum to produce a particular sound may engage a listener's own understanding of how it feels to make that physical gesture. arnie cox (2001) is particularly helpful in explaining this perceptual phenomenon, because he focuses on the sound-producing body. in his account of a "mimetic hypothesis," cox presents the dual assertion that '(1) we understand sounds in comparison to sounds we have made ourselves, and that 2) this process of comparison involves tacit imitation, or mimetic participation, which in turn draws on the prior embodied experience of sound production" (2001: 195).23 such theories of corporeal listening are based on the sounds of bodies and on physical responses to sounds, rather than on the act of viewing bodies. as such, they suggest that corporealliveness-the audible trace of bodies performing-may be evident in musical recordings, even if many choose not to hear it. furthermore, corporeal perceptions of liveness carry a significance in recorded music that accounts of recordings as disembodied music deny. as cox argues, "music invites us to participate-both in our imagination, which is automatically informed by embodied experience via tacit mimetic participation, and overtly in the form of such things as toe­ tapping, swaying, dancing, and singing along. the ways in which we respond to the invitation to participate ... are part of how we define ourselves and society" (cox 2001:206-7). an account of corporealliveness in recordings, in other words, recognizes recorded music as a form of communication in which the performer (and not just the composer's work) holds great significance, even if this communication is made indirect by the mediation of technology. paul sanden gould's body on record: the mediatization of gould's performances before discussing gould's recordings directly, i will address his statements about the recorded medium, at least as they relate to this notion of communi­ cation i have just described. for gould, music was not about communication between performer and audience. after retiring from the concert stage in 1964, he was asked by interviewers if he missed the direct connection so many performers claim to share with their audiences. 24 gould responded that he never felt such a connection when he was concertizing, so he certainly did not miss it now that his performances were confined to recording and broadcast studios. rather, he viewed the microphone as a "friend," and if anything, felt more communion with it than with any potential audience (gould and tovelli999:80). gould was not entirely against the idea of musical communication, but he viewed it as a line of communication that ideally did not involve the performer. to gould, recordings offered a connection with a much broader audience, but one that was, paradoxically, more intimate than that offered in a live performance setting. his perspective relies once again on understand­ ing the musical work as occupying the place of primary importance. this intimate connection does not take place between performer and listener, but rather between listener and work, and through the work, between listener and composer. gould felt that one of the strengths of electronic sound technology lay in its ability to present for composers a permanent record of their own interpretations (in the form of dectroacoustic works or their own performances) so that they would not have to rely on other performers to get it right. moreover, gould argued, listeners will connect more intimately with that work since they "will be forced to come to decisions about the work of art because of the reaction which they themselves receive from it, and for no other reasons" (gould 1999a:219). because they are listening privately, in other words, these listeners will generate a response to and an interpretation of the work completely by their own means, and will not be distracted by the responses of their neighbors in a concert hall or by the presence of the performer on stage. for gould, music was an "essentially private act" between composer and listener (gould 1992: 180) rather than an opportunity for meaningful communication between performer and listener, as my own approach to liveness (here and in sanden 2008) suggests. nonetheless, and with all apologies to glenn gould, i maintain that his recordings do convey performative significance, not just through his brilliant interpretations of musical works, but also through the corporealliveness so readily apparent in these recorded performances. in gould's recordings 19 20 current musicology one can constantly hear not just abstract musical structures (disembodied notes), but also many of the incidental sounds-the noise-involved in gould's act of sounding out those structures on the piano and with his voice. gould's recordings provide an excellent opportunity to perceive this corporealliveness in part due to the close microphone pick-up that he and his recording studio collaborators often employed. basic microphone technique dictates that the further a microphone is placed from its intended source of sound, the more the reverberant qualities of the recording space will alter that sound. in gould's case, a close microphone perspective avoided a great deal of room reverberation, resulting in very clear recordings of the sounds emanating directly from the piano and from its immediate vicinity; hence the clarity of gould's bodily sounds, discussed below.25 gould's intention was not, however, to provide a "close-up" audio perspective on his body making music. on the contrary, and in line with his mind-centered concept of musical communication, gould deployed this particular use of recording technology in an effort to make the musical structure more apparent to his listeners. he felt that the more customary recording acoustic usually employed for recordings of classical music (at least in his time), which captured the natural resonances of the performance/ recording space, provided an acoustic "halo" around the sound in an effort to make it sound more like a live event.26 for gould, the goal was rather to achieve a certain analytical quality in the sound: one that would allow the listener to hear each individual note as clearly as possible. the added effect of this close-microphone set-up, however, is that we can also hear, very clearly, the noise of gould's body playing his piano. in addition to his singing, we can hear his physical interaction with his instrument; moreover, we hear the tactility of that instrument: the creaking of his chair as he sways, the percus­ sive nature of hammers hitting strings, the re-dampening of strings as he lifts his foot off the sustain pedal, and the very precise nuances of articulation that are lost in recordings with a more typically reverberant sound. the rest of this essay will address specific examples in gould's recorded output in which these traces of corporeality are most easily perceived. the liveness of gould's sounding body in these recordings, audible because ofmediatization, draws attention to the significance of gould's performances and not merely that of his interpretations. gould's voice the most obvious evidence of gould's own performing body in his record­ ings is his almost constant singing. gould once told an interviewer that his singing was a reflection of how he thought his phrases should sound, because his fingers never quite got it exactly right (gould and mcclure 1968). at the same time he felt, like many of his critics, that the singing was a dreadful paul sanden distraction from "the music" and wished he could stop doing it without feeling as though it made his playing worsey despite attempts to shield this sound from the microphones, his recording engineers were unable to avoid picking it up; it ranges in clarity and loudness from one recording to another. most of the time, gould clearly reproduces one of the piano's melodic lines with his singing, often with a character that matches what he is conveying in his playing. the full significance of the liveness inherent in gould's voice stems largely from the variety in his singing as he demonstrates vocally the nuances of phrasing, dynamics, and articulation to which he aspires in his playing. for it is through the identification of gould's various vocal stylings that we can also identify a voice emanating from a particular body, rather than just a disembodied voice in the background of a piano recording. i will discuss several moments in gould's two recordings of bach's goldberg variations (1956; 1982) when the singing is most pronounced, demonstrating how gould's performing body is represented in his vocalizations. i have chosen to focus mainly on gould's goldberg variations recordings for several reasons. first, they are perhaps the most prominent recordings of gould's entire discography. as such, they are highly available and potentially well-known to many readers. second, gould's singing is more easily heard here, particularly on the remastered version from which i am working (gould 2002), than on any other gould album i have been able to consult.28 third, the composition itself ranges widely in character from one variation to the next, prompting a wide variety of vocal responses from gould in a rather condensed format. other recordings by gould, on the other hand, may also offer clear and engaging singing, but often the character of this singing remains unchanged throughout an entire piece (or at least throughout a movement). variation 25 from gould's 1982 recording demonstrates clearly his tendency simply to hum along with individual voices within the piece's overall texture. the variation, marked adagio, is lyrically written. in gould's rendition, it unfolds slowly and clearly. while the variation progresses primarily as a solo treble line accompanied by simple pulses in the left hand voices, bach does engage in a bit of counterpoint between the treble voice in the right hand and the two voices in the left hand. during the variation, gould alternates between vocally mimicking the treble voice and one of the accompanying lower voices. due to the transparent texture of the movement (particularly as realized in gould's performance), we now hear four clear voices: three from the piano and one from gould's throat, which variously mimics each of the other three. most of the time in this variation, gould projects a basic hum: we hear either a closed "m" sound or a dark long "e" vowel, and very little articulation in the way of hard consonants. this is gould's singing at its simplest. 21 22 current musicology example 1: j.s. bach, the goldberg variations, variation 25, mm. 1--4, with vocal syllables and breaths transcribed from gould (2002, disc 2). gould's voice adagio mm dum dmdmdmdllm_dadmdmdmm' ii mm_ d~ da dadm.jum mm_ mill mm mi • ll_ mm_ i perhaps the most significant indicators of gould's corporeality in this variation, however, happen in the moments when gould is not humming. they occur during the brief moments between his voiced hums when he breathes. the clarity of the recording is such that nearly every time gould stops for breath, we can hear him inhale.29 example 1 shows a transcrip­ tion of gould's vocalizations (along with bach's notated score) for the first four measures of this variation, including the moments where he breathes (indicated with asterisks). at this moment, a comparison with gould's first goldberg variations (1956) is intriguing. at two different instances in variation 15 of that record­ ing, gould audibly exhales through pursed lips, rather than singing as he usually does. in addition to the whistling air, beginning at 0:05 (m. 2, beat 2),30 we quite clearly hear gould articulate these breaths with a "t" sound to match the articulation of first the middle and then the upper voice in the piano. (this variation, "canone all quinta in moto contrario;' is written as a canon in three voices.) gould similarly exhales "musically" at the start of the variation's second half, beginning at 1:04 (m. 17). in both of these instances, we hear gould expel and shape this air with his lips, teeth, and tongue. suddenly the voice we hear on these recordings is not just an ethereal humming sound, but it has a source: a living, breathing body. paul sanden example 2: j.s. bach, the goldberg variations, variation 2, mm. 1-8, with vocal syllables transcribed from gould (2002, disc 2). pno. gould's voice andantino, dolce (indctenninate pitch) dlll11dumd~a digadllm dumdumdumbadumdullldum [inaudiblel dee dum da dum 1<1 ti um tum ba dum mm mm breathing aside, the singing we hear in both of these variations is rather uneventful compared to some of gould's recorded vocalizations. for instance, on his 1982 recording of variation 2, gould offers a rich variety of vocal sounds in a very short time (the variation runs only forty-seven seconds in this recording). like variation 25, bach writes this variation in three distinct voices. gould begins his rendition by vocally reproducing the most rhythmically active voice (sometimes in harmony), thus alternating between the top two. gould's performance of this variation on the piano demonstrates a variety of articulations, moving as it does quite freely between legato and staccato playing and achieving various note lengths in the space between those two extremes. his singing, however, demonstrates even more variety through the different syllables he employs. gould can clearly be heard singing the syllables, "da;"'dee;"'dum;"'badum;' "ta;' "tum;' "ti;' "tu;' and even "diga-diga-dum;' among others (see example 2). the syllables themselves are not particularly significant, so much as the extent to which they further engage gould's vocal apparatus to give us a sense of what roland barthes calls the "grain of the voice": the "tongue, the glottis, the teeth, the mucous membranes, the nose" (barthes 1977:183). in other words, they reveal the body. at several moments, gould also clearly increases the intensity of his voice to match his pianistic phrasing. these little vocal swells, brought on by increased airflow and diaphragm support, provide further evidence of gould's vocal apparatus at worky we hear the tactility of gould's body in these vocal sounds. 23 24 current musicology gould's chair vocal sounds emanate from inside a performer's body, providing us with evidence of that performer's interior movements. in addition to the sounds of the piano itself (addressed below), some of gould's recordings offer even further evidence of his external movements as he plays the piano. on the sleeve of gould's beethoven piano sonatas, opus 10 complete (1965), his producer thomas frost offers the following explanation and apology: for some years now, [gould 1 has been merrily fugueing his way through the keyboard works of bach, beethoven and schoenberg to the accompani­ ment of the strange creakings and groanings of an old, beloved friend-his piano stool. this object of endearment, decrepit and moth-eaten as it is (having reached retirement age long ago), apparently has learned to swing and sway so perfectly with glenn gould's body motions that he has stubbornly refused to part with it in spite of all counsel and advice ... [we 1 hope that you, the consumer, will refuse to be discomforted by some audible creaks that are insignificant in light of the great music-making on this disc. (gould 1965) indeed, throughout this recording, gould's chair creaks audibly in appar­ ent sympathy with his body's movements as he plays; i would argue that these creaks are a delightful and essential part of the "great music-making on this disc," rather than a distraction from it. as the second movement of beethoven's sonata no.5 in c minor, op. 10, no. 1 begins, for instance, we hear not only beethoven's embellished chorale-like opening and gould's usual accompanimental singing, but also the gentle creaks of gould's chair as he moves through this opening passage. throughout the movement the chair's sounds seem to indicate relatively little extraneous body movement on gould's part: just the occasional shift in weight, perhaps as he depresses or releases a pedal or reaches to a different part of the keyboard. at times (for exampk, 2:1s/mm. 22-23) the chair's noises occur during moments of relaxed energy in the piece, seemingly indicating a body moving not in sympathy with the movement of the musical line itself, or with the move­ ment of gould's arms as made necessary by that musicalline.32 at others, however, it seems apparent that gould's own range of motion increases with an increased intensity and forward motion in the piece. one of these sequences begins at 2:53 (m. 51, beat 2) and continues with added chair noise until a moment of peak musical energy is reached (3:1s/m. 60), at which point the chair noises subside along with the energy projected in gould's playing. a similar demonstration of gould's bodily movement is represented by increased chair noise beginning around 5:22 (m. 9s), as gould moves paul sanden through a final surge of energy indicated in the score by a rising contour and a crescendo (both typically interpreted in western musical practice as markers of increased energy). his chair remains almost entirely silent after 5:46 (m. 106), as the forward momentum of the piece slows and finally comes to a halt. gould's piano finally, the body of the piano itself is also quite audible in many of gould's recordings to an extent uncommon in piano recordings, particularly those made by gould's contemporaries. here i speak of the noise of the piano as it is played: not the pitches produced by the depression of keys and the relatively undifferentiated timbre of the piano across its range, but rather the sounds of the piano's mechanical parts coming in contact with one another. these sounds seem to me excellent indicators of the kinetic energy involved in playing the piano: a finger depresses a key, for instance, and a pitch only results once that energy has been transferred into the throwing of a hammer against a string. a piano's noises, then, represent actions taken by the pianist, reminding us of the physical relationship enjoyed between the pianist's body and that of his or her piano. contrary to gould's praise of richter's ability to make the piano's mechanism invisible/inaudible, i find these noises significant and indicative of the vital corporeality of piano performance. such recognition of the physical relationship established be­ tween gould's body and that of his piano also emphasizes a sort of corporeal co-dependence between musician and instrument. in other words, without one another, both of these bodies remain mute. music sounds only when they come together in performance. for my final corporeal hearing, then, i turn to the fifth movement, "sarabande;' in gould's 1963 recording of bach's partita no.4 in d major. while we obviously hear the evidence of gould's fingers in motion, this recording also captures evidence of his feet in motion. the most obvious example of gould's pedaling is demonstrated by the simple "clunking" noise that occurs when gould releases his pedal, captured clearly at the end of both the first a section and the a' section (l:04/m. 12 and 4:44/m. 38; the movement's form can be described as a-b-a', with gould observing the repeat of the first a section). i also detect in the sarabande a very beautiful recurring instance of corporealliveness created by a particular combination of gould's fingering and pedaling. the second measure of each section in the movement ends with a half note in the treble voice, held over a triad that has been built up from the beginning of the measure. in the a and a' sections, this half 25 26 current musicology example 3a: j.s. bach, partita no.4 in d major, sarabande, mm. 2-3, h. 1. 2 tj 1 r t 1 i r i note, an a",33 doubles the third in a diminished iii chord that moves to the sub dominant in the next measure (see example 3a). in the b section, the half note, an e", functions as the seventh degree in a major-minor seventh chord leading to a g-major chord, which is spelled out in the first beat of the next measure (see example 3b). each time this moment occurs in his performance (o:os/m. 2, l:lllm. 2, 2:1s/m.14, 3:4s/m. 30), gould holds the sustain pedal down until he has clearly voiced each note in the measure. at some point before he releases the sustain pedal, he also releases both of the keys he has been depressing with his left hand. he then releases the sustain pedal so that we only hear the top two notes, emphasizing the inverted minor third between c" and a" in the a and a' sections, and the minor seventh b'etween fi' and e" in the b section. finally, he releases the lower note in his right hand so that we hear the top note ringing on its own before he moves on to the next measure. the first three times gould performs this little act of manual and pedal precision in the sarabande (that is, in both iterations of the a section and in the b section), we hear it exactly as i imagine he intended, and the harmonic importance of those particular notes is emphasized according to gould's interpretation. when this moment occurs in the a' section, however, another acoustic reminder of the physical contact between performer and instrument sounds. in this instance (3:slim. 30), gould releases the pedal and the c" key in such a way that the felt intended to dampen the strings corresponding to that key actually causes a momentary "shimmer" on that note. such an effect is created when felts are held, by way of a partially depressed sustain pedal, just slightly off the strings-far enough away that the strings are afforded more room to vibrate, but still close enough to the strings to restrict that vibration somewhat. thus, before our attention is drawn to the sustained a" at the end of this measure, it is first drawn to the c" beneath it, which gould inadvertently emphasizes when he releases the sustain pedal. such an audible effect, inadvertent or not, is a clear reminder of the physical process of playing the piano and thus another strong indicator of the significance of corporeality on this particular recording. paul sanden example 3b: j.s. bach, partita no.4 in d major, sarabande, mm. 14-15, b. 1. 14 conclusion i have presented in this article corporeal hearings of several of gould's recordings. i offer these interpretations with particular awareness of how they relate to an abiding mind/body binarism in discussions of western music and in western epistemology more generally. particularly in light of gould's well-established mind-centered persona (promoted both by gould's commentators and through his own efforts) these hearings suggest that even the most "cerebral" of musicians can be heard corporeally. in gould's case, his particular engagement with recording technology affords us greater access to the qualities of corporealliveness apparent in his performances, despite his own views on the role of performing bodies in musical practice. my discussion of gould's recordings leads me to confront accounts of recordings that present them as representations of disembodied music. while many concerns about the alienating potential of technology in music are well placed, such accounts often ignore the very real potential in mediatized music for increased communication of corporeal-and thus human-significance. relationships between liveness and mediatization must be reconsidered so that, where appropriate, mediatization may be construed as a productive way to project new and necessary understandings of musical meaning. a static livelrecorded binarism, in light of such arguments, no longer seems appropriate. by hearing glenn gould's body in his recordings, we hear his liveness. not only can we then rethink our common conceptions of gould's musicianship, but also our common conceptions of recorded music. an awareness of liveness reminds us of the sociality of music by emphasizing its performance, even when conventional indicators of performance become reconfigured by the very acts of mediatization i emphasize here. in an era of potentially de-socializing technological practices (internet shopping, automated bank tellers, anonymous on-line communications, etc.), such a reminder seems increasingly important. 27 28 current musicology notes i am most grateful for the support and input of a number of people throughout the process of writing this article, chief among them: jonathan burston, nicholas cook, omar daniel, carolyn herrington, sandra mangsen, richard parks, and rick semmens. 1. among the many important accounts of liveness, see feuer (1983) for an account of tele­ visualliveness, gracyck (1996) and auslander (1999) for discussions ofliveness in rock music, and emmerson (2007) for an extensive treatise on liveness in electroacoustic music. 2. these categories are: temporal liveness, spatial liveness, liveness of fidelity, liveness of spontaneity, corporealliveness, interactive liveness, and virtualliveness. 3. as lydia goehr (1992) suggests, since ca. 1800 works of western art music have generally been considered to be unique (and entirely reified) objects representative of a specialized genius labour (composition). the usual existence of these works in written scores reiterates this reification. 4. hoffmann's views are particularly significant to my account of this historically consistent perspective on music and mind, due to the extent to which his writings served as models for a developing style of germanic music criticism in the nineteenth century (see strunk's introduction to hoffmann [1998:1193)). twentieth-century musicology, and evidently gould's own approach to the evaluation of music, grew out of this very tradition. 5. for a further discussion of phallogocentrism, see especially derrida (1979). 6. other significant answers to the troubling neglect of musical embodiment in western musical discourse include david lidov's "mind and body in music" (1987); george fisher and judy lochhead's "analyzing from the body" (2002; see below, n. 22); michelle duncan's "the operatic scandal of the singing body: voice, presence, performativity" (2004); and tracy mcmullen's "corpo-realities: keepin' it real in 'music and embodiment' scholarship" (2006; see below, n. 20). 7. attali links this concept further to relationships of power as they are carried out in the social practice of music, particularly focusing on the increasing commodification of music through history. while i will not engage with attali's economic discussions, i believe that his poetic use of the word noise (bruit, in the original french) fits well in the context of a mind/body discussion of musical value. 8. columbia masterworks was the "classical" division of the columbia record label. this division became cbs masterworks in 1980; following the 1987 purchase of cbs by sony, the classical division was renamed sony classical in 1990. current releases of gould's record­ ings are thus issued and owned by sony classical. see ''a brief history of the sony classical label;' sony classical, http://www.sonyclassical.com/about/history.html (accessed may 25, 2008) for further details. 9. the reference here is to the so-called second viennese school, usually considered to com­ prise arnold schoenberg and his pupils, anton webern and alban berg. gould was about to publish a short monograph about schoenberg (gould 1964) and had also given several talks on the topic of serial music. 10. indeed, as i will discuss below, this is how gould often described his relationship with the piano and with the music he played. 11. my own previous work on gould is guilty of the same bias toward his philosophies and ideas, at the expense of any serious discussion of the physical act of playing. see sanden (2003a, 2003b, 2005). as i suggest below, while it is important to address the very real con­ nection between mind and body in music, the prevailing paradigm heavily favors the mind at great detriment to bodies. this essay attempts to correct the balance, not only in my own work, but in gould scholarship in general. paul sanden 12. late in his career, gould struggled to maintain complete control over his left hand. roberts's comments on this struggle present a clear image of a mind under attack by a body: "gould's effort to control every function of his performing mechanism made superhuman demands on his mind and it seems that, at times, when he relaxed these demands and con­ centrated on the music, he achieved better results" (roberts 1999:25). 13. gould worked very hard to promote a particular image of himself. my own impression is that at least some of his mannerisms and pronouncements were as much adopted for the sake of this image as they were reflections of his true thoughts and feelings. nevertheless, the persona gould crafted for himself was accepted by a vast public. as i am concerned here with the gould discourse more than with the conditions of gould's private reality (whatever they may have been), i will relate his professed beliefs without questioning their veracity. 14. elsewhere (gould and braithwaite 1999:41), gould explains that one of the reasons he avoids so much romantic piano repertoire is that it requires more arm strength in fortissimo passages than he can generate given his low seating position. 15. as discussed above (n. 12), roberts relates that in 1977, gould actually did suffer from a loss of manual control. he explained to roberts that "his hands were 'out of sync' with his mind" (roberts 1999:24). 16. see bazzana (2003: 194-97) for further discussion. during the ensuing legal discussions, gould argued that he was of a particularly frail disposition and that he had previously warned the people at steinway that they should accordingly avoid unnecessary physical contact with him. 17. audio imaging is the term usually applied to the practice of creating a spatially visualiz­ able sound field on a recording, through stereo placement, careful use of reverberation (to create the impression of distance), and other techniques. 18. compression is a sound filtering technique that reduces the overall dynamic range of a sound signal, essentially boosting the average dynamic level of the entire signal while lower­ ing that of the stronger parts of the signal. by flattening the signal in this way, this technique obscures many of the corporeally identifying noises that are easier to hear with a more highly differentiated dynamic spectrum. 19. derrida's ofgrammatology (1976) is perhaps the most significanttand foundational text in which the tenets of logocentrism are explained. 20. for instance, see tracy mcmullen's discussion of "recorded versus embodied perform­ ance" (2006:61-64), in which she locates the central significance of "embodied performance" in that performing body's ability to be seen. 21. in this, parallels with phenomenologist maurice merleau-ponty's foundational arguments are evident. for instance, merleau-pontywrote: "the perceiving subject is not [an] absolute thinker; rather, it functions according to a natal pact between our body and the world, between ourselves and our body" (1964:6). more recently, neuroscientists have provided empirical evidence to support the assertion thllt "a disembodied mind as such does not exist" (leman 2008:13). see, for example, damasio (2000) and jeannerod (2002). 22. see also fisher and lochhead (2002:47), who do not offer a new label, but argue that listeners "engage musical sounds with their bodies in the creative and improvisatory process of understanding. although listeners' embodied experience may involve little or no visible movement, their performative enaction of musical meaning has an intercorporeal dimen­ sion." 23. a listener's responses need not be strictly mimetic, however. even our descriptions of music as "moving" (ascending passages, accelerating tempi, etc.) illustrate the extent to which we understand musical experiences according to our existing physical knowledge of 29 30 current musicology corresponding motions. because this connection already exists, musical lines that accelerate, descend, ascend, or follow any other recognizable pattern of motion re-engage with listeners' embodied experiences of those particular movements. 24. see, for example, gould and mcclure (1968). 25.as bazzana (1997:240, 247) discusses, gould's usual microphone placement, particularly for the contrapuntal works he favored, was about five feet from the piano, which provided a closer, "drier" perspective than that demonstrated in most classical piano recordings by his contemporaries. 26. it is widely accepted that art music recordings, particularly in gould's time, embrace a "documentary" aesthetic (toynbee 2000:70) in an effort to replicate the concert situation as closely as possible. 27. in an essay on jazz pianist keith jarrett's "extraneous" singing and gesticulating that has many parallels with the current essay, jairo moreno links the types of criticisms aimed at jarrett and gould (and, i would suggest, gould's own criticisms of his singing) with an abiding system of discipline within western musical practice and discourse, that "seeks ... to control movement and gesture. these elements are controlled because there is in place a conventional belief in the role of the performer; thus the articulations and gesticulations of the body are part of the mechanics of reproduction, but not, perversely enough, of the articulation of meaning" (moreno 1999:81). 28. regarding my choice of recorded sources, i ought to point out that i have sought out recordings in which gould's corporealliveness is most perceptible, regardless of format. in some cases, the original vinyl issues have proven better sources in this regard, and in others, cd reissues seem to portray these elements more clearly. further, i have listened to these materials both in front of a conventional stereo speaker array and through headphones (though in most cases, headphone listening reveals more detail than "open-air" listening). i have also listened to each recording with a variety of equalization settings, experimenting until these traces of gould's body are most audible. i have adopted such a varied approach to these sources, rather than observing a strict listening methodology, in order to reflect as much as possible the variety of contexts in which any group of gould listeners may encounter these recordings. as what i propose in this essay is a strategy for hearing corporealliveness in recordings, it is important to emphasize that listeners may employ their recording playback technology in whatever way necessary to make that corporealliveness most evident. it is significant, however, that often listeners must indeed work very hard to hear even faint traces of corporeality in recordings. this is because, in many cases, recording technicians work very hard themselves to scrub these sounds from recordings, precisely for the reasons outlined by corbett above: the people making these recordings subscribe to a "fantasy of absolutely independent music." as corbett further suggests, and as burston (1998) clearly argues, this fantasy of independent music and its resulting erasure of the sounds of performing bodies often align with the financial interests influencing commercial musical production. 29. particularly audible breaths occur at 0:07, 0:26, 1:18,4:30,4:45, and 5:16 (timings refer to the progression of the individual variation-separately tracked on gould 2002, disc 2-rather than to the progression of the entire work). 30. i make reference in this essay both to timings in recordings and to measure numbers in written scores. i include measure numbers as a convenience to readers, but also with a very particular goal in mind: elements of liveness are not necessarily encoded in a work as it is represented in a score, but may very well derive-as in gould's case-from a performer's physical efforts to represent that score in performance. the score, then (to appropriate nicholas cook's [2001, 2003] arguments about scores and performances), is a potential script for liveness. paul sanden 31. at 0:09 in variation 5 (gould 2002, disc 2), a similar vocal swell allows us momentarily to hear gould's voice clearly over a rather busy piano part, which obscures his vocalizations throughout the rest of the variation. this increase in vocal energy indicates an embodied voice asserting itself over and above the sounds of what gould would have considered the "music" (i.e., the pitches of the composition as played on the piano). 32. at this particular moment in the recording (due not only to beethoven's indications but also to gould's realization of those indications), the left hand remains silent while the right hand ascends delicately and softly through a slowly moving sixteenth note line, to arrive, pianissimo, at m. 24. 33. i adopt here the helmholtz system of octave designation, with c beginning the octave below middle c, c' the octave at middle c, c" the octave above that, etc. see grove music online, s.v. "pitch nomenclature" (by l. s. lloyd and richard rastall), http://www.grovemusic.com/ (accessed june 15,2008) for further explanation. references attali, jacques. [1977] 1985. noise: the political economy of music, translated by brian massumi. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. auslander, philip. 1999. liveness: performance in a mediatized culture. london and new york: routledge. ---. 2005. at the listening post, or, do machines perform? international journal of performance arts and digital media 1 0): 5-10. barthes, roland. [1972] 1977. the grain of the voice, translated by stephen heath. in image-musictext, 179-89. new york: noonday press. baudrillard, jean. 1981. for a critique of the political economy of the sign, translated by charles levin. st. louis: telos press. bazzana, kevin. 1997. glenn gould: the performer in the work. oxford: clarendon press. ---. 2003. wondrous strange: the life and art of glenn gould. toronto: mcclelland and stewart. burston, jonathan. 1998. theatre space as virtual place: audio technology, the reconfigured singing body, and the megamusical. popular music 17 (2): 205-18. cook, nicholas. 2001. between process and product: music and/as performance. music theory online 7 (2). accessed april 23, 2008. http://www.societymusictheory.org/mto/ issues/mto.o 1.7 .2/mto.0 1. 7 .2.coo k.html. ---.2003. music as performance. in the cultural study of music: a critical introduction, edited by martin clayton, trevor herbert, and richard middleton, 204-14. london and new york: routledge. corbett, john. 1990. free, single, and disengaged: listening pleasure and the popular music object. october 54: 79-101. cox, arnie. 2001. the mimetic hypothesis and embodied musical meaning. musicae scientae 5 (2): 195-212. cusick, suzanne. 1994. feminist theory, music theory, and the mind/body problem. perspectives of new music 320): 8-27. damasio, antonio r. 2000. the feeling of what happens: body and emotion in the making of consciousness. new york: harcourt brace. derrida, jacques. [1967] 1976. of grammatology, translated by gayatri chakravorty spivak. baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. ---. [1978] 1979. spurs: nietzsche's styles, translated by barbara harlow. chicago and london: university of chicago press. 31 32 current musicology duncan, michelle. 2004. the operatic scandal of the singing body: voice, presence, performativity. cambridge opera journal 16 (3): 283-306. emmerson, simon. 2007. living electronic music. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. feuer, jane. 1983. the concept of live television: ontology as ideology. in regarding television: critical approaches-an anthology, edited by e. ann kaplan, 12-22. los angeles: american film institute. fisher, george, and judy lochhead. 2002. analyzing from the body. theory and practice 27: 37-67. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. gould, glenn. 1964. arnold schoenberg: a perspective. cincinnati: university of cincinnati press. ---.1967. liner notes accompanying canadian music in the 20th century (columbia masterworks 32110046, lp). ---. 1992. glenn gould: selected letters, edited by john p. l. roberts and ghyslaine guertin. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 1999a. forgery and imitation in the creative process. lecture given to the summer school of the university of toronto on july 2, 1963. printed in the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius, edited by john p. l. roberts, 205-21. toronto: malcolm lester books. ---. 1999b. sviatoslav richter. script for documentary film. printed in the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius, edited by john p. l. roberts, 50-54. toronto: malcolm lester books. gould, glenn, and jim aikin. [1980]1999. provocative insights from a controversial pianist: gould in conversation with jim aikin. in the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius, edited by john p. l. roberts, 259-78. toronto: malcolm lester books. gould, glenn, and bernard asbell. [1962] 1999. the artist speaks for himself. in the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius, edited by john p. l. roberts, 185-95. toronto: malcolm lester books. gould, glenn, and dennis braithwaite. [1959] 1999. ''i'm a child of nature": gould in conversation with dennis braithwaite. in the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius, edited by john p. l. roberts, 38-46. toronto: malcolm lester books. gould, glenn, and alan rich. [1959]1999. the composing career that eluded gould and the performing career that did not: gould in conversation with alan rich. transcription of a recorded radio interview (1959). printed in the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius, edited by john p. l. roberts, 132-52. toronto: malcolm lester books. gould, glenn, and vincent tovell. [1960] 1999. at home with glenn gould: gould in conversation with vincent tovell. transcription of a recorded radio interview (1960). printed in the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius, edited by john p. l. roberts, 66-88. toronto: malcolm lester books. gracyck, theodore. 1996. rhythm and noise: an aesthetics of rock. durham, n c, and london: duke university press. hayles, n. katherine. 1999. how we became posthuman: virtual bodies in cybernetics, literature, and informatics. chicago and london: university of chicago press. hoffmann, e. t.a. [1813]1998. beethoven's instrumental music, translated by oliver strunk. in source readings in music history, revised edition, edited by oliver strunk and leo treitler, 1193-98. new york: norton. jeannerod, marc. 2002. la nature de l'esprit: sciences cognitives et cerveau. paris: jacob. le guin, elisabeth. 2006. boccherini's body: an essay in carnal musicology. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. paul sanden leman, marc. 2008. embodied music cognition and mediation technology. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. leppert, richard. 1993. the sight of sound: music, representation, and the history of the body. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. ---. 2007. the musician of the imagination. in sound judgment: selected essays. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. lidov, david. 1987. mind and body in music. semiotica 66 (1): 69-97. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. mcmullen, tracy. 2006. corpo-realities: keepin' it real in "music and embodiment" scholarship. current musicology 82: 61-80. mead, andrew. 1999. bodily hearing: physiological metaphors and musical understanding. journal of music theory 43 (1): 1-19. merleau-ponty, maurice. 1964. the primacy of perception and other essays on phenomenological psychology, the philosophy of art, history and politics, edited by james m. edie. evanston, il: northwestern university press. moreno, jairo. 1999. body'n'soul?: voice and movement in keith jarrett's pianism. the musical quarterly 83 (1): 75-92. page, tim. 2002. glenn gould: a state of wonder. liner notes accompanying glenn gould: a state of wonder: the complete goldberg variations 1955 & 1981 (sony classical/ legacy s3k 87703). parmenter, ross. 1956. concert is given at canadian fete: glenn gould is piano soloist, conductor and annotator of program at stratford. the new york times (july 10): 26. payzant, geoffrey. 1978. glenn gould: music and mind. toronto: van nostrand reinhold. roberts, john p. l. 1999. the art of glenn gould: reflections of a musical genius. toronto: malcolm lester books. sanden, paul. 2003a. glenn gould and recording technology: linking popular and classical recording practices. paper presented at the international conference of the international association for the study of popular music. montreal, qc (july 3). ---. 2003b. glenn gould and the beatles: creative recording, 1965-1968. m. mus. thesis, the university of western ontario. ---.2005. modern performance through a "gouldian" lens: glenn gould, technology, and performance contexts. paper presented at the annual conference of the canadian university music society. london, on (may 31). ---.2008. performing liveness: musicians, machines, and mediatization. phd dissertation, the university of western ontario. schonberg, harold. 1959. colorful canadian: glenn gould, pianist, presents program. the new york times (february 14): 14. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. strunk, oliver. 1998. introduction to "beethoven's instrumental music;' by e. t. a. hoffmann. in source readings in music history, revised edition, edited by oliver strunk and leo treitler, 1193. new york: norton. thornton, sarah. 1995. club cultures: music, media and subcultural capital. london and new york: routledge. todd, neil p. mcangus. 1995. the kinematics of musical expression. journal of the acoustical society of america 97 (3): 1940-49. toynbee, jason. 2000. making popular music: musicians, creativity and institutions. london: arnold. 33 34 current musicology discography gould, glenn. 1956. bach: the goldberg variations. columbia masterworks ml 5060. ---.1963. bach: partitas nos. 3 & 41toccata no.7. columbia masterworks ms 6498. ---. 1965. glenn gould plays beethoven piano sonatas, opus 10 complete. columbia masterworks ms 6686. ---.1982. goldberg variations: bwv988. cbs masterworks 1m 37779. ---. 2002. glenn gould: a state of wonder: the complete goldberg variations 1955 & 1981. sony classical/legacy s3k 87703. gould, glenn, and john mcclure. 1968. glenn gould: concert dropout, in conversation with john mcclure. recorded interview. columbia masterworks bs 15. current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf giuseppe gerbino. 2009. music and the myth of arcadia in renaissance italy. new perspectives in music history and criticism. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reviewed by brooke bryant in music and the myth of arcadia in renaissance italy, giuseppe gerbino situates the pastoral as a vital and influential genre in the cultural fabric of sixteenth-century italy, countering a scholarly tradition that has tradition­ ally minimized its importance. this book offers the first comprehensive investigation of pastoral music in sixteenth-century italy, reclaiming it as a complex subject worthy of in-depth exploration. it is the most recent work in cambridge university press's new perspectives in music history and criticism series, edited by jeffrey kallberg, anthony newcome, and ruth solie. works in this series approach music and its history from innovative points of view, often challenging dominant narratives and discourses. although the italian renaissance pastoral was both a popular and enduring genre, surprisingly little scholarship has been written on the topic. david alan nutter's dissertation, completed in 1978, is one of the few book-length volumes addressing this subject. l while the concept of arcadia was an integral component of the cultural fabric of the late sixteenth century, pastoral music has seldom been considered with much seriousness by modern musicologists. its characters and themes-nymphs, shepherds, and their melancholic love relationships-are traditionally viewed as trivial in comparison with loftier contemporary movements such as petrarchism and neoplatonism. the politics of musicological taste have not favored this mythical place. alfred einstein describes pastoral music of the late sixteenth century as "the disease that had attacked the taste of the time;' a response that marks this "inferior" repertoire as a threat to a superior tradition (1949:613). gerbino explains the impact of such sentiments, noting that pastoral music has become "something we do not like but that we must endure with patience, the virus seizing a once healthy body, the body of renaissance aesthetics" (15). gerbino's main goal is to trace the history of pastoral music in this period, focusing on two seeming anomalies: (1) although the humanistic revival of pastoral peaked near the end of the 1400s and this trend flourished in literature and the visual arts throughout the following century, settings of pastoral verse did not appear in the polyphonic madrigal repertoire until the 1570s; and (2) while early operas evolved as an attempt to recreate ancient current musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia uuiversity in the city of new york 93 94 current musicology greek tragedy, their themes were pastoral, an archetype which antiquity failed to provide. in tracing this history, gerbino refashions the pastoral as a forum in which late-renaissance elites represented themselves as ideal members of a society that prized the ability to communicate and form social bonds via musical and poetic activity. music played a significant role in arcadia; the shepherds of theocritus and virgil expressed and managed their emotions through music, a practice that aligned with the values of renaissance court culture. gerbino suggests that through assuming the characters of unsophisticated shepherds in rural settings, the aristocracy displayed signs of superior sensitivity, representing themselves as men and women positioned at the apex of civilization. the book is divided into three parts, each addressing an issue in the history of sixteenth -century pastoral music. to narrate this history, gerbino relies on a variety of sources. in addition to madrigals by phillipe verdelot, giaches de wert, orazio vecchi, luca marenzio, and claudio monteverdi, the author discusses artworks (paintings, woodcuts, and tapestries), ancient and renaissance poetic and dramatic texts (by such writers as theocritus, virgil, agostino beccari, niccolo da correggio, and battista guarini), and contemporary descriptions of and reactions to pastoral music and theater (giason de nores, lodovico zuccolo, and others). gerbino's inclusion of sources from a variety of fields is related to the growing trend of interdisci­ plinary approaches to early modern musical scholarship; bonnie gordon's work on women's voices in monteverdi's madrigals (2004) and fiona kisby's collection of essays on music making in renaissance urban centers (2001) provide other examples of such work.2 gerbino's use of visual art, theater, and literary sources is effective, illustrating the prevalence of music in the pastoral as fashioned through a variety of media. his argument ultimately posits the imagined landscape of arcadia as inherently musical, problematiz­ ing pastoral music's absence from modern scholarship. part i addresses the problem of the absence of pastoral themes from cinquecento music. it fills the chronological gap that exists between the rebirth of arcadian poetry in the late 1400s and the pastoral's first widespread appearance in madrigals of the 1570s and 1580s. gerbino begins by explain­ ingarcadia's allure in the court at ferrara and in cities such as florence and rome. the genre provided a formula for self-representation, using allegory to promote social bonding among those privy to the terms of its exclusive system. he stresses music's role in relaying this arcadian "code"; pastoral poetry constantly references and describes music making, reinforcing its importance. song plays a central role in eclogues, where shepherds translate their experiences with love and loss into music. for arcadians and the court culture that replicated their practices, singing had a singular "power" to impact both performers and listeners, healing melancholy and love-induced suffering with a pleasurable remedy. brooke bryant gerbino suggests that music's role in pastoral poetry was similar to its position in the lives of the renaissance elite: in both environments, express­ ing and reacting to pain through music provided a cathartic experience and signified belonging to a community of kindred minds. he offers a variety of well-chosen examples that support this connection, analyzing evidence from pastoral texts as well as letters by bernardino de' prosperi describing dramatizations of eclogues by correggio (1505) and ercole pio (1508). in pio's work, unrequited love causes melancholia, which cripples an enam­ ored young shepherd; through participating in athletic events and music making-activities similar to those in which the aristocracy was accustomed to participating-the lovesick shepherd's malady is cured. gerbino notes that pio adapts the social code of the ancient pastoral (where rustic scenes forge social and emotional bonds) into an early modern court context (64). the most groundbreaking work in part i is in chapter 5, "musical eclipses." here, gerbino challenges the idea that pastoral poetry and music simply went out of fashion as the petrarchan lyric poetry of pietro bembo and his followers gained favor among the cultural elite. the chapter displays gerbino's comprehensive knowledge of pastoral repertoire, both poetic and musical, and offers interpretations of a variety of sources in order to give voice to a forgotten tradition. gerbino discusses anti-bembist poetry, which he suggests is a continuation of the pastoral, pointing to publications by lodovico paterno, bernardo tasso, and antonio brocardo, poets who em­ braced bucolic themes and forms. pastoral works by gian giorgio trissino, luigi alamanni, and ludovico martelli were published in florence, including eclogues in memory of their patrons. gerbino reads verdelot's madrigal "trista amarilli mia" and ballata-madrigal "igno soave" as allegories for a political event and a love lament, "the two most important expressions of grief inherited from ancient bucolic poetry" (85). he locates several refer­ ences to la pastorella (the shepherdess, who is often beautiful, erotic, and cruel) in manuscripts and prints from the 1520s and 1530s, as well as in poems by strozzi set by marenzio and monteverdi. gerbino proposes that pastoral themes populated the oral tradition throughout the cinquecento, pointing to opera nuova nella quale si contiene una incatenatura di piit villanelle (1629), a collection of works by "camillo detto il bianchino," a blind singer from florence. this publication documents popular tunes of the previous century, four of which boast pastoral texts. gerbino also locates pastoral melodies in religious contrafacta such as serafino razzi's collections of laudae. although much of the pastoral tradition escaped musical notation during this period, gerbino makes a plausible case for its continued existence as a cultural trope. the wealth of information provided by gerbino makes the lack of attention devoted to the pastoral in modern musical scholarship all the more surprising. 95 96 current musicology part ii centers on pastoral theater, the realm in which arcadia thrived even as it apparently disappeared from the musical record. gerbino chal­ lenges the notion that pastoral theater was simply bucolic; instead he suggests that it should be classified as tragicomedy. examining evidence from several sixteenth-century pastoral dramas, gerbino identifies two problems faced by its creators: (1) there was no classical precedent for pastoral theater and (2) the prevalence of music in pastoral theater disobeyed aristotle's charge that theater should be naturalistic, undermining verisimilitude. the book's treatment of verisimilitude is particularly interesting in light of the development of opera-a genre often associated with the emulation of ancient tragedy. in chapter 6, gerbino outlines the paradox of the pervasive­ ness of music in sixteenth -century pastoral theater. although music making was an integral component of classical arcadia, music as a narrative device violates the law of verisimilitude in the system of aristotelian classicism. drawing on nino pirrotta's work on music in renaissance theater, gerbino offers a convincing account of the development of musical drama, which is supported by evidence in the form of contemporary descriptions of produc­ tions. as practitioners of sixteenth-century theater became increasingly interested in imitating classical models, music gradually lost its narrative function and was relegated to intermedi. not so with the pastoral. until the 1540s, pastoral theater remained more or less independent from ancient drama; its autonomy provided an excuse for music to playa significant role. in addition, guarini challenged the idea that the use of music in the pastoral violated the law of verisimilitude; he argued that singing was a "verisimilar" practice for arcadian shepherds, who were trained in music and used it as a tool for relaying and managing their emotions. gerbino observes a distinc­ tion between "true" and "real" behavior in sixteenth -century thought. within this frame of reference, music making in pastoral settings was a "credible" behavior, especially given that the contemporary court culture valued it as a discursive practice (121). by the time pastoral elements infiltrated the madrigal, music had become a signifier of classicism; as such, music's presence was acceptable in theater regardless of the fact that it played no role in ancient drama. gerbino revisits opera's complex relationship to classical models in his epilogue, which draws connections between ambiguities regarding clas­ sifications and justifications of pastoral theater and debates surrounding the validity of opera. he insigh tfully proposes that although early opera compos­ ers attempted to restore the musicality of ancient tragedy, the means of this attempt were contemporary in origin (278-79). he suggests that composers employed a fusion of aristotelian goals and petrarchist sensibilities; the focus of the first operas became "the healing power of poetry against the afflictions oflove" (380). the author supports his interpretation with early brooke bryant descriptions and defenses of musical drama. he also provides an overview of contemporary debates surrounding the origins of opera, illuminating the difficulty of categorizing a genre which, like pastoral drama, lacked a classical precedent. gerbino concludes that the very possibility of opera arose from music's important role in pastoral rather than ancient tragedy, the latter of which is traditionally cited as its progenitor. his persuasive argument offers an alternate version of opera's origin story, which should have an impact on how the emergence of the genre is perceived and explained. in chapters 7 and 8, gerbino addresses pastoral theater's portrayal of rustic naturalism. sienese plays such as marcello roncaglia's commedia di maggio (1540) establish a dichotomy between peasants, rude creatures interested in concrete subjects, and shepherds, erudite poets who revel in abstractions. gerbino explores the musical soundscape of both peasants and shepherds, focusing on pieces presented by actors like angelo beolco, a paduan performer known for portraying the peasant character ruzante. several of this actor's poems survive, including one set by willaert as "canzona di ruzante." chapter 9 examines ferrarese pastoral theater of the 1540s and 1550s. the creators of these works attempted to redefine the genre of pastoral drama in terms dictated by aristotlian classicism. giraldi's egle (1545) is one such example; this play was described by its author as a reconstruction of the ancient "satyr-drama;' an obscure form of classical theater. the play uses a five-act organization, eleven-syllable lines, and a petrarchist agenda to tame a genre "with no proportions, rules, models, and cathartic ends" (163). in chapter 10, gerbino investigates women's participation in pastoral displays of court sociability, including banquets, masquerades, dances, choreographed ballets, and dramatizations. he explores the issue of idealized self-representation in these performances. arcadia provided an environment in which elite women could showcase their virtue, assuming the characters of nymphs who sang and recited poetry in order to manage excessive pas­ sions. nymphs who denied shepherds access to their bodies were distinct from sexually-available shepherdesses. pastoral entertainments allowed young women to perform in a safe context, maintaining their virtue while displaying their artistic talents. gerbino notes the extraordinary level of female agency involved in these events, with such women as vittoria doria (the wife of ferrante ii gonzaga) having significant involvement in the staging of plays. part iii describes the return of pastoral themes to the madrigal reper­ toire. gerbino suggests that the version of the pastoral that emerged in the 1580s incorporated petrarchism, relocating the subjectivity of the isolated lover in a collective context. self-reflection was situated in arcadia, a realm in which sharing sorrow through musical activities alleviated suffering 97 98 current musicology and formed communal bonds. gerbino uncovers two themes of pastoral madrigals: amorous suffering and erotic bliss. chapter 12 challenges the common assumption that the renaissance pastoral was essentially an idyllic genre, addressing madrigals centered on unfulfilled desire and the painful separation oflovers. for example, wert's "10 non son pero morto" (a madrigal from i lieti amanti) links the absence of reciprocal love with death. gerbino situates readings of such pieces in the context of contemporary philosophies of love-ragionar d' amore-by bembo and marsilio ficino. chapter 13 concentrates on music that transports the listener to a world where men and women have never been troubled by unfulfilled desire. the author investigates the incorporation of pastoral themes into lighthearted canzonetti and villanelle. he explores marenzio's musical constructions of pastoral bliss in renaissance villas, including the estate of his employer luigi d'este. d'este's villa housed gatherings where pastoral poetry and music were enjoyed, allowing practitioners to live out arcadian fantasies in a rural paradise. through juxtaposing pieces that focus on love suffering and utopia, gerbino complicates traditional narratives of the pastoral. he highlights the variety inherent in the genre, challenging the notion that it is merely a vision of idyllic simplicity. music and the myth of arcadia in renaissance italy displays its author's impressive knowledge of sixteenth-century pastoral repertoire and the cir­ cumstances that defined it. gerbino discusses a rich variety of musical, verbal, and visual sources in vivid detail; his interdisciplinary approach provides a wealth of information about the culture in which the sixteenth-century pastoral flourished. in addition to musicologists, scholars of literature, theater, history, philosophy, and even visual art may be interested in the book. gerbino's musical analyses make clear and compelling connections among music, text, and context. discussions of music are complex and thorough, but written in a lucid style that incorporates textual analysis and remains accessible and engaging. gerbino's knowledge of secondary literature is extensive, situating his original ideas in the larger context of renaissance scholarship. his book is a remarkable, meticulous effort that will undoubtedly reshape the way pastoral music is viewed in the scheme of music history. notes 1. nutter's work focuses on sixteenth-century madrigals, comparing pastoral dialogues with petrarchan conversations between a poet and his own heart, soul, and eyes. pastoral music created in other geographical locations has received more attention (brooks 2006). 2. gordon supplements her feminist investigation of music with medical treatises, while articles in kisby's volume connect music, place, and culture. brooke bryant references brooks, jeanice. 2006. courtly song in late sixteenth-century france. chicago and london: university of chicago press. einstein, alfred. 1949. the italian madrigal. 3 vols. princeton, nj: princeton university press. gerbino, giuseppe. 2007. rimanti in pace: temna stran arkadije v glasbi in claudia monteverdija (rimanti in pace: the dark side of arcadia in music of marenzio and montevedi). translated by katarina star. in historicni seminar, 117-39. lubjana: institute of musicology. ---. 2005. florentine petrarchismo and the early madrigal: reflections on the theory of origins. journal of medieval and early modern studies 35 (3): 607-628. ---. 2004. the madrigal and its outcasts: marenzio, giovannelli and the revival of sannazaro's arcadia. the journal of musicology 21 (1): 3-45. ---.2001. orpheus in arcadia: the creation of pastoral mode in the sixteenth-century madrigal. phd dissertation, duke university. gordon, bonnie. 2004. monteverdi's unruly women. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. kisby, fiona, ed. 2001. music and musicians in renaissance cities and towns. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. nutter, david alan. 1978. the italian polyphonic dialogue of the sixteenth century. phd dissertation, university of nottingham. pirrotta, nino, and elena povoledo. 1995. music and theatre from poliziano to monteverdi, translated by karen eales. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. 99 current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf jann pasler. 2009. composing the citizen: music as public utility in third republic france. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by mark seto nineteenth-century french music, arguably more than other repertoires, seems to resist straightforward narrative history.! in recent years, scholars have favored thematic studies of the period, concentrating on specific political or social phenomena (spies 1998; fulcher 1987, 1999), individual genres (archbold and peterson 1995; huebner 1999; lacombe 2001), or musical institutions (strasser 1998,2001; holoman 2004). jann pasler takes a similarly prismatic approach in her new book, but treats her subject with such remarkable breadth and attention to detail that the result is one of the most comprehensive examinations of french musical life to appear in recent memory.2 the focus of composing the citizen-pasler's first monograph and the opening volume in a planned trilogy on "useful music" (xviii, 188)-is the republican concept of utilite publique. in the generation after the franco­ pruss ian war (1870-71), french leaders viewed music as integral to the public good. music could be valuable to society in four principal ways: it could teach judgment and cultivate an informed citizenry; bring together a heterogeneous people divided by class, religion, and politics; help negotiate ideological conflicts; and encourage french citizens to imagine a common identity (84-90). in contrast to critics like adorno, who have argued that music's only possible use in a capitalist society is as a commodity (82-83), pasler's concept of the useful is much more expansive. she employs a broad range of disciplinary methods to elucidate her subject, from history and sociology to political theory and musical analysis. she also explores the full spectrum of music in public life-not only at well-known institutions like the paris opera and the conservatoire, but also in department stores, cafes, outdoor festivals, and the zoo. by documenting such a wide variety of musical practices, pasler offers a model for how to write a music history that extends beyond composers, modernists, and elites to encompass the neglected, the quotidian, and the popular. she challenges several historiographic cliches: namely, that in the past, only the elites had access to or an interest in serious art music; that serious and popular domains were distinct; that early mass culture had a necessarily deleterious effect on musical progress; and that art music performances by the major orchestras increasingly presented music by dead composers. (xiv) cuttent musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 109 110 current musicology none of these assumptions, pasler argues, held true during the third republic. music-new and old, "serious" and "popular" -played a vital role in french life. the implicit message of composing the citizen is that the french example can help us reconceptualize the value of music in contemporary western society. as the connection to the present day suggests, the book's subtitle only loosely captures the scope of pasler's project. the book's focus, geographi­ cally and chronologically, is in fact narrower than third republic france. although she "[ does 1 not wish to deny the importance of musical life" outside of paris (5), pasler concentrates on the french capital and devotes comparatively little attention to the provinces. her study focuses on the first three decades of the third republic rather than its entirety (1870-1940). yet pasler also spends a significant portion of the book exploring the legacy of the french revolution and discussing how nineteenth-century leaders conceived of their history. more broadly, composing the citizen can be read as a case study of the relationship that a democratic society can have with the arts, and the book will be worthwhile to anyone who cares about the role of music in public life. pasler explores three issues with particular relevance today: debates about making the arts accessible to all citizens; music's ability to build community and stimulate dialogue among people of diverse backgrounds; and the potential of music to reinvigorate a culture and suggest a better future. pasler begins the book with an evocative "walking tour" of paris which introduces the central themes of her study. building on the theories of artistic production developed by howard becker (1982) and pierre bourdieu (1993), she uses the cityscape as an entry point for considering "the structure of the musical world" and "the kinds of networks music needs to thrive" (3), such as relationships between institutions and the state, listeners and performers, or teachers, composers, and critics.3 paris's history and its power structures, she argues, are inscribed in its geography. the opera and the comedie-frans:aise, for instance, were built facing the ministry of finance so government officials "could literally keep an eye on" the recipients of state subventions (14). at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, thousands of working-class parisians were displaced by baron haussmann's sweeping reorganization of the city during the second empire. other aspects of the city's topography­ its cabarets, bustling quarters, and narrow streets-remind visitors of the "spontaneous and ephemeral aspects of french musical life" (25). the walking tour of the capital also serves as an inspiration for the book's unconventional organization (40). just as paris is laid out in a spiral, radiating out in expanding circles from the ile de la cite to the outer ar­ rondissements (and by extension, to the rest of the country and the world), mark seto composing the citizen builds on themes outlined in the introduction in four parts of increasing length. while the book follows a loose trajectory from the revolution to the early 1900s, its arrangement is primarily topical, with key issues recurring throughout the study.4 pasler moves seamlessly from one subject to the next, though a few paragraphs summarizing the book's layout would have been a valuable addition to the introduction. such a blueprint would have been helpful for readers interested in jumping to a specific point of interest, particularly since the book's section headings tend towards the suggestive rather than the denotative. to that end, i will use the following paragraphs to sketch out the book's organization while highlighting some specific issues her study raises. part one, "forming public spirit and useful citizens" (104 pages), outlines the theoretical and historical roots of public utility as the french conceived it. in the first chapter, pasler traces the notion from antiquity (plato's republic, horace's ars poetica) through the eighteenth century (rousseau, diderot). for enlightenment philosophers, the theory of utility provided a means of reconciling individual and collective interests. this concern for the public good and public utility has been an enduring feature of french policy since the late eighteenth century-more so, pasler argues, than in any other society or national government (57). this attitude explains why useful music has been so meaningful in france: whereas artistic value in nineteenth-century germany was often tied to metaphysical expression and musical autonomy, french leaders prized music for its potential to shape individual mceurs and collective values. chapter 2 examines music during the french revolution through the lens of the third republic. much like the way renaissance humanists looked to ancient sources to explore music's affective potential, french leaders in the late nineteenth century studied how revolutionaries used music "to build a republic not only of minds but also of hearts" (95). revolutionary leaders instilled common values through popular songs and music education; encouraged a sense of fraternity through music in public festivals; and fired up a unified esprit public through opera and other theatrical entertainments. their integration of music into public life established a paradigm for later french leaders, and the revolutionary era serves as a focal point in pasler's study that she returns to throughout the text. in part two, "shaping judgment and national taste" (140 pages), pasler discusses how music could mold individuals into active citizens and revive national pride. concert life flourished in the third republic, and on any given sunday afternoon a listener could choose between several different performances, often of the same piece. this wealth of options encouraged people to develop musical tastes, a skill that pasler links to broader social 111 112 current musicology engagement: "learning critical judgment through contemplating differences, making comparisons, and forming opinions connected art to politics, active listening to active citizenship" (204). these analytical tools were especially useful, pasler asserts, in concerts that juxtaposed la musique ancienne et moderne. the french early music revival has been studied by katharine ellis (2005), catrina flint de medicis (2004), and others, but pasler's original contribution is to highlight the contexts in which older masterpieces were heard. many concert programs in the 1870s, by professional groups and ama­ teurs alike, set up explicit comparisons between the old and the new, giving listeners the opportunity to reflect on the presence of the past and the nature of french identity. as she does throughout the book, pasler marshals an impressive amount of archival material to support her argument, including concert programs, reviews, and critical writings. most of the performances she cites suggest a clear desire to elicit contemplation and judgment among listeners, but on rare occasions the documentary evidence seems pushed a bit far: as pasler herself acknowledges, not every concert featuring la musique ancienne et moderne was necessarily designed with pedagogical intent. the second half of part two considers the relationship between musical taste and international politics. the enthusiastic international reception of contempo­ rary french works-pasler's key examples are faust and mignon-validated tastes at home and encouraged french leaders of all political persuasions to support national music and musical institutions. part three, "instituting republican culture" (190 pages), examines how french leaders used music to promote republican ideals like egalitarianism, progress, secularism, and tolerance. of particular importance is pasler's discussion of ' 'an ideology of diversity, eclecticism, and pleasure" (chapter 6), which provides a welcome counterbalance to criticism that has equated musical value with seriousness-a position that has been exposed as a canard in recent scholarship, but that retains some influence in narrative histories and the musicological canon. as they consolidated power at the end of the 1870s, french republicans sought to democratize pleasures that had previously been associated with the ancien regime. aesthetic pleasure, exemplified in the works of delibes and massenet, became a focus of public policy, and people "began to think of charm as a category of judgment with serious connotations;' not simply a frivolous diversion (377). pasler recuper­ ates the notion of eclecticism, an important republican principle that had been tainted by anti-semitic discourses (for instance, in wagner's criticism of meyerbeer). she also adds her two cents to a thoughtful body of scholar­ ship on french wagnerism (especially huebner 1999; fauser and schwartz 1999), noting that french leaders' promotion of aesthetic tolerance helped provide a hospitable context for the maitre de bayreuth in the 1880s (394). mark seto her point is well taken, although it bears remembering that the republican interest in diversity was just one of many considerations in the complex, and still turbulent, reception of wagner during this time. chapters 7 and 8 address, respectively, the role of music in colonialist and anti -colonialist agendas, and the social utility of musical "distractions" within france. according to pasler, both sides in the colonialism debate­ republican proponents who believed in the possibilities of assimilation, and opponents of imperialism among the monarchist right and the radical left-used music to support their viewpoints. meanwhile, french leaders began to promote economic liberalism as necessary for the public good. in the musical sphere, competition encouraged innovation and higher standards across a wide range of performing ensembles. performances in commercial settings such as the bon marche department store and the jardin zoologique d' acclimatation brought together listeners from differ­ ent classes and cultural backgrounds. however, increased accessibility and commercialization led some to question whether music could still be useful in the ways republicans originally envisioned: could background music in a cafe, for instance, really teach critical judgment? from the mid-1880s on, ideas about music's usefulness began to change. this evolving landscape is the subject of part four, "shifting notions of utility: between the nation and the self" (201 pages). befitting the spiral conceit of composing the citizen, pasler revisits several topics discussed earlier, including early music, exoticism, and national identity. "music as resistance and an emerging avant-garde" (chapter 9) explores how opponents of republicanism used music to advocate oppositional values. with regime change a real possibility after the 1885 elections, monarchists dissatisfied with the status quo embraced music from or inspired by the ancien regime, even holding costume parties with period attire and dance. this incorporation of old music into contemporary contexts may have served as a metaphor, pasler muses, "for how the monarchy could be integrated and might thrive in the modern world" (501). at the other ideological extreme, artists in the circle around mallarme rejected the republican project of utility in favor of the pursuit of "pure intellect" (524). thus modernism, pasler argues, did not simply stand for a desire to create "art for art's sake," but was "a reconception, an appropriation of music's utility for nonrepublican purposes" (498). in chapter 10, pasler considers music's symbolic utility at the 1889 universal exhibition, complementing annegret fauser's excellent study of the event (2005). the exhibition's organizers used music to promote three republican ideals: fraternity (through parades and other community­ building performances), education (through national or historical concerts that encouraged listeners to reflect on cultural differences or on the past), 113 114 current musicology and progress (through colonial displays intended to demonstrate the ben­ efits of assimilation). the vast array of exotic music also encouraged new modes oflistening, and even of conceptualizing sound, but it was "clear that understanding of the exotic other was partial at best, if not a total illusion" (585). chapter 11, "new alliances and new music;' discusses the fruitful musical developments of the 1890s against the backdrop of mounting social and political tensions. whereas scholars like jane fulcher (1999) have emphasized the ideological fault lines in fin-de-siecle french culture, pasler addresses how people of opposing political persuasions found common ground through music. both the left and right looked to new music to promote change and to old music "to articulate continuity with the french past" (602). in contrast to performances of la musique ancienne et moderne in the 1870s which played up historical differences, pasler contends that musicians and audiences in the 1890s sought to integrate the old and the new in "a kind of musical ralliement [reconciliation] between the aesthetic values of the past and present" (633). while pasler's comparison of the two decades is thought-provoking, one wonders how much currency her theoretical distinction would have had among nineteenth -century concert organizers and listeners. the final chapter of the book, "the dynamics of identity and the struggle for distinction;' explores how the french used music to engage with questions of race, gender, and class. pasler intends her discussion of these complex issues to be "suggestive more than definitive" (645 )-a preview of forthcoming books where she will address these topics at greater length. if the sophistication of this volume is any indication, the next installments will be well worth reading. composing the citizen is a remarkable achievement, both for the depth ofpasler's scholarship and her stylish prose. my only regret is that in devot­ ing much-needed attention to quotidian and popular musical practices, composers and composers' institutions sometimes playa secondary role in her historiography. to take one example, the societe nation ale de musique, a leading forum for french composers during the third republic, receives relatively little attention. granted, pasler's book does not purport to be an all-inclusive history, and the societe nationale has not been wanting for scholarly exploration (see duchesneau 1997; strasser 1998, 2001). if anything, its significance has perhaps been overstated in narrative accounts of french music. however, a discussion of the societe nation ale could have provided another valuable perspective on music's potential utility, since the institution's leadership aimed to elevate listeners and engender national renewal-key republican concerns. other minor details warrant a brief mention. the book has no bibliography-a justifiable omission, perhaps, in light of the volume's length (817 pages) and the scope ofpasler's researchmark seto but a selective listing of sources would have been a helpful inclusion for the many readers who will undoubtedly use this work as a reference.5 the unusually small font, while understandable for the same reason, dampens the enjoyment of an otherwise attractive, richly illustrated volume. nonetheless, this is an important book, destined to be debated and referenced for years to come. the issues it raises have never been more timely. one sees echoes of third republic ideals, for instance, in gustavo dudamel's newly begun tenure at the los angeles philharmonic. observers hope he will revolutionize music education, build community across lines of class and race, and make music accessible to all. dudamel's first performance as music director was a free community concert for a capacity crowd at the hollywood bowl, featuring appearances by several student ensembles and prominent pop, jazz, and rock musicians. the program concluded with dudamel conducting beethoven's ninth symphony with a "rainbow coali­ tion of choristers drawn from the los angeles master chorale, the albert mcneil jubilee singers, the our lady of los angeles spanish choir, the philippine chamber singers and other local ensembles."6 by linking utilite publique to contemporary concerns, pasler has not only made an invaluable contribution to nineteenth-century french music studies. composing the citizen is also essential reading for anyone interested in the role that music can play in public life. notes 1. on the scarcity of narrative histories of french music, see henson (2008). 2. for her previous book, a collection of essays, see pasler (2008). 3. pasler references the work of these sociologists more explicitly in the introduction to writ­ ing through music (2008). for another discussion of becker, see taruskin (2005). 4. serendipitously or not, the book's organization as a spiral reflects a mode of thinking about history that pasler describes in the book and discusses at length in an earlier study (1991). 5. as of november 2009, university of california press has no plans to include a bibliography in a future volume. 6. anthony tommasini, "a welcoming party with 18,000 guests," the new york times, october 4, 2009. references archbold, lawrence and william j. peterson, eds. 1995. french organ music: from the revolution to franck and widor. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. becker, howard s. 1982. art worlds. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. bourdieu, pierre. 1993. the field of cultural production: essays on art and literature. new york: columbia university press. duchesneau, michel. 1997. l'avant-garde musicale et ses societes ii paris de 1871 ii 1939. liege: mardaga. 115 116 current musicology ellis, katharine. 2005. interpreting the musical past: early music in nineteenth-century france. oxford and new york: oxford university press. fauser, annegret. 2005. musical encounters at the 1889 paris world's fair. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. fauser, annegret and manuela schwartz, eds. 1999. von wagner zum wagnerisme: musik, literatur, kunst, politik. deutsch-franzosische kulturbibliothek, vol. 12. leipzig: leipziger universitatsverlag. flint de medicis, catrina. 2004. nationalism and early music at the french fin de siecle: three case studies. nineteenth-century music review 1: 43-66. fulcher, jane f. 1987. the nation's image: french grand opera as politics and politicized art. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---.1999. french cultural politics and music: from the dreyfus affair to the first world war. oxford and new york: oxford university press. henson, karen. 2008. willful histories. (review of katharine ellis, interpreting the musical past.) current musicology 86: 179-84. holoman, d. kern. 2004. the societe des concerts du conservatoire, 1828-1967. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. huebner, steven. 1999. french opera at the fin de siecle: wagnerism, nationalism, and style. oxford and new york: oxford university press. pasler, jann. 1991. paris: conflicting notions of progress. in the late romantic era: from the mid-nineteenth century to world war i, edited by jim samson, 389-416. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. ---. 2008. writing through music: essays on music, culture, and politics. oxford and new york: oxford university press. spies, andre michael. 1998. opera, state, and society in the third republic, 1875-1914. new york: peter lang. strasser, michael. 1998. ars gallica: the societe nationale de musique and its role in french musical life, 1871-1914. phd dissertation, university of illinois at urbana­ champaign. ---. 2001. the societe nationale and its adversaries: the musical politics of l'invasion germanique in the 1870s. nineteenth-century music 24 (3): 225-5l. taruskin, richard. 2005. the oxford history of western music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf andy hamilton. 2007. aesthetics and music. london and new york: continuum. reviewed by brian kane andy hamilton's aesthetics and music is an unusual concoction: one part history of the aesthetics of music, one part review of recent work in the analytic philosophy of music, and one part original contribution to musical aesthetics. published as part of continuum's new series of introductory texts on art and aesthetics, hamilton's book is more than a student text and less than a specialist's essay. three historical chapters-which quickly survey the musical aesthetics of ancient greece, kant and the nineteenth century, and adorno and modernism-alternate with philosophical chapters that treat some recalcitrant problems in a more sustained manner. these latter chapters-titled "the concept of music;' "the sound of music;' "rhythm and time;' and "improvisation and composition" -contain the substance of hamilton's thinking. they also revisit ideas originally developed in the british journal of aesthetics and other anthologies (hamilton 1990, 2003, 2007a, 2007b). a professor of philosophy at the university of durham, hamilton is himself an unusual concoction in the often stodgy world of analytic philosophy of music. trained as a philosopher of mind, hamilton's defec­ tion to aesthetics is perhaps no surprise considering that he is an amateur jazz pianist. some readers may recall his work as a journalist and regular contributor to the wire. one refreshing aspect of hamilton's thinking is his commitment to contemporary improvisation as a key concern in the philosophy of music. this commitment is apparent in his other publications: an important set of articles on the aesthetics of perfection and imperfection (1990, 2003), and a book published by the university of michigan press simultaneously with aesthetics and music, entitled lee konitz: conversations on the improviser's art (2007c). in particular, the konitz book rethinks many of the conventions of the ubiquitous jazz biography by assembling interviews with lee konitz and other significant improvisers in a topical format. the end result is a book that suppresses neither hamilton's insightful questions nor konitz's wit and intelligence. on the opening page of aesthetics and music, hamilton writes, "my approach to aesthetics is indebted to many writers but most of all to kant and adorno" (1). from the latter, hamilton claims to have discovered the value of placing aesthetics in dialogue with criticism, analysis, and art history-essentially, an aesthetic theory that loses neither the art nor the current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 137 138 current musicology philosophy. from the former, he picks up the claim that aesthetic judgment is disinterested, demanding a special aesthetic attitude which is distinguished from purposiveness and self-interest. but upon reading the text a different influence eclipses kant and adorno. to this reviewer, aesthetics and music appears primarily indebted to roger scruton's similarly titled aesthetics of music (1999). for example, hamilton borrows scruton's distinction between "sounds" and "tones." according to scruton, music cannot be predicated merely upon an acoustical sequence of sounds; rather, it requires a human being to hear an intentional ordering within such a sequence. tone, understood as the experience of hearing an ordering-in-sound, is the grounding upon which musical works are constructed. all musical hearing is really a kind of hearing-as, that is, sounds heard as tones. to hear tones means to hear something beyond the literal sequence of sounds-a metaphorical sense of virtual causality, animation, movement, or belonging-together that has nothing to do with the brute, material causality of sounds. this distinction allows scruton to dismiss much modernist and avant-garde composition of the twentieth century as being merely organized sound, but not music. according to scruton, "what we hear, in hearing stockhausen's gruppen, for instance, is precisely what we do not hear in a beethoven symphony: a series of sounds, produced by many different sources in physical space, as opposed to a movement of tones which summon and answer one another in a space of their own" (1999:281). the failure of gruppen to meet scruton's criterion of music is perhaps no surprise given his cultural conservatism. but scruton coyly plays it off like a true philosopher when he writes, "it came a surprise that so dry a question as 'what is a sound?' should lead at last to a philosophy of modern culture" (1999:ix). for those who actually enjoy gruppen, like this reviewer, this is the infuriating fun of reading scruton. he is a tremendous rhetorician who. weaves together original philosophical claims with conservative politics. while some writers have taken the bait, like lydia goehr, who vociferously rebuts scruton in her review of aesthetics of music in jams (goehr 1999), hamilton's response is surprisingly different. having perhaps the most exposure to contemporary improvised music of any analytic philosopher of music, hamilton accepts' scruton's claims about the musical and the non-musical, but simply ignores their sting. he focuses on scruton's philo­ sophical claims, considering them independently of his cultural critique to the extent that this is possible. i find this to be one of the most intriguing aspects of hamilton's work, one that stems from his genuine interest in both analytic philosophy of music and current forms of experimentalism and improvisation. brian kane in negotiating scruton's claims, hamilton posits a new category of "aural arts" (an analogue of the visual arts) in which music as an art of tones exists alongside a "non-musical sound-art" (45). much of contemporary experi­ mentalism and electronic music, from francisco l6pez to sachiko m, would fall into this category of "sound-art." still, hamilton's supplemental category does not fundamentally alter the scrutonian definition of music as an art of tones. in fact, hamilton claims that "the tonal basis of music has been clarified" by sound-art's embracing of noise and electronic and mechani­ cally reproduced sound (46). instead of supplanting scruton's definition, hamilton offers a revision of scrutonian tones and a gentle critique of the acousmatic thesis on which the claim is based. for scruton, the difference between sounds and tones depends on an acousma tic separation of sounds qua intentional objects (tones) from their material causes. but hamilton objects to this acousmatic difference, providing some persuasive reasons why music cannot be simply conceived of as relying upon metaphorical tones: music is felt as vibrations, as well as heard; virtuosity makes us concerned in a genuinely musical way with the physical bodies of the performers; timbre, and its relation to causality, matters musically. in place of an acousmatic separation, hamilton suggests a twofold thesis, a dual consideration of the material and intentional properties of artworks, modeled on wollheim's famous account in art and its objects (1980). this is a promising idea, but hamilton ultimately equivocates, claiming, "it is undoubtedly the case ... that a more developed musical understanding tends towards the acousmatic;' and citing scruton's "persuasive account of music as the object of metaphori­ cal perception" (111). this gentle critique does not ultimately threaten the reign of the tone as the musical sovereign. hamilton's book is based on two central commitments: an "aesthetic conception of music" (5) and a "humanist conception of music" (6). the first regards music as "a practice involving skill or craft whose ends are es­ sentially aesthetic and which is the necessary object of aesthetic attention, with sounds regarded as tones" (10-11). for hamilton, the purpose of the aesthetic is the "intensifying or enrichment of experience through active engagement" (56). thus an aesthetic conception of music entails: (1) that the musical object is created for the purpose of such experiential intensification; (2) that its reception intensifies or enriches experience primarily; and (3) that the sonic material used to attain these ends is intentionally organized sound-in other words, that it is comprised of tones. the question of " active engagement" is connected to hamilton's second commitment, the humanist conception of music. "music is a human activity grounded in the body and bodily movement and interfused with human life," he writes (6). hamilton continually stresses the role of human action 139 140 current musicology in music and of music's origins in dance, ritual, and gesture, arguing against abstract (or extreme formalist) conceptions of music. the humanist concep­ tion depends on the role played by human intentionality and embodiment in the perception of tones and rhythm. just as tones require human involvement to differentiate them from mere sequences of sounds, rhythm, as opposed to a mere succession of time-points, is infused with human gesture and grounded in the body. in an effort to acknowledge the rhythmic aspects of other arts, such as poetry and dance, hamilton argues that rhythm is, in a sense, universal. while features like harmony and melody are specifically musical, rhythm is essential to music but not unique to it. in other words, rhythm is not specifically musical, but is essential to other arts as well. in a lengthy chapter dedicated to issues of "rhythm and time;' hamilton proposes an organic definition of rhythm, derived from plato's laws: rhythm is order-in-movement or movement-in-sound that involves discontinuity, and is perceived through the senses; it involves the imposi­ tion of accent-whether by the performer or merely by the listener-on a sequence of sounds or movements ... giving rise to a "feel" or pattern in which performers and listeners participate. (129) the emphasis on a rhythmic order-in-movement parallels the intentional order-in-sounds that constitutes the scrutonian tone. here, again, hamilton conceives of rhythm along scrutonian lines. he quotes scruton as follows: "rhythm involves the same virtual causality that we find in melody. beats do not follow one another; they bring each other into being, respond to one another, and breathe with a common life" (142). in other words, rhythms, like tones, create a metaphorical intentional order that is specifically human. and the parallelism continues: just as hamilton poses a critique of the acousmatic thesis as a gentle objection to scruton's wholesale identification of tones with metaphor, he poses a similar gentle objection here, arguing that the movement in rhythms is not simply metaphorical, but possesses numerous literal expressions: marching, dancing, the contraction or dilation of heartbeats, etc. musical rhythms do not metaphorize bodily movement; bodily movement is already rhythmic. at the same time, this conception of rhythm, while it critiques scruton's commitment to metaphoricity, is not incompatible with scruton's more stringent claim. both hamilton and scruton would agree that the order discovered in musical tones or rhythms is intentional and humanist, regardless of its metaphorical or literal status. perhaps hamilton's account of rhythm could have broken from scruton's orbit by a more thorough consideration of the topic. on the one hand, hamilton claims that "discussion of rhythm rarely features in the philosophical literature" (121) and cites a few scant references: plato, john brian kane dewey, grosvenor cooper and leonard meyer, christopher hasty. but this claim is simply inaccurate. for example, hamilton mentions his surprise that bergson, "the philosopher of time, has almost nothing to say about rhythm" (148), and therefore betrays a lack of familiarity with the significant role that rhythm plays in bergson's metaphysics. l on the other hand, perhaps hamilton has construed "philosophy" too narrowly, and would benefit his argument by engaging with the significant work on rhythm done in fields beyond music theory and analytic philosophy. for instance, rhythm is a central concept in the work of psychoanalyst nicolas abraham and in the deconstructive literary theory of philippe lacoue-labarthe. closer to hamilton's own interests, it is simply astonishing that he overlooks emile benveniste's remarkable essay on rhythm (1971), a veritable tour de force which traces the greek concept of rhythmos from its origins in ionian philosophy all the way to the platonic use of the term in the laws-the very definition hamilton cites.2 the last two chapters of the book finally break out of the scrutonian orbit to treat the themes of "adorno and modernism" and "improvisation and composition." in the former chapter, hamilton attempts to summarize adorno's social dialectic of the modernist work of art as simultaneously autonomous and fait social. he repeats adorno's account of the growing autonomy of art during the bourgeois era, and of how this autonomy simultaneously afforded the possibility of art as critique of society and turned art into a commodity bound to the marketplace. hamilton also spends some time trying to address the difficult concept of truth-content (wahrheitsgehalt), giving a brief account of its origins in hegel's aesthetics and its transformation into a social dialectic in the work of adorno. seeking to avoid the "insider quality" (160) of many discussions about adorno's work, hamilton provides a clear presentation of some of adorno's major claims on autonomous art. given his commitment to an aesthetic conception of music, in which music acts as an intensification or enrichment of experience, hamilton seeks to connect the freedom of the autonomous musical work-a freedom from the fetters of social utility-to music's primarily aesthetic end. simplifying adorno, he argues that autonomous works can be analyzed as having both direct and indirect social functions. hamilton bases his claim on a reading of this sentence from introduction to the sociology of music: "in a society that has been functionalized virtually through and through, totally ruled by the exchange principle, lack of function comes to be a secondary function" (adorno 1976:41). for hamilton, direct social function simply means the social purpose for which the work was intended and through which the work must primarily be understood. for example, the direct social function 141 142 current musicology of church music is "religious-to uplift the spirits of the congregation and turn their thoughts towards god and so on" (183). but autonomous art lacks direct social function; contemporary music or sound-art does not possess this sort of social purpose. this music has only an indirect social function, in that its autonomy can also act as a critique of the society from which it frees itself. without becoming too involved in debates over adorno's conception of autonomous art, one can object that hamilton's construal of autonomy loses the full valence of adorno's usage. the notion of social function, or the way in which institutions and listeners mediate the utility of musical works, does not address questions of music composition-or production, as adorno calls it. by focusing on the uselessness or functionlessness of the autonomous artwork, hamilton places an emphasis on autonomy negatively defined-as autonomy from something.3 but he neglects to define a non­ negative sense of autonomy, a sense which is crucial for adorno's account. artistic autonomy also involves the freedom of the artist to gather socially mediated content (in halt) into artistic form. it is precisely the relationship between form and content that grants the artwork its power of critique. for example, adorno writes: "what is socially decisive in artworks is the content [inhaltl that becomes eloquent through the work's formal structures. kafka, in whose work monopoly capitalism appears only distantly, codifies in the dregs of the administered world what becomes of people under the total social spell more faithfully and powerfully that do any novels about cor­ rupt industrial trusts" (1997:230). it is not simply kafka's autonomy from direct social function that makes his indictment more faithful or powerful than simple realism, but the manner in which social relations, alienated by artistic form, become legible in artworks and thus afford a site of critical reflection on society. hamilton's exclusive emphasis on direct and indirect social function ultimately ignores this relationship of form and content. a reader familiar with hamilton's account only would not be able to understand why, for example, adorno differentiates schoenberg from stravinsky in the philosophy of modern music. after all, don't the works of both composers lack a direct social function? adorno's criticism is nothing if not specific, for everything depends upon the movement between the philosophical claims and the particular organization of the works. in the passage cited above, it is no coincidence that adorno invokes kafka immediately after discussing the general characteristics of the artwork's relation of form and content. in adorno's writing, examples are never simply examples. adorno brings together aesthetics and criticism, analysis and art history, just as hamilton claims. in other words, "art's social character can only be grasped by interprebrian kane tation;' not simply by its function (adorno 1997:232). the kind of practice adorno advocates is not engaged often enough in aesthetics and music. thankfully, the final chapter on improvisation and composition proves to be an exception to this criticism. drawing on the repertoire that he knows best, hamilton argues for a new way of conceiving the relationship between composition and improvisation, and supports his case with prescient examples. he frames his argument in terms of two general positions: the "aesthetics of imperfection" and the "aesthetics of perfection" (193). the imperfectionist defends the virtues of spontaneity and process in musical production, arguing that improvisation is superior to notation in that it involves a direct, immediate transmission of the musical idea. on the other hand, the perfectionist emphasizes the timeless permanence of the musical work over and against its empirical manifestations as a performance of variable and uncertain quality. this latter view promotes an eidetic notion of the work as the sum of its internal relations. hamilton's insight is that "these positions share a common assumption" that improvisation is a form of "instant composition" (204). the imperfectionist eulogizes instant composition, while the perfectionist condemns it. this leads hamilton to the claim that composition and improvisation form a continuum of "interpenetrating opposites" (197). one could describe his model thus: on one extreme would be electronically fixed works without a performer (such as what used to be called tape music), and on the other, completely free improvisations. in the middle one could move from highly specific, notated modernist scores (say, ferneyhough), to scores with less specificity (like baroque scores lacking dynamics or even instrumentation), to improvisation with a high degree of pre-structuring (like the arrange­ ments of swing-era big bands), to improvisations with a low degree of pre-structuring (like ornette coleman's free jazz). the continuum is orga­ nized according to the degrees of interpretive or improvisational freedom involved in the live performance, calculated as inversely proportional to the specificity of the notation and the degree of pre-structuring involved. it positions improvisations on the same plane as compositions and thereby undermines the notion of "instant composition" and the subordinate status it presupposes. as a corollary, hamilton argues for the aesthetic relevance of improvi­ sation at the level of reception. he seeks to overturn the kind of thinking which dismisses the genetic role of improvisation in the overall aesthetic effect of the music. in other words, he confronts the claim (made by stanley cavell and others) that improvisation is essentially musically extrinsic-that the only thing that matters is the musical result, regardless of whether the music is or is not improvised. for hamilton, improvisation is intrinsic to the 143 144 current musicology musical result and fundamentally impacts the aesthetic effect. he states that there is "a genuine phenomenon of an improvised feel" -a "tensile strength" or "rough go-ahead energy" (202). obviously, this is a difficult philosophical claim to explicate in analytic terms, and hamilton takes a risk in asserting it as a thesis. but the originality of the claim and the examples he uses to illustrate it, from bill evans to ray bryant to lee konitz, help to make it more convincing. these moments in hamilton's text more closely resemble adorno's method of developing an aesthetic theory by moving between general philosophical claims and particular artworks. for this reviewer, the claim seems intuitive, and corresponds to something in our experience of listening to improvisations that goes beyond the mere knowledge that the musical language-game we are listening to involves improvisation in a genetic sense. using quotes from lee konitz and steve lacy, and reiterating material from his book on lee konitz, hamilton argues that this improvised feel is related to the improviser's "leap into the unknown" (206), a type of spontaneous preparedness to be unprepared. in addition to the final chapter, a few other moments in the book stand out as genuine contributions to the philosophy of music. one topic close to this reviewer's interests concerns the acousmatic distinction mentioned earlier. hamilton's discussion of the topic, which contrasts its use in the work of roger scruton with its initial appearance in the writings of pierre schaeffer, is clearheaded and well-informed. he is familiar with schaeffer's writings in more than a cursory way and treats the topic with a high degree of philosophical clarity and depth. his discussion of the differences between schaeffer's and scruton's usage of the distinction is critical for anyone pursing this dimension of scruton's work, or for those trying to understand the significance of schaeffer's thinking to the philosophy of music. it is also the first truly philosophical treatment of this topic in the literature. furthermore, hamilton's respect for and sincere interest in improvised music, experimentalism, and sound-art is a model for future writers on the philosophy of music. after the end of the work-concept, the philosophy of music must continue to engage the most recent, and most challenging, examples of musical creativity (or, should i say, of the aural arts) if it seeks to avoid ossified categories and moot distinctions. in hamilton's case, one need not worry about the onset of conceptual rigor mortis. notes 1. in the relevant passage from time and free will, bergson argues that rhythm puts the resis­ tant powers of our personality to sleep and encourages a state of responsiveness in which we are highly suggestible and sympathetic (2001:14). the consequence is that rhythm, like the swinging of a hypnotist's watch, defeats the personality. this claim helps to facilitate bergson's real philosophical commitments: intra-personal memory, duration, the virtual, etc. brian kane 2. benveniste argues that the meaning of rhythmos changes dramatically with plato. in the ionian philosophy which preceded plato, the term is closely related to the notion of form, i.e., rhythmos was "the most proper term for describing 'dispositions' or 'configurations' without fixity or natural necessity" (1971:286). rhythmos sprung from the context of clas­ sical atomism, where such configurations are momentary snapshots of atomic interactions, viewed against the background of a perpetual fluctuation. plato ties rhythmos to the concept of measure (metron) and begins to conceive of rhythmos in relation to the human body, as an arrangement of figures (or limbs, as in dance) bound by measure, or a theory of pro­ portion. thus, when plato writes in the laws of an "order-in-movement" being given the name rhythm, "order" is not an intentional ordering, but rather a numerical or proportional organization and disciplining of motion. 3. earlier in the text, hamilton provides two definitions of autonomous art: "1. autonomy from the non-artistic, including from emotional expression, and social autonomy. 2. au­ tonomy from other arts" (84). note how "freedom-from ... " is entailed in the structure of both. references adorno, theodor. 1976. introduction to the sociology of music, translated by e. b. ashton. new york: seabury. ---. 1997. aesthetic theory, translated by robert hullot -kentor, edited by gretel adorno and rolf tiedemann. minneapolis and london: minnesota university press. benveniste, emile. 1971. the notion of "rhythm" in its linguistic expression. in problems in general linguistics, translated by mary elizabeth meek, 281-88. coral gables, fl: university of miami press. bergson, henri. 2001. time and free will: an essay on the immediate data of consciousness, translated by f. 1. pogson. mineola, ny: dover publications. goehr, lydia. 1999. review of the aesthetics of music by roger scruton. journal of the american musicological society 52 (2): 398-409. hamilton, andy. 1990. the aesthetics of imperfection. philosophy 65 (253): 323-40. ---. 2003. the art of recording and the aesthetics of perfection. the british journal of aesthetics 43 (4): 345-62. ---. 2007a. the sound of music. in sounds and perception: new philosophical essays, edited by matthew nudds and casey o'callaghan. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 2007b. music and the aural arts. british journal of aesthetics 47 (1): 46-63. ---. 2007c. lee konitz: conversations on the improviser's art. ann arbor: university of michigan press. scruton, roger. 1999. the aesthetics of music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. wollheim, richard. 1980. art and its objects: with six supplementary essays, 2nd ed. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. 145 current.musicology.85.113-172.pdf timothy d. taylor. 2007. beyond exoticism: western music and the world. durham, ne, and london: duke university press. reviewed by nabeel zuberi this book reminds us how the creation, sound, and consumption of music-as well as the ways in which we produce located knowledges about music-are shaped by power relations with long histories. the regimes through which "the west" dominates, represents, and incorporates its "others" lie at the heart of timothy d. taylor's intellectual project. taylor is a professor of ethnomusicology and musicology at the university of california, los angeles. positioned within and between two disciplinary formations, beyond exoticism is the follow-up to the excellent strange sounds (2001), which focused on the role of technology in the construction of musical imaginaries since world war ii. as taylor showed in that book, analogue and digital technologies have mobilized the tropes of exploration, and generated a host of fascinations with subjects and spaces beyond the physical and psychic borders of an imaginary west. to borrow a term from the philosophers gilles deleuze and felix guattari, the west is a "desiring machine" that needs others in order to define the contours of its own identity and subjectivities. the ordering of that relationship between self and other is one of the central threads that runs through the weave of beyond exoticism. taylor himself suggests that this new book is more closely aligned with his earlier global pop (1997), written at the moment that "world music" had secured its place as a market category in the local megastore. some of that book's emphasis on globalization discourse through case studies of particular musicians and their recordings informs the approach of beyond exoticism. but this project has a broader ambit, stretching from the seventeenth century to the present, beginning with the rise of tonality and opera and ending with world music in television advertising. the historical duree is periodized in terms of colonialism, imperialism, and globalization, and taylor stresses continuities as well as cultural and ideological shifts in western music's engagement with the rest of the world. before addressing the scope of his argument, some of its finer points, and possible limitations, it is important to acknowledge that taylor deftly combines lucidity and nuance in a work of such breadth. beyond exoticism is crisply written, mercifully free of jargon, and addresses important concepts and issues in a vocabulary that graduates, undergraduates, and non-academic readers should be able to understand and apply in their own encounters current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 159 160 current musicology with music of many kinds. the book's emphasis on a multitude of musical discourses from scores to internet chat makes it easily translatable across disciplines. while many academics in popular music studies at the very least pay lip service to interdisciplinarity, they often still fear the alien language of some disciplinary others. as someone located in media and cultural stud­ ies who hasn't been schooled in western classical music and who doesn't read music or playa musical instrument (unless it's a playback device for recordings), this reviewer has to confess some relief that taylor uses musical notation sparingly, mainly to illustrate broader political questions, rather than to fetishize musical form and style. the book is still concerned with aesthetics, but writing in the context of us imperial expansion on many military fronts, taylor offers this timely statement of purpose on the last page: "as the slide toward theo-fascism in america continues, it is important to go beyond the text and reclaim the social, the cultural, and the historical" (212). my first impression of this book was that it seems to be primarily aimed at the kind of musicology that prevails in most us music departments. this point isn't meant as a criticism of taylor or the value of this book for scholars and students in other disciplines or institutional locations. in fact many musicologists have argued for conceiving of music in more socio-economic-cultural terms-music as it is shaped by and contributes to the formation of social relations. but the fact of this book and the force of taylor's critique is an indictment of the continuing hegemony of what he calls "the classical music ideology" in most music departments. this intellectual legacy is largely constituted through an emphasis on genius composers and the formal intricacies of works of art, the meanings of which are usually defined by the close readings of skilled musicologists. from the tenor of this book, particularly its first half, the eurocentrism and formalism of western art music and classical music appear resilient despite the critical interventions of marxist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial studies in the humanities and social sciences. taylor draws on historians and literary scholars influenced by michel foucault's work to socially embed musical discourse-inside and outside the sonic, though that distinction is one that continues to haunt the field of music studies more broadly. but he also cites sociologists and anthropologists, cultural studies researchers, and more populist forms of writing and talk. though he refers to the work of musicologists, the burden of the book's argument rests on it bringing a wider set of research materials and interpretative methods to chip away at the edifice of a conservative musicology. taylor remarks that the canon may have become more inclusive because of the "new musicology;' but the study of music remains inadequately historicized. while the term "exoticism" has nabeel zuberi generated a growing literature in musicology, taylor believes that it has been too preoccupied with form and style at the expense of larger social forces. however, this is not only a book directed to musicologists. taylor points out the shortcomings of other scholarly approaches to western music's representation and appropriation of the rest of the world. writers in cultural studies tend to orient their approach through the shorter time-frame and dichotomy of modernity and postmodernity. they can also be too formalist at the expense of ethnographic work. however, ethnography is presentist, and therefore anthropological approaches require a strong historical dim en sion. to this end, taylor's research archive includes historians' accounts and cultural theory, documents by composers, press commentary, contemporary accounts of theatrical performances, the images on cd covers and their liner notes, statements from people who work in the music industry, and the talk of listeners and fans on websites. the tripartite periodization of colonialism, imperialism, and globaliza­ tion risks the production of a grand(iose) narrative, but there is a more modest methodological logic to taylor's structure for the book. apart from emphasizing the sedimentation of various western ways of conceiving of the other, it reminds the reader of the fluid lines and common ideological ground in much thinking about classical, popular, and world musics. like musicologist robert fink, taylor also tries to represent the "afterlife" of western classical music in popular and world musics. the latter part of the book's emphasis on how genre categorizations recruit ideas of "authenticity " points to the longevity and pervasiveness of these discourses across musi­ cal domains that are often considered distinct. popular music writers and listeners have inherited some of their judgments, hierarchies, and modes of legitimation for popular music from the western art and classical music system. chapter 1 addresses the emergence and institutionalization of tonality and opera in relation to early european colonialism. taylor is less concerned with technical analysis of the music than with broader shifts in knowledge. he argues that the dominant epistemology of resemblances, due largely to the lack of information about others, began to change after columbus and the invasion of the new world. taylor considers the integration of musical versions of others in western repertoires alongside changing modes of subjectivity/subjectification or "self-fashioning;' and new ways of conceptualizing space. for example, the maresca, marisca, or moor's dance, a parody of the music of slaves in germany and italy and a precursor of english morris dancing, had become popular throughout western europe in the fifteenth century and was used as an interchangeable signifier for racial otherness. in the sixteenth century it started to move into more elite 161 162 current musicology musical forms as the other appeared in a proliferating range of representa­ tions. the more established notions of gendered difference were mapped onto an emergent set of differences around race. the feminization of the new world and less geographically distant non-white europeans informed the masculine selfhood of the western subject. the copernican revolution, colonial exploration, and the concomitant growth of cartography shifted perceptions of space. as colonial projects became more clearly fleshed out, an aggregated view of space was replaced by a perspective on space that sought to unite disparate spaces in a single system, managed from a european center. taylor argues for structural homologies between these wider ideological developments and discourses of music. tonality creates centers and margins; the tonic is the home to the other of the non-tonic. the other helps to define the expansive power of the western subject. for taylor, mechanistic metaphors for describing musical temporality are gradu­ ally superseded by spatial metaphors. taylor then adapts bakhtin's writing on carnival and the emergence of polyglossia in the form of the novel to describe the incorporation of different voices in the seventeenth-century english masque and early opera in venice. the case study of william lawes's britannia triumphans (1638), one of the last masques, alongside a general discussion of venetian operas, serves to demonstrate that the music system was passing through a new stage of royal patronage shaped by mercantile endeavours, colonial encounters, and the emergent representation of new social classes at home. the other became the source of innovations in opera during the enlightenment. on the edge of an uncertainly bordered europe, and with its own empire, turkey and turkish elements served as an all-purpose exotic imaginary of fears and fascinations. in chapter 2, taylor surveys several operas and provides more detailed case studies of jean-philippe rameau's opera-ballet les in des galantes (1735) and mozart's die entfiihrung aus dem serail (1782). in the former, sounds associated with turkey could signify "new world savages." in the latter, otherness was more variably modulated as parody, a sign of duplicity, and even nobility through particular musical devices and characters. the almost half-century between these two stage presentations witnessed the figure of the noble savage emerging from the shadows of colonial genocide. but the incorporation of the other was also now part of the shift of martial vernacular languages into nascent nationalist projects. the austrians had defeated the turks under joseph i and foreign elements in fractured form contributed to the formation of german lin­ guistic culture and a national theater. according to taylor, by the time of beethoven's symphony no. 9 (1823), otherness is central to the formation of musical westernness. once alien so nics now denote celebration and reveal the flexibility of selfhood in the west as it absorbs the conquered other. nabeel zuberi in chapter 3, taylor examines western classical music in the "age of empire;' as periodized by the historian eric hobsbawm. the years 1875-1914 witness the growing influence of social darwinism and "racial sciences," these biological determinisms shape a conception of the world of music on an evolutionary scale, with non-western people and their sonic practices lag­ ging behind the west. addressing the modern maelstrom that marx, freud, and saussure come to define, taylor chooses not to tackle their ideas in detail, but embeds them in the broader changes associated with urbanization; in particular, he looks to changing consumption patterns that engender new forms of desire for the other. the city brings socioeconomic classes into close encounters. new reproduction technologies disseminate sounds and images from disparate sources more widely as mass culture grows rapidly. spectacles and objects of otherness are mediated through worlds fairs, trocaderos, and the museum system. vicarious voyaging offered by these technologies and spaces expands the vistas of consumer dreams. gender and sexual relations are transformed as women increasingly enter the labour force beyond the domestic sphere and homosexuals come into being as subjects of the state. if "all that is solid melts into air," as marx famously pronounced, then notions of individuality and selfhood may at least be in flux, if not in "danger of erosion," as taylor contends. taylor draws our attention to some ideological shifts in the western elite music system as it responds to this rapidly changing environment in which the use and exchange values of music are transformed. as aristocratic patronage is replaced by an emerging music industry of new performance venues, paymasters, and copyrights, the romantic idea of an autonomous art/music with uniquely alienated artist -composers is institutionalized. the unique value of music and the specialized status of composers are both en­ hanced. taylor reads these changes in the music system around the figures of stravinsky, schoenberg, and adorno to refract well-worn debates in studies of musical modernism. the rise of aesthetics as a discipline (in foucault's sense as well as an academic one) is seen here as a stage in the commodifica­ tion of music, conceived increasingly as "exchangeable, aestheticized bits." the authorial self of the avant garde, alienated from the masses, seeks others to represent the losses and incoherences of modern, industrialized society. at the same time, taylor argues that the emergence of the culture concept, and with it cultural relativism, provided new relationships to the other that register ambivalent and conflicting attitudes to the imperial project and metropolitan capitalism. taylor looks at bitonality in a series of ravel's works as shaped in considerable part by contemporary french debate about the virtues and problems of empire. seeking some distance from the new order of things, neo-primitivism and flirtations with folk music shore up the idea of the artist's mobile subjectivity. in the united states, charles ives's editing 163 164 current musicology or sampling of sounds from elsewhere is evidence of this authorial drive, while henry cowell's united quartet (1936) imagines a universal music emerging from a more plural and anthropological conversation between musical languages and cultures. this reviewer cannot speak in detail to the specific musical case studies in the first half of this book due to a lack of familiarity with classical and western art music. but taylor's claims to the social imbrication of musical forms and practices seem convincing to this reader, given their continuities with the more familiar case studies of the second half of the book, which deals with globalization and world music. the development of consumption and consumerism, the commodification of music, and the subjectivity and authorial identity of the western musician-artist are issues analyzed in more recent contexts. after a brief precis outlining debates on globalization (main points: the nation is not dead, but diminished; globalization needs to be seen as part of a long process of "worlding" an economic system), chapter 4 focuses on the role of the western musician who coordinates encounters between musicians and styles from the metropolitan west and other places. in many ways this work follows the considerable post-graceland (1986) scholarship on western mediators of other music such as paul simon, david byrne, and ry cooder. that critique from ethnomusicologists and popular music scholars was contemporaneous with the establishment of "world music" as a market category. here taylor emphasizes the growing valorization of the musician as producer, a role that now has the high status and cultural capital of the film director-auteur. this producer figure, exemplified here by the bass player bill laswell, travels around the world in airplanes or through digital technologies. these technologies blur the distinctions between musical consumption and production as different kinds of music are sampled, collected, and sequenced together by producers who function like tour guides in an art mode of pro­ duction. taylor demonstrates that the discourse of "collaboration" is invoked by such mediators, their record labels, and media commentary to distance themselves from unethical "rip-offs" and inauthentic appropriations, even as the precise nature of that collaboration and the roles of collaborators are obscured behind the unifying authorial brand of the western producer. taylor turns from the figure of the producer to questions of musical categorization in chapters 5 and 6. first, he addresses debates about hybridity, one of the key metaphors to describe recent musical fusions engendered by globalization and multiculture in the west. he argues that hybridity is a floating signifier that can serve as a prescription for musical "authenticity"; it can also be deployed against older notions of authenticity, and like the term "world music" it threatens to collapse different musics into one category. nabeel zuberi taylor worries a great deal about the reification of genre categories, using the discourse around panjabi/south asian diasporic bhangra remix music in the usa and uk as ethnographic material to show how the hybrid is deployed as a figure to characterize subjectivities as well as musical styles. through this figure, subjects in diaspora negotiate relationships between their identities where they live and imaginary homelands, as well as between generations in their families. taylor argues that the relationship of bhangra remix to african diasporic musical styles is not mentioned in discussions of its hybridity. however, this reviewer would argue that such an oversight is one of outside commentators rather than the participants of these music cultures. in trying to trace diasporic lines from the western nation to an originary homeland, culturalists fail to adequately consider the networks of diasporic and interdiasporic relations inhabited by the producers and consumers of such music. taylor investigates what john hutnyk calls the "radical hybridity" of the british (south asian) group asian dub foundation (adb), pointing out its debt to hip hop and reggae. however taylor doesn't acknowledge the discourse of political blackness and activism from which adb emerged in the british context, a movement that sought to create anti-racist affiliations between african-caribbean and asian workers, united under the term "black." adb also identified itself with a new uk genre in the 1990s, namely jungle, produced by the hybridization of digital reggae, hip hop, and sampling technologies. this genre, however racially problematic or ironic its moniker, is testament to the instability of genres, generic splitting, and zygosis that are increasingly part of popular culture, a point overlooked by taylor in his efforts to demonstrate the reification of music categories. the fact that jungle mutated into drum 'n' bass also makes the point that the other of world music may itself be more of an unstable formation as a market category than taylor suggests. after all, world music emerged from the postwar "rock formation;' is informed by those baby-boomer ideologies, and so may itself be transformed into something beyond the term "world music." the discursive moorings of world music owe a great deal to rock music in the western imagination. taylor contends that working-class blackness operates as the focal point for authenticity in western world music discourse, dominating and erasing musical genealo­ gies and the understanding of others. blackness may be absorbed by rock discourse to hide inheritances from music like reggae and soul music as in the case of aboriginaland european-descended australian group yothu yindi, whose aboriginality is framed in terms of rock rebellion. in chapter 6, taylor describes how the affinities between incorporated hawaii and us country music are disavowed because country's associations make it "uncool." the case of the documentary soundtrack album songs of 165 166 current musicology the hawaiian cowboy/na mele 0 paniolo (1997) demonstrates that for the rock and world music cognoscenti informed by the aesthetic postures of the "white hipster," country is tainted by associations with the small-town white working class. middle-class rock and world music listeners prefer their authentic working classes to be urban blacks rather than rural whites. others from around the world deemed as making political statements with their music are interpreted through the prism of african american radicalism or other projections of rock authenticity. the other makes "cultural music;' a synonym for deeply rooted music apparently made outside the world of economic exchange. taylor suggests that, through narcissistic maneuvers around the concept of "world music;' dominant racialized subjectivities in the west continue to shape the production and consumption of music from around the world. these discourses of race and ethnicity are inflected with ideas about socioeconomic class. the last two chapters of the book em­ phasize that "world music" is also a product of an international bourgeoisie with "global informational capital" and familiar with what "multinational multiculturalism" has to offer the western consumer. in chapter 7, taylor shows that the tropes of the feminized or infantile other from colonial times are replayed in the sounds of new-age world music used in tv com­ mercials for airlines, cruise ships, and cars. here world music is becoming "classicized," in part to infuse the latter with the whiff of spirituality that soothes a transnational corporate class, in part for the cultural capital yoked to classical music. taylor's book is a powerful statement about the long history of western music's very constitution through its engagement with the other. these soundings and representations fix and manipulate the other according to the west's sonic and visual imaginations. certain tropes and techniques are reproduced but also modified across the centuries. i have three qualms about taylor's overall argument. the first is the simple wish that he had tied together the thematic threads of spatialization, subjectivity, consumption, and the other from the colonial to the global in a less cursory concluding chapter. the second concern is that any study that posits the "west and the rest" after the fashion of edward said's groundbreaking orientalism (1978) risks constructing social relations in binary terms that leave the other silent and give her little or no agency. how have subjects-including musicians-from the world dominated by colonial, imperial, and global regimes of truth negotiated and responded to these skewed power relations? taylor offers a glimpse in arguing that modes of governmentality worked out overseas in the colonies/empire helped to shape western metropolitan subjectivity, but in this book the other remains a structuring absence. to be fair to the author, that is precisely his point, but beyond exoticism also nabeel zuberi reproduces that elision. the references to pacific and asian diasporic subjects in the west indicate the contestation of these hegemonic discourses, however ineffectual this struggle might be against the greater forces of the global music system. but one feels that taylor might have let us know a little more about the possibilities and permutations of a "third space" that he claims-after postcolonial theorist homi bhabha-can imagine non-reified hybridities. related to this point, another qualm about this otherwise excellent book is that it reads a little like it was written at the height of "world music" as a genre category in the 1990s. given taylor's insights into musical technolo­ gies in other publications (only a minor theme in this book), this reviewer was somewhat disappointed that the concluding chapter did not venture more on how digital technologies andtranslocal musical encounters, col­ laborations, borrowings, rip-offs, blogosphere mixes, and mash -ups suggest new trajectories of intersubjectivity and affect. these may echo but also comment upon previous power relations, such as recent instances of slum chic, postcolonial kitsch, ironic exotica, and nu-whirled music. but such forms and practices may also enable new ways of engaging with others, as others also incorporate "our" cultural forms and practices. this may happen through the same old metropolitan-peripheral lines of cultural traffic, but also between peripheral locations that are unevenly integrated into a global system: inter-asian, african-asian, inter-african, asian-caribbean, latin american-european, mediterranean-west asian, and so on. the rest also sample from many parts of the world, not just the west. studies like tejaswini niranjana's mobilizing india: women, music and migration between india and trinidad (2006) also describe colonial and postcolonial networks that may undermine the confidence that the west or a western subjectivity has singularly charted the most influential musical coordinates and journeys; or, in fact, that the west has a coherent identity or clear borderlines. references niranjana, tejaswini. 2006. mobilizing india: women, music, and migration between india and trinidad. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. said, edward w. 1978. orientalism. new york: pantheon. taylor, timothy d. 1997. global pop: world music, world markets. london and new york: routledge. --. 2001. strange sounds: music, technology, and culture. london and new york: routledge. 167 current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf writing under the influence?: salieri and schubert's early opinion of beethoven christopher h. gibbs to ludwig van beethoven from his worshipper and admirer franz schubert in 1822, schubert dedicated his variations on a french theme for piano four-hands, op. 10 (d624) to beethoven. this dedication was his most public and extravagant proclamation of an abiding reverence for the older master that he held until his dying day. indeed, if ferdinand schubert is to be believed, his younger brother's last wish was to be buried near beethoven, which is exactly what happened (deutsch 1946:825). a lifelong devotion is implied in schubert's letters' and plainly stated in the recollections of fam­ ily and friends. 2 the impress and challenge of beethoven's music on schubert's is also apparent from the start of his compositional career, and only intensified, i believe, as he matured and engaged with it ever more directly.3 beyond purely compositional matters, schubert modeled his pro­ fessional career on beethoven's in crucial respects and benefited from his relations with many of the same performers, publishers, patrons, and crit­ ics who were involved with the older composer (solomon 1979a; gingerich 1996; gibbs 2000). contemporaries frequently made comparisons between their compositions; as we shall see, critics usually mentioned beethoven when reviewing schubert's piano and chamber works. 4 while these circumstances are unsurprising-beethoven was, after all, the preeminent composer of the time and the two men lived in the same city throughout schubert's life-there is one sour note: schubert's alleged hostility, early in his career, to beethoven's music. in the beethoven-handbuch, for example, theodor von frimmel writes that "under salieri's influence, schubert became alienated from beethoven" (1926,2:95-96; 1925:406).5 alfred einstein asserts that "schubert was deeply disturbed by beethoven, as was every romantic. as a young man (on june 16, 1816), he even made a very critical reference to beethoven's 'eccentricity, which unites the tragic with the comic ... '" (1947:89).6 in fact, this single documentary source constitutes the evidence that has been advanced to support the idea of initial resistance, and for maynard solomon it exemplifies how "during salieri's tutelage of schubert ... the young composer became for a short while so heated an opponent of beethoven's music" (1998:98; cf. 353).7 the purpose of this essay is to explore the larger context of the ninecurrent musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 118 current musicology teen-year-old schubert's journal entry in june 1816, in order to see if it really does indicate an "early repudiation" of beethoven, to suggest other possible interpretations of the remark, and to ponder why the idea of early rejection has proved so attractive and therefore so often repeated (solomon 1979a:114).8 i shall use this specific biographical issue, which of necessity entails an extended exploration of schubert's relationship with salieri, as a case study that reflects more general difficulties in constructing the nar­ rative of schubert's life. that so little primary documentation about schubert survives has not only allowed but also encouraged scholars to assert, extrapolate, or simply fabricate "facts" without sufficient warning about their speculative or fictive nature (gibbs 1997: 1-11). salieri and schubert the event precipitating schubert's notorious diary entry was the jubilee, onjune 16, 1816, honoring vienna's imperial court kapellmeister anto­ nio salieri on the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in the city. it was a fes­ tive celebration in which schubert actively participated. preceding a brief description of an evening concert that featured music by salieri and his students, schubert wrote the following: it must be beautiful and refreshing for an artist to see all his pupils gathered about him, each one striving to give his best for his jubilee, and to hear in all these compositions the expression of pure nature, free from all the bizarreness that is common among most composers nowadays, and is due almost wholly to one of our greatest german artists; that bizarreness that joins and confuses the comic with the tragic, the agreeable with the repulsive, heroism with howlings and the holiest with harlequinades, without distinction, so as to goad people to madness instead of dissolving them in love, to incite them to laughter instead oflifting them up to god. to see this bizarreness banished from the circle of his pupils and instead look upon pure, holy nature, must be the greatest pleasure for an artist who, guided by such a one as gluck, learned to know nature and to uphold it in spite of the unnatural conditions of our age. (deutsch 1946:64)9 although beethoven is not named, the reference to "one of our great­ est german artists" has seemed quite clear to most commentators. but do these isolated comments warrant claims, against all other evidence, about alienation, repudiation, opposition, or resentment with respect to beethoven or his music? by the time of salieri's jublilee, schubert had known the italian comchristopher h. gibbs 119 poser for more than a decade. on september 28, 1804, the young musi­ cian was one of nine of the nineteen boys undergoing a musical examina­ tion whom salieri deemed "most capable of learning the chant for the service of music in the court chapel" (durhammer and waidelich 1997:66).10 four years later, he was judged one of the two best boy sopra­ nos and chosen as a chorister for the court chapel (deutsch 1946:10). this honor provided schubert with a scholarship to an elite boarding school, the k. k. stadtkonvikt (royal and imperial seminary), where he studied from late 1808 until late 1813. although admittance in no way guaranteed private instruction with salieri, some qualified students were given this valuable opportunity. we are not sure exactly when schubert began regu­ lar studies with the kapellmeister, nor how often they met. the documen­ tary sources, which i will survey first, can be augmented by anecdotal ac­ counts provided much later by family and friends. the first piece of primary evidence is a marginal note in schubert's hand to an elementary exercise: "counterpoint begun, 18 june 1812, first species" (deutsch 1946:24), and there are corrections, most likely in salieri's hand, to other exercises from around this time. ll that same year, under salieri's guidance, schubert began setting a great many italian texts, espe­ cially ones by metastasio, as well as some schiller poems in german,12 the instruction apparently focused on part writing, phrasing, and proper text declamation, and instilled in schubert a sensitivity to speech rhythms that later served him in composing lieder. schubert probably wrote his last works for salieri around the turn of the years 1816-17.13 it may be surprising to find him still producing what were in essence student essays at this time, well after the composition of his first lied masterpieces in 1814 and 1815, including gretchen am spinnrade and erlkonig. as maurice j. e. brown has remarked, schubert was apparently capable of "shutting off his genius" so as to hone other skills (1958:216.).14 given that schubert's initial lied achievement was tied to texts by goethe, it is worth noting that josef von spaun, one of the composer's closest friends, wrote to goethe in the spring of 1816 in the hopes of arousing the poet's interest in a project to publish a series of songs. spaun described schubert as a nineteen-year-old com­ poser whom "nature endowed from the tenderest childhood with the most pronounced leanings towards the art of music, gifts which salieri, the nestor among composers, brought to fair maturity with the most unselfish love of art" (deutsch 1946:56). although the scheme did not materialize as hoped (and goethe apparently never responded to the letter), five years later, when schubert published five songs on goethe poems, op. 5, the dedica­ tion was to salieri. 15 matching what spaun wrote to goethe, schubert repeatedly proclaimed his affiliation with salieri in the manuscripts of some of his most ambitious 120 current musicology compositions from the 1810s. the title page of des teufels lustschloss (d84; 1813-14), an opera that schubert wrote and revised with salieri's help, reads, "pupil of salieri, first court music director in vienna," and similar identifications are found for the later theatrical works fernando (d220; 1815), claudine von villa bella (d239; 1815) and die freunde von salamanka (d326; 1815), as well as for instrumental works, such as the string quartet in d (d74; 1813)16 and the 10 variations for piano (di56; 1815). there may have been title pages of other works that mentioned salieri but do not survive. schubert also trumpeted their relationship when applying for jobs. in 1816, he sought a teaching position in laibach and listed his qualifica­ tions, including his musical education at the seminary, as a choirboy in the imperial court chapel, and under the guidance of salieri (deutsch 1946:53-54). salieri's letter of recommendation, written in italian, may not come across as a ringing endorsement, but it was intended simply to convey that after interviewing the candidates he considered schubert the best among them, and therefore found it unnecessary to administer an examination confirming his musical abilities: "i, the undersigned, assert that i support the application of franz schubert" (deutsch 1946:54) .17 in the end, one of the other twenty-one applicants got the job, and schubert remained in vienna. further testimonials from salieri came in later years. on september 21, 1819, salieri wrote that: ... herr franz schubert has completely learned the art of composition and already furnished very good compositions both for the church and for the stage; and that he is therefore entirely suited to any chapel master's post, in regard to his thorough knowledge as well as his moral character, is herewith confirmed in praise of him. (deutsch 1946:125-26) writing in 1821, salieri offered a more detailed account of schubert's ex­ perience: ... herr franz schubert, by reason of his renowned and much promising musical talent, which distinguishes itself especially in composition, has already been employed, and is to be further employed, in this branch by the royal and imperial directorate of the court theater, to the general satisfaction, is hereby attested by josef weigl, director of the royal and imperial court opera [and] antonio salieri, royal and imperial kapellmeister. (deutsch 1946:161) christopher h. gibbs 121 a decade later, after salieri's death, when schubert sought the post of vice­ kapellmeister, he once again invoked salieri's name in a letter dated april 7,1826 (deutsch 1946:520). the first important public performance of a work by schubert occurred when his mass in f (di05) was given in the composer's parish church in lichtenthal, on september 25, 1814, the centenary of the church. is in attendance was salieri, who himself had written a piece especially for the event, and it is reported that afterward he embraced schubert saying, "franz, you are my pupil, and will do me great honor" (kreissle 1869,1:36) .19 salieri may have helped to arrange a performance ten days later, on the emperor's name-day, at st. augustin in the inner city (deutsch 1946:44).20 the association between schubert and salieri received public com­ ment in both the local and foreign press in reviews and announcements of concerts and publications. the first significant performance of a secular schubert composition-"an entirely new overture by herr franz schubert"-occurred in late february 1818 and was unanimously praised in both viennese and foreign press, which identified the composer as a student ofsalieri's. the wiener allgemeine theaterzeitungstated that the "young composer, herr franz schubert, a pupil of our much-venerated salieri, has learned already how to touch and move all hearts" (deutsch 1946:87) .21 the affiliation was maintained for some years to come and occasionally reaffirmed even after schubert's death (brusatti 1978: 125). a further document is of interest, for otto erich deutsch believes it links salieri to both schubert and beethoven. around 1817 schubert ob­ tained the manuscript of beethoven's song ziirtliche liebe (woo 123), which deutsch suggests may have come from salieri.22 schubert proceeded to write sketches on the back of the leaf for the andante of his piano sonata in e~, (d568,june 1817).23 as with so many areas of schubert's biography, the limited primary evidence is supplemented by the retrospective accounts from schubert's friends, written after his death, in many cases decades later. these remi­ niscences provide anecdotal information about when and how often schubert and salieri met, what the nature of the instruction was, and so forth. while the accounts sometimes contradict the documentary evidence and are frequently inconsistent in both large and small ways, they none­ theless provide information unavailable from any other source. biogra­ phers must chose which to trust and may opt, even if unconsciously, for those stories that best serve larger narrative agendas, rather than for those with the most solid documentary support. one of the signal challenges of biography is to sort out primary from secondary sources, to give them ap­ propriate weight, and to situate their reliability. such self-evident tasks do not always receive sufficient attention from biographers and readers alike, 122 current musicology and this lack of discrimination has had a profound impact on schubert's reception. while the stakes are comparatively low concerning schubert's relationship with salieri, they are considerably higher with respect to the fiercely contested issues concerning schubert's personal life that have at­ tracted so much attention in recent years. in every case, anecdotal accounts must be placed in a historical context, judged against any other relevant evidence, and treated with due caution and skepticism. ferdinand schubert states that it was someone acquainted with schubert's earliest vocal and instrumental works who "induced the first court music kapellmeister salieri to give [schubert] lessons in composi­ tion. schubert showed his extraordinary gifts to his master's astonishment, so that the latter, asked how schubert was faring, replied: 'that one knows everything; he composes operas, songs, quartets, symphonies and what­ ever you will'" (1839; deutsch 1946:913; deutsch 1958:35; kreissle 1869, 1:28).24 these kinds of amazed pronouncements-sometimes reliable, other times not, like haydn's concerning mozart's gifts, or mozart's concerning beethoven's-do a certain kind of biographical work by conferring ex­ traordinary, almost supernatural powers, to a prodigy.25 schubert's seminary classmates often differ in their accounts of their friend's relations with salieri.26 anton holzapfel states that it was arranged ... for schubert to devote himself entirely to the study of music and for him to be allowed to have composition lessons twice a week with the imperial court kapellmeiser salieri, even while he was at the seminary. this was a special concession on the part of the directors for it was contrary to the school rules for a pupil to go out by himself. holzapfel further relates that the lessons "took place at first only twice a week, but after leaving the seminary schubert took advantage of it assidu­ ously" (deutsch 1958:58).27 maximilian von weisse, who in 1808 success­ fully auditioned with schubert to join the chapel choir, recounts that "schubert had lessons in composition with kapellmeister salieri on days when there was no school" (deutsch 1958: 171). anselm hiittenbrenner, a young composer from graz who came to vienna to study law and who also began taking lessons from salieri, met schubert around 1814, and they became good friends. 28 he recalls how "from time to time salieri treated his pupils, schubert among them, to ice cream, which was obtainable from a lemonade kiosk in the graben" and states that "salieri thought a great deal of schubert" (deutsch 1958:66). according to ignaz franz edler von mosel's biography of salieri, he taught for many years in the morning, from nine to one, three days a week (1827:180). christopher h. gibbs 123 the remembrances of the whens and wheres of salieri's instruction, which suggest that schubert had a considerable amount of personal con­ tact, are ultimately of less interest than what supposedly was taught and how.29 the surviving exercises and compositions give some indication of the curriculum, and here, too, friends elaborate. in an obituary for his former roommate, johann mayrhofer remarks that schubert's technical deficiencies led him, shortly before his death, to seek instruction from the noted theorist simon sechter. mayrhofer feels this fact "seems to indicate that the famous salieri did not subject him to any strict schooling, although he looked through, praised or corrected schubert's early essays" (deutsch 1958:13). beethoven's assistant-cum-biographer anton schindler, some­ one generally recognized today as a shady figure with respect to his re­ counting and manipulation of evidence, explicitly supported mayrhofer's assessment, adding, "we also know for certain that salieri never gave regu­ lar instruction in composition. if schubert had undergone the requisite studies with salieri, sechter's lessons in counterpoint would have been unnecessary. salieri only gave him instruction in the treatment of voices" (deutsch 1958:12) .30yet mayrhofer, who was ten years older than schubert and who met him only in 1814, was not a classmate at the seminary. schindler's contact with schubert came even later and was apparently mini­ mal. even holzapfel, who was in a much better position to know, may have underestimated the extent of salieri's instruction: i recall clearly that this instruction was but very scanty, a fact easy to understand in view of salieri's character, with which older musicians were thoroughly conversant and that, on the whole, it consisted only in the superficial correction of small exercises in part writing, though most of it, and this may have been the most successful part, consisted in the reading and study of scores. at the beginning schubert was obliged, first and foremost, to work through a large number of extremely dull old italian scores and it was only later that he went through the whole of gluck, from whose works schubert often played things for us. (deutsch 1958:59)31 while the extent and nature of the instruction is not entirely clear, it did involve elementary counterpoint, text-setting, and the exploration of other composers' music. in this final and important regard we may have to admit broadly defined notion of "teaching composition." franz liszt, who came to vienna in 1822 at age ten to study with salieri and carl czerny, later recalled that the former "was so graciously kind as to teach me, not the art of composing-which can hardly be taught-but to know the dif­ ferent clefs and procedures used in the scores of his day. i remain deeply 124 current musicology grateful to him" (williams 1998:880).32 josef von spaun, perhaps schubert's closest friend during these stu­ dent years, states in his 1829 schubert obituary that even after the young composer left the seminary, salieri showed a special partiality for him and for several years gave him almost daily instruction in composition, which took root in good soil. he gave him the scores of the older italian masters to study and these the young artist went through with thoroughness and affection without, however, finding in them that full satisfaction which he derived from mozart's operas, which he got to know from the scores at the same time, and from the works of beethoven which aroused his very special enthusiasm. (deutsch 1958:19) here, beethoven enters most forcefully on our examination of schubert and salieri. as with the "double autograph" mentioned earlier, beethoven is present behind the scenes and emerges even in the most tangential places. ever since the 1820s, there have been countless biographies of beethoven that omit any mention of schubert, but one would be hard pressed to find any of schubert in which beethoven does not appear quite prominently. the intrusion of beethoven into schubert's musical education is sup­ ported by other knowledgeable testimony. leopold von sonnleithner, an early and ardent supporter of schubert's music, recalled that "salieri was incapable of teaching a youth who was inspired and permeated by beethoven's genius. salieri understood singing and the older operatic form but of instrumental music (sonata, quartet, symphony) he had as little idea as he had of true church music" (deutsch 1958:112). similarly, huttenbrenner believed that "schubert had too high an opinion of beethoven for any other contemporary composer to be able to impress him. he had an extremely high regard for his teacher salieri, for hummel, eybler, abbe stadler; but for schubert they were after all only dii minorum gentium" (deutsch 1958:68). benedikt randhartinger, yet another salieri pupil, recounted that schubert's "idol was beethoven, all other composers mattered little to him" (deutsch 1958:98).33 heinrich kreissle von hellborn, who solicited some of these accounts and knew of others, introduces the issue of schubert's instruction as follows: "of those musicians who influ­ enced schubert's musical education (if in reality anyone but beethoven can strictly be said to have had any influence at all), anton salieri, the court kapellmeister in schubert's youthful days, has claim to the very first rank" (kreissle 1869,1:22). spaun provides the most relevant information about what prompted christopher h. gibbs 125 schubert to eventually separate from his teacher, and here, too, beethoven's influence is at issue.34 consistent with other reports, spaun emphasizes salieri's commitment to an older italian style of composition and his an­ tipathy not only to german music (including the "true church music," i.e. the countrapuntal scores of bach and handel that sonnleithner men­ tioned), but also to the greatest german poetry. continuing with the 1829 obituary quoted above, he remarks: this predilection of schubert's [for the works of beethoven] , which salieri did not seem to share, and the frankness with which his candid pupil expressed himself on the subject, caused salieri to doubt whether schubert would follow the path along which it was the master's intention to guide him and along which he intended to train him for opera. added to this salieri entirely disapproved of the very form of composition to which his pupil was irresistibly drawn, namely german song. the poems of goethe, schiller and others, which inspired the young composer and which he felt irresistibly compelled to translate into melodies, were unpalatable to the italian, and he found in them only barbarous expression which were not worth the trouble of setting to music. salieri begged schubert in all seriousness no longer to concern himself with compositions of this kind but rather to husband his melodies until he was older and more mature. on the other hand he gave him short italian stanzas to set to music; these left the intensely ardent composer, who scarcely understood the language, cold and his efforts in this line had but little success. (deutsch 1958:20)35 all of these, of course, are retrospective reports and we should not discount that schubert's viennese supporters, some writing years after the events, may have underestimated the italian kapellmeister's influence and importance in favor of the greater and more famous german. there would be no reason, however, to suppress information about initial resistance to beethoven; indeed, it might make for a better story. yet the apparently unanimous accounts of schubert's continual devotion to beethoven is borne out in his writings, music, and actions, and is therefore consistent with the testimony, however belated, of his friends. salieri and beethoven we need not explore beethoven's relationship with salieri in great detail, although it does provide some further context for schubert's remark. while beethoven also studied with the kapellmeister, his principal teachers, the ones who had the most influence at least, had come earlier in his career, 126 current musicology beginning with christian gottlob neefe in bonn during the 1780s, and continuing with haydn, johann georg albrechtsberger, and others dur­ ing his first years in vienna in the early 1790s (nottebohn 1873; kramer 1975). it is not known exactly when beethoven began working with salieri, nor for how long the association continued (thayer 1921, 1: 160-61; kramer 1973:22-24). at least one biographer has argued for the improbably ex­ tended period ofl793-1809 (braunbehrens 1992:216). the latter date is most likely based on a familiar anecdote, related by ignaz moscheles (b. 1794), another salieri pupil. writing to schubert's prospective biographer, ferdinand luib, in february 1858, moscheles noted: "i cannot recall see­ ing schubert at salieri's, but i do remember the interesting circumstance that once i saw a sheet of paper lying at salieri's on which in great letters written by beethoven were the words: 'the pupil beethoven was here!'" (quoted in thayer 1921, 1:161,2:64). this is further example ofa familiar anecdote from which perhaps incorrect inferences may have been made; namely, that beethoven studied with salieri for a long time and that they enjoyed a warm relationship. in 1858, anselm hiittenbrenner related a story concerning the end of relations between beethoven and salieri in­ volving fidelia that would contradict moscheles' story. huttenbrenner states that "salieri told me the composer [beethoven] had submitted fidelia to him for an opinion: he had taken exception to many things and advised beethoven to make certain changes; but beethoven had fidelia performed just as he had written it-and never visited salieri again" (thayer 1901-11, 2:511; 1921,2:64) .36 no matter what version ofthe opera (1805 or 18l4), the two did have further contact over the years. the manuscript evidence indicates that beethoven worked most closely with salieri toward the turn of the century. this was when beethoven set italian texts, some of which survive with salieri's annotations (kinskyand halm 1955; hess 1959; nottebohm 1873:207-32). in late march 1795, salieri directed a benefit concert at which beethoven played one of his piano concertos (probably op. 15) and salieri conducted beethoven's music on a variety of other occasions over the next twenty or so years (angermuller 2000,2:292-93) .37 at the beginning of 1799, beethoven wrote a set of key­ board variations on the duet "la stessa, la stessissima" (woo 73) from falstaff, salieri's most recent opera.38 around this same time beethoven dedicated his three violin sonatas, op. 12, to salieri. while there is little reason to believe that beethoven continued les­ sons much after 1800, he may have sought salieri's occasional counsel; in any case, salieri was an important and powerful force in vienna's musical life. more pertinent to the topic at hand, there is little evidence that par­ ticularly cordial relations continued, as some biographies suggest. moscheles's story notwithstanding, beethoven's few surviving comments christopher h. gibbs 127 about salieri in letters over the next two decades are hardly flattering. in one, he complains of salieri's presentation of a charity concert that con­ flicted with the most prominent akademie of beethovens' career-the fa­ mous one of december 22,1808, which saw the premiere ofthe fifth and sixth symphonies, among other compositions. in this instance, beethoven felt that "herr salieri, being my most active opponent, played me a hor­ rible trick" (anderson 1961: no. 192).39 eight years later, he made a snide comment about "salieri, the court kapellmeister, who is all-powerful at court and a patriarch of his good intentions for german vocal music and german singers" (anderson 1961: no. 766). salieri's anti-german senti­ ments were well known. but as was often the case with beethoven and his fluctuating relations with associates, there apparently were times of more genial contact. to­ gether with other prominent musical figures (including hummel, spohr, mayseder, weigl, and meyerbeer), salieri participated in performances of beethoven's wellington's victory in december 1813, at benefit concerts for soldiers wounded in battle at hanau. 4o beethoven subsequently wrote a letter to the wiener zeitung thanking all involved, including "a certain kapellmeister, salieri by name, who did not disdain to give the beat to the drums and cannonades" (anderson 1961: appendix, no. 6, 1437).41 some five years later the two composers penned a notice in the wiener allgemeine musikalische zeitung, which praised johann nepomuk malzel's new metro­ nome (anderson 1961: appendix no. 13, 1441-42).42 from beethoven's conversation books in the 1820s we know that he followed the course of salieri's final illness with some interest, and also apparently enjoyed hear­ ing the gossip about salieri's unmarried daughters and about the persis­ tent rumors of salieri murdering mozart. there is no information about beethoven's reaction to his death.43 in short, while schubert's long rela­ tionship with salieri was warm, even if it became strained over certain aes­ thetic issues, beethoven, as with his other teachers, proved the more recal­ citrant student and difficult colleague. the context of schubert's diary entry of june 16, 1816 the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of salieri's arrival in vienna began with an early sunday morning church service and culminated in the musical event in which schubert participated that evening.44 sur­ rounded by his four daughters, all dressed alike, salieri was honored by an array of students past and present, some of whom he had given instruction in composition, others in voice. as schubert wrote in his dairy, herr salieri celebrated his jubilee yesterday, having been 50 years in vienna and nearly as long in the imperial service; he was awarded 128 current musicology a gold medal by his majesty and invited many of his pupils, male and female. the works written for the occasion by his composition students were performed from top to bottom, according to the order in which they came under his tuition. the whole was framed by a chorus and an oratorio jesu al limbo [sic] both by salieri. the oratorio is worked in a genuinely gluckish manner. the entertainment interested everybody. (deutsch 1946:64) in the first published biography of salieri, ignaz franz edler von mosel lists the twenty-six students who participated (fourteen women and twelve men), and makes a point of mentioning that although two of salieri's most prominent students, hummel and moscheles, were away for vienna at the time, they nevertheless sent compositions (mosel 1827:182; angermuller 2000, 3: 1 09-13) . beethoven himself was in vienna, although apparen tly in poor health and under doctor's orders not to travel; he apparently did not send anything to salieri (anderson 1961: no. 640).45 schubert, for his part, composed a brief cantata, bey trag zur funftigjiihrigen jubelfeyer des herrn von salieri, ersten k.k. hofkapellmeister in wien (d407). the five-minute composition is in three sections: an unaccompa­ nied vocal quartet (ttbb) is followed by a tenor solo with piano, and ends with a three-part vocal canon.46 the music is initially solemn and in a style not unlike some ofsalieri's own music, but eventually becomes light-hearted biedermeier barbershop similar to schubert's popular part-songs from the time, for example those of op. 11. as he did on a number of other celebratory occasions, schubert wrote the words himself. the text pro­ vides yet another indication of his identification with salieri, as well as of his personal indebtedness: gutigster, bester! weisester, grosster! so lang ich thranen habe, und an der kunst mich labe, sei beides dir geweiht, der beides mir verleiht. so gut' als weisheit stromen mild von dir, 0 gottes ebenbild, engel bist du mir auf erden, gem' macht' ich dir dankbar werden, unser aller grosspapa, bleibe noch recht lange da! [oh you, sagacious, eminent, gracious! the tears i have shed, the art by which i'm fed, i dedicate to you, who gave them both to me. kindness and wisdom flow from thee, as god's own image you are to me, as an angel you are good, fain i'd give you gratitude. grandfather to us all you are, not for long from us depart!] christopher h. gibbs 129 we are now in a position to offer a contextual reading of schubert's diary entry, in which he evinces his satisfaction with the celebratory occa­ sion and with how "beautiful and refreshing" it is for a teacher to be sur­ rounded by his students and hear "pure" music, including salieri's own "gluckish" composition gesu al limbo. brigitte massin has observed that schubert associates happiness with a community dedicated to the shared artistic goals, and indeed the event resonates with our idealized concep­ tion oflater schubertiades (1993:118). it should also be pointed out that this social event may have involved a good amount of alcohol that went to the nineteen-year-old's head. the diary entry, unlike those around it, is rambling, sloppy, and contains both deleted words and phrases. kreissle calls the entry "somewhat confused" (etwas verworrenen; 1865:103; 1869, 1: 1 05). we cannot be sure whether it was written the same evening, but its lack of clarity and its poor penmanship are worth noting. schubert apparently kept this diary only for less than a week in june 1816-the first entry is dated june 13, and then he wrote each day until june 17; on september 8, 1816 he wrote a series of aphorisms. most of the june entries deal with musical and personal events, such as playing mozart's music, taking a walk with his brother karl, and getting paid for a worky some commentators have commented on the classicizing sentiments schubert expressed in his remarks about salieri's jubilee, especially when they are placed in relation to the first entry, written just three days earlier extolling mozart. around this time, schubert had great sympathy for the classical tradition, and not just for works by salieri's own beloved teacher gluck. mozart seems to have loomed particularly large in schubert's think­ ing at this time. the diary begins: 130 current musicology a light, bright, fine day this will remain throughout my whole life. as from afar the magic notes of mozart's music still gently haunt me. how unbelievably vigorously, and yet again how gently, was it impressed deep, deep into the heart by schlesinger's masterly playing. thus does the soul retain these fair impressions, which no time, no circumstances can efface, and they brighten our existence. they show us in the darkness of this life a bright, clear, lovely distance, for which we hope with confidence. 0 mozart, immortal mozart, how many, oh how endlessly many such comforting perceptions of a brighter and better life have you brought to our souls! this quintet is, so to speak, one of the greatest of his lesser works. i too had to show myself on this occasion. i played variations by beethoven, sang goethe's "rastlose liebe" and schiller's "amalia." (deutsch 1946:60) mozartian intoxication is also evident in some of schubert's music from this period. of course, beethoven's musical influence at this point in schubert's career is just as apparent, if not more so, and on the occasion schubert describes, he played an unidentified set of beethoven's varia­ tions. his most recent symphony, finished just six weeks earlier, was the fourth in c minor (d417), which many commentators see as owing clear debts to beethoven, particularly to beethoven's compositions in the same key.48 but the entry extolling mozart, especially in relation to the one three days later regarding beethoven's worrisome influence, has been seized upon by many commentators to oppose mozart and beethoven, rather than clas­ sicism and certain modern trends. sir george grove's assessment in the first edition of the dictionary of music and musicians juxtaposes the jubilee entry ("which can only refer to beethoven") with the one on mozart: "mozart was at the time his ideal composer; this too is plain from the sym­ phonies, but here also he leaves us in no doubt" (1890,3:322).49 a typical more recent observation comes from john reed: "temporarily at any rate, mozart had replaced beethoven as the god to be worshipped" (1997:22).50 in addition to the cherished idea of artistic communion and the clas­ sical musical values represented at salieri'sjubilee, i would speculate that schubert's attachment to salieri possessed further personal and profes­ sional dimensions consistent with the sentiments expressed on the title pages of his compositions, in his job applications, through the later dedi­ cation of the op. 5 lieder, and in the words he crafted for the celebratory cantata. certainly schubert's career benefited from his association with salieri. moreover, given a stern father at home, one who apparently was determined on schubert'sjoining his older brothers in the family business of teaching school, his role as artistic father-figure may have had more christopher h. gibbs 131 complex psychological components.51 salieri took his mentoring of young musicians seriously, going far beyond buying them ice cream on the gra­ ben. perhaps his own early debt to florian gassmann, as well as a desire to instill his italianate dramatic values over those of beethoven (or even of rossini, the far too popular italian competition), motivated some of his generosity. schubert's gratitude is later echoed by liszt, moscheles, and many other musicians and composers. salieri was kind and supportive to schubert and other talented students; he was also famous, powerful, and professionally helpful. we have seen that in the biographical writing of schubert's life, lim­ ited documentary evidence is supplemented by the reminiscences of the composer's intimates. another element has fundamentally shaped most writings on the composer since the beginning of the twentieth century. as early as 1905, when otto erich deutsch first published collections of schubert documents and anecdotes, the bulk of the evidence of schubert's life has been conveniently assembled and, to a certain extent, predigested. deutsch's two magisterial compilations-schubert: a documentary biography and schubert: memoirs by his friends-provide most of the important and relevant documents about schubert, even if in an often incomplete and not always reliable format. in addition to offering essential primary and secondary sources, deutsch adds another crucial component: his own com­ mentary. his commanding knowledge of viennese musical life justly de­ serves praise; it is remarkable, given the historical circumstances under which he worked, as well as the technological limitations with which he had to contend, that relatively little of great documentary importance has surfaced since his collections appeared so many years ago. deutsch re­ frained from explicit interpretation (he never wrote a biography of schubert) and strove to present just the facts. but his commentary is, of course, a kind of interpretation in itself and the apparent objectivity has meant that deutsch's opinions often go unquestioned. in his commentary on the salieri diary entry deutsch accurately observes that the word: "eccentric" [sic-translation, of course, adds another layer of interpretation] (bizarr) was amadaus wendt's word for "beethoven's manner" in the leipzig allgemeine musikalische zeitung (1815, cols. 387-9). judgments of this kind were thus in the air; but we may suppose that in those days schubert was under the influence of salieri, who may possibly have said something of the kind himself, in his broken german, in the course of his address early in the evening. (deutsch 1946:64)52 deutsch suggests that the views expressed in schubert's diary may in 132 current musicology fact be more salieri's than his student's, for they are consistent with the kapellmeister's longstanding anti-germanism. anselm hiittenbrenner, another pupil, wrote an extended tribute upon salieri's death in the leipzig allgemeine musikalische zeitung, in which he remarks salieri "labored with all zeal against the constant and glaring changes of key, so common of late years, and likened certain modern composers to people who jump out of the window to get to the street" (thayer 1989:94). the critical view proffered in schubert's diary not only relates to the classical/romantic opposition observed by grove, reed, and many other commentators, but also addresses more specifically the mixture of the comic with the tragic that some contemporaries found "bizarre." donald francis tovey, no doubt (and once again) with schubert's diary entry in mind, remarked, "schubert, in the year of his death, had not yet attained the power of shakespeare and beethoven in blending tragedy and comedy; though he had long overcome his early resentment against beethoven's use of that power" (1949:125). in einstein's gloss of schubert's diary he comments on the young composer's "reservations" about features in beethoven's music that other contemporaries found "original." einstein understands that schubert professed attraction to beethoven's second symphony and suspects a similar affection for the first and fourth. "but what did he think of the eroica, the seventh or eighth, or even the pasto­ ral ... we have no evidence of his reaction, but in his heart of hearts he must have rejected such works ... " einstein mentions other "bright, straight­ forward, and companionable" pieces, such as the septet, op. 20, the early violin sonatas (those dedicated to salieri), the string quartet in a major, op. 18, no.5, and so forth, which he speculates must have appealed to schubert, but not the op. 59 string quartets and other later pieces. "this constant alternating between attraction and repulsion prevented schubert from becoming beethoven's direct successor, let alone from deliberate imitation" (1951:14-15). yet in the absence of verbal accounts of schubert's opinion about any but a handful of specific beethoven compositions, one has to speculate as to how certain works by the older composer left their mark. pace einstein, the eroica, seventh, and pastoral have been felt by other commentators to have profoundly influenced schubert.53 i would suggest another way of thinking about schubert as beethoven's "direct successor" that goes beyond the music. schubert's famous com­ ment to spaun-"secretly, in my heart of hearts, i still hope to be able to make something out of myself, but who can do anything after beethoven?" (deutsch 1958:128)-captures a crucial dilemma (even ifit is spaun's in­ vention and, in any event, supposedly uttered at an early age). it is not just the concrete musical quotations of, allusions to, and modeling after beethoven (of which there are more than for any other composer) that christopher h. gibbs 133 emerge in schubert's compositions, but also crucial aesthetic and profes­ sional implications. beethoven showed schubert what music could be and do, as well as offering an example of what, where, and with whom to per­ form. his own professional problems notwithstanding, beethoven was a model for how to create not just a musical masterpiece, but also a musical life, a career in vienna in the opening decades ofthe nineteenth century. beethoven was the living example of someone dwelling and working in the same time and place, associating with many of the same performers, publishers, patrons, critics, and audiences. we limit our understanding of beethoven's influence on schubert (and others) if we look only at the notes. einstein speculates that schubert might not have been attracted to the "razumovsky" quartets, op. 59. but even if we concede the point in purely compositional terms, the fact that schubert tried to issue his own trio oflarge quartets, op. 29 (only no.1 in a minor appeared), dedicating and having them performed by beethoven's "fiddler," ignaz schuppanzigh, shows an aesthetic ("long and difficult" quartets, as the leipzig allgemeine musikalische zeitungreferred to beethoven's) and professional model (same performers and concert venue) that very much inspired schubert. finally, any complaints about beethoven's blending ofthe comic and tragic reso­ nates with charges leveled against schubert's own mixtures-such as of the elevated and the social or popular-that have marked his reception from the beginning. in short, the diary entry, whether it reflects the views of schubert, salieri, or of more general contemporaneous opinion, raises important musical and aesthetic issues current around 1816. all this said, when reading the diary entry carefully, one sees that in fact schubert says nothing against beethoven directly. 54 rather, schubert's comments may indicate little more than an identification with a benign mentor shepherding his flock. the picture is offset by thoughts of a great german artist (an implicit contrast to our mediocre italian composer?), whose followers create bizarrmusic. the great artist himself goes unnamed­ his name need not be taken in vain-but his epigones are criticisized, per­ haps echoing salieri's well-known views. the diary entry presents a rhe­ torical study in antitheses. two leading figures are set in opposition (nei­ ther is named) and their followers are invoked; the observations seem con­ trived rather than grounded in experience. as deutsch correctly notes, bizarrwas a common word in beethoven reception,55 yet one could add that it was also applied to schubert. 56 schubert may have wondered how to walk the fine line between the re­ vered classical tradition and the "great german artist." the best known anecdotal trace of this concern is the alleged remark to spaun during their student days together about doing "anything after beethoven." that was the challenge-to follow beethoven's example if not necessarily his 134 current musicology style. in fact, during the coming years schubert would see comparisons between him and beethoven raised in the most prominent critical arenas. reviewing the sonata in g, op. 78 (d894), the critic for the leipzig allgemeine musikalische zeitungproclaimed: "the composer, who has made for himself a numerous following by not a few excellent songs, is capable of doing the same by means of piano pieces." but he promptly warned schubert about the dangers of using a unique genius as a model-a warn­ ing that resonates with schubert's own diary entry and the problem facing all of beethoven's followers: beethoven appears to us to be in a class by himself alone, as it were, especially as he showed himself in his middle and later period, so that in truth he should not by any means be chosen as an absolute model, since anyone who desired to be successful in that master's own line could only be he himself. (deutsch 1946:69394) this comment, interestingly, mirrors schubert's own comment in his diary with respect to the dangers of being a follower of beethoven. schubert frequently faced the challenge of his music beingjudged by beethovenian standards. the prestigious leipzig journal often made the comparison, beginning with its initial notice of schubert in 1820: "in this first dramatic essay [schubert's die zwillingsbriider] seems to attempt to fly as high as beethoven and not heed the warning example of icarus" (deutsch 1946:139). the evaluations sometimes worked to schubert's benefit, as when a critic from the same journal lauded the "freedom and originality" of the a minor piano sonata, op. 42 (d845), which can "probably be com­ pared only with the greatest and freest of beethoven's sonatas. we are indebted for this uncommonly attractive and also significant work to herr franz schubert, who is, we hear, a still quite young artist of and in vienna" (deutsch 1946:512). granted, these reviews were all still some years in schubert's future, but the dangers inherent in following the greatest living composer were no doubt already on schubert's mind. the recollections of spaun, sonnleithner, huttenbrenner, randhartinger, and others argue that at no time did anyone replace beethoven, nor did any other figure wield such authority. an isolated outburst that schubert made following what must have been a heady and inspiring (and perhaps slightly drunken) evening celebrating his mentor, one that avoids any mention of beethoven's name, came to assume disproportionate importance in schubert's biography. this unwarranted emphasis underscores the paucity of authentic verbal utter­ ances from the composer, which leads to privileging the few pages from christopher h. gibbs 135 his 1816 diary. schubert's only other known diary, or rather fragments from it, dates from 1824 and survives only in copies by eduard von bauernfeld that may well be incomplete and inaccurate (deutsch 1946:336,554). given so little from schubert himself, a problem compounded by the fact that so few of his letters survive, each word assumes extraordinary weight. as i have tried to show, the context of schubert's remark about the bizarr qualities of the music of beethoven's followers is complex and the reasons behind the entry are overdetermined. his comment reflects not only a prevalent critical perception of beethoven at this time, but also the well-known views of salieri, a figure who held considerable personal and professional importance for the nineteen-year-old schubert. it seems quite a stretch for schubert's diary entry to serve as the basis for positing overt hostility on his part toward beethoven, especially when every other pri­ mary and secondary source, his every other action, and a good amount of musical evidence suggest just the opposite. while we need to exercise con­ siderable caution when using the later memoirs of friends and family, we should note in this instance that they are not only undivided in their dec­ larations of schubert's lifelong reverence for beethoven, but also that some of the most knowledgeable individuals (spaun, sonnleithner, and hiittenbrenner) specifically frame the issue at hand as schubert's prefer­ ence for beethoven over salieri. schubert's diary entry is taken out of context in order to assert a larger argument for which there is really no other credible support. the specula­ tive basis for interpretations of his observation on contemporary musical life is forgotten and what remains is the "fact" that the young schubert initially repudiated beethoven. one can only speculate why biographers and commentators would want to make this claim. no doubt the reasons vary, with some perhaps generating a narrative construction that benefits from having a shy, youthful schubert rebelling against a mature, mighty beethoven.57 on firmer ground, and not without justification, grove, einstein, reed, and others believe that schubert was looking to classical models at this time in his career (or perhaps we should say, development). and while this is accurate in some respects, schubert, i think, looked to many places at once. schubert's early symphonies owe clear debts to those by haydn, mozart, and beethoven (newbould 1992). for his lieder, schubert turned to zumsteeg and other prominent lied composers from earlier in the century. it is around this time as well that schubert became familiar with rossini's music and imitated some of the italian's style into his own scores. salieri's revered gluck held a particularly strong appeal as well. schubert alludes to some of these models in his own writings and various friends mention it in their testimony; more importantly all are clearly au­ dible in his music. 136 current musicology schubert was voracious in his musical appetites, just as long as the music was of high enough quality to provide him with opportunities for growth. (thus michael haydn and now largely forgotten lied composers played their relevant part as models in certain genres.) and while on the night in june 1816 that honored his personal, but transitory, mentor schubert may have had little sympathy with some of the modern trends that beethoven's music represented, his one comment in no way indicates that beethoven himself had fallen from favor and was for any period any­ thing less than the dominant musical figure in schubert's life. notes the origin of this essay came from a comment chris hatch made to me over coffee uust one of hundreds of caffeine-laced observations over the past twenty years) concerning a passage in a biography i was writing of schubert. as i have found so often, chris got me thinking about and exploring new ideas. i am grate­ ful for his guidance and friendship. many thanks as well to robert o. de clercq for his astute comments on an earlier version. l. in comparison with other nineteenth-century composers, relatively few of schubert's letters survive. though some have been discovered in recent decades, most of his surviving letters are collected in deutsch (1946 and 1964). he rarely speaks of other composers, but there are infrequent mentions of beethoven that underscore schubert's reverence for the master; see, for example, deutsch (1946:265,339). 2. most of the reminiscences appear in otto erich deutsch (1958), for an excellent survey of the published record concerning the biographical relation­ ship between the composers, see solomon (1979a: 114-25); see also durr (1977:47). nohl (1928) is riddled with errors. 3. there are far too many discussions of beethoven's influence on schubert's music to be cited here; among the most pertinent for the early stage of schubert's career are nettheim (1991:330-31), cone (1970), rieppel (1998), frimmel (1925), orel (1941:18), and eschmmann (1934). of particular relevance is temperley (1981-82). 4. most published reviews of schubert's music that appeared during his life­ time are collected in waidelich (1993); many of them are translated in deutsch (1946); see also mahling (1981). 5. frimmel mentions that schubert's friend eduard von bauernfeld remarked on schubert's early objections to beethoven, but i have been unable to find this reference. in any case, bauernfeld, who was five years younger than schubert, only became acquainted with him in 1825. 6. schubert's diary entry is quoted below. einstein later wrote that, "beethoven remained a disturbing influence on him [schubert] throughout his life .... it is disconcerting to hear a judgment such as this from the mouth of a young man, even though we may excuse it because of the writer's youth and the fact that he was deeply influenced by his revered teacher" (1951:14). christopher h. gibbs 137 7. solomon has upgraded schubert's animus from the way he expressed it in the first paperback edition of the book, which stated schubert "became for a time an opponent of beethoven's music" (1979b:73). 8. solomon begins this article by describing what he perceives as schubert's initial resistance to the older composer: "in his diary for 16 june 1816, the nine­ teen-year-old franz schubert declared his independence from beethoven and what he rightly understood as a fusion of tragic and comic components in beethoven's art" (1979a:114). 9. "schon u. erquickend muss es dem kunstler seyn, seine schuler alle urn sich her versamelt zu sehen, wie jeder sich strebt, zu seiner jubelfeyer das beste zu liefern, in allen diesen compositionen blosse natur mit ihrem ausdruck, frey aller bizarrerie zu horen, welche bey den meisten tonsetzern jetzt zu herrschen pflegt, u. einem unserer gross ten deutschen kunstler beynahe allein zu verdanken ist, von dieser bizzarrerie [sic], welche das tragische mit dem komischen, das angenehme mit dem widrigen, das heroische mit heulerey, das heiligste mit dem harlequin vereint, verwechselt, nicht unterscheidet den menschen in raserey versetzt statt in liebe auflost zum lachen reitzt, anstatt zum gott erhebt, diese(s) bizzarrerie aus dem cirkel seiner schuler verbannt, u. dafur die reine, heilige natur zu blicken, muss das hochste vergnugen dem kunstler seyn, der von einem gluck geleitet, die natur kenen lernt, u. sie trotz der unnaturlichsten umgebungen unserer zeit erhalten hat" (deutsch 1964: 8,5:45). a facsimile of this diary is found in schubert (1928: n.p.). this diary entry has long played a role in accounts of schubert's life as the entire passage appeared in the first substantial biography of the composer, written by heinrch kreissle von hellborn (1865: 1 03-4); the most complete english trans­ lation is by arthur duke coleridge (1869,1:105-6). 10. this document is not in deutsch (1946); a facsimile is given in durhammer and waidelich (1997:66). see also van hoorickx (1989:117). ernst hilmar has speculated that schubert's father approached salieri directly about an audition (1988:15). 11. see mann (1968), orel (1941) and angermuller (1974, 2:i). 12. on a number of occasions schubert set the same text as salieri (e.g. d148, d320, d510); for a comparison see litschauer (2001:7s-80). 13. schubert set metastasio's vtidi quanto adoro (d510; december 1816) and twice set carlo goldoni's la pastorella al prato (d513; 1817?; ttbb) and (d52s; january 1817; soprano and piano); the latter text was also set by fellow student karl freiherr von doblhoff and published in 1820 with a dedication to salieri. kreissle states the instruction ceased in is17 (is65, 1:27). 14. a similar situation arose late in schubert's life when he decided to study counterpoint with simon sechter. 15. the songs are rastlose liebe (di38), niihe des geliebten (di62), der fischer (d225), erster verlust (d226) and der konig in thule (d367); the title page reads "hochachtungsvoll gewidmet von franz schubert." one might speculate on why exactly schubert chose to dedicate german songs set to goethe poems to the notoriously anti-german composer. 16. on this title-page schubert wrote "ecolier de msr. de salieri," to which his teacher himself added "premier maitre de chapelle de la cour imp.: et royale de 138 current musicology vienne." this suggests that salieri may have suggested or requested that schubert identify himself as his pupil. brown notes that salieri was known to identify him­ self as "ejeve de gluck" (1958:213). 17. letter of april 9, 1816. salieri's view of schubert is also recorded in his seminary grades; in october 1813 it is reported that, "schubert, an excellent youth, is praised by imperial kapellmeister salieri for his superior musical talent and as the composer of several good musical pieces" (deutsch 1946:37). 18. the date is often given incorrectly in the schubert literature; see benedikt (1997:64-66) . 19. kreissle got the information from josef doppler. 20. the information comes from ferdinand schubert. kreissle reports that "therese grob cannot remember this second performance" (1869, 1:36). rita steblin astutely points out, however, that "as a woman she could hardly have taken part in the court church performance" (2002:63). 21. see wadelich (1993: nos. 6, 8,12; see also nos. 14,93). 22. walther durr doubts this is the case, exactly because of schubert's com­ ment about beethoven's "bizarrerie" in his diary from the previous year (1977:47). 23. the single leaf has an interesting later history in that johannes brahms acquired the "double autograph" in 1872 and added his own name. he gave the "triple autograph" to the archive of the gesellschaft der musikfreunde in 1893; see deutsch (1933:21-27; 1907:136). 24. albert stadler provided a similar account, writing that, "in 1812-14 schubert received direct instruction in composition from salieri. later on this association stopped altogether. salieri is said to have declared that there was noth­ ing more he could teach him" (deutsch 1958:145). stadler could have known ferdinand's report, which first appeared in the neue zeitschrift fur musik in 1839 (vol. 10, no. 10: 37-39; no. 11: 41-44). in an 1829 letter to bauernfeld, spaun stated that ferdinand "misrepresented" schubert's relations with salieri (deutsch 1946:895-95; 1958:30). 25. the famous remark of schubert's first teacher, michael holzer ("if! wanted to teach him something new, he already knew it") may likewise never have been uttered, but it is forever recounted as proof of schubert's god-given talents. in 1858, josef von spaun related a similar comment from schubert's school days: after just two lessons, wenzel ruzicka supposedly remarked, "i can teach him noth­ ing, he has learnt it from god himself' (deutsch 1958:34,128, cf. 145,212,362). these benedictions serve to legitimate schubert's natural genius at the same time as they tend to obscure the scope of his actual training with salieri and others, as well as his reliance on the practical models of mozart, beethoven, and other com­ posers. 26. for background concerning schubert's friends see hilmar andjestremski (1997) and clive (1997). 27. george franz eckel states that schubert was "allowed to leave the house alone, as an exception to the strict school rule, in order to take private lessons with salieri in thorough-bass and composition" (deutsch 1958:50-51). 28. huttenbrenner states that schubert had already been studying with salieri for "several years" (deutsch 1958: 178). huttenbrenner's recollections of schubert are found in deutsch (1906). christopher h. gibbs 139 29. on salieri's teaching style see rice (1998:14,19-21) and angermuller (1970); for brief biographical portraits of salieri's students in composition and voice, see angermuller (1974, 2:i,302-23). anselm huttenbrenner also comments on salieri's teaching method in his memorial tribute in the leipzig allegemeine musikalische zeitung (1825:796). 30. schindler wrote this in response to leopold von sonnleithner's obituary of schubert published in the monatsbericht der gesellschaft der musikfreunde in feb­ ruary 1829 (deutsch 1958:10-12). mayrhofer's account, which schindler men­ tions, was published the same month in the neues archiv fur geschichte, staatenkunde, literatur und kunst (deutsch 1958: 13). schindler later commented, "his old men­ tor salieri had left perceptible gaps in this subject [counterpoint] as had haydn, in days gone by, with beethoven" (deutsch 1958:315). schubert apparently had just one lesson with sechter shortly before his death. 31. holzapfel could have known spaun's published account from 1829. 32. lina ramann comments that liszt studied beethoven scores with salieri (1880:38-39). regarding salieri's considerable kindness toward liszt, including a remarkable letter to prince esterhizy written in support of the young musician, see walker (1983:73-76). 33. randhartinger may not be the most reliable source, some of his accounts come secondhand, some long after the facts, and are self-serving (he was a com­ poser and successful musician), but in this matter he is in agreement with many others. 34. another report on the cause of the fallout between the two is less well known for it does not appear in deutsch (1946; 1958). kreissle reports that josef doppler gave the reason as salieri's cutting out and correcting those passages in schubert's mass in b "that reminded him of haydn and mozart .... others, on the contrary, are of the opinion that salieri's proposals to schubert to write music for the italian stanze induced him to quit the master" (1869, 1:29). 35. earlier in this obituary spaun commented that schubert's "youthful fire and originality deviated from the forms which the venerable musician had hith­ erto honored as the only legitimate ones" (deutsch 1958: 19). years later spaun gave a similar assessment: "schubert often spoke with gratitude of salieri, and the instruction was certainly useful, but when salieri repeatedly took schubert seri­ ously to task for occupying himself with poems in the barbarous german language and requested him not to compose anything more at all in german but, on the other hand, to set to music insignificant italian poems, schubert lost his patience and with redoubled zeal followed the direction which his master condemned but which was assuredly the right one for him" (deutsch 1958:130). schubert's dedi­ cation of goethe songs, op. 5, is somewhat curious in light of spaun's accounts. 36. the information comes from a letter to ferdinand luib dated march 7, 1858 that is not included in deutsch (1958). see deutsch (1906). 37. other concerts included 1808 prometheus (thayer 1921, 3:60-61); salieri programmed works by beethoven at concerts given for the benefit of the witwen und waisen der tonkunstler-societat, of which he was director and conductor. the program given on december 22 and 23, 1797 included woo 28; on april 2, 1798, op. 16; and on march 30 and 31, 1817, christ on the mount of olives and the seventh symphony; see angermuller (2000, 2:337-38, 2:342, 3:127-28). 140 current musicology 38. salieri's name does not appear on the title page of the first edition of beethoven's variation set. steven moore has speculated that the final variation, a lindler, is "probably a gibe at salieri's efforts to regale the viennese by aping singspiel." see moore (1991:295). 39. letter dated january 7,1809. see also albrecht (1996, 3:133). 40. see wiener zeitung (december 20, 1813) for a description ofthe concert. 41. this piece was apparently not published. see thayer (1921,2:259). 42. see vienna allgemeine musikalische zeitung (february 14,1818): 58-59. 43. see kohler and herre (1968/1970/1978, 4:252 [positions]; 4:259 [suicide attempt]; 5:40 [salieri's daughters]; 5:5,136, 7:114 [mozart's death]. 44. see leipzig allgemeine musikalische zeitung 18 only 1816): 514. 45. angermiiller notes beethoven's "conspicuous" absence (1974, 2:i,299). 46. the work exists in two versions-the other is for ttb with piano and omits the following tenor solo and canon (d441) (brown 1958:217). massin specu­ lates that perhaps schubert made the work a trio because hiittenbrenner was absent and could not sing with assmayr, mozatti, and schubert (massin 1993: 117). 47. schubert reports that, "today i composed for money for the first time" (deutsch 1946:65). 48. see, for example, newbould (1992:86-109). 49. this passages has been reprinted in grove (1951:129). 50. see also newbould (1997:61). 51. it is pointless to speculate too much given the paucity of information that survives. likewise, one could hazard a freudian/bloomian reading of the diary entry itself, as evidence of oedipal resistance and a strong misreading of beethoven. 52. many scholars have accepted deutsch's suggestion; see brown (1958:218) and mckay (1996:63). 53. many points are addressed by brian newbould (1992); concerning the eroica see also griffel (1997:196-97), chusid (1997), and gibbs (2000:157); con­ cerning the seventh symphony, see temperly (1981-82) and brown (1958:185). 54. indeed, in one of the earliest commentaries on the passage, richard heuberger stated that it is "difficult to say" to whom this refers: "in salieri's circles this sharp expression might have been spoken about beethoven, who had himself stayed far away from the jubilee. schubert, however, saw in beethoven his musical god and he could not have meant him." (1902:30); facsimiles of two pages from the diary are given on pages 31 and 101. 55. see kunze (1987) and senner (1999-2001); william meredith will con­ tribute an essay entitled "bizarr beethoven" to the third and final volume of the latter collection that traces the historical use of this word in musical writings of the time and its application to beethoven. i am grateful for his sending me an early version of that essay. 56. see, for example, the review of schubert's rosamunde in der sammler on december 30, 1823 (waidelich 1993: no. 231; deutsch 1946:313). 57. schubert's image has consistently been constructed in relation to beethoven's; see gibbs (1997:48-52). references anderson, emily, ed. 1961. the letters of beethoven, 3 vols. london: macmillan. christopher h. gibbs 141 angermuller, rudolph. 1970. antonio salieri und seine 'sculoa di canto'." in beethoven-studien: festgabe der oesterreichischen akademie der wissenschajten zum 200. geburtstag von ludwig van beethoven, edited by erich schenk, 37-50. vienna: hermann boehlaus. --. 1974. antonio salieri: sein leben und seine weltlichen werke unter besonderer beriicksichtigung seiner 'grossen' opern. munich: e. katzbichler. --. 2000. antonio salieri: dokumente seines lebens. berlin: k.h. bock. albrecht, theodore, ed. and trans. 1996. letters to beethoven and other correspon­ dence. lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press. benedikt, erich. 1997. notizen zu schuberts messen: mit neuem urauffiihrungsdatum der messe in f-dur. osterreichische musikzeitschrijt 52: 6469. braunbehrens, volkmar. 1992. maligned master: the real story of antonio salieri, translated by eveline kanes. new york: fromm international. brown, maurice je. 1958. schubert and salieri. the monthly musical record 88 (november idecember): 211-19. ---. 1958. schubert: a critical biography. london: macmillan. brusatti, otto. 1978. schubert im wiener vormarz: dokumente 1829-1848. graz: akademische druckeund verlanganstalt. chusid, martin. 1997. schubert's chamber music: before and after beethoven. in the cambridge companion to schubert, edited by christopher h. gibbs, 174-92. new york and cambridge: cambridge university press. clive, peter. 1997. schubert and his world: a biographical dictionary. new york and oxford: oxford university press. cone, edward t. 1970. schubert's beethoven. musical quarterly 56 (4):779-93. deutsch, otto erich. 1906. anselm huttenbrenners erinnerungen an schubert. jahrbuch der grillparzer-gesellschajt 16: 99-163. --. 1907. franz schuberts aufenhalt in graz 1827. die musik qanuary 1/15): 10f.,9lf. --. 1933. das doppelautograph beethoven-schubert. neues beethovenjahrbuch 5: 2lf. ---. 1946. schubert: a documentary biography, translated by eric blom. london: jm. dent. --. 1958. schubert: memoirs by his friends, translated by rosamond ley and john nowell. london: a.& c. block. --. 1964. schubert: die dokumente seines lebens. in neue ausgabe samtlicher werke, series 8: supplement, vol. 5. kassel: barenreiter. durhammer, ilija and till gerrit waidelich, eds. 1997. schubert 200 jahre. heidel­ berg: edition brans. durr, walther. 1977. wer vermag nach beethoven noch etwas zu machen?: gedanken uber die beziehungen schuberts zu beethoven. beethovenjahrbuch 1973/77: 48-67. eschmmann, hanns. 1934. schubert-beethoven: ein stilkritischer vergleich. inaugural dissertation, university of cologne. einstein, alfred. 1947. music in the romantic era. new york: w.w. norton. ---.1951. schubert: a musical portrait. new york: oxford university press. frimmel, theodor von. 1925. beethoven und schubert. die musik 17 (march): 142 current musicology 409-16. --. 1926. beethoven-handbuch. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. gibbs, christopher h. 1997. 'poor schubert': images and legends of the com­ poser. in the cambridge companion to schubert, edited by christopher h. gibbs, 48-52. new york and cambridge: cambridge university press. ---. 2000. the life of schubert. new york and cambridge: cambridge univer­ sity press. gingerich,] ohn michael. 1996. schubert's beethoven project: the chamber music, 18241828. phd diss., yale university. griffel, l. michael. 1997. schubert's orchestral music: 'strivings after the highest in art.' in the cambridge companion to schubert, edited by christopher gibbs, 193-206. new york and cambridge: cambridge university press. grove, george, sir. 1890. a dictionary of music and musicians. london: macmillan. --. 1951. beethoven, schubert, mendelssohn, edited by eric blom. london: macmillan. hess, willy ed. 1959. beethoven: supplemente zur gesamtausgabe 1, mehrstimmige italienische gesiinge ohne begleitung. wiesbaden: breitkopf & hartel. heuberger, richard. 1902. franz schubert. berlin: verlag harmonie. hilmar, ernst. 1988. franz schubert in his time, translated by reinhard g. pauly. portland: amadeus press. hilmar, ernst and margret ]estremski, eds. 1997. schubert-lexikon. graz: akademische druckund verlaganstalt. hoorickx, reinhard van. 1989. schubert: further discoveries since 1978. music review 50: 103-23. kinsky, georg and hans halm, eds. 1955. thematisch-bibliographisches verzeichnis azzer vollendeten werke ludwig van beethovens. munich: g. henle verlag. kohler, karl-heinz and grita herre, eds. 1968/1970/1978. ludwig van beethovens konversationshefte. leipzig: g. henle verlag. kramer, richard. 1973. beethoven and carl heinrich graun. in beethoven studies, edited by alan tyson, 18-44. new york: oxford university press. --. 1975. notes to beethoven's education. journal of the american musicologi­ cal society 28 (i): 72-101. kreissle von hellborn, heinrich. 1865. franz schubert. vienna: carl gerold's sohn. --. 1869. the life of franz schubert, translated by arthur duke coleridge. london: longmans and green. kunze, stefan. 1987. ludwig van beethoven, die werke im spiegel seiner zeit: gesammelte konzertberichte und rezensionen bis 1830. laaber: laaber-verlag. litschauer, walburga. 2001. schubert und sein lehrer salieri. schubert: perspektiven i: 74-83. mahling, christoph-hellmut. 1981. zur rezeption von werken franz schuberts. in zur auffuhrungspraxis der werke franz schuberts, edited by vera schwarz, 1233. munich: katzbichler. mann, alfred. 1968. schuberts studien. in neue ausgabe siimtlicher werke, series 8: supplement, vol. 2. kassel: barenreiter. massin, brigitte. 1993 [1970]. franz schubert. paris: fayard. mckay, elizabeth norman. 1996. franz schubert: a biography. new york and lon­ don: oxford university press. christopher h. gibbs 143 moore, steven. 1991. to the "new manner" born: a study of beethoven's early varia­ tions. phd dissertation, university of illinois at urbana-champaign. mosel, ignaz franz edler von. 1827. ueber das leben und die werke des anton salieri. vienna: wallishausser. nettheim, nigel. 1991. how the young schubert borrowed from beethoven. mu­ sical times 132: 330-32. newbould, brian. 1992. schubert and the symphony: a new perspective. london: toccata press. --.1997. schubert: the music and the man. berkeley and los angeles: univer­ sity of california press. nohl, walther. 1928. beethoven's and schubert's personal relations. musical quar­ terly 14 (4): 553-62. nottebohm, gustav. 1873. beethovens studien. erster band. beethovens unterricht beij haydn, albrechtsberger und salieri. leipzig: j. rieter-biedermann. orel, alfred. 1941. der junge schubert: aus der lernzeit des kunstlers. vienna: a. robitschek. ramann, lina. 1880. franz liszt: als kiinstler und mensch. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. reed, john. 1997. schubert. new york: oxford university press. rice, john a. 1998. antonio salieri and viennese opera. chicago: university of chi­ cago press. rieppel, daniel. 1998. to find one's path: the early keyboard sonatas of schubert and their relation to the work of beethoven. schubert dureh die brille 21: 89110. senner, wayne m., ed. 1999-2001. the critical reception of beethoven's compositions by his german contemporaries, vols. 1 and 2. lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press. schubert, franz. 1928. pages from schubert's diary. new york: advisory board of the schubert centennial. solomon, maynard. 1979a. schubert and beethoven. 19th-century music 3: 11425. ---. 1979b. beethoven. new york: schirmer books. --. 1998. beethoven, revised second edition. new york: schirmer books. steblin, rita. 2002. schubert's beloved singer therese grob: new documentary research. schubert durch die brille 28: 55-100. temperley, nicholas. 1981-82. schubert and beethoven's eight-six chord. 19th­ century music 5: 142-54. thayer, alexander wheelock. 1901-11. ludwig van beethovens leben, edited by hermann deiters and hugo riemann. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. --. 1921. the life of ludwig van beethoven, edited by henry edward krehbiel. new york: the beethoven association. --. 1989. salieri: rival of mozart, edited by theodore albrecht. kansas city, mo: the philharmonia of greater kansas city. tovey, donald francis. 1949. the main stream of music and other essays. oxford: oxford university press. waidelich, till gerrit, ed. 1993. franz schubert dokumente 1817-1830, volume 1. tutzing: hans schneider. 144 current musicology walker, alan. 1983. franz liszt: the virtuoso years. new york: alfred knopf. williams, adrian. 1998. franz liszt: selected letters. new york and oxford: oxford university press. scores schubert, franz. variationen uber ein franzosisches lied fur das piano-forte auf vier hiinde verfasst, und dem hrn ludwig van beethoven zugeeignet von seinem verehrer und bewunderer franz schubert. 10tes werk. cappi und diabelli, vn 9996, wien [19.4.1822j. the concept of ausweichungin music theory, ca. 1770-1832 janna k. saslaw in this essay i should like to address a misconception among some present­ day writers who equate the late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century german concept of ausweichungwith the modern notion of modulation. one typical twentieth-century definition of modulation, from arnold schoenberg's the structural functions of harmony, states that, "one should not speak of modulation unless a tonality has been abandoned definitely and for a considerable time, and another tonality has been established harmonically as well as thematically" (1968:19). chromatic pitches intro­ duced in a less definite manner are treated as embellishments to diatonic members of the prevailing key. thus, the designation "v of v" indicates a harmony that, while not strictly diatonic, may be considered within the pitch constellation of a key. applying the modern notion of modulation retroactively to the work of theorists from the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries can produce negative assessments like the following entry on gottfried weber in damschroder and williams' bibliography, music theoryfrom zarlino to schenker. a shift of tonal center is accommodated simply by indicating the key in which a group of roman numerals is to be interpreted. weber used this technique freely-perhaps too freely for twentieth­ century tastes, which have generally inclined towards the concept of applied, or 'secondary,' dominants. (377) it is my contention that our modern sense of modulation-that is, the process of firmly and definitely leaving one key and establishing another­ can mask the true nature of ausweichung. to this end, i shall examine the term ausweichungas employed by five theorists-johann philipp kirnberger and johann sulzer, heinrich christoph koch, georg vogler, and gottfried weber-over a period spanning 1771 to 1832.1 in the writings of these five authors, a usweichung proves to be an extremely flexible concept, encom­ passing gradations from the briefest references to other keys to complete modulations in the modern sense. in the following discussion, therefore, i shall leave ausweichunguntranslated, and allow the authors in question to define it. i should state that the german word modulation is also used by these theorists. usually, modulation describes harmonic and melodic pro­ gression in generai,2 but it is occasionally treated as synonymous with current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 146 current musicology ausweichung, particularly by kirnberger. complicating matters further, later in the nineteenth-century modulation began designating a formal change of tonal center, while a usweichungwas reserved only for passing references to other keys. 3 another factor that makes it difficult to assess analyses from these au­ thors is that one cannot look at the analytical graphs alone. it is often crucial to read all the accompanying discussion, as well as definitions and discussions in other passages in a treatise, or even in other volumes by the same author. a final complicating factor is our tendency to look at the past through the lens of extended chromatic tonality. this may cause certain features of the theories articulated by these five authors to be overlooked. these writ­ ers conceive of tonality as comprising a specific limited set of pitch classes, a conception different from that of theorists of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. schoenberg accurately recognized the discrepancy be­ tween the modern and the earlier notion when he stated that, "intermix­ ing of substitute tones [i.e. chromatic pitches] and chords with otherwise diatonic progressions, even in non-cadential segments, was considered by former theorists as modulation. this is a narrow and, therefore, obsolete concept of tonality" (1968:19). as a result of this diatonic sense of tonality, these enlightenment-era theorists display an acute sensitivity to the harmonic introduction of chro­ matic pitches. this sensitivity, in turn, results in notational systems and modes of discourse that recognize changes of key that may appear too frequent for some modern readers. example 1, a portion of an analysis by weber of his own composition, polimeter (1830-32, 2: 177-824 ), a song for four voices with piano accompaniment, might have inspired the statement quoted earlier from damschroder and williams. we see beneath example 1 the combination of upperand lower-case arabic letters and roman nu­ merals that weber invented to designate key and scale-degree functions of each chord, and which is still in use today. the upperand lower-case let­ ters and numerals represent, respectively, major and minor keys and chords. the superscripted circle represents diminished chord quality (note that weber placed the circle before the roman numeral, not after). two of weber's labels here require explanation. in m. 24 we see that weber treats augmented sixth chords as altered forms of ii in minor (since this is a german sixth, it is also v7 of g, considered enharmonically). in m. 29 we see that weber treats diminished seventh chords as incomplete dominant ninth chords and so labels them v7. for the moment, i only wish to indicate the kind of passage that can be misunderstood if the modern concept of modulation is applied. notice that almost every bar in the example, which incorporates a substantial janna k. saslaw 147 example 1: weber's analysis of his own composition, polimeter (1830-32). 21 '" ~ soprano i ~ h soprano ii ~ tenor ~ bass : "/'i ~ u cembalo : 29 ~ii!! ~ ~ ~ itt 'j b : 2~1i !! 1 u h" : h ... : cemb. polimeter o .... 0' .. ltd· -& -& ~u tu. ~ -& #u fib •• ho' ... -. '"' h" ~ h ... -& "~ vi -.ljtoo'-.i ~o .... ~~ . i ~u ~-& ~u -& f1i:oii7 fh g:v7 " ,~ """ :!!~ -& gottfried weber . ~~ .. ~ .. ~~ !!~ u ff .... '"' 0 nff .... '" 0 ff • e ff 1 c0 '"' 0 ff -& ?j :& f~:v 148 current musicology amount of chromaticism, contains the designation of a key different from that of the bar preceding it. some of the bars have been provided with two different key labels. in weber's view, these are measures in which the de­ termination of a single key is not possible, at least on first hearing of the passage. i shall return to this example for further examination. before turning to a selection of statements by this group of german theorists, a few words are necessary about the specific pitch collections they considered diatonic. most of the authors (koch, vogler, and weber) cited here draw the pitch classes that comprise a key from the contents of the three fundamental or essential triads: i, iv, and v. kirnberger and sulzer draw the pitches of a key from major and minor scales. the prod­ ucts of these two methods of derivation are essentially the same in the major mode, but diverge with respect to the minor mode. weber recog­ nizes only the harmonic minor, vogler the natural minor, and kirnberger, koch, and sulzer the melodic minor. kirnberger's discussion of ausweichungin his principal treatise, die kunst des reinen satzes (1771-79), begins with the requirement for key-orienta­ tion that, "one sings or plays in a certain key as long as no notes other than those contained in the diatonic scale of that key are sounded in the melody and harmony" (1968,2:103; 1982:121).5 vogler, in his handbuch zur harmonielehre (1802), defines the term diatonic as "the [scale] with 7 tones that has no more tones than the key itself has; there is no chromatic key, because not more than 7 tones can have a claim on the principal tone" (3).6 both of these assertions point to a restricted notion of key. in a de­ scription of cadential progressions, vogler explains that a (half) cadence from the second scale-degree with raised third (i.e., an augmented sixth chord) "takes place only in the minor key." in the major key, "as soon as one gives the second scale-degree its major third, it is no longer the sec­ ond but quite definitely the fifth of another key. for example, d-f-a [is] ii of c major, while d-fjl-a [is] v of g major" (48).7 this assertion indi­ cates how easy it is to create an ausweichung to another key within such a restricted notion of tonality. sulzer, in the article "scale" in the allgemeine theorie (1792) , provides guidelines for preserving the sense of the original key in a composition, stating: in the construction of a piece the principal scale and key in which it is to be set is the main object of the composer, because, if the ear is to be under the influence of the principal key, no tones can be heard other than those contained in its scale. the tones of this scale must predominate in the entire composition, particularly at the beginning and at the end. in the middle it is permitted for the janna k. saslaw 149 purpose of variety now and again to violate one of the tones of the scale and by this means diverge [ausweichen] into subsidiary keys whose scale, however, must differ from the scale of the principal key by only one tone, so that it is easy to return from it to the principal scale and the sense of the latter will not be lost. in this manner unity and variety are brought about in the tones of the piece. (1970,4:550) information about the sense of tonality must be gleaned from many different areas in the treatises under consideration here. among these areas are dictionary entries under such terms as ausweichung, "key" (tonart) , "diatonic" (diatonisch, leitereigen) , and "scale" (tonleiter); discussions devoted exclusively to ausweichung;, and explanations of cadences and harmonic progression in general. an examination of analytical tables and essays is helpful in determining which harmonic events are considered to fall within a key and which initiate a change of key. in these sources, we find that a dominant seventh chord usually requires the designation of scale-degree v and a diminished seventh chord necessitates the designation vii, or per­ haps v, if it is viewed as an incomplete dominant ninth chord. therefore, a harmony taking on one of these forms through the introduction of non­ diatonic pitches automatically refers to a new tonic. these theorists, however, often permit one common alteration to the diatonic collection to be considered as within the realm of a key. this is the raised fourth scale-degree, especially in the minor mode, where it par­ ticipates in the augmented sixth chord. vogler goes the farthest to formal­ ize the relation of this degree to the tonic, allowing it to occur in both major and minor, and allowing it to function as a chord root, a function it does not receive from any of the other theorists examined here. neverthe­ less, when describing the raised fourth degree created by adding a major third to the chord on step 2 of the minor scale, vogler calls the altered pitch "foreign to the scale." thus the integrity of the scale, and conse­ quently of the tonality, is of great importance to these theorists. as the above quotation from sulzer has already suggested, some of these authors (kirnberger, sulzer, and weber) represent the orientation to a key and the reorientation to a new key in the process of ausweichungin terms of the mind's cognitive apparatus, expressed as "the ear" (most of­ ten the german das gehor, but occasionally das ohr). let us examine this representation more closely, beginning with statements from kirnberger's treatise. "each key has its essential degrees which define it and its mode," he states. "these essential degrees are contained in the tonic triad. thus, when such a triad occurs at the beginning of a composition or a period, the ear is under the influence of that key" (1968, 2: 1 04; 1982: 122). mter 150 current musicology the beginning of a composition or period, the procedure for orienting the ear to a key becomes more complex: ... the tonic triad is sufficient to announce the key only at the beginning of a piece, before the ear is under the influence of any scale. however, if one goes from one key to another, the triad in the new key must be preceded or immediately followed by a note foreign to the former key. this note, which is essential to the new key, erases, so to speak, the feeling of the old key. in kirnberger's view, a special key-sense arises in the listener after the music has remained in the key for some time: "when one has played for a while in the original key, the ear is so much under the influence of this key that it feels the entire diatonic scale to some extent on each chord" (1968, 2:105; 1982:123). in the case of ausweichung, "if the harmony moves to a new key, the [listener's] ear attunes itself to the scale of this new key in the same way as it did with the preceding one." kirnberger suggests that the ear actively searches for a stable position in its harmonic surroundings, changing that position only when events make it absolutely necessary. sulzer's description of ausweichung is more detailed than that in kirnberger's treatise, tracing the process from beginning to end. sulzer states that: one remains in a key as long as no tones are heard other than those which lie in that key's scale: however, as soon as another tone is heard, the ear receives a hint that one is leaving the previous key, and wishes to go to another. if one is playing in c major, and allows f# or g# to be heard, then the ear feels that the previous key will be left ... this mere hint however is still no real transition to another key; rather it announces the ausweichung. this announcement must occur so that the key to which one wishes to go is indicated, or so that the ear expects it. if a chord that belongs to the new key follows this expectation, then the ausweichung is complete. (1970, 1:283) this quotation indicates the stages of the process that must occur in order for an ausweichungto be completed. when tones foreign to the prevailing scale are introduced-giving the ear its first signal of a possible change to come-the original key must be considered still in effect, even though a movement to a new key has been initiated. if the foreign pitches are such that they indicate a particular goal, creating an expectation of the new key to follow, then the composer can confirm and fulfill that expectation or janna k. saslaw 151 deny it with subsequent harmonies. of the writers surveyed here, gottfried weber is the most explicit about the function of the cognitive apparatus in the formation of a sense of key. this approach is reflected in weber's definition of key-orientation as "[ t] he method in which the impression of a key is produced in the ear, especially now of this key, now of another; how the ear is attuned to such a key, and either remains in this attunement or is re-attuned from one key to an­ other" (1830-32,2:97). underlying weber's concept of key is a natural tendency of the mind, using the ear as a conduit. he explains: when our ear detects a progression of tones and harmonies, it strives, according to its nature, to find an inner coherence in this diversity, a relationship to a common center ... the ear generally wants to feel one tone as [the] primary and central tone, one harmony as primary harmony, around which the others revolve as secondary objects around their primary object ... (2:1) furthermore, one often finds whole strings of harmonies, each of which causes a different key to be perceived; nevertheless the ear always strives to understand each of these different harmonies as belonging to some key. (2:1-2) in his chapter on harmonic progression, weber discusses how the ear ac­ tually understands different harmonies in the context of a key. this lengthy discussion, which includes a consideration of ausweichung, proposes prin­ ciples that predict how the ear will interpret harmonies (saslaw 1991). * * * * * we may now look more closely at the range of meanings expressed by the term ausweichung. several of the writers under consideration here explic­ itly document this range. heinrich christoph koch describes ausweichung in volume 2 of his versuch einer anleitung zur composition (1782-93), argu­ ing that the nature of an "ausweichungfrom one key to another depends in particular on whether it is 1) only accidental, or 2) passing, or rather 3) formal" (1969, 2: 188).8 in the previous volume of his treatise, koch had already introduced the first of these types-accidental ausweichunrin terms of setting a cantus firmus: 152 current musicology example 2: examples of accidental ausweichung. h. c. koch, versuch einer anleitung zur composition (1:293-294). a) b) , ~ i ~ u ~ i ~ ~ ~ ii ~ c) d) ,~ i r r ~~ ~ ii j r e) ~? iu ,u i~ ~ f if one gives to the succession of different tones in a cantus firmus the appearance of a tone-succession in another key by means of the added voice, a new diversity of setting arises. i wish to call this procedure an accidental or, even better, a brief intentional ausweichung. (1:292)9 this kind of ausweichung occurs only when it is not required by the nature of the cantus firmus itself. it is therefore an intentional choice of the composer devising the new voice, and is brought about to vary the setting. this method, in which certain tones of the key are arbitrarily raised or lowered in the added voice, has its foundation "not in the prevailing key itself, but rather in another related key" (1:296).10 example 2 illustrates five different ways of adding a contrapuntal line to the descending scale­ segment e-d-c-b in the upper voice, which appears in the first bar of each version. example 2a begins and ends in c major. example 2b moves to a minor within the span of these four notes. example 2c goes to g major. example 2d moves to a minor and then returns to c major in the same span. likewise, example 2e goes to g major and back to c major. passing ausweichung, koch's second type, is described as follows: i call a passing ausweichung . .. that in which the entrance to the new key truly takes place by means of its characteristic tone. however, as in [ex. 3] the new key is not continued, but rather is led immediately back to the previous key ... or, as is the case in [exx. 4 and 5], is followed immediately by one or several passing ausweichungen, before either the previous principal key or one of janna k. saslaw 153 example 3: example of passing ausweichung. h. c. koch, versuch einer anleitungzur composition (2:189). ii example 4: example of passing ausweichung. h. c. koch, veersuch einer anleitungzur composition (2:189). example 5: example of passing a usweichung. h. c. koch, versuch einer anleitung zur composition (2:189). its subsidiary keys ... is established (2: 188) y koch explains that in example 3, the dominant key of g major is intro­ duced, while in example 4 (m. 1), ~ introduces the sub dominant, c ma­ jor, on the last sixteenth. in the second bar of example 4, the pitch g# introduces a minor, the submediant of the previous c major. 12 however, koch asserts, none of these keys is formally established, as they are in ex­ ample 6, by being extended and then confirmed by cadences. passing ausweichungen are often very appropriate, koch claims, for avoiding the harshness common when moving to distant keys (2:189-91). koch asserts that formal ausweichungmay be initiated in three differ­ ent ways: 1) the new key may be heard for some time, but without a cadence, [and then] the main key or one of its subsidiary keys returns and is closed with a cadence ... [this method is] used only in the case where the new key is too distant from the principal key of the 154 current musicology example 6: examples of formal ausweichung. h. c. koch, versuch einer anleitung zur composition (2:190). a) ~ 'tr , g lit ~r ~ it ie ~ if £ ii i i ~ i "i passage to allow a formal close ... 2) immediately after its entrance there is a cadence in the new key ... [this is common] in short passages, such as dance melodies ... 3) [the new key] is heard for some time, and then a cadence is effected ... this last method of formal ausweichungis common in long passages. (2:191-92). although koch postulated three different degrees of ausweichung, his state­ ments suggest that he had only one definition: movement out of the pre­ vailing key and into the new key, however briefly the latter is retained.13 gottfried weber provides the following delineation of two degrees of ausweichung, written in 1832. "an ausweichung either entirely erases the feeling of the previous key and impresses the new one on the ear-or not" (2:99-100). immediately we see that weber is expressing a different con­ ception of ausweichung from that of koch. weber describes the first of these degrees of ausweichungin the following colorful manner: if the feeling of the previous key in the ear is entirely destroyed, and the ear is so completely and overwhelmingly reattuned to the new key that is forgets the former completely and unmistakably embraces the latter; if the new key is introduced as a new principal character, which places the former completely in the shade, displaces and causes it to be forgotten, attracts the whole interest to itself, and established itself on the tonic throne;-then such an ausweichungmay properly be called complete, or whole ... on the other hand: if it is rather of the type that does not completely erase the feeling of the previous key in the ear, if it does not impress on the ear janna k. sasla w 155 completely the attunement of the new key, but allows the feeling of the previous one back again; it allows the new key to enter, not so much as a principal character, but rather, so to speak, as subordinate character, to playa short scene,-then this ausweichung is called properly incomplete or half. such a progression seems less a real, unmistakable ausweichung than an easy allusion to a foreign key ... about the effect of such an allusion to a foreign key, weber states: we will see ... that many ausweichungen are so transient that they hardly deserve the name, in that they digress, as it were, only quite fleetingly to a new key, so that the ear doesn't cease for a moment to feel the previous key as principal key. at the end of this detailed description, weber adds a final character­ ization of the relationship between his two degrees of ausweichung. although he has named them "whole" and "half," these varieties cannot be so clearly distinguished: by the way, a distinct boundary between whole and the so-called half ausweichungen cannot be drawn, because the difference exists only in the more or less, which, according to its nature, is capable of an unending number of gradations, between which no positive boundary lies. (2:99-100) during the course of his analysis of polimeter (see ex. 1), weber puts his view of ausweichunginto practice. he asserts: from m. 21 through [m. 35] i have followed the thread of the progression with the greatest possible precision; nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the thread is often rather complicated, uncertain, and hard to follow, because of the frequently occurring chords with more than one meaning, the numerous half­ ausweichungen, and the like, so that the ear, in the process of listening, can easily lose sight of [the thread] at any moment, and does not find its way again for certain perhaps until m. 33, 34, or [even] 35. (2: 180-81) it is clear from this statement that many of the key-designations in this analysis do not represent modulations in the modern sense, but instead are half-ausweichungen-that is, they only partly erase the sense of the pre156 current musicology example 7: j. p. kirnberger, the art of strict musical composition (1982:127). a 9:n ii ii if if i~ p i~ in ii ~ c major g major a minor (eminor) f major d minor c b 9: ii ii id i~ r i~ p ii g in ii i, aminor eminor c major dmmor f major gmajor a vious key or keys. in this circumstance the accumulation of half­ ausweichungen, combined with ambiguous harmonic formations, results in the ear losing its tonal orientation. 14 kirnberger, in die kunst des reinen satzes (1771), distinguishes types of ausweichung by the degree of closeness of the new key. the first type, re­ stricted to closely related keys, he calls "common" (1968,2:107; 1982:125). in this variety of ausweichung, he argues, ... it is a general rule to proceed in such a way that the main key, in which the piece begins and ends, is never completely erased. one should digress to another key only after the ear is almost satiated with the main key, and these secondary keys should not erase the main key to the extent that it is completely forgotten. kirnberger's reason for restricting ausweichungin this manner is that the ear has difficulty when it is forced to change keys. "it is easy to imagine and even easier to hear how difficult and unpleasant it is for the ear to attune itself suddenly to a scale that differs greatly from the one it has felt shortly before" (1968,2:105; 1982:123). because the main key must never be erased by any secondary keys in common ausweichung, kirnberger develops a set of rules and tables to guide the reader in this endeavor. he limits the keys suitable for a usweichung to certain diatonic degrees of the main key, and limits the amount of time one can remain in them. is example 7 depicts the keys to which one can go from c major and a minor, and the relative amounts of time one can remain in each. this example is also presented in sulzer's allgemeine theone, in the article "ausweichunff' (1970, 1:283) which cites jean:jacques rousseau as its source.16 by regulating the amount of time allotted to each key, kirnberger implicitly allows the closer relations to be more firmly established than the more distant ones. again, we see a contrast between kirnberger's sense of ausweichungand that of koch. for janna k. saslaw 157 example 8:]. p. kirnberger, the art of strict musical composition (1982:136). a) unmittelbare (direct) ausweichung i~i ii • b) mittelbare (indirect) ausweichung 1. dureh einen zwischenton a mol oder d mol (through a passing key of a or d minor) ~ ~ 7 7 ~ ~ -j ·ii~i ilu -r ·ii~i ii 2. dureh mehrerc zwischentone (through several passing keys) 7 ~ ~ ~ ~ -r -j ·r ·ii~i ii kirnberger, if the ausweichungen in a composition are properly handled, the listener never completely loses a sense of the original tonic key. furthermore, kimberger distinguishes different degrees of ausweichung in his discussion of "passing keys" or zwischen tone, through which one may move indirectly from one key to another. in "indirect" (mittelbare) ausweichungen one remains in these passing keys "only one or two mea­ sures." example 8 contrasts a "direct" (unmittelbare) ausweichungto the domi­ nant (ex. 8a) with an indirect ausweichungthrough one or more passing keys (ex. 8b). according to kimberger: the notes in the shape of breves indicate keys in which one remains for six, eight, or more measures; the half-notes indicate those which one touches on only in passing, without remaining there longer than one or at most two measures; the black note-heads indicate notes by which the cadence [to the following key] is prepared or where the actual shiftto the new key occurs. (1968,2:119; 1982:135) in this way, kimberger distinguishes between the key that is the goal of the progression and those that are intermediate means to reaching it. unlike koch, weber, and kimberger, vogler is not explicit about dif­ ferent degrees of ausweichung. the reader must glean his views from scat­ tered statements in his writings. example 9 presents an excerpt from the slow movement of a symphony by the mannheim composer peter winter, included in an analytical discussion by vogler dating from 1780. in his is 8 c u r r e n t m u s ic o l o g y e x am p le 9: g . v ogler, b etrachtungen der m annheim er t onschule 1:4. ( ( .~ f>-. (' ~ f>-. ~ " [ ( ~ ~ i oc !oj oc )' , , -.9 '0 :> ~ -'< ~ " ' i ' c < " ) \ ; ) ; \ ! ~ \ ii -. !oj " , , ~ w i · , ) ( , l'( ,. · \ ~ ) ~ ~ 1l i · , ) \ ' ( · , il ii ) ( ~ ( ( , (, if .. , ' ( :'c oc ~ oc ~ ) , " >n 1'-.e< 'i \ .n ,-/ i--l \ --:=~ ( i.. i i i i " ( janna k. saslaw 159 example 10: g. vogler, thirty-two preludes, no. 8. 21. 22. 23. 4 3 4 3 6 7\ 5 4 3# fundamental c gil a -0 e voice or bass 13 12 5\ 7 9\ 8 3# primary triads a b a e [a minor:] i viii i ii i v 24. 2 fe\, 0 7, f b, vi v i [bb] 25. 26. 27. 28. 6, 3\ 6\ 4 3 4# 6 o c 5 7 13 12 3\ b, gil a [a:]viii i 4 3 5\ 4 7 7\ 5 6\ 6 3# 3\ gil a-o ea ii 10 5\ a b a e vijli [i] ii i v i 29. commentary, vogler describes the harmonic plan of each period in the movement. the first period, mm. 1-8, begins and ends in f major. it is vogler's discussion of the second period, mm. 9-16 (ex. 9), ending in g, that reveals his view of certain ausweichungen. he gives the following state­ ment about mm. 15 and 16: the major third of d, f# [m. 15, beat 4], and the g with major third b as first scale-degree [m. 16] must not be regarded as an aberration, as if this ausweichungcontradicted the tonal unity off; because this momentary digression is sufficiently justified through the resolution of f[-natural] as true [minor] seventh of g, the fifth scale-degree of c [major]. (103) 17 in other words, the brief ausweichungto g major does not disturb the sense of the prevailing key, f major, because the pitch f# is abandoned quickly for f'cj, a member of the dominant chord ofc major, which, in turn, is the dominant of the principal key of the composition. although he does not use the same terms as kirnberger and weber, vogler's understanding of ausweichungis, in this case, essentially in agreement with theirs. example 10 is from vogler's analysis of the eighth of his 32 preludes for the organ and fortepiano (1806:23-24; see also vogler 1986). along with a graphic representation of the harmonic plan, of which this example is an excerpt, vogler provides a lengthy discussion of rhetorical and aes­ thetic issues in this piece (1806:18-29; translated and discussed in vogler 1994,1:132-45). each column in the graph depicts the contents ofa single measure of the score. the upper portion of each system provides the ac­ tual bass notes and figures for the upper parts. the lower portion of each system presents the fundamental harmonies upon which the chords are based and the roman numerals designating the chords' scale-degree func160 current musicology tions in the prevailing key is in places where no fundamental bass is given, the sounding bass note is also the chord root. since vogler does not specify keys with his roman numeral notation, i have added them in brackets. vogler's remarks in the accompanying text assert that, "a minor pre­ vails throughout mm. 21-29" (1806:21; 1994:138). yet in m. 24 an ausweichungto b~ major is indicated by the roman numerals v and i (the i extends into m. 25). the designation vii# under the second half of m. 25 signifies a return to the context of a minor. apparently, this brief ausweichung---like that examined by vogler in winter's symphony-does not disturb the sense of the prevailing key. later in this same analysis, vogler recognizes that eight bars in e~ major in an overall context of d minor are analogous to what is today called the neapolitan sixth chord, and that the former key is "reliant upon the principal tonic" (1994:143) .19 it is unfortunate that vogler did not devote more attention to this issue in his analyses. * * * * * in conclusion, this essay has been intended as a cautionary note against regarding late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century notation as im­ plying full modulations in the modern sense. however, we also must not regard the statements of the writers examined here as exhibiting a dis­ crepancy between notation and conceptual foundation. rather, as a result of subsequent developments in music and music theory, the significance of their notational conventions has changed. this essay draws attention to elements that contributed to the conception of tonality exhibited by these theorists: an acute sense of diatonicism; a continuum of extremely subtle gradations in the notion of ausweichung, perhaps more subtle than that of modern-day theorists; and, in a few of these authors, a view of key-orienta­ tion that focuses on the mind's capacity for comprehending musical events. the writings cited here make a larger point about reading historical documents as well. while many ofthe problems of interpreting documents from the past arise from unfamiliar terms or notational conventions, we must be careful not to take the familiar ones at face value. unfortunately, there is no shortcut for understanding the work of authors such as kirnberger, koch, sulzer, vogler, and weber. it is only through careful examination of an entire body of work that we can approximate what these writers were trying to communicate to their readers. notes 1. one could probably extend the examination with somewhat similar results to the french term modulation, and to other languages, since the conceptual orijanna k. sasla w 161 entation suggested here would still apply to many other theorists of the time. 2. the older sense of the german (or french) modulation comes from the latin, modulatio (meaning "measurement, arrangement, regulatation"), and was current in the early eighteenth century. weber, for example, uses ausweichungand ausweichende modulation interchangeably. see new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "modulation" (by janna saslaw). 3. see handworterbuch der musikalischen terminologie, s.v. 'modulation" (by christoph von bliimroder). 4. the piano accompaniment is taken from the published score (weber 1811). it is interesting to note that weber's 1832 treatise contains b#s in mm. 23-24 (so­ prano ii and piano accompaniment), while the 18ll score uses c~s. i have used the former in the example, since it accords with the later version of the passage. it may be noted that b# agrees with the q minor and f# minor interpretations of the two bars, while q agrees with the e minor and g major interpretations. 5. johann sulzer's article "ausweichung" in the allgemeine theone der schonen kiinsteof 1771 (1970, 1:282-87-this is a reprint of the second edition) contains a discussion of the topic similar to that in kimberger's die kunst des reinen satzes, vol. i, also from 1771. both treatments result from the collaboration of kim berger and sulzer, with the former sketching his theoretical ideas and the latter polishing them (see [siegel 1960:18] and [kirnberger 1982:xi]). translations from kirnberger (1968) included here draw upon those of the 1982 edition, but differ in some respects, in particular leaving ausweichunguntranslated, rather than ren­ dering it as "modulation." all other translations in this essay are my own. for the purposes of simplicity in this essay, i shall use the name sulzer when referring to sulzer (1970) and kirnberger when referring to kimberger (1968), as a short­ hand for the combined efforts of the two writers. 6. "diatonisch die einfache von 7 tonen, die nicht mehr tone als die tonart selbst hat; denn es gibt keine chromatische tonart, weil nicht mehr als 7 tone anspruch auf den hauptton haben konnen ... " 7. "der schlubfall vom zweiten in den fiinften ton findet nur im weicher tonart statt ... in der harten tonart, sobald man dem zweiten tone seine grosse dritte beilegen wollte, er nicht mehr der zweite sondern ganz bestimmt der fiinfte von einem andern tone ware, z. b. d f a[,] ii von c; d fis a[,] v von g." 8. "bey der ausweichung einer tonart in eine andere, kommt es nun aber besonders darauf an, ob sie 1) nur eine zufallige, oder 2) eine durchgehende, oder aber 3) eine formliche ausweichung ist." 9. "wenn man der folge verschiedener tone eines festen gesanges durch die darzu gesezte stimme das ansehen der tonfolge einer andern tonart giebt, so entsteht eine neue mannigfaltigkeit des satzes. dieses verfahren will ich eine zufallige oder noch besser eine kurze willkiihrliche ausweichung nenne." 10. " ... nicht in der zum grunde liegenden tonart selbst, sondern in andern ihr verwandten tonarten ihren grund haben." 11. "eine durchgehende ausweichung ... nenne ich diejenige, bey welcher zwar der eintritt in die neue tonart vermittelst ihres characteristischen tones wirklich vor sich gehet, bey welcher aber in dieser neu eingetretnen tonart mit der tonfiihrung nicht fortgefahren, sondern diese entweder sogleich zuriick in die vorige tonart gefiihret wird, wie bey fig. [3]; oder nach welcher sogleich noch 162 current musicology eine oder mehrere durchgehende ausweichungen folgen, ehe entweder die vorhergehende haupttonart, oder eine ihrer nebentonarten, ... fortgefiihrt wird; wie z. b. bey fig. [4 and 5]." 12. it is unfortunate that koch does not comment on example 5, which is perhaps the most interesting of the three passages. presumably the ausweichungen are to c in mm. 1-2, to a minor in m. 2, b minor in m. 3, back to g major or possibly e minor in mm. 3-4, and finally ending with d major (although not with a full close). 13. nancy baker notes (pers. comm., october 1991) that koch himself gets confused between his three gradations of ausweichung. in one case (not discussed in this article), he designates an ausweichung as passing and then also labels the same ausweichungas incidental (1969,2:204). 14. whether or not this passage might be more profitably analyzed in voice­ leading terms is another question. here, we are dealing only with what weber means by labelling these ausweichungen. 15. see brumbaloe (2001) for more on the proportions of time allotted to ausweichungen by writers of this period. 16. sulzer does not cite a specific source from rousseau, but the example appears in a complete dictionary of music (rousseau 1975:252). although the chart does have the different note values representing proportionate times allotted to each key, rousseau's keys and their ordering differ slightly from those in example 7. from the key of c major, rousseau claims one can go to g major, f major, a minor, e minor, and d minor, in that order. in a minor one can go to c major, e minor, d minor, and f major only. the earliest appearance of this chart is in rousseau (1751-65). a modern edition of the article's text may be found in rousseau (1985). the musical plates are in vol. 4. rousseau (1978) is an edition of the plates alone. the chart in question is in vol. 3, plate 1779, figs. 6-7. 17. see also commentary on this passage in grave and grave (1987:58-64). 18. vogler had invented the use of roman numerals to represent scale de­ grees in 1776 in the monograph tonwissenschafi und tonsetzkunst (vogler 1970). he used uppercase roman numerals for all chord qualities. 19. ian bent claims that in this discussion "at one stroke [vogler] identifies without name the neapolitan sixth chord, tonicization and prolongation!" (vogler 1994: 134). nevertheless, vogler still must label the passage as oriented toward e~ as i (not as ~ii). we may certainly regard vogler's analysis as a first step in recogniz­ ing the modern concept of tonicization, even though the notation cannot yet reflect this. references brumbeloe,joseph. 2001. implication of modulation for temporal organization in selected eighteenth-century theoretical sources. theoria 9: 65-87. damschroder, david a. and david r. williams. 1990. music theory from zarlino to schenker: a bibliography and guide. harmonologia no.4. stuyvesant, ny: pendragon press. grave, floyd k and margaret k grave. 1987. in praise of harmony: the teachings of abbe georg vogler. lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press. kirnberger, johann phillip. 1968. die kunst des reinen satzes. 2 vols. hildesheim: janna k sasla w 163 georg olms verlagsbuchhandlung. (orig. pub. 1771-79.) --. 1982. the art of strict musical composition, translated by d. beach and j. thym. new haven and london: yale university press. koch, heinrich christoph. 1969. versuch einer anleitung zur composition. 2 vols. hildesheim: georg olms verlagsbuchhandlung. (orig. pub. 1782-93.) rousseau, jean-jacques. 1751-65. modulation. in encyclopedie, ou dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers, par une societe de gens de lettres. paris: chez briasson: david l'aine: le breton, imprimateur ordinaire du roy: durand. --. 1975. modulation. in a complete dictionary of music, translated by w. war­ ing. new york: ams press. (orig. pub. 1779.) ---.1978. plate 1779. diderotencyclopedia: the complete illustrations 1762-1777. new york: harry n. abrams. --. 1985. modulation. in encyclopedie, ou dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des metiers. elmsford, ny and paris: pergamon press. (orig. pub. 175165) saslaw,janna k. 1991. gottfried weber's cognitive theory of harmonic progres­ sion. studies in music from the university of western ontario 13: 121-44. schoenberg, arnold. 1968. structural functions of harmony, rev. ed., edited by l. stein. new york: w. w. norton. siegel, hedi m. 1960. johann georg sulzer's allgemeine theorie der schonen kunste: an examination of the articles of music theory. masters thesis. columbia university. sulzer, johann georg. 1970. allgemeine theorie der schonen kunste. 2nd ed. hildesheim: georg olms verlagsbuchhandlung. (orig. pub. 1792.) vogler, georg. 1802. handbuch zur harmonielehre und fur den generalbajj, nach grundsiitzen der mannheimer tonschule zum behuf der offentlichen vorlesungen im orchestrions-saale auf der k. k. karl-ferdinandeischen universitiit zu prag. prague: k. barth. --. 1806. zwei und dreisig priiludien fur die orgel und fur das fortepiano nebst einer zergliederung in iisthetischer, rhetorischer und harmonischer rucksicht, mit praktischem bezug auf das handbuch der tonlehre vom abt vogler. munich: falter. --. 1970. tonwissenschaft und tonsetzkunst. hildesheim: georg olms verlag. (orig. pub. 1776.) --. 1974. betrachtungen der mannheimer tonschule 1:4 (september 15). hildesheim: georg olms verlagsbuchhandlung. (orig. pub. 1780.) ---.1986. pieces de clavecin (1798) and zwei und dreisig priiludien (1806), edited by f. k. grave. recent researches in the music of the classical era, vol. 24. middleton, wi: a-r editions, inc. ---.1994. [prelude] nr. 8 [in d minor from vogler's thirty-two preludes]. in music analysis in the nineteenth century. vol. 1: fugue, form, and style, edited by ian bent. new york and cambridge: cambridge university press. weber, gottfried. 1811. zwolfvierstimmige gesiinge, op. 16. augsburg: gombart. --. 1830-1832. versuch einer geordneten theorie der tonsetzkunst. 3rd rev. ed. 2 vols. mainz: b. schott's s6hne. toward a revised understanding of young children's musical activities: reflections from the "day in the life" project susan young and julia gillen introduction: versions of musical childhoods the tradition of developmental psychology has been of fundamental im­ portance in providing versions of musical childhoods, particularly for the earliest years of childhood. however, in its focus on the individual child and in its search for musical behaviors assumed to be common across all children, developmental psychology has tended to be insufficiently interested in wider cultural processes. at the same time, the disciplines of ethnomusicology, the sociology of music, and popular music and media studies, valuable as they are in describing and theorizing the nature of sociocultural practices in music, have almost nothing to contribute to our understanding of musical practices in young children's lives, particularly before they attend school. what insights we do have into children's musical lives are drawn mainly from studies of play activity when children are attending out -of-home care and education (campbell 1998; k. marsh 2005 )-much less are they drawn from family life in the home. there is little indeed concerning children's everyday experiences of music once they are in elementary (or equivalent) schooling that is not simply pedagogic in purpose (barrett 2003; campbell 1998). we suggest, then, that the integration of interdisciplinary accounts of young children's musical experiences is essential if we are to acquire fuller understandings of their musicality, the diversity of their musical practices, and how they develop musically within heterogeneous contexts. in taking a perspective on children's musical practices or "musical lives," we wish to signal that we are interested in both the music that is presented to or selected by the child and the nature of children's responses. as barrett observes, such seemingly sharp distinctions are often blurred: "children's music has a double-edged meaning in the realm of music education, at times interpreted as music made by adults for children, at other times interpreted as music made by children" (2003:200). existing accounts of music for young children and the versions of musi­ cal childhoods that they convey place emphasis on traditional repertoires of children's songs: lullabies, play songs, and ring games. these repertoires have been collected and collated, those with an interest in children's folkcurrent musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 79 80 current musicology lore studies leading the way. how they are enacted has been documented, primarily with attention to the detail of performance and less to the use of these songs and their integration into the fabric of young children's lives in homes and families. moreover, in earliest childhood, the performance of children's songs sits very comfortably within imagined traditions and somewhat idealized versions of musical childhoods and parenting. taking a perspective informed by wider cultural processes gains extra urgency given the rapidly changing nature of contemporary young children's lives (prout 2005), a generation that is everywhere touched by phenomena loosely grouped under the term "globalization" -although, with lull (1995) and many other commentators we do not intend to imply a homogeniza­ tion of material circumstance or experience. nevertheless there can be few communities where the tremendous pace of technological innovation, the changing nature of family life, and the possibility at least of making claims as to the commodification of childhood do not have some resonance. for many children, their home is an increasingly media -rich, technolo­ gized environment 0. marsh 2004) in which digitized musical and other sounds emanate in a sometimes constant, certainly varied, and copious aural landscape from tv, video, dvds, music players of all kinds, ringtones, toys with digitized tunes incorporated, musical mobiles, and other sound-making domestic devices (young, street, and davies 2007). in many societies such innovations often take place without any contemporary changes to living conditions (lull 1995). yet for many, the home is now the primary site of cultural participation-more so than community sites outside the home-in which families select, import, integrate, privatize, personalize, and routinize music in ways that mediate between their own family priorities and values and those of the culture at large, purchased, beamed, or downloaded into their homes (chaney 2002; lull 1995:28). the study the work that will be reported here has been taken from a larger study entitled "a day in the life" (gillen et al. 2007). in this study, a single day of home-care for seven two-and-a-half-year-old girls living in different coun­ tries (canada, italy, peru, thailand, turkey, uk, usa), was video-recorded by project researchers, at least one of whom was either indigenous to the country or with considerable experience there. in an ecological approach to research, this video data was supported by a considerable body of other data including preliminary interviews, field notes, and mappings of the home environment. the video data was then reviewed against a number of themes, some identified prior to the data collection and some, including susan young and julia gillen music, identified once the data reviewing was underway. such had been the quantity and variety of music and dance activity discovered in the "days" during early reviews of the video data that this became one main focus. l importantly, therefore, the music theme had not been indicated either to the parents or researchers prior to the collection of the video-data. we suggest, then, that the inclusion of music within the days could be taken as approach­ ing normal practice but with awareness that the parents probably presented, to some extent, a "model" version of a day-a version that demonstrates many of the material resources available to the family and that is revealing of their priorities and values. the video data from the seven complete days was scanned for activities with a musical element. these were first assembled and broadly categorized to give an overview of the different ways in which music was incorporated into the days. analysis then moved deeper into instances of musical activity taken as "situated examples." these sample activities are specific enough to remain close to the situational detail but general enough to support the emergence of some themes. the aim was to remain with examples which are neither too complex with specific analytical detail nor too abstracted to become detached from situation. the project has the advantage of taking place in a diverse variety of settings. investigations of case studies in different countries would once have been termed "cross-cultural." in this study we specifically reject this term which appears to equate "culture" with "country" or "community." we adopt rather a sociocultural understanding of culture pertaining to the young child that is concerned with the patterns of regularities, variations, routines, and values she experiences-and takes a part in shaping-in her environment, especially through interactions with caregivers and other significant people (gillen 2007; gillen et al. 2007; roth 2007:147). the term "cross-cultural" can lead to the conceptualization and operationalization of direct comparisons between the case studies according to fixed measures or pre-selected themes. our approach rather of juxtaposing one family's day with another is characteristic of more inductive interpretation, serving to highlight variations and similarities. moreover, locating this project in a number of diverse sites has assisted in the process of making "visible" the cultural specificity of norms and conventions at least from our own cultural standpoint. a useful notion in considering the musical resources drawn upon in these households is ortiz's ([1947] 1995) concept of transculturation, which challenged the concept of "acculturation" by communities that were being overrun, whether militarily, politically, or economically toward more sophisticated societies. ortiz proposed that the intermeshings of cultural borrowings are extremely 81 82 current musicology complex; they occur in different directions and give rise to new cultural hybrids and forms. we should emphasize that while we acknowledge that ethnocentrism infiltrates every stage of a research process from its initiation to dissemination (christensen and prout 2005), this project has had the benefit of including as researchers participants from most of the settings who have been consulted in the process of arriving at these interpretations. what follows are descriptions of seven examples, one from each of the days. canada it is mid-morning break in the family sitting room; nora is eating a snack and her mother catherine sits with a coffee. her mother asks, "do you want to put music on?" nora replies, ''and i can dance." "and you can dance, that's right. and we have all the music that belongs to you here:' as she is speaking, catherine searches among the collection of cds stored by the cd player that forms part of the family entertainment center and puts on one she has selected (figure 1).2 it is a children's compila­ tion. first is the american song of 1876, "the grandfather clock." the songs are performed by a small ensemble consisting of a male and female singer, percussion, electronic keyboard, clarinet, and flute. for "the grandfather clock" the keyboard is set to play the sound of a harpsichord, presumably to convey the historical, parlor feeling of the victorian clock. barrett draws attention to the construction of childhood by adults as in part mythological: "childhood is simultaneously our fond, adult rememberings of a time past and the immediacy of our own children's lives" (2003:198; citing james, jenks, and prout 1998:59). for the first song, nora joins in with the chorus, singing "stop short, never to go again;' and bounces energetically on her child -size foam armchair while the song plays. when the song has finished, she sings the line from the chorus once more. catherine, sitting with her legs curled and holding a coffee mug in a nearby armchair, is watching and joins in with singing sections of the chorus. she combines sitting and listening with a number of small caring tasks for nora's younger sibling, and so her attention shifts frequently. during the second song, "let's go fly a kite," both mother and daughter return their attention to the song at its conclusion, singing portions of the chorus. the third song, "little brown jug;' prompts an animated tickling bout between catherine and nora, around the words "ha, ha, ha, hee, hee, hee." this continues into the following song, "the monster mash;' which is preceded by mock terror noises from catherine, "ooh, this is the scary one;' and more tickles on the floor. as the compilation continues to play, their attention drifts away from the songs to other activities. susan young and julia gillen figure 1: selecting from "all the music that belongs to you." italy during this hot summer day, beatrice remains in the cool of the apartment. in her home she has been provided with purchased multimedia items intended for her use: disney videos, cds, and tapes. these are played on the media center in the living room, providing child-focused media events at points during the day. after lunch, her father claudio puts on a cassette tape of songs, inviting her involvement in operating the equipment. the tape is a familiar one for beatrice, who engages actively by moving, dancing, gesturing, singing, and responding verbally. left alone at first, she fetches claudio back from the kitchen to join her, and he sits in a chair, at first watching, then whistling the melody of one track and joining in with actions to another (figure 2). beatrice's participation is partly spontaneous and partly structured by her father in ways that are typical in style to early childhood education. we learn from the parent interviews that this tape is provided by her kin­ dergarten as part of a home-kindergarten link. buckingham and scanlon (2003) have drawn attention to the influence in some homes, particularly among the middle classes, of activities framed by educational purposes. 83 84 current musicology figure 2: actions to the music. early childhood education has evolved a distinct repertoire derived from traditional, popular, and composed songs. this repertoire typically structures young children's participation around the reproduction of actions closely associated with the lyrics. peru in peru, after breakfast, lina remains on her bed. her father brings a cd player into the bedroom in order to playa cd of peruvian popular music and encourages lina to dance by performing some elements of the dance movements himself and indeed video-recording her himself for part of the time (figure 3). in other words, lina was being video-recorded by two people at the same time! nevertheless she appears quite comfortable; data from field notes and interviews shows that this pride in her prowess as a dancer, marked by video-recording, was a known, enjoyed, and revisited activity. lina holds her body in an upright stance (standing on the bed) and performs a number of movements characteristic of this style of peruvian dancing. the movements are necessarily adapted to her current physical capabilities and also to the springiness of the bed. as she dances she adopts susan young and julia gillen figure 3: dancing on the bed to an audience of cousin and father (and the researcher). a distinct facial expression and mouths words to the song. her father's con­ tribution is to initiate the activity, to select the track and control the player, and to video-record part of the performance. her imitative enactment of postural and gestural dance forms articulate her emerging membership in this family and its community. thailand in thailand the family compound consists of three homes and a large outdoor space. nong has free run of indoor and outdoor spaces (figure 4). the morning is taken up by a variety of self-initiated play activities, some partnered by her cousin, which are accompanied by the sounds of music and talking from the tv, which is switched on in the main living space. the tv provides a near-continuous aural environment of thai-pop music. this music accompanies nong as she moves in and out of its aural orbit occupied with her play activities, although she does not appear to engage directly with the music through movement or vocalization. turkey in the sitting room of the family home, selin's cousin deniz is sitting on the settee with her twin sister fusun. selin enters the room and climbs on 85 86 current musicology figure 4: on the verandah: birdsong one side; tv the other. to the settee to join them. they have an electronic toy, a kind of pinball machine (figure 5). the toy plays a variety of tunes as balls circulate in two clear outer plastic tubes. holding a central button causes spinning balls to rise slowly in two tubes. pressing another button produces a bird chirping and squawking sound. as selin enters the room, the toy plays "the entertainer" by scott joplin, which is quickly followed by "pop goes the weasel:' the "william tell overture" by rossini, and finally "chopsticks." the shorter melodies ("pop goes the weasel" and "chopsticks") are complete, but the longer melodies ("the entertainer" and "william tell overture") are represented only by their first two phrases. selin has some measure of control over the toy as she operates different buttons. pressing buttons halts the melodies so that they are often heard in short interrupted fragments and incomplete phrases. deniz presses the button to make the spinning balls rise and matches their movement with a vocalization, a slowly rising vocal glissando on a closed-throat vowel sound. when she releases the button, both her voice and the balls fall. selin imitates the ball pressing action and the vocal sound, and deniz joins in. a third time, they press and vocalize together. selin continues to vocalize the glissando while playing with other parts of the toy. susan young and julia gillen figure 5: playing a favorite toy. as well as leading the vocalizing game, deniz also encourages selin to jiggle rhythmically to certain melodies as she claps and sings along. the melodies played by the toy (eight in total) are a mix of children's songs of english-speaking origins and well-known "popular classics." they are melodies that have a long and changing history before arriving in this musical toy. "pop goes the weasel:' for example, is thought to have originated as a london folk song associated with the weaving trade, then becoming more familiar in collections of children's nursery rhymes. the finale to the overture of rossini's opera william tell most notably was adopted as the theme tune of the lone ranger, and it has a long history of popular culture transformations. the history of these melodies and the transformations they have undergone, particularly their popularizing and consequent familiarity, loosens certain connotations they might carry. they have joined a repertoire of short, throw-away tunes that are increasingly embedded not just in children's electronic toys but in gadgetry of all kinds. england it is early morning and the three children, jessica, her twin brother matthew, and her younger sister alison, are in their pajamas with toast and drinks. they sit close to their mother rachel on the play-room sofa to watch a thomas the tank engine video (figure 6). the signature tune introduces and concludes the video. later the family visits a shopping mall where a thomas the tank engine children's ride stands in the entrance. they encounter the same music now emerging from a large-scale, three-dimensional, replica 87 current musicology figure 6: watching a thomas the tank engine video. figure 7: encountering thomas the tank engine in a shopping mall. 88 susan young and julia gillen figure 8: lunch with thomas the tank engine toy and thomas-themed luncheon meat. engine (figure 7). during the midday mealtime, a toy thomas sits on the table and jessica's meal includes luncheon meat picturing the engine's face (figure 8). as arthur (2005: 167) has suggested, these intertextual connections between different media permeated by the same characters both absorb and bestow significance. one of the challenges for theorizing musical practices in early child­ hood is to recognize that music is embedded in these kinds of multimedia arrays (n. cook 1998) in which it blends or blurs with visual forms on screen or page, sounds and speech, and material objects. all this is further confounded when the imagery springs out of the video to morph into other forms during the day-even edible ones-and the music is sometimes there too and sometimes not. whereas adults may assume the boundaries to be clear between these changing media, this is less likely to be the case for young children. and it is even more complex when you consider that children are engaging multimodally with multimedia in interaction with family members whose participation is also multifaceted-and permeated and nuanced by family dynamics. 89 90 current musicology usa a friend is visiting katy's mother elizabeth. they are all sitting in katy's bedroom. throughout much of the period studied here, katy seems par­ ticularly keen to perform and especially to try to dominate the attention of her mother, possibly affected by the constant regard of the video camera on her. in her first musical encounter, she uses her foot to switch on a toy with flashing lights and a choice of, it seems, four nursery rhyme tunes, all rendered in a very reduced way. the first tune that plays is "mulberry bush"; katy responds by tentatively tipping her head a little from side to side while putting hands on hips and smiling, as if in a pre-rehearsed way. this causes her mother, who is being treated as the audience, to make a reference to katy's kindergarten class, suggesting that this movement is understood by both to be an activity encountered there. katy then switches on "old macdonald had a farm" and makes distinct movements, firstly flexing her hands rhythmically by her sides and then changing into a whole body twist, pushing her hips from side to side. the adults join in by appreciatively singing a few of the words from the chorus. katy echoes those same words but at the same time stops "dancing" and goes off into another activity. it appears that this very brief musical interlude causes the adults to think that more sustained child-oriented music might be welcome, and after some minutes of discussion (featuring other strands of conversation too) in which katy is involved, a german cd of the eurovision song contest is selected. the eurovision song contest is explained to the visitor: "this is funny ... all the different countries put in their top song ... it's all kind of pop ... are you ready, katy?" as the music starts (on a portable cd player), with a possibly unfamiliar drum beat and blend of voices and instruments, the mother explains that music might come from moldova or andorra and simultaneously encourages katy who has announced her intention to dance with her "baby" (doll). the scene has been set for katy to "dance" and for the visitor to expect some possibly unfamiliar music-she immediately enquires as to the (foreign) language. katy has decided to dance with her doll, and during the next eighteen minutes she periodically "dances:' often with the doll and sometimes without it, with long gaps between (figure 9). her movement is almost always the same one: spinning round in a circle. this makes her dizzy very quickly, as monitored by her mother. her movement is unrelated to the music except that the music is the stimulus to the act of moving. once she bangs into an object and has to be comforted; later she incorporates comforting her doll for an imagined injury also incurred through the dancing. thus the music is incorporated into pretence play. susan young and julia gillen figure 9: spinning round with a doll to eurovision song contest music. during these eighteen minutes the mother changes the music twice, both changes involving consultations with katy and discussions with her friend. the other two cds are of lullabies and french songs, apparently for children. all selections feature a variety of instrumentation and melody while maintaining a certain simplicity, especially of the vocal line, that one might assume is particularly targeted for family listening (clearly the latter two at least are designed and marketed for this purpose). at one point katy changes her movement to vigorously jumping up and down, which proves as impossible to sustain as whirling round and round. however, one gains the impression that, as much as she delights in the support and encouragement from the adults, her own sense of appropriate movement to these musical sounds is limited, and she finds this limited repertoire not completely satisfactory. it is however perhaps important to say that this aspect of responding to the music is part of many concurrent strands of activity as this time, as is particularly evidenced in the talk by the mother and katy. the music and katy's performance is both explicitly and it seems implicitly linked to other topics. for example shortly after "chocolat" has been mentioned in the french cd, "chocolate cake" features in a pretend tea party that becomes the next focus of activity, again sup­ ported by the adults. 91 92 current musicology discussion returning briefly to a theme from our introduction, conventional accounts of music with the youngest members of families emphasize the performance of a participatory repertoire of children's songs. across the full range of examples of musical activity in the "days," we observed a few instances of one-to-one musical activity which fitted closely with the genre of lullabies and playsongs. we found intimate moments of bodily contact on laps, slow tempo rocking movements, and gentle wavers of words, crooned, sung, or rhythmically spoken. these occurred at moments when, according to our interpretations, the parent decided, consciously or not, that a change in the child's physical and emotional state would be beneficial. to achieve this change in state the parents couple their own musicality to their child's. in other writing these "live," parent-with-child musical activities have been our central interest (young and gillen 2006). however, for this article we have focused on those musical activities which are evolving in the con­ text of home-based technologies and the new media items associated with them. we support minks's (2002) distinction between a characterization of children's music in folklore studies as a narrow, one-mode activity of song­ singing and a broader conception of expressive practices that are "musical, poetic, and kinetic" (2002:401). and, with minks, we place emphasis on the generative interactions with surrounding people and things. these things, the electronic toys, cd players, and cds, extended and supplemented the children's everyday domestic musical experiences. the sociology of tech­ nology is particularly interested in how technology often does not displace existing activities but becomes integrated into them (hutchby and moran­ ellis 2001). from the examples we described, we would suggest that parents' participation in musical activity, which has conventionally been confined to the performance of a specific repertoire of early childhood songs, has not disappeared, but blends and diffuses into musical play with this extended range of musical resources. the resources are frames for musical interac­ tions that afford and articulate musical activities in certain ways. they are porous and flexible, so they can be easily integrated into ongoing everyday activity and connect smoothly to cultural worlds at large (lee 2001). the musical resources themselves thus offer a kind of pivoting medium that both resonates within and without the family. family musical activities being porous and flexible, the musical activities we have described were typically interwoven with other activities and shifted in and out of focus, at susan young and julia gillen times foregrounded and at other times a background to the activities, tasks, and interactions that form the daily fabric of young children's and caregivers' lives. such use of music connects with studies of everyday music in adult lives (denora 2000; sloboda 2005) that reveal the use of music to entertain, enliven mundane activity, and provide interest and a change of pace and mood during time spent often in relatively confined spaces at home. music as a near continuous background to daily life, from radio or tv programs, was a characteristic of some of the days. the flow of music around parts of the day in thailand corresponded to the fluidity of nong's activity, in which she moved in and out of aural orbits of tv and radio, hearing mainly popular music influenced by the crossover between western and thai influences. the family compound offered a large space within the oversight of several members of her extended family, so freedom of move­ ment and play was more easily accommodated than in some more enclosed living spaces. perhaps for this reason nong's day was less orchestrated, in both a metaphorical and musical sense, than the days of some of the other girls. conceptions of upbringing will also playa part, whether parents or other family members are concerned to initiate and manage activities for their young children or whether they allow them freedom to play following their own initiations (levine 2003). thus, the integration of technologized musical practices into the daily lives of our children is related to larger-scale structures such as space, housing, the constitution of the family, and concep­ tions of the parental role. when music was in the foreground of their attention and children were musically engaged, their participation was not continuous but often moved toward and away from points of greater intensity. in turkey, the rising crescendo balls in the toy created moments of high-focus shared activity between selin and her cousin. in canada, the refrain of "little brown jug" around the syllables "hee, hee, hee" cued the tickles between nora and her mother. in italy, beatrice and claudio, anticipating the climax of a song about a wolf, reached a pitch of surprise and excitement. these were moments of shared fun and pleasure, "musical jokes" as levitin would call them (2006:209). such family musical activities, extended by the resources made avail­ able, offered what might be termed "scripts" for participation (nelson and gruendel 1986). these had become revisited and familiar games. they encapsulated a history of participation in which the activities with musical elements had gradually evolved to what we saw during the filmed day and from which they would continue into the future of the parent and child.3 in these ways the parents shape the children's participation, which has an impact upon the children's emerging musical identities (see also j. marsh 93 94 current musicology 2005). our proposition here is that technologies and media items associated with them afford different and potentially greater scope for these processes to occur within the home-whether it be the acquisition of bodily com­ portment as a dancing member of the community, acculturation into local popular music styles and the use of music as an accompaniment to mundane activity, music as "edutainment" (buckingham and scanlon 2003), or the pervading but largely unmarked encounters with music as one of many "intertextual" (arthur 2005) references in a day richly resourced with the material items of commodified childhoods (d. cook 2004; hughes 2005; also young forthcoming). however, our interest in the sociocultural contexts of family music practices does not require that we reject that versions of early childhood musicality which focus on the musical behaviors traditionally investigated by developmental psychologists. in the introduction to this article, we proposed that well-rounded versions will be multidisciplinary. the next two sections therefore focus on the children's musical activity per se. the children's musical activity several of the days featured moving to music, which was referred to as "dancing" in all instances by adults and girls alike. the way the adults participated in the children's moving ranged across a spectrum, from direct modeling and imitation of one another-adult of child or child of adult-to interested attention or partial attention interspersed with other activity. participation on the part of the adult was combined with gestures, calls, and words of encouragement and sometimes with forms of monitoring (to avoid injury to self or sibling). the parents' bodily participation conveyed personal, familial, and cultural variations of bodily style, comportment, and gesture-as much when they did not join in with moving but remained seated as onlookers. hands placed on hips or angled arms held aloft by the parents echoed popular dance styles, either explicitly modeled for imitation or implicitly picked up in the child's movement. the children's movements consisted mainly of twirling on the spot or a regular rhythmic movement such as tapping a leg, bouncing up and down, or swaying the torso. this movement vocabulary partly arises from the children's maturational physical capabilities, their motivation to practice and extend their physical repertoire, and the potentials (and constraints) for movement offered by the furnished indoor spaces. twirling and bounc­ ing boisterously on soft furnishings may be the best options when space is limited. a handful of studies have been interested to identify typologies of movement and their progression in response to recorded music in the susan young and julia gillen home (moog 1976; chen-haftek 2004) and daycare (gluschankof 2005). the children's movements we identified in the days conform to these broad typologies. but we emphasize that, in their wish to normalize, such versions delete the complexities of interactions between the people and things in the child's immediate environment and beyond to the social and cultural context. just as we found congruencies with the few studies of children's moving to music, so we similarly found congruencies with developmental accounts of children as singers. throughout the twentieth century a strong line of research considered how children gradually become singers (for an overview see welch 2006). the girls in our days often joined in with the recorded versions of songs, vocalizing with short snatches which had particular salience-some features which made them distinctive and therefore more graspable, typically repetitive, rhythmic, "catchy" words. it was at these key points that the parents often also joined in. to embark on a detailed discus­ sion of how the children's singing did or did not fit with developmental models is not our purpose here; nor indeed, could the ramifications it would entail be achieved within the scope of this article. but suffice to say that, just as with the dancing, children's musical encounters arise from the many interfaces between their vocal abilities (determined by maturational factors such as length of vocal ligaments and lung capacity), their motivations to sing, and the song-singing experiences offered by their environments (also young 2006). since musical environments are another dimension contributing to an understanding of children's musical activity, the music that prompted the dancing and vocalizing (the music on cd, tv, video, or in toys and rides) that was selected by parents needs to be brought under the spotlight. the musical resources interestingly we heard many instances of "transculturation" as music heard in one location echoed in another. the compilation tapes and musical toys played english-language songs that are conventionally considered to be "nursery rhymes"-carrying on a tradition of assembling children's songs and folksongs from the seventeenth century onwards. each generation selects and filters to arrive at an appropriate repertoire that is both configuring of childhood in general yet at the same time serves to configure a specific child's understanding of music in their particular context. music selected for young children tends to be rendered as innocently free of certain connotations with youth or adult music as possible-although in peru the cafe dance music was an interesting exception. this is an example of an instance where setting the 95 96 current musicology days side-by-side threw into relief certain features which we might otherwise have taken for granted. in the attempt to shake off connotations, "distance," either in time or space, between the present culture and the music's origins seems to be one strategy. for example, elizabeth, our mother in the usa, selected current music, but from a "faraway" little-known country in europe, moldova, and in another language. the compilations contain melodies from traditional or classical repertoires-but reduced, transformed, jostling one with another-all neutralizing, "cleansing" strategies which then allow the music to be simultaneously absorbent and reflective of constructions of musical childhoods. the selected music and its performance feature simple melodic lines, absence of articulation or ornamentation, rhythmic simplicity and regularity, clear vocal timbres, and a preference for higher pitches. so jazz and rock styles, with their characteristic rough, grainy, lower-pitch timbres carrying sexual overtones, are strictly avoided. the anodyne, thin, neutral timbres of electronic toys are well suited, relatively free of associations with existing musical styles. the pace and dynamic are uniformly animated, the songs on cd compilations sung with an earnest enthusiasm, for adults wish early childhood to be happy and carefree. the song topics, similarly, convey images of idealized childhoods: typically rural childhoods of yesteryear, on farms with mulberry trees and domesticated animals. the canadian compilation cd included the songs "over the rainbow;' "i can sing a rainbow," "puff the magic dragon;' and "let's go fly a kite" -all conveying an ephemeral, magical land of childhood. giroux (2000) observes that this striving for bland images of innocence appears to be ever stronger while delivered in ever diversifying commercial forms. conclusion the aim of this article, then, has been to draw on data capturing instances of everyday musical experiences and to consider these from a number of different points of view. for this purpose we pursued interdisciplinary approaches-music psychology's interest in musical development, the sociology of technology, children's popular culture, studies of everyday music, the privatization of musical practices in the home, and the growing recognition of "agency" as children actively construct their own experi­ ences. our intention is to move beyond straightforward, self-contained accounts of developmental musical childhoods or of technological changes and conjectures about their possible impacts on young children's lives. instead, we consider how musical practices are interwoven into young children's everyday experience, with particular attention to how access to susan young and julia gillen new technologies and media resources are changing the nature of family musical practices and participation. we wish also to illustrate some of the ways in which "children's culture" as presented to them especially through technologized media can be viewed as a flexible resource to be taken up in various ways. children "are active contributors to, rather than simply specta­ tors of, the complex processes of cultural continuity and change" (james, jenks, and prout 1998:83). our aim is that this work will contribute to the current, expanding interest in understanding young children's everyday musical experiences and that these understandings can lead to revised and enlightened versions of children's musical childhoods. notes 1. other foci included literacy practices, eating, swings, and hammocks, framed within the project's overarching interest in notions of parenting a "strong" child-with awareness that "strong" may be differently conceived according to varying parental values and priorities. 2. the images in this article have been altered where necessary to protect the identities of the children. 3. see also littleton (2002) for an interesting and valuable account of how recorded music provided scripts for participation in daily home-care between a grandmother and her granddaughter. references arthur, leone. 2005. popular culture: views of parents and educators. in popular culture, new media, and digital literacy in early childhood, edited by jackie marsh, 165-182, london and new york: routledgefalmer. barrett, margaret. 2003. meme engineers: children as producers of musical culture. international journal of early years education 11 (3): 195-212. buckingham, david, and margaret scanlon. 2003. education, entertainment, and learning in the home. buckingham: open university press. campbell, patricia shehan. 1998. songs in their heads: music and its meaning in children's lives. oxford and new york: oxford university press. chaney, david. 2002. cultural change and everyday life. new york: palgrave. chen -haftek, lily. 2004. music and movement from zero to three: a window to children's musicality. paper presented to the isme early childhood commission conference-"els mons musicals dels infants (the musical worlds of children)." escola superior de musica de catalunya, varcelona, spain, july 5-10. christensen, pia, and alan prout. 2005. anthropological and sociological perspectives on the study of children. in researching children's experience: approaches and methods, edited by sheila greene and diane hogan, 42-60. thousand oaks, ca, and london: sage. cook, daniel t. 2004. the commodification of childhood: the children's clothing industry and the rise of the child consumer. durham, nc, and london: duke university press cook, nicholas. 1998. analysing musical multimedia. oxford and new york: oxford university press. den ora, tia. 2000. music in everyday life. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. 97 98 current musicology gillen, julia. 2007. derwent's doors: creative acts. mind, culture, and activity 14 (3): 150-59. gillen, julia, catherine a. cameron, sombat tapanya, giuliana pinto, roger hancock, susan young, and beatrice accorti gamannossi. 2007. "a day in the life": advancing a methodology for the cultural study of development and learning in early childhood. early child development and care 177 (2): 207-18. giroux, henry a. 2000. stealing innocence: youth, corporate power, and the politics of culture. new york: palgrave macmillan. gluschankof, claudia. 2005. spontaneous musical behaviors in israeli jewish and arab kindergartens-searching for universal principles within cultural differences. phd dis­ sertation, hebrew university of jerusalem. hughes, patrick. 2005. baby it's you: international capital discovers the under threes. contemporary issues in early childhood 6 (1): 30-40. hutchby, ian, and jo moran-ellis. 2001. introduction: relating children, technology and culture. in children, technology, and culture: the impacts of technologies on children's everyday lives, edited by ian hutchby and jo moran-ellis, 1-10. london and new york: routledgefalmer. james, allison, chris jenks, and alan prout. 1998. theorizing childhood. cambridge: polity press. lee, nick. 2001. the extensions of childhood: technology, children, and independence. in children, technology, and culture: the impacts of technologies on children's everyday lives, edited by ian hutchby and jo moran-ellis, 153-69. london and new york: routledgefalmer. levine, robert a. 2003. childhood socialization: comparative studies of parenting, learning, and educational change. hong kong: comparative educational research centre. levitin, daniel. 2006. this is your brain on music: understanding a human obsession. london: atlantic books. littleton, diane. 2002. music in the time of toddlers. zero to three: the musical lives of babies and families 23 (1): 35-40. lull, james. 1995. media, communication, culture: a global approach. cambridge: polity press. marsh, jackie. 2004. the techno-literacy practices of young children. journal of early childhood research 2 (1): 51-66. ---.2005. ritual, performance, and identity construction: young children's engagement with popular culture and media texts. in popular culture, new media, and digital literacy in early childhood, edited by jackie marsh, 28-50. london and new york: routledgefalmer. marsh, katherine. 2005. a cross-cultural study of the musical play practices of children in school playgrounds. in the legacy of john blacking: essays on music, culture, and society, edited by victoria rogers and david simonds, 152-66. crawley: university of western australia press. minks, amanda. 2002. from children's song to expressive practices: old and new directions in the ethnomusicological study of children. ethnomusicology 46 (3): 379-408. moog, helmut. 1976. the musical experience of the pre-school child, translated by claudia clarke. london: schott. nelson, katherine, and janice gruendel. 1986. children's scripts. in event knowledge: structure and function in development, edited by katherine nelson, 36-57. new york: norton. ortiz, fernando. [1947]1995. cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar, translated by harriet de onis. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. susan young and julia gillen prout, alan. 2005. the future of childhood. london and new york: routledgefalmer. roth, wolff-michael. 2007. introduction: heeding the unit of analysis. mind, culture, and activity 14 (3): 143-49. sloboda, john. 2005. exploring the musical mind: cognition, emotion, ability, function. oxford and new york: oxford university press. welch, graham. 2006. singing and vocal development. in the childas musician: a handbook of musical development, edited by gary mcpherson, 311-29. oxford and new york: oxford university press. young, susan. 2006. seen but not heard: young children's improvised singing. contemporary issues in early childhood 7 (3): 268-78. ---. forthcoming. lullaby light shows: everyday musical experiences among under­ two-year-olds. international journal of music education 26 (1). young, susan, and julia gillen. 2006. communicative musicality as parenting practice. [la musicalita comunicativa come pratica educative.] rassegna di psicologica 3 (23): 61-77. young, susan, alison street, and eleanor davies. 2007. the music one-to-one project: developing approaches to music with parents and under-two-year-olds. european early childhood education research journal 15 (2): 253-67. 99 current.musicology.84.1-100.pdf current musicology, no. 94 (fall 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 165 wayne d. bowman and ana lucía frega, eds. 2012. the oxford handbook of philosophy in music education. london and new york: oxford university press. reviewed by joseph abramo all musicians, regardless of their chosen area of study, take on the role of an educator at some point in their career. as luis alfonso estrada rodgriquez writes, “[m]any musicians devote time in their lives in one way or another to teaching. this is, however, an activity that in many cases was not taken into account in their studies” (240). in particular, music theorists and musicologists often serve as instructors in higher education and, therefore, devote many hours to the pedagogy of music. the oxford handbook of philosophy in music education, edited by wayne bowman and ana lucía frega—a collection of writings from leading, contemporary music education philosophers—provides a useful resource for those academics of music that find themselves in this common position. in this review, first i briefly provide the historical progression of music education philosophy over the last forty years in order to situate the ideas and themes for readers outside the field of music education. second, i highlight some important themes within the book, focusing on connections among the chapters rather than addressing them separately. third, i suggest how academics outside of the field of education may apply it to higher education. finally, i remark on the connection between theory and practice in this text and music education scholarship and look to the future. the context of music education philosophy although typically thought of as confined to music in k–12 contexts, music education as a discipline encompasses a wider variety of contexts. as bowman and frega note in their introductory chapter, “[s]chools . . . are not the only places where music education occurs; nor are the profession’s concerns restricted to school–age children in institutional settings” (19). whether in a garage, where teenagers teach each other rock songs; a bedroom, where novice musicians use recording software to create music; or a municipal recreation hall, where young and old perform in community choirs, bands, and orchestras, the education of music takes place when anyone engages with music, even when there is no official “teacher” present. because of the diversity of settings, what constitutes music education is not limited to formal education of school–aged students, but includes any current musicology 166 situation where people work alone or come together in a social setting to create, discuss, and, ultimately, learn about music. while the environments of music education are diverse, music education philosophy remains cohesive because of its pragmatic and practice–oriented inquiry rather than theorizing education removed from practice. educators consider philosophy as valuable only when considered in relation to practice. as sandra stauffer notes in her chapter on “place” or context in education, if the questions [music educators] ask engage only the remote, abstract, and decontextualized, neglecting the proximate, the concrete, and situatedness of lived experience—or musical and instructional actions, for that matter—then we should not be surprised when philosophy becomes a reified entity instead of a living practice or disposition. (451) music educators’ philosophizing is always an applied philosophy aimed at improving practice. this pragmatic approach has led to a series of distinctions and elisions within the philosophy of music education. for one, music education philosophers are quick to distinguish philosophy—which questions the discipline and seeks new pedagogical possibilities—from advocacy—which is the defense of music education’s status quo. but while music education philosophers make this distinction, they do not often distinguish between philosophy and theory, and are just as likely to borrow from pierre bourdieu or edward said as they are from aristotle or nietzsche. keith swanwick in his chapter, however, discriminates between these two related modes of inquiry. “there is one significant and important difference between theorizing and philosophizing. theories may be put to the test of evidence, whereas philosophy seems often to depend on internal consistencies and is most often an evidence–free zone” (329). one may argue with swanwick’s distinction, of course. regardless, “music education philosophy” designates not an orthodox adherence to the codes, languages, and procedures of traditional philosophical discourse, but a diverse “theoretical” and “philosophical” examination of the education of music aimed—although not always simplistically, literally, or directly—at the improvement of the practice of music. the history and current practice of music education philosophy music education philosophy within the last forty years can be divided into philosophical schools. the first school of aesthetic education finds its roots in the changes in us education precipitated by the launching of the sputnik satellite by the soviets in 1959. fearing the loss of dominance as a world power, legislators devoted increased government funds to public joseph abramo 167 education. while lawmakers employed these funds to improve the scientific and mathematical fluency and literacy of students, all disciplines, including music, benefited from this increased support. one result was a reinvigoration of music education and the rise of the philosophical idea of aesthetic education, which largely purported that music education is the careful study of exemplary works of art to arouse the aesthetic experience and to create informed consumers of music. in his chapter on encouraging students to take an active role in their learning, harold fiske articulates the main tenet of aesthetic education: “underlying music education should be activities attendant to detailed pattern perception and realization of between–pattern interrelationships” (325). no music education philosopher is more identified with aesthetic education than bennett reimer, who, in his three different editions of a philosophy of music education (1970, 1989, 2003), put forth a philosophy based on, among other things, susan langer’s aesthetics, which construes music as symbolic expressionism. reimer took up this position to argue that feelings—those complex, ineffable moods all people feel—are symbolized by emotions—which are musical gestures. music—which, as an “emotion,” is a sonic symbolization of a feeling—could be a gateway to learn about and express feelings, which are unreachable by other symbol systems, specifically language. this led him to argue famously that “[c]reating music as musicians, and listening to music creatively, do precisely and exactly for feeling what writing and reading do for reasoning” (2003: 93, italics in original). music education thus has the ability to educate parts of our essential human experience inaccessible by other disciplines. in this handbook, reimer continues this articulation of aesthetic education in his chapter by stating, “[n]o matter what else we do as teachers of music, we must sooner or later fall back on language, while at the same time recognizing its inadequacy to do what matters most—make more available what musical sounds can do that language cannot” (126). aesthetic education remained the dominant philosophy of music education until the 1990s, when so–called praxial music education began to challenge the assumptions of aesthetic education. as thomas regelski defines it in his chapter, “praxis is a ‘doing’ that puts knowledge and skill into the service of the always unique needs of people” (297). praxial philosophers began to question the disinterested position and largely western–art–music focus of aesthetic education. in his chapter, lauri väkevä suggests that “[p]raxial critiques are sometimes based on the claim that the modernist account of aesthetic experience does not offer a sufficiently inclusive account of music, because of its alleged special relation between a distinctive or special aesthetic object (musical work) and inner life” (97). according to current musicology 168 howard, praxial educators also question the cartesian dualism: “those who justify the arts as an education of the emotions (and they are legion) even as the sciences educate reason, fall squarely into the trap of the ‘domineering dichotomy’ between the reasoned mind and the emotive body” (258). although it has many proponents, like aesthetic education, praxial education has largely been associated with one author—in this case, david elliott. elliott, who was a student of reimer, argued in his book music matters (1995) that reimer’s aesthetic education failed to account for culture and “doing” of music. aesthetic education treats music as a series of objects that a listener disinterestedly beholds and contemplates. for elliott, the meanings and values of music, instead, lie in the traditions and practices that give rise to that supposed object. somewhat similar to christopher small’s musicking (1998), elliott proposed a praxial music education steeped in musicing,1 the “doing” of music in relation to the traditions, practices, and cultures in which specific music practices are embedded. such a position takes a multicultural and sociological view of music, dispensing with aesthetic education’s notion of disinterested, western listeners to include musical practices from other traditions. as debra bradley notes in this volume, music matters argues that music is not merely a collection of works to be studied, analyzed, or “appreciated.” it is, rather, a mode of action that can only be understood by active involvement in making and listening to music. describing music as a diverse human practice and a shared human endeavor, the text acknowledges the various ways that humans engage in music as a social phenomenon. (421) elliott, in his chapter with marissa silverman, continues to critique reimer and aesthetic education. they note, “reimer . . . depends on langer to rationalize the nature and value of music and music education, thus tying his philosophy to a deeply flawed theory that is rooted in the untenable notion that musical experience and musical value are not emotional” (58). reimer responds to praxial criticisms of aesthetic education in this volume by countering that praxial music education fails to access the essence and nature of music. while philosophers going back to ancient history have recognized that music is implicated, somehow, in a diversity of values, and music education practioners have always promoted music study as serving a great variety of associated benefits, the turn [toward praxial music education] more recently allies music education with strikingly more substantial social issues, and the service of them as being an inherent dimension of music and the proper if not primary source of the aims of music education . . . [because] many of those needs, as evident in the view of sociology, are equally or better fulfilled by a great many other endeavors. (114, 120)2 joseph abramo 169 in her chapter, debra bradley adds that “[a]lthough elliott made a strong case for other forms of music–making in education—including listening, composing, and improvising—music matters may have provided advocates of large ensembles with a renewed sense of purpose at a time when many were beginning to question their relevance” (422). while praxial education did diversify conceptions of music education, as allsup (2012) notes, it failed to account for the interpretive turn in the humanities—from considering music as a text of closed singular meaning to texts of opened meanings. and as a result, a third wave of music education philosophy, which may be described as one influenced by postmodernist discourses, including poststructuralism, postcolonialism, feminism, and queer theory, has arisen within the last fifteen years. these approaches are in line with other areas of scholarship that approach music education philosophy reflexively—allowing musical subjectivities, socially–constructed identities, and discourses of power to influence how people interpret music. in general, this volume includes voices from aesthetic and praxial educations, and postmodernist perspectives, although feminist and queer standpoints are noticeably absent.3 but it can be argued that these waves and “camps” have not helped to free up thinking within music education philosophy. as swanwick notes in his chapter on the parameters of music education philosophy, “the use of the ‘ism’ suffix tends to label rival philosophical protagonists and, while potentially making philosophical waves, may divert attention from the specificity of particular musical or educational transactions” (334). as a result, some of this volume reads as superfluous infighting along the “–ism” camps of aesthetic and praxial educations. despite this diversity, as a whole, music education philosophy is profoundly influenced by the works of john dewey, and his presence is felt in this volume. this influence seems inevitable considering his writings on education—including most significantly, democracy and education (1916)—and esthetics4—particularly art as experience (1934). for dewey, the musical experience is not merely emotional, it is educative. as väkevä notes in his chapter specifically on dewey’s esthetics and educational theories, “instead of conceiving of music primarily as one of the (fine) arts, supposedly privileging in its capacity to evoke aesthetic experience, dewey seems to suggest that we consider it as an integral part of everyday quest for meaning” (102). this meaning is embedded in a social and egalitarian environment, which he envisioned and described as “democratic.” but, “[h]ere ‘democracy’ does not refer to a mere political mechanism; it refers, rather, to the ethical ideal of community life that remains alert and open to different interpretations” (103). current musicology 170 dewey’s shifting influence also shows the development of music education philosophy. earlier on, the “esthetic dewey” played a more prominent role. reimer’s three editions of a philosophy, (1970, 1989, 2003) for example, only cites art as experience. but more recently, authors have focused on “dewey the educator” and proponent of democracy. writers like allsup (2003, 2012) and woodford (2005)—two other voices noticeably absent from this volume—have devoted their scholarly careers to imagining and enacting a more democratic music education in the deweyian tradition. this outlines the shift of music education philosophers’ view of music as an object to music as a social activity as well as the increasing turn to educational sources rather than aesthetic and musicological texts. this, of course, mirrors the development of the wider discipline of music as well as the humanities move towards interdisciplinary inquiries. ethics, music, and education chapters by thomas regelski, debra bradley, and charlene morton deal with ethics directly or indirectly, which have the potential to contribute to music scholarship in general. in his chapter devoted specifically to the subject, regelski notes that “[a] teacher’s responsibility is fully an ethical matter, concerned to bring about right results for those served (the students) and in turn for society” (303) and defines three formal ethical theories that apply to teaching: duty ethics, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. “duty [ethics] propose obligations that follow from certain postulated standards of ethical conduct . . . .[such as] the ten commandments” (287). regelski introduces types of duty ethics applicable to music teaching. first, teachers should be at the service of the students. the music program should therefore not be a preexisting format into which students are force–fitted, or that limits students’ musical options by addressing only a narrow range of possibilities. too often, however, school music programs take on an autonomous status, and students are seen as serving the program rather than the program existing to serve their needs. (288, italics in original) second, the teacher should “do no harm.” this includes avoiding practice routines that induce repetitive stress. third, students have the right to be safe, including the prevention of psychological harm through what he calls “callous audition systems” and other educationally suspect practices. fourth, teachers must also show beneficence towards the needy, tailoring their instruction to aid those who need remediation. fifth, music teachers have a duty to promote free expression. as regelski notes, this is difficult to fulfill in joseph abramo 171 large ensembles: the duty of free expression “is breached, in particular, when directors ‘perform’ student ensembles as though the students were merely pipe organs, with them becoming mere means for serving the teacher’s own musical or professional ends” (292). the second ethical theory, consequentialist ethics, focuses on goals realizing results. according to regelski, consequentialist ethics posit that “for an action to be ethical, consequences should be useful for those effected” (293), but also “being acutely aware that some actions—even well–intended ones—can have negative consequences” (294). “this rules out using embarrassment, ‘no pain, no gain’ pedagogies, competitive strategies that produce only one ‘winner’ and many ‘losers’” (295). while educators help students develop musical skill and knowledge, they must be aware of the potentially negative effects on the students’ health and well–being. third, virtue ethics emphasize the personal integrity of the teacher. regelski makes a distinction between techne—a prosaic “making of practical things”—and poēisis—the higher “excellent making” and warns of narrowly focusing on techne at the expense of poēisis: [w]hen teaching is approached as techne—as a kind of craft–like collection of routinized skills, strategies, and reusable “tools”; as a technical “means” to “ends” that are taken for granted—it deteriorates into a kind of factory–like process that treats students like interchangeable parts on an assembly line. (296) other areas of “ethical” music teaching are covered in bradley’s chapter, which levels a postcolonial critique of music education philosophy. she questions the use of so–called world and multicultural pedagogical repertoire in schools that, rather than promoting diversity and expanding access to varying discourses, epistemologies, and music practices from around the world, unwittingly support and reproduce eurocentric racial stereotypes. such exoticism and orientalizing, she argues, have the opposite effect of the intended aims of multicultural education. but moving beyond this critical multicultural perspective, she uses postcolonialism as a lens to read instruction. she describes the use of only unfamiliar music in curricula as a form of control forced upon students: “where music education fails to help students make musical connections to their lives outside school, many infer that they are simply ‘not musical,’ or that their areas of musical interest lack value” (415). instead, she calls for educators to embrace students’ knowledge and preferences garnered outside of the classroom to educate them about music. finally, she examines colonialist impulses in aesthetic education, particularly reimer’s (1989) once–hegemonic influence in the field: “written to provide answers rather than raise questions about the nature and value of current musicology 172 music and music education, a philosophy, however unwittingly, served as a colonizing influence on the thought and actions of many music educators” (418). bradley, instead, envisions a music education philosophy that is not prescriptive but is open to asking more questions than it answers. furthering the inquiry into ethical considerations in music education, morton’s unique and fresh chapter on the intersection of environmentalism and music education asks how students should relate to their environments musically and aurally. at first, as she notes, environmental studies seem the domain of biology and geology. but, as we begin to think of musicians’ and music teachers’ use of materials, the connection appears more immediate: [a]ll music education resource—every tuba, drum, music stand, and sheet of music—begin and end as part of planet earth . . . . those who make musical or instructional materials from natural resources and those who transport them to schools all require clean water, air, and food to sustain their labors . . . . matters like these and the ethical concerns they generate should figure significantly in discourses about music and music education. (477) therefore, rather than focusing on “emotion–based aesthetics,” which has become the staple of music education, educators should strive towards an “eco–aesthetics” where students become attuned to their environment. in this way, music education can help secure a more sustainable planet. morton argues that the skills of attentive listening and becoming aware of one’s sonic environment can inform the largely non–musical skill of attending to one’s natural environment. while this may be outside of what some consider the purview of the music educator, it is in line with holistic, interdisciplinary approaches prominent in contemporary educational theory. music pedagogy in higher education these writings on ethics have particular worth to higher education because they question some commonly practiced but often under–theorized pedagogies. for example, in the “studio,” where the teacher wields considerable power, breeches of ethics easily can, and often do, take place and the instructor causes psychological harm through abuse, negative reinforcement, and establishment of unnecessary hierarchies. similarly, in large ensembles, conductors often play upon their students like a “pipe organ” merely imposing didactic direction on how to perform, rather than inquiring about students’ interpretation of the works or revealing to them conductors’ processes of coming to interpretive decisions. equally as pernicious, they often institute auditions and “seat challenges” simply to create a neo–liberal, market–like competition. joseph abramo 173 consequentialist ethics question whether the practices educators and students take part in achieve the goals they desire. despite sight–singing’s universal place in music schools, does such a practice engender the types of cognition and reading skills instructors suppose it does? are there other ways of teaching musical cognition that will better benefit all students or specific constituencies of students? all of regelski’s ethical models also question higher education’s widespread adoption of the conservatory model, which emphasizes performance. this has a deleterious effect on the strengths of students admitted into music programs. as john kratus notes in his chapter on teaching composition, it is common practice in north american colleges of music to admit into music teacher degree programs students who exhibit high levels of performance proficiency. rarely is compositional ability considered in admission decisions for preservice music educators. this bias favoring performance over creativity makes no sense. (373) music education candidates, who will be expected to employ a variety of musical skills in their profession—performing, composing, analysis, etc.—should be admitted into the program based on their demonstration of all those skills, not performance alone. some of the authors in this volume extend this argument to also question the didactic styles of education derived from under–theorized performance pedagogy, prominent in the conservatory model. as kratus notes, in many traditional music–teaching settings, the teacher provides the music, either through model or notation, and students respond in accordance with the teacher’s instructions. in a composition classroom, the music comes from the students and the teacher responds in accordance with the needs of the students and the qualities of their music. (380–381) in this paradigm, students are not merely receivers of knowledge and copiers of exemplary practice; they construct knowledge and practice for themselves. this approach, which has been labeled constructivism and is currently the dominant education philosophy in all disciplines, is a “student–centered” approach that allows students more artistic and curricular agency in the classroom.5 a common way to approach the classroom in a constructivist manner is to invert the order of instruction by letting students derive rules from experience, rather than the traditional explication of rules that are later applied to practice. as ricardo mandolini notes in his chapter on heuristics and creativity, the teaching of creativity should not start by proposing general rules but should analyze first how individualities work and proceed. . . . current musicology 174 [t]eachers [should] let students actively shape and direct their own learning process, generating new interactions between and among ideas, gestures, and behaviors. (353) the critical pedagogue paulo freire (1970), who applied marxist theory to education, referred to a non–constructivist educational paradigm—where teachers fail to allow student agency and instead see them as passive receptacles in which educators deposit knowledge—as the “banking system of education.” this banking system of education is commonly found in so–called “music appreciation” courses, where the canon is deposited into students’ minds only to be regurgitated without any deep knowledge of the works. this, in the alignment of the economic and cultural fields bourdieu (1993) points out, deposits “culture” into passive students in order to make them sufficiently bourgeois. but as higgins notes in his chapter, in the contemporary multi–mediated world, enculturation and exposure to classics is antediluvian. with the rise of mp3 players, peer–to–peer digital exchange, and the panopoly of web–based connoisseurship, criticism, and fandom, there may never have been a generation more invested in listening and in sharing what they hear and what they think about music that they hear. in such a world it is difficult to conceive of our task as exposing the young to music! (223) instead of the “clap for credit” paradigm, as it is sometimes called, “music appreciation” should be about building up discursive skills on musics of different traditions, including traditional analysis, sociological perspectives, critical and cultural theory, and even rudimentary performance. such an approach to music education for non–majors more appropriately prepares them for engagement with music in the twenty–first century. these problems with performance, creativity, and music appreciation in the university are not happenchance but are the result of broader conflicts in education of the arts. higgins notes in his chapter that music education is an “impossible profession” because it is constituted by three inherent tensions. first, music educators have always struggled to balance between the demands of a broad liberal arts education and the narrower vocational education. whether it is performance, musicology, or education, music programs have aimed at providing students an enriching “whole–person” education while preparing them for a profession in ensembles, the academy, or public education. but, as howard notes in his chapter on the aims of music education, at least in the public school setting, a vocational focus is too narrow: joseph abramo 175 music education is not to be confused with vocational training, not even in music itself. to put it simply, music education is not conservatory training. it is not in the business of training professional performers. it is in the business of enlightening the public about music’s various facets and influences from many perspectives, including how artists think. (259, italics in original) a second tension higgins notes is the conflict between so–called high and low cultures. reflecting on his graduate studies when some of his fellow students cited examples of popular culture in class for shock value, higgins argues that creating a distinction between high and low is educationally dubious: either a textual example is rich, illuminating, and apropos, or it isn’t. often the point [of reference a piece of popular culture by students] was simply transgression of the perceived ground rules and the example was thus not helpful for the discussion. one can imagine trite and barren references to king lear and serious, fresh, and fertile references to homer simpson. (220) this type of “transgression” points to the subaltern status popular, non–canonical, non–western art musics often hold in schools of music, a status nettl referred to as “the untouchables” (1995:96). a third tension higgins describes is that the role of the teacher as musician and teacher as pedagogue are often in conflict. “[t]eaching and music . . . do not always harmonize” (225), especially within the contemporary educational climate of increased narrowing of the curriculum and privileging of prescriptive teaching often referred to as instrumentalism. this tension is embedded in practices and institutions, with school administrators and politicians’ search for reliable student results and the indefinable often non–linear nature of arts education. while higgins has a broadening view of popular culture—probably, somewhat ironically, because he is not a musician—many of the authors doubt popular musics’ values even though its study has gained considerable attention in music education scholarship. in his chapter on music education as cultivating a relationship between self and sound, randall pabich, for example, who thinks that heavy metal “tends to be simple and repetitive” (136), fails to consider uses and meanings of popular music by progressive rock bands like meshuggah and dillinger escape plan. these bands and their listeners appropriate modernist notions of complexity and virtuosity to carve out a masculinist and connoisseur identity to the alterity of the “uninformed” and “mainstream” listening public. similarly, walker argues in his chapter that britney spears—whose music he claims is technically simple current musicology 176 and contains infantile lyrics—is inherently inferior to beethoven—who is universal and complex—in order to refute what he considers the postmodern argument that “all music is valuable” (387). like some factions within academia, this text still clings to untenable distinctions between high and low based on canonical/non–canonical distinctions, as higgins critiques. a more nuanced and integrative look at popular music and culture could release popular music from its “untouchable” status, and allow higher–education instructors to use it in powerful, boundary–crossing ways. looking towards the future: music education as fiction what can this text tell readers about the future of music education philosophy? first, the text articulates the current assumptions of connecting theory to practice. in his intriguing chapter, which will be of particular interest to composers, mandolini uses heuristics—which he defines as “a realm of learning and knowing by doing, and a discipline that inquires into the means and methodologies of invention and discovery”—to advocate for “favoring fiction as a framework” (347). heuristics, for mandolini, are useful devices that are “made up” to make sense of the world. their merits lie not in their verifiable truthfulness, but in their utility for creating meaning. in this sense, musical compositions, which do not make truth claims like language, are useful fictions. john cage’s use of indeterminacy, for example, is not the removal of human desire, but is the opposite; “the absence of will that cage installs at the heart of his composition process is in fact another form of will” (350, italics in original). similarly, iannis xenakis’ positivistic approaches to composition were not objective. instead, “[m]athmateics and probabilistic formulae were not necessary compositional preconditions for xenakis: rather, they were used heuristically” (350). the result, mandolini concludes, is that the musical “‘work’ and ‘device’ are two very different entities: a work is evaluated through a final result, whereas a device implies a continuous process of becoming” (361). this is an interpretive and phenomenological approach to musical compositions which argues that “concepts do not preexist creative action but follow its completion” (364). beyond its application to composition, mandolini’s understanding of heuristics articulates the framing of music education philosophy within its vocational roots and its predilection to philosophize while “doing.” in this sense, while praxis is most readily identified with a particular strain of music education philosophy, it can stand for the field in general: a striving for a theoretical practice. but practice and theory are not as easily reconcilable as music education philosophers may suggest. as heidegger (1977) notes, the word theory itself comes from a divorced, “passive” look upon those who “do.” joseph abramo 177 the word “theory” stems from the greek theõrein....the verb theõrein grew out of the coalescing of two root words, thea and horaõ. thea (c. theatre) is the outward look, the aspect, in which something shows itself. . . . the second root word in theõrein, horaõ, means: to look at something attentively, to look it over, to view it closely. (163, 166) theory’s etymology in “theatre” shows its origins in the separation of thinking about and doing, particularly in an “artistic” arena. this tension between “those who claim to theorize while doing” and “those who contemplate the ‘doing’ of music in order to theorize” underlines divisions within schools of music that phelan and rodríguez describe in their chapters: the dma versus the phd, performers versus academics, the conservatory versus the university. in this sense, music education philosophy’s praxial leanings are a heuristic in mandolini’s meaning: a useful and necessary fiction. this is not necessarily negative; it is simply to argue that, like other disciplines, music education is built upon an assumption: the assumption of the possibility of melding theory to practice. but this fiction has the possibility of reconciling these fissures within higher education. music education, the “impossible profession” (higgins:227), is the common vocation in higher education that all musicians—theorists, performers, composers, musicologists—in all settings—conservatory, liberal arts, university—participate in. music education is the “fiction” that binds all musicians in academia. but how may music educators, despite the age and ability of their students, enact this fiction of melding theory with practice? how may they continue to question assumptions and imagine a variety of philosophical stances that question dominant paradigms? for bowman and frega, this is where philosophy has the potential to take educators. in their afterword, they state, “[w]e believe that the future of music education will continue to follow these trajectories: towards plurality, contingency, and reflexivity” (506). as a whole, this text covers much ground in the field of music education research, providing a variety of perspectives, highlighting perennial debates among proponents of aesthetic and praxial educations, moving into areas such as ethics, and attempting to move along those trajectories bowman and frega outline. for musical academics not in the field of education, this text provides a glimpse into the current state and evolution of contemporary music education philosophy. becoming familiar with current philosophical thought in music education, whether one identifies as an educator or not, helps to inform musicians’ practice and to put students at the center of the educational experience. current musicology 178 notes 1. while small employs his “musicking” in order to account for an anthropological and sociological accounting of classical music practice, elliott introduces his “musicing” [sic] to explore how music is transferred from one party to another—something, he argues, missing from aesthetic education philosophy. 2. for a more complete response to elliott and praxial education’s critique of reimer and aesthetic education see reimer (2003). 3. for some examples of feminist and queer theory in music education see gould (2012), koza (2003), as well as the periodical gender, education, music, society (gems). for a review of feminist literature in music education see lamb, dolloff, and howe (2002). 4. dewey consciously used the american “esthetic” to articulate his particular aesthetics, therefore, when referring to dewey, i use his spelling. 5. for an introduction to constructivism, see fosnot (1996). references allsup, randall everett. 2003. mutual learning and democratic action in instrumental music education. journal of research in music education 51, no. 1: 24–37. _______. 2012. music education and human flourishing: a meditation on democratic origins. british journal of music education 29, no. 2: 171–179. _______. 2012. the compositional turn in music education: from closed forms to open texts. in composing our future: preparing music educators to teach composition, ed. michele kaschub and janice smith, 57–69. new york: oxford university press. bourdieu, pierre. 1993. the field of cultural production. new york: columbia university press. dewey, john. 1916. democracy and education. new york: free press. _______. 1934. art as experience. new york: perigee trade elliott, david j. 1995. music matters: a new philosophy of music education. new york: oxford university press. fosnot, catherine (ed.). 1996. constructivism: theory, perspectives, and practice. new york: teachers college press. freire, paulo. 1970. pedagogy of the oppressed. new york: continuum. gould, elizabeth. 2012. homosexual subject(ivitie)s in music (education): deconstructions of the disappeared. philosophy of music education review 20 no. 1:45–62. heidegger, martin. 1977 [1954]. science and reflection. in the question concerning technology and other essays. trans. william lovitt. new york: harper. koza, julia eklund.  2003.  stepping across: four interdisciplinary studies of education and cultural politics. new york: peter lang publishing. lamb, roberta, lori–anne dolloff, & sondra wieland howe. 2002. feminism, feminist research, and gender research in music education. in the new handbook of research on music teaching and learning, ed. richard cowell and carol richardson, 648–674. new york: oxford university press. nettl, bruno. 1995. heartland excursions: ethnomusicological reflections on schools of music. chicago: university of illinois press. reimer, bennett. 1970. a philosophy of music education. upper saddle, nj: prentice hall. _______. 1989. a philosophy of music education, second edition. upper saddle, nj: prentice hall. _______. 2003. a philosophy of music education: advancing the vision. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. joseph abramo 179 small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. woodford, paul g. 2005. democracy and music education: liberalism, ethics, and the politics of practice. bloomington: indiana university press. cerebration or celebration david mcallester until recently the place of performance in a liberal arts education was hardly a matter of debate where the arts of liberal arts were concerned. performance in the arts has been considered distinctly second class, infra dig, base, common, and popular, at least from the time of the ascendency of the german university system, that enormously influential prototype of "civilized" education all over the world. no doubt, plato's mistrust of the arts as unreal ("the shadow of a shadow") but nevertheless able to disrupt rationality lies behind the purdah they have enjoyed so widely and so long. this was not always the case. some of our "old ones" in greece and china considered performance in music, poetry, and sometimes even painting and dance to be necessary parts of a proper education. traces of this wisdom remain with us to this day. mao tse-tung and emperor hirohito are honored for their poetic skill, as are not a few south american generals and presidents. the north european-platonic blight has not been quite universal in its effects, but we need to remember how low we have fallen: dance relegated to "phys. ed.," performance confined to conservatories granting degrees in "science" rather than in "arts" and elsewhere denied academic credit. this state of affairs is all the more strange when one reflects on the insistence upon performance in other areas of liberal knowledge. proficiency in languages is measured by fluency; the physicist must show his skill in the laboratory; anthropologists and geologists, as other examples, earn their spurs in their field work. for me the question of performance in the liberal arts was settled when i first met mantle hood on the occasion of the formal organization of the society for ethnomusicology at the fifth international congress of the anthropological and ethnological sciences, which took place in philadelphia in 1956. mantle held forth on his concept of "bi-musicality" and cited his own experience and that of his students to show that it was possible for nonindonesians to perform gamelan music well enough to please indonesians. (president sukarno on a state visit to the united states was enchanted to be greeted with such a performance.) more importantly, mantle stressed that essential dimensions of musical understanding could be acquired only through performance. when robert e. brown joined the wesleyan faculty, his dedication to non-western performance formed a true marriage with our own wellestablished dedication to western performance. faculty and students were soon seated cross-legged on his indian rugs, while eating curry and practicing their sa-ri-ga-ma. it was assumed that the aptest pupils would give public concerts in indian costume, that indians would be coming here, and that 95 we would be going to india. "performance" meant every possible identification, experientially, with the music and the culture that produced it. on reflection, i find that the united states is fertile soil for the doctrine of bi-musicality. several luxuriant gardens of multi-musicality were already in full flower before the gamelan bloomed at u.c.l.a. under mantle hood. jazz and blues and their subspecies were too irresistible to remain for long solely in the hands of the blacks. soon white imitators were outnumbering the blacks, and in a few instances the former have been good enough to pass muster even in black opinion. the same has happened, also without benefit of university, in urban folk singing. not only have rural folk songs been altered to fit urban canons, but young people from the bronx have adopted kentucky accents, dress, and other mannerisms in a single-minded effort to conform with every nuance of what was to them a new and exciting musical tradition. a similar devotion to a new experience developed among american indian hobbyists. i became aware of this movement in 1964 when tony isaacs came to wesleyan to study american indian music. he came from a non-indian west coast background, but he could sing like a ponca or a sioux and knew the exact shades of difference between the two styles. it was then that i learned that there were more hobbyists than there were indians, and that some of them could sing in plains style (one of the most difficult) well enough to be considered equals by highly regarded indian singers. mantle hood's movement at the university level, then, was matched by the same devotion and practice at various popular and grass-roots levels in this country. another factor in the 1950's and 60's was the massive exposure of americans to non-european cultures. begun during world war ii, it was reinforced via the peace corps and increased foreign travel in the decades after 1945. american cultural isolation has thus been shattered, and the effects of our exposure are reverberating through the synapses of religion and art, where cultural nerves are most exposed. there are faint twitches even in the sciences. culture shock at wesleyan has been felt in the fields ofliterature, history, government, languages, and others, but most deeply in music. mter bob brown's arrival, came an ever-growing number of visiting artists from india, japan, java, mrica, and afro-america, as well as a steady swell of students from the armed forces, from the peace corps, and from western music programs all over the country. our music department was transformed from a well-loved service operation, providing operas, choruses, and concerts at a high level (but with very few majors) to one of the largest undergraduate and graduate programs at wesleyan, both in research and in performance. it was the second ph.d. program to be established at the college and is still the only one outside the natural sciences. the department has grown to thirty-one graduate students, thirty-three undergraduate majors, three ethnomusicologists among an academic staff of eleven, and twelve visiting artists in non-western music among a performance-teaching staff of thirty96 seven. with wesleyan's student enrollment numbering about 1500 in all, these figures represent impressive support from the college. these figures also speak eloquently with regard to the role of performance in the \vesleyan program. our goal is to produce exceptional scholars who will make a contribution to intercultural understanding with their knowledge of and respect for a variety of the world's cultures through the avenue of music. we hope that whatever they write will show a sensitivity to the material that can be possible only if they have actually performed the musics they are discussing. ideally, this performance, begun at wesleyan under teachers from the cultures involved, will continue during a field study period in that country under conditions of maximum exposure to the culture as a whole. we are aware of the powerful pull of any music toward experience rather than discussion: celebration rather than cerebration. plato considered it a distraction from the good. but we have found that most students realize the rarity of musical talent sufficient to make a living by performance alone and the special difficulty of achieving this in a new cultural setting. we prefer to think of the good as the combination, and so far we have found that even the highest levels of attainment in performance skills have not tended to supplant "scholarship" but have, instead, given it a deeper meaning. cerebration need not be a poor second to celebration but may be infinitely enriched by it. this is not to say that we have been immune to the tension between performance and academic study. but in the decade of our program's existence we have found that performance has been a safeguard against niggling scholarship and that scholarship has added a healthy dimension of speculation to the creative process. historical and analytical studies, valuable as they can be, constitute only haifa loaf in the world of music. in dealing with the music of another century, where fragmentary memories and notations, skeletal at best, are all the record we have, half a loaf is better than none. but in ethnomusicology most of our research is done in a living music whose best performers can communicate with us. in a situation of such splendor it would be a matter of inexcusable scholarly neglect to fail to study the material in every accessible dimension. 97 tricia rose. 2008. the hip hop wars: what we talk about when we talk about hip hop-and why it matters. new york: basic/civitas books. reviewed by beau bothwell as hip hop slowly settles into middle age, the pitched battles of its younger years have frozen in a stalemate. critics of hip hop repeat the same attacks they leveled at nwa, decrying violence, misogyny, and homophobia in hip­ hop lyrics, and in the most extreme cases branding its creators as typhoid marys for a particularly virulent social pathology. defenders respond with rebuttals codified in the early 1990s, lauding the aesthetic value and social relevance of their favorite corners of the hip-hop world, eliding any problems inherent in the rest, and questioning the true motives of hip hop's critics. as tricia rose tells it, these arguments have remained essentially static, even as hip hop experienced two remarkable-though opposing-developments. first, hip hop expanded. the dress, music, dance, and visual style that grew up in the south bronx not only took hold throughout american culture, but throughout cultures of the world. within the us media landscape, hip hop music, fashion, and visual aesthetics became ubiquitous. outside of the us, local hip-hop movements emerged around the world, whether in the form of a few mcs in a bedroom reciting tupac lyrics in english, or a full-fledged scene in a local language and style. remaining closely identified with urban, black youth (in ways that rose describes as sometimes quite unhealthy), hip hop has become an aspect of self-definition for a widespread and diverse group of people, many of whom identify as part of the "hip-hop generation" united less by a period of birth than by a set of shared cultural practices (kitwana 2002). thanks in no small part to rose herself, hip hop has also found a home in the academy. the "hip-hop university" that began with scholars like rose (1994), todd boyd (1997), and michael eric dyson (2001) has been populated with an ever growing list of names that includes mark anthony neal (2004), robin kelley (1997), bakari kitwana (2002), murray forman (2004), jeff chang (2005), imani perry (2004), and dozens of others working across a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. the number of courses on hip hop offered in the american universities reaches into the hundreds, and institutional forums for hip-hop scholarship like the hiphop archive at harvard's w.e.b dubois institute and a variety of formal study groups for graduate students and more senior scholars have sprung up across the country.l current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 95 96 current musicology in counterpoint to this expansion of hip hop's geographic and institu­ tional reach, rose argues that hip hop contracted during the same period. within the most popular and prominent american commercial hip hop the range of expression and subject matter, the kinds of stories that rappers told (or rather got paid to tell), shrank dramatically. this is not to say that the multiplicity of styles and voices found in some "golden age" of hip hop has been lost altogether; according to rose, while that variety still exists and has even expanded across innumerable borders, the most prominent face of the music-mainstream, commercial, us hip hop performed by african­ americans-has become dominated to a remarkable extent by what she calls the "gangsta, pimp, ho trifecta." in a brief but insightful discussion included in her introduction, rose traces much of this phenomenon to massive consolidation in both the recording and broadcast arms of the us music industry during the 1990s. though extremely critical of the corporate system under which us hip hop operates, she distributes blame for the current state of affairs across a much wider range of actors: "mainstream" white america, black youth, black moguls (existing and aspiring), and big mass-media corporations together created hip hop's tragic trinity, the black gangsta, pimp, and ho-the cash cow that drove the big mainstream crossover for hip hop. (25) the primacy of gangsta-focused music is attributed to the interaction of these forces: black ghetto gangsta-based sales are the result of marketing manipulation and the reflection not only of specific realities in our poorest black urban communities but also of the exploitation of already-embedded racist fears about black people. (25) the current description of the book might sound like yet another entry into the "hip hop is dead" genre of criticism, but thankfully, rose has something else in mind.2 rather than an historical analysis of the causes for commercial hip hop's narrowing of field, or a critical analysis of artistic production in the vein of her seminal black noise (1994), rose's focus is the discourse surrounding hip hop. the book is an attempt to shake up the stagnant discussions about hip hop and its social impact, which "stand in for discussion of significant social issues related to race, class, sexism, and black culture" (11). this is not simply a nostalgic call for a return to the golden days when hip hop was seen as a progressive, communal force. rose argues that hip hop is intertwined with discussions of the social and political position of poor black youth, as well as discussions of race, class, and gender generally in a beau bothwell wider us context. the extent of this linkage, and the fundamental truth of rose's point, is illustrated somewhat ironically in conservative linguist and political commentator john mcwhorter's recent book all about the beat: why hip hop can't save black america (2008). mcwhorter begins with the thesis that hip hop is simply music for music's sake without any political valence, and subsequently spends the remainder of the book describing the wrongheadedness of the political positions outlined in hip hop, proposing his own explanations and solutions for the problems described therein. published at nearly the same time, and in a direct rebuttal to scholars like rose, mcwhorter's book accidentally proves rose's point; arguments that begin with hip hop often end up in politics, even when the person arguing tries to separate the two. the problem for rose is not only that she finds the most popular ex­ amples of a music she loves artistically predictable and socially indefensible, though she does write passionately and directly about her own conflicting emotions towards hip hop. rose's main worry is that arguments over the social import of hip hop have become the most visible (and sometimes the only) public discussions about the problems facing poor black youth in america. as such, the unchanging accusations about hip hop's destructive impact on black youth serve to mask what rose describes as the longstanding systemic conditions that have direct and negative effects on their lives. at their worst, these charges use hip hop to blame black youth for problems endemic to american society as a whole, in a centuries old pattern by which african americans are used as scapegoats for general societal problems. on the other side of the debate, continuous and unconditional defense of hip hop does no service to black youth, for whom the sexism, homophobia, violence, and self-destructive attitudes represented by the "gangsta, pimp, ho trifecta" are real and serious problems. for rose, the primary effect of an unquestioning defense of commercial hip hop, whether on the grounds of artistic freedom, ghetto authenticity, or anything else, leads to the absence of a constructive, healthy critique, which might allow hip hop to grow into an effective progressive force. according to rose: the current state of conversation about hip hop sets destructive and illiter­ ate terms for cross-racial community building. the people most injured by the fraught, hostile, and destructive state of this conversation are those who most need a healthy, honest, vibrant (not sterile and repressed) cultural space: young, poor, and working-class african-american boys and girls, men and women-the generation that comprises the future of the black community. they have the biggest stake in the conversation, and they get the shortest end of the stick in it. (11) 97 98 current musicology rose attempts to change the conversation by addressing a "hip hop top ten: the top-ten arguments about hip hop, five from each side of the debate" (25). this project takes up the bulk of her book, and while conservative hip-hop critics will doubtless find more to disagree with in her characterization of their positions, both sides of the debate face a great deal of criticism. the goal here is not simply to rebut each argument-rose usually finds at least a grain of truth in each claim. instead, she attempts to illustrate how the simplistic mode of argumentation favored by critics and defenders alike obscures the true nature of the problems with which critics of hip hop are ostensibly concerned. from the "hip hop critics" camp she addresses the following claims in successive chapters: "hip hop causes violence," "hip hop reflects black dysfunctional ghetto culture," "hip hop hurts black people," "hip hop is destroying american values;' and "hip hop demeans women." in each chapter, she attempts to evaluate the truth of the claim to whatever extent possible, but also examines the ways in which their simplistic application serves political purposes that are more like those of the speaker than of the affected audience. rose's writing becomes quite impassioned at times, especially when discussing critics of hip hop whose concern for issues like sexism and ho­ mophobia never seems to extend beyond appearing on television to criticize rappers. while rose is enlivened in the debate over whether commercial hip hop demeans women (it does) or directly causes violence (it probably doesn't), she is especially critical of those who use hip hop as a general means to myopically criticize black youth culture in a way that completely ignores both the context for that culture and the context from which the youth are speaking. she has a point, too. for example, conservative critics who decry hip hop's "anti-education" message as part of a dysfunctional black culture have to willfully ignore an awful lot of political discourse in order to characterize disdain for overeducated, pointy-headed elites as a particularly black phenomenon. while rose addresses each of these five arguments in great detail, her primary problem with many of the critiques of hip hop lies in the focus on a condemnation of individual behavior rather than concern for alleviating systemic factors that encourage those behaviors. this hyper-behavioralism-an approach that overemphasizes individual action and underestimates the impact of institutionalized forms of racial and class discrimination-feeds the very systematic discrimination it pretends isn't a factor at all. (8) beau bothwell in a similar vein, she finds that many of the cries of misogyny are nothing more than a call for rappers to stop using the word "bitch," without any real desire to alter a patriarchal system, redefine notions of masculinity based on power over women, or fundamentally alter the social system which confines black women to a set of narrow social roles. up to this point much of rose's critique will be familiar to those who follow the classic debates in hip hop, though she engages with each of the arguments at a deeper level than one typically sees in either the journalistic or academic discourse. however, for the next section of the book, she begins to dismantle arguments from hip-hop defenders-a varied group in which rose includes artists, producers, fans, and many of the same hip hop scholars who wore out their dog-eared copies of black noise in 1994. from the "hip hop defenders" side, rose includes chapters on the following typical justifications for hip hop: "just keeping it real;' "hip hop is not responsible for sexism;' "there are bitches and hoes;' "we're not role models;' and "nobody talks about positivity in hip hop." just as she sees the anti-hip-hop argument as too focused on individual behavior, rose sees hip hop's defenders as too focused on the explication of structural problems: increasingly, too many of hip hop's supporters point to structural racism to explain the origins of the problem but refuse to link these structural forces to individual action and to the power of media seduction. by fail­ ing to posit a progressive strategy for responding to negative behavior effects, these pro-hip hop spokespeople actually fuel the "dysfunctional black culture" thesis. (73) rose labels this half of the debate as the "explain" portion of an endless cycle of "blame and explain," where one side attacks and blames, the other side explains, and neither side appears that invested in actually working to change things (129). this is the "startling" unspoken agreement that rose sees behind the stalemate in the hip hop debate-that both sides seem to be arguing under some of the same operating assumptions. in one of the most trenchant chapters, rose explores what she calls the "mutual denials in the hip hop wars:' among these are a willingness to accept homophobia as acceptable or at least unavoidable, a tendency to ignore the role of white consumption in the creation and development of commercial hip hop, and a disregard for the creative content of the music, whether by critics who dismiss it as worthless or supporters whose defense of hip hop extends so far as to require no creative standards at all-a position which she sees as equally dismissive. while there has been no small amount of criticism of 99 100 current musicology mainstream hip hop from the academy, rose spends much of the book attempting to jar the pro-hip hop community out of a complacency that allows them to explain and describe, rather than work to change. rose's colleagues in the world of hip-hop studies are certainly among the desired audience for the hip hop wars, but this is not an especially scholarly book in tone or focus-she writes for her colleagues, for a general audience of hip-hop fans and detractors, for members of the latest "hip-hop generation," and for their worried parents. she also writes with a pamphle­ teer's flare for politics, finishing the book with a chapter titled, "six guiding principles for progressive creativity, consumption, and community in hip hop and beyond," and at times directly calling out her compatriots in the hip hop academy: visible male social critics who defend hip hop need to hold the artists with whom they are in apparent dialogue to a very serious standard ... to continue to make general statements against its sexism but then show public love and support for artists who are unrepentant for their blatant and constant sexism is to support their sexism and encourage others to do the same. (129) as the divisions in rose's own work make clear, however, the line between appreciating positive artists and calling out negative ones is a difficult one to walk. nas, whose classic illmatic was recently paid the tribute of an edited volume of scholarly essays, lands on the "progressive artists" list at the back of the book, and is cited favorably several times. but as rose is undoubtedly aware, every hip-hop head remembers the homophobic slurs in "ether;' along with the complex feelings of pain she finds in "gangsta tears" (57). kanye west makes the "progressive" list as well, but the association might seem incongruous to those who only know the words to "gold-digger." on the other side of the equation, lil wayne, an incredibly talented rapper who takes deserved criticism from rose for any number of typically sexist lyrics (and whose willingness to rap on absolutely anyone's record for a fee might make him the poster boy for rose's "low creative standards" complaint about commercial hip hop), also wrote one of the most affecting protest songs of the bush era in response to the administration's failures after katrina hit his home town of new orleans. this isn't necessarily a criticism of rose's political ambitions (which are sorely needed), instead it is an affirmation of the strength of her larger argument. it makes no more sense to dismiss all of nas's work as regressive because of "ether" than it does to excuse lil wayne's sexism because of "georgia ... bush," and the same holds true for hip hop in general. beau bothwell the hip hop wars will undoubtedly find its way onto the syllabi of countless courses in the bourgeoning "hip-hop university," of which rose is one of the founding members. and this is probably the perfect place for it. the back and forth rose describes between defenders and critics continu­ ously repeats itself in microcosm within the classroom, and her book will be useful for instructors who want to move a class out of that particular feedback loop. the book was not meant as a scholarly exploration of hip hop as a musical genre; while rose definitely has the analytic powers to write about the attraction and value of the music, and the way it functions in peoples lives, you won't find too much of that here. as such, her discussion of the relationship between musical discourse and politics will be of interest even to those without a specific interest in hip hop. however, i am somewhat wary of recommending the hip hop wars to people who don't already have some emotional investment in hip hop. there have been countless entries into the debate from those who don't especially like hip hop but are nonetheless familiar with all of its faults, and i am not sure that we need any more. but works such as rose's the hip hop wars, on the other hand-based on a deep love for the music and a concern for the people who make it, listen to it, and care about it-we need a lot more of those. notes 1. harvard's hiphop archive keeps a running list of new course offerings related to hip hop at <http://www.hiphoparchive.org/university/ courses>. 2. most of the "hip hop is dead" argument has taken place between the popular and genre press and artists themselves. for an overview of these discussions see hess (2007) and asanti (2008). references asanti, molefi k. 2008. it's bigger than hip hop: the rise of the post-hip-hop generation. new york: st. martin's press. boyd, todd. 1997. am i black enough for you? popular culture from the 'hood and beyond. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. chang, jeff. 2005. can't stop won't stop: a history of the hip-hop generation. new york: st. martin's press. dyson, michael eric. 2001. holler if you hear me. new york: basic/civitas books. dyson, michael e., and sohial, daulatzai, eds. 2010. born to use mics: reading nas's illmatic. new york: basic/civitas books. forman, murray. 2004. the hood comes first: race, space, and place in rap and hip-hop. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. forman, murray, and mark anthony neal. 2004. that's the joint!: the hip-hop studies reader. london and new york: routledge. hess, mickey. 2007. is hip hop dead? the past, present, and future of america's most wanted music. westport: praeger publishers. kelly, robin d. g. 1997. yo' mama's disfunktional! fighting the culture wars in urban america. boston: beacon press. 101 102 current musicology kitwana, bakari. 2002. the hip hop generation: young blacks and the crisis in african american culture. new york: basic/civitas books. mcwhorter, john h. 2008. all about the beat: why hip-hop can't save black america. new york: gotham books. perry, imani. 2004. prophets of the hood: politics and poetics in hip hop. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. rose, tricia. 1994. black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary america. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. denora, tia. 2003. after adorno: rethinking music sociology. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reviewed by william g. roy for musicologists who are interested in what sociologists of music have to contribute to the study of music, there is no better place to look than the work oftia denora. her beethoven and the construction of genius (1995) explores how the social dynamics of turn-of-the-century vienna gave rise to the concept of musical genius, a role beethoven not only appropriated but also helped to foster. in music in everyday life (2000), she reveals through ethnography what people do while they are doing music, from shopping to sex to aerobics to deliberative listening. most recently, her study after adorno offers a theoretically grounded program for music sociology. the fundamental theme in all her work, fully articulated and elaborated in this volume, is that the distinction between music and society is merely analytical at best. taking a step beyond christopher small's 1998 prescription that music should be understood more as a verb than a noun-more as an activity than a thing-den ora observes that musicking is inherently social. after adorno seeks to develop this proposition. theodor adorno, widely acknowledged as the towering figure of twen­ tieth-century sociology of music, provides the agenda. denora argues that despite adorno's frequently noted shortcomings, the philosopher provides a solid foundation for theorizing the relationship between the musical and the social, emphasizing the relationship between sounds, texts, and record­ ings, on the one hand, and the social practices that create and consume those materials on the other. in denora's innovative reading, however, we are now after adorno-adorno serves as an inspiration, a fount of insight, but only a beginning. adorno's work is valued more for its agenda and its metatheoretical insights than for any specific analysis. his interpretations of jazz, schoenberg, and stravinsky, for example, are secondary to his deeper demonstration of how to think with music, of how to show that music embeds social relations within itself. adorno's greatest insight was that, in denora's words, "music is thus not about, or caused by, the social; it is part of whatever we take to be the social writ large. music is a constitutive ingredient of social life" (151). denora's book is structured around a series of essays, the first of which treats adorno and his place in music scholarship. next follow chapters on topics that illustrate the relationship between music and society: the current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 111 112 current musicology musical event, music as cognition, music's channeling of emotions, and "music and 'control.'" the author concludes with a bold reconceptualization of music sociology. indeed, the book's major contribution is denora's own theoretical approach to the relationship of music and society. eschewing both social reductionism and facile musical autonomy, denora demonstrates the reflexive relationship between music and society while affirming the analytical integrity of both. denora's main criticism of adorno is that he never concerned himself with the small-scale social practices of music, but instead focused on the macro cultural structures and power relations that organize music production and consumption. in contrast, denora examines how music organizes social processes and how social relations define and problematize musical activities. how people relate to the presence of music helps define what the social relationship is. conversely, music (i.e., performances, compositions, and recordings) is created, revised, and problematized by the social relations and contexts of musical activities. thus composition, performance, listening, criticism, and various other modes of participation in music are all equally social and require attention. though after adorno is a theoretical book, denora is ever mindful of the necessity of concrete examples, and she illustrates her concepts with "musical events." a "musical event" can be anything from an act of composition to walking with an ipod, but it also includes some of the preconditions that lead up to the event, the social relations of the event itself, and the time after the event when outcomes become evident. the musical event, for denora, serves as a template for examining social relations around music, and this approach allows her to consider such issues as the division oflabor among musicians, conductor, and listeners at a concert; the mutual silence of passengers in a music-filled car; the exclusion of other people when listening to one's ipod; and the coordinated calisthenics of an exercise class. denora considers the subject of music and cognition, using adorno both as a source of ideas and as an exemplar of how to "think with music:' adorno challenged us to consider how the way we listen connects to the way we perceive the world. for instance, for adorno the distinction between schoenberg's music and popular music involved a contrast between a deep engagement with music and mere casual exposure to it, and in this difference the philosopher claimed to discern listeners' varying degrees of engagement with society. it is not that the music causes engagement or passivity, but rather that musical activities entail social relationships. denora is especially interested in extending this insight to the concept of memory. music's power to evoke the past has often been noted, but denora's compelling arguments about how music shapes the way we think about the william g. roy past go beyond generalizations about nostalgia to present a more dynamic relationship between past and present. we use music to remind ourselves of the past, to frame our understanding of it, and to signify which groups own it. because den ora's approach to cognition is fundamentally social rather than psychological, it is always informed by the shared values and practices of a community. she understands that memory always involves not only recognition, but also a repositioning of the subject relative to the social boundaries of race, gender, class, and generation. for instance, while african american spirituals may evoke memories of the slave era, their use in more recent times-in performances by the jubilee singers, in freedom songs, and in rap music-destabilizes the relative political and cultural status of blacks and whites. from investigating music's evocation of memory and the past, denora moves to an examination of the embodied present of music and emotion. music's emotional power is often understood in terms of its temporality, its unfolding in the present. but denora questions the claim that music "captures" emotion, as though music and emotion were two different levels of experience. both music and emotion are temporally present, embodied forms of social interaction. by attending to the full range of emotion and bodily activity, including emotional and physical stillness, denora shows the inseparability of emotion and music in settings ranging from raves to classical performance and in contexts such as aerobics and making love. rather than conceptualizing music as something that evokes emotion, she prefers to think of it as emotion-in -the-making. as the author's earlier work has demonstrated, people use music to create and alter their emotional states. people are not just emotionally influenced by music, but rather, they actively choose music to achieve various emotional states, whether that involves wallowing in their misery or climbing out of a funk. denora's chapter on emotions takes inspiration from adorno's own research agenda while offer­ ing conclusions that problematize and reconsider his thinking. adorno raised the issue of how emotions are related to music, but he proposed an elitist typology of listeners: the expert, the good listener, the culture consumer, the resentment listener, the jazz listener, the entertainment listener, and the musically indifferent. all of these, denora points out, denote a solitary listener, excised from social context. denora advocates using the term "music sociology" in contrast to the "sociology of music." although musicologists may have little stake in that issue, they should consider her reasoning: the phrase "sociology of music" mistakenly implies that music and society are separate entities and that those who study it should seek the social in the musical. in recent years musicology has increasingly addressed such sociological topics as race, 113 114 current musicology gender, class, and globalism, often contributing theories and insights that social scientists should incorporate into their work. if adorno paved the way for the disciplines of sociology and musicology to come together, denora has brought this interdisciplinary scholarship to a new level of sophistica­ tion, showing that the dialogue between musicology and sociology is still a two-way street. references denora, tia. 1995. beethoven and the construction of genius: musical politics in vienna, 1792-1803. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. ---. 2000. music in everyday life. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. hanover, nh: university press of new england. current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf current musicology, no. 94 (fall 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 67 horses for discourses?: the transition from oral to broadside narrative in “skewball” seán ó cadhla the well–known horse–racing ballad “skewball” (hereafter, sb) has a well– established oral tradition in ireland, with versions documented throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. the latest is a 1979 field recording of derry folksinger and storyteller, eddie butcher (shields 2011:58–9).1 the ballad was also assimilated into african–american oral tradition, in which it was reconstructed and renamed “stewball” (lomax 1994:68–71; scarborough 1925:61–4), and was still being documented in american folk tradition as late as the 1930s (flanders 1939:172–4). in common with countless other folk songs, sb was appropriated by broadside2 printers and subsequently enjoyed widespread public appeal throughout england in the early– to mid–nineteenth century, its popularity waning with the later decline of the broadside as a medium of ballad transmission and distribution. a comparative analysis of oral and broadside versions reveals clear differences between the two narratives. i argue that these variations were quite deliberate in origin, being a direct result of interpolations and excisions made by broadside ballad printers to the original oral narrative. by drawing comparisons between versions of sb collected from both oral and broadside sources, this paper will demonstrate that as a consequence of significant social and cultural advancements in the nineteenth century, sb was deliberately revised with the aim of enhancing its appeal and relevance to an increasingly literate middle class audience. historical context the narrative recounted in sb centres on a historically documented horse race held in kildare, ireland on march 30, 1752 (heber 1753:106).3 the race in question was a two–horse challenge between sir ralph gore’s grey mare (pick 1803:504)—the clear favorite—and arthur mervin’s skewball (pick 1803:91; harewood 1835:309), a far lesser–known racehorse (if not completely unknown in ireland), in which the latter unexpectedly triumphs to great acclaim. unsurprisingly, the narrative of sb has changed considerably over time. such variation is to be expected from a ballad that was based on eighteenth–century events in ireland, enjoyed widespread popular appeal as a nineteenth–century english broadside printing, became established in current musicology 68 african–american slave culture and later appeared as a work song among african–american prisoners,4 and ultimately became popularised on both sides of the atlantic in the folk revival of the late 1960s and early 1970s. there are, however, key narrative features that are common to all documented oral and broadside versions of the ballad,5 namely: (i) a two–horse challenge for a considerable purse is arranged to be held on “the plains of kildare” between sir ralph gore and arthur mervin, both of whom were well–known figures in eighteenth–century irish horse racing circles, and served as presidents of the irish jockey club in the late 1750s (carpenter 1998:312).6 (ii) although fleeting comparative references are periodically made to other racehorses, only two are mentioned as participating in the contest related in the ballad. the race favorite is a grey mare owned by gore and is referred to variously in the ballads as either grey mare, maid sportly, or miss portly/portsley/ sportl(e)y /sportsly/sprightly, or in later versions as miss grizzle.7 the lesser–known challenger—a skewbald gelding—is owned by marvin and known as skewball8 throughout all documented versions (iii) upon hearing of the challenge and the wager that has been put down, the skewbald—the clear second favorite in the contest—instructs his master to place a considerable bet as he is assured of victory. despite the established reputation of the favorite, skewball wins easily to both the surprise and delight of the assembled crowd. despite both oral and broadside versions of sb sharing the overall subject matter and common structure shown above, a comparative analysis of the two genres reveals some striking differences. inconsistencies can be clearly observed among the dramatis personae involved and throughout the general narratives related. without question, the most obvious distinction between oral and broadside versions is the presence of the well–established folklore motif of the speaking horse, found almost exclusively in the oral versions. the popular belief in horses possessing human faculties is well–attested to in irish oral tradition,9 however, in spite of—or indeed perhaps, because of—this popularity, it failed to make an entirely seamless transition into broadside format in the ballad under review. such narrative variations show that sb has always retained a considerable adaptability to the expectations of its varied audiences—a quality which no doubt ensured its survival in the traditional canon for several centuries. the various revisions provide us with clear examples of the expedient manipulation of ballad narrative by both traditional folksinger and broadside printer alike. of particular interest is the revision of the earliest documented oral versions for publication as seán ó cadhla 69 a broadside ballad sheet. i argue that this revision was deliberately undertaken as part of a concerted effort to present sb as historical narrative to an increasingly literate and socially advanced (and markedly non–traditionally focused) audience, and in doing so, deflect from the ballad’s folkloric origins. market forces and “the folk” a ballad is rarely (if ever) performed in isolation, and its rendition requires an active recipient in the form of an audience. this holds true for both an oral ballad, related in the intimate surrounds of the fireside, or a broadside hawked at a busy city street corner. in either circumstance, the audience assumes an active role in the ballad’s transmission and thus is an integral party to the performance itself. it can be reasonably argued, therefore, that the audience fulfils as important a role as that of the performer; in its absence, the ballad would effectively cease active transmission. without a receptive audience, the most well–crafted ballad would very quickly become a defunct artistic endeavour from a contemporary perspective, and thus pass quickly into the relative obscurity of cultural history. consequently, the audience exerts a direct influence on the performer, whether in the actual content of the utterance, or in the personal style of expression (casey, et al 1972:397–403; ferris, 1970:439–49). in the context of oral ballad recitation, the performer is not simply a singer, but is also a storyteller.10 the folksinger, therefore, enjoys considerable freedoms (in both the content related and the style utilized), yet must always remain cognizant of the requirements of the audience if the transmission of his or her art is to continue. in such a context, the most obscure narrative can be related in as fantastic a style as is demanded (or indeed, expected) by the audience, depending on the storytelling prowess of the individual performer. while oral ballads were quite often based on historical fact, narrative accuracy in the depiction of such events was often of secondary importance to the fundamental entertainment value of the story. consequently, linear narrative and chronology are quite often not the primary focus of the oral ballad singer. if the historical facts assisted in the development of a ballad’s narrative—and in the process, fulfilled the audience’s expectations—the performer could utilize them as appropriate. if the audience’s expectations remained unfulfilled, the facts and characters involved could always be inflated (or deflated) to meet the requirements of “the folk.” this finely balanced dynamic between audience and performer is likened by casey, et al. to the relationship between politician and constituency: current musicology 70 a singer interacts with his audiences in the way that a politician interacts with parts or all of his constituency. the “good singer” is aware of the likes and dislikes of the groups and individuals for whom he performs. he manipulates his repertoire in response to perceived or anticipated performances, giving his constituents what he thinks they would like to hear. he is more or less sensitive to their feedback and thus quick to react in situations in which either his or their expectations are not fulfilled. (1972:397) above all other considerations however, the traditional singer was transmitting his or her art, which was always of primary importance over and above how believable the narrative was, or its relevance to the day–to–day existence of “the folk.” indeed, as a short–lived antidote to the hardships of everyday life, perhaps the more fantastic the narrative, the better. besides obvious differences, broadside ballads differed significantly from their oral counterparts in two major aspects, one cultural, the other economic. one of the primary cultural distinctions resulted from the simple fact that the narrative freedom of the singer or storyteller was not, and indeed could never be, enjoyed by the broadside publishers since the flexibility and spontaneity associated with oral folk transmission did not lend itself well to broadside publishing. broadside ballads were generally more linear, and had considerably less narrative flexibility than those of the oral ballad style. they were also, as a contemporary form of literature, more reflective of changing contemporary attitudes. coupled with this was the fact that the popular height of broadside ballad publishing coincided with the increasing literacy of a burgeoning middle class that was a result of the social and economic progress of the industrial revolution (williams 1981:51). whereas both the folksinger and his or her audience belonged to a tightly–knit community bound by a shared system of cultural values, the broadside was designed for anonymous consumption across a much wider geographic area. by the nineteenth century, the folk ballad was fast becoming a relic of times past and was not in keeping with the social, economic, educational and industrial advances of the period. however, despite the changing mores of the time, it would have been foolish for broadside publishers seeking new material to ignore existing folk ballads, many of which were regularly appropriated for print and sale, as observed by wehse: more frequent than the entering of an original broadside text into oral tradition seems the adaptation of orally transmitted folksongs to broadside publication. the reason has to be sought in the economic situation of broadside printing and publishing . . . why, should the publisher pay a professional writer for a really new and authentic song if it was only necessary to reproduce already existing subject matter and still make a good profit? (1975:328) seán ó cadhla 71 the broadside publisher was not transmitting the ballad for the sake of its own particular merit, but simply as an efficient means to a financial gain. unlike the traditional singer, the broadside publisher was now dependent on “the market,” not simply “the folk.” it could be argued, therefore, that the publisher had to be even more aware of the cultural requirements of his audience than the traditional singer. whereas a traditional singer who ignored his audience’s needs and expectations might simply encounter a public rebuff from his or her audience—an occurrence, to be fair, at which most contemporary folksingers would still recoil in horror—the broadside publisher would suffer financial hardship. in essence, what the traditional singer might endure in terms of a bruised ego, the ballad printer would have to absorb in terms of financial loss. in practice, this meant that broadside publishers and peddlers had to be more than willing to manipulate the subject matter of their printings to accommodate the varied requirements of their audience—something which was clearly undertaken in the case of sb, with scant regard for the continuity of the narrative. broadsides published by such editorial manipulation of existing oral ballads were often found wanting, as pointed out by williams: although, in their hunger for material, early broadside publishers did sometimes print relatively untouched versions of oral ballads, the tendency was more often to rewrite them so that they conformed to literate logic and taste. the broadside ballads usually focussed on the narrative to the exclusion of almost everything else. the number of major characters in the stories was frequently reduced (often to one person, the narrator), and their qualities almost disappeared under the weight of descriptive detail, as though the literate logic and an urban sense of naturalism struggled to fill the gaps in the once skilfully but sparsely rendered ballad stories. (1981:48) that the broadside printers “struggled to fill the gaps” when they appropriated sb for publishing is evident in their treatment of skewball’s propensity to speak at key stages of the ballad narrative. the speaking horse—a clear remnant of the now passé folklore era—was duly excised so as to present the ballad as historical narrative. however, in their efforts to make the ballad more appealing (or, indeed, fundamentally believable) for what they clearly regarded as a more culturally and intellectually advanced audience—one who we may assume would have scoffed at the prospect of a supernatural, speaking horse—the ballad printers continually fail at their numerous attempts of revision. what remains is a corrupted series of verses that jar significantly with the rest of the narrative and undermine its own chronological sense. thus, in their haste to revise the unpalatable, mythological aspect of the ballad, the broadside printers produced versions that compromise the credulity of the narrative itself—an ironic twist that would current musicology 72 surely have brought a wry smile to the lips of a many a wizened seanchaí.11 the traditional singer may well not have had the new–found sophistication of nineteenth–century england, but at least he knew his craft intimately and could still script and deliver a tale to good effect. the corrupted revisions show the narrow social confines in which the ballad printer operated, as well as the practical difficulties involved in overseeing the transition from the oral ballad—with all its associated cultural freedoms—to the more restrictive medium of the broadside. oral versus broadside narrative in “skewball”: an analysis while sb gained prominence and widespread popular appeal as an english broadside printing, the ballad’s oral tradition is also well–established, and can be shown to have both pre–existed the first datable printings, and to have long outlived the late nineteenth–century decline in broadside publishing. oral versions of the ballad were collected in america until the 1930s (flanders 1939:172–4) and in ireland until as recently as 1979 (shields 2011:58–9), suggesting that (for some at least) the mythological worldview provided by the oral ballad was not lost just yet. as well as an overall common structure shared with broadside printings, oral versions of sb display the following key narrative features: (i) skewball speaks to his master before the race and instructs him to bet heavily as his victory is assured.12 (ii) as the race nears its climax, skewball duly asks his rider how far his opponent is behind him. (iii)without hesitation, his rider confirms that the favorite is considerably behind, and that they are to prove victorious. (iv) skewball addresses the assembled crowd and calls for a toast to his defeated opponent. documented oral versions of sb are as follows (see appendix 1 for full text):13 (i) filgate ms (louth county council archive collection) the earliest printed version of sb to which a date can be confidently assigned is that found in the vocal library (hereafter vl) (souter, ed. 1818:526),14 a songbook containing a diverse range of english, irish and scottish material stretching back over several centuries. the intervening period of some fifty–four years between the publication of vl and the actual date of the race is not an insignificant amount of time if one considers the later widespread seán ó cadhla 73 popularity of the ballad. that oral versions of sb significantly preceded this printing is attested to by the discovery of a handwritten version which can be dated to 1764, entitled “the noble scuball.” (this previously undocumented version was uncovered as part of the author’s ongoing study of the filgates of lisrenny family papers,15 a diverse collection of estate records and personal papers, catalogued and held at the louth county council archives, dundalk, ireland.) while displaying the common narrative already discussed, filgate retains the folklore motif of the speaking horse—in this instance, pre–, mid–, and post–race. the transcription shows several corruptions that are consistent with oral documentation, yet correctly records skewball’s owner as “arthur marvin,” a name shown to have undergone widespread revision in the broadsides. significantly, verse 4 specifies (correctly) that the race took place at the curragh, a location which has been universally amended in subsequent versions to “the plain(s) of kildare.” it should also be noted that filgate accurately records skewball as racing against “grey mare,” whereas in the three later oral versions discussed below, his opponent has been amended to “miss greazle/grissel/grizzle.”16 the filgate ms, therefore, is the only version of sb hitherto documented which fully agrees with all of the established historical facts of the original race. (ii) mccall mss (national library of ireland) three manuscripts held in the national library of ireland—one belonging to the songwriter and ballad collector john mccall17 (1822–1902), and two belonging to his son p.j. mccall (1861–1919)—contain fragmentary versions of sb, one of which is dated by p. j. mccall to 1890.18 the versions each contain only four verses and were originally collected in the carlow–wexford area (munnelly 1985:455–77). the first two lines of the second verse are missing in two of the versions and have clearly been interpolated by p. j. mccall into the third. in all three it is the singer who bets heavily on skewball, but no mention is made of either gore or mervin. again, skewball wins with ease and speaks to his rider after the race. (iii) peter buchan ms (british library: ms. add 29408–29409) the british library manuscript collection contains an unpublished mid– nineteenth century manuscript version of sb transcribed by the scottish folksong collector peter buchan (1790–1854). this manuscript is of added significance because it confirms that oral (i.e., specifically non–broadside) versions were not strictly an irish phenomenon, and that identical folklore narratives—complete with the speaking horse—were still in circulation in current musicology 74 britain even at the height of broadside publishing popularity in the nineteenth century, thus demonstrating the robust longevity of this particular folklore motif. in this version, skewball speaks three times to his rider, twice during the race and once before (and not to mervin as in other versions). the pre–race remarks (verse 4:“skewball to his rider began to discourse”) would appear to have been substituted directly from verse 7, as the line is at odds with the established rhyming pattern.19 like filgate, the transcription shows corruptions that are consistent with oral documentation, e.g., “sherrif moir” (sir ralph gore) and “arthur o’mearlin” (arthur mervin). a character not found in any other version is present: “lord melville,” possibly a further corruption of “mervin.” furthermore, the first two lines of the final verse in which skewball calls for a toast to his defeated opponent are missing in this version. (iv) eddie butcher version (hugh shields’s field recordings) in the 1960s (shields 1988:16–7) and again in 1979 (shields 2011:58–9), folklorist hugh shields collected a version of sb from derry folk–singer and storyteller eddie butcher (1900–1980), which is unmistakably similar to the mayne broadside printing. the main structural difference is the omission of verses 3 and 5 of mayne. again, a number of inconsistencies are evident: for example, verse 1 reads as “great heart of marble,” instead of “brave arthur marvin”; in verse 2, butcher cites the challenger as “young mrs. gore,” and refers to “miss grizzel” as “their monaghan grey mare.” aside from these tantalizing (if unexplained) snippets of locally–influenced ballad revision, butcher’s version agrees with mayne in style and content, which would appear to be the singer’s source.20 the enduring ubiquity of sb in oral tradition over the course of several centuries cannot be examined in isolation from the ballad’s spectacular and marked success as a nineteenth–century broadside, with published versions collected across a wide geographical area throughout england, as far north as newcastle, and as far south as london. over the course of researching this paper, the author has been able to locate twenty–seven extant printed broadside sources for the ballad (under various titles) from the early–to–mid–nineteenth centuries (see appendix 2). despite this wide appeal among the buying public, broadside versions of sb began to disappear as the medium declined in the late nineteenth century. the latest printing examined as part of the current research was not in fact english and was published in belfast by the printer and publisher alex mayne. (as already stated, the narrative presented in this printing has more in common with earlier oral versions.21) seán ó cadhla 75 all english broadside printings show a common eleven–verse structure22 and, with the exception of the wide variations in the spelling of mervin’s name, all show a comparatively similar narrative content which may be summarized as follows: verse 1: the ballad begins with the standard broadside opening of “come (“ye”23 in one instance) gentlemen sportsmen,” and tells of how skewball was brought to ireland by arthur mervin. verse 2: mervin is challenged by sir ralph gore to race skewball against his grey mare (of varying title) for the sum of 500 guineas/pounds. verse 3: after skewball hears of the wager, he encourages mervin to bet heavily on him, as his victory is assured. verse 4: huge crowds assemble for the match, most of whom lay money on the grey mare. verse 5: a knowing mervin encourages those with money to lay hundreds on the grey mare, which he will match with some thousands on skewball. verse 6: mervin disperses the crowd and informs all to be ready for the contest the following day. verse 7: on the day of the race, mervin, who now seems to be dictating proceedings, orders his rider to mount skewball, and clears the spectators from the path of the horses. verse 8: the race begins and skewball immediately takes what will prove to be an unassailable lead. verse 9: as the race nears its climax—while both horses are in “the midst of the sport”—mervin asks his jockey what distance the grey mare is behind. (at this same stage in the oral versions, it is in fact skewball who asks this of the rider.) verse 10: the jockey replies that he is well ahead of the grey mare and will win easily. however, as a result of the deliberate revisions already referred to, both this and the preceding verse display several corruptions and inconsistencies of note. verse 11: the race ends with skewball winning easily, as predicted by the horse himself. an ecstatic crowd cries out that this is skewball’s first race in ireland, and by winning he has “broke sir ralph gore.” as this analysis demonstrates, the ubiquity of the mythological, speaking horse is central in traditional oral versions of sb, with the motif being ultimately utilized to facilitate progression of the ballad narrative. the ubiquity of this motif suggests that sb may well have enjoyed an oral existence for a current musicology 76 considerable period before the popular nineteenth century broadside versions, and that the events surrounding the famous 1752 triumph of skewball may simply have been grafted onto a pre–existing folklore narrative. despite only one reference to skewball’s gift of speech (verse 3) surviving in the english broadsides—perhaps more an editorial oversight than by actual design—the ballad has clearly been revised in order to present it in a historical (and consequently more “credible”) format for the benefit of a specific target audience. thus, broadside sb is no longer the quasi–mythical tale of a horse with the supernatural gift of speech, as recounted in the oral versions. instead, a clear attempt has been made at transforming the long–established folklore narrative of sb into a simple historical account of a documented sporting event which relates the considerably more sober narrative of an unfavored horse triumphing against all odds. a ballad in transition: from filgate to the broadsides the earliest documented oral version of sb is the handwritten transcription found among the filgates of lisrenny family papers, which can be dated to the year 1764—a mere twelve years after the actual race upon which the ballad was originally based—with the earliest datable broadside version being vl.24 both versions present similar narratives. a comparison of the two, however, shows some notable differences which are illustrative of the general transition from oral to broadside: come all you brave gallants and listen to all, and i will sing you the praise of noble scuball, who is lately come oover[?] as i understand, by brave arthur marvin the peer of the land. and of his brave actions you heard of before, how he was challeng’d by one sir ralph gore. five hundred guineas on the course of kildare, to run with the sporting gallant grey mare. when scuball he heard of the wager being laid, he said to his master ‘be not afraid. five hundred guineas you may lay on the course, and i will cover your castle with red matches of gold come gentlemen sportsmen, i pray listen all, i will sing you a song in the praise of skew ball; and how he came over, you shall understand, it was by squire mervin, the pearl of this land. and of his late actions as you’ve heard before, he was lately challeng’d by one sir ralph gore, for five hundred pounds, on the plains of kildare, to run with miss sportly, that famous grey mare. skew ball then hearing the wager was laid, unto his kind master said – ‘don’t be afraid; for if on my side you thousands lay would, i would rig on your castle a fine mass of gold!’ the day being come, and the cattle walk’d forth, the people came flocking from east, south, and north, for to view all the sporters, as i do declare, and venture their money all on the grey mare. seán ó cadhla 77 brave arthur marvin, smiling did say: ‘get ready, brave nobles, for tomorrow is the day. get ready your horses and saddles prepare, for we we[?] must away to the curroh of kildare.’ when scuball he came to the middle of the course, he and his rider began to discourse. ‘come my brave rider and tell unto me, how fare is my disting[distance?] post is from me.’ the rider look’d back and this he did say: ‘you may go very easy for we will win the day.’ such leaping and josling the[they?] had for a while, the more she stood back law full[?] a mile. when scuball came to the winning post, he bid all his nobles for to drink a toast. ‘now since you laid all your purses on the grey mare, now she is bet and the sorrow ma care[sir ralph gore?]’ squire mervin then, smiling, unto them did say, come, gentlemen, all that have money to lay; and you that have hundreds i will lay you all, for i’ll venture thousands on famous skew ball.’ squire mervin then smiling, unto them did say, ‘come gentlemen sportsmen, tomorrow’s the day, spurs, horses, and saddles and bridles prepare, for you must away to the plains of kildare.‘ the day being come, and the cattle walk’d out, squire mervin order’d his rider to mount, and all the spectators to clear the way, the time being come not one moment delay. the cattle being mounted away they did fly, skew ball like an arrow pass’d miss sportly by; the people went up to see them go round, they said in their hearts they ne’er touch’d the ground. but as they were running in the midst of the sport, squire mervin to his rider began his discourse; ‘o! loving kind rider, come tell unto me, how far at this moment miss sportly’s from thee?’ ‘o! loving kind master, you bear a great style, the grey mare’s behind you a long english mile, if the saddle maintains me, i’ll warrant you there, you ne’er shall be beat on the plains of kildare.’ but as they were running by the distant chair, the gentlemen cry’d out – ‘skew ball never fear, altho’ in this country thou was’t ne’er seen before, thou hast beaten miss sportly, and broke sir ralph gore.’ current musicology 78 the most obvious distinction between the two versions is the interpolation into vl of four additional verses, a feature found in all english broadside printings with the exception of two.25 these verses do not in themselves significantly alter the basic narrative of the ballad, and essentially function as dramatic devices in order to heighten the pre–race suspense, thus making the ballad more appealing to its audience. the interpolated verses are also significant: by placing emphasis on the race itself, they fundamentally dilute the significance of the speaking horse, the essential component of the folklore narrative. further proof of the editor’s hand is in the fact that all four interpolated verses (4, 5, 7, and 8) are practically sequential, constructed as they are around a verse that lends itself perfectly to their pre–race, suspense– building narrative. it is also worth noting that the opening address of the first verse has been corrected from “brave gallants” to “gentlemen sportsmen.” this subtle revision provides further evidence of the broadside publishers’ efforts to tailor the ballad to a specific niche audience (i.e., the horseracing fraternity), their target sales market.26 a further interesting revision of vl is the amendment of the actual race location from “the curroh of kildare” (verse 4, ms filgate) to “the plains of kildare” (verse 6). this was presumably made for the sake of rhythmic continuity, a feature present in all other broadside versions of the ballad. skewball, his rider and his master: divergent discourses with the exception of some minor differences in wording and phraseology, english broadside versions of sb all share a common structure and narrative until the final three verses. between these verses there are several distinct narrative streams, distinguished mainly by the changing identities of the characters. in addition to these variations, the broadside publishers have made numerous attempts to excise the mid– and post–race utterances; it is now mervin, not skewball, who speaks to the rider as the race reaches its climax. these clear narrative inconsistencies were duly appreciated by publishers at various stages in the ballad’s broadside incarnations, and consequently, several attempts were made at its revision and correction. but in their haste to present the ballad in a markedly less folkloric style, the broadside publishers ultimately do not succeed: what remains are corrupted verses containing narratives distorted to the point of absurdity, as the following analysis will show. in thirteen broadside versions, skewball races against a grey mare known as “miss sportly.”27 of these, eleven were printed in london, with the remaining two—wright and walker—printed by publishing houses in birmingham and durham, respectively. walker and birt are identical, as seán ó cadhla 79 are batchelar and jennings. wright omits verse 5, and ryle is identical to two of the pitts printings.28 in verse 9 of vl, mervin asks the rider, “how far at this moment miss sportly’s from thee?” the rider replies in verse 10: ‘o! loving kind master, you bear a great style, the grey mare’s behind you a long english mile, if the saddle maintains me, i’ll warrant you there, you ne’er shall be beat on the plains of kildare.’ (author’s emphasis)29 the reader will note the obvious difficulty presented by the rider telling mervin—a spectator, and not an actual race participant—that he bears a great style and that he (i.e., mervin) will never be beaten, a remnant of the rider’s original remarks to skewball which always seem to successfully resist correction. the same difficulty is repeated in all of the ryle and pitts printings, which also contain what is, perhaps, the starkest narrative corruption found in any of the broadsides: mervin’s asking the rider, ‘o! loving kind rider, come tell unto me, how far at this moment miss sportly’s from me?’ the batchelar, birt, howard & evans, jennings, walker and wright printings all attempt to correct this inconsistency, as the rider now says that the grey mare is behind him (note the excision of verse 10 “me” in all except jennings), but the verses still lack the narrative continuity afforded by the oral versions: ‘but as they were running in the midst of the sport, squire mervin to his rider began his30 discourse; o! loving kind rider, come tell unto me, how far at this moment miss sportly’s from thee?’31 ‘o! loving kind master, you bear a great style, the grey mare’s behind me a long english mile, if the32 saddle maintains,33 i’ll warrant you there, you ne’er will be beat on the plains of kildare.’ in verse 11, all “miss sportly” versions excise the post–race speech by skewball in which he salutes his defeated opponent and often partakes in a celebratory toast. instead, it is now “the gentlemen” who speak in unison, proclaiming skewball’s debut victory. in doing so they further emphasise the ballad’s transition from a mythological tale of a supernatural speaking horse to a recounting of the considerably less fantastic narrative of an unexpectedly triumphant sporting underdog: current musicology 80 but as they were running by the distant chair, the gentlemen cry’d out – ‘skew ball never fear, altho’ in this country thou was’t ne’er seen before, thou hast beaten miss sportly, and broke sir ralph gore.’34 seven broadsides, all appearing to stem from the same common source, record skewball’s opponent as “maid sportly,” and refer to mervin as either “irving,” “irwin,” or “iwrin.” in all seven versions, mervin again asks the rider, “o loving kind rider come tell unto me, / how far is maid sportly this moment from thee?” verse 10 of the ford, forth, jackson and harding b15 (290) printings all display the by now familiar pattern of narrative discontinuity: ‘o loving kind master you bear35 a great stile, the grey36 mare is behind me a great english mile, if your37 saddle maintains me i’ll warrant you there, you38 ne’er shall39 be beat on the plain of kildare.’ in eyres, and in both harkness printings, an attempt has clearly been made at addressing the above inconsistencies along with those of the “miss sportly” versions, by presenting lines 3 and 4 as a straight reply by mervin to the rider. what results is perhaps the most successful attempted revision of the verse, but we are still left with the inconsistency of the rider’s reply to mervin in line 1, as already discussed: ‘o loving kind master you bear a great stile, the grey mare is behind me a large english mile,’ ‘if your saddle maintains you i’ll warrant you there, you ne’er will be beat on the plain of kildare.’ as in the “miss sportly” versions, verse 11 also excises skewball’s victory comments, and interestingly refers to him as a mare: but as she was40 running by the distance chair, the gentlemen cried41 out ‘scew ball never fear, altho’ in this country thou wast42 ne’er seen before, thou hast beaten maid sportly and broke sir ralph gore.’ one broadside (sergent) records gore’s grey mare as “miss sprightly,” but once again struggles with the excision of the skewball/rider conversation in the final verses: but as they were in the midst of their sport, [?] squire mervin began this discourse; saying, ‘o loving rider, come tell unto me, seán ó cadhla 81 how far is miss sprightly now distant from thee?’ says he, ‘my dear master, you bear a great stile, the grey mare’s behind me a full english mile, if the saddle remains, i’ll warrant you here, you ne’er shall be beat on the plains of kildare.’ but as they were running by the distance chair, the gentlemen cry’d out, ‘skew ball never fear; altho’ in this country thou ne’er was before, thou’s beaten miss sprightly, and broke sir ralph gore.’ “miss sprightly” appears in sb on just one other occasion, this time in an oral version collected in new york in the mid–nineteenth century. in common with other oral versions, horse and jockey speak in the final verses. interestingly, the shouts of the gentlemen in the broadsides have now been inserted into the mouth of skewball himself, thus further strengthening the speaking horse motif present across all oral versions: ‘although i was never in this country before i’ve beat miss sprightly and broke sorrow four [sir ralph gore].’ (thomson, ed. 1958:82–84) three versions (croshaw, hoggett and harding b25 (1784)) list the opponent as “miss sportsly” and again attempt to circumvent the chronological difficulty posed by the original revision of these verses, primarily by the insertion of “we “and “us” into verse 10. again, it is “the gentlemen” who speak after the race, and not our hero: and as they were just in the midst of their sport, squire mirvin to his rider begun this discourse, ‘o loving kind rider come tell unto me, how far is miss sportsly this moment from thee?’ ‘o loving kind master you bear a great style, the grey mare is behind us a full english mile, if the saddle maintains us43 i warrant you there, we ne’er shall be beat on the plains of kildare.’ and as they were running44 past the distance chair, the gentlemen cry’d45 ‘skewball never fear; although46 in this country thou wast ne’er seen before, thou by beating miss sportsly has broke sir ralph gore.’ most noteworthy of all the english broadsides is the stephenson printing which, while showing some clear signs of revision, nonetheless retains current musicology 82 skewball’s mid–race conversation with his rider: and when they were just in the middle of their course, skewball to his rider began this discourse, ‘oh loving kind rider pray tell unto me, how far is miss portsley this moment from thee?’ verse 10 presents an unclear dialogue, one that would appear to be between rider and mervin as in the eyres and harkness printings: ‘oh loving kind master you bear a great style, the gray mare’s behind me a large english mile,’ ‘then stick close to thy saddle my boy never fear, thou ne’er shall be beat by this charming gray mare.’ the final two lines above provide a further echo of the folkloric origins of sb; similar lyrics appear in two oral versions collected in america, both of which display common ancestry with earlier oral versions of the ballad. in both, it is skewball who speaks to his jockey: ‘stick close to your saddle, my boy, never fear, we ne’er shall be beat by the gallant gray mare.’ (benton 1826:3) ‘stick tight to your saddle my boy never [fear] for you ne’er shall be beat on the plains of ki[ldeer].’ (thomson, ed. 1958:84) the final verse of stephenson shows similar content to all versions previously discussed: and when they were running by the distance chair, all the gentlemen called, ‘skewball ........[?] fear, although in this country you ne’er run before, by beating miss portsley you’ve broke sir ralph goer.’ it is worth noting that the pre–race remarks between mervin and skewball (verse 3) are the only remnants of the gelding’s propensity to speak that have survived in the english broadsides. perhaps an intimate understanding between master and animal was one thing; however, a horse engaging in conversation with his rider mid–race, and subsequently calling for a toast to his defeated opponent and drinking to her health was clearly a step too far for the ballad printers. an interesting insight into early nineteenth–century attitudes—and by extension, the cultural restrictions encountered by ballad printers in their relentless pursuit of market share— can be found in a letter from one c.h. chester to the periodical the sporting magazine (vol. 8, january 1834:258). here, the contributor recounts “about seán ó cadhla 83 thirty–five years ago singing this song at hambledon after a racing dinner.” chester includes a version of the ballad with only seven verses—pointedly omitting verse 3, along with verses 5, 6 and 7—thus, making no mention whatsoever of the speaking horse. he goes on to describe the mid–race conversation between the jockey and mervin as “the ludicrous circumstances detailed at the three mile post, which it must be admitted the author had largely availed himself of poetical licence in relating.” if such an event seemed somewhat incredible (albeit, justifiably so) to the contributor, one can only imagine what such a learned gentleman would have thought of a horse that could not only speak, but could also accurately predict a race result, advise his owner on the amount to bet, encourage his jockey and advise him to “stick close to the saddle,” ask his jockey mid–race as to where his opponent currently was, win the race with some ease and finally, call for a toast to his defeated opponent. indeed, what had long been popular around the irish fireside was clearly no longer best–suited to the more genteel surroundings of a nineteenth–century english post–race gathering. interestingly, in a london publication from 1823 (the london magazine, vol. 8, 1823:72), a fragmentary version of the ballad in which skewball speaks to his rider is included in the short story, “the yorkshire alehouse.” unlike the stephenson printing, the verse which follows has not been edited, which would strongly suggest that printed versions of the ballad containing skewball’s various conversations with his rider had successfully avoided revision having travelled intact to england. the dating of this verse to 1823 further shows that such versions were still in circulation for some considerable time after the narrative was initially edited in the earliest broadsides. unlike mr. chester, the author of this particular short story—“nalla”—was clearly not squeamish about employing either folklore or poetic licence, as we are informed that skewball “was begotten by belzebub, and could speak like a christian.” the speaker proceeds to quote the following two verses: and when that they came to the middle of the course, cubal to his rider began to discourse; saying, ‘come, pretty rider, pray tell unto me how far in the distance miss sportly may be.’ the rider look’d back, and replied with a smile, ‘i think she’s about the space of half a mile.’ ‘so—stick to your saddle, my boy, never fear; you’ll never be beat by the gallant grey mare.’ the various excisions and interpolations by the broadside printers all contribute towards the dilution of the ballad’s folkloric origins, thus reducing the speaking horse motif to fulfilling a role subordinate to current musicology 84 the victory of the underdog of the race. the opposite can be observed in the oral versions where the speaking horse motif is ubiquitous to the narrative progression, and proves to be of equal—if not greater— importance than skewball’s unexpected broadside triumph. due to the folkloric, mythological origins of the oral versions, the audience seems to instinctively know that skewball will win, and could be forgiven for expecting nothing less than a stunning victory from a horse of such supernatural prowess. not so with the broadsides, in which the context of skewball’s victory as underdog is all–pervasive, and is continually accentuated by numerous literary devices and suspense–building mechanisms, more often than not with scant regard to the overall chronological continuity of the ballad itself. when all of the above textual re–workings are considered, it is difficult to dismiss them as only casual editorial oversights. rather, they are quite deliberate manipulations undertaken in order to satisfy the cultural expectations of a niche audience; they thus provide a useful insight into the changing sensibilities of the increasingly educated and socially advanced classes of nineteenth– century english society. conclusions i have established that the ballad sb (laws: q22 / roud: 456) is based on a two–horse match held on the curragh of kildare on march 30, 1752, between a previously unknown skewbald gelding (skewball, b. 1741) and a grey mare of considerable repute (grey mare, b. 1745), owned by arthur mervin and sir ralph gore, respectively. while sb enjoyed broad popular appeal as a nineteenth–century english broadside ballad, it has a well–established oral tradition in ireland, stretching back into the mid–eighteenth century and long outliving the late nineteenth–century decline in broadside ballad publishing. oral versions have been documented as recently as 1979. that sb is of irish origin, and had a previous oral incarnation which circulated for a considerable length of time before its appearance as a nineteenth–century english broadside, is supported by a version dated to 1764, uncovered by the author as part of ongoing study of the “filgates of lisrenny papers” (louth county council archive collection). i have focused on some of the practical difficulties encountered by broadside publishers as they sought to appropriate folksongs from the traditional canon and reproduce them in broadside ballad format. as a form of contemporary literature, the broadside was representative of nineteenth– century society, and consequently, sought to reflect the transition from the traditional folklore setting to a more modern, sophisticated and, above seán ó cadhla 85 all, literate era. as well as reflecting these social and educational advances, broadside publishers were also compelled in no small part by economic necessity, and consequently regularly manipulated the narrative of existing folksongs to suit the requirements of their target sales market. in the case of sb, the transition from folksong to broadside is inhibited by the seeming inability of the broadside publishers to successfully oversee the excision of skewball’s gift of speech, a folklore motif ubiquitous throughout all oral versions. a comparative analysis of all extant broadside printings has shown that several attempts were made at excising this oral narrative feature, but that all fail to do so without significantly compromising the ballad’s narrative chronology. it has been shown that these revisions—combined with the four additional verses interpolated by broadside publishers into the earliest documented oral version of sb—were deliberately undertaken with a view towards obscuring the mythological significance of the ballad’s folkloric narrative. in doing so, they present the ballad simply as an historical account detailing the unexpected—albeit, heroic—triumph of a sporting underdog. current musicology 86 appendix 1: (i) filgate ms (louth county council archive collection) come all you brave gallants and listen to all, and i will sing you the praise of noble scuball, who is lately come oover[?] as i understand, by brave arthur marvin the peer of the land. and of his brave actions you heard of before, how he was challeng’d by one sir ralph gore. five hundred guineas on the course of kildare, to run with the sporting gallant grey mare. when scuball he heard of the wager being laid, he said to his master ‘be not afraid. five hundred guineas you may lay on the course, and i will cover your castle with red matches of gold.’ brave arthur marvin, smiling did say: ‘get ready, brave nobles, for tomorrow is the day. get ready your horses and saddles prepare, for we we[?] must away to the curroh of kildare.’ when scuball he came to the middle of the course, he and his rider began to discourse. ‘come my brave rider and tell unto me, how fare[?] is my disting[distance?] post is from me.’ the rider look’d back and this he did say: ‘you may go very easy for we will win the day.’ such leaping and josling the[they?] had for a while, the more she stood back law full[?] a mile. when scuball came to the winning post, he bid all his nobles for to drink a toast. ‘now since you laid all your purses on the grey mare, now she is bet and the sorrow ma care[sir ralph gore?]’ francis lucas lee tullymeela, march the 9th 1764 four[?] fryday evening within six minutes of six o clock.47 seán ó cadhla 87 (ii) mccall ms (national library of ireland) skew ball: a sporting song i’ll sing of the match that with skewball i made, and of all the wages that on him was laid; to run with miss grizzle that bonny grey mare, for five hundred pounds on the plains of kildare. bold skewball set off with a terrible pace, and bonny miss grizzle kept well in the race, so when that they had come to the middle of the course, skewball and his rider began to discourse. saying: ‘skewball you are going at a wonderful style, miss grizzle is distanced an english half–mile. and if you run this round as you have run before, neither nimrod nor tiger could ever do more.’ but when that they came unto the winning post skewball bid his rider to drink just one toast, ‘here’s a health to miss grizzle, that bonny grey mare, that emptied their purses on the plains of kildare.’ supplied from memory by mr. john mccall. the song is fragmentary.48 (iii) peter buchan ms (british library: ms. add 29408 – 29409) miss grissel, the famous gray mare come nobles and gentlemen all,49 i’ll tell you a story concerning skewball. how he was brought over ye may understand, by arthur o’mearlin the pearl of the land. the glorious action ye’ve oft heard before, the time he was challeng’d by the young sherrif moir, to ride with miss grissel the famous grey mare, for nine thousand pounds on the plains o’ kildare. how the day was appointed the cattle brought forth, and all the whole nobles both east, south and north, came there a–viewing and on them to stare, and laid all their purses on the famous grey mare. current musicology 88 the wager being laid and the money laid down, skewball to his rider began to discourse: ‘these nine thousand pounds by me ye shall hold, and your castle well covered with silver and gold.’ lord melville he paid down his money in count, and ordered the jockies that moment to mount, and all the spectators for to clear the way, for now is the moment no longer delay. the orders then given, they quickly did fly, skewball like an arrow miss grissel pass’d by, and had you but seen him as he turn’d them around, you scarce would have thought that one foot touched the ground. but as they were riding in the midst of the course, skewball to his rider began to discourse. says, ‘without hesitation could you tell to me, how far before miss grissel we be.’ the rider then turned and gave a smile, said, ‘i think we’re before her, about full ten mile.’ ‘keep close to your saddle boy ye need not fear that e’er ye’ll be beat by the famous grey mare.’ ‘if ye turn this way as ye’ve done before, no chieftain or hero could ever do more.’50 (iv) eddie butcher version (hugh shields’s field recordings) come all you noble gentlemen, i pray listen all, to i sing the praises of noble skewball; he is lately come over as we understand, he’s the great heart of marble and the pearl of the land. his valours and actions we have heard of before, but now he is challenged by young mrs. gore, for to run with miss grizzel, the handsome grey mare, for ten thousand guineas on the plains of kildare. ‘oh sir arthur’ in his stable to his master did say, ‘noble master, dear master, be you not afraid, for if it’s some thousands upon your side hold, i will rig in your castle to the topmast in gold.’ the gentlemen from england from east, north and south, they all came there the cattle to view and in viewing the cattle just as they came there sure they all bet their money upon the grey mare. seán ó cadhla 89 the money was paid down in good ready count when the riders got orders that moment to mount, when the word of spectator was to clear the way, for the hour is approaching, no longer can stay. by the word of command then away they did fly, skewball like an arrow the grey mare passed by and if you had a–been there to have seen them going around you’d have thought in your heart their feet ne’er touched the ground. when that they came to the middle of the course skewball to the rider began to discourse; ‘noble rider, dear rider can you tell to me, how far is the grey mare this moment from me?’ says the rider to skewball, ‘you ran in great style, for the grey mare’s behind you one english half–mile and if you stand your running i vow and i’ll swear that you ne’er will be beat by their monaghan grey mare.’ oh, when that they came to the last winning post, skewball to the rider will drink a long toast; drink a health to miss grizzel, the handsome grey mare, for she emptied their purses on the plains of kildare. (shields 1988:16–7) appendix 2: broadside printings bathcelar (london) [madden coll.: london printers 1, # 630] birt (london) [bodleian library: firth c. 19(78)] croshaw (york) [bodleian library: b29 24/2] eyres (warrington) [bodleian library: gale doc. no. cw3316680623] ford (chesterfield) [madden coll.: country printers 5, # 25] forth (pocklington) [bodleian library: harding b11 (4021)] harkness (preston) [bodleian library: firth c. 26(51)] harkness (preston) [madden coll.: country printers 1, # 721] hoggett (durham) [madden coll.: country printers 1, # 613] howard & evans (london) [madden collection: slip songs o–y, #1682] jackson (birmingham) [bodleian library: johnson ballads 1406] jennings (london) [madden coll.: london printers 1, # 479] mayne (belfast) [irish traditional music archive, dublin] pitts (london) [bodleian library: johnson ballads 999] current musicology 90 pitts (london) [bodleian library: harding b11 (73)] pitts (london) [bodleian library: harding b11 (3533)] pitts (london) [bodleian library: harding b15 (289b)] pitts (london) [madden coll.: london printers 1, # 725] ryle (london) [bodleian library: harding b15 (289a)] sergent (preston) [bodleian library: gale doc. no. cb3330619539] stephenson (gateshead) [bodleian library: harding b25 (1785)] the vocal library [london, 1818] [unknown publisher] [bodleian library: harding b6 (54)] [unknown publisher] [bodleian library: harding b25 (1784)] [unknown publisher] [bodleian library: harding b15 (290)] walker (durham) [madden coll.: country printers 1, # 676] wright (birmingham) [bodleian library: harding b28 (274)] ms versions filgate ms pp00001/002/004/001: filgates of lisrenny papers (louth county council archive collection, dundalk). peter buchan ms ms 29,408, 29,409: collection of ancient scottish and english ballads, formed by peter buchan, corresponding member of the society of antiquaries of scotland, and used by him as the foundation of his “ancient ballads and songs of the north of scotland, hitherto unpublished” (british library, london). p.j. mccall ms collection of ballad sheets and cuttings of songs made by pj mccall, laid down in 13 volumes (national library of ireland, dublin). seán ó cadhla 91 notes 1. laws: q22 / roud: 456. the ballad is also known variously as, “scewball,” “scew ball,” “screw ball,” “skewball,” “skew ball,” “skyball,” “scuball,” “sku–ball,” etc. 2. for the purposes of the current research, the term “broadside” refers to the practice of printing ballads on single sheets of paper so as to enable their cheap and efficient dissemination over a broad geographical area. for a wider discussion on the vagaries of the word, see earnest, r. and earnest, c. 2005:11–14. 3. see also, general advertiser, april 11, 1752; london evening post, april 9–11, 1752; pue’s occurences, april 27, 1752. 4. see, for example, alan lomax, prison songs: historical recordings from the parchman farm 1947–48. volume 2: don’tcha hear poor mother calling? (rounder: burlington, ma, 2007). 5. african–american versions, while clearly sharing common origins with the irish and english versions under discussion, vary significantly in terms of narrative and characters involved. 6. sir ralph gore is also referenced as, “sir francis gore” (mayne broadside printing, belfast), “sherrif moir” (peter buchan ms) and “young mrs. gore” (eddie butcher recordings: shields 1988:16–7; shields 2011:58–9). arthur marvin is referenced variously in english broadsides as, “arthur irmin / irvine / irving / irwin / iwrin / merlin / merwin / mirvin / morvin; also “arthur o’mearlin” (peter buchan ms) “arthur marvin” (ms filgate), “arthur marvel (benton 1826:3–4), “arthur melvin (mayne broadside printing, belfast), “artumaro” (flanders 1939:172–4) and “spurmurthy” (thomson, ed. 1958:82–4). as well as the pair’s prominence among the racing fraternity, gore was also a major fermanagh landowner of cromwellian planter background, a fact which may well have contributed to the ballad’s broad appeal in ireland, seeing as his mare was defeated so heavily by an unknown horse of inferior pedigree. 7. see mayne broadside printing, belfast; also referenced as, “miss greazle” (eddie butcher recording – shields 2011:58–9), “miss grissel” (peter buchan ms; flanders 1939:172–4) and “miss grizzel” (eddie butcher recording – shields 1988:16–7). 8. also referenced variously in english broadsides as, “skew ball”, “scewball“ and“scew ball.” also, “scuball” (benton 1826:3–4; thomson, ed. 1958:82–4), sku–ball (flanders 1939:172–4) and “skyball” (mayne broadside printing, belfast). 9. see, for example: ó duilearga 1935:153; ó hógáin 1977–79:199–243; ó hógáin 2006:284; o’keefe 1859:69. 10. ewan mccoll’s 1964 series of recorded interviews with irish traditional singer seosamh ó héanaigh (1919–1984) provides several illustrative examples of this cultural crossover: ó héanaigh–“because, as i told you before, before they ask you to sing—they never ask you at home to sing a song, they say ‘say a song’—and you tell the story first and then you sing the song. but without a story, the song is useless.” (reproduced at http://www.mustrad.org. uk/articles/heaney.htm#intro ) 11. from modern irish: “seanchaí, m. (gs. ~, pl. –aithe). 1. lit: custodian of tradition, historian. 2. reciter of ancient lore; traditional story–teller.” (ó dónaill, ed. 1977:1076). see also old irish: “senchaid. m. later also senchaide.... a reciter of lore; a historian.” (quinn, ed. 1990:536) 12. in the peter buchan ms version, skewball instructs his rider, and not his master, with the lines: “the wager being laid and the money laid down, / skewball to his rider began to discourse”, the latter line appearing later in verse 7—as in other oral versions—when skewball converses with his rider. the reader will note that these lines are considerably at odds with the established rhyming pattern of the ballad, and would appear to be a revision for the sake of narrative continuity, i.e., to ensure that skewball speaks only to his rider throughout. this conversation is absent in the truncated p.j. mccall ms version. current musicology 92 13. the author has focused solely on oral versions collected in ireland and england, or on american versions which are clearly of direct descent from same. african–american oral versions, while strongly retaining the presence of a speaking horse in the narrative, are not included as part of the research undertaken for this paper. 14. both flanders (1939:173) and thompson (ed.,1958:83) cite the 1822 edition of vl as the earliest printed source for sb, quoting scarborough (1925:62). 15. ‘sale of farm stock’ – pp00001/002/004/001: filgates of lisrenny papers, louth co. council archive collection. 16. it will be noted that this change in opponent, along with the presence of a speaking horse, are also evident in the mayne (belfast) broadside printing, which would appear to be the source for the eddie butcher versions. the mayne printing is by far the most extensive, and manages to successfully combine the various nuances and vagaries of both broadside and oral versions, providing an 11–verse epic in which skewball converses no less than five times. 17. a collection of traditional and other songs and ballads made by john mc call, mid–19th c., including many from the carlow–wexford area. (ms 13,849, national library of ireland):66. 18. collection of ballad sheets and cuttings of songs made by pj mccall, laid down in 13 volumes (national library of ireland), vol. vi:17; vol. vi:122. 19. see note 12. 20. andy irvine’s seminal 1976 recording of the ballad as “the plains of kildare”, draws heavily on the eddie butcher version (e.g., “young mrs. gore”, “miss griesel”, “10,000 gold guineas”, the ubiquitous speaking horse who imbibes, etc), as well as the 1962 recording by a.l. llyod (e.g., “well, past the winning post, bold skewball won so handy / and horse and rider both called for sherry wine and brandy”). a nod is also duly given in the direction of skewball’s travels across the atlantic, when irvine calls the horse by his african–american slave sobriquet of “stewball”, and in doing so, completes the perfect circle of the gelding’s epic journey back to ireland. 21. mayne printed at 34 high street from 1852, and subsequently at 7 ½ high street from 1854–67 (moulden 2006:979). unfortunately, a premises number is not printed with the address on the broadside, so a more specific date for the printing cannot be given beyond this broad timeframe. 22. exceptions are the wright printing (birmingham) which omits verse 5, and an anonymous, undated printing, bodleian library: harding b 6 (54), which shows only eight verses, four of which contain only two lines. 23. bodleian library: harding b25 (1784). anonymous, undated printing. 24. the author concedes that other broadside printings may well have been published and in circulation before that of vl. however, due to the inherent difficulties involved in dating certain broadside material, it has been decided to construct the comparative analysis on a version to which a definitive date can be readily assigned. 25. see note 22. 26. cox (1857:116) recounts that, “the praises of skewball, or the gallant skyball as he was called, have been heard sung on irish race–courses within the last twenty years”, a fact which would further illustrate the economic expediency—and, of course, the resultant marketing acumen – displayed by both broadside publishers and peddlers in their pursuit of market share. performance of sb on english racecourses during this period is also documented. (see the sporting magazine, vol. 8, january 1834:258). seán ó cadhla 93 27. wright reads, “miss sportley.” 28. bodleian library: harding b11 (73) and harding b15 (289b). 29. italics have been added to the following verses as appropriate. 30. howard & evans reads, “this.” 31. birt and walker read, “how far is miss sportly from catching of thee?” 32. birt and walker omit, “the.” 33. jennings reads, “me.” 34. verse 11 of vl is reproduced above. other “miss sportly” versions show very minor variations in spelling, but otherwise agree fully with the wording of vl. 35. jackson reads, “beor.” 36. jackson reads, “grew.” 37. jackson reads, “you.” 38. jackson reads, “yuo.” 39. ford reads, “will” 40. jackson reads, “wrs.” 41. eyers, ford and jackson read, “cry’d.” 42. forth reads, “wert”; jackson reads, “want.” 43. hoggett reads, “as.” 44. hoggett reads, “coming.” 45. hoggett reads, “cri’d.” 46. hoggett reads, “altho’.” 47. punctuation and capital letters have been amended from the original ms as appropriate. 48. mccall, p.j., ibid. vol. vi:122. punctuation and capital letters have been amended from the original ms as appropriate. 49. revised in ms to, “and listen all.” 50. punctuation and capital letters have been amended from the original ms as appropriate. references benton, henry. 1826. the songster’s museum: a new and choice collection of popular songs, selected from the best authors. new york: benton. carpenter, andrew. 1998. verses in english from 18th century ireland. cork: cork university press. casey, george j., rosenberg, neil. v. and wareham, wilfred. 1972. “repertoire categorization and performer–audience relationships: some newfoundland folksong examples.” ethnomusicology. vol. 16, no. 3: 397–403. cox, michael. 1897. notes on the history of the irish horse. dublin: sealy, bryers and walker. earnest, russell and earnest, corinne. 2005. flying leaves and one–sheets: pennsylvania german broadsides, fraktur and their printers. new castle, de: oak knoll press. ferris, william r. 1970. “racial repertoire among blues performers.” ethnomusicology. vol. 14, no. 3: 439–49. flanders, helen. 1939. new green mountain songster. new haven: yale university press. current musicology 94 harewood, harry. 1835. a dictionary of sports, or companion to the field, the forest and the riverside. london: tegg & son. heber, reginald. 1753. an historical list of horse matches run and of plates and prizes, run for in great britain and ireland in 1752. london: [s.n.] lomax, alan, and john lomax. 1994. american ballads and folk songs. new york: courier dover. mccall, john. a collection of traditional and other songs and ballads made by john mccall, mid–19th c., including many from the carlow–wexford area. (ms. 13,849, national library of ireland). mccall, p. j. collection of ballad sheets and cuttings of songs made by pj mccall, laid down in 13 volumes (national library of ireland). moulden, john. 2006. “the printed ballad in ireland: a guide to the popular printing of songs in ireland, 1760–1920.” phd diss.: nui galway. munnelly, tim. 1985. “the manuscript songbook of john mccall (1822–1902): a 19th century collection of songs and ballads from the carlow/wexford border.” lares vol. 51, no. 4: 455–77. ó dónaill, niall (eag.) 1977 foclóir gaeilge–béarla. baile átha cliath: an gúm. ó duilearga, séamas (ed.) 1935. “an capall bán agus an feirmeoir.” béaloideas: the journal of the folklore of ireland society vol. 5: 125. ó hógáin, daithí. 1979. “an capall i mbéaloideas na héireann.” béaloideas: the journal of the folklore of ireland society vols. 45–47: 199–243. _____. 2006. the lore of ireland: an encyclopaedia of myth, legend and romance. cork: collins. o’keefe, c.m. 1859. “horses and hounds of ancient ireland.” ulster journal of archaeology vol. 7: 65–71. pick, william. 1803. the turf register & sportsman & breeder’s stud book, (vol. 1). york: bartholoman. quin, ernest gordon (ed.). 1990. dictionary of the irish language based mainly on old and middle irish material. dublin: royal irish academy. scarborough, dorothy. 1925. on the trail of negro folksongs. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. shields, hugh. 2011. all the days of his life: eddie butcher in his own words. dublin: itma. _____. 1988. old dublin songs. dublin: folk music society of ireland. souter, john (ed.). 1818. the vocal library – being the largest collection of english, scottish and irish songs ever printed in a single volume. london: souter. thompson, harold (ed.). 1958. a pioneer songster: texts from the stevens–douglass manuscript of western new york, 1841–1856. new york: cornell university press. wehse, rainer. 1975. “broadside ballad and folksong: oral tradition versus literary tradition.” folklore forum 8: 324–34. williams, w.h.a. 1981. “the broadside ballad and vernacular culture.” éigse cheol tíre: irish music folk studies. vol. 3, 1976–81: 45–60. newspapers & periodicals general advertiser (london) london evening post (london) pue’s occurences (dublin) the london magazine (london) the sporting magazine (london) seán ó cadhla 95 recordings brady, paul, and andy irvine. 1976. andy irvine and paul brady. mulligan: dublin. llyod, albert lancaster, and ewan mccoll. 1962. gamblers and sporting blades. topic records: london. lomax, alan. 1997. prison songs: historical recordings from the parchman farm 1947–48. volume 2: don’tcha hear poor mother calling? rounder: burlington, ma. websites http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/heaney.htm#intro susan thomas. 2009. cuban zarzuela: performing race and gender on havana's lyric stage. urbana and chicago: university of illinois. reviewed by marti newland in cuban zarzuela: performing race and gender on havana's lyric stage, musicologist susan thomas draws on her years of archival work in cuba and the work of a broad collection of scholars including homi bhabha, judith butler, karen henson, and robin moore to detail the development and performance practices of an understudied genre of cuban opera, "zarzuela." emerging as a well-received genre in havana theaters during the early twentieth century, cuban zarzuela incorporates spanish light opera and afrocuban musical characteristics into one-act operettas featuring a number of racial and nationalist archetypes endemic in turn-of-the-century cuba: the "mulatta" woman, the "black" man, the "white" woman, and the "white" man. thomas organizes the text into studies of each of these subject positions to reveal how cuban zarzuela served as a platform to establish a distinctly cuban opera genre, as well as to provide a respectable social outlet for cuba's white, female bourgeoisie. a rich example of the confluence of nationalism, race, gender, class, art and popular music, this genre allows the author to analyze a vast swath of key polemics challenging the modern west. after an introduction in which she outlines the historical and musical scope of her text, thomas spends the first two chapters of the book historiciz­ ing cuban lyric theater (chapter 1) and outlining the theoretical framework for her analysis of gender and genre in cuban zarzuela (chapter 2). stressing how zarzuela articulates themes of everyday life in havana, thomas carefully situates zarzuela as an emplaced, local musical tradition in juxtaposition to cuba's metropole and north american transnational influences. she also traces the development of theater infrastructure in madrid and havana, as well as the development of afrocubanismo and cuban womens' political activities to underscore the means by which zarzuela developed its particular class of consumer: white upper-class women. a set of archetype studies follows the opening material. chapters 3 through 6 each feature one common character type in zarzuela perfor­ mance, characters that also represent the social positions at the heart of early twentieth-century cuban political debates. the mulatta, "a beautiful young woman whose genetic makeup is the source of both her character and the intrigues, comic and tragic, that shape her life," is usually a soprano role most noted for her salida entrance aria ( 40). thomas offers analysis of current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 91 92 current musicology salidas scores from three zazuelas, maria la 0 (1930), cecilia valdes (1932) and amalia batista (1936), which represent the demanding tessitura and melodic contour of the arias, but lack detail about timbre and zarzuela's afrocuban musical characteristics. black male characters embodied ste­ reotypes of black masculinity found in a negrito, a comic buffoon, a negro tragico, a sentimental, serious (black) man, and a negro catedratico, a black professor who used "overly flowery speech" and "poked fun at the growing class of black professionals"(85). additionally, white male or female artists in blackface often performed these roles. ingenues, white upper class female characters who search for husbands, contrast with the working, poor, white female characters in zarzuelas. romanzas, an ingenue's aria scenes sung in private, protected spaces (unlike the public spaces of the mulattas' salidas), reinforced white upper class femininity with virtue and helped to maintain a social construction of whiteness, according to thomas. white male char­ acters, the galan, a symbol of upwardly mobile cuban patriarchy through an urban, wealthy, male university student and the criollo, a rural, uneducated, poor (white) man exposes "the white male protagonist's failings [and] also teaches the necessity of having to learn to live with him"(176). thomas's structuring of these traditional zarzuela roles is both organized and informative. this monograph responds to karen henson's critique that "operatic studies of the other have ... largely ignored the cultural work done by male bodies and voices," as it analyzes both male and female characters and demonstrates the saliency of this approach to opera studies' analyses of difference (94). her analysis frames black and white, male and female roles as classifications contingent upon each other-a much needed approach in race and gender studies. however, thomas's structuring of character privileges a western gaze of zarzuela for the reader-she gives us a keen account of white male fascination with oversexed black women mulattas in zarzuela performances, as well as white female fascination with the approachable black male found in negro tragicos. but what of other social positions? what is the story of non-mulatta black women, as well as non-black and non-white cubans in zarzuela history? the book suffers from what is beyond thomas's control: we do not know enough about cuban zarzuela-yet. she dedicates a large portion of her text to introducing the reader to the genre and its composers, performers, and consumers, and she does so by making perceptive connections between different zarzuela productions and codifying zarzuela performance practice with sophistication. while thomas has thoughtfully made this necessary introduction of zarzuela, she leaves the reader with questions-especially related to the complicated use of dialect in zarzuela performance, and the marti newland biographical information on popular zarzuela singer-actors. in what ways does dialect represent a character? who were these artists, and how did their social positions inform their performances? thomas gives us a brief glimpse of a few of these people, including: enrique arredondo, a blackface actor mentioned in a footnote, whose career trajectory illustrates zarzuela politics; francisco covarrubias, the first cuban known to perform in blackface; rita montaneur, a soprano who played a man in blackface and "feminized the portrayal of black masculinity" (87); miguel de grandy, who played the only negro tragi co title role-as a tenor, not in the conventional baritone register used in most negro tragico performances; and ester borja, a zarzuela singer who performed in new york in the 1940s. it is now up to the scholarly community to conduct in -depth research about cuban zarzuela singers and how they used language to mediate race and gender identity. thomas could have strengthened the text with more discussion about two issues she attentively negotiated: her treatment of sound and the challenges of her archival work. her inclusion and analysis of score excerpts certainly helps the reader hear zarzuela music through historical musicological methods. the writing of early twentieth-century cuban journalists and other zarzuela critics, in addition to her score analysis, would help us better understand the sounds ascribed to cuba's female upper-class through zarzuela performance. perhaps the challenges thomas faced in conducting her archival research determine the absence of non-score oriented sonic descriptions. she writes, "not a single zarzuela score was ever published" (5). her preoccupation with presenting rare zarzuela scores may have overshadowed the possibility for involving other forms of musical description and representation. in the introduction, thomas tells us that fear of theft and appropriation kept zarzuela composers from publishing their scores. composers kept tight guard over their hand-written scores, conducted their own productions, and did not fully orchestrate percussion parts, especially those associated with popular dance rhythms. the lack of zarzuela publications speaks to a larger social phenomenon of theft as it relates to cultural products in the black atlantic. thomas cites eric lott's (1995) "love and theft" theory in order to explain the simultaneous fear of black bodies and desire for black zarzuela characters in this cuban context (82). she regards the impossibility of studying an urtext as "irrelevant" in this context of popular show business (6), but i argue that zarzuela composers' efforts to protect their works exemplifies the larger issue plaguing cultural producers and products in the black atlantic. thomas could have elaborated upon the historical and current reproduction of black cultural products to show how practices of stereotyping and appropriation act as methods 93 94 current musicology to manage power and subordination. her text recuperates cuban zazuela in the historical record. more methodological discussion from thomas would articulate the current challenge that the rarity of scores poses in contemporary scholarship. cuban zarzuela is sure to be a text that inspires more work on zarzuela, a genre important to scholarship about the black atlantic, gender studies, music produced through colonial encounters, and opera studies. its oral and written mode of transmission as well as its large, racially and economically diverse audiences distinguish cuban zarzuela as both popular and art music. thomas shows us how cuban zarzuela complicates this distinction between popular and art music, the division between improvisation and notation in music making, and the instability of genre categorization. this is a timely, foundational book for scholars working in postcolonial academia. cuban zarzuela is a genre ripe for more schobrship, and thomas has led the way. references bhabha, homi k. 1994. the location of culture. london and new york: routledge. butler, judith. 1993. imitation and gender insubordination. in the lesbian and gay studies reader, edited by henry abelove, michele aina barale, and david m. haperin, 307-320. london and new york: routledge. henson, karen. 1999. victor capoul, marguerite olagnier's le says, and the arousing of female desire. journal of the american musicological society 52: 419-63. lott, eric. 1995. love and theft: blackface minstrelsy and the american working class. oxford and new york: oxford university press. moore, robin. 1997. nationalizing blackness: afrocubanismo and artistic revolution in havana, 1920-1940. pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press. john gennari. 2006. blowin' hot and cool: jazz and its critics. chicago and london: university of chicago press. reviewed by paul steinbeck john gennari's blowin' hot and cool: jazz and its critics is a comprehensive history of american jazz criticism since the 1930s, centered on the foremost cultural achievement of the jazz critical field: "jazz's canonization as an art" (15). the conceptual and historical framework of blowin' hot and cool originated in gennari's 1991 article "jazz criticism: its development and ideologies;' which was written at a time when the jazz canonization process still seemed incomplete: "even though jazz has found a place in such respectable institutions as the ivy league university, the new yorker, and, just recently, lincoln center, it continues to struggle for the recognition and the critical understanding that it deserves" (1991:452). in the fifteen years or so since gennari's assessment, the canonization of jazz has been assured, largely because of the jazz at lincoln center juggernaut and its affiliated critics and cultural output-the 2001 ken burns documentary for pbs, for example-but also through the intellectual work of what gennari calls the "new interdisciplinary 'jazz studies;" a field comprised of scholars from various disciplines including american studies, history, literature, and to a lesser extent ("new") musicology (john gennari is an associate professor of english and the director of the alana us ethnic studies program at the university of vermont). according to gennari, the new jazz studies "considers how jazz as an experience of sounds, movements, and states of feeling has always been mediated and complicated by peculiarly american cultural patterns."l in blowin' hot and cool, gennari explains how "critics have been among the most important jazz mediators" between musicians and audiences (13). for gennari, the jazz critical discourse was and is central to jazz history and its meaning in american culture: "when we talk about jazz ... we're talking in a language and through conceptual categories that have been established by critics"-in record reviews, jazz-press writings, liner notes, radio broadcasts, university classes, and books (3-4). jazz critics' words are so powerful, that "even when we occupy the same space as performing musicians, our perceptions of what we are hearing are indelibly, if invis­ ibly, mediated by what we have heard before, including critical discourse" (4). blowin' hot and cool is devoted to the writings of a number of elite critics-whitney balliett, amiri baraka, stanley crouch, leonard feather, gary giddins, ralph gleason, john hammond, nat hentoff, marshall current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 169 170 current musicology stearns, and martin williams-who have been particularly influential in shaping the history and cultural meaning of jazz. in an effort to create a "less static model of jazz:' gennari "shift[sl the focus from the musicians to the jazz superstructure," exploring the stories critics have told about jazz, their reactions to a continuously evolving musical/cultural practice, and their often oppositional versions of the jazz canon (4). in doing so, gennari convincingly traces intellectual continuities in jazz criticism from the new deal to the twenty-first century, creating a compelling historical narrative that is an indisputably significant contribution to the scholarly literature on jazz, a field that owes much to the contributions of twentieth-century jazz critics who worked outside of academia. it is less clear, however, how gennari "grant[sl more agency and power to jazz musicians" by concentrating on critics as mediators, interpreters, filters, and canonizers (4). gennari describes numerous interactions between high-profile critics and famous musicians, including a 1961 publicity stunt at miles davis's apartment during which cannonball adderley, horace silver, and other musicians in davis's circle ambushed the prominent new york critics in attendance. still, in blowin' hot and cool jazz musicians rarely speak except when mediated or filtered through critics and jazz journalists; gennari formally interviewed several critics for the book but apparently only spoke with one musician, jon hendricks. in the introduction, gennari asserts that "every musician i know habitually ... dismiss [es 1 critics out of hand" but remembers "sometimes almost word for word, what a particular critic has said about them" (5). there's truth in this anecdote-i just had the same conversation with drummer alvin fielder, comparing critical reviews of our latest cds-and it would have been fascinating if gennari had explored in greater detail jazz musicians' perspectives on jazz criticism, to determine whether critics have affected musicians to the extent that they have framed (the non-musician subset of) the jazz audience's experiences of the music.2 nevertheless, this omission is relatively minor, given the book's stated mission and impressive scope, and blowin' hot and cool is easily one of the best new-jazz-studies histories of the past ten years.3 the first chapter of blowin' hot and cool covers the 1930s work of leonard feather and john hammond, two "young white men without dates" who thought of jazz "not just as something pleasurable, but as something on which to build a career, something to which they could devote their lives. this music was not just fun, they insisted: it was serious, it had deep cultural and historical significance that had to be understood and honored, and it was an important force for social change" (27). in his capacity as a record producer, talent scout, and publicist, hammond brought his favorite artists greater success and recognition while bolstering his own credibility as an paul steinbeck advocate of authentic, swinging jazz. hammond's critical perspective was inseparable from his progressive politics, and he was responsible for racially integrating some of the bands he recorded and the concerts he promoted. yet it was apparent that for hammond, "the vitality of jazz was necessarily connected to both a specific political program and an exacting definition of 'negroid' aesthetics" (51). this philosophy of jazz separated hammond from his "colorblind" friend and colleague feather, who throughout his career as a writer, tunesmith, and broadcaster remained convinced that anyone could play good jazz-as he demonstrated again and again in his "blindfold test" columns for metronome and down beat-and that racial integration was best for jazz (and america generally). the questions that divided hammond and feather persisted for decades in the discourse around jazz music, but their shared commitment to anti-racist politics and celebrations of african american creativity decisively influenced the future course of jazz criticism. in chapter 2, gennari contrasts the passionate discourse of jazz "fan" culture and the anti-commercial, intellectual discourse favored by certain swing era record collectors destined to become important mid-twentieth century jazz critics. these ivy league collectors-ralph gleason, nat hentoff, marshall stearns, ralph de toledano, barry ulanov, eugene williams, and martin williams-would go on to propose "a formal and aestheticized paradigm of jazz history" intended to prove that jazz "belonged in the cultural pantheon that a sound liberal arts education ... ought to represent" (66). chapter 3 tackles the competing histories of jazz published beginning in the late 1930s and their relationships to the "trad" versus swing versus "modern" debates: rudi blesh's shining trumpets, sidney finkelstein's jazz: a people's music, frederick ramsey jr. and charles edward smith's jazzmen, marshall stearns's the story of jazz, and barry ulanov's history of jazz in america. blesh's shining trumpets claimed that authentic jazz was played only by new orleans african americans, and that the style fell into serious decline after armstrong's 1925 hot five sides and jelly roll morton's 1926 victor small-group recordings. blesh, like many other new orleans revival­ ists, reveled in '''the virtuosity of the group"'-a marx-tinged perspective, according to gennari, in which early jazz was an "authentic folk expression of the us proletariat," while swing amounted to a "homogenized cultural product of the us bourgeois culture industry" (132). shining trumpets was also the first jazz history to draw upon the anthropological work of africanists melville herskovits and richard waterman, an influence that shaped blesh's belief in the innate rhythmic/musical superiority of africans and african americans, and his rejection of supposedly european-influenced post-1926 jazz, from duke ellington to benny goodman. in contrast to 171 172 current musicology ramsey/smith and blesh, the modernists finkelstein and ulanov "believed that change itself was one of jazz's essential properties and that the music had yet to reach its full potential" (140). finally, the story ofjazz-written on a guggenheim fellowship by marshall stearns, a professor of medieval english who "became a public icon of jazz's canonization" (146)-positioned jazz as a cold war-era "triumph of american interracial democracy" (150). stearns's trans disciplinary, "liberal consensus view of jazz history ... [at­ tenuated] ideological differences within the music" and portrayed jazz as a "symbol of freedom, democracy, and interracial communication" (152). the fourth chapter of blowin' hot and cool covers the mid-century cohort of jazz critics-whitney balliett, ira gitler, ralph gleason, nat hentoff, gene lees, dan morgenstern, and martin williams-who wrote for a variety of mainstream and specialty publications, founded new jazz magazines, taught university courses, and worked for radio, television, record labels, and jazz festivals. in the fifth chapter, essentially a continua­ tion of the preceding chapter, gennari focuses on "jazz's new mainstream respectability" (209) in education and elite entertainment in the 1950s, represented by marshall stearns's "jazz roundtables;' concert series, and school ofjazz in lenox, massachusetts, george wein's newport jazz festival, and various jazz-based diplomatic initiatives including the newport-based state department tours and the voice of america jazz broadcasts. gennari skillfully interprets the 1960 newport riots and the concurrent musician­ led counter-festival as jazz-scene foreshadowings of "both the purposeful grass-roots organizing work and the terrifying disorder that would compete for attention in the national imagination during the most turbulent decade of the century" (248). in chapter 6, gennari discusses the reactions of mainstream critics to the music and cultural politics of the 1960s jazz avant -garde, as well as the fresh critical voices that championed the new thing: frank kofsky and amiri baraka. kofsky used a regular platform in the dan morgenstern-edited magazine jazz to savage the liberal critical consensus achieved in the 1950s, "exposing" a "reactionary bourgeois conspiracy against black nationalist influence in jazz" and the "racist political economy of jazz" (258), aided and abetted by a mob of greedy, white supremacist jazz critics-everyone but kofsky. gennari explains the intensity of the avant-garde era critical disputes by invoking the "complexity of the relationship between music, race, and social positioning, and how especially difficult it was in the heat of the 1960s jazz wars for commentators to see more broadly than the lens of their ideologies would permit" (262). the bulk of the chapter is dedicated to amiri baraka, the onetime downtown bohemian and eventual uptown leader of the black aesthetic movement. baraka, a poet and dramatist, "turned jazz writing into a performance, an intense drama of sound, feeling, paul steinbeck and movement" (269). his book blues people updated herskovits's african­ retentions theory of black american culture, classifying jazz, blues, and pop music by the practitioners' race and class in a search for sounds reflecting the "authenticity" and "attitude" of the black working class. at the end of the decade, however, the black nationalist and white liberal schools of jazz criticism were tentatively united in an "anxiety about rock's commercial success, technological, and sonic encroachment on jazz" (291). chapter 7 steps outside of the book's principal historical narrative to explore dial records founder, jazz critic, and pulp-fiction writer ross russell's portrayals of charlie parker in his novel the sound and his parker biography bird lives! gennari situates russell's work in the context of contemporaneous pop-culture representations of parker and the postwar jazz life, and he uses russell's correspondence with writer albert goldman to illustrate the seductive appeal of depicting parker as an existentialist, gluttonous, violent anti-hero of the african american underclass. gennari returns to the contentious world of jazz criticism in chapter 8, discussing the work of stanley crouch and gary giddins, from their loft­ jazz writings to their involvement with the ken burns jazz documentary. gennari details crouch's and giddins's intellectual indebtedness to albert murray, who in the omni-americans and in his eloquent, mythic text stomping the blues outlined a "way to affirm jazz's black cultural roots while steering clear of 1960s radical ideology" (351). gennari also introduces a still younger generation of critics including greg tate, whose "kaleidoscopic view of jazz" is "fluid and open-ended, disturbing orderly notions of a jazz canon and a jazz tradition" (357)-the murray/crouch/wynton marsalis jazz canon at lincoln center, and anyone else's jazz canon too. gennari observes that in the music's second century, "jazz has been canonized in many of the ways that several generations of jazz critics hoped it would be"-in high-culture institutions, universities, and to a certain extent in the popular imagination-but jazz criticism "remains marked ... by as much or more dissension than ever" (370). the "gloriously messy" state of jazz, jazz criticism, and academic jazz studies at the beginning of the twenty-first century is, for gennari, the best indication that canonization and institutionalization have not yet suffocated the music that he loves so well (371). certainly some of the most innovative and interesting recent jazz-studies research has engaged creative practices and artistic communi­ ties that fall outside the jazz canon, such as experimental and improvised music, popular styles, "world" and intercultural music, and performances that incorporate multimedia and other art forms. blowin' hot and cool, in contrast, proves the continuing relevance of insightful scholarship situated within the bounds of the jazz canon. 173 174 current musicology references deveaux, scott. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. ---.2001-2. struggling with jazz. current musicology 71-73: 353-74. gennari, john. 1991. jazz criticism: its development and ideologies. black american literature forum 25 (3): 449-523. higgins, niko. 2004. review of uptown conversations: the new jazz studies, edited by robert g. o'meally, brent hayes edwards, and farah jasmine griffin, and the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and communities in dialogue, edited by daniel fischlin and ajay heble. current musicology 77: 159-70. kenney, william howland. 2005. jazz on the river. chicago and london: university of chicago press. lewis, george e. forthcoming. a power stronger than itself the aacm and american experimental music. chicago and london: university of chicago press. lopes, paul. 2002. the rise of a jazz art world. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. porter, eric. 2002. what is this thing called jazz? african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. tucker, sherrie. 2000. swing shift: ''all-girl'' bands of the 1940s. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. ---.2001-2. big ears: listening for gender in jazz studies. current musicology 71-73: 375-408. washburne, christopher. 2001-2. latin jazz: the other jazz. current musicology 71-73: 409-26. notes 1. three good appraisals of the jazz-studies field and the state of jazz criticism at the begin­ ning of the new century can be found in the special "jazz studies" issue of current musicology (deveaux 2001-2, tucker 2001-2, and washburne 2001-2). 2. in a book review for current musicology, niko higgins points out how many "new jazz studies" texts risk "overemphasi [zing] contextual meaning at the expense of actual musicians' experiences;' and recommends ethnography as a corrective (2004:168). 3. the short list of excellent jazz-historical publications since 1997 includes: scott deveaux's the birth of bebop (1997), william howland kenney's jazz on the river (2005), george e. lewis's a power stronger than itself (forthcoming), paul lopes's the rise of a jazz art world (2002), eric porter's what is this thing called jazz? (2002), sherrie tucker's swing shift (2000), and now blowin' hot and cool. current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf peraino, judith. 2006. listening to the sirens: musical technologies of queer identity from homer to hedwig. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by ivan raykoff hermaphrodites, sodomites, trannies, oh my! like dorothy in oz, musico­ logists who embark on judith peraino's wide-ranging historical and theoreti­ cal odyssey will encounter a host of unexpected characters and a number of diverting entanglements before they return home, most likely gaining new and challenging perspectives on their own familiar musical lands along the way. in this expedition through certain still-uncharted realms, isaac and icarus meet up with sappho, streisand, and sylvester, and all follow foucault-certainly not the usual figures to populate an account of western music history from mythic to modern times. peraino's roadmap is inviting: the premise of the book, in part following adorno, is the idea that music has always opened a space for ambivalence, productively serving the complexities of personal identity and subjectivity; at the same time it has also provoked anxiety, society's frequent response in trying to contain those complexities through categorical hierarchies and ideological superstructures. in brief, listening to the sirens pursues a quest devoted to queerness, that is, a dynamic of questioning the established cultural assumptions that regulate sexual identity and desire. music lends itself well to such an inter­ rogation, peraino argues, because it "demarcates a space and time wherein gender and sexuality lose clear definition" (7).an impressive and expansive range of case studies demonstrates music's potential to subvert normative categories, and to represent (often through subtle means) constructs of identity and subjectivity that do not conform to hegemonic models. thus music can facilitate resistance as well, a potential role that numerous com­ posers, performers, and listeners have harnessed by using music as a tool for personal expression and cultural comment. as an innovative framework for these case studies, peraino develops foucault's concept of "technology" as a set of processes by which individual identity is produced, enacted, and transformed. foucault posits four such categories-technologies of the self, of sign systems, of production, and of power-which serve as the signposts for each of peraino's chapters. this is a smooth conceptual move for the book, since musicians are already familiar with the role of technique and practice in musical training, not to mention the idea of instruments and sound systems as musical technologies. in peraino's expanded theoretical current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 103 104 current musicology view, what gets composed and performed and listened to are not only sounds but identities, too-especially questioning and disruptive ones. the first of these categories, "technologies of the self," is developed across the first two chapters of the book. with this phrase foucault refers to processes by which individuals can transform themselves-physically, psychologically, and even spiritually-in the pursuit of personal fulfillment. peraino sees this transformative potential of "music as a self-practice" (12) as a response to two seemingly contradictory impulses: desire (or the hedonistic urge "shaping the self through excessive desire"), discussed in chapter 1, and discipline (or the ascetic urge demonstrated through self-control and renunciation) in chapter 2. though contradictory, one urge stimulates the other: "the high tension between these two facets of music is perfectly represented in the image of odysseus strapped to the mast of his ship in order to listen to the sirens' song" (13). following judith butler, peraino ties this story to louis althusser's notion of interpellation, "an irresistible calling into subjectivity" (3), provoked by surrounding social and ideological forces. one becomes a subject when hailed (for example, "hey, you!")-an encounter inviting self-acknowledgement ("i think 'i' am being called") or self-questioning ("who, 'me'?") or perhaps even resistance (''i'll pretend i didn't hear that"). each of these responses is a function oflistening to a call, the way odysseus listened to the sirens' song-and the way, when we listen to music, we identify with it because it "speaks to" us (or we reject other music because it doesn't). in homer's account, our mythic hero pursues his transgressive desire to hear the sirens' dangerously seductive music, yet finds a way to discipline his ecstatic listening with a bit of kinky bondage in order to resist its destructive power and eventually return home to his wife and child. thus goes the heteronormative happy ending, but peraino proposes another interpretation: odysseus "gives in to a sexualized self-curiosity and, importantly, a desire to become otherwise, to question and to be question­ able, to risk self-obliteration in music. this is a desire to become queer to oneself" (18) through a kind of listening that transforms the self physically, psychologically, and even spiritually. after this brilliant theoretical opening, peraino launches into a virtuosic survey of musical-sexual associations derived from ancient greek culture and early christian times. "dionysian catharsis;'''apollonian control;' and "sexual pan(ic)" are three familiar constructs of western culture based on musical practice and philosophy, and peraino unpacks these with impressive clarity and depth, discussing their varied implications of gender transgression and sexual license. orpheus, sappho, and the muses also figure into this trajectory of same-sex eroticism and "excessive musical self-practice" (37), which finds its opposition in the pronouncements against music's destabilizing potential ivan raykoff by plato and, later, st. augustine. plato's anxieties about music and social order continue to resonate in the present era, as peraino notes with a nod to allan bloom's paroxysm over mick jagger's ambiguous sexuality and to the 1997 us senate hearings on "music violence" (discussed more extensively later in the book). in the case of augustine, music enacts another technology of the self as it provokes "an incessant questioning of desire and motive" (39), and peraino offers the intriguing argument that augustine considered unison singing a remedy for the excessive sensual pleasure associated with song and music's corporeal engagement. if augustine's concern is physical arousal, hildegard of bingen's is spiritual arousal. peraino continues with a consideration of the writings and compositions of this mystical twelfth­ century abbess, asserting that her musical theology afforded a means of negotiating the confines of virginity, another technology of the self, such that "singing cooled and disciplined virginal ardor as it substantiated (and instantiated) virginal modesty" (51). singing also channels disruptive desire in the secular realm of medieval troubadour culture. peraino's expert reading of language, poetic structure, and musical meaning in the songs of arnaut daniel reflects eve kosofsky sedgwick's concept of male homosocial bond­ ing, in that "the circulation of desire ... flows from the troubadour through the conduit of the lady and song (or the lady as a cipher for the song) to his male patron or ... [to 1 his rival troubadours" (65). all that in just chapter i! next the focus shifts to discipline and disclosure (enacted through confession) as tools for self-knowledge, and peraino's case studies in chapter 2 are drawn from the music of peter ilich tchaikovsky and benjamin britten. by this period queer desire is more readily acknowledged as an aspect of music and musicality, at least in the observations made by sexual psychopathologists (for which peraino provides a handy summary from karl heinrich ulrichs to sigmund freud), and "music becomes itself a mode of confession, evidence corroborating homosexuality" (70). questions of whether and how tchaikovsky's sexual identity might be reflected in his music have been investigated by other scholars. peraino also takes this path, only to suggest instead that the lamenting finale of the sixth symphony has something to do with the sad end of the composer's relationship with his benefactress nadezhda von meck. more intriguing, however, is peraino's interpretation of the two different orchestrations of the movement's opening lament figure: the angular interlocking voice leading of the first iterations as compared to the smoother and more typical arrangement of the same figure later in the movement. the first communicates complexity and conflict, the other coherence and conformity. extrapolated to the context of sexual psychology, the first seems "queer," the other "straight" (92). considering this to be more a matter of how the music looks on the page 105 106 current musicology and how it feels to play rather than how it actually sounds, peraino regards the underlying distinction as one of private versus public identification. in this light tchaikovsky's compositional and notational decision becomes a confessional statement, "the disclosure of something unspeakable" (92), a move from secret agony to open resolution. one of the most rewarding subplots in these two chapters is peraino's acknowledgement of the significance of performance itself in conveying musical meaning. in the case of tchaikovsky's strange counterpoint, the seating arrangement of the nineteenth-century orchestra may have facilitated an audience's comprehension of the opening's stereophonic ef­ fect of sonic dissociation. performers, too, may have felt the physiological tension of the opening leaps which are later resolved into simpler step-wise motion. here one is reminded of augustine's interrogation of aural plea­ sure, where "singing quasi una voce provides a solution to the problem of bodily engagement with music" (43). peraino suggests that in the case of hildegard von bingen, "the homo social communal performance of these chants, which described, celebrated, and enacted a type of exclusive female sexuality, unleashed erotic power among the participants" (50). following julia kristeva on incantation and incarnation, the author notes that certain troubadour songs "use metaphors that equate the act of singing (cantar) with loving (amar) and composing (trobar)" (54), and that their perfor­ mance for an all-male audience (and not the unattainable idealized female beloved) implied an exchange of desire among men alone. the significance of performance also returns repeatedly in subsequent chapters of the book, for example in peraino's engagement with the role of music videos (such as those by madonna) in conveying queer meanings through contemporary popular music. chapter 3 deals specifically with foucault's "technology of sign systems;' which involves the development and implementation of symbolic meanings as determined by power relationships. peraino considers three musicians who function as icons of queer identity-judy garland, melissa etheridge, and madonna-in terms of how they can be seen (and heard) to contradict heteronormative systems of gender and sexual identity. the theoretical background here (on signification, performativity, melodrama, and the "lesbian phallus") is dense and sometimes murky, but the three case studies demonstrate a consistent thesis on the dynamics of queer fandom: "the relation between the celebrity and his or her fans is one of resemblance, or the desiring of such, psychically enacted through identification or emula­ tion" (113). in this way such popular public performers, whether straight or queer themselves, "serve as strategies of self-representation for gays and lesbians" (110). ivan raykoff as peraino argues, gay men adored garland because she appeared simultaneously tragic and heroic-in other words, melodramatic-and demonstrated through her real-life career as well as in her screen roles the qualities of resistance and resilience that were desperately needed in the pre-stonewall era. (three of peraino' claims seem too strong, however: "garland's victimhood and emotionalism represented subversiveness only to urban closeted gay men;' 110; "she signified the whole condition of male homosexual identity in the mid-twentieth century;' 120; and she "held no meaning for self-identifying queers of the 1990s," 110.) out-and-proud etheridge represents "the lesbian in a continual orbit around heterosexual subjectivity" (l50)-an abject state of exclusion-but the singer also assumes "phallocentric signification" through her heartland-rock style, candid lyrics, edgy delivery, and vocal quality variously described as "raucous," "lusty," "smoky;' "husky;' etc. as peraino sees it, etheridge demonstrates penetrative power as she performs "the idealized entry into normalcy" (150), having "earned a guest pass into the patriarchy" (143). (to be fair, garland has a butch moment too: in summer stock she displays "masculine cool" in her famous "get happy" number, ending up "a sultry cross-dressing dominatrix," 123-24.) madonna, not surprisingly, represents queer liberation, enacting "an ideal of gender and sexual fluidity" (150). these three female musicians present a rich and complex comparison of queer identification strategies, and it would be instructive to apply peraino's approach to particular male musicians as well (perhaps liberace, elton john, and freddie mercury would make apt parallels). in chapter 4, demonstrating foucault's notion of "technologies of pro­ duction;' peraino examines how lesbian and gay music trends of the 1970s reflected contemporary socio-political identities as they were constructed by the recording industry, radio broadcasting, and the disco dj. the focus here is on feminist women's music produced by lesbian-run firms such as olivia records, and on popular mass-produced disco hits by the village people. in the case of disco, which has always been associated more with hedonism than heroism, peraino sees a profit-driven phenomenon promoting aspects of masochism, misogyny, racism, and "the overproduced masculinity of gay macho" (184) that seems characteristic of the urban "butch" or "clone" persona, an apolitical assimilationist identity productively challenged by sylvester, the openly gay african american disco star who sang in an effemi­ nate falsetto. while lesbian women's music navigated other tensions reflect­ ing the divergent assumptions and goals of the various feminist movements of the time, it generally presented an aesthetic model that de-emphasized sexuality in favor of "consciousness-raising and culture-building aspirations" (194). despite their various shortcomings, peraino suggests, both disco and 107 108 current musicology women's music were set in productive opposition to the hegemony of straight mainstream rock, but the latter more clearly served as a form of resistance linking music with the emerging leftist politics of gender and sexual identity through its "consciousness-raising" motivations (194). while production and distribution of record albums is the thread that ties this chapter together, another application of foucault's idea occasionally surfaces throughout: the significance of musical instruments themselves as technologies of homosocial community. the distinction between acoustic versus electronic instruments is familiar from discussions of the political connotations of folk music versus the technological materialism of com­ mercial pop; peraino occasionally suggests that this dichotomy might also inform the production of queer identities through instrumental sounds and performance practices. if the aggressive electric guitars and driving drumbeat of "cock rock" signify patriarchal power structures, disco's synthesized beats and strings might represent the standardized and artificial masculinity of macho clone culture. by the same token, meg christian's classical guitar stylings or the low-tech acoustic ensemble on alex dobkin's lavender jane loves women (featuring "warm cello and flute countermelodies that engage musical codes of pastoral innocence with a hint of classical music stuffi­ ness:' 162) could reflect certain political attitudes behind women's music in their aura of "authenticity" and earnestness (today considered mere sentimentality). attention to instruments as technologies of production would complement peraino's consideration of performers' vocal quality as a vehicle of queer identity elsewhere in the book, and would also provide a clearer context for the intriguing examples of song-remakes peraino men­ tions in passing: meg christian's recording of "hello hooray" compared to judy collins's folk or alice cooper's heavy metal versions (168), for example, or two nice girls' folkish cover ofjimi hendrix's "purple haze" (174). the final chapter, on androgyny and other "interruptions" of hetero­ sexual masculinity, feels a bit uneven in its range of examples as it tackles foucault's notion of "technologies of power." with this category foucault refers to external regulatory techniques or discourses that organize conduct (including sexual conduct) and discipline the body accordingly-the insti­ tution of marriage being one very familiar example. peraino proposes the coming-out ritual, "a performance that interrupts other discursive practices that work to normalize heterosexuality:' as a queer parallel to marriage that leads the subject "not into tidy identities through instituted channels, but rather into the messy contestations of sex and gender" (197). this alternative model of gender identity is already evident in a number of poems and songs from seventeenth-century england (many by purcell) that peraino uses to demonstrate a release from traditional power structures of masculinity and ivan raykoff marriage through homosocial bonding, homoerotic fantasy, androgyny, or hermaphrodism. comparably, in one of handel's early cantatas, the myth of daedalus and icarus provides a stage for "music's tactical deployment ... in an erotic game of power between two unmarried men, patron and artist" (209). surprisingly, there is no discussion of castrati in this chapter, even though they would seem to be examples of "metamorphoses through music that immolate the masculine subject and bring out from its ashes something quite different: a new, indeterminately gendered identity" (229-30). in a preceding chapter peraino briefly notes that "the phallic transfer to the voice, disruptive of heterosexuality, is most obvious in castrati, ... whose genital 'power' was sacrificed to achieve a more penetrating voice of the female register" (135-36). the examples from late twentieth-century rock music covered in the remainder of chapter 5 might seem an awkward pair­ ing to purcell and handel, but peraino's chronological frame responds to foucault's assertion that modern structures of sexual discourse originate in the seventeenth century and finally begin to unravel by the twentieth century. in our own era, real or fictional musical personalities such as marilyn manson or dr. frank n. furter present "the emasculated body as an unlikely site of power and resistance" (243), while queen's "bohemian rhapsody" temporarily disempowers the masculine rock subject, turning a "guitar hero [in]to [an] opera queen" (232). perhaps hedwig's incomplete emasculation, which leaves her with an "angry inch," qualifies her to be a modern-day rock castrato? one terrific pairing in this final chapter is the comparison of plato's concerns about music's potential to unravel the social order with senator joseph lieberman's complaints, over two thousand years later during the us government hearings on "music violence," about marilyn manson and other performers whose music promotes "sexual perversity" (246). this vignette returns the reader full circle to the journey's beginning in the classical past. music, as peraino amply demonstrates, has long provided spaces and techniques for communicating and celebrating the degrees of ambivalence that accompany identity and subjectivity in any person's real-life experience. a remarkable scholarly achievement, listening to the sirens inspires one to listen more closely to the provocative music of these in-between places. 109 current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf the german musical exile and the course of american musicology david josephson on the face of it, the subject would seem not to need a paper. musicology was a european discipline fed from many sources, named by friedrich chrysander (1863, 1867), defined by guido adler (1885), and, during its early twentieth-century course, shaped by friedrich ludwigl and hugo rie­ mann.2 like other humanities during the muscular growth of wilhelmine germany, it became a german province. as america had taken its classical music from germany during the nineteenth century, so it took its musi­ cology from germany in the early years of the twentieth. but our pioneers soon set out to create a distinctly american musicology, and were on their way to doing so from the founding of the musical quarterly in 1915 to the creation of the new york musicological society in 1931 and its reorganiza­ tion as the american musicological society (ams) three years later.3 they were soon overtaken by an unexpected influx of emigre scholars in flight from central europe whose numbers and prestige charted the course of the fledgling discipline anew. eventually, as the emigres passed from the scene, and the generations of those they had taught began to pass from it as well, their influence eroded and american musicology reclaimed its national character, however that character would come to be construed. it seems a straightforward story. it isn't. that story tells us little about why we did what we did during the early decades of our society's existence. it narrates the meteoric rise of the emigres' influence, but fails to account for its seemingly sudden collapse. when in 1985 joseph kerman published a stunning critique of postwar anglo-american scholarship-he had been fighting the battle for twenty years before that-margaret bent responded as president of the ams with an address at the society's annual meeting that year in vancouver, defending the classic paradigm with the authority of one who was its elegant voice and the passion of one who recognized what was at stake (kerman 1985; bent 1986). but by the annual meeting in 1990 in oakland the field had become a babel of voices. when howard brown died three years later in 1993, the writers of what amounted to his authorized obituary, frank d' accone and colin slim-both, like brown, renaissance scholars trained at harvard in the heyday of renaissance musicology-felt compelled to defend his work, writing: current musicology, nos. 79 & 80 (2005) © 2005 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 9 10 current musicology at a time when "positivistic" achievements such as howard's-and his are surely among the most outstanding-were being called into question or even derided, he maintained the pace he had established and serenely continued to follow the path he had marked out for himself so many years ago. (d'accone and slim 1993) it was a telling statement. no one, to my knowledge, had published a word questioning, much less deriding, brown's fastidious work. nor had its path come under direct attack in any publication i had read. but d' accone and slim recognized that the study of renaissance music no longer held the pride of place in american musicology; it had come to stand, in fact, for an embattled orthodoxy of which brown had been a leading voice. for them, our society was a community whose cherished common mission and shared goals were dissolving. for many in a rising generation, though, that same society was finally, after the debates of the late 1970s and 1980s, an open community, a free marketplace of ideas and approaches and interests where no one group had the power to define the mission, set the goals, or control the patronage. we of a certain age were living through a barely-examined revolution. the european emigres had created our program and handed it down to us in high idealism. underlying that program was an ideology, for lack of a sharper word, and that ideology had deep sources and a character that gave it its strength. once those sources dried up with the passing of generations, the ideology shriveled and the program unraveled. the ground has been shifting under our field ever since. a few confessions before proceeding: first, this work, begun more than a decade ago, grew out of a personal and long-overdue attempt to understand why my peers at columbia and i had groped our way through graduate school in the 1960s as if in a fog, wondering what our teachers expected from us, trying to make sense of why we were learning what we were learning and how we were to connect it to the rest of our lives. they were emigres or stu­ dents of emigres, and when it finally dawned on me that they were in thrall to their own teachers, and that they could not have answered the questions we ought to have asked them, i knew that i had to write this paper. second, this is a provisional as well as personal paper, a work in progress nowhere near a conclusion. i have much still to sort out. i present this work not as a disinterested or exhaustive history but as an attempt to come to terms with my experiences in and of the field as it has evolved during my adult lifetime. third, i am more comfortable on the outside than on the inside. at sea in the mandatory paleography class in graduate school at columbia, i experienced the wolfenbiittel and bamberg manuscripts with their thir­ teenth-century liturgical music as hurdles to be jumped,4 and threw up my david josephson hands at ludwig's repertorium, as we knew that forbidding work with its indigestible title.5 the labor was a challenge of sorts, but technical rather than musical, and the reason for our having to do it at all remained a mystery until kerman put it into its postwar context two decades later.6 later on, while working on my dissertation, i directed the columbia concert band despite the advice of my teachers who suggested that the wind repertory was not worthy of one seeking entry into musicological society. for my dissertation i chose a composer then on the fringe, john taverner. the straits of dover separating england from the flanders beloved by the renaissance scholars who dominated the field might as well have been the pacific ocean. (paul henry lang, one of the readers of that dissertation, congratulated me on my work on tallis, the less-obscure tudor composer whose surname also began with a t.) at the same time i undertook work to rescue from oblivion the recently-deceased percy grainger, at that time beyond the fringe, by pro­ gramming an all-grainger concert and later publishing a series of articles on him. the only musicologist to show any interest was gustave reese, and his reasons were personal. grainger had been chairman of the music depart­ ment at new york university in 1932-33, just as reese, a young teacher there, was beginning work on his path-breaking music in the middle ages (1940). the then-famous composer showed "friendly interest [and] provided most helpful encouragement" to reese then and in the years that followed, and reese recalled him with affection (1940:xv). fourth, while i am fascinated by the emigre generation, my interest in this essay lies in the american response to them, not in the lives they lived before their forced departure from europe. one final clearing of the throat concerns our perception of the musico­ logical emigre presence. we who studied with one or more of the emigres, or with students of theirs who adopted their attitudes and interests, tend to clump together this band of men as if they had arrived from pretty much the same place at pretty much the same time, and were of pretty much the same age; that is to say, as if they were a community. they were not. most arrived across a band of fifteen years, from hugo leichtentritt in 1933 to fritz oberdoerffer in 1948. their ages, too, stretched across a generation and more, from ludwig misch at sixty and hugo leichtentritt and alfred einstein at fifty-nine, to alfred mann at twenty-two and reinhard pauly at sixteen. my peers and i also assumed that since these men were our teachers in america, they had come from europe as university teachers, bringing their profession and skills with them. but only seven had taught music at universities in central europe, and only two among them, erich von hornbostel and curt sachs, had held professorships, both at berlin. five 11 12 current musicology others had held lesser university positions: max graf at vienna, paul nettl at prague, theodor adorno at frankfurt, leo schrade at bonn, and dragen plamenac at zagreb, on the periphery. ten more had held conservatory positions: hugo leichtentritt had taught at the klindworth-scharwenka conservatory in berlin until 1924. erwin bodky and herman reichenbach had taught at the state academy for church and school music in berlin, bodky going on to conservatories in amsterdam and haarlem after his flight in 1933; reichenbach going on to the central institute for education and teaching in berlin. ludwig misch had taught at the stern conservatory in berlin, as had oswald jonas until his flight to austria, when he joined felix salzer at the schenker institute of the new vienna conservatory. erich werner had taught at the saarbrucken conservatory until his dismissal, and afterwards at the jewish gymnasium and theological seminary. ernst ferand had taught at the dalcroze school on the outskirts of vienna, fritz oberdoerffer at various berlin conservatories, and manfred bukofzer, briefly, at a volksschule in basel. of the other emigres, eight-frederick dorian, alfred einstein, otto gombosi, erich hertzmann, gerhard herz, hans nathan, paul pisk, and rudolph reti-had earned their livings in europe as critics; two-karl geiringer and henry rawski-as librarians; two-walter kaufmann and hans moldenhauer-as conductors; kathi meyer-baer as a private librar­ ian and bibliographer; and boris schwarz as a violinist. ludwig landshoff was unemployed before he left europe. in short, we inherited a congeries of musicians, musical writers, and scholars who, with the exception of meyer-baer, the one woman in this account, became a community of teach­ ers only after they settled here. one of the five immigrants among the fourteen founders of the ams in 1934 was paul henry lang, among the earliest european musicologists to land on our shores, and one of the last of his generation to die, at the age of ninety in 1991 at his home in rural connecticut,? one fact after another set him apart from the wave of forced emigrants that was about to land on america's shores. he was hungarian and catholic. his undergraduate training was at the liszt academy in budapest. apart from a brief stint at heidelberg, he did graduate work at the sorbonne and earned his phd in literature, not music. he arrived in america in 1928 as a junior scholar of the rockefeller foundation, leaving a prosperous and peaceful europe. his immigration was voluntary and enthusiastic. after teaching briefly at two women's colleges (vassar and wells) he earned an american phd in musi­ cology under otto kinkeldey at cornell in 1934, and that year became an american citizen. so he was firmly rooted here when the first refugees arrived david josephson from germany. although he knew their culture and spoke to them in their native tongue, he was not one of them, and he kept a certain distance from them. to him, they were "they:' not "we:' still, he looms over this essay. he taught at columbia from 1933 to 1970 and built the musicology program there. a founding father of the ams, he served as treasurer during its first thirteen years and as vice-president for the next two. he was appointed editor of the musical quarterly in 1945, and for the next twenty-eight years used his position to determine the field of ideas and subjects on which the future of american musicology would be played out. he was chief music critic of the new york herald tribune from 1954 to 1963, using his bully pulpit to educate his readers in music literature and history. as editorial advisor to w. w. norton, he created a music list that came to define mid-century american musicology. he is remembered for his classic music in western civilization (1941), the great anchor of the norton history series that reached out to educated americans for a generation. published in the most perilous year for the european theater of the war with germany in control of europe, it now reads as a sweeping valedictory to the priceless legacy of european music, an "elegy to a way of life that was being perverted and dismembered before his eyes" (botstein in lang [1941] 1997:ix). the flight of cultivated germans began shortly after the nazi take­ over of their homeland at the end of january 1933. the first german musicologists to flee to the united states, erich hornbostel, fifty-six years old, and hugo leichtentritt, fifty-nine, were scholars of international repu­ tation who were familiar with america.8 hornbostel, director of the berlin phonogramm-archiv, came at the invitation of the new school for social research, where he joined fourteen other distinguished emigres in found­ ing the school's graduate university in exile. he arrived in new york in september 1933-his arrival was reported in the new york times9-with plans to bring the famous recording archive to the united states and create an institute of comparative musicology with charles seeger. he left his mark on american musicology in good part through his friendship with seeger and henry cowell, 10 with whom he taught the first seminar offered in america on music cultures of the world. but ill health brought his plans to naught, and after barely a year in new york he joined his son in cambridge, england, where he died in november 1935. leichtentritt, whose arrival and appointment at harvard in september 1933 was also covered by the times,il taught there and at new york university until his retirement in 1944. he was the first emigre to deliver a scholarly paper in america (leichtentritt 1936), and produced scholarly work without interruption here. but he played no role in the governance of the ams, and remained apart from the develop­ ment of american musicology. 13 14 current musicology a third eminence arrived in 1934, paul bekker, fifty-two, former chief music critic for the frankfurter zeitung, intendant at kassel and wiesbaden, champion of the avant-garde, and author of some two dozen books. he succeeded hornbostel at the new school, wrote his first (and only) book in exile, the story of the orchestra (1936a), and was the first emigre to america to have an article published by carl engel in the musical quarterly (1936b). he died three years after arriving in new york, beset by ill health and un­ able to adjust to american society. also arriving in 1934 was felix gatz, a conductor with a doctorate and three books on aesthetics under his belt, a weak heart, and an abrasive personality. after four years of setbacks he found a seemingly secure position at scranton university, where he organized and presided over the first american congress for aesthetics and became president of the american society for aesthetics. but when the university shut down its art and music department in 1942 his fragile life shattered, and, unable to find another position, he died of a heart attack at fifty. these first men arrived in america to find a small field fighting an uphill battle. in december 1932, w. oliver strunk, then at the library of congress, had published a survey of american musicology undertaken at the behest of the american council of learned societies (strunk 1932). he found "the recognition of musicology as an independent and fully privileged branch of scientific investigation and musical discipline ... so rare as to be practically negligible" (quoted in crawford 1984:6-7). only three schools, cornell, vassar, and yale, offered seminars in musicology. at that time only three phds had been granted in the field and opposition both within music departments and from university administrations had stunted its growth. immigration was to alter that reality beyond recognition. it began in earnest in 1936, spurred by the promulgation of the nuremberg laws that stripped jewish germans of their citizenship and civil rights and led to a swift dete­ rioration of their economic condition. over the next five years some three dozen refugee musicologists would arrive in the united states. the year 1936 brought a passel of younger men: paul pisk and willi apel, both forty-three; hans david and frederick dorian, both thirty-four; boris schwarz, thirty; hans nathan, twenty-six; and gerhard herz, twenty-four. all but dorian, who arrived from vienna with the help of eugene ormandy and quickly found a permanent home at carnegie mellon, foundered for a while, though eventually all secured positions.!2 pisk alone among them had established a solid career in europe, playing a significant role in the musical life of interwar vienna. he was a founding member of schoenberg's society for private musical performances!3 and of the vienna chapter of the international society for contemporary music, headed the music department at the volkshochschule, taught at the new vi­ enna conservatory, and briefly edited universal edition's prestigious musikdavid josephson blatter des anbruch. a protege of guido adler, his musicological credentials were impeccable. 14 although he arrived in new york fluent in english and with a name as an avant-garde composer, his first year was a struggle. like bekker before him and many scholars who would follow him, pisk was helped in his adjustment by the heroic engel, who gave him part-time work at g. schirmer, published an article of his in the musical quarterly (pisk 1938), and helped in the job search that yielded a position at the university of redlands in california. is eventually pisk moved to the university of texas, where he built a doctoral program in musicology, then to washington university in st. louis in retirement. his long years of teaching left generations of stu­ dents in his debt,16 but he published no significant scholarship and played little role in the development of the field, 17 perhaps because he rejected the dry modernist course it had taken. in 1963 he published a text with homer ulrich, a history of music and musical style, in "protest against" donald grout's recently published history of western music (1960); the failure of that text to dislodge grout's signaled pisk's outsider status in his adopted land, and he recalled in his old age that "the real professional guild of the musicologists don't like me too much, because i'm a musician."18 willi apel settled in boston and found piecemeal work there at har­ vard and elsewhere. within a decade he established himself as a scholar of unmatched productivity, beginning with a scholarly paper for the greater new york chapter of the ams in the year of his arrival (apei1936) and an article published by engel in the musical quarterly (apei1937), continuing with a stream of articles in the bulletin and papers of the ams, the musical quarterly, and acta musicologica, and culminating in the publication of three works that achieved classic status: the notation of polyphonic music, 900-1600 (1942), the harvard dictionary of music (1944), and the first volume of the historical anthology of music (apel and davison 1946). but he found a secure teaching position only in 1950, when at fifty-six he was appointed professor at the university of indiana. gerhard herz arrived after an unusually circuitous saga. 19 engel invited him to give a paper before the greater new york chapter of the ams early in 1937 and published it in the musical quarterly (herz 1938), and the next year he found a position at the university of louisville, where he spent his career becoming a leading bach scholar and contributing to the musical life of his kentucky home. 20 boris schwarz worked as a professional violinist after arriving in new york until his appointment in 1941 at queens college, where he helped establish a major center of musicology.21 hans david arrived after a three-year exile in holland, and, helped by engel's publication of an article by him on the musical offering (david 1937), found work as music editor at the new york public library. while 15 16 current musicology there he discovered the music of the moravian community in bethlehem, pennsylvania, and over the next six years published four essays and a catalog on the subject, a fitting integration of his german past and american fu­ ture.22 his teaching career began at new york university in 1939, continued at southern methodist university in dallas, and ended at the university of michigan. hans nathan settled in boston, undertook post-doctoral studies at harvard, worked at adult education centers, and spent a year at tufts before going to michigan state college (later university) in 1946, remaining there until his retirement in 1981. his embrace of america was unusually whole­ hearted; he is best remembered for his study of the music of his adopted land, notably blackface minstrelsy and the music of william billings.23 curt sachs, former professor at berlin university, director of the german state instrument collection and junior colleague of hornbostel, arrived in 1937.24 the minute that towering figure set foot on american soil at fifty-six he became the leading figure here.25 he had spent the first years of his exile in paris at the sorbonne and the musee de i'homme, and as director of the visionary recording project anthologie sonore. his triple appointment in new york as visiting professor at new york university, curator of the crosby brown collection of musical instruments at the metropolitan museum of art, and chief of the dance and phonograph collections at the new york public library was greeted with another article in the new york times. 26 with his first graduate seminar, and his paper at the third annual meeting of the ams in pittsburgh at the end of the year (sachs 1937), american musicology ceased to be an outpost.27 in 1938, the year that brought jewish life in central europe to an end with the anschluss, munich, and kristallnacht, the manageable series of arrivals of individuals turned into a flood of desperate refugees for whom finding employment was a challenge and occasionally a heartbreak. among the fistful of refugees arriving that year were erwin bodky at fortytwo from berlin via amsterdam, oswald jonas at forty-one from vienna via london, emanuel winternitz at forty from vienna, erich hertzmann at thirty-seven from breslau, leo schrade at thirty-five from bonn, and siegmund levarie at twenty-four from vienna. the year 1939 brought a giant to stand beside sachs: alfred einstein, his arrival marked by an article in the new york times. 28 other arrivals that year were ernest t. ferand at fifty-one from vienna, paul nettl at fifty from prague, dragan plamenac at forty-four from zagreb, eric werner at thirty­ eight from berlin, otto gombosi at thirty-seven from berlin via rome and basel, and manfred bukofzer at twenty-nine from basel via london. in sep­ tember of that year, two weeks after the german invasion of poland had set david josephson off world war ii, theams hosted a week-long international congress in new york, attracting some 750 people to its sessions, led by a fistful of eminent non-german european, latin american, and emigre musicologists. by 1940, when the emigre flood had abated after the arrival of kathi meyer-baer at forty-eight from frankfurt via paris, karl geiringer at forty-one from vienna via london, edward lowinsky at thirty-two from heidelberg via the hague and havana, and felix salzer at thirty-six from vienna, the center of musicological gravity had shifted from germany to america.29 it may not yet have been apparent, for germany kept many of her scholars. but they were already either compromised or silenced. then, as the war turned inexorably against germany, destroying her cities, her economy, and her culture, german musicology curdled. meanwhile, the emigres were establishing themselves in america with growing self-confidence, and at the annual meeting that year in cleveland they gave seven of the fifteen papers.30 of the class of 1940, only meyer-baer failed to secure an academic position, for reasons that would have been apparent to every woman who dreamed of or sought employment in the academy at the time; nevertheless, she lived a full and productive life as a private scholar and was an active member of the community until her last years. among those who fled were students who would complete their educa­ tion in america and go on to positions in the field here: in 1938, frederick sternfeld at twenty-three from vienna via cambridge, hans tischler at twenty-three from vienna via london, and ernest sanders at twenty from hamburg; in 1939, alfred mann at twenty-two from berlin via milan. two survived the nazi years in europe and came to america afterwards: alexander ringer in 1946 at twenty-five, fritz oberdoerffer in 1948 at fiftyfour. they would all eventually thrive as productive scholars. the high point of emigre influence as leaders in the ams, as teach­ ers, and as scholars, came during the 1940s and 1950s. the two giants and four younger men held its highest posts: sachs (1949-50) and geiringer (1955-56) as president; einstein (1945-46), gombosi (1952-53), schrade (1953-54), and plamenac (1956-57) served as vice-presidents. twelve were members-at-large of the board between 1939 and 1969: apel, gombosi mann, pisk, and ringer for one term each; einstein, lowinsky, and winter­ nitz for two; david and plamenac for three; sachs for four; bukofzer for five; and geiringer for seven. on the other hand, none ever became editor-in-chief of the journal of the american musicological society aside from sachs (and he only shared that position with kinkeldey for the first issue of volume 5 in 1952), no doubt because none was a native anglophone. most emigre scholars adjusted successfully to academic life in america. thanks in good part to their prestige as scholars, they were decisive in in17 18 current musicology stitutionalizing musicology at the major universities, as well as at colleges throughout the united states. the year 1950, for instance, found sachs at new york university, hertzmann at columbia (where lang had appointed him), schwarz and lowinsky at queens college, salzer at the mannes college of music, winternitz at yale and the metropolitan museum of art, ferand at the new school, einstein at smith, sternfeld at dartmouth, geiringer at boston university, schrade at yale, bodky at brandeis and the longy school, david at michigan, nathan at michigan state, levarie and gombosi at chicago, jonas and tischler at roosevelt university, nettl and apel at indiana, werner in cincinnati, herz at louisville university, ober­ doerffer at texas, and bukofzer at the university of california, berkeley.3! it was a list unimaginable only twenty years earlier when there was not one american chair in the field. as scholars, the emigres produced a crop of books in their first full de­ cade (1940-50) that had no precedent in this country: sachs's the history of musical instruments in 1940 (1940a); lang's music in western civilization in 1941; apel's notation of polyphonic music and dorian's history of music in performance in 1942; sachs's rise of music in the ancient world in 1943; apel's harvard dictionary of music in 1944; einstein's mozart in 1945; lowinsky's secret chromatic art in the netherlands motet and the first volume of apel's historical anthology of music (with davison) in 1946;32 bukofzer's music in the baroque era, einstein's music in the romantic era, and karl geiringer's brahms each in 1947; sachs's our musical heritage: a short history of music in 1948; einstein's the italian madrigal in 1949; bukofzer's studies in medieval and renaissance music, schrade's monteverdi and the second volume of apel's and davison's historical anthology of music all in 1950.33 (the role ofw. w. norton in this procession and, beyond it, in the shaping of the field, remains to be told.) the list is telling. lang's history was the successor to august ambros's geschichte der musik;34 it would be the last of the great european roman~ tic one-man music histories. sachs's rise of music in the ancient world, bukofzer's music in the baroque era, and einstein's music in the romantic era, installments in the norton series, were successors to volumes in ernst bucken's handbuch der musikwissenschaft (1928-34).35 apel's notation of polyphonic music was the american child of johannes wolf's handbuch der notationskunde ([1913-19]1963); the historicalanthology of music was our version of arnold schering's geschichte der musik in beispielen (1931). two of the three monographs, lowinsky's secret chromatic art in the netherlands motet and schrade's monteverdi, did not stray far from the musicological heartland: medieval and renaissance music, the problem areas of pre-war european musicology, were, thanks to the concerns and influence of the david josephson emigre teachers, fast becoming the problem areas of post-war american musicology. the slim production of books by american-born scholars in the 1940s fits the inherited pattern neatly: gustave reese's music in the middle ages (1940), the book that inaugurated the norton histories; glen haydon's introduction to musicology (1941), the closest we would come to adler's handbuch der musikgeschichte (1924); and oliver strunk's source readings in music history (1950). the other side of the scholarly coin was the production of editions. these began more slowly, with apel and plamenac the pioneers, but by the 1950s, as the publication of books and monographs waned, that of historical editions waxed. notable early editions by american-born scholars such as leonard ellinwood's of francesco landini (landini 1939), helen hewitt's of ottaviano petrucci's odhecaton a (hewitt 1946), thomas marrocco's of fourteenth -century italian music ([ 1942] 1961; bologna 1954), and louise cuyler's of heinrich isaac's liturgical music (isaac 1950; 1956), were over­ whelmingly devoted to the problem areas of the emigres: medieval and early renaissance music. the teaching trail traces the emigres' influence at its most direct, i.e., through the students they taught, and through their students' students. apel, bukofzer, einstein, ferand, gombosi, hertzmann, lowinsky, plamenac, and schrade: all were renaissance scholars. if we seek an explanation for our erstwhile concentration on that music, we must look not to its beau­ ties, or to the culture that produced it, or to the gripping philological and performance problems that attend its unearthing, but to the presence of a few towering scholars to whom young americans flocked and who served as their teachers and role models. take schrade. in the twenty years he spent at yale, he begat nan cooke carpenter, richard crocker, alvin johnson, sylvia kenney, janet knapp, edward lerner, albert seay, and william waite. 36 the renaissance came to musicological america and flourished because german scholars brought it with them and gave it to us, or perhaps imposed it on us; its day waned because our concerns shifted. renaissance study will not soon again dominate american musicology. many younger scholars seemed indifferent to it, moving into centuries, repertories, and theoretical stances that the emigres and their students considered off-limits. the very habit of slicing the past into a line of distinct periods, the renaissance among them, was coming under attack. that was the grim reality that d' accone and slim faced in their obituary of their friend. the period around 1950 marked the high tide of emigre activity and influ­ ence. in 1951, the american council of learned societies recognized the ams as one of its constituent members. the death of leichtentritt in that 19 20 current musicology year at age seventy-seven was little felt; despite his harvard position, he was a proud outsider of little influence. but einstein's death the next year at seventy-one removed a titan, while the premature deaths in 1955 of bu­ kofzer, the outstanding emigre musicologist of his generation, at forty-five, and gombosi at fifty-two removed two future leaders. schrade's return to europe in 1958 removed a third. when sachs died at seventy-seven in 1959, an era died with him. hertzmann mourned: "we ... have lost a great man, one of the last of the generation of pioneers who established musicology as a subject of academic pursuit" (hertzmann 1958:1). these men had done their work: the ascendancy of america within the international field, and of native-born americans within the national field, was acknowledged in 1961 with the holding of the eighth congress of the international musicological society in new york city and donald grout's election as its president. re­ tirements and deaths in the 1960s marked the end of the emigre high water. hertzmann and schrade died at sixty in 1963 and 1964 respectively, and david at sixty-five in 1967. while geiringer and lowinsky remained active, the leadership of our society was passing quickly to a younger generation, most of them students of emigre scholars. the emigre presence should not blind us to the influential native ameri­ cans whose names march through the lists of society officers and board members throughout these decades: in the 1940s, alphabetically: donald grout, glen haydon, otto kinkeldey, william s. newman, gustave reese, charles seeger, and harold spivacke; in the 1950s: david boyden, nathan broder, louise cuyler, jan larue, arthur mendel, william j. mitchell, and oliver strunk. but for all their erudition and achievement, there was in these men and women a genuflecting reflex, an unspoken conviction that the emigres carried in their blood the authentic tradition; that what they had inherited by right, the native-born would have to earn. that was difficult. emulation and industry were not enough. american­ born scholars could adopt the interests and attitudes of the emigres, their language and manners, but the culture that had taken generations to build lay beyond them. they could not inherit the emigres' experience, and that experience was at the core. educated germans and austrians, exposed to a vibrant intellectual life, knew in their bones that their culture was peerless. the names of their culture were the names of defining genius. behind schutz lay luther, behind mozart kant, behind beethoven goethe, behind wagner nietzsche, behind mahler freud. americans grew up with no such pedigree. whom did we have in our past? billings, foster, gottschalk, kern, gershwin, ellington, ives, and whoever might have lain behind them, names meaning nothing to the emigres and therefore oflittle interest to their dutiful ameri­ can students. austro-germans grew up with a powerful cultural identity born of romantic nationalism, and an ideology of aesthetic autonomy that, david josephson they believed, kept their sacred art removed from profane politics. (and in the 1920s, as german and austrian politics became worse than profane, art had to be kept at a greater and greater remove, its autonomy enforced ever more strictly.) americans had no such identity as musicologists. we lacked the grounding in european intellectual history and continental philosophy that our best teachers had in their bones. we could learn the nuts and bolts, the clinical data and tasks that kerman came to identify as positivist, but the underlying assumptions, concerns, and questions of the german scholars were outside our interests and training. and so we took the work of our teachers, removed it from the cultural soil in which it was embedded, and cautiously framed it in universal terms so that we could become its heirs. at the same time, the emigres had to adapt to the intellectual traditions of their adopted universities, and to the interests and abilities of their students, if they were to succeed here. adapt they did. they neutralized their work, and we responded. no wonder so much of our work was colorless and dutiful. indifferent to all standards except objectivity, system, and science, we constructed a scholarly apparatus buttressing stories, facts, and their organization and presentation. spitta's bach, for instance, was denatured: though we could not adopt him as a great lutheran german, neither could we make him a great secular american, so we made him simply a great musician. as richard taruskin has insisted, we lost something vital in the translation ([1991]1995).37 it was never difficult to see the contribution of the emigres to american musicology, nor to find paeans to them as men and scholars. what was dif­ ficult was to identify the cost of that contribution. nothing comes free. one culture cannot easily be deposited wholesale into another. what went were all but the most conservative values, and they ran deep. karl geiringer and erich hertzmann, products of that heritage, gave us some idea of what it was like to sit in on musicology lectures and seminars given at the university of berlin in the 1920s by the legendary hermann kretzschmar and johannes wolf. geiringer recalled the seminars of kretzschmar, then an old man, in which students had to illustrate their papers at the piano: ''as soon as the playing began, kretzschmar invariably fell asleep and awoke only when the performance stopped." as for the lectures of wolf, "a charming man" who would become a friend and benefactor, they "were deadly. what he gave us was mainly footnotes from his research, endless numbers of codices, dates, and meaningless facts" (geiringer 1993:35-36). hertzmann was more dip­ lomatic; he did not name names. musicologists at the university ... would read a script, sometimes quite dated, sometimes slightly touched-up, but often just a summary of ma21 22 current musicology terials that had been previously published. we even had to listen to tne reading of inventories of medieval manuscripts in european libraries, in alphabetical order from annaberg to zwickau, call numbers and all (hertzmann 1958:3) true, what geiringer and hertzmann described sounds worse for its stuffiness than for its conservatism. but the two went hand in hand. hertz­ mann's single example, after all, involved medieval documents. and though we were to discover that the subject need not have been so clotted, it seemed so to most of us at the time, struggling as we did to examine the middle ages, via ludwig and wolf and apel, through the lens of early twentieth-century germany, i.e., of one alien society through the scholarship of another. the conservatism was also profoundly musical, and it came directly from the musicological emigres, few of whom had lined up in the contest over the future of german music in the 1920s. mahler, schoenberg, berg, web ern: these were not common names in our classrooms and journals. here most of the emigres were at one with their colleagues who had remained in hitler's europe. read, for instance, friedrich blume, who had stayed in germany and carefully made his peace with nazi society, writing in 1947 of the bach edition: ''an achievement of incalculable significance ... an event without parallel in the whole of history," he called it, as he noted its impact on composition: which of the great composers from schumann to reger, from mendels­ sohn to strauss and pfitzner, from brahms to wagner, and from bruckner to verdi had not somewhere been deeply influenced by the complete edi­ tion of the works of bach? it opened the sluice through which his art and technique, as well as his mind and faith, poured into the creative work of the neo-romantics and neo-classicists ... for the first time in history creative minds in music experienced the overwhelming influence of past greatness so profoundly that it set the whole direction and standard for their own work. an epoch-making change took place in the half-century covered by the bach edition, since for the first time european music was part of a definite historical process. musical historians began to interpret bach as the centre of gravity of the whole history of music. wagner saw in bach "the history of the innermost life of the german spirit during the cruel century in which the german people were completely blotted out." (1950:60-61) note that in his list of composers influenced by bach, blume acknowledged only one non-german, verdi, and that the twentieth-century germans he named were reger, strauss, and pfitzner, ignoring mahler, schoenberg, berg, and webern. note also his use of wagner to nail his argument. true, he would follow wagner's words with more reasonable ones from brahms, reger, and david josephson beethoven. but he gave pride of place to wagner, and quoted words that cast bach strictly in german terms, and, strikingly, in terms that cast germans as victims. the words, "the innermost life of the german spirit during the cruel century in which the german people were completely blotted out," could have passed for third reich copy. that wagner could write them, fine. that blume would quote them in the discredited germany of 1947 is appalling. how blind to history could a historian be? manfred bukofzer, of the generation following blume's, was no apologist for the german people or the german spirit that so gripped the older scholar. his adoption of america and of the english language was enthusiastic. but he brought his schooling with him. he published music in the baroque era in the same year as blume's paean to the german bach, and supplied it with a preface whose caution, conservatism, and exclusion of the subjective and the aesthetic embodied the program of the emigre musicologists and their american colleagues and students. we would need forty years to shake free of their stern self-discipline: if the history of music is to have more than an antiquarian interest and significance, it must be seen as the history of musical styles, and the his­ tory of styles in turn as a history of ideas. the ideas that underlie musical styles can only be shown in a factual stylistic analysis that takes music apart as a mechanic does a motor and that shows how musical elements are combined, how they achieve their specific effect, and what constitutes the difference between externally similar factors. this analysis is at once historical and "technological" and takes beauty for granted. those writ­ ers to whom the description of music is no more than a matter of elegant variation in judiciously chosen adjectives may be shocked to learn that the word "beautiful" does not occur in this book. my aim has been not the expatiation on the obvious but the explanation of the specific musical results of baroque style. this explanation must of necessity rely on words, but it must be clearly understood that words cannot render the aesthetic experience of music itself, let alone replace it. (1947:xiii-xiv) lang had warned of the conservatism in his inaugural editorial in the musical quarterly in 1945 as the germany that had destroyed europe, mur­ dered its jews, and sent us our emigres, was in its death throes: we have been fortunate in being able to welcome to this country some of the best musicologists the folly of a perverted nation cast adrift. for the most part they are eminent scholars, true humanists who are at home wherever men of goodwill dwell. they have joined whole-heartedly in the spirit of their new community, animated by the realization that genuine scholarship, true humanism, knows no boundaries. yet some of our newly won colleagues still do not realize that the times have changed, and that most of all, their surroundings have changed. (1945:374-75) 23 24 current musicology with those bold words, lang established himself as an american, marked his distance from the forced emigres (note his use of "we" and "they"), and warned them that they would have to adapt to their new homeland professionally as well as personally. philology, he insisted, must not be "divorced from living art." musical scholars of german training "confound the means-research-with the aim-understanding;' he declared, antici­ pating kerman's argument by almost twenty years (1945:375). there must be room for beauty as well as history, enjoyment as well as positive science and objectivity. lang rambled, he sidestepped definition of his terms, and he could not make up his mind about the germans. but he put his finger on one critical facet of the problem: that some emigres carried ball and chain, and that their heritage and accent bestowed on them a prestige that put them in a position to influence the field in a narrowly technical direction. four years later, in 1949, sachs wrote a shrewd editorial in the jour­ nal of the american musicological society in which he decried the narrow view of musicology that he saw settling among some of his colleagues. he divided them into two groups, humanists on the one hand, and what he called "nothing-but-specialists" on the other. the specialists, indispensable as they were in providing the patient detail work needed in the field, posed a threat to american musicology. as lang had done, sachs tried to keep his footing, but at the end he slipped, urging students to "keep to this kind of neat and devoted research" exemplified by the nothing-but-specialists (sachs 1949:6). kerman would later focus his hawk eye on this peculiar suggestion, and ask: how will students who have been programmed to be "nothing-but­ specialists" turn into scholars with broad, original, humane horizons? sachs does not say. in the event the metamorphosis was not often witnessed. perhaps american students never grasped what was supposed to happen to them. perhaps, in class, they were never even told. (1985:46) as kerman recognized, the metamorphosis was a mirage. sachs's stu­ dents listened not to his plea for breadth but only to his admonition that they stick to the "detail work, patient, careful, faithful, done for the sake of knowledge and for nothing else" (1949:6). and that is largely what those students delivered, through the 1950s and beyond. for as they absorbed the influence of their european teachers, they also brought to bear on their work the powerful legacy of anglo-american positivism, a legacy that the emigres had had to come to terms with in order to adapt themselves to the universities that became their homes. in short, the emigre scholars adapted to their students, and their students adapted to their adapting teachers. both sides of the equation did their best to please the other, and neither david josephson side seems to have considered the cost of their mutual courtesy. the inquiry into intellectual history and philosophy that the best of the europeans had once considered their daily bread had almost no place in the american acad­ emy. american music historians dug dutifully into sources, then produced biographies and critical editions, and more biographies and critical editions, and then more, threatening to make good sachs's nightmare prediction that one day "specialized research [will have] filled and over-flooded our libraries so completely that the librarians will have to stack the books and journals on the sidewalks outside the buildings" (1949:6). there was no end to their work. they rarely concerned themselves, however, with what would be done with it and by whom. as tom lehrer had a postwar emigre of another ilk observe in another context, "once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? that's not my department;' says werner von braun.38 enter the 1960s, the decade that blew away so much in america. the list of ams officers and board members in the decade that began with ken­ nedy and ended with vietnam and apollo 11 resonates with fresh names: william austin, howard brown, richard crocker, charles hamm, daniel heartz, h. wiley hitchcock, joseph kerman, and claude palisca. in 1963, a book entitled simply musicology was published as a volume in a series commissioned by the council of the humanities at princeton on a grant from the ford foundation (harrison, hood, and palisca 1963). with that impeccable pedigree, it strove, in the words of general editor richard schlatter, "to present a critical account of american humanistic scholarship in recent decades ... [so that we could] see just what that scholarship has contributed to the culture of america and the world" (schlatter 1963:ix). schlatter then described our profession in two sentences, and the function of the volume in a third: musicology is one of the newest of the scholarly disciplines in the american university. imported from germany in the twentieth century, quickened by the work of excellent scholars who fled from the nazis, musicology, like art history, has had to be domesticated in the united states. the three essays in this volume tell the story of that domestication and draw some morals for the future. (schlatter 1963:ix-x) the book consisted of three surveys: palisca's from the inside, frank l. harrison's from the outside, and mantle hood's, "about the struggle to found 25 26 current musicology a disciplined study of non-western music in this country" (schlatter 1963: x). schlatter saw a field in its adolescence, and found its path unclear. it was not the first review of our field. there had been several since 1929, when oliver strunk undertook one for the committee on musicology of the american council of learned societies. as much a plea for support as a review, he published it three years later as state and resources of musicology in the united states (strunk 1932). the most significant and symptomatic of the emigre positions came in 1957 with the posthumous publication of bukofzer's brief place of musicology in american institutions of higher learning which advocated a double approach to the teaching of music as a liberal art to the many and as a profession to the few. but now harrison found that approach unpalatable, for it would drain musical study as a dis­ cipline on the one hand, and produce "specialized and uncommunicative" scholarship on the other (harrison 1963:6). for him, musicology had to enhance "communication and understanding between man and man and between the present and the past;' provide composers with a record of past music, and help performers recreate that music faithfully (harrison 1963:7). but he could only read the future darkly, for he found a field here in which scholars wrote "for a circle of colleagues and specialist students rather than for those who read and write general history;' and while he could cajole, he could not prescribe a new path (harrison 1963:83). palisca was sterner in his definition of the field, more optimistic in his prognosis for its future. musicology represented what he called a new di­ mension of musical scholarship, "a nonartistic, nonhedonistic attack upon a subject that should have been in the view of many all pleasure, creativity, and inspiration" (palisca 1963:90). he embraced such a musicology, and accepted, too, the fact that the stream of the field had narrowed radically since adler's classic program in 1885, with its twofold division into a histori­ cal method subdivided into notation, types of compositions, principles of composition, principles of performance, and instruments; and a systematic one subdivided into theory (harmonics, rhythmics, and melics), pedagogy, aesthetics, psychology, and non-western music; and riemann's, with its fivefold division into acoustics, physiology and psychology, aesthetics, theory of composition and performance, and history (riemann [1908] 1919). both programs had been attacked over the years by waldo selden pratt (1915), seeger (1924), strunk (1936), and sachs (1940b). haydon's introduction in 1941 harkened back to adler, but it was sachs's proposal that we focus on history alone that won out. by the emigre high water of the 1950s, the two american journals in the field, the journal of the american musicological society and the musical quarterly, were publishing virtually nothing on acoustics, physiology, psychology, aesthetics, pedagogy, theory, or comparadavid josephson tive musicology. the establishment of ethnomusicology and the journal of music theory in 1957 confirmed that musicology had become synonymous with music history. palisca sealed sachs's vision: "the musicologist is first and foremost a historian" (palisca 1963:119). the broader vision that kin­ keldey had brought with him from berlin and breslau and that had been the foundation of his pioneering seminars here in the 1930s was, in the words of our students, toast. on one subject harrison had particularly strong words: american musicol­ ogy, having absorbed what he called the "official" musicological outlook of europe, lacked real involvement in the musical culture of either europe or america. he noted specifically our ignoring most of jazz and all of our popular music, down to rock en' roll, despite its enormous world standing. if minstrels and laude and the lutheran kantorei were acceptable subjects of research, he asked, why not music hall and pop? perhaps the courtesy of that genial scholar prevented him from answering it; perhaps as a guest he was simply too much taken by his hosts to see the answer staring him in the face. palisca as well was uncomfortable: "very few american musicologists can have an easy conscience about the subject of american music ... [it 1 has only a negligible role in graduate study and is treated as a serious research specialty by only a handful of american scholars, few of them in teaching positions" (palisca 1963:210). like most observers of the field-voltaire and swift would have been merciless-he saw what he called a healthy trend. that was in 1963. the trend was slow in coming. it took another thirty years for the ams to begin producing an american denkmal, and its inaugural volume was slim and marginal, a patch of dry modernism in the rain forest of american music that it would explore in later volumes (i.e., crawford seeger 1993). if harrison and palisca summed up the state of american musicology for american humanists in 1963, donald grout had done the same for ameri­ can college students three years earlier (grout 1960). whereas harrison and palisca presented the scene, grout had acted on it, producing a textbook self-confident in its organization and presentation of what it construed as our musical heritage, covering the ground it privileged as no other eng­ lish-language text had done before it. it was a gray summation of what american musicology had produced by 1960, reflecting the interests of the stolid field it represented. the influence of its tone, content, and emphasis was so enduring that it went through three revisions over three decades. what strengths the original had, later revisions damaged, although they 27 28 current musicology dutifully followed the data-laden progress of the field as it continued to define itself. the first revision, in 1973, ignoring the first probing questions posed by leo treitler, updated its facts but not its historiography or ideas, despite the revolution that had taken place in the 1960s in the american student generation at whom it was directed (grout 1973). the third edition of 1980, remaining rooted in the 1950s in every respect but its facts, was so uneasy that it removed the original 1960 preface that had set forth, however perfunctorily, its principles of selection and omission (grout 1980). with the fourth edition claude palisca took over (grout and palisca 1988), and with the seventh, peter burkholder (grout, burkholder, and palisca 2006). each succeeding version has been longer, slicker, and determinedly up-to­ date, but the tone, the language, the style, cannot-perhaps do not wish to-wriggle free of an increasingly distant past. grout's original text had an integrity that could not be washed away, an integrity born of the 1950s adaptation by american musicologists of a german field. whether or not we ever found ourselves comfortable with that adaptation, it was in retrospect a stubbornly individual one-optimistic, focused, energetic, and comfort­ able-words that apply not only to the field but also to its time and place. to know where we stood in 1960, at the height of our absorption of what we read as the emigre model, read the original grout. two years after publication of the musicology volume came a bold response from kerman, in his now-famous "profile for american musicology," that threatened the foundations of the society's work by displacing history from the center of musicology to a subsidiary place, "a step on a ladder" whose top step afforded "a platform of insight into individual works of art" (ker­ man 1965:63). it was his first call to the serious criticism and interpretation of great works, to the interjection of a personal voice into a field rooted in a tradition of empirical, objective, apparently value-free scholarship. like lang, he did not define his terms precisely, and he wrestled with the german problem. german musicologists had well earned our affectionate, great, and deep-rooted debt. we had paid that debt, and now had to stake our own claim in the field: until american musicology catches something of the resonance of the american personality, it will remain an echo of the great german tradition ... that tradition was not dictated by objective truths of nature, it arose out of a certain national current of thought at a certain point in its history ... presumably we too should be echoing our own current and our own time ... our identity as scholars depends on growth away from an older alien tradition into something recognizably our own. (1965:67) david josephson but the grip of an alien authority remained so powerful that kerman faltered at this critical juncture in his argument. our musicological tradi­ tion could not embrace our american heritage, he went on, not when that heritage could put up only a francis hopkinson, lowell mason, or theodore chanler against the claims staked by beethoven, luca marenzio, or louis couperin. if kerman didn't recognize that he was playing here with loaded dice, virtually no one else did either; those were the only dice our field recognized. his conclusion was embedded in his implicit premise: having pitted our mediocrities against europe's titans, kerman retreated from the full import of his challenge, abjured the study of american music, and asked only for "a native point of view" in the study of european music (1965:68). the field remained safe, for the time being at least. or so it would seem in retrospect. it did not seem so then. the response was swift. lowinsky, speaking in the name of a thriving enterprise stung by kerman's distinctions among national points of view and appalled by his proposals, took meticulous aim at everyone of them and fired in a magisterial reply published that same year (lowinsky 1965). whose hill one stood on determined how one read the outcome of the battle; the es­ tablishment that determined such matters stood virtually to a man-and, like the rest of the academy, it was a society of men-on lowinsky's hill. but if lowinsky appeared to have won the battle, kerman would win the war, and he would do it the old-fashioned way: through the example of his brilliant writings, through the disciples he would attract (some of them for­ mer scholars of medieval and renaissance music), and through the journal he founded, 19th-century music, which would turn nineteenth-century studies from the wasteland we had found as graduate students to the boom industry it has become. in 1966 william austin took the small step that kerman had all but suggested before stepping back, when he devoted two chapters to jazz in his music in the 20th century, the final installment in the multi-volume norton history (austin 1966), a fact noted sourly by charles wuorinen as an "overemphasis" in a savage review published in perspectives of new music (wuorinen 1966: 145).39 it was, i believe, the first appearance of jelly roll morton, louis armstrong, duke ellington, coleman hawkins, charlie parker, miles davis, john lewis, ray charles, and ornette coleman, among others, in a book published by the american musicological establishment. in the following year leo treitler attacked the the master narrative of the history of european music that assigned relative values (treitler 1967). having tuned his ears to the "rattling of skeletons in the halls of humane learning" outside our field as a cultural and political earthquake shook american society (1967: 188), treitler dissected the doctrine of development 29 30 current musicology that had been propounded by adler in his methode der musikgeschichte (1919) and reached our shores via the emigres and their students. he con­ cluded that the resulting method of style analysis, the centerpiece of our work, had yielded a music history that focused on causality and fetishized style periods, creating an intellectually unsustainable basis for the evaluation of the individual works that made up our musical heritage. there seemed to be no takers. musicology passed through the social turbulence of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the concurrent leftward shift of the humanities in the academy, largely untouched. it was no accident that rock criticism entered the academy through departments of english, not music. rock, the antithesis of our music and of everything we stood for, was best ignored.40 the old german academic model separating humane scholarship from the political and social issues of the day seemed to hold. in fact that model was cracking, and the cracks now made their way to the surface with increasing frequency and intensity. the study of paper and rastrology at the patient hands of alan tyson and others undermined guido adler's style-history postulate, and with it, incidentally, the certainties of alfred einstein's mozart chronology in his 1937 edition of the kochel catalog (kochel [1862] 1937).41 we should have recognized the vulnerability of the style-history model in any case when, despite decades-long work of an army of dutiful scholars, our efforts to attribute hundreds of anonymous renaissance compositions foundered except where sources and stories came to our rescue. two acts of individual courage would alter the american musicological landscape decisively in 1976: rose subotnik forced theodor adorno on us in the first of a series of studies that would shake the temple of empirical musicology (subotnik 1976), and philip brett challenged us to recognize the homosexual culture in our midst in his outing of benjamin britten, peter grimes, and himself.42 (both initiatives would create such thriving indus­ tries that by the time subotnik published developing variations in 1991 and brett published queering the pitch three years later, the old controversies had become new orthodoxies (subotnik 1991; brett, thomas, and wood 1994). 1977 brought 19th-century music, a breath of fresh air inspired by kerman's determination to provide a forum for humane criticism of music as aesthetic experience, and, incidentally, a rare american home for stylish english prose in the field. elegantly edited, it became a route for some mu­ sicologists who had teethed on earlier music to discover the scholarly chal­ lenges of the nineteenth century:43 more significantly, it became a forum for others, most of them from the rising generation, to write about music with newfound freedom and a personal voice, and to introduce other disciplines and modes of inquiry to american music scholarship. david josephson perhaps most decisively in the later 1970s, stanley sadie pushed forward a new generation of scholars to help him compile the new grove dictionary of music and musicians (sadie 1980), and don randel did likewise for his new harvard dictionary of music (1986). both reference works were fresh in every respect; both relegated their respective predecessors to the archives. our ties to a declining europe and her culture were now facing a maturing and questioning scholarship. still, those ties could do real damage, if only briefly. they did, in two cases that i want to examine. the first was the publication in 1979 of an english translation, newly edited, by ernst oster of heinrich schenker's der freie satz, with the ostensible intention of presenting a faithful version of schenker's text (schenker [1935] 1979). the scholarly apparatus was thorough, the tone devout. after all, schenker had developed a mode of analysis that had spread throughout the english-speaking world, largely through the energetic work of his student felix salzer and the american saul novack (who had brought salzer to queens college in 1963), and was now coming to dominate the teaching of theory at american universities; and der freie satz was "his cul­ minating statement."44 so significant was the undertaking that it was given the imprimatur of the ams, the only theoretical treatise thus honored. there is one decidedly odd feature about the edition. the text takes up 147 pages; material that absorbs about five of those pages has been removed from the body of the text, separated from it by three appendices, and rein­ serted as ''appendix 4: omissions from the original german edition." why did oster not reinstate the omitted passages to the places where schenker had written them? if his intention was to restore the text, why not restore it as schenker wrote it, rather than create an abridged version with the deleted material hidden at the end? the answer to that question begins with the original 1935 edition, pub­ lished shortly after schenker's death in vienna that year and seen to press without his authority (schenker 1935). in 1956, his disciple oswald jonas, then on the faculty at roosevelt university in chicago, produced a second german edition (schenker [1935] 1956). in the intervening twenty-one years germany had devastated europe, discredited its own culture, and left the continent a battleground contested by soviet russia and jonas's adopted america. jonas, responding to a world schenker could not have imagined and attempting to salvage schenker's theory for that new world, deleted several portions of the original text that were now seen as ideologically sensitive. twenty-three years later, with schenker's influence ascendant, oster produced an english translation. he based his text on jonas's 1956 edition. while reinstating "a few short passages" of an undisclosed nature from 31 32 current musicology the 1935 edition, he retained other deletions of jonas's, neither few nor short, from schenker's introduction and the first chapter on the grounds that they "have no bearing on the musical content of the work." he noted parenthetically: the introduction and first chapter in the original edition give the im­ pression of being a collection of more or less unrelated remarks and aphorisms; it is impossible to determine whether this material was given its final, published form by schenker himself or by an editor. (schenker [1935j1979:xiii) it was a slippery procedure. having acknowledged his discomfort with those "unrelated remarks and aphorisms;' oster could remove them in good conscience by attributing them possibly to an unidentified editor and thus bringing their authority into question. but the tactic was groundless, for schenker had larded his introduction and first chapter with so many state­ ments having "no bearing on the musical content of the work" that oster had to allow several to stand. here is one example: every organic being yearns for another organic being. and art, which is organic, drives toward the organic human soul. however, in these times when man himself destroys his organic nature, how is he to respond to organically developed art? ([1935j1979:xxiv) oster went further than jonas had, in fact, by removing items from schen­ ker's introduction and first chapter that jonas had missed, explaining: "i felt it best to omit several additional passages of a very general, sometimes semi -philosophical nature here; these omissions are not expressly indicated" ([1935] 1979:xiii). in an ironic recurrence of the fate that had befallen his teacher, oster died before the first stages of publication, and unnamed friends and colleagues assumed the "many authorial responsibilities" required to complete the project. the editor of the longman music series in which free composition was published, gerald warfield, noted in the "series editor's acknowledg­ ment" that, "for the sake of comprehensiveness it was decided to provide these [deleted] passages in an appendix. john rothgeb translated the deleted passages which appear in appendix 4" ([1935] 1979:x). although rothgeb and gail rehman made several other contributions to the project, neither seems to have had final authority over it, and warfield's use of the passive voice-"it was decided"masked responsibility for the decision to reinstate the deleted material and relegate it to an appendix. we are left to imagine that the decision was warfield's. but imagine is all. for david josephson when the subject comes up again a few pages later in a footnote entered anonymously into oster's preface, we read only that, "all deletions have, in fact, been reinstated in appendix 4. for an explanation, see 'series editor's acknowledgment: p. vii [sic]" ([193511979:xiii). as we have seen, the explanation does not explain, and we still do not know who authorized their reinstatement; note the second use of the pas­ sive voice-"all deletions have been reinstated"-that allows all avoidance of attribution. what was oster protecting? and what bothered his anonymous friends and colleagues, who, while they had the integrity to retrieve schenker's material in a form that allows us to reconstruct the original text, lacked the courage to reconstruct it themselves? the answer lies in schenker's reputation in 1970s america. his theory, like all german music scholarship, had taken root in an american intellectual environment that was so profoundly anti­ ideological that subotnik had to defend her very use of the word "ideology" in a paper read at the national meeting of our society in 1981, two years after the publication of free composition. 4s neither as word nor as concept did ideology wash with our teachers, who associated it with a marxist world movement that threatened america's and the free world's ideals, values, and freedoms. but they knew that an ideology underlay the entire construct of german culture in the nineteenth century, for they had grown up with it. at the height of the cold war, however, with hostile armies facing each other across the wall that had once been germany, schenker could not stand as the articulate voice of german musical superiority; he could stand only as the spokesman of great music irrespective of its national, especially ger­ man, underpinnings. jonas in 1956 had had to strip schenker's theory of its ideological foundation so that it could claim universality and be applied to all music, even that which lay outside the german tradition; for jonas's successors twenty-three years later, time had stood still. the problem was that the schenker stripped of his "collection of more or less unrelated remarks and aphorisms" could not remain authentically schenker. his thought, his cultural suppositions, his musical identity were german to the core. his program was no different in that respect from schoenberg's: just as the composer's invention of serial music would, he asserted, assure the supremacy of german music for the next century, the theorist's discovery of the organic connection of materials would assure survival of german music of the century past. but such a dream was anathema to an america asserting its leader­ ship of the west, and to the intellectuals who manned its academies. what warfield and his colleagues did to schenker was no less in keeping with 33 34 current musicology their american ideology than what schenker had done in keeping with his german ideology. with the support of the ams, they turned his text into a document usable in america, free of ideology, free of national feeling, free of all that might corrupt the investigation of music co-opted from the german people to become the inheritance of us all. in 1980, one year after der freie satz, came the new grove dictionary of music and musicians. stanley sadie's encyclopedia, given its ambition and declared mission, was the first postwar english-language publication that had to deal with twentieth-century german history up through the postwar era. that history included the 1930s and 1940s. the new grove declined to do so. instead, it tripped so lightly over the record of nazi germany and its rape of europe that chunks of the history of european musical culture of that time were sanitized or, with the honorable exception of some entries on the captive eastern european cultures,46 erased. under "germany, art music, 1918-45," the nazi years that covered almost half the period were given one fifth of the entryy in berlin, "between 1933 and 1945 activities of progres­ sive composers suffered from political suppression, but revived quickly after the war."4s that is, in a city whose culture had been inextricably bound to its jews, there was only a temporary hiatus of activity, after which the pro­ gressive composers responsible for that activity rapidly resumed their work. the entry declined to name those progressive composers, but few among them could have been jews, for only a handful of those forced out wished to return (notably the communists paul dessau and hanns eisler), and none of those who were murdered were able to do so. about jews, non-progressive composers, or any musicians other than composers, for that matter, there was not a word. nor was there any recognition that the german musical culture as it had existed before 1933 died or fled with them. the entry for "musicology: national traditions-germany and austria:' attributed "the deterioration of musicological scholarship" to the military collapse of ger­ many and the expulsion of its jewish musicologists, neglecting to note the corruption of the field and many of its practitioners long before the war had begun.49 among entries on individuals, we could read of herbert von karajan's party membership (parenthetically) ,50 hans joachim moser's role as director of the reichsstelle fur musik-bearbeitungen from 1940 to 1945,51 and elly ney's role in having "played many times for war causes;"52 but on wolfgang boetticher, karl b6hm, clemens krauss, joseph miiller-blattau, erich schenk, erich valentin, and others, there was silence. 53 the treatment of occupied and vichy france was hardly better. the entry on france was silent.54 the entry on paris had nothing under "1914-45:' although the section on ''after world war ii" opens with david josephson musical life was inevitably affected by the german occupation (1940-45); significantly, the main new stage productions were of palestrina at the opera (1942) and of ariadne auf naxos at the opera-comique (1943). teaching, however, was relatively undisturbed, and it was at this time that boulez came under the tutelage of messiaen at the conservatoire, after the latter's release from a prisoner-of-war camp.55 the mixed record of the new grove dictionary in its coverage of a de­ cisive period in the recent history of our musical and musicological culture betrayed the limits of our trustworthiness as historians when we were dealing with our own history, and suggested the depth of our implication in, and loyalty to, the german culture that did so much to shape our profession. twenty years after the new grove dictionary was published, in an address to the annual meeting of the music library association in louisville in february of 2000, sadie acknowledged his encyclopedia's retreat from the truth. "the recent reexamination of the nazi era and the consequences of nazi policies on music, musical life, and musicology" had forced a change in grove's policy: in the 1970s, this was a topic on which most people felt it was best to keep silent so as not to reopen ugly old wounds. but the temper of the times has changed now that more dust has settled, and the history of those years has been considered more closely ... it is clearly part of our responsibility to record candidly the roles different people played in the musical life of that era as composers, performers, and scholars, and the distortion of nazi musicology. (sadie 2000:18) "closely" is not quite the correct adverb. "critically" is. if candor was our responsibility in 2000, it was our responsibility in 1980. the "ugly old wounds" remain ugly and old. dust doesn't settle in scholarship, and "the temper of the times" does not change out of nowhere. what transpired during those two decades was the death of almost all the remaining perpe­ trators and beneficiaries of nazi german policies and politics. there was something cheap about searching our conscience only when doing so no longer stepped on the toes of survivors. as the few honorable entries in the new grove dictionary of 1980 demonstrated, it was possible to acknowledge the historical record then; it was simply not convenient to do so. none of the questions posed by the schenker edition or the new grove dictionary entries underwent examination. in 1984 an expanding ams celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in balloons of nostalgia and self-con­ gratulation, and with a valuable essay by richard crawford on the history of the society (crawford 1984). after that stock-taking, the momentum 35 36 current musicology with which the past was peeling away gathered steam. the annual meeting of the society in vancouver in 1985 held a session on "fact and value in contemporary musical scholarship" and admitted american popular music, jazz, and scat-singing as subjects. more significantly, 1985 saw publication of kerman's contemplating music, a history both magisterial and personal of anglophone musical scholarship since the end of world war ii that, like his article in the journal of the american musicological society twenty years earlier (kerman 1965), breathed freely, took risks, and, predictably, sparked a wealth of responses. whereas in 1965 he had exhorted, now he reviewed with some satisfaction the progress of his dream of a critical musicology. once again he received an impassioned response from a distinguished scholar of medieval and renaissance music, this time from margaret bent, who defended empirical scholarship, source criticism, and the production of editions, and deplored the movement away from "the older repertories ... where we have most to learn, and where critical engagement, both for establishing musical texts and for their aesthetic and contextual evaluation, are [sic] most urgent" (bent 1986:88). however eloquent her argument and pointed her use of kerman's language to rebut his ideas, the position bent defended was fraying. but if the old order was passing, kerman, who seemed to have read and absorbed everything worth reading in the field, could not articulate the direction the new order might take. all he could do was assert that "musicology, the stateliest of our means for construing music, is on the move" (kerman 1985:229). an old ideology, like the old generation, was giving way to a new one. the direction of the field became clear soon enough at the new or­ leans meeting in 1987, where new disciplines, subjects, and languages broke through in earnest in session after session. at "music in social contexts," pamela potter (1987) brought up the forbidden subject of the third reich with a paper on the nazi takeover of the berlin philharmonic, and alan lessem (1987) examined the relationship between emigre composers and their american students. at "musicology and its canons;' an introductory statement asserted that musicology is "a field that imposes order upon, or controls, the reception of music, writings about music, or even those cultural phenomena we consider to be music" (bergeron and bohlman 1987:17). it was the call to arms of a new generation, and don randel's paper, "the canons in the musicological toolkit:' fleshed it out: our studies of notation, the genres and forms we privileged, our bibliographies, and our historical and analytical models together allowed us to undertake "certain kinds of work on certain kinds of subjects" and to dismiss other kinds of work and subjects (randel 1987:18). at "philosophy, literary theory, and music," kofi agawu (1987) proposed a use for semiotics in the field, richard justin david josephson (1987) suggested one for phenomenology, and thomas whelan, invoking michel foucault and hans-georg gadamer among others, urged that we regard the author's intention "as something whose relevance is contin­ gent on the nature of a given historical or analytical inquiry" (1987). at "deconstruction and music;' subotnik and carolyn abbate showed us how we might apply the work of french poststructuralists to music (subotnik 1987; abbate 1987).56 it was in 1987 as well that susan mcclary pried open musicology to feminist theory with two articles, one on bach in a collection of essays that was to become a signature work of the new mu­ sicology (mcclary 1987a),57 the other on an little-known composer in an obscure journal (mcclary 1987b). 58 the two annual meetings that followed were quieter affairs than new orleans, breathers perhaps, but there was no turning back. the baltimore meeting in 1988 included a panel on "the implications of feminist schol­ arship for teaching;' a session on "feminist scholarship and the field of musicology;' and a joint session with the society for music theory on "text and narrative," with papers on "metaphor and metonymy, intertext and nar­ rative, and story and discourse:'59 the austin meeting in 1989 put film music on the table, exposed us to potter's work on the corruption of german mu­ sicology in the 1930s, and confirmed that feminist and gay identity politics, language, and subject matter were entering the musicological mainstream. it was at a session in austin that seeds were sown for a conference devoted to gender and feminist theory, which came to fruition a year and a halflater in an exuberant four-day gathering at the university of minnesota.60 austin was held in the shadow of the collapse of communist hegemony over central and eastern europe, and on the eve of the reunification of the german state. the cold war was all but over, and with it the culture it had spawned in america over four decades. many walls besides the notorious one in berlin were collapsing, among them the walls behind which a secure and coherent american musicology had flourished. the old rules were coming up for grabs. when colin slim published his final presidential message in the ams newsletter in the summer of 1990, he looked back on the changes he had seen and looked forward warily to where they might lead: because no viable society ... can afford stasis lest it quickly become obso­ lete, ours, too, will undoubtedly experience changes over the coming years. yet, its aims will surely continue to reflect those which it found so adroitly formulated, now over a half century ago. while remaining ever sensitive to present human needs and aspirations, we need to resist the blandish­ ments of passing and fashionable "isms" and to reaffirm the purpose of our society: "the advancement of research in the various fields of music as a branch oflearning and scholarship." (slim 1990:3) 37 38 current musicology later that year, slim would watch musical research advance, but not only as the branch of the learning and scholarship his own work represented. instead, the oakland meeting in 1990 produced, along with a rich menu of traditional papers, a blizzard of sessions on "gender roles and ambiguity;' "gender studies;' "representations of women;' "composers and sexuality;' "jazz studies;' "theory as text;' "music and politics;' "music and power relations," "music as construct ofidentity;' "reception theory;"'narrative and trope;' "jazz scholarship institutionalization," and a two-hour session called ''anatomy of a song: an exercise in critical analysis;' in which the anatomized song was a rap song.61 topics embraced homo social desire, gay discourse, subversion of gender boundaries, misogyny and homophobia, sexual ambivalence and ambiguity, the admission of jazz into the scholarly temple, strategies of capitulation and resistance, feminist deconstruction, gender coding, and handel's sexuality. lawrence kramer, who published his influential music as cultural practice, 1800-1900 that year (kramer 1990), read two papers, one with the titillating title "carnaval, cross-dressing, and women in the mirror;' the other with a question that was its own answer, "hermeneutics and musical analysis: can they mix?" what some called "critical musicology" and others the "new musicology" invigorated the meeting with its energetic search for meanings and values. had our emigres returned to life and come to oakland, they would have found plenty of ses­ sions on their subjects as well, among them byzantine and neo-byzantine chant, iconography, and renaissance secular music. but these had to share the stage now, and the meeting will not be remembered for them. at oakland, the new musicology's brief flirtation with the insights and positions of poststructuralism, which had been seen most clearly at the new orleans meeting, gave way to an embrace of postmodernism, with its ideological critiques, its recontextualizing of the past, its radical relativism and concomitant rejection of the notion of excellence (now seen as a tool to maintain the status quo) in favor of authenticity and diversity (honored as subversive of existing genderand race-based power structures). a new generation of scholars was changing the way we thought about music and its contexts, the language in which we wrote about them, the issues we chose to examine, and the politics we brought to those issues. kerman, ever sensi­ tive to the state of the field, wrote a shrewd and generous essay accounting for the "classic paradigm shift" that took place after the publication of contemplating music, and concluded, "the 1990s look like exciting, rocky times for american musicology" (kerman 1991:144). he could not have been more on target. what new orleans foreshadowed and oakland witnessed was our splintering as a scholarly society into a series of communities, constituendavid josephson cies, and ideologies. the faults cut every which way, fitting for a meeting that took place over a major geological fault: generational and incontestably oedipal, socio-political, sexual-political, gender-political. soon· enough the issues would start playing themselves out in contests for control of the field in several arenas. within the ams the prizes were the board of directors and the bodies that reported to it: the program committee of the annual meeting, the prize committees, and the editorship of jams and the newslet­ ter. beyond the society they were other music journals, university presses, conferences, and our universities and colleges with faculty, doctoral programs and their fellowships. together these constituted the establishment of our discipline, and that establishment would conduct itself with remarkable openness to both the new musicology ( or musicologies) and the older one (or ones). there would be no muzzling of voices. the one social issue barely touched on was race, which remained marginal to the interests of the almost uniformly white membership of the society. what little discussion focused on it was trumped by genderand sexuality-based argument, as it was through much of the american academy. one ethnomusicologist, philip bohlman, published an article in response to the black riots ("insurrection" was his word) in los angeles following the rodney king incident in the spring of 1992, in which he asserted that musicology was not only in crisis, but also in a "profound moral panic" as it fought "to fend off feminist theory (and feminists);' reject mcclary's insights, orientalize music in islam, and ignore the blues and rap (bohlman 1993). musicology, he insisted, "is a political act." the refusal of musicology to confront music "physically and politically" or to include "the musics of women, people of color, the disenfranchised, or others we simply do not see and hear" had created the crisis. to ignore that crisis, he concluded, was "a supreme form of the irresponsibility of scholarship, the dire consequences of which in the late twentieth century are no longer avoidable" (1993:436).62 bohlman's reinscribing of the binary opposition between us and them was itself a political act, a manichean vision of the field positing a progressive musicology against its other, the misogynistic, racist musicology he saw around him. he was not alone in holding to such a vision. the liberating winds of the 1980s exacted a toll on what had once been a tight albeit exclusionary community of scholars. hostilities between an assertive left and a defensive right-and we can no more deny our post­ colonial politics than we can deny the cold war politics of our teachers and our teachers' teachers-occasionally broke out in professional meetings and journals, squeezing a bemused, shifting, accommodating center. readings on the right conjured up a secure musicological world that was shrinking with every passing year and could no longer engage the interests of the 39 40 current musicology cream of a rising generation. readings on the left privileged the subjective over the empirical, the interpretation over the document, and authentic­ ity over authority, treating scores as gateways rather than as ends, even if the gateways occasionally opened back onto the authors rather than onto the objects of their ostensible gaze. critical musicologists, subotnik has observed, were read more for how they wrote than for what they wrote about. in that postmodernist sea change, with its pre-emption of a foundationalist view of knowledge by an aesthetic view, she saw the danger of an eventual "end of scholarship and the university as arenas that privilege knowledge" (subotnik 2003:25).63 but many committed young scholars did not see a danger. the sources of postmodernism, like those of the ideological stance of our early postwar predecessors, seemed to be going largely unquestioned. what was unmistakably different between 1950 and 2000, though, was that an orthodoxy was no longer possible, and that the vast majority of schol­ ars embraced the new diversity of ideas and discourses. in any case, the divisions in the ams mirrored those in the larger humanist enterprise in the american academy at the end of the twentieth century. and even had those divisions not been present, the extraordinary growth in our society's membership would have eventually exacted a toll. the earlier coherence and sense of community became unsustainable when we started counting ourselves in the thousands. if american musicology had become contested ground, it was also open, free-wheeling, exhilarating, and engaged with its fellow humanities in the academy. it had changed beyond recognition in the discourses it voiced, the language it voiced them in, the values it articulated, the cultural criticism it undertook, and the place it granted to the personal in our professional lives. it produced a new library rich in readings of all stripes on all imaginable subjects. in 1995, kerman surveyed the field once again with characteristic insight and optimism, and ultimately, considering what he called his "track record as a prophet," declined to predict where the field might be headed (kerman 1996). he need not have been so modest. in that same year, his younger colleague at berkeley, richard taruskin, would publish text and act (1995), a collection of essays that turned the debate about authenticity in musical performance inside out and liberated performance practice in the music of composers from josquin to stravinsky. four more books by taruskin, dazzling in their erudition, independence, and audacity, were to appear within the decade (1993, 1996, 1997,2005). the most recent of his grand projects, the enormous oxford history of western music (2005), acknowledges its debt to the humane geistesgeschichte of his teacher paul henry lang and to the model of lang's music in western civilization ([ 1941] 1997). as i write this essay, the reviews have not yet begun to appear in our david josephson scholarly journals. their response to taruskin's sweeping account of our priceless legacy will reveal much about the health and direction of current musicology, and about the tolerance of its various wings for each other's discourses. new wine in an old bottle, the oxford history is unthinkable without the work of every musicological generation, from the emigre tide that brought european musicology to america's shores seventy years ago to our own. that tide has finally washed away, leaving few traces. the last obituar­ ies of emigre scholars recall them from a distance. they speak of a society of "founding fathers ... who established musicology as a discipline in this country" (h. brown 1986:6), "nurtured our field in its infancy" (kellman 1984:3), and "alter [edj the character and course of american musicology" (m. brown 1988:14). their elegiac tone is perhaps best captured in robert freeman's words on karl geiringer in 1989: he was one of the last surviving members of that legendary wave of central european scholars who, driven from their continent to ours in the 1930s, were to exert such a powerful influence on american musicology and culture as a whole (freeman 1989:15). we owe our predecessors the full story of their lives among us, while they were here and after their departure from this earth. if we are to understand how we came to be who we came to be as a professional community, we owe ourselves their full story as well. notes i am delighted to acknowledge myoid friend from columbia days, neal zaslaw, who invited me to read the original version of this essay at cornell, and susan mcclary, who invited me to read a revised version at ucla. i am grateful to stephen hinton, kim kowalke, richard kramer, pamela potter, michael steinberg, and bonnie wade for their warm encouragement and helpful suggestions. i must single out three colleagues whose probing questions and criticisms enriched this essay time and again: karol berger, joseph kerman, and especially rose rosengard subotnik, for more than forty years my beloved friend, patient mentor, and peerless colleague. 1. like his mentor gustav jacobsthal, the first german professor of musicology, ludwig was a medievalist whose goal of editing medieval theorists and repertories had a profound impact on the direction german musicology was to take in the early twentieth century. see haines (2003). 2. a recent study of riemann's contribution to musicology is rehding (2003). 3. for the early years of american musicology, see crawford (1984). 4. the wolfenbrtttel codex, deposited in the herzog august bibliothek in that city and known to my generation of musicology students as wi, contains the earliest extant version of the notre dame repertory of organa, conductus, and other troped pieces from the mass 41 42 current musicology repertory in the 1230s; the bamberg codex has over a hundred thirteenth-century motets and other liturgical fragments. 5. friedrich ludwig, repertorium organorum recentioris et motetorum vetustissimi stili. at his death in 1930, ludwig had published only volume i, catalogue raisonne der quellen, part 1: handschriften in quadrat-notation (1910). volume i, part 2, handschriften in mensural­ notation, and volume ii, part i, musikalisches anfangs-verzeichnis der nach tenores geordneten repertorium, were published as summa musicae medii aevi, volumes 7 (ludwig 1961) and 8 (ludwig 1962), just in time to torment an innocent entering graduate class in 1963. david hiley, author of the entry on ludwig in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, calls ludwig's work on thirteenth -century sources of polyphony "perhaps the most impor­ tant achievement made by one man in the study of medieval music;' and the repertorium "an indispensable textbook, research tool and guide to analytical technique" (see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians (1980), s.v. "ludwig, friedrich" by david hiley). no doubt. but to a twenty-one-year old entering graduate school when kennedy was president, the mandatory year of medieval paleography was a wall to be scaled for no reason that i could discern. the wall would fall, though not soon enough for my generation. 6. my enlightenment about the paleography requirement and much else in my graduate education came from joseph kerman in the chapter "musicology and positivism: the postwar years" (1985:37-49). "dropping the notation course from the required list;' i read with special pleasure, "was a first step in the liberation of musicology" (1985:46). he added "some of us felt" before the main clause, but that was surely an unnecessary caution. 7. the other four immigrants among the founders were jean beck, carl engel, joseph schil­ linger, and joseph yasser. 8. hornbostel had spent time in the united states in 1906 recording the music of the pawnee people in the midwest and of black school children in virginia; leichtentritt had earned the ba at harvard in 1904. 9. hornbostel's appointment was reported in "10 named to staff of exiles' college," new york times, september 2, 1933, 13; his arrival on september 13 on the french liner champlain with his wife and son was reported in "3 professors here for exile college;' new york times, september 14, 1933, 10. 10. cowell had stayed with hornbostel while studying in berlin in 1930-31. 11. see the anonymous article "to teach music at harvard;' new york times, september 26,1933,22. 12. following his retirement from carnegie mellon in 1975, dorian (born friedrich deutsch) spent two years at the curtis institute of music in philadelphia and one year at the hebrew university in jerusalem. he also taught at the marlboro music school in vermont during the summers of 1973-77. 13. pisk's father, a lawyer, drew up the statutes of the society. see smith (1986:82). 14. pisk wrote his dissertation on jacobus handl's masses under adler at vienna university, edited six of them for the denkmiiler der tonkunst in osterreich, and wrote the chapter on modern german composers for adler (1924). 15. on engel's advice, pisk turned down offers from kansas state college at fort hays and the university of saskatchewan ("ten months winter, you will freeze to death") before ac­ cepting the offer from redlands where he moved after spending the summer of 1937 as music director at a summer camp in upstate new york. he found redlands "primitive" and later regretted that he had "stayed too long there." david josephson 16. see the festschrift on the occasion of pisk's seventieth birthday (glowacki 1966). 17. see farrar (1966). he served the ams only once, as a member-at-large in 1955. 18. the quotations of pisk come from a series of taped interviews pisk gave to clare rayner and william weber in hollywood in 1975-77. see rayner and weber (1975-77) under interviews in the references section. 19. after two years of graduate study, he left berlin for zurich, but after earning his phd in 1934 he returned to his native dusseldorf to review concerts of the local chapter of the judische kulturbund for the jewish weekly there. unable to earn a living, he left germany a second time, now for florence, where he eked out an existence as correspondent for the frankfurter zeitung and the berlin jiidische rundschau. after the italian invasion of abyssinia in 1935 he returned to germany yet again, but passage of the nuremberg laws forced him to finally set his sights on america. 20. for a biographical outline and bibliography of herz's work, see his festschrift (weaver 1981:1-7). 21. see schwarz ([1972] 1983; 1983). a year after his death a festschrift was published in his honor (m. brown 1984). 22. david's 1938 catalogue was reprinted by the american musicological society (david [1938]1970). for david's articles on the moravian community, see new grove (1980), s.v. "david, hans" (by athur mendel). 23. see nathan (1962) and billings (1961; 1977). also setting nathan apart from his peers was a project in which he collected hundreds of postcards with texts and melodies of zion­ ist songs, had them arranged with piano accompaniment by jewish composers in america (many of them fellow emigres), and published them as the series, "folk songs of the new palestine." they were later reprinted (nathan 1994). 24. sachs wrote the "hornbostel" entry in die musik in geschichte und gegenwart. see mgg (1966), s.v. "hornbostel" (by curt sachs). 25. geiringer recalled that hornbostel's classes at the university of berlin "were so popular that one had to arrive very early to secure a seat;' and declared him "my real inspiration and the greatest influence on my further intellectual development" (geiringer 1993:36-37). 26. see "gets n.y.u. music post; dr. curt sachs is appointed to a visiting professorship!' new york times, june 27,1937, sec. 2, 5. 27. the other 1937 arrival whose name would figure significantly in american musicology was reinhard pauly, then sixteen years of age. 28. see "haydn symphonies in rehearsal here; dr. alfred einstein brings five works never yet heard in this country; fritz stiedryto direct orchestra of new friends of music to play scores at sunday concert series." new york times, february 4,1939, sec. 11,4. 29. in an article in the new york times of september 8,1940, david ewen introduced readers to nine emigres who, he asserted, would guide the development of a generation of american musicologists (ewen 1940). whatever their mother tongue, they were beginning to write in english, and through their work, he predicted correctly, english would become "the fa­ vored tongue of musicology." for these and other reports in the times regarding the emigre musicians, see josephson (1999). 30. those giving papers were bukofzer, ferand, gombosi, hertzmann, meyer-baer, sachs, and schrade. see crawford (1984:15). 43 44 current musicology 31. as kerman has noted, the only two exceptions to the dominance of the european diaspora at the major universities were gustave reese at new york university and oliver strunk at princeton (kerman 1985:26). 32. the impact of the historical anthology of music cannot be overstated, for it established the repertory of music before the eighteenth century for american musicians and music scholars, from stravinsky to the undergraduate music major, for years to come. 33. the emigre composer ernst toch's the shaping forces in music (1948), a fascinating work of musical scholarship, is excluded from this essay only because toch was a composer, not a music historian. 34. the three volumes ambros finished were published in leipzig in 1862, 1864, and 1868. all three were published in revised editions later in the century, and the whole was reprinted in 1968 (ambros [1862, 1864, 1868] 1968). for a brief history of the two volumes added following his death in 1876, see slonimsky (1992:33). 35. the relationship between the biicken handbuch and the norton series is seen directly in sachs's rise of music in the ancient world, east and west, for its original german-language version, "musik der antike;' was one of the thirteen volumes in the handbuch. 36. hans tischler, a forced emigre, was another of his students. 37. bach's music, taruskin reminded us, "cannot be prettified in performance without essential loss. for with bach-the essential bach-there is no 'music itself.' his concept of music derived from and inevitably contained the word, and the word was luther's" ([1991] 1995:310). philip spitta, in the preface to the english edition of his 1880 bach biography, identified bach as "a man who forms, as it were, the focal point towards which all the music of germany has tended during the last three centuries ... the deeper and more ramified the roots by which he cluing to the soil of german life and nature, the wider was the extent of ground to be dug over in order to lay them bare." but this was a german bach to be shared with the world. he ended his preface, "i send [the english edition] forth with a sincere desire that it may contribute over an ever-widening circle to the knowledge and comprehension of one of the grandest spirits of any time or nation" ([1883-85] 1951:i, xiv). 38. from lehrer (1965). lehrer's text spells the name "wernher von braun." 39. austin's coverage of jazz amounted to two chapters out of twenty-seven, or less than seven per cent of the text (36 pages out of 537). 40. i remember sitting in the music library in dodge hall on the columbia campus on a warm spring day in 1968 during the student strike that had brought the university to its knees, trying in vain to study while a rock band made an unholy racket outside. giving up, i left dodge and made my way to the terrace of the student union where the band played. someone told me that they were the grateful dead. i had never heard of them. neither had most of my peers. like our teachers, we were a conservative bunch. 41. some idea of how lonely tyson's work must have been at the beginning, and how radi­ cal was the change it effected, is seen by reading the following passage from blume's paper "musical scholarship today;' given in the inaugural lectures series of the phd program in music at the city university of new york in 1968-69: "but questions of method should not be overrated. to edit old music is a necessity; how it is to be edited is a minor problem-a question of second rank ... to inquire into the subsidiary details of the sources-the wa­ termarks and the writing tools, the copyists and the handwritings-in order to restore the music to its precise shape is a useful objective, but it should not become an end in itself:' (blume 1972:27-28) david josephson 42. brett gave his paper at the annual meeting of the ams in washington in november 1976. it was subsequently published (brett 1977; 1983: 180-89). 43. thus, in the early years of its publication, we find james haar (1979), leo treitler (1979), anthony newcomb (1981), and joshua rifkin (1982). the four men cited had entered the field as scholars of medieval and renaissance music. "crossover" articles by erstwhile me­ dieval and renaissance historians occasionally appeared in other journals, a significant one being lockwood (1981). but while the subjects were new, the positivist nature of the work in these articles was not. 44. see the new grove dictionary of music and musicians (1980), s.v. "schenker" (by allen forte). 45. subotnik's paper on our ideology of non-ideology, read to a largely hostile audience at the annual meeting of the ams in boston in 1981, was published in revised form (subotnik 1982) and reprinted (subotnik 1991:87-97). in noting the conservative state of american historical musicology at the time, it helps to recall the fact that when subotnik read a paper on "the role ofideology in the study of western music" at the annual meeting of the society for ethnomusicology in bloomington a year earlier, on november 20, 1980, she had received a far friendlier reception. a revised version of that paper was later published (subotnik 1983) and reprinted (subotnik 1991:3-14). 46. see, for instance, the relevant sections in the following entries in the 1980 edition of the new grove dictionary of music and musicians: "prague" (by j. buzga and adrienne simp­ son), "czechoslovakia, art music, bohemia and moravia, since 1945" (by aldrich pukl), and "warsaw, 1918-45, from 1945" (by zofia lissa and elzbieta gluszcz-zwolinska). on the other hand, boguslaw schaffer was silent on german-occupied poland. see "poland, art music, since 1850." 47. see new grove (1980), s.vv. "german, art music, 1918-45 (by josef hausler). 48. the sentence remains intact in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed. (2001). see new grove (2001), s.vv. "berlin, secular music" (by heinz becker and richard d. green). 49. see new grove (1980), s.vv. "musicology: national traditions-germany and austria" (by vincent duckles, et al.). pamela potter has provided a fresh entry for this section in the second edition of the new grove that confronts the issues head on. see new grove (2001), s.vv. "national traditions of musicology-germany and austria"). 50. see new grove (1980), s.v. "karajan, herbert von" (by gerhard brunner). 51. see new grove (1980), s.v. "moser, hans joachim" (by anton wiirz). 52. see new grove (1980), s.v. "ney, elly" (by ronald kinloch anderson). 53. see the following entries in the 1980 edition: "boetticher, wolfgang" (by hans heinrich eggebrecht), "bbhm, karl" (by gerhard brunner), "krauss, clemens" (by ronald crich­ ton), "miiller-blattau, joseph" (by m. e. c. bartlet), "schenk, erich" (by rudolf klein), and "valentin, erich" (by hans heinrich eggebrecht). potter has made good on grove's responsibility in trenchant new and revised entries in new grove, second edition (2001) for "boetticher, wolfgang;' "moser, hans joachim;' and "schenk, erich:' the valentin entry (by eggebrecht), however, continues the cover-up, while the entry for miiller-blattau has disappeared entirely. 54. see new grove (1980), s.vv. "france, art music, after 1940" (by martin cooper). 55. see new grove (1980), s.vv. "paris, 1914-45" (anonymous author). in the second edi­ tion (2001), the entry on france remains silent ("france, art music after 1945" by fran<;:ois 45 46 current musicology lesure), while that on "paris, 1918-45"has gained a brief but useful paragraph on the subject (by jann pasler). 56. revised and expanded. see subotnik (1996) and abbate (1991). 57. see especially 1987a:51-55. another essay in the collection epitomizes much of the political tone of the volume, and of the political left in musicology at the time, in one lofty assertion: "the vast majority of music consumed in the western world is concerned with articulating, in a variety of different ways, male hegemonic processes" (shepherd 1987:171). 58. it was reprinted, absent the language in a passage on beethoven's ninth symphony that had assured her notoriety. see chapter 5 of mcclary (1991). the distance american musicology has traveled since 1987 can be gauged by comparing mcclary's "introduction" in the 1991 edition to her "new introduction, feminine endings in retrospect;' in the 2002 reprint. two other measures of where our field stands today are robert fink's essay on mcclary's reading of the symphony (fink 2004) and rose rosengard subotnik's "afterword" to the volume in which that essay appears (subotnik 2004). 59. those papers at the "text and narrative" session were david schwarz, ''a study in music perception: metaphor and metonymy in the piano music of chopin" (the printed abstract found it necessary to define both literary terms); vera micznik, "intertext vs. narrative in mahler's music"; and fred maus, "story and discourse in music." 60. the conference, "feminist theory and music: toward a common language;' was held at the school of music in minneapolis on june 27-30, 1991. it included twenty-two sessions, two concerts, and a keynote speech by mcclary. 61. the title of the session was originally to have been "critical musicology and cultural theory." the language at the session was peppered with such newly-borrowed nouns as essentialism, reductionism, reification, and discussivity. for all the titillation the anticipated song aroused, queen latifah's "ladies first" turned out to be a sassy romp, its language clean, its mood affirmative. although we also learned about the latest rage, west coast gangsta rap, its squalid lyrics would not have sat well with the overwhelmingly white, liberal, middle-class, law-abiding, feminist audience that afternoon. 62. the reader learns in footnote 7 (1993:414-15) that bohlman borrowed his definition of "crisis" as "a condition that requires a 'critical response'" from brantlinger (1990); and his definition of "moral panic" as a crisis that arises when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests" from cohen (1972), cited in baker (1993). 63. her analysis pertains to ethnomusicology as well. "ethnomusicologists," she writes on the same page, "are already bending themselves into pretzels in order to deny that the cultures that they write about are an object of study for them. without question, this heightened self-consciousness is needed as an antidote to western arrogance and obtuseness. but if ethnomusicological studies become journals written by visiting friends-if books called music of the rainforest are entirely replaced by books called my rainforest diary-what need will a university serve that cannot be met by journalism?" 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[1913-19] 1963. handbuch der notationskunde, 2 vols. hildesheim: georg olms. wuorinen, charles. 1966. review: music in the 20th century by william w. austin. perspec­ tives of new music 5: 142-47. interviews rayner, clare and william weber. 1975-77. interviews with paula. pisk. oral history of the arts archive, special collections and archives, california state university, long beach. discography lehrer, tom. 1965. that was the year that was. burbank, ca: reprise records. 53 goldmark, daniel. 2005. tunes for 'toons: music and the hollywood cartoon. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by kate mcquiston daniel goldmark's monograph, the first on music in cartoons, will inter­ est both a popular and scholarly readership. tunes for 'toons offers lively description, analysis, and history, and it makes a tremendous contribution to the scholarly literature by illuminating the working processes and creative tendencies of composers, as well as by unpacking the codes and systems behind cartoons that use familiar classical music and others that use jazz. goldmark's attention to the industry of animation, his effective use of documentary materials, and his evident enthusiasm for the subject all enhance his work. useful to anyone interested in the hows and whys of cartoon scoring (especially fans of merrie melodies and tom and jerry), the book provides rich analyses of individual cartoons, and these interpretations serve as models for understanding other undiscussed cartoons. goldmark's case studies reveal diversity from one studio to another far surpassing that of classic hollywood films, which suggests that "the hollywood cartoon" may be too narrow a label for the whole group. goldmark focuses on the cartoons produced during the classic hollywood era by hollywood studios, but he also includes cartoons produced by new york studios with parent companies in los angeles. he organizes the book into five chapters, each focusing on a composer, musical style, or studio. each chapter has a well-calibrated, unique scope, which goldmark consistently supports through evidence from sources such as interviews, detail sheets (blueprints for the action, dialogue, sound effects, and music in a cartoon), and other documents. instead of following a continuous thread, the chap­ ters stand as independent case studies in which a composer's music or the musical style in a particular cartoon or collection of cartoons is explored on its own terms. the first two chapters contrast the styles and techniques of carl stalling and scott bradley, composers who defined the sound of warner bros.'s merrie melodies and mgm's tom and jerry, respectively. the third chapter addresses cartoons from fleischer studios reflecting the jazz scene in new york in the 1930s and 1940s, featuring not only the music, but also the likenesses of known jazz performers such as cab calloway and louis armstrong. the fourth and fifth chapters discuss the use of classical music in warner bros. cartoons: one primarily through an analysis of classical music within and across a selection of cartoons, and the other with an outstanding, current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 155 156 current musicology detailed discussion of the studio's 1957 homage to wagner, what's opera doc? i will discuss the first four chapters in turn as they convey the variety of topics represented in the book and are likely to serve as models for further work in cartoon music analysis. goldmark's first chapter describes the cartoon music of carl stalling, whose approach to scoring cartoons grew out of his experience as a silent film accompanist. in addition to using resources such as erno rapee's motion picture moods for pianists and organists (1924 )-a collection of musical ex­ amples for silent film accompanists organized by mood and introduced with a few words to indicate settings, objects, or events-stalling incorporated popular songs of the day into his work for warner bros. since the studio had controlling interest in many music publishing houses, warner bros. viewed cartoons as vehicles to plug the songs they owned. as goldmark explains, each cartoon required an onscreen performance of at least a verse and chorus from one of the tunes from the warner bros. library (18). stalling employed these familiar tunes, many of which came from tin pan alley, and he filled in the rest of the soundtrack with original music. the tunes he borrowed invariably had words in their titles that related to something on screen so as to "illustrate the onscreen humor on an entirely separate narrative level from the animation" (11). goldmark quotes cartoon director and producer chuck jones regarding stalling's techniques: he was a brilliant musician. but the quickest way for him to write a musical score-and he did one six-minute score a week-was to simply look up some music that had the proper name. if there was a lady dressed in red, he'd always play "the lady in red." if somebody went into a cave, he'd play "fingal's cave:' if we were doing anything about eating, he'd do ''a cup of coffee, a sandwich, and you." (22) in this way, rather than allowing the required tunes to interrupt the narrative, stalling used them as opportunities for humor. goldmark also focuses attention on the power of the composer to determine the meaning and effect of a cartoon in spite of the director's intentions; composers attained this element of control because they typically added the music after the animation had been finished, and they were not bound to the same narrative rules for cartoons as they would have been when scoring other kinds of films. stalling's original audiences, if they were paying attention, could connect the name of the tune they were hearing with the images in the frame. instead of straightforwardly matching a song title to an onscreen image, a composer could produce unexpected meanings involving the song lyrics. goldmark describes the use of''a cup of coffee, a sandwich, and you" in along came daffy as one such "secondary gag" (25) kate mcquiston in a scene in which one character attempts to eat another. the words of the song, never heard in the cartoon but likely familiar to stalling's audience, conclude, i don't need music, lobster or wine, whenever your eyes look into mine. the things i long for are simple and few; a cup of coffee, a sandwich, and you! stalling's audience would have known the song and recognized that the original ardor of the singer for his sweetheart has here been transformed into the ravenous onscreen desire of one character literally about to eat another. goldmark shows how these musical associations afford the composer a chance to inject a joke into the narrative that operates on a level separate from the visual drama, and he raises compelling questions concerning how stalling's musical puns actually work and how they figure into an aesthetics of cartoon spectatorship. in connection with stalling's creative use of preexisting music, goldmark devotes a few pages to the music of bandleader and composer raymond scott, whose music stalling introduced into cartoon scores. unfortunately, this brief section understates scott's importance to the genre and does not sufficiently guide the reader to other commentary on scott. although scott did not compose his music for cartoon soundtracks, it appears in over forty cartoons. scott's music, particularly the tune, "powerhouse," which has served as the cartoon network's sonic signature since the late 1990s, has arguably become as emblematic of cartoon music as the song "merrily we roll along." "powerhouse" is the frenzied music of fantastic, hare-brained (or pig-brained, duck-brained, etc.) plans destined to go awry; it is cartoon music's jazzy answer to dukas's sorcerer's apprentice. the importance of scott's familiar, widely loved, and inimitable music to the world of hollywood cartoons remains unrecognized in goldmark's study. in the second chapter, "'you really do beat the shit out of that cat': scott bradley's (violent) music for mgm," goldmark draws fruitful comparisons between bradley's musical style for tom and jerry and carl stalling's music for merrie melodies. while stalling's creative world involved loquacious characters and required the audience to recognize a song, recall the song's lyrics, and connect all of that information to the image before them, tom and jerry has little or no dialogue, and its music does not typi­ cally have a lyrical component connecting it to the action. warner bros. cartoons proceed from one gag to the next without any larger structural plan (characteristic also of many early live action short films), but tom and jerry cartoons present a series of increasingly violent incidents that lead to 157 158 current musicology an explosive climax. goldmark shows how bradley conceived of musical structures that accompanied these crescendos of violence, for example with "musical hits" -the conjunction of physical events with sonic or musical high points. he notes, "bradley usually anticipated an impact or reaction by at least a second or two, so that the audience would hear the action before seeing it" (64). in connection with tom and jerry's trademark enmity, goldmark raises questions about violence and audience perception. he presents an array of thought-provoking quotations from cartoon directors, producers, critics, and scholars concerning the violence in cartoons, but a clear connection between these quotations and his discussion of bradley's tom and jerry music is missing. the interplay of musical sounds, pure sound effects, and narrative (a trademark distinction in tom and jerry soundtracks) demands more investigation. this portion of goldmark's work only hints at the complexity of issues of violence and spectatorship, violence in cartoons, and how music relates to perceptions of violence-areas that might comprise a separate monograph altogether. the third chapter, "jungle jive: animation, jazz music, and swing culture;' analyzes the visual and musical vocabularies most strongly as­ sociated with fleischer studios in new york, where the harlem jazz scene provided inspiration for fleischer. goldmark's description of the music as a driving, synchronizing force behind the action even when no performance is visible recommends the jazz cartoon as its own genre-one that prefigures the music video. also unique to the jazz cartoon are the well-known musi­ cians, such as cab calloway and louis armstrong, who mingle onscreen with their animated counterparts. through a number of descriptive examples, goldmark exposes the pointed, codified visual systems and narrative principles at work in jazz cartoons. the formulae in which (white) racial fantasy plays out in these cartoons are more clearly articulated in the visual and narrative registers than they are in the music, and goldmark's analyses reveal the multiple layers of a white conception of exoticized blacks. both the cartoons themselves and contemporary commentary associate jazz with the primitive: musicians are often placed in the jungle and portrayed as animals living uninhibited and free. the jazz characters in these cartoons therefore appeal to the white viewer, yet also represent a threat, and goldmark is sensitive to this point. he demonstrates that jazz's ambiguous moral standing in popular culture is an ongoing and nuanced topic in jazz cartoons. through several examples, this chapter explores the fascinating idea that jazz was alternatively figured as the music of sin or redemption, and could even change from one to the other within the same cartoon. for example, goldmark offers a careful kate mcquiston analysis of the embattled clean pastures (1937), directed by friz freleng. the cartoon violated the production code (a set of guidelines of morally acceptable content for motion pictures) because it depicted a heaven that was problematically "filled with people who were, according to the cartoon, gamblers, dancers, drinkers, and, above all else, jazz fans," and because it cast jazz in both good and evil roles at different moments in the story (97). in another example, goldmark perceives a mixed message about the moral choices presented in tin pan alley cats (1943) because the cartoon "endors [es 1 the high life over a righteous one;' even as it stakes out the opposite position: fats waller rejects the surreal world of jazz fantasy for a morally upright and familiar one. though goldmark's reading fits into the notion of the morally unstable status of jazz in these cartoons, i believe it also offers a familiar pattern of spectator identification (99). the cartoon offers a chance for the viewer to identify with the animated fats waller through his (mis)behaviors and then be absolved of any guilt by fats's salvation in the end. although goldmark's reading focuses only on the cartoons themselves, his conclusions suggest that studies of audiences and reception might be a useful complement to his approach. while i agree with goldmark that views held by the predominantly white audience help explain the highly exoticized view of black musician­ ship and society as portrayed in cartoons, i would add that real-life whites rendered as cartoons didn't fare much better. for instance, in hollywood steps out (warner bros., 1941), hollywood's leading stars ofthe 1930s and 1940s-clark gable, bing crosby, greta garbo, and the marx brothers, to name a few-are portrayed as cynical, carnivalesque caricatures schmoozing in the creepy, booze-laden haze of ciro's bar. whether black or white, it would seem that cartoon renderings of celebrities were universally unflat­ tering. goldmark's fourth chapter, on classical music in cartoons, contains his most assiduous and elegant analysis. here goldmark takes on the idea of the canon of classical music used in cartoons in order to lay the groundwork for compelling and lively interpretations of a number of cartoons in which he addresses concert hall culture, stereotypes of musicians' behavior, the sanctity of the concert hall, and the music itself. the rules governing this canon-especially those concerning high art and popularity-are debatable and are, at times, problematic in goldmark's discussion. goldmark begins by noting that the canon of classical music in film at large "was reduced by cartoons to an even more limited set of works" by wagner, rossini, mendelssohn, and others. he further explains the winnowing of the classical repertoire for cartoon appropriation on the grounds of what he calls "ges­ tural immediacy." music with gestural immediacy is instantly recognizable, 159 160 current musicology and easily excerpted. the concept seems to hit upon an essential quality of the pieces in the canon, and it explains the relative absence of music by avant -garde composers or by mahler, bruckner, and brahms (with the excep­ tions of the latter's famous lullaby and hungarian dance, no. 2). goldmark argues that in cartoon scores the classical canon was destabilized: in mentioning the "canon;' i do not mean to imply that these cartoons use the music of high art. on the contrary, i believe these films subvert traditional ideas of the canon by often featuring more popular (and thus more commercial) works, both of concert music and of opera. (l08) though he is not as clear about what the "traditional ideas" might have been, goldmark explains the choices of music for cartoons partly as a reflection of the popular side of contemporary symphonic programming-such as summer pops concerts-as opposed to "serious" programming during the regular season. this is only one line along which high art and popular culture can be divided, and some of his characterizations are puzzling, such as his classification of gershwin's rhapsody in blue as "popular" without explanation (130). goldmark is at his best, in this chapter as in others, when he addresses specific examples. for his discussion of long-haired hare ( 1949), goldmark takes on cartoon representations of classical music as at once a sacrosanct collection of art music and yet also as an unstable collection of power relationships and aesthetic hierarchies. this portion of the chapter succeeds marvelously since goldmark allows the oppositions of musical styles in the cartoon to create their own power dynamics, unstable and fleeting though they may be. this strategy is necessary since this cartoon demonstrates the uncertainty of precisely these musical categories: long-haired hare shows the shifting power relations between art music and popular music, and between popular music fans, conductors, and opera singers. bugs bunny antagonizes the opera singer, giovanni jones, using music as his weapon. while jones practices rossini's "largo al factotum;' bugs unintentionally disrupts him with his own outdoor banjo playing, singing songs including "what do they do in mississippi when skies are drippy?" and "when yuba plays the rhumba on the tuba." the conflict reaches its climax later when bugs poses as leopold stokowski and takes the conductor's podium in the opera house where jones is performing. in this final scene, bugs pushes jones to the limits of his vocal abilities; in the context of the opera house, the conductor is all powerful. practicing at home, jones is comfortable and in control, but he relinquishes this control under "leopold's" baton, and classical music becomes difficult and dangerous. kate mcquiston opera's status as high art or popular entertainment remains particularly unclear in goldmark's study. he states that both of disney's fantasia films (1940 and 1999) left opera "untouched;' but this is not entirely true (131). though opera is not the basis for any of the animated sequences in fantasia 2000, the film is not silent on opera-it explicitly rejects it. in a film with so few spoken words, bette midler's onscreen address to the audience during the film stands out. the relevant passage from the screenplay demonstrates her exaggerated irreverence for opera: over the years, the disney artists have cooked up dozens of ideas for new "fantasia" segments. some made it to the big screen this time ... but others, lots of others ... how could i put this politely? . .. didn't. for example, danish illustrator kay nielsen drew these sketches for a segment inspired by wagner's "ride of the valkyries." here they are. and there they go.l the sketches drift out of the frame, with the humorous implication that this segment was rejected as an inherently bad idea. midler implies that wagner's "ride of the valkyries" simply was not appropriate for fantasia 2000, and her words cast opera-at least wagner's-as the stuffy antithesis to fantasia 2000's supposedly light, fun fare. opera's status in cartoons is complex, and, one feels, too important to be left unexplored. the only precedent for tunes for 'toons is the cartoon music book (2002), a collection of articles goldmark edited with yuval taylor. thus, despite some weaknesses, tunes for 'toons fills an important gap in the literature on film music, and it will be extremely valuable to scholars and of great interest to a general readership. in a few places, references to existing scholarship (scant as it may be) would have been helpful to the reader. for example, jake austen's "hidey hidey hidey ho ... boop-boop-a doop!" (2002), an article which deals capably with the portrayal of ethnicity and the hypersexuality of the characters in jazz cartoons, deserves mention. similarly, an outline of roy prendergasts's study of scott bradley's music ([ 1977] 1992:180-209) would have been pertinent, since prendergast, like bradley, was interested in elevating and legitimizing cartoon music (167-68). goldmark's strong case studies of the cartoons and their music as texts are rich in information, however, and serve as useful models for further research in the field. as cartoon music studies develop, it is likely that investi­ gations of different kinds of viewing behavior will also grow. a comparison, for example, of an adult's one-time experience of seeing a cartoon before a full-length, live action feature in 1938, on one hand, with the repetitive viewings of the television audience, begun in youth in the 1970s or 1980s and continued at least through young adulthood, on the other, would mark an important contribution to the field of spectator studies. since the 161 162 current musicology cartoon's move from the theater to television is arguably one of the most significant developments in the history of the cartoon, cartoons' impact on their television audience, and the habits, demographics, and knowledge of television audiences demand scholarly attention. above all, goldmark's work demonstrates that cartoons are a rich and worthy topic of study, inspiring one to further research in a fledgling area of study. notes 1. a transcript of this dialogue is available at www.awesomefilm.com/script/fantasia_2000_ dialogue.doc. see rafter (2002) for an exploration of this narrative patter and the implica­ tions for viewer identification. references austen, jake. 2002. hidey hidey hidey ho ... boop-boop-a doop! the fleischer studio and jazz cartoons. in the cartoon music book, edited by daniel goldmark and yuval taylor, 61-66. chicago: a cappella books. goldmark, daniel and yuval taylor, eds. 2002. the cartoon music book. chicago: a cappella books. prendergast, roy m. [1977] 1992. film music: a neglected art: a critical study of music in films, 2nd ed. new york: w. w. norton. rafter, nicole. 2000. shots in the mirror: crime films and society. oxford and new york: oxford university press. rapee, erno. 1924. motion picture moods for pianists and organists: a rapid reference collection of selected papers. new york: schirmer. current.musicology.81.109-169.pdf don giovanni at the crossroads of pleasure and virtue lydia goehr and daniel herwitz, eds. 2006. the don giovanni moment: essays on the legacy of an opera. columbia themes in philosophy, social criticism, and the arts. new york: columbia university press. reviewed by edmund j. goehring in a project, like the don giovanni moment, that deals with the reception history of a canonical work, several kinds of questions can vie for attention. the volume's subtitle highlights a general interest in a historical question: the "legacy" it chooses to explore is largely one presented in nineteenth­ century imaginative and, to a lesser extent, philosophical works. (the main exception is ingrid rowland's discussion of religious ritual and the don juan legend before mozart, "don giovanni: 'and what communion hath light with darkness?"') for some essays, the topic of history yields to one of criticism. despite the introduction's contention that it attends less to don giovanni itself than to "the works written in the opera's shadow" (xvii), many contributors keep at least one eye fixed on the object casting that shadow. finally, parts of the volume pose more abstract questions, where the issue becomes "how far this opera as a work of embodied myth redefines the relationship between art and morality" (xvii). this kind of question, not quite historiographical or analytical, seeks out "main themes;' which in this case comprise "power, seduction, [and] judgment" (xvii). an inclination to philosophize (or to interpret philosophy as that discipline involved with abstract themes) informs the collection at various levels. the first half of its title, for example, pays homage to kierkegaard's famous interpretation, advanced in either/or ([ 1843] 1987), that describes mozart's libertine not as an ethical being but as the musical embodiment of the sensuous; don giovanni's choice (or impulse) to follow the path of pleasure instead of virtue is reflected in an existence made up of a series of discrete moments. when, further, we survey the primary figures discussed in addition to kierkegaard-goethe, hoffmann, pushkin, m6rike, wagner, shaw, and adorno-it is clear that the tale the volume wants to tell is that of don giovanni among the elders of german metaphysics. these three kinds of questions are not inherently incompatible, for they can all spring from the historian's, the critic's, and the philosopher's pursuit current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 101 102 current musicology of a product of thought-in this case, an artwork. it is not therefore the collection's interdisciplinary approach per se but perhaps the way it frames questions that can produce contestable and reductive claims. a materialist rather than dynamic sense of music history and its objects appears from the initial sentences of the don giovanni moment: "in the history of opera, there is perhaps no moment of greater consequence than that of the opening of mozart's don giovanni. though written almost entirely in the buoyant joviality of the major mode, the opera's first d-minor chord strikes terror as it moves hauntingly toward an irrevocable cadence" (xv). the second of these sentences, among other things, presumes a direct correspondence between a series of musical sounds and the thing those sounds are said to represent. yet the major mode does not possess (or always convey) "joviality" (as a melody like "taps" demonstrates). musical communication takes place not through a single element like melody or mode but through the interaction of a complex of elements. meanwhile, the first sentence, instead of reducing musical meaning to a single element, places inordinate weight on a single musico-historical event. its premise, one taken up in all of the essays, is that the don juan legend deserves sustained critical inquiry. the assumption might seem self-evident, except that, prior to mozart, little of don juan lore offered much promise in the way of intellectual challenge or aesthetic appeal. despite the influence of tirso's and moliere's plays, don juan tales mostly wandered about in a vagrant, subliterary world of ballet, comic opera, and improvised comedy where spectacle mattered more than plot. the one self-conscious eighteenth­ century attempt to give the legend literary merit was carlo goldoni's don giovanni tenorio (1736). his rationalized adaptation failed to gain traction, mostly because it discards anything that would produce laughter or terror. goldoni's hero moves out of the shadows of myth figuratively and even literally, for he is struck down by lightning in broad daylight. nor does he meet death with fists raised in defiance but with head bowed in despair. almost every other pre-mozartean version of the legend unfolds in blithe indifference to goldoni's stern obedience to verisimilitude and coherence. thus giovanni bertati's il capriccio drammatico, the second act of which provides the main source for da ponte's libretto, never explains how donna elvira discovers the identity of the murderer, and donna anna simply vanishes from his tale without explanation. mozart's opera owes a heavy debt to these simpler forms of comedy. even so, mozart's music, largely through adapting an archaic baroque language and pacing, lends the tale a gravity, a monumentalism, that it did not have before. this achievement is as much technical as affective. mozart's music awes but also organizes. scenes are not simply thrown randomly together with terrifying music mixed in every now and then: to draw on kierkegaard's edmund j. goehring categories, the tale is episodic, but episodic with a purpose, where don giovanni's accidental existence stands in tension with his foreordained damnation. even da ponte's text (in which mozart surely had a hand) shows more regard for coherence than is usually acknowledged. such is the opera's attention to organization that the plot will follow up even on passing comments or incidents. immediately after "or sai chi l' onore," for example, don ottavio vows to determine the truth about don giovanni, either to undeceive donna anna if she is wrong or to avenge her if she is right ("disingannar la voglio, e vendicarla," 1.14). he gets the proof he needs after witnessing the events of the great second-act sextet: ''after such enormous excesses, we cannot doubt but that don giovanni is the impious murderer of donna anna's father" (dopo eccessi s1 enormi / dubitar non possiam, che d. giovanni / non sia l' empio uccisore / del padre di donn' anna, 2.10). the common way of understanding da ponte's adaptation of bertati-that it expands one act into two-can lead to the misconception that the new material simply treads dramatic water until the awaited end, when in fact da ponte's libretto contributes to the opera's formal coherence and creates a moral complexity absent from its predecessors. if mozart's don giovanni moved the legend up onto land, later versions generally descended back to the tale's primordial meres and swamps. the claim that the "moment" of don giovanni's premiere canonized the legend . thus gives an incomplete picture of its nineteenth-century patrimony. if any single version could claim canonical status, it would be moliere's, and yet even his play was transmitted largely through spinoffs that showed little fidelity to the original. mozart's version was not immune from such devolution. early nineteenth-century adaptations frequently appeared in mutant form with some of moliere's less dignified episodes (with, for example, the hermit and landlord). or worse. a correspondent describing a 1798 production in frankfurt reported that the damnation scene concluded with the libertine's being tossed into the mouth of a dragon. the critic did not find the modification ennobling; instead, he was reminded of a puppet play.! speaking of puppet plays, one from the early nineteenth century drops in a scene in which the comic servant, reluctant to accompany his newly fugitive master from naples to castile, is persuaded to follow along with the promise that castilian mountains are made of macaroni, its lakes of butter, and that it rains cheese. upon arriving there, the gullible servant takes a bite out of a palace, only, in semi-quixotic fashion, to lose some teeth. (ai dente, indeed.}2 early criticism also tended to associate mozart's opera with this rough­ and-tumble crowd. writing in 1803, the minor critic and playwright ignaz arnold renders the verdict that mozart's opera is not an artwork at all but instead a collection of individual masterpieces all "wildly tossed together" 103 104 current musicology (wild durcheinander geworfen, 1803:288). he is perplexed "how mozart could join the grand with the trivial, the greatest terror with the most taste­ less jokes" (wie mozart so viel grobes mit kleinen, den gr6bten schreck mit dem fadesten spase zusammenstellen konnte, 1803:288-9). cast aside the banal episodes, and the dignified ones could pass muster. dispense with the sublime scenes, and the opera becomes a harmless bagatelle or a viennese lokalstuck. stefan kunze gives a fine modern gloss on the workings of don giovanni's grotesquerie: "there arises this paradox, that the less seria elements were excluded, the more the plot could be conceived of as farce" (es ergibt sich das paradoxon, dab elemente der seria hier urn so weniger ausgeschlossen waren, je mehr die handlung als posse aufgefabt werden konnte, 1972:55). thus, the nineteenth-century reception of don giovanni can be mapped out along dahlhaus's twin poles: the one of low comedy down under, and, far to the north, the one that accorded the opera literary merit as a text demanding contemplation and interpretation. in mostly surveying the second of these poles, however, the don giovanni moment rightly avoids conflating what is canonical with what props up the status quo. what the eighteenth century largely saw as a tired tale becomes in the nineteenth a rallying point for rebels, idealists, and other species of free thinker. for example, in '''hidden secrets of the self': e. t. a. hoffmann's reading of don giovanni;' richard eldridge points out how hoffmann's short story of 1813 draws the portrait of a restless hero frustrated with society's constraints and hating mediocrity above all else. such restlessness often took a psychic toll on nineteenth-century incarnations of don juan. the anomie of mozart's libertine, manifest in a vaulting exuberance or bottomless indifference, often turns into melancholy. thus boris gasparov ("don juan in nicholas's russia (pushkin's the stone guest)") follows don giovanni's loss of his original "refined aristocratic artlessness" and its replacement with a dehumanizing fatalism in pushkin's bronze horseman (1833), whose eponymous character, like the stone guest, returns from the dead. in the pushkin, however, the defiant individual becomes a petty bureaucrat and is no match for the bronze rider, who is none other than peter the great. the relentless tides of historical destiny swallow up pushkin's unexceptional individual. by the time one gets to wagner, the opera's original tension between the elevated and the vulgar has been transformed, mostly via kierkegaard, into one between the ethical and the aesthetic. "influence" can now refer less to direct borrowings or quotations between works than to common philosophical problems worked out in art, as shown in lydia goehr's essay "the curse and promise of the absolutely musical: tristan und isolde and don giovanni." trying to give treacherous pronouncements about absolute edmund j. goehring music in vocal works a wide berth, she relates don giovanni to tristan via an "action of the absolutely musical" (139, the original italicizes the entire phrase): both don giovanni and tristan have an absolutely musical "subject matter, form, and expression" (145). behind this argument is a distinction between sounds, which are empirical, and expression, which she links with metaphysics. goehr's purpose is to give a systematic, philosophical ground­ ing to wagner's desire to move music out of what he saw as the particularity and therefore isolation of its own medium into something of wider or, better, absolute significance. (goehr states her argument in a more aphoristic form by paraphrasing virginia woolf's remark that, "in tristan, music reaches a point not yet reached by sound," 140.) it is not clear whether it is helpful to take such a dualistic approach by locating meaning in metaphysics, but for goehr, the move to metaphysics allows access to aesthetic questions raised by both operas. each work evinces an awareness that an "erotic drive" can promote a dangerous" self-enclosed aesthetic experience" (150). goehr finds this peril articulated through moments that interrupt a character's aesthetic reverie, such as the revivification of the commendatore or the sudden daylight glare signaling the appearance of king marke and his entourage in tristan's second act. goehr's observation that the ethical punctures the aesthetic is useful for understanding the structure of mozart's opera. when leporello's catalog turns to his master's "passion predominante;' ombra music intrudes for the only time in the number (example 1). certainly leporello is unkindly reminding donna elvira that, once upon a time, she was such a "giovin principiante;' but the "moment" echoes beyond leporello's moral ken to become a voice of the opera itself, at once harking back to the overture and anticipating the commendatore's return. another crack opens up at the end of "la ci darem la mano," where a serpentine chromatic figure insinuates itself into the otherwise naive pastoral setting of drones and a rustic dance (example 2). and then there is the chromatic embellishment closing off the end of"ah taci, ingiusto core;' which traces the arrival of evening, literally and figuratively (example 3-the libretto indicates that night is gradually descending: "si fa notte a poco a poco"). melody and harmony are of course prime determinants of don giovanni's form, but the opera also shapes its proceedings with tone and color. a reviewer in the allgemeine musikalische zeitungtook exception to arnold's monograph, mentioned near the begin­ ning of this review, for failing to perceive the unity that reigns over "the wild cloud of contrasting scenes" (das wilde wogen kontrastirender scenen, 1803:693). perhaps he was referring to just this tone, this tinta. an essay like goehr's shows the insight that can be gleaned from comparative analysis, even when a great distance separates texts. the 105 106 current musicology example 1: "catalog aria" (reduction). "his main passion is the young beginner." 131 leporello lista sua passion predomite __ piano i..:. l i 134 l. v v e la giovin principiante pno. i l -----example 2: "la ci darem la mano" (strings). 56 c fi " ~ ~-. <. violin! oj ~ fi " ~ violin ii oj ~. i~~ " ~ -----r--r--. viola i.-.1.....j --...... ~ violoncello : approach can set into relief the choices made in a specific work and reori­ ent our perspective on its meaning. brian soucek's essay, "giovanni auf naxos," relating don giovanni to strauss's ariadne auf naxos (1912) takes a similar route, with one significant change in strategy: he explicitly locates thematic connections outside of intention. for him, whether strauss even example 3: ''ah taci, ingiusto core" (strings). 81 " h violin i oj ~_~h violin ii oj viola violoncello : ~~sc·~~ -~ -~-' -, p :;t ~#~ ... ~-:-; cresco cresco p c~ p edmund j. goehring knew mozart's opera is hermeneutically irrelevant (194). this marks an instance of the third kind of question that the don giovanni moment pursues, and it is somewhat troublesome to conceive of works of art not as utterances but as structures where themes operate independently, almost transcendentally, from the context of the work itself. but even if one grants the method, soucek's particular reduction of matter to form presents criteria for inclusion that are too generous. thus, hofmannsthal's "certain analogy" that soucek finds in these two operas encompasses their mixing of styles, their treatment of the theme of fidelity, and the fact that they have been revised (the last of which is not, strictly speaking, a property of a work at all). that strauss's opera exhibits a self-consciousness not found in mozart's is a promising yet imprecisely drawn distinction. don giovanni is more self-referential, more metatheatrical, than soucek acknowledges, and many other eighteenth-century works also present theater as theater, among them goldoni's ii teatro comico (1750), mozart's schauspieldirektor (1786), and bertati's don giovanni. if an essay like soucek's largely ignores the author, daniel herwitz ("kierkegaard writes his opera") takes the more oblique route of reading an author, in this case kierkegaard, "against himself" (126, emphasis added). ''1\' (kierkegaard's nom de plume in volume 1 of either/or) confesses that he feels "like a young girl in love with mozart" (120). herwitz, lashing himself to the mast to resist the opera's "seductive aura" (119), chooses to read either/or as a traite a clef, where ''1\' is indistinguishable from the historical kierkegaard. just as don giovanni seduces ''a,'' so, too, had kierkegaard seduced, and abandoned, his real-life fiancee, regine olsen. at the heart of 107 108 current musicology kierkegaard's deed is impotence: johannes (the "author" of the diary of a seducer) "is kierkegaard rather than the don, because it is the figure of a man bereft of the capacity to enjoy the sex he so skillfully plans (the figure of a frigid man)" (129). herwitz's reading exerts a certain imaginative, even seductive, allure and shows a knack for coaxing biography out of a philosophical text. and yet logical and rhetorical weaknesses make it difficult to accept many of his arguments. one problem concerns question-framing. herwitz seems preoccupied above all with whether kierkegaard and don giovanni, includ­ ing "mozart's !llusic itself' (133), are sexist. this is not a very interesting question, since either answer (yes or no) will not take one far into either work. although herwitz denounces kierkegaard for using "essentializing philosophical language" (120), much of his own argument relies on reifica­ tion. in making seduction a masculine force, for example, herwitz overlooks how, ever since eve, this perilous talent has usually been associated with women. when aeneas is with dido, carthage's towers do not get built, and aeneas himself veers from his own divinely ordained mission. explaining such a conceptual shift would have been enlightening, but herwitz has already dug in his heels. making evidence fit pre-existing conclusions also leads to misreadings of the opera, or at least a whitewashing of significant detail. the opera's "women are uniformly passive" (120), which makes one wonder about elvira's wish to "carve out" don giovanni's heart in ''ah chi mi dice mai" ("gli vo' cavar il cor," 1.5), not to mention donna anna's determination to unveil her seducer even if it means her death ("non sperar se non m'uccidi / ch'io ti lasci fuggir mai," 1.1). in both cases, these words reflect more than vain posturing. donna elvira, in particular, is so effective in frustrating don giovanni's pleasure-seeking that he wonders whether the devil himself is not intervening ("mi par ch' oggi il demonio si diverta / d'opporsi a' miei piacevoli progressi;' 1.11). herwitz plausibly draws zerlina into this thematic web of seduction and power, but in arguing that "zerlina's powers of seduction are clearly outmatched by the don's" (120), he sees seduction as a quantity, not a quality. putting the matter this way divorces the power of seduction from its use: whereas zerlina focuses on one object in order to bring about peace, don giovanni's diffuse pursuit of all women produces social chaos. it is as if mozart presents competing instances of seduction, from ones that shatter and destroy to ones that, at least in "batti, batti," act like a remedy ("un balsamo"). (a subtle discussion of zerlina and the erotic is offered in berthold hoeckner's essay, "homage to adorno's 'homage to zerlina."') on page 124 we are told that "the male listener is feminized, yet also brought to identify so strongly with the don himself that he ends up feeling more male than ever." we cannot avoid being edmund j. goehring seduced by the opera, it seems, for listeners become passive, unthinking vessels who equate the representation of an action (say, a seduction) with approval of the action. herwitz's essay is of special interest because it encompasses many of the priorities of a certain kind of present-day criticism: theme over work, read­ ings over authors, history over fiction. part of this sensibility also involves a resistance to seeing moral neutrality or ambiguity in the aesthetic. it seems that herwitz wants to make the aesthetic taboo, to loosen its grip upon our experience of the work; otherwise, the aesthetic (in this case, mozart's music) would make a distasteful action (the entire run of don giovanni's life) seem palatable. one way that herwitz tries to weaken the hold of the aesthetic is to deny that mozart's music can be heard "purely" (133), that is, divorced from its text and circumstances. yet almost all music (and art) undergoes transformations: josquin masses were turned into instrumental works, or, reversing the process, the nineteenth century used ensembles from mozart operas (including don giovanni) as contrafacta in, of all things, the mass. practices like adaptation, transcription, or concert performances of individual numbers attest to music's aesthetic value, to the ability for a work to be lifted out of the circumstances of its creation and still have meaning. herwitz's critical approach often relies on instability, where a work can be read against its author, and readers, not authors, determine meaning. it is therefore curious to observe the aesthetic experience itself and even music, the most nondiscursive of the arts, taking on such stable, univocal meamngs. when herwitz condemns kierkegaard for yielding to "the philosophi­ cal urge to find answers all at once" (135), he surely misinterprets (reads "against") a thinker whose philosophical fragments (1844) bears the shakespearian epigraph "better well-hanged than ill-wed" as a caution against systematic (that is, hegelian) philosophizing. but this misreading nonetheless gets at a central, legitimate aim of don giovanni criticism-to identify an intelligible moral vision in a work of such bewildering moral ambiguity. the stumbling block is not don giovanni, precisely, but don giovanni in relation to the other characters. philip kitcher and richard schacht ("authority and judgment in mozart's don giovanni and wagner's ring") address the matter as it applies to mozart and wagner by draw­ ing the useful distinction between "directive authority" (roughly, justice as the advantage of the stronger) and "cognitive authority" (justice as something grounded in reason and knowledge), with don giovanni and the commendatore brandishing the former, most of the other characters scraping by with the latter. but the essay sometimes flattens out the moral complexity of mozart's opera with heavy moralizing of its own: 109 110 current musicology [the six characters remaining at the end 1 issue their verdicts because they have been conditioned in particular ways by the surrounding society; and if they are taken to have cognitive authority, it is not because of their daring in probing matters for themselves, but because they have acceded to convention, and the conventional wisdom has turned out to have the upper hand. the concurrence of their judgments is no touchstone of truth; it is an expression of their shared conventionality, reinforced by timidity. (164) it is reasonable to see in the words and music of the "antichissima canzona" something conventional and maybe forced. but kitcher and schacht take a sentimental view about humans in relation to society, as if there exists somewhere a person who has never been conditioned by society, or as if social conventions are external to what it means to be human. they also forget who it is the sl).fvivors curse: a man who, randomly, breaks up mar­ riages, seduces, assaults, threatens with murder, lives in disguise, scorns the dead, alters course upon detecting a woman's scent, has "un barbaro appetito;' and enjoys terrifying his superstitious servant: "un mostro, fellon, nido d'inganni" (monster, criminal, nest of deceit, 1.5), as donna elvira plausibly dubs him. don giovanni is not socrates or a biblical prophet, or even werther or rousseau. nor must a character's fecklessness inevitably reflect insincerity or cowardice. donna elvira may be crazed, but she is also noble, or so say donna anna and don ottavio in "non ti fidar:' to call the person who voices "dalla sua pace" a "wimp" (herwitz, 121) or "a pale figure of empty conventionality" (eldridge, 43) is perhaps to have too easily succumbed to the modern view of the autonomous self and certainly is not to have heard show-stopping performances of the aria. for more straightforward portray­ als of the "ancillary" characters, mozart could have availed himself of any number of sources. tirso's donna anna type has more interest in external reputation than justice, and goldoni's zerlina equivalent, elisa (a stand-in for a real-life lover who jilted goldoni), is more craven and manipulative than even don juan, so much so that the play closes with an epithet directed against her: "chi crederebbe che sl rio costume / serpendo andasse fra ie selve ancora?" (who would believe that such dreadful customs would still insinuate themselves in the countryside? 5.9). when placed against these models, mozart's don giovanni does not function well as an expose of vapid moralizing, and it will not do to poison our sympathies for don giovanni's adversaries simply because they are flawed or because they lack poise. to do so turns the opera's pathos into burlesque. one can see that many essays in the don giovanni moment find them­ selves at the kierkegaardian crossroads of the aesthetic and the ethical. once edmund j. goehring there, some opt for one of the two paths. others reject the choice altogether: along with goehr, there is adorno, who, as nikolaus bacht relates in ''adorno and the don;' wants to have his pleasure and his freedom (236). also flatly refusing to join what mozart has sundered is an essay that holds near­ canonical status, the reprint of bernard williams's "don juan as an idea:' it occupies an unusual place in the collection because it disagrees with many views offered there. proceeding from the wisdom that mozart's character cannot bear all available meanings given to the don juan figure at large, williams dismisses numerous popular interpretations: that mozart's don giovanni is a misogynist; a latent homosexual; a melancholic; or, moving away from clinical diagnoses, simply bored. as for kierkegaard, williams follows him a long way but eventually parts company when it comes to the opera's supposed christian ethos. don giovanni is not satanic, says williams, but instead determined not to be intimidated; the commendatore's reappearance marks a natural, not supernatural, "consequence of giovanni's recklessness" (114), by which he means that his offense holds no special cosmic significance; and the behavior of the opera's characters does not step dutifully in line with categories of virtue and vice. this last topic echoes the thesis advanced in shame and necessity (1993), a learned and inspired demonstration of how the homeric world lies outside the boundaries of platonic and kantian moral categories. a lot of williams's argument makes good sense of don giovanni, espe­ cially of the damnation scene and its postlude. whereas lamentations from other don juan tales could go on for verses cataloguing regret, mozart's don giovanni leaves the world in physical, not spiritual travail. (only moliere's ending is as laconic, as unrevealing, as mozart's.) nineteenth-century pro­ ductions had a hard time sustaining this ambiguity and often tried to make the lamento scene more confessional. friedrich rochlitz's popular german translation of da ponte's libretto has the libertine ask the almighty for forgiveness ("erbarme dich, allmachtiger"). not only does this interpolation turn don giovanni back into tirso's late-repentant; it also tries to generate sympathy for the libertine, to make the opera more conventionally tragic by evoking pity. in reminding us of don giovanni's essential inscrutability and transgressiveness, williams draws out of the opera's ending a discomfiting conclusion: the erotic requires regulation, it is true, but this restraint exacts a heavy price. we are back at the crossroads, again, but now with the sobering awareness that the virtuous life is not necessarily a happy one. for all of the light that williams sheds on the opera, his removal of the supernatural and chthonic from its moral vision leaves significant areas of the opera in the dark. williams reads in the parting references to proserpina and pluto an instinctive but telling sign that the opera's deities belong to the 111 112 current musicology natural world, yet the use of these names is unrevealing, since words like "lucifer" or "satan" would have been censored, and pagan names commonly appeared in catholic theater of the time (like jesuit plays). donna elvira, donna anna, and don ottavio are all motivated (one might say driven) by the idea that heaven is on their side, that certain actions or behavior-mar­ riage for elvira, filial obligations for anna, friendship for ottavio (which he calls a "sacro manto")-emanate from a divine order of things. of course, the point of the opera might well be to show how laughably or poignantly misplaced this confidence is, but that is all the more reason not to write off their language merely as the cliches of elevated characters. i wonder, too, about williams's point that don giovanni stands out among the dramatis personae for the unconditional way in which he leads his life (116). it is true that he pursues a different object from the others (or none at all), but donna elvira, in particular, dogs him with a singlemindedness that also disregards self-preservation, for she is willing to humiliate herself to expose don giovanni's perfidy ("ho perduta la prudenza" she exclaims toward the end of the quartet "non ti fidar"). her unrelenting authenticity (authenticity rather than sincerity, because surface reputation does not figure into her calculations) becomes almost rousseauvian and stands as an antipode to don giovanni's utter impenetrability. it is even more difficult to sustain the argument that the commendatore represents the natural consequences of don giovanni's audacity. mozart could certainly have drawn on a naturalistic solution had he wanted one: lightning brings down goldoni's libertine; in stephanie's macbeth (1772), which was subtitled "das neue stein erne gastmahl" and which replaced a banned viennese don juan tale, macbeth and lady macbeth die in a burn­ ing castle-the flames of hell now becoming a material, secular torment. (that mozart rejected more enlightened, rational solutions suggests that the operas famed subversiveness may reside not in its forecast of things to come but in its embrace of an older baroque, visual culture.) eliminating the supernatural in the opera mutes don giovanni's audacity. he rebels not only against society but against mortality itself. in mocking the dead and, most of all, living an episodic existence, don juan implicitly tries to halt the passage of time. paradoxically, it is the immortal commendatore who feels the burden of time, for he announces the libertine's doom with the cold declaration that "there is no more time" (ah tempo pili non v'e, 2.15). time comes into conflict with eternity in other prominent don juan plays. "plenty of time for that" (itan largo me 10 fi,hs!) is the refrain for tirso's burlador, who will discover, to his everlasting regret, that he does not have all of the time in the world. (time also makes a cameo appearance in moliere's last act.) one of the fascinations with mozart's opera is how its loose episodic edmund j. goehring organization operates in tandem with the inexorability of don giovanni's damnation, that we know from the beginning that don giovanni will be ( or already is) damned. and what of comedy, which, as mentioned at the beginning, is intimately bound up with the genesis and character of mozart's opera buff a? the don giovanni moment gives little sense of it, mostly because of the volume's emphasis on the german reception of the opera. at times, however, some essays conflate the topic of reception history with that of interpretation in ways that obscure mozart's opera. thus, in her otherwise fine study on the centrality of artistic taste in shaw's man and superman, agnes heller remarks that mozart (as opposed to shaw) never presents his protagonist "as a comic" ("mozart's don giovanni in shaw's comedy," 181). no matter how one construes the word "comic," such a view does not square with the libretto. much of its first act lays out a series of romantic setbacks that sometimes leave don giovanni exasperated rather than confidently triumphant. this is don giovanni as the object of comedy. for don giovanni as the instigator of comedy, there is, among other things, the trio ''ah taci, ingiusto core;' where he strikes up an impromptu commedia dell'arte scenario. neglecting the opera's comedy gives a partial reading not only of the op­ era itself or its overall nineteenth-century reception but even of the german metaphysical tradition that occupies so much of this collection. above all there is kierkegaard himself, who finds comedy"implicit in the contradiction between the hero and the arena in which he moves" (kierkegaard [1843] 1987, 1:92). (imagining a seducer is one thing, but doing the actual math for those 1003 trysts in spain is quite another.) likewise, taking on death directly or in the abstract is not the same thing as forcing your servant to invite a statue to dinner. here, don giovanni's chivalry takes on a cartoonish quality. although this side of kierkegaard's thought is unfortunately absent in the don giovanni moment, a couple of essays in the collection uncover a richer, more complex reception of don giovanni. ernst osterkamp ("don juan and faust: on the interaction between two literary myths"), for ex­ ample, notes how goethe related faust's "very serious jokes" (21) to mozart's opera buffa. 3 and then there is one of the gems of the volume, thomas s. grey's "the gothic libertine: the shadow of don giovanni in romantic music and culture;' which follows the legend through low as well as high culture, with powers of synthesis that extend to musical characterization. (for a collection devoted to a musical work, it is noteworthy that only grey's and hoeckner's essays contain musical examples. grey's also adds a couple of illustrations, including one really ghoulish ricordi poster.) here, for example, is how grey describes the opening of liszt's reminiscences de "don juan" (1841), which begins with the commendatore's caution that 113 114 current musicology example 4: liszt, reminiscences de "don juan." 742 "" -', ,', " " , " " >! >! >! >! : u rrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrui rrrrrruirrr a a a a a a : r ~ i 'r' i 'r r i r don giovanni's laughter will end before dawn: "don giovanni steps back into our presence (as liszt's auditors) through those same infernal fires into which he disappeared at the opera's end, a gothic revenant called back from his purgatorial half-life to reenact his pleasures and crimes in pantomime for the wondering audience of a later era, the miraculous waxwork figure of a famous 'historical' character" (77). about liszt's reworking i would only add that, in concluding the piece so that the "champagne aria" emerges out of the commendatore's warning (example 4), liszt gives the victory to don giovanni, whose laughter, we are to understand, will extend indefinitely beyond dawn. like much exemplary historiography, grey's essay registers and then explains phenomena that probably seem odd by modern standards. for edmund j. goehring example, those persuaded by kierkegaard's argument that zerlina is a deliberately inconsequential character will wonder why chopin's and liszt's transcriptions give such prominence to "la ci darem la mano." because this is a seduction that we actually get to witness, explains grey; in it we see at work don giovanni's supernatural, mesmeric arts, conveyed through the surface innocence of mozart's sensuous music. still more fascinating are the permutations of don juan outside of canonical literature, in the popular culture. down here, the "wit, cunning, and aristocratic breeding" (78) of mozart's don giovanni did not entirely disintegrate into teutonic melan­ choly; instead, these qualities found their way into, of all things, vampire tales. other strange things happened to "count" giovanni in the popular arena. the tendency was to dissipate the ecstasy of don juan through burlesque or domestication, or, in a combination of the two, through assigning him a trouser role, thus coolly exacting a "woman's revenge" on "the predatory male" (82). grey does not, however, treat the english and french burlesque tradition in isolation from the german metaphysical one. for whether one redeems don giovanni or marries him off, the result is much the same: annihilation. the main difference seems to be whether the libertine goes willingly or with a fight. eulogizing late romantic don juans from lenau to shaw, wagner to richard strauss, grey explains how they "manage to skirt damnation, but feeling a sense of cultural 'lateness,' perhaps, they voluntarily, even cheerfully, embrace their extinction" (102). observing the essays as a whole, one marvels at how don giovanni ranges over the thought and culture of the nineteenth century and its aftermath, of the myriad ways-philosophical, literary, biographical-in which mozart's opera fired the imagination and shaped the experience of artists and thinkers. because a tale is compelling to the extent that it resists paraphrase, one will not find all of the opera's complexities resolved in its pages. at its most successful, the don giovanni moment does something better: historiographically it widens our perspective on the opera's legacy; conceptually it keeps alive the opera's tension between the aesthetic and the moral. one applauds the editors for following the opera largely through other works of art (and even the main philosophers covered here, kierkegaard and adorno, approach the opera in quasi-literary, nonsystematic forms), for it is other works of art that render the most vivid response to mozart's interpretation of the don juan myth and his opera's ability to beguile, terrify, and give pleasure. notes 1. eighth letter, may 12, 1798 in allerley uber theatralische gegenstiinde mit besonderer ruck­ sicht auf die buhne zu frankfurt am main. in briefen, 2: 1 08-9. 115 116 current musicology 2. the scenario is reprinted in leydi and leydi 1958:290-319. 3. osterkamp also discovers two fascinating nineteenth-century transformations of don juan. one is that he becomes a virtuoso, where the technical craft of performance overcomes any scruples about the morality of the act. osterkamp does not mention this, but i would argue that a preference for techne over arete is precisely what is advanced in "ah taci, ingiusto core" when don giovanni praises himself in an aside thus: "pili fertile talento / del mio no non si da" (a more fecund talent than mine? no, there is none). the other revelation is that nineteenth -century fausts tended to turn themselves into don juans. one source of the don juan legend was anti-machiavellian jesuit literature, which transformed the austere political tyrant into a hedonist. this process reverses itself in the nineteenth century, where faust the intellectual devolves into the hedonist, and don juan the sensualist becomes an intellect. references allgemeine musikalische zeitung. 1803. review of mozarts geist by ignaz f. arnold. 42 (july 13): cols. 689-97. arnold, ignaz f. 1803. mozarts geist: seine kurze biographie und asthetische darstellung seiner werke. ein bildungsbuch fur junge tonkunstler. erfurt: hennings. kierkegaard, soren. 1987. either/or, translated by howard v. hong and edna h. hong. 2 vols. kiekegaard's writings, nos. 3-4. princeton, nj: princeton university press. kunze, stefan. 1972. don giovanni vor mozart: die tradition der don-giovanni-opern im italienischen buffa-theater des 18. jahrhunderts. munchener universitats-schriften, reihe der philosophischen fakultat, no. 10. munich: wilhelm fink verlag. leydi, roberto, and renata mezzanotte leydi. 1958. marionette e burattini: testi dal repertorio classico italiano del teatro delle marionette e dei burattini. milan: collana del "gallo grande." williams, bernard. 1993. shame and necessity. sather classical lectures, no. 57. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf musical style and experience in a brooklyn pentecostal church: an "insider's" perspective! by melvin l. butler introduction: "what kind of church is this?" when my wife, lori, speaks of her move from charlotte, north carolina, to attend college in boston, massachusetts, she inevitably high­ lights the "culture shock" she felt upon first arriving. "i don't like it. it's different," she tearfully tried to explain to her parents late one sunday afternoon. her voice had an air of despair that seemed to belie the faith­ bred optimism she usually portrayed even when things didn't go her way. lori was raised pentecostal "from the womb," as the saying goes, and her church background is steeped in the mrican american pentecostal tradi­ tion. a couple of hours before, she had returned from church, thrown herself on her dorm room bed, and burst into tears. this was not a matter of simply adjusting to the climatic or culinary foreignness of new england, nor was it a temporary bout of homesickness one might expect from a pas­ tor's youngest daughter. rather, what had made life in boston suddenly seem so unbearable was the fact that, for her, west indian-style musical worship had hindered the spiritual fulfillment she expected to receive in a pentecostal setting. church, she thought, was supposed to be something familiar-something enjoyable. her parents had recommended that she attend this church; but perhaps even they were unaware it would be so "dif­ ferent." weren't all black pentecostal churches in the united states more or less the same? certainly, it is not only musical style, per se, that led to lori's disap­ pointment with the church service. had the heavily accented sermon been more aurally comprehensible to her, she may have been able to endure west indian styles of singing and clapping. in fact, many pentecostals con­ sider it tolerable, though highly undesirable, to have very little music in church, provided the biblical teaching is comprehensive and inspired by god. nevertheless, no pentecostal service is complete without music. even "spoken" parts of the worship service, such as the sermon and saints' testi­ monies, are often surrounded by musical elements, if not themselves sung (davis 1985). music in the pentecostal church is a vehicle for praising and worshiping god and in return receiving the spiritual strength to persevere through life's hardships. in the words of a well-known gospel chorus, "when praises go up, blessings come down." thus, lori's inability to "get into the service" and participate comfortably in congregational singing led current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 33 34 current musicology to a painful shock that was more than merely "cultural" for her; it affected her spiritually. in this essay, i examine musical styles and conceptions embraced by mrican americans2 and the west indian transmigrants with whom they worship at emmanuel temple, an apostolic pentecostal church in brooklyn, new york. my larger project is to critique essentialist notions of the "black church," which deny both intra-group and inter-group diversity that exists among "black" people in america. by "intra-group" diversity, i mean the multiple styles of musical worship employed by u.s.-born blacks. "inter-group diversity" here refers to the multiple styles that are found among the various groups of black people who, although they see them­ selves as culturally distinct from each other, all self-identity as "black" in the context of a white american majority. this essay attempts to answer the following questions: how is it that mrican american and west indian styles of musical worship are negotiated in emmanuel temple's worship services? how is coherence in the worship service maintained despite the presence of seemingly incompatible styles of singing and clapping? and fi­ nally, what is the most effective way for a so-called "insider" ethnomusicol­ ogist to tackle such questions? paying special attention to how my "insider" status impacts my research at emmanuel temple, i begin by examining the subject positions from which some writers discuss "black" church music. i use hermeneutic phe­ nomenology as a means of incorporating a dialogic approach to ethnogra­ phy, while highlighting the personal experiences of mrican americans and west indians in musical worship. finally, i look historically at emmanuel temple's musical development, and call for a re-examination of transnational flows relating to the caribbeanization of "black" churches in the united states. perspectives on the "black" church mrican american church music has been the subject of a number of ethnomusicological studies since the 1970s.3 some scholars have referred to a kind of "black aesthetic" that undergirds the gospel tradition (williams:jones 1975; burnim 1985). melonee burnim, who, in the late 1970s, conducted research in pentecostal churches in indiana, states that "a well-defined black aesthetic frames the boundaries of gospel music per­ formance" (burnim 1985:159-60). she discusses several musical elements that characterize the "black gospel music aesthetic," including distinct vo­ cal textures, body movements, clapping patterns, and rhythmic concepts. while the elements mentioned by burnim do indeed characterize many black pentecostal churches in the u.s., an examination of emmanuel temple reveals that the story is more complex than the positing of an overarching black aesthetic would seem to suggest. this is particularly the melvin l. butler 35 case in cities like new york, boston, and miami, where the category "black" subsumes multiple nationalities, and where congregations exhibit wide-ranging styles of musical worship. 4 of the existing research on black church music in the united states, very little is written by scholars who claim membership in the religious community being studied. to my knowledge, william dargan's disserta­ tion (1983) represents the first musicological study of pentecostal church music written by a pentecostal. his goal is to illustrate the relative frequency of usage of certain musical forms in gospels [i.e. congregational songs], especially as they appear in connection with various categories of belief .... "categories of be­ lief" are inferred from the language of song texts, definitions and terminology used by informants, and from my own experience of christian beliefs as i find them operative in ... holiness churches. (1983:38) cheryl sanders's book, saints in exile, though not focused on music, pro­ vides a thorough insider's perspective on the black pentecostal church tra­ dition in the united states, arguing convincingly that the pentecostal ex­ perience is "based upon a dialectical, exilic identity of being 'in the world, but not of it.'" pentecostals, she argues, "are fully aware of their marginal­ ized status, based upon racial and religious differences, within the domi­ nant culture; thus, exile has been offered as an appropriate paradigm for interpreting their experience" (sanders 1996:123). i think sanders's no­ tion of "exile" might also be applied to mrican american churches con­ taining west indian minorities-not to mention west indian churches in the u.s.-where it seems her notion of an "exilic existence" would be fur­ ther enriched. that is, in addition to the racial and religious differences between saints5 and the larger society, west indian members of predomi­ nantly mrican american churches are, in a sense, "doubly-exiled" because they are further differentiated by their status as transnational migrants. some studies of black church music, while not written by "insiders," at­ tempt to portray black pentecostal churches in ways that are faithful to the beliefs of those being studied. rather than treating belief as an analytically irrelevant aspect of the ethnographic context, or using belief solely to frame presentation, glenn hinson6 highlights the importance of pentecostal belief as a way of deriving meaning: belief provides what church members term the "invisible manu­ script," a guide for unfolding the mysteries of the world and unveil­ ing the meaning of feeling. more than just lending coherence to expression and emotion, belief infuses them with a significance that 36 current musicology transcends the quotidian; in so doing, it offers an alternate model for understanding communicative process and assessing performa­ tive responsibility. to step into this interpretive realm, the ethnogra­ pher must accept belief on its own terms, adopting a stance of radi­ cal objectivity while reframing analysis in the ontological terms of the faithful. (1989:12) . ray allen (1987, 1991) explores gospel performance as sacred ritual in his "experience-centered" (1987:240) ethnography of community-based and professional gospel groups. in his detailed study of an apostolic pente­ costal church in champaign-urbana, larry ward examines the relation­ ship between pentecostal music and doctrine, seeking to describe both the congregation's musical activity and the saints' conceptions of musical worship (1997:3).7 the studies of ward (1997) and burnim (1980, 1985) merit compari­ son with the present work, not only because they are all ethnomusicologi­ cal treatments of pentecostal church music, but also because each of the authors stands in a distinct relation to his or her topic. ward, a white non­ believer, is seen as a cultural and religious outsider; burnim, an mrican american methodist, is viewed by her informants as a cultural "insider" and a religious outsider. by contrast, as both a black americans and a pentecostal, i am accepted, despite my academic training, as a cultural and religious "insider." to ward's credit, he devotes a full chapter to a discussion of the awkwardness and tension caused by his outsider status during fieldwork, even describing his own "ethnographic naivete" in pre­ suming he could "quietly observe worship without being actively drawn into the event" (1997:375). while ward's role as "the unsaved professor" amidst pentecostal saints presented certain research limitations, the hon­ esty and explicitness with which he makes his subjectivities known lend his ethnography a healthy transparency. this transparency, which i hope to achieve in the present essay, elucidates the complex relation between re­ searcher and study object,9 and is, i believe, facilitated by a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. toward a phenomenology of pentecostal church music since the mid-1980s, particularly with the emergence of writing culture (clifford and marcus 1986) and anthropology as cultural critique (marcus and fischer 1986), there has been a renewed interest in issues of represen­ tation in ethnographies. rather than falling prey to strict self/other di­ chotomies, which often portrayed "natives" in an exoticized fashion, only to be distinguished from the rational-minded observer, writers in the late 1980s and 1990s began to rethink the ways in which ethnographies have melvin l. butler 37 portrayed their "objects of study." ethnomusicologists have also thought about fresh ways of studying, documenting, and representing the world's music-cultures. this "crisis in representation," the discussion of which con­ tinued in after writing culture (james, hockey, and dawson 1997), and in the works of writers such as renato rosaldo (1993) and barbara tedlock (1991), has greatly impacted the ways in which fieldwork is conducted and conceptualized. tedlock (1991:78) embraces a shift, which actually began in the 1970s, away from "participant observation" toward the "observation of participation" in an effort to dispel the myth that the ethnographer must both become experientially involved in the activities of those being studied, and also keep his or her "cool" in order to remain dispassionately observant. what is more desirable, tedlock asserts, is that "instead of a choice between writing an ethnographic memoir centering on the self or a standard monograph centering on the other, both the self and other are presented together within a single narrative ethnography, focused on the character and process of the ethnographic dialogue." ethnographers, then, "both experience and observe their own and others' coparticipation within the ethnographic encounter" (1991:69). some ethnomusicologists (rice 1994, 1997; titon 1988, 1997; friedson 1996) 10 have turned to the phenomenology of heidegger and merleau­ ponty as a means of moving further away from the philosophical idealism of alfred schutz and thomas cliftonll and toward the more concrete as­ pects of embodied social reality. the work of these ethnomusicologists tends to be more anthropological in methodology, and they seek both to experience and portray the musical and social realms in more holistic terms. "being-in-the-world," as this compound term is used by heidegger ([1926] 1962), describes the "equiprimordiality" of humans and the "world" in which we find ourselves. the ethnomusicological application of "being-in-the-world" thus mandates that musical sound be considered in­ extricably linked to the social and cultural milieu in which it is produced and consumed. the value of hermeneutic phenomenology to ethnomusicology lies pri­ marily in the former's ability to promote intercultural dialogue in lieu of the ethnocentrism of research that claims to speak authoritatively for some other group of people. 12 yet, while i am influenced theoretically by the authors i have cited above, i feel that my status as a cultural and reli­ gious "insider" necessitates significant, though perhaps subtle, differences between my use of phenomenology and theirs. unlike the ethnomusico­ logical studies by titon, friedson, and rice, this essay describes a world of which i have been a part long before i decided to do formal academic research on it. naturally, this means that the "intersubjective reality," or "interworld," that typically emerges between the emic and the etic, the 38 current musicology west and the non-west, or the religious and the non-religious, is of a different sort. although "being-in-the-world" is often applied to a par­ ticular social or cultural context, the "world" i describe in this essay is, in some aspects, trans-social and transcultural. because i share the reli­ gious beliefs of those whom i am studying, i must necessarily hold, for example, that the holy spirit is indeed real and is manifested through music. furthermore, this manifestation is not subject to an individual's "belief" in it, nor is it limited to the "worldview" of a particular group of people (see hinson 2000:327-34) .. in making this assertion, i hope to show that my use of phenomenology is theologically informed, and that my dialogic approach is, therefore, distinct from those which have pre­ ceded it. in discussing her fieldwork in african american religious communities, judi moore latta (2000) notes that one may experience oneself in com­ plex ways. likewise, my own sense of "being-in-the-world"-the way in which i understand the nature of my existence-is multifaceted. despite my own church upbringing, pentecostalism and the experience of the baptism of the holy spirit were largely unknown to me until 1991. it was through my wife lori's witnessing that i gradually came to embrace the pentecostal experience. more specifically, i experience myself both as an academic and a spiritual being. yet since 1991, my "primary discourse"13 has been that of a practicing pentecostal. the discourse of academia too often employs what hinson (1989, 2000) labels "strategies of disbelief,"14 describing spirit-filled or "anointed" musical worship in pentecostal churches as "trance" (conway 1978; mcintyre 1976; marks 1982; rouget 1985), "magical possession" (austin-broos 1997), or even the result of "psychological frenzy"(barrett 1997:117). such facile "explanations" deny the specificity of the pentecostal experience, substitute a kind of universal stigma, and fly in the face of experiences that i consider no less real than the paper on which this is printed. many ethnographies resort to a kind of "ontological colonialism," whereby supernatural experience is ... consigned to a reality apart, a realm where the "real" is defined only within the narrow parameters of be­ lief. "that's what they believe," most ethnographers seem to say, "and thus it's real for them." what remains unsaid-but certainly not misunderstood-is the concluding codicil "but not for us, for we can see beyond the boundaries of their belief." thus slips away any guise of ethnographic objectivity, only to be replaced by implicit claims to a fuller knowledge and a more real reality. accounts of supernatural experience, in turn, get treated as artifacts of belief, interesting for the light they shed on culture, but meaningless as testaments to au­ thentic encounter. (hinson 2000:330) melvin l. butler 39 emmanuel temple (part of the pentecostal assemblies of the world, inc.) is a church in which creative musical dialogue regularly takes place between mrican americans and west indians. while i engage in a kind of productive distanciation in order to stand at some critical distance from the musical practices of my church, i feel this study is also best understood as a dialogue, not so much between a foreign self and a native other, but rather as one between an ethnomusicologist and the pentecostal church of which he is a member. yet instead of involving a compromise of my "primary discourse," such a dialectic disrupts the notion of fixed emic or etic perspectives as they relate to my research on pentecostal musical wor­ ship. the hermeneutic phenomenological method is, in some respects, applicable to both "insider" and "outsider" ethnomusicologists. as rice explains, even so-called "insider" ethnomusicologists, those born into the cul­ tures they study, undergo a productive distanciation necessary to the explanation and critical understanding of their own cultures .... [p] roductive distanciation is not only characteristic of outsiders and scholars; individuals operating within tradition continually appropri­ ate their cultural practices, give them new meanings, and create their own sense of "being in the world." (1994:6) i agree with peter reinholdsson, who employs an "interactionist approach to acquiring meaningful knowledge of the world of jazz performance." he cautions that abiding by the insider-outsider dichotomy still present in the emics­ etics debate would render an impervious split between subject and object that i cannot approve of in view of my theoretical perspective and epistemological point of departure. rather, a dialectical and dia­ logical relationship between the emic and etic perspectives is striven for. ... and i feel this is necessary in order to construct a meaning­ ful whole in relation to the conceptual models and different parts of my fieldwork material. (1998:78) my use of the term "insider" (placed in quotation marks) to describe my position vis-a-vis my object of study underscores the irony of doing phe­ nomenological ethnomusicology from "within." such a theoretical exer­ cise creates a fascinating tension that i choose to exploit by making this study dialogical on several levels simultaneously: it represents a dialogue between me and my church, it re-presents the dialogue unfolding between mrican americans and west indians through musical worship, and in yet another sense, the dialogue occurs between me, as a pentecostal, and the academic community of which i strangely find myself a member. 40 current musicology "this world is not my home" in 1994, i joined emmanuel temple, an eighty-member pentecostal church located in the crown heights section of brooklyn, new york. crown heights, like bedford stuyvesant and east new york, contains a high concentration of west indian nationalities (conway and bigby 1987:77). this cultural diversity is reflected at emmanuel temple, where about one-fourth of the active members have migrated from jamaica, barbados, trinidad, or st. lucia. since 1997, lori and i have worked to­ gether as ministers of music, overseeing the choirs and organizing the mu­ sical segments of the weekly worship services. in seriously considering whether to make emmanuel temple our church home, the style and qual­ ity of the music were important factors. having experienced west indian­ flavored services while attending college in boston, we were prepared for the possibility that jamaican, barbadian, or trinidadian musical elements would be discernible at emmanuel temple. however, our unwavering mu­ tual understanding was that in order for us to stay at emmanuel temple, the "downhome" quality of mrican american pentecostal music could not be overly influenced by what we felt were the tempering effects of carib­ beanization. our current position as musical directors grants us the ability to promote melodic and rhythmic conceptions that are ostensibly mrican american, in contradistinction to songs with a more west indian flavor. but being ministers of music entails actively engaging competing styles of singing and clapping in an effort to create a harmonious and efficacious musical sound-one that works to produce a worship experience that is powerfully meaningful for all members of emmanuel temple. both my experience as organist at emmanuel temple and the scarcity of research on caribbean musical influences in black churches in the united states have stimulated my interest in understanding how seemingly incompatible styles of musical worship are negotiated and manage to co-exist within black churches whose congregations are often perceived by outsiders to be homogeneous. there is a biblical notion stressed in pentecostal churches that christians are "travelers" in a strange land: "a peculiar people," "aliens," or "pilgrims" who are simply passing through this life en route to a heav­ enly home from which they are temporarily distanced. 15 from this per­ spective, the church is a body of believers who, like the israelites of the old testament, are striving to reach a promised land. the fact that wor­ ship services are increasingly being flavored by blacks migrating from di­ verse cultural and musical settings makes this metaphor even more vibrant for many members of black churches in new york city. west indians began migrating to new york city in particularly large numbers after 1965; with the passage of the immigration and nationality act (foner 1987; bryce-laporte 1987:104).16 anthropologists writing melvin l. butler 41 about the caribbeanization of new york city have pointed out that since the mid-1960s, political, economic, and cultural arenas have become in­ creasingly influenced by mro-caribbean peoples. constance sutton writes that new york city is "a caribbean cross-roads ... that involves the trans­ position and production of cultural forms and ideology. in brooklyn, west indians take part in a continuous transnational flow of peoples, ideas, practices and ideologies between the caribbean region and new york city." these transnational flows form what sutton calls a "transmission belt that reworks and further creolizes caribbean culture and identities, both in new york and the caribbean" (1987:19). a similar view is expressed by benedict anderson, who suggests that colonists of the "new world" were able to feel connected to the "old world" because of "their emerging ca­ pacity to imagine themselves as communities parallel and comparable to those in europe" (anderson 1991:192; italics in the original). this notion of "imagined communities" points to a sense of parallelism or simultaneity that enables a group of people to reshape their lives and adapt to a new environment. both anderson's study of imagined commu­ nities and sutton's discussion of transnational processes provide a useful theoretical framework for understanding how west indian styles of singing are remembered and kept alive at emmanuel temple, despite the strong presence of competing styles of musical worship. west indian mem­ bers of emmanuel temple enjoy reminiscing about their families and churches "back home," and most of them make regular trips to the islands to visit loved ones. these trips, along with frequent telephone conversa­ tions with kinfolk living in the caribbean, playa vital role in maintaining connections .to communities in the west indies. furthermore, their mem­ bership in brooklyn's larger west indian community and fellowship with other west indian pentecostals help to reinforce musical practices that might otherwise be stifled beneath the voices of the mrican american majority at emmanuel temple. "we sing it this way": understanding stylistic differences because of the participatory nature of musical activity in pentecostal churches, from the organ bench where i usually sit it is easy to observe the various ways mrican americans and west indians engage in musical worship. from 1996 to 1999, emmanuel temple was without drums, which had tended to stabilize and regulate the rhythmic aspect of songs that were sungy having no drums means that the rhythmic pulse, "groove," and intensity must be collectively generated by congregational singing, hand-clapping and tambourine playing. as a result, individual and group rhythmic conceptions are brought into stronger relief, as church members strive to "make a joyful noise" in such a way that the wor­ ship experience will be spiritually rewarding. 42 current musicology some of the west indians i interviewed indicate a preference for strophic hymns, and place comparatively high value on lyrical content. one barbadian woman eloquently summed up her position: "i don't like the one-liners." note the difference between the two song-texts provided below. example la shows a "one-liner," wherein intensity is generated through repetitions of the text and through the use of a constant, driving rhythm. example 1 b, on the other hand, shows a more traditional versed hymn, wherein spiritual fulfillment derives mostly from meditating on the meaning of the lyrics. these versed hymns are often sung at a slower tempo and with more emphasis on "strong" beats one and three. most west indian members are quick to point out the waste of time and energy exerted by mrican americans content on clapping on beats two and four for several minutes while incessantly repeating words that, from a west indian perspective, appear to have very little actual substance. on the other hand, to many mrican american worshipers, caribbean melodies seem rather "strict" or "old-fashioned," perhaps because they do not as easily lend themselves to the types of improvisatory embellishment that many mrican americans have absorbed from sacred and secular contem­ porary sounds. what complicates this further is that there exists a genera­ tion gap between west indian migrants and their u.s.-born children. west indian youth at emmanuel temple are strongly influenced by contempo­ rary r&b, soul music, and hip-hop and have developed musical tastes un­ like those of their parents. consequently, both the mrican american and west indian youth of emmanuel temple share an attraction to mrican american musical forms. with the rise of hip-hop and the astounding suc­ cess of gospel artists such as kirk franklin, emmanuel temple has experi­ enced a slight pressure to "go contemporary," particularly in recent years as teens have become increasingly involved in the musical worship of the church. to mrican americans at emmanuel temple, west indian-style church singing is often perceived as boring and unsatisfying, not so much because of the preponderance of the lyrics that are sung, but because the accom­ panying rhythmic "groove" is less driving, and consequently, does not seem to support the kinds of "shouting" (i.e., "holy dancing") through which many mrican american members derive an emotional and spiritual release. thus, the question of how much emphasis to place on the words of a song vis-a.-vis its rhythmic pulse is a very real one at emmanuel temple. it would seem that the answer to this question depends, to a considerable extent, on one's musical and cultural background. one of the most discernible differences between mrican american and west indian musical styles at emmanuel temple concerns the relation be­ tween vocal style and rhythmic conception. for example, emmanuel temple's mrican american worshipers express a preference for songs example la: a "one-liner." leader: what's the matter with jesus? congregation: he's all right! leader: what's the matter with jesus? congregation: he's all right! leader: he's all right! congregation: he's all right! leader: he's all right! congregation: he's all right! ... etc., etc. ... example ib: a versed hymn. verse: chorus: i heard an old, old story 'bout a savior came from glory. how he gave his life on calvary to save a wretch like me. i heard about his groaning, of his precious blood's atoning. then i repented of my sins and won the victory. victory in jesus, my savior forever he bought me and he sought me with his redeeming blood. he loved me 'ere i knew him and all my love is due him. he plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood. melvin l. butler 43 with a more syncopated melodic line. these songs include not only "one­ liners" but also "gospelized hymns," such as "at the cross," which lend themselves well to the type of two-and-four hand clapping pattern to which mrican americans gravitate more strongly than west indians. it is somewhat remarkable that the two-and-four clapping is also done by west indian singers; yet it appears to have a different musical function. in a rendition of "don't try to tell me that god is dead" by a jamaican woman, "ruby," the hand-clapping has an anchoring effect; it operates against a vocal rhythm that is similar to the five-note rhythm common in many parts of the caribbean (.j )i.j )i.j). the accented lyrics of the melody line ("don't," "try," and "that") correspond to what hopkin refers to as one of the "un-american rhythms [that] come about most often when three syllables occur in the space of two counts and are realized as i i-ln i instead of the more european i n j lor u n i" (1978:36). by contrast, in "at the cross," the hand-clapping seems to move the pulse forward, working against a syncopated melody line with which it rarely coincides (exx. 2 and 3). 44 current musicology example 2: "don't try to tell me that god is dead" (* = hand claps) don't try to tell_ me that woke me up_ this_ morn ing. example 3: "at the cross" (* = hand claps) at the cross, saw the light, at the cross and the rolled a way ___ _ god is dead._ he don't try to tell_ me that... where_ 1_ first_ bur den_ of_ my_ heart,) jazz and other african american musical forms may certainly have played a more prominent role in shaping the rhythmic conceptions of african american worshipers at emmanuel temple. in "don't try to tell me that god is dead," i believe ruby, who has lived in the united states for twenty-four years, may have blended african american and west melvin l. butler 45 indian musical conceptions by unknowingly superimposing what she refers to as a "west indian song" over the two-and-four clapping pattern, which serves as a kind of rhythmic template for most of the musical activ­ ity at emmanuel temple. ls although in an interview ruby described herself as "not a typical jamaican," during a sunday afternoon testimony service on that same day, she proceeded to lead "don't try to tell me that god is dead," a song she later told me she learned as a child from her grandmother who "used to sing it back in jamaica." on the one hand, one would expect her to be "americanized," having lived in the united states for over two decades; on the other hand, her choice of song might be seen as an expression of jamaican cultural identity. experienced mrican american singers would likely view the two-and­ four clapping pattern as rhythmically dissonant with ruby's west indian vocal melody, because, in hopkin's view, this melody is based on a rhyth­ mic pattern "quite foreign to any songwriter in the american-european tradition" (1978:36). although hopkin sets out to contrast west indian and white american styles of pentecostal music, similar differences in melodic rhythm also exist between west indians and mrican americans at emmanuel temple. when i asked elder ray johnson, one of the mrican american ministers at emmanuel temple, about the nature of these stylis­ tic differences, he observed that "their worship-it's, i guess, it's ... simi­ lar but different. it's similar in the way that the spirit moves, but different in that the songs that they sing are different. the accent and the way they sing them, and the tone or whatever, it's different." elder johnson, who had recently visited his in-laws in barbados, described west indian rhythm as "some kind of islander beat-like everything they do is that kind of ca­ lypso beat" (johnson 1999). while johnson saw west indian-style musical worship as "different," particularly from the musical style he heard grow­ ing up in south carolina, he also noted an important similarity in that the "move of the spirit" had still taken place. thus, it is important to acknowl­ edge that, strictly speaking, pentecostal doctrine does not place stylistic re­ strictions on music in the worship service, because musical style varies ac­ cording to cultural background. nonetheless, it is also true, as lori's experience in boston reveals, that the cultural and spiritual realms may sometimes intersect, particularly in an individual's worship experience. this is so because, as corporeal human beings, our emotions and disposi­ tions become intimately involved in the physical act of charismatic wor­ ship, even as we strive to transcend the earthly realm in order to experi­ ence the joy and power of the holy spirit. songs like "don't try to tell me that god is dead" serve as vehicles for "coming in one's own way" to lead testimony service. when a congregant at emmanuel temple is asked by another to "come in her own way," this 46 current musicology generally means that she is free to sing or testify in whatever manner she feels led by god. while certain norms and traditions mark the boundaries of what is considered musically appropriate for testimony service, these boundaries have a fluid quality that promotes expressive diversity and allows musical creativity to flourish. for ruby, "don't try to tell me that god is dead" was a personal expression about the reality of god in her life. thus, for pentecostal worshipers who "come in their own way," the freedom to put a personal stamp on musical worship during testimony service, while operating within the bounds of what might be called "testi­ mony service etiquette," is crucial to a successful worship experience-one that maintains the "spontaneity of the spirit."19 musical worship, then, for both west indians and mrican americans, becomes the means through which each cultural group chooses to dis­ tinguish itself from the other in some contexts, while still maintaining common status as members of emmanuel temple and the larger black community in america. in discussing the complex identity constructions of transmigrants, one church member at emmanuel temple insists, "i still hold on to my barbadian identity ... i make an effort to always be bar­ badian. what i do, i take the best of both worlds. i take the best of what new york has to offer-to make me a better person" (interview, april 4, 1999). sutton and makiesky-barrow argue that west indians immigrating to new york bring with them a notion not of likeness to americans, black or white, but of their distinctness-as barbadians, jamaicans, grenadians .... they arrive with some foreknowledge of white attitudes of racial superiority and with experiences with problems of racial inequality. both the prob­ lems and the achievements of west indians are viewed by the domi­ nant white majority, and come to be viewed by west indians them­ selves in the context of black america. (sutton and makiesky-barrow 1987:103) what the authors describe as a "west indian racial consciousness" emerges largely as a result of shared experiences with other non-white im­ migrants, and in response to being lumped together into the same cate­ gory as mrican americans. this west indian racial consciousness not only thrives in the macrocosm of new york city, but it is also manifested in the microcosm of emmanuel temple, where west indian ethnic identities are often asserted through musical worship. emmanuel temple: a history of negotiating styles of musical worship in order to appreciate more fullly how emmanuel temple has been able to absorb west indian musical styles, it may be helpful to locate the melvin l. butler 47 church within the broader history of gospel music in america. according to michael harris (1992), the emergence of the style now known as tradi­ tional "gospel" stems from events related to the great migration of blacks from the rural south to the urban north, which began after world war i. when thomas dorsey, a blues pianist from georgia, settled in chicago around 1918, he brought with him his distinct style of gospel blues, which began to transform the nature of musical worship in northern and mid­ western churches. by 1945, the seeds planted by dorsey and watered by the increasing number of pentecostal churches in cities such as chicago, st. louis, detroit, and cincinnati began to yield fruit farther east as blacks migrated to new york city, bringing with them their style of gospel music (boyer and yearwood 1995:57, 152). the birth of emmanuel temple, founded in the late 1940s by a woman from ohio (seals 1999), came about as a result of these migratory trends. through the 1950s, dorsey's blues-influenced gospel music and other secular genres continued to influence pentecostal musical worship in new york city, even as migrants poured in from the south. one such migrant was t. l. seals, the current pastor of emmanuel temple. he first came to the church as a piano player in 1957 and recalls that the music sounded "more gospel," as opposed to the stricter, less improvisational style of his hometown church in mount bayou, mississippi. rather than relying on a hymnal, seals recalls, "i had to get used to playing by ear, in whatever key they started singing in." by adapting his technique of playing to fit the emmanuel temple style of the late 1950s, seals began developing the self­ described "old school" style of playing he still employs. at age 72, pastor seals still frequently plays piano during sunday services. this allows for an intriguing blend of musical styles: his more "traditional" gospel piano style with my own more jazz-influenced organ playing. it is nearly impossible to overemphasize the crucial role pastor seals has played over the past forty years in shaping the musical worship at emmanuel temple. much of my own training has involved adapting to the tempos and tonalities he estab­ lishes during services. although over the years pastor seals has partially adjusted to musical elements brought in by the influx of younger, more contemporary-minded congregants, he maintains a great respect for tradi­ tion and seeks to instill this respect in members of emmanuel temple. in so doing, i believe he creates a musical atmosphere that welcomes west indian members. pastor seals strives to temper the "one-liners," which are especially appreciated by the mrican american youth, with a healthy dose of versed hymns, which the west indians tend to favor. 20 pastor seals also encourages praise-and-worship leaders to use the hymnal, a practice that is becoming less popular among younger pentecostal saints, but is still widely embraced by west indian members of the church. in this way, the distinctions between mrican american and west indian styles of musical 48 current musicology worship intersect with the generational differences between younger and older saints at emmanuel temple. what this also means is that mrican americans and west indians are able to voice their stylistic preferences in terms of how relatively older styles of gospel differ from newer ones. as the influence of newer styles is tempered by a healthy respect for what is perceived to be more traditional, a creative space emerges wherein mrican american and west indian musical differences are negotiated and coherence in the worship service is maintained. in dargan's study of mu­ sic in the new born churches of god and true holiness, inc., he notes only a small amount of interaction between west indians and mrican americans. although jamaican choruses are warmly appreciated when they are sung at new born, they are only performed infrequently. musicians who are accustomed to accompanying gospels in the styles familiar to black americans have adapted well to the rhythmic and melodic nuances of these songs. however, since jamaicans constitute a small and recent element in the congregation, no real dynamics of bor­ rowing or cross-influence have been observed between the two styles. (1983:66) at emmanuel temple, however, west indian styles of music worship are felt in influential ways. both west indian and mrican american styles of singing and clapping continue to be heard, and surface as a valued com­ ponent of the church's overall musical style. one of the challenges of serving as minister of music at emmanuel temple has been to learn to shift between older and newer styles of play­ ing hymns. this ability to shift between styles proves most helpful in ac­ companying west indian singers who will often feel more "at home" musi­ cally if i maintain a fairly strict allegiance to the straightforward rhythmic and harmonic scheme provided in the hymnal. some degree of improvisa­ tion and variation is always present (even pastor seals does not play hymns exactly as they are notated), but depending on who is singing a song, the piano or organ accompaniment may vary greatly. the transcriptions below (exx. 4 and 5) illustrate notably different harmonic conceptions of the hymn "i must tell jesus," both of which i employ at emmanuel temple. example 4 depicts a fairly predictable harmonic scheme that is not far removed from the traditional version found in many church hymnals. it also approximates the style pastor seals would likely employ, while being amenable to the straightforward melodic delivery of west indians at emmanuel temple. hopkin comments on accompaniment style in west indian pentecostal churches, stating that "the accompaniments are very melvin l. butler 49 example 4: "1 must tell jesus" g g 07 g g em7 a7 d7(b9) g g g7/b )i;:~; ,n~ : . ~ :~' ; j i :~ ~; ; a,,: : &r r ;, r r 0 . f/c c c~dim gid am gid 07 g c/g g similar for all songs, since they rarely do more than reinforce the basic chords and rhythm of the hymn ... bass players stick, with only occasional variation, to triadic patterns or alterations [sic] between the root and fifth of the chord in quarter notes" (1978:38). the melodic embellishments of african americans at emmanuel temple sometimes give room for a more harmonically adventurous ac­ companiment. example 5, for example, shows the denser harmonic pro­ gression i tend to use most often when accompanying african american singers whom i trust are comfortable with more contemporary-sounding gospel harmonies. the minor "ii-y-i" progression (f#0 to b~13) in m. 2, resolving to the e-minor chord in m. 3, is a very common substitution and lends a modern jazz flavor to traditional hymns. likewise, in m. 4, i re­ solve deceptively to an f-major chord before playing the normal y7 on beat 4. such harmonic choices represent my way of exercising creativity in the context of musical worship, while drawing on my jazz background to add color to a traditional hymn. the differences between examples 4 and 5 are thus emblematic of the ways in which the musical preferences of african americans and west indians become manifest even in the style of organ (or keyboard) accompaniment. 50 current musicology example 5: "i must tell jesus" g 07(13) g o/ggmaj 9 em7 07sus 07(~9) g7sus g f#m7(~5) b(~13) i ~ ::; a ~ ::~: r ~~ ; a ; :; .} ;; ; : ~ : i!::' ;m e;' g~:: ('id '::"'g::~rnd:) ::ffi d:m: g om7 g(~13) o/c cmaj7 qldim7 f#7(~9) a 7sus c#m7(~5) 07 g examples 2 and 3 have already provided a glimpse of how west indian and mrican american rhythmic conceptions differ at emmanuel temple. but west indian songs such as "don't try to tell me that god is dead," which imply the five-note caribbean cinquillo rhythm, are not frequently rendered at emmanuel temple. rather, the different rhythmic concep­ tions of emmanuel temple's worshipers most often surface during the singing of songs more closely identified as part of the united states gospel church heritage. by examining two renditions of the same hymn, it may be easier to see how these different rhythmic conceptions are made ex­ plicit on a regular basis. examples 6a and 6b depict the chorus of "death has no terror" as sung by a west indian woman (age 50) and by an mrican american woman (age 30), respectively. in example 6a, the eighth melvin l. butler 51 example 6a: "death hath no terror" j c 120 (swing feel) ,~ i a ii r' 0 i r' 0 ij j 0 je sus rose from the dead. rose tri umph ant as he 4 '~j. 0 i] j m r j j i] j m r f said. snatched up vic t'ry from the grave, rose a gain my soul to save. oh, 7 '~r r r ;00 u £3 ij. £ d glo ry hal ie iu jah to the lamb. example 6b: "death hath no terror" j 0240 '~i p f is j pdo .tl je sus rose _____ _ from the dead 4 , ~~r r f r 1is j pdr' .tl he rose tri urnph ant_ as he said.~ 8 ,~ j i] ] --is j mj )1 j pdp f r~1 r .tl r r snatched up vic t'ry from the grave_ rose a gain_ my soul to save._ 12 , ~~r f f ie e p f pdp r j ] mo oh,_ glo ry hal ie lu jah to the lamb._ notes are "swung" slightly and the downbeat of each measure is often em­ phasized. in contrast, example 6b features several anticipations of beat 1, with only three notes falling directly on the downbeat (mm. 5, 9, and 13). such anticipations are easily supported by a walking bass line, which i typi­ cally play on the organ, and exemplify what the mrican american singer re­ ferred to as "that michigan vibe"; when the hymn was sung in this manner, 52 current musicology it was highly reminiscent of the style she had heard growing up in flint, michigan, during the 1970s and '80s. such geographical associations are intriguing and, perhaps, not at all surprising, considering the ways in which gospel music styles often emanated historically from midwestern cities such as detroit and chicago. the west indian singer of example 6a, likewise, noted that "death has no terror" was a song she had grown up singing in church since childhood. in april 1999, during an easter sunday morning service, she sang the hymn accompanied by me on piano. playing in the older style i learned from pastor seals, i resisted the urge to add substitute dominant­ seventh chords, and instead, utilized mostly triadic voicings with limited bass line movement. rhythmically, beats one and three were emphasized over beats two and four. by purposely playing piano in this manner, i cre­ ated a rhythmic and harmonic backdrop that was compatible with the west indian singing style with which she was most comfortable. conclusion i contend that the cultural diversity of emmanuel temple necessitates a more comprehensive ethnomusicological inquiry into how distinct styles of musical worship are negotiated in black churches too often assumed to be homogeneous. a great deal of past research (e.g., frazier 1964; lin­ coln 1974; burnim 1985) has set out to emphasize that the music of the black church is guided by a complex, internally coherent system of organi­ zational principles. while these conscientious scholars have provided a necessary counteraction to studies that disparage black church music,21 it appears that caribbean influences on black churches in the united states have yet to be seriously studied. i suggest that the time has come for more proactive ethnomusicological research that addresses the impact of trans­ nationalism on black pentecostal churches in the united states. byexam­ ining the overlapping communities and identities produced by complex transnational networks of people and expressive cultures, the richness and vitality of black pentecostal music may be more fully realized. as more "insider" ethnomusicologists begin to write about their own musical traditions, it is clear that much existing research will be reexam­ ined, called into question, and improved upon. my hope is that this study provides a fresh look at black pentecostal church music and more clearly situates previous ethnomusicologists (including myself) in relation to their objects of study. i have, by no means, completely rejected traditional methods of ethnomusicology. transcriptions, for example, serve to high­ light the stylistic differences between mrican americans and west indians at emmanuel temple, and show how these differences articulate along both cultural and generational lines. more importantly, however, i want to melvin l. butler 53 stress that while musical worship in pentecostal churches often involves a transformation of musical sound into a divinely-inspired tool for empow­ erment, it is yet at the mundane level of musical sound that the key to a meaningful worship experience is initially grasped. if the unfamiliar style of a song moves one too far from "home"-in an aural sense-one's emo­ tional and spiritual involvement in a worship service may be hindered. it is more than a matter of satisfying aesthetic desires, because in order to be fulfilled spiritually, musical foreignness must sometimes be overcome. the success of a pentecostal church can be said to hinge on its ability to get "on one accord" and create an atmosphere conducive to the felt presence of the holy spirit. therefore, this is precisely what is at stake in efforts to achieve musical coherence and to negotiate seemingly incompatible styles of musical worship. notes l. i wish to thank a number of professors who have given unselfishly of their time and energy in helping me to develop my thought. this study began during a research seminar led by professor adelaida reyes, whose graduate seminar "music and migration" at new york university in spring 1999 was particularly illuminating and beneficial to me at the time i began this study. gage averill and mercedes dujunco, my ethnomusicology professors in the nyu department of music, have offered insightful commentary as this project and many others have developed. the biblical teachings of suffragan bishop edward c. roberts have profoundly shaped my understanding of pentecostalism and strengthened my grasp of the apostolic doctrine. i wish also to thank kyra gaunt, andrew weintraub, judi moore latta, connie sutton, and mellonee burnim for supporting my work and providing invaluable suggestions as to how to improve upon it. 2. in this essay, the term "african american" means of or relating to black people born in the united states of america. 3. see, for example, boyer (1973), lincoln (1974), williams (1974), dargan (1983), burnim (1980, 1985), stone (1985), titon (1988), harris (1992), ward (1997), and hinson (2000). 4. melonee burnim (1980) conducted fieldwork at mercy mission apostolic church in bloomington, indiana, and grace apostolic church in indianapolis from 1976 to 1979. perhaps because of the geographical locale in which she did her research, west indian influences were not as discernible as they would have been in new york city. 5. in apostolic pentecostal churches like emmanuel temple, the term "saint" (which means "holy") is used to denote church members who are "set apart," by virtue of having repented from sin, being baptized in the name of jesus, and being filled with the holy spirit. the infilling of the holy spirit is evidenced by speaking in other tongues, as occurred on the day of pentecost (see acts of the apostles, chapter 2, king james version bible). 6. glenn hinson focuses not on "gospel music, per se, but rather the ideational and performative contexts in which such music occurs" (1989:6). 54 current musicology 7. see ward (1997:13-21) for an extensive review of research conducted within the past thirty years on mrican american religious music. 8. i have chosen the term "black american," rather than "mrican american," as a means of including both u.s. and west indian-born blacks at emmanuel temple. as an "mrican american," my status as a cultural "insider" at emmanuel temple is problematic, but both mrican americans and west indians self­ identify as "black" in relation to the larger society. moreover, many of the west indians have lived in the u.s. for twenty years or more. while in many cases west indian saints have held on to the styles of musical worship they learned during childhood, some west indians have also stated that they are, for the most part, "americanized. " 9. one of the most salient issues in the history of ethnomusicology has been defining the discipline's proper object of study. to what extent is musical sound the object of analysis? does it suffice to say that ethnomusicology is the study of musical sound in relation to its cultural context (netd 1983:131-43)? or perhaps the object of study should be musical experience-the processes of music participa­ tion. some scholars have found temporary relief from this dilemma by producing what harris berger labels "text-context" sandwiches (1999:4). such approaches in­ clude both ethnographic description of a music-culture and musical transcription and analysis, but fail to illuminate adequately the dynamic relation between musi­ cal sound and the experience of individual participants. others have called for a much-needed recognition of the neglected participatory, performative, and processual aspects of musical sound production (keil and feld 1994). neverthe­ less, the question of what properly defines the ethnomusicological object of study is far from resolved. 10. rice (1994), friedson (1996), and titon (1988, 1997) adopt phenomeno­ logical methodologies as a means of getting to the heart of bulgarian music per­ formance, timbuku musical healing in malawi, and appalachian baptist church services, respectively. for these writers, doing phenomenology is not simply a mat­ ter of describing how people experience musical sound or even writing reflexive ethnography. they do accomplish this, but they also deploy the phenomenologi­ cal method as a means of uncovering a "world" (in the heideggerian sense) in which musical sound is existentially constitutive of a larger network of social rela­ tions that fundamentally shapes those who actively partake in it. 11. the musicological studies of alfred schutz (1964) and thomas clifton (1983), which were largely indebted to the phenomenology of edmund husserl, helped represent a turn away from the printed score to a focus on the ways in which music is structured in consciousness when people make music together. alfred schutz speaks of "making music together" via a "mutual tuning-in relation­ ship," but neglects the impact of cultural context on the ways in which music is performed, perceived, and composed. he thus ascribes a universal quality to music-making processes that are merely specific to his own (western) culture. 12. for phenomenologically-minded ethnomusicologists, "being-in-the-world" involves an interactive fieldwork methodology whereby the researcher becomes immersed in the "world" (sociocultural context) of a group of people. through subjective experience of how musical activity relates to this particular cultural melvin l. butler 55 world, the researcher strives not so much to present a completely objective, unbi­ ased, and therefore authoritative account of, say, "bulgarian" musical experience (rice 1994), as though this were possible. rather, what gets described amounts to the "intersubjective reality" that emerges dialogically between the ethnomusi­ cologist and the study object. in some ways, rice's phenomenological method resembles my own when he states that certainly personal experience is central to this book's narrative, not simply to establish the "i was there" of traditional ethnography, but as the place where understanding begins and in some sense remains located. however, i am not ... content with a complete personalization of research, but seek un­ derstanding "in hermeneutic terms as a dialectic of experience and interpre­ tation" (clifford 1988:34). in this dialectic, clifford's "unruly experience" is transformed into a "text" through a process by which "unwritten behavior, speech, beliefs, oral tradition, and ritual come to be marked as a corpus, a potentially meaningful ensemble separated out from an immediate discur­ sive or performative situation." ... the tactic of locating interpretation in the interaction between researcher and his "text" authorizes statements of meaning that are not limited to those given by so-called informants and yet have a provisional, nonexclusive claim to truth. (1994: 11-12) 13. in his discussion of "primary" and "secondary" discourses, stephen barrett (1997) draws on the work of james paul gee (1990). religious students, barrett claims, are often presented with "a seeming either-or-edness," when "discourses are construed or construe themselves as mutually exclusive" (barrett 1997:26). while barrett strives to emphasize the existing continuities between academic and religious discourses, he notes that an individual's primary discourse communities-for instance, those of home, neighborhood, and, for some, church, mosque or temple-may be at odds with her or his secondary discourse communities, those of school, workplace, loan office, local government, among innumerable others. and it's not as if these discourse communities stand on equal footing. (24) 14. hufford (l982a, 1982b, 1983), whom hinson cites (2000:374), provides an in-depth discussion of strategies of disbelief. 15. see, for example, exodus 3:7-18, i peter 2:9-11, psalms 39:12, hebrews 11:8-16, and jeremiah 29:1-10, king james version bible. 16. foner (1987) provides a comprehensive historical account of west indian migration to the united states: west indians are not newcomers to american shores. about 2 percent (or one million) of the aliens who entered the united states between 1830 and 1970 were west indian (bryce-laporte, r. s., "black immigrants: the experience of invisibility and inequality," journal of black studies, (1) 3:29-56. sept. (1972).) a substantial part of this immigration occurred early in this century so that by the 1920s approximately one-fourth of the black population of harlem was west indian (sowell, t. essays and data on american ethnic groups. the urban institute: washington, d.c. (1978)). the 1924 immigration act limited west indian immigration, however, and even more serious cutbacks were effected by the 1952 mccarran-walter act. nevertheless, mass emigration to the 56 current musicology united states was again possible after the passage of the 1965 immigration legislation, and the number of west indian immigrants more than tripled from fiscal year 1966 to 1967 (dominguez, v. from neighbor to stranger: the dilemma of caribbean peoples in the united states. new haven: yale university, antilles research program, occasional papers no.5 (1975).) between 1967 and 1971 about 127,000 west indian immigrants legally emigrated to the united states (palmer, r. w., "a decade of west indian migration to the united states, 1962-1972: an economic analysis," social and economic studies, 23:571-588. (1974). it is impossible to say how many west indians are united states residents today because so many are not legally registered. nor are published figures available on the presumably rather sizeable num­ ber of second generation west indians. 17. in september 1999, the church purchased a drum kit and an electronic keyboard, both of which have added a more contemporary sound to emmanuel temple's musical activity. 18. i have yet to find a recording of the song "don't try to tell me that god is dead" or hear the song performed in a jamaican church in order to hear how clapping is done (if at all). however, recently, after a sunday evening service, a group of three west indian members of emmanuel temple (two jamaicans and one st. lucian) sang the song for me. they did not clap while doing so, but their body movements suggested rhythmic stresses coinciding not with beats two and four, but with the accents of the melody. 19. the phrase "spontaneity of the spirit" is taken from mother betty j. roberts of calvary christian church of the apostolic faith, charlotte, north carolina. this term succinctly describes the spiritual atmosphere sought by most pentecostals in worship, as well as the necessary attitude of submission to the will of the holy spirit, which is crucial to the success of any worship experience. 20. even at emmanuel temple, it would be a gross oversimplication and exag­ geration to say that mrican americans prefer "one-liners" and west indians prefer versed hymns. depending on the precise moment within the worship service, the prevailing spiritual atmosphere, and one's personal disposition during worship, a member of either song type may be desired. because one-liners and versed hymns may be sung in different ways, it is probably safer to say that musical style, rather than genre, can be associated with mrican american or west indian status. 21. burnim's defense of gospel music is worth noting. she asserts that "gospel music springs from a concrete conceptual base. it is not, as many in the past have contended, the mere feeble attempt by the "untrained" and "unlearned" to ex­ press themselves by whatever haphazard means possible. the principles at the foundation of gospel music form the cornerstone of all aspects of black culture" (1985:160). references allen, ray. 1987. singing in the spirit: an ethnography of gospel performance in new york city's african-american church community. ph.d. diss., university of pennsylvania. melvin l. butler 57 ---. 1991. singing in the spirit: african-american sacred quartets in new york city. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. anderson, benedict. 1991. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso-new left books. austin-broos, diane j. 1997. jamaica genesis: religion and the politics of moral orders. chicago: university of chicago press. averill, gage. 1994. "se kreyol nou ye/we're creole": musical discourse in haitian identities. in music and black ethnicity: the caribbean and south america, edited by gerard h. behague, 157-85. new brunswick: university of miami north-south center. barrett, stephen r. 1997. this is gonna hurt like hell: a pentecostal student enters the academy. ph.d. diss., university of new hampshire. barz, gregory f., and timothy j. cooley, eds. 1997. shadows in the field: new perspectives for fieldwork in ethnomusicology. new york: oxford university press. berger, harris m. 1999. metal, rock, and jazz: perception and the phenomenology of musicalexperience. hanover, n.h.: wesleyan university press. boyer, horace clarence. 1973. an analysis of black church music with examples drawn from services in rochester, new york. ph.d. diss., eastman school of music, university of rochester. boyer, horace clarence, and lloyd yearwood. 1995. how sweet the sound: the golden age of gospel. washington, d.c.: elliot and clark. bryce-laporte, roy simon. 1972. black immigrants: the experience of invisibility and inequality. journal of black studies 1: 29-56. ---. 1987. new york city and the new caribbean immigration: a contextual statement. in caribbean life in new york city: sociocultural dimensions, edited by constance r. sutton and elsa m. chaney, 54-73. new york: center for migration studies of new york. burnim, mellonee v. 1980. the black gospel music tradition: symbol of ethnicity. ph.d. diss., indiana university. ---. 1985. the black gospel music tradition: a complex of ideology, aesthetic, and behavior. in more than dancing: essays on afro-american music and musicians, edited by irene v.jackson, 147-67. london: greenwood press. chaney, elsa m. 1987. the context of caribbean migration. in caribbean life in new york city: sociocultural dimensions, edited by constance r. sutton and elsa m. chaney, 3-14. new york: center for migration studies of new york. clifford, james. 1988. the predicament of culture: twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art. cambridge: harvard university press. clifford, james, and george e. marcus. 1986. writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. berkeley: university of california press. clifton, thomas. 1976. music as constituted object. music and man 2: 73-98. ---. 1983. music as heard: a study in applied phenomenology. new haven: yale university press. conway, dennis, and nathan bigby. 1987. where caribbean peoples live in new york city. in caribbean life in new york city: sociocultural dimensions, edited by constance r. sutton and elsa m. chaney, 74-83. new york: center for migration studies of new york. 58 current musicology conway, frederick james. 1978. pentecostalism in the context of haitian religion and health practice. ph.d. diss., american university. dargan, william thomas. 1983. congregational gospel songs in a black holiness church: a musical and textual analysis. ph.d. diss., wesleyan university. davis, gerald l. 1985. i got the word in me and i can sing it, you know. phila­ delphia: university of pennsylvania press. djedje, jacqueline. 1983. an experience of black identity: the use of gospel music in an l.a. catholic church. western journal of black studies 7: 148-60. dominguez, virginia. 1975. from neighbor to stranger: the dilemma of caribbean peoples in the united states. antilles research program, occasional papers 5. new haven: yale university press. ferrara, lawrence. 1991. philosophy and the analysis of music: bridges to musical sound, form, and reference. reston, virg.: excelsior. foner, nancy. 1987. west indians in new york city and london: a comparative analysis. in caribbean life in new york city: sociocultural dimensions, edited by constance r. sutton and elsa m. chaney, 117-30. new york: center for migration studies of new york. frazier, e. franklin. 1964. the negro church in america. new york: schocken books. frey, sylvia r., and betty wood. 1998. come shouting to zion: african american protestantism in the american south and british caribbean to 1830. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. friedson, steven. 1996. dancing prophets: musical experience in tumbuka healing. chicago: university of chicago press. gee, james paul. 1990. individuals, acts, and discourses: humans in the act of making and being made by their discourses. in social linguistics and literacies: ideology in discourses, 164-93. new york: falmer press. harris, michael w. 1992. the rise of gospel blues: the music of thomas andrew dorsey in the urban church. new york: oxford university press. heidegger, martin. [1926] 1962. being and time. translated by john macquarrie and edward robinson. new york: harper. herndon, marcia. 1993. insiders, outsiders: knowing our limits, limiting our knowing. world of music 35: 63-80. hinson, glenn douglas. 1989. 'li%en the words roll and the fire flows: spirit, style and experience in african-american gospel performance. ph.d. diss., university of pennsylvania. ---. 2000. fire in my bones: transcendence and the holy spirit in african american gospel. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. hollenweger, walter j. 1997. pentecostalism: origins and developments worldwide. peabody, mass.: hendricks. hopkin, john barton. 1978. music in the jamaican pentecostal churches. jamaica journa1l2: 23-40. hufford, david j. 1982a. the terror that comes in the night: an experience-centered study of supernatural assault traditions. philadelphia: university of pennsyl­ vania press. ---. 1982b. traditions of disbelief. new york folklore quarterly 8: 47-55. melvin l. butler 59 1983. the supernatural and the sociology of knowledge: explaining academic belief. new york folklore quarterly 9: 21-3l. james, allison, jenny hockey, and andrew dawson, eds. 1997. after writing culture: epistemology and praxis in contemporary anthropology. a.s.a. monographs 34. london: routledge. johnson, ray. 1999. interview with author. brooklyn, n.y., april 4. keil, charles, and steven feld, eds. 1994. music grooves: essays and dialogues. chicago: university of chicago press. latta,judi moore. 2000. troubling the water: sacred song in sacred space. paper presented at the annual meeting of the middle atlantic chapter of the society for ethnomusicology, new york, march 25. lincoln, c. eric. 1974. black religion and the black church: mode, mood and music humanizing the social order. in the black experience in religion, edited by c. eric lincoln, 1-3. new york: anchor press. marcus, george e., and michael m.j. fischer. 1986. anthropology as cultural critique: an experimental moment in the human sciences. chicago: university of chicago press. marks, morton. 1982. "you can't sing unless you're saved": reliving the call in gospel music. in african religious groups and beliefs: papers in honor of william r. bascom, edited by simon ottenberg, 305-31. meerut, india: archana. mcintyre, paul. 1976. black pentecostal music in windsor. national museum of man mercury series 15. ottawa: national museums of canada. nettl, bruno. 1983. the study of ethnomusicology: twenty-nine issues and concepts. urbana: university of illinois press. palmer, ransford. 1974. a decade of west indian migration to the united states, 1962-1972: an economic analysis. social and economic studies 23: 571-88. rice, timothy. 1994. may it fill your soul: experiencing bulgarian music. chicago: university of chicago press. ---. 1997. toward a mediation of field methods and field experience in ethnomusicology. in shadows in the field: new perspectives for fieldwork in ethno­ musicology, edited by gregory f. barz and timothy j. cooley, 101-20. oxford: oxford university press. ricoeur, paul. 1981. hermeneutics and the human sciences: essays on language, action and interpretation. translated and edited by john b. thompson. cambridge: cambridge university press. reinholdsson, peter. 1998. making music together: an interactionist perspective on small­ group performance injazz. uppsala, sweden: acta universitatis upsaliensis studia. rosaldo, renato. 1993. culture and truth: the remaking of social analysis. boston: beacon press. rouget, gilbert. 1985. music and trance: a theory of the relations between music and possession. chicago: university of chicago press. sanders, cheryl j. 1996. saints in exile: the holiness-pentecostal experience in african american religion and culture. new york: oxford university press. schutz, alfred. 1964. making music together: a study in social relationship. in collected papers. vol. 2, studies in social theory, edited by a. brodersen, 159-78. the hague: martinus nijhoff. 60 current musicology seals, tommy l. 1999. interview with author. brooklyn, n.y., april 4. sowell, thomas. 1978. essays and data on american ethnic groups. washington, d.c.: urban institute. stone, sara margaret. 1985. song composition, transmission, and performance practice in an urban black denomination, the church of god and saints of christ. ph.d. diss., kent state university. sutton, constance r. 1987. the caribbeanization of new york city and the emergence of a transnational socio-cultural system. in caribbean life in new york city: sociocultural dimensions, edited by constance r sutton and elsa m. chaney, 15-30. new york: center for migration studies of new york. sutton, constance r, and susan makiesky-barrow. 1987. migration and west indian racial ethnic consciousness. in caribbean life in new york city: socio­ cultural dimensions, edited by constance r. sutton and elsa m. chaney, 92-116. new york: center for migration studies of new york. tedlock, barbara. 1991. from participant observation to the observation of participation: the emergence of narrative ethnography. journal of anthro­ pological research 47: 69-94. titon, jeff todd. 1988. powerhouse for god: speech, chant, and song in an appalachian baptist church. austin: university of texas press. ---. 1997. knowing fieldwork. in shadows in the field: new perspectives for fieldwork in ethnomusicology, edited by gregory f. barz and timothy]. cooley, 87-100. oxford: oxford university press. toulis, nicole rodriguez. 1997. believing identity: pentecostalism and the mediation of jamaican ethnicity and gender in england. oxford: berg-oxford international publishers. turner, victor w., and edward m. bruner, eds. 1986. the anthropology of experience. urbana: university of illinois press. ward, larry fred. 1997. filled with the spirit: the musical life of an apostolic pentecostal church in champaign-urbana, illinois. ph.d. diss., university of illinois at urbana-champaign. williams, melvin d. 1974. community in a black pentecostal church. pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press. williamsjones, pearl. 1975. afro-american gospel music: a crystallization of the black aesthetic. ethnomusicology 19: 373-85. current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 141 ulysses kay archive: columbia university rare book and manuscript library the following brief essay by jennifer b. lee, curator at columbia’s rare book and manuscript library, contains biographic information on african– american composer ulysses kay, as well as a brief guide to his recently acquired collection in rbml. african–american composer ulysses kay (1917–1995) wrote more than one hundred forty compositions in a wide range of forms—five operas, over twenty large orchestral works, more than thirty choral compositions, fifteen chamber works, a ballet, and numerous other compositions for voice, solo instruments, film, and television.1 born in tucson, arizona to a musical family, kay was encouraged by both his mother and her brother, joe “king” oliver, to study piano, violin and saxophone. he entered the university of arizona in 1934, receiving the bachelor of music in 1938. for the next two years he studied composition at the eastman school of music, university of rochester, with bernard rogers and howard hanson, and received the masters in music in 1940. from 1941 to 1942 he studied with paul hindemith at tanglewood and at yale university. compositions from this period include the “sinfonietta for orchestra,” the ballet “danse calinda,” and “three fanfares for four trumpets.” during world war ii, kay served in the u. s. navy, playing with and arranging for the navy band, stationed at quonset point, rhode island. his most prominent composition from this period is “of new horizons” for concert band. commissioned by thor johnson and performed by the new york philharmonic, its premier took place in lewisohn stadium on july 29, 1944. upon discharge from the navy, kay received the alice m. ditson fellowship for creative work at columbia university, where he studied with otto luening from 1946 to 1947. during the summers, he was a resident at the yaddo festival in saratoga springs, new york, where he would return six times, later joined by wife barbara, through 1971. major works from this period include: “danse calinda suite;” “the rope” for solo dancer and piano; “concerto for orchestra;” and the film music for “the quiet one,” a documentary film about donald thompson, then ten years old, by janice loeb, sidney meyers, and helen levitt, with commentary by james agee and additional photography by richard bagley. current musicology 142 many honors and scholarships followed, including a fulbright scholarship, grants from the guggenheim foundation and the national institute of arts and letters, and a julius rosenwald fellowship. from 1949 to 1952, kay received two “prix de rome” awards that allowed him to travel and study in italy. the first african–american to receive the prize, it gave him residence in the american academy in rome, along with his new bride, barbara harrison of chicago, whom he had married on august 20, 1949. compositions from this period include: a piano quintet, a string quartet, a brass quartet, “sinfonia in e” for orchestra, and “song of ahab,” a cantata for baritone and ten instruments. returning to new york, barbara taught music in manhattan, and ulysses accepted a position with broadcast music, inc. (bmi) that would last from 1953 until 1968. turning down several teaching positions, he obtained a job that gave him a regular schedule, allowing him to compose as much as possible. compositions include: “a lincoln letter,” an a cappella work for mixed chorus and bass soloist; “six dances for string orchestra;” “fantasy variations for orchestra;” and two operas, “the boor,” and “the juggler of our lady.” in 1958, kay was a member of the first delegation of composers to the soviet union, a part of the u.s. state department’s cultural, educational and technical exchange agreement. the others in his group were roy harris, peter mennin, and roger sessions. during the month–long trip, kay appreciated the interest in jazz expressed by russian composers and he played them recordings of the music of miles davis, duke ellington, thelonious monk, louis armstrong, and johnny richards, among others. he also attended performances of his own compositions, those of his fellow delegates, and the works of russian composers. upon his return, hi–fi review published his account of the trip entitled “thirty days in musical russia.”2 over the decade from 1958 to 1968, kay received a large number of commissions, writing a total of forty–one compositions. these included music for the film “new york: city of magic;” “phoebus, arise,” a cantata for soprano and bass soli, mixed chorus and orchestra; “forever free,” for band; “markings,” for orchestra, written in memory of dag hammarskjöld; “aulos,” for solo flute, string orchestra, two horns and percussion; and “choral triptych,” a work using biblical texts, written for mixed chorus and string orchestra. other vocal works composed during this period include kay’s settings of texts by william blake, emily dickinson, paul laurence dunbar, stephen crane, and walt whitman. barbara kay was no less busy during these years. she participated in the mississippi freedom rides during the summer of 1961. arrested in jackson, she was held in three jails including the parchman penitentiary for a total of about 60 days, after receiving a six–month sentence for disturbing the peace. jennifer b. lee 143 william faulkner once called parchman “destination doom.” returning home, she participated in the first sit–in in the north, when englewood residents took over city hall to protest racial segregation in the schools in 1962. again arrested, she recalled that the only time that she was shackled was while being transported from the englewood jail to the county jail in hackensack, new jersey, where she was held for two weeks. during the boycott of the englewood, new jersey schools, she held a freedom school in the basement of the kay home. in 1966, she joined james meredith’s “march against fear” in mississippi. later she continued to be active in the new jersey chapter of the congress of racial equality. she recorded many of the details of her civil rights work in interviews conducted in 1979 by the columbia university oral history office.3 in 1968, at the age of 51, kay left bmi to join the faculty of herbert h. lehman college, city university of new york, as professor of music, where he taught theory and composition until his retirement in 1988. during his twenty years of teaching, he produced three more operas, “the capitoline venus,” “jubilee,” and “frederick douglass.” other works from this period include: “theater set,” for orchestra; “five portraits,” for violin and piano, commissioned by the mckim fund of the library of congress and premiered in 1974 by ruggiero ricci, violin, and leon pommers, piano; “scherzi musicali,” for chamber orchestra; “the western paradise,” for narrator and orchestra; “jersey hours,” for voice and three harps; “tromba,” for trumpet and piano; “chariots,” for orchestra; “festival psalms,” for solo baritone and mixed chorus; and “visions,” written to commemorate the 80th anniversary of william grant still’s birth. it should be noted that kay conducted many of the premiers and subsequent performance of his own works, including the suite from “the quiet one,” premiered by new york’s little symphony at town hall in 1948, and “chariots,” premiered by the philadelphia orchestra at saratoga in 1979. ulysses kay died of parkinson’s disease in 1995 at the age of 78. his final commission, unfulfilled, was to compose a work for the 150th anniversary of the new york philharmonic in 1992. barbara kay died in 1997 at the age of 71. although health and family obligations resulted in mrs. kay becoming less publicly active in her pursuit of civil rights by the mid–1970s, she continued to inspire others, and in her columbia university oral history interview she said: “fear is the first thing that you’re going to have to confront. and what i have learned to do from this first freedom ride is to confront anything that gives me any problem, either my ideas or thinking about them–confront them. never push them away in my mind. never try to forget them. and always speak up. the more i’m afraid, the more i’ll speak up. and then after you do that, you lose the fear.”4 current musicology 144 ulysses kay collection–rare book and manuscript library; columbia university in 2009, the kay family chose columbia’s rare book and manuscript library as the repository of their parents’ archive. through the columbia university libraries’ graduate student internship program in primary sources, columbia gradute student in musicology, elliot s. cairns, completed the organization and housing of the musical scores and related materials for use by researchers. the three series available at this time are: series i: diaries; series ii: music by kay; and series iii: programs.5 still in process are the correspondence and business records kept by barbara and ulysses kay. the bulk of the seventy–nine boxes of material processed to date is in series ii, arranged chronologically by date of composition as much as possible. this series includes kay’s sketches, holograph scores and published scores, augmented by other related materials such as texts and libretti used in his vocal compositions, pertinent correspondence, and notes. in some instances, kay’s notes include the basic structure of a work. for “five portraits,” this includes his 12–tone matrix. for the opera “the juggler of our lady,” there is his “sequential analysis,” and for the opera “frederick douglass” his notes regarding “centers” (i.e. key areas). examples of related correspondence include that with vladimir ussachevsky, who wrote the libretto for kay’s one–act opera “the boor” (1955), donald dorr, his librettist for four of his vocal and opera works, and with john solum, the flutist for whom kay wrote “aulos” (1967). the works in the archive are comprehensive with a few exceptions. for instance, only kay’s preliminary sketches and notes for his “concerto for orchestra” (1948) are present. for his “aulos” for flute and chamber ensemble, and for his opera “jubilee,” full sketches are present but not his holograph full scores. the location of some of the missing material is known. for instance, the commission from the mckim fund for “five portraits” for violin and piano, written in 1971–72 and premiered in 1974, stipulated that the original manuscript be given to the library of congress.6 a photocopy of the holograph full scores, with markings, is in the rbml kay papers. unpublished compositions in the archive include many of his early works, such as his “concerto for oboe and orchestra,” given its premier by robert sprenkle with the rochester civic orchestra in 1940, howard hanson conducting; “harlem children’s suite” for school orchestra (1973); and a late work, “two impromptus for piano” (1986). series ii also includes kay’s transcription of “the waves,” (1978) with words and music by hillary kay. the youngest of their three daughters, hillary kay is a composer who performs her own music with kate freeman as wildsang. jennifer b. lee 145 the ongoing work of processing the correspondence and business papers of barbara and ulysses kay has turned up further important material, such as an inscribed copy of langston hughes’ libretto “soul gone home.” other ongoing work includes a kay online exhibition featuring images of his sketches and scores, supporting documents, programs, photographs, audio excerpts of his works, and audio interviews with both barbara and ulysses kay. we encourage performers and conductors to reexamine kay’s large and wide–ranging output for new repertoire and we welcome all researchers to make use of this important new collection. as stated by constance tibbs hobson and deborra a. richardson in ulysses kay: a bio–bibliography (1994): “kay’s contribution to america’s cultural life and to its contemporary music scene is outstanding. his distinguished career, reflecting personal industry, discipline, and will, sets an encouraging, honorable, and inspiring example for all who follow. his message to aspiring composers strongly advocates continued study and growth in order to better express one’s vision and individuality.”7 jennifer b. lee curator, performing arts collections rare book & manuscript library columbia university notes 1. for this information and much of what follows, i am indebted to constance tibbs hobson and deborra a. richardson for their indispensable ulysses kay, a bio–bibliography, westport, ct and london: greenwood press, [1994]. 2. ulysses kay, “thirty days in musical russia,” hi–fi review, 2 (february 1959): 35–38, 53. kay’s daily account records his impressions of concerts, meetings with composers and musicians, social gatherings, and their tours through the arts and political centers of the soviet union. 3. the link to the record for barbara kay’s oral history transcript is available through: http://oralhistoryportal.cul.columbia.edu/document.php?id=ldpd_4076977 4. barbara kay, “the reminiscences of barbara kay,” oral history research office, columbia university, 1980, pp. 12–13. 5. the link to the ulysses kay finding aid is: http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc–rb/ldpd_7341105/summary 6. the link to the finding aid for the mckim collection at the library of congress is: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/music/eadxmlmusic/eadpdfmusic/mu2005.wp.0053.pdf 7. hobson and richardson, p. 25. quoting david n. baker, lida m. belt, and herman c. hudson, the black composer speaks, metuchen, n.j.: scarecrow press, 1978, p. 142. joanna demers. 2010. listening through the noise: the aesthetics of experimental electronic music. oxford l uk: oxford university press. nick collins and julio d/escrivan. 2007. the cambridge companion to electronic music. cambridgel uk: cambridge university press. reviewed by marilou polymeropoulou "electronic music is the mainstream,"begin nick collins and julio d'escrivan in the cambridge companion to electronic music (cctem), referring to the impact of electronic music and technology on twentiethand twenty-first century music making (1). the editors of the volume synthesize a history of electronic music based on perspectives by composers and scholars from a variety of disciplines, including communication studies, musicology, visual arts, music technology, psychology of music, and computer science. "in some quarters of academia, aesthetics is a dirty word;' asserts demers. meanwhile, in listening through the noise, joanna demers presents an aesthetic theory of experimental electronic music accompanied by audio examples which can be found online at the oxford university press website. both books define electronic music as organized sounds generated by electronic circuits, which may be part of musical instruments, computers, or any electronic equipment (collins and d'escrivan 256; demers 5). the cctem serves as a more historically-focused account-an introduction to the field that mainly addresses student readers-while listening through the noise provides a philosophical approach that requires some background knowledge in aesthetic theory, as well as familiarity with history and sound of the music itself. the cambridge companion to electronic music primarily serves three purposes: a) delivering a concise but not conventional history of electronic music; b) bridging the rivalry between electro acoustic and electronica music, which are classified as "academic serious art" and "pop" music, respectively, and c) envisaging a cultural perspective by including artists' thoughts on electronic music. the volume is divided into three sections, and while each maintains a specific interest in history, practices, and foundations of electronic music, the reader will find much overlap between them. some of the chapters analyze specific themes, such live performances (chapter three), algorithmic composition (chapter six), live audiovisuals (chapter seven), and the psychology of electronic music (chapter twelve); others present current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) co 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 105 106 current musicology an overview of significant moments in electronic music history. in chapter one, andrew hugill introduces the origins of electronic music as a result of creative imagination, whilst ge wang, in chapter four, writes a history of programming and music, from the analog to the digital age, and early computer languages (e.g., music, csound, max/msp, supercollider, chuck, and custom computer programs). one of the most significant arguments that the editors underline is the changes in music making caused by the impact of other media technologies on music; they find that contemporary artists incorporate a variety of compositional techniques as a result of the influence, exhibiting productive crossovers between media and arts. d'escrivan discusses this argument extensively in chapter nine, on the relationship of electronic music and the moving image (e.g., films, tv, and video games). the cctem contains a strong methodological connection to demers's monograph. electronic music has been divided into two aesthetic categories, one referring to academic serious art, and the other-usually regarded as the lesser, "low art" one-to popular music. these quite distinct categories, supported by "ivory-tower professors who spout theories about the good and the beautiful without having had much contact with either" (demers 2010: 1), reflected an approach shared in the past by the majority of the avant-garde artists, once characterized as elitist. collins and d'escrivan, however, attempt to "reconcile the electroacoustic and electronica worlds" (4), showing that there has been a significant change, primarily attributed to the development of commodified and affordable music technologies (3). the cctem represents electronic music as a whole, rather than from a "high art" perspective, as well as the impact of electronic technology through analyses of its practical uses-for example, on dj culture (50) or on popular music making (64, 122), but also through the cited statements of artists from different musical traditions (72-86, 185-199). in this fashion, margaret schedel, in chapter two, based on interviews with electro acoustic musicians of different musical and social backgrounds (24), explores the relationship between electronic music and the studio-especially the home studio-as an important place to compose, listen, reproduce, reflect, communicate, perform, and socialize. schedel also underlines an interesting point made by j. anthony allen, suggesting that young composers who think positively about electronica will have the power to change the restrictive definition of academic electronic music (31). in chapter three, nicolas collins (the american composer, not the editor of the volume) explores the forms of live electronic music by analyzing examples (e.g., john cage's work, tape music, computer music, and also the latest stream in hardware hacking and circuit bending) as a means of music making. marilou polymeropoulo the cctem is successful at incorporating artists' statements into the main text, rather than as an appendix, which serves to underline the im­ portance of their discourse and experiences to electronic music, presenting it as a current, contemporary genre with a concrete historical background. laurie spiegel, yasunao tone, pauline oliveros, mira calix, max matthews, bubblyfish, barry truax, karlheinz stockhausen, and george lewis are a few of the artists whose voices, in the form of statements, provide critical insight into electronic music here. also, the cctem compiles a chronology of electronic music dating from pythagoras to "lara croft: tomb raider legend," a 2006 video game that featured adaptive audio techniques. collins and d'escrivan's point is to write a history of electronic music where a sense of aesthetics is implied but not overtly discussed; demers provides the opposite approach, as her book structures an aesthetic theory by referencing the history of electronic music. as a musicologist who has previously written on sampling in hip-hop (2002) and the impact of intel­ lectual property law on musical creativity (2006), demers focuses her present work on experimental electronic music making. she attempts to bridge the methodological gap between the various disciplinary perspectives that have been used to analyze electronic music, and with all the complexity that such a cross-disciplinary monograph holds, she makes a crucial and favorable step. listening through the noise is also divided into three parts "according to three discernible conceptions of the meaningfulness of sound: sign, object, and situation" (13). the author assumes a general familiarity with semiotics, hermeneutics, and aesthetics, and a reader without these backgrounds would find little sense in the organization of her chapters, or how they connect, or in the analogies used to answer the primary questions. the book presents case studies of specific genres: post-schaefferian electro acoustic music ( chapter one); electronica ( chapter two); micro sound ( chapter three); drone music, dub techno, and noise (chapter four); ambient, soundscape, and field recordings (chapter five). chapter six concludes with a general discussion on genre, experimentalism and the musical frame. influenced by philosophical approaches to music by scholars such as scruton (1997), danto (1997), and kivy (2002), demers succeeds in delivering an aesthetic history of electronic music that addresses the ways composers perceive electronic music making. by citing artists' statements in her narrative, as did collins and d'escrivan, she categorizes her genre case studies upon a variety of topics, such as the theories of listening and the phenomenological approach of music (post-schaefferian music [21]), but also the methods of sound construction in electronica and electro acoustic music (48). 107 108 current musicology demers aims to understand electronic music as a whole by analyzing the plurality of discourses by artists, music critics, philosophy scholars, musicologists, and lay participants. at times, this dubious task requires more analysis. take chapter four, which focuses on the sublime in art as experi­ enced through noise (105-106). she looks at the analogy between bondage/ discipline and noise (in which she refers to merzbow's work) and the concept of noise as a form of pain by which one can achieve pleasure/catharsis. this connection could be further explained, as it is a strong argument related to the enjoyment of noise through embodiment of sounds. the strongest point of the book is demers's development of a theory of aesthetic listening, in which she argues that "listening to electronic music constitutes an act that is fundamentally different from how listeners have been used to hearing western art music for the previous five centuries" (15). this line of reasoning extends a statement that has been already made in cornelia fales's piece on the perception of space in ambient and techno musics in wired for sound (2005, not referenced by demers). she carefully articulates the discourse between high-art and mass-culture electronic music, rather than a monolithic, elitist approach that has been assumed by adornean lineage of aesthetic theories. furthermore, she provides a defini­ tion of experimental music that adopts an ethnomusicological perspective, defining experimental as, "anything that has departed significantly from norms of the time, but with the understanding that something experimental in 1985 could have inspired what was conventional by 1990" (7), underlining the need for genre definitions to be re-examined according to the norms of each era in which they are presented. in chapter six, demers introduces the idea of "metagenre," the category that is formed by "genre mash ups." according to demers, one genre actually incorporates multiple genres, (e.g., electronica includes techno, house, and other variations, [171]). one might have expected the writer to share some of fabian holt's observations from genre in popular music (2007), especially because the categorization of jazz and other american genres of popular music that holt analyzes seem as equally problematic as electronic music to define, but such connections are absent here. taken together, the listening through the noise and the cctem can be used to understand many different approaches, problems, questions, and aims regarding electronic music in a social, cultural, and historical context, while also addressing its standing point in music. separately, demers's book serves as a point for advancing the dialogue between music and philosophy, and the cctem as an important work for revealing the plurality of perspec­ tives on electronic music throughout its history. marilou polymeropoulo references danto, arthur. 1997. after the end of art: contemporary art and the pale of history. princeton, nj: princeton university press. demers, joanna. 2002. sampling as lineage in hip-hop. phd diss., princeton university, princeton, nj. demers, joanna. 2006. steal this music: how intellectual property law affects musical creativity. athens, ga: university of georgia press. holt, fabian. 2007. genre in popular music. chicago, il: the university of chicago press. fales, cornelia. 2005. "short circuiting perceptual systems: timbre in ambient and techno music" in wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic cultures. greene, paul d. and thomas porcello, eds. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. kivy, peter. 2002. introduction to a philosophy of music. new york: oxford university press. scruton, roger. 1997. the aesthetics of music. oxford, uk: oxford university press. 109 bethany klein. 2010. as heard on tv: popular music in advertising. farnham and surrey, england: ashgate. reviewed by heather pinson bethany klein's as heard on tv' popular music in advertising provides an introduction into the recent history of popular music as a marketing tool in television commercials and assembles a chronological history of the most well-known usages of popular music utilized in advertising campaigns. klein includes a series of case studies throughout this book, such as the beatles's "revolution," used by nike; iggy pop's lyrically salacious "lust for life;' used by royal caribbean cruise; and creedence clearwater revival's song "fortunate son," used in a wrangler's ad. as a media industries scholar at the institute of communications studies at the university of leeds, klein's focus is on the commercialization of popular music and its involvement in other media. as such, her main goal is to create a chronological history of the significant collaborations between musicians and corporate businesses and to provide insight into the decisions, reactions, and outcomes of popular music licensers and advertising industry representatives. framed in the rhetoric of market communication and media research, as heard on tvs broad scope makes it best suited for an introduction to intersections between the music industry, advertising, business practices, and popular culture. as heard on tv explores the relationships between music executives, musicians, and music business practices through various modes of com­ munication such as e-mails, written contracts, and verbal exchanges. for each commercial discussed, klein provides any written or verbal accounts stemming from the advertising agency's inquiry into the potential use of a band's song to the final acquisition of the music license. much of the author's information comes from newspapers, online magazines, magazines, industry journals, scholarly books, and interviews that klein conducted. many of these interviews were with music supervisors, musicians, advertising "creatives;' and licensing managers. these individuals serve as the basis for much of her insight into the business side of music making and is an examination of the frayed relationship between marketing executives, licensers, and the music supervisors who must create a business arrangement between the band and the product's brand name. while klein acknowledges that these interviews are not ethnographic in scope or nature, as have been studies of american culture such as tia denora's music in everyday life (2000), these interviews do offer a unique insight into the advertising industry. drawing from a range of resources that include newspaper editorials and her own interviews with musicians or music supervisors from advertiscurrent musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 195 196 current musicology ing agencies, klein gauges audience reactions to the music. she introduces reception theory as discussed by socio-musicologists simon frith, sound effects (1981) and music for pleasure: essays in the sociology of pop (1988), and leonard b. meyer, emotion and meaning in music (1956), who examine the mass appeal of popular music. while i commend the author's efforts to present the historical happenings as well as the documentation from various news sources on the specific commercials that include popular music, it seems that klein missed some opportunities to expand on the information presented from her almost thirty interviews. i wonder, for instance, what questions the author asked during their conversation, what commonalities, if any, were found in their answers, and what effect these commercials had on the person being interviewed. subjectivity involving discussions on taste, musical style, and business ethics are expected, and klein is well aware of this slippery slope. still, her presentation would gain greater significance with further analyses in semiotics, as a study in hermeneutics, that specifically analyze the meaning of the song interpreted by different viewers who see the commercials. perhaps further analyses of musical taste and demographics found in target audiences or the expansion of similar relationships of popular music possession such as political campaign ads, for example, would solidify the author's argument. or perhaps the author could have positioned each case study in a specific theoretical context that extrapolates the responses of select viewers to the material presented. regardless, klein hedges toward many directions in the areas of pre-existing music and advertising for future scholars to explore. this book is organized into seven short chapters. chapter 1, ''as heard on tv: the marriage of popular music and advertising," describes the in­ creasingly symbiotic relationship between popular music and the advertising industry by outlining specific television commercials that incorporate rock bands as background music or even as jingles for brand name products, such as the 1987 nike commercial that borrows the beatles's song "revolution," and the 2002 mcdonald's commercials featuring indie-rock group the shins's "new slang." the thesis is that the adoption of popular music into television commercials highlight, "one of the current battlegrounds on which the struggle between cultural and commercial interests takes place" (15). the battle lies in the attempt to establish a connection between com­ mercial and consumer through the aid of popular music, and this chapter succinctly outlines the cultivation of this connection as a seemingly success­ ful marketing tactic. the nike commercial is one of the most well-known examples because it was the first beatles recording to be licensed for use in a television commercial, and mcdonald's targets a hip, younger demographic by including newer music. heather pinson there is a distinct difference between exploitation and collaboration, and klein presents "the reasons why the use of popular music in advertising has become more common and the reasons why this partnership is problematic" (121). chapter 2, "selling revolution: the role of authorship in music licensing," acknowledges the differences between ownership of copyright and authorship, and the choice of copyright owners in making licensing decisions about music. musicians and advertising executives benefit from shared established guidelines, although the television audience and fans of the band often believe that the band has been taken advantage of by the larger, wealthier corporation. typically, "the gut reaction of the press and public, in defense of the musicians, reveals that music copyright law fails to reflect cultural intuition;' (36) illustrating that public appeal favors the creator instead of the licensor. however, klein acknowledges that entertainment law involving music authorship and intellectual property is lagging behind older laws that protect personal property or published copyright. she recounts examples, such as in the case of nike, who used "revolution" without the permission of the beatles, since the band members no longer owned the rights to the song. according to current united states legislation, license to use a musical piece is needed only from the copyright holder, not from the actual author or musician who wrote the song, unlike many european legal systems, for instance, where moral law marks control of some authors' rights for subsequent use of work as inalienable. klein remarks on the pressure felt by those in the corporate world to find the latest hip band that could potentially offer their sound as a unique ap­ proach to marketing a certain product. one of the impacts of commercially successful ads is that they create a strong reaction from the public as discussed in chapter 3, "commercial art: advertising as an artistic vehicle for music placement:' advertisers are often drawn to the chorus or the hook of the song that could best represent the message experienced in the commercial. by being "incredibly literal" (107) and choosing only the words of a song that reiterate the ad's message, advertisers truncate the various interpreta­ tions of a song to its chorus and then supplant one or two musical phrases to the advertising campaign. a hilarious and egregious example illustrates this type of use: "so it is that johnny cash's 'ring of fire' seemed to one ad creative a reasonable choice for pitching hemorrhoid-relief products;' only to be quickly rejected by the cash family (107). chapter 4, "'the new radio': music licensing as a response to industry woe," considers the role that radio plays in the growth of advertising. perhaps commercials are the "new radio," and klein postulates how music in the ad­ vertising industry may change our perception of pop music. although radio itself is not the subject of this chapter, the application of selling products 197 198 current musicology through music and media becomes a common theme. the fifth chapter, "in perfect harmony: popular music and cola advertising," focuses on a case study of the competition between coke-a-cola and pepsi advertising executives to use the biggest pop star to feature in their television commer­ cials. coke and pepsi have battled each other through a series of advertising campaigns featuring various musical pop stars and have effectively become significant players in the music industry. thomas frank, in the conquest of cool: business culture, counterculture, and the rise hip consumerism (1997), also covers the "cola wars" and track their revolutionary battle for recognition from films like forrest gump released in 1994 to choosing pop icons to promote products, as with britney spears and pepsi in 200l. chapter 6, "taming rebellion: advertising's control over meaning;' examines the betrayal felt by the public when the meaning of music is changed by its use in commercials. a song can go through various inter­ pretations whether it is heard through a recording, film, stage, or television commercial, and in so doing, "popular music also generates a collective response for listeners, whose personal investments in a song are intertwined with their relationship to other members of groups. though the goal of the music industry may be primarily commercial, this does not prevent groups from employing songs to mark identities, commemorate events, and observe relationships" (112). in royal caribbean cruise line's television commercial staged to iggy pop's "lust for life," a ten-second hook stretches the "lust" for heroin to a "desire" to be pampered while enjoying a cruise. "royal caribbean's use of 'lust for life' has struck some fans as similarly subversive ... , but for others, the use of a song about one thing to sell something else entirely seems irrational" (107). through these and other case studies, klein traces the development of the music industry's use of popular music in advertising which she argues "is a way to have music heard, but hardly the ideal way, giving to advertisers a tool for branding through the reinterpretation of songs" (136). in some commercials, the lyrics of a song are recontextualized to represent something other than their initial meaning as interpreted in the song. in 2001, wrangler used ccr's "fortunate son," a song that strongly and expertly critiques the social inequalities in the military draft system and which became a protest anthem during the vietnam war, in a patriotic televi­ sion commercial featuring their jeans in an american landscape of hay bales and farmland while the lyrics resound, "some folks are born made to wave the flag/ ooh, they're red, white and blue." the misinterpreted comparison angered many viewers, including singer john fogerty. it even inspired a short documentary called fortunate son (2003), directed by greg wilcox, whose mission was to explain the meaning of the lines excluded from the wrangler heather pinson commercial. klein describes how the meaning of the song is transformed from its original context to a new association with wrangler jeans: meaning may arise primarily from word choices in lyrics, instrumentaliza­ tion produced by the combination of sounds, the personal backgrounds, knowledge, and preferences that fans invest in the music they consume, or the shared socio-cultural experiences that develop for certain songs salient to specific cultural contexts. (l06) in this case, the strong association of the song with a contested moment in american politics and society was such that fans and the author alike arose against the attempted shift in meaning. wrangler halted television appear­ ances of the commercial once it was clear that fogerty did not approve. in the final chapter, "negotiating the future of popular music in advertising," klein uses media theory to examine questions about the direction of commercialism and provides insights on the growing tensions between corporations and the artists who create an advertising campaign. she asks: are the ad campaign creators themselves artists? what is the dis­ tinction between a commercial and a work of art? she points out that some advertising creators stand behind their commercials as art works similar to those of the musicians. books such as commodify your dissent: salvos from the baffler (1997) edited by thomas frank and matt weiland, as well as frank's subsequent book on the relationship between hipness and commercialism, the conquest of cool: business culture, counterculture, and the rise hip consumerism (1997), covers similar areas of consumerism, cultural speculation, political upheaval, and branding tactics. frank is of a generation preceding, and more critical of commercialism in commodify your dissent than klein is here, and he indicates that the corporate allegiance causes damage to the artistic merit of the song. another source to consider is music in advertising: commercial sounds in media communication and other settings edited by nicolai graakjrer and christian jantzen (2009), which is the first anthology of articles focusing entirely on music in various forms of advertisement and social engagements. driven by critical theory and an investigative inquiry into media research, this collection grapples with consumption as both a so­ cial interest and a theoretical one, which includes the structural formation of music in commercials, as found in certain aspects of musicology, to acoustic branding and sound identification, as found in threads of media theory. as heard on tv joins a growing literature on the relationship between popular music and consumer culture, but instead of the inherently skeptical attitude of the birmingham school scholars, klein, along with a new generation of 199 200 current musicology popular music and media scholars, takes commercialism as a de facto part of the experience of popular music in daily life and attempts to describe and contextualize the media effects on listeners and viewer. references denora, tia. 2000. music in everyday life. cambridge: cambridge university press. frank, thomas. 1997. the conquest of cool: business culture, counterculture, and the rise hip consumerism. chicago: university of chicago press. frank, thomas and matt weiland, eds. 1997. commodify your dissent: salvos from the baffler. new york, norton. frith, simon. 1981. sound effects: youth, leisure and the politics of rock 'n' roll. new york: pantheon. ___ 1988 music for pleasure: essays in the sociology of pop. cambridge: cambridge university press,. graakjao:r, nicolai and christian jantzen, eds. 2009. music in advertising: commercial sounds in media communication and other settings. aalborg: aalborg university press, meyer, leonard b. 1956. emotion and meaning in music. chicago: university of chicago press a message for peace or a tool for oppression? israeli jewish-arab duo achinoam nini and mira awad's representation of israel at eurovision 2009 nih belkind israel's contenders for the 2009 eurovision song contest (known as the esc or, as here, eurovision) were the israeli jewish-arab duo achinoam nini and mira awad. the chosen song was "there must be another way," a tri -lingual appeal for peace and reconciliation sung in hebrew, arabic, and english. the decision to nominate nini and awad as israel's representatives to eurovision was announced in early january, in the midst of a full-scale war israel launched on gaza and its inhabitants, which came in response to several years of rockets fired into israel from the hamas-led territory. given the timing and the high profile of the esc, an annual competition held among active member countries of the european broadcasting union (ebu), the duo's collaboration generated much public debate in israel and beyond. the debate highlighted the symbolic charge of the song and its performers, and it continued throughout the year, animated by the political situation, the duo's activities, and the media that closely followed the process leading to the may 2009 contest and its aftermath. this article will analyze the meanings given to the artistic collaboration of the two performers that were circulating in the public sphere to show how, in this war-torn region, cultural and political domains are intertwined such that wars are fought not only with guns and rockets but also within cultural spheres, and that both domains are constitutive of highly contested social constructions of ethnic and national affiliations. eurovision is a site in which the intersection of popular culture with national and international politics is especially visible, due to its country­ centered format, the voting processes, and the extent of mass mediation­ over 100 million viewers each year (haan, dijkstra, and dijkstra 2005). the voting process takes place at the national level first when the representative song is chosen, and later during the eurovision song contest, when each country votes for other countries' representative songs. since the late 1990s, the voting process at both stages typically combines popular votes counted in local telethons with votes cast by a panel of experts commonly associated with each country's broadcasting apparatus (cleridos and stengos 2006).1 songs must be newly written for the occasion, and the participatory nature current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology of the selection process serves to mobilize citizens to share in the creation of what benedict anderson calls the "physical realization of the imagined community" (1983:145). according to anderson, the moments in which songs are publicly shared to signify an event-for example, anthems sung on national holidays-create an experience of simultaneity in which people who are unknown to each other come together in a special kind of imagined community: the nation. what anderson is pointing to is that music provides one of the ways in which nationhood is culturally constructed. the partici­ patory nature of eurovision provides for similar moments of simultaneity, both when the public votes for the song and image that would represent the nation, and when it votes for other nation's songs. at the same time that eurovision is a participatory event, the eurovision voting process also leaves much of the control in the hands of government-affiliated institutions. in other words, what represents "the nation;' and also determines the relative value of cultural production of other nations, combines both popular vote and government control. this process highlights the important role cultural policy has in the creation of the imagined community, and in the delimitation of the cultural boundaries of this community with respect to other communities. miller and ylidice (2002) analyze cultural policy as a conflation of two registers: the aesthetic register and the anthropological register, which, when combined, provide for the training of citizens to share common values. the songs represented at eurovision provide the musical and lyrical content that is interpreted at the aesthetic register, while the context of national representation directed by government institutions inculculates nationalist sentiments among citizens in a manner deemed appropriate by such institutions. according to jacques attali (1985), music is both a channel for power and a form of entertainment. eurovision is a prime example of this: its country-centered format and voting processes have turned it into an international contest in which centralized power structures such as government broadcasting institutions mobilize music as a "tool for the creation or consolidation of a community, of a totality" (attali 1985:6). music in this context links power centers to subjects on several levels. the highly mediated environment and the commercial nature of the hype preceding the contest render eurovision a prominent economic institution. but as philip bohlman suggests, eurovision also sparks attachments that extend well beyond its economic function and "the events leading up to the final broadcast make it almost impossible to escape the allure of a nation symbolized through its music" (2004:3). what links power centers to subjects here is a commercial musical event that serves both as a market and as a social institution that reinforces the guided image of "the nation." nili belkind eurovision also provides an international forum in which nations can define their identity through the expression of local opinion about the cultural production of others, in an environment seemingly free of politi­ calor economic sanctioning; however, despite the autonomy given to the participating countries, the voting process tends to be influenced by cultural or historical alliances between nations (clerides and stengos 2006), which affects the voting public and jurists' aesthetic preferences. it is not only the country-centered voting process that provides an outlet for (inter) -national alignments. sometimes the representative songs themselves can highlight a nation's positioning vis-a-vis other nations. israeli-yemenite singer ofra haza's international career was launched during the 1983 eurovision when she was placed second with the song "chai" (alive), which became an inter­ national hit. that year eurovision was hosted in munich, germany, where a decade earlier israeli athletes were massacred at the munich olympiade. the song contains two lines that repeat: "israel is alive" and "i am still alive." bearing in mind that the newborn state of israel became the immediate home of many holocaust survivors following world war ii, the location and context in which the song was performed provided for a symbolic affirmation of the nation both in respect to the trajectory of israel's founding, and to the perceived contemporary threats to its existence. the importance of eurovision in the construction of nationhood within the international arena can also be deduced from the palestinian broadcasting corporation's (pbc) 2007 application to the ebu for active membership and participation in the 2008 eurovision, despite the fact that palestine is not yet recognized as an independent nation -state. cheun-fung wong quotes fadia daibes, the spokesperson for this campaign, who stated that pbe's purpose in aspiring to join eurovision is to "change the perception of palestinian identity and to present our rich culture ... to put palestine back on the map by showing that we have many stories to tell" (2009:280). beyond the political struggle for palestinian emancipation, the pbc is looking for international recognition of palestinian nationhood through its assertion of a palestinian cultural essence. both ofra haza's song and the pbe's spokesperson's statement show how a national imaginary-the meanings and significations derived from cultural practices and products that enable a community to imagine itself a nation (marcus and myers 1995:10)-is forged through and with an eye and ear tuned to other na­ tions. haza's song establishes the vitality of israeli citizenship through its affirmative performance on german soil, while the pbc seeks international recognition for the distinct cultural identity of palestinians as part of the palestinian nation-building project. 9 10 current musicology but while the structure of the eurovision process provides a means for participating countries to express and advance an imaginary that highlights national unity, israel's 2009 esc entry shows that in a fraught and highly charged domestic socio-political situation, it can also provide an opportunity for voices of dissent, and hence, contribute to the the fragmentation of the imagined monolithic nation. in its specific historical moment, against the backdrop of the war on gaza, israel's entry became a symbolic battleground for contested and conflicted national imaginaries and interests. in their representation of israel at eurovision, the artists were advancing the idea of a pluralistic israel that should and can include its arabic-speaking minorities as equally represented within the jewish state. israeli state authorities were promoting the pluralistic symbolism to counter israel's negative image in the larger world at a time when israel faced much international criticism. supporters of the palestinian struggle, both in israel and the occupied palestinian territories, interpreted the collaboration as undermining the palestinian struggle for national emancipation, and used the collaboration to keep the plight of the gazans and the struggle for palestinian self-deter­ mination alive in the public mind, in israel and abroad. the diverse positions and discourses surrounding israel's 2009 eurovision entry, analyzed below, show how this popular song contest became implicated in the politics of inter-ethnic warfare during an especially charged and violent period as a site of contesting social constructions of ethnic and national affiliations. on the politics of popular cultural production steven feld (1984) argues that the production and reception of music is an intersubjective process of reality construction. through this process, music comes to generate contradictory meanings for historically situated actors, meanings that are revealed through discourse about music. if music is a site in which relationships between ethnicity and nation can be differentially configured and highlighted by the participating actors, it can also become a locus of struggles for legitimacy or dominance for different groups (bohlman 2004; gilroy 1987,1993; hall 1991; lipsitz 1994; regev and seroussi 2004; stokes 1992, 1994). as martin stokes suggests, what is constructed through music often involves notions of difference and social boundaries, as well as the organization of hierarchies of moral and political order. it therefore also provides a means for social actors to negotiate and transform the hierarchies of place, ethnicity, or nation inscribed by dominant ideologies. in the context ofisrael and palestine, notions of "the popular" in music can apply to local versions of pop and rock genres, as well as to music associated with palestinian resistance movement that circulates through nili belkind alternative, non-mediated channels; classic israeli repertoire that coalesced into a hegemonic genre known as "songs of the land of israel" (shirei erets israel) in the first decades following the founding of the state and that musically, often derived its structure and modality from eastern-european folk music; and the repertoire of famous egyptian artists such as umm kulthum and muhammad abdul-wahab who had become household names all over the middle east during the golden years of the egyptian music and film industry, but are today considered "classical" arab artists. in this article i limit the discussion of popular music to internationally predominant mass-mediated genres of the past several decades such as pop and rock and their local adaptations. the process of adapting mass-mediated global popular music genres to local conceptions and languages tends to combine both local and cosmopolitan idioms, thus expanding the base of cultural materials from which local representations can be constructed (regev and seroussi 2004), and hence, also expanding the basis of interpretive reception to such products. furthermore, their mediated circulation also facilitates the constitution of groups that identify with such representations or op­ pose them: as nini and awad's collaboration became a site of struggles for legitimacy and contingent ideologies in both palestinian and israeli public spheres, the heightened media exposure facilitated the constitution of groups that either identified or disagreed with this representation. the role of this collaboration as constitutive of contradictory sentiments and affiliations was further complicated by the singers' "belonging" to multiple spheres of interest in a highly fraught situation. while the two singers believed that their collaboration was forwarding coexistence, the public debate that surrounded it highlighted that, for others, this collaboration sanctioned the oppression of palestinians aspiring to becoming an independent nation. the lyrics of israel's 2009 eurovision song, "there must be another way," evoke hardship and pain, and in that sense, they diverge from the light topical fare often hosted by the esc. musically, however, "there must be another way" is rather typical of the pop balladry found in many eurovision entries that often adhere to the dominant anglo-american pop aesthetic and are devoid of the sonic indexing of ethnicity, place, or nation, that consolidate group identities and mobilize hegemonic struggles in many music genres.2 the song's arrangement is an up-tempo, danceable mix of drum machine, guitars, an electric keyboard, and miscellaneous "ethnic" percussion instruments such as the middle eastern def and yemenite jerry­ can drums. this "ethnic" percussion provides for visual touches of exotica in performance and allows a seductive marketing strategy that positions the musical representation as "authentic" (taylor 1997), even though these percussion instruments are sublimated in the song's overall texture. 11 12 current musicology the political significance of israel's 2009 entry is by and large located in the combined contexts of the singers' ethnically-mixed national representa­ tion during an armed conflict and high political tension in a hyper-mediated inter-national popular music event, rather than in sonic symbolism. and it is this representation, not the sonic imagery, that was the primary site of the discursive conflict during the 2009 eurovision debates. the duo collaborated prior to this eurovision song and encountered no criticism. it is the particular contexts of production and reception in which this song came to life in order to represent israel at a time when it was waging war on palestinians that greatly amplified interpretive tensions in social construc­ tions of meaning regarding what kind of place and nation the collaboration was about: a democratic, multicultural israel, or an israel that provided a token representation to its minority only to leverage the violent oppression of the palestinian people. these tensions manifested in the highly confron­ tational nature of the discourse, in which divergent meanings associated with the multi-lingual and bi-ethnic representation ofisrael at the esc were constructed as contested struggles for survival. the volatility of the debate surrounding the song shows how this interplay between popular expressive culture and politics also diffused the boundaries of what is often conceived of as independent to each of these domains (massad 2005). the song's producers: a vision of a pluralistic, multicultural israel while israel had been participating at the esc since 1973, this was the first occasion on which israel included not only the embodied presence of its non-jewish minority, but also her language, an arab citizen singing in arabic, to represent the nation on the eurovision stage. this tri -lingual song representing the jewish state challenges the primary signifier of hebrew as the national language. it is especially important given that jews in palestine revived hebrew (a language used for primarily for liturgical purposes until the late nineteenth century) as an important aspect of the project of nation­ building (kuzar 2001), a process which had its musical equivalent in rise of "songs of the land of israel." the inspiration for the duo's collaboration resulted from the shared vision, musical and political, of the two artists. both are singer-songwriters who possess an international pop aesthetic, have collaborated intermittently in the past, and are deeply invested in the issues of the israeli-palestinian conflict. 3 nini is a singer-songwriter of jewish-yemenite descent whose pop-folk style often includes elements of traditional yemeni vocal styles and percussion. nini has sold one million albums (bronner 2009b), a high number for an artist from a country in which sales of 40,000 units constitute nili belkind a platinum album. nini's sales record is a by-product of her performance career being more focused on international markets, especially europe, where she is known as noa, than on local markets (bronner 2009b). she is also internationally known as a peace activist and a supporter of a two-state solution, and has been advocating the establishment of an independent palestinian state in the west bank and the gaza strip since the early 1990s. her activism extends to showcasing multicultural representations as sym­ bolic of the potentials of coexistence, including performances and recordings with many arab artists such as the lebanese singer nabil salameh and the franco-algerian ral artist khaled. her activist approach has rendered her a symbol of progressive israeli culture in international circles, and she has often been invited to perform at events hosted by the united nations and at other symbolic peace-building occasions in front of world leaders, includ­ ing former us president bill clinton, israeli president shimon peres, pope john paul ii, and the italian president giorgio napolitano. in addition, she has received numerous honors for her work from the united nations, the freemasons, and the president of italy, among others. nini is also known as a peace activist within israel and often performs in events associated with the political left: in 1995, she sang at the peace rally in which israel's prime-minister yitschak rabin was assassinated. nini's popularity abroad and her association with peace-building initiatives are likely to have served as impetus for the israeli broadcasting authorities' request that she represent israel at eurovision. while this choice preceded israel's attack on gaza, nini's insistence on collaborating with awad at a time when israel was bound to face much international criticism and needed to project a benign, peace­ seeking image provided israel with a tailor-made opportunity to promote such an image. in recent years mira awad has made a name for herself as an actress in israeli theater and television. awad began her musical career at the age of sixteen as a lead singer in an arabic rock group called semana; and, like nini, she graduated from the rimon school of jazz and contemporary music, israel's only educational institution teaching modern-day jazz, r&b, rock, and pop. prior to her collaboration with nini, she recorded one album (bahlawan, or ''acrobat''), an acoustic singer-songwriter project in arabic and english. no israeli record label wanted to take on the risk of promoting this album until awad received the high levels of media exposure that came with her association with nini (kohavi 2009a). awad was born to a christian arab-israeli father from the ramah village in the galilee and a bulgarian mother. in interviews, awad sometimes identi­ fies herself as an "israeli-arab" and sometimes as "palestinian-by-ethnicity and israeli-by-citizenship" (bronner 2009b). awad's complicated set of 13 14 current musicology identifications is related to the fact that, in israel, ethnicity (with "jewish" signifying ethnicity rather than religion in a jewish-arab binary) determines a differential access to full rights and responsibilities of citizenship, with full rights and responsibilities enjoyed exclusively by jews. while jewish israelis are usually referred to as (un-hyphenated) israelis, palestinians with israeli citizenship are often referred to as israeli-arabs or simply arabs, highlighting their minoritized status. by calling herself palestinian, awad is also identifying with the palestinians who reside in the occupied palestinian territories (west bank and gaza), are not israeli citizens, and aspire for a separate nation-state.4 this fraught set of identifications is shared by other israeli-palestinians who are, to different extents, integrated into the israeli polity. their identification with the palestinian struggle for emancipation is greatly complicated by their own struggle as citizens aspiring to equal rights within the jewish state (amara and schnell 2004; blithe 2003; schnell 1994; smooha 1999).5 this is even truer for twice-minoritized christian arabs. christians comprise approximately ten percent of the arab population in israel, which in turn comprises twenty percent of the total population. according to nan shdema (2009), the past several decades have been characterized by increasing differentiation in the socio-political identifications of muslim and christian arabs in israel. shdema argues that this has resulted from an increased palestinian identification with islam as a mobilizing force for national liberation, as evidenced by the hamas victory in the 2005 elections in gaza and the emergence ofislamist movements in israel, and a decreased affiliation with the communist party. in israel's early years, christian arabs filled the gap created by the exodus of the traditionally muslim palestinian arab leadership, and christians became a salient part ofisrael's arab politi­ cal leadership, accounting for about fifty percent of arab knesset members that were particularly active in the communist party. in the 1990s, meretz, a left -wing zionist party included in the rabin-peres coalition government, drew many christian arabs, resulting in a decline of the communist party's non-religious power-base for the arab minority in israel and in an improve­ ment in the position of the christian urban and middle class in particular (tsimhoni 2001). roda kannaneh (2003) also cites the divisive policies of the israeli state, which consciously creates differentiation between its bedouin, druze, christian, and muslim palestinian minorities so that they don't coalesce into a unified arab front, as a prominent factor in the more polarized current identifications of muslim and christian arab citizens of israel. in addition, the christian-arab community in israel enjoys a higher socio-economic status than do muslim-arabs (saar 2003), and being largely nili belkind urbanized, often in mixed jewish-arab cities such as haifa, also enjoy a higher degree of amalgamation into secular israeli society than do muslims (tsimhoni 2001). this is especially evident in the culture industry. according to galit dardashti (2009), the israeli-palestinian musicians most prominent on the israeli music scene are christians. dardashti claims that this is due to islam's ambivalent view of music, in contrast to the encouragement of musical activities in palestinian churches, and also due to the fact that christian arab-israelis enjoy a higher socio-economic status than muslims, have fewer children on average, and can expend more resources on music education. in many ways, awad's integration into the israeli cultural establishment as both singer and actress is related to the socio-economic standing of her family and her educational trajectory. she spent several years as a child within the israeli hebrew-speaking secular education system (her father worked as a physician in karmiel, a jewish town), when the majority of palestinian israelis attend arabic speaking schools within their communi­ ties; she studied at rimon, and presently, she lives in tel-aviv, the hub of jewish-israeli cultural production, where she has participated in numerous theater and television productions. in an interview with a ma' ariv reporter, awad answered a journalist who asked her about the difference between her generation and previous generations ofisraeli palestinians active in the culture industry with the following words: we are the generation that can stop apologizing [for being arabs]. yes, it's a new generation that is completely from here. i was born in this country. my first language is bulgarian, the second hebrew, arabic came only afterwards. there is no more than this. i am here and the hebrew language surrounds me. i act in hebrew theater and on television, and people around me speak hebrew. so of course most of the time i speak hebrew. (nuriel 2007)6 and in another interview with ma' ariv, awad commented on the fact that during the period she studied at haifa university, sometimes her arab friends did not feel comfortable with the fact that she also had jewish friends: one can think that if i speak with jews, i will lose my identity. what does one thing have to do with the other? i will never forget, and it doesn't matter who will be my friends, that i am my father's daughter, whom the israeli army expelled from his home in 1948. they accused me for trying to please "the enemy." what was i doing? being sincere and human? you know what? i want to assimilate! (avtamovitz 2009) 15 16 current musicology awad's statement points to the conflict experienced by israeli palestinians, who are members of a disenfranchised minority within israel while they participate in the economy and cultural life of secular israel. in awad's case, her self-labeling and role in representing israel at eurovision indicates the primacy of citizenship over ethnicity, despite their inherent conflicts and contradictions. given the two singers' singer-songwriter aesthetic, five years of col­ laborative history, political views, and nini's activism in israel and abroad, it is understandable that when nini was selected as the representative for eurovision by the israel broadcasting authority, she promptly predicated her consent on her pairing with awad. nini claims that she has been asked to represent israel at eurovision several times before, but had never agreed because she wanted to be recognized for her artistry as a quality singer­ songwriter. but at a time when other media opportunities had shrunk and eurovision could reach millions, this was an opportune platform to send a message for peace; hence, collaborating with awad was the natural choice for her (avramovitz 2009). and as nini explained during an interview with an opednews reporter in may 2009, this representation was a conscious move made by the two singers who intended to promote both a message for peace and a pluralistic, muticulturalist israel: mira and i are very proud to be the first arab-jewish israeli duo to go to eurovision. we are also proud that upon our demand, the internal laws were changed and arabic was allowed to be sung as a formal language representing israel in the esc. our duo sheds light on the complexity of our situation here in the middle east. israel has a very large minority, almost 20 percent, of palestinians, christian (like mira) and muslim, who are israeli citizens. this sector is still fighting for full integration into is­ raeli society. this is separate from the palestinians living in the occupied territories, who are fighting for their independence and the establishment of the state of palestine. (paz 2009) in a separate interview with the guardian (mccarthey 2009a), awad corroborated nini's sentiments regarding the importance of a national imaginary constructed by pluralistic inclusivity as a means of struggling against the disenfanchisment ofisraeli-arabs within israeli society. "i am a minority in the israeli state," she said, "therefore it is my country now and forever. i believe i have to strive for my place in it and fight for an equal place in it ... " (mccarthey 2009a). the two singers remained firm in their decision to represent israel at eurovision, despite intense criticism of their partnership fueled by the war on gaza. while both singers acknowledged that the public exposure and professional opportunities eurovision might nili belkind provide were important for their individual careers, they insisted that the more important factor in their decision to perform together at the esc was the opportunity to project the vision of an integrated israel from an international stage. the cultural policy of the israeli broadcasting system and the nini-awad collaboration the duo's collaboration had the practical effect of changing the exclusion­ ary norms and practices of the israeli broadcasting authority (lea), which segregates arabic language programming into separate channels on both television and radio, despite the obvious presence of arabic music and cultural idioms in mainstream israeli expressive culture in the past couple of decades. the lea broadcasts twenty hours per week of arabic programming on its arabic language television network, and eighteen hours per day on its arabic shortwave radio channel "the voice of israel in arabic;' which is not music centered, but broadcasts mostly talk shows. on its primary channels, israeli national television ensures that most of its schedule-seventy percent on average-consists oflocallyproduced hebrew-language broadcasts. the rest of the programming typically consists of english-speaking imported programming, including soap operas, detective series, and feature films. a similar picture characterizes government-owned radio's music-centered channels. arabic is rarely heard on national israeli radio channels outside of the specialized "voice of israel in arabic" (israel ministry of foreign affairs 2009). while there are currently several pirate arabic radio stations operating in israel, the lack of institutionalized support for arabic music leaves little opportunity for the promotion of local palestinian-israeli musical content. israeli sociologist and popular music scholar motti regev (1995) argues that local israeli culture is a field of unequal power relations in which the construction and definition of what is recognized as authentic national culture is determined by the dominant agents' invention of this tradition (bourdieu 1993). in israel the leading cultural organizations-including the lea's five publicly-owned radio stations, its "voice of israel" television station, as well as numerous privately owned broadcasting channels-assume a predominantly western-inclined hebrew speaking audience and broadcast a variety of imported programming from the west, with local television productions in hebrew, and local musical content comprised primarily of pop-rock in hebrew. according to regev, this relegates arabic music to the status of a "present-absentee,"? a process of rendering invisible those who 17 18 current musicology do not fit in the dominant power's national narrative. this process occurs despite the presence of a large arabic speaking minority, the fact that ap­ proximately half the jewish population in israel originate in arab countries and share an affinity for arabic music, and the obvious presence of arabic musical elements in many jewish -israeli music genres from muzika mizrahit (oriental pop) to israeli rock. the lack of airtime for arabic music on israeli broadcasting channels has discouraged the larger local record labels (which also act as israeli subsidiaries to the global majors, and their products typically receive the most airtime on radio and television) from releasing locally-based arabic language and music albums into the market. small independent music labels tend to specialize either in muzika mizrahit or in genres with small market shares such as "traditional" ethnic musics or trance, but there are none dedicated to arabic music. as alternative promotional avenues to the media and music industry are rare in israel, this has meant that arabic music has been relegated to a marginal place in the israeli cultural fabric. 8 this marginzalization, along with the fact that, as israeli citizens, palestinian­ israeli musicians are often unwelcome in arabic-speaking countries in the region (dardashti 2009), denies israeli-palestinians the opportunity to commercially produce original music for the local market and to compete with arabic music imports promoted on the airwaves of neighboring countries (regev 1995). in this context, it is easy to understand how, for nini, the release of the duo's tri-lingual song into local broadcast media, with the support of the iba, marked an important milestone toward the public acceptance of arabic cultural products in israel. awad stated that she initially self-released her album bahlawan because record labels were not interested in releasing it, claiming that "it was not marketable" (kohavi 2009a). following eurovision, together with the release of the duo's full-length album in june 2009,awad's album was re-released by one of israel's larger record labels, helicon, in june 2009. awad claimed that she did not expect it to receive much airplay, and that one of the government radio stations (reshet gimmel-the iba's pop station) refused to play the single because of a policy that stipulates fifty percent hebrew broadcasting. while airplay rates for bahlawan are impossible to obtain, the album sold over 10,000 units by february 2010 (biluy plus 2009), a testimony to the public's receptivity to the project. awad also received the "singer of the year" (2009) award from the "voice of israel in arabic" station (naim 2010). it remains to be seen whether, despite the setbacks, the nini-awad collaboration has opened a space for other palestinian artists within the israeli culture industry. nili belkind while nini highlighted the fact that the duo's song resulted in the change of cultural policy guidelines of the iba, the fact that the song was sung in hebrew, arabic, and english at the esc stirred no responses of approval or disapproval in the israeli media. i attribute this non-chalant acceptance of tri-lingual national representation and the inclusion of arabic as a national signifier to a combination of factors: the 1990s peace process; the growing power-base of of mizrahi-jews (jews that originated in predominantly islamic countries) in the knesset since the late 1970s, along with their increased presence in the cultural media landscape after decades of marginalization; and the growing interest in world music over the past couple of decades (horowitz 1999 and 2005, perelson 1998). all these factors have contributed to a growing acceptance of arabic cultural elements in popular culture as well as to the de-centering of hebrew from its status as the sole icon of appropriate israeli "authenticity." according to motti regev and edwin seroussi (2004:19-20) the de­ centering of ivriut, or hebrewism (reflected in both use of language and musical genres), as the universe of meanings that separates israelis from others, which predominated in the first decades following the founding of the state of israel, was the result of the effects of globalization-the intensified dissemination of products and materials of the international culture industry. the "globalized israeliness" that has emerged in recent decades was reflected in music first through the emergence of local rock and pop groups who listened to and participated in the western popular music developments of the 1960s and 1970s, initially viewed as a radical departure from appropriate israeliness. a further divergence from the hebrewism constructed by the largely eastern-european zionist founders occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, when second and third generation mizrahi israelis (most of the jewish immigration from islamic countries occurred in the 1950s) rejected the hegemonic paradigm constructed by eastern-european based zionism. in music, they highlighted their ethnicity by creating a hybrid popular musical genre called musika mizrahit, a fusion of rock and pop with oriental melismatic vocal styles and instruments such as the darbukka drum and the oud. through the 1980s muzika mizrahitwas marginalized from the mainstream culture industry, though it flourished through the circulation of cassettes, mostly in open-air markets and bazaars (horowitz 1999). in the 1990s there was a growing presence of mizrahi culture in the israeli mainstream culture industry, as well as a larger mizrahi political power base in the knesset. these developments, along with the peace process that took place in the 1990s, resulted in arabic culture and language also gaining some acceptance in the mainstream israeli imagina19 20 current musicology tion (horowitz 2005). as galit dardashti has noted, "the signing of the oslo accords was a watershed event for the receptivity of israelis to arab culture" (2009: 64). this acceptance was exemplified by a higher acceptance of muzika mizrahit, a growing interest in classical arabic music and a new audience for numerous collaborative projects of musika etnit (ethnic music), that incorporated both jewish and palestinian israelis during the 1990s (brinner 2009).9 musika etnit represents a form of israeli oriental music that is distinguished from muzika mizrahit in that it calls upon a variety of classical eastern traditions often mixed with classical music and/or jazz rather than rock or pop, its practitioners and listeners align themselves with a world music scene (brinner 2009, dardashti 2001), and it is marketed as world music abroad. this growing interest ofisraelis in world music and in muzika etnit over the past couple of decades, coupled with recent immigration ofjews from the territories of the former soviet union, resulted in 10 cally-formed ensembles that play repertoire in the styles and languages of their countries of origin­ from tajikistan to the caucasus-as part of the israeli cultural fabric. in other words, elements of popular culture currently being incorporated into the israeli mainstream come not only from the west, but from all of israel's diasporic and local sources. io while such representations of israel's diverse ethnicities are not new, their direct impact on popular culture had previously been marginal, as in the days of the predominant hebrewism paradigm they were often showcased as colorful relics of a cultural past that had been cast-off in favor of integration into israeli society. as ben brinner (2009) suggests, in zionist ideology diaspora represented the weak, oppressed jew, and new israelis were supposed to supplant the culture linked with it as well, in the process of assimilation. the cultural model into which all immigrants were to assimilate into was constructed by the western-inclined ashkenazy (occidental) founding fathers. in contrast, today a younger generation ofisraelis is seeking to incorpo­ rate cultural "roots" into contemporary idioms. these trends have resulted in the proliferation of new styles and genres alongside anglo-american imports and local hebrew variations of rock and pop. in live performances especially, languages other than hebrew and english are presently not an anomaly. today israeli fans can attend hip-hop shows performed in russian, arabic, hebrew, and english (ungerleider 2006). the commercially successful idan reichel project (2002) merged ethiopian music and the amharic language with hebrew lyrics and electronica (and was marketed abroad as world music). dana international, the transgendered dance artist and 1998 win­ ner of eurovision, sings in hebrew and arabic, and israel's 2007 esc entry by the rock band teapacks ("push the button"), featured lyrics in hebrew, nili belkind french, and english. all these global-local permutations of styles, genres and languages are a testament to the continual development of what regev and seroussi termed "globalized israeliness." hence, despite the increased polarization between israelis and palestinians in the decade following the peace process, the pervasive presence of such elements in popular israeli culture has probably rendered the iba's hebrew-centered guidelines and cultural policy highly outdated in relationship to what can be accepted as "authentically" israeli, linguistically and musically, in the contemporary mainstream imagination. this marks a tremendous shift from previous decades; it is hard to imagine such an attitude regarding the appropriate linguistic representation of israel at the esc in the 1970s or 1980s. the discourse surrounding israel's 2009 esc entry: "again we have a political eurovision"11 nini and awad were positioning themselves internationally as pop icons bearing a message of peace and embodying a multicultural representation of the nation. on the other hand, palestinian artists and intellectuals from both sides of the border as well as left -leaning jewish-israeli artists and peace activists viewed the duo's representation ofisrael at the esc as a sanctioning of the violence israel has launched on gaza, and a contribution to israeli propaganda (rizzo 2009). these individuals perceived the fact that the duo was officially chosen as israel's esc representatives a day after israel launched its war on gaza as a cynical move on behalf of the state, in which the role of the two singers, and especially awad's, was that of accomplices to the violence. the day following the nomination, they sent an open letter to awad: the israeli government is sending the two of you to moscow as part of its propaganda machine that is trying to create the appearance of jewish­ arab co-existence under which it carries the daily massacre of palestinian civilians ... please, mira, for the future of gaza and for the future of every child in this land-arabs and jews-don't collaborate with the killing machine. (yudilevitch 2009b; kohavi 2009b) the highly emotional tone of the letter, which positions a songstress as the israeli government's tool of propaganda and one that collaborates with the "killing machine," demonstrates how the socio-political context in which this specific collaboration came into being invested it with meanings literally construed as matters of life and death. the request from awad not to col­ laborate with the israeli government is especially charged, as "collaborator" is a label often used for palestinian informants who work in the service of israeli security agents against their own people. the letter further added 21 22 current musicology that every contribution to the false image built by the israeli state "allows the israeli army to use another 10 tons of explosives, another phosphorous bomb:' this plea, directed to awad, outlines the view that israeli-arabs who seek to be absorbed into and prominently represented in the israeli national mainstream in effect become the instruments of oppression of their own people. this group of individuals was contesting and reconstructing the boundaries of ethnicity, nation, and power hierarchies advanced by the two singers. their discursive move conflates the real violence of armed conflict with the symbolic violence enacted through musical representation of the dominant power. it shows how in extreme conflict situations, violence can become a trope in the negotiation of identity politics through which all subjective experience is filtered. the ha' aretz newspaper reported that the israeli broadcasting authorities responded with the statement that eurovision is a cultural event "aimed at creating musical dialogue between the various countries that take part in it;' and that the selection of nini and awad was a decision based on the professionalism of the two artists "that also expresses the aspiration for coexistence, which transcends politics" (kohavi 2009b). this response dislodges the committee's decision from the realm of politics, as it positions eurovision as a cultural, rather than political event, and highlights the two artists' professionalism-in other words, their artistic capabilities, rather than their message-as the reason for the choices made. at the same time, the response also explicitly highlights the political weight of the message for coexistence embodied by the duo in its decision-making. as simon frith (1996) has pointed out, within discourse about music, aesthetics, or what sounds good, is often conflated with ethics: the determination of what is good about music and why. this conflation of ethics and aesthetics is also evident in israel's president shimon peres's statement from march 2009, following the selection of the representative song via a telethon, in which he expressed his admiration of the duo "for what they are doing for their people and the sake of peace" (reuters news agency 2009). the ethical investment in the collaboration was attached not only to the value of coexistence, but also to official public policy that seeks to legitimize israel as a superior moral entity in the region. this decision is congruent with israel's attempts to fashion a democratic self-image, and to position israel's democratic heritage as morally superior to neighboring arab countries in the eyes of the western world. israel's democratic heritage is often used by israeli officials as evidence of its moral superiority to neighboring arab countries (see for example, israeli prime minister benyamin netanyaho interview with cbc canada, may 30,2010) .12 participation in the esc has always been nili belkind connected with israel's wish to establish cultural alliances that cultivate its national imaginary in association with the europeanized west, rather than with the orient in which it is located. israel joined the esc in 1973 in the midst of the cold war, when eurovision consisted of western european en­ tries, with the exception of yugoslavia (bohlman 2004).13 initially conceived in the 1950s as a means of bringing together war-torn europe through a light entertainment program, the ebu launched eurovision in 1956, with seven participating countries, all located in western europe. following the dismantling of the soviet union many central and eastern european countries joined the esc, but even today, there are very few participating non-european countries in the esc. sending an ethnically-mixed duo of singers to the esc provided an opportunity for israel to leverage an image of itself as a tolerant democracy deserving of inclusion first among progressive, westernized nations and more broadly, with the european union. j4 the selection of the duo as israel's esc representatives is also congruent with israel's policy of using cultural exports to mitigate israel's negative image abroad. in the months that followed the war on gaza, cultural exports were further mobilized to diffuse the international isolation israel felt after the war ended. arye mekel, israel's foreign ministry's deputy director general for cultural affairs, stated in an interview with the new york times in march 2009 that israel has allotted an additional two million us dollars for international cultural campaigns in the coming fiscal year, adding: "we will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits. this way you show israel's prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war" (bronner 2009a). in december 2009 right-wing knesset member alex miller of the yisrael beytenu party suggested that the knesset should hold a special parliamentary session to discuss how israel can better prepare for the esc by choosing the performers and the song as well as by launching a public relations campaign, stating that "a good performance together with good public relations will serve israel's artists, but could also be a great opportunity to boost the tourist industry" (lis 2009). as these statements show, the israeli state invests in cultural exports as a means of improving its damaged international image, as well as gaining political and economic capital, utilizing culture as a diplomatic tool to divert international attention from israel's aggressions. so while nini and awad's collaboration was intended to be a message for peace and coexistence, it was also used as a showcase for a democratic, multicultural fa<;:ade. while awad was the main target of the first round of public criticism of the duo's collaboration, nini was a primary target for the second. the duo was scheduled to perform at a fundraising concert for gazans injured in the war, which was held in tel aviv on january 23,2009. two weeks prior 23 24 curf'ent musicology to the benefit, during the last week of the war, nini published an open letter to palestinians in gaza,15 calling on them to "join hands" in eradicating fanaticism. in the letter she showed compassion for their cause and culture, but also stated the following: but, now, today, i know that deep in your hearts you wish for the demise of this beast called hamas who has terrorized and murdered you, who has turned gaza into a trash heap of poverty, disease and misery. who in the name of "allah" has sacrificed you on the bloody altar of pride and greed ... i can only wish for you that israel will do the job we all know needs to be done, and finally rid you of this cancer, this virus, this monster called fanaticism, today, called hamas. and that these killers will find what little compassion may still exist in their hearts and stop using you and your children as human shields for their cowardice and crimes. (nini 2009b, emphasis in original) 16 nini's letter enraged the same group that objected to the duo's performance at the esc, and many arab and jewish israelis in the entertainment world urged her to take her words back in a petition signed by jewish israeli film director udi aloni along with many other leftist jewish-israelis and palestinian -israelis active in the israeli culture industry. the petition stated that without a public retraction of her statement, her participation in the benefit concert for gazan victims would taint the event. addressed to the performance's organizers, the petition stated: "nini's performance will strengthen the hypocritical position of israel's leaders, that express their regret over children who were killed 'by accident' and then offer to help rebuild gaza" (yudilevitch 2009b). the event's organizers told nini the event was centered on the question of accountability for the state of israel's actions in gaza, and wanted to be sure the singer identified with this cause. following this denunciation, and the event organizers' request from nini to accommodate the petitioners request, nini and awad cancelled their participation in the event. in response to the cancelilation, juliano mer­ khamis, an arab-israeli actor and film directol·17 and one of the petition's authors, wrote the following in a letter published in both palestinian and israeli newspapers and websites: there is nothing more patronizing, arrogant or presumptuous than to tell people who have freely elected one political movement or another, that it is a cancer. one can't help but be disgusted by people who support operation cast lead and then buy blankets for the handicapped children that remain alive. you can't kill the gazans and cry over them too. (yudi­ levitch 2009b) nili belkind as with the letter that asked awad to withdraw from the esc, the visceral language of this statement shows that in the context of violent conflict, a musical performance can become a context in which for many, what is being negotiated is absolute questions of life and death. for mer-khamis, nini's stance in her letter and subsequent volunteering to perform at the gaza benefit was a hypocritical move that amounted to "killing" and then "crying over it." the last line in this statement also confronts the prevalent trope of "shooting and crying" employed in the israeli media. this trope encapsulates the struggle of the israeli soldier who is torn between the ethi­ cal duty of protecting his country and the unethical practice of harming a civilian population, including women and children, as part of his wartime duties. the trope has roots in israeli literature harkening back to stories by writers such as s. izhar that portrayed the moral ambivalence of soldiers regarding the palestinians' expulsion in 1948. however, this trope has been used most extensively in the israeli media since the eruption of the 1987 intifada, as the obvious imbalance of power between israeli soldiers carrying machine guns and backed by armored vehicles and palestinian children throwing rocks became a loaded visual image that characterized the israeli occupation. "shooting and crying" emphasizes the ethical hu­ manity of the israel defense forces soldiers as they fight against a civilian populationy in addition, mer-khamis, in his letter, legitimizes hamas.as a democratically-elected government, thus turning around israel's claim to being the sole democracy in the region. his discourse posits a national imaginary of israel as an oppressive tyrant, and of the gazans' as that of an oppressed democracy. while the duo cancelled their appearance at the gaza benefit, they remained committed to the esc performance. both singers claimed that they understood the emotions that their collaboration had evoked in the context of the violence, but as nini said during an interview with a reporter from the guardian, millions would be watching the duo on stage and this was their opportunity to send a message of peace (mccarthy 2009b). no arab-israelis publicly supported awad's decision. the silence was noticed by jewish-israeli journalists who supported the duo. when the duo released their joint album in june, david forman, a jerusalem-post columnist voiced the following opinion in an article titled "counterpoint: every second offers another chance:"19 is it just possible that joint artistic ventures of arabs and jews might positively serve arab interests? after all, there is an image out there that arabs, especially muslims, are all terrorists, strapping suicide belts onto their bodies or killing each other with impunity as is the case in iraq (and gaza) or crashing planes into the twin towers. might one consider that awad is helping to alter the picture of those islamic fundamentalists who 25 26 current musicology decapitated journalist daniel pearl? why must every arab-jewish enter­ prise be portrayed by a significant majority within the arab community as propaganda? one would thinkor at least, hopethat those who try to foster reconciliation would be encouraged. (forman 2009) it is obvious from this description that the author feels there are few moder­ ate, or at least non-fundamentalist, arabs (especially muslims): the images of arabs "strapping suicide belts;' "crashing planes," and decapitating a journalist are not only "out there," as he points out, but very much alive and resonating in his own writing. in this the author echoes the sentiments of many among the israeli leadership, who feel that there is no political leadership on the palestinian side that is moderate enough to constitute a reasonable partnership in a dialogue towards peace. so in setting awad as an exception to the rule among palestinians, forman implicitly advances the view that the majority of (muslim) palestinians are fanatics with whom no dialogue can be conducted. the author also pointed out that while in israel there are hundreds of ngos working to promote human rilghts and civil liberties, there are few such organizations in the arab world, and that the few arab ngos that there are criticize israel government policies and infringements on human rights, but refrain from self-reflection. forman further stated that " ... what is truly tragic is that arab human rights ngos are always willing to join with israeli human rights ngos to uncover civil liberties abuses that israelis commit, but are rarely willing to partner with the mira awads of the arab world who try to foster understanding between arabs and jews" (forman 2009). what this commentary establishes is further implicit justification for an entrenched, hard-line position on the israeli side: if only israelis are capable of admitting to and addressing wrongs in their society, how could a space be created for dialogue with the other side? what forman is not looking at, however, is what he accuses arab ngos of doing: reflecting on the side in whose name he speaks. he is glossing over the fact that israel controls the occupied palestinian territories, and that the ngos that operate there are operating under severe constraints determined by the conditions of the occupation. while it is true that in most of the neighboring arab countries, ngos operate locally under the constraints of non-democratic regimes, israel's perceived tolerance does not extend to the occupied palestinian territories, where israel's heavy handedness in handling dissent amounted to several decades of military rule and violent suppressions of the 1987 and 2000 intifada: it is discriminatory policies within israel and human rights infringements in the occupied territories that necessitate the work of israeli human rights ngos. additionally, while israel does practice "open politics" within its borders, forman does not take nili belkind into account that openness can sometimes be the privilege of the powerful. what lies behind the author's applaud for the collaboration and especially for awad is the same national imaginary cultivated by the state apparatus that positions israel's moral superiority over its neighbors as a democratic and pluralistic state tolerant of contesting voices from within. the author does not take into account in this imaginary the contradictions inherent in the projection of the moral superiority of those in power, that at the same time also expects the "immoral" subaltern to address the dominant power on grounds that the dominant prescribes. international resonance the 2009 eurovision was held between may 12 and may 16 in moscow with forty-two participating countries. the finals, which were broadcast on may 16, included twenty-five countries: the host country, france, germany, spain and the uk (which are considered the "big four" in the ebu and are pre­ qualified), along with twenty countries selected over two semi-finals. the duo was placed sixteenth in the finals, and shortly after, they released a full-length album titled there must be another way. but, more importantly, interna­ tional profiling of the debates within israel, the music, and performances of the two artists abroad all provided reason and opportunity for international actors to join the symbolic battleground. the international circulation of nini's letter to the gazans in january, and the reactions to it within israel, led the blog irish -for-palestine to call on "all europeans who support palestine" to give israel no points at the esc for its "disgusting propaganda" prior to the contest. 20 following eurovision, at a joint performance of nini and awad at the notte de taranta festival in melpignano, italy (where nini is an honorary citizen) in august 2009, protestors in the audience held up a sign that read "noa and mira, accomplices in the killing machine. israel=nazis" (nini 2009a). the palestinian solidarity movement in spain also held a boycott campaign against nini. during her september 2009 performance at the diada, a city park in barcelona, at a festival celebrating catalunia's national culture day, protestors whistled and booed, waved palestinian flags and scarves, and held up signs reading "boycott israel," while her local fans applauded her (expatica 2009).21 such reactions demonstrate the ways in which the local debate in israel/palestine regarding the duo's collaboration became a globalized issue animated by pro-palestine movements. there was also support for the duo in the international arena. nini claims that the duo has received enthusiastic e-mails from fans in lebanon, syria, and qatar, among other places (paz 2009). support also came from jour­ nalists, bloggers, and notably, from sergio blasi, the mayor of melpignono 27 28 current musicology (where the notte de tarranta festival is held), and from former beatle paul mccartney. while on tour in israel the previous year, mccartney joined onevoice, a grassroots ngo of palestinians and israelis from both sides of the border that "aims to amplify the voice of israeli and palestinian moderates" (onevoice 2009). both nini and awad joined the organization as board members prior to mccartney becoming a member. mccartney wrote a letter to president obama to make him aware of the organization, which was published on the organization's website and quoted in various press articles. the letter included a line stating that " ... the symbolism of two people from both sides coming together to spread their message of peace via music is exciting and inspiring for me. i hope president obama looks into this organisation and feels that onevoice could be part of a peaceful solution" (pineda 2009).22 the letter was mentioned on cnn on the day of the contest, providing the duo much comfort in the midst of the controversy surrounding their collaboration. when the duo released their joint album in june 2009, they included a cover of the beatles song "we can work it out" on the album. as internationally-based liberation movements, music celebrities, foreign journalists, and perhaps even presidents join the debate, the deploy­ ment of music to construct national imaginaries is no longer limited to the groups that live within the boundaries of such imaginaries. being interpreted through the conceptual prism of actors distant from the scene, the interna­ tional discourse regarding the meanings of nini and awad's collaboration adds further layers to the hierarchies of moral and political order (stokes 1994) shaped by local actors. the circulation of such imaginaries in the media shapes contemporary imaginaries of israel, palestine, and the contesting ethnic and national affiliations constituted by the israeli-palestinian conflict, both in israel and abroad. in this way, the struggles of the local come to be negotiated by the global. conclusion the esc provided an arena surrounding which symbolic warfare, using the seemingly benign exchange of glitz and pop tunes, paralleled the actual war, in which competing national imaginaries were fought for with flesh and blood. the reported number of casualties during the war on gaza was over 1,300 on the palestinian side and thirteen on the israeli side (bbc news 2009), numbers that highlight the tremendous power discrepancies between the state and the stateless in the region. but the mediated, discursive struggle surrounding the collaboration of a jewish-arab duo in their representation nili belkind ofisrael at the 2009 eurovision suggests that the role of expressive culture in conflict situations is both reflective and constitutive of national imaginaries constructed through and by such conflicts. it is in both political and cultural arenas that meanings given to place, ethnicity, and nation are socially and experientially constructed. notes 1. some countries that do not have the technical capacity to hold telethons still rely on a panel of jurists to determine the voting; other countries rely solely on the telethon with a panel of jurists used only as backup in case of technical difficulties (haan, dijkstra and dijkstra 2005). in israel, experts from the israeli broadcasting authorities select the artist. both the representative song and the votes for other countries' songs are selected through a combination of the public and the jurists' votes. 2. co-authored by nini, awad, and gil dor-who has been nini's musical collaborator in the past fifteen years-the song's verses alternate between hebrew and arabic. each singer addresses the other as family, as sisters who are walking a long, difficult road, a journey ac­ companied by pain and tears, but doing so hand in hand. the refrain is in english: "and when i cry, i cry for both of us / my pain has no name / and when i cry, i cry / to the merciless sky and say / there must be another way." the last line of the refrain repeats in unison, four times each time the refrain is sung, its message taking on an anthemic quality. 3. in addition to singing in peace rallies, nini maintains a blog in which she frequently includes political commentary. awad has in the past supported hadash, israel's communist party, which also supports israel's withdrawal from all the occupied palestinian territories and the recognition of palestinian israelis as a national minority within israel's borders. 4. beyond the issues of citizenship, labels commonly used in every-day discourse that distin­ guish ethnicity, nationality and religion in israel, such as palestinian, israeli-palestinian, arab, israeli-arab, israeli (usually connoting israeli-jew) or yemenite, are highly complicated in their conflation of ethnic, national, regional, and religious significations (brinner 2004). for example, while palestinian-israeli may be self-negating in the context of the conflict, iraqi (-jew) indicates place of origin and associated ethnicity and may be indicative of cultural heritage, but not present citizenship nor religious practice. as there is no current consensus on appropriate terminology, in this paper i use the labels preferred by the subjects or, in the absence of such information, the descriptive labeling by which they are characterized in media discourse, as well as the terminology (often inconsistent) relating to the subject matter in relevant academic publications. 5. according to sami smooha (1999), arab citizens in israel who have retained citizenship since 1948 have been undergoing a dual process of israelization and palestinianization. smooha maintains th;tt the majority of this group does not wish to assimilate into the jewish majority, and this majority does not want to assimilate them. hence, many institutions such as the school systems are separate, and israeli-arab children attend arabic speaking schools. separated from the palestinian community since 1948, the west bank and the gaza strip were annexed by israel in 1967, marking the resumption of intensive contact between israeli arabs and palestinians living in the occupied territories. the exclusion of israeli arabs from the mainstream and the renewal of contact between the palestinian communities resulted in an increased identification of this community with the palestinians in the territories and 29 30 current musicology their aspirations for national independence. in parallel, smooha also observes a process of israelization through which israeli arabs have been increasingly integrated into the israeli mainstream-absorbing israeli ways of life and the hebrew language, consuming hebrew media, working within the israeli economy, accepting the right of israel to exist as a state, participating in israel's parliamentary politics, and over time, increasingly viewing israel as their country. smooha wrote his assessment of the dual process of palestinianization and israelization in1999, prior to the disintegration of the oslo peace process in october 2000. according to alexander bligh (2003), the human suffering and economic depriva­ tion experienced by the palestinians of the occupied territories following the 2000 intifada resulted in a growing number of israeli-arabs who see themselves as an inseparable part of the palestinian people. muhammad amara and itzhak schnell (2003) also credit the 2000 killing of thirteen israeli-arabs during a pro-palestinian demonstration as a watershed event in which israeli-arabs started to question their identification with their civil identity as israelis and have begun to aspire either to transform israel into a non-zionist state or to be recognized as a national minority. 6. all translations from hebrew were made by the author. 7. regev is using a play of words to highlight his point. present -absentee status in israel refers to palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war (the war of independence for israelis, the "naqba;' or catastrophe, for palestinians) but who remained within the borders of israel as internally displaced people, as well as to their descendents. most present absentees were denied the right to return to their homes and properties, which were expropriated by the government for other uses, following the war. 8. according to ben brinner (2009), employment opportunities for palestinian israelis consist mainly of performances at weddings and other festivities where they are most often asked to play popular egyptian classics and current arabic pop from neighboring countries, so they have little opportunity to introduce original content to the palestinian community in israel. the lack of support for arabic music in the jewish-dominated israeli music and media industry, and the lack of such industry within the arab sector of the population, further compounds the predicament of palestinian israeli musicians. 9. the annual culture of peace festival and the international oud festival showcase classical arabic music in theaters attended by a mixed audience that includes mizrahi and ashkenazi jews as well as palestinian-israelis. 10. one such example is the alaev family-a dynasty of musicians from tajikistan-who have recently collaborated with members of balkan beat box-a group that claims leadership in the new gypsy-rock movement and that combines "roots firmly planted all around the mediter­ ranean rim" with "solid and rock and reggae foundations" (balkan beat box 2010). 11. title of an article in ma'ariv (suissa 2009). 12. for example, in an interview about the un non-proliferation treaty (of nuclear weapons), prime minister netanyahu stated: "i thought that was a particularly distorted and flawed resolution because it singled out israel, the only true democracy in the middle east and the only country anywhere on earth threatened with annihilation" (canadian broadcasting company website 2010). 13. it must be noted here that in 1973, the year of the yom kippur war, israel also had no options for cultivating regional alliances. relationships with neighboring countries could be only be imagined following the 1979 signing of the peace treatise with egypt and later with jordan. but notions of the self are always created through the construction of difference (yuval-davis 2003). the historical bias of the israeli leadership towards western alliances, nili belkind especially the united states and western europe, and the marginalization of mizrahi culture, highlight the fact that in many ways, israeli popular imagination was also self-constructed as a foreign implant in a hostile region. 14. while israel joined eurovision to further cultural alliances with the west, to-date, all its entries that have won first place at the esc were mizrahi singers ofyemenite descent: izhar cohen won in 1978 (with the entry "a-ba-ni-bi"); gali atari won the following year (with the entry "halleluyah") and dana international won in 1998 (with the song "diva"). historically, israeli -yemenite singers have been most successful in "crossover" productions, through idiomatically mastering both muzika mizrahit or traditional yemenite music and mainstream popular genres. the aforementioned ofra haza's success at the 1983 eurovision bolsters this list. it is possible that this noted ability also enhanced their capacity to compete successfully at the esc. 15. the original letter was published on ipeace, an "international social network which has more than 14,000 members from 180 countries" (ipeace 2009) and later quoted partially or in full on other news websites. 16. in a later interview given to ma'ariv (avramovitz 2009) nini said she was compelled to write this letter following the news she received of hamas members throwing fatah sup­ porters off rooftops and shooting their legs. in addition, a peace activist friend from gaza (a fatah supporter as well) encouraged her in a phone call to write the letter. 17. it is unclear whether mer-khamis refers to himself as an israeli-arab, but the articles published on the nini-awad topic refer to him as such. mer-khamis is the son of an arab­ israeli father and a jewish-israeli mother. his mother was an activist who established a youth theater in the refugee camp of jenin (in the occupied palestinian territories) with the purpose of providing an outlet for palestinian youth to channel their anger and pain to creative works. both mother and son were active in this project for many years. 18. for examples and analysis of the "shooting and crying" trope in contemporary media, see benvenisti 2004, harel2009, and klein 2008. 19. virtually all the songs on the album follow the theme of hope and reconciliation. the title of forman's article is a play of words on one of the album's offerings, titled "second chance" in english and "every second" in hebrew. 20. irish 4 palestine blog (2009). 21.see also the palestinian solidarity movement in spain, available online at http://aturem­ laguerra.org (accessed october 2, 2009). 22. see http://blog.onevoicemovement.org/one_ voice/2009/05/press-release-paul-mccartney­ calls-on -presiden t -obama -to-support -the-onevoice-movement -.html (accessed november 24,2009). references anderson, benedict. 1983. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london and new york: verso. amara, muhammad and izhak schnell. 2004. identity repertoires among arabs in israel. journal of ethnic and migration studies 30 (1): 175-193 attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music, translated by brian massumi. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. atume la guerra (palestinian solidarity movement in spain). 2009. http://www.atumela­ guerra.org (website, accessed october 2, 2009). 31 32 current musicology avramovitz, yuval. 2009. towards the eurovision: achinoam nini and mira awad are still shooting in all directions. ma'ariv (may 2): http://www.nrg.co.il/online/47/ artl/883/953.html (online article, accessed december 23, 2009). balkan beat boxwebpage. 2010. electronic document. www.balkanbeatbox.com (accessed may 31, 2010). bbc news. 2009. amnesty details gaza "war crimes." bbc news (july 2): http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/8128210.stm (online article, accessed december 23, 2009). benvenisti, meron. 2004. still shooting and crying. jerusalemites.org: http://www.jeru­ salemites.org/articles/english/mar2004113.htm (online article, accessed october 15, 2009). biluy plus website. 2010. new singles-mira awad: http://www.bilplus.co.illculture. asp?id=002_012_ (online article, accessed april 9, 2010). blithe, alexander. 2003. the israeli palestinians: an arab minority in the jewish state. london: frank cass publishers. bohlman, philip v. 2004. music of european nationalism: cultural identity and modern history. santa barbara, ca, and oxford, uk: abc clio. bourdieu, pierre. 1993. the field of cultural production: essays on art and literature. new york: columbia university press. brinner, ben. 2004. beyond israelis vs. palestinians or jews vs. arabs: the social ramifications of musical interaction. music and anthropology 8: http://www.muspe.unibo.itlperiod/ malindex/number8/brinner/brin_0.htm (accessed october 15,2009). ---.2009. playing across a divide: israeli-palestinian musical encounters. oxford and new york: oxford university press. bronner, ethan brown. 2009a. after gaza, israel grapples with crisis of isolation. new york times (march 18). ---. 2009b. musical show of unity upsets many in israel. new york times (february 24). canadian broadcasting company website. 20] o. israeli pm rejects un nuclear moves (may 30): http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/20 10105/30/netanyahu-canada-visit.html (electronic document, accessed may 31, 2010). clerides, sofronis, and thankasis stengos. 2004. love thy neighbor, love thy kin: voting biases in the eurovision song contest. london: centre for economic policy, c.e.p.r discussion papers (download reference repec:cpr:ceprdp:5732). dardashti, galit. 2001. muzika mizrahit and muzika etnit: discourses of the israeli middle eastern musical aesthetic. text practice, peljormance 3: 99-126. ---.2009. sing us a mawwal: the politics of culture-brokering palestinian-israelis in israel. israel studies in musicology online 7: http://www.biu.ac.illhu/mu/min-ad/8-9-ii/ (accessed may 2, 2010). esc 1oday. 2007. 50th anniversary of her birth, tribute to ofra haza: http://www.esctoday. com/news/read/9670 (online article, accessed november 14,2009). expatica news. 2009. protests greet israeli singer noa in spain. expatica.com (september 12): http://www.expatica.com/es/news/ spanish-news/protests-greet -israeli -singer-noa­ in-spain_56254.html (online article, accessed november 27, 2009). feld, steven. 1984. communication, music, and speech about music. yearbook for traditional music 16: 1-18. forman, david. 2009. counterpoint: every second offers a second chance. jerusalem post (july 19): http://www.jpost.com/servlet/satellite?cid= 124644383 7345&pagename= jpos t%2fjparticle%2fshowful (online article, accessed november 23, 2009). frith, simon.1996. music and identity. in questions of cultural identity, edited by stewart hall and paul du gay, 108-127. london and thousand oaks, ca: sage publications inc. nili belkind gilroy, paul. 1993. the blackatlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cambridge, ma: harvard university press ---.1987. there ain't no black in the union jack. london: huchinson. haan, dijkstra and dijkstra. 2005. expert judgment versus public opinion-evidence from the eurovision song contest. journal of cultural economics 29: 59-78. hall, stuart.1991. the local and the global: globalization and ethnicity. in culture, globalization and the world system, edited by anthony d. king, 19-39. london: macmillan. harel, amos.2009. shooting and crying. ha'aretz (march 20): http://www.haaretz.com/ hasen/spages/l072475.htmi (online article, accessed october 5, 2009). horowitz, amy. 1999. israeli mediterranean music: straddling disputed territories. journal of american folklore 112 (445): 450-63. ---. 2005. dueling nativities: zehava ben sings umm kulthum. in palestine, israel and the politics of popular culture, edited by rebecca stein and ted swedenberg, 202-230. durham and london: duke university press. irish 4 palestine blog. 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(online article, accessed november 7, 2009). rizzo, mary. 2009 .an open letter to mira awad: do not help israel whitewash its atrocities in the gaza strip! palestine think tank website (march 11): http://palestinethinktank. com/2009/03/111 an -open -letter-to-mira -awad -do-not -helpisrael-whitewash -its­ atrocities-in-the-gaza-stripl (online article, accessed april 7, 2010). sa' ar, amalia. 1998. carefully on the margins: christian palestinians in haifa between nation and state. american ethnologist 25 (2): 215-39. schnell, izhak. 1994. perceptions of israeli arabs: territoriality and identity. ashgate, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. shdema, han. 2009. changes in the relationship between arab-muslims and arab-christians in the state of israel, the case of northern israel since 1967. unpublished paper pre­ sented at the association of israel studies annual conference: www.israelstudies.org/ conferences/2009 _sapir/ .. ./shdema2009 .pdf (online journal article, accessed 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gendered construction of difference. in state/space: a reader, edited by neil brenner, bob jessop, martin jones and gordon macleod, 309-325. oxford, uk: blackwell publishing company. 35 o'neill, mary. 2006. courtly love songs of medieval france: transmission and style in the trouvere repertoire. oxford and new york: oxford university press. reviewed by susan boynton mary o'neill's book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of an important monophonic repertory that has received relatively little atten­ tion from musicologists, despite its preservation in numerous manuscripts. the reasons for this neglect are well known: scholarship on the music of the trouveres has generally addressed their songs alongside or in relation to those of the troubadours. consequently, the trouvere corpus is often viewed through the lens of a historiography that typically privileges the troubadours because of their chronological priority, casting the trouveres as derivative imitators. o'neill seeks to understand the trouveres on their own terms. given the wealth of melodies in medieval manuscripts of trouvere poetry (many in multiple versions), a monograph in english devoted entirely to the music of the trouveres is long overdue, particularly when considering that many of the new perspectives on genre, voice, orality, gender, sexuality, and performance in old french lyric poetry have come from scholars of literature. o'neill's study may not satisfy all expectations-at 226 pages including bibliography and indices, it is a slim volume for such a vast subject-but the analyses in courtly love songs offer many insights into the structures and forms of trouvere song and provide ample material for further reflection. in the chapter entitled "the grand chant of the trouveres: an introduction," o'neill surveys the genre characteristics of trouvere song using a representative example by gace brule (a trouvere active at several french courts in the decades around 1200): "n'est pas a soi qui aime coral­ ment:' in "the manuscript tradition: sources and notation;' o'neill divides the manuscripts into two chronological phases based on a taxonomy of their notation, while acknowledging that the "phase two sources do not form a single cohesive group" (38)-the periodization being necessarily loose because the individual manuscripts are difficult to date with precision (29). for the most part, o'neill's classification does not take into account the later additions to the manuscripts, although she does address questions of rhythmic interpretation that are raised by the use of mensural notation in the additions to the "chansonnier du roi" (paris, bibliotheque nationale de france, fonds franyais 844). these additions also bear witness to intriguing developments in musical form and genre, and it would have been pertinent current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 183 184 current musicology for o'neill to acknowledge the treatment of this repertoire in judith peraino's (1995) dissertation. o'neill's typology of notational forms, as well as her account of orality and literacy in the music of adam de la halle, confirms some conclusions in dorothy keyser's (1993) study of paris, bibliotheque nationale de france, fonds fran<rais 25566. o'neill devotes considerable attention to the respective roles of oral and written transmission. a chapter entitled "the melodic art of the trouveres: orality and the question of melodic variants" introduces the broader context of orality in medieval song while focusing primarily on variants in the songs of audefroi ie bastard, who flourished at the end of the twelfth century. in "the interaction of oral, written, and literate processes;' o'neill illustrates the final stage of trouvere song with an organicist stylistic analysis of the songs of adam de la halle, suggesting that his "compositional process, involving the generation of a melody from a nucleus of a few short melodic ideas, here, as in the chansons of gautier de dargies ... arguably reflects the origins of the genre in an oral tradition" (194). although the connection is not made directly, this discussion of generative process sheds some light on the subject of melodic variants addressed earlier in the book. more cogent is o'neill's treatment of literate processes of composition, which presents the production of contrafacta as a form of writerly intertextuality based on the written transmission of songs in the context of the increasing use of written records in the thirteenth century. it is not clear why o'neill separates closely related discussions of orality and literacy into two different chapters (3 and 6), and she never does define the two central terms explicitly-a lack of precision that tends to weaken her arguments concerning these categories. o'neill describes orality, for example, as "a rather vague term but one which embraces aspects of the generative process, of performance, and of transmission" (53). here the reader would have benefited from an overview considering transmission in relation to the roles of composers, singers, and scribes (as in aubrey 1993 and 1996). o'neill's account of oral traditions in relation to generative-grammar models recalls the scholarship of the 1980s, just as the title of one chapter, "the interaction of oral, written, and literate processes;' echoes that of an article by leo treitler (1981) albeit without reference to recent reassess­ ments of his approach to structure in medieval music.! she takes some of the textual allusions to performance and oral composition that appear in the poems of the troubadours and trouveres as transparent "evidence of orality in the poetic texts" (56), citing statements in the poems that refer to live performance. as simon gaunt has pointed out (most recently in 2005), such textual gestures are usefully interpreted as a self-conscious discourse of an oral poetics so deeply embedded in the romance lyric tradition that susan boynton it may be inextricable from the textuality of the corpus itself. o'neill ac­ knowledges that even poetry evidently created in a context of predominant orality evinces an awareness of the written transmission of the texts, but she also seems to imply that the movement from an oral to a written state was fairly unidirectional. incorporating more of the non-lyric literary evidence could have strengthened the account of the relationship between oral and written traditions in courtly love songs. citations or interpolations oflyric in narrative romances of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are often accompanied by depictions of performance and composition; they are also sources of information about the transmission of lyric poetry, and can productively be considered alongside the chansonniers as witnesses to the tradition and its reception, as ardis butterfield (2002) has demonstrated. in several chapters, the oeuvre of an individual trouvere serves to repre­ sent broader phenomena in the repertory. the courtly songs of gautier de dargies (an early trouvere) form the basis for the discussion of manuscript transmission, meter, melody, and syntax, where o'neill convincingly demonstrates the role of rhetorical structure in shaping the songs. moniot de paris provides the focus for the chapter on continuity and change in the later trouvere tradition. o'neill shows the intersection of melody and versification in moniot's pastourelles and illustrates the variety of structures they represent. on the basis of this analysis, o'neill concludes that moniot's oeuvre is representative oflarger stylistic developments in the middle of the thirteenth century. the book's origins in o'neill's 1992 doctoral dissertation may account for the contrast between the broad themes suggested by the titles of the chapters and the more limited scope of the examples chosen for detailed analysis. besides the courtly love songs that are the focus of o'neill's book, the northern french repertory includes a wide range of genres and sub genres so numerous that even the designations continuously invented by modern scholars are insufficient. laments and encomia, songs of religious polemic or devotion, dance songs, debate poems, and songs in a woman's voice cover a spectrum from comedy to despair. more difficult to categorize are songs such as the chansons de toile with their sometimes enigmatic blend of lyric and narrative. even though it was not o'neill's goal to survey the repertory as a whole, more examples taken from genres besides the courtly chanson would have provided support for some of her arguments regarding change of style and structure over time. in particular, more references to the intriguing connections between the chanson and the french motet in the thirteenth century would have enriched the considerations of genre. o'neill does allude to the urbanization of the trouveres in the second half of the thirteenth century and the concomitant proliferation of new 185 186 current musicology genres, but presents few concrete instances of these developments, except for some discussion of adam de la halle. instead, courtly love songs emphasizes the varieties of the pastourelle in contrast to the conventions of the chanson, reinforcing the binary opposition of aristocratic and popular registers conceptualized as high and low styles. as a general framework, this dichotomy can be limiting. although o'neill relies upon the notion of a consistent "high style" for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, scholars have become increasingly aware that it was studies such as john stevens's words and music in the middle ages (1986) and christopher page's voices and instruments of the middle ages (1987) that established the notion of a set of specific conventions dubbed the "high style." page used later treatises to extrapolate performance practices for the secular music of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, projecting backward the genre designation of grand chant that was first attested in the fourteenth.2 o'neill does not problematize the idea of the high style established by page, even though it is a complex aesthetic construct, as is the very notion of courtliness itself. in the first full-length study of the trouveres in english, one would have hoped to see a full account of the scholarship to date, but many pertinent studies are not cited here. john haines's work on the manuscript transmission and rhythmic interpretation of the repertory would have been particularly relevant (haines 1997; 2004). although o'neill states clearly that rhythm is not a central concern in this book, she could have dispensed with the question more effectively by referring the reader to the most recent treatments of the subject. in footnotes summarizing the existing scholarship on the notation of individual manuscripts, o'neill omits robert lug's studies of chansonnier u (paris, bibliotheque nationale de france, fonds fran<;:ais 20050); lug's 1995 article would be particularly relevant here. also puzzling is her use of a nineteenth-century edition of the poetic repertory from thirteenth-century arras rather than the more recent one by roger berger (1981), although she does cite berger's edition of the artesian confraternities' necrologies. references to recent melodic editions of individual trouveres apart from tischler (1997) would have acknowledged the existing range of approaches and thereby highlighted the number of songs available in modern transcriptions. indeed, some of the editions o'neill does not cite are particularly excellent resources for musicologists, such as maria sofia lannutti's (1999) critical edition ofthe songs of guiot de dijon. while the material is for the most part clearly presented and readable, some infelicities suggest less than perfect editing. for instance, in the lists of manuscript sigla on pages xiv and 14, the manuscript paris, bnf fro 1591 is listed as manuscript t, which is actually the siglum normally used for a different chansonnier: paris, bnf fro 12615. the customary siglum for fro susan boynton 1591, r, is entirely absent, as is the shelfmark of fro 12615. compounding this mistake, the shelfmark of fro 1591 is identified in this list as the "chansonnier de noailles," the name commonly associated with fro 12615. as many of o'neill's transcriptions employ chansonnier t or r, one would have expected a page of corrigenda to be inserted in the book; in fact, the only accurate reference to chansonnier r that i was able to find is buried in a footnote on page 27, in which a book is cited whose title happens to include both the manuscript's correct siglum and its shelf mark. other problems may be more the fault of the publisher than of the author: there is no index of manuscripts, and the general index includes only one manuscript shelf mark. several typographical errors that appear more than once should have been corrected (bazzolo for bozzolo, confrerie for confrerie, ramon de miraval for raimon de miraval). the ordering and arrangement of photographic plates, moreover, is unsatisfactory, and several are of rather poor quality (presumably because of inferior originals provided by the bibliotheque nationale de france). even though the format of the black-and-white photographic signature readily fits two photographs shown side by side, reproductions of a song from various manuscripts are placed on different pages (except for plates 13 and 14). plates 1 and 3 are even printed on the front and back of the same page, which is frustrating to anyone who might wish to view both images at once. nevertheless, the book largely accomplishes what o'neill set out to do, namely to illuminate the melodic transmission and style of courtly songs in a vast corpus that remains all too little studied. the musical examples are ample, accurate, and well chosen, and the many synoptic transcriptions of melodies from two or three manuscripts illustrate important aspects of the songs' structures and manuscript traditions. this first book-length account of the trouvere chanson as music will provide a useful foundation for the many future studies that this extensive repertory so clearly deserves. notes 1. a useful complement would have been peter jeffery's (1992) reading of the generative­ grammar theory. 2. see, for instance, the response to page's ethos of the "high style" in aubrey (1996:257-61), who challenges the applicability of this model to troubadour song. references aubrey, elizabeth. 1993. literacy, orality, and the preservation of french and occitan medieval courtly songs. revista de musicologia 16 (4): 2355-66. --. 1996. the music of the troubadours. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. 187 188 current musicology berger, roger. 1981. litterature et societe arrageoises au xiii siecle: les chansons et dits artesiens. arras: commission departementale des monuments historiques du pas-de-calais. butterfield, ardis. 2002. poetry and music in medieval france: from jean renart to guillaume de machaut. cambridge studies in medieval literature, no. 49. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. gaunt, simon. 2005. fictions of orality in troubadour poetry. in orality and literacy in the middle ages: essays on a conjunction and its consequences in honour of d. h. green, edited by mark chinca and christopher young, 119-38. utrecht studies in medieval literacy, no. 12. turnhout: brepols. haines, john. 1997. the "modal theory:' fencing, and the death of pierre aubry. plainsong and medieval music 6 (2): 143-50. ---.2004. eight centuries of troubadours and trouveres: the changing identity of medieval music. musical performance and reception. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. jeffery, peter. 1992. re-envisioning past musical cultures: ethnomusicology in the study of gregorian chant. chicago studies in ethnomusicology. chicago and london: university of chicago press. keyser, dorothy. 1993. literacy and orality in the secular music of thirteenth-century france: the evidence of the "adam de la halle" manuscript. revista de musicologia 16 (4): 2365-89. lannutti, maria sofia, ed. 1999. canzoni. guiot de dijon: edizione critica a cura di maria sofia lannutti. florence: sismel edizioni del galluzzo. lug, robert. 1995. das "vormodale" zeichensystem des chansonniers de saint-germain­ des-pres. archiv fur musikwissenschaft 52 (1): 19-65. page, christopher. 1987. voices and instruments of the middle ages: instrumental practice and songs in france, 1100-1300. london: j. m. dent. peraino, judith. 1995. new music, notions of genre, and the "manuscrit du roi" circa 1300. phd dissertation, university of california, berkeley. stevens, john. 1986. words and music in the middle ages: song, narrative, dance, and drama, 1050-1350. cambridge studies in music. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. tischler, hans. 1997. trouvere lyrics with melodies: complete comparative edition. 15 vols. corpus mensurabilis musicae, no. 107. neuhausen: american institute of musicology and hanssler-verlag. treitler, leo. 1981. oral, written, and literate process in the transmission of medieval music. speculum 56 (3): 471-91. current.musicology.83.109-188.pdf heath lees. 2007. mallarme and wagner: music and poetic language. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. reviewed by david j. code heath lees's book mallarme and wagner: music and poetic language offers a relatively straightforward revisionist claim: that mallarme's familiarity with (and agonistic response to) the challenge of wagnerian music drama cannot be solely attributed-as it sometimes has been-to a damascene "conver­ sion" contemporaneous with the "second wave" of french wagnerisme in the mid-1880s. the true roots of this central strand of the poet's thought, lees argues, extend much deeper than this, even as far back as his formative years as a lyceen during the late 1850s. reappraised in this light, mallarme's "quest to re-appropriate music on behalf of poetry" (xv) must be seen as a crucial determinant not only of his few, explicit late responses to wagner (notably the essay-cum-prose poem richard wagner. reverie d'un poete fram;ais and the sonnet "hommage a richard wagner"), but of most of his major works starting from his first publications in the 1860s. several background chapters lay the groundwork for the defense of lees's thesis. in chapter i, questioning a tenacious cliche about the poet's "awakening" to wagner at the concerts lamoureux in 1885, lees offers evidence of mallarme's "informed awareness of musical events" (18) in the years before. telling points of reference include his ongoing contacts with such leading musical figures as augusta holmes and the musical minutiae noted in la derniere mode, the magazine about fashion and current events mallarme himself edited for a short while in 1874. an informative overview of the spread of wagnerian music and ideas into french culture during the 1860s and 1870s (in spite of the catastrophic public reception of the 1860 paris production of tannhiiuser) leads into chapter 2, "music and mallarme's generation," which opens a window onto the revolutionary developments in musical education that prepared a whole generation to become a new kind of audience for such distinctive nineteenth-century institutions as the societe des concerts du conservatoire and jules pasdeloup's concerts populaires. a particularly valuable point of reference here is the manuel musical of bocquillon wilhelm, whose presentation of the guidonian basis of solfege lees discusses at some length; the same chapter also touches briefly on the rise of scientific acoustics and the attendant belief that the western tonal system could be seen as a "progressive elaboration of acoustic processes that were inherent in nature itself" (30). finally, lees provides current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 157 158 current musicology valuable glimpses into the emergent debates about the ambivalent benefits of musical "democratization" -debates which would leave their mark in the early mallarme essay, l'art pour tous, which also featured his first reverential reference to wagner. lees's focus soon tightens in on more narrowly literary topics. a glance to the prescient (but somewhat clumsy) criticism of wagnerian music drama offered by mallarme's admired poetic precursor theophile gautier sets the stage for a much more extensive rereading of baudelaire's famous brochure richard wagner et tannhiiuser it paris, during which lees insistently reaffirms the degree to which baudelaire captured, conveyed, and exemplified key aspects of wagnerian aesthetics, as presented not only in the composer's short lettre sur musique, but also in opera and drama (which was available to baudelaire in english translation). chapter 4 begins by elaborating further on baudelaire's transmission of wagnerian principles-e.g., the leitmotif as the means of fusing "feeling with understanding" (88) and the new ideal of melody that replaced "the four-bar song mould of the 'typical' opera" with "a continuous performance of musical prose" (96)-before introducing mallarme's close friends catulle mendes and villiers de l'isle adam. both of these writers represented what we might call the "first wave" of wagnerisme, which flourished long before the coalescence of a wider group of litterateurs around edouard dujardin would lead to the short -lived revue wagnerienne in the mid-1880s. it is against the background of the poetic experiments of mendes and villiers, lees suggests, that we must understand mallarme's own "attempt to repossess music." the second half of the book traces this attempt in four chapters covering successive stages of mallarme's literary output. lees approaches the texts in light ofa set of three closely related (and not entirely stable) opposi­ tions: first, that between l' effet of language in its momentary, sensuous, expressive power and l' effet of the poem as a formalized structure; second, that between la musique as the sonorous property oflanguage and 1'oubli, the need to forget the promiscuous meanings attributable to words; and finally, between musique as a debased, traditional understanding of "verbal music" and musique, the grander "music" that can claim a mysterious basis in something like a fundamental tone (on the model of acoustics or counterpoint). after an analysis of several poems from the early 1860s, we reach the pivotal project-and crisis-of mallarme's herodiade, which, as lees puts it, "was to become for him the chimerical symbol of the marriage of music and poetic language in the theatre of the mind" (144). lees begins his reading of l'apres-midi d'un faune by suggesting that this poem's much more decisive success (albeit a success on a more modest scale than originally' planned) can be seen as the result of a greater compromise with "openly david j. code decorative musical charm" (150 )-or, more simply, "euphonious musicality per se" (161). by comparison, he explains the failure of herodiade (which would remain incomplete) as the result of a more rigorous adherence to the ultimately irresolvable vision of a "completely musicalized language of gestural sound and sympathetic vibration" (173). a discussion in chapter 7 of several roughly contemporaneous works (e.g., the prose pour des esseintes and le demon de l'anaiogie) adumbrates lees's proposed explanation for the poet's eventual transcendence of this impasse-an evolution, we read, that hinged in significant part on a new at­ tunement to the question of a receptive "congregation of audience members, all ... united in spirit by the very fact of their participation" (198). it was the recognition of the power of this unifying transaction-as distinct from the obsessive, introverted pursuits that had led to crisis and incompletion-that was, lees argues, the true revelation of mallarme's experiences of wagner's orchestral music in the 1880s. in the book's final chapter, lees offers a new reading of the wagnerian prose piece reverie and the hommage sonnet, arguing that they are both, on the whole, far less ambivalent and resentful than they have occasionally been found. going so far as to interpret the sonnet as a "grateful assimilation of wagner's influence, as well as his next step beyond wagner" (235), lees claims that it was only with this ultimate assimilation that mallarme could finally realize his musically informed pottique, "overtaking wagner himself' in such works as un coup de des n' abolira ie hasard. a short review for a primarily musicological audience can hardly do full justice to this book, much of whose value resides in its accumulation of historical and interpretive detail. still, although it has much to offer in all of its various sections, its ideal audience is, at times, not entirely clear. musically speaking, it is not without some infelicities and simplifications. the emphasis on the iconic status of the leitmotif, for one thing, carries significant interpretive potential. but throughout, this idea takes a strangely one-dimensional musical cast: lees tends to define leitmotif as primarily "rhythmic;' presumably since he is seeking to find connections with poetic rhythm. as a result, his description of the profound interest baudelaire and subsequent wagnerians had in the leitmotif concept is somewhat inadequate. the excursion into the scientistic side of nineteenth-century musical thought is a digression whose direct relevance to the poetic points at issue is never clearly established (the proposed esoteric link between certain resonance experiments and poetry, via the single word moire, though appealingly imaginative, seems strained.) some analogies are more intriguing: the idea that mallarme "aimed to regenerate his language by using his verbs the way wagner used perfect cadences" (169) could conceivably prove a promising 159 160 current musicology way to compare the two artists' syntactical attenuation-just so long as we do not dwell too long on the essential incongruity of french verbs and musical cadences. similarly hasty, but rather more problematic, is the easy resort to the language of sonata form to describe the structure of both herodiade and faune. without more detailed justification, the references, for example, to the "development section" of each poem (153,168), weaken the musico-poetic argument rather than strengthening it. and in the occasional references to wagner's music dramas-as in this brief discussion of tristan, "all the musical phrases give the effect of floating in and out of each other, rising and falling, expanding and contrasting, filling the air with suggestive vibrations while keeping the changing world of different instrumental colors alive and active" (169)-this study of wagnerian influence on mallarme can be said to shade over into a decidedly mallarmean hearing of wagner. from the literary side, while there is undoubtedly something to be said for such emphatic prioritization of primary texts (e.g., mallarme's writings and those of his contemporaries), readers might wonder about the absence of more up-to-date critical-theoretical engagement. the close, resolutely literal reading of baudelaire's tannhiiuser essay, for example, reads strangely in light of the well-known, far more refractory accounts of philippe lacoue-labarthe (1991) and margaret miner (1995). (although both of these authors are mentioned in the bibliography, neither leaves any trace on lees's argument.) similarly, though i would be the last to endorse any obligation to engage with the countless appropriations of mallarme by post -structuralist theorists-indeed, i have perhaps been too willing to sidestep such an obligation myself-it seems to me that without some sensitivity to the reasons behind, say, derrida's interest in mallarme, the portrait of the poet and the readings of his art inevitably become imbal­ anced. central to that interest, to put it crudely, was a sense of mallarme's exemplary confrontation with language as textual practice-in other words, with the dialectic of voice and writing-which all but falls away within lees's determinedly wagnerist, musical, and performative purview. this is not to say that lees's various readings, in the absence of this crucial critical dimension, are without value. as is the case with every close investigation of mallarme's poetry, each reader will likely emerge from this one with his or her own sense of the admixture of convincing and uncon­ vincing aper(:us. quibbles over detail aside, for this reader one of the book's primary accomplishments is the more general, cumulative effect that emerges from the accounts of mallarme's earlier struggles. these pages impart a palpable sense of the terrible artistic strain mallarme subjected himself to as he attempted to balance an irreconcilable array of competing forces in the service of a truly new, truly "musical" poetry. still, what is missing (to return david j. code to the point about derrida) is any recognition of the role played, in this unbearable strain, of mallarme's unending obsession with a preeminently literary ideal that haunted his poetry in a way that created direct conflict with all musical affinities. this overweening ideal of an all-encompassing literary oeuvre recurred in the poet's letters and critical writings under the incantatory name ie livre, or the book. as jacques scherer ([1957] 1977) put it long ago, the book bathed the whole of mallarme's fragmentary literary output in the retrospective light of its perpetual incompletion (and impossibility). although it was to prove unattainable as a singular, monumental work, "the book" inflected mallarme's completed poetic oeuvre with structural tendencies of a markedly different nature than the musical processes lees identifies. whether or not one accepts anything like the close affinity be­ tween virtual "book" form and the poetic form i have outlined in my own analysis of l'apres-midi d'un faune (code 2004)-an analysis that hinges on a dialectics between feeling and understanding very similar to that lees emphasizes-there is no doubt that this poem's famous typographical differentiations are, as lees passingly acknowledges, as much "formative" as "sensuous" (153); that the rigorous bilateral symmetries in the overture ancienne to herodiade more closely resemble book-like structure (i.e., folded and foliated pages) than sonata form or any other musical process; that un coup de des, with its typographical play, is as profoundly engaged with questions oflanguage's graphic materiality as it is with the musical and performative concerns for which lees is quick to claim it as a success. lees has, in short, valuably raised into greater prominence the depth and detail of wagner's influence on mallarme's musical thought. but in directing his gaze so single-mindedly towards the wagnerian "sun," he underplays the degree to which its rays were mingled, from the start, with the countervailing, darker emanations from the imaginary book-the specifically literary ideal that left profound traces throughout all of mallarme's ongoing attempts, in verse and criticism alike, to repossess music for his own poetic language. references code, david j. 2004. the formal rhythms of mallarme's faun. representations 86: 73-119. lacoue-labarthe, philippe. 1991. musica ficta: figures de wagner. paris: christian bourgois. miner, margaret. 1995. resonant gaps: between baudelaire and wagner. athens: university of georgia press. scherer, jacques. [1957] 1977. le "livre" de mallarme. paris: gallimard. 161 current.musicology.85.113-172.pdf toward a committed musicology franfois lesure musicology can no longer be taught as it was only thirty years ago; at least it should not be. in the first place, the domain of the discipline, until now relatively limited, has been enlarged, thanks principally to the development of musical psychology, anthropology, and sociology. and, even if the purely historical point of view continues to predominate, the contemporary period tends more and more to be included in courses of study. in many european universities this change has taken place under the influence of student participation and has let in a breath of fresh air, thus narrowing the gap between abstract knowledge and concrete reality. (is not the "aleatory" aspect of early music better understood thanks to the practice of some of today's young musicians?) the emergence of ethnomusicology represents an even greater enlargement, but in this case the evolution has been so slow that it seems discouraging. universities generally assign, at most, secondary status to this discipline, which continues to lean more toward ethnology than toward musicology, not only for methodological reasons but also because of the very attitude of musicologists who are trained in a historical approach. it seems senseless that today a university can train musicologists who have practically no knowledge of non-western music. moreover, no successful attempt has been made at congresses and symposia to bring musicology and ethnomusicology closer together, and it is not without surprise that i learn from recent forecasts about musicology in the year 2000, that no fundamental changes in this outlook are anticipated. traditional musicology has everything to gain from a deeper association with this young discipline, whose method is less entrenched but more dynamic. does musicology itself not also recognize oral tradition? making frequent allusion to popular trends which exercise an influence over learned culture, musicology makes of them a sort of deus ex machina which avoids other explanations and furnishes hypotheses which, in the end, cannot be verified. in the second place, musicology is reaching a point where it might well rethink its methodology. certainly, this method has proven its worth for bibliographies or catalogues, deciphering notational systems, or editing texts. it has only had to follow the models offered by history and philology. can it be said, then, that musicology uses a method suitable only for the specific subject matter of music in order to arrive at the meaning of the art? has it succeeded in establishing a system of symbols which shows us what it is that makes music different from the other modes of artistic or literary expression? the analytic methods used until now have been greatly overextended. they were too narrowly applicable, i.e., to a repertoire of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. here, too, the development of contemporary music and the study of non-european music have made the inadequacy and overly 128 scholastic character of these methods obvious. today, another distinct influence emerges from linguistics and structuralism. one must, of course, not consider this last to be a panacea and thereby reject all prior achievements. however, music can be considered a language, and it is fitting to study it as such, with the means which are proper to it. for more than twenty years, disciplines such as social anthropology, sociology, and psychology have shown a vitality and methodological imagination which might induce musicologists to reexamine their customary approaches to their subject. one would like to see them develop a more active avant-garde which, without renouncing what is good, would jar the field out of its apathy and suggest directional priorities. do the hesitations and digressions which the young field of musical sociology has experienced not also arise from the uncertain position of a humanistic science which has not adequately defined its objectives? the imbalance which exists between the accumulation of documents and editions and the classification of sources on the one hand, and significant ideas on the other, continues to increase. thus the discipline still suffers from an ideological bankruptcy. there remains to be discussed briefly the organization of research in musicology, as well as the role of institutions which could aid it. some progress has been made at the informational level, rilm being the best example. there is also the recently established international center for works in progress, which one hopes will come to playa dynamic role. another desideratum is greater effectiveness and better coordination in the area of university theses, at every level. too often these seem to be assigned to students only in order to permit them to demonstrate their research ability. if solely academic, this exercise is done in vain. students must realize very early that their efforts are of use to musicology. this is why, in suggesting research themes which sometimes depend on the stringing-together or collecting of data, their professors incur a serious responsibility. how many months are wasted in writing monographs destined to gather dust on university shelves as soon as they are finished, without any of their results having been published! between rigid structure and individualism, there are many avenues which should permit musicologists the world over to work toward the same end. one could, for instance, follow the example of the scientists who initiated the international geophysical year and organize a certain number of seminars on the same subject in different countries during the course of a year. without attempting to challenge the autonomy of the universities, this process would stimulate a spirit of competition on the part of teachers and students; at the same time it could lead to comparative studies and publications. for advanced researchers there are the traditional congresses of the international musicological society. before world war ii these were of considerable interest. but as the number of participants has grown, the effectiveness of these congresses has diminished, until they now resemble industrial fairs more than they do scientific meetings. it should be possible to 129 change their format to one of symposia, full-day study groups, or seminars. this idea has proven its worth in the united states and in eastern european countries, in wegberg as well as in paris (c.n.r.s.): a limited subject, a small number of participants from different countries, and free discussions, from which the essential points are later published. at their next congress, the members of the international musicological society will have a chance to say whether they favor a greater development of activities in this direction. it is not by chance that these thoughts-very short, considering the seriousness of the subject, and a bit pessimistic-are addressed to young american musicologists, who represent, in overwhelming proportions, the future of musicology. to the prodigious expansion which this discipline has experienced in their country one hopes to see added a more concentrated striving toward well-defined objectives, toward an interdisciplinary enlargement of methods, and toward a more committed mode of thought. (translated from the french by leonie rosenstiel) 130 daniel albright. untwisting the serpent: modernism in music, literature, and other arts. chicago: university of chicago press, 2000. xiv, 395 pp. reviewed by ruth longobardi in their introduction to modernism: 1890-1930, malcolm bradbury and james mcfarlane acknowledge the inevitable limitations of studies on early twentieth-century literature: "perhaps the most any account can offer," they warn, "is a personal or at least partial version of an overwhelmingly com­ plex phenomenon, an individual selection from the infinity of detail" (1991:21). numerous other scholars have shared the conviction that mod­ ernism should not be fixed within definitive parameters. the literary critic linda hutcheon, for example, describes the term modernism as "a cultur­ ally limited and limiting label" (1980:2-3; italics in the original). art histo­ rian richard sheppard devotes a chapter of his book on the european avant-garde to the problem of defining modernism, which he understands as "a deeply and multiply fissured movement" (2000:5-6). and jonathan kramer warns against such reductions as "modernist vs. postmodernist" in the field of music. "artistic movements," he argues, "refuse to be reduced out of existence by critics who draw arbitrary distinctions" (1984:345). daniel albright, author of untwisting the serpent: modernism in music, literature, and other arts, concludes his introduction with a similar senti­ ment: the purpose of this book is not to argue a thesis concerning modernism, or to delimit modernism as a period, or to discuss the interaction of the various isms that both organize and perplex the history of twentieth-century art. (32) on the contrary, albright's study addresses a single characteristic com­ mon to an assorted group of twentieth-century works: the unruly conduct of their media. in particular, he demonstrates that the in teraction between music and text in music dramas of the modern period is unpredictable enough to justify extensive analysis. albright's unraveling of select works in the chapters that follow, and his simultaneous resistance to generaliza­ tions about modernism, combine to produce a fascinating study. for musi­ cologists, untwisting the serpent will be a welcome contribution to the litera­ ture on a repertory that has been relatively little explored. albright focuses, in large part, on the different degrees of unity, or current musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 208 current musicology disunity, among the collaborating media of music drama. appropriate to the study, therefore, is albright's lengthy introduction on "the laocoon problem," a transhistorical aesthetic debate concerning the proper topics and parameters for mimesis in the various arts. central to gotthold ephraim lessing's early discussion in laokoon (1766) are two artistic renderings­ one in verse, the other in sculpture-of the priest laocoon, who was put to death for prophesying doom to troy. while in virgil's aeneid laocoon is said to have let out a bellowing shriek upon his execution, an antique sculpture unearthed in 1506 depicts a serene priest tangled in the deathly coils of a large snake (hence the title of albright's study). as albright care­ fully recounts, lessing concludes in laokoon that the difference between depictions is owed to the protocols of the two media. on the one hand, wrote lessing, the visual arts are properly confined to the decorum of space, showing no projection into time; since a climactic scream implies a less intense state to follow, it is unsuitable for representation in stone. the literary arts, on the other hand, are properly concerned with linear devel­ opment through time and not static description; virgil's inclusion of laocoon's horrible clamor, says lessing, is therefore entirely apropos. as albright goes on to explain, several scholars since lessing, albright included, have reevaluated the laocoon problem in relation to the experi­ mental works of more recent times. for albright, the unique characteris­ tics of twentieth-century musico-dramatic collaborations necessitate a more complex formulation of mimetic terms. one can no longer assume, in other words, that music and text are simply temporal media that together represent characters and events as they progress through time. the au­ thor rather proposes that many of these works eithe:r resist linear develop­ ment in order to exhibit a unique vertical mimesis-that is, the mediajoin together to represent the world of experience as a unified whole-or else separate from each other completely so that the text may develop through time while the music rejects mimesis altogether, prqjecting instead its own abstract materiality. the twelve chapters that follow are organized around this unity / dis­ unity dichotomy. part 1, "figures of consonance among the arts," explores works (including stravinsky's renard, britten's curlew river, and weill's the threepenny opera) whose media, according to albright,join together at cer­ tain moments to represent the quintessential meaning of a work over and above its dramatic series of events. part 2, "figures of dissonance among the arts," explores several works (satie's parade, antheil's ballet mecanique, and thompson's four saints in three acts, among others) whose media, albright argues, refuse to cooperate as a mimetic whole, rejecting repre­ sentation in order to revel in their own materiality; music, at these mo­ ments, acts as sheer sound. in these chapters, figures of consonance and ruth longobardi 209 dissonance are the substance of albright's analyses. such figures are pre­ cise musical, literary, or multi-media units that engage in different degrees and types of representation. they allow the author to escape a simple track­ ing of musico-dramatic events in order to pursue less traditional mimetic issues. l each of the six chapters in part 1 addresses either a particular figure of consonance (hieroglyph or gestus2) or a particular genre (the ideo­ gram, noh theater, or the villonaud) that, according to albright, incorpo­ rates figures of consonance. the hieroglyph (chapter 1) is a figure used by one medium that assumes the properties of another medium. for example, albright illustrates how a musical hieroglyph can function as a verbal mes­ sage even when it is not attached to a text. the gestus (chapter 4) is nor­ mallya musical entity that suggests a meaningful physical movement (such as a shrug) but that may simultaneously embody the dramatic essence of a work (such as "spiritual acquiescence"). albright's examples of gestus, most of which are extracted from the weill/brecht repertory, consist largely of musical motives that the author tags with extramusical identities, includ­ ing one that acts as "organ-grinder" and others that represent "lamenta­ tion," "boogie-woogie," or "the proscenium arch itself." these two chapters address the capacity of certain media to signify beyond a dramatic sequence of events, and they define the tools (or fig­ ures) by which they can do so. if albright's methodology for identifying such figures is never completely explained, and if it is difficult at times to tell one type of figure from another, the remaining chapters in part 1 allow the reader other opportunities to observe the figures in action. these four chapters concern genres that albright believes resist the teleology of dra­ matic time by means of figures of consonance in order to express a deeper meaning. the ideogram (chapter 2) is a literary genre that represents a complex idea by juxtaposing discrete, descriptive units that do not develop through time. albright's primary example is ezra pound's poem "in a sta­ tion by the metro," whose two lines superimpose human faces and damp leaves to create a unified and static vision. "noh" (chapter 3) delves into modernist adaptations of japanese noh theater by pound and yeats, and in the late twentieth century by benjamin britten in curlew river. albright analyzes music in this last work largely in terms of undeveloping musical figures that, he argues, communicate the work's overarching message of spiritual transcendence. chapter 5, "villonaud," illustrates the manner in which a certain type of music drama imitates the modernist world ("botched civilization") by means of preexisting or highly stylized material ("hunks of cultural refuse from the most disparate sources" [139]) that are pieced together side by side. finally, "noh again" (chapter 6) presents brecht and weill's noh opera derjasageras the supreme "consonant" music drama; 210 current musicology the music's repeating and motoristic units communicate "a single master gestus: acquiescence" (172) that is the primary meaning of the correspond­ ing text. as a whole, the six chapters of part 1 illustrate a novel and instinctive approach to analyzing the representational effects of modernist genres, with particular emphasis on the music drama. given that any project of this scope is bound to be difficult and expansive, it is understandable that albright's music analyses are sometimes oversimplified by his overarching method of pinpointing repeating melodic motives as figures of consonance. because albright applies this methodology to most of the music dramas he discusses, it does at times verge on the artificial. nevertheless, albright's proposal that music can escape the simple teleology of dramatic events while still functioning as a representational medium is, i believe, impera­ tive to any consideration of this repertory. moreover, the author aptly pro­ vides detailed information on the genesis and historical context ofnumer­ ous artworks, quotations from the artists' essays and correspondence, and anecdotes about events surrounding the works' composition, all of which are extremely useful and enjoyable. part 2 of untwisting the serpent provides a nice contrast to part 1, mov­ ing as it does from mimesis to abstraction. its six chapters are half taken up with particular figures of dissonance (loops and cubes) and half with a modernist movement, surrealism, that albright believes relied on such fig­ ures. in general, the second half of the book is more rewarding than the first, since the author focuses on a single music dra,ma, parade, in five of the chapters, which allows him to engage in more detailed analyses of the work in question. in "loop" (chapter 7) albright proposes that the media of parade are organized as discrete, stratified, and sometimes non-repre­ sentational entities. albright demonstrates how the score's repeating me­ lodic motives, what he calls "music loops," bear little relation to the onstage drama that occurs simultaneously. "cube" (chapter 8) relates the scenery, text, and music of parade to the flat and abstract cubist style that was con­ temporaneous with its composition. albright isolates instrumental lines in erik satie's score that resemble geometric shapes while escaping the con­ fines of dramatic reference. "loop again" (chapter 9) examines satie's (and other composers') debt to the crude features of early cinema: silent pantomime, captions, film loops, and especially the misalignment of pic­ ture and sound, in which music occurs as a backdrop but not necessarily as a representational partner to drama. these three chapters provide a wonderfully detailed study of parade. they speak about the work's relationship to contemporary aesthetic styles; they also explore ways in which music can accompany text without contrib­ uting extramusical content. albright's analytical language, in fact, seems ruth longobardi 211 especially tailored to a piece like parade, whose score is constructed out of the succinct musical figures that albright extracts from scores throughout this study. and while at times the author is a bit narrow in his analyses-for example, i am unconvinced by the geometric "cubist" shapes that he high­ lights in parade-he nevertheless provides a compelling historical and theo­ retical rationale for characterizing the work as "dissonant." chapters 10 and 11 provide an even broader context for parade by examining surrealism in the visual arts, literature, and music. chapter 10 is a fascinating illumination of two different theories of the surreal, one by the writer and critic guillaume apollinaire, and the other by his contem­ porary andre breton. this chapter also reflects on the manner in which each medium of a surrealist collaboration can occupy its own abstract do. main and yet still combine with other media to represent an external world that is itself a combination of dissonant elements. "each medium," albright writes, "should pursue its own way of seizing the world, its private appre­ hension of reality" (246). chapter 11 then delves into several of jean cocteau's surrealist music dramas, parade included, in order to illustrate how the independence of text and music in these works reflects an exter­ nal world in which nothing bears a relationship to anything else. the book's final chapter, "heaven," discusses the gertrude stein/virgil thomson collaboration, four saints in three acts. albright cites this opera as an example of extreme surrealism in which "the component media at­ tain such a state of perfect disregard for one another that dissonance itself is superseded, and a new consonance is achieved, in a sort of afterlife of the dream of total theatre" (311). for albright, it is the setting of the work-the empty, inactive landscape of heaven-that motivates a lack of musical and verbal semantics. music and text, according to the author, are both dissonant in their failure to project a story, but consonant because that failure is completely appropriate to the opera's locale. this last chap­ ter (along with the five preceding ones) offers the reader abundant re­ wards. albright's illustration of an analytical method that is not founded on dramatic alignment between music and text is a welcome contribution to the study of music drama, as is the complete and wide-ranging examina­ tion of parade that the author provides. the study as a whole, however, also struggles with several (though not unassailable) difficulties. one of these is that it is structured on what at times seems an overly simplistic dichotomy. as albright himself warns in the introduction, his consonant/dissonant antithesis is "somewhat frail" (28). to be sure, the distinction is intriguing and will certainly prove a useful point of entry for future studies on twentieth-century music drama. but the dichotomy also forces works into molds that provide a less than comfortable fit; albright sometimes ignores unique characteristics of com212 current musicology positions so that each work can be categorized as either consonant or dis­ sonant. and this either/or method limits our ability to hear music as exist­ ing somewhere in-between or as incorporating both qualities. indeed, the relationship between musical and textual representation can be much more complex; music can represent via an enormous variety of means and meth­ ods and those means do not only vary with every composition but within every composition as well. music may sometimes agree with its libretto, sometimes disagree, and sometimes correspond only tangentially. the com­ poser can represent any aspect of any model at any 1ime.3 another problem, briefly mentioned above, is albright's inclination to divide musical scores into repeating melodic and harmonic figures that signify figures of consonance or dissonance. since repeating motives be­ gin to look like other repeating motives, the numerous works discussed do not always stand out as distinct compositions but rather as similar con­ glomerations of isolated motives. even consonant and dissonant figures eventually begin to take on similar aspects. both are frequently described as discrete, repeating motives that are juxtaposed with other repeating motives. and neither type develops through time. therefore, it is ultimately difficult to remember why the figures of renard are consonant while those of parade are dissonant, or why the figures of antheill's ballet mecanique are merely "clumsy hieroglyphs" (228) while curlew rivers figures are "pure simultaneity of being" (95). given the musical similarity among figures, it is also difficult to follow the logic by which these figures are assigned specific representational val­ ues. in parade, repeating pattern units, "so profoundlly fixed, as if pounded in with a pile driver" (193), represent the abstract shapes of cubism. but repetition is also the primary criterion for albright's characterization of musical motives as "undenoting sound" in ballet mechanique ("all emphasis collapses into a sonorous puddle" [238]); as a parody of a hieroglyph in renard ("it is repetition for repetition's sake, not for the sake of insistence or highlighting" [59]); as quintessential "plaint" in der jasager ("the figure keeps repeating itself ... the figure is not an expression of pain, but a hieroglyph of pain" [177-78]); as the serene landscape of heaven in four saints in three acts, whose repeating diatonic motives "simply roll down the slopes of the text" (344); and as "everything, or nothing" in the threepenny opera, where a four-note ostinato is described variously as a "a naked thump­ ing ... a gestus of pure abstract motion-a gestus of reality ... a gestus of fundamental being-there ... the solid 1-7-6-5 figure seems to stand for the proscenium arch itself' (132-33). what the author refers to variously as fixed figures, fixed elements, ostinati, and pattern units-all musical motives that repeat-leap to the foreground of almost every analysis in this book, and yet albright never explicitly explains how to tell the differruth longobardi 213 ence between repeating motives that are dissonant and those that are con­ sonant, or between those that are mimetic and those that are abstract. albright distinguishes between these types of figures throughout, but the means by which he does so are not enumerated. halfway through the book, as if anticipating these questions, albright does conclude that the primary difference between figures is that disso­ nant ones provide backdrop while consonant ones provide dramatic es­ sence: "music as environment," he writes, "is the exact opposite of music as hieroglyph: for satie, music doesn't aspire toward an instant of devastating apprehension of meaning, but instead aspires toward a pleasant diffusion, a letting-go of meaning" (191-92; italics in the original). but how does one know which figures carry meaning and which diffuse it, which are environ­ mental and which hieroglyphic? albright does not say; he only increases the confusion by adding, "satie did write pieces that are like hieroglyphs, in that they present brief figures with clear kinesthetic relations to a refer­ ent in the exterior world," but each of these figures is merely a "parody of a hieroglyph, a bit of musical nausea" (192). the reader may then wonder what a "parody of a hieroglyph" is, or how to recognize "musical nausea" when it happens. she may also finally wonder what this information com­ municates about the parameters of musical representation in general. what albright does not state explicitly, but what is nevertheless implied, is that the consonance or dissonance of musical figures does not always define the work as mimetic or non-mimetic, as representational or abstract, but rather defines the kind of world-spiritual or non-spiritual, complete or empty-on which the work of art is modeled. the shortcomings listed above are, however, more than offset by the wealth of other valuable information and interpretations that the author provides. for every work, albright offers historical data, pictures of sets and costumes, descriptions of choreography, etymologies of important terms, accounts of relevant literary and philosophical theories, extended literary analyses, and thoughtful insights. more importantly, his inquiry into different types of artistic collaboration is extremely valuable to musi­ cology, since what it offers that field, frequently insulated from other disci­ plines, is a new path by which to enter an interdisciplinary consideration of modernist music dramas. indeed, albright presents a welcome escape from more traditional analyses of music drama by discussing collaborative works in all their numerous artistic dimensions. untwisting the serpent is a creative attempt to explain qualities of artworks that are strangely inef­ fable-to illustrate ways in which musical scores can function as more than accompaniment to characters and events as they progress through time. for all of these reasons, albright's new book deserves close and careful study. 214 current musicology notes l. albright's terms "consonance" and "dissonance" are not related to those employed in traditional harmonic analysis. 2. these are established terms that albright reformulates for a modernist context. 3. in my forthcoming dissertation, complex mimesis: the models and methods of musical representation in benjamin britten's ''death in venice", i propose a more flex­ ible conception of musico-dramatic mimesis, especially a,. it occurs in opera. references bradbury, malcolm, andjames mcfarlane, eds. 1991. modernism 1890-1930: a guide to european literature. london: penguin books. hutcheon, linda. 1980. narcissistic narrative: the metafictional paradox. library of the canadian review of contemporary literature, vol. 5. waterloo, ontario (canada): wilfred laurier university press. kramer, jonathan d. 1984. can modernism survive george rochberg? critical inquiry 11 (december): 341-54. sheppard, richard. 2000. modernism-dada-postmodernism. evanston, ill.: northwest­ ern university press. laurie stras, ed. 2010. she's so fine: reflections on whiteness, femininity, adolescence and class in 1960s music. surrey, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. reviewed by sayo yamagata laurie stras's edited volume she's so fine: reflections on whiteness, femininity, adolescence and class in 1960s music is a welcome addition to the recent scholarship on music by female musicians of the 1960s that attends to the complexity of the women and girls who performed and listened to this music in the united states and the united kingdom. so unexplored is this area of inquiry from a musicological standpoint that, in her introduc­ tion, stras appropriately envisions she's so fine to be the "beginning of a re-evaluation-with emphasis on value-of the very premises of 1950s and 1960s pop" (23). by extension, stras's ambitions for the book not only necessitate an interrogation of the merits of the popular music canon, but also call for a reconsideration of the standard criteria for assigning and naturalizing value wherever it calcifies. the pop music of women musicians in the 1960s has, critically and in general popular thought, been denigrated for its polish and mass appeal. celebrated volumes on rock history such as the rolling stone encyclopedia of rock and roll, (2001) or robert palmer's rock and roll: an unruly history (1995) have participated in the dismissal of girl groups by credit­ ing their success to the complex labor force of producers and song-writers "behind" the musicians. stras observes that "pop and its attendant girl­ space, with their alleged emphasis on conformity and concomitant lack of authenticity, have been noted as a phenomenon, but one that always seems to operate as a foil to prove rock's ultimate superior cultural worth" (22). the most troubling problem posed by these gendered constructions of '60s genres is not so much that popular music is consistently gendered "female"-for as stras observes, pop music was indeed a space dominated by teenage girls who represented the target audience (21 )-but that this feminization simultaneously becomes a marker of conformity, lack, or devaluation. clearly, the diminished social status of adolescent girls in western culture is one explanation for the motivations behind this discursive and political suppression of '60s girl pop and the heterogeneity of the girl singers in question. she s so fine, therefore, is a valuable feminist work because it resonates as the unequivocal rejoinder to all of the pejorative connotations that justify the reduction and dismissal of the category of "girl" from androcentric histories of popular culture. current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 133 sayo yamagata this collection is divided into three main sections that are organized into a loose chronological fashion, drawing from a broad range of disciplines that include cultural studies, historical musicology, performance studies, and media studies. it uses a wide array of primary source materials that include recordings, television broadcasts, interviews (both published and personal), biographies, autobiographies, images, journalism, rock criticism, and fan-created artifacts. its methodological and theoretical approaches to 1960s girl pop are so diverse that each reader can map a different trajectory through their arguments, but always with the sense that the essays are in conversation with each other. stras charts a course that does not quite resemble a conventional recovery project, whose purpose might be to make extraordinary, otherwise forgotten music more available, mostly because accessibility and public exposure have never been a significant problem for the uniquely situated status of 1960s girl groups. as stras mentions in her introduction, '60s girl pop presently exists in an abundance of forms within popular culture, entertainment, and media (7)-so much so that the "'60s girl singer" is both a standard, camp figure. the academic and critical devaluation of girl singers, then, has little to do with our failure to acknowledge '60s girl pop and everything to do with a deliberate disempowerment of the teenage girls involved with its creation and reception. part of this is related to what stras calls the "behind-every-great-man mentality," in which "academic work that has dealt anything more than passing critical attention to the '60s girl singers and groups are those articles that point out their influence on more prestigious male artists or repertories" (7). scholars of girl pop are therefore caught in a double bind whereby their arguments for the inclusion of '60s girl singers within the popular music canon only confirms its legitimacy. this edited volume does a careful job negotiating the conditions of this bind through destabilizing the foundational values of male-centered histories, through passing, as it were, "from the known to the unknown" (7). at an even less perceptible level, there is another problem that confronts those who attempt to think seriously about these girl singers when the latter "simultaneously can be celebrated and their power denied" (6). as much as there is an enduring fascination with '60s girl pop, scholars concerned with these girls as "icons of otherness" run the risk of rearticulating marked and unmarked categories that ultimately defuse the political and creative agency of girl singers and their listeners. the additional obstacle, as stras outlines in her introduction, is to cast a constructive and positive feminist critique out of subjects that seem to embody negative constructions of femininity through their obedience to social norms (6). but if there is anything that 133 134 current musicology relational theories of identity formation have taught us, it is that such categories of femininity are unstable. just as "female" no longer appears to be a fixed notion, the social category of "girl" only gains signification as a relational term. beyond the gendered expectations that shaped '60s female pop artists, many of whom were adolescent girls poised at the liminal existence of adult­ hood, these performers (like the majority of their fans) were additionally beset by societal models of womanhood and whiteness that convey familiar pop narratives of conformity. conversely, where the prevalence of girl singers typically ushers in unimaginative ways to reduce famous performers such as the crystals, brenda lee, the shangri-las, or sandie shaw to fixed categories of "girlishness," all eight of the contributors to she's so fine are invested in interrogating the complexities of these singers. one of the great virtues of this book is its attention to the plural nature of "girlishness" as something shaped within an intricate configuration of gender, age, race, class, nation, sexuality, and even language. its interrogation of the fixed and underestimated category of the "girl" is also commendable for its willingness to hear important moments in which those norms can be destabilized or reworked. in this way, laurie stras's edited volume makes a valuable contribution to the burgeoning field of girlhood studies because, unlike many historical or cultural studies readings of girlhood, it employs sound as a unique and important category for analysis. echoing the senti­ ments ofjacqueline warwick's foundational work, girl groups, girl culture (2007), stras reminds us in her own chapter that these singers are, after all, "relatable to the listener as a personality rather than just as a singing voice" (53); to appreciate them would be to first render the most comprehensive picture of them. in she's so fine, the process of reclaiming girl pop involves relocating the female voice and its many layers of signification that call past the linguistic designations of the lyrics and the visual spectacle of femininity. in turn, the writers' emphasis on the music's sonic dimension, with a particular regard for vocal identity, functions as the most prominent thread running throughout the collection. stras's introduction to she's so fine highlights a need to give the music a place thus far evaded even among those who write about girl groups: there is a strong bias towards examining music and musical elements in this book, not just because most of us trained as musicians and musi­ cologists, but also because most available writing on girl singers and girl groups is either historical or biographical journalism, or concentrates heavily on visual/textual analysis of image and lyrics, bypassing musical and especially the vocalcontent. before one can begin to describe the interplay between the sonic and the visual, so vital to the understanding sayo yamagata of how popular music works and the management of which is so crucial to adolescence there needs to be a way to talk about and to value the sonic. (23) writing on girl pop rarely engages with the unique, embodied voices of these girls. if we are to achieve a more nuanced understanding of what girl singers are actively doing when they perform femininity, and more importantly, if we are to appreciate these singers "on their own terms" (6) a consideration of the sonic is fundamental to a truly detailed picture of these artists. as stras implies above, vocal utterance is one of the most useful ana­ lytical facets of music especially as a process of negotiating cultural norms. within the realm of '60s girl pop, a thoughtful study of vocal identity would seem particularly valuable to projects that consider the agential potential of girl singers, especially because they seem to embody impossible ideals of womanhood that work against the basic tenets of feminist thought. in framing a positive feminist critique of '60s girl pop, the authors of she's so fine perform a rigorous theorization of vocal identity in order to evince moments of resistance that might not otherwise be legible in visual or lyrical analyses of these singers. together, these essays reveal how '60s girl singers were capable of an incredible range of vocal nuance, despite the tendency for critics to lump them together as having a single "dumb" sound. norma coates, for instance, in her essay on folk/pop-turned-rock singer marianne faithfull (chapter 7), argues, "in faithfull's voice one accesses both the excess and the collateral damage of the 1960s, especially to women in the countercultural spaces such as the rock music of the era" (200). faithfull's broken english is an album that marks a complete departure from the image of white english aristocratic womanhood that, for the most part, was fostered by her earliest producers. as coates eloquently shows us, it is quite difficult to imagine how faithfull's breakthrough album could have rendered as complete a rupture from this image without her "deep, whiskey-soaked," "croaking rasp" (199). annie randall's portrait of dusty springfield (chapter 4) also under­ scores the significance of vocal timbre-how springfield's fans locate their ideas of the singer's authenticity through the characteristic features of her "soul" sound. interestingly, as randall notes, this "'soul' sound" was not an attempt at vocal blackface, but a part of springfield's unique construction of a self-conscious "camp masquerade." randall suggests that "voices do not operate independently" (136), and so in springfield's voice there exist all of the "apparent contradictions between mary [o'brien, springfield's given name 1 and dusty, britpop and us pop, a blonde singer with a black sound, colonial privilege and black americans' commensurate lack of privilege, dusty's "bent" sexuality and her songs' straight lyrics" (120). randall's 135 136 current musicology awareness of whiteness and vocal agency, especially when considering the white privilege of sounding black when dlesired, offers another important perspective that sets this book apart from other studies on 1960s girl singers that might focus primarily on visually legible indeces of social identity. stras asks a question in her introduction to frame much of these writers' work on girl singers: "what if girl cultures are, in fact, resistant, regardless of whether they resist in the same overt way as boy cultures do?" (22). in this book, the strategy of vocal masquerade is one of the most constructive and consistent points of entry to this question. in susan fast's article, "bold soul trickster: the 60s tina signifies" (chapter 8), we become privy to the many layers of vocal masquerade in the performances of tina turner that work towards destabilizing normative white male musical practices. like randall, fast adopts the concept of "signifyin(g)" to describe turner's deliberate designs of vocal parody. fast illustrates vocal masquerade as strategy for female survival within the patriarchal hierarchy of the music industry, a strategy that acquires an even greater sense of urgency under the conditions of the intimate partner violence turner endured at the time. in "voice of the beehive: vocal technique at the turn of the 1960s" (chapter i), stras examines the mainstream appeal of "bad" vocal tech­ nique in doo-wop performance whose construction was the product of a considerable amount of disciplining on the part of the singers. stras presents a thoughtful musicological reading of the so-called "untutored," "dumb sound" that became the signature characteristic of teen girl singers in order to answer how and why this "fragile teen sound" came to be a desired aesthetic quality in girl pop (50). in one explanation, the essay uncovers ways in which the shangri-las' performances of vocal vulnerability not only subscribed to an emotive vocal honesty, but also conveyed a "'bad girl' image" that appealed to many of the female fans that their songs addressed. while the lyrical material of some pop songs of the '60s encouraged girl singers to construct (and listeners to hear) vocal vulnerability, in "vocal decorum: voice, body and knowledge in the prodigious singer, brenda lee" (chapter 2), robynn stilwell illustrates how this characteristic sound was not the sole embodiment of the '60s teen voice. in her chapter on the rockabilly singer brenda lee, stilwell explores more overt forms of vocal masquerade in the figure of the child prodigy. as stilwell details, lee was a particularly fascinating example whose style of vocal excess not only sub­ scribed to the characteristic features of rockabilly, but were also markers of a "knowing" sexuality. this article is most useful for scholars exploring the agential possibilities of the voice in relation to the physical presentation of the body, especially at a time during which the visual policing of femininity was so closely guarded. if vocal utterance lets us consider less visible ways sayo yamagata in which bodies can be conceived in the cultural imagination, stilwell ad­ dresses what happens when the female voice articulates an active betrayal of her conveying body. jacqueline warwick's contribution, '''he hit me, and i was glad': violence, masochism, and anger in girl group music" (chapter 3), of­ fers another example of the vocal versatility and agency that girl singers demonstrated in the face of objectifying, disempowering, and exploitative forces that worked to preserve a male-dominated order within the music industry. like stras and stilwell, warwick similarly critiques the models of female glamour (as forms of female disablement) that were cultivated by groups like the crystals, joanie sommers, and claudine clark whose musical surfaces, in contrast, dissembled a seething interiority that belied their "nice girl" countenance. warwick takes her analysis one step further when she locates a parallel notion to this "nice girl" image of teenage femininity within narratives that detail the socialization of young african americans at the peak of desegregation activities. she offers one possible explanation to the open-ended question posed at the conclusion of chapter 1, in which stras contemplates why the "teen" sound of' 60s girl groups became so frequently associated with a "white teen" identity. citing bell hooks, warwick suggests that passivity was a mask of grace, a "safe" marker of whiteness that made it marginally easier for african americans to acquire some semblance of social mobility. in her introduction, stras describes one common perception that motivates such discourses on the "girl" in pop music: "we do not want girl singers to be women. the reason for this is simple: 'girls' are much easier to objectify than women-that's why we have cover girls, dancing girls and girl fridays" (5). in my mind, this text belongs to a larger project by feminist musicology to reclaim not only the genre of '60s pop, but also the category of "girl" that it immediately conjures. the practiced reduction of the fans and performers of '60s girl pop is a crucial point that stras verifies through her invocation of the doubly condemned position of the girl singer: at once confronted with the limitations of male-centered music industries, and later as the mainstream refuse of rock music histories. yet for many of the female artists in she's so fine, girl pop is recognized as "a site of tension between conformity and resistance" (23), animating the serious and critical discussion that is warranted of such artists as tina turner, marianne faithful, and dusty springfield for their successful negotiation between the two. to highlight martha mockus's assessment in her concluding response, these essays are narratives of "female survival," and in turn the book's contribu­ tors take up similar gestures that prevent the genre from reaching critical erasure (235). 137 138 current musicology references cusick, suzanne. 1999. "on musical performances of gender and sex:' in audible traces: gender, identity, and music, ed. elaine barkin and lydia hamessley, 25-48, zurich: carciofoli verlagshaus. george-warren, holly, patricia romanowski bashe, and jon pareles. 2001. the rolling stone encyclopedia of rock and roll, 3,d ed. new york: fireside. leonard, marion. 2007. gender in the music industry: rock, discourse and girl power. palmer, robert. 1995. rock & roll: an unruly history. new york: harmony books. surrey, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. railton, diane. 2001. "the gendered carnival of pop." popular music 20 (3 ):321-331. rasmussen, anne k. 2004. "main streaming american musical multiculturalism:' american music. 22 (2): 296-309. warwick, jacqueline. 2007. girl groups, girl culture: popular music and identity in the 1960s. new york: routledge. do as some said, or as most did?-a foucauldian experiment with nineteenth-century hip george kennaway performers and researchers who explore performance practices of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries frequently come up against a prob­ lem recently highlighted by musicologist daniel leech-wilkinson, among others. comparing recordings of schubert's "an die musik" from 1911 and 1997, he observes that the contrast between the two is deeply unsettling, and that the "audience to whom one seems just right may find the other a travesty" (leech wilkinson 2011:2). recordings by performers like adelina patti will reliably induce astonished laughter in an unprepared modern audience, and the slow, heavy portamento of early twentieth -century cellists such as hans kronold has a similar effect on conservatory cello students. 1 the contrast between then and now is not simply a matter of different but equally valid performing styles, or a question of, e.g., the degree of portamento employed, which a little audience re-education would eventually make familiar.2 it appears to challenge a modern audience's very notion of what musical expression is or means. the modern laughter is not derisive. it is provoked by a sudden collision of incongruous performance codes. this paper explores the application offoucault's concepts of enonce and discours to musical performance, to the peculiar aspects of older performing styles, and to the reactions they produced in the context of nineteenth­ century annotated editions of chamber music.3 historically informed performance (hereafter referred to as hip) is supported and sustained by performers and academic researchers. the research is largely positivist and does not generally engage with issues and methodologies typical of the more theoretical musicology that has emerged in recent decades. likewise, the "cultural turn" has largely escaped performers. the simple practicalities of performance do not fit well with such notions as the death of the author, the decalage between sign and signified, or representations of the other. rehearsals are generally not given over to discussions of hermeneutics versus phenomenology. this paper is a preliminary step in showing how such theoretical approaches could be fruitful for both performance practice and scholarship. no written sources from the nineteenth or even the earlier twentieth centuries would wholly endorse the performance style of patti or kronold. in the matter of portamento alone, for all that singers and string players approve current musicology, no. 92 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 79 80 current musicology of it as an expressive device, they also advocate a restraint which is signally absent from the performances mentioned above (brown 1999:558-65). there is an apparently increasingly ill-tempered conflict between musical authority-figures and practitioners towards the end of the nineteenth century and into the early period of recording. while fin-de-siecle critics and teachers become more emphatic in condemning the alleged abuse of expressive devices like portamento or vibrato, performers, as heard on early recordings, use these devices with abandon. these records sold well in the face of consistent critical disdain. the extremely slow and intense portamento of the actor-cellist auguste van biene (1849-1913) was clearly part of his widespread appeal. from 1892 until his death he delivered nearly six thousand performances of the lachrymose drama the broken melody, a play written expressly as a vehicle for his histrionic style as actor and cellist. his performances, however, only ever received highly qualified critical praise (kennaway 2007). the increased caution about the use of expressive devices in the late nineteenth century is well summarized by joseph joachim. his discussion of vibrato consisted largely of a lengthy quotation from spohr, who treats it positively as "an impassioned style of playing:' but joachim also went on to warn against "spasmodic trembling;' stressing the importance of a physically natural technique: ... the pupil cannot be sufficiently warned against the habitual use of the tremolo [vibrato] especially in the wrong place. a violinist whose taste is refined and healthy will always recognize the steady tone as the ruling tone ... (joachim and moser 1905:96a) joachim also objected to excessive portamento: ... even when such places are marked glissando or something similar, the use of the por/amento must never overstep the limits of the beautiful and degenerate into a whine, as if the intention were to caricature the peculiarities of certain wandering street musicians. (92a-93a) frequently, criticisms of faultily applied vibrato and portamento implicitly equate them either with lower-class status or with unhealthiness-some­ times both. the cellist hugo becker was particularly explicit: the intensity and speed of vibrato should be determined and used only in agreement with the respective affekt. every person of finer feeling will probably have to admit on closer consideration that, for the portrayal of profound, noble feelings, the rapid, lascivious, so-called "coffee-house vibrato" is inappropriate, although, in a more refined [art] form, it is indispensable in the expression of eroticism! just as in dynamics, forte and piano alone are insufficient, so just as little can we be content with george kennaway only one style of vibrato ... the inclination to play each cantilena with overflowing feeling is widespread. because of this, hanslick called the cello the instrument of melancholy and sentimentality. however, unmotivated, exaggerated sentiment has a ridiculous effect, because it creates an excess of expression. just as the drinker cannot see a full glass without emptying it, so no cantilena can appear before the cellist without him becoming sentimental ... also in the performance of bach's music vibrato should only be used discreetly. but how is it ordered nowadays? the whining, effeminate bach playing of many over-sensitive cellists often has an intolerable effect. serious classical music cannot bear any erotic vibrato; it needs a feeling for style, nobility and dignity, without any loss of warmth. it is a sign of the weakness of a performing artist if his means of expression in vibrato are exhausted.4 (becker and dynar 1929:199) however, the recordings which joachim and becker would probably have approved of, such as those by the klingler quartet (led by joachim's pupil carl klingler), or by joachim's pupil marie soldat-roeger, are wholly un­ representative of their time.5 modern performers interested in recapturing nineteenth-century performance practices can therefore choose between playing as the clear majority of musicians at the time actually played, or as critics would have liked them to play. so, are historically-motivated perfomers to be poachers or gamekeep­ ers? perhaps we can decide on a case-by-case basis, and make our choice based on specific historical evidence that relates to our own performing project. one can playa cello work by the virtuoso adrien fran<;:ois servais (1807 -1866) with a constant vibrato, as he apparently did in st. petersburg in 1866, or use vibrato less often, as the critic pavel makarov wished servais had done: servais's ... lilt is so full of the unending sugary vibrato that one would, no doubt, like to cleanse one's ears with full and clear sounds, as one would like to have some plain water after eating candies. (ginsburg 1983:52) the obvious difficulties here are: 1) the performance makarov would have preferred did not happen, whereas servais's performance clearly did 2) we cannot assume that the vibrato servais used was absolutely continuous (it seemed so to makarov) 3) we know nothing of its speed or width -some nineteenth -century violinists discuss these aspects, spohr and david in particular, but cel­ lists before casals's student dinan alexanian (alexanian 1922) do not 4) what makarov disliked might have been unremarkable to another critic (later russian reviews of servais mainly criticize him for his old­ fashioned repertoire) 81 82 current musicology all we know is that servais used some kind of vibrato in one concert relatively late in life (i have not yet found any other mention of it), and that one critic disapproved. this has not prevented general histories of the cello from asserting that servais used continuous vibrato. inevitably, the critic now speaks louder and clearer to us than the performer-we can read makarov, but we cannot hear servais. two of his pupils, joseph hollmann and auguste van biene, made recordings, but half a century after servais's death they cannot be reliably used as indicators of servais's own style. much of the information about performances from the pre-recording era takes the form of the servais/makarov example, which means that generaliza­ tions about individual performing styles are already some way removed from the evidence, and generalizations about performing styles spanning large historical periods, including concepts of "national schools;' are even further removed. turning from the most widely discussed aspects of older performing styles to the minutiae of instrumental technique, things are no clearer. there was, for example, no consensus in the earlier nineteenth century on such an apparently simple matter as how to finger a chromatic scale on the cello. this means that any chosen fingering-there were several possibilities at that time-will be by default a minority choice (example o. these technical questions are as important as those concerning vibrato or portamento. choices of scale fingering have a cumulative effect, especially in earlier nineteenth-century repertoire. several chromatic scale fingerings in use until around 1830 involved approximately 50% more shifts than the now standard one first proposed by duport, with a consequent loss of clarity. example 1: chromatic scale cello fingerings in use until c.1830. george kennaway whether dealing with servais's vibrato or the fingering of a scale, any attempt to play historically raises intractable questions. do we play like a dead performer or in a way that would have satisfied a dead critic? do we play like an up-to-date cellist or like an old-fashioned one? in the sense pursued here, these are false choices which originate in the methodology supporting historical performance research. this methodology might be characterized as a markedly positivist and empirical approach to the exami­ nation of historical sources, one with the hermeneutic aim of uncovering the truth of the original composition. this is a rather stark formulation, but what else could "authenticity" have meant?6 admittedly, most performers shy away from explicitly making such claims. in the wake of richard taruskin's exposure of the modernist ethos underlying the "early music" movement (1995), the term "authenticity" has been systematically deleted from almost every record company's vocabulary, and replaced with more circumspect, if not indeed disingenuous, statements about original instruments, original texts, or vague claims to being historically informed (brown 2010:476). just as performers have fled from the "a-word;' scholars have quietly dropped the "i-word" (intention), making subtly refined claims, such as trying to reconstruct "the sound-world that might have shaped the composition;' or the "sounds in the composer's head;' with the unexamined assumption that the composer's aural imagination and performance expectations are limited by what he/she has already experienced. clive brown's work is a particularly good example. in the opening paragraph of his classical and romantic performing practice 1750-1900 he stresses his aim: ... above all, to identify some of the constantly changing conventions of performance that informed the experience and practice of composers and executants alike. (l999:i) he interprets notated music as providing evidence of composers' "intentions, expectations, and assumptions:' in a recent review of nineteenth-century chamber music recordings, he examines" [the musicians'] success in captur­ ing the style and sound of the nineteenth century;' in what is tantamount to an expose of equivocal marketing claims: ... [the 1 implication that those performers who specialize in playing on period instruments are presenting ... performances that are closer to a style that the composers would have recognized (brown 2010:477) the boldest claim he makes for hip is that it may engage "a more adventur­ ous approach to the interpretation of ... notation" (brown 1999:6). none of these highly nuanced expressions is the least bit contentious in itself, but it 83 84 current musicology does seem to be tacitly assumed that as much as we might want to admire the performance of an innocent, instinctive musician (a sort of noble sav­ age violinist?), a more valuable performance is one given by an intelligent, thoughtful, highly historically informed musician who uncovers the music's "true" meaning, and that such a performance represents an ideal. as john rink pointed out, "some research into 'historical performance' ... [aims 1 to discover 'what was done' in bygone eras rather than to guide the modern performer" (rink 2001:201). but this positivist project is sustained by an unstated conviction that "what was done" is "what we should do now:' not only has historical performance research retreated from the bold claims and bolder ambitions of the 1970s and '80s, it has also resisted influences from other types of musicology. there has not been a substantial shift since laurence dreyfus observed that "within the cultural phenomenon called 'early music; there has been little, if any, philosophical reflection on its own activities" (dreyfus 1983:297). the most wide-ranging attempt is john butt's playing with history, a survey of different philosophical aspects of hip, but his overall aim here is to show how hip practices can invigorate our musical performing culture generally (butt 2002:50,71). dario martinelli's authenticity, performance and other double-edged words, a semiotic treatment of the concepts of authenticity and engagement, is potentially very useful, offering a simple, non-judgmental model for positioning many different types of performance. his concept of the natural history of signs also offers a stimulating new perspective on aspects of musical notation (martinelli 2010). but this work is exceptional, and almost entirely based on martinelli's specialism in popular music; its application to art music is yet to be explored. performance as {monee if foucault's concepts are to be explored for their possible application to hip, it is important to clarify some terms. discours, for foucault, referred to the total possible statements (enonces) available, the frames that contained these statements, and the rules which governed their formation (foucault 1971). an enonce need not be a conventional sentence. in a musical context this suggests a different way oflooking at the act of performance itself. concert reviews and program notes are enonces; a publicity photograph is arguably an enonce; a composition can be an enonce-but could a performance itself also constitute an enonce? if recorded and distributed it could, and from there it would seem a short step to ascribe the same status to any public performance, and then any performance at all. george kennaway some discussions of music and discourse have not treated music itself (performed sound) as a body of enonces. in music and discourse, jean­ jacques nattiez saw "the musician's discourse" as embracing statements made about music, a "multiplicity of discourses, meta-and perimusical discourses" which "constitute" the musical work, with a distinctive status being allocated to statements made by the composer ("metamusical discourse"). but musi­ cal performances themselves are not included; nattiez sees the production of music as a process that stops with the completed composition (nattiez 1990:ix). similarly, giles hooper's the discourse of music analyzes the study of music as a discourse but does not include musical performances as statements within a discourse-notwithstanding his discussion of different analytical approaches to mahler's ninth symphony (hooper 2006). discourse, as a regulatory system, is bound up with power, but those who live within the discourse internalize their disempowerment so that it requires no external reinforcement. we become the subjects of discourse (subjected to discourse) when we situate ourselves within it, whether will­ ingly or unconsciously. in manfred frank's words: we can call discourse a symbolic order ... which makes it possible for all subjects who have been socialized under its authority to speak and act together. (frank 1992: 105) all statements that belong in a given discourse constitute, as a whole, material which offers clues about the structures of thought which constrain that discourse.7 if in the nineteenth century there are well-established, institutionally-reinforced compositional discourses-defining which harmonies, orchestrations, or structures are permissible-there are also discourses within which performance is regulated. there are unacceptable sounds, such as whining. elegant postures are strongly preferred. some people are not allowed to perform some instruments in public-in england women violinists were not even admitted to british conservatories until 1872. some performance techniques are suitable only in certain venues, as are some repertoires. the cellist arthur broadley noted that auguste van biene's exaggerated histrionic style, "while permissible in the theatre, would be quite inappropriate in the concert hall" (broadley 1899:7). a performance of, say, a string quartet, would seem to satisfy the criteria that shape discourse generally: a common object (what can be spoken about-or played?), an identifiable mode of statement or ritual, and a delimitation of who can speak, or "rarefaction" (professionals in public, amateurs in private). most standard surveys of performance practice are directed at what might be termed zeitgeist, not discours. the zeitgeist approach seeks to describe the prevailing climate of thought, in the form of aesthetic norms 85 86 current musicology which are extrapolated from the relevant sources. when, for example, robert donington presented in the interpretation of early music a series of individual quotations from performance treatises, he demonstrated that, indeed, ornamentation was key to the performance of baroque music (donington 1963). clive brown has shown that, to take just two examples, portamento and the arpeggiation of chords on the piano were essential ele­ ments of nineteenth-century performance (brown 1999). in stolen time, richard hudson has shown the same with contrametric rubato (where the melodic line is rhythmically inflected over an uninflected accompaniment) (hudson 1994). one could extend notions of baroque ornamention into art and architecture, adopting the "irregular beauty" cliche, or relate victorian portamento to a taste for sentimental emotional expression, but one would still be describing zeitgeist. the zeitgeist is a concept extrapolated from historical data, which itself can modify perceptions of that data and thereby create a continuous loop. for the purposes of this essay, this entire process remains wholly within the bounds of discours. ifwe ask, "why these topics?" or "why is that debate so heated?" we begin to address discours. with these criteria and questions in mind, i consider aspects of nine­ teenth -century music its edited texts, performances, reviews, instrumental pedagogy-to bring some of the apparent contradictions outlined earlier come into a different focus. *** when we hear music, we always hear a complex combination of chord and discourse. peter j. rabinowitz8 by "discourse" peter rabinowitz, like nattiez, means the verbal texts that surround musical performances, such as program notes or written analyses-especially those directed at non-specialists. he makes the point that although these texts appear to convey facts, "their illocutionary force is advisory: that is, they serve not as facts but as instructions for listening" (rabinowitz 1992:41). musical texts themselves are, to a degree, illocu­ tionary texts, the "reading" of which, either in the concert hall or in the library, constitutes a performance; the score is not an artifact but a set of instructions for the creation of an artifact. but rabinowitz's chord is also part of the discourse-the discourse that embraces compositional enonces, protocols of public performance, permissible critical enonces, and so forth. a familiar example of the way in which discourse can constrain permissible enonces appears in mozart's well-known letter to his father in 1781, where he describes his musical representation of osmin's rage in the aria "solche hergelauf'ne laffen" from die entfuhrung aus dem serail. he describes how george kennaway he does not overstep the limits of musical discourse-a discourse which appears almost self-evident to mozart: for just as a man in such a towering rage oversteps all the bounds of order, moderation and propriety and completely forgets himself, so must the music too forget itself. but since passions, whether violent or not, must never be expressed to the point of exciting disgust, and as music, even in the most terrible situation, must never offend the ear, but must please the listener, or in other words must never cease to be music, so i have not chosen a key foreign to f (in which the aria is written) but one related to it-not the nearest, d minor, but the more remote a minor. (anderson 1938:1144) it is hard to find any representation of madness in nineteenth-century opera in which the music actually "forgets itself;' as opposed to signifying such a thing. the "mad scene" from donizetti's lucia di lammermoor (act iii scene 2) is primarily a musical exercise in coloratura virtuosity. the obbligato instruments (originally glass harmonica, later changed to flute) had well-known associations with madness (gossett 2006:434), but there is nothing in the least disturbing about the music. when critics of new music suggest that the composer is indeed insane (slonimsky 1953:passim), what is meant is that his enonces are defined as lying beyond the limits of discourse. in principle, all of these enonces are the subject of musicological inquiry in their own right. but what constrains them as a discourse? discourses are bounded externally by systems of taboo such as truthlfalsity or sanity/ madness. the "will to truth" (fa volonte de verite) is the major system of exclusion that defines discourse and which "tends to exert a sort of pressure and something like a power of constraint on other discourses:' foucault then asks, "what is at stake in the will to truth, in the will to utter this 'true' discourse, if not desire and power?" (foucault 1971:22). to transpose this into the field of musical performance seems at first sight banal. insofar as the discourse of performance can be determined in terms of truth or falsity-performances are deemed "musical" if they satisfy such criteria as technical accuracy, or truth to the perceived nature of the work-we barely need to invoke the concept. it is so obvious that it is hard to describe, which is itself a hallmark of being within a discourse. but what drives the "will to musicality"? the power relationships between composer, editor, performer and audience are not straightforward. power circulates between them; the per­ formance is a site for the exchange and transfer of power. the audience is not simply the passive, grateful recipient of the performance; the performer is not only (if at all) the humble servant of the composer. once the composer has written the work, he/she has to all intents and purposes relinquished power 87 88 current musicology over the eventual performance, whether the composer resents this or not. if physically present, he/she is often another audience member, acknowledged at the end. similarly, the composer is physically represented by the music in front of the performers (and not even by that if they play from memory). that text is always incomplete if considered as a full specification of the work, in that the performer will always contribute something that is not only not present in the notation, but which could not be anticipated by the composer. 9 the players are, of course, fully aware of the composer's presence, seen or unseen. but the extent to which the composer's presence exercises power is similar to bentham's panopticon in its foucauldian guise as a metaphor for how external power becomes internalized. bentham's prisoners never knew whether or not they were being observed, and therefore always behaved as if they were, which made supervision redundant. performers who adhere very closely to the printed music (possibly an urtext) are behaving in this way, although they do not see themselves as prisoners-they are volunteering to submit, they think, to the composer's gaze. but they may not be. an original late eighteenth/early nineteenth­ century print will include markings which had quite different meanings for players of those days, such as staccato dots/wedges (often signifying non legato or detache), or dots under slurs (often signifying portato rather than jete). such texts, for their original readers, carried illocutionary force through notational convention. but modern performers following an urtext frequently do not have the necessary contextual information (when this is provided it is often inadequate), so they read staccato dots in whatever way their own musical instincts lead them. some modern string players will normalize all these markings as highly articulated short notes, often played with the bow coming off the string. in doing so, they are unwittingly evading the composer's gaze. the urtext editor is, at least in theory, the most absent of all. 10 in the modern urtext the original illocutionary force is dispelled; the text's "instructional" dimension is diminished; the performer is more, not less, free to express his/her subjectivity. typically, what has been removed, or indeed ignored, to create the urtext is the older editorial material added to help the performer. between 1868 and 1917, beethoven's violin sonatas were published in nine different performing editions prepared by the lead­ ing violinists of their day, such as david, joachim, brodsky, kreisler and many others. several of these editions have remained current well into the twentieth century. the urtext appears to give the performer direct access to the composer's work, bypassing the mediation of earlier editors, but it also places power firmly in the hands of the player, who will decide for him/herself how to interpret ambiguous markings. it is safe to say that this outcome was entirely unforeseen. george kennaway some nineteenth-century players were much more overt about this. friedrich grutzmacher's extraordinary performing edition of the bach solo cello suites, made around 1867, explicitly claims that the suites have been adapted for public performance. his alterations go far beyond dynamics and expressive markings, although these are highly detailed. he adds dense contrapuntal lines and chords, recomposes bars, longer sections, and sometimes whole movements-all with a view to making this evidently unpromising musical material publicly performable (grutzmacher 1868). similarly, a copy of bach's brandenburg concerto no. 4 heavily annotated in ms by ferdinand david (on loan to the university of leeds from uppingham schoo1, england) shows that david saw dehn's scholarly edition (dehn 1850-53) "published for the first time from the original manuscripts" only as a first stage in the preparation of a performance-he imposes complex phrasing patterns and sophisticated dynamic schemes throughout, and makes sure that these markings are consistently applied to all the parts, both soli and ripieni (figures 1-2).11 in such cases the player-editor's power is visibly more evident than the unseen power of the panopticon. in printed texts, the editor's name is sometimes afforded even greater prominence than that of the composer on nineteenth-century title pages. those particularly heavily annotated editions, such as friedrich grutzmacher's, some ferdinand david editions, jean-delphin alard's series les maitres classiques du violon, or edmund singer's editions for general conservatory use (to take only a few examples) express the power of the editor's name as much as they satisfy any more immediately practical requirements for amateurs or students (figures 3-4). with joachim's arrangement of brahms's ungarische tiinze (figure 5), his name is more prominent than brahms's. if the player is subject to the editor's power, this is not necessarily op­ pressive. power is exercised not in a set of absolute commandments, but in the delimitation of a subject position which leaves scope for some individual variation in the player's interpretative response, while limiting the otherwise "potentially infinite plurality" of individual responses. 12 a violinist, for example, using one of david's editions, is constrained within david's subject position-the subject position taken by the editor at a particular time, for a particular purpose. if the player decides to make large-scale changes, it suggests that a new subject position-the player's-has replaced the edi­ tor's. in this context, hugo becker's 1929 analysis of haydn's d major cello concerto hob. viib:2 is striking. discussing editions of this work (of which there were several in the later nineteenth century, all deviating considerably from the original), becker says: 89 current musicology figure 1: bach, brandenburg concerto no. 4, solo violin, 1st movement. figure 2: bach, brandenburg concerto no. 4, 1st movement, ripieno 1st violin. 90 george kennaway 1 iii nlll fi~i.lij ilia g llinl n mrll r i'.\t: figure 3: title page detail from ferdinand david's edition of beethoven's string quartets. figure 4: title page of delphin alard's edition of mozart's concerto k.268. 91 92 current musicology figure 5: title page, brahms ungarische tiinze arr. joachim. the available version by gevaert can be called successful. since it is the basis for our analysis, the modifications suggested here cannot be seen as deviations from the composer's original version, in the sense of an injury to the principle of faithfulness to the notes [notentreue]y (becker and dynar 1929:233) so it is permissible to modify gevaert's significantly cut and rewritten solo part, since it is not haydn's original version and principles of notentreue do not therefore apply. but he never suggests that haydn's original version should be played. this would presumably mean submitting to the composer's controlling gaze-less easy to evade than the editor's. at the level of enonce, the player may claim that the editor's annotations are discarded in order to achieve an unmediated contact with the work itself, with the composer's own intentions. but at the level of discours, the player has an interest in aligning him/herself with the subject position that seems most "musical:' not only in order to submit to the regulation of that discourse, but also to become the vehicle of its power/knowledge. the audience too, although apparently passively receiving the performance, is also aligning itself with the discourse george kennaway of musicality by adopting the performer's subject position, discussing its finer points, criticizing it in accepted terms, and adjusting its applause ac­ cordingly. it is quite striking that the language of concert reviews becomes more predictable and limited in the later nineteenth century, with the holy trinity of reinheit, pertigkeit, and sicherheit cropping up so regularly that they almost come as a package. this is quite unlike the sometimes extravagant, if not actually incomprehensible reviews that are found earlier, such as this 1822 review of the cellist max bohrer: everywhere loveliness and tender coloring, and the same in the symphonie militaire concertante ... with a rondo on dutch national themes, which smells of a potpourri of violets, mayflowers and primroses, beneath which only a timpani-stroke stands out (like dog-roses). 14 (anon 1822:5-6) it may be that the increasingly insistent pedagogical warnings about the abuse of expressive devices is paralleled in the growth of regulatory musical institutions such as music conservatories-in which case both could be seen as unconscious reinforcements expressed through a discourse of expressivity. the distinctive feature of this discourse is that it includes actual performances as well as advice on how to perform. here, foucault's "incitement" comes into play, as described in his history of sexuality. there is a remarkable congruence between the discourses of sexuality and musical expression. the careful categorization and detailed explanation of ornaments (even in the early nineteenth century when much of this information was largely irrelevant to the performance of contemporary music) parallels the much greater effort to categorize and study human sexuality. foucault describes how by the end of the seventeenth century there emerged a political, economic and technical incitement to talk about sex. and not so much in the form of a general theory of sexuality as in the form of analysis, stocktaking, classification and specification, of quantitative or causal studies. (foucault 1979:23-4) and just as the multiple means of talking about sex function as an "incite­ ment:' the way in which expressive techniques are discussed in the nineteenth century can be seen as provoking the very thing which is being controlled. it is almost impossible to find a concert review of a singer or string player which actually praises their use of portamento, let alone their vibrato. these expressive techniques (or ornaments) are normally discussed only when the reviewer thinks they are badly executed, used inappropriately, or used to excess. but the accusation of "lack of taste" in such matters is frequently a cover for something altogether more disturbing. as noted earlier, metaphors of disease and immorality frequently lurk not far below the surface. this 93 94 current musicology is particularly true of british music criticism in the nineteenth century, which provides an extraordinary range of examples. the following are more substantial than most, and couched in more extreme terms, but the issues they raise and the metaphorical language crop up in scores of other examples from the later nineteenth century onwards. the vibrato, more than perhaps any other feature of violin playing, excites the ambition of youthful players and seems to represent to them the very pinnacle of musical joy and aspiration. this oscillation of the finger is to them a constant delight; and until they can produce a tone-effect resembling in some degree the results of a good vibrato, their happiness is incomplete, and violin-playing is devoid of all charm and elegance. that the vibrato is a peculiar and, often, dangerous accomplishment, no one knows better than the teacher who, so frequently, finds it a serious impediment in the development of a healthy and beautiful tone. often it is advisable-if not absolutely necessary-entirely to eliminate the vibrato from the pupil's work; for not only may it mar, but actually destroy, a performance otherwise admirable ... the average pupil is so delighted with that wavering and intensified tone that he requires no urging to make the first awkward experiments that precede the acquirement of the vibrato. these early and eager attempts soon form into a very strong habit, which, more often, the teacher finds imperative to repress rather than encourage. (anon. 1900:265) the string player has two enemies-faulty intonation and "vibrato:' the first is a disease; the second is a curse. vibrato ... comes to us in the guise of a friend; it has letters of introduction from esteemed masters; it even helps us over certain difficulties. yet its real name is death, the leveller-for it kills all musical tone; it brings the performance to one dead level of gush and insincerity. at first it may be a servant; in the end it becomes a master. lots of people in the dark ages ... sold their souls to the devil, meaning to go half-way, get out of their urgent stress, then repent and cheat the enemy. lots of fiddlers to-day cultivate vibrato just to get into their tone something like the warmth of an y saye or the sweet urgency of a kreisler. lots of people in the dark ages repented too late; lots of fiddlers today get something very different from the warmth of y saye ... by trusting to vibrato ... vibrato in excelsis is only useful and indeed necessary in the jazz band ... is it not pretty obvious that what suits the slobbery tunes of the jazz-band will not do for music? (bonavia 1927:1077) 'the vibrato or tremolo is universally condemned, yet, strange to relate, nine vocalists out of every ten persist in its use and abuse ... at our concerts recently (young lady vocalists especially) ... shake and tremble in a pitiable manner, as though they were shivering with cold ... our musical george kennaway -wtj j ;j f j f t r fir € ~ i j ~ mi#jjj~iherlrttt example 2: cello a major scale: 18th-century fingering above, "modern" fingering below. committees, before making engagements with vocalists, in the future, should stipulate that they abstain from the use and abuse of this senseless appendage. ("critic" 1896:122) the link between vibrato and unhealthy sexuality is obvious, and in the last passage there is a transparently freudian fear of the self-sufficient female and the abuse of a (her?) "senseless appendage:' there is a distinction between attitudes to portamento and vibrato. nineteenth-century teachers are quite open about the use of portamento, with detailed examples of its technique, application, and notation in annotated editions. vibrato, on the other hand, is rarely discussed in the later nineteenth century without stern warnings about the danger of its misuse. additionally, virtually no basic information is given about how to specifically execute vibrato within this literature. here again, there is a parallel with aspects of sexuality. while there is a vast literature on marriage-in the form of practical advice, fictional representations, or considerations of the social institutions built around it -any kind of sex outside marriage is discussed very much in terms of oppression, with no such social exemplification or validation. portamento is like procreative marriage-emotionally restrained, smooth, highly vis­ ible, universally endorsed, legitimized. vibrato resembles extra-marital sex-emotionally intense, disturbing, less visible, universally limited. and everyone does it. it is not a sufficient refutation to point to instances where vibrato is presented as an "acceptable" ornament, albeit one to be used with care, or, for that matter, to point to examples of portamento being treated perfunctorily.15 the enonces that make up the discourse of expressivity may include more or less positive individual statements, but in general they em­ body what john potter loosely but conveniently calls "the historical ideology 95 96 current musicology of disciplined restraint" (2006:528). it looks, then, as if there are grounds for a more thorough exploration of the "archaeology" of the discourse of musical expression. certainly, the limits of this discourse cannot be solely described in terms of the wider nineteenth-century discourses of sexuality or disease-gender roles are also relevant, both with regard to the perceived gender of music itself and to the masculine stereotype of the performer who both stimulates and, crucially, controls the listener's emotional response. 16 for the moment, however, we turn back to the astonished laughter that early recordings can provoke in modern listeners. foucault describes how, in the early nineteenth century, some scientific ideas appeared which were well ahead of their time, while other ideas appeared which were already completely outmoded. in both cases, those who disagreed did so entirely within the prevailing scientific discourse. both types of ideas, the avant-garde and the obsolete, were "below the theoretical horizon:' in the much smaller world of cello scale fingerings, the first serious attempt to apply logical principles to their clarification (gunn 1789) was ignored by other cellists, including those who subscribed to the first edition of gunn's theory and practice. even when the much more famous jean-pierre duport (duport 1806) proposed the same fingering, it still did not become standard for another two decades. the scientific breakthrough made by gunn and duport was to separate fingering patterns from "musical" notions about the tetrachordal construction of the scale, and to base them on the ergonom­ ics of the left hand; the fingering is functional, not musical. in the case of diatonic scales, older eighteenth-century fingering patterns retained the sense of the scale's construction out of two tetrachords, which is obscured by modern fingering. 17 this older fingering was still being recommended by some teachers until the 1820s (figure 7 above). john gunn was criticized, rather weakly, on the grounds of lack of originality (anon. 1793:326), even though the much simpler cello methods that he was supposed to have imitated had almost nothing in common with his ambitious (and unique) attempt to apply enlightenment thinking to the teaching of his instrument: we are only doubtful whether the mixture of mathematical theorems with practical precepts will smooth or shorten an incipient musician's road to excellence in the first stages of his progress. we have compared these directions with [lanzetti and tilliere 1 and we find no other difference than that mr. g:s work is more copious ... richard taruskin's assertion that "authenticity" was modernism by an­ other name may also be a demonstration of a theoretical horizon (taruskin 1995:164-172). many performers who read taruskin (and his epigones) might simply shrug, as if to say, "we can't help being of our time, and we're george kennaway going to keep on doing what we do-we may not use the a-word, though:' these performers would be speaking quite comfortably from within the discourse. this may also explain why playing with minimal vibrato is entirely normal and barely worth commenting on nowadays, while reviv­ als of nineteenth-century portamento, especially in orchestral works, are vanishingly rare. this was, of course, taruskin's canary in the mine (taruskin 1995:1s1)-iftchaikovsky's symphonies were ever to be played with swoops and slides, taruskin was prepared to man the barricades. ls it is unlikely, because that use of portamento, in the end, is almost meaningless to modern audiences. 19 the laughter provoked by adelina patti or hans kronold is prompted by a sudden recognition that the performed enance forms part of a discourse with a very different theoretical horizon, which we have glimpsed only through the means of recording. it is as if we, on our pacific island, eating fish and coconuts, are given a telescope through which we can see another island in the same sea where the diet consists of roast beef and yorkshire pudding. we can see that it's different, but it evidently works for them. some of us will try it out of curiosity; others will laugh, as they do when they hear patti. for modern performers interested in hip, the poacher/gamekeeper dilemma can be sidestepped. the choice is made within one discursive field. the performer is adopting one of a number of possible (i.e., historically available) subject positions. some will use as much historical information as possible; some will ignore it; and some will adopt a position between these extremes. from this point of view, the vagueness or ingenuousness of the limited hip claims made by performers or their record companies need not be seen as merely duplicitous or half-hearted. clive brown's "yawning chasm between contemporary practice and historical evidence" (2010) is itself, from a foucauldian perspective, only another enance in the current discourse of performance. the position adopted by the performer, whatever their degree of hip, will be whichever lets the performer exercise power most effectively within the current discours. the "chasm" is not necessarily due to willful ignorance or perversity. it is a good example of how a discourse stimulates opposing views. the persistent "abuse" of expressive devices is not a separate thing from joachim and others' criticism, because there are no relations of power without resistances; the latter are all the more real and effective because they are formed right at the point where relations of power are exercised. (gordon 1980:142) today, instead of arguments over vibrato, we have arguments over hip's lack of systematic historical knowledge, arguments which have recurred since at least the 1970s. for taruskin, the early music movement was essentially 97 98 current musicology an expression of stravinskyan modernism. however, from an experimental foucauldian perspective, the tensions, apparent dichotomies, conflicts and paradoxes which characterize it are part of a discourse which has its roots in the nineteenth century. notes 1. i was able to try this experiment in november 2010 at the lithuanian academy of music (vilnius) with a class of cellists. for recordings by patti, see adelina patti 1843-1919 (pearl, gemmcd9312). recordings by kronold are available at the virtual gramophone, url http://amicus.collectionscanada. gc.calindex-e.html and the cylinder preservation and digitization project, university of santa barbara, url: http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/index.php. this paper contains a number of references to cello performance issues. this is partly because this is my area of expertise, but also because the history of nineteenth-century performance practice has been predominantly written by violinists and keyboard players. 2. robert hill suggests the adjustment of expectation could apply in the case of the recordings by the castrato moreschi, "over which it is hard to suppress a giggle" at first (hill 1994:40). 3. at the time of this article, the author is on a research project at the university of leeds in nineteenth-century performing editions of string music (http://chase. leeds.ac.uk). he has benefited considerably from the opportunity to discuss the ideas in this paper with his colleagues prof. derek scott, prof. clive brown, and dr. lauren redhead. he also wishes to thank the organizers ofthe "radical music history" conference (sibelius academy, helsinki, december 2011) for the opportunity to present a version of this paper and to discuss it further with anna bull (university of cambridge). the assistant editor of this journal, and two anonymous readers, have all made extremely useful suggestions. 4. this quotation, like several others later in this paper, raises a question of gender and expressive performance which is too large to explore here. it constitutes a major part ofthe writer's forthcoming book on nineteenth-century cello performance (2012). 5. the klingler quartet's recordings have been reissued as the klingler quartet 1905-1936 the joachim tradition (testament records, s bt 2136, 1998). soldat-roeger's 1926 recording of the adagio movement of spohr's 9th concerto is available on the recorded violin vol.j (pavilion records, bva1). for a discussion of her playing, see milsom 2007. 6. this point was made in a different context by laurence dreyfus (1983 :321). 7. "all statements" does not include "all grammatically correct but meaningless statements," such as "beethoven is a blue pineapple" (along the lines of chomsky's famous "colourless green ideas sleep furiously"). george kennaway 8. rabinowitz (1992:42). 9. this point is discussed at length in the author's forthcoming paper (2011). 10. there are notable exceptions, including those hybrid urtexts which add a modern perfonner's bowings and fingerings such as andre navarra contributed to the urtext of beethoven's cello sonatas [van de linde et al. 1971]. 11. i wish to acknowledge uppingham school's considerable generosity in making this loan to the university of leeds. both the griitzmacher and david sources can be viewed online at http://chase.leeds.ac.uk. 12. i use the term here as used by eric clarke: "the term 'subject-position' has been used in relation to the cinema, where it describes the way in which a perceiver is encouraged, or obliged, by the film to adopt a particular attitude to what he or she is witnessing" (clarke 1999:351). 13. "das werk hat mancherlei wandlungen durchgemacht und ist in verschiedenen fassungen veroffentlicht worden. die vorliegende form von gevaert ist eine gliickliche zu nennen. da sie unserer analyse zugrunde liegt, konnen die hier vorgeschlagenen modifikationen nicht als abweichungen von der originalfassung des komponisten im sinne einer verletzung des grundsatzes der notentreue betrachtet werden." 14. "uberall lieblichkeit und zartes colorit, und selbst in der ... symphonie militaire concertante, mit rondo tiber hollandische national-lieder, duftet ein pot-pourri von veilchen, maiblumen und aurikeln, unter denen nur einige paukenschlage (als klatschrosen) hervorstechen." 15. gutting (2005:40) points out that a psychologist may diagnose a hatred of women in a patient, which would be not be invalidated just because the client phones his mother every week and never forgets wedding anniversaries. 16. a good example of the intersection of these discourses is suggested by naomi andre (2006: 139 and 206n20), who links coloratura with madness and hysteria in a nineteenth-century context: voicing gender: castrati, travesti, and the second woman in early 19th-century italian opera (bloomington: indiana university press, 2006). 17. in the more commonly used keys the tetrachordal fingering would have been visible to the audience. 18. he was making a different point from dreyfus who describes the reaction of the "early-music fan" as "curb[ing] his pleasurable response ... proud not be emoting over tchaikovsky's pathetique" (dreyfus 1983:302). 19. for one possible explanation of this in tenns of its hypothesized psychological associations, see leech-wilkinson, 2006. 99 100 current musicology references alexanian, dinan. 1922. traite theoretique et pratique du violoncelle. paris: a. z. mathot. anderson, emily, ed. and trans. 1938. the letters of mozart and his family. london: macmillan and co. ltd. andre, naomi. 2006. voicing gender: castrati, travesti, and the second woman in early 19th-century italian opera. bloomington: indiana university press. anonymous. 1793. the monthly review, or literary journal, enlarged 12: 326. anonymous. 1822. allgemeine musikalische zeitung mit besonderer rucksicht auf den osterreichischen kaiserstaat 6: 5-6. anonymous. a provincial critic. the vibrato or tremulo. 1896. musical standard 5:122. anonymous. 1900. the vibrato in violin playing. musical standard 13: 265-66. becker, hugo and dago dynar. 1929. mechanik und aesthetik des violoncel/spiels. vienna and leipzig: universal-edition. bonavia, f. 1927. on vibrato. musical times 68: 1077-78. broadley, arthur. 1899. chats to cello students. london: 'the strad' office, e. donajowski and d. r. duncan. brown, clive. 1999. classical and romantic performing practice 1750-1900. oxford: oxford university press. __ .2010. performing nineteenth-century chamber music: the yawning chasm between contemporary practice and historical evidence. early music 38: 476-480. butt, john. 2002. playing with history. cambridge: cambridge university press. clarke, eric. 1999. subject position and the specification of invariants in music by frank zappa and p. j. harvey. music analysis 18: 347-374. dehn, s. w, ed .. 1850-53.1. s. bach six concertos publies pour la premiere fois d'apres les manum·its originaux. leipzig: c. f. peters. donington, robert. 1963. the interpretation of early music. london: faber & faber. dreyfus, laurence. 1983. early music defended against its devotees: a theory of historical performance in the twentieth century. musical quarterly 69: 297-322. duport, jean louis. c.1806. essai sur ie doigte du violoncelle. paris: imbault. foucault, michel. 1979. the history of sexuality. translated by r. hurley. vol. 1. london: allen lane. __ .1971. lordre de discours. paris: gallimard. __ .1980. power/knowledge; selected interviews and other writings, 1972-77. edited by c. gordon. brighton: harvester. frank, manfred. 1992. on foucault's concept of discourse. in michel foucault philosopher, translated by timothy l. armstrong, 99-115. heme! hempstead: harvester. ginsburg, lev. 1983. history of the violoncello. translated by tanya tchistyakova, edited by herbert r. axelrod. neptune city, nj: paganiniana publications. (citing p. makarov, "st. petersburg concerts", muzikalny tsvet 1866, no. 6). gossett, philip. 2006. divas and scholars: performing italian opera. chicago: university of chicago press. griitzmacher, friedrich, ed., 1868. johann sebastian bach six sonates ou suites, edition nouvelle, revue et arrangee pour etre executee aux concerts. leipzig and berlin: c. f. peters. gunn, john. c.1787. the theory and practice of fingering the violoncello. london: the author. gutting, gary. 2005. foucault a very short introduction. oxford: oxford university press. hill, robert. 1994. 'overcoming romanticism': on the modernization of twentieth-century performance practice. in music and performance during the weimar republic, edited by bryan gilliam, 37-58. cambridge: cambridge university press. hooper, giles. 2006. the discourse of music. aldershot: ashgate. hudson, richard. 1994. stolen time: the history of tempo rubato. oxford: clarendon press. george kennaway joachim, joseph and andreas moser. 1905. violinschule. translated by alfred moffatt. vol. 2. berlin: simrock. leech-wilkinson, daniel. 2011. performance style in elena gerhardt's schubert song recordings. musicae scientiae (forthcoming). pre-publi­ cation text: http://kcl.academia.edu/danieileech wilkinson/papers/279313/ performance_style_in_elena_gerhardts_schubert_song_recordings. __ .2006. portamento and musical meaning. journal of musicological research 25: 233-61. van der linde, bernard, andre navarra, and hans-martin theopold, eds. 1971. ludwig van beethoven sonaten klavier und violoncellolurtext. munich: g. henle verlag. kennaway, george. 2007. the phenomenon of the cellist auguste van biene: from the charing cross road to brighton via broadway. in victorian soundscapes: leeds working papers in victorian studies 9, edited by m. hewitt and r. cowgill, 67-82. leeds: leeds centre for victorian studies and leeds university centre for english music. __ . 2011. bookcases, fish pie and my pinata: musical scores considered as sets of instructions. international review of the aesthetics and sociology of music 42 (2): 355-376. __ .2012 (forthcoming). playing the cello 1780-1930. (farnham: ashgate). martinelli, dario. 2010. authenticity, performance and other double-edged words, acta semiotica fennica xxxviii. helsinki: umweb publications. milsom, david. 2007. marie soldat-roeger (1863-1955): her significance to the study of nineteenth-century performing practices. leeds: university of leeds. http://www.leeds. ac.uk/music/dm-ahrc/miscellaneous-violin-and-piano.shtlm. nattiez, jacques. 1990. the musician's discourse. in music and discourse: toward a semiology of music, translated by carolyn abbate, 183-197. princeton: princeton university press. potter, john. 2006. beggar at the door: the rise and fall of portamento in singing. music & letters 87: 523-50. rabinowitz, p. j. 1992. chord and discourse: listening through the written word. in music and text: critical inquiries, edited by s. scher, 38-56. cambridge: cambridge university press. rink, john. 2001. translating musical meaning: the nineteenth-century performer as narrator. in rethinking music, edited by cook, nicholas and mark everist, 217-238. oxford: oxford university press. slonimsky, nicolas. 1953. lexicon of musical invective. new york: coleman-ross. taruskin, richard. 1995. the pastness of the present and the presence of the past. in text and act. oxford: oxford university press. 101 beyond sonata deformation: liszt's symphonic poem tasso and the concept of two-dimensional sonata form steven vande moortele 1. form and deformation the idea that musical form in liszt's orchestral music is mainly program­ driven has loomed large in twentieth -century musicology.! it undoubtedly originates with liszt himself. in his seminal 1855 essay berlioz und seine harold-symphonie-a thinly disguised apology for his own symphonic poems-liszt defends the formal innovations in contemporaneous orches­ tral music by invoking its programmatic nature.2 a renewal of musical form, he maintains, is vital not only because traditional forms have been fully exhausted by great composers from the past, but also because it is necessary for the adequate expression of an extra-musical program: [progressive composers) do not hope to glean further harvest from fields already mown by giants and live in the belief that the work begun by these [giants) can only be continued when they, like the latter in their time, create new forms for new ideas, new skins for new wine. (liszt [1882) 1978:59-60 )3 over the last few decades, it has become generally accepted that liszt did not refrain from recycling traditional patterns of formal organization for the expression of these "new ideas," perhaps more than he was aware. as michael saffle has considered, the formal organization of liszt's orchestral compositions is often determined no less by the tradition of sonata form than by the demands of their programs (saffle 2002:240-42). indeed, in nine of the twelve weimar symphonic poems, sonata form is one of the central principles guiding the large-scale organization. even where this is not the case (in orpheus, heroi"de funebre, and hunnenschlacht) , isolated procedures originating in sonata form often exert a local influence. this does not mean, of course, that the form of liszt's symphonic poems can be reduced to an unproblematic sonata form scheme, yet detailed studies of how exactly liszt does treat sonata form are, nonetheless, rare.4 much might be expected from applying james hepokoski's theory of "generic" or "structural deformation" to liszt's orchestral music. this current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 41 42 current musicology theory is arguably the most substantial recent contribution to the study of musical form in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. although the concept of deformation may be applied to any standard pattern of formal organization, most of the relevant literature has focused on deformations of sonata-form patterns, hence the more common term "sonata deformation." hepokoski approaches large-scale post -1850-or even post -1800-in­ strum ental compositions as being "in dialogue" with normative models of musical form. these models are derived either from mid-nineteenth­ century music treatises on form or directly from the late-eighteenthand early-nineteenth-century repertoire on which these treaties are based. "the term 'deformation'," hepokoski states in one of his first publications on the matter, "is most appropriate when one encounters a strikingly nonnormative individual structure, one that contravenes some of the most central defining traditions, or default gestures, of a genre while explicitly retaining others" (hepokoski 1992:143). elsewhere he explains: "what is presented on the musical surface of a [sonata deformation] ... may not be a sonata in any "textbook" sense, and yet the work may still encourage, even demand, the application of one's knowledge of traditional sonata procedures as a rule for analysis and interpretation" (hepokoski 2001:447). a pattern of expectation for the formal course of the composition is, in other words, created, but subsequently frustrated. a specific composition derives its meaning from the interaction with the generic background against which it operates. hepokoski has drawn up a useful catalogue of deformations of norma­ tive sonata-form patterns arranged in a number of recurring "families!' the most common compositional strategies are the "breakthrough deformation:' the "introduction-coda frame:' "episodes within the developmental space:' the "strophic/sonata hybrid," and "multi-movement forms in a single movement" (hepokoski 1993:6-7). apart from these five central categories, hepokoski has identified a large number of other deformation families, some of which partly overlap with the above categories. these include "content­ based form:' "rotational form:' "teleological genesis:' "klang meditation:' and the "interrelation and fusion of movements" (1993:21-30), the "off-tonic sonata" (1997:328), the "nonresolving recapitulation" (2001a:128-35), the "two-block exposition," the "loosely knit, discursive exposition," the "dis­ torted recapitulation:' and "progressive tonality" (2001b:448-53). in discussions of these deformation families, liszt's orchestral music is cited only in passing. still, the concept of sonata deformation is, at least at first sight, especially promising for those analyzing liszt's symphonic poems and large-scale instrumental form from the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth century in general. here is an approach to musical form that enables one to acknowledge the obvious innovatory aspects in steven vande moortele instrumental music from 1850 onwards, while still allowing for the use of a traditional sonata-form terminology. it has been argued that hepokoski's concept of sonata deformation­ many aspects of which, it should be emphasized, are prefigured in the writings of carl dahlhauss-is not without difficulties when it comes to defining what, exactly, a normative sonata form is. in a perceptive critique of deformation theory, julian horton has pointed out that it is particularly precarious to identify normative sonata form with "the formenlehre model of sonata form established by a. b. marx and others" (horton 2005:7). this is a problem especially in hepokoski's writings on the matter from the early 1990s. in his more recent contributions, the emphasis clearly shifts from a theoretical norm derived from mid-nineteenth-century composition manuals to a generic norm derived from the repertoire of sonata forms from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. in the recent elements of sonata theory, mid-nineteenth century theory plays no role whatsoever in the definition of what hepokoski and his co-author warren darcy consider normative sonata form to be (hepokoski and darcy 2006). for horton-writing before the publication of the elements of sonata theory-the generic norm is no less insecure than the theoretical one. "[i] t is not at all clear," he argues, "that a common conception of sonata form as an architectural pattern ... existed in classical practice either" (2005:10). horton seems to be operating with mark evan bonds's distinction between generative and conformational approaches to eighteenth-century musical form at the back of his mind. whereas generative approaches stress "the unique shape of a specific work;' conformational approaches emphasize "those various structural elements that a large number of works share in common" (bonds 1991:13-14). given the absence of a contemporaneous theoretical model of sonata form in the late eighteenth century,6 it may indeed seem as if this repertoire can most appropriately be approached from a generative point of view. yet even a purely generative approach to eighteenth-century musical form-a position that, as bonds has argued, is problematic to the absurd7-cannot change the fact that a group of sonata forms from the past was available to composers working in the second half of the nineteenth century. surely this situation allowed for-or even invited-generalizations about the formal procedures present in those works. it does seem legitimate, in other words, to assume the existence of a normative pattern of form from a large body of compositions a posteriori, even if those compositions themselves were composed in the absence of such a normative pattern, and even if none of them exactly coincides with the a posteriori norm. 43 44 current musicology according to hepokoski and darcy, however, the situation is more complicated than this. in their view, there is no such thing as "the" normative sonata form, no ideal type that is subsequently subject to deformation. in their most recent writings, both authors emphasize that they see normative sonata form not as a static object, but as a "constellation of flexible norms and options" that changes through time (hepokoski 2006:30n70)-thus de facto reconsidering hepokoski's own previous mention of a "set of reified defaults" (hepokoski 1992: 143). the relationship between works and norms is now described as "dialogic;' a notion that occupies a position somewhere between generative and conformational: what happens in a specific composi­ tion interacts with what happens in other compositions and thus helps to shape what becomes to be perceived as normative. this is the case not only for sonata form in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; the same mechanisms remain at work throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. moreover, the dialogic moment is not restricted to the interaction between a composer-or a composition-and a norm (or other compositions). also the listener-or the analyst-is invited to enter into and, indeed, influence the dialogue with the constellation of norms and works. it is not my intention to develop a comprehensive critique of the concept of sonata deformation. still, it seems to me that a number of pertinent is­ sues require further reflection. one of these is the unavoidable discrepancy that arises between a norm defined around the latest turn of the century (such as hepokoski and darcy's normative sonata form) and the implicit or explicit norm that nineteenth-century composers would have confronted dialogically. another issue is the very real danger that both sonata and deformation theory, in spite of the decidedly dialogic model defended by their creators, tend to slide back into a somewhat less sophisticated confor­ mational approach when it comes to actual analytical practice. related to this is the possibility that what begins as a deformation of a normative sonata form pattern can itself acquire normative character. hepokoski and darcy acknowledge this prospect (hepokoski 2006:30n69; hepokoski and darcy 2006: passim), but although it is fully in keeping with their dynamic view of form, it remains somewhat underdeveloped in their own writings. here as well, the classical norm turns out to be remarkably stubborn when it comes to actual analysis: for compositions throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, the classical norm, rather than what usually happens in compositions that constitute a chronologically (and geographically) more limited context for the deformational sonata form under discussion, ultimately determines what is a deformation and what not. this is unfortunate, because the flexible nature of what counts as normative can have profound consequences. it opens the possibility that steven vande moortele there are cases where deformations are so numerous and drastic that it is no longer practicable to interpret them against the background of a set of norms that can be described as sonata form. it seems to me that within the flexible set of norms and options that sonata form is-and exactly because of that flexibility-more or less self-contained subsets can come into be­ ing that make reference to the larger set superfluous or even inadequate. another way of saying this is that in certain cases, it seems advantageous to study musical form after 1850, even if it is apparently related to sonata form, against the background of a more specific set of conventions establishing a context of their own, in which individual compositions can be understood. this might be true a fortiori for single-movement compositions. to measure a single-movement composition against a norm derived from a movement of a multi-movement composition obviously ignores the individuality of single-movement patterns of formal organization.8 in the following paragraphs, i will illustrate the desirability of an ap­ proach that goes beyond the deformation of normative sonata form, taking liszt's symphonic poem tasso as a case study. first, i will show how tasso invites the application of sonata -deformation categories, but how at the same time, those categories fail to account for salient aspects of the piece. second, i will develop an alternative and more specific theoretical background against which tasso can be interpreted, and demonstrate how the piece's formal organization can be charted without taking recourse to the concept of deformation. finally, i will discuss some of the broader implications this approach can have for the interpretation of liszt's symphonic poems in general. 2. tasso: first approach liszt began work on tasso: lamento e trionfo as early as in 1847, but published it as "symphonic poem no. 2" only in 1856. in his preface to the score, liszt states that it was his intention to "formulate the grand antithesis of a genius mistreated during life but radiating after his death with a glory that crushes his persecutors." he then provides the outlines of a program: tasso loved and suffered in ferrara; he was revenged in rome, his glory is still alive in the popular songs of venice. these three moments are inseparable from his imperishable memory. to render them in music, we first evoked the grand shadow of the hero as it haunts the lagoons of venice even today; next his lordly and sad figure appeared to us as it glides along the feasts of ferrara, where he gave birth to his masterpieces; finally we followed him to rome, the eternal city, which, in holding forth to him his crown, glorified him as martyr and poet.9 45 46 current musicology in order to render his piece "1' eclat du fait;' liszt adds, he incorporated a melody to which he heard venetian gondoliers sing the opening of tasso's gerusalemme liberata. there can be no doubt that this per aspera ad astra narrative informs the overall course of liszt's symphonic poem. there is a general consensus that the slow c-minor cantilena in mm. 62-90 rerresents the venetian gondo­ lier's song, that the quasi menuetto in f# major (mm. 166-347) evokes "the feasts of ferrara", and that the festive c-major music from m. 383 onwards constitutes tasso's posthumous triumph in rome. at the same time, it seems that liszt selected the three "moments" mentioned in the program exactly because they could result in a (for him) satisfying musical form. moreover, the stated program is insufficiently detailed to account for large parts of the composition as well as many of the specific compositional choices liszt has made. the program remains silent about more than one substantial portion of the piece (particularly mm. 1-62, mm. 91-164, and mm. 348-82), and does not motivate the internal organization of the passages that can be explained from the program.lo it does seem reasonable, therefore, to assume that in composing his second symphonic poem, lisztwas also drawing on inherently musical tradi­ tions. indeed, tasso seems particularly fit for an interpretation as a sonata deformation. on the one hand, and as richard kaplan has emphasized, it displays a number of characteristics that resolutely point in the direction of sonata form (kaplan 1984:145, 149-50). a slow introduction (mm. 1.-:.26) is followed by what appears to be a sonata-form exposition, comprising thematic contrast and a tonal trajectory leading in descending major thirds from c minor through aj, major to e major. at least part of the thematic material from this exposition is recapitulated from m. 348 onwards, and themes that appeared off-tonic in the exposition return in the tonic major in the recapitulation. on the other hand, there are many elements in tasso that are difficult to align with even the most flexible conventions of sonata form. first, the allegro strepitoso unit that initially appears to function as a main theme (mm. 27-53) turns out not to behave as a main theme from a tonal-harmonic point of view and is followed by a return of introductory material in the original tempo (mm. 54-61). second, the alleged group of contrasting themes (mm. 62-144) begins in the tonic-suggesting at least an extraordinarily liberal concept of sonata form-and is in a different tempo than the apparent main theme group. third, tasso lacks an actual development section, its exposition being separated from the recapitulation by an extensive section marked quasi menuetto. fourth and finally, a considerable part of the thematic material presented in the exposition is omitted from the recapitulation, often being replaced by non-expositional material. steven vande moortele examples la, lb, and ie: themes from tasso, mm. 62-67, °166-73, and °397-400. a) adagio mesto -----------------~ .~. f ~ i -=--~ 'u"!' (j r uiif we f r i v r fl go ietf rgr r.:r b) allegretto mosso con grazia • 'j:glllilllli!8ir~t?ulr~:ic)i'ltjt t ittt t if ~j 14 'j ¥ $ 4 j i j j # j )1 several authors have tried to come to terms with the extraordinary formal organization of this composition. kenneth hamilton considers mm. 1-61 to be a multi-tempo introduction that partly returns at the beginning of the recapitulation. in his opinion, the slow melody in c minor in mm. 62-101 functions as the main theme, which is recapitulated in a transformed shape from m. 397 onwards. "liszt's stroke of genius;' hamilton comments, "is to have a slow minor-key exposition subject (the lamento) recapitulated in a fast major-key variation (the trionfo)" (hamilton 1996:24): that which hamilton calls a transformation of the "main theme" is, however, no such thing at all. to be sure, there is a motivic connection between the theme from mm. 397ff and that from mm. 62ff: both contain the same basic motive (see the boxes in examples la and lc). as a whole, however, the theme from mm. 397ff is a transformation of the theme that begins the quasi menuetto section (see examples ib and lc). the alleged main theme returns only considerably later, initially in a modulating context (mm. 475ff) and only in mm. 534ff in a firm tonic version. whereas hamilton's reading focuses on the exposition and the recapitu­ lation, hepokoski has suggested a way of coming to terms with the absence of a traditional development section. for hepokoski, tasso is a standard example of a sonata deformation with episodes within the developmental space. ii more exactly, he distinguishes two episodes, and although he does not specify them, we may assume that he is thinking of the e-major passage in mm.131-44 and the quasi menuetto section in mm. 165-347. whereas an interpretation of the quasi menuetto as an episode is convincing, this is less so for the e-major passage in mm. 131-44. one of the basic characteristics of this kind of episodes being that they contrast with the context in which they occur, a slow episode in a sonata form that is itself already partially slow is unlikely. admittedly, the basic tempo indication of the e-major passage (meno adagio) is slightly faster than that of the preceding units, but 47 48 current musicology not sufficiently so to effect a genuine contrast. another reason to include mm. 131-44 in the exposition rather than to see them as an episode is that a large-scale tonal progression from c minor to e major is not unusual in liszt's sonata-style music. in several of the instrumental works, the exposi­ tion ends in the key a major third above the tonic, "even;' as kaplan remarks, "in the minor-mode pieces" (kaplan 1984:150).12 i will come back to the function of the e-major passage in section 4, at this point noting merely that both hamilton and hepokoski operate within the conceptual framework of sonata deformation. although only hepokoski explicitly uses the term, hamilton's views on the relationship between normative sonata form and characteristics of individual compositions that interact with these norms are strikingly similar. "to fully understand the organization of a work like tasso;' he writes, "we always have to keep the idea of sonata form in mind" (hamilton 1996:24). and elsewhere: "[liszt's 1 formal ingenuity ... often demands that it be heard against the background of conventional sonata form for its full effect" (hamilton 1997:149). doubtless many of the eccentric features in tasso can be catalogued as deformational, and several of hepokoski's deformation families spring to mind: not only the episodes within developmental space, but also the off-tonic sonata, multi-movement patterns in a single movement, and the modified recapitulation. but what does it mean to say that a particular musical form is a deformation? the mere identification of a number of deformational features does not get us much further, and using the concept as an analytical alibi for anything in a musical form that resists easy explana­ tion surely would be simplistic. rather, the identification of deformational features is advantageous only when it plays a role in a broader analytical argument. if a particular feature of a composition is legitimately interpreted as a deformation, it should be possible to demonstrate how that deformation contributes to the way that specific composition functions, and why exactly it differs from the norm it deforms. preferably, the answers provided by the application of the concept of deformation should outnumber the new questions it raises. this might seem obvious, yet in all these respects neither hamilton's nor hepokoski's account of tasso is entirely satisfying. of course, this is partly due to the fact that especially hepokoski's re­ marks on the piece are restricted to brief comments in survey texts and thus have never been developed into a comprehensive argument about tasso as such. still, this does not seem to be the sole cause of the unsatisfactory nature of previous discussions of tasso. i maintain that to enable a convincing interpretation of tasso's formal properties, we have to move beyond sonata deformation and invoke a more specific subset of conventions. steven vande moortele 3. two-dimensional sonata form in the case of tasso, the most useful referential framework is the pattern of formal organization i call "two-dimensional sonata form": the combination of sections of a sonata cycle and movements of a sonata form at the same hi­ erarchicallevel in a single-movement composition. since william newman's book the sonata since beethoven, this concept has become widely familiar under the name "double-function form" (newman 1969:134-35,373-78). newman's term is, however, a problematic one, because it implies that each unit in the form has a double function-one in the sonata cycle, another in the sonata form. as will become clear below, this is not the case. the integration of elements of multi-movement patterns into single-movement designs was a constant concern of many composers in the nineteenth century; beethoven's grofte fuge, op. 133 and schubert's wandererfantasie, op. 17 are among the earliest manifestations. two­ dimensional sonata forms distinguish themselves from this broader tradition by the fact that both the sonata form and the threeor four-movement sonata cycle are complete and that both comprise the entire composition. liszt adapted this pattern of formal organization to some of his symphonic poems (notably tasso, les preludes, and die ideale) from what is probably the earliest example of this kind of form (as well as the piece for which newman originally coined the term double-function form), the b-minor sonata. apparent in some of richard strauss's tone poems as well (don juan, ein heldenleben, and symphonia domestica) , two-dimensional sonata form survived into the early instrumental works of arnold schoenberg (pelleas und melisande, the first string quartet, and the first chamber symphony), from whence it spread not only to composers of schoenberg's immediate circle (e.g., alexander zemlinsky), but also to other composers working in vienna (e.g., franz schreker and franz schmidt). 14 comparable adaptations of the model developed by liszt appear all over europe throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (e.g., camille saint-saens's a-minor cello concerto, op. 33 and several of bedfich smetana's symphonic poems-to name but a few). the order in which sections of the sonata form and movements of the sonata cycle appear in each of these compositions can be very different. in all cases, however, this form can be conceptualized as the projection of a sonata form onto an entire through-composed sonata cycle. the result is a form that unfolds in two dimensions-the dimension of the sonata cycle and that of the overarching sonata form. because the composition as a whole is a sonata cycle and a sonata form simultaneously, each dimension contains apparent anomalies; they are, in other words, no longer just a sonata form 49 50 current musicology or a sonata cycle. theoretically speaking, it is possible that all sections of the sonata form and all movements from the sonata cycle in a two-dimensional sonata form neatly coincide. in reality, such a situation is unlikely. instead, the projection that takes place in a two-dimensional sonata form can be described as being both strong and loose. it is a strong projection, because that which is projected dominates that on which it is projected. put differently, it is the sonata form that appears as the principal strain of formal organization in a two-dimensional sonata form. the projection is loose, in that sections of the sonata form do not always stand to movements of the sonata cycle in a one-to-one relationship. a movement may coincide searnlesslywith a section of the sonata form, but it may also coincide with only part of a section, or overlap with parts of several consecutive sections. often-and this is the major difference from newman's concept of "double-function form" -even entire movements stand between two different sections of the sonata form, thus fulfilling a function in only one of both dimensions. a hypothetical example is given in table 1. in this two-dimensional sonata form, the first movement of the sonata cycle coincides with the exposition and a first development segment of the overarching sonata form. belonging exclusively to the dimension of the sonata cycle, the second movement interrupts the development of the overarching sonata form. the third movement coincides with a second development segment from the overarching sonata form, and the finale coincides neatly with the recapitula­ tion. the coda of the overarching sonata form, finally, plays no role in the sonata cycle, but belongs exclusively to the dimension of the form. following dahlhaus's coinage, the situation in which a formal unit of the sonata form and a formal unit of the sonata cycle coincide can be called identification. that in which a movement of the sonata cycle stands between units of the sonata form is labeled interpolation (dahlhaus 1988). the no­ tion of identification allows further refinement by distinguishing between identification proper and what may be termed substitution. identification proper means that a unit in a two-dimensional sonata form does not only function as part of the sonata form and as a movement in the sonata cycle, but actually is both part of a sonata form and a movement in the cycle, bearing distinct traces of both dimensions. in the case of substitution, by contrast, a unit functions both as part of the overarching sonata form and as a movement of a sonata form, but bears actual traces of only one of the two functions. a unit of the sonata form can thus substitute for a movement of the sonata cycle, or vice versa. as discussed above, hepokoski considers the mixture of elements from multi-movement and single-movement designs to be the defining character": istic of a specific sonata-deformation family. it seems a more fruitful option to regard two-dimensional sonata form as a formal type in its own right-or, steven vande moortele table 1: hypothetical two-dimensional sonata form. form exposition development --------------development recapitulation coda cycle first movement second movement third movement finale -----if one prefers, as something that originates as a sonata deformation but has itself become normative. the concept of two-dimensional sonata form is used in a considerable number of compositions dating from roughly 1850 to 1950, and although it obviously has its roots in sonata form, it is not very helpful to relate individual compositions belonging to this category back to normative ("one-dimensional") sonata forms. it would be stretching the theory too far to postulate a "normative" two-dimensional sonata-form model that is then subject to deformation-not least because such a norm would be even more difficult to determine than for a "one-dimensional" sonata form. yet although each two-dimensional sonata form proposes a highly individualized formal layout, together they form a background against which each individual example can be interpreted. 4. tasso: second approach the main advantage of approaching a composition such as tasso as a two-dimensional sonata form rather than as a (one-dimensional) sonata deformation is that the apparent deformations in one dimension can be interpreted using the requirements of the other. the presence of two dimen­ sions being a standard prerequisite of this type of form, those features that initially appear to be deformations lose their deformational quality: they are there precisely because a given piece is a two-dimensional sonata form. the result is not merely that apparent deformations can be given a place in a more comprehensive analytical argument; they even turn out to be constitutive characteristics of this specific type of form. i will demonstrate this in the following analysis of tasso, proceeding in two steps. first i will revise the analysis of tasso as a sonata form. then i will show how this sonata form simultaneously functions as a multi-movement sonata cycle, and that it is exactly because of this additional function that the sonata form has such an unusual formal organization. revisiting the overarching sonata form in tasso, one wonders why previous analysts have been so fascinated by the question of where the introduction ends and where the exposition begins. it seems impossible not 51 52 current musicology to consider the allegro strepitoso in mm. 27ff as part of the exposition. not only is a fast (and furious) unit following an initial slow unit a generically strong signal for the beginning of a sonata-form exposition; it also is the only portion from the initial stages of the composition that returns unaltered near the place where, given the overall proportions, the recapitulation may be expected to begin. put the other way round, an interpretation of mm. 27-53 as part of a multi-tempo introduction fails to account for either the strong sense of "beginning" these measures express or their return in mm. 348-74. as for their lack of harmonic stability-arguably the main reason for hamilton not to include them in the exposition-this need not preclude a function as part of the exposition, and even as part of its main theme group.13 far more problematic is that the first tonic chord in the exposition enters only in m. 62, the very spot where kaplan suggests that the subsidiary theme group begins. indeed, the entire passage in mm. 62-90 is firmly rooted in the tonic, and even if one is willing to accept a more relaxed handling of key relationships in mid-nineteenth-century sonata-form expositions, it is most unlikely that a theme will function as a subsidiary theme when it is presented in the very key traditionally reserved for the main theme. this, then, emerges as the first serious problem posed by the formal organization of tasso: not that the allegro strepitoso defies an interpretation as part of the main theme, but rather that mm. 62-90 are difficult to understand as a subsidiary theme. is in the context of liszt's weimar period, this situation is less exceptional than it initially seems. in this group of works, main themes and main theme groups that begin off-tonic are not at all uncommon. in both the b-minor sonata and the symphonic poem hamlet, for instance, the main theme-in either case preceded by a slow introduction-fails to express the tonic key in an unambiguous way, the first tonic chord (in the sonata the first tonic chord in root position) entering only at the beginning of the transition. 16 a situation that is even more similar to tasso occurs at the beginning of the symphonic poem dieideale. here, a slow introduction (mm. 1-25) is followed by an extensive formal unit in a fast tempo. the latter unit, how­ ever, defies any swift interpretation as a main theme. syntactically, it is too fragmentary to function as a thematic entity; from a tonal-harmonic point of view, it has a distinct preparatory character, comprising two failed (mm. °26-64 and 65-88) 17 and one successful (mm. 89-110) progressions towards the tonic. only in m. iii does the actual main theme enter. although it is only half as long as its preparation, it firmly expresses the tonic and reveals a sentential structure, with mm. 111-19 as a huge model, mm. 120-28 as the repetition of that model, and mm. 129-57 as a continuation. the main theme is concluded by a tonic arrival eliding with the beginning of the transition in m. 158. steven vande moortele taking the cue from die ideale, mm. 27-90 in tasso might be described as one large and internally contrasting main theme group, comprising a fast off-tonic part (mm. 27-53) and a slow part in the tonic (mm. 62-90). obviously, there are significant differences between both main theme groups. in tasso, the contrast between a stable and an unstable entity is accompanied by a contrast in tempo, as well as by a separation of both parts of the main theme group by a return of the beginning of the slow introduction. this is not the case in die ideale. the unstable part of the main theme group in tasso, moreover, is far more than a mere preparation of what follows, displaying a distinct thematic profile itself: at least initially, it even suggests a sentential construction. nonetheless, it remains more plausible to interpret mm. 27-90 as a main theme group that comprises an unstable and a stable unit and is preceded by a slow introduction than to consider mm. 1-61 as a multi-tempo introduction followed by a slow main theme. i will return to the significance of this extraordinary layout of the main theme group for the organization of tasso as a two-dimensional sonata form below. the remainder of the exposition is less problematic: mm. 91-130 func­ tion as an internally modulating subsidiary theme that resembles a period with dissolving continuation. mm. 91-99 can be described as an antecedent, but the consequent that seems to begin after a two-bar lead-in (m. 102) is never rounded off. instead, it enters a modulating texture, ending on a dominant in e major. the e-major passage in mm. 131-44, which is nothing but a thematic transformation of the tonic sub segment of the main theme group, is not an episode that marks the beginning of the developmental space, but a closing group that rounds off the exposition. it returns in an analogous position at the end of the recapitulation (mm. 533-57), now transposed to the tonic. from the point of view of the overarching sonata form, the quasi menuetto section occupies the position of a development, followed by a patently obvious recapitulation in m. 348. this recapitulation is, however, restricted to the fast, off-tonic subsegment of the main theme group. the partial return of the slow introduction that led to the slow, tonic sub segment in the exposition is followed here by an allegro con molto brio section that is, as mentioned before, largely based on a transformation of the quasi menuetto theme. the parallelism to the exposition is re-established only at the beginning of the closing group. the stretto from m. 558 onwards, finally, can be heard as a coda. while many of the features described above qualify as deformational from the perspective of sonata form, they no longer do so from the per­ spective of two-dimensional sonata form. on the contrary: many of the seeming deformations are essential to make the two-dimensional sonata form work in the first place. several units of the overarching sonata form 53 54 current musicology have been modified in such a way as to be able to fulfill a simultaneous function in the other dimension of the two-dimensional sonata form, namely as a movement of the sonata cycle. most notably, the demands of the two-dimensional sonata form account for the unusual layout of the main theme group and, by extension, the exposition as a whole. at least as far as its tempo and character are concerned, the group of units in mm. 62-144-the slow tonic subsegment of the main theme group, the subsidiary theme, and the closing group-corresponds to a slow movement. in a similar way, the quasi menuetto development substitute (mm. 165-348) corresponds to a scherzo-or, more exactly, a minuet that takes the place of a scherzo-and the passage from the transformation of the minuet theme through the end of the composition (mm. 397-584) corresponds to a finale. in all three instances, the relationship between the movement of the sonata cycle and the unit or group of units of the overarching sonata form can be described in terms of identification. the slow movement is identified with the tonic subsegment of the main theme group, the subsidiary theme, and the closing group; the scherzo is identified with the development substitute; and the finale is identified with the later segments of the recapitulation and the coda. as a consequence of its identification with part of the exposition of the overarching sonata form, the slow movement conforms to the tonal plan of the exposition, although it is interesting to note that in terms of thematic entities, it is organized as a ternary form. the identification of the quasi menuetto section with the development of the overarching sonata form is less self-evident. given its size and the contrast with its environment in terms of key, meter, tempo, and-because of the transformation-thematic content, it might rather appear to be a self-contained scherzo movement that merely substitutes for the development of the overarching sonata form. although this interpretation is not impossible, i prefer to conceive of the relationship between the scherzo and the development as an identification, because the scherzo hardly displays an autonomous formal organization. its formal openness, in other words, may be interpreted as a requirement of the development with which it is identified. the finale has a very strong autonomous profile as well. it is clearly separated from the recapitulation of the off-tonic subsegment of the main theme group and contrasts with it in tempo, meter, key, and character. for this reason, one might be tempted to hear it as an interpolated movement. however, that the finale would be an interpolation is out of the question because it occupies the place of the subsidiary theme group, the closing group, and the coda of the sonata form. without the units that function as a finale in the dimension of the sonata cycle, the sonata form would be incomplete. it is more difficult to determine whether the finale is actually steven vande moortele identified with the final units of the sonata form or merely functions as their substitute. identification seems to be the more plausible option, given the formal concessions on the part of the finale. if it were operating as a substitute for the final formal units of the sonata form, there would be no reason for it to lack a form of its own. finally, the several returns of the slow introduction too can be inter­ preted from the perspective of two-dimensional sonata form. in order to further emphasize their function as movements in a sonata cycle-and not merely as formal units in a sonata form that happen to look like movements of a sonata cycle-each of the three movements is preceded by a varied return of material from the overarching sonata form's slow introduction: in mm. 54-61 before the slow movement, in mm. 145-64 before the scherzo, and in mm. 375-382 before the finale. to interpret mm. 54-61 as the first form-articulating return of the slow introduction seems more plausible than hearing it, with hamilton, as the third part of a ternary multi-tempo introduction. although the interpretation of tasso as a two-dimensional sonata form rather than as a one-dimensional sonata deformation answers many questions urged by the piece's extraordinary formal organization, it seems to generate one important additional problem. tasso seems to contain an overarching sonata form, a slow movement, a scherzo, and a finale. a first movement in the dimension of the sonata cycle, however, appears to be missing. nothing in the portion of the overarching sonata form that precedes the slow movement indicates a simultaneous function as a first movement in the sonata cycle. given the unambiguous presence of all three subsequent movements of the sonata cycle, however, these units might plausibly be heard as a substitute for the missing first movement. the sequence of slow movement, scherzo (substitute), and finale strongly suggests the presence of a complete sonata cycle, to such an extent that what precedes the first of these movements will be perceived as contributing to the cycle as well. formulated in terms of the projection model explained above, the projection of the main theme group of the sonata form onto the first movement of the sonata cycle is so strong that it erases every trace of that movement. the most likely candidate to function as a substitute for the first movement is the off-tonic sub segment of the main theme group, which thus undergoes a functional mutation in the course of the composition. in the exposition, it simultane­ ously functions as the first movement of the cycle, while its return in the recapitulation plays a role only in the dimension of the over arching sonata form. table 2 gives an overview of the formal organization of tasso. many of the most striking characteristics of the formal organization of tasso-the unusual organization of the exposition, the several returns 55 u'1 '" table 2: formal overview of tasso. mm. 1-26 27-53 54-61 f ~ 0 r main theme: m off-tonic subsegment introduction --------------introduction varied return c ~ ~ y [first movemenn c (substitution) i e key (c) 7c:v ---_ ... _--mm. °145-164 165-347 f ~ 0 development r m introduction varied return c \ y scherzo/minuet c (identification) i e key 7 fifi 62-90 i '91-130 i 131-144 exposition main theme: subsidiary theme closing group tonic subsegment (period) (period with dissolving consequent) slow movement (identification) c a, 7e:v e 348-374 i 375-382 383-532 i 533-557 558-584 recapitulation coda main theme: g~l3sieliaf)' treme closing off-tonic subsegment group i introduction varied return ~ finale (identification) 7c:v c n s:::: ~ tij ::l r+ s: s:::: iii ;:r o 0' ul '< steven vande moortele of introductory material, the absence of an actual development, and the modified recapitulation-can be explained in a more satisfying way when the work is understood within the context of two-dimensional sonata form than by referring to the broader set of conventions of sonata form in general. once again, this does not necessarily imply reservations about the value of the concept of deformation as an analytical tool as such. my approach is a refinement of or elaboration on the notion of deformation that seems neces­ sary in order to come to an adequate understanding of certain compositions from the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 5. form and genre the possibility of interpreting tasso within the referential framework of two­ dimensional rather than one-dimensional sonata form has consequences for our understanding of the symphonic poem as a genre. in 1862, shortly after the completion of the twelve symphonic poems from his weimar period, liszt explicitly claimed to have "solved the greater part of the symphonic problem set to me in germany."18 for most of the twentieth century, the implicit communis opinio among music scholars was that by supplanting the symphony by an ostensibly inferior genre of orchestral music whose roots lie in the functionally affiliated genre of the (concert) overture, he had done exactly the opposite. the symphonic poem was seen as the epitome of a period of decay in orchestral music, a view obviously fed by prejudices concerning its apparent lack of autonomous musical consistency and its (subsequent) recourse to extra-musical narratives. over the past few decades the climate has gradually changed. with the emergence of more nuanced views of the dichotomy between program and absolute music, the symphonic poem has increasingly gained appreciation as a positive alternative for the symphony that-at least temporarilyoffered a way out of the impasse in which the symphony found itself by the middle of the nineteenth century. for that purpose, it was not enough for liszt simply to rename the genre of the concert overture to symphonic poem. rather, the overture had to be transformed into a genuinely new genre that was fit to replace the symphony at the top of the hierarchy of genres of instrumental music. in the present context, it is worth emphasizing that this transformation from concert overture into symphonic poem is not a mere aesthetic move, but has considerable formal implications as well. to be sure, several of liszt's symphonic poems-including tasso-were overtures in their earlier versions. yet although they clearly inherited the sonata-form framework from the overture as a basic generic convention, at least a number of them 57 58 current musicology tend towards a degree of formal complexity greater than that of the single­ movement and usually sonata-form based overture. some displayed this formal complexity right from their inception and may thus have prompted liszt to change their generic designation from overture to symphonic poem; others acquired their new genre name only in the course of the-often complicated-revision process, possibly because liszt wanted them to correspond formally to the aesthetic level of the new genre. sometimes, it even appears to have been the need for growing complexity that urged liszt to rework his symphonic poems. the notoriously complicated genesis of tasso is particularly telling in this respect. liszt first used its main theme for a variation cycle intended as the opening piece of the original but never published version of venezia e napoli (only a second version was published as a supplement to the second annee de peierinage in 1859). the first sketches for an orchestral composi­ tion on the same theme date from 1847, and the work was completed in 1849-with the help of liszt's assistant august conradi. from 1851 to 1854, liszt worked on the transformation of the overture into a symphonic poem, which was eventually printed in 1856. when it was first performed as the overture to a festival performance of goethe's play torquato tasso in weimar in 1849, tasso still lacked the quasi menuetto section. only in 1854, when it had been reworked and renamed as a symphonic poem, the piece came to include this section, which arguably is one of the key features of its identity as a two-dimensional sonata form.19 the increased complexity in comparison to the overture, the tendency to problematize musical form and to experiment with it, not only as a vehicle for programmatic content, but also because of the value of the experiment as such, seem to become central generic conventions for the new genre of the symphonic poem. several of liszt's symphonic poems combine a sonata­ form layout with a concurrent strain of formal organization. they merge sonata form with variation form (e.g., mazeppa), with an entire sonata cycle (e.g., tasso, but also les preludes and die ideale), or with elements thereof (e.g., ce qu'on entend sur la montagne). for the lisztian symphonic poem-and maybe for large-scale single­ movement instrumental music from the second half of the nineteenth century in general-the increased degree of formal complexity typical of two-dimensional sonata form compensates for the absence of an explicit multi-movement design. this means that the characteristics of a two-di­ mensional sonata form that are at odds with a normative sonata form are an essential aspect of this kind of form. to analyze them as deformations neglects their significance for the way these compositions function formally, both internally and externally. they are constitutive not only for the formal organization of a two-dimensional sonata form, but also for the role this steven vande moortele pattern of formal organization plays in the history of musical form in the second half of the nineteenth century. it is these characteristics, and the complexity they engender, that allowed these works to engage in a dialogue with the tradition of the multi-movement symphony. notes an earlier version of this paper was presented at the international conference on music analysis, university college dublin on 25 june, 2005. i thank david larkin, pieter berge, julian horton, and the two anonymous readers of this journal for their comments on vari­ ous stages of this essay. 1. several examples from the beginning of the twentieth century through the early 1980s are cited in kaplan 1984. instead of repeating kaplan's survey, i would like to point out that similar views-with varying degrees of nuance-are voiced in a number of influential music history textbooks that have likely shaped the communis opinio of entire generations of musi­ cians about liszt's symphonic poems. an extreme example comes from donald j. grout's a history of western music, where one can read that" [e ] ach [of liszt's symphonic poems] is a continuous form with various sections more or less contrasting in character and tempo, and a few themes which are developed, repeated, varied, or transformed in accordance with the particular design of each work ... [tjhe content and form in every instance are suggested by some picture, statue, drama, poem, scene, personality, thought, impression, or other object not identifiable from the music alone" (grout 1980: 602). a rather more nuanced expression of the same belief is to be found in leon plantinga's romantic music. plantinga finds that "[nl one of [liszt's symphonic poems] is cast in the usual forms ofthe symphony or overture, and all have a connection of one sort or another with an extramusical program ... several are highly episodic in construction, and some make extended use of recitative-like passages" (1984:407-8). plantinga does add, however, that the conn~ction between music and program often is a tenuous one. 2. the first six of liszt's symphonic poems were to be published in 1856. the essay on berlioz and his harold symphony was originally written in french (most probably in collaboration with carolyne von sayn-wittgenstein), translated into german by ludwig pohl, and first published in five installments in the neue zeitschrijt fur musik 43 (1855),25-32,37-46,49-55, 78-84, and 89-97, by then the most important forum of the new german school. 3. my translation. "sie kennen die hoffnung nicht, welche wahnt auf den von riesen gemah­ ten feldern noch ernten einsammeln zu ki:innen, und leben dem glauben das von ihnen begonnene werk nur dadurch fortzusetzen, dab sie, wie jene zu ihrer zeit, neue formen fur neue gedanken, neue schlauche fur neuen wein schaffen." 4. some notable exceptions include dahlhaus 1979, kaplan 1984, and saffle 2000. 5. particularly the idea that the interpretation of a composition should be guided by the generic context to which it belongs-a core idea in deformation theory-is prominent in dahlhaus's mode of thought. in his article on liszt's faust symphony, for example, he insists: "generic traditions are a part of history that is present in the matter itself, as a partial mo­ ment of both the conception and the musical hearing, which takes as a starting point certain expectations of form" (dahlhaus 1979: 131, my translation). "gattungstraditionen sind ein stuck geschichte, das in der sache selbst-als teilmoment sowohl der konzeption als auch des musikalischen hi:irens, das von bestimmten formerwartungen ausgeht-gegenwartig ist." already in the much earlier analyse und werturteil (1970), dahlhaus stated:" ... one may establish in analysis the rule that a movement is to be interpreted, within sensible limits, 59 60 current musicology as a variant of the form characteristic of the genre, and not as exemplifying another schema unusual for the genre" (dahlhaus 1983:82-83). it is no coincidence that hepokoski quotes the same passage (1992:144). 6. there is heinrich christoph koch's description of"[d]as erste allegro der sinfonie;' in volume 3 of his versuch einer anleitung zur composition (koch [1793] 1969:304-7). it seems unlikely, however, that anyone would have been able to write a sonata form based solely on the information provided by koch. 7. because one would have to "explain the remarkable phenomenon of composers 'discover­ ing' sonata form over and over again with each new work" (bonds 1991:28-29). 8. this is not to say, of course, that the concept of sonata deformation cannot be fruitfully applied to certain single-movement compositions, including some of liszt's symphonic poems. see, for a case study, vande moortele 2006. 9. "nous ... eussions souhaite reussir a formuler cette grande antithese du genie maltraite durant sa vie, et rayonnant apres sa mort d'une lumiere ecrasante pour ses persecuteurs. le tasse a aime et souffert a ferrare; il a ete venge a rome, sa gloire est encore vivante dans les chants populaires de venise. ces trois moments sont inseparables de son immortel sou­ venir. pour les rendre en musique no us avons d'abord fait surgir la grande ombre du heros telle qu'elle nous apparait aujourd'hui hantant les lagunes de venise ; nous avons entrevu ensuite sa figure hautaine et attristee glisser a travers les fetes de ferrare ou il avait donne ie jour a ses chefs-d'reuvres; enfin nous l'avons suivi a rome la ville eternelle qui en lui tendant sa couronne, glorifia en lui ie martyr et ie poete" (franz iiszts musikalische werke, orchesterwerke, abteilung 1: symphonische dichtungen, volume 1, leipzig: breitkopf & hartel, reprinted farnborough: gregg press, 1966:146). 10. in many ways, it is as if liszt's symphonic poem is not telling the story of torquato tasso, but enacting liszt (or any of his cultured contemporaries) thinking of tasso. i am inspired here by thomas grey's approach to mendelssohn's overture die hebriden (see grey 2000:80-84). 11. hepokoski refers to tasso as an example of this category on at least three separate occa­ sions: 1992a:146; 1992b:78; and 1993:7. 12. examples from the symphonic music include, for pieces starting in the major mode, ies preludes (c-e) and, for pieces starting in the minor mode, the first movement from the faust symphony (c-e), as well as prometheus (a-n). a likely precedent is the first movement of beethoven's c-major waldstein sonata, op. 53. 13. for a detailed theoretical discussion of the concept of two-dimensional sonata form, as well as for a number of elaborate examples and a historical perspective, see vande moortele 2006b. 14. another reason for hamilton's decision is perhaps the surface analogy between tasso and the first movement of the faust symphony. not only does the faust symphony contain the same expositional tonal progression from c minor to e major, it also begins with a similar apparently multi-tempo introduction. an important difference, however, is that the fast unit in the introduction of the faust movement (mm. 23-65)-which one might also consider to be what william caplin has called a "thematic introduction," belonging to the main theme group rather than to the slow introduction (caplin 1998:15)is, after a short interruption (mm. 66-70), followed by another fast unit (mm. 71ff). although not the firm­ est tonic confirmation imaginable either, this unit behaves as a main theme group in every respect. in contrast to tasso, moreover, the introductory fast unit in the faust movement does not return before or at the beginning of the recapitulation. admittedly, the slow tempo steven vande moortele segment of the introduction returns in the further course of the faust movement (mm. 359-81), but this precedes an interpolated slow episode (mm. 382-420), the recapitulation following only in m. 421. 15. the existence of precedents for a sonata form exposition with a tonic subsidiary theme in early chopin (e.g., the c-minor piano sonata, op. 4 and the g-minor piano trio, op. 8) hardly seems to make this possibility less implausible. 16. for a more detailed discussion of the main theme groups in hamlet and the b-minor sonata, see vande moortele 2006a. 17. the symbol "0" signifies "with upbeat." 18. letter from liszt to franz brendel, august 11, 1862 (quoted in hamilton 1997:142). 19. for a more detailed account of the genesis of tasso, see torkewitz 1995. interestingly, in 1866 liszt composed the final of the trois odes funebres for orchestra, entitled le triomphe funebre du tasse. according to its subtitle, this was intended as an "epilogue to the symphonic poem tasso." references bonds, mark evan. 1991. wordless rhetoric: musical form and the metaphor of the oration. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. caplin, william. 1998. classical form: a theory of formal functions for the music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven. oxford and new york: oxford university press. dahlhaus, carl. 1979. liszts faust-symphonie und die krise der symphonischen form. in ober symphonien. beitriige zu einer musikalischen gattung. festschrift walter wiora zum 70. geburtstag, edited by christoph-helmut mahling, 129-39. tutzing: hans schneider. ---. 1983. analysis and value judgment, translated by siegmund levarie. new york: pendragon press. ---.1988. liszt, schonberg, und die grobe form. das prinzip der mehrsatzigkeit in der einsatzigkeit. die musikforschung 41: 202-18. grey, thomas s. 2000. fingal's cave and ossian's dream: music, image, and phantasmagoric audition. in the arts entwined: music and painting in the nineteenth century, edited by marsha l. morton and peter l. schmunk, 63-99. new york and london: garland. grout, donald j. 1980. a history of western music. 3rd edition. new york and london: norton. hamilton, kenneth. 1996. liszt: sonata in b minor. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---. 1997. liszt. in the nineteenth-century symphony, edited by d. kern holoman, 142-162. new york: schirmer books. hepokoski, james. 1992a. fiery-pulsed libertine or domestic hero? strauss's don juan reinvestigated. in richard strauss: new perspectives on the composer and his work, edited by bryan gilliam, 135-75. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. ---. 1992b. structure and program in macbeth: a proposed reading of strauss's first symphonic poem. in richard strauss and his world, edited by bryan gilliam, 67-89. princeton, nj: princeton university press. ---. 1993. sibelius: symphony no.5. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---. 1997. elgar. in the nineteenth-century symphony, edited by d. kern holoman, 327-44. new york: schirmer. ---. 2001a. back and forth from egmont: beethoven, mozart, and the nonresolving recapitulation. 19th-century music 25: 127-54. 61 62 current musicology ---. 2001b. beethoven reception: the symphonic tradition. in the cambridge history of nineteenth-century music, edited by jim samson, 424-59. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---.2006. framing till eulenspiegel. 19th-century music 30: 4-43. hepokoski, james, and warren darcy. 2006. elements of sonata theory: norms, types, and deformations in the late-eighteenth-century sonata. oxford and new york: oxford university press. horton, julian. 2005. bruckner's symphonies and sonata deformation theory. journal of the society for musicology in ireland 1: 5-17. kaplan, richard. 1984. sonata form in the orchestral works of liszt: the revolutionary reconsidered. 19th-century music 8: 142-52. koch, heinrich christoph. [1793) 1969. versuch einer anleitung zur composition, vol. 3. leipzig: bohme, reprint hildesheim: olms. liszt, franz. [1882) 1978. berlioz und seine harold-symphonie. in aus den annalen des fortschritts. konzertund kammermusikalische essays, (gesammelte schriften von franz liszt, edited by lina ramann, iv), 3-102. leipzig: breitkopf und hartel, reprinted hildesheim and new york: olms. newman, william. 1969. the sonata since beethoven. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. plantinga, leon. 1984. romantic music. a history of musical style in nineteenth-century europe. new york and london: norton. saffle, michael. 2000. liszt's use of sonata form: the case of festkliinge. in liszt 2000: selected lectures given at the international liszt conference in budapest, may 18-20, 1999, edited by khira hamburger, 201-16. budapest: liszt ferenc tarsasag. ---. 2002. orchestral music. in the liszt companion, edited by ben arnold, 235-279. westport, ct: greenwood. torkewitz, dieter. 1995. liszts tasso. in torquato tasso in deutschland: seine wirkung in literatur, kunst und musik seit der mitte des 18. jahrhunderts, edited by achim aurnhammer, 312-47. berlin and new york: de gruyter. vande moortele, steven. 2006a. form, program, and deformation in liszt's hamlet. dutch journal of music theory 11: 71-82. ---. 2006b. two-dimensional sonata form in germany and austria between 1850 and 1950: theoretical, analytical, and critical perspectives. phd dissertation, university of leuven. current.musicology.86.1-100.pdf a musical education: lee morgan and the philadelphia jazz scene of the 1950s by jeffery s. mcmillan the guys were just looking at him. they couldn't believe what was coming out of that horn! you know, ideas like ... where would you get them? michael lavoe (1999) when michael lavoe observed lee morgan, a fellow freshman at philadelphia's mastbaum vocational technical high school, playing trumpet with members of the school's dance band in the first days of school in september 1953, he could not believe his ears. morgan, who had just turned fifteen years old the previous july, had remarkable facility on his instrument and displayed a sophisticated understanding of music for someone so young. other members of the ensemble, some of whom al­ ready had three years of musical training and performing experience in the school's vocational music program, experienced similar feelings of dis­ belief when they heard the newcomer's precocious ability. lee morgan had successfully auditioned into mastbaum's music program, the strongest of its kind in philadelphia from the 1930s through the 1960s, and demon­ strated a rare ability that begged the title "prodigy." almost exactly three years later, in november of 1956, lee morgan, now a member of the dizzy gillespie orchestra, elicited a similar response at the professional level after the band's new york opening at birdland. word spread, and as the gillespie band embarked on its national tour, au­ diences and critics nationwide took notice of the young soloist featured on what was often the leader's showcase number: "a night in tunisia." nat hentoff caught the band on their return to new york from the midwest in 1957. my back was to the bandstand as the band started "night in tunisia." suddenly, a trumpet soared out of the band into a break that was so vividly brilliant and electrifying that all conversation in the room stopped and those of us who were gesturing were frozen with hands outstretched. after the first thunderclap impact, i turned and saw that the trumpeter was the very young sideman from philadelphia, lee morgan. (hentoff 1965) current musicology, nos. 71-73 (spring 2001-spring 2002) © 2002 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york jeffery s. mcmillan 159 morgan, who had been the subject of much discussion in the jazz recording industry for months preceding his debut with gillespie, began his recording career as a leader with lee morgan, indeed! (blue note blp 1538) on november 4, 1956, followed by introducing lee morgan (savoy mg 12091) the next day. he continued to record, primarily with blue note, throughout his time with gillespie and when the band dissolved in january 1958, he was an established musician with numerous recordings to his credit, including the cooker (blue note blp 1578), under his own leadership, and blue train (blue note blp 1577) for john coltrane. his fiery playing found an ideal setting in art blakey's jazz messengers, with whom he appeared on many of blue note's premier recordings of the era: moanin' (blue note bst 84003), africaine (blue note lt 1088), and a night in tunisia (blue note bst 84049). following his tenure with blakey, morgan led his own combos and continued to generate an impressive out­ put of compositions and recordings, many of which are sublime in their blend of beauty, fire, and humor. tragically morgan's life and career were cut short in 1972 when he was fatally shot by a girlfriend at slug's saloon in new york city. in the limited literature available on morgan, authors almost invariably touch on at least one of three themes: lee morgan as a "prodigy," his "hit" record, the sidewinder, and his spectacular early death. these idees fixes, along with references to the trumpeter's drug use, too easily make morgan's life something of a characterization, sacrificing him and his art to a generic type-the prototypical jazz life. while two ofthese themes are slightly less contentious-the sidewinder was his most successful recording and he was, in fact, murdered at the age of thirty-three during a perform­ ance engagement-the third, his reputation as a "prodigy," is more prob­ lematic and warrants greater investigation. the following narrative serves to reconsider the identification of lee morgan as a "prodigy," a term which often mystifies an artist by simplifying our understanding of their humanness and agency. authors and critics most often mention morgan's youth when he emerged on the national jazz scene, variously referring to him as a "prodigy," "enfant terrible," "wunderkind," or the young lion.! in fact, a trend of exag­ geration plagues some of the discourse on morgan, leading some to erro­ neously state that morgan was younger than he actually was when he made his head-turning debut with gillespie. 2 the implication is often that morgan's talent in some way predestined him for greatness and that fate launched him into the world of professional jazz.3 while he undoubtedly had "natural gifts," such as perfect pitch, morgan's talent and growth as a musician were more remarkable for his own conscious role in furthering 160 current musicology them, than for that of fate or the "god-given" ability often attributed to "prodigies." the truth about lee morgan is that he did not emerge, like athena, fully formed from the head of zeus. he passed, along with many other philadelphia-based musicians, through a diverse and extensive musical ap­ prenticeship that equipped him with considerable experience. the musi­ cally supportive environment of mid-century philadelphia provided a com­ plex positive feedback system that routinely produced experienced musicians of the highest caliber, such as john coltrane and jimmy heath, as well as nonjazz musicians like marian anderson, pianist andre watts, and, much later, the vocal group boyz ii men. public school programs, in­ teraction with professional musicians, numerous performance venues, and a civic emphasis on the performing arts combined to nurture talent in the city's youth and encourage them to pursue a creative life in the arts. for jazz musicians like lee morgan, these elements were further comple­ mented by the proactive attitudes of many of the city's families, club­ owners, disc jockeys, and, most of all, musicians, to provide the city's aspir­ ing young players with an invaluable foundation. this network can be called the philadelphia jazz community. lee morgan was one of the elite to emerge from this environment and successfully make the transition from local hero to internationally known artist. being recognized as a mu­ sical prodigy was not what determined morgan's success; his motivation and hustling resourcefulness allowed the trumpeter to make the most of his opportunities and develop his ability in such a way that his classmates at mastbaum and, later, the jazz audience at large would take notice. an understanding of his early musical activity in philadelphia is essential to appreciate morgan's career and success as ajazz musician. edward lee morgan, the youngest of four siblings, was born onjuly 10, 1938, in a predominantly african american neighborhood of the tioga section of north philadelphia. his parents, otto and nettie morgan, had settled in the neighborhood during the 1920s after migrating independ­ ently to the city from south carolina and georgia, respectively. like a great number of african americans that made up the great migration from the south in the first decades of the twentieth century, morgan's parents moved to philadelphia with hopes of a better life and greater op­ portunity. it was there that they married and proceeded to raise a family in their home on west madison street. the morgans were a musical as well as a church-going family. according to lee's older brother, jimmy, the first child in the family to display a talent for music was the eldest daughter, ernestine. "ernestine was an accomplished piano player and also an organist, but her music was basically playing in the church," he recalled. "she had the basic knowljeffery s. mcmillan 161 edge of music and she had been playing since she was about eight years old" (morgan 1998). ernestine, who also sang in community choirs and led the choir at the family's church, second baptist church in north philadelphia, had a significant influence on her youngest brother's inter­ est in music. when they were in grammar school and junior high school, ernestine took both lee and jimmy to performances at philadelphia's earle theater. the earle theater, like the apollo in harlem, the regal theater in chicago, and the howard theater in washington, d.c., was a stop on the "chitlin' circuit," a series of theaters in major urban centers that showcased primarily black artists for primarily black audiences. at the earle theater, the young morgan would have seen and heard the preemi­ nent figures in black music including cab calloway, louis armstrong, and the duke ellington orchestra. such early exposure fueled his interest in music and by the time he was twelve, morgan began to experiment with musical instruments. jimmy morgan remembered his brother's first efforts at playing music: "his first instrument, which a lot of people don't know, was the vibes." playing the vibraphone for less than a year, morgan soon turned his attention to the trumpet. ernestine again played a crucial role in lee's musical develop­ ment when she recognized the youngster's seriousness and bought him a trumpet for his thirteenth birthday. although morgan's interest in playing the vibraphone was short-lived, he became a dedicated student of the trumpet and began practicing diligently. morgan's desire to play the trumpet was by no means arbitrary. in addi­ tion to hearing trumpet players like roy eldridge and louis armstrong at the earle theater, many young musicians living near the morgan home encouraged his eagerness to play and study the trumpet. donald wilson, an active pianist, trumpeter, and bandleader in philadelphia, lived a block away from morgan and mentored the young trumpeter by teaching him scales and how to improvise on chord changes. wilson, who was only a few years older than morgan, helped other young musicians in the neighbor­ hood by hosting sessions where the musicians would take turns improvis­ ing along with a record. another neighborhood influence was alan washington who, according to wilson, loved dizzy gillespie and could play many of gillespie's recorded solos. washington was an inspiration to many young musicians in the neighborhood, especially those that gravi­ tated toward modern jazz and were knowledgeable about the available recordings (wilson 2001). through his exposure to locals such as wilson and washington, morgan developed a passion for jazz, and during his teen years, with the help of his parents, he amassed an impressive record collection. bebop horn players such as charlie parker and dizzy gillespie dominated his collection. bassist reggie workman, another celebrated philadelphia musician, remembers 162 current musicology that morgan "had an incredible record library and all of us would get to­ gether every week to listen to his records" (rosenthal 1992:6). these listen­ ing sessions, like those at the wilson household, were also jam sessions and offered the attendees a chance to play music together. the morgan family frequently hosted sessions because, in addition to lee's record library, the family owned a piano. unlike some church-going families of the time, the morgans supported their son's interest in jazz and did not view it as a morally depraved music, giving lee's creativity a chance to blossom. it is during this time, one in which morgan was surrounded by jazz musicians -both students and professionals-that his ability began to develop rapidly. morgan began taking trumpet lessons shortly after he received the in­ strument and his first instructor was a man named hy wynn, a music teacher who also played trumpet for the philadelphia ice capades (lavoe 1999). wynn and other music teachers were part of a program inaugu­ rated by louis werson, the architect of philadelphia's visionary music edu­ cation curriculum in the public schools, where children could go to desig­ nated sites throughout the city and receive musical instruction for free. "at the beginning we had free lessons on saturday mornings at broad and olney [the widener's school for crippled children]," recalled mike lavoe who took trumpet lessons at the same location as morgan. "on my first day there, we had thirty kids in the class, just as an introductory class" (ibid.). lavoe, unimpressed with wynn's pedagogical techniques, began studying privately with sigmund herring, a trumpet player with the philadelphia orchestra. morgan, on the other hand, learned what he could from wynn, if only as a supplement to the primary musical educa­ tion that had begun in his neighborhood. during the 1950s many prominent jazz musicians lived throughout the city of philadelphia. the older musicians, such as coltrane, jimmy heath, and benny golson, were largely born in the 1920s. the flock of younger musicians born in the mid-1930s-i.e., morgan's contemporaries-included workman, ted curson, bobby timmons, archie schepp, clarence sharpe, kenny rodgers, jimmy vass, odean pope, jimmy garrison, spanky debrest, albert heath, and mccoy tyner. of these, only tyner, born in december 1938, was younger than morgan. philadelphia's musical population enjoyed a variety of performance venues. workman recalled, "lee came up when philly jazz was very strong and there were lots of clubs: pep's, the showboat, the blue note around 15th and ridge, the oasis, the aqua lounge in west philly, plus all kinds of social clubs and taverns that had live music" (rosenthal 1992:6). in ad­ dition to these were spider kelly's, the earle theater, the academy of music, music city, as well as countless other locales-lodges, musicians' homes, community centers, the musicians' union office-where musijeffery s. mcmillan 163 cians could meet, listen, and play music. in addition to the numerous op­ portunities for jazz performance, the city was also home to the curtis insti­ tute of music and one of the twentieth century's most prestigious sym­ phonic aggregations, the philadelphia orchestra, under the direction of eugene ormandy. the jazz community in philadelphia was especially supportive of giving young musicians a chance to develop their skills. according to workman: the owners and managers (of performance venues) were so into music that they'd allow us to have jam sessions and come into the clubs and play during the early evening hours, even though we were too young to drink. there was a very healthy music scene in the com­ munity taverns at the time, aside from the fact that there were peo­ ple like tommy monroe who ran music workshops for young musi­ cians, or owen marshall's big band workshop with new music he wrote and that rehearsed in living rooms, taverns, ballrooms, any place that had a piano and chairs and where we could make music. (rosenthal 1992:6) morgan took full advantage of his exceptionally musical city and his devel­ opment and later success is a direct reflection of the supportive environ­ ment of philadelphia during the 1940s and 1950s. the two notables mentioned by workman above, tommy monroe and owen marshall, were part of a rehearsal band scene that brought young musicians together. although they met and practiced frequently, re­ hearsal bands rarely performed in philadelphia's numerous nightclubs or bars due to union restrictions and the ages of the musicians. their per­ formance opportunities were often limited to social gatherings, school dances, and parties at elk's lodges, small theaters, or high school gymnasi­ ums. there were many such groups in philadelphia during the 1950s and they often rehearsed in living rooms, community centers, and auditori­ ums. wilmer wise, a trumpeter from south philadelphia who played in some of the ensembles, including the tommy monroe band, remembers, "i used to see lee with the rehearsal band scene. tommy monroe had a big band and we played dizzy gillespie charts. that was the first time i heard lee play jazz and he was, at 14 years old, absolutely awesome" (wise 2000) .4 like monroe, owen marshall was an important figure in philadelphia's jazz community of the early 1950s. marshall, a trumpet player and composer / arranger, led a big band comprised of basically "a bunch of kids," said wise (wise 2000). the band played the music of many different jazz com­ posers, but tended to focus on rehearsing marshall's own compositions. bassist jimmy garrison also played in marshall's band and said of its 164 current musicology leader, "owen marshall (was) one of the better writer/arrangers in phila­ delphia" (heckman 1967). marshall's association with morgan extended into 1956 when he contributed four compositions-"gaza strip," "the lady," "his sister," and "d's fink"-and helped with arrangements on morgan's first record dates for blue note. the rehearsal bands of monroe and marshall, as well as those of others such as cal massey and bill carney (mr. c), provided morgan with an or­ ganized atmosphere in which to refine his sight reading, ensemble play­ ing, and section playing skills. by the age of fourteen, morgan was already beginning to earn a reputation as a talented player and he started to ex­ periment with leading his own small combos. his apprenticeship was far from over, however, and in 1953 he made the important decision to study music in high school. during his years at gillespie junior high, morgan decided that he wanted to play music professionally, especially modern jazz. although his older siblings had attended simon gratz high school, which was a short walk from the family's home, morgan asked his parents to send him to jules e. mastbaum vocational technical high school in the northeast sec­ tion of philadelphia, a lengthy trolley ride to the east. mastbaum had a re­ spected vocational music program that attracted the young trumpeter, and while the school equipped students with orchestral and concert band experience, it had also earned a reputation for training great jazz players including joe wilder, buddy defranco, johnny coles, and red rodney. many of morgan's slightly older contemporaries-ted curson, henry grimes, sam reed, and kenny rodgers-were already students at mast­ baum when he made his decision to audition for the music program. music was just one of many vocational "majors" available to mastbaum's student body. the school was built in the largely european immigrant sec­ tion of kensington (also known as "fish town" due to its proximity to the delaware river) so the children of philadelphia's working class could learn practical trade skills-machine construction, carpentry, sewing, etc. -while receiving an academic education. for students interested in the arts, the curriculum was equally practical. music majors spent their after­ noons in classes like music theory, harmony, composition, solfeggio, and rehearsals for the concert band, dance band, and marching band. morgan's decision to attend mastbaum clearly demonstrates his com­ mitment to a career in music. in addition to the daily, cross-town trolley ride, attending mastbaum also meant leaving the security of a black neigh­ borhood and traveling to a school that was overwhelmingly comprised of white students. "in 'fish town' there were no mro-americans living there at all," mike lavoe recalled. "lee lived in an all mro-american neighborjeffery s. mcmillan 165 hood, but we had none in that school because it was a trade school. none of the mro-americans were going into trades." black students were so un­ common within the student body that the only mrican americans that lavoe remembered were four students in the band. he said, "there was lee, kenny (rodgers), a girl in the percussion section, and a guy, i think he played tuba, or something. they didn't live in that area" (lavoe 1999). it was not uncommon for children of exceptional ability to travel great distances for the music program at mastbaum. many of the school's music m~ors, including morgan, rodgers, lavoe, and, earlier on, tony marchione, henry grimes, buddy de franco, and red rodney, all com­ muted from different parts of the city to learn the "trade" and become professional musicians. the nature of this sacrifice is even more excep­ tional when one considers that a graduate of mastbaum in the 1950s re­ ceived a vocational certificate rather than a high school diploma. students that left their own school districts to study music at mastbaum were, in effect, foregoing any possibility of attending college after graduation because they would lack a diploma or sufficient academic credits to be eligible for collegiate study. the music program at mastbaum, among the first established at the school, had been directed since the early 1940s by ross wyre, the former director of the annapolis military band. graduates from wyre's program received a respectable musical education and landed jobs in symphony and theater orchestras, became hollywood studio musicians in the boom­ ing film industry, and worked in big bands. in 1953, mastbaum was the logical choice for any student with enough talent to get in due to its presti­ gious reputation, the quality of training, and the networking potential. morgan, however, had his own motives. lavoe remarked, "lee, he knew his destiny already ... jazz was his thing, not classical music" (lavoe 1999). in the wake of the innovative music of charlie parker, dizzy gillespie, and others during the previous decade, modern jazz required extensive harmonic knowledge and technical virtuosity. morgan knew he would have to soak in as much music as he could in order to excel, and mastbaum would provide a solid foundation. morgan learned about the school's outstanding reputation and de­ cided to go there based on the encouragement of his neighborhood friend, kenny rodgers. rodgers, who played alto saxophone, was a little over a year older than morgan, but the two were very close and played to­ gether frequently as teenagers. jimmy morgan remembered, "kenny rodgers was sort of like, you might say, his 'main man' and [they were] playing gigs. they were very good friends. they used to go around and call themselves 'bird and diz' " (morgan 1998).5 lavoe, who started at mastbaum along with morgan in the fall of 1953, also remembered 166 current musicology morgan's friendship with rodgers: "they used to argue every morning in the assembly hall in the auditorium before we went to class and they would be screaming about (chord) changes. they would be going back and forth, you know talking about it all the time." morgan's and rodgers's musical knowledge-and jazz connoisseurship-was quite advanced, even at the beginning of high school, and they, along with other jazz enthusi­ asts in the mastbaum band, frequently discussed chord progressions and professional jazz musicians. although morgan was in a high school music program known for training students in western classical musical, he grav­ itated toward those who playedjazz and became part of the 'jazz clique." lee used to scream at kenny, "what are you talkin' about man? here's a dime. go buy yourself some soul. that change is wrong. you don't want to play that change. you want to playa c ninth," or whatever, you know. they'd be screaming at each other all morning. henry grimes would come in and get into the argument too. a lot of us didn't even know what they were talking about, you know. lee would lift his hand up on his other hand and with the trumpet fin­ gering show him, "no, this is what i would play on these changes" or "this is what miles would do, man" or "this is what clarence sharpe would play." ... early in the morning we would all come into the auditorium, the whole school, and we would wait until the bell would ring to go to our classes. so the band would all congregate in one corner of the auditorium in the seats and all these guys, these five or six guys, would talk about were progressions, and changes, and miles, and the bird, you know. this was the conversation. (lavoe 1999) the group of jazz enthusiasts, primarily students who played in the school's dance band, often had jam sessions before school in the audito­ rium. it was during one of these sessions during their freshman year that lavoe first heard morgan play in ajazz ensemble context, an experience that elicited the astonishment expressed in the epigraph to this article. "right at that moment," said lavoe, "it clicked in my mind that 'this guy is scary' " (lavoe 1999). morgan's first year at mastbaum was filled with activity, mainly musical activity, and his ability developed rapidly. he began taking lessons with a postgr.aduate named tony marchione, who, while only a few years older than morgan, was considered by many in the know to be a master trumpet player.6 in addition to beginning private lessons, it was during morgan's first semester of high school that wyre recommended him to the presti­ gious philadelphia all-senior high school orchestra (or "all-city"), a "by recommendation only" ensemble comprised of the best young musicians jeffery s. mcmillan 167 from the philadelphia school system (lavoe 2000). morgan sat fourth chair in a trumpet section that included wilmer wise, louis opaleski, and eddie mccoy, all one or two years older than lee. despite the prestige of playing in all-city, morgan left the orchestra during his second year at mastbaum. "he wasn't in the orchestra for very long," said lavoe. "he was in it two years. the third year he wasn't in it because he knew it wasn't his scene" (lavoe 2000). early in 1954, a camden, new jersey, dj named tommy roberts began holdingjazz sessions at the heritage house, a north philadelphia commu­ nity center located on the second floor of what is now the freedom theater at 1346 n. broad street. these sessions became an important part of the philadelphia jazz scene, especially for young musicians, and gave birth to a series of events known as the 'jazz workshop." beginning in april 1954, the workshop met every friday afternoon from 4:00 to 6:00 and featured prominent jazz artists who were in town playing evening engagements in the clubs in center city. the first hour of each session entailed a performance by the featured artists and was followed by an in­ termission where members of the audience were free to socialize with the musicians. the second hour was devoted to young musicians and com­ posers who were encouraged to sit in with the artists or submit their work to be performed by the band. this unique, hands-on opportunity for youngsters to learn about jazz was augmented by the quality of artists that appeared at the workshop. in 1954 alone the artists included the chet baker quintet (featuring james moody) ,johnny hodges's band (which, at the time, included john coltrane), buddy defranco, art blakey's jazz messengers, bud powell, ella fitzgerald, george shearing, roy eldridge, the erroll garner trio, and billy taylor. besides a 75et admission fee, there was only one restriction to being admitted to the workshop: every attendee was required to be twenty years old or younger. those of legal drinking age, twenty-one or older, had to take their business to the clubs to hear the artists. such an opportunity to jam with professional jazz musicians was not lost on the young musicians of philadelphia. lee morgan and others from north philadelphia, as well as enthusiasts that had to travel from further reaches of the city, became regulars at the workshop. morgan was among the attendees for the inaugural session on april 9, 1954 when chet baker and his group, who were in town playing at the blue note, gave a perform­ ance. the philadelphia tribune reviewed the event: last friday's initial affair was very successful and included james moody, chet baker, russ freeman and others. james moody played tenor sax on the occasion and was well received by all present. the 168 current musicology session was two hours long, with a break in the last half set aside for aspiring musicians and composers. something very nice was done by 3 students from mastbaum vocational school. (mcbride 1954) although morgan's name was not mentioned in the review, he was cer­ tainly one of the three mastbaum students according to another attendee, wilmer wise. "chet baker played there one day, and lee came up and played-you know, skinny, scrawny, little lee-and blew chet baker com­ pletely out of the room," wise recounts. "lee was that kind of player when he was a kid" (wise 2000). this remarkable event, where a fifteen-year-old mastbaum freshman "cut" chet baker, the year's winner of the down beat critics poll for best trumpet player, attests to morgan's skill and confi­ dence at this point in his development. at this and later sessions, morgan's reputation within the philadelphia musical community grew rapidly and he continued to make valuable contacts and secure gigs. it was at the heritage house that morgan met clifford brown, the trumpeter who would become his idol and mentor. born in wilmington, delaware, on october 30, 1930, brown, whose recordings from the early to mid 1950s display some of the best trumpet playing in the history of jazz, became associated with the philadelphia jazz scene by working with a locally based group, chris powell and the blue flames, and eventually moving to the city in 1954. morgan frequented the browns' household in west philadelphia between 1954 and 1956, receiving invaluable instruction from brown, though he did not take formal lessons with him. larue brown-watson, clifford's wife, recalled: "clifford was never teaching, so whenever they got together it was a lesson, but it was never one where lee planned to come and take a lesson. they were hanging out, you know, but it always ended up being a lesson." as their friendship grew, their meet­ ings extended beyond musical matters, and a mentor-student relationship developed. "i think he (morgan) knew he could trust clifford," said brown-watson. "sometimes they would go down in the basement, and 1 would not be allowed, because they needed to talk. what they talked about 1 never knew because it was never discussed." although the phila­ delphia jazz scene involved much hanging out and jamming at different musicians' homes, morgan never brought friends to the browns' home for a session. "he always came alone," mrs. brown-watson said. "he and cliff, 1 think, were jealous oftheir time together" (brown-watson 2000). during high school morgan played with many different jazz groups out­ side of school, often acting as the leader. one group that he led fre­ quently played college parties and dances in the philadelphia area and occasionally atlantic city. this combo, which included spanky debrest (bass), mccoy tyner (piano), and lex humphries or eddie campbell (drums) was in demand and performing at friday and saturday night jeffery s. mcmillan 169 functions as early as the summer of 1954, when morgan was only 15. sonny fortune, a north philadelphia saxophonist born in 1939, recalled morgan's presence on the college dance scene: "fraternities' and sorori­ ties' ... parties were big. they would have these dances and mccoy tyner and lee morgan and them, they used to play at these affairs" (crouch 1964:79). odean pope often co-led this group with morgan. born in the same year as morgan, pope also got started in music quite early and, like morgan, was playing gigs in his early teens. pope recalled life in philadelphia as a young, aspiring musician: i remember in the early' 50s lee morgan and i used to play duets to­ gether. i was exposed to a whole host of musicians during that time. it was jimmy garrison, spanky debrest, (pianist) hasaan ibn ali, jymie merritt, jimmy heath, benny golson. it was a whole host of young musicians really developing the basic jazz techniques. i feel very fortunate to have lived during that period because there was so much knowledge. spanky debrest for example, we used to go around his house for sessions. reggie workman too, during that time would always generate some kind of interest in terms of getting the musicians together. plus two or three times a week we used to play in my basement. (van trikt 1989) like morgan, odean pope was also a regular at the jazz workshop at the heritage house. archie shepp, an outspoken saxophonist who achieved both notoriety and acclaim as an avant-garde performer during the 1960s, was another young musician in north philadelphia who attended roberts's jazz workshop. it was at the workshop that shepp met lee morgan in 1954. in a 1965 interview, shepp vividly recounted his high school years and the environment in north philadelphia at the time. his discussion of morgan, mastbaum, and the jazz workshop conveys the richness and communality of the philadelphia jazz scene in the 1950s and deserves to be quoted at length. mastbaum was the school-that's where there were a whole lot of cats playing-that's north philly. most of the cats lived further south in north philly. everybody was trying to get that early jazz messenger sound then. lee morgan and an alto player named kenny rogers (sic) really got me started playing jazz. kenny first recorded with lee ... he used to sound like early lou donaldson ... you know, that great big alto sound. there was a place called the jazz workshop, run by a disc jockey, i used to go to after school. i guess that was the place where i really 170 current musicology began to hear it. before that i just heard my father, mostly dixieland and r&b. lee frequented the place all the time ... he and kenny were like local heroes, and this was about the time lee was 14. he was a very young cat, but he was playing. henry grimes, ted curson, and bobby timmons used to come in too. there was something like a ri­ valry between the north philly and south philly musicians. spanky debrest was from north philly. it seemed like some very good bass players came out of south philly, jimmy garrison and grimes. south philly was the original negro settlement, but the flux had been to the north. [at the workshop] they let the young cats come on and play. i started talking to lee at this place one time and went home with him and kenny. they asked me who i liked. i said brubeck and getz. and they re­ ally wigged out ... but they were being very, very hip. i was square as a mother. you can imagine the reaction. they said, "oh yeah?" so then these cats asked me to take out my horn and play something. i had a c-melody sax about that time, and i guess i had a sort of a stan getz sound. print that laugh! lee was doing everything he could to keep from laughing in my face. but then he pulled out his horn and played the blues with me. the blues was something i'd been playing for a long time, because of myoid man. i heard a lot of the blues then ... i had to forget all about my stan getz stuff. then ijust played like i play. i didn't know any chord changes at all, but i could hear the blues. i could always hear the blues. so then these cats stopped playing and said ''yeah, that was right." then after that they sort of took an interest in me. it was my introduction to realjazz music. (jones 1965) shepp's account clearly demonstrates how the philadelphia jazz com­ munity inspired and educated the city's youth. the jazz workshop ses­ sions brought celebrated jazz artists into direct contact with children and teenagers and the more advanced young players, in turn, helped their peers' development. despite his youth, morgan's intense musical activity prior to april 1954 was considerable and he was a source of inspiration for other young players, including those, like shepp, who were older than him. "lee was very influential to me growing up, i'm just a year older than he was. and he was quite a mentor to me during those few years," says shepp. "saturday afternoons i used to go to his mother's house and very often i would either bring some music or play some music he had. things like 'sippin at bells' or 'tempus fugit,' where i'd play the chords just straight up, you know, root up ... and lee was very helpful to me on the jeffery s. mcmillan 171 saxophone. he led me to identify solos and to learn how to play, you might say, notes against the chords" (sidran 1995:253-54). shepp and bassist reggie workman both lived in the northwest section of the city called germantown, but their activity and that of morgan over­ lapped and they worked and jammed together frequently. in 1954 and 1955 the three played together in a rhythm and blues group that went un­ der the names of carl holmes and the jolly rompers and carl holmes and his commandos. holmes, from willow grove, pennsylvania-also the hometown of bud powell-"knew a little guitar and sang the hell out of the blues" according to workman. morgan recalled the band as "the first rock and roll group i was in" (gallagher 1970). the jolly rompers made most of their appearances during the summer of 1955. meanwhile, morgan spent his junior year performing with the school ensembles, all-city, his own groups, rehearsal bands, at the jazz workshop, at fraternity parties, and wherever else he could play. all of this playing experience, combined with his music classes at mastbaum, jam sessions, private lessons with marchione and brown, and a strict practice regimen, precipitated a dramatic change in morgan's ability. lavoe remembered, once he learned how to play the instrument, it was as if he had played it all his life. he was really something! and i don't know how it all came to fruition with him because we never did any of that stuff in school, you know. we just played concert band music mostly and we had a dance band and he was in that. all this jazz stuff he got on the outside. (lavoe 2000) a strong internal drive to play music coupled with his fertile environs built lee morgan into a formidable musician of talent and experience. in 1947, a drummer named ellis tolin and his business partner william welsh opened a music store called music city on 18th street and chestnut in center city philadelphia. it started as a simple drum shop, but over the years it developed into a prominent venue for the top names in jazz to perform and engage in jam sessions both with each other and with the youth of philadelphia. the jam sessions most likely began during the sum­ mer of 1954-possibly inspired by tommy roberts's jazz workshop-and came to a halt only a few years later when the business folded. 7 during a small window of about three years, philadelphia had a unique perform­ ance venue that paired youngsters with the most prominent figures of the modern jazz world. tolin, a semi-retired drummer who had played with leading musicians of the thirties and forties, had many connections within the jazz world and was able to book the top stars for performances at his store. the perform­ ances usually occurred on tuesday nights from 7:00 to 9:00 which allowed 172 current musicology musicians an opportunity to play at music city without it interfering with their obligations at other clubs in town. monday night was rehearsal night and was open for anyone to come and sit in. tuesday afternoons often saw the professionals around the store offering clinics, jamming, and socializ­ ing with young musicians. clifford brown, sonny stitt, and others dropped by frequently and worked with the youngsters for two or three hours during these afternoon sessions. just as he had taken advantage of the friday workshop sessions at the heritage house, morgan became a regular at the music city sessions. in fact, most of the jazz players at mastbaum became regulars, ditching their afternoon classes to get there early. lavoe remembered how the 'jazz guys" were always missing from band rehearsals on tuesdays: "we never had those guys on tuesday afternoons in our music program. they all ran over there and listened and learned even though they had their back­ ground with us" (lavoe 1999). most of morgan's networking with musicians from outside of the philadelphia area was through music city, as it was for many up and com­ ing musicians. lavoe believed the sessions had a tremendous impact on many young musicians in philadelphia. he said, "i don't think those jazz musicians that came there realized the influence they were having on these young players ... the positive influence that they had." lavoe re­ membered the musicians who gathered in the auditorium before school were always especially animated in their discussions of changes and jazz musicians on wednesday mornings (lavoe 1999). trumpeter and mast­ baum alumnus ted curson, who traces the beginning of his professional career to music city, recalled the store's significance: "it was like the scene in philadelphia for young cats and old cats. they would bring guys in from new york to play and they would have the young guys sit in with them. if you played pretty good you always ended up with some kind of gig" (giddins and rusch 1976). lee morgan graduated from mastbaum on june 15, 1956, almost a month shy of his eighteenth birthday (see his yearbook photo in figure 1).8 mter graduation he remained active musically throughout the summer of 1956, playing with mccoy tyner, clarence sharpe, lex humphries, and others at venues in philadelphia, atlantic city, and wildwood, new jersey. this was an important summer for morgan and his life and career under­ went dramatic changes. on june 26, following a jam session at music city, morgan's friend and idol, clifford brown, accompanied by pianist ritchie powell and powell's wife, left philadelphia in an automobile headed for chicago. heavy rain precipitated a crash on the pennsylvania turnpike in figure 1: lee morgan's 1956 yearbook picture from mastbaum vocational technical school. francis jo~eph micenec lsi. football loa. lia and 12.'\ ball loa. lla; j.\'. baseball loa, lla; hobby: sports. l051 salmon st. l"c···alternale ' ful1<rl' plans: to leona mielock robert miller me j .v. basket12:\. cg 2013 e. ci0lnrntine st. rt wlrimpy-lunch league softball lib, fir,t merit award. future plans: to become a radio and tdevj,jon l(elmi.:':"'. edmund j. misko, jr. st. md 0b, loa and lob; lunch leaglle softball !fr. 1ia. nb. constance g. mitchell 3622 ed1-:elnollt st. connie-senator loa. 11:\. prom committee iia. hobbv: basknbal1. cg lib; alternate lob, junior fltlllr;~ plans: to hecome a secretary. edward l.ee morgan 20.35 w. madison lff-lullch l{'a~ue softball 11 a. 11 b ; foatbat!, banel. and combo. llo/,by: colkctin~ records. ambition: to be a trumpet player. mo jems lob. 1113; '--< t"1 ~ ~ r,r; ~ n ~ ~ z ...... -;r (,)!) 174 current musicology the early morning hours that killed all three passengers. brown's death shook up the jazz community and had a profound effect on many musicians who were close to him, including lee morgan. according to jimmy morgan, lee was crushed by the news of the twenty-five-year-old trum­ peter's death and had a difficult time dealing with the loss. brown, whose successful quintet with drummer max roach was on the rise at the time of his death, was the preeminent young talent on trumpet in 1955 and 1956. his death left a vacuum and left the press and record companies search­ ing for the next "brownie."9 whether the tragedy galvanized blue note and savoy's interest in getting morgan into the studio in november 1956, morgan's arrival on the scene certainly helped fill the void and provided jazz with a new and exciting trumpeter. another pivotal event involved morgan and his long-time friend and band mate spanky debrest being invited to fill in asjazz messengers when art blakey came to philadelphia during the summer of 1956. the messen­ gers had undergone many personnel changes in the weeks leading up to their july 23-28 engagement at philadelphia's blue note. a few months earlier the band included donald byrd on trumpet, ira sullivan on trumpet/ tenor sax/alto sax, wynton kelly on piano, wilbur ware on bass, and blakey on drums. by mid:july, byrd had quit (ceding trumpet duties to sullivan), kenny drew had replaced wynton kelly, and dutch vocalist rita reyes had begun to perform occasionally with the band. adding more in­ stability, ware and drew were also on their way out as the band prepared for the blue note gig. ware described his reservations about going to philadelphia and what happened when the band arrived. now, i didn't want to go to philly, because i had heard that the po­ lice were so tough on the addicts or people they thought were ad­ dicts, and if you had scars on your arm, you'd go to the penitentiary. well, anyway, kenny drew and i both said [to blakey], "well, man, you got to get somebody else to make that gig." and art fumed and screamed and said, "no, you're gonna make it-i brought you out of chicago." ira sullivan was just quiet-he was going along. so we finally said, "okay." so we come down to philly and this was when i was introduced to lee morgan. lee made the gig. spanky debrest and lee were very good buddies, and he [debrest] played at the old blue note. now we went up ... the thing was on a wednesday. now, i had a hole in my tooth that i was walking around with ... and friday night, i'll never forget, i started dancing, this tooth went up on me and started aching, and i couldn't play; i was a nervous wreck, and so spanky played a night. (ware 1977) jeffery s. mcmillan 175 morgan and debrest played for two weeks with the messengers, replac­ ing ira sullivan and wilbur ware who both returned to new york. although blakey wanted to keep morgan, the trumpeter left after a short time with the jazz messengers. in 1956, morgan told leonard feather, "spanky and i helped them [the messengers] out. spanky stayed on. i could have stayed too, but i didn't want to sign a contract, so i left after two weeks" (feather 1956). debrest signed with blakey and became the first member of a new jazz messengers group which eventually included bill hardman (morgan's replacement on trumpet), johnny griffin on tenor sax, and philadelphian sam dockery on piano. toward the end of the summer of 1956, morgan was offered the first chair trumpet job in dizzy gillespie's big band. gillespie, in town with norman granz's jazz at the philharmonic tour, had disbanded his big band in august after their south american tour and was recruiting mem­ bers for a new band to begin after jatp ended. on the recommendation of his old pianist, james forman, gillespie called on morgan to replace trumpet soloist joe gordon, whose unreliability and drug usage were a dis­ traction for the bandleader. this was a tremendous break for morgan and, perhaps for the first time, the brash trumpeter was nervous. 'james forman recommended me to him," said morgan, "i had met dizzy before at the jazz workshop one evening when i was 17 and when dizzy asked me to play i was so scared i couldn't get on the stage. i didn't want to look like a chicken in front of dizzy" (postif 1959; translation by the author). the new band debuted at philadelphia's academy of music on october 26, 1956, heading a bill with billie holiday. their new york opening at birdland occurred a week later and, along with the inception of his recording career during that same week, morgan's professional career outside of his home territory took off. what many spectators, critics, and record buyers did not know, however, was that the eighteen year old tak­ ing the break and solo on "tunisia" nightly was an established veteran in philadelphia where he had been playing for years. although to some he apparently came "out of nowhere," many profes­ sional musicians were aware of morgan's talent long before november 1956. chet baker, sonny stitt, art blakey, and almost any musician who brought a group to philadelphia-not to mention those that lived in the city such as clifford brown and john coltrane-were likely to see morgan lingering around, waiting for his chance to sit in. an understanding of morgan's presence and active role within the philadelphia jazz community is essential for understanding the trumpeter's rise to prominence with the modern jazz scene. further, when one considers the influence of his sister and the supportive elements in his neighborhood, it is clear that morgan's talent did not develop in a vacuum. the musical activity and opportunities 176 current musicology afforded aspiring musicians in philadelphia during the 1950s fed morgan's passion and he took full advantage of every chance to play that he had. considering the training and aggregate experience he had amassed by 1956, morgan's talent needs no romanticization. labeling him a "musical prodigy" adds nothing to our understanding of his art and obscures what was perhaps morgan's most extraordinary attribute-his commitment to playing music. notes 1. for "prodigy," see lee morgan's obituary cjazzman morgan dead") in melody maker, february 26, 1972. for "enfant terrible," see tynan (1960). for "wunderkind," see david mcelfresh (1997). 2. perhaps in a "what becomes a legend" flourish, owen cordle (1991) wrote, upon morgan's induction into the down beat hall of fame in 1991: "he began his big-time career at 17 with dizzy gillespie's big band." this claim, which erro­ neously put morgan in the band during high school, was likely fed by such misin­ formation as barbara gardner's assertion that morgan forwent his final year of high school to play with gillespie (gardner 1960). morgan graduated from mastbaum vocational technical high school on june 15, 1956 and debuted with the gillespie band the following october at philadelphia's academy of music. 3. contrary to these implications, leonard feather, in his liner notes to morgan's first recording for blue note, wrote: "lee morgan is eighteen. yet he is no mere prodigy, no freak sensation limited by youth and inexperience" (feather 1956). many later writers are guilty of romanticizing and simplifying morgan's development as a jazz trumpeter by ignoring this pearl of wisdom from what is certainly the first feature written on morgan as a professional musician. 4. individuals that played in monroe's band at one time or another included wise, morgan, and john splawn on trumpet; kenny rodgers, sam reed, and clarence sharpe on alto saxophone; john coltrane on tenor saxophone; mccoy tyner and kenny barron on piano; and eddie campbell and lex humphries on drums. monroe himself played bass. 5. kenny rodgers appeared on morgan's second blue note recording as a leader, lee morgan sextet (blue note blp 1541) on december 2,1956. 6. marchione studied trumpet with the philadelphia orchestra's principal trumpet player, sam krause. lavoe recalled, "tony was a fabulous musician. he could reach notes that were way out of anybody's normal register, like maynard ferguson. the only thing was that tony wasn't ajazz player" (lavoe 1999). wilmer wise also knew marchione. "tony was a neighbor of mine in south philadelphia," wise said. "tony was one of those philadelphia legends that very few people aside from philadelphians know anything about" (wise 2000). 7. lavoe believed that many of the young musicians that went to music city were stealing from the store, which eventually precipitated the end of the sessions. "the store was a wide open store," he recalled. "everything was out and they had the sessions in the back of the store and used that equipment. but on the way out jeffery s. mcmillan 177 these guys were dipping in and stealing sticks and books and mouthpieces. they were robbing the place blind! so they stopped having the sessions there" (lavoe 1999). 8. in a class of sixty-four graduating seniors, only four were graduates from the school's music program. 9. david mcelfresh argues that morgan's being thrust into the limelight was a direct consequence of brown's tragic death (mcelfresh 1997). while this conclu­ sion seems to overlook morgan's reputation and talent, it is possible that the plans for recording the trumpeter were hastened by the event. morgan's move to new york city upon joining the gillespie band, and the word-of-mouth reputation that preceded him, were more than enough to interest the record labels in the fall of 1956. references ansell, derek. 1992. lee morgan: derek ansell remembers a hard bop indi­ vidualist. jazz journal international 45 (october): 10-11. catalano, nick. 2000. clifford brown: the life and art of the legendary trumpeter. new york: oxford university press. cordle, owen. 1991. down beat's 56th annual readers poll: final-lee morgan enters db's hall of fame. down beat (december): 28. crouch, stanley. 1964. sonny fortune's gift of discipline. village voice (november 13): 79. feather, leonard. 1956. liner notes to lee morgan indeed!. blue note lp 1538. gallagher,joe. 1970. jazz can be sold: lee morgan. down beat (february 19): 13. gardner, barbara]. 1960. liner notes to art blakey and the jazz messengers, a night in tunisia. blue note cdp 7 84048 2. giddins, gary, and bob rusch. 1976. ted curson interview. cadence (july): 3. gillespie, dizzy, and al fraser. 1979. to be or not to bop. garden city, nj.: doubleday. heckman, don. 1967. jimmy garrison: after coltrane. down beat (march 9): 26. hentoff, nat. 1965. liner notes to lee morgan, the gigolo. blue note cdp 84212. jazzman morgan dead. 1972. melody maker 47 (february 26): 5. jones, leroi. 1965. voice from the avant-garde: archie shepp. down beat (january 14): 18. mcbride, woody. 1954. wandering with woody. philadelphia tribune (april 17): 12. mcelfresh, dave. 1997. the sidewinder: lee morgan. coda (may/june): 24-27 mcmillan, jeffery s. 2000. delightfulee: the life and music of lee morgan. masters thesis, rutgers university-newark. porter, lewis. 1998. john coltrane: his life and music. ann arbor: university of michigan. postif, frant;ois. 1959. a vous, lee morgan. jazz hot (january): 16. rosenthal, david. 1992. hard bop: jazz and black music, 1955-1965. new york: oxford university. rusch, bob. 1995. reggie workman: interview. cadence (july): 6. schlouch, claude. 1999. lee morgan: a discography. published by the author. sidran, ben. 1995. talkingjazz: an oral history. new york: da capo. 178 current musicology tynan,1ohn a. 1960. review of here's lee morgan. down beat (november 24): 30. van trikt, ludwig. 1989. odean pope: interview. cadence (february): 5. wilmer, valerie. 1977. jazz people. new york: da capo. interviews brown-watson, larue. 2000. telephone interview with the author,1anuary 9. lavoe, michael. 1999. interview with the author, philadelphia, penn., may 25. ---.2000. interview with the author, philadelphia, penn.,1anuary 27. morgan,1ames. 1998. interview with the author, philadelphia, penn., december 5. ware, wilbur, sr. 1977. interview with gloria ware, december 18. smithsonian oral history project. wilson, donald. 2001. telephone interview with the author, march 5. wise, wilmer. 2000. interview with the author, brooklyn, n.y.,1anuary 10. christina bashford. 2007. the pursuit of high culture: john ella and chamber music in victorian london. woodbridge, uk: boydell. reviewed by ruth a. solie christina bashford has titled and subtitled her new book appropriately: although it takes the overt form of a biography of victorian musical en­ trepreneur john ella, it is also a much broader project concerning musical life, repertory, and audiences in nineteenth-century britain. on the side, she is eager to dispel the lingering reputation of victorian britain as "the land without music," showing again and again how the success of ella's career demonstrates his society's widespread and wildly energetic musical interests. john ella was born in leicestershire in 1802, the son of a baker. bashford argues that this experience of successful mercantile origins remained important for him lifelong, providing both business sense and shrewd marketing instincts that served his entrepreneurial ambitions very well. ella began making a living as a violinist in london when the large-scale shift of "high culture" toward middle-class accessibility had not yet begun, and he understood well that success would depend on the judicious cultivation of aristocratic connections. his first organizational endeavor was the formation of a kind of club to play chamber music at the home of lord saltoun, an enthusiastic amateur, and his confidence in such well-placed allies remained with him throughout his career. bashford discusses with considerable insight the awkward social situation in which british musicians found themselves, needing delicacy enough to interact effectively in a fairly intimate manner with members of the aristocracy and gentry without presuming upon their own lesser class status. what is especially interesting is that ella's lifelong habit of continental travel began so early-in the 1820s he spent time in paris, studying with fetis and acquiring the beginnings of his eventually extensive collection of scores. his second important network was thus the continental musicians he met while traveling, who later provided the mainstay of his roster of performers, and who incidentally came to epitomize the feature for which london concert life became famous-that is, what contemporary critics called the "parade of foreigners" on british concert stages. when he added italy to his customary travel routes, he developed a passion for italian opera that provided a second arrow to his musical quiver for his later career; opera and chamber music became his "twin passions" (99). current musicology, no. 87 (spring 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 233 234 current musicology in the early 1830s ella began to make his name as a writer on music, participating in the early growth of music journalism. at the same time his first entrepreneurial endeavors began with series of soirees musicales, sold by subscription and evidencing an already-developing core classical repertory, featuring beethoven. here some especially interesting aspects of the social history of music arise. such subscription performances took place both in private houses and in rented halls, since in the early decades of the century there was no clear conceptual distinction between public and private spaces. it has been a vexed question how much the british upper classes participated in domestic music-making; presumably they did so with less energy than their peers on the continent, but christina bashford is among those who have been reassessing that assumption, and she provides food for thought here in the course of john ella's story. in 1845 ella launched what would be his magnum opus, the musical union for the performance of chamber music. it depended for its member­ ship on the upper-class social network with whom he had been working since his arrival in london, growing the audience carefully by recommendation and election only. although ella also added a set of somewhat less rarefied "director's matinee" concerts, for which non-members could purchase tickets, the union itself would continue to be marked by a "halo of leisure and wealth, as well as high musical values" (146). again, questions for the social historian abound. it is notoriously difficult to assess the motivations of audiences, so while it is likely that musical union concerts were primar­ ily social events for many of its members, bashford argues energetically that many were also driven by a strong and genuine love for the music. we can never know, but it is clear that ella's own determined belief that aristocratic amateurs were the most serious of listeners colored all of the union's activities. several times during the century, political upheavals in continental europe drove musicians to britain as refugees, each time to the advantage of the musical union (and also of other musical institutions and organizations, of course). the revolutions of 1848 helped the union to thrive, especially because many such musical refugees had come to know ella during his travels, and helped him to expand his operation into "musical winter evenings" that appealed to larger middle-class audiences. continually, ella seems to balance his interest in developing a larger, more general audience with his determination to retain his aristocratic connections. during the 1850s, he is organizing the performance of his ar­ rangements of operatic selections in houses like sir george clerk's, but at the same time he has begun to give popular lectures at the london institute and to develop his increasingly detailed program notes-which by now included ruth a. solie information about both the compositions on the program and the players, using technical terms and printed musical examples for the edification of the audiences he was determined to educate into knowledgeable listeners. the musical union's move into st. james's hall, opened in 1858, heightened the reverential atmosphere with its decoration of sculpted angels proffering the names of the great composers; in keeping, ella placed his performers on a central podium and the listeners in seats surrounding them. his audience continued to grow and, notably, included a continually increasing number of women. one lifelong scheme of ella's was frustrated by his inability to raise sufficient financial support: his wish to found a musical union institute that would provide a music library, particularly a score collection, a lecture hall, perhaps loan instruments for musicians, and study space. it would be "consecrated to the intellectuality of the musical art" (244) and would, he thought, be appropriately sited in south kensington where the array of great museums was just then beginning to appear. it never happened; ella's own music collection finally became part of the library of the royal college of music, ending up in south kensington after all. eventually, inevitably, the changing history of music caught up with him. the musical repertory grew in ways that his classicizing intent could no long­ er cope with; audiences changed, and so did their tastes. ella warned loudly against the highly popular "monster concerts" and other manifestations of what he considered cheap entertainment for a vulgar mass taste. bashford is particularly adept at recounting the forces of change that conspired against the musical union's survival: the emergence of agents, the increase in the number of performing organizations and concert venues, the dominance of ticket sales as opposed to private subscription, the development of a rapidly lengthening season and of a wider range of ticket prices, and in general the "surfeit of supply and choice" that london saw by the 1870s (323). what seems to me a fascinating anomaly in ella's musical profile is his interest in wagner. he programmed excerpts from the music dramas in his opera club, albeit with passages of his own recomposition that simplified some of the harmonies to ease listeners' comprehension. given the fact that wagner's music dramas, not to mention wagner himself, provided the single most widespread and most vituperative musical controversy of the late century in britain, it seems counterintuitive that ella's otherwise conservative and classicizing musical preferences could accommodate him. bashford tells us that a contemporary journal thought so too, remarking that it was "somewhat singular to find so old a professor of the art taking up with the modern wagner" (304). 235 236 curlrent musicology by the time of john ella's "swan song season" in 1880, he had ironically gotten what he wished for-"the emergence of a mass culture for music" (334)-but not of the sort he had wanted. rather than a nation of string quartet enthusiasts listening reverently while following the printed score, instead he saw a vibrantly rich and varied musical culture that supplemented those string quartets with other popular choices, from brass band contests to oratorio singing to music hall. the most striking aspect of ella's story--and it is unpacked beauti­ fully here-is the almost uncanny way in which his activities, beliefs, and musical goals epitomized the most significant music-historical process of the nineteenth century: the gradual accumulation of the musical canon or "standard repertory," along with all the associated attitudes and behaviors we later came to know so well. ella was the poster child for "sacralization" and its attendant ideologies. the economic and social fact that high culture in general was just then becoming less elite and more accessible to a growing and prosperous middle class created the ideal context for the development of an audience aspiring to the finer things, and ella was there to let them know which the finer things were. from the beginning, he programmed what he insisted on calling "the highest of musical art." he warned his listeners-or, perhaps, assured them-that they would need to do some "hard listening" (285) to become knowledgeable and accomplished music lovers, since these great works were difficult to understand. his union members developed the habit of listening with score in hand, assisted by ella's own program notes that urged attention primarily to structural matters and to appropriate reverence for the musical texts as such-as bashford observes, the scores' "prayer-book size" was telling (141). he encouraged listeners to believe in music as a highly intellectual endeavor and to evaluate composers in terms of their technical mastery of harmony and counterpoint. his concert programs themselves take a notably modern form: short and concentrated programs devoted to a homogeneous repertory, quite unlike the tradition of long rambling events cobbled together from every kind of performing force available. from the beginning of the musical union concerts, the viennese classics formed the core--as bashford says, "most of the works we now think of as 'classics' ... had been put in place in the first few seasons, and they continued to be heard" (187). gradually, additional now-standard items were added, including especially mendelssohn, a com­ poser beloved by victorian audiences. even as romantic pieces appeared on the programs, however, often at the behest of visiting performers, ella's notes continually classicized them with his exclusive attention to structural matters, "applying a classical filter to all he heard" (315). eventually it became ruth a. solie clear, to the chagrin of many of his contemporaries, that ella had little use for the work of british composers or, by the end, for contemporary music (with the exception of wagner). unsurprisingly, his programming and his writing continually stressed the singular status of beethoven. finally, in a gesture by now taken for granted, ella insisted upon a new concert etiquette of absolute silence and curtailed audience movement; as bashford tells us, both cobbett and haweis reported that he was not above standing up and calling for quiet if any disturbance occurred during the playing (234). this is far more than the biography of an obscure victorian musician. i need somehow to make clear to readers that its subject isn't as specialized as it may appear, both because ofelia's perfect embodiment of the century's larger trends, and also because of the density of social and cultural back­ ground bashford provides. her research is so exhaustive that she is able to explode any number of period cliches: that british gentlemen did not play music, for instance, or that the aristocracy and gentry attended concerts for purely social and nonmusical reasons. it's also a good read, colorful and beautifully written. the book is very thickly annotated and therefore likely to be useful to scholars working anywhere in the vicinity of the social history of music in the nineteenth century (i found several new bibliography items i wasn't familiar with). it concentrates a great deal on repertory (bashford is a player herself) and on the meaning and implication of repertory choices. appendices pro­ vide programs, lists of performers, and analyses of the repertory of both the musical union and the musical winter evenings, along with usually elusive audience statistics. she was able to use a wide variety of archival sources from period journalism to ella's diaries and other private documents held by descendants of the ella family; among other things, these sources allow her to provide an interesting and unusual running commentary on ella's finances, enabling a solid comparison to the general situation of musicians in victorian london. (despite his lofty goals and aims, after all, ella was first and foremost an entrepreneur.) finally, bashford is admirably self-conscious about questions of method, and she explains her choices; when speculation is required because of the sparseness or opacity of sources, for example, she describes how she has interpreted the evidence so that we may come to our own conclusions. a personal note: i wish that boydell would not produce books on this paper, which is not only unpleasantly heavy but also unerasable, squeaky, and headachingly shiny. 237 pamela fox. 2009. natural acts: gender, race, and rusticity in country music. ann arbor: university of michigan press. reviewed by kate heidemann what constitutes authenticity in country music? artists' claims to "realness" might be based on the sincerity of their performances, rural upbringing, or working-class credentials. authenticity in country music is often established via the performance of rusticity-a performance is deemed authentic if it is unrefined and unsophisticated, if the performer is acting "naturally." it is also the case, however, that factors such as changing economies, migrations, and contemporaneous shifts in social norms and hierarchies all contribute to varied definitions of authenticity and how those definitions change over time. in natural acts: gender, race, and rusticity in country music, pamela fox shows how some of country's "natural acts" are predicated on complex and changing definitions of authenticity produced and circulated by artists, listeners, critics, and the country music broadcast and recording industries. through her astute analysis of several country archetypes and modes of performance, fox demonstrates how gender and race, in addition to class, have informed these notions of authenticity in country music over the course of the twentieth century. as fox explores "how the uneven coalescence of gender, class, and race positionalities fuels country's claims to authenticity and its concomitant performative practices" (4), the chronologically and often conceptually distinct musical subjects of the book come together to form "an alternative history of country authenticity as a gendered and racialized class construc­ tion" (11). fox focuses primarily on four phases/performative models within country: blackface and hillbilly comedy acts that appeared side-by-side in early twentieth century barn dance programs, post-war honky-tonk and the "answer songs" of female honky-tonk performers, memoirs of women country stars, and the alt. country ( alternative country) movement of recent decades. fox's critical approach is informed by multiple theories of gender, race, and class; the result of applying her approach to this variety of sub­ jects is an insightful, multi-faceted history of the construction of country authenticity, one that recognizes the compound influences contributing to the formation of the notion of country authenticity over time. fox's scholarly background is in literary and cultural studies and feminist theory, with a focus on working-class literature and culture. her prior publications include work on female country star autobiographies and current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trllstees of columbia university in the city of new york 123 124 current musicology women in ait.country, and this book represents a deeper investigation of the historically racialized and gendered elements of authenticity construc­ tion that continue to influence these more recent developments in country music culture. as she delves into the different performative models of each chapter, fox analyzes radio scripts, song lyrics, memoirs, and publicity materials, employing feminist theory, contemporary scholarship on blackface minstrelsy, and cultural materialist theory to flesh out her approach. a large portion of her book focuses on women in country music, and fox is indebted to the feminist country music scholars who precede her, namely mary bufwack and robert oermann, joli jensen, barbara ching, kristine mccusker, and diane pecknold.! she is primarily interested, however, in not only recognizing gender as a significant dynamic of country music culture, but in moving beyond basic identity politics to examine the intersection of race, class, and gender at various moments in country music history. employing a framework devised by sociologist joan acker, fox investigates racialized and gendered practices embedded in a class structure "governed by white middle-to-upper-class men yet almost exclusively associated with southern white rustic or working-class imagery, lowbrow cultural taste, and artists who convincingly represent both in their personal histories" (6). in her analysis of country performativity, fox acknowledges her debt to barbara ching's work on hard country (2001) and aaron fox's work on local texan working-class music and culture (2004), but regards both scholars' approaches as limited by their missions of reclaiming dignity for the country music fans and practitioners they study. she moves beyond giving primarily celebratory accounts of country music practices to also examine why these performers and listeners sometimes indulge in demean­ ing renditions of rusticity. although this book does not focus on anyone variant of authenticity as it is constructed in country music, a recurring theme throughout is fox's commitment to destabilizing static conceptions of the performative modes under examination. she rightly observes that these practitioners of country music and culture engage in a constant process of both overturning and re­ inforcing normative ideas of class, race, and gender in country--norms that often form the basis of claims to authenticity. fox presents her readers with a realistically dynamic conception of country authenticity, one that is redefined by practitioners of country music almost as often as it is invoked. fox begins her exploration of authenticity with an examination of the racialized and gendered class performance of hitllbilly and blackface personas that appear in barn dance radio shows of the 1920s through the early 1950s. by looking at the intertwined ancestry of "white" and "black" rustic characters, and focusing on small, rural farming communities in kate heidemann addition to urban areas as sites of blackface performance, fox underscores the role of blackface performance in country music's rise as a commercial medium-a role that is often obfuscated in histories of the industry. she applies a composite theory of the performative mask to both blackface and hillbilly roles that draws on the work of eric lott and w. t. lahmon; by adopting the exaggerated drawl, tattered overalls, and folksy humor of the hillbilly archetype, barn dance performers both identify with and reject the classed other, just as they identify with and reject the racial other via blackface performance. the appearance of blackface alongside the rustic hillbilly "mask" on the barn dance stage leads fox to conclude that barn dance "thus would seem to produce a performative model that operates for its audience on myriad levels (communal, institutional, and individual: both stratified and blurred): exploiting racist ideologies and employment practices to unite white spectators across classes 'under the cultural sign and sound of whiteness'; exploiting misogyny to unite male spectators of all races and classes but also promoting elitist ideas about poor rural cultures to retain hegemonic control over what still threatened to survive as a 'lumpen theater' for disenfranchised black and white working-class audiences" (32). with this conception of barn dance programming in mind, fox focuses on specific broadcasts of the grand ole opry-a fruitful subject of study due to the opry's long-standing reputation as country's most famous broadcast and stage show as well as its commitment to airing blackface comedy through the early 1950s. from her research in the archives of the country music foundation, fox found audiotapes and hundreds of radio scripts from the late 1940s and early '50s-some never before discussed in print-that feature the blackface comedy duo jamup and honey, their comedy routines interspersed among rustic musical and comedy acts (including minnie pearl) as well as softer, pop-influenced songs geared to appeal to middle-class listeners. fox argues that these performances of a variety of rustic personas "playfully overturn normative concepts of gender, race, and class," yet also "paradoxically reinforce ruling ideologies" ( 48). for example, through her analyses of several radio transcripts, she demonstrates how the characters of jamup and honey functioned as antiheroes for their disenfranchised listeners as they satirized authority figures such as judges, teachers, and even commercial radio programming, while also indulging the racist and misogynistic impulses of programmers, audiences, and performers themselves. fox examines the more explicit relationship between gender and country authenticity when she turns to a discussion of the roles women performers played on the barn dance stage. she identifies the "sentimental mother" figure as a symbol of a southern appalachian tradition of domes125 126 current musicology ticity, a character whose middle-class appeal was often blended with an "everyday gal" type to function as a representative of folk culture to barn dance's mixed-class clientele. this gendered figure of authenticity in barn dance-woman as representative of a mythic rural past-would later be referenced in contrast to the character of the prototypical fallen honky-tonk angel-the alluring yet dangerous representative of contemporary urban spaces. fox addresses this reconfiguration of gendered rusticity as well as the re-masculinization of country identity in the third chapter. she argues that, as minstrelsy became taboo, gender replaced race as a central masking device, and white rural masculinity was reinterpreted as modern and strong, in distinction from the sentimental rube of the barn dance era. fox chronicles the shift from the male-dominated "first wave" of honky-tonk in the 1940s and early '50s to the "second wave" of the 1950s where female artists found their entrance into the style in the guise of the "answer song"-musical responses to honky-tonk hits by male artists. fox identifies ernest tubb and hank williams as representatives of the "first wave;' as their songs about heartbreak and their honky-tonk "home" helped to forge a new sense of white working-class masculinity rooted in sincere, deep emotion. fox interprets this new formulation of country identity as a mask that codes as no mask at all, with the self-conscious performance of honky-tonk "operating as much out of fear and anxiety as knowing bravado" (74).as honky-tonk performers such as williams negotiated a new identity in the face of postwar modernity, resisting as well as re-inscribing normative conventions, their songs of romantic failure ironically attempted to deny women the same opportunity to refashion their identity against the changes wrought by modernization and migration. as fox notes, often it is the woman's refusal of traditional gender roles that is faulted as the agent of misery of the song's protagonist. in the face of these persistent gender ideologies, the honky-tonk answer song provided women with another possible performative role besides the comic rube, sentimental mother, or country sweetheart. these answer songs were responses to hits by male artists, inserting a woman's perspective into a scenario where women were originally absent or silent (even though most answer songs were written by men). fox construes the answer song as a "discursive tool at once enabling and limiting female artists' agency" (92) because these songs could not truly oppose dominant gender codes if their performers entertained any hope for commercial success. this problem is well demonstrated by the songs and careers of the two female honky-tonk performers that fox discusses, kitty wells and jean shepard. for their songs to be successful, they had to reveal the properly feminine core of their honky-tonk angel song personas and keep those personas well kate heidemann differentiated from their "real" selves, marketed as loving wife and mother or unthreatening girl-next-door. in the late 1950s and early 1960s, honky-tonk's popularity waned as the rock 'n' roll-influenced bakersfield sound and the pop-infused nashville sound gained critical and commercial success. the country music industry was influenced by the cold war-era obsession with domesticity, ensuring the continued traditional gendering of country authenticity. even so, dur­ ing this time period, some female artists began to sing, speak, and write frankly about their pasts and private lives in a way that claimed some space in the narrative previously dominated by men. fox points to loretta lynn's autobiography, coal miner's daughter, as the instigator of this trend: "lynn's most significant contribution ... lies in her ability to conflate her private life, song persona, and professional image. unlike prior women in either barn dance or hanky-tonk, who had to establish a disconnect between these three representational components, lynn elevated her life story to the same iconic status as men's" (112). in chapter 4, fox focuses on the written auto­ biographies of six female country stars: sarah colley cannon (the actor who created and played minnie pearl, the only non -singer of the group), loretta lynn, tammy wynette, dolly parton, reba mcentire, and naomi judd. while she acknowledges that this is an "admittedly unorthodox direction," she argues that the country star memoir is" the next truly significant mode of authenticity discourse generated during this latter period" (14). akin to the honky-tonk answer song, the memoir is a way of conflicted "talking back"-a strategic move that helped women establish their authenticity in ways similar to the men of "hard" country, while also reinforcing traditional gender roles through references to motherhood, marriage, and domesticity. this chapter is an expanded version of fox's 1998 article, "recycled 'trash': gender and authenticity in country music autobiography." here, her discussion of women's country music autobiography benefits greatly from the background provided by the previous two chapters on barn dance and hanky-tonk, giving the reader a much richer understanding of the history of country identity creation and management that precedes these memoirs. as in her article, fox assesses the formal elements of the country memoir, stressing how each part contributes to the performance of identity already a part of country's autobiographical tradition. the women who write these memoirs, often with the aid of a ghostwriter, must constantly temper stories of their rise to stardom with claims to their continued credibility as an "ordinary gal:' simultaneously symbolizing modernity and tradition. fox points out how all these performers remain mindful of the industry's enduring attachment to the sentimental mother role; those who are mothers foreground their maternal identities, while the non-mothers compensate 127 128 current musicology for this lack by "capitalizing on other modes of class visibility available to women in country music" (129). while these memoirs fulfill an important role in the construction of an authentic country identity for these performers, i can't help but wonder what fox thinks about the songs (or performances) of these star authors. she recognizes that besides these memoirs, "the songs of the 1970s and 1980s constituted embattled texts in the ongoing war over the meaning of modern country identity;' (114) but makes little mention of them in tandem with the analyses of her chosen autobiographies. it is possible their inclusion in this chapter would have distracted from her argument about the importance of memoirs, or might simply have made the chapter too large and unwieldy, but their absence here creates a noticeable break in the continuity of the book (an issue that she acknowledges indirectly in her opening chapter). in chapter 5, fox surveys several alt. country artists that have turned to past models of country authenticity as a means of critiquing and resisting contemporary mainstream country. this loosely defined sub genre is a varied mixture of honky-tonk, punk, bluegrass, and alternative rock that is described by fox as "a postmodern movement that has appropriated the discourse on country authenticity, exploiting while also altering prior formulas" (146). she employs the cultural materialist theory of raymond williams to elucidate how alt. country artists draw upon past notions of country authenticity to protest against the current state of the industry, but more often fail to recognize "how the movement's own 'alternative' chronicle of the past equally validates prevailing social relations" (151). fox offers a brief analysis of two albums by michelle shocked-whose work includes hybrids of traditional minstrel tunes paired with new lyrics that comment on war and gender politics-as an introduction to music that is at times refreshingly inventive yet deeply problematic. fox skillfully tackles some of the most troubling aspects of this subgenre, in particular, its tendency to produce "its own androcentric historical 'time-line' that reinscribes prior masculinized models of authenticity" (151). she singles out certain performers and promoters of alt. country who seem fascinated by a masculinized version of class authenticity characterized by violence and volatility. this music's claims to artistic integrity, however, and a surrounding rhetoric of highbrow sensibility and ironic detachment from its subject lead to a type of aesthetic slumming: the middle-class consumption of "white trash chic." fox points to the southern rock group drive-by truckers as one that manages to avoid this pitfall by reminiscing about the south from the vantage point of survivors of working-class culture. additionally, they manage to simultaneously indulge in and critique the potentially racist and masculinist inclinations of their music. kate heidemann a portion of this chapter is an expansion of fox's essay, "time as 'revelator': alt.country women's performance of the past;' which originally appeared in a 2008 collection she edited with barbara ching, titled old roots, new routes: the cultural politics of alt. country music (2008). (similarly, the ideas behind fox's critique of alt. country's ironic stance echo parts of the introductory chapter to old roots that she wrote with ching.) fox turns her attention to three of alt. country's few female artists-gillian welch, the group freakwater, and iris dement-who have gravitated toward a different version of "rawness" in the form of old-time appalachian music (174). fox's comparison of welch to freakwater and dement clarifies the distinction she makes between "revivalist" and "survivalist" tendencies in alt. country: "revivalists may want to ensure the renewed presence of an outmoded music or culture, but unlike survivalists, they to some degree relish its impossibil­ ity" (180). fox is ultimately uncomfortable with welch's revivalist project because of her unwillingness to acknowledge the deliberately performative elements of her vintage style and sound. the members of freakwater, on the other hand, flirt with revivalism by mixing older styles with modern references, but ultimately reject the notion that it is possible to capture an authentic rusticity in their music. for fox, the music of iris dement is a representation of the survivalist bent; dement sings about her own child­ hood poverty and anxieties of dislocation in an attempt to maintain the visibility of her seemingly "extinct" class background and culture (197). just as she points out some of the racist, sexist, and violent aspects of some alt. country performers' masculinized version of authenticity, fox also uncov­ ers the class elitism inherent in some female alt.country performers' turns towards revivalism. fox concludes natural acts with a brief discussion of potential new models of country authenticity, citing songs of rissi palmer (the first african-american female artist to make billboard's country chart in nearly two decades), alt. country and folk artist lori mckenna, and mainstream country artist gretchen wilson (whose 2004 song "redneck woman" reached number one on the billboard country chart). each artist's raced, classed, and/or gendered conception of "country" identity further expands the means of producing and claiming authenticity in the genre. fox thus points future scholars of country music authenticity toward archetypes still in formation. musicologists interested in country music will find this book useful even though fox only occasionally refers to musical sound. it is understandable that, given fox's background in literary and cultural criticism, she focuses primarily on language and visual images rather than recorded or live musical sound and the reception or interpretation of that sound. although she does 129 130 current musicology mention the contribution of vocal style, instrumentation, and recording technology to particular artists' performance of authenticity (most often in her chapters on honky-tonk and alt.country), these descriptions are often drawn from her sources and do not delve into musical details. the absence of musical details, however, presents an opportunity for music scholars to incorporate fox's approach into their own accounts and analyses of country music and expand on the work she has presented so far. musicologists who consider gender, race, and class in relation to the sounds as well as the historical and cultural context of country music could also expand on fox's approach by exploring more specifically the role sexuality plays in the construction of authenticity. fox's multifaceted approach confers a sense of the complex forces that constantly shape notions of authenticity in country music; in this regard, fox has done a remarkable job in portraying the nuanced character of her musical subjects. in addition to the overlooked performers and new critical readings of country she brings to light, it is fox's commitment to analyzing the intersection of gender, race, and class in the construction of country music authenticity that makes natural acts a new and forward-thinking contribution to the field of country music scholarship. notes 1 fox cites the following: finding her voice: women of country music, 1800-2000 (bufwack and oermann 2003); wrongs what i do best: hard country music and contemporary culture (ch­ ing 2001); the nashville sound: authenticity, commercialization, and country music (jensen 1998); a boy named sue: gender and country music (mccusker and pecknold 2004). references acker, joan. 2006. class questions, feminist answers. new york: rowman and littlefield publishers. bufwack, mary a. and robert k. oermann. 2003. finding her voice: women in country music, 1800-2000. nashville: country music foundation press and vanderbilt university press. butler, judith. 1993. bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of "sex." new york: routledge. ching, barbara. 2001. wrong's what i do best: hard country music and contemporary culture. new york: oxford university press. fox, aaron. 1992. the jukebox of history: narratives of loss and desire in the discourse of country music. popular music 11 (1): 53-72. __ . 2004. real country: music and language in working-class culture. durham: duke university press. fox, pamela. 1998. recycled "trash": gender and authenticity in country music autobiography. american quarterly 50 (2): 234-66 fox, pamela, and barbara ching, eds. 2008. old roots, new routes: the cultural politics of alt. country music. ann arbor: university of michigan press. kate heidemann jensen, joli. 1998. the nashville sound: authenticity, commercialization, and country music. nashville: country music foundation and vanderbilt university press. lhamon, w. t., jr. 1998. raising cain: blackface performance from jim crow to hip hop. cambridge: harvard university press. lott, eric. 1993. love and theft: blackface minstrelsy and the american working class. new york: oxford university press. mccusker, kristine m., and diane pecknold, eds. 2004.a boy named sue. jackson: university press of mississippi. williams, raymond. 1973. the country and the city. new york: oxford university press. 131 raymond monelle. 2006. the musical topic: hunt, military, and pastoral. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. reviewed by andrew haringer raymond monelle, who passed away earlier this year, was something of an anomaly in the academic community. as far as i am aware, he is the only musicologist to have a pop song written in his honor: "keep in sight of raymond monelle" by canadian in die band barcelona pavilion. he was that rare breed of the true performer-scholar who remained active as a composer, jazz pianist, and conductor, nurturing the boyhood talents of now-prominent scottish musicians donald runnicles and james macmillan in the latter capacity. following his retirement in 2002, he even wrote a novel about the adolescence of alban berg, which currently remains unpublished. l however, it is for his groundbreaking work in musical semiotics, and topic theory in particular, for which dr. monelle is most likely to be remem­ bered' and here too he deviated from the norm. over the past two decades, he developed an approach to the study of music signification that was at once solidly grounded in the methodologies of the past, and yet refreshingly devoid of dogmatic prejudice and any pretense of quasi-scientific rigor. it was this judicious blend of a solid foundation and an adventurous spirit that ensured glowing reviews of monelle's first two books by scholars of such different temperaments as kofi agawu (1994) and susan mcclary (2001).1t is therefore surprising that his third and, in my estimation, greatest book-the musical topic: hunt, military, and pastoral-met with so little fanfare when it appeared four years ago.2 modern topic theory owes its beginnings to leonard ratner's seminal work, classic music (1980). in a mere twenty pages, ratner puts forth the revolutionary claim that eighteenth-century composers relied upon a lexicon of" characteristic figures" -dance rhythms, military and hunt styles, turkish music, and so on-as "topics-subjects for musical discourse" (1980:9). ratner's disciples, kofi agawu and wye allanbrook, continued his work, enlarging the topical world to address questions of form and syntax. indeed, nicholas mckay makes the keen observation that, while topic theory has avoided much of the backlash against formalist analysis by dint of its status as "hermeneutics;' the first wave of topic theorists has still tended to focus on close readings of pieces (2007). in contrast, monelle's works show greater interest in unpacking the cultural units of topics themselves. current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 121 122 current musicology monelle's first two books-linguistics and semiotics in music (1992) and the sense of music (2000)-established him as a major voice in the field of music signification. in linguistics, it is clear that the author has done his homework, with thorough readings of ferdinand de saussure, charles peirce, noam chomsky, and umberto eco. the density of the text and the prevalence of daunting charts and diagrams places the book squarely in the world of musical semiotics, which remains, in eero tarasti's words, "a kind of avant-garde of musicology" (1996: xii). despite linguistics's relative inac­ cessibility to all but the initiated, one can see important groundwork being laid for the robust critical apparatus monelle would later develop in the musical topic. two examples are worth mentioning. first, monelle rejects the idea of referentialism, "the one-to-one or this-means-that view," (1992: 13) advocating, instead, a far more nuanced understanding of the multitudinous ways in which signs operate. second, he points out the discrepancy between signs and reality, an important aspect of sa us sure's semiotics: "the conven­ tional sign for the sun-a circle with radial lines emanating from it-does not resemble the 'real' sun, but it matches our awareness that rays of light emanate from the sun. at least, we imagine that light behaves in this way; this constitutes our 'perceptual model'" (1992:202). in between linguistics and semiotics in music and his next book, monelle contributed an essay to tarasti's compilation musical semiotics in growth (1996), in which he expresses leeriness towards positivistic systems of thought, endorsing instead a postmodern approach. this distrust of formal categories is the framing device for the sense of music, which begins with the fictitious dr. strabismus's quest for a comprehensive theory of music, and ends with the doctor accepting the impossibility of such a feat. nevertheless, sense marks monelle's formal entrance into the world of topic theory, and the book establishes a number of important paradigms that predominate in the musical topic. again, two examples are of paramount importance. one is the concept, derived from peircian semiotics, of iconicity versus indexicality. iconic topics imitate, typically in a highly stylized manner, extra musical sounds or images (birdcalls, the pianto or seufzer, running water, etc.), while indexical topics rely on conventions within the realm of music (dance measures, horn calls). another is the notion of euphoric and dysphoric readings, which bears some similarity to robert hatten's ideas of "markedness" and "troping" (hatten 1994, 2004)-the intentional marking or combining of topics in some way, respectively. in both cases, special atten­ tion is paid to the way composers inflect a given topic: for example, monelle considers liszt's etude wilde jagd as a dysphoric version of the "noble horse" topic, a reading to which i return at the end of this review. in sense, monelle expresses the deepest admiration for ratner's developandrew haringer ment of musical topic theory, but critiques the notion that justification of this theory can be, or should be, found in the writings of contemporaries: "if theoretical ideas have any real interpretative force, it is unlikely that they will have been proclaimed by contemporaries, for contemporaries are engaged in the justification of their music and thus in concealing vital features" (2000:24). this is not to say that monelle is dismissive or unaware of historical sources; on the contrary, in sense he displays a laudable grasp of broader historical issues that other topic theorists have ignored. rather, monelle distinguishes himself by approaching the past with skepticism, questioning the distorted ways in which societies view themselves. the musical topic marks the culmination of monelle's developing thought on the book's titular subject. as he writes in the preface, "academic minds, somebody said, are either arrows or storage rooms. most of us spend our early years trying to become arrows, but if you were born a storage room you had better find some way, finally, to be yourself" (ix). a self-confessed "lifelong storage room" himself, monelle has drawn upon an impressive array of sources in a variety of fields, producing an interdisciplinary study of unusual scope. with the book's adventurous forays into social and military history, the visual arts, and literature, monelle is right to suggest that "topic theory, in fact, may signal the moment when musicology ceases to be wholly, or even primarily, about music" (ix). the musical topic is in four parts: a concise introduction, and more ex­ pansive sections for each of the three topics listed in the subtitle. in part one, monelle summarizes his approach to topic theory in three chapters: "topic and expression;' "the literary source of topic theory;' and "signifier and signified in music." in the first, he fleshes out some important propositions first introduced in the sense of music. just as that book offered extended chapters on the topical worlds of wagner and mahler, here monelle affirms the importance of topics in romantic as well as classical music. at the same time, he agrees with agawu's observation that romantic composers are more likely to modify topics in some way, as opposed to the objectivity of classical composers. in a related observation, monelle again emphasizes the flexibility of topics: sometimes they are simple correlative signs, but more often they encompass a whole host of signifiers that "can embrace a complex world of fantasy and myth" (7). in the second chapter, monelle acknowledges his debt to continental literary topic theory, a german scholarly tradition that has received scant attention from anglophone musical topic theorists. he refers to ernst robert curtius's landmark book european literature and the latin middle ages (1948), which showed how medieval authors frequently relied on classical conventions, such that their writings are incongruously filled with lions, 123 124 current musicology olive trees, and other faraway curiosities.3 from this and other literary topic studies, monelle concludes that topics do not necessarily correspond to a contemporary signified, and that the signified may be wholly imaginary. monelle also taps into the german tradition of musical topical theory, which naturally draws heavily upon the german literary topic tradition. in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of german versus anglo-american musical topic theory, monelle credits the germans for their thorough cataloguing of the primary source evidence, but faults them for their reluctance to interpret this evidence. conversely, he finds english language scholars quick to make interpretative leaps, but loathe to painstakingly lay the necessary groundwork. it soon becomes clear that monelle's solution is a harmonious blend of the best traits of these approaches. monelle concludes his theoretical summary with a chapter on the "signifier and signified," the interpretative framework that governs the subsequent sections on hunt, military, and pastoral topics. the signifier is the musical means by which the topic is represented, the signified the cultural idea it represents. by adopting these terms, monelle aligns himself with saussure, in that he views the signifier-signified relationship as a closed one, requiring no link with reality. instead, monelle sees the signifier/signified as a cultural unit, carrying with it a whole range of meanings. with part two, the musical topic truly begins with monelle's illumi­ nating study of the hunt in music. chapter 4 focuses on the brass hunting horn, the chief signifier of the topic. here, monelle finds a prime example of the divide between signifier and signified, as an instrument that came of age in the eighteenth century served to conjure up images of the "heroic parforce hunt of the middle ages" (35). prior to the time of louis xiv, hunters relied on the oxhorn, a simple signaling device that was literally a one-note instrument. in contrast, the increasingly elaborate calls facilitated by the brass horn were less effective in encouraging the dogs in the chase, but infinitely preferable from the standpoint of aristocratic self-aggrandizement: "thus, the signifier of the hunt topic was already halfway to being its own signified. it was implicated in the imaginative recreation of the hunt as a cultural unit. it may well have originated as a theatrical instrument. such was baroque culture; the world was a stage" (41). monelle's admiration of teutonic tenacity in scholarship is evident in his exhaustive cataloguing of hunting calls, from jacques du fouilloux's ca. 1561 manual la venerie to the dampierre style calls of the eighteenth century. in so doing, he tracks their development from single-tone, purely functional calls, to the more elaborate triadic calls of the early eighteenth century, to the diatonic, "resolutely melodic" (56) calls of the high dampierre style. in this final form, calls were often performed in bior tricinia, and were cast in binary forms imported from concert music. because of this, andrew haringer monelle considers the earlier calls to be the main source of the hunt topic: " ... manifestations of the hunt topic, as it appears in instrumental music, are usually much simpler, more wedded to the third-register triadic shapes of the older fanfares" (57). the disconnect between topics and reality is a recurring theme of the musical topic, and this becomes clear in the following chapter on "hunts noble and ignoble." as monelle writes, "there ought to be no anomaly in the picture of a manly, adventurous, highly organized pursuit, associated with a style of music-making that was noisy, exuberant, and magnificent. but this was not how it was" (59). he provides jarring descriptions of the two most common types of hunting in early modern europe: the parforce hunt and the chasse aux toiles. the parforce, with dogs and horsemen pursuing quarry through forest and open country, was hardly a fair fight, but the chasse aux toiles-in which animals were herded into enclosures and summarily executed-was brutal, wholesale slaughter. it is therefore surprising to learn that contemporary writers held the hunt in such high esteem. to again quote monelle: the noble ideals of hunting were often mentioned by writers of the eighteenth century, especially the french. the stag was a noble animal; the hunt was a scene of courage, joy, and oneness with nature; hunting accustomed a man to hardship and sacrifice; it was a training for war and a kind of substitute for military actions. considering the decadence of the contemporary hunt, this high-mindedness may seem curious. (65) in this sense, monelle sees in the hunt topic a kindred spirit to the "noble horse" topic that he so faithfully pursued in the sense of music. 4 as he explains, both the musical hunt and musical horse carry more semantic baggage than their linguistic equivalents. hunts may be noble or ignoble, and horses may be draft animals or gallant chargers. but musical hunts and horses are always galloping, heroic, and masculine, unless they are dysphoric, such as in franck's le chasseur maudit. this holds true, in monelle's view, even after actual hunts cease to bear even a passing resemblance to their musical equivalents: by 1900, the signifier of the musical topic was probably independent of the music of the hunting field; its aristocratic associations adhered it to ancient memories of princely huntsmen, while modern german sports­ men are generally bourgeois. the popular sport of hunting ... is associated with jaunty hats, good beer, and healthy bank balances. it is little relevant to general culture, as little an inheritor of the noble and ritual hunt of gaston phoebus as the british yacht club embodies the world of the first­ rate man of war. (71) 125 126 current musicology given this divide, one might think that monelle's thorough chronicling of actual hunts, though interesting, is somewhat superfluous; however, despite the warped perception of aristocratic hunting as a manly pursuit, the details of the hunts themselves are often relevant to musical signification. this becomes clear in the next two chapters, which conclude part two with an impressive chronological survey of the hunt topic in western music. at first, musical hunts were depicted faithfully, such as the one in purcell's dido and aeneas, which uses a rhythm from du fouilloux's sixteenth-century hunting manual. monelle devotes several pages to haydn's "hart das laute geton" from die jahreszeiten, which is a perfect musical account of a hunt, with recognizable dampierre calls performed in a logical order. here, monelle makes an important distinction: " ... it might almost be said that this example is scarcely a case of musical topicality; like the gramophone record of a nightingale in respighi's pini di roma, these calls are hardly more than untreated extraneous sounds, rather than representations" (79). leopold mozart's sinfonia di caccia is even more picturesque, replete with musket shots, actual barking dogs, and shouting huntsmen. as monelle dryly notes, "it is not clear where the barking and shouting should begin and end, or where the gun should be fired" (87). of course, monelle is more interested in moments where topics are invoked for more elaborate reasons, and the examples become more nu­ anced in the romantic era. he cites weber's der freischutz as an important stepping stone towards a more stylized topic, just when actual hunting was falling out of fashion: "to the modern listener, nothing could sound more redolent of the hunt than these horn figures; yet there is already some reason to feel that the signifier-the hunting field call-is being embroidered and romanticized. the cross-rhythms, octave doublings, and posthorn-like melodic octave figures are not typical of the field call, but evoke a picture­ book hunt in an age when hunting-horn playing was in decline" (79). the depth of monelle's knowledge of little-known repertoire is evident in his discussion of albert lortzing's der wildschutz (1842). he regards this comic opera as a watershed moment, since it marks the first instance where all of the horn calls are far removed from actual hunting calls: "it would seem that the signifier of the hunt topic is now an imaginary hunting horn, rather than any instrument that might have been heard in the field" (80). such free treatments of the hunt topic become the norm for the rest of the century. monelle hears a conflation of military and horn call conventions in der wildschutz, which increases in berlioz's damnation of faust, and culminates in wagner's tannhauser and tristan und isolde. in describing the horn calls in tristan, monelle notices a trend towards a distillation of horn calls to their purest, triadic form, "but they also introduce new andrew haringer features; they are elsewhere dysphoric, sounding minor triads instead of major ... " (80). monelle gives the sense that as actual hunts receded into history, what remained were the persistent ideas of manly heroism embed­ ded in the topic. the incorporation of such military-call attributes as the "ritiriton" effect of double-tonguing raises the issue of topical overlap. monelle acknowledges moments when the line between huntsman and soldier can blur, but settles upon several features that mark a topic as specifically hunt in character: use of the horn, six-eight meter, bior tricinia, presence of an octave "whoop;' and a lower register (84). while specifics like these lend methodological heft to monelle's contentions, the final hunt section on the pastoral horn shows just how messy and multifarious the world of topics can be. monelle notes the prevalence of horn passages suggesting a nocturnal forest rather than a matutinal hunt, quoting e.t.a. hoffmann: "certain horn tunes transport us instantly to the forest" (10 o. he contrasts these calls, which suggest mystery, the forest, and magic, with horn calls suggesting the alphorn. such distinctions are intriguing, but future scholars will have to further develop the inroads begun by monelle here. since it lacks the thorough historical evidence found throughout the rest of the book, this section reads as something of an afterthought. monelle's final, eloquent summation of the hunt topic occurs through an analysis of britten's protean serenade for tenor, horn, and strings, in which he sees four basic manifestations of the hunt topic: alphorn, nocturnal forest horn, the classic dampierre horn, and the hunt/military hybrid. his interpretation of the mysterious, nocturnal horn in "elegy," based on a poem by william blake, is the sort of criticism that monelle's "warrior-hero" joseph kerman would no doubt appreciate. showing his predilection for moments where composers transport the semantic potential of topics into wholly different realms, he writes, "the horn's mystery, at first a metonym from the forest in which the horn was played, now hints at the dark labyrinth of the mind, the death of innocence in the face of experience and sin. both blake and britten are concerned with darkness, the dark night of the soul" (l08). part three deals with the military topic, and also begins with the signi­ fier' or rather signifiers: marches and trumpet calls. like the dampierre horn, both came of age in the eighteenth century. prior to this, armies did not march in step, and musical marches were associated with ceremonial functions, whether sacred or secular. as organized drilling came to dominate army training after the example of frederick the great, the military march appeared as a recognizable musical genre. 5 as monelle points out, this coincided with an expansion of military bands after the model of janissary 127 128 current musicology wind and percussion ensembles, sparked by a craze for all things turkish at the end of the eighteenth century. military bands grew even larger in the post -napoleonic era, and often employed musicians from outside the army. as with hunting calls, military marches quickly became more about display rather than function: "already, the signifier was mingling with the signified, and military bands became a means of invoking the cultural myth of soldierly splendor, as well as merely a part of military life" (122). by the end of the nineteenth century, most marches were essentially concert pieces in dance and trio form; one would have great difficulty actually keeping step to, for example, elgar's "pomp and circumstance" marches. monelle answers concerns about the number of non-military marches in music by noting their lack of uniformity. whereas military marches are easily identified by their brisk tempi, distinctive instrumentation, and martial character, processionals of an ecclesiastical or civic function adhere to no fixed set of rules. the funeral march is the most likely contender for independent topic status, with certain conventions established as early as purcell's music for the funeral of queen mary. however, monelle argues that these marches only really take shape at the end of the eighteenth century, and are defined more by their use in concert music rather than at actual funerals. spurred on by the valorization of military dead in the revolutionary era, such marches as those in beethoven's eroica symphony and op. 26 piano sonata evoke the world of bellicose heroes, not a functional processional. monelle summarizes the stylized nature of such marches: "but the 'funeral march' topic was never truly gebrauchsmusik; it was always an evocation. when fully fledged (in the first movement of mahler's third symphony, for example) it feels monumental, immemorial. this is because of its involve­ ment in heroic tragedy, the noble deaths of roland and hector, not because of any ancient pedigree of the musical genre" (130). the next chapter mirrors the earlier chapter on the hunting horn, offering a cultural history of the development of the military trumpet. as with hunting calls, military calls were initially transmitted aurally, and only became standardized beginning with frederick william ii of prussia's efforts towards the end of the eighteenth century. monelle once again calls our attention to important but overlooked distinctions, notably the hierarchy between cavalry and infantry. while trumpeters, with their own pecking order from town players to guild members at court, were sufficiently regal for the elite cavalry, the infantry relied instead on the fliigelhorn, with a conical rather than tubular bore. as monelle explains, "it was the natural instrument for infantry trumpeters, since the first foot soldiers to acquire trumpet signals were the jiigertruppen or corps de chasseurs, light-armed troops recruited from huntsmen and foresters, who specialized in scoutandrew haringer ing, guerilla tactics, and fighting behind enemy lines, being accustomed to woodland and rough country" (138-9). this discrepancy complicates matters, as does the fact that many infantry calls were borrowed from the cavalry. therefore, what chiefly distinguishes infantry from cavalry calls is a lower register and mellower timbre. in the subsequent chapter on the military signified, monelle runs into a bit of trouble with some reductive statements, perhaps inevitable in so sweeping a project as his. consider the following: "the invention of the stirrup in the eighth century permitted the use of the horse on the battlefield and created the most effective weapon of the time, the cavalry charge" (142). alexander the great would no doubt be taken aback by this claim, given his decisive charges at granicus, issus, and gaugamela; in fact, cavalry charges predate the stirrup by over a millennium, although the stirrup revolutionized warfare by allowing the full power of the horse's momentum to be transferred to the tip of a lance. even so, the case can be made that the primary value of the cavalry charge was psychological, inspiring terror in an opponent rather than posing the greatest threat. to his credit, monelle points out that cavalry had been bested by infantry as early as the battle of cre<;:y in 1346 (143). of course, this ties in well with monelle's larger point that militarism is as much about cultural identity theater and self-promotion as it is about practical matters. the military signified is, like that of hunting, manly heroism, and yet monelle sees a marked decline in actual heroism in the wars of the eighteenth century. with the rise of firearms and the concomi­ tant decline in hand to hand combat, soldiers had fewer opportunities for personal glory on the battlefield. additionally, the protracted, bloody campaigns of seventeenth-century europe had given way to more limited engagements. in fact, good generals sought to avoid battle whenever possible; frederick the great was unsurpassed in this regard. while the chivalric idea persisted, contemporaries viewed actual armies as drunken rabble led by foppish officers (148). again, monelle perhaps overstates his case. it is true that "soldiering was as much theatrical as warlike" (147) in the eighteenth century, but these battles were no doubt "memorable enough for those who took part," as the narrator of stanley kubrick's barry lyndon notes with typical understatement. a cursory glance at casualty lists for eighteenth­ century battles belies monelle's claim that "before 1789 ... human losses seldom exceeded 10 percent of the force deployed" (150). in the nineteenth century, armies greatly increased in size due to mass conscription and improved technology, allowing for the control of larger forces on the battlefield. following the french revolution, military service lost much of its earlier stigma, and became attached to ideas of patriotism 129 130 current musicology and nationalism. this linking of military service with national pride had reached the level of xenophobia by the end of the nineteenth century: "the absurdity of this kind of nationalism was buttressed by a new vision of chivalry, romantic, arrogant, and trivial" (151).6 one could take issue with monelle's characterization of carl von clausewitz as a proponent of the nineteenth century's expanding military-industrial complex, an opinion largely derived from the military historian john keegan. several scholars have questioned keegan's claim that clausewitz somehow advocated total war (bassford 1994; gardner 2009); in fact, clausewitz was deeply troubled by the carnage of the napoleonic wars. for him, absolute war, far from being a consummation devoutly to be wished, was a disturbing trend to be resisted. these minor reservations aside, monelle's broader point about the persistence of the chivalric idea is well argued. the theatricality of military dress increased in the eighteenth century, reflected in a dazzling array of regiment uniforms. this trend peaked in the napoleonic era, but as the nineteenth century progressed, a distinction arose between dress and undress uniforms, with the latter tending increasingly towards drab colors and camouflage. as war and military service came to involve a broad swath of the population, ideas of chivalry shifted from an increasingly cynical elite to the general public. monelle includes a nice bit of doggerel from the zulu wars commemorating a selfless cavalry officer who surrenders a horse to its rightful owner, thereby ensuring his own demise. such sentimentalities in higher literature are rare in the era of the realist novel, but old habits seem to die hard when it comes to topics. monelle summarizes this disconnect thusly: the pusillanimous soldiers of the classical era, the arrogant coxcombs of romanticism, were not objects of admiration, and presumably were not directly parts of the signification of the musical topic. nevertheless, musi­ cians returned continually to the military topic, almost always in euphoric vein. they expressed, not the reputation of the contemporary army, but the persistent myth of the warrior. (159) chapter 11 takes the same tack as the final hunt chapters, situating the military topic within music history. monelle's impressive grasp of the repertoire again serves him, here exemplified by an intimate knowledge of march tempi and trumpet calls. for example, he is able to identify that the slow movement of haydn's "military" symphony begins as a pas ordinaire march, until the trumpet sounds the generalmarsch, at which point there is an explosion ofjanissary-style instruments. entering the nineteenth century, monelle again sees a move from quotation towards stylization. he tracks this in microcosm across three liszt symphonic poems: first, the gebrauchsmusik andrew haringer of festkliinge; next, the distorted marches of hungaria; and finally the dysphoric "schlachtruf" of hunnenschlacht, a baleful fanfare in minor that spans far beyond the normal range of a military signal (170-71). even more interesting for monelle are pieces where the military topic is stripped to its cultural resonances, with no explicit picturesque function. the brash march of tchaikovsky's "pathetique" symphony is a good example of such a departure: "the topic is therefore working in its true sense, evoking its associations without the listener having to bring armies to mind" (171). similarly, the development of brahms's tragic overture includes "a kind of nocturnal march for muffled wind and bass pizzicato, a highly evocative moment that suggests an army of silent ghosts" (174). most personal for monelle is the appearance of fanfares in the development of mendelssohn's hebrides: "somewhere in the sound of the scottish sea, which surrounds the nation and everywhere penetrates its heart in sea lochs, is echoed the martial glory of her past" (175). ultimately, monelle finds that most instances of the military topic are unabashedly heroic and lacking in irony. mozart's "non pili andrai;' the melody of which consists almost entirely of military calls, is a notable early exception, but monelle finds few subversive marches throughout the nineteenth century: "even mahler's elegies fail to capture the horror of war, but merely reflect bitterly on its sad consequences" (180). debatable though this last point may be, dysphoric marches and trumpet calls become more common in the twentieth century, such as holst's "mars;' written on the eve of the first world war, or britten's "war requiem;' written after the second. nevertheless, monelle concludes part three by noting the ubiquity of heroic marches from eighteenth-century opera seria to twenty-first-century film scores: "we may sneer at the foolish young officers, the absurd uniforms, the saber-rattling militarism, the juvenile puffery of the nineteenth century, but musical semantics shows the military theme still central to culture. for culture is infallibly mapped by musical topics" (181). it is with the final section on the pastoral topic that the musical topic truly hits its stride. here, with "the most profoundly mythical of all topics" (185), monelle is free to explore a complex world of literature, poetry, and art. given the wide-ranging nature of the topic, it is fitting that he begins with the signified, hardly a monolithic entity. monelle begins with theocritus's idylls from the third century bc, rustic verses inspired by the poet's native sicily. with virgil's eclogues, based on the wholly imaginary arcadia of the peloponnese mountains, the pastoral had already taken on a mythic quality. the elegiac tone of these poems introduced the theme of paradise lost into the pastoral, compelling later writers to regard virgil as a sort of proto-christian. 131 132 current musicology italian renaissance writers continued this idea of lament, while intro­ ducing new dramatic and narrative genres, and an increased emphasis on eroticism in such works as tasso's aminta (1573) and guarini's il pastor fido (1589). rather than the pastoral representing a time of simple morality, it was now equated with a carefree, hedonistic existence. of course, these pastorals were allegories for court life and romance, and this conceit defined both the french and italian pastorals of the eighteenth century. metastasio returned to tasso's aminta in an effort to refine and ennoble italian verse, retaining the genre's links with classical mythology. in contrast, the french pastoral presented an idealized version of contemporary peasant life, devoid of mythical creatures, unless one counts the fantasy of marie antoinette and her retinue dressed as shepherds and milkmaids at versailles's petit hameau. drawing upon pope's injunction that the pastoral should be occupied "in exposing the best side only of a shepherd's life, and in concealing its miseries," monelle argues "that the artificiality of pastoralism was as clear to contemporaries as it is to us" (200). in a moving section on the plight of the european peasant, he presents us with a reality nearly as grim as the hunts depicted in part two. still, all of this is to miss the point for monelle, who writes, "it is misguided to attack the pastoral for ignoring the hardships of the peasant of the time. it was not meant to have any relation to the peasant of the time" (201). despite its simple and natural trappings, then, the pastoral has long carried with it nobler aspirations. nowhere is this truer than in the last two incarnations of the topic covered by monelle, the religious pastoral and the sacred landscape. beginning with the importance of shepherds in scripture (abraham, david, and, metaphorically, jesus), he notes the particularly strong links between the pastoral and the nativity. according to the gospel of luke, the birth of christ was first revealed to shepherds, and monelle identifies a whole tradition of music making to commemorate this, especially the "pifferari" of the abruzzi shepherds outside rome. monelle first sees the idea of the sacred landscape emerge in literature in the 1790s, with the poetry of the english romantics, especially wordsworth. in these works, god was sought in nature, and a personal, individualized experience was sought rather than a reliance on generic tropes. also, as monelle points out, "the new scenery is not only northern and realistically observed, it is also subject to wind, storm, and flood" (206). in both cases, then, important differences distinguish these pastorals from rustic and classical incarnations. having established the major subtopics of the pastoral, monelle next turns to the pastoral signifier in chapter 15. this is comprised of three com­ ponents: instruments, the siciliana rhythm, and the principle of simplicity. andrew haringer as monelle argues, "the most pervasive signifier of the pastoral topic is the drone bass" (208) suggesting bagpipes, and he offers a characteristically thorough description of the instrument and all its variants. two other drone instruments underscore the gulf between the pastoral and real life. first there is the "delicate little musette," stylized bagpipe of the french nobility, which, "like the brass trompe de chasse ... demonstrates a mingling of the discourses of signified and signifier" (210). in contrast, the hurdy-gurdy or vielle was the actual instrument of the poor musician, favored by itinerant savoyards. still, the instrument was adopted by the elite, who possessed ornate versions suitable to their stature. to quote monelle: "thus, starving paupers were playing in the street the same instrument that occupied the most privileged in their courts and drawing rooms. nothing could illustrate more vividly the separation of the idealized pastoral spirit from the misery of real peasants, at least in the imaginations and consciences of the wealthy" (214-15). the siciliana, with its lilting compound meter that supposedly originated with southern italian peasants, bears some similarities to the "pifferari" music played by the abruzzi shepherds. however, monelle considers it "more fragrant, more courtly" (220), another rarefied invention of aristocrats. while alessandro scarlatti is credited with popularizing the genre, monelle points out that scarlatti left palermo at the age of twelve, and that the sophistication of his sicilianas renders them a far cry from any music he may have heard in his childhood. as monelle writes, " ... there were never such peasants; there was never such a style; the sweet and lilting siciliana was an invention, already an aspect of the signified" (219-20). the third chief signifier of the pastoral is the idea of musical simplicity, whether actual or implied. pastoral pieces are typically in major; employ simple, stepwise melodies across a limited range; avoid complicated harmo­ nies; and rely on basic, repetitive rhythmic patterns. of course, none of this is revolutionary; hatten offers a more comprehensive list of pastoral traits (hatten 1994:97-99), and monelle himself derives his list from hermann jung's exhaustive study of the topic (1980). what is striking, though, is the distinction monelle draws between these earlier evocations of the pastoral, and the nineteenth-century interest in folksong, which would define romantic composers' approach to the pastoral. ultimately, monelle argues, both these "high" and "low" pastorals were illusory. "bourgeois dreams of the volksseele were disingenuous" (228); romantics had little desire to truly get their hands dirty with the common people, and their folk sources were often distorted or, in the case of the ossian poems, spurious (222-23). monelle concludes the chapter with the following comparison: "the aristocratic pastoral was purely conventional, and came clean about this. the bourgeois pastoral was earnest, spiritual, and a little dishonest" (228). 133 134 current musicology the final two chapters continue the pattern of musical examples across the centuries, beginning with a number of excerpts from baroque music. only here the interpretations are noticeably more nuanced, due to the multifaceted nature of the pastoral. an excellent example is monelle's comparison of the nativity scenes in handel's messiah and bach's christmas oratorio. the former is a picturesque "pifa," a mimetic depiction of rustic shepherds; the latter, a sophisticated synthesis of rustic and christian pastoral traditions. as monelle writes: the cosmopolitan and highly professional handel deploys many and vari0us effects, derived from his experience of italian and french music and his extraordinarily rich invention. nevertheless, he lacks the intellectual concentration of bach; the theological subtleties, the identification of the christian heaven with virgil's golden age, the association of the pastoral with death-this sort of thing is not a part of handel's more public and conventional art. (234) similarly, monelle offers a reading of beethoven's scene by the brook from his pastoral symphony, which he identifies as an example of the sacred landscape pastoral. in this, he sees another example of a phenomenon he first observed in the sense of music through the simultaneous emergence of a new topic across several artistic media. just as the noble horse in music coincided with the galop volant in the visual arts, so too does beethoven's highly personalized landscape find its poetic analogue in wordsworth's identification of the divine in nature. in both cases there is a sense of timelessness: the heavy repetition in beethoven, the sense of repose in such poems as "tintern abbey." in both, one also finds a desire to convey a particular, intimate experience, with 'wordsworth's use of specific dates and place names, and with beethoven's use of distinctive birdcalls. in contrast, berlioz's scene in the field from the symphonie fantastique is so personal as to obscure the pastoral topic almost completely. while it contains the requisite compound meter and (initially) simple musical material, monelle considers that "the bony textures, the bleak unisons, the general bizarrerie reveal a composer wishing to surprise, to address, to persuade, to be original" (246). here monelle draws a similar distinction to his earlier point about quotations versus topics: "it is a paradox that program music and topical reference are poor bedfellows. the topic always refers to a convention, to a cultural world that is much broader than the work itself. but a program tries to tell a unique story, to individualize the expression to one place, one person, one subject" (246). monelle subsequently turns to a variety of new pastorals, from the folksong of schubert, brahms, and mahler, to debussy's reimagining of the fete galante and the english pastoral of vaughan williams. in the first case, monelle emphasizes the primal, ursprunglich qualities imputed to folksong andrew haringer by romantics, which for brahms "lay at the root of all song composition" (252). he spends several pages on mahler's use of folksong in his first symphony, concluding that the composer "believed that the volk embodied the spirit of anonymous nature" (258). in debussy's prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune, monelle sees the composer drawing upon the influence of the decadent artists, who sought to rehabilitate the aesthetic of pleasure found in the works of boucher, watteau, and fragonard. with the piece's evocation of the syrinx or pan pipes, monelle sees an entirely new pastoral, one not relying on earlier signifiers. finally, he argues that ralph vaughan williams's music is so saturated with the pastoral-drawing upon english folksong, compound meters, and drones as his lifeblood-that it ceases to work as a topic: "vaughan williams does not cite the pastoral style; it is his very soul" (270-71). in a brief epilogue, monelle acknowledges the extended topical analyses of such scholars as agawu, hatten, and elaine sisman. at the same time, he agrees with william caplin's critique of the applicability of topics to formal function (2005), and advocates caution in expending energy on analysis before adequately addressing a piece's topical underpinnings. it is this painstaking attention to detail in cultural matters that will likely be monelle's greatest legacy. in the musical topic, he has opened many doors for theorists and cultural historians alike. one could apply his findings to close readings of pieces, turn to new topics with similar rigor, or continue to explore some of the sub-topics introduced here (the nocturnal horn, the funeral march). monelle set out to map a cultural landscape, only to find that "music is, in some ways, the truest cartographer" (272); that is, myths persist in music long after disillusionment has set in elsewhere. in summarizing the value of the musical topic's critical apparatus, i offer an example that shows the robustness ofmonelle's interpretations even when he errs in certain respects. as mentioned earlier, monelle thinks that "liszt's wilde jagd, though in six-eight time, probably pictures a witches' ride rather than a hunt, as i have suggested elsewhere; such a reference is a kind of 'dysphoric horse,' nothing to do with hunting" (87). there is strong evidence that liszt was here drawing upon the same legend of a cursed hunter as that which inspired franck's ie chasseur maudit (see merrick 2003). while the ferocious galloping of the piece is unmistakable, one can also hear tricinia dotted horn calls throughout; this, then, is a dysphoric reading of both horse and hunt topics. what is striking, though, is how monelle picks up on the demonic elements of the piece, even though he appears to be unaware of its likely program. to trope on pope, then, such a criticism is actually to praise monelle with a faint damn. as mentioned before, minor errors are inevitable in a project of this scope; what matters is how resilient his approach proves even when such errors occur. 135 136 current musicology to end on a personal note, i should mention that the news of professor monelle's death affected me deeply. though i never had the chance to meet him, i have come to think of him as an old friend in the past few years. beginning with the happy discovery of the sense of music while studying for graduate school exams, i have spent many hours admiring his musical insights, his love of history, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the western music tradition. his thought has fundamentally enriched my love of music, and for this i am eternally grateful. it is to professor monelle's memory that this review is respectfully dedicated. notes 1. see the obituary in the scotsman for more information on dr. monelle's life, available online at http://news.scotsman.com/obituaries/obituary-raymond-monelle.6217291.jp (accessed may 13, 20lo). 2. i admit that a pun was intended here, but monelle's own words undercut my lame attempt at humor: "strictly speaking, the military trumpet signal should not be called 'fanfare', though eighteenth-century writers are as guilty in this matter as modern" (monelle 2000:34). 3. a good visual equivalent of this phenomenon can be found in the thirteenth-century lion fresco from northern spain housed in new york's cloisters museum. "lion from a frieze, after 1200." the cloisters collection of the metropolitan museum of art, new york city. image available online at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/31.38.1a. (accessed may 13, 20lo). 4. given the equestrian nature of hunts, and the fact that both topics are in compound meter, it is not surprising that the two frequently overlap. 5. frederick himself wrote the "hohenfriedberger" march to commemorate his victory over the austrians in 1745. 6. a chilling example of this occurs at the beginning of the 2005 film joyeux noel, in which french, german, and english schoolchildren recite actual anti-foreigner poems from the pre-world war i era. references agawu, kofi. 1991. playing with signs: a semiotic interpretation of classic music. princeton, nj: princeton university press. ---. 1994. review of linguistics and semiotics in music, by raymond monelle. music and letters 75 (1): 120-122. ---.2009. music as discourse: semiotic adventures in romantic music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. allanbrook, wye. 1983. rhythmic gesture in mozart: le nozze di figaro and don giovanni. chicago and london: university of chicago press. bartlett, clifford. 2007. review of the musical topic: hunt, military, and pastoral, by raymond monelle. early music review 120: 22-23. bassford, christopher. 1994. john keegan and the grand tradition of trashing clausewitz. war in history 1 (3): 319-36. caplin, william e. 2005. on the relation of musical topoi to formal function. 18th-century music 2 (1): 113-124. andrew haringer curtius, ernst robert. 1990. european literature and the latin middle ages, translated by mary whittall. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. gardner, nikolas. 2009. resurrecting the "icon": the enduring relevance of clausewitz's on war. strategic studies quarterly 30): 119-133. hatten, robert. 1994. musical meaning in beethoven: markedness, correlation, and interpretation. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. ---.2004. interpreting musical gestures, topics, and tropes: mozart, beethoven, schubert. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. heinitz, wilhelm. 1928. instrumentenkunde. handbuch der musikwissenschaft. wildpark, potsdam: akademische verlagsgesellschaft athenaion. jung, hermann. 1980. die pastorale: studien zur geschichte eines musikalischen topos. bern: francke. keegan, john. 1976. the face of battle. new york: viking press. ---.1993. a history of warfare. new york: knopf. kerman, joseph. 1980. how we got into analysis, and how to get out. critical inquiry 7 (2): 311-331. mcclary, susan. 2001. review of the sense of music: semiotic essays, by raymond monelle. notes 58 (2): 326-328. mckay, nicholas. 2007. on topics today. zeitschrift der gesellschaft fur musiktheorie 4 0): http://www.gmth.delzeitschrift/artikei!251.aspx (online article, accessed may 13, 2010). merrick, paul. 2003. le chasseur maudit: key and content in liszt's music in c minor. studia musicologica academiae scientiarum hungaricae. t. 44, fasc. 3 (4): 321-336. monelle, raymond. 1992. linguistics and semiotics in music. chur, switzerland: harwood academic publishers. ---. 1996. the postmodern project in music theory. musical semiotics in growth, edited by eero tarasti. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. ---. 2000. the sense of music. princeton, nj: princeton university press. ---.2006. mahler's military gesture: musical quotation as prototopic. music and gesture. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. plank, steven. 2007. review of the musical topic: hunt, military and pastoral by raymond monelle. historic brass society journal 19: 117-118. ratner, leonard. 1980. classic music: expression, form, and style. new york: schirmer books. sisman, elaine. 1993. mozart: the "jupiter" symphony. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. tarasti, eero. 1994. a theory of musical semiotics. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. tovey, donald francis. 1935. essays in musical analysis. volume one: symphonies. oxford and new york: oxford university press. wyn jones, david. 1995. beethoven: pastoral symphony. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. 137 the role of adele t. katz in the early expansion of the new york "schenker school" by david carson berry in 1927, heinrich schenker named new york as the first north american city in which his ideas were spreading, though he was not specific as to the means of transmission. l four years later, however, the chief point of con­ tact would be clear, as schenkerism found an institutional home at the david mannes music school (now mannes college of music) . it was there that schenker's student hans weisse began teaching in 1931; starting the next year, he concurrently conducted graduate seminars at columbia uni­ versity. mter weisse's untimely death in 1940, schenker's student felix salzer assumed similar duties at mannes; he later became a professor of music at queens college ofthe city university of new york. through their efforts, and those of other early adherents, schenkerian analysis gradually propagated elsewhere, first in outposts at princeton and yale universities, 2 and then throughout other parts of the country. still, the new york "schenker school" has remained of enormous significance. numerous schenkerians currently active in teaching and publishing were trained in new york by such esteemed individuals as carl schachter, who (like his own teacher, salzer) taught at both mannes and queens college. mannes in particular has continued to be an epicenter for schenkerian research through various events held there, such as three international schenker symposia (in 1985, 1992, and 1999) and an "institute on schenkerian theory and analysis" convened in 2002 as part of the mannes institute for advanced studies in music theory. in short, new york has flourished as something of a "capitol city" for the american schenker enterprise, in ways that are probably well known to most present-day schenkerians.3 however, the precise role of one im­ portant participant in the emergence and development of new york's "schenker school" has remained largely unknown, and without an under­ standing of her diverse activities, one has an incomplete picture of the true nature and extent of that school. this person is adele t. katz. her name is recognized by those who know early schenkerian literature, due to two landmark works. in 1935, she issued the first substantive english­ language distillation of schenkerian concepts in a musical quarterly article entitled "heinrich schenker's method of analysis." in 1945, she published the first english-language book devoted to a schenkerian analytical ap­ proach, challenge to musical tradition. despite her frequent citation in bibcurrent musicology, no. 74 (fall 2002) © 2004 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 104 current musicology liographies, however, almost nothing has been knovm about katz's life or professional endeavors apart from these writings.4 this neglect is unfortu­ nate, as from the early 1930s through the 1960s she was very active in teaching music and analysis in new york city, where she had contact with other early supporters and instructors of schenkerian analysis. investigat­ ing the extent of her activities and associations allows us to paint a much fuller and richer picture of the initial dissemination of schenkerian ideas in the u.s., just as it permits those familiar with katz's writings to probe the personality and philosophies behind the words and graphs. although there is no katz estate-whatever personal materials re­ mained upon her death were not preserved5-through institutional archive research and consultations with those who knew or worked with her, i have documented her endeavors in an effort to rescue them from their present obscurity. following a biographical overview, the largest compo­ nent of this article will be devoted to katz's teaching activities; a consider­ ation of her publications will follow. in a brief conclusion i will then sum­ marize the primary focus of her work as a schenkerian, and address a more general topic that will have emerged through this narrative: the roles of women in the transmission of schenker's ideas. i. biographical sketch adele terese katz was the youngest of the four children of emmanuel and hannah gunst katz.6 she was born in san francisco in 1887, a much ear­ lier date than has probably been suspected by those familiar with other schenkerians working around the same time. thus, she was older than even most first-generation schenker students, such as felix salzer (b. 1904), oswald jonas (b. 1897), and her own teacher, hans weisse (b. 1892). she moved with her family to the east coast at a young age, and from 1896 to 1907 she attended the packer collegiate institute, a preeminent school in brooklyn heights (then only for girls but now coeducational). while there, she studied harmony with raymond huntington woodman and violin with henry schradieck. i am not aware of further institutional studies in music on her part until some twenty years later, although she did study theory and composi­ tion at some point (perhaps privately) with gena branscombe, alfredo casella,7 and mortimer wilson. mter leaving packer, it is known only that for some period she wrote the music and staged the plays for the school settlement association in brooklyn.8 like other settlement houses, it sought to improve the lives of primarily the working poor. such establishments offered a wide range of services, and provided rooms for clubs, classes, concerts, debates on important issues, recreation, dramatic presentations, and so forth.9 music was often an important part of settlement houses, and david carson berry 105 in fact david and clara mannes, founders in 1916 of what was then called the david mannes music school, were active around the same time at the music school settlement on the lower east side, and at the music school settlement for colored people, which they established in harlem in 1911.10 the settlement at which katz worked may not have been as known for its musical activities,l1 but she probably selected it for reasons of newness and proximity; it was organized in 1906, around the time she left packer, and was located roughly three miles from her family's home. 12 katz seems to have first enrolled in the mannes music school in 1928, although from october 1928 until january 1929 she was briefly a student at the curtis institute in philadelphia, where she studied composition un­ der rosario scalero (perhaps having followed him from his prior appoint­ ment at mannes).l3 otherwise, from 1928 to 1935 she studied at mannes, which was then located at 157 east 74th street, approximately two miles on the other side of central park from the apartment katz inhabited for at least half a century, at 277 west end avenue. at mannes, she studied com­ position with leopold mannes (son of the school's founders) and the "schenker approach" with hans weisse, who arrived there in fall 1931.14 beginning in the 1930s, katz became active as a teacher of theory and analysis; she held various positions over the years, at different institutions in new york city, as i will detail. apart from courses that she gave at co­ lumbia university teachers college, however, none of her appointments was at a degree-granting institution-a condition perhaps due to her own lack of even a bachelor's degree, although she also could have faced dis­ crimination due to being a woman and jewish. many ofthejobs she held were probably also low-paying. for example, for services at the rand school of social science, she was paid as little as $5.00 per weekly class session;15 and when working at the teacher-cooperative called the studios of music education, she might have been paid nothing for a given week.16 fortu­ nately, money seems not to have been a principal concern for her. her father had worked in advertising for publishing tycoon william randolph hearst and later started his own advertising company; through family money and/ or her own investments, she seems to have remained financially inde­ pendent. this allowed her to teach music and schenkerian analysis wher­ ever there was mutual interest, without recompense being a primary moti­ vator; in this sense, katz was both a practitioner and a patron of schenker's ideas in the u.s. it is known that schenker relied on many faithful patrons to support his work and publications in austria; 17 but it seems equally true that his ideas would not have reached such a great diversity of people in and around new york, were it not for katz's self-supporting resources. 106 current musicology figure 1: principal institutions at which katz taught. rand school of social science (1931-40) new school for social research (1932-34) young men's hebrew association (ymha) (1932/33-34/35; 1938/39) mannes school of music (westchester branch) (ca. 1936) columbia university teachers college (1946-51) ii. teaching activities studios of music education (ca. midi940s-69) in this section, i will survey the places at which katz taught and what is known of her activities (see figure 1 for these institutions and her dates of service). before proceeding, however, a certain irony must be commented upon. katz was politically liberal, as was reflected by some of the institu­ tions at which she taught-e.g., the new school for social research and especially the socialist party-sponsored rand school-and as has been confirmed by her great-niece, barbara eisold. accordingly, among the first places where schenker's ideas were proselytized in the u.s. were institu­ tions of which schenker himself would surely have disapproved. schenker believed in the "aristocratic nature of art," and argued that it is "totally impervious to the principle of the electoral majority, which is the be-all and end-all of the democratic way of life" (1997b:72). in the period be­ tween the world wars, he lamented the fact that germany had adopted "from the hostile nations of the west their lie of 'liberty.'" thus, he sighed, "the last stronghold of aristocracy has fallen and culture is sold out to de­ mocracy, which, fundamentally and organically, is hostile to it-for culture is selection, the most profound synthesis based on miraculous achieve­ ments of the genius" (1987, 2:xiii). marxism was likewise opprobrious to schenker: karl marx and richard wagner were his twin "executioners" (henker) of german culture, the former destroying its humanity and the latter its music. in schenker's eyes, the two were "equally guilty of grave­ the gravest-mistakes and crimes against german humanity" (1921 b:26) .18 david carson berry 107 that schenker's ideas might be communicated in democratic america, at a socialist school such as rand, in a course that coexisted on a schedule with one entitled "the social philosophy of karl marx," would likely have struck him as ludicrous.19 yet, despite his probable sentiments, through katz his ideas reached people that otherwise might never have encoun­ tered his approach to musical understanding. rand school (1931-40) by far, katz's primary teaching involvement in the 1930s was at the rand school of social science. established by the socialist party in 1906, it was the nation's first major workers' school. located from 1917 until its clos­ ing in 1956 at 7 east 15th street, near union square, it evolved into an adult education institute that in the 1920s expanded its course offerings to include many areas outside of socialist instruction, such as music, art, pub­ lic speaking, psychology, and home economics.20 today, all that remains of the rand school are the contents of its library, housed at new york univer­ sity. the archive includes course records and other materials related to the school. several items relate specifically to katz's activities there-not only catalogs and brochures listing her courses and lectures, but also hand­ written and typed course outlines, and even school-related handwritten letters. given the lack of materials elsewhere, the rand archive provides the closest thing we have to a katz nachlass. music does not seem to have been of great emphasis at rand prior to the 1930s, except during one brief period. in the late 1910s and early 1920s, herman epstein offered lecture-courses on various musical topics. during this time, composer carl ruggles was also associated with the school, first (in 1918) as the founding director of its orchestra, and later as direc­ tor of its chorus and newly-established music department. 21 ruggles left c. 1921, and in the last half of the decade epstein seems not to have been involved either, although he lectured again in 1930 and early 1931. it was with katz's arrival in october 1931 that music courses began being offered more frequently. during the 1930s (in the midst of the great depression), the rand school attained one of its two peaks of public interest,22 and so it was a promising time for katz to participate and help expand the curricu­ lum as a one-person music department. figure 2 summarizes the courses planned by katz during her nine­ and-a-halfyears there. some of the course titles changed between her sub­ mitted outlines and the published catalogs, and so there could be some redundancies (as the annotations indicate). also, some courses might have been cancelled due to low pre-registration or initial enrollment. still, the list suggests how busy katz was at rand during these years; and indeed, her activities extended beyond the cited courses. for example, the catalog for 108 current musicology figure 2: katz's courses and lectures at the rand school 1931 october 1932 january september 1933 january september 1934 january september 1935 january spring fall october 1936 january fall september 1937 january january/march march september "music in a changing world" "new forms of old music" "challenges to tradition" "beginnings of tomorrow's music" "sight singing and musical theory" "the sonata and the symphony" "national tendencies in modern music:" "origins of modern music" [same as above?] "sight singing and musical theory" "adventures in music" "historic high lights in music" "sight singing and chorus" "an elementary course in music" [or "elementary music"] "further adventures in music" [or "further adventures in 19th and 20th century music"] "the nibelungen ring" "fundamentals of music" "music and society" "current changes in american culture," a symposium with katz's "present tendencies in music" "the fundamentals of music" "the music of the masters" "lecture courses for our time," a series with katz's "a course in the development of music (as yet unnamed)" [perhaps the below course?] "from the folksong to the symphony" "the music workshop" "how to listen to a symphony: a beethoven-brahms cycle" "music workshop" "how to listen to modern music" "bach, beethoven and brahms" "music for amateurs" figure 2 (cont.) 1937 (cont.) november 1938 january [fall] september october 1939 january october 1940 david carson berry 109 women's committee program (nov. 9): katz on "music: it's [sic] place in education and life" "music for amateurs" "understanding contemporary music" women's committee program: katz on "beethoven and the revolution" "chamber music of yesterday and today" "music in a changing world" "music and the listener" "social forces in the development of music" "the masterworks of opera" "the symphony from haydn to stravinsky" "social backgrounds of music" [or "social forces in the development of music"]' "music and the listener"" february isept. "backgrounds of contemporary music" [or "backgrounds of today's music"] fall "the symphonies of beethoven and brahms" * an october 1939 course entitled "backgrounds of today's music" also bears the same description. ** an october 1939 course entitled "how to understand and appreciate music" also bears the same description. 1932-33 indicates that she was attempting to organize a students' chorus, and notes that: "[ w] ith her technical ability and her inspiring personality, there can be little doubt that the long wished-for chorus will become a reality this year." whatever may have come of plans at that time, katz re­ mained committed to the idea. in the 1934-35 year she offered a course entitled "sight singing and chorus," which focused on "elementary sight­ singing and choral work for those who wish to participate in a rand school choral club." a concert was planned for the end of the year. 23 also, in 1935-36, katz is listed among "visiting faculty" on the brochure for the 110 current musicology figure 3a: katz's handwritten course outline (rand school, fall 1932). david carson berry iii figure 3b: katz, chapter outline for challenge to musical traditions (1945). introduction ch. 1: the concept of tonality ch. 2: johann sebastian bach ch. 3: philipp emmanuel bach ch.4:josefhaydn ch. 5: beethoven ch. 6: wagner ch. 7: debussy ch. 8: stravinsky ch. 9: schonberg rand high school, a four-year institution that aimed "to send forth stu­ dents firmly grounded in history and economics, [and] well acquainted with the main currents ofliterature, music and art."24 from katz's large catalog of courses, i will draw special attention to two. it is notable that one of her first, from fall 1932, was called "challeng­ ers of music tradition"-a title clearly evocative of her 1945 book, chal­ lenge to musical tradition. it was listed as a "series oflecture-recitals" by katz, with kurz weil at the piano;25 it met weekly (fridays at 8:30 p.m.) for four­ teen sessions, for which a student was charged either $4.00 for the term or 501t per single admission. it is not known to what extent the course and the book overlapped in content. katz's handwritten course outline (fig. 3a) consists of general composer headings only; and while some of these match the composer headings of the later book (fig. 3b), nothing much can be inferred. it certainly cannot be known whether or not the course included schenkerian aspects of some degree. she would have been just one year into her studies with weisse, so certain capabilities might have been lack­ ing even if an enthusiasm was aroused. still, it is interesting to find that the seeds for her later book were planted so many years in advance. given the range of musical topics she covered at rand, and given also her proclivity to include schenkerian ideas at even elementary levels of 112 current musicology figure 4a: analytic graph included among materials for course, "the music of the masters" (rand school, spring 1936). £. .. ----..... .n j /if~.bl ~.j i:-d~ i ~ ----. ~ ',; . o' i i~/ i i ir t , j 1 \ j ; .1 i i \ , 0 ,0 !\..,-:l ./j ,. 1 j ;j11 .j '_i -) ~ f fj " ./ ii i i' .,. f " , , 1\\'1; f 1 i) 1 lj.-j v/ r 3 7 ... figure 4b: schenker: graphs of]. s. bach, little prelude no. 1, in c major (bwv 924). from der tonwille 4 (1923). figure 4c: from der freie satz (1935), figure 43. a a a 3 2 1 ,j rr~j dl r e r i 1i£1j;j j i r:------------------~ f r (=1--iv v i) o :;.. < 8 ~ ~ cjj o z 1:0 m ~ ~ .... .... (.)0 114 current musicology instruction (as will be demonstrated below in the discussion of her activi­ ties at the studios of music education), it seems likely that schenker would have been introduced in at least some of her later work there. in one instance there is evidence to support this supposition, which brings us to the second item of interest. in january 1936 she began a course entitled "the music of the masters." two different outlines exist, one handwritten and one typed, and the former describes the class as "[a] series of discus­ sions on the various forms of music which composers from bach to stravinsky have used ... to express their musical ideas." along with mate­ rials for the course, the rand archive also (unusually) contains some musi­ cal examples, apparently handwritten by katz. mostly these consist of quo­ tations of themes and melodies from various works, but there are two ex­ ceptions. the first is a schematic indicating the entries of subjects, an­ swers, and countersubjects in bach's c-minor fugue from the well-tem­ pered clavier, book j.26 the second is the multi-stage analytic reduction re­ produced as figure 4a. although unlabeled, it is of bach's little prelude no. 1, in c major (bwv 924); its presence is consistent with both versions of the course outline, which include a section on the "prelude" with refer­ ences to bach and debussy (one version additionally cites chopin). inter­ estingly-and also disappointingly, given the lack of extant unpublished analyses by katz-these graphs were mostly taken from schenker's own work. the foreground reduction labeled "a" (the two-staff component that begins at the top) is identical to the one schenker published in the supple­ ment to der tonwille4 (1923),27 reproduced here as figure 4b; and the final reductions, labeled "c" and "d" (at the bottom of kaltz's page), are identi­ cal to the ones schenker published in der freie satz (1979), reproduced here as figure 4c. 28 only the somewhat unrefined level "b" seems to be original to katz. 29 mter katz left rand, music instruction there seems to have suffered from declining interest or support. composer gail t. kubik took katz's place and stayed there for a year; but in the mid-1940s there seems to have been no activity along these lines. from the late 194:0s until the school's close in 1956, music courses were offered sporadically, if occasionally by those who have since become familiar names, such as musicologist paul henry lang, and composers nicolas nabokov and morton feldman. there is another, tangential relation between the rand school and schenker that should be mentioned in passing. rand was affiliated with, and furnished the staff for, an adult-education campus in new jersey called the newark school of social science.3o in january 1939, herta schweiger taught a course there on "music for modern times." shortly beforehand, on october 31,1938, schweiger had given a paper at a greater new york chapter meeting of the american musicological society.3! titled "changdavid carson berry 115 ing trends in musicology," it considered the work of musicians such as schenker, schoenberg, and hindemith, who "attempted to free theory from its previous restrictions, showing a new approach and developing new methods." schweiger had received her ph.d. from the university of vienna, and thus she may have known the work of schenker from her time in his home city. nonetheless, by the occasion of schweiger's paper, katz's article on schenker in musical quarterly was over three years old, and it is likely that, given her paper topic, schweiger was aware of both the article and the fact that its author was the sole music teacher at rand's principal campus. accordingly, the two might have met personally and discussed schenker's ideas, although such a possibility must remain conjectural. new school (1932-34) for three springs beginning in 1932, concurrent with her own studies at mannes and her initial years teaching at rand, katz also lectured at the new school for social research, which had recently relocated from the chelsea neighborhood of london terrace to west 12th street, in green­ wich village. although the new school had originally focused on social sciences, in the 1920s the curriculum was broadened (much like at rand) to include cultural subjects such as literature, music, and art, as well as philosophy and psychology; there was also a move away from a highly re­ search-oriented faculty toward adult eduction. there were many notable musicians affiliated with the school from the late 1920s onward. aaron copland began teaching there in 1927, and his lectures formed the basis for his 1939 book, "what to listen for in music. henry cowell came to the new school in 1930, and the next year was joined by charles seeger, where­ upon they taught the first courses in ethnomusicology given in the u.s. (pescatello 2001). the 1930s also saw the arrivals of composers such as hans eisler,joseph schillinger, elie siegmeister, and ernst toch. in some general ways, katz, as ajewish woman, matched the profile of many at the school during her time there. the majority of students were women,32 and from 1923 to 1933, the school depended almost exclusively on non-faculty lecturers for instruction, fully half of whom were jewish. mter 1933, the school became a sanctuary for jewish and socialist scholars persecuted by hitler. in another way, however, katz may not have been an ideal match, because, despite her liberal political leanings, her writings reveal her to be rather conservative in her musical tastes (much like her teacher, weisse, and his teacher, schenker). yet, in its cultural classes, the new school was primarily interested in "modern" developments; thus, art critic leo stein lectured on modern art, dancer doris humphrey on mod­ ern dance, copland and music critic paul rosenfeld on modern music, and so forth. the changing description of katz's course, related below, 116 current musicology could be interpreted as a way of accommodating the modernist and socio­ cultural interests of the new school curriculum. in spring 1932, she offered a course entitled "wagner's nibelungen ring: a study in conflicts." in the new school course catalog it was billed as a series of six lecture-recitals in which katz would "interpret the univer­ sal conflicts that underlie the ancient mythology of the nibelungen ring." katz was to "explain and analyze the music," thereby accounting for the lecture, while pianist kurz weil (her rand accompanist) would provide the recital, accompanying a reading of an abbreviated version of the opera's text. the course was apparently successful enough to have been expanded the next spring (1933). now, during a course of ten lecture-recitals, katz was to discuss not only the ring, but die meistersinger, tristan und isolde, and parsifal, "emphasizing the influence of wagner's life upon his work and the significance of his changing philosophy as a direct factor in his musical development." the course was offered again in the spring of 1934 (now with martha thompson at the pian033 ), and its description in the catalog was once more altered. it now emphasized the connection between wagner's music dramas and "present social theories,," as well as their "in­ fluence upon contemporary and later composers." (katz would continue her course on the nibelungen ring in 1935, but at rand.) it is not known whether or not her wagner courses included schenkerian aspects to some degree. challenge to musical tradition would address these very operas in schenkerian terms; but that was a decade hence, and at this point she was still a schenker student herself, under weisse. nonetheless, by the time of her last new school lectures, she was only a year away from publication of her musical quarterly article on schenker's ideas, and so including some of these same concepts within her analyses would surely have been possible. there is at least one later connection between the new school and schenkerism that should be mentioned before leaving the institution. in 1946, schenker's student victor zuckerkandl became a music theory teacher there. his schenker-influenced book, the sense of music (1959), originated in his course materials from the new school, as well as those from his time at st.john's college (maryland). other activities (1930s) throughout the 1930s, katz was active on several other fronts. most promi­ nent among these was the young men's hebrew association (ymha, to­ day known as the 92nd street y), at which katz lectured.34 the institution, which established its school of music in 1917, has had a long history of offering courses, lectures, and workshops on music. during the 1932-33 season, katz conducted a series of lectures there, entitled "national tendavid carson berry 117 dencies in modern music." during the following two seasons she gave courses on "music and society" and ''the symphonies of beethoven," re­ spectively. two additional courses were planned for 1935-36, but were can­ celled due to lack of pre-registration. 35 she returned once more however, in 1938-39, for a course on "chamber music of yesterday and today." it is not known to what extent (if any) a schenkerian approach was taken in katz's lectures, although the ymha was apparently amenable to it. the institution featured schenkerian tutelage some years later, under weisse's and schenker's former student felix salzer. he first taught there in spring 1944, when he assumed courses that composer and conductor paul dessau had taught the previous fal1.36 for three semesters, from spring 1944 until spring 1945, salzer taught intermediate and advanced harmony, counterpoint, and composition. in fall 1945, however, he conducted a class expressly devoted to "schenker analysis." it was offered as "a scholar­ ship course for those qualified," and was described as having been established by a group of friends in memory of dora fineberg, piano and literary pedagogue, in 1943. scholarships for this course will be awarded annually in the theory of schenker analysis, which was so close to the heart of mrs. fineberg. the course will be given under the direction of dr. salzer, and the class will be limited to 10 students. because of the reference to 1943, along with the notice that" [a] new class will be formed" for fall 1945, it may be assumed that prior installments of the course were also held. there is no mention of them among materials in the ymha archive, although it is possible that they were held elsewhere. around 1936, katz was also on staff at the short-lived westchester branch of the mannes music school, in new rochelle,37 and she gave lec­ tures for the institute of advanced education at the nicholas roerich museum in new york city.38 other activities during the decade included lecturing before various groups, such as the woman's club of brooklyn, the women's club of the oranges (nj.), the woodmere (n.y) music club, and the drama study club. she gave presentations at the briarcliff manor school and the unity house. 39 and she was involved in performances through directing the woodmere (ny) choral club from 1936 to 1941.40 throughout these years she also continued to teach privately; figure 5 is a 1936 advertisement for a course on schenkerian approaches to teaching bach's music, to be held in her apartment. the early 19405 i have found no direct references to katz's activities in the early 1940s. 118 current musicology figure 5: advertisement from music teacher's review (oct. 1936, p. 60). adele t. katz, lecturer announce. a special course for teacher. the schenker method of analysis al applied to the teaching of j. s. bach course begin. october 19th, 10 o'clock 277 west end ave., new york city en 2-1017 evidently, she had planned to continue at rand in spring 1940, but with­ drew after her name had already appeared on some ]promotional materi­ als. her teacher, hans weisse, died after a brief illness in february 1940, and that event could have had some effect on her decision not to teach that semester; still, one can only speculate. whatever the reason, she seems to have retreated from institutional teaching during these years. given that her book, challenge to musical tradition, was published in 1945, she must have devoted much of the early 1940s to its preparation. in its acknowledgements, katz thanks felix salzer for "the warm and unflag­ ging interest he has shown from the inception of this book through its final phases" (vii, emphasis mine), suggesting that formal work on the volume was begun only after salzer arrived in the u.s. and assumed weisse's du­ ties at mannes, in 1940y katz also recognizes salzer for the "many stimu­ lating discussions of problems dealt with in this book." the informal ses­ sions she evidently had with him surely enhanced her schenkerian think­ ing during this time.42 over the next several years, katz apparently repaid her debt to salzer in kind, through interest in his o",m evolving book. in the acknowledgements for structural hearing, salzer wrote that, along with leopold mannes, above all, my thanks go to miss adele t. katz ... [whose] intimate acquaintance with the problems discussed in this book has been of great assistance. her constant encouragement has been most inspiring, and in all these years of preparation and research she has generously given from the rich fund of her knowledge and experience (1952, 1:xviii).43 columbia university teachers college (1946-51) mter publication of her book, katz resumed teaching, serving for five years (1946-51) as instructor of music and music education at columbia unidavid carson berry 119 versity teachers college. while there, she taught an evening course each term entitled "analysis in relation to hearing and performance." it was expressly described in the teachers college bulletins as a course on "the schenker approach to the problems of musical structure," which would offer "a new conception of tonality affecting the hearing, teaching, and performance of music." musical examples were to be drawn from "the 17th to the 20th centuries." the course likely exploited materials presented in challenge, whose dust jacket subtitle ("a new approach to the analysis and understanding of musical structure") resonated with the above de­ scription. katz's book was likewise promoted on its dust jacket as offering "the musician and music student" a new method for "the hearing and un­ derstanding of music," and it covered music of nearly the same time span, from]. s. bach to stravinsky and schoenberg.44 the offer for katz to teach a course on schenker at teachers college may have been extended by howard a. murphy, who taught there 192761 and was a supporter of the schenkerian method, if not a schenkerian per se.45 as murphy wrote in an endorsement that appeared on the dust jacket of the first edition of salzer's structural hearing, he had "long been acquainted with the schenker approach, and believe[ d] in it strongly, since it offers one of the most logical and comprehensive explanations of music structures." murphy's initial introduction to schenkerian ideas could have been by any of various people other than katz herself; for example, he would have had earlier contacts at columbia. in the 1930s, hans weisse offered seminars at columbia that included some schenkerian tutelage.46 murphy also would have had at least a collegial association with william]. mitchell, a student of weisse's who taught at columbia beginning in 1932 (eventually becoming chair of the music department). there is even the possibility that he learned of schenker from george wedge, a music theo­ rist at the institute of musical art (now]uilliard), to whom murphy had been an assistant when he was an instructor there (1920-36). in a column that featured an interview with weisse, music critic irving kolodin (1932) cited wedge as "a pioneer in this [i.e., schenker's] work in america." whatever the source of murphy's introduction to-and extent of familiar­ ity with-schenkerian analysis, he apparently supported its dissemination at a time when many others in new york's music institutions probably did not. he endorsed research into the theory, and it may also have influ­ enced his own teachings, at least to a small degree.47 studios of music education (c. mid 19405-1969) katz's longest tenure as a schenker advocate began by the mid 1940s and lasted for over two decades, as she taught at the studios of music educa­ tion (sme). 48 the sme seems to have been largely ignored even by his to120 current musicology rians of new york city's musical life, based on the fact that no citations of it are found in major musical or cultural reference works, but it had a lengthy and interesting history. it was founded in 1934 by anne holden and lyn egli. "their purpose was to devise a long range program of music education for the part time student, a program that would include all the minimum essentials for competence in musical activity, and that would equip and stimulate students to continue enjoying and cultivating their musical skills throughout life" (holden 1986:189) .49 it began as a teacher­ cooperative, with teaching salaries coming out of whatever remained after all other expenses were paid. its classes were initially divided among four centers, two in the westside of new york city and two in newjersey (hence the plural "studios"). courses were eventually consolidated into one build­ ing; from 1944 until the dissolution ofthe school, at the end of the 197980 year, it was located at 57 west 94th street. holden (1901-1992) was a 1922 graduate of barnard college, with a major in psychology and a minor in english. from 1924 to 1931 she per­ formed as a charter member of margarete dessoff's first choir in new york, the adesdi chorus of women's voices, and from 1926 to 1930 she studied flute and composition at the institute of musical art. from 1931 to 1934 she and friend egli (1905-1985), a professional pianist and violinist, stud­ ied music in vienna. 50 it was there that the idea for the sme was devel­ oped, and it was put into place upon their return to new york city. one might well imagine that their contact with katz and, through her, schenker's theories occurred upon their return, as they sought like-minded activist teachers. but in fact, they learned of the mannes school's schenker pro­ gram while a continent away. in a letter of april 12,1933, holden wrote to her mother from austria: we have such a wonderful and enlightening time playing chamber music with manfred willfort. he's a pupil of heinrich schenker, whose theories about traditional harmonic structure are creating a big stir over here and make much more musical sense than what one finds in the usual textbook. maybe i mentioned willi (which is what everybody calls him) when i told you about ou[r] birthday party. if i didn't i should have. he's the young man whom we invited but he never got there because he was trying to finish a composition for flute and viola to bring us as a present. he brought it the next morning, after having been at it all night. (holden 1986:55-56) 51 willfort, a former pupil of weisse's, was at the time of holden's letter com­ mitted to a weekly seminar at schenker's apartment (along with salzer david carson berry 121 and two others), a recent result of which had been the analyses of funf urlinie-tafeln (schenker 1932). following willfort's advice, upon their re­ turn to new york, egli took a course with weisse, and concurrently met katz. in turn, katz was later "instrumental in getting [holden] into a two­ year fellowship course with ... salzer," which "was given for the purpose of guiding music teachers in methods of applying" schenker's theories (holden 1986:56).52 beginning in 1947, katz taught the two highest grades of music study classes at the sme; she continued for twenty-three years, until 1969 (at which time she was 82 years old). these classes were described by holden as follows: music study vii and viii are a two-year course that introduces thematic form and takes some excursions into musical history and modern directions, but is mainly concerned with the analysis of how harmony and counterpoint interrelate to create musical coherence. it is a course influenced by the findings of heinrich schenker whose discoveries about musical structure the founders of sme first encountered when they played chamber music with a student of his in vienna ... it has been so consistently stimulating to its sme students that whenever two former members of music study vii-viii get together they are likely to begin an excited babbling about it. (holden 1986:203) an example of one of katz's sme handouts is reproduced in figure 6a; a transcription follows in figure 6b.53 she illustrates how a sixteen-bar melody in f major (seemingly adapted from that of the first scene ofhumperdinck's opera hansel und gretel)54 "horizontalizes" first the tonic chord in descent and the dominant chord in ascent, both supporting a structural top-voice c 5 ; and then the tonic chord again in its final "structural" descent to f 4 • the various constituents of the chordal unfoldings are labeled "top," "middle," and "lower" voices, in accordance with the voices shown in her final reduction;55 other tones are labeled as to their neighboring or pass­ ing functions. katz's commitment to ensuring that students recognized the function of each note, as well as the melodic goal of each line, is dem­ onstrated not only here but also in her 1959 pedagogical tract, hearing­ gateway to music. although the role of katz and the sme in instructing generations of pre-collegiate musicians in the insights of schenker has heretofore man­ aged to slip under the radar of the mainstream music-theory community, it was a role of which the sme itself was both aware and gratified. as it proclaimed in its newsletter of june 1953: "for the past twenty years 122 current musicology figure 6a: katz: class handout from studios of music education (early 1950s). david carson berry 123 figure 6b: katz: class handout (transcription). [5] n.n. n.n. p.t. m.v. r:l m.y. l.v. lv. space outlining space filllng;-------this shows motion from c, a top voice [t.v.,] to a, [a] middle voice [m.y.,] and onto f, a lower voice [lv.], a direct descent of a 5th, embellished by n.n. [neighbor notes]. motion [is] achieved through the horizontalized tones of [the] f[-] major chord. it is thus an expansion of the f[-] major chord, with c still a t.y. n.n. ascent from m v. to t.v. just as there is a descent from c to f, a m.v. in meas. 1-8, so there is a return motion of an ascent from g, a m.y. to c, a tv. [in] meas. 9-12[. a]ndjust as meas. 1-8 show a horizontalized f chord, meas[.] 9-12 indicate a horizontalized u[.] note also that the cis common to both chords and is the start of the descent and the climax of the ascent. thus this c is retained as a t.v. since with the tones in a vertical position, it would be the t.v. of each chord. it is evident that meas. 5-8 and 13-16 are identical but that the latter are shown in half­ notes in the sketch to indicate that c no longer is retained but makes a final descent to f in the conclusion of this melodic line. the fundamental distinction between these two similar motions is that the ascent from g to c proves that the motion (meas. 1-8) is not conclusive since c again is the focal tone. in the final meas[.] the half-notes indi[c]ate that there is no further motion and that the melody descends to f-its goal. 124 current musicology schenker's discoveries and outlook ... have been q, ferment slowly and scatteredly working to revivify american musical pedagogy, and the sme is extremely proud to be one of the instruments in thai: process. "56 the late 1950s and afterward apart from her continued work at the sme, katz's activities as a teacher once again seem to have subsided in the 1950s. by the end of the decade, she was devoting time to music therapy at the manhattan state hospital (later the manhattan psychiatric center), located on wards island at the northern end of the east river. according to her great-niece, barbara eisold (who would at times accompany katz and later became a psychologist her­ self), katz gave lessons and got the patients involved in performances; she became very interested in mental illness and even remarked that, if she were able to begin her life's work again, she might become a psycholo­ gist.57 at the end of the next decade, in 1969, she stopped teaching at the sme. i assume that, for the remaining ten years of her life, she was no longer publicly active in musical pursuits. she died in 1979, at age 92. she left no direct descendants but was remembered fondly not only by her nieces and nephew and their families, but also by the many with whom she had had contact as a teacher, as evidenced by the brief tribute submitted to the new york times by the sme: [a] dedicated scholar and teacher, [she] will be remembered with enduring love and gratitude for the inspiration and support and warm friendship she gave to her students and colleagues at the [sme].58 iii. publications although known mainly for the article and book cited at the beginning of this essay, katz in fact published two articles and two books. in the follow­ ing, i will summarize the objectives and principal components of her pub­ lications, drawing attention to katz's indebtedness to other individuals and writings where appropriate. "heinrich schenker's method of analysis" (1935) her first article, "heinrich schenker's method of analysis," is familiar to schenkerians due to its chronological priority in summarizing, in english, key aspects of schenker's approach to musical interpretation. victor vaughn lytle, also a student of weisse's and a music professor at the oberlin (ohio) conservatory, had published an english-language, anlj-modernist polemic in november 1931, in which several schenkerian terms were named and david carson berry 125 very generally defined (including "tonicalization," "auskomponierung," "prolongation," "urlinie," and "ursatz") .59 but it is only with katz's musical quarterly article that anglophones were given a proper summation of the ursatz as a combination of urlinie and grundbrechunrwith notated illus­ trations of the now-familiar models of 3-, 5-, and s-progressions-as well as an exposition of schenker's graphing apparatus and analytic observations.5o katz would have had only about three-and-a-half years of schenkerian tutelage, under weisse, at the time the article was completed. perhaps because of her relative newness to the method, most of her examples as well as portions of her commentary are directly traceable to schenker's own work, although, given the expository nature of her essay, perhaps such a basis was inevitable. nonetheless, katz's summation is remarkable in that she apparently had no access to der freie satz, in which schenker's final formulations were presented. her lack of access is suggested, in part, by the close dates of the two publications: der freie satz was issued in vienna after schenker's death in january 1935, sometime around or before may of that year,5! and katz's article must have been written well in advance of the july 1935 publication date of the journal in which it appeared. more significantly, while katz cites or quotes from der tonwille, das meisterwerk, funf urlinie-tafeln, and other schenker tracts, no mention is made of der freie satz.52 katz's article may be divided into three components. the first, pro­ ceeding from the assertion that, "[f] or some of us, . .. schenker's work has revolutionized the whole conception of music as an art" (311), defines the difference between schenker's approach and that of other theorists in terms of the disparity between "synthesis" and "analysis." the former term represents a significant borrowing from schenker's lexicon; his comments on synthese are scattered throughout the tonwille and meisterwerk volumes. at times he waxes poetic about it, as when he declares that "synthesis is love. love creates, love unifies the whole; and love courses through the veins" (schenker 1994: lis). at other times, he asserts its importance by arguing against "the kind of analysis that remains firmly on the surface" of the music, in favor of an understanding that extrapolates "foreground re­ lationships from the background and middleground." only those who possess the latter "have the gift of appreciating the synthesis of a genius" (schenker 1997a:6s). as katz distinguishes the terms in her 1935 article, "[a]nalysis is the dissection of a work into its various parts," as when a "theorist is concerned with examining each chord as a specific harmony" or "with differentiating between the parts of a musical form by indicating the various themes and labelling them." but" [s]ynthesis is the re-assem­ bling of a work whose various parts grow out of one principle." it "searches beyond the outward appearance ... for a principle of coherence" (312). 126 current musicology having asserted synthesis to be a defining characteristic of schenker's approach, katz then progresses to the second component of the article, in which she demonstrates how it infuses schenker's view of tonality. her exegesis continues by eventually considering also his conceptions of har­ mony and counterpoint. here, katz draws commentary as well as examples from schenker's own work, especially from the "erlauterungen" that ap­ peared in tonwille and meisterwerk. 63 analyses are also taken (implicidyor explicidy) from schenker (summarized in figure 7); while some levels of the article's graphs are more or less original to katz, they are mosdy schenker's own. in the third and final component of the article, katz addresses the implications of schenker's ideas for the interpretation and performance of music. her case study is j. s. bach's c-major prelude (from the well­ tempered clavier, book i), as analyzed in schenker's mannes-supported com­ pendium of less than three years earlier, funf urlinietafeln or five analyses in sketchform.64 here, katz also returns obliquely to her initial theme-the differences between schenker's approach and that of other theorists-by comparing his analysis with that of hugo riemann (1914), who had of­ fered a reduction of the prelude melody to whole and half notes, repre­ senting its "melodic summits." although schenker had not direcdy com­ pared his and riemann's analyses of this particular piece, katz clearly took her cue from a 1921 tonwille essay in which schenker quoted from riemann's analysis of bach's eirmajor prelude (also from the well-tempered clavier, book i), in order to distinguish the latter's reduction to grundzuge or melodiespitzen from his own (eminendy superior) urlinie analysis, and thereby to demonstrate what a "non-ear" (un-ohr) riemann really was.65 katz's article also implicidy demonstrates the influence of her teacher, weisse. for example, when katz writes that schenker's approach allows one to understand "what was in the mind of the comlposer himself' (311), it recalls a component of weisse's teaching demonstrated later that same year, when he delivered a paper at the annual meeting ofthe music teach­ ers national association (mtna) (published as weisse 1936). in it, a hy­ pothetical student was "given the privilege of a happy dream" in which mozart appeared and explained, in his "own" voice, a difficult passage from the second movement of his piano sonata in f, k 533. weisse's mozart, of course, carried in his mind an interpretation entirely consistent with schenker's views. it also seems likely that katz had at her disposal an un­ published lecture by weisse, entided "was ist kontrapunkt?" ("what is coun­ terpoint?"), which was apparendy written in the early 1930s.66 in it, he analyzed mozart's "dissonance" string quartet in c, k 465, and the canon from the central section in the second movement of beethoven's piano sonata, op. 101. these are the very two works cited jill passing by katz, at david carson berry 127 figure 7: analytic graphs in katz, "heinrich schenker's method of analysis." beethoven, piano sonata op. 2/1: i (f"rrst 8 mm.) article page(s): 316 citation given: doesn't cite schenker source of schenker's analysis: "beethoven: sonate opus 2 nr. 1," tonwille 2 (1922): 25-47 + beilage. description of graph levels: a = from score b = based on that in schenker's beilage c = presumably katz's own j. s. bach, c-minor fugue from wtc i: subject (f"rrst 2 mm.) article page(s): 320-21 citation given: schenker's essay "das organische der fuge" source of schenker's analysis: "das organische der fuge," meisterwerk ii (1926): 57-95 description of graph levels: a = from score b = realignment of score's displacements; based on schenker's foreground graph c = presumably katz's own (infl. by schenker's) d = presumably katz's own (infl. by schenker's) j. s. bach, sonata [sic-partita no. 3] in e for violin solo (f"rrst 29 mm.) article page(s): 322 citation given: cites levels a and b as schenker's, but source not named source of schenker's analysis: 'joh. s. bach: sechs sonaten fur violine. partita iii (e-dur), praludio," meisterwerki (1925): 77-98 description of graph levels: a = excerpted from schenker's foreground (with slight notational changes) b = infl. by schenker's foreground, but it does not appear as such in his work c = referred to as "urlinie," but actually an excerpt from schenker's graph of mm. 1-29 (from his fig. lc) j. s. bach, c-major prelude, wtc i article page(s): 324ff. citation given: schenker's funf urlinie-tafeln source of schenker's analysis: funf urlinie-tafeln (1932) description of graph levels: ex. 14c = melodic/bass outline based on schenker's "urlinie tafel" ex. 14d = from schenker's "urlinie tafel" (some annotations omitted) ex. 14e = from schenker's "ursatz" ex. 14f= based on schenker's "1. schicht" ex. 14g = reproduces excerpts from above (ex. 14d) 128 current musicology the end of her article, as she criticizes theorists who have spoken of "radi­ cal" tendencies in such compositions without "hear[ing] and understand[ing] what lies behind these so-called dissonances" (328)-i.e., the middlegrounds elucidated in weisse's lecture.57 ''analysis or synthesis?" (1936) the year after the previous article, katz published a second one entitled "analysis or synthesis?," with its title (and main focus) obviously derived from the initial component of the first article. it appeared in the musical review, which was billed as "a journal for thinking music teachers" and aimed primarily at (perhaps female) readers in brooklyn and long island.58 just three pages in length, it often reads like a precis of the musical quar­ terlyarticle (even its few musical illustrations come from there59); but now katz's commentary is directed expressly toward other music teachers, in an effort to evangelize the interpretive benefits of a schenkerian approach. as she writes in her concluding paragraph, the "schenker method ... challenges the teacher as well as the student," offering them a "direct, clear-cut means of reaching the heart of a work, in order to understand and interpret it from the composer's point of view" (5). again one can perceive the influence of weisse, even in subtle ways. for example, just a few months earlier, in the paper delivered before the mtna, weisse had affirmed that the beauty of schenker's approach was that it gave interpreters and teachers of music a manner of "talk [ing] about music like musicians and no longer like scientists."7o now, in a comment not found in her 1935 article, katz criticizes the customary analytical method (one "based upon the theories oflaw-makers and pedants, rather than the music itself'), characterizing it as "a system of analysis that is concerned primarily with music as a science, rather than music as an art" (3). finally, this article, along with a portion of the earlier one, may pro­ vide insight into what katz might have communicated in the "course for teachers" of bach's music, which she advertised a few months later (see fig. 5). near the end of the article, she summarized some ofthe pedagogi­ cal applications of schenker's approach: can the synthetic method be used by the teacher in her work with small children as well as adults? the answer is yes! it should be used as a means of developing the child's ability to hear within a space and to retain the original tonality, regardless of the extensions of that space. it will make for a new understanding of those works which form the background of a student's education. it will make teaching simpler in establishing the importance of a single tonality rather than the various harmonies and modulations emphasized david carson berry 129 in the older system. it offers a clear and simple way of presenting a new work to a pupil, and indicates the manner of performance, in its differentiation between functional and non-functional harmonies. (5) 71 in conjunction with her commentary on three bach compositions in the 1935 article (especially that on the c-major prelude), we can glean some­ thing of what katz wished to communicate to other teachers about this composer's music. challenge to musical tradition (1945) like her first article, her book challenge to musical tradition is well known to schenkerians for its own chronological distinction. published in 1945, when katz was 58 years old, it was the first english-language book devoted to a schenkerian analytical approach. (figure 8 reproduces the interest­ ing monogram that was embossed on the front board of the first edition: a treble-clef sign efflorescing at the bottom into the author's conjoined ini­ tials, "atk.") promoting schenker's ideas was a principal objective for katz, as she indicated in the introduction: none of heinrich schenker's books, now under the nazi ban, has been translated into english. his distinguished colleague, the late hans weisse, who introduced his teachings in this country and carried them to a further development, aroused a tremendous response through the inspiration of his creative approach. the rapidly increasing number of students and musicians who recognize the advantages of this way of hearing makes it essential that the far-reaching implications and consequences of schenker's conception of structural coherence on the understanding and interpretation of music be revealed to a wider public. it is hoped that this book will fill this need, which is its raison d'etre. (xxiv-xxv) along these lines, one of the two meanings of the titular "challenge" refers to katz's opposition to the methodology proffered by many harmony text­ books. that is, she intended to challenge the analytic tradition that merely labeled chords locally without regard to their function within the whole. (in this regard, she was again likely inspired by her teacher, weisse, to whom challenge was dedicated. he had disputed the same practice in the paper he delivered to the mtna. 72) the "traditional" approach does not clarify tonality, katz argued, but instead "complicates it by converting the basic impression of a single organic phrase into a series of fragmentary modulations that both the music and our ears belie" (5). following 130 current musicology schenker, she wished instead "[tjo clarify the concept of tonality as or­ ganic oneness," as "the expression of a single key through the prolonga­ tion ofa primordial framework" (38). to provide the appropriate founda­ tion for her readers, she outlined the principal tenets of schenker's view of tonality in the initial chapter, mainly using excerpts from j. s. bach's chorales to illustrate various concepts. her approach here was strikingly different from that of her 1935 article, which had drawn heavily on schenker's own analyses and explanations. the expository material in the book seems to be entirely in her own voice, and demonstrates the growth she had experienced as a musical thinker in the foregoing decade. ultimately, however, challenge was not designed as a tutorial for schenkerian analysis, as salzer's structural hearing was seven years later (albeit with alterations to schenker's theory). katz's main agenda involved a second sense of the word "challenge": that to compositional traditions. the remaining chapters of the book are devoted to members of a small group of composers that embodied different characters and styles of mu­ sic, and spanned roughly a quarter-millennium; they were j. s. bach, c. p. e. bach, haydn, beethoven, wagner, debussy, stravinsky, and schoenberg. these were her "challengers to tradition," so called not only because they rejected in their artistic maturity certain restrictions and limitations in technique and style that had been accepted by their predecessors, but because they either evolved new forms or introduced such dynamic innovations in forms already established that they contributed an entirely fresh impulse to musical expression. (xxii) katz's compositional "challengers" were of two types: "those who defied tradition within the framework of tonality"-that is, those who rejected traditions but, in doing so, "acknowledged the musical principles on which they were based and ... molded them to their own needs"-and "those who attacked tonality in order to defy tradition" (ibid.). the dividing line falls upon wagner, with debussy, stravinsky, and schoenberg belonging clearly on the side of those who "inva[dedj ... the tonal citadel" (xxvii). for a book predicated upon schenker's ideas, it may seem ironic that the preceding four composers-fully half of those surveyed by katz-were among those that schenker held in low esteem (three of whom dared to write music after the death of brahms, schenker's "last master of german composition").73 and indeed, it should be emphasized that it was in chal­ lenge, not salzer's structural hearing, that analytic graphs of twentieth-cen­ tury works were first published-excepting two of schenker's own in meisterwerk ii (1926), which were intended to show the deficiencies ofthe david carson berry 131 composers.74 nonetheless, despite claims of objective evaluation, katz was hardly more prone to accept the artistic validity of modern music than schenker had been. "good" works are defined as those that exhibit structural unity, coherence, and organicism (forms of these words abound in the text), and using schenker's methods, katz was able to show that the music of the four tonal composers exhibited these traits. for the non-tonal music un­ der consideration, however, she had no a priori analytic technique that would adequately demonstrate the same. she aspired to evaluate such works without prejudice; "to investigate these systems ... [and] find the new concept of unity they express" (xxviii). ultimately, however, she was un­ able to do so. in this respect, her remarks at the end of the chapter on stravinsky are illustrative: in evaluating stravinsky's works, it matters little whether we like or dislike his innovations. the sole consideration is the effect of these innovations on the clarity and coherence of the music. their effect has been obvious. they were vital factors in the breakdown of a basic principle-the concept of tonality; they changed the functions of the essential elements of music; and they engendered new vertical and horizontal techniques. what new structural principle they provide to supplant the older concept, and what functions, both individual and combined, these new techniques fulfill, neither stravinsky nor any of his interpreters has revealed ... the question ... to which his music gives rise ... is of a fundamental nature, since it underlies a concept that is common to every form of expression-the law of unity and coherence. can a system, however new and inventive it may be in reflecting the thought and life of its period, be an adequate substitute for tonality, unless it replaces the older principle of coherence with a structural principle of its own? this is a question the reader must decide for himself. (348-49) in phrasing the question of the penultimate sentence, katz implicitly ad­ vances the view that stravinsky's music does not have a coherent structural principle of its own; thus, while readers are encouraged to answer the ques­ tion for themselves, a decidedly negative interpretation has been given to color their opinions.75 her pessimistic view of modern music aside, katz's book was laudable for its demonstrations of how an underlying coherence persisted in tonal works despite (as the first-edition dust jacket claimed) "the numerous and 132 current musicology figure 8: monograph embossed on the front board of challenge to musical tradition. figure 9a: "direction line" of english folk song, "0, give thanks." figure 9b: "motion sketch" of spanish melody (set to the words "let's go fishing"). varied changes in technique, style, and form that [took] place" over the years, and for the fact that her case studies featured oiiginal analytic graphs, not those borrowed from schenker, as in her 1935 article. 76 still, her argu­ ments were predicated upon an analytical methodology that would have been largely unfamiliar to most readers, which perhaps explains why con­ temporary reviewers tended to be unkind to katz's efforts. percy m. young (1947) chastised the author's "formidable combination of pedantry and stylistic infelicity" and asserted that" [t]he reader who survives" the book "with faculties unimpaired" should be congratulated. hugo leichtentritt (1945-46) echoed these remarks, and called reading the book "so labori­ ous an effort that i doubt whether in all america more than six persons will actually make so heroic an effort." herman reichenbach (1945-46) acknowledged that "the schenker method" contains "much that is vital and true," and thus warrants a book that will make his approach acces­ sible, but added that "there is considerable reason for suspecting that miss katz does not possess sufficient motility of mind for presenting the method david carson berry 133 in its best light." most damning was the criticism of paul henry lang, who took the opportunity to offer a general harangue about the work of schenker and his followers. lang proclaimed that their "musical theory and philosophy is not art, its whole outlook ... lacks feeling ... [they] play with music as others play chess ... they see lines only, no colors, and their ideas are cold and orderly" (1946:301-2). with the passage of time, as more and more readers have come to katz's book with a (frequently favorable) foreknowledge of schenker's theo­ ries, a former barrier to an appreciation of her positive contributions has been removed and assessments have been kinder. as an example, consider the more recent evaluation by jonathan dunsby and arnold whittall: katz's "[p]enetrating technical analysis is tempered continuously by critical re­ sponse-and responsibility. it is the preserve of few to be able to mould analysis into such comprehensive musical discourse ... " (1988:55-56). hearing-gateway to music (1959) katz's final book (indeed, her final publication of any kind), entitled hear­ ing-gateway to music, was published in 1959 with co-author ruth halle rowen. later a professor of historical musicology at the city university of new york, rowen had been a member of a graduate seminar weisse con­ ducted at columbia shortly before his untimely death, in which schenkerian analysis had been introduced.77 in the 1940s, rowen happened to discover that she was living in the same building as katz, and prompted by the coincidence of having had the same teacher, as well as having a mutual interest in schenker's ideas, the two eventually began working together on hearing, designed to introduce implicitly schenkerian concepts on a more elementary level to younger, incipient musicians. 78 the pedagogical impe­ tus for writing the book surely stemmed from katz's work at the sme, where she had instructional contact with such musicians on a weekly basis. schenker's name is nowhere to be found in the main text; it appears only within brief remarks "about the authors," in which mention is made of katz's prior "articles on the schenker method" (3). still, the book's schenkerian foundations are manifest. although no actual graphing is included, the authors introduce various surrogates. in chapter 2, there are "direction lines," which signify "the approximate path of the tones of a melody as they move upward or downward" (13); an example represent­ ing the beginning of the english folk song "0, give thanks" is reproduced in figure 9a. in chapter 3, these yield to "motion sketches," which provide a "more accurate way of picturing a melody" by showing "both the direc­ tion and the numbers [i.e., scale degrees] of the tones" (19); an example representing a spanish melody (set to the words "let's go fishing") is reproduced in figure 9b.79 later, students are asked to design a "'skeleton' 134 current musicology motion sketch" and compare it with the "actual melody" (46). furthering the interpretation of melody, in chapter 6 ("melodic mo­ tion") the authors consider its "starting" and "target" tones (45), and their discussion of neighboring motion (48) is definitely of a schenkerian bent. here and elsewhere it is emphasized that the same pitch may serve differ­ ent functions in different contexts (see, e.g., p. 48). in chapter 9 ("power tones and melodic goals"), the authors present the tonic-triad scale de­ grees as "power tones" that "have the strength to attract other tones" (68). students are, however, cautioned that within a local context these notes f\ may serve a more decorative role; as the authors advise, "it is possible for 3 to appear as a power tone, a passing tone, and a neighbor tone in the same melody" (71).80 chapter 14 ("the horizontal chord") is devoted to ways in which the tones of a chord may be presented melodically (i.e., succes­ sively), but with the interpolation of various embellishing (e.g., passing and neighboring) tones. in one example (120), using an excerpt from mozart's piano sonata in f, k 547a (first movement, mm. 1-4), the au­ thors illustrate "neighbor tones around a horizontal chord" and ask the student "what chord is prolonged throughout the ... passage?" elsewhere, the concept of "interruption" is presented and defined in a manner con­ sistent with schenker's usage (see, e.g., pp. 73-74, 78, and 104); and the authors also make reference to "transfer of register" (42) and voice ex­ changes (94) .81 as the focus is gradually shifted from purely melodic to harmonic materials, the various roles of chords are considered. in an earlier example (119) , katz and rowen had shown a melody that passed from g to § above f\ a tonic chord, with the gap filled by a dissonant passing tone (4); the same melodic motion had then been altered so that the passing 4 was "sup­ ported by a v chord." other chords are likewise shown in their passing, neighboring, and truly "harmonic" functions, and the nature of the "cadential~" is also considered (147-48). the authors' summary reveals an interpretive sophistication rarely encountered in elementary musician­ ship books even today: [t]he terms "harmony" and "chord" sometimes are regarded as synonymous, [but] there is a real distinction between a chord that serves as a neighbor or passing chord and a chord that shows a fifth association either with i or with v. since the strongest connection between any two chords is the fifth association, all such chords will be called "harmonic chords." on the other hand, those chords which arise as a result of voice-leading, such as a passing chord or neighbor chord, will be indicated according to the specific david carson berry 135 functions they demonstrate. all harmonies are chords, yet not all chords express harmonic relationships ... (152) to know the name of a chord and its position in each key is a necessary aid to hearing and reading music. yet true musicianship and interpretation require more of the ear. to understand the meaning of motion demands that we not only know the chord we hear, but also the purpose it serves, that is, the specific kind of chord it is in the phrase, the part, or the entire composition. such ability to differentiate between the use of a chord in a passing or in a neighbor capacity and its place in a harmonic progression is the difference between active and passive listening. (161) according to rowen, katz considered writing a sequel to heanngthat would have continued on a more advanced level. unfortunately, the co-authors' different obligations prohibited another collaboration, and the book never came about. 82 iv. summary "analysis or synthesis?" and heanngare katz's most obscure publications­ the former because the journal in which the article appeared is not widely held, and the latter because it circulated in numbers perhaps only a third of those of her 1945 book.83 their unfamiliarity is most unfortunate be­ cause, in many ways, they reflect the primary focus of katz's work: music pedagogy via schenker. recall that the 1936 private course she advertised (fig. 5) was billed as a "course for teachers." likewise, her courses at co­ lumbia teachers college demonstrated how the schenkerian approach could affect "the hearing, teaching, and performance of music." her in­ terest in proselytizing other teachers and in developing a schenker peda­ gogy was likely due, in part, to the influence of her own teacher hans weisse, who, as i have argued in berry (2003), was also primarily inter­ ested in teaching. even weisse's one english-language article, "the music teacher's dilemma," was intended for an audience of other teachers, hav­ ing been delivered originally at a meeting of the mtna. like weisse, katz seems to have been more interested in directly communicating schenker's ideas to others than in publishing articles or analyses. however, due to the places at which katz taught-which were mostly separate from mainstream conservatories and colleges or universities-she was able to reach students of much more diverse backgrounds (and ages) than those with whom most of the other early schenkerians in this country would have had contact. from middle-aged workers at the rand school to teenage instrumentalists at the sme, she introduced schenker to countless people in and around new york, for nearly four decades. 136 current musicology in contemplating katz's many activities as a music teacher, analyst, and author, a remaining focus comes to mind. beca.use it seems atypical, we must explicitly acknowledge that the person involved in all of these activities was a woman. music theory was then and remains today a male­ dominated field in the u.s.84 this may be especially true of schenkerian analysis,85 which, moreover, has even been labeled by some as a "mascu­ line" theoretical system-one that emphasizes (helterosexual) male dis­ course and corresponds to a male sexual metaphor.81i it may be surprising, then, that in the course of the preceding study the names and roles of several women (in addition to katz herself), have emerged, all of whom who were invested in the early promotion of schenker's ideas in this coun­ try. anne holden and lyn egli, co-founders of the sme, learned of schenker in the early 1930s while in vienna, and subsequently studied the approach in new york (egli with weisse and, later, holden with salzer); through employing katz at the sme, they certainly facilitated the spread of schenkerian analysis. herta schweiger gave a 1938 paper on schenker and other theorists. felix salzer's scholarship course at the ymha was es­ tablished in 1943 in dora fineberg's memory, due to the fact that schenkerian analysis was "so close to [her] heart." and ruth halle rowen learned of schenker from weisse in 1939-40, and in 1959 co-authored with katz a book that introduced implicitly schenkerian concepts to young musicians.87 within this context, it should also be noted that schenker himself taught many female students, including agnes becker, toni colbert, sophie deutsch, angelika (angi) elias, anna fried, marianne kahn, maria komorn, trude kral, grete kraus, and evelina pairamall.88 at least two of these-deutsch and elias-helped support schenker's work financially.89 in terms of their analytic work and other types of assistance, some of these also ranked among schenker's most important pupils of either sex. for example, the legendary analysis seminar that met weekly in schenker's apartment in the early 1930s, from which funfurlinie-tafeln resulted, was comprised of equal numbers of women (kraus and kral) and men (salzer and willfort). an especially significant student was elias. she began study­ ing with schenker by 1912-1390 and later, apparently as his assistant, "she prepared the final copies of his completed analyses, perhaps for publica­ tion" (cadwallader and pastille 1999:31). moreover, according to schenker's student felix-eberhard von cube, elias was responsible for first conceiving of an important convention: schenker was evidently having difficulty devising a notation [that] would show hierarchical relationships among notes in a single analytical graph: attempts to use a variety of not e·· head shapes and david carson berry 137 sizes proved far too cumbersome. it was ... [elias] who suggested to her teacher that the fundamental notes of a graph could be hollow, and beamed together. thus the visual representation of schenker's most celebrated theoretical concept, the ursatz ... must be partly credited to ... [her]. (drabkin 1984-85:185-86) in both schenker's vienna and katz's new york, women were active in studying and promoting the theory. most of them have remained largely unknown, perhaps because, due to unfortunate societal forces, they were not encouraged to publish the results of their work; accordingly, their con­ tributions were not transmitted in written form, but instead subsisted less tangibly in the memories of their colleagues or students.91 even katz, who achieved more within music theory than the other women named above, has not been fully recognized for her many activites. through this essay, i hope to have corrected that oversight-to have greatly amplified our knowl­ edge about an important early schenkerian who has previously been little more than a name in bibliographies. along the way, i hope to have also raised awareness of the several women who had roles in the early schenker community, especially in its american incarnation. without recognizing all of these contributions, one has an incomplete picture of the true na­ ture and extent of its development. notes 1. in a letter dated june 1,1927, from schenker to his student felix-eberhard von cube, the former affirms that his ideas continue "to be felt more widely: edinburgh (also new york), leipzig, stuttgart, vienna ... , [otto] vrieslander in munich ... , you [von cube] in duisburg, and [august] halm etc. ... " (quoted and translated in drabkin 1984-85:182). all references are to austro-german cit­ ies except two. john petrie dunn, a scottish pianist who had studied with schenker before the first world war, was a professor at the university of edinburgh when these words were written. the reference to new york is not so easily explained, although i address possible connections in berry (2004). 2. these two schools, in princeton, new jersey, and new haven, connecticut, are within a roughly eighty-mile radius of new york city. however, it was due not to proximity per se but to new york-trained schenker disciples-milton babbitt and allen forte, respectively-through whom these universities came to embrace schenkerian ideas. babbitt learned of schenker during private lessons with roger sessions, and forte from studies with alvin bauman (a student of hans weisse's) at columbia university. 3. for more on the development of schenkerian concepts in the u.s., see austin (1974), berry (forthcoming-a, 2003), hinton 1998, rothstein (1986, 1990), and willner (1985). 4. there are no entries on katz in any musical reference work of which i am aware, including any edition of baker's biographical dictionary or the new grove dic138 current musicology tionary of music and musicians. 5. katz had no direct descendants. the executor of her estate was her nephew, eugene katz, whose daughter, barbara eisold, has told me that she knows of no personal papers or music-related materials that might have been kept. 6. she had two brothers and a sister. 7. katz would later make references to casella (1883-1947) in two of her publications. she referred (in disagreement) to casella (1924) in katz (1945:39), and in the chapter on rhythm in hearing-gateway to mus;ic she included an eight­ bar excerpt from his composition pupazzetti (katz and rowen 1959:63). inciden­ tally, given the connection between katz and casella, and later between katz and schenker's theories, it is interesting to note that schenker had disparaged casella upon hearing a work of the latter on a radio concert of october 18, 1929, con­ ducted by joseph szigeti. in a diary entry of that date, schenker eschewed descrip­ tion of the casella composition (unidentified by schenker), writing "whatever [words] one uses, they would have more coherence than this music" (welche [wartel man auch gebraucht, sie hiitten mehr zusammenhang als diese musik) (federhofer 1985:228). 8. she also did the same for the packer alumnae dramatic association. 9. the alumnae association of packer contributed to the formation of what became the school settlement, and over the years many alumnae volunteered their time to this community service. it was perhaps due to this connection that katz became involved. 10. the former school was located on east 3rd street, the latter on west 121st street. for more on the role of music in settlements, see mcfarland (1935). re­ flections on and details of david mannes's involvement in the settlement houses are offered in mannes (1949). 11. music is not indicated as among the activities of the school settlement association in kennedy et al. (1935: table 1, inserted between pp. 6 and 7). how­ ever, that survey was taken in the late 1920s; the settlement may have been more active musically during katz's time there. 12. according to packer records, her family addres~: was 308 macdonough (brooklyn); the settlement was located at 120 jackson. the latter was roughly four miles from packer's address, 170 joralemon. 13. scalero had taught for six years at mannes before accepting an offer at curtis in 1928, "at four times the [mannes] salary." when he left, mannes agreed that students who wished to continue under him should follow him to philadel­ phia (mannes 1949:258-59). 14. leopold mannes temporarily left the school and the music profession (to become the co-developer of kodak's kodachrome process of color photography) immediately before the arrival of weisse, who was hired to fill the position. weisse taught both composition and analysis, but it is unknown whether katz continued studies in composition under him, or abandoned compositional studies after leopold mannes's departure in order to concentrate on the "schenker approach." 15. an undated "teacher's agreement" (perhaps from 1935) in the rand school archive reads: "financial arrangement: minimum of$5.00 a session for each class. income above $5.00 per session is to be divided 50-50." 16. this supposition is based on a description of the school given later, in the david carson berry 139 main text of this article. 17. for example, subventions were given for both volumes of kontrapunkt by baron alphons von rothschild, for meisterwerk ii and der freie satz by anthony van hoboken (both of whom had studied with schenker), and for meisterwerk iii by conductor-colleague wilhelm furtwangler. schenker also received support from such students as sophie deutsch and angelika (angi) elias. (see various com­ mentary in federhofer 1985.) 18. "schwere, schwerste irrtiimer und verbrechen sind es somit, deren sich gleichermab en wagner wie marx an der deutschen menschheit schuldig gemacht haben." ever proud of what the german mind could produce, schenker went on to add that "even as mistakes they are, in their german-ness, still more magnifi­ cent than any other people can boast" (e[bst als irrtiimer noch so deutsch-erhaben, wie sie iihnlich kein volk auft.uweisen hat). in a somewhat more humorous vein, schenker suggested that a composer like jacques offenbach should be called in to "drive away today's delusions by putting all the false gods of the west and their german imitators, including marx and comrades, onto the operetta stage for the purpose of general ridicule" (1987, 2:xvi). 19. the cited marxist course was offered at rand in the same spring 1936 term as a course by katz entitled "music of the masters," about which evidence suggests that a schenkerian approach may have been partly taken (as will be ad­ dressed later). 20. for more on the school, see cornell (1976). this monograph, however, ignores musical instruction at the school; my comments on that topic have been derived from studies of the rand archive itself. 21. the story of ruggles's involvement with the rand school is reported in ziffrin (1979:13-17). 22. the other peak of interest in the school came during the first world war. 23. from katz's handwritten outline (in the rand archive); also duplicated in a published course bulletin for 1934-35. in the latter, the course is described as continuing for twenty-seven sessions, from september 25, 1934, through april 23, 1935, with a fee of $6.00 for the whole season or $4.00 for the half season. for part of 1936 through 1938, the rand school chorus was under the direc­ tion of ada rifkin. by january 1939 it was under william parson (perhaps the same [?] william parson who did the musical direction and vocal arrangements for cole porter's 1943 broadway musical, something for the boys). the post-katz form of the rand school chorus was not listed as a "course" and did not charge a fee for participants. 24. the brochure went on to indicate that "it is planned to have our high school graduates continue their studies in the rand school for two additional years in the 'workers training course.' there is every reason then, to believe that these students with six years' study at the rand school behind them, will be able to serve the socialist movement intelligently and well." 25. weil's name underwent some changes in the rand listings: in fall 1931 he appears as "hyman kurzweil," in spring 1932 as "h. kurz weil," and then in fall 1932 as "kurz weil." 26. katz had analyzed the subject of this fugue the year before in katz (1935), which, in turn, stemmed from its consideration in schenker (1996c). 140 current musicology 27. the graph was associated with schenker (1923). 28. in der freie satz they appear as part of figure 43. for more on schenkerian interpretations of this prelude, see drabkin (1989), which considers analyses by schenker, westergaard, forte and gilbert, and neumeyejr. 29. the lettering of each level, beginning with the foreground as "a," was also followed in katz (1935). 30. the school seems to have first opened in fa1l19~\7. 3l. the abstract is published as schweiger (1940). 32. according to rutkoff and scott (1986:39), 65% of students were women during the 1920s. i am assuming that a female majority persisted at least into the early 1930s. 33. in 1933-34, thompson also served as katz's pianist at rand for "the so­ nata and the symphony" and "national tendencies in modern music." 34. i would like to thank steve siegel, archivist at the 92nd street y, for his help in finding information about the courses cited below. 35. these were to have been titled "from the folksong to the symphony" (fall 1935) and "the re-creation of music" (spring 1936). the latter was to have been under the auspices of the education department, not the music school. 36. around that time, dessau had moved to southern california, where he began writing music for the movies. 37. in 1989, mannes became an independent division of the the new school for social research (later renamed new school university). it was unaffiliated in katz's time. 38. in a letter to rand's educational director william e. bohn, in the school's archive, katz refers to the roerich museum as the "institute of (adult) advanced education." in her response to a questionnaire (see n. 39), katz indicates that she lectured at the "inst[itutel of adult education." given these two sources in con­ junction, it is clear that she is referring to the same place. 39. references to all of these organizations (except dx the woman's club of brooklyn and the woodmere music club) come from a "questionnaire for bio­ graphical notes in rand school bulletin," in the rand ar,chive. it is undated, but a reference to katz's teaching at the westchester branch of the mannes school suggests 1936 as the terminus post quem. i assume that the citation of her lecturing at the "women's club of the oranges" refers to the oranges of essex county, new jersey, which was roughly twenty miles from katz's manhattan apartment. i am unaware of the particular organization identified as the drama study club. i assume that the briarcliff manor school is a school in the affluent village of briarcliff manor, which was about twenty miles from katz's manhattan apartment. the unity house was likely a resort owned by the international ladies' garment workers union (ilgwu). this summer retreat for members was situated in the pocono mountains (bushkill, pa.); it offered lecture series, among other activities, and thus katz would have had a forum. furthermore, katz's involvement there would be in keeping with the rand school's involvement with the union, and it would be consistent with the fact that the cited source also indicates that katz lectured at "the ll.g.u.," surely a reference to the ilgwu. 40. i have found references to her directing the woodmere choral club as well as the choral of the five towns; i assume these chorales are identical, as david carson berry 141 woodmere is one of the communities referred to as "the five towns" (along with cedarhurst, hewlet, inwood, and lawrence). they are located in southern long island and are among long island's oldest and wealthiest communities. it is inter­ esting to note that katz's involvement with this chorus came immediately after her attempts at organizing a rand chorus; apparently, choral conducting was very much on her mind at the time. 41. it has been reported that salzer emigrated to the u.s. in 1939 (see, e.g., page 1986). his activities in this country prior to assuming weisse's position, in early 1940, are unknown to me. 42. during this time, katz also was in contact with ernst oster, a student of oswald jonas's (and the eventual translator of schenker's der freie satz) , who is thanked for "his careful examination and checking of the graphs throughout the book" (vii). in a personal communication to me, allen forte has said that he had been told by oster that some of the haydn graphs in katz's book were actually by oster. nonetheless, katz apparently did not have the same degree of contact and rapport with oster as she did with salzer; indeed, carl schachter has told me that oster was paid (by katz) for his services. 43. katz also provided an endorsement for the dust jacket of the book's first edition, in which she wrote that she could "think of no other person, interested in the ideas of schenker, who would have been equally capable of giving such a clear and well-authenticated presentation of these fundamental musical truths." 44. obviously, with]. s. bach as the earliest selected composer in challenge, a seventeenth-century label is questionable, although a few of bach's works may have been composed before or around 1700 (e.g., bwv 749, "herr jesu christ, dich zu uns wend"; bwv 750, "herr jesu christ, meins lebens licht"; bwv 756, "nun ruhen abe walder"; and some of the earliest chorales from the]. g. neumeister manuscript). i have found no materials that indicate which seven­ teenth-century composer(s) might have been included in the course; based on the 1932 rand outline of figure 3a, monteverdi is a possibility. 45. allen forte (who received his b.a. and m.a. from columbia in 1950 and 1952, respectively) has told me that murphy regularly invited katz to lecture on schenker at teachers college. these lectures could have been independent of her schenker course, or they could have been the same (forte did not attend them, so he is unsure). incidentally, in the preface to forte (1955), which offers schenker-influenced analytic sketches of twentieth-century compositions, he also acknowledges an "indebtedness to ... murphy for his sustaining interest" (vi). 46. see commentary under "weisse at columbia" in berry (2003:114-15). 47. in addition to his "sustaining interest" in forte (1955), murphy also served, along with william]. mitchell, as a member of the dissertation committee of silberman (1949). silberman's titular "four theories" are those of riemann, schenker, hindemith, and schillinger; the chapter on schenker (pp. 28-72) is twice the length of those devoted to the other three. among murphy's unpub­ lished teaching materials is a handout on the melodic sequence, in which he ana­ lyzed a sequential passage from the finale of brahms's second symphony. he pro­ vides a "reduction" that is more a rhythmic simplification than a schenkerian re­ ductive graph; but he nonetheless indicates the directed harmonic motion from i to vi, and he connects with a beam the j and 5 of the whole-tone-infused bass. 142 current musicology given murphy's awareness of the "schenker approach," it is not unreasonable to conjecture that he was influenced by it when designing his own "reduction." the handout is reproduced in olsen (1973:235). it is undated but, based on surround­ ing handouts, it is likely from 1960. it is headed "manhattan school of music / theory 22"; murphy was a theory instructor there from 1923 (when it was known as the neighborhood music school) until 1962. 48. at some point after the mid-1950s, the institution changed its name to the school of musical education. the dust jacket of challenge already cites her in­ volvement with the sme. the sme newsletter for june 1953 (see n. 56) suggests an even longer association when it proclaims that katz "has found time to teach the s.m.e. courses in musical analysis since the beginning of our existence." this would seem to mean "since 1934," but that early a date is ulnlikely, given that katz did not mention the school in her rand questionnaire (see n. 39). 49. the school was very successful in training its younger students: over 60% of sme graduates were accepted into the high school of music and art (now the fiorello h. laguardia high school of music & art and performing arts), some concurrent with their final years at sme (reported in holden 1986:213). 50. in addition to other activities, holden studied flute under friedrich schoenfeld, the principal flutist with the vienna symphony orchestra, and com­ position under mark brunswick, an american then living in vienna. 51. around this time (dateline "vienna, june 2 [1933]"), holden wrote an article for the nation entitled "austria is not germany." in it, she commented about what seemed on the surface to be an all-too-nonchalant attitude by the austrians toward hitler's persecution of jews in germany. however, she ultimately asserted that nazi claims of a "united germania" were overstated, because "aus­ tria is not germany" and "the austrian divisions of the hitler storm troops" are a "shocking anomaly in a suave and civilized state." holden (credited as "o.w. holden," in reference to what was apparently her birthname, orrilla wood holden) is cited in the "contributors" section as "a former social worker who is now study­ ing music in vienna" (20). 52. in 1939, holden and egli were joined as co-directors of the sme by eliza­ beth "betty" sheinwold (later elizabeth sheinwold kaplan), author of a duct-flute tutorial (sheinwold 1950) that may have been used at the school. that same year­ perhaps in conjunction with sheinwold's book-the same publisher issued a fun­ damentals book by holden, which was also likely used by sme students: "a work­ book for mastering the complete theory and notation of pitch, intervals, chords, scales, and key signatures" (holden 1950:1). i am unaware of whether or not sheinwold had any schenkerian training. two other sme co-directors served shorter terms: frances cowles for the first ten years of the school, and gertrude davis for a period beginning in 1949. 53. i am indebted to paula eisenstein baker, a student who was at the sme from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, for sharing this handout with me. 54. the provenance seems likely, due not only to the manifest associations between humperdinck's and katz's melodies, but also to the "fairy-tale" opera's appeal to children-i.e., those of the ages taught by katz. 55. here there is an inconsistency in her labeling: the g 4 of m. 9 is a lower voice as it is ultimately graphed, and yet she labels it as a middle voice in both the david carson berry 143 textual description and the earlier graph. 56. i am indebted to paula eisenstein baker for sharing her copy of the news­ letter with me. 57. personal interview with barbara eisold. it should also be recalled that katz's long-time associate at the sme, anne holden, had majored in psychology at barnard college; perhaps she had inspired katz's appreciation of the field, to some degree. 58. "deaths," new york times (may 11,1979): a25. 59. lytle's connection with weisse and schenker, and various aspects of his article, are addressed in berry (forthcoming-b). 60. katz's article was followed shortly thereafter by another learned schenkerian outline, waldeck and broder (1935), in which these concepts were also considered. 6l. anbruch: osterreichische zeitschrift fur musik 17/5 (may 1935) contains an advertisement for the newly released der freie satz; an article about schenker by one of his students (zuckerkandl 1935) appeared in the same issue. 62. katz also makes reference to neue musikalische theorien und phantasien, the collective heading under which harmonielehre, the kontrapunkt volumes, and der freie satz appeared. but it seems clear (for the reasons cited) that the last compo­ nent either had not yet been published or had not yet made its way to america when katz wrote the article. as further evidence, consider sessions (1935); its issue is dated may-june, and yet sessions refers to schenker's "still unavailable treatise on form, entitled der freie satz" (175). 63. see tonwille 8/9 (1924): 49-5l. reprinted in tonwille 10 (1924): 40-42, meisterwerk i (1925): 203-5, and meisterwerk ii (1926): 195-97. 64. the set of analyses (originally published as a collection of unbound, large folded graphs) was intended primarily for weisse's classes at mannes, and was published jointly in vienna (by universal) and new york (by the david mannes music school) in late 1932. it was reissued in book form as schenker (1969). a sense of how schenker's analysis of the prelude evolved before its publication in funfurlinie-tafeln may be gleaned from letters he sent to his student felix-eberhard von cube in 1930, discussing his then-new analysis of the prelude; see drabkin (1985). 65. as schenker put it: "what a barbarian in the representation of content! need i prove, for example, that these 'basic lines' (,melody peaks' he calls them elsewhere) have nothing to do with my urlinie? how could riemann, if he had uncovered only a small piece of the veil over this fundamental secret, have led his lines in such japanese, jagged fashions as we find here?" ("welch ein barbar in der darstellung des inhalts! brauche ich da etwa zu beweisen, dab diese 'grundziige' (,melodiespitzen' nennt er sie andernorts) mit meiner urlinie nichts zu schaffen haben? wie hatte denn sonst riemann, wenn er nur ein endchen vom schleier dieses urgeheimnisses geliiftet hatte, seine linien in so japanischen winkelziigen fiihren konnen, wie wir sie hier finden?") (1921a:45). incidentally, unlike schenker, katz excerpted riemann's analysis incompletely, in that his idiomatic chord symbols were omitted from their proper placement underneath the melodic part. thus, his melodic analysis was severed from a contextualizing component; such a presentation would be roughly analogous to 144 current musicology presenting schenker's urlinie without its counterpointed grundbrechung. 66. it is preserved in the oster collection, file 17. that the essay was intended as a lecture-or oral presentation-is clear from not only the title-page subhead­ ing, "vortrag" ("lecture"), but also references to "meine geehrten zuhorer" ("my dear audience"). 67. it seems much more likely that katz's citation of these works stems from weisse than from schenker because, prior to der freie satz, schenker had only considered mozart's "dissonance" quartet briefly, in ha:rmonielehre (1906), and thus before he developed voice-leading graphs; and the second movement of beethoven's op. 101 had only been considered in schenker's relatively early ex­ planatory edition of that work (1920). 68. in september 1936, it assumed a more national focus and was renamed music teachers' review; it was later again renamed music teachers' quarterly, and ceased publication in winter 1948. i would like to thank stephen soderberg of the library of congress (music division) for helping me obtain a copy of this obscure article. the supposition that katz's article (and the journal in which it appeared) was aimed at a largely female audience is given support when katz refers to a hypo­ thetical teacher as "she" (3), and when katz asks "can [schenker's] synthetic method be used by the teacher in herwork ... " (5; emphasis mine). in other writings, katz uses the "masculine generic," i.e., male pronouns when referring generally to people whether male or female; she even uses it in the 1936 article when referring to students. in such a context, the use of female pronouns when referring to teachers is striking, as is her reference to those who teach "small chil­ dren as well as adults." it is possible that katz was addressing an audience of prima­ rily female music teachers, who perhaps gave private piano lessons at their homes, a type of teacher that was common at the time, in communities both large and small across the u.s. 69. the 1936 article's examples 1, 2, and 3, come from (respectively) the 1935 article's exam~les 1/2/3 (combined), 6 (modified to show a ~ ~ i top voice instead of g 4 ~), and 11. 70. the remark resonated with the disdain schenker himself expressed about the rise of "science" (wissenschaft) over art within the music academy. the opinion is expressed succinctly by schenker when he writes: "music is always an art-in its composition, in its performance, even in its history. under no circumstance is it a science" (l979:xxiii). 71. it must be noted that the extent to (and manner in) which a recognition of functional vs. non-functional harmonies should influence performance is not without debate, even among schenkerians. see, for example, commentary in rothstein (1995). 72. katz expressly cited walter piston as an exponent of this approach; weisse likewise condemned a piston analysis in his 1936 article (but without naming the source of the excerpt). for katz, it was the analyses found in piston (1941); for weisse, it had been an analysis in the book's precursor (pi:;ton 1933). 73. "des letzten meisters deutscher tonkunst." this reference to brahms comes from the dedication of schenker (1912). 74. schenker graphed stravinsky's concerto for piano and winds (composed david carson berry 145 1923-24) in 1996a; and reger's variations and fugue on a theme of]. s. bach (composed 1904) in 1996b. in various writings, schenker also made references to another work by reger (the piano quintet of 1901-2) and a few works by richard strauss, of which only salome (1903-5) dates from the twentieth century. however, graphs were not provided; for that matter, he also never graphed wagner's music. 75. this circumstance surely accounts for allen forte's characterization of katz's writing style in challenge as "pugnacious" and "gladiatorial" (1998:8). 76. only in the chapter on beethoven does katz tread on ground covered by schenker, specifically when she addresses the "eroica" symphony (as covered by schenker in meisterwerk iii) and the "appassionata" piano sonata, op. 57 (as cov­ ered by schenker in tonwille 7 and der freie satz). even there, however, the graphs appear to be chiefly her own. 77. rowen had also completed an undergraduate thesis at barnard, for which william]. mitchell had been the advisor (a fact communicated to me in a per­ sonal interview). 78. the book was published by summy-birchard, for whom schenker's stu­ dent oswaldjonas had edited several collections of keyboard music in the mid-to­ late 1950s. however,jonas's connection with the company apparently had noth­ ing to do with katz's publication there. according to rowen, they began work without a publisher in mind; after the book's completion, one of katz's (former?) students, who was then working for summy-birchard, contacted the company on her behalf. 79. because a primary pedagogical component of the book is to induce per­ formances or singing of everything to be analyzed, the authors provide english lyrics for almost all melodies; some are their owu translations of the customary texts, while others are original words by the authors-e.g., "let's go fishing" (p. 19, ex. 15), which is not identified beyond the designation "spanish." 80. this caveat seems to have been lost on one of the few reviewers of the book. regarding the presentation of "power tones," leroy baumgartner wrote: "although the term is picturesque and apparently new, it rests on the rather old and questionable assumption that the tones of the tonic triad necessarily create a feeling of finality, while all the remaining scale steps have the function of moving directly in predictable ways to these components of tonic harmony (collectively designated as 'inactive scale steps' or 'rest tones'). this concept, though defen­ sible in some very simple phrases, breaks dowu as soon as a chord other than the tonic becomes a goal of motion, and it may therefore be highly misleading to mention it at all without pointing out that its applicability is extremely limited" (1960). baumgartner must have also missed the connection between katz's and rowen's formulations and schenker's theories, as it was never mentioned. in a striking coincidence, the review happened to be of three books, one of which was by another former weisse student, alvin bauman. this latter book was bauman and walton (1959), the precursor of which (bauman 1947) had incorporated some elementary schenkerian ideas. 81. however, the authors' endorsement of modes (see chapter 15, "mode," especially p. 133) is certainly at odds with schenker's opinions! 82. personal interview with ruth halle rowen. 83. as an indication of the obscurity of "analysis or synthesis?" consider the 146 current musicology following comment in a 1949 survey of schenkerian literature: "katz also speaks of some articles on schenker in the teacher's review [sic] which we have not been able to identity" (mann 1949:4, n. 4). according to my late-2003 query of the oclc online union catalog (worldcat), 492 of the participating libraries hold the origi­ nal edition of challenge while only 157 hold hearing. 84. in the early decades of katz's work, music theory had yet to emerge (as it has since) as a more distinct species of musicology. still, it is fair to say that "musi­ cology" (more broadly defined) was then also a male-dominated field. as evidence, consider that the composer ruth crawford was excluded from the 1930 meeting at which the new york musicological society (precursor to the american musico­ logical society) was founded, because charles seeger (her future husband) "wanted to avoid the incipient criticism that musicology was 'women's work'" (hisama 1995:291, n. 7). as for the present-day (under)representation of women in the music-theory community, consider the following facts reported by the society for music theory in the smt newsletter 28/1 (2003). in a report of the publications committee, submitted by martha hyde, it was noted that the committee "remains concerned about the small number of acceptances of articles by women [for the journal music theory spectrum] and has asked the editor to explore possible rea­ sons" (8). in a report of the program committee about the smt's 2002 confer­ ence in columbus, ohio, submitted by lora gingerich dobos, statistics were pro­ vided that showed women authors to represent only 17-25% of submitted and accepted papers of regular and special sessions (9). finally, in a report of the committee on the status of women (csw) , submitted by janna saslaw, the pre­ ceding facts are summarized as follows: "the csw is concerned about representa­ tion of women in the society, on conference programs, in our publications, and on committees. the good news from this year's conference is that the percentage of women whose papers were accepted was the same as the percentage of those who submitted proposals. however, the bad news is that women sent in only 17% of the total regular submissions" (9). for personal reflections of a female music theorist trained in the 1990s, see hisama (2000). 85. for example, consider five prominent and often-cited anthologies of schenker-related essays:yeston (1977), beach (1983), cadwallader (1990), siegel (1990), and schachter and siegel (1999). together, these volumes represent thirty­ six unique authors, nineteen of whom are represented more than once. there is, however, but a single female author among them: hedi siegel, who appears in both siegel (1990) and schachter and siegel (1999). 86. for example, fred everett maus has argued that mainstream music theory emphasizes (heterosexual) male discourse-what he terms "schenker and sets"­ as a way of countering the feminizing or passive role assigned to listeners q. michele edwards, in the ilwcjournal [october 1993]: 36--39, reporting on maus, "mascu­ line discourse in music theory," a paper delivered at the plenary session of "femi­ nist theory and music ii: a continuing dialogue," a conference held june 17-20, 1993, at the eastman school of music; see also a published article of the same title, maus 1993). sally macarthur has argued that some common analytical models, including schenkerian analysis, "tend to have the function of revealing music to be great (and worthy of canonization) if it conforms to a notion of the so-called ideal structure, which, in turn, is based on a male/masculine sexual stereotype" david carson berry 147 (2002:6; see also her comments on p. 71). 87. other women could be added to this list, for example (albeit more tan­ gentially), the american philosopher susanne k. langer, who refers to such schenkerian concepts as the urlinie, auskomponierung, and diminution and repeti­ tion (1953: 120-32). 88. names are taken from schenker's lesson books in the oster collection. 89. schenker's diary entry of january 28,1916, notes that deutsch bequeathed 3000 marks annually to him. according to the april 11, 1917, entry, elias provided him with 10,000 kronen, having professed that she had "unnecessary money" (uberflussiges gelrl) through an annual income of 50,000 kronen. in the diary entry of june 1, 1918, schenker acknowledged that elias had provided more funds. diary entries are taken from federhofer (1985:38). 90. see schenker's lesson books in file 3 of the oster collection. there are also references to herin schenker's diaries, some of which are quoted in federhofer (1985). 91. indeed, of schenker's own female students, only elias seems to have pub­ lished schenker-related work, and even she issued just one article (elias 1937). within the larger musical community, greta (grete) kraus is probably one of the best known of schenker's students, though as a performer, not theorist. mter the annexation of austria by germany, she settled in canada and eventually taught at the university of toronto. she became a highly regarded solo harpsichordist and chamber musician, as well as an esteemed teacher and coach of german lieder. references austin, john charles. 1974. a survey of the influence of heinrich schenker on american music theory and its pedagogy since 1940. m.m. thesis, north texas state univer­ sity. bauman, alvin. 1947. elementary musicianship. new york: prentice-hall. bauman, alvin, and charles w. walton. 1959. elementary musicianship, 2d ed. englewood cliffs, nj.: prentice-hall. baumgartner, h. leroy. 1960. review of hearing-gateway to music: a complete foun­ dation for musical understanding by adele t. katz and ruth halle rowen; el­ ementary musicianship by alvin bauman and charles walton; and music for study: a source book of examples by howard murphy and robert melcher. journal of music theory 4: 254-55. beach, david w., ed. 1983. aspects of schenkerian theory. new haven, conn.: yale university press. berry, david carson. 2003. hans weisse and the dawn of american schenkerism. journal of musicology 20: lo4-56. _____ . 2004. verborgene wiederholungen?: schenker's (hidden?) influence in america before hans weisse and the mannes vanguard. paper delivered at the annual conference of the music theory society of new york state (rochester, n.y.) _____ . forthcoming-a. early schenker reception through english-language writings prior to 1954. journal of music theory. _____ . forthcoming-b. victor vaughn lytle and the early proselytism of schenkerian ideas in the u.s. journal ofschenkerian studies. 148 current musicology cadwallader, allen, ed. 1990. trends in schenkerian &search. new york: schirmer. cadwallader, allen, and william pastille. 1999. schenker's unpublished work with the music of johannes brahms. in schenker studies 2, edited by carl schachter and hedi siegel, 26-46. new york: cambridge university press. casella, alfredo. 1924. tone-problems of to-day. translated by theodore baker. musical quarterly 10: 159-71. copland, aaron. 1939. mlhat to listenfor in music. new york: mcgraw-hill. cornell, frederic. 1976. a history of the rand school of social science-1906 to 1956. ed.d. diss., columbia university teachers college. drabkin, william. 1984-85. felix-eberhard von cube and 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but first. igor’s goriest tune could/would never have been visualized or made without my twenty–two year connection with perspectives of new music, into which, in1962, i was drafted by my dear friend ben boretz. drafted but willingly for i had been out of touch with music and music–thought for several years as a stay–at–home mom. thus then, with a mix of anxiety and eagerness, was my music–intellectual life reinvigorated. new languages and modes of writing/speaking about music were thrown before me, some of which i learned, others of which were never my thing, a bunch of which made their way into igt. ever since childhood, i’ve enjoyed drawing, comics, doodling, graphics, ‘making’ things and why not, i thought, find a way to integrate several “expressive languages,” the more so with a ‘tune’ that had been one of my earliest new music experiences. here and now though, i wish to dedicate igor’s goriest tune to the memory of my queens college buddy jane taylor (1932–2012), bassoonist and co–founder of the dorian wind quintet, whose wit is reflected in the penultimate page of igt: for j. t.’s ‘bass oon’. jane must have made hundreds of thousands of reeds for herself and her students during her long productive life and she loved and played every bassoon solo in the classical, contemporary, and broadway–pit repertory. valley village, ca september 2012 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 john cage’s string quartet in four parts (1950) elaine r. barkin in the spring of 1983 i devoted a graduate seminar in 20th century music to string quartets. we began with pierre boulez’s livre (1948) and john cage’s string quartet in four parts (1950), a startling pair. at the time i’d been writing free-flow texts about music and as i listened to cage’s work, i jotted down ideas and images, the first of which were what is now the middle of the text (first published in news of music 8, 1987). over the years i added more eventually culminating in the present text, completed shortly after john cage’s death and within which, pace jc, there’s a crooked mesostic of cage. this prose-poem was included in my in memoriam text, “the cage case: existential joker”, written for perspectives of new music, vol. 31 no. 2, summer 1993, 128-31. news of music 8 also contains a short 1983 response to roger sessions’s string quartet no. 2, 1951: i am sitting in a darkly carpeted room. occasionally a breeze ruffles drawn draperies enabling a slant of light to shimmer through. an enveloping, resinous world assembles. composing music is serious business. valley village, ca september 2012 74 john milton cage jr . (1912-1992) . string quartet in four parts (1950) a s low music at whose outset we wait for (& expect?) some(any)th ing to happen a s low music whose eventual ly percept ib le se l f referent ia l i ty re l ieves (or t r ies to re l ieve) us of the des i re for expec t ing some(any)th ing to happen a s low music in which l i t t le i s made to sound cumulat ive , each unequivocal ly ca lcu lated t ime heard in the t ime(s ) of des ignated loca l i t ies , unsurpr i s ingly unpredictable ( so wha t e l se i s new?) ( (as i f a (de)f in i te set of impr ints are await ing re i f icat ion so as to thwart impending ine luctable obsolescence) ) a s t r iptease art i s t pussyfoot ingly t reading in a v i scous sea of holes s t rung and unstrung s tuck and unstuck her /h i s t read dummyl ike connected to h is /her mouth which opens and c loses again and again unt i l s /he (and we) i s exhausted no waves , no h ighl ights , a l l unremitt ingly homogeneous , occas ional ly aberrant pal indromica l ly patterned success ions met icu lous ly and mechanica l ly composed, at whose end ( s ince there i s , indeed, a beginning and an end) we hear animated & hardworking, a lbethem fo lk i sh ly t radit ional & mundane, tunesnatches 1983 / rev.1992 75 writing about milton babbitt’s groupwise elaine r. barkin the collected essays of milton babbitt appeared in 2003 prompting me to take out and listen to milton’s music on the many lps and cds i own, a collection spanning over 35 years . much of milton’s music sounded familiar even after decades of not having been heard, some of it as impenetrable as ever, some of it fresh and needing to be returned to including around the horn (solo french horn, 1993) and groupwise (1983), both titles instances of punwise milton. to commemorate the publication of milton’s essays and the appeal of groupwise, i composed this short paragraph which now can be read in memory of milton byron babbitt (1916–2011). the collected essays of milton babbitt was published by the princeton university press, edited by stephen peles. “milton babbitt’s groupwise” first appeared in the open space magazine, 7, 2005, 149. valley village, ca september 2012 76 milton babbitt’s groupwise milton babbitt’s groupwise, whose silken footsteps — like those left by feathered aboriginal spirit men, unseen but discerned, intentions fathomed, effects experienced —, whose nubbed chiffon particles sough, especially when the volume is low, with, as chuck stein says of reflections, “splinters shining now here, now there”, not nows and thens, although plenty of allthings, since i’m often not recalling in mind nor able to resummon what’s just pa ssed and then, with great trepidation, i think, maybe it – something — doesn’t matter not to recall, not to have what’s passed within me somewhere — the signature’s always recognizable, each work of milton’s distinct from each other —, yet there’s always plenty there, not thick but “cherce” as spencer tracy said (maybe that’s what john rahn means by “flat”) —, it always is what and where it is, within me being with it or keeping up with it before it leaves the stratosphere at non-stop warp speed and vaporizes (beams up) out of hearing, sounding so self-assured (as expressed by benjamin hudson [vln], maureen gallagher [vla], fred sherry [vlc], aleck karis [pno], harvey sollberger [fls], conducted by daniel shulman, group for contemporary music all-stars), their groovy milton spinning out embrangled, connecting, disconnecting, situated, resituated, unsituated, filaments, each and every scintilla all-so profoundly necessary, and conscious, and certain. after listening to milton babbitt’s groupwise (1983), cri cd 521. november 8, 2004 see chuck stein’s “the problematics of closure” and john rahn’s “the swerve and the flow” in the open space magazine, 6, 2004, 27-33 and 234-44 resp. 77 erb’s text for bab’s o [via samuel beckett & gertrude stein] ) ( all tips engaged. not ever known when, not ever known where, mid lows, mid ways, mid highs, way high, way low, way allover ways. each weighs just so unknown then known. weighted here weighted there, each known so always there or here. soft hued rounded flesh touching ‘up-against’ hard blanc et noir bonewood. each and all not ever brief, each and all long and longing. all so well placed, just so connected, just so tight and staying. every known spread not always alone, not ever expectant. each waiting one(s) waiting for some other one or ones. each spread way there, way here, way open with opening and waiting, unknowing, eager, wanting. every low soft weight all warmth just grabs so enveloping all then knowns. yet almost always never known when, even then, even where, even there. almost all gathering knowns not always ever known. yet all almost always never quite fully unknowns. what gets done, what gets known, joins in not ever being undone or done in. all so long lingering, just so joined, just so sound. ranging free, intraforming, trajecting, intimately aperturating, constellating. ( ) written on november 21, 2004 after listening to benjamin a. boretz’s o for piano (2000), played by michael fowler on open space cd 18 and published in the open space magazine, 7, 2005, 148. 78 on the way to becoming we most of us try others on. not whole bodies. those parts whose fit might still enable pores to breathe. ultra tight fits unintentionally wanted by some constrain, intentionally put upon also constrain. the longer the wear the less the bind feels. wanting fitness at first is all. itself gets used to. until. the want to become again revives. we cast off second hands exposing our remaining rawness, selfness. ourselves becoming again consolidated. refit. until. awareness momently that superficies may become our real thing. fitness is no longer all. when unawareness of prosthetic appliance environs us we are not us. then to divest to unbecome to become. and reinvest ourselves with discards of now our own former molting. or refashion from some scratch never wholly unloosed of old fits. or invent new starts. or even as it were to unbecomingly flounder. and reimage ourselves barely unjointedly as we reimagine fitting ourselves all out. conjoining our unbound first hands. until. october 1984 “on the way to becoming” was first published in perspectives of new music, vol. 23, no.1, fall-winter 1984, p. 107, as part of four texts (on the work of pauline oliveros). a 4-track tape-collage of this text can be heard on open space cd3. percy grainger-some problems and approaches david s. josephson [ed. note: this is the fourth and last in a series of writings conceived by professor josephson as an essay in bibliography, seeking to provide the foundation for a thorough and broadly-based study of the life and music of percy grainger. the first essay, "percy grainger: country gardens and other curses," is in current musicology 15 (1973): 56-63. the second, a review of thomas carl slattery's 1967 dissertation on the wind music of grainger, is in current musicology 16 (1973): 79-91. the third, a review of margaret heeleng tan's dissertation on grainger's "free music," is in current musicology 17 (1974): 130-33.] the phenomenon of personal creative decline is found often enough in the annals of music history; in percy grainger's life it was unmistakable. we have good reason to suspect that grainger was aware of a waning of his creative impulses by mid-life, even though he seems never to have acknowledged it. his courageous and remarkable effort in the last years to achieve a mechanically produced "free music" may well have arisen from a dimly-felt but powerful urge to regenerate those impulses or, perhaps, from an attempt to avert the recognition of their decline. roger covell has stated the general problem concisely and clearly: nearly all of grainger's significant music, whether known, unknown or radically experimental, was sketched or at least conceived between his seventeenth and thirtieth years. much of his later creative activity consisted of revising and rescoring his music for more or less conventional forces and of trying to translate into practicable terms his very early apprehension of newer types of sound organization and production .... everything known about his creative career indicates that he perceived its full possibilities at an exceptionally early date.! the fact that grainger had been interested in one or another form of "free music" for almost all his life should not blind us to the dark spirits that hover somehow over his daring and imaginative experiments of the 1950s. there is something troubling, even desperate, about these last attempts. they seem to have progressed, uncharacteristically, by fits and starts. for all the toil they cost him, for all the hope they held out, these visionary experiments finally achieved virtually nothing. one cannot help but think that grainger would have abandoned them had death not intervened first. even the machines so painstakingly devised have disappeared; and we regret their loss as documents of the man rather than of his music. 55 we must ask why grainger did not fulfill the promise of his experiments and go on from there to probe what seems, on the surface at least, to have been a puzzling and disappointing career. hints of reasons appear in myriad places. a man who considered composition only "frozen inspiration" encountered difficulties when that inspiration deserted him. he found himself in one such situation in june 1904, when, in a revealing letter to his friend herman sandby, he admitted being in a curiously 'nuchtern' and uncreative period, when all that touches music-writing seems at very far removes and when i lack the sympathy and insight to understand (let alone enjoy and like) even my own stuff .... in single-voice writing our modern melodic lack comes out most baldly. we really must all try to get 'tunier'; otherwise our style will un naturalize as did the grand old church-style even in bach; and our splendid harmonic and formal strides be beaten back by a primitiver, barer, thinner, but clearer-cut stronger-lined throw-back (as was haydn and what followed) . . . . we must all (how badly i need it) buck up melodically, or at any rate look more to line than we do; there must be more heart-pulsing sweep to our partwriting. i feel the need for it quite awfully.2 this passage may throw light on grainger's embrace of folk-song collecting in the following year, his integration of its melody and spirit into his own work, and his abandonment of both the traditional compositions and radical experiments of his youth. in the meantime, his restless ear found other outlets, such as the exploration of non-western musics and the experiments in composition for percussion. grainger never abandoned folk-song; but in the early 1930s, as the fertility of its influence waned, he applied much of his energy to the mining of early european art-music and then returned to his interest in "free music." meanwhile, however, youth had passed and his strength was being exhausted by a grueling professional career as a pianist; it soon would be drained further by his ambitious project to build a museum and library in melbourne. if his was a fascinating life, it was also badly disjointed, and it never allowed a foundation to be built from which he could grow surely as a composer. his existence was an endless but distracted pursuit of old dreams and new, with scarcely a moment for the reflection and privacy that are so vital to the creative spirit. it is interesting to note that grainger's closest friends and fellow students during the formative years in frankfurt suffered a similar deterioration of the creative impulse. none of these ambitious young men, whose prospects had seemed so bright in the early years of the century, would leave a mark on the music of our time. yet in so many ways did their careers touch on and reflect grainger's that in any serious study of his life they demand more than passing mention. 56 norman o'neill (1875-1934) spent twenty-five years as musical director of the haymarket theatre in london; despite long associations with the royal philharmonic society and the royal academy of music, his compositions consisted mostly of theater music and songs. balfour gardiner (1877-1950), a sensitive, eccentric, and fascinating individual, trained at charterhouse and oxford, was a composer of beautiful miniatures. he joined grainger in the folk-song movement and for a short time collected songs for the folk-song society.3 in 1912-13 gardiner drew upon his personal fortune to subsidize concerts of new english music, in which grainger was represented, at queen's hall in london. during the war years he began to withdraw from musical society; he left london for the provinces and allowed his membership in the folk-song society to lapse. during the twenties he quit composition altogether. eton-educated roger quilter (1877-1953) was also a miniaturist, rarely straying from the composition of elegant songs, whose creative powers did not outlive the 1930s. quilter, too, joined the folk-song society with grainger. cyril scott (1879-1971), a highly cultivated if rather odd man, was perhaps grainger's most understanding and perceptive friend. he was the only member of the frankfurt group to write major works in the mainstream of european tradition; in his extended essays scott sought-as did grainger-some mode of organic development rather than classical procedures. and, like grainger, scott failed to achieve more than passing recognition in these essays; he is remembered rather for his shorter pieces. scott openly acknowledged his debt to grainger's experiments in polytonality and irregular rhythm. by the 1930s his creative powers declined (the piano works and songs, which account for most of his output, virtually ceased with the onset of the second world war), as his literary efforts and interest in the occult came to absorb his energies. one is struck by the musical and personal correspondences in the lives of these men, as well as by their melancholy collective experience.4 they spent their youth in the midst of all that was new and exciting, and then by the end of the great war found themselves on the periphery, their gentle modernisms having been absorbed and overtaken by the hardier manner of the english "nationalists" and by the astonishing continental developments in musical vocabulary and technique. sir thomas armstrong assessed them aptly as "belated pre-raphaelites," independent but fragile spirits who could not withstand the shock of the war to all europe. 5 it is not only in retrospect that they appear to have had so much in common. they recognized their communality from the beginning and, with the exception of o'neill, remained kindred spirits all their lives. grainger took unusual interest in his friends' music and spent hours examining it and offering criticism and aid. with gardiner he was especially close, and towards the end grainger paid tribute to him by working out one of gardiner's unfinished pieces, orchestrating another, and reworking a third for inclusion in a projected gardineriana rhapsody. 6 57 the size of grainger's correspondence with these men is staggering, and its tone invariably warm. this material is rich in insights into their lives, character, and music, and some day a representative selection of it must be published, with its sadnesses, hilarities, keen perceptions, misunderstandings, and reminiscences intact. read, for instance, the following extract from a touching letter to grainger written by gardiner on 21 december 1924: it looks doubtful whether i am ever going to write any music again, ever, on any terms: i am too much disheartened now by continual failure. i set out with great enthusiasm and write twenty or thirty bars: after that it is worry, first with one small point & then with others, till the whole edifice collapses under a weight of misery. i am ill for days after. the other reason is that i am hardly ever keen enough on old work to do anything more to it. my one & only chance of writing anything now seems to be a happy period of three or four hours in which i can get a section outlined, complete in itself. to this i would add others, & so in time build up a work. but as i say, i am disheartened, & hardly like to try. indeed, for some time past, i have deliberately put music aside and engaged in other pursuits, & on the whole i am happier. or perhaps i ought to say that i do not get the days & days of misery i used to get: on the other hand the exaltation of living in a world of music is something to forego than which there is nothing better on earth or in heaven: i feel as if i were an outcast from paradise. 7 such painful sentiments were absolutely beyond grainger's ken, although they should not have been so, for underneath them hid the sad recognition and acceptance of a creative deterioration that was afflicting both men. but grainger refused to understand, and he prodded gardiner over and over again to return to music. a long misunderstanding ensued, occasionally erupting into bitter exchanges. in one extraordinary letter, written on 11 june 1929, gardiner related once again how he had loved music for its own sake, how he had struggled to keep it, what horror he experienced when it began to slip from him, and how he finally had to abandon it. grainger, he wrote, was bound to music by other things: a sense of duty, theories, principles: you have spun this web for years, & for all i know, may still be spinning it. at any rate, there is no question of your disentangling it now. you talk, quite rightly, of your being engaged in a "campaign for life". i am sorry, for your campaign is not likely to succeed, & there are many grievous disappointments in store for you.8 gardiner was altogether correct, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. grainger would find suffering without ever gaining the insights that should have flowed from it. no less important than the influence of his friendships is the matter of 58 grainger's musical experiences and formal education at frankfurt. there he developed a broad repertory and superb technique as a pianist, as well as some very peculiar tastes in the music to which he was exposed. he came to worship bach, but of mozart's "jupiter" symphony, k. 551, he could write: it is too shallow, lively & dance-like to be deemed a really great work of art.9 and of beethoven: the shortcomings of beethoven's late works are too often laid at the door of his growing deafness. surely it would be more sensible to attribute them to his lack of musical culture, to his ignorance of the great musical resources of the past. io and of chamber music: after bach's time the noblest traditions of chamber music were lost for nearly two centuries, to be regained around 1900 by herman sandby, the danish composer.11 these opinions arose not from ignorance (indeed, the first two were not unique to grainger) but out of a powerful reaction against the crushing force of the central european musical tradition imposed on grainger during his childhood and especially during the frankfurt years. the classical german training scarred him; to that experience one can trace his unhappy spell with busoni in berlin in 1903 (from whom he nevertheless absorbed the ideal of transcription as re-creation) and his later distrust of academic music and his inability to conceive and successfully execute large formal musical designsan inability he masked as conscious rejection. it also sheds light on his embrace of grieg in an intense if short-lived encounter, through whom he learned the art of condensation and who stamped upon his mind the legitimacy of a natural, direct, folk-song-based style to which he had begun to turn. the frankfurt years, the london years, grainger's experience as a bandsman in the american army towards the end of the first world war: these are crucial areas which remain shrouded in darkness. so, too, is the seminal encounter with the writings of rudyard kipling. the similarities between kipling and grainger are extraordinary (keep in mind that the influence was not mutual, but flowed entirely from kipling to grainger); yet, nobody but cyril scott has made the slightest attempt to examine them. read, for instance, the following passages from t. s. eliot's brilliant essay on kipling; substitute the composer and his music for the author and his verse, and you have grainger: the starting point for kipling's verse is the motive of the balladmaker; and the modern ballad is a type of verse for the appreciation of 59 which we are not provided with the proper critical tools. we are therefore inclined to dismiss the poems, by reference to poetic criteria which do not apply. it must therefore be our task to understand the type to which they belong, before attempting to value them: we must consider what kipling was trying to do and what he was not trying to do. the task is the opposite of that with which we are ordinarily faced when attempting to defend contemporary verse. we expect to have to defend a poet against the charge of obscurity: we have to defend kipling against the charge of excessive lucidity ... we must defend kipling against the charge of writing jingles. this is exactly our problem with grainger, and suddenly we realize how inadequate our defense has been. further on, eliot writes: there is always a potential public for the ballad: but the social conditions of modern society make it difficult for the good ballad to be written. it is perhaps more difficult now than it was at the time when barrack room ballads were written: for kipling had at least the inspiration and refreshment of the living music-hall. here eliot not only corroborates our hunch about the great impact of the music hall on the young artist (read: grainger) recently arrived in london, but also illuminates the reasons for grainger's settings of the kipling ballads. finally, there is a passage which lends powerful support to grainger's insistence on scrupulous attention to either monotonously-recurring or irregular verse in his settings: the variety of form which kipling manages to devise for his ballads is remarkable: each is distinct, and perfectly fitted to the content and the mood which the poem has to convey. nor is the versification too regular: there is the monotonous beat only when the monotonous is required; and the irregularities of scansion have a wide scope.l 2 other, more subtle, matters remain to be examined. one is grainger's affinity for cultural and professional backwaters-australia, norway, the faeroe islands, and the english fen country (lincolnshire) and border marches (gloucestershire). even during his residence in new york he chose to live outside the city, in white plains. his career as a pianist was not centered in the great cities but spread through the american hinterlands. most of his compositions he would tryout, rehearse, and perform with amateur rather than professional groups. another area of interest is the complex of personal, social, and cultural influences which molded him-despite his fascination with humbler societies and democratic ideals-into the cast of an upper-class englishman, even while at the same time he retained a certain detachment from that society. 60 (here, too, the shadow of that other colonial, kipling, looms large.) although grainger grew up in australia, his mother kept a home which reflected proper english values and which was a transplanted bit of the old country. grainger did develop a consciousness of being australian, despite his having left that land when he was twelve. while he could never return there permanently, neither could he shake off its attraction, and in later years he became quite tied to it. covell indeed claims grainger for australia and presents his argument persuasively. but grainger was not so unequivocal. he wrote the following statement, for example, in 1926: there is no nordic folk whose outlook i less share, no national hopes & aims that i could less easily make myself at one with than with those of the australians .... i was a true & passionate australian, or at least a would-be australian, in my young manhood, in the days when i was still a spirit-filled [inspired] tone wright [composer], & works like bush music, marching song of democracy & many others were awaredly [ consciously] lit by a flame of being-filling australianism. what, it would seem, cut me adrift ... for ever [sic] was the going to scandinavia-the finding there of the things i have liked best in australian pioneeringness, in icelandic pride and truth-zeal, in german art-worship ... & in the farmer art, family sagas, steadly [local] folkspeeches [dialects] & self-that seem to me to be steering towards an uplift of mankind, a solving of human problems,13 finally, in order to arrive at a reasonably enlightened understanding of grainger, there are two periods of his life which demand close attention. one covers his childhood, his education at the hands of his mother, and his relationship to his parents. his father was a private and sensitive man, generous to his estranged wife, a great lover of music, and a superb draftsman. john grainger fought a severe drinking problem, maintained an undoubting and unbroken love for a child who was clearly the mother's boy, and took full responsibility for the breakdown of his marriage. yet only in his forties did percy come to understand and identify with his father. "i seem closer to his fate & person," he wrote in the first of his autobiographical sketches in 1923, in a painful effort to sort out his past.14 still, his beloved mother-who emerges from these writings as an attractive but cold, jealous, shrewd woman of enormous strength masked in a frail body-always exercised an incomparably greater hold on the composer. his art, he wrote, craved "to voice what she was." morning song in the jungle "is like her sun kissed hair & open hearted pure eyes," marching song oj democracy "like her brave energetic mankind-loving nature," as opposed to his own timidity and gloominess. irish tune from county derry was "typically aldridge, & shows not the taint of grainger that is upon me as a man," while shepherd's hey expressed "her skittish, somewhat teasing gaiety" rather than his "rougher and more sinister" humor. it is interesting to note that the works that he thought expressed himself (and therefore did not dedicate to her) were the 61 hill songs, which express "the unabridged wildness & non-humanness of nature," the warriors, "in which the type of excitement is mainly sinister & sadistic," and perhaps, he added, father and daughter as well,15 the second period wanting examination is the crucial decade following his mother's death in 1922. at its beginning, grainger was a young composer moving in new directions, still growing and unpredictable (two of his most ambitious works, the warriors and a revised edition of the first hill song, were soon to be published by universal in vienna), with the boundaries of his creative mind still undefined. at its end, his creative powers had waned decisively, his early accomplishments had been forgotten, and his youthful, romantic, quixotic life style had given way to one which was rather more stable. now he began to settle back, collect, and save. the energy consumed from the late 1930s on by the construction and stocking of his museum in melbourne was symptomatic of an energy turned in upon itself. not that grainger stopped producing: lincolnshire posy and the power of rome and the christian heart were still to be completed and published, and during the final years he worked to transform his fascinating ideals of "free music" into sound. but the former two works, while major achievements, had their genesis in earlier efforts, and the latter was not so much a creative task as a series of technical experiments whose philosophic foundations are more interesting than their musical results. * * * * * * perhaps the least explored area of grainger's music is the group of largescale compositions that he himself thought would come to be recognized as the centerpiece of his oeuvre. ifwe eliminate the suites, we are left with only a handful of works, notably the two versions of hill song, the warriors, and the power of rome and the christian heart. the second hill song has achieved a certain place in the wind repertory; the others remain curiosities. none, to my mind, is a success. yet each piece contains some very interesting music, each cost the composer a good deal of time and effort, and each became a matter of considerable concern to him. it behooves us to inquire into the genesis and development of these major compositions, and in the process we can learn something of the workings of grainger's musical mind. particularly interesting is the power of rome, the autograph sketches (in original or photocopy) of which are in the new york public library, the library of congress, and grainger's home in white plains. having conceived the power of rome for organ and orchestra, grainger began by working with a group of independently composed melodic gestures, sharply etched and differentiated through rhythm, harmony, and interval. by repetition and elaboration each gesture generated a phrase which the composer labeled with an identifying capital letter. the phrases were then developed and expanded into sections which were fitted together in buildingblock fashion. the following reconstruction is based on the three american sources mentioned above. 16 62 the first building block was a rising melody for muted brass instruments, composed "summer or fall, 1918," which grainger called "the power of rome" and labeled e (mm. 30-35 17). a connective fragment consisting ofa example 1 e repeated measure in five variant forms, labeled d1 to d5, was sketched on 10 september of the same year; it was eventually discarded. the opening subject, labeled a (transposed up a tone in the final version, mm. 14-23), was completed by january 1919, as was "the lonely man" subject, labeled b, and its close variant phrase c (mm. 24-29). a four-measure figure capable of example 2: a . i -t--=r: --r... 7' 7t i 1':-4i ""'" hbt-ill i -<::::: m -=::: f m <:"1; _____ -==m? r b -==:!:::======±= f-======!ttp expansion, labeled f (mm. 36-42), was composed in early december. 63 example 3: f <> ===::::::='=='"p with this grainger came to the end of what we may call the exposition of his piece. scattered notes such as "[e] can follow c & be followed by f" betray the block structure with which the exposition was built. if the fair copy in the new york public library is an accurate reflection of the original compositional process (which it seems to be),18 grainger's imagination caught fire, and he composed without interruption an authentic development of some seventy measures (mm. 36-108) around fand a fanfare figure. the sketch ends with a notation that a is to follow. by now he had worked out some of the orchestration of these sections, and on 20 december he tried them out (perhaps with his army band) on governor's island in new york. the next sketches-like the first group, in piano score-date from august 1921 : three related fragments, to be followed by c. grainger eventually chose the second of them as the introduction to the entire composition, expanded the fragment, and followed it not with c but with the first subject, a (ex. 4). example 4 , -jli.t. ,i! , 11 i \ i .... j ....... -;:;---j1't lj_; i , .. : in october 1923 grainger worked out a closing section ("near end of work") in rough form, noting possible instrumentations and extensions of the material.19 the next surviving group of sketches, dating from august 1937, is a complete set of wind parts for the "slow bit" (mm. 129-49) written out at interlochen, michigan, apparently for rehearsal there. the existence of these parts offers positive proof that by this date grainger's habitual tinkering with arrangement and transcription had overcome his original instrumental conception of the piece; it was now being considered equally for orchestra or for band, both with organ obbligato. in february and march 1939, while 64 returning from a concert tour of the midwest, he composed an orchestral sketch of the "slow bit" in short score, and two months later he scored it for strings alone. in two later scores, written out in january 1942 and identical except for their key (one is in c, the other in ad), grainger entitled this passage a "dreamery" and noted its function in pure "graingerese" as a "slow 'tween-play." it was, he added, "my best writing for strings."2o example 5 "dreamery" . -,..., """'.. j ,i* iffbv-j:t [ p:--====:: ; , i r [ r fromjanuary 1942 comes also an orchestral score of the "tail-piece" in ad (mm. 166-87), copied from a set of parts "tried out at ernest williams music camp, saugerties, n.y., summer, 1940." this haunting set-piece for wind obbligato was to be followed by an "organ solo, much like the very beginning of the piece-maybe melting out into 'the power of love' ending: v(!]j:" 3 two months later, while on tour in the west, he copied out some parts 21 for sections a, b, and c. in the autumn of 1942 he sketched and in january 1943 wrote out another full score and a set of parts for the "tail-piece," this time a tone higher, in bd' the final version would be in the key ofg: example 6 "tail-piece" at this point the sketches end. all that was left to complete the composition was the marvelous merging of a and the fanfare (mm. 109-20) and the strangely woolly passage (mm. 121-28) which ends the development; the recapitulation of subjects e and b which separates the "slow bit" from the "tail-piece" (mm. 150-65); and the working out (as planned) of "the power of love" ending (mm. 188-210). with these additions and a re65 arrangement of the key scheme of the entire work-now scored for organ and wind band, with the string parts merely optional-grainger came to the end of his labors in 1948. one wonders about the descriptive titles that dot the earliest sketches and occasionally find their way into the final version. is there an influence of the 19th-century symphonic poem at work in this piece? grainger, after all, had written a long "appreciation" of strauss only a couple of years before starting the work; and he described it in the published score as the unfoldment of musical feelings started by thoughts of the agony of individual souls in conflict with the-powers-that-be-as when the early christians found themselves at strife with the power of ancient rome. the power oj rome and the christian heart owes a direct debt, hitherto unnoticed, to wagner in certain details. in the earliest extant sketch of the "tail-piece" (1923), grainger plays with a counterpoint figure: will it be, he asks, for violas and cellos, or perhaps instead for half of all the strings, as in wotan's "abschied"? 22 the farewell was strongly etched in his imagination: the scoring of the "tail-piece," with its migrating melodic fragment, seems directly inspired by similar passages in the farewell,23 as do the principal melody of the "tail-piece" and the chromatic passage that immediately follows it.24 the building-block organization, however, is the most revealing facet of the work. it recalls the construction of the experimental random round (1912-14), where this method and its attendant labeling define the context and limits within which the suggested improvisation can proceed. in the power oj rome, however, the blocks serve not the performers' needs but the composer's. having rejected such classical procedures as sonata (and this piece is not a sonata, despite certain superficial similarities) or variation technique in his original instrumental works, yet determined to write a large-scale composition for instruments alone, grainger was unable to sustain his effort without recourse to a step-by-step mode of writing. perhaps "rejected" is the wrong word. grainger had once before, in march 1911, tried to write a set of variations on handel's "harmonious blacksmith." by the beginning of the third variation, either unable or unwilling to go on, he gave up the effort, and he later turned the work into the charming but undemanding handel in the strand. 25 clearly, grainger had his troubles with musical growth and form, as did his closest colleagues. yet his music is rarely uninteresting. the power oj rome is a strong and noble work. its failure is one of technique, not of vision; and while its musical language is visibly dated, it bears undiminishedly the stamp of a wonderfully imaginative, persuasive, and individualistic spirit-a spirit we have barely begun to probe. 66 [author's note: the following entry should be added to classification b in the bibliography of the slattery review of this series, in current musicology 16 (1973): 89-90: grainger, percy. "modernism in pianoforte study." great pianists on piano playing. edited by james francis cooke. philadelphia: theodore presser co., 1913.] notes 1 australia's music, p. 90. see the author's article in current musicology 15 (1973): 62-63. 2 library of congress, grainger collection. 3 several songs noted by him in november 1906 and may 1907 are found in the third volume of the journal of the folk-song society, cited in the author's article in current musicology 15 (1973): 59. 4 one other student in frankfurt must be mentioned: herman sandby (1881-1965), a danish composer and cellist, who remained apart from the british contingent yet would share their musical fate. grainger alone befriended him. their warm and fruitful relationship, about which we know all too little, lasted until grainger's death. 5 "the frankfort group," proceedings of the royal musical association 85 (1958-59): 1-16. 6 new york public library, music division, "new york and white plains compo. sketch-book nr. 1." 7 library of congress, grainger collection. s ibid. 9 library of congress, grainger collection, the aldridge-grainger-strom saga, p. 23. 10 music, a commonsense view of all types ([melbourne]: australian broadcasting commission, 1934), p. 23. 11 ibid., p. 6. 12 "rudyard kipling," a choice of kipling's verse made by t. s. eliot (london: faber and faber, 1941), pp. 8, 12, and 13. 13 library of congress, grainger collection, sketches for the life of my mother & her son, p. 68 (30 november-l december 1926). 14 ibid., p. 29. the context of the passage suggests that grainger thought that his father had died some years earlier. indeed, in photos of rose grainger, which percy printed and circulated privately around the end of 1923 (see current musicology 16 [1973]: 81, 83), he claimed that john had died in 1917 (p. 5). but there exist in the grainger collection at the library of congress letters from john to percy, dated 7 august 1923 and 2 february 1924! the former letter was in response to one from percy, in which he told his father of rose grainger's death and of the book of her photographs that he was preparing. john answered: "the book you are preparing will be deeply interesting & i will appreciate it." it is therefore shocking and bizarre that grainger printed, only a few months later, the statement of his father's death in 1917. 15 ibid., p. 4. aldridge was his mother's maiden name. 16 since these manuscripts do not account for all of the music, and since in general the sketches are fair copies of the originals now apparently lost, this reconstruction must be considered only tentative. 17 these measure numbers, along with the musical examples, are derived from the published score (new york: mills music, 1953). 18 it was inscribed some time after january 1933. the presence of various jottings and sketches of music written fifteen years earlier (some of it rejected in the meantime) is inexplicable, unless we assume that grainger was making an exact copy of an earlier working manuscript. at this point in the copy, by the way, the power of rome sketches are interrupted by a briefsketch, dated i january 1933, for the "slow movement" of the warriors. 67 19 this sketch remains in a copy made in australia in december 1926. 20 grainger seems to have been particularly fond of this "dreamery." in anticipation of the first performance of his youthful suite in april 1943, he found himself unable to complete the slow movement ("norse dirge") of that suite. instead, he rescored the "dreamery" for full orchestra and inserted it in place of the slow movement. for the "dreamery" was "one of the strongest of all my heart-throbby pieces." (from a "round-robin" letter of 18 january 1943, in the grainger collection of the library of congress.) 21 alto and bass clarinet, three cornets, and tuba. 22 die walkiire, eulenberg edition, p. 1007 if. 23 ibid., pp. 977-84, 1007-10. 24 ibid., pp. 980 and 1005-06, respectively. 25 new york public library, grainger collection. see the author's review iii current musicology 16 (1973): 84. 68 monod, david. 2005. settling scores: german music, denazification, and the americans, 1945-1953. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. reviewed by david tompkins when thinking about america's role in the cultural life of postwar germany, the uncouth and philistine character of major steve arnold from ronald harwood's play taking sides immediately comes to mind. recalling either ed harris in the 1996 broadway production or harvey keitel in the 2001 film version, this supposedly typical american officer embodies crude insensitivity as he hectors and insults the great german conductor wilhelm furtwangler. the historiography of the period also frequently faults the occupier for widespread policy failures, incompetence, cultural clumsiness, and even the hindering of a nascent democratic awakening in germany after hitler. david monod's engaging and thorough monograph offers a largely convincing if at times overstated rebuttal to such negative assessments of the american role in the musical realm of postwar germany. through his focus on ciassical music, he argues that american influence helped to lay the foundations for a new and democratic cultural life. perhaps most controversially, monod claims that the modest cultural regeneration of the early postwar years was possible because of the "revolutionary and transfor­ mative" power of denazification, the policy to remove nazi influences from public life (9). while he agrees with most scholars that denazification was implemented poorly and ended too quickly, he nonetheless maintains that american influence was positive in limited but essential ways, through the actions of individual cultural officers as well as in the structural reform of arts administration. although many individual initiatives failed, he maintains that the denazification policies-both those designed to remove nazis from public life as well as those intended to punish and rehabilitate individual nazis and sympathizers-indeed implemented core democratic values and that, as a result, german musical life changed for the better. monod pursues a thematic and chronological approach to the postwar decade, first examining the key phase of us control in 1945-46, when the american authorities purged cultural institutions and blacklisted those art­ ists closely linked to the nazi regime, replacing them with others who were expected to create the new musical milieu. he then looks at the relaxing of this influence over the next several years, as denazification was turned over to the germans, who permitted traditional-and tainted-elites to return current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 163 164 current musicology to prominence. a final section deals with the gradual abandonment of denazification in favor of a focus on anticommunism, as american personnel were ordered to advise rather than control the musical world so as to win the loyalty of both german musicians and the population in the context of the intensifying cold war. these developments, combined with the crunch of the 1948 currency reform that drove up the prices for concert tickets and consequently increased audience demand for familiar music, caused a conservative restoration in the musical realm. in the first section of his book, monod examines why americans chose to attempt a reorientation of germany's "high" culture rather than its popular culture, where the united states clearly would have had an advantage. american officials felt they had to change the views of the elites, who were convinced of the superiority of german kultur, a conviction many viewed as one of the roots of nazism. thus american officials sought to punish classical musicians for their actions under the nazis, while at the same time lay the foundations of a fresh, democratic musical life. as the military government confronted the thorny question of how to disentangle nazism from the classical musical world, three general positions developed among the american occupying authorities. many leading officials, including the commander of the military administration, general lucius clay, simply felt that culture was too unimportant to bother with compared to feeding a hungry population and dealing with the aftermath of war. unsurprisingly, these officials make scant appearance in the book, except where their in­ difference stymied initiatives or blocked resources. the second group, the hardliners or "revolutionaries;' as monod terms them, were represented by the officers of the intelligence section of the information control division (icd), led by general robert mcclure. these men wanted to eradicate all traces of nazism by severely punishing the germans through purges and blacklists of those compromised during the third reich. they intended to cleanse society of tainted individuals through a comprehensive, unequivocal denazification policy. the officers of the music branch of the icd advo­ cated a third, more moderate approach as they encouraged reform with a lighter hand and sought to influence the germans by positive and subtle means. they intended to determine guilt on a case-by-case basis, clearing individuals for minor infractions or punishing them if necessary, rather than denazifying all of society by banning entire groups of people because they had connections to nazism. the music officers often found themselves in conflict with mcclure and the "revolutionaries;' in turn creating confusion among the german musicians who were targets of american policy. monod examines a number of contexts where the american adminis­ tration had a hand in german musical life. these include the appointment david tompkins of key individuals to important musical positions, the limiting of state authority so as to preserve autonomy and protect artistic freedom, and the expansion of the concert repertoire to include american and modern music. one of the most direct ways of effecting change was to remove those conductors, performers, and music administrators whom the americans felt had been compromised by their relationship with nazism. such a policy was fraught on many levels, as individuals sought to obscure their pasts and the americans faced difficulty finding untainted replacements. the intelligence section often clashed with the more moderate music officers, as in the fairly typical case of the conductor hans knappertsbusch, who was cleared to conduct by the music branch officers but then blacklisted by the intelligence section; cases like these undermined american authority. in 1946-47, as germans assumed increasing responsibility for their own affairs, including denazification, they pushed out many of the recent american appointees and reappointed their pre-1945 predecessors. the more lenient policies of the french, british, and soviets, which allowed many dubious individuals to keep or attain important positions in the musical world, further complicated denazification. the soviet authorities in particular wanted to reactivate musical life quickly to satisfy the population and curry favor, even as their longer-term goals were to dominate cultural organizations. as a result, the americans found themselves forced to compromise their more restrictive objectives. american officials also sought to influence the relationship between musical institutions and local or state governments. after the strict control of the arts under the nazis, the us wanted to decentralize power and limit state interference. to that end, american officials reduced the responsibilities of individuals in the most powerful positions and, more importantly, set up various committees that would provide a system of checks and balances. monod argues that these reforms were largely successful, although in bavaria officials were able to block some of these initiatives. he cites this process as one of the major accomplishments of the american administration, as­ serting that these seemingly minor changes had significant and far-reaching effects as the state's influence was indeed reduced and institutions operated more independently. even during the belt-tightening following the currency reform, when state officials tried to cut costs by limiting the repertoire to more popular works, monod argues that the american principles of checks and balances mitigated these incursions and preserved a measure of artistic freedom. he writes that the germans appreciated many of these reforms (127), though he provides little evidence for this, instead offering many examples of german resistance that weaken his argument. furthermore, his overarching and strong claim for the far-reaching effectiveness of american 165 166 current musicology policy is hard to fully accept given the considerable meddling by local gov­ ernments and the return of blacklisted individuals to important posts. here as elsewhere, monod's broad claims about the positive effects of american influence are undermined as much by sparse and somewhat vague examples as by strong evidence of german ability to stymie american policy. another key american initiative encouraged the expansion of the repertoire to include more non-german, and especially american and modern compositions. (interestingly, the americans also encouraged the performance of works by the soviet composers shostakovich and prokofiev, though monod fails to remark on this rather curious fact.) the americans theorized that exposure to other great works would help to combat german nationalist arrogance. such efforts proved particularly difficult, as german musicians generally showed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for performing this music, and audiences as well were not especially interested. monod concludes that, despite some successes, this aspect of american policy largely failed, as more conventional modern works by composers such as britten and copland alienated conservative listeners but bored those who wanted more cutting-edge programming. the denazification of wilhelm furtwangler, the conductor of the berlin philharmonic, became a key symbolic moment in the transition from direct control in 1945-46 to a more advisory role for the americans. monod uses this well-known case to illuminate a number of issues and conflicts in the transitional year of 1946. like most scholars, monod considers furtwangler to have been deeply compromised through his cooperation with the nazi regime, and hence furtwangler stood as an important test -case for denazification. the hardliners around mcclure prevented the conductor's denazification in early 1946, as they saw him as the preeminent symbol of german music. since he had worked so closely with the nazis, the hardliners wanted to both punish him individually as well as demonstrate to the popula­ tion that nazi sympathizers would not be tolerated in post-fascist germany. this position garnered significant dissatisfaction from many germans, who saw in furtwangler the representation of an untainted tradition of musical excellence; germans generally considered his compromises with the regime minor and harmless, while the american hardliners viewed him as a clear example of the many leading musical figures who had supported hitler. both the british and especially the soviets were eager to clear his name, which made the americans look particularly intolerant. the difficulties and negative publicity in this case were likely a catalyst for general clay to gradually turn over responsibility for denazification to the germans in early 1946, a moment that coincided with american efforts to create an independent and democratic political system in their zone. mcclure and david tompkins the intelligence section continued to try to block the denazification of furtwangler and many others, but the tide had turned as the americans relinquished control throughout 1946 and german tribunals cleared most musicians of significant guilt. in late 1946, the conductor's denazification hearing revealed troubling information about his complicity with the nazis, but after much confusion and anguished wrangling, he was cleared in april 1947. in the winter of 1946-47, german authorities overturned dozens of blacklist cases, including those of the pianist walter gieseking and conductor karl b6hm, symbolizing the definitive end of the revolutionary phase of denazification. german authorities abandoned the blacklist itself in 1947, and musicians returned en masse to their former positions in institutions around the country, sometimes replacing individuals appointed by the americans. the germans took full control of musical life beginning in 1947 and used their control to whitewash the nazi past, as the primary task of american music officers became the promotion of american culture inside germany. in his final section, monod examines these more subtle attempts to influence german musical life by recruiting american performers, some­ thing that various bureaucratic obstacles had prevented before 1948. a new generation of music officers, filled with drive and imagination, had arrived in 1947-48, and they saw themselves as promoters of american culture and transatlantic understanding in the context of the struggle against communism. here as elsewhere, numerous problems, especially in securing funding, plagued these efforts. this generation of officers also showcased american artists of dubious quality, who neither attracted nor impressed german audiences. nonetheless, monod does credit the music branch with some limited achievements, including german audiences' appreciation of some american performers and the reorientation of german musical life. concerts at the amerika hauser were a modest success, as were some of the musical aspects of the berlin festivals of the early 1950s, but overall the americans did not convince germans of the enduring value of american musical culture. monod specifically tests the effectiveness of music as a tool for reor­ ienting german perceptions by looking at two key musical events. george gershwin's porgy and bess was a sensation at the berlin festival in 1952; de­ spite its controversial story line, american officials felt it had shown germans a positive cultural artifact from the united states. monod, however, claims german audiences largely perceived porgy and bess as an unsophisticated work that nonetheless demonstrated praiseworthy energy, including sexual energy. at the same time, these very qualities reinforced anti-american sentiments and perceptions of german musical superiority. a rare success 167 168 current musicology proved to be a visit by the young american conductor leonard bernstein in 1948. he brought a fresh method of conducting, leading the performance in a seemingly improvisational manner. monod argues germans subsumed him into their pre-existing views of america as energetic but unrefined, and asserts that bernstein helped to drive a wedge into german notions of music by introducing concepts of novelty and flair. audiences were overwhelmed by the dynamic young american composer, so different from his rehearsed and formal german peer, herbert von karajan. monod attributes some positive effect to porgy and especially to the bernstein visit, as they introduced positive aspects of american cultural difference and portrayed the united states as an artistically energetic place. more discussion of the reception of these events, particularly the visit by bernstein, would have strengthened monod's arguments here, but his conclusions are broadly convincing. overall, monod paints a complicated picture of mixed success and failure. confusing policy statements, the lack of a clear sense of ultimate goals, conflicting lines of authority, clashing bureaucracies, poor organiza­ tion, insufficient staff, and inadequate funding all hindered the americans' efforts. after nearly a decade, germans still believed in their own cultural superiority in the realm of music. the americans failed to demonstrate the value of their own musical culture or even to convey that germany and the united states shared similar cultures. musical elites continued to harbor anti-american attitudes, despite some exceptions. ultimately, monod maintains, the americans' greatest service was to emphasize the "new;' which caused german musicians to realign themselves and reject or hide their nazi pasts, thus providing a fresh start for german culture and making the new musical life seem to break with the nazi era. but there is a dark side to this as well, and monod's monograph ends on a disturbingly somber, and altogether too-brief note. hefaults the americans for allowing german musicians to cover up their tainted activities pre-1945, which he calls "not a psychologically healthy development" (263), and one that troubles both him and other music lovers. the implications of such a statement should have been explored more fully. i wonder ifhe would agree with the thesis of tony judt's recent book, postwar: a history of europe since 1945 (2005), in which judt argues that an initial process of obscuring and forgetting was necessary for stability and growth, but that an acknowledg­ ment of and confrontation with the nazi era decades later was essential to overcome the tainted past and fully realize democratic, european ideals. although outside the bounds of his study, it would be interesting to know if monod tracks developments in the musical world along judt's trajectory for german and european society more broadly. monod interviewed a number of the real-life counterparts to the major arnold of taking sides, and these oral histories help to bring his story to david tompkins life. at times, however, his obvious and understandable esteem for these individuals seems to lead him to larger assertions about their influence than are warranted. surely, as he writes, many were respected and served as positive models for individual germans. that the essential goodness of a few men had the impact monod claims is not borne out fully by his evidence, however. a brief mention of american officials' abuse of power also calls for greater analysis: monod hints at numerous infractions like arrogating the right to conduct an orchestra or demanding music lessons, and it is unclear that such actions were really so inconsequential. monod's book is filled with excellent illustrative anecdotes, which often frame the chapter or section to follow. although he treads ground explored by other scholars, he enhances our understanding of well-known cases like that of furtwangler. his consideration of the american occupation zone in austria is instructive; as nazism's supposed first victims, the austrians denazified themselves quickly and with minimal american interference. monod has admirably mastered the complicated bureaucratic structure of the american military government, though a chart or appendix of the various entities and individuals staffing them would have helped the reader. in sum, settling scores is a thorough and valuable work that complicates the existing picture of the early years of american influence on the musical world of postwar germany. references judt, tony. 2005. postwar: a history of europe after 1945. new york: penguin press. 169 current.musicology.81.109-169.pdf amy c. beal. 2006. new music, new allies: american experimental music in west germany from the zero hour to reunification. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by laura silverberg to judge from the recent surge in publications on music of the cold war, musicologists in increasing numbers are casting off the prejudices, anxieties, and animosities that for decades blinkered scholarship on postwar music.! cold war divisions between the communist east and democratic west had once fostered the presumption that music intersected with politics principally in those lands in which music fell under state control, whereas western modernism was "abstract" in the fullest sense and ideologically neutral. consequently, issues of music and politics mainly inhabited ghetto chapters in histories of twentieth-century music, walled off from discussions of new compositional techniques.2 scholars seldom sought connections between musical decisions and ideological positions among composers of postwar music.3 but if more recent scholarship is any indication, the dubi­ ous division between "political" music of the eastern bloc and "apolitical" modernism of the west is losing its historiographical force. this more recent body of literature compellingly demonstrates that any inquiry into music of the cold war ought to consider the various ways in which music, aesthetics, and politics interact. scholars are devoting ever more attention to matters of patronage, performance, and reception of new music, and they are grappling with the ideological associations of serialism, neoclassicism, indeterminacy, and experimentalism. this new literature not only examines institutions that influenced musical development (such as music festivals in the west or composers' unions in the east), but also the proclivities of the individuals who directed them. and even though most recent publications focus on a single country, they nonetheless reveal the transnational nature of cold war music by illustrating musical border-crossings ranging from predictable to thought-provoking.4 in the same spirit, amy c. beal's new music, new allies: american experimental music in west germany from the zero hour to reunification of­ fers a detailed account of west german patronage of american experimental music. drawing from a wealth of archival documents, newspaper reviews, and interviews she conducted between 1997 and 2002, beal describes the network of individuals and institutions that supported american experi­ mentalists during the cold war. according to beal, a complex of political, current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 101 102 current musicology economic, and social conditions, combined with individual efforts to promote experimentalism, made west germany "a context of prolific exile for american experimental music" (2). frequently, american composers enjoyed more professional exposure and financial support in west germany than they did in their home country. as i will describe in the first part of this review, beal's study provides ample evidence that american experimentalists did indeed find numerous professional opportunities in west germany. but the detailed documentation of individual biographies, performances, commissions, and broadcasts leaves little room to consider why american experimentalism was so successful in west germany. compared to other recent studies on music during the cold war, this book does little to ad­ dress the relationship between modern music, patronage, and cold war politics. in the second part of this review, i will consider the consequences of divorcing specific musical events from the political and social currents of the cold war. despite the pervasive presence of american troops and american popular culture in west germany, the success of american experimental music there was by no means a foregone conclusion. as beal observes, west german reviews of american music conveyed both condescension and enthusiastic exoticization. both sentiments reflected broader german notions of american culture as wild, innocent, free of european influence, and lacking an established tradition. detractors of american music thus described it at best as historically naive, unsophisticated, and lacking in quality, at worst as a rejection of europe's most venerated traditions and an attack upon the werkbegrijfitself. meanwhile, proponents of american music regarded america's relative youth and distance from europe as a source of new musical possibilities and a welcome antidote to european stagnation. as beal notes in the introduction, these attitudes have similarly colored german historiography of postwar music: ... comparisons of european and american music by german music historians and theorists can be expected to exhibit two basic ideas: (1) the european avant-gardist, even when opposing it, functions within a modernist paradigm framed by a highly authoritative tradition based on works of art created by single authors; and (2) the american avant-gardist functions in an egalitarian, heterogeneous society (within a vast, "open" landscape) where individuals create their own artistic frameworks, and american society depends on and values such individuality. "( 6) in part because experimental music best affirmed positive stereotypes of music in postwar america, west german writings on american music have privileged experimentalism over serialism and neoclassicism. acknowledging that the term can be difficult to define, beal describes experimental music laura silverberg in terms of technique, aesthetics, and patronage. "network-driven" rather than "institutionally-bound;' experimentalists relied on a web oflike-minded composers, performers, and patrons rather than the university for support. seeking alternatives to serialism and neoclassicism, they "investigated new sound sources, novel formal structures, and idiosyncratic performance practices while developing their own means of publicity, performance, and distribution" (3). this broad definition encompasses composers as diverse as john cage, henry cowell, christian wolff, pauline oliveros, morton feldman, charles ives, and conlon nancarrow. by contrast, composers such as milton babbitt, elliott carter, and aaron copland received com­ paratively little attention in the german musicological literature. because they embraced serialism or neoclassicism and sought support through more traditional institutions, they failed to fit german conceptions of american music as distanced from and unburdened by european tradition.5 yet during the immediate postwar years, the performance of art music in germany-classical or modern, american or german-required not just enthusiasm and initiative, but also the reconstruction of a cul­ tural infrastructure devastated during the second world war. the book's chronological account begins with a survey of american programs aimed at rebuilding german musical life during the occupation. officials with the state department and the united states office of military government in germany (omgus) viewed cultural renewal as integral to germany's political and economic rebirth, and maintained that culture could reaffirm germany's national unity during a time in which its political and economic divisions grew increasingly pronounced. to quote a directive from the joint chiefs of staff to general lucius clay, deputy governor of germany during the allied occupation: the reeducation of the german people is an integral part of policies intended to help develop a democratic form of government and to restore a stable and peaceful economy; it believes that there should be no forc­ ible break in the cultural unity of germany, but recognizes the spiritual value of the regional traditions of germany and wishes to foster them; it is convinced that the manner and purposes of the reconstruction of the national german culture have a vital significance for the future of germany. (19) musical policies in american-occupied germany therefore aimed at both reeducation-the replacement of nazi values with democratic ones-and rebuilding institutions that supported musical composition and perfor­ mance. to counter german stereotypes of america as a land without culture, omgus initiatives promoted music both by americans and by europeans who immigrated to the united states and thrived under american condi103 104 current musicology tions. america houses, which omgus established to educate germans about american culture, contained scores and recordings of american music and sponsored concerts and lectures. most important, the american military government funded and supervised west german radio stations and music festivals. when placed in german hands by the early 1950s, these two interrelated institutions played a central role in promoting american experimental music in west germany. although this first chapter situates musical events within the political context of the immediate postwar years, it does not adequately describe the extent of exchange, competition, and animosity between occupying allied forces within berlin and throughout germany. for example, it fails to clarify that american troops did not take control of their sector of berlin until july 1945, and that the soviets oversaw the crucial initial weeks of musical reconstruction in all of berlin. it was only with soviet approval that the earliest symphonic concerts took place in berlin in may 1945. while keeping tight reins on an elaborate musical infrastructure of their own creation, occupying soviet officers generously funded musical institutions and willingly overlooked the nazi past of talented musicians who had been blacklisted in the other allied sectors.6 moreover, american funds spent on rebuilding musical life were not simply aimed at reeducation. rather, the state department offered generous financial and logistical support for german cultural programs in an attempt to outdo the soviets. by providing an alternative to the nazism of the past and the encroaching communism of the present, american music could serve as a potent symbol of freedom and democracy. in short, interactions between the allied powers, as well as discrepancies in their music policies, affected the performance of american music, experimental or not. the next three chapters, which cover the years from 1950 through 1961, chronicle the emerging support for american experimental music in west germany, particularly in the cities of cologne and darmstadt. the music of john cage dominated european conceptions of american music during this period, and beal accordingly emphasizes cage and the performers, patrons, and composers who championed him. detailed descriptions of american pianist david tudor's activities in darmstadt, donaueschingen, and cologne persuasively establish tudor's instrumental role in convincing german audiences of the value of experimental works by cage and others. in cologne, composer herbert eimert presented the first german radio feature on cage for his musikalisches nachtprogramm in 1952; a young karlheinz stockhausen, who, like eimert, worked for the westdeutsche rundfunk, ardently promoted cage and tudor. (tudor returned the favor by performing stockhausen's music in west germany and the united laura silverberg states.) mary bauermeister (-stockhausen) hosted performances of music by cage, brown, feldman, terry riley, and others in her cologne studio, as well as what she called a "counter-festival" to the international society for contemporary music festival in 1960. the german conception of an american experimental tradition crystal­ lized at the internationale ferienkurse fur neue musik in darmstadt (ifnm), which, under the direction of wolfgang steinecke, offered a forum for the performance and study of american experimental music. there, lectures by wolfgang rebner (1954) and stefan wolpe (1956) emphasized a common heritage of experimental composers from varese, cowell, and ives to cage, brown, feldman, and wolff. 7 regarding the latter four composers, beal writes, "wolpe emphasized these composers' use of silence, indeterminacy, and chance, and his musical examples demonstrated how the 'official style' in america, as he put it, was slowly becoming 'radicalized'" (81). by the late 1950s, she concludes, "those american composers closest to the radical sound world introduced in darmstadt during the fifties continued to enjoy both historical and practical pride of place within german new music circles" (103-4). despite enthusiastic support for american experimental music by the directors of various music festivals and radio stations, not everyone was convinced of the value or significance of cage's sound experiments. covering the period from 1962-74, the next two chapters show that west german opinions of american experimental music were highly polarized. nowhere was this division more painfully apparent than at darmstadt after the unexpected death of steinecke in december 1961. during what beal describes as "darmstadt's darkest decade" (135), steinecke's successor ernst thomas banished from the ifnm the music of cage and others associated with him. maintaining that cage's music threatened european musical tradition, thomas invited only those american composers who did not embrace an experimental language, such as milton babbitt. (earle brown was a notable exception to this policy, but, as beal observes, his gifts as a conductor and european connections likely shielded him from the cage ban.) consequently, smaller music festivals such as hans otte's festival pro musica nova in bremen and josef anton riedel's neue musik miinchen klang-aktionen, as well as ensembles like gruppe neue musik berlin, rose to fill the void left by darmstadt. these new initiatives became important sources of commissions and performance venues for feldman, wolff, riley, oliveros, steve reich, and la monte young. the final chapter, "new allies and old heroes;' continues bears account of west german support for american experimentalism from 1975 through reunification. while describing the continued enthusiasm for "old heroes" 105 106 current musicology like cage, the chapter focuses on the experiences of younger experimentalists nancarrow, feldman, oliveros, and riley and their relationship to "new al­ lies" such as composers ernstalbrecht stiebler and walter zimmermann. as music director of the hessische rundfunk in frankfurt, stiebler promoted experimental music, particularly that of feldman and cage, through radio broadcasts, concerts, and commissions. zimmermann's advocacy manifested itself in a variety of ways: through his book desert plants: conversations with 23 american musicians (originally published in english), his venue beginner studio in cologne, and his general efforts to forge connections and arrange concerts for americans visiting germany. this final chapter largely restates the principal observation beal made previously: due to generous state fund­ ing, a rich assortment of music festivals, and the efforts of many individuals, american composers enjoyed an abundance of professional opportunities within west germany. and even if these opportunities diminished during the 1990s-in part due to changing budget priorities following reunifica­ tion, in part due to the rise of commercial radio stations, which prioritized more profitable popular music-experimental composers remain central to german conceptions of american modern music. ambitious in scope, new music, new allies describes a tumultuous forty-five-year period while also covering the culturally and economically diverse cities of darmstadt, donaueschingen, west berlin, munich, cologne, frankfurt, bremen, and baden-baden. yet a glut of factual details and archival evidence crowds out a critical evaluation of the people and events portrayed. all too frequently, descriptions of publications and performances emphasize logistical arrangements over content and reception. the account of cowell's 1956 tour, discussed in chapter 3, is a case in point. while providing exhaustive details of his itinerary and personal reflections on war-torn berlin, the section offers only a cursory description of his actual performances and lectures and makes little case for why cowell's tour was especially important to promoting american experimental music in west germany. at other times, the book merely alludes to potentially intriguing events that should warrant additional discussion. chapter 5, for example, men­ tions that "despite his skepticism about european festivals' obsession with experimental music, [everett 1 helm also wrote two broadcasts on american music for swf [siidwestfunk, baden-baden 1 in 1962 that included examples of works by feldman, rves, lou harrison, and harry partch;' (134). but it makes no mention of helm's actual assessment of these composers. while often citing american experimental composers heard on west german radio or in concerts, the book only rarely describes how audiences and critics r~ceived this music. such inattention to reception history seems to laura silverberg imply that the mere presence of american experimental music-rather than its critical judgment-confirms the success of experimental composers in west germany. and despite the promise, at the beginning of the conclusion, to describe "why" american experimental music came to prominence (as opposed to the previous seven chapters, which, as beal notes, dealt with the "how" of the story), the meager discussion that follows barely begins to grapple with the web of economic, political, social, and biographical circumstances that affected the west german new music scene. ultimately, the study's focus on minutiae, coupled with a general avoidance of drawing broader themes and judgments from the events described, leaves the reader questioning why such details are important. the end result is a book in which a potentially colorful palette of people, places, and events has been used to create a muddy monochrome of facts and trivia. while devoting careful attention to the details of particular perfor­ mances, commissions, and festivals, this study neglects to provide the reader with a basic grounding in general musical and historical currents of the cold war. in particular, an explanation of the technical differences between experimental music, serialism, and neoclassicism, as well as a discussion of the ideological baggage associated with these musical languages, would have been welcome to non-musicologists. although the absence of musical analysis should make this book appealing to scholars of german history, casual references to the music of cage, feldman, ives, and others seem to presume prior musical background on the part of the reader. musicologists, meanwhile, will come away from this book with only a vague idea of the complex nature of the allied occupation and the broader social, cultural, economic, and political currents that shaped musical and aesthetic debates during the cold war. by failing to inform the reader about contemporaneous musical and historical movements, this study leaves both musicologist and historian without an adequate framework for understanding the significance of the individuals and events described. these shortcomings would not be so distracting had the introduction not promised that the book "reflect [ s 1 international political events as well as changing attitudes about american music and contemporary composition during the postwar and cold war eras in west germany" (6). only a page later, it further notes that the primary focus will be on the political, economic, and musical circumstances that made west germany especially conducive to the work of american experimentalists. yet political events-the end of the second world war, the construction of the berlin wall, the vietnam war, and german reunification-serve as little more than convenient points of historical periodization. despite the assertions of the introduction, the book only rarely connects musical developments to political shifts. when 107 108 current musicology it does, the results are frustratingly superficial. for example, beal relates the 1961 construction of the berlin wall to support for american experimental music as follows: the chronic effects of berlin's divisive isolation on cultural policy and american-german relations would have a direct impact on young american composers coming to europe on postgraduate grants such as those funded by the ford foundation and fulbright commission during the 1960s, and on political-ideological interpretations of new american music. the increasingly anarchist new music-presented primarily by tudor and his friends wolff and behrman, and fluxus artists like paik-provided a temporary distraction from the troubling political developments. (123) beyond the fact that this section avoids actually discussing the impact of the berlin wall on political-ideological interpretations of american music, the conclusion that american experimental music provided a "temporary distraction" barely begins to capture the shattering effects that the wall's construction had on musical and political life in east and west berlin. (among other things, the berlin wall severely hampered exchange between east and west german composers and musicologists.) connections between anarchistic musical programming and social unrest brought about by the vietnam war, the prague spring, and the student protests during 1968 are similarly underdeveloped. this study's treatment of ideological debates, particularly the relation­ ship between aesthetic and political positions, is disappointingly perfunctory. all too often, beal essentializes terms like "political engagement" without informing the reader how composers expressed their engagement or what their political convictions were. as an example, i quote at length from a section entitled "music and ideology": in 1969 luigi nono published an essay titled "music and revolution;' in which he divided musicians into five groups depending on their degree of political involvement. in the following years european and american composers alike explicitly responded to political and social challenges through their musical choices. unable to ignore the growing belief that new music was elitist, some composers adopted political agendas. many agreed that their music needed to address urgent social concerns and to confront institutional hierarchy ... at the same time, since experimental music itself challenged concert music conventions, germans sometimes interpreted that music as subversive, and therefore acceptable. some americans-especially cage, rzewski, and wolff-embraced revolu­ tionary ideas and allowed them to inspire their compositional methods and performance practice. this stance helped their reputations within a politically charged milieu. (171) laura silverberg besides neglecting to elucidate the main points of nono's essay, this sec­ tion does not fully explain what is meant by "political involvement." as a number of recent publications on music of the cold war have shown, the concept can be interpreted in a number of different ways, particularly in light of the shifting ideological implications of serialism, neoclassicism, or experimentalism. but beal's book circumvents these issues entirely and fails to distinguish between different forms of political pursuit. through vague terms like "political agenda" and "revolutionary ideas;' politics remains shrouded in mystery-much as was often the case in musicological scholar­ ship during the actual cold war. in spite of these limitations, new music, new allies offers a detailed portrayal of an important chapter in the history of musical patronage and the reception of american music in west germany. it will be a useful resource for scholars interested in the experiences of american experimentalists in germany, the careers of west german patrons of new music, and the nature of west german radio and festival culture. moreover, this book proficiently illustrates the processes by which american experimental music came to prominence in west german musical life. but beal should have aimed higher than this. by sidestepping, rather than confronting, the thorny is­ sues of politics, aesthetics, and ideology, she has managed to write a book about music during the cold war without discussing music or the cold war in any detail. recent books by historians toby thacker and elizabeth janik are far more successful in relating musical life to cold war politics in postwar germany.8 musicologist danielle fosler-lussier's music divided: bartok's legacy in cold war culture (2007) offers a wonderfully nuanced examination of the various interactions between modern music, politics, and ideology. but a comprehensive study on experimental music in west germany-one that fully grapples with cold war politics and american influence-remains to be written. notes 1. significant recent arrivals include joy haslam calico, "jiidische chronik: the third space of commemoration between east and west germany:' musical quarterly 88 (2005): 95-122; mark carroll, music and ideology in cold war europe (cambridge and new york: cambridge university press, 2003); jennifer delapp-birkett, ''aaron copland and the politics of twelve­ tone composition in the early cold war united states," journal of musicological research 27 (2008): 31-62; danielle fosler-lussier, music divided: bart6k's legacy in cold war culture (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 2007); lars klingberg, politisch fest in unseren hiinden: musikalische und musikwissenschaftliche gesellschaften in der ddr: dokumente undanalysen (kassel: barenreiter, 1997); maren koster, musik-zeit-geschehen: zu den musikverhiiltnissen in der sbz/ddr 1945 bis 1952 (saarbriicken: pfau verlag, 2002); peter schmelz, "andrey volkonsky and the beginnings of unofficial music in the soviet union," journal of the american musicological society 58 (2005): 139-207; anne c. shreffler, 109 110 current musicology "berlin walls: dahlhaus, knepler, and ideologies of music history;' journal of musicology 20 (2003): 498-525; adrian thomas, polish music since szymanowski (cambridge and new york: cambridge university press, 2005); rachel beckles willson, ligeti, kurttig, and hun­ garian music during the cold war (cambridge and new york: cambridge university press, 2007). historians elizabeth janik, toby thacker, uta poiger, and david monod have also made substantial contributions to the growing literature on musical life in postwar germany. see elizabeth janik, recomposing german music: politics and musical tradition in cold war berlin (leiden: brill, 2005); toby thacker, music after hitler, 1945-1955 (aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing, 2007); uta g. poiger, jazz, rock, and rebels: cold war politics and american culture in a divided germany (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 2000); david monod, settling scores: german music, denazification, and the americans, 1945-1953 (chapel hill: university of north carolina press, 2005). 2. richard taruskin has criticized histories of nineteenth-century music for grouping together eastern europe, russia, scandinavia, and britain in "ghetto chapters" on musical national­ ism. such chapters typically focus on the presence of so-called folk harmonies, melodies, and rhythms that add color to supposedly universal (i.e. german) forms and genres. see richard taruskin, defining russia musically: historical and hermeneutical essays (princeton, nj: princeton university press, 1997), xviii n.10; "introduction;' repercussions 5 (1996): 9-10. this historiographical approach has persisted in treatments of postwar european music, which paint modernist techniques such as serialism as transnational and ideologically neutral phenomena, and keep politically-influenced music on the periphery. for example, robert p. morgan's twentieth century music: a history of musical style in modern europe and america (new york: norton, 1991), discusses eisler, cage, stockhausen, cardew, rzewski, wolff, henze, and nono in a six-page section entitled "music and politics." (chapter 10, "the influence of politics;' concentrates on music between the two world wars.) 3. this is not to say that scholars avoided matters of music and cold war politics entirely. taruskin's commitment to examining the interaction between musical composition and reception, aesthetics, and political ideology has been a force in musicological scholarship for decades. for one example, see taruskin, defining russia musically: historical and herme­ neutical essays. another notable exception is martin brody, '''music for the masses': milton babbitt's cold war music theory;' musical quarterly 77 (1993): 161-92. 4. few scholars would find surprising the spread of socialist realism from the soviet union to the rest of eastern europe, described in most studies of the eastern bloc cited in note 1. but fosler-lussier has drawn attention to more unusual musical connections between bela bartok and westerners such as bruno maderna. fosler-lussier, music divided: bartok's legacy in cold war culture, 38-42. 5. as beal notes, hermann danuser observed as early as 1985 that, in european studies of american music, "the 'avant-garde' was over-accentuated at the expense of the 'modern,' the experimental preferred over the not-experimental" (4). hermann danuser, "pliidoyer fur die moderne: dber die amerikanische musik der funfziger jahre;' neue zurcher zeitung (22 november 1985),41-42. 6. the second chapter of toby thacker's music after hitler offers a detailed comparative account of denazification in the four zones of occupation. see thacker, music after hitler, 1945-1955,39-73. 7. for a discussion and translation of rebner's lecture, see amy c. beal, "negotiating cultural allies: american music in darmstadt, 1946-1956;' journal of the american musicological society 53 (2000), 128-35. 8. see note 1. laura silverberg references beal, amy c. 2000. negotiating cultural allies: american music in darmstadt, 1946-1956. journal of the american musicological society 53: 105-39. brody, martin. 1993. "music for the masses": milton babbitt's cold war music theory. musical quarterly 77: 161-92. calico, joy haslam. 2005. jiidische chronik: the third space of commemoration between east and west germany. musical quarterly 88: 95-122. carroll, mark. 2003. music and ideology in cold war europe. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. danuser, hermann. 1985. pliidoyer fur die moderne: dber die amerikanische musik der funfziger jahre. neue zurcher zeitung (22 november): 41-42. delapp-birkett, jennifer. 2008. aaron copland and the politics of twelve-ton~ composition in the early cold war united states. journal of musicological research 27: 31-62. fosler-lussier, danielle. 2007. music divided: bart6k's legacy in cold war culture. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. janik, elizabeth. 2005. recomposing german music: politics and musical tradition in cold war berlin. leiden: brill. klingberg, lars. 1997. politisch fest in unseren hiinden: musikalische und musikwissenschaftliche gesellschaften in der ddr: dokumente und analysen. kassel: biirenreiter. koster, maren. 2002. musik-zeit-geschehen: zu den musikverhiiltnissen in der sbz/ddr 1945 bis 1952. saarbriicken: pfau verlag. monod, david. 2005. settling scores: german music, denazification, and the americans, 1945-1953. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. morgan, robert p. 1991. twentieth century music: a history of musical style in modern europe and america. new york: norton. poiger, uta g. 2000. jazz, rock, and rebels: cold war politics and american culture in a divided germany. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. schmelz, peter. 2005. andrey volkonsky and the beginnings of unofficial music in the soviet union. journal of the american musicological society 58: 139-207. shreffler, anne c. 2003. berlin walls: dahlhaus, knepler, and ideologies of music history. journal of musicology 20: 498-525. taruskin, richard. 1996. introduction. repercussions 5: 9-10. ---. 1997. defining russia musically: historical and hermeneutical essays. princeton, nj: princeton university press. thacker, toby. 2007. music after hitler, 1945-1955. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. thomas, adrian. 2005. polish music since szymanowski. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. . willson, rachel beckles. 2007. ligeti, kurtag, and hungarian music during the cold war. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. zimmermann, walter. 1976. desert plants: conversations with 23 american musicians. vancouver: a. r. c. publications. 111 current.musicology.86.101-184.pdf musicology vs. performance yehudi menuhin in reanimating the silent scores of countless ancient libraries, the musicologist has restored the elaboration of a figured bass and the ornamentation of a melodic line from the realm of theoretical exercises to that of performing techniques: musicologist and performer have joined on common ground. the old-fashioned image of the dry-as-dust, scholarly musicologist-as opposed to the romantic, long-haired virtuoso performer-is no longer valid. in fact, the shoe has been on the other foot for some time. an increasing interest in the various uses and manners of improvisation has contributed to this metamorphosis. our growing awareness of that spontaneous, improvisatory element in african and, more recently, in indian music, coupled with our very longing to be released from the bondage of a detailed blueprint-the score-have, in fact, enhanced our sense of style, that cultivated and rigorously-formed sense of appropriateness in any given composition, without which improvisation is meaningless. to be sure, we still have within and close to our own western civilizations living strains of an improvised folklore, particularly in the countries of eastern europe, asia minor, north africa, and the middle east, while such relics also remain among the indian peoples of north america. nor should we forget the last true nomads among us, the gypsies, who keep alive the image of man unfettered by what is rigid and rooted, who are attached to the sky rather than the earth, and who carry their nostalgic voice across the centuries. no less a composer and performer than bartok became a musicologist par excellence through his penetrating studies of the folklore of his own and neighboring countries. today the most romantic, inspired musicians i know are the great harpsichord players-musicologists and performers-like raymond leppard, george malcolm, and rafael puyana. the pure, clean sound of the plucked string allied to the keyboard lends itself to a cultivation of line and counterpoint rather than of sound per se. nor should we ever forget our debt to the french school of organ playing; with the death of marcel dupre we have lost one of the greatest modern exponents of the art of improvisation at the keyboard, a tradition which includes the legendary improvisations of bach, beethoven, franck, and countless other composers. but common to all improvisation is the stylistic framework which only our sense of fitness can monitor or guide. here the musicologist is a mentor, one all the more inspiring since he himself has come to know the fire of discovery and re-creation. the extraordinary quality of music is the fact that it comes alive only as it is sounded. were the fossil to start wriggling in the paleontologists's hand, or the potter's wheel to start turning of its own accord, the sensation would be similar to the hearing of 12th-century music. an instance that comes to mind is the unforgettable revelation by the late noah green142 berg, who, with the new york pro musica, brought us the play of daniel, a 12th-century musical drama, performed in wells cathedral for the bath festival.1 how many sounds lie dormant in ancient instruments of stone, metal, wood, reed, skin, bone, and gut; and how evocative they would be of their makers' ways oflife, their fears, pleasures, and ceremonies! today musicology joins with anthropology, archeology, and the allied arts of sculpture, painting, dance, and poetry to give us a clearer picture of man and his world through the ages. what of music as a contemporary sociological phenomenon? there is, in fact, no limit to musicology's potential contribution to our knowledge and culture: we have only begun to scratch the surface. curiously enough, with the accelerated pace of change, the musicologist might find work nearer at hand. i venture to say that, in the united states, a composer as recent as beethoven is already so very much dated and lost to contemporary taste that-unlike the case of monteverdi, where the notes and embellishments alone need restoring-beethoven's spirit itself will soon require the efforts of the historical, atmospherically-steeped musicologist to revive its already archaic message. beethoven's music, with its profundity, its extraordinary olympian, promethean message, so meaningful for man's social and scientific liberation, seems to be losing its significance, as that very spirit ofliberation is turning sour. only beethoven's elemental greatness and power could possibly survive so massive an assault. perhaps the musicologists should organize a sit-in on the steps of carnegie hall (this time with scythe, skull, and bones), or walk in front of lincoln center and carry banners reading "ban beethoven," "silence to beethoven," and "let's put beethoven on ice for 200 years-then we'll make him better than ever before!" bach was restored to us in this way by the romantic mendelssohn, who revived the st. matthew passion after it had been ignored for decades; and today, right up to the swingle singers, bach is the most contemporary of all composers. his music has the qualities of structure, precision, improvisation, romance, philosophy, and faith, and an abstract universal greatness and eternal validity as pure music which make it adaptable to any instrument, any arrangement, any period. casals insists that the bach who composed the prelude to the sonata in g minor for solo violin was, if not a hungarian gypsy cymbalom player, at least his blood brother! the fields of musicologist and performer are complementary, of course. nonetheless, as they grow in scope, a measure of specialization is inevitable as well. personally, i look upon such eminent and sympathetic musicologists as denis stevens as invaluable advisers, whose counsel i accept and apply experimentally. yet i cannot actually incorporate such advice into my interpretation until the specific suggestions have become organically integrated into my own aesthetic analysis and instinct. this process is not at all one of adding superficial trimmings; rather, it is one of trial, rejection, 143 adaptation, rejection, acceptance-if, indeed, it is ever altogether and invariably accepted. and this is the way the best musicologists would have it. for dogma can never replace the improbable and unpredictable dictates of true inspiration that have always motivated all great stylists, composers or performers. note 1 the pro musica's first performance of this work in its entirety was given at the cloisters in new york in 1958. the production was brought to england in 1960. 144 martha feldman. 2007. opera and sovereignty: transforming myths in eighteenth-century italy. chicago and london: university of chicago press. reviewed by geoffrey burgess reading martha feldman's opera and sovereignty takes me back to a visit to chicago some years ago when martha ferried me through the unfamiliar city. as we proceeded from concert hall, to pizza joint, to jazz club, i eventu­ ally left the navigation to martha's practiced hand and turned to my more immediate surroundings. it was then that i noticed tumbled next to me on the back seat a copy of my dissertation on ritual and french baroque opera. i asked her what it was doing there and discovered that she had not only read it in its entirety, but annotated it with detailed comments and cogent insights on the intersection between our respective fields of research. later i was to learn that she subjects her own work to the same degree of scrutiny and reflection. feldman's most recent publication admirably demonstrates the thoroughness and insightfulness of her work. to her masterful study of opera seria she brings not only her own encyclopedic knowledge, laborious archival work, astute evaluation of disparate materials, and imaginative presentation, but also a critical appreciation of a vast array of related scholarship. since she began her work on opera seria in the mid-1990s, she has not been afraid to revise her thinking and fine-tune her arguments, all the while bringing a fresh perspective to the remarkable life of opera in eighteenth-century italy. in opera and sovereignty she revisits topics already presented in article form, most notably in "magic mirrors," which appeared in a special issue of jams dedicated to the dialogue between anthropology and musicology, and which prepared much of the methodological ground for her later work (1995). with feldman, return visits are rarely restatements, but rather retellings that enrich the subject by taking different perspectives. only three of her chapters are republished virtually unchanged; the others are substantially reworked from previous publications. so even for those familiar with her writings to date, opera and sovereignty contains much new material and many new perspectives. delving into a subject as rich and dense as opera seria in italy-with its vast repertoire, intricate web of intertexts, multiple reworkings of the same operas, frustratingly conflicting musical and textual sources, and burden of archival records-can be like navigating one's way through the unfamiliar streets in a foreign city. we are fortunate to have martha feldman as our current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2.008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 163 164 current musicology guide, to tie together these elements into a textured account that is both highly engaging and at times personal. although the personal references in opera and sovereignty lie just below the surface, they may escape those who are not acquainted with the author. for instance, the photo of "col­ lective effervescence" (29) at the umbria jazz festival takes on meaning not only as a graphic example that mediates historic documentation and contemporary musical practices-a personal memento featuring one of the spaces constructed to house opera in perugia, but as a touchingly intimate souvenir of a performance given by feldman's partner and the book's dedi­ catee, the celebrated jazz vocalist-instrumentalist patricia barber. likewise the costume designs, which lend a decorative footnote to the discussion of traetta's ippolito edaricia, are by feldman's mother, gabrielle feldman, and stand as evidence that this virtually silenced performance art continues to inspire creative artists. feldman writes, ''at its moment of occurring, opera seria was already a lament for a lost past, reproducing itself as a desire to recapture that past in all its present glory" (33). in various senses, opera and sovereignty is also a lament for a lost past: the glory of opera seria and its place in social history. feldman's endeavors include the rehabilitation of opera seria's reputation, which has been unjustly tainted by historians-most notably by joseph kerman in opera as drama ([1956] 1988), who was writing before much of the repertoire was available in modern editions and before any degree of widespread enthusiasm for pre-mozart opera was imaginable. implicit in feldman's focus on the performative aspects of seria is a desire to rehabilitate the space that seria provided in eighteenth-century society for celebration, amusement, carnivalesque play, debate, and social self-evaluation. the book opens with an account of a performance of verdi's rigoletto at the teatro san carlo in 1996, during which the conductor daniel oren made the almost unprecedented act (in modern opera performance) of acceding to the audience's demand for encore. while talk of a verdi opera may seem out of place in a book about opera seria, the reference is apt in light of feldman's broader argument, as it underscores the distance between eighteenth-century and present-day sensibilities in opera performance. this account of a live opera performance helps to articulate the principal mes­ sage of the book: that opera of any sort-and particularly opera seria-can only be fully understood by adopting "a performative model that stresses communication and interaction through lived experience and even artistic production over text, narrative archetypes, and symbolic functions" (19). still, the task of applying a performative model and a broader anthro­ pological-sociological approach to an art form already lost for two centuries poses particular problems. with no living performance tradition, the burden geoffrey burgess of proof falls on the traces surviving in written documentation. over the course of the book, feldman convincingly demonstrates that social practices relating to this ephemeral art form, which, above all, privileged spontaneity in repeated enactments can indeed be teased out from an interrogation of its only remaining traces: performance treatises, eyewitness accounts contained in letters and travelers' journals, and the archival records of specific opera houses. the information contained in these documents, much of which feldman has brought to light for the first time, suggests that opera seria audiences responded both freely, as individuals, and according to the rules of etiquette imposed by authority. a vivid description of audience behavior in rome, the city where opera was most strongly aligned with the seasonal rhythms of carnival (chapter 4, "festivity and time"), bolsters feldman's case and complements the picture presented in studies oflistening practices in other european centers at this time, particularly james johnson's listening in paris (1995). parallels with johnson's work are most apparent in feldman's later chapters, where she discovers composers and poets working to achieve the new spectatorial goal of continuous absorption. opera and sovereignty is perhaps the most comprehensive study of opera seria to date, and certainly it is unrivalled in the english language. feldman stresses that it was not her intention to write a history of the genre, but rather to produce a book about opera in eighteenth-century italy and its shifting relationship to sovereignty. her case studies follow a chronological sequence of events that, taken together, index change as reflected by and initiated in opera theaters throughout the peninsula. the book's chapter-by-chapter oscillation between discussions of general trends and specific case studies reflects the rhythm of its subject. each c~se study effects a temporal slowing of pace, drawing the reader into more introspective interrogations that, like the arias of an opera, articulate the flow of the overarching narrative. feldman's reporting neither ignores nor explains away specific historical data that may appear to contradict the broader trends she maps. this is apparent, for example, in her discussion of the sometimes haphazard process of operatic reform. here she is comfortable presenting cases that may have been only partially successful, or that were successful more by accident than design. chapter 3 ("programming nature, parma, 1759"), which is devoted to traetta's and frugoni's ippolito ed aricia, affords a snapshot of this process. in 1995 feldman was of the opinion that, in line with reformist ideals of more naturalistic dramatic pacing and more continuous spectatorial engagement, this work pulled "the audience into the kinesis of dramatic action" (1995:473), but in opera and sovereignty she plays down the work's success in this regard. ippolito was the first new opera presented in the wake 165 166 current musicology of the social reforms instigated by the recently installed bourbon rulers in parma and the influential minister of state guillaume du tillot. the reforms were undertaken in order to regulate audience behavior. however, traetta's and frugoni's opera remained structurally and stylistically wed­ ded to the conventional practices of the genre, and thus represents less a step on the path to reform than the stubborn resistance of convention to imposed change. feldman's important expose of ippolito's ambivalent position deserves further investigation, which might trace how traetta's experience working on this opera informed the more reformist approach he embraced in his later operas. it would be equally interesting to consider closely contemporary reforms outside italy, such as those staged in stuttgart by niccolo jommelli. opera and sovereignty focuses on what is usually referred to as opera seria's "second age;' the mid to late eighteenth century. this was the genera­ tion of hasse and traetta, then of mozart and zingarelli, when the genre was putatively at its height. feldman's comparative evaluation oflibretti by zeno and metastasio in chapter 6 comes out heavily in favor of the latter, but this judgment, like the book's general privileging of seria in its maturity, is not intended as a validation of the highest achievements of the genre. rather, the tacit assumption behind the author's focus on this particular period is that, in its later manifestations, opera seria better reveals its modi operandi. by the mid-eighteenth century poets and composers were no longer able to resist the extraordinary power accrued by singers. from this moment in opera seria's history, textual prescription and performative interpretation were held in a delicate balance, and it is precisely the interface between the textual and the performative that furnishes feldman with the most cogent material for her reading of opera seria. she emphasizes both the gradual erosion of convention and the growing demand for reform in opera seria's later history in order to follow its continual reinvention, ritualization, and reinscription of the myth of the sovereign ruler. all of these elements are more apparent in the historical fabric of the late eighteenth century than in seria's earlier history, when intention was generally more veiled and seria's ideological armor had not yet been weakened by enlightenment cynicism. while seria's reliance on conventional formulas suggests that it is perhaps more appropriate to speak in generalizations about seria than about other musico-theatrical genres, feldman's conclusions drawn from evidence of the "second age" of opera seria may not all apply to the genre's early period. opera and sovereignty is less explicitly concerned with methodological and theoretical discussions than some of feldman's previous work, notably the jams article which served as a prolegomenon to the anthropological reading of opera seria as ritual. like many scholars in the "new musicologigeoffrey burgess cal" tradition, feldman draws theoretical frameworks from other fields, but instead of introducing the procedures and then applying them to her musical analyses, in opera and sovereignty she reverses the established pattern and postpones discussing theory until after she has applied it in context. by so doing, feldman foregrounds the subject of her study and avoids forcing her analyses to comply with preexisting theories. this method is not simply a rhetorical ploy, but rather allows the author to engage more directly with both her subject and her theoretical models. feldman treats erving goffman's theory of frames, for example, in a postscript to chapter 2 ("arias: form, feeling, exchange"). in the body of this chapter she offers an analysis of aria structure and period strategies for eliciting and controlling audience reaction in which she considers the function of instrumental ritornelli in seria arias in terms of "frames." only in the postscript does she reveal that goffman's theory provided the cata­ lyst for her own approach. furthermore, she has not simply appropriated goffman's ideas, but rather honed them into an analytic tool tailored to the material at hand. in another afterword, this one appended to chapter 6, on the mythological foundations of seria libretti, feldman engages georges bataille's notion of sovereignty. here the relationship between feldman's own work and her theoretical model is less straightforward. her reference to the twentieth-century french theorist reads more as a provocatively open door than a recapitulation of issues addressed in the book up to this point. the degree of overlap between feldman's and bataille's uses of the key terms at play-sovereignty, identification, and utility-needs further interrogation, as does the manner in which bataille's idiosyncratic, post-marxist view of capitalism might inform a reading of the economics and sociopolitical climate of eighteenth-century italy. opera and sovereignty restricts its coverage to opera seria in italy-already a subject of vast proportions-and consequently references to its life beyond the alps are mentioned only in passing. there are instances where more detail on non-italian practices would have clarified feldman's argument. i admit my own francophile bias, but other readers, too, might be surprised to read that opera seria "was more closely identified with sovereign rulers than any other genre" (440). the tragedie lyrique, with its apparatus of panegyric prologue and mythological conceits venerating the hero-king, created and perpetuated by the academie royale de musique (established for the glorification of its patron and prime spectator, the king of france), was certainly even more closely and consistently identified with the sole sovereign of an entire kingdom. further, the status of tragedie lyrique as official state art accounts for marked differences between italian and french operatic genres. 167 168 current musicology of all the works treated by feldman, traetta's and frugoni's ippolito ed aricia (parma, 1759) most overtly references non-italian opera. this opera drew heavily on french spoken and lyric theater. racine's phedre was performed in parma immediately prior to the premiere of ippolito ed aricia and served as a point of reference for the opera's first audience, much as it had in paris in 1733 for the first audiences of rameau's and pellegrin's hippolyte et aricie, the work on which ippolito was modeled. but more than the relationship between racine's classical masterpiece and ippolito, the level of debt the parmesan team owed to rameau and pellegrin deserves reinforcing. in the process of "co-opting the french court model ... as artillery against native theatrical traditions" (112), the parmesans co-opted a good deal of rameau's music. the plot line of ippolito is also closer to the french model (albeit with necessary adjustments to satisfy the conventions of opera seria) than suggested by feldman's description "adapted with extensive modifications" (97). indeed, when she considers "certain details of frugoni's story" (116), feldman could be summarizing hippolyte et aricie. pellegrin had already significantly revised the myth of phaedra to satisfy enlightenment audiences, most notably by diminishing the authority of the supernatural characters. in his preface to the livret he put forward elaborate logic to legitimate not only the changes he made to the myth as transmitted by euripides and racine (most prominently in the hero's last-minute rescue), but also the intervention of divinities required to satisfy the conventions of the tragedie lyrique in a way that appeased critics who questioned the credibility of le merveilleux. pellegrin's solution effectively placed the divinities in a diplomatic bind that divested them of agency and transferred their authority to the mysterious entity destiny. frugoni appropriated pellegrin's overall treatment of the myth, along with changes made to hippolyte et aricie in its 1733 and 1757 incarnations. hippolyte et aricie provides a rare example of a tragedie lyrique in which characters from the tragedie also appear in the prologue, and therefore render the prologue more integral to the opera than was typical with most french operas. nevertheless, at the middle of the eighteenth century when the academie royale de musique deemed the operatic prologue dramatically redundant and its function as royal panegyric outmoded, this prologue was dropped from subsequent performances along with all other prologues to both newly composed tragedies lyriques and revivals of older works. the de-emphasis on divine presence that resulted from the omission of the prologue to hippolyte et aricie was therefore an effect of this broader policy. shifting attention away from le merveilleux to the natural was no doubt a popular move. consistent with the propagation of the natural in ippolito was another concession to french aesthetics: the long-standing distaste for the unnaturalness of castrato voices. traetta calls for only one prominent castrato geoffrey burgess role in his score, a striking reduction from the usual number in opera seria. the french background to ippolito is important to understanding frugoni's and traetta's agency in the molding of their opera and provides additional support for feldman's argument that ippolito occupied an intermediary position in the reformist ventures in seria's later history. one of the book's central arguments pertains to opera seria's mytho­ logical basis. feldman interrogates the presumption that historical subjects predominate in seria libretti, while mythological subjects are more common in french operas. through close examination of a series of archetypal libretti by metastasio, she shows how seria, regardless of whether it took its subject material from mythology or history, acted as a performative retelling of a mythologized history that ultimately reified the absolutist myth of the miraculous sovereign. as downing thomas notes in his dust jacket review, feldman "deftly undoes the opposition between history and myth that is the common understanding of the difference between italian and french opera of the time." indeed, feldman emphasizes the manner in which operas were subjected to incessant manipulations not only by creative individuals-poets, composers, and singers-but also by broader social contingencies as they were incorporated into the fluid sociopolitical environments of eighteenth-century italy. as it traces the transformation of notions of sovereignty as reflected in seria's performativity, the book frequently touches on issues of staging. in chapter 4 ("festivities and time"), for instance, feldman situates lighting as a component of the spectacular, arguing that the extravagant lighting in the theater represented the munificence of the sovereign by literally creating light in society. stage movement is touched on in chapter 2, where feldman explains the movement from narrative-based recitative within the space of the stage to arias performed in the limen of the proscenium. according to feldman, the scantily documented practice of situating the transcendent aria in the interstices of dramatic situation and performative retelling, between stage set and audience, symbolized an engaged coming together of performer and spectator. inasmuch as they suspended the more-or-iess realistic time of recitative, arias, with their framing ritornelli that served as "formal semantic cues," allowed the audience to "tune in and out" with respect to the onstage performance. further, through their outpourings of emotion and spinning of magic, they transcended the drama of both stage and house. i would note, also, that arias were sung from the footlights because that was where the singer could be seen and heard best. it was there that performers appeared least distorted in the context of the perspectival stage decor (also discussed in feldman 1995:448), and it was also there where the lighting was strongest. 169 170 current musicology in her endeavor to cover seria in its full richness, feldman places music in a position as an equal among the other elements that constitute the total­ ity of the phenomenon: theater architecture, staging, costumes, lighting, dance, gesture, audience interplay, etc. nevertheless, music is represented in numerous well-chosen analyses that serve as dramatic centerpieces to her case studies. they often function as paradigmatic exemplars for the entire corpus of the genre, underscoring the assumption that resonates throughout the book: that seria was a highly conventionalized art form. feldman views conventionality as positive, indeed, vital to communication between stage and audience. reflecting her emphasis on performativity, feldman's analyses focus on the music's rhetorical aspects, inspired by the approach outlined in koch's versuch einer einleitung zur composition (1782). her analysis of cecilio's aria "11 tenero momento" from mozart's lucio scilla, which formed the centerpiece of the 1995 jams article, is elaborated in opera and sovereignty with richer historical contextualization, allowing her to amplify the significance of this example as a model of how music, stage performance, and social performance cohabited in the theaters of opera seria. to support her claim that musical scores constitute documentary traces of works-as-performance, feldman explores the interpretative space allowed the performer in the elaboration of the text. her primary example traces a particularly close association between composer and performer: the aria "son qual nave ch'agitata" composed by riccardo broschi for his brother farinelli to perform in the 1734 pasticcio artaserse (music by hasse and broschi). this aria is particularly suited to feldman's investigations because farinelli left a notated "transcription" of his ornamental elaborations of the melody. describing farinelli's embellishment of the cadential preparation, feldman plots a trajectory from the simple to the elaborate, whereby the singer added ever more complexity, even where it seemed he had already attained the height of virtuosity. it is also possible to read the source as showing farinelli playing with audience expectation in more sophisticated ways, such as refraining from embellishment in certain passages, but all the while making it seem as ifhe were nonetheless going beyond the possible in invention and vocal technique. according to his annotations, on the repeti­ tion of the aria's first section farinelli did not always increase ornamentation. rather, he started off by actually simplifying his brother's music in order to add trills on every note of a melodically constrained line. this had the effect of highlighting the remarkable runs added to the next passage, which in its original form is one of the simplest sections in the original. in other places, such as immediately before the cadenza, his additions are again minimal, and the tessitura is identical to that of his brother's composition. this strategy was no doubt calculated in part for practical reasons, allowing the geoffrey burgess singer to pace his performance; further, by returning to what the audience had already experienced on the first hearing, farinelli made the remarkable cadenza seem all the more dazzling. opera and sovereignty is a book of astounding breadth of subject mat­ ter, rich source materials, and provocative methodologies. it traces opera seria's history from the apogee of metastasian influence and the triumphant celebration of sovereignty in royalist houses like the teatro san carlo in naples, through the implementation of regulations to control audience behavior in parma in the 1750s and the growing tensions between cittadini and a depleted nobility desperately clutching at its diminishing power in perugia of the 1780s, to the genre's demise as the exclusive privilege of the elite in a venice buffeted by the winds of social change in the wake of the french revolution and the arrival of napoleon's troops. in its richness of ideas, comprehensive coverage of a diversity of opera houses and local practices, multi-layerings of readings, and exhaustive bibliography, this is a truly extraordinary achievement that will offer much to scholars of eighteenth-century opera. this long-awaited revisionist reading of the genre will dominate our understanding of opera seria in eighteenth-century italy for the foreseeable future. may it also stimulate new endeavors to reclaim this lost performance art as well as encourage the recovery of the communicative and performative aspects of other art forms whose loss we lament. references feldman, martha. 1995. magic mirrors and the seria stage: thoughts toward a ritual view. journal of the american musicological society 48 (3): 423-84. johnson, james. 1995. listening in paris: a cultural history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. kerman, joseph. [1956] 1988. opera as drama, 2nd ed. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. 171 current.musicology.85.113-172.pdf chris mcdonald. 2009. rush, rock music and the middle class: dreaming in middletown. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. reviewed by bradley sroka i first heard the rock band rush in 1990 when a friend in my ninth-grade science class lent me their first greatest hits collection, chronicles. i was raised in a middle-class suburb of annapolis, maryland, and the tastemakers at my high school informed me that rush was indeed very cool, so i better listen to them. by the tenth grade, all of my friends listened to their music and spoke with great authority about the band's superior musicianship and the deep meaning we were confident was so evident in peart's lyrics. for us, rush's albums were not just the soundtracks to our adolescence; we considered them a trusted font of worldly wisdom. rush is a virtuoso rock trio begun in 1968 in toronto and best known for the classic-rock staples "tom sawyer" (1981), "the spirit of radio" (1980), "closer to the heart" (1977), and a half-dozen or so others. each of the musicians in the trio is a perennial poll winner for his respective instrument in magazines such as guitar player and modern drummer. geddy lee (b. gary lee weinrib) sings, plays bass guitar, and, since 1977, also plays various keyboard instruments and synthesizers. his voice is "distinctive," in that he sings in a high register that many consider an acquired taste. alex lifeson (b. aleksandar zivojinovic) plays guitar, and neil peart is their revered and ostentatious drummer. lee and lifeson regularly write the band's music, and, peart, far more often than not, writes the lyrics. rush has had a large cult following and substantial commercial success since their breakthrough album 2112 (1976), and their first gold record, a farewell to kings (1977). my friends and i collected all of their albums, both on cassette and later on compact disc, and we scoured liner notes, tour books, vhs concert films, and rush's terrible music videos for any morsel of information concerning this band that we loved so much. we saw them in concert each time they were in town, and proudly wore their t -shirts like medals in school the next day. and yet, though we were eager to purchase anything concerning this band, there were few book-length resources available at that time. two slender biographies, steve gett's 48-page rush: success under pressure (1984) and bill banasiewicz's 96-page rush visions: the official biography (1988) are two exceptions, as are a number of guitar tablature anthologies, as well as bill wheeler's drum transcription books current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 201 202 current musicology drum techniques of rush (1985) and more drum techniques of rush (1989). given rush's commercial clout, we were clearly being underserved. in the late nineties, however, the floodgates opened. in 1996, peart published his first travelogue, the masked rider: cycling in africa, which he followed up with ghost rider: travels on the healing road (2002), traveling music: playing back the soundtrack to my life and times (2004), roadshow: landscape with drums: a concert tour by motorcycle (2006), and far and away: a prize every time (2011). in 1999, carol selby price published mystic rhythms: the philosophical vision o/rush, and in 2002, leonard roberto published a simple kind of mirror: the lyrical vision of rush. also, two new biographies were published: contents under pressure: 30 years of rush at home & away by martin popoff (2004), and rush: chemistry: the definitive biography by jon collins (2010). directors scot mcfadyen and sam dunn also released their excellent documentary rush: beyond the lighted stage on dvd (2010). chris mcdonald published rush, rock music and the middle class: dreaming in middletown in 2009, and, beyond adding to the literature concerning rush, his is also one of several academic books specifically concerning progressive rock that was published in the past thirteen years. these books include bill martin's music of yes: structure and vision in progressive rock (1996) and listening to the future: the time of progressive rock 1968-1978 (1998), edward macan's rocking the classics: english progressive rock and the counterculture (1997), and the anthology progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm-hudson, which includes a chapter about rush and individualism by durrell s. bowman (2002). even the anthology understanding rock: essays in musical analysis opens with an article concerning progressive rock: editor john covach's essay"progressive rock, close to the edge, and the boundaries of style" (1997). what makes this burst of scholarship both surprising and remarkable is progressive rock's relatively low cultural and critical value in the 25 years preceding martin's first book. it is perhaps not coincidental that a teenager who listened to yes or rush in high school in the 1970s-which was the peak of progressive rock's popularity-would be between 35 and 40 years-of-age in 1996, a stage oflife when he or she could perhaps complete and publish a book about his or her favorite progressive rock band. this would account for the mildly polemical tone that underlies so many of these works, including mcdonald's. simon frith argues that there is a place for value judgment in popular music scholarship-that promoting your favorite artists to audiences who are unfamiliar with, or disinterested in, that artist's music is meaningful academic work (1996:8-9). mcdonald's advocacy for rush, however, may be too problematic to be justified by this argument. bradley sroka mcdonald's primary goal for his book is to "develop a critical under­ standing of rush" using his own musicological training and the "historical and sociological literature on the north american middle class" (2009:5). mcdonald is an ethnomusicologist, but his study of rush reads more like the work of a cultural studies scholar. in his ethnography of bruce springsteen fans, tramps like us, daniel cavicchi writes that cultural studies "is con­ cerned more with fandom as a concept or social force, locating its meaning in institutions and ideologies;' whereas an ethnography"is concerned more with fandom as a practice or experience, locating its meaning in fans' own accounting of their activities" (1998:7-8). though mcdonald does poll and interview rush fans for his study, a majority of his arguments are supported with his own interpretation of rush's music and lyrics, and with scholar­ ship concerning middle-class institutions and ideologies. unfortunately, this makes mcdonald's argument cumbersome when he expands his study to encompass the lives and thoughts of both rush fans and the musicians responsible for the music itself. when mcdonald attempts to bridge the gap between the academic literature on the middle-class and the actual experi­ ences of middle-class rush listeners, his argument becomes fractious. mcdonald explains that rush embodies and represents north american "middle-classness," and that the band's "music and career are a sustained and revealing response to the condition of being of the north american middle class during the last three decades of the twentieth century" (2009:4). according to mcdonald, rush is a perfect vehicle for discussing the middle class's relationship with rock music because of their "suburban origins;' and "the vividness and acuteness with which [rush] represents and wrestles with its suburban, middle-class identity" (2009:4). in this way, rush's music speaks to "the dreams, fantasies, fears, and self-criticisms of a particular [suburban] slice of the north american middle class" (2009:4). unfortunately, mcdonald does not differentiate between the us middle class and the canadian middle class, which is an omen of the ambiguity to come. mcdonald argues that rush criticizes suburbs, as did adorno and mills, both as places "limited, parochial, conformist, and over-managed by experts and bureaucrats," and places that promote "individualism, capitalist free enterprise, and a respect for high culture" (2009:5-6). mcdonald asserts that this cognitive dissonance is itself a particularly middle-class paradox. he goes on to explain that the band expresses this paradox because they were raised middle class; that this cognitive dissonance pervades the meaning present in rush's music; and that listeners are drawn to the band because of the expression of these seemingly conflicting values. ultimately, mcdonald presents this analysis to legitimize rush's music by connecting it to these particular scholarly theories concerning middle-class american values. 203 204 current musicology mcdonald also touches on gender and race as each pertains to rush and to the middle class: for example, he discusses the feminine coding of acoustic guitar passages in progressive rock (2009:.36), and the masculine "cult of musicianship" prevalent among rush fans (2009:171). he also remarks upon the creative autonomy that record companies granted to white male rock bands such as rush in the 1970s, an autonomy that was withheld from black and female artists of the same era (2009:108). however, mcdonald writes that gender and race "did not seem to say anything meaningful about rush specifically;' so, to remain within the bounds of his objective, much of mcdonald's book concerns the music of rush and the middle-class paradox of conformity and individualism. mcdonald's analysis of rush's song "red barchetta" (1981) is a particu­ larly strong example of the fruits of his larger analysis. in this example, his study concerns the middle-class desire for physical and emotional escape out of suburban confinement. "barchetta" is a sci-fi narrative set in a near future when cars are outlawed. the protagonist "elude [s 1 the eyes;' and hops a train to his uncle's house hidden outside the government's border; he is thrilled to escape his heavily policed city. his uncle has a "brilliant red barchetta" sports car, preserved "from a better, vanished time," that the protagonist races through the countryside on sundays. on this particular sunday, however, he's chased by"a gleaming alloy air-car ... two lanes wide," and, "straining the limits of machine and man," he outwits and outraces the antagonist by driving over a narrow bridge back to his uncle's cottage, leaving the "giants stranded at the riverside" (rush 1981). for mcdonald, "barchetta" is a fantasy that invites the listener to escape from his or her reality and enter into a private, autonomous, and perhaps better interior world. he asserts that an escape into fantasy can provide "a particular experience of interiority that is rooted in middle-class and modernist ideas about individuality" (2009:40). this kind of individuality stresses a divide between the public and the private, and insists that one's inside world can be autonomous from the outside world. therefore, fantasy allows listeners to find their selves in an autonomous, inside world that is separate and different from the public, outside world. mcdonald writes how "the pleasures of rush's escapist repertoire were secret pleasures that helped express a part of the self not revealed to others," and listeners found themselves in rush's music, where they could think of themselves as unique individuals separate from, and perhaps superior to, the parochial others (2009:40). this rang true as "barchetta" was manna for high school boys like myself in 1990, helping us find our place in the spectrum between individualism and conformity. bradley sroka mcdonald also writes convincingly of how the exterior suburban world of the protagonist in "barchetta" is coded as domestic and feminine, but when he escapes this world to drive the red barchetta, he is coded as a masculine hero: he whips through the countryside illegally, he drives a two­ seater alone on a private adventure, and he handles the car like an expert. mcdonald presents "barchetta" as a narrative about the individual who stands apart from society, who is in control of his destiny, and who succeeds both despite the oppressive world around him, and because of the tenacity of his individual free will. following sociologist robert bellah, mcdonald considers this kind of individuality quintessentially middle class, and for him this song presents the paradox at the heart of middle-class existence: the suburban exterior world is rigid, oppressive, and conformist, but a person can transcend this confinement by being an exceptional individual. in the case of "barch etta;' mcdonald provides a strong argument for the connection between research concerning the american middle class and the music of rush; however, not all of his arguments are so cogent. mcdonald often prefers to accept various theories about rush and the middle class a priori, rather than substantiate them via empirical evidence. this becomes problematic when he then proceeds to offer a posteriori discussion of the band and its fans. for example, in the same chapter as his analysis of "red barchetta," mcdonald seeks to prove that the mostly instrumental space epic "cygnus x-i" (1977) offers listeners the "potential for transcendence through the fantasy the story provides" (2009:51). he explains how "all worldly concerns are made to seem small, unimportant, and mundane when set against more cosmic themes, and we are given license to transcend our day-to-day lives when inhabiting the world that songs like 'cygnus x-i' construct" (mcdonald 2009:51). "cygnus x-i" is a science fiction narrative in which a rocket ship is sucked into a black hole that the pilot of the ship suspects is an astral door to another dimension. the long instrumental passages of this performance evoke the program detailed in the lyrics. mcdonald labels "cygnus x-i" "headphone" music, or "music for listening and contemplation" (2009:48). he writes how "headphone listen­ ing is solitary, isolating the listener in his or her own sound world;' and compares this to "the solitary space traveler;' of "cygnus," "cocooned in a rocket ship, embarking on a fantastic adventure" (mcdonald 2009:48). "the rocket ship and the headphones," mcdonald explains, "are both mechani­ cal apparatuses, conduits for a journey into a very different space than the bedroom, the home, the school, or the suburb" (2009:48). mcdonald writes how predominantly instrumental music, like "cygnus," provides two kinds of escape: one into an "otherworldly landscape" conjured by the music, and another into a kind of formalist aesthetics, as written about in the scholarship 205 206 current musicology of carl dahlhaus (2009:48). to substantiate the potential for a formalist discussion of "cygnus," mcdonald narrates the ten-minute song's changing textures, arrangements, programmatic sound effects, major musical figures, and chord progressions. according to mcdonald's interpretation of dahlhaus, contemplative listening "provides an opportunity to lose oneself and forsake all worldly distractions through the experience of music," so that the listener becomes "completely immersed in an autonomous musical world" (mcdonald 2009:48). mcdonald then cites leo treitler, who criticizes musical formalism for isolating and disconnecting music from the social. 1 mcdonald argues that "the world created by an all-consuming interest in musical form, musician­ ship, and composition is a kind of escapism through transcendence. all the earthly realities of human relationships, current events, history, the social ambivalence of race, class, [and] gender ... are swept away by an intensely interior and technical focus on the music itself" (2009:50-51). to substantiate this claim, mcdonald quotes two rush fans who appreci­ ate the formalism in rush's music, and who therefore listen to rush's pro­ grammatic pieces as music without any program or story. in the context of treitler's comment, mcdonald claims these fans separate the music from the social. the first explains how rush's song "xanadu" (1977) is "mostly about instrumentation and compositional form for me" (mcdonald 2009:49). "i like to sit down and put the headphones on and not have anything else get in the way," he says; "i like to hear everything, even in the background" (mcdonald 2009:49). similarly, when mcdonald plays the instrumental piece "la villa strangiato" (1978) for the second, he exclaims, "ah, those chords-i don't know what it is, but i just love them" (2009:50). mcdonald concludes how "one could argue that the fans cited above listen to rush in a formalist manner;' an argument he concludes by offering treitler's criticism of this kind of musical formalism (2009:50). therefore, mcdonald claims that rush fans, such as the two that he quotes, listen intently to the musical details in rush's music to not only escape and transcend the confinement of the middle-class suburbs, but remove themselves from the problems and inequities of the world. in other words, by listening closely to rush's music, fans escape the burden of social responsibility. is that really what he says? while i agree that these fans appreciate the formalism of rush's music, and that a purely formalist appreciation of music does separate music from its social context, to claim these two fans listen to rush to escape social responsibility is a stretch. harris berger has said of pop music scholarship, "a critical analysis only makes sense if interpretations describe the experiences of the people who make and listen to the music" (1999:16). though there may be a kernel of truth to bradley sroka mcdonald's observation, it seems naive if not unethical to write only of one resolutely determined path for listeners' motivations, and intent for modes of listening, let alone a path that would indict them as a-political. concerning the musicians in rush, mcdonald does support his thesis with quotes from published interviews with all three musicians. however, several key biographical details are not included in mcdonald's analysis, so that rather than discuss each musician's particular suburban childhoods, mcdonald theorizes about their suburban roots. for example, it is pertinent to know that lee and lifeson are first-generation canadians, and that they each adopted anglicized stage names to replace their birth names. it is also important to know that lee's parents were jewish refugees from poland who immigrated to canada after surviving world war ii concentration camps. though these may not be essential details for mcdonald's specific project, they are nonetheless important components of lee and lifeson's individual biographies, and, as such, would nuance the development of theory concerning how the intersecting elements of personal history shape identity. such inclusions would also give mcdonald's work more resonance with contemporary theories of the middle class and (musical) labor as they are shaped by ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality, and other factors. in his chapter concerning rush's middle-class professionalism, mcdonald cites the "cultural omnivore thesis" that has been written about by sociologists such as paul dimaggio, richard a. peterson, koen van eijck, and michael emmison. he uses their thesis to explain why rush changed their musical style every few years between 1982 and 1991 (2009:129-130). mcdonald asserts that middle-class professionals must learn to "culture switch" between milieus to select the taste set that is most appropriate for their current audiences or clients. this is in contrast to past manifestations of cultural hierarchy, when it was advantageous to evoke only highbrow taste. according to mcdonald, rush "used stylistic breadth as a way of signifying continued artistic and professional growth" between 1982 and 1991, and mcdonald discusses the rhythms, meters, and timbres of "distant earlywarning" (1984) and "roll the bones" (1991) to demonstrate how the musicians in rush are cultural omnivores (2009:l30). mcdonald also specifically characterizes rush's songwriting in the eighties as eclectic and cosmopolitan, and interprets this eclecticism as a new means for the band to express virtuosity and complexity in a new era. he writes, "the band had turned away from sheer virtuosity and use of classical influences as ways of demonstrating elite musicianship. stylistic diversity could now represent complexity" (2009:128). while mcdonald's observations are plausible, given the aural evidence and some of the musi207 208 current musicology cians' comments, it is just as likely that rush incorporated new rhythms and sounds from the police, talking heads, and u2 into their music because these sounds and rhythms were fashionable, and because they liked them. in the larger world of popular music, this aesthetic change remains safely within the rock genre, and many progressive rock bands, such as yes, made similar stylistic transformations. in other words, it is unlikely that a rock listener in the 1980s would consider rush's music eclectic because it included these more contemporary musical ideas. berger would label mcdonald's musical interpretations as "textual empiricism," which he defines as "any scholarly approach that treats the text alone as its object of study" (1999:3-4). by focusing on rush's musical development only within rush's own larger oeuvre, and not considering musical trends throughout the larger rock music culture, mcdonald often misinterprets the band's potential motiva­ tion to alter their musical style. by discussing their music as autonomous and therefore separate from, or even perhaps above, larger cultural trends, mcdonald provides an incomplete picture of this band's music and its meaning to its fans. this leads to an overarching criticism of the tone of this project: for mcdonald, rush's music is infallible, and this prohibits him from providing a truly critical discussion of rush's music. as noted above, scholarly work concerning progressive rock tends to push for a positive reassessment of artists within this genre. mcdonald's textual empiricism insists that rush's music is uniformly successful, and that it therefore always communicates a precise meaning to the listener. in the case of mcdonald's interpretations of "red barchetta" above, "tom sawyer" as an expression of individual­ ism, and "freewill" (1980) as indicative of middle-class detachment, it is plausible that many listeners would make the same conclusions as the author. however, his discussion of the desire to escape in "the fountain of lamneth" (1975), for example, loses steam because the song suite itself is ineffective as a narrative: unlike some of their later epics, the music here is far less programmatic, and the story does not present itself clearly when sung. this is only one example of how mcdonald ignores the potential for multivalent readings of text throughout this work. the author's assumption of the band's infallibility is also frustrating in the chapter concerning rush and rock criticism. mcdonald correctly notes that rush's reputation for provoking consistently negative reviews is exaggerated, and that most reviewers simply reported that the band "aimed high even if it sometimes came up short" (2009:186). however, mcdonald insists that critics undervalue rush's music because rush was middlebrow, and therefore "mediated high literature and highbrow concert music for a bradley sroka mass audience" (2009:203). he argues that most rock critics were middle class just like rush, and insists, "the distance rock critics articulated from [rush] reveal [sic], in part, an anxiety about belonging to a middling educational, social, and occupational position. as the critics aligned themselves with the outer extremes-highbrow aesthetics and lowbrow culture-they quite pointedly distanced themselves from anything suggestive of a middlebrow position" (2009:203). this may be true of some critics, but given the lack of evidence either way, it is just as likely to not be true at all. for example, to claim critic robert christgau is ashamed of his middle-class suburban upbringing, mcdonald needs to offer us more than just christgau's brief rush review to prove it, especially given that christgau was raised working class in queens, new york (ubi 2008:7). in the end, mcdonald's most basic argument in rush, rock music, and the middle class is convincing: rush's music does include philosophical themes which do resonate with values discussed in much sociological and historical scholarship concerning the north american middle class. at this macro level, many of his observations and analyses are thoughtful and apt. however, when mcdonald then connects these themes and theoretical premises to the actual words and lived experience of both rush's fans and the musicians responsible for rush's music, his conclusions become far too tenuous. while it is likely that many rush fans share mcdonald's particular readings of rush's music, and that many of these same fans believe in the values that mcdonald attributes to rush's music, mcdonald does not provide nearly enough empirical evidence about said fans, the musicians in rush, or individual music critics to support the very precise middle-class values he ascribes to each. if cavicchi's dictum concerning the differences between cultural studies and ethnography is correct, mcdonald's text would benefit profoundly from a greater attention to the ethnographic details of rush and their fans, and from a more nuanced understanding of the complex, heterogeneous popular music culture in which they reside. notcs 1. unfortunately, the ideas and terminology mcdonald cites are not present on or near p. 12 in treitler's music and the historical imagination. i expect this page number was given in error. references banasiewicz, bill. 1988. rush visions: the official biography. london: omnibus press. berger, harris m. 1999. metal, rock, and jazz: perception and the phenomenology of musical experience. hanover, n.h.: wesleyan university press. cavicchi, daniel. 1998. tramps like us: music & meaning among springsteen fans. new york: oxford university press. 209 210 current musicology collins, jon. 2010. rush: chemistry: the definitive biography. london: helter skelter. (orig. pub. 2006.) covach, john, and graeme m. boone. 1997. understanding rock: essays in musical analysis. new york: oxford university press. dunn, sam and scott mcfadyen, dir. 2010. rush: beyond the lighted stage. dvd. lee, geddy, alex lifeson, and neil peart. beverly hills calif.: concord music group. frith, simon. 1996. performing rites: on the value of popular music. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. gett, steve. 1984. rush: success under pressure. port chester, n.y.: cherry lane books. holm-hudson, kevin, ed. 2002. progressive rock reconsidered. new york: routledge. macan, edward. 1997. rocking the classics: english progressive rock and the counterculture. new york: oxford university press. martin, bill. 1996. music of yes: structure and vision in progressive rock. chicago: open court. martin, bill. 1998. listening to the future: the time of progressive rock, 1968-1978. chicago: open court. mcdonald, chris. 2009. rush, rock music, and the middle class: dreaming in middletown. bloomington: indiana university press. peart, neil. 2002. ghost rider: travels on the healing road. toronto: ecw press. peart, neil. 2004. the masked rider: cycling in africa. toronto: ecw press. (orig. pub. 1996.) peart, neil. 2004. traveling music: playing back the soundtrack to my life and times. toronto: ecw press. peart, neil. 2006. roadshow: landscape with drums: a concert tour by motorcycle. burlington, mass.: rounder books. peart, neil. 2011. far and away: a prize every time. toronto: ecw press. popoff, martin. 2004. contents under pressure: thirty years of rush at home and away. toronto: ecw press. price, carol selby. 1998. mystic rhythms: the philosophical vision of rush. san bernardino, calif.: borgo press. roberto, leonard. 2000. a simple kind of mirror: the lyrical vision of rush. lincoln, neb.: writers club press. rush. 1975. "the fountain of lamneth:' caress of steel. the rush remasters. mercury 314 534625-2. cd. rush. 1976. 2112. the rush remasters. mercury p2b 34626. cd. rush. 1977. "closer to the heart:' a farewell to kings. the rush remasters. mercury 314 534628-2. cd. rush. 1977. "cygnus x-i." a farewell to kings. the rush remasters. mercury 314534628-2. cd. rush. 1977. a farewell to kings. the rush remasters. mercury 314534628-2. cd. rush. 1977. "xanadu:' a farewell to kings. the rush remasters. mercury 314534628-2. cd. rush. 1978. "la villa strangiato." hemispheres. the rush remasters. mercury 314 534 629-2. cd. rush. 1980. "freewill." permanent waves. the rush remasters. mercury 314 534 630-2. cd. rush. 1980. "the spirit of radio." permanent waves. the rush remasters. mercury 314 534 630-2. cd. rush. 1981. "red barchetta." moving pictures. the rush remasters. mercury 314534631-2. cd. bradley sroka rush. 1981. "tom sawyer." moving pictures. the rush remasters. mercury 314534631-2. cd. rush. 1984. "distant early warning." grace under pressure. the rush remasters. mercury 314534634-2. cd. rush. 1990. chronicles. mercury 838936-2. cd. rush. 1991. "roll the bones." roll the bones. the rush remasters. atlantic 83737-2. cd. treitler, leo. 1989. music and the historical imagination. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. ubi, sam. 2008. "more: robert christgau and the invention of rock criticism:' b.a. thesis, wesleyan university. wheeler, bill. 1985. drum techniques of rush. van nuys, calif.: alfred. wheeler, bill. 1989. more drum techniques of rush. van nuys, calif.: alfred. 211 laurent aubert. 2007. the music of the other: new challenges for ethnomusicology in a global age. foreword by anthony seeger. translated by carla ribeiro. burlington, vt, and aldershot, uk: ashgate publishing. reviewed by marcello sorce keller i first read this book when it came out in french in 2001. back then i used to think that a progressive expansion of the musical horizon of any individual or society could only be considered positive among ethnomusicologists. not surprisingly, this was the fundamental tenet of the kodaly method of music education: a child naturally learns the mother tongue before learning foreign ones. so he/she should learn his musical mother tongue first, that is, the folk music of his native country, and then move on (according to kodaly) to western classical music. ethnomusicologists, of course, recommend go­ ing much further-in other words, musical explorations, unlike travelling across unfamiliar places, would entail no dangers-only pleasant discoveries. but then, as i read the book for the first time, i realized i was reading an articulated narrative showing, from various angles, how musical contacts and exchanges among music cultures are not an idyllic and harmonious process but, on the contrary, rather problematic ones. however, this should come as no surprise, since the "musical other" or the "other" tout court is, after all, no less than the witness of our own existence. witnesses who see things from a standpoint we seldom share can easily get us into trouble. in a kafkaesque manner, we may at some point find ourselves to be sentenced, even before we know we were, on trial. that is because music-making always manifests an uncanny ability to pick up symbolic meanings of one kind or another, right and left, in a magnet -like fashion, meanings that are often charged with connotations about identity. identities, interpreted by differences rather than on common traits, may well clash with one another. this is why musical contacts and exchanges may be problematic; entailing reactions of "marginal survival;' "emphasized memory and mannerism," "revival and reconstruc­ tion," "fusion and hybridizing," "substitutionlreplacement," "imitation/ innovation;' "compartmentalization;' "modernization," etc. but let me now start explaining what this book is about. in order to do so, it may help to remember how at the very beginning of one of his most influential works bruno nettl tells the amusing story of how difficult it was, in his younger years, to persuade most people ("normal" people who may not have even heard the word "ethnomusicology") that "music" exists well beyond the cultural borders of western society (nettl 1983:15). at current musicology, no. 87 (spring 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 219 220 current musicology the time, many could not believe that native americans had any kind of "real" music. likewise, western society found it hard to perceive the sound of an australian didgeridoo, or the inuit "throat games" as music. laurent aubert, with his provocative book, explains how the situation has become quite antithetical. today an incredible flood of music from the four corners of the world is easily accessible in the west-so much so that many people have developed an aural familiarity with it and habitually enjoy it, albeit in their own particular manner, which is precisely the point. in fact, the original significance of music coming to us, like a meteorite, from a totally unfamiliar cultural universe, be it the european middle ages, mongolia, or a tribal culture in papua new guinea, can hardly be accessible and convey-to most of us, at least-its original import. to put it differently, the musics of the world have become part and parcel of the sound bubble in which our daily lives unfold and, somehow, we make them fit. how that affects our relation to the written music of the west, to popular styles and genres, how that may alter our sense of aesthetics, and what ultimately all this does to our perception of the world and of our place in it-that is a cluster of inter­ related questions waiting to be studied and understood. another complex aspect also worth considering is the effect of dissemination across western societies to the musical traditions that continue to exist and develop in their place of origin. as aubert points out, it can be flattering for a group of people to know that their music has become appreciated worldwide; indeed traditions that were at one time not especially valued where they originated may become identity symbols once they begin to circulate abroad (one is reminded here of the case of tango in argentina, of rebetiko in greece, and of their transformation from low-brow to high-brow musical genres). aubert appropriately observes how the body of research devoted to the musics of the world, mostly developed throughout the twentieth century (at first within the field of "comparative musicology" and, later, in that of "ethnomusicology"), was not the main factor in bringing about today's many-layered and kaleidoscopic scenario. the main causes at play have been, rather, globalization, large-scale migration from africa and asia to the western countries, and the spread of communication technology. so it has happened that ethnomusicologists have been almost caught by surprise. once they were simply accustomed to studying the music of distant cultures and places in its original contexts (and of course, still continue to do so), but now they face the additional challenge of having to gauge and assess what is the role, the meaning, the import of, say, african or pakistani music that has become part of the everyday life of people who live in melbourne, los angeles, amsterdam, or, as in the case of our author, geneva. aubert clearly believes that it should be the primary concern of musical scholar­ ship to understand what impact "the music of the other" is having on all marcello sorce keller of us denizens of western society. i would find it hard to disagree with this point, because our exposure to the "music of the other" is probably the most fascinating musical phenomenon of our time. most intriguing of all is how so many people today, while missing the original import of much of the music they listen to, nonetheless "misunderstand" it in such a creative and successful way, as to make it compatible to their own lives. my reading is that, if so many people can indeed enjoy the sound of alien musics, that must be thanks to a new attitude capable of "producing meaning" for foreign musical styles and genres, an attitude of which westerners were incapable one hundred years ago (when educated germans could not relate to verdi and educated italians had problems with wagner). the point aubert makes is even more dramatic when one considers the very short time span, historically speaking, over which this drastic change we now need to come to terms with has occurred. it was at the debut of bruno nettl's the western impact on world music (1985), when scattered contributions to comparative musical aesthetics were also beginning to appear (marshall 1981; loza 1994). a little more than fifteen years later, as the french edition of this book signalled in 2001 (drawing upon articles that appeared between 1991 and 2000), it has become essential to consider the opposite situation: what impact world music is having on western society, what happens to our sense of aesthetics when we listen to musics which were not meant to coexist with each other on a daily basis. the author sees this as a veritable opportunity because, as he puts it, " ... consciously or not, the quest for the other in its difference is always also a quest for oneself by way of the other" (xi). no doubt, it would be a gain for us as individuals, as well as for our culture at large, if the quest for oneself"by way of the other" was made conscious and part of our current discourse on music. here the trouble is possibly that we are not confronted with just "one other;' but, more often than not, with various "others" whose individuality is juxtaposed and blended according to recipes that largely escape any obvious logic. but that only makes his point stronger; that comprehending all of this should be the primary task of musical studies today. laurent aubert's musings, nourished as they are by first-hand experiences and contacts with musi­ cians representing most of the musical styles and genres circulating across the planet today, are probably the best orientations available. they provide us with a wide range of possible interpretations, views and, of course, raise just as many questions. it may help to better gauge the nature of the book if i mention that laurent aubert is curator of the "departement d'ethnomusicologie" at the musee d'ethnographie in geneva (switzerland), and the founder and director of the ateliers d'ethnomusicologie. the latter is an institute devoted to the study of all music, where concerts and seminars are regularly 221 222 current musicology organized, and where-taking advantage of the immigrant population present in the city itself-social work and scholarship intertwine like pos­ sibly nowhere else. aubert is also the founder, as well as the editor, of the cahiers d'ethnomusicologie (formerly cahiers de musiques traditionnelles), a yearly publication started in 1988 which since 1994 has become the of­ ficial publication of the french society for ethnomusicology. the reason that this is significant in approaching the music of the other becomes apparent when one considers the role the french-speaking world and, of course, paris in particular, has played in the world-music phenomenon. for decades musicians from north, west, and central africa have used the french territories as a springboard to gain international recognition. so it is not surprising that such musings about the impact of world music on western society should come from a scholar who occupies a central role in french -language ethnomusicology. one does not need to read too many pages of the book to understand how its author, much as he is specifically interested and active in the field of indian music, still devotes a considerable part of his intellectual energy to keeping aware and abreast of all major events taking place in the world today-that is, in developing and maintaining a wide-angle view. to keep up to speed with musical diversity as it progresses by leaps and bounds is no easy endeavour. the result of this effort is expressed in a writing style and a way of articulating ideas that is quite personal, often inclined to be, if not outright aphoristic, at least lapidary. examples include captivating statements such as: "music is indeed never insignificant" (1); "world music is hybridization elevated to dogma" (55); "the role and function of a genre determines to a large measure its mode of acquisition" (70). there is no shortage of keen observations either; for instance that "some genres export better than others because they correspond to the expectations of their new audiences" (5), or that, although the colonial age established the premises for large-scale musical phenomena, « .•. paradoxically, colonial powers remained on the whole rather indifferent to matters of art and culture" (3). this is obviously more true in some cases than in others. italy, a locale familiar to this writer, instantly comes to mind where the late colonial experience in east africa only yielded a handful of semi-scholarly articles on the music of abyssinia, ethiopia, and eritrea, and a few popular songs celebrating the conquest of those african territories. aubert casts a wide net over the colorful musical landscape in which our daily lives unfold. the book's eleven chapters cover a wide range of topics: 1. the elsewhere of music: paradoxes of a multicultural society; 2. shared listening, an ethnomusicological perspective; 3. tradition in question: a problem of boundaries; 4. the paradox of the concert, or the evocation of marcello sorce keller tradition; 5. an artist's life, or the challenge of representation; 6. the art of hearing well: a sketch of a listener's typology; 7. the invention of folklore, or the nostalgia of origins; 8. world-music, or the last temptation of the west; 9. the large bazaar: from the meeting of cultures to the appropriation of the exotic; 10. learning the music of the other: a transcultural itinerary; ii. the fascination of india: lessons from personal experience. all these chapters still speak very well to the contemporary situation, although musical exchanges have increased even more since the book came out. in addition, a few other publications have appeared addressing similar questions, albeit from different angles, among them philip bohlman's world music: a very short introduction (2002), franco fabbri's, l'ascolto tabu: le musiche nella scontro globale (2005), and christoph cox and daniel warner's audio culture: readings in modern music (2006). it is fortunate that the book is just as topical today as it was seven years ago, since the usual trouble with translations is that, like the stars we see on a clear night sky, they give us a view of the past, and a view that the author may have in the meantime further developed. translations also result from a very selective and serendipitous process, and do not inform the reader about the cultural environment where the book was written. 1 tony seeger is therefore probably right when he says in his witty and perceptive foreword that ethnomusicologists working in english -speaking areas will probably find quite a few unfamiliar titles in the bibliography of this book. quite refreshing is aubert's ability to recognize the inevitability of musical change, how seldom it is in conflict with the tradition in which it occurs, and how, sometimes, even the adoption of western technology (for instance, electronic amplification) may actually help in bringing out aspects of a tradition that could not be made quite as visible without it (37). also important is to be reminded, like in the case of the andalusian flamenco, how recent some traditions really are (21); sociologist claude passeron puts it very well when he explains there is a phenomenon of "lost memory," which makes it seem that what is has always been (1986). not surprisingly, following such premises, aubert has little use for concepts such as "purity" and, which is just the other side of the same coin, "authenticity": a favourite statement of his, he often uses in conversation is that "every music is authentic, because it authentically is what it is"! and yet he explains the importance of considering how authenticity is perceived in our culture (see, for instance, the section "categories of the authentic;' 24-29), and in the cultures that entertain a dialogue with our own. aubert also recognizes the high degree of hybridism that is practically everywhere we look and listen while making the point that cultures-more specifically musical cultures-are not like scrambled eggs at all; because processes of hybridization are the result of peoples' needs, and tell us about such needs by making them tangible and audible. 223 224 current musicology up to this point one would say that between heraclites (who describes reality as a constant state of flux) and parmenides (for whom all change is mere illusion), aubert is definitely and wholeheartedly on the side of the former, in that he accepts the inevitability of constant change while-by and large-recognizing its positive effects. but then when one considers titles and subtitles such as "the great bazaar" and "the trivialization of the exotic;' and how the author expands on them, one finds in them overtones that are reminiscent of adorno and his dislike for the mass-media-oriented popular culture of the time. while aubert does not identify a disruptive force in the mass media, without which, developments would probably take a different course-one still gets the impression that he does not like their intervention too much either-as if to say that change is inevitable but should not be en­ tirely allowed to occur without guidance. one is reminded here of umber to eco who once called the cultural elites who fear the destruction of their world by mass communication and popular entertainment "apocalyptic" (one could see in that echoes of the frankfurt school), and those who wish to believe it is all to the better "integrates," for example, to some extent, marshall mcluhan (eco 1964). finding a middle ground between the two extremes, as aubert attempts, implies the juggling of nuances and is much more difficult than just to embrace one or the other. this is where the reader may have to struggle a bit in order to assess the author's position, that of his mind and of his heart, since they do not necessarily coincide all the time. nevertheless, aubert must be lauded for the undeniable accomplishment of someone who, like all ethnomusicologists, comes from a scholarly tradition that long refused to make musical change a serious subject of investigation. in considering the tradition and current evolution of the field of ethno­ musicology (in my view, one of the most stimulating aspects of this book), aubert manifests a nuanced, if not downright ambivalent stand vis-a-vis cultural relativism (without ever mentioning the term) and, therefore, in the continuum of "particularist" vs. "universalist" view of human cultures. the cultural relativistic dogma of the franz boas, ruth benedict, margaret mead, gregory bateson lineage postulated such a fundamental psychic difference among peoples, a "particularist" view, as to basically discourage comparison. today, cultural relativism no longer needs to be a flag against racism as it used to be, and it becomes natural and logical to discuss what cultures may have in common, the negotiations taking place among them, what one may give to another, and whether the exchange may hurt or not. one may also ask, as aubert does, " ... if, as one hears, music is a universal language, of what music do we speak, wherein lies its universality and under which conditions does it emerge?" (xii) marcello sorce keller in sum, many of us who are active in the field of ethnomusicology will find most of aubert's positions easy to agree with, but effectively highlighted, argued, and explained with fascinating examples. once all those single points are put together, they make up a picture that is more than the sum of its parts. the reaction of music scholars active in other areas of musical scholarship may be quite different, especially among those who focus on the written music of the west. reading this book should hopefully entice scholars to consider the orientation problems of soundscapes where hildegard von bingen, machaut, and josquin have become, for all practical purposes, contemporaries of vivaldi, verdi, bartok, stockhausen, and philip glass. these musics cannot refuse to coexist with miles davis, astor piazzolla, chick corea and, of course, umm kulthum, cheb khaled, genesis, and nusrat fateh ali kahn as well. english-speaking readers may have recently run across a book whose title is misleadingly similar to aubert's: western music and its others: difference, representation and appropriation in music (born and hesmondangh 2000). while both publications bear witness to the topical question of the ways in which the west relates musically to the rest of the world, the two are not comparable, and not just because the american book is a collective product. one fundamental difference is that western music and its others focuses on how the west "constructed" musical exoticism by oversimplifying, distorting, and absorbing what other musical worlds had to offer, by and large in the line of edward said's orientalism (1978). while aubert is obviously inter­ ested in these issues, as i have tried to explain, he goes far beyond. another fundamental difference is the constant reference to post -colonial studies in the cluster of contributions put together by born and hesmondangh, and the total absence of them in aubert's. the simple explanation is that post­ colonial studies is a field of great relevance in anglo-american academia, whereas it has not gained a foothold in europe. in conclusion, most of the books we read, as much as they increase our knowledge, are really not dangerous reading at all. this one may be. this is a book to be approached with full awareness that, unless you already are an heraclites-oriented music scholar, then you are taking chances of putting in question some of your strongly held beliefs and may have a hard time in reconciling what is left of them with this new picture. this is where aubert, better than most of his colleagues, is capable of making the new picture come alive, and communicate how difficult it is for most of us, the author included, to fully grasp its implications. the music of the other: new challenges for ethnomusicology in a global age is, at the time of this writing, a contribution unique in its kind. 225 226 curlrent musicology notes 1. for example, few of those who read the early english translations of dahlhaus's books could recognize how such works were part of an unofficial dialog between him and east german musicologist georg knepler. references bohlman, philip v. world music: a very short introduction. oxford and new york: oxford university press. born, georgina, and david hesmondangh, eds. 2000. western music and its others: difference, representation and appropriation in music. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. cox, christoph, and daniel warner, eds. 2006. audio culture: readings in modern music. new york and london: continuum international publishing. eco, umberto. 1964. apocalittici e integrati. milano: bompiani. eyerman, ron, and andrew jamison. 1998. music and social movements: mobilizing traditions in the twentieth century. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. fabbri, franco. 2005. l'ascolto tabu: le musiche nello scontro globale. milano: ii saggiatore. loza, steven, ed. 1994. musical aesthetics and multiculturalism in los angeles. in selected reports in ethnomusicology, vol. 10, los angeles, department of ethnomusicology and systematic musicology, univ. of california, los angeles, 1994. marshall, christopher. 1982. towards a comparative aesthetics of music. in cross cultural perspectives on music, edited by robert falck and timothy rice, 162-73. toronto: university of toronto press. nettl, bruno. 1983. the study of ethnomusicology: thirty-nine issues and concepts. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. ---.1985. the western impact on world music: change, adaptation, and survival. new york: schirmer books. passeron, jean -claude. 1986. le chasse-croise des oevres de la sociologie. in sociologic de l' art, edited by raymonde moulin, 447-59. paris: la documentation franyaise. said, edward. 1978. orientalism: western conceptions and the orient. london and new york: penguin books. sorce keller, marcello. 1992. multiculturalism: can we really face a different music? the quarterly journal of music teaching and learning 3 (4): 5-9. ---. 1996. of minority musics, preservation and multiculturalism: some considerations. in echoes of diversity, edited by ursula hemetek and emil h. lubej. vienna: bbhlau verlag, 1996. reprinted in sonusl6 (2): 33-41. wilson, peter niklas. 1987. zwischen <ethno-pop> und <weltmusik>: eurozentrische grundstrukturen im ungang mit aussereuropaischer musik. neue zeitschrift fur musik 5: 5-8. current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 33 harriet jacobs gets a hearing ashon crawley i what can one hear in confinement, and how can that hearing be connective lineament? in her grandmother’s crawlspace for seven years—compressed as a means to escape, confined with access only to shallow air as a means to flight—harriet jacobs was both discarded and discardable.1 what did it mean to be discarded, for discardable materiality to bespeak an ontological condition? what can we learn from jacobs’s existence in the crawlspace, of her throwing herself into claustrophobic conditions to stage her eventual scurrying away? her discarded body bodies forth socially and a sociality. what is the social life—as opposed to the social death—of the discarded? her existence in that crawlspace, as an object that was thrown and thrown away, is cause for celebration. harriet jacobs knew something about black performance as a mode of sociality that is still reproduced today.2 sound, for harriet jacobs, was an important resource for allowing her thriving, even in the most horrific of conditions. a small shed had been added to my grandmother’s house years ago. some boards were laid across the joists at the top, and between these boards and the roof was a very small garret, never occupied by any thing but rats and mice. it was a pent roof, covered with nothing but shingles, according to southern custom for such buildings. the garret was only nine feet long and seven wide. the highest part was three feet high, and sloped down abruptly to loose the board floor. there was no admission for either light or air . . . to this hole i was conveyed as soon as i entered the house. the air was stifling; the darkness total.3 jacobs’s escape is a sonic event: she wrote about the sound she heard in confinement, and that hearing was foundational for the telling of her narrative. this essay considers what it means to hear jacobs’s narrative incidents in the life of a slave girl,4 how sound reverberates throughout the text, how sound is residue and materiality of thought that memory refuses to forget. severed sight, eclipsed connection: “and now came the trying hour for current musicology 34 that drove of human beings, driven away like cattle, to be sold they knew not where. husbands were torn from wives, parents from children, never to look upon each other again this side of the grave. there was wringing of hands and cries of despair.”5 sound remains. her text is a songbook. listen: when i had been in the family [of dr. flint,6 the man who purchased and subsequently harassed her daily for sex] a few weeks, one of the plantation slaves was brought to town, by order of his master. it was near night when he arrived, and dr. flint ordered him to be taken to the work house, and tied up to the joist, so that his feet would just escape the ground. in that situation he was to wait till the doctor had taken his tea. i shall never forget the night. never before, in my life, had i heard hundreds of blows fall, in succession, on a human being. his piteous groans, and his “o, pray don’t, massa,” rang in my ear for months afterwards.7 sound remains. of course, the songbook is replete with lament. to consider the sounds, those piteous groans, is to think about how sound can prompt movement towards escape. but more, sound compels the movement of pen to paper. that is, the sounds jacobs hears “rang in her ears for months” so much so that she not only remembered the sound, but retold the sound to her audience. that ringing sound, that emanatory vibration, are the grounds for the narrativity of the slave girl’s incidents. sound—what was heard—thus, was the residual materiality of enslavement.8 there appears to be, embedded in the text, what diana taylor might call performance as a vital act of transfer, attempting to transfer the knowledge of enslavement to readers by way of recalling and retelling how the institution sounded, how the institutional force of enslavement reverberated, because sight was broken.9 the loss of sight and connection is invaginated—cut and augmented—by the sense of sound, by what sound does, particularly by reverberation and echo. for jacobs, sonic vibrations are a mnemonic reservoir that recalls sights, sounds, smells, and touches. sound not only recalls memory but is the memory itself. thus, i argue, the sonic of jacobs’s text shares a relationship with how she cognized enslavement and how she encouraged her audience, through the reiteration of sound events, to listen to the text rather than (merely) read it. in jacobs’s recalling, the antebellum soundscape compelled thoughts of fear as well as excitement, terror as well as joy. she told of how slave codes were read aloud on ships: “every vessel northward bound was thoroughly examined, and the law against harboring fugitives was read to all on board”;10 how dr. flint would read letters aloud to his family and to her grandmother;11 ashon crawley 35 and how sound technology was used to facilitate flight and escape: “it was not long before we heard the paddle of oars, and the low whistle, which had been agreed upon as a signal.”12 having spent time under floorboards, in a swamp and years in a crawlspace, jacobs’s text continually “hears” sound through spaces of darkness, spaces where sight was at best compromised and at worst, impossible. what materializes is a theory of memory, recall and narrative that depends upon lost sight, amplified noise. the senses become, following fred moten, an ensemble, a suite. if the sensual dominant of a performance is visual (if you’re there, live, at the club), then the aural emerges as that which is given in its fullest possibility by the visual . . . similarly, if the sensual dominant of the performance is aural (if you’re at home, in your room, with the recording), then the visual emerges as that which is given in its fullest possibility by the aural . . . in hearing the space and silence, the density and sound, that indicate and are generated by [the] movement[s].13 with jacobs’s songbook in mind, i argue that in order to understand the conditions of enslavement, escape, the possibilities for kinship, ideas of terror and joy that she recounts, one must attend to the ways sound is inserted in her text. hers is a text that moves in the way of black performance as a giving and withholding. not only did she give narrative but withhold names for her own and others’ safety, she gave escape by way of withdrawing from view. what her contemporaneous readers would ascertain about the status of slave girls manifested by a visual that depended upon being unseen, by a soundscape that was intensified. jacobs’s proto–black feminist project,14 written particularly to white women to engage them in abolition work, capitalized upon space, silence, density and sound to bespeak the horrors of enslavement so that they would not only visualize enslavement but hear it, taste it, feel it. the sonic in her text functioned in the service of presencing enslavement without allowing a reader’s slippage into mere empathy, which, saidiya hartman says, dovetails in a “too–easy intimacy” that effaces the enslaved and “fails to expand the space of the other but merely places the self in its stead.”15 in scenes of subjection, saidiya hartman explores the various ways terror festers in the most unlikely stagings and performances: in dances, songs and prayers.16  distilling her argument through the “terrible spectacle” of enslavement, hartman considers scenes where terror might hardly be detected, showing that the quotidian and mundane occurrences of everyday current musicology 36 life are important, critical sites that must be given attention if the reader is to robustly understand the horrors of such an institution. hartman explains how “incidents, by utilizing seduction and inquiring into its dangers…is fraught with perils precisely because there is no secure or autonomous exteriority from which the enslaved can operate or to which they can retreat.”17 i want to think about the sonic dimensions of such declarations—is black humanity possible; is there an exteriority towards which the black subject can escape?—in order to build on hartman’s rigorous analyses. attention to sound in and as jacobs’s text is critical for theorizing resistance—which she says is “hopeless”—in the crawlspace.18 the declaration that “resistance is hopeless” for the slave girl highlights the limits of resistance discourse. since jacobs was successful with her escape—lengthy and horrific though it was—we must be attuned to how her performances were not (merely about) resistance but were (about) some new thing, some enlivened way to be in the world. n., the main character in nathaniel mackey’s bedouin hornbook offers critical theory to think about compression and confinement, and the possibility for making light, making love, as and in sound. the book is in epistolary form, a collection of letters—not dissimilar to the letter–writing that harriet jacobs engaged in the crawlspace—that all concern the nature of sound and sentiment, the nature of the sonic and social world. n., a musician and critical theorist, created a form of writing that i believe is consistent with jacobs’s dwelling in the crawlspace: she was a compressed accompaniment before n. ever wrote about them: i’ve come up with a very dense form of writing, brief blocks of which are to be used to punctuate and otherwise season the music. compressed accompaniments i call them. i’m enclosing copies of the ones i’ve written for this piece. [ . . . ] what happens is that each station is presided over, so to speak, by one of the accompaniments, and in the course of the performance each player moves from station to station, at each of which he or she recites a particular accompaniment which “defines” that station. (i put the word “defines” in quotes because the point is to occupy a place, not to advocate a position. the word “informs,” it occurs to me now, might get more aptly at what i mean.) [ . . . ] some would say it’s not my place to make comments on what i’ve written, but let me suggest that what’s most notably at issue in the accompaniments’ he/she confrontation is a binary round of works and deeds whereby the dead accost a ground of uncapturable ashon crawley 37 “stations.” the point is that any insistence on locale must have long since given way to locus, that the rainbow bridge which makes for unrest ongoingly echoes what creaking the rickety bed of conception makes. i admit this is business we’ve been over before, but bear with it long enough to hear the cricketlike chirp one gets from the guitar in most reggae bands as the echoic spectre of a sexual “cut” (sex/unsexed, seeded/unsown, etc.)—“ineffable glints or vaguely audible grunts of unavoidable alarm.”19 near suffocation, jacobs had very little room to maneuver her body, very little air to breathe, and very little light through a crack in the wall. having dwelt in the crawlspace for seven years, she can be said to have “defined” that small, compressed space by her absence, a position she occupied without advocating for its health or safety. thus, i quoted mackey because the passage is illustrative of the ongoing preoccupation with movement and compression, antiphony and texture, that animated jacobs’s performance, which vivifies black sonic performance traditions from spirituals to gospel, from blues to jazz. dr. flint continually focused on jacobs’s absence, her locale in the purported north, but he should have yielded to what n. called the “locus,” which is the idea of center, source, and flow. her ability to recall life that transpired while she was in the crawlspace—her mode of escape—depended upon a forced looking away that heightened her awareness of the sound in and around her. the sound heard, generally conceived of as “noise”—of children and horses and wind blowing, for example—was differently intentioned, through imagination, in jacobs’s text. jacobs was compressed, indeed, but also accompanied, which is to say in existence with others, pointing us towards the ways in which compression and constraint do not ever remove possibilities for movement, flight, and escape. listen. jacobs’s attunement to black performance—which is to say the transfer of resistance as the force for life, the transfer of resistance as energetic field, through the reiteration of motions, migrations, flights, fleeings, abscondings, escapes—through jacobs’s own stilled flight, stilled escape in the nearly suffocating crawlspace concerns, quite literally, breath and movement, giving and withholding. giving herself over to conditions of confinement, withholding as much sound as possible in order to remain undetectable, those movements were held together in her performance of/as escape. jacobs’s life and escape anticipated and pre–performed martin heidegger’s later theory of being, time, and the given. heidegger lectured on the way in which past, present and future all participate in that which gives time, how each depends on the others in terms of proximities and approaches.20 barely current musicology 38 experienced, that which is present retreats while the past and future share a buoyant, directional relationship with any present: “time appears as the succession of nows, each of which, barely named, already disappears into the ‘ago’ and is already being pursued by the ‘soon.’”21 heidegger states, “being is not. there is, it gives being as the unconcealing; as the gift of unconcealing it is retained in the giving.”22 he continues, “time is not. there is, it gives time. the giving that gives time is determined by denying and withholding nearness.”23 heidegger reminds readers that being and time are not actual but their givenness, their gifting, their extending outward and manifesting a sociality and relationality are real. again, jacobs anticipated and pre–performed this. she unconcealed herself as a gift by enclosing herself in tight quarters; she discarded herself because of the discarded nature of the enslaved. that discardedness or, following heidegger, “self–withdrawal” is a giving, it is a gift, that not only takes place in “time” but gives temporality. the text she writes moves quickly and what took place in the span of years shuttles quickly but was no less real. temporal presencing depended upon the gift of unconcealment. to be attuned to the gift and the given is to consider an irreducible relationship of giving, blackness and the discarded. daphne brooks thinks through issues of approach and proximity—and, thus, giving and withholding—in her theorization of black cultural production and performance.24 brooks’s contention of “motion, migration, and flight” as an “operative trope in the black abolitionist cultural production of the slave’s narrative” elucidated how i think about how this essay opened, how i think about being discarded and discardable, how i think about being thrown and thrown away.25 ii how is it possible for the terribly terrorizing to also be terribly beautiful? why are occasions for marginalization also taken up as a resource for resilience? that is to ask why motion, migration and flight—even when forced—allow for those moving, those in migration, those in flight to imagine a future, to use the pathway as the occasion to think a different relation to the given world? there was something given in the man’s “piteous groans”—along with “heart rending shrieks”,26 as screams—that jacobs recounted that exceeded the scream’s limits, an uncontainable outside of the sound given in/as sound. what was given was a gift. but that gift is a withholding. some excess materiality withheld, against the scream’s sonic materiality. immediately given in the scream is the condition of what it meant to be enslaved, what it meant to be held against one’s will. but also given in that scream is a desire, a provocation against such an institution. the reverb that remained in ashon crawley 39 jacobs’s ear for “months” afterward—one could argue years, even, since she retold the story years later in the narrative—was a gift: of movement toward abolition. how is proximity—distance, nearness, or, following heidegger, “approach”—as that which gives time, gives space, an organizing principle for black performance? while the “piteous groans” as but one form of screaming quicken jacobs’s knowledge of the distasteful, doleful nature of enslavement, we must also consider what it means to occupy the space of a scream, what it means to position oneself within sonic materiality that bespeaks burden and pain but also allows for the protection against burden and pain. when you yell/scream, you take a deep breath and basically hold it to get the sound out...so you are not breathing. this leads to decreased oxygenation to the fetus. oxygenation to the fetus is always important, but becomes critically important during the labor process. the contractions associated with birth have the potential to lead to decrease oxygenation to the fetus, leading to a certain type of heart deceleration, leading to a possible urgent/ emergent situation. so yelling in labor can be like a double whammy. this quote is from an ob/gyn colleague of mine sent through personal communication, concerns the nature of screaming when giving birth. i first began to think about the relationship of sound to birth when my godson’s mother gave birth at a natural birthing center in philadelphia. the midwife instructed her, telling her that screaming would restrict airflow but moaning would allow her to breathe concurrently. though the pain is acute, screaming blocks air and, as such, is literally sound without the exhalation of air, sound without the exhalation breath. so the screams of the man that rang in jacobs’s ear are a withholding of breath and the giving of sound. in this instance, the discarded and the discardable is the emission of sound, the scream itself. the discarded and discardable materiality of scream is art; art insofar as in its presencing, it quickens in the hearer a response, whether an averted hearing so as to not respond or as a desire to listen more deeply, more intently. the scream is an aesthetic object that carries the trace and weight of its source of emanation. black performance is the ongoing repetition of giving and withholding, of furnishing forth and withdrawal, of the continual (re)birth of avoidance that nathaniel mackey calls the “eva[sion of] each and every natal occasion.”27 screams and moans function as sonic resources that speak to and current musicology 40 against each other: moans give breath, screams withhold air, which might suggest a recalibration to the rather insouciant and careless way that “call and response” is invoked as some sort of solitary hinge upon which black performance is articulable. moans and screams concern the status of breath in incubation, during any moment and by any mode of flight and escape. but the new, cool thing (re)birthed in jacobs’s performance also includes play, creativity, taunt and trickery, demonstrated by her writing letters to dr. flint from her suffocating crawlspace. she utilized the compressed space to articulate and create herself, self– fashioning subjectivity by imagination and wit. her letters written to dr. flint and others “from” locations she could only imagine in the crawlspace were a chorus, continually echoing the sentiment, “i am not here.” n. in bedouin hornbook theorizes the chorus as such: you bring up the possibility of taunt, a distinct quality of tease you detect in the seductive, almost dovelike smoothness we so often get from the chorus. i’m very much inclined to agree, but i can’t help cautioning us both against, again, overhearing rather than hearing what’s there. [ . . . ] what i’m trying to say is that, while i’d agree that there’s an aspect of taunt to the chorus’ contribution, part of what it taunts is our inclination to hear it as taunt, that the chorus whispers so as not to be overheard”28 jacobs understood that if sent to louisiana, there would be unrestricted effacements to her personhood by dr. flint’s son who cared very little for her. she also understood that north of the mason and dixon line was a freedom that she could only imagine. jacobs was, thus, against louisiana as an impossible future and imagined—which is to say, held—impossibility of the present moment. the impossible present was the writing of letters to dr. flint “from” new york, boston and canada. those places—both south and north—were imagined as an oppressiveness that her stillness in the crawlspace sought to escape, and her writing was generated out of a knowledge of freedom which was held near and dear to her heart. when jacobs wrote about the letters scripted to dr. flint, a critique of the idea of textuality and narrativity was given, and curiously enough was discovered when dr. flint read the letters aloud to her grandmother, while inserting his own words as edits, rather than reading verbatim the words on the page. he engaged in on–the–spot revision, and by his revision of words, he troubled the status of literary text itself, the same disrupturing that jacobs’s writing produced. the multiple letters “from” varied locales liquidate the possibility of abolitionist activism as simply a matter of writing letters. ashon crawley 41 though participating herself in the enterprise of literacy, because she infused narrative with sonic claims and memory, jacobs impels a different sort of ecstatic response. voices (over)heard in the crawl space beckoned jacobs’s imagination in the two spatial directions that were literally antithetical to the other. she was in a suspended space, stopped time. she obscured the status of the written word, using the confined, constrained mode of literacy as a ruse against the institution that confined and constrained her. she taunted and teased dr. flint with her letter writing, compelling him to overhear what wasn’t there and to allow what was repetitiously whispered—her presence—go undetected. thinking through jacobs’s confinement and compression may help us ask what the sonic—screams and moans, here—shares relationally with birth and/of performance, with blackness. again: what does it mean to occupy the sonic space of a scream? in the crawlspace: morning came. i knew it only by the noises i heard for in my small den day and night were all the same. i suffered for air even more than for light. but i was not comfortless. i heard the voices of my children. there was joy and there was sadness in the sound. it made my tears flow. how i longed to speak to them! i was eager to look on their faces; but there was no hole, no crack, through which i could peep.29 the suffocating crawlspace was a scream, it is the withholding of life–force while the yielding a way to and for sound. the scream highlights the exteriority of sound and the interiority of the thing withheld. jacobs was held within the crawlspace and, with little air, sound heard was issued forth all around her. she was in the sonic position of the scream; in the crawlspace she was held breath, loud noise. in the crawlspace she was sounding out by way of restricted air. what was withheld in stifling silence was her life force, her breath, her animus. that which animated the body was withheld while giving. there is a theological dimension here, a mode of sacred sociality within her withholding. the withholding anticipated heidegger’s theorizing on giving and withholding. the withheld is the excess, given in its refusal to give. the scream bears the trace of a gift, unconcealed by concealment. jacque derrida elucidates a relationship of gift to economy useful for thinking about the scream: if the figure of the circle is essential to economics, the gift must remain aneconomic. not that it remains foreign to the circle, but it must keep a relation of foreignness to the current musicology 42 circle, a relation without relation of familiar foreignness. it is perhaps in this sense that the gift is the impossible. not impossible but the impossible. the very figure of the impossible. it announces itself, gives itself to be thought as the impossible.30 in the literal economics of enslavement, the gift that is withheld—breath— remains aneconomic to enslavement. the breath is essentially foreign, irreducibly disagreeable to enslavement. that to say—hopefully simply and precisely—that enslavement and the whip could not lash out personhood. rather, the scream emits—sonically, phonically—to presence the anti–breath, that which remains literally outside this system. the bodying forth of the scream is the refusal of the material gift—air, breath, the capacity of lungs to hold—as essential foreignness, as keeping, holding, arresting, presencing, possessing an irreducibly disagreeableness. the scream also refuses to birth anything, the scream aborts what the whip tries to inculcate. with the scream, what is heard always exceeds what is audible. with the scream, sound emits by way of the withdrawing and withholding of breath. the screams jacobs recounts give the gift of withholding relation and relationality, a relationality of antirelationality. this is to say that the whip is irreducibly in foreign relation—sonically—to the one abused. this presencing of the scream implicates a mode of sociality. what does it mean to be this gift, this essentially aneconomic substance that keeps and holds that economy to which it is always foreign; that which is impossible that founds the condition of possibility of an economy of circulation? sound as discardable. breath as withheld. proximity and performance. but breath withheld is no less real, it gives and sustains life against the scream that sounds death. the seen and unseen, the scene and unscene, the heard and unheard: these concern space, place, movement and performance. blackness sings, hums, holds breath, gives scream. the crawlspace jacobs occupied for seven years makes this audible. harriet’s “performance” forces us to think the relationship between voice and environment. in this effort, we can solicit the help of more recent reflections on this problematic. iii alvin lucier sits in a room in order to hear himself and the room more pronouncedly, using performance art to question how spaces and voices are mutually constitutive. responding to lucier’s 1970 performance piece i am sitting in a room (1970), timothy morton writes that lucier’s work is “a powerful demonstration of the shifting and intertwined qualities of ashon crawley 43 foreground and background.”31 subjectivity was inculcated at the scene and there is a necessary sonic quality to this production. lucier’s “i”—the one who sits in the room—is constructed by the mutually constitutive relationship of his seated body and the room. lucier sat in a room recording the process of recording. as such, it was a recording of recording of recording. according to morton, the “multiple” recordings of lucier’s voice in a room on a tape recorder makes audible the “resonance of the room and feeds it back, amplif[ies] and articulat[es] it through the sound of the speaking voice.”32 multiple recordings on the same tape allow for “the loss of words and for the inscribing of the sound of the room ‘itself,’” demonstrating the way in which we come to realize that the voice and the room are mutually determining. one does not precede the other. the work is situated on a wavering margin between words and music, between music and sheer sound, and ultimately between sound (foreground) and noise (background). retroactively, we realize that the room was present in the voice at the very beginning of the process. the voice was always already in its environment.33 what is evinced is that the scene that subjects does not ever escape sonic dimensionality. noise, particularly outside the crawlspace or above the floorboard that jacobs hears, cannot be discarded but must be gathered and held. noise must be likewise conceived as materiality of and for thought, if not the very materiality from which any thought could be said to possibly emerge. attention to the noise of the background bespeaks the insistence of breath, of life force. there is an unheard, an unseen on which we must likewise concentrate during any hearing, during any scene that exceeds a scene’s subjection. environment, noise and blackness converge in performance for adrian piper. piper’s art for the artworld surface pattern constructs a tightly closed room full of sensory information on walls.34 the piece is a rather small room that could fit three to four persons in it. walls flat with only one small entrance, the room has no furniture and the walls and ceiling are covered with newspaper clippings of various political struggles and world disasters and “at arbitrary places across the photographs the words not a performance are stenciled in red.” in piper’s words, the piece “surrounds you with the political problems you ignore and the rationalizations by which you attempt to avoid them.”35 there is also the insertion of speech with a tape loop, which is the repudiation of the material on the wall as art, it is a stereotyped reply to the aesthetics “that ignored completely [the] topical thrust” of the work.36 the point of both the visual and sonic overload was to create a situation in which, “in order to distance oneself from the work, one would be forced to adopt some critical stance that did not itself express the aestheticizing response.”37 current musicology 44 an audience enters this art space only to be confronted with that– which–is–not–art that is the condition of possibility for that–which–is–art. this confrontation takes place on the level of the scene constituted by the seen and the sonic. what piper does—by including the words “not a performance” and the audio loop—is gather and insert that which is typically thrown away. the condition for art is noise, and this condition is necessarily discardable in order to assent to an aesthetic creation. to be attentive to the “surface pattern” is to give attention to that which easily recedes, that which readily is discarded. attending to the “surface pattern” equally requires attention to that which exists right below the surface, that which is barely there, that which shows up by way of a resistance to showing up. being in a claustrophobic condition makes this seen and heard. the noisy walls and speech are the material that prompt thought itself, thought that instantiates a “looking away” and a “hearing away” from what is seen and heard in this scene. to think an otherwise aesthetic—an aesthetic grounded in the refusal to look away, to hear away; that is, an aesthetic grounded in a refusal of aversion—occurs at the moment of confrontation with that materiality that is already thought. the ability to withhold (one’s thoughts) that piper facilitated by means of the tape loop declares the possibility for one to be critical, for one to think. her rhetoric of “distance” and “critical stance” informs my thoughts on black performance as critically distancing. the distance between jacobs in the crawlspace and the voices she hears bodies forth the criticality of withholding. withholding is a critical act and screams and moans make this audible. noisy sounds just outside the cramped quarters of claustrophobic escape are purposive for thought, imagination, recall and play. we should also consider the relationship of sound to kinship that was anything but negated. previous to his mother’s escape to the north, jacobs’s son “ benny” importantly recounts how noise and mothering inform the other. he heard noise issuing from the crawlspace: i was standing under the eaves, one day, before ellen [linda brent’s daughter] went away, and i heard somebody cough up over the wood shed. i don’t know what made me think it was you, but i did think so. i missed ellen, the night before she went away; and grandmother brought her back into the room in the night; and i thought maybe she’d been to see you, before she went, for i heard grandmother whisper to her. ‘now go to sleep; and remember never to tell.’ ashon crawley 45 i asked him if he ever mentioned his suspicions to his sister. he said he never did; but after he heard the cough, if he saw her playing with other children on that side of the house, he always tried to coax her round to the other side, for fear they would hear me cough, too. he said he had kept a close lookout for dr. flint, and if he saw him speak to a constable, or a patrol, he always told grandmother. i now recollected that i had seen him manifest uneasiness, when people were on that side of the house, and i had at the time been puzzled to conjecture a motive for his actions.38 what does it mean for him to hear noise, to hear coughing, and have a knowledge of mothering that was thought to not exist for black women in the antebellum period? what does it mean for him to hear noise and recognize life therein? noise had a hearing that was generative for understanding life, both on the inside of the crawlspace where seeing was nearly impossible and on the outside where only sound could tether those lines of kinship. noise on both sides of the crawlspace connects, yields—which is to say, is submitted—to the power of protection and desire for and the giving of love. iv the crawlspace is a place not of abandon from her children, family and friends, but a place of lingering, a place of abiding, a caesura, an extended beat. this section will consider the sonic, tonal dimensionality of such abiding presence, augmenting the insouciant discourse in which blackness and rhythm has been presented as if naturally going together, as if african “diaspora” only sounds out through the “talking drum.” whereas fred moten thinks about black radicalism “in the break,”39 i want to think about dwelling in the crawlspace as a means to extend the break, as a means to suspend brokenness as a moment and mode of black performance. jacobs extends the measure, and finds a “buoyant device” of an uncomfortable, inconvenient, unprofitable and non– gratifying rationality for our consideration.40 her abiding in the crawlspace is all about love—of herself, of her grandmother, of her children. her time in that breaking broken space, in that breaking brokenness that could not break her; the time therein was, thus an example of “abiding love” in which “the past is nullified by reconceiving any break not as a conclusion but as the inauguration of a possibility.”41 what does it mean to attend to the sonic dimensions of abiding, which would attend to the the love from a mother that was deemed impossible, or to think that possibility is immanent, is always waiting in potential? current musicology 46 jacobs’s occupying of dark spaces moves us toward a discussion of tone and voice. as a former pentecostal organist, choir director, singer and songwriter, i would say that if jacobs were to join a choir that i directed, i would place her in the alto section because of the position this voice occupies in three–part harmonic pentecostal black gospel choirs .42 within this admittedly small configuration of sounds, the alto section plays a defining role in the harmonics by determining the major or minor tonality of the song. jacobs’s text is about flight and escape and continually stages these movements by lingering in what jennifer brody might call the suspended space of the ellipsis . . . 43 for the major scale, troubled treble clef part of her escape, jacobs spends time suspended, in between—grandmother’s crawlspace and under betty’s floorboard but above the ground. she is the alto “note,”44 using this necessarily in–between position to move towards escape. this is the story of how refuge and escape sound, how the crawlspace is the alto voicing, a forced middling position that both confines and struggles against that confinement by way of imagination and tricky movement. this is about the crawl space and black performance, giving and withholding, breathing and withdrawal. the way i think “altoness” emerges from the black pentecostal experience and within this religiocultural movement, harmonic contribution converges with being off and in between; the best changes converge with challenges to the ear; prettiness—or, the beautiful—converges with weird turns; ambiguity converges with difficult classification.45 in these churches, for example, when popular black gospel music is performed, those who have a voice in the bass range are generally encouraged either to sing an octave below the sopranos or to strive to sing tenor and many songs chosen to sing intentionally do not accommodate that lowest register whatsoever. it is within this specific sonic world of pentecostals that i began to ask: what does it mean for a sound—altoness—to situate itself in the middle, regardless of the harmonic chord? to be the middle is to be the alto; the alto is both a giving and withholding, an excess and a lack concurrently. the alto “note” creates suspended space both above and below it, functions like a magnetic field that attracts and repels, acts like a circle that buoys in two directions. jacobs’s insistence on existing within in–between spaces as a mode of escape lets us think about tonality and its relation to personhood, utilizing the alto “note” as an example. this alto “note,” when voiced, brings together sound, subjectivity and sexuality. the alto voice is defined as both “the lowest female” part and “the highest male” part conterminously. in the history of three– part music, the alto occupies an interstitial space, it is literally situated between that which holds and that which is against being held. “[i]n the present context [alto] is an italian abbreviation derived from the latin ashon crawley 47 phrase contratenor altus, used in medieval polyphony, usually to describe the highest of three parts, the line of which was in counterpoint . . . with the tenor (which “held” the main melody; this word itself originates in the latin verb tenere, meaning “to hold”).”46 and though it refers today to voices, it initially named a range, a space, a sonic dwelling. from the latin meaning the “second highest,” it appears that alto is between—literally—the voice that holds (tenor) and that which is the sonic antithesis of being held (soprano). the space the alto occupies is a forced middling position and—in the way i conceive it—is a with–holding. that is, the alto is against being held and holds concurrently. so what does the alto range hold? and what does the alto range refuse to hold? there are two resonances of being held: that of the erotic, libidinous and that of the violent, incarcerational. the sonic situation of the alto is a middle space, a suspension that literally occurs through sound. a middle space, a middle passage, even. the alto range exceeds itself both towards and away from the tenor and the soprano, and in that striving between those two spaces is agitational. but the alto range—like the other two—is also relational. we can think of the sonic position of alto through its constraint by the heights of the sopranos and the depths of the tenors; though the alto can approach either of those two “notes” at any given moment in a song, there are few moments when the alto sings higher than the soprano or lower than the tenor. this space of constraint also creates the condition for creativity to emanate, this space of constraint is the place out of which harmony is voiced. but what of the libidinous alto, the alto in its zone of amorphous, ambiguous gendering and sexuality, the alto that is both—which is to say, neither—the highest female and lowest male part that is sung, that is sounded out? as an incarcerational space, the alto range allows for all sorts of possibilities by way of the deformational force contained within it. a voicing that is off and in– between, beautiful and weird, constitutive and problematic is the nature of queer diaspora, another zone of possibility eked out through the limitations placed on what is conceived as normal. the alto stands as both anti– and ante– gender, it is also anti– and ante–normality, it is a sonic thought that sounds before the bodies through which it is sounded. so the alto is queer because it is a concept that is thought outside of and aside from the bodies whose voices inside will enunciate. it is a fugitive voice before it sings, it is within the incarcerational space of thought. jacobs, of course, theorizes this queered space by way of her escape performance through the street: i had not the slightest idea where i was going. betty brought me a suit of sailor’s clothes— jacket, trowsers, and tarpaulin hat. she gave me current musicology 48 a small bundle, saying i might need it where i was going. in cheery tones, she exclaimed, ‘i’se so glad you is gwine to free parts! don’t forget ole betty. p’raps i’ll come ‘long by and by.’’47 we were rowed ashore, and went boldly through the streets, to my grandmother’s. i wore my sailor’s clothes, and had blackened my face with charcoal. i passed several people whom i knew. the father of my children came so near that i brushed against his arm; but he had no idea who it was.48 the incarcerational space out of which the alto “notes” emerge includes the various dark spaces that harriet jacobs performed acts of flight and escape—what daphne brooks theorizes as places full of opaque possibility. the pentecostal three–part harmonic’s alto range, because of its seeming ontic position, submits and is submitted to regulation. but through the possibility of what pentecostalism colloquially calls the alto range’s “weirdness,” its sounding “off” that it could be said it initiates and instantiates, a possibility of disruption is always already before the composition of any harmonic itself. this sonic space is bound up with a knowledge of freedom that the submission to this zone could be said to allow its materialization but not create. one always is surprised, then, by the refusal to submission that is voiced in the very constraints of submission itself. and it sounds beautiful, weird, off, in–between, murky and challenging. is this not jacobs in her terribly enriching and beautiful performance? she submits to a regulatory mode of existence and it is this very submission that makes possible the enunciation of her personhood. or, more precisely, her submission highlights the fact that she “cannot give the consent that, nevertheless, she can withhold.”49 consider what it means to “occupy”—which is to say, to take up and to throw down—the sonic position that approaches and refuses; the alto approaches and refuses, refuses as a means of approach, approaches as a means of refusal. a challenge both internally—across the section—and externally with how that section relates to the others.  this voicing is expansive both breadth and depth while also it moves across time and through space. so the alto voice, i think, is fugitivity that opens up and breaks down. this alto is the zone of black social life that is thought as nothing other than social death.  the alto is “an irreducibly disordering, deformational force” that is “at the same time being (that is) absolutely indispensable to normative order, normative form.”50 we call this normal order and form music . . . but i want to think of it as a mode of flight and escape. ashon crawley 49 there is a deformational quality to the alto position that exists prior to the enunciation of any note. the alto is an insistent challenge that is—in a nathaniel mackeyan formulation—“previous to situation” of song, of composing itself. to compose means to gather together, to organize into, to create form out of that which precedes it. thus, before any note is ever sung, before any tone had been thought by the writer of any such song, the alto—by virtue of this sonic subjectivity—will have already been that voice that will occupy that middling position. as previous to situation, the materiality of song stands before (and against) its organization as and into music as such. the alto voicing, then, through musical composition practices could be thought otherwise than sound, which brings me to jacobs’s occupation in dense, dark, desolate spaces. jacobs as and in alto—a sonic spacing—gives us room, however small, to think about the emptiness and fullness that henry dumas describes as a saxophone in his short story “will the circle be unbroken?”: [h]is soprano sax resting against his inner knee, his afro–horn linking his ankles like a bridge. the afro–horn was the newest axe to cut the deadwood of the world.”51 can something that cuts also be a bridge? lacan’s understanding of language cutting to create subjects approaches this severed/linked binary. moten discusses “the perception of the absence of a regular pulse in african music” perceived as “that same pulse’s often overwhelming presence.”52 what can it mean for absence and presence to linger in the same moment—whether image, sound or text? not just a presence, but one that overwhelms, a presence that encloses and opens up—like a circle—as the condition of possibility for social life. the presence that encloses as it opens, gives as it withholds, restricts breath as it gives life: this is the position of jacobs. the possibility for a social life is found even there under the floorboard, in the swamp, in the crawlspace, in any moment and mode of performance of giving and withdrawal. the alto range mediates, it is a voice of transfer, as a translator. so the alto voice, in the ways i’m thinking of it, concern language, utterance and meaning, and sound. consider the space between de rien (literally “of nothing”) and you’re welcome, the structure that is between these two ideas that prompt thought, that which, even when translated, is always mistranslated.  in the act of translation itself—an act of movement from, to—there is the agitational force of flight and escape at work.  from de rien to you’re welcome, some excess goes unattended, it is left dangling. the alto voice means in the same manner that the soprano and tenor mean in song. but as a transactional voice, as that mediation, as that middling position, as that held and against being held voice, the alto breaks down current musicology 50 that which it opens up. unity and breakdown at the sound of the voice that structures black social life, which is to say, black diaspora. unity and unison are important, here. the unison voice of black pentecostal choirs is typically in the alto range, a voicing that is low enough for tenors but high enough sopranos, reached from two different directions. when the voices split apart, when they go to their respective sonic communities, the alto range will typically continue to occupy that same sonic space, not jumping up or down. the alto range, the alto zone, pushes away from itself, moves others as it moves itself. this pushing away from self is what harriet jacobs performed in those tight spaces of incarceration. she withdrew breath, performed scream; she submitted to constrained, performed flight. heeding the sonic consequences of such performances augment the statement: “always these sounds render the indescribable, implying ‘words can’t begin to tell you but maybe moaning will.’”53 and maybe screaming will. we learn of giving and withholding, of life and escape by way of sound. listen to harriet jacobs sing. ashon crawley 51 notes 1. this essay concerns the piece written by harriet jacobs about her experiences of enslavement published, initially, in 1861. in the text, jacobs uses the name “linda brent” in order to ensure the safety of herself, her family and friends; she wanted to ensure that the incidents she recounted would not lead to harm of the ones she loved, given the fact that she was writing in the antebellum period. most notable in the text is jacobs’s seven– years stay in the “loophole of retreat,” the crawlspace of her grandmother’s abode. see harriet a. (harriet ann) jacobs, incidents in the life of a slave girl : written by herself (boston : bedford/st. martins, c2010). 2. diana taylor states that performance is a “vital act of transfer” and here i want to consider the vitality, the force of life, is given and transmitted through the performance of retreat, through harriet jacobs’s movement into the crawlspace for seven years. as “black performance,” this essay is in conversation with fred moten’s contention that “the history of blackness is a testament to the fact that objects can and do resist” where the object, here, is jacobs and her resistant movement, her against– the– grain stilling as another movement that privileges silence and quietude. see diana taylor, the archive and the repertoire : performing cultural memory in the americas (durham : duke university press, 2003); fred moten, in the break: the aesthetics of the black radical tradition, 1st edn (minnesota: univ. of minnesota press, 2003). 3. jacobs. 4. jacobs. 5. jacobs. 6. “dr. flint” is the pseudonym jacobs uses for the man who owned her, dr. james norcom. 7. jacobs. 8. this is argued forcefully in shane white and graham white’s historicizing of the sounds of the antebellum south. see shane white and graham white, the sounds of slavery: discovering african american history through songs, sermons, and speech (beacon press, 2006). 9. taylor. 10. jacobs. 11. jacobs. 12. jacobs. 13. moten, in the break. 14. anachronistic though such a distinction as “black feminist” may be, i use hazel carby’s discussion of jacobs as support: “jacobs used the material circumstances of current musicology 52 her life to critique conventional standards of female behavior and to question their relevance and applicability to the experience of blackwomen” (47). see hazel v. carby, reconstructing womanhood : the emergence of the afro– american woman novelist (new york : oxford university press, 1987). 15. saidiya v. hartman, scenes of subjection: terror, slavery, and self– making in nineteenth– century america (oxford university press, 1997). 16. hartman. 17. hartman. 18. jacobs. 19. nathaniel mackey, from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate: bedouin hornbook, djbot baghostus’s run, atet a.d., 1st edn (new directions, 2010). 20. martin heidegger, on time and being. (new york, harper & row [1972]). 21. heidegger. 22. heidegger. 23. heidegger. 24. daphne brooks, bodies in dissent: spectacular performances of race and freedom, 1850– 1910 (durham: duke university press, 2006.). 25. brooks. 26. frederick douglass, narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave, bedford books in american history. boston : bedford books of st. martin’s press, 1993. 27. nathaniel mackey, from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate: bedouin hornbook, djbot baghostus’s run, atet a.d., 1st edn (new directions, 2010). 28. mackey. 29. jacobs. 30. jacques derrida as quoted in alan d. schrift, the logic of the gift : toward an ethic of generosity (new york: routledge, 1997). 31. timothy morton, ecology without nature : rethinking environmental aesthetics (cambridge, mass.: harvard university press, 2007). 32. morton. 33. morton. ashon crawley 53 34. adrian piper, out of order, out of sight (cambridge, mass.: mit press, 1996.). 35. ibid.. 36. ibid. 37. ibid. 38. jacobs, i. 39. moten, in the break. 40. adrian piper, rationality and the structure of the self, volume 1: the humean conception. (berlin: adrian piper research archive, 2008). in this volume, she states: “buffeted and bruised by the currents of desire and longing for once to ride the wave, we may cast about for some buoyant device from which to chart a rational course; and finding none, ask ourselves the following questions: do we at least have the capacity ever to do anything beyond what is comfortable, convenient, profitable, or gratifying? can our conscious explanations for what we do ever be anything more than opportunistic ex post facto rationalization for satisfying these familiar egocentric desires? if so, are we capable of distinguishing in ourselves those moments when we are in fact heeding the requirements of rationality, from those when we are merely rationalizing the temptations of opportunity? i am cautiously optimistic about the existence of a buoyant device—namely reason itself—that offers encouraging answers to all three questions.” it appears that jacobs, at the very least, found the space—which is to say the capacity—of this buoyant device of reason. 41. andrew zawacki, ‘“the break is not a break’: kierkegaard, heidegger, and poesis as abiding love,” the antioch review, 62 (2004), 156–170. 42. i make no claims about the “black church” as a monolith; this particular theorizing emerges from my personal encounters and interactions within the pentecostal sects of which i have been a part for a long period of my life. i grew up in the church of god in christ, the largest black pentecostal body in the world and have choral director within pentecostal circles for many years. within that tradition, three– part harmony [soprano, alto and tenor] was privileged above four– part harmony. of course, there would be occasions when even we would sing four– part harmonic selections but those occasions were far and few in between. 43. jennifer devere brody, “the blackness of blackness . . . reading the typography of ‘invisible man’,” theatre journal 57 (2005): 679–698. 44. in non– musicological settings, in pentecostal churches—at least the many with which i have been involved—we designate alto, not by range but by “note.” the ideas i have about “altoness” emerge from colloquial usage of these musicological designations. i’m sure not a few musicologists will be slightly annoyed by the imprecision of such language but be assured that the imprecision is represented as precisely as it would be invoked in the peculiar corners of black pentecostalism. current musicology 54 45. i posed a question as a status on facebook asking what section people preferred in black gospel choirs and the most recurrent answer was the alto section. many that are familiar with black gospel music in general and black gospel choirs particularly state that the alto section is typically the most interesting sonically. people noted that the parts given to the alto section are challenging and atonal; the voicing can strive towards the heights of the sopranos or the depths of the tenors but never exceed in either direction: “altos have the best harmonic contributions” “alto, while i love it, always has some off/inbetween notes” “altos because they have the best changes ever. it challenges the ear.” “altos always have the prettiest parts to me. that middle note takes some weird turns to hold the harmony together.” “altos are the ambiguous middle…they often occupy a murky space…not easy to classify” 46. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/alto 47. jacobs. 48. jacobs. 49. fred moten, ‘preface for a solo by miles davis,’ women & performance: a journal of feminist theory 17 (2007), 217. 50. fred moten, ‘the case of blackness’, criticism 50 (2008), 177–218. 51. henry dumas and eugene redmond, echo tree: the collected short fiction of henry dumas (minneapolis, mn: coffee house press : distributor, consortium book sales & distribution, 2003). 52. fred moten, “the new international rhythmic of feelings,” in sonic interventions (amsterdam ; new york, ny: rodopi, 2007). 53. anthony heilbut, the gospel sound: good news and bad times – 25th anniversary edition, anniversary (limelight editions, 1997). references brody, jennifer devere. 2005. the blackness of blackness. . . reading the typography of ‘invisible man.’ theatre journal 57: 679–698. brooks, daphne. 2006. bodies in dissent: spectacular performances of race and freedom, 1850– 1910. durham: duke university press. carby, hazel v. 1987. reconstructing womanhood: the emergence of the afro–american woman novelist. new york: oxford university press. douglass, frederick. 1993. narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american slave. boston: bedford books of st. martin’s press. ashon crawley 55 dumas, henry, and eugene redmond. 2003. echo tree: the collected short fiction of henry dumas. minneapolis, mn: coffee house press: distributor, consortium book sales & distribution. hartman, saidiya v. 1997. scenes of subjection: terror, slavery, and self– making in nineteenth– century america. oxford university press, usa. heidegger, martin. 1972. on time and being. new york, harper & row. heilbut, anthony. 1997. the gospel sound: good news and bad times – 25th anniversary edition. limelight editions. jacobs, harriet a. (harriet ann). 2010. incidents in the life of a slave girl : written by herself. boston : bedford/st. martins. mackey, nathaniel. 2010. from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate: new york: new directions. morton, timothy. 2007. ecology without nature: rethinking environmental aesthetics. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. moten, fred. 2003. in the break: the aesthetics of the black radical tradition. univ of minnesota press. _____. preface for a solo by miles davis. 2007. women & performance: a journal of feminist theory 17: 217-246. _____. 2008. the case of blackness. criticism 50: 177-218. _____. 2007. the new international rhythmic of feelings. . sonic interventions. amsterdam ; new york, ny: rodopi. . piper, adrian. 1996. out of order, out of sight. cambridge: mit press. _____. 2008. rationality and the structure of the self, volume 1: the humean conception. berlin: adrian piper research archive. . schrift, alan d. 1997. the logic of the gift : toward an ethic of generosity. new york: routledge. taylor, diana. 2003. the archive and the repertoire : performing cultural memory in the americas. durham : duke university press. white, shane, and graham white. 2006. the sounds of slavery: discovering african american history through songs, sermons, and speech. beacon press. zawacki, andrew. 2004. ‘the break is not a break’: kierkegaard, heidegger, and poesis as abiding love. the antioch review 62: 156–170. georgina born and david hesmondhalgh, eds. western music and its others: difference, representation, and appropriation in music. university of california press, 2000. xi, 360 pp. reviewed by aaron a. fox this is an important book, and deselv'es attention from ethnomusicolo­ gists, historical musicologists, and students of popular culture across the disciplines. it is the first collection i am aware of to situate issues of the politics, semiotics, and cultural dynamics of musical appropriation in a broad, interdisciplinary context attentive to the theoretical projects of postcolonial and post-structuralist cultural studies. there have been sev­ eral monographic studies and edited volumes in recent years that have explored some of this intellectual terrain; gerry farrell's indian music and the west (1997) and jonathan bellman's edited collection the exotic in western music (1998) each approach art musics in terms of transnational appropriations and orientalist cultural dynamics. and a wide range of work on popular music and globalization has taken up the thorny prob­ lematic of "appropriation" in terms of issues of ownership and cultural im­ perialism (a good example is timothy taylor's 1997 global pop). however, the disciplinary and empirical articulations achieved in this volume are in many cases novel and, in their totality, quite progressive. simply by virtue of its serious commitments to interweaving popular and art music subjects, "western" and "non-western" idioms and perspectives, and textual and con­ textual emphases, it sets a fine example for a more dialogic and less ghet­ toized future musicology. the volume is comprised of exceptionally strong papers from both very well known and younger scholars, and it is relatively coherent as a whole while covering a huge range of topics and issues. georgina born and david hesmondhalgh have fashioned a valuable contribution to general theory in musicology with the introduction to the volume, which perhaps covers more intellectual ground than any subse­ quent set of papers could fully occupy. i expect to use the introduction to this volume in my own graduate teaching for several years. the introduc­ tory essay manages to convey succinctly both the general outlines of post­ colonial cultural theory and to refine a theoretical lexicon for discussing music in terms of (post)modernity, identity politics, the cultural logics of hybridity, and musical representations of modern social conflicts. the in­ troduction is so attentive to the subsequent essays' relevance to these themes that it makes up for a relative lack of such theoretical work in most current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) 175 © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 176 current musicology of the essays themselves (significant exceptions include the papers by richard middleton, steven feld, and simon frith). in fact, it may be a virtue of this volume that the substantive essays that follow the introduc­ tion are relatively tightly focused on particular empirical cases. the result is that these papers should be usable for undergraduate teaching and interesting to non-academic readers concerned with the essay topics. the introduction will be more formidable going for such readers, but it should be required reading for musicologists of all sub-disciplinary persua­ sions. opening outwards from the broad question of how to approach "difference" (semiotically speaking, an effect of representation) in a "non­ representational" medium such as music, born and hesmondhalgh quickly proceed to narrow the question to several specific genera of musical and cultural alterity with a specific emphasis on social power: "orientalist" appropriations of non-western musics and musical practices in western musical discourses; the intraand inter-cultural logics of mu­ sical "otherness"; the dynamics of power and inequality in the contempo­ rary "global" era of musical circulation; the mutually contexualizing inter­ play of musical aesthetics and discursive constructions of musical meaning; and the specific disingenuously pluralist lexicon of "postmod­ ern" musical discourse. cultural theorists might ask for more sustained consideration of the overdetermination of the principal axes of difference invoked; there are frequent mentions of race and class and less frequent mentions of gender. ethnomusicologists might ask for a greater acknowledgment of the history of that discipline's role in stimulating the kinds of questions about power and difference in music history, and some might expect a bit more atten­ tion to the actual practices of the non-western musics mentioned through­ out the volume as objects of western appropriation. students of the phi­ losophy of music might wish for more careful treatment of the questions of musical form and semiosis such questions implicate. but on the whole, this volume's introduction is a masterpiece of concise and erudite argu­ ment for a social approach to musical aesthetics and an aesthetic theory of music's social life in the contemporary world. in its equal attention to both the economic and political dynamics of cultural domination and re­ sistance and to the semiotic and expressive dynamics of musical form, perception, and communication, the editors manage to make the prob­ lem of "appropriation" relevant to a wide range of musicologists and music theorists. the papers that comprise the body of the volume are too many and too varied to be fully summarized in a review, but a quick inventory gives some idea of the intriguing scope of the concerns voiced in the introduction. richard middleton, in the first and most wide-ranging essay in the volreviews 177 ume, examines work by mozart, gershwin, ellington, and abdullah ibrahim to ask a general psycho-cultural question: what does it mean to say music "belongs" (to someone) in the first place? simon frith frames the volume with his concluding essay on "world music" that is similarly magisterial in its emphasis on the ironies of discursive constructions of authenticity (otherness) and innovation (hybridity), finding strange and disturbing parallels between the business of global pop marketing and the obsessions of academic musicology. jann pasler's contribution, "race, orientalism, and the distinction in the wake of the 'yellow peril' ," complicates the tarring and feathering of nineteenth-century european high culture as uniformly "orientalist" in its relations with non-western music through a comparison of the composers albert roussel and maurice delage, each of whom appropriated "indian" music. in ideologically and aesthetically distinctive ways. julie brown ("bartok, the gypsies, and hybridity in music") traces bartok's political evolution in relation to his studies of roma (gypsy) music as a cultural resource for hungarian nationalism. in "modernism, deception, and musical others: los angeles circa 1940," peter franklin explores the deli­ ciously complex and ironic musical and cultural loyalties of expatriate european composers (rachmaninov, schoenberg, stravinsky, and korn­ gold, with adorno as a frequent bit player) working in the united states during and after world war ii. franklin concludes with a fine reading of korngold's score for deception as an allegory for the tortured conflicts be­ tween decadent european high modernism and ascendant american pop culture. john corbett ("experimental oriental: new music and other others") unpacks the dubious orientalist legacy of the american "experimental" music tradition and various asian refractions thereof. philip bohlman's "composing the cantorate: westernizing europe's other within" ex­ plores the engagement of jewish musical practice in austria in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as an example of an ultimately futile and dangerous engagement with a dominant culture by an "inter­ nal other" (neatly inverting the issues raised vis-a-vis gypsy music in brown's essay). in "east, west, and arabesk," martin stokes continues his significant record of contributing to the study of musical identity pol­ itics with a fine essay on the "arabesk debate" and the shifting polarities of turkish modernity. claudia gorbman provides a survey of the tech­ niques used to represent and signify native americans in hollywood film music, ranging from the 1920s to the 1990s ("scoring the indian: music in the liberal western"). she concludes that even the most progressive shifts in such techniques have lagged behind other representational modalities and have ultimately had more to do with the musical and 178 current musicology cultural frameworks of white audiences than with the lives of real indians. steven feld's now classic (and still shocking) 1996 essay on the uncom­ pensated circulation of fragments of central african "pygmy" musical practice in the global marketplace for "world music" commodities is reprinted in a shortened version here. it reminds us, simultaneously, how much is at stake in academic and popular discussions of appropriation, and how little academic musicology has done or can do (as currently prac­ ticed) to affect blatant practices of cultural imperialism. finally, in "international times: fusions, exoticism, and antiracism in electronic dance music," david hesmondhalgh provides a rich, ironic-and ulti­ mately fairly hopeful-ethnographic perspective on the politics and eco­ nomics of appropriation in a relatively progressive branch of the global music business, viz., the british independent label nation records. the essays, then, span a diverse range of topics, time periods, theoreti­ cal problems, methodological approaches, and political engagements. for the most part they present nuanced and ironic critiques of what must be called imperialist (and often racist) appropriative dynamics at work in western music history. the book as a whole lacks nuance specifically in the tendency of the authors to ignore the diversity of non-western and subaltern perspectives on the appropriations they describe (even when the descriptions are critical). however, this presents a fine opening for further research both by these authors and by future generations of musi­ cologists. there is great resistance in modern western musical culture, and certainly in academic musicology, to the kind of resolutely social cri­ tique advanced in this book. indeed, from a careful reading of this volume one can see why the western philosophical defense of musical autonomy and authenticity has been so passionate and even strident in the twentieth century. the force of denial is often proportionate to the severity of the crime denied. if we begin to accept that music "belongs to someone," or (as middleton cleverly puts it) if people "belong" differently to music, we must ask why musicology has generally ignored the typically unfair (and sometimes violent) imbrication of musical meaning in the logics of power -colonialism, imperialism, global capitalism, racism, sexism, classism­ that define the culture of modernity. this book raises this question seri­ ously, if gently and mostly by implication. it demands careful attention for doing so. references bellman, jonathan, ed. 1998. the exotic in western music. boston: northeastern university press. farrell, gerry. 1997. indian music and the west. oxford: clarendon press. taylor, timothy. 1997. global pop: world music, world markets. new york: routledge. patrick burke. 2008. come in and hear the truth: jazz and race on 52nd street. chicago and london: university of chicago press. reviewed by kwami coleman in today's manhattan, the street signs on fifty-second street between fifth and seventh avenues tell passersby that they are on "swing street;' even though nothing about the towering skyscrapers and the moving mass of people in business suits reflect this locale. instead, what the street signs point to is a fifty-second street of the past: a collection of nightclubs and other establishments that jazz critics and scholars have designated as the birthplace of bebop, one of jazz's paradigm-shifting genres. in come in and hear the truth: jazz and race on 52nd street, patrick burke argues that while this designation may be true, historical accounts of this particular time and place tend to overlook nuanced narratives of racial identity, gender identity, racial mixing, cosmopolitan nightlife, the music business, artistic integrity, moral­ ity and vice, the enduring debate over "authentic jazz," and the path in which the music would continue to develop-closer to its roots in dixieland and early chicago-style jazz or in the "modern" bebop. burke seeks to uncover this hidden history by taking a concentrated look at the musicians active on fifty-second street between 1930 and 1944. as the book's subtitle suggests, the neon signs that filled the night sky on fifty-second street illuminated a bevy of after-hour establishments that fashioned themselves-some more overtly than others-as hotbeds of "authentic" jazz. burke's main goal is to deconstruct this discourse of jazz authenticity by explaining that what appears to have simply been a dispute over the merits of musical styles was also one about black and white masculinity and racial identity, and how these formations were played out in the music. this study is especially important because of its in-depth look at what was, by all accounts, an ephemeral moment in jazz history that resonates into the present. much of how we understand jazz today comes from what was happening in the dark, smoky, cramped clubs of fifty-second street (including the image of a dark, smoky, cramped jazz club), and burke rightly and successfully gives these clubs and their culture a closer, more thorough inspection. throughout his study, burke makes it clear that the discourse sur­ rounding jazz authenticity on fifty-second street always involved notions of race, which ultimately influenced the actions of club owners, audiences, and musicians. it might be of no surprise to the current-day reader that race was a determining factor in which acts would play in the 1930s and current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 113 114 current musicology 1940s, even as the idea of "authentic" jazz varied from club to club; but what readers might find surprising are the ways in which white musicians were thought to embody blackness and, maybe even more surprising, that black musicians were thought to embody whiteness. the scenario depicted in the epigraph of the introduction captures fifty-second street's unique environment: italian-american trumpeter wingy malone contends a club's advertisement of the african-american trumpet virtuoso dizzy gillespie by posting his own sign at another club, beckoning the public to come inside and hear the "truth." burke makes a case for the clubs of fifty-second street as the grounds of highly racially-charged and interlocking relationships between musicians, clubs, press, and public. burke aims to describe how fifty-second street's "musicians were among the first in the united states to demonstrate profes­ sional cooperation across racial lines, and their music, while it sometimes reinforced stereotypes, also pointed the way to novel, affirmative concep­ tions of race," thus implicating bebop at the fore of "new visions of jazz and racial identity that had an enduring impact on american culture" (12). while this perspective on the musical culture of fifty-second street is fair and elucidates important and oft-forgotten details of an era, new visions of jazz and racial identity were also being forged concurrently elsewhere in new york city. luis del campo and joe loco played what became known as "afro-cuban jazz" at various locations in manhattan in the early 1940s. most important in this regard was machito and his afro-cubans, under the musical direction of former cab calloway big-band member mario bauza, who was key to the bourgeoning of afro-cuban jazz with the composition "tanga" in 1943 and on the stage of the palladium ballroom on fifty-third street and broadway (right around the corner) in the late 1940s. thus, the strength of burke's concentrated focus on fifty-second street is also a limitation, because while the number and proximity of nightclubs on fifty-second street justify its close treatment, it was ultimately a small strip in a dense city that held a variety of challenges to musical, social, and racial regimes. the harlem after-hour clubs of the late 1930s and early 1940s offer a good point of comparison to the music culture of fifty-second street, and although burke briefly touches upon the fascinating relationship between jazz in harlem and in midtown manhattan, it warrants even greater attention and discussion, as i will demonstrate in this review. burke recreates significant stages in the development and demise of fifty-second street's jazz scene through the construction of a narrative that spans fifty-second street's first speakeasies-turned-nightclubs to the scene's infiltration by "hep cat" poseurs, vice, and, eventually, the commercial indus­ try. as an ethnomusicologist, burke strategically shifts between ethnography kwami coleman (fragments of his interviews appear in the many quotes by musicians and fans who were active on fifty-second street in the 1940s) and archival research (a chronology and graph of the clubs of fifty-second street are included in the book's appendix). in a more traditionally musicological approach, burke uses musical analysis in his theorization of the comedic elements in the music of violinist stuff smith in chapter 3. disciplines aside, burke's project (which grew out of his dissertation) stands as a theorization of a unique artistic and social space. he concludes that this space set a precedent for the complex webs of interaction between blacks and whites, musicians and the general public, careful listeners and jitterbugs, populists and elitists, and traditionalists and reformists critical to jazz music and culture since world war ii. lt was on "swing street" that bebop was born. those who find this ironic might also know that the act of juxtaposing swing, the epitome of a commercialized and populist genre, with bebop, the raw, artistic, anti­ commercial underdog, is itself a "truth" for jazz connoisseurs and historians. musicologist scott deveaux has pointed out that this juxtaposition is not only inaccurate (dizzy gillespie was well aware of the market potential of his nickname, goatee, and beret), but also imposes a distinction between com­ mercialism and artistry that ignores the interrelatedness of these two forces (1997:438-9). overall, jazz historians have never really adopted an adornian disdain for popular songs (repertory like benny goodman's "goody goody" from 1936 and "a-tisket, a-tasket" from 1938 by ella fitzgerald with chick webb make such persuasive examples); but, until recently, jazz histories have epitomized bebop as a statement of black cultural authenticity in rebellion against capitalism and white hegemony. subsequent jazz styles have been contextualized in light of this "truth," and burke treats this paradigm with suspicion in come in and hear the truth. the move away from framing bebop as a product of cultural essential­ ism and towards a genre of exceptional artistic merit has led to a propensity within modern jazz scholarship to view bebop as an apotheosis-one that has influenced every concurrent jazz style in one way or another (see for example giddins and deveaux 2009; george lewis 2008; ingrid monson 2007; eric porter 2002; ted gioia 1997), and one that neither deveaux nor burke fully detract. burke's insistence to arrive at an understanding of how musicians active on fifty-second street from 1930-50 promoted jazz as a virtuoso art form is inevitably an attempt to convey something that all current -day conservatives and pluralists will agree upon; but he isn't simply rehashing an old story here. burke's project carefully considers the intermediaries between benny goodman and dizzy gillespie: the often overlooked musicians who provided the impetus for the bebop revolution, 115 116 current musicology such as the spirits of rhythm, trumpeter louis prima, violinist stuff smith, john kirby's sextet and singer maxine sullivan, singer babs gonzales, and saxophonist charlie ventura. that burke's last two chapters focus on bebop as an emergent style is to be expected, but this particular ending has less to do with a historical bias and more to do with the real circumstances that contributed to swing street's twenty-year change from a musician's haven to a thriving and turbulent jazz scene, and ultimately to a present-day street sign. "the street;' as it became known, was initially a collection of speakeasies on the ground floors of residential brownstones that spanned fifty-second street. both black and white musicians around the country were attracted to the promise of new york's commercial music industry in midtown manhattan. the importance of new york city as a commercial hub fed the venues and institutions that, by the 1930s, made new york city the artistic epicenter of the united states, and the negative effects of the 1929 stock market crash around the country only reinforced new york's image as a place in which to seek opportunity. in prohibition new york, these musi­ cians found that speakeasies were viable and profitable spaces for musical performance and also offered refuge from the fluctuations of the music industry marketplace. after prohibition, the predominantly white, industrial worker-like fraternity culture that had been fermenting among musicians in these speakeasies-tumed-bars developed into a burgeoning scene of novel and experimental jazz music. in comparison to the perceived rigidity of manhattan's entertainment district a short walk away, the fifty-second street clubs maintained a relatively loose (and sometimes subversive) social atmosphere. race played a central role in deciding who played in which clubs, what was played, and who came to see them play. these race relations were both blindly upheld and vehemently challenged, as burke alludes to in his subtitle. intermingled with conceptions of race was the polemic of commercialism-clubs need patrons to survive, and innovative, charismatic musicians attract patrons, but the line between innovation and gimmick was seldom agreed upon by the bevy of musicians, critics, club owners, and patrons holding stakes in the street. burke points out in chapter 5 that by 1940, fifty-second street had transformed from a loose-knit collection of speakeasies that doubled as enclaves for musicians into to a cafe society: a fashionable underground for the white celebrity and wealthy socialite, and also licentious "hep cats." as swing lay in decline, the underground jazz clubs on fifty-second street-the onyx, the famous door, the hickory house, the three deuces-became the bastion of jazz authenticity and anti-commercialist sentiment. both of these discourses became commodities that jazz musicians came to use to their advantage. kwami coleman burke argues that white musicians on the street constructed their personas on stereotypes of black identity, which served to both validate their anti-commercial ethos and attract audiences. conversely, an african­ american musician like violinist stuff smith-whose performance style is given a thought-provoking analysis in chapter 3-actively competed with these white musicians on the basis of his version of an authentic black identity, which burke theorizes as "jive." burke discusses jive in the context of jerry palmer's the logic of the absurd: on film and television comedy, which offers a surprising but persuasive way of understanding smith's strategy of humor, racial signifiers, and instrumental virtuosity. jive, in burke's reading of palmer, has two parts: peripeteia ("the construction of a shock or surprise," i.e., a joke's punch-line), and "a situation that is seen as simultaneously implausible and plausible but in which implausibility outweighs plausibility" (74). it is in the context of jive that burke offers a convincing musical analysis of smith's most popular composition, ''i'se a muggin;' in which he argues that its linear flow (in terms of form and harmonic sequence) is disrupted by "implausible" logical absurdities that make the composition cohesive and compelling. smith's seemingly foolish antics-his "muggin'" -betrayed the cleverness and calculation behind his performance style. for burke, smith represents a reworking of the minstrel legacy that set a precedent for jazz musicians of the next generation, especially dizzy gillespie: one in which the black performer's cleverness is flaunted in the face of his white audience. a contrasting manifestation of performed racial identity is explored in chapter 4-the tight ensemble playing, harmonic sophistication, and refined stage presence of john kirby's sextet at the onyx club in the late 1930s. kirby, burke argues, not only offered an alternative to more raucous black musicians like stuff smith, but his restraint and organization (quali­ ties considered innate to white musicians) also engendered a debate about jazz authenticity. "jitterbugs" interested in "hot jazz" would go see the italian-american trumpeter louis prima (whose darker complexion and "black" stage persona rendered him racially ambiguous) at the famous door, while an emergent class of "jazz cognoscenti" followed kirby at the onyx. contributing to kirby's uniqueness was the addition of singer maxine sullivan in the late 1930s to his group, who fronted the ensemble's performance of minimalist, highly-stylized swing arrangements of light classics and faced considerable criticism from the press (for their recording "bounce of the sugar plum fairy;' for instance). burke notes that critics like leonard feather, gunther schuller, and others took the bifurcation of jazz patronage between groups like prima's and that of kirby's as an impetus to speculate about which groups represented authentic jazz, wherein the 117 118 current musicology very idea of authenticity was constructed upon racial signifiers. thus, the competition over audiences between clubs on fifty-second street often ran parallel with the competition to represent an authentic black identity and an authentic black music, and kirby's group contributed to the fray by present­ ing a relatively rare public image of black refinement and sophistication. kirby's competition was the "hot jazz" and dixieland revival led by prima and others, such as white clarinetist joe marsala. authenticity and anti-commercialism have been constant themes in jazz discourse and the blues tradition has traditionally been the gauge by which these concepts are measured. amiri baraka's blues people is the first and most influential published work to do this, and it is significant that bebop is praised for its restoration of the blues tradition in jazz (the blues tradition, for baraka, being an authentic crystallization of african-american historical experience and culture) in the face of "the sinister vapidity of mainline american culture" (baraka 1963:182). burke is quite critical of baraka's assessment and, like jazz historians before him, eschews the blues as the basis for authenticity. instead, burke distinguishes bebop in that it: reflected black political and social concerns ... as black audiences, musi­ cians, and club owners became significant aspects of the street's culture, black identity became something white performers and patrons had to negotiate in fluid social situations rather than simply view or enact on­ stage. (170-71) the music culture of fifty-second street came into fruition with bebop because musicians like gillespie and charlie parker" [leavened 1 their musical rigor with commercial savvy," while being "confident of their superiority over white musicians of lesser skill and saw it as their prerogative to accept or reject them" (170-71). it would seem that baraka's vision of authenticity has been transformed by burke into one based on an assertion of racial and artistic legitimacy in the face of white hegemony. whereas baraka sees bebop musicians as authentic because of their folk roots and their distance from mainstream culture, burke regards them as such because of their artistic prowess and individual agency. burke's position on bebop's historical significance reinforces one of his most important underlying points: that fifty-second street was a space where issues of identity-especially racial identity-could be challenged and renegotiated. but fifty-second street was not the only space where this challenge and renegotiation was taking place. while burke's book positions fifty-second street's musical culture as the locus of a paradigm shift, it is useful to keep in mind that the street was not isolated from the city. ideas about music, race, and masculinity traveled to and from fifty-second street in the same kwami coleman way that the physical bodies of musicians and audiences traveled. including fifty-second street within the context of the many musical cultures of new york city does not necessarily negate burke's claim of uniqueness for the street-after all, fifty-second street's distinction as singular time and place in jazz history is secured by the testimonials of the musicians themselves. it is striking, however, that in addition to not mentioning what was happen­ ing at the palladium ballroom in the late 1940s, there is no discussion of race relations and musical innovations in harlem at clubs such as minton's playhouse and monroe's uptown house, where gillespie and other bebop musicians foreshadowed in burke's work thrived. in his recent biography of thelonious monk, robin d. g. kelley explains how the jam sessions at both of these clubs became renowned throughout the city and beyond, provoking everyone in the "jazz world" to find their way to these "harlem after-hour joints, choosing to 'miss their sleep' rather than miss out on an opportunity to jam ... " (kelley 2009: 71). while the music being played in harlem was not yet called bebop, it was new and innovative, and did draw in both black and white musicians and audiences. relating fifty-second street to harlem's scene might have more effectively brought its musical culture into relief, which was one of burke's main goals, but this is not to take away from the overall contribution of his project. instead, understanding what happened on fifty-second street is critical and burke's project can be seen as a major contribution to the understanding of the roots of modern jazz. as a close reading of localized events, performances, and musicians, come in and hear the truth is a panoramic snapshot of the relatively short history of one of new york city's most important and previously underexplored hubs of jazz music. references deveaux, scott. 1997. the birth of bebop: a social and musical history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. giddins, gary, and scott deveaux. 2009. jazz. new york and london: w.w. norton and company. gioia, ted. 1997. the history of jazz. oxford and new york: oxford university press. jones, leroi (amiri baraka). 1963. blues people: negro music in white america. new york: william morrow and company. kelley, robin d. g. 2009. thelonious monk: the life and times of an american original. new york: free press. lewis, george e. 2008. a power stronger than itself the aacm and american experimental music. chicago and london: university of chicago press. monson, ingrid. 2007. freedom sounds: civil rights call out to jazz and africa. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 1995. the problem with white hipness: race, gender, and cultural conceptions in jazz historical discourse. journal of the american musicological society 48 (3): 396-422. 119 120 current musicology porter, eric. 2002. what is this thing called jazz?: african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. ramsey, jr., guthrie. 2003. race music: black cultures from bebop to hip-hop. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. current musicology, no. 94 (fall 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 37 a cross–cultural grammar for temporal harmony in afro–latin musics: clave, partido– alto and other timelines mehmet vurkaç introduction this article presents an in–depth study of the musical concept called clave direction. the significance and regulative role of clave and similar cyclical timelines1 in afro–latin music have been established by many scholars, including ned sublette, tomás cruz, h.w. soebbing, rebecca mauleón– santana, and ronald herder.2 clave is typically identified as the rhythmic anchor of cuban music. furthermore, eugene novotney, hugo “foca” machado, willy muñoz, jorge sadi, and chris washburne, among other musicians and scholars, have argued that clave is central not only in cuban music but in all afro–american music.3 although there is agreement on the importance of the concept, previous work has either been precise but culturally narrow in scope, or broad in scope but imprecise in its details. the present work builds on these earlier efforts to establish an understanding of clave direction that is precise, parsimonious (only two concepts suffice), and widely applicable. my analysis proceeds from the hypothesis that musics emerging from the transatlantic slave trade with significant yorùbá influence share common traits including what has come to be called “clave.” ruth m. stone links observations of the musical role of clave–type patterns to the geographical origins of the patterns in west africa, and emphasizes that this pattern–as– concept was brought to the americas with the transatlantic slave trade. in particular, she states that clave “fits, of course, with other patterns played at the same time . . . therefore, it has a role in keeping everything appropriately linked. players use it as a reference point to synchronize the drum, bell, and vocal parts” (stone 2005:81).4 d. a. tobias has written that “the clave beat is the foundation of latin–american rhythm and practically all of the other instruments are guided by this beat” (tobias 1965:270). more recently, arturo rodriguez has argued that “clave is the key to understanding how afro–cuban music is arranged and flows” and that it is “a concept that is fundamental to afro–latin music” (rodriguez 2003:41). consequently, clave should be understood not only as a pattern but also as a critical musical current musicology 38 concept (rodriguez 2003:41–45; mauleón–santana 2005:5–8; spiro and ryan 2006:12–17). the word “clave” has several meanings,5 so it is important to specify which i am addressing here. three of these meanings are well–known: (1) claves, the instrument; (2) clave in the harmonic sense, as in “the key of c major” (in spanish); and (3) a small family of patterns, which is what musicians typically have in mind for clave. i refer to the latter as the clave proper. this article focuses on a fourth meaning of clave, one frequently discussed but rarely investigated. i refer to this as clave direction. clave direction is a concept and a rhythmic–regulative principle. it is analogous to the key of a piece of music, but instead of governing tonality, it governs fine–scale local timing (mostly without regard to pitch6). clave direction gives a composer or improviser a set of preferred timing options and the appropriate places within each phrase to place them (a sort of micro–phrasing), along with acceptable ways to break these rules (more freely in batucada than in candomblé, more so in axé than in samba, in timba than in songo, etc.). just as the key determines the tonal center of the piece, the clave direction is the overarching determinant of the timing preferences for the piece, but like its tonal counterpart, it allows for variety in musical expression, and even tricks, puzzles and multi–layered playfulness in its execution. in order to make the most artistic and culturally sensitive use of this principle, i offer an approach to understanding clave direction that i call wide–sense clave. in this wider sense, clave–the–concept denotes not just the existence of specific patterns, but the relationships that any pattern may have with a family of associated patterns. it is because of this wide–sense quality of clave that frank malabe and bob wiener are able to note that “any rhythmic figure can serve as a clave” (malabe and wiener 1990:9) and that sublette can contend that “clave is not a beat . . . [but] a key: a way of coordinating independent parts” (2004:170–171). the relationship between cyclical timelines that act as clave patterns and the specific role they play in their respective traditions is precisely explained here, in a manner that unifies these musical traditions under one regulative concept distilled from traditional practice as taught by cultural authorities and exemplified by recording artists. valuable attempts at analyzing and decoding the clave concept have been made by novotney (1998), bertram lehmann (2002), godfried t. toussaint (2002), mauleón–santana (2005) and dan e. wilson jr. (2010). the analysis presented here is novel because of its greater consistency from case to case, parsimony, and precision.7 as long as one can express rhythmic patterns as strings of sixteen onsets (through quantizing and thresholding), a conclusive identification can be made as to the clave direction (or lack thereof) for any pattern.8 (a few outstanding mehmet vurkaç 39 issues regarding these simplifying assumptions are listed in the conclusion, as well as in end notes.) the analysis of clave direction presented here is intended to be useful to the ethnomusicology, music–education, music–theory and latin–music communities— researchers, educators, performers, listeners—by contributing to a broader understanding of clave while respecting its form and tradition. the present approach arose from my commitment to performing the music with an appreciation of its nuances as developed and preserved by generations of indigenous performers. i have expounded the grounds for this approach and the ways such an analysis can benefit music analysis, music–making, and the music industry in a previous article (vurkaç 2011:28–34 and 38–40). the regulative role of clave is aided greatly by a metric called offbeatness (toussaint 2005:23), which is adapted here as relative offbeatness.9 through this key concept, the regulative role of clave can be explained simply and consistently. i should note that clave also plays other organizational roles such as those related to improvisation and time–keeping, as discussed by herder (1972) and mauleón (1993). wide–sense clave provides resolutions to common difficulties (e.g., section iii.d.) musicians may encounter in reconciling the african–based, cuban–developed clave concept with its offbeatness–regulative function in other afro–latin musics.10 the clarifications offered below for understanding and applying clave direction in a variety of circumstances, for various instruments, and to a variety of latin american musics will help musicians at virtually any level of experience further their understanding and appreciation of clave. nonetheless, this analytical approach is only offered as a theoretical tool for the clave–conscious musician’s toolbox, not as an alternative to developing an intuitive feel for clave through practicing and listening. in my examination of clave i make a couple of necessary assumptions: (1) that quantized attack–point rhythm—which disregards durations, releases, and expressive timing—is sufficient for a basic, initial study of clave direction; and (2) that the time–keeping and phrasing aspects of clave are both less challenging to performers and not part of the goal of this article. this leaves the offbeatness–regulative aspect of clave as the sole focus of the present article. the main points made in this article are that 1) the absolute onset count should be abandoned; 2) upbeats and downbeats are onbeats as far as clave direction is concerned; 3) the inner/outer demarcation (suggested in figure 2) should be preferred over the standard approach of dividing phrases into a first and second half; and 4) it is the relative offbeatness of consecutive sections that determines the sense of clave, not counting onsets or template–matching against well–known patterns. current musicology 40 i have made two intentional substitutions in this article (one terminological and one notational) that depart from the norm in the musicology literature. the first is the use of the term offbeatness in place of the more familiar syncopation.11 the second is the use of the time–unit box system (tubs: koetting 1970:115–146), also known as “matrix notation” (rodriguez 2003:63). strong support for the use of tubs is given by james koetting and roderic knight in their discussion of hemiola, hocket, and “fastest pulse” (koetting and knight 1986:60). although not standard for written music, tubs12 is included here because of the correspondence between the geometrical positions of onsets and the timing of note attacks (figure 1). the technique offered in this article is not intended to impose an etic analysis on these art forms, or to claim that clave can be reduced to numbers. on the contrary, the intent is to contribute to a better understanding of clave while respecting its tradition. although the way to internalize and feel clave is to listen, practice, and play in clave–aware settings, the analytically oriented reader may still benefit from the present analysis. i. the basic claves (clave–proper) and clave prototypes a. the (afro–cuban) son clave: a seemingly obvious starting point son clave is a form that appears in many music styles worldwide (figure 1). if we took the standard course in the discussion of the clave, and broke it up into the first half and second half of the phrase, examining each half in terms of syncopation and resolution, we would find three onsets in one half and two onsets in the other. (in fact, it was after these numbers that the clave directions were named). while making perfect sense in terms of the son clave, this approach does not engender a conception of other patterns which are traditionally understood (heard) to be in clave agreement with the son. i will refer to this typical method of counting the onsets in the first and second halves of the phrase as the “standard approach,” and show how the novel concept of relative offbeatness supplants and surpasses it. although the son clave lends itself easily to the standard approach, experience with many other rhythms in their traditional contexts shows that analysis based on relative offbeatness works (in terms of agreeing with the respective traditional practices) in a significantly greater number of musical situations. in the method proposed here, we compare numbers of onsets according to their rhythmic function (more onsets supporting this function, fewer supporting that function) instead of fixed numbers (three onsets here, two mehmet vurkaç 41 there). the relevance of this approach becomes most apparent in the discussion of surdo de tercera in section iii.d. thus, instead of first half/second half, we look at the inner part and the outer part of the pattern (figure 2). and instead of syncopation and resolution, we consider offbeatness and onbeatness. unlike the standard approach, the inner/outer perspective combined with relative offbeatness works in virtually every case from ghanaian gahu (toussaint 2002) to american funk (see section iii.b), and from haitian konpa (section iii.a) to brazilian axé. i define the inner part of the phrase as ranging from the downbeat of two, up to the downbeat of four. the outer part, then, ranges from the downbeat of four, around to the downbeat of two (figure 2). (this overly simple definition is loosened later in section ii.d.) i also use a common figure 1: the 3-2 son clave in standard notation, tubs, and sound waveform. note the visual correspondence between the waveform and tubs. careful spacing is required in standard notation to get the same correspondence. (the first line of the tubs representation shows one way to vocalize sixteenth-note subdivisions, pronounced “one, ee, and, ah.”) figure 2: the inner and outer parts of the okele (phrase cycle, ekwueme 1974, 46), depicted using the cáscara. current musicology 42 naming scheme for the subdivisions of the quarter note (figure 3) such that both downbeats and upbeats are considered onbeats.13 the inner part of the 3–2 son clave consists solely of two onbeats while the outer part has two onbeats as well as one offbeat. since this pattern is typically called 3–2, we will refer to any other pattern exhibiting this offbeatness behavior (more off outside, more on inside) as 3–2. this label will apply even when two onsets show up in the first half, or three in the second half, as long as relative offbeatness follows the same arrangement. the reasons for this scheme will become clearer as we examine other patterns. it is important to reiterate that although speaking of a neat division into first and second halves would have helped us understand the son clave just as well, the standard approach fails with many of the more complex patterns found in afro–latin musics. two characteristics make the son clave easy to model as a “tension half ” and a “resolution half ”: 1) the particularly neat distribution of inter–onset intervals (time between note attacks); 2) the complete lack of onsets from beat four to beat one. this rare arrangement gives rise to potentially misleading models for clave. the second characteristic, as we will shortly see, is not true for the so–called bossa clave, a more difficult pattern (toussaint 2002:4–7) that is generally considered vague as an explanation of clave direction. on the contrary, offbeatness–based analysis shows the bossa clave to be even more revealing than the son clave for indicating clave direction. b. the so–called brazilian (bossa) clave the bossa pattern has very different characteristics than the son and rumba claves (rodriguez 2003:48; tomás, moore et al. 2004:75; spiro and ryan 2006:13), even though it may appear similar to them. as a result of the figure 3: suggested naming scheme and categorization for sixteenth-note subdivisions of the quarter note. mehmet vurkaç 43 seeming similarity and underlying difference, it better illuminates the wider implications of clave direction, because in the bossa clave offbeatness and onbeatness exhibit themselves (and then expire) earlier than the first–half/ second–half notion would imply. (the position of the fifth onset is what gives the bossa clave this additional explanatory power.) the “3–side” really begins before the first half of the phrase, and ends sooner than the midpoint of the phrase. likewise, the 2–side begins and ends sooner than the second half. this pattern, sometimes called bossa clave, is widely used in various brazilian styles. it indicates the partido–alto—the true key to samba—more closely than the son clave. though controversy exists over whether there is clave in brazilian music (rosauro 2004:7; gomes 2007:88; machado, muñoz et al. 2002:10; and wilson 2010:38, as discussed in vurkaç 2011:392–3), samba is indeed played within the partido–alto form (which is analyzed below). since musicians are expected to know, feel, and play within the underlying rhythmic structure of each brazilian form, afro–brazilian music evidently does follow clave. to derive the bossa clave from the son clave (figure 4), the last onset of the son clave (figure 1) is delayed by one subdivision. note that the sense of finality found in the cuban son clave vanishes in the “wrap–around” feel of the brazilian pattern. inter–onset intervals in each half of the bossa clave are the same, so the distribution of onbeat and offbeat onsets is more even than in the cuban claves. hence, speaking of the first and second halves gets us nowhere in terms of tension and resolution, the terms typically used to analyze cuban claves, because there is both tension and resolution in both halves. figure 4: top: the 3-2 bossa clave. the onset shown with a triangle indicates how the last note of son can be delayed to obtain this form. bottom: an arbitrary pattern in 2-3, illustrating that counting onsets does not always indicate clave sense. current musicology 44 if we consider the demarcation shown in figure 2 instead, we find that the outer part only has one downbeat onset and two offbeat onsets (the a of one, and the e of four). the inner part has the same two onbeats as the son clave. hence, the pattern has greater outer offbeatness (or, greater inner onbeatness) consistent with the label of 3–2. (see section i.a.) it is no longer a problem that the 3–side of either clave has the main downbeat and that the 2–side does not.14 this is partly because downbeats and upbeats contribute roughly the same sense of onbeatness to the overall pattern. (there are, of course, context–dependent differences, but in this initial approach to clave direction, we can overlook these without harm.) in finding the direction of the bossa clave, it is not sufficient to count three onsets in the first half and two in the second half because many examples like figure 4 (bottom) can be generated with three onsets on the “2–side” and two onsets on the “3–side.” besides, dividing the phrase in two and counting note onsets cannot be sufficient to identify implied direction because clave, as attested to in many sources, governs the timing and phrasing of all parts and all instruments. clearly, all instruments at all times cannot be limited to five notes per phrase. it is the local variations in offbeatness that determine (and are determined by) clave direction, not whether two or three note attacks are being played. hence, resolving the overall clave direction effected by any pattern requires intuiting the relation between rhythms of interacting instruments, not counting notes. the standard approach would give the same clave direction (3–2) for the patterns in figure 4. but the bottom figure is considered “crossed” (in the wrong clave direction) if used as an ostinato in any 3–2 instance of afro–latin music. the wide–sense clave approach correctly identifies clave direction in this and many other patterns. when approaches and interpretations of clave direction differ, the final arbiter ought to be the accepted practice in the tradition in question.15 when superimposed with other rhythms that are more apparent in their clave direction (such as partido–alto), the 3–2 bossa clave produces a tangible sense of resistance for experienced musicians when played over a 2–3 pattern, but fits comfortably over a 3–2 pattern; hence, it is a 3–2 pattern. c. a graphical analogy for clave direction before moving on to other patterns, a graphical analogy is provided below to present the idea in an alternative manner. imagine a fictional culture in which visual decorations, no matter how elaborate, are generally arranged in a pattern of alternating round and pointy designs. assume for the sake of argument that stars and circles have traditionally been used to provide the alternating pattern, and that the arrangement in figure 5, line one, is mehmet vurkaç 45 called the “forward” pattern. a pattern with circles first and then stars would be “reverse.” now imagine that an artisan wishes to expand his or her options beyond stars and circles, and introduces a rhombus. however, in order to remain true to tradition, he or she must consider whether a rhombus is more or less pointy than a star or a circle. the artisan concludes that a rhombus is less pointy than a star (figure 5, line two), but more pointy than a circle (figure 5, line three). the artisan has managed to stay within the tradition while introducing new elements. if other shapes are introduced, the keepers of the tradition who have internalized the rules of the design idiom would intuitively recognize the direction of a new example such as those in figure 5, lines four and five. this analogy is limited in its power to portray the workings of music, which must unfold over time and harmonize vertically. nonetheless, it may help illustrate the clave principle which governs the vertical interactions of simultaneous patterns as well as the horizontal unfolding of the rhythms over time. figure 5: line one: a pattern of stars and circles, representing alternating pointy and round figures in a decorative pattern. (let’s call this order of elements ‘forward’.) line two: a ‘forward’ pattern incorporating the new rhombus design. line three: another forward pattern where the rhombus (previously relatively round) now serves the role of relatively pointy. line four: a ‘reverse’ pattern with two new elements. line five: another novel “reverse” pattern in keeping with “tradition.” current musicology 46 d. the clave prototypes: fundamental rhythms for clave direction most studies on the role of clave in afro–latin musics limit the exposition of clave to a few fundamental patterns, and neglect to elaborate the mechanism by which all possible rhythmic sequences may be perceived to be in or out of concord (harmony). rather than rely solely on these standard patterns—which sometimes lack an obvious link to the arrangement of relative offbeatness in other rhythms—the following examples utilize rhythms like the partido–alto and gã from brazil, and the son montuno of salsa piano, which better illuminate the distribution of offbeatness as governed by these patterns as well as the clave proper. in these rhythms (figure 6), the switch between more and less offbeat sections is more apparent than in the son, rumba, and bossa claves.16 these are clave prototypes because they embody the sense of clave more clearly than the clave proper. partido–alto: balanço is the essence of samba carioca though not called a clave, partido–alto (figure 7) serves the same temporal–organizational purpose, and does so in a more informative manner for samba, so much so that being in clave in samba is perhaps best called “being in partido–alto.” the patterns of figure 7 are 3–2 because the four on–beats (circles) are on the inside, while the three offbeats (triangles) are figure 6: the 3-2 (top) and 2-3 (bottom) prototypes of samba, with circles for onbeats, and triangles for offbeats. mehmet vurkaç 47 on the outside. balanço means swing, as in a playground. the countour of offbeatness resembles that followed by a swing: high at the ends, and low in the middle (for details, see vurkaç 2012, 329–336). furthermore, the greater degree of correspondence with the 3–2 bossa clave is apparent in the tubs notation. son montuno: the harmonic backbone the son montuno pattern is the ubiquitous piano riff heard in salsa music. figure 8 shows a rhythmic approximation of note attacks (for one of its many forms); the chords that would normally be played have been stripped away. starting out with two onbeats gives a strong indication that this rhythm will be in the 2–3 clave direction. the introduction of the first offbeat on the a of two, along with the maintenance of an eighth–note inter–onset interval until the end of the pattern ensures that the inner part of the phrase is exclusively offbeat. this dominance of offbeatness does not let up until the sixteenth–note interval between the very last note and the downbeat at the start of the next repetition. the continuation of offbeatness through the outer part of the pattern at the end raises the question of whether it is valid to call this pattern 2–3. again, standard musical practice has this pattern accompanying 2–3 son clave in a broad range of salsa pieces throughout the figure 7: the 3-2 partido-alto for cuíca and agogô (top), and stripped down to its essence (bottom). (the pitches are approximate and can vary with cuíca intonation and the agogô manufacturer’s accuracy.) bossa clave in 3-2 and 2-3 are added to the tubs notation. mismatches with 2-3 clave are on the e of two and the and of four. the only significant mismatch with the 3-2 clave is on the one, which is addressed in endnote 9. current musicology 48 americas, and the relativity of offbeatness in the wide–sense clave method reconciles this issue decisively: the inner part has higher offbeatness than the outer part since the only cases of onbeat onsets occur in the outer part. (that any positive number is greater than zero ensures this pattern’s 2–3 status.) ii. wide–sense clave consciousness a. implied clave: beyond the clave proper thinking of clave as a mere collection of traditional patterns rather than the meaning conveyed by these patterns downplays the cognitive role of clave “within which all the other instruments and voices must fit” (spiro and ryan 2006:14). almost any pattern in a given clave direction can imply clave sense through the distribution of accents in a percussive or melodic line.17 thus, the significance of clave is more extensive than typically thought: it is not solely a matter of drums; it holds the melodic and percussive parts together. simple percussive parts that indicate clave direction, such as the clave proper, are like coded messages that communicate to singers where to start the song, or to pianists, horn players, other instrumentalists—and, of course, composers and arrangers—when to start, stop, and punctuate phrases. likewise, when singers, pianists, or cavaco players start a song in afro–latin music, their rhythm sets the clave direction and determines how the drums will play. consequently, the central recognition task regarding clave is not detecting whether a particular pattern is found in the music, but recognizing relationships between the patterns being played and others one may choose from. musicians who understand clave can identify the implied direction in any pattern, and play their part accordingly; those who feel clave can do so immediately. figure 8: the 2-3 son montuno of salsa piano stripped of pitch. the circles represent the only two onbeats (in the outer part of the phrase) and the triangles represent the offbeats which appear in both parts, but only dominate the inner part. mehmet vurkaç 49 in the earlier stages of developing clave consciousness, if the reduction of clave to a small set of patterns (the clave proper) is taken literally, the subtleties of wide–sense clave might remain hidden. the most common explanation for the organizational role of clave (involving the first and second halves of the phrase) falls short of elucidating the workings of clave in many of its manifestations. as a result, students or analysts of clave who follow the standard approach (or use the claver proper as a template) may find themselves having to invent special cases to explain the perceived inconsistencies in rhythms that commonly occur together (see section iii.d). one may ask why this is a problem—musicians are capable of handling exceptions to rules. a theory of music, however, is intended solve problems of musical understanding and clarify musical practices, not just catalog them. in attempting to explain a phenomenon (i.e., putting forth a theory), given two explanations that work, the simpler one (requiring fewer exceptions, if any) is superior. this is the fundamental philosophical and scientific principle of parsimony, popularly known as occam’s razor.18 b. wide–sense clave: beyond percussion identifying clave direction is a challenging task for anyone who has not been raised with clave–based music, and sometimes even for those who have. moreover, those who have been “raised with clave” often find it difficult to explain why clave works the way it does. it is not uncommon to hear that “it’s in the blood.” however, given the current scientific understanding of the interaction of nature and nurture, it is far more likely that clave is a rational principle that can be described in a quantitative manner. this clave sense is not solely a matter of the percussive realm, but manifests itself in salsa piano, reggae vocals, bossa nova guitar, axé horn arrangements, and in many other ways. it is a rhythmic type of harmony, beyond the claver proper.19 this aural tradition of temporal harmony has some similarities to the concept of tonal harmony of the european tradition. clave addresses both static and dynamic relationships (just as tonal harmony does), but these relationships are primarily of note onsets and durations, not pitches. sublette calls this principle “a key concept of west african music” and a “fundamental structural principle.” he adds that “just as the hardwood claves (the wooden pegs called clavijas) once held ships together, when they are clicked together as instruments, the rhythm they play holds the melody line and percussion parts together” (2004:36). this function of holding the melodic and percussive parts together in terms of their timing makes clave a regulating principle. current musicology 50 c. clave consciousness: functioning within the idiom in the standard terminology, clave is said to be in 3–2 or 2–3 direction, also called “forward” and “reverse” direction. most patterns in a duple or quadruple simple meter can be associated with one of these directions. (for a discussion of unassociable patterns, see end note xiii and vurkaç 2011, 188–190, 419–422, 428–429.) in practice, the classification of arbitrary patterns can be a bewildering task. i have observed above that clave gives an indication of relative offbeatness, as opposed to being an absolute metric. it follows that the degree of offbeatness in any portion of a pattern is consequential only with respect to the rest of that pattern. musicians who are clave–conscious do not necessarily need to hear the claver proper. clave direction is implied even when the clave is not explicitly voiced. musicians are informed by the clave, and play around it, and it is understood that there are “correct” and “incorrect” ways of doing this. in his piano book, herder calls clave a “demanding and inflexible rule” and refers to it as “the law of clave” (1972:5). one can, however, choose to break this law, especially when functioning outside the idiom. when executed and resolved skillfully, crossing clave is a way to add “spice” to the music, as is common in third–surdo improvisation in samba batucada. outside of such mindful artistic use, crossing clave is frowned upon. it is not unusual for musicians—not only drummers—to be asked to leave a session if one unwittingly crosses clave.20 like herder, mauleón–santana, author of some of the clearest explanations of clave and its function, differentiates the instrument, the pattern, and the concept of clave (2005:1). she argues that clave is a rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic rule (2005:7–9), “albeit a very vague one” (2005:9). she stresses that clave is omnipresent even when it is not explicitly played (2005:16), and adds that it is subject to interpretation as well as artistically justified violation (2005:8–9). i intend to remove this alleged ambiguity of clave to a great extent in the following sections by showing how clave direction can be established or maintained by a variety of patterns, not only by the claver proper. d. the relative nature of clave: subtlety of an art form an important step in demystifying and analyzing clave is to recognize that only a complete cycle establishes clave direction. the extent of offbeatness in one section of a phrase is useless for determining clave direction if the rest of the pattern is not known. the crux of understanding wide–sense clave is relative offbeatness, which is in direct contrast to the way clave is typically taught (with two discrete halves, one of which is absolutely syncopated, and mehmet vurkaç 51 one of which is absolutely straight). the two sides of clave are not discretely separable. they overlap, sharing inter–onset intervals between them. in light of the greater traditional corpus, and not just of a few basic patterns, we abandon the notion of absolute rhythmic tension and release in the first and second halves. the offbeat side of 3–2 clave is not the first half; it is a fuzzy temporal region surrounding the first downbeat (the outer part). the onbeat side is a similar region of time surrounding the third downbeat (the inner part). consider the repique rhythm of figure 9, middle. in authentic practice, this rhythm is matched with 3–2 patterns in samba–reggae and samba de roda. in fact, since the repique may be freely switched from one ostinato to another, this rhythm is interchangeable with any of the 3–2 claves. now note that the latter halves of all three rhythms in figure 9 are identical, but figure 9: the 2-3 cuban son clave (top), a 3-2 repique ride typical of samba-reggae (center), and the clave-neutral tresillo (bottom—a cuban name for a rhythm found in haitian konpa, jamaican dancehall, and brazilian pagode and xaxado). current musicology 52 the difference in clave direction resulting from the missing downbeat in the middle pattern is obvious to the enculturated player or listener. it is possible for the clave direction of a pattern to be determined by just one semiquaver, as this example shows. these three patterns belong to three different clave classes, which poses a challenge to the methods of group–counting and template–matching for identifying clave direction. the crucial question is how identical rhythmic cells (the latter halves of figure 9) can be associated with “threeness” in one case, “twoness” in another, and with neither in a third—just as the rhombus in the graphical analogy of figure 5 was relatively more pointy in one setting and relatively less pointy in another. it is tempting to answer that such an exact match with the latter portion of the 2–3 son clave makes each of these 2–3 (without regard to the rest of the pattern). this is what i have called “template–matching” and “first half/second half,” which together constitute the standard approach. however, traditional practice indicates otherwise, and the present analysis resolves this dilemma decisively. take the rhythmic cell that is called tresillo or habanera (figure 9, bottom). in brazilian music, this pattern is routinely clapped over both halves of any rhythmic cycle. in the modern matanzas style of rumba guaguancó the superimposition of the tumba and the claves results in the same pattern across both sides of rumba clave. the repeated tresillo is clave–neutral. however, the 3–2 son clave, which prominently features tresillo, is not neutral because of relative offbeatness: the tresillo call in son clave is more offbeat than the two–note response, while simulataneously less offbeat than the start of the repique rhythm (figure 9, center). the tresillo cell, then, is capable of playing the more–offbeat or less–offbeat role depending on how the rest of the pattern is populated. since the degree of offbeatness in part of a phrase is meaningful only with respect to the rest of that phrase, no partial section of the cycle can be conceived as constituting absolute tension (offbeatness) or resolution. the pattern must be considered as a whole. iii. relative nature of clave direction in other diasporan cultures my analysis applies to music from many other cultures in the african diaspora: below, i offer examples from haiti, belize, brazil and the united states, and highlight a key problem in clave direction which i resolve in section iii.d. in addition, my approach to clave direction is in concordance with the way some ghanaian rhythms in vocal and percussion parts line up with respect to each other. this can be seen in kauffman’s transcription of the ewe dance sohu, (1980, 411), and kwabena nketia’s transcriptions of the akan songs kwasi dñntñ (1970, 132) and akatapefoõ (145), and the mamprusi song darbõrga (141). mehmet vurkaç 53 a. haitian konpa figure 10 shows a selection of percussion parts that may occur simultaneously in konpa. the cowbell (top line) is reminiscent of the 3–2 son clave, and plays a similar role, reflected in the accompanying hand drum part (bottom line) which establishes the outer offbeatness that is characteristic of 3–2 clave direction. among the many variations of this pattern are versions that place open tones on the & of two and three, just as in partido–alto. figure 10: common konpa patterns in 3-2, cowbell (top) and tanbou/conga (bottom; ‘t’ represents an open tone; ‘x’ represents a bell strike.) figure 11: top: 2-3 funk; bottom: 3-2 funk. ‘k’ stands for “kick” (bass drum of the drum set); ‘s’ stands for “snare.” current musicology 54 b. funk: clave in african–american rhythm in the classic funk beat of figure 11 (top) the prominent “kick” accent on the sixteenth note preceding the omitted downbeat of three establishes this pattern as 2–3. another popular funk beat (bottom) is seemingly alike, but in the opposite clave direction. the kick pattern is 3–2 bossa clave, with the second note missing, which leaves only one offbeat (the e of the four). this 3–2 sense is reinforced by the “kicks” on the &’s of two and three (onbeats), just as in the konpa hand drum variation and the partido–alto. c. clave in the carnaval music of belize the top line in figure 12 is a bell pattern from belize. it functions in the same way as the 3–2 son clave, and indeed sounds similar. yet, this bell pattern contains two notes in its so–called “3–side” and three notes in its “2–side.” once again, clave sense is not captured by the standard method of counting onsets in each of the first and second halves of a cycle. in contrast, comparing the number of offbeat onsets on the outside and inside of the phrase, we find the sole offbeat onset on the outside (the a of one), with equal numbers of onbeat onsets (two and two) on the inside and outside, establishing a relative prominence of offbeatness on the outside, and no additional information from the onbeats. it follows that we must necessarily label the clave direction 3–2 for this pattern of two onsets in the first half, followed by three in the second. d. an exception? surdo de tercera in samba batucada the third surdo as played by the samba schools beija–flor, imperatriz leopoldinense, caprichosos de pilares and mocidade independente de padre miguel is shown in figure 13 (gonçalves and costa 2000:48, 49, 52, 54). when analyzed with the standard method, this would clearly appear to be 2–3, and this is frequently cited as an argument for the absence of the clave concept in brazilian music. after all, there are two on–beat attacks in the first half, and two offbeat ones in the second. however, this is a well–known 3–2 pattern, in that it is played when 3–2 bossa clave is played on the caixas, and because native sambistas will consider this pattern crossed when the music is in 2–3. furthermore, the surdo de tercera is a direct descendent of the partido– alto (figure 13, bottom), derived by omitting the first and third quarters of the partido–alto cycle. indeed, the offbeat section of the rhythm falls on the “outer part” of the phrase, and the onbeat section on the “inner part” of the phrase (see figure 2). for both these reasons, the pattern of figure 13, bottom, is in the 3–2 clave direction. mehmet vurkaç 55 figure 12: top: “3-2” clave for belizean carnival music. bottom: the usual “3-2” son clave. figure 13: top: surdo de tercera. bottom: the 3-2 partido-alto for cuíca and agogô. note that playing the partido-alto omitting the first and third crotchet’s worth of onsets results in the tercera. current musicology 56 e. subtle examples from batucada and samba de roda two final examples are included to further demonstrate relative offbeatness, and to emphasize the close connection between the afro–latin rhythm patterns of different cultures. the top pattern (figure 14) shows only one onset at the very end of the cycle breaking the eighth–note accent pattern. an examination of what the other drums in the tijuca and viradouro samba schools play will reveal this pattern to be in the 3–2 direction. the standard approach would place this rhythm in the 2–3 category because the only accent of interest is in the second half of the phrase. the present approach, however, elegantly explains traditional practice where the standard approach fails. the bottom pattern from the gã (bell) in traditional samba de roda is almost exactly the same as the son montuno of salsa (figure 8), except that it resolves back to onbeats an eighth note sooner, establishing even higher onbeatness in the outer part of the pattern to contrast with the relentless offbeatness of the inner part. hence, this pattern is almost the same as the 2–3 son montuno, but even more clearly in the 2–3 direction. stripping the notes of their pitches thus reveals the cross–cultural links among afro–latin forms. f. the rumba clave: a challenge and an opportunity a similar conceptual challenge is posed by the rumba clave (figure 15), a pattern which is obtained by delaying the third attack of the son clave. traditional guaguancó and the modern songo and timba rely on this pattern for their temporal organization. the present framework initially appears ambiguous with respect to this pattern because of the timing of the ponche (the third onset of cuban claves, cf. figure 15): • this pattern is typically spoken of as 3–2. • the ponche immediately precedes the unexpressed (missing) downbeat of three, hence this pattern should perhaps be considered 2–3. • the offbeats on the outside and the inside are each on a weak/ leading offbeat (figure 3), and when they are canceled out, the pattern that results does not establish any clave direction (figure 16). mehmet vurkaç 57 figure 14: top: the accents for the caixa pattern of samba schools unidos da tijuca and unidos do viradouro (gonçalves and costa 2000, 59, 61). since the only note breaking the steady pattern of onbeats is the last one, the pattern is in 3-2. this is an excellent authentic example of clave direction as relative offbeatness. bottom: the 2-3 gã (bell) in samba de roda, an example of how offbeatness can threaten to destroy the underlying pulse and establish a new one (merriam 1959, 16), and how the re-establishment of the original tactus generates the clave feel. figure 15: the 3-2 rumba clave, with the delayed third onset (ponche) indicated in tubs notation with a triangle. current musicology 58 a review of the instructional literature on afro–cuban percussion helps clear up this ambiguity. this pattern is associated (i.e., played in conjunction with) a number of bell patterns known as campana, campaneo, contracampaneo, etc. (rendón 2001:47–51; moore and oviedo 2010:56–58). the majority of the patterns given by rendón with a stated clave direction conform to the 3–2 clave direction according to the framework presented in this article. among the most poignant of these are the “bell patterns with 3–2 rumba clave” (rendón 2001:51) and the first bar of the son chart for track 44 (rendón 2001:37). these examples not only conform to the present framework, but at first glance seem to conflict with the most typical cáscara pattern that accompanies rumba clave (albeit in what we see in the following paragraphs to be a constructive manner) in terms of the position of the schema that contains maximal offbeatness. this cáscara pattern (mauleón 1993:76–78; rendón 2001:49) has its most offbeat schema on the inside for 3–2 rumba clave (figure 17), which, according to the discussion so far, would suggest that it is 2–3. it is crucial to determine if the present framework can resolve this apparent incongruity in such a way that there is no discrepancy (the framework remains consistent). one promising clue is the placement of strong accents in the cáscara. stripping the 3–2 rumba cáscara down to its strongest accents, we find that it fits with the notion of relative offbeatness in the clave–direction framework (figure 18). when only the strongest accents are taken into account, the resulting pattern is unmistakably 3–2. nonetheless, one may continue to question the classification of what is typically called “3–2 rumba clave” as a 3–2 pattern (or rather, question the framework presented here) because of the delayed ponche and the missing downbeat of 3. this dilemma is included here to acknowledge early criticism of the wide–sense clave framework, as well as to introduce the reader to further work (both completed and planned) towards achieving culturally informed consistency in the proposed grammar of clave for all musics of the african diaspora. the results of my studies to date (participant–observation and double–blinded studies) were distilled into nine hierarchical criteria of clave–direction recognition (vurkaç 2011:128–130 and 188–191).21 the problem of the rumba clave can be resolved by exchanging the priority order of criteria 2 and 3, but since the criteria and their interaction were developed figure 16: the 3-2 rumba clave, with “algebraic cancellation” (the remaining onsets do not maintain a sense of clave.) mehmet vurkaç 59 through listening tests with experts, such an alteration ought not to be made without justification from further ethnographic study. specifically for the rumba clave, further focused study and comparison of all bell patterns in rumba, songo, and timba may be required to settle this question of whether the framework presented here is fully consistent with afro–cuban music.22 with the framework shown to be consistent in a wide range of other examples (including from the genres of rumba and timba) and the possibility of simple solution to the problem of the rumba clave, the wide–sense framework is presented here for the scrutiny of the music theory community. figure 17: the 3-2 rumba cáscara showing the accented strikes and the 3-2 rumba clave in relation. figure 18: only the accents of 3-2 rumba cáscara, revealing the 3-2 direction underneath what appears to be 2-3 when all strikes are taken into account, another example of the subtlety of the clave art form. current musicology 60 conclusion clave need not be as elusive, vague (mauleón–santana 2005:v, 9), unforgiving (herder 1972:5, 12), or seemingly replete with inconsistencies as many have suggested. i hope that this exposition may help lead to a consistent, parsimonious theory of clave in particular and afro–latin rhythm in general, and that the process of internalizing clave (for listeners, as well as performers, teachers, students and musicologists) may proceed more smoothly than it might otherwise. i have discussed the following points: 1) the absolute onset count should be abandoned; 2) upbeats and downbeats are onbeats as far as clave sense is concerned; 3) the inner/outer demarcation suggested in figure 2 should be preferred over the standard approach of the first and second halves of the phrase; 4) it is the relative offbeatness of sections that determine the sense of clave, not counting onsets or template–matching against well–known patterns. armed with these introductory concepts, the interested reader can broaden his or her understanding of the manifestations of clave in other cultural idioms of the african diaspora. while the more specific ideas in this article are primarily discussed through cuban, brazilian and a few other examples, the principles of the wide–sense framework may be applied to the musical systems of many afro–latin styles, something i have attempted to show through brief analyses of haitian, belizean, ghanaian, and north american musics. there is more to clave than discussed in this article. for example, clave has timing and phrasing functions in addition to what is explored here. furthermore, the existence of clave–ambiguous patterns (in terms of clave function) have been identified by the author during listening trials with leading experts. the interaction of the schema–type rules (briefly mentioned in section iii.f) as applied to vague patterns goes beyond the basics of clave discussed above. these guidelines may conflict when their characteristic rhythmic cells coexist within one pattern, leading to a case of context–dependence in clave–direction. an example of this was discussed regarding the cáscara (mauleón 1993:76). research is also required to extend this system to ternary patterns, the conversion into which appears non–trivial. future work should also incorporate note releases into a more general theory of clave for instruments capable of sustained tones. likewise, other afro–american musics such as ragtime, uruguayan candombe, and new orleans second–line also need informed scrutiny to further test the hypothesis presented here. nonetheless, i hope the present offering will prove a valuable step in the development of an internally consistent, general–purpose theory of clave. mehmet vurkaç 61 notes 1. in many other countries, and among scholars worldwide, various other names and descriptions are in use to refer to the same fundamental principle. alternate names include clips (collins 2004, 31) and madera (machado, muñoz et al. 2002, 10, 13, 22). descriptive phrases favored by scholars to describe the duple– and triple–time clave–type patterns include “the principle of mobility and finality” (anku 1995:172–3), “generative concept” (spiro & ryan 2006: 7), “rhythmic key” (sublette 2004: 168), “standard pattern” (novotney, 1998:116–121), ‘timeline’ (ekwueme 1974:61), ‘structural device’ (mauleón–santana 2005:5), and “key pattern” (novotney 1998:160–165). 2. sublette 2004, 95, 166–167, 342–343; cruz, moore et al. 2004, 75; soebbing 1988, 524; cook 1988, 321–324; mauleón–santana 2005, 1, 7–9; herder 1972, 41. 3. novotney 1998, 168, 236–238; machado, muñoz et al. 2002, 10, 13, 22; washburne 1997, 59–60, 66–67. 4. stone references gerhard kubik, “the emics of african musical rhythm” unpublished ms (1983): 38, j.h. kwabena nketia, “traditional music of the ga people,” african music 2 (1) (1958): 21, and anthony king, “employments of the ‘standard pattern’ in yoruba music,” african music 2 (3) (1960): 51–54. as well as being the author of music in west africa: experiencing music, expressing culture, stone is co/advisory editor of the africa volume of the garland encyclopedia of world music, 1998 edition, with bruno nettle. 5. see mauleón’s 101 montunos for a similar distinction that informed this terminology (2005). 6. there is some debate about whether clave is to be interpreted slightly differently by high– pitch–range and low–pitch–range instruments, but we can overlook this for the moment without loss of generality. 7. this grammar of clave is consistent and precise, but not complete; certain simplifying assumptions had to be made to get this first–order grammar up and running. further research is needed to expand what is presented here to a wider, practical coverage of dynamics, expressive timing, and other time signatures. 8. the determination of note onsets (sometimes called note attacks) is a rather complex task, both in human cognition and in machine implementation. (there is even a ph.d. dissertation focused on the time point of psychological onset perception.) to put it simply, an onset, or attack, means the beginning of a note. some researchers in the field of music information retrieval have approached onset detection in sound waveforms by seeking an increase in the waveform’s energy (related to its amplitude, which in turn is related to momentary loudness) happening in a short enough period of time. if such an increase passes an amplitude threshold (determined psychoacoustically), we say there is an onset (an attack, a note event) at that point. quantization comes in when turning a time sequence of such events into a standard, machine– and analysis–friendly form: any onset that happens within a brief window (the duration of a sixteenth note at a given tempo) is moved to a standard time position within that window. this is the removal of human expressive timing from the music. the present author’s dissertation (vurkaç 2011:153) includes some discussion to the effect that this takes place in the brain to aid in human perception of rhythm in music. greater detail is given in the author’s previous article, vurkaç 2011. 9. relative offbeatness is a novel concept put forth by the present author (regarding the necessity of considering the entire rhythmic entity in order to establish clave direction), and supported by evidence (see section ii.d). to know whether a given rhythmic cell features offbeatness for purposes of clave–direction identification, one must ask “relative to what current musicology 62 other pattern?” for an excellent hypothesis as to why clave direction exists in the first place, consider merriam’s insight: “continual use of off–beating without respite would cause a readjustment on the part of the listener, resulting in a loss of the total effect. thus off–beating [with respite] is a device whereby the listeners’ orientation to a basic rhythmic pulse is threatened but never quite destroyed” (merriam 1959:16). 10. for example, the 3–2 clave from belize has two of the notes of the cuban 3–2 son clave on its 3–side, and adds a second downbeat to the cuban clave’s 2–side, resulting in two notes during what is obviously (by sound, feel and function) the 3–side, and three notes during the 2–side. likewise, the typical third–surdo ostinato played in most samba batucada has two strikes in the first half of the phrase and three in the second half, yet is always played over 3–2 samba. for the most part, samba musicians either do not analyze it, or have difficulty reconciling the fact that there are two onsets on the 3–side, and three onsets on the 2–side. other difficulties in reconciling the naming of patterns versus their function include partido–alto with its seven onsets and the cuban cáscara with its ten onsets. 11. this usage arose from research into the cultural aspect of the term syncopation. syncopation is norm–referenced (subjective), meaning accents fall in non–normal positions (kauffman 1980:394; kerman 1987:20; novotney 1998:104 and 108), while offbeatness is tactus–referenced (objective). readers not wishing to be nitpicky can use either expression without significant loss of meaning. 12. tubs can be a helpful abstraction that both beginners and trained musicians can understand. for beginners, it is more easily understood than standard notation, but trained musicians (who can express themselves in standard notation when necessary) may also find it easy to conceive of rhythms in tubs. rests, rolls, and sustained tones are mostly irrelevant for the initial study of clave. for clarification, see locke’s discussion on dotting, tying, and rests (1987:9–10). 13. this matches moore’s definition of onbeats and offbeats (oviedo and moore 2010, 28) which he states is consistent with mauleón (1993) and other literature. 14. this clave problem was posed to the author by m. spiro at california brazil camp 2005. 15. of course, this may be difficult to establish. one may query keepers of the tradition, live within the culture, or learn from the masters. along with the first and last of these options, the analysis presented in this article also stems from listening trials conducted with master drummers. 16. in much the same way that the english horn is neither a horn nor english (kerman 1987:20), perhaps the bossa clave is neither “bossa” nor “clave.” it is not a cuban pattern, so the word clave is controversial. furthermore, it is not specific to bossa nova. the typical rhythmic pattern for bossa nova guitar is the 2–3 form of partido alto. the so–called bossa clave is more typically played by the repiques in samba–reggae, by the caixas (snares) in samba batucada, and on atabaques in older carnaval samba songs. 17. the author’s research to date suggests that only on the order of ten percent of all possible rhythmic patterns will fail to establish a sense of clave direction in any musical context. 18. the role and importance of occam’s razor is different for a theory of music than it would be for theories of nature. in evaluating explanations of natural phenomena, occam’s razor is a qualitative statement of the preference for the larger product of conditional probabilities (typically having fewer product terms). for explanations of cultural phenomena, this is not required, but it is, nonetheless, an indicator of the elegance of a theory. for a discussion of the applicability of occam’s razor to various inquiries (and relationship to probability), see vurkaç (2011:6–8). mehmet vurkaç 63 19. for a similarly temporal use of the term ‘harmony’, see “harmonic layers of time” (leake 2011:26). 20. naturally, this “law” has no bearing on rock or jazz if a strong link to afro–latin tradition is not claimed. 21. these criteria are: 1.the partido–alto form 2.isolated missing downbeat (on 1 or 3; imd, also called a “singleton”) 3.large–scale relativeness 4.the third surdo (tercero) pattern from mocidade independente de padre miguel (a partial form of the partido–alto pattern) 5.fine relativeness (involving the relative strengths of nibble–length (crotchet–length) schemata, as shown below, and the “algebraic” cancellation of onsets across schema bridges, first to third, and second to fourth) 6.local template–matching against the teleco–teco and the so–called bossa clave 7.the “african” clave sense (antecedent/consequent relationship) 8.the partial/leading imd: a weak/leading onset preceding a missing downbeat (not a singleton, i.e., not fully isolated) 9.direct template–matching to the so–called bossa clave (only when no other criteria, including “how it feels” lead to an answer, such as in 1111|1111|1111|1100) in this system, criterion 1 has top priority. criterion 2 is the second most powerful. criteria 3 and 4 are of equal weight, followed by criterion 5. criteria 6, 7, and 8 have equal weight, and criterion 9 is the last resort when none of the others results in an answer. (this can happen either due to those criteria not being relevant, or due to conflicts among them, although the latter typically leads to the “incoherent” category.) 22. the framework of wide–sense clave, relative offbeatness, and partido–alto. references anku, willie. 1995. towards a cross–cultural theory of rhythm in african drumming. in intercultural music, edited by c. t. kimberlin and akin euba, 167–202. bayreuth, federal republic of germany: breitinger. collins, john. 2004. african musical symbolism in contemporary perspective: roots, rhythms and relativity. berlin, germany: pro business gmbh. cook, g. 1988. teaching percussion. new york, ny: schirmer books, a division of macmillan, inc. cruz, tomás, kevin moore, m. gerald, and o. fiol. 2004. the tomás cruz conga method: conga technique as taught in cuba—intermediate: essential cuban conga rhythms. 3 vols. vol. 2. pacific, mo: mel bay publications, inc. ekwueme, l. e. n. 1974. concepts of african musical theory. journal of black studies 5 (1): 35–64. gomes, sergio. 2007. new ways of brazilian drumming—nuevos caminos de la bateria brasileña. tübingen, germany: advance music. gonçalves, guilherme, and odilon costa. 2000. aprendendo a tocar o batuque carioca: as baterias das escolas de samba do rio de janeiro. brazil: groove. herder, ronald. 1972. spanish montunos—ensemble studies in rhythmic precision and pitch security: solo book of montuno improvisation for concert band, stage band, orchestra or current musicology 64 any instrumental combination. new york, ny: continuo music press. kauffman, robert. 1980. african rhythm: a reassessment. ethnomusicology 24 (3): 393–415. kerman, joseph. 1987. listen (brief edition). new york, ny: worth publishers, inc. koetting, james. 1970. “analysis and notation of west african drum ensemble music.” selected reports in ethnomusicology 1 (3): 115–46. koetting, james, and roderic knight. 1986. “what do we know about african rhythm?” ethnomusicology 30 (1): 58–63. ladzekpo, c. k. 1985. rhythmic principles. foundation courses in african music. http:// www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/~ladzekpo/principlestext.html leake, jerry. 2011. harmonic time: multidimensional awareness of polyrhythms, polytempos and polyfeels. percussive notes: the journal of the percussive arts society 49 (1): 26. lehmann, bertram. 2002. the syntax of “clave”—perception and analysis of meter in cuban and african music. ma thesis, tufts university. locke, d. 1987. drum gahu—the rhythms of west african drumming. crown point, in: white cliffs media company. machado, h. “foca”, w. muñoz, and j. sadi. 2002. el toque de candombe: ritmo tradicional afro–uruguayo / traditional afro–uruguayan rhythm. pacific, mo: mel bay publications, inc. malabe, frank, and bob wiener. 1990. afro–cuban rhythms for drumset. van nuys, ca: alfred publishing co., inc. mauleón, rebeca. 1993. salsa guidebook for piano & ensemble. petaluma, ca: sher music co. mauleón–santana, rebeca. 2005. 101 montunos. petaluma, ca: sher music 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1988. latin american instruments and rhythms. the instrumentalist (dec. 1977) in percussion anthology—a compendium of percussion articles from the instrumentalist fourth edition., including articles from 1946 through 1987. northfield, il: the instrumentalist co. spiro, michael, and josh ryan. 2006. the conga drummer’s guidebook. petaluma, ca: sher music co. stone, ruth m. 2005. music in west africa: experiencing music, expressing culture. new york, ny: oxford university press. sublette, ned. 2004. cuba and it music: from the first drums to the mambo. chicago, il: chicago review press. tobias, d. a. 1965. latin–american percussion. the instrumentalist (nov. 1965) in percussion anthology—a compendium of percussion articles from the instrumentalist fourth ed., including articles from 1946 through 1987. northfield, il: the instrumentalist co., 1988. mehmet vurkaç 65 toussaint, godfried t. 2002. a mathematical analysis of african, brazilian, and cuban clave rhythms. paper presented at the bridges: mathematical connections in art, music and science, towson university, towson, md, 2002. _____. 2005. mathematical features for recognizing preference in sub–saharan african traditional rhythm timelines. lecture notes in computer science: 3686: 18–27. vurkaç, mehmet. 2012. balanço: the contour of relative offbeatness. proceedings of bridges towson 2012: mathematics, music, art, architecture, culture, towson university, towson, md. _____. 2011. clave–direction analysis: a new arena for educational and creative applications of music technology. the journal of music, technology and education 4 (1). 27–46. _____. 2011. prestructuring multilayer perceptrons based on information–theoretic modeling of a partido–alto–based grammar for afro–brazilian music: enhanced generalization and principles of parsimony, including an investigation of statistical paradigms. phd dissertation, portland state university. washburne, christopher. 1997. the clave of jazz: a caribbean contribution to the rhythmic foundation of an african–american music. black music research journal 17 (1): 66. wilson, dan e., jr. 2010. partido alto: rhythmic foundation analysis of aquarela do brasil. ma thesis, youngstown state university. tara rodgers. 2010. pink noises: women on electronic music and sound. durham and london: duke university press. reviewed by elizabeth k. keenan in her interview in pink noises, dj rekha malhotra says, "electronic music is such a vast landscape" (173). to one person, "electronic music" can mean the bhangra-influenced sounds that dj rekha produces in her sets; to another, music influenced by musique concrete; and to yet another, circuit bending or the use of synthesizers such as the arp 2500 and the buchla. "electronic music" describes music produced in a variety of social and temporal con­ texts, from composer kaffe matthews performing subtle electro acoustic compositions in the darkest rooms she can find in order to "make music that is completely about listening and is not about watching," (39) to feminist dance punk band le tigre playing their sequenced and sampled pop-oriented, feminist music to dancing indie-rock crowds. these vastly different styles, contexts, and practices come together in tara rodgers's book, a collection of twenty-four interviews with women composers, producers, and practitioners of electronic music. through these interviews, rodgers moves fluidly between musical styles and practices in ways that illustrate the extensive involvement of women as creators of electronic music from the 1950s to the present and that make a strong counter-argument to popular and academic histories that have often relegated women's contributions to the arena of performance. rodgers's fluidity results in some revealing "juxtapositions of genre and generation" (5). the idea of juxtaposition-a word rodgers invokes frequently-offers multiple axes for examining pink noises. by abutting musical styles throughout the book, rodgers places all forms of electronic music within an artistic space where women's contributions as creators hold equal value to men's work and to each other's work. she argues that blurring differences between high art and popular cultures forms an essential strategy for the women interviewed, who often find their influences in genres outside the ones in which they work. but, beyond raising the issue of cross-genre influence, this decidedly feminist move argues against privileging male creativity and helps to reveal the differences and commonalities of experience between women in areas that are typically gendered male. rodgers integrates idea of juxtaposition into other elements of the book. the academic tone of the introduction, for example, departs from the direct and engaging tone of the interviews that follow, which add another layer by revealing current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 77 78 current musicology contrasting modes of thinking about music, gender, and technology, often in quick succession. also, in placing artists with long and storied histories next to less experienced ones, rodgers offers space to consider the implica­ tions of differences in career paths between older women, who began their careers before the advent of the feminist movement, and younger women, who have reaped feminism's benefits but nonetheless face significant chal­ lenges in being accepted across the still male-centric genres that encompass "electronic music." the question and answer structure of the book-somewhere between an oral history and a rolling stone interview-allows for crossover between academic and popular audiences. pink noises began in 2000 as a series of interviews on rodgers's website, www.pinknoises.com. which also contained discussion boards, how-to informational content, reviews of gear, books, and music, and many other items useful for budding composers, djs, and technophiles. unfortunately, rodgers removed the companion materials to this book when beginning her book project, leaving only her own personal artist webpage. this removal seems counterintuitive for a project that aims to engage a wide spectrum of readers, and one wonders if the material's transition from a website to an academic press truly necessitates the whole­ sale abandonment of a lively community of women. in its new format, the interviews successfully shed light on women's contributions in ways that are valuable for academic readers, including musicologists and music theorists focusing on electro acoustic music and its compositional processes, or those thinking critically about the intersection of the electronic avant-garde with popular music; ethnomusicologists, who have grown accustomed to the mantra that women are not involved as producers in underground dance cultures; and feminist readers of all disciplinary orientations who wish to learn more about women's contributions to electronic music, past and pres­ ent. in particular, for those who have encountered more recent studies of women in avant-garde electronic music, such as elizabeth hinkle-turner's women composers and music technology in the united states: crossing the line (2006), pink noises provides a companion volume that goes beyond the nature of a historical survey. it also offers a community-oriented companion to studies of individual women in electronic music, such as martha mockus's excellent biography of pauline oliveros, sounding out: pauline oliveros and lesbian musicality (2008). rodgers begins with an introduction that draws on feminist theory, situates her work in relation to a broad spectrum of previous academic research on electronic music, and calls for a more thoroughly feminist reading of the history of electronic music. she positions pink noises as "a feminist intervention in historiography-suggesting what feminisms can do elizabeth k. keenan for electronic music cultures-and it proposes what sound, as a category of critical and aesthetic analysis, can offer for feminist concerns" (2). this bold statement places far too much weight on an informal interview format that is not history per se, and on an editorial structure that relies on juxtaposition over context. additionally, the format does not offer a clear way to sustain an analytical argument about what feminism can do for electronic music cultures, as not all the women view their music as a feminist act, or as a reflection of their personal politics; nor does the interview format necessarily offer the best means for arguing about the issue of sound as a category of critical analysis, feminist or otherwise. the introduction shifts from this argument to rethinking the history of electronic music, in which rodgers displays a deep familiarity with the issues historically facing both academic and popular music communities. this section, while well researched, indicates an area where detail seems to have been sacrificed for brevity. at times, rodgers incorporates sources that do not quite distill the same idea, making conflations that undermine her otherwise strong thesis about the erasure of women from the history of electronic music. for example, she moves quickly from a discussion of feminist thought on sexual reproduction, to the idea of sound and technological reproduction, to the masculine control of the hi-fi in 1950s homes. each of these concerns relates to the others, but the examples are so short that readers unfamiliar with the sources could have a difficult time establishing connections. as rodgers establishes pink noises' relationship to feminism, she argues against previous writers who have excused their inattention toward women's contributions by using the statistic that women make up only approximately ten percent of electronic music's creators and performers. instead, rodgers demonstrates how feminist theory can frame women's involvement in electronic music. she suggests a new interpretation of the common idea of "waves" in feminism, which has been the source of rifts constructed around generational identity within the movement: feminist waves might be better conceived as interacting sound waves. sounds can be thought of as pressure and movements, doing cultural work. in the propagation of sound waves, the most audible impression may oc­ cur near the beginning of a sound's generation, but the wave reverberates through space indefinitely, continuing to intersect with and influence the trajectories of other sound waves as physical matter in ongoing interac­ tions. likewise, feminisms and the reactions to them do not go away but continue to reverberate in shared discursive spaces. (18) 79 80 curlrent musicology not only does this conception of feminist waves as reverberating and con­ tinuing provide a radical departure from the difficulties in thinking about us feminist movements, but it also establishes a context in which to situate the subsequent interviews. this reframing of feminist waves in many ways describes the relationships between the women interviewed, who often view each other as mentors, influences, or peers. additionally, rodgers takes the idea of intersectionality-an element of feminism since the 1990s that refers to the relationship of gender to other elements of identity, such as race, class, and sexuality-as a founding principle. admirably, she has put intersectionality into practice by including different types of musicians and sound artists, as well as in her questions, which acknowledge that women's experiences of gender are enmeshed with other embodied experiences. though they do not all belong to the same race, culture, or generation, share the same idea of feminism, use the same musical tools, or conceive of their music in the same way, the musicians have lived and made work that resounds with waves of influence. rather than support the introduction through argument, the interviews of pink noises support by example. the scope of topics in the interviews requires an exceptionally skilled interviewer who knows both the history of electro acoustic music and the history of electronic dance music. rodgers-a former electronic dance music producer who earned her master's degree in electronic music from mills college and is now pursuing her doctorate at mcgill university in communication studies-is an ideal interviewer who incorporates her depth and breadth of knowledge deftly into her lines of questioning. she brings out the women's experiences as individuals and as members of communities; she treats them all with equal seriousness and respect; and she relies on both an engineer's mindfulness of technology and a composer's consideration of sound to her lines of query. though rodgers groups the interviews with certain commonalities in mind, she does not frequently ask the same questions of interviewees-or, at least tailors the questions to her subjects' unique perspectives, experiences, and circumstances. as a result, the interviews are often memorable and detailed, revealing the differences between the women within the study, in terms of their compositional processes and goals, the social context of their work, and how they see their gender in relation to their music. rodgers groups the interviews into thematic areas: "part 1: time and memory;' featuring pauline oliveros, kaffe matthews, carla scaletti, and eliane radigue; "part 2: space and perspective;' featuring maggie payne, ikue mori, beth coleman (m. singe), and maria chavez; "part 3: nature and synthetics," featuring christina kubisch, annea lockwood, chantal elizabeth k. keenan passamonte (mira calix), and jessica rylan; "part 4: circulation and movements," featuring susan morabito, rekha malhotra (dj rekha), giulia loli (dj mutamassik), and jeannie hopper; "part 5: language, machines, embodiment;' featuring antye greie (agf), pamela z, laetitia sonami, and bevin kelley (blevin blectum); and "part 6: alone/together," featuring le tigre, bev stanton (arthur loves plastic), keiko uenishi (o.blaat), and riz maslen (neotropic). some of the groupings contain a greater diversity of music and age than others, and some contain more affinities than departures, but each section offers its own type of insights into the processes of working within electronic music scenes. the thematic organization of the interviews offers an opportunity to observe how musical styles, technological tools, and ideological perspectives resonate between composers. some of these groupings more successfully demonstrate the connections between the artists than others-particularly strong are parts 3 and 5, in which the interviews resonate beautifully. "part 5: language, machines, embodiment" forms a cohesive unit for rich com­ parisons along lines of interactivity, uses of the body in performance, and questions of women's relationships with technology. the grouping recalls the issues present in donna haraway's simians, cyborgs, and women: the reinvention of nature (1991) via the "cyborgian" equipment that some of the composer/performers employ. rodgers places the women in an order that stays true to her idea of contrasting genres and generation, but that also exposes an affinity between the women and their work. german "poem producer" antye greie, also known as agf, describes her work with html code in elliptical, poetic phrases. like agf, pamela z creates music that uses words as sounds. noted for experimental pieces that fuse movement, sound, and song, pamela z also raises issues of raced embodiment through her "bodysynth," in which z's bodily movements control how her voice is processed. z's kind of embodied technology finds kinship with laetitia sonami's "lady's glove," a device that sonami first introduced as a joke but that has become a more serious instrument in her repertoire. and finally, bevin kelley addresses the ways that she and kristin erickson, her collaborator in blectum from blechdom, created elaborate, fantastical stories in their work and wore strange costumes, including "a two-person pair of pants attached by a stretchy column of musical farts," in order to mask their gender (240). here kelley's bold humor echoes sonami's subtle wit. each of the interviews works to create a holistic picture of how women might address gender through musical technology, from humor to poetic frameworks to embodied sounds. 81 82 current musicology the range of diversity in musical styles may mean that some readers will only choose to read the interviews that appeal to their tastes; however, those readers would miss out. the interviews with jessica rylan and carla scaletti, for example, incorporate detailed technical descriptions of work­ ing with specialized synthesizers and self-designed software, respectively. at the same time, those interviews offer serious consideration of the ways that analog and digital technologies shape composers' perceptions of sound. other interviews offer insight into issues of identity-including dj rekha, dj mutamassik, and the aforementioned pamela z-in ways that firmly establish the importance for an intersectional feminist intervention into naturalized male spaces, as well as one that acknowledges differences between women. and the interviews with more established musicians, such as pauline oliveros, eliane radigue, and maggi payne, contextualize the historical interventions that women have made into the arena of academic electronic music. two contrasting interviews, one with composer annea lockwood, the other with dj susan morabito, stand out as representatives of rodgers's ability to glean very different experiences of her interlocutors. lockwood, whose extended "sound maps" fuse natural sounds, such as rivers, into instal­ lations and instrumental pieces, is an engaging interview subject. lockwood's lengthy answers provide rich detail about her technical and aesthetic choices, her journey as a composer, and her influences, whether from friend pauline oliveros or from gottfried michael koenig. describing her decision to move away from synthetically-created sounds to her incorporation of the sounds of nature, lockwood tells rodgers that she soon lost the "thrill" of creating stockhausen-esque blocks of sound from scratch: it's a great thrill! that's amazing. but the sounds we were making from scratch seemed to me to lack life. so then of course i had to ask myself what, for me, constitutes life in a sound? the next step was, well, i won't know that until i focus on sounds which satisfy me and then figure out what satisfies me about them. and i started working with water and fire and glass, and all sorts of nontraditional sound sources. which pulled me away from instrumental writing right away. i was looking for nontradi­ tional things. but water was one of the most interesting to plumb because i never yet feel that i can hear every last component of anyone stretch of water sound and hold it all together in my mind. (117-118) lockwood's interview reveals a compositional process developed over a num­ ber of years, an aesthetic buildup that begins in the creation of synthesized sounds in a lab and ends with musical material that she draws from nature, but then electronically manipulates. through this discussion, lockwood offers the readers insight into her thinking about sound as an element in elizabeth k. keenan her compositions. rodgers carefully guides the rest of the interview from lockwood's recording methods for her river pieces to her return to instru­ mental musical compositions that incorporate objects found in nature as instruments. the result is a comprehensive view of lockwood's music and aesthetics over her career. if annea lockwood's interview offers insights into music that falls firmly into the realm of art, dj susan morabito's interview, in contrast, focuses on bodies and movement on the dance floor. rodgers's interview with morabito offers a retrospective of her career in ways that make clear the intersection of her personal life with the history of queer dance music in new york city. morabito's presence as one of the most highly rated djs in the new york club scene gives concrete evidence to rodgers's claim that much scholarship focusing on only men within gay underground dance culture has failed to incorporate a full scope of questions about gender and sexuality. rodgers's interview with morabito covers her personal history in detail, from the moment she recognized her own sexuality in a gay disco to her quest to become a dj, to her rise as one of the most prominent djs in new york city. morabito acknowledges the difficulties of being a lesbian in a gay male space. after describing her discovery of the saint, a legendary members-only, all men's club in new york city, morabito reflects on her own quest to become a dj: my attitude was, they're not gonna hire a woman. and then he proceeded to tell me that there was a woman by the name of sharon white who worked there. sharon white was the first female dj who broke into the male scene in new york, the first who had a large name and following. she really opened up the doors for all of us. she was popular and she was extremely talented. now, for me, being twenty-two years old, by knowing that a woman already did that, that gave me hope. that made me realize it was possible. (161) morabito's desire to become a dj required some level of hope that she, as a woman, could do it, not just an expectation of solidarity within the queer community. morabito's interview covers an array of subjects, from the preva­ lence of crystal meth in gay clubs, to the drs methods of taking an audience on a musical journey, to the perceived difficulties of playing in lesbian clubs (for less pay, fewer hours, and with more requests). while morabito offers less reflection on the specific sounds she uses-though she does focus on the effects of tempo on audiences-rodgers nonetheless guides her through a vivid tour of queer dance culture in new york city from the early 1980s to the present. morabito's keen assessment of the environment in which she works would be welcome in any ethnography of dance cultures. though pink noises accomplishes much as it endeavors to cover the 83 84 current musicology work of women in electronic popular and art music, it falls short in a few areas that stem from the book's origins as a website. rodgers writes that she began the project by approaching women over email for her website's launch in 2001, and she notes that the strategy behind the book is to "emphasize the substance and diversity of work that has been accomplished by women" (15). because rodgers's introductions to the women she interviews are minimal, one does not know how she decided which interviews would be included in the book; and since her website no longer contains the original interviews, one cannot compare or do further research. rodgers's obscured method of interviewee choice makes it difficult to assess why certain prominent women (e.g., hildegard westerkamp, whose work fits rodgers's theoretical questions about sound perfectly) are not included. sometimes juxtapositions are not enough for readers to gain a full understanding of the relationships between women, either. rodgers often overlooks the connections between women; more importantly, she does not reveal the structures of power that foster those connections. casual readers might miss the institutional, cultural, and social connections between the artists. these factors, for instance, may explain why mills college has produced so many women composers of electronic music, but it is left to the reader to connect the various mills alumnae and professors in the book as a network or community. a reader entering from the popular music side who was familiar with mills graduate bevin kelley perhaps would be puzzled by the fact that kelley, like so many women in the book, attended mills. these observations, however, should not detract from the worthwhile content in pink noises. while the book's interview format does not always adequately convey the necessary context, its contribution remains significant. rodgers addresses an unusually expansive range of topics with facility and respect to her interlocutors. most importantly, her commitment to representing women from a variety of cultural, educational, and musical backgrounds who work in numerous genres shows both rodgers's depth of musical knowledge and her strong commitment to feminism. through these interviews, rodgers makes a convincing case for reconsidering the represen­ tation of women as a central part of the history of electronic music. references haraway, donna. 1991. simians, cyborgs, and women: the reinvention of nature. london and new york: routledge. hinkle-turner, elizabeth. 2006. women composers and music technology in the united states: crossing the line. aldershot, uk and burlington, vt: ashgate. mockus, martha. 2008. sounding out: pauline oliveros and lesbian musicality. london and new york: routledge. current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 133 barbara lorenzkowski. 2010. sounds of ethnicity. listening to german north america 1850–1914. winnipeg:university of manitoba press. reviewed by florence feiereisen tuning in to german north america:performing german ethnicity 1850–1914 barbara lorenzkowski provides the folllowing description of waterloo county soundscape on may 2, 1871: the [1871 peace] jubilee was ushered in by a salute of twenty–one cannon shots…as exuberant as the speeches were the ten thousand celebrants who clapped enthusiastically when an oak was planted…with revelers singing german songs and loudly cheering at portraits of emperor wilhelm i., the celebrations culminated in a fireworks display. (2010:128f.) in her seminal work on the sound of german ethnicity in the great lakes region in the six decades prior to world war i, lorenzkowski adds an important aural dimension to the historiography of german culture in north america. by studying past sounds of rural waterloo county, ontario and industrialized urban buffalo, new york, she allows her readers to tune in to the public and private worlds of german migrants and their self–declared leaders as they practiced and performed their ethnic consciousness in the transnational borderland of the great lakes region. how can our understanding of the past be deepened by the study of its sounds? hearing is a process of perceiving the world and contributes to our daily acquisition of knowledge. “[k]nowing the world through sound,” as bruce smith suggests, “is fundamentally different from knowing the world through vision” (2003:4). this notion can—and should—be applied to academic research; indeed, several disciplines, history included, have been experiencing a “sonic turn.” in hearing history, sensory historian mark m. smith writes about the increasing focus on the aural in historical research:“this intensification holds out to the prospect of helping to redirect in some profoundly important ways what is often the visually oriented discipline of history, a discipline replete with emphases on the search for florence feiereisen 133133 ‘perspective’ and ‘focus’ through the ‘lens’ of evidence, one heavily, if often unthinkingly, indebted to the visualism of ‘enlightenment’ thinking and ways of understanding the word” (2004:ix). this review concentrates on the aural aspects of narrating the past, which holds one seat at the table of what smith terms “sensory history,” which is not a field within the traditional discipline of history, but rather, a certain “habit” in “thinking about the past” (2007:4). this habit, smith continues, has emerged from a number of distinct traditional disciplines and remains open to members of an even greater variety. smith’s comparisons to “women’s history” and “african american history” attest to the high potential of sensory history:“what are usually considered historical ‘fields’ of inquiry—diplomatic, gender, race, regional, borderlands, cultural, political, military, and so on,” argues smith, “could all be written and researched through the habit of sensory history” (2007:5). sound studies is one such transdisciplinary “habit” within sensory history. in “onwards to an audible past,” smith predicts a bright future for sound studies: my hope is that questions of sound, noise and aurality will not just infiltrate historical narratives but also change the very conceptualization of historical thinking and problems. should that occur, history will regain its full texture, invite new questions, and take us beyond an unwitting commitment to seeing the past. ideally, we will begin to contextualize the past within the larger rubric of all senses and thus free mainstream historical writing from the powerful but blinding focus of vision alone. (2004:xxi) historian lorenzkowski presents an excellent example of sound studies by concentrating on the aural worlds of german north america. as with visual elements such as architecture or costume, the various sonic elements of a space (and with it its keynotes, sound marks, and sound events) can reveal a group’s identity. it would have been easy to subsume all german immigrants under one ethnic group, but lorenzkowski knows better:following rogers brubaker, she does not attempt to isolate german ethnicity as a group that she studies, but conceives ethnicity as an event comprising “everyday encounters, practical categories, commonsense knowledge, cultural idioms, cognitive schemas, interactional cues, discursive frames, organizational routines, social networks, and institutional forms” (lorenzkowski 2010:6). she analyzes the ethnopolitical missions of newspaper editors, school curricula, and singers’ festivals, and follows individuals through their diary entries into their private lives. and while she does not deny that visual aspects played an important role in the performance of german ethnicity, lorenzkowski’s approach to historical analysis is decidedly through sound. current musicology 134 listening to german ethnicity the extensive and pleasantly readable introduction takes the readers to the great lakes region in the mid–nineteenth century, an area characterized by transcultural exchanges through transatlantic immigration and transnational border crossings. german was prominently featured on the streets; according to lorenzkowski’s research, in 1871 55% of waterloo’s population of 40,252 was of german cultural origin with the highest concentration (73%) in berlin. german immigration to buffalo, the city across the border, started after the famine in 1817 and continued until the late thirties of the nineteenth century. the city, according to historian david gerber (cited by lorenzkowski), “had more bavarians than any other american city, and more southern germans than such equally significant centres as st. louis, chicago and new york” (2010:15). in 1855 39% of household heads were born on german land, sharing this multicultural city with people of irish (18%), canadian (12%), french (5%), and us–american (25%) descent. in the beginning, the german language was the ticket of admission to membership in this community and self–declared gatekeepers of german ethnicity made it their life task to preserve german language and culture. this public line was not always in accordance with domestic reality; the two main parts of the book, “language matters” and “music matters,” deal with varied patterns of german ethnicity in north america that were constantly in flux. here the focus is on two major subfields of sound studies:language and music, although with the latter lorenzkowski mostly means song instead of music in general. each chapter is well suited to be assigned as a class reading. chapter 1, “territories of translation,” one of many alliterative chapter titles, investigates language practices of the first and second generation of german–canadians who negotiated life in two cultures by negotiating life in two languages. self–declared “ethnic leaders“ (such as the editors of the widely read german–language newspaper berliner journal ) saw themselves in the tradition of johann gottfried von herder and johann gottlieb von fichte (the latter with a decidedly nationalistic agenda) and tried to impose their mission of “ethnic unity und linguistic purity“ (2010:25) onto german migrants from above. germanness, they reminded the family heads, had to be seeded and cultivated at home, through efforts such as conversing solely in german and eating german “nourishing rye bread, of course“ (2010:31). yet the private reality was often in contradiction with such ideals as many young german–canadians emphatically embraced their new home, and even when their german accent was detected and they were asked to continue a conversation in german, they insisted on using english or a hybrid of the florence feiereisen 135 two languages. in the eyes of the newspaper editors, lorenzkowski states, “these fools had entered cultural wasteland” (2010:34). in the mid–1880s, an anonymous writer published eight articles in which he bemoaned the decline of the german language in waterloo county. even though such accusations have always existed in bilingual communities (in germany as well, especially today!), these contributions point to another fact:the written and the spoken versions of the language were already divorced from one another. while standard written german had become the lingua franca for german migrants (some of whom could neither understand bavarian nor swabian), the spoken language not only reflected different german accents or dialects, but was in phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexis essentially a hybrid. here lorenzkowski offers a rich array of examples for linguistic hybrids such as “ein bottlefiller muss bottlen und labeln koennen” (2010:37; “a bottlefiller has to know how to bottle and label”). it would have been useful if lorenzkowski had explored the trend of incorporating english nouns and verbs into the german syntax, but granted, she never claims to be a linguist. the ethnic gatekeepers, however, demanded that all german–canadians and german–americans learn their native tongue—and by native tongue, they had come to mean not necessarily the german of their parents, but a pure, grammatically correct standard german, the language of germany’s dichter and denker (poets and thinkers). german was no longer an emotional souvenir from a time long gone, but now was constructed to promise “entrance into the world of higher learning, the arts and sciences, and offered practical benefits as a language of trade and community” (2010:43). in her second chapter, “languages of ethnicity,” lorenzkowski tells the story of german language instruction at waterloo county’s schools. 1871 had marked germany’s victory over france and the proclamation of the nation state. yet for young children in waterloo county, the year had an additional significance:since the school act of 1871, all kids between the ages of 7 and 12 had to attend school. in the same year, the county’s newly appointed school inspector banned german as the language of instruction and discouraged the teaching of german in public schools, even though more than 50 percent of all children, sometimes even 100 percent, only started english when entering the school system. three decades later, protests erupted as the powerful german–canadian social elites of waterloo county demanded german in the schools’ curricula. most parents did not see the need for german instruction at school as their children already spoke german at home—learning english ensured their membership in the german–english world. what’s more, an increasingly large number of german–canadian parents chose to speak english at home. yet the german school association, with its members largely stemming from middle and current musicology 136 upper classes, successfully campaigned against the school inspector. starting in march 1903, each of berlin’s four elementary schools received a classroom for german language use. shortly thereafter, two full–time german teachers were hired to serve all four elementary schools and german was properly reintegrated into the curriculum. with the beginning of world war i, german language instruction was removed once again. lorenzkowski concludes this chapter by explaining that introducing standard german into the curriculum from above did not strengthen german ethnicity in waterloo county, but was indeed too rigid and elitist for the majority of those whom it affected. the majority of german–canadians continued speaking pidgin german in public and private life, proving that they could perform germanness through an english–german hybrid language. chapter 3, “speaking modern,” chronicles the construction of german in buffalo’s schools from being a language of ethnicity to a modern language. lorenzkowski describes “ethnic chauvinism” and provides examples of elitist outlets such as the demokrat and the amerikanische schulzeitung which denigrated both the celtic language and those of slavic descent (“even the roughest germans were preferable to the best slavs”, 2010:90). all the while, ethnic leaders explained that the german language with its “cultural importance or commercial value for americans” (2010:90) should be taught as it was a “special gift to the world” (2010:89). looking behind the scenes of this perceptional shift from above, lorenzkowski shows how the organization lehrerbund partnered up with the modern language association, the national education association, and buffalo’s superintendent of the german department. joining forces, the team set out to change the american school curriculum but ended up concentrating on changing german language pedagogy in particular and foreign language pedagogy in general. two models of language teaching could be observed:grammar translation and the communicative approach (“the natural method”, 2010:92). the debate became not whether german had its place at school but how it should be taught. with this, buffalo was on the vanguard of foreign language pedagogy in the us in the 1890s. according to an 1894 publication by the national education association, studying modern languages will train their [children’s] memory and develop their sense of accuracy; it will quicken and strengthen their reasoning powers by offering them at every step problems that must be solved by the correct application of the results of their own observations; it will help them to understand the structure of the english sentence and the real meaning of english worlds; it will broaden their minds by revealing to them modes of thought and expression different from those to which they have been accustomed. (2010:94) florence feiereisen 137 in an essay in the chronicle of higher education in 2012, nearly 120 years later, foreign language advocate michael geisler writes:foreign language learning improves scores in math and language arts, verbal skills (in the foreign language and in english!), it tends to improve sat scores, it is positively correlated with higher performance in college, it improves memory and, at the other end of our lifelong learning trajectory, it helps offset age–related memory loss. we also know that students who have acquired a foreign language (or two) tend to be more successful problem solvers (since they have had to learn how to look at any given issue from multiple perspectives). (geisler 2012) as one can see, the arguments have not changed since the nineteenth century in north america. learning foreign languages has even more benefits than those stated here, yet foreign–language advocates must still justify themselves to the monolingually oriented public school curriculum. after three chapters on the sound of language, in the second half of her book, lorenzkowski switches gears and considers the sound of music. in noise:the political economy of music, jacques attali writes:“now we must learn to judge a society more by its sounds, by its art, and by its festivals, than by its statistics” (attali 1985:10). language is open for those who speak it—occasionally a small circle. music, as many argue, is a universal language open to all who perceive it. chapter 4, “tunes of community, melodies of race,” feeds off of this notion as singing was not only a means of mass entertainment but more importantly allowed for the public display of german ethnicity for those who spoke german as well as for those who did not. yet for an 18–page long chapter with “race” in its title, the actual section on race is surprisingly short and does not fulfill the high expectations the reader had before reading this chapter. in only a bit more than four pages, lorenzkowski describes the racial discourse of the time in the context of immigration. the commercial advertiser encouraged america’s “fair–haired saxons” (2010:120) to mingle with the “teutonic race” as the latter stood for “industry, order, and respectability” (119), which was far more desirable than the “dirty, ragged, dark, and choleric celt” (2010:117). the buffalo sängerfest was seen as a perfect meeting place for non–germans to make connections with german–americans. while the discourse on black irish is an interesting addition, the material presented here is not inquisitive enough to warrant the chapter title. the topic of race is also absent from the chapter’s conclusion. lorenzkowski’s examinations of national discourse are more penetrating. in the eighteenth century, constructions of a german nation merely referred to the german language in its spoken and written manifestations:although there was no nation state at hand, the land of the dichter and denker had its current musicology 138 own national literature from which to derive national feelings. the early nineteenth century brings a national sound into the game as many liedertafeln, choirs, and singing clubs formed in germany and shortly thereafter in german north america. lorenzkowski concentrates on the perception of the 1860’s sängerfest in buffalo, which, with over 500 singers, was the biggest pre–civil war festival of song in the us. while the german–language newspaper demokrat was critical about the performances, the overwhelming majority of english–language newspapers received it as, in lorenzkowski’s words, an “earth–shattering event” (2010:114). it is important to mention that lorenzkowski does not demonstrate this to be a nationalistic event. ernst morits arndt’s “was ist des deutschen vaterland?” and hoffmann von fallersleben’s “deutschlandlied” were not observed to be sung, although they had existed since 1813 and 1841 respectively. the emphasis was on german ethnicity, created through song and gemütlichkeit—“that amalgam of conviviality, social harmony, casual socializing, exuberance, and group feeling that is impossible to translate and yet represents a key element of german chorus culture” (2010:122). this gemütlichkeit both enwombed german immigrants as well as non–german speaking singers and visitors. in fact, lorenzkowski writes:“by the turn of the century, they [english–speaking audiences] had claimed the singers’ festivals as ‘ours’”(2010:214). chapter 5, “germania in america,” begins with the german north american soundscape over three days in may of 1871, when the victory over france and the end of the franco–prussian war was celebrated in berlin, ontario. sound events consisted, as mentioned in the first paragraph of this review, of cannon shots, speeches, applause, cheers, singing, and fireworks. this spectacle and “audacle”—i.e., an aural spectacle—displayed german unity in sight and sound, yet lorenzkowski also illustrates how german–canadians’ identity started to become distinguished from german–americans’ identity. many of those who had left germany for the us after the failed german revolutions of 1848/9 quickly realized that the victory over france could not be equated with freedom and civic liberty. they remained critical of the mighty bismarck and his powerful prussia, which aligned them more closely with the politics of their new chosen home. they encouraged their fellow german immigrants to, in the words of francis brunck, “preserve, with all our might, the republic in north america” (lorenzkowski 2010:145). just across the lake in waterloo county, canadians did not question the german immigrants’ loyalty to their new or old home—german immigration had its own place in the nation building of canada; lorenzkowski states that it was undisputed in canada that the “cultural norm was german, not british” (2010:148). it certainly helped that german–canadians acknowledged the british empire and celebrated florence feiereisen 139 queen victoria’s birthday alongside that of wilhelm i. chapters 6 and 7, “soundscapes of identity” and “making a musical public,” go back to the creation of german ethnicity through song by visiting the eight singers’ festivals in waterloo county which—inspired by the 1871 peace jubilee—took place from 1874 to 1912. “making music”, as lorenzkowski argues, “was a trans–ethnic venture in which the hyphen in ‘german–canadian’ symbolized not an imposing cultural boundary that shielded german folklore from the outside world, but rather a space of cultural interaction” (2010:188).what makes these festivals an interesting study is that they were both homegrown small–town events that nonetheless foregrounded the transnational (and not transatlantic) divide. discussing negotiations between “fine music” singers’ festivals and the establishment of large german fests in buffalo, lorenzkowski strolls through the grounds of the pan–american exposition in buffalo in 1901. the german empire had sponsored the erection of alt–nürnberg, a town square bordered by several medieval looking buildings, with brass players on the streets and plenty of beer available for their visitors. in short:german ethnicity was here not only equated with but also publicly performed as bavaria. these last two chapters fall a bit short in comparison to the outstanding first five chapters. both are overly celebratory in that they only describe these events as successes. additionally, the format is inconsistent. almost every chapter ends with a “conclusion” to touch upon the most important points; unfortunately, two chapters (including chapter 7) do not include conclusions which makes for a somewhat asymmetrical format. sound studies revisited in “is there a field called sound culture studies? and does it matter?,” michele hilmes describes sound studies as an “emerging field” that, for more than 100 years, has been “always emerging, never emerged“ (hilmes 2005:249). she suggests that there are not enough scholars or an enthusiastic audience. a different—and all the more interesting—proposition is her comparison of the relationship between scholars of sound and of visual studies with that of ear and eye:the first is “constantly subjugated to the primacy of the visual, associated with emotion and subjectivity as against objectivity and rationality of vision, seen as somehow more ‘natural’ and less constructed as a mode of communication“ (2005:249). another reason for sound studies not yet having fully emerged is the scarcity, for events during the time period lorenzkowski studies, of audio recordings relative to visual footage. sound recording only came about in 1860 (édouard–léon scott de martinville’s phonoautograph without a current musicology 140 play–back option) or 1877 (edison’s phonograph), and these devices were not available to the masses until more than a decade later. the library of congress has many (silent) video clips of the pan–am in its collection, yet audio files are missing—even the welcome speech of president mckinley (his last public speech before his assassination a day later) is only available as a silent film. lorenzkowski overcomes the obstacle posed by this lack of audio sources by basing her writing on sound upon written sources:she examines visual documents, admittedly an impressive variety, for her excellent portrait of the sounds of the past. yet i wonder if lorenzkowski could have found sound recordings of the later festivals, recordings of german–american and german–canadian bands, and choirs, as their examinations would have enriched this study. i am also curious about other german–american or german–canadian sounds outside of language and music:did the german experience differ acoustically from other immigrant experiences? an aural investigation into the german workforce, extra–musical pastime activities, religious rituals, etc. would add to our understanding of the sound of german ethnicity in the great lakes region. lorenzkowski writes about sound using many visual metaphors such as “fireworks displays.” a scholar on language and sound should have addressed this in the introduction. at the same time, this shows that visual metaphors abound in english, as western culture is visually oriented and the use of metaphors, i.e. language, is an expression of that culture. but it is even more complicated:to concentrate on hearing instead of on seeing alone, does not mean to simply exchange visual metaphors for vocabulary from the aural realm. no, one has to consider new “habits” and rethink one’s own cultural practices. barbara lorenzkowski’s book is a gripping tale of the performance of german ethnicity through sound at a time when german identity was in flux in north america and abroad. by illustrating how history can be investigated through acoustic experiences, the sounds of ethnicity is an important contribution to scholarship in history, german studies, and sound studies. references attali, jacques. 1985. noise:the political economy of music, translated by brian massumi. minneapolis:university of minnesota press. geisler, michael. 2012. larry summers is wrong about languages. in inside higher ed. march 6. <http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/03/06/geisler–essay–why–larry–summers–wrong–about–languages#ixzz1oxsuyr00> accessed 6 mar 2012. hilmes, michele. 2005. is there a field called sound culture studies? and does it matter? american quarterly 57: 249–259. karst, karl. 1998. die geschichte des ohrs. eine chronologie. in welt auf tönernen füßen, edited by kunst– und ausstellungshalle der bundesrepublik deutschland gmbh, 45–57. göttingen:steidl. florence feiereisen 141 labelle, brandon. 2010. acoustic territories. sound culture and everyday life. new york:continuum. smith, bruce. 2003. tuning into london, c. 1600. in the auditory culture reader, edited by michael bull & les back, 127–135. oxford, new york:berg. smith, mark, ed. 2004. hearing history. a reader. athens, ga.:university of georgia press. _____. sensing the past:seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching in history. 2007. berkeley, los angeles:university of california press. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 103 ambient drone and apocalypse joanna demers celer and the end of happiness a good time to listen to celer’s music is early in the morning, around three o’clock. any later, and road noise would drown it out. in the album salvaged violets, high– and low–pitched tones seep in, barely perceptible even on headphones. they are produced on synthesizers, processors of various sorts, and acoustic instruments, but their timbre is uniformly fragile. there are no abrupt attacks, and decays are always attenuated. these tones are too isolated to congeal into harmony; they merely align with each other momentarily, before washing out with the tide. the disc player spins, and the laser reads the data. naturally, this playback is identical to every other. it will be the same tomorrow, and however many tomorrows remain. i could well play this recording every morning, indefinitely, or at least until the electrical grid collapses. it would matter just as much to me if i heard it constantly, from now until the end. salvaged violets might sound like other recent examples of pretty, quiet music. but this impression gives way with repeated listening, especially around the nine–minute mark. the sudden influx of rapidly oscillating drones, colliding as they compete for the same space, proves that this is not just a touristic celebration of beautiful sounds. this is the moment when one’s toes clench the precipice shortly before jumping, or the moment immediately preceding the apocalypse. celer’s music, as with so much ambient drone, speaks of the end of time, the end of the world, and all the unresolvable dilemmas that accompany such ends. croesus was a lydian king who believed himself blessed. he sought confirmation from solon of athens, the lawmaker revered for his wisdom. croesus asks solon, “who is the happiest of all men?,” whereupon solon answers with stories of humble men who live to old age in obscurity, or else who die young in their sleep after winning favor from some god. but croesus wanted solon to name him the happiest. solon responds, “[mark] this: until he is dead, keep the word ‘happy’ in reserve. till then, he is not happy, but only lucky.”1 this passage from herodotus is famous, but what follows is more important. solon admonishes croesus to “look to the end,” rather than the present. croesus dismisses solon, and only later learns the meaning in solon’s words. he loses a son in a hunting accident. he concludes current musicology 104 two years of mourning with the decision to attack the persians, and his oracle responds that he will “destroy a great empire.”2 croesus is foolish enough to hear a presentiment of the fall of persia, but the empire to fall is his own. it would then appear that croesus is about to reach his own end as the prisoner of the persian tyrant cyrus. he is about to be burned alive on a pyre. as the flames char croesus’ hair, cyrus is moved to spare croesus, but his men cannot stop the fire’s spread. croesus prays to apollo for mercy, clouds rush in on what was a perfectly clear sky, and rains put out the fire that was to mark croesus’s final, unhappy ending. croesus spends the rest of his days as a guest and prisoner in the persian court, trotted out anytime his captors seek counsel on the behavior of an enemy or the proper course of war. it may well be that croesus narrowly missed a horrible ending to what had been a blessed life, but strangest of all is his subsequent resurrection, the turnabout that made a king into a slave, a ruler into an advisor. i feel great joy, and great excitement. something wonderful is coming—liberation from our bodies—but it is also something terrible. billions of people will suffer. there is no way for me to justify how i could feel happy, by what right i can smile given what i know. and it’s unclear whether what i feel is even happiness at all. how can it be, if it cannot last? one could rewrite the opening of the nicomachean ethics with apocalypse in mind: every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim. but a certain difference is found in the time of apocalypse, when activities can no longer have ends. for naturally, in a time in which ends are irrelevant, when the final end precludes all other ends, the good takes on a different meaning. where there are actions apart from ends, at least ends that lie in the future, it is the nature of the activities to stand apart from their products. we must thus concern ourselves with what right action and goodness are when the end is at hand. now, as there have been many actions, arts, and sciences, their ends were also many; the end of economics was wealth, that of bomb–making a bomb, that of plastic manufacturing a plastic bottle. but where such arts meet with a certain end not only of one person, but of the entire civilization or even of the planet, the question of ends becomes moot. it now makes a great difference whether activities themselves are the ends of the actions, or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences just mentioned.3 aristotle writes that the ultimate end of human activity is happiness— eudemonia. to attain eudemonia, we weigh present against future satisfaction, balancing virtues against necessities. but aristotle says that happiness must be measured over a lifetime, that it cannot be reduced to a single moment.4 spoken with the confidence of someone assured of a long life. joanna demers 105 what is the ultimate end in the time of apocalypse? if we accept aristotle’s premise that it remains happiness, then how do we define happiness, and the virtues that inform our quest for happiness, when the end is imminent? we delude ourselves that we will live long lives, that our relative happiness will be an average of joy and sorrow and boredom stretched out over the years. apocalypse exposes this lie. it pushes us to take up plato’s call in the gorgias to stop thinking about how long we have, and instead about how best we might live in whatever time remains.5 the truth i know in my bones is that the end is coming soon. i don’t know when—a month from now, perhaps, or a week, or in five years. eudemonia should be the same whether we live only five minutes more, or five decades more. i see all this, and yet the truth eludes me, for until recently, happiness has meant for me the idea of being happy at some point in the future or past, not the present. in the gorgias, zeus is said to have instituted a law that no one shall know their death ahead of time. like that line at the end of blade runner: “too bad she won’t live. but then again, who does?” this is supposed to be our final tip–off that deckard, like rachel, is a replicant, and has no more than three years to live. but what it really tells us is that apocalypse only magnifies mortality, something already there, on a mass scale. every individual’s death is her own apocalypse, if only she would recognize it as such. if aristotle and solon are right, then a life qualifies as happy only if it lasts a full duration, and ends happily. but if the apocalypse is drawing near, as it must considering our species’ efforts to bring it about, then all lives will have been cut short, and we will have died with the knowledge that the end was prematurely upon us. so none of us will be able to claim that we were happy in aristotle’s or solon’s terms. the only hope i have of proving these two greeks wrong, of leaving evidence that i have known moments of blinding happiness, is to stop time even as it drags me with it. i now look to the end, but while searching for moments of joy that stop time altogether. the music of celer intimates what such happiness might feel like.6 it is achingly beautiful–loops of electronic tones, or field recordings or snatches of piano or cello fragments, played at low volumes. celer is most courageous when it bypasses noise and technical tricks. it sounds like what it is to watch the moon set over the ocean at night, or to see one’s beloved enter the room after a long absence. celer’s music is usually constructed with loops that repeat for a half–hour, or perhaps over an hour. their duration does not matter, for this music has bestowed on me a happiness that no one, not even someone blessed with contented old age, has experienced. boethius understands the lightness with which we can let go, after having been granted such joy; writing in house arrest before his execution, he notes that no evil can destroy the memory of happiness.7 his optimism puts to current musicology 106 shame aristotle, who was neither imprisoned nor condemned to death, and who was therefore tepid in his joy. and so the spinning continues. there is the spinning of the disc player, going over the same zeroes and ones that it has read every morning since i began listening to salvaged violets. there is the spinning beating of the tones, sometimes constant, other times accelerating from dissonance back to consonance. these are toy tops of sound that whirl and gyrate, going so fast while going nowhere at all. self–contained, they are monads that reflect all these worlds of happiness, each in their own particular way. take any one of these oscillations, increase its speed to the point where individual revolutions disappear within a perceived uniform total, and what we have is an edifice of eternal happiness—eternal for however long it lasts. so it is with every successive wave of sound in salvaged violets. the ethics of apocalypse starts with this—that it should be no different than ethics for those who assume that death will come only in the distant, unspecified future. aristotle’s definition of happiness requires that we remain virtuous, and virtue means that we “must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best thing in us.”8 but the immortal gods are none other than they who can live an eternity within a single moment—even if that moment is immediately followed by death. we mortals, however, are divorced from any comprehensive experience of time. we pass from moment to moment, too abject to grasp the unity in infinity; plato, aristotle, and boethius all agree on this point. but dostoyevsky knew better than all of them. he realized that one can live a lifetime of happiness within a few moments. he also understood that such moments come at great cost. in the idiot, prince myshkin speaks of a prisoner about to be shot before his sentence was commuted. the convict systematically spends his last few minutes—five minutes, which “seemed to him an infinite time, a vast wealth”9—taking leave of his comrades, thinking for the last time not in a rushed, delirious fashion, but almost happy, serene, perhaps ecstatic. he stares at the golden cupola of a distant church glittering in the sunshine. and then, he said that nothing was so dreadful at that time as the continual thought, “what if i were not to die! what if i could go back to life— what eternity! and it would all be mine! i would turn every minute into an age; i would lose nothing, i would count every minute as it passed, i would not waste one!” he said that this idea turned into such a fury at last that he longed to be shot quickly.10 joanna demers 107 and so it must have been for dostoyevsky himself, who thought these same thoughts when he was about to be put to death for political conspiracy before being similarly spared. such an event must have exacerbated his epilepsy. indeed, prince myshkin, who is also epileptic, feels a similar elation in the seconds immediately before a seizure, a flash of light during which “he had time to say to himself clearly and consciously, ‘yes, for this moment one might give one’s whole life!’.”11 the price for that moment is exorbitant: pain, idiocy, total disconnection from all the bliss of the preceding moment, disconnection too from every other human. myshkin lives an apocalypse of sorts every time he has a seizure, from which it takes him months to recover. in the intervening time, he must rebuild himself. the cosmic epiphany he experienced is irretrievable, at least until his next seizure. celer’s music also intimates a dear price. i am thinking now of “of my complaisance,” from an immensity merely to save a life. eighteen minutes of a fragment lasting thirty–five seconds that is looped, with no variation, until the track’s close. the fragment consists of a short melody plus harmonic accompaniment played on the strings–setting of a synthesizer. there is ample reverb, and although there is a definite, discernible melody, the texture is smooth, with no percussive breaks or attacks. this melody for the most part outlines a major key, descending at first, until at its low point accompanying strings arrive on a single, held pitch high up in the ether. this is prokofiev’s old trick, to land on low and high notes simultaneously, and just as in prokofiev’s music, the gesture here seems to open a wide space that is beautiful and cavernous, terrifying. the bottom drops out. celer’s music is always beautiful. i don’t like relying on that word time and again, but one can’t overlook what “beautiful” means in the context of electronic music these days. so much electronica has assimilated ugliness and dissonance. witness the very genre called “noise,” plus distillations of noise elements in glitch, drone, and metal. celer stands apart by not relying on noise. a few other artists fall into this category: william basinski, drone artists capricornus, kyle bobby dunn, and david tagg, and other ambient drone artists who use either drone–sustained sonorities or loops to create multi–minute or –hour works of unmitigated beauty and consonance. i mentioned just now the steep price of this music. this price is central to celer’s story: the group began as a duo of will long and danielle basquet– long, a married couple in their twenties. their music and track titles, along with their photos taken from worldwide travels, shows a grand amour, not merely the happy burgeoning love of youth, but the love that, when it finds its beloved, says, “ah yes, i’ve been waiting for you patiently. we’ve a lot of living to do, you and i.” danielle basquet–long died of an undiagnosed heart condition in 2009, and will long has since released several recordings current musicology 108 featuring their work as a couple, danielle’s solo project chubby wolf, and will’s work as celer. any of these tracks sound like they could go on forever, and perhaps are currently going on forever in some other space. this is music of heaven, how we all might hope the afterlife to be, with no hint of kitsch. a few moments in this music might indeed be fair recompense for a lifetime’s worth of disappointment, aggravation, and boredom. but the threat of an abrupt end—apocalypse—is latent in this music, too. this sort of happiness confounds aristotle’s theory; we can experience happiness even if we do not have a complete life. we might hope for long, prosperous lives, with our material needs met, and with adequate freedom and opportunity for contemplation. but aristotle here does not think with the mind or heart of a mystic. and a mystic is exactly what we need, someone who knows the liberation of which ambient drone speaks. a mystic like hegel understands that happiness must contain its other, the end of happiness, just as infinity contains the finite. for hegel, finite things contain “the germ of decease”; they are born at the same time that they die.12 celer explains what happiness—the ultimate end—would look like in a time of apocalypse because it reveals that true happiness of any sort is both eternal and susceptible to extinction at any moment. there is no apocalypse, because apocalypse has always been, and will always be with us. thomas köner and the end of the world history abounds with tales of military leaders who risk everything for the end of the world, which might lie just over the hill. the persian king cyrus was a tactical savant, a political prodigy, whose arrogance undid everything those qualities had won him. he conquered greece, babylon, all of what is now turkey, iraq, and iran. not content with those lands, he continued eastward into the land of the massagetae, the nomadic tribes who lived in what is now turkmenistan. the first real resistance his forces encountered came in the form of the queen tomyris. cyrus began his invasion with a marriage proposal; she refused. cyrus proceeded to prepare a military incursion, which prompted the first of tomyris’ prophetic threats: cyrus must leave, although tomyris knows he will not. tomyris then proposes a limited engagement between the two armies in a location of cyrus’ choosing, a means of containing the battle and its ravages. cyrus eventually accepts these terms, and succeeds in introducing tomyris’ men to alcohol. cyrus’ army then slaughters the drunk massagetae and captures tomyris’ grown son. she issues her second prophetic threat: release her son and leave her country. “if you refuse,” she adds, “i swear by the sun our master to give you joanna demers 109 more blood than you can drink, for all your gluttony.”13 cyrus frees tomyris’ son, who promptly kills himself. a battle ensues, one herodotus claims is the bloodiest in history. cyrus is killed, and tomyris stuffs his decapitated head “into a skin which she had filled with human blood”14, to fulfill her prophecy that cyris would inebriate himself with blood. tomyris’ roles in this story are multiple, and for that reason, unusual in a text where women seldom receive more than passing mention. she is a female body, a military commander, and a prophetess. she knows that cyrus will not content himself with what he already possesses, and uses the very image of binging on blood to devise his punishment. and while cyrus could have heeded tomyris’ warnings, he persists, just as she predicts. his disregard for her prophecy is part of the prophecy. subsequent generals have learned nothing from cyrus. alexander also invaded the east, driving into afghanistan and india before his troops forced a westward retreat. alexander pulled his men back to babylon before dying of a fever under suspicious circumstances, perhaps due to poisoning. several centuries later, the roman emperor julian hoped to recreate alexander’s campaign; he was murdered, probably by conspirators from within his army. these men knew what awaited cyrus and themselves in their search for the east–most point. so did the soviets and americans who, in the name of homeland security or oil, pursued their own mad searches for the next mountain or cave that hid whatever enemy propaganda could conjure. logic and history would have demanded that foreign occupiers halt and embed themselves within land they already controlled. wealth and territory alone do not compel these invaders. so what drove these commanders to risk and lose everything, including, in the case of cyrus and alexander, their very lives? when i was eleven years old, i spent two weeks at a summer soccer camp on catalina island. it was my first time away from my parents for longer than a night. i was excited to go, for i was used to seeing the island from my house, and had wanted to cross the channel for as long as i could remember. but after only a day, i wanted to leave. i stopped eating, cried in the middle of practice, games, mealtime and especially at bedtime. i was nervous for two weeks straight. the only time i was able to forget my grief—i suppose that it was fear that something would happen to my parents while i was away from them, and i would never see them again—was when our camp hiked to the isthmus, the mile–long flat strip of land that linked what in an earlier geological era were probably two separate islands. but this hike did not turn my depression into happiness. i was rather merely distracted, preoccupied with concerns indicative of mania. what does it mean to cross an island? the windward, west–facing side had always seemed to me an enigma. i often wondered how different it would be from the mainland–facing side. how current musicology 110 much more remote was it? and from that westward side, would i be able to see distant san clemente, the island my brother told me had been blasted into flatness after decades of us naval exercises, an island hidden from view from the los angeles coast? how would it feel to reach such a definitive end, albeit a geographical end, of the only world i knew after such a short walk? i found what should have been satisfying responses to these questions when we reached the isthmus. it did indeed feel different on the far side of the island. it was windier, the waves were rougher, and there were no people or buildings. and yet, it was not entirely alien either. the craggy cliffs resembled those on the shore of the palos verdes peninsula where i lived, and the golden hills covered with oak and sage brush were like anything in the valleys north of los angeles. i was now present where previously i had only fantasized of going, and it was all disarmingly matter–of–fact. but that presence collapsed into a new absence, a new fixation: the other side of that ocean that extended itself over the next hemisphere. i began to wish that i could see all the way to japan and china through the curvature of the earth. i wanted to see further, to go further to find that new end of the earth that my fellow campers and i had so casually pushed back. cyrus, awakening early one morning east of the caspian sea, must have felt the same way. though he marched further east than any greek or persian before him, he did not succeed in discovering the end of the world. he merely displaced that limit to some new location beyond the next mountain range. and that only tantalized him to the point of lunacy, such that, twice hearing tomyris’ predictions of disaster, all he could do was to look away toward the east, pretend not to hear or believe, and march off a cliff to oblivion and blood–engorgement. prophecy should slacken our thirst for the end of the world, to find the end of the world. it does no such thing. a friend recently returned from a ten–day cruise to alaska. among his fellow shipmates were several baby boomers who applauded and oohed at the sight of melting glaciers, with apparently no trace of irony. there flickered in their well–meaning faces no awareness that human actions have made the collapse of the arctic into entertainment. he saw a lake the size of san diego’s mission bay, one that a year ago had been a solid glacier. the tour guides said that this sort of cruise would no longer be marketable in a few years given the current rate of melting. the glaciers and fjords would be gone, replaced with oversized puddles. and yet there was still enough of a sense of what used to be there for my friend to fall sadly in love with the place. where the world’s lines of longitude converge into a single pole, the past and future meet. the prophecy of the arctic has been clear enough for some time, at least for those not intent on denial. and that prophecy addresses humanity just as tomyris addressed cyrus, warning him of the joanna demers 111 future even as it acknowledges the futility of that warning. that end of the world, that geographical extremity, is perhaps where we can foresee the end of the world most clearly. i will not make it to the arctic before the end. but i have some recordings by thomas köner, and so i go there late at night, when the sounds of the outside world have momentarily abated. köner’s recordings all share a tendency to evade not only description, but even the sense that one has even listened to them at all. in “teimo,” for instance, waves of low–frequency drones and rumbles wash in and out like the tide, and higher tones occasionally enter.15 köner knows the arctic well—he spent some years of his childhood in the region—and can evoke the arctic’s vastness and emptiness better than any other sound artist or composer has ever done. just like celer, he knows the power of pairing the very low with the very high, but to this he adds the very slow movement of a glacier. (at least they used to be slow. as my friend assures me, they break apart quickly now.) and so the most remarkable thing about köner’s music is the sense that one has not, and cannot, apprehend it in its entirety. so much of it eludes perception by dwelling at the extremes of our acoustic or temporal perception. change thus manifests only in retrospect, when it suddenly becomes audible that the texture of a track’s end is far different from its beginning. instead, köner relentlessly posits an elsewhere, an extreme point, something to which we strain to listen and whose position we hope someday to reach. failing that, for of course we will utterly fail in that campaign, we merely sit back and listen to what sounds like eternity, something unknowable, unfathomable, and unchanging. notes 1. herodotus, the histories, trans. aubrey de sélincourt, rev. john marincola (london: penguin, 2003), 16. 2. ibid., 23. 3. near–verbatim transcription of aristotle, nicomachean ethics i: 1, 1094a1–18. 4. aristotle, nicomachean ethics i: 10, 1100a10. 5. plato, gorgias, 512e. 6. celer’s music can be heard at http://www.celer.bandcamp.com. 7. boethius, the consolation of philosophy, trans. victor watts (new york: penguin, 1999), 27–28. 8. aristotle, nicomachean ethics x:7, 1177b33. 9. fyodor dostoyevsky, the idiot, trans. constance garnett (new york: bantam, 1988), 57. 10. ibid., 57. 11. ibid., 219. 12. g. w. f. hegel, science of logic, trans. av miller (new york: humanity books, 1969), 129. current musicology 112 13. herodotus, 93. 14. herodotus, 94. 15. thomas köner, nunatuk—teimo—permafrost. type recordings, 2010. type 072. references aristotle. 1984. nicomachean ethics. in the complete works of aristotle, edited by jonathan barnes. princeton: princeton university press. boethius. 1999. the consolation of philosophy, translated by victor watts. new york: penguin. dostoyevsky, fyodor. 1988. the idiot, translated by constance garnett. new york: penguin. hegel, g. w. f. 1969. science of logic, translated by av miller. new york: humanity books. herodotus. 2003. the histories, translated by aubrey de sélincourt. london: penguin. köner, thomas. 2010. nunatuk – teimo – permafrost. type recordings: type 072. plato. 1997. gorgias. in the complete works, edited john m. cooper. indianapolis, in: hackett. benjamin piekut. 2011. experimentalism otherwise: the new york avant-garde and its limits. berkeley, los angeles, and london: university of california press. reviewed by thomas fogg this is an original and important book, one that will pique the interest not only of an eager band of twentieth-century music historians, but also of scholars throughout the humanities. piekut's is one of those hard-to­ pin-down projects, cutting across the boundaries that separate music history, ethnomusicology, and broader humanistic study. as a history of the nearly-present, or still-living past much of the book's material stems from interviews conducted between 2004 and 2009-"ethnography" is probably the best summary term. call it what you will, the approach here is impressive in its scope, providing a social and political history as well as a musical one. most commendable is the manner in which the author has wrestled with so many disparate sources (ranging from the anecdotal to the archival) to produce a concise and focused account, but one that also manages to retain some of the messiness of his subj ect. four chapters tell stories of avant-garde music making, each loosely connected by time and place: a performance ofjohn cage's atlas eclipticalis by the new york philharmonic; henry flynt's encounter with karlheinz stockhausen's originale; the establishment of the jazz composers guild; charlotte moorman's performance of cage's 26' 1.1499" for a string player. all are presented within the context of new york city in 1964. an epilogue shifts to ann arbor, where possible resonances between the performance styles of robert ashley and james osterberg (iggy pop to you and me) are explored. of the many themes, two stand out: conflict and failure. members of the avant -garde repeatedly find themselves at loggerheads with various counter forces. cage wars with the traditionalism of leonard bernstein and the philharmonic; flynt, regarding stockhausen as a mouthpiece for capitalism and "old" europe, pickets judson hall with his group, action against cultural imperialism (aaci); disagreeing about (among other things) racial politics, the jazz composers guild soon disintegrates; cage lambasts moorman for "murdering" his piece. such conflict has in the past often been seen as the stuff of avant-garde legend, assuring entry into the pantheon of renegade artists; but the situations described here are complicated by the fact that much of the antagonism arose between artists with similar creative aims. piekut shows an avant-garde not only battling against conservative institucurrent musicology, no. 92 (fall 2011) © 2011 by the lfustees of columbia university in the city of new york 103 104 current musicology tions and unadventurous publics, but one that is fractured and at odds with itself. to give just one example: having distinguished between the free jazz movement and the "european american scene downtown;' he writes that "the key task for a fresh appraisal of 1960s experimentalism is to register the ambivalence of the connections between these two avant-gardes, the ways in which these communities were both connected to, and separated from, each other in powerful ways" (3). with such conflicts in mind, piekut introduces the idea of failure, a word that might, on another day, have found its way into the book's title. in the introduction, he writes that "i am ... intrigued by the idea of experimental­ ism as an arena of risk, testing, and even (productive) failure" (19). that parenthetical airbag is replaced by the time the conclusion arrives, where the episodes are more assertively called "successful failures" (175). refreshingly, little space is given to the "success" side of the ledger: a side which, with the exception of the concrete influence of the jazz composers guild on the association for the advancement of creative musicians (aacm), leads back to expected avant-garde lore. in his unsuccessful encounter with bernstein and the philharmonic, for example, cage's avant-garde credentials were enhanced; similarly, the philharmonic gained cultural capital by sticking with their traditional values. piekut refuses to sweep such failures-"successful" or otherwise-under the rug: ''all experiments harbor the possibility of failure;' he writes (174). failures are "markers oflimits ... [that] indicat[e] the areas that lie beyond the new york avant-garde, as well as the varied means through which the resulting experimentalist formation gained strength and stability" (176). this is one of piekut's chief concerns: how what he calls "actually existing experimentalism" -experimental events themselves, and the life-stories of the characters involved-interacts and interferes with the abstract category of experimentalism. rather than offering a definition of experimentalism that seeks commonalities between different sorts of experimental music (a task that, referencing michael nyman's experimental music: cage and beyond, piekut suggests has been the modus operandi for previous histories of experimental music), he asserts that "experimentalism is a grouping, not a group" (6). in that case, the pressing question becomes "how have these composers been collected together in the first place, that they can now be the subject of a description?" (6). with a hard line drawn between empiri­ cal fact and discursive chatter, this question opens up the opportunity to be wholly revisionist: historical detail can be mobilized to test, disrupt and critique the stability of the historical category of experimentalism, as well as histories that uphold that category. thomas fogg how exactly is experimentalism approached? as i have already noted, piekut is not in search of a definition that tells us what experimentalism is. his aims are historical: he asks what experimentalism was. more specifically, he conceives of experimentalism as a result rather than a starting point; a result, that is, of a complex negotiation between discourses, practices, and institutions. piekut outlines the various players in this game, provocatively heading the list with practitioners of his own trade: this formation is the result of the combined labor of scholars, composers, critics, journalists, patrons, performers, venues, and the durative effects of discourses of race, gender, nation, and class. the continuing performance of this network-and not an experimental "ethos" or "spirit" -explains the extension of experimentalism through time. (7) the term network is imported from the work of sociologist of science bruno latour, whose actor-network theory piekut has taken to heart. "when studying a network;' piekut writes, "it is important to identify everything that has an effect in a given situation ... it is a heterogeneous network­ these are things of different kinds, and thus their connection necessarily requires translation" (8). translation, he seems to imply, occurs "out there;' at the empirical level among the many strands that are woven together as experimentalism; but the process also suggests a role for historians. creating their own networks anew through research and writing, historians perform translation in order to make sense of their data-or, perhaps more realisti­ cally, they sometimes translate, but at other times simply juxtapose or arrange different elements between which there is no common ground. despite his many theoretical turns, piekut views his task simply enough: "pick a point in this network-composer, venue, critic, publication, performer, event-and follow where it leads" (5). learned also from latour is the command to "follow the actors:' for piekut this means "pursuing an individual or argument even when it seems to be leading outside of experimental music studies proper" (8). he continues: "one must abandon the limit of limit ... abandoning the limit of limit means disregarding any artificial and normative separations among fields and actors and embracing the messy assemblages that result" (9). here we get another indication of piekut's resistance to disciplinary restraints, his commitment to individual method and thought; although he dismisses the idea of an experimental "ethos" or "spirit;' it is hard not to regard his work in these terms. to put the matter in the style of his title, this is certainly musicology otherwise. and about "otherwise" piekut relaxes his stance toward definition: "it seems to me that [the 1 restless desire to be elsewhere, [the 1 searching for an otherwise, might be the closest thing to an 'essence' 105 106 current musicology of experimentalism that we will ever get" (19). the title, then, is more than a statement of historiographical revisionism; it is also the maximal definition of experimentalism that piekut is willing to concede. in the opening chapter on atlas eclipticalis, "when orchestras attack!: john cage meets the new york philharmonic;' the figure of bernstein looms large: his solemn address to the audience about the difficultly and seriousness of the music on offer perhaps masked a deeper insincerity. bernstein's and cage's correspondence, in which the two disagree over the decision to have the philharmonic perform an improvisation, is particularly revealing of the distance between the two men. improvisation, cage argued, had nothing to do with his piece. the presence of bernstein's voice in this retelling is just one way in which piekut attempts to divert the path from the usual com­ poser-centered narratives; his interviews with the players are another step in this direction. these alternative points of view contradict the radicalized version of events advanced by cage; his claim, for example, that "many in the orchestra were furious at the music and tore the microphones off their instruments and stamped on them and smashed them" is denied by the performers' accounts (38). and yet tales of orchestral horseplay (unexplain­ able noises, digital watch alarms, laughter) persist among the performers' memories. it was not the shock of cage's music that caused the musicians to misbehave; it was a lack of respect for the composer and his demands. piekut understands this particular conflict in terms of choice: the philharmonic musicians chose to reject cage. searching for the logic of this choice, he makes a surprising move, asking whether the confrontation could "be dubbed an experimentalist 'rumspringa''' (54). this refers to the amish practice of sending children in late adolescence out into the real world, where they can experience earthly delights unknown and usually forbidden. after a period, they are expected to choose between staying with the party or sobering up and returning to the amish community. if they choose the former, they are frozen out of the communities in which they were raised; most often, they choose the latter, having been completely unprepared for life outside. the choice therefore is not free. piekut borrows this illustration from slavoj zizek's the parallax view, where he writes that "the lesson of all this is that a choice is always a meta-choice, a choice of the modality of the choice itself" (55). naming this the "zizekian paradox;' piekut notes that "if the choice of rumspringa is to be a true choice, it cannot be made by a true amish" (55). this argument is transposed onto the philharmonic musicians, who rejected an "alternative future in favor of returning to the music of vivaldi and tchaikovsky" (55). like amish teenagers, the performers were com­ pletely unprepared for cage's piece: "these musicians could only have made thomas fogg a real decision if they had been educated in the experimental tradition, had learned its philosophical underpinnings and become thoroughly entrained into the soundworld and social mores ofthe cagean community" (55). at this point, it appears that translation between points in the network has broken down; there are two irreconcilable musical worlds. but it might be argued that piekut draws too rigid a boundary here between experimental and "classically trained" musicians, treating the latter as nothing but classicists. the philharmonic musicians, he implies, were fundamentalists. that was exactly cage's view, and piekut points out as much, borrowing once more from zizek. the charge of fundamentalism, according to zizek, marks the limit of "tolerant" liberalism: a person is branded a fundamental­ ist when their (usually religious) beliefs are to be tolerated no more. this formulation shows the ideology lurking behind liberalism: choice is free, but within certain limits. the overall arc of the chapter is to temper the politi­ cal radicalism of atlas, to point to "themes of liberalism, that hegemonic political formation of western modernity: autonomy, choice, the will to reason, justice as fairness, and small government" that its performance suggests (23). but the liberalism piekut proposes is of the qualified kind. a "successful performance of cage an indeterminacy in the 1960s:' he writes, " ... depended upon a performer who had already internalized the expecta­ tions of the composer, significantly undermining cage's well-known goal of accepting the unforeseen" (25). piekut describes how david tudor had assimilated a cagean soundworld; he would be allowed to perform "freely" because cage knew exactly what he would get. the zizekian paradox is thus far more provocative when applied to the experimental musicians; rather than reducing them to experimental fundamentalists, piekut suggests that they were not really experimenting, at least not in the way they imagined: "if tudor is to create a situation of indeterminacy, he cannot be tudor" (58). the conclusion, then, is strikingly revisionist: "cages work evidences a peculiar status as both model and mirror-a mock-up of utopian anarchism and register of hegemonic liberalism" (25). the discussion of moorman's performance of cage's 26' 1.1499" offers another intriguing moment in which high cultural theory is brought to bear on "actually existing experimentalism:' moorman's interpretation of the piece diverged significantly from cage's expectations, hence cage dub­ bing moorman a "murderer:' in a 1991 interview, cage's comments about moorman returned that assumed violence: "the striking thing was to take this piece of mine and play it in a way that didn't have to do with the piece itself. i didn't like it at all. and my publisher said, the best thing that could happen for you, would be that charlotte moorman would die" (150). true to form, however, piekut's aim here is to show that the disagreement over 107 108 current musicology performance style was not a mere clash of avant -garde sensibilities in which moorman's was more radical than cage's. in 1964, the difference of opinion, he suggests, surrounded moorman's less than strict approach to rhythm. as the years went by, moorman made the piece her own, incorporating all kinds of "non-musical" sounds into her performance. although in theory cage's score makes room for such sounds, moorman's choices betrayed the cagean aesthetic of "natural" sounds, or sound devoid of human intentionality. most jarring in this respect was her insertion of spoken text that, more often than not, drew attention to the female body: she would read out loud about "menstruation, underwear, abortion, contraception, murder, and rape" (152). trying to sort out this impasse, piekut turns to michel foucault, whose work "suggests a way to rethink agency beyond one-dimensional reduc­ tions to resistance or 'transgression' and to conceive of experimentalism as a technique of inventing both a self and a culture" (143). in particular, it is foucault's discussions ofthe "care of the self;' advanced in his 1981-1982 lectures at the college de france and published as the hermeneutics of the subject, as well as in the third volume of the history of sexuality. "the care of the self;' writes piekut, "is always entangled in relations of power and conditioned by the norms through which one achieves subjectivity" (143). in a fascinating passage, he explains how moorman's traditional education as a cellist made it physically awkward for her to perform cage's piece. the disci­ pline involved in this education led to a certain type of subjectivization: "the cellist attains subjectivity by taking on norms that are external to the self, demonstrating the difficult truth that subjectivity is never self-contained" (148). piekut regards cage's piece as an opportunity for moorman to become yet a different kind of subject; an experimental subject, as it were. 26' 1.1499" "provided the opportunity to separate from the mode of subjectivization of her traditional cello training and to reapproach her corporeal relationship to the instrument without the histories sedimented in the actions of her body" (149). with this intervention, piekut casts identity as a malleable construct, but one that nevertheless intersects with culture; perhaps it would have been possible to follow this line of argument with the philharmonic musicians of the first chapter. were there really no performers at the lincoln center who were transformed (positively) by performing atlas? piekut returns to foucault in his conclusion: "what links foucauldian ethics to experimentalism is an engagement with the everyday, where test­ ing the limits and capacities of what is given, what is there, becomes the condition for a 'possible crossing-over: and elsewhere" (173). this leads back, then, to the maximal definition of experimentalism: the desire that life be otherwise. but desire alone does not make the experimentalist -as mentioned above, to be considered in that light one must be plugged into thomas fogg the network of "actually existing experimentalism:' piekut maintains his adherence to latour's network theory until the end, refusing concrete definitions. in places where he seems to intimate certain essential features of experimentalism-the turn to foucault being one example-one should remember that piekut understands these features as results, and not as ex­ planations, of experimentalism's beginnings. this methodological insistence has major implications for further studies in experimental music, some of which are explored in the epilogue, "experimentalism meets (iggy) pop:' after locating iggy (having interviewed the singer on the telephone, piekut perhaps earned the privilege of first-name address; i will follow suit only to avoid confusion with the other kind of pop) within the peripheries of the experimental scene in ann arbor-where he encountered robert and mary ashley, robert sheff, and anne wehrer, to name just a few-piekut makes a bold claim: although there are many connections between the singer and the experimental world, iggy and the stooges should not be rewritten into the history of experimentalism. including popular music (or any other genre) in this story of american experimentalism would be a misrepresentation of historical fact. such misrepresentation is a negative aspect of the general methodological shift from "canonical experimentalism" towards a "heterogeneous experimental supercategory;' a move that piekut thinks "fundamentally misunderstands what experimentalism has been" (197). as hooked up to the network as iggy and his band were, their ability to translate from one side of the popl art divide to the other was weak. cage, on the other hand, managed to translate rock music into his own terms: both aurally, through the use of extreme volume, and intellectually, through his writing and discursive alignments. the problem for iggywas a faulty network connection: "ultimately, iggy's translations of experimentalist tropes and techniques were discursively aligned with rock, not experimentation" (180). but it wasn't, or isn't, really a problem. piekut's concern is that experi­ mental pop be addressed on its own terms, as part of a different network; lumping all types of experimentalism together, simply because they are huddled under an umbrella term, makes little sense. even a subcategory of "popular experimentalism" would repeat the mistake; rather, histories of experimentalism should be atomized across the perceived divide between popular and high art music. in his notes, piekut points to a collection of studies of localized experimentalism. the list is worth repeating: michael dessen's doctoral dissertation, submitted at the university of california, san diego in 2003, "decolonizing art music: scenes from the late twentieth­ century united states"; bernard gendron's 2002 between montmartre and the mudd club: popular music and the avant-garde; tim lawrence's 2009 hold on to your dreams: arthur russell and the downtown music scene, 1973-1992 (245). 109 '110 current musicology experimentalism otherwise occupies a peripheral position within this burgeoning field, which is possibly the ideal perspective from which to file a status report. piekut's epilogue points towards possible future histories of experimentalism and pop, but it is also a powerful statement of intent, the quintessential "i refill my pen" sign-off. it is exciting to imagine what piekut will come up with next, especially if (given his disciplinary musings) he takes the epilogue of this book as his point of departure. if his (now award-winning) co-authored essay with jason stanyek on "deadness" is any indication, it is perhaps unwise to guess the next move. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 toward a rupture in the sensus communis: on sound studies and the politics of knowledge production roshanak kheshti in christine sun kim, a film by todd selby, we follow the performance artist from her apartment to a busy street corner in new york’s chinatown where she records a soundscape, jots down some notes and ruminates on the project to which the film gives us a behind-the-scenes view.1 cut to a scene of loud rustling and various shimmering and colorfully dusty materials dancing on a speaker cone as kim blows into a microphone dialed up to full volume. the spectator watches and listens from the sidelines of her studio as kim experiments with the audio recordings she (presumably) made earlier, channeling them to numerous speakers that have various materials taped to or placed on their cones, vibrating wildly, animating sound anew. as amanda l. cachia has written in an exhibition catalog including kim’s work, christine sun kim . . . focuses on the material forms that sound takes. . . . as a deaf artist who uses sign language, kim has been interested in creating sound environments that generate visual, tactile elements. . . . kim relates her scoring of sound/silence to asl [american sign language], which is a spatial representation of meaning not tied to a given set of phonemes, yet it is part of a network of significations that we call “language.” (cachia 2015, 40) kim’s aesthetic practice employs the methodology of translation as a medium of sonic transduction. so while hearing members of her audience may experience deafening noise transduced into physical, colorful, visual form, deaf members of her audience synesthetically see noise; it is this multilingual, synesthetic effect that results in various sensory experiences by differently situated audiences. back in her art studio kim signs an origin story (that i, a non-speaker of sign language, must read subtitles to follow) in which she recalls a cominginto-consciousness about sound by way of a disciplinary apparatus that forced upon her the sense that she was not an “owner” of proper sound. interestingly, kim does not lay the blame for this on her parents, since as immigrants they were also newcomers to linguistic sound in america. instead, narrating a story in which she not only absorbed her parents’ 8 current musicology linguistic alienation but additionally felt alienated from them because of her deafness, kim carefully points out a larger structuring logic, signing: “there were all these conventions for what was proper sound. . . . i learned to be respectful of their sound.” kim describes not only linguistic alienation experienced as a child of immigrants whose first language was korean but also a linguistic alienation vis-à-vis her deafness. kim’s coming-of-age story narrates the hereditary transfer of a disciplinary apparatus which shushed and glared at her parents’ racial noise on its way to chiding her racialized deaf noise. kim’s insightful narrative reflection upon the structuring ideologic of proper sonic decorum for not only a deaf child but her immigrant parents is a jumping off point for exploring the problem of theorizing sound in sound studies and the function of what kant called the sensus communis. employing ranjana khanna’s reading of the modern sensus communis “as common sense and sense of community” (2009, 111), i attempt here to understand how sound studies facilitates, factors and chronicles sound’s entrance into a “common sense” as well as how it creates a “sense of community” through what qualifies and gets quantified in the taxonomy of sound. just to be clear, this is not an appeal for a cultural relativism with regard to what matters as sound; on the contrary, it is an appeal for a political recalibration of sound studies’ desire in knowledge production. as i will argue, pushing beyond the limits of the sensus communis—which is what i interpret kim’s performance art to be attempting to do—requires a sensitivity to what critical autism studies scholar damian milton refers to as “divergences of perception,” which i will argue the sound studies scholar has an ethical obligation to be not only attentive to but to cultivate an epistemological and ontological relation toward. put differently, i examine in this essay the degree to which making various sounds and listening(s) a part of the sensus communis isn’t also a disciplining of those very things. i probe the politics of the sensus communis as an ethical imperative that pertains to how we sense, what we sense, who constitutes the we who sense and what the various means are by which we attest to the value of that sensing as scholars of sound. what i want to develop further in this article is the connection between the politics of knowledge production in sound studies research, the methods employed to perform research, and the outcomes of that research. on divergences of perception as a rupture in the sensus communis mainstream cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists claim that those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (asd) are unable to read the 9 roshanak kheshti social subtext (aka “pragmatics”) determining the other’s “theory of mind” and thus fail to empathize. damian milton has been quite critical of discourse that locates empathic failure only within the asd individual, identifying what he calls a “double empathy problem” as a way to reframe what he sees as the “ontological problem” facing people with autism spectrum disorder (2009, 883–887). milton flips the script to ask why the non-asd individual is not perceived as failing to grasp the social subtext and theory of mind of the asd individual: it is a ‘double problem’ because both people experience it, and so it is not a singular problem located in any one person. rather, it is based in the social interaction between two differently disposed social actors, the disjuncture being more severe for the non-autistic disposition as it is experienced as unusual, while for the ‘autistic person’ it is a common experience. (2009, 884) milton perceives the encounter between a non-asd and asd individual as a failure on the part of both actors to empathize, what he refers to as “divergences of perception” (2009, 886). those semantic and pragmatic elements of communication conventionally assumed to be shared by linguistically and culturally fluent members of a non-asd community and breached by asd individuals milton sees as in fact a structural failure in communication, what i extrapolate to be a rupture in the presumed sensus communis. by revealing the normalization agenda propagated by psychology and neuroscience, milton’s critique illustrates that what is taken as unproblematically given for asd individuals—empathic lack—is similarly lacking in the non-asd individual and hence the disciplines and scientists themselves. the question then becomes one of “what empathy? whose empathy?” revealing yet again a fixation on and pathologization of lack rather than an examination of the situatedness of divergent experiences. christine sun kim’s reflections upon her art practice reveal how she is produced as an artist at the intersection of the racialized lack (and excess) her parents were thought to embody with her own lack of hearing (and excess of noise). by exposing all the manifold ways that sound materializes beyond auditory perception, her work is a rebuttal to this. i work through these examples in an effort to reflect upon contemporary sound studies and the critical impasse that scholars in this field have reached. in such a moment we should do what milton has done in response to autism’s abnormalization and apply the same bewilderment to sound, asking, what sound? whose sound? how can other intellectual histories help us better understand the debates currently structuring sound studies? by examining some of the crises that have struck numerous other “studies” over the past 10 current musicology thirty to forty years, i identify a set of patterns across numerous fields that reveal the significance of politics to crises in various field formations. what can sound studies learn from these intellectual histories? i begin with a set of questions that are in no way novel. within western epistemology, questions pertaining to politics and knowledge production have been a preoccupation for everyone from plato and aristotle to enlightenment intellectuals and young hegelians like marx, continuing through nineteenth century philosophy and experiencing an apex in the twentieth century work of figures like du bois, boas, and the frankfurt school scholars, and revived again in the postcolonial, post civil rights era.2 if we understand the political in this lineage to be that which articulates the relationship between the two meanings of sensus communis that khanna identifies above—common sense and sense of community—then what counts as sound in sound studies is also a question about how sensing sound does or does not construct subjects of a community. and it is also a question about the commons, about who can access those commons, and about what forms of knowledge are included there (and what forms are included by force).3 if in sound studies there is a push for a common sense and a desire for a reordering of senses of community, then, by virtue of this, there is also a contradictory impulse—the disciplining of sound and a collapsing of community with discipline. by collapsing these are we seeking a proper a priori object of study or are we seeking a non-convergence that exists in distinction through forms like sign language, divergences of perception, and, what i will go into in more detail below, synesthesia? i pose a series of ethical questions about how difference is treated in the commons, about how difference is disciplined within this site and the degree to which it should be the objective of sound studies scholars today, like the songcatchers of yesteryear, to capture, chronicle, and document all sound. my examples show that disciplines cannot form around a central sense to which others can be multiculturally added. instead the examples i offer represent practitioners who never get counted as belonging in various disciplinary formations, and are thus able to work from within their difference, outside of the disciplinary sensus communis. sound studies as sensus communis at the scale of society and culture, sensus communis is the common sense shared by members and not shared by outsiders. but can we also think about a disciplinary sensus communis forming within sound studies, about the disciplining of sound studies knowledges through institutionalization? consider, for example, the recent sounding out! piece by gus stadler, “on whiteness and sound studies.” having been established as a 11 roshanak kheshti marquee venue for sound studies since july 2009, on july 6, 2015 sounding out! published this most widely circulated and read of its pieces.4 stadler focuses in particular on the publishing boom in sound studies, and the recent outgrowth of a number of anthologies focusing on sound yet lacking representatives from the field of american studies, where he argues there is an abundance of work on sound with a greater emphasis on race, writing, i’m struck, however, by the relative absence of a certain strain of work in these volumes—an approach that is difficult to characterize but that is probably best approximated by the term “american studies.” over the past two decades, this field has emerged as an especially vibrant site for the sustained, nuanced exploration of forms of social difference, race in particular. (stadler 2015) this is punctuated by the timing of his critique, “at a time when the field of sound studies has grown more prominent and coherent—arguably, more of an institutionally recognizable ‘field’ than ever before.” stadler notes that sound studies emerged as a marginal formation—imagined as the other of visual and music studies—but warns that its marginal status seems to be fading with its increasing popularity. he seems to be agitating for a recognition that the post-humanist tendencies in sound studies, which seek out a pure object of sound unencumbered by so-called socially constructed categories of social difference, are marking off a terrain that uncomfortably reinscribes a hierarchy of knowledge forms, prioritizing an unmarked pure sound studies from one inflected with particularities of social experience or identity. perhaps what stadler is referring to in his characterization of american studies is what donald pease first reflected upon as the work of “the new americanists” in 1990, which “returns questions of class, race, and gender from the political unconscious of american studies” (pease 1990, 16).5 both stadler and pease note an anxiety in their respective fields; stadler is very specifically calling out an inattention to race in much of the work currently being anthologized in sound studies.6 this could easily be a question of visibility and accountability. but if we interpret stadler’s question as one about the nubile movement’s “field imaginary” and its disciplinary unconscious we can interpret it to be working with the assumption that sound studies like american literary studies is an inherently political formation and that within the american context without an overtly integrationist politics it is by default interpreted as segregationist. as robyn wiegman has put it with regard to whiteness studies, the transformation from segregation to integration reconstructed not only the materiality of black life in the united states, but the national 12 current musicology imaginary of race and race discourse within which white identity since the 1960s has been anxiously forged. integration, no matter how failed in its utopian projections of a nation beyond race division, nonetheless powerfully suspended the acceptability of white supremacy’s public display, so much so that the hegemonic formation of white identity in the postsegregationist era has come to be understood as taking shape in the rhetorical, in not always political, register of disaffiliation from white supremacist practices and discourses. (wiegman 1999, 119) after the mainstreaming of new historicism in literary studies in the 1990s, we begin to see this integrationist ethos developing the status of a sensus communis there and in fact radically changing the field of american studies.7 the common sense acquired by this white integrationist politics in american studies, according to stadler, is not, however, the case for sound studies. stadler’s deployment of an affect of shame arises from an incredulity toward a perceived lack of common sense among editors of sound studies anthologies regarding the ontology of integration and a rejection of segregation in what wiegman refers to as “liberal whiteness” (2012, 153).8 so while wiegman recognizes that “identity studies are distinguished from the other areas of contemporary knowledge in the us university by their acknowledged attachment to the political” (2012, 13), it seems that stadler is insisting on a political awakening for an on-the-surface non-identitarian intellectual movement. so how do we understand and read those political and psychic desires that do not overtly pronounce their attachments through identity? diana taylor similarly insists upon a high stakes for performance studies by firmly grounding it in the political. in her exploration of the “staging of cultural encounters” exemplified by performance and ethnography, taylor identifies a parallel formation in both “embodied behaviors” (2003, 2) she refers to as “scenarios of discovery” (75). these scenarios reenact, intentionally or not, the primal scene of discovery. like the freudian primal scene that represents that primary traumatic fantasy of becoming for the subject, which pease reads into the canon of american literature, we can similarly understand diana taylor’s scenarios of discovery thesis: as that primary traumatic fantasy of the settler colonial subject who is caught in a tautological loop of return to this scene of becoming. much like the politico-ethical new americanist movement in literature and american studies in general, the performance studies turn taylor chronicles pivots on a version of the political that is tied to race, dispossession, colonialism and social movements. following pease, then, what is the “field imaginary” of sound studies? how do we parse the political and the psychic here and how do we trace their circulations? on the one hand, this is evidenced in the dis13 roshanak kheshti covery trope in which the sound studies scholar recalls their first coming into sonic consciousness or the discovery of a new sound or a new way of listening (or simply the repetition of the battle over what counts as knowledge and for whom)? consider once again the seminal text noise, where jacques attali writes, “for twenty five centuries western culture has tried to look upon the world. it has failed to understand that the world is not for beholding. it is for hearing. it is not legible, but audible” (1977, 3). the potential that this discovery held in the 1970s has been curtailed by an epistemological looping within “the primal scene of discovery” where so many scholars drawn to this emergent field have to repeat in one way or another such a discovery for themselves as the requisite right of passage into sound studies. consider as well how in the introduction to his anthology the sound studies reader jonathan sterne notes the parallels between science and sound studies, especially as it pertains to discovery. he writes, “sociologist robert merton pointed out long ago that the normal process of science is simultaneous discovery. as people confront similar problems and conditions, they work out similar or related solutions. the same is true even for fields that are not nearly as coherent as sciences” (2012, 11). sterne makes a direct reference to discovery as the infinite raison d’être of science and hence sound studies, making obvious that sound studies’s field imaginary is anchored in “scenarios of discovery.” in repeating the primal scene of discovery, sound studies risks becoming just another system of taxonomy taking stock of, organizing and hierarchically ordering the sonic world much like the material world has been. as taylor has argued for performance studies, “by taking performance seriously as a system of learning, storing, and transmitting knowledge, performance studies allows us to expand what we understand by ‘knowledge’” (16). can sound studies make the critical and necessary shift to challenge not only what counts as knowledge but for whom and about whom that knowledge is produced? can sound studies be receptive to maintaining the incoherences and untranslatabilities, avoiding the forced inclusion inherent to field formation? referencing heidegger, du bois, and freud in his introduction to the sound studies reader, jonathan sterne also comments on the kinds of questions that were posed through sound in the past, writing, “to think sonically is to think conjuncturally about sound and culture: each of the writers i have quoted above used sound to ask big questions about their cultural moments and the crises and problems of their time” (2012, 3). sterne charts here how sonic inquiries have marked paradigm shifts in western philosophy. but beyond marking these shifts, how has “thinking sonically” altered the sensus communis? i now detour through an archive that consists of sonic as well as other media forms as an example of a research practice 14 current musicology that melds sound with questions of politics. i argue that synesthesia functions here as a political hermeneutic that begins and ends in a disruption in the sensus communis by, borrowing from taylor, “learning, storing, and transmitting knowledge” (2003, 16) and thus transforming what counts as knowledge and the means by which it is derived. what i am agitating for is an ethical consideration of how difference is treated and resolved in the commons, where the force of difference is shut down when absorbed there. in what follows i explore synesthesia as one example of a form of knowledge that never makes it into the commons, accessible nevertheless in the domain fred moten and stefano harney call the “undercommons” (2013). undisciplined synesthesia when the sensible is the outcome of mandated processes in which only particular sense organs are understood as authentic receptors of phenomena, normative standards emerge that function to discipline bodies and distinguish them from the undisciplined, atypical, unruly and disabled ones in the production of a sensus communis. thus emerge concepts like “synesthesia” that map a curious disorganization of modes of perception by some bodies. this perceptual breach raises a number of questions: is synesthesia a disability? is it a racialized form of perception? does it queer the synesthetic person? i explore through the work of zora neale hurston how synesthetic analysis emerges for her as a research methodology arising from having been excluded from the sensus communis.9 hurston’s sonic infidelity went against the realist drive of fidelity to sound source that was standard practice among fieldworkers of her day. her synesthesia combined with what i call her “phonographic refusal” made her sound production work useless for the archive (kheshti 2015, 130–31). not only did hurston employ sound recording as one of her research methods but she made films, wrote plays, engaged in voodoo initiations, wrote ethnographies, short stories and of course novels. when looking across these media forms some fascinating stylistic overlaps emerge that relate to her oft-cited notion of “feather-bed resistance” discussed in mules and men (1990), which is hurston’s thesis on black resistance to the white gaze.10 in her essay “black death,” hurston opens in her signature style: “we negroes in eatonville know a number of things that the hustling, bustling white man never dreams of. he is a materialist with little care for overtones. they have only eyes and ears, we see with the skin” (1996, 381). hurston describes a synesthetic mode of perception native to her hometown, an eatonville, fl way of knowing and she presents double-consciousness as no mere paranoid pathology but a “negroe” [sic] way of knowing and a 15 roshanak kheshti means to a racialized insight. hurston’s localization of this mode of perception, as not only local to residents of “the oldest incorporated african american municipality in america” (which is the eatonville, fl motto) but also localized to the largest organ on the body—the skin—represents hurston’s signature style of knowledge production. for her the provincial—applicable to spatiality as well as the embodied and corporeal—is a prism through which she extrapolates and theorizes universal conditions. seeing with the skin represents hurston’s promiscuous use of recording technologies as methods with which to see, hear, feel and know, ways that exceed the limits of the fieldnote recording conventions otherwise standardized among fieldworkers of her day. it was precisely hurston’s synesthetic methodology—seeing with skin—that critically spoke back to enlightenment distinctions of perception and the senses. this poetic tactic granted hurston not only creative license but insights that translated across her work. hurston’s synesthetic mode of knowledge production not only challenges the normative expectation of gathering empirical knowledge through vision but it furthermore offers a racialized mode of perception such that seeing with the skin is the predicament of blackness. being forced into a white supremacist system of human value results for hurston in a sensibility through the very organ that marks her as other: the epidermis. her insight allows us to imagine how white privilege can also mean the privilege of the sensible that corresponds with the order of things and a prerequisite for access to that privilege is the adoption of the common sense that defines that sensibility. in other words, white privilege enables whites to see with the eyes; anti-black racism imposes the synesthetic disorganization of the sensible resulting in seeing with the skin.11 thus a deconstruction of the epistemic order through which synesthesia is imagined as a disorder is needed in order to imagine alternative modes of knowledge production. how can we recognize the disruptive potential of this crisscrossing of sense organs and experiences of the sensible, or in milton’s terms these “divergences of perception.” if we read milton’s insistence upon “divergences of perception” as a theory about the field imaginary of cognitive psychology vis-à-vis asd, and, returning to christine sun kim’s soundscape recordings, if we understand them as not only sonic renderings of her social worlds but meditations on perception as performance as well as a selfportrait of a sensual positionality, also moored in “identity knowledge,” then we have examples here of critical insights on the sensus communis. for kim, recording is not simply a mimetic capture of reality but a translation into another medium, the act of which reflects upon an epistemology of perception. through their situated experiences of the world, kim and 16 current musicology hurston objectify and defamiliarize what might otherwise be imagined as ambient sounds and passive modes of perceiving those sounds, revealing instead their artifice, their ideological structuration, their dynamism, their textures, colors and visualities. this is a performative listening—a form of aural perception that enacts and materializes, that is active and productive. in kim’s case the translation of ambient street noise into vibrant color and texture materializes these sounds as colorfully apparent. this rematerialization makes the perceiver newly aware of her previously subdued relationship to these sounds, causing a shift in her perception and a kind of double-consciousness vis-à-vis not only her automatic perception but, because of the re-performative and counter-mimetic effect, of another’s perception. the rearrangement of these quotidian sounds is a reperformance of an otherwise valueless soundscape in a form that renders it newly sensuous. and the listener is again made aware of her once acquiescent aurality through the acoustic mirror of kim’s recording and re-arrangement. and in the case of hurston’s audio recordings for the wpa, where she broke from convention by opting to record herself singing (rather than record local residents of florida and georgia), it is evident that what i refer to elsewhere as her “sonic infidelity” is a method similar to kim’s (kheshti 2015, 139). hurston’s performative listening functions both as the method through which she developed her repertoire of black children’s and migrant farm work songs as well as the method through which she practiced her own “feather-bed resistance.”12 this is how hurston cultivated a praxis of phonographic refusal that denied the archive access to this african american cultural patrimony (kheshi 2015, 130–32). on the limits of ruptures in the sensus communis efforts to resist enfoldment into the sensus communis continue, as evident in struggles over reconciliation taking place between canada and first nations communities. scholar dylan robinson warns of the limits of what he terms the “arts of reconciliation” or those efforts that focus colonial reparations and reconciliation around artistic and aesthetic forms. robinson uses the example of the recent canadian state truth and reconciliation commission’s (trc) efforts effecting the sensus communis of state injustices by holding public hearings; disseminating their findings through print, online, and broadcast media; advocating for revisions to educational curricula; and sponsoring both large and small public and community events where cultural and artistic presentations take place. such cultural and artistic events seek to shape the public discourse on the history of the nation state. (2012, 112) 17 roshanak kheshti robinson examines the degree to which intercultural art music can or does enable reconciliation or whether or not it creates a “reconciliatory affect” (2012, 116) allowing audiences to experience a “symbolic form of reconciliation” (118). in this example, the presumptive goal of the trc’s efforts, which robinson interprets as the desire to change the sensus communis, actually results in a new form of colonization in which “the experiencing of such performance is the doing of reconciliation itself ” (123). thus the aestheticization of reconciliation creates a shortcut through which canadian audiences can enjoy the affective fruits of reconciliation without engaging in the hard work of reconciliation. robinson’s caution stands in contrast to what barry shank, building upon nancy and rancière, proposes for what he terms “the political force of musical beauty” (2014). though i, and i assume robinson, would agree with shank’s claim that “the political role of aesthetics, or the heteronymous function of aesthetic production, derives from its ability to change the sensible” (28), when we consider both meanings of sensus communis “as common sense and sense of community” in light of robinson’s analysis of “reconciliatory affect” we see that there are political complexities to how the common is achieved. and although shank admits that “[i]n changing the sensible, musical beauty does not produce social justice, equality, or any other political value” (28), he nevertheless insists that “[t]he political agency of music works by distributing the sensible in such a way that it transforms the experience of the common. this felt difference in the common then prompts the leaning in described by nancy as a clinamen” (24). again, i must ask the question: whose common? which commons? robinson’s analysis reveals how the aestheticization of politics or the mere rearrangement of the sensible provides a shortcut that all too often is a substitute for the “hard work of reconciliation.” it exemplifies how common sense disconnected from a sense of community can also satisfy a desire for experiencing difference without too much skin in the game, so to speak (or without seeing with the skin, as hurston might say). as robinson’s work shows, decolonizing sound studies should entail more than simply absorbing indigenous verbiage or racialized forms and experiences into the sound studies lexicon. and what we can learn from damian milton’s critical autism studies scholarship is that empathy—what we once thought was a pathway to intersubjectivity—is a cul-de-sac of majoritarian and settler intrasubjectivity. and finally, the byproduct of critical white scholars shaming other scholars for their whiteness, as wiegman reminds us, is white guilt, which begs the question: what are the limits of a field formed through an affect of white guilt? the status of lack through which so many interdisciplinary formations 18 current musicology have emerged (queer, feminist, disability, etc.) reveals the zero-sum game of critique. on the one hand the critical theorist cannot not point out the logical flaws inherent in hegemonic discourse. on the other hand, doing so makes the very disposition/perspective/identity vulnerable to systemic appropriation. but disciplines cannot form around a central sense to which others can be multiculturally added. when we name a new mode of inquiry that indexes a revelatory interdisciplinary perspective we see time and time again that it can only gain traction by being legible across a heterodox disciplinary terrain. yet, its legibility is contingent upon its succumbing to a disciplinary force of translation, which imposes the hegemonic order upon it. such is the double bind of interdisciplinary knowledge production: it must be disciplined in order to be legible and it is through this process of disciplining that the sensus communis is introduced. but how can one shake a common sense without objectifying and fetishizing abject, subaltern or secondary modes of perception; how do we resist the inertia that constructs sound and or music in such a way? the work of hurston, robinson and kim suggest that there is no way to study sound without dissolving everything else that grounds the disciplining of it throwing all the things we rely on to systematize the field into crisis; this story i tell is a part of the drama. notes: thanks to amy cimini, curtis marez, sora han, laura harris, ivan ramos, mercy romero and sara mameni for their feedback. thanks as well to the anonymous reviewers. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqja0szm9zi&list=plqwql-vuib8q6s5ncjsgw8yj2pko_ty4z&index=55. accessed march 24, 2016. 2. of particular interest to this essay is the subfield of aesthetics and politics that has concerned itself with what rancière calls “the distribution of the sensible” or what scholars like vico, shaftesbury, kant and gadamer have referred to as the sensus communis. although, the exact place of sound within this aesthetic lineage is not entirely clear since aesthetics has tended to refer to the visual, and less commonly the musical, but almost never to just sound. see jacques rancière (2013, 7). on vico, shaftesbury and gadamer’s contributions to this debate, see ranjana khanna (2009). 3. thanks to sora han for pointing this out to me. 4. arguably hosting the most racially diverse cast of authors publishing in the field of sound studies, it is noteworthy that stadler’s piece is the the most widely read of the dozens annually published on the digital humanities site since 2009. see trammell (2015). 5. noting a “crisis in the field-imaginary of american studies,” donald pease (1990, 3) takes to task frederick crews, whose new york review of books review mockingly coins the term “new americanists” to disparage an emerging movement within literary studies organized around what he saw as special interest groups focused on the “critique of ‘slavery,’ ‘indian removal,’ aggressive expansion, imperialism, and so forth.” 6. as stadler suggests, when we look at these mainstream anthologies we find passages like 19 roshanak kheshti this one from the introduction to the six-hundred-page oxford handbook of sound studies: “fouche’s chapter is one of the few in the volume where issues of race and ethnicity and audio technology are inter-connected” (pinch and bijsterveld 2012, 23). 7. see veeser (1989). 8. wiegman (2012, 153n26) defines this as “the way that all white racial representation in the [‘90s] decade is configured in relation not to state-authored white supremacy but to its representational suppression, itself a consequence of the transformation of the white supremacist state wrought by the legal end of segregation.” 9. i began this research as the epilogue to my first book, where i listen for this radical potential in recordings made by and of zora neale hurston singing songs from the southern black folk repertoire that she was hired by the wpa to capture, which is the focus of the book’s epilogue. see kheshti (2015). i am currently working on a book about this subject. 10. “feather-bed resistance” is hurston’s concept to describe the black southern strategy of coy cordiality that gives the impression of hospitality and openness, but is in fact highly guarded and protective. see hurston (1990, 2–3). 11. however, one should not interpret hurston’s insightful and poetic reading to indicate enviousness toward the capacity for sensible normativity. on the contrary, hurston proudly lays claim to this capacity as a privileged form of insight, an identitarian knowledge, if you will. 12. see kheshti (2015, 126). references attali, jacques. 1977. noise. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. cachia, amanda l. 2015. loud silence: works by shary boyle, christine sun kim, daddin martin and alison o’daniel. la jolla, ca: gallery at calit. hurston, zora neale. 1990. mules and men. new york: harper collins. . 1996. “black death.” in harlem’s glory: black women writing 1900–1950, edited by lorraine elena roses and ruth elizabeth randolph, 381–386. cambridge: harvard university press. khanna, ranhana. 2009. “technologies of belonging: sensus communis, disidentification.” in communities of sense: rethinking aesthetics and politics, edited by beth hinderliter, verod maimon, jaleh mansoor and seth mccormick, 111–132. durham, nc: duke university press. kheshti, roshanak. 2015. modernity’s ear: listening to race and gender in world music. new york: nyu press. milton, damian. 2012. “on the ontological status of autism: the ‘double empathy problem’.” disability and society 27 (6): 883–887. moten, fred and stefano harney. 2013. the undercommons: fugitive planning and black study. new york: minor compositions. pease, donald. 1990. “new americanists: revisionist interventions into the canon.” boundary 2 17 (1): 1–37. pinch, trevor and karin bijsterveld. 2012. the oxford handbook of sound studies. new york: oxford university press. rancière, jacques. 2013. politics of aesthetics. new york: bloomsbury. robinson, dylan. 2012. “intercultural art music and the sensory veracity of reconciliation: brent michael davids’ powwow symphony on the dakota music tour.” musicultures 39 (1): 112–128. 20 current musicology shank, barry. 2014. the political force of musical beauty. durham: duke university press. stadler, gus. 2015. “on whiteness and sound studies.” sounding out!: the sound studies blog, july 15, 2016. http://soundstudiesblog.com/2015/07/06/on-whiteness-and-soundstudies. sterne, jonathan. 2012. “sonic imaginations.” in the sound studies reader, edited by jonathan sterne, 1–17. florence, sc: routledge. taylor, diana. 2003. the archive and the repertoire: performing cultural memory in the americas. durham: duke university press. trammell, aaron. 2015, “the top ten sounding out! posts of 2015!” sounding out!: the sound studies blog. accessed march 24, 2016. https://soundstudiesblog.com/2015/12/21/ sounding-outs-top-ten-posts-in-2015. aram veeser, aram, ed. 1989. the new historicism. new york: routledge university press. wiegman, robyn. 1999. “whiteness studies and the paradox of particuliarity.” boundary 2 26 (3): 115–150. wiegman, robyn. 2012. object lessons. durham, nc: duke university press. david janssen and edward whitelock. 2009. apocalypse jukebox: the end of the world in american popular music. berkeley: soft skull press/counterpoint llc. reviewed by david gutkin while any attempt to characterize a nation and "a people" is bound to expire in dubious generalization, claims about the essence of the united states and constitution of the "american character" have often been marked by especially outlandish and totalizing rhetoric-by american and non-american writers alike, both affirmatively and critically. j one example is jean baudrillard's 1986 book america. poised as the postmodern successor to alexis de tocqueville, baudrillard, perceiving american culture simultaneously as pre-civilized (an old trope) and as the paradigm of hypermodern simulacral "spectrality," characterizes the nation as both "the only remaining primitive society" and as "a giant hologram."2 if representations of the united states from the last half-century are inflected by the post-world war ii phase of american exceptionalism, this has affected not only imperial apologists and vulgar nationalists but even, residually, writers on the left, like baudrillard. more generally, the united states has always been a strongly symbolic nation, whether imagined as the singular beacon of democracy or as the paradoxical no-place/no-face oflate capitalism. for this reason, critical studies of the american mythos are important, and, as greil marcus realized some decades ago, popular music serves as a good lens through which to view the agglomerated fragments of"america."3 clearly indebted to marcus, david janssen and edward whitelock, profes­ sors of english at gordon college and authors of apocalypse jukebox: the end of the world in american popular music, take as their entry point into the american imagination a perceived deep relationship between rock and apocalyptic thought. although forsaking baudrillard's shimmering, overtly hyperbolic style, jannsen and whitelock nevertheless exhibit a more muted version of his tendency to paint american culture in overly broad brush-strokes. this is seen in the book's thesis of sorts, found in the authors' introduction. quoting frank kermode, the authors observe that in examining the history of apocalyptic thought "the end is immanent rather than imminent;' and go on to explain: the difference between an imminent and an immanent apocalypse is the difference between "the end is near" and "the end is here." we will show that apocalypse is a permanent and central part of the american character. current musicology, no. 9j (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 185 186 current musicology as rock and roll is a reflection of that character, apocalypse remains one of the most consistent and evocative threads in the development of the musical form itself. (3, italics mine) but what does it mean to speak of a "permanent" part of an ''american character"? from the outset it is unclear whether janssen and whitelock are attempting to complicate and deconstruct the idea of the ''american character" or simply reify it. if this thesis raises eyebrows, it does, at least, gesture toward answering a primary question about the book: why apocalypse ... now? by positing the "permanence" of apocalyptic thought in american culture, the authors would seem to foreclose the question of relevance. i will return to questions of the book's historiographic specificity in my conclusion. throughout the volume, jannsen and whitelock attend mostly to rock­ from elvis to sleater-kinney-but also to other genres, energetically tracing the theme of apocalypse through american musics and musicians as diverse as gospel, country, and john coltrane. proceeding roughly chronologically, the book is organized in four parts (with two to four chapters apiece, most of which concern a single band or album): part 1 ''apocalypse usa" sets the stage; part 2 "four horsemen of the apocalypse" discusses harry smith's anthology of american folk music, coltrane's a love supreme, and the music of bob dylan and leonard cohen; part 3 ''artifacts from the blast zone" covers love's forever changes, devo, and r.e.m.'s murmur; part 4 ''apocalypse after 9/11: the end is still here" examines laurie anderson, sleater-kinney, and green day's american idiot. the authors write that in selecting exclusively american music (including the canadian leonard cohen), they "are not imply[ingj that other countries lack apocalyptic themes in their popular songs or are less deserving of treatment" (6). but other than that it be american, they never explain their criteria for selecting the music they have. it is somewhat perplexing, for example, that the most iconic apocalyptic rock genre, metal, is entirely absent from the study. while apocalypse jukebox includes endnotes and numerous refer­ ences to literature (especially american transcendentalism and english romanticism) and literary theory, it is written in a highly conversational style with many anecdotal passages about the musicians under discussion. likewise exploring pop music and national mythologies from a background in literary studies, greil marcus is, again, perhaps the most obvious precursor and model for the authors. and like marcus, janssen and whitelock attempt the difficult task of writing for both general music fans as well as academics or others interested in more scholarly literature. a cursory search through blogs and online customer reviews revealed that of the (apparently) former david gutkin group, some found the theoretical passages tiresome. if i am quite critical in this review, it is because i have taken the theory seriously. the authors open with an overview of apocalyptic moments in the american consciousness: a meteor shower widely interpreted as the opening of the sixth seal in 1833; the disappointment of would-be prophet william miller and his followers when his millennial predictions of the 1840s failed to manifest; the awe and horror surrounding the atom bomb during the mid-century; the shock of the world trade center/pentagon attacks of 200 1.4 music is a significant force in this history, the authors argue, both reflecting and helping to produce the american apocalyptic psyche. concluding this first chapter, they frame their project through a musical narrative that brings to light the perverse ambivalence of the apocalyptic imagination-salvation and destruction in equal measure. from the influence of gospel on elvis to the cult violence of charles manson and david koresh (both were aspiring rock musicians), a distinctively american relationship to apocalyptic thought supposedly pervades the story of rock and roll. janssen and whitelock write: "as twisted and tragic as their effects were, the apocalyptic visions of manson and koresh are perhaps the only things that place them in the mainstream of twentieth-century american life. that and their rock and roll dreams" (28). while this grand tale is striking, ultimately it reads as a kind of fable, far too neatly traversing disparate moments in us history in search of an overarching apocalyptic essence. with its much narrower focus, the second half of the book's expository set-up, titled "are you ready for that great atomic power?;' is more effective. following a succinct overview of american commercial culture's disturbing, ecstatic obsession with all things "atomic" in the immediate postwar years, janssen and whitelock examine popular songs about the bomb from 1945 to 1965 (the year of barry mcguire's hit "eve of destruction"). the authors propose an affective trajectory in these years from an initial (sacred) awe, or alternately (profane) libidinal excitement vis-a-vis the atomic bomb, to an increasingly fatalistic dread following the ussr's first successful nuclear test in 1949. on the affirmative religious side is hawkshaw hawkins' 1947 country song, "when they found the atomic power," with its preposterous take on the invention of the bomb at los alamos: "in that zero hour seeking out some heavenly power/ while the star spangled banner was being played:' perhaps the most shocking sexualization of the bomb is wanda jackson's 1957 rockabilly song "fujiyama mama" (with lyrics by earl burrows): "i've been to nagasaki, hiroshima too!/ the things i did to them, baby, i can do to you!" throughout their discussion the authors pay more attention to lyrics than music. s nevertheless, there are some nice interpretive flourishes in the writing. on the louvin brothers' performance of the lines "are you 187 188 current musicology ready for that great atomic power? / will you rise and meet your savior in the air?," janssen and whitelock observe that "the brothers sing in a harmony so pure that listeners might suspect the bombs have dropped already and these are the voices of the angels welcoming them home" (40). following this introduction, the bulk of apocalypse jukebox consists of single-chapter studies devoted to individual musicians/bands (bob dylan, leonard cohen, devo, laurie anderson, sleater-kinney) or specific albums (harry smith's 1952 compilation anthology of american folk music, john coltrane's a love supreme (1964), love's forever changes (1967), r.e.m's murmur (1983), greenday's american idiot [2004]). all these bands and albums have received prior attention by scholars, authors of trade books, and music journalists. janssen and whitelock's contextual discussion draws extensively on these sources.6 the authors' original contribution lies not so much in new research but in a project of interpretive consolidation, in the contention (as noted) that apocalyptic strains pervade these repertories, reflecting distinctive aspects of american culture and character. the results are uneven: some analyses work well while others seem forced.? in one of the most successful chapters, janssen and whitelock survey the cast of grotesques pervading bob dylan's songs, convincingly arguing that his is a song-world of the apocalyptic carnivalesque. but the authors overstate the case and find apocalyptic thought in spurious places: indeed almost everywhere. for example, the authors quote dylan's cryptic response when asked in 1995 whether the united states was better or worse off than it was in the 1960s: i see pictures of the '50s, the '60s and the '70s and i see there was a differ­ ence. but i don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. they are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there's some kind of change. but after you've been around awhile, they both seem unnatural. it seems like we're going in a straight line, but then you start seeing things you've seen before. haven't you experienced that? it seems we're going in circles. janssen and whitelock's analysis is this: "dylan is saying that a circular view of history makes an apocalyptic aesthetic possible" (126-7). although it isn't clear exactly what dylan is saying, it strikes me that the authors are conveniently putting words in his mouth. in the case of leonard cohen, an artist frequently compared to dylan, the apocalyptic resonance of his work is explicit. nevertheless, janssen and whitelock do a fine job of illuminating the intertwined erotic and religious disaster haunting his lyrics. cohen is not just a poet (although it was his initial vocation) but a singer and songwriter, and i wish that more was said about the significance of his voice and music. (for me the doomed world david gutkin that cohen presents in his 1988 album i'm your man seems to connect the timeless space of myth with postmodern '80s affect through the weird pairing of his gravelly, prophetic bass voice with the cheesy, over-produced soundtrack of synthesizers and disco-ish back-up singers.) janssen and whitelock display a greater sonic sensitivity in their chapter on love's forever changes. on the wonderfully deranged song "the red telephone," the authors keenly describe arthur lee's peculiar delivery of the opening couplet: "sitting on a hillside/ watching all the people die." he let i in side glide across an entire measure, as if to suggest the expansive­ ness of his vision. by contrast, he hits die with one short, sharp beat, like a punch line. there is something of the madman in the tone of his voice through this song as well, making it difficult to discern whether his observa­ tions on mass death are a condemnation or just a mad kick. (i7l) their characterization of the "zombified chorus" chanting at the song's conclusion (171-2) also seems like an appropriate and sensitive read of lee's singular take on black bohemianism in los angeles at the height of the hippie movement. other chapters are less successful. the decision to include an album from outside of the rock tradition is a fine idea, but the apocalyptic read­ ing of coltrane's landmark a love supreme is not convincing. janssen and whitelock run into difficulties because the album is (mostly) instrumental, while the authors seem far more comfortable analyzing lyrics. moreover, since musicological analyses of the album have, they say, already been "definitively accomplished" by lewis porter and ashley kahn among others, the authors choose to base their argument not on the music but on a discussion of the album's "conception, reception, and cultural influence in an apocalyptic context" (80). the result is a series of anecdotes that yield the unsurprising conclusion that coltrane had conceived of the album as deeply spiritual, and that others heard it that way. it is not so clear what is apocalyptic about the context. "apocalypse:' as the authors note early on, originally signifies an "unveiling of mystery" and "revelation of hidden truth" -and not solely the doomsday scenarios of movies (3). it is not logical that everything spiritual is apocalyptic, and the authors fail to convince even as they employ the term "apocalyptic" repeatedly to support their argument. likewise strained is the attempt to decode the apocalyptic message in the notoriously incomprehensible lyrics from r.e.m.'s murmur. it is not only the meaning of the lyrics, but the very identity of the words michael stipe mumbles, that has baffled fans. the authors' admittedly original solution to this dilemma is to assemble a "pastiche poem" culled from the lyrics that they can make out (212-13).h well aware that this "exercise in the heretical" 189 190 curlrent musicology is open to objections of arbitrariness, janssen and whitelock nevertheless carry out a reading. i actually like the idea, but, as elsewhere, the authors' madness for all things apocalyptic leads to over-determined interpretations. they plausibly observe that in the song "catapult" r.e.m. sings about "kid fears" in order to comment on the basic desire for security, but, by the time the authors write about "bedtime as personal apocalypse" i was skeptical of the argument once again (221). it is not an end in itself to extract apocalyptic allusions and imagery through textual analyses of songs, and indeed janssen and whitelock assemble musical anecdotes, excerpts from literature, and summaries of theoretical work in an attempt to contextualize the music under discus­ sion. fundamental questions remain. if it is in fact true that the concept of apocalypse pervades rock and roll, it is not clear what this means. on the one hand, there are obvious historical formations in the twentieth century that might condition an end-of-the-world fascination and fear. from the early chapter on atom bomb songs on, much of the music is discussed in this context, including the repeated line "combien du temps" (how much time) on murmur (219). however, while death by nuclear warfare was certainly not only an american fear, the book's basic contention is that there is a distinctively american tradition of apocalyptic thought. never fully explicated, the authors' argument seems to be that reflections in american culture of modernity in general, and the threat of secular doomsday in particular, were already conditioned by a specifically american apocalyptic worldview. its origins lie in nineteenth-century religious movements, and even earlier-as far back as seventeenth-century puritan imaginings of the new world as a new jerusalem. janssen and whitelock are certainly not the first to propose an american apocalyptic tradition (see, for example, the apocalyptic vision in america, edited by lois p. zamora).9 nor should the possibility that apocalyptic ideologies may span a historical longue duree be necessarily discounted. however, if apocalypse lurks in american culture it is not statically-as some "permanent and central part of the american character" -but productively, as a mythology (like the idea of the ''american character" itself) that is constantly being remade and adapted to new conditions. perhaps this is what janssen and whitelock intend to demonstrate in their examination of the diverse manifestations of apocalytomania in american music. but using kermode's line on apocalyptic "immanence" to assert something like a (transracialized) american "changing same" is to ignore at least two entwined factors: first, the tactical (political, ideological, psychological) reasons underlying postulations of the ''american character" itself. (to invert michael eric dyson's paraphrase of ernest becker: the american character david gutkin may be a vital lie, but it is (still) a lie.);io and second, the historicity and deeper political motivations of american apocalyptic thought. (janssen and whitelock might have examined another suggestive line from kermode's the sense of an ending in which he notes that "the mythology of empire and of apocalypse are very closely related.") 11 this is certainly not to say that the authors ignore discrete historical events. but it is as if american history is governed by a transcendental signifier, "character," rather than constituting this concept as such, as if the apocalyptic image of timelessness became the premise rather than subject of analysis. while the specific conditions informing the contours of these american apocalyptic representations are too often elided, this problem is perhaps least evident in the chapter on devo, which i found to be the strongest in the book. here devo's "philosophy" of (de ) evolution is framed against a backdrop of violence (the shootings at kent state, where founding members mark mothersbaugh and gerald casale were students at the time) and situated within the corporate culture of reaganism. devo's apocalyptic aesthetic statement appears as both a wryly cynical product of that culture and as a furious, almost deranged revolt against it. but i do not believe that devo's vision reflects any distinctively american tradition of apocalyptic thought. in fact it is the hollywood mythology of the quintessentially "american" itself that devo send-up-most notably in their iconic music video for "whip it;' with its beer drinking cowboys (ciphers for reagan republicans) watching a rape. janssen and whitelock adeptly interpret the anti-reaganite politics of the video, but as demonstrated by their reification of the american mythos throughout apocalyse jukebox, they do not take the full implication of devo's satire to heart. notes 1. as something of a parody on this phenomenon, at one point in don delillo's novel americana the character brand declares, more or less a propos of nothing, that america is "the strangest, wildest, freakingest country in history." don delillo. americana. new york: penguin books, 1971 (204). 2. jean baudrillard. america, translated by chris turner. london: verso, 1988, (7,29). this is at least partially owing to united state's near-hegemony (in the capitalist world) during the second-half of the twentieth century and its accompanying position as the supposed quintessence of modern (or postmodern) culture. thus the affirmative ideology of american exceptionalism has its aspect of socio-political (if not ethical) truth. baudrillard presumably side-steps any charge of national essentialism by maintaining that there is "no truth of america" because it is pure simulation, hyperreality (27-28). baudril­ lard's vision of the united states as simultaneously hypermodern, post-historical, and as primitive is prefigured by, among others, alexander kojeve (before the latter opted for japan as the new exemplar of modernity). after visiting the united states several times between 1948-58, kojeve writes: 191 192 current musicology i was led to conclude that the american way of life [in english in the original] was the kind of life proper to the post-historical period and that the presence today of the united states in the world prefigures the future 'eternal present' of all of humanity. thus man's return to animality seemed no longer a possibility but an already present certainty. in: alexandre kojeve. introduction a la lecture de hegel: lecons sur "la phenomenologie de l'esprit." paris: gallimard, 1947, 436-7. quoted and translated in: jacques derrida. specters of marx, translated by peggy kamuf. new york: routledge, 1994: 90-9l. 3. in particular, see: greil marcus. mystery train: images of america in rock'n'roll music. new york: plume, 1997 [1975]. 4. in fact, the authors trace the connection of the americas and apocalyptic thought to christopher columbus and john winthrop, the first governor of massachusetts (16). 5. additionally, there are some odd omissions, such as charles mingus's "oh lord don't let them drop that atmoic bomb on me" from his 1962 album oh yeah (atlantic records). 6. some of the sources janssen and whitelock reference include: harry smith: anthology of american folk music marcus, greil. "that old, weird america." liner notes for anthology of american folk music. anthony seeger, ed. smithsonian folkways, 1997. released following the publication of apocalypse jukebox is this important volume on harry smith: perch uk, ander and rani singh, eds. harry smith: the avant-garde in the american vernacular. los angeles: getty research institute, 2010. john coltrane: a love supreme kahn, ashley. a love supreme: the story of john coltrane's signature album. new york: penguin books, 2002. porter, lewis. john coltrane: his life and music. an arbor: university of michigan press, 1999. bob dylan benson, carl, ed. the bob dylan companion: four decades of commentary. new york: schirmer, 1998. heylin, clinton. bob dylan: behind the shades revisited. new york: william morrow, 200l. shelton, robert. no direction home: the life and times of bob dylan. new york: william morrow, 1986. leonard cohen boucher, david. dylan and cohen: poets of rock and roll. new york: continuum, 2004. nadel, ira b. various positions: a life of leonard cohen. new york: thunder's mouth press, 2000. shepard, david. leonard cohen. new york: thunder's mouth press, 2000. david gutkin love: forever changes hoskyns, barney. arthur lee. edinburgh: mojo books, 200 i. hultkrans, andrew. love forever changes. 33 1/3 series. new york: continuum, 2003. devo dellinger, jade and david giffels. are we not men? we are devo. london: saf publishing, 2003. r.e.m.: murmur buckley, david. r.e.m.!fiction: an alternative biography. london: virgin, 2003. decurtis, anthony. r.e.m.: the rolling stone files. london: pan books, 1997. gray, marcus. an r.e.m. companion: it crawled from the south. new york: da capo, 1992. niimi, j. r.e.m. murmur. 33 1/3 series. new york: continuum, 2005. platt, john a. murmur. new york: schirmer books, 1999. laurie anderson goldberg, roselee. laurie anderson. new york: harry n. abrams, 2000. hannaham, james. "laurie anderson: media masseuse:' american theatre 12.6 (july 1995): 48-50. howell, john. american origins: laurie anderson. new york: thunder's mouth, 1992. sleater-kinney marcus, greil. "raising the stakes in punk rock: sleater-kinney:' da capo: best music writing, 200 1. nick hornby, ed. cambridge, ma: da capo press, 2001. ___ "the best band in the world," esquire, april 1999, vol. 131. green day: american idiot myers, ben. green day: american idiots & the new punk explosion. new york: disinformation, 2006. 7. for the sake of space, i cannot comment on all of the chapters. 8. janssen and whitelock preface this interpretive move with a discussion of ideas from stanley fish's landmark work in reader-reception theory: stanley fish. is there a text in this class?: the authority of interpretive communities. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1980. 9. lois parkinson zamora (ed.). the apocalyptic vision in america: interdisciplinary essays on myth and culture. bowling green, oh: bowling green university popular press, 1982. other books on the representations of apocalypse in american culture include: frykholme, johnson. rapture culture: left behind in evangelical america. new york: oxford university press, 2004. robinson, douglas. american apocalypses: the image of the end of the world in american literature. baltimore and london: johns hopkins university press, 1985. verheul, jaap, ed. dreams of paradise, visions of apocalypse: utopia and dystopia in american culture. amsterdam: vu university press, 2004. 10. original: "to paraphrase ernest becker, the american character may be a lie, but it's a vital lie:' michael eric dyson. making malcolm: the myth and meaning of malcolm x. new york: oxford university press, 1996, 154. 11. frank kermode. the sense of an ending: studies in the theory of fiction. new york: oxford university press, 2000 [1967], 10. 193 194 current musicology references baudrillard, jean. 1988. america, translated by chris turner. london: verso. dyson, michael eric. 1996. making malcolm: the myth and meaning of malcolm x. new york: oxford university press. kermode, frank. 2000 [1967]. the sense of an ending: studies in the theory of fiction. new york: oxford university press. "to how many shameful deeds must you lend your image": schubert's pattern of telescoping and excision in the texts of his latin masses by john gingerich i. in allen messen jedoch fehlt-und dies ist die bedeutsamste und wohl auch in ihrer konsequenz kaum als versehen erkliirbare auslassung-der die kirche betreffende glaubensartikel 'et unam sanctam catholicam ecclesiam. ' die aenderungen des liturgischen textes diirfen indessen weder dogma tisch noch text-kritisch iiberwertet werden. however all the masses are missing-and this is the most important, and because of its consistency an omission scarcely susceptible to explanation as an oversight-the article of faith concerning the church, "et unam sanctam catholicam ecclesiam." nevertheless, the changes in the liturgical text should not be given undue dog­ matic or text-critical importance. doris finke-hecklinger, foreword to messe in as in neue schubert ausgabe (1980, 1/3:xiii)* a constant of schubert reception has been the image of an unintellec­ tual composer. from the early stories of songs gushing from his pen at near-performance tempo, to the biedermeier liederfiirst, and the shy but good-natured tippler of dreimiiderlhaus, an image of subconscious creativ­ ity became wedded to a popular persona of childlike innocence: tubby, chubby, bespectacled schwammerl, slightly befuddled in a lovably helpless way, shielded from the harsh cares and calculations of this world by an absent-minded preoccupation with beautiful melody and convivial drink. this image of schubert, long uncontroversial, now seems at best risibly quaint. nevertheless, its grip remains deceptively tenacious. the more re­ cent emphasis on schubert's darker side-his unruly sexuality, his alien­ ation, his venereal disease, his preoccupation with death-has reinforced the ambient image of schubert as a creature of instinctual drives, and con­ comitantly, of somnambulant, clairvoyant creativity. the deep current of schubert's reception as an instinctive genius sustains the new eddies swirling around schubert the self-indulgent hedonist. beneath the turbu­ lent surface, schubert, no longer childlike, remains innocent of sustained and serious thought. current musicology, no. 70 (fall 2000) © 2001 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 61 62 current musicology nowhere has intellectual condescension to schubert been more acutely and persistently evident than in discussions of excisions from the latin texts he used for his six settings of the ordinary of the mass. a long line of musicologists from otto wissig in 1909 to hans jaskulsky in 1986 has com­ mented on schubert's mass texts. of these, jaskulsky's is by far the most thorough and thoughtful treatment, but jaskulsky shares with his prede­ cessors a reluctance to draw the relevant conclusions from his evidence. speculations and explanations as to why schubert set these truncated texts have included ignorance of latin, ignorance of the orthodox version of the texts, carelessness, forgetfulness, the existence of a yet-to-be-discovered master text that schubert unwittingly copied, and the existence of local oral traditions whose only known trace is schubert's masses, and whose use by schubert presumably had no bearing on his own beliefs. all of these explanations explicitly or implicitly deny schubert agency, inten­ tion, knowledge, and responsibility, and obviate the asking of further questions about why schubert set the texts he did, and what he may have meant by doing so. in the breitkopf and hartel critical edition of schubert's complete works, published in 1897, now reprinted by dover, the mass texts appear as schubert set them. the evidence contained in this central source, then, is not new; it has merely become harder to ignore. since jaskulsky's work, all but the most diehard defenders of schubert's innocent virtue have abandoned the arguments that deny him any share in knowingly prepar­ ing his own mass texts. but most of the old explanations live on within new hybrid explanations designed to minimize schubert's share in, or his knowledge of, the texts he was using. a popular contemporary explana­ tion concedes that schubert likely was aware of what he was doing when he cut the affirmation of belief in the "catholic church" from the credo, perhaps even when he cut the words affirming an expectation of resurrec­ tion, but this explanation maintains that carelessness probably accounts for the rest of the omissions (hoorickx 1979:253-54; mckay 1996:237). it is frequently followed by an exhortation not to take schubert's deviations from orthodoxy too seriously, as in the quotation at the beginning of this article, or in the statement by kurt von fischer (1985: 127): "these omis­ sions, in part intentional (leaving out 'et unam sanctam ecclesiam' in all the masses, for example), but in part more likely accidental, should not be given undue importance."] still another argument does grant schubert agency, but also asks us not to take schubert's text too seriously, since he sacrificed it to the music. finally, there is the argument that since in schubert's vienna almost everyone played fast and loose with mass texts, schubert's particular peccadilloes are merely the reflection of his carefree and careless time and place. john gingerich 63 a state-of-the-art hybrid of arguments old and new is manuela jahr­ marker's summary of the current consensus, written for the schubert handbuchin 1997: the earlier assumption that schubert simply handled the text care­ lessly or hastily, or that he did not have the complete text at hand, has now largely given way to the view that the consistent omission of the passage "et in unam sanctam catholicam ecclesiam" reflected schubert's private position, as did his avoidance of setting the affir­ mation of the resurrection, "et expecto resurrectionem_" also held responsible for some text omissions are an insufficient knowledge of latin, and considerations of musical form: when in the gloria of the mass in g the relative clause "qui sedes ad dexteram patris," in the mass in b-flat the plea "suscipe deprecationem nostram," and in the next mass in c both phrases are missing, then in each case the for­ mal balance of the respective paragraphs is the cause (jaskulsky, 124 ff) _ but beyond all this, attention has been directed most emphati­ cally to the historical fact that very few masses of the time set the text without any deviation, and only as a result of the caecilian reform movement did a full text become compulsory (1894 [the year in which pope leo xiii issued the first edict against text omissions in musical settings of the mass]; hoorickx, 251 ff., kantner, schubert­ studien, 137). (jahrmarker 1997:353-54)2 jahrmarker's diplomatic summary leaves much unsaid. why is consistency the measure of schubert's "private" positions? which omissions are due to faulty latin? (only one omission has ever been associated with faulty latin, and that is "et expecto resurrectionem," which jahrmarker identi­ fies as schubert's "private" position.) if the formal balance of musical paragraphs "caused" text omissions, then ostensibly in each case the pre­ ceding or following phrase of text (with its musical setting and its "formal balance") received priority; did schubert's "private" positions shape these choices? and if some of the omissions are due to schubert's "private" posi­ tions, what are we to make of the "historical fact" that he was not alone in his excisions? did other viennese composers also hold private positions? how does the "historical fact" that a complete mass text was not yet com­ pulsory affect whether or not schubert cut text out of conviction, and why is our attention directed "emphatically" to precisely this ambiguous point? close scrutiny of the internal logic of jahrmarker's paragraph reveals stresses not easily reconciled. the question of whether schubert intentionally prepared his own mass texts needs to be considered first, separately from the question of why he 64 current musicology did so. the question of agency is logically prior, in any case; it is also sim­ pler, and more likely to yield a clear and definitive answer. by considering agency separately we can also avoid the kind of logical short circuits re­ peatedly encountered in the literature, such as the frequent finding that since schubert was pious he could not have been the author of his un­ orthodox text excisions (for example, badura-skoda 1990a, 1990b, pas­ sim), or the argument made by leopold kantner (1978:137), who finds that the excision of "et exspecto resurrectionem" means that schubert did not believe in life after death, which he finds inconsistent with the reten­ tion of "remissionem peccatorum mortuorum," which kantner thinks requires belief in life after death. he therefore concludes that since schubert either intended all the cuts or none, an "ideological interpreta­ tion" of the text omissions is inappropriate. almost every step of his rea­ soning seems questionable: "life after death" and resurrection need not mean the same thing, and "forgiveness of the sins of the dead" does not necessarily have anything to do with life after death. the larger point re­ mains, that to begin by deciding what the omissions mean (generally with­ out due consideration of the meaning of the remaining text schubert ac­ tually did use, and without taking the setting into account), and then, based on those findings, to draw conclusions about whether schubert intended the cuts is a time-tested method of producing all reflection and no light. ii. the central evidence concerns the omissions from schubert's mass texts of words or phrases present in the standard version of the missale romanum. examples 1 and 2 demonstrate the pattern of those omissions in the gloria and the credo. the pattern is one of steadily increasing omission, with the masses in b~ and c presenting some anomalies. the one passage omitted in all of schubert's masses is "et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ec­ clesiam" (h); the next most consistently omitted passage, absent in all ex­ cept the first mass, is "et exspecto resurrectionem" (i). the only passage restored to the text of the last two masses after having been omitted in ear­ lier masses is "ex maria virgine" (g). this passage, first omitted from the mass in c, and later from the finished 1822 version of the mass in a~, was restored when schubert revised the a~ mass once again four years later. in the last year of his life, for the mass in eb, he set exactly the same text he had finally used for the 1826/27 version of the ab mass. the last two masses are the only two masses to use precisely the same text-a text that omits all of the passages excised from any of the previous masses, except for (g). example 1: passages in context. bracketed text is omitted in at least one of the masses. italicized text is telescoped in at least one of the masses. gloria gloria in excelsis deo. et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. laudamus te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus tel gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. domine deus, rex caelestis, deus pater omnipotens. domine fili unigenite,jesu christe. domine deus, agnus dei, filius patris. qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. qui tollis peccata mundi, [suscipe deprecationem nostram.] (a) [ qui sedes ad dexteram patris,] (b) miserere nobis. john gingerich 65 quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus dominus, tu solus altissimus,3 [jesu christe.] (c) cum sancto spiritu, in gloria dei patris. amen. credo credo in unum deum, [patrem omnipotentem,] (d) factorem caeli4 et terrae, visibilium omnium, et invisibilium. et in unum dominumjesum christum, filium dei unigenitum. et ex patre natum ante omnia saecula. deum de deo, lumen de lumine, deum verum de deo vero. [genitum, nonfactum,l (e) [consubstantialempatri:] (f) per quem omnia facta sunt. qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de caelis. et incarnatus est de spiritu sancto [ex maria virgine:] (g) et homo factus est. crucifixus etiam pro nobis: sub pontio pilato passus, et sepultus est. et resurrexit tertia die, secundum scripturas. et ascendit in caelum: sedet ad dexteram patris. et iterum venturus est cum gloria, judicare vivos et mortuos: cujus regni non erit finis. et in spiritum sanctum, dominum, et vivificantem: qui ex patre filioque5 procedit. qui cum patre et filio simul adoraturet conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas. [et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam.] (h) confiteor unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. [et exspecto resurrection em] (i) mortuorum. et vitam venturi saeculi. amen. 66 current musicology example 2a: chart of passages omitted. mass in f (summer 1814) mass in g (mar. 1815) b c mass in b~ (nov. 1815) a mass in c (july 1816) a b c mass in a~ (1819-22) a b c d revised (1826/27) a b c d mass in e~ (june 1828) a b c d example 2b: passages omitted.6 from the gloria a. suscipe deprecation em nos tram. b. qui sedes ad dexteram patris c. jesu christe from the credo d. patrem omnipotentem e. genitum, non factum f. consubstantialem patri g. ex maria virgine h. et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam i. et exspecto resurrectionem h h f h e g h e f g h e f h e f h this evidence alone-of the mass texts themselves, and of the pattern of omission when they are compared in chronological order-creates a strong presumption in favor of one explanation: that schubert himself intentionally made every one of the excisions. the initial excision of (h) by the independent-minded seventeen-year-old; additional cuts and some back and forth on other passages as the teenager matured, left home, and cast his lot with a new circle of intellectuals; and the mature text settled on at twenty-nine and kept at thirty-one-the pattern of excisions matches what we might expect from a young thinker wrestling with difficult articles of faith, and over the years making the mass text his own. consideration of another, related, factor helps to strengthen the pre­ sumption of schubert's intention. since the gloria and particularly the credo are by far the wordiest movements of the mass, one might reason­ ably expect from a composer indifferent to some or all of the text, along with omissions, some shortening by presenting successive phrases of the text simultaneously. schubert's use of text telescoping-folding successive phrases together, analogous to the overlapping cylindrical sections of a telescope-is in fact quite rare, but where it does appear it reinforces the pattern of text omissions. and telescoping of text cannot be ascribed to ig­ norance, carelessness, or lack of intention. john gingerich 67 two categories of telescoping should be distinguished from the outset: (1) the text appears only once, in the presence of differing text, and is thus never presented alone; and (2) the text appears in conjunction with another text, but is repeated, and usually appears alone at some point. in the first category, the telescoping obscures the text, and we could reason­ ably infer that schubert considered it unimportant to his expressive aims, or possibly even found it problematic. we could expect instances of the first category to correlate with text passages retained in the early masses, but later omitted. in the second category, the telescoping highlights the text by insisting on its relationship to a second text; both texts are re­ peated, together and alone, to be sure they can be understood. we might expect instances of the second category to correlate with passages either directly preceding or following omissions, where the omitted text was sac­ rificed in order to highlight neighboring passages; we would also expect telescopings of the second category to correlate with extensive text repeti­ tion. schubert's setting of the passage beginning with "domine deus, agnus dei" and leading to the "quoniam" from the gloria of the mass in g illustrates both categories of telescoping (see ex. 3). telescoping occurs throughout, with solo outer voices presenting "domine deus, agnus dei" and "filius patris, qui tollis peccata mundi" against choral inner voices singing first "miserere nobis," and then "suscipe deprecationem nostram." "miserere nobis" is prominent in three choral tuttis in which it has no competition from any other text; in addition "miserere nobis" is om­ nipresent, a plea that colors all the appellations against which it is juxta­ posed. these-"domine deus, agnus dei" and "filius patris, qui tollis peccata mundi"-gain prominence because they are sung as solos, through repetition, and in the case of "domine deus," because its begin­ ning coincides each time with rests in the other vocal parts; there is no doubt that the appellations and "miserere nobis" are both meant to be heard as modifying the other, and no doubt of their classification as tele­ scopings of the second type. "suscipe deprecationem," on the other hand, appears just once, piano, in the chorus, in the middle of the texture, com­ pletely covered by not one but two other texts, and is an instance of tele­ scoping of the first type. the chart below (ex. 4) shows all the occurrences of text telescoping of the first category in the six masses, underlined and in bold, combined with the omissions, not underlined. only the passage labeled c~) does not form part of a pattern between masses. in three instances (a, e, f) the telescoped text in an earlier mass is a predictor of omitted passages in later masses, and in the case of (f) a telescoped text fills a chronological gap between two omissions. the tele­ scoping of the passage labeled (h) in the mass in b~ is an instance of local 68 current musicology example 3: mass in g, gloria (from "domine deus"): telescoping . ) violinoi violinoii viola soprano alto tenore basso e organa violone ) fl ~ oj 1\ oj -d " ii;) tens, " ~. -'1fi tens, : : 1\ i oj j1 ~ oj i j " ~. . ii;) ste! ~. ii", ste! : : . il.~"~~~;'~;' ~ rr11 ... ~ : ~ .~ ~ . . . •.. do mi-ne fi ~ .. do mi-ne fi ~~~ ~ t:'i t:'i p t:'i p t:'i solo do mi ne t:'i t:'i t:'i t:'i p '---~ 11. 1 '1 .. -.~ ~~~. .. . . .. .. ... ii u ni ge ni-1e je su chri ~. ii u ni ge ni-te je su chri .. ... ~ ~ p ~ .r-r-,-.., -~ ~ t ~ de us, a tutti p. no bis, ml se re re tutti p mi se re re no bis, solo fi ii us pa tris, ...n .--i i j gnus qui john gingerich 69 example 3 (cont.) fl ~i"r: ~ ~ ~ ~? l") ~ ""'~ :::::::==-oj -~ ~ ~ :::::::==' . . ~tti ~ :::::::==-1 soi.'f" i ~ i ii;) " do mi ne de i, mi se re re no bis. ~ mi se re re, mi se re re no bis, "'" mi se re re, mi se re re no bis. thtti j j i i : mi se re re no bis. tol lis pec-ca ta mun di, : i ~ ~ fl ~, ~~ f"r: ~ ~, ~~ f"r: ) oj -fl ~ oj ~ -----'--!'.. ---~ ~ ~ iii;) " de de i, us, a gnus ..mi se re re no bis, mi se re re, i"", r mi se re re no bis, mi se re re, solo " ~. . . ~. : fi ii us pa tris, qui tol lis pee ca ta -------: 70 current musicology example 3 (cont.) " " e: e e qe~ . -----.# ) -.:r -==== ====" u ...., oj -==== ====. . . " ': .~ .... ~ -==== ====pi iii ul thtti ~ soloj iii;) i mi se re re no bis, ~ .,,~ mi se re re n~bis, sus ci pe j se re re 10 bis, sus ci pe j solo j i i ~ : thlli1 y1 1 i~i 1 mun di, do mi ne de us, mi se re re no_ bis, : -==== ===-~ ---. ,tl ~,tl e: e: e~ p~ ) l u -......... -=:::::: ===-=:::::: l ... " ~ ..... -••• -=:::::: ===" < ~ -=:::::: _c=l -=:::::: pa tris, mi se-re re no bis, no d i • i, ~ i i d j j~i i iii;) thtti mi bis. se-re re n~ de pre-ca ii 0 nem no stram, mi-se re reo ,,~ ~ de pre-ca ii 0 nem no stram, mi se re reo ~~ ~ thlli : a gnus de i, mi se re re no bis. -: ~ ----• ~ i l john gingerich 71 example 4a: chart of passages omitted with first category telescoping shown underlined. mass in f (summer 1814) a mass in g (mar. 1815) a b c .f; e mass in b~ (nov. 1815) a ~ f mass in c (july 1816) a b c e e g mass in a~ (1819-22) a b c d e f g revised (1826/27) a b c d e f mass in e~ (june 1828) a b c d e f example 4b: texts telescoped (italicized). a mass in f, "suscipe deprecationem nostram" simultaneous with "miserere" mass in g, "suscipe deprecationem nostram" simultaneous with "domine deus, agnus dei, miserere nobis" and "filius patris, miserere nobis" .f; mass in g, "genitum, non factum" simultaneous with "consubstantialempatri" e mass in g, "genitum, non factum" simultaneous with" consubstantialem patri" mass in c, "consubstantialem patd' simultaneous with "per quem omnia sunt" ~ "natum" simultaneous with" ante omnia saecula" h "simul adoratur" simultaneous with" conglorificatur" h h h h h h h h text illustration: schubert set "simul adoratur et conglorificatur" as liter­ ally simultaneous texts; the mass in h also has a simultaneous setting of these words, but presents them sequentially as well. in the masses in g, c, and a~, in which "adoratur" and "conglorificatur" are not presented simul­ ta,neously, they are presented in parallel clauses: "qui cum patre et filio simul adoratur, qui cum patre et filio conglorificatur," achieving through the repetition of "qui cum patre et filio" a less literal form of the same word painting. a similar consistency in the relationship between text, music, and omis­ sions is revealed by the telescoped passages of the second category (marked in example 5 with @ to show proximity to the relevant omitted passage). in all six masses schubert set as a discrete section within the gloria the portion of text that begins with "domine deus, agnus dei" and runs until a new section starts with "quoniam" (ex. 3 shows this section of the mass in g); in five of the six masses this section is set with music of minor tonal­ ity, contrasting with the major of the rest of the gloria. it is within this sec­ tion that the omissions (a) and (b) occur. what all the masses also share-the later ones that cut both (a) and (b), the earlier ones that cut only one of those passages, and the first mass which cuts neither passage­ is a treatment in which the same text is privileged. that text is "miserere nobis," which, as the chart shows, is telescoped with other text in several of the masses. most frequently solo or unison statements of "domine deus,:' "agnus dei," "filius patris," either separately or as a unit, are answered 72 current musicology example 5: chart of passages omitted with both categories of telescoping shown. mass in f (summer 1814) a @a h mass in g (mar. 1815) a @a b @.!! c e e h mass in b~ (nov. 1815) a ~ f h h mass in c (july 1816) a @a b @.!! c e e @e g h mass in a~ (1819-22) a b c d e f g h revised (1826/27) a b c d e f h mass in e~ (june 1828) a b c d e f h responsorially by repeated tutti statements of "miserere nobis," or by the full sentence "qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis" in full choral har­ mony. this is the case in the masses in f, m, a~, and e~, the first two of which employ additional telescoped presentations of "miserere." the mass in g differs only in that, instead of beginning the section in minor, schubert begins in major and twice modulates to minor (from a major to b minor and then from g major to b minor). the mass in g uses the most complex vocal texture schubert ever attempted for this passage, by com­ bining, as can be seen in example 3, a responsorial treatment (solo appel­ lations and tutti responses of "misere nobis") with ongoing telescoping of three different texts. in the mass in c, he eliminated the responsorial treatment, and relied for the contrasting forces with which he consistently associated these texts on a solo soprano telescoped against a choral "mis­ erere nobis" throughout the section. the basic interpretation of the text, the contrast between the exclama­ tions of direct address to god and the plea "miserere nobis" expressed through interaction between spare and full textures, or soli and tutti, re­ mained constant from the first mass in 1814 to the last in 1828. what changed were the technical realizations of this idea, both locally and for­ mally, and schubert's gradual willingness not just to telescope xa) and (b) with "miserere nobis" but to sacrifice them completely to the larger idea. far from choosing a formal scheme as a procrustean bed for his text, schubert's formal designs and "formal balance" (see jahrmarker's com­ ments, above) were chosen as the means to successfully realize his overrid­ ing conception of the text, a conception evident in all six of the masses. if the pattern of omissions creates a strong presumption that schubert himself intentionally made the excisions from his mass texts, when com­ bined with the pattern of telescoping, that conclusion is inescapable. the telescoping cannot have occurred as a result of absentmindedness, care­ lessness, or oversight, and the fact that the pattern created by telescoping of the first type dovetails with the pattern of omissions extends the pal­ pable trace of schubert's hand to the omissions. john gingerich 73 resistance to ascribing schubert's own intent to the omissions from his mass texts has understandably made much of the seemingly whimsical and inconsistent nature of some of the cuts. what could have possibly of­ fended him in those ten words he cut from the gloria? why should he have objected to "qui sedes ad dexteram patris" in the gloria, and re­ tained "sedet ad dexteram patris" in the credo? why would he cut "patrem omnipotens" in the credo, and keep "deus pater omnipotens" in the gloria? all of these questions assume that the answer lies in the miss­ ing words, and part of it, especially in the credo, surely does. but just as surely the answer also lies in the words-and the music-that remain. asking not only "which affirmations of faith was schubert avoiding?" but also "what was schubert trying to say?" allows us to pursue the meaning of the text and the music that remain. the clustering of telescoping of the second type in areas where schubert also cut text is a clue, in addition to the seeming inconsistencies noted above, that some of his excisions, par­ ticularly (a) and (b) in the gloria, resulted from privileging portions of the remaining text. further, the telescoping of the second type helps to reveal to which text schubert did assign great importance: in this case, "miserere nobis." nevertheless, schubert's mass texts, even when examined with their musical settings, do not provide a blueprint to his religious convictions. his masses do not directly represent his beliefs as he would have ex­ pressed them, but rather an intersection of his beliefs with the affirma­ tions that he believed the words of the mass expressed. in setting the mass so that it did not violate his conscience, he would have had to struggle for clarity in his own convictions, and avoid affirmations that violated those convictions; in setting the mass so that it expressed his beliefs he would have had to make the most of the affirmations that were most important to him; and, most difficult, he had to decide what to do about those affir­ mations to which he was relatively indifferent. this complex process re­ quired time; not until 1826/27 did schubert settle on his final mass text. the pattern of telescoping and omissions, combined with the music, illu­ minates important stations along the path schubert traveled toward his final two masses. for a surprising length of time the complete list of omissions remained obscure in spite of the ready availability of the 1897 edition; the related pattern of telescoped texts is noted here for the first time. writers on schubert remarked on isolated instances of text omission, most frequently the absence of (h) (wissig 1909:34-35; stefan-gruenfeldt 1928:107; both cited by jaskulsky 1986:60-61), while the absence of (a), (c), (g), and (i) in at least one mass also did not escape occasional notice (werle 1941:58; 74 current musicology vetter 1953, 1:205-6, both cited by jaskulsky 1986:61; einstein 1951:62). from this fragmentary picture grew traditions of explanation that might never have taken root had the complete pattern been appreciated. the first attempt at a comprehensive accounting of schubert's mass text omis­ sions was ronald stringham's dissertation (1964:92-93), still the best english language study of schubert's masses, followed by the more accurate listings of reinhard van hoorickx (1979:249-58) and hans jaskulsky, who gives the complete gloria and credo texts of all six masses (1986:61-66). but clarity has not ensued. stringham accounted for the pattern by re­ placing ignorance and carelessness with forgetfulness as his explanation (see below). hoorickx listed each omission accurately, even noted the un­ usual amount of telescoping in the mass in g, but since he instantly ex­ plained each separate omission with a short dismissive characterization, it is hardly surprising that he failed to appreciate that the many separate omissions might add up to a larger pattern. hoorickx's characterizations of each successive excision form a virtual catalogue of complacent conde­ scension: an "evident slip of the pen" (offenbar ein schreibfehler [1979:249]); a "small error" (kleiner irrtum [249]); an omission that "can hardly have been made purposely" (kann kaum absichtlich gemacht worden sein! [250]); words schubert "probably overlooked" (wahrscheinlich aber ist, daj3 schubert hier diese worte ubersehen hat [250]); "evident increasing carelessness and negligence in the late masses" (anscheinend behandelt schubert in seinen spateren messen seine texte mit fortschreitender sorglosigkeit und nachlassigkeit! [251]). hoorickx's conclusions, based on an accumulation of breezy snap judgments, found that just possibly schubert might have intended to omit the "catholic church" clause (h) as well as the "virgin mary" clause (g), but that other omissions are due to "a certain carelessness or a temporary absentmindedness" (einer bestimmten sorglosigkeit oder vorubergehender zerstreutheit [253-54]). others, too, have continued to write about schubert's mass texts as if there were omissions but no pattern of omissions (badura-skoda 1990a; benedikt 1997; newbould 1997:128). likewise, the consensus opinion­ the position taken by those who refer to schubert's mass texts only in pass­ ing, without wishing to give offense or engage in argument-has shifted, not in response to the logic of the evidence that, thanks especially to jaskulsky, is now difficult to ignore, but in response to a shift in the diplo­ matic middle ground: schubert is now granted agency and intention for (h), and more rarely (i), based on the consistency of these two omissions. however, these two omissions and their consistency were widely acknowl­ edged well before stringham's dissertation-and (h) is the one omission noted since 1909 by everyone who has written more than a paragraph or two on schubert's masses. john gingerich 75 iii. the chart of text omissions makes use of a bare-bones chronology. a brief survey of the circumstances surrounding the composition of the six masses will put some flesh on those bones, and give the abstract progres­ sion revealed by the chart some body and depth. this survey should also help us gain some insight into the importance of these masses to schu­ bert, both personally and professionally, and how much or how little time and care he took over them. the first performance of schubert's first mass, the mass in f (d. 105), could be seen as a rite of passage, a public display of accomplishment marking his transition from apprenticeship to professional independence. the occasion was a grand one, tuesday, september 25, 1814 (benedikt 1997), a service to mark the centenary celebration of his local parish church in lichtental, and the church did not stint, employing a number of professional musicians to augment its usual forces. never before had a piece by schubert been heard in public. the composer himself con­ ducted; his brother ferdinand played the organ; michael holzer, his first teacher, was the choirmaster; josef mayseder, one of vienna's leading vio­ linists, was the concertmaster; therese grob, schubert's favorite singer and long identified as his "first youthful passion" (deutsch 1958:59), sang the soprano solo; and his teacher salieri was in attendance, honoring the occasion with a "piccolo terzetto" (benedikt 1997:65) of his own composi­ tion. (for this mass, as for his later masses, schubert ignored the imperial decree of december 19, 1806 that forbad women singers in church, ex­ cepting relatives of the choir director [wagner 1996:34].) schubert thus began his public career as a composer in the bosom of his home parish, surrounded by family, friends, and teachers, the cynosure of all eyes in his role as conductor, as yet unknown to the wider world, but chosen by his home community to represent them when they wanted to show what they could do to mark their hundredth anniversary. schubert soon moved from the place of honor in his home parish to a stage before a much wider and more worldly public. according to ferdi­ nand, franz again conducted his first mass ten days later, october 4, 1814, this time at the prestigious st. augustine's court church "before an audi­ ence that no doubt would have included foreign dignitaries attending the congress of vienna" (gibbs 2000:40). salieri, maestro di capella of the imperial chapel, no doubt secured this performance for his pupil on the important occasion of the name-day of emperor franz (benedikt 1997:64). (the name-day was celebrated in preference to the birthday; this was also the name-day of schubert and of his father.) the success of these first two public performances of schubert's music, and the pride felt at his son's triumph, may have even won over schubert's father for a time: 76 current musicology he shortly thereafter presented to franz a new fortepiano, the family's first, a five-octave graf (gibbs 2000:38, 40; deutsch 1964:34; 1958:36). the next three masses, dating from march 1815 through the summer of 1816, were also very likely written for the lichtental parish church, since all of them are designed to accommodate the lichtental performing forces and their particular skills, and since the mass in c (d. 452) is specif­ ically dedicated to michael holzer on the title page of the manuscript of 1816 (jaskulsky 1986:116,140-41,176; durr 1983:63; scattolin 1982:xiii). particularly noteworthy is that schubert had the mass in c published as op. 48 by diabelli, again dedicated to holzer, and performed in st. ulrich's church (also known as maria trost), both in september 1825; no other mass by schubert was published during his lifetime. in addition to the masses for the lichtental church, schubert wrote small, easy sacred pieces for the use of his brother ferdinand at the vienna orphanage, where he was a teacher, and at the alt-lerchenfelder church, where he took up the post of choirmaster in early 1820. the pieces for the orphanage included the german requiem (d. 621), which schubert wrote so ferdinand could present it as his own work (deutsch 1964:63-64) for an exam in music theory in december of 1819, and which ferdinand published under his own name in 1826. to help ferdinand make a good start in his new post at the alt-lerchenfelder church, schubert wrote the six antiphons for palm sunday (d. 696), and possibly also the german mass (d. 872; see below). schubert also composed short liturgical compositions for st. ulrich's, such as the tantum ergo (d. 739), which was performed at the same concert in 1825 as the mass in c, along with the graduale (d. 136) and the offertorium (d. 223). unlike all of these, schubert's last two masses were not occasional works. he began working on the mass in a~ (d. 678) in november 1819, and by november 1820 he had drafted the entire mass in its first version and completed scoring of all but the dona nobis pacem (denny 1991 :75). that december he broke off work on the mass, and did not return to it until the fall of 1822, when he finished it in short order. (beethoven worked on his missa solemnis during the same three years, 1819-22.) at the time in late 1820 when schubert broke off work on the mass he also aban­ doned a number of other large-scale works: three operas, including sakontala, perhaps lazarus, the quartettsatz, and the d-major symphony (d.708a) (denny 1991:75). the mass was the only one of these projects schubert later returned to. the mass in a~ was the first since the mass in f explicitly designated as a missa solemnis (fischer 1985: 121), and to the large forces he had used for his first mass he now added a flute, the only flute used in his masses. in its john gingerich 77 scoring, its length, and above all its difficulty, schubert's mass in a~ took little account of performance limitations, rendering it unsuitable for lichtental or any other church employing largely amateurs. yet, as schubert wrote to his friend josef von spaun in december of 1822, he was planning to have the mass performed, and, since he esteemed it a success, he was thinking of dedicating it to the emperor or the empress (deutsch 1964: 173); he also spent a considerable sum having the parts and the score copied in preparation for a performance (dun 1983:64). no record survives of where and when the mass was given; we have only ferdinand's recollection that during schubert's lifetime the mass had been done "no more than once or twice, and then most unsatisfactorily" (schubert's first biographer, heinrich kreissle von hellborn 1861:117, as quoted by durr 1983:64, n. 13). in 1826/27 schubert revised the mass in a~ (winter 1982:242). the most extensive revision was a new fugue for the "cum sancto spirito" sec­ tion at the end of the gloria, but he rewrote numerous other passages to make them more singable, and, most important for our purposes, he added the text "ex maria virgine" under the music of the "et incarnatus est" section of the credo (fischer 1985). schubert's revisions are usually thought to have had some connection with his unsuccessful application for the post ofvizehofkapellmeister in 1826, an application turned down, according to josef hauer's recollections of a conversation with schubert (deutsch 1958:177-78), by the court kapellmeister josef eybler with the remark that the mass was good, but not in the style the emperor liked. schubert subsequently tried to persuade eybler at least to perform the mass, again without success. in february 1828, as part of an effort to get published abroad, schubert sent a letter to the music publisher schott of mainz that included a list of works for sale. to this list of works he added a postscript: "this is the catalog of my finished compositions except for three operas, a mass, and a symphony. these last i mention only to acquaint you with my striving after the highest in art" (deutsch 1964:495). schubert's "highest in art" com­ prised the operas alfonso und estrella (d. 732), die verschworenen (d. 787), and fierabras (d. 796), the great c-major symphony (d. 944), and the mass in a~. the other works in these genres-numerous operas and singspiele, six completed symphonies, and four masses-were not worth mentioning. the rejection of schubert's application for the vizehofkapellmeister post was official by january 24, 1827 (deutsch 1964:402, 404). it marked the last in a series of frustrations and disappointments with the reception of his mass in a~, and yet by mayor june of the next year he was already starting work on another mass, in e~, which he finished in september 78 current musicology (durr 1996:vii). the mass in e~ (d. 950) is, like the masses in f and a~, a missa solemnis in its scoring and length: it omits the flute and organ of the mass in a~, but otherwise employs identical forces, and in performance it surpasses the length of the mass in ak schubert had planned to travel to gmunden and the surrounding mountains during what was to be the last summer of his life. but, as a let­ ter of july 4, 1828 from his friend johann baptistjenger to marie pachler in graz explained, "financial embarrassments" prevented such travel. "thus he is still here, working diligently on a new mass, and awaits only­ come from where it may-the necessary money in order to flyaway to up­ per austria" (deutsch 1964:525). "come from where it may" does not give the impression that schubert was expecting immediate income from his mass, nor does it suggest a commission from a particular patron (durr 1996:xii). although schubert seems to have composed his last mass without a monetary commission, the mass has always been linked to the trinity church, also called the minorite (franciscan) church, in the alser sub­ urb. it was in the trinity church that the premiere of the mass in h took place on october 4, 1829, almost a year after schubert's death, with ferdinand schubert conducting the alservorstadt music society. the ex­ tensive newspaper review of the concert cites a threefold occasion for the performance: "the glorious name-day of his majesty, our most gracious and universally beloved emperor, then the feast of the minorite friars, and finally the anniversary of the local church music society" (theaterzeitung, october 22, 1829; brusatti 1978:37-40). not enumerated was another occasion: franz schubert's own name-day. the review also claims that the premiere at the trinity church on this occasion repre­ sented the wishes of the composer. schubert did have ties with the trinity church: the alsergrund borders on lichtental, schubert's boyhood parish; the choir director of the church and founder of the alservorstadt music society was michael leitermayer, a boyhood friend of schubert's, and a fellow pupil of 'michael holzer's (deutsch 1964:535); schubert had attended the church on march 29, 1827 for beethoven's funeral servi,ce; and for the occasion of the consecration of a new church bell on september 2, 1828 schubert had written a short choral piece, "glaube, hoffnung, liebe" (d. 954). whatever arrangements schubert may have made for the perform­ ance of his mass, he did not tailor it or his schedule to the practical re­ quirements of the trinity church or the alservorstadt music society: he missed the only real deadline in the story, the dedication of the bell, and the mass was far too difficult for the church choir alone, and too diffi­ cult for the music society without lengthy preparation. walther durr arjohn gingerich 79 gues that schubert would not have spent a penurious summer writing a mass for an organization yet to be founded, an organization planning in any case to present the work not at its inaugural concert, but rather for its first anniversary. a much more plausible scenario is that schubert began work on the mass for his own reasons, that the mass was well­ advanced before he began searching for an opportunity to have it per­ formed, and that the unexpected prospect of performing it may well have led leitermayer to found the alservorstadt music society (durr 1996:v). schubert's masses marked some of the high points in his life and ca­ reer. it is hard to imagine a beginning more inspiring of confidence in one's choice of vocation than the public debut schubert made with his mass in f. on this momentous occasion when schubert stood on the threshold of his public life, around him the family, church, teachers, and friends who had nurtured and shaped him, before him the larger public world of his work to come, on this occasion which represented a summary of his past achievement and future promise, his mass text omitted "et in unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam." the mass in c was the only work for large performing forces schubert succeeded in having published before he died-no other masses, no sym­ phonies, and no operas. the publication occurred in conjunction with a performance in 1825, more than nine years after schubert had finished the composition. for the publication he kept the text with its omissions exactly as it had been in 1816, even though it could now become an object of systematic public scrutiny. in the meantime, between the composition of the mass in c and its publication, he had spent three years writing his mass in a~, which contained two new text omissions beyond those found in the mass in c. schubert wrote his last two masses for his own reasons, whether per­ sonal or professional or both. certainly he had professional incentives: he consistently had greater success in gaining a public hearing for his masses than for his symphonies, and he had some hopes of a kapellmeister post for which the revised mass in a~ could have proved useful. but the time he lavished on the first version of the mass in a~, the letter to schott, and the priority he gave to writing his mass in e~ after hopes of the kapellmeister post had vanished-all indicate that the mass meant more to schubert than a career opportunity. when schubert decided to write these last two masses instead of composing more songs, symphonies, or string quartets, it was surely because the mass allowed him to say something offered by no other genre. and that something could only have concerned his faith and his church, expressed through his music and his text. 80 current musicology schubert began his life in music as a choirboy, his first great triumph was a composition for the church, and a part of him always remained a church musician. his six masses and other liturgical compositions kept him involved with churches throughout his life: the lichtental parish church, st. augustine's court church, st. ulrich's, alt-lerchenfelder, trinity, the synagogue in vienna, and possibly others unknown. he main­ tained warm relations all his life with church music directors who in­ cluded his brother ferdinand, his first teacher and the dedicatee of his mass in c, michael holzer, and his boyhood friend michael leitermayer. unlike beethoven's missa solemnis, which, in spite of its complete, ortho­ dox text, has always found a more comfortable home in the concert hall than in the church, schubert's two late solemn masses, in spite of their spacious amplitudes, were conceived for the church and are still appropri­ ate there. in those two masses schubert needed to express something that could only be said in a mass; he needed to speak to the church. iv. let us return to the reasons given for claiming that schubert did not know what he was doing with his mass texts, or that we should not take too seriously what he did with his texts. (1) was schubert's latin sufficient to comprehend and emend the mass text? stringham (1964:86) raised this question, and, as we have seen, jahr­ marker's 1997 summary of the prevailing consensus answers it in the negative. from the fall of 1808, when he was eleven, until the fall of 1813, when he was sixteen, schubert was a student at the akademisches gymnasium, and lived with his fellow students at the k.k. stadtkonvikt (the imperial and royal city seminary). this elite school is generally considered to have offered the best schooling available in vienna (wagner 1996:13). the ed­ ucation he received there during four years of grammar school and one year of humanities studies was "strongly oriented toward the classics, and within that tradition emphasized latin far more strongly than greek: half or more of the students' class time was devoted to latin" (gramit 1987:26). a large amount of time was spent studying elements of style, rhetoric, and grammar with excerpts from latin authors arranged by genre and rule rather than chronologically (gramit 1987:27). on a grad­ ing scale "em(inent), 1, 1-2, 2" (deutsch 1964:28), schubert scored a "1" for nine semesters and a "2 (1) " for one semester in latin, and a consistent "i" for all ten semesters in religion (deutsch 1964:11, 14, 17,21,28). a grade of "i" was sufficient to maintain academic standing and ensure con­ tinued enjoyment of scholarship stipends. john gingerich 81 one more year of humanities studies, and two more years of studies in philosophy would have prepared schubert for university· (deutsch 1964:28). even after his voice changed in the summer of 1812, schubert could have continued his studies at state expense, on the condition of rais­ ing his mathematics grade from a "2" to a "1." both a week before and two days after the great victory over napoleon at leipzig (the "v6ikerschlacht"), emperor franz found the time personally to approve papers granting a continued scholarship to schubert (deutsch 1964:27, 29). but schubert felt that his studies were already robbing him of time he wanted to spend composing. instead of a prolonged course of study he elected to equip himself quickly with qualifications to practice a trade that would tide him over until he could make music pay. the trade he chose was teaching, his father's business. after a subsequent year of teacher training at the k.k. normal haupt­ schule, a much less prestigious school, schubert took exams in august 1814 for which he received grades of "m(ittelmabig)" in "theoretical knowledge" of latin and religion, a "g(ut)" in "practical knowledge" of latin, and a "sch (lecht)" in religion (deutsch 1964:33-34). what may have constituted "practical knowledge" as opposed to "theoretical knowl­ edge" at schubert's teachers' college is a matter of conjecture, but it likely had to do with pedagogy and doctrinal soundness rather than knowledge of the subject. what is certain is that less than a month after finishing his mass in f, schubert's "practical knowledge" of religion was found wanting, whereas for the previous five years, in a more prestigious school less concerned with "practical knowledge," it had uniformly passed muster. in conclusion, schubert was much better educated in latin, at least for­ mally, than in german. he remained, of course, capable of making mis­ takes; and he was capable, of course, of reading, understanding, and pars­ ing the latin text of the mass. as a matter of perspective: schubert's knowledge of latin was undoubtedly far superior to the latin beethoven learned at the tirocinium in bonn (thayer-forbes 1967:58-59), and to the latin beethoven knew when he composed his missa solemn is. (2) did schubert know the orthodox version of the mass texts? the nearly complete text of the mass in f shows that schubert knew the orthodox text of the mass. he had also put in years of service as a choir boy singing masses, first for michael holzer at lichtental, and then at the court chapel. presumably the pupils of the konvikt, for whom the friars of the piarist order served in loco parentis, attended mass regularly even when they were not singing. according to otto biba the numerous surviv­ ing mass books from the archdiocese of vienna from this period and from 82 current musicology the previous century all give the orthodox text from the missale romanum (jaskulsky 1986:69, n. 43), so the orthodox text was readily available to schubert throughout his life. besides knowing the words, schubert almost certainly "knew" the mass in a deeper sense. to judge by the pedagogical approach used for latin, the five years of formal religious instruction schubert received at the konvikt from his religion teacher, josef tranz (deutsch 1964:11, 14, 17, 21, 28), would have concentrated on dogmatics, including a catechism of the creed, with scarcely a mention of church history. in addition to the re­ ligious instruction schubert received at the konvikt, at age seventeen he had already had ample opportunity to ponder religious matters, because they formed a constant source of friction between his free-thinking brother ignaz (12 years older than franz) and his dogmatically orthodox father; ignaz and franz formed a furtive alliance in their free-thinking re­ bellion against their father (see the letter from ignaz to franz of october 12, 1818, deutsch 1964:71-72, and franz's reply of october 29, deutsch 1964:75). (3) can forgetfulness or carelessness account for schubert's mass text omissions? stringham hypothesized that since schubert's "carelessness" exhibits an orderly pattern, perhaps, as he got older, and further removed from his piarist schooling he forgot more and more of the text (1964:96-99). this would explain why schubert's first five masses, written between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five, progressively omit more text. stringham, to be fair, was not entirely satisfied with his theory of juvenile dementia and cast about for a more convincing explanation-but could think of none. if we had only one or two masses by schubert we would have to enter­ tain forgetfulness or carelessness as a possible explanation for the text omissions. we have six masses, however. the progressive pattern of omis­ sions, combined with the pattern of telescoping, precludes carelessness, even in the three masses in g, b~, and c that share characteristics of the missa brevis. the cumulative pattern of omissions in the first four masses leads to the mass in a~, whose text omits every passage previously omitted in any mass. schubert spent three years over this first version of the mass in a~. haste was not a factor. oversight or sloppiness would hardly have led to omission of precisely those passages previously omitted-all of them. when he reworked portions of the mass in a~ four years later he took the trouble to add "ex maria virgine," but did not restore any of the other omitted passages. one cannot suppose that text omissions made through haste or error in the first four masses would have been retained john gingerich 83 by schubert through the lengthy process of working on the mass in a~, a process that included a significant textual revision. this revised text, ar­ rived at after seven years of intermittent work on this one mass, was pre­ cisely the same text he used for his last mass. these are the only two of the seven texts that do match precisely. this pattern is orderly, not random; it is cumulative; it culminates in a mass that schubert returned to, and re­ worked over a longer period of time than anything else he ever wrote, and in which he took pride as "the highest in art." carelessness or forgetful­ ness cannot account for these facts. the pattern, however, is precisely what one would expect from a prolonged process of reflection and refine­ ment culminating in the text retained by the last mass. jaskulsky's conclu­ sion, "memory slips can thus be accepted, if at all, for some places in the early masses; for the late masses they could probably be eliminated"7 (1986:68), does not take into account the cumulative pattern of omissions, and is thus unduly cautious. (4) was schubert following an unorthodox master text? otto wissig (1909:34) first hypothesized that schubert was working from a text that omitted "et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam." alfred einstein also entertained that possibility, and his rea­ soning is instructive: it would be wrong, however, to interpret this as a deliberate protest on schubert's part. that might be the answer, if the omission oc­ curred only in his later masses, but it cannot be true of a youth of sixteen or seventeen. the simplest and most trivial explanation would be that he made a copy of the text of the mass, in which he in­ advertently omitted these seven words, and that he continued to use this copy whenever he sat down to compose a mass. but it is also pos­ sible that there existed in the vienna of the emperor joseph's time a liturgical edition of the text which set no great store by this particu­ lar part ofthe creed. (1951:61) for einstein, as sympathetic and insightful as he was, it was plainly un­ thinkable that the same schubert who could compose a mass and who sev­ eral months later set "gretchen am spinnrade" could have had the intel­ lectual wherewithal-as well as the independence, principle, and spine -to omit the seven words of belief in the catholic church. the same con­ sistency of omission that now makes of (h), and less securely of (i), an exception to the rule that schubert could not have known what he was doing with his text, was just as self-evidently for einstein the reason why schubert could not have known. 84 current musicology although einstein was aware of (c) (1951:62) at least, he chose to ig­ nore all the omissions except (h); understandably so, because his theory that schubert "continued to use that copy whenever he sat down to com­ pose a mass" is incompatible with textual inconsistencies too serious and too numerous to quality as scribal errors. the task of keeping schubert ig­ norant of all the peculiarities of his mass texts has become more difficult since einstein's day. ignoring most of the omissions is no longer a viable explanatory strategy, which means the master text theory needs help, since six masses with five different texts cannot all be copies from the same original. if the master text theory cannot get the job done alone, then ignorance, carelessness, and forgetfulness must help out. the re­ maining difficulty is the inherent incompatibility between the consistency of blind copying on the one hand, and the inconsistencies of egregious carelessness and writing from memory on the other. paul badura-skoda proposed a solution that minimizes this incompatibility. in order to rescue schubert from the "impudence" (frechheit) of "forcing his private beliefs on a congregation," badura-skoda embraced the hypothesis that (h) was the product of a faulty master text, while, according to badura-skoda, the gradual accretion of mistakes in the late masses probably followed from schubert's undue reliance on his "phenomenal memory" (1990b:132).8 the problem with badura-skoda's solution is that the master text does none of the work; it does not even explain the consistency in the omission of (h). because if badura-skoda's theory is to avoid the unlikely scenario that schubert consulted his master text only when copying in the vicinity of (h) but consulted his memory the rest of the time, then his theory amounts to schubert copying the text of the mass in f in 1814 from a faulty original, but succumbing to a faulty memory in preparing the texts of all subsequent masses, from the spring of 1815 to 1828. the master text, then, does not help account for the progressive pattern of omissions, and as we have seen, carelessness or forgetfulness cannot. other scenarios employing the faulty master text hypothesis run into similar difficulties. which mass text should we be looking for? no matter how that question is answered, the progressive pattern of text omissions means that they could not have been arrived at by copying from anyone master text, whether written or belonging to a local viennese oral tradi­ tion. if, for example, we were to find a printed mass text from vienna in the early 1800s that agrees in all particulars with schubert's final mass text, should we conclude that schubert possessed this text in 1814, and af­ ter thirteen years of ever-weakening resistance finally succumbed to its se­ ductions in 1826/27? even such an absurd assumption would not absolve schubert from thinking about the text on his own. if, on the other hand, we were to find the hypothetical master text for the mass in c, then we john gingerich 85 would still have to explain why there are fewer omissions in the preceding masses and more omissions in the masses that follow. even if we assume five or six different master texts, all of which schubert blindly copied with­ out noticing their differences, the orderly chronological progression of omissions still defies explanation. thus jaskulsky's conclusion that al­ though schubert's use of one or more written sources or of oral traditions is dubious, they "cannot be ruled out until a written source or other con­ vincing proof is found" (1986:69, 72) misses the larger point: no matter what master text the future may bring, schubert's knowing participation in the process of editing his own mass texts cannot be explained away. (5) the "catholic church" exception the received image of schubert's intellectual incapacity exerts a power­ ful force even on those willing to grant him some part in the fashioning of his mass texts. the only text excised from schubert's first mass, when he was seventeen, is the statement of belief in the catholic church, "et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam" (h), and this passage con­ tinued missing right through his sixth mass, the year he died. the consis­ tency of this excision is habitually cited as the reason for making an excep­ tion and granting it as schubert's own intention.9 yet the logic of this exception is hard to credit. first, the "catholic church" clause is distin­ guished from all the other omissions by its greater consistency in the first four masses-since all omissions are consistent in the last two masses. why should schubert's consistency between the ages of seventeen and nine­ teen ([h] in the first four masses) count for so much, when his much greater consistency between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-one (all the cuts in the last two masses) counts for so little? second, had schubert been equally consistent with all his excisions, had he begun at age seven­ teen to use the text he would always use, then the case for an unorthodox master-text would be greatly strengthened. logically, it is precisely the lack of consistency, the general pattern of added cuts in each of the first four masses, culminating in the consistency of the last two, that speaks for schubert's intention. but logic, i suspect, has nothing to do with the "et unam sanctam et apostolicam ecclesiam" exception. the "catholic church" clause is not only the most consistent excision, it is the only excision whose meaning seems relatively plain. unlike all the other cuts, the possible significance of this one can be summarized in one sentence: "schubert was anti­ clerical," or, with more nuance, "schubert rejected the claims to exclusive authority of the institutional church." it is not impossible to imagine a free-thinking seventeen-year-old with enough theological sophistication to entertain such sentiments; most musicologists have gradually come to feel 86 current musicology that even schubert might have been capable. but since the other excisions are more difficult to explain-they certainly require more than one sentence -schubert could not have been capable of them. (6) was it common in schubert's vienna for composers to omit text from mass settings? schubert had some precedents among viennese composers for omis­ sions from the text of the mass, although to my knowledge none of these composers omitted as many passages, or were as consistent in omitting the same passages. in addition, most of the precedents involve a missa brevis, which helps explain them. schubert admired the masses of michael haydn who worked in salzburg where the rules were strict; none of his mature masses omit any text. mozart's missa brevis in c (k. 257) omits "deum verum de deo vero." in eisenstadt, where usage was more relaxed than in sallzburg but suppos­ edly not as easy-going as in vienna, michael's brother josefleft out "et in unum dominumjesum christum, filium dei unigenitum" from his missa brevis st. joannis deo, from his missa brevis in f, and from his "lord nelson" mass; he omitted "qui cum patre et filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur" from his paukenmesse, and "qui ex patre filioque procedit" from his heili­ genmesse and his theresienmesse. in vienna, the court kapellmeister josef eybler, whom we have already met, left out "et incarnatus est" from his mass in b~ (finke-hecklinger 1980:xiii). a mass in cby a certain huber, given in the lichtental church shortly after 1800, omits "et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecc1esiam," and joseph preindl's printed missa in es omits "et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum" (benedikt 1997:67). these examples (undoubtedly more could be found) show that it was not unknown for viennese composers to take a certain degree of liberty with the mass text; these examples also show that it was not usual practice for composers to take the degree of liberty taken by schubert. erich benedikt says of the different rates of text omission in the archbishopric salzburg, eisenstadt, and vienna, "that is how greatly us­ ages differed for quite a while yet, but not faith" (1997:68).10 he is almost certainly correct, statistically speaking. but his argument concerning schubert's beliefs amounts to the syllogism "all austrians (no matter how freely they treated their mass texts) were orthodox catholics. schubert was austrian. therefore ... " this we know, as a matter of historical fact, to be untrue. the examples of text lacunae in viennese masses of the early nine­ teenth century are not irrelevant to schubert's own text omissions. while they can tell us nothing of schubert's intentions and knowledge, they con­ firm that he had no need to fear legal or professional reprisals, or even sojohn gingerich 87 cial opprobrium for his omissions. this was not because the viennese were uniformly orthodox yet easy-going, but rather because habsburg offi­ cialdom and the austrian ecclesiastical hierarchy itself retained many adherents to two streams of thought inimical to orthodox catholicism as defined by rome: the josephinian enlightenment, and pantheism. j osephinian enlightenment the so-called josephinian enlightenment sought to make the church a rational, enlightened servant of the state, promoting policies conducive to happiness and welfare in this world, guided by enlightenment notions of the perfectibility of individuals and of society through the application of reason. theological controversy, and the pomp and mystery of the austrian baroque liturgy were considered wasteful at best, at worst a prey­ ing on the superstitions of those who knew no better (bunnell 1990:3541). under joseph the regulation of the church was enforced by an army of bureaucrats, and even though many of joseph's reforms were subse­ quently reversed by his brother leopold and leopold's son franz, the "bureaucracy of the church-the governmental agencies that dealt with church affairs and the church hierarchy that was appointed by the em­ peror and his government-was j osephinist throughout the period [until 1848], loyal to the concept of the church as servant to the state" (bunnell 1990:42; okey 2001:43-44,58,66,100). many josephinist "liberal church­ men" remained in positions of power, and although they were often obliged to fight rear-guard skirmishes against both the church hierarchy in rome and some of metternich's more recent appointees, they were suf­ ficiently entrenched to hold their own. pantheism pantheism stresses the all-embracing inclusiveness of god, conceived as divine immanence (i.e., the indwelling presence of god), as compared with the emphasis in traditional theism on god's transcendence, or sepa­ rateness from the world. in practice it emphasized the revelation of god in nature. pantheism had been popular among intellectuals ever sin~e spinoza (1632-1677) formulated a thorough system of rationalistic pan­ theism, and· pantheism gained a much more extensive diffusion in the early nineteenth century through the idealisms of fichte, schelling, and hegel. goethe, for example, claimed to be a follower of spinoza, but in fact his beliefs owed much to later developments since he "championed human individuality, opposed mechanical necessity, and held a vitalistic position, in which nature was organic, a living unity" (cross and living­ ston 1985). pantheism was especially congenial to early romanticism, since it could be interpreted as more critical and rational than traditional 88 current musicology christianity, while at the same time allowing the infinite mystery of god to infuse the concrete mundane reality of the natural world. because of its rational intellectual pedigree, pantheism also appealed widely to the josephinian church bureaucracy; the mystical and rational strains did not necessarily clash, since they tended to play out in different spheres of ac­ tivity, the mystical in poetry and the rational in metaphysics. predictably, ultramontanist austrian catholics established as one of their chief goals the defeat of the pantheist heresy, which they detected all around them­ pantheism was the "secular humanism" of the early nineteenth century. the most important churchmen in schubert's life were all either josephinians, or pantheists, or both. schubert had probably known johann philip neumann since 1816 (when schubert lived briefly with professor watteroth, who was neumann's cousin), and their long friend­ ship was punctuated by two collaborations: neumann wrote the libretto for schubert's unfinished opera sakontala (1820), and he also wrote the text of the "german mass" which schubert set in 1827. neumann, a the­ ologian and professor of physics, was a champion of the josephinian re­ forms, and a believer in eighteenth-century rational deism (deutsch 1964:459). a comparison of the gloria and credo from neumann's "german mass" (ex. 6) with the traditional versions is informative. neumann's gloria is a hymn of praise to god, the creator of nature. his credo begins with the same sentiment; the first strophe presents god the creator, in his archetypal enlightenment guise as bringer of light and order. the second strophe treats the theme of christ, the bringer of light. the third strophe argues against salvation by faith alone (luther's doc­ trine), and stresses the necessity of acting according to the command­ ments and christian duty. the fourth strophe enlarges on this statement by adding discipleship, according to christ's model, to the prescriptions of duty (without, however, specifying which elements of christ's life should be imitated). neumann's credo completely omits the central con­ cern of the traditional credo, the explication of the trinity, and it omits as well any mention of the holy ghost, of christ's birth, crucifixion, and res­ urrection, of sins and judgment, of the catholic church, and of the resur­ rection of the dead. josef spendou was another josephinist churchman and a special patron of the schubert family. he was the founder and governor of the orphanage at which ferdinand schubert taught from about 1809 onward. spendou was until 1816 "oberaufseher der deutschen (elementar-) schulen" and took a special interest in musical education. for the twentieth anniversary celebration of the orphanage, schubert wrote a cantata (d. 472) in honor of this long-time family friend (deutsch 1964:40, 73-74). john gingerich 89 example 6: neumann, "for the gospel and the credo." i. the creation still lay formless, according to holy writ. then spoke the lord: let there be light! he spoke and it was light! and life stirs, and order emerges. and everywhere, praise and thanks rise up. 2. man too, lay in spiritual night, numbed by dark delusion. the savior came and it was light! and bright day dawns. and his teaching's holy ray wakens life near and far. and all hearts beat thanks, and praise god the lord. 3. but the holy voice speaks a warning: faith alone avails not, only the performance of your duty can lend it life. give us, therefore, a believing nature! and give us too, oh god, a loving heart, which devoutly and faithfully obeys the commandment. 4. lend us strength and courage, not only to see the ways that our savior trod, but also to strive to follow. thus let your gospel be our good news and lead us, lord, by your grace into the realm ofjoy,!l johann ladislaus pyrker von felso-eor was ajosephinian and a panthe­ ist. he became patriarch (archbishop) of venice in 1820 and first met schubert that year at the home of the poet matthaus von collin (deutsch 1964:128). they spent time together again in august of 1825 at gastein, and schubert "treasured the memory of this meeting as one of the great experiences of his life" according to his brother ferdinand and anton schindler (deutsch 1958:37, 318). schubert set pyrker's poem "die ali­ macht" (d. 852) and later chose to include it on the program of the only concert he ever gave dedicated exclusively to his own music, which took place on march 26, 1827, the anniversary of beethoven's death; either schubert felt that pyrker's name on the program would add the right sort of prestige, or the poem itself was of great personal importance to schubert, or both. the poem expresses pyrker's theology of nature as the immanent spirit of god. the almighty great isjehovah, the lord! for heaven and earth proclaim his might. you hear it in the roaring storm, in the loud, rushing call of the forest stream, you hear it in the green wood's whisper, you see it in the golden, waving grain, in loveliest flowers' glowing bloom, 90 current musicology in the sparkle of star-strewn heavens. it booms territyingly in the rolling thunder ajid blazes in the lightning's swift jagged flash. but your throbbing heart reveals still more palpably the might of jehovah, ofthe eternal god, if you look up pleadingly, hoping for grace and mercy.12 schubert had great respect for pyrker and chose "die allmacht" for the most important concert of his life. pyrker's god of nature obviously held great appeal for schubert, and "die allmacht" expresses sentiments schubert could embrace without qualification or reservation. the credo in the cut version begins, like "die allmacht," with a statement of belief in god, the creator of nature; by omitting an affirmation of god's omnipo­ tence (d), schubert made belief in the god of nature the starting point for the credo. in addition to josephinist and pantheist father figures in the church hi­ erarchy with whom schubert discussed theology, we know that some of his closest friends argued about theological issues. in june 1828 eduard von bauernfeld noted in his diary: "outings with schober and mayerhofer (who lives with me). quarrels between m[ayerhoferj and sch[ober], the latter denies immortality and personal continuation. which embitters the other. i mediate as best i can" (litschauer 1986:69).13 franz von schober, the circle's most notorious libertine, was schubert's closest friend after 1816. this worldly young man cared enough about religion to argue about doctrine, and his only published work" palingenesien, was a book of sonnets on old testament themes (jean paul had written a book in 1798 with the same title). eduard von bauernfeld had undertaken a study of the new testament in the original greek with his two roommates in 182324, but confessed, "i don't possess the talent for faith" and preferred, after as before, goethe, lessing, and kant (bauernfeld 1873:30). he became fast friends with schubert in 1825, (deutsch 1958:227). the greatest rift within the schubert circle was caused by franz von bruchmann's opposi­ tion in 1824 to his sister's secret engagement to schober, which can be seen as the first visible sign of bruchmann's eventual religious conversion. mter serving as the circle's philosopher-in-chief, much drawn to the ideas of the schlegel brothers, and after studying with schelling in erlangen in 1821 and 1823, bruchmann found religion in 1826, married a bluestock­ ing in 1827, joined the redemptorist order in 1830, and eventually be­ came the head of its upper german province. so far as is known, schubert and schober never again spoke to bruchmann after his betrayal, as they saw it, of schober in 1824. faith, then, was far from monolithic in the vienna of schubert's time, , and far from monolithic within his circle of closest friends. schubert was john gingerich 91 exposed to every contemporary variety of belief and practice, from atheism, to pantheism, to enlightenment rationalism, to ultramontane catholicism (the redemptorists and friedrich schlegel), and very likely to every vari­ ety of debate. the oft-quoted letter from ferdinand walcher (deutsch 1964:403) shows at the very least that schubert discussed religious matters with his friends, and that his peculiarities of belief were part of their com­ mon coin. the argument that as a child of his time and place schubert was perforce a pious and uncritical orthodox catholic has no merit. the historical fact that caecilian reforms had not yet taken hold merely means that schubert had more latitude for liberty. (7) did schubert amend his mass texts for musical reasons? the answer to this question is twofold: of course! by no means! these responses are contradictory because the question is false. it presupposes that a musical setting can be neatly deconstructed into two separate utter­ ances, with two separable meanings, one for the music, and one for the text. in this case it presupposes a mass text that is routine, banal, utterly known, and therefore utterly unproblematic, and it presupposes a task as­ signed to the music of adding some interest, some feeling, some piety. given these presuppositions the question is justified, and the composer is fully justified in taking liberties with the text, and in allowing the music to shape the text. but these presuppositions are not very flattering-either to religion, piety, music, or to the composer who would let himself in for such ajob. quite a few writers do not shrink from just such unflattering assump­ tions of schubert's relationship to his mass text. here are two of the more explicit examples: kurt von fischer: for him this text functions as a model bound by tradition, whose es­ tablished wording relieves the composer to a great extent from tex­ tual problems. that is why schubert can proceed relatively freely with this text, i.e. allow himself to be merely stimulated by the text as a whole; which means that the text repetitions too, for example, have almost no specific semantic meaning, as opposed to the case in some songs, especially late ones. (1985:127)14 brian newbould: schubert composed fast, often without care for less essential details (such as dynamic indications, slurs and ties, or consistency of nota­ tion as between an exposition and a recapitulation). could it be that for him the text of a mass was among the less essential details? the 92 current musicology mass text was, unlike the poems schubert set as lieder, always 'there'; it had been a part of his daily furniture since youth, and he thought he knew it by heart. but it was in an alien tongue, and de­ spite what was presumably a good education in the classics he may well have had an imperfect grasp of its vocabulary and syntax. knowing that he could always check details later, if he remembered or had time to do so, he could well have made assumptions at cer­ tain points in mid-composition where the muse was favouring him and the musical invention was 'taking over'. (1997:129) jahrmarker too, gives us a schubert concerned exclusively with the for­ mal properties of the text, especially with the formal problems imposed by traditional treatments, rather than the meaning of the words. in the quo­ tation cited above (p. 63), and throughout her essay, she has much to say about schubert's novel modifications of traditional sectional divisions of the text, and an increasing employment in his later masses of strategies for unitying not only sections and movements, but the work as a whole. in her essay these novel modifications take place in an expressive and ideological vacuum, presenting a schubert seemingly inspired to compose masses through a concern with innovation and unity as ends in themselves. walther durr (1983) has demonstrated a different way to conceive of schubert's relationship to his mass text and his music for the masses. he traces schubert's use in his last two masses of a time-honored musical sym­ bol for the cross: in the e~ mass, for example, the g-f#-g-m-g in the trombones at the start of the "dominus dei, agnus dei" section, and g-a~-f#-g to start the "dona nobis pacem" at the close of the mass. the connection between the plea for mercy ("miserere nobis") at the center of the gloria, and the plea for peace ("dona nobis pacem") is strengthened by the pared-down text schubert had arrived at for the "dominus dei, agnus dei" section of his last two masses, creating a parallel wording and structure to the last movement's text (compare ex. 7 with the text in ex. 1). example 7: schubert, mass in eb, central section of the gloria . . . . unigenite,jesu christe. l andante can mota, g minor 1 domine deus, agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. domine deus, agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. filius patris, agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis. domine deus, agnus dei, filius patris, agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nobis! l tempo i, bb major 1 quoniam ... john gingerich 93 the cross figure also appears in the "cum sancto spiritu" fugue at the end of that gloria (h-d-f-eq) in the e~ mass, and in the "crucifixus" of the mass in a~. durr links all these appearances of the musical cross figure to a letter schubert wrote in 1825 after viewing the site of a massacre of bavarians by tyroleans in the lueg pass, a letter that comes as close to any testimony we have in schubert's own words to describing his theology, as well as his attitude toward what he considered hypocritical conventions of piety. this ... they sought, with a chapel on the bavarian side and a rough cross in the rock on the tyrolean side, partly to commemorate, and partly, through the use of such holy signs, to expiate. you, glorious christ, to how many shameful deeds must you lend your image. you yourself, the most gruesome memorial of human abomination, there they set up your image, as if to say: behold! the consummate cre­ ation of the great god we have trampled with impudent feet, would it trouble us to destroy with a light heart the remaining vermin, known as humans? (deutsch 1964:320)15 durr endeavors to show not only how schubert formally unified his two late masses, but how the themes of christ's suffering, the suffering of hu­ manity, the futile plea for peace, and the hope of expiation permeate and unify especially the mass in e~. durr's conclusions, because hermeneutic, are not empirically provable. he gives us a schubert consistent with all the known facts, based on an in­ cisive analysis informed by passion. he also gives us a schubert who wrote music not as decoration for a text of untouchable sanctity, but to reawaken the meaning of its dead letters. durr's interpretation of schubert's last two masses is not only more at­ tractive and aesthetically compelling than the views of fischer, newbould, and jahrmarker presented above; it also has a much greater explanatory power. durr's schubert cut text, not merely to avoid affirmations he did not want to own, but in order to help him express what he had to say. beginning with his first mass he employed an unusual division of the gloria text, combining "domine deus, agnus dei, filius patris" with the text that follows instead of with the preceding text. then, as mentioned above, a golden thread runs through schubert's settings of the "dominus dei, agnus dei" section in all six of his masses-the conspicuous treatment he gives to "miserere nobis." from this idea he gradually moved toward giving the section as a whole an ever more dominant and central place in the gloria, and toward making its connection with the agnus dei move­ ment ever more explicit. part of that process involved telescoping some of 94 current musicology the text that did not contribute to his conception of the section and, even­ tually, cutting it. the pattern of telescoping and omissions does more than establish schubert's agency and knowledge in the shaping of his text; it also helps reveal the maturation process of ideas not fully realized until the final mass. v. the story of schubert's mass texts is also the story of schubert's recep­ tion. for a long time now we have been willing or unwilling dupes of ex­ pert opinion, advising us that schubert did not know what he was doing. an unprejudiced presumption must always have favored schubert's agency, intention, knowledge, and responsibility; is there another com­ poser in all of music history presumed ignorant of the text he or she was setting? but what would seem a common sense assumption was unthink­ able to those who thought they knew schubert best, and what would seem a logical starting point for investigation, the mass texts themselves, was not pursued systematically until 1964. instead every possible hypothesis has been tried to circumvent or explain away the obvious. these efforts to pre­ serve schubert from thought continue: i have cited as examples, some­ times at length, the two most recent full-length biographies of schubert as well as the schubert handbuch, which was published to provide a state-of-the­ art summary of schubert research on the occasion of his two-hundredth birthday. every argument in my list of seven has a contemporary following. the first two arguments against schubert's knowledge of his own mass texts, concerning his knowledge of latin and of the orthodox text, re­ quire us to embrace a schubert unobservant, uninformed, and incapable of profiting from his own background, schooling, and daily exposure to latin and the church-they require us to imagine schubert stupid. the explanations three through five-carelessness, forgetfulness, the missing master text, the "catholic church" exception-are all disproved by the pattern of text telescoping and omissions. this pattern, of the telescoping as well as the omissions, has been sitting on the shelf since 1897, readily available to anyone actually seeking to investigate the omissions rather than explain them away; the list of omissions, without noting the pattern they form, has been available since 1964 to anyone who reads the musico­ logical literature, apparently a somewhat larger group. the explanation with the widest contemporary currency, the "catholic church" exception, forfeits its logical foundation once the larger pattern of omissions is exam­ ined; it owes its continued favor to its facile explanatory utility rather than to its solidity. the argument that schubert was merely a careless and care­ free member of a careless and carefree society is not really an argument at all; the only portion that actually addresses the issue of schubert's role john gingerich 95 in his mass texts is the statement that implies that all austrians were easy­ going yet orthodox. some of these arguments are outlandish, some of them are silly, and none of them can bear any but the most casual scrutiny. their persistence can only be attributed to the dogged persist­ ence of the image of schubert from which they spring. the final argument, that schubert sacrificed his text to his music, is much more insidious. insidious, because much analysis shares uncritically the impoverished understanding of music attributed to schubert; our habit of talking about music, even texted music, as if it were autonomous, and our propensity for talking only about music's structural or formal proper­ ties without going on to discuss how or what it communicates, lend a super­ ficial plausibility to the assumption that schubert could compose music for his masses without caring about what the text actually said. i have focused on the "dominus deus, agnus dei" section of the gloria to show that schubert's local treatment of the text, including telescoping and excisions, precedes and is more consistent than the formal solutions he found in his late masses. schubert cared about both the meaning of his text and its form, but form, textual and musical, quite literally followed meaning. schubert has always been known first and foremost as a composer of lieder. we have grown used to living quite comfortably with the, jrony that schubert, the most literary composer of his time, the one most inextrica­ bly associated with his skill at putting music to words, is presumed to have composed six masses with an ignorant and careless disregard for his text. the lied is a short form, rooted in popular culture and the yolk, and not overly taxing to the listener; the lied lends itself to patronizing schubert in the guise of affection. with the mass the patronizing is more obvious, the affection less so. what have we missed in schubert's music by investing so heavily for so long in a schubert incapable of intellectual thought? notes *all translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 1. "diese teilweise zwar absichtlichen (z.b. weglassung des 'et unam sanctam ecclesiam' in samtlichen messen), teilweise aber wohl eher zufilligen auslassungen sollten nicht iiberwertet werden." 2. "die friihere annahme, schubert sei einfach sorglos oder fliichtig mit dem text umgegangen oder der text habe ihm nicht vollstindig vorgelegen, ist heute iiberwiegend der ansicht gewichen, die konsequente auslassung der passage 'et in unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam' bezeugte schuberts private position, ebenso wie die scheu, stets das bekenntnis der auferstehung 'et expecto resurrectionem' zu vertonen. auch werden fur das fehlen mancher textteile un­ zureichende lateinkentnisse oder kompositorische form-ideen verantwortlich gemacht: wenn im gloria der g-dur-messe der relativsatz 'qui sedes ad dexteram patris', in der b-dur messe die bitte 'suscipe deprecation em nostram' und in der 96 current musicology folgenden c-dur-messe beide textteile fehlen, dann jeweils um der formalen balance der entsprechenden abschnitte willen (jask. 124£). mit nachdruck hat man dariiber hinaus auf den historischen sachverhalt hingewiesen, dab in den wenigsten messen der zeit der liturgische text ohne jede abweichung vertont wurde und erst infolge der reformbestrebung des cacilianismus die textvoll­ standigkeit verbindlich wurde (1894; hoorickx, s 251 f., kantner, schubert­ studien, s. 137)." 3. in each of his masses schubert's text reversed the order of the second and third phrases of this line, placing "tu solus altissimus" before "tu solus dominus." 4. "caeli" is the version of the missale romanum; schubert's text always used "coeli," and used the "oe" in all forms of the word. 5. in his masses in g and in b~, schubert's text reads "et filio" instead of "filioque." 6. other text changes: in the sanctus, "deus" was omitted from the mass in c, and a final "deo" was added to the sanctus in the masses in b~, a~, and ek in the agnus dei, the third "qui touis peccata mundi" was omitted from the mass in f and the mass in ak 7. "gedachtnisfehler konnen also fur einige stellen der friihen messen ange­ nommen werden, wenn iiberhaupt-fur die beiden spaten messen diirften sie ausscheiden." 8. "es ware doch einfach eine frechheit, den yom auftraggeber gewiinschten text absichtlich so zu verstiimmeln, dab zum teil un sinn herauskommt. nein, selbst wenn ein nichtglaubiger komponist fur eine fromme gemeinde schreibt, nimmt er auf deren gefuhle riicksicht. wer mochte schubert zumuten, er habe der kirchengemeinde seine privaten glaubensmeinungen aufoktroyieren wollen?" 9. see, in addition to finke-hecklinger (1980), fischer (1985), andjahrmarker (1997), all cited above, mckay (1996:237). 10. "so verschieden waren eben die :grauche noch eine ganze weile lang, aber nicht der glaube." 11. "zum evangelium und credo" l. noch lag die schopfung formlos da, nach heiligem bericht; da sprach der herr: es werde licht! er sprach's, und es ward licht! und leben regt, und reget sich, und ordnung tritt hervor. und uberall all iiberall tont preis und dank empor. 2. der mensch auch lag in geistesnacht, erstarrt von dunklem wahn; der heiland kam und es ward licht! und heller tag bricht an. und seiner lehre heil'ger strahl weckt leben nah und fern; und alle herzen po chen dank, und preisen gott, den herrn. 3. doch warnend spricht der heil'ge mund: nicht frommt der glaub' allein, nur die erfiillung eurer pflicht kann leben ihm verleih'n. drum gibt ein glaubiges gemiith! und gib uns auch, 0 gott, ein lie bend herz, das fromm und treu stets folget dem gebot! john gingerich 97 4. verleih' uns kraft und muth, dass wir nicht nur die wege sehn' die der erloser ging, dass wir auch streben nachzugeh'n. lass so dein evangelium uns himmels botschaft sein, und fiihr uns, herr, durch deine huld ins' reich der wonnen ein. 12. "die allmacht" gross istjehova, der herr! denn himmel und erde verkiinden seine macht. du horst sie im brausenden sturm, in des waldstroms laut aufrauschendem ruf; du horst sie in des griinen waldes gesiusel, siehst sie in wogender saaten gold, in lieblicher blumen gliihendem schmelz, 1m glanz des sternebesiten himmels, furchtbar tont sie im donnergeroll und flammt in des blitzes schnell hinzuckendem flug. doch kiindet das pochende herz dir fiihlbarer noch jehovas macht, des ewigen gottes, blickst du flehend empor und hoffst auf huld und erbarmen. 13. "ausfliige mit schober und mayerhofer (der bei mir wohnt). streit zwi­ schen m[ayerhoferj und sch[oberj, letzterer leugnet die unsterblichkeit und per­ sohnliche fortdauer. das erbittert den andern. ich vermittle nach kriften." 14. "dieser text fungiert bei ihm als traditiongebundenes modell, dessen fest­ gelegter wortlaut den komponisten weitgehend von textproblemen entlastet. deshalb kann schubert auch relativ frei mit diesem text umgehen, d.h. sich yom text blob allgemein anregen lassen, wobei z.b. auch textwiederholungen, im gegensatz zu manchen liedern besonders der spitzeit, kaum spezifisch semanti­ sche bedeutung zukommt." 15. "dieses ... suchte man durch eine capelle auf der baiern seite und durch ein rohes kreuz in dem felsen auf der tyroler seite zum teil zu bezeichnen, und zum teil durch solehe heilige zeichen zu siihnen. du herrlicher christus, zu wie viel schandthaten mubt du dein bild herleihen. du selbst das griblichste denkmal der menschlichen verworfenheit, da stell ten sie dein bild auf, als wollten sie sagen: seht! die vollendetste schopfung des groben gottes haben wir mit frechen fiiben zertreten, sollte es uns etwa miihe kosten, das iibrige ungeziefer, genannt menschen, mit leichtem herzen zu vernichten?" references badura-skoda, paul. 1990a. on schubert's mass texts. american choral review 32: 5-7. ---. 1990b. schuberts korrumpierte mebtexte-absicht oder versehen? gedanken zum buch von hans jaskulsky die lateinischen messen franz schuberts. das orchester 38: 131-34. bauernfeld, eduard von. 1873. gesammelte schriften von bauernfeld. vol. 12, aus alt­ und neu wien. vienna: wilhelm braumiiller. benedikt, erich. 1997. notizen zu schubert messen-mit neuem urauffiihrungs­ datum der messe in f-dur. oesterreichische musikzeitschrift-schubert special 52: 64-69. 98 current musicology berio, taiia peeker. 1990. foreword to messen 1. neue schubert-ausgabe, ser. i, vol. la, ix-xv. kassel: barenreiter. biba, otto. 1978. besetzungsverhaltnisse in der wiener kirchenmusik. in zur auffiihrungspraxis der werke franz schuberts, edited by vera schwarz, 180-87. munich: katzbichler. ---. 1985. kirchenmusikaiische praxis zu schuberts zeit. in franz schubert:jahre der krise, 1818-1823, edited by werner aderhold, walther durr, and walburga litschauer, 113-21. kassel: barenreiter. brusatti, otto. 1978. schubert im wiener vormarz: dokumente 1829-1848. graz: akademische druckund verlagsanstalt. bunnell, adam. 1990. before infallibility: liberal catholicism in biedermeier vienna. rutherford: fairleigh dickinson university press. cross, f. l., and e. a. livingston, eds. 1985. s.w. "panentheism" and "pantheism." in the oxford dictionary of the christian church, 1027-28. 2d ed. oxford: oxford university press. denny, thomas. 1991. the years of schubert's a-fiat-major mass, first version: chronological and biographical issues, 1819-1822. acta musicologica 63: 73-97. deutsch, otto erich, ed. 1958. schubert: memoirs by his friends. translated by rosamond ley andjohn nowell. london: adam & charles black. ---, ed. 1964. schubert: die dokumente seines lebens. kassel: barenreiter. durr, walther. 1983. dona nobis pacem: gedanken zu schuberts spaten messen. in bachiana et alia musicologica: festschrift alfred diirr zum 65. geburtstag am 3. marz 1983, edited by wolfgang rehm, 62-73. kassel: barenreiter. ---. 1996. introduction to franz schubert, messe nr. 6 es-dur, faksimile der auto­ graphen partitur und der iiberlieferten entwiirfe. kassel: barenreiter. einstein, alfred. 1951. schubert. translated by david ascoii. london: cassel. finke-hecklinger, doris. 1980. foreword to messe in as: erste fassung. neue schubert­ ausgabe, ser. i, vol. 3a, viii-xiv. kassel: barenreiter. fischer, kurt von. 1985. bemerkungen zu schuberts as-dur-messe. in franz schubert: jahre der krise, 1818-1823, edited by werner aderhold, walther durr, and walburga litschauer, 121-29. kassel: barenreiter. gibbs, christopher h. 2000. the life of schubert. cambridge: cambridge university press. gramit, david. 1987. the intellectual and aesthetic tenets of franz schubert's circle: their development and their influence. ph.d. diss., duke university. hoorickx, reinhard van. 1979. textanderungen in schuberts messen. in schubert­ kongrej3: wien 1978: bericht, edited by otto brusatti, 249-54. graz: akade­ mische drucku. verlagsanstalt. jahrmarker, manuela. 1997. von der liturgischen funktion zum personlichen bekenntnis: die kirchenmusik. in schubert handbuch, edited by walther durr and andreas krause, 345-78. kassel, stuttgart, and weimar: barenreiter and metzler. jaskulsky, hans. 1986. die lateinischen messen franz schuberts. mainz: schott. kantner, leopold. 1978. franz schuberts kirchenmusik auf dem hintergrund stilistischer zusammenhange und personlicher einstellung. in schubertjohn gingerich 99 studien: festgabe der oesterreichischen akademie der wissenschaften zum schubertfahr 1978, edited by franz grasberger and othmar wessely, 131-41. vienna: oesterreichische akademie der wissenschaften. kreissle von hellborn, heinrich. 1861. franz schubert. vienna: druck und verlag der typographisch-literarisch-artistischen anstalt. litschauer, walburga, ed. 1986. neue dokumente zum schubert kreis, aus briefen und tagebiichern seiner freunde. vienna: musikwissenschaftlicher verlag. mckay, elizabeth norman. 1996. franz schubert: a biography. oxford: clarendon press. newbould, brian. 1997. schubert: the music and the man. berkeley: university of california press. okey, robin. 2001. the habsburg monarchy: from enlightenment to eclipse. new york: st. martin's press. scattolin, pier paolo. 1982. forward (messe in c) to messen ii. neue schubert-ausgabe, ser. i, vol. 2, xiii-xiv. kassel: barenreiter. stanley, glenn. 1997. schubert's religious and choral music: toward a statement of faith. in the cambridge companion to schubert, edited by christopher gibbs, 207-23. cambridge: cambridge university press. stefan-gruenfeldt, paul. 1928. schubert. berlin: volksverband der biicherfreunde, wegweiser-verlag. stringham, ronald. 1964. the masses of franz schubert. ph.d. diss., cornell university. thayer-forbes. 1967. thayer's life of beethoven. edited by elliot forbes. princeton: princeton university press. vetter, walther. 1953. der klassiker schubert. 2 vols. leipzig: c. f. peters. wagner, manfred. 1996. franz schubert: sein werk, sein leben. vienna: holzhausen. werle, heinrich. 1941. franz schubert, der mensch und sein werk. bayreuth: gauverlag bayreuth. winter, robert. 1982. paper studies and the future of schubert studies. in schubert studies: problems of style and chronology, edited by eva badura-skoda and peter branscome, 209-75. cambridge: cambridge university press. wissig, otto. 1909. franz schuberts messen. leipzig: poeschel & trepte. philip brett. 2006. music and sexuality in britten: selected essays, edited by george e. haggerty. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by byron adams like the septet of proust's fictional composer vinteuil, music and sexuality in britten: selected essays consists of shards collected and transformed into a satisfying whole. sadly, the collection's author, philip brett, died of cancer in 2002, shortly after receiving a guggenheim fellowship award for 2002-3 that would have aided him to complete a book on britten's life and work. while these selected essays cannot replace the larger project now forever lost-its potential richness strongly anticipated by brett's olympian entry on the composer for the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd edition (2001)-scholars of twentieth-century british music will be grateful for this volume. as attested by this splendid collection, meticu­ lously edited by brett's life partner george e. haggerty, brett's writings on britten's life and work remain unsurpassed for their insight, compassion, and elegance. happily, music and sexuality in britten enables the reader to trace the progressive refinement of brett's thought in a way that would necessarily have been submerged in a larger, more integrated work. in his preface, haggerty aptly observes that the "great virtue of this collection is that it shows philip coming at similar material over nearly thirty years and producing increasingly subtle and nuanced readings that suggest as much about critical practice as they do about their subject" (xii). in an eloquent postscript to the first essay in this volume, brett went right to the heart of the matter, articulating as he did so his life's work as a scholar: "my ultimate concern is the social experience of oppression and its effects on the writing of peter grimes, not britten's sexual preference" (26). to superficial readers of brett's work, such a statement may come as a surprise, especially from one of the founders of the "new gay and lesbian musicology." but it is precisely brett's concern with oppression as such that lends his work its continuing relevance now that the quarter-century-old "new musicology" has developed into a wide spectrum of approaches, some far from the wildest imaginings of its originators. in our own dark era, brett's compassion for the plight of the powerless and disenfranchised shines forth with an urgent brightness. this is not to deny that one of brett's most pressing concerns was the plight of gay men and lesbians harassed by a bigoted society. at the same time, however, as the totality of his work attests, he was equally sensitive to current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 147 148 current musicology the fate of such souls as recusant catholics, such as william byrd, during the elizabethan and jacobean periods. brett was well aware, furthermore, of the ghastly legacy of racial prejudice and the discrimination faced by women-especially women composers-in a patriarchal society. brett was never inclined to give gay men a "free pass" just because of their orienta­ tion; he wrote strongly against the "grotesque" tendencies embedded in the "elitism of certain kinds of privileged male homosexual subcultures" (108). (certain closeted musicologists who were members of that elite band did not take kindly to such rebukes and slapped back hard, often maligning brett, publicly and privately, using the misogynistic adjective "shrill.") brett wrote of his own tribe, gay men and lesbians, not because he valorized the sufferings of this persecuted minority above that of others, but because he was compelled by his innate honesty to write from his own experience, and because he decisively rejected a lazy ventriloquism that expropriates the experience of others. the heedless narcissism of a leonard bernstein, who thought he could assume the voice of african americans during the 1960s, was utterly foreign to brett, who used the injustice he encountered as a gay man as a lens through which to view compassionately the struggles of other oppressed peoples. for brett, there were no "case studies;' only those living in the shadow of grave discrimination that quickly turned to physical peril. brett found that britten's life and music provided an endlessly fascinating pretext for an ongoing investigation of the fraught interactions between the homosexual artist-in this case a great artist-and society; he writes that "what is so interesting about [britten] is how he dealt at a public level, in his music and especially in his operatic works, with the concatenation of musicality and homosexuality" (91). for this delicate scholarly operation, brett used intellectual tools that he honed to a surgical precision. avoiding both the temptation to uncritical essentialism and the allure of a safely positivist stance, brett amassed a wide range of approaches derived from such diverse (but interrelated) sources as feminist theory, as found especially in susan mcclary's writings; french critical theory as practiced by foucault and others; the emerging discipline of queer theory; psychology; the liberal humanism of e. m. forster; and the 1970s "gay liberation" movement. (brett's own gay identity was forged in berkeley and san francisco during that deliriously heady era.) as noted by haggerty, brett's arguments became more nuanced as he honed his understanding of the complex and often toxic interactions of class distinction and homosexuality that pervaded british society during britten's life (and before, and after, and today). to discern this continuing refinement, the reader need only compare chapter 6, "britten's bad boys: byron adams male relations in the turn of the screw," originally published in 1992, with chapter 8, "eros and orientalism in britten's operas," which appeared two years later in the volume queering the pitch. observations made in the earlier article are given a much richer, more provocative context in the later; the structure of "eros and orientalism" is much tighter than "britten's bad boys;' and the 1994 essay contains some coruscating insights into the sources of britten's expropriation of balinese gamelan sonorities. only a first-rate historian could have illuminated the composer's fascination with the gamelan by evoking the music of the canadian colin mcphee and the frenchman francis poulenc, both of whom were gay composers as well as friends of britten. of particular interest throughout music and sexuality is brett's acute understanding of the role played by class distinction in the policing-both figurative and literal-of homosexuals in twentieth-century britain. brett found himself in a unique position to speak with authority about the british class system. in the course of an affectionate introduction to this book, susan mcclary recalls that ''americans took [brett's] english accent and supremely elegant demeanor as signs of an elite background, but his father was a collier and his mother a teacher" (3). born into these distinctly unenviable circumstances as a british working-class homosexual, brett later turned them to advantage when, as an american citizen, he focused his sharp eye upon the oppressive milieu from which he himself had escaped to explicate the inner conflicts that drove britten: coming as he did from a cultured middle-class family, the security he undoubtedly felt was accompanied by those other middle-class character­ istics, a compulsion to work and a puritan ethic from which he never really wanted to break free ... the tension between these elements was appar­ ently greater for britten than it was for the many other twentieth-century composers who shared his homosexual orientation. it was a tension that could not be worked out in the usual ways, because of the puritanical streak that served him so well in other respects-we know that he was horrified by manifestations of gay subculture, and even by the word itself. (110) that brett repeatedly engaged directly and without euphemisms with the tragedy of britten's repressed life is a testament to his determination to contend with the forces responsible for that repression. by exposing the social prejudices that shaped britten's life and work, brett held up an unflattering mirror to the british society that structured the lives of both the middle-class composer and the working-class musicologist. while compelled to reveal social truths about britten's situation, brett was, before anything else, a musician. he chose to study britten's music not as a pretext to articulate a pro-gay ideology but because he loved it. brett's 149 150 current musicology detailed and assured knowledge of this music glows throughout these essays. even when rightly exasperated by britten's difficult personality, brett writes of the music with an uncanny sympathy and understanding. one of brett's most startling achievements was to enable his readers to forgive (or at least show compassion for) the flawed man molded by a hostile society, through an understanding of the music he composed. thus brett returns, again and ever again, to the music itself; those who have accused "new" musicologists of failing to engage with the music itself might read these essays with care. indeed, the cover of this volume features prominently a picture of brett as a conductor, and the impression made by this photograph is confirmed on every page, for he brought together a rare combination of elegant scholarship with high accomplishment as a practicing musician. his musical acumen enabled him to evoke britten's music in a manner at once lucid and sensuous, as in this description of a passage from the turn of the screw, miles's song "malo, malo" from act 1, scene 6: this concentrated, thematically obsessive tune, with its triadic harp ac­ companiment and plaintive viola/english horn countermelody, suggests very powerfully the abjection of the boyish masturbator-as if britten sensed from his vantage point of half a century later exactly the resonances of james's tale. every rising melodic figure suggesting awakening knowl­ edge is complemented by a downward turn epitomizing abjection. each occasion miles and his harp accompaniment coincide on a common note is matched by one when he sings a seventh or ninth to the harp's root; the string of descending sevenths at the end of the third phrase provides a balancing languor to the notably clearer, more positive sounds of the consonant, rising second phrase. (94) in certain of the later chapters, notably "keeping the straight line intact? britten's relation to folksong, purcell, and his english predecessors," brett clearly began to lay the foundations for an ongoing proj ect that would have placed britten's achievement within the broad context of twentieth-century british music history. this move was radical, for many of britten's admirers have preferred to view him as a cosmopolitan artist of international reputa­ tion who remained aloof from the parochial concerns of such countrymen as elgar, vaughan williams, bridge, ireland, and holst. in the course of this particular essay, which first appeared as a cd review in the musical times, brett arrives at the startling but logical conclusion that britten's being asked to arrange four english folksongs for a faber anthology in 1968 "was surely an acknowledgement of his position as the leading english composer of the folksong movement since the death of vaughan williams, and therefore in some way to be accounted the latter's successor as leading national composer" (169). one can only speculate how brett might have further extended this byron adams insight; certainly he would have broadened and deepened his acquaintance with the music of those english composers who preceded britten. (greater familiarity with the work of vaughan williams, for example, might have saved brett from one of his rare howlers, as he erroneously asserts that "folksongs in a piece like the lark ascending become simply the melodic material of a western high-art genre known as the 'tone poem,'" when, in fact, there are no folksongs whatsoever in this unjustly maligned score.) whatever brett might have accomplished in this direction would certainly have been as illuminating to readers as it would have been infuriating to donald mitchell and all those members of the aldeburgh "court" who have dedicated their lives to "protecting" britten's reputation. in an eloquent coda to this volume, jenny doctor touchingly recalls brett's persistence in braving the obstacles he encountered during the course of writing these essays, including impediments placed in his path by the composer's trustees at aldeburgh. but doctor makes the astute observation that "philip's infractions against the unsayable affected broader horizons and challenged many more people than the few concerned with the study of benjamin britten" (234). the truth of this statement can be proved by considering brett's career as a pedagogue, for although he was an inspiring, if demanding, teacher, he left no epigones. how can such disparate musicolo­ gists as robert fink, judith peraino, elisabeth le guin, and mitchell morris (to name only a few)-all of whom studied with brett at the university of california, berkeley-be pigeonholed as members of a putative "school of philip brett"? no, he did not cultivate disciples, but rather sought to liberate his students, his colleagues, his enemies, and his readers all from the stifling constraints of condoned repression and misplaced discretion. by repeatedly committing scandalous infractions against scholarly propriety, brett threw open a casement that admitted brisk cold air into the stuffy chambers of traditional musicology, sweeping away untenable assumptions and inhibi­ tions. philip brett's example will live on through his teaching, his writing, and, most precious of all, his courage. 151 current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf musical articulation: a synoptic view of baroque form by edward lippman as it does with any continuing stimulus, the response to a prolonged tone or group of tones will eventually disappear from consciousness. how long this takes to happen will depend on the nature of the stimulus: in the case of a single tone, obviously on its loudness, but also on its structure, on whether this is simply sinusoidal, or compound. in any event, the tone must be repeated or a different tone sounded if a melodic formulation is to arise. from the creative point of view, the melodic formulation comes first; it is a theme or motif, or even a whole melodic phrase that is then re­ peated but with an ending that complements and is more conclusive than the original one. in a continuing style, a theme or motif can become the starting point of a continuous melodic flow in which any possible point of articulation is indefinitely postponed. usually, however, a melody is made up of a succession of more or less well defined segments, or phrases, each of which is readily perceived as such and also bears certain obvious rela­ tionships to the phrases preceding and following it. the simplest relationship of this kind is the repetition of a phrase by the following one. if the second statement of the phrase is louder than the first, it will have the character of insistence; if it is softer, it will have the character of an echo. if the two statements are of the same loudness, the second will appear simply as the repetition of the first. a different kind of relationship of melodic phrases can be called a "diagonal relationship." melodic phrases related in this way, however, can­ not occur in a single voice. the prerequisite for them is the existence of two simultaneous melodic lines. if we then consider a melodic phrase in one of these lines, and that same phrase occurs again somewhat after­ wards in the other line, the relationship of the second statement of the phrase to the first is called, logically enough, imitation. mter completing the phrase in question, the line in which it first appears is free to continue melodizing in any way that is compatible with the sounding of the phrase when it appears in the second line. thus the first line of the resultant two­ voice texture can become entirely independent of past material. when the second voice completes the original melodic phrase, that same phrase-in a three-voice composition-will be announced once again by a third voice, while the first two voices are free to continue melodizing in any way that is compatible with the third voice that has entered. when current musicology, no. 75 (spring 2003) © 2003 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 116 current musicology this voice has completed the original melodic phrase, we have reached what can be called the end of the exposition. at this point the exposition can be repeated, which it often is, although sometimes in stretto fashion, so that each successive voice enters a measure sooner than it had origi­ nally. what follows can be thought of as freshly invented manipulations of the stated material. these new manipulations, however, are not literally new, but are in fact perceptibly derived from what has gone before, so that the composition in process of construction will retain throughout a char­ acteristic unity of both material and style, which can be taken as a basic property of a baroque musical work. the element of contrast is essentially excluded. it would appear then, that the articulation of such a work would represent one extreme of a range of possibilities, namely, the extreme of imperceptibility, or of concealment. the music gives the impression of unremitting continuity, that is, oflacking articulation altogether. the mono­ lithic character of a baroque work, however, suggests a number of further formal possibilities, each one of which has been realized in practice. an imitative work can be coupled with a harmonic or figural piece, as in the prelude and fugue. or imitative works can comprise a group in which the themes of the pieces are variants of one another or of the initial form. in addition to such coupling and grouping, of course, articulation may be intrinsic from the outset, as it is in the homophonic sections of an otherwise imitative work. other clearly articulated works can be found in the suite. the baroque suite usually is made up of a series of stylized dances, all in the same key. these are most often the allemand, courante, sarabande, and gigue, each of which is divided into two sections. the first section modu­ lates to the dominant. the second section, which opens in the same me­ lodic material, but in the new key, is longer than the first, and cadences in this new key. in the course of the second section, also, transitions to closely­ related keys generally occur, until finally there is a return to the initial key of the section, and the whole section is repeated without change. what is found in each dance of the suite, then, is a two-part form with respect to key, and a three-part form with respect to material. the structure of a baroque musical work, of course, generally cannot be described simply as imitative or articulated. for just as imitative works have inserted homophonic sections, it is even more the case that homo­ phonic works such as dances employ various kinds of polyphonic enrich­ ment. the style of a baroque musical piece is often not purely imitative or purely sectional. sex and laughter in women's music, 1970-77 sarah dougher the women's music movement of the early 1970s was created by and for women who came to political consciousness as a result of the women's liberation movement. the music culture that emerged, originally called "lesbian music;' gained the less controversial descriptor "women's music" as institutions such as record labels, distribution networks, and production companies evolved to meet audience demand (lont 1992:242). what differ­ entiated "women's music" from other music made by women of the period was its lesbian focus (in both lyrics and performance contexts). artists such as joni mitchell, carly simon, and joan baez had mainstream success with music that is almost identical sonically with women's music (folk-based, singer-songwriter, solo performance), and which explored topics of inter­ est to women who were benefiting from a world irrevocably altered by the feminist movement, a world that included having sex outside of marriage, earning your own money, ambivalence about family life, and living alone.] outside of the women's music movement, music produced during this period rarely make explicit links with emerging feminist consciousness, but those few songs that did have become anthemic: "respect," aretha franklin's 1967 cover of a song by otis redding, "i am woman," helen reddy's 1972 hit, and, to a lesser degree, honey cone's 1971 song "want ads." women's music, on the other hand, was created for a lesbian audience to describe lesbian experiences and desires: it was "music by women, for women, about women, and financially controlled by women" (lont 1992:242). describing themselves as lesbian-feminists and/or as women-identified-women, the key organizers of the women's music movement used music as their tool to raise consciousness through new venues for women to create, experience, and consume women's culture.2 before i describe the details of the women's music movement, it is useful to contextualize the political and cultural environment of feminist activity in the united states prior to the movement. feminist organizing in the early-to-mid 1960s focused primarily on including women in the national debates and legislation about civil rights (davis 1999:55). the national organization for women (now) represented the clearest manifestation of mainstream feminist political organizing at this time. founded in 1966, it was the movement's first mass-membership organization, which focused primarily on sex discrimination in the workplace. now held the equal employment opportunity commission responsible for enforcing the civil current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 35 36 current musicology rights act of 1964 (title vii), which had been passed by congress (friedan 1985:80). the organization employed a hierarchical organizing structure with elected officials and dues-paying members. this style of organizing is often referred to as liberal or mainstream feminism, in opposition to the next phase of the movement, which was called "women's liberation" (davis 1999:69). the women's liberation movement emerged around 1967 and was cre­ ated by younger women who had become politically radicalized through experiences in the organizing within the early women's and civil rights movements (collins 2010:178). women's liberationists fell into roughly two categories: one blamed capitalism for women's oppression, and the other patriarchy. the voices of this latter group soon began to dominate women's liberation groups that were forming in major urban centers across the united states, and these groups were often in conflict with mainstream, liberal feminists about tactics, strategy, and goals (echols 1989:13). this was nowhere more apparent than in the conflict that arose over the role of lesbians in the women's liberation movement. mainstream feminists before 1970 were reluctant to acknowledge or support lesbian identity as part of their political interests and practices, based on sensitivity to the accusation that all feminists were gay (collins 2010:172). early now leader betty friedan called lesbians the "lavender menace," according to the descriptions of sidney abbott and barbara love in their 1972 book sappho was a right-on woman, who caused rifts in the new york now chapter. friedan's rhetoric incited a protest at the congress to unite women in 1970, where 20 women wearing "lesbian menace" t-shirts disrupted the proceedings by reading their manifesto, the woman­ identified-woman (abbott and love 1972: 113-115).3 the term lesbian feminist emerged in the early 1970s when lesbians involved in women's liberation wanted to distinguish both their personal and political commitments from this movement. in political writing, lesbian sexuality was primarily described in political terms and was acceptable to the larger women's movement only when lesbians deemphasized sexuality and "conformed to a 'female' sexual standard" (echols 1989:239). this standard was articulated by robin morgan, who cited "the emphasis on genital sexu­ ality, objectification, promiscuity, emotional noninvolvement, and course invulnerability [as 1 the male style ... women ... placed greater trust in love, sensuality, humor, tenderness, commitment" (morgan 1978: 181). in the women's music movement, which was itself a lesbian-feminist cultural project, deemphasized sexuality was also ubiquitous in song lyrics and in the separatist contexts in which the music took place. radical political writings by lesbian feminists from this time (1967-1975) formulated consarah dougher cepts oflesbian desire in an anti-patriarchal, anti-masculine mode, and yet music made by lesbian feminists of the period often treats similar subjects playfully and with humor. this paper presents an analysis of humor in the early women's music movement through a close listening to studio and live recordings-two environments where humor and laughter played a role in the meaning and reception of the music, as well as in the reformulation of lesbian sexuality. women's music of this period was created in a complex, non-binary relationship to mainstream cultures, a position that was continually rein­ forced through the use of humor in music, and the experience of communal laughter within lesbian feminist musical environments. women's music emerged from a culture that was formulated in opposition to both the mainstream women's movement, as well as to patriarchal values (see jay, 1999; brownmiller, 1999; morgan 1978). in comparing the discourse of contemporaneous radical political texts on lesbian sexuality with music of the period, i argue that the music provided a public expression of lesbian desire that often used humor to speak (or sing) about topics that were not otherwise expressed in political discourse of the era. humor was an important feature of the women's music movement, both in songwriting as well as in concerts and festival performance environ­ ments that featured music and stand-up comedy. in lyrics, this most often manifests as witty references to specialized, in-group knowledge. lyrics also include elements of incongruity, relief, and surprise. because women's music was played and enjoyed by people who perceived of themselves as twice othered-oppressed by both mainstream society and homophobic feminist culture-the humor of this music informed and cohered commu­ nity gatherings by calling attention to and mocking these differences, all the while becoming a performative and stylistic signifier of group identity. the political context for women's music and lesbian sexuality alice echols differentiates between radical feminism and "cultural feminism" in the transition from early radical feminist hegemony in the women's liberation movement to the early 1970s: "radical feminists were typically social constructionists who wanted to render gender irrelevant while cultural feminists were generally essentialists who sought to celebrate femaleness" (echols 1989:6,243). these two strands offeminism differed inasmuch as radical feminism was a political movement that sought to illuminate women's sameness with men, and cultural feminism was a countercultural movement that defined women as essentially different from men. women created institutions and businesses such as recording and production companies 37 38 current musicology with missions that prioritized the creation of women's sanctuaries from patriarchy-not the creation of revolutionary political strategies to destroy it. the language used by radical feminists in position papers and pamphlets which i cite below precedes the flowering of the women's music movement, but there are some similarities (and significant differences) in the way this language evolved as the music movement emerged. the most striking ele­ ment of difference is the incorporation of humor into this discourse. women's music and musical environments were important to the cre­ ation oflesbian-feminist solidarity (davis 1999:269). women experienced music in both public performance environments (concerts and festivals), as well as on lp recordings produced and distributed by the few women­ operated labels; olivia records was the first and most preeminent among them.4 most of the women involved as musicians, producers, and audience members of these labels identified as lesbian feminists, and many of them had strong separatist convictions, often refusing to play to audiences that included men. 5 several of the women who formed the collectively run label were involved with the furies, a collective of radical feminists active in washington dc (lont 1999:243). most of the women in the collective were white (hayes 2010:3) and middle class, removed from, even if curious about, multicultural expressions of feminism or womanism that occurred simultaneously. radical feminists of the early 1970s viewed women's liberation and sexual liberation as mutually exclusive areas of political action (echols 1989:211). lesbians were said to reinforce the sex -class system by mimicking traditional male-female gender roles in pairing butch and femme (firestone 1970:3). the short-lived, new york-based radicalesbians (a group founded by author rita mae brown and other lesbians disillusioned by lesbian invisibility in both the feminist movement and in the newly-formed gay liberation front) collectively wrote a position paper in 1970 outlining their raison d' etre. the text was written in response to homophobic positions taken by reform-minded feminists (particularly in now) called "the woman-identified woman" (radicalesbians 1970). now policies reflected the widespread fear among feminist activists that their activism would cause them to be seen as lesbians (davis 1999:269). under the direction of founder betty friedan, for example, now attempted to distance itself from lesbian issues-including omitting the daughters of bilitis, america's oldest lesbian rights organization, from the list of sponsors of the first congress to unite women in november 1969. this was the same congress disrupted by the lavender menace activists, most of whom were radicalesbians (jay 199: 138; brownmiller 1999:82). the radicalesbian paper addressed lesbian sexuality explicitly by explaining it as a patriarchal concept. the paper argued that lesbianism is a political, rather sexual choice: sarah dougher lesbian is a label invented by the man to throw at any woman who dares to be his equal, who dares to challenge his prerogatives ... to have the label applied to people active in women's liberation is just the most recent instance of a long history; ... for a lesbian is not considered a "real woman." and yet, in popular thinking, there is really only one essential difference between a lesbian and other women: that of sexual orientation-which is to say, when you strip off all the packaging, you must finally realize that the essence of being a "woman" is to get fucked by men. (radicalesbians 1970) instead of being defined by sexuality or sexual preference, which they perceived as an external, patriarchal label, the radicalesbians determined that they should be called "women-identified women," which defines women's connections to one another in a much less concrete manner, using terms such as "energy flow;' emphasizing a less distinct and more intuitive relationship: only women can give to each other a new sense of self. that identity we have to develop with reference to ourselves, and not in relation to men. this consciousness is the revolutionary force from which all else will follow, for ours is an organic revolution. for this we must be available and supportive to one another, find our commitment and our love, give the emotional sup­ port necessary to sustain this movement. our energies must flow toward our sisters, not backward toward our oppressors. (ibid, 1970) for the radicalesbians and the many women-identified-women who came after them, the choice to pursue a lesbian relationship was a political one, challenging heterosexual feminists' assumptions about the nature of political action and their biases against lesbians. jane gerhard, in her study of sexual thought and second wave feminism, remarks that the "woman-identified­ woman" title emphasized the emotional component of sexuality for women: "in this set of associations, genitality and orgasm were devalued as 'male' and intimacy, sharing, and merging were celebrated as uniquely 'female'" (2001:113). a stronger statement of this challenge is charlotte bunch's 1972 article, "lesbians in revolt," published in the furies: lesbian/feminist monthly. this article reiterates, in no uncertain terms, that lesbian-feminists were pigeonholed by "male society" to such an extreme degree that they could barely have a private concept of themselves as sexual creatures, except as it oppressed them: 39 40 current musicology male society defines lesbianism as a sexual act, which reflects men's limited view of women: they think of us only in terms of sex. they also say that lesbians are not real women, so a real woman is one who gets fucked by men. we say that a lesbian is a woman whose sense of self and energies, including sexual energies, center around women~she is woman identified ... she is important to herself. our society demands that commitment from women be reserved for men. (1972: 8-9) in bunch's philosophy, there is a movement away from the politics of negation-from defining lesbians as women "not getting fucked by men" to lesbians as women-who-love-women, who are woman-identified. this ontological shift is mirrored in lyrics by alix dobkin-one of the women's music movement's earliest recording artists and biggest advocates of separat­ ism. her 1973 song, "the woman in your life" on the self-produced album, lavender jane loves women, encourages (female) listeners to recognize their own self sufficiency as individuals, but especially to recognize solidar­ ity through lesbian relationships, defined as being between women who fundamentally identify with one another. in the second verse of her song a lilting flute melody appears over dobkin's acoustic guitar. she sings: the woman in your life knows simply what is true she knows the simple way to touch to make your life whole new ... and who is sure to give you courage and who will surely make you strong ... the woman in your life is you. (1973: liner notes) although dobkin's asserts that the woman in your life, whether she be "you" or someone who is similar to "you" knows "simply what is true," this epistemological statement echoes meg christian's 1974 album title, i know you know. both encapsulate an assertion of insider knowledge, as well as implication that the performer (and her assumed listener) understand that women, especially lesbians, have a particular connection to one another. the lyrics to this song are typical of the word-play-based humor and dra­ matic irony for which dobkin is known. she asserts that "the woman in your life" (who at first the listener might suppose was a romantic interest, particularly because she "knows the simple way to touch") is actually "you:' this sentiment reiterates the lack of differentiation between women (woman -identified -women) and also emphasizes the value of self-knowledge and self-reliance. it serves to make the listener reflect on that the quest for intimacy and fulfillment as existing in a partner is somehow less gratifying than self-love. sarah dougher the women's music movement grew steadily beginning in the late 1960s, through informal networks of performers, producers, women's bookstores, and community centers associated with progressive political activist communities in washington, d.c. and the san francisco bay area (taylor and rupp, 1993; kehrer, 2010). with the development of a small number of record labels, distribution companies, festivals, newsletters, and magazines devoted to the movement, this music and the political discourse around it became available (although in a limited way) to people outside of lesbian-feminist political and social organizing communities.6 the policy of gender-based exclusion to create separatist spaces was (and is) an on-going discussion in the women's music community,? and the fractious debate reflects the diversity of positions held by women participat­ ing as musicians or audience members in the movement. fliers advertising performances from the period often advertised concerts by olivia records artists as "for women only" or "for lesbians only."8 this created friction not only with performance venues and promoters, but also between artists and audience members of different generations. many older participants came from the labor movement and other progressive, political folk com­ munities, and were consequently more closely aligned with class and labor struggles than with the politics of gender. 9 one of the first women's music artists, alix dobkin, was heavily involved with the greenwich village folk scene before she came out as a lesbian in 1973 (dobkin 2009). the musician meg christian had been performing in folk venues in washington, d.c. since the late sixties. she was often fired from traditional folk venues for, as she stated, bringing in the "wrong kind of clientele." 10 the exclusion that openly gay women felt from such mainstream venues contributed to the emergence of alternative, separatist venues, where the (sometimes imagined) oppressor was not allowed inside. in her examination of the homosocial community of women's music, judith peraino demonstrates the meaning that products of the subculture held in the process of identity formation in women's music communities in places such as the bay area, new york city, and washington, d.c. for women who were creating culture outside of mainstream corporate systems: "women's music ... defined a communal space: for the lesbian community, that space consisted of music concerts and festivals ... taken together these spaces provide a context for understanding the production and consumption of the recordings" (2006: 154). the separatist performance environments for early women's music were often geographically dispersed, with tours travel­ ing only to large cities and college towns. mail order became an important element in the distribution networks for the small labels, helping to reach audiences in smaller towns, or who were without mobility in large towns, or listeners who were uncomfortable with public communities of difference. 41 42 current musicology additionally, the binary of mainstream/subculture must be interrogated in the context of more recent work on queer music scenes as written about by j. jack halberstam. he writes that queer subcultures demonstrate the limits of subcultural theories because they omit consideration of sexuality and sexual styles: queer subcultures cannot only be placed in relation to a parent culture, and they tend to form in relation to place as much in relation to a genre of cultural expression, and ultimately, they oppose not only the hegemony of dominant culture, but also the main streaming of gay and lesbian culture." (2005:161) although "mainstreaming of gay and lesbian culture" was not an issue or a threat for the women who created the women's music movement, halberstam's insights are useful in understanding the contexts for and use of humor within lesbian-feminist musical environments, because these environments were frequently created both in opposition to the patriarchal mainstream as well as in opposition to the mainstream women's liberation movement. lesbian separatists expressed their identity through both the treatment of sexuality in the music, and its incorporation of humor, creating a significant rhetorical (if not literal) space for difference and solidarity. musical environments were important spaces for the development of community identity and values in early 1970s lesbian -feminist communities in the united states. i i together with the development of other institutions such as softball leagues, theaters, bookstores, and clinics, music venues (which were often ephemeral, rented spaces) served as a social hub for women who were looking for other women who shared their lesbian-feminist politics and their sexual interests (lockard 1886:83). shared identity was expressed in women's music environments through humor that focused around the unique experiences of lesbians, incorporating mainstream stereotypes oflesbian life. live recordings and archival video from the time show laughter as a central communal experience for women involved with these environments. 12 there is a close relationship between this laughter and the lack of reference to sex and sexuality in this music, and this partially stems from the socio-political context of the women's liberation movement, and the contested position of lesbian identity and lesbian sexuality within it. i know you know meg christian's 1974 recording, i know you know was the first album released by olivia records. the cover of the album contains a black and white photograph of christian-who became one of the most well-known sarah dougher example 1: i know you know (1974, olivia records). and best selling artists of the early women's music movementwearing bell-bottom jeans and a long sleeve t -shirt [see example 1j. she is propped jauntily, almost elfin in her pixie haircut, on a short pillar, and is surrounded by an ivy-covered wall. in this image, she is -in 1970s contemporary dress standards and in bodily comportment-androgynous. she holds her hands over her bent knees, her fingertips touching, as if to show a scheme in effect. her bare feet are up on another pillar, and through her dark-framed, owl­ like glasses she peers over her left shoulder and out of the frame, toward the title: i know you know. androgyny was embraced by lesbian-separatists in reaction to more traditional butch-femme styles favored in early decades within lesbian subcultures (kennedy and davis, 1993: introduction). androgynous style represented a rejection of lesbian relationships based on heteronorma­ tive models, where one partner was more masculine and the other more feminine. lesbian-separatist ideas about "true" equality, and of identity formed external to patriarchal structures, emphasized fashion and sexual styles favoring androgyny. the album title begs the question: i know you know what? also, who is the "you" in this construction? when this album was released in 1975, olivia records was conducting most of their business by mail order and making their recordings available to their roster of artists to sell at their live 43 44 current musicology performances. meg christian's record was the first full-length record to be released on the first lesbian-separatist record label. 13 the title implies that the audience and the performer are in collusion, and that they share secret knowledge. historian lauron kehrer also notes this shared knowledge in her interviews with the terry grant (founder of the women's music distributor goldenrod) who began her career as a fan (2010:4). the cover of this album (see example 1) is both playful and fearful: the glance over the shoulder, paired with the title, can be read as revealing the anxiety about being outed as a lesbian, as well as the glee in spotting a sister who would recognize one as such. this juxtaposition of anxiety and hope on what is a notable first in the genre of women's music points to questions about how early iterations of this music deal with the topics of sexuality, identity, public perception, and private knowledge-all within the cultural context characterized by homophobia. i know you know begins with the song "hello hooray," which was originally written by canadian songwriter rolf kempf, recorded first by folk singer judy collins in 1968, and was covered by alice cooper in 1973 on his billboard chart-topping album, billion dollar babies. a rousing album opener for all three artists, the song has lyrics that make numer­ ous self-reflexive references to "the show" and "the song"; the audience is "coming here to stay / each of us an actress / each of us a play." christian's version starts delicately, but soon moves into a sweeping, melodic chorus. for christian, the song quickly encapsulates the inclusively and community­ minded ethic of her folk roots, and of women's music concerts in particular. christian added some original lyrics at the end of the song, which highlight the importance of laughter as a healing, communal act: so we will sit and we'll act so prim and we will laugh after all these years of crying and self-denying and lonely waiting and fears and hesitating yes we'll laugh, yes we'll laugh, yes we'll laugh ... (1974) these lyrics depart from versions by prior artists by summoning a com­ munal experience, shared between the singer and the audience. the "we" who will laugh after crying, self-denial and other emotions that come from isolation and oppression in a homophobic world, are not laughing at anyone or anything, but rather letting forth a laugh that celebrates the community that the performance of music can make, and the possibility of "another song" -a song by and for women. this reclamation oflaughter implies a joy in finding a common language and shared meaning within lesbian culture. sarah dougher the subjectivity inherent in humor (that "i" may find something funny, but "you" might find it offensive) is at play here, as is the function of laughter to tame feelings of anxiety. in her comprehensive analysis of christian's first album, judith peraino states that christian "attempted to record the political and emotional horizons of a queer sexual identity for lesbian audiences," citing songs that record "very specific emotional details of same-sex desire" (2006:154). by making the emotions of same-sex desire explicit, the language christian uses to describe it is decidedly modest, and fully in keeping with the political conventions and language of contemporary lesbian-separatism. the desire described in the lyrics is not spectacular, campy, or overtly sexual. this modesty is a political statement about the assumption of lesbian sex as "normal:' as defined by and for lesbians, not outsiders. one such example is "ode to a gym teacher:' an up-beat acoustic guitar-based song written by christian, which describes a young woman's crush on her physical education instructor. using a lesbian cliche that had made it out of lesbian subculture only through tragic narratives of exposure and scandal such as in the 1961 film featuring audrey hepburn and shirley maclaine, the children's hour, the song makes reference to the commonplace of a student's infatuation for a same-sex teacher. the song reclaims that otherwise-doomed relationship with lesbian-specific cultural referents, recalling a well-known bi-sexual poet ("i gave her everything .. . some suggestive poems for christmas by miss edna millay"). although the teacher "will always be a player on the ball field of my heart:' the song functions as a nostalgic in-joke more than a clear description of sexuality or desire. as humor theorists julia stanley and susan robbins write, much lesbian humor works through what they call 'theft' oflanguage, "playing off heterosexist assumptions and institutions," taking patriarchal myths and subverting them within a lesbian context (1977:26). this happens again at the line "and though graduation meant that we had to part," which kehrer recognizes is accompanied by a melody that sounds like it is taken from the "funeral march" of chopin's piano sonata no.2, which was frequently used to mockingly reference death, especially in animated cartoons popular in the era, such as warner brothers' looney tunes and merry melodies (cor­ respondence with kehrer, 2010). there is subtlety in christian's description of the emotional connec­ tions between lesbians, their friends, lovers, and families, and the effect is that of a draping of gauzy romanticism over the struggles and celebrations of women-loving-women (peraino ibid). gentle metaphors and romantic descriptions of a kind of disembodied love-relationship begin to make more sense in relation to the descriptions of lesbian sexuality that were expressed 45 46 current musicology by contemporary lesbian-feminist social and political thinkers. replacing discourse about sexual relationships with discourse on relationships of sup­ port and strength based on equal struggle against the oppressive patriarchy, both the lyricists and the political theorists of this period opt for metaphors and descriptions which exclude the explicitly carnal. although emotional connections and political solidarity between women were acceptable, and in some cases even considered a lesbian political position, lesbian desire was a contested subject. humor and release by creating separatist performance environments, women's music musicians, promoters, technicians, producers, and audience members were able to create what they considered to be temporary utopian spaces in which influences of patriarchy (and its attending oppression) were absent. scholars janet bing and dana heller have explored the role of humor in lesbian cultures, and their characterizations are appropriate for reading the contexts of women's music performances. bing and heller show how humor creates insider and outsider status as well as community identity, helping to unburden people of the oppression they feel in the outside world: whether consciously or unconsciously, much oflesbian humor challenges the dominant culture by rejecting its definitions of and presuppositions a bout lesbians, and by making lesbian experience central to its understand­ ing of normalcy. (2003:158) the fact that this kind of joking takes place within a "safe" context of women-only and/ or lesbian-only space allows a kind of freedom for emotive expression, both in relation to the social formations of the environment, as well as the lyrical content of the music. humor also simplifies the complex relationships between lesbians and non -lesbians by making statements and assumptions about what lesbians know, and by contrast what non-lesbians don't know. in describing one important performance context, the festival culture of the women's music movement, scholar bonnie morris recognizes that "festivals are humorous events. they offer real situation comedy because most of us don't live like this year round. we do indeed poke fun at our recognizable archetypes ... "(2005:180). these events became a crucible for humor by placing women with similar reference frames and social expecta­ tions together. in an interview, alix dobkin reiterated this function of humor within the women's music environments of the early 1970s: sarah dougher the brilliant thing about lesbian feminist politics it that it was new to almost everyone, especially at the time we were inventing it. it was an extraordinarily rich environment for creativity. it was dynamic in many ways, and humor was one of the most powerful tools that i could use for reaching a certain level of consciousness and making people pay attention. it made them able to approach something scary, to give people comfort and familiarity. if you can laugh at something, it can open you up so maybe a new idea can get through. i try to be as subversive as possible with my humor, humor is a wedge, it's an opening, a new perspective. it allows for political analysis, for truth; that's where the power lies, in the truth that has not been spoken before in that way or possibly ever. that's what was so brilliant about lesbian-feminism in the seventies, it was a rich source of material because everything was going to be original ... the best humor is about the truth, it is the most powerful humor and it makes people pay attention to the truth. (interview with the author, november 2010) dobkin's comments identify the heady environment in which lesbians at a women's music concert felt they were speaking new truths about their lives for the first time, and making the first statements about lesbian-feminist identity in musical form. it was an environment in which their sexuality and identity were being addressed publicly, and where performance made it more valid. she suggests that some contexts for humor in music took place in environments of fear, as well as exaltation of new political and sexual identi­ ties. at the same time she and her peers were "inventing" lesbian feminism, they were aware of the dangers involved in making their life-stories available to the world outside of their group. at another point in the interview she notes, "of course i understood my audience. i was my audience." here she belies the density of her insider community, her sense that performer and audience were practically the same. additionally, humor functioned to get everyone in the audience to create a communal understanding of the political and psycho-social nuances of shared experiences, an in-group of experience for which there was yet little public description. early separatist environments could be giddy places. often they were the first opportunities for women who had not publicly acknowledged their lesbianism to be "out" around other women. 14 they were also emotionally charged environments, as olivia founder ginny berson describes one early meg christian show in washington, d.c.: we started to notice in the women's bathrooms, women running into the bathrooms and crying, and sobbing. what was going on was that meg's music and the fact that meg was paying attention to women in the audi­ ence was so moving to them that it was releasing something in them and they were crying. 47 48 current musicology when she was introduced and she walked out on the stage there was so much energy in the room that i saw her literally knocked backwards by it. women were seeing themselves in many cases, for the first time women were seeing the entirety of their community, they got to see that, oh my god, we can fill this room. (in radical harmonies, olivia records founder ginny berson). berson recognizes the "energy" given off by christian as something that provided both community connection for women in the audience, as well as an opportunity for cathartic release at the realization and joy that they were among their peers, perhaps for the first time ever. along with clapping to the beat or singing along to the song, laughter functioned to unify the audiences, and the humor that elicited that laughing was an important ele­ ment in the solidarity of women's music audiences throughout the hey-day of the style. in recordings and the rare film footage of early women's music perfor­ mances venues (available as part of the 2001 documentary of the movement, radical harmonies), there is commonly an overwhelming amount of audi­ ence participation, ranging from squeals of delight, to clapping, singing, and laughing. on the tenth anniversary of olivia records in 1983, the company brought cris williamson and meg christian to new york city's carnegie hall. the concert was sold out two months in advance, attended by more than 5,600 people, and resulted in a live double-lp (live at carnegie hall). on the album, the sound of the primarily female audience is mixed low, but even at this mainstream venue and a decade on in the women's movement, a listener can hear the group participation (laughing at jokes, clapping to familiar songs, singing along) throughout. this successful culminating event for the label (which in 1988 switched business models to run a lesbian cruise company) represented a decade of grassroots cultural organizing. in 1977, olivia released lesbian concentrate: a lesbianthology of songs and poems, in part as a response to former pop singer and then orange-juice spokes model anita bryant's highly-publicized anti-gay advocacy in dade county, florida, which resulted in an equally publicized gay-rights activist and sympathetic celebrities' boycott of florida orange juice. the cover of lesbian concentrate features a cartoon of a sweating orange juice can that proclaim its contents to be "100% undiluted;' which provides a visual joke for those familiar with bryant's homophobic politics. the album collects both new and older tracks from other olivia releases and characterizes the activity and energy of the women's music scene up to that moment. it was the first album olivia released that proclaimed lesbian identity, and it did so in a bold way. not only in the title, as well as in the song lyric and poem content, the album contained a (homo ) erotically-charged visual pun and coined a humorous, unwieldy neologism: lesbianthology. sarah dougher the back of the album shows a photograph of women protesting, the most prominent of whom is carrying a sign that says, "lesbians for oj, our justice" and the following manifesto, written by the olivia collective: along with many of you (we suspect), we were amused when a part-time orange-juice pusher began to rant against homosexuals. later we were horrified at the intensity of the attack and the support it generated. we now have to match that force flip-flop it back onto itself. we think the proper response is to recognize our bonds and support each other as strongly as we can. this is more than time to come out. we think it's time for energetic affirmation of lesbian identity and culture. part of the proceeds from this record will go to the lesbian mothers' national defense fund. (1977: liner notes) the women of olivia employ a strategic essentialism by implying a singular "lesbian identity and culture" that must be affirmed in the face of the homophobic activism stirred up by anita bryant and the emerging forces of the christian right. the politics of this resistance are encompassed by the music and spoken-word performance on the album, much of which is humorous, and by the detailed networking information and earnest political writing in the liner notes. the gatefold insert in lesbianthology is of particular interest because although olivia records always contained liner notes with complete lyric sheets, photos of the artists and ofthe olivia collective (as well as illustra­ tions and sometimes translations into spanish,) but this one was different: it served as an explicitly activist tract. the album title proclaimed what had been long understood by its fans, (that the artists and audiences identified predominately as lesbians), and the notes, written by olivia founders ginny berson and robin brooks "for the women of olivia records," state that they are "out to change the world!" the notes assess the position of lesbians in contemporary american society, in the shadow of bryant's "save our children" campaign: for lesbians now, this is a time of great challenge and great potential. we must remember that the difference we have among ourselves are miniscule in comparison with the differences we have with our true enemies the people who hold power over us and make our lives difficul. we have some­ thing now that lesbians have never had before we have each other, out front, publicly proclaiming our strength, our love, our pride in ourselves, and our joy at being woman-loving women (1977: liner notes). the notes also include information about the lesbian mother's national defense fund, as well as a listing, with addresses and telephone numbers, of feminist and lesbian community organizations from nearly every state. this 49 50 current musicology was significant information for organizing in an era still marked by invis­ ibility and lack of access to basic information about gay and lesbian culture. the notes could be a means for the women's music fan to transform into a lesbian activist, and to connect with a community beyond the audience at a show, making concrete and practical the solidarity implied by the humor of many of the tracks on the album. the extensive contacts imply a national movement which was still somewhat fragmented and largely concerned with local issues at this time; although large cities and university towns had some resources for lesbians, many women were isolated from both political and social organizing efforts, often making long trips to women's music festivals to enjoy the camaraderie and entertainment (morris 1999:17). lesbian concentrate features a live version of meg christian's song, "ode to a gym teacher." the song is significantly more animated than the original version, and showcases some of the most important interplay between artist and audience, emphasizing the shared humor of the song. each consecutive chorus of the song elicits louder cheers and animated laughter, together with rhythmic clapping. the lines that get the most laughter throughout the song are those that provide in-group information: things lesbians might say to one another to convey special knowledge about the experiences of growing up gay (i.e. liking sports or writer and feminist edna st. vincent milay). the lines that elicit the biggest laughs are reproduced below: she was a big tough woman, the first to come along that showed me being female meant you still could be strong and through graduation meant that we had to part she'll always be a player on the ball field of my heart. (laughter, clapping) i wrote her name on my note-pad and inked it on my dress and i etched it on my locker and i carved it on my desk and i painted big red hearts with her initials on my books and i never knew till later why i got those funny looks ... (chorus with laughter, clapping in time) well, in gym class while the others talked of boys that they loved i'd be thinking of new aches and pains the teacher had to rub (laughter) and when other girls went to the prom i languished by the phone calling up and hanging up if i found out she was home. sarah dougher (chorus with even more laughter, singing along) so you just go to any gym class and you'll be sure to see one girl who sticks to teacher like a leaf sticks to a tree one girl who runs the errands and who chases all the balls one girl who may grow up to be the gayest of all. (laughter, clapping) (1977: liner notes, with added audience transcriptions) along with the shared experience of the romance and frustration that comes from being a young lesbian with a crush on an older teacher, the hilarity of inhabiting the stereotype oflesbians as explicitly sexual, predatory creatures is explored in the track "leaping lesbians," written by sue fink and joelyn grippo. it first appeared on the album meg christian: face the music in 1977 (olivia records). the instrumentation is a honky-tonk piano with accompanying slide-whistle with an arrangement that sounds more like vaudeville slapstick than like the gentle folk-music or vague funk styles on the rest of the album. the song begins with a classic haunted-house creaking door and scary cackling just before the opening lines: here come the lesbians here come the leaping lesbians (slide whistle) the lyrics of the song mock the idea that lesbians are frightening and that they are preying on the listener: don't look in the closet who's creeping down the stairs who's slipping up behind you watch out, better beware the song highlights the lesbian perception of what others think about them, and can also be read as a parody of the idea that homosexuality is villainous or alien. it also refers to the identity of the lesbian as a magical, powerful, and aggressive person. it characterizes lesbians as threatening because they are sexual predators: 51 52 current musicology we're going to please you, tease you hypnotize you try to squeeze you we're going to get you if we can ... don't go and try to fight it run away or try to hide it we want your love and that's our plan here come the lesbians the mock derision of lesbians through a characterization of their sexual desire also has a double meaning in these lines, since they could also be lodged at a closeted lesbian, and as such may be somewhat reassuring (albeit with nervous laugher). nonetheless, these lines are in keeping with political language of the period that suggests that "male society" (both men, and feminists who are afraid that lesbians will derail the women's movement) view lesbians as women who have sex with women, and that this is their only identity. bing and heller recognize the role of sex and sexuality in lesbian joking as central to the function of creating a group identity from within: whereas the term "lesbian joke" usually activates a sex frame for the dominant culture, much humor created by and for lesbians is based on a switch from a sex frame to a non-sex frame. when lesbian jokes "are" about sex, they affirm the right not only to private sex, but also to public representation. (2003:164) "leaping lesbians" parodies the homophobic perception that lesbians are necessarily sexual predators, and so is both about sex (that lesbians do it) and not about sex (it implies that it is impossible that lesbians would possess predatory sexual desire). it also makes lesbians into entities who "leap." are they fairies? monsters? the fairy-tale quality of the alliteration imagines beings who are not far removed from the elfin meg christian from the i know you know album cover, only more sinister. lesbian feminists who participated in women's music culture in the early seventies created environments in both recordings and live perfor­ mance venues where their lived experiences were described, celebrated, and shared-often with humor. music played a central function in this larger cultural process because it publicly presented emotionally inflected and often personal versions of the political doctrine that predominated in manifestos and other dogmatic writings of the period, particularly as it pertained to sex and sexuality. in the development of full political and social expression of lesbians in the united states, the absence of overt expressions of sex and sexuality is notable, especially considering the fully kinetic connections simultaneously occurring in disco culture, which became an increasingly sarah dougher important venue for the expression and celebration of gay male sexuality (lawrence 1977; echols 2011). it would not be long until elements of the separatist lesbian cultures would begin to identify and celebrate sexuality as an affirming aspect of identity, albeit reluctantly, recognizing that the power imbalance that had once been the central point for the criticism of the patriarchy was actually a key element of sexual expression and pleasure. 15 humor and laughter within the development of the first woman­ centered music environments helped to define group identity. it relieved the often-rancorous theoretical debates about the politics of sexuality by identifying the oppressor as external to the group, and by parodying ste­ reotypes about lesbian sexuality for the pleasure of the audience. finding refuge from both the mainstream society and homophobic feminist culture, the people who played and enjoyed this music found common ground in the pleasure of their laughter. notes 1. mainstream success in this context refers to both the relative commercial and critical suc­ cesses enjoyed by each of these artists: joni mitchell's rolling stone cover story from may 17, 1969, her inclusion on greatest guitarist, singer and artist lists (rollingstone. com accessed april 4, 2011), multiple grammy nominations and induction into the rock 'n' roll hall of fame (whitesell 2008); carly simon's multiple top-10 hits from between 1970 and 1977 and her best new artist grammy in 1971 (rollingstone.com accessed april 4, 2011); joan baez's appearance at large concerts such as the newport folk festival, woodstock and the concert for bangladesh between 1959-1975 (baez 1987). this is compared with the nearly complete absence of women's music artists from media sources like rolling stone or billboard. a search on billboard.com and rollingstone.com on april 4, 2011 revealed album listings for cris williamson and meg christian (the two best -selling musicians of the movement,) but no news articles or reviews. this is despite the fact that williamson has made nearly thirty albums, and her album the changer and the changed was one of the best-selling indepen­ dently produced and distributed albums of the 1970s, selling 100,000 units its first year, and eventually selling an estimated 500,000 (garafalo, 1992:245). 2. the olivia records collective describe their ambitions in an article penned for of tour backs v.4 #9 (august/september 1974), "the muses of olivia: our own economy, our own song." 3. abbott and love (1972) describe the following day of the conference when the lesbians offered popular workshops and detailed resolutions at the days' end, including "(1) be it resolved that women's liberation is a lesbian plot" -a clear example of how these lesbians used humor to both mock the mainstream feminists who marginalized them and find solidar­ ity in their position. by openly stating the idea that was so clearly implicated by mainstream feminists' actions towards lesbians, they rendered it ridiculous. 4. other labels included redwood records, wise woman/vrana, and pleides. 5. this historical context is explored in morris (1999) eden built by eves: the culture of women's music festivals. 6. besides olivia, women's music labels include kay gardner's urana records (new york city), women's wax works, redwood records (established by holly near in 1973) and margi adam's and barbara price's pleiades records (berkeley). 53 54 current musicology 7. this conflict continues at one of the last holdouts of separatist music culture in the united states, the michigan women's music festival, which only allows self-identified "women-born women" in the gates, disallowing male-to-female transgendered people. 8. see alix dobkin's adventures in women's music and radical harmonies. 9. this conflict is explored in the film, radical harmonies by dee mosbacher, 2002. 10. ibid. 11. cf. morris, eder, laird, taylor and rupp, kearney, rodnitzky and faderman. 12. see mosbacher, dee. radical harmonies. 13. olivia's mission statement was reproduced on all their releases: olivia records is a national women's recording company. our purposes are to make high quality women's music available to the public, to give women musicians access to the recording industry, to offer training in the technical, musical and other fields related to the recording industry, and to provide jobs with decent pay in non-oppressive conditions. all money raised from record sales and contributions will be used for the purchase of our own studio, the production of future records, and the training and salaries of the women involved in olivia. the owners of this company are the women who work for it. 14. radical harmonies, 2001, hotwire journal publisher and producer, toni armstrong jr,. 15. see gerhard 2001: 157-164. referencej abbott, sidney & love, barbara 1972. sappho was a right-on woman: a liberated view of lesbianism. new york: stein and day. baez, joan. 1987. and a voice to sing with. new york: summit books. baxandall, rosalyn and gordon, linda. 2000. dear sister: dispatches from the women's liberation movement. new york: basic books. bing, janet and heuer, dana. 2003. "how many lesbians does it take to screw in a light bulb?" in humorinternational journal of humor research. 16 (issue 2). brownmiller, susan. 1970. sisterhood is powerful. in new york times magazine, march 15. _____ 1999. in our time: a memoir of revolution. new york: random house. buechler, steven m. 1990. the women's movements in the united states: woman suffrage, equal rights, and beyond. new brunswick: rutgers university press. bunch, charlotte. 1972. lesbians in revolt. in the furies: lesbian/feminist monthly 1 (january). christian, meg. 1974. i know you know (lp) olivia records. colins, gail. 2010. when everything changed: the amazing journey of american women from 1960 to the present. new york: back bay books. davis, flora. 1999. moving the mountain: the women's movement in america since 1960. urbana: university of illinois press. dobkin, alix. 1979. adventures in women's music. new york: tomato publications. _____ . 2001. living with lavender jane. (cd version of the albums, living with lesbians (1975) and lavender jane loves women (1973)), distributed by ladyslipper, durham,nc. sarah dougher _____ .2009. my red blood: a memoir of growing up communist, coming onto the greenwich village folk scene, and coming out in the feminist movement. new york: alyson books. duplessis, rachel blau and snitow, ann, eds. 2007. the feminist memoir project. new brunswick: rutgers university press. echols, alice. 1989. daring to be bad: radical feminism in america, 1967-1975. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. _____ .2011. hot stuff: disco and the remaking of american culture. new york: w.w. norton and co. eder, donna, suzanne staggenborg, and lori sudderth. 1995. "the national women's music festival: collective identity and diversity in a lesbian -feminist community." in journal of contemporary ethnography. vol. 23,(4) 485-515. faderman, lillian. 1991. odd girls and ilvilight lovers: a history of lesbian life in twentieth century america. new york: columbia university press. firestone, shulamith. 1970. the dialectic of sex: the case for feminist revolution. new york: william morrow. friedan, betty. 1985. it changed my lije: writings on the women's movement. new york: norton. garafolo, r., ed. 1992. rockin the boat: mass music and mass movements boston: south end press. gerhard, jane. 2001 desiring revolution: second wave feminism and the rewriting of american sexual thought, 1920-1982. new york: columbia university press. halberstam, judith. 2005. [n a queer time and place. new york: nyu press. hayes, eileen m. 2010 songs in black and lavender: race, sexual politics and women's music. urbana: university of illinois press. jay, karla. 1999. tales of the lavender menace: a memoir of liberation. new york: basic books kendall, laurie j. 2006. from the liminal to the land: building amazon culture at the michigan womyn's music festival. disseration, university of maryland, college park. kehrer, lauron. 2010. "navigating femionism and capitalism: lesbian community." paper given at the american musicological society annual meeting, indianapolis, indiana, unpublished. kennedy, elizabeth and davis, madeline. 1993. boots of leather, slippers of gold: the history of a lesbian community. new york: routledge. kimball, gayle. 1981. women's culture: the women's renaissance of the seventies. metuchen, n.j.: scarecrow press. laird, j. 1994. "lesbian families: a cultural perspective." in smith college studies in social work, 64 (issue 3). lawrence, tim. 2003. love saves the day: a history of american dance music culture, 19701979. durham, nc: duke university press. lockard, denyse. 1986. "the lesbian community: an anthropological approach." in anthropology and homosexual behavior. evelyn blackwood, ed. london, haworth press. lont, cynthia. 1992. "women's music: no longer a small private party." in rockin the boat: mass music and mass movements ed. garafolo, r, ed. boston: south end press. morgan, robin 1978. going too far: the personal chronicle of a feminist. new york: random house. morris, bonnie. 2005. "negotiating lesbian worlds: the festival communities:' in journal of lesbian studies, vol. 9, issue 1&2. ~_1999. eden built by eves: the culture of women's music festivals. new york: alyson 55 56 current musicology books. mosbacher, dee. 2001. radical harmonies. dvd. produced by margie adam, june millington, boden sandstrom. wolfe video. mulder, m.p. and nijholt, a. "humor research: state of the art." university oftwente, technical report ctit-02-34, september 2002. penelope, julia and wolfe, susan, eds. 1993. lesbian culture: an anthology: the lives, work, ideas, art and visions of lesbians past and present. freedom, california: the crossing press. peraino, judith a. 2006. listening to the sirens: musical technologies of queer identity from homer to hedwig. berkeley: university of california press. radicalesbians. 1970. the woman-identified woman. pittsburgh: know, inc. rodnitzky, jerome. 1975. "songs of sisterhood: the music of women's liberation:' in popular music and society 4 (issue 2). sanders, barry. 1995. sudden glory: laughter as subversive history. boston, beacon press. sandstrom, boden. 2002. performance, ritual and negotiation of identity in the michigan women's music festival. dissertation, university of maryland. scovil, ruth. 1981. "women's music:' in women's culture: the women's renaissance of the seventies. metuchen, n.j.: scarecrow press, 148-162. stanley, julia and robbins, susan. 1977. "lesbian humor:' in women: a journal of liberation, 5.1 (1977): 26-29. stein, arlene. sex and sensibility: stories of a lesbian generation. berkeley: university of california press, 1997. taylor, verta and rupp, leila. 1993. "women's culture and lesbian feminist activism: a reconsideration of cultural feminism." in signs, vol. 19, no.1 (autumn). whitesell, lloyd 2008. the music of joni mitchell. new york and london: oxford university press. various artists. 1977. lesbian concentrate: a lesbianthology of songs and poems, (lp) olivia records. permissions: album cover of i know you know (1975, olivia records) by meg christian; used by permission from judy dlugacz, owner of olivia records. lyrics to "ode to a gym teacher" from the album i know you know (1975, olivia records) by meg christian; used by permission from judy dlugacz, owner of olivia records. lyrics to "leaping lesbians" from the album lesbian concentrate (1977, olivia records) by sue fink; used by permission from sue fink. lyrics to "hello hooray" (extra lyrics by meg christian) from the album i know you know (1974, olivia records); used by permission from judy dlugacz, owner of olivia records. lyrics to "the woman in your life" from the album lavender jane loves women (1973, women's wax works) by alix dobkin used by permission from alix dobkin. producing producers: women and electronic/ dance music rebekah farrugia and thorn swiss at the time of our meeting, ashley lived in san francisco's famous haight­ ashbury district now overrun with chain stores such as the gap and ben and jerry's. she lived in a large victorian house with six roommates, which is fairly typical of twenty-something artists in this city. we walked down a long hallway, through the kitchen and down the stairs to the basement where all her belongings, including the technology she used to make electronic music, were stored in the single room she called home. inspirational messages­ some cut out of magazines and newspapers, others hand-written-adorned the walls, giving some order to the disheveled space. for the next few hours we lounged on a futon on the floor while ashley related stories about what it was like to be a young woman with few connections to san francisco's electronic/dance music scene while nevertheless trying to create music and have it heard. there was an experience from a live performance. she had recently given that she wanted to talk about: i was setting up my equipment and i disappeared for a minute. the band had taken my power strip and started plugging their stuff into it. the sound guy took it and gave it to the band, but i was going on before the band. [it] threw off my whole vibe. i'm a firm believer in making friends with the sound guy' cause they make you or break you. having the power strip stolen was a huge symbol of disrespect to me 'cause if i was a guy, and i hate saying this, i hate bringing in this if-i-was-a-guy statement, but it's true. if i was a guy setting up all my gear and i went to go to the bathroom and came back i doubt he would have stolen my power strip you know. l with interviews as the primary source material, this article illustrates the processes by which commonplace discursive and material practices situate women outside of the production of electronic/dance music (e/dm) in san francisco. because women's efforts in e/dm production are in their infancy, this study is more concerned with the barriers women are experiencing than the strategies they are using to succeed. nonetheless, our interviews with women who are in the early phases of producing e/dm suggested the importance of strategies including networking with male producers, and working to undo a lifetime of exposure to the gendered discourses that circulate in popular culture, social contexts, and educational environments. our descriptions and commentary draw on a series of informal, open -ended current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 79 80 current musicology interviews with twenty-one female djs and two producers working the large e/dm scene in san francisco. talks with the djs began in the summer of 2003 and continued, on and off, through spring of 2006. the principal author of this study, farrugia, first became interested in researching women in e/dm after years of attending e/dm related events and buying e/dm. farrugia and swiss collaborated on this project because they were interested in bringing their differing backgrounds, ages, and disciplinary lenses to the materials and data that farrugia had gathered. the essay is part of farrugia's larger book -length project about women in e/ dm that first began as a dissertation. the interviews referred to throughout the essay were recorded on a mini -disc and then transcribed. although the women interviewed are mainly djs, the essay focuses on producing because many of the d j s interviewed believe that the next step in trying to distinguish themselves from other djs and gain status within e/dm culture is to find the desire, invest the time, and acquire the skills necessary to produce music. farrugia initially made contact with the djs in 2003 via an internet mailing list called sisterdjs. in addition to the original twenty-one interviews, there were thirteen follow-up interviews in 2006. the ages of the women interviewed ranged from 18-40 at the time of the initial interviews; with the exception of two women who are asian americans, all of the djs interviewed are white. the educational and class backgrounds of the djs varied though more than half described themselves as middle-class. some had attended college and received degrees in majors such as dance, media arts, graphic design, and english. only one dj had a college degree in music, but many of the women had played traditional (non-electronic) musical instruments in middle school or high school. in drawing on these interviews, we are employing what angela mcrobbie calls "identity ethnography" (1992). that is, we are exploring how the narratives told by female djs structure and are structured by personal meanings and experiences in the e/dm scene, and how they are bound up with larger cultural narratives and organizational practices. mcrobbie uses the term in response to what she perceives as the privileging of the study of "discursive identities" at the expensive of "interactive research on groups and individuals who are more than just audiences for texts" (1992:730). in other words, an "identity ethnography" is useful because it assumes a theoretical position that considers women as producers of texts and culture; it begins from a position which assumes that identity is fluid and continually being remade and predicated on social groups. such an approach provides a useful perspective from which to investigate the "lived experiences" of women in e/dm culture and, more specifically, about the social identity of female djs and producers. this approach calls for an understanding of existing power dynamics in order to encourage change. the interviews encouraged women rebekah farrugia and thom swiss to reflect on the role of gender and social power on their personal experi­ ences' biases, and goals; a process mcrobbie refers to as "self-interrogation." in our study, women were invited to share their stories about working in a particular music scene, e/dm in the bay area, the kind oflocal stories that have been largely ignored in popular and academic discussions about e/d m (poschardt 1998; reynolds 1999; sicko 1999; silcott 1999). as e/dm developed in the 1980s and 1990s, producers in cities such as london, berlin, detroit, and chicago were building on existing music genres-reggae, dance hall, disco, among others-to create new kinds of dance music. besides experimenting with existing genres, musical innova­ tors were creating new sounds by using bass and drum machines, often in unexpected ways. e/dm had historically been composed using synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, and additional analog gear.2 over the past decade, however, various digital software programs and hardware have been added to the mix. in the early years, the primary venues for e/dm were clubs and raves. daniel martin argues that gender hierarchies are undermined in these spaces because e/dm "decenters the subject, refusing the pop star or the cultural icon as the glorified subject" (1999:92-93). hesmondhalgh agrees that dance music audiences place an emphasis on genre rather than on performer (1998). such analyses do little, however, to show how the e/dm scene subverts dominant ideologies with respect to gender norms within the popular music industry. the current situation of women in e/dm culture is similar to other popular music genres such as punk (reddington 2003), hip-hop (rose 1994; guevara 1996; pough 2004), and indie rock (kruse, 2003; leonard 2006). for example, tricia rose argues that women were not encouraged to contribute to the production of hip-hop culture in the bronx in the 1970s and when they chose to do so the efforts of female breakdancers, graffiti artists, and rappers were often overlooked (1994). similarly, helen reddington argues that female instrumentalists have been written out of the history of punk in england despite the presence of numerous female musicians in bands at the time of punk's formation (2007). in site and sound: understanding independent music scenes, holly kruse writes at length about women's involvement at independent record labels and the problems female artists encounter at the distribution level (2003); marion leonard is concerned with how female rock performers negotiate the gendering of rock as masculine (2006); and other critics have addressed gender differences in terms of the consumption of popular music (straw 1997; thornton 1996). as holly kruse notes, "the gendered power relations of mainstream music production and consumption were to a large degree reproduced in indie music culture" (2003:138), a genre which critics as­ sociate with local or trans-local scenes or culture, with independent record 81 82 current musicology labels, and a diverse range of musical influences from punk to electronic a (kruse 1993; kruse 2003; leonard 2006). an understanding of the gender relations to which kruse (2003), leonard (2006), and others refer requires some knowledge of the politics of both the music industry and the space of the recording and production studio. first, we will distinguish djing from producing. until fairly recently, the primary means of acquiring e/dm was to frequent specialty record stores that sold tracks predominantly as 12-inch singles on vinyl-that is, until the 2000s when more e/dm became available on cd and eventually as digital downloads. in order to be able to mix tracks-on vinyl, cd, or as mp3s-a dj must have access to the necessary equipment. at minimum, a dj setup consists of two turntables (or cd mixers), a mixer, headphones, amplifier, and speakers. to accommodate digital downloads, additional mp3 mixing software is also needed. when tracks are mixed they create the illusion of one continuous track that could potentially-and often does-go on for hours. the product of this practice is what is known as a "dj set." a drs talent and economic worth are assessed in part on her ability to create continuity and maintain interest on the dance floor. but in addition to musical skills, djs have to be successful public relations people because the number of gigs djs receive is determined in part by their popularity and visibility in the e/dm scene. producers, on the other hand, create the tracks that are eventually pressed and sold to d j s. producers spend most of their time working with keyboards, software, and other production gear, including samplers, drum machines, and synthesizers. the producer is usually afforded the luxury of not having to make constant public appearances because the tracks themselves, through distribution and circulation, act as public relations material in lieu of public appearances. the music industry and recording studio politics following the lead of marion leonard (2006), the term "music industry" is used here to refer to a broad range of institutions such as record companies and studios, and individuals including musicians, producers, and staff. both major and independent record labels-whose interdependence is critical to the industry's modes of operation-are considered to be part of the business (hull 2004; negus 1992). there has been much discussion in recent years concerning the impact of the recording industry's oligopolistic state and gate-keeping processes on the kinds of artists who secure record deals, the artistic process of mak­ ing music, and the end goals of record companies who are increasingly concerned with their financial portfolio (hull 2004; mcleod 2002; negus rebekah farrugia and thorn swiss 1998, 1999). in producing pop, keith negus suggests that "the boundary between the recording industry and potential artists is not so much a gate where aspiring stars must wait to be selected and admitted, but a web of relationships stretched across a shifting soundtrack of musical, verbal and visual information" (1992:46). negus further argues that the broader cultural patterns within which a company is situated need to be considered in order to understand how these relationships work. pertinent to this essay is his statement that "the 'intuitive' assumptions that staff make when acquiring the most suitable new artists and pieces of music are based on beliefs informed by a series of gender, class and racialized divisions" (1999:21). researchers who have examined the gendered divisions within the dance music industry thus far have noted that most djs and producers are men (fikentscher 2000; reynolds 1999); few women are found in other powerful industry positions such as label owners or club managers. as early as 1988 angela mcrobbie noted that women in the music industry observed that higher management and key decision-making jobs were dominated by an "old boy network" or "boy's club." writing on e/dm a few years later she notes: it is still much easier for girls to develop skills in those fields which are less contested by men than it is in those already occupied by them. selling clothes, stage-managing at concerts, handing out publicity leaflets, or simply looking the part, are spheres in which a female presence somehow seems natural (1994: 145). these observations echo the situation in the broader popular music industry (negus 1992), including, surprisingly perhaps, the findings of in die rock scholars (kruse 1993, 2003; leonard 2006). in kruse's words, "nothing about the social and economic organization of alternative music necessarily seeks to subvert the white, patriarchal structures of the mainstream music establishment" (1993:40). as a genre, indie rock embodies a do-it-yourself philosophy and the popular understanding is that it is more open to female participation than other forms of rock because it is not associated with an overtly masculinity agenda. yet, leonard's extensive study is the latest to argue that the genre is still "produced as a gendered culture that affects those who work within it" (2006:4; italics in original). leonard's research is based on a decade of participating in and observing the ways in which gendered notions of rock music and the culture of the music industry are maintained and reproduced (2006). a recent report on female djs and sound engineers in the uk, for example, concluded that while 5-15 percent of working d j s are women, the figure is much smaller for female sound engineers who comprise only 2-5 percent of sound engineers, 83 84 current musicology mostly concentrated in live sound engineering (smail 2005, cited in leonard 2006:52). research on the music industry and production studios offers some suggestions as to why this might be the case. historically, the studio environment has been constructed as a male space that exudes an "all lads together comraderie" generally not available to women whose place in the music industry came to be limited to the press department (steward and garrett 1984, cited in negus 1992). louise meintjes's (1993) comprehensive ethnographic work on the politics of zulu music production in the south african music industry in the early 1990s offers some insight into how and why the studio space is a tightly guarded territory. meintjes describes the studio space as both magical and a fetish, consisting of complex interiors including "the internal workings of electronic machines, the components of sounds, and the interiority of the artist" which together enhance the aura of the studio (1993:98). at one point in her research a studio engineer contemplates excluding her from a recording session in order to preserve both the creative processes at work and the studio's aura so as not to demystify its symbolic value and the engineer's compositional processes. she notes that the "magician-like status of the studio's technicians increases concomitantly with the expansion of aura of the studio and its technology" (101). in other words, from a producer's perspective, allowing outsiders access to this male-centered, technology space would demystify the production process and potentially lower the symbolic and/or use value of the studio space. social boundaries rooted in technical knowledge and language also exacerbate studio labor divisions (porcello 1991). although porcello's study is primarily concerned with the shift from formal student/apprentice to professional sound engineer, his analysis of conversations between producers and students in sound recording studios suggests additional factors that can discourage women from engaging in the studio space or using studio or electronic gear to make their own music. in this study, porcello analyzes conversations between producers and students who are part of a sound­ recording technology program at a public texas university. he argues that the success of these programs is determined by how well students can reproduce the complex technical discourse-full of metaphors, industry terminology, and abbreviations-that is essential to a sound engineer's ability to build a professional identity that exhibits competence. given that most women do not show an interest in e/dm beyond the dance floor until they are in their 20s and 30s, the college program route is not an option for most of them. porcello also points out that in order to gain admission to the program, applicants must be accepted as regular students in music school, a process that requires performance auditions and some knowledge of music theory. rebekah farrugia and thom swiss academia has historically not been a significant route into e/dm production. similar to hip-hop artists, many e/dm djs and producers have had little or no formal musical training. consequently, "tricks of the trade" and the associated technical language are especially difficult for women to access given the informal environments in which these things are shared in e/ dm culture. gender and power in the e/dm scene like other music scenes, e/dm in the bay area is constituted through practices and relationships created within social and geographic spaces. the record shop is a case in point. as e/dm culture grew in the 1990s in the us, specialty record shops quickly became male-dominated spaces where knowledge was shared and social networks developed between collectors, producers, and djs. in turn, the first female e/dm dj collective was estab­ lished in 1996. calling themselves sister sf because of their geographical base in san francisco, the group is the oldest ongoing female dj collective in the us. over the years the collective has maintained a strong public presence both in the bay area and on the web. sister sf successfully creates and circulates resources and encouraging stories about female djs via their website, www.sistersf.com. the site receives thousands of hits per month.3 female djs in san francisco are now commonplace because of the visibility that collectives such as sister sf bring to the field, but the women farrugia interviewed noted that female djs continue to be viewed as exceptions elsewhere. and even within the liberal atmosphere of san francisco, they noted, men continue to comprise the majority of record label owners, club managers, and artist booking agents, perpetuating a "boy's club" mentality. consequently, it is difficult for women to obtain dj gigs without putting extra time and energy into self-promotion. forest green, a san francisco dj best known for having mixed the soundtrack to groove, a big-budget film about the local rave scene (sony, 2000), explains how the need to self-promote-even after her success with groove-affects her interest in producing: my job as a dj is 80 percent being out, talking to people, promoting events. 20 percent of it or less is buying records and practicing. the rest is all promotion, being in people's face. producing, most of the producers i know, i don't see them out that much. unless they're playing, they're probably out producing because it takes a lot of time and that's a little scary for me. you stop going out and all of a sudden people forget about you.4 85 86 current musicology who are the "people" green refers to above? while djs, including green, sometimes play music festivals that are open to people of all ages, more often the women interviewed perform at bars and club events that are open to adults twenty-one and over. the audiences at such events are mostly white bay area residents in their 20s and 30s. green fears that instead of complementing her work as a dj, producing music will hinder her dj career because more time in the studio means having less time communicating with people and performing in public. this is despite the fact that the most popular and economically stable artists are generally those who both d j and produce. indeed a number of the djs re-interviewed in 2006, including green, were beginning to learn how to produce music. in addition to economic concerns, female djs were also motivated to explore producing because of what annie shaw (dj xjs) and others called a "frustrating lack" of tracks produced by women. these women were aware that in the sometimes disorganized and uncertain economic world of independent labels, it is not unusual for producers to not get paid or to get paid poorly for their production efforts. but their actions were motivated in part by goodwill, wanting to get women on the e/dm map as producers. as our earlier outline of music industry politics suggests, labels can determine whether or not an artist is signed. since the days of disco~ major record labels have been forming specialist dance divisions in an effort to attract musicians and staff with the credibility and subcultural knowledge so valued in dance music culture. although the relations between the majors and independents vary from one label to the next, it is significant that much dance music is released on labels with ties to the majors that honor the traditional, socially constructed gender roles discussed above. in most cases, label managers, owners, executives, and a&r representatives are men, while women are employed as public relations personnel. tyler stone, one of the two female producers interviewed, claims that it is extremely difficult to get independent labels to press her tracks. while she had some success with this process in the early 1990s, her experience was that as e/d m's popularity grew it became more conservative with white, heterosexual men becoming its key players. this was very different from its early days in which african american and latino men, a larger number of whom were homosexual, dominated the scene (fikentscher 2000). as the cultural environment changed and the scene's structure came to more closely resemble that of the mainstream popular music industry, it became even less likely to find women producers. as tyler stone notes: i was it [women producers 1 for at least a couple years and it was a dif­ ferent scene back then. way less hetero, way more gay, much easier to be rebekah farrugia and thom swiss a woman. it got harder and harder. so i went from going to [the world music conference] and being able to go, "hey girl" and do that whole thing to being asked "whose girlfriend are you?"s typically women have dj'd as much as possible, worked to get their names on party fliers, made demo cds, and learned how to build websites to further their visibility. as we mentioned in the introduction, a number of women who have done all of these things believe that the next step in distinguishing themselves from other djs and in turn advancing their careers is to produce music. it is these women, including dj amber, who often referred to the move from dj to producer as a "natural" next step. in 2003, dj amber was a full-time dj who expressed an interest in learning how to produce tracks. most djs at the time of the 2003 interviews were experiencing difficulties in what was then the economically depressed dot -com bust era. yet, at the same time, one music-related booking agency was attempting to specialize in a roster of women clientele. dj amber was one of the women approached by the agency: i was like, oh i get it. he's like i can't market you if you don't have any tracks. i was like i'll have a track for you. he was like push, push, push. you get marketed around just having a track, then if it's a hit, people are buying it. then they'll book you to come play. it's just something you have to do. [i] think i'll love it once i get over the technical hurdle.6 amber was interviewed again in 2006, this time at a dj school where she was an instructor. she explained that she had made little progress with producing. in fact, she had recently reevaluated her priorities and decided to return to full-time, non-dj related employment for the first time in four years. her reasons for doing so included not wanting to travel extensively for dj gigs and having less desire to deal with "shady people" in the industry, including event promoters who try to "get away with" paying djs less than the agreed upon amount. amber's case is fairly representative: her interest in teaching dj classes but not producing music puts her in the category of many women who work in jobs that involve helping others or require strong interpersonal skills, such as the public relations departments that have come to be women's places in the music industry (kruse 2003; negus 1992). the gendered stratification that women experience in work-related settings impacts their confidence and desire to work with technology in other settings as well. the perpetuation of discourses and practices-both within and beyond the music industry-that situate women as outside the technology sphere produces a culture that has few opportunities for women to participate in technology-centered spaces.? in turn, women have little confidence in their abilities to engage in 87 88 current musicology the production of e/dm. of course feminist and cultural studies scholars alike agree that technology is not neutral or inherently masculine; rather, uses of technology are shaped by convention and social practices as well as the circulation of popular narratives and economic relations (0 ldenziel 1999; wajcman 2004). moreover, the limited access women have to vital social networks that consist of male djs, label owners, and producers, impinges upon their ability to access e/dm production "gear" because individuals starting out often need the help of friends and access to their bedroom studios. e/dm production studios generally consist of some combination of hardware such as synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, and monitors, as well as high-end digital audio workstations and midi sequencers. in theory, the process of creating e/dm has been democratized by home computers and music production software. before the explosion of pes, producing e/dm required the purchase of analog equipment, so building a home studio could be extremely costly. since the 1990s however, anyone with a personal computer and some software can now become an e/dm producer-or so the myth goes. purchasing production gear and dj equipment, however, can still be costly and is a potentially risky investment even in the digital age. a bedroom dj setup is likely to cost upwards of$1000, and a production studio's equip­ ment needs can be much greater and more costly.s in addition to the initial equipment costs, djs need to constantly purchase fresh, original tracks in order to acquire bookings at clubs and e/dm events. few of the women interviewed regularly secured paid gigs and of those who did, not many of them were able to live off of those earnings. most women invest their time and money in their dj practices because of their love of the art of djing and not because it clearly leads to financial gain. on average, the women interviewed spent around $100-150 a month on music, although it is not unusual for individuals to spend much more. during her first six months ofdjing, barbara mayers [dj barbarella] spent $300 a week on records. she now owns around $20,000 worth of vinyl. as a teen trying to buy records, llana pearlman [dj blondie] babysat to save money to buy records: i always thought to myself: two hours of babysitting is one record. i started thinking of everything in my life in terms of how much a record would cost. oh i shouldn't buy that shirt-that's three records. it was really funny. it gets really expensive, $10 a record ends up being $12 a record with tax, times all my records. that ends up being a lot of money.9 for many women like llana, the process of saving up money to purchase records is a difficult process. the fact that women in most occupations, rebekah farrugia and thorn swiss musicrelated or otherwise, continue to earn unequal pay compared to men, even for the same work, makes the situation worse. and the money spent on dj tools like records often leaves little leftover for production tools. talking about why she has not yet made a serious effort to produce music, forest green highlighted knowledge acquisition and financial investment. it's the long hard road yet one that i've chosen, but i'm hoping that my computer background in video production will help me with music production. i have lots of friends who are producers and have their own labels. it's not like starting from ground zero. i want to build my own studio and have it be mine like all the other women producers that i know who have their own studios and i respect that. a whole other level of money-spending to get all your gear and then there's a whole other level of learning all about gear and technology.lo the djs interviewed were comfortable using not only dj technologies such as turntables and mixers, but also computer technology. still, many of the women had little confidence in their abilities to engage in the production process. as early as 1985, cynthia cockburn observed that women "may push the buttons but they may not meddle with the works" (12). more than two decades later this still seems to be the case. many women spoke at length about using their interpersonal skills to develop favorable reputations in the scene, but few felt comfortable pursuing interests that required them to bracket familiar skills and learn new technical skills. dj amber: i was not the person at my house pulling apart transistor radios and building little circuit boards-that was my brother and i didn't even ask him what he was doing. i didn't know and i didn't care. my brother's work made funny noises. i thought that was cool and that was about it. women are less prone to be that sort of tinkering minded; they're not the ones who program the clocks on the vcr. i hate to generalize but it's the truth.ll but let's compare dj amber's comments to ashley adams's [seeress j. adams was the only woman interviewed who was producing e/dm but was not adj. her situation is rare in san francisco for a number of reasons, namely that the strong presence of female djs in the city generally encourages women to pursue djing before they adopt an interest in producing and second, the proliferation of dance clubs in the city is an incentive for women with a keen interest in e/d m to pursue d jing as an extra income source. atypically, adams traces her interest in producing to her childhood, long before she was introduced to e/dm: 89 90 current musicology my mom and dad thought i was going to be an engineer because when i was little i was taking apart my radios and stuff. my producing all started with liz [wheeler] handing me a drum machine a year ago. it was almost intuitive. i figured it out on my own. i was making songs on it on my own. now that i have all these crazy robots [analog gear] and i have to have a pep talk with myself before i sit down and i'm like, you're going to shift into your logical thinking brain and you're not going to be intimidated by this stuff because someone on this planet somewhere programmed it and made it. you know this is not out of your realm of accessibility.12 ashley's relationship to technology is unique among those interviewed. still, in 2006 adams reported that she still undergoes a constant mental struggle with herself over her abilities. said another way, her confidence and previous experience were not enough to bring her to producing. there was a necessary third element-a social intervention-that set her on her path. it was making contact with a female dj whose boyfriend owned a drum machine that finally set ashltly on the course to making music. still, as of 2006, she had yet to have any of her tracks accepted and distributed by a label. most women said that learning how to dj was a solitary process. any training or instruction women received rarely went beyond a brief"how to" session, usually from a male friend. of course even with little experience, most people have some knowledge of how to put a record on a turntable; they have a point of reference from everyday life from which to begin learn­ ing how to "play" with records, some direction from which to learn how to scratch, tweak, and blend beats. compared to d hng, producing music with software or with synthesizers and samplers is a much less intuitive process; music production gear offers few cues on sight as to how to make it work. learning how to produce usually involves learning some sort of "techno speak" similar to learning a new language, and many women perceive the learning curve to be very steep indeed. dj amber: i can write plenty of songs in my head, and i do all the time but there's this logic gap where the software and intricacies of getting audio quality just right and balanced and all this garbage. it's a huge hurdle, which has nothing to do with why i got into djing, which is why i think you find so many djs being non-producers. the one doesn't meld well with the other. you have to kinda walk yourself over there, roll your eyes, alright i gotta do it but then i think: in fact i know i'll grow to love it but for right now, this stupid software is getting in my way of being creative.13 many of the women knew that the best way to learn how to produce is to find a more experienced producer to work with, but reported on the difficulty rebekah farrugia and thorn swiss of finding someone who was willing to share his/her knowledge and with whom they felt comfortable. in many music scenes-as simon frith (1981), sarah thornton (1996), and others have found in their own research-people gain access to "insider" knowledge and become "in the know" by networking, hanging out in record stores, clubs, cyberspace, and studios. but as we mention above, the social spaces and conversations that may encourage women to produce are often off limits to them. writing about her experiences as a sound engineer, for instance, boden sandstrom (2000) notes that many men are unwilling to share the powerful position of controlling sound, limiting opportunities for women to receive hands on training. subjects' gendered relationship to rock and pop music culture based on the practices and relations of pop music as it is carried out in everyday talk is another reason that helps explain women's continued marginality in music production (kruse 2003). research that examines teens' discussions about pop music shows that adolescent boys tend to talk about instruments and equipment whereas girls of the same age tend to talk more about lyrics, whether a song is danceable, and the stars themselves (steward and garratt 1984, cited in kruse 2003). the assumption that women are not technically adept is reinforced in popular culture in other ways as well. music magazines, not only those that focus on e/dm or production gear, are filed under the men's interest sections at barnes & nobles, and advertisements in e/dm magazines such as remix and xlr8r usually feature men in ads for drum machines and music composition software. female djs are more often featured superficially in television and magazine advertisements to sell products with mass appeal such as nivea skin cream, twix candy bars, and dell computers, as opposed to music production or dj technology. generally, the dj's name is absent from these ads, too, which leaves the audience wondering whether or not the women in the ads are djs or simply models hired to make a product look hip. for instance, a recent dell ad features a college-aged woman with red and blonde streaked hair in jeans, a black and silver t -shirt, and a vest acces­ sorized with a puma bracelet, baseball cap and sunglasses. the dell laptop computer in front of her sits on an unfinished plank of wood suspended by two stacks of plastic crates mimicking a typical dj turntable setup -but the only technology visible in the ad is the laptop, speakers, and a pair of headphones the model is holding up to her right ear as she imitates a dj's posture when mixing records. nowhere is e/dm mentioned; it is clearly a generic ad aimed at college students. cockburn, rose, and baker believe that the confidence of women grows when men are removed from the scene (cockburn 1985; rose 1994; baker 91 92 current musicology 2008). in other words, women find the presence of other women more motivating than the presence of men. ilana pearlman [dj blondie 1 said that the biggest reason why she was reluctant to learn about music production for years was because of the overwhelmingly male presence in the production scene. dj blondie explains: there's maybe two women producers out of the thousands of psy­ [chedelic 1 trance producers. no one ever wants to show you how to do it; they just expect you to know. when you go over to a guy's house and they tell you they're going to teach you, they dj the whole time, where a girl would be like yeah cool now let me hear you try it. guys always table hog14 because they want to show off. so with the whole technology thing you're intimidated because everyone else is trying to show off, especially guys who are dominant, who are very aggressive, [and 1 want to be in the spotlight. 15 unlike sister sf and the more recent san francisco female dj collective femme djs, no comparable collective exists for promoting the efforts of female e/dm producers and few women are part of existing male-centered collectives. the thinkbox collective is a case in point. based in windsor, ontario, the group describes itself on its website as being "centered on the exploration and innovative use of material and technique to produce works that develop complex questions to simplified answers about art, technol­ ogy, and the nature of multi-media creation."16 typical of most music! technology collectives, no women are included on thinkbox's "collective members" page. cockburn's (1985) observation that women continue to be passive users much more than they are active producers of technology related projects and artifacts may help explain why there are few women in multi-media or e/dm production collectives like thinkbox.1t also sheds light on how it is that female-centered collectives like the sister sf dj collective have resulted in the inclusion of more female djs not only in san francisco but also in places like portland, oregon, new york city, and denver as additional chapters of sister develop in these locales. research on role modeling indicates that the presence of same sex role models can greatly influence the type of activities and interests in which individuals choose to invest as they get older. for instance, as role models for girls, female technology teachers "can more directly change attitudes for both girls and boys about careers for females in technological fields" (fiore 1999). a similar collective for women involved in the production side of e/dm might be equally beneficial to increasing the number of women who want to produce. still, a few women who have already proven themselves as djs are making progress with producing. denise rees [dj denise], a prominent, rebekah farrugia and thorn swiss full-time bay area dj, considers producing a step that will further her already successful career in the music industry, helping her expand both her fan base and income. because of her dj success, she has access to local male producers. as she tells it: it's definitely a matter of if you know someone. same thing with wanting to be a dj, but it seems like there are so many djs out there that it's probably a lot easier to find someone with turntables than to find someone with a studio and actual gear. so i think that might have a little influence on why not as many girls are making beats, but i mean there's no reason why. i'm really itching to do it just because there's stuff that i want to hear that i haven't heard yet and it's in my head and i want to get it out there, but i know that it's a lot harder to make something. what you're thinking is very hard to transcribe onto the gear that you have. l ? like other women, dj denise emphasizes the difficulty and the skill level involved in making a track, the necessary access to gear, and the importance of having a mentor; yet, she also says that there is no reason why women cannot make music. the clear contradictions in her comments are not easy to resolve. since the 1980s a postfeminist climate has increasingly dominated the popular culture and media landscape (mcrobbie 2004). this postfemi­ nist sensibility superficially positions girls and women as in control of their own destinies but in reality it does little to change gendered power dynamics at play in the wider culture. denise's statement at first acts as evidence of the ways in which postfeminist discourses conceal the rigid gender order still in play. more importantly though, her contradictory position as a woman who struggles against this order's norms while simultaneously espousing the postfeminist proviso of women's independence from such norms demon­ strates the way this postfeminist philosophy actually limits the independence it suggests women have. if there really is no reason why women cannot make music, then those who do not-or cannot-are reduced to independant (failed) agents, not part of a broader system of gendered oppression. besides not having access to supportive social networks, another problem for many women relates to the timing in their lives-that is, the age when they begin to take an interest in djing or producing. with one exception, the women interviewed were in their 20s and 30s. having already reached adulthood, many have family and work responsibilities. the current situa­ tion of women in e/dm is similar to the situation of women in rock bands. in her study of skill acquisition in rock bands, mary ann clawson (1999) found that 87.5 percent of the men (21 of24) compared to 26 percent of the women in her study joined their first bands before high school graduation. almost half (47 percent) of the women in her study did not join bands until they were past college age-at which point they had significant catching 93 94 current musicology up to do. equally important is the fact that individuals tend to have less free time once they move into their 20s and 30s. and compared to men, few women are "superstar djs" which means that most have to work other jobs in addition to being djs, thus having less time to devote to their e/dm interests. as katie pollard [dj kt] told farrugia: of the djs i know, the women tend to have more stuff going on in their lives besides just being a dj, like being a student, having a demanding job, or having a family. a lot of guys do too but there are also a bunch of guys i know, and these are the ones who are writing music, who don't have much else to do besides music all the time. they either have a job that's not really demanding or they don't have a job at all. i don't know why there are more guys in that category and more of the women i know are out doing other stuff but that seems to be the case. 18 similar to katie, who is a statistician, several of the women interviewed had day jobs that required them to work with computers and many of them expressed a lack of desire to spend their evenings and weekends learning how to use music-making software. as mentioned earlier, most of the women interviewed related their love of djing to its social aspects such as meeting new people and interacting with a crowd. dj samira, a web designer, explains: for me, it's like the oral tradition where you have that immediate call and response. a lot of the way your story is told is being dictated by your audience. the nature of it is changing as a result of the audience that is immediately there, and i really like that about spinning. it's pretty much the only thing i do in my life that i do straight from the gut. i never plan my sets no matter how much i try. my cds are very different from my live sets. i like to collaborate with people. 19 additionally, female d j s often claim that they are more social as people than their male counterparts. unlike male djs, whom our interviewees claim often have a cool and static presence behind the turntables, female djs interact more with their audiences-via visual cues like eye contact and dancing to the beat of the music. strategies for change although the constraints women face in getting started with music produc­ tion are not unique to e/dm, they are exacerbated in san francisco's e/dm scene because the music relies so heavily on non-traditional instruments­ samplers, drum machines, mixers, digital audio workstations and so on-to which girls and women are rarely introduced in school or via their social rebekah farrugia and thom swiss networks. the hopeful news is that several studies, including a study regard­ ing the computer attitudes of white middle-class suburban elevenand twelve-year olds on the south coast of england, (north and noyles 2002) found that girls (far more than boys) did not believe that computer use was unchangeably linked to factors such as gender and mathematics background. the results of a us-based yearlong study concerned with the meanings that 250 middle school students assign to computers are also significant here as music production is increasingly happening via computers and specialty software. while neither boys nor girls mentioned using the computer for music production, girls seemed to be more open-minded regarding its capabilities. girls defined computers as "multi -use tools" and often described the computer by saying "it's whatever you want it to be" compared to boys who had a more narrow view of the technology. boys identified computers as machines or toys that let you do things quicker and easier (christie 2008). this gradual demystification of computers and the shift in the way girls and women think about computer technology that has been ongoing for years now is leading to more women expressing interest in the field ofe/dm production, especially in san francisco where so many women, including several in this study, work with computers on a daily basis. however, ad­ ditional changes need to take place both inside and outside the classroom for the curiosity many women in this study expressed about making music to translate into women not only producing e/dm but having their material reach the public. more women moving into powerful positions at the level of club management and at record labels is another change that could lead to more recognition for female e/dm producers. the music classroom is yet another space that needs to be considered. in an article that examines where classroom music education fits into the lives of teenagers, sloboda notes that classroom music instruction as currently conceptualized and organized is an inappropriate vehicle for mass music education in the twenty-first century (2001). schools seriously lag behind what is available in out -of-school environments when it comes to technologi­ cal resources and "know how." one recent study (cooper 2007) found that even when music-making technology is introduced into the classroom, old social patterns are reproduced. a six-week project that involved teaching ninth-grade students to make music using the software program dance ejay found that while both boys and girls expressed confidence in using the program, boys were more emphatic in their confidence while girls expressed less interest in using the technology. in turn, a far greater number of boys than girls attended the optional friday lunch hour "music technology club;' creating yet another male-dominated electronic music learning space. 95 96 current musicology the production efforts of women like dj denise and ashley adams [seeress 1 in the san francisco bay area speak to changes that are underway even if they are not yet highly visible at record stores or live events. same­ sex role modeling, collaborative processes, and women-centered collectives like sister sf continue to encourage women in san francisco to dj and perhaps will eventually do the same in regards to producing. conceivably such modeling can help reduce the negative impact that factors like the social construction of music technologies as masculine, the male-dominated music industry and production studios, familial responsibilities, expendable income, and leisure time have on women's abilities to access production technologies and spaces. cooper's study also found that in the classroom, 87 percent of girls were partial to composing music in groups compared to only 64 percent of boys (2007). thus, like rose's call to action for women in hip-hop (1994), and leonard's encouragement of female involvement in indie rock (2006), we suggest that female-centered music-making environments and production collectives could similarly provide the social and cultural access to technology needed to increase the activity of female e/dm production in san francisco and elsewhere. as for electronic music and music education, given the amount of time spent in school, it's clear that schools are a central place where girls internalize music knowledge, narratives, and structures. how their experiences there contribute to their engagement with music technolo­ gies once they leave high school has yet to be studied in any significant way. but considering the amount of recent work that has advanced popular music as an important pedagogical subject, we may soon see electronic/dance music and its deep roots in education enter the social imaginary. notes 1. ashley adams, personal interview, june 2006. 2. the term "gear" is used in e/dm to refer to the technology needed to dj, compose music, and perform live music sets. examples of the technology include a range of analog gear such as turntables, mixers, synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers. since the 1990s, personal computers and specialty software have been added to the list of gear needed to produce ei dm. 3. annie shaw [site webmaster], personal interview, may 2006. 4. forest green, personal interview, june 2003. 5. tyler stone, personal interview, june 2006. 6. amber nixon, personal interview, june 2003. 7. for instance, according to wilson (2003) only 19 percent of computer science students at the college level are female. rebekah farrugia and thorn swiss 8. tweakheadz lab, self advertised as "the best site for learning music production" (tweak­ headz.com), advertises components for a "low cost" studio set up at over $1100 in addition to the cost of a personal computer. the "mac (computer) dream studio" components total $12,000. 9. ilana pearlman, personal interview, june 2003. 10. amber nixon, personal interview, june 2003. 11. amber nixon, personal interview, june 2003. 12. ashley adams, personal interview, june 2003. 13. dj amber, personal interview, june 2003. 14. "table hog" refers to someone who dominates the turntables and the amount of time djing. 15. ilana pearlman, personal interview, june 2003. 16. for more information visit http://www.thinkbox.ca/mandate. 17. denise rees, personal interview, may 2006. 18. katie pollard, personal interview, july 2003. 19. samira, personal interview, may 2006. references baker, sarah. 2008. from snuggling and snogging to sampling and scratching: girls' nonparticipation in community-based music activities. youth and society 39 (3): 316-39. christie, alice a. 2005. how middle school boys and girls view today's computer culture. meridian 8 (1): http://www.ncsu.edu/meridian/win200s/computer culturelindex.html (accessed november 9, 2008). clawson, mary anne. 1999. masculinity and skill acquisition in the adolescent rock band. popular music 18 (1): 99-114. cockburn, cynthia. 1985. machinery of dominance: women, men, and technical know-how. dover, nh: pluto. cooper, louise. 2007. the gender factor: teaching composition in music technology lessons to boys and girls in year 9. in music education with digital technology, edited by john finney and pamela burnard, 30-40. london and new york: continuum. fiore, catherine. 1999. awakening the tech bug in girls [electronic version]. learning and leading with technology 26: 10-17. http://www.iste.org/content/navigationmenu/ publications/lllllissuesiv0iume_26_1998_1999 _/february 8/february _1999.htm (accessed november 9, 2008). fikentscher, kai. 2000. "you better work!" underground dance music in new york city. hanover, nh, and london: wesleyan university press. frith, simon. 1981. sound effects. new york: pantheon. guervara, nancy. 1996. women writin' rappin' breakin'. in droppin' science: critical essays on rap music and hip hop culture, edited by william eric perkins, 49-62. philadelphia, pa: temple university press. hesmondhalgh, david. 1998. the british dance music industry: a case study ofindependent cultural production. the british journal of sociology 49 (2): 234-51. hull, geoffrey p. 2004. the recording industry. london and new york: routledge. 97 98 current musicology kruse, holly. 1993. subcultural identity in alternative music. popular music 12 (1): 33-41. ---. 2003. site and sound: understanding independent music scenes. new york: peter lang. leonard, marion. 2006. gender in the music industry. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. martin, daniel. 1999. power play and party politics: the significance of raving. journal of popular culture 32 (1): 77-99. mcleod, kembrew. 2002. between rock and a hard place: gender and rock criticism. in pop music and the press, edited by steve jones, 93-113. philadelphia, pa: temple university press. mcrobbie, angela. 1988. peggy sue got marketed. times higher education supplement (june 3) 24. ---. 1992. post-marxism and cultural studies: a post-script. in cultural studies, edited by c. nelson, p. a. treichler, and l. grossberg, 719-30. london and new york: routledge. ---. 1994. postmodern and popular culture. london and new york: routledge. ---. 2004. notes on postfeminism and popular culture: bridget jones and the new gender regime. in allabout the girl: culture, power, and identity, edited by anita harris, 3-14. london and new york: routledge. meintjes, louise. 1993. sound of africa! making music zulu in a south african studio. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. negus, keith. 1992. producing pop: culture and conflict in the popular music industry. london: edward arnold. ---. 1998. cultural production and the corporation: musical genres and the strategic management of creativity in the us recording industry. media, culture & society 20 (3): 359-79. ---. 1999. music genres and corporate cultures. london and new york: routledge. north, adrian s., and jan m. noyes. 2002. gender influences on children's computer attitudes and cognitions. computers in human behavior 18 (2): 135-50. oldenziel, ruth. 1999. making technology masculine: men, women and modern machines in america 1870-1945. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. porcello, thomas. 1991. speaking of sound: language and the professionalization of sound­ recording engineers. social studies of science 34 (5): 733-58. ---.2004. afterword. in wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic cultures, edited by paul d. greene and thomas porcello, 269-81. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. poschardt, ulf. 1998 [1995]. dj culture, translated by shawn whiteside. london: quartet book. pough, gwendolyn. 2004. check it while i wreck it: black womanhood, hip hop culture, and the public sphere. boston: northeastern university press. reddington, helen. 2003. "lady" punks in bands: a subculturette? in the post subcultures reader, edited by david muggleton & scott weinzierl, 239-51. new york: berg. ---. 2007. the lost women of rock music. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. reynolds, simon. 1999. generation ecstasy: into the world of techno and rave culture. london and new york: routledge. rose, tricia. 1994. black noise:. rap music and black culture in contemporary america. hanover, nh, and london: wesleyan university press. rebekah farrugia and thom swiss sandstrom, boden. 2000. women mix engineers and the power of sound. in music and gender, edited by pirkko moisala and beverly diamond, 289-305. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. sicko, dan. 1999. techno rebels: a unique narrative of the evolution and revolution of techno music. new york: billboard books. silcott, mireille. 1999. rave america: new school dancescapes. toronto, on: ecw press. sister sf: women djs and mcs in san francisco and beyond. http://www.sistersf.com (accessed october 1,2006). sloboda, john. 2001. emotion, functionality and the everyday experience of music: where does music education fit? music education research 3 (2): 243-53. straw, will. 1997. sizing up record collections: gender and connoisseurship in rock music culture. in sexing the groove: popular music and gender, edited by sheila whiteley, 3-16. london and new york: routledge. steward, sue, and sheryl garratt. 1984. signed sealed and delivered: true life stories of women in pop. boston, ma, and london: south end press. thinkbox new media collective. http://www.thinkbox.ca (accessed september 16,2004). thornton, sarah. 1996. club cultures: music, media, and subcultural capital. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. wajcman, judy. 2004. techno feminism. malden, ma: polity press. wilson, fiona. 2003. can compute, won't compute: women's participation in the culture of computing. new technology, work and employment 18 (2):127-42. 99 current.musicology.86.1-100.pdf the pastoral after environmentalism: nature and culture in stephen albert's symphony: riverrun holly watkins the year 1972 was a landmark in the history of the environmental move­ ment: the environmental protection agency, founded two years earlier by richard nixon, banned the toxic pesticide ddt and authored the federal water pollution control act, later amended to the clean water act of 1977. while criticism of ddt was nothing new-rachel carson's book silent spring, a detailed expose of the chemical, was published a full decade earlier (carson 1962)-the epa's ban heightened americans' awareness of environmental issues and lent momentum to the interrogation of cherished post-war ideals, especially those of technological and economic progress. in the arts, a suspicion of progress narratives, which had been gathering steam in the 1960s, fueled the search for alternatives to modernism and its principles of artistic autonomy, abstraction, and the evolution of technique. besides such well-known contenders for the countercultural throne as minimalism, the vibrant musical landscape of the early 1970s included edgy political works like frederic rzewski's coming together and attica (both 1972) and pieces alluding to ecological matters, such as alan hovhaness's and god created great whales (1970) and george crumb's vox balaenae (1971).1 i begin with a reference to 1972 because that year witnessed one of the more spectacular disavowals of serialism, considered by its practitioners to be the most progressive compositional approach. george rochberg, a former serialist, broke with the modernist demand for advancement by mimicking the styles of beethoven and mahler in his third string quartet.2 at first glance, rochberg's momentary resurrection of the expressive lan­ guage of romanticism seems to have little to do with the nascent musical environmentalism of crumb and hovhaness, let alone the ban on ddt. yet the postmodern philosophy of history that rochberg promulgated-a philosophy which discards the notion of linear evolution in favor of an al­ leged timelessness of musical styles-was a vital factor in the emergence of a genre of music that i will call the neo-romantic pastorap combining the romantic and environmentalist impulses of the early 1970s, neo-romantic pastorals, penned by such composers as stephen albert, libby larsen, and ellen taaffe zwilich, unabashedly adopt (and adapt) the conventional pastoral topoi of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. since many of current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology those topoi are coincident with basic features of tonal music, neo-romantic pastorals typically exhibit some form of neo-tonality.4 just as the revival of tonality has inspired controversy among compos­ ers and music critics committed to modernist ideals, the reemergence of a relatively traditional form of the pastoral raises questions about the sig­ nificance of this genre in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. viewed in tandem with official and grass-roots efforts to stem the tide of environmental damage, the pastoral's traditional themes of innocence and retreat into nature might appear merely quaint, or even dangerously out of touch with a world in need of concrete solutions to problems of global proportions. nevertheless, the branch ofliterary criticism known as ecocriti­ cism has been at pains to show that the literary pastoral, particularly when it foregrounds the provisional status of the retreat to nature, constitutes an indispensable artistic forum for reflection on how human existence is (or has been, or might be) conceived in relation to the natural world, an issue whose discussion is vital to any environmentalist project.5 might the neo-romantic pastoral be capable of playing a similar role? this paper contends that stephen albert's symphony: riverrun (1984) highlights the complex interplay between nature and culture whenever the former is taken as an object of artistic representation. i argue that the particular ways in which albert harnesses both pastoral devices and the stylistic and generic limitations of the symphony constitute an acknowledgment that the ap­ pearance of nature in a musical work is fully the effect of discursive means, of techniques of signification which are culturally determined rather than directly evocative of nature.6 first, a caveat: non-tonal idioms do not necessarily exclude the pastoral, nor do pastoral themes require a conservative or nostalgic musical treatment. on the contrary, earlier american composers such as charles ives and carl ruggles employed dissonant harmonies and knotty textures in works based on pastoral themes, including ives's "thoreau" (the last movement of the concord sonata) and ruggles's orchestral piece "men and mountains." "the housatonic at stockbridge," the last of ives's three places in new england, suggests the complex motion of water via orchestral textures of extreme rhythmic intricacy. the most familiar inheritor of ives's and ruggles's preoccupation with nature, john cage, recommended imitating "nature's manner of operation" (1961:9). as the defining gesture of "experimental music" (the title of cage's essay), turning to nature did not entail recourse to venerable musical conventions of pastoral representation. on the contrary, nature is presented in cage's essay as the antithesis of "musical habit," as the impetus spurring an iconoclastic musical modernism in which imaginary landscapes took precedence over any natural scenery. later composers took holly watkins cage's suggestions in several different directions. among mathematically oriented modernists, nature was less an object of representation than a stimulus to various means of organizing sound: for example, the structure of gasses served as xenakis's model for stochastically generated musical "clouds," while composers of spectral music used the natural overtone series to regulate consonance. on the other hand, soundscape composers such as hildegard westercamp and francisco lopez took to heart cage's pronouncement that all sounds can be music, creating pieces based on natural sounds recorded in the wild.7 while the peculiar kind of mediation involved in such "electronic pastorals" is ripe for exploration, here i will be concerned only with music that makes a double gesture of return-music in which the representation of nature is achieved through the appropriation of materials associated with tonal music. in the early 1980s, a handful of composers who had rejected or never embraced serialism and experimentalism showed renewed interest in nature as an object of artistic depiction, evidenced by the use of poetic titles and recognizably pastoral musical devices. this interest took a variety of forms, from pieces directly inspired by entities in the natural world, like joan tower's orchestral piece sequoia (1981), to works that relied heavily on triadic harmonies and recognizably classic or romantic musical textures, such as larsen's symphony: water music and albert's symphony: riverrun (both completed in 1984). all three pieces, commissioned by major american orchestras, belong to the type of rhythmically active and brightly orches­ trated symphonic music that formed an important "new horizon" on the compositional landscape in the 1980s, a horizon attractive to performing ensembles seeking to revitalize their relationship to contemporary music without alienating audiences.8 unlike, say, r. murray schafer's 1979 music for wilderness lake, which was intended for performance at a specific outdoor site, the pastoral pieces by tower, larsen, and albert were composed for a traditional ensemble (the orchestra) and setting (the concert hall). to that extent, stylistic neo-romanticism converged with a traditionalist impulse that might seem to have endangered the movement's capacity for progres­ sive political content. at the same time, however, neo-romanticism's very engagement with tradition created new opportunities for commentary on the relationship between human and natural worlds thanks to its knowing use of musical conventions in service of the representation of nature. born in 1941, albert belonged to the generation of american composers who encountered serialism in the 1960s but quickly set off in pursuit of alternative compositional and expressive means. significantly, his experience at a performance of mahler's das lied von der erde (the song of the earth) in the mid-1960s nudged albert in a self-consciously romantic direction.9 9 10 current musicology subsequent works reflected the composer's love of the outdoors; the stone harp (1988), for example, set texts by john haines, a poet known for his sensitive meditations on humanity, nature, and landscape. symphony: riverrun, unusual among albert's nature-themed works because of its lack of text, was commissioned by the national symphony orchestra under mstislav rostropovich and premiered in january 1985. like several other pieces in albert's oeuvre, the symphony takes a novel by james joyce as its point of departure-"riverrun" is the first word of finnegans wake. the symphony traces the course of ireland's liffey river, the watery backdrop onoyce's novel, from its origins in rainfall through scenes of merriment on its banks to its final exit into the sea. unlike cage, who turned to finnegans wake in search of what he called a "non syntactical 'demilitarized' language" (1978:1), albert approached joyce's text as a "reference work" capable of generating "suggestions and impressions" amenable to musical treatment. whereas cage was drawn to joyce's linguistic experiments, albert was at­ tracted to the musical and atmospheric qualities of the irish author's prose as well as its "convoluted nostalgia."10 while riverrun's musical language is not tonal in the way that the music of beethoven or mozart is tonal-no key signatures appear in the score-familiar elements are plentiful: strong sug­ gestions of major or minor tonalities, tonally stable ostinati and pedal points (particularly in the first movement, "rain music"), and a cyclic distribution of themes across the four movements. one of the most important themes, an elegantly contoured phrase built out of sixteenth-notes, has a "rolling" feel characteristic of music depicting water (a trait found in two obvious ancestors of albert's piece, wagner's prelude to das rheingold and smetana's symphonic poem die moldau). the overall impression of geniality, however, is disrupted by occasional bursts of chromaticism, massed chords based on seconds and fourths rather than thirds, and a restless harmonic motion rarely governed by functional relationships. albert's own style might rightfully be called the product of a "convoluted nostalgia" for the tonal past. not surprisingly, a repertory staple was paired with riverrun at its pre­ miere, one with special significance for albert's piece: beethoven's symphony no. 6. 11 placing the "pastoral" symphony alongside riverrun (most likely rostropovich's decision) was more than the typical attempt to allay lingering fears of modern music. that choice quite obviously bolstered the latter's claim to membership in the small but exclusive club of pastoral orchestral works. indeed, placing albert's symphony in the daunting company of beethoven only increased the enthusiasm for riverrun's premiere performance. in the following day's washington post, reviewer joseph mclellan called the symphony "brilliant," "evocative," "artfully constructed;' and "immediately communicative" (1985:c3 )-qualities that evidently appealed to that year's holly watkins pulitzer judges, who awarded the symphony the music prize for 1985. but the final attribute in mclellan's list, "immediately communicative;' soon generated a certain critical anxiety over albert and other neo-romantic composers whose music was potentially (if not actually) profitable. the boston globe writer richard dyer noted that despite the workmanship evident in pieces like riverrun, "the accessibility of albert's style has made his music controversial" (1989:97). after the composer's untimely death in an auto accident in late 1992, dyer admitted that it was only upon getting to know albert personally that he was able to appreciate the sincerity of the composer's "conservative and romantic" style, which in other hands could be a calculated way to make money (1993:66). among newspaper critics, the new york times's bernard holland was most forthright about his discomfort with neo-romanticism. reviewing a performance of albert's flower of the mountain, a setting of molly bloom's monologue from joyce's ulysses, holland wrote that, while graceful and sophisticated, the music is "designed to go down easy, pre-digesting our musical food into a soothing, nice-tasting oatmeal." although (or perhaps because) the audience "loved it:' holland continued, "one mistrusted this music's careful refusal to offend" (1986:c23) . what is striking about these criticisms from an ecocritical standpoint is their resemblance to late twentieth-century concerns about the capacity of the literary pastoral to deal adequately with contemporary social and ecological issues. such concerns arise from the oft-noted tendency of pastoral writing to devolve into a willful escapism fixated on the image of a tension­ free nature, a strategy that fails to do justice to the complexity of human interactions with the natural environment. 12 raymond williams's the country and the city (1973) argued that the pastoral was gradually vitiated of the critical import it had in virgil's eclogues to become a literary mode in which the political and economic realities of country life were suppressed. in place of those vicissitudes, poets substituted an idealized landscape that served as the backdrop for innocent human pleasures rather than disputes over land management or the hardships faced by rural laborers. 13 a decade earlier, leo marx's study the machine in the garden: technology and the pastoral ideal in america ([ 1964] 2000) set out to distinguish "complex" pastorals-literary works that foreground the conflict between the techno­ logical dimension of modernity and the persistent appeal of simple, rural ways of life-from "sentimental" ones. marx's choice of terms recalls schiller's essay nai've and sentimental poetry ([ 1795-96] 1966), which proposed that the na'ive poet (largely a creature of the past) is embedded in the natural world while the sentimental one is estranged from it-the latter can only effect a reconciliation in the 11 12 current musicology ideal sphere of art. however, the signal error of sentimental pastorals, as marx viewed them, is precisely that they do not recognize conflicts between humanity and nature, let alone try to overcome them in a heroic, schillerian manner. marx's concept of sentimentality is derived from neither schiller nor the more general eighteenth-century sense of a cultivated refinement of feelings but is rooted in the modern meaning of false, misguided, or simplistic emotions. predictably, perhaps, marx attributed the "ill-defined feeling for 'nature'" and "mawkish taste for retreat" characteristic of the sentimental pastoral to popular media such as westerns, norman rockwell illustrations, and advertisements that place their products in attractively remote settings (today's beer and car commercials rely on the very same tactic). in this guise, marx argued, the pastoral offers little more than an "escape from reality," a "simple-minded wishfulness, a romantic perversion of thought and feeling" ([ 1964] 2000: 10). marx's pejorative use of the word "romantic" resonates with the recep­ tion of musical neo-romanticism, whose accessibility has tended to inspire either happy pronouncements of art music's reconciliation with the public or fears that the style's appeal signals its capitulation to the demands of capitalism. 14 in addition, marx's blunt equation of the sentimental pastoral with popular genres finds an echo in the musical world: for many critics, neo-romanticism's popularity (insofar as any orchestra's patrons can be understood to represent popular taste) disqualifies it from the realm of "serious music:' to use milton babbitt's phrase, where composers hone the cutting edge of creative techniques (babbitt 1987). as dyer observed, "it is hard to sound sincere when you speak the language of another day" (1993:66). similarly, holland complained that "the present is deflected" in neo-romantic works by the likes of albert and zwilich (1993:c20). these judgments are virtually identical to those marx leveled at the sentimental pastoral: retreat, whether to bygone tonal practices or to an uncomplicated vision of man and nature in harmony, results in an escapist art drained of contemporary critical significance. from this standpoint, the "return" to tonality mirrors the pastoral retreat in two ways. first, it bypasses (or, more negatively, evades) the critical expectation that music should respond to and reflect present -day social and technological conditions instead of attempting to recover a lost (and to a certain extent fictionalized) cultural wholeness in which composer and audience are imagined to share a common musical language. second, it mobilizes still-common notions of the "naturalness" of tonality's harmonic system, notwithstanding the modifications equal tem­ perament imposes on the pure intervals of the overtone series. hovhaness's succinct judgment that "atonality is against nature:' for example, leaves little doubt as to his beliefs about tonality (relei 1997). thanks to its purported holly watkins natural pedigree, composers who avail themselves of tonal materials reinforce the notion that, like nature, the resources of tonality are ahistorical and ever-present, ready to be tapped at will. albert's riverrun thus courts accusations of retreat on account of both its musical language, whose quasi-tonal features run the risk of being condemned as a sign of pandering and creative weakness, and its seemingly nostalgic subject matter, the course of the liffey river and the folksy revelry that takes place nearby. but rather than view albert's use of triadic harmony and "grandly romantic orchestral gestures" (kozinn 1991:ci2) as creative backsliding or base profiteering-the inevitable conclusion of an orthodox modernist-it would be more fruitful to ask whether the familiar devices of tonal composition allow albert to comment on the substance and purpose of the pastoral genre in the 1980s in a way that a modernist idiom could not. might marx's notion of the "complex" pastoral be useful in developing such a perspective? marx derived the concept from literature in which the "interruption of the machine" ([ 1964] 2000: 15) upsets the illusion of a pastoral realm insulated from modernity, a device that enabled new insights into the relationship between nature and civilization. while such a narra­ tive would be by no means impossible within the domain of instrumental music, it is not especially relevant in the case of riverrun. because of its broader scope, terry gifford's (1999) concept of the post -pastoral as a genre in which the retreat into nature is understood to be provisional ultimately proves more relevant for the evaluation of albert's symphony. in addition to expanding the range of interpretive possibilities, a further advantage of gifford's approach is that, unlike marx, he does not draw strict boundaries between "popular" and "high" art, a stance that seems important in the case of neo-romantic music which enjoys a broad appeal. while gifford's study outlines several qualities that can make a literary work a post-pastoral, the most pertinent to riverrun is the notion that post-pastorals "convey an awareness of both nature as culture and of culture as nature" (1999: 162 )-that is, they tend to avoid dogmatically isolating the two spheres from one another. gifford's idea might be refined as follows: post -pastorals reflexively point to their own participation in discourse about nature. rather than feigning a transparent representation of the "real thing;' post-pastorals acknowledge their active role in constituting their objects of representation. i would suggest that riverrun highlights this process from the very beginning of the first movement, "rain music" (example 1). after a brief introduction that evokes g# minor but is punctuated by dissonant chords built on the tritone-related root d, a falling figure in the piano, vibraphone, and chimes (m. 10) ushers in the random pitter-patter of rain. first presented as a rhythmically indeterminate succession of staccato c#s in 13 14 current musicology example 1: stephen albert, symphony: riverrun, first movement, mm. 10-18. music by stephen albert, copyright © 1989 by g. schirmer, inc. (ascap). international copyright secured. all rights reserved. reprinted by permission. r.ll moderato; un poco misterioso ed inquieto laj j = 66-72 >~ tpts 3 w . .., > ob. 3 3 vns. = 1p fl.2, hp.! (difftrent rhythm) vns.,lrem. (vos.) h ii (>1 i i u stace. cl.2, hp.2 (difftrent rhythm) vns., !rem. fl.!, poo. (difftrentrhythm) vns trem===!'=>i..) --r---===r7 " #j iii i i • • tpt., vib., & chimes t(r---6---------, f marc. » 7 f= p tpt. the clarinet and harp, other instruments soon join in the rainfall, outlining the motive g#-a#-c#. this motive (0 2 5) is also heard in the supporting texture of string tremolos, and its intervallic span is echoed by falling fourths in the trumpet and oboes (m. 17). the rainfall ceases as a more assertive passage expands on the motive of a fourth (notably presented as a pedal by the double basses) and the falling figure that initiated the rainfall. holly watkins example 2: albert, riverrun, first movement, mm. 38-41. music by stephen albert, copyright © 1989 by g. schirmer, inc. (ascap). international copyright secured. all rights reserved. reprinted by permission. inquieto e precipitando sva------------------------------------------------------------------------pno.,x),!'> 3 pice., ~ ~ ~111 glock. ~ ff (8) -1 >3 3> >>~ ~ ~1j fl p~ 7 ~ 7 (p)ru 1 ..d 7 ~=====ff ~ :::: the random sound of raindrops soon returns, however, and this time, the "rain instruments" and the strings trace the figure c#-d#-f# (0 2 5), again emphasizing the perfect fourth. the two groups of pitches then blend into a giant massed chord, while the piccolo and glockenspiel transform the falling-fourth motive into an urgent birdcall (example 2). in a dramatic abrogation of the rain's rhythmic freedom, the texture abruptly shifts to a trio of horns pounding out a four-square ostinato on d, which is then given a more lasting form by the bassoons, harp, and double bass (example 3). thinking back to cage's comments on joyce, one might say that albert "remilitarizes" the unsystematic rhythm of rainfall into an almost comically repetitive ostinato, as if to illustrate the crudeness of musical attempts to imitate nature. obviously, the impression of a "steady" rainfall, actually the sum of innumerable individual droplets, cannot be fully conveyed by the members of a single orchestra. "steadiness" is instead communicated by way of the enormously simplified technique of ostinato. from this point on, 15 ..... '" example 3: albert, riverrun, first movement, mm. 44-50. music by stephen albert, copyright © 1989 by g. schirmer, inc. (ascap). international copyright secured. all rights reserved. reprinted by permission. 44 f poco ten. e marc. hn.3 v if ==pp mf =-pp hn.4 v mf=pp if il ~ v mf --"' hn.l >~ sempre sim. va.piz::;:; 17 @) "*v' 7 r~r i r i bns., hp-i i ~l--~ld 7 jl",--if "":" "';j.,b tj -.....;:= str. r l db.pizz· c.bn. j ,i i ,i i ,i j ill (lid ~ t o ~"1 i i i ~ i >~ i i '-' c. i j i n c .., ~ ::::s r+ s: c iii n" o 0ul '< holly watkins the music remains securely within the bounds of traditional notation-its nod to indeterminacy is revealed as no more than that. albert jettisons the cage-like imitation of nature's random "manner of operation" in favor of conventional pastoral topoi, which are used to depict the river and the outdoor locale. in other words, albert does not gesture to the realm of nature by declaring his independence from "musical habit" (thus reifying the distinction between humanity and nature) but by entering the hybrid sphere of pastoral signifiers. while some of these signifiers (like the intervals of the perfect fourth and fifth) are more closely related to natural properties than others (such as the pedal tone, whose pastoral quality derives from the drone-based instruments once favored in the country), even the natural overtone series requires that a human being build an instrument before it can become a vehicle for the representation of nature. i do not mean to suggest that any work deploying pastoral topoi neces­ sarily concedes their conventional (and thoroughly human) character. in order not to be undermined by their own enabling principles, romantic depictions of nature depended for their efficacy on the suppression of convention's role in representation. albert's handling of pastoral devices differs from his nineteenth-century predecessors' in that the "naturalized" framework of tonality-its formerly self-evident character-is itself dis­ turbed in riverrun, disrupting in turn the possibility of representing nature in a way that effaces human intervention. beginning with the introduction of the ostinato, the movement embarks on a series of rising pedal points allusive of the mounting waters generated by the rainstorm. invariably played by the low strings and occasionally joined by other instruments, these pedal tones almost always move upward by fourth or fifth, producing a compelling (and familiar) sense of movement but little sense of an ultimate goal. d, the pitch on which the first ostinato is based, gives way to g, c, f, and b~ once the ostinato is discarded. brief excursions to e~ and a~ culminate in a b~ dominant seventh chord (a rare sonority in this work), which resolves deceptively to b by way of a dissonant stack of thirds. after another section based on the original ostinato, the bass begins to move again, this time by fifths: from b to f#, c#, and g#, ending finally (after several excursions to tritone-related roots) on a c# minor chord with added minor sixth. to be sure, the powerful effect of the bass motion stems from the circle of fifths, yet the various bass notes are not hierarchical members of a single scale, nor do they articulate a network of functional harmonic relationships. instead, they produce a sense of cyclical motion independent of the channeling power of tonal harmony. in order to convey the unrestricted quality of the rainwater's path, albert ironically cites one of the most constrained forms of tonal motion-motion along the circle of fifths-but in a way that thwarts 17 18 current musicology the directedness characteristic of tonal music. while an echo of the tonal past undoubtedly reverberates in albert's work, the return to tonality appears to be just as provisional as the retreat into nature. the idea of cyclicity is also conveyed by the symphony's overall thematic process, in which motives and themes presented in the first movement develop and recur across the entire work. notably, the rising motive (025) featured in the first movement's rain episodes evolves into what albert called the "voice of the river" (freed 1988:6), a theme whose grand apotheosis takes place in the final movement ("rivers end"). because cyclic form originated as a means of ensuring an ostensibly "organic" coherence,albert's symphony appears to exhibit a commitment to the ideology of organicism. while seeming to honor the idea of natural growth, organicism hardened over the course of the nineteenth century into a formal approach whose human origins were suppressed even as it became a sign of an integrated (and typically germanic) subjectivity. that is, organicism became "second nature;' a cultural practice that masqueraded as natural and whose value remained unquestioned throughout much of the twentieth century. is while only a longer study could fully address riverrun's organicist principles, it is nonetheless apparent that the symphony's cyclical procedures, rather than reinforcing a romantic narrative of subjective evolution, have the effect of distancing the human realm from the natural world. like beethoven's "pastoral" symphony, riverrun turns to the social sphere in the third movement (entitled "beside the rivering waters;' a quote from the end of part 1 of finnegans wake), which recreates a scene of riverside revelry and mourning using tunes reminiscent of children's games, funeral marches, and pub songs. "instead of the conventional scherzo and trio;' albert wrote, "is a fragmented march and scherzo" (freed 1988:6). the trio, often an episode of pastoral repose, is here replaced by raucous frenzy in counterpoint with funereal music that recalls the opening movement of mahler's symphony no. 2. rather than enclosing the pastoral within music evoking dance or other social pursuits, as sometimes happens in classical minuet and trio movements (for example, in haydn's symphony no. 88), here albert sur­ rounds the "human" third movement with the rolling "water music" that ends the second movement ("leafy speafing") and returns in the fourth. in contrast to the final two movements of beethoven's "pastoral;' which depict a thunderstorm followed by a shepherd's song of thanksgiving, the human dimension recedes in albert's last movement as passages evoking a "distant" music box and "haunting" folk-like tunes (to quote from the score) are ultimately swallowed up by the swelling river waters. by replacing the momentary joys and sorrows of human existence with the eternal flow of the river, this work allows the natural world to trump the human. the holly watkins ultimate reality, it seems, is found in the cycles of nature rather than the spiritual "beyond" that comforted beethoven's shepherd. albert does not make this point in a blandly affirmative spirit. although the climax of the final movement is dense and dissonant, it is firmly rooted on c: the double-bass fourth g-c underpins the climax for thirteen measures, then shifts to octaves on c for three more. as the harmonically mobile "rolling" figure cycles between statements on g, a, e, and c, the "voice of the river" reiterates the (025) motive beginning on both g and c. just after a fortissimo statement of that voice by the trumpets, the glockenspiel and chime motive that instigated the first movement's rainstorm disrupts what might have been a final cadence on c. the rolling figure instead sets off on a series of peregrinations that move further and further away harmonically, finally settling on the root d#/e~. in the 'penultimate measure, the piano echoes the figure's falling thirds with quiet, seemingly aimless rising thirds in the top voice, and the piece comes to a close on a chord that is built on d#but is not triadic (example 4). the uncertain atmosphere clouds both the pastoral image and the tonal focus of the work. by denying a conventional tonal closure, albert again allows his subject matter to escape the constraints of form, as the "water music" heads off in a direction that takes it beyond the confines of the piece, so to speak. yet it is only by subverting expecta­ tions of closure, and thus by relying on culturally determined principles of musical behavior, that albert is able to point to something that falls outside of those principles: the natural world of rain, rivers, and the sea. riverrun, then, highlights the discursive quality of the pastoral topoi it cites even while gesturing beyond its own representational limits. in this sense, the symphony can be described as a post-pastoral, as what gifford calls a "dramatic form of unresolved dialogue" (1999: 11) about how culture is positioned vis-a.-vis nature both historically and today. like other post -pastorals, albert's riverrun places culture and nature in dialogue while refusing to collapse one into the other or to offer unrealistic scenarios of humanity and nature in harmony. at the very least, such works remind us that the relationship between nature and culture-like that between present and pa.st-is necessarily open to negotiation. efforts to make human civilizations more sustainable involve constant testing and fine­ tuning of that relationship. the urgency of this project, in which the arts are now active participants, should dispel any discomfort with programmaticism borne of an old-fashioned commitment to artistic autonomy. indeed, albert's approach would have found a harsh critic in theodor adorno, who proposed that art which truly respects nature should not attempt to represent it-such representation resembled too closely the kind of technological subjugation of nature that forces it into predetermined conceptual schemes. "the more 19 n o example 4: albert, riverrun, fourth movement, mm. 148-50. music by stephen albert, copyright © 1989 by g. schirmer, inc. (ascap). international copyright secured. all rights reserved. reprinted by permission. 148 f'j i tj 8 va vns., vib. .-----3---, ! i i -pp i rallentando a tempo (j = 63) r---3 pice., glock. f.', j~~.e.. 7 ~. . i _'s' _,_ " j~~'7'~r.._ ~.,_l' f1l= ~~,~~"'~ ---. =-i pno.b; piilp i f'j p bell-like f.', tj ~~ ~ oe-' ##-0: :0-. -----------------0-. pp f ----------------------1"ro"ingis rl~ -==p ~ figure~. x :lj±..l, j fj ii ~>-~ f.', \ " #::0::' _______ _______::0::. -----------::0:. #-e-. ________ _______-e-__________ _______-e-. db., b.c!. n c .., ~ :::j r+ s: c '" ;:r o 0ul '< holly watkins strictly artworks abstain from rank natural growth and the replication of nature;' adorno wrote in aesthetic theory, "the more the successful ones approach nature" (1997:77).16 the true affinity between art and nature, he suggested, lies in the appearance of objectivity shared by both, in their separation from "human intention" (1997:78). at the root of adorno's view is a desire to preserve some kernel of absolute otherness in nature as the locus of its resistance to human attempts to dominate it.17 however much this position may emerge from the laudable insight that meaningful existence on this planet does not stop at human consciousness, it places unnecessary restrictions on the kinds of conversations about nature that can be held within the artistic sphere-conversations that, like albert's riverrun, point to culture's mediating role in any concept of nature while showing that the natural world may nonetheless exceed our ability to represent it. on a final note, it is ultimately unhelpful to imagine nature as a realm whose otherness is its most significant quality when we are so clearly in need of broader recognition and study of the human impact on the environ­ ment and, in turn, of the (altered) environment's impact on us. if, from an adornian standpoint, we still need help shedding our dominating attitude toward the world, perhaps we might consider that nature's otherness inheres in ourselves as well, insofar as most of what takes place in our living, breath­ ing bodies is opaque to consciousness. awe in the face of nature's otherness might then motivate humility in the face of that part of ourselves which forever eludes self-knowledge. notes the ideas in this paper were first presented as part of an evening panel entitled "a sense of place: music and regional environments, musicology, and ecocriticism" held at the 2005 annual meeting of the american musicological society in washington, dc. i would like to thank melina esse, laura basini, and fellow panelists brooks toliver, rob fallon, catherine cole, and denise von glahn for their helpful comments on subsequent drafts. sincerest thanks are due also to scott perkins, who expertly prepared the musical examples. 1. morris (2003) addressed the ties between crumb's piece and the growing scientific and popular interest in whales in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 2. this was not the first time rochberg delved into the stylistic past in his compositions. music for the magic theatre of 1965 thematized the disorienting coexistence of past and present in contemporary life. the first movement inserts quotations from works by mahler and mozart into a musical idiom that is predominantly atonal, and the second movement enjoys a placid classicism until it is suddenly wrenched back to the "present;' signified by intense dissonance. the third string quartet's variations movement, on the other hand, is consistently tonal throughout, as if to suggest that such stylistic retrospectivism no longer needs to be excused or qualified. for further discussion of rochberg's music and its con­ temporary impact, see taruskin 2005. 3. see rochberg's (1984) commentary on the third string quartet. while the historical boundaries and defining characteristics of postmodernism are a matter of debate, one of its 21 22 current musicology most commented-on features is the changed relationship to time and history it entails, hav­ ing rejected the modernist notion of continual progress. the literature on postmodernism is vast, but jameson 1991 and harvey 1989 are indispensable. 4. while it may not be possible to draw a firm distinction between neo-romanticism and neo-tonality, the former term tends to point beyond aspects of harmony and musical style toward a composer's desire to communicate with large audiences. this desire has often been interpreted negatively; for example, jann pasler writes, "in music, we all know about the nostalgia that has gripped composers in recent years, resulting in neo-romantic works ... to the extent that these developments are a true 'about face,' they represent a postmodernism of reaction, a return to pre-modernist musical thinking" (1993:17). in the grove entry on "n eo-romantic," pasler defines neo-romanticism as appealing "directly to the emotions." the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., s.v. "neo-romantic." 5. ecocriticism, a discipline whose boundaries are flexible with respect to subject matter and methodology, typically investigates relationships between cultural products, the environment, and nature, where the latter is recognized to be both physically existing and ideologically constructed. in the field of literary studies, buell 1995 and bate 2000 are exemplary. for a concise summary of the field, see garrard 2004. ecocritical approaches within musicology, though few, include toliver 2004 and morris 1998; see also rehding 2002. 6. while this conclusion arguably applies to any work of music, some pieces depend on mask­ ing their conventional character in order to achieve their intended effect. for example, intima­ tions of the primordiality and purity of nature in wagner's prelude to das rheingold rely on hearing its opening measures as an unmediated citation of the natural overtone series. 7. excerpts of essays and music by these and other soundscape composers can be found in rothenberg and ulvaeus 2001. see also organized sound 7 (1), a special issue devoted to soundscape composition published in 2002. 8. see the booklet accompanying the new york philharmonic's 1983 concert series, with essays by composer-in-residence jacob druckman and others (sanders 1983). 9. for a short overview of albert's career, see mary lou humphrey's (1993) essay in the memorial booklet devoted to the composer. 10. albert's comments on the symphony are quoted in richard freed's notes for the 1988 delos recording of riverrun, with mstislav rostropovich conducting the national symphony orchestra (freed 1988:4). 11. the overture to fidelia was also included on the program (mclellan 1985). 12. on the centrality of the notion of retreat to pastoral literature, see especially gifford 1999, chapters 1 and 3. 13. for williams, this process began as early as the pastoral dramas of the italian renais­ sance (1973:18-22). 14. espousing the latter view, bernard holland wrote, "its mysteries notwithstanding, com­ posing music is also a business. an individual makes an artifact to be used or sold, hoping from it to feed himself, clothe his children and somehow create the protective space to make life bearable. so it will always be. stephen albert's 'flower of the mountain' ... is no differ­ ent" (1986:c23). 15. the familiar concept of "second nature" has been subjected to scrutiny especially by critics in the marxist tradition, including georg lukacs and theodor adorno (see vogel 1996, chapter 2, and paddison 1993:31-37). for an introduction to the topic of organicism in music studies, see solie 1980. holly watkins 16. for a discussion of adorno's views on nature in relation to the music of anton webern, see johnson 1999:225-29. 17. vogel criticizes adorno for maintaining this borderline "magical" view of the world: "in its desire to assert the reality and 'otherness' of the world, this position ends by reject­ ing any real human attempt to interact with that world, worrying that all interaction is a transformation and so inevitably betrays the egoism of domination, the violence of 'brutal self-preservation'" (1996:95). references adorno, theodor w. 1997. aesthetic theory, translated by robert hullot -kentor. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. babbitt, milton. 1987. words about music, edited by stephen dembski and joseph n. straus. madison: university of wisconsin press. bate, jonathan. 2000. the song of the earth. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. buell, lawrence. 1995. the environmental imagination: thoreau, nature writing, and the formation of american culture. cambridge, ma: belknap press of harvard university press. cage, john. 1961. silence. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. ---. 1978. writing through finnegans wake. tulsa: university of tulsa monograph series. carson, rachel. 1962. silent spring. boston: houghton mifflin. dyer, richard. 1989. the "unknown" pulitzer winner. boston globe (august 20): 97. ---. 1993. albert's music grew on you. boston globe (january 1): 66. freed, richard. 1988. liner notes. stephen albert: symphony: riverrun; to wake the dead. delos cd lo16. garrard, greg. 2004. ecocriticism. london and new york: routledge. gifford, terry. 1999. pastoral. london and new york: routledge. harvey, david. 1989. the condition of post modernity. oxford: blackwell. holland, bernard. 1986. music: new work by stephen albert. new york times (may 21): c23. ---. 1993. music from two american composers. new york times (march 4): c20. humphrey, mary lou. 1993. the music of stephen albert. stephen albert, 7-16. new york: schirmer. jameson, fredric. 1991. postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. johnson, julian. 1999. webern and the transformation of nature. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. kozinn, allan. 1991. this night the works are watery. the new york times (february 20): c12. marx, leo. [1964] 2000. the machine in the garden: technology and the pastoral ideal in america. oxford and new york: oxford university press. mclellan, joseph. 1985. rostropovich's triumphant return; nso premieres stephen albert's "riverrun." the washington post (january 18): c3. morris, mitchell. 1998. ecotopian sounds, or, the music of luther adams and strong environmentalism. in crosscurrents and counterpoints: offerings in honor of bengt hambraeus at 70, edited by per f. broman, nora a. engebretsen, and bo alphonce, 129-41. goteborg: goteborgs universitet. ---. 2003. vox balaenae and the imagination of popular ecology. paper presented at 23 24 current musicology the sixty-ninth annual meeting of the american musicological society, houston, tx. november 15. paddison, max. 1993. adorno's aesthetics of music. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. pasler, jann. 1993. postmodernism, narrativity, and the art of memory. contemporary music review 7: 3-32. rehding, alexander. 2002. eco-musicology. journal of the royal musical association 127: 305-20. relei, steve. 1997. mountains in music. sforzando 2 (7): 44-45. rochberg, george. 1984. on the third string quartet. in the aesthetics of survival: a composer's view of twentieth-century music, edited by william bolcom, 239-42. ann arbor: university of michigan press. rothenberg, david, and marta ulvaeus, eds. 2001. the book of music and nature. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. sanders, linda, ed. 1983. since 1968, a new romanticism? new york: new york philharmonic. schiller, friedrich von. [1795-96] 1966. naive and sentimental poetry and on the sublime: two essays, translated by julius a. elias. new york: frederick ungar publishing co. solie, ruth. 1980. the living work: organicism and musical analysis. 19th-century music 4 (2): 147-56. taruskin, richard. 2005. the oxford history of western music, vol. 5. oxford and new york: oxford university press. toliver, brooks. 2004. eco-ing in the canyon: ferde grofe's grand canyon suite and the transformation of wilderness. journal of the american musicological society 57 (2): 325-67. vogel, steven. 1996. against nature: the concept of nature in critical theory. albany: state university of new york press. williams, raymond. 1973. the country and the city. london: chatto and windus. current.musicology.84.1-100.pdf the cyberpolitics of music in ukraine's 2004 orange revolution adriana helbig between november 21 and december 26, 2004, nearly one million people protested in kyiv against election fraud, media censorship, mass govern­ ment corruption, and oligarchic market reforms. these large-scale peaceful protests have become widely known as the orange revolution, named after the campaign colors ofviktor yushchenko, the opposition candidate who ran against viktor yanukovych, a politician with a criminal record who was backed by moscow and the sitting ukrainian government.! music and the internet played crucial roles in the orange revolution. in the five years between 2000 and 2005, the number ofinternet users in ukraine jumped from 200,000 to more than 5 million in a country of approximately 48 million people (an increase of more than 10% of the population).2 in the two months between november 21, 2004 (the day of the contested presidential elections that precipitated the orange revolution), and january 23,2005 (when president viktor yushchenko was inaugurated), the number of internet users in ukraine tripled (delong 2005). the significant role played by internet streaming of audio and video in the mediation of political information, activism, and communication during the orange revolution can serve as a case study for a broader analysis of the relationship between cyberactivism (kreimer 2001; mccaughey and ayers 2003) and what i term "cybermusicality": an engagement with internet music and its surrounding discourses that has meaning in listeners' lives both online and off. in remarks before a concert by ukrainian rock singer and orange revolution participant maria burmaka in the spring of 2005 at columbia university,3 ethnomusicologistana maria ochoa gautier argued that music is not political in its essence. rather, it is politicized through formal, ideologi­ cal, cultural, and social actions, configurations, and processes (ochoa 2005; see also ochoa 1997 and street 2001). i will build on ochoa's argument by demonstrating that the media through which music is disseminated partly determines how that music's relationship to the political sphere is established and understood within social movements. in analyzing the relationship between music, social movements, and technology, i draw on the paradigm proposed by ron eyerman and andrew jamison who argue that "social movements lead to a reconstruction of processes of social interaction and collective identity formation" (1998:10). though i will present some ofthe new popular music styles favored by anti-government organizers during current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 81 82 current musicology the orange revolution, particularly one that i call tak-techno, i am less concerned with the content on the internet than with the internet's use as a vital communication tool within socio-political events and music's func­ tion within that framework. in this analysis of the relationship between the internet, music, and politics in post -socialist ukraine, i argue that technology is not culturally or politically neutral. rather, cybermusicality was undeni­ ably vital to the orange revolution, drawing millions of internet users into new online communities. during the orange revolution, the internet offered opportunities for anti-government protestors to express and engage new understandings of self and community through music. the unprecedented use of technology by this opposition movement during the protests highlighted the signifi­ cance of music as a powerful communicative medium for the expression of individual and collective dissent. more specifically, because the orange revolution criticized the reliability and authenticity of government dis­ course, the revolution's music and recordings invite an examination of the representative power of recorded spoken text in political song. numerous political scandals involving technology greatly influenced the public's perception of words spoken by various proand anti-government political leaders in ukraine. protest songs re-inflected the official political discourse by using musique concrete techniques to incorporate vocal recordings of speeches by the presidential candidates. much of this protest music was composed with the help of computer software on home computers and at opposition-friendly radio stations by djs and musicians who, prior to the revolution, were not part of the mainstream popular music scene in ukraine. these performers, composers, and producers were activated by the political situation. well known ukrainian-language musicians such as sviatoslav vakarchuk, oleh skrypka, taras chubai, maria burmaka, ruslana lyzhychko, and oleksandr ponomariov, as well as groups such as haidamaky, tartak, mandry, okean elzy, vopli vidopliasova, and plach jaremii also encouraged political involvement as they took center stage and performed daily for protestors in kyiv during the orange revolution. my analysis, however, will be restricted to revolution songs on the internet that feature the voices of proand anti-government politicians. i view this repertoire as a particularly salient expression of citizen empowerment through the interpretation and evaluation of truth (pravda), a concept understood in the rhetoric of the revolution as the public's "right to know" about what is at the core of post-soviet ukrainian government propaganda. adriana helbig musicology and the internet internet music has become an increasingly popular topic of study in musico­ logy. much of the literature has western biases, however, and neglects the local social and political contexts in which internet music is situated. thus, a review and critique of recent literature will frame the research presented in this article. the december 2005 issue of the journal contemporary music review featured articles that analyze the internet as a musical space (tanzi 2005) and as a network that enables collaborative musical improvisation (hugill 2005). such research builds on work by ethnomusicologists and popular music scholars who have demonstrated the impact internet techno­ logy has had on modes of musical communication (lysloff 2003) and the ways in which the internet has influenced avenues of musical production, consumption, and dissemination within global(ized) music markets (jones 2000; taylor 2001). scholars have considered the effects ofinternet-based music technology on issues of musical copyright (garofalo 1999; norbert 2004; park 2003; and c. wright 2005), and others have pointed to the ways in which the internet has presented new opportunities for musical composition (duckworth 1999; jorda 1999), the archiving of music (lange 2001), and the public dissemination of musicological scholarship (s. wright 2000). a close examination of contemporary musicological research, however, reveals a disproportionate emphasis on internet music in the west, and in the united states in particular. studies tend to over-emphasize english­ language music and rely on research that looks predominantly at english­ language chat rooms, electronic mailing lists, and websites (ayers 2006; kibby 2000; taylor 2001). though english is apparently the lingua franca of the internet, an over-emphasis on english-language data and a tendency to disregard foreign-language websites can lead to skewed interpretations and misleading conclusions.4 such a geographically and culturally limited approach to web-based music (music that is allegedly accessible to users worldwide) promotes an uncritical celebration of what is seen to be the developed world's technology and a concurrent dismissal of cybermusical phenomena in non-western contexts. for example, karl neuenfeldt's (1997) internet-based research on the relationship between gender and the didjeridu relies on information gathered from online discussions among computer users in australia, canada, the united states, sweden, and south africa. the email list from which neuenfeldt drew his data was hosted at mills college in california and, as neuenfeldt notes, the discussion of the didjeridu did not include any responses from female users or from aboriginal players of the didjeridu in australia. research such as neuenfeldt's often reveals more about who in the west initiates and controls internet discourses on music than about global internet music practices. 83 84 current musicology questions posed bydevelopmenttheoristarturo escobar (1994) regard­ ing technology's role as an impetus for cultural change around the globe are at the center of my study. anticipating anthropologist arjun appadurai's (1996) notion of "tech nos capes;' escobar questioned the types of social reali­ ties new technologies produce and the ways in which they influence modes of thinking and being in non-western contexts (1994:214). in ukraine, for instance, the internet is perceived as a marker of western modernity, as a symbol of social and economic status, as well as a communicative tool imbued with political meaning. furthermore, as jamie shinhee-lee (2005) discovered in his ethnographic research in japan and korea, one's level of access and interaction with the internet is inflected by one's generation, class, language, ethnicity, gender, and geographical location. because the meanings people attribute to the internet differ according to these factors, scholars who conduct internet research must be careful not to project their particular configuration of assumptions and experiences with the internet onto users elsewhere. to avoid such a trap, we should consider the informa­ tive and culturally sensitive study by david hill and krishna sen (1997) that analyzes the role of the middle class in establishing the internet in indonesia as a government opposition space in the mid-1990s, as well as research by eric harwit and duncan clark (2001), who examine the government's attempts to regulate internet content in china. these studies show that, in addition to expanding online research to consider non-english websites and networks, scholars must move beyond conducting research on the internet and instead analyze people's interactions with the internet, taking into account individual experiences with interactive technologies (greene and porcello 2005) in order to locate the internet's effect on musical expression within broader political, economic, and socio-cultural processes. background to the orange revolution: the battle for technology and "ukrainian truth" beginning in the mid-1990s, the ukrainian government under president leonid kuchma (1994-2004) began to increase its control over the media. an oligarchy of businessmen with political ties to the administration controlled the finances and programming of television and radio stations. they censored public information about the government as news of political corruption made international headlines with increasing frequency.s because relatively few people in ukraine had access to the internet, the ukrainian government at first paid little attention to the new technology.6 against this background of government control over the news reported by most national media outlets, the internet emerged as a communication medium that could sidestep government censorship during the presidential elections of 2004. adriana helbig in addition to controlling newspapers and the broadcast media, the government was implicated in threats, intimidation, and violence against independent journalists who failed to follow the party line. in 2000, inde­ pendent internet journalist heorhiy gongadze mysteriously disappeared. gongadze had co-founded the newspaper ukrayinska pravda (ukrainian truth) in april of 2000, publishing it on the internet in an effort to avoid censorship from the government and pressure from oligarchic business­ men.7 the newspaper produced a number of investigative articles about ukraine's corruption scandals and published commentaries critical of the administration. gongadze disappeared in september 2000 and his head­ less body was found one month later. in november, socialist party leader oleksander moroz released recordings that allegedly featured the voice of president kuchma ordering aides to stop gongadze from investigating and exposing high-level corruption in the government.s public reaction to the "cassette scandal;' which western scholars also dubbed "kuchmagate;' culminated in a series of protests in 2001 under the slogan "kuchmu het!" (kuchma, out!). with seventy percent of the popula­ tion deeply mistrustful of kuchma, people took to the streets to demand his resignation two years before the end of his term (starobin and olearchyk 2002). the powerful kuchma administration crushed these protests and increased pressure on journalists to adhere to government-issued temnyky, secret instructions sent to television stations advising them as to what they should cover and what they should ignore.9 gongadze's colleague and the co-founder of ukrayinska pravda, olena prytula, published transcripts of the kuchma tapes, which made the internet newspaper the most visited website in ukraine. anders aslund, director of the russian and eurasian program at the carnegie endowment for international peace, interpreted people's interest in the newspaper this way: "if it's so good that people get murdered for it, it must be worth reading" (quoted in catania 2005). the murder of heorhiy gongadze created an unprecedented awareness among ukrainian citizens ofinternet technology. the event positioned the internet in ukraine as a powerful, progressive, democratic, and potentially dangerous anti-government space. young adults throughout western and central ukraine's urban centers (where the support for the anti-government protests in 2004 was strongest) turned to the internet to access unbiased news and information and to subvert government -controlled media outlets such as television, radio, and newspapers, viewing the internet's informa­ tion and images as content untainted by government spin-doctors (zubar 2006). because a large segment of government supporters were members of the older generation, and since the official media was more popular in eastern and southern ukraine where support for the government in power was strongest, the orange revolution marked a turning point for ukrainian 85 86 current musicology political expression as younger voters began to voice political dissent and culture-related grievances over the internet (filippova 2005). for these anti-government internet users in ukraine, cyberspace played an important role in mobilizing civic awareness. only a small segment of the population had direct access to the internet, but the new technology and the discourse surrounding it entered the lives of opposition supporters indirectly. in urban settings, for example, news printouts from the internet circulated widely among government opponents, expanding their information network to non-virtual contexts. as olena prytula explains, "people printed online articles and took them to their relatives, friends, and even to the rural regions where their parents lived. these articles were republished in regional presses, penetrating to even the most remote corners of ukraine, where the internet is still a novelty" (prytula 2006:108). thus, online politicking merged with off-line socio-political networking. in ukraine, internet cafes continue to be the most common access points to the internet. many internet cafes are adjacent to bars and discos frequented by young people, and these locations extend the sociability of the internet as people visit cafes in groups or share computer stations with friends. such face-to-face sociability associated with cyberspace reveals that the socio-political significance of the internet often lies beyond the internet itself. music, violence, and the 2004 presidential election in ukraine on november 21, 2004, the challenger viktor yushchenko lost the presiden­ tial election to government candidate viktor yanukovych in what was widely believed to be a rigged election. by the following morning, when the elec­ tion results had been announced along with the broadcast ofyanukovych's acceptance speech on ukrainian state-run television stations, hundreds of thousands of people had assembled in protest on kyiv's independence square (known in ukrainian as maidan nezalezhnosti and referred to simply as maidan). i was in ukraine during this time, having returned to my dissertation field site in uzhhorod, the administrative capital of the transcarpathian region in western ukraine, to serve as an international observer for the presidential election. during my fieldwork among roma (gypsy) communi­ ties in 2002, i witnessed extensive corruption in the ukrainian government, including unwarranted arrests and trials. therefore, i felt it was my moral responsibility to interlocutors, friends, and family, and also my civic duty, as an ethnic ukrainian living in the united states, to do what i could during the presidential election. i understood this event to be the most significant attempt at reform since ukraine's declaration of independence from the soviet union in 1991. adriana helbig my interest in ukrainian politics began in 2001, when, in the wake of gongadze's murder and president kuchma's "cassette scandal;' reform­ oriented economist viktor yushchenko was forced to resign from his posi­ tion as prime minister, an act that generated political chaos in the country. as yushchenko's camp mobilized for the 2002 parliamentary elections in ukraine (a campaign that i observed firsthand during myethnomusicologi­ cal fieldwork), i witnessed ruthless political machinations practiced by the government in schools, factories, and businesses throughout the country. in may 2004, the nation was stunned by two scandals in the region of transcarpathia: the mayoral elections in mukachevo had been rigged in favor of the government candidate, and professor volodymyr slyvka, rector of uzhhorod national university, died under mysterious circumstances. professor slyvka, who had repeatedly attempted to shield students from voter manipulation, was found dead with his wrists slashed and a knife through his heart. officials dismissed his death as suicide. 10 violence against members of the opposition continued during the election itself. ii opposition voters were beaten and ballot boxes were sabo­ taged and set on fire. on november 21, 2004, at the polling station where i monitored the presidential elections in central uzhhorod,12 members of the election commission who had been bribed by government officials forced university students to show their ballots prior to casting to ensure they had voted for viktor yanukovych. those who did not comply were warned they would suffer repercussions at school. at three a.m. during the polling station's vote count, someone cut off the electricity, plunging the building into darkness. people began to shout nervously at each other because everyone present knew that any ballot tampering would result in the nullification of all the votes cast at the polling station. one local election observer attempted to maintain order by shining his flashlight into people's eyes and ordering them to step away from the ballot table while i used my cell phone to call the central headquarters ofyushchenko's political party in town. within minutes, members ofyushchenko's team arrived outside the station and a heated verbal exchange took place between them and men allegedly hired by the yanukovych camp to attack commission members and steal the ballot boxes en route to the regional polling office. at six a.m. the next morning, after twenty-four hours at the polling station, a media blackout meant that i still had no access to any information regarding polling outcomes. my cell phone battery had died and, as i smoked a cigarette in the bone-chilling morning air, i wondered whether i was already caught in the middle of a civil war. my choices were to walk ten kilometers to the slovakian border and leave the country or to try to make it to my family's house in lviv, and then onto kyiv, the capital, where in the days preceding 87 88 current musicology the election, members ofyushchenko's opposition party had been urging people over the internet to gather should election irregularities take place. the uzhhorod teller informed me that he had orders not to sell any train tickets to kyiv that morning. in the end, it would take me three days to travel the eight hundred kilometers from uzhhorod to kyiv by car (a journey that normally takes ten hours) because the police had set up roadblocks along the roads leading to kyiv to prevent people from mobilizing. only one independent television station, kanal 5, dared to broadcast (on air or on the internet) the events unfolding in kyiv. i had no access to the internet since the internet cafe in uzhhorod was closed, and i could not watch kanal 5 in transcarpathia due to periodic blackouts of the broadcast station in the region, so it was only upon my arrival in kyiv that i grasped the massive scale of the protests. i postponed my flight back to new york, bought a pair of valianky (woolen boots without which one cannot walk very far on kyiv's ice-covered sidewalks), and headed for the maidan, now a sea of sound awash in orange. all around me, thousands of people shouted "yu-schen-ko! yu-schen-ko!" to the rhythmic accompaniment of bangs on overturned oil barrels and other noisemakers (figure 1). i was so overwhelmed with emotion that i would not have noticed my tears had they not stung my face in the freezing winter air. the protests reflected my personal goals for reform and solidarity on a scale i had not thought possible in post-socialist ukraine. as i made my way through the crowd along kyiv's wide main boulevard, khreschatyk street, i heard chants that came to represent the movement, including "nas bahato, nas ne podolaty" (together we are many, we won't be defeated). this chant would become the orange revolution's version of"el pueblo unido jamas sera vencido" (the people united will never be defeated), che guevara's declaration made famous in song during pinochet's 1973 coup in chile (mattern 1998). in the first days of the revolution, the carpathian music group hrinzholy (a hutsul word meaning "wooden sleigh"), rapped "nas bahato, nas ne podolaty" to a hip-hop beat and uploaded their song to a website sponsored by supporters of the opposition movement. downloaded more than one hundred thousand times after only two days online, "razom nas bahato" quickly became the anthem of the revolution (kiev city guide 2006).13 as one of the earliest revolutionary songs, its style would exemplify a broader stylistic category of "orange" musical genres: ukrainian-language hip-hop and what i call tak-techno ("tak" in ukrainian means "yes," the campaign slogan ofviktor yushchenko's political party our ukraine). the refrain of the song "razom nas bahato" is based on a duple-meter rhythmic pattern to which the words "razom nas bahato, nas ne podolaty" are set syllabically. this "anthem" expresses voter anger and disagreement adriana helbig figure 1: november 24, 2004, the third day of protests on independence square in kyiv, ukraine. opposition supporters face toward a stage from which politicians spoke and musicians performed during the orange revolution. photograph by the author. with the initial outcome of the presidential election in which viktor yanukovych had been declared the winner. moreover, it conveys people's frustration with corruption, the falsification of election results, and the government's persistent attempts to deny the will of the electorate. the line "we aren't goats" responds to yanukovych's provocative use of the russian word kozly (goats) to deride his opponent's supporters as "bastards" dur­ ing the campaign. the incorporation of this russian word in an otherwise ukrainian-language song supports bohdan klid's (forthcoming) argument that the long-running tension between ukrainian and russian language use in ukraine played a significant role in politicizing popular music dur­ ing the orange revolution. 14 the line "understandings, no!" (poniatia, nil) uses prison jargon to call attention to viktor yanukovych's prison record, highlighting and rejecting the government's "understandings" with bandyty-literally "bandits;' generally used to refer to any (male) person in post -socialist society who breaks the law. thus, this song is an example of a broader trend in which popular music offered people a way to express their discontent with a corrupt and unresponsive government. the song's lyrics translate as follows: 89 90 current musicology razom nas bahato (together we are many) together we are many, we will not be defeated ... falsifications, no! machinations, no! understandings, no! no! no to lies! yushchenko, yes! is our president, yes! yushchenko, yes! yes! yes! together we are many, we will not be defeated ... we aren't goats (kozly) we are ukraine's sons and daughters. it's now or never, enough waiting! together we are many we will not be defeated. together we are many, we will not be defeated ... the physical presence of musicians performing live during the election campaign and on the maidan stage during the revolution augmented the political strength of the music itself. in an interview two days before the election, oleh skrypka, leader of the country's oldest punk-funk-folk band vv, or vopli vidopliasova ("vopli" means "screams, howls"),15 said, the situation is so charged that the country stands on the brink of revolu­ tion or war. emotions are heightened and there is a feeling of patriotism, particularly among the youth who come to these events, to our concerts. we find ourselves in a situation that is somewhat unusual for us-some­ thing in between a concert and a political meeting. this unites the energy of a concert with that of a political meeting. there is a flavor of latin america-that you are like che guevara, who appears and brings truth to the people. these are strong emotions. (skrypka 2004) after the revolution, skrypka spoke more frankly about the musicians' involvement: "our role was pivotal because there was a national blackout on yuschenko's campaign by state-controlled radio and television stations. the only way to get his message out was for us to speak directly to the people during our concerts" (quoted in brown 2005). the ability to disseminate adriana helbig information about such concerts via the internet and through cell phone text messaging played a pivotal role in helping raise the public's awareness of government corruption. during the numerous conversations i had with people on maidan, fellow protestors admitted that they accepted the information they received through such technological media and at rock concerts as pravda, truth. the presence of musicians on maidan and the association between the opposition and the genre "politrok" (literally "political rock," the title of a song sung on maidan by vv) were not spontaneous. rather, they were built on political structures established during the 2004 presidential campaign that precipitated the revolution. the campaign was in part fought with music, as both candidates had enlisted the support of popular musicians, staged concerts, and distributed recordings. by the end of the campaign, oleh skrypka had become one ofyushchenko's official representatives, and sviatoslav vakarchuk, the singer from the group okean elzy, had worked as yushchenko's advisor on youth policies. yushchenko's official site featured the singer rosava's "our ukraine," a campaign song for yushchenko's political party of the same name. yushchenko's personal website continues to offer a free download of the music video of "our ukraine" that features a montage of footage ofyushchenko's presidential campaign set to rosava's vocal accompaniment:16 nasha ukraina (our ukraine) you rose from bed this morning and said: enough-changes are needed! your head on your shoulders, your aims-progressive, you need to take the situation in ukraine into your own hands! your word is worthy, it has will and power, when you are silent, do not expect a miracle, to change the world, begin with yourself i believe in you! this is my country-native ukraine! this is your country-our ukraine! wherever and whoever you are, be yourself, what was, is past, washed away with water! begin life from a new page, create this world, it is your doing! look back-these are your dreams, brothers, let us unite-we have the same hopes! in your choices and acts, rely on yourself, you can, i believe in you! 91 92 current musicology they say the youth is apathetic, it is spoiled, that is not us, we are free, our chains are broken! we want to be heard, we are ukraine! we are the future! this is my country-native ukraine! this is your country-our ukraine! the words of "our ukraine" encourage young citizens to take a proactive stance on the political issues of the day. to a funky reggae beat, the singer tells her listeners to rely on themselves and to realize that it is up to them to change what has gone wrong in ukraine. the song promotes the idea of civic duty and responsibility at a time when government depravity had become expected in many circles. musicians who supported viktor yanukovych's 2004 campaign did not fare well after the revolution. for instance, ani lorak's public support for yanukovych ruined her bid to represent ukraine at the eurovision 2005 contest held in kyiv. (orange revolution supporter ruslana lyzhychko had won the contest in 2004.) lorak lost the vote to greenjolly (previously hrinzholy), creators of "razom nas bahato."17 if, as laura lengel (2000:5) proposes, the first internet war was the war in the balkans (1991-2001), then the orange revolution was likely the first revolution waged with mp3s. it would be difficult to count how many songs were listened to on the internet during the orange revolution by support­ ers in ukraine and abroad. the "ukrainian group" on the multiply.com network, however, provides some indication of how the internet functioned as a community space during this time. users from ukraine, europe, and north america posted up-to-the-minute news and commentary on political events in english, ukrainian, and russian. they shared blogs, clips of maid an musical performances, political satire, political video games, recordings of speeches by various public figures, and music, pictures, and live video feeds of the protests. based on the times and dates of their posts, it seems that a significant number of users were continually online. more than three hundred users from the "ukrainian group" on multiply.com, for instance, viewed the pictures i posted upon my return from kyiv only minutes after i had uploaded them to my homepage. such a high level of cyberactivity suggests that the internet was one of the most significant sites in which the orange revolution was initiated, fought, and shared. indeed, the internet was a rare but critical space in which ukrainians could interact freely and communicate beyond the strictures of government control. this example reinforces how crucial it is that scholars recognize the internet as a key site for interaction and community building, not just in the west, but in non­ western contexts as well. adriana helbig tak-techno and the efficacy of the digitized voice as i mentioned earlier, many of the orange revolution's protest songs spliced together recorded segments of spoken words from political speeches. this musique concrete aspect of the orange revolution's music derived its expressive power from the highly politicized discourse about technology and truth surrounding gongadze's murder and the kuchma tapes. the "digitized voice" became symbolic of the struggle between the government and the people, between spin and pravda. this music, which i collectively refer to as tak-techno, also served as a metanarrative about the revolution itself. yushchenko's speeches to protestors on maidan were spliced and looped over techno dance beats. these songs, available on the internet and on bootleg cds as well as on discs officially issued by the party our ukraine, reframed real-time occurrences to motivate protestors. the cds were among the most sought after "orange souvenirs" of the revolution, in addition to the official orange our ukraine scarves, hats, and key chains sold by entrepreneurs on the streets of kyiv and on ebay. numerous sampled songs convey the politics of the recorded spoken voice during the orange revolution. for instance, the disc orange jazz (figure 2), issued in november 2004 by liberty records (a pseudonym), opens with a track that features protestors on maidan shouting "yu-schen-ko" and "nas bahato, nas ne podolaty;' vocal recordings that merge into an instrumental jazz rendition based on the melody of"ei pueblo unido jamas sera vencido." orange jazz was produced by victor ovchinnykov and olexiy kogan, whose names appear on the cd as pseudonyms-"viktor freedom" and "alex maidan." olga dombrovska, who designed the cover art that features photos by yefrem lukatsky, is represented by the pseudonym "olya volya" ("volya" means "freedom" in ukrainian). among the orange revolution cds i purchased from street vendors near kyiv's independence square is my razom ... pisni pomaranchevoho maidanu (we are together: songs of the orange maidan, 2004). the disc, issued officially by our ukraine, is stamped with a "not for retail sale" decal and features fourteen tracks by popular musicians such as maria burmaka, okean elzy, tartak, and vopli vidopliasova. numerous bootleg discs include the same copyrighted songs that are on the official disc, as well as songs that incorporate sonic representations of the revolution itself, including speeches by politicians, live performances, and the chanting and cheering of the protestors. the track, "yushchenkolbeethoven mix" that appears on a bootleg pomaranchevi (orange) cd titled tak: nas ne podolaty (yes: we won't be defeated, 2004) exalts viktor yushchenko by featuring a portion of a speech in which he states, "progress and good always begins with free­ dom:' spliced over a techno rendition of beethoven's "ode to joy" melody, 93 94 current musicology figure 2: cover of a cd given to the author in kyiv during the orange revolution. it features the orange campaign colors ofviktor yushchenko's our ukraine party. the words across the bottom repeat the revolution's slogans: "yes!;' "we won't be defeated;' "ukraine is not a [prison] zone," and "freedom can't be stopped." reprinted with permission. yushchenko continues, "glory to ukraine! glory to each of you!" the song layers yushchenko's voice over recordings of crowds chanting their support for him during the orange revolution. when i first heard these songs over the loudspeakers on maidan, the crowds responded with shouts of sup­ port, adding their "live" voices to amplified recordings of earlier protesters. yushchenko's recorded voice, mixed into the song, distances him from the corruption within the ukrainian government and unites him with the narod, the people. though yushchenko was not always physically present on the maidan, the cd's track afforded him a continual virtual presence among the crowd. this sonic overlap between mediated and live performance in tak-techno recalls philip auslander's (1999) argument that much of what we think of as "live" music has been filtered and mediated, and that the categories of "live" and "mediated" overlap. adriana helbig tak -techno songs dealt differently with the voice and words of govern­ ment candidate viktor yanukovych-perhaps because the "cassette scandal" had already marked the recorded voices of government officials as untruthful. in "yanukovych/era mix;' a song featured on the "orange" bootleg cd yak: nas ne podolaty, speeches by yanukovych are spliced and manipulated to redirect his meaning, remixing his words to create the "confession" of a government criminal. the song begins with a latin chant that both serves to ritualize yanukovych's remixed words and inflects them ironically as a profession of pravda. yanukovych is heard to state, "in these tough times, i wish to share the truth. those who stole from the people are once again clambering to get back into power. this is because it is easier to rule people who are poor and live in fear." the song ends with yanukovych expressing his changed sentiment, "this is why i say 'yes. yes, yushchenko!'" ludmila yanukovych, the candidate's wife, did not escape sonic hazing either. the tak-techno song "orange sky," which refers to a soviet-era song by the same name, includes an excerpt from a speech by ludmila yanukovych in which she infamously warned her husband's supporters in donetsk (a city in eastern ukraine where government support was strongest) that protestors were lured to kyiv by oranges injected with drugs. more than simply humorous, these songs politicized the discourses of vocal authenticity and truth. political authenticity, understood on a continuum between pravda and propaganda, had a correlate in ideologies of musical and technological authenticity: liveness and mediation. thus tak-techno recordings treated the two candidates in markedly different ways: whereas yuschenko was heard in relatively unedited clips of his live, public speeches, recordings ofyanukovych were mixed, remixed, and edited into completely new utterances with drastically altered political content. while the recordings ofyuschenko's (live) voice reinforced the protestors' trust in his political messages, the manipulation ofyanukovych's recorded speech in tak-techno songs empowered protestors with symbolic control over otherwise corrupt and untrustworthy government political rhetoric. the representation of yuschenko's voice as live, zhyvyi (translated also as "alive;' "real"), and yanukovych's as mediated and insincere shows how the ideological opposition between liveness and mediation was inflected during the orange revolution in terms of truth and deception, and technological mediation was articulated in terms of political authenticity. although both candidates' voices were technologically manipulated, only yuschenko was understood to radiate pravda. 95 96 current musicology conclusion in the years just prior to the orange revolution in ukraine, the internet was new, relatively unknown, and uncontrolled-its potential as a powerful medium had not yet been recognized by officials or by consumers. thus, the technology was uniquely situated to become a crucial space of popular political opposition once the orange revolution had begun. with the death of internet journalist heorhiy gongadze and the "cassette scandal," the importance of the new technology increased tremendously. during the orange revolution, musicians and the songs they composed, performed, and disseminated drew attention to censorship, violence, corruption, and the lack of a free ukrainian press. much of this musical activism was conducted over the internet. as a result, any analysis of the music associated with the revolution demands an examination of the interaction between technology and expressive musical culture, and the role this interaction played in the revolution's events. this case study identifies the necessity of analyzing internet music in a more culturally and geographically nuanced way and urges scholars to refrain from strict theoretical and methodological binaries in their analyses of online and off-line behaviors. the anonymity of the djs who mixed the tak-techno recordings, the pseudonyms invoked by producers of cds such as orange jazz, the apparent disregard of copyright laws with regard to "orange" bootleg cds, and the musical remixes of recorded speeches from undocumented sources beg a deeper analysis of the relative political and social agency of producers and consumers of the orange revolution's music. the political goals of protestors were articulated through music, video, speeches, and slogans, organizing diverse groups around a new "orange" genre of popular culture. while many of tak-techno's producers remained anonymous, their recordings were filled with the chants and slogans of protestors. because the music's creators were themselves anti-government protestors, tak-techno was built around audience participation and response. tak-techno's composers and producers continuously adjusted their political aims and included the voices of listener-protestors in the recordings they produced. the widely disseminated images of enormous crowds on maidan and recordings of their calls for political reform located the political power of the orange revolution not with behind-the-scenes producers and organizers, but with the consumers and audiences whose engaged public participation, much of which was enacted over the internet, reversed the outcome of a presidential election and brought historic political change to their country. adriana helbig notes special thanks to barbara rose lange and elizabeth keenan for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. thank you also to olexiy kogan and victor ovchinnykov, producers of the cd orange jazz, for permission to publish the disc's cover art designed by olga dombrovska with photos by yefrem lukatsky. 1. the sitting president, leonid kuchma, perceived viktor yushchenko as a threat and re­ peatedly attempted to expel him from the campaign. for instance, on september 5, 2004, yushchenko mysteriously suffered from dioxin poisoning during a dinner with government officials. this poisoning, which disfigured his face and almost killed him, was perceived by protestors as a government attempt to push yushchenko out of the race. 2. these statistics come from "ukraine internet usage and marketing report:' http://www. internetworldstats.com/euro/ua.htm (accessed may 20, 2006). 3. this concert was co-sponsored by the ukrainian studies program at columbia university and the brooklyn ukrainian group, whose members served as international election observ­ ers during the december 26, 2004, round of voting and met maria burmaka on maidan, the main square of kyiv. the orange revolution helped change perceptions of ukraine among followers of ukrainian politics in the ukrainian diaspora in north america. see melnyk (2005). 4. english is the web's "unmarked" language, just as us domain names are unmarked by suffixes. for a critique of the internet as a facilitator of westernizing processes in non-west­ ern contexts, see ribeiro (1998). in their study of online communities, samuel wilson and leighton peterson suggest that english may have been surpassed by other languages in terms of number of speakers online because residents of the united states and canada account for less than half of the estimated number of internet users worldwide (wilson and peterson 2002:453). this conclusion is weak, however, because it assumes a strict correlation between geographic location and language choice. 5. for instance, pavlo lazarenko, prime minister of ukraine from 1996-97, was arrested in switzerland in 1999 and later indicted in california for allegedly using us banks to launder $114 million in funds stolen from the ukrainian state between 1992 and 1999. in august 2006, lazarenko was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison in the united states. see kuzio (2003a). 6. since 2001, the "ua" (ukraine) domain has been managed by hostmaster, a private com­ pany. the government attempted to gain control over the domain name during the 2004 presidential election campaign (kuzio 2003b). 7. the ukrainian/russian/english language newspaper ukrayinska pravda may be accessed at http://www.pravda.com.ua/en. 8. the tapes constitute approximately seven hundred hours of conversation secretly recorded in president leonid kuchma's office during 1999 and 2000 by kuchma's bodyguard, mykola melnychenko, who was granted asylum in the united states in 2001. the private us audio­ verification laboratory bek tek, which was hired to analyze the tapes, deemed them authentic and asserted that they had not been tampered with. some of the tapes had been transcribed and published on ukrainian internet sites by the end of 2000. to date the tapes have not been officially recognized as genuine by the government in ukraine. 9. temnyky were first utilized in late 2001 during the campaign for the march 2002 parlia­ mentary elections. for more information, see human rights watch (2003). 10. on may 13,2005, the former governor oftranscarpathia, ivan rizak, was formally charged in connection with professor slyvka's death. 97 98 current musicology 11. for a more detailed account of election fraud and voter harassment in transcarpathia and cherkasy, see finnin and helbig (2005). 12. i had previously served as an election observer for the october 31, 2004, primary elec­ tions. in response to the fraud i witnessed at that time, i returned to the same polling station in uzhhorod on november 21, 2004, accompanied by my sister with whom i worked on the monitoring team. 13. hrinzholywould later anglicize their name to greenjolly after being chosen to represent ukraine at the eurovision contest that took place in kyiv in may 2005. maria sonevytsky (2006) has recently discussed ukraine's entry for eurovision 2004. 14. many analyses of the relationship between music and politics in ukraine focus on the controversies over the status and public use of ukrainian and russian language in post -soviet ukraine (e.g., bilaniuk 2005). literary scholar romana bahry (1994) identifies language choice in rock music as an expression of political ideology during ukraine's struggle for independence from the soviet union. anthropologist catherine wanner (1996) shows how language choice served as a divisive and alienating force that politicized music festivals in the years following independence in 1991. historian bohdan klid (forthcoming) argues that political leaders variously used russianand ukrainian-language popular music in the 2004 presidential elections to garner political support in particular segments of the population. these readings oflanguage's role in politicizing musical expression in soviet and post -soviet ukraine are compelling, especially in light of the murder of ukrainian popular singer ihor bilozir, who, in 2001, was beaten to death by two russian youths for singing ukrainian songs in a public cafe in lviv (sochan 2000). moreover, during the orange revolution, presiden­ tial candidates divided along political lines in their associations with ukrainian musicians, with thirty-eight russian-language popular singers supporting the pro-russia government candidate viktor yanukovych, and twenty-two ukrainian-language singers supporting the western-leaning reformist viktor yushchenko. nevertheless, i believe that an analysis that focuses on language choice overshadows the complex cultural, economic, and social nuances that contribute to the politicization of popular music in ukraine. furthermore, focusing on language inadvertently emphasizes nationalist ideology, a flawed perspective when applied to a revolution fought on civic principles rather than solely ethnic ones. 15. vidopliasov is also a character from dostoyevsky's stepanchikovo village. 16. the yushchenko/rosava "our ukraine" video is accessible from viktor yushchenko's personal website, http://www.yuschenko.com.ua/ukr/present/newsil132. 17. greenjolly had been a relatively unknown group prior to the revolution and had not been registered to participate in the nationwide competition to decide ukraine's candidate for eurovision 2005. the breaking of protocol to include greenjolly in the candidate list of musicians from ukraine alienated many supporters ofviktor yanukovych from the eurovi­ sion contest and politicized ukraine's position as participant and as host of eurovision. the eurovision committee initially rejected greenjolly's entry because of the overtly political text of"razom nas bahato." popular demand prevailed, however, and greenjolly was allowed to represent ukraine, placing twentieth out of twenty-six bands after receiving low scores (of two and zero points, respectively) from the russian and byelorussian judges. references appadurai,arjun. 1996.modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. adriana helbig auslander, philip. 1999. liveness: performance in a mediatized culture. new york and london: routledge. ayers, michael, ed. 2006. cybersounds: essays on virtual music culture. digital formations, no. 31. new york: peter lang. bahry, romana. 1994. rock culture and rock music in ukraine. in rocking the state: rock music and politics in eastern europe and russia, edited by sabrina petra ramet, 243-96. boulder, co: westview press. bilaniuk, laada. 2005. contested tongues: language politics and cultural correction in ukraine. culture and society after socialism. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. brown, daniel. 2005. from the red to the orange revolution: singing in ukraine's new era. mondomix: all colors of music (january 12): http://www.mondomix.com/minisite .php?reportage_id=2535 (online article, accessed november 29, 2006). catania, sara. 2005. hellraiser: olena prytula, safeguarding ukraine's orange revolution. mother jones (november/december): 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observing the 2004 presidential elections in ukraine. harriman review 15: 1-8. garofalo, reebee. 1999. from music publishing to mp3: music and industry in the twentieth century. american music 17 (3): 318-53. greene, paul d. and thomas porcello, eds. 2005. wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic cultures. music/culture. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. harwit, eric and duncan clark. 2001. shaping the internet in china: evolution of political control over network infrastructure and content. asian survey 41 (3): 377-408. hill, david t. and krishna sen. 1997. wiring the warung to global gateways: the internet in indonesia. indonesia 63: 67-89. hugill, andrew. 2005. internet music: an introduction. contemporary music review 24 (6): 429-37. human rights watch. 2003. negotiating the news: informal state censorship of ukrainian television. (march 17): http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/ukraine0303/ukraine0303.pdf (online report, accessed november 15,2006). jones, steve. 2000. music and the internet. popular music 19 (2): 217-30. jorda, sergi. 1999. faust music on line: an approach to real-time collective composition on the internet. leonardo music journal 9: 5-12. kibby, marjorie d. 2000. home on the page: a virtual place of music community. popular music 19 (l): 91-100. kiev city guide. 2006. anthem of a revolution. http://kievukraine.info/greenjolly.htm (online article, accessed november 29, 2006). klid, bohdan. forthcoming. rock, pop, and politics in ukraine's 2004 presidential campaign and orange revolution. journal of communist studies and transition politics 23. 99 100 current musicology kreimer, seth f. 200l. technologies of protest: insurgent social movements and the first amendment in the era of the internet. university of pennsylvania law review 150 0): 119-71. kuzio, taras. 2003a. when oligarchs go into opposition: the case of pavlo lazarenko. russia and eurasia review 2 (11): 6-8. ---. 2003b. ukrainian authorities tighten their grip on the internet. ukrainian weekly (december 14): http://www.ukrweekly.com/archive12003/500304.shtml (online article, accessed october 12,2006). lange, barbara rose. 200l. hypermedia and ethnomusicology. ethnomusicology 45 0): 132-49. lengel, laura b., ed. 2000. culture and technology in the new europe: civic discourse in transformation in post-communist nations. civic discourse for the third millennium. stamford, ct: ablex publishing. lysloff, rene t. a. 2003. musical community on the internet: an on-line ethnography. cultural anthropology 18 (2): 233-63. mattern, mark. 1998. acting in concert: music, community, and political action. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press. mccaughey, martha and michael ayers, eds. 2003. cyberactivism: online activism in theory and practice. new york and london: routledge. melnyk, adriana. 2005. maria burmaka: from the "maidan" to manhattan. ukrainian weekly (april 24): http://www.ukrweekly.com/archive/20051170523.shtml (online article, accessed november 1,2006). neuenfeldt, karl, ed. 1997. the issue of gender. in the didjeridu: from arnhem land to internet, edited by karl neuenfeldt, 99-105. sydney: john libbey. norbert, michel. 2004. a theoretical and empirical analysis of the impact of the digital age on the music industry. phd dissertation, university of new orleans. ochoa, ana maria. 1997. counterpoints of time and space in el concierto de los colores. travesia: journal of latin american cultural studies 6: 51-64. ---.2005. music that moves: the role of music in social movements. lecture preceding the concert of maria burmaka at columbia university, new york, ny, march 31. park, david. 2003. conglomerate rock: the music industry's quest to divide music and conquer wallets. phd dissertation, university of wisconsin, madison. prytula, olena. 2006. the ukrainian media rebellion. in revolution in orange: the origins of ukraine's democratic breakthrough, edited by anders aslund and michael mcfaul, 103-24. washington, dc: carnegie endowment for international peace. ribeiro, gustavo lins. 1998. cybercultural politics: political activism at a distance in a transnational world. in cultures of politics, politics of cultures: re-visioning latin american social movements, edited by sonia e. alvarez, evelina dagnino, and arturo escobar, 325-54. boulder, co: westview press. shinhee-lee, jamie. 2005. discourses of fusion and crossing: pop culture in korea and japan. phd dissertation, regent university. skrypka, oleh. 2004. oleh skrypka: my vykonuiemo svii hromadianskyi oboviazok. [we are doing our civic duty.]. postup (november 19): http://postup.brama.com /dinamicli_pub/usual.php?what=33591 &raz= 1 (interview with liubko petrenko, accessed december 19,2006). sochan, maria. 2000. thousands attend funeral of composer ihor bilozir. ukrainian weekly (july 2): http://www.ukrweekly.com/archive/2000/2700 1 o.shtml (online article, accessed november 29, 2006). sonevytsky, maria. 2006. leather, metal, wild dances: ukrainian pop's victory at the 2004 eurovision song contest and the politics of auto-exoticism. paper presented to the us adriana helbig branch of the international association for the study of popular music, nashville, tn, february 17. starobin, paul and roman olearchyk. 2002. dashed hopes for ukraine's economy? a government scandal threatens growth and could jeopardize eu & nato membership. business week online (november 25): http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content 102_ 47/b3809176.htm (online article, accessed december 15,2006). street, john. 2001. rock, pop, and politics. in the cambridge companion to pop and rock, edited by simon frith, will straw, and john street, 243-55. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. tanzi, dante. 2005. language, music, and resonance in cyberspace. contemporary music review 24 (6): 541-49. taylor, timothy d. 2001. strange sounds: music, technology, and culture. new york and london: routledge. wanner, catherine. 1996. nationalism on stage: music and change in soviet ukraine. in retuning culture: musical changes in central and eastern europe, edited by mark slobin, 136-55. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. wilson, samuel m. and leighton c. peterson. 2002. the anthropology of online communities. annual review of anthropology 31: 449-67. wright, catherine karl. 2005. digital piracy: the investigation of music downloading via peer-to-peer connections on the internet. phd dissertation, regent university. wright, steven. 2000. technology. notes: quarterly journal of the music library association 56: 591-97. zubar, natalka. 2006. in the beginning was the word, and the word was ... : the history of maidan (part i). maidan: an internet hub for citizens action network in ukraine: http://eng.maidanua.org/node/459 (online article, accessed december 15,2006). 101 current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf current musicology, no. 96 (fall 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 125 eva rieger. 2011. richard wagner’s women. translated by chris walton. woodbridge, uk: boydell press. laurence dreyfus. 2010. wagner and the erotic impulse. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. reviewed by jeremy coleman the anniversary commemoration of great artistic figures would be incomplete without a survey of the scholarly landscape. so in the year of richard wagner’s bicentenary, the publication of new books shows no sign of abating, and nor should it, when there is still so much to be said about this most controversial of composers. but many of the literary products that pass for wagner scholarship are still beset by popular assumption, blind deference, and trite dismissal, imposing a dead weight that threatens to smother the critical spark that alone can do wagner justice and demonstrate his startling relevance. it is in this spirit that the present article will individually review two recent publications on gender and sexuality in wagner, and finally compare them and reflect on wider scholarly trends and possibilities. in richard wagner’s women, an english translation by chris walton of “leuchtende liebe, lachender tod”: richard wagners bild der frau im spiegel seiner musik (2009), eva rieger offers one of the first “feminist” studies of wagner’s life and work. specifically, rieger assesses the dramatic function and characterization of both women and, to a lesser extent, “feminized” men in wagner’s operas, from das liebesverbot to parsifal. the original german–language publication was warmly praised in a review, “role play,” by walton (2010), who evidently valued the study highly enough to bring it to a wider readership. rieger’s main contribution is to show, as few have done before, that wagner portrayed women as sacrificial victims on the altar of men’s salvation. as if to justify this terrible fate, rieger argues, women are depicted as negative stereotypes (i.e., inferior to men, merely decorative, and so on), above all in musical representation. richard wagner’s women interweaves biography and creative output, but it is the stage works primarily that plot the course of the book, which proceeds through wagner’s oeuvre in chronological order according to the date of first performance. chapter 1 provides an exposition of the book’s methodology of musical semantics based on affektenlehre as well as theories of instrumentation and tonal symbolism—techniques that (rieger claims) influenced wagner’s own innovative “musical language”; chapter 2 (“from rienzi to der fliegende holländer”) discusses liebesverbot current musicology 126 as well as the two aforementioned operas; and thereafter at least one chapter is allotted to each of his subsequent stage works. wagner’s relationship with women, rieger recognizes, is ambiguous in a certain sense: he loved women, surrounded himself with them, and even depended on them to serve as muse to his creative genius or to sympathize with his struggles and ambitions as an artist; yet his artistic depiction of women appears to demonize the sex and to call for not just female sympathy with the flawed hero but also fidelity unto death and mortal sacrifice. rieger does not state this doubling so explicitly, but is certainly one of the first to examine such ideas in wagner from some kind of feminist perspective. whether the book can account convincingly for such an apparently contradictory situation remains to be seen. at first glance, the object of rieger’s study is virtually identical to that of danish scholar nila parly’s still more recent work, vocal victories: wagner’s female characters from senta to kundry, which “presents systematic analyses of and comparison between the leading female characters in richard wagner’s operas, from senta to kundry” (2011: 9). while i do not intend to review parly’s book here, there is at least one salient distinction: parly views wagner’s portrayal of women as essentially positive, on the grounds that “the singing voice bears considerably greater import in wagner’s operas than has traditionally been credited” (2011: 10). after carolyn abbate (1991; 2001) and—though he is not cited—paul robinson (2002), parly sets greater store by the musical authority that wagner’s women wield, namely in the arena of vocal performativity. the music these women sing ultimately triumphs over the violent social reality it supposedly conceals, by virtue of an interpretation of wagnerian aesthetics that takes into account bodies and the “physicality” of music (2011: 9). whatever one makes of the argument, the very notion of music’s ideological function in its potential to either condone or resist the woman’s death is one that rieger avoids confronting. but given the unusually antagonistic stance of rieger’s study, it may be surprising to note that her thesis is predicated on the belief that “[t]he truly great wagnerian theme is love, the mysteries of erotic and maternal fascination. in short: woman” (2). from the start, it is rieger, not wagner, who essentializes woman by equating her with “love.” accordingly, the only wagnerian women that really interest rieger are those that figure in the composer’s love life. in rieger’s introduction (“prelude”), she raises the question: “how did women experience wagner?,” intimating important ideas of esthetics and consumption (6–7). but the discussion is not pursued beyond these few pages, while details of wagner reception or social history are thin on the ground.1 the reader who expects to be informed about the role of female relatives, sponsors, or singers in wagner’s life and career will be disappointed. jeremy coleman 127 so much for the “positive” acceptance of women in wagner’s life. conversely, one should also ask what the themes of female sacrifice that so exercised wagner’s imagination really meant to him, a question rieger somewhat sidesteps. high death rate among women is hardly exclusive to his operas and music dramas, for the demise of the leading lady has long been a ubiquitous feature of opera in general, as catherine clément demonstrated in opera, or the undoing of women (1988). nonetheless, this idea entertained a special significance for wagner that far exceeded the conventions of french and italian opera of the early nineteenth century. the death of a woman in wagner tends to take the form of self–sacrifice as an ethical act rather than as the tragic outcome of external circumstances. furthermore, this moment should be understood dialectically: if a woman is a sacrificial victim, she is also a revolutionary agent. it is the damaged, bourgeois, male individual that stands in need of redemption by the supposedly unalienated, pure woman. hence female sacrifice is only the second term in a hegelian equation of double negatives, which begins with the man’s own negativity and the rotten patriarchy that he represents. i am thinking here particularly of the dutchman, tristan, and wotan.2 in short, rieger gives scant attention to both the heritage of female sacrifice in traditional opera and wagner’s novel reinterpretation of it. the special significance wagner attached to female sacrifice is not confined to his original works, for it also informs his 1847 arrangement of gluck’s iphigénie en aulide. it was this aspect, indeed, that attracted wagner to the opera in the first place: iphigenia is sacrificed by her father agamemnon to appease the offended artemis, who is withholding the winds that would let the greeks’ ships sail to troy.3 but wagner still went out of his way to restore the elements of ritual sacrifice and collective interest according to euripides’s original drama, elements supposedly lost in racine’s tragedy upon which du roullet based his libretto for the 1774 opera. in particular, one of wagner’s most striking modifications to both the words and the music concerned iphigenia’s final aria “leb’ wohl!,” from no. 26, in which she bids farewell to achilles: iphigenia attempts to console achilles not with pathetic avowals of their eternal love in death, as in gluck’s original opera—part of what wagner in mein leben called the “french taste that turned achilles’ relationship to iphigenia into a sentimental love affair [zu einer süßlichen liebschaft]” (wagner 1987: 337, translation modified; wagner 1923: 461)—but with the reminder that her death is a sacrifice for the greater good of the greek army and ultimately for its victory in the trojan war, and that he should welcome it for that reason. thus, the roles wagner gave to women were informed not just by operatic spectacle, but also by pre–modern ritual drama, which in turn tapped into his already pronounced left–hegelian leanings. current musicology 128 of this notion of the woman as symbol of radical utopian purity, one particular aspect concerns the gendered indexing of nineteenth–century nationalist discourse. while rieger asserts that the styles of french and italian opera “seemed feminized to him [wagner]” (141) compared with the masculine connotations of germanness (101), the more intriguing notion that wagner identified woman with german heimat remains unexplored. this we see especially in the form of senta—described by wagner as a “very solid nordic girl” (translated from wagner 1911: 168)—and repeatedly in his correspondence with minna, for instance in his letter sent from zürich, dated may 29, 1849: you know, although i love freedom and boundlessness above all, traveling around the wide world simply does not suit me in the least: i must always know my home [heimat]—and you alone, my dear wife, are this home to me. wherever my love is, there is my home (translated from wagner 1975: 63). this is not just a metaphor of the woman as “home” qua interior bourgeois domesticity. as a political refugee with a price on his head, writing home to dresden from switzerland and preparing to leave for paris the very next day, wagner represented the wandering man (the wandering jew) as opposed to the rooted woman. but like germany in the aftermath of the failed uprising in dresden of may 1849, the ideal woman was merely that: an illusory object of desire and bitter nostalgia. perhaps the closest wagner came to experiencing the ideal woman was mathilde wesendonck, whose affair with the composer has long been the subject of sensationalist mythmaking. alas one cannot fairly say that rieger supplies any new critical insights in this area. for a start, rieger repeats part of her discussion of mathilde in the chapters on tristan und isolde and die walküre, perhaps a hazardous by–product of the book’s work–oriented structure. the real problem, however, lies in rieger’s claim that “the desire for [the consummation of their relationship] existed on both sides” (68) and that “mathilde returned [wagner’s] love, despite all the difficulties involved” (70), which seriously overstates mathilde’s feelings for him. while mathilde seems to have reciprocated with genuine affection, her role in the composition of tristan was essentially that of the passive female muse—“not the generator of the lightening,” as ernest newman once observed, “but merely the conductor of it” (1976: 524). rieger positively obscures the facts with fanciful speculation: “it was surely not easy for her to deny him: richard’s mighty powers of persuasion had become almost compulsive, and she must have been barely able to resist him” (71). jeremy coleman 129 throughout her book rieger takes pains—and with good reason—to stress the contribution of women in wagner’s life to the female characters he created. but nowhere does she challenge the ideology of the female muse; indeed, she appears to consider it a badge of feminist honor. seemingly, the idea that “the creation of this great work [was] prompted by one woman alone” has been “too banal” for scholars to accept (71); in fact, the financial motivation for the conception of tristan as a simple, easy–to–produce work in contrast to der ring des nibelungen is a more banal explanation than rieger’s. and if in mein leben wagner subsequently “play[ed] down the measure of his love for mathilde” as a factor in the composition of tristan (71), was it not simply to avoid arousing jealousy on the part of his wife and amanuensis cosima, rather than to give the “false” impression that wagner owed mathilde less than everything for the existence of his best works? despite these possible limitations, the scope of rieger’s book is broader than the title (when read literally) suggests: the author considers musico–dramatic constructions of masculinity as well, and not just because constructions of femininity tend to be negatively determined, i.e., defined against the male as norm.4 some of her most valuable insights concern the portrayal of “feminized” men in wagner’s operas, namely erik, siegmund, mime, klingsor, and the dovetailing of misogynist and anti–semitic stereotypes (137, 196, 215). but rather than see these figures as representative of a more complex construction of masculinity, she explains away their characterization as always already feminine while, conversely, examples of “strong” women such as brünnhilde’s valkyrie persona are deemed inherently masculine. by assuming essentialism on the part of the object of study, rieger may be constrained by the very misogyny she rejects. although the greater portion of the book is devoted to women, one is tempted to suggest that a title such as richard wagner’s men and women would have been both more accurate and more provocative. while rieger identifies in wagner’s stage works both positive and negative (though predominantly negative) characterizations of women, what remains unclear is wagner’s own commentary upon those characterizations, which may be either earnest or ironic (i.e., ideological or critical). as far as rieger is concerned, any negative portrayal of women in wagner’s operas could only ever be a simple–minded affirmation of “this is the way it is,” rather than “this is only the existing order of things which may be negated.” wagner’s critique of the commodification of female sexuality in holländer and in the ring (think of freia in das rheingold or brünnhilde in götterdämmerung), for example, is a point rieger scarcely acknowledges, and then only grudgingly (40, 118).5 nor does rieger contemplate the uglier flip–side: in the last scene of walküre, wotan, ostensibly in an act of mercy, current musicology 130 places brünnhilde on a rock surrounded by phantasmagoric “magic fire,” as if in a shop window for ready consumption, in effect introducing her into “the sphere of circulation that is reserved for women” (harper–scott 2011: 60–61). furthermore, women in wagner’s stage works themselves prove to be detractors of the existing system that submits women to the logic of capitalist exchange. rieger describes fricka predictably as wotan’s hectoring bourgeois wife (125); but this prudish “guardian of marriage” also functions as the humane critic of wotan’s false consciousness, reminding him of the contradictions on which valhalla was built and the human cost of his enterprise to create a free hero. wagner’s women assume a more radical function than rieger gives them credit for. it would be remiss of me not to draw attention to a few basic factual errors. rieger probably meant 1848, not 1846, as the year in which wagner “began his comprehensive study of mythology and of the sagas of the germanic gods and heroes,” after having “turned to several historical topics that seemed to him particularly suitable for operatic treatment” (105); in any case, wagner continued to develop historical projects alongside mythological ones well after his self–styled rejection of history in favor of myth. the motif conventionally known as “world–inheritance” (welterbschaft)6—though in rehearsal wagner himself referred to it variously as a “redemption” theme, adding that it should sound like “the proclamation of a new religion” (porges 1983: 103)—is re–christened “siegfried love” without explanation (155). moreover, a lack of attention to documentary evidence breeds platitudes, if not quite “factual” untruths. rieger’s passing remark that wagner, especially in walküre, “dr[e]w the music from the nature of the text itself ” is a cliché of wagnerian esthetics belied by instances in his actual working method (8).7 finally, a few words about the translation. walton has wisely avoided a literal rendering of the unwieldy german title with its quotation of the final words of siegfried and brünnhilde in the third act of siegfried.8 in other respects, however, his english translation is marred by numerous errors and infelicities which do not make rieger’s prose any more readable. there is the non–sentence—“the hunting chorus that really appealed to him.”—which i can only assume to be an editorial lapse (21); the designation of siegfrieds tod as große heroische oper should read “grand heroic opera,” not “great heroic opera” (134); the translation of geißelt as “criticizes” is confusing in context of the sentence “wagner criticizes [geißelt] those who engage with his work by means of their ‘critical faculties’ [mit dem ‚kritischen verstand‘],” whereas “lambasts” would have been a better alternative (2009: 41; 2011: 30); the titles of wagner’s prose works are presented inconsistently, with “opera and drama” and “on the application of music in drama” (2011: 8), communication to my friends (30), and “kunstwerk der zukunft” (“artwork jeremy coleman 131 of the future”) (33); and every so often there is the unconsciously humorous choice of word, e.g., “his feminine ideal straddled [lag in der mitte, zwischen] the sinful and the pure woman” (2009: 75; 2011: 57). laurence dreyfus’s wagner and the erotic impulse is a well–produced, meticulously researched, and highly readable book, which argues that wagner “more than anyone else in the nineteenth century made plain his relentless fixation on sexual desire” (1) and “was the first to develop a detailed musical language that succeeded in extended representations of erotic stimulation, passionate ecstasy, and the torment of love” (2). wagner’s obvious though hardly straightforward preoccupation with sex has elicited myriad responses over the years. the sheer quantity of historical witnesses to wagner’s erotics does not daunt dreyfus but is a specific point of departure, for the originality of the study lies, he writes, in his interest “in linking the reception of wagner both to his musical representations and his own unusual sexuality” (243, n.1). yet the reception history that constitutes chapter 1 (“echoes”) is left behind in chapters 2 and 3 in favor of “intentions” and “harmonies” respectively, while chapters 4 (“pathologies”) and 5 (“homoerotics”) situate wagner within late nineteenth–century discourses of degeneracy, forging an inverse relation with the composer’s anti–semitism. if i have less to say about dreyfus’s book than rieger’s, it is because some of my criticisms have already been well expressed in previous reviews of the former publication, the most pertinent of which are j. p. e. harper–scott’s “wagner, sex and capitalism” (2011) and david trippett’s “wagner studies and the parallactic drift” (2011). harper–scott rightly censures the study for under–theorizing the erotic, and in response outlines an approach to the topic that takes into account some of the capitalist underpinnings of desire. with equal validity, trippett points out that for wagner the word sinnlichkeit, which dreyfus translates perhaps narrowly as “sensuality” (250–51), has important left–hegelian connotations of empirical material sensation. whatever the ideological inscription of wagner’s erotics, it may be misleading to place the “erotic impulse” at the center of wagner’s project, given that his impulse was precisely toward the mortification of the sexual instinct, toward its negation. tristan and isolde strive to purge all sexual desire, which at the close of the opera will lift from their bodies like a curse, through the pursuit of its own fulfillment.9 the dialectical relation in wagner between the voluptuous and the ascetic presents a more complex aspect of wagnerian sexuality that only hovers in the background of dreyfus’s book. for all his sensitivity to the music, there may also be an occasional failure of critical nerve in dreyfus’s analyses. a reader not already familiar with the works in question would gain negligible insight into the qualitative differcurrent musicology 132 ences between, say, tannhäuser and tristan, in terms of the musical means whereby eroticism is depicted. that “eros is elevated to a central concern” in tannhäuser (1) i do not dispute, only how successfully that “concern” is dramatized, given that wagner’s musical realization arguably pales before the sheer poetic ambition of his complex conception. instead should one not understand wagner’s erotics more as a stylized literary conceit than as any concrete esthetic quality? not only is the erotic in tannhäuser conveyed more successfully in the poetic text than in the actual music, but the whole erotological discourse surrounding wagner’s works and their reception throughout his career—both the adulation and the outrage—may belie a peculiar absence of the erotic in the works themselves. so too with wagner’s notorious “homoerotic” correspondence with ludwig ii, which dreyfus describes gleefully as a “burgeoning love affair” (202): a more sober explanation would be that their relationship existed solely in the theatrical language of their letters as a literary pose, which even disguised resentment and opportunism on both sides.10 like the emperor’s new clothes, the wagnerian erotic may be in part a fantasy perpetuated by self–promotion and media hype without necessarily enjoying any corresponding musical reality. in view of this, music proves to be an empty space, the lacanian real, onto which the listener projects his or her own fantasies—a notion dreyfus himself hints at: “the talent inherent in everyone to play a variety of imaginary roles helps here, as do doses of selective amnesia that filter out unsavoury literary details hindering an attraction or hampering the success of a fantasy. in fact, the fewer details supplied, the wider the potential sensual reach, which is why lyric poetry, the literary form that feels closest to music, so readily captures an erotic mood” (8). by the same token, the palpable erotic force of so many of wagner’s stage works spills over the footlights with implications that are no less unsettling. just as edward cone asked to what extent we can “construe the characters as being aware of the denotative significance—nay, of the very existence—of the motifs they employ” (2009: 81), so one is tempted to wonder whether wagner’s sensual music serves as both an expression of erotic desire and a stimulus for it. in this scenario, the music that represents the characters’ erotic subjectivity supplies the means by which those very feelings are aroused in the listener in the real time of performance. the centrifugal pull toward total identity between esthetic subject and object confirms what adorno recognized more broadly in wagner’s authoritarian social character whereby the audience’s reactions are dictated through their incorporation into the work itself (adorno 1974: 33). in general, dreyfus places the accent on pleasure, both esthetic and sexual, both wagner’s and his own as a self–proclaimed devotee. indeed, jeremy coleman 133 the author luxuriates in the subject matter to the point of fetishizing it. it may be enough that he is up–front about this on the first page: “i give relatively short shrift to twentieth–century ideologies and politics” (ix). yet in a telling remark elsewhere, dreyfus reproaches nietzsche for effectively denying—“because of his obsession with health”—that “sharing the fruits of [wagner’s] success with a public might provide pleasure and edification without the torments attached to the composer’s agitated personal life” (134). bearing in mind the totalizing medium of his stage works and his disconsolate view of erotic love, the image of wagner as a sexual liberator for our time, a kind of high priest of late capitalist enjoyment, begins to look decidedly questionable. in certain respects dreyfus’s and rieger’s books represent complementary critical approaches to gender and sexuality, where each contains some of the strengths and weaknesses the other lacks. the theme of female subjugation in wagner’s works and writings represents a conspicuous omission in dreyfus’s study, one that may betray something of a bad conscience. the glowing celebration of erotic love in wagner is at odds with rieger’s more defiant—though still theoretically deficient—approach to the composer’s relationship with women. conversely, rieger’s rose–tinted image of “love” as a central theme in wagner’s works lacks the material specificity of the “sensual” implied by dreyfus, while at the same time dreyfus shows more willingness than rieger to discuss the influence on wagner of his professional relationships with women, such as singers including wilhelmine schröder–devrient. these books also have much in common besides the obvious overlaps in subject matter. both authors may be commended for placing wagner’s music center stage, in what is perhaps a welcome corrective against the tendency in wagner studies toward fashioning wagner as a fundamentally literary figure contrary to his own claims to be a musician first and foremost. yet music serves distinct methodological purposes for rieger and dreyfus. while rieger seeks to decipher musical signs in which gender constructions are encrypted, dreyfus goes beyond this: music does not merely supply the technical means by which the erotic is depicted, but as an esthetic experience positively simulates (if not stimulates) sexual arousal in the listener. it is striking that wagner and the erotic impulse and richard wagner’s women appeared within a year of each other; another related book is barry emslie’s (2010) richard wagner and the centrality of love.11 any simultaneous publication inevitably misses the opportunity for collaboration or cross–fertilization, yet the release of these books in anticipation of the bicentenary would seem to suggest that love, in wagner studies at least, is current musicology 134 in the air: emslie’s claim for the “centrality of love” in wagner—however vaguely defined—is one that might unite dreyfus and rieger in agreement. at the close of his review of three starkly contrasting books in wagner studies (among them wagner and the erotic impulse), the aforementioned trippett suggests: “on the basis of ongoing empiricism in the sämtliche werke and sämtliche briefe, a new plurality has decentred the literary wagner tradition created by apologists and polemicists” (2011: 255). yet it was precisely in the absence of critical materialist scholarship that a plurality of wagners could thrive unchecked. admittedly, what we are witnessing may be consensus for the wrong reasons, but convergence of critical opinion in itself is nothing to be sniffed at. nor do i share trippett’s optimism at the prospect that “the parallactic drift in wagner studies looks set to continue” (2011: 255). according to this theory, which refers to slavoj žižek’s the parallax view, the points of the perceived object shift according to both the viewer’s perspective and the material reality incurred in the act of viewing, namely the projection of the subject’s blind spot (žižek 2006: 17). this may be another way of saying that the fragmented, contradictory images of wagner that good scholarship offers can be sublated in the paradoxical personality of the composer himself. but, more paradoxically still—and to my dismay—trippett may also be insinuating darkly that the more scholars bring to bear on wagner in terms of a critical evaluation of source material, the more elusive the object of study becomes. perhaps, then, the situation in wagner studies is less one of “parallactic drift” than a dialectical constellation, a cluster of stars that illuminate each other even as they stand in uncertain relation or opposition. if these books tell us anything, it is that wagner’s complex ideas of gender and sex still fascinate us, as they did from the start, and indeed are part of what makes the best of his works so unusually modern and provocative today. but only by combining a sophisticated reading of theory with rigorous source criticism can scholarship hope to convey their precise significance. notes 1. for historical evidence of bourgeois female etiquette in the nineteenth century, rieger shares an anecdote about her grandmother (83, 229 n. 35). 2. tannhäuser and parsifal are rather more complex cases, inasmuch as it is precisely love’s torment, i.e., woman, that taints the eponymous male figure in the first place. 3. the parallels with die walküre have not gone unnoticed (jost 2010: ix, 433). 4. see masculinity in opera: gender, history, and new musicology (purvis 2013), in particular peter franklin’s chapter “more cases of wagner,” 121–43. this topic was also addressed in the one–day conference, “operatic masculinities,” september 11, 2012, organized by oxford brookes university opera research unit (oberto). jeremy coleman 135 5. the first sustained musical allusion to female sexuality in rheingold, namely loge’s narration, is already ironic (mm. 1338–1375), while the piling up of the nibelung hoard in front of freia’s body to measure an “equivalent” remuneration for the giants is a brutally literalistic representation of (proto–)marxian exchange–value. incidentally, marx’s example for the equation between man and capital—“i am ugly, but i can buy the most beautiful woman” (1975: 377)—could aptly describe either alberich or the giants as they behave in rheingold. 6. originally welterbschaft was the name wagner gave to what we know as the “ring” motif, and only acquired its current designation thanks to hans von wolzogen. 7. to cite just one counterexample, in the composition of siegmund’s “aria” from the first act of walküre, “winterstürme wichen dem wonnemond,” wagner developed the melody independently from the text, which subsequently had to be altered to fit the new vocal line, the interaction between words and music being less straightforward than we are given to believe. 8. rieger’s is not the first publication, incidentally, to use this line as a title. in “leuchtende liebe, lachender tod”: zum tochter–mythos brünnhilde (1984) sabine zurmühl gives a personal interrogation of the father–daughter relationship of wotan and brünnhilde in light of twentieth–century politics. this study of wagner even claims to be “feminist,” though what the titular quotation has to do with feminism specifically is anyone’s guess. 9. the schopenhauerian conception of sexual desire as a mere illusion maintained by the phenomenal world that cancels itself out (one that undeniably influenced wagner) comes surreally close to lacan’s theory of desire as phantasmatic in its very narcissism. 10. as john deathridge pointed out, the sheer volume of the published correspondence between wagner and ludwig is proof that they rarely met (1984: 48). 11. regrettably, space does not permit me to include a full review of emslie’s book in the present article. i refer the reader instead to mark berry’s (2010) review. references abbate, carolyn. 1991. unsung voices: opera and musical narrative in the nineteenth century. princeton: princeton university press. abbate, carolyn. 2001. in search of opera. princeton: princeton university press. adorno, theodor w. 1974. versuch über wagner. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. berry, mark. 2010. review of barry emslie, richard wagner and the centrality of love. wagner journal 4 (2): 92–96. clément, catherine. 1988. opera, or the undoing of women. translated by betsy wing. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. cone, edward. 2009. “siegfried at the dragon’s cave: the motivic language of the ring”. in hearing and knowing music, edited by robert p. morgan, 80–105. princeton: princeton university press. deathridge, john. 1984. the new grove wagner. london: macmillan. emslie, barry. 2011. richard wagner and the centrality of love. woodbridge, uk: boydell press. harper–scott, j. p. e. 2011. “wagner, sex and capitalism”. wagner journal 5 (2): 46–62. jost, christa, ed. 2010. iphigenia in aulis, bearbeitung der tragédie: richard wagner sämtliche werke, vol. 20/iv. mainz: schott music. marx, karl. 1975. early writings. translated by rodney livingstone and gregor benton. london: pelican. newman, ernest. 1976. the life of richard wagner, vol. 2: 1848–1860. cambridge: cambridge university press. current musicology 136 parly, nila. 2011. vocal victories: wagner’s female characters from senta to kundry. translated by gaye kynoch. copenhagen: museum tusculanum press. porges, heinrich. 1983. wagner rehearing the “ring”: an eye–witness account of the stage rehearsals of the first bayreuth festival. cambridge: cambridge university press. purvis, philip, ed. 2013. masculinity in opera: gender, history, and new musicology. new york: routledge. rieger, eva. 2009. “leuchtende liebe, lachender tod”: richard wagners bild der frau im spiegel seiner musik. dusseldorf: artemis and winkler. robinson, paul. 2002. opera, sex, and other vital matters. chicago: university of chicago press. trippett, david. 2011. “wagner studies and the parallactic drift.” cambridge opera journal 22 (2): 235–55. wagner, richard. 1911. sämtliche schriften und dichtungen, volks–ausgabe, vol. 5, edited by richard sternfeld. leipzig: breitkopf and härtel and c. f. w. siegel (r. linnemann). wagner, richard. 1923. mein leben, vol. 1, edited by wilhelm altmann. leipzig: bibliographisches institut. wagner, richard. 1975. sämtliche briefe, vol. 3: 1849–1851, edited by gertrud strobel and werner wolf. leipzig: deutscher verlag für musik. wagner, richard. 1987. my life. translated by andrew gray. cambridge: cambridge university press. walton, chris. 2010. “role play” [review of eva rieger, “leuchtende liebe, lachender tod”: richard wagners bild der frau im spiegel seiner musik]. wagner journal 4 (1): 86–88. žižek, slavoj. 2006. the parallax view. cambridge, ma: mit press. zurmühl, sabine. 1984. “leuchtende liebe, lachender tod”: zum tochter–mythos brünnhilde. munich: frauenbuchverlag. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 145 timothy d. taylor. 2012. the sounds of capitalism: advertising, music, and the conquest of culture. chicago: university of chicago press. reviewed by ralph whyte if some associate christmas with “hark! the herald angels sing” or “jingle bells,” it takes only a mention of the word “holidays” to set off the chugging rhythmic ostinato of an old earworm in my mind: “holidays are coming, holidays are coming.” whether or not this song has convinced me to buy more coca–cola at christmas, it has made an indelible impression on my imagining of the festive season. music’s power to impart impressions and to make the forgettable maddeningly memorable was recognized by advertisers long before coca–cola released its ads of branded trucks traversing winter landscapes. it is the task of timothy taylor’s the sounds of capitalism to detail the history of this field in which musicians, record companies, and advertisers have all interacted.1 the narrative is largely chronological, although some chapters are organized thematically. the historical account is infused with copious examples, which can be experienced on the companion website, soundsofcapitalism.com. despite these profuse examples, taylor steers clear of close readings, preferring to engage with the words of those involved in the world of advertising music. taylor wears his two hats as historian and ethnographer, drawing on large quantities of trade discourse and numerous interviews: 37 in total, 24 of which he carried out personally. such a study looks beyond the facts of the history of the business and seeks to understand how participants have understood what they do, not merely as individuals, but en masse. the volume of information taylor includes towards this end is impressive. it is unsurprising that the book was a decade in the making (xvii). the first two chapters (1, “music and advertising in early radio” and 2, “the classes and the masses in the 1920s and 1930s”) chart the “pre– jingle” era of radio advertising. during this time advertisers and sponsors would produce entire radio programs; more programs were produced this way than by the networks. music was a relatively cheap resource for filling broadcast time, but advertisers knew relatively little about the profile of radio audiences and were therefore anxious about picking music audiences would like. one method of selection was to choose music that would give a brand a “personality” or that would “animate” a product (6); for example, the bright timbre of the banjo of the band clicquot club eskimos was thought to capture some of the effervescence of clicquot club ginger ale. 146 current musicology faced with uncertainty about who was listening and what music to play, advertisers engaged in market research by asking listeners to write in, even luring them with free photographs of stars. these letters provided researchers with critical data: “types of paper, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure” revealed the social profile of a program’s listening public (47). the third chapter, “the great depression and the rise of the radio jingle,” describes the advent of the jingle. taylor sees early jingles as the first instance of music that was composed specifically for advertising crossing over into the wider popular–music market, as the most popular jingles were sold widely on record and in print. thus begins an important thread for taylor: the thesis that since the 1920s the distinction between advertising and creative industries has become increasingly fuzzy. taylor considers the jingle as a way to sugarcoat the hard–sell tactics that were effected by the depression. networks were initially reluctant to sell jingle–length timeslots, but they succumbed and thereby generated the ad–break format as we know it today (87). this is fascinating history, but when taylor writes that “because of the depression, advertisers demanded more effective ads for less money” (67), “the depression” represents a zeitgeist or “context” that is assumed to be all–affecting rather than established to be germane. a phenomenon as broad as “the depression” surely had variegated effects on different industries, different parts of society, and the relationship between retailers and advertisers. taylor interrupts his chronology when he reaches the 1950s (4, “music, mood, and television”) in order to focus more intently on the emergence of the rhetoric of emotion and affect in advertising discourse. this marks an important shift around midcentury in ad tactics from emphasizing the attributes of a product to “invad[ing] the subconscious” (110). while the idea of using music to set a mood or emotional tone is present in early film trade discourse, taylor discovers that those in music and television advertising were slower on the uptake: the first pioneers only began thinking of music in these terms in the late ’50s and early ’60s. here taylor references the fashionable freudianism of the ’50s. similar to his discussion of the depression as a context for the hard sell, this connection is roughly rendered: the connection between the new emphasis on “mood” in the advertising world and freud, freudianism, or psychoanalysis is suggested but not explored in any detail. despite this, the larger point is clear: the language of emotion became the primary means of communicating about and classifying music—for clients of music production companies describing what they wanted as well as for record labels trying to make their offerings easily searchable (121–23). 147 ralph whyte chapter 5, “the standardization of jingle production in the 1950s and after,” continues the chronology of the jingle. reaching its happy heyday between the ’50s and the ’70s, the jingle became increasingly professionalized and sonically standardized—or, to use taylor’s term, “rationalized.” the unique jingle style during this period drew from popular music yet remained distinct from it: consisting of choir with or without soloist, it became known as the “madison avenue choir” sound (138). taylor follows the jingle’s story until its death knell sounded in the ’80s and ’90s; he describes how the jingle’s decline came about largely because of its inability “to sound like anything other than something that was industrially produced”: the cheerfulness sounded formulaic, canned, and inauthentic to the younger generation (142). the irony of this distinction between “inauthentic” industrially produced jingle music and the “real” music of industrially produced pop is not lost on taylor, who makes reference to jean baudrillard’s writings on the untenability of distinctions between reality and fabrication in the postmodern world (145); nevertheless, the distinction is crucial to a trend that dominates the final four chapters—the advertising industry’s adoption of the “cool and hip” as a governing aesthetic framework. the first two of these four chapters (6, “the discovery of youth in the 1960s” and 7, “consumption, corporatization, and youth in the 1980s”) deal with the advertising industry’s “discovery of youth” and the symbiotic relationships between advertising, youth, and counterculture from the ’60s to the ’80s. on the one hand, youth and counterculture shaped the advertising industry as baby boomers took up positions in advertising agencies; on the other, the industry was able to co–opt youth and counterculture, even if that counterculture had originally been intended to serve as an arena for critique of and resistance to the very forces that engulfed it (176). in musical terms this was manifested in the displacement of the traditional jingle by the licensing of pre–existing songs. subsequently, the sound of rock–and–roll gradually infiltrated into advertisements despite initial resistance from advertising executives who feared the possibly deleterious effects of “low–class” music (151). part of this shift taylor attributes to the arrival in 1981 of mtv, whose significance “can’t be overstated,” although his eschewing of close reading leaves more to be said about this confluence of styles (185).2 the precedence of music in mtv’s audiovisual nexus certainly furthered the favor of pre–existing pop. by the neoliberal years of the mid to late ’80s, enormous sponsorship deals were being made between advertisers and pop stars: pepsi paid michael jackson $5 million to appear in tv commercials in 1984 and paid him $15 million more for further appearances three years later (187). this leads taylor to the conclu148 current musicology sion that “the advertising and music industries were becoming more like businesses in this era, more exclusively concerned with profits” (193). in contrast, taylor provides the case of nike’s appropriation of the beatles’ “revolution” for an ad campaign in 1987–88: the resultant uproar and litigation demonstrates the dissent sometimes provoked by this new direction in advertising (199–202). the embrace between taylor’s protagonists—the music and advertising industries—tightens further in the penultimate chapter (8, “conquering [the] culture”). taylor argues that these changes amount not just to the “conquest of cool,” as thomas frank (1997) has argued, but the “conquest of culture” (taylor, 206). taylor provocatively proclaims “there is no popular music that is not, to varying degrees, advertising music” (8). what this means is that the advertising industry has infiltrated the world of popular music production and dissemination. no longer does advertising music mimic or lag behind popular music styles; advertising professionals are at the forefront not only of trendspotting but also increasingly of trendsetting. at the same time, taylor notes, similarly to bethany klein (2009) in her as heard on tv: popular music in advertising, that popular musicians fear less than ever that they might be considered “sell outs” for commercial tie–ins (229). a risk–averse music industry—affected by the decline of the influence of mtv, the loss of local radio, and declining sales—has left a void for upcoming musicians that advertisers have partly filled. the conclusion that a “conquest of culture” (the book’s subtitle) has taken place, which taylor recognizes as reminiscent of theodor adorno, may seem inevitable and pessimistic (5). if there is no popular music, not already embedded in commerce, does it really constitute a “conquest”? and while bethany klein has suggested that musicians themselves have shouldered disproportionate blame for the increased influence of ad men in the creation and dissemination of their work, does “conquest” too much portray musicians as passive when the reconfiguration of cultural production may in fact provide them with new professional and creative opportunities (klein 2009, 126–127)? nevertheless, it raises stimulating questions: for example, if selling out to advertisers no longer carries the same stigma for musicians, what does it now mean for a popular musician to be authentic? which musicians and audiences remain hostile to advertising arrangements? and do advertising professionals maintain their influence in a world where broadcast media is decreasingly prominent? the conclusion is a theoretical consideration of advertisers as a social group who populate the “field of cultural production” that is advertising music (231). taylor equates this group with bourdieu’s “new petite bourgeoisie” and discusses their new position as arbiters of taste in an environ149 ralph whyte ment where commercial and aesthetic considerations have intersected and the music and advertising industries have become so intermingled as to be inseparable (232). of particular interest in this chapter is taylor’s discussion of the rhetoric of “creativity” in the advertising world, which proves to be an excellent example of the type of insight discourse analysis can offer. while the rest of his narrative deals primarily with the commercialization of music, this chapter presents the flipside: the aestheticization of advertising. as with bourdieu’s “new petite bourgeoisie,” the advertising professionals of taylor’s study do not equate legitimacy with highbrow culture but rather with the “hip” and the “cool” (237). even though those who work in advertising seldom consider what they do as art, they understand it as a “creative” endeavor (240). the word “creative” therefore operates within the advertising industry as a justification for doing the otherwise unpalatable job of selling “needless commodities”; it provides a positive self–image for advertising practitioners who self–identify in opposition to those who “merely” work in the humdrum business/financial/commercial worlds (245). the theoretical ambition of this conclusion is welcome. although taylor’s prose is laudably jargon–free, sometimes the book starts to feels like a series of examples and interviews, a feeling that could have been mitigated by the inclusion of a few more of the aperçus that litter this final chapter. it is possible that taylor is aiming his book beyond a small academic market, and the book is certainly clearly written and highly readable, while many of his anecdotes add all the pep and sparkle of clicquot club ginger ale. notes 1. taylor compliments and considerably expands upon the historical purview of bethany klein’s (2009) as heard on tv: popular music in advertising. research on earlier instances of music–advertising interaction includes work on the business practices of tin pan alley (suisman 2009) and, even more relevantly since it implicates music in the sale of non–musical goods, the practice of musical performance in late nineteenth– and early twentieth–century department stores (tyler 1992). 2. in unruly media: youtube, music video, and the new digital cinema carol vernallis (2013) asserts that the influence of music video has transformed the aesthetic of youtube and contemporary cinema, but taylor’s history points to a much earlier convergence with advertising. in her early study of mtv, rocking around the clock: music television, postmodernism, and consumer culture (1987), e. ann kaplan considers the videos of mtv to be in essence a form of advertising but without examining any specific connections with the forms or personnel of advertising. 150 current musicology references frank, thomas. 1997. the conquest of cool: business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip consumerism. chicago: university of chicago press. kaplan, e. ann. 1987. rocking around the clock: music television, postmodernism, and consumer culture. new york: methuen. klein, bethany. 2009. as heard on tv: popular music in advertising. burlington, vt: ashgate. suisman, david. 2009. selling sounds: the commercial revolution in american music. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. tyler, linda l. 1992. “‘commerce and poetry hand in hand’: music in american department stores, 1880–1930.” journal of the american musicological society 45 (1): 75–120. vernallis, carol. 2013. unruly media: youtube, music video, and the new digital cinema. new york: oxford university press. current musicology, no. 96 (fall 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 71 judging performance, performing judgments: race and performance in weimar germany brendan fay the past has become more important than before. we are in search of authenticity. the crucial thing is that the productive artist is no longer in control, and hence the growth of importance of the reproductive artist. —wilhelm furtwängler ([1928] 1989: 31; emphasis in the original) in the summer of 1930, the pianist john flaffith concertized throughout europe and astounded audiences with his vivid interpretations of a varied repertoire, ranging from debussy and stravinsky to bach and mozart. in poland, the kurjer polski raved: “yesterday john flaffith played before a wild audience. what this great artist understands and brings [to the music] can only be appreciated still more by the expert. the present author, who has heard the great masters of the piano play and can be regarded as the quintessential critic has only this to say: john flaffith was better than them all.”1 in budapest, the magyarorszag reported, “it brings us great pleasure to report on the enormous success [enjoyed] by john flaffith, who played the most difficult pieces with great technique and the most intimate feeling for the piano.” but, as the article went on to say, what most astonished concertgoers “is that mister flaffith is a negro! [one] infused with the soul of beethoven and liszt. in short: a phenomenon who should serve as a model for the white piano player” (harrer 1930: 735).2 alas, flaffith’s success did not last. just prior to an engagement before a packed house in germany, flaffith was confronted by a crazed fellow artist who shouted “i want us white artists to be free of the black menace!” before pulling out a revolver and shooting flaffith in the shoulder. as stagehands scurried to get medical attention, flaffith’s agent was heard to cry out “no water, no water!” it was not long before the sentiment behind this curious aversion was revealed, for no sooner had one stagehand put a wet washcloth on flaffith’s forehead than loud cries were heard throughout the hall: “flaffith is no negro, he is white!” (harrer: 735).3 months later, flaffith found himself fully recovered but unable to secure even a single engagement. eventually, he revealed to a german reporter the inspiration behind his successful, if short–lived, ruse: current musicology 72 it was not my idea, but rather that of my wife . . . after we had married i played in a bar in new york, which went rather badly. but i lost the position because my playing was too serious. anny, who always gave me encouragement, said that i should try being a piano virtuoso. it came to nothing. a negro film, which we saw together during this time, suddenly gave anny the idea that i could try doing things as a negro artist. the last of our savings brought us across the ocean. in the beginning i tried to concertize in several cities as a white pianist, but had no success. but if i appeared as a negro, i found myself enthusiastically welcomed; in short: i was soon a true great known the world over. (harrer 1930: 737)4 the story is likely fictional: no trace of john flaffith can be found in other contemporary sources. but its underlying claim—that musical performance has never been purely about the music itself but rather has found itself bound up in larger questions surrounding what is performed, when and by whom—is a concern which loomed large in the minds of music critics of the interwar period. and yet, scholars of weimar germany have been surprisingly slow in turning their attention toward performance to see what it can tell us about the larger socio–historical context in which it is produced. there is a robust historiography outlining the culture wars fought over the nationalist inclinations and legacies of composers and the extent to which they and their music could be said to reflect or anticipate conservative, liberal, socialist, and nascent national–socialist ideals (on handel, see potter 2011. for beethoven, see dennis 1996. for a recent account of the nazis’ appropriation of mozart, see levi 2011).yet when it comes to performance, according to christopher small, the part played by the performers in the perception of [musical works] has often not come into consideration; when performance is discussed at all, it is spoken of as if it were nothing more than a presentation . . . of the work that is being performed. it is rare to find the act of musical performance thought of as possessing, much less creating, meanings in its own right. (small 1998: 4) if the function of race within the performance of classical instrumental music has until recently largely been ignored, its place within other musical traditions has been better documented by ethnomusicologists. from the centrality of “blackness” in jazz to the importance of “jewishness” in performing klezmer music, re–conceptualizing musical performance as central to the construction of ethnic identity, negotiation of power, and assertion of agency has been well–recognized (see, for example, rudinow 1994 and waligórska 2005). in this article, i examine the place of the performer in interwar germany, a figure who came to assume a new importance amidst heightened nationalism, xenophobia, and broad social anxieties surrounding the place of traditional culture in the modern world. brendan fay 73 what i am interested in here, in other words, is unpacking the notion, as the pianist claudio arrau put it, “that only a german can play beethoven . . . only a viennese can feel schubert” (horowitz 1982: 120). critical views toward the performer can indeed tell us much about the dispositions of those who articulate them. how were the connections between national identity and performance understood, articulated, and ultimately deployed by weimar critics and musicologists? what can an examination of music through the lens of performance tell us about the underlying anxieties of the interwar period? finally, to what extent can these views on performance be said to have anticipated, mirrored, or otherwise prefigured those under national socialism? here, i offer some preliminary answers to these questions. in doing so, i hope to show that questions of rupture loom just as large as those of continuity—the prevalent mode that dominated the “doom and gloom” historiography of the sixties, seventies, and eighties (gay 1968, laqueur 1974, and peukert 1991). where the vexed question of race and performance was concerned, the views of cultural conservatives,5 long viewed as hostile towards weimar democracy, exhibited an extraordinary diversity. national identity and modern musical performance “is there any such thing as a typical german form of playing? every german musician knows it, and still it is difficult to describe and explain in words” (zilcher 1932: 1061).6 although weimar critics like hermann zilcher devoted considerable time to such questions, it would be a mistake to claim they originated with them. the late imperial reich gave rise to initial forays into these and other mysteries in the form of rudolf louis’s highly influential die deutsche musik der gegenwart (contemporary german music), which extolled the artistic acumen of such luminaries as the pianist turned conductor hans von bülow: “a model, unsurpassed . . . the pure artistic distinction of this unique personality that impresses us and will impress later generations . . . is the ethnic qualities of the man” (louis 1912: 303; emphasis in the original). writing in 1935, feruccio busoni, mentor to hundreds of pianists over the course of his distinguished career, similarly recalled an incident involving his dutch–born student egon petri’s border crossing into germany in 1907: he was carrying beethoven’s sonatas in his suitcase, which were pulled out and inspected in the customs office. “what is that?” asks the officer. “they are scores—beethoven’s sonatas.” “ah, those are beethoven’s sonatas,” replies the officer as he leafs through them. “to understand them is the most difficult thing of all,” he says, handing back the volume. “and,” he adds, taking egon for an englishman, “a foreigner is incapable of it; for that you have to be german.” (quoted in riethmüller 2002: 293) current musicology 74 birthright was often held responsible for the cultural insights that it conferred onto performers of german music. this view was effectively summed up by one critic who, seeking to explain how the conductor bruno walter arrived at such stirring renditions of beethoven and wagner, concluded that “the man was born in berlin . . . and he belongs to us” (beck 1926: 71). much has been made of a peculiarly german “organic,” “exclusivist” conception of identity, particularly in comparison to its “inclusivist” and “assimilationist” french counterpart (brubaker 1992). however, while there is much to recommend this view, essentialist attitudes toward ethnicity and performance were not unique to german critics. for those performers who failed the birthright test, a proper upbringing in the musical culture often sufficed, as it did, for example, with pianist arrau. reminiscing on his days playing in 1920s berlin, arrau observed, “if someone would say, ‘you know, he is from south america,’ he was told, ‘oh yes, but his upbringing was in berlin’” (horowitz: 121; emphasis in the original). a further way of judging performance credentials was through the imagining of “national schools” of performance. critics, musicologists, and performers invented and immersed themselves within pedagogical traditions that were understood to connect by direct lineage the modern–day performer with the intentions of a work’s long–dead creator. the most illustrious of these schools in twentieth–century europe was undoubtedly the leschetizky school, centered on the famous viennese pedagogue of the same name and renowned for producing interpreters of beethoven. leschetizky could claim authority as a student of carl czerny (1771–1857) who, in turn, inherited the stamp of authentic interpretation by virtue of his lessons with beethoven himself. through such narratives, performers were often imagined as bringing the true intentions of the composer to light. but not all performers entirely agreed with such an assessment—even those who would clearly benefit from such a genealogy. thus we find arthur schnabel (1882–1951), himself a former student of leschetizsky and celebrated for his beethoven in the 1920s, remarking in his memoirs: “there is no leschetizsky method. it is a mere legend—an absolute fallacy” (schnabel 1964: 125). commenting more generally on the notion of national schools, schnabel was entirely dismissive: i lived for thirty years in germany and even so i would not be able to say what the “german technique” is. for in germany all kinds of piano techniques were taught—flat or round fingers, stretched out or drawn in, elbows fixed or waving, glued to the hips or far out . . . which one was the “german technique?” (schnabel 1964: 195) this fixation on national schools was itself a relatively new phenomenon during weimar and contrasted with nineteenth–century conceptions of brendan fay 75 performance. in the so–called “romantic age” piano playing was characterized as much by its preference for extemporization as its fidelity to the printed score: a performer’s improvisatory power was often viewed as a yardstick for measuring their overall artistic capabilities (hamilton 2008: 22). one wonders if the consolidation of the western canon beginning around 1800—and the subsequent sacralization of composers which accompanied it—ushered in a shift in performance practice, whereby complete fidelity to the composer’s intentions came to assume an overriding importance (goehr 2007). little room was left for ingenuity on the part of the performer—his or her new function as mediator between the deceased composer and his living audience reduced the performer to a new role as the vessel through which the sacred notes of the composer could be transmitted. it is worth remembering the reasons behind berlioz’s conception of liszt as “the pianist of the future” in june 1836—namely, for the way in which the latter’s performances ensured “not a note was left out, not one added . . . no inflection was effaced, no change of tempo permitted” (goehr 2007: 233). in berlioz’s experience, such an approach clearly deviated from prevailing practice. testimonies by twentieth–century performers reveal the extent of this shift from earlier room for maneuver in performance to the musical score’s new position of authority. after world war i, liszt’s radical fidelity to the score was seen as de rigueur. according to german pianist walter gieseking, writing in 1942, a sensible, artistically valid and truthful interpretation is inextricably linked with the concept of the work in its true form (werktreue). every artwork of any significance is endowed with definite expressive content by its creator which the interpreter must communicate and bring to life. the interpreter must force himself to generate with intensive feeling not the personal feelings or the ephemeral mood of the player, but rather the expressive content which the composer has rendered in artistic form. that alone can, as far as is possible, be identified with the composer. this identity, realized in its highest degree in the resultant interpretation, is, as i see it, the ideal. (gieseking 1963: 97; emphasis mine)7 by the interwar period, national “schools” and “traditions” emerged in place of individual teachers and methods. what was formerly the edwin fischer method, for example, came to be known as the “german school,” while disciples of vladimir sofronitsky were labeled as exponents of a “russian school” (see lourenço 2007). it could be argued that this move from what could be considered a more fluid to a more fixed arrangement had the effect of opening up rather than closing off the secrets of the musical score to outsider groups: national identity might have figured more (not less) prominently in the previous age when multiple renditions were competing current musicology 76 for legitimacy. many critics, however, reached the opposite conclusion, as the case of otto schmitt reveals. schmitt claimed the “german singer” remained “the only one capable of embodying the primordial german (urgermanischen) character of der ring des nibelungen and the other music dramas because they are wholly german in thought and feeling!” (schmitt 1921: 330).8 while the greatness of german music resided in its universal meaning, it was ultimately only through the acumen of german artists that such meaning could be derived. schmitt’s comments on italian tenor enrico caruso are instructive. for schmitt, it was “characteristic that the greatest italian singer, caruso, has never sung lohengrin or tannhäuser, let alone sigmund or siegfried, in his guest performances in germany—that is because, before all else, they must be sung in the german language!” the importance of germans performing german music was in some cases even more important abroad, where it lay vulnerable not only to “inauthentic” renditions by foreign artists but also to performance in other vernaculars: german performers provide the occasion for a cultural mission of the highest rank not only in germany, where they understand it must be so, but also in the neutral and even in the enemy countries! what tremendous successes german performers have already exhibited in this area since the war! spain and italy have readily experienced german art performed by germans in their greatest cities and france, our most irreconcilable adversary, must again open its doors, after many years of opposition, to the art of wagner within its capital city of paris . . . [either way, they will be] forced open by the elemental need for art (kunstbedürfnis) among its own people! (schmitt 1921: 330)9 in the final analysis, schmitt concluded, “it appears that the german conductor, the german singer, the german musician already faces an enormous, and at the same time encouraging, task abroad—to increase his artistic performances to the highest plane!” (schmitt 1921: 330).10 commentators did not limit their critiques to foreign–derived performances of vocal and chamber music: symphonic music, too, raised its own set of problems. the conservative alfred heuss, one of weimar germany’s most distinguished critics, launched a vicious campaign as editor of the zeitschrift für musik against the threat posed to german music by a combination of jews, atonalists, and foreigners. heuss summed up the situation in a 1930 review of beethoven’s third symphony, conducted under italian–american maestro arturo toscanini. while conceding that “after reading parts of some of the really excessive critics, one must unabashedly reach the opinion, that the eroica has, for really the first time, been revealed in its true form,” heuss identified what he called “cracks [that] appeared right in the foundation” (heuss 1930: 553). he observed how brendan fay 77 one notices the italian in toscanini insofar as he has no real feeling for polyphony. he does not think to allow the middle voices to really sing, for example in the wonderful measures in the strings of the funeral march immediately before the return of the theme in f minor. (heuss 1930: 554)11 heuss perceived this insensitivity as rooted in an inability on the part of italian performers to realize german music in the appropriate manner, an inability not ascribed to german conductors: how marvelous are such places under the direction of furtwängler! . . . it reminds me of the great singer battistini, the onetime singer of german lieder. [both cases] can only lead to the tragic conclusion that the innermost part of the german character is thoroughly lost on the italians. (heuss 1930: 554)12 despite this, the german public “still places the italian conductors above all german ones in the performing of german works,” a fact which heuss viewed as “connected to the general feeling of inferiority of germans today” (554). he goes on to situate this feeling historically while registering the fragility of nationalist discourse following the first world war: this feeling is nothing other than the expression that one feels . . . as part of the devastating effects of the postwar period. we are, in a word, musically becoming, if we have not already become, an international province. one searches in vain for a germany ready to be musical, at least in our great cities. (heuss 1930: 554)13 not all critics blamed the erosion of german musical life on the intrusion of foreign performers. reinhold zimmermann perceived the gradual “dying out” [aussterben] of that most german of instruments—the piano—as responsible for the general decline in cultural taste. although it had been long understood as a “natural” instrument among the german people, zimmermann lamented how the piano was “wearing away day by day.” the economic hardships of the previous decade didn’t help matters: “a people that can no longer buy instruments can also no longer acquire instruction on these instruments.” through this lack of instruction, alongside the increasing reliance on mass–produced renditions broadcast over the radiowaves, zimmermann claimed that the production of great german music, which had for so long served as a point of reference for the german pianist, was in peril: “it is undoubtedly true that the beethoven piano sonata played by a competent artist on record, for listeners desirous of a better reading, is botched in person by somebody or another.” still, zimmermann asked, “what will happen to the limitless treasures of our piano literature if the piano truly dies out?” (zimmermann 1931: 223).14 current musicology 78 still others ascribed the crisis of performance to the german concert–going public and its susceptibility to the pernicious influence of americanization (weitz 2007, storer 2013). that catchall term—a metonym for the many demons of the interwar period such as capitalism, the advent of modern media, and mass culture—held particular sway over weimar’s new middle class, and especially over its youth (see weitz 2007: 251–296). according to critic roderich regidür, the developing tastes of the german youth for “foreign, american negro music or things like that” led to “our [germany’s] good serious german musicians sit[ting] at home and liv[ing] in poverty” (regidür 1927: 357). in regidür’s opinion, the influx of foreign musicians was directly tied to the lifting of oppressive censorship laws that were a legacy of imperial germany, an opinion which betrayed regidür’s usual authoritarian leanings: before the war, many german musicians engaged the entire world with their art. [now] they are hindered or completely barred from practicing their art in most hostile states. only germany would permit these foreign national musicians to perform jazz and other noise unimpeded. (regidür 1927: 357) regidür was merely one of many culturally conservative critics who derided jazz for its foreigness and decadence during the weimar republic. but not all castigated it to the same extent, though they often seized upon perceived connections between ethnic–racial identity and authentic performance. cultural leftists like frank warschauer hailed jazz as “the most entertaining and vital phenomenon in contemporary music . . . not only in america but everywhere.” not only did blacks possess “an extraordinarily original sense of rhythm anchored deep in their nature,” but they also had— extraordinarily in warschauer’s view—a profound sense of melody that they brought to bear on musical performance. while warschauer certainly deplored social segregation, which prevented blacks and white from playing together, this separation, it seems, also had its benefits: with racial purity came authenticity. for the european interested in experiencing authentic (american) jazz, it was not enough to seek out the nearest ensemble at hand; rather, warschauer argued that “to appreciate [jazz] one must listen to a negro orchestra” (kaes et. al 1994: 571).15 nationalism, universalism, and the conservative press the historian does not have to look far to find evidence of nationalism and xenophobia in the conservative musical press. it is worth remembering, however, that not all cultural conservatives held similar attitudes to alfred brendan fay 79 heuss or otto schmitt. a close examination of contemporary sources reveals that while some critics held german music to be uniquely universal, those who possessed the cultural insights necessary to perform it were not found in germany alone. in his coverage of the same 1921 german tour by caruso so derided by his fellow conservative critics, georges armin wrote in the conservative allgemeine musikalische zeitung that, “although a foreigner, [caruso] knew that he had won over the hearts of the germans through his rare synthesis [vereinigung] of finished tone and genuine feeling, of unparalleled technique and dramatic power to shape [gestaltungskraft].” with his profound, universal musicality, caruso was living proof for armin of the inadequacy of the concept of national schools of performance style, which he labeled as “preposterous” and added that “there is no german, american or italian school . . . rather the art of singing is, like all art, purely absolute.” invoking one of the central maxims of nineteenth–century aesthetic theory, it was in the beauty of caruso’s performances that armin glimpsed the eternal: so long as the eternal human heart remains as it is now, so will artistic revelations of the voice continue to remain on the basis of the same great and deep secret, namely that of beauty. this is a quality that every receptive disposition immediately feels and celebrates, and which every genuine singer seeks to come closer to through his tone. (armin 1921: 584)16 the great trick of this rhetoric of “absolutes” and “eternals” was to somehow retain—and even endorse—german national identity. hermann zilcher, for example, claimed that germans were best suited not only for bach, schumann, and brahms but also for performances of works by composers from other nations. in the zeitschrift für musik, he wrote that “many souls reside in the breast of the german; this is at once both his greatest strength and weakness. he yearns after the rarely heard . . . and exotic.” while acknowledging some performing traits as characteristic of all musicians irrespective of nationality—including “fidelity to the notes, and a general awareness (lebendiges empfinden) for the character of the music or stylistic structure”—the success of german renditions of foreigners’ music was for zilcher bound up with native performance habits such as “a certain cleanness in rhythm and melody; [a] strong need for clarity in architectural construction and (in spite of his temperament) a certain restrained silence” (zilcher 1932: 1061).17 these were german traits, but they were also universal. one of the keys to the unmatched profundity of german interpretations of german music, zilcher claimed, was found in performers’ deep cultural immersion into and familiarity with their own musical tradition. it was current musicology 80 especially important for performers to focus not simply on works within the narrow confines of the repertory of their particular instrument or of a certain period, but on all german music: it is not enough that the pianist of bach only knows the piano works or that the german singer only knows the songs of schubert, schumann, and brahms. rather, [they must] learn to not only play the two part inventions of bach, but also love [his] passions and many rich cantatas. in the case of the german singer, she finds that she sings brahms lieder with adequate expression if she also has studied the orchestral works and chamber music of brahms. (zilcher 1932: 1062)18 others echoed zilcher in their assessment of germans’ ability to excel in the performance of music from other nations. sigmund pilsung, for example, documented the case of walter gieseking, describing how the pianist’s successful renditions of french impressionistic music owed both to his german identity as well as his immersion in french music culture: up through the present day, it is the nature of impressionistic sound [as opposed to] substance that causes it to remain foreign to germans. the german esteems thematically sound music as the true spice . . . walter gieseking, a german through and through (kerndeutscher), breathed the french air in his youth. one must have experienced living under the french sky, to grasp the appropriate mood with such tender feeling. how easily corrupted is impressionism’s own style that it [could only] exist at all through cross–breeding with german “feeling!” (pislung 1922: 48)19 in france, critics could display similar ethnocentric attitudes. pianist arthur rubinstein, reflecting on musical life in 1920s paris, recalled that a german pianist, walter gieseking, made a sensation in paris with his very personal approach to debussy . . . critics unanimously proclaimed him the ideal interpreter of the french master. the bitter pill that a german should deserve this honor was swallowed more easily thanks to the fact that his mother was french. (rubinstein 1980: 195)20 for those less concerned with cementing gieseking’s relationship to french music by dint of his maternal lineage, the fact that he had “breathed the french air” in his youth went furthest to explain his aptitude for performing the music of the french masters. herbert gigler, for example, saw the relationship between music and environment as self–evident. drawing parallels with architectural differences of concert halls and opera houses in the capitals of europe, he wrote that brendan fay 81 a piano will sound better, a violin address itself more lightly, an oboe or a clarinet sound in other tone colorations from one territory to the other . . . [and while] a good portion of these variations in style and architecture, harmony and melody come down to racial differences . . . even in the racial question, we find that climate accounts for an important part of the difference. (gigler 1923: 518) chopin and liszt, who immigrated to paris from “eastern cultural backwaters” provided the strongest evidence for this fact. prior to finding success in the french capital, the polish chopin had languished in warsaw while the hungarian liszt toiled in sopron and bratislava (gigler 1923: 518).21 paris, however, remained for gigler an oasis in a desert of unmusicality compared with berlin, vienna, and other great music capitals of central europe. while central europe had produced nearly all of europe’s greatest composers through the years, the situation to the west was far less promising. even a cursory glance at the musical cultures of england, holland, switzerland, and western austria proved that “these unmusical places have neither produced first rate musicians nor bequeathed their stamp [in the form of] any composers” (518).22 confronted with the cases of the germans handel and haydn, who produced some of their best compositions in england, gigler demurred that london had left these composers “entirely unaffected” and that their masterworks were produced not because but in spite of their unmusical surroundings (520). in this line of argument, while national origin was an important factor in shaping the profundity of artists’ musical creations, climate was an important factor in stimulating and enhancing the muse. despite such pronouncements, performers from outside of europe were still able to impress. in the 1920s, arrau (mentioned in the introduction) made a splash on the european concert scene, achieving success with audiences and critics alike. the pianist’s south american origins, however, were not lost on german critics: familiar devices were deployed to explain how a foreigner could arrive at such incisive interpretations of german music. according to a 1926 review from the allgemeine musik–zeitung, there is here absolutely no trace of hothouse cultivation. healthily and naturally, musically practical and straightforward, as one expects from a child, but at the same time with all the infallible signs of an extraordinary talent, this good–looking boy played his mozart, weber, schubert, and mendelssohn . . . it appears to me that this fresh, germanically impregnated boy must become a distinguished artist. (quoted in horowitz 1982: 44)23 despite reviews like this, most references to race in the weimar musical press remained subtle; pamela potter has shown how race found itself on precarious footing in musical discourse and was dismissed by most in the current musicology 82 early 1920s as a “scientifically unsound” means by which to measure musical profundity, at least among serious–minded musicologists and scholars (potter 2007). studies seeking to uncover mysterious connections between race and music tended to be the work of amateur writers and charlatans. for example, robert lach, a contemporary musicologist, ridiculed efforts to link race with performance, scale systems, formal constructions, and other aspects of musical thought as little more than the work of untrained dilettantes and admitted “that currently comparative musicology is not yet equipped to demonstrate racial elements and criteria in human musical creation” (potter 2007: 57–58). race and performance not all were so dismissive. in weimar music circles, rudolf maria breithaupt (1873–1945), a klavierpädagoge at the stern’schen konservatorium, was widely recognized as one of germany’s foremost authorities on piano technique. his 1907 die natürliche klaviertechnik (the natural piano technique) made a quick sensation and remains today one of the definitive reference works on modern piano arm–weight technique. in 1922, his writings on performing artists took a turn away from the role played by proper technical training and education towards matters concerning race. in breithaupt’s words, “talent as it applies to instrumental music is in the first place a racial question; that is, of things having more to do with the blood, heredity and aptitude than with teaching organization, education and the atmosphere and culture.” skill in performance, breithaupt went on, was not derived from technique, but “from the blood and wellsprings of energy of race and from [other] inherited instincts.” in contrast to the “nurture” arguments of critics like zilcher, breithaupt claimed that while certain “qualities of character” such as “energy, steadfastness, stamina, affection, and warmth of feeling . . . [could probably be] refined and deepened, they must first be present from birth” (breithaupt 1922: 37).24 oddly, breithaupt did not agree with heuss’s and others’ assessments on the superiority of germans performing german works or the works of other national traditions. rather, he asserted that “two races exhibit a peculiar aptitude and adaptation to the instrumental arts, especially piano and violin music: the semitic and the slavic” (37; emphasis in the original). breithaupt’s ideal racialized performer was a combination of both: “the best breeding ground for playing talent, both amongst ourselves as well as other völkisch tribes, consists in the cross–breeding and mixing of both races, like the ancient germans, hungarians, romanians, etc.” (38). summarily dismissive of “pure cultures” (reinkulturen) as “more suspicious,” breithaupt brendan fay 83 viewed the racial hybrid as predisposed to fresher, more authentic renditions (39). for this reason, it was not the ethnically homogeneous germany but the multi–national territories of the former austro–hungarian empire that figured as the ideal geographical setting for producing talented performers: “the greatest percentage of austrian talent is mixed blood, combining hungarian, bohemian, polish, croat–slovene, and roman–italian elements with or without jewish ingredients” (38). in particular, austria proved well–disposed towards producing breithaupt’s idealized hybrids: russian father with polish–jewish mother, pure polish father with russian– jewish mother, or russian jew with pure polish or german mother. to these we might add the many mixtures of jewish blood with hungarian, croatian, slovenian, czech, etc., as well as the mixture of jewish and slavic hybrids with german blood. (breithaupt 1922: 37–38)25 if austria was the breeding ground par excellence for producing talented artists, racially homogenous england was a place bereft of any musical talent whatsoever: “english stock appears, since the fall of a period of blossoming under elizabeth, to be completely without [any sign of] the muse and grace” (41). for breithaupt, the more general absence of a sufficiently highbrow culture in england was due “to an irresistible fondness for soccer and boxing as well as water sports which, from the outset, stamped out artistic activity in the area of the musically–inspired arts” (41).26 in his analysis of performance, breithaupt proved the consummate bricoleur in the sheer range of arguments he marshaled to support his overarching claim. in one striking passage, he dabbled in phrenology: “the frontal lobe is more developed than the sensitive area of the brain. a desire for imitation and sense of reality lead to a more complete technique” (37). elsewhere, breithaupt drew upon older climatological arguments dating from the early modern period: the cheerfulness, the love of singing and playing as well as the greater personal freedom and autonomy of the austrian tribes does not allow for imitation. that is a tribal merit, like climatic influences. one thinks of the sun in italy and its influence on the human voice, which comes more naturally to the hotter southern climes than the colder and stricter northern ones. (breithaupt 1922: 39)27 however, no matter how important slavic and semitic racial lineage was for breithaupt, a proper musical interpretation still required the performer to possess certain german cultural attributes: whether mixed or unmixed, race itself, like the bohemian or slavic strains, together delivers more and more of the really first rate material for talented current musicology 84 pianists and [performers of] violin and cello music, especially if it [race] is wedded to german discipline and thoroughness, german views and cultural taste. (breithaupt 1922: 39)28 rather than back up his claims with abstractions such as the “nature” and “character” of “german music–making” or “jewish methods of performance,” breithaupt instead attempted a more “empirical” line of argument: “which [race] contains a higher percentage [of performers], especially among virtuosi, than the semitic race?” (43). pure jews or hybrids, according to breithaupt, dominated the ranks of some of the illustrious musicians of the nineteenth century and beyond. breithaupt was not alone in his views. in a 1926 essay published in the leftist journal signale für die musikalische welt, critic karl westermeyer lamented the rise of anti–semitic rhetoric both in the street and in music journalism. unlike heuss, in whose eyes jewish influence remained foreign and unhealthy, westermeyer held that jews were a wholly positive influence on german musical culture. mendelssohn, for example, was as much a part of the german canon as mozart and haydn, while mahler continued to be performed in front of sold–out audiences (westermeyer 1926: 20). and westermeyer also celebrated jewish performers: “we have to thank the jews, who [have bestowed upon us] a long succession of competent, even eminent musicians . . . [a fact which] only malice can deny!!” (westermeyer 1926: 1406). similarly, in his 1926 jewishness in music musicologist heinrich berl described musical virtuosity as quintessentially jewish. adopting the same title as richard wagner’s notorious 1869 tract, berl stood wagner’s argument about jews as mere cultural imitators and imposters on its head and aimed to defend the virtues of the jewish virtuoso. in response to the longstanding stereotype which claimed that jewish success in the musical reproduction of german and other musical traditions masked their own inability for true cultural creativity, berl claimed that “the virtuoso brings music to life again and again; he releases it from its abstraction into life . . . he is not simply the dazzler, but rather the creator of music” (berl 1926: 185; emphasis in the original). it would be wrong to regard these critics’ views as thoroughly philo–semitic: underneath the superficial praise often lurked a certain anti–semitic logic. as annkatrin dahm has shown, aside from praise for jews as performers, the rest of berl’s book is full of vulgar anti–semitism, from denouncing the “oriental–asian” character of jewish composers’ music to describing jews’ cultural foreignness as stemming from a “false–morphosis” [pseudomorphose] into german society (dahm 2007: 277–278). vehement anti–semites such as publisher theodor fritsch attributed the widespread european acclaim of jewish performers in musical and mainstream print brendan fay 85 as little more than proof of jewish control of the press (gilman 2009). and for breithaupt, who had extolled the “semitic race” as exceptionally talented when it came to performance, jews had to attain excellence in performance through “other kinds of ambition and vanity achieved through a thousand years of a business mercantile instinct [which] yielded money and fame” (breithaupt 1922: 37). in his view, success gained through centuries of achievement in finance and money–making ventures somehow translated, over time, into even greater success within the european concert hall. breithaupt also asserted that however great jews might appear in their capacities as performers, there could be little question as to which was the most innovative race: when one casts a glance at the history of creative music, the exact opposite is true. here, in any case, the jews are in the minority, even though they have forever dominated the lighter kinds of art like operetta and the market for so–called popular music (gebrauchsmusik). talents, the likes of halévy, mendelssohn and meyerbeer, in any case, remain exceptions to the rule. (breithaupt 1922: 37, 43; emphasis in the original)29 breithaupt’s essay sparked vigorous debates in the weimar musical press. scarcely two months following his essay, richard sternfeld published a review of “spieltalent und rasse” in the pages of the allgemeine musik zeitung acknowledging that no matter how “nice and lucid” the essay was, “things still do not mesh as easily as breithaupt thinks.” along with breithaupt’s habit of ascribing jewishness based solely on jewish sounding last names, sternfeld called into question both the alleged jewishness of those performers cited as well as the “pure” slavishness of the composers liszt and chopin. sternfeld pointed out that liszt’s parents were of central european (austrian and german) extraction, while liszt himself, “blond haired and blue eyed,” was born in the german–speaking frontier town of raiding and received his formal schooling in german schools. as for chopin, his father was french and spoke no other language. sternfeld pointed towards factors outside of race as the best means for understanding those gifted not only in music, but also in the arts in general: i believe that such an investigation [into race and playing talent] must employ other means . . . should [we] only consider the descent of artists, poets and musicians and take scarcely any account of [the role of] the environment, the fatherland one is born into, language in particular, education and other mysteriously congenial strengths which are never allowed to be brought into certain explanations? (sternfeld 1922: 920)30 even for critics who found themselves in agreement with breithaupt’s central argument, a closer examination of their claims reveals important current musicology 86 ruptures in race thinking between weimar and the third reich within musical discourse. writing in a late 1923 edition of the allgemeine musikalische zeitung, gustav ernest claimed that although many of the performers cited by breithaupt may have been born jewish or assimilated through conversion, many had shed their jewishness to fully become part of the german volk (ernest 1923: 4). with delicious irony, ernest cited houston stewart chamberlain, whose foundations of the nineteenth century became a standard text of the anti–semitic right during weimar and well into the third reich (chamberlain 1910). according to ernest, chamberlain was “a consummate artist” (tausendkünstler) who, “although classified as such, was certainly no englishman” (ernest 1923: 4). through his immersion into and affinity with german culture, chamberlain had “in no time at all produced irrevocable proof ” of his german nature. chamberlain was not the only convert to the german volk. quite a few of the so–called jewish artists cited by breithaupt could, in ernest’s view, also be considered wholly german, even those whose parents admittedly derived from semitic stock. anton rubinstein, for example, though born to jewish parents was “certainly no jew” (ernest 1923: 4). such a designation, according to ernest, was never claimed by rubinstein himself; rather, it stemmed from both rubinstein’s early biographer alexander mcarthur as well as the grove history of music (ernest 1923: 4). rubinstein’s adoption of german spiritual and cultural values allowed the composer to successfully cast off his jewishness despite his racial ancestry, a notion which bears a striking resemblance to chamberlain’s own views on “spiritual anti–judaism.” whispers of “spiritual jewishness” increased markedly during weimar and, as steven ashheim has shown, loomed large in the anti–semitic imaginary of a german society threated by “judaization” (see aschheim 1996: 45–68). yet its rootedness in behavioral rather than racial difference clearly distinguishes it from nazi anti–semitism. it was above all jewish “attitudes” and “materialist values”—both of which, in ernest’s view, rubinstein had managed to shake off—that threatened german society; the proper solution resided not in purging germany of its jewish elements in nazi–like fashion, but in actively combatting the cultivation of these values among jews and non–jews. the successful removal of the behavioral transcended the racial: “a wholly humanized jew,” as chamberlain himself once explained it, “is no longer a jew” (chamberlain 1910: 491). attitudes surrounding the virtues of racial mixing were not confined merely to the performance of art music but also to its composition. influential critic and editor of the börsen zeitung, adolph weissman, noted that “it is race which colors modernity. but racial mixtures now appear to open up new possibilities [in composition].” weissman separated contemporary music into brendan fay 87 “western” and “eastern” domains characterized by “sonority” and “instinct for folk–psyche,” respectively. stravinsky, exemplar of the “western” domain, represented the fulfillment of a long–standing collaboration “between the french and russian mind,” each of which languished for different reasons: “the french folk–spirit was not potent enough of itself to create a new music,” while russian music expressed nothing more than “barbaric folk–feeling” (weissmann 1923a: 305). yet in combining them, “stravinsky paved the way for that music which we recognize as a synthesis of . . . the highest refinement, which finds its supreme expression in le sacre du printemps” (weissmann 1923b: 3–6). similarly, schönberg, whom weissman associated with the “eastern” domain, revolutionized compositional technique through a groundbreaking approach that “rests on jewish racial feeling fused with the characteristic impulse of german music to form a new sonorous tissue” (weissmann 1923a: 306).31 to be sure, modern music, according to weissman, had to resist the temptation of sustaining difference for its own sake. still, he concluded, “in music, blood and not the mind is the ultimate determinant” (weissmann 1923b: 6). conclusion how are we to make sense of this striking picture, in which we find laudatory views of jewish performance coexisting alongside stock–and–trade anti– semitic prejudices, often in the same text? in an influential study, detlev peukert has argued that scholars must view weimar on its own terms, as a period in german history whose fourteen–year existence “constitutes an era in its own right” (peukert 1991: xii). this means that, for the case of weimar jewry, the historian must perform a careful balancing act that neither normalizes german–jewish relations to the point of depicting them as wholly harmonious, nor views weimar anti–semitism solely through the lens of auschwitz.32 taking the latter point to the extreme, historian enzo traverso has famously claimed that auschwitz “invented” anti–semitism because of the way in which it imposed a uniform and murderous strain of anti–semitic prejudice onto a set of attitudes which, prior to nazism, are better described as “discordant, heterogeneous, and in many cases decidedly archaic” (traverso 2003: 6). in many ways, german critics’ judgements on racialized performance embody this discord, alternating as they do from the behavioral to the racial, from philo– to anti–semiticism, and from inclusivity to exclusivity. they are, in traverso’s sense, quintessentially weimar. there was no contradiction for weimar critics between, on the one hand, lauding jews as consummate musicians who contributed in profound ways to the performance of the german classics and, on the other, lamentcurrent musicology 88 ing them as compositionally uncreative (breithaupt 1922: 43–44). and although some dismissed race altogether as an unsuitable lens through which to establish a basis for determining musical talent, breithaupt singled out racial mixing—particularly between jews and slavs—as the means for achieving the best possible results. such arresting juxtapositions can also be found beyond music criticism. in his study of consumer culture during the 1920s, gideon reuveni has shown that german crusaders against literary schmutz und schund (pulp and trash) typically exempted german jewry from blame on account of their role as “producers” of works with high cultural worth rather than “consumers” vulnerable to the lure of base pulp literature. at the same time, this “producer” role furnished the greatest evidence of a “jewish–controlled press” that so captivated the minds of weimar’s anti–semitic right (reuveni 2006: 251–252). another way to explain positive judgments of jewish musical performance lies in recognizing the repertoire at which jewish musicians excelled in the minds of most critics: the german canon from bach to brahms (see breithaupt 1922 and berl 1926). while the “jewishness” of many modernist composers and the backlash that it occasioned during the weimar years has tended to attract the bulk of historians’ attention (gay 1968, laqueur 1974, brenner 1996), the no–less–pronounced traditionalism of jews in the arts as musicologists, performers, and pedagogues should not be forgotten (führer 2009). musical observers could marginalize mendelssohn, meyerbeer, mahler, and countless other jewish–german composers—whether on aesthetic or anti–semitic grounds—and in so doing marginalize jews’ creative legacies more generally. but jews’ contributions to tradition as performers, educators, and teachers were unmistakable.33 as breithaupt himself was well aware, even a partial listing of the great nineteenth– and early twentieth–century jewish musicians—many of whose interpretations and approaches to music making deeply shaped the german repertory—is nothing short of astonishing.34 importantly, views about the virtues of racial mixing did not end with hitler’s rise to the chancellorship. nazi ideologues were dogged throughout the 1930s by the suggestion that beethoven was of mixed german and flemish ancestry and that this had somehow contributed to his status as a “universal” composer (dennis 1996: 73–74). in 1934, fridolin solleder, one of hitler’s world war i comrades, wrote an article claiming that the renaissance artist albrecht dürer was of mixed racial stock, and that racial mixing rather than purity produced creators of genius (quoted in weber 2010: 316). at the same time, many voices were emerging that challenged such views. none were more forceful than richard eichenauer’s, who published his musik und rasse (music and race) in 1932. although eichenauer brendan fay 89 chose targets similar to earlier weimar critics, he goes further, attacking those musicians and performers hailed by his predecessors. after 1933, politics intruded into cultural debates in unprecedented ways as nazi propagandists sought to refashion the nation’s cultural patrimony after its own image. music was no exception. thus many of the voices that contributed to the diverse views toward race and performance that characterized weimar fell silent. by 1943, germany’s three leading conservative journals were consolidated into one appropriately called musik im krieg (music in war) (lovisa 1993). since 1945, discussions about race, ethnicity, and performance have assumed a cosmopolitan disposition, at least on the surface. gieseking (discussed above) offered a representative view in a piece entitled “why i play debussy” from 1948: it has often been asked—often with astonishment—why exactly it is that an interpreter [meaning gieseking himself] of german descent should have become so greatly associated with [debussy’s quintessentially] french music. the most simple and obvious answer to this question must be: music knows no boundaries. it is supra–national; a language understood by all peoples. (gieseking 1975: 118)35 behind closed doors, however, gieseking possibly remained conflicted on this question, as the recollection of one of his students, marian filar, reveals. filar remembered seeking out gieseking as a mentor shortly after the end of the second world war: “mr. gieseking opened one of his pianos for me, so i sat down and played bach, then mozart. mr. gieseking didn’t comment. then he said to me, ‘since you’re polish, why don’t you play some chopin?’” (filar 2002: 142). it is perhaps unsurprising that gieseking’s newfound cosmopolitanism did not cohere with his behavior and pronouncements during, and immediately following, the third reich. in interviews with an allied intelligence officer in september 1945, he claimed to have been a “believer in hitler’s new order,” and that hitler “was a very gifted person, a clever politician and [had] achieved many things for his country” (monod 2005: 156). although he never joined the party, gieseking enjoyed a privileged status among officially approved classical musicians and performed throughout nazi–occupied europe during the war. while a cosmopolitan view of performance has loomed largest in most musical circles in the wake of the holocaust, the ethno–racialist view, i would like to suggest, has not entirely disappeared today. rather, we have inherited older attitudes from weimar musical discourse. a recent deutsche grammophon periodical review of georges cziffra’s recording of liszt’s hungarian rhapsodies s.244, for example, hailed the pianist as the “ideal exponent of this music,” not only because of his “superb technique” but also current musicology 90 because of his “hungarian birthright” (cziffra 2001). a different example can be found in a recent 60 minutes interview with virtuoso pianist lang lang, where correspondent bob simon commented, “rachmaninoff was this tortured russian. and here you are . . . this very young chinese man, who seems to be full of life and full of optimism, and full of happiness. how can you relate to this music?” (simon 2008). given all that has and continues to be made of music as a “universal language,” we would do well to remember, as ronald radano and philip bohlman have suggested, “that a specter lurks in the house of music and it goes by the name of race” (radano and bohlman 2000: 1). such essentialist attitudes may not be as overt as they once were and the characters may have changed, but they serve as a reminder of the myriad ways in which musical performance has so often had little to do with music itself. notes 1. “der neger john flaffith hat gestern vor einem publikum, das vor begeisterung tobte, debussy und strawinsky gespielt. was dieser grosse künstler aus dem klavier überhaupt herauszuholen versteht, kann nur der fachmann so recht würdigen. der schreiber dieser zeilen, der die grössten meister des klavierspieles hören konnte, kann als quintessenz der kritik nur sagen: john flaffith war besser als sie alle . . .” unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. 2. “und dabei ist mister flaffith ein—neger! dieser neger ist in die seele beethovens und liszts eingedrungen. kurz: ein phänomen, an dem sich die klavierspieler mit weiβer haut ein vorblid nehmen sollten . . .” 3. “der neger john flaffith hat gestern vor einem publikum gespielt. was dieser grosse künstler aus dem klavier überhaupt herauszuholen versteht, kann nur der fachmann so recht würdigen. der schreiber dieser zeilen, der die grössten meister des klavierspieles hören konnte, dann als quintessenz der kritik nur sagen: john flaffith war besser als sie alle… und so freut e suns, heute von dem ungeheuren erfolg mister john flaffiths zu berichten, der die schwersten stücke mit ungeheuer tecknik und innerstem gefühl auf dem klavier zu gehör brachte.” 4. “es ist nicht meine idee, sondern die meiner frau . . . als wir geheiratet hatten, spielte ich in einer bar new yorks; es ging so schlecht und recht. abe rich verlor die stelle, weil mein spiel zu ernst war. anny, die mir immer mut zusprach, sagte, ich sole es als klaviervirtuose versuchen. es war ohne erfolg. ein negerfilm, den wir in dieser zeit sahen, brachte plötzlich anny auf den gedanken, dass ich es in europa als negerkünstler wagen könne. unsere letzten ersparnisse brachten uns über den ozean. anfangs versuchte ich in den einzelnen städten noch asl weiβer aufzutreten; so in budapest als iwan mold, in bukarest als giuseppe sperante; ich hatte kein erfolg. wenn ich aber dann als neger kam, wurde ich begeistert empfangen; kurz: ich war bald eine weltbekkante grösse.” 5. the flagship music organs of the conservative press during weimar included zeitschrift für musik, allgemeine musik–zeitung, and certain contributions within the journal die musik. for a longer discussion of the musical press during weimar, see lovisa 1993 and roberge 1994. 6. “gibt es überhaupt eine typisch deutsche art des musizierens? jeder deutsche musiker kennt sie, und doch ist sie schwer mit worten zu beschreiben und zu erklären.” brendan fay 91 7. “eine sinnvolle, künsterlisch gültige und wahrhaftige interpretation ist mit dem begriff wektreue untrennbar verbunden. jedes kunstwerk von bedeutung hat von seinem schöpfer einen bestimmten ausdrucksinhalt erhalten, den der inerpret verlebendigen und vermitteln muβ. nicht die persönlichen gefühle oder die momentane stimmung des spielers dürfen für die wiedergabe entscheidend sein, sondern der audrucksgehalt, dem der komponist in künstlerischer form gestalt gegeben hat, muβ den interpreten so zu intensivem mitempfinden anregen, daβ sich sein ausdruckswille weitestgehend mit dem des komponisten identifiziert. diese identität, in höchstem grade verwirklicht, ergibt die interpretation, die ich als ideal ansehe.” 8. “denn nur der deutsche sänger ist imstande, diese urgermanischen gestalten des rings der ‘nibelungen’ und der anderen dramen zu verkörpern, weil sie alle in ihrem ganzen denken und fühlen so urdeutsch sind!” 9. “und so bietet sich den gerade auf diesem gebiet dem deutschen ausübenden künstler die gelegenheit zu einer kulturmission alleresten ranges, nicht nur in deutschland—da versteht sie sich ja von selbst—sondern auch in den ‘neutralen’, ja sogar in den ‘feindlichen’ ländern! und welche gewaltigen erfolge hat der deutsche künstler auf diesem gebiete schon seit dem kriege aufzuweisen! spanien und italien haben bereits der deutschen kunst, von deutschen dargeboten, in ihren gröβten städten zugejauchzt—und frankreich, unser unversöhnlichster gegner, muβte wohl oder übel nach langen jahren der unversöhnlichkeit in siener haupstadt paris der kunst wagners die pforten wieder öffnen, gezwungen von dem elementaren kunstbedürfnis des eigenen volkes!” 10. “sehr bezeichnend ist es daher, daβ auch der gröβte italienische sänger caruso bei seinen gastspielen in deutschland niemals den lohengrin oder tannhäuser, geschweige denn den siegmund oder siegfried sang, die ja vor allem doch auch in deutscher sprache gesungen sein muβ.” 11. “liest jemand die teilweise sich geradezu übersteigernden kritiken, so muss er unweigerlich zu der ansicht gelangen, dass die eroica überhaupt zum ersten male in ihrer wahren gestalt sich zu erkennen gegen habe…für mich war, kurz gesagt, der eindruck zwiespältig, und zwar aus genau anzugebenden gründen…den italiener merkt man bei toscanini auch insofern als er kein eigentliches gefühl für polyphonie besitzt. er denkt nicht daran, mittelstimmen wirklich singen zu lassen, z. b. in den wunderbaren streichertakten im trauermarsch unmittelbar vor dem themaeinsatz in f–moll.” 12. “der ganze vortrag dieses werkes erinnerte mich an den groβen sänger battistini, als er einmal deutsche lieder sang . . . das geradezu tragische ergebnis: das innerste deutschen wesens ist auch dem italiener durchaus verschlossen. daβ wir aber den groβen italienischen dirigenten auch in deutschen werken über alles deutsche stellen, hängt mit dem minderwertigkeitsgefühl des heutigen deutschen zusammen . . . 13. dieses gefühl ist wiederum nichts anderes als der ausdruck dafür, daβ man sich seines eigenen wesens nicht im geringsten mehr sicher fühlt, die verheerende wirkung der nachkriegszeit. wir sind, kurz gesagt, daran, auch musikalisch eine internationale provinz zu werden, so wir es nicht bereits sind. ja,ja, die saat ist aufgegangen! ein musikalisches deutschland sucht man bereits vergebens, wenigstens in unseren groβstädten.” 14. “es sind natürlich noch eine menge instrumente in dem hände un häusern des deutschen volkes; aber im vergleich zu früher werden für den täglichen verschleiβ an nicht mehr annähernd so viele neue instrumente angefordert und beschafft, daβ der klavierbau damit ausreichend beschäftigt wäre . . . ein volk, das keine instrument mehr kaufen kann, kann leisten, da das unterrichtnehmen bekanntlich auf die dauer teurer zu stehen kommt, als die einmalige anschaffung eines instrumentes . . . zwar ist es wahr, daβ eine beethovensonate, current musicology 92 von einem tüchtigen künstler für die schallplatte gespielt, deren hörer einen gröβeren genuβ bereitet als dieselbe sonate, von irgen jemand leibhaftig vorgestümpert. viel mehr handelt es sich um die frage: was geschieht mit den unendlich reichen schätzen unserer klavierliteratur, wenn das klavier wirklich ausstirbt?” 15. i have used the translation in kaes 1994: 571–572. 16. “obwohl ein ausländer wuβte er durch die seltene vereinigung von vollendetem ton und echter empfindung von beispeilloser technik und dramatischer gestaltungskraft das herz der deutschen zu gewinnen . . . es gibt keine deutsche, amerikanische oder italienische gesangskunst . . . die gesangskunst ist wie jede kunst rein absolut . . . wie das menschliche herz ewig das bleiche bleibt, so liegt der künstlerischen offenbarung der stimme stets das gleiche groβe und tiefe geheimnis zugrunde, das geheimnis der schönheit, die jedes empfängliche gemüt sofort empfindet, der alle zujubeln, und der jeder echte sänger durch seinen ton nahezukommen sucht.” 17. “man wird sich klar darüber sein müssen, daβ in der brust des deutschen viele seelen wohnen; es ist dies seine stärke nd seine schwäche. die sehnsucht nach dem seltengehörten, nach unerhörtem lockt ihn oft zu fremdländlichen . . . so kann etwa sprechen von einer gewissen sauberkeit im rhythmischen und melodischen, von dem starken bedürfnis nach klarheit im architektonischen aufbau und (trotz allem temperament) von einer etwas gezügelten ruhe.” 18. “es genügt nicht, daβ der klavierspieler von bach nur dessen klavierwerke, dasβ die deutsche sängerin nur die lieder von schubert, schumann und brahms kennt, sondern (übertreibend!) kann gesagt werden, der wird eine zweistimmige invention von bach am besten spielen, der auch die passionen und recht viele kantaten von bach liebt—die sängerin findet für das brahmssche lied den geeigneten ausdruck, wenn sie auβer den orchesterwerken auch kammermusik von brahms studiert hat . . . somit ergibt sich für den idealen deutschen interpreten die forderung, eine möglichst umfassende literaturkenntnis und vollständige beherrschung des instrumentes, des orchesters, des klangmittels, das er zu betreuen hat.” 19. “impressionistisches klangwesen als substanz ist den deutschen bis auf den heutigen tag fremd geblieben. der deutsche schätz den impressionismus als würze thematisch fundierter musik . . . ein kerndeutscher, atmete walter gieseking in siener jugend französische luft. man muβ den französischen himmel erlebt haben, um verhauchte stimmungen mit so zartem empfinden zu erhaschen. wie leicht läβt sich der impressionistische eigenstil verderben! so etwa durch kreuzung mit deutschem‚ gefühl.’” 20. that gieseking’s mother was french appears to have had more to do with wishful thinking than reality. both gieseking’s father and mother were german, the latter of whom hailed from hannover. gieseking set the record straight in his autobiography: “that i was born in 1895 in lyon, france, i suppose is well known although all of my ancestors were german” (gieseking 1963, 119). 21. “ein klavier wird in einer gegend die stimmung besser halten, eine geige leichter ansprechen, ein fagott oder eine klarinette in anderer tonfärbung kligen als in einer anderen . . . freilich fällt ein gut teil dieser abweichungen von stilart und aufbau, von harmonik und melos den rassenunterschieden zu, die dabei allerdings die entscheidenste rolle spielen. aber gerade in der rassenfrage ist es wieder das klima, das zur unterscheidung einen wesentlichen faktor beiträgt.” 22. “diese haben weder musiker von rang hervorgebracht noch haben sie irgendeinem komponisten ihren stempel aufzudrücken vermocht.” brendan fay 93 23. as with gieseking, there is no evidence to support the claim that arrau was, in fact, “germanically impregnated.” rather, he belonged to an old, prominent family of southern chile. his distant european forbears were, moreover, scottish and spanish, not german. 24. “die instrumentale spielbegabung ist in erster linie eine rassenfrage, d.h. sache mehr des blutes, der vererbung un anlage als der organisation, der erziehung und durchbildung, der atmosphäre und kultur. eine alte erfahrung lehrt daβ gerade die nachschaffenden künste ihr bestes und ureigenstes aus den blut– und energiequellen der rasse und der ererbten triebkräfte schöpfen, nicht aus der technik allein.” 25. “eine auβerordentliche eignung und anpassung an die instrumentalkünste, insonderheit an die klavier– und geigenkunst, weisen zwei rassen auf: die semitische und slawische, sowie deren mischungen . . . den besten nährboden für das spieltalent geben die kreuzeungen und mischungen beider rassen, sowohl untereinander wie mit anderen völkischen stämmen, wie den germanen, ungarn, romanen usw., ab . . . der gröβte prozentsatz österreichischer talente ist mischblut, zusammensetzungen aus ungarischen, böhmischen, polnischen, kroatisch– slowenischen und romanischen–italienischen elementen mit oder ohne jüdische zutaten.” 26. “der stockengländer scheint seit dem niedergange seiner elisabethanischen blüteperiode von allen musen und grazien verlassen zu sein. seine unwiderstehliche neigung zur fuβball und boxerkunst sowie zum wassersport schlieβen ja auch eine künsterlische betätigung auf dem gebiete der musikalisch–nachschaffenden künste von vornherein aus.” 27. “die frontalen stirnlapen warden mehr entwickelt als die sensiblen gehirnflächen . . . nachahmungstrieb und wirklichkeitssinn führen mehr zur vollendung des technischen . . . die frohnatur, die sanges– und spielfreudigkeit, auch die gröβere persönliche freiheit und ungebundenheit des österreichischen stammes läβt sich nicht nachmachen, das sind stammesvorzüge, die wie die klimatischen einflüsse—man denke an die sonne italiens und ihren einfluβ auf die menschliche singstimme—ganz naturgemä mehr dem heiteren süden als dem kälteren und strengeren norden zukommen.” 28. “aber, ob gemischt oder ungemischt, die rasse selbst liefert mit den böhmischen und slawischen absenkern zusammen noch immer ein vorzügliches material für die geigen– und cellokunst, und reichbeanlagte klavierspieler, zumal wenn sie mit deutscher zucht und gründlichkeit, deutscher auffassung und geschmackskultur sich vermählt haben.” 29. while such attitudes towards jewishness and performance took on a new significance amid the rising anti–semitism of the interwar period, they cannot be said to have originated there. according to one of his pupils, nineteenth–century pedagogue theodor leschetizsky put three questions to his prospective students: “were you a child prodigy? are you of slavic descent? are you a jew?” when students answered to all three in the affirmative, the teacher would grow excited and “rub his hands with glee” (schonberg 1963, 280). 30. “ich glaube, eine solche untersuchung muβ doch etwas anders angestellt werden . . . sollte nur die abstammung im künstler, im dichter und musiker wirksam sein und gar nicht die umwelt, das vaterland, in das er hineingeboren, die sprache vor allem, die erziehung, und andere geheimnisvolle sympathische kräfte, die sich nie auf bestimmte formeln bringen lassen werden?” 31. this sentiment had found earlier expression in weissman’s review of a berlin performance of stravinsky’s le sacre du printemps in the journal die musik. see weissmann 1923a. 32. on the promise of german jewry during the interwar period, see brenner 1996 and gillerman 2009. 33. an even more concrete illustration of this can be seen in the history of the musical cadenza, which underwent substantial revision over the course of the nineteenth century. current musicology 94 the early cadenza was by definition one which called for the performer to draw on his or her powers of improvisation. by the end of the nineteenth century, cadenzas increasingly became standardized, whether derived from the composer or the performer. in the latter examples, jewish musicians set the standard for many works (e.g., fritz kreisler and beethoven’s violin concerto, joseph joachim and mendelssohn’s e minor violin concerto, and vladimir horowitz and mozart’s piano concertos). 34. breithaupt’s 1922 listing of notable jewish musicians included henri und jacques herz, henir rosellen, josef ascher, wilhelm goldner, sigismund thalberg, ignaz moscheles, felix mendlessohn, jakob blumenthal, felix blumenthal, karl tausig, anton and nikolaus rubinstein, alexander dreyschock, julius epstein, theodor leschetizky, arthur friedheim, mortiz moszkowski, xaver scharwenka, raphael joseffy, emil sauer, moritz rosenthal, alfred grünfeld, alfred reisenauer, ferruccio busoni, frederic lamond, leopold godowsky, vianna da motta, mark hambourg, ossip gabrilowtisch, karl friedberg, ignaz friedman, gottfried galston, arthur schnabel, paul goldschmidt, leonid kreutzer, joseph lhevinne, severin eisenberger, bruno eisner, ignaz tiegermann, and alexander borowski. 35. “schon oft wurde—vielleicht nicht ohne verwunderung—nach den gründen geforscht, warum es gerade ein interpret deutsche abstammung ist, der so weitgehend mit einer so sehr französichen musik assoziiert wird. die einfachste und nächstliegende, aber wohl allzu summarische antwort auf diese frage dürfte lauten: die musik kennt eben keine grenzen, sie ist eine übernationale, allen völkern verständliche sprache.” references armin, george. 1921.“caruso, der sänger.” allgemeine musik–zeitung 48: 584. aschheim, steven. 1996. “the jew within: the myth of ‘judaization’ in germany.” in culture and catastrophe: german and jewish confrontations with national socialism and other crises, edited by steven ascheim and robert jensen, 45–68. new york: new york university press. beck, joachim. 1926. “bruno walter.” in berliner musikjahrbuch, edited by arnold ebel, 71. berlin: julius kinkhardt. berl, heinrich. 1926. das judenthum in der musik. stuttgart: deutsche–verlags anstalt. breithaupt, rudolf maria. 1922. “spieltalent und rasse.” die musik 15 (1): 37–44. brenner, michael. 1996. the renaissance of jewish culture in weimar germany. new haven: yale university press. brown, julie (ed.) 2007. western music and race. new york: cambridge university press. brubaker, rogers. 1992. citizenship and nationhood in france and germany. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. chamberlain, houston stewart. 1910. foundations of the nineteenth century. london: ballantyne. cziffra, georges. 2001. liner notes. liszt: 10 hungarian rhapsodies. emi classics 7243 5 67555 2 9, compact disc. dahm, annkatrin. 2007. der topos der juden: studien zur geschichte des antisemitismus im deutschsprachigen musikschrifttum. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. dennis, david. 1996. beethoven in german politics, 1870–1989. new haven: yale university press. eichenauer, richard. 1937. musik und rasse. münchen: j.f. lehmanns verlag. ernest, gustav. 1923. “noch einige worte zum thema ‘spieltalent und rasse.’” allgemeine musikalische zeitung 50: 4. filar, marian. 2002. from buchenwald to carnegie hall. jackson: university press of mississippi. brendan fay 95 führer, karl christian. 2009. “high brow and low brow culture.” in weimar germany, edited by anthony mcelligott, 260–281. new york: oxford university press. furtwängler, wilhelm. 1989. notebooks: 1924–54. london: quartet books. gay, peter. 1968. weimar culture: the outsider as insider. new york: w.w. norton & company. gieseking, walter. 1963. so wurde ich pianist. wiesbaden: fa brockhaus. gigler, herbert johannes. 1923. “musik und klima.” die musik 15 (7): 516–521. gillerman, sharon. 2009. germans into jews: remaking the jewish social body in the weimar republic. stanford: stanford university press. gilman, sander. 2009. “are jews musical? historical notes on the question of jewish musical modernism.” in jewish musical modernism: old and new, edited by philip bohlman. chicago: university of chicago press. goehr, lydia. 2007. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. new york: oxford university press. hamilton, kenneth. 2008. after the golden age: romantic pianism and modern performance. new york: oxford university press. harrer, josef robert. 1930. “ein neger spielt klavier.” zeitschrift für musik 97 (9): 735–737. heuss, alfred. 1930. “toscanini in deutschland.” zeitschrift für musik 97 (7): 552–554. horowitz, joseph. 1982. conversations with arrau. new york: alfred knopf. kaes, anton, martin jay, and edward dimendberg, eds. 1994. the weimar republic sourcebook. berkeley: university of california press. laqueur, walter. 1974. weimar: a cultural history, 1918–1933. new york: putnam. levi, erik. 2011. mozart and the nazis: how the third reich abused a cultural icon. new haven: yale university press. louis, rudolf. 1912. die deutsche musik der gegenwart. münchen: georg müller. lourenço, sofia. 2007. “tendencies of piano interpretation in the twentieth century: concept and different types of piano interpretation schools.” paper presented at the international symposium on performance science, portugal. lovisa, fabian. 1993. musikkritik im nationalsozialismus: die rolle deutschsprachiger musikzeitschriften. laaber: laaber verlag. monod, david. 2005. settling scores: german music, denazification and the americans, 1945–1953. chapel hill: the university of north carolina press. peukert, detlev. 1991. the weimar republic: the crisis of classical modernity. london: penguin press. pislung, siegmund. 1922. “der stil der impressionistischen musik.” die musik 15 (1): 44–49. potter, pamela. 2007. “the concept of race in german musical discourse.” in western music and race, edited by julie brown, 49–62. new york: cambridge university press. _______. 2011. “the politicization of handel and his oratorios in the weimar republic, the third reich and the early years of the german democratic republic.” the musical quarterly 85 (2): 311–341. radano, ronald and philip bohlman, eds. 2000. music and the racial imagination. chicago: university of chicago press. regidür, roderich. 1927. “das deutsche publikum und die ausländischen musiker.” zeitschrift für musik 94: 357–358. reuveni, gideon. 2006. reading germany: literature and consumer culture in germany before 1933. new york: berghahn books. riethmüller, albrecht. 2002. “is that not something for simplicissimus?! the belief in musical superiority.” in music and german national identity, edited by celia applegate and pamela potter, 288–304. chicago: university of chicago press. current musicology 96 roberge, marc–andré. 1994. “focusing attention: special issues in german–language music periodicals of the first half of the twentieth century.” royal music association research chronicle 27 (1): 71–99. rubinstein, arthur. 1980. my many years. new york: alfred knopf. rudinow, joel. 1994. “race, ethnicity, expressive authenticity: can white people sing the blues?” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 52 (1): 127–137. schmitt, otto. 1921. “der deutsche ausübende künstler nach dem kriege.” zeitschrift für musik 88: 329–331. schnabel, arthur. 1964. my life and music. new york: st. martin’s press. schonberg, harold. 1963. the great pianists. new york: simon and schuster. simon, bob. 2008. “lang lang: piano prodigy.” accessed february 1. http://www.cbsnews. com/stories/2005/01/07/60minutes/main665508.shtml?cmp=ilc–searchstories. small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. middletown: wesleyan university press. sternfeld, richard. 1922. “spieltalent und rasse: eine entgegnung an rud. maria breithaupt.” allgemeine musikalische zeitung 49: 920. storer, colin. 2013. a short history of the weimar republic. new york: i.b. tauris. traverso, enzo. 2003. the origins of nazi violence. new york: the new press. waligórska, magdalena. 2005. “a goy fiddler on the roof.” polish sociological review 4 (152): 367–382. warschauer, frank. 1926. “jazz. zu whitemans berliner konzerten.” vossische zeitung, june 19. weber, thomas. 2010. hitler’s first war: adolf hitler, the men of the list regiment, and the first world war. new york: oxford university press. wehle, gerhard. 1921. “die kunst des improvisierens als lehrgegenstand.” allgemeine musikalische zeitung 48: 923–925. weissmann, adolph. 1923a. “konzert.” die musik 15 (4): 305–306. _______. 1923b. “race and modernity.” the league of composers review 1 (3): 3–6. weitz, eric. 2007. weimar: promise and tragedy. princeton: princeton university press. westermeyer, karl. 1926. “die musikalische streitfragen.” signale für die musikalische welt 84 (40): 1405–1411. zilcher, hermann. 1932. “deutsches musizieren.” zeitschrift für musik 99: 1061–1064 zimmermann, reinhold. 1931. “stirbt das klavier aus?” allgemeine musikalische zeitung 58: 223–224. the foundations of mozart scholarship thomas irvine what are the foundations of mozart scholarship? the "facts" -there are many of them, and we are always learning more-of a remarkable composer's short life? or the meanings we read in that life, and the meanings we experience in the music mozart left behind? the composer's present jubilee year offers a chance to reflect on these questions. my reflections begin with a polemical call for change in mozart scholarship proposed more than forty years ago by a young music historian to the skeptical audience of around-table discussion at an international conference. the young scholar, wolfgang plath, had just assumed the editorship of the largest mozart project of his day (and of ours), the neue mozart-ausgabe. the tone of his argument interests me as well as its contents: it was a polemic, designed as much to discredit the position of his opponents as to strengthen his own position. plath's "straw man" was the school of german historiography that dominated writing in history and the history of the arts for more than a century, a school that sought, above all else, to discern meaning in history's ebb and flow. his critique, as we shall see, was as controversial as it was effective; i will argue here that specialist mozart scholarship today has been shaped in no small part by it. indeed, the issues plath raised in making his argument have implications that extend far beyond the narrow confines of mozart studies. today the nma is winding up its work after fifty years, more than thirty of those under plath's direction. the occasion of the recent tenth anniversary of plath's untimely death in 1995, the caesura brought about by pending completion of the nma, and mozart's own 250th birthday invite a reexamination of the contours, contexts, and consequences of plath's intervention. i will begin by summarizing plath's densely written polemic, which has never been translated into english. i will then illuminate what i believe were two of his most important sources of inspiration: first, a nos­ talgia for a strictly source-critical brand of nineteenth-century musicology that he saw as a corrective to the vagaries of "interpretation," and second, his enthusiasm for a new "empirical" approach to music history gaining momentum at that time in the united states. next, i will examine the replies of plath's critics, scholars like friedrich blume who, suspicious of plath's empiricism, defiantly proclaimed the "difference" of humanistic inquiry. for these critics, "understanding" mozart's geist always took precedence over dissecting the material remains of his works. this insistence, i will argue, links conservatives like blume with many of the protagonists of the north current musiwlogy, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology american "new musicology;' who took to the field some years later with similar attacks on "positivism." finally, i will suggest how reflection on the plath controversy can help us to orient ourselves as students of mozart in a world that has changed so much in the last forty years. sacrificing the luxury of interpretation: plath's polemic at a round-table discussion at the ninth congress of the international musicological society in salzburg in 1964, the young german musicologist wolfgang plath rose to defend two theses about the state of mozart scholar­ ship, which he had circulated in advance. in the first he claimed, "mozart research, because of its unclear sense of its own identity, has fallen into a crisis, whose proximate cause is neglect of fundamentals;' and in the second, "basic research is the methodological and systematic study of sources. only in this manner, at present, can progress in the treatment of fundamental problems of mozart research be expected" (plath [1964] 1991 :78).1 these claims were to become the stuff of intense controversy, as the discussion at the round-table that day in salzburg and subsequent articles would show. for all of the resistance plath was to engender, however, i will argue that his departure from interpretation and proposed return to "factual" or "positivist" scholarship was to set the agenda in much of mozart studies for years to come. plath began his salzburg position paper by observing that mozart studies was dominated by interpretive methods known broadly as geistesgeschichte and associated with the thinking of the philosopher wilhelm dilthey (1833-1910. this orientation had lead mozart scholars to concentrate on "understanding" the composer and his works. 2 for plath, successful interpretations depended on more than what he saw as just a vague notion. rather, they required a secure factual foundation, and for him, the idea that mozart scholarship enjoyed this security was an illusion. the interpretation of the "spiritual and cultural phenomenon mozart" (geistiges phanomen mozartp ought to remain the "most important goal" of mozart research, but only as a "formal" goal that at most could be considered "abstract." the way to reach this goal was through concrete research-research that must orient itself towards the "actual demands of the material at hand." plath's concrete research depended "in no way ... on the spiritual and cultural phenomenon mozart," but only on the "mozart materials handed down by history." ideally, the "formal goal" of mozart research would be interpretation and understanding, but the "object of study itself" demanded that "the primary goal of mozart scholarship should be the critical attention to and study of these materials." plath's final point was clear: "the positively thomas irvine secured facts, and nothing else, which are won from a process that develops continuously in its methods, are the foundations of research upon which all other intellectual and scientific activities are to build." positively secured facts, plath continued, are the materials upon which one might base acts of interpretation and understanding. but such acts are the final step in a process; they require the basis of factual evidence gathered in earlier steps. this final step makes the "spiritual and cultural phenomenon mozart available," not as the "sum of the facts, but as the integral meaning contained by the factual." this shows, plath claimed, just how important "positivism" is to the human sciences. he defined positivism as the "turn­ ing toward the facts;' that is, the "differentiation between factually secured knowledge and hypothesis, mere supposition, or even uncontrollable fan­ tasy." in the final analysis, "positivism is that which makes the human sciences scientific." it is nothing more than the "rigorous application of the historical critical method." this method is the "methodologically aware undertaking to win, in anyway conceivable, as much trustworthy information (facts) as possible from the materials being researched" but without stipulating that these facts "are the only possible final goals for research." plath goes on to explain that mozart scholars seemed to have thought, or at least acted, otherwise ([ 1964] 1991 :79). this was "astounding enough," if one considered that both otto jahn and ludwig von kochel, "the two men to whom mozart scholarship, in the final analysis, owes everything;' were "positivists" in the sense that plath used the word. how could mozart scholarship have lost its inner orientation and strayed so far from the work of jahn and kochel? his answer was drastic: "perhaps because it has never actually been near them." for plath, the history of mozart scholarship was a history oflost oppor­ tunity. the contributions ofjahn and kochel in the nineteenth century, plath claimed, were "accepted with astonishment" by those interested in mozart. but instead of seeing their accomplishments as a foundation upon which to build, later mozartians simply assumed that the two fathers of mozart scholarship had answered all of the important questions, especially those relating to material sources; indeed, the necessity for further research along these lines was "neither acknowledged nor even imagined."4 the "frighten­ ingly" small amount of progress beyond the work ofjahn and kochel in the first mozart complete works edition (1877-83) was a symptom of this failure of imagination. "without having realized it," plath continued, "[mozart scholarship relinquished its] potential leading role among the various specialties of the modern discipline of music history" to bach scholarship, whose founders, the philologists philipp spitta and wilhelm rust, were otto jahn's true "spiritual heirs." 9 10 current musicology the vacuum left by a lack of interest in what plath called the "learned­ scientific" tendency in mozart studies was filled by the "artistic" tendency and scholars who approached the "object of research naively and without scruples as to method." in their work, "unfocused and subjective" concepts like "artistic sensibility" and "musicality" took the place of "rational argumenta­ tion:' it is of no wonder, he remarked, that those who did this kind of work on mozart found the efforts of their "learned-scientific" predecessors to be "repellently cold, inartistic, and unmusical." the "learned-scientific" project in mozart biography was sustained only by hermann abert (1871-1927); for the rest of mozart studies it remained "an isolated phenomenon" without "any influence worth mentioning" ([1964]1991:80). the situation only worsened in the early twentieth century, plath con­ tinued, as the strategies known collectively as geistesgeschichte (to which we will return below) emerged as powerful influences in german intellectual life. here, at least in theory, a chance to re-unite the two competing models was lost. instead, plath claimed, exactly the opposite happened: the "artistic" tendency saw itself"confirmed in its uniqueness" due to the "many points of contact between" it and the theories of philosophers like dilthey. the previ0us "antipathy to positivism on the part of the artistic-research tendency" expanded to include the "odious charge of ungeistigkeit." nevertheless, in plath's view, leading mozart scholars remained "mild and moderate" in their criticisms of the two figures "revered as founding fathers of scholarly-scientific mozart research;' without noticing that their own scholarship had long since ceased to follow the examples set by jahn and kochel. alfred einstein's remarks on the two scholars in his introduction to the third edition of the kochel catalogue "demonstrated how secure geisteswissenschaftliche mozartforschung thought its position to be." both were, in einstein's words, "too much scholars and too little musicians." for plath, einstein's opinion is dangerously arrogant, since first, there is no such thing as a "musical" method of historical research, and therefore accusing a historian of being "unmusical" is a meaningless charge, and second, the methods of the human sciences, should they claim to be scientific, demand that all historical arguments be made on the basis of historical sources. the evaluation of these sources is the work of the philologist, "who must also be a positivist, if he is to produce useful results." plath then explained what he believed the neglect of positivism had done to mozart studies ([1964] 1991:80). "the ... blind prejudice against positivism" had had severe consequences: the discourse of the field had become "muddled, because the process of paying careful attention to the difference between secure knowledge and contingent hypothesis had become less and less important." in its present state, mozart studies had "no secure foundations, and ... any sense of security was an illusion:' thomas irvine then plath stated his second thesis: "basic research is the methodological and systematic study of sources. only in this manner, at present, can progress in the treatment of fundamental problems of mozart research be expected" ([1964] 1991:81). this basic research would have two components. the first is what he calls "extensive" quellenforschung, that is, the reclamation of lost source materials and the accumulation of hitherto unknown sources. here, he claims, "the difficulties will be mostly those of organization." the second is "intensive" quellenforschung, or the "organization, evaluation, and classification" of all mozart sources (not just the newly discovered ones), in order to "analyze the complete spectrum of the concrete information" these sources contain. here the main difficulty is that "adequate methods have yet to be developed and tested:' in the balance of his paper ([1964] 1991:81-85), plath proposed an impressively prescient program for mozart studies, one both biographi­ cal and works-based. almost all of the projects he outlined-studies of sketches, copyists, paper, handwriting, first editions, and other philological issues-have now, forty years on, been attempted and have yielded important results.5 indeed, it seems almost as if plath's position paper, which is little known beyond a small circle of specialists, has been used as some kind of master plan by many of those involved in institutionalized mozart research over the last four decades. however it came about, the realization of plath's program is evidence of the victory of his paradigm. indeed, mozart studies now enjoys a philological basis that is the envy of the discipline.6 just as plath had predicted, the projects he called for have become the basis upon which important mozart projects of our time, including the nma and the new kochel, have been built.7 as a whole, plath's polemic was built on two pillars. one was nineteenth­ century bach scholarship's strictly source-critical approach, as exemplified by the work of philipp spitta, who believed, as plath did, that there was no difference between documents of music history and documents of any other kind. the other model-never directly acknowledged-was the "positivism" popularized by the austro-british philosopher karl popper. this double perspective, i believe, forced plath to misrepresent otto jahn, his paragon of mozart scholarship, as a positivist. i would argue that this misrepresentation was an inevitable consequence of plath's polemical approach. by concentrat­ ing on the weaknesses of his opponent's positions-that is, on methods of approaching mozart based on "understanding" him-he built an unstable position of his own. our task in the next sections will be to explore the background of his polemic. 11 12 current musicology historicism and mozart studies in order to understand the contexts of plath's critique and its polemical force, we must begin with a revolution in historical thinking that emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries among philosophers and his­ torians in germany like johann gottfried herder, wilhelm von humboldt, and leopold von ranke. these thinkers and their followers, known loosely as the "historical school;' imagined history less as a chronicle of events and more as a flowing process. one of the key achievements of the historical revolution was a rethinking of the movement of time itself, and with it the realization that the historian is enclosed in history's stream and thus cannot observe it objectively. thus, crucially, the telling of history-in contrast to the reporting of observations about the natural world-is a narrative like any other story one might tell about what humans do. although human freedom makes history unpredictable and allows the historian his or her own perspective on this story, the historian is at the same time obligated to suppress this perspective in the search for deeper historical knowledge. the school of historical writing engendered by this historical revolution has come to be known as "historicism." a true historicist can-and must-claim to be both subjective and objective simultaneously. the disciplines of music history as we know them emerged in historicism's shadow.s the term "historicism;' however, is often used to mean several different things. for our purposes, we can stipulate that historicism has three main elements, all of which articulate the reactions of german thinkers to ten­ sions already inherent in enlightenment philosophy and historiography, and which reflect a practice of writing history that took shape in the first decades of the nineteenth century. first, the historicist believes in the individuality of the past, and rejects thinking in normative terms about it. this is rooted in the "anthropological turn" of the eighteenth-century-the realization that the world is filled with fundamentally different cultures, each with its own history. herder, for instance, claimed that peoples, languages, and societies, both past and present, should be seen as individuals, growing organically from their pasts toward their futures. herder's influential proposition that individuality can apply to whole peoples has always been a source of instability for historicism, for it can easily be used to make value judgments that privilege one people over another.9 yet the rejection of normative thinking does not absolve the historian from the obligation of telling a story or constructing a narrative. on the contrary: if every story is to be judged on its own terms, then it is the historian's special role to tell history's stories in order that they may be judged, and to acknowledge her own position while doing so, even if this means she must make a conscious attempt to remove herself from the act thomas irvine of historical narration. in this sense of its definition, writing history is like a performance. 10 a second element, which serves to control the first, is the critical skepticism of all that history hands down to us. historicism developed the critical-historical method, a method of searching for facts in the materials of the past, in order to make this regulation possible. many of the main actors of the historical revolution were also practitioners of the techniques of recovering old texts known as "philology," which gained considerable prestige in late eighteenth-century germany. these practices were not new. the ancient greeks and romans had valued skepticism in the writing of history, but it was the rediscovery of the ancient world during the renaissance that fostered the emergence of a canon of techniques for distinguishing truth from error in historical texts. the scholarly disputes that accompanied the reformation and the counter reformation provided an impetus for the development of methods meant to search for truth in historical documents, and the extension of historical skepticism in the eighteenth century to the text of the bible itself-the redefinition of christianity's central text as a histori­ cal document-provided another impulse for the creation of the modern disciplines of philology. finally, the expansion of philological interest to german texts in the early nineteenth century institutionalized methods of historical criticism in germany, particularly at the young universities that would eventually become the models for the university as we know it today, at least in germany and in english-speaking countries. the importance of this institutionalization to the emergence of the historical profession cannot be underestimated. the critical-historical method, sometimes referred to in philology as "lower" criticism, is the aspect of historicism closest to the empiricist pole on the wider spectrum of historical methods, and it is a source of many misunderstandings about what historicism means to accomplish. l1 only later, and then mostly in non-german reception of historicism, were these critical methods associated with the word "positivism." a third facet is the interpretation of the world as history. all the works of humanity, whether they are individual artifacts, nation-states, or operas, are best understood historically, and all of human creation is part of a stream of history that flows from the past through the present to the future. historical events-and historical works of art-must be placed in context, for it is "contextualization" that makes historical narrative possible. when we speak of historicizing something, we are referring to this practice and acknowledging our place (as well as the place of the events we are attempting to describe and understand) in history's stream. for hegel, therefore, the flow of this stream expressed the meeting of mind and spirit; the meaning of historical events depended on their place in this most grand of contexts. hegel's thought played a critical role in the consolidation of the historicist 13 14 current musicology world view, even if founders of the historical school like leopold von ranke, to whom we will return in a moment, had little patience for hegelian metaphysics. 12 a consequence of this image of history "unfolding" is the tendency of many historicist thinkers to argue, or at least to presume in their arguments, that history is moving forward, that it can therefore be told as a narrative of progress, and that this narrative is backed up by unimpeach­ able facts won by the critical-historical method. 13 as we shall see, this short circuit between narrative and fact was the element that most disturbed historicism's preeminent twentieth -century critic, karl popper. 14 a majority of the accounts of music history that rely in their narratives on successions of styles are based on historicism's mixture of hegelian confidence in the "rightness" of the present and a sense that the path history has taken to the present was inevitable. many present critiques of historicism concentrate on only one of these elements without accounting for all of them together. 15 yet all three worked together to define the practice of historicism, which dominated german historiography and, thanks to the influence of german thought in great britain and the united states, also dominated historiography in english from the 1820s until after the second world war. 16 the prussian historian leopold von ranke (1795-1886) is often remembered as one of the founders of the "historical school." ranke, who taught for decades at the university of berlin, established the training of historians as we know it in seminars based on detailed discussions of individual documents. yet most of what he wrote was clearly informed, if not regulated, by his political conservatism and his lutheran identity. the tensions in his work between the ideals of narrative and the imperatives of the factual are symptomatic of historicism' sown two-facedness. 17 his famous dictum that historians should "blob sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen" (just say how it really was) is often understood to mean that the historian should concentrate only on the empirical. indeed, ranke's work is often held up as a kind of paradigm of positivism. what ranke meant, however, is more complicated. 18 to be sure, there is no doubt that ranke meant to give the sober assessment of documents a primary role in the historian's work. yet english-speaking readers often misunderstand the word "eigentlich" in ranke's motto, which during the nineteenth century meant more than just "actually." "eigentlich" can also mean "in a specific character"; one might just as well translate ranke's motto as "just say what it was that was special and characteristic [or perhaps essential j about the past." ranke believed historical events should be understood in their own contexts and released from a grand chronicle of history. in a restatement of goethe's motto, individuum est ineffabile, ranke famously claimed that every historical age should be able to claim "immediacy to god."19 thus, for ranke it was the thomas irvine historian's duty to find out what gave each age and each historical situation its own special character.2o otto jahn the work of the classical philologist otto jahn (1813-68), whose training was in berlin (although not with ranke), exemplifies many of historicism's contradictions. his four-volume mozart biography, based in part on exten­ sive work with mozart's compositional materials, was the first biography of the composer to attempt a rigorous survey of both life and works (jahn 1856-59).21 indeed, it was one of the first texts on any composer produced by the discipline that would later come to call itself"musikwissenschaft." jahn's goal, i will argue here, was to give the story of mozart's life and creations a narrative shape by contextualizing them. jahn's mozart biography fits within the "historical school" in many respects. to begin with, jahn himself claimed that it was only his sense of distance from mozart's era that allowed him to write a biography that would do justice to mozart's "classicism!' jahn's original intention had been to write about beethoven, but he apparently felt that easy access to living witnesses impaired his ability to write objectively; perhaps as an archaeologist this disturbed him. yet the kind of objectivity he sought was not of the facts­ and-figures kind. the final pages of volume 1, on mozart's artistic nature, might serve as an example of what he had in mind: in the course of the development of those peoples who have given rise by themselves to their own forms of art, we can observe how they, sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by external conditions, strive and struggle for centuries until they have, in various attempts ... learned to regard the depiction of the beautiful as the highest duty that art can perform. this wonderful and inspiring vision of the organic development of the nature of a gifted artist, apparently undisturbed by external factors, which, indeed, by serving all that surrounds it, and dispensing with all that serves only a temporary purpose, thereby grows all the stronger-this is the vision that mozart's own course of development provides us. (jahn 1856-59, 1:619-20)22 what is most striking about this passage is its herderian tone, its focus on the organic relation of part and whole, and its bold comparison of mozart's progress as a composer with the progress of art in a healthy society. it is a sterling example of the historicist imperative to place historical actors within the "flow" of larger processes, and to see-in proper dialectic style-the general (the cultural progress of societies) as an model for the particular (mozart's biography). 15 16 current musicology jahn's goal was the description of mozart's works on their own terms. thus his biographical narrative operates primarily via deep contextualization of both mozart's life and of individual works. in order to do this, he was compelled, as we shall see, to provide the reader with background informa­ tion about musical practice in the eighteenth century. and it goes without saying that jahn, who is still regarded as the foun.der of archeology as an academic discipline in germany, pursued his work on mozart according to only the highest standards of historical criticism. yet, like ranke's writings, jahn's biography displays all of the tensions of narrative historiography. despite jahn's claims to objectivity-we should recall his decision not to write about beethoven-in all four volumes jahn's musical present is never far from the surface. a friend of mendelssohn and an admirer of schumann, jahn was an active critical opponent of richard wagner, and once one has read, for instance, his fundamental rejection of lohengrin in the context of his paeans to don giovanni-to keep to examples from opera-parts of the biography take on a certain loaded qualityy it was jahn's rejection of wagner, perhaps, that led to his later reputation as a dusty and unmusical pedant, and which seems to have provoked a series of brutal attacks from his most famous former student, friedrich nietzsche.24 jahn began his academic career as a scholar of classical antiquity. altertumswissenschajt (the blanket german term for the study of antiquity) did not end for him with the collection and ordering of sources, as his later critics were to claim. for jahn, in keeping with the theories of the historical school, the study of history was always a two-dimensional process. the wide expanses of the factual constitute one dimension, the depth provided by interpretation the other. hayden white has described this realization as "an awareness of the gap between historical events and the language used to represent them" (in koselleck 2002:xii).25 thus the language we use to tell the stories of history determines how these stories are told. in jahn's case this took place on two levels: he wanted to explain the works of the ancients, but at the same time he sought to learn their language in order that they might explain themselves, and in turn that he might understand the context in which these works emerged. the methods jahn used in non-mozartian investigations illustrate this approach. after being dismissed from his chair in leipzig for political reasons in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution, jahn kept himself busy-and afloat financially-with "occasional" projects. one of these was his mozart biography and another was a detailed catalogue of ancient greek vases in the collection of king ludwig i of bavaria. he published excerpts from this catalogue as articles. if we examine a portion of one of these (jahn 1861:736-44), we can achieve a sense of how jahn approached the study of historical artifacts and the cultures surrounding them.26 thomas irvine figure 1: greek vase discussed in jahn (1861). the vase in question is pictured in figure 1. jahn begins with a vivid de­ scription of the figures on it: he uses phrases like "mit grosser lebhaftigkeit" (with great liveliness) and "eine gewisse ernste ttichtigkeit" (a certain earnest virtuousness, 1861:736). jahn's description aims to capture a sense of the vase both as a specific work of art and as a relic of a wider cultural context; that is, the "facts" are used to place the object in what jahn sees as history's flowing stream. the harp-player, "kydias," for example, elicits a footnote directing the reader to a long list of other such figures on vases and the literature about them. the kydias depicted, jahn surmises, may have been the poet kydias of hermione referred to by plato, aristophanes, and later plutarch. the "may have been" is important: jahn qualifies this reference with critical reflection on the dangers of associating names on vases with specific historical personages, warning against the temptation of taking this vase for a portrait of the actual poet kydias in the absence of further evidence (1861:739-40). jahn then elaborates his critical description with 17 18 current musicology an appraisal of the vase's meaning. the vase represents the ideal, he writes, of a scene taken from "daily life": the "enthusiasm of drunken revelers after a joyous celebration." the object calls into question the role of the singer­ poet in greek society and thus illuminates this role in a wider narrative. jahn continues: such depictions are found on vases extremely often, and, if one can follow the change that attends stylistic development in the small details ofbeha­ vior and clothing, then one can use such vases to portray a small portion of greek cultural history completely and effectively. (jahn 1861:737-38)27 jahn's alternation here between the specific and the general, between histori­ cal criticism and ideal conclusions, between facts and narratives, is at the heart of his method. the treatment of don giovanni in his mozart biography exempli­ fies a similar approach (jahn 1856-59,4:296-449). it runs to over 150 pages, combining documentary biography (excerpts from mozart's own verzeichnuj3 are supplied in footnotes as running commentary), contexts (the operas of mozart's contemporaries and a lengthy discussion of other settings of the drama), text criticism (based on jahn's examination of the autograph, the first such study by any scholar), reception history, discussion of performance practices, and a review ofda ponte's libretto. one also finds lengthy passages of description of both plot and music that today would be recognized as criticism and analysis.28 the discussion of the opera is, in short, a multivalent treatment that combines social and cultural history, criticism, analysis, performance practice, and hermeneutics. jahn's mozart shines in the midst of it all, a unique figure, shaped by the contingencies of his time, defined by the immanent "facts" of the historical record, and who nonetheless embodies transcendent ideals. the archaeologist jan bazant chose these words to end his essay on otto jahn's legacy for archaeology: it was an appeal to modernize classical archeology without losing sight of its original purpose, namely that it should be a study of ancient greece and rome because of and through its culture. this winckelmannian ideal of the inseparableness of art and society is, however, difficult to attain. all subsequent synthetic treatments are either histories of ancient civilization, or descriptions of its artistic production as conceived as a succession of styles and imageries. the result is either a history of art, or a history of art ... today, as in the time of otto lahn, a history of art of ancient greece is a desideratum. (bazant 1991:27, capitalization in original) this distinction between a "history of art" and a "history of art" might sound familiar to musicologists. it is crucial to carl dahlhaus's influential thomas irvine plea for a mode of writing history that is somehow faithful to music's special aesthetic status. dahlhaus (and bazant as well, presumably) borrowed the turn of phrase from the literary scholars rene wellek and austin warren via the german reception theorist hans robert jauss. 29 it is exactly this that separates jahn from plath. what is at stake in plath's polemic is the isolation of art from history. when he claims that there is no such thing as "musical" music history, plath reveals that he what he seeks is a history of art. otto jahn thought otherwise: he knew that he could not separate subject and subject matter. indeed there is always an element of openness and interpretation in writing like jahn's; this makes his work an odd choice to serve as an example of positivism. consider, as a final example, his discussion of beethoven's fidelia: one is astounded by this constant experimentation. it is difficult to under­ stand how an organic whole can emerge from such a collection of musical flotsam and jetsam. if, however, one compares the finished work of art with the chaos of the sketches, one will always be filled with admiration for the creative spirit that recognizes the idea inherent in its task so clearly, and sees the foundations and structures of the compositional process with such security, in such a way that beneath all the searching and experimenta­ tion of the particular the general reveals a whole that grows and develops organically and naturally out of its roots. (jahn 1867:259)30 this is hardly the kind of writing plath would have called "objective." german historical writing from herder onwards presumes a constant tug-of-war between transcendent ideals and critical examination of history; those who choose to ignore this will risk collapsing a dialectic.31 j ahn' s friend johann gustav droysen (1808-84), an influential historian of the post -ranke generation, helped to theorize this dialectic. for droysen, the past was also of the present: for the past to become real it must be reinterpreted again and again. echoing ranke, he saw only one "historische frage" (historical ques­ tion): "1st das nun wirklich so gewesen, wie ich es gelernt und mir gedacht habe?" (was it really so, as i have learned and imagined it? droysen 1967:33). this question, and the specific manner in which it is asked, determines the quality of a historian's work. reflection on the complicated "flux" of his­ tory and the constant re-combination of history's "facts" in ever-changing constellations serves to help the historian discern the progress of the ideals "behind" history.32 droysen illustrates this problem with a metaphor from art: the hundreds of paintings in a museum-each has its own unique mode of existence, each offers the friend of art, the aesthete, the budding artist, etc., another facet to observe. art history puts them together in a relation that, taken by themselves, they do not have, for which they were not painted, a 19 20 current musicology relation that results in an order, a continuity under the influence of which the painters of these pictures stood without having been aware of it. only this order allows us to distinguish in time among the confusions of the various eras and nations, the choices of object, the manners of composi­ tion, and even the techniques of drawing. (droysen 1967:35)33 a mass of detail, a "buntes vielerlei" that only time can help to sort out, is received by a mass of interpreters, each with their own perspective. history assembles the details into narratives of which history's actors are unaware. yet by pointing out the contingency of history's narrative, droysen reveals his ambivalence about history's "absolute" truth. in 1845, early in his career, jahn wrote the following about the study of historical works of art: my goal is, more than anything, always to consider and observe the work of art as a work of art, and through careful comparisons of monuments (made as completely as possible), to penetrate and understand the special language that works of art speak. knowledge of this language is as im­ portant and irreplaceable a necessity to the student of art as knowledge of language is to the student of the written word. oahn 1845, quoted in bazant 1991:26)34 so it should come as no surprise that in the introduction to his mozart he speaks of similar ambitions: i have, in addition to that which directly concerns mozart, attempted to depict the times in which and the conditions under which he lived, and the people with whom he came into contact more clearly, in as far as these influences were important for his development ... i have, not without some effort, attempted to bring together that which seemed useful to me in making the whole picture more lively and easier to understand. oahn 1856-59,1:xxix)35 jahn's commitment is to the three ideals of historicism i outlined above: the individuality of the past, the critical-historical method, and the idea that all culture is "historical." his project was the union of philology, archae­ ology, and history together into a historical practice constructed around "understanding" the relics of the past. this understanding takes as a given that histories are stories told in language and not merely chronicles of facts. in other words, he is sensitive to the language historical artifacts speak. and in the end, he reveals an ideal, and therefore idealized, mozart. those who have criticized jahn's mozart-bild on this point are correct to identify this quality. they are incorrect, however, to ascribe the transcendental qualities ofjahn's mozart only to jahn's prejudices. what is left for jahn in the shards thomas irvine of a greek vase is the spirit of classical greece; in the score of don giovanni he finds the transcendental ideal of mozart's portrayal of human nature in music. yet both remnants are contingent on their time and place; the individual source and the ideals it represents exist together in a state of flux. for positivists, of whom i will soon speak in more detail, there is nothing left after the subtraction of causation. for jahn, however, there is something left in the artifacts of human practice: the ideals of human creativity. empirical music history in the late nineteenth century, the young discipline of music history took a turn towards the empirical. 36 as plath reminded his audience in 1964, • mozart scholarship had remained mostly unaffected; it was bach scholars like philipp spitta who led the way. spitta-unlike jahn-contributed several essays devoted specifically to the practice of writing music history. in an essay for the widely circulated magazine die grenzboten, spitta introduced the first volume of the denkmaler deutsche tonkunst and wrote, the main sources of [music history] are and remain works of art. none­ theless, one of the most important elements of progress in recent times is that it is now perfectly clear that works of art are to be approached as documents, and that they are to be read and interpreted correctly without any recourse to aesthetic enjoyment. (spitta 1893:25-26)37 it would be a mistake to regard this sentiment as a dramatic departure from the tenets of the historical school. it represents, instead, an emphasis on the critical-historical method within the historical school-on the kind of work with documents that focuses on their physical makeup (handwriting and paper types, for instance) and their provenance or authenticity. yet by ruling the "aesthetic" out of bounds, spitta suggests that matters of interpretation are not the province of the music historian. spitta's position is echoed in plath's contention that there is no such thing as "musical" historical research as well as in his critique of "artistic" mozart scholarship, although plath refrains from citing this passage directly. there can be little doubt, however, given plath's choice of words and his general admiration for spitta, that spitta's thinking was an inspiration for plath, who had begun his career as a bach scholar. the connection becomes clearer in another essay, "kulturwissenschaft und kunst," published in 1892, in which spitta warned of the dangers art presents for science: the artistic monuments of the past are the most important sources for art history. the condition in which they are passed down to us requires a 21 22 current musicology process of cleansing, evaluation, organization, and often even completion. the sciences of the study of antiquity have, in the course of their history, acquired certain fixed methods of study. these working tools, so to speak, are to be used in the treatment of ancient monuments, and, depending on how well they are used, they can be an important guarantee for the success of our work. but this skill can only be acquired through long practice on the basis of a certain kind of positive knowledge. an artist can acquire such knowledge, if he is not shy to enter the school of science. but with artistic sensibility alone, regardless of its quality or the respect it earns, he is not prepared for this activity, not even when it comes to the completion of fragments or the critical choice between competing variants. an energetic and well-developed individuality is always in danger of unintentionally projecting itself into the work of art. (spitta 1892:7)38 this view of the objects and methods of cultural history could hardly differ more from otto jahn's aestheticist position just three decades earlier ("my goal is ... to consider the work of art as a work of art"). the division between kunstwissenschaft and kunst reflects the general turn towards "science" in late nineteenth-century society, and, perhaps, a young discipline's yearn­ ing for a place in the modern "scientific" university.39 in our context it is a harbinger of the "positivism" that would be the bone of contention in late twentieth-century musicological debates.4o the question remains: why did plath devote so much attention to jahn when the real model for the empirical, even positivist revolution he was proclaiming was spitta? if he had taken the trouble to read much of jahn's writings on method, he would have found him an unsuitable witness for "positivist" methods. yet for polemical reasons plath needed an ancestral mozart scholar to make his point, and his point was sharpened by the currency of the notion that jahn was "unmusical" and "outdated." familiar with spitta's writings from his own training as a bach scholar, plath simply chose to blur the distinctions between the two figures. he put spitta's words, as it were, in jahn's mouth. even if, from our point of view, this may have weakened his argument, it seems to have gone unnoticed by his audience: no one in the extensive discussion generated by plath's position paper criticized him for this slippage. spitta's legacy seems to have been in the air in the early 1960s. carl dahlhaus, for instance, devotes an entire chapter of his musikasthetik (1967) to spitta's claim that works of art are "documents." he follows the tension back to an older model of the union of the aesthetic and the historical, especially as approached by herder. as we have seen, herder's doctrines proclaiming the absolute individuality of the historical event, and therefore the union of personal expression and history, were constitutive of early historicist thinking. historicism never resolved this tension between indithomas irvine viduality, expression, source criticism, and narrative. neither did dahlhaus, although he returned to it often, especially in his propaedeutic foundations of music history (1983). finally, joseph kerman, reacting to dahlhaus's treatment of spitta's grenzboten article in musikiisthetik, returned to the subject in his influential 1985 book contemplating music. i will return to kerman's contribution later in this essay. wilhelm dilthey the works of jahn and spitta represented plath's idea of the right way to write music history. wilhelm dilthey's philosophy stood for what was wrong. if mozart studies was not much affected by spitta's theories, it was (like almost of the german "human sciences") influenced profoundly by dilthey's. for dilthey, the human sciences were what the natural sciences were not. the former, in dilthey's philosophy, are practices of erleben and verstehen (experience and understanding): they concern themselves with the "insides" of historical experience, with what history "means." for dilthey, who began his scholarly career as a biographer of friedrich schleiermacher, the founder of nineteenth-century hermeneutics, the main goal of history was to understand what history saysy the natural sciences, in dilthey's view, are sciences of description: they concern themselves with the "outsides" of experience, yet they "say" nothing. applied to the study of cultural history, dilthey's thinking can be read as an attempt to reconcile the empiricist and interpretive poles of historicism. he first formulated his program for the human sciences in the 1860s as a reaction to what he saw as a tendency towards the naive kind of empiricism brought about by the increasing influence of the natural sciences, of which spitta's empirical language, for instance, could be seen as one example. empiricism like spitta's was a challenge to historicist thinking, because it insisted on normative descriptions of historical events. dilthey answered the challenge by appealing to a higher kind of experience: the fundamental idea of my philosophy is that no one, so far, has based his philosophizing on the un-mutilated whole of experience, and so, on the whole fullness of reality. speculation is certainly abstract ... but empiri­ cism is no less so. it bases itself on mutilated experience, distorted from the outset by an atomistic theoretical view of mental life ... no complete human being can be confined within this experience. (1932: 175, translated in rickman 1988:133) if historicist writing, then, had tended toward "abstract speculation;' the "atomistic" and descriptive methods of the natural sciences were not an 23 24 current musicology adequate substitute. both prevented thinking in "wholes:' for dilthey, the study of human artifice required thinking in "wholes." it is the meeting between the historian and the source that is at stake. thus many of dilthey's theories are theories about the role of historical consciousness in the interpretation of documents. for dilthey, historical documents, and especially historical works of art (documents of geist), have an outside and an inside. the outside is the document's physical remains. the inside is what the artwork "means." the outsides are accessible to historians via the empirical elements of the historical methods (those so important to spitta, for instance). but for dilthey understanding the past was the most important thing: for him the "insides" of the historical object were neither as irrelevant nor as inaccessible as spitta had suggested. in dilthey's thought, these "insides" are accessible because human beings share a special ability to feel history, to know intuitively what a historical artwork is saying, because "life" binds us together with those who have gone before us. historical artworks, in other words, can overcome the restraints of time and speak directly to us across the ages. and it is historical consciousness, our awareness of our place in history's stream, that makes this possible.42 dilthey's thought was an important and influential development in the german historical tradition, and it had important consequences for the young discipline of musicology. as hans georg gadamer, one of dilthey's most influential critics, has argued, dilthey was the thinker who drew together the various streams of historicism as described above. from kant, gadamer explains, dilthey took the need for a critique of historical reason; from hegel he took the notion of a transcendental spirit that guides history. dilthey, however, dispensed with hegel's dialectic, resolving it with the force he called "life." life is nothing more and nothing less than our shared humanity, a quality that joins us to history. in dilthey's philosophy of history this shared sense of humanity overcomes the separation between the present and the past, between "them" and "us." in gadamer's telling, dilthey went one better than hegel (for whom only philosophy was timeless) by claiming we could speak directly to history, from "us" to "them;' because we are inside history ourselves. the "sameness" of historical subject and object guarantees the truth-content of historical knowledge (1960:226). specific historical situations, then, can be described in all of their detail, in a kind of snapshot. as gadamer's student reinhart koselleck has put it, through the medium of understanding we are able to get a grip on every individual situation, and thus even the strangeness and remote alterity of the past, through the act of letting oneself accept it and feel sympathy with it, becomes understandable, translatable, and thus recognizable. (1979: 177)43 thomas irvine history is like a mirror: we look into it and see more than just documents and sources-we can even enter into some kind of conversation with it. what we then experience is life itself, its complete gestalt. the tension between historical subject/object and historian-as-subject, which for thinkers like droysen had been a matter for reflection, is thus resolved.44 all of this is an attractive solution to the problem of historical knowledge since it allows for continued allegiance to the critical methods of history while at the same time opening a space for nearly unlimited interpretive speculation. once we are in a conversation with history we can hardly err if we just report what it says to us. thus dilthey replaced the conventional notion of history as the process of understanding documents and material things with the more powerful and seductive idea that the act of getting beyond the "outsides" of things can take us to "life itself" (gadamer 1960:233-34). because he held this "conversation" to be completely secure, dilthey maintained that while the details of the "outsides" of history might be matters of dispute or error, the truth spoken by the "insides" simply cannot be called into question. geistesgeschichte and mozart studies the dilthey paradigm, known to its followers as geistesgeschichte, resonated powerfully in the mozart scholarship of the early 1920s. in the introduction to his reworking of jahn's biography, hermann abert wrote: today we have escaped from the spirit of romanticism; we have crossed over from idealistic, constructive thinking to empirical and realistic think­ ing and therefore have become much stricter in our critique and use of source material. we are not satisfied with a selection; we strive for totality. we have another attitude to the artistic personality per se. here we strive via empiricism towards spiritual content [vergeistigungj, we approach problems psychologically and seek to solve them by the most exact atten­ tion possible to the very most personal, to the details of style. (1923:vi)45 despite claims of strict critique when it comes to source material, abert argues here for the same "total" historical method that was so important to dilthey, that is, for the assimilation of empirical research with the lofty goal of vergeistigung and the infusion of the material with the spiritual. the goal of such scholarship is a conversation-or indeed, a kind of communion-with the spiritual content, or geist, of historical documents. in addition, abert shifts our attention away from jahn's focus on sources and their contexts to the grander register of style, which better sustains narrative. indeed, in abert's day, style history, in mozart scholarship and in musicology as a whole, moved to the top of the discipline's priorities.46 25 26 current musicology although dilthey's work had grown out of the historical tradition of which otto jahn had been such an important part, the dilthey paradigm severely damaged jahn's reputation. abert, who reworked the biography for a new edition in 1923, declared then that "the house [that] jahn had built had collapsed" and that it "was time to build a new one" (abert 1923:16). abert charged that jahn was "too unmusical" to appreciate mozart's genius and that he was too much a prisoner of his own personal prejudices: even today, such views of jahn's work continue to be repeated without much reflection in the secondary literaturey abert and other critics ofjahn judged him hopelessly insensitive to mozart's real musical genius, and thus they frequently dismissed the jahn biography as "unmusical."what is the root of this charge? the grounds can only be summarized here: they included jahn's spirited defense of composers like schumann in the face of opposition from the proponents of richard wagner, and his alleged need to compensate for his own personal suffering by idealizing his object of study.48 abert, at least, had enough respect for jahn to leave the older scholar's name on the title page of the biography, despite the considerable revisions he made to it. it is clear, though, that he considered jahn methodologically outdated. to serve his own polemical purposes, abert recast jahn as a mere purveyor of facts, despite jahn's obvious concern with context and narrative. for abert, jahn's work did not penetrate far enough into the "mean­ ings" of mozart's works. in dilthey's terms, jahn lacked a vital connection to the "insides" of mozart's work, the "life" in his music. this quality of abert's polemic is what allowed plath to cast jahn as a purely factual scholar, something he clearly was not. thus, plath set out in his position paper to demolish the sense among mozart scholars-fostered by abert and others-that the "outsides" of mozart scholarship had already been dealt with and that the "insides" were now of primary importance. and when plath went looking for a theoretical hook upon which he could hang this critique, he found an option that was up until then out of bounds for the historical school: positivism. positivism, bach, science, progress in the four and a half pages of his essay devoted to theories of history, plath used the word "positivism" nine times. it would take us too far afield here to follow the term to its historical origins in early nineteenth-century french thought.49 what is important is that the word was only rarely used in german historiographical discourse before 1945 and then primarily as a pejorative. plath associated "positivism" with the "gelehrt -wissenschaftliche tendenz" in mozart studies that he claimed was represented best by otto jahn and ludwig von kochel, a tendency that, in his opinion, had lost the thomas irvine battle with the "artistic" techniques of dilthey and his followers. his advice for his colleagues was to concentrate on the "scientific" end of the methodo­ logical spectrum. to underscore this point he returns often to words like "foundation;' "basis;' and "scientificness" (wissenschaftlichkeit). the point of unfavorable comparison in plath's polemic is bach studies, both during the nineteenth century as represented by philipp spitta, but also as it was practiced in the mid-twentieth century. plath had a direct connection to bach research in the 1950s, having taken his doctorate in tiibingen, one of the centers of the postwar "philological revolution" in bach research. (the other two centers were gottingen and princeton). this "revolution" was carried out by teams of younger scholars-includ­ ing wolfgang plath-and led by alfred durr, georg von dadelsen, and the american arthur mendel, working mostly on source problems like paper types and scribal hands. their work was a minor sensation, for they succeeded in overturning the traditional chronology (proposed by spitta) of bach's leipzig church music. 50 this chronology was thought to have been established conclusively by the bach scholars of the late nineteenth century-strict paragons of the historical-critical method like spitta and wilhelm rust, whom plath somewhat disingenuously labels as "jahn's methodological heirs." plath neglected to mention the latest developments in bach research, but everyone present at the round-table discussion of his theses would have been well aware of them and of plath's own participation in them as a doctoral student. his point was that the revolution in bach studies had only been made possible by the existence of a corpus of philological research dating back to spitta and rust, which researchers like durr, von dadelsen, and mendel had been able to falsify. indeed, this is the heart of his argument: in mozart studies there was little or no previous research to falsify, because researchers since jahn had turned their attention to "interpretation," to "insides;' and to geistesgeschichte in the style of dilthey. thus, in plath's view there was an urgent need for a massive expansion of "basic research," or in other words, concentration on "outsides." with this in mind, plath and his colleague wolfgang rehm had circulated a three-page catalogue of "zu bearbeitende themen aus der mozart-forschung" (deficits in mozart research) to their colleagues in germany and abroad in 1963 which, in plath's words at the round table, was "meant to replace missing foundations."51 (see appendix 1 for a facsimile and translation of this memo.) this list of desiderata contains twenty-six points. sixteen are concerned with sources or compositional process, five with cultural context (for instance, point 17: "mozart's letters and documents as sources for music history"-note that even here the focus is on the letters as "sources"), three with style criticism, and two with performance practice. i would argue that one of the purposes of 27 28 current musicology this document, and of plath's position paper and appearance at the congress, was to stimulate new avenues of mozart research concentrated on primary sources, so that the weakened foundations of mozart scholarship might be repaired as quickly as possible through falsification of previous research. "falsification" is a key component of karl popper's theories of scientific discovery (popper [1935] 2002). several threads in popper's work are of interest here. one important aspect is his bitter opposition to historicism.52 popper's historicism was the kind that linked history to "progress" and was implicated, he argued, in the political ideologies of both the right and the left that had brought so much suffering in the twentieth century. his critique drew much of its force from his denial of the historicist (and diltheyian) notion that human facts were somehow fundamentally different from natural facts. for popper, a fact was a fact, and although facts (of any kind) could not be proven positively, they could be validated if subject to falsification. 53 popper's thinking seems central to plath's argument that there is no such thing as "musical" music history, and that the "facts" to be sought in mozart studies can be established only through a continuously developing process of falsification through cooperative research, a process for which the founda­ tions, from his point of view in 1964, were missing. the shopping list of desiderata that he and rehm had circulated was meant, then, to reinforce or even to rebuild these foundations. it was the princeton musicologist arthur mendel who had set out the theoretical foundations for the new bach philology, both in his bach research and in his well-known address to the international musicological society's new york congress in 1961 entitled "evidence and explanation" (mendel 1962).54 in his writings on bach, mendel related how separate groups of researchers (plath was a member of one of them as a graduate student in tiibingen) had worked in parallel on various problems before comparing their results: "different investigators working with these data [the sources of the st. john passion] came to the same results, so that the likelihood of error in the sorting out process is small" (mendel 1960:297). even if such a congruence of positive results is, strictly speaking, meaningless in a popperian sense, it was research like this that lead to the spectacular falsification of spitta's chronology of the leipzig cantatas. for mendel, following popper, process trumped product. the best research yields only temporary results: why should we not recognize our reconstructions of chronology for what they are-hypotheses? and why should music historians, any more than physicists or mathematicians, feel embarrassed at having to replace hypotheses that have outlived their usefulness? that's what hypotheses are for. (mendel 1960:300) thomas irvine mendel's call for music historians to be more like physicists and mathemati­ cians points to the heart of the differences between the dilthey and popper paradigms. while dilthey had stipulated that the natural and human sciences should be strictly separated, this separation was, for popper, the root cause of historicism's poverty. and for plath, the collapse of this separation had the added bonus of freeing jahn from the charge of being "unmusical," since "musicality;' in the popper paradigm, would be a meaningless criterion by which to judge historical research. in "evidence and explanation;' mendel had argued (at times somewhat confusedly) for a method of writing music history built around the as­ sembly of positive facts and the rigorous induction of the relations between them.55 one of mendel's important models, cited often in "evidence and explanation;' was his princeton colleague carl gustav hempel, a "neoposi­ tivist" philosopher of science whose main project was to bring scientific precision to disciplines like history. both hempel and popper were widely read in postwar american academia. like spitta's attempt to bring the respectability of empiricism to the young discipline of musikwissenschaft, mendel's intervention seemed calculated to boost musicology's claim as a "hard" discipline which, ironically, rendered an important part of spitta's research redundant. both in his position paper and in his remarks at the round-table, plath was frustratingly vague about the foundations of his methodological position. although he never mentioned popper, hempel, or even mendel directly, it seems unlikely that plath could have been unaware of this kind of "positivism."56 thus plath's theses amount to a call for the appropriation of the mendel-hempel-popper program, or perhaps the "princeton program" of bach research, in mozart scholarship. by claiming that there was no such thing as a "musical" fact, and by harping so much on the word "positivism," plath issued a strong challenge to a methodological consensus (historicism) that had been shared by musicologists since the inception of the discipline. despite lip service to the "abstract" goal of illuminating the "spiritual and cultural" mozart, plath argued for far more than a mere readjustment of the relation between "interior" and "exterior" historical methods. his audience at the round-table discussion in salzburg knew that this historicist consensus was at stake, and they were not amused. the mandarins strike back thirty-seven years ago, the american historian fritz k. ringer published a study of an influential group of opinion -makers: the german professoriate. ringer described how their influence on state and society, which despite 29 30 current musicology their small numbers was considerable, was guaranteed by a complex web of interdependence that bound them to whatever political leadership was then in power (ringer 1969).57 ringer called them the "german mandarins;' a reflection of their own self-image as a kind of intellectual and even spiritual aristocracy. part of ringer's conception of mandarinentum depends on the idea that in order to become a mandarin, german academics had to subscribe to a canon of shared philosophical and methodological positions. the tone of german musicology in the 1950s and early 1960s was de­ termined by a historicist consensus, which included the uneasy coexistence (made somewhat easier by dilthey's thinking about geistesgeschichte) of the "critical-historical method" and the imperative to interpret. in this respect plath's polemical intervention was very clever. by using a cherished prede­ cessor (philipp spitta) as an example of good historical practice, which he then contrasted with what he saw as the bad practice of geistesgeschichte, he caught his opponents off balance. and by suggesting, in defiance of dilthey, that "positivism was that which can make the human sciences scientific" he combined two terms-the "human sciences" or geisteswissenschaften and "positivism" -that his audience considered incompatible. this audience still shared most of the historicist positions discussed above, especially the idea that the study of musical sources was not and should not be an end in itself; "positivism;' for german scholars trained before 1945, was shorthand for empty and perhaps even immoral rationality. as hans engel put it in response to plath, music and the experience of music history were a phenomena of gestalt and geist that could not be reduced to watermarks and handwriting (engel 1964:43). to be a "mandarin" in this context, one had to share this position. positivism had never belonged to the mandarin's canon of shared beliefs.58 plath's polemic, then, could well have been interpreted by his audience as an attack on this consensus, and therefore an attack on their positions as officially sanctioned interpreters of mozart. to much of his audience plath's use of the word must have seemed like a conscious provocation, especially since it was delivered by a scholar under forty who did not hold a universityposition.59 in this audience's view, the study of historical sources (in plath's sense, "facts") was always only a prelude to understanding the music in them. to be sure, plath had paid lip service to this notion earlier in his paper, only to undermine his statement immediately by calling interpretation "an abstract goal" ([ 1964] 1991 :78). if ringer's descriptions of german academia are accurate, then the sug­ gestion that understanding history is merely an "abstract" goal would have been anathema to the mandarins. plath's suggestion that mozart scholars' insistence on the primacy of interpretation actually harmed the enterprise must have come as an affront to his audience. thomas irvine the uncanny unanimity of their responses at the meeting in salzburg is a striking confirmation of ringer's thesis.60 regardless of affiliation or personal history, all of those who spoke out against plath were driven to do so by their opposition to anything that smacked too much of positiv­ ism. figures such as hans engel, who had risen to some prominence in the musicological establishment of the third reich through his studies of music and "volk," found themselves agreeing wholeheartedly with emigres like the marxists georg knepler and harry goldschmidt.61 key tenets of the historical school-that writing history is always interpretation, and history always reveals a narrative-were under attack. engel followed his ad hoc comments in salzburg with a lengthy written rebuttal in the mozart­ jahrbuch of the following year. his main argument was that mozart studies "is musikwissenschaft and not notenwissenschaft" (engel 1964:43). plath's most eminent critic, friedrich blume, waited several years before delivering a reply. in a keynote address given to the 1967 international musicological congress in ljubljana, after having mentioned plath by name, he continued in engel's vein: the over-breeding of specialization and neo-positivism open up threat­ ening consequences for musicology: the isolation of researchers and dis­ ciplines from one another, the decline of international cooperation, and the increasing lack of understanding on the part of wide groups of the general public for musicological research ... the hunger to understand music cannot be stilled with the recipes of secret alchemical kitchens ... there are in fact studies that concern themselves exclusively with paper types, rasterology and the like, and if this continues, in the year 2000 music history won't be about composers and theorists, but about copyists, and not about masses and symphonies, but about watermarks and rasters. (1973:40-41)62 things did not quite turn out as blume had feared they would. epilogue: the new musicology and the future of mozart scholarship seen at the distance of four decades, the controversy plath provoked seems eerily like the controversies over the "new musicology" that shook english­ speaking musical scholarship in the 1990s, only in reverse. for the "new musicology" was, in many of its programmatic statements, an attempt to free the discipline from an ideology its proponents called "positivism." it seems from an american perspective like an irritating quirk of history that plath, the "revolutionary" in our narrative, the upstart who challenged the mandarins, did so by proclaiming theories we now consider to be conserva31 32 current musicology tive. it is a fascinating role-reversal. on the one side, we see plath speaking in sympathy with a strictly empirical american musicology and appearing to suggest application of the newest theories from princeton; on the other, we find the imperious mandarins of musikwissenschaft, including some of dubious political pedigree, whose arguments overlap with the claims of some "new musicologists."63 for mandarins and "new musicologists" alike, positivism is the polemical other and skepticism about empiricism is a reflex position.64 coming to terms with this tableau is a real historiographical challenge.65 i will conclude this essay by reflecting on this irony and will then sketch the possible moral our story might yield for mozart scholarship. to begin with the most obvious irony, blume's position resonates with joseph kerman's famous diagnosis of the state of the discipline in great britain and north america in the mid-1980s. for kerman, as for blume, musicology had fallen into the hands of an ideology called positivism ("the presentation of the texts of early music and of facts and figures about it," kerman 1985:42). one of his main predictions in contemplating music was that the tool to combat this ideology would be something he called "criticism."66 kerman, anxious to strike a balance between "lower" and "higher" activities in the writing of music history, reserved pride of place for criticism, that is, real aesthetic engagement with music. his treatment of spitta's contention that there is no difference between musical and any other kind of historical documents-received via carl dahlhaus's quotation of it-showed that he was ready to equate the historical-critical method's (i.e., "lower" criticism's) american forms with positivism. plath had made the same point in reverse: that only critical study of documents can offer mozart scholarship a firm foundation. nonetheless, one is left with the impression that in the end both are trying to answer the same question: is the history of music the history of music's documentary traces (a history of music), or is it something more (a history of music)?67 clear thinking about the relation of factual research to interpretation can help us locate our scholarly practice in relation to the practices of those who have gone before us. the dispute over positivism that plath provoked in mozart studies can help us as well, because, for one thing, it clarifies points made by some of the "new musicology's" more astute observers. to begin with, leo treitler's critique of kerman for treating "positivism" and "criticism" as rigid opposites (and which treitler built to some degree on a discussion of droysen and dilthey) can just as well be applied to plath's polemical distinction between "positivism" and geistesgeschichte (treitler 1990) .68 from the other side of the new musicological debate, margaret bent, in sympathy with karl popper, has voiced a similar criticism of kerman's "split" (bent 1986). both underscore what i have tried to demonstrate here: first, that historicism is more than just its critical-historical methods, and thomas irvine second, that positivism's others-call them interpretation or criticism-were not invented by the "new musicologi'69 richard taruskin, especially, has argued that the opposition between "positivism" and "historicism" is mis­ leading. in text and act, for instance, that is how he is able to claim that when confronted with the "moral confusion" of leo treitler's dilthey-influenced approach, he'll "take bourgeois, democratic positivism any day" (1995:27), while asserting a few pages later that mendel had launched "what became a virtual era of documentary fetishism" and a "reign of scientistic intellectual terror" (1995:42). taruskin, whose recent writings have returned to these issues, is skeptical of both polemical positions, even if in the end he, like plath, prefers a sober "realism" to the dangers of historicist "romanticism" (2005a; 2005b). it was plath's "realism," his readiness to approach the confusion of the historical record without historicist blinders, that proved to be his most valuable contribution. it was a contribution that has become the founda­ tion of substantial parts of the canon of recent mozart research. gertraut haberkamp's catalogue of first editions (1986), alan tyson's studies of mozart's paper types (1987), plath's own work on handwriting (1991), cliff eisen's investigations of the mozart family's salzburg copyists ( 1991 a), ulrich konrad's sketch research (1992), and dexter edge's dissertation on mozart's viennese copyists (2001), to name just a few studies, seem to have emerged directly from, or at least in sympathy with, plath's 1964 position paper. it is hard to believe that none of this work had been done by 1964, in an era when many scholars believed that all "basic" mozart research had already been completed. there is still much work to be done in this "realist" direction. for instance, dexter edge's 2001 dissertation on mozart's viennese copyists (incidentally, item 7 on plath and rehm's 1963 "shopping list" of desi­ derata in mozart research) runs to over 2500 pages, and takes nothing for granted. his discovery of the original orchestral material used at the court theater in vienna for ie nozze di figaro, cost fan tutte, and don giovanni is at once a piece of bravura philology and, in the best popperian sense, a starting point for further questions, especially about the exact relation of text to performance in mozart's creative process (2001:1416-1960). the implications of his research run far beyond the editorial. edge's study can, for example, help interrogate the "work concept" itself, a critical constituent of historicist musicology that recent critics have argued is highly ideologi­ cal (goehr 1992). work like edge's suggests that mozart-obsessed with performance, constantly revising-worked more often than not against what nineteenth-century scholarship thought of as "the work," or at least that he was not always subject to "the work's" regulating power. thus an ideology critique like goehr's can be supported by concrete historical evidence-in 33 34 current musicology this case, real documents mozart once held in his hand-and thus gain explanatory power. nonetheless, plath's intervention must be considered a failure as his­ toriography. it was a polemic, and thus aimed more at the weaknesses of his opponents than at the construction of a coherent position of his own. the two pillars of his argument, the legacy of nineteenth-century critical historiography and the intellectual tools of twentieth-century "value-free" positivism, are too contradictory and too ideological to bear the weight he meant them to. as jahn and droysen knew, the dialectic between empiricism and narrative, between the particular and the general, between historicism and positivism cannot be collapsed. we need to recognize the difficulty of using isolated historical "facts" -acquired through wise but not blind application of the historical-critical method and pursued collectively by a community of scholars-while writing about an individual artist whose life remains a powerful narrative paradigm of originality and artistic wonder. we will never write the mozart story out of mozart's history; it's hard to think of anyone, even the most skeptical critic, who would like to see "mozart" reduced to a compendium of empirically verified facts. so what can a forty-year-old controversy about methods mean to us today? much has changed in mozart scholarship during the intervening decades. indeed, it is worth asking if there is such a thing, any more, as mozart scholarship at all. there is no unified community of scholars working on problems related to mozart and his music in the way that both plath and blume, however different their perspectives, dreamed then that there could be. plath's popperian dream of such a community, its members working in concert to falsify each other's research, did come true partially, at least to the extent that so many projects seem to have been (at least indirectly) inspired by his pleas. but just as blume predicted, work today in the "alchemical kitchens" of "hard" source-studies does not attract much more than the attention of experts, and since the "new musicology" has robbed-rightly or wrongly-source studies of a good portion of its cachet, projects like those of which plath dreamed are viewed with suspicion by many of today's music historians. blume-a conservative if there ever was one-didn't care for such research, and the "new musicology;' at least in the english -speaking world, has relegated "philology" to the margins of the discipline. yet blume's dream of a unified, interpretive mozart studies is equally lost. this dream depended on the consensus that mozart was a pillar (if not the center) of a canon of western composer-geniuses, and that his works were canonical masterpieces. in this model, mozart scholars are priests whose role is ultimately to "interpret" the holy writ that is now the twenty­ thousand-odd pages of the nma. it would be pointless to argue that this consensus, laid down by otto jahn, still binds us. today, the foundations of thomas irvine mozart scholarship, as both plath and his opponents would have understood them, are too unstable to support much of anything. the contradiction inherent in historicism as a practice brought both models down: the tensions between reporting facts and spinning a narra­ tive and between the "objective" historical record and the imperatives of historical interpretation. these will accompany our work as long as we tell the stories of music history. and they are all the more particular to mozart, about whom we know (or think we know) so much, and whose creative legacy remains the paragon of "great music;' however prone to overuse the epithet might be. as scholars and teachers we need to encourage our readers and our students to face this contradiction honestly. we need to admit that the imperatives of factual scholarship and the romance of history can enjoy at best an uneasy coexistence, and yet that our own work as historians is made richer by engaging with both. finally, there might still much to be learned from otto jahn. all of the questions jahn asked-what does art do? where does it belong? to whom does it belong? what does it say? how does it say it?-are questions we could ask today in the contexts of the most "progressive" musicology.70 in mozart studies, only a minority of recent scholars have asked such ques­ tions, notably susan mcclary (1986), neal zaslaw (1989), rose rosengard subotnik (1991), joseph kerman (1994), and, most recently, simon keefe (2001) and jessica waldoff (2006). perhaps for mozart scholars jahn's opinion of the authenticity of this or that source is not as important as his place as a co-founder of nineteenth-century cultural studies. his approach, once we account for the very different conditions in which it was conceived, might be ours again. if jahn's work was the foundation of an older scholarly tradition, then plath established a newer one that has been of great importance to mozart studies in the past forty years. we can embrace the best of both. let there be more basic research and more interpretation. if we go looking for "facts" about mozart with the kind of discipline and imagination plath called for in his polemic we will surely be rewarded, all the more so if we remember, as plath himself said, that mozart will always be more than the sum of the facts we have collected about him. 35 36 current musicology appendix 1. memorandum on deficits in mozart research, with translation on facing pages (plath and rehm 1963). zu bearbeitende themen aus der mozart-forschung zusommeogestellt von w. plath unci w. rehm cit • .f~63 1. zur bedeutung und ausfuhrung der von mozart verwendeten omomenlzekhen, ins­ besondere der vorsehloge. 2. eehtheitofrogen. kritik der mozart zugeschriebenen zweifelhaften werke. anmerkung: siehtung des be; der editionsleitung gesommelten material. unter be­ riicksichtigung der nicht identifizierbaren mo;:crt-incipih in den thema­ tischen kotalogen. ziel: aj "catalogue raisonn6 u des zweifelhaften und uneehten; b) erarbeitung grundlegender gesientspunkte und methaden·der allge­ meinen eehthei tskritik; c) dasselbe speziel1 fur die stilkritik. 3. die zeitgen<sssisehe musik-thecrie und sonstige uberlieferung cls·quelle fur die auffuhrungspraxis der werlee mozarts. anmerkung: deckt-sieh oieht mit tnema 1. hier wore· vor auem etwa zu er<lrtern: 0) beselzungsfrogen; insbesondere der segriff des "bosso." in-derkirchen-, ober ouch instrumentalmusik; femer die frage der "selbstverstllndlich" cal basso ader coli" parte "ad libitum" mitgefuhrten instrumente (z.8. posaunen, fogotte, ve., va.). b) froge nach umfong und a.t der generalbaomilwirkung in gbwissen gattungen der instrumentalml1sik. c) a.tikulation: hier eventue!! wieder aufnahme des problems strieh (keil)/ punkt etc. . 4. die mo~art-quellen der ehernoligen preuilischen staahbibliothek berlin. 5. die mozart-q.,ellen der clsterreichischen bibliofheken, klosteran:hive etc. 6. die mozart-quellen der salzburger archive. 7. studien zur hondschriftliehen mo"zort-uberlieferung. anrnerkung: die fur mozart arbeitenden kopistenhandei wiener u.a. kopiaturkanz­ leien (lausch, sukowaty etc.)i versuch einer chorokterisierung der vef'chiedenen uberlieferungszentren (salzburg, wien, prog_usw.). 8. der schule.kreis moze.h oder: mozart als lehrer und theoretiker. 9. suilmayr und dos requiem, ein stilkritischer vergleich. anmerkung: hier ginge es urn eine systematische durcharbeitung der erholtenen kirchenkampositionen subrnoyrs, um auf diesem wege u. u. die frage zu entscheiden, ob sullrnoyr die ergonzung des requiems ous eigenem zugetrout werden kenne. thomas irvine deficits in mozart research, collected by w. plath and w. rehm [ca. 1963] 1. the meaning and performance of mozart's ornament signs, in particular of appoggia­ turas. 2. questions of authenticity. investigation and critique of doubtful works attributed to mozart. n.b.: review of material now in possession of the nma with special attention to unidentified incipits in thematic catalogues. goals: a) b) "catalogue raisonee" of the doubtful and spurious; establishment of general principles and methods for the establishment of authenticity in general; c) the same for style criticism in particular. 3. contemporary music theory and related literature as a source of information about the performance practice of mozart's works. n.b.: not the same as point 1 above. in this case the following should be considered most of all: a) questions of instrumentation, especially the term "basso" in church and instrumental music; further the question of "obviously" included "ad libitum" bass instruments col basso or colla parte (e.g. trombone, bassoon, vc., va.). b) the question of the extent of figured bass participation in selected instrumental genres. c) articulation: here perhaps a reappraisal of the problem stroke ("keil")j staccato dot etc. 4. the mozart sources of the former prussian state library in berlin. 5. the mozart sources in austrian libraries, cloister archives, etc. 6. the mozart sources in salzburg archives. 7. studies of manuscript transmission of mozart's music. n.b.: hands of copyists who worked for mozart; viennese and other copying bureaus (lausch, sukowaty, etc.); attempt to characterize the various centers of transmission (salzburg, vienna, prague, etc.). 8. mozart's circle of students, or: mozart as teacher and theorist. 9. stibmayr and the requiem, a style-critical comparison. n .b.: here the goal would be a systematic consideration of stibmayr's surviving church music, in order, under certain circumstances, to determine if stibmayr alone can be trusted with the completion of the requiem. 37 38 current musicology -210. mozart 01. bearbeiter eigener lind fremderwerke. 11. mo,.art 01. kepi.t fremder werke. anmerkung: die abgrenzung %11 thema 10 w!lre noch zu erarbeilen. 12. die salzburg,., mo%ort-fragment". anmerkung: die (ubemol ie) dissertation von meno 81 q.ch i i;: w~re proktisch neu zu ."hreiben. wicht;g w!lre hier, am beispiel der salzburger frogmente das methodische problem der einordnung niehl .icher dolierborer b"w. zuweisborer fragmente elc. exempla.isch zu durchdenken. zugleieh kritik der bisherigen yersucne der mo,.art-forschung, insbesondere einstein. methode in ky3. 13. dos problem der ergijnzung bei den torsi requiem und .. -moll-messe. 14. oer auflr(1g.gebundene schoffensrhythmus mozart.. anmerkung: da' themo tougt m/lglicnerwei.e nur zu eiriem kleinen auf,al;:. eo j,1 hie. an eine untersuchung der pericdi.~h wiederkehrenden verpflich:' tungen, auft.osschoncen, "gelegenheiten" etc, gedaeht; in salzburg etwo dio offi,.iellen kirch"nund hoff""t" (z. b, dos "fe.tum pall ii "), . die universil!ltsfeslli chkeiten (finolmusiken), die nomenslage (serena­ den, divertimenti ate,); fur wien w!lre %, b. die "soisan" dof%uslellen, die f".tenken%erte und -akedemien usw. auf dem hintergrund all die,er "gegebenheilenlt, geiegenheiten und ouch zuflille liebe sich da. "gebundene" und "f,eie" schaff .. n mo%(1rt$ viel plcnli,che, ,,10 bi,­ her dorstellen. 15. mezclrls schaffen.weis. (demonstriert cln ••• ). anmerkung: lot wohl noch nichl aktuell. zur zeit genogen vermullich die auf,!ltze von einstein und he,tzmann. erst gegen ende de' nma kllnnle man dor­ an, 8ehan, die bi$ dohin %utage gefllrderlen ski-nen, entwurfe etc. in g8schlossener oorstellung im hinblick auf den schaff"noprazeb au'''y­ werten. 16. padr. mortini und mo~ort. anmerkung: dc die zeugni .. e eines canl,opunkt-unte,richt. bei leopold mozort stlmtlich 01. fehlinterp,elationen enlfollen, kommt de. begegnung mit padre marlini neue bedeutung %u. eo wcfren die studien bei marlini (vgl. h .... in mozart-jahrbuch 1956) "u .ichten und inte'pretie,en. dar­ ube. hinau. wclren auch die .onstlgen contrapunkt-sludienbl,ltter mozerl. zu beruclaichtigen. da. themo kllnnl .. doher auch etwa heillen: mo;:art. kont,opunkti,che studien. 17. mo>:"rl. g,iefe und aufzeichnungen 01. mu.ikgeschichtliche quelle. anmerkung, eine gesamtinterpretcllion de. mu,ikwiosen.chaftlich (nichl biogrophiseh) interessanten gehalt. ware wichtig. 18. dos problem der "fa .. ungen" in den opern mo"orts. thomas irvine -210. mozart as arranger of his own works and the works of others. 11. mozart as a copyist of the works of others. n.b. the border to point number 10 would have to be worked out. 12. the salzburg mozart fragments. n.b. mena blaschitz's (outdated) dissertation would have to be practically rewritten. it would be important to use the salzburg fragments as an exemplary case to think through the methodological problems associated with non-datable and non-attributable fragments in general. at the same time a critique of previous attempts by mozart scholarship, in particular einstein's approach in k3. 13. the problem of completing the requiem and the c minor mass. 14. mozart's compositional rhythm and its relation to patronage. n.b. possibly only justifies a smaller essay. what we imagine here is an investigation of mozart's periodically returning duties, commissions, "opportunities;' etc.; in salzburg these would be, for instance, official church and court festivals (e.g., the "festum pallii"), university cer­ emonies ("finalmusiken"), name days (serenades, divertimenti, etc.); in vienna one could describe the "season" with its lenten concerts and academies, etc. the actual relation between mozart's "free" and "bound" compositions could be described much more flexibly against this background. 15. mozart's compositional process. n.b. the time is probably not yet ripe. at the moment einstein's and hertzmann's essays are enough. only towards the end of the nma could one approach the problem, by analyzing the sketches and drafts that will have cropped up by then in a unified study. 16. padre martini and mozart. n.b.: since sources claiming to witness counterpoint instruction with leopold have all been exposed as false interpretations, mozart's encounter with padre martini takes on a new importance. the martini studies (d. hess in mozart-jahrbuch 1956) would have to be examined and interpreted. in addition, one should consider all of mozart's other counterpoint exer­ cises. the study would have the approximate title: mozart's counterpoint studies. 17. mozart's letters and notes as a music-historical source. n.b. a complete interpretation of the musicologically relevant (i.e., non­ biographical) contents would be important. 18. the problem of the "versions" of mozart's operas. 39 40 current musicology -3anmerkung! es kann nicht gesegt werden, wie weit de. bisheris8 schrifttum schon die.a frogen ousgeschopft hat. 19. mazart-kateloge. anmerkung: darstelluns der diversen spezialkatologe, ihrer gaschichte unci (evtl.) abhllngigkeit, konkordonzen. 20. (nicht auf ma-::art beschri:lnkt): thematisehe kotologe, lnventare etc. des sudcieutsch­ hqbsburgisc:hen roums. anmerkung: allgemeine auforbeitung, verzettelung, kenkordonz-register. hier' wllren evtl. ouch 'noch die gedruekten 8reitkopf-ketalese mit zu be­ rucksichtigen. 21. die textquellen der kenzert-arien mqzarts. anmerkung: fur einen grallen teil der arien hat .ich bis ietzt der dichter niehl nachweisen lassen. hier k!:snnte man evtl. mit den methoden der ger­ manistik und romonistik zum ziel kommen. ,' .. 22.· die undaherten werke mozart. als methodisches .problem. " anmerku'ng: 'lsi. thema 12. dos hier umfassender formul ierte thema setzt"die sa­ . handlung des theme. 12 voraus .. 23. die zeitgenllssischen beomeitungen mazartscher werke 01. ausaruck der zeitmode. 24. mazart. instrumentation und instlljmentenbehandlung. anmerkung: nebengedanke: wa. kann die kenntn;. ·"typisch" mozamcher in$tllj­ mentotionseigentumlichkeiten zur echtheitskritik hei·tragen ? 25. dymmik be; mozart. 26. leopold mo-::arts lehen und werk •• ) !ii, au$ diesem themenkamplex ist neuerdings im rahmen einer tubinger di"ertation das teil themo "leopold mozart in seinen yokal-kampa.itionen" vergeben worden. thomas irvine -3n.b. it is impossible to say to what degree previous research has dealt with this problem. 19. mozart catalogues. n.b.: a survey of the various special catalogues, their history, and (perhaps) their connections, concordances. 20. (not limited to mozart): south german thematic catalogues and inventories, etc. n.b. a general listing with an index of concordances. the printed breitkopf catalogue might also be considered. 21. the text sources of mozart's concert arias. n.b.: for most of the arias it has been impossible to identify a librettist. perhaps one could approach this problem with the techniques ofliterary criticism. 22. mozart's undated works as methodological problem. n.b. see point 12. a study of this broader theme would require treatment of point 12. 23. contemporary arrangements of mozart's works as an expression of contemporary taste. 24. mozart's orchestration and treatment of instruments. n.b.: an associated thought: what can knowledge of "typical" characteristics of mozart's orchestration contribute to establishment of authenticity? 25. mozart's use of dynamics. 26. leopold mozart's life and work.* * a part of this thematic complex, "leopold mozart in his vocal compositions," has recently been assigned as a dissertation in tiibingen. notes this essay appeared in an earlier version as the first chapter of my phd dissertation (irvine 2005). its writing was supported in part by a doctoral fellowship from the german academic exchange service (daad) at the university of wiirzburg in 2002-3. i presented parts of it as a paper at the rma conference on music historiography in cardiff in 2003, at the university of oxford faculty of music colloquium in 2004, and at the international rilm conference on music historiography ("music's intellectual history: founders, followers, and fads") in new york city in 2005. over the long period of its gestation i have profited from the generous advice offered by hansjorg ewert, richard kramer, nicholas mathew, wiebke thormahlen, and david yearsley, and from many conversations with neal zaslaw and ulrich konrad. prof. dr. wolfgang rehm kindly shared his memories of the early days of the nma and provided me with a copy of a memorandum on deficits in current mozart research he wrote with wolfgang plath in 1963 (reproduced here as appendix 1). the article's finalform owes much to the perceptive comments of karen hiles and current musicology's anonymous readers. all translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 41 42 current musicology 1. plath's position paper was originally published in the conference report, along with a transcription ofthe discussion about it; see giegling (1966). the 1991 publication is a reprint within a collection of plath's essays on mozart (plath 1991). to aid the reader, i will refer to page numbers in the latter publication, and will state page numbers only when they change. since the quotations from plath are so extensive and the original german text is widely available, the original will not, in departure from usual practice, be given here. 2. the word plath uses is "verstehen;' which, as we will see, was crucial to dilthey's concep­ tion of the "human sciences" (geisteswissenschaften) as sciences of verstehen, as opposed to the natural sciences, the sciences of "explanation" (erklaren). 3. "geist" is a difficult word to translate. translators often choose "spirit;' which i find unsatisfying; in what follows here i will use both "spirit;' as in "mozart's geist," and "intel­ lectual," as in geistesgeschichte. 4. neal zaslaw reported in a personal communication of 2004 that paul henry lang, his teacher at columbia university in the early 1960s, believed similarly that most mozart ques­ tions had already been answered. see also senici (1994). 5. plath himself worked on handwriting; see various essays in plath (1991). see also haberkamp (1986), tyson (1987), eisen (1991a), konrad (1992), and edge (2001). 6. see wolff (1989-90). 7. this was not always the case. as cliff eisen (1991 b) has argued, the nma has often relied (or been forced to rely) on the texts of the earlier complete edition. on the new kochel see zaslaw (2000). 8. i mean to draw a distinction here between historicism as a mode of writing history and historicism as a style of writing music. for introductions to the latter see dahlhaus and krummacher (1994) and garratt (2002). 9. on herder, see meinecke (1965:355-444). see also taruskin (2005a, 3:21) for the music­ historical implications of this position. 10. see butt (1996) and cook (2001) on the idea that writing about music can be "like a performance." 11. on the distinction between "lower" and "higher" criticism, see grier (1996: 14-24). 12. see taylor (1975). 13. for an account of shifting senses of history's movement from the late enlightenment onwards, see koselleck (2003:150-76). \ 14. as it turns out, popper's crusade against historicism seems to have begun with his re­ jection of teleological narratives of music history. see taruskin (2005a, 3:413n2) and popper (1982:93-99). 15. see, for instance, leech-wilkinson (2002), who focuses his criticism on "factual" argu­ ments in traditional accounts of instrumental performance of medieval music. he calls such arguments "historicism" without, in my opinion, engaging sufficiently with historicism's other components. i pursue the matter in more detail in irvine (2004). 16. see meinecke (1965:1-28) and nipperdey (1983:498). it is unclear to me whether there is a significant difference between what dahlhaus and krummacher (1994) call "denkweise" (mode of thinking) and "praxis" (practice); they use the first term to describe what historicist historians do. 17. see krieger (1977:1-20) and also white (1973:163-90). thomas irvine 18. for a collection of ranke's texts in english and an illuminating introduction to them, see ranke (1973). for more on ranke's dictum, which he borrowed from thucydides, see repgen (1982). for an interesting discussion by a distinguished music historian on how the phrase might be misunderstood, see treitler (1989:37, 31on36). 19. on relativist implications of ranke's programmatic statement, see hindrichs (2002). 20. see iggers and moltke (in ranke 1973:ix-x). walter benjamin's well known critique of historicism, which included his call to "brush history against the grain" engages with this aspect. for benjamin, historians who" [blot out 1 everything they know about the later course of history" practice a kind of false empathy for historical actors that is really a disguised empathy "with the victor" (1968:256). for a recent discussion of the consequences of this position for music historians, see deathridge (2000). 21. the following discussion is indebted to the recent literature on jahn, especially walther (2000) and the essays in calder, cancik, and kytzler (1991). schramm (1998) offers many useful biographical details but steers clear of wider judgments about jahn's mozart-bild. demuth (1997) devotes considerable attention to jahn, mainly from a philosophical per­ spective. the only treatment in english is king (1955:66-77). for the sake of simplicity i will bypass a discussion of the methods of musical biography per se; for a recent treatment, see pekacz (2004). 22. "1m entwicklungsgang der vblker, welche eine kunst selbststandig erzeugt und ausgebildet haben, tritt uns die erscheinung entgegen, dab sie, bald begiinstigt bald gehemmt von aiiberen verhaltnissen, jahrhunderte lang ringen und streb en, bis sie in verschiedenen ansatzen ... in der darstellung des schbnen die hbchste aufgabe der kunst zu ibsen vermag. diesen wunderbar herrlichen anblick der organischen entwicklung einer begabten kiinstlernatur, welche durch keine schein bare stbrung gehemmt wird, der vielmehr alles zum besten dient, die, indem sie abwirft was nur voriibergehenden zwecken diente, urn so kraftiger emporwachst-diesen anblick gewahrt uns der entwicklungsgang mozarts" (jahn 1856-59, 1:619-20). for a discussion of these issues, with special reference to hegel, see garratt (2002:9-35). 23. on jahn's polemics against wagner, see eichhorn (1991) and von reibnitz (1991). 24. see von reibnitz (1991) and irvine (2005:32-35). 25. haydn white's introduction to reinhart koselleck's the practice of conceptual history (2002) clarifies many important points for the non-german -speaking reader. my explanation here is indebted to his sketch of historicism. the following sums this sketch up well: "the history of historiography, in koselleck's view, is a history of the evolution of the language of historians, a language that is ever more conceptually self-conscious, ever more aware of the difficulty of grasping the experience of others in terms adequate to its reality. in this respect, koselleck's work converges with that of barthes, foucault, and derrida, all of whom have stressed the status of historiography as discourse rather than as discipline and featured the constitutive nature of historical discourse against its claims to literal truthfulness" (in koselleck 2002:xiii-xiv). 26. on the continuing importance ooahn's vase descriptions, see bazant (1991). 27. "dergleichen darstellungen sind aufvasenbildern ungemein haufig und man kann, wenn man den mit der stilistischen entwicklung schritt haltenden wechsel in dem kleinen detail der sitte und mode verfolgt, einen klein en abschnitt der griechischen culturgeschichte vollstandig und anschaulich aus diesen vasenbildern darlegen" (jahn 1861:737-38). 28. see konrad (1999). 43 44 current musicology 29. this comment from dahlhaus is typical of his approach: "music history fails either as history by being a collection of structural analyses of separate works, or as a history of art by reverting from musical works to occurrences in social or intellectual history cobbled together in order to impart cohesion to an historical narrative" (1983:19-20). see also hepokoski (1991:234-35). richard taruskin has returned, very recently, to dahlhaus's use of the distinction; taruskin calls it a "veritable slogan for musicology;' the "great either/or;' and "the great bane of contemporary musical scholarship" (2006:319). 30. "man staunt tiber diese unaufhorliches versuchen und begreift nicht, wie aus solchem musikalischen brockelwerk ein organisches ganze werden konne. vergleicht man aber das fertige kunstwerk mit dem chaos der entwtirfe, so wird man immer wieder von der tiefen bewunderung vor dem schopferischen geist ergriffen, der die idee seiner aufgabe so klar angeschaut, grundlage und umrib der ausfuhrung so fest und sicher gefabt hat, dab unter aile dem suchen und versuchen im einzelnen doch das ganze aus seiner wurzel naturgemab herauswachst und sich entwickelt" (jahn 1867:259). on the organic metaphor, see solie (1980) and kerman (1980). 31. i borrow this phrase from the title of reinhard strohm's essay, "collapsing the dialectic: the enlightenment tradition in music and its critics" (2000). 32. see iggers (1983:104-15). on dahlhaus and droysen, see hepokoski (1991:233). for a sampling of dahlhaus's approach to droysen, see dahlhaus (1982:34-43). 33. "die hunderte von bildern einer pinakothek,-sie haben jedes fur sich ihr sein, bieten jedes fur sich dem kunstfreund, dem astheten, dem lernenden ktinstler usw. andere und andere seiten der betrachtung. die kunstgeschichte stellt sie in einem zusammenhang, den sie an sich nicht haben, fur den sie nicht gemalt sind und aus dem sich doch eine reihenfolge, eine kontinuitat ergibt, unter deren einflub die maler dieser bilder standen, ohne dab sie sich dessen bewubt waren, und die in der wahl der gegenstande, in der art der komposition, selbst in dem techniken der zeichnung und farbe dies bunte vielerlei unter verschiedene zeiten und lander uns erst zeitlich scheiden labt" (droysen 1967:35). 34. "ich meine hauptsachlich das bestreben, stets das kunstwerk als solches aufzufassen und zu betrachten, und durch sorgsame und moglichst umfassende vergleichung der monumente einsicht und verstandnis der eigenttimlichen sprache zu gewinnen, welche die kunstwerke reden. kenntnis dieser monumentalen sprache ist dem kunsterklarer so sehr ernstes und unerlassliches erfordernis, wie dem erklarer von schriftwerken die kunde der sprache" (jahn 1845, quoted in bazant 1991:26). 35. "ich habe aber auber dem was mozart unmittelbar angeht auch eine zeit, die verhalt­ nisse unter den en er lebte, und die personen, mit denen er in bertihrung kam, bestimmter darzustellen versucht, soweit es eben ftir seine entwicklung in betracht kommt ... ich habe dann nicht ohne eifer zusammenzubringen gesucht was mir dienlich schien, das bild lebendiger und anschaulicher zu machen" (jahn 1856-59, l:xxix). 36. john butt has made the interesting suggestion that this empirical turn can be read as a "seconda prattica" following a more idealistic "prima prattica" (2002:1-24). 37. "die hauptquellen aber sind und bleiben die kunstwerke selbst; dab hiertiber jetzt vollige klarheit herrscht, dab man die kunstwerke als urkunden auffabt und mit allen mitteln bestrebt sein will, sie ohne rticksicht auf asthetischen genub sie richtig zu lesen und zu deuten, darin sehe ich einen der wichtigsten fortschritte der jtingsten zeit" (spitta 1893:25-26). 38. "zu den vornehmen quellen der kunstgeschichte gehoren die kunstdenkmale vergangener zeiten. der zustand, in welch em sie auf uns gekommen sind, fordert eine reinigende, erlauternde, einordnende, und nicht selten auch eine erganzende tatigkeit. die antiquarische wissenschaft hat sich im laufe der zeiten eine feste methode der untersuchung thomas irvine genommen. diese, gewibermassen ein arbeitsinstrument, wird sie auch bei der behandlung der kunstdenkmaler in anwendung bringen, und je sicherer es gehandhabt wird, desto sicherer eine biirgschaft fur das gelingen der arbeit ist gegeben. aber diese geschicklich­ keit wird nur durch langdauernde dbung auf grund eines bestimmten positiven wissens erworben. auch ein kiinstler kann sie erwerben, wenn er die schmiede der wissenschaft durchzumachen sich nicht scheut. nur aber durch seine kiinstlerschaft alleine, und sei sie noch hoch und respektsgebietend, ist er zu dieser thatigkeit nicht geeignet, selbst nicht immer im falle der erganzung oder der kritischen auswahl zwischen verschiedene moglichkeiten. eine energisch ausgepragte individualitat wird stets in gefahr sein, sich selbst unbewubt einen fremden zug in das vorhandene kunstwerk hineinzugeben" (spitta 1892:7). note the almost exact echo in plath's position paper ("organization, evaluation, classification"). for more on spitta's use of this distinction, see garratt (2002: 13). 39. on spitta's intellectual background, see schilling (1994). 40. spitta's positivism, however, had a false bottom. it turns out that he was equally impli­ cated in narrative strategies, including nationalist paeans to germany's "special mission." see schilling (1994), kerman (1985:50-55), and taruskin (1995:42-43). 41. for an introduction in english to dilthey's thought, see rickman (1988). 42. dilthey's "insides/ outsides" division, like the previous separation of "higher" and "lower" criticism, is an example of "two stage" strategies in historical writing. on the implications of the split for musicology, see treitler (1989:379-81 and passim); treitler's analysis is subjected to a strong critique by taruskin (1995:24-32). 43. "1m medium des verstehens labt sich jede einmalige situation nachvollziehen, auch die fremde und die ferne, andersartige vergangenheit wird durch das sich-einlassen, sich­ einfuhlen nachvollziehbar, iibersetzbar und somit erkennbar" (koselleck 1979: 177). 44. the idea of conversing with history was taken up again more critically by gadamer (1960). 45. "die heutige zeit sucht von der romantik loszukommen; sie ist von idealistischen, konstruktiven denken langst zum empirischen, realistischen iibergegangen und dam it auch in der kritik und benutzung der quellen weit strenger geworden. sie begniigt sich nicht mehr mit einer auswahl, sondern strebt nach dem ganzen. aber auch der kiinstler­ personlichkeit als solcher tritt sie anders gegeniiber. sie drangt auch hier auf dem weg der empirie nach vergeistigung, fabt das problem vor allem von der psychologischen seite und sucht es durch moglichts feine zergleiderung des stils, als des allerpersonlichsten, zu losen" (abert 1923:vi). 46. style history came to mozart studies through teodor de wyzewa and georges de saint -foix (1937) in their attempt to sort mozart's works according to stylistic principles. guido adler brought style history to musicology at large. see adler (1919). on adler's historiographical context, see boisits (1998). 47. see abert's introduction to his revision of jahn's biography in abert (1923:iii-xxv). see also einstein (1923), sievers (in kochel [1862] 1964:xxv-lii) , and gruber (1994). 48. jahn bore a series of hardships, including his wife's debilitating mental illness, political misfortune, an illegitimate child, academic squabbling, and finally severe illness of his own. see gruber (1991). 49. for a good general definition of positivism, see kolakowski (1971:9-19). 50. see mendel (1960). both kerman (1985:50-52) and taruskin (1995:42-43) see the over­ turning of spitta's chronology as an important turning point in postwar musicology. 45 46 current musicology 51. plath described the memo in the discussion of his paper in salzburg this way: "die versendung des themenplans erfolgte aus einer notlage: wir sahen uns vor probleme gestellt, zu deren bearbeitungen wesentliche voraussetzungen fehlen" (giegling 1966:91). 52. one of popper's most famous books was the poverty of historicism (1957). 53. there is some disagreement among historians about who was the first, popper or carl gustav hempel, to propose such theories of evidence. for hempel's theories, see hempel ([ 1942]1965). a discussion of karl popper's approach to "covering law theories" can be found in popper (1962,2:363-64), where he outlines his claim to having originally proposed this approach. for an explication and critique of hempel's theories, see danto (1968). danto refers to the historians who follow hempel as an "avant-garde" (1968:214). 54. unlike plath, mendel attempted in his programmatic essay to reconcile positivist and historicist approaches, for instance by often citing the twentieth-century british historicist r. g. collingwood in defense of his positivist position. see treitler (1990) for a discussion of the confusion this caused. 55. see treitler (1990) and taruskin (1995). 56. dietrich berke, in recent reminiscences of plath, makes a direct connection. see berke (2001:1 and passim.) 57. although ringer's study ends in 1933, i think it fair to extend many of his observations to the postwar period, as for instance pamela potter does in her study of german musicology before and after 1945 (1998:33). 58. ringer's survey of the history of the negative connotations of the word "positivism" among german academics is particularly convincing (1969:294-304). 59. dietrich berke recently asked: "should plath not have been fully aware of the pejorative character that had grown around the concept of positivism? that is hard to imagine in a man of such universal learning ... no, plath used the word clearly as a provocation, and provoke he did" (2001:9). 60. for a transcription of the discussion, see giegling (1966). 61. for engel's activities as a musicology professor in the third reich and after, see potter, (1998:157, 160, and passim). on knepler's ideas about the writing of music history, see shreffler (2003:502-6). 62. "die dberzuchtung des spezialistentums und der neo-positivismus eroffnen fur die musikwissenschaft bedrohliche konzequenzen: die isolierung der forscher untereinander und der stoffgebiete gegeneinander, den zerfall der international en zusammenarbeit, das zunehmende unverstandnis breiter bildungsund liebhaberschichten fur die musik­ geschichtliche forschung ... der hunger nach dem verstehen von musik kann nicht mit den rezepten alchimistischer geheimkiichen gestillt werden ... es gibt tatsachlich abhand­ lungen, die sich so gut wie ausschlieblich mit papieren, tinten, rastern u. dgl. beschiiftigen, und wenn es so weitergeht, dann wird im jahre 2000 eine musikgeschichte nicht mehr von komponisten und theoretikern, sondern von schreibern und kopisten, nicht mehr von messen und sinfonien, sondern von wasserzeichen handeln" (blume 1973:40-41). 63. walter benjamin's dark warnings about historicism's narrative strategies seem, unfortu­ nately, to have been confirmed by german and austrian mozart scholarship's ugly cooperation with the nazi regime in 1933-45 (potter 1998:154-55 and passim). on such "false continu­ ities;' see also hoeckner (2004:512). plath's objections to their work must also be read against this background. it seems ironic that although to us nothing seems further from benjamin than plath's "value-free" positivism, his arguments dealt a blow to a shared opponent. thomas irvine 64. on positivism as the "new musicology's" other, see fink (1998). 65. tim carter also sees similarities between geistesgeschichte and the "new musicology" (2002:276). albrecht riethmiiller suggests something similar when he compares the "new musicology's" beethoven reception with the interpretations of jacques handschin (riethmiiller 2001:96). this ebb and flow of interpretation as a concern in philology is not limited to musicology; see gumbrecht (2003) for a wider treatment. 66. for a recent overview of kerman's influence on the "new musicology," see williams (2001:2-7). 67. we have already encountered this question, which taruskin has called "the great either/or of modern musicology" (2006:319), in our discussion of otto jahn's legacy. 68. john deathridge's contention that treitler's work is "post-historicism" seems somewhat questionable in this context (2000:238). 69. interestingly, plath's own work took a turn for the "interpretive" later in his career. for a short treatment in english, see my review of a conference devoted to his legacy (irvine 2006). 70. see taruskin's recent intervention: "now that the cold war in europe has joined bach, beethoven, and brahms in history, we should be able to recognize that the essential task of the art historian is not to choose between mutually exclusive alternatives [between the great either/or], but to attempt their integration within a narrative that describes the mutually influential and mutually accommodating-in short the truly dialectical-interaction of powerful agents and mediating factors: institutions and their gatekeepers, governments, ideo­ logies, patterns of consumption and dissemination involving patrons, audiences, publishers and publicists, critics, chroniclers, commentators, censors, and so on practically indefinitely until one chooses to draw the line. where to draw it will be forever a matter of debate-but such debate should be open, explicit, and free" (2006:319). references abert, hermann. 1923. w. a. mozart. neubearbeitete und erweiterteausgabe von qtto jahns mozart. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. adler, guido. 1919. methode der musikgeschichte. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. bazant, jan. 1991. otto j ahn' s "griechische kunstgeschichte" today. in otto jahn (1813-1868): ein geisteswissenschaftler zwischen klassizismus und historismus, edited by william m. calder iii, hubert cancik, and bernhard kytzler, 11-28. stuttgart: f. steiner-verlag. benjamin, walter. 1968. illuminations, edited and with an introduction by hannah arendt, translated by harry zohn. new york: schocken books. 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[1935] 2002. the logic of scientific discovery. london and new york: routledge. ---.1957. the poverty of historicism. london: routledge & kegan paul. ---. 1962. the open society and its enemies. 2 vols. princeton, nj: princeton university press. ---. 1982. ausgangspunkte: meine intellektuelle entwicklung. hamburg: hoffmann und campe. potter, pamela m. 1998. most german of the arts: musicology and society from the weimar republic to the end of hitler's reich. new haven and london: yale university press. ranke, leopold von. 1973. the theory and practice of history, edited and with an introduction by georg g. iggers and konrad von moltke, translated by wilma iggers and konrad von moltke. european historiography series. indianapolis: bobbs-merrill. thomas irvine reibnitz, barbara von. 1991. otto jahn bei friedrich nietzsche: der "grenzbotenheld" als wagner-kritiker. in otto jahn (1813-1868): ein geisteswissenschaftler zwischen klassizismus und historismus, edited by william m. calder iii, hubert cancik, and bernhard kytzler, 204-33. stuttgart: f. steiner-verlag. repgen, konrad. 1982. ober rankes diktum von 1824: bloss sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen. historisches jahrbuch 102: 439-49. rickman, h. p. 1988. dilthey today: a critical reappraisal of the contemporary relevance of his work. contributions in philosophy, no. 35. new york: greenwood press. riethmiiller, albrecht. 2001. wunschbild: beethoven as chauvinist. archiv fur musik­ wissenschaft 58 (2): 91-109. ringer, fritz k. 1969. the decline of the german mandarins: the german academic community, 1890-1933. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. schilling, ulrike. 1994. philipp spitta: leben und wirken im spiegel seiner briefwechsel, mit einem inventar des nachlasses und einer bibliographie der gedruckten werke. kassel: barenreiter. schramm, michael. 1998. otto jahns musikasthetik und musikkritik. musik-kultur, no. 4. essen: verlag die blaue eule. senici, emanuele. 1994. review of mozart's symphonies: context, performance practice, reception by neal zaslaw. ii saggiatore musicale revista semestrale di musicologia 1 (2): 408-14. shreffler, anne c. 2003. berlin walls: dahlhaus, knepler, and ideologies of music history. journal of musicology 20 (4): 498-525. solie, ruth a. 1980. the living work: organicism and music analysis. 19th-century music 4 (2): 147-56. spitta, philipp. 1892. kunstwissenschaft und kunst. in zur musik: sechzehn aufsatze, 3-14. berlin: gebriider paetel. ---.1893. denkmaler deutscher tonkunst. die grenzboten 52 (2): 16-27. strohm, reinhard. 2000. collapsing the dialectic: the enlightenment tradition in music and its critics. in musicology and sister disciplines: past, present, and future. proceedings of the 16th international congress of the international musicological society, london, 1997, edited by david greer with ian rumbold and jonathan king, 263-72. oxford and new york: oxford university press. subotnik, rose rosengard. 1991. evidence of a critical world view in mozart's last three symphonies. in developing variations: style and ideology in western music, 98-111. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. taruskin, richard. 1995. text and act: essays on music and performance. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 2005a. the oxford history of western music. 6 vols. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 2005b. review: speed bumps. 19th-century music 29 (2): 185-207. ---. 2006. is there a baby in the bathwater? archiv fur musikwissenschaft. 63 (3-4): 163-85,309-27. taylor, charles. 1975. hegel. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. treitler, leo. 1989. music and the historical imagination. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. ---. 1990. the power of positivist thinking. review of contemplating music by joseph kerman. journal of the american musicological society 42 (2): 375-402. tyson, alan. 1987. mozart: studies of the autograph scores. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. 51 52 current musicology waldoff, jessica. 2006. recognition in mozart's operas. oxford and new york: oxford university press. walther, gerritt. 2000. mozart und methode: otto jahn's beitrag zur begriindung der modernen musikgeschichtsschreibung. in musikwissenschaft-eine verspatete diziplin? edited by anselm gerhard, 31-54. stuttgart: j. b. metzler verlag. white, hayden v. 1973. metahistory: the historical imagination in nineteenth-century europe. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. williams, alastair. 2001. constructing musicology. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. wolff, christoph. 1989-90. review of mozart: studies of the autograph scores by alan tyson. mozart-jahrbuch: 263-64. wyzewa, teodor de and georges de saint-foix. 1937. w.-a. mozart: sa vie musicale et son aeuvre, de l'enfance a la pleine maturit. 5 vols. paris: desclee, de brouwer, et cie. zaslaw, neal. 1989. mozart's symphonies: context, performance practice, reception. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 2000. recent mozart research and der neue kochel. in musicology and sister disciplines: past, present, future. proceedings of the 16th international congress of the international musicological society, london, 1997, edited by david greer with ian rumbold and jonathan king, 573-75. oxford and new york: oxford university press. current.musicology.81.1-108.pdf eisler's notes on hollywood and the film music project, 1935-42 sally m. a. bick in 1947, hanns eisler in collaboration with theodor adorno published a small but important book entitled composing for the films. the book represents a significant contribution to film studies, cultural criticism, and the discipline of twentieth-century musical practice. it also provides one of the few extended historical texts from the 1940s that deconstructs hollywood musical practice while probing the wider theoretical implications of motion picture music. the gestation of composing for the films, however, remains controversial. l although i shall treat this and the book's politically tangled publication history elsewhere, this article seeks to address one aspect of the book's intellectual foundation-that is, eisler's theoretical and aesthetic notions about film music in relation to hollywood's film industry. eisler's direct exposure and reaction to hollywood musical practices began in 1935 during his first trip to the united states, and continued in 1938 when he returned as an emigre and embarked on the film music project (1940-42, supported by the rockefeller foundation). since 1927, eisler had been deeply interested in film music. as a com­ mitted marxist, he saw film as a powerful political device to educate the proletariat and serve the revolutionary cause. in contrast to the modernist bourgeois ideals of his teacher arnold schoenberg, eisler believed that music should be democratized and provide social meaning to a mass public.2 film music offered an outlet for the practical realization of these ideals, and eisler quickly established himself as a critic and composer in the field from the earliest development of sound film onward, and brought a specialized knowledge and commitment to its practice. he involved himself intensively as a film composer, exploiting a wide range of musical approaches and ap­ plying many of the theoretical and aesthetic concepts that he, as a politically motivated musician, cultivated within an array of genres from documentary to commercial productions. consequently, by the time he arrived in the united states in 1938, he was already considered a european expert and had accumulated a great deal of experience as a critic on the subject. "hollywood seen from the left" in may 1935, eisler was invited by the english parliamentarian lord marley to present a series of lectures in the united states in support of the world current musicology, no. 86 (fa112008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology committee for the relief of the victims of german fascism.3 organized in 1933 under the direction of willi munzenberg as a response to the burning of "objectionable" books in germany and the suppression of intellectual activi­ ties by the nazis, the committee launched a propaganda campaign to appeal to a new constituency of socialist sympathizers worldwide. munzenberg's control over this organization derived from his position as head of the soviet union's cultural propaganda apparatus abroad. his network of communist front organizations, including charities, publishing houses, newspapers, theaters, film studios, and cinema houses, attracted the participation of many illustrious intellectuals and artists like eisler. for example, in 1934, eisler and the playwright bertolt brecht published their lieder, gedichte, chore with editions du carrefour, which had been a subsidiary of the munzenberg press since 1933. eisler also wrote the score for kuhle wampe, a production of munzenberg's prometheus films (mcmeekin 2003:262-63; betz 1982:121; schoots 2000:79, 88). m unzenberg used popular media such as those described above to create bridges between the soviet "proletarian" government and less doctrinaire western socialists (mcmeekin 2003: o. and by 1935, when the soviet union officially shifted its policy from a united to a more inclusive popular front agenda that would have wider appeal to socialist intellectuals and artists, anti-fascism became the common political concern, a shared rallying call.4 consequently, the activities of the world committee and in particular eisler's tour mustered international support for communism by exposing the terrors of fascism. as eisler crisscrossed the united states visiting over fifty cities, he lec­ tured on the conditions of germany under fascism and spoke on "the crisis in culture;' a common concern among european scholars and intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s.5 musical performances of his kampflieder often accompanied these talks, and helped to establish him within american art circles as an important political musician.6 during the tour, he met various american composers, some of whom would later help him once he im­ migrated to the united states.? most important, the trip included a visit to los angeles, where he mingled with colleagues associated with the film industry and had the opportunity to explore several film studios. . even in 1935, eisler had a great deal to say about hollywood's film enterprise, whether concerning the working conditions for composers, or the industry's production values. he documented these impressions in two articles; ''a musical journey through america" and "hollywood seen from the left;' which show him to be a perceptive observer of the movie capital (1978f; 1978g).8 eisler recounts his visit to metro-goldwyn-mayer, one of the bigger hollywood studios, which he presents as a humorous tale sally m. a. bick marked by acerbic quips about how the industry functions. eisler, impressed with the studio's technical mastery, remarks "we have nothing in europe to compare." nevertheless, he contends that hollywood's musical standards are "abominably low." as a consequence, composers must confront a life of "hell" and the "prospect of becoming hopelessly dim-witted." these observations emerge from eisler's lively description of the studio's highly rationalized, factory-like system of specialization. studio music departments, he says, appoint various specialists (usually five or six composers) who must produce music within the narrow context of a single prescribed genre: one does "military music" (eisler mockingly dubs this specialist a former german army musician), another "vienna waltzes and operetta music" (a composer from the old school), and another "preludes and the accompaniments" (a serious music composer), as well as one for jazz and dance, and yet another who produces only song lyrics.9 the work of the composers, whom eisler sarcastically calls the "music office workers;' is not only reduced to automated impersonal tasks that stultify the mind and any creative impulse, but the musical product, as an outgrowth of the system, becomes highly conventionalized through extreme specialization that in turn negatively affects musical function. consequently, music becomes an appendage to the film itself rather than being integrated into the whole, with the result that studio composers have no idea about the contents of the complete motion picture and how their individual efforts contribute to the impact of the film. and though the musical standards created in this factory-like environment suffer, nevertheless, the industry is not "foolish;' because it understands that such rationalization expedites the movie-making process with the potential of greater profits through reduced costs. eisler concludes the argument by saying: although films could be an excellent means of entertainment and educa­ tion in modern society, in the hands of private industry they are solely for profit and a means oflulling the masses. (eisler 1978f:91) it is no coincidence that eisler follows the discussion of hollywood with observations about his experiences in detroit, the center of the world automobile industry. in a parallel tale, he describes the inhuman working conditions of the ford factory workers, who at the end of the day "fall into an exhausted sleep" from the monotony imposed by assembly-line tasks (eisler 1978f:92). by making these analogies and exploiting rhetoric like "music office workers;' eisler reduces the work of a composer to a dehumanizing experience that swallows white-collar workers just as the automotive industry devours those wearing blue collars, all victims of advanced capitalism. 9 10 current musicology in his second article, entitled "hollywood seen from the left;' eisler revisits many of the same issues but this time directly invokes the analogy of the music specialist as "factory" worker who toils in an office and must punch in his hours. a so-called "studio manager" (eisler's term for the head of the music department), who in the opinion of eisler is "an absolutely unmusical man," makes all the final decisions and bases his assessment on the "hit" potential of a given work. eisler's formula for a "hit" is explained this way: "musical numbers that you can sing before you have even heard them," an idea that his colleague adorno would address subsequently in his now famous article "on popular music;' and again they would revisit together in their collaborative book composingfor the films. 10 eisler summarizes his initial impressions of the american film enterprise in this way: "the music department of a big hollywood film company is a very peculiar place."ll as one whose film expertise had primarily been connected to european socialist film productions, eisler subscribed to a different set of aesthetic and practical values that corresponded with his marxist principles. in his view, the idea that hollywood produced entertainment for the sake of entertainment was a bourgeois notion that paralleled contemporary art music's equally bourgeois concern for art for art's sake, against which he had leveled similar criticisms (eisler 1978g:46). eisler disparages the lack of purpose and function exhibited in both types of music. according to him, the conventions of entertainment music, in particular, stifle one's intellect. used as a pacifier or narcotic, it is designed to divert audiences from the crisis in society and occupies the non-productive activities of leisure. the score contributes significantly to hollywood film as escapist entertainment. eisler warns his listeners: film music should provide social commentary, not intoxicating effects that serve the interests of production and in turn form the "socio-economic basis for the peculiar form of musical practice in capitalism" (eisler 1978b:39; also 1978i:1l6). eisler's conclusions provide some of the earliest and most astute criticisms of the industry, which had only a few years earlier recognized the potential of integrating non -diegetic music into films such as max steiner's score for king kong (1933).'2 his view proved to be especially perceptive since many hollywood composers would reach some of the same conclu­ sions only a few years later (levant 1940; raksin 1989). these observations, made during his first visit to hollywood in 1935, would once again come to the surface when he sought professional opportunities there as a film composer over the next decade. in 1938, as war was becoming imminent, eisler returned to the united states, this time as an emigre exploring various avenues of musical employment. film music and hollywood would figure prominently in his plans. sally m. a. bick the genesis of the film music project eisler's initial tour had left a formidable impression within american socialist artistic circles, and allowed eisler to make contacts with aaron copland, henry cowell, and mark blitzstein, among others. in the fall of 1935, through the invitation of charles seeger, he returned to the united states again to teach for a short period at the new school for social research (october 1935-january 1936).13 as the momentum towards social democracy became a central political concern in the united states during the depression, the new school emerged as a hotbed for left-wing cultural activities and intel­ lectual pursuits. in keeping with the new school's progressive trends in the social sciences, music-alongside the other allied arts-became a focal point for the study of culture in the modern urban landscape. it was at the new school, during eisler's initial 1935 american lecture tour, for example, that he attended the communist composers' collective at the invitation of cowell, and gave two seminars the following autumn that focused on "the crisis of modern music" and "musical composition;' covering, among other topics, political mass songs. 14 in 1938, when eisler sought to return to the united states,alvin johnson, the new school's director, took an active role in facilitating his immigration. in response to hitler's policy to eliminate jews from civil service positions, johnson, working closely with the rockefeller foundation, brought many imperiled scholars to the united states, placing them in academic positions. is through johnson's efforts, the foundation instituted two-year grants to provide emigres with temporary assistance and help them through the dif­ ficult initial years of adjustment and integration in the united states. at the end of the granting period, however, the foundation expected that recipients would find permanent positions elsewhere (fosdick 1941:13-15). while johnson offered eisler opportunities for teaching at the new school, eisler continued to explore other possibilities. during this unstable period, he was engaged to write several film scores for colleagues within his socialist circle.16 his first project in new york was a documentary entitled 400 million (1939), which chronicled the chinese struggle for liberation and national independence, directed and produced by his old european friend and collaborator joris ivensy though the film afforded no financial benefit for eisler, it appealed to his political sensibilities and provided some exposure to american audiences. ivens had great respect for eisler, having worked closely with him in europe on various film projects connected to their mutual socialist goals. is eisler also composed the score for two short films produced and directed by fellow socialist american joseph losey, whom eisler had first met in the soviet union in 1935 (caute 1994:45). pete roleum and his cousins (1939) was made on behalf of the oil industry 11 12 current musicology with generous funding from a consortium of new york oil companies. for losey, who had aligned himself closely with a community of marxists, the capitalist propaganda puppet film appeared to be an unlikely project, but he made a great deal of money, from which eisler must have benefited. 19 eisler's second film collaboration with losey suited their mutual political interests more closely. a child went forth (1940) was a new deal project produced for the national association of nursery educators with the help of the left-wing production company frontier films.20 alongside these film projects, eisler also received a contract from oxford university press to write a book about modern music based upon the lectures he presented at the new school.21 although he hoped that the book would sustain him financially, it was clear he would not be able to realize any finan­ cial benefit until its completion. in the meantime, he needed to find other means of subsistence. losey, who had been associated with the rockefeller foundation, initially approached john marshall (an assistant director of the humanities division at the foundation) and johnson regarding the pos­ sibility that eisler might undertake a research project while simultaneously working on his book (ciment 1985:56). johnson then contacted marshall with a proposal to help eisler obtain a subvention for his research.22 but over the next few weeks, letters between johnson and marshall show that the focus of the project changed abruptly from modern music more generally to motion picture music. johnson suggested to marshall that if the foundation supported eisler with a two-year grant as aid for a deposed scholar, the funds would sustain the composer until he could establish himself. after the two-year period, johnson was prepared to offer him a full time position at the new school in their theater and arts programs.23 the rockefeller foundation already supported a number of projects associated with music and technology, including several documentaries by losey, harold burris­ meyer's project concerning sound technology at the stevens institute, as well as paul lazarsfeld and the princeton radio project. consequently, a project on film music that addressed issues of technological innovation and musical practice appealed to marshall, who was extremely impressed by eisler's credentia1s.24 the correspondence between marshall and johnson also reveals marshall's concern regarding the possible political overtones of supporting an outspoken socialist emigre such as eisler. marshall sought confirmation of eisler's intellectual credentials for the undertaking and raised questions over his political associations. in a letter of november 16, 1939, johnson reported to marshall that he had "quizzed eisler with a view to finding out whether he had any connection with the communists, or more particularly with the stalin -trotzky row."25 already by then, marshall showed that he was sally m. a. bick aware that the united states government feared communist sympathizers and their potentially subversive activities. johnson did not reveal eisler's response, but rather shifted the discussion to eisler's colleague losey. he seems to have been protecting eisler's interests by concealing from marshall his political orientation as a marxist. as it was, eisler underwent ongoing problems in solidifying his visa status starting immediately from his arrival in the united states in january 1938, with the result that he was forced to move continually in and out of the country. even after eisler received the grant, marshall continued to inquire about his political status. 26 the federal bureau of investigation files show that he was under constant surveillance by the government starting in february 1942.21 johnson appeared to satisfy marshall well enough that eisler met with marshall to formulate a more specific research project and then prepared a proposal on the topic of film music for submission to the rockefeller foundation. 28 marshall contacted various people to investigate the merits and validity of the proposal, as well as eisler's abilities to carry it out. among them sociologist paul lazarsfeld (director of another rockefeller funded study, the princeton radio project), who provided a positive assessment of eisler as a composer. on eisler's intellectual potential, he included an interesting comparison with the culture critic theodor adorno, who at the time worked as head of research for the radio music programming division under lazarsfeld's radio project.29 lazarsfeld writes, "eisler is also far above the average as a pianist and as a theoretician. no one seems to doubt that whatever problem on the social aspects of music he would tackle, his work would be worthy of support." lazarsfeld goes on to say, "i have always been interested in his work, but i don't know him well personally." nevertheless, lazarsfeld continues, "my general feeling would be that he [eisler 1 hasn't quite the deep intellectual sincerity and great freshness of approach which dr. adorno has, but that his interests lie in the same direction and that from a practical point of view he might be easier to handle."30 like adorno, eisler was "a facile dialectician;' and both were gifted critical interpreters of music and mass culture.3l the letter confirms the common intellectual ground between the two men and that his peers never doubted eisler's abilities to confront the social and intellectual implications of music. lazarsfeld's letter also implied that marshall was keen to find out whether the musical experiments associated with the princeton radio project could be of value in developing eisler's research.32 there is evidence that eisler eventually consulted with lazarsfeld and adorno about the radio project, at least on issues of empirical data collecting, as i discuss below. however, contact between eisler and adorno at this time seems to have occurred primarily through social circles within the community of emigres in new 13 14 current musicology york. as adorno confided to his friend walter benjamin in may 1938, "i have seen eisler quite a lot, and on one occasion we had a lengthy conversation. he is extremely friendly and approachable, presumably on account of the institute or the radio project."33 such comments reveal the competitive ten­ sions among emigres who needed to establish themselves in a new world. nevertheless, some of the ideas that adorno formulated in the radio project would eventually appear in parts of composing for the films. 34 on february 1,1940, eisler received a large grant of $20,160 from the rockefeller foundation for the film music project, administered by the new school over a two-year period (later extended for an extra nine months). marshall saw eisler as the ideal candidate. with the prospect of a published book on the subject of film music, he expected eisler's work to have an impact on specialists in the film industry as well as the scholarly community.35 the study was timely because the implications of technology in film and radio were only just beginning to receive scholarly attention in conjunction with public reception, and government agencies were expressing great interest in the field especially as the war began to escalate.36 eisler initially began the study in new york, primarily with the help of independent film producers and documentarians with whom he had already worked. later, however, eisler moved his project to hollywood to be closer to the commercial mo­ tion picture industry. eisler hoped the project would provide him an opening into the com­ petitive milieu of the hollywood film industry, where he could fulfill his goal to work as a film composer in the movie capital (eisler 1983a:250-54; schebera 1998b:73-89). many of his professional colleagues from europe had already fled to the united states and some had successfully established themselves in the film industry. moreover, by the late 1930s, numerous of his american left-wing colleagues such as clifford odets and harold clurman could no longer continue working in political theater on broadway or depend on government funding from the works progress administration (wpa), and they too left for hollywood.37 like all of them, eisler recognized the potential of working there. in hollywood, then, eisler would renew many old relationships and acquaintances. the film music project: a framework for style, theory, and practice what has brought about this research project is the question raised in recent years by musicians everywhere-is it really necessary to continue the current hollywood practice of rehashing "original" scores with crumbs picked from the table of tchaikowsky, debussy, ravel, richard strauss and sally m. a. bick stravinsky? is a new musical material possible? may it not even be more useful and effective? (eisler 1940-41:251) although eisler addresses various issues in the film music project, this pithy statement, published in modern music (1941), encapsulates his fundamental criticism of hollywood: film music should embrace a contemporary musi­ cal language. according to eisler, motion picture music lagged far behind other aspects of film production such as the techniques of montage, editing, lighting, and camera work. hollywood's complacency towards musical in­ novation and experimentation was to blame, in part, because the industry preserved the initial practices introduced by the hollywood establishment during the early stages of non -diegetic scoring for sound film. it refused to close "the gap between the highly evolved technique of the motion picture and the generally far less advanced techniques of motion-picture music" (eisler 1941:138). eisler had initially formulated many of his basic ideas for the study during the late 1920s when the film industry was first considering sound film as a viable technology. eisler's involvement in music and film extended to the technical innovations being developed during these early stages. in 192 7, tri-ergon, a german enterprise that was developing a sound -on -film technology, commissioned eisler to write music for a short abstract film entitled opus iii, to be shown at the baden-baden music festival of that year (heller 1998:541-59). by using this new invention to synchronize music together with film, eisler undertook to illustrate the film's visual rhythms. he also sought to measure the impact of the combined effect of music and image upon the audience. the demonstration consisted of two presentations of the film, the first with eisler's score synchronized directly on the film strip, while the second was a silent film, this time accompanied by eisler conducting the score with a live orchestra with the result that it produced only a loosely synchronized version. "thus every listener was able to judge the success of our experiment. despite pioneering difficulties, success was sensational."38 these experiences provided the foundation for the kinds of aesthetic questions eisler began to posit in relation to music and its implications for film, while this early work simultaneously addressed the technical issues related to sound production and effect. eisler recognized that filmmakers and composers should not sever technological issues in sound production from the creative musical task. these experiments also allowed eisler to consider the effect these procedures generated on potential audiences. he would revisit all these issues in drafting the initial proposal for his film music project. 15 16 current musicology table 1: documentary sources for the film music project date comments title of document 1 nov. 1939 general overview of project research program on the relation between music and filmsa 5 dec. 1939 rockefeller foundation music and films: proposed research project by hanns eisler, prepared for the rockefeller foundationb 3 jan. 1940 summary by rockefeller study of music in film productionc foundation 31 jan. 1941 report of expenses for 1940 rockefeller music project report of expensesd may 1941 published in modern music film music-work in progresse 18 8 jan. 1942 report concerning the relationship between music and the project moviesf 15 jan. 1942 summation of project experimental demonstration of (inter-office) music in film production at the new school for social researchg 310ct.l942 final report final report on the film music project on a grant by the rockefeller foundationh undated expenditures 1940-43 statement of expenses hanns eisler-rockefeller music fundi a. typescript in ra with file date november 22,1939. the document accompanied a letter from alvin johnson to john marshall, dated november 1, 1939, ra. published in eisler 1983a:137-40. b. typescript in ra, undated (handwritten on p. 3: "grantto begin feb 1, '39 [sic]"); accompa­ nied letter from johnson to marshall, december 5,1939. published in eisleri983a:142-45. c. "messrs. alvin johnson, eisler, and robin-study of music in film production," inter­ office memo, interviews, january 3, 1940, ra. d. typescript in ra. e. also published in eisler 1983a:146-51. f. typescript attached to letter from johnson to marshall, january 8, 1942. published in eisler 1983a:152-53. g. typescript in ra. h. typescript in ra. published in eisler 1983a:154-58. i. typescript in ra. sally m. a. bick table 1 lists the source documents for the project and includes proposals and progress reports either written by eisler or summarized as a written memo by the office of the rockefeller foundation, as well as the essay published in modern music mentioned above. eisler's initial draft proposal was ambitious and included the following: an examination of the problems in exploiting film scoring techniques, the relation between music and image, the creation of a laboratory to experiment with methods of sound synthesis, and a methodological outline for the investigation. in the latter, eisler sum­ marized the various compositional applications he would use in each of the practical examples with which he illustrated his findings. perhaps the boldest proposition eisler makes is that some modernist music, by which he means, as we learn from other sources, schoenberg's twelve-tone method, is appropriate for film (eisler 1940-41 :251; 1983d: 155). eisler's desire to use these new techniques outside the context of the con­ cert hall is an oblique criticism of bourgeois values (eisler 1940-41:251). music, eisler has proposed, must have a purpose, and the abstract qualities inherent in such music find purpose in film. eisler's goal is to replace what he characterizes as a routine approach to musical style and function with new strategies culled from his research. reacting to the large symphonic sound that dominates hollywood practice, eisler proposes to experiment with smaller ensembles and new instruments such as electric violin or the there min in order to expand existing sounds. it is not surprising that eisler also intends to devote particular attention to the use of vocal music in film since it has been a central forum for his political expression. in fact, eisler had just completed a course at the new school dedicated to this genre. he extends his interest in vocal music to propose the development of filmed opera as a new american form. eisler notes that the standard practice in hollywood productions was to use music to illustrate screen events by mimicking action and the emotional mood. eisler proposes to introduce counterpoint, an oppositional marxist concept related to dialectics. he used it in his previous theater and film productions as a means to reveal contradiction in the dramatic material while obliging audiences to consider those contradictions critically. in es­ sence, music, standing in contrast to the visual meaning, could explain and comment on the narrative.39 eisler also discusses procedures for sound synthesis. by 1939, scientists had developed a technology that, from a set of symbols photographed onto the film, permitted sound on film to be reproduced with precision and clarity. eisler's previous work with tri-ergon had brought him in touch with some of these technical and scientific applications, and he now proposes that a laboratory be set up to investigate these possibilities. in essence, eisler's 17 18 current musicology goal was to refine the technology so that composers could impose those symbols directly on the film and thereby avoid the step of recording with live musicians. eisler anticipates the procedures adopted by post-world war ii composers like karlheinz stockhausen who worked directly with electro-magnetic tape. yet it is ironic that eisler, the political musician who was coined by the american press as "the karl marx of music;' would argue in favor of this technique on economic grounds as "an essential preliminary to the rationalization of production methods in the film and music fields," since adoption of such devices would eliminate musicians in the music mak­ ing process.40 on the surface, eisler's position seems to contradict his earlier critique of a rationalized and administered system dictated by the culture industry. yet already in 1935, eisler had addressed both the advantages and disadvantages of this technology for musicians and projected the potential loss of jobs for the "conductor, the virtuoso and the instrumentalist" (eisler 1978h:lll). in the final segment of the draft proposal, eisler speaks to the necessity of creating a theoretical approach that would address the essential problems discussed above. moreover, these questions become a framework for the practical examination of the results that he also proposes to undertake in the form of musical demonstrations. the theoretical research would eventually culminate in the publication of composing for the films in collaboration with adorno while eisler's demonstrations would form the core of his film music project. these demonstrations were intended to illustrate the various possibilities of scoring film and to test his innovative ideas. finally, in order to facilitate the study of scoring practices, both european and american, eisler wanted to establish a sound-film library. to create a scholarly library for critical research about film was a novel idea for its day. only during the mid-1930s did scholars in the united states begin to consider preserving film and treat it as an art form rather than simply a commercial product. for example, iris barry, curator of film at the museum of modern art in new york, opened a film collection in 1935, among the first of its kind.41 eisler would eventually contact barry in connection with the film music project, and she agreed to cooperate with him in housing the demonstration films he intended to produce.42 already in this initial draft proposal, eisler reveals some of the most important various substantive ideas culled from his past experiences as a composer and writer of film music-namely, the use of modernist musi­ cal practices and a detailed consideration of musical function and sound production in film. the proposal consequently contains the kernels of what would be his most important contributions to the theoretical consideration of film music: the film music project and composing for the films. sally m. a. bick on december 5, 1939, eisler submitted to the rockefeller foundation his final proposal entitled "music and films:' which received approval to start on february i, 1940.43 eisler modified his previous draft by organiz­ ing the study around four semi-annual reports, each ideally preceded by a practical demonstration if the final budget permitted. at each of the public demonstration-lectures, he planned to present six or seven pre-existing two­ to three-minute clips taken from documentaries, newsreels, and commercial feature films for which he would compose new scoring to illustrate alternative possibilities.44 eisler also intended to measure audience reaction through questionnaires. in essence, he seems to have designed the project not only as a critical response to the film industry but in part as praxis, a venue for his own compositional and artistic work. eisler retained most of the ideas cast in his original draft proposal, but he did make one significant omission in the final proposal: the establishment of a laboratory for sound synthesis to investigate some of the technical problems associated with applying sound directly to the film strip, which may have proved too costly. according to the rockefeller documents, eisler was keen to employ a testing device used in connection with the princeton radio research project that could help to establish specific psychological readings from audiences and gauge their musical perception. in fact, eisler had previously relied upon data from audience reaction in his earlier work with tri-ergon.45 the device was a simple box with two buttons-one for favorable, the other for unfavorable responses-and would be connected to a moving tape synchronized with movements of a musical score.46 the positive and negative reactions could then generate a quantifiable response in relation to the musical effects. this was just the kind of empirical data gathering over which adorno and lazarsfeld disagreed, and adorno's rejection of the method, because of its uncritical approach, led to his departure from the princeton radio projecty although marshall expressed some skepticism about the validity of psychological testing, he approved a budget of $500 per year dedicated to measuring audience reaction, which appears in the proposed budgets for 1940-41 and 1941-42.48 on december 22, 1941, eisler disbursed $275 to fund the investigation of audience reaction to dr. joachim schumacher, who is listed as a consultant in eisler's final report.49 it is unclear precisely what schumacher did or how eisler incorporated any of his results into his project since eisler's principal connection with him concerned a book on beethoven sketches on which both men were hoping to collaborate. 50 instead, an ironic and negative statement about the usefulness of empirical methods when applied to audience reception appears in composingfor the films: this attitude points to adorno's own rejection of this type of empirical datay 19 20 current musicology eisler confronts hollywood eisler was not alone in challenging the style, aesthetics, and function of the hollywood film music industry. aaron copland and george antheil, among others, had published their own critical views. 52 those who argued against hollywood practice, however, were primarily"outsiders" with roots in the art music community. indeed, eisler shared similar prejudices with his american counterparts but as a european marxist his perspective distanced him even more. and though eisler had visited some of the studios, he had not yet worked in hollywood as a composer, a position that may have weakened his critical authority. as an outsider, he was not intimately familiar with the practical expectations of the system-working under its commercial pres­ sures, writing for short deadlines, and appeasing film directors and music supervisors-a context that copland explicitly describes only after his own direct experiences in hollywood.53 consequently, eisler's discussion seems naive at times in its goal to influence the closed community of hollywood with its institutional rigidity and administrative authority, an issue that he and adorno would later fully address in composing for the films. eisler's naivete reveals itself already during the early stages of his investigation. in order to proceed with the analysis and re-composition of the various hollywood feature film clips proposed for the demonstrations, he needed to obtain permission and seek special materials from the studios involved. what he required was not simply the film in its final form but rather the visual materials and their separate accompanying soundtracks in order to re-apply new underscoring for the films themselves. initially, eisler was able to obtain one donald duck film from the disney studios, but not in the form he needed. to solicit other examples, marshall advised eisler to go to hollywood and meet with leo rosten of the motion picture research project in order to obtain the materials he needed. 54 by 1941, however, eisler was successful in obtaining sequences from the grapes of wrath and long voyage home, two films directed by john ford (eisler 1940-41:253-54). nevertheless, in the final report, hollywood feature films are not well repre­ sented. the "report on the film music project" in the appendix to composing for the films cites only the grapes of wrath. 55 yet, this picture is atypical and unprecedented for hollywood standards because it employed camera techniques and a style that was characteristic of documentary film (wolfe 1995:382). for the most part, eisler had to rely on clips from documentary films, particularly by filmmakers with whom he had already worked closely. 56 eisler also used newsreels, which presented a similar problem because they are considered a specialized category of documentary film. 57 because the study responded primarily to hollywood practice, these choices appear to be somewhat problematic and artificial. 58 sally m. a. bick such choices placed limitations on the scope and force of eisler's argu­ ments particularly since many american composers including copland, virgil thomson, and others had already provided innovative scores for documentary films that exploited modernist musical styles.59 still, by the early 1940s these composers had very limited influence and found it difficult to convince hollywood that a contemporary idiom and a more progressive style could function under the pressure 6f industry values and standards.60 consequently, the documentary or documentary-like film clips eisler used as examples were not particularly pertinent to the conditions and special­ ized needs of hollywood film scores. although eisler acknowledged his dependency upon non -hollywood productions, he nevertheless denied its limitations for the study (eisler 1947:139). in spring 1941, eisler published an article in modern music outlining his progress on the film music project (eisler 1940-41). this document appears to be the only substantive statement he made in the course of the project. 61 unlike his initial proposals of 1939 to johnson and marshall, this document refocuses his intentions from an overview of film music practice to a direct response to hollywood (eisler 1940-1941 :251). eisler demonstrates the viability of new musical materials by exploiting its most severe expression, the "complicated" (as eisler puts it) twelve-tone techniques of schoenberg. by 1941, most american composers and musicians did not fully understand schoenberg's method nor appreciate the musical possibilities associated with row composition.62 moreover, such difficult music did not coincide with the values espoused by hollywood's commercial enterprise, which appealed to audiences through recognizable musical styles-music that the industry felt was tried and true.63 eisler, however, had already demonstrated the effective­ ness of twelve-tone music by using it exclusively in scores he created for the american documentary films 400 million and the living soil, which were well received by audiences who were unaware of the presence of the style. as eisler revealed, "apparently advanced musical material, which average concert -goers may find indigestible and non-relevant, when applied to films loses something of this forbidding quality" (eisler 1940-41:251). eisler also addresses two recent hollywood films in this report: long voyage home and the grapes of wrath, originally scored by richard hageman and alfred newman, respectively. in re-scoring both films, eisler's goal is to avoid the sentimentality, commonly exploited in hollywood, that encourages audience identification and emotive responses. instead, eisler prescribes counterpoint in a sailor's death scene from long voyage home to create music that evokes the hysteria, fear, and struggle of death rather than its characterization as a somber emotional event. in the grapes of wrath, eisler emphasizes the heroic aspects of the epic struggle of the joad family 21 22 current musicology to reach california, although he gives no musical details about his scoring strategy here. what we can understand from these two examples is that for eisler the underscoring should avoid appealing to the immediate emotive qualities inherent in the narrative or dramatic situation, and instead should seek to express alternative values linked to the larger narrative or symbolic goals of a film. 64 on january 29, 1942, the rockefeller foundation approved a nine-month extension of the project (through november 1, 1942) in order for eisler to complete compositional and recording elements that were lagging behind.65 eisler had experienced problems in obtaining studio films and soundtracks, and these difficulties, combined with setbacks in recording, prevented him from finishing the necessary work within the original two-year period set by the foundation. despite these delays, eisler was able to mount a demonstra­ tion in april 1942 in los angeles and anticipated another for january 1943 for a wider group at the academy of motion pictures.66 brecht attended a showing of the film regen with, as he recounts in his journal, "taut music" (brecht 1993:223). eisler also listed significant expenses under the rubric "2 demonstrations" in his final accounting to the rockefeller foundation, which suggests that two such demonstrations took place.67 the foundation recognized some of the potential limitations in eisler's project. john marshall remarked, "with the practice of film production as rigidly controlled as it is, it may be too much to hope that eisler's findings will be utilized in hollywood. on the other hand, we may be surprised in this point, for eisler has considerable prestige and if his work should succeed in impressing someone in authority in hollywood, it might gain unanticipated effect there."68 eisler engaged a number of consultants for the film music project, including adorno, brecht, charlie chaplin, clurman, fritz lang, odets, seeger and schoenberg.69 all close friends of eisler, some of them had achieved considerable success in hollywood. it seemed likely that they would help to generate interest in eisler's work among the wider professional film community, and in fact, by december 1942, eisler was already engaged to write the music for lang's film hangmen also die.70 two versions of the final report on the film music project exist. the first is a typescript, eventually published as part of eisler's complete works, and the second, written at a later date, forms the appendix of composing for the films.71 the early version is schematic in nature, outlining the three constituent stages of the project. the first, entitled "practical section," simply lists the music eisler composed for various film sequences and the collaborators on the recordings, while "methods employed in each selection" describes the musical treatments more fully under the headings "musical methods" and "dramaturgical methods." in the final "theoretical section;' sally m. a. sick eisler gives a list of topics of investigation without going into the substance of each, which he defers to a detailed treatment in a book to be published by oxford university press. and in fact, this final report constitutes an outline for the book itself and includes topics such as the use of advanced musical material (twelve-tone technique), adaptation of small chamber ensembles, dramatic treatment in relation to musical illustration, the implications of "neutralization" and the study of "sound stripe," as well as the relationship between music and picture. although the film music project in itself had limited influence on the industry at the time, the substance of the project-including examples from eisler's demonstrations-would form the foundation for composingfor the films, and it was this book that would make a significant mark. published several years after the completion of the study, its appendix contains a revised version of the final report from the film music project. in the book version, eisler (and adorno) include a retrospective introduction. here, the authors describe the study as experimental because they position their musical solutions outside hollywood's commercial influences and instead make the case that the study is simply considering possibilities or "poten­ tialities" rather than fixed solutions. there is some irony in these goals. it appears that the authors are presenting a dialectical response to the conflict between ideal solutions and any realistic possibility of altering hollywood practice. this debate reveals a tension between eisler and adorno. eisler had habitually transformed theory into practice, whereas adorno always worked from a utopian perspective, never sullying his ideals with the compromises required by practice. in contrast to eisler's professional situation during the film music project (1940-42), by 1947, when the appendix was eventually published, he had written eight hollywood scores and his critical distance from hollywood practice had obviously changed.72 the appendix, nevertheless, is meant to illustrate many of the conceptual ideas expressed in the main body of composingfor the films. eisler presents compositional materials and short analytical discussions derived from his work on the film music project. perhaps the most impressive contribution in the appendix is the discussion of eisler's score for the film regen, which he contrasts with eisenstein's analysis of a passage from prokofiev's score for eisenstein's own picture alexander nevsky. regen was initially produced in 1929 as a silent film by his close friend the filmmaker joris ivens.73 in 1932, however, composer lou lichtveld created a musical score for it (schebera 1998a:178-79). in the music he provided for the film (entitled fourteen ways of describing rain, op. 70), one movement of which is printed in the appendix, eisler attempts to explore the various dramaturgical possibili­ ties exploiting "the twelve-tone style" (eisler 1947:148). the film's abstract 23 24 current musicology quality, which ivens suggests is "a film of atmosphere," portrays the changing moods that occur in the city of amsterdam during rainfall. according to ivens, the continuity and structure of the film are defined by the natural depiction of rain as a shower begins, progresses, and finally ends. in order to create a range of expressivity and movement, ivens relied on a variety of contrasting visual characterizations established by the rhythmic movement of falling rain captured through contrasting shadings oflight. for example, melancholy effects were expressed through large and heavy, dark pear-shaped drops presented across a window, whereas happiness was portrayed in a spring shower by bright small round droplets, as they would jump against various surfaces (ivens 1969:35-39). the film's plotless narrative links it more closely to a form of avant-garde documentary, though french critics called the film a cinepoeme. when one considers that the film music project and composing for the films were primarily directed towards the hollywood film industry, it is curious that eisler chose regen to exemplify the various musical methods and concepts that he and adorno discuss in the book's previous chapters. however, because the picture originally contained neither titles nor sound, music could emerge as a central voice shaping the impact of ivens' film. consequently, eisler employed a range of musico-dramatic possibilities that included close detailed synchronization-as in the parallelism associated with mickey-mouse techniques and other illustrative procedures-and the more extreme and contrasting effects of counterpoint (eisler 1947:148). in considering eisler's score to the film regen and its thematic narrative, eisler was able to exploit the repeated short visual segments as a means to demonstrate the importance of small forms and structural unity between film and music, and so the film's structure provided an aesthetically ideal framework for the formal organization of the music. eisler conceived the score for regen as a variation, allowing the periodic and episodic form of the music to coincide with the visual structure of the film. for this reason the film was suited to the use of twelve-tone methods because unlike tonal music, in which the harmonic procedures that help to define the formal properties require spans of time to achieve tonal fulfillment, a row piece does not depend upon periodization because those tonal relationships simply do not exist. eisler believed that smaller forms, like variation, could provide a more precise relationship between music and film on architectonic grounds since he felt that the formal strategies of thematic development used, for example, in nineteenth-century works become irrelevant to the quickly changing moods inherent in montage. eisler's own commentary concerning regen in the appendix provides only a limited discussion, much of it outlining the pictorial events on screen. sally m. a. bick however, he does discuss the score's motivic detail. eisler maintains that he is trying to achieve freedom from larger structural musical paradigms seen in traditional autonomous works, yet he retains the surface details of motif, variation, repetition, transition, and conclusion without having to depend upon the formal properties intrinsic to the process of tonality. he thus succeeds in connecting the structure of the variation form with the structure of the film itself and its progressive events on screen. perhaps regen's appeal to eisler was in part due to the melancholy character of the film, which provided a discreet politically symbolic theme for eisler. years later, when eisler was interviewed by hans bunge, he related the sorrowful character of the film's mood and his musical conception as a metaphoric theme of the twentieth century. i do not want to say that the crucial theme of the 20th century is, shall we say, the anatomy of sorrow-or the anatomy of melancholy. but that too may present itself in a work of music .... fourteen ways in which one can be acceptably sorrowful. (bunge 1970:16 and betz 1982:178) fourteen ways of describing rain is dedicated to arnold schoenberg. eisler's homage to his teacher is expressed not only by the piece's twelve-tone style, but also in other ways. the motif of melancholy as depicted in the film's mood and character suggests a connection to schoenberg's 1912 chamber piece pierrot lunaire, op. 21. schoenberg wrote pierrot as a melodrama that interpolates musical interludes with extended monologues, with the result that the music is integrally connected to its text. eisler creates a parallel relationship by equally integrating music and image within the medium of film. but he also borrows more concretely from pierrot by employing the same instrumentation (flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano). he makes a further tribute to his teacher by beginning and ending fourteen ways of describing rain with a "cadenza-like 'monogram'" outlining schoenberg's initials (eisler 1947:148). eisler considered the chamber instrumentation ideal for a film score. after 1932, he recognized that sound technology had improved to such an extent that composers no longer needed to place limitations on the types of instruments that could be used in recording. yet, because hollywood film scores were crafted in a manner that more often subordinated the music to screen events, and not directly heard by the "spectator," eisler felt it superflu0us to compose a score of dense texture, since he believed audiences could only absorb so much at anyone given moment (eisler 1947:104-5). this was a particularly important concept for eisler to exemplify in his project, because he saw that hollywood's conventionalized orchestration produced a standardized sound that in turn contributed to its neutralization. instead, 25 26 current musicology the economy of the musical resources used in film scores such as regen creates sharp and well-defined articulations that allowed for a more severe expression. furthermore, eisler points out that nothing superfluous has been retained (eisler 1947:152). like copland in his 1939 hollywood score for of mice and men, eisler emphasizes the timbres of the flute and clarinet within the more intimate chamber textures to achieve an effective contrast with the monotonous and blurred effects of hollywood's standardized orchestrations.74 eisler and adorno offer, as a counter example, a detailed rebuttal of eisenstein's analysis of a sequence from his film alexander nevsky. in a famous detailed pictorial/musical graph, eisenstein shows shot-by-shot, bar-by-bar the interrelationship between prokofiev's music and the image. the two-minute sequence represented on the diagram is taken from a scene preceding the "battle on the ice" that conveys a mood of intensity in anticipa­ tion of the battle. similar to a musical score, the layers on eisenstein's graph are shown to produce various strong and weak metrical accents established both by the duration of the shot and the duration of the music (accents are produced by the movement of light, graphic pictorial figures or gestural movements, dramatic content or any filmic element that restricts the inertia of the film). as the eye moves across the pictorial shot we are meant to see a direct correspondence between the visual movement and the musical articulation, or as eisenstein suggests, "exactly the same motion lies at the base of both the musical and the plastic structures" (eisenstein 1942:175). consequently, stronger, more intensive moments are established when the visual and sonic accents are produced coincidentally. the authors begin by exploring the idea of rhythm, which they believe is largely a metaphorical concept within the filmic image. according to adorno and eisler, eisenstein's diagram relies on a static image (i.e., in its photographed state, one frame) in relation to musical notation (rather than music as realized in performance or sound). the example cannot truly present the precise correspondence that eisenstein had in mind because the media in question (music and film) are dependent upon motion in time. in one image (shot v), for example, eisenstein presents a steeply graded slope that is accompanied by a descending quarter-note triad. because the music functions in motion and the picture is static, the authors argue that synchronization between the music and the image is vague at best. moreover, the triadic musical formulation is so nondescript and presented as such that the spectator has no reason to associate the score directly with the image of the heroic presentation that was intended (eisler 1947:153-54). another inconsistency in the diagram relates to prokofiev's use of repeated musical gestures. here, eisler and adorno note that the musical sally m. a. sick underscoring repeats while the image track changes perspective as it pro­ gresses from a medium shot (panoramic) to a close-up. the authors contend that the music does not develop similarly alongside the image track. yet eisenstein purports to have worked in close collaboration with prokofiev in order to establish calculated synchronous vertical correspondences within the audiovisual elements: there are sequences in which the shots were cut to a previously recorded music-track. there are sequences for which the entire piece of music was written to a final cutting of the picture. there are sequences that contain both approaches. (eisenstein 1942: 158) in fact, eisler and adorno raise the point that film music rather than im­ age tends to be by nature more dynamic.75 image only indirectly creates the appearance of motion and relies far more on the musical score to give it motivation (eisler 1947:78). yet, in the alexander nevsky example, prokofiev's underscoring functions impassively as a timekeeper, while the image transforms and develops (eisler 1947:155). eisler and adorno close their discussion by showing that eisenstein's model is too specific, dogmatic, and inconstant, and even go so far as to suggest that his analysis moves within "a sphere of high-sounding aes­ thetic arguments." they express further disappointment with the banality of prokofiev's underscoring, describing it as "harmless" and composed "without much effort" -a piece that exemplifies conventional tactics in a style that is "ineffective" (eisler 1947:157). eisler's writings and the film music project constitute one of the most astute examinations of hollywood musical practice for its time. unlike most american contemporary writings of the period that provide little analytical engagement, eisler in contrast, presents a highly critical account that offers new possibilities for the medium by integrating practice within a social, political, and aesthetic framework. while eisler was framing this critique, simultaneously, he also hoped to exploit the film music project and the exposure he gained from it to obtain work in hollywood as a film composer. in april 1942, he moved to hollywood, completing the project by the following november. during that period, however, the pressure to finish the project, to find work as a film composer (in which by the fall he succeeded), and to begin his promised book-length study for oxford university press led him to seek a collaborator in order to see the project through to its intended book publication.76 although the evidence suggests that he might have initially asked his friend bertolt brecht, who had arrived in hollywood only six months before eisler, in the end, he approached adorno. with the weight of the film music project to provide the founda27 28 current musicology tion for their collaborative work and a contract with oxford university press in hand, adorno was extremely pleased to oblige.77 eisler could now provocatively expand his initial ideas as outlined in the film music project, moving beyond the practical footing he enunciated in his reports to place the study on a wider critical plane. notes 1. see most recently bick 2001:104-8,135-42; adorno 2002:365-71; gall 2006:155-82. 2. eisler's experiences in film reflect his values that music must take on a social purpose. his direct experience is described in "blast-furnace music: work on a sound film in the soviet union" (eisler 1978c); on music's social purpose including film, see "the crisis in music" (eisler 1978i). 3. letter from alvin johnson (director of the new school for social research) to john marshall (rockefeller foundation), july 8,1940, music filming 1939-1941, series 200, box 259, folder 3095, rockefeller archive center, sleepy hollow, new york (hereafter ra). the letter includes a biographical sketch of eisler and makes reference to this tour, stating, "lord marley, m.p., invited eisler to make concert-lectures in the united states, for the aid of the saar children refugees, at that time settled in france. this was unpaid, charity job." on lord marley and the world committee for the victims of german fascism, see taylor 2007 and koch 1995: 65-66. 4. the official adoption of the popular front took place in moscow during the seventh comintern congress, august 1935. at that time the soviet union would embrace an anti­ fascist coalition with socialist and left-wing organizations as well as bourgeois democrats. see claudin 1975:171-207. on the implications ofthis change in the united states, see schrecker 1998:14-25. on the shift from a united to popular front in relation to eisler's cultural activi­ ties, see willet 1995:84. miinzenberg was able to recruit many renowned intellectuals and artists in his anti-fascist cause; see mcmeekin 2003:280. eisler also proclaims the agenda of his trip in one of the lectures he gave during the tour, declaring "we cannot conduct such struggles alone, but must form an alliance with those sections of the people who suffer under this order of society and who are combating it. that is an alliance of the progressive intellectuals, scholars, doctors, engineers, artists and the working class. the composer must understand once and for all that this alliance alone will provide the guarantee of bringing order into the chaos in music:' see eisler 1978h:113. 5. many european intellectuals adopted the term "the crisis in culture:' referring to the social failings of capitalism. see rose 1978: 1-7. eisler's lecture "the crisis in music" was originally issued by the downtown music school in new york for publication in music vanguard (april 1935), and was edited by charles seeger. on january 1, 1936, the left-wing paper the nation reported on a symposium presented at town hall on "the crisis in music." aaron copland, hanns eisler, and henry cowell shared the podium to speak on the subject. see washington, library of congress, copland collection, box 219/folder 56, "music: a bright evening, with musicians:' the nation (january 1, 1936),27. 6. according to betz (1982: 143-47), aaron copland, george gershwin, and cowell helped to sponsor eisler's 1935 tour. eisler's lecture was considered a kind of manifesto for a number of american proletarian composers, particularly marc blitzstein. on eisler's reception and influence on american proletarian composers as well as a musical description of his lecture sally m. a. sick concerts in new york, see oja 1989:452-53. eisler's speeches for the tour are published as "address to a solidarity concert;' translated into english by elie siegmeister, in eisler 1978a:69-73, and mayer 1985:266-71. eisler expresses his impressions of america in ''a letter to ernst hermann meyer dated mar. 14, 1935;"''amusical journey through america;" and "hollywood seen from the left;' in eisler 1978a:74-75, 82-94, and 101-5, respectively. german editions of ''address to a solidarity concert;" ''a musical journey through america;" and "hollywood seen from the left," are newly published in eisler 2007:238-40, 255-66, and 270-74, respectively. 7. henry cowell's wife sidney remembers eisler's 1935 visit to new york. her recollections of this visit are recorded in an undated document she prepared for the new york public library; new york, new york public library, henry cowell collection, box 73, folder "political and communist stuff." 8. eisler prepared ''a musical journey through america;' for a radio broadcast in strasbourg on june 7, 1935 during the first international workers' music olympiad. according to grabs, eisler's broadcast transmission was abruptly cut when he discussed the brutal working condi­ tions of the workers at the ford motor company (eisler 1978f:94). 9. eisler 1978f:91. years later, david raksin echoed eisler's observations regarding the assembly-line technique used in hollywood, though without the humorous socialist per­ spective (raksin 1989:167-81). 10. the potential success strategies of a hit song to which eisler refers are taken up in adorno's article "on popular music;' under "recognition and acceptance," "plugging" and "structural standardization." in the article, adorno suggests that "hits" retain similarities from one song to the next as predigested material so that the audience expends little effort in listening, recognition and acceptance; see adorno and simpson 1941:17-48. leppert evaluates the article in adorno 2002:336-48. 11. eisler 1978g: 1 03. oscar levant reports the comments of nat finston, the music director of mgm studios during the 1930s, in the same vein. finston described his department as "a well-oiled machine. every man a cog in the wheel:' levant, who was seeking work as a composer, responded, "my greatest desire in life at this moment is to be a cog in the wheel." see levant 1940:111; also kashner and schoenberger 1994:134-35. 12. palmer 1990:27-28 and levant 1941:101. 13. cowell met eisler in europe in 1930 and respected the composer greatly. during eisler's 1935 tour, he brought him to the composers' collective where he met charles seeger. both cowell and seeger had a close association with the new school of social research, and seeger insisted that eisler teach there during the following winter. see cowell collection, correspondence charles seeger to henry cowell, "western union may 1935 telegram;' box 163 no. 11, nypl: "i want eisler to give a course at the new school saturday afternoons next winter, would not conflict with our courses because would be financed by a group of backers through scholarship students, please wire miss mayer wednesday as follows: i concur with seeger on proposed eisler course, charles seeger." 14. new school for social research, bulletin 1935-36:58-59. eisler had attained international notoriety for his mass songs or militant kampflieder in the fight for socialism. 15. in april 1933 only a few months after the nazis tookpower, the so-called law for the reconstitution of the civil service was sanctioned, requiring the dismissal of all jewish employees working in governmental positions. this affected not only those working in government offices but an entire range of employees in education and the arts. though it took several years before this law and others like it took full effect, within certain quarters 29 30 current musicology there was immediate action. see kater 1997:75-87. key musical figures such as arnold schoenberg, professor at the akademie der kiinste, bruno walter, jascha horenstein and otto klemperer, among others, were asked to leave their positions and cancel concerts or risk audience disruption and personal attack. schoenberg and walter immediately left the country. eisler, who was already out of the country, was not to return. the government was particularly suspicious of eisler because he was jewish, a modernist, and a political bolshevik (hinton 1993:102). 16. on his early american films cores, see schebera 1998:74-78 and betz 1982:170-72; betz also includes eisler's filmography, 1982:305-9. 17.400 million premiered on march 7,1939; see schoots 2000:150; and ivens 1969:180. 18. these films included komsomol (1932) and new earth (1933). 19. the film premiered at the world's fair exhibition in new york on may 22,1939. losey developed some important technical innovations for the applications of sound on film; see caute 1994:67. 20.a child went forth was an eighteen-minute educational propaganda film on the principles associated with progressive education filmed at the nell goldsmith nursery camp and featured children aged two to seven years. eisler discusses scenes from it in eisler 1947: 141-44. see also caute 1994:65-66; and losey 1968:189-90. on the living land, see helbing 1998: 523-33. eisler discusses the living land briefly in 1947: 144; see also ciment 1985:55-59. 21. though undated and unidentified, a proposal to oxford press is published in eisler's complete works. it outlines a project concerning the contemporary composer within the context of more general social trends.eisler 1985c:469-70. 22. letter from johnson to marshall, october 13, 1939, in which johnson says, "will you let me come to see you to plead the case for a subvention to hanns eisler for the research going into a book on modern music;' ra. 23. letter from johnson to marshall, november 1, 1939, ra. 24. from john marshall, inter-office correspondence, november 2, 1939, subject "alvin johnson's letter of november 1st about hanns eisler;' ra. 25. letter from johnson to marshall, november 16, 1939, ra. 26. letter from johnson to marshall, july 8, 1940, ra. johnson provides a description of eisler's interrogation by the state department's immigration authorities, stating, "the fact that he [eisler 1 is here is proof that nothing was found that could stand against him:' see also helbing 1998:53l. 27. federal bureau of investigation, freedom of information website, hanns eisler, http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindexleisler.htm. see also schebera 1978:70-76. 28. letter from johnson to marshall, november 1, 1939, ra. documents accompanying the letter include "hanns eisler's work as composer for the films;' pp. 1-3; and "research program on the relation between music and films;' pp. 4-9. also letters from marshall to johnson, november 13 and 20,1939, ra. harry robin, who had worked closely on sound during the production of pete roleum and his cousins, helped eisler on the applications. robin had also received a rockefeller grant in support of his post-graduate work. he would eventually assist eisler on the film music project; see letter from harry robin to johannes gall, new school of social research, archive files, folder: hanns eisler; and betz 1982: 172. 29. on adorno's working relationship with lazarsfeld and his contributions to the radio project, see leppert's commentary in adorno 2002:213-33. adorno left the project in apsally m. a. bick proximately 1940 (leppert shows discrepancies in the sources regarding the date of his departure), after the rockefeller foundation terminated the funding for the music research portion of lazarsfeld's project. the foundation was unhappy with adorno's unwillingness to work within the empirical methods set out by lazarsfeld. 30. letter from lazarsfeld to marshall, january 2, 1940, ra. lazarsfeld's comment, "that he would be easier to handle than adorno:' is in reference to lazarsfeld's differences with adorno working on the princeton radio project. on the dispute, see adorno 2002:214-18; and jenemann 2007:48-50. 31. see heilbut 1983: 187. heilbut also states that eisler's abilities to interpret social situations was more sophisticated than adorno's, "since he [eisler] could be as suave a dialectician as adorno and much more pithy, his writings offer something special, the inside view of a professional who is able to explore the social implications of phenomena that other refugee musicians were satisfied simply to behold:' heilbut 1983:153. ernst bloch commented in may 1973, "i got to know him as a man who could formulate ideas with the greatest liveli­ ness, wit and precision, utterly exceptional in this precision:' quoted in betz 1982:261 n. 55. david blake states, "it is well known that eisler was a master of the art of self-contradiction, using non-sequitur, change of tack and playing devil's advocate in a brilliantly ironic way in an attempt to look at a problem from every angle, to expose it fully to the gaze of his interlocutor. for an ordinary person to take part in this, let alone keep up with the pace and fully appreciate the wide range of references, which his enormous reading threw out, was wonderfully stimulating, and exhausting" (1995:462). 32. among those with whom eisler was in touch during the project was burris-meyer, who was involved in acoustical issues related to sound and theater. in questions related to non­ musical effects, eisler would consult him. see inter-office memo from marshall, january 3, 1940,ra. 33. letter from theodor w. adorno to walter benjamin, may 4, 1938, in adorno 1999:59. 34. adorno hoped to publish the work he accomplished on the princeton radio project, which had been funded by the rockefeller foundation, in a prospective book entitled current of music. according to robert hullot-kentor, who published a reconstruction of current of music, adorno's book proposal was rejected by paul vaudrin, the publisher (and eisler's publisher) at oxford press because of its scholarly language; see adorno 2006:55. 35. letter from johnson to marshall, december 5,1939, ra; letter from adorno to vaudrin (oxford press), june 13, 1946, in los angeles, feuchtwanger memorial library, special col­ lections, university of southern california, hanns eisler collection, correspondence a-z, adorno (hereafter fml), which states, "the whole book has originated from mr. eisler's project and his contract was based on the idea that he should give an account of the project­ something which, incidentally, is doubtless expected by a large number of experts, and people interested in mr. eisler's practical work in the movies, and as a composer in general." 36. in 1935, for example, the rockefeller foundation began to invest in studies related to radio and motion pictures. see http://www.rockfound.orgiaboucus/historyi1930_1939.shtml. 37 on the departure of eisler's german colleagues to hollywood see heilbut 1983. in 1935, the united states government initiated a program (works progress administration, wpa) to aid americans who were out of work during the depression. by june 1939, the wpa received cuts to its program when it was transferred to the federal works agency and by 1943 it was officially terminated. many of these programs funded arts and theater initiatives (dehart 1967). 31 32 current musicology 38. preliminary proposal, "hanns eisler's work as composer for the films," ra (eisler 1983b); also eisler 1978. 39. eisler presents the idea of counterpoint in his proposal but describes the concept more fully in eisler 1978j. 40. eisler, "research program on the relationship between music and films:' 1983a:140. 41. on the establishment of film as an art form and the development of american collections, see decherney 2005: 97-160. decherney devotes considerable discussion to iris barry's role in this development and her efforts at the museum of modern art in new york. 42. letter from iris barry to marshall, january 4, 1940, ra. 43. letter from norma s. thompson to johnson, january 23, 1940, ra. the letter reports that at the meeting of the executive committee, the project was approved. 44. inter-office memo, january 3,1940, ra. from the "rockefeller music project report of expenses" and the "statement of expenses:' it would seem that recordings were undertaken in july 1940, editing took place in november of the same year, and the screenings took place at the preview theatre in january 1941. at present, eisler's original audio recordings are lost though johannes gall has discovered some apparently mis-attributed manuscripts housed in the eisler collection at the berlin academie der kunst, which he believes were composed for the film music project demonstrations; see gall:2002:60-77 and 81-103. gall re-recorded and synchronized the musical examples to the existing film clips discussed in the film music project (and in eisler 1947:135-65), piecing together various musical ex­ cerpts from the manuscript scores housed at the archives in berlin. they are available online (http://www.hanns-eisler.com/dvd/index.php?seite=dvdedition&sprache=en) and on the dvd that accompanies his edition of composingfor the films. 45. see note 38 above. 46. inter-office, january 3,1940, ra. 47. ironically, the eisler sources, dated january 3, 1940, coincide with the dates of adorno's departure and the foundation's decision not to continue funding the music division of the princeton radio project. see note 30 above regarding adorno's scholarly methods, the dispute between lazarsfeld and adorno, and adorno's departure from the radio project. 48. inter-office memo, january 3,1940, ra. the budget for 1940-41 appears in a letter from marshall to johnson, january 10, 1940, ra, and allots $500 per year for each of 1940 and 1941. that for 1941-42 appears in a separate document, dated february 1, 1941; it allocates a single amount of $500 and notes that an unexpended amount of $500 has been carried over from the previous year. 49. ''account of rockefeller music project october 27th, 1942:' fml; see also "statement of expenses hanns eisler-rockefeller music fund:' undated (last dated entry is july 17, 1943); and "final report on the film-music project on a grant by the rockefeller foundation:' october 31,1942, ra (eisler 1983e). 50. evidence for this collaboration appears in a book proposal entitled "beethoven's sketch books: an analysis of his creative process:' in eisler 1985b. 51. see eisler 1947:86n12. the authors suggest that audiences would find it difficult to respond to a questionnaire designed to measure their reaction to film music because they were not accustomed to listening directly to the soundtrack. questionnaires and interviews, however, could help determine whether there is actual merit in the industry's prejudice against modern music. sally m. a. bick 52. on copland's publications and critical views about hollywood, see bick 2002. modern music commissioned george antheil to write a regular column dedicated specifically to hollywood film music entitled "on the hollywood front" from november 1936 until june 1939. he provided an insider's view of the industry from the perspective of an art composer and included anecdotal information and pragmatic advice about hollywood's professional musical community. 53. copland's most important and thorough treatment concerning hollywood film music appears in a fifty-eight page written transcript of a lecture delivered in january 1940 at the museum of modern art, immediately following his experiences writing the score for his first hollywood picture of mice and men. in the document, he states "my ideas after having been there [hollywood] were so changed, were so freshened, i got so different a glimpse what the whole thing was about .... " see class 13, department of fine arts-columbia university, museum of modern art, january 10, 1940, new york city, copland collection library of congress, box 211, folder 28 (hereafter moma lecture), 4-5. 54. inter-office correspondence from marshall, april 29, 1940, ra; and letter from leo c. rosten to marshall, july 30,1940, ra. 55. eisler 1947:140. eisler also mentions forgotten village as a feature, but it was made in new york as a documentary. 56. the other pictures eisler cites in the "film music-work in progress" (eisler 1940-41 :25152 and eisler 1983a:147) are: 400 million, theliving soil, and white floods. in the appendix to eisler [and adorno] 1947:140-41, 144-45, he cites the children's camp (from losey's film a child went forth), forgotten village, and nature scenes (from the film the living soil). 57. see doherty 1997:398. 58. on the examples eisler chose for the project, see schebera 1998:79-85. 59. copland wrote the score for the city (1939), directed by ralph steiner and w. van dyke, and virgil thomson's innovative film scores include the plow that broke the plains (1936) and the river (1937), both directed by pare lorentz. louis greenberg wrote the music for pare lorentz's the fight for life (1940). 60. on the innovative documentary scores written by american composers, see cowell 1940-41:176-78. copland's score for of mice and men (1939) was an exception. although it was praised for its contemporary american idiom, his style did not become disseminated in hollywood until the mid-1940s, beginning with the post-war film the best years of our lives, score by hugo friedhofer. see lerner 2001:477-515. 61. in 1947, years after the completion of the project, eisler published his only other public statement about it in "report on the film music project;' the appendix to eisler 1947:135-65. 62. according to aaron copland, for example, most american composers could not separate the method as a compositional approach from schoenberg's high modernist style (cone 1971: 141). only by the mid 1940s did american composers become much more interested in perusing the compositional strategies associated with schoenberg. see bernard 1999:316-17, 351-52; and feisst 2008. 63. few studios could tolerate the possibilities of risk in terms of new developments or experimentation. hollywood composer david raksin points out, "the stakes were so great, in almost all respects (money, prestige, 'the product,' etc.) ... the apprenticeship aspect was manifest in a limited encouragement to experiment (a studio with deadlines to meet can't tolerate too many ineptly calculated risks):' quotation from a letter by david raksin to harold spivacke, music division, library of congress, printed in prendergast 1992:41-42. 33 34 current musicology 64. aaron copland had also recommended that film music be composed in relation to the larger conceptual themes and ideas of the film's narrative (bick 2002:53). 65. inter-office memo, january 29, 1942, ra. 66. see eisler, "final report:' 156. for a published version of the demonstration talk that eisler presumably gave at the university of california in los angeles and later in hollywood, see "contemporary music and the film [ii]:' in eisler 1985a:479-87. in his critical commentary (1985a:478,486), mayer suggests that this document was initially revised from a "first copy" dated october 22, 1943, on the basis of which he proposes that eisler probably presented the lecture-demonstration between early 1944 and the summer of that year. however, mayer's dates are only surmised and not substantiated. i would suggest, rather, that eisler mistakenly wrote 1943 instead of 1942 on the document dated october 22 since he clearly states in the "final report" that one lecture demonstration was "already presented" and another was planned for january 1943. by 1944, eisler had already abandoned the film music project, was well involved in completing composing for the films, and working on the film score for none but the lonely heart. 67. see "account of rockefeller music project october 27th 1942:' under "demonstrations, etc:' $4,278.16, and under "musicians:' $1,362.50,for a total of $5,640.66 or over 25 percent of the total budget; see also "statement of expenses hanns eisler-rockefeller music fund;' undated, where the expenses for two demonstrations are itemized, ra. eisler also confirms in a letter to marshall, november 6, 1942, ra, "it may safely be said that the results of the project have met the keenest interest of the experts here. in december and january i am expected to present the whole material again to a some what larger group of people." eisler also projects this second demonstration for january 1943 at the hollywood academy of motion pictures; see "final report," 156. 68. inter-office correspondence from marshall, january 15, 1942, ra: "experimental dem­ onstration," 2. 69. see eisler 1983e. of these, only brecht ($250) and schoenberg ($300) received payment. schebera asserts that adorno received $300 (1998:82), but the itemized list of expenses from 1944 lists no such payment. see also letter from eisler to marshall, november 6,1942, ra. 70. letter from leon kaplan (partner in the law firm kaplan and livingston) to eisler, december 14, 1942, fml. this letter outlines emendations to the contract with arnold productions for eisler's score for the picture "the unconquered," the working title for hangmen also die. 71. the first exists as a draft typescript with handwritten revisions, fml, and two copies of the final typescript, fml and ra, printed as "final report." eisler later published another version as the appendix to composingfor the films (eisler [and adorno] 1947: 135-58). this version differs somewhat from the first version cited above. 72. betz provides a complete list of eisler's hollywood film scores (1982:307-8). 73. berndt heller establishes that eisler's score is based upon ivens's original 1929 film version and compares it to eisler's musical adaptation for chamber music. his analysis offers a detailed reconstruction of eisler's musical synchronization to the screen image (heller 1998). 74. eisler [and adorno] 1947: 106-7. on copland's use of woodwind techniques in his score for of mice and men, see bick 2005:451. copland spoke at length about the implications of standardized symphonic styles in relation to such hollywood composers as erich wolfgang korngold, max steiner and alfred newman; see moma lecture, 30-34. sally m. a. bick 75. between film and music, david bordwell also agrees stating, "we cannot easily dismiss the premises that we do attribute movement to music, and that this movement can synchronize with our visual perception" (bordwell 1993:188 and kivy 1984:53-57). 76. eisler informed his publisher at oxford university press, paul vaudrin, that adorno would be collaborating on the book publication; see letter from eisler to vaudrin, november 27, 1942, fml: "i wish to inform you of the following development. since many weeks i have been collaborating with mr. adorno. i feel that this collaboration goes so far that it is imperative that dr. adorno should be mentioned as full fledged coauthor on the title page. (by hanns eisler and t. w. adorno) also the royalties will be shared. the status of dr. adornos (sic) coauthorship is not only a matter of honesty but also of expediency because i feel that without his intense collaboration the completion of the book may be considerably delayed or even endangered. please acknowledge the change of the title and 50% share of the royalities." 77. letter from adorno to his parents, december 21,1942, theodorw.adorno (godde and henri, 2006:119). "we have something pleasing to report: hanns eisler, with whom i am on very good terms (and gretel with his very charming wife), and who, as you probably know, is director of the rockefeller film music project, and now has to write a book about it, has asked me to write it together with him. the official confirmation from the publisher (oxford university press) came yesterday, stating that we both have the status of authors and will split the royalities 50:50. as i had made preparations long in advance, i will be able to manage it comfortably in my spare time. i think it will be a very substantial external success. eisler is being extremely loyal. fond regards once again!" adorno's emphasis. his reference to having made preparations long ago is probably related to the unpublished work he accomplished on lazarsfeld's princeton radio project. references archival sources los angeles, ca, feuchtwanger memorial library, hanns eisler collection, correspondence a-z, special collections, university of southern california (= fml) account of rockefeller music project october 27th, 1942. final report on the film-music project on a grant by the rockefeller foundation. oct. 31, 1942. letter from theodor adorno to paul vaudrin. june 13, 1946. letter from hanns eisler to paul vaudrin. nov. 27, 1942. letter from leon kaplan to hanns eisler. dec. 14, 1942. new york, ny, new school for social research, archive files letter from harry robin to johannes gall. folder: hanns eisler. new york, ny, new york public library, henry cowell papers (= hcp) correspondence charles seeger to henry cowell. western union may 1935 telegram. box 163, no. 11. cowell, sidney. memoir. box 73, folder "political and communist stuff." sleepy hollow, ny, rockefeller archive center (= ra) music filming 1939-1941, series 200, box 259, folder 3095 budget 1941-42. feb. 1, 1941. 35 36 current musicology eisler, hanns. hanns eisler's work as composer for the films. ---. research program on the relation between music and films. inter-office correspondence from john marshall. nov. 2, 1939; jan. 3, apr. 29, 1940. letter from iris barry to john marshall. jan. 4, 1940. letters from alvin johnson to john marshall. oct. 13, nov. 1, 16, dec. 5, 1939; july 8, 1940. letter from paul lazarsfeld to john marshall, jan. 2, 1940. letters from john marshall to alvin johnson. nov. 13,20,1939; jan. lo, 1940. letter from leo c. rosten to john marshall. july 30, 1940. letter from norma s. thompson to alvin johnson. jan. 23,1940. rockefeller music project report of expenses for 1940. jan. 31,1941. new school for social research music filming 1942-1962, series 200, box 260, folder 3090 inter-office correspondence from john marshall. experimental demonstration of music in film production at the new school for social research. jan. 15, 1942. inter-office memo, rockefeller foundation. jan. 29, 1942. final report on the film-music project on a grant by the rockefeller foundation. oct. 31, 1942. letter from hanns eisler to john marshall. nov. 6,1942. statement of expenses hanns eisler-rockefeller music fund. undated. washington, library of congress, music division, aaron copland collection (= cclc) writings and oral presentations: writings by aaron copland: lectures and speeches copland, aaron. class 13, department of fine arts-columbia university, museum of modern art, lo january 1940, new york city. box 211, folder 28. writings and oral presentations: writings by others: about aaron copland: articles music: a bright evening, with musicians. the nation (january 1, 1936), p. 27. box 219, folder 56. books and articles adorno, theodor w. 1999. the complete correspondence, 1928-40: theodor w: adorno and walter benjamin, edited by henri lonitz, translated by nicholas walker. cambridge: polity press. ---. 2002. essays on music, edited by richard leppert, translated by susan h. gillespie. berkeley, los angeles and london: university of california press. ---. 2006a. current of music: elements of a radio project, edited by robert hullot -kentor. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. ---. 2006b. letters to his parents: 1939-1951, edited by christoph g6dde and henri lonitz, translated by wieland hoban. cambridge: polity press. adorno, theodor, and george simpson. 1941. on popular music. studies in philosophy and social science 9:17-48; reprinted in adorno 2002:437-69. betz, albrecht. 1982. hanns eisler: political musician, translated by bill hopkins. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. bick, sally m. a. 2001. composers on the cultural front: aaron copland and hanns eisler in hollywood. phd dissertation, yale university. ---. 2002. copland on hollywood. in copland connotations: studies and interviews, edited by peter dickinson, 39-54. rochester, ny: the boydell press. ---.2005. of mice and men: copland, hollywood, and american musical modernism. american music 23:426-72. sally m. a. bick blake, david. 1995. recollections. in hanns eisler: a miscellany, edited by david blake, 453-66. contemporary music studies, 9. luxembourg and new york: harwood academic publishers. bordwell, david. 1993. the cinema of eisenstein. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. brecht, bertolt. 1993. journals, edited by john willett, translated by hugh rorrison. london and new york: routledge. bunge, hans. 1970. fragen sie mehr uber brecht: hanns eisler im gespriich. munich: rogner & bernhard. caute, david. 1994. joseph losey: a revenge on life. london: faber. ciment, michel. 1985. conversations with losey. london: methuen. claudin, fernando. 1975. the communist movement: from comintern to cominform. new york: monthly review press. cowell, henry. 1940-41. the league's evening of films. modern music 18: 176-78. decherney, peter. 2005. hollywood and the culture elite: how the movies became american. new york: columbia university press. dehart, jane sherron. 1967. the federal theatre, 1935-39: plays, relief, and politics. princeton, nj: princeton university press. doherty, thomas. 1997. documenting the 1940s. in history of theamerican cinema, 6: boom and bust: the american cinema in the 1940s, edited by thomas schatz, 397-421. new york: charles scribner's sons. eisenstein, sergei. 1942. the film sense, edited and translated by jay leyda. new york: harcourt, brace and co. eisler, hanns. 1940-41. film music-work in progress" modern music 18: 250-54; eisler 1983a: 146-51. ---. 1978a. a rebel in music: selected writings, edited by manfred grabs, translated by marjorie meyer. new york: international publishers. ---. 1978b. the builders of a new music culture. in eisler 1978a:36-58. ---. 1978c. blast-furnace music: work on a sound film in the soviet union. in eisler 1978a:61-63. ---. 1978d. address to a solidarity concert, translated by elie siegmeister. in eisler 1978a:69-73; eisler 1985a:266-71; eisler 2007:238-40. ---. 1978e. a letter to ernst hermann meyer dated mar. 14, 1935. in eisler 1978a:74-75. ---. 1978f. a musical journey through america. in eisler 1978a:82-94; eisler 2007:255-66. ---. 1978g. hollywood seen from the left. in eisler 1978a:101-5; eisler 2007:270-74. ---. 1978h. some remarks on the situation of the modern composer. in eisler 1978a:106-13. ---. 1978i. the crisis in music. in eisler 1978a: 114-20. ---. 1978j. from my practical work: on the use of music in sound film. in eisler 1978a:121-25. ---. 1983a. musik und politik: schriften addenda, edited by gunter mayer. hanns eisler gesammelte werke, ser. 3, no. 3. leipzig: veb deutscher verlag fur musik. ---. 1983b. work as composer for the films. in eisler 1983a:134-37. ---. 1983c. research program on the relationship between music and films. in eisler 1983a:137-40. ---. 1983d. report concerning the project: the relationship between music and the movies. in eisler 1983a:152-53. 37 38 current musicology ---. 1983e. final report on the film-music project on a grant by the rockefeller foundation. in eisler 1983a:154-58. ---. 1985a. musik und politik: schriften 1924-1948. 2nd ed., edited by gunter mayer. hanns eisler gesammelte werke, ser. 3, no. 1. leipzig: veb deutscher verlag fur musik. ---. 1985b. beethoven's sketch books: an analysis of his creative process. in eisler 1985a:429-33. ---. 1985c. why is modern music so difficult to understand? oxford university press, london and new york. in eisler 1985a:469-70. ---. 1985d. contemporary music and the film [ii]. in eisler 1985a:479-87. ---.2007. gesammelte schriften 1921-1935, edited by tobias fasshauer and gunter mayer. hanns eisler gesamtausgabe, ser. 9, schriften, 1.1. wiesbaden, leipzig and paris: breitkopf and hartel. eisler hanns, [and theodor adorno]. 1947. composing for the films. new york: oxford university press. gall, johannes c. 2002. hanns eislers musik zu sequenzen aus 'the grapes of wrath.' eine unbeachtete filmpartitur." archiv fiir musikwissenschaft 59:60-77, 81-103. ---. 2006. modelle fur den befreiten musikalischen film. in theodor w. adorno and hanns eisler, komposition fiir den film, edited by johannes c. gall, 155-82. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. heilbut,anthony. 1983. exiled in paradise: german refugee artists and intellectuals in america, from the 1930s to the present. new york: viking press. helbing, volker. 1998. hanns eisler's contribution to the new deal: 'the living land' (1941). historical journal of film, radio and television 18:523-33. heller, berndt. 1998. the reconstruction of eisler's film music: opus iii, regen and the circus. historical journal of film, radio and television 18:541-59. hinton, stephen. 1993. germany, 1918-45. in modern times: from world war i to the present, edited by robert p. morgan, 83-110. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. ivens, joris. 1969. the camera and i. new york: international publishers. jenemann, david. 2007. adorno in america. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. kashner, sam, and nancy schoenberger. 1994. a talent for genius: the life and times of oscar levant. new york: villard books. kater, michael h. 1997. the twisted muse: musicians and their music in the third reich. oxford and new york: oxford university press. kivy, peter. 1984. sound and semblance: reflections on musical representation. princeton, nj: princeton university press. koch, stephen. 1995. double lives: stalin, willi miinzenberg and the seduction of the intellectuals. hammersmith and london: harpercollins publishers. lerner, neil. 2001. copland's music of wide open spaces: surveying the pastoral trope in hollywood. the musical quarterly 85:477-515. levant, oscar. 1940. a smattering of ignorance. new york: doubleday, doran & co. losey, joseph. 1968. losey on losey, edited by tom milne. garden city, ny: doubleday & company inc. mcmeekin, sean. 2003. the red millionaire: a political biography of willi miinzenberg, moscow's secret propaganda tsar in the west. new haven and london: yale university press. new school for social research. 1935-1936. bulletin. oja, carol j. 1989. marc blitzstein's the cradle will rock and mass-song style of the 1930s. the music quarterly 73:445-75. sally m. a. bick palmer, christopher. 1990. the composer in hollywood. london and new york: marion boyers publishers. prendergast, roy m. 1992. film music: a neglected art, a critical study of music in films. 2nd ed. new york and london: w. w. norton. raksin, david. 1989. holding a nineteenth century pedal at twentieth century-fox. in film music 1, edited by clifford mccarty, 167-81. new york: garland publishing. rockefeller foundation. 1941. the rockefeller foundation: a review for 1940. new york: rockefeller foundation. rose, gillian. 1978. the melancholy science: an introduction to the thought of theodor w. adorno. london and basingstoke: macmillan. schebera, jurgen. 1978. hanns eisler im usa-exil: zu den politischen, iiesthetischen und kompositorischen positionen des komponisten 1938 bis 1948. meisenheim am glan: verlag anton hain. ---. 1998a. hanns eisler: eine biographie in texten, bildern und dokumenten. mainz: schott. ---. 1998b. research program on the relations between music and films, hanns eislers filmmusikprojekt in den usa, finanziert durch die rockefeller foundation 1940-1942: verlauf und resultate. in emigrierte komponisten in der medienlandschaft des exils 1933-1945, edited by nils grosch, joachim lucchesi and jurgen schebera, 73-89. veroffentlichungen der kurt-weill-gesellschaft dessau, 2. stuttgart: m & p, verlag fur wissenschaft und forschung. schoots, hans. 2000. living dangerously: a biography of joris ivens. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. schrecker, ellen. 1998. many are the crimes: mccarthyism in america. boston and new york: little, brown and company. taylor, nicole. 2007. the mystery of lord madey. jewish quarterly: a magazine of contemporary writing, politics & culture (may 6). willet, john. 1995. die massnahme: the vanishing lehrstuck. in hanns eisler: a miscellany, edited by david blake, 79-90. contemporary music studies, 9. luxembourg and new york: harwood academic publishers. wolfe, charles. 1995. the poetics and politics of nonfiction: documentary film. in history of the american cinema, 5: grand design: hollywood as a modern business enterprise, 1930-1939, edited by tino balio, 351-86. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. electronic resources eisler, hanns. the grapes of wrath. http://www.hanns-eisler.com/dvd/indexiindex.php?s eite=dvdedition&sprache=en. federal bureau of investigation, freedom of information website. hanns eisler. http://foia. fbi.gov/foiaindexleisler.htm. rockefeller foundation. http://www.rockfound.org/aboucus/history/ 1930_1939.shtml. 39 current.musicology.86.1-100.pdf current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 woolsey. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 hearing and feeling the black vampire: queer affects in the film soundtrack morgan woolsey i. introduction: the soundtrack’s place in theories of queer spectatorship published by bad object-choices1 in 1991, the foundational how do i look: queer film and video is a collection of six essays, each offering a different engagement with the titular question. this question can be read in at least two ways, with attendant changes in tone and meaning. first, as inquiry into queer representation: how do i, the queer subject, look when i am represented to an audience? and second, as an inquiry into queer spectatorship: how do i, the queer subject, look at film and video? bad object-choices felt that this title—with its camp humor, changeability, and theoretical flexibility—would encapsulate their shared desire to address issues of representation and spectatorship simultaneously, while bridging the gap between activist and academic discourses. this efficient semantic flourish is enabled by the reversibility of “look,” the verb associated with visual perception which tends to function as a starting point in discussions of representation and spectatorship. but if we try to convey the same reversibility as it relates to aurally-based modes of queer media perception, we encounter obstacles. first of all, two questions would be necessary to address both interpretations of the question: “how do i sound?” and “how do i listen?” this division in conceptual framing has, i think, led to a division in concerns and approaches. there is very little queer media or musicological scholarship that considers the soundtrack, and the scholarship that does (knapp 1994; paulin 1997; haworth et. al., 2012; buhler 2014; dubowsky 2016) tends to approach the subject from the representational standpoint (“how do i sound?”).2 though james buhler suggests that “asynchronous sound” and “spectacle” constitute potential audiovisual aesthetics for representing queerness in the soundtrack (buhler 2014, 371-372), the way that these aesthetics foster queer engagement (“how do i listen?”) remains under-theorized. i suspect that this is due in part to the second obstacle one encounters when trying to account for spectatorship in theorizing about soundtracks: a longstanding lack of critical consensus as to whether the aural percep10 current musicology tion at work in film spectatorship can be classified as “listening” at all.3 this is especially pronounced where work on the score is concerned. in claudia gorbman’s influential formulation of classical hollywood scoring practices, for example, she demonstrates that film music’s effectiveness is predicated on its ability to remain “unheard.” it is not music consciously perceived, but rather a “bath or gel of affect” that “render[s] the individual an untroublesome viewing subject: less critical, less ‘awake’” (gorbman 1987, 5). put in slightly less nefarious terms, anahid kassabian describes film music as “a lubricant to identification processes, smoothing the transition…into fictional worlds” (kassabian 2001, 113). this psychic massaging centers predominantly on an audience’s emotions, adding intimacy and a “for me” quality to the cinematic experience (gorbman 1987, 5). so, while the score may play many functions in a film, “it is often assumed that its most important function is as a signifier of emotion” (smith 1999, 147). we can extend smith’s characterization further in relation to the contexts i’ll be discussing in this article: horror, exploitation, and arthouse film. in these contexts, music does not simply signify emotion to an audience; it gives physical presence to that emotion and often seeks a mimetic response from the audience as well (donnelly 2005, 88). “how do i feel,” then, might best approximate “how do i look’s” gratifyingly efficient and collapsible dual focus when analyzing aural perception’s role(s) in queer representation and spectatorship. “how do i feel”—like “how do i look”—is a request for feedback: to know the affective and emotional information music conveys in audiovisual representations of queerness. but it can also be read as an inquiry into the affective and emotional processes of queer spectatorship: how does a queer subject form emotional attachments to a film or other media object? what musical competencies must they possess? what audiovisual modes of address do they respond to and how do they negotiate with dominant ideology’s representation(s) of them? while the affective-audiovisual analysis i am proposing is important for investigating spectatorship of all kinds, it is particularly important when investigating queer spectatorship, a variety of what josé esteban muñoz labels, more broadly, “minoritarian” spectatorship (muñoz 1999). this is because the relation between soundtrack and image track is often the site of surprising and sometimes critique-enabling incongruity. many soundtracks furnish the willing scholar with moments in which music undercuts or interrupts the mood of a scene, inviting the audience— sometimes quite forcefully—to perceive the actions unfolding differently, against the grain. these incongruous moments invite critiques of domi11 morgan woolsey nant ideology; but what kind? rejection? reappropriation? something yet to be theorized? are such engagements necessarily queer? one example that illustrates incongruity’s importance in queer aesthetics is camp: the well-discussed sensibility and form of engagement we find animating bad object choices’ playful naming of their anthology. camp comes into being most vibrantly in the space opened up during such moments of incongruity, moments that denaturalize and “demystify” (dyer 1992, 138), forcing a critical distance where rigid binaries of gender and sexuality are concerned. knowing audiences experience these moments as ironic, as overtly artificial, as hilarious and endearing failures, while unknowing audiences miss the gag. there is a whole constellation of performance modes, affects, and politics that attend these demystifying camp moments. but the particular “archive of feelings” (cvetkovich 2003) attending camp—a “repertoire of formalized and often formulaic responses to the banality of straight culture and the repetitiveness and unimaginativeness of heteronormativity” (halberstam 2011, 109)—has tended to be theorized through a hegemonic white male canon that prioritizes specific performance modes, affects, and politics that may not be as important to other minoritarian forms of spectatorship. what other performance modes, affects, and politics have been overshadowed? how can we locate affective histories of minoritarian engagement with dominant ideology aside from camp? how can we delineate those repertoires of responses? in this article, i argue that an affective-audiovisual analysis of the soundtrack can help us address these questions, with muñoz’s formulation of counteridentification and disidentification—which i will define in the following section—providing conceptual scaffolding. to demonstrate this, i compare the modes of audience address in the soundtracks of two black vampire films from the 1970s that are not regularly considered in discussions of queerness and sexuality: blacula (music by gene page)4 and ganja and hess (music by sam waymon).5 released within eight months of one another, the films perform a similar critical maneuver in replacing the traditionally white aristocratic figure of the vampire with a black aristocratic figure. as such, they both offer an opportunity for audience counteridentification with dominant representations of sexualized blackness, and this is reflected in the soundtracks. page’s music for blacula hails from the disco underground, and waymon’s music for ganja and hess is composed around an oratory gospel and blues frame. however, the films each complicate this maneuver in a separate way, and this is best observed in the addresses that the soundtracks make to their respective audiences. blacula combines the initial black counteri12 current musicology dentification with an additional and contrasting “paracinematic” counteridentification (sconce 2007) audible in page’s deft handling of exploitation horror’s musical clichés. ganja and hess, on the other hand, builds upon this initial black counteridentification and, i argue, invites queer disidentification through its intensely metadiegetic soundscape. i will begin by defining and contextualizing key terms before moving into my analysis of the two soundtracks. ii. (sound)tracking counteridentifications and disidentifications in disidentifications: queers of color and the performance of politics, josé esteban muñoz outlines a tripartite theory of identification: identification, counteridentification, and disidentification. in this section, i will draw connections between this taxonomy and various scholarly and practical understandings of film music’s placement and effects. i will then outline anahid kassabian’s differentiation between scores that offer “assimilating” identifications and “affiliating” identifications and suggest the utility of these ideas for expanding our understanding of counteridentification and disidentification in the soundtrack. as the gloss i offered earlier suggests, film music’s central role is often seen as encouraging emotional investment and identification, defined by laplanche and pontalis and summarized by muñoz as a “psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect, property or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, after the model the other provides” (muñoz 1999, 7). this assimilating process has been described by film music practitioners and scholars as operating largely through a recourse to “parallel” strategies (eisenstein et. al., 1928). in these instances, music reinforces the mood of a given scene, producing “empathetic” effects (chion 1992) and, more specifically, presenting the audience with a tightly defined or “tracked” emotional pathway for identification (kassabian 2000; link 2004). audiences must recognize what particular cues mean immediately, which leads to a very clear semiotic system. the narrowness of the audience address here would classify this type of film music as what television scholar jonathan fiske calls a “readerly text” (fiske 1987). 6 how might a soundtrack encourage an audience to counteridentify, to—in another paraphrase, this time of michel pêcheux — “resist and attempt to reject the images and identificatory sites offered by dominant ideology” (muñoz 1999, 11)? many film music practitioners and theorists have argued that a reliable way to do this is to subvert audience expectation in some way. a favored enactment of this subversion has been the use of audiovisual incongruity “a lack of shared properties in an audiovisual relationship” (ireland 2017, 21). early critics theodor adorno and hanns 13 morgan woolsey eisler argue that if music conveyed its own meanings and played a structural role in determining the meaning in a scene (rather than simply echoing what was already apparent in the visuals)7 that the dominant ideology of the culture industry would be subverted (adorno/eisler 1947). they suggest that substituting a “writerly” (fiske 1987) musical text would accomplish this, but they allow that other kinds of music could “oppose” the meaning of a scene and change that meaning in the process. this audiovisual juxtaposition, they hope, would allow audiences to synthesize their own meanings (by interpreting the interaction between visual and musical elements in real time). it would also, ideally, allow audiences to have spontaneous emotional responses to those meanings, rather than ones that had been determined in advance by musical clichés. the idea that music can either be “with” or “against” the mood of a scene is quite pervasive in film music scholarship. however, the reality is far more complicated, especially now that the subversive incongruity suggested by adorno and eisler has become a cliché of its own.8 taking up muñoz’s third category of disidentification allows us to get at that complexity. muñoz asserts that direct counteridentification with dominant ideology is not equally available to all subjects.9 he defines disidentification as a process whereby the subject neither wholly assimilates nor wholly rejects the images proffered by dominant ideology. he describes the process as follows: instead of buckling under the pressures of dominant ideology (identification, assimilation) or attempting to break free of its inescapable sphere (counteridentification, utopianism), this ‘working on and against’ is a strategy that tries to transform a cultural logic from within, always laboring to enact permanent structural change while at the same time valuing the importance of local and everyday struggles of resistance (muñoz 1999, 11). if audiovisual incongruity has been the preferred method for encouraging counteridentification, how might a soundtrack encourage disidentification? does audiovisual incongruity work, or are different strategies required? i have found anahid kassabian’s discussion of the “affiliating” identifications offered by “compiled” popular music scores to be helpful in clarifying my thinking on this top. briefly, kassabian argues that “not all scores offer similar paths to identifications” and suggests that there are “two main approaches to film music in contemporary hollywood: the composed score, a body of musical material composed specifically for the film in question; and the compiled score, a score built of songs that often (though not always) preexisted the film.” where the composed score tends towards 14 current musicology the narrow assimilation i associate with identification, the compiled score tends towards a different process that kassabian labels “affiliation.” this is a more open process because audiences likely have preexisting relationships with the popular songs included in compiled soundtracks and may bring their associations with those songs—their personal histories and their identities—into their engagements with film. over the course of the book, kassabian argues that “offers of assimilating identifications try to narrow the psychic field [and] offers of affiliating identifications open it wide” (kassabian 2001, 3). as i will demonstrate in my discussions of the soundtracks of blacula and ganja and hess, both counteridentification and disidentification can be invited via audiovisual incongruity. however, the audiovisual incongruity that opens out into disidentification tends to operate via an audiovisual incongruity that does not point to a specific interpretation or position, but instead offers multiple critiques. paracinematic counteridentification and counteridentificatory sonic impressions of blackness: blacula (1972) in 1972, american international pictures released blacula (dir. william crain), a highly lucrative dracula knock-off credited with spawning a short-lived subgenre boom in blaxploitation horror. between 1973-1974, roughly fifteen low-budget, black-cast films featuring black popular music-inflected soundtracks were released. generally, these films either relocated universal’s roster of classic ghouls to modern, urban settings (as with blackenstein, 1973) or reworked successful modern horror film narratives (as with abby, 1974). with their black-majority casts and incorporation of militant attitudes and themes, these films represent a shift from what film scholar robin means coleman labels hollywood’s tokenizing “blacks in horror” phase to a brief “black horror” phase10 in which black leads and themes were central to the films (means coleman 2011, 119). in this shift, we see an avalanche of counteridentificatory performances and narratives, and means coleman dubs blacula “the decade’s gold standard for recreating a (white) horror classic in the image of blackness, while also tackling issues of black pride and empowerment.” in blacula, 18th century abani prince mamuwalde (william marshall) and princess luva (vonetta mcgee) visit count dracula (charles macaulay) to discuss the prince’s efforts to end the slave trade. when dracula refuses to help mamuwalde and transforms him into a vampire, he curses him with the name “blacula” and locks luva in a crypt to die. mamuwalde is awakened in present-day los angeles by an interracial pair of effeminate interior decorators who become his first victims. at the funeral of black 15 morgan woolsey victim bobby (ted harris), mamuwalde sees tina (also played by vonetta mcgee) whom he believes to be his lost luva. the remainder of the plot follows mamuwalde’s seduction of tina as the police close in on him as suspect in the recent murders plaguing the city’s working-class citizens. after a police officer shoots tina, mamuwalde transforms her into a vampire, but she is staked shortly thereafter. after declaring that “his only reason for living has been taken away,” mamuwalde ascends into the sunlight, thereby ending his existence. as might be expected of an exploitation film, there are no instances in which music plays the kind of structural role that adorno and eisler believed would assure an active spectator and a counteridentificatory stance: the score overtly mickey-mouses the action throughout. however, i would argue that an examination of gene page’s music furthers an interpretation of the film as a clear case of counteridenification, though one that drew differing responses from popular audiences and black opinion leaders. this is because the score sets up opposing, but related, modes of audience address around mamuwalde depending on whether he is terrorizing los angeles or courting tina: one of paracinematic counteridentification and one offering a counteridentificatory image of blackness. the score’s ability to move freely between these two modes is best understood through a consideration of page’s musical background. page is listed as an arranger, composer, pianist, and producer on over 1,000 records from 1962-1998, as well as on hundreds of records released posthumously featuring his previous work. he is especially known for his prolific and high-profile output as an arranger specializing in strings, with his work featured on many hits throughout the 60s and 70s. significantly, in 1972—at around the same time as he was hired to score blacula—he began a long-term collaboration with barry white, co-arranging love unlimited’s “walking in the rain with the one i love.” the song was backed by white’s famous love unlimited orchestra, an ensemble featuring a large string section, symphonic brass, and percussion, electric guitar, and bass more associated with modern soul ensembles. the following year, page would go on to co-arrange “love’s theme,” a rare orchestral single to succeed in claiming the #1 spot on the billboard hot 100 and easy listening charts simultaneously. 11 page’s work with white demonstrates the sonic “image” of blackness that he would bring to his score for blacula. as mitchell morris summarizes, this music sounded rich and emblematized black capitalism: “the smell of money—new money, the kind most dramatically visible in the entertainment business—always hung about [white’s] music.” he goes on: “‘love’s theme,’ one of the first hits to come out of the disco underground 16 current musicology and achieve popular success…alert[ed] mainstream audiences to the possibilities of glamour and sensual enjoyment within a newly empowered subculture” (morris 2013, 38). the score, like his work with white, features a combination of symphonic and soul sounds, and in the context of the film this enables him to move flexibly from traditional, clichéd horror scoring (paracinematic counteridentification) to black musical opulence (counteridentificatory images of blackness): two very distinct modes of audience address. i understand the first, clichéd horror mode as inviting a variety of what jeffrey sconce labels a “paracinematic” sensibility, which he describes as “aggressively attacking the established canon of ‘quality’ cinema and questioning the legitimacy of reigning aesthete discourses on movie art” (sconce 2007, 101-102). he defines the paracinematic in a fashion reminiscent of sontag’s definition of camp, with lists, stating that the paracinematic comprises “seemingly disparate genres as ‘badfilm,’ splatter-punk, ‘mondo’ films, sword and sandal epics, elvis flicks, government hygiene films, japanese monster movies, beach-party musicals, and just about every other historical manifestation of exploitation cinema from juvenile delinquency documentaries to soft-core pornography” (ibid). paracinematic sensibilities, then, are trash sensibilities, focusing on the failures of the film industry rather than failures or exaggerations of gender within its successes, as camp often does. the paracinematic sensibility evaluates objects as “bad” and of low cultural standing, and proceeds to use those qualities and features that make them bad to criticize the “mainstream” of filmmaking and film taste. this first counteridentificatory mode of audience address is set up in the first moments of the film, when dracula prevents mamuwalde and luva from leaving his castle. this sequence is a catalogue of adorno and eisler’s derided devices for arousing suspense: tritones, low chromaticism, dissonant clusters in the brass and strings, and queasy synthesizer glissandi. these cartoonish musical gestures accompany the film’s establishment of dracula’s racism and cruelty, inverting the usual depiction of blackness as monstrous by casting, in a sense, mamuwalde and luva as the victimized jonathan and mina harker. after mamuwalde is locked in a coffin and luva left to die with him, the screen fades to black and the cue cross-fades into the film’s theme (“the stalkwalk”). the stylish animated credits sequence rolls. the second mode of address is introduced here, with music that contrasts dramatically with the previous, paracinematic scoring. a b-locrian melody in a pedal-enhanced electric guitar is supported by an energetic drum and bass groove and punctuated by syncopated horns playing at oc17 morgan woolsey taves. where the film’s opening sequence invited the audience to counteridentify by laughing at exaggerated and recognizable depictions of the white vampire (and inversely form respect for mamuwalde’s dignified responses to dracula’s racism), the credits invite them to counteridentify directly with the film’s spirit of black pride and empowerment. these oppositional procedures occur on different levels and require different forms of engagement from the audience, an observation that expands understandings of how counteridentification can function. this does not necessarily signal a space for disidentification, though, since mamuwalde remains a resolutely celebrated figure, even in his vampiric form. when looking at the depiction of mamuwalde in his vampiric form we can see that the film is engaging with and critiquing the racist dimensions of early depictions of black monstrosity: dr. jekyll and mr. hyde (rouben mamoulian 1931), for example. in this form, mamuwalde terrorizes subjects more marginalized than himself (a gay couple, women, working-class people), furthering, in means coleman’s estimation, “the film’s dismissive, heteronormative rhetorical violence” (means coleman 2011, 122). the scoring in these sequences, while identical to the scoring of the pre-credits sequence, does not ask for the audience to consider blacula as monstrous in the same way as dracula. the violence in those sequences, through the exaggerated mickey-mousing in the score, becomes comedic. contrast this with the first encounter between mamuwalde and tina. walking home along a darkened street, tina becomes nervous that someone is following her. the chromatic figures from luva’s entombment slowly build in the background until tina rounds a corner and bumps into mamuwalde. “luva,” he says. “it’s me!” startled, she breaks free from his grasp. but instead of the previous paracinematic vampire-coded music, a cue related to “the stalkwalk” (this time a climbing b-phrygian figure in the brass, along with the familiar opening groove) accompanies tina running away. mamuwalde pursues her but is hit by a taxi and the cue fades out. here, the score, in its invocation of the counteridentificatory sonic image of blackness, indicates that tina should not be afraid of mamuwalde, an indication that is reinforced every time the couple interacts on screen. the taxi driver he encounters should be, and the score’s ominous silence tells us as much. this leads us to the significance of the score’s treatment of mamuwalde’s seduction of tina. unlike many blaxploitation films of the time period, blacula disappointed more than one reviewer with its relatively tame erotic content and failure to engage with “the man” in the sexually aggressive manner of a number of american international picture’s other (whitedirected) blaxploitation films. david pirie, for example, condemns blacula 18 current musicology for displaying a sexual timidity uncharacteristic for american international pictures’ films. he laments that instead of using “the sexual threat which underlies the action [of stoker’s novel] and generates its particular aura of morbid dread” to interrogate the racial dimensions of contemporary sexual politics, blacula falls back on “the worst of all horror clichés, that is, the monster’s quest for the reincarnation of his lost love” and lapses into overstuffed sentimentality (pirie; 1977, 98). in blacula, mamuwalde’s pursuit of tina features neither the overt sexual seduction nor the fantastic supernatural seduction that merged in many of the decade’s most successful vampire films. as pointed out by means coleman, william marshall plays the titular role in a manner that could be described as fatherly, embracing tina chastely and kissing her on the forehead. how, then, is tina seduced? usually discussed in terms of visual entrancement, a trap for the eyes (recall the haunting visual effect of bathing bela lugosi’s eyes in light as he gazes intently at his victims in todd browning’s dracula, who in turn lose themselves in his eyes), seduction in many vampire films is also an auditory affair. the vampire may seduce with an entrancing, supernatural gaze, but often enough the vampire seduces with a sexually suggestive, purring voice and promises of immortality, historically significant love, or of freedom and power more broadly. mamuwalde first tries to convince her that she is the incarnation of luva. while tina does not reject this idea outright, she has some trouble accepting it, asking: “i don’t know what i believe anymore, but help me and i’ll try to understand.” mamuwalde responds with a description of his transformation into a vampire as enslavement. when tina tells him that she will not join him in eternal life, mamuwalde tells her that she must come to him freely, with love, or not at all: “i will not take you by force, and i will not return.” as he rises to leave, tina begs him to stay, unfastening his cloak as they embrace. this seduction, as in the original dracula narrative, involves the human woman’s acceptance of her historical role. unlike the original narrative, though, there is no hint of sexual coercion. in fact, mamuwalde states explicitly that he will not “force” tina to decide to join him as a vampire: she must come to this decision on her own. stripped of the sexual and supernatural, this seduction is, above all, a political one, a call for a solidarity and love rooted in a shared cultural history. as means coleman acknowledges, “mamuwalde’s amorous feelings for tina, which she quickly reciprocates, can be viewed as motivating afrocentric nostalgia for a complete and full blackness [in tina and in the audience]” (means coleman; 2011, 123). furthermore, in the context of a blaxploitation horror film where a certain level of exploitative sexual and violent explicitness is expected, director william crain and lead ac19 morgan woolsey tor william marshall carefully concentrate on the production of an image of black masculinity that is aristocratic and gentlemanly in the pursuit of the heterosexual love of a black woman (though, again, still predatory and murderous where lowerand working-class black subjects are concerned, as well as queer subjects). through the vampire narrative, the black man is given access to a heritage, dignity, and power not available to him via roles in other genres. contrasting with many contemporaneous scenes of vampiric seduction, the mood in these seduction scenes isn’t menacing or tense, nor particularly erotic or sexual. instead, it is mellow and relaxed, underscored with a gentle alto flute melody. there is nothing predatory about mamuwalde’s words or actions in the scene, a tone set by the score, replete with page’s characteristically lush string arrangements. this melody first appears after mamuwalde has seen tina for the first time about twenty minutes earlier, accompanying his retreat to his coffin where he caresses the purse she has dropped. the alto flute returns, almost imperceptibly, as tina opens her door at the start of the seduction scene. this cue, which trades the melody from alto flute to tenor saxophone to oboe to strings, accompanied by vibraphone, strings, and electric bass, shifts from background to foreground when mamuwalde rises to leave, moving into higher registers in the violins, before ceding the melody back to the alto flute as the couple embraces at the end of the scene. before their passion, signaled by a dynamic swell of the strings, can gather any momentum, it is interrupted by an abrupt cut to the next scene—the police detective unearthing bobby’s coffin—accompanied by ominous chromatic ostinati. though mamuwalde can be seen in these sequences as a complete realization of the upwardly-mobile, heterosexual yet sexually restrained black patriarch promulgated by activist institutions such as the naacp, it isn’t surprising that leaders from these organizations, including junius griffith of the committee against blaxploitation, would look askance at blaxploitation horror’s reproduction of existing stereotypes of blackness as violent and atavistic (rhines 1996, 45)—even if those stereotypes were reproduced to be laughed at and rejected or reappropriated. in any case, whether one is responding to the film’s invitation to counteridentify directly along with prevailing black power images (signaled by page’s luxuriant, funky score) or to adopt a paracinematic stance and counteridentify against hollywood convention (signaled by page’s overt use of musical horror clichés), both of these musical styles are readerly and offer little room for interpretation. as a result, there is little opportunity for disidentification. for that we will turn to the second film, ganja and hess. 20 current musicology disidentification and metadiegetic interlocutors in the fantastical gap: ganja and hess (1973) like blacula, ganja and hess (dir. bill gunn) invited audiences to engage with and critique representations of contemporary blackness via the aristocratic figure of the vampire: this time dr. hess green (duane jones in his first role after night of the living dead 1968). however, gunn took the source material in a different direction than crain, much to the chagrin of his producers. instead of embracing a parodic, paracinematic approach, he took an experimental, art-house one that led both to the film’s selection for critics’ week at the cannes film festival, and its praise in white-owned but black-oriented softcore men’s magazine players as well. the critic wrote that ganja and hess was a “provocative metaphor which attends the cosmic sensibility of black life, its spirituality, that hidden layer of potency often inscrutable to the ‘plantation bosses’” (afi 1973). the embrace of the film in these two divergent spheres—international prestige film and softcore publications—points to its distinct sensibility. scrambling the coordinates of taste was favored among european makers of what pirie terms “the sex-vampire film” (pirie 1977, 6), such as harry kümel, in addition to jess franco and jean rollin, whose films were as surreal as they were sexually explicit, favored scrambling the coordinates of taste. joan hawkins labels such films “the horrific avant-garde,” meaning films that use tropes and spectacle drawn from horror to explore thematic issues more associated with “serious” or experimental filmmaking (hawkins 2000, 22-23). ganja and hess, a film that explores myriad conceptualizations of addiction and hunger through the vampire’s central blood metaphor, can be easily categorized in this way. the plot follows dr. hess green, who is infected with vampirism when his research assistant, george meda (bill gunn), stabs him with a ceremonial dagger belonging to the myrthian people (a fictional african tribe). meda, thinking he has killed hess, then shoots himself, leaving the transformed hess to feed on his blood. initially hess struggles with his vampirism, preying on people in the surrounding urban community (as blacula’s mamuwalde had), but this is interrupted when ganja (marlene clark), wife of the deceased meda, comes looking for her husband. shortly thereafter, ganja and hess begin a romantic relationship. eventually, ganja discovers meda’s body and realizes that hess has killed him. she does not turn against hess; instead their relationship deepens, and the pair marry. hess then stabs ganja with the myrthian dagger, and she becomes a vampire as well. the couple begin adjusting to their new existence—among other things, inviting a community worker (richard harrow) over for dinner, seducing him, and feeding on his blood—but 21 morgan woolsey hess grows increasingly dissatisfied with his condition. ultimately, he chooses to end his immortality by attending a pentecostal church service led by reverend williams, who is also his chauffeur (sam waymon), and standing beneath a cross’ shadow after he has received communion. ganja does not join him, and the film ends with the community worker rising from the dead and running to join her. a writerly text through and through, it is easy to see from a summary of the plot that such a film would not invite the kinds of tightly prescribed identification we saw in blacula. but an exploration of the soundtrack reveals the disidentificatory paths an audience might follow, and the audiovisual strategies that mark the way. ganja and hess’ soundtrack was created by sam waymon, gunn’s life partner and long-time creative collaborator, who also appears in the film as reverend luther williams. the two met sometime during the late 1960s at a party thrown by waymon’s sister, nina simone, for the actress josephine premice. waymon moved into gunn’s upper nyack home, where the two would live and collaborate until gunn’s death in 1989. historian christopher sieving says that waymon became gunn’s closest artistic collaborator, making invaluable contributions as composer and musical performer to ganja & hess, black picture show and rhinestone sharecropper… and as actor to ganja & hess and personal problems. that waymon also frequently served as gunn’s typist, editor, and sounding board makes it all the more difficult to isolate his influence on—or minimize his importance to—gunn’s seventies and eighties efforts (sieving 2020 (forthcoming)). as the intimacy of their collaboration suggests, eschewing hollywood production schedules in which the composer is brought on relatively late in the post-production process to score the film, the soundtrack plays a central symbolic and structural role throughout the film. waymon’s soundtrack is an extremely diverse and busy one, consisting of gospel singing, european chamber music, arrangements of j.s. bach’s “jesu, joy of man’s desiring,” smithsonian field recordings of bongili (central african) work chants, “march blues,” a blues song composed by waymon and performed by mabel king (who appears as the queen of myrthia in several dream sequences), and electro-acoustic underscoring. sounds of nature mingle with ambulance sirens or human screams, and diegetic music (such as the gospel singing or the blues on dr. hess’s record player) is often mixed with the score (ominous, electronic drones, for example) and human speech. multiple cues and sounds are regularly layered one on top of the other, resulting in a chaotic and disorienting aural aesthetic. what is most striking is that unlike the situation in blacula, here there is no clear distinction between diegetic music and score—one of film music 22 current musicology scholarship’s most beloved and oft-violated dichotomies—and this is one of the central ways in which the soundtrack is able to invite disidentification from the audience. robynn stilwell labels this liminal space between the score and the diegesis “the fantastical gap” and argues that “[t]he trajectory of music between diegetic and nondiegetic highlights a gap in our understanding, a place of destabilization and ambiguity” (stilwell 2007). one common way to draw an audience across this gap is via the insertion of metadiegetic music, music pertaining to a secondary narrator (gorbman 1987). an example of this would be the secondary narrator selecting music within the diegesis which the audience then hears absorbed into the score, or music relating to a secondary narrator’s memories or interiority being broadcast for the audience to hear. according to stilwell, in these instances the character becomes the bridging mechanism between the audience and the diegesis as we enter into his or her subjectivity. this is a space beyond empathy; its location with regard to the diegesis does, however, reach out and engage us in a way that starts to tear at the fabric of the usual conception of diegetic/nondiegetic—or it acknowledges a relationship between audience and film that diegetic/nondiegetic has displaced by concentrating on the construction of the text within its own boundaries (stilwell 2007, 196). metadiegetic music is the central component of the soundtrack’s disidentificatory, queering strategies, since much of the narration of the film is carried out by secondary narrators. it is therefore less helpful to divide the soundtrack into diegetic and nondiegetic and more helpful to divide it by association of the music: what narrative space does the music belong to? rather than cataloguing all of the film’s music, i will instead focus on one specific metadiegetic musical example and explore how it directs disidentification in the audience against hess and towards ganja. the song in question is “you got to learn,”12 which reverend williams (waymon) sings with his congregation before hess receives communion and steps beneath the shadow of the cross, and its related cues as they appear in the score. “you got to learn” is present at both diegetic and nondiegetic levels in the film, imbuing its melody and harmonic progression with a kind of power we do not experience in relation to any other music in the film. the melody of this song is the most prominent in the soundtrack, occurring a total of seven times and additionally in two instances in which the accompanying harmonic progression is replicated without the full presence of the melody. the journey of the song through a variety of instrumental and rhythmic permutations leads me to interpret it as a flexible motif that plays a key role in a variety of affective modes at key moments in the film 23 morgan woolsey for example, moving into the second section of the film (in which hess adjusts to his new “life”), hess steals blood from a doctor’s office, briskly escaping into the street as the melody, here arranged for jazz combo, swells joyfully in the soundtrack. this initial exuberance is musically tied to ganja’s appearance in his life. the next appearance of the melody coincides with the couple’s flirtation on the patio after they make love for the first time, in which they dissect a cherry in extreme close-up, commenting on how the fruit’s juices look like blood. the instrumentation here is more subdued—a solo vibraphone, hearkening back to mamuwalde’s seduction of tina—and takes on an intimacy absent in the previous application of the cue. the cue appears again after ganja tells hess a personal story that also focuses on personal autonomy in the face of familial and societal rejection. “you got to learn” appears in its full form towards the end of the film, where it is preceded by a seemingly nondiegetic instance of its harmonic progression on guitar (scoring hess’ explanation of how they might end their immortal existence). this slowly fades into the final diegetic performance which, after being exposed to it consistently throughout the film, feels like the culmination of a long journey. the church sequence is made up of close-ups—shot in a vérité style—which allow the audience to see the faces and expressions of various congregation members, including soloist betty barney. this sequence in the church places lyrics alongside the melody that has been so firmly implanted in our heads throughout the narrative, advising the audience and hess that “you’ve got to learn / to let it go / you’ve got to know / when it’s all over.” this could refer to hess’ life, and indeed it seems that this is the manner in which that message is received. however, for ganja, who chooses not to end her vampiric existence, it can be interpreted as letting go of those who no longer support her (as in the story she tells hess). here, she fits very much within the definition means coleman lays out in opposition to clover’s “final girl” (clover 1992): the “enduring woman” (means coleman 2011, 135). unlike the final girl, who—androgynous and white—fights as an exceptional being, battling a singular evil whose defeat signals the end of the film and the contingent return to normalcy, the enduring woman—sexualized and definitively female—is enmeshed in systems of oppression that are ongoing. the close of the narrative very rarely signals rest for the enduring woman, who, as a black woman, must continue to struggle against systemic oppression and violence. throughout the course of the film, the many points of view—and metadiegetic musical states associated with them—are absorbed: first by hess, who responds by ending his existence, then by ganja, who responds by enduring. though hess, our initial protagonist, may present the audience with 24 current musicology a counteridentificatory image of black patriarchal wealth (as mamuwalde had), he is portrayed as cold and distant, so it is the interlocutors’ voices that we hear and feel most clearly in the soundtrack. and it is reverend williams’ voice in particular that pulls the audience through the fantastical gap at the end of the film: from hess to ganja. in the end, it is ganja who is able to absorb the many points of view in the film, productively incorporate the sentiments of williams’ metadiegetic voice, and survive the crushing colonial circumstances in which she finds herself as a contemporary black woman. these circumstances drove both of her husbands to end their lives (like mamuwalde), but ganja endures. conclusion: how did you feel? through my examination of the modes of audience address enacted by the soundtracks of blacula and ganja and hess, i have demonstrated that affective-audiovisual analysis can expand current understandings of queer media spectatorship. this kind of analysis is particularly important in the realm of minoritarian scholarship, which must look to ephemeral and non-institutional sources for information on the past. once these alternative archives are located, scholars must make sure not to perform erasures and elisions of the kind halberstam criticizes. the hegemonic queer canon emphasizes a certain set of affects, performances, and politics, so any sensibility rooted in irony or incongruity has a tendency to get elided—its difference erased— under the heading of “camp.” in this article, i have used analysis of the soundtrack as a way to delineate different queer sensibilities and understand their function and significance in historical context. as my discussion of page’s music for blacula demonstrates, multiple parodic strategies may exist within a single narrative, and the incongruities of which those strategies take advantage will greatly influence the sensibility that results. there may be dominant images of counteridentification in constant circulation, but the ways in which subjects are invited to counteridentify can vary (as with the direct and positive counteridentification invited by page’s score and the paracinematic counteridentification invited by his use of overt horror musical clichés). furthermore, disidentification—a strategy that is often devalued because of its perceived political passivity—can be drawn out in this kind of analysis and distinguished from counteridentification; its peculiarities and intellectual or political efficacies honored. the disidentification of ganja and hess exists in the space opened up when high-brow aesthetics are brought to bear on low-brow material, but also when metadiegetic music introduces multiples viewpoints into a scene. 25 morgan woolsey what can soundtracks tell us about attitudes towards sexuality and difference and, by extension, what can they tell us about how those subjects so hailed by those representations might have felt when they were consuming them? such scholarship serves to historicize the perceived immediacy and naturalness of audience emotional reaction to film, a function that would enrich many forms of cultural history and criticism. the theoretical framework and subsequent analytical approach i have provided here are my contributions to this ongoing task of historicizing the emotional responsivity engendered by film music. by turning an ear to the soundtrack, i aim to understand the intricacies of past sexual and racial sensibilities, asking past minoritarian audiences “how did you feel”? notes 1. a reading group, collective, and conference formed by cindy patton, stuart marshall, judith mayne, richard fung, kobena mercer, teresa de lauretis. 2. in “unheard sexualities? queer theory and the soundtrack,” scott paulin explores the appearance of diegetic music in rope (alfred hitchcock 1948) to suggest that film music makes space for queerness: “the most perennially unspeakable and undenotable object of all.” while he does raise questions of spectatorship at various points (in fact, he concludes with an observation about the importance of considerations of audience agency), the focus of his analysis is the ways in which music actively constructs normative sexuality and “passively obscure[s]” non-normative sexuality. 3. in hearing film: tracking identifications in contemporary hollywood film music, anahid kassabian observes that listening “has never come close to having the same intellectual force as ‘reading’ in literary studies and ‘spectatorship’ in film studies.” 4. credited variously as eugene edgar page jr., credited variously as eugene page jr., eugene page, gene page, gene, “the master” page; maestro gene page, among others. 5. there are several notable exceptions. both harry benshoff and robin means coleman point to the caricatured representation of bobby and billy, the gay couple that wake mamuwalde (blacula) and become his first victims. more substantially, in “’let it go black’: desire and the erotic subject in the films of bill gunn,” marlo david allows that there are “rich possibilities for [queer] readings” in ganja and hess, but she explores queerness in more depth in relation to gunn’s earlier film, stop! 6. fiske presents a tripartite taxonomy: readerly texts invite narrow interpretation and allow audiences to uncover a pre-determined meaning easily; writerly texts require more interpretation and thus allow the audience to determine their own meanings; producerly texts are easy to interpret, like readerly texts, but still allow some freedom of interpretation in the audience. because film music is by necessity immediately intelligible, i would classify it as a readerly text. 7. chion offers a counter to this argument in his formulation of “added value,” a concept positing that when combined, sound and image create a total effect that is greater than the sum of its parts, even if the sound appears to be “redundant.” 8. scenes of horror, in particular, will often deploy cheerful music to highlight the grotesqueries of the action. 26 current musicology 9. by way of illustration, muñoz discusses vaginal crème davis’ development of a connection to militant black power politics via the figure of angela davis, as opposed to the more dominant representation of black counteridentification, the black panthers. direct counteridentification in this case was blocked by davis’ queerness: “[u]nable to pass as heterosexual black militant through simple counteridentification, vaginal davis instead disidentified with black power by selecting angela and not the panthers as a site of selffashioning and political formation.” 10. means coleman defines “blacks in horror” as being made up of films that “present blacks and blackness in the context of horror, even if the horror film is not wholly or substantially focused on either one” (6). these films often featured stereotyped representations of monstrous or savage blackness (as in birth of a nation or king kong), blackness as backdrop (as in white zombie or i walked with a zombie), or black characters separated from any black contexts (as in night of the living dead). 11. for more detailed chart information, see “the broadcasting playlist,” broadcasting (archive: 1957-1993), feb 04, 1974. 34, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1016877417 ?accountid=14512 (accessed june 7, 2020). 12. according to the afi citation, “waymon’s distinctive music for ganja & hess included two songs, but their titles have not been determined.” ganja & hess. los angeles: american film institute, 1973, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1746219389?account id=14512 (accessed june 6, 2020). references adorno, theodor w., hanns eisler, and graham mccann. 1947. composing for the films. london: continuum. bad object-choices. 1991. how do i look?: queer film and video. seattle, wash: bay press. buhler, james. “gender, sexuality, and the soundtrack,” neumeyer, david. 2015.  the oxford handbook of film music studies. new york: oxford university press. chion, michel, claudia gorbman, and walter murch. 1994. audio-vision: sound on screen. new york: columbia university. clover, carol j. 1992. men, women and chainsaws. b.f.i. pub. cvetkovich, ann. 2003. an archive of feelings: trauma, sexuality, and lesbian public cultures. durham: duke university press. david, marlo d. 2011. “”let it go black”: desire and the erotic subject in the films of bill gunn”. black camera. 2 (2): 26-46. diawara, manthia, and phyllis r. klotman. 1991. “ganja and hess: vampires, sex, and addictions”. black american literature forum. 25 (2): 299-314. donnelly, kevin, j. 2005. the spectre of sound: music in film and television. london: bfi. dubowsky, jack curtis. 2016. intersecting film, music, and queerness. palgrave. --2014. “musical cachet in new queer cinema”. music, sound, and the moving image. 8 (1): 25-56. dyer, richard. 1992. only entertainment. london: routledge. eisenstein, sergei, and richard taylor. 2009. “statement on sound.” the eisenstein reader. london: palgrave macmillan. fiske, john. 1987. television culture. london: routledge. gamson, joshua. 2002. “sweating in the spotlight: lesbian, gay, and queer encounters with media and popular culture.“ handbook of lesbian and gay studies. eds. richardson, diane, and steven seidman. london: sage. 27 morgan woolsey gorbman, claudia. 1987. unheard melodies narrative film music. london: bfi books. halberstam, judith. 2011. the queer art of failure. duke university press. hawkins, joan. 2000. cutting edge: art-horror and the horrific avant-garde. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. haworth, catherine. special issue: “gender, sexuality and the soundtrack.” music, sound, and the moving image 6, no. 2 (2012): 209-238. ireland, david. “great expectations? the changing role of audiovisual incongruence in contemporary multimedia.” music and the moving image, vol. 10, no. 3 (fall 2017): university of illinois press. kassabian, anahid. 2001. hearing film: tracking identifications in contemporary hollywood film music. new york: routledge. knapp, lucretia. “the queer voice in marnie.” 1994. out in culture: gay, lesbian, and queer essays on popular culture. eds. creekmur, corey k., and alexander doty. durham: duke university press. link, stan. 2004. “sympathy with the devil? music of the psycho post-psycho”. screen: the journal of the society for education in film and television. 45 (1): 1. mcgee, k.a. 2012. “orientalism and erotic multiculturalism in popular culture: from princess rajah to the pussycat dolls”. music, sound and the moving image. 6:2 (autumn): 209-238. means coleman, robin r. 2011. horror noire: blacks in american horror films from the 1890s to present. london: routledge. morris, mitchell. 2013. the persistence of sentiment. display and feeling in popular music of the 1970s. berkeley: university of california press. muñoz, josé esteban. 1999. disidentifications: queers of color and the performance of politics. minneapolis: univ. of minnesota press. paulin, scott. “unheard sexualities? queer theory and the soundtrack” in samer, roxanne, and william brian whittington. 2017.  spectatorship: shifting theories of gender, sexuality, and media. pirie, david. 1977. the vampire cinema. london: hamlyn. rhines, jesse algeron. 1996.  black film, white money. new brunswick, n.j.: rutgers university press. sieving, christopher jon. forthcoming 2020. bill gunn’s ‘ganja and hess.’ indianapolis, in: indiana university press. smith, jeff. “movie music as moving music,” in passionate views, in smith, greg m., and carl r. plantinga. 2005. passionate views: film, cognition, and emotion. baltimore: the johns hopkins university press. sconce, jeffrey. 2007. sleaze artists: cinema at the margins of taste, style, and politics. durham: duke university press. stilwell, robynn. 2007. “the fantastical gap.”  beyond the soundtrack: representing music in cinema. eds. goldmark, daniel, and rick altman. berkeley, calif: univ. of california press. three contributions to the iison ic turn ll moorefield, virgil. 2005. the producer as composer: shaping the sounds of popular music. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. doyle, peter. 2005. echo & reverb: fabricating space in popular music recording, 1900-1960. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. anderson, tim j. 2006. making easy listening: material culture and postwar american recording. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. reviewed by thomas porcello since roughly the mid-1990s, scholars in a number of humanities and social science disciplines have turned their attention to ontological, episte­ mological, and phenomenological questions concerning sound. historians corbin (1998), smith (1999), and rath (2003), for example, have sought to "re-sound" historical spaces and eras; historians of science bijsterveld (2001), thompson (2002), and blesser and salter (2007) have examined architectural acoustics and the construction of a built sonic modernity; gitelman (1999), sterne (2003), and weheliye (2005) have, albeit from quite different perspectives, explored the nexus of sound recording and reproduction technologies and cultural practices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; in a special issue of social studies of science, pinch and bijsterveld (2004) called for the establishment of a field of "sound studies"; and, while having entered the discussion of the sonic somewhat earlier, film historians and theorists, especially lastra (2000), altman, ed. (1992), and chion (1994), have provided crucial analytical and historical sonic frameworks to think both with and against. within musicology broadly defined-including ethnomusicology, popular music studies, and historical musicology-scholarship concern­ ing the sonic has exploded in recent years. for many, this "sonic turn" has simultaneously been a turn to the technological: not only the technologies of music production, reproduction, and consumption, but also the technologi­ cal practices of musicians, sound engineers, producers, and listeners. studies current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 153 154 current musicology have included the more generally theoretical, such as kahn (1999), and evens (2005); many more have focused on musical instruments, such as theberge (1997), waksman (1999; 2004), pinch and trocco (2002), and bijsterveld and schulp (2004); some address listening, hearing, and consuming, including auslander (1999), bull (2000), bull and back, eds. (2003), perlman (2003; 2004), and erlmann, ed. (2004); and there are numerous inquiries into recording studio practice, such as porcello (1998; 2004; 2005), zak (2001), meintjes (2003), katz (2004), schmidt horning (2004), diamond (2005), and wallach (2005). others have sought to problematize distinctions between technologies of sonic production and consumption, especially greene (2001), lysloff and gay, eds. (2003), and greene and porcello, eds. (2005). as a permutation of these concerns, meintjes (1990), feld (1994; 1996)-whose broader contributions to an anthropology of sound are notable as well-taylor (1997; 2001), and born and hesmondhalgh, eds. (2000) have interrogated the global traffic in (musical) sounds. this list-though far from exhaustive-illustrates the variety of dis­ ciplines, methodological approaches, and topical foci characteristic of this sonic turn. represented are scholars who position themselves in anthro­ pology, ethnomusicology, historical musicology, composition, sociology, history, science and technology studies, media studies, film studies, cultural studies, and literary theory. their methods of investigation range from the ethnographic to the archival, the textual, and the critical and theoretical. the proliferation of these and other works suggests the emergence of a field of study, yet as of now no single discipline lays claim to the sonic turn; it is-and rightly so, i would argue-an "inter-" or "multi-discipline;' still nascent, and characterized by the atomistic nature of most emergent scholarly fields. as a result, these studies are rarely in explicit conversation with one another. citations to other sonic scholarship are usually limited to works originating in the author's own discipline rather than to works originating elsewhere; the multidisciplinary scholar is left to do the cross-referencing largely on his or her own. virgil moorefield's the producer as composer: shaping the sounds of popular music (2005), peter doyle's echo & reverb: fabricating space in popular music recording, 1900-1960 (2005), and tim j. anderson's making easy listening: material culture and postwar american recording (2006) thus enter an expanding field, each articulating a different relation to existing works. moorefield most closely links to the literature on recording studio practice, doyle to discussions of both the aural and referential dimensions of particular sonic signatures of popular music recordings, and anderson to a cultural history of the technologization and industrialization of music pro­ duction and listening practices. each book succeeds reasonably well in terms thomas porcello of the scope and ambition set by its author, but all reveal their significance more strongly if considered in light of this larger body of scholarship. moorefield's brief book on music producers argues that the producer should be thought of as a composer, and that technological changes in the recording process (largely since the 1950s) have led to three primary developments: first, that recording, which was once primarily a technical matter, has increasingly become an artistic one; second, that recording no longer seeks to create (the illusion of) concert-hall realism but instead builds its own realities of sonic spatialization; and third, that the contemporary music producer is best thought of as an auteur. the book is largely organized chronologically: phil spector starts the history, and select hip hop produc­ ers, the chemical brothers, and mash-ups end it. in between, the reader is guided-almost as if strolling past displays at the rock and roll hall of fame-through mini-biographies of the conventionally canonized legends of pop music production: brian wilson, barry gordy (with norm whitfield), george martin, frank zappa, alan parsons, tony visconti, brian eno, bill laswell, trent reznor, quincy jones, kraftwerk (and conny plank), and hank shocklee (with chuck d). most of these exposes use previously published interviews to convey the individual's overall approach to and philosophy of production; in most cases, moorefield then provides a detailed analysis of one of the producer's best known songs. thus (to provide but a few examples) phil spector's "wall of sound" is described with an analysis of "be my baby;' brian wilson's compositional approach is illustrated with "good vibrations;' gordy and whitfield with "i heard it through the grapevine," alan parsons with dark side of the moon, and trent reznor with both "mr. self destruct" and "irresponsible hate anthem." moorefield moves between music analysis and attempts to describe songs as sonically organized artifacts of the recording process itself. when done well, these sections have the potential to open the reader's ears to new ways of appreciating some familiar hits. a case in point is the discussion of spector's production of "be my baby;' which considers both instrumenta­ tion and mix placement in ways that allow for a deeper appreciation both of what one is hearing (especially with respect to the castanets) and of how the mix is crucial to the specificity of that hearing. yet not all of moorefield's illustrations open up such insights. for example, the section concerning quincy jones's production of michael jackson's "billie jean" is illuminating in its description of the interaction of musical elements: the performance and production of the vocals blend seamlessly to create a unique sonic signature. throughout the track there is a subtle interplay 155 156 current musicology between solo voice; a dry, foregrounded chorus; a main chorus; and as­ sorted whoops, yelps, and shouts that add up to a percussion section of their own. (86) but when moorefield moves from description to interpretation, his terminol­ ogy becomes problematic. discussing differences between the final album track and a demo version that jackson had recorded at his home studio, moorefield writes, "everything in the album version is carefully sculpted: every single sound is clear, and there for a reason. yet though there's not a hair out of place, the overall impression of the track is that it is organic" (86). and shortly thereafter, "the chorus is thoroughly satisfying, taking the song to an ecstatic plateau as jackson delivers his message ... the vocals are massed thirds and sixths mixed with slinky unisons" (87). as anyone who has tried to write about musical texture, tone color, or timbral blending of the type inherent in sound mixing can attest, linguistic description of these sonic dimensions is difficult, yet many scholars who have worked on recorded sound have actively sought to develop more precise ways of describing these elements of a sonic mix; moorefield's use of terms like "organic;' "ecstatic;' and "slinky" reflects a vague and uncritically subjective approach that is no longer necessary in contemporary scholarship on sound. the producer as composer is resolutely a-social in its approach to technology, to shifts in musical production practices, and to how particular individuals may come to prominence and power in, to paraphrase howard becker (1982), "art industry worlds." the book's dual focus on auteur theory and technological change results in an unfortunate, technologically deterministic iteration of a great man (and i do mean man) history: but it seems that there will always be people who do something particularly well, no matter whether the context is marks on paper or samples in the studio ... it is not surprising that far from removing "sacred cow auteurs;' modern technology has simply shifted the metaphor from exceptional ac­ complishment on paper by "composers" to exceptional accomplishment on hard disk by "producers." moreover, the producer and his machines are on stage, just as the composer was once a performer. at the top of the current charts, one increasingly finds cases in which the producer is the artist is the composer is the producer; and technology is what has driven the change. (ill) while few would contest that the producers discussed in the book were key innovators in studio technology use, and that many of them created truly extraordinary recordings by taking advantage, in many cases, of new pos­ sibilities that emerged as recording technologies changed throughout the twentieth century (and working, one might add, most often in conjunction thomas porcello with truly talented musicians), that alone cannot account for why these individuals have been lionized when others haven't, nor can it address the complex ways in which technology not only frames but, equally importantly, is framed, by use. for those wishing for an introduction to canonical figures in the history of record production and for some exposure to conceptualizing music as the outcome of a complex process of mediation that leaves audible traces on "the music;' the producer as composer will prove an accessible entry point. those who have read biographies of the individuals profiled in the book, or whose interests reside in more social and cultural aspects of recorded sound, may well be left with reservations. the social construction of tech­ nology (scot) framework (bijker, hughes, and pinch 1987), for example, provides the concept of "boundary shifters"-individuals or organizations whose social practices change the possible uses imagined for technologies (see pinch and trocco 2002 )-as a way to address more subtly the kinds of innovators that this book highlights. from the list of individuals discussed to the unproblematic gendering of "the producer and his machines" in the final paragraph of the book, the history of male hegemony in the ranks of producers is neither questioned nor addressed. finally, one is left with little understanding of how other changes in the music industry in the time frame that the book considers (e.g., the breakdown of union structures, the establishment of music business degree programs at many universities, the consolidation of major labels and their shift to focusing on distribution as much as on production) affected the profession and practice of music production. the orientation of doyle's echo & reverb is decidedly more social. the very thoughtful introductory chapter immerses the reader in a semiotics of spatiality in sound recording, especially as achieved though the care­ ful manipulation of reverberation in sound mixes. in doyle's view, the foregrounding of reverb in many american recordings made before 1960 is no accident. prior to the era of magnetic tape-based blues and country recording, he argues, reverberation reflects issues of place and identity that circulated in the social worlds of musicians: "the social, the personal, the geographic, the demographic, the physico-spatial conditions of [musicians'] lives (and oflife in general) were rendered into aesthetic effects" (7). by the 1950s, "echoicity" in hollywood soundtracks-especially in westerns, and in horror and noir films-had created meaning-laden structures of spatiality that were often transferred to musical recordings and that listeners were primed to render similarly meaningful. doyle's project is simultaneously descriptive and semiotic, roaming across musical genres while striving to access the denotative and connotative 157 158 current musicology meanings that echo and reverberation provide to-or elicit from-listeners. doyle seeks to chart the emergence of "spatial vocabularies" (24) over time, and confines most of his discussion to the pre-stereo era of recorded music, when spatiality could not be easily coded onto a left -right axis. intriguingly, doyle suggests that because it enabled a fixed structure for encoding spatial­ ity, stereo was less open to creative and exploratory spatializing practices than was monaural recording, which had to rely on more inventive sonic techniques. further, the significance of spatial effects changes throughout the history of recorded music: generally speaking, the earlier we are in the history of sound recording, the more denotative the uses of spatial effects tend to be ... by the late 1940s, however, a much wider range of possible meanings was available to record makers and listeners, and many of these are at odds with others (such as the use of reverb or echo to locate a voice at a marked physical distance from the imagined "center stage" and also to suggest the inner voice or conscience of the singer). (14) doyle is keenly interested in accessing the meaning of spatial effects, but is careful to acknowledge that it is no simple task to determine how listeners at a given point in time may have encountered and interpreted the spatial effects the book discusses. nonetheless, he argues, "broad consistencies" in popular music's space-making practices do exist, and thus it is possible to argue "for the existence of a coherent spatial semiotics operating in popular music recordings" (31). after a strong chapter which positions echo and reverberation in myth, architecture, and gender theory, and also charts the emergence of romantic "intimacy" on sound recordings as a result of radio's sonic conventions, doyle provides a series of roughly chronological case studies, the first of which examines hillbilly, blues, and jazz recordings. the central figures are jimmie rodgers, whose recording of "blue yodel no.1 (t for texas)" set the stage for the use of depth as an assertion of musicians' individual personhood via sonic emplacement; robert johnson, whose "corner sound" recording technique inserted the microphone between the performer and a wall in order to embed the audience (literally and sonically) in the performance; and the "convex" recordings of duke ellington and billie holiday that issued "the invitation, implicit or explicit, to the listener to enter the space" (91). doyle positions these four artists in the early development of a spatialization that did not seek to map a literal geography of performance ensemble space onto the recording. this chapter effectively showcases the possibilities of doyle's descriptive and interpretive approach; the reader learns about the techniques used and the auditory traces they generate on the recordings, and thomas porcello is led to a more subtle appreciation of how spatializing traces can structure the listening experience. subsequent chapters treat the "western" or "cowboy" recordings of the 1920s through the 1940s (with a particular effort to situate them in the context of sonic conventions of contemporaneous hollywood westerns); hawaiian music recordings' evocation of "distant otherness"; a series of west coast recordings (highlighted by but not limited to les paul and mary ford) in which the electric (often steel) guitar line is located in the mix away from the singer in order to act "as a kind of commentator on the main vocal line" (168); various late 1940s and early 1950s sun and chess studios sessions; and finally a consideration of the early years of rock 'n' roll, with special attention to several elvis presley recordings. these chapters meet with mixed success. each provides an excellent discussion of recording techniques and sonic traces, and one literally experi­ ences the songs differently after reading doyle's descriptions. consider this passage addressing spatializing techniques and their associated meanings in presley's "mystery train" recording from 1955: by the time "mystery train" was recorded, all the major elements of the "sun sound" were in place. the last and arguably more crucial innovations were to locate the singing voice "inside" echo and reverb, and at the same time dispense with the realist, pictoralist, landscape traditions of echoic/ reverberant sound in favor of expressionist, nonliteral zones. at the same time, however, [sam] phillips and presley were able to harness many of the potent significations of echo and reverb that were already extant. in previous chapters reverb and echo were seen to be used in movies and on recordings as signifiers of the uncanny, of shifting consciousness, of ghostly presences, of subjective fear and awe, and magical, shamanlike occupying of place and the exerting of power over objects. (193) in passages like this, doyle's argument is both ear-opening and convinc­ mg. but not all of the book's interpretive moments (many framed within deleuze and guattari's framework of "territorialization," "deterritorializa­ tion;' and "reterritorialization") successfully maintain what doyle recognizes as a vexed boundary between "obsessive and overheated interpretation" and careful semiotic analysis (14-15). doyle's discussion of visual! aural conven­ tions in the 1953 cowboy film shane provides an example. the movie, set against a backdrop of massive mountains, concerns a community at the edge of the reach of civil law. doyle writes, the spectacle of the mountains looming in the distance in shane might be seen as a kind of symbolic rendering of "the law" -simultaneously remote 159 160 current musicology from the immediate action, but an immense, immutable and immovable presiding presence ... over a nervous, ambiguous moment of transition or contestation between divine law, civil law, and anarchy. (l08) referring to a character's shout that is seemingly echoed by the mountains, doyle continues: the sonic marker of the mountain is the echo. in the real world, the phe­ nomenon of echo in open spaces is caused when sound waves encounter a large obstacle and are reflected in such a way that they retain enough of their original characteristics to be heard as a delayed, reduced replica of the original sound. if these mountains in some way stand for "the law," then the echo here might be the voice of that law: a (diminished) voice of the father, an "absent parent" [itself an important element of the film's plot]. (l08) to which one might respond: well, yes, the mountains might represent all that, or perhaps they might not, or perhaps they might be interpreted as meaning that by some subset of viewers at some particular point in time. but rather than quibble with the specifics of this interpretation, i would suggest that this passage highlights the end limits of the interpretive ap­ proach to semiotics used in echo & reverb. for all its revealing description of spatializing techniques, the book's more strained interpretations of meanings created by those techniques suggests the necessity of a more social semiotics, one based in empirical inquiries about the meaning( s) of such spatializing practices, and which begins with the recognition that meaning is immanent and emergent, not simply fixed by the structuring of textual features. this, of course, is not doyle's project and the reader can make of his specific interpretations what she will. doyle's book emerges from within the tradition of textual analysis in popular music studies, and does a strong job of pointing to an alternative kind of textual analysis within that tradition-one firmly rooted in the sonic. while replicating some of the limitations of popular music studies, echo & reverb is generally an insightful-and often a delightful-contribution to the study of the history of recorded music. in contrast to doyle and moorefield, tim j. anderson's making easy listening stresses the industrial and economic contexts of recorded music by arguing that "the very elements of modern music production cannot be separated from the economic scenarios and material arrangements that affect our production and perception of these objects" (184). also implicit in this statement (which leaves one wondering whether anderson sees this as the case only for modern music) is the role of the listener, largely absent from the work of moorefield and (somewhat less so) doyle. anderson's orientathomas porcello tion is that of mass media and communications scholarship, the interests of which reside with the sound recording as a material object, and with a belief that "the study of recordings should always posit an understanding of any recording's relationship to a media industry" (183), in part because "in popular culture, both aesthetic and economic issues have decided influences on our understanding of any given product or movement that cannot be easily distinguished from one another" (xxxv). anderson's emphasis on the materiality of the object and its origins and reception within an industry framework insulates this book (more than either moorefield's or doyle's) from treating sound (or music) as an autonomous, a-social entity. anderson concentrates on recorded music in the post-world war ii united states, a context in which production and consumption had largely shifted "from song to sound" (xvi), as music came to be primarily engaged with by americans through recordings, not sheet music or in-home perfor­ mance. these shifts, of course, did not happen of their own accord, but in conjunction with (and arguably as a result of) efforts by media industries to get americans to invest both economically and ideologically in a culture of recorded sound and the technologies necessary to listen to (and, in some cases, to make) them. the book thus moves between examinations of the industry, recording processes, and specific recordings. anderson organizes the book around three thematic sections. the first concerns the american federation of musicians strikes of 1942-44 and 1948, analyzed through attali's (1985) "stockpiling" and "repetitive society" framework. anderson suggests that the strikes reflected two important industry changes: first, a growing distance between musicians, who found value in an economy based on performance, and the media industry, which increasingly located value in musicians' ability to "facilitate the production, distribution, promotion, and sale of mass-produced objects" (xxxv); and second, an effort by the afm to resist industry pressure to make recordings the primary means of experiencing music (xxxvi). as with most histories of the strike, anderson's places afm president james petrillo at the center of the story, though ultimately anderson criticizes scholarship that narrowly locates petrillo's motivations in his opposition to the negative effect of the radio industry on the livelihood of performing musicians. the two chapters devoted to the afm strikes address how the union sought to counteract a shifting logic of music production, in which performance was displaced by an industry structure that changed musicians from performers into laborers. the second theme of the book is "versioning;' examined in two chapters that chart the trajectory of my fair lady from the broadway stage version in 1956 to the hollywood film of 1964, with particular attention to the various musical soundtrack records of lerner and loewe's score. anderson argues 161 162 current musicology that the multiple recorded versions of my fair lady illustrate an aesthetics of creative difference: "each restaging individuates itself through the exposi­ tion of significant differences in elements such as timing, the intensity of expression, locale, the use of effects, music, and so forth" (63). as anderson's analysis unfolds, it becomes clear that he is less concerned with these dif­ ferences per se than with how they reveal an industrialization of musical and sonic intertextuality that continues unabated into the present (via, for example, the release of boxed anthology sets that often include re-mixed, or previously withheld, versions of songs). this double context, of the social value and the industry logic of versioning, frame the second my fair lady chapter, in which anderson provides a fascinating catalogue and descrip­ tion of the multiple extant recordings of the musical's songs-not merely the well-known ones associated with the controversial casting of audrey hepburn in the role originally sung by julie andrews. anderson's approach provides a welcome counternarrative to the "star image" explanations usually offered in such cases; he argues that the andrews-hepburn choice should not simply be analyzed as a casting controversy, but as an intertextual site of debate over the recording activities and artifacts of specific media industries, including the very specific sonic associations that audiences would by then have had for andrews's and hepburn's recorded voices. the book's final theme links most closely to moorefield, doyle, and the question of the sonic. whereas echo & reverb almost exclusively examines the pre-stereo era of recording, the final two substantive chapters of making easy listening concern the intersection of stereo, technological developments in audio playback, and the postwar fascination with "novelty" records. the promise of playback technologies to provide "fantastic acoustic spaces" (xliii), anderson argues, led to recordings in which aesthetic innovation is less associated with the pleasure of music and more with the pleasure of listening; consumption thus begins to drive production in a tangible way. much of what anderson illustrates parallels (though in abridged fashion) the discussions of space in doyle's and (to a lesser extent) moorefield's books. anderson argues, for instance, that musical recording and playback systems in the postwar period were infused with the promise of providing "musical and sonic possibilities that were distinct from live musical spaces and occasions" (113), and that record labels and recordings consequently deployed stereo as a compositional element, several examples of which are discussed in the second chapter of this section. unlike doyle, anderson turns to film theory to frame his discussion. film studies, he rightly suggests, has a long history of examining the way that cinematic processes situate the viewer (142), whereas popular music scholars have done comparatively less work on analogous auditory mise-en-scene processes. however, anderson thomas porcello offers only a brief indication of what such scholarship might reveal through a comparison between concert-hall realism and early stereo demonstration disks. while anderson's book, of the three considered here, is the most satisfy­ ing in terms of its accountability to social and industrial aspects of sound, it may also be the most problematic for readers widely conversant in the literature discussed at the opening of this essay. for example, he quotes a 1993 article stating that, "music scholarship lacks a general theoretical vocabulary for talking about recording" (xlii). this claim is not entirely without merit; certainly the theoretical vocabulary for describing sound pales in comparison to that for describing music. nonetheless, it is troubling that anderson takes the assertion at face value. a key feature of some of the scholarship cited above-as well as work by some practicing sound engineers, especially moylan (1992 )-has been a systematic effort to advance both theoretical and practical vocabularies for sound. additionally, while the three major themes of the book are certainly related to one another, they remain rather modular in their development. ultimately, the reader is left to do much of the work of interrelating the sections, especially with respect to how the concerns raised in the section on the afm strikes connect to the issues in the section on stereo. the sections read most strongly in isolation rather than as a group, and the book will likely be most useful in courses in this modular fashion. this leads to a sense of diffuseness about the book's central claims, which is augmented by multiple statements in the introductory and concluding chapters concerning what the main thrusts and arguments in the book in fact are (see, for example, xix, xx, xxi, xli, 186). anderson's writing is engaging and his love for the recordings he discusses in the final section (in fact his love for the material artifacts of recorded sound in general) is evident. the shortcomings mentioned here are limitations, not deep flaws (one does wish, though, that the reference to the famous memorex ad campaign (lls) had gotten the ad's catch phrase correct). scholarship in which the "sonic turn" intersects with studies of music and technology is generally built on one (or more) of three approaches: textual analysis, historical study, and ethnography. each approach has its merits, of course, and such an interdisciplinary field can welcome them all. the textual analyses offered by moorefield and, more extensively and richly, by doyle not only open up new "structures of listening" through which to engage with sound recordings, but also provide the ability to track how recordings have structured the relationship between sound and music across genres, time periods, cultures, technological shifts, and changes in industry organization. the more historical approach utilized by anderson (with a healthy dose of cultural studies, in this instance) has the capacity 163 164 current musicology to destabilize the "taken-for-grantedness" we often bring to contemporary engagements with sound recordings, as the apparent naturalness of how they (should) sound is revealed to be the artifact of socially constructed and contested processes of production and listening. textual and historical studies of the music/technology nexus far out­ weigh the ethnographic, though the latter approach is taking noticeable hold in ethnomusicology. the value of ethnography, of course, is its ability to concretize the ways in which social actors engage with technologies and material artifacts, make meaning in the process of producing and consum­ ing them, and conceptualize, create, and render the significance of their own practices. such questions are key to an examination of the social life of sound, and are integral to the issues raised in the books under review. if the sonic turn is, as i have suggested, most appropriately interdisciplinary, then one would hope to see more ethnographic scholarship that adds such grounding to the textual and historical works discussed here. references altman, rick, ed. 1992. sound theory, sound practice. new york and london: routledge. attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music, translated by brian massumi. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. auslander, philip. 1999. liveness: performance in a mediatized culture. new york and london: routledge. becker, howard. 1982. art worlds. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. bijker, wiebe, thomas hughes, and trevor pinch, eds. 1987. the social construction of technological systems: new directions in the sociology and history of technology. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. bijsterveld, karin. 2001. the diabolical symphony of the mechanical age: technology and symbolism of sound in european and north american noise abatement campaigns, 1900-40. social studies of science 31 (1): 37-70. bijsterveld, karin and martin schulp. 2004. breaking into a world of perfection: innovation in today's classical musical instruments. social studies of science 43 (5): 649-74. blesser, barry and linda-ruth salter. 2007. spaces speak, are you listening? experiencing aural architecture. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. born, georgina and david hesmondhalgh. 2000. western music and its others: difference, representation, and appropriation in music. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. bull, michael. 2000. sounding out the city: personal stereos and the management of everyday life. oxford: berg. bull, michael and les back, eds. 2003. the auditory culture reader. oxford: berg. chion, michel. 1994. audio-vision: sound on screen, translated by claudia gorbman. new york: columbia university press. corbin, alain. 1998. village bells: sound and meaning in the 19th-century french countryside, translated by martin thorn. new york: columbia university press. diamond, beverly. 2005. media as social action: native american musicians in the recording studio. in wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic cultures, edited by paul d. greene and thomas porcello, 118-37. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. thomas porcello erlmann, veit, ed. 2004. hearing cultures: essays on sound, listening, and modernity. oxford: berg. evens, aden. 2005. sound ideas: music, machines, and experience. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. feld, steven. 1994. from schizophonia to schizmogenesis. in music grooves, edited by charles keil and steven feld, 257-89. chicago and london: university of chicago press. ---. 1996. pygmy pop: a geneology of schizophonic mimesis. yearbook for traditional music 28: 2-35. gitelman, lisa. 1999. scripts, grooves, and writing machines: representing technology in the edison era. palo alto, ca: stanford university press. greene, paul d. 2001. mixed messages: unsettled cosmopolitanisms in nepali pop. popular music 20 (2): 169-88. greene, paul d. and thomas porcello, eds. 2005. wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic cultures. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. kahn, douglas. 1999. noise, water, meat: a history of sound in the arts. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. katz, mark. 2004. capturing sound: how technology has changed music. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. lastra, james. 2000. sound technology and the american cinema: perception, representation, modernity. new york: columbia university press. lysloff, rene and leslie c. gay, jr., eds. 2003. music and technoculture. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. meintjes, louise. 1990. paul simon's graceland, south africa, and the mediation of musical meaning. ethnomusicology 340): 37-73. ---.2003. sound of africa! making music zulu in a south african studio. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. moylan, william. 1992. the art of recording: the creative resources of music production and audio. new york: van nostrand reinhold. perlman, marc. 2003. consuming audio: an introduction to tweak theory. in music and technoculture, edited by rene lysloff and leslie c. gay, jr., 346-57. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. ---. 2004. golden ears and meter readers: the contest for epistemic authority in audiophilia. social studies of science 34 (5): 783-808. pinch, trevor and karin bijsterveld, eds. 2004. special issue on sound studies: new technologies and music. social studies of science 34 (5). pinch, trevor and frank trocco. 2002. analog days: the invention and impact of the moog synthesizer. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. porcello, thomas. 1998. "tails out": social phenomenology and the ethnographic representation of technology in music making. ethnomusicology 42 (3): 485-510. ---.2004. speaking of sound: language and the professionalization of sound-recording engineers. social studies of science 34 (5): 733-58. ---.2005. music mediated as live in austin: sound, technology, and recording practice. in wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic cultures, edited by paul d. greene and thomas porcello, 103-17. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. rath, richard cullen. 2003. how early america sounded. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. schmidt horning, susan. 2004. engineering the performance: recording engineers, tacit knowledge, and the art of controlling sounds. social studies of science 34 (5): 733-58. smith, bruce r. 1999. the acoustic world of early modern england: attending to the o-factor. chicago and london: university of chicago press. 165 166 current musicology sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. taylor, timothy d. 1997. global pop: world music, world markets. new york and london: routledge. ---. 2001. strange sounds: music, technology, and culture. new york and london: routledge. theberge, paul. 1997. any sound you can imagine: making music/consuming technology. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. thompson, emily. 2002. the soundscape of modernity: architecturalacoustics and the culture of listening in america, 1900-1933. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. waksman, steve. 1999. instruments of desire: the electric guitar and the shaping of musical experience. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. ---. 2004. california noise: tinkering with hardcore and heavy metal in southern california. social studies of science 34 (5): 675-702. wallach, jeremy. 2005. engineering techno-hybrid grooves in two indonesian sound studios. in wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic cultures, edited by paul d. greene and thomas porcello, 138-55. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. weheliye,alexander g. 2005. phonographies: grooves in sonic afro-modernity. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. zak, albin. 2001. the poetics of rock: cutting tracks, making records. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. current.musicology.83.109-188.pdf current musicology, no. 94 (fall 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 127 suspicious silence: walking out on john cage clark lunberry “what we require is / silence; but what silence requires / is that i go on talking .” –john cage, “lecture on nothing” “well, shall we / think or listen? is there a sound addressed / not wholly to the ear?” –william carlos williams, “the orchestra” critical innocence: 2012 marked what would have been the composer and writer john cage’s 100th birthday, offering a nice round numbered moment to commemorate and reevaluate cage’s lasting legacy. and it is a rich and still, astonishingly, controversial legacy, bringing forth bold assessments of cage that range, as they have for decades, from worshipful acclaim, to ridiculing rejection. it seems with cage, still, that it’s either black or white, love or hate; that he is either a saintly prophet of new sounds, new silences, or a foolish charlatan leading anarchically astray. of late, however, one reads more and more critical accounts of cage that, while acknowledging his wide–ranging influence and importance, suggest nonetheless of him a deafening innocence to his own renowned hearing. a new generation of writers and listeners, one that is perhaps more theoretically inclined and less reverential of the composer’s acclaim, have begun to raise questions about what they perceive as the unexamined dimensions of some of cage’s claims about silence, the nature of the nothing that was thought to have constituted it. cage, as a consequence, is now often more mystically presented as somewhat naively espousing a kind of zen–like syncing of a scene with a sound, with its immediate moment. also, this more recent critique asserts of cage a certain silencing of inconvenient sounds, sounds incompatible with, in particular, his own well–established story of silence; some have even characterized cage’s silence as, politically and ontologically, an antiseptic one “which exclude[s] the world and its cultural noise” (brophy). and how simple, or simple–minded, others say, to seek, as cage so often said he sought, out of the silence, his silence, the sound of “sound in itself.” or, how innocent it is to listen for the present of such self–present moments of “here and now.” for we all now so knowingly know that the various mediations of “there and then,” those “continuously compounded” intrusions upon immediate thought by thought’s own “memory and expectation,” so certainly prohibit current musicology 128 our accessing any such punctually present sound, at any such present site, heard as here, heard as now. but, of cage’s listening innocence, what might we make of these many reasoned, even reasonable, suspicions that are directed toward him, of such aspersions onto the foundational stories of sound and silence that cage so often told? how are we to reconcile cage’s stated desire for “sound in itself,” heard instantaneously “here and now,” with what is—in theory—increasingly understood as a more dense and dispersed event of sound that, temporally spreading–out, is always elsewhere and already other than where we look, where we listen? how are we to hear, one wonders, any such present sounds, silent or otherwise, which (if they are to be heard at all) are often now thoughtfully rendered as acoustically thicker in their very thinking, in their having been thought? resounding, re–sounding, such sounds now echo absently elsewhere in their rich range of references that, simultaneously superimposed, constitute them. my suspicion (from one who has long admired and learned from cage) is that many of the more recent attributions of a certain critical innocence to cage, of his being in a kind of deafening denial to his own repressions of sound, have often failed to see, or hear, how cagey cage could actually be, and how smart his innocence, such that it was, has finally proven to have been. and of such self–present hearing of the “here and now,” it was jacques derrida who noted, in his own husserlian study of the mythically sought clark lunberry 129 “punctuality of the instant,” that “the present of self–presence is not simple” (61). nor, i believe, is john cage’s similar seeming to seek of a self–present sound “in itself,” “here and now,” all that “simple” either, nor all that mythical (or mystical, for that matter), as some have recently seemed to suggest. for cage, in the vast and rich range of his resounding work, has consistently and deliberately confused most notions of sound and the self, and of the present, of a self that might be self–presently present to sound—a self that is, positioned as such, neither here, nor there, neither now, nor then; absent. as cage reportedly said to the painter philip guston, “when you start working, everybody is in your studio—the past, your friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas—all are there. but as you continue, they start leaving one by one, and you are left completely alone. then, if you are lucky, even you leave” (mayer 171). and lucky for us, prompted by the present punctuality of cage’s own 2012 centenary—with cage, now unliving, and so, himself, neither here, nor there—having left—perhaps we should now, once again, listen more closely to him (though perhaps listening not to his often obscuring legacy). repositioned here and now, let’s try once more to listen to all that cage was always asking us to listen closely to and for . . . .a listening, appropriately, that starts anew with silence. enchambered music: cage famously and repeatedly offered two related scenarios of his own encountering of silence, and of his subsequent awareness of the absence of sound, or the absence of the absence of sound; the first of these arose from his time, in the late 1940’s, inside an anechoic chamber. such a technological space has been described as “a room designed to absorb any and all sound waves, to diffuse any echoes or reverberation, making it as close to silent (or ‘dead’, in the parlance of audio engineers) as possible” (kim–cohen 160). once inside this chamber, cage was reportedly startled, not by the anticipated silences encountered therein, but instead by the mysterious and unexpected continuation of two specific sounds—“one high and one low”—contained in this purportedly “dead” space. cage wrote the following about what proved to be such a seminal experience for him, in his 1962 book silence: “when i described [these two sounds later] to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation. until i die there will be sounds. and they will continue following my death” (8). while still alive inside the anechoic chamber, cage had clearly realized that, contrary to expectation and intention (i.e., his seeking of silence), there was, in fact, as he later stated “no such thing as silence,” at least as long as the living body is there to listen for it. heard instead, inescapably and without intention, current musicology 130 are the constant, polymorphous variations of life–confirming noises already filling the ear or preceding even the ear’s finest receptions: hearing before (and after) the ear has even heard. however, there are some who have recently claimed that cage, in the anechoic chamber, must have refused to acknowledge, by silencing himself, a “third internal sound” (in addition to the two physiological ones) in which he surely, internally asked, “hmmm, wonder what that low–pitched sound is? what’s that high–pitched sound?” (kahn 190). in other words, the suspicion is that inside the chamber cage, in the service of a pre–selected narrative, was silencing thought, repressing a “discursive” and interpretive mode of listening that, it’s believed, would have been “antithetical to cagean listening by being in competition with sounds in themselves” (kahn 190). and yet i wonder if it’s fair or even accurate to suggest that, inside the chamber, cage did not hear this “third internal sound” of discursive thought, of his own quiet questioning. for, indeed, cage did ask the very questions that are assumed to have been repressed by him, of “hmmm, wonder what” those sounds are, to the sound engineer once having walked out of the chamber. as herbert blau noted, “cage listened to his nerves and heart, then thought of himself listening” (248). as a result of such thought, such thoughtful listening, instead of these discursive sounds being necessarily “antithetical to cagean listening” and in “competition with sounds in themselves,” might such sounds have been heard by cage as vital, constituting components of “sounds themselves”? might they even have been heard by cage as a music of the discursive mind, a poetry of its interpretive processes, as additional echoing nuances of worded sound moving through or alongside the purring and pulsating of the body’s blood and nervous system? the second and even better known of cage’s scenarios of silence, one that perhaps emerges from and echoes out of the first, is his now legendary noteless composition for piano 4’33” in which, at its 1952 premier, the virtuoso pianist david tudor sat silently, never touching the piano’s keys; heard in its place, however, was a composition in “three movements” that was, as cage later described, “full of accidental sounds” (kostelanetz 70), sounds that were gradually brought to one’s attention from both within and outside the performance space by the silencing of the piano. among the sounds reportedly heard were the anxious noises of those in the audience growing restless, their murmurs and movements, their whisper of words incited by the very absence of sound, its awkward non–silence. these two enchambered settings, in spite of their radically different contexts (the first, technological; the second, conventionally musical), share within them a discovered awareness of silence’s absence and the unintended emergence of indeterminate sound. as cage noted, “there is no such thing clark lunberry 131 as an empty space or an empty time. there is always something to see, something to hear. in fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot” (8). for instance, in the first chamber, the anechoic one, try as we might to locate silence, enter emptiness, there was the deliberate silencing of the world beyond the chamber’s thickly insulated walls and the subsequent interior consciousness of interior sounds, both physiological and, i believe, discursive, heard within the living body; in the second chamber, the setting for cage’s 4’33”, there was, by stark contrast, a deliberate silencing of all of the interior bodies of those in the audience. for they, according to the conventions of a concert hall, were expected to sit passively while actively listening, not to their own living bodies, but to the living world noisily resounding around them both between and beyond the room’s echoing walls, from windows and doors left open. just as silence had proved absent from the anechoic chamber, so was it absent from the concert hall that night, as if cage’s silenced piano, and its passive pianist, had incited (or made room for) the very active, external sounds of its non–silent setting, the component parts of 4’33”’s indeterminate composition. for in the first two movements of that piece there were, as cage noted, the outside “accidental” sounds of “stirring” wind and then “pattering” raindrops; these sounds became then in the third movement the living bodies of those restless in the room, “interesting” sounds, as cage humorously, perhaps ironically characterized them, of people “talk[ing] and walk[ing] out.” current musicology 132 walking out: and so it is, still, from such scenarios as cage’s two enchambered settings that others have continued to walk out on cage, but now often for quite different reasons. if before, with 4’33”, for instance, the departure was caused by what might be snidely construed as a kind of philistine’s frustration, or, on the other hand, perhaps a more high–minded sense of aesthetic violation—there being nothing there to listen to—more recently, and critically, the departure is more likely caused by the silent suspicion that there is, in cage’s case, not nothing, but too much there, or too much claimed, selectively claimed, by cage for the living immediacy of un–represented sensation, the “sound itself ” of a particular moment, heard “here and now.” however, both before and now, perhaps too many have “walked out” too soon on cage, listening too simply, or too suspiciously, to his silences, and to what cage repeatedly said of these silences. for might it be precisely there, at the punctual point of one’s walking out, that cage’s plot has theoretically thickened, and where his own proposed listening most richly begins to extend beyond itself, extending beyond even cage’s own expectations and descriptions of sound and silence, and the absence of each? might even a kind of acoustic threshold onto absence have been crossed over, walked over, while walking out, and where, just when you think you’ve heard it all, you realize that there’s far more there than meets the immediate ear? for as cage noted, “ . . . our experiences, gotten as they are all at once, pass beyond our understanding” (194). clark lunberry 133 in keeping with this image of one’s “walking out,” let’s recall that it was cage, walking out of the anechoic chamber, who carried with him the discursive questions arising from the physiological noises heard from within, the “hmmm, wonder what” those sounds are questions, in which language engages sensation and seeks explanation. there, the words are heard instantly integrating within or upon the “sounds themselves,” and where, as cage quite explicitly wrote of language’s inevitable involvement in sound, “the words make / help make / the silences . . . .” (109). at such a moment of wonder, though, it’s perhaps little wonder that, having entered the chamber seeking silence, even cage’s own premeditated expectations had on that day in some ways “walked out” on him. while he, largely unresisting of the intrusions and the departure of his earlier idea, was finally left alone with his lost thoughts, his initial ideas of silence unlocated and unfulfilled; or as cage later stated, “no one can have an idea once he really starts listening” (191). or certainly not a single idea, a fixed idea, enduring and unchanging. there was, of course, another, earlier description of a different scene of departure, another moment of “walk[ing] out” for cage, but this one came from cage’s earlier anecdote of the artist in his studio, surrounded by “friends, enemies, the art world, and above all, your own ideas.” in that setting, the departures described were presented as a kind of necessary evacuation or emptying out of—i suppose—ego, cultural noise, a conceptual clearing of one’s clutter, the clutter of one’s consciousness; there, finally, “you are left completely alone. then, if you are lucky, even you leave.” it is as if, with this story, cage is consciously concluding that one must absent oneself, or find oneself absented, getting out of the way of, “walking out” on, that which is otherwise being blocked by one’s own habits of thought, habits of listening, even by one’s own habits of suspicion toward listening’s capacity to keep an open ear. after all, in both the anechoic chamber and with 4’33”, the indeterminate sounds encountered in each clearly resonated from both within and beyond the sounds of the two sites themselves. heard however distantly, such sounds were signaling much more than simply the singularity of acoustic texture, more than merely the punctually present point of any particular sound. cage’s subsequent listening to the respective absences of silence was thus understood by him to have effectively interrupted and intruded upon any unencumbered or facile immediacies of “here and now.” though he may have begun by seeking out silences in the anechoic chamber and in 4’33”’s concert hall, from this new position outside of his own premeditated expectations—where cage, in a sense, had walked out on cage—he nonetheless inadvertently and indeterminately uncovered in their place moments of mediated separation from such silence, their own time–intersecting echoes, time–delayed traces delineated . . . . and the absent sound of that. current musicology 134 response ability: in an early essay where cage first speaks of letting “sounds be themselves,” he expands upon the mind’s interpretive mediations and considerably complicates that which is often construed more simply, more innocently, less theoretically, of his listening. for cage, in fact, eagerly embraces the ways in which discursive intrusions are not to be separated from sound, repressed from one’s listening, but instead heard as richly constituting it. he writes: “hearing sounds which are just sounds immediately sets the theorizing mind to theorizing . . . .” cage goes on to offer personal instances of sounds in nature resounding theoretically elsewhere: does not a mountain intentionally evoke a sense of wonder? . . . . night in the woods a sense of fear? . . . . is not decaying flesh loathsome? does not the death of someone we love bring sorrow? . . . what is more angry than the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder? cage concludes this vivid description, indicating: these responses to nature are mine and will not necessarily correspond with another’s. emotion takes place in the person who has it. and sounds, when allowed to be themselves, do not require that those who hear them do so unfeelingly. (10) nor, one might add, is one required to hear such sounds unthinkingly either, without the interpretive “theoretical” mediations that, for cage, finally imply a listener’s “response ability” (10), one’s ability to respond at all. however, in what is becoming a kind of contemporary chorus of cagean criticism, another recently voiced critique of cage’s silence and sound, and what is seen as his suspiciously selective listening, has suggested that, in his discriminations or repressions of inconvenient sounds, cage “fail[ed] to realize a fundamental thought [that] sound is bigger than hearing” (kim– cohen 167), and that there is a “non–cochlear,” conceptual component to one’s listening. again, though, i’m not so sure that cage, so innocently presented, “failed” to realize that, how fundamentally big sound could be, and how the ear’s spiraling cochlea were indeed—like a jetty spiraling into a great salt lake—mediating channels leading directly to the discursive brain. for cage always acknowledged the indeterminate density and immensity of sound, and the limits of our ability to actually hear it (as well as our responsibility to the limits of our own listening, to that which cannot be heard by the naked ear); in addition, cage was well aware of the mind’s own interpretive imperative when confronted by sound and the subsequent discursive and theoretical impulse that was not necessarily disrupted, but linguistically enlivened by sound, and that, as cage himself noted of silence, “required” him to “go on talking.” indeed, for cage, the materially clark lunberry 135 and conceptually compounded echoes extending beyond any such sought silences—“the nature of these,” cage noted, being “unpredictable and changing . . . .” (22)—moved the listening mind immediately into its own mediations of memory and anticipation, of linguistic/poetic formulation and conceptual contemplation. out of the self–presence of “here and now” and into the non–presence of “there and then,” these two tenses of acoustic time inevitably intersect and coalesce into the formation of any perception that is to be had at all. “our poetry now is that we possess nothing . . . ,” cage famously wrote, “we need not destroy the past: it is gone; at any moment it might reappear and seem to be and be the present” (emphasis mine 110). possessing nothing, the past and the present are both entangled and superimposed, with any such sound now seeming to be and being the present. superimpositions: in a conversation between john cage and his friend and fellow composer morton feldman, recorded for radio broadcast in 1966, feldman anecdotally recounted a recent visit of his to the beach and his annoyance at encountering there “transistor radios . . . . blaring out rock n’roll” (254). feldman lamented how, what he called, these “intrusions on [his] life” had prevented him from the peace and quiet that he had presumably sought at the beach, or, from the sounds that he may have hoped to hear . . . birds, waves, wind . . . silence . . . a space to think his own thoughts . . .;who knows? whichever it was, feldman felt as if, surrounded by such sounds, current musicology 136 he were being held captive by the annoying noises, obliged to “surrender” to them against his wishes or his will. aside from the somewhat distressing mental image of morton feldman in swimming trunks (a late philip guston painting comes cartoonishly to mind!), and, even more, the ironic fact that this conversation with cage was recorded and perhaps heard later by some on “transistor radios” (maybe even heard at the beach!), feldman’s frustration caused by hearing the unwelcome and interrupting noises of the radio prompted cage to interrogate further the experience of “intrusion” that his friend had just described. characteristically, though, cage gently counseled feldman not to “surrender,” but to embrace such radiophonic intrusion, “to listen to it with pleasure,” “attend to” it, he said, “pay attention and become interested” in it. in a typically understated display of his own theoretical orientation and sophistication, cage then elaborated upon how, by changing one’s way of thinking, one might come to enjoy and appreciate such sounds as those heard at the beach, or elsewhere, insisting: “well, what it is that you are interested in is what superimposes what. what happens at the same time together with what happens before and what happens after.” to cage’s suggestion that feldman alter or enlarge his way of hearing, paying attention to the superimpositions of sound—“what happens before and what happens after”—there is the clear assertion that, for cage, one might be able to listen for more than those sounds immediately present, for more than simply “the sounds themselves.” as cage then explains to feldman, offering the radio as a metaphorical device for the reception of such superimposed sound: clark lunberry 137 . . . all that radio is, morty, is making available to your ears what was already in the air and available to your ears but you couldn’t hear it. in other words, all it is, is making audible something which you are already in. you are bathed in radio waves—tv, broadcasts, probably telepathic messages, from other minds . . . and this radio simply makes audible something that you thought was inaudible. (19) somewhat like the poet jack spicer’s own image of a radio receiving transmissions from outer space, from “martians” and “the invisible world,” cage presents here a radically new, if entirely earthly, conception of listening. for this is a listening that, if achieved, would encompass and involve, in addition to a more immediate and positive listening, a negative listening as well, or even a kind of anti–hearing of non–perceptions superimposed upon perceptions. as such, the sounds, as cage here presents and redefines them, might then be heard to extend beyond the presence of sounds themselves, extending into an absence that is both before and after any actual event of sound. in time, out of time, such “big” sounds are both immediate, and immediately mediated. or, as derrida would later famously describe, in ways not unrelated to sound and the presence of sound: . . . .the presence of the perceived present can appear as such only inasmuch as it is continuously compounded with a nonpresence and nonperception, with primary memory and expectation (retention and protention). the nonperceptions are neither added to, nor do they occasionally accompany, the actually perceived now; they are essentially and indispensably involved in its possibility . . . .a perceiving in which the perceived is not a present but a past existing as a modification of the present. (derrida, speech and phenomena 64) for derrida, these “nonperceptions” are not, for all intents and purposes, non–perceptions at all. inseparably rolled up into one, these phenomena make possible, they constitute, perception as perception. the two tenses and textures of sound, both their presence and absence, their sound and their silence, are interwoven in perception’s fleeting formation. however, to cage’s far–reaching suggestion of a more expansive form of “superimposed” listening, feldman replied (clearly troubled by the very thought of what cage was proposing, and in as close to a personal rebuke of cage as feldman would ever come) that “at the same time, i mean just simply stated, i can’t conceive of some brat turning on a transistor radio in my face and [my] say[ing], ‘ah! the environment” (19). feldman went on to even more delicately counter or question cage (slyly insinuating perhaps that cage shared some characteristics with such a “brat” at the beach) with his suspicion that, even if he were to try and listen for such superimpositions of sound, “ . . . i can’t think unless thought is something of the past.” here, current musicology 138 feldman forthrightly acknowledges what he perceives as thought’s inevitable and enabling precedence to the very thinking of thought—where, to think at all, is to think “of the past.” however, in cage’s affirmation of sound’s superimpositions, he wasn’t here asking feldman simply, or merely, to think, to think about the sounds of the radio heard at the beach; cage instead was indicating that it was perhaps thinking, or a certain kind of “deep” thinking that the two men had just discussed—the image of it, the self–image of it—that was part of the problem. for it was this kind of self–reflexive thought that, cage believed, was largely responsible for creating the staticky interference to a more temporally dispersed form of hearing . . . affirming less depth of thought, perhaps, and more breadth of it. such an expansive kind of hearing is thus corporally as well as cerebrally engaged, a thinking and listening in time, through the body, a listening that includes a discursive awareness of what’s to be heard without allowing that discursiveness to deafen the sounds around, or to entirely dominate the scene. cage later describes such a superimposed mode of listening–in–motion, hearing–in–time, in the following manner: i guess in my case that [this listening] goes out of thought into experience . . . .[and] that we can be, not just with our minds, but with our whole being, responsive to sound, and that sound doesn’t have to be the communication of some deep thought. they can be just sound. now that sound could go in one ear and out the other, or it could go in one ear, permeate the being, transform the being, and then perhaps go out, letting the next one in (both laugh). and then whether an idea developed . . . you know, the hardest thing in the world, of course, is to have a head without any ideas in it. (27) to this affirmation of thought’s own absence, and to what is, as cage characterizes it, the “hardest thing in the world,” feldman appears to concede the point of the value of the empty head, responding, “but that’s always the best work, you know? always was” (27). feldman elsewhere wrote, in a manner directly related to the absence of sound and of mediated listening, that “we do not hear what we hear . . . ., only what we remember.” to which cage, concurring, would likely counter, yes, but we might nonetheless hear that, remembrance; as if, once–removed, the remembered sounds, even the anticipated sounds, decayed and soon decaying, dead and soon to die, might somehow be made nonetheless to emerge and return (in some ghostly, radiophonic manner), to sound, perhaps inaudibly, in their own resounding absence. sound conclusions: such compacted densities of superimposed sound— cage’s interest in “ . . . what superimposes what. what happens at the same time together with what happens before and what happens after”—listened clark lunberry 139 to closely in all their phenomenological “thickness” and bigness, disperse into a range of radiating references. of these, cage fully understood that such sounds could not be traced or tracked down, located in any one site, and certainly not onto any single site or source of sound. while the one listening, also dispersed and divided by the densities and indeterminacies of the acoustic event, might—as if “present at [one’s] own absence” (beckett 27)—walk away from the scene, as if walking out on oneself, vanishing through the very efforts to hear anything at all. while finally, like cage’s earlier described artist exiting the studio, “if you are lucky, even you leave,” becoming in the process, if only for a moment, that which both feldman and cage had agreed was the “hardest thing in the world”: “a head without any ideas in it.” for silence itself had been vividly demonstrated to cage and by cage as being complexly intersected by the rich and noisy range of these intrusions and interruptions that are involved in simply being alive, by the multiplicities of their continuously compounded sounds. and it is in large part thanks to cage that the windows of the concert hall, the windows onto the world—to a life intently and responsively lived—these windows are now more widely open for us all. as a result, there’s no telling what might finally be heard from them. as cage earlier noted: “ . . . the composer resembles the maker of a camera who allows someone else to take the picture” (11). while, as such a composer, perhaps cage’s most important compositional act, as well as the most enduring and valuable part of his rich legacy, are his expansive and liberating lessons in listening and the fact that he certainly never told us what we were and were not to listen to—internally, externally, physiologically, discursively. as all sounds are now equally available, those heard and, perhaps even more delicately, those that remain unheard, absent. morton feldman, in a follow–up radio conversation with cage, movingly stated that “i know that when i write a piece [of music], sometimes i’m telling people, ‘we’re not gonna be here very long’” (143). of feldman’s poignant and elegiac claim for his music, one might imagine cage nonetheless affirmatively responding that such a life, however long, if lived attentively, would be long enough . . . offering each of us just the right amount of time to hear, superimposed, what’s there to be heard, and not heard, see what’s there to be seen, and not seen, and in the process to be awakened, as cage described elsewhere, “to the very life that we’re living” (12). current musicology 140 clark lunberry 141 current musicology 142 notes 1. the photographs seen in this article were taken for a “writing on water / writing on air” installation that i undertook, in conjunction with a john cage 100th birthday festival, at the university of north florida, march–april 2012. additional photographs from this installation, and others, can be seen at: http://www.unf.edu/~clunberr 2. for an extended discussion of the work of morton feldman, see my essay, “departing landscapes: morton feldman’s string quartet ii and triadic memories.” substance 110: vol. 35, number 2 (summer 2006): 17–50. references beckett, samuel. 1957. proust. new york: grove. blau, herbert. 2011. reality principles: from the absurd to the virtual. ann arbor: university of michigan press. brophy, philip. 2006. epiphanies: john cage (not). the wire 273 (november). cage, john. 1961. silence: lectures and writings. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. cage, john and morton feldman. 1993. radio happenings i–v. cologne: musiktexte. derrida, jacques. 1973. speech and phenomena: and other essays on husserl’s theory of signs, translated by david b. allison. evanston: northwestern university press. kahn, douglas. 2001. noise, water, meat. cambridge, ma: mit press. kim–cohen, seth. 2009. in the blink of an ear: toward a non–cochlear sonic art. new york: continuum. kostelanetz, richard. 2003. conversing with john cage. new york: routledge. mayer, musa. 1988. night studio: a memoir of philip guston. new york: knopf. nicholas cook. 2007. the schenker project: culture, race, and music theory in fin-de-siecle vienna. oxford and new york: oxford university press. reviewed by laura tunbridge schenker is dead: long live schenker. nicholas cook states the aim of this book to be to "construct a meaningful relationship" in place of the perceived "cultural chasm" between our world and heinrich schenker's ( 4 7). of course, the impulse to put schenker into historical context is not new, although, as cook points out, previous studies have tended to focus on his philosophical precursors rather than include the broader cultural issues also considered here. but why try to cross the "cultural chasm"? it is striking that the appear­ ance of cook's book coincides with moves to historicize another icon oflate twentieth -century musical scholarship: carl dahlhaus. 1 indeed, cook takes his title from james hepokoski's 1991 article "the dahlhaus project." (there are further echoes: chapter 1 tropes on the dahlhausian as "foundations of the schenker project.") schenker and dahlhaus in many ways represent opposing poles-the formalist versus the cultural historian-and their simultaneous reassessment may be only coincidence. (it is worth pointing out that dahlhaus would have been deeply unhappy about the pairing.) but such events may possibly indicate the consolidation of a generational shift: now that the "new musicologists" have become the establishment, polemics about getting out of/getting into analysis or the supremacy of german instrumental music are being replaced by accounts of schenker or dahlhaus as cultural phenomena. after all, there are few more effective ways of neutralizing a methodology than by historicizing it. how times have changed! the first english translations of schenker deliberately omitted parts of his commentaries because of their "frankly embarrassing" diatribes about the weakening of german music and society; as suzannah clark has pointed out, it would have been very difficult to promote schenkerian analysis to the academy while insisting that his political views were relevant to its understanding (2007: 142). indeed, the schenkerism that took hold of anglo-american music theory in the 1970s and 1980s tended to avoid what were formerly called "extra-musical complications." even now, there continues to be a branch of theorists who prefer their schenker neat. but curiosity encouraged others to seek out those suppressed commentaries and some of the more obscure writings, and a much messier account of schenker's project began to emerge. in chapter 1, cook traces the "strikingly contradictory readings" of schenker's early essay, "der geist der clirrent musicology, no. 87 (spring 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 201 202 current musicology musikalischen technik [the spirit of musical technique]" (1895; included here as an appendix) by william pastille, allan keiler, and kevin korsyn, commenting parenthetically that "it's too bad it doesn't fit irving berlin's tune: anything you can contextualise, i can contextualise better" (38). while cook is appreciative of their efforts to position schenker's thoughts in the german philosophical tradition, he is wary of their claims about direct influences; the nachlass provides only circumstantial evidence of schenker's interaction with the austrian physicist ernst mach (as argued by korsyn), and wayne alpern's doctoral exploration of resonances between schenker's analytical principles and georg jellinek's approach to law is thought to smell in places of a "smoking gun." a common problem of intellectual history is how to disentangle what would probably have been common knowledge from deliberate reference. cook executes a complicated dance around this issue throughout his book (the challenges of which become still more apparent when it comes to as­ sessing schenker's familiarity with the jewish tradition in chapter 4). his initial ploy, in response to korsyn et al., is to claim a focus on "the connota­ tions of what schenker wrote" (46). thus cook hopes to "re-imagine ... as far as possible regulated by the historical record" (47), our relationship with the man and his theories-indeed, to argue that these were not only theories, but constituted a "broader programme for action ... the schenker project" (208). cook explains these connotations primarily by providing more cultural background: placing schenker's writings within the context of contemporary critical practice in vienna; comparing his ideas about ornamentation with architectural developments in the city (including what schenker may have seen every day from his home on reisnerstrasse); or explaining how there was a viennese history of associating music and society, from seventeenth-century ecclesiasts to adorno. a lengthy digression about the shared attributes of schenker's outlook and the bbsendorfer piano is typical of the general tone: [tlhe comparison not only helps to situate schenker's values in their viennese context but also illustrates yet again, and now in a specifically conservative context, the trait i have repeatedly emphasised of slipping almost instantaneously from the smallest details-whether of editorial orthography or of piano timbre-to the largest issues of cultural identity and society. this trait transcends the distinction ... between viennese modernism and conservatism, and draws attention to an aspect of vi en­ nese modernism that tends to be underemphasised in present -day accounts of it. (186) cook describes this as "join-the-dots" history (188), and at its best it makes for rich and sophisticated discussion. laura tunbridge for example, the problem of schenker's "grisly" politics, at least as revealed in his writings, begins with the standard apology that they were "grounded firmly in the musical" (141). that does not make them less pernicious, as schoenberg, adorno, august halm, and even oswald jonas recognized; and cook admits to being swept away by "the hypnotic power of schenker's rhetoric" (147). yet to condemn schenker's writings, according to cook, "seems otiose, given that [hel died in his bed over seventy years ago­ and would almost certainly have accompanied jeanette to theresienstadt had he lived longer" (147). such breezy language not withstanding, cook contextualizes schenker's politics-and his problems of assimilating as a middle-class galician jew in early twentieth-century vienna-better than has been done before. and that is important because, in order to cross the "cultural chasm," cook advises, our responsibility is to understand: "for to understand is not to condone, while to condemn without understanding is futile" (147). there is a sense, though, in which with this statement cook can have his cake and eat it: he may reveal more of what is ideologically objectionable about schenker in the name of understanding (even citing earlier editors' "excluded exclusions"), but still allows us to leave what can be crudely characterised as the "nasty bits" on the other side of the historical divide. among them may be the theory itself. there are several pictures in this book: of schenker on holiday in the tyrol, of fin-de-siecle viennese architecture, of anti-semitic brawls in the street. given that the metalan­ guage of schenkerian theory is essentially visual-the graph has become its calling card-it is striking that there are no music examples until the last thirty pages. even then, with two exceptions, the figures are reproductions of schenker's sketches from old editions, rather than newly set: adding a historical sheen that may send the reader plummeting back into that "cultural chasm." is this, in some way, "period" schenker? perhaps it has to be. cook's final chapter broaches what he describes as the "in some ways most disheartening phase of the schenker project" (245); but this turns out not to be, as might be expected, his subject's politics or the politics of assimilation. rather, we move "beyond assimilation" (as he entitles his chapter): to the aesthetics of the analytical method itself, specifically the problem of late schenker-his codification in der freie satz of the urlinie. it is in the application of his final theory, according to cook, that charges of an unconcern for empirical reality are most apposite (259). whereas the unsavoury political implications (and unconvincing musical claims) of earlier writings can be explained away as rhetorical-even as jokes-cook is ultimately reluctant to "contextualize" away schenker's graphs (though he does later draw a brief parallel to "the eliminationist tendencies of the 203 204 current musicology authoritarian regimes which were coming into being in the 1930s" [293]). the challenge in part is that by the time the theory becomes more narrow and schematic, "the social dimension of the theory withers away: we end up not with the schenker project as [cook has] described it, but rather with what der freie satz has traditionally been seen as-a work of music theory, through which are scattered a large number of rather gratuitous remarks pertaining to philosophy, religion, society, or the individual" (268). cook's next move is interesting. he uses the fin-de-siecle histories of his earlier chapters to critique the "americanization" of schenker in the second half of the twentieth century, during which time his theories became "streamlined;' and there arose an ideologically-freighted notion of "structural hearing": the ideal that inspires structural listening is transparency: heard right, a musical composition reveals its structure in the same way as a bauhaus building. but nothing could be further from the viennese modernism of loos, the "discreet" exterior of whose houses concealed rather than dis­ closed the private spaces that lay within, or of schoenberg and schenker, for both of whom truth lay concealed behind appearances. the "better listening" schenker called for ... was less a matter of total disclosure than of orientation. (280) the two distinct traditions of modernism at play here open up the possibility of one final, and these days probably inevitable, interpretative move, towards postmodern approaches to schenker, "approaches that turn out to be at least as close to the historical schenker, or maybe i should say one historical schenker, as the modernist orthodoxy of schenkerian theory" (281). it seems likely that cook would include himself among the postmodern schenkerians. yet unfortunately the closing section of the chapter engages with the theory-readings of the theory, and readings of readings-at a level of detail that would probably deter all but the most dedicated of read­ ers. and this points to a contradiction at the heart of cook's historicizing project. the "original form" of schenker's theories have been demonstrated to be, at the very least, debatable: tonwille or der freie satz? yet cook ultimately argues that the theory has a continuous history, which needs no reconstruction. earlier i claimed that historicization is often an effective means of neutralizing a theory, but that seems not to be the case with this volume. rather, contextualizing better is presented as a way to reinvigorate the schenker project. cook, rather sentimentally, concludes that analysis must "be understood as imbued with worldly meaning, as drawing its signification from the multiple contexts within which we live, as funnelling our experiences, hopes, and fears into music and back from music into the world we inhabit" (318). schenker is said to be but one theorist among laura tunbridge many, and the limitations of his theory in terms of repertoire and audience are acknowledged at various places in this book, but the 'cultural chasm' between his world and ours is far from closed by cook's project. so: schenker is indeed dead: long live analysis? notes 1. see the two recent conferences beethoven and rossini: crossing musical cultures (cam­ bridge university, may 2008), which revisited dahlhaus's notion of the "twin styles;' and carl dahlhaus und die musikwissenschaft (humboldt university, june 2008). references alpern, wayne. forthcoming. schenkerian jurisprudence: echoes of schenker's legal education. phd dissertation, city university of new york. clark, suzannah. 2007. the politics of the urlinie in schenker's der tonwille and der freie satz. journal of the royal musical association 132: 141-64. hepokoski, james. 1991. the dahlhaus project and its extramusicological sources. 19th­ century music 14: 221-46. keiler, allan. 1989. the origins of schenker's thought: how man is musical. journal of music theory 33: 273-98. korsyn, kevin. 1993. schenker's organicism reexamined. integral 7: 82-113. pastille, william. 1984. heinrich schenker, anti-organicist. 19th-century music 8: 28-36. 205 current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 113 listening in poppies dorota czerner listening as i speak as i hear a sound, listening i remember to a sound of an image as i reach for the center freckles of shaping ~ of the wind ~ of what is becoming or scales of what scarlet first maybe only a stain that breaks off a~flowering breath from my listening before ever~ready a thought comes to a pause before its own self~reflection ~ to fall out with the recognition of itself as a form, a shadow, the illusion previous to any language of substance a nub in yarn~ poppies i remember i’m already holding onto with fear (of this new thick soup of chaos) freckles of the wind and expectation again in readiness or scales to jump on to the next vibration of a red~flowering breath of sound or dazzling ever~ready light, poppies i feel swell in small fibrous protrusions, the illusion opening with substance from the first gesture across the space~ a simple vocabulary each carrying a potential of movement to chip off something read through like a swirling spark of their frail mouths an utterance (i’m still only groping, grasping, held open to this crawling in the dark a ripple at a threshold a ripple of layered opacities in the shadows now humming to myself) ~ current musicology 114 yet it is not lifting me quite enough to hear up in order to tame, to get emplaced there, maybe not even at the point when within the radiant blush i try to move by sticking to where of satin petals i am moment by moment aglow yes now aglow now wrapped into vocabulary of movement this spindle~shaped bundle that is read beginning to weave a nucleus through their frail fabric mouths of sound imagined ~ mouths of satin petals ~ a heavy new hearing held open to a ripple a thought in the shadows, thought of poppies spoken outward, across the boundaries a voice suspended in silence of time a moment of depth with speed releasing resonance a skin~ drum that begins to spin red circles pulled taut, a space where being in front of my eyes nears its bare surface stretched quivers about wordlessness the experience mute of every sensation going off yet shimmering, sealed beneath my own silent self spread with their bloom the way a whale~wave is projected to match, sustain the desire over the plateau of an ocean and density of this space opening first dorota czerner 115 then falling back to intensify all or wax the sense of the self, both in isolation and connectedness to the other the way to the image a reassurance of sweet unripe seed that i ~ a voice echoed ~ continue to exist that survived absorption of in somewhere other than i the voice the voice transcending a horizon of everything that i would take to be “maki...” as is or just so, a cell this here is efflorescence hardened from the sun’s chemistry alive now and under its influence the distinction between the intention and the display of appearances dissolves somehow so able to show, unshow all its loveparts all being one event leaving a centrifugal awareness of speaking, a stem along which chromosounds migrate as i lay there, warming myself in this fire, myself a thread between solutions super~saturated language to the opposite ends of a figure surfacing: current musicology 116 “że maki” “są, że maki” “są maki, że” pre~language, pre~objects for crystals not quite what, to grow around, yet what they may or almost are interpenetrating, branching out, multi~stratal “.........maki są tak.......” sensations now enfolded, twice fastened to the sound in self, within running patterns becoming a succession of myselves, eating away at becoming, sounding the gum bleeding somewhere between the envelopes of a twofold cloak through everything that spans over the direct me together with sound the feeling, experiencing me dotted sewn through the time~continuum, swarming on to the face of the real now becoming, now language becoming me as speaking is as is identity made own traced in various voicings a flower that swalllows the pleasure of surrendering unpredictable but already involved in a metamorphism from the unknown to familiar, being in/ /out birthed image events encrypted in word events being in, the second figure prefigured in the first encrypted in what/ being out “i am a memory coin, flipped”: word~image, flipped: it~me, being, and at every stage both expressing both the pleasure of watery pulsation being dorota czerner 117 birthed from color heard birthed as much as furthering of the sense recollected then transferred “poppies i remember” as my individual signing of being “freckles of the wind” onto the fabric of this, this language, the immanence of sense “a simple vocabulary of movement” roaming off in the arborescence of meaning myself psychedelic elided between “their frail shadows” the folds articulated from there on ~ origins and chronology: i. october 2003. i first encounter benjamin boretz’s thought in the form of a single ribbon of a music moving through several pages of argument, part ii of “language ,as a music.” ii. february 2004. beginning to get more and more familiar with the score of (“. . . my chart shines high where the blue milk’s upset . . .”) as i’m memorizing it, and playing for myself. iii. february/march 2004. in parallel with ongoing sessions with ben’s piano music (but also in response to ben’s suggestion of my writing a text whose expression would be strictly framed by “thinking, that is, intellectual utterances,” to the exclusion of any conscious usage of a sensual image), i compose a dia–phonic poem “listening in poppies”—a personal take on poetic image, voice and its utterance, emergence and articulation of sound, or language identity, within an experience of music. iv. in 2005–2006 i record and begin to edit with russell c. richardson a video piece transporting the two voices of “poppies” into a visual medium. the resulting video performance was originated and edited by russell in 2006. the soundtrack was recorded and composed at open space with the help of ben boretz. the piano performance of the music is by michael fowler, open space cd 18. v. the opening fragment of “poppies” can be viewed on the open space web magazine: http://the–open–space.org/boretz–czerner–richardson/ current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 177 cover to cover achille c. varzi ali. wait, can you please turn up the volume? . . . i know this tune! baba. i should hope so. it’s rachmaninov’s second piano concerto, the famous adagio sostenuto. ali. no, what i meant is that it reminds me of a song. give me a second . . . yes, of course, it’s “all by myself,” celine dion’s hit. the melody is exactly the same. baba. you didn’t know that? ali. i guess i didn’t. did she really plagiarize the song? baba. not exactly. the cd booklet does acknowledge rachmaninov in the credits.1 but it wasn’t her song; it’s a cover. the original is by eric carmen. ali. i didn’t know that, either. so carmen adapted the music and just added the lyrics? baba. in a way, though he didn’t credit the music to rachmaninov, at least not initially. the original album jacket says “words and music by eric carmen.”2 ali. so he committed plagiarism. i suppose that came out later, which is why celine dion was more careful? that’s bad. i mean, it’s bad that people steal music from the classics. just because they’re dead? i am sure eric carmen would have been very upset if celine dion had not acknowledged her credit to him. baba. well, “plagiarism” is a big word. carmen admitted he was “inspired” by rach maninov’s adagio and must have thought it was in the public domain.3 (another song in the same album, “never gonna fall in love again,” borrows from the adagio of rachmaninov’s second symphony.) dion could not have said the same, mutatis mutandis. she really covered his song, though she obviously thought it appropriate to mention the source of carmen’s own inspiration. in any case, i suppose you know that borrowing (if not outright stealing) from the classics is common practice in popular music. already adorno said so in his essay on the topic: the variety lies in the details, but the framework is rarely the result of an original idea.4 ali. it may be common practice, but i still think it’s bad. is it really so widespread? baba. very. take “a groovy kind of love” . . . ali. phil collins’s hit? current musicology 178 baba. yes—though, again, that was a cover. the original was written by toni wine and carole bayer and recorded by diane & annita in the sixties. it’s been covered many times, before and after phil collins: the mindben ders, petula clark, sonny & cher, gene pitney, neil diamond, richard clayderman . . . ali. okay, okay. baba. there are also covers in other languages. for example, it’s been recorded twice in italian, once as “non c’è più nessuno” (a smash by the pop band i ca ma leonti) and then again as “ora che sei qui” (re mo ger ma ni) . . . ali. fine, i got it. i’m sorry i said it was phil collins’s. but what’s the connection with what we were saying? baba. the melody is exactly the rondo from clementi’s sonatina in g major. just a bit slower.5 ali. really? and no one ever mentioned that? baba. not those who turned the melody into cash, at least not for a while. even recently, i remember reading an interview in which wine said they wrote the song in twenty minutes. it “just flew out” of their mouths and at the piano, she said.6 ali. amazing. baba. even more amazing is the fact that others did the same. sarina paris’s “look at us” is heavily based on the very same tune. ali. another cover? baba. no, no. that’s not a cover of “a groovy kind of love.” it was written by charlie marchino. it’s dance–pop, you know. but the source is the same—clemen ti’s rondo. ali. but if the source is the same, then . . . wine and bayer could have sued marchino for plagiarism! baba. maybe they did. ali. this is crazy. a plagiarist suing someone for having plagiarized the same tune? no wonder the attorneys in the music industry are always so busy. baba. art is either plagiarism or revolution—paul gauguin.7 for the record, i should say that in some cases things are done properly. for example, for the mournful instrumental breaks in his song “russians,” sting drew on a theme from prokofiev’s lieutenant kijé suite (the romance). but he did acknowledge that. here, have a look at the cd.8 ali. good boy! baba. sting has interesting things to say about all this, actually. he thinks that borrowing music from classical composers may serve the purpose of pointing popular music in a certain direction. “i think a lot achille c. varzi 179 of people read jung from listening to synchronicity,” he said. “pop’s good at dropping hints.”9 ali. maybe. at least he tries to be honest about influences. from what you’ve been telling me, that’s a rare virtue these days. baba. there are other interesting cases, and not just in contemporary popular music. jazz, for instance. ali. you mean jacques loussier’s trio? they say it clearly that it’s bach (or händel, or satie). baba. no, i was thinking, for instance, of “avalon,” the song by al jolson, buddy desylva and vincent rose. actually, at first only jolson and rose were credited; desylva’s name was added later. but never mind. it was written in 1920 and today it’s considered a jazz standard. (you must be familiar with the recording by benny goodman, from the famous carnegie hall concert.) yet the opening melody is awfully reminiscent of puccini’s “e lucevan le stelle,” the tosca aria. they just gave it a major key and an upbeat tempo. so much so that puccini’s publishers took legal action. ali. did they win? baba. yes. they were awarded some monetary damages as well as all future royalties from “avalon.” at least, this is what people say today,10 but i am not exactly sure how it went. somewhere i also read that puccini sued his publisher, casa ricordi, for failing to pursue the claim against “avalon,” and that it was puccini himself who eventually won the claim.11 apparently, puccini also entered suit against ricordi “on artistic, musical, and moral grounds” because the firm allowed its new york branch to publish a fox trot based on a theme from madama butterfly. (paul whiteman’s “cho–cho–san,”12 i suppose.) but i don’t know the details, and i don’t know whether puccini won those “second–order” suits. ali. i’m truly appalled. by the way, how do you know all this stuff— wikipedia? baba. not only, though it’s usually a good starting point. ali. then you should credit them. baba. touché. anyway, thinking about it, the very notion of a jazz standard is peculiar. why do we say that “avalon” is a “standard,” and not a “cover” of the tune written by al jolson et al. (et puccini)? ali. right. “cover” doesn’t seem to cover all cases. for another example, take al yankovic, richard cheese, or beatallica: their songs are called “parodies.” why? to the extent that a cover or a standard need not have exactly the same text as the original (think of “mack the knife,” which is always different, or think of any gender–bending cover, such as jeff current musicology 180 buckley’s cover of nina simone’s “be my husband,”13 or tori amos’s compendium in her album strange little girls,14 which is comprised entirely of men’s songs reinterpreted from a female perspective), it’s not clear why in some cases one should speak of parodies instead. baba. perhaps the difference lies in the intentions of the author(s)? ali. or take the case of a song “translated” into another language. often the lyrics are quite different from the original. baba. right. i’m familiar with the lyrics used by camaleonti for their italian hit, and they have nothing to do with those of “a groovy kind of love.” indeed, the title of their song, “non c’è più nessuno,” means “nobody’s here anymore,” while the title of the other italian cover i mentioned, germani’s “ora che sei qui,” means “now that you are here.” something’s gotta be wrong . . . ali. perhaps we should really say they are parodies? baba. or think of “my way”: sinatra took it from “comme d’habitude,” a french song by claude françois and jacques revaux with lyrics by gilles thibaut,15 but the english text (by paul anka) is completely different. ali. so? baba. i really don’t know what to say. i am not even sure we should consider sid vicious’s “my way”16 a parody of sinatra. when asked about this, paul anka said he felt that the sex pistols’ bassist “was sincere about it” (though he obviously preferred other covers, such as those by nina simone, shirley bassey, or even the gypsy kings).17 ali. what about elvis presley’s? baba. he said he got “a little bang” from it. incidentally, you know sid vicious was covered by mika nakashima,18 right? ali. she covered a cover? baba. and what would you say of mindless self indulgence, who recorded a cover of the hip–hop hit “bring the pain,”19 by method man, in which the only part of the original song that survived was the lyrics? the rhythm and sound were changed entirely. ali. if you start talking about hip–hop, then “sampling” is another important category. baba. what’s interesting is that in some cases things backfire, with beneficial effects.20 take, for instance, miles davis’s renditions of cyndi lauper’s “time after time.”21 it seems to me that when she returns to performing this song in recent years, she herself has been influenced by it (and perhaps also by cassandra wilson, who, i’d suggest, was influenced by miles22). another good example is “my favorite things.” i cannot imagine any serious artist performing that song independently of john coltrane’s take on it.23 achille c. varzi 181 ali. “rendition,” “take,” etc. more and more terminology! baba. the fact is, there is a big philosophical issue lurking in the background of all this. we just seem to lack adequate identity and individuation criteria for musical works. that is a general problem, when it comes to the ontology of the arts.24 ali. in the case of other forms of art, i don’t see any special identity issue. take a painting. it may be difficult to tell whether what you are looking at is the original mona lisa or a forgery, but that’s merely a practical issue. either it is or it isn’t, for the question boils down to whether the thing in front of you is the same as the painting made by leonardo. and that is just a standard identity question, as if i asked you whether this cd is really the one i gave you for your birthday. (by the way, does anybody know whether the painting hanging in louvre is the real mona lisa? it’s been stolen once already, so i wouldn’t be surprised if they thought it safer to hang a copy—assuming they got back the original in the first place.) baba. i’m not sure it’s so easy. there is also the question of how to identify an original from a fake—say, an original corot from any of the 100,000 fake corots you can find out there. and there’s the question of whether a fake could count as a work of art in its own right. michelangelo’s cupido dormiente was a forgery; he treated it with acidic earth to make it look like an antique sculpture, and when cardinal riario found out, he was not pleased. still, had it not been destroyed in the great whitehall fire, i’m sure it would now be in a major museum. ali. that’s not the same issue. i thought you meant identity, not authenticity in the broad sense. otherwise you may as well say giazotto plagiarized albinoni.25 baba. sorry. then i guess you are right—there may be no special identity issues when it comes to paintings, statues, etc. but that’s because those are concrete particulars. they are solitary objects. songs and other musical works are different. for one thing, there is a sense in which they are abstract entities. they can be instantiated may times, whenever someone performs them. and it’s not obvious whether this particular performance and that particular performance are indeed performances of the same work. nelson goodman once argued that complete compliance to the score is the only tenable requirement for genuine instantiation; if you change just one note, it’s a different work. otherwise you end up saying that all performances whatsoever are of the same work: you can always go all the way from a to b by a smooth series of one–note additions, alterations, omissions, and so on.26 current musicology 182 ali. the sorites paradox! baba. or think of a performance that has so many mistakes that it turns out to comply with another score. ali. “tonight, ladies and gentlemen, you were meant to hear a sonata by beethoven; what in fact you heard was a sonata by mozart.”27 baba. more importantly, over and above the question of identity applied to particular performances, there’s the question of identity as it applies to the abstract works themselves. that’s where the issue connects with the problem of identifying genuine cases of plagiarism, as opposed to mere similarity. is the opening melody of “avalon” really a rip–off of puccini’s aria? is the melody of “a groovy kind of love” really the same as clementi’s rondo? it is not just a matter of honesty. these are genuine metaphysical questions, at some level. and it’s hard to come up with a way of answering them that fits all our pre–analytical intuitions. i can easily think of good philosophical reasons for saying that two compositions may even share exactly the same sound–structure and yet count as distinct original works—for instance, if their authors did so by sheer coincidence (though i reckon it is a far–fetched possibility).28 ali. as with pierre menard, author of the quixote?29 baba. in a way. ali. i never thought all these issues were so closely connected. no wonder it’s so difficult to say whether we have a real case of plagiarism, or even whether we have a cover, a standard, a take, a parody, or whatever. (did we forget “remake”?) baba. live concerts are a source of many puzzles, too. “medleys,” “reprises,” solo “improvisations,” . . . ali. jazz improvisations are especially interesting. and they need not be live. baba. of course. the art of stretching the idea without changing the melody. besides playing around with the melody, jazz musicians often improvise from the chord and change the harmony. that is a different way of altering the strict identity of the piece, and it may come in degrees (as coltrane’s “my favorite things” shows so well: he transforms and balloons this little ditty, modest material to begin with, into a rather epic exploration30). ali. improvisations may also provide a good context for “quoting” material from other melodies, including classical music. remember nina simone’s tumbling into bach in her rendition of “love me or leave me?”31 baba. right—though she wasn’t really quoting bach. i think the bachian achille c. varzi 183 character of almost her entire solo is anything but accidental, which makes “tumbling into” a rather inapt phrase here; i would say “launching into.” you know, she was trained as a classical pianist before decamping to jazz. she went to juilliard for a year, and i think she would have become a professional concert pianist has she not been denied that scholarship at the curtis institute. what a shame. they said she “wasn’t good enough.”32 ali. we know what the real reasons might have been. anyway, point taken. indeed, improvisation need not be based on a pre–existing melody. in jazz, but also in rock music, it is often “composition in the moment,” a truly creative activity based entirely on the ability to produce, in real time, new melodies that fit the chord sequence. berliner’s book has large sections devoted to the way jazz players use the entries in their repertory thesauri as “vocabulary, ideas, licks, tricks, pet patterns, crips, clichés, and, in the most functional language, things you can do.”33 baba. and a “thing you can do” may simply involve a one– or two–measure phrase . . . ali. good musicians are able to improvise melodies at the fastest rate that they can physically play their instruments, which means that improvisation does not seem to add to the cognitive load of performing.34 i have another good quote. in the obituary note he wrote for thelonious monk, whitney balliett said that his playing and his compositions were of a piece. “his improvisations were molten monk compositions, and his compositions were frozen monk improvisations.”35 baba. sometimes this leads to paradox. back in the thirties, coleman hawkins released a 78rpm on which he improvised on “body and soul.”36 it was such a big hit and he received so many requests for it that he had to learn to play his own improvisation by heart.  ali. are there any cases of people who actually covered someone else’s improvisations? baba. sure. just go to youtube . . . ali. anything more interesting, more official? baba. i don’t think any serious musician would do that, at least not for an official release. that’s probably why jazz has this peculiar category of a standard. but just to give you an example from rock music, i’ve heard at least three different bands cover “strange kind of woman” in their concerts, and in each case the cover included blackmore and gillan’s legendary guitar–vocal duel verbatim—you know, the one they improvised live in osaka.37 ali. bingo. current musicology 184 baba. incidentally, you probably know that one can copyright a melody, but not a chord sequence. so chord sequences, often transposed to another key, are perhaps the most plagiarized element of music, especially on the part of those jazz musicians who could not afford to pay royalties. think of the sequence for the twelve–bar blues. another good example is the chord progression of gershwin’s standard, “i got rhythm,” which underlies hundreds of bebop themes. ali. since many of those themes are themselves considered jazz standards (say, dizzy gillespie’s “salt peanuts” 38), it follows that different standards can be based on the same chord sequence! baba. indeed. (long pause.) luckily, when we stick to my beloved classical music, none of these problems arises. no one would ever dream of calling the “moon light” sonata a “standard.” and what they are playing tonight at the met is not a “cover” or a “remake” of don giovanni, just a “performance,” pace goodman’s strict criteria. ali. likewise, fischer–dieskau’s are not “covers,” “renditions,” or “takes” on schubert’s lieder (or on original performances thereof, say by johann michael vogl). they are “interpretations.” however, if you think about it, things get messy in classical music, too. consider liszt’s piano transcriptions of the lieder. what are they? surely they are not interpretations (though you may say that leslie howard has given us beautiful interpretations of those transcriptions). and surely they are not performances (though, again, you may say that last spring howard gave a splendid performance of liszt’s transcription of schubert’s “wasserflut”). baba. “arrangements”? ali. some recordings list schubert as the composer, but others say liszt. still others put schubert–liszt. ditto for paganini–liszt, gounod– liszt, etc. baba. or bach–busoni, glinka–balakirev, dvořák–kreisler . . . i know. and if heinz holliger played kreisler’s violin transcription of rachmaninov’s 18th piano variation of paganini’s 24th capriccio on the oboe? ali. gosh! baba. actually, the case of “mack the knife,” which you mentioned earlier, is rather intriguing in this regard. the original comes from the threepenny opera, or rather, die dreigroschenoper: music by kurt weill and german lyrics by bertolt brecht. what shall we call— say—ella fitzgerald’s? an interpretation? an english cover? a jazz arrangement? ali. perhaps a parody? if i remember well, when she sang it in berlin, she forgot the lyrics after the first verse and had to improvise new lines on the spot. achille c. varzi 185 baba. true. but then, again, it was such a success that the album with the live recording earned her a grammy award for best performance.39 ali. performance of what? that’s the question. baba. maybe the appropriate category here is “tribute”? on the other hand, i suppose that “pack the knife,” the song by the capitol steps,40 counts as a genuine parody, as does “mac tonight,” the signature song of mcdonald’s mascot in those 1980’s commercials. ali. oh, dear . . . baba. but you are right. on second thought, things can be messy in classical music, too. for one thing, the puccini lawsuit i mentioned earlier is just one side of the coin. in some cases, things went exactly the other way around.41 do you know richard strauss’s symphonic fantasy, aus italien? the finale uses the melody of the popular neapolitan song, “funiculì, funiculà.” strauss must have heard it during his journey to italy, thinking it was a traditional folk tune. unfortunately for him, the song had been composed just a few years earlier by italian composer luigi denza for the opening of the funicular cable car on mount vesuvius (and to huge success: i think ricordi sold a million copies in the first twelve months 42), and when denza found out, he filed a lawsuit against strauss for royalties.43 rimsky–korsakov made the same mistake a few years later when he used the same tune for his neapolitanskaya pesenka. ali. i wonder whether he meant to plagiarize strauss or denza . . . baba. actually, the very idea that folk melodies are just out there to be used for free raises interesting questions. that was already common practice among renais sance and baroque composers: allemandes, pavanes, galliards, gavottes, courantes . . . or think of bach’s use of protestant chorales. a con spicuous example is “o haupt voll blut und wunden” (which really goes back to a medieval hymn, “salve mundi salutare”). it comes up, i think, five or six times in the st matthew passion and somehow frames the whole story.44 but never mind. the truth is, even among the classics there’s a long history of borrowing, lifting, and stealing from other composers. you know, mozart took stuff from haydn, tchai kovsky from mozart, stravinsky from tchai kovsky . . . in some cases it was intentional and explicit, even deferential (as in tchaikovsky’s suite no. 4 45), but not always. in the baroque era it was also standard practice to incorporate material from other contemporary composers into one’s own works. for example, irene’s beautiful aria “sposa son disprezzata,” from the second act of vivaldi’s bajazet, is taken from epitide’s “sposa, non mi conosci,” from the third act of gia comelli’s merope. vivaldi did not write the music, and of course current musicology 186 he did not write the lyrics either (bajazet’s libretto is by agostino piovene). yet you buy a cd by cecilia bartoli and vivaldi is credited as the sole author. which is strange, since she also recorded epitide’s original aria, with all due credits.46 ali. would you say that vivaldi covered giacomelli? or was that a case of plagiarism? baba. it was also common to recycle one’s own material, sometimes changing the lyrics but keeping the music pretty much intact. händel’s “lascia ch’io pianga,” one of his most famous soprano arias, was initially written as an instrumental dance suite for his first opera almira—a sarabande. then he turned it into an actual aria for his oratorio il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, with lyrics by cardinal benedetto pamphili: “lascia la spina.” and finally, he re–used it four years later for his opera rinaldo, with new lyrics by librettist giacomo rossi, and it is in this last form that the aria has become a popular concert piece. ali. so händel covered himself? plagiarized himself? was inspired by himself? baba. don’t forget that in those days they had no records, no gramophones, no radios—nothing. every thing was just a performance, and typically a performance of newly written compositions. it’s understandable that, when a composer was especially satisfied with a melody, he would use it again, changing it just a bit to adapt it to the new setting. you want to make the best use of your best ideas. mozart did that all the time. ali. no wonder he wrote so much. baba. he had to. so, “recycling” is actually an anachronism. i shouldn’t have used that word. the complete lack of music–playing and broadcasting devices is also one of the reasons why piano transcriptions (or “reductions,” or “paraphrases”) became increasingly popular in nineteenth–century post–aristo cratic societies. pared–down approximations of fashionable orchestral or operatic pieces were the only feasible means of musical reproduction. apart from liszt, think for instance of thalberg, l’art du chant appliqué au piano. you wanted to listen to “casta diva” but could not go to the opera? play it on the piano! you wanted to entertain your guests with their favorite verdi arias? play them on the piano! ali. the keyboard as a jukebox . . . baba. in a way—yes. liszt’s piano transcription of the first movement of beethoven’s seventh symphony is actually closer to the original than beethoven’s own (aborted) attempt. achille c. varzi 187 ali. so some musicians wrote piano transcriptions of their own compositions? baba. right. but beethoven is not a good example (precisely because he’s too early). brahms is a better case in point. or grieg—though he also wrote orchestral transcriptions of pieces originally composed for the piano, such as “troldtog,” the march of the dwarfs. incidentally, the very idea of publicly performing classical music from past composers is relatively new, too. now you can listen to anything you like on your stereo, but you can also go to the met or the philharmonic or wherever and listen to live performances of your favorites: händel, beethoven, mahler’s symphonies, don giovanni, even the entire ring. it’s not always been that way. until the nineteenth century, the great compositions of the past were of course available as scores, and musicians would study them and be familiar with them, but they were rarely played in concert halls. i think it was men dels sohn, who was also a great conductor, who made the difference. the production of bach’s st matthew passion that he conducted in 1829 with the berlin singakademie was the first since bach’s death and a milestone on the way to the revival, not only of bach, but of the great composers of the past. i think i learned this from stefano bollani.47 you know, the jazz pianist . . . ali. so, that’s why the earliest reference to “classical music” recorded by the oed is from the same year.48 baba. it would be nice to know. of course, it took some time before this way of conceiving of classical music established itself. schumann (or was it brahms?) still thought that the best way to listen to a beethoven symphony was to take out the original score, lay on the couch, and read it to hear the music in his head.49 what shall we call that—a “mental performance”? ali. i wish i could have tuned in; it must have been a magnificent performance indeed.50 but i’m so confused, baba. all these cases, all these categories . . . i just don’t understand anymore. baba. exactly. i’m afraid “understanding” is the wrong word here. there are no clear–cut criteria. the terminology varies from case to case, because so do the historical context and the practices of the relevant cultural communities, along with the applicable legal aspects, copyright norms, royalty issues, and so on. ali. okay, but that’s not a good thing. if the categories that get reflected in the terminology we use lack a serious, solid foundation, everything is up for grabs. no wonder it’s a mess.51 baba. you just can’t let it go, can you? i mean, ali, you are such a metaphysical current musicology 188 realist. for you, all the categories we use must necessarily be grounded in the nature of things? what’s wrong with saying that they merely reflect our customs, our conventions, confused and unsystematic (and open to refinement) as they might be? ali. i may be an old–fashioned realist, but your nominalism isn’t any better. and you know my reasons; we’ve gone through the argument many times. let me spell it out once more. suppose, for reductio, that . . . baba. hold on, ali, wait . . . turn up the volume again. hear that? ali. lupus in fabula. this is ol’ blue eyes covering lady ella covering cole porter: “i get a kick out of you.” baba. yes, but this is the 1953 version, the uncensored one!52 ali. “version”?53 achille c. varzi 189 notes 1. falling into you (epic, 1996). 2. eric carmen (arista, 1975). 3. see the 1991 interview with gordon pogoda on carmen’s website, www.ericcarmen.com. 4. theodor w. adorno (with the assistance of george simpson), “on popular music,” studies in philosophy and social sciences 9 (1941): 17–48. 5. thanks to maurizio giri for bringing my attention to this. 6. songfacts interview, may 8, 2007 (www.songfacts.com/blog/interviews/toni_wine). 7. quoted in james g. huneker, the pathos of distance (new york: scribner, 1913), 128. 8. sting’s debut solo album, the dream of the blue turtles (a&m, 1985). 9. “how can you not dump on a guy like sting?,” interview by peter watrous, musician 110 (1987): 61–63. 10. see, e.g., tim gracyk (with frank hoffmann), popular american recording pioneers: 1895–1925 (bing hamton, ny: haworth, 2000), 362. 11. so says a brief article i found in the straits times (november 24, 1923): 2. 12. victor (1921). 13. “be your husband,” in buckley’s posthumous double album live at sin–é (columbia, 2003, from 1993 recordings). 14. atlantic (2001). 15. actually, the song was originally written as “for me,” with lyrics in english, though it became “comme d’habitude” by the time françois recorded it (flèche, 1967). 16. in his posthumous live album, sid sings (virgin, 1979). 17. interviewed by neil mccormick, the telegraph (november 8, 2007). 18. in her album the end (sony, 2006). 19. in their debut album, tight (uppity cracker, 1999). 20. for this observation—and for the examples—i am indebted to wolfgang mann. 21. in you’re under arrest (columbia, 1985), or live in live around the world (warner bros., 1996, from the 1989 jvc jazz festival in chicago). 22. see her traveling miles (blue note, 1999). 23. my favorite things (atlantic, 1961). 24. so general and difficult that the literature devoted to it is immense. a good starting point is stephen davies’s chapter “ontology of art” in jerrold levinson’s the oxford handbook of aesthetics (oxford: oxford university press, 2003), 155–180, along with amie l. thomasson’s chapter of the same title in peter kivy’s the blackwell guide to aesthetics (oxford: blackwell, 2004), 78–92. 25. the reference is remo giazotto’s adagio in g minor, popularly known as “albinoni’s adagio,” since giazotto claimed it was based on the discovery of a manuscript fragment by albinoni. 26. nelson goodman, languages of art (new york: bobbs–merrill, 1968), 186–187. 27. from lydia goehr, “‘three blind mice’: goodman, mcluhan, and adorno on the art of music and listening in the age of global transmission,” new german critique 104 (2008): 1–31, at 4. current musicology 190 28. see, e.g., jerrold levinson, “what a musical work is,” journal of philosophy 77 (1980): 5–28. 29. jorge luis borges, “pierre menard, autor del quijote,” sur 56 (1939): 7–16. 30. thanks to david gutkin for putting it so nicely to me. 31. in her debut album, little girl blue (bethlehem, 1958). 32. see nina simone’s autobiography (with stephen cleary), i put a spell on you (new york: pantheon, 1991), 41. 33. paul berliner, thinking in jazz: the infinite art of improvisation (chicago: university of chicago press, 1994), 102. 34. see philip n. johnson–laird, “how jazz musicians improvise,” music perception 19 (2002): 415–442. 35. the new yorker (march 1, 1982): 37. 36. bluebird (1939). thanks to phil johnson–laird for this example. 37. deep purple, made in japan (emi, 1972). 38. guild (1945). 39. ella in berlin (verve, 1960). in 1999 the album was also inducted into the grammy hall of fame. 40. from their album when bush comes to shove (self–published, 2002). 41. thanks to jerry levinson for reminding me of this. 42. see carmelo pittari, la storia della canzone napoletana: dalle origini all’epoca d’oro (milan: baldini castoldi dalai, 2004), 99. 43. see günter brosche, “musical quotations and allusions in the works of richard strauss,” in charles youmans (ed.), the cambridge companion to richard strauss (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2010), 213–225, at 216 and 315 (note 15). 44. here, again, i am indebted to wolfgang mann. 45. the “mozartiana suite” was written for the 100th anniversary of don giovanni. precisely because it was meant as a tribute, tchaikovsky himself refrained from numbering it with his previous three orchestral suites. 46. see arie antiche: se tu m’ami (decca, 1992) and sacrificium (decca, 2009), respectively. 47. in sostiene bollani, part 2, aired on rai television on september 5, 2011 (avaliable on youtube). thanks to valeria giardino for this reference. 48. “this is the place i should come to every sunday when i wished to hear classical music correctly and judiciously performed”; vincent novello’s diary, july 26, 1829, now in a mozart pilgrimage: being the travel diaries of vincent & mary novello in the year 1829 (london: novello, 1955), 181. 49. i think it was indeed schumann who said this, though i am unable to locate the quote in his writings. jerry levinson tells me that it’s more likely it was brahms, who reportedly declined an invitation to mahler’s performance of don giovanni at the royal hungarian opera house, claiming that he would “enjoy it much better from the score.” see jan swafford, johannes brahms: a biography (new york: vintage, 1999), 570. (for the record, brahms was eventually snookered into going and liked mahler’s performance immensely.) 50. see peter kivy, the performance of reading: an essay in the philosophy of literature (oxford: blackwell, 2006), 63. kivy’s book has a lot to say about such mental performances. achille c. varzi 191 51. this is not to say that no one has made an attempt at sorting out things systematically. see, e.g., stephen davies, musical works and performances: a philosophical exploration (oxford: oxford university press, 2001), and paul thom, the musician as interpreter (university park, pa: pennsylvania state university press, 2007). 52. the 1953 version, in the album songs for young lovers (capitol, 1954), has porter’s original lines “some, they may go for cocaine / i’m sure that if i took even one sniff / that would bore me terrifically, too,” later changed to “some like the perfume in spain . . .” or to “some like the bop–type refrain . . .” 53. many thanks to alice attie, valeria giardino, maurizio giri, lydia goehr, david gutkin, phil johnson–laird, jerry levinson, and wolfgang mann for helpful discussions and suggestions on the topics (and some of the examples) covered in this dialogue. jean-luc nancy. 2007. listening, translated by charlotte mandell. new york: fordham university press. reviewed by michael gallope after years and years of debate, has music studies come to a consensus on how to relate culturalist and historicist claims about music to formal claims? or are most analytical approaches still too external to musical experience? to be sure, many solutions to the structure-context debate are out there already. scholars can look to a formalism or analysis immanent to the culture of the musical situation to avoid importing foreign perspectives. and for those so inclined, one could take an adornian position, maintaining that musical material could not be thought outside of the history of musical specificity anyway; the truth content or utopian moment in music could not exist only formally or only specifically. in this case, structure and context must be related dialectically. finally, we always have the option of abandoning analysis all together, leaving the "actual music" untouched so we can instead focus only on socio-cultural testimony garnered from context. but must the immateriality of sonorous structure be related the materiality of practice and context at all? could we try coming up with a wholly different perspective that gets us out of this dualist bind? in charlotte mandell's splendid translation of jean-luc nancy's brief but passionate a i' ecoute, the french philosopher gives us a glimpse of this completely different philosophy of music. uninterested in wresting out the dialectic between immaterial structure and the materiality of a self­ evident cultural practice, nancy's notion of music in listening (as mandell has translated a i' ecoute) respects no proper distinction between subject (listeners, participants, composers, musicians, or otherwise) and object (say, a thing or phenomenon of organized sound). surpassing or subverting this traditional orientation, nancy prefers to think of music as the becoming­ sound of sense, where music is perhaps only an intensely sonorous version of our endlessly shared sensing of the world. this means his book is not so much a "philosophy of music" in the regular sense of the phrase as it is a philosophy of listening. nancy conceives of this thesis in a very particular way. i will try to flesh this out by analyzing what i see as the most salient moves of the book on my own terms, and then i will end with some critical remarks. since nancy's work is so new to music studies, for the purposes of this short review i have kept my own reservations about this book (and his philosophy more broadly) to a minimum. current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 157 158 current musicology the book, just shy of eighty-five pages (footnotes included), is divided into three sections: a large first section called "listening" that contains the core philosophical arguments followed by two shorter sections that explore music with a bit more specificity (though these are not included in the original french edition). nancy begins the book by opposing two different french words for "listening": entendre and ecouter. in french, the verb entendre (which mandell translates as "hearing") implies a kind of hearing that is also a way of understanding, for entendre also plainly means "to understand" or even, "to intend." entendre imposes a truth on what is heard. it suggests that we hear sonorous form as presented figures, or that we hear internally consistent, knowable, and identifiable beings. l' ecouter or "listening" is different. it implies an orientation towards something behind or aside from the sound of presented beings. when we "listen" we orient ourselves towards the temporal, processual presenting of sense itself, not the specific beings we might seek to understand in themselves. listening means that we strain from one moment to the next, splitting and stretching the listening subject into the grounded opening of experience itself. where entendre implies the closure of understanding and truth, ecouter implies the openness of negotiation, uncertainty, and exposure. when we listen (in the sense of ecouter) we do not seek to understand what we hear in advance, nor do we simply receive a communicated meaning that awaits us. we are instead oriented towards something nancy refers to as "sens." the french word "sens:' which can mean at once "meaning," "direc­ tion" and "sense" in english, is a key concept for nancy. moving, coming, and happening, rather than processing and regulating, if sens is anything like a "faculty" (and it is a stretch to call it that) it is one that gives only the experience of what exceeds coding and systematization. l it is not a property of a mind of a consciousness, but the product of a shared existence made by constant circulation and iteration, flushed with alterity. sens exceeds or precedes any particular beings as such, meaning that it is never indicative of positive significations like linguistic signs. it happens among us, nowhere else than in this world, remaining both integrated with experience and still beyond containment and total understanding. perhaps most broadly, sens is the experiential mark of what nancy will call "infinite finitude": the limitless or infinite repetition of nothing but finite, concrete, worldly happenings. in this book, listening (which is always a listening for sens) affirms this infinite finitude as a first principle, or ontology. as nancy says, when we listen we are always "on the edge of meaning, or in an edgy meaning of extremity, and as if the sound were precisely nothing else than this edge, this fringe, this margin ... " (7). it is through listening right at this margin and edge of meaning in this concrete world that we experience it. and in michael gallope listening, we do not practice a way of hearing that is only mine or only yours-we have to share it-or more forcefully it is precisely an originary sharing of multiplicity. thus, listening is always an exposure to something unknown or different. listening in this way, we are oriented towards a renvoi, are-sending, reference, or referral that maintains no stable identity over time or across space. much like derrida's notion of differance, nancy's renvoi demonstrates the way something like meaning can be shared through the back and forth of endless alteration and iteration. between us, we cannot fuse our nervous systems together in a perfect solidarity, nor can we communicate information among one another without remainder, distortion, or excess. there is always space between us, and this spacing keeps us from immanently becoming one with another, preventing the actualization of a perfect communion or transubstantiation. instead of total solidarity and security, listening gives us the necessary friction of incessantly touching right at the open space between us. in this book, a renvoi is exemplified by the resonance of sound. nancy makes the empirical point often enough: of all the arts and of all the senses or materials of art, sound is uniquely diffuse, resonating, and fleeting. it does not present itself as permanent; it presents itself as resonant. and this resonance is not a fusion and a present being, but a coming and a going, or a presencing. it is "made of referrals" (7). it is an exemplary showing of this incessant touching and presencing that keeps us imperfectly sharing the world as such. as nancy writes in the sense of the world: "[ sound] resonates elsewhere, at a distance, in an exteriority that is spaced out in all the other directions and that the ear hears along with the sounds, as the opening of the world" (1997:85). if we were willing to risk a little formula: listening to the renvoi of sonorous resonance orients us toward the resonance of sens, a resonance that lies beyond signification. now listening does not simply use sound to expose us to forms of the unknowable, leaving us there in total uncertainty. what makes listening possible is, finally, the incessant rhythm or resonance of returning from the unknowable back to the self in a "fit of self" (9). in always re-taking the self in an infinite "crisis," we are never a substantial and secure "subject;' but nothing more than the incessant approach to ourselves. he writes: ''approach to the self: neither to a proper self (i), nor to the self of an other, but to the form or structure of self as such, that is to say, to the form, structure, and movement of an infinite referral [renvoi] since it refers to something (itself) that is nothing outside of the referral" (9). this kind of a resonant self bears a special kind of infinity: the limitlessness of this "self" lies exactly in its power to return to itself amidst the relentless onslaught of finite, transitive, referrals 159 160 current musicology of meaning. one should not downplay how extreme this formulation can be. these referrals include the totality of all living movements between us and in us broaching space and time; this includes every mediation from organic, cellular processes in our bodies all the way up to massive social ideologies. the "fit of self" is the way a life lives through these mediations. or more traditionally, the "fit of self" echoes the broadest gesture of heidegger's philosophy. listening in a "fit of self" does not mark a subject eccentric to the actual world who makes it an object of conscious observation or percep­ tion. instead, it marks a living attunement grounded in the contaminated anxiety of everything that is already there in the world. to widen the frame a bit: this kind of listening self is not brought into a cosmic harmonia mundi (an otherworldly transcendence), it does not commune with lost composers and stage personalities (an intersubjective transcendence), and it is not the musically-seduced victim of a false con­ sciousness (an objective determination on behalf of a transcendence like culture, race, the other, history, and so forth). it is a listening self that obeys no proper, nameable, or consistent law of transcendent regulation except the minimal coherence immanently necessary to keep together a self in the world. it is one always already contaminated by an originary sharing of renvoi, making an openness neither active nor passive that comes to us in sonorous form as an exemplary mark of our uncertain, negotiated coexistence. as a consequence, this listener never ceases to expose the inside to the outside and the outside to the inside, blurring and flipping the border between self and the world: "listening thus forms the perceptible singularity that bears in the most ostensive way the perceptible or sensitive (aisthetic) condition as such: the sharing of an inside/outside, division and participation, de­ connection and contagion" (14). now, let us look closer at nancy's account of technical or "musical" listening. what exactly does it mean for nancy, that people listen well or listen closely, or listen musically? this book might seem to open new answers to these very old questions, since we know that music, for him, is not listened to, implying all the regular coordinates of subjectified bodies and musical gestures and objects. in listening, music "listens to itself." this means that just as listening exposes the inside and the outside to one another, music can now listen "to itself" because it is nothing but a listening to self. it is not something that needs to be listened to, or translated by a subject external to it. but can we strengthen this definition? suppose a musical object is a thing of repeatable sound, a thing made of different kinds of musical writing, structured and preserved in the media of notes, recordings, edits, techniques, skills, instruments, reproductions, memories, treatises, traditions, genres, and so on. and suppose a musical michael gallope subject to be a conscious being who makes sense out of this object. so, in order for a standard subject-object account of musical perception to work, it should be assumed there would be some technique, however broadly defined, that would be listened to. the listening subject must perceive a figure, a melody, a harmony, a rhythm, a meter, an edit, a skill, a filter, an instrument, a vibrato-anything. for it would be impossible to perceive a musical object that had no technical content. but nancy's radicalization of listening attempts to think that listening really happens outside of any regulated recourse to a specified technique of musical writing. it is never a matter of a conscious subject perceiving musical notes or formal structure, or even gestural patterns in so far as these properties of the musical object would have to be normatively stabilized and agreed upon. only after agreeing and stabilizing the technique could we then determine if a subject really heard it, or in any case, what was re­ ally heard. but for nancy, it never matters "what" music is heard. it is the activity of the listening that matters. this means that when music "listens to itself" no demand can be made for an adequate listening, since adequacy has to be judged against the repeatable properties of a musical object. and these properties as forms of musical writing or musical technique always remain unspecified. pushing things a bit further, we might say that when music listens to itself, these musical techniques are not perceived or specified by a conscious subject, but are listened to by more techniques (like, say, the basic cognitive techniques of memory and anticipation). listening is actually just techniques listening to techniques, without any strict identity maintained between a technique of hearing and a technique of sound. then, music is no longer defined as an objective being of actual sonorous form, but is the presencing activity of listening itself. music is the mobile couplings of the "musicianly and the musical" (64). or: "musical listening seems, then, to be like the permission, the elaboration, and the intensification of the keenest disposition of the 'auditory sense))' (27). musical listening is not the accurate perception of musical form. it is the given sense of a particularly intense listening, one technique freely finding another, presenting no determinate musical form or signification, but presenting only its own tension as its own being: the sonorous presentation of presentation. without a formal musical object, it follows that anyone's "technical" expertise in listening (however unconventional) is sufficient to make music into what it is-a bearer of sens. he writes: "it is not a hearer [auditeur], then, who listens, and it matters little whether or not he is musical. listening is musical when it is music that listens to itself" (67). i take this affirmation very seriously: nothing technically specific to an act oflistening is required 161 162 current musicology for music to listen to itself. technical or musical listening like that of a specialist can allow music to listen to itself, but it is not necessary. all musical techniques are affirmed in a pure but worldly multiplicity. this logic, carried to its conclusion, bears a radical thesis: when we really listen, we can take no recourse to a proper unit of musical technique (like notation) to ground the act oflistening, since such a proper unit would only exist in order to secure the identity of music qua object. music is strictly the irreducibly plural collection of its technical elements, no matter what they are: pitches, notes, instruments, gestures, traditions, institutions, treatises, styles, solos-anything. music could be built on the modulation of sonorous amplitude by any parameter, by any technical means, according to the logic of any minimal unit of repetition, or unit of musical technique. here is how nancy affirms the openness by which we can apprehend the mobile relations between sound and its poetic assemblage: ''actually, this time [the linking of the musicianly and the musical] it is a matter-according to very different modalities-of the distance between what links a work to its means, conditions, and regulated contexts, and what makes it exist as such, in its indivisible unity (which is, moreover, nothing but the indivisible unity of a whole and of the discrete units, all just as indivisible, of its parts, moments, components, aspects ... )" (64-65). and still more explicitly, there is no proper criteria for an adequate link between musical sound and technical listening: "without a doubt, musical listening worthy of that name can consist only in a correct combination of the two approaches or of the two dispositions, the compositional and the sensory. the fact remains that the determination of the correctness in question does not stem from any crite­ riology, whether musical or aesthetic" (63-64). without criteria or positive and actual musical codes, there is consequently no proper code to regulate hearing-as-understanding, or entendre. this leaves listening exposed to'its own being, oriented away from the musical object as such. musical objects don't disclose truths, but only present themselves as the technique of the sonorous made into an active presencing.2 to throw a wrench in the whole matter, the third section of the book, called "march in spirit in our ranks" explores the opposite kind oflistening: entendre. in an oblique response to nietzsche's the case of wagner, nancy gives us a clear definition of how music can fail to resound: "what truly betrays music and diverts or perverts the movement of its modern history is the extent to which it is indexed to a mode of signification and not to a mode of sensibility" (57). for nancy, this kind of indexing corresponds exactly to the powers of myth-the same powers that give fascisms their sense of community, using music for specific ends, silencing its resonance and paralyzing its spacing. there is nothing surprising here: music that michael gallope engenders unwavering solidarity is dangerous mythology; we should instead always orient listening to the porous resonance of sens, keeping ourselves exposed to a kind of originary plurality of being together. but how could we have a kind of music on the side of entendre, a mythical kind of music that has been saddled with horrible signifying content that "disfigures," "obliter­ ates," and "stifles" resonance? how would we know a specific musical genre or situation has been reduced to the pure signification of mythology? that is, if we know from our earlier analysis that any kind of musical listening can be oriented towards sens as ecouter, how, then, would we know entendre when we see (or hear) it? perhaps these questions are so hard to answer because entendre still ap­ parently needs a proper technical foundation (memory, notation, tradition, recording, instruments) to make its mythology. otherwise the music would have no stable identity from which we could judge its dangerous effects. only if we knew what the music was, and how it was made, would we be able to come up with specific theories as to how signification imposed itself upon music's resonance. but all we know is that this mythological music involves some very general link with musical form that is the carrier of sens "as content." in these situations "there is no room for anything but utterance and persuasion of a sense through a form supposed to constitute the adequate expression of this sense itself regarded as content" (58). simply, there is no spacing. like two nervous systems fused together, or a dialectic that has conquered its internal differences, freezing the singularity of its motion, music has ceased to resonate between us. the consequence is an affective solidarity: "thus feeling manages to be identified all at once as signified and signifier of realities, images, or concepts like 'people,' 'community,' 'destiny,' 'mission,' and so on" (58). when nancy writes like this he suggests that a musical genre or situation could be actually purified of ecouter, totally stripped of any resonance (" ... there is no room for anything ... "). but earlier in the book nancy writes of entendre and ecouter: "the one cannot, in the long run, do without the other" and that they are "two paces [allures 1 of the same" (1-2). here allures might also mean speeds, looks, appearances, airs. if it is clear in this passage that sens cannot simply be made into a presented thing, and presented things are nothing outside of the sens of the presenting (the two forms need each other), a determination about whether or not music had been saddled with a signification would have to remain open and undecidable. alternatively, if i am correct to see an affirmation of the plurality of musical techniques in nancy's work, wouldn't this make such a claim to a pure entendre impossible anyway, since there is no proper technical medium to ground the repeatable hearing of a signification? 163 164 current musicology other passages on entendre do not offer clearer answers to these ques­ tions. take, for example, note seven, from the first section: "perhaps we are permitted to consider two positions or two destinations of music (whether it's the same music or two different genres): music heard and music listened to (or, as they used to be called, background music [musique de table] and concert music [musique de concert]). the analogy would be difficult to make in the domain of the plastic arts (except perhaps with decorative painting)" (70n7). here, decorative painting and background music (musique de table, tafelmusik, or divertimento, assuming all are ornamental, nonintentional, or passive arts) are "heard" [entendre] whereas concert music, which is more likely to be appreciated as an object or a "work;' would still be "listened to" [ecouter]. but why wouldn't background music be securely on the side of ecouter? it seems to share many of its attributes: it is widely shared, porous, carrying little weight of signification; it merely ornaments experience, rather than seeking to be understood. is background music not precisely the kind of music that could listen to itself since it needs neither objecthood nor a proper technical format? finally, even as nancy considers technically proficient listening as an orientation towards ecouter, is it possible, conversely, to see it as an orienta­ tion towards entendre? the discipline of educating youth to, say, "listen musically" certainly uses concepts to secure the perception and identity of musical objects with proper forms of musical writing, forming them into knowledge, and developing the sense of hearing precisely as a mode of understanding. couldn't such "disciplined" listening make ecouter more difficult, since the didactic practices of music appreciation might close off the necessary distance between sound and sense in order to secure the ap­ prehension of form? supposing disciplinary listening practices are taught via a proper and agreed upon unit of musical technique like notation, at the very least, this challenges nancy's affirmation of an open and plural sense of musical technique. or we could pose this challenge as an empirical question: can we make judgments of degree between entendre v. ecouter? that, in certain circumstances listening is just easier? and that in others, disciplinary situations make listening to sens more difficult? nancy tends to be vague when confronted with this kind of detail. as long as the act oflistening is in some sense immanently musical, or drawing attention to the sounding of sound, it can be oriented towards a renvoi. that's it. he finds possible orientations towards ecouter everywhere. here, it is at work from animal cries all the way up to music theorists: "the ear is stretched [tendue] by or according to meaning-perhaps one should say that its tension is meaning already, or made of meaning, from the sounds and cries that signal danger or sex to the animal, onward to analytical listening, michael gallope which is, after all, nothing but listening taking shape or function as being inclined toward affect and not just toward concept (which does not have to do with understanding [entendre]), as it can always play (or 'analyze'), even in a conversation, in a classroom or a courtroom" (26). whatever one thinks of nancy's account of musical specificity (no doubt, it is usually easy for a specialist to challenge a philosopher on the specialist's grounds), i suppose that this book is most rewarding when read on philosophical terms.3 it might be useful to remember that, like deleuze, when nancy writes about music it is never to do musicology or music theory. their writings on music are probably best read as occasions to do more philosophy. the motifs of sens, of being singular plural, and of presencing, are never exclusively musical. we can look to an essay in the . muses, for example, and find a thought that is equally novel, and practically identical to the notion of a "fit of self" explored in listening. here, i quote from "painting in the grotto": the same is the same without ever returning to itself, and this is how it identifies with itself. the same is the same of an identity that alters itself from birth, thirsting after a self that has never yet been self, and whose birth is already alteration, and who appropriates itself as this very altera­ tion. (1994:70) just like "the self" in listening, "the same" cannot remain identical with itself across space and time. the world is one in which beings must remain endlessly different; they must "mean" to and with other beings always. this comes from our individual births: exposures or openings of possibility and uncertainty that never stop opening us to the world, over and over again. the births are both actual and eternal: actual because they are nowhere but in this world, and eternal, because, like nietzsche's eternal return, the non­ identical becomings of life never cease to radiate through all living things, even as they are always re-appropriated as a living "self." notes l le sens du monde (1993) published as the sense of the world, translated by jeffrey s. librett (1997) is both a great introduction to nancy's philosophy, and a good place to get a grasp of nancy's particular use of sens. 2. perhaps it is a bit easier to see, now, why nancy can claim that the differences between cultures, genres, (and even more broadly the senses and the arts) are not limitations to listening, but its conditions:" ... one could say that the difference in sense (in the 'perceived' [sense] sense of the word) is its condition, that is, the condition of its resonance" (11). sim­ ply, if we do away with our desire to make listening adequate to musical objects, we simply affirm the self in resonance, which is also an exposure to a difference so generic (the mobile couplings of techniques) that is almost trivial to add that these differences could be social and cultural too. 165 166 current musicology 3. for further reading of nancy's work, i recommend the experience of freedom (1993), the sense of the world (1998), and being singular plural (2000), as well as the essays collected in the birth to presence (1993). they are all much more philosophically substantial, providing detailed explorations of nancy's ontology. references nancy, jean-luc. 1993. the experience of freedom, translated by bridget mcdonald. stanford, ca: stanford university press. ---. 1994. the muses, translated by peggy kamuf. stanford, ca: stanford university press. ---. 1997. the sense of the world, translated by jeffrey s. librett. minneapolis and london: minnesota university press. ---. 1999. a birth to presence, translated by brian holmes. stanford, ca: stanford university press. ---. 2000. being singular plural, translated by robert richardson and anne o'byrne. stanford, ca: stanford university press. ---.2002. a l'ecouter. paris: galilee. ---. 2006. the muses ii, translated by simon sparks. stanford, ca: stanford university press. current.musicology.86.101-184.pdf metal in three modes of enmity: political, musical, cosmic gerd bayer ed. 2009. heavy metal music in britain. surrey, uk and burlington, vt: ashgate. steve waksman. 2009. this ain't the summer of love: conflict and crossover in heavy metal and punk. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. nicola masciandaro ed. 2010. hideous gnosis: black metal theory sympoisum 1. charleston: createspace. reviewed by juliet forshaw scholarship on metal always seems a little bewildered or put on the defensive by the genre's profoundly adversarial nature. metal certainly opposes some­ thing, and to a large extent is defined by this opposition rather than by any obvious message of its own, but what exactly does it oppose? certain political values? certain kinds of music? certain religions? or does it represent a vague opposition to "things in general;" is it the music of rebellion without a cause? the short answer, judging by the academic treatments under review here as well as earlier attempts to censor it, is that it opposes whatever its interpreters want it to. thus its critics site accusations of racism, sexism, and homophobia, while supporters praise its supposed opposition to capitalism, strict gender roles, and even the concept of order itself. many of these metal partisans, especially those whose primary concern is the rehabilitation of an art form often perceived as ethically problematic, spend so much time explaining away its disturbing features that they ignore the possibility that disturbance is precisely the point. even those who do recognize disturbance as a fundamental aim of metal and call attention to the specific forms that that disturbance takes, such as expressions of animosity toward certain groups of people, often fail to explain why listeners are attracted to these sounds. that the appeal doesn't lie only in bigotry is clear from the growing number of fans who come from the very groups that have been the most stigmatized in metal-women, ethnic minorities, religiously observant people, and queer women and men. the following essay will not fully explain either the genre's lust for enmity in all forms or the perverse attraction that this spirit of antagonism holds for fans, but it will at least review current scholarly thought on these subjects and suggest some possible avenues for future exploration. i will current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 139 140 current musicology provide a brief overview of the scholarship that first legitimized the study of metal and consider three recent books that each turn the notion of metal's enmity toward other things into an analytical methodology; that is, they attempt to define it by what it is not and by what it opposes. the books cast metal in opposition to certain political values, kinds of music, and religious/philosophical worldviews. out of our discussion-imbued with the recognition that metal exists only in opposition, enmity, and negativity toward something else-will emerge a sense of the elusiveness of this art form as a subject of inquiry and the difficulty of finding a methodological approach that fully captures its strangeness, darkness, and hostility toward analysis. metal's transmission from the stage to the page began with lurid biog­ raphies and autobiographies of performers, which continue to be churned out by both mainstream and, increasingly, vanity presses. like other popular music genres, it entered the academy under the aegis of sociology rather than musicology, since the validation of a set of sounds as music worthy of study cannot occur until the people who create and consume them are taken seriously. the early work of sociologists donna gaines and deena weinstein in teenage wasteland: suburbia's dead end kids (1991) and heavy metal: a cultural sociology (1991) thus painted a sympathetic portrait of the typical disaffected, middle-to-lower class, white teenage male fan who had so alarmed adult elites that in 1985 a bipartisan committee founded the infamous parents music resource center in an attempt to censor metal (as well as hip hop and some pop) for their supposedly damaging effect on the morals of american youth. these works represent the beginning of a sustained sociological and ethnographic interest in metal, an interest that so far has outstripped that of musicologists. the first and still definitive musicological treatment, robert walser's running with the devil: power, gender, and madness in heavy metal music (1993), walked the line between justification and critique as gracefully as was possible in the charged rhetorical climate that surrounded metal in the early nineties. walser accomplished this by analyzing metal with the then­ fashionable and still effective "new musicology" approach, which postulates that ideology is encoded in the very structure of the music. although walser at times makes overly definitive pronouncements about the "meaning" of tiny musical gestures, his basic claims remain compelling: high volume and distortion reflect a general preoccupation with power and intensity; the virtuosic guitar solos that explode out of conventional verse-chorus structure reflect general values of assertiveness and rebellion; the reliance on the aeolian and phrygian modes reflect a focus on negative emotion. the book also raised the crucial issue of metal performers' and fans' masculinity, juliet forshaw calling attention to the genre's curious combination of macho swagger and effeminate visuals. eighties glam metal, he argues, engaged in a subver­ sion of traditional gender roles whereby male musicians adopted traits of sexually provocative women's dress and performance (such as long teased hair, elaborate makeup, and sinuous dance moves) in order to question conventional masculine norms. yet though his argument has merit, i would contend that this aesthetic wasn't as androgynous and benign as walser makes it sound. in some ways, it deconstructed masculinity only to reconstruct it more solidly than ever: it was not a wholesale rejection of masculine values or an espousal of feminine ones, but an adoption of the superficial trappings of sexualized femininity as a means of dramatizing a preference for a certain kind of objectified woman (the stripper or groupie, endlessly celebrated by motley crtie, guns n' roses, and others). though walser is sensitive to the ways in which metal musicians recapitulate broader sexist discourses, the book's gender-deconstruction argument risks casting metal in a "progressive" light, as a force that was on what academics tend to consider the good side of the culture wars. walser generally reined in the impulse to whitewash, but his successors have not always been so nuanced. whatever claims to progressiveness attributed to metal during its glam phase were negated with the rise of extreme metal (an umbrella term that includes abrasive sub genres such as thrash metal, death metal, and black metal). when death metal bands such as cannibal corpse began singing about the pleasures of torture and the early 1990s norwegian black metal scene exploded in real-life murderous violence, it seemed that walser's book had come along at exactly the wrong time: just when he, along with gaines and weinstein, had validated metal within the academy, the genre found new ways to appall. as earlier heavy metal became assimilated into the musical and intellectual mainstream, extreme metal arose as a defiant response to such co-option and began its perpetual quest for what georges bataille called the "extreme limit;' a state of such intensity, irrationality, and unacceptability that no conventional discourse could ever hope to pin it down. perhaps because extreme metal still bears this aura of incomprehensibil­ ity and bad taste, the majority of recent scholarship has continued to focus on music from the '70s and '80s, which has lost much of its shock value and can readily be assimilated through conventional approaches. the first book under review, gerd bayer's edited collection of essays heavy metal music in britain, focuses on the new wave of british heavy metal (nwobhm), which arose in the wake of black sabbath and included bands such as judas priest, iron maiden, motorhead, defleppard, and venom. the tremendous problem facing anyone who wants to write a book about the nwobhm is 141 142 cunrent musicology that the genre encompassed too many different musical styles and lyrical preoccupations to allow for many valid generalizations about it on the whole (though some of these writers go ahead and generalize anyway). the bands that are grouped under the nwobhm umbrella today share little more than their emergence in the late 1970s, their british working-class background, and their visual aesthetic of long hair and a denim and leather wardrobe. otherwise, they range from the satanist proto-black metal of venom to the glam party-rock ofdefleppard. given the diffuse nature of the movement's music and lyrical concerns, almost the only thing that can be generalized about is its politics-and indeed, many of the contributors focus on that topic, trying their best to position metal as politically progressive by placing it in opposition to misogyny and working-class oppression. these essays portray metal in what might be called the "political" mode of enmity, and illustrate the first of the three methodological approaches reviewed here. one valuable as well as problematic essay that exemplifies the book's strong desire to rehabilitate metal comes from deena weinstein, who in "the empowering masculinity of british heavy metal" pursues the theme of constructed masculinity, arguing that the nwobhm (narrowly represented by iron maiden and judas priest) was no more misogynistic than mainstream rock, despite metal's unsavory reputation. as a backdrop to her argument, i would point out that british metal does share certain masculinist attitudes that inform much rock music production, such as the belief that rock expresses a male sensibility and should be confrontational in a specifically masculine way. "rock musk should be gross: that's the fun of it and its attraction;' says bruce dickinson of iron maiden. "it gets up and drops its trousers. not everybody wants to be sinead o'connor all the time" (in jeffries 1991). in keeping with the stereotype of confrontation as a male behavioral strategy and conciliation as a female one, those who adhere to rock's code of authenticity shun the euphonious, soothing sounds associated with pop music written by or at least for women and instead cultivate a harsh, raucous style. insofar as british metal musicians embrace dickinson's belligerent definition of rock, they support the dominant nar­ rative of popular music, which champions rock and its sub genres as a male discursive space. but, with this aside, the most striking thing about the nwobhm's attempts to construct masculinity, as weinstein points out, is how little its conception of masculinity is predicated on the overt sexism of denigrating or objectifying women, in contrast to many american bands from the same period such as motley crue and guns n' roses. rather, it more or less ignores women and attempts instead to depict and impart a type of power that valorizes certain characteristics that happen to be widely perceived as juliet forshaw masculine, such as strength, boldness, and energy. weinstein doesn't suf­ ficiently consider the negative implications of this erasure of women from metal discourse, and her argument would have been more complete if she had explored the few but salient instances of disparagement of women in these bands' back catalogs. her approving mention of nietzsche as the philosophical precursor of british heavy metal is particularly troubling, since his entire edifice was explicitly predicated on contempt for women (much more so than british metal, in fact). nevertheless, the essay is groundbreaking because it advances the overdue thesis that the nwobhm's preoccupation with a masculine-derived ideal of athletic physical power is not in and of itself pernicious to women; indeed, female fans may even experience it as empowering. after all, many women share the common male desire to feel powerful in the culturally masculine sense of having athletic prowess. although heavy metal's celebration of adrenaline-infused power is derived from an ideal of masculine physicality, this power, once translated into music, can be appropriated by female as well as male fans. but why, one might ask, is heavy metal obsessed with feeling powerful in the first place? many of the essays in this book argue that the feeling of potency is sought as a tool with which to overcome the economic oppression that lurks around the corner in this music, created as it was by men who identified strongly with the working class. the authors do not, however, anticipate the dark side of this quest for power, which would only become obvious with the rise of extreme metal: power can also be used to assert mastery over others and engage in oppression oneself. the nwobhm gives us a foretaste of this trend in songs like judas priest's "electric eye," in which the narrator takes on the identity of an omnipotent governmental entity that is watching its victims' every move. depiction of, and perhaps identification with, the imagination of the oppressor would henceforth become one of metal's most common tropes. the theme of oppression gets more sustained treatment in ryan h. moore's excellent essay "the unmaking of the english working class: deindustrialization, reification and the origins of heavy metal;' a downbeat look at the ways in which british metal's fantastic and supposedly escapist lyrics express working-class frustration-but failed to mobilize its fans to political action. drawing on lukacs' development of marx's concept of reification, he argues that the decline of the british manufacturing sector in the 1970s and '80s left the working class with a sense that they were at the mercy of impersonal social forces beyond their comprehension or control: "they knew they were screwed, but it was hard to articulate why" (156). heavy metal reifies these forces into mysterious, supernatural beings that perpetrate violence and cannot be resisted through conventional (i.e. 143 144 current musicology political) means. instead, metal seeks to empower its fans through the ritual evocation of magical energies that can be used to resist these "superhuman" oppressors. the indirectness (and, for moore, ineffectiveness) of this strategy "expresses a mystification of power relations, a general sense of confusion about how social power subjugates young people and the working-class and how exploited peoples can take power and resist their exploiters" (148). other contributors to this volume, including magnus nilsson and laura wiebe taylor, see more potential for real resistance, but given that the major nwobhm bands have all spread far beyond their initial working­ class fan base and are near the end of their careers with no successors who particularly identify with the working class, it seems unlikely that this musical culture will playa major role in any revitalization of the labor movement. if anything, the worldwide success of bands such as iron maiden and black sabbath, which cuts across all class boundaries, suggests that their visions of dystopia and magical resistance are appealing primarily for other reasons besides that of classconsciousness. instead of trying to mobilize the music of thirty-year-old bands for current political causes, it might be worthwhile to explore why else fans are drawn to occult imagery and representations of violence. one thing that fans might be getting out of this sinister music is the rare opportunity to fantasize about an unacceptable scenario and find a perverse delight in it. (see iron maiden's "the number of the beast;' in which the narrator dreads being possessed by the devil but gradually succumbs, against his will, to the attractiveness of the idea and ends by singing as the devil.) none of the contributors to this book explore such dark psychological ter­ rain, though at least the topic of dystopian fantasy gets treated in taylor's "images of human-wrought despair and destruction: social critique in british apocalyptic and dystopian metal;' which links the genre with the culture of sci-fi dystopian literature and movies. bands such as black sabbath and judas priest critique various aspects of modern society, including sur­ veillance, war, mechanization, social conformity, and totalitarianism: they create visions of despair and destruction, pointing out problems but rarely offering solutions. this has frequently led to the charge that their music is nihilistic; however, the depiction of dystopia is useful in that it may motivate people to change what they don't like about the world. furthermore, within the overall narrative of nihilism, there are counter-messages of "defiance and hope" (93) such as the guitar solos that walser analyzed as a rebellion against the claustrophobic confines and depressing lyrics of the verses and refrains. again, working-class frustration is an unspoken motivator for these dystopian fantasies, but for this reviewer the essay still tries too hard to cast metal as a progressive force, as a genre that critiques violence and juliet forshaw oppression rather than reveling in them as sources of intense sensation. i can't help thinking, for example, that the infectious refrain of "electric eye" and rob halford's masterful performance of it, which sets him up as a rock star/government surveillance agent observing and manipulating an adoring crowd, expresses as much a gleeful fascination with totalitarian power as disapproval of it. because none of the contributors to heavy metal are music scholars, they generally locate a given song's ideas or "message" in the lyrics and avoid engaging with the actual sound of the music as a locus of meaning. this book is symptomatic of the reality that metal has drawn much more attention from fields outside of music scholarship. scholars from a variety of disciplines are interested in metal culture, lyrical tropes, political content, and philosophical ideas, but few musicologists have taken it upon themselves to contribute their expertise to these discussions. that is what makes steve waksman's this ain't the summer of love: conflict and crossover in heavy metal and punk so refreshing, as it is full oflucid and lively descriptions of musical sound and structure. although walser and other formally trained musicologists such as esa lilja have discussed metal's harmony, melody, and form, and glenn pillsbury has tackled its rhythm, the field has only begun to explore metal's most striking feature-timbre. waksman has already explored timbre in the more general context of rock in instruments of desire: the electric guitar and the shaping of musical experience (1999), a critical organology of the electric guitar that deals with technology, industrial practice, marketing, and musicians as part of the evolution of the instrument. in this ain't the summer of love, his concise and not excessively technical analysis sheds light on particular types and degrees of sonic distortion. for example, on doom metal band trouble's "psychotic reaction" he writes, "the opening riff is a rather stock pentatonic figure in f-sharp, played in the lower midrange of the guitar, that derives its propulsion from the sharp, treble-laden quality of the fuzz" (61). this timbre-centric approach holds exciting possibilities for the study of all metal, especially extreme metal (though waksman's book doesn't go deep into that territory, ending as it does with metallica, venom and the alt -rock revolution), because as guitars became increasingly downtuned and/or lo-fi in the 1990s, melody and harmony and pitch itself became increasingly difficult to detect through the registral extremes and sheer timbral complexity of the music. traditional melodic and harmonic analysis of this more distorted music would probably be less useful than an analysis that emphasized timbre. this ain't the summer of love is also innovative in its approach to the idea of metal as a genre. rather than seeing it as simply an outgrowth of hard rock with a sprinkling of baroque sequences and romantic virtuosity 145 146 current musicology (the walser narrative, which is true as far as it goes), waksman portrays it as being defined at almost every stage of its development through its conflict with punk (and vice versa). the book captures metal in what might be called the "musical" mode of enmity and provides a more balanced and historically aware approach than the strained efforts of bayer et al. to reclaim metal for the current political left. entire books remain to be written about metal's antagonistic relationship with other musical genres, such as pop and especially african american-derived musics. the violence of the metal-punk conflict is brilliantly captured in the opening of the this ain't the summer of love, which details an exchange between fans of each genre that was published in the letters to the editor section of several issues of creem magazine in 1980, in which each side repeatedly hurled homophobic slurs at the other. waksman is sensitive to the ways in which this conflict of genres intersected with a contest over "authentic" masculinity: at stake was not simply musical style, but male fans' sense of how their musical prefer­ ences reflected and established their own masculine identity. the heavy investment of both of these genres in the performance of masculinity has tended to result in the marginalization of female performers-a marginal­ ization replicated in genre histories. given the lack of scholarship on these performers, the extensive discussion of the all-female band the runaways in chapter three is particularly welcome. like much of metal, theirs is a story of disintegration and irreconcilable opposing forces: caught between joan jett's stripped-down, punk-style rhythm guitar and lita ford's virtuosic metal lead guitar, between the demand to embody a heretofore masculine brand of rebellious self-assertion and the opposing demand to embody feminine sexual tractability, the runaways' career demonstrates the pitfalls of blurring genre and gender roles. neither fish nor fowl, they fizzled. if other bands more successfully navigated the no-man's-land (and certainly no-woman's-land) between punk and metal, many of them have nevertheless largely been excluded from scholarly treatments of either genre because they don't quite fit either one. this book sets out to reclaim them. what emerges is an alternate history of an altogether new genre, punk­ metal crossover, which has its own canon: grand funk railroad instead of led zeppelin, the dictators and the runaways instead of the sex pistols, motorhead and venom instead of judas priest. this approach also forces the reader to rethink assumptions about bands that are widely thought of today as more or less definitively metal or punk (or something else): the stooges, iron maiden, black flag, metallica, and nirvana are here re-conceptualized as punk-metal crossovers-as indeed they were perceived at certain points in their careers, according to the numerous rock journalism primary sources that waksman cites. the book superbly illustrates the limitations juliet forshaw of conventional genre histories and the opportunities that arise when one deconstructs them. the fact that new paradigms and genre designations emerge from this process should be no deterrent. if these bands initially occupied a middle ground between punk and metal, who decided to classify them definitively as one or the other? not the artists themselves. as many writers have observed, generic designations are more useful to the music industry than to performers. in this case, the distinction between metal and punk was largely created by music critics and marketing by independent record labels such as sst, metal blade, and sub pop. all of these labels produced music that could be heard as either metal or punk but would come to be characterized by the press and listening publics as completely different genres. sst was associated with early hardcore acts such as black flag; metal blade supplied hardcore-influenced thrash and speed metal such as metallica and slayer; sub pop purveyed the "seattle sound" of bands such as soundgarden. though these independent labels were more dependent on the mainstream music industry than their founders would likely admit, they played a crucial role in marketing regional "sounds" that were initially ignored by the larger industry, and would later crystallize into widely popular genres: for example, the "seattle sound;' which became grunge. this kind of attention to record labels and their role as tastemakers is long overdue in musicology, which has tended to focus on metal musicians and fans but not on the industry that mediates between them. the book unfolds chronologically as a series of focused case studies of bands and labels ranging from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. (one can only hope that waksman will write a follow up book about the 1990s and 2000s flourishing of punk-metal crossover genres such as grindcore and metalcore). each case study discusses not only musical style, but also recep­ tion by critics and the experience oflive concerts. the focus on live concerts is particularly gratifying insofar as metal and punk foreground the live show as the most immediate way of experiencing the music and the community associated with it. several of the bands featured here fundamentally changed the dynamics of performance and interaction with the audience, as well as audience expectations about performers' images. thus we read about how grand funk railroad rejected the highbrow, virtuosic tendencies of '70s rock and created their own brand oflowest-common-denominator arena rock, in which the performers are seen less as "shamans" and more as "pals" (46), how alice cooper and especially the stooges reacted against gfr's feel-good ethos with their antagonistic stage personas, how the runaways tapped into nostalgia for a more youth-centered rock culture and in doing so created a new rocker image of the teenage girl gone bad, how metallica's faster and more percussive style led to the culture of head -banging, and how peripheral 147 148 current musicology exposure to metal and punk shaped consumer tastes so as to facilitate the commercial explosion of grunge, which "was at once inviting and exclusive; it generated a sense of mass belonging that hinged on its capacity for high­ lighting the expressive force of anger and introspection" (301). these discussions reveal the tension in both genres between the desire for individuality, as expressed through virtuosity and flamboyant stage personas, and the desire for loss of self within the collective, as expressed through the communal nature of live performance, the stripping away of virtuosity, and the phenomenon of noise itself. waksman rather philosophically describes it as a "simultaneous drive toward differentiation and unity ... the desire for belonging in rock has continually been set against the longing to be set apart" (307). the conflict between these desires would only sharpen with extreme metal; it is one of the main themes of the final book reviewed here, nicola masciandaro's volume of edited essays, hideous gnosis, the product of a whimsical conference/ritual that took place-with me in attendance-in brooklyn's frosty, dark bar, public assembly, in november 2009. it was a small gathering of black-clad academics, many of them from the uk, who knew each other already from the english department circuit and previous metal conferences. they had a bashful and eager air, as though they felt the whole business was a little harebrained but nevertheless happy occasion, a meeting of minds. i made the acquaintance of one of the few non-academics there, a fiction writer who had seen a flyer and thought that something called "hideous gnosis" might provide good material for a story. the history of black metal is stranger than fiction. an obscure subgenre of extreme metal that began mostly in scandinavia in the late 1980s, it was launched into the wider metal community and briefly into public con­ sciousness in the early 1990s after a spate of suicides, church burnings, and murders within the scene. the most notorious of these musicians is varg vikernes, of the one-man band burzum, who was convicted of arson and murder and became something of a martyr figure, which in turn inspired many others to take up his brand of 10-fi, despairing, misanthropic music. his racist statements made from within prison have aroused even more ire than his crimes, but in the end they too are part of his appeal for some fans, and the genre that arose in his wake has continued to traffic in themes of nationalism, fascism, and racism. black metal is thus forbidding even by the standards of extreme metal, and those who expect to walk away from reading hideous gnosis with a tidy summary of the genre's great issues will likely be disappointed. the goal (and effect) of the essays is not so much to shed light on their subject as to plunge it into even greater darkness; that is, to suggest that black metal is far more complex, conflicted, and philosophijuliet forshaw cally rich than many of its detractors-and, more importantly, its fans and creators-realize. the purpose is not to '''address' or 'solve' [these puzzles l, but to intensify and exacerbate [them 1 ... to bask in the speculative glory of the problematic" (267). one result of this desire to problematize rather than solve is that the essays themselves read more like lyrical perorations or choleric manifestos than typical examples of contemporary scholarship. yet somehow, more than most other academic treatments of metal, this artfully messy volume finds a discourse that productively engages with a genre that resists discourse. perhaps even more than other metal sub genres, black metal is predicated on an opposition to whatever its practitioners see as the prevailing order or worldview of the day as articulated by public institutions such as govern­ ments and churches. but because opposition works through inversion and reversal, this means that black metal remains formally dependent on that which it is opposing, much as a satanist black mass of the nineteenth century inversely replicated the catholic mass in all particulars. the prevailing order that black metal most famously combated in its early stages was that of christianity, but although the genre earned a reputation for being satanic, in many ways it remained dependent on christian thought, ritual, aesthet­ ics, and strategies. thus erik butler's "the counter-reformation in stone and metal: spiritual substances" calls attention to various morphological similarities between black metal and reformation -era roman catholicism, including the genre's revival of what its practitioners saw as the purity, rigor, . asceticism, and orthodoxy of early metal in the face of the perceived heresy of commodified, mainstream '80s metal. butler raises many points that would benefit from further exploration. for instance, how and why did this morphologically catholic art form arise in scandinavia, which is overwhelmingly secular/protestant? the appeal of catholicism for black metal musicians certainly doesn't lie in its doctrines. might it lie in the catholic church's "irrational" taste for mysticism and elaborate, grisly rituals of sacrifice, which contrast sharply with both insti­ tutionalized protestantism and the post-enlightenment rational worldview that together undergird modern european society? a metal concert is nothing if not a gory ritual, and it may be that black metal musicians find the church-one of the most uncompromisingly old-fashioned institutions of our time-a treasure trove of aesthetic strategies for their own revolt against modern society. even while decrying its beliefs and praising the devil, they have embraced its trappings, positioning themselves in opposition to rational, secular modernity through a ritual, satanist appropriation of catholicism. in this connection, can other aspects of black metal be related to catholic praxis? for example, can black metal's aestheticization of pain as 149 150 current musicology a means of giving the listener a sense of communion with cosmic forces be linked to the catholic tradition of meditation on intense pain as a means of communing with god? finally, to what extent is black metal still dependent on catholic or broader christian modes of thought? many of the essays, including aspasia stephanou's "playing wolves and red riding hoods in black metal" and niall scott's "black confessions and absu-iution;' suggest that christianity is still a primary force that the genre opposes and relies on, while others, such as joseph russo's "perpetue putesco-perpetually i putrefy" argue that some black metal has outgrown both its opposition to and aesthetic dependence on christianity. if christianity represents (or represented) a prevailing order that must be combated and exploited, another prevailing order that black metal often opposes yet benefits from is political: the modern democratic nation-state. this book's discussion of what, for many, is the hot-button issue of black metal-its fixation on fascism-raises more questions than it answers. no one has ever explained to the satisfaction of outsiders exactly why black metallers are so drawn to fascism and, in some cases, racism, and why the genre rose to prominence in norway, a country whose socialist trappings, in the form of generous unemployment benefits, are precisely what gave these musicians the leisure to create their music in the first place. in this sense, national socialist black metal is often also an unacknowledged social democratic black metal, as sociologist asbj0rn dyrendal has quipped (in kahn-harris 2007:2). certainly many norwegians (and not just black met­ allers) are angered at the growing number of ethnically diverse immigrants, but fascism would seem a poor solution for these musicians, if only because a fascist regime would likely have less tolerance than the current democratic one for their unpopular art form. scholarly discussion of this puzzlingly self-destructive fascist impulse, when it appears at all, often merely describes the far-right rhetoric of individual musicians without exploring its connection to their music, its relevance to the scene as a whole, or its links to larger social forces. the first trade book on black metal, lords of chaos: the bloody rise of the satanic metal underground (1998), features several interviews on the subject but provides little in the way of critical perspective or explanation. early scholarship might be forgiven for not addressing every factor in black metal's emergence and every facet of its ideological underpinnings, but the inability or reluctance to engage with the genre's politics continues to this day. see, for example, until the light takes us (2009), a documentary which features numerous interviews with black metal's founding fathers, including varg vikernes. the film pointedly avoids difficult questions, instead allowing vikernes to juliet forshaw hold forth on less incendiary subjects such as the evils of globalism and his interest in nordic paganism. hideous gnosis makes a more sustained attempt to explain the appeal of fascism. most of the contributions touch on the ways in which black metal represents a rejection of modern life, including mass consumption and the apparent leveling of social hierarchies that together have resulted in what black metallers see as a culture of undifferentiated mass mediocrity. benjamin noys in "remain true to the earth: remarks on the politics of black metal" relates black metal's fascist tendencies to nietzsche's grand politics, which some have interpreted as championing dominance by an aristocracy of supermen, and carl schmitt's theory of the partisan or in­ surgent, which champions a type of fighter who fights not for one abstract ideology against another abstract ideology, but for his land against those who would take his land (in nietzsche 1968 and schmitt 2007). this type of fighter remains "grounded"; he knows exactly what he stands for and what his enemy stands for. black metallers, according to noys, are drawn to the romantic nationalism of the warrior fighting for his land because this imagery gives them a way to define their nebulous enemy, which, for noys, is mainly advanced capitalism (but depending on the band one might also suggest the modern liberal-democratic state, christianity, multiculturalism, and cosmic order) as clear-cut opponents-as others; in turn, defining their enemies gives them a clearer sense of their own selves. the fascination with such an anachronistic theme and the idealization of the ancient past at the expense of the (disappointing) present suggests that black metal is a form of reactionary cultural expression akin to many strains of political conservatism which, dismissive of the liberal attitudes toward economics and social questions that gained traction in the late twentieth century, seek inspiration for future policies in a distant, idealized past. in this regard, i would add that black metal is only an extreme instance of a more general turn to a mythologized past in metal. most sub genres of metal contain significant conservative proclivities despite their origins in the working class. this would explain why british heavy metal didn't inspire its fans to progressive political action, to the dismay of the contributors to heavy metal music in britain. it is no coincidence that metal arose in the era of deindustrialization and affirmative action, when many working-class white men, who along with other white men had been relatively dominant in their professions, began to feel increasingly imperiled by the need to compete with more contenders from other demographics for fewer and fewer jobs. the heroic representative of a dying tradition who fights various others could seem an appealing if misguided metaphor for people in this position. 151 152 current musicology but, noys argues, black metal doesn't just define and attempt to vanquish its enemy; it also attempts, through combat with the enemy, an ambitious redefinition or transformation of the self. (after all, one can't become a glorious superman-warrior without an opponent.) this strategy is ultimately self-defeating, since the genre's enemies are ideological and thus always changing. constantly evolving past tidy definitions, these elusively abstract opponents refuse to give black metallers the sure sense of self that they crave. yet the musicians (or rather their fictional avatars in their songs) fight on, with no sign of victory, as their enemies will not disappear any time soon. it is as though the most important thing for them were the struggle itself, not victory as such. in fact, they know they are doomed; albums frequently end with the implied death or subjection of the narrator at the hands of undefined cosmic forces. for noys, the futility of this struggle does not detract from the aesthetic power of black metal, but rather enhances it by dramatizing its core principles of opposition for its own sake and willing­ ness to put the self as well as others at risk. the extent to which black metal violence is directed against the self has not been so remarked upon in the press, which has focused on musicians' crimes against other people, but i should note that the movement has been associated as much with its prac­ titioners' self-mutilation and suicide as with assaults on others (moynihan and s0derlind, 45-62). a similar logic of aesthetically enriching failure emerges from aspasia stephanou's "playing wolves and red riding hoods in black meta!;' which considers the efforts of female black metal musicians to carve out a space for themselves in the genre and concludes that in their opposition they succumb, willy-nilly, to the dictates of masculine discourse: they must adopt their male counterparts' masculine behavior (which for stephanou is a capitulation, not a victorious annexation of masculinity a la judith halberstam in female masculinity), over-sexualize themselves, or retreat behind masks into inac­ cessibility. yet these tactics do not lessen their artistic achievement. rather, as with black metal created by men, it is precisely the distortion or loss of the self in the face of overwhelming forces that is the source of the genre's appeal. stephanou's essay can usefully be compared with waksman's discus­ sion of the runaways; both imply that women's sense of self is constantly undermined by the conflict between the demand to compete with men on male terms and the demand to be feminine, where femininity, too, is defined by men. what is peculiarly fascinating about black metal is that its male performers willingly submit to a similar disintegration of the self. evan calder williams also considers the implications of dismantling the self in "the headless horsemen of the apocalypse," but his reading emphasizes less the loss implicit in this sacrifice than the possibility of juliet forshaw reincarnation in new, different, more interesting forms. contra noys, who views black metal as basically an egocentric enterprise, calder williams explores the equally strong collectivist strain in black metal, which continu­ ally evokes hordes, armies, and packs of wolves but rarely a leader. insofar as there are leaders, they seem to be mysterious, collective beings drawn from the essences of many different individuals, as in the title of emperor's song "i am the black wizards." though williams avoids drawing any definite political conclusions from this, he clearly sees black metal as embodying a desire for intense, continuous transformation of the self and the com­ munity, too unstable to endorse a leader or harden into a well-defined fascism or indeed any political program. this notion is borne out, or at least superficially supported, by leading black metal figures' frequent claims that they don't care about politics and their tendency to undercut their own pro-fascist rhetoric, as when vikernes said years later of his bigoted prison manifesto that it "was written in anger, while i was young and on isolation [sic l" (vikernes 2004). however, the fact that black metal doesn't endorse a specific political program should not lull fans into dismissing this coy, self-subverting, fascist­ leaning political apathy as innocuous. claims of political detachment on the part of cultural elites are misleading insofar as they function as part of the performance of power: it's easy to declare your indifference to politics if the status quo benefits you. because certain dominant groups, such as white men, are better served by the status quo than other groups, they have the privilege of not caring (or seeming not to care) about politics. and even if black metal musicians are as politically apathetic or amorphous as they claim, not all of their fans are and promoters are: for example, the american label resistance records, owned by the white separatist national alliance, produces and sells black metal along with more overtly neo-nazi music. williams' argument is reminiscent of other attempts to reclaim metal for the left-not for labor as in the case of heavy metal music in britain, but perhaps for anarchism. it is not altogether compelling as a frame for thinking about scandinavian black metal, but, as we will see below, it may be more accurate if applied to black metal in america. what remains unaddressed in the collection is racism, and this is symp­ tomatic of metal studies as a whole. scholars' avoidance of the topic of racism is a particularly grave oversight in the case of black metal, considering such clear indicators as vikernes' vocal support of eugenics and racial separatism and the inflammatory statement on the cover of the foundational band darkthrone's album transilvanian hunger, which translates as "norwegian aryan black metal." given current xenophobic tendencies in many black metal scenes around the world (perhaps most openly on display in the 153 154 current musicology jingoist lyrics of french band peste noire's album ballade cuntre lo anemi francor), which indicate that the problem is not limited to a small cabal of norwegian musicians, it is important that future scholarship in this nascent field address the issue. questions that need to be answered include: to what extent do the genre's notoriously abstruse lyrics camouflage racist sentiments, and can the average fan hear them through the screaming and language barriers? why do many fans shrug at the imputations of racism and brush them off as irrelevant to their experience of the music? how do black metal's non-white fans relate to and contextualize this music? where are, and how powerful are, the voices within the scene that oppose racism? to what extent is racist posturing a marketing ploy designed to capitalize on shock value, and has it aided or hindered the commercial success of this music among its target audience? given that black metal musicians frequently dismiss all of humanity (including their own countrymen and sometimes even their own fans) as worthless, to what extent are their racist statements part of a bigger misanthropic puzzle? vikernes recently implied something of the sort: i am a narrow-minded ultra-conservative anti-religious misanthropic and arrogant bigot, alright, and i have a problem with just about everything and everyone in this world, but i am not demented, and if those who are not like me are able to enjoy my music that is all fine by me. be a christian-born black gay feminist converted to judaism for all i care, or worse; a muslim. just stay off my lawn. oh, and i may add that i have a problem with most nordic heterosexuals with a pagan ideology as well. (stosuy 2010) as a caveat to vikernes' statement, it is necessary to point out that even misanthropes usually hate some people more than others rather than sub­ scribing to equal-opportunity misanthropy. there are no recorded instances of racially motivated crimes-although this may merely be a matter oflack of opportunity-by black metal musicians, as far as i am aware, but a plethora of crimes against churches, fellow musicians, gay men, and the perpetrators themselves (moynihan and s0derlind, 45-62, 81-144). this raises the ques­ tion: what group, if any, is the main target of black metal hatred? perhaps because such questions are so difficult to answer, and perhaps because the contributors to hideous gnosis are more interested in the genre's esoterically mystical possibilities for the lone individual than its observable social manifestations, most of the essays avoid political discussions and focus instead on the intensely introverted and private experiences that some black metal conjures up. one experience that is commonly evoked in songs is the sense of dismantlement and transformation of the individual self by natural or supernatural forces such as decay and demonic possession. the lyrics often describe experiences of extreme cold, heat, or pain which the juliet forshaw human self cannot endure. anthony sciscione in the victor turner-inflected "goatsteps behind my steps . .. black metal and ritual renewal" suggests that black metal's interest in unbearable physical experiences and in the consequent breakdown of the self is: motivated by a dissatisfaction with medial states and a manifest lust for the intensity of transitions, of ceding ... to a radical alterity that reconfigures identity by destroying and overtaking ... [the black metaller 1 undergoes a sacrificial demise in order to open himself up as a habitat for and an expression of the power of the demon. (176) the theme of demonic possession gets further treatment in eugene thacker's "three questions on demonology:' which argues that the demon in black metal, while sometimes a stand-in for satan or pagan deities, is primarily a symbol of impersonal cosmic forces which act on humans but can never really be understood by them. songs about demonic possession, then, allow us to imagine a state of being at the limits of rational knowledge, or even being overtaken by a non-human point of view. this is the most fundamental theme of the book: black metal is concerned with the extreme limits ofhu­ man experience and thought; it attempts a topography of the unknowable, an anatomy of the non-human. if black metal is all about destruction-of traditional religion, of modern civilization, of rational thought, of the human, of the self-then where do you go after you have destroyed everything? one answer is offered in "transcendental black metal: a vision of apocalyptic humanism" by hunter hunt -hendrix, frontman of the new york-based band liturgy and graduate of columbia university. hendrix believes that scandinavian black metal was only the first, primitive phase of the genre, and he wishes to inaugurate the second phase, american black metal, which he also terms "transcendental" in a nod to emerson and thoreau. in contrast to the nihilistic, nocturnal, hermetic, depraved, and misanthropic scandinavian black metal, the new black metal is to be affirmative, solar, courageous, open, and loving (or at least non-hateful). lest anyone mistake this for a hippie manifesto, hendrix makes it clear that the optimism and joy he advocates are not simply there for the taking, but rather have to be earned through arduous struggle. his good cheer is the light at the end of a very long tunnel: he writes, "transcendental black metal is in fact nihilism, however it is a double nihilism and a final nihilism, a once and for all negation of the entire series of negations. with this final 'no' we arrive at a sort of vertiginous affirmation, an affirmation that is white-knuckled, terrified, unsentimental, and courageous" (61). this manifesto has provoked a furor in the blogosphere, where it has been ridiculed in the online forum nuclear war now! productions as, "a 155 156 current musicology weird and obnoxious hybrid of verbal diarrhea and empowered hipster ignorance" (blackmagoon 2011). more thoughtful and substantive than these taunts, which merely object to the jargon and do not engage with the subject matter, is andrew white's critique of hendrix in the postscript to hideous gnosis: "[black metal] is dark-bleak, angry, violent. this new form of black metal [hendrix] proposes sounds like something different altogether" (280). the whole point of black metal as traditionally practiced is its uncompromisingly negative and oppositional energy; for some, hendrix's worldview is simply too happy to qualify as black metal. the reception of his work underscores the fact that black metal isn't just a sound, but a discourse, and anyone who dares to critique that discourse is ostracized. his unusual background as a columbia philosophy major attracts resentment as well, since it fosters the image of an affluent, pretentious outsider-though why such markers of elitism would disqualify him from the scene is unclear, given the much more blatant arrogance and social contempt that prevailed among the genre's founding fathers, who were also outsiders and rebels against the metal community of their time. it remains to be seen whether liturgy will ultimately be perceived as a black metal band, and whether the claims of this essay will hold up over time, since the genre is continuously redefined by musicians and audiences. so far, the young american scene does seem significantly less hostile and angry than the scandinavian scene, and more interested in carrying on the legacy of '60s countercultural projects like radical environmentalism and peaceful anarchism than in burning churches, worshiping ancestors, and fantasizing about battles in the north. whether one accepts hendrix's vision or not, he at least deserves credit for bucking the narrow-minded hermeticism and misanthropy that gave the scene its impetus in the early 1990s but at this point risks leaving it to stagnate. like the music of female black metallers and others who do not fit the conventions of the scene, his ideas and music represent an opportunity for fruitful cross-fertilization with other points of view. his position makes for a striking contrast with most of the other contributions: while they por­ tray the genre as a force of decay and destruction, as something inextricably bound up with the decadent society it despises and doomed to go down with it, he thinks the art form can go beyond that; through a dialectical process it can become a theurgic and salvific force. his philosophical stance is reflected in liturgy's performance style: he and fellow bandmates bernard gann, tyler dusenbury, and greg fox eschew the menacing theatrics that usually accompany black metal performance, such as horror movie-inspired costumes, corpse paint, demonic stage names, and antagonistic shock-rock tactics in favor of unremarkable street clothing and a modest, genial stage demeanor that belies their blogosphere reputation as pompous elitists. juliet forshaw because of their indifference to the etiquette of black metal as well as their wide range of non-metal musical influences, they are not always accepted as a black metal band and are sometimes derided as interlopers who casually appropriate black metal's musical techniques without making a commitment to the scene. in new york, at least, they headline at rock events as often as metal ones. but if the band's appearance is casual and unassuming, the essay is not. high-flown and grandiloquent, it expresses a desire to change the world-one diy venue at a time. while hendrix's contribution represents black metal theoretical discourse in an extroverted mode, nicola masciandaro's ''anti-cosmosis: black mahapralaya" represents this discourse in a more introverted and mystical mode. he tries both to find a theoretical language to talk about black metal and to use the fundamental negativity of black metal itself as a way to enrich (or undercut) the way scholarship is practiced today. in other words, his meditative essay attempts both to theorize black metal and to make theoretical discourse more indeterminate with an admixture of black metal esotericism. the ensuing evasiveness is reminiscent of mid-twentieth­ century critical theorists' efforts to deconstruct existing academic theory in order to make room for a different kind of scholarship, but it also draws on older and richer traditions of "unsaying" discourses, especially negative theology, which approaches the ultimate truth by saying what it is not rather than what it is. the result is indeed a different kind of scholarship from that which dominates academia today; this essay and the book as a whole are as much works of art as of erudition, full of fanciful illustrations and evocative, apparently candid photographs from the symposium. the essays, which at first glance read like impenetrable amalgams of creative writing and post-structuralist philosophy, indulge in a level of obscurantism that is only possible among members of a tiny occult sect who are unconcerned with courting a broader audience-in this case, a broader academic or scene audience. if this approach has elicited some unfortunate reactions from both the black metal scene (in the form of jeering, bigoted comments posted in the blog associated with the project that were then printed in the volume) and the academic press that refused to publish the book, well, that's inevitable, and probably in keeping with black metal's inscrutability. the mystical/cosmological approach of the book inevitably results in a certain romanticization of black metal, albeit a more creative kind than that of most metal scholarship, which tends to read politically progressive attitudes into various metal subgenres. this volume romanticizes black metal not as a political force, but rather as a force for expanding the possibilities of human experience beyond the options afforded to us in everyday life. using the common tactic of asserting the superiority of one's own aesthetic and 157 158 current musicology lifestyle preferences to those of the supposedly inane mainstream, russo's "perpetue putesco," for example, hints that the genre may be an antidote to the casual consumerism of modern life (and, one assumes, to the top 40 radio played in commercial centers). he even suggests that it might be a gateway to a more authentic, more obscene, and more sacred experience of reality. rather than taking the usual academic approach of describing a musical genre as it has existed in the past and present, he and the other con­ tributors primarily look toward the future: by selectively bringing out certain of black metal's latent philosophical tendencies, they attempt to reclaim the music for some still-to-be-defined, or never-to-be-defined, good. this book, one of the most intriguingly ambivalent attempts to redeem metal of its sins, illustrates the fact that all metal scholarship is inevitably the product of a fandom, and a very specific and limited one at that-a community of scholars who want to burnish the intellectual credentials of this widely denigrated and often anti-intellectual genre. hideous gnosis gives a rich and layered account of what black metal represents for scholarly fans, but the field awaits more ethnography to uncover what it means for other listeners-not just the kindly left-leaning professor, but the frustrated skinhead; not just the person who listens to the "kvlt" or "authentic" bands that are the primary subject matter of this book (with the exception of the heterodox liturgy), but also the person who listens to the more commercially successful bands that temper black metal with the despised conventions of pop. the most urgent task of metal scholarship in the immediate future in­ deed lies in ethnography, because metal's audience has changed dramatically over the past twenty years. gone are the days of the homogeneous audience described in early sociologies. today, metal's fanbase includes people of many ethnicities and nationalities, classes, education levels, religious beliefs, and political views, and multiple genders and sexual orientations. these fans have been little studied, and attention to their experiences would shed light not only on them but also on metal culture in general, since scenes are defined largely by their margins (and many of these fans do remain marginal). this process has recently begun with great promise in keith kahn-harris' extreme metal: music and culture on the edge (2007), which gives considerable attention to the israeli scene, and laina dawes' forthcom­ ing what are you doing here?: black women in metal, hardcore and punk (2012). metal also needs more attention from musicologists, of whom few other than waksman currently have the expertise to analyze a form of music so minimally notated and so reliant on under-theorized musical techniques such as distortion. finally, metal is quite amenable to studies from other disciplines, even (or especially) those that inhabit the fringes of academia: the juliet forshaw speculative, philosophical approach ofmasciandaro and his fellow maverick english scholars is a novel way of thinking about metal that opens up murky, alluring vistas of scholarship combined with creative enterprises. whatever the approach-sociological, musicological, or philosophical-scholars need to suppress, or at least admit and temper, their impulse to justify the music. this whitewashing strategy was arguably defensible in the past when metal lacked sufficient prestige to be considered worthy of academic study, but that is not the case anymore. scholars today need to acknowledge the fact that metal appeals because of its perversity, not in spite of it. the time has come to give metal's fascinating depravity its due. references aites, aaron and audrey ewell. 2009. until the light takes us. film. variance films. bataille, georges. 1988. inner experience, trans. leslie anne boldt. albany: state university of new york press. blackmagoon. 2011. comment in the thread "none so gay (liturgy interview)." nuclear war now! productions webboard. march 8. retrieved from http://www.nwnprod.com/ forum/viewtopic.php?t=20928&sid=2ff71 be36867617 c50d73e 1 ddbcecfl2 dawes, laina. 2012. what are you doing here?: black women in metal, hardcore and punk. new york: bazillion points. gaines, donna. 1991. teenage wasteland: suburbia's dead end kids. new york: pantheon. halberstam, judith. 1998. female masculinity. durham, nc: duke university press kahn-harris, keith. 2007. extreme metal: music and culture on the edge. oxford and new york: berg. __ . 2008. review of true norwegian black metal, by peter beste. the new humanist, vol. 123, issue 4. july/august 2008, retrieved from http://newhumanist.org.uk/l829/true­ norwegian -black -metal-by-peter -beste lukacs, georg. 1971. "reification and the consciousness of the proletariat;' in history and class consciousness: studies in marxist dialectics. trans. rodney livingstone. cambridge, mass: mit press. lilja, esa. 2009. theory and analysis of classic heavy metal harmony. helsinki: iam1. nietzsche, friedrich. 1968. the will to power, trans. w. kaufmann and r. j. hollingdale, ed. w. kaufmann. new york: vintage. pillsbury, glenn t. 2006. damage incorporated: metallica and the production of musical identity. new york: routledge. schmitt, carl. 2007. theory of the partisan. trans. g. 1. ulman. new york: telos publishing. stosuy, brandon. 2010. "haunting the chapel no.8: interview with varg vikernes:' stereogum. com, october 3. retrieved from http://stereogum.com/295222/haunting-the-chapel-no-8/ franchises/ha un ting -the-chapell vikernes, vargo 2004. "a comment to "vargsmi'tl" and other books by varg vikernes." december 15. retrieved from http://www.burzum.org/eng/library/a_commencto_ vargs­ maland_othecbooks_by _ varls-vikernes.shtml 159 160 current musicology waksman, steve. 1999. instruments of desire: the electric guitar and the shaping of musical experience. cambridge, mass.: harvard university press. walser, robert. 1993. running with the devil: power, gender, and madness in heavy metal music. hanover, nh: wesleyan university press. weinstein, deena. 1991. heavy metal: a cultural sociology. new york: lexington books. microsoft word shiflett typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 shiflett. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 6 campbell shiflett in 1987, an article by susan mcclary appeared in the minnesota composers forum newsletter. titled “getting down off the beanstalk: the presence of a woman’s voice in janika vandervelde’s genesis ii,” the essay explored how the mechanics of tension and resolution in music could be said to reflect gendered perspectives on pleasure. vandervelde’s 1983 piano trio serves as mcclary’s principal illustration of this, a work she argues offers a compelling critique of a western musical tradition according to which works struggle toward a singularly intense (and often brutal) “climax.” to mcclary, genesis ii not only exposes the destructive potential of this teleological norm, which she associates with the rule of sexuality by the phallus, but also suggests how the dominance of this rule within works and across history has resulted in the exclusion of other kinds of musical eroticism, including those more representative of the experiences of women. interleaved within mcclary’s commentary, however, are a number of more or less passing references to other musical works and genres—ranging from mahler to metal to minimalism—which serve as points of comparison or contrast with genesis ii. and as responses to mcclary’s essay began to appear, it was one of these that would provoke readers more than any of her other musical examples, not only overshadowing vandervelde’s piece to assume a priority all its own, but helping to spark a debate that would continue for years. the work was beethoven’s ninth symphony, whose overwhelming sound mcclary associated not with the ecstatic joy of the schiller ode featured in its finale, but with physical and sexual violence. mcclary’s comments about the symphony, especially as they appeared, revised, in her 1991 book feminine endings, are well known to anglophone musicology. they have been subject to immense scrutiny by defenders and detractors alike, inspiring an animated exchange among scholars that has achieved a similar fame. yet as critics quoted, paraphrased, questioned, and appraised mcclary’s claims in their debate over how best to understand the cultural icon that is beethoven’s ninth—and as more recent scholars have looked back on an iconic moment in the history of the discipline to reflect on the force of mcclary’s criticism—these writers seem on the whole to have overlooked (or 7 at least underestimated) one key source, witness to both mcclary’s initial argument and the polemics that ensued. adrienne rich’s poem “the ninth symphony of beethoven understood at last as a sexual message,” from her 1973 collection diving into the wreck, was first introduced to musicology when it appeared, reprinted in its entirety, in mcclary’s “beanstalk” essay. and it has lived an uneasy life within the discipline ever since. for while supporters and critics of mcclary alike frequently recall the poem in responses to her essay, their engagement with rich’s verse is, on the whole, limited to reductive paraphrase or unqualified quotation, and tends to treat the poem as an accessory to mcclary’s prose. rarely do these writers consider rich’s work as a text in its own right—a text whose perspective on the ninth not only merits the same careful reading and deliberate explication as beethoven’s symphony and mcclary’s essay have received, but which also might serve as a point of origin for further reflections on the ninth and on the debates that have surrounded it. that is to say, while rich’s poem has gained considerable currency within musicology, musicologists have only seldom and briefly reflected on its significance—both in terms of how its text signifies and what it means to our discipline. looking back on this history and reviewing how rich’s text has been put to use, we might finally acknowledge the role this long-underappreciated poem has played in our field. and by reframing this disciplinary turning point with the poem in mind, we might also consider how bringing rich’s text from the margins of musicology to the center of analysis affects how we understand its commentary on the ninth. that we would do so in the echo of the pomp and circumstance of the 250th anniversary of beethoven’s birth is, of course, not immaterial. but the beethoven year means more to this study than simply providing a convenient excuse to recall a contentious period in the history of musicology, or else an opportunity to rescue rich’s verse from obscurity in his name. the scholarship discussed below, much of it foundational to american feminist music criticism, merits close study regardless of the season. and rich’s powerful verse, though certainly less well known than beethoven’s ninth, hardly needs a musicologist to sing its praises. rather, if we return to these polemics and to this poem now, it is above all because we owe it to ourselves as music scholars to reflect on our field’s curious attachment to rich’s work. we ought to consider the implications of our discipline’s tendency to fleetingly invoke this relatively unknown text alongside one of the most famous pieces of music ever composed, and alongside one of the most infamous musicological quarrels.1 8 still, if diving into the wreck of these decades-old polemics is especially meaningful for this beethoven year, it is because looking more closely at rich’s poem requires us to confront the same anxieties that motivated writers to cite this text amid their reflections on that composer’s legacy: anxieties over the nature and value of interpretive criticism, and over the reassessment of musical (and musicological) icons. first appearances in the composers forum version of “getting down off the beanstalk,” mcclary highlights two sections of beethoven’s symphony as evoking sexual violence: the point of recapitulation in the first movement, “one of the most horrifying moments in music,” in which “the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling, murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release.” and the work’s finale, in which the symphony “simply forces closure by bludgeoning the cadence and the piece to death” (1987, n.p.). after proposing this way of hearing the ninth, mcclary introduces rich’s poem, reprinting it in its entirety and describing it only as a “remarkably similar reading” to her own: a man in terror of impotence or infertility, not knowing the difference a man trying to tell something howling from the climacteric music of the entirely isolated soul yelling at joy from the tunnel of the ego music without the ghost of another person in it, music trying to tell something the man does not want out, would keep if he could gagged and bound and flogged with chords of joy where everything is silence and the beating of a bloody fist upon a splintered table (rich 1973, 43) there are similarities between the two readings, certainly, but there are also differences. twice mentioning “joy”, rich seems to be invoking the final movement of beethoven’s symphony where mcclary writes also of the first. rich’s references to joy moreover suggest that she writes of the symphony’s sound more abstractly than mcclary, who analyzes more specific aspects of the 9 music.2 the poet’s description of the “beating of a bloody fist” seems aligned with mcclary’s “bludgeoning,” though rich’s beating is threatening and destructive while mcclary’s is explicitly deadly. the two authors also differ in their description of who is responsible for the violence they describe. in mcclary’s analysis (at least in this version of her essay), the identity of this agent is more or less indeterminate. her personification of the symphony—whose “frustrated” music “explodes,” whose “promised” cadences “are withheld,” and which ultimately “forces closure” upon itself—paints an ambivalent picture of the ninth as both perpetrator and victim of violence. and so, ultimately, it leaves unclear whether we are to understand the work’s destruction as essential to the music (its intended expression), or else as the violation of the music by the same willful force that gives it life (a composerly intrusion). and yet, even as mcclary’s text obscures the identity of her agent, the conflict it describes seems to be an internal one, whether one hears the violence committed against the work as a product of the symphony's own rage, or else the rage of a willful composer who violates a piece of music that is ultimately his own expression. by contrast, rich’s poem rather clearly identifies its protagonist as “a man trying to tell something,” and it describes his violence in the language of external conflict. (he yells, flogs, silences.) though now, however, it is the object of his anger that is left obscure: here he roars at joy, there he is confronted with the music’s co-equal power “to tell something.” still later, he gags and binds not the music but what it threatens to disclose (“something the man does not want out”)—this latter fact being another significant point of contrast with mcclary’s essay. what is more, unlike mcclary’s obscure actor, who appears to successfully take control of the music, rich’s man seems unable to prevent his music from revealing what he wants suppressed. his most explicit violence is, in the end, only imagined—what he “would [do] … if he could.” these and other differences between the two texts’ perspectives on the symphony might easily go unnoticed and their significance unquestioned, especially since mcclary neither comments on specific lines from rich’s work nor offers any details about the poet or her work in the article. her readers, confronted with rich’s text, are left to compare and contrast the authors’ positions themselves. still, mcclary’s framing of the poem would presumably encourage readings more attuned to the “remarkable similarity” of these texts than to their differences, even if the precise terms of their similarity are left unsaid. indeed, as history proved, mcclary’s readers considered rich’s poem a crucial piece of evidence corroborating her claims, surely encouraged in this 10 belief not only by mcclary’s suggestion of their similarity, but also by the poem’s prominence in her essay: despite its brief appearance, the work’s intrusive voice, striking imagery, and physical presence on the page draw considerable focus. mcclary included her essay on genesis ii in her 1991 monograph feminine endings, in which she sketches out a number of potential avenues of inquiry for a nascent feminist music criticism. in preparing the article for republication, she significantly revised her comments on the ninth, eliminating the comparison to rape and recasting her description of its finale to focus on the inadequacy of any musical gesture to resolve such an enormous work. despite these changes however, she again dubs rich’s reading of the beethoven symphony in her poem “remarkably similar,” a fact which suggests how broad she considers this similarity to be. from here, mcclary goes on to deny that beethoven himself is “exceptionally monstrous,” proposing rather that his symphony is but one musical symptom of a socially systemic sexism. this too would suggest that her more circumspect analysis corresponds with rich’s more outspoken criticism of the ninth only at a certain level of generality (1991, 129). the remainder of mcclary’s commentary on beethoven’s symphony bears this out: admitting that the ninth itself might be interpreted as a critique of the phallic compositional customs she describes, exaggerating the drive toward climax and closure to demonstrate the violence with which these norms are enacted and enforced, mcclary concludes that beethoven’s work would in this case be “every bit as devastating” as rich’s account of the symphony (ibid.). with this remarkable comparison, mcclary suggests a meaningful difference between her perspective on the symphony and rich’s, which has subtle but significant implications for her revised text. where in the composers forum article mcclary draws on rich’s poem to lend credence to her more provocative claims, here she invokes the text as a more extreme perspective against which she can counterpose her more cautious line of inquiry. but whatever this statement might suggest about the similarity of the writers’ views or about the role mcclary intends rich’s poem to serve in her text, it is ultimately left for the reader to determine. for mcclary again offers no commentary on the “remarkably similar” poem, leaving unclear whether its inclusion is meant to support her claims or serve as a foil to them. in the debates that erupted over feminine endings—debates catalyzed by the book’s suggestion that beethoven’s works are complicit in a tradition of western misogyny—mcclary’s critics decried her interpretive criticism as politically motivated, chiding her for her neglect of the details of beethoven’s score and advocating for a return to the music itself as the source of 11 musicological insight. in these early responses to mcclary, references to rich were slow to appear. pieter van den toorn, one of the first and most vocal critics of feminine endings, did not mention rich or her poem in his initial response to the book (1991) or in his eventual monograph music, politics, and the academy (1995). though in a reply to van den toorn, ruth solie did briefly return adrienne rich to the conversation surrounding mcclary’s work: referencing rich’s theory of “compulsory heterosexuality” (according to which a woman’s sexuality, under patriarchal rule, can only be thought in terms of her relation to a male partner), she defends mcclary’s book from accusations that it reduces gender to sexuality alone.3 solie’s engagement with rich’s writings here allows rich’s voice to come to the aid of mcclary’s scholarship more substantially than in the “beanstalk” essay. but what is more, solie’s citation endows rich with authority as a feminist thinker in addition to a provocative poet, acknowledging and engaging with her work in a way that was uncommon to many responses to mcclary’s work. when musicologists did begin to reference the “beethoven” poem in their responses to feminine endings, however, rich’s text quickly gained special significance for its relevance to mcclary’s argument about the ninth—even as these commenters referenced the poem only in passing, and to divergent ends. in an overall positive review of the book, for instance, jann pasler quotes four lines from rich’s work to convey the “sexual message” it describes, a message she holds up as an illustration of the patriarchal traditions mcclary calls into question (1992, 203). pasler does not offer an interpretation of rich’s verse however; indeed, she pivots away from rich’s poem almost as soon as she has mentioned it. and yet by linking mcclary and rich in this short space she suggests that the poem be read according to mcclary’s commentary on the ninth, effectively eliding the two authors’ perspectives—a strange thing considering that both mcclary and pasler ostensibly cite the poem to lend credence to the arguments laid out in feminine endings, not the other way around. in a more critical assessment of the book, meanwhile, leo treitler reproduces the complete text of the “beethoven” poem to exemplify what he sees as a central issue undermining the strength of mcclary’s analysis: troubled by her insistence on the similarity of her conception of the symphony to rich’s, treitler rejects the notion that “a critic’s reading” and “a poet’s sense” of the beethoven symphony should be considered on equal terms, finding in the authors’ writings not so much a difference in view as in generic obligation. noting that music criticism has at its basis a critic’s response to music, he 12 suggests mcclary’s inconclusive and adversarial writing is principally motivated by a political project rather than by beethoven’s work—and is thus unbecoming of music criticism. yet at the same time, treitler seems to condone this polemical quality in rich’s poem. even as he offers no comment on or interpretation of the text, he does acknowledge its poetry as an expression of a certain “sense” or “feeling.” what is more, in reproducing the entire poem he makes considerable space for rich’s text in his essay.4 in differentiating rich’s poem from the ideals of academic writing to which mcclary’s prose aspires, treitler suggests that the two texts have different responsibilities to their objects of study: the poet’s writing can afford more imaginative treatment of its material, while the scholar’s must keep close to fact in its research and maintain fidelity in its reportage. his concern with the nature of the critic’s interpretive labor—a concern he broaches amid a critique of mcclary’s interpretation of the ninth, but which surely inspired mcclary herself to propose her unorthodox reading of the symphony in the first place—thus reveals a related concern over how to read feminine endings: whether as creative writing, as academic scholarship, or as something else. (indeed, treitler goes on from here to describe mcclary’s work somewhat contemptuously as a speechact that aims at a purely autonomous criticism, free from all objects of critique.) his concern, if couched somewhat insensitively, was prescient nonetheless. the question of how best to read mcclary’s analysis of the ninth became crucial in the years to follow, as music scholars revisited feminine endings with hindsight after the debates it inspired had cooled. still, the same care was only inconsistently extended to the reading of rich’s poem, which remained a fixture in these discussions. continuing reflections as feminist musicology developed through the 1990s, its advocates continued to resist calls from critics in the vein of treitler and van den toorn for a return to the music itself, insisting on the importance of music’s social implications to the study of musicology. in a review of the volume in which treitler’s essay appears, mary ann smart offers a concise explanation for why: those who demand that music criticism ought to proceed principally from the study of works fail to recognize that there can be no straightforward return to a music that is unsafe, its critics having marked it as representative of sexual violence (1994, 546-47). but despite feminist critics’ concern for music’s social and political implications, close analysis of rich’s poem as an element of the social network 13 surrounding beethoven’s ninth was slow to follow. for example, smart’s defense of feminist hermeneutics against treitler’s critique begins with a brief invocation of rich’s poem, which she suggests (ostensibly agreeing with treitler) demands a different kind of interpretive work from its reader than does mcclary’s “beanstalk” essay. in the end however, smart (again like treitler) does not offer any explicit commentary on the poem, and she seems somewhat suspicious of poetry’s place in music criticism.5 her rather summary treatment of rich’s work is not unusual, but here it speaks to a curious fact about the role of the poem in discussions of mcclary’s criticism—that as feminist writers not only continued to reflect on the significance of the ninth, but now also began to consider how best to understand mcclary’s commentary on beethoven’s work, these writers on the whole did not interpret rich’s poem with the same careful attention. in a 1997 article, tia denora mentions rich’s illustration of the ninth’s “sexual messages” in order to compare them with the “phallocentric” compositional devices mcclary describes. both she casts in terms of metaphor, with rich and mcclary calling upon the symphony to serve as an analogue for something non-musical (1997, 55). but denora’s fleeting suggestion of the similarity of rich’s and mcclary’s texts stops short of recognizing a crucial difference between how the two writers’ metaphors affect how their works are read. rich’s text bears its metaphors more overtly, its title openly acknowledging its central conceit and its framing as a poem encouraging readers to consider its language as figurative. while mcclary’s metaphors often read as statements of fact, keeping its metaphors relatively concealed (a common feature of academic writing, which privileges such directness), and offering no overt signal for the reader to understand them as figurative language. this distinction suggests a reason for the differences in the reception of rich’s and mcclary’s texts. the former, laying bare its metaphors, does not attract suspicion and, safely aestheticized, maintains a plausible deniability alongside its creative license. the latter, deploying its metaphors more covertly, attracts the scrutiny of scholars like treitler, who pick apart its language and view its creative engagement with critical concerns as interpretive overreach. that denora herself glosses over the distinction might lend further credence to this counterintuitive notion: rich’s figurative language is apparently so blatant that critics feel no need to elaborate upon her text’s implications. suzanne cusick briefly mentions mcclary’s invocation of rich’s poem to similar effect in a footnote to her 1999 survey of the impact of feminine endings on musicology. emphasizing that mcclary’s book ought not be taken as emblematic of feminist music criticism more generally, cusick advocates that 14 feminine endings ought to be considered within a larger “feminist intellectual context,” and she decries the constant misquotation and misrepresentation of mcclary’s work by critics who fail to contextualize the claims of her book.6 and yet she proposes at the same time that by deferring to the poem mcclary uses rich’s text to suggestively conclude her account of the ninth: mcclary surely suggests a narrative of violent sexual release in her remarks about the symphony, but she lets adrienne rich’s poem […] provide the last eloquent words of her reading. rich’s poem need not be taken as describing a rape either, but rather as the explosive frustration of “a man in terror of impotence / or infertility, not knowing the difference / a man trying to tell something / … yelling at joy from the tunnel of the ego.” (ibid., 488n.30) cusick’s account leaves unclear what motivates this aspect of mcclary’s rhetoric. perhaps it is meant to be intentionally manipulative, the author exploiting the poem for what it suggests while she avoids the topic herself. or perhaps, more charitably, it is an admission of the poem’s complexities, the author’s lack of comment a cue to the reader to examine the poem from multiple perspectives. in either case, however, cusick’s proposition that rich’s poem is valuable to mcclary’s writing because of its power of suggestion would seem somewhat dissonant with her larger point that understanding mcclary’s essay properly requires its situation within a particular intellectual context. that cusick herself has little to say about rich’s poem—appropriating its opening lines just as mcclary did to suggestively conclude her own entry in the history of this poem’s reception—also seems counterintuitive. her isolated quotation of the poem, recalling its use by earlier writers, involves no attempt to situate rich’s poem within a particular discursive context. in doing so, her footnote unexpectedly suggests that feminist writers, citing the text without acknowledging what or how it signifies, risk turning it into something of an aesthetic object, a text which speaks for itself—precisely the kind of criticism they were reacting against. as the debate surrounding feminine endings cooled in the early years of the twenty-first century and took on a larger disciplinary and historical significance, scholars began to invoke rich’s poem in their accounts of the debates surrounding mcclary’s reading of the ninth. perhaps understandably, these authors cite and paraphrase rich’s poem still more cavalierly than earlier critics. david levy mentions rich’s poem in passing in his account of the ninth, identifying the “man” of the text simply as beethoven himself, while that same year lewis lockwood quotes from rich’s poem in a book on beethoven, attributing it to “a feminist poet.”7 elsewhere, richard taruskin quotes a passage about rich and mcclary from an uncredited publication he was asked to review 15 that describes rich as having criticized beethoven’s “controlling power” (2009, 78). these three authors make little space for considered interpretations of the poem, and demonstrate the lowest possible level of involvement with rich’s text without omitting it entirely. other critics, however, did engage rich’s text in more deliberate and systematic ways. in a 2004 essay, robert fink takes up the poem at some length alongside mcclary’s essay: he considers how the two texts can be read both for what they say and for what they imply, finding for instance that rich and mcclary each use “imagery and tone” to “conjure up the specter of rape” without mentioning it explicitly (2004, 142). he offers a rare comparison of the structures of the poem and the symphony, each of which shares a trochaic stress pattern at its close. and twice he suggests the importance of rich’s poem to musicology after its “introduction” by mcclary. but here too there are troubling aspects to fink’s treatment of the poem. for one, though he includes the complete text of rich’s work, he divides it between two epigraphs at either end of his essay, making it more difficult to read on its own. then, when fink (after dropping several suggestive quotations) finally names the poem in the body of his text, describing its titular “message” as “profoundly dystopic and disturbing,” he proceeds to generalize rich’s characterization of the ninth to other possible hearings of the work—relating the work’s violence, for example, to the oppressive political climate in austria during the decade of the work’s composition (ibid., 143). and finally, just after claiming that the identification of beethoven with a rapist is “not as clear-cut as simplifying accounts of mcclary might imply,” fink resolves that the composer is in fact a rapist, who violates his own work by forcing his “crude solipsistic tonal desires” on what had been a “complex formal dialectic.” writing that beethoven “smashed his own ode to joy into pieces” to conceal his “formal impotence,” he concludes, suddenly and simply, that “adrienne rich was right” (ibid., 147). these points of dissonance in fink’s essay recall his initial comments on the slippage between what rich’s text makes explicit and what it suggests to the reader. this peril of interpretation, long familiar from analyses of the ninth and more recently so from commentaries on feminine endings, can here begin to be felt in fink’s struggle to read and represent the poem. fink even seems to recognize this connection himself when he links the overwhelming noise of the symphony’s close and the unease of mcclary’s figurative description of that passage to the “brutal trochaic pentameter” of the closing lines of rich’s work. in this way, his account suggests something profound about rich’s poem: that, as with beethoven’s ninth and mcclary’s account of the symphony, any 16 determination of its meaning likewise stems from a contingent act of interpretation shaped simultaneously by what its text affords and by what a reader is able to detect. fink’s demonstration of this contingency in his writing would suggest too that readers of rich’s poem who, having determined its significance for themselves, wish to represent this significance to others must be attentive to this duality of interpretation as well: both to convey the complexity of the text they analyze and to acknowledge their role in transmitting the text to their audience. still more recently, michael broyles has taken up rich’s poem in his book beethoven in america, where he offers a close reading of the text, a rarity among musicologists’ invocations of rich (2011, 139ff). his rather idiosyncratic take on the poem (in which he concludes, rather uniquely among rich’s commenters, that beethoven himself is the one gagged, bound, and flogged—and by his own music!) testifies both to the variety of interpretations rich’s text can inspire and to the necessity of representing this interpretive work with care, since neither the meaning of rich’s poem nor the critic’s understanding of it can be taken for granted. along with this, broyles includes a brief biographical sketch of the poet and an overview of its appearances in musicology. he explains that for many years “the ninth symphony” was relatively unknown among rich’s poems, but that it had developed a certain prominence due to its appearance in mcclary’s “beanstalk” essay and its reappearance in the writings it inspired. he also notes the parallel imagery between rich’s poem and mcclary’s essay, finding that both authors hear the symphony’s sublimity as violence rather than as energizing power (although he admits that rich’s poem is broader in its scope, addressing the ninth as a whole, while mcclary considers particular musical moments). especially noteworthy in broyles’s account however is its unique concern with the context of the poem’s composition. the author notes, for example, that the work was written one year after the release of stanley kubrick’s film adaptation of a clockwork orange, in which the ninth’s violent implications feature prominently. after corresponding with rich, broyles relays that while she claimed to have seen the film around the time of writing “the ninth symphony” (but not to have read the novel by anthony burgess upon which it was based), she was unaware of any conscious influence. rather, she wrote the poem after hearing the symphony on the radio and rediscovering its “certain kind of male anguish and emotional isolation” (ibid., 141). rich admitted to broyles however that she never intended her poem to be about beethoven himself.8 17 both broyles and fink begin to parse rich’s poem, to unpack its claims, and to consider the contexts in which it has been involved. yet their accounts— while certainly a great improvement from anonymous references to the “feminist poet”—only begin to treat rich’s verse as a source of musicological insight. neither author presents a systematic reading of her text that reflects the difficulty of its interpretation, and neither considers the poem’s significance to musicology beyond the fact of its appearance in mcclary’s writings and in those her text inspired. and so their analyses, though encouraging, do not unsettle a decadeslong tradition of musicologists affirming the immense significance of rich’s poem while only glancingly suggesting how it signifies: from mcclary’s ambivalent use of the “remarkably similar” work’s extreme perspective as a foil in feminine endings, to treitler’s tacit approval of the poem as an aesthetic object, to cusick’s appropriation of its suggestive language, to its casual inclusion in surveys of feminist music criticism, in studies of beethoven’s ninth, and in contexts still further removed from those in which it first appeared in musicology.9 and it is this trend, more than any one critic’s fleeting invocation of the poem, that is troubling. for it perpetuates a certain image of rich’s verse— whether treated as a mere mirror of mcclary’s essay, an aesthetic object, a provocative quote, or a mere music-historical curiosity—as a text whose interpretation need not feature in any scholarly inquiry, its meaning able to be either recovered at a glance, or gleaned from the contexts in which it is cited, or else simply thought through by readers in their own time. and this image is inconsistent not only with the concerns that motivated the poem’s inclusion in mcclary’s analysis of the ninth and sustained the discourse that grew up around her essay, but also with the lessons that musicology has learned from that exchange. toward an understanding (at last?) this treatment of the poem is not limited to its appearances within music criticism either. when the work is mentioned at all in studies of rich’s poetry, it tends to feature only in passing. andrew hudgins’s only comment on the poem in his close reading of diving into the wreck is that it criticizes masculine solipsism “because of a fear of impotence or infertility” (1981, 59). other writers are less kind: janice markey, amid a familiar array of quotes and paraphrases, describes “the ninth symphony” as “unworthy of a poet with such high ideals and standards,” “dishonest,” and “obviously unfair” to beethoven for not 18 mentioning his struggle with deafness and “the great emotional impact of his music” (1985, 191). claire keyes likewise calls rich an “ideologue” and only mentions “the ninth symphony” in her study of rich’s poetry as an example of the “absurdity” of her extremism (1986, 135). another critic brings up the poem only to mention that its title would alarm a censor (lemardeley-cunci 1990, 14). yet where these authors find madness, another strand of criticism finds method: paula bennett writes of rich’s confrontational work as a “necessary first step” toward a feminist poetics (1986, 218). while alice templeton suggests that what others might label rich’s “aesthetic failures” are self-authorizing attempts at writing from a feminist perspective, referencing “the ninth symphony” in particular as a “test” of the “validity of [rich’s] feminist thinking” that attempts to translate personal experiences into shared stories (1994, 34). jean kreiling approaches a similar conclusion about rich’s experimental style in her analysis of the poem, which, though brief, represents perhaps the most encouraging example of a critic’s engagement with the text. her close reading of rich’s verse alongside other poetic responses to beethoven’s symphony (contextualized with reference to mcclary’s and fink’s writings) demonstrates how the poem’s unsettling subject matter, strange construction, and passionate activism make it difficult to interpret the titular “message” it is supposed to describe. she notes for example how the absurd length of the title and the poet’s pun on the word “chords” add an unsettlingly playful dimension to an otherwise “nightmarish” work. and she comments at length on the poem’s baffling syntax and lack of punctuation, which she finds contribute an indistinct emotional energy to rich’s verse (2012, 59). it is worth dwelling on this notion that the poem’s confusing syntax, semantic misalignments, and affecting language encumber its interpretation, for kreiling’s claim can begin to suggest a reason for why decades of critics have treated the work the way they have. prompting readers to discern a “message” from its grammatical ambiguity, narrative inconsistency, and overpowering passion, the obscurity of rich’s verse—what one might call its textual noise— would serve as the fertile soil from which a reader’s interpretation of the poem might arise. yet, at the same time, this textual noise would guarantee that any such understanding necessarily be incomplete, as it forecloses upon the work’s other possible interpretations. this could explain the prevalence of direct quotation in musicologists’ nods to rich’s verse, a strategy that would pretend to avoid this double bind of interpretation. it could also explain why critics, quoting from rich’s suggestive poem, seem so often to frame her text either as a provocation for their own readers’ reflections (focusing on the promise and 19 potential of its noise), or as a confusing polemic, unruly and unfair (focusing on its perilous imprecision). and yet neither of these perspectives on the poem alone entirely captures the richness of its “noise.” calling the work unfair for demanding so much work of its reader certainly does not acknowledge the intricacy of its text. but neither does yielding to the text’s suggestiveness, presenting it with minimal commentary so as to encourage a reader’s own deliberations on its significance, and a critic who does so not only glosses over the details of the text’s semantic potential, but also falsely denies their role in representing the text to their audience in all its difficulty. (reliance on direct quotation obscures this fact in both of these cases). instead, an account of the poem ought to balance elements from both of these perspectives on rich’s text, exploring its manifold semantic potential to explain how its textual noise both encourages and hinders interpretation—as any decision on its meaning means the exclusion of other possible meanings. and yet, while critics must have felt this difficulty in their encounters with the text, it remained a largely unspoken fact. its effect on their analyses and on the larger role of rich’s poem within musicology has never quite been a focus of their work—a strange thing, considering it was the very issue that absorbed them in accounting for recent attempts at interpreting both beethoven’s ninth and mcclary’s writing on the symphony. as a conclusion to this survey of various scholars’ uses of rich’s poem, we might begin to turn our ears toward this noise, returning to its text in order to confront the possibility and the peril it engenders. this return to the poem may uncomfortably recall the familiar injunction of feminist musicology’s detractors to limit criticism to the text itself. but this resemblance is, however, only superficial: what follows is not an attempt to uncover what the poem’s text truly means—a meaning earlier writers’ biases had obscured or overlooked—but to contextualize the citations of the poem catalogued above. indeed, it presents less a reading of rich’s text than a tentative, exploratory study of its potential for signification. motivated by a desire to better understand the poem’s relation to musicology, it asks what makes writers’ uses of the poem possible, and what insights the poem might inspire should we make use of it differently, taking it as a starting point for, rather than a supplement to, a line of thought. in fact, a closer look at rich’s text can suggest the necessity, not the insufficiency, of the above critics’ expediency. the poem’s title alone poses many questions: it seems to downplay beethoven and emphasize his symphony by relegating its composer to the interior of the phrase. what is more, there is no indication of who is doing the 20 understanding or when it took place. it could be rich in this poem or even burgess or kubrick, whose roughly contemporary hearings of the ninth could still justify the “at last” (itself a loaded phrase, suggesting the emergence of some long-awaited force that might begin to right the many wrongs of a troubled reception history). the close of the title is the most difficult part to parse. are we to understand the symphony as equivalent to a sexual message or as similar to one? can it be a sexual message while it is also something else? is this sexual message one of many possible (sexual) messages? is it a message about sex, or a message whose symphonic modality is sex itself? rich then introduces us to a nameless man: perhaps beethoven, perhaps a personification of the symphony, or even of some musical-metaphoric agent within the symphony. the man feels terror, not fear, from which some critics might extract a reference to the sublime. but could the fact that he is terrified of being impotent (helpless) or infertile (unproductive) instead suggest that his terror is directed at sublimity itself? we learn that the man is trying (though with unknown success) to send a message, which may or may not be the sexual message of the title. the interpretations multiply from this point: is he unsuccessful in his communication because the pain of the climacteric (of his mid-life andropause) causes him to howl? is his (sexual) message so animal that only howling can transmit it? is he experiencing the climacteric or is his music climacteric? (lack of punctuation makes this ambiguity especially prominent.) does he howl from within the music or overtop it? or—in one particularly subversive reading—is he trying to tell something that is howling apart from the climacteric music? by this interpretation, the man might be trying to analyze the music just as rich and mcclary are. is it the “man” of the first line “yelling at joy from the tunnel of the ego” or is it the “isolated soul,” or even the music? the parallelism between this line and “howling from the climacteric / music” suggests a change in perspective that heightens this confusion. howling gains a linguistic quality, becoming “yelling,” and the “tunnel of the ego” comes across as more directed and conscious than suffering at the hands of the climacteric. “music without the ghost / of another person in it” is an even more puzzling line: is this to say that the music is haunted by one ghost already? would it be the man’s or that of the isolated soul—or that of beethoven? perhaps it indicates the entrance of a new agent, or the ghost of a canon or tradition. as these questions pile up, the poem hits a point of symmetry, and rich echoes several constructions from the first half of the poem in reverse order. note the symmetrical placements of the lines describing music, the comparison 21 of “howling from” and “yelling […] from,” and the difference between “a man trying to tell something” (and possibly failing) and “music / trying to tell something” while the man hopes it fails. the poem’s symmetry creates a hall of mirrors effect and clouds the text further as readers try to connect referents from the first and second halves. is the man trying to deliver the sexual message or is the music? how can joy be the recipient of his angry yelling and simultaneously the violent weapon he uses to ensure the music’s silence? if silence is the goal, why is he flogging joy “where everything is silence”? how can this place be silent if there is so much howling, yelling, and flogging? on closer inspection, rich’s poem, with its provocative topic and striking language, is unclear in its meaning. its ambiguity is the product of a lack of punctuation, confusing syntax, and its strange juxtaposition of images and descriptions. words pass by like the wind, leaving impressions but fleeting comprehension. and in the end the poem comes across more as something felt than “understood at last.” it is a rather familiar feeling to those acquainted with rich’s larger body of work, which is uniquely attuned to the prospect of violence, the power of the visceral, and the potential of the voice. recognizing the oppressive structures that impose and enforce societal norms (including artistic canons), rich often turns to descriptions of the body in her poetry to account for these violent forces by depicting the place where their effects are felt. in her hands, such descriptions not only vividly portray the physical impact of this violence but also reflect something of its psychic repercussions, demonstrating that violence both leaves its mark on the physical body and isolates individuals as well. rich’s “beethoven” poem is exemplary in this regard, portraying the isolating effects of violence not only in the events it describes but also in its description of these events: its textual noise simulates the overwhelming experience of what rich hears as the violence of beethoven’s work, an experience which, understandably, she cannot easily communicate. and yet just as rich’s poem demonstrates the limiting effects of social norms and the isolating effects of the violence through which these norms are maintained, it also strives—with some success—to transcend that limitation and isolation in communicating with its reader. her work leverages the power of noise not simply to represent the experience of violence, nor simply to demonstrate the difficulty of representing that experience to others, but to convey to the reader how, through careful and creative listening, it is possible to address that violence and pose a challenge to the structures which enact it. and by requiring this same attention of her audience, rich suggests how we might accomplish this task ourselves. rich’s noise, then, is not simply a symptom of the 22 outspoken nature of her activism or a sign of her poem’s failure to articulate a particular message, but comprises something tactical. the centrality of this strategy to rich’s poetry demands focused and intentional reading from her audience, a deliberate engagement with the text that acknowledges not only the difficulty of her subject, but also that of her writing. inconclusion both rich’s perspective on the oppressive forces that enact and maintain social norms and her clever treatment of language render her poetry distinctive, undoubtedly. but in its revolutionary noise, manipulative syntax, self-reflection, and terrifying impact, does her work not recall a common characterization of beethoven’s ninth? just as supporters of rich’s writing recognize her confrontational, experimental work as a means of coming to terms with violence, the late maynard solomon (1986) identified a progressive, disruptive energy propelling “a search for order” in the ninth. just as rich insistently strings together a series of ambiguously related phrases in her “beethoven” poem, mcclary (1987 and 1991) describes a similar insistence behind the horrifying harmonic syntax of beethoven’s symphony. and just as we have considered the difficulty of rich’s poem to be a product of its textual noise, fink (2004, 142) describes the “sublimity” of the ninth in terms of a similar “noise”. i mention this not to equate the two works absolutely (nor, certainly, to justify one by the other) but rather to suggest in passing how the preceding citations of the poem, stressing secondhand its opposition to the symphony, risk overlooking their potential (and potentially strategic) similarities—as well as to return to the question of the role of rich’s poem in musicology. for this resemblance between beethoven’s ninth and rich’s “beethoven” poem gets at the central issue surrounding the latter’s reception. if rich’s poem teaches us about the difficulty of interpretation, its lesson is not an unfamiliar one. this same difficulty was keenly felt in the heated debates over feminist interpretations of the ninth symphony’s own noise (and in discussions of the rich language of mcclary’s essay). but while beethoven’s work—via mcclary’s analysis—inspired lively discussion on this topic, sparking a debate over the ethics of interpretation, rich’s poem never featured in these discussions as a difficult, noisy text. and so, even if the complexity of rich’s work suggests an explanation for why musicologists have engaged with the text so cursorily, the question remains why this treatment of the poem persisted despite the concerns of the very musicologists who invoke the poem in debates over the 23 means and ends of interpretation. and perhaps more crucially, the question remains what scholars today are to make of this. reviewing musicologists’ citations of rich’s “beethoven” poem, it would seem that the concerns that motivated these critics to turn to the poem in the first place remain far from resolved—and not just because rich’s account of the symphony, like mcclary’s after her, is still widely perceived as radical or because the ethics of their musical hermeneutics remains a topic of lingering debate in contemporary musicology. it is also because scholars’ apparent inattention to the textual noise of rich’s poem amid a debate over the ethics of interpretation unsettles the lessons that this fabled debate is supposed to have taught us about music criticism: first, that the significance of a text is a product neither of the text itself nor of the analyst’s invention alone, but instead emerges from the interaction of these potentials. and second, that this contingency demands the critic take special care not only in interpreting a text, but also in relaying their experience of it to a reader. that critics citing the “beethoven” poem often appear to defer to rich’s work as a text able to speak for itself or as a provocation for a reader’s speculation (and, in either case, appear to downplay their role in representing the complexity of the text to their audience) would seem inconsistent with these teachings.10 this presents a challenge for scholars confronting these writings today, which risk perpetuating the very myths (of the text’s autonomy, or else of its meaning as an arbitrary product of a reader’s will) their authors would like to dispel. and yet this inconsistency cannot be simply resolved by insisting that musicologists could have engaged with rich’s poem more thoroughly or more carefully. for one, it is not a matter of assigning fault to individual authors. not only can no one writer be blamed for this systematic treatment of the poem, but also many critics have perfect reason to make use of rich’s verse the way they do—whether because the poem is peripheral to their argument or perhaps because their deferrals to its suggestive language are meant to encourage the same kind of meta-textual reflection in their readers as rich’s poem does.11 beyond this however, musicologists’ treatment of the “beethoven” poem ought not be singled out as some egregious oversight because, in the end, their passing references to rich’s verse represent an inevitability of criticism, the incompleteness of any encounter with the text. however intently these writers might focus on rich’s poem, their engagement with it could never have adequately captured its noise: there would always remain some unexplored significance. (in fact, insofar as this apparent neglect of rich’s verse itself reveals this unexplored significance, even if unintentionally, their treatment of the poem 24 in the end succeeds in relating the text to their central lesson about the contingency of reading, demonstrating the very point to which these authors would, in this context at least, seem blind.) if further reflection on rich’s verse seems warranted then—to reacquaint ourselves with the poet’s testimony and with the myth of beethoven’s ninth, and still more vitally to reconsider the significance of this mythic moment in the history of our discipline—it is not because our treatment of her “beethoven” poem requires correction per se, but because it reminds us that the possibilities and perils of interpretation can never be entirely resolved, only negotiated. accordingly, this confrontation with the fraught reception history of rich’s poem ought not be taken as a solution to a disciplinary problem, but rather as a renewal of a familiar call to take care in our reflections on beethoven, on mcclary, and on the exchange of words her texts inspired. for rich’s poem has inspired and can continue to inspire musicologists to reflect on how we recognize and respond to a text’s calls for interpretation, how we negotiate what a text’s noise promises and imperils in order to understand its significance, and how we convey this noise and significance to our readers. in sum, her verse teaches us to consider how our interpretive work and our struggles to represent that work to our readers contribute to disciplinary mythologies, such as that which has grown up around rich’s poem, often in unexpected ways. taking this lesson to heart will benefit us not just during this beethoven year, but in all of our efforts to represent this history, in all its intricacy, to new generations of scholars. for now, however, we might pause to recognize that the poem is complex and to acknowledge what that complexity means—that rich’s verse has presented, and will continue to present, seemingly endless opportunities to be read. granted, this may seem an inadequate expression of the work’s value. and yet if this complexity constitutes the very origin of its value and of its usefulness to musicology, perhaps simply admitting this might suffice as a necessary first step toward both a more nuanced understanding of this value and a greater appreciation of the unsung roles rich and her poem have played in our writing. perhaps now, having waded toward (if not quite yet dived into) the wreck the poet’s text pronounces, musicology can find its way back to this consequential poem to consider it anew in all its riches. 25 acknowledgements an early version of this essay was presented at the fifteenth biennial conference on feminist theory and music (ft&m 15), held june 6-9, 2019 in boston, massachusetts. since then it has benefitted from the generous feedback of several readers, including its anonymous reviewers. among these, special thanks are due, for her keen comments and encouragement, to bonnie gordon, to whom this paper is admiringly dedicated. notes 1 accordingly, this essay is not concerned with re-litigating the validity of the claims it rehearses or with reconstructing the original contexts in which they were made. rather, it considers what individual musicologists’ treatment of rich’s poem suggests about its significance. it does not seek to recover some lost knowledge (the true message of the poem or of mcclary’s essay, or else the broader “truth” or “falsehood” of feminist criticism), but to reflect on how this mythic moment in musicology appears to scholars today and what we are to make of that appearance. 2 here and below, i capitalize the word joy when speaking of it in the context of rich’s poem. in doing so i hope to convey something of the spirit with which rich herself capitalizes the word (one of the notably few capitalized words in her poem), including its ambivalent reference both to the object of schiller’s ode and to a woman’s name. 3 see solie 1991, 407. for more on the theory of compulsory heterosexuality, consult rich 1980. similarly to solie, paula higgins perhaps alludes to rich in a discussion of mcclary’s book through her description of beethoven as “androgyne”, a term which appears with some frequency in rich’s writing, including in diving into the wreck (higgins 1993, 185). 4 see treitler 1992, especially 41-42. respect for rich’s poem among mcclary’s critics amounts to something of a recurring theme: in a letter to the editor of the minnesota composer’s forum newsletter published two months after mcclary’s essay, jim philips, condemning mcclary’s “ridicule” of the classical canon, notes by contrast that he finds rich’s poem admirable, observant, and candid by comparison, even if he does not agree with it (philips 1987, n.p.). though note that for all treitler’s apparent respect for rich’s poetry, he does mistitle her work in his paper, omitting beethoven’s name. 5 what is more (and again like treitler), smart mistitles rich’s poem, omitting “of beethoven.” 6 cusick 1999, 488. cusick seems to deny that mcclary wrote things in feminine endings that she did write (or at least suggest) in the original “beanstalk” essay (see fink 2004, 109110). 7 levy 2003, 17; lockwood 2003, 420. lockwood does name rich in an endnote. in harvey sachs’s monograph on the ninth, the author quotes from lockwood’s work, restoring rich’s name, though he offers no additional comment on either’s writings (2010, 131-32). 8 broyles fails to mention a still more puzzling detail that further complicates the poem’s history: in 1972, the year of the beethoven poem, rich met with anthony burgess, who sublet her new york apartment and described its infestation by cockroaches in an article in the new york times. their acquaintance soured, and burgess would later pen a thinly veiled caricature of rich and her apartment in a novel titled the clockwork testament. rich’s 26 response to this work is unknown. for a more detailed history of this encounter, see biswell 2012. 9 passing references to rich’s poem can be found in writings on a variety of musical topics, from the soundtracks to kubrick’s films to the origins of melodrama: a study of a clockwork orange asks readers to consider the poem’s message given only its title, its author’s name, and its opening line (gengaro 2013, 124). while an essay on fidelio, describing the poem’s “sexual message” as the “impotent and infertile cry of a man wrapped up in himself, hating women, loving men as he loves himself,” includes none of its actual text (goldberg 2016, 14). 10 it also unsettles the neat categories into which history has sorted the partisans in this debate: feminist writers advocating for context and interpretive nuance defer to the poem to speak for itself, while the textualist treitler suggests the subtlety required in interpretation. 11 it is possible to read cusick’s comments about rich’s poem in this light, for example. though as we have already seen, in appropriating the poem’s noise in this way, cusick runs the risk of suggesting to her readers that the significance of rich’s work is so obvious that it need only be quoted directly from rich’s verse (obvious, at least, to those acquainted with its particular “intellectual context”—another way of limiting its potential for signification). it would seem, then, that critics who wish to represent rich’s text in all its complexity to their reader ought not shy away from the difficulty of their encounter with the poem, but rather dramatize it in their own writing, so as to acknowledge the limitation of their perspective on the poem and of their ability to communicate their experience of the text to their audience. this style of writing is familiar to both the feminist and queer critical traditions to which rich belonged, discourses concerned with how subjects whose significance are discounted are able to make meaning from their experience of difference. (for more on this hermeneutic strategy, its means and ends, approached from a specifically queer perspective, see shiflett 2020.) but beyond the personal and historical relevance of this style of criticism to rich the lesbian and rich the feminist/queer critic, it fits rich’s writing so well because her texts themselves demand it, engaging their reader as an individual whose interpretive faculty is shaped by their difference. certainly, this is true of the “beethoven” poem, which not only dramatizes rich’s encounter with the ninth, but also confronts the reader with the task of understanding rich’s perspective on the symphony—and of reconciling their thoughts with her own. references bennett, paula. 1986. my life a loaded gun. boston: beacon press. biswell, andrew. 2012. “adrienne rich, anthony burgess and the cockroaches” news and blog posts, the international anthony burgess foundation: https://www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/adrienne-rich-anthony-burgess-andthe-cockroaches-by-andrew-biswell/. broyles, michael. 2011. beethoven in america. bloomington: indiana university press. cusick, suzanne g. 1999. “gender, musicology, and feminism.” in rethinking music, edited by nicholas cook and mark everist. oxford: oxford university press, 471-98. denora, tia. 1997. “music and erotic agency: sonic resources and social-sexual action” body and society 3: 43-65. 27 fink, robert. 2004. “beethoven antihero: sex, violence, and the aesthetics of failure, or listening to the ninth symphony as postmodern sublime.” in beyond structural listening? postmodern modes of hearing, edited by andrew dell’antonio. berkeley, university of california press, 109-153. gengaro, christine. 2013. listening to stanley kubrick: the music in his films. lanham: scarecrow press. goldberg, jonathan. 2016. melodrama: an aesthetics of impossibility. durham: duke university press. higgins, paula. 1993. “women in music, feminist criticism, and guerrilla musicology: reflections on recent polemics” nineteenth-century music 17: 174-192. hudgins, andrew. 1981. “‘the burn has settled in’: a reading of adrienne rich’s diving into the wreck” the texas review 2: 49-65. keyes, claire. 1986. the aesthetics of power: the poetry of adrienne rich. athens: university of georgia press. kreiling, jean l. 2012. “‘yelling at joy’: poetic responses to beethoven’s ninth symphony” the beethoven journal 27: 56-63. lemardeley-cunci, marie christine. 1990. adrienne rich: cartographies du silence. lyon: presses universitaires de lyon. levy, david. 2003. beethoven: the ninth symphony. new haven: yale university press. lockwood, lewis. 2003. beethoven: the music and the life. new york: norton. markey, janice. 1985. a new tradition? the poetry of sylvia plath, anne sexton and adrienne rich. new york: peter lang. mcclary, susan. 1987. “getting down off the beanstalk: the presence of a woman’s voice in janika vandervelde’s genesis ii” minnesota composers forum newsletter (january), n.p. ____________. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. pasler, jann. 1992. “some thoughts on susan mcclary’s feminine endings” perspectives of new music 30: 202-205. philips, jim. 1987. “re: susan mcclary’s beanstalk” minnesota composers forum newsletter (march), n.p. rich, adrienne 1973. “the ninth symphony of beethoven understood at last as a sexual message.” in diving into the wreck. new york: norton, 43. ____________. 1980. “compulsory heterosexuality and lesbian existence” signs: journal of women in culture and society 5: 631-60. sachs, harvey. 2010. the ninth: beethoven and the world in 1824. new york: random house. shiflett, campbell. 2020. “‘au fond d’un placard’: allusion, narrative, and queer experience in poulenc’s ier nocturne” the journal of musicology 37: 197-230. smart, mary ann. 1994. “review of musicology and difference: gender and sexuality in music scholarship, edited by ruth a. solie” journal of the american musicological society 47: 541-49. solie, ruth a. 1991. “what do feminists want? a reply to pieter van den toorn” the journal of musicology 9: 399-410. 28 solomon, maynard. 1986. “beethoven’s ninth symphony: a search for order” 19th-century music 10: 3-23. taruskin, richard. 2009. “a beethoven season?” in the danger of music and other antiutopian essays. berkeley: university of california press, 71-80. templeton, alice. 1994. the dream and the dialogue: adrienne rich’s feminist poetics. knoxville: university of tennessee press. treitler, leo. 1992. “gender and other dualities of music history.” in musicology and difference: gender and sexuality in music scholarship, edited by ruth a. solie. berkeley: university of california press. 23-45. van den toorn, pieter. 1991. “politics, feminism, and contemporary music theory” the journal of musicology 9: 275-299. ____________. 1995. music, politics, and the academy. berkeley: university of california press. hilary poriss. 2009. changing the score: arias, prima donnas, and the authority of performance. oxford: oxford university press. elliott s. cairns readers may recall the 1998 production of mozart's ie nozze di figaro at the metropolitan opera in which mezzo-soprano cecilia bartoli, to much criticism, sang two arias in place of the two traditionally sung by her character, susanna. despite the fact that mozart also composed these two substitute arias and despite the fact that he also composed them for ie nozze di figaro (albeit after the original 1786 production in vienna), bartoli was largely lambasted by critics and audience members alike. it is fitting that hilary poriss would cite this example in her concluding remarks for changing the score: arias, prima donnas, and the authority of performance, for although not ubiquitous, the practice of aria substitution was, at one point, not uncommon. unfortunately for bartoli, the practice is no longer in vogue: modern audiences by and large desire a musical experience as close to the "original" as possible, and this cannot possibly be furnished by allowing the "egocentric" whims of the diva to undermine the authority of the composer. poriss, however, questions this "natural" inclination towards fidelity to the composer's authority, suggesting that "a composer's authority is not the only authority worth reasserting:' she continues: "singers, too, played a vital role in shaping individual operas, and it was with their aria insertions that they raised their voices most powerfully" (188). perhaps there is a historical precedent for giving divas the freedom and flexibility that they demand, without complaint from opera administrators, directors, and others on the creative team-but this might initiate a fall down a slippery slope, provoking even more unrest within the opera house through a validation of the power trips and tantrums already known to occur behind the scenes. in sharp contrast to the bartoli controversy, poriss begins changing the score with an anecdote about nineteenth-century prima donna anna de lagrange (1824-1905). like bartoli, de lagrange also stepped onto the stage to sing an aria as a substitute for another, but unlike bartoli, de lagrange "thrilled her spectators, who applauded loudly and called her back to the stage for three tumultuous curtain calls" (3); unlike bartoli's alteration, that is, de lagrange's did not elicit boos. "the explanation for this elated response;' poriss writes, "is simple: ... de lagrange was participating in a tradition that originated during the seventeenth century and persisted into the second half of the nineteenth century. defined simply, 'aria insertion' current musicology, no. 92 (fall 2011) © 2011 by the 'il'ustees of columbia university in the city of new york 119 120 current musicology is the practice that allowed singers to introduce arias of their own choice into opera productions" (3). in changing the score, poriss seeks to trace the practice of aria insertion and its role in performances of bel canto operas during the first half of the nineteenth century, the "pivotal stage ... during which the practice inched slowly toward extinction" (5). it was during this time that singers ofitalian opera had to confront the rise of the "work-concept" as described by lydia goehr (1994), either asserting their own authority in performance by attempting to perpetuate the practice of aria insertion, or surrendering their authority to that of the composer's "original" vision. it is this conflict that drives the study, for poriss uncovers various ways in which singers continued to interpolate and substitute arias despite the resistance they encountered when challenging the regulative power of the work-concept. in the first chapter, poriss contextualizes aria insertion as it was practiced during the first half of the nineteenth century. in particular, she examines the emerging discourse that attempted to impose new limitations on the use of such arias-or eliminate them altogether. "singers of the nineteenth century still used aria insertions during these years [1800-1850]' but hints of this new approach" -the approach that understood italian operas as unified "works" "began to be felt early on, limiting when they used aria insertions and what arias they chose to perform. even though singers were still permitted to make these changes, in other words, the ground rules for doing so were shifting subtly beneath them" (15). much of this discourse was bound within a contest for power and authority among singers, impre­ sarios, and composers, a contest that paralleled the debates regarding the "workness" of the artwork itself. as poriss notes, "most criticism of the era suggests that aria insertions inhabited a middle ground where the tension between the identity of the artwork as a performance or as a 'composition' was acted out" (35). the second chapter functions as a case study, focusing on prima donna carolina ungher (1803-1877) and her relationship with donizetti's marino faliero. the underlying narrative of the chapter is of ungher's "quest" to find the perfect entrance aria for her character, elena, because, as poriss writes, "the ability to make a fabulous entrance is one of those critical ele­ ments that separates the iconic diva from the rest of the pack, a skill that all actresses and opera singers cultivate, but that only exceptional ones master" (37). poriss couches ungher's "quest" in the by now familiar terms of performance versus composition, firmly situating ungher's insertions in the aforementioned "middle ground:' regarding performance, it is unsurprising that the diva would be searching for an entrance aria that "would function most effectively as a showpiece for her talents" (40). the unexpected turn, elliot cairns then, is the argument poriss makes for ungher's "second concern;' one that looks to honor the opera as a singular composition: "the need to determine which aria conformed most effectively to the dramatic and musical shape of marino faliero" (41). poriss examines each of the three arias used by ungher, reading into the progression a "trying on" of each and rejection of the first two before finally settling on the third as the "musical vehicle that was ideal not only for [ungher's j own voice, but for the drama itself" (63). poriss examines the scores as well as the libretti in order to support her argument, citing such musical elements as range and level of difficulty as indicators for the relative suitability of each aria for ungher's voice, and looking at thematic links-both musical and textual-between the arias and the opera in order to determine how effectively each of the arias "fits" into the larger work. poriss' third chapter introduces the concept of "favorite insertions;' a term she coins to describe "arias that were employed as substitutes or interpolations by a host of different singers in an assortment of operatic contexts during the nineteenth century" (11; emphasis added). she puts forth this concept in an effort to "problematize the concept of the trunk aria" (66)-arias that a particular singer could effortlessly substitute or interpolate at a moment's notice, for she carried them around in her metaphorical "trunk" -suggesting an alternate explanation for aria insertion. as in the previous chapter, poriss uses a particular prima donna as a case study, this time examining the aria insertion habits of giuditta pasta (1797-1865). of particular interest is pasta's relationship with the aria "11 soave e bel contento" from giovanni pacini's niobe, an aria that she (and others) frequently interpolated into other operas. poriss looks to the aria's textual and musical characteristics in an attempt to explain why this aria was so popular, but more generally, it does not seem to be the text and music so much as the success of tenor giovanni battista rubini with the aria in niobe's initial run (it was originally composed for a male character), his subsequent interpolation of it into productions of other operas, and his performing it in "numerous concerts" -in short, the popularization of "11 soave e bel contento" at the cords of someone else-that prompted pasta to "adop [t j it as one of her own warhorses" (95). in the end, poriss notes a trend wherein "favorite insertions ... often had direct links to one or two famous singers;' and "these prima donnas and leading men set the 'fashion' for their contemporaries, authoring not only particular operatic moments, but also popularizing a sample of arias from which other singers occasionally drew" (96-97). chapters four and five both discuss operas in which aria insertion became standard (bellini's i capuleti e i montecchi and rossini's il barbiere di siviglia, respectively). the fourth chapter again focuses on one prima donna 121 122 current musicology in particular, this time maria malibran (1808-1836), and the exceptional degree to which she extended the aria insertion practice: instead of just substituting one aria for another, she, as well as fellow co-star giuliettas, substituted the entire "tomb scene" from bellini's opera with the correspond­ ing scene from nicola vaccai's giulietta e romeo. this chapter probes not only the question of why malibran made this replacement in the first place, but also the question of why others followed her lead. poriss' discussion in the fifth chapter, on the other hand, looks to explain why the "lesson scene" of il barbiere di siviglia came to be a scene in which substitution was more or less the norm, but, unlike i capuleti e i montecchi's "tomb scene;' there seem to be almost as many arias substituted as there were prima donnas performing the role. poriss argues that prima donna adelina patti (1843-1919) was particularly influential in altering the "meaning" of the lesson, substituting not only one aria for rossini's "contro un cor;' but, rather, introducing two, three, or sometimes four different arias, in what poriss calls the "mini-concert approach" to aria insertion. in the final chapter of changing the score, poriss returns from discussions of actual performances of insertion arias to the discourse surrounding the practice, focusing on the anonymous short story, "memoir of a song;' first published in 1849 in the london-based journal fraser's magazine, in which the narrator is, remarkably, an insertion aria. the story, as its title suggests, is a quasi -autobiography, a collection of the aria's "remembrances" of things past. it begins: i am an old song now, and have been often sung. mine has been a long and brilliant career; and though now put on the shelf amid the dust of departed forefathers, let me, ere i sink into annihilation, retrace the early years of my glorious being, when i flew triumphant from throat to throat, roused the heart, and filled the eyes of men with tears of gladness, sympathy, and love. (189) "though this story was probably read by thousands;' writes poriss, "it appeared on the periphery of the bel canto tradition, a reflection of, rather than an active participant in, aesthetic change:' she continues: "like the lesson scene of il barbiere di siviglia, however, it provides a gllimpse of the 'afterlife' of aria insertion, this time from a perspective that shifts past one individual opera toward broader aesthetic issues concerning the relationship between singer and song, image and actuality, opera and audience" (170), and these "broader aesthetic issues" -such as the notion of the autonomous art-object and the question of artistic creation-are what poriss investigates in her analysis. this idiosyncratic text is included as an appendix following the study proper, published here for the first time since its initial appearance in1849. elliot cairns poriss roots her study in a wide variety of source materials, from musical scores to performance reviews, published writings to unpublished archival documents. her argumentation is easy to follow and her writing is elegant, which, in addition to the intriguing subject matter, make changing the score an enjoyable read. the book represents a shift in focus from composer­ centric musicology to a musicology that acknowledges other agents who participate in bringing an operatic work to life, in the process complicating the very notion of what the operatic work might be. at the same time, it plays nicely into the efforts of recent feminist scholarship to acknowledge the contributions of female artists-figures who have largely been overshadowed in musicological writings by the (predominantly) "genius" male compos­ ers. while the reader might notice the occasional typo, some ill-chosen homonyms (e.g., "theoretical principals" instead of (the correct) "theoretical principles"), and poor image resolution on score examples, these minor detractions should not deter one from reading poriss' commendable study. references goehr, lydia. 1994. the imaginmy museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. oxford: clarendon press. 123 representing recording studios of the past: a review essay andy bradley and roger wood. 2010. house of hits: the story of houston's gold starlsugarhill recording studios. austin: university of texas press. john hartley fox. 2009. king of the queen city: the story of king records. urbana: university of illinois press roben jones. 2010. memphis boys: the story of american studios. jackson: university press of mississippi. reviewed by whitney slaten the recording studio, a site that music makers use to represent and produce sonic culture, is not merely a musical place. recording studios are social, electronic, architectural, acoustic, and creative technologies of representa­ tion. throughout recording processes, music industries seek to mystify the functional status of the studio among consumers of pop music. this encourages alienation between consumers and producers of popular music, rendering the agency of music business interests invisible, inaudible, and transparent. roben jones's memphis boys: the story of american studios, john hartley fox's king of the queen city: the story of king records, and andy bradley and roger wood's house of hits: the story of houston's gold starlsugarhill recording studios present music scholarship with three record­ ing studios that significantly contributed to american popular music. these works successfully document the local and national contexts in which these studios produced, as well as many accounts of individuals who were involved in the studios and specific recording sessions; however, these are books in which the representation of recording studios weighs heavily on celebrations of illustrious music makers and the popular music they produce. jones and fox are not as careful in attending to the diverse artistic and technological agencies of architects, carpenters, acousticians, engineers, musicians, produc­ ers, and business people in the history of the recording studios as are bradley and wood. works such as these perpetuate readers' misunderstanding of the complexities involved in recording studio labor and inhibit scholarly analyses of popular music production. representations of recording studio life comprise a small category of scholarship on popular music. current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 167 168 curirent musicology in addition to the three examples of histories about studios that this essay reviews, social scientists analyze the dynamics between individuals, technologies, and sounds in order to understand the role of music produc­ tion in shaping popular cultures. these contributions primarily divide between those that describe the experiences of recording studio workers (horning 2004; jones 1992; kealy 1979; porcello 2003) and those that describe how the efforts of studio workers shape sounds that propagate in both local and global music markets (green and porcello 2005' meintjes 2003; veal 2007). this sort of social scientific writing favors descriptions of the pro­ cesses of record production. these works present studios as sites of labor in which social actions shape musical sounds and personhood in ways that blur the supposed boundary between the technological and the creative. ethnographic methods afford greater access to the details of recording studio labor. ethnographers such as meintjes and porcello, in their respective contexts, are able to directly encounter challenges associated with recording, experiencing the collaborations between producers, agents, musicians, and engineers, among other workers, as well as the studios' placement within specific genres and related industrial flows. the three reviewed texts are not ethnographies. the authors of the texts write in a context that is temporally distinct from the now historical mo­ ments associated with the studios about which they write. this determines the primary question that organizes this review: how can histories of recording studios gain greater proximity to workers and recording processes without the benefit of physically co-present ethnographic methods? writing about recording studios that demystifies the myth of intimacy between the consumer and the recording artist facilitates music scholarship that explains the cultural tensions that determine the sounds and social lives of a pop album. in particular, analyses of what sociologist howard becker theorizes as the art world yield such explanations. according to becker, "all artistic work, like all human activity, involves the joint activity of a number, often a large number, of people. through their cooperation, the art work we eventually see or hear comes to be and continues to be" (becker 1982: 1). descriptive emancipations of technology and the creative technological agencies of studio workers who are a portion of the pop music art world build productive and comprehensive analyses of recording studios. in contrast to how jones and fox more typically center on musical artists, i will consider the role of sound engineers in the recording studio in order to suggest a balance for representations of studio social life. this review essay presents how each of these three recent texts attempt to represent recording studios of the past and how works of this sort might whitney slaten benefit from listening practices and methods for representing temporality proposed by ethnomusicologist thomas porcello in his 2003 essay"tails out: social phenomenology and the ethnographic representation of technology in music making." my incorporation of porcello's phenomenology resonates with jonathan sterne's history of audile technique: "a way of abstracting some reproduced sounds (such as voices or music) as worthy of attention or "interior;' and others (such as static or surface noise) as "exterior" and therefore to be treated as if they did not exist" (sterne 2003:25). sterne represents audile technique as one of many features within the social context of acousmatic sound reproduction, one in which listeners are split from a sound source in ways that are similar to how jones and fox were not present in the studios they represent. following the scholarship of becker, sterne, and porcello, i posit that balanced listening to the inner technological implementations and the outer industrially produced intimacies of pop music recordings offer opportunities for encounters and representations of the many workers in recording studios, especially their creative technological contributions. after presenting the three texts and porcello's research methods, i offer an example of an audile technique that leads me to specific questions about studio workers. along with porcello, i argue that questions such as these can directly shape writing about recording studio representations of workers and the many processes of record production. memphis boys roben jones lived in hansford, west virginia before moving to gallipolis, ohio. before writing memphis boys, jones was most active as a poet and had made her publishing debut in wild sweet notes: fifty years of west virginia poetry, 1950-1999. she began the manuscript for memphis boys in 2002, roughly thirty years after she first heard the box top's version of "i shall be released." since that time, jones has been a collector of the output from the memphis boys and american studios. in memphis boys: the story of american studios, jones presents a history of the prolific recording studio most prominent from the mid-1960's through the early 1970s. jones tells the story of this studio through biographical profiles of rhythm section musicians, as she describes chip moman's entrepreneurial efforts in its establishment. the book's twenty-six chapters also include short biographi­ cal profiles, photographs, and a suggested listening section that annotates specific examples of the facility's discography to familiarize the reader with its productions. memphis boys also discusses the recording work of renowned musicians including aretha franldin, b. j. thomas, the box tops, dionne 169 170 current musicology warwick, the gentrys, joe tex, neil diamond, and wilson pickett as well as chart-topping songs such as "do right \i\toman" and "you were always on my mind." jones depicts american studios as a particular locus for musical inven­ tion, a place that directly shapes an artistic characterization of american popular music, focusing on personalities rather than on labor or the technological complexities through which a collective fashioning of musical products emerge. in the introduction, jones establishes a framework for a division oflabor that privileges the highly skilled producers to the detriment of the the rest of the studio's workers. quoting glen spreen, an arranger for the box tops, jones posits the following: in ninety-nine percent of the recordings the producers, arrangers and musicians were the decision makers and in control .. the producer and musicians were at the center of the sessions. the singer, for the most part, had little participation in the process of which songs were recorded and how those songs were interpreted. the producer and the musicians (mostly the musicians) decided on the interpretation, the arranger worked alone and no one heard his interpretation until the day it [the string and horn overdubs] was recorded. (jones 2010: xii) jones uses the quote to organize the entirety of the book's project, as con­ structed in the subtitle, "the story of american studios." she reports how producer dan penn's philosophy shapes american's sound: 'i'd say fifty-percent of the time most people are depressed about something, unless your 21 years old.' that sentence would become the philosophy behind the deep melancholy of american studios sound; the belief that adult life is full of pain and in the pain lies wisdom, and in the wisdom lies salvation. it would color almost every recording made by the musicians from then on. (47) while jones might detect the sentiment of melancholy in the music from american studios, positing penn's interview response as the philosophy of the american studios sound allows for the musicians to be foregrounded, as the efforts of other studio workers recedes into the background. she does present a good example of labor hierarchy through penn's words: 'darryl carter was no engineer; he scoffed, 'he was a gofer. he never did any engineering for me, i wouldn't let anybody near my records! i just can't put up with an engineer, they'd wanna go left, i'd wanna go right. i didn't even know people were com in' in and doing that! i decided they were the enemy.' (80) whitney slaten through this quote, jones conveys tension between musicians and sound engineers. penn describes a moment in which darryl carter inserted sound effects into the mix of one of penn's projects. he had been searching for an effect to add, but carter moved quicker, and it becomes clear that penn's frustration colors the fervor of his dismissive regard of carter's artistic contributions as an engineer. given this sort of account, one that demonstrates the level of control and influence maintained by producers and musicians, the reader might wonder if the author's representation of this social dynamic is accurate. but jones does share a musician's recollection of a sound engineers' crucial role at american. recalling a recording session, musician bobby emmons says: 'why did they [sound engineers 1 remain in the studio for so long, working in between the console rewiring?' 'we kinda had 'tail feather' hemmed up and we didn't want to lose the groove,' emmons explained. 'we would do a take, they would rewire the equipment, do another take, another rewire, for a reported fifty-two hours (it was hard to find out much about time or sound equipment back then). they finally got it wired right. we had a studio.' (66) emmons' words complicate the producer and musician stronghold jones promotes throughout the book by indicating how "they:' the sound engi­ neers "made" the studio with their rewiring efforts. this discussion of the engineers represents a varied labor experience at american, and jones could do more to unpack the tense relations between engineers, producers, and the musicians. for example, how did emmons's vague understanding of engineers' work contribute to a distance between different laborers? jones also includes the following recollections of the engineers: "mike leech called chips 'a master mixer and engineer. i loved to hear his playbacks and i loved to watch him mix. he would play the console like it was an instrument. a cigarette between his fingers and manipulat­ ing the faders as the track went by. i learned a lot from watching and listening.' 'he was a great engineer, said b.j. thomas; hayward bishop, no admirer of chips, called him 'an expert engineer, the best tape splicer ever; and described him as knowledgeable and authoritative on the matter of sound." ( 91) although jones presents this positive description of one of the studio's engineers, leech's position also suggests a distance between the musicians and the engineer. how did chips mix certain tracks or splice tape? how exactly was chips a better engineer than the rest? how did chips contribute to or alter the studio's sound of melancholy? what was jones' impression of 171 172 current musicology chip's engineering? after many close listenings to chip's work, jones might have been able to ask specific questions about the engineer's contributions. if jones asked mike leech the questions she developed from listening to recordings, leech might have offered detailed recollections of chip's creativity within the sound of the recorded music. the questions gained from this close listening, similar to the example offered at the conclusion of this essay, could have enhanced the study of chip as an engineer. in ad­ dition, this would also strengthen the representation of american studios' importance in the recording industry, not only as a site of musical creation, but also as a field in which numerous workers expertly contributed to the company's output. king of the queen city john hartley fox is an avid record collector who currently writes about performing arts in sacramento, california. in the '80s, he worked at wyso in yellow springs, ohio where he produced four one-hour radio productions entitled "king of the queen city: the story of king records" for national public radio. in his book of the same tide, fox presents the story of the small, independent record company in cincinnati, ohio from the 1940s through the 1960s. with chapter names including "syd starts a record company;' "business as usual was pretty unusual;' and "we broke the shit down;' fox details the story of owner syd nathan's struggles in establishing the company and presents the many recording artists that made the sound of king records; artists who included james brown, bill doggett, grandpa jones, redd foxx, earl bostic, the stanley brothers, ike turner, roy brown, freddie king, eddie vinson, and johnny "guitar" watson. one of fox's most compelling points in the king story is his contextual­ ization of the company's geographic and market position as an independent record company located at the crossroads. explaining the company's unique collective of artists and repertoire, fox states the following: king records helped shape the musical ethos that made the tri-state area of ohio, indiana, and kentucky such a fertile field for musicians of all stripes. many of these musicians (guitarist lonnie mack comes to mind as an example) seamlessly integrated ideas from blues, rock, country, bluegrass, and r&b into their playing. that in turn helped to develop a similar open-mindedness among listeners in this area. it's hard to say whether king records created this situation or merely exploited it; i favor the fonner option. (xvi) fox's belief in a causal relationship between king records' musical life and its geographic location permeates the book. local themes and anecdotes whitney slaten divide the book into chapters that address the beginning of the company, the hiring of specific musicians, the story of genre production, the development of new labels, aspirations of businessmen, neighborhoods in cincinnati, and the end of king's activity. fox outlines how king's location and nathan's interests in maintaining a racially and ethnically diversified labor force affected the record company's products. he discusses employees henry glover and ralph bass, two produc­ ers at king records: henry glover was the living embodiment of the color-blindness and open-minded spirit that syd nathan espoused and attempted to live by at king records. glover was a black man from the south, but he was [as) comfortable in the studio producing white country acts as he was in producing rhythm and blues acts. glover knew the barriers erected between white and black music were artificial and not reflective of the way life was actually lived in america. music was music, and a good song was a good song. it really was as simple as that. (fox 2009: 26) this presentation of us race relations prevents fox from exploring exactly how glover's subjectivity and his encounter with social difference manifested in the production of king's sound. how did glover embody a self-reflective understanding of racialized music divisions as artificial? furthermore, how did the remarkableness of glover's work with country musicians, in spite of racial difference, emerge within a recording process? fox's lack of engage­ ment with glover's technical navigation, social struggles, and triumphs with individuals or machines at king leaves the reader without a deeper understanding of how glover made records. fox introduces ralph bass in a later chapter of the book, as one of the last "characters" among record producers: although he didn't try to pass for something he wasn't, there was always something different about ralph bass, a white man of mixed jewish­ italian ancestry who crossed the color line and never looked back. bass was a jive-talking wheeler-dealer, half artist and half con artist. he was a consummate record man. (fox 2009: 86) fox presents bass, a rock and roll hall of fame inductee, as a racialized figure who also works to personally, as well as professionally, cross color lines. bass was full of himself, but seemed to know it, in a way that made his shtick (and self-promotion) more entertaining than irritating. he moved freely between two parallel worlds at a time in america when relatively 173 174 current musicology few people crossed the racial divide. bass was a pioneering record man, but he was proudest of the role he played in bringing blacks and whites closer together through a common love for music. (86) in an extended excerpt, it is clear to the reader that fox conveys bass's experi­ ences at king without asking critical follow-up questions. fox admits bass's stories were so "lovingly tended and told, it seemed a shame to burden them with extra exposition unless absolutely necessary" (87). bass describes the difficulty associated with his earliest business transactions that eventually led him to nathan's company as well as monumental events in king's his­ tory. as king's artist and repertoire agent, bass went to georgia in search of new musical talent and was successful in signing james brown during this trip. bass articulates the pride in signing brown before leonard chess of chess records. bass' words form a single, unbroken narrative, and leave the reader wondering how he understood his role in constructing a relationship between race and music at king. these examples demonstrate fox's top-down representation of record making at king. the author fills the pages with stories about famous stars, talented musicians, popular styles, storied business deals, heroic men, innumerable celebrations of glorified artistic discoveries, and legendary musical origins. a methodology that focused on king records as an "art world" might have focused more on individual and group interactions, as well as the negotiations between musicians, engineers, producers, executives, and the material culture associated with the production processes of the time. fox partially includes a bottom -up description of king's history in the first chapter of the book in his explanation of the world war ii rationing of shellac: some shellac was making it to this country, and although the war production board limited its nonmilitary use, as certain amounts made its way to record companies. the three major labels of the day, rca victor, decca, and columbia, had first crack at the available shellac, but even so, the big three drastically reduced production, limiting releases to the most popular artists." (3) if the limited supply of shellac affected the big three, how did this limit affect king records? how did this limit affect glover and bass's selection of artists who would become popular? how did this affect the labor of master­ ing engineers who needed to operate lathes in the precise process of cutting the recording's groove into the limited supply of shellac? these questions and their answers might seem distant from the agenda of the top-down representation of the record company. fox could have continually referenced whitney slaten material culture in the story of king records, helping the reader to experience a stronger encounter with how the people of king records worked. house of hits andy bradley is a professional recording engineer and has been the chief engineer at sugarhill for the past twenty-five years. in that capacity, bradley has been involved in many grammy-nominated recordings, from a diverse set of musical genres. bradley is also the chief recording engineer at the shepherd school of music at rice university. roger wood is a professor of english at houston community college central. he has written texas zydeco and down in houston: bayou city blues and has contributed to the roots of texas music, the handbook of texas music, and encyclopedia of the blues, among other publications. wood is a member of the board of directors of the national council for the traditional arts. house of hits: the story of houston's gold starlsugarhill recording studios details the history of the texas recording studio beginning with founder bill quinn's development of a home studio and moves through numerous examples of recording ses­ sions. bradley and wood, present a wide range of workers involved with the studio's success. in ways similar to the previously mentioned texts, house of hits presents the contributions of famous artists such as willie nelson, bobby "blue" bland, george jones, beyonce and destiny's child, lightnin' hopkins, junior parker, clifton chenier, sir douglas quintet, 13th floor elevators, and freddy fender, among others. unlike the previously discussed books, bradley and wood devote time to less commercially successful musicians and producers at the golden starlsugarhill recording studio. bradley and wood show how "experimentation" mediates the social interactions and the technological choices at gold starlsugarhill studios. they note the popular mode of recording music in texas preceeding that of local recording studios: as far back as 1908 the groundbreaking folklorist john a. lomax was transporting his newfangled portable equipment across texas to make the earliest field recordings of many previously undocumented cowboy songs that are now considered american classics. then, in the 1920s and '30s during the first major wave of commercial recordings of popular music, new york-based companies (such as rca victor and columbia) regularly sent engineering teams to texas to conduct sessions in hotel rooms and other makeshift locations, producing some of the most momentous music recordings of the era in the process. (xiii) in the introduction of house of hits, the authors describe a particular rela­ tionship between texas and music recording as "makeshift." this technical 175 176 current musicology focus appropriately transitions into a discussion about the growing presence of recording studios across the state and quinn's interests in devising new ways to record musical sound. according to bradley and wood: keen on electronics, quinn had long been intrigued by the way sound vibrations could be captured in grooves on a disk and then duplicated and played back on a machine. utilizing primitive or improvised equipment and substandard raw materials, and guided evidently by an inquisitive endurance of trials and errors, he eventually taught himself how to make records. despite wartime shortages of basic materials that had generally paralyzed the industry, he independently started commercially recording and pressing discs. (xiii) quinn's interest in exploring innovative ways to use his small allotment of materials exemplifies the experimentation that bradley and wood closely follow in their story of the studio. the authors pursue the details of quinn's use of record making materials in the following way: he somehow arranged to purchase an older, phased-out pressing-plant machine from an unidentified source. then he inquisitively began to tinker with it-experimenting, modifying, and updating it until it could meet his needs. he also scoured the city's resale shops and garage sales, buying all the old 78 rpm records that he could find. he then pulverized them in a coffee bean grinder, melted down the resulting shards and dust, and thereby reclaimed the reconstituted shellac-based material. however, the paper labels attached to the recycled records somewhat contaminated the result­ ing substance, and that lack of purity negatively affected the sound quality it was capable of reproducing. nonetheless, the process worked. because the recycled matter was pliable and doughy, it was generally nicknamed 'biscuit.' mack mcormick, who knew quinn firsthand, says that quinn regularly scheduled 'biscuit days' devoted to acquiring old records for reprocessing to yield ingredients for making new ones. (17) unlike fox, bradley and wood not only mention the national rationings of shellac, but they also describe how this pervasive shortage affects work at the studio. in addition, bradley and wood present a diversification of labor, unlike jones' and fox's favoring of artistic processes in recording studio histories. additionally, bradley and wood demonstrate technological choices that precede the recording sessions. in an explanation of musicians' and engineers' technological needs for experimentation, they write: back in those days, neither tone controls nor equalizers existed. thus, when a client requested that the sound be 'brightened' (by increasing treble) or "darkened" (by decreasing treble or increasing bass), quinn would remove whitney slaten a capacitor and resistor or two from the rear of the machine and replace them with alternates that sometimes achieved the desired effect. (36) alterations of electronic circuitry directly affect musical timbre in this instance. prior to equalization potentiometers, engineers like quinn per­ formed explicit manual labor that was quite common in the early recording studios. the following moment also presents an example of technological experimentation producing a temporal sound effect: there were also several smaller analog tape decks that were used to create the relatively new echo technology for vocal processing. engineers had discovered that if you split the vocal signal off to a tape recorder that was rolling in record mode, and then brought that signal back from the playback head to the mixing board, you would have a slightly delayed signal which, used with discretion, could enhance the original vocal. this technique is often referred to as slap-back echo or delay, used frequently on early rockabilly, country, and rock 'n' roll records. (63) listeners hear the slight delays of slap-back echo as a timbral effect more than being one of temporality. however, as bradley and wood describe above, it is a process that entails delicately manipulating the timing and retiming of how audio signals record to tape. similarly, engineers can create this effect manually, but it demands musicians' time and attention away from production in the recording studio. bradley and wood help readers understand the social and technological phenomena within the recording studio environment as divisible by space and time. memphis boys, king of the queen city, and house of hits are historical accounts of famous recording studios. however, similar to ethnography, these works interpret the studios as sites of social agency and the prevalence and placement of interview responses from individuals who worked at the studios demonstrate how these works partially contribute ethnographic information. recent ethnographic representations of recording studios have advanced scholarly understandings of the numerous social negotiations within productions of popular musics (greene and porcello 2004; meintjes 2003). ethnographers' confluence of interviews, descriptions of produc­ tion processes, and analyses of recorded musical sounds give their writing depth of analysis on sounds, labor, and performance. in particular, these ethnographers' placement and interactions within and around the recording studio activities offer successfully detailed accounts of the studios. but what can a historian do when removed by space and time from such intimacy? can an author successfully write a detailed representation of a recording 177 178 current musicology studio without having had the opportunity to be physically co-present in the studio? time alienates bradley, wood, fox, and jones from gold starlsugarhill, king, and american, respectively. however, time could have been a basis through which these authors might have constructed a proximity to the studios. thomas porcello posits how critical engagements with temporality through playback listening offers ethnographic methods for encounters and representations of recording studio life. in his article "tails out: social phenomenology and the ethnographic representation of technology in music making," porcello theorizes multiple vantage points of experimentation in the recording studio. he assesses representations of recording studios from the position of the ethnographer who is writing about recording studio social life, to that of the engineers who technologically mediate the sonic occurrences in the recording studio, as welll as the position of the artist who makes multiple takes and retakes of his or her musical performance. porcello considers preand post echoes in recorded sound from an audio tape that was improperly stored as a way to frame his understanding of how recorded music and its production involve an interpenetration of listening agendas by engineers, musicians, and ethnographers. pre-hearing, hearing, and re-hearing are common in the context of studio sound engineering; as porcello argues that his experience in the recording studio environment also required a similar violation of musical time that has been basic to ethnography. he writes: i find the first spot i'm after and listen through it. i hit the rewind and play it again. and again. now i'm in control of today's recording session. i define what was significant and what was not. i can make those significant events happen as many times as i want them to. later, on my transcribing machine, i will even be able to speed them up and slow them down. but for now, i listen to them and think. stop. rewind. i play what happens for five minutes before and after each event to get a better sense of context. (porcello 2003:270) his ability to stop, rewind, and play, as described above, allows him to make use of every recorded moment in order to develop better questions or reaf­ firm his analysis. roben jones' memphis boys, john hartley fox's king of the queen city, and andy bradley and roger wood's house of hits, each offer opportunities for a practice of porcello's pre-hearing, hearing, re-hearing method, one that would have enhanced the representation of sound and labor practice within studios. in the next section, i follow porcello's method of "stop. rewind. play." as a researcher who seeks information about recording studio labor through an example of an edit in a james brown single recording. whitney slaten 2 minutes and 22 seconds i endeavor to apply porcello and sterne's particular audile technique to king record's 1966 single of "it's a man's man's man's world;' performed by james brown (from the compilation number 1 '5, universal music group, 2007). i am listening for specific sonic features that reveal the labor of the recording process beyond lyrical, melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic contributions. first, i choose my multiple listening technologies and control the acoustic properties of my auditions. on my desk are westone um3x triple driver in-ear monitors, sennheiser hd 25-1 ii headphones, alesis m1 active mk2 near-field studio monitors, an apogee duet firewire digital audio interface, and an apple macbook laptop. through my laptop's primary music player software, i search for "it's a man's man's man's world." i double-click on the title and the recording begins to play. i am sitting two feet from the plane of the loudspeakers and i distance my head equally between the two. by turning up the multi-function aluminum knob on the duet, and according to my sound level meter, i amplify the playback of the recording to an average of 86db c-weighting. i listen twice to the recording that lasts two minutes and forty-five seconds. i hear an edit during the second playback, at approximately two minutes and twenty-two seconds into the recording. i power down the loudspeakers and connect the sennheiser headphones to the duet. i adjust the signal level of this playback to be similar to the levels that emitted from the loudspeakers. i fast forward to 2:22 and hear the edit again through the headphones. after a few playbacks with the headphones, i follow the same procedure again with the westone in-ear monitors. in this progression from loudspeakers to headphones to in-ear monitors, i am encountering the recording through my auditions that transition from a blend with the acoustic properties of my listening space to an audition that reduces the impact of these surrounding acoustics, which foregrounds the recording's sonic features. through these listenings, i realized that one or a few of the many people who produced this recording made the edit milliseconds before a strum of the rhythm guitar. from a musical standpoint, 2:22 is an understandably ideal time for an edit. it is at the end of the last chorus of the song and at the beginning of the coda. moments before the edit, during the chorus, james brown sings," ... a woman or a girl." subsequently, instrumentalists in the group individually, yet simultaneously contribute ostinati before the edit. the drummer plays a repeated eighth-note; sixteenth-note triplet (containing a note, a rest, and a note); and eighth-note pattern on the closed high-hat cymbals. he mutes the snare drum with his hand and plays rim shots on beats four and ten. the combination of these sounds outlines both the duple and triple grooves of the song's 12-8 meter. moving at a pace of approximately one hundred 179 180 current musicology figure 1: on the left is the pre-edit, with bass and strings resonances. on the right is the post-edit, with the initial rim shot/guitar and subsequent void of bass and string resonances fifty-two beats per minute, in which the eighth-note represents the beat, the bass player performs the root pitches of the repeated e-flat minor to b-flat minor 7 chord progression that consistently maintains a harmonic rhythm that moves every dotted half-note. the pianist, also following this harmonic rhythm, plays six first inversion e-flat minor triads before playing six first inversion d-flat major triads, which correspond to the third, fifth, and seventh chord tones of the b-flat minor 7 chord. the pianist plays each of the twelve triads on each beat of his ostinato. the rhythm guitarist plays the same chords as the pianist. however, rather than play one chord per beat, the guitarist plays the chords along with the drummer's rim shot, on beats four and ten. the tenor saxophonist is slightly behind the beat and a few cents flat at the attack of each entering pitch, playing the i-v pitches in unison with the bass player only at a comparatively higher octave. members of the string section perform three ascending diads, one per dotted half note, with the following pairs: b-flat/e-flat, d-flat/f, and b-flat/g-flat. the immediate silencing of the bass and string section caught my at­ tention and made me aware of the edit at 2:22. the edit occurs just before a fourth beat, almost masked by the intensity of the transients of the rim shot and the staccato rhythm guitar's triad. the ostinati of the drummer, pianist, and guitarist seem unbroken throughout the remainder of the measure and the remaining twenty-three seconds of the recording. however, while i heard either the sustain or decay of the string section and the bass part during beat four in the measures before the edit, i am not able to hear these features just after the edit. someone has removed them. who removed the resonances and how did they do it? in order to gain more information about this edit, i import this record­ ing's audio file into my digital audio workstation software, where i am able to view a graphic representation of the recording's waveform (see figure 1). after waiting a few moments for the image to load, i expand the vertical dimensions of the waveform. i then drag the virtual play-head curser to 2:22 and i zoom my horizontal view of this moment in order to see the waveform data that represents the distortions associated with the edit. i see whitney slaten figure 2: the stylus of the turntable is at the point of the edit: 2:30. image from the youtube video "it's a man's man's man's world-james brown & the famous flames" the edit. before and after the "temporal location" of the edit, i see differences between the energies of the waveforms. most of the waves before the edit are thick, and the computer draws them in bold. this most likely represents the deeper fundamental frequencies of the bass and the timbral complexities of the string section. i do not see the visual mark of these intensities in the same way that i cannot hear them directly after the edit and before the bass reemerges in the last half of this measure. in listening again to the music of the last twenty-three seconds of the recording, i hear james brown sing, "he's lost ... in the wilderness ... he's lost ... in bitterness ... he's lost / lord have mercy now." in addition to the eighth-note triads, i also hear the pianist improvise melodies. could it be that james brown or someone associated with king records wanted to take these improvisations from another take and splice them into the end of the final mix? alternatively, were these musical features at the end of a longer version of the recording that someone had to shorten somehow? with these questions in mind, i return to this listening project the next day. after a search online for this song, i encounter a video of someone play­ ing a king records 4srpm record of "it's a man's man's man's world." it is the same version that i had listened to the day before. this playback is fifty cents lower in pitch and the corresponding tempo is also slower than what i had listened to the day before, perhaps due to the motor of the person's turntable. now 2:30 is the time of the edit. regardless of these differences, i see that the stylus is very close to the end of the remaining playable grooves in the record, at the time of the edit. as the turntable's playback suggests, it is possible that the time con­ straints associated with recording media of the era determined how workers produce popular music and how popular music sounds. following porcello, my hearing and rehearing the recorded sounds not only leads me to the edit but also my encounter and relationship with multiple temporalities associated with the recording. this implementation of an audile technique also brings me to more questions about the edit and who made it. 181 182 current musicology who decided to make the edit? did they intend the edit to cover a mistake or does the edit help in allowing the recording to fit on one side of a 4s? who decided to cut the mixed tape before the fourth beat at 2:22? was it an engineer, james brown, or a producer? an engineer probably cut and spliced the audiotape. did he or she use an ampex tape machine or the less expensive scully brand? at what speed did the tape record and play across the heads of the tape machine, 7.5 or 15 inches per second? in addition, given the decision to make the edit just before the transients on beat four, did the engineer make a perpendicular or diagonal cut in the tape with his or her razor? this would control how abrupt or smooth the sound of the transition would be. how did the budget for this recording project determine how much time the engineer had to fast forward, play, and rewind the tape to locate the edit point and hear and rehear the quality and transparency of his or her edit? with this edit so close to the end of the recording, did king records higher-ups care much about this edit, given how relatively pristine the beginning an middle of the recording sounds? what might that have meant for the dignity of this engineer and his or her work amid the other members in the art world of this production? answers to these questions bring the reader of recording studio history closer to the labor of record making. uncovering who decided to make the edit at 2:22 could lead to questions about how that individual made editing decisions on other recording projects. this, as well as the worker's method for cutting tape, might develop an ulnderstanding of the style of that worker. in turn, readers' encounter with this type of representation would appropriately rebalance their conceptualizations of effective technicality and affective creativity attributed with certain members of the recording studio art world (porcello 2003:267). the type of tape machines in the recording studio could point to how successful that studio was in attracting business. perhaps this might also indicate the price of the hourly rate at the new york city studio in which brown recorded the song. this information might contribute to the readers' understanding of how much time the editor had to cut and splice the tape, clarifying the challenges that this person faced while making the single. these connections do not simply or concretely emerge from the critical listening work presented earlier, as much as the questions that could lead to these sorts of connections. historians of recording studios can utilize these listening practices to ask interviewees specific questions about studio labor, questions that help in reorganizing written accounts of recording studio life that do not disproportionally amplify the star-studded interests of a mystifying recording industry. as porcello's analysis indicates, an author's encounters require special attention to the spatial, temporal, and social dynamics of recording studio whitney slaten life. technological mediation determines the ability of a studio to enable engineers, musicians, and authors to fluidly transcend phenomenological boundaries between space and time. writing about recording studios that does not effectively interact with audio technology or the techniques of recording studio laborers will continually fail in disclosing knowledge about popular music production. historical approaches to the classic recording studios of the past, such as the three presented earlier, offer opportunities for authors to present the relatively slower collaborations between recording artists and sound engineers. the quicker and smaller digital versions of the machines and complicated circuits of the present make the process of decoding varied labor experiences an even more difficult task for authors who describe current day recording processes. in addition, both the entrepreneurial consolidation of the many recording studio artistic and technological responsibilities into one person and the advent oflaptop digital audio workstations that continually diminish the number of large-scale recording studios determine the call for additional ethnographic methods for representing the production of contemporary popular music. roben jones' memphis boys: the story of american studios, john hartley fox's king of the queen city: the story of king records, and andy bradley and roger wood's house of hits: the story of houston's gold starlsugarhill recording studios are successful in introducing scholarship to three recording studios that significantly impacted the course of american popular music. these books also represent themselves as examples of an established method of representing popular music production that should now transition toward research methods that rely on listening. critical listening practices, as in the one above, should inform writing about popular music production in order to remix and balance the recognition of the people who participate in the modes of popular music production. references becker, h. 1982. art worlds. berkely: university of california press. brown, james. "it's a man's man's man's world." king records 45-6035. brown, james. "it's a man's man's man's world." number 1 'so universal music group, mp3 file. 2007. itunes. www.itunes.com. (downloaded june 28, 2011). doyle, peter. 2005.echo and reverb: fabricating space in popular music recording 1900-1960. middletown: wesleyan university press. greene, paul and thomas porcello (eds). 2005. wired for sound: engineering and technologies in sonic culture. middletown: wesleyan university press. horning, susan schmidt. 2004. "engineering the performance: recording engineers, tacit knowledge, and the art of controlling sound:' social studies of science 34 (5): 703-31. 183 184 current musicology "it's a man's man's man's world-james brown & the famous flames" [video]. (2011). retrieved june 28, 2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs00871 tbds jones, s. 1992. rock formation: music, technology, and mass communication. newbury park. thousand oaks: sage publications. kealy, e. 1979. "from craft to art: the case of sound mixers and popular music." sociology of work and occupations 60): 3-29. meintjes, louise. 2003. sound of africa!: making music zulu in a south african recording studio. durham: duke university press porcello, thomas. 2003. "tails out: social phenomenology and the ethnographic representation of technology in music making." music and technoculture. eds. rene lysloff and leslie gay. middletown: wesleyan university press. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham: duke university press. veal, michael e. 2007. dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in jamaican reggae. middletown: wesleyan university press. susan boynton and roe-min kok, eds. 2006. musical childhoods and the cultures of youth. music/culture. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. reviewed by tyler bickford studies of music and childhood have a long, if irregular, history (minks 2002), but childhood nonetheless remains a marginal topic in musicology­ ruth solie calls it "unusual" in her blurb on the cover of this volume. in the last decade a number of books, articles, and dissertations have begun to argue that music and aesthetics are key elements in children's social practices, in the articulation of childhood identity, and in adult frameworks for understanding their own and others' childhoods, and that children and childhood deserve prominent attention from musicologists. in this environ­ ment' musical childhoods and the cultures of youth represents an important achievement, appearing at an opportune moment to consolidate this emerg­ ing literature and lay the foundations of a developing field of study. this is above all a diverse collection. the authors take variously histo­ riographic, ethnographic, and critical approaches to topics ranging from early modern seville to modernist opera and reform jewish summer camps in the us. this variety reflects the extreme reach of childhood as a topic and exposes the limitations of contemporary musicological scholarship on childhood to date, as each chapter suggests even more new directions for study. by grouping the chapters into thematic units, each with its own introduction, and bookending the collection with a synthesizing preface and an afterward by amanda minks, editors susan boynton and roe-min kok have brought into dialogue a wealth of scholarship that may otherwise have been mutually incomprehensible. 1 the editors' accomplishment is to gather and present these various approaches to produce a volume that is not only intelligible but intellectually productive: establishing an emerging field of study without limiting its reach or stifling its methodological diversity. this volume stands out as particularly ambitious and successful in its commit­ ment to interdisciplinarity, which should be credited to both its competent production and the unique potential an "unusual topic" like music and childhood offers for reaching across disciplinary lines. boynton's and kok's preface is a useful starting point for anyone interested in the history of child­ hood studies and the current state of music and childhood scholarship. and minks, whose 2002 article about twentieth-century traditions of music and childhood research established herself as a major voice in the field, provides current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 167 168 current musicology a necessary theoretical synthesis in the afterward, tracing out shared themes and extending the volume's intellectual reach. the ten chapters are grouped into three thematic units. the first sec­ tion, "ritual performance," includes two chapters about religious music in medieval and early modern europe and one about contemporary apache girls' coming-of-age ceremonies. in the first chapter, boynton and isabelle cochelin engage with debates about medieval childhood that have continued since philippe aries's seminal centuries of childhood (1962) put into dispute the historical applicability of "childhood" as a distinctly recognized phase of life in that era. while critics of aries argue that medieval notions of child­ hood are essentially continuous with contemporary childhood, boynton and cochelin find a middle ground, pointing out dramatic changes in the role of child oblates in the burgundian abbey of cluny from the eleventh to the twelfth centuries-when increasing numbers of adult converts began to fill monastic roles that once would have gone to oblates-that suggest shifting configurations of the relationship between family and church and of the role of children in medieval europe. boynton and cochelin are critical of discussions of medieval childhood that "have studied children alone, without trying to understand them in regard to other age groups" (5), and they present instead a careful analysis of the role of child oblates at the bottom of monastic hierarchies but nonetheless playing an indispensable role in the performance of the daily liturgy. todd borgerding's contribution considers the public performances of choirboys in early modern seville, and it makes an effective companion to boynton's and cochelin's chapter. both chapters note the charged attention to boys' bodies in religious rituals where discourses of sexuality, gender, and spirituality are intertwined. in eleventh-century cluny, attainment of angelic status was the accomplishment of older, faithful monks, while child oblates were understood both to be physically vulnerable to disease and exposure and to be potential dangers to monks threatened by "these prepubescent bodies that represented potential objects of desire in a world devoid of women" (12). conversely, in sixteenth-century spanish feast performances, borgerding argues, theological emphasis on boys' preadult status led their performing bodies and voices to be understood as signifiers of purity and virtue. in the context of the feast of corpus christi and marian celebrations, performances by boys accomplished the delicate task of representing divine embodiment, as "their underlying purity could be molded and directed by costume, context, and text, to communicate specific messages" (31). anne mclucas's chapter on apache girls' coming-of-age ceremonies has difficulty finding purchase in this section, in part because it is simply about a very different time and place, but also because mclucas's emphasis on tyler bickford formal explication of "the elaborate and beautiful symmetry of the mescalero ceremony" (51) leaves little space for directly thematizing childhood as it is constructed in the rites of passage she documents. mclucas focuses instead on gender roles, arguing that, despite participant girls' and women's vocal silence during these performances, they are full participants and even leaders throughout the ceremony. she outlines a "separate but equal" understanding of the "balance" of gender roles in apache society (58-59), where silence need not imply powerlessness. the milieu mclucas describes surrounding these events is complex and fascinating: the ceremonies are performed on a rodeo grounds with loudspeakers and vendors, viewed from a permanent set of bleachers, and despite the "carnival-like atmosphere ... the actual performance of the ritual is carried out with care and dignity" (50). this juxtaposition of "modernity" (in the form of capitalism and public spec­ tacle) and "tradition" (in the form of "native" rituals) need not be seen as incongruous, but i wished for more attention to the apparently complex negotiations and settings in which these ceremonies take place, with the goal of better understanding the multiple identifications involved in the ceremonial performance of girls' transition to "womanhood" in contem­ porary apache life. i worry that mclucas's quick defense of the ceremonies' "beauty" and "dignity" in the face of the commercialized scene, and her pointed indication that, in addition to tourists, the audience also includes native americans from around the county, may only reproduce unhelpful binaries of "tradition" against or in spite of-rather than in engaged dialogue with-"modernity." these disjunctures notwithstanding, grouping mclucas's piece with boynton's and cochelin's and borgerding's highlights important themes. in light of the frequent invisibility of children in academic study, the chapters in this section together forcefully demonstrate the central role children play in performative enactments of group values and identities in different times and in different places. three of the four chapters in the following section, "identity formation;' focus on adult memories of childhood musical training, though from widely different perspectives. the other is a critical reading by stephen huebner of ravel's l'enfant et les sortileges that proposes applying the theories of influential developmental psychologist jean piaget in place of more common freudian readings. huebner's chapter is provocatively argued and compellingly written, and his application of piaget is convincing and novel. especially refreshing is huebner's commitment to "employ[ing] child development theories as narrative constructs" (73), rather than as "scientific" truths about human development. developmental models are often eschewed in the "new social studies of childhood" (james, prout, and 169 170 current musicology jenks 1998) as methodologically and theoretically limiting, and it is notable that huebner's contribution is the only chapter in this volume that addresses child psychology. without conceding the scientific authority of psychological models for understanding global childhoods, we can identify those models as profoundly influential discourses about childhood, and as active participants in the social construction of contemporary childhood, through education, parenting, medicine, and even global children's rights policy (boyden 1990). and while huebner's goals are more modestly focused on interpreting one opera, minks points out in the afterward that, by juxtaposing piagetian narratives with ravel's and colette's dreamy and often disorienting opera, he illuminates both as "distinctly modern imaginaries of childhood" (216). the only dedicated critical or interpretive essay in a volume largely devoted to "sociomusical" studies of childhood, huebner's elegant prose and careful argument remain sensitive to the complex interactions, negotiations, and disputes with adults, ideas, and the environment that can characterize children's position in the world. the following three chapters, by kok, patricia tang, and heather willoughby, introduce a theme that then runs through the rest of the book: adult memories of childhood as both "data" for scholars seeking informa­ tion about those past childhoods and as contemporary discourses about the adult identities of those doing the remembering. "representation" is well-traveled scholarly territory, and deconstructing representations of childhood is central to arguing that childhood is a social construction rather than a stable category of human development (prout and james 1990). to identify remembering as itself a mode of representation is an important move in understanding the changing identities of individuals: memories of childhood are both intensely personal reflections on one's "self" and also selective portrayals of an "other;' earlier person. kok synthesizes these perspectives nicely, bringing her own memories to bear in reconstructing the history and influence of a globally distributed british piano instruction program to identify the direct reach of "an arc of cultural power that extended from the associated board of the royal schools of music in great britain to a child in malaysia" (90). kok notes that through her piano program's insistent articulation of "civilization" and "cultural excellence" alongside western music, she "was, in short, imbibing postcolonial values alongside note values, chord progressions, melodies, and rhythms" (95-96). while exposing this rich and disturbing history of postcolonial hegemony through global music networks, kok also narrates her own process of discovery: her exposure to "critical approaches to knowledge" (99) in graduate school provided the tools for identifying the hierarchies and hegemonies to which she had been subjected. so the postcolonial identity tyler bickford kok elaborates in her chapter is simultaneously that of the child in the 1970s under the direct postcolonial influence of british cultural hegemony and that of the adult who applies discourses of "postcoloniality" to narrate that childhood to herself and others.2 patricia tang's chapter provides the most explicit consideration of memory as discourse and representation, as she frames her presentation of the life histories of three senegalese griots. tang problematizes the life history as a scholarly genre, noting that such narratives "invariably involve a complex collaboration between researcher and tradition bearer, reflecting the selective histories of each" (108). rather than simply mining the personal narratives of her griot informants for details about their musical childhoods, tang argues that the narratives she collected emphasize childhood memories "as a way of constructing their identities and reinforcing their significance to senegalese culture" (107) in a musical environment where griots' exclusive claim on singing and drumming has been progressively diluted since the colonial era. unfortunately tang does not follow through with this promising program: the "case studies" she presents involve a handful of long quota­ tions with little explanatory or interpretive discussion. while the quoted passages do discuss childhood memories, they are collected and displayed as disconnected fragments. one griot emphasizes his natural capacity for drumming as a child as evidence that "drumming and singing isn't something you inherit; you don't study it. it's in the blood" (111). another notes the constant presence of drums around him growing up. another narrates his early performance experiences and points to adult mentors. all of these could be examples of the speakers' emphasis on childhood experience to ratify their authority as griots. but because tang's interpretive voice is absent from the case studies, they come off instead as interesting anecdotes about what it was like for these musicians as children-the opposite of tang's stated claims. i stress my disappointment here because tang's essay is a rare moment when memory is directly unpacked as a discursive strategy, and an opportunity has been missed to examine critically and in detail the procedures by which adult narratives of childhood are strategically deployed to determine their position, as adults, in society. willoughby's chapter also examines adults' memories of their musical childhoods, looking at the early experiences of three female korean p' ansori singers from different generations-kim so-hui, born 1917, yi chu -un, born 1972, and song-hwa, a character from the immensely popular 1993 film, sop'yonje. willoughby outlines the shared theme in each of the stories, that "all three overcame specific social boundaries in order to succeed in a male­ dominated society and profession" (122). in overcoming these boundaries willoughby's subjects navigated multiple, often contradictory positions in 171 172 current musicology their journeys: as child prodigies each was treated with the responsibility and respect due an older person in their musical lives; and as women performers of traditional music they had to claim often unconventional, progressive identities as unmarried, professional women while remaining committed to a performance tradition steeped in respect for authority and history (and conservative gender roles). "identity formation" suggests a model of progressive development during childhood that focuses on the path children take to "arrive" at some adult identity, which can end up emphasizing "coming of age" processes while neglecting children's identities as children. this is why memory is such an important term for these authors to unpack, and while the framing material-boynton's and kok's editorial preface and kok's introduction to this section-does a good job pointing to the meditating role of memory in the three chapters, the chapters themselves are somewhat hit-or-miss in accomplishing the delicate task of treating the children under consideration with the respect due them as full participants in society while maintaining a critical focus on the position of the adults (and, in one case, filmmakers) who narrate those childhoods. nonetheless, together these chapters convincingly suggest that to understand childhood, we must also try to understand the adults who interact with, discuss, remember, and theorize childhoods. the final section, "musical socialization," brings together three fasci­ nating studies. the first two look at musical policy for youths in postwar germany and late nineteenthand early twentieth -century japan, while the third, in keeping with the volume's surprising and productive juxtapositions of widely different scholarship, is an ethnographic and historical study of songleading traditions among teenagers at reform jewish summer camps in the us. joy calico outlines the history of hanns eisler's and johannes becher's new german folk songs, composed with state sponsorship after the second world war to foster an east german citizenry devoted to peace and antifascism. calico writes that "eisler and becher ... needed to reinvent the volk who had inhabited the most recent incarnation of a german na­ tion as antifascist socialist volk. because the latter consisted by and large of survivors from the former, youth were their best prospect as agents for change" (150). calico supplements her historical research with interviews of adults who grew up in east germany and remembered the new german folk songs. the interviews suggest that "children's songs are an effective means of evoking the past" and that "enculturation through song makes an indelible, lifelong impression" (163), while also revealing that the songs' sometimes heavy-handed political messages were transparent to the youths singing them: as one participant states, "we knew very well what reality looked like" (160). tyler bickford hermann gottschewski's and machiko gottschewski's chapter explores similar territory, the music educational policies of japan in the late nine­ teenth and early twentieth centuries. in the 1870s the japanese ruling class instituted widespread training in western music as part of the establishment of compulsory schooling, with the goal of building "a new nation that could compete with the western world powers." gottschewski and gottschewski write that "changing the nation meant changing education, and creating a new people meant creating new children" (170). they follow children's music in japan through the 1920s, noting varying degrees of emphasis on western music, music written for children by educators and composers, and children's playground music as reflections of policy makers' shifting concern with consolidating traditional identities or cultivating economic and social progress. both chapters demonstrate that constructions of child­ hood and constructions of national identity happen jointly and are often inseparable. judah cohen's chapter is a sensitive ethnographic and historical account of summer camp songleading traditions among reform jewish teenagers. cohen emphasizes that songleading is "a phenomenon both propagated and mediated by young people ... [that 1 has come to embody an organic voice and deep culture that the reform youth movement claims as its own" (188). this chapter rounds out the collection as the only piece to seriously consider children or youths on their own terms and to account for and validate values produced in peer communities that may seem silly or trivial to adult observers. songleading originated with camp organizers as a way to "reinforce the camp's religious and political agendas" (193), but was quickly taken over by campers, who took responsibility for training one another and for composing and disseminating songs and the "schtick" -silly gestures and interjections-that accompany them. cohen relates a wonderful story about a camper comparing passover gatherings with "nutter butter peanut butter;' a line of schtick shouted between verses of a popular camp song, as exemplary jewish traditions that, the camper notes, are "constantly being created, reread, and re-evolved" (198). cohen writes that songleaders "came to see themselves as participants in a longstanding tradition" (195) that was valued significantly as an expression of independent youth culture. alongside calico's interviews with adults who grew up in the gdr, cohen's study sug­ gests that children can be more astute, engaged, and independent participants in organized musical activities than adult organizers may expect. cohen's chapter supplements boynton's and kok's preface by usefully reviewing various literature that addresses, directly or indirectly, children and music. his critique of paul berliner's chapter about childhood experi­ ences of jazz musicians in thinking in jazz (1994) would have been useful 173 174 current musicology in the previous section on identity formation: "the anecdotes are removed by decades, are colored by the subsequent layering of many years of experi­ ence, and may better represent the interviewees' need to portray their lives as logical trajectories" (189). cohen follows up this point when discussing past songleaders' criticisms of current participants' "diluted" and "superfi­ cial" performances, noting that such comments "portrayed the importance of the [adults'] own teen years in creating a lasting, meaningful personal ideology through the songleading medium" (204). overall cohen rejects approaches to child or youth culture that emphasize "an adult hegemony imposing itself on youth" (190) in favor of an approach outlined by patricia shehan campbell (1998) that addresses "children making music as children" (191). as a corrective to an adult -centric view of childhood this is useful, but i find boynton's and cochelin's goal of "trying to understand [children] with regard to other age groups" (5) more persuasive. cohen's study is itself littered with mentions of adult oversight, disapproval, and tolerance and kids' defiance, empowerment, and intentional differentiation from adults (198, especially). i wonder if these phenomena are not similar to (if milder versions of) the classic birmingham school topic, which cohen rejects, of "youth that rebel against what they perceive as an adult hegemonic power" (190), and i would argue that "understanding a system of youth expression as youth expression" (191) necessarily includes understanding how that system of expression is positioned and defined within the larger social contexts in which youths interact, affiliate, and negotiate with adults. children's role as mediators of tradition and modernity are themes that run throughout this volume. it is unexpectedly common for children to act as "conveyor [s] of tradition" (132), whether in apache ceremonies, traditional korean p'ansori, senegalese drumming, or even in peer communities of reform jewish summer camps. and children are regularly positioned as the bearers of social change, a role assigned to them in the musical policies of postwar germany and late nineteenth-century japan. in each of these examples children are crucial to a community's understanding of itself in a changing world-even in the studies of early european history we see children assigned roles that are critical to their communities' sense of the past and future. but while popular music is a prominent mediator of tradition and modernity in the contemporary world, commercial and popular cultures remain largely unexplored in these chapters. in part this volume usefully expands the topic of musical childhoods beyond the single-minded focus on popular youth cultures that cultural studies research has established. but occasional hints occur throughout the book to suggest the relevance, even to these widespread topics, of popular culture, media, and globalization. the photograph on the cover, for instance, shows a young khadim mbaye, son of tyler bickford thio mbaye, one of tang's informants, "drumming on a nescafe can" (114), as the caption reads, but the colorful pokemon sweatshirt he is prominently wearing goes unmentioned. pokemon is a transnational, multimedia brand of tv shows, movies, video games, toys, and card trading games that parallels certain disney franchises as a major actor in the globalization of childhood media consumption. presumably pokemon is one recent element of the changing senegalese culture to which tang's informants are responding when they cite their own childhoods as markers of cultural authenticity. with the photograph on the cover and indirect mention in chapters by mclucas, willoughby, kok, tang, and cohen, the chapters repeatedly touch on children's involvement in processes of globalization, suggestively hinting at the complexity of even young children's participation in both local and transnational networks of circulation and systems of value. but this volume lacks the direct engagement with the globalization of childhood that has been prominently called for by sharon stephens (1995), and it neglects the increasing participation of children around the world in the consumption of commercial music and entertainment that is evidenced in important recent efforts such as the "day in the life" project (young and gillen 2007). these critical topics are at the center of the expanding multidisciplinary study of childhood, and scholars of music should take a more active role in under­ standing the cultural processes of globalization's impact on childhood. with the exception of cohen's chapter, children's voices are largely absent in this volume, and children's own musical experiences do not receive much attention. in part this is due to the problematics of scholarly sources, as the historical chapters necessarily examine documents produced by and for adults. but the absence of children's voices is also the product of an important and sophisticated theoretical move, the recognition that "child­ hood" is a construct with implications beyond the lives of children: adult identities and values are meditated through memories of childhood, as kok, tang, willoughby, calico, and cohen all address in some fashion; societies are organized around child-rearing and education just as they are around commerce and politics, as calico's and gottschewski's and gottschewski's chapters suggest; and the presence of children in ritual performances often highlights the representational, semiotic function of "children" as signifiers as much as it indexes the role of children themselves, as the chapters by boynton and cochelin and borgerding point out. boynton and cochelin argue, rightly, that a narrow focus on children that does not take into account their relationships with other groups or the intersections of childhood with class, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, and disability would be reductive and incomplete. it remains a problem, however, that this volume spends so much time exploring the discourses and representations that 175 176 current musicology structure childhood as a social category without adequately presenting the voices and experiences of individuals belonging to that category. children are a marginalized group, and it is important to seek out and validate their knowledge and experience as children, and to allow them to speak back to dominant narratives about who children are, what they need, and how they should be addressed (topics that, i have found in my research with schoolchildren in the us, kids attend to closely). as an introductory volume, musical childhoods and the cultures of youth looks forward to future work in a burgeoning field rather than reviewing and consolidating an already-established literature. music and childhood studies remain widely varied, and disciplinary centers of gravity have yet to fully converged around central topics, questions, or methods, so it is too much to ask a single volume to address every relevant issue at length. this book effectively takes advantage of the opportunity posed by the newness of its topic to bring together a fantastically wide range of scholars and scholarship, and to allow themes to emerge from pairings of diverse methods, frameworks, and topics. it is a necessary book, and it succeeds wonderfully at opening new horizons for the musicological study of children. notes 1. full disclosure: i have studied under susan boynton as a graduate student at columbia university, and she has served on committees with oversight of my academic progress. 2. arguing that remembering is a mode of representation is not the same as denying the ac­ curacy or validity of a person's memories (or the authenticity of the identities constructed through acts of remembering). another reviewer rejects kok's elegant negotiation of past and present with a dismissal of the potential for capriciousness, meanness, and even (symbolic) violence in the postcolonial order: "such accounts are all too often taken at face value, rather than being perceived as 'creative reconstructions of the past' ... whose presentation today may have some quite ulterior motive that has prompted deliberate or unwitting distortion. in kok's case, one cannot imagine that an examiner would fail a child who omitted to say 'good morning, sir,' but one can well believe that a child might fear such a scenario, and might now as an adult interpret this fear as a response to cultural imperialism, thereby creatively reconstructing the past" (cooper 2008:125). kok's chapter never comes close to the sort of naivete that cooper's response implies, and kok deserves more credit for carefully thinking through issues of her own identity and position in an unquestionably complex and difficult global order. kok herself identifies "a colonized mentality that constantly anticipates the white man's displeasure and its consequences" (89); is cooper unwilling to acknowledge that such a mentality might actually be a response to cultural imperialism, and not simply the imagination of a theory-minded woman scholar? cooper adopts minks's phrase "creative reconstructions of the past" (212) from the afterword, but he unfairly adds a valence of fabrication to a term that minks uses to characterize everyday discursive practices through which speakers co-construct the meanings of their interactions. such "creativity" is not dis­ simulation or self-deception, but rather productive social action. tyler bickford references aries, philippe. 1962. centuries of childhood: a social history of family life, translated by robert baldick. new york: vintage. berliner, paul f. 1994. thinking in jazz. chicago and london: university of chicago press. boyden, jo. 1990. childhood and the policy makers: a comparative perspective on the globalization of childhood. in constructing and reconstructing childhood: contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood, edited by allison james and alan prout, 184-215. london and new york: falmer press. campbell, patricia shehan. 1998. songs in their heads: music and its meaning in children's lives. oxford and new york: oxford university press. cooper, barry. 2008. review of musical childhoods and the cultures of youth, edited by susan boynton and roe-min kok. music and letters 89 (1): 124-26. james, allison, alan prout, and chris jenks. 1998. theorizing childhood. cambridge: polity press. minks, amanda. 2002. from children's song to expressive practices: old and new directions in the ethnomusicological study of children. ethnomusicology 46 (3): 379-408. prout, alan, and allison james. 1990. a new paradigm for the sociology of childhood? provenance, promise, and problems. in constructing and reconstructing childhood: contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood, edited by allison james and alan prout, pp. 7-34. new york and london: falmer press. stephens, sharon. 1995. children and the politics of culture in "late capitalism." in children and the politics of culture, edited by sharon stephens, 3-48. princeton, nj: princeton university press. young, susan, and julia gillen. 2007. toward a revised understanding of young children's musical activities: reflections from the "day in the life" project. current musicology 84: 79-99. 177 current.musicology.86.101-184.pdf music smashed to pieces: the destructive logic of berlioz's romeo au tombeau stephen rodgers berlioz's romeo au tombeau des capulets, the sixth movement of his sym­ phony romeo et juliette, is arguably his most controversial programmatic work and one of the most baffling pieces of program music in the repertoire. when the symphony premiered in 1839, berlioz's instrumental setting of the tomb scene from shakespeare's play (with david garrick's ending, in which juliet wakes before romeo dies)l was criticized for being incoherent because it had no conventional formal scheme, used avant-garde musical language, and boasted drastic shifts in style and mood. it was also criticized for being too literal because of its blatant musical depictions of dramatic acts, including romeo's drink from the vial of poison and juliet's suicidal stab.2 jules maurel called the piece a "mistake" and argued that one would need "a stage, scenery, tombs, theatrical half-light, and people speaking and acting" to understand it (maurel1839). berlioz's friend joseph d'ortigue, normally sympathetic to his works, was no less dismayed: these elements [drama and symphony] are like two stars which can only shine on condition that they reflect each other: when one is in eclipse, all falls into darkness. i greatly regret to say it, but, whether from tiredness or from a theoretical error, this is what happens to the author in, of all places, for heaven's sake, the tomb scene: after a fine outburst from the orchestra, after a broad song for horns and bassoons accompanied by pizzicato double-basses, after juliet's awakening, where the realism is a little too raw, we reach the moment of poison and the dagger blow: the turning-point! the goal of the entire play! yet here the composer abandons musical direction, following only that of the drama: no more poetry, no more ideality. (d'ortigue 1839)3 partly in deference to d'ortigue,4 berlioz decided that the movement should be omitted. he appended a note to the 1847 and subsequent editions of the symphony that recommended (with more than a hint of exasperation) that the movement be cut from every performance "except those ... before an elite audience extremely familiar with the fifth act of shakespeare's tragedy with garrick's denouement, and with the most elevated poetic sentiments. this is to say that it should be cut 99 times out of 100" (berlioz 1990:x). modern listeners have been kinder than berlioz's contemporaries. scholars today tend to agree that romeo au tombeau is not a "mistake" but a meaningful, if difficult, work that deserves to be taken seriously, but there current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 37 38 current musicology is no consensus about how to make sense of it. more than the notoriously idiosyncratic first movement of the symphonie fantastique, more indeed than any other programmatic work by berlioz, romeo au tombeau has been approached from divergent points of view and generated contradictory conclusions about the relationship between its music and its program. the questions it raises extend far beyond the piece itself and go to the heart of longstanding debates about the relationship between music and program in berlioz's work and nineteenth-century music in general. if, as berlioz reminds us, understanding romeo au tombeau requires being "extremely familiar" with the play, are we to conclude that the music follows the scene moment by moment, even line by line? or should the scene be regarded as a mere outline, a source of inspiration for a movement that is best ap­ preciated primarily for its musical interest, without thought of poison and daggers? even if we grant that the movement is at times descriptive, what is it describing-the characters' feelings? their words? their actions? and when are these elements present-at different times? at the same time? analyses of the movement have tended to approach these questions from one of three vantage points. some scholars celebrate the literalism that offended early critics and defend the work as a bold experiment in musical mimesis. ian kemp calls romeo au tombeau "the most extraordinary music [berlioz] ever wrote" and ascribes its impact to the "precision" of berlioz's musical narrative, linking specific measures of music to specific lines of text throughout (kemp 1992:76). for daniel albright, what berlioz mimics is not so much shakespeare's words as the characters' actions. the movement is a "bundle of clonic gestures," a "musical stethoscope" that records the spasms and contortions of romeo and juliet so precisely that it cannot help but dispense with musical form and grammar. in his analysis the incoherence is not a flaw, but a byproduct of extreme mimesis: "[t] he physiology is not a complement to a musical structure, but a force opposing any musical structure" (albright 2001:74). jacques barzun argues that the music is meaningful enough on its own and need not be regarded as a duplication of the play. in part, he is reacting to analyses that reduce berlioz's music to slavish reproductions of program­ matic events with little thought for its musical make-up. "the twenty or thirty pages of the entombment;' barzun writes, "are extraordinarily vivid and may induce visions in some listeners, but one can safely defy anyone to say what they imitate ... it is as music that the scene is most interesting" (barzun 1950, 1:334).5 finally, there are those that offer a middle road, hearing the movement as programmatic, sometimes even overtly descriptive, but recognizing that it also exhibits its own self-sufficient logic. vera micznik argues that stephen rodgers romeo au tombeau-as well as the scene d'amour-is at once "absolute" and programmatic, walking a fine line between "implicitly suggesting verbal, non-musical ideas and explicitly reproducing verbal, non-musical ideas" (micznik 2000:25, italics in original). precedence, she claims, should be given to the suggestive "topical" meanings (aria, tragedy and lament, part­ ing, etc.), which are understandable even without the aid of a program, rather than to the precise representational meanings, which are dependent upon a program-even though both often function simultaneously. julian rushton's two analyses of the movement (1994, 2001) also attend to its representational and purely musical qualities and to the different ways that program and music interact, sometimes more and sometimes less closely: "berlioz never intended a consistent relationship of programme to music; he wished to feed, as well as partly to control, the imagination. some passages belong to the evocative, some to the narrative extreme of the programmatic spectrum" (rushton 1994:82). what seems to guide rushton's analyses is a belief that for all its descriptiveness, romeo au tombeau is enjoyable as music, and makes sense as music. he makes this point most forcefully when he argues that although berlioz stretches thematic and rhythmic syntax to a breaking point, he maintains a level of "pitch connection" that lends the music an underlying cohesiveness (an argument to which we shall return below) (rushton 2001:273-74). each of these approaches illuminates different aspects of berlioz's work, and together they make for a rich and varied approach to the work's contradictory music. kemp demonstrates how vividly descriptive berlioz's music can be, albright stresses the music's sonic representations of the body, barzun rightly defends berlioz's musicianship, micznik reminds us that programmatic and topical meanings can coexist, and rushton shows how berlioz can make a compelling musical argument and simultaneously trace a programmatic narrative. what none of them addresses, however-and what i believe is central to understanding the movement's meaning and novel programmatic approach-is that berlioz gradually, and purposefully, changes the relation between the music and the scene over the course of the piece. rushton is right that the relation is not "consistent." one gets the impression that berlioz is sometimes following the drama and other times following the musical thread. inconsistent, though, does not mean haphazard. there is a peculiar logic to berlioz's movement, but it is to be found not in a form imposed by the scene's succession of events, but rather in a process by which the music becomes more literally connected to the play, and also more incoherent. which is to say that romeo au tombeau does not fluctuate between the "evocative" and the "narrative," as rushton implies, or hover in a liminal space between implicit suggestion and explicit representation, as micznik 39 40 current musicology suggests. rather, it shifts from the evocative to the narrative, from the implicit to the explicit, and from an expression of the characters' emotions to a depiction of their actions. at the outset berlioz is most concerned with conveying what the characters feel: romeo's bewilderment when he sees juliet in the tomb and his grief when he addresses her body. as the move­ ment progresses he turns his attention toward depicting what they do: juliet waking up, romeo drinking the poison and convulsing as it takes effect, juliet plunging the dagger into her chest, and the lovers dying. as the music becomes more literal and physical, it dissolves into thematic, rhythmic, and harmonic mayhem. if the scene ends with dead bodies littered on the stage, the movement ends with music smashed to pieces. following micznik, who has theorized "degrees of narrativity" in classical and romantic music (though focusing on beethoven and mahler, not berlioz), it could be said that in gradually shifting from feeling to action and from continuity to discontinuity, romeo au tombeau becomes more narrative as it proceeds. using beethoven's pastoral symphony and mahler's ninth symphony as models, micznik shows how mahler's music-like much late nineteenth -century music-exhibits a higher "degree of narrativity" than beethoven's because it relies more on "semantic" meaning than "syntactic" logic: it is more referential, "mimicking concrete phenomena from the outside world" (micznik 2001 :243); its musical "events" are more numerous, more diverse, more gestural, and more fragmented; and it disrupts normative tonal syntax. each of these analytic descriptors applies to the latter stages of romeo au tombeau-but only to its latter stages. while micznik is primarily interested in tracing degrees of narrativity across different pieces,6 what interests me is how degrees of narrativity operate within the same piece. romeo au tombeau, with its gradual shift from the emotional to the physi­ cal, the ordered to the disordered, anell indeed the syntactic to the semantic, provides an ideal case study. d'ortigue seems to have been aware of this shift, even if he found it hard to stomach: midway through the movement ("the moment of poison and the dagger blow") the "realism" becomes "too raw;' and "the composer abandons musical direction, following only that of the eilrama."we can accept the content of his observation without adopting its negative tone. romeo au tombeau does seem to grow more "realistic" as it proceeds. at the same time, it seems to "abandons musical direction," destroying itself as romeo and juliet destroy themselves. i would argue, however, that this is not a flaw, but rather a key to its emotional impact. by composing the movement as he does, so that it becomes more visceral and fragmented, berlioz offers a musical interpretation of the tomb scene that stresses the brutality and incomprehensibility of the actions at its end rather than the "poetry" of the stephen rodgers lovers' union in death (to borrow d'ortigue's word). as we shall see, this musical interpretation is consistent with his written commentaries on the play and entirely original when compared with other composers' (generally tamer) treatments of the same subject matter. tracing the overall trajectory of romeo au tom beau makes it possible to reassess its relationship to the scene d'amour, berlioz's famous instrumental setting of the balcony scene that occurs three movements earlier. the scene d'amour has similarly addled analysts seeking to understand how its music relates to its program. a comparison of the two movements shows that as similar as they may seem, their modi operandi could not be more different. rather than becoming more explicitly tied to the play, the scene d' amour becomes less so-it parallels the scene early on but eventually takes on a life of its own by departing from the dramatic action and concerning itself more with the development of musical ideas. and instead of dissolving into fragments, it is constituted from fragments-the famous "love theme" grows out of the themes that precede it and is fully realized over the course of the movement, just as romeo and juliet's love for one another is fully realized over the course of the scene. romeo au tombeau demonstrates that the relationship between music and program is not fixed but fluid. music analysts are accustomed to ex­ amining the interaction of harmony and voice leading, form and thematic content, or meter and rhythm, but in this repertoire the interaction of the musical and the "extra-musical" is just as important. analyses of program music are likely to overlook aspects of a work's musical meaning if they are undertaken with the assumption that music and program will remain in the same relationship throughout the piece. they may be better served if they allow that the distance between a work's "musical and verbal planes of narrativity," to borrow a phrase from james hepokoski (1992:138)/ is vari­ able, and that a composer may adjust that distance for particular expressive purposes, sometimes bringing the planes into close contact and sometimes pulling them apart. the analytical task, therefore, should be to trace these shifting relations between music and program and to probe the meanings animated by them. in what follows, i explore romeo au tombeau in detail, first situating the movement in the context of berlioz's ideas about musical representation, then applying those ideas to an analysis of the piece, and finally comparing it with the scene d'amour. above all, i hope to show that the movement is as meaningful as it is radical, as explicable as it is extreme. the two ideas paired in this article's title-destructiveness and logic-may seem contradictory, but in berlioz's piece they sometimes work together: romeo au tombeau is made to fall apart, constructed to self-destruct. this statement could 41 42 current musicology apply to many of berlioz's works (the songe d'une nuit du sabbat from the symphonie fantastique, the roi lear overture with its mad storm scene, the orgie de brigands from harold en italie, the instrumental chasse royale et orage from les troyens), which are easily misunderstood as too disordered and harsh until one realizes that they were intended to seem that way. romeo au tombeau's plunge into bald pictorialism and musical chaos is all the more thrilling because it happens not by accident but by design; it seems necessary, inevitable, inescapable. mary ann smart has encouraged musicologists to reconsider the prejudice against what she calls "music that traces movement too precisely;' which is too often "ignored or dismissed as too blatant, too restricted to mimicry of visible action" (smart 2004:8). her focus is nineteenth-century opera, but the prejudice applies just as much to overtly programmatic works such as romeo au tombeau. yet as this remarkable work shows us, berlioz is often at his most ingenious when he is exploring different types of interaction between the musical and the "extra-musical;' and extending, even willfully breaching, the limits of musical expression and coherence. physical and emotional imitation two years before composing romeo et juliette, berlioz penned de l'imitation musicale (on imitation in music), his most thoroughgoing statement about the aims of program music. the essay provides a framework to understand the programmatic experiments in romeo au tombeau and a chance to measure berlioz's practice against his theory. berlioz devotes his essay to outlining two types of musical imitation. he calls the first "physical" or "direct" imitation, terms borrowed from the italian critic guiseppe carp ani; it involves the imitation of "sounds, motions, or objects" in the real world (berlioz 1971 a:38). 8 as examples, berlioz cites some of the most commonly referenced passages in discussions of tone painting: the bird calls from the szene am bach in beethoven's pastoral symphony and the storm movement from the same work. he also cites the duet from fidelio in which the jailer and fidelio dig a grave where florestan is to be buried and the cello, contrabas­ soon, and double bass play what berlioz calls a "strange and very brief figure" that imitates "the dull sound of the rolling stone" (berlioz 1971 a:39). the second type of imitation berlioz calls (again drawing upon carpani) "emotional" or "indirect" imitation, and elsewhere "expression." in this case, the music does not reproduce a sound or a motion; it expresses an emotion. rather than offer us a faithful "picture" of something in the real world, it conveys a feeling that we recognize as comparable to the feeling we would experience in a different context: when watching a sunset, for example, or grieving the loss of a loved one. one of his most telling examples is agathe's stephen rodgers aria "wie nahte mir der schummer" from the second act of weber's der freischutz. in this nighttime prayer, weber does not, berlioz argues, "paint moonlight"; he uses the "the calm, veiled, and melancholy coloring of the harmonies and the chiaroscuro of the instrumental timbre" to present "a faithful metaphor or image of the pale light of the moon" and to express "the dreaminess of lovers beneath the moon, whose assistance agatha just then invokes" (berlioz 1971a:45).9 in other words, music cannot paint moonlight any more than it can paint mountains, as berlioz-in a lengthy footnote appended to the program of the symphonie fantastique-reminded the critics who accused him of doing so.10 but it can suggest a feeling analogous to that which we might experience when gazing at the moon or a majestic mountain peak, and we can grasp the relation between the two (music and image) because the composer has informed us of his intention with an external aid-a text or program. physical imitation and emotional imitation are not mutually exclusive. a passage of music can draw on both types, mixing them to varying degrees. in the duet from fidelia, for example, the "strange and very brief figure" may depict the jailer's and fidelio's efforts to unearth a large rock, but beethoven employs plenty of other musical features to suggest to western art music listeners the gloomy graveyard setting and the characters' sense of foreboding: the dark a-minor tonality, pianissimo dynamic, instrumentation with muted strings and winds in a low register, slow-moving harmonies, ominous triplet rhythm, and double bass ostinato. but any given moment, berlioz's writings imply, the balance will tend toward one type of imitation over another (as it does when the sixteenth-note gesture appears at the end of the fidelia excerpt). today many scholars would use the term "representation" to describe both of berlioz's types of imitation. 11 after all, physical imitation, as berlioz defines it, does not refer to the copying of reality but to the re-presentation of reality in aestheticized form. as we shall see, berlioz finds such exact reproductions objectionable, for example in his negative assessment of a composer who believed that the best way to imitate the sound of a pistol being fired was to fire an actual pistol from the orchestra (berlioz 1971a:40). even berlioz's term "expression" seems to refer to a type of representation; expressive music, as berlioz defines it, conveys not just a general emotion, but an emotion associated with a specific "extra-musical" context-a scene or event suggested by a programmatic indication. 12 but "representation" would not have been in berlioz's lexicon; "imita­ tion" and "expression" were the terms of the day. musical imitation was one of the most hotly-debated topics from the mid-eighteenth century well into the nineteenth century. the terms "imitation" and "expression" are as varied and complex as the arguments made for and against them, but in 43 44 current musicology general it can be said the period from roughly 1750 to the early 1800s saw the enlightenment doctrine of imitation gradually give way to a doctrine of expression. the idea that music's principal aim was to offer a faithful copy of nature, espoused principally by du bos (1719) and batteux (1746), was sup­ planted by the idea that music primarily moved the passions and expressed emotion. one senses this shift in the work of writers such as chabanon (1779) and morellet (1818) in france and avison (1752), beattie (1779), and adam smith (1795) in england. one also senses it in beethoven's cautionary remark that the pastoral symphony has more to do with the "expression of feeling" than with "painting" [mehr ausdruck der empfindung als malerei] , and in the debates that ensued about whether the work was too pictorial and what it aimed to represent. 13 by the early nineteenth century, and certainly by the time berlioz wrote his essay, to imitate for the sake of imitating was to stoop to the level of tastelessness and to invite ridicule-especially if it meant forgoing expression. berlioz stops short of castigating any and all who paint pictures in musical tones, and he does not deny imitation outright, as chabanon does. though he was often called a revolutionary by his contemporaries and by later historians, he is remarkably even-handed in allowing a place for imita­ tion in musical practice, and conservative in defining both tone painting and expression as subsets of imitation. still, physical imitation occupies a lower position than emotional imitation and should be used judiciously, lest a composer mar his work with "descriptive futilities" (berlioz 1971a:38). berlioz spares no criticisms for such lapses in judgment. even beethoven is not immune from rebuke. the storm movement from the pastoral symphony is acceptable because it creates a necessary contrast with the gentle music that precedes and follows it (berlioz 1971a:38-39), but the rolling stone gesture in fidelia is not because it is "in no way necessary either to the drama or to the effectiveness of the music": "[t]here is in such imitation no poetry, no drama, no truth. it is a sad piece of childishness, which one is equally grieved and surprised to have to complain of in a great master" (berlioz 1971a:39). if physical imitation is to be used, it must meet four conditions: (1) it should always be a means to an end, not an end in itself; (2) a composer should not attempt to imitate something that is either impossible to imitate (falling snow, for example) or unworthy of the effort (as with the buzzing locusts from handel's israel in egypt); (3) the imitation should be faithful enough to be recognizable, but it should not ape reality; and (4) physical imitation should never be used when emotional imitation could be used instead, "when the drama is proceeding apace and passion alone deserves a voice" (berlioz 1971a:38). figure 1: formal overview of romeo au tombeau. section measures tempo marking tonality relation to scene 2 3 1-33 34-47 48-73 allegro agitato largo (j~144) (j\=132) vofc# cff romeo fights romeo romeo :.peaks to paris? beholds juliet (invocation), romeo rushes to the tomb? takes poison the tomb'? romeo's aaitation? metaphorical / "emotional" (more or less) coherent stephen rodgers 4 5 74-89 90-157 allegro vivace (j~144) ?? a---//// juliet awakes lovers reunite, (juliet'" poison takes hold awakellini!,) (deliriolls joy, despair) > literal / "physical" > incoherent 6 158-227 ?? lovers die 1 ~t the lovers) what does this reveal about romeo au tom beau? first, it suggests that for berlioz to write a piece that retells the tomb scene line-for-line and moment -for-moment would be to contradict his basic beliefs about program music, which stress that music should not be so closely wedded to the objects it imitates that it sacrifices its internal logic (and potentially its emotional depth). analysts should therefore be attentive to those moments when the music may be in "indirect" rather than "direct" relation to shakespeare's scene. where the music does use physical imitation, however, it does not often stand up to berlioz's four conditions. despite repeatedly stating that his concern is with expressing emotions, not copying reality, berlioz relies heavily on direct imitation, to the exclusion of emotional imitation, especially in the latter stages of the movement. he breaks his own rules. but he does so for a reason: to bewilder his audience, to strain his listeners' sense-making abilities, and to let physicality overwhelm emotion. analyzing romeo au tombeau's destructive trajectory the best way to appreciate how that happens is to consider the movement as it unfolds for listeners in real time, since the shift from the emotional to the physical and the coherent to the incoherent occurs not suddenly but successively. (a brief note on intended audience: the remarks that follow are directed toward listeners who are familiar with shakespeare's play, berlioz's score, and music-analytical terminology-which is to say, they are aimed at musicologists and theorists. i believe, however, that the overall musical and dramatic trajectory outlined below could very well be perceived by many lay concertgoers, even though they would probably use different terms to describe it.) the movement can be divided into six main sections, two sections apiece for the three main tempo markings. 14 figure 1 provides an overview of its form, which can be used as a guide throughout the following 45 46 current musicology example 1: section 1, mm. 1-33. allegro agitato e disperato con moto j = 144 discussion. key areas, where evident, are provided, as are some brief remarks about the relationship between the music of each section and the events of the scene. the italicized lines refer to berlioz's programmatic headings in the score and will be discussed below. the movement's "outer form" bears no resemblance to any standard formal paradigm (ternary form, rondo form, sonata form, etc.) and is best regarded as a succession of six tableaux, each of which is related to the most important stages of the scene. stephen rodgers the first tableau is an agitated passage in e minor (see example 1 for a piano reduction of this section). kemp offers a fairly literal interpretation of these measures, hearing them as a depiction of romeo's battle with paris (i have annotated example 1 with kemp's programmatic markers): [t]he tombeau movement is surely clear. the episode with balthazar is cut. [note: in shakespeare's original, as well as in garrick's version, the scene begins with a conversation between romeo and his servant balthazar.] romeo arrives (bar 1), "more fierce and more inexorable by far / than empty tigers or the roaring sea;' (viii.38-9) and wrenches open the tomb (bars 15-17). he encounters paris and after "three swift strokes" (as berlioz describes it [in his memoirs], though his music gives four) kills him-and draws the sword out. (kemp 1992:75) even if we grant that this passage might suggest romeo's fight with paris, looking for four sword strokes or pinpointing romeo's opening of the tomb at the e-minor cadence in mm. 16-17 makes the music too precise and strips it of its powers of suggestion, which account for its impact far more than any facile correspondence with lines or actions from the play. furthermore, berlioz's remark about "three swift strokes" refers to romeo's battle with tybalt, not with paris. is and the second choral prologue to the symphony-which initially appeared before the convoi funebre and which berlioz later cut-describes the events of the tomb scene but makes no reference to paris.16 there is, in short, no reason to assume that the e-minor music depicts the fight with paris, or a fight at all. it could just as well refer to the lines from the second prologue about how romeo "hastens to verona" and "penetrates / the dark tomb" iii vole a verone, il penetre / dans ie sombre tombeau].17 the passage's gestural qualities cannot be dismissed; it is undeniably kinetic and may suggest some sort of physical action. but to seek too much program­ matic specificity is to neglect that the music's overall effect is more a product of its emotional properties than its physical ones. no matter what it depicts, above all it evokes romeo's restlessness and agitation. rushton recognizes as much: "the stuttering violence of the opening may parallel romeo's frantic efforts to open the tomb; more importantly, it is a metaphor for his mental state" (rushton 1994:52). this "stuttering violence" is most evident in the metric dissonance of the passage. measures 11-13 project two measures of three-two meter rather than three measures of the notated two-two time signature (see the brackets in example 1), resulting in a "grouping" or "hemiola-type" dissonance, where two metric layers of different periodicities are in conflict. even in the very first measures of the movement the meter is ambiguous, in this case because 47 48 current musicology example 2: opening measures, rewritten to reflect audible downbeat. example 3: chords of section 2. paris tybalt juliet ~~ @@@§ 11111 i@@@§ iii\iiji i @@@§ iii@'~ u 9---8 c#: v vi v =viio7/v v v7 of a "displacement" or "syncopation-type" dissonance, where two layers with the same periodicity are not aligned. l g the opening measures can be heard in two ways: either as they are written, or with the downbeat "displaced" so that it falls two eighth notes earlier-an aural impression reinforced by the quarter notes played by the french horn. example 2 shows the opening measures as they might otherwise be heard. despite these metric conflicts, the underlying harmonic and contrapuntal structure of the passage is straight­ forward. the harmonies outline a full cadential progression, i-iv-v-i, or e minor, a minor, b major, e minor (e minor and a minor are embellished by neighboring f-major and b~-major chords, and after arriving on the b-major dominant in m. la, berlioz backtracks and repeats the predominant harmony several times before reaching the structural dominant in m. 16). the cadential progression in mm. 15-16 is iv-viio7 iv-v -i, which supports a descent to the tonic pitch-a-g-fif-e. 19 here, at least, underlying pitch connections do provide a measure of coherence that compensates for the surface irregularity. in section 2 berlioz enters a different sound world. seven sustained chords separated by empty measures, all with fermatas, create the impression of time standing still and call to mind romeo's awe and horror at seeing juliet in the tomb. example 3 reproduces the chords of section 2. but the question arises again: what suggests romeo beholding the tomb? is it a direct and physical connection with the scene, or something more indirect and emotional? kemp implies the former when he associates section 2's chords with specific bodies in the tomb (the second chord, he claims, represents paris, the fourth represents tybalt, and the sixth represents juliet) (kemp 1992:75-76). it is certainly plausible that the threefold move from g-sharp major to an embellishing chord might suggest the intensification of romeo's gaze or even its shifting direction, but the sense of awe projected by the music can be explained without needing to look for one-to-one correspondences between score and scene. stephen rodgers example 4: a piano reduction of section 3. 51 if 60 c#: j6 after all, romeo does not address the body of tybalt in garrick's version of the drama, and berlioz makes no mention of the event in his second prologue. moreover, such a reading forecloses a consideration of how the music functions metaphorically and how its technical features contribute to its meaning. the sensation of listening to this series of unmeasured chords is likely analogous to the sensation romeo experiences when viewing the tomb-no matter which bodies he sees. the analogy is reinforced by berlioz's handling of his musical material: by the halting of musical time, the 49 50 curlrent musicology example 4, continued. i::::::"~,, ~ , :bii;;;~':.i > > > d: viio~ gr+6 ] ~ fragmented orchestration, and the progression of the harmonies (as opposed to merely the number of harmonies). a strong d#-e melodic motive threads the passage, occurring whenever the g-sharp dominant is embellished, but the e is harmonized differently each time, and the embellishing chords become more dissonant with the implied c-sharp minor tonic. first we hear a diatonic vi, then the enharmonic equivalent to a viio7 iv, and finally an ethereal half-diminished seventh sonority that combines subdominant and dominant tendencies (the f#, a, and e suggest iv7, but the b# belongs to v). this musical process has a poetic equivalent: as the harmonies grow more distant, one senses romeo's growing stupefaction, his inability to comprehend what he sees. as might befit a movement that shifts from emotional to physical imitation, the middle section makes use of both techniques (see example 4, a piano reduction of section 3). this is the first section of the movement with a programmatic heading and the first that can be unquestionably tied to specific lines of text: romeo's speech to juliet as she lies sleeping in the tomb, which begins "oh my love, my wife i death that hath suck'd the stephen rodgers example 5: a voice leading reduction of section 3. (49) a a ~4) a a c5~ @ 3 131 (3) (3) -c-lb#..--l~ t /0 t -----ct -~ 1-:;z==p ~i ~~ --~-~ i oj • #-.~-.q. i 10 10 f-.0: l~ vil7/vi c#:i~ vi honey of thy breath, / hath had no power yet upon thy beauty" (v.iii.91 ff.) (shakespeare 1974: 1 090). it therefore signals a move from the metaphorical to the literal, the general to the specific-from an agitated opening that sets an emotional tone even if it does not depict a single event or action, to a passage that suggests what romeo feels (disorientation, horror, bewilder­ ment) more than what he sees (the particular bodies in the tomb, one after the other), to a song without words that corresponds to a particular speech from the play even if it does not depict a specific action from the text. berlioz, however, does not abandon emotional imitation entirely. romeo's "aria" conveys the emotion behind his words, not their exact sense. his grief is expressed by the somber funereal rhythm, which recalls one of berlioz's most heartrending musical expressions of grief, the "meditation" from his 1829 cantata la mort de cleapdtre. (the "meditation" uses a similar pulsating rhythm played by low pizzicato strings, begins in the same key, sets a similar scene-cleopatra's final moments before her suicide-and is inscribed with juliet's line from act iv, scene iii, "what if when i am laid in the tomb," a variant of shakespeare's original "how if, when i am laid in the tomb.") the lyrical melody, distributed for the most part into regular twoand four-bar units, suggests the tenderness of romeo's address to his beloved. and the upward -striving melodic lines capture the urgency and the welling pain behind romeo's words. these lines create deeper-level melodic ascents, chromatic strands that stretch across the entire section and propel the music toward the registral, dynamic, and emotional highpoint in m. 65. example 5 provides a middleground voice-leading sketch of section 3. beginning in m. 57, the kapftan e-supported initially by c-sharp minor and here by e minor-rises stepwise, via a 10-10 linear intervallic pattern, to b~ on the downbeat of m. 65, and then descends to c# in m. 71. the passage is structured around one broad melodic arc with strong bass-line support. contrapuntally, we might say, it behaves as it ought to. 51 52 current musicology harmonically, however, it does not. after the cadence in e minor in m. 57, weakened somewhat by the slide down to i6 , there is not another authentic cadence in any key. the music continually seeks but never finds cadential closure. the two-bar sequences in mm. 58-59 and 60-61 end with dominants that do not resolve to tonics. the most dramatic deceptive move occurs in mm. 65 ff., where the climactic cadential six-four chord in d major passes through viio7/vi to vi, and, in the next measure, a cadential six-four in g-sharp major is followed directly by vi (a major). twice berlioz leads toward a strong cadence in a major key, with the same progression, and twice thwarts listeners' expectations. finally, in m. 69 the dominant of c-sharp minor fails to produce the long-awaited perfect authentic cadence in the governing key of this entire section; the melody falls to the tonic, but the bass slides from g# up to a. the music refuses to rest, a musical metaphor for romeo's refusal to accept that juliet has died: "thou art not conquer'd, beauty's ensign yet / is crimson in thy lips, in thy cheeks / and death's pale flag is not advanced there" (y.iii.94-6) (shakespeare 1974:1090). the moment that clinches the move into the realm of the physical occurs at the end of section 3 (mm. 71-72). the cellos playa descending chromatic line that is as clear an example of physical imitation as the double basses' "strange and brief figure" from fidelia. this passage paints a picture of romeo drinking the vial of poison, perhaps even imitates the sound of the poison going down his throat, complete with eerie tremolos and a g-c# tritone as he swallows the last drop. then juliet awakes (section 4, see example 6)-signaled by the return of a theme from the scene d'amour previously associated with her ("where am i? defend me, powers!" she exclaims, in garrick's version of the scene )-and romeo responds in the lower strings ("she speaks, she lives; and we shall still be bless'd!") (garrick 1750:65).20 as in section 2, time slows as the music modulates from one key area to another. this is of course the passage that d'ortigue described as "too raw," and, indeed, it seems as though the musical fabric has been suddenly and irreparably torn and the sheer force of this dramatic event has halted the flow of the musical discourse. but if the fabric is torn here, it was already distressed; the rupture was prepared by what came before it. if romeo's "aria" marked a slight shift from feeling to speech, the sinking passage and juliet's awakening mark a more extreme shift from speech to action, from word to deed. by this point the process cannot be stopped-the center cannot hold. from section 4 onward berlioz structures the music around significant actions in the text. we hear not only romeo drinking the poison and juliet waking, but also romeo dragging her from the tomb, convulsing as the poison sets in, and dying, and juliet stabbing herself with a dagger. these actions match the score indications berlioz includes at the head of the movestephen rodgers example 6: section 4, "juliet's awakening." 74 a sf uu peu reteuu <lolch,iruo <illn i't meme mouveinent on 0 00mj_~-= g#dim i r 't rfe±+fl i e p-~~-= .• '" ~ q .. ~e e q~ ~~ p e7 retenu mf : p i e 1~·~,~~~~~,~·~o~,d~j~" ~,~,~~~~~~~~~~~o:lj'c==~"~~~'~o~~~~~~~ pp-=---::=mj' pp pp-=--.::: mj e#dim7 f#m g#dim ment after "invocation": "juliet's awakening" [reveil de juliette 1 (section 4), "delirious joy, despair" [joie delirante, desespoirl (section 5), "last agony and death of the lovers" [dernieres angoisses et mort des deux amantsl (section 6). only "invocation" and "juliet's awakening" appear above their respective sections in the score, but the connections between the other programmatic headings and the stages of berlioz's form are apparent nonethelessy 53 54 current musicology example 7: opening of section 5. j allegro vivace ed appassionato assai (d::: 144) 90 with this programmatic specificity comes a musical disintegration, as if the musical discourse cannot bear the weight of the actions it is called upon to describe. juliet's melody implies a major (the key in which the melody was heard in the scene d'amour) , but without the harmonic support from the earlier movement it is too spare and hesitant to establish a key with any certainty. it also projects no clear meter. the rough interjections in the lower strings only make things worse. they articulate triadic harmonies that could be construed as having some tonal function: g#dim and e7 as dominants on either side of a, e#dim7 as a dominant to f#m, implied midway through m. 88, and the entire passage as a prolonged dominant to the a-major tonality of section 5 (see example 6). but such an analysis ignores how the harmonies sound. to the eye, they may appear functional; to the ear, however, they seem devoid of function-so disconnected from one another that it is impossible to hear a harmonic through-line. they sound like meaningless fragments, sonorities without sense, "gestural connotations;' as micznik calls them (2001:35), with no syntax. a comparison with romeo's "aria" is instructive. there, melody and harmony coincided, even if they did not secure tonal closure. here, melody and harmony are at odds, and they fail to secure any tonality at all. in garrick's version of the scene, juliet wakes and has no idea where she is or who is speaking to her: "where am i? defend me, powers! ... bless me! how cold it is! who's there!" (garrick 1750:65). in berlioz's setting, her melody is just as unaware of its surroundings. section 5 is even more disjointed-a hysterical outburst in a major, clearly meant to suggest romeo's "joie delirante" at seeing juliet alive. as if to compensate for the lack of tonality in section 4, six bars of a major scream forth, not so much articulating a tonality as asserting it by brute force (see stephen rodgers example 8: "romeo's" theme in scene d'amour (mm. 172-181). example 7). these measures present the main elements that characterize the entire section: hysteria, frenzied repetition, and distortion. a melodic motive fii-e-d# is sounded three times and then, compressed to e-d#, six more times, the manic loop only broken in m. 96 by the shift to subdominant harmony. this harmonic move triggers a moment of metric displacement dissonance: the audible downbeat in mm. 96-99 is one quarter note "behind" the written downbeat. as a result, m. 95 sounds too long, and m. 99 sounds too short (see the brackets in example 7). the music goes off the rails as it careens away from tonic harmony, and it rights itself only when a major returns in m. 100. the stability around m. loa, however, is short-lived. several times berlioz recalls fragments of a melody from the scene d' amour that was previously associated with romeo and his heartfelt entreaties to juliet, and each time he subjects them to extreme melodic, harmonic, and metric disfigurement. example 8 shows the c-major statement of "romeo's" theme from the scene d'amour (mm. 172-181), with its two main parts labeled "head" and "tail." example 9 shows the theme's transformation at the end of section 5 of romeo au tombeau (mm. 124-156). in the scene, the theme was, though impassioned, musically stable: it was tightly knit (a lo-bar sentence); entirely diatonic, save the borrowed ~6 preceding the cadence; and harmonically normative. in romeo au tombeau, the theme is radically altered: it is sped up to the point of absurdity; metrically dissonant (note how the opening suggests two measures of nine-eight meter rather than three measures of six-eight meter, before returning to the notated meter in m. 127); maniacally repetitive; and harmonically insecure, set against a bass line that descends chromatically from c to g#. even more, it is unable to maintain any key area for more than a few measures before unraveling. the "head" in c major produces a "tail" in the wrong key, d major (mm. 129-133; compare these measures with mm.176-178 of example 8), which is riddled with chromatic passing tones. this "tail" also cannot find its end. another tail begins in m. 134, in f-sharp minor, and then yet another in m. 138, in a major, ratcheting the melody up by thirds with each new attempt at closure. having found the home key of a major, the melody continues 55 56 current musicology example 9: "romeo's" theme in scene d'amour (mm. 124-156). with its cadential gesture (mm. 141 ff.), only to fall apart once more. the gesture is repeated in ever-smaller fragments until the music grinds to a halt, unable to cadence, as romeo begins to feel the death throes and the poison takes hold. again, a g-c# tritone marks the moment of musical and physical rupture. in section 6 the music becomes totally unhinged and veers into sense­ lessness, near-atonality, and raw physicality (example 10 provides the full score to the beginning of section 6). earlier sections of the movement may have projected different meters at different times, but this section projects different meters at the same time-two-two (cut time) in the clarinet part, three-four in the other wind parts (despite the six-eight time signature), and six-eight in the trombone section-or, really, no meter at all. the rhythmic pulsations, suggestive of romeo's throbbing and weakening heartbeat, example 10: opening of section 6. .'~~t~~-c==' ic~#l __ ~.. l~=~!== .. ~~~~ p lu;;mc,alcur<lcmc'ui"" stephen rodgers ~ ~ , $ ~ .. -'-~".--==l." __ ~_c:-l,_~ f-~ &==l~_ :=~:=i_;_d.r=r~1 ---il~f • ·'~-r--ri j1' p obscure any sense of meter; they are effectively rhythm without meter. to hear meter, after all, listeners must be able to group beats into equal spans of time. they must be able to perceive some sort of musical pattern-be it durational, dynamic, harmonic, or melodic-that creates the impression of regularly occurring metrical accents.22 with no harmonic change, no melody, no predictable breaks in the stream of rhythmic pulsations, no changes in dynamics or timbre, not even any surface-level accents, it is difficult to hear these beats in equal-sized groups. the trombone interjections offer little help. they initially appear at three-bar intervals, but the pattern is disrupted no sooner than it has been established, when the cellos' and basses' b~ intrudes one half bar too early (m. 168). instead of articulating a clear meter, the music moves in separate and seemingly independent streams, something akin to jonathan kramer's "moment time," characterized by "stasis" rather than "progress," and by an absence of "linear logic" (kramer 1988:50). 57 58 current musicology example ii: end of section 6. q meme mouvemcnt memory of "tail" to romeo's theme ~ 170 . }n.1jti .~d ..jqj.im .~d~ .. c '~'~rl t:~~ t~ ~~%-~:::::; :~ faillng4ths ---------~ q-e-________ g_lm .~d q~ .n·lli .1q.llti ·4jd -\ , • y --i i fj'>p .~ -.---..... i 0-. ... q lin peu relenu rj tempo , l~cjj~1r_h [,r: puff fp·if if ------------the woodwinds' repeated diminished triad-which becomes a fully diminished-seventh chord with the addition of the trombones' b~, and then reverberates for over 20 bars-likewise undermines any sense of key. like the harmonies in section 4 (juliet's awakening), which on paper can be construed as serving some structural function but in real time sound non -syntactical, this chord technically functions as an embellishment to the e dominant-seventh chord that appears in m. 182 (see example 11, which shows the rest of the movement-m. 170 to the end-in piano reduction). on paper it is a common-tone diminished-seventh chord, as example 12 indicates. but it is heard for such a long time, and the dominant seventh for such a short time (a mere three bars), that its tonal function is obscured. it practically becomes a dissonant "tonic" in its own right. the embellish­ ing chord overwhelms the chord it embellishes. dissonance overwhelms consonance. ornament overwhelms structure. stephen rodgers example 11, continued. "'2 ~~ l 4#w'~ ref rr f 1 8jj-nn .. -~-.·.·i-.-~. ': ifconjlloco : -i _ -----i il1cmorvo f jullet'sawakening l.~r-u ffy ,: i,p-p l'fi)~~l= plzz in a way, ornament becomes structural (paradoxical as that may seem), in that the disorder of the musical surface is likely what "structures" a listener's perception of this passage, more than any underlying melodic or tonal foundation. in an essay entitled "uncertainty, disorientation, and loss as responses to musical structure," joseph dubiel encourages us to construe the notion of "structure" in this broader sense. structure, he argues, need not be defined "as pattern, as logical consecution, as the satisfaction of a requirement (otherwise the music falls to pieces), as validation (nothing is done 'merely for its own sake')" (dubiel 2004:174). it can instead encompass any sort of relationship that shapes musical experience in some way-a startling juxtaposition, a contrast, a sudden departure-anything, in short, that makes a listener marvel at how a passage is constructed, even if the passage is bewildering. 59 60 current musicology example 12: common-tone diminished-seventh chord. eto7 y7 dubiel's inclusive definition of structure is useful in understanding this passage in particular and romeo au tombeau in general. as i have suggested, the entire movement is constructed in such a way that it "falls to pieces" step by step, a process that culminates in this section, where conventional notions of "structural listening" no longer seem applicable.23 the passage in question is constructed in such a way that the diminished-seventh chord erases rather than articulates any semblance of a tonic, just as the layering of seemingly independent strands erases rather than articulates any semblance of meter. this, more than the tenuous harmonic connection between the diminished-seventh chord and the dominant in m. 182, is what accounts for how i experience the music. the falling fourths in the cellos and basses (from m. 170 onward)-blr-f-c-g, then sinking a third to e-are equally disorienting, since they are in utter conflict with the upper voices. in another piece, a bass line such as this might define a tonality, with an ascending-fifth sequence; here it sounds like a memory of an abandoned tonality, a tonal gesture without tonal context.24 this is not the only memory to emerge. section 6 summons up, ran­ domly and in rapid succession, past musical ideas, as though romeo's and juliet's lives were flashing before their eyes. the upper voices in mm. 170 ff. present a rising minor-third motive, blr-c-d~ (transposed by half step to b-dt-d inmm.182-183), a faint memory of the "tail" to romeo's theme and its rising major third-or, rather, a memory of a memory, since the already fractured melody in section 5 recalled the theme's stable presentation in the scene d'amour. the diminished-seventh chord mentioned above recalls the same diminished-seventh chord (enharmonically respelled) in the fourth chord of section 2; it appears again as the second of two stinging chords in m. 211, clearly meant to represent juliet's dagger blow. the emphasis on b~ in the closing measures hearkens back to the m chords from sections 1 and 3. and the oboe's f-e motive in mm. 215-216 recalls the e-f-e played by the clarinet in section 4; juliet's music of awakening becomes her music of dying.25 other musical ideas unrelated to prior material flash by as well, and are just as fragmented: a peculiar dance-like melody in mm. 193 ff., blurted-out triads in mm. 198-200, a plunging scale in mm. 202-204, and a sustained cadential gesture in mm. 206-210. each follows the other stephen rodgers with little sense of "pattern" or "logical consecution;' to return to dubiel's characterization of conventional structure. there is no rhythmic consistency: the dance tune moves in quarter-note triplets, the following chords change every half note, the scale uses eighth notes, and the cadential gesture sustains an f# for over two bars. the registers vary, particularly from m. 211 (the dagger blow) onwards. and melody and harmony are out of alignment: where melodic ideas appear, they lack harmonic support; where harmonies appear, they support nothing. nominally, the movement closes in a major, but the tonic is a mere wisp. an a-c# dyad sounds for a mere quarter note in m. 215, and the g# ofjuliet's dying strain never resolves. all that remains is a feeble pizzicato e-a. rushton argues that despite these surface disruptions, the close of the movement is nonetheless coherent-perhaps too coherent: "where the pro­ gram would justify a complete breakdown of musical syntax, and achieves it in some parameters, notably thematic and rhythmic, the parameter of pitch connection remains in force as a source of musical coherence. arguably this contradicts the programme and imperils the experience as a dramatic revela­ tion" (rushton 2001:273-74). as evidence he offers a schenkerian sketch, which outlines a structural descent to the tonic at the end of the movement. an e kopfton, active since the beginning of the movement, falls through d in m. 183 to c# in m. 186 and then to b and a after m. 200. (2 appears in m. 204, at the end of the descending eighth-note scale, and 1 appears in m. 210, after the sustained cadential gesture. see example 11.) rushton recognizes that his sketch "invites suspension of disbelief" and will likely reveal elements that cannot be circumscribed by a voice-leading graph, especially in a piece "not governed by the polyphonic considerations best demonstrated by schenkerian analysis" (rushton 2001:273). in spite of this disclaimer, however, his schenkerian reading overemphasizes the coher­ ence of the final moments. the melodic descent is weaker than his graph implies. the e at the beginning of section 6 (m. 158) is certainly prominent, repeated as the upper voice of the pulsating diminished -seventh chord, but the d is only a passing tone over a sustained dominant in m. 183, and though the c# appears over tonic harmony three bars later, it arrives only after the bass has resolved-another instance of melodic/harmonic misalignment.26 the b and a, moreover, are not harmonized at all, as rushton himself notes (see mm. 204 and 210),27 and the a is followed by the most piercing dissonances in the movement-juliet's thrusts of the knife blade-which violently jar it loose. a linear descent can be extracted from a graph, but how much do we hear it? how "structural" is it, in dubiel's sense of the word-that is, something that "structures" musical experience? i would 61 62 current musicology argue that the linear descent has little bearing on how the movement's final moments are heard. the "parameter of pitch connection" remains in force only abstractly and faintly. the disorder of the foreground strains it to a breaking point.28 moreover, the melodic descent at the close of the movement is weaker than melodic descents in earlier parts of the movement, where "polyphonic considerations" playa more considerable role. the "directional tonality" of romeo au tombeau, descending by thirds from e minor to c-sharp minor to a major-or, in the context of a major, v to iii to i-might seem at first glance teleological, with a emerging as the "true" tonic, the important ar­ rival point. but the preceding keys are more clearly secured than a is. the broken final moments complete a larger process of gradual melodic and tonal disintegration, which is most evident from looking at the non-transitional sections of the movement: sections 1,3, 5, and 6. section 1 contains both melodic and tonal resolution-a clear melodic descent to an e-minor tonic, harmonized by a cadential progression. section 3, romeo's "aria," contains melodic resolution but no tonal resolution-sturdy underlying counterpoint and a melodic descent to a c-sharp minor tonic, but with only a deceptive vi beneath it. section 5, the delirious outburst, contains neither melodic nor tonal resolution, only distorted versions of romeo's theme that spin themselves into a frenzy until they are cut off. and section 6, the moment of most overt physicality, contains barely any melody or tonality at all, only seemingly non-functional chords, melodic fragments, and a ghost of a descent-remnants of a tonality that has been all but obliterated. from a narratological point of view, this plot archetype-gradual dis­ solution and dismemberment-runs counter to many common narrative strategies in nineteenth-century music. this is not a narrative of organic­ teleological growth, suffering to triumph (as discussed by newcomb 1984), or equilibrium-disequilibrium-equilibrium (after todorov 1971). romeo au tombeau does not follow a "quest" paradigm of the sort that newcomb has located in mahler's ninth symphony (newcomb 1992), a "redemption" or "rebirth" paradigm like what warren darcy has described in bruckner (darcy 1997), or a process of "teleological genesis," as defined by hepokoski (1993:26-27). not all works from the romantic era draw upon these paradigmatic plots of course-one readily thinks of beethoven's coriolan overture, which ends with a thematic dissolution that symbolizes the death of its hero, or schumann's manfred overture, which slowly collapses at its close, to name only two examples of decidedly negative archetypes. berlioz's tomb movement is therefore not unique in being destructive, but it is unique in being so thoroughly destructive, especially for its time. the ending of berlioz's own orgie de brigands, the final movement of harold en italie, comes close; the viola disappears for no fewer than 373 measures and stephen rodgers returns only briefly and tentatively at the end, which most scholars interpret as harold being overwhelmed by the onslaught of the brigands. yet as much as the orgie's "plot" also reverses the struggle-to-triumph archetype, as mark evan bonds has shown (1996:28-72), and as much as its ending mounts an assault on harmonic and rhythmic norms, it does not quite match the bleakness and the grisly corporeality of the tomb scene's final moments. daniel albright writes that in romeo au tom beau "there really is little in the way of theme, and almost nothing in the way of grammar-the music seems to be a string of disconnected harsh or pathetic gestures; and in the absence of theme and grammar, the bodies of romeo and juliet surge to the foreground" (albright 2001:74). albright is describing the movement as a whole, not specifically its closing bars, but his comment captures something of the destructive process i have outlined in the pages above, where the physicality of romeo's and juliet's bodies is steadily pushed to the perceptual foreground-and, as it happens, to the musical foreground as well. romeo au tombeau's narrative is not one of teleological genesis but, we might say, one of teleological dissolution. other tomb scenes berlioz's musical conception of the tomb scene seems even more radical when compared with other composers' treatments of the same subject matter. in i capuleti ed i montecchi, for example, bellini emphasizes the tender exchange between the lovers after juliet's awakening rather than the delirium and the overwhelming sadness of the scene rather than its horrific qualities.29 his music is less pictorial, despite (or perhaps because of) the presence of actors onstage, with no depiction of romeo drinking the poison or of his physical spasms: romeo's voice weakens, trailing off ("addio ... ah! giuliet ... ") over a cadential six-four chord, and juliet's death is signaled by her exclamation "oh! dio! ... " over a double-forte dominant-ninth chord, but for all the drama bellini's rendering of the scene is more poetic than graphic.30 gounod's tomb scene from romeo et juliette matches the emotional register of berlioz's-like berlioz's setting it is a melange of ecstatic, anguished, frenzied, tender, and always molto passionato passages. its musical style is also closest to berlioz's-close enough, in fact, to suggest that gounod had berlioz in his ears when he wrote his music (note how trombones mark romeo's entrance into the tomb; how romeo sings a similar "invocation" to the sleeping juliet, set to a french translation of romeo's "0 my love, my wife" speech; and how the same diminished-seventh chord from romeo au tombeau spikes the surface of gounod's score). but in gounod's interpretation pain gives way to sweetness and even joy ("va! ce moment 63 64 current musicology est doux!" juliet sings as she stabs herself-"q joie infinie et supreme / de mourir avec toi!"), as the lovers die in each other's arms, praying for god's forgiveness. even tchaikovsky's romeo and juliet overture-jagged though it may be, with a musical representation of the feuding families, a deteriorat­ ing love theme, and a double-forte timpani roll signaling the death of the lovers-does not approach the disarray of berlioz's score. berlioz's setting is far more radical, and it was written nearly thirty years earlier. berlioz's interpretation of the scene is not sweet, not tender, not even sad; it is violent. it is also consistent with his description of the lovers' reunion, written thirty-two years after he first saw the play at the odeon theater in 1827, and published in a travers chant. his written account of the scene also emphasizes the gruesome and bewildering events at scene's end. berlioz writes about how romeo "dashes upon the funereal couch, snatches the beloved body from it, tearing the veils and the winding-sheet, and brings it to the front of the stage where he holds it upright in his arms" and then "hugs her in a distraught embrace, smooths away the hair which is hiding her pale forehead, covers her face with mad kisses, is carried away with gusts of convulsive laughter"; later he describes how "the poison is working and devouring his entrails" and how romeo "drags himself along on his knees, delirious" (berlioz 1971 b:3 78-79).31 romeo au tombeau is nothing less than a musical realization of berlioz's memory of the scene, a musical equivalent of the "frantic strife of love and death" that, he tells us in his memoirs, so overwhelmed him at those first performances (berlioz 2002:73). why might he have interpreted it this way as opposed to another? it could simply be that the scene appealed to his fascination with the macabre. but it could also be that his emphasis on physical gesture reflects not just his memo­ ries of the scene in general but his memories of seeing harriet smithson in the role of juliet. in his memoirs berlioz writes how he was struck above all by the "play of expression and voice and gesture," which "told me more and gave me a far richer awareness of the ideas and passions of the original than the words of [pierre letourneur'sl pale and garbled translation could do" (berlioz 2002:73). what is striking here is how he plainly rejects the words as a primary carrier of meaning-also that his three categories (expression, voice, and gesture) correspond to the three stages along romeo au tombeau's trajectory from the emotional to the physical (obviously berlioz does not write "expression, then voice, then gesture;' but his comments do suggest how attentive he was to these types of musical utterance). we should also remember that the first and only time berlioz saw the play it was performed in english, a language he barely understood32--small wonder then that his memories of the play would be fundamentally gestural rather than textual, and that his setting of the tomb scene would reflect what he saw and felt as much as what he read. stephen rodgers the scene d1amour's opposite a more revealing comparison, however, is not with berlioz's written descrip­ tion of the scene, or even with other composers' settings of it, but with the scene d' amour. the formal process of romeo au tombeau comes into sharper relief when we consider the movement an antithesis to the scene, a reversal of the trajectory set forth in its twin movement. space does not permit a full discussion of the interaction between the idiosyncratic form of the scene d' amour and its program, a task that at any rate i have pursued elsewhere (rodgers 2009:107-34),33 but even a rough sketch of the changing relations between the two will demonstrate how diametrically opposed the tombeau and the scene are. admittedly, compared to the other movements of the symphony, romeo au tombeau and the scene d'amour have a lot in common. they are the only two instances of programmatic love music in the symphony and the only two that berlioz explicitly links in the preface to the symphony.34 but the differences are notable. first, from a thematic point of view, berlioz's balcony scene is constructive, while his tomb scene is destructive. the scene develops slowly, out of what albright has aptly called a "quarry of motives" (2001 :66); the two main lyrical themes (first heard in mm. 146 and 246) emerge from this nocturnal backdrop, like the lovers' tentative voices. and they are joined in the famous "love theme" that first appears in m. 274 and becomes the subject of a long series of strophic elaborations. the first of these lyrical themes is the very melody-romeo's theme-that is rent apart in section 5 of romeo au tombeau: what was so carefully created in one movement is destroyed in the other. second, the scene moves from the particular to the general, while romeo au tombeau moves from the general to the particular. at no point in the scene d' amour is the music quite as literally descriptive as the final sections of romeo au tom beau; there are no shrieks and convulsions, no poison and daggers, and i am inclined to agree with micznik that the movement is generally more connotative than denotative, often describing the dramatic setting or evoking the overall mood rather than following the verbal narra­ tive step-by-step (2000:38). that said, there are moments when the music seems to suggest particular sounds and speeches from the play and when it seems not yet fully "constituted," and, unlike in romeo au tom beau, those moments fall earlier in the movement rather than later. consider the very opening section (mm. 129 ff.), with its multi-layered, amorphous texture and its gently twittering bird calls, a seeming homage to beethoven's szene am bach, and a perfect musical picture of the warm verona night full of promise and life. consider also the themes themselves. opinions may vary 65 66 current musicology about which characters these themes represent: most writers associate the "canto" melody from m. 146 (and later m. 172) with romeo, specifically with his heartfelt replies to juliet's opening lines "but soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" (ii.ii.l ff.), and some relate those lines of juliet's with the sparse clarinet and english horn melody in m. 127, the very melody that returns to signal "juliet's awakening" in the tomb movement; some also imagine juliet in the lyrical f-sharp minor theme beginning in m. 246, particularly her speech that begins "thou knowst the mask of night is on my face ... " however, it is generally assumed that these themes represent characters, even by those, like donald francis tovey, who are suspicious of overly programmatic interpretations. 35 the same cannot be said of the music in the rest of the movement. the love theme cannot be convincingly linked to any speech from the play or, for that matter, to any character. it has been taken by many to represent the union of the lovers, since it combines features of their themes.36 here again we see how markedly the two movements differ: whereas in romeo au tombeau romeo's and juliet's themes dissolve, in the scene d'amour they emerge and are transformed into the main theme of the movement, a symbol of their love's realization. the subsequent strophic variations to the love theme and the episodes that fall between those variations bear no direct relation to events or passages from the play.37 it is as though having established the setting and presented the listener with clear images of romeo and julietin that setting, berlioz draws back from the literary narrative and pursues the musical narrative instead. from the moment the love theme cadences in m. 292, the music continually evades closure and with every evasion spawns a new strophe of the love theme-an analogue for the senti­ ment "parting is such sweet sorrow" and a musical device that "indirectly" imitates a dramatic device. romeo au tombeau thus emerges as the scene d'amour's opposite, an annihilation of the musical themes, the musical promise, and indeed the musical sense of the scene d' amour. in this light, it seems even more "raw," but at the same time the reason for its rawness becomes even more apparent. it not only reverses the scene d'amour, but destroys it. the work cannot be fully appreciated from an analytical point of view unless we recognize how berlioz modulates the relation between sound and story according to the situation at hand. the same could be said of the scene d'amour, and indeed of all of berlioz's programmatic works. no matter their programmatic contexts or musical designs, no matter whether they are constructive or destructive, orderly or disjointed, the ever-changing interaction of their programs and their music is not inconsequential or accidental, but a vital contributor to their expressive meaning. after all, program music is, as jacques barzun stephen rodgers reminds us, not music merely "pock -marked with imitative effects" (barzun 1950, 1:176). "pock-marked" implies diseased, blemished, and brings to mind a work with unsightly, random spots on it. but program music like romeo au tombeau is "marked" with imitative effects of all kinds-finely and deliberately textured. by paying attention to when and why those marks appear, we can better appreciate the novelty, and the subtlety, of berlioz's programmatic experiments. notes 1. garrick's version of the play, first published in 1750, is largely faithful to shakespeare's original but contains some significant alternations, the most important being the addition of several lines in the tomb scene where the lovers speak to one another before they die. many features of garrick's version appear in the french translation of the play by pierre letourneur, which berlioz would have known. the version of the play used in the 1827 paris performances (with harriet smithson playing juliet) was essentially garrick's but included modifications by john philip kemble. kemble's version strays little from garrick's, except that it omits the funeral procession for juliet and ends with the lovers' deaths. for a thorough comparison of these versions, see kemp 1992 and rushton 1994. the text of garrick's denouement is printed in berlioz 1990:x. 2. see rushton 1994:73,77-79 for a summary of the negative critical reception of the move­ ment by berlioz's contemporaries, as well as by later writers. 3. translated in rushton 1994:77. 4. see berlioz 1978:334-5. 5. for a fuller expression of barzun's views on program music, see his chapter "program music and the unicorn" in the same book (1950, 1:171-98). he revisits the issue-though not romeo au tombeau specifically-in a recent essay about berlioz and the possibility of meaning in music (barzun 2008). 6. micznik does implicitly recognize that a work's degree of narrativity can fluctuate. she writes, for example, that" [t 1 he only occasions in beethoven when the degree of narrativity increases are when the discourse cycles do not correspond to the musical structural cycles: as noted earlier, the unexpected unusual excessive repetitions during the development section (frequency of events and their duration) generate discursive semantic meanings which add nuanced layers of dance frenzy to the prevailing pastoral topic" (2001:235-6). the thrust of her argument, however, has to do with demonstrating how mahler's movement is more narrative than beethoven's. 7. hepokoski makes this comment in the context of an article about strauss's tone poem don juan, noting that in a programmatic work such as this, it is useful to ask if and when music and program are working in parallel or at cross purposes: "can (or must) the music drop out of the narrative at certain points for such 'purely musical reasons' as the traditional requirement of formal recapitulation?" (1992: 138). 8. the carpani book that furnished berlioz with these terms, and the starting point for his essay, is le haydine, ouvero lettere su la vita e ie opere del celebre guiseppe haydn (1823). 9. berlioz uses both the terms metaphore and analogie in his essay. the contemporary theory of metaphor, which owes its biggest debt to the pioneering work of george lakoff and mark johnson (see especially lakoff and johnson 1980 and johnson 1987), would of course cat67 68 current musicology egorize both of berlioz's imitation types as metaphorical-since music can neither literally roll like a stone nor be dreamy. we imagine it rolling like a stone or being dreamy because we recognize a correspondence between a musical idea and a non-musical one, mapping ideas from one "conceptual domain" onto ideas from another. in the case of emotional imitation and the "dreamy" aria from der freischutz, the other conceptual domain is that of human emotion; in the case of physical imitation and the rolling stone from fidelia, it is that of physical gesture. the literature on music and metaphor is as varied as it is vast. for a recent, useful overview of scholarship on music and metaphor, see zbikowski 2008. for further discussion of berlioz's ideas about metaphor and what they owe to late eighteenthand early nineteenth-century french aesthetics, see rodgers 2009: 39-61. 10. see berlioz 1972: 170. an english translation of the footnote appears in berlioz 1971a:28-29. 11. to choose one prominent example, in one of his many books on musical aesthetics, sound and semblance: reflections on musical representation, the philosopher peter kivy rejects the term "imitation" in favor of the term "representation": "the artist does not give us a copy or a counterfeit, in a word, an 'imitation' oflife. rather, he re-presents it in his own medi um, giving it coherence, designing a pattern" (1984: 17). representation is generally the favored term in contemporary philosophical discussions of music. some scholars, however, still maintain a distinction between "imitation" and "representation." see grove music online (accessed may 1,2009), s.v. "programme music" (by roger scruton): http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/article/grove/music/22394, and taruksin 1985. 12. the question of whether music is capable of representing anything at all, and how musi­ cal representation relates to musical expression, has been hotly contested in philosophical circles over the past few decades, just as it was contested in the nineteenth century. see in particular scruton 1976, robinson 1987, davies 1993, kivy 2007, and nussbaum 2007:23-86, 189-258. all of berlioz's writings indicate that he fully recognized the possibility of musical representation, even ifhe was also aware of its limits. the debate about music's representa­ tional capabilities has of course raged in musicological circles as well, with authors such as anthony newcomb, susan mcclary, and lawrence kramer (to name only a few) adopting a skeptical stance towards claims that music is "absolute:' arguing that it cannot help but tell stories and refer to ideas outside itself. see especially newcomb 1984, mcclary 1993, and kramer 2002. the noted berliozian david cairns makes a similar claim in the first volume of his biography of berlioz, the making of an artist (1989:362). 13. for a summary of some of these debates, see jones 1995:81-88. 14. rushton also delineates six main sections, which he calls ai, a2, b3, b4, a'5, and a'6, highlighting the larger slow-fast-slow structure (a-b-a') (2001:270). see also rushton 1994:52. 15. the line comes from chapter 35 of berlioz's memoirs, in a discussion of bellini's i capuleti ed i montecchi (2002:142). 16. see rushton 1994:100-101. the music to the second prologue appears in berlioz 1990:414-18. 17. rushton describes it as such-"romeo breaks open the tomb" (2001:270)-in a chart that lists the sections of the form and their programmatic contents. d. kern holoman hears the passage as representing both romeo's arrival at the vault and his fight with paris, though he makes no reference to anything as specific as sword strokes (berlioz 1990:x). 18. the terms "displacement" and "grouping" dissonance are defined and used extensively in krebs 1999; they originate in kaminsky 1989:27. stephen rodgers 19. the harmonic support of:3 is somewhat weak, since viio7/v is a passing chord between a predominant and a dominant, but the linear descent is nonetheless prominently outlined in the score, and aurally perceptible. 20. garrick's denouement is reprinted in berlioz 1990:385~86. 21. these are the headings in the 1847 and subsequent published scores. in the 1839 libretto they appear as invocation~reveil de juliette. elan de joie delirante, brise par les premieres at­ teintes du poison~dernieres angoisses et mort des deux amants. 22. for a particularly clear discussion of meter and metrical accent, see schachter 1987. 23. see dell'antonio 2004 for several perceptive examinations (and critiques) of the con­ cept of structural listening. this essay collection takes its lead from an influential chapter in rosengard subotnik's deconstructive variations, "toward a deconstruction of structural listening: a critique of schoenberg, adorno, and stravinsky" (1996: 148~76). an earlier essay of subotnik's, "romantic music as post-kantian critique: classicism, romanticism, and the concept of the semiotic universe;' prefigures some of her later ideas and aptly characterizes the passage in question from the tomb movement: "unable any longer to simulate the tem­ poral generation of a logically unified meaning out of a single tonal premise, the romantic piece seems to go about defining a universe of meaning in a spatial manner, by broadening the concept of musical structure ... what is primarily involved ... is ... an individuation of essentially nonimplicational musical parameters and their internal components, especially parameters other than harmony, such as melody, dynamics, and timbre-although one could include purely coloristic aspects of harmony as examples of sonority in itself" (subotnik 1981:84~85). 24. rushton (1994:109, n. 109) describes this passage as "berlioz's most modernistic; for once the cliche 'ahead of its time' seems exactly right." the falling fourths, he says, anticipate schoenberg's kammersinfonie no.1, and the repeated treble pitches suggest the opening of nielsen's fifth symphony. 25. macdonald (1969) relates the oboe melody to the oboe solo in romeo seul, and rush­ ton (1994:109, n. 15) hears it as a reference to the end of section 3, with its chromatically inflected ~2 and #7. kemp (1992:77) hears many recollections of earlier material in romeo au tombeau, not only in the final section but throughout, and not only to material in the tomb movement and the scene d'amour but also to music from the entire symphony. "[t]he course of the symphony (or of the love of romeo and juliet);' he writes, "flashes past like distorted echo." some of these reminiscences seem farfetched-like m. 101 of romeo au tombeau, where the horns playa fast upper-neighbor figure with quarter~eighth rhythm, and m. 35 of the nuit sereine, where the horns also playa slow upper-neighbor figure in a totally different rhythm. but others are more salient-like the repeated e quarter notes in the flute and violin in mm. 126 ff. of the convoi funebre, which bear some resemblance to the repeated es atop the diminished-seventh chord in mm. 158 ff. of the tombeau, even if the convoi's harmonic context is different and its meter much clearer. 26. interestingly, rushton acknowledges this misalignment in his earlier movement: "harmonically, this is a perfect cadence, but the texture remains hopelessly disruptive" (1994:56). 27. "the foreground shows a striking failure of the cadential bass-line to support the fall of the upper line" (rushton 2001:272). 28. schenker objected precisely to the surface effects in berlioz's music (and in programmatic music in general), which he believed betrayed a lack of technical skill and "musical synthesis." in an unpublished text, uber den niedergang der kompositionskunst, dating back to as early as 1905, and translated and edited by william drabkin in 2005, schenker criticizes berlioz's 69 70 current musicology music because "its effects lie on the surface:' while mozart's "lie deeper and are resolved so wonderfully in its perfection" (schenker 2005:'76). and in the harmonielehre, he faults berlioz for writing a strange harmonic progression in the marche au supplice~d-flat to g in the context of g minor~arguing that because the harmonies are not unfolded motivically or thematically, they sound "suspended in mid-air" (schenker 1980:113, n. 13). what schenker regarded as a compositional error i regard as an expressive device. earlier passages in romeo au tombeau such as romeo's "aria," and many other passages in berlioz's work, show that his music is sometimes organized around long-range linear spans; at the end of the movement, however, local harmonic color and rhythmic dissonance take precedence. for another discus­ sion of surface trumping depth, see fink 1999, which explores "surface ascents" that do not rely on underlying voice-leading constructs. in romeo au tombeau, surface also trumps depth, weakening the apparent structural descent, but offering no surface-level line to replace it. 29. berlioz of course despised bellini's opera. he objected to the use of a female voice for romeo~he writes that romeo's "despair when he is exiled, his terrible numb resignation at the news of juliet's death, his frenzy as the poison begins to work ... were the common attribute of eunuchs!" (berlioz 2002: 142 )~and looked in vain for his favorite moments from shakespeare's play, not realizing that neither bellini nor his librettist felice romani actually knew shakespeare's play: the libretto draws upon the sixteenth-century sources that would have inspired shakespeare and, as collins (1982) has shown, on giulietta e romeo, a little­ known italian neoclassical tragedy by luigi sevolo (milan, 1818). "bitter disappointment!" berlioz concludes. "the opera contained no ball at the capulets', no mercutio, no garrulous nurse, no grave and tranquil hermit, no balcony scene, no sublime soliloquy for juliet as she takes the hermit's phial, no duet in the cell between the banished romeo and the disconsolate friar, no shakespeare, nothing~a squandered opportunity" (berlioz 2002:142). 30. nicolai vaccai's setting of these events, which originally appeared in his 1825 opera giu­ lietta e romeo but later, by established custom, replaced bellini's final act, is similar in style to bellini's: again, the moment when romeo takes the poison is chilling (with eerie string tremolos~a feature common to vaccai, bellini, and berlioz) but not overtly descriptive and romeo's final strains are fragmented but not spasmodic. juliet's following aria, in which she expresses her grief and then dies, is dramatic but rather conventional. 31. cited and translated in kemp 1992:74. 32. berlioz admits that he "did not know a word of english" when he saw the play: "i could only glimpse shakespeare darkly through the mists of letourneur's translation; the splendour of the poetry which gives a whole new glowing dimension to his glorious works was lost on me" (berlioz 2002:73). 33. bartoli (2008) also offers a perceptive analysis of the movement, which relates it to the adagio from beethoven's ninth symphony. 34. see berlioz 1990:383. 35. tovey has written that "nothing is easier or safer than to identify the cantabile of the 'cellos and other tenor instruments with romeo, and that of the soprano instruments with juliet" (1936:87). 36. for a discussion of the various transformations that produce the love theme, see bass 1964:205-208 and rodgers 2009: 117-18. 37. the one exception might be the percussive interjection of the strings in mm. 332 ff., which tovey believes "is undoubtedly intended for the 'noise within' made by the nurse" (1936:87). barzun, however, disagrees: "at no point is there any reason to suppose that berlioz was ... depicting the nurse's knock on juliet's door" (1950,1:332), adding a sarcastic barb in a footnote: "where will critics find the nurse's husband's bawdy joke?" (1950, 1:332, n. 46) stephen rodgers references albright, daniel. 2001. berlioz's semi-operas. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. avison, charles. 1752. essay on musical expression. london: c. davis. bartoli, jean-pierre. 2008. beethoven, shakespeare, and berlioz's scene d'amour. in berlioz: scenes from the life and work, edited by peter bloom, 138-60. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. barzun, jacques. 1950. berlioz and the romantic century, 2 vols. boston: little, brown and company. ---. 2008. the music in the music of berlioz. in berlioz: scenes from the life and work, edited by peter bloom, 11-25. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. bass, eddie covington. 1964. thematic procedures in the symphonies of berlioz. phd disserta­ tion, university of north carolina. batteux, charles. 1746. les beaux-art reduits a un meme principe. paris: durand. beattie, james. 1779. essays, 3rd edition. london: printed for e. and c. dilly; and w. creech, edinburgh. berlioz, hector. 1971a. on imitation in music, translated by jacques barzun with restorations by edward t. cone. in berlioz: fantastic symphony, edited by cone, 36-46. new york and london: w.w. norton and co. ---. 1971b. a travers chant, edited by leon guichard. paris: grund. ---. 1972. new edition of the complete works. vol. 16: symphonie fantastique, edited by nicholas temperley. kassel: barenreiter. ---. 1978. correspondance generale de hector berlioz. vol. iii: 1842-50. edited by pierre citron. paris: flammarion. ---. 1990. new edition of the complete works. vol. 18: romeo et juliette, edited by d. kern holoman. kassel: barenreiter. ---. 2002. the memoirs of hector berlioz, translated and edited by david cairns. new york: knopf. bonds, mark evan. 1996. after beethoven: imperatives of originality in the symphony. cambridge, ma. harvard university press. cairns, david. 1989. berlioz 1803-1832: the making of an artist. london: deutsch. carp ani, guiseppe. 1823. le haydine, ouvero lettere su la vita e ie opere del celebre guiseppe haydn. 2nd edition. padua. facsimile edition, bologna, 1969. chabanon, michel paul gui de. 1779. observations sur la musique. paris: chez pissot. collins, michael. 1982. the literary background of bellini's i capuleti ed i montecchi. journal of the american musicological society 35 (3): 532-38. darcy, warren. 1997. bruckner's sonata deformations. in bruckner studies, edited by paul hawkshaw and timothy l. jackson, 256-77. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. davies, stephen. 1993. representation in music. journal of aesthetic education 27: 16-22. dell'antonio, anthony, ed. 2004. beyond structural listening?: postmodern modes of hearing. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. d'ortigue, joseph. 1839. la quotidienne, moniteur de l'avenir. december 26 and 27, 1839. dubiel, joseph. 2004. uncertainty, disorientation, and loss as responses to musical structure. in beyond structural listening?: postmodern modes of hearing, edited by andrew dell' antonio, 173-200. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. du bos, jean-baptiste. 1719. reflexions critiques sur la poesie, la peinture et la musique. paris: mariette. fink, robert. 1999. going flat: post-hierarchical music theory and the musical surface. in rethinking music, edited by nicholas cook and mark everist, 102-37. oxford and new york: oxford university press. 71 72 current musicology garrick, david. 1750. romeo and juliet. by shakespear. with alternations, and an additional scene: as it is performed at the theatre-royal in drury-lane. london: j.r. tonson and s. draper. hepokoski, james. 1992. fiery-pulsed libertine or domestic hero? strauss's don juan reinvestigated. in richard strauss: new perspectives on the composer and his works, edited by brian gilliam, 135-76. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. ---. 1993. sib eli us: symphony no.5. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. hosler, bellamy. 1981. changing aesthetic views of instrumental music. ann arbor: umi research press. johnson, marle 1987. the body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. chicago and london: university of chicago press. jones, david wyn. 1995. beethoven: pastoral symphony. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press kaminsky, peter. 1989. aspects of harmony, rhythm, and form in schumann's papillons, carnaval and davidsbiindlertanze. phd dissertation, university of rochester. kemp, ian. 1991. romeo and juliet and romeo et juliette. in berlioz studies, edited by peter bloom, 37-79. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. kivy, peter. 1991. sound and semblance: reflections on musical representation, 2nd ed. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. ---.2007. in defense of musical representation: music, representation, and the hybrid arts. in music, language, and cognition and other essays in the aesthetics of music, 199-213. oxford: clarendon press. kramer, lawrence. 2002. musical meaning: toward a critical history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. krebs, harald. 1999. fantasy pieces: metrical dissonance in the music of robert schumann. oxford and new york: oxford university press. lacepede, comte de, bernard germain etienne de la ville sur ilion. 1785. la poetique de la musique. 2 vols. paris. lakoff, george and mark johnson. 1980. metaphors we live by. chicago and london: university of chicago press. lippman, edward. 1992. a history of western musical aesthetics. lincoln: university of nebraska press. maurel, jules. 1839. la france musicale. december 1, 1839. macdonald, hugh. 1969. berlioz orchestral music. london: bbc publications. mcclary, susan. 1993. narrative agendas in "absolute" music: identity and difference in brahms's third symphony. in musicology and difference: gender and sexuality in music scholarship, edited by ruth a. solie, 326-344. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press micznik, vera. 2000. of ways of telling, intertextuality, and historical evidence in berlioz's romeo et juliette. 19th-century music 240): 21-61. ---.2001. music and narrative revisited: degrees ofnarrativity in beethoven and mahler. journal of the royal music association 126 (2): 193-249. morellet, andre. 1818. de l'expression en musique et de l'imitation dans les arts, in melanges de literature et de philosophie. paris: chez mme. ve. lepetit. neubauer, john. 1986. the emancipation of music from language. new haven, ct, and london: yale university press. newcomb, anthony. 1984. once more between absolute and program music: schumann's second symphony. 19th-century music 7 (3): 233-50. stephen rodgers ~~-. 1992. narrative archetypes and mahler's ninth symphony. in music and text: critical inquiries, edited by steven paul scher, 118-36. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. nussbaum, charles o. 2007. the musical representation: meaning, ontology, and emotion. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. robinson, jenefer. 1987. music as a representational art. in what is music?: an introduction to the philosophy of music, edited by philip alperson, 167-92. new york: haven publications. rodgers, stephen. 2009. form, program, and metaphor in the music of berlioz. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. rushton, julian. 1994. berlioz: romeo et juliette. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ~~-. 2001. the music of berlioz. oxford and new york: oxford university press. schachter, carl. 1987. rhythm and linear analysis: aspects of meter. music forum 5: 197-232. schenker, heinrich. 1954. harmony, edited and annotated by oswald jonas. translated by elisabeth mann borgese. chicago and london: university of chicago press. ~~-. 2005. the decline of the art of composition: a technical-critical study. translated by william drabkin. music analysis 24 (1-2): 33-129. scruton, roger. 1976. representation in music. philosophy 51: 273-87. ~~-. 1997. the aesthetics of music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. shakespeare, william. 1974. romeo and juliet. in the riverside shakespeare, edited by g. blakemore evans, 1055-99. boston: houghton mifflin company. smart, mary ann. 2004. mimomania: music and gesture in nineteenth-century opera. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. smith, adam. 1795. of the nature of that imitation which takes place in what are called the imitative arts. in essays on philosophical subjects, 131-78. london: t. cadell, jun. and w.davies. subotnik, rosengard. 1981. romantic music as post-kantian critique: classicism, romanticism, and the concept of semiotic universe. in on music: five philosophical perspectives, edited by kingsley price, 74-98. baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. ~~-. 1996. deconstructive variations: music and reason in western society. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. taruskin, richard. 1985. review of sound and semblance: reflections on musical representation, by peter kivy. journal of music theory 29 (2): 347-58. todorov, tzvetan. 1971. poetique de la prose. paris, editions du seuil. tovey, donald francis. 1936. essays in musical analysis. vol, iv: illustrative music. oxford and new york: oxford university press. winn, james anderson. 1981. unsuspected eloquence: a history of the relations between poetry and music. new haven ct, and london: yale university press. zbikowski, lawrence m. 2008. metaphor and music. in the cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, edited by raymond w. gibbs, jr., 502-24. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. 73 current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 151 sarah kay. 2013. parrots and nightingales: troubadour quotation and the development of european poetry. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. reviewed by anne levitsky the troubadour lyric corpus has fascinated other authors and scholars since it flourished in the twelfth century. quotations and citations of the lyric appear in a variety of medieval genres, preserved today in sources from a number of different geographical locations. sarah kay’s detailed book examines the processes of quotation and citation of the occitan lyric that appear in numerous medieval texts (in italian, french, catalan, latin, and a few occitan sources), and the effects inclusion of the lyric in these texts had on an understanding of both the newer works and the older lyric. kay separates the sources she analyzes into two large methods, or “ways.” direct quotations of occitan lyric, labeled the “parrots’ way,” are differentiated from cited instances, labeled the “nightingales’ way” (which emphasize re–creation of the lyric occitan texts rather than repeating them word–for–word). the majority of the book is concerned with the parrots’ way, which elevates and promotes the occitan language via direct quotation. kay is primarily interested in the quotation’s ability to alter the meaning of a text. she argues that quotation of the lyric “plays with expectations of knowledge and recognition; it summons subjects of knowledge and recognition into existence; but it does not necessarily ratify them” (kay 2013, 19). kay bolsters her argument with help from jacques lacan’s concept of “the subject supposed to know” (“le sujet supposé savoir”), which allows her to interact with the subjective ambiguity and connection between knowledge and desire that defines the troubadour lyric corpus. quotation and citation create a web of subjects and subject positions that are never fully revealed or explained. the subject of the quoted lyric is obscured—the reader is led to assume or presuppose knowledge of the quotation’s speaker by virtue of the quoting author’s positioning of the quotation itself. the author frames the quotation, allowing the reader to assume ideas about the quoted subject. the reverse is also true—the author may assume his reader has certain knowledge of the lyric tradition and will recognize and read the quote in a specific manner. this act of assumption or presupposition is based on the idea that “knowledge presupposes a series of subjects that are difficult to locate, and that subjects 152 current musicology are supposed to have knowledge that is difficult or impossible to specify” (19). the speaking subject of the quoted text remains ambiguous, while the reader and author desire knowledge of the material the quotation presumes knowledge (or ignorance) of. kay’s psychoanalytical method offers a beneficial entry point for understanding the complicated intersubjective structure of desire, power, and subjectivity that comprises each lyric text and the corpus as a whole. a number of different “worlds” collide in any given lyric text—the physical world of the living poet and the carefully regulated world of courtly love chief among them. the concept of a psychoanalytic subject that changes depending on the subject’s position in the lyric offers a possible means of comprehending the relationships between these worlds. kay’s psychoanalytic approach is a useful tool in the exploration of the connections between subjects, as it allows modern scholars to understand the myriad changes in subject position that occur (sometimes rapidly) within both the quoted material and its quotation in later sources. after a brief introduction to the study of troubadour poetry (which makes the rest of the book accessible to scholars who are not intimately familiar with the lyric and occitan poetry), the book divides into three large parts, each containing shorter chapters devoted to the text of one or two authors who quote or cite the troubadours. part i explores in its first chapter the razos de trobar of raimon vidal de besalú and other grammar treatises, evaluating how their authors seek to make occitan poets authorities just as latin poets were treated in latin grammars. much is at stake here, including the expansion of occitan from a regional poetic language to a more universal one and the extension of a latin–style scholasticism into the vernacular, and kay lucidly delineates the ways in which the authors of occitan grammars push their language beyond its lyric boundaries. in the second chapter, kay turns to raimon vidal de besalú’s novas (short didactic verse narratives), evincing how the quotation of the lyric in the novas relies not only on the knowledge transmitted by the lyric quotation itself, but also on what knowledge the reader has of their poetry—it is a challenge to know what one is supposed to know, and who already knows it. chapters 3 and 4 deal with the act of creating compilations of troubadour poetry, both in chansonniers, or songbooks, of the lyric, and in florilegia, a compilation of excerpts from other writings. kay situates her discussion of the occitan vidas and razos found in chansonniers within the relationship between quoting and other forms of copying. she highlights the ways in which the semi–biographical texts serve as both texts and paratexts, both indicating the organization of the manuscript’s contents while providing biographical information for the troubadours whose works they 153 anne levitsky accompany. florilegia, on the other hand, compile excerpts of works to create anthologies, “mutilating” the poems by preserving only one stanza and leaving out the rest. the distortion of the poems frees them from their original frameworks, allowing their quotation and transmission in new contexts. part ii elucidates the differences between the nightingales’ way and the parrots’ way through investigation of two thirteenth–century texts. chapter 5 analyzes the interpolated romance le roman de la rose ou guillaume de dole, an example of the nightingales’ way that uses lyric as a kind of saturation point to mark where the text is particularly rich in affect and underscores the song’s status as a song. chapter 6 is devoted to two occitan short stories that exemplify the themes of quotation kay discusses throughout the book: the “otherness of language to the speaker, the fabrication in language of identities and desires, and the repetitions it involves whether it is explicitly quoted or not” (118). the chapters at the book’s center serve to make plain kay’s distinction between quotation and citation, exemplifying the two methods and how their usage might affect the text in which they are incorporated. part iii looks at several occitan sources and two italian texts. the sources examined in part iii expand on and transform the methods of quotation outlined in part i, as each author presents himself differently to obtain diverse forms of knowledge and authority from his troubadour sources. kay includes discussions of dante and petrarch along with troubadours such as matfre ermengau to illustrate the trajectory of the parrots’ way and its transition into the works of later authors. kay investigates the different sources in each chapter through the lens of subjectivity, a theme intrinsic to the lyric corpus. as seen in kay’s (1990) earlier work and the subsequent scholarship of judith peraino (2011), the concept of a “subject” or a “subject position” is often at stake within troubadour lyric. this subjectivity—which kay argues is changed via quotation—is charged with certain types of power and expertize, connected to desire for certain ideas and objects. for example, the subject position of the lover in the lyric desires his (usually unattainable) beloved, or the subject position of the poet may desire favor from his patron. numerous subject positions can appear in one poetic text, making any discussion of the lyric difficult without a frame through which to view these subjective shifts. kay (2013, 16) explores how quotations and citations illuminate the intersubjectivity of the lyric, which she describes as “the relations forged between and thereby constituting subjects.” her study of this intersubjectivity looks at the problems surrounding the construction of a subject position within the quoted material by both original author and quoting author. 154 current musicology while kay’s work attends to a written tradition, her framework for examining quotation and citation is valuable for understanding the poetic discourse initiated through live performance of troubadour songs. live performance of the songs precipitates an ambiguous subject in a similar manner to the lyric, as the performer simultaneously interacts with numerous subject positions. live performance also instigates presuppositions of knowledge and desire for that knowledge, as the performer seemingly becomes an authority on the relationships presented within the song. the listening, physically present audience desires knowledge of the authorial subject’s “story” and connection to historically viable people. the book also exhibits how quotation and citation can be used to understand authorial intent. while kay does not explore in detail the question of medieval authorship in parrots and nightingales, she has eloquently and succinctly addressed it in her earlier work (see kay 1990). the idea of the medieval author is especially problematic in the troubadour corpus, where the concept of an author does not approach today’s definition of the word (a single figure who is the intellectual origin of the material produced). the names and attributions we have today are transmitted in the chansonniers and the other sources kay includes in her book, most of which were compiled or written a century or so after the height of troubadour performance and production. the concept of “autobiographical assumption,” clearly articulated in subjectivity in troubadour poetry, engages with the thirteenth to mid–twentieth–century assumption that the “i” of troubadour lyric referred to a “supposed author and that the ideas and feelings expressed there [in the lyric] are in some sense his or hers” (kay 1990, 2).1 the introduction to subjectivity parses the concept of an individual author, its history and reaction against it, and reworks it for kay’s own analyses. reading kay’s earlier work alongside parrots and nightingales provides a coherent discussion of the question of medieval authorship while thickening the complexity of her arguments regarding supposed knowledge. the music associated with troubadour poetry does not make much of an appearance in the book, though it is no fault of kay’s. she makes clear early on that most quotations are transmitted without music, but she demonstrates that even without melodic transmission the appearance of song–as–poetry in medieval texts can reflect on their melodies and their position as songs, positing their musical elements as supposed or desired knowledge. in her discussion of jean renart’s le roman de la rose ou guillaume de dole as an example of the nightingales’ way in chapter 5, the songs present in the narrative romance appear not as songs with lyrics that can be read and understood, but as unintelligible, purely musical 155 anne levitsky examples of the “art of song.” kay argues that the songs in guillaume de dole (including three troubadour songs: jaufre rudel’s “lanquan li jorn,” daude de pradas’s “bele m’est la voix altane,” and bernart de ventadorn’s “quan vei la lauzeta mover”) act as aural stains on the written language, and are referred to as such by jean renart in his prologue—as embroidery on the fabric of the narrative text. reading the song as blot allows kay (2013, 96) to interpret the instances of singing in the text as “points where the text becomes dense with sexual or social affect without necessarily assigning it meaning.” the lyric in the romance highlights not the meaning of its text but its essence as song, accentuating its function as a form of vocal expression and receptacle for the sound of the singing voice. guillaume’s romance produces a clear distinction between the nightingales’ use of the musical sound of the lyric to conceal linguistic significance and the parrots’ use of the lyric as text imbued with meaning. the idea that music symbolizes an object that defies meaning while possessing the ability to be written down is particularly intriguing. it connects somewhat to the ideas of vox articulata and vox confusa that appear in numerous musical and grammar treatises.2 vox articulata, or articulate voice, is defined by its ability to be written down, which also makes it “rational.” vox confusa—confused, or undifferentiated voice—cannot be written down. these two early categories are further partitioned by sixth–century grammarian priscian (and enumerated in later treatises, including thomas of cantimpré’s thirteenth–century opus de natura rerum and the early fifteenth–century nova musica of johannes ciconia), who explains that articulate voices are named as such because they contain the ability to be written down, but also because they restrict the listener to themselves alone for understanding. this distinction means that voices can be either rational or irrational and literate or illiterate, giving rise to four possible combinations. the aural blot kay describes in renart’s rose can be written down but, according to kay, is too concentrated in affect to be restricted to itself alone for understanding, and therefore falls into the category of vox confusa. kay’s description of the songs as objects that transition (via citation) from carrying meaning and the ability to be written down (clear examples of vox articulata) to objects stripped of their ability to be understood on their own can help modern scholars understand more about the role of song and singing in medieval courtly society. in renart’s romance, song is used in a very different way both from the way it appears in lyric chansonniers and from the way scholars of the lyric assume it was performed in courtly settings. kay’s reading of renart’s rose shows us that song, even 156 current musicology sans melody, can be used as a textual device to stand in for the experience of feeling or emotion, performing social or emotional connection without an explicit explanation. a similar phenomenon appears in the recent work of marisa galvez, though the connection runs in the opposite direction. in a paper given at the 2015 suny–binghamton cemers conference, galvez argues that, in the jeu de st. agnès (a fourteenth–century hagiographic play written in occitan) the fragmentary melody of “bel seiner dieus,” commonly recognized as a contrafact of guilhem ix’s “pos de chantar,” imbues guilhem’s poem with pious affect purely through the use of its melody as a contrafact. here, meaning is also transferred into affect by separation of the “original” words from the melody. the earlier melodic element of guilhem’s song is reframed, its newly sacred setting lending a previously secular melody a tinge of piety. renart’s rose and the jeu de st. agnès reveal that the musical components of troubadour lyric and occitan texts can be quoted just like their textual counterparts, and that their inclusion in textual sources (whether or not musical notation is included) can similarly enter the web of supposed knowledge that is enacted with every quotation of occitan lyric. kay’s discussion of jofre de foixà’s canso “be m’a lonc temps menat a guiza d’aura” and gilles de viés–maison’s trouvère chanson “se per mon chant me deüse aligier” showcases another way in which the musical elements of occitan texts can be quoted and enter into the supposition of knowledge. both songs include incipits from other songs (jofre quotes his at the end of each stanza) and are influenced by gace brulé’s trouvère chanson “tant m’a mené force de signorage,” which leads kay to speculate about the possibility that jofre adopted gace’s melody for performance as well. she explains that if jofre did use gace’s melody as a contrafact, the incipits of the famous songs jofre quotes (supposing the audience had knowledge of their melodies) would be displaced by the final line of gace’s melody and would relate musically to its preceding melodic lines, creating a rift between the audience’s association of the quoted troubadour incipits with their original melodies and the reality of the performance of jofre’s song—but as the song is transmitted without a melody, we cannot know for certain what actually happened. sarah kay’s book has manifold implications for musicologists working on medieval song, poetry, and literature. her analyses supply numerous methods for approaching and understanding quotation and citation as both poetic and musical objects. they allow for exploration of the role of quotation and citation within the realm of sung performance, offering starting points from which to examine the way 157 anne levitsky quotation changes the authority of singing the lyric, and what type of relationship is re–forged between the words and the melody of lyric quotations. notes 1. for more on the concept of “autobiographical assumption,” see kay 1990, 2–5; 132–170. 2. for an excellent explanation and summary of these terms and their appearance in numerous treatises, see leach 2007, 11–54. references kay, sarah. 1990. subjectivity in troubadour poetry. new york: cambridge university press. leach, elizabeth eva. 2007. sung birds: music, nature, and poetry in the later middle ages. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. peraino, judith. 2011. giving voice to love: song and self–expression from the troubadours to guillaume de machaut. new york: oxford university press. current musicology, no. 94 (fall 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 181 theodore gracyk and andrew kania, eds. 2011. the routledge companion to philosophy and music. abingdon, uk, and new york, ny: routledge. reviewed by scott gleason early in plato’s symposium, after the guests arrive at agathon’s house, after socrates’ entrance, after deciding as a group not to drink wine to the point of excess, but before reclining into the philosophical discussion proper (orations in praise of eros), eryximachos, the physician, abruptly dismisses the aulos–playing female (αὐλητρίδα) from the room and from the philosophical conversation to follow (1997:176e). with this gesture eryximachos dismisses art from science, experience from thought, music from philosophy. apparently unable to listen to music while thinking philosophically, music is to have no part in the conversation—the philosophy—that follows. the problematic, then, of philosophizing about music, or even conceiving a kind of musical philosophy, has conditioned our discourses since their putative origins. an essential addition to the modern literature, the routledge companion to philosophy and music shares in this problematic but raises its stakes, encouraging us to renew our attempts to think music philosophically. while philosophers have consistently discussed music (see, for example, the british journal of aesthetics), philosophical work by scholars trained primarily as musicians has only lately emerged within academic circles as a growth industry. the society for music theory’s music and philosophy interest group has witnessed a renewed intensity in work and focus, and the american musicological society recently established a music and philosophy study group, as has the royal musical association. (i imagine an english–language journal devoted solely to the topic will be forthcoming. in the meantime, there is musik und ästhetik.) the routledge companion to philosophy and music signals these changes and will provide an important resource for musicians interested in discussing philosophical issues. it accomplishes its primary goal admirably: it could very well accompany discussions of music and philosophy for some time to come. edited by scholars employed in philosophy departments, the companion features entries by many of the leading philosophers of music who have been working in the field for decades. far less represented, however, are scholars working in music departments—indeed the latter’s entries are somewhat marginalized, appearing primarily in the final part. while the companion reads primarily as a philosophy of music text (the “and music” in the title, while certainly not an afterthought, figures music as current musicology 182 a subsidiary consideration), music scholars will find a tremendous amount of material to ponder. the companion introduces and takes readers far into nearly all the available issues across music and philosophy, both traditional and contemporary. part i concerns foundations, or “general issues.” for example, the first chapter, entitled “definition,” seeks literally to define music; chapter 3, by the eminent philosopher roger scruton, discusses the apparently platonic “elements” or “fundamentals” of music: rhythm, melody, and harmony. the next part covers philosophical theories of how music relates to emotions, which historically have been of concern mainly for philosophers, but have received renewed attention by, for example, scholars working in music cognition. part iii, entitled “history,” swerves initially to consider music philosophy in india, china, and the middle east, before presenting chapters historicizing the classical western tradition of philosophical thought about music. part iv concerns major historical figures like plato and rousseau, but emphasizes the german tradition with philosophers ranging from kant to adorno. (chapters on susanne langer, nelson goodman, or peter kivy, for example, would have been welcome.) part v presents eight chapters about non–classical music (with the exception of opera) still loosely within the western tradition, like jazz, rock, and film music. in its last part, “music, philosophy, and related disciplines,” the companion in effect re–disciplines music and musicology broadly conceived. indeed, this section’s more than one hundred pages, containing the most entries by scholars employed by music departments, reads as an updated kerman (1985) or rethinking music (cook and everist 2001) from the perspective of an analytic philosophy of music, ending, appropriately enough, with a chapter on “music education” by philip alperson (56). ethnomusicologists and historical musicologists trained to think about music after the new musicology—the cultural or hermeneutic turn—or, now, critical musicology will find much to be either confused or dismayed by in this companion. for the articles it contains are for the most part emphatically if not explicitly written from the perspective of analytic philosophy (also known as anglo–american philosophy, and not to be confused with music analysis nor the analytic/synthetic distinction). as a symbol of the dominance of this perspective, consider the lists of cross references at the end of each chapter: although a welcome addition and encouraging a certain freedom of reading, tellingly, the “analytic philosophy and music” chapter (27) by stephen davies is the sole chapter to omit these cross references, signaling analytic philosophy’s neutral, normative status with respect to the other chapters: it applies to all. (indeed, the chapter arrives both at the end of the “history” section and roughly halfway through the work as a scott gleason 183 whole.) if academic musicians tend to be knowledgeable about continental philosophy, what, then, is analytic philosophy? although in some ways an outgrowth of logical positivism or empiricism, analytic philosophy can be read as a critique of that tradition. undoubtedly the dominant trend in twentieth–century philosophy departments, “what distinguishes analytical philosophy, in its diverse manifestations, from other schools is the belief, first, that a philosophical account of thought can be attained through a philosophical account of language, and, secondly, that a comprehensive account can only be so attained” (dummett 1993:4). analytic philosophy tends to analyze claims rather than proffer them; it is committed “to objective, clear argument and to an interpersonal, empirically orientated approach, and it eschews grand theories in favor of treating specific philosophical issues and problems in piecemeal or cumulative fashion.” (s. davies:295) while cultural studies since the 1960s has in general picked up the continental tradition(s) of husserl, adorno, foucault or derrida, the analytic tradition began earlier with works by frege, moore, russell and wittgenstein. another way to define the tradition is by its achievements: (i) the recognition that philosophical speculation must be grounded in pre–philosophical thought, and (ii) the success achieved in understanding, and separating one from another, the fundamental methodological notions of logical consequence, logical truth, necessary truth and apriori truth. (soames 2003:xi; see also pp. 50–2, 229–30, and 264–70) all of this suggests certain disciplinary alignments: music theory and cognition seem to align easily with analytic philosophy, whereas ethnomusicology and historical musicology seem to align with continental philosophy. the degree to which that schism is real is the degree to which these two sets of discourses cannot or will not speak to one another. increasingly polarized, the former takes on the qualities of the sciences, the latter, the humanities: the refusal—which atrophies into inability—to speculate, the demand for the naively empirical and parsimoniousness of the former; the absurd or at least fanciful speculations of the latter; the supposed neutrality with respect to the social of analytic philosophy; the blindness to truth of continental. the editors are, of course, aware of this problematic, hence chapters 26 and 27, covering the continental and analytic traditions, respectively, can be read as windows into the remaining chapters, holding the two in tension throughout the companion. as andrew kania (also one of the co–editors) says in the first chapter: whether or not you are grabbed by the topic [of defining music] might depend on whether or not you are moved by marx’s claim that “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, current musicology 184 however, is to change it,” or by harry frankfurt’s that “there are plenty of people and institutions devoted to changing the world, but philosophers are among the few who are devoted to understanding it.” (5, emphasis original) interestingly, this is itself an aesthetic appeal (being grabbed, moved by) and philosophy here figures as a kind of avant–garde (standing outside, contemplating) but, staying within the analytic/continental problematic, in their editorial preface gracyk and kania state the last part’s merits: besides extending the scope of the book beyond philosophy, the topics in this part also reflect a goal of creating a broadly inclusive companion that goes beyond the concerns of the anglo–american school that dominates contemporary philosophy of music. (xxiv) that “beyond philosophy” is, of course, music or musicology, the ostensive subject of inquiry. to return to the scene in plato’s symposium with which we began, at least we musicians are no longer entirely dismissed before philosophy begins—we can still be heard, playing in the background. perhaps, however, these alignments are too easily forged. if philosophy is the foundational discipline, then how we change the world will in fact depend upon how we define the subject of inquiry, in this case, music. complementarily, disinterested contemplation has come under attack from virtually every corner of the humanities. it was precisely the accomplishment of the cultural turn to historicize philosophy: philosophies are products of various cultures. (see, for example, goehr [1992] 2007, which tiger c. roholt discusses in this volume, pp. 285–87.) speaking from my own disciplinary position and primary training as a music theorist, although i would argue that, as before, music theory associates easily with analytic philosophy, music theorists are in fact still committed to grand systems, often at the expense of actual musical experiences of listeners or performers. some music theorists took a critical turn in the 1990s, with studies of historical music theories evincing this turn most prominently. informally, most music theorists concerned with philosophy at all are still interested in critical theory of the adornian variety. i think the future will not see this trend continue, however, as the system–building music theorists, who are concerned with treating specific music–theoretical issues in piecemeal or cumulative fashion, (re)turn to a renewed empiricism, associating their work with music cognition and analytic philosophy. the trend has already begun. as an example of the style of an analytic approach to musical issues, the “ontology” chapter (4), written by carl matheson and ben caplan, offers conceptual rewards by respecting our pre–philosophical intuitions about music, but extending them. most academic musicians will probably scott gleason 185 not have invested much energy into thinking about the ontological status of the musical entities through which culture filters, or the status of the entities they analyze. even while assuming a work–concept ontology, by suspending the historicizing impulse this chapter enables us to clarify our notions of what works are, specifying whether works are abstract types instantiated into sound tokens; events, occurring at specific times; or sums of performances. the chapter further discusses and eventually problematizes the positions of musical platonism, whereby works are types which do not come into existence (they are atemporal, always existing, discovered by the composer); sonicism, whereby a work is distinguished from others solely by how it sounds; contextualism (not to be confused with the use of the same word in historical musicology and music theory), whereby historical context distinguishes works; and instrumentalism, whereby a work is distinguished by the specified musical instruments on which it is performed. some of these positions accord more with the intuitions of performers, while some will be more useful for the theorist, thus respecting, extending, and even challenging our intuitions about pieces. further, these categories can wrap back onto cultural readings of musicologists: i can imagine a number of studies by music theorists or historical musicologists, for example, with the goal of determining more precisely their musical ontologies, using this chapter as a foundation. (for example, it would be interesting to read this chapter against bohlman 2001.) at its best, then, an analytic approach can offer real insights. (i am thinking especially of chapters 4 [“ontology”], 5 [“medium”] by david davies, and 7 [“notations”] by stephen davies.) there is still something to be said for stretching one’s ears and thinking beyond one’s comforts. i would suggest interested readers unfamiliar with twentieth–century philosophy in academia read the analytic philosophy chapter (27) first, only then reading the “definitions” chapter (1) and the rest of parts i and ii, then reading chapters such as (54) “music, philosophy, and cognitive science” by diana raffman, and (55) “psychology of music” by eric clarke. this is not to say, however, that continental approaches are omitted. indeed, one of the strengths of the companion is its ability to appeal to readers from seemingly every music–academic discipline. in his chapter (26), tiger c. roholt provides an introduction to the traditional continental issues related to music. from here, i would suggest those interested in tracing this lineage read the “figures” part (iv) from kant to schopenhauer, nietzsche to hanslick, wagner and adorno. finally, bruce ellis benson’s chapter on “phenomenology of music” (53); james currie’s chapter on “music and politics” (50); and anthony kwame harrison’s chapter (51) covering sociology and cultural studies of music would provide an appropriate close. current musicology 186 one of the nice qualities of philosophers of music is that they can be refreshingly free of the ideologies in which musicologists (broadly defined) are entrenched: it may indeed have been assumed in pre–modernist musical circles that only certain kinds of sounds were an appropriate vehicle for music. but figures such as russolo, whose theory and practice advocated seeking out “noise” to use as a musical medium, not to mention rock music in general, give one reason to think otherwise. (d. davies 51) traditional musicology would find this problematic, would, indeed, not think otherwise, as noise and rock music are difficult categories for classical musical understanding, thus their inclusion here shows the openness these philosophers have to traditionally marginalized musical practices. this said, there exists an unevenness to the emphasis of the companion, due to the editors’ disciplinary position as primarily philosophers, for just two chapters earlier jennifer judkins discusses “silence, sound, noise, and music” (2) without ever mentioning russolo or the tradition he started, and only barely mentioning cage, whose work of course serves as the modern condition of possibility for her topics. strikingly absent from this companion is sustained or extended discussion of the post–war avant–garde, or the current concert tradition. at one time i would have imagined this to be a primary topic of conversation. earlier i suggested that harry frankfurt’s defense of the abstraction of philosophy from social concerns was a kind of avant–garde stance. could it be, then, that the general omission of the musical avant–garde serves as a way of absorbing that tradition into philosophy? hence, while not a philosophy of music nor a musical philosophy (the traditional dialectic), perhaps what we have here is philosophy–as–proxy, a philosophy qua substitute for (avant–garde) music. this is not to say that i am adverse to philosophy in the space of music. quite the contrary: while i have been marking some of its limits, i want to emphasize the point that philosophy in the space of music can encourage academic musicians to become less provincial, less certain, to think beyond that which is given, to speculate, imagine, wonder. the companion provides a new standard of philosophical conversation toward which musicians can aspire. however, at over 600 pages in length and priced at $225 ($200 for the e–book) it is a difficult work to absorb as a whole and restrictively expensive, thus it seems a reference book only, and so i am left revising my earlier suggestion that it is an accessible companion, a fellow traveler. (the paperback version will alleviate some of this burden.) indeed, so rich is this work that its heft cuts both ways: because it addresses so many contemporary and historical issues, readers may take any number scott gleason 187 of paths through it, only some of which were suggested here. the routledge companion to philosophy and music thus contributes insightfully, crucially, but at times frustratingly, to a growing conversation. references bohlman, philip v. 2001. “ontologies of music.” in, rethinking music. nicholas cook and mark everist, eds. new york: oxford university press. cook, nicholas, and mark everist, eds. 2001. rethinking music. new york: oxford university press. dummett, michael. 1993. origins of analytical philosophy. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. goehr, lydia. [1992] 2007. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. revised ed. new york: oxford university press. kerman, joseph. 1985. contemplating music: challenges to musicology. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. plato. 1997. “symposium.” in, complete works. trans. by alexander nehamas and paul woodruff. john m. cooper and d. s. hutchinson, eds. indianapolis, in: hackett publishing. soames, scott. 2003. philosophical analysis in the twentieth century. volume 1: the dawn of analysis. princeton, nj: princeton university press. current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 chodos. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 77 reflections on teaching music 17: hip hop asher tobin chodos “what you hear is not a test,” wonder mike’s opening disclaimer on the iconic “rapper’s delight,” was already unnecessary by the time i was an adolescent. a test? of course it’s not a test! nobody from my generation would mistake rapping for a mic check; for us the sound of someone rhyming over a vamp had been tested and proven. widely regarded as the “first” hip hop record,1 the sugar hill gang’s 1979 single brought the art form of hip hop into the mainstream, which is where it has remained pretty much ever since. for people my age and younger, hip hop has always been simply the sound of american popular music. it was a sound i consumed enthusiastically throughout my childhood. i was, in other words, a white kid who loved hip hop, the subject occasionally called out in bakari kitwana’s why white kids love hip-hop: wankstas, wiggers, wannabes, and the new reality of race in america (kitwana 2005). today i am something else that kitwana calls out: the instructor, this spring, of an undergraduate course on hip hop (music 17: “hip hop”). in a way the class requires the defamiliarization of the hip hop sound we know so well; students are expected by the end of the class to think of hip hop not simply as the sound of popular music, but as a sound originating in a particular time and place, evolving in dramatic ways over the decades, developing certain existent cultural practices and innovating others. but of course most students sign up for it simply because it is a chance to lavish time on some of the music they love most. as a result the course is extremely popular and, it must be said, valuable to the department. the first thing i want to say about this course is that it has been extraordinarily challenging, rewarding and fun. i have grown as a teacher because of it. and, above all, i have been humbled by the seriousness of my students’ engagement with the material. they listen to hip hop with joy and attention. they care about its relationship to the historical trends with which it evolved. they read rap lyrics with intensity and insight, laughing at the jokes, taking seriously the critiques, and grappling with the sometimes problematic themes. they nod their heads in time to the music i play during lecture. they approach me indignant at the things my syllabus leaves off. in short, students care about the art form of hip hop, and so they are easy to teach. 78 current musicology because students are so engaged, it is also easy to demand a lot from them. an example of a moment where this worked well was at the close of the first unit, which broadly traces the transition of hip hop from a subcultural form local to the south bronx to a nationwide phenomenon of mass commercial appeal. it is the transition from the block party to the recording studio, the turntable to the sampler, and from call-and-response improvisation to the intricate textual density recognizable to contemporary listeners as rap. the best case study for that last turn is erik b and rakim, whose 1988 “follow the leader” exhibits groundbreaking lyrical complexity. we listened to the track and then did a close reading of some of the lyrics: brothers tried and others died to get the formula but i’mma let you sweat, you still ain’t warm, you’re a step away from frozen stiff as if you’re posin’ why, i ask my students, is the person sweating even while not warm? the answer to this question takes a while to arrive at as a class, and unlocks a delightful chain of ludic syntax: warm as in close to finding something you seek, namely, the formula for imitating rakim’s flow, which the addressed person has no hope of finding and is thus left to sweat despite being a step away from frozen. thus, he or she is not “warm” but still sweating. he or she is also stiff, which is unattractive and the opposite of the svelte rakim, and, implicitly, he or she is a poser, an inauthentic imitator. with charm and precision, these three quick lines sound many broader themes from the course: they enact the cultural practice of the dozens, they hit upon the theme of authenticity, and they signal the transition of hip hop from a party music to a high art and vital form of truth telling—to what chuck d famously characterizes as “black cnn.” even on the page, divorced from much of what animates them, these lyrics reward close reading. note, for example, the way rakim leaves ambiguous the syntactical function of “stiff.” is it “a step away from frozen stiff ” or “a step away from frozen // stiff as if you’re posin’”? rakim doesn’t require that you decide. there is truly no right answer, which is always a lovely thing in poetry. it’s a small example but as i raised it in lecture, i remembered another verse i happen to have taught in which a word is similarly left ambiguous: diffugient comites et nocte tegentur opaca: speluncam dido dux et troianus eandem devenient. 79 asher tobin chodos this is the aenead, iv.122–125, a text which many of my students will have read in their various first year humanities seminars, and the crucial word is dux, “leader.” except that my students will have encountered it in allen mandelbaum’s 1971 translation: the scattered train of tyre, the youth of troy, and venus’ dardan grandson in alarm seek different shelters through the fields; the torrents roar down the mountains. dido and the trojan chieftan have reached the same cave. (mandelbaum 1971, 84) there is a great classics chestnut contained in this passage, describing the moment when dido and aeneas first have sex. much of the pathos that will attend their coming breakup centers on who led whom into that cave—to which noun, that is, dux is in apposition. dido feels deceived; aeneas feels that he never entered into such contracts. knowing who led, who initiated their lovemaking, would seem to be the dispositive question. in english, you have to choose one, rendering a judgment on which one of the lovers is culpable. or, you can punt by abandoning the concept of “leading” altogether (mandelbaum chooses this course, simply making aeneas into a “chieftain”). in latin, however, the text can remain at once grammatically sound and fundamentally undecided. the reader literally has to decide themselves which of the pair is the dux. it’s a fascinating and beautiful moment. but of course none of that is available in translation, and, perhaps more importantly, none of it matters if you haven’t formed an emotional connection with dido and aeneas. and for that to happen, there are a thousand other kinds of translation that first have to take place, translations that are not linguistic and for which neither teacher nor student usually has time. i think the point of teaching virgil today is that it is a sort of training ground, a complex literary text that can spur students to read closely and about which they can write in formal english; the idea that the text is so “great” that everyone just has to read it is, by now, pretty outmoded. but, as anyone who has taught virgil knows, as a training ground it does not usually deliver. doing a close reading of rakim with 400 students, i realized that his language reminded me of no one’s more than virgil, and as a training ground it was working really well. the techniques of close reading my students were performing before my eyes were exactly what i had tried (and, often, failed) to accomplish when i was helping students write about virgil. it may seem obvious to argue that the western canon is obsolete, and that humanities curricula would benefit from being open to a greater 80 current musicology diversity of cultural production. the very fact that the hip hop course exists, after all, shows that the argument has already been made successfully. the reason i make it here, though, is that before i actually taught a course in popular music, i had not fully appreciated how right the argument is. i think we can take it for granted today that european music and literature have no special claim on our university curricula; they’re not “better,” obviously. yet, it is possible to believe that emphatically and still fail to grasp just how much more productive our classes can be when we teach things that students are interested in. before teaching the hip hop course, i can say that personally i did not really grasp this. in light of my experience teaching hip hop, other courses i have taught begin to look different. for example, in “the history of music in western culture,” i taught my students about schubert’s predilection for the flat submediant, the evocative move from i to bvi. this harmonic device induces the characteristic romantic “trance” and bears an arcane relation to the ideological polemics of the “absolute music” idea (see taruskin 2005). some of my students had grown up playing western art music and responded positively to this lesson, but others bristled against having to study this stuff. some even cited harvard’s recent curricular overhaul, which eliminates traditional theory and history requirements altogether. i heard these complaints sympathetically then, but after teaching hip hop, i have come to think of such requirements as the musical equivalents of the dux trick in the virgil cited above: european arcana of undeniable interest, enduring prestige and waning pedagogical value. i take it for granted that, especially in large survey courses like hip hop, the point is not the acquisition of knowledge per se, but the acquisition of skills—reading skills, research skills, aural skills, etc. so the real question, in many cases, is, what material best facilitates the acquisition of those skills? the answer does not often lie in the western canon. all of which to say, i benefited enormously from the opportunity to teach the hip hop course, and i believe i gave my students something of value. however, there are also disturbing contradictions latent in my role as a teacher of hip hop. for one thing, i am a white person teaching a form of music produced almost exclusively by black artists. the successes of the movement to de-center the western canon, one of whose fruits is this course, has had the paradoxical effect of sometimes placing hip hop under the institutional care of people like me—a fan, but by no means a member of the hip hop community. what right do i have, at such a remove from actual hip hop culture, to decide what receives institutional sanction as its true history? who am i to define its theoretical terms, interpret its lyrics? is not my hip hop listening doomed to be listening from without, a kind of 81 asher tobin chodos projection shaped in the grotesque image of american racial hierarchies, a classic example of what tricia rose calls “listening in?” (rose 1994, 5). while allowing that white people’s enjoyment of hip hop may be genuine, rose argues that “listening in” may contribute to a kind of “dilution,” a thought that makes me feel no small amount of shame. as a matter of fact, i felt a lot of shame as a teacher of this course; for example, when speaking about the deprivation of the 1970s south bronx as a person who has never had to live in a ghetto. or, when talking about afrofuturism; for as much as i may admire the ambition of sun ra’s musical cosmology, i know as a white person i am probably doomed to misrepresent it. or, in general, any time when i had to be an intellectual authority on a music i can’t make or a culture i don’t belong to. for all the wonderful things this course gave me, i am not sure i ever should have been offered the chance to teach it. another problem is that i have no formal qualifications as a hip hop expert. despite the ambivalence about the institution in hip hop studies, such qualifications do exist. tessa brown, for example, has written a dissertation examining the usage of hip hop to teach writing (brown 2017), while a.d carson’s dissertation, a 34-track web archive of academically engaged music, is hip hop (carson 2017). if there is any party in the debate over hip hop in the institution that we would expect to insist upon credentialization, it would be the institution itself. the course is premised upon the recognition of hip hop’s equal artistic standing, but in reality formal expertise does not seem to be a requirement to teach it (these things take time, of course, and a recent hire is actually a hip hop performer). it’s hard to picture the situation inverted, with a “fan” trying his or her hand at the history of music in western culture. nor is it even clear that the person in charge of this course should be a “musician” at all. consider the three texts often regarded as foundational to hip hop studies: tricia rose’s black noise (rose 1994), jeff chang’s can’t stop won’t stop (chang 2005), and the edited collection that’s the joint! the hip hop studies reader (murray and neal 2004). neither of the first two are written by musicians, and while musicians do contribute to the edited volume, they are in the minority. perhaps, then, a hip hop course offered by a music department should focus on the music’s formal properties. an intriguing possibility, but one complicated by the paucity of such analysis in the field, where the majority of scholarship focuses on the text. what constitutes musical “form” in hip hop is a difficult and unresolved question, one to which i could only make tentative answers for my own purposes as i prepared this course. one of the reasons the course is so consistently popular is that it satisfies the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” requirement for ucsd under82 current musicology graduates. instituted in 2011, this requirement states that every candidate for a bachelor’s degree must take one course from an approved list of dei courses. as this requirement is worded on the undergraduate education site, a knowledge of diversity, equity, and inclusion is required of all candidates for a bachelor’s degree. (ucsd undergrad ed. site) these values are defined in greater detail elsewhere on the site: diversity refers to the variety of personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and circumstance. equity is the guarantee of fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all students, faculty, and staff. inclusion is the act of creating environments in which any individual or group can feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued. did my class succeed in giving my students “knowledge” of these three pillars? perhaps it did. but i cannot help but think that the institution’s commitment to these values is insignificant compared with three questions raised about hip hop in the institution by kitwana: what is being taught? who is teaching it? what will be the result? (kitwana 2005, 105) these questions trace a troubling crescendo, and when i read them, my inward answers sound stammering. what am i teaching? hip hop’s history and some listening strategies, in as enjoyable and productive a way as i can. who am i? a musician, an academic, a pianist, a lifelong lover of hip hop, a person with experience thinking critically about music. the result? students with a deepened affection for music they already love, and an improved knowledge of 20th century american history. these answers are real and i believe they represent at least some of what i achieved in the course. but they also feel incomplete. they offer an insecure foundation upon which to stand as a teacher of hip hop. they don’t answer the core of kitwana’s questions, which are part of a broader discussion of the removal of blackness from the face of hip hop: this unspoken but growing trend to expunge blackness from hip-hop is reinforced by the myth of hip-hop’s primary white audience. the trend is emerging at the same time that hip-hop studies is entering the academy. will it ensure that hip-hop scholars who are white fare better than those who are black? (kitwana 2005, 104) 83 asher tobin chodos this trenchant passage gives voice to the most unsettling contradictions of my role as a teacher of hip hop. i felt these contradictions acutely when these words were projected behind me as i lectured a room full of undergraduates about the upsetting situation in which we all found ourselves, but they were equally present in my many moments of pedagogical satisfaction, threatening to expose my enjoyment for what it is: a privilege. as tricia rose points out, my enjoyment of that privilege may well be sincere, but that does not necessarily make it just. notes 1. of course, the truth is more complicated than that. there had been other rap singles before the 1979 sugar hill release, and the sugar hill gang wasn’t really a part of the south bronx scene. references brown, tessa rose. 2017. “schooled: hiphop composition at the predominantly white university.” doctoral dissertation, syracuse university. carson, a.d. 2017. “owning my masters: the rhetorics of rhymes and revolutions.” doctoral dissertation, clemson university. web: http://phd.aydeethegreat.com/ chang, jeff. 2005. can’t stop, won’t stop : a history of the hip-hop generation. new york: st. martin’s press. forman, murray and anthony neal (ed.). 2004. that’s the joint! the hip hop studies reader. new york: routledge. kitwana, bakari. 2005. why white kids love hip-hop: wankstas, wiggers, wannabes, and the new reality of race in america. new york: basic civitas books. mandelbaum, allen (trans.). 1971. the aeneid of virgil. new york: bantam. rose, tricia.  1994. black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary america. middletown: wesleyan university press taruskin, richard. 2005. the oxford history of western music. vol. 3, music in the nineteenth century. oxford: oxford university press ucsd undergrad ed. site. dei requirement. http://undergrad.ucsd.edu/programs/dei. html, accessed may 20, 2019 84 current musicology how musical is gesture? mary ann smart. 2004. mimomania: music and gesture in nineteenth-century opera. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by gabriela cruz sometime in 1852 louis bonaparte sat on the grand loge of the academie imperiale de musique for a performance of jacques fromental hauvy's charles vi (1843). the work, a grandiose national pageant, was a spectacle befitting an emperor forever campaigning for public opinion. in the theater, the man who wished to "appear as the patriarchal benefactor of all classes" (marx 1996:125) was to be seen surveying the sight of ie petit peuple as it rushed on stage to save a legitimate dauphin. he was also to lend an ear to the opera's chanson fran~aise, a crowd-pleaser significantly associated with republican patriotism close to the time of the 1848 revolution (hallman 2003:246). the song, an old soldier's rallying cry against foreign invasion, was sung that night by a young bass-baritone with the right booming voice: jean baptiste meriy. the singer carried the first verse on french courage and abhorrence of oppression. then, as expected, he pulled a prop dagger above his head and continued with the stirring refrain: guerre aux tyrans! jamais en france, jamais l' anglais ne regnera. (act 1, scene 1) [war to all tyrants never in france, never shall the english rule.] but here something went amiss. his "guerre" came out as "mort" and the dagger was seen pointing toward the imperial loge. song became a call to regicide and amidst the ensuing scandal the singer was quickly dismissed, never to appear again on the imperial stage. for meriy, a recent graduate of the conservatoire, this was a crushing setback. but what could he have meant that night by gesturing so blatantly against the bulky, unmistakable figure of napoleon iii? perhaps he was a closeted revolutionary, hoping to take advantage of the cover of drama to strike an imaginary blow at an imperial ascension which committed current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 127 128 current musicology republicans, karl marx most famously, swiftly denounced as both illegal and scandalous (1996:31-32). after all, for the romantics grand opera always carried a hint of political activism. on the other hand, as j. m. mayan argued many years later, it all could have been a misunderstanding, for merly's rendition may have come about as the consequence of momentary cerebral hemorrhages caused by the timbre and vibrations of his own large, warm voice. this organ resonated in his ears, agitated his auditory strings, shocked his nerves, perturbed his blood, and led to bleeding in the brain (mayan 1906:131-32). a dagger raised on the operatic stage, then, could mean different and largely incommensurable things: a singer's execution of a scripted chore­ ography, a citizen's opportunity to express dissent, or, in the case of the bass-baritone with a voice larger than life, a body animated into physical action by vocal resonance, a pure operatic presence forgetful of drama, history, and the social circumstances of performance. the long forgotten event of the emperor's indignation and the singer's disgrace illustrates the complexities of opera's entanglement with the physical world, the subject of mary ann smart's latest book, mimomania: music and gesture in nineteenth-century opera. bodies are, of course, central to the experience of opera, but they have only recently begun to attract serious scholarly interest. incursions into the corporeal in opera began with wye jamison allanbrook's rhythmic gesture in mozart (1983). considered radical back when abstract investigations of musical style and form still dominated operatic criticism, rhythmic gesture in mozart first offered readers a glimpse of the moving body in a series of readings of mozart's music as choreogra­ phy-that is, as musical scripting of passionate gestures. allanbrook's study concerned musical rhetoric, a semiotic contemplation of written texts that still bowed to the master figure of the composer. it would take another ten years for the omniscient, omnipresent figure of the musical creator to recede from its dominant role in operatic scholarship and for critics to begin considering the operatic spectacle in its full-body form, inhabited by living and seemingly miraculous, if all-too-flawed individuals. wayne koestenbaum's the queen's throat: opera, homosexuality, and the mystery of desire (1993) deserves credit for opening up new avenues for writing about opera. this slender, unassuming book, in equal measure a personal account, investigation, and celebration of queer operatic sensibilities, is also a broad meditation on the physicality of opera and the powerful ways its spectacle touches the bodies of singers and listeners. since then renewed attention to singers and the ways in which their voices, gestures, and musical intelligence leave an imprint upon operatic works and their reception has elevated awareness within the discipline of the embodied in opera one pitch higher (smart 1996; henson 1999). still, as michelle duncan observes, theoretical gabriela cruz reflection on the body as element of spectacle, a topic central to studies in performativity, has found little echo in musicological inquiry (2004:285). a first foray into the topic was produced in linda and michael hutcheon's bodily charm: living opera (2001), a virtuosic reader of the operatic body's inscription in western literature, and a volume to which mimomania is not an entirely unmatched bookend. mimomania tells a particular history of the body in opera, one only marginally concerned with actual scenes of performance or real singers on stage. this is the story of the body as musical signifier or of the peculiar composerly obsession with putting flesh to music. the impulse to "mime" in music is not a straightforward one, for it implies a double task: to record the semiotic richness of gesture in sound and to produce a musical equivalent to the non-signifying materiality of the staged body. mimomania shows us that romantic composers, deeply steeped in the gestural language of melodrame, made liberal use of that genre's coded language of expression. but it also argues that musical miming in nineteenth-century opera does not merely reflect set expectations regarding the expressive potential of gesture but demonstrates a significant engagement on the part of romantic composers with the physical charisma of the performing body, giving musical substance to a variety of attitudes toward the physicality of opera. mimomania, i should begin by noting, is not a history of melodrame. jean-jacques rousseau's pygmalion (1770) receives no mention here, and this book is also the wrong place to look for a narrative of the genre's sub­ sequent history. the book is, instead, the first sustained and unembarrassed contemplation of the melodramatic logic that underwrites the history of nineteenth-century opera. why were nineteenth-century composers so intent on "music miming"? music that is conceived as double to physical movement, to the extent that it acknowledges the body we see on stage, often seems to reflect an empathetic intent-the composer offering a helping hand to the performer. this is an argument we often find, for instance, in mozart's operas, where sounds appears to skip steps or knock on doors along with the characters on stage. but sympathy is not the only impulse one can imagine lying behind musical mimicking. rage and a dismay at the uncontrollable charisma of singers, productively channeled into creative work, may also explain the emerging popularity of melodramatic techniques employed by composers after the 1820s, as well as why musicians such as giuseppe verdi and richard wagner would later become interested in establishing "less physically concrete connections between music and staging" (30). a fundamental contribution of mimomania to the study of opera is the revelation that music and gesture stand in relation to one another in a multiplicity of forms which in turn can be seen to respond to a variety of aesthetic ambitions and ideological pressures. 129 130 current musicology the book's narrative unfolds chronologically, beginning with daniel auber and vincenzo bellini and concluding with giuseppe verdi and richard wagner. at first glance, this arrangement suggests a history of the rise and fall of melodrame in nineteenth-century opera. smart, in fact, describes her book very much in these terms, writing that it contains "two stories at once: one of a historical progression that saw 'miming' go out of style to be replaced by less physically concrete connections between music and stag­ ing, and another in which different aesthetics of gesture (if one end of the spectrum is 'miming; can the other be called 'transcendence'?) jostle each other within a single work" (30). to this reader, however, smart's history also productively overflows any neat narrative outline, for our author is ultimately more interested in considering the ambiguities of constituting gesture as musical signifier than just recounting its story. in this, i believe, lies the strength of her argument, put forth lucidly and imaginatively and supported by a mountain of musical insight-full of wonderful observations that take the reader beyond the general topic of gesture and into a fresh new understanding of many well-known and some lesser-known pages of the nineteenth-century repertory. smart's history begins in paris. the romantic capital of fashion and pleasure, and the birthplace of the modern body, fastidiously celebrated by charles baudelaire, is indeed the natural starting point for a history of gesture in opera. melodrame, a parisian genre by birth, was also a central feature of the city's native theatrical culture, cultivated to enormous acclaim in popular venues throughout the city in the 1820s. and, as smart points out, its influence on opera cannot be overemphasized. we need only recall that the first significant attempt to usher the decrepit tragedie lyrique into the romantic age brought unto the stage of the opera a character from the world of melodrame. auber's la muette de portici (1828) features a mute role: a voiceless girl dances and signs herself into dramatic comprehension. what is more, this emblematic mute role was the fruit of dramatic and aes­ thetic negotiations that could not have taken place outside the institutional environment of the academie royale de musique. tellingly, smart traces the emergence of the opera's protagonist from the pen of the librettist eugene scribe, through the revisions of the censors, the interventions of the obscure jury litteraire et musicale, the composing hand of auber, and finally to the moving body of lise noblet, the ballerina who created the role. the history of fenella's creation and early reception shows that even as melodrame pros­ pered in the theatres des boulevards in paris, its silent conventions remained contested terrain at the opera. then as now, silence tempted interpretation, and in the absence of singing listeners naturally turned to pantomime for their semiotic reward. in 1828, enthusing about the communicative richness gabriela cruz of gesture, one critic wrote that one "could take accurate dictation from the gestures of mile noblet" (43). but if the strength of fenella is her stage presence, what good is her music? we, of course, cannot take dictation from noblet, and the various documents concerning the opera's performance history contain only scant information about the specifics of the dancer's movement on stage. generations of critics before smart have found this fact disheartening. fenella's ephemeral visual attractions don't lend themselves to traditional methods of musicological inquiry, wholly reliant as they are on textual sources. smart, however, sees virtue where others find fault. noting the impos­ sibility of adequately reconstructing the distant life-event of opera, she turns to the musical score for clues about the particulars of a melodramatic culture in which gesture was "manifest truth:' and what she finds is both astonishing and important. we all know that auber's music for fenella dabbles in the semiotic, drawing on musical codes of melodrama for a variety of expres­ sive purposes. and yet much of the sound assumed to trace the character's physical movement is semiotically opaque, unsuitable for interpretation. music that does not mime and that seems simply destined to fill the room with acoustic energy resists interpretation. in response, smart strays from well treaded hermeneutic paths to imagine the music simply as a form of presence. she reads the abstract musical stuff that accompanies fenella-the short motivic units she calls "transitions" -as a musical register of "pure movement" (62). sound fashioned as a double of bodily substance points to a distinctive aspect in parisian aesthetic sensibilities, one that gets its bearings as much from the physical impression of the staged body as from a need to tell. what is remarkable about smart's discussion of la muette is her insight that a french penchant for the material shapes not only grand opera's scenic elements-all the impressive stage sets, machines, costumes, and special effects routinely described in histories of the opera-but also grounds an understanding of sound as vital resonance, that is, as a sub­ stantial non-mimetic mode of presence. this, i believe, is a radical notion, and an invitation for those who study opera to turn from text to act and from the reassuring security of interpretation to the risky business of live performance. opera critics who speak of a material sensibility in french opera do not generally mean it as a compliment. we should applaud smart for breaking rank here. her account of how auber brings melodrame into the dramaturgical core of grand opera is rightfully celebrative and she pursues the "insistent fleshiness of meyerbeer's music" (108) with equal verve in her ensuing analysis of giacomo meyerbeer's les huguenots (1836). les huguenots, a retelling of the massacre of st. barthelemy, features plenty of 131 132 current musicology bodies, and smart's chapter on the opera dwells perceptively on the musical means harnessed by the composer on behalf of a new culture of spectacle and presence. the book concerns marcel and valentine, figures set in loving musical display, but also depicts the corporeal masses of innocent huguenots, first seen living in act 3, then heard dying in act 5. old huguenot marcel, a bass role often played by a larger older singer, is the least complicated of meyerbeer's creations. he is a figure of melodrama, a voluminous pres­ ence doubled in the orchestra by an equally ponderous musical theme, his already heavyset body made only more substantial by the added sonorous trail. by contrast, valentine is elegance incarnate, but she is no less striking. discarding traditional mimicking techniques, meyerbeer draws attention to his heroine in a fashion that is decidedly new. valentine, smart shows, is framed by music that captures the sense of excitement felt by those who look at her. this is an effect akin to the framing effects feminist critics find so confining, indeed disturbingly patriarchal, in classical hollywood film. and music concerned with repressing (or directing) the impression of valentine's presence falls a long way away from the merry musical celebra­ tion of a woman's physicality in la muette. like a common heroine of film noir, valentine is hopelessly framed, silenced, and marked for murder by the very scopic fantasy that surrounds her. meyerbeer's music harnesses the scopophilic impulses of modern audiences purposefully. here i think it would be appropriate to offer an expanded perspective on meyerbeer's fabled commitment to visual spectacle. the "good" bodies of valentine, marcel, and the innocent huguenots, along with those of queen marguerite and her ladies for whom heinrich heine once declared his preference (1997:34), anchor a musical universe of nor­ malcy firmly grounded in the physical against which another less palpable yet powerful form of presence is measured in the opera. complementing meyerbeer's techniques of musical embodiment as described in mimomania is the composer's use of disembodied sound, music that seems to emanate from the stage but lacks a visible source. yet, to find sonorous invisibility in les huguenots we must turn from the realm of the victims-of marcel, valentine, and the slaughtered huguenots-to that of their catholic murderers. the unsettling acoustic object emerges in the play between two of the opera's crucial scenes: the benediction des poignards in act 4 and the murder of huguenot innocents, witnessed by raoul, valentine, and marcel (but not the audience) in act 5. in act 4 the murdering mob assembles to be blessed along with its weapon of choice. the benediction is a scene of growing hysteria brought forth, in characteristic melodramatic fashion, by a superimposition of gesture, word, and music. it ends with repeated calls for murder as the mob raises its naked daggers to a propulsive musical gabriela cruz motif that mimes the object's cutting movement. the combination of knife and sound is awful-loud, aggressive, overwhelming-and is meant, in the manner of trauma, to linger after the fact. later, as unseen huguenots are reported by marcel, valentine, and raoul to be dying, the sound of the thrusting knifes recurs. we do not see their falling bodies, but we nevertheless retain a sense of their substantial presence through musical means. from offstage, the victims sing "ein feste burg ist unser gott," the same lutheran chorale they had sung earlier, but this time "virtually shouted, fortissimo, in unharmonized octaves" (105). also present is the utterance of the catholic mob charging against the poor huguenots, a loud unison that is an operatic rendition of shouting. to smart, the scene offers palpable proof of meyerbeer's own penchant for the material, his use of music as "an accoutrement of sight" (114), and his ultimate disregard for the expressive potential of sound to evoke meta­ physical depths. but how innocent and worthy are those depths? it seems to me that rather than retreating into the visible, meyerbeer's treatment of the huguenots massacre actually offers its own sobering lesson on the unfathomable as a romantic category. above the fray of voices, the propul­ sive rhythmic motif (the noise of the killing daggers encountered in act 4) emerges most distinctly, and in the absence of image it sounds even more terrifying. this is to say that meyerbeer, too, takes stock of music's power to deliver the unseen. yet he remains mindful of acoustic disembodiment. his sensibilite materielle is modern, falling surprisingly in line with a well-known cinematic distrust of sound unanchored in a physical source. in film, too, sound unseen, if not a neutral voice-over, most often indicates something amiss. this patent distrust of the invisible, grounded in a cultural material­ ism still insufficiently understood in opera studies, goes some way toward explaining why grand opera remains to this day the peculiar (and unloved) stepsister to the established twins in our own operatic historiography, the german and italian traditions. the opera occupies an awkward place in histories of nineteenth-century opera. it was once the institution to which anyone east of the rhine and south of the alps looked for inspiration and innovation. for better or for worse (depending on who writes the history) paris left a monumental mark on wagner. verdi, too, was eager for a parisian triumph, and much like his predecessors rossini, vincenzo bellini, and gaetano donizetti, he drew from what he heard at the academie royale de musique and was ultimately successful there. yet ifitalians and germans alike looked to paris for stylistic and dramaturgical innovation, they also created more than grands operas. their creative work changed opera forever, consigning what they once had admired to oblivion. this familiar argument can be found in mimomania, 133 134 current musicology albeit in critical molds that are substantially different from those ground­ ing previous formulations. one of smart's conclusions is that both verdi and wagner share a similar debt to french melodramatic culture, a debt from which they finally freed themselves by way of a romantic conviction about music's ineffable powers. "transcendence" is the word used by smart, although sparingly and somewhat reluctantly~twice at least within inverted commas, once followed by a question mark-to describe the fundamental commonality between the operatic projects of bellini, verdi, and wagner. "transcendence" is, of course, a loaded word, one carrying daunting philo­ sophical baggage, but which, despite the efforts of some valiant critics, has had a relatively frivolous career in music discourse.! it often appears as a shorthand designation for an unqualified-and mostly unquestioned-be­ lief in music's ability to deliver the immaterial. smart's reluctant use of the term perhaps indicates a salutary rejection of the aesthetic cliche, a rejection which i imagine served as a fundamental impulse to write mimomania. music, conceived as a signifier of physical movement, keeps close to the realities of operatic embodiment, and thus complicates established notions of the metaphysical in music. having for so long dwelled in the spiritual reveries of those involved with opera in the nineteenth century, it is time for the discipline to consider with equal fervor the materiality of their work. in this sense, mimomania offers a very good starting point. but what about transcendence? smart sees the impulse to the invisible as the presiding force behind a shift in operatic practice away from melodrame. the story she relates in this respect is complex, and surprisingly enough, it begins yet again in paris, this time with the late french career of bellini. bellini never much cared for the melodramatic poses that delighted theater audiences in his day. his interest, smart argues, was the "emoting self;' and the ability of sound to mimic the physiology of sentiment, the sighs and groans released by pained souls and hearts. mimomania tells us the story of bellini searching for a drama of purely musical presence and finding inspira­ tion in the vanishing horizons and diaphonous bodies of french romantic ballet, namely the uncanny ability of the magical creatures of romantic ballet to transverse spatial boundaries. beginning with la sylphide (1832) the historical lineage of romantic ineffability in opera emerges pristine, running from wide leaps covered in white gauze, to irresistible sobs and sighs issuing from a bel canto throat, to the great orchestral breath that fills the sails of tristan's ship approaching cornwall this, of course, is too tidy a tale, one rewritten into a considerably messier, but also livelier, story in the two final chapters of the book. the verdi of un ballo in maschera and don carlos makes a strong appearance here as a composer engaged in a balancing act between melodramatic convention and stylistic innovation, gabriela cruz keen to draw on the essential bodily vitality of live performance even as he set out to compose his own "transcendent utterances:' music that simply "negates the physical" (150). the verdi of mimomania is less a contradic­ tion than an essentially operatic persona, one that comes to embody the very nature of opera described by carolyn abbate as "metaphysical flight and the fall to earth" (2003:vii). thus, smart points out in rich detail, the composer crafts musical signifiers of vulnerability and of muscular vitality, alternative visions of dissolving materiality and substantial presence, from related thematic material in amelia's cavatina and duet with ricardo in act 2 of un ballo in maschera. paradoxically, it is also here, the moment in which we zoom into the details of the signified body in music, that smart's argument for a theory of gesture laid along a continuous spectrum between the opposing conditions of "embodiment" and "transcendence" falters. verdi's collapsing evocations of the physical and the metaphysical recast philosophy as strategy and ontology as device; pragmatism brings about the ruin of idealist schemata. verdi comes off better in the book than his contemporary richard wagner, a composer so singularly obsessed with fixing the meaning of his works in performance that he arguably would kill all liveliness in opera. smart's final chapter charts the spectrum of musical embodiment in wagner's works and words, one in which "synchronization of music and gesture" stands at the negative end of a continuum that finds its positive fulfillment in a new ennobling of "stage immobility" (169). gestural music in wagner is a political means, a strategy often favored by an artist obsessed with distinguishing good from bad bodies in opera. thus, as david levin and marc weiner have shown, wagner shaped his villains-characters such as mime or beckmesser-as flawed bodies and compulsive mimics: agents of cultural dis figuration (levin 1996; weiner 1995). but it was not only in defining the abject or the merely wanting that wagner relied on melodrame. wary of the creative force of those who performed his works, he also drew on old pantomimic conventions to "regulate their movements" (189). thus, wagner, the puppet master who would reduce all singers to the role of lifeless executants, became too, in nietzsche's view, the "most enthusiastic mimomaniac, perhaps, who ever existed" (167). this is ambiguous terrain which smart explores in brilliant fashion. my favorite moment in the book is found here, in the discussion of wagner's musical inscription of sigmund and sieglinde's first encounter in die walkure. the reader's attention is drawn to "the miniature triadic arch-figure conventionally associated with sieglinde" (180). the motif "mimics the movement of her inclining body," tracing her movement on stage. soon, though, the ties between motif and visible gesture dissolve, and the little thematic unit made newly autonomous 135 136 current musicology envelops the sonorous architecture of the scene, generating "the music for the larger movement of departure and return" (184). the "arch-figure," silhouette-like and so clearly bespoken to physical movement, returns us obliquely to the gestural obsessions of grand opera and to the genre's syn­ aesthetic insistence that we see with our ears. but the contour of sieglinde recalled, amplified, and embellished in the orchestra, also suggests a final indiscretion. it gives us the composer absorbed in gawking reverie, wrestling musical creation from unacknowledged scopic pleasures. wagner, nietszche's "mimomaniac:' is the haunting presence at the center of mimomania. to keep close to wagner, of course, implies not only a proximity to his hypersensitivity to the body as musical signifier but also to his solipsistic manner in dealing with the subject. thus, smart's chapter on the composer offers less a history than a labyrinth of considerations, bringing forth the incongruence of the composer's theories of gesture and dramatic practices as well as his hallucinatory ways. here the limpid figure of transcendence falls in muddy waters. found between wagner's anguished retreat from movement and his compensatory overflow of gesture, "transcendence" elicits little fascination. its aftertaste is, as smart recognizes, bittersweet. here there is no redemption, just purposeful elimination. there is a litany of recommendations, big and small, to be made for mimomania. here we have the first history of nineteenth-century opera to delve into the topics of "operatic materialism" and "operatic spectacle" in a manner that is lucid, engaging, historically consequent, and rich in musical insight. i did not expect a history of romantic opera rewritten from the viewpoint of gesture to fit so snugly within traditional historical lineages. lineages, of course, do matter, not the least for their ability to deliver competing measures of comfort, authority, and provocation. and so it is in mimomania, an obligatory read to anyone interested in gesture as creative device and compositional problem, and to everyone else entranced by opera. notes 1. a pioneering and still powerful investigation of the topic can be found in vladimir janke­ levitch's musique et l'ineffable (1983). three more recent approaches are lydia goehr's the quest for voice: music, politics, and the limits of philosophy (1998), gary tomlinson's meta­ physical song: an essay on opera (1999), and carolyn abbate's in search of opera (2003). references abbate, carolyn. 2003. in search of opera. princeton, nj: princeton university press. allanbrook, wye jamison. 1983. rhythmic gesture in mozart: le nozze di figaro and don giovanni. chicago and london: university of chicago press. duncan, michelle. 2004. the operatic scandal of the singing body: voice, presence, performativity. cambridge opera journal 16: 283-306. gabriela cruz goehr, lydia. 1998. the quest for voice: music, politics, and the limits of philosophy. oxford and new york: oxford university press. hallman, diana r. 2003. the grand operas of fromental hauvy. in the cambridge companion to grand opera, edited by david charlton, 233-57. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. heine, heinrich. 1997. mais qu' est que ce que la musique: chroniques, edited by remy stricker. paris: actes sud. henson, karen. 1999. victor capoul, marguerite olagnier's le sais, and the arousing of female desire. journal of the american musicological society 52: 419-63. hutcheon, linda, and michael hutcheon. 2001. bodily charm: living opera. lincoln and london: nebraska university press. jankelevitch, vladimir. 1983. musique et l'ineffable. paris: seuil. koestenbaum, wayne. 1993. the queen's throat: opera, homosexuality, and the mystery of desire. new york: poseidon press. levin, david. 1996. reading beckmesser reading: antisemitism and aesthetic practice in the mastersingers of nuremberg. new german critique 69: 127-49. marx, karl. 1996. the eighteenth brumaire of louis bonaparte. in marx: later political writings, edited by terrell carver, 31-127. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. mayan, j. m. 1906. les guepes du theater. paris: bonvalot-jouve. smart, mary ann. 1996. the lost voice of rosina stoltz. cambridge opera journal 6: 31-50. tomlinson, gary. 1999. metaphysical song: an essay on opera. princeton, nj: princeton university press. weiner, marc a. 1995. richard wagner and theanti-semitic imagination. lincoln and london: nebraska university press. 137 current.musicology.84.101-174.pdf becoming bach, blaspheming bach: kinesthetic knowledge and embodied music theory in ysaye's "obsession" for solo violin mary lee greitzer this essay explores kinesthetic musical knowledge: what can it tell us about the music, the performer, or the composer? in discussing my own experi­ ence of performing "obsession;' the first movement of violinist -composer eugene ysaye's sonata no.2 for solo violin, op. 27 (1923), i'll articulate some of the observations i made while learning to play it. these insights in turn inflect and clarify my relationship with bach, whose violin music is the object ofy saye's obsession. in the course of practicing and perform­ ing "obsession;' i have developed a reading of this piece as depicting not only y saye's purported obsession with bach, but also his possession by (a demonic) bach. some aspects of my interpretation are readily audible, while others stem from my physical knowledge of the music. an embodied analysis such as i undertake here may uncover musical meanings apparent only to the performer, demonstrating that "the score is not the work to a performer; nor is the score-made-sound the work: the work includes the performer's mobilizing of previously studied skills so as to embody, to make real, to make sounding, a set of relationships that are only partly relationships among sounds" (cusick 1994: 18). many feminist scholars have observed that the body is too often written out of the academic study of music. for instance, philip bohlman sees this erasure writ large in musicology's disinclination to study dance (1993:431). suzanne cusick's critique of mainstream musicological practice aims to rehabilitate "the inextricable presence of the body in music-a presence both musicology's and music theory's focus on the intentions and the texts of the composers scrupulously denies" (1994:15). feeling that she is not meant to speak as a performer when teaching musicology, she has written of her efforts to resolve this apparent disjunction: "as a performer, i act on and with what we ordinarily call music with my body; as a musicologist i have been formed to act on (and with?) what we ordinarily call music with my mind, and only with my mind" (9). recognizing in the act of music­ making a resolution of this apparent mind/body split, cusick argues for a more embodied analytical practice, calling for a "theory of musical bodies" (18). elisabeth le guin has demonstrated the historical and interpretive insights that can be gained from such an embodied analytical practice, current musicology, no. 86 (fall 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 63 64 current musicology using her own performing body to explore the music and life of boccherini (2002; 2006). her methodology, which she calls "carnal musicology," links her experience as a performer to the eighteenth -century notion of sensibilite and shows how knowledge originating in her sensate body can motivate an interpretation of a piece. in the past two decades music scholars using feminist and queer theories have focused attention on musical bodies in their analysis and criticism. relating performative knowledge of a piece to aspects of the music's structure is one such approach. a more common feminist methodology seeks con­ nections between personal identity ( the composer's or the performer's), and musical structures and/or performance. we can fuse these approaches by thinking about how subjectivity might be inscribed upon a music-making body. for instance, in studying vocal performativity, cusick (1999) considers how our voices embody (perform) our gender, sex, ethnicity, etc. she hears in the timbre of eddie vedder's singing an assertion of his heterosexual male american subjectivity. his characteristic snarl, suggesting tightly constricted throat muscles, demonstrates his resistance to the discipline of song byphysi­ cally limiting culture's penetration into the innermost spaces of his body; context for this analysis includes her observation that singing is a normative behavior in our culture for women but not for men. in another example of work that connects music and identity through the music-making body, philip brett relates schubert's presumed homosexuality to the composer's four-hand piano music. for brett, who speaks here from the piano bench, the four-hand genre itself, the activity of playing these pieces, and various musical details all evoke homosociallhomoerotic modes of being. "through the device of describing a performative moment from the inside, i think i can get at certain aspects of meaning without attributing them to some higher power ... i attempt to engage with [the past 1 in some sort of dialogue-by imagining it in this instance as personified in the man of feeling, a historical friend, recognizable in the notes and gestures, with whom i can maintain a conversation even as i acknowledge i am talking to myself" (1997:171). a feminist musicological practice may thus negotiate cultural as well as identity politics, illuminating not only aspects of musical poiesis (whether composition or performance), but also the musician's lived experience.! following in this tradition, my analysis of "obsession" considers how my prior physical knowledge of bach's violin music lends nuance to how i perceive y saye's "obsessed" subjectivity instantiated in this piece. my discussion of "0 bsession" will unfold around two main topics. the first is the object of obsession: bach's music. by what traits do we recognize it, and how has it been woven into the fabric ofysaye's music? the second is the obsessed persona: the violinist. this nexus of ideas includes the possessed violin virtuoso, the devil-violin trope, and the rock star fantasy mary lee greitzer "obsession" affords me when i perform it. i hope also to demonstrate "that analyses benefit from the overt representation of the analyst in the text" (guck 1994:29). quoting bach violinists in the world of western classical music always seem to be practicing bach, a generalization rooted in my lifelong interactions with other per­ formers. we study his six unaccompanied sonatas and partitas throughout our lives, at least from the time we begin formal training at a high level. the solo bach repertory forms "the core of a violinist's life;' according to joseph szigeti (parikian 1979:1003), and these pieces have been part ofthe standard pedagogy for more than one hundred and fifty years (menuhin and primrose 1976:227). because these pieces are unaccompanied, they require nothing and no one except the violinist, which sets them apart from much other violin music. like most other violinists, when i perform these pieces, i always play from memory, which is another special feature of my relationship to this repertory. it becomes etched into our flesh, musically speaking, and bach is an important part of how we come to know our instru­ ment and how we learn our craft. despite differences in playing style, and despite each violinist favoring various movements, this is a body of music that deeply connects us. it is also the most widely shared music of the solo violin repertory, played by more of us than ever undertake serious study of any other major unaccompanied work. y saye (1858-1931) was a legendary violinist, a conductor, and a composer, who in the early 1920s wrote his own set of six sonatas for solo violin, each dedicated to a younger violinist. these pieces reflect various early twentieth -century aesthetics, particularly in their harmonic original­ ity and exploration of new instrumental techniques, while also displaying strong connections to bach's archetypes in their overall form. the second sonata, dedicated to jacques thibaud, is the only one to quote bach, and it does so only in its opening movement, entitled "obsession." a state of being obsessed with bach (instead of, for instance, the piece being heard as homage or requiem) is communicated not only by the movement's title and by its explicit quotations of bach's own solo violin music, but also by its general mania.2 this manic affect is created through elements including the piece's feverish tempo (and eventual accelerando), its generous use of accents, and its angular melodic chromaticism rife with augmented and diminished intervals; it is further crystallized in several interpolations of the dies irae melody. these passages enhance the piece's quality of demonical madness, whereby obsession intensifies into demonic possession. though the title "obsession" refers only to the first movement, the dies irae binds 65 66 current musicology example 1: the openings of bach's e-major prelude, bwv 1006, and ysaye's "obsession:' ysaye, mm. 1-5 "---"ysaye's response" together the second sonata as a whole, recurring in its second and fourth movements. ysaye's relationship to music was shaped by his experience as both a violinist and a composer. in thinking about how his solo violin music reflects bach's influence, i'm reminded of hearing augusta read thomas speak about the compositional process and her own musical influences (2003). she described her own compositions as definitely "well heard;' meaning that every moment of her own music gets crafted very deliberately, for she literally dances and sings every phrase, and in other ways feels out each and every sound, rhythm, and gesture in the creative process. she connected this description with the claim that she had "thoroughly digested stravinsky." citing stravinsky as a major influence suggests that she processed his music in a similarly performative way: singing it, dancing it, playing it at the keyboard or on other instruments, transcribing passages from memory or from repeated listenings, conducting along with recordings, etc. thomas's visceral phrase "digesting stravinsky" has stuck with me because it resonates with the relationship i hear between bach and y saye. as we will see, the movement entitled "obsession" shows us that y saye "thoroughly digested" bach. to put it another way, we could say that "obsession" speaks bach's language: specifically, it speaks the language of bach's e-major prelude for solo violin. y saye is so "fluent" that he seems to be having trouble generating original musical statements, as if he feels unable to escape the enormity of bach's influence and musical prowess. let's examine some of the specifics conveying this drama in the music. bach's prelude opens his e-major partita, bwv 1006 (see example 1, top staff). once begun, the prelude maintains a perpetual flow of sixteenth notes until the end. "obsession" is also a first movement, and it also flows along in sixteenth notes almost the entire time, although initially our at­ tention is drawn to a much more blatant likeness between the two pieces. ysaye begins by quoting the opening of bach's prelude (see example 1, bottom staff). but he breaks it off abruptly, and after a dramatic silence, something new crashes in. do we hear m. 3 as a continuation of the earlier mary lee greitzer example 2: comparison ofysaye, mm. 31-32 and bach, mm. 29-30. 4! (w)jtjjjjjj5jjujjjpjjm.1 ysaye ,~~ 13 j uj; sj]; sj] i djjjwftw irrrr.~ gte. bach line? the second entrance, labeled on example 1 as "y saye's response;' seems torn between taking up bach's statement and emphatically rebutting it. in y saye's response, i'm still playing a single line of sixteenths, but now the music is crazed and aggressive: this entrance is marked fortissimo and brutalement, and y saye demands even more drama by giving accents to the first seven notes. answering bach's major-mode joyfulness with minor-mode storminess, these measures seem to contradict the bach quote. also, bach's first three notes [e-d#-e] are echoed by [f-e-f] in ysaye's response: this "wrong note" echo is a semitone off, sounding a "mistuned" unison or octave. and yet we can also hear that this echo exactly mimics the shape of bach's melodic incipit: in both ofysaye's initiating gestures ([e-d#-e] in m. 1, and [f-e-f] in m. 3) the pitch dips a semitone, then returns. furthermore, if we overlay the bach directly onto the opening measures of "obsession;' as if the prelude is humming along in y saye's ears in real time as he composes, we can hear the noisy violence of m. 3's eruption as his attempt to literally drown out bach's line, while yet the entire "response" reinscribes bach's distinctive zig zag contour. overall, the opening suggests y saye is trying hard, but failing, to wrestle the musical line away from the specter of bach. "specter" seems a particularly apt word, for the bach quotation is a ghostly rendition of its original self: y saye strips it of the vivacity bach gave it, by instructing the performer to play it leggiero and piano. most violinists play the opening of "obsession" at the tip of the bow with a very delicate sound, like a whisper, whereas we tend to open the bach prelude with a joyous full sound made in the lower half of the bow. by beginning a movement entitled "obsession" with such a subdued incarnation of this particular quote, ysaye's piece suggests that he can't shake bach's prelude loose from his mind-or perhaps from his fingers-as he endeavors to compose his own solo violin music. the image of him composing with violin in hand is very strongly implied in these open­ ing phrases. throughout the piece we repeatedly encounter this single idea: an obvious quote from the prelude is stated and then abruptly truncated, leading to an explosive response. these quotations present the first and most obvious aspect ofysaye's obsession with bach's e-major prelude. 67 68 current musicology example 3: comparison o[ysaye, mm. 11-16 and bach, mm. 109-12 (graphic reduction). ysaye ~i p/!ffi"ijitffi) , .. , ·::"'f&mjj~1i bach quotations of the prelude seem to recur even when ysaye modulates to keys that bach never visited, such as a c-major passage we hear toward the middle of "obsession" (see example 2). although for most listeners its counterfeit nature is completely undetectable, the y saye passage shown in example 2 is in fact found nowhere in the e-major prelude. its inspiration is a passage like the one shown beneath it, or potentially any of several other moments in the prelude where we hear this distinctive climbing triadic figure (four other times: mm. 33-34 and 90-91 in c# major, mm. 79-80 in a major, and mm. 83-84 in b minor). fictional bach quotes, like the transposed material shown in example 2, present us with a second indication ofysaye's obsession: it's as if his hands, or his ears, inevitably find bach no matter where he tries to take the music tonally. as one who is also somewhat obsessed with bach's solo violin music, i recognize these fictive quotes as further evidence ofysaye's torment. the piece hits a deep nerve for me as a performing violinist, because i too have bach on the brain, and bach in my hands. right after the juxtapositions between the bach and y saye voices at the opening of "obsession;' the music arrives in a minor and finally settles in for a long stretch without further interruptions. if the opening suggested the two composers wrestling for control of the music, then whose will dominates during this more continuous a-minor section? in the music shown on the top staff of example 3, i hear a hybrid compositional voice. whereas "obsession" opened with alternating segments that established two distinct musical voices, clearly separated by silences, now the two composers seem to be sharing the same sixteenth note line: two spirits occupying the same musical flesh. although bach's presence in this part of the piece has become much less explicit, perhaps his influence does not diminish in scope. rather than being focused into a direct quotation, which we might easily hear and identify, the traces of bach now become more diffused and submerged .. ysaye's a-minor passage involves a repeated series of two-note slurs. these are all string-crossing slurs, and they bring out a scalar eighth note line from within the sixteenth note texture, which i've shown by the eighth mary lee greitzer example 4: bach, allegro from a-minor sonata, bwv 1003, m. 1. note stems extending down beneath the staff. the first two measures are soon repeated a fifth higher. practicing this passage evokes in my muscle memory a similar situation from the middle of bach's prelude, shown on the bottom staff of example 3. the bach passage is built upon an analogous structural configuration: it too uses a series of string-crossing slurs to bring out a scalar eighth-note melody against running sixteenths, and it too is promptly sequenced at the fifth. the traces of bach illuminated in example 3 are relatively difficult to hear. they reside in my muscle memory, which is to say that this y saye pas­ sage feels like bach much more than it sounds like bach. music theorists often proceed by listening closely and focusing on something they're hearing, or by looking closely at the score. yet i came to understand how y saye continues to weave the prelude into this section of his piece not through attentive listening, nor through score study, but through practicing and playing the y saye, and through having practiced and played a lot of bach-in other words, through my physical, bodily knowledge of producing this music. in practicing "obsession;' i also found that other features of this same passage evoke a very different solo bach movement, namely the final allegro from bach's a-minor sonata, bwv 1003 (see example 4). bach's a-minor allegro shares its key with "obsession," which means that it's positioned very similarly on the violin, and the defiant character of this mainly sixteenth-note movement lies closer to the mood of "obsession" than does the jubilance of the e-major prelude. although these connections between "obsession" and bach's a-minor allegro are quite subtle, i do feel primed as a performer-analyst (or violinist -detective) to sense the allegro lurking in the background of "obsession;' and when i playysaye'sa-minor passage (the top staff of example 3), i've come to hear traces of bach's allegro bleed­ ing through into the music. while the e-major prelude quotations (both literal and invented) in "obsession" make blatant references to bach, ysaye only hints at the a-minor allegro. its phantom presence in "obsession;' along with the particular string-crossing choreography detailed in example 3, together reveal a third aspect in our account of the obsession plaguing y saye: he has layered mere traces of bach into the musical texture-traces drawn from more than one bach movement. these partial layers of bach provoke thoughts ofysaye as craftsman, weaving his musical tapestry, his sixteenth note fabric frayed and worn, perhaps even ripped in frustration at the beginning of "obsession:' it seems as though bach were showing through 69 70 current musicology the metaphorical holes in the musical cloth, holes we can also understand as a metaphor for y saye's fraying sanity as he struggles for compositional control. to summarize: bach's presence permeates several aspects ofy saye's piece. the juxtapositions at the beginning establish two personalities who might control the music. with the arrival of the a-minor passage at m. 11, musical characteristics of each composer start to become overlaid upon one another, meshing together into a hybrid voice which remains the site of subliminal struggle for musical control. although y saye temporarily suppresses the most blatant signs of bach's influence by moving past the literal quotations, i've argued that bach now begins to inflect the music in more subtle ways, which due to the title "obsession," i take to represent a more insidious state of affairs. let us say that y saye is caught in a psycho-musical hall of mirrors that reflect something of bach at him no matter where he turns. in fact, not only are real and fictional bach passages woven throughout "0 bsession;' but its final notes quote the transposed ending of bach's prelude: y saye's piece is literally bounded by the very music which is driving him (it?) mad. it's enough to make anyone feel like they were possessed. let's consider the state of obsession from this angle: who or what might be possessed? perhaps it is ysaye the composer who is possessed, driven mad by bach and feeling unable to fully assert his own unique musical voice. or maybe the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, and it's y saye the violinist who is possessed, his fingers betraying his intentions, his hands displaying a will of their own as they continually drift toward playing bach. any instrumental­ ist can confirm that our hands develop their own ways of knowing, as we internalize characteristic gestures and configurations over a lifetime of learning to play music. a third possibility is that the violin itself is possessed and is controlling the player: perhaps it is the violin that wants to be playing bach, because it's always meant to be playing bach, just as jack nicholson's character in the film the shining (1980) "is and has always been" the caretaker of the overlook hotel. certainly bach's towering legacy affords us any of these possibilities. part of the analytical fun is that the piece invites us to construe y saye's obsession as potentially embodying any of these more demonic musical dispositions. quoting the devil a preoccupation of many classical violinists is lineage: with whom did you study? part of my connection with "obsession" stems from my having fallen in love with it when i first heard it played by my colleague and friend adelaide baughman, who studied it with william preudl, who studied it with the great violinist and pedagogue josef gingold, who in turn studied it with y saye mary lee greitzer himself. baughman proudly referred to herself once as a "great-grand-pupil of y safe." these are the stories we tell ourselves that help us understand where we come from. the generational historiography isn't just snobbery (though that element exists too) but also accounts for styles, methods, and traditions. y saye himself, for instance, "considered textual fidelity secondary to interpretative greatness. to take liberties meant to bring music to life" (schwarz 1987:291). his playing was known for its rich expressivity and liberal use of rubato; his contemporaries emphasized his stylistic originality and his "free and often willful interpretation" (286). though i daresay i lack "interpretative greatness," i do bring a personal imprint to my performances of "obsession": this is one of those pieces that let me fulfill my rock star fantasies when i play it. it's noisy, stompy ("brutalement"), and thrillingly exhibitionistic in its virtuosic theatricality-in a word, it rocks. in my mind this fantasy also connects me with the most notorious violinist of all, nicolo paganini: "at the end of his concerts the public was raving, weeping, shouting, scrambling" (joachim 1932:1082). credited with consolidating and substantially advancing instrumental technique,3 paganini's playing was so unusual and so superior that it was thought to be supernatural, leading to the popular conviction that he was in league with the devil, if not actually the devil incarnate (kawabata 2007). his deliberately theatrical performances, his infamously "cadaverous" physique clad all in black (schwarz 1987:180), and the wild rumors circulating about him then and now-such as those concerning his violent criminal history, and those recounting him playing so wildly that each string snapped one by one until he was left with only the g string and still not missing a note-are the stuff of rock legend, linking him with latter-day virtuosi like eddie van halen.4 in paganini we find perhaps the most well-known instance of the phe­ nomenon linking violin and devil. a historical survey of music incorporating this trope would include tartini's g-minor violin sonata ("devil's trill"), saint-saens's danse macabre with its mistuned violin (the e string is tuned down a semitone, making a "diabolical" tritone sound between the open a and e strings), and stravinsky's l'histoire du soldat, among many others. the trope's continued relevance today is indicated by australian composer rohan stevenson's recent violin concerto entitled "devil;' the heavy metal trio devil in the kitchen, fronted by electric fiddle, and the grammy-winning song "devil went down to georgia;' in which the charlie daniels band presents a faustian tale of the devil gambling with the fiddler for his soul. for most of the other pieces and performers mentioned above, the devil is understood not as separate from the violinist, but as encompassed within her, a force possessing the player and/or the violin and/or the music itself. the figure of the demonically possessed violinist brings us finally to the other material quoted in "obsession": the dies irae. this distinctive 71 72 current musicology example 5: bariolage in bach, e-major prelude, mm. 17-19. tune originated in the plainchant tradition of medieval monks. its fearsome text, dealing with death and the day of judgment, soon became a standard element of the requiem mass. in the nineteenth century, the dies irae began accumulating a rich symbolism for romantic composers, beginning with berlioz's use of the melody in 1830 for his "dream of a witches' sabbath" from the symphonie fantastique. the tune soon accrued "connotations of malevolence, devilry and witchcraft" which are not found in the original poem (boyd 1968:348). these enduring associations are illustrated by its presence in films like the shining and the omen (1976), both of which center on a character who is demonically possessed. saint -saens's violin showpiece danse macabre, mentioned above, also quotes the dies irae tune. it seems likely that this piece would have been in y saye's performing repertory, for he was friends with saint -saens, having performed the elder composer's rondo capriccio so at his own paris debut in 1885 (schwarz 1987:281). in order to most fully appreciate the dies irae settings in "obsession," however, we must return to bach's e-major prelude. early in the prelude we come to a remarkable passage. the excerpt on the top staff of example 5 begins the most tightly patterned chunk of the whole prelude, where bach sustains a kind of trance-like arpeggio state over twelve measures. the vibrancy of the open e string pedal point (shown by bach with upward stems) is a constant presence gleaming brightly, and no doubt the passage sounds very distinctive. what i wish to focus on, however, is again not the aural but the physical aspect: how it feels very distinctive to play this pas­ sage, specifically in my right arm. the bottom staff of example 5 shows the perpetually repeated string -crossing sequence entailed by the passage, a kind of "figure eight" motion of the bow among the upper three strings. one must spend a fair amount of time mastering this bow choreography, which is an example of bariolage, a common baroque bowing technique of patterned string crossings which rapidly juxtapose open strings with stopped pitches and static pitches with moving pitches. this particular passage is tricky enough to merit practicing it "hands separately;' thus i actually practiced something like the bottom staff of example 5. eventually this once-awkward bowing becomes smooth and automatic. mary lee greitzer example 6: vivaldi, presto from summer concerto, mm. 40-43. "ii ,"tf~rflffitl!jkjltmtml!jltrjl!jtrjll , i [deter 811' i ffirllirdii' i 81rffij'ffir i example 7: y safe, "obsession;' mm. 20-21, the first dies irae. other composers have also recognized its inherent potential for drama: bariolage offers maximal reverberation by incorporating open strings, while the flurry of right arm commotion in this particular type provides visual theatrics too. for instance, vivaldi exploits it wonderfully in the four seasons, when the soloist enters the last movement of the summer concerto with thrilling drama as shown on example 6. (note that vivaldi uses the same three strings as bach [e, a, d], but makes d rather than e the open-string pedal.) yet like many violinists, i encountered this particular three-string bowing pattern for the first time when studying bach's e-major prelude. for me, performing this particular bariolage bowing retains a strong, if subconscious, kinesthetic association with playing bach. i've introduced it at some length because y saye incorporates it to great effect in "obsession": he uses the same bariolage, complete with bach's open e-string pedal, to set the dies irae (see example 7). to many listeners that passage won't particularly evoke bach, for bach never quoted the dies irae. but i think violinists will perceive the connection on some level: it is not only enfolded into our muscle memory, but there is also a prominent visual association between the two passages, due to the distinctive way the bowing is notated by both composers. this is seen by comparing the reversed stems separating out y saye's dies irae melody on example 7 with the reversed stems separating out bach's pedal point on example 5. as this is only the first of several times the dies irae sounds in this piece, we might say that it too gets treated as an object of obsession, serving as a second idee fixe if we think of "explicit bach quotations" as the first. the dies irae interpolations are thus a fourth manifestation ofy saye's obsession with bach. however, they also afford us the chance to reassess the psychologi­ cal power dynamics we hear expressed by this music. most obviously, the 73 74 current musicology example 8: ysaye, "obsession," mm. 64-69, the climax. presence of the dies irae testifies to the intensity of y saye's obsession-i hear it as invoking the "demon bach" driving him mad. but by crafting this blatant devil music in a piece that speaks so much with bach's voice, ysaye also manages to suggest that bach himself is somehow responsible for this music, and this is brought home for violinists when we play the dies irae with bariolage evoking bach's prelude. the dies irae can thus be heard as embodying an extraordinary flip of the entire question of possession and control. so far we've understood bach to be showing up in ysaye's music, but now the illusion may be that y saye-perhaps in league with the devil-is controlling bach's music, that y saye is causing bach to write this tune, and thereby linking bach with the devil in an exquisite blasphemy. in the dies irae passage shown on example 7, we might imagine ysaye as a looming puppet master making a bach marionette dance with the devil. the intensification of musical energy toward the climax of"o bsession" also raises the psychological stakes. out of the climactic pyrotechnics flows the dies irae in canon, as the tune is interlaced with its own echo an octave higher (see example 8). in a compositional and violinistic tour de force which seems desperate to out-compose bach, ysaye weaves the two canonic dies irae voices around two different e pedals simultaneously: an open e string pedal, and a fingered e pedal played on the a string. this prestidigitation grants tone-color variety to the e pedals, adding timbral nuance and friction to the whole passage. example 8 provides the fingerings y saye has indicated to the violinist, dictating the same bariolage required by bach's prelude. as before, y saye's use of this bariolage to deliver the dies irae both sustains and subverts bach's influence over the music. as the performer i can revel in this ambiguity, for my body is symbolically divided: as my right arm dances to the e-major prelude via the three-string bariolage, my left hand mary lee greitzer example 9: comparison of bach, e-major prelude, mm. 17-19 and y safe, "obsession," mm.20-21. bach sings the dies irae. in crafting this passage, y say-e became both possessed and possessor, exalting bach while damning him, and my act of performance weaves it all together. i am absolutely complicit in this reading, for unless i actively perceive something bachish about this bowing, i probably won't experience the dies irae as an equivocation of power, but hear it instead as another straightfor­ ward marker ofysay-e's torment or feeling of doom. a comparison of my relationship toward each composer raises a similar point. the relationship i enact toward y say-e in this piece is very much one of humility and respect, as i follow his close markings of the score to the best of my ability, having spent many hours learning to play his piece. on the other hand, although in general i too worship bach, the relationship i enact toward him while playing "obsession" is heavily mediated by y say-e. so when the bach quotes are broken off suddenly and inspire such theatrical rage; and in the general manic hysteria of the movement itself; and in the repeated association with the devil-in all of these things, the piece affords me a significantly different mode of enjoying bach than i'm used to. it's quite irreverent, and i believe the irreverence of " obsession" toward bach as musical god, bach as authority figure, is another important component of its rock-star vibe. my analysis concludes with brief reference to the claim that playing rock music backwards reveals satanic messages.5 example 9 contrasts bach's pedal point passage (from example 5) with one ofy say-e's dies irae passages (from 75 76 current musicology example 7). notice that bach's bariolage, with down bows on the a string and up bows on the e and d strings, is actually reversed in the dies irae. in learning to play "obsession;' i needed to subtly recoordinate that which was internalized in learning to play the e-major prelude. the dies irae's bowing-which makes me invert bach's bariolage-thus allows the contem­ porary performer to search for the devil in this "backwards music." concluding remarks this essay links my authorial voice to my bodily experience, articulating an interpretation ofysaye's "obsession" based on insights gleaned primar­ ily through my kinesthetic knowledge of this music. the act of playing "obsession" opens the music to me beyond what i can hear in it, and certainly beyond what i can see in the score. my embodied musical experi­ ence also speaks to my participation in a particular community, in this case getting me to think about musical knowledge that only violinists (and other performers) can access. an important parallel between analysis and performance, which draws me very deeply to both undertakings, is that both involve building an in­ timate relationship with a piece and essentially internalizing it, "making it mine."6 yet analysis and performance have typically tended toward different ways of expressing this intimacy. in an analytical mode, we generally com­ municate with language, verbalizing and/ or writing down our observations. but in a performing mode we usually communicate almost exclusively with and through music, and only infrequently do we verbalize our observations about how the music works or means. music lessons are one arena in which musicians often merge these two modalities, as teacher and student mold an interpretation of a given piece through both talking and playing. it would seem self-evident that performing and analyzing can be co-creative activities not only in music lessons, but also in the music theory classroom. unfortunately, the performer's experience, including the vast repository of musical knowledge stored in our hands and bodies, too often remains unprobed in this latter realm of music pedagogy. yet most theorists teach ear training and vocal skills, and we try to link these things to keyboard fluency; these are all embodied aspects of musical understanding. building on this everyday discourse, i believe we music theory teachers should be asking our students to engage analytically with music they're already playing, far more often than we currently ask this of them. one of my aims as a feminist music theorist is to practice an embodied musicology, bringing analysis and performance to bear upon one another explicitly in my teaching as well as my scholarship. mary lee greitzer like thomas, whose compositional process is rooted in a performa­ tive relationship with music, alexandra pierce performs her analyses into existence through dance and gesture: for example, if, in doing an analysis of motivic organization, you begin by finding in movement the affective gesture of a main motif (what in theatre would be called its "characterization"), and then test, by moving, whether that affect is present in the myriad guises through which the motif occurs in the piece, you discover yourself decisive and surprisingly selective about which transformations bear genetic relation to the parent motif. (kielian-gilbert and guck 1983-84:607) pierce's description of her approach is found in a collection of letters published in perspectives of new music in the early 1980s, responding to marion guck's and marianne kielian-gilbert's invitation to young theorists to voice their thoughts on the discipline: where do you see music theory headed? whose work has inspired you? what's the relationship between your theoretical/analytical work and your other musical activities? in other words, they offered younger theorists a chance to explicitly situate themselves, not necessarily as experts, as we are used to doing in scholarly publications, but as committed, inquisitive participants. notes 1. in a noteworthy effort to move these discussions beyond the metaphorical, andrew rob­ bie builds on cusick's explorations of how music can be like sex (cusick 2006), theorizing performances of sciarrino's solo instrumental music as enacting erotic relationships between the performer and their instrument. robbie's discussion focuses on sciarrino's pervasive use of extended instrumental techniques, noting that "the musical fabric consists almost entirely of the physical display of this intimacy" (robbie 2005:4). 2. "obsession" presents both an aggressive virtuosity and a markedly hysterical chromaticism each time y saye "responds" to the provocation of a (tonally straightforward) bach quote. a feminist music criticism might be interested in probing the politics of gender and sexuality at play in the musical body performing this virtuosic chromaticism. 3. see schwarz 1987:196-99, for discussion ofpaganini's technical innovations in the cat­ egories of scordatura, bowings, left-hand pizzicato, harmonics, performing on the g string only, and fingerings. 4. eddie van halen's guitar playing features prominently in robert walser's work on heavy metal music and masculinity. walser and many rock guitarists credit van halen with "forg[ing] a new virtuosity" (1992:271), much as paganini did two centuries before, and both musicians are known for having practiced literally all day long (walser 271; joachim 1932:1080). in "eruption;' one of the most famous of all guitar solos (heard on van halen's eponymous 1978 debut album), van halen's early training as a violinist is evident when he riffs on kreutzer's etude no.2, the most cliched of violin etudes, in premiering the tapping technique he is widely credited with inventing. 77 78 current musicology 5. see vokey and read 1985:1231-32, for a brief outline of the moral panic these claims originally engendered, and see jeff milner's website for musical examples played forward and backward at http://jeffmilner.com/backmasking.htm (accessed november 9, 2008). 6. see also marion guck's discussion of musical intimacy: "i've tried to articulate pleasures, simple pleasures, i take in the work ... i know it through touch as well as sound-i know how it moves from moving it" (1997:348). references bohlman, philip v. 1993. musicology as a political act. journal of musicology 11 (4): 411-36. boyd, malcolm. 1968. "dies irae": some recent manifestations. music & letters 49 (4): 347-56. brett, philip. 1997. piano four-hands: schubert and the performance of gay male desire. 19th-century music 21 (2): 149-76. cusick, suzanne g. 1994. feminist theory, music theory, and the mind/body problem. perspectives of new music 32 (1): 8-27. ---. 1999. on musical performances of gender and sex. in audible traces, edited by elaine barkin and lydia hamessley, 25-49. zurich: carciofoli verlagshaus. ---.2006. on a lesbian relationship with music: a serious effort not to think straight. in queering the pitch: the new gay and lesbian musicology, edited by philip brett, elizabeth wood, and gary c. thomas, 67-84. london and new york: routledge. guck, marion a. 1994. a woman's (theoretical) work. perspectives of new music 32 (1): 28-43. ---. 1997. music loving, or the relationship with the piece. journal of musicology 15 (3): 343-52. joachim, henry. 1932. three milestones in the history of violin playing. iii. paganini (concluded). the musical times 73: 1079-82. kawabata, maiko. 2007. virtuosity, the violin, the devil... what really made paganini 'demonic'? current musicology 83: 85-108. kielian-gilbert, marianne c., and marion a. guck. 1983-84. reflections on music theory. perspectives of new music 22 (1-2): 560-630. le guin, elisabeth. 2002. "one says that one weeps, but one does not weep": sensible, grotesque, and mechanical embodiments in boccherini's chamber music. journal of the american musicological society 55 (2): 207-54. ---. 2006. boccherini's body: an essay in carnal musicology. berkeley and los angeles: university of chicago press. menuhin, yehudi, and william primrose. 1976. violin & viola. london: kahn & averill. parikian, manoug. 1979. review: violinist's wisdom. the musical times 120 (1642): 1003-4. robbie, andrew. 2005. an erotics for sciarrino. paper presented at the 2005 boston-area graduate symposium in musicology, brandeis university. schwarz, boris. 1987. great masters of the violin. new york: simon & schuster, inc. thomas, augusta read. 2003. presentation to the graduate students' composer's colloquium at harvard university, november 3, 2003. vokey, john r., and j. don read. 1985. subliminal messages: between the devil and the media. american psychologist 40 (11): 1231-39. walser, robert. 1992. eruptions: heavy metal appropriations of classical virtuosity. popular music 11 (3): 263-308. current.musicology.86.1-100.pdf disruptive spatiality and the experience of recordings of bach's solo cello suites naomi waltham-smith antechamber: bach and space architecture, so the saying goes, is "frozen music." music, conversely, is "liquid" architecture. 1 this aphorism, popular in the early nineteenth century, soon became a cliche. "should one perhaps speak of ruins;' quips schopenhauer in 1844, "as a 'frozen cadenza'?" ([1819/44] 1977:534). however maligned, though, the cliche persists in bach studies. it is still commonplace to speak of the "architecture" of bach's music (wolff 1969; schulenberg 1992; corten 1995), and even the composer himself has been labeled an "architect" (joseph 1992). the very structures of this music, we are frequently told, are "architectonic:' while discourse on bach has tended to adopt this architectural metaphor as an unquestioned, and at times tacit, assumption, there is little evidence to suggest that his music corresponds with any degree of precision to concrete examples of architectural theory or practice. nor have commentators drawn consistent parallels between bach's music and anyone architectural style, let alone a single historical period. the analogy between high gothic architecture and bach's counterpoint was common in the first half of the nineteenth century, and articles and books on bach continue to be peppered with pictures of gothic cathedrals. other commentators, however, claim to detect stylistic parallels with the architecture of baroque rome: raymond court, for instance, writes that "we place the music of j. s. bach opposite this grand baroque architecture of papal rome as in a mirror in order to discover analogous stylistic traits" (1989:15). it is easy to see how images of tall gothic spires, lofty vaults, and slender columns summon up a widespread-and often explicitly theological-image of bach. yet most detailed and concrete attempts to unearth an architectural principle behind the music evoke the ideals prized by renaissance architects of "exact proportion, suitable disposition, and harmonious order" rather than the asymmetrical excess of the baroque (joseph 1992:83). as com­ mentators track symmetries and reveal the elegant proportions of bach's forms, their analytical diagrams begin to look like blueprints, such as wolff's (figure 1). current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 33 34 current musicology figure 1: structural analysis of the passacaglia in c minor, based upon wolff (1969:187). 2 var. 1-2 3 ii 3-5 4 iii 6-9 2 iv 10-11 4 v 12-15 3 vi 16-18 2 vii 19-20 analyses which claim to detect an architectonic structure in bach's music usually aim to elucidate geometrical designs and numerically conceived hierarchies and patterns. when ulrich siegele asserts, for example, that the formal dispositions of bach's concerto movements reveal a marked tendency towards proportional shaping (1997), he subscribes to a long-standing analytical paradigm which has tended to dominate literature on bach, especially in studies of his ritornello forms. there is also widespread support for the idea that bach demonstrates a strong interest in symmetrical design in certain passages of his large-scale choral works, including, for instance, the symbolum nicenum of the b minor mass (e.g., butt 1991 and stauffer 1997). eduard van hengel and kees van houten (2004), for example, rely on considerations of symmetry to argue that, contrary to established scholarly opinion, the "et incarnatus" had been planned from the outset. 2 they suggest that a "quick look at the facades of baroque and classical palaces, churches, residences, and other large, multisectional buildings" would corroborate their claims (2004:93). in short, to liken bach's music to architecture is to say that its structure exhibits some kind of symmetry or that its formal arrangement is governed by proportions. because the analogy between musical structure and architectural design hinges on the mathematical principles and ratios which are said to underpin both, it is, unsurprisingly, often closely associated with numerological analysis. much doubt, however, has been cast upon the interpretative value of readings which center around number symbolism, as well as their historical validity as a guide to pre-compositional thinking.3 bach was likely to have been familiar with the contemporary theoretical debate between lorenz christoph mizler and johann mattheson over music and mathematics, and while there is evidence to suggest that his sympathies lay with the former (bach joined mattheson's corresponding society of the musical sciences in 1747 where it was maintained that "mathematics is the heart and soul of music;' mizler [1739-54] 1970,2:54), the association hardly justifies an uncritical recourse to numerology in analyzing bach's music. still, even when musicologists such as ulrich meyer (1979) are alert to the dangers of symbolic interpretation, the assumption that bach's forms are governed naomi waltham-smith by architectonic proportions and the conclusions about the significance of such arrangements go unchallenged. nevertheless, such architectural associations, christoph wolff warns, are "not without their dangers" (1969:183). for charles joseph, they risk "opening a pandora's box;' allowing "a clutter of meaningless metaphors'" to escape (1992:83). the connection should fill the analyst with anxiety. it "will not tell us much about either the strasbourg minster or the st. anne fugue," complains thomas grey. "with respect to music," he continues, "architecture [is] insufficiently metaphorical" (1992:95-96). laurence dreyfus (1996:27-28) argues that focusing on supposedly architectural aspects, such as the ordering of musical events and their arrangement into patterned blocks of time, deflects attention from bach's talent for invent­ ing and manipulating his raw material. the metaphor of "paradigmatic maps" (1996: 182) which dreyfus substitutes for the architectural analogy, however, borrows a distinction from modern linguistics between paradigm and syntagm which is itself conceived spatially as two perpendicular axes.4 thus the spatial metaphor seems unshakable. one could, of course, explain away dreyfus's adherence to spatial thinking by noting that spatial modes of representation are indispensable for discourse about music in general: conceiving of the horizontal and vertical elements of contrapuntal lines is already to think spatially, as much of dreyfus's terminology to describe the mechanical operations-inversion, rotation, array-demonstrates. the striking recurrence of spatial language in discussions of bach's music should not be dismissed so quickly, however. even if the architectural analogy itself proves problematic, there is still an unmistakable urge to put this music in a space, whether within a cavernous cathedral or through the motions of mechanistic rotation and inversion. if bach's music seems to lend itself to spatial thinking, the idea of space, i claim, assumes its signal importance when it is taken beyond its limited use as a metaphor for structural relations and into the realm of performance and the listener's experience. there is one group of works in particular, i believe, which demands to be heard in a certain kind of space. the solo cello suites, by virtue of the fact that they are written for a solo instrument and yet still aspire to the illusion of counterpoint, require a certain degree of resonance from both the instrument and the acoustic so that the pitches can overlap and be heard as harmonies, and so that the voice leading can be audible. these works form the focus of my study. of course, the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin likewise exploit these instruments' capacity for polyphonic effects, and critics frequently mention both sets of works in the same breath, but, as baroque cellist anner bylsma suggests, bach approaches this compositional challenge differently in each case: 35 36 current musicology bach wanted to demonstrate that it was just as possible to compose four­ part fugues and other counterpoint for a single violin as it was for the organ. in the cello suites this idea seems to be enlarged still further as if to pose the question: how many notes can one take away and still leave a complete suite in the mind of the listener, harmony and counterpoint included-not forgetting the many dissonances and syncopations in this case which exist only in the memory of the audience! (bylsma 1992:5) whereas in the solo violin works there is greater continuity in the two-part textures, even sparser textures in the cello suites demand a more powerful aural memory, a generous acoustic, and the greater natural reso­ nance of the larger instrument. the opening of the prelude of the c minor suite (example 1) not only exploits the resonant open c string to create the impression of a continuous tonic pedal point, but also relies on notes ringing on after the cellist has stopped playing in order to create the effect of a two-part texture. to begin with, the notated sustained half notes at the beginning of measures 3 and 4 can only be suggested in performance: the m must be released after a quarter beat to play the low c, and the b~ is usually held only for a dotted quarter beat in performance and not reiterated with the bow-change on the fourth eighth note. in other places, it is necessary to hear certain notes beyond their literal duration in order to follow the voice leading: the smooth alternation between e~ and f in mm. 4-7 is interrupted, while the b in m. 2 is separated from its resolution by an entire measure. the lower voice especially in m. 6 depends on acoustic resonance to be heard because the f is dampened as soon as the player shifts to a higher position on the same string to play the sixteenth notes. this example illustrates the extent to which acoustics determine a listener's grasp of the implied contrapuntal lines in the suites. bylsma's 1992 recording of the work leaves much to the listener's imagination because of the relatively dry acoustic. one notices a trade-off in recordings of the suites between the clarity and the warmth of the acoustic; baroque cellists, including bylsma (1992) and nikolaus harnoncourt ([1965] 2001), privi­ lege the former. reviewers of recordings of this repertoire comment with surprising frequency on the relative merits of the acoustic. critic lindsay kemp, for example, describes susan sheppard's (1999) period instruments as "surprisingly resonant (a fact which seems to have given the editor a few problems) ... the recording seems rather murky at first" (kemp 2000:84). while the aesthetic ideals of immediacy and clarity of tone are often upheld in recordings, it is not uncommon to read reviews which find a lack of reso­ nance disconcerting. the nature of the acoustic seems to influence kemp's impression of tone quality when he compares marc coppey's (2003) "burly sound in the rather unyielding surroundings of ircam's paris studios" naomi waltham-smith example 1: bach, prelude, suite v in c minor for violoncello solo, bwv 1011 (notated for normal tuning), mm. 1-7. )gif wi i~ t p: r . j with sergei: istomin's (1997) "lean and flexible tone, recorded in the more forgiving acoustic of an ontario church" (kemp 2005:76). stephen plaistow likewise prefers the acoustic of the evangelical church in seon, in which heinrich schiff recorded the suites in 1984: judging from the ease of schiff's playing and from its variety of colour, the acoustic must have been sympathetic to him. maisky [(1985)] recorded in a hall in bamberg, also sounds well but i don't have such a strong impression of the contribution made by a good acoustic. he could be anywhere. there is a little more space around the sound, but that is all. maisky's style of playing needs the space. it is grand, sonorous, imposing. (plaistow 1985:657-58) other listeners echo plaistow's claim that maisky's performance "needs the space" when they object to closely miked recordings. nalen anthoni's comment regarding antonio meneses's (2004) recording is typical: "the claustrophobic miking seems to create a uniformity of sound that in turn introduces monotony" (anthoni 2004:96). aside from the common com­ plaints about loud breathing and finger-tapping, closely miked recordings can often be unsettling because they give little sense of ambient space. to a cd-era listener, well accustomed to the warm sound of many of the record­ ings available today, the sound of casals's ground-breaking recordings of the late 1930s or tortelier's 1989 radio broadcast from the extraordinarily dry acoustic of the pebble mill studios can seem uncomfortably dead. other listeners, though, might claim that closely miked recordings lend a sense of immediacy unequalled even in live performance. churches are popular recording venues for the suites, and not just for theological reasons. pieter wispelwey (1998), mstislav rostropovich (1995), yo-yo ma (1994-97), and ralph kirshbaum (1993), as well as schiff (1984) and istomin (1997) number among those who opt for a church acoustic. wispelwey's second recording of the suites (1998) in the reverberant acoustic of the fifteenth-century valkkoog church in the netherlands deftly combines 37 38 current musicology clarity with resonance: the close miking lends a vividness to the sound and at the same time the recording engineers manage to give a striking sense of the performance space. rostropovich, whose 1995 recording i shall discuss at greater length below, takes pride in the time and effort he took to find the best venue before settling on the basilique sainte madeleine in vezelay, france, as "the right place" (1995:23). paolo beschi (1998) even devotes 150 words ofliner notes to the famous villa medici-giulini in briosco near milan where he recorded the suites; sadly, on that recording one hears very little of what has been described as a "dream space" for musicians. perhaps the most striking statement made by a performer about the issue of space in connection with this music is yo-yo ma's film, the sound of the carceri (1997), which features a performance of the second suite. the cellist appears to play in the shadowy depths of a series of computer­ generated, three-dimensional recreations of giovanni battista piranesi's carceri d'invenziane (a series of etchings of architectural fantasies first issued in 1745 and which depict subterranean vaults with huge flights of stairs and various instruments of torture). documentary sections of the film follow the recording process in a church in rome, where, having studied the etchings, ma closes his eyes in an attempt to conjure up the prison-space. the film here stages a conflict between the real space of the church and the imaginary space of the carceri as ma struggles with the contradiction between the space he sees around him and is physically present within and the technologically engineered space he hears via headphones as he plays-a moment that provokes us to think in new ways about how we experience space in relation to recording technology. this study explores how listeners might experience recordings of bach's solo cello suites specifically in terms of space. what kind of space might this be, and what is its significance? by considering not only how music-analytical and performance-related issues shape a listener's sense of space, but also the role played by recording technology, this article is an attempt to develop a theory of how we listen to recordings of these works in space more than it is an analysis of the spatial characteristics of bach's music. i argue that this repertoire can scarcely be thought of without reference to space, and that, with the advent of recordings, the need to find a space for this music has become more acute. to explore the spatial possibilities of experiences of these recordings means drawing on a combination of sociological research into listening practices, music-analytical findings, and the responses of record reviewers, as well as on numerous and detailed "close listenings" to the recordings themselves. furthermore, a number of philosophical concepts of space not only suggest a theory of listening but also help to elucidate the ethical implications of each paradigm. to what extent can listening to naomi waltham-smith recordings, rather than simply reinforcing false consciousness, actually ef­ fect a genuine (if fleeting) transformation of our relation to our world? by reading heidegger's theories of space and the uncanny, i develop the notion of a disruptive spatiality within the experience of recordings, arguing that understanding the transformative potential of listening experiences more generally can illuminate the significance and fascination the cello suites hold for listeners and musicologists alike. room 1: recordings, space, and subjectivity as a discipline, the study of recordings has grown out of the broader field of performance studies, and most of the literature written to date reflects this origin. the overwhelming majority of studies focus on issues relating to performance style, whether to questions of historical developments, tempo, or expressivity; work on bach recordings is no exception. as one would ex­ pect, questions of authenticity and historically informed performance (hip) that have been high on the agenda when considering bach performance have also come under the spotlight in recent discussions of bach recordings. john butt (1999) explores a number of post -1980 recordings of the brandenburg concertos and goldberg variations to mount a critique of richard taruskin's theses on hip (1995:90-152). a lengthier study by dorottya fabian (2004) takes recordings of the same works, together with recordings of the st. john and st. matthew passions (all from the period 1945-75) as its focus, again considering performance practice in the context of the early music move­ ment. uri golomb's (2004) comprehensive review of recordings of the b minor mass touches upon similar concerns and at the same time explores modes of expression across a wider variety of performance styles. in the absence of an autograph score, performance-related discussions of the cello suites mostly center around debates over articulation and ornamentation. one study (c. johnson 1999) uses recordings to analyze rhythm, phrasing, and rubato in performances of the first bourn~e from the third suite. recordings are seen to be useful in so far as they provide the raw data from which deductions about performances can be made; in fact, there is a widespread tendency to talk about recordings as if they were merely performances, thereby leaving the specific contribution of the recording technology and engineers out of consideration. for example, peter johnson's otherwise detailed and sensitive discussion of the experience of listening to bach's "erbarme dich" (1999) fails to differentiate between the impact oflive performances and recordings. even when musicologists consider recordings as a phenomenon in their own right, separate from the performances they represent, a certain hierarchy emerges whereby technological reproduction 39 40 current musicology produces a mere disembodied echo of the materiality of real, flesh-and-blood performance. the implication is that, in the case of recordings, the listener's experience is severely impoverished because the separation of sound from its physical production leads to a feeling of alienation. but scholars must find an alternative way to distinguish the experience of recordings from that of live performances which recognizes that listening to recordings can potentially enhance rather than diminish the potency of musical experience and that this form of listening has its own set of possible effects which are distinct from (and not simply pale imitations of) those belonging to live performance. the difference, and the source of recordings' ethical potential, can be felt most sharply in the experience of space they engender in the listener. a number of philosophical and sociological notions of space and of spatial representation can illuminate the way in which we experience space while listening to recordings. offering a critique of the limitations of these models, i propose an alternative paradigm which is able to take into consideration what i describe as a certain disruptive spatiality within the listening experi­ ence. the first of these notions of spatial experience emerges directly out of the tendency to see recordings as faded replicas of real performances. in rostropovich's (1995) recording in the basilique saint madeleine of the c minor suite, the final chord of the prelude continues to reverberate for a full four seconds after the bow has left the string. during the echo the listener becomes intensely aware of the acoustic space: one could imagine shutting one's eyes and being transported for one brief, pregnant moment into an old french church. if the acoustic properties of rostropovich's recordings create an impression of vastness and distance, at the other extreme are older recordings, including the ones made by casals during the late 1930s, which foreground space on an altogether different scale. rather than conjuring up an ambient space, they operate on a micro-level, collapsing the distance between the listener and the instrument. especially in the quicker dance movements which demand more agile fingerwork and virtuosic bow crossings, and in which the movement of the fingers on the strings and the rasping of horse hair with each fresh attack is clearly audible, the listener's ear comes impossibly close to the action. what makes both these recordings compelling in their own way is that the space they conjure up is tangibly less-or, in some instances, seemingly more-than real. this unreal quality corresponds to the ontological status typically accorded to recordings: they are counterfeits. the "phonygraff," as gus elen suggests in his song, "the finest flow of langwidge ever 'eard;' was a tortured parrot stuck in a box (quoted in leach 2004). elen's analogy hints at the dialectic traced by carolyn abbate (2001) whereby the double threat naomi waltham-smith of disembodiment and mechanical capture is offset by the utopian orphic fantasy of a voice which never fades however far it travels from its origin. the flipside is that the dreaded ghostly echo offers a measure of fixity as a defence against the whimsical, ephemeral immediacy and unsustainable surplus materiality oflive performances. for theodor adorno, it is through such reification that music most closely approaches its true character as writing (1990b:59): the process of inscription which grounds musical works in grooves on vinyl is a defensive strategy designed to allay our fears about music's impermanence or-and it amounts to the same thing for adorno-our own mortality. if bach's music once appeared to resonate as one with the heavens, the only illusion of security that bach on record can offer is the reverberation of the ego in one's own living room. adorno was quick to spot the narcissistic reassurance the gramophone provides. recordings, he notes, are "flattering photographs." they have a "mirror function:' "what the gramophone listener actually wants to hear;' remarks adorno astutely, "is himself, and the artist merely offers him a substitute for the sounding image of his own person, which he would like to safeguard as a possession" (1990a:54). sociological studies of listening practices support adorno's claims: they too suggest close links between the experience oflistening to recorded music and the construction of subjectivity. tia denora, for instance, concludes from her ethnographic research that listening to music serves as "a build­ ing material of self-identity" (2000:62), playing an important role in "the 'reflexive project' of the self" (2000:46). sociologists, moreover, suggest that the step from listening to music to self-consciousness frequently entails a construction of space. michael bull, whose study of personal-stereo users examines the role of sound reproduction technologies in the production of identity, finds that recordings act as signatures: they are "familiar soundscapes" which "maintain a sense of identity" against the backdrop of alien, impersonal environments. in effect, one never has to leave "home" (2000:24). bull's theory of listening has its roots in phenomenological discourse. "phenomenology;' says the philosopher and poet gaston bachelard, "should. " say how we inhabit our vital space, in accord with all dialectics of life, how we take root, day after day, in a 'corner of the world.'" "all really inhabited space;' he ventures, "bears the essence of the notion of home." the home is "a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability." the imagination builds "walls of impalpable shadows" and comforts itself"with the illusion of protection" (1994:4-5). bachelard reaches his utopian conclu­ sions through a study of metaphors of enclosure in poetry. personal-stereo users may not be poets, but their accounts of "living inside" their stereos, 41 ~2 current musicology says bull, echo this discourse. bull's findings suggest that, via sound repro­ duction technology, listeners use music to transform social space. recordings played on portable listening devices such as mp3 players or ipods project the home onto the city, acting like "invisible shells" (bull 2000:22); foreign surroundings acquire associations of familiarity and security. music thereby "colonizes" space. it domesticates it. bull describes how the soundscape suggested by the recording's acoustic properties becomes the medium through which the listener encounters her environment, as she inflects her surroundings according to the imagery or narratives she associates with the music. recordings, however, produce a space which is more than a figment of the imagination. they carry more than vague spatial associations and the listeners' memories of other spaces once filled with the same music. this technology puts spaces in our ears, not just our minds. space is inscribed in the physical properties of the sound; the echo after the final chord suggests a specific place. such a place, of course, may never have existed on earth. it is a space mediated by technology and dreamt up by a sound engineer, emerging as another world from speakers or headphones. the listener's "own technologically mediated sound:' explains bull, "constitutes their 'inhabited space' which correspondingly transcends the sounds of 'geographical space'" (2000:159). thus recordings tempt listeners to abandon the "real" world for a dream. recall the end of the c minor prelude in rostropovich's recording, where the sudden prominence of the acoustic space allows the listener to be transported fleetingly into the old french church. the imaginary, says bachelard, "flees the object nearby and right away it is far off ... in the space of elsewhere" (1994:184). in this reading, the experience of recordings is escapist, the space they produce a sanctuary. the church obscures the living room; a technologically engi­ neered, virtual-reality space supplants lived space. the first threshold (between rooms 1 and 2): transforming space according to this model of spatial escapism, the space produced in the experience of recordings is an ideal space in more than one sense. it is a space of the imagination-the mere idea of space. indeed, bull's findings suggest that listeners frequently imagine themselves in fantasy spaces which are strictly impossible alternatives to reality. this ideal space is a utopia: both a no-place (ou-topia) and a better place (eu-topia). while listeners often use metaphors of escape to describe the experience oflistening to music, another model of spatial experience emerges from bull's investigation, however, which suggests that real and imaginary spaces may actually interact with one naomi waltham-smith another. the experience of recordings does not necessarily provoke a retreat from real, lived space; it can also transform or aestheticize one's surround­ ings according to what one hears (bull 2000:85-90). listeners, he claims, frequently use recordings to re-imagine their environment: they give their surroundings a subtext such that imaginary space inflects and reshapes real space. thus the relationship between the two appears more complex than the straightforwardly escapist notion of a "space of elsewhere" implies. bull's simplistic focus on imaginary space risks undermining its alleged transformative impact by failing to account for the source of this capacity to transfigure real space. the casualty here is the sounding-space of the recording. bull's concern with the imagery and narratives emanating from listeners' imaginations overlooks the fact that the technologically produced spaces we hear are more than mere fictions or memories: they may not have the visual, tactile, or olfactory presence of the listener's surroundings, but they possess a striking auditory one. this third space-space, in other words, as it is experienced-is neither a simple projection of the acoustic space suggested by the recording nor a straightforward fantasy, but instead is the result of a complex interaction between the space we hear and the space we perceive with our other senses. michel foucault and henri lefebvre attempt to capture something of this transformative impact with a mirror-based theory of space that considers the possibility of distortion inherent in reflection. their theories, furthermore, resonate with bull's findings: personal-stereo users often describe the space they experience as a perfected representation or distorted mirror-image of their surroundings (bull 2000:85-96). for lefebvre, if space is experienced "as duplications, echoes, reverberations ... and doublings-up;' these repetitions always introduce a minimal difference (1991:184). in the mirror, explains foucault, "i see myself where i am not, in an unreal space that opens up potentially beyond its surface; there i am down there where i am not" (1997:352). in seeing oneself "in there;' however, one finds oneself absent from one's actual location in space; with this move, foucault opens up the possibility for "a come-back effect" in real space. "starting from that gaze which to some extent is brought to bear on me, from the depths of that virtual space which is on the other side of the mirror, i turn back on myself ... turn my eyes on myself and reconstitute myself where i am in reality." foucault calls the space on the other side of the mirror's glacial surface a "heterotopia:' on the one hand, heterotopias are utopias insofar as they are places without a place, while on the other they are "real and effective spaces;"'counter-arrangements of effectively-realized utopia" which coexist alongside real arrangements so as to challenge them. nonetheless, foucault's model cannot adequately account for the spatial experience of recordings because it overlooks the irresolvable ten43 ~4 current musicology sion between acoustic and lived space. the idea that the sounding-space overlays and thereby masks one's surroundings may appear to describe some listening experiences, but a conception of two spaces which inhere uneasily within one another is surely more apt. whenever one listens to a recording, one is confronted with contradictory sensory cues: the space that one hears and the space that one sees and feels are starkly juxtaposed, jostling and vying with one another in an irreconcilable antagonism. one of the listeners interviewed by bull likens the effect to the juxtaposition of dissimilar elements in surrealist art. listening to recordings makes everything surreal ... because without the sound to go with your vision ... [it] dis orientates everything and there's a different sound to the visual side ... the world around. it just doesn't fit in with it ... it's strange. (bull 2000:83) the effect, the listener explains, is to make her at once more distant and more visually aware of her environment. the contradiction exists, though, even if one closes one's eyes in an attempt to block out the surroundings; there is the sudden jolt when one returns to reality and becomes aware of the discrepancy between acoustic and lived space. take, for instance, the pregnant moment at the end ofro~tropovich's recording of the c minor prelude: just as one begins to open one's eyes, the space of the gothic church seems to linger within the living room. the effect resembles a visual paradox, where the two sides of a picture cannot add up to make a coherent whole. moreover, a foucauldian theory of the experience of recordings leaves little scope for understanding such experiences as anything more than ethically impotent to the extent that, because the spatial counter­ arrangements remain distinct, the autonomy of real space remains intact. this goes without saying for the model which conceives of the sounding-space as an ideal dream space functioning merely as an escape from, rather than a transformation of reality. but one should be careful not to overestimate the come-back effect which foucault describes. jacques lacan would respond that the state has already factored in the presence of an imaginary sub text which can, therefore, continue to shadow real space without disrupting its fundamental structure (see zizek 1999:247-69). while foucault supposes that the subject is eventually able to reconstitute her identity and her sur­ roundings afier"coming back;' the politico-ethical conclusion to be drawn from lacan's psychoanalytical insights is that such transgressions remain entirely within the logic of fantasy-that power systems already allow for their own straightforward subversion. in other words, for lacan it is naive to think that, just by using recorded sound to re-imagine the space of the subway car, a commuter could escape the power relations which shape her naomi waltham-smith everyday life. as a supplement to real space, the imaginary reconfigured space in fact ultimately sustains the status quo. when one listens to a recording, however, the spaces (auditory and visual-tactile) are brought into much closer proximity to one another; in fact, the listening experience necessarily contains moments, however fleet­ ing, in which both spaces come together in a single, simultaneous act of perception. the resulting intermingling of and complex oscillation between spaces means that one cannot be said to simply overlay the other, and it is from this spatial antagonism that recordings acquire a certain ethical impact. while in the foucauldian model both imaginary and real spaces retain relative autonomy, the mutual interruption of and frequent interchange between auditory and visual spaces inherent to the experience of recordings threatens even a minimal degree of totality and closure. it is because neither space can become all-encompassing that the listening experience opens up even the slightest possibility that reality might be otherwise. the ethical potential oflistening to recordings derives, therefore, from a spatiality that is less affirmative than it is disruptive. room 2: spatial antagonisms yo-yo ma's film with director fran<;:ois girard plays out precisely this spatial antagonism. the sound of the carceri is one of six collaborative projects in which ma seeks to enrich his interpretations of the suites by engaging with other leading artists from other disciplines and media, including ice dancers and landscape gardeners. based around a performance of bach's d minor suite, ma's second installment in the series of six films sets out to explore the common ground between music and architecture. space emerges as the film's primary preoccupation, and the conflict between real and imaginary space comes to the fore. an article in stereophile explains that "during the late 1950s, when high fidelity exploded into a multimillion-dollar industry, product advertisements bragged about bringing the orchestra into your living room" (holt 1988). while many listeners continue to fetishize this illusion of an immediate presence in their own home (especially in recordings of small-scale chamber or solo repertoire), today "the goal of high fidelity is quite the opposite: to transport the listener into the room where the recording was made" (holt 1988). if monophonic recordings opened up a window in the listening-room wall through which listeners could eavesdrop on the performance space, stereo expands this window across the entire wall behind the loudspeaker and provides a sense of direction and spaciousness. "but it's still only a window;' complains holt. ('we're not in [that space l, we're still just looking 45 46 current musicology (or hearing) into it." it is only with surround sound, he claims, that one can actually break through the window and move into that space. since the listener's experience in the concert hall most closely resembles eavesdrop­ ping through a window onto the stage, surround sound's extension of the soundfield behind the listener as well creates an impossible relation to the sound image. ma's project, though, is not simply to put the viewer/listener into a technologically mediated performance space within the surroundings of the home cinema; his aim is to put the performer in a space which "doesn't even exist except in our minds."s the film puts the cellist in the shadowy, cavernous spaces of a series of three-dimensional, computer-generated simulations of piranesi's carceri d'invenzione created by pedro pires.6 the documentary sections of the film between each movement of the suite show ma playing in the santa maria del priorato church in rome designed by piranesi and built in the 1760s. while playing, ma tries to imagine what it would be like to play in the spaces extrapolated from the drawings. with the mere turn of a knob, movement of a microphone, or shifting of the cello's spike by less than a quarter of an inch, recording producer steven epstein simultaneously sets about "creating a space to match the invented spaces of our imagination."? much has been made of the fantastic quality of piranesi's "caprices" or "games of the imagination" as they are described on the title page of the first published edition of the etchings ( [1745] 1994): the endlessly unfolding spaces of the carceri are cyberspace avant la lettre. correspondingly, the film occasionally descends into embarrassing pseudo-metaphysical speculation on the imagination or the difference between representation and reality. the film's insight lies elsewhere. in a key scene, the cellist is seen playing in the church wearing headphones through which he can hear the sound of the prison-space fashioned by the recording engineers. as ma battles with the conflicting sensory information, the camera focuses at length on his face: a picture of extreme concentration with odd flickers of confusion and discomfort. in contrast to his customary relaxed behavior in performance, ma is unusually still, and after a few seconds he is forced to shut his eyes so as to summon up the imaginary space. the experience is similarly unsettling for the viewer who likewise experiences the persistent contradiction between visual and audio space: while watching ma in the church, the listener hears the sound which is fed to ma through the headphones and which creates the sonic illusion of a performance in the carceri. with their baroque illusionistic devices, the carceri are themselves impossible, antagonistic spaces. nightmarish worlds of irreconcilable perspectives, inexplicable areas oflight and shadow, and staircases existing naomi waltham-smith simultaneously on different planes or leading nowhere plunge the viewer into a frenetic optical journey over stairs, ramps, and bridges. the sinister machinery of pulleys, cables, and levers among the grilles and joists entraps the viewer in a mesh of visual snares. in the dvd's radical reworkings of the eighteenth-century copperplates, the spatial imagination runs riot: instruments of torture abound and the arches and parapets of the middle ground proliferate, turning into extended sequences of vaults, galleries, and staircases that recede with vertiginous complexity. columns loom over tiny, scarcely recognizable figures to suggest a vast, boundless prison -space which spills over into the city of rome. with its dizzying accumulation of disparate objects, the seemingly infinite labyrinthine space of the carceri is at once claustrophobic and voluminous. at first blush ma's project appears to temper the subversive thrust of piranesi's etchings. sound engineers domesticate the unruly, never-ending space of the carceri: the acoustic frame confines this infinite space within a bounded, measurable space. of course, the acoustic space of record­ ings is more often than not an imaginary space which defies the laws of euclidean geometry. during the performances in the simulated prisons, however, gradations in reverberation and variations in the mixture of direct and reflected sound work in conjunction with the camerawork to create a comparatively realistic effect. as the vantage point of the camera switches during the prelude from high above the performer to just in front of the instrument, for instance, the viewer correspondingly hears less of the reverberant acoustic and more of the direct, closely miked sound. thus ma's project does not simply put bach or the d minor suite in a space. each of the suite's movements are set in distinct spaces derived from different etchings, and each phrase acquires its own particular spatial signature as it is heard from a given location within that space. these performances thereby highlight the significance of place in our spatial experience of recordings. in other words, recordings do not simply put the listener in the space suggested by the ambient acoustic, but locate them in a specific position within that space relative to the sound source. the film's camerawork is closely linked to interpretative decisions-of phrasing, dynamic change, and articulation-such that the acoustic space plays an important role in the performance. the use of soundspace, in fact, becomes a dramatic gesture in its own right, shaping the experience of climaxes, large-scale progressions, and even the entire suite. the spaces of piranesi's etchings are so vast and continuous that interior and exterior become indistinguishable, but when the film of the prelude constructs an opposition between inside and outside, creating spaces partially enclosed by archways and pillars, it eliminates this indiscernibility. the result, however, is 47 48 current musicology example 2: bach, prelude, suite ii in d minor for violoncello solo, bwv 1008, mm. 44-48. ;:. [tieetfjfrfcfl ftiittftffffrl f~6ftmfcfrl f9tfmpnffffli ~j ~ ~ i to give the movement a definable contour: a gradual move "inwards" toward the climax at m. 48 (example 2) is followed by a more rapid withdrawal "outside" in the final ten measures. the impact of the climax is heightened, moreover, by a sudden retreat to a distant vantage point in the second half of the descending sequence immediately before the climax (mm. 46-47). during the held chord itself the camera suddenly switches to a close-up shot just as ma changes bow to crescendo through the upper two notes of the triple stop. at this moment, the engineers combine the direct, closely miked quality of the "inside" sound with the resonance and spaciousness of the "outside" sound to create a paradoxical sonorous image that in reality could not be heard from anyone point within that space. they generate a herculean cello whose up-bow crescendo has an intensity and resonance that could never be matched in live performance. in the next three movements, the soundspace becomes increasingly claustrophobic-the sarabande is tightened to a peak of intensity with the camera spiraling in closer to ma with each turn. its final measure, however, breaks free and the final chord is allowed to resonate in an expansive space. the minuets that follow sound much more spacious, and the gigue offers a buoyant gesture ofleave-taking as ma fades into the distance. the second threshold (between rooms 2 and 3): acts of resistance ma's project points to a certain kind of spatial experience which depends upon a series of oppositions between a predominantly visual space and an acoustic one, between space-as-experienced and virtual space, between a traditional church-space and a mysterious prison-space. in each case, a second, other space cuts through the space of the everyday, and it would be easy to reduce the impact of this otherness to ineffective escapism. to do so, however, would be to ignore the frequently unsettling quality of such spatial contradictions and their potential for a genuinely disruptive-and hence properly ethical-dimension. the foucauldian heterotopia ultimately remains complicit with spatial arrangements allowed by the reigning power systems, for its spatial infringement is already presupposed. this is precisely where lacan gains the upper hand over foucault, for psychoanalysis is able to conceive of the intrusion of another space whose disruptive force exceeds naomi waltham-smith that of false resistance. as slavoj zizek explains, lacanian ethics "in no way entails that every utopian imagination gets caught in the trap of inherent transgression: when we abandon the fantasmatic otherness which makes life in constrained reality bearable, we catch a glimpse of another space which can no longer be dismissed as a fantasmatic supplement to social reality" (2000:158). zizek's example, in fact, involves a recording: when in a scene from the shawshank redemption (1994) one of the prisoners puts on a record of the act 2 duet from le nozze di figaro, it seems to zizek as if "all the men listening were, for a brief moment, free ... what we have here is the effect of the sublime at its purest: the momentary suspension of meaning which elevates the subject into another dimension in which the prison terror has no hold over him" (2000:158). zizek carefully distinguishes this "magic moment" from straightforward escapism: its power stems in part from the fact that the man who puts on the record is the one who has rejected any false dreams about life outside. furthermore, the sublime effect, he claims, depends upon a contrast not simply between the horrifying world of the prison and mozart's aristocratic universe, but between the duet's trifling content and the beauty of the music. while zizek says little (at least in this particular passage) to explain the significance of this contradiction, the philosophical tradition upon which he draws can contribute significantly towards a theory of how we experience recordings spatially. the remainder of this study is therefore an exploration in largely philosophical terms of how this other space obtains its transformative potential precisely as a result of the spatial antagonism entailed in the experience of recordings. if bach's music can put the listener into another space, it is, in the first instance, worth asking what kind of space this might be. the reception of bach's music has left it straddling an epistemic rift between the ancient and modern worlds and their respective modes of rationality: his music is at once divine and mechanical one strand of bach reception locates his music in the vast space of the entire cosmos, reverberating throughout earth and heavens alike. bach's music is one of the last vestiges of a "platonized" christianity; in its resonance linger the dying echoes of a world which still functioned within a magical episteme where music structured and harmonized the whole universe according to the pythagorean ratios and where strict counterpoint was the harbinger of the heavenly concert.8 thus, when analysts sketch the proportions of bach's forms, they draw the structure of the universe. the epistemic shift from ancient to modern is often thought to be the result of increasing rationalization and mechanization, but the two epistemes should not be starkly opposed: in the ancient world music was ratio-nality itself (chua 1999:15) and no less rational than the instrumental reason 49 50 current musicology which superseded it. that the divine and the mechanical are enmeshed is evident from discussions of bach's music: strict counterpoint, with all its quasi-geometrical operations and permutations, evokes the precision of the machine as much as it does the heavenly concert.9 the difference between ancient reason and modern, instrumental reason has to do with a shift from acoustic to visual space-with what eduard jan dijksterhuis calls "the mechanization of the world picture" (1986). instrumental reason makes music particular, dragging it out of the heavens down into empirical reality. whereas only god could glimpse the totality of the ancient universe, neo-platonist rationalization attempts to harness the cosmic order to make it perceptible to the human eye. music thus becomes an object in space to be perceived by human vision, and space becomes an infinite, geometrical container. the visual logic oflinear perspective collapses the ancient cosmos into its unified grid. conceived as infinite extension, space becomes homo­ genous and uniform, the subject's place nothing more than a viewpoint: the linear coordinates of perspectival space converge at one end onto a vanishing point and at the other onto the human eye. but contrapuntal lines, insists daniel chua, cannot be reduced to those of a geometric grid. and dreyfus laments the syntagmatic approach of much bach analysis which, from a bird's-eye perspective, partitions the music into blocks of time and space, trapping it in the rationalized spaces of gridlike diagrams. indeed, if music resists confinement in the systematic grid of perspectival space, it is in no small degree due to its status as a performing art. the performing body even escapes the strictures of notation's bar and staff lines. "embodiment" has become a well-worn trope within cultural studies and the social sciences, and although the performing body has long been a preserve of ethnomusicology, other areas, especially eighteenth-century music studies, have recently begun to feel its vibrations (e.g., le guin 2002; sutcliffe 2003). surprisingly, questions of bodily experience have been conspicuously absent from much of the performance studies literature; daniel leech-wilkinson's work on expressivity in lieder performance is typical in considering questions of bodily experience only tangentially and instead privileging psychology. 10 if musicologists have largely eschewed the body, its significance is felt more strongly in record reviews and listeners' comments. alongside praise for immediacy of sound, reviewers of recordings of bach's cello suites often bemoan the intrusive presence of the performer's body: finger-tapping or heavy breathing draw unwanted attention to both the performer's proximity to the microphone and the physical, kinaesthetic space of the body. the films of ma and rostropovich highlight the space of the lived body in different ways. on the dvd of his recording of the cello suites (1991), naomi waltham-smith the sixty-three-year-old rostropovich, in collar and tie, is restrained in his movements, and this model of self-discipline, which makes the playing seem effortful, is even more suggestive of confinement than is ma's virtual imprisonment. in foucault's analysis (1991), both the architectural plan and the disciplinary regime of the prison-and above all, the panopticon-char­ acterizes the space of linear perspective. the prison combines seriality and carcerality: ''a line of cells, a set of segmented but contiguous and isomorphic positions." it is a "segmented, immobile, frozen space," the fixed location of the "disciplinary individual;' of "calculable man" (casey 1997: 184). the elementary location or partitioning incarcerates individuals, producing "docile bodies" (foucault 1991:135-69 and passim). performers are no strangers to disciplinary regimes: through the material practices of ritual and repetition the cellist's body is trained and stamped into being within the confines of the practice cell. every wearied sniff, exhausted inhalation, and labored triple-stop, the salivating mouth and the panting tongue-all turn the space of the performing body into the space of domination. rostropovich's film almost seems to rehearse the shift from the divine order to modern mechanization by allowing a prison -space to emerge within the church. by contrast, piranesi's carceri paradoxically combine a sense of confinement and frustration with one of spaciousness. these vast, labyrin­ thine halls confound one's expectations of a prison. similarly, when ma's body comes under the lens, it points less to constraint or exhaustion than to virtuosic energy. during the courante, the camera works with the sound to gradually bring the body-at-work into focus: switching back and forth from shots of ma's left-hand to shots of the bow, the viewer correspondingly hears more finger-tapping and breathing, and more rasping of horse-hair against the strings. the open: heidegger and uncanny spatiality a heightened sense of kinaesthetic space is a striking feature of the experience of recordings, and the experience of bodily space gives the impression that the performer is present within one's living room. recording technology allows the listener to come into impossible proximity to the cello and to feel the instrument's vibrations with an inflated intensity that could never be replicated in the concert hall. when the camera focuses on ma's left-hand, the viewer is, as it were, put into the place of the performer with her ear against the neck of the cello and the vibrations of the strings under her fingers. with recordings, one can paradoxically be both near and far at the same time, as wispelwey and ma's performances demonstrate. to examine these phenomena, i turn to the philosophical work of heidegger, whose 51 52 current musicology preoccupation with "nearness" is developed in terms of the "uncanny," a relationship that is useful for understanding the spatial disruptions of the listening experience. heidegger's concept of being is inherently spatial: by using the term da-sein ("being-there"), heidegger suggests that existence always already entails being one's own "there" (1962:171). this "being-in-space" is "in turn possible only on the basis of being-in-the-world in general" (1962:82). thus spatiality is inseparable from the fact that dasein is absorbed in the world. this leads to a pragmatic conception of space, one that has more to do with the instrumental values of modernity and visuality. dasein's spatiality is intimately bound up with its "dealings in the world and with entities in the world"; it therefore understands the world as a vast "wherein" structured by pragmatic relations such as "in-order-to" or "for-the-sake­ of-which" (1962:95, 97, and passim). "in dasein;' writes heidegger, "there lies an essential tendency towards closeness" (1962:137). but, in order to go beyond the idea of one's environment as a uniform, measurable space, he must reformulate the notion of "closeness." dasein's being is "de-distancing" (ent-fernung). it "makes the farness vanish" (he cites the radio as an example). entities that are "ready-to-hand" have "a different closeness, which is not to be ascertained by measuring distances" (1962: 135). spatiality is determined not by literal metric distance or pure dimensions, but by"concernful cir­ cumspection" and "directionality" or orientation. the significance of heidegger's notion of closeness for the understand­ ing of the experience of recordings is evident: a distinguishing characteristic of recording technology is that it collapses the literal distance from the sound source which remains fixed in live performance and thereby transforms the listener's experience of space. in being and time, heidegger tends to think of whatever is to hand as a form of equipment, and his formulation of an instrumental spatiality relates closely to the physical, kinaesthetic space of the performing body. this could, of course, be said of the performance of any musical work: bach's c minor cello suite, however, provides an unusual example of pragmatic space. the suite calls for a scordatura tuning whereby the cello's top string is tuned down a tone to g to facilitate a wider range of multiple stopping and to create a darker tone color. the result is an un­ settling contradiction between sounding pitch on the one hand and notated pitch and hand-position on the other. the familiar relationship between fingering and sound collapses as the disproportionately large distances open up between the fingers-and with them greater cellistic possibilities. the scordatura thereby undoes the idea of an oriented space in which one's experience of space (the extension of the hand) maps directly onto some practical goal (the sound to be produced). at the same time it makes the all-too-familiar physical space of the fingerboard uncanny. naomi waltham-smith the uncanny turns out to be the key concept upon which heidegger's attempt to rethink space hinges, and, moreover, the notion on which it founders. heidegger himself confesses that being and time ultimately leaves spatiality unthought, in that "space in itself, so far as it embraces the sheer possibilities of the pure spatial being of something, remains proximally still concealed" (1962:147, translation adapted). the connection between this aim and the concept of the uncanny emerges during a discussion of anxiety (1962:232-34): heidegger describes this fundamental "mood" (stimmung) as an ontological, not a psychological state, in which "one feels 'uncanny' ... 'not-at-home.'" the uncanny is the abyss of nothingness, the nowhere, from which "we flee into the 'at home' of publicness." uncanniness, though, is "the more primordial phenomenon": it is only in anxiety that dasein experiences itself as pure possibility. thus the strand of heideggerian ethics upon which i wish to draw-an ethics at the heart of which lies the idea of disclosing man as pure potentiality-for, as simply being-possible-depends upon conceiving of spatial experience as uncanny. heidegger's work represents a constant struggle to maintain this open­ ness of pure potential against the headlong rush of destiny and the finality of history-in other words, to preserve the discomfiting uncanny against the lures of a reassuring and familiar homeliness. this difficulty threatens to undermine his new and specifically antagonistic understanding of space developed in "the origin of the work of art;' an essay dating from the mid-1930s in which he sets out thoughts with direct relevance for a notion of listening as an ethical experience. the work of art, heidegger contends, sets up a world in the open, in "the lighting-clearing of the there" (1993: 186). at the expense of simplification, its truth emerges in part out of an antagonistic relation between the world set up by the artwork and the earth in which it resides. whereas the world is characterized by expansiveness and spaciousness, the earth-the ground of man's dwelling-shelters. this conception of intersecting spaces does not suffice, however, as a model for the experience of recordings. however "bel­ ligerent" the strife between world and earth, heidegger ultimately resolves it into a precarious repose. the divisive "rift" between them becomes a "common cleft" and the earth comes to provide something like a home for the world set up by the artwork. it is implausible, however, to think that the acoustic spaces summoned up by recordings could in every instance be easily assimilated into the listening environment. when listening via headphones, the sound of the recording does not merge in any way with the acoustic of the environment. but, even when the sound we hear is mediated by the space in which the speakers are placed, the recording still maintains its own distinct acoustic signature. rather than a single, homogenous space, the effect created is of 53 54 current musicology a space within a space-a situation that is more unstable suspension than perfectly blended solution. the transformative impact of recordings is not limited to the mere conjuring trick of turning the cramped subway car into a huge cathedral. rather, it consists in their ability to make the listener acutely aware of space itself-not any particular space marked by any trace of belonging, but the simple medium in which we live our lives and yet which frequently remains hidden behind each of the guises it assumes. recordings thus radically alter our relation to space, revealing it beyond this or that pre-determined environment as pure opening and possibility. by contrast, an appeal to the homely and to belonging, by reappropriat­ ing the uncanny other space, undervalues the way in which the experience of music can shatter our lives. listening to recordings of bach's solo cello suites can reveal our world as partially hidden in all its possibilities and thereby restore to us the potential to exceed that which is given in the everyday. that this uncanny space can intrude into our everyday lives suggests that we need not be entirely determined and imprisoned by the spatial confines of our existence, whether they be literal walls or barriers erected by socio-economic structures. for one brief moment heidegger glimpses such a possibility: the more solitarily the work stands on its own ... seeming to let go, cleanly, all ties to human being, the more simply does it strike into the open that such a work is, the more essentially is the monstrous thrown open and what was long-familiar overthrown ... the more easily does it throw us into this openness and, simultaneously, out of the commonplace. to submit to this displacement means to transform accustomed ties to world and earth and, henceforth, to keep oneself from all well-known ways of acting and assessing, knowing and viewing, in order to tarry with the truth occurring in the work. (1993:191, translation adapted) the promise of hope contained within the experience of recordings is perhaps greater than adorno would allow. hope, for adorno, is strictly u-topian: it is not there. the other acoustic space whose intrusion ruptures the space of the everyday is indeed an illusion, but, in arguing that recordings simply affirm one's sense of self and that they offer a mere escapist fantasy which maintains the status quo, adorno underestimates the impact of this radical otherness. while abbate's study (2001) has sparked an increased interest in the uncanny within musicology, the transformative potential of this disquieting moment tends to go overlooked. in order to go some way towards explaining how this uncanny space might have a come-back effect, one could adapt emmanuel levinas's critical reading of heidegger, and specifically his notion of the "uncanny other" as that which questions the very "da of our da-sein" (levinas 1999:23). ma's film, in which the uncanny prison-space constantly challenges the naomi waltham-smith church-space, is preoccupied with this heideggerian problem: being-one's­ there is always also a being-outside-oneself, an ek-stasis. in listening to recordings of bach's cello suites, i suggest, we can experience a heightened ecstatic moment as this other, purely acoustic space ruptures everyday space. whereas heidegger ultimately appropriates this ecstatic uncanny space as humankind's own dwelling-place, recordings of bach's cello suites resist such reification. during the fleeting, pregnant moment at the end of rostropovich's c minor prelude, as the church-space lingers uncomfort­ ably within the living room just long enough to disturb its coherence, a fragile hope flashes up. as an ephemeral passing-a fading echo of what is already gone-this sounding-space is always ungraspable and, as such, remains unhomely, im-proper. paradoxically, though, this moment is also the "persistence of the transient" (adorno 2002:84), such that the apparent horror and boredom of the everyday is constantly negated by the fleeting intrusion of the non-existent. bach's cello suites inscribe within their contrapuntal design a need to be heard in a certain space, and recordings of these works have responded to this demand, making them supreme examples not only of the importance of space to the experience of recordings, but also of the transformative potential of this experience. this study has sought to theorize the role of space and its attendant ethical significance in experiences of these record­ ings. recordings of bach's cello suites, however, simply thematicize a latent possibility within recorded music more generally-a topic with which the musicological study of recordings has only begun to grapple. the discipline (in both its performance-based and more sociological forms) must reckon with this disruptive impact of an uncanny space which ruptures lived space and, in doing so, disturbs our homely, habitual existence. only once this other space is no longer dismissed as an escapist aberration, once its monstrous presence is instead allowed to persist and resonate throughout the space of our everyday lives, will the power and significance of recordings be fully recognized and their true ethical force emerge. notes this article draws upon research undertaken during a master's degree funded by the uk arts and humanities research board. 1. schopenhauer ([1819/44]1977:534), among others, traces this much-cited aphorism to goethe (eckermann 1884:88). 2. hengel and houten refute the claim that bach had assigned the text beginning at "et incarnatus est" through "homo factus est" (previously included in the duet "et in unum") to an additional choral movement once he had already completed the symbolum nicenum. part of their argument is that the function of symmetries in focusing attention upon a centerpiece suggests that bach would have conceived of the symbolum as a nine-movement structure from the outset. 55 56 current musicology 3. see tatlow (1991). 4. syntagmatic relationships concern the positioning and combination of signs in a temporal sequence (the horizontal axis), while paradigmatic relationships involve the possibility of substituting alternatives from a set of interchangeable signs (the vertical axis). 5. ma makes this characterization during the film. 6. an italian etcher, archaeologist, and architect born near venice in 1720 and active in rome from around 1740, piranesi is renowned for his poetic views of ancient and contemporary rome and his dramatic, imaginary interiors. the most haunting and nightmarish of these architectural fantasies are the carceri. 7. this explanation comes from the trailer which is included on the dvd. 8. see chua (1999:14-16) and yearsley (2002:18-32). 9. see yearsley (2002:173-208). 10. unpublished seminar series (autumn 2004) at king's college, london, and conversa­ tions with the author. references abbate, carolyn. 2001. in search of opera. princeton 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[1965]2001. bach: cello suites, bwv 1007-1009. bach 2000. teldec b00004wu1. istomin, sergei'. 1997. bach: six suites pour violoncelle seule. analekta recording fl2 3114/5. kirshbaum, ralph. 1993. bach: 6 suites a violoncello solo senza basso, bwv 1007-1012. virgin classics 5616092. ma, yo-yo. 1994-97. inspired by bach: the cello suites. sony classical s2k 63203. ---.1997. inspired by bach: the music garden (suite no. 1) and the sound of the carceri (suite no.2). sony classical svd 89297. maisky, mischa. 1985. johann sebastian bach: 6 cello-suiten. deutsche grammophon 415416-2gx3. meneses, antonio. 2004. j. s. bach: the 6 cello suites. avie av0052. rostropovich, mstislav. 1991. bach: cello suites. emi classics dva 5991599. ---.1995. j. s. bach: cello-suiten. emi classics 5 55363 2. schiff, heinrich. 1984. bach: cello suites nos. 1-6. emi cds 7 47471 8. sheppard, susan. 1999. bach cello suites. metronome metcd1034/5. tortelier, paul. 1989. live broadcast of j. s. bach, suite no.2 in d minor, bwv 1008, bbc radio 3 (march 17). british library sound archive 1cdr0024268 d1 bd7 nsa 1. wispelwey, pieter. 1998. johann sebastian bach: 6 suites per violoncello solo senza basso. channel classics ccs 12298. 59 current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 93 excerpted from the days and nights of the lotus trio michael ives the following texts are drawn from a series of vignettes concerning a hapless, over–educated trio of jazz musicians who ply their trade in an unnamed city during an historical period best described as the “eternal jazz present.” in every sense lotus eaters, this band of ineffectual brothers, however competent, even occasionally brilliant as musicians, are forever hampered by their own fin–de–siècle fetishisms. they are proof of the obstacles an over–developed connoisseurship places in the way of the pragmatic business of getting gigs. a fondness for cannabis and an addiction to refined banter jeopardize nearly all their ambitions, save their often acidulous judgments of their peers. the prose itself—however informed by the absurd sophistications of ronald firbank (whose dialogic exchanges call to mind the snare drum accents of roy haynes) or the underground classic, a nest of ninnies (ashbery–schuyler)—means to serve as something like a parodic homage to that dandy of jazz writing, whitney balliett. current musicology 94 . . . 1 . . . the arrival of caterers at a side entrance, their vague murmur and mustard– colored tunics among the dwarf maples, gave the effect of a mysteriously vanished culture suddenly reappearing after a thousand year hiatus. i dangled a wingtip from my great toe. phones rang in the distance, tink–tonk of flatware. gibbs absently cut a dark wadi into the ashtray sand with his cabernet. he was verbalizing plans to resuscitate the british label brunswick with some fresh sides by alix combelle, whom he had never met. our gifted klaus sauntered through holding with both hands as if it contained the limbs of osiris a slipper full of aromatic fooj, courtesy of his on–again–off–again cuban source point, name withheld. anticipation and languor achieved a fine–grained coitus, like tajik hiss from a mid–century blaupunkt, as klaus engineered an immodest spliff. that spring we could keep nothing in our heads for very long. though the consequences of our fragile stamina grew in long imprudent tendrils, we kept telling ourselves that the root thereof was not foul. klaus pulled a kitchen match, the shaft dyed indigo, from the cuff of his trousers, while gibbs started in with his litany of fears about life over thirty. “nothing but broken grails and diuretics from here out,” he moaned. “obviously you need a taste of this,” klaus said dismissively and passed him the stick of gauge. i was, as always, repeating over and over again the word “pamplemousse.” after all, what more tart interchange among momentary precisions than those phonemes in aggregate? “we’re descended from kelp,” klaus said leaning back into a heavily upholstered loveseat. “there was in eden a river of beer,” said gibbs with a tone that suggested this was the most cogent form of reply. . . . 2 . . . under a course of false skewbacks, two loitering busboys, only recently pubescent, were sliding between index and middle finger at perpendiculars their joined palms; opening them and peering in, they giggled at what they saw. several yards distant, small shifting bars of exposed skin between sock and cuff among the alpha patrons lounging near the hearth seemed to mimic the proximate flames. horgenstahl, taciturn as ever, whistled through his nose as he wiped clean the bar. his complexion resembled innerved concrete dressed with a bush hammer. “i keep getting these calls from an automated marketing service asking me if i have as yet entered the winner’s circle,” gibbs complained while adumbrating in colorless triads his beloved “lazy bird.” “underlying cause michael ives 95 goes down on abstruse detail,” klaus, self–appointed sibyl, replied. “care to elucidate, layman pang?” asked gibbs, acidly. i was, of course, occupying a different inertial system, watching one void split into many, like spherules of mercury, against a pair of andirons, massive and hideous, but appropriately so—it was, after all, the andiron club. “my critical apparatus,” klaus held up a short but bulging ponk of jane to gibbs’s instantaneous approval. “shall we to my brougham for scholarly debate?” he and gibbs broke off through a service entrance like the tail end of a mutinous retinue. alone again, calculating escape velocity from the misery of these gigs at one cocktail per realization, it occurred to me how many times i’d already calculated this value and then and there established a numerical constant, hereafter designated by the greek letter, jimmy. . . . 12 . . . “run me out some pool taffy*, klaus,” gibbs said, taking a most gentle pull from the jorge. we had a second set to play, after all. “you boys, such a command of idiom,” vicky said with a fine edge of ridicule. too fine, at any rate, for klaus to detect. “mogen david sits–bath requiescat stay–gel defcon vector,” the words tumbled out of his mouth like wet coins from a slot machine. gibbs, in no condition to contain the pleasure (pronounced play–zhurr), bunched up the center of his face. “ooooh, thank you santy klaus, may i have another?” “why does one always refer to the cadillac hotel as ‘venerable’?” vicky inquired, unimpressed by the proceedings. steve lacy doing “introspection” issued from speakers somewhere behind grille work depicting gleaners in a field. when three knocks at the door of the musician’s lounge revealed our hostess, pinches, i was still shelling pistachios on the lee shore of a mental encantada. “terrence says you can start playing any time. the sooner the better.” pinches, nursing a tetchiness, coughed and waved away the offending smoke. for as often as we had played in the venerable cadillac, we had encountered no such terrence. “does he ever emerge from his cloaking booth, this mysterious terrence?” klaus asked. pinches threw him a look of annoyed incomprehension. “turn on the ceiling fan, would you?” his eminence, strang kuhlman, accompanied by monsieur veins, appeared in the doorway behind her. everyone chimed, unisono, “string strang!” everyone except klaus, that is, who refused to join the general sycophancy. “that jacket is the business,” vicky said. “what is that, cashmere?” “check, one clean mongolian clip,” strang ran a hand down the front of the garment. klaus’s face darkened. he proceeded to warm up with an invertible abyssinian mode at intervals of a minor third, presto e forte. “boo–ha, klaus, drain that jacuzzi,” strang winked at vicky and me. * pool taffy: a non–signifying concatenation of words conducive of pleasure current musicology 96 eventually, we strode to the games in wingéd sandals, even if the wings were pinned back, like a vain girl’s protuberant ears. klaus counted off “minority”—in sanskrit—and without hesitation started throwing friction shoes at gibbs’s thematic restlessness. they jabbed and feinted like a married couple at breakfast, in an exchange of exquisite bickering, so deeply familiar was each with the other’s line of defense—this while the veins and i buttered the beans underneath. no sooner would gibbs light a small pile of motivic tinder than klaus would come out from behind a rock and douse it with water. finally, gibbs assembled a chorus as if he were building a box from porcupine quills, spines out, and daring klaus to take hold, which invitation of course klaus answered with gloves of fine mail, and proceeded for the remainder of gibbs’s solo mockingly to disarm, in his accompaniment, the chorus in question, quill by quill, as if he were removing surgically the spines from the animal, now anaesthetized and quivering in submission. . . . 13 . . . “spontaneous pillary,” klaus termed it. hayes pillars would suddenly arrive at the threshold of any given club in his hans castorp–style wicker wheel chair and, should he not gain entrance himself, would commence spewing whole anthologies of foul language and refuse truculently the assistance of any passersby until someone inside came to the door. out of deference to his old testament priority, one of us would, by febrile rounds of rock, paper, scissors, be deputed to invite him to sit in. some put hayes pillars’ birth at the annexation of hawaii, others at the invention of the chiseled axe. “hell, when i was your motherfuckers’ age,” hayes would typically fulminate along his journey to the piano, “i made shift with a piece of string and the gag reflex. make way, make way, god damn it!” but for the profanity and a fierce impatience, he carried himself like a saturnine anonymous farmer from maine: chamois button downs, service trousers, suspenders. an odd, vaguely malayan espadrille remained his one concession to our absurdly non–utilitarian milieu. and small dark glasses, perfectly opaque, severely round. a body durst not conjecture what scenes of ancient brutality were projected onto the inner surface of those discs. imagine hamm of the endgame, with a vicious mouth and an inky black head glistening as though with preservative oils. he never neglected to drape a tartan blanket (name of agnes) over his shoulders when he played, but as soon as hayes began warming up, one put away all suspicions of debility and searched the curb for his delorean. he could for entire sets run changes like a pair of conjoined brecker brothers, then drop his teeth in his rob roy and go entirely blank for a quarter hour, as though someone had cut power to the source of his animation. and then as suddenly the volleys of abuse would resume. michael ives 97 he assigned everyone a damning honorific (i was one of several dubbed sir hopeless), constantly reminded klaus that he had not “put his finger in the wound,” and generally railed against what i assume he considered the cultural, racial, metaphysical injustice of having to play with “three blithering ofays.” we wondered for some time whether he treated the black musicians as harshly as he did us. hood toddy laid to rest these speculations. “hayes scares me straight to shit,” he let out once. “man, he is nastier than mingus with a migraine.” it’s reasonable to add to this account that toddy was at least twice the size of hayes, who likely couldn’t have vanquished your average hungarian grandmother. he smoked a revolting dirt weed he called “spillick” in tiny little pinners no thicker than a carpet needle. “motherfucker’s got to economize.” “hey! don’t bogart my spillick!” he’d yell at whomever had been tapped to roll him his bit of wire, which task, in time, we determined to be his approximation of conferring favor. “gimme back the fuckin’ papers if you’re gonna roll a whole fuckin’ meadow!” klaus, with a credit card, while mouthing an imprecation in my direction, edged away all but a fuse of tea several grains wide down the gutter. gibbs was reading aloud the caption under a photo in the picayune: “russian prime minister vladimir putin adjusts his hat as he sits in a tree while traveling in the siberian tyva region, also referred to as tuva, russia, during his short vacation.” “in this photo,” klaus said, then licked and sealed the pinner and continued, “russian prime minister vladimir putin presents his wristwatch and valet to local boy while sojourning in the mountains of the siberian tyva region, also referred to as ohio, russia.” i could see hayes’ lips tightening. “vladimir putin tames wild pony,” gibbs said, “with help of local boy while traveling on one foot in the mountains of the siberian tyva region, referred to as bambi, russia.” “vladimir putin seen boiling root vegetable,” i followed, “while reading pushkin aloud to local boy and pony in the foothills of the siberian toyota region during his unusual junket.” “vladimir putin,” klaus said, pushing the pinner toward hayes, “force feeds pony in the mountains of the tuva recreation sector while local boy bathes with a sponge his slick flanks in the steely waters of the khemchik.” “vladimir putin drives cigarette boat into pier,” said gibbs, “while pillaging the siberian tyva region after his sudden retirement from government service.” “lord putin seen dragging gazprom pipeline behind rider mower to kazakhstan,” i said, “also referred to as russia, during the first year of his apotheosis.” said gibbs, “sky god vladimir putin wrestles, greco–roman style, with the caucasus during the fire eon of his cosmic reign.” hayes just shook his head. “you motherfuckers,” he said with a pause between each word, “are the blitheringest ofays of all motherfuckin’ time.” current musicology 98 . . . 14 . . . “your lines were convincing tonight,” said klaus to the sheik without an atom of diplomacy, “as is the rutting of musk oxen.” sheik bevins, who had just assisted phlox in her brutal vivisection of “never let me go.” sheik bevins, lord of the tenor saxophone, who when he let spill his ducal treasury of eighth notes presumed to unite the will of the people. too busy clawing his way to the top of the jazz world—absurd hummock—to make the effort to parse klaus’s insults, he responded with his habitual, “fuck you, klaus, and the vocabulary you rode in on,” which, like any cleverness of his, he had long ago, through ceaseless repetition, drained of all charm. this was the way of the sheik, who interpreted everything from “jitterbug waltz” to “how deep is the ocean” with isaiah’s fury. “strafed with cheez whiz,” gibbs said of the sheik’s intrusive obbligati. “i could barely hear phlox.” “i’m trying to decide which is worse,” klaus sneered, “phlox neat or phlox rocks.” beyond the vast front window of the crabwood, two greyhounds in jodhpurs were decamping from a range rover the color of chinese lacquer. “that wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that she won’t sleep with you, would it?” gibbs asked. “i have zero interest in the bed of phlox.” klaus looked genuinely insulted. “everything she sings says, ‘the innermost reaches of my being . . . are on sale.’” tight rivulets of rain fed the plumping beads on the hood of the rover as two knee high stiletto lace–ups and the point of an umbrella emerged behind the dogs. “pornstar oksana visits shaker village,” gibbs summarized. while the dogs shook their torsos free of rain, the flaps of their jodhpurs held firm, like collops lightly shellacked. across this tableau, the figure of phlox, florescent colada in hand, moved tense, unheeded in avid lamé, toward a table littered with catalogues and fabric samples where sheik’s eternal fiancée, jeannine, had established her private wedding consult booth. the sheik could play loud enough to muster the hordes of the steppe, but jeannine would appear to be wholly absorbed in swatches and brochures, that is until he inevitably called, for jeannine’s benefit, duke pearson’s glib eponymous chestnut—“look out, there goes jeannine!”—at which moment she could always be seen walking toward the bar along a path of maximum visibility. “woman: born trapped and everywhere free,” pelline, who was suddenly among us, postulated. “manny,” she addressed the abashéd veins, “what brand of bathroom fixture would you take to a daysart island?” behind us, the barkeep, sorghum, assembled drink orders in a quincunx. hardly had manny spoken, but pelline shifted to another commentarial front: “when i hear sheik bayvins play the jass music,” she said, “i imajone a small boy standing in a circle he’s panted on his parent’s front yard screaming, ‘i am the kaiser!’” “yerg, miles of zinc galvanized look–at–me,” klaus added. and gibbs: “sheik is such a peacock.” “sheikock,” pelline corrected him. everyone grew silent and considered the implications of that neologism. michael ives 99 . . . 16 . . . “confession,” gibbs let out. “i hate the sound of a muted trumpet. always have. it’s pinched, it’s small, it’s ugly.” about plank morgan, the drummer slotted for that night’s set at the vineyard before the meteor shower viewing, klaus summarized: “booze breath and side burns for starters, but he plays like the higgs.” gibbs advanced to analogies: “harmon mute is to trumpet as crossbreeding to the face of a pug.” “rashly once—” klaus, with surreptitious eyes, indicated a woman at a neighboring table, “—she put her hoody-box in escrow and gave me the account number.” in sympathy with these urgent exchanges, my gaze traced back and forth a sine wave of tiny globular light drops suspended over the bar. “revenge, klaus quoted nietzsche, “is the will’s revulsion against the ‘it was.’ look at her trying not to look at me.” and it was true, his proximity worked like a leopard’s suit from which she, a panther, struggled to extricate herself. “hey, isn’t that your dim conquest from the varnish factory?” gibbs had ceased tilting at mutes, given that no one was listening. “she’s the last person i’d expect to see on a winery tour.” klaus thumbed a brochure for gewürztraminers. “they must have substituted shots of sex on the beach for beaujolais.” soon after, plank morgan materialized, accompanied by a dark and much younger woman in a naïve flower-print dress. “i’m not late, am i? we were down in the vines. oh, did i introduce consolacion, my fiancée?” plank was recently returned from the philippines. “what exactly were you doing in general santos anyway?” klaus stared uncomprehendingly. gibbs whispered to me, “if he was the 1,001st person through the brothel door, just imagine first prize.” “industry junket, the usual,” plank winked, “more important, can you order bourbon in a winery and where are we playing?” plank wasn’t one to let palaver deepen his grain. klaus pointed toward the deck overlooking the vineyard without taking his eyes from consolacion. he asked with his usual titanium salaciousness about the species of flower on her frock. she smiled, nodded her head in the affirmative, and said nothing. over the course of the ensuing set, i would look over occasionally at her sitting alone at a table near the ice machine, staring off at the lake in the distance, oblivious to the cottonwood fluff collecting in her hair. her expression nearly convinced me i knew tagalog, so decisively did it read, page after page, “what have i done?” klaus’s jilt, as she was leaving, passed by and dropped what appeared to be a note written on a cocktail napkin on the table in front of her. consolacion smiled vacantly and nodded as the woman pointed impatiently at klaus. “man, you were so clutch on those breaks in ‘moment’s notice’,” plank said to klaus later on, as the napkin circulated around our table: a skull drawn on a heart—not a stylized heart, but a detailed rendering of the organ, including principal arteries and veins. klaus had but glanced at it, as one current musicology 100 would an advertisement for heating oil, then continued pressing plank for more details about his sudden betrothal. the latter answered with his usual prolixity: “i know—one minute i’m snorkeling in the sulus, the next i’m marrying a volcano goddess.” it came out that all the women in her family were named consolacion, to which observation gibbs, just back from the bar, added, “wasn’t there that kid who named all his hamsters mark wahlberg?” klaus without hesitation boarded ship: “pours his fruit loops out onto the kitchen table, says you’re mark wahlberg, you’re mark wahlberg,” he said. “his parents worry about his emotional stability,” gibbs said. “he calls their worry mark wahlberg,” klaus said. “family therapist asks him if mark wahlberg’s his hero,” i said. “kid says, no, you’re mark wahlberg,” klaus said. gibbs wrinkled his forehead, “how far are you prepared to take this?” “i’ll be in films one day, you’ll see,” i said. “all depends his father says on what you’ve got downstairs,” klaus said. “at which prompting,” gibbs said, “kid unzips his pants.” “i call it mark wahlberg he says,” i said. and gibbs, “good god, you didn’t inherit that from me.” “his mother screams i want you out of this house by the end of the month,” klaus said. “but what about my booth at the science fair?” i said. “now that i think about it says the father suspiciously,” gibbs said, “he doesn’t look the least like me.” “yeah,” klaus said, “i look more like mark wahlberg.” “mother yells you watch your mouth!” i said. klaus said, “father, indignant: he might as well be mark wahlberg for all i know!” “wife snaps well it sure hasn’t been all boogie nights with you for the last thirteen years!” gibbs said. i applied a needful airbrake: “where went the mr. and mrs. morgans?” gibbs looked around blankly. “it appears plank went by the board.” from behind his ear klaus produced a long, thin surrogate consolation wrapped in mauve papers. gibbs brightened, rose. “yerg, let’s go catch an ersatz leonid.” and for hours amid the vines, under a phosphene trellis, we could just make out the forge blossom of sky giving off her sparks. . . . 18 . . . “i read here that orson welles has crabs again,” gibbs said, looking up from his copy of the persian letters. “oh rosebud,” klaus apostrophized, “thou art sick!” we were trading sets with junk thompson at the skew box. the floor of that strange establishment consisted of many finely planked shallow terraces and dais–like mounts radiating asymmetrically from a center well where the band was situated. like a calder mobile of interlocking horizontalities, but inverted. i thought to honor junk’s final set of the night by changing into a comfortable set of alcohol pajamas. “let’s you and i take a drive,” gibbs said waving over the bartender, “when the road lies out in front of us like an enormous eel etherized upon a vibraphone.” that meant a round of crime passionnel, one or two sips of which will convince the transparent tree of life to burst into visible leaf. michael ives 101 like loose upholstery over a sofa that talks to itself in an indiana basement, the space around junk thompson’s rippling lower register. but odd, the c– clamps of every variety that hung on the walls of the skew box. intincted with the violet blood of a slain god, junk’s bready, old school sound. they were doing “chelsea bridge,” potent memory pill if ever there were one. with long steady tones, like endless mineral striations, junk established in my mind, as he moved along the bridge, a cliff face washed by the evening sun in some unnamed mediterranean clime. when he entered the last eight bars of the form, by means of fillip–like whole tone figures, oriels and intimate balconies opened up along the upper reaches of this imagined escarpment, peopled with the daughters of diplomats and their suitors in the midst of those preludes to love—fingers brushing fugitive hairs away from a cheek, single brief flexures at the corner of a mouth—such gestures as are fit only for the single eye of the setting sun to witness and consecrate. an anonymous drummer’s brushes fed, of a fire within doors, its crescent flames, toward which the lovers retreated. a woman’s neck, i saw, and along it a birthmark exquisite in its complexity: fretted, looped, involved, and bordered with yet more elaborate ornaments (junk had entered upon his climactic unaccompanied cadenza). at the center of this florid signature of nature, in an embedded niche, an arrangement of stars as seen between limbs of an umbrella pine flickered and turned. current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 wilson. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 music and queered temporality in slave play imogen wilson “…bodily existence is endurance, the prolongation of the present into the future.” elizabeth grosz, the nick of time (2004, 14) the lights slowly rise on the stage of the john golden theatre. surrounded by mirrors, kaneisha, a black woman in her late twenties, sweeps the floor, draped in a dirty dress and apron. the audience can see themselves in these mirrors, as well as a reflection of the image printed on the front of the mezzanine overhang: a large, white plantation building, surrounded by dense woodland. the mirrored images around the stage conjure a timeless, remote country location, never letting the audience forget the impact of slavery on the characters. the mirrors remain visible for the entire two-hour performance of jeremy o. harris’ slave play, an important and provocative exploration on the impact of inherited trauma from slavery in contemporary america, demonstrated by interrogating the sexual power imbalances within three interracial couples. as kaneisha enters, “work” by rihanna (2016) plays loudly in the background. swerving from side to side, she begins to hum, then sing along to the repetitive verse, a mixture of barbadian patois and english, as displayed below. work, work, work, work, work, work he said me haffi work, work, work, work, work, work he see me do mi dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt so me put in work, work, work, work, work, work when you ah gon’ learn, learn, learn, learn, learn? me nuh care if him hurt, hurt, hurt, hurt, hurting 1 by the time the chorus enters, the music runs through her as she unapologetically dances with her broom and exaggeratedly twerks on the ground in her domestic uniform. the song, which was once wildly popular in 10 current musicology dance clubs and on the radio, stands at odds with the antebellum setting. there is a spattering of laugher amongst the patches of palpable silence as the predominantly white audience squirms in their seats. the song stops abruptly when kaneisha is interrupted by her white ‘master’, who we later discover is her husband jim. he is bearing a whip and with the threat of violence, has come to put her to work. the blend of deep discomfort and humor continues as we watch the three couples engage in their role plays in turn. in an alarming, gasp-inducing twist, the audience discovers that the interaction between kaneisha and jim was set around a new type of exposure treatment, “antebellum sexual performance therapy” (harris 2019, 75). in the group therapy session that takes place in “process,” the second act, we learn that kaneisha, gary and phillip, the three black characters, live with obsessive compulsive disorder (ocd). the two therapist characters, tea and patricia, are using the couples as guinea pigs in their sexual therapy and attempt to guide the couples through a discussion of their sexual traumas during the second act. the way in which the ocd is presented varies from character to character, but one symptom that they all share is that they exhibit various kinds of musical hallucinations. musical hallucinations are a real, relatively common phenomenon. in an article in psychiatric news, it is claimed that a surprising forty-one percent of patients with ocd can expect to experience musical hallucinations (arehart-treichal 2004). the variations in their condition is expressed through the characters’ individual musical examples. for kaneisha, “work” is a niggling ear worm. in our first encounter with the song, the audience assumes it is non-diegetic accompaniment to the action, and we watch kaneisha unreservedly revel in the song, as if she is dancing in her bedroom. the realization of the characters’ ocd diagnosis comes with it a crucial revelation: the audience sees and hears the musical hallucinations of kaneisha and gary while their white partners are unaware. phillip’s ocd raises slightly different musical issues. he plays his violin obsessively, but this occurs diegetically in the scenes, in front of his white partner and the audience. i will not discuss this in the paper as i am principally concerned with the metadiegetic, hallucinatory musical moments as a channel of communication directly between certain characters and the audience. one of the psychiatric terms that is used in the play is “alexithymia”, which describes an inability to put emotions into words (muller 2000). the therapists explain to kaneisha that even though she can often articulate feelings and thoughts in her general life, that the race-based trauma of the sexual performance therapy leads to an inability to “articulate or locate articulation for [her] state in the aftermath of the fantasy play” (harris 11 imogen wilson 2019, 106-7). i propose that the music in slave play bypasses this blockage, and the songs give the characters the ability to communicate a nuanced psychological perspective of their temporal experience to the audience without requiring verbalization. this article will explore how this is achieved through the two popular music examples, “work” by rihanna and “multi-love” by unknown mortal orchestra. these songs are embodied in the characters of kaneisha and gary, respectively. “work” is integral to kaneisha’s character, an undercurrent to the play which surges to the fore multiple times. troublingly, we discover as the drama unfolds that the song appears not only in moments of pleasure, but also in moments of fear and pain. to mimic the occurrences of the song, my analysis of “work” will be interspersed in small pockets as the paper goes on, contextualized within discussions of harris’ authorial approach, “lived” and “queer” time in relation to slave play, and the function of music in theatre. gary’s song is “multi-love,” a psychedelic dream pop track. in a self-contained series of tableaux, the hallucination is presented using an explosive and explorative “dream ballet,” a trope of the classic broadway musical popularized in the 1930s and 40s. the song “suspends” time, punctuating the structure of the play, and thus will be analyzed in its own section. slave play and the problematic “lived time” time is elusive, and whilst many have tried, it remains quite literally impossible to grasp. it is inarguable that the measuring of time can only go so far as to encapsulate human experience, or, “subjectivity.” an individual’s experience of time transcends the basic chronology and confinements of the clock, by privileging feelings of intense emotion, strong memories, ideas of the future and even the feeling of whether time is moving quickly or slowly. it is not the main purpose of this paper to theorize comprehensively on what time “is.” however, it is important for the sake of my argument to establish with the reader that historically, theorists conceptualize time by turning to oppositional forces, and presenting a pair of terms. often, this “pair” is a variation of “objective” and “subjective.” the dichotomy is perhaps most famously associated with sir isaac newton, and his distinction between ‘absolute’ time, which continues at a steady pace and occurs outside of the body, and its colleague, “relative time.” as susanne k. langer famously reports, music is an art which “makes time audible, its form and continuity sensible” (1953, 110). it is therefore a popular platform through which to conceptualize this oppositional relationship. for example, in adorno’s beethoven: the philosophy of music (1998), he establishes his own contrasting pair, between “extensive” and “intensive” 12 current musicology time in beethoven’s music. he characterizes extensive time as comprising the wider structural elements, such as form, texture and ornamentation. conversely, intensive time concerns the journeys of the melodies, and tonal shifts that grip the listener, one example of which is the affronting opening of beethoven’s fifth symphony. adorno was writing only in terms of specific, singular pieces of music. however, the terms objective and subjective, and extensive and intensive, also work on a wider dialectic scale when considering the entirety of slave play. one could argue that objective time in this case refers to the chronological, two-hour performance that paves the way for the complex, overlapping subjective experiences of temporality for the characters. harris writes in the performance directions of the script that the events of the play happen in “real time” (2019, 6). this suggests that the scenes predominantly adhere to a measured, objective ‘clock time’, and occur in chronological order. however, the music in the play alters this supposedly straightforward chronology of events, furthering, halting and disrupting the narrative. this is because the music is closely tied with particular characters and their feelings, allowing the audience to engage with the more individualized and “lived” temporal experience of kaneisha, gary and philip. as we watch rihanna’s song move kaneisha in the early moments of the play, the audience is confronted with the jarring combination of the plantation setting and the contemporary pop song—a juxtaposition of old and new which underpins the entire production. as darol olu kae suggests in his 2019 slave play profile, it ignites conversations about race and sexuality that consider “the lingering presence of history” and the pervasion of the past within the present (olu kae 2019, my emphasis). this “lingering” of racialized trauma and its representation on the stage through music is a key component of my argument. addressing it requires a meander down several overlapping theoretical avenues. the main purpose of this paper is to consider the representational role of music in theatre, and how music can help to display individualized temporal experience. therefore, drawing from theatre and musical theatre scholarship such as baston (2015) and mcmillin (2006), i will explore the perceived function of music on the stage. this paper is founded on the phenomenological premise that everyone “lives” time differently—that “consciousness unfolds or constitutes time” (merleau-ponty 1962, p.414). there is a wellestablished field of study surrounding music, time and the body. however, these texts largely fail to account for issues related to intersectional feminism, postcolonialism and gender, which must be addressed if we are to understand a breadth of temporal experience. simply put: 13 imogen wilson if the body is to be placed at the center of political theory and struggle, then we need to rethink the terms in which the body is understood. we need to understand its open-ended connections with space and time, its place in dynamic natural and cultural systems, and its mutating, selfchanging relations within natural and social networks (grosz 2004, 4) music, if utilized prudently, can help us to grapple with these abstract notions through examining intersectional identity. following philosopher robin james, “music, race, and gender are experientially coincident and theoretically conjectural categories” (james 2006, 13). this way of thinking sees music in terms of signification, of expressing race and gender, and treats race, music and gender as one interlocked discourse (james 2006, xiv). concurrent with james’ work, these issues are interwoven in this paper—race, gender, sexuality and music all determine the relationship between bodies and the social forces which operate through them. this is the case for those behind the scenes of the play, the characters on the stage and the audience alike. the meaning of the play relies heavily on intersubjectivity, from the interplay between individual characters to the larger formation of identities such as black, white, or queer. therefore, ‘lived time’ is a more appropriate term than “subjective time.” one further note on terminology: to represent the experience of the “other,” or any voice that is not white, heterosexual, cisgender or male, as the case may be, “queer” and “queered temporality” act as umbrella terms. in line with patrick e. johnson, i wish to maintain the “inclusivity and playful spirit” of the word “queer,” while jettisoning its homogenizing tendencies (johnson 2010, 127). for this reason, i examine intersection of blackness and queerness within both the homosexual and heterosexual couples such as kaneisha and jim, to examine how sexuality and race interact within lived experience. jeremy o. harris is a black queer writer who draws on his own experience to decolonize desire, processing through his writing “what it [means] to be a black, male body in a white gays’ world” (harris 2016). he is also a rihanna fan. when i interviewed amauta marston-firmino, the play’s dramaturg, he stated that “work” had been there from the earliest iterations of the play. in a sense, the play came into being through the lens of the song. “work” is a pop-reggae song with dancehall roots, reminiscent of the 1990s and early 2000s music of artists such as shaggy and sean paul. it is fueled by bouncing dotted rhythms atop a minimalistic bassline, and synthesized sounds which replicate steel drums. the subject matter is fitting—the drawling vocals express exasperation as rihanna describes having to work on her fragile relationship. her frustration with her partner’s emotional unavailability is evident in lines such as “you took my heart 14 current musicology and my keys and my patience,” and her commitment to the relationship in “when i see potential i just gotta see it through” (rihanna 2016). marston-firmino explained that harris was particularly interested in the “on the nose” analogy in the song, with the relentlessness of the word “work” in each verse representing labor, slavery, and even the emotional work in relationships. according to the dramaturg, harris listened obsessively to music as he wrote, especially to “work” and the rest of the accompanying album, anti (2016), as well as the unknown mortal orchestra album (multi-love 2015), from which he extracts a song for the part of gary. the dramaturg described watching harris furiously type the script almost to the rhythm of the music, a situation which is pleasing to imagine when perusing the script’s rapidly-paced lyrical lines. harris’s repeated listening contributed to his artistic output—turning the themes of the song into a play which works through those themes. citing edmund husserl, sara ahmed highlights repetitive actions formative role in consciousness, writing that phenomenology as the study of embodied action “can offer a resource for queer studies insofar as it emphasizes the importance of lived experience, the intentionality of consciousness… and the role of repeated and habitual actions in shaping bodies and worlds” (ahmed 2006, 2, my emphasis). building on the husserlian ideas surrounding repetition, maurice merleau-ponty also discusses motor and perceptual habit-forming, stating that “every perceptual habit is still a motor habit and here equally the process of grasping a meaning is performed by the body” (merleau-ponty 2012, 177). in grasping the meaning of “work” through repeated listening, harris’ body was able to produce slave play. below, in an interview for pitchfork (2019), harris discusses the influence of julius eastman, another important black, queer artist. much like the characters in slave play, sometimes a song gets stuck in my head for a long time, inside some nerve ending. i can’t get it out of me until i listen to the song a bunch of times. when i first listened to unjust malaise, the first song, “stay on it,” was with me for probably three months. full films came to me from this seven-minute composition; images flooded my brain of little kids running through a field and finding each other. i was coming to an understanding about who [american minimalist composer] julius eastman was and how his music functioned inside of my body while i was moving through a very hallowed new england academic institution—where i felt like my black, gay body was at odds with its white, straight, patriarchal history’ (harris in pitchfork 2019). by afflicting his characters with musical obsessions and hallucinations, 15 imogen wilson harris uses an autofictional approach to further interrogate the intensity and temporal significance of getting “stuck” on a song. the quotation is taken from an interview in which harris discusses his experience of writing a show about blackness at the yale school of drama. with slave play, he also tackles another white, straight, patriarchal institution: broadway. harris’ profound engagement with music during the writing process, as well as his commitment to expressing black and queer perspectives in a prevailingly white, heteronormative space, helps to situate my argument that music is a valuable component in communicating these issues of identity. in his article “lived time and psychopathology,” martin wyllie describes lived time as unfolding “through the processes of bodily activity, [implying] that our sense of lived time is aligned with the intentional and teleological processes of life” (2005, 174). these teleological processes are distorted in “queer time,” my definition of which i draw primarily from jack halberstam’s in a queer time and place (2005). for halberstam, “queer time” stands at odds with the linear progression of temporality in a heteronormative existence. this a slightly counterintuitive concept, as all bodies have “lived” experience, conceived through bodily processes. however, i believe halberstam means to suggest that in more “normative” arenas of society, lived experience tends to function more closely to the relentless passing of days, months and years. for example, a more normative outlook would pay special attention to marriage and having children and thus having significant life events tie in with biological restrictions, such as the crude emphasis on a woman’s “biological clock.” once one leaves the “temporal frames of bourgeois reproduction and family, longevity, risk/ safety, and inheritance,” new models of temporality emerge (halberstam 2005, 20). the distorted temporal elements of inheritance are of particular importance in slave play. as halberstam puts it: the time of inheritance refers to an overview of generational time within which values, wealth, goods, and morals are passed through family ties from one generation to the next. it also connects the family to the historical past of the nation, and glances ahead to connect the family to the future of both familial and national stability. (2005, 20) carrying the weight of their societal baggage, the characters in slave play attempt to move forward from the sexual barriers in their relationships through therapy, looking to build familial stability. however, congregating at the plantation, as a site of “the historical past [and trauma] of the nation” (halberstam 2005, 20), brings the temporal dissonance between the black and white characters to the fore. for example, during the second act, 16 current musicology kaneisha describes a vivid childhood memory of visiting a plantation on a school trip, and the accompanying “tingle” in her neck: whenever we were there i’d always feel the little tingle in the back of my neck that bit of electricity telling me [the elders] wanted to hold my hand and protect me from the demons in the walls and in the ground (harris 2019, 219). kaneisha’s “tingle” expresses her hesitancy in proceeding, as if her body is giving her a protective warning signal which naturally her partner jim does not feel or understand. this social force of uncertainty is theorized by sara ahmed in queer phenomenology: if merleau-ponty’s model of the body in phenomenology of perception is about “motility,” expressed in the hopefulness of the utterance, “i can,” fanon’s phenomenology of the black body could be described in terms of the bodily and social experience of restriction, uncertainty, and blockage, or perhaps even in terms of the despair of the utterance “i cannot” (2006, p.139). over the course of my analyses, i assess the hallucinatory attempts at overcoming temporal restriction and blockage through music. perceived functionalities of music in theatre i would like to preface this section by acknowledging that this article seeks to bridge over an unusual theoretical cross-section. slave play stands at the vanguard of a budding genre of theatre, one which largely does away with traditional theatrical convention by blending the distinction between musical and traditional theatre. the role and function of music is curiously under-theorized in theatre studies despite its ubiquity on the stage. one contemporary attempting to address this is kim baston, who proposes an analytic framework for “what music does” in plays (2015, 5). baston found in her review of fifty-two text driven plays that just three did not use music at all during the performance, suggesting music is as an essential narrative component. baston’s work builds upon the earlier research of structuralist performance theorist patrice pavis (1992). pavis identifies music as a temporal 17 imogen wilson and spatial art form that may contribute to “framing and defining both onstage and offstage worlds” (1992, 95-6). he also provides a useful, if limited, list of functions that music may perform in theatre, which is listed in baston’s article as follows: 1. as a musical theme (leitmotiv) illustrating and characterizing the at mosphere 2. as acoustic setting to locate action 3. as sound effects to ‘make recognizable’ a situation 4. to cover scene changes and to punctuate action 5.to create a ‘counterpoint’ (such as the ironic use of song in brechtian theatre) 6. to create atmospheres in a way similar to film music 7. to sometimes be the center of attention, producing the action, as in musical theatre (2015, 7). several of these items are relevant in situating basic functional elements of slave play’s musical moments. to cite one instance, at first glance, kaneisha’s “work” partially adheres to the fifth item. initially, the upbeat contemporary pop song creates a counterpoint with the plantation scene at the start, using irony to situate slave play as a comedy that exists in an uncomfortable setting. however, the wording of the list makes it clear that pavis has little regard for the more complex narrative roles that music may perform, dismissing music as a simple tool to aid the flow of the existing narrative, such as by covering clunky scene changes, or creating vague “atmosphere.” despite the lists’ shortcomings in an intertextual, poststructuralist discussion, there is one vital, malleable concept from pavis’ list which can be carried forward: that music makes recognizable a situation; that the personal and cultural associations that each audience member has with “work” which exists outside of the ‘immediate’ narrative arc of the play will contribute to their comprehension of the overall performance (baston 2015, 19). glancing back to the earlier discussion of “lived time,” i urge once more the importance of considering temporal perspectives from every angle possible. in the example of “work,” there are many composite intertextual elements to consider. firstly, it is a memorable, well-known song. therefore, when it is concurrently revealed to kaneisha and the audience that the initial presentation of “work” was a hallucination, a connection between the viewer and kaneisha is established. familiarity with the song means that we can easily recall what was happening in the scene, and feel as if we are reflecting on its diegetic positioning with kaneisha. secondly, 18 current musicology some of the audience will immediately be able to situate the song as a site of cultural conflict if they had read about the waves of criticism that rihanna received for the “gibberish” lyrics, which were in fact an integration of english words with her bajan dialect (george 2016). finally, large swathes of the crowds will likely associate the song with dancing with their friends, having heard it in clubs and bars, which will create tension in their wholesome relationship to the song as it takes on darker relevance later in the play. as i suggested in the introduction, i consider much of the music in slave play to have a metadiegetic function. this develops structuralist theorist gérard genette’s definition of metadiegetic, as “pertaining to narration by a secondary character” (genette in baston 2015, 7). however, in my interpretation, the secondary narration, comprised of queer lived time of certain characters, is represented through the musical examples— the songs acting as an indirect emotional and temporal byproduct of the struggles of kaneisha and gary. it is insufficient to situate slave play within theatre scholarship alone. clearly, slave play lives and breathes with its musical elements, and whilst the theories of function of genette, pavis and baston are a helpful starting point, they do not go far enough in addressing the complex issues of temporality raised in my discussion of music and “lived time.” additionally, the intricate and graphic sex scenes behave as tightly choreographed “numbers” similarly to those one would expect in a musical theatre production, so it is also fitting to consult with scholars of the musical theatre genre. naturally, we can expect that the narrative potential of music will be exploited more creatively in musicals than in traditional theatre. musical theatre scholars therefore understandably have a more developed framework for discussing music and temporality. one of the key contemporary scholars in the field, scott mcmillin, theorizes these issues in his 2006 book, the musical as drama. mcmillin follows the established conceptual pattern of presenting two orders of time—broadly allowing for one, more predictable element (such as objective, newtonian or extensive) and one which is more flowing, flexible and unpredictable (such as lived, subjective, or intensive). contextualizing his distinction with specific reference to the dominant structure in musical theatre since the 1940s, mcmillin delineates between the progressive “book time” of the non-musical parts of the production comprised primarily by dialogue, and the “lyric time” associated with the musical portions. mcmillin admits that these binary separations of musical and nonmusical moments reflect a dated approach to the genre, and that it is increasingly common for music to be more “integrated” into the book or 19 imogen wilson story. i find the persistent dilution of temporality into binary categories to be outdated and reductive, especially in the context of slave play, which outwardly challenges numerous normative structures. in a rare and vital cross section of queer theory and musical theatre, sarah taylor ellis (2014) explores “queer temporality” in jonathan larson’s rock opera, rent (1996). for ellis, elements of queerness are represented by songs in rent that celebrate the present, such as the anthem “no day but today.” this dwelling on the present stems from uncertainty surrounding queer life, especially during the aids crisis of the 1980s. as halberstam eloquently writes, the diminishing of the horizons of possibility for entire communities “creates a new emphasis on the here, the present, the now, and while the threat of no future hovers overhead like a storm cloud, the urgency of being also expands the potential of the moment” (2005, 2). ellis is intent on working both with and against mcmillin’s notion of book and lyric time, describing them as merely providing “a binary from which to explore the space in between” (2014, 197). by exploring the intricacies of ‘the space in between’, this approach allows the characters’ lived experiences to be not only positioned against the “objective” passing of time, but crucially, in conflict with each other. embracing these temporal conflicts, between characters, is the first step in exploring how music can take the audience on a journey through a multiplicity of character experience—a feat which this article also hopes to achieve. discussing some of the manifestations of these temporal conflicts, ellis writes: production numbers are sites of variable and sometimes conflicting temporalities: speeding and slowing time, dipping into memory and projecting into the future, foregrounding repetition and circularity. the temporality of a production number occupies a space of formal alterity, differing and often diverging from the linear, progressive temporality of the book (ellis 2011, 197, my emphases). this description still uses oppositional pairs of terms, such as speeding and slowing, and memory and the future. but, by presenting them all at once like this, it allows us to comprehend the undercurrent of mismatched conflicts that characterizes so much of queered temporality. as elizabeth grosz says in the nick of time, even though time has no being or presence, “we can think of it only in passing moments, through ruptures, nicks, cuts, in instances of dislocation” (2005, 5). this is why the tension and discomfort that emerges in slave play’s musical moments are so powerful—the music represents two or more temporal angles bristling against one other, and trying to move forwards, in the context of a normative temporal landscape that overtly hinders otherness. this struggle is alluded to in the epigraphi20 current musicology cal quotation: time will not just pass by harmlessly, the prolongation of the past into the future requires bodily endurance in traversing the perceived ruptures (grosz 2004, my emphasis). to present one example, figure 2 below reveals the tail end of kaneisha’s second act closing monologue. kaneisha, having been quiet for much of the group therapy, approaches a significant revelation about her pleasure issues with jim, realizing that she sees him, and parts of his whiteness, as a virus. yet, before she can discuss this painful truth in depth, “suddenly, from above” (harris 2019, p.144), she hears “work.” it consumes her, managing to in a single moment both accentuate and dismantle her emotional energy, regressing from an articulate, accelerating, future-oriented vision of the truth, to an abeyant place of chaotic, unfocused rage. kaneisha (to jim) there’s no way now i can unknow as you wipe your dick across my lips that when your people landed on this land a third of the indigenous population of the entire continent died of disease. not disease you actively gave them. your mere presence was biological warfare. virus. you’re a virus. you’re the virus that’s why i look at you as though you are infected. that’s why i—... it’s not a pathogen, a disorder with some new name an anagram, an acronym some undiagnosed undiagnosable thing in me. it’s an undiagnosed, undiagnosable thing in you and you…and andand andand andand 21 imogen wilson and— suddenly, from above, rihanna’s “work” begins to play. kaneisha puts her hands over her ears.  ahhhhhhh!!!! (everyone moves toward kaneisha as:) end of act 2 -the end of act 2 in slave play (harris 2019, 143-4 in this moment, the song foregrounds the perilous experience of being trapped in an unrelenting repetitive cycle. for both kaneisha and gary, their musical hallucinations render them suspended in time while the others carry unawares. again, i return to ahmed’s reworking of fanon in queer phenomenology because with each song in slave play, we see that music is an expression of the characters’ attempts to overcome “restriction, uncertainty, and blockage” (ahmed 2006, 139). a multi-love dream ballet the representation of gary’s dream ballet provides us with many opportunities through which to explore his range of temporal ailments, which will be addressed shortly. however, it is important to also note the its practical positioning in the structure of the play. “multi-love” punctuates the “objective” structure of the production. it breaks up the two-hour performance, acting as a temporal anchor which eases the transition from the first to the second act. it is an intermission of sorts—interrupting the “momentum” of the scenes by removing dialogue. without dialogue, the effect is that of “speeding and slowing time” (ellis 2014, 197), as the audience are forced to focus on more subtle signifiers to make sense of the narrative direction, such as intricate and minute physical moments of characters, and take in a rapidly changing and developing spectacle all at once. gary’s dream ballet is initiated in a moment similar to kaneisha’s overwhelming hallucination in the preceding section. in their role play, gary is asserting his superior position over dustin, his self-righteous partner, in a heated monologue. he stops speaking mid-sentence, as if the music violently invades his body. the dream ballet lasts the full length of “multi-love,” a psychedelic song of just over four minutes. the choice of song is significant. it tells the story of heartbreak within the polyamorous relationship of unknown mortal orchestra’s front man ruban nielson, his wife, and their girlfriend. at the end of each verse, neilson sings “she don’t want to be your man or woman/she wants to be your love” (unknown mortal orchestra 2015). here, the subject of the song attempts to transcend heteronormative structures, believing that their love is powerful 22 current musicology enough to conquer the obstacles of a nontraditional relationship. however, the relationship is already over in the song. gary’s attachment to this song is poignant, as it suggests that at least subconsciously he suspects his partnership is doomed to fail. this prospect is lost on dustin who repeatedly undermines and erases gary’s identity by questioning the importance of their racial difference, and even claiming not to see himself as white. the song is structured into clear sections, in accordance with which the dream sequence is intricately choreographed. during the introduction and first verse, gary and dustin stare intensely at one another, the frisson of sexual attraction travelling back and forth between them, carried by the electric keyboard’s jaunty, arpeggio melodic line. their fraught conversation from just moments before is forgotten in favor of tracking each other’s body movements. layers of reverberation are built gradually onto the electric keyboard melody, with a small wave of echo lingering each time the melody reaches the highest note of its broken chord pattern. the reverberance contributes to the formation of a dreamscape. as baston writes in her discussion of music and spatial framing, “culturally and historically, the highly reverberant suggests large spaces, often linked to power, both secular (the loud echoing courtroom) and the spiritual or magical (the cathedral)” (2015, p.15). the song is elegantly panned using multi tracks to accentuate these moments of reverb—when listening with headphones there is a subtle shift from left to right as it feels like the music moves through your head from ear to ear, and this feeling is only amplified in a theatrical setting. in the theatre, i felt the wave of reverb move from stage left to right, from gary to dustin, as if gary was urging himself to make the first move. the sexual tension builds for almost a minute until gary and dustin are overcome with desire, launching at each other and wrestling to the ground. this is perfectly timed with an abrupt musical shift in the song: the delicate panning and textural layering in the echoed vocals and keyboard is halted, and the rapid drums enter eagerly as the two bodies collide, falling as one to the floor. a dream ballet is an historic device popularized by the original broadway production of rogers and hammerstein’s oklahoma! (1943). the sequences need not feature actual ballet dancing, although they often do, and are generally characterized as an extended musical feature with little dialogue (lodge 2014). the oklahoma! ballet is perhaps surprisingly relevant when considering the equivalent slave play sequence. laurey, the heroine in oklahoma!, explores her sexual desire in her dream, ultimately deciding between the two male leads. the sequence also served to make 23 imogen wilson the sexual desire of a young woman more palatable to a 1940s audience by attaching it to an unconscious dream. aspirations of sexual liberation is also central to gary’s dream ballet. as mary jo lodge notes in her chapter on liminality and dream ballets, one of the important aspects of the oklahoma! scene is that laurey uses her body in ways previously unseen in the show (lodge 2014, 75). the static, charged opening twenty seconds allows for a gradual period of “liminality,” a term which describes the transition from dialogue to song or dance (victor turner in lodge 2014). at this point in the play, the audience do not yet know that this is a hallucination. in the powerful introductory moment between gary and dustin, it appears as if they are momentarily coming together on a collaborative temporal terrain, mechanized by desire. on reflection, it is clear that their emotional alliance is a projection of gary’s desire in his “dream.” the couples’ organization into three side-by-side bedrooms poetically aligns with the lyrics of chorus: “multi love got you on my knee/ we are one/ then become three.” the couples all appear to be the most sexually liberated during this sequence than in any other part of the show, but the cartoonish and maniacal way in which in which they engage in sexual acts seems more like a projection of gary’s anxiety about the sex therapy, an attempt to conjure positive scenes in the hope that the therapy will prove successful in “real life.” a review in rolling stone states that in “multi-love” unknown mortal orchestra are “coloring outside the lines for a vibrant vision of connection” (exposito 2015). the visual expansions in the vibrant dream ballet illustrate proponents of the characters’ interconnected ‘lived times’ versus the constantly progressing objective time of the production. for example, we watch the three couples fully immersed in their sexual encounters. standing above them, the audience sees the therapists for the first time. as they peer down, voyeuristically collecting thoughts ready for the group processing session, their bodies are static and confined to a small box. their separation from the group is accentuated by the discordant lighting design. adorned with long white coats, they are lit in cold, clinical and “realistic” lights, whereas the couples exist in the emotionally charged colors of the dream ballet, in rich purples and pinks. gary and dustin sought out the sexual therapy as it had become impossible for gary to climax during sex. after gary’s extended escape in his hallucination, he finally manages to orgasm after the music comes to a close—contrasting the slow, liminal process which leads into the hallucination with its jarring departure. swiftly after this, he falls to the floor in tears. the dream ballet allows gary to temporarily leave behind the physical and 24 current musicology emotional barriers in his relationship, in favor of somewhere more visceral and care-free. however, this repression of emotion in “real time” has consequences—upon his return from his hallucination, his perceived temporal dissonance with reality results in a rapid flooding of emotion which leads to a ferocious panic attack. this rush of restriction is violent to behold as we watch gary cry and struggle to breathe. dustin attempts to calm him down, but his glaring lack of oppressive obstruction, and consequently, empathy, only accentuates the expanding temporal chasm between them. conclusion ordinarily affectivity is conceived as a mosaic of affective states, of pleasures and pains each sealed within itself, mutually incomprehensible, and explicable only in terms of the bodily system (merleau-ponty 2012, 178). the hallucinations featured in slave play emerge as an unsolicited compulsion, and one which is inextricably tethered to kaneisha and gary’s most vulnerable pleasures and emotional turmoil. with each example in the play, i have stressed the characters’ reliance on their musical hallucination to bypass “restriction” and “blockage” (ahmed 2006, 139). however, this is not a healthy long-term way of addressing temporal disjuncture, as we see especially in gary’s crushing panic attack. in scenes of subjection, saidiya hartman presents an important distinction between the overcoming of restriction and effective ‘collective enunciation’ that illustrates why the hallucinations are an ineffective method of processing trauma: pain must be recognized in its historicity and as the articulation of a social condition of brutal constraint, extreme need, and constant violence; in other words, it is the perpetual condition of ravishment…the significance of the performative lies not in the ability to overcome this condition or provide remedy but in creating a context for the collective enunciation of this pain (hartman 1997, 51). despite the nominally therapeutic setting, the characters are hardly forming a context for the “collective enunciation” of their pain. the therapy all happens within a very “white” space, even though the therapists are an interracial, lesbian couple. in the session, the therapists and the white partners are controlling and speak over kaneisha, gary and phillip. as i mention in the introduction, kaneisha is told that she suffers from “alexithymia” which results in her inability to recount and articulate her traumatic experiences. symptoms of alexithymia pose a problem to the traditional model of freudian talking therapy, as this method relies upon 25 imogen wilson verbal testimony for people to emancipate themselves from their issues and feelings. the diagnosis of alexithymia is in itself an act of silencing—it diminishes one’s voice to be told in front of a group that they are “unable” to communicate appropriately. the “antebellum sexual performance therapy” ends in chaos, failing at its original goal of working through the couples’ sexual issues. however, as the black characters become aware of each other’s musical hallucinations, and better understand their own, an alternative ‘collective enunciation’ of pain is formed that skirts over the therapeutic weight on verbal testimony. the ending to the play is bittersweet. “work” plays on repeat from the commencement of the third act in its final iteration. having been empowered by knowledge of her hallucination, she now seems in control of it—instead of appearing in a moment of joy and pleasure, as it does at the start, or in a flurry of overwhelm, as it does at the end of act 2, it now chaperones kaneisha softly, with care, as she mourns the breakdown of her relationship. she harnesses the song as a supportive mechanism to anchor herself in the present, as she finally articulates the difficult racial barriers that plague her and jim. kaneisha’s emotional growth here is striking. however, in one final blow which re-emphasizes the unpredictability of her distorted temporal journey, her growth is completely undermined. as the couple start to have sex and it escalates into a contentious, consensually ambiguous scene, “work” stops for the last time, as “jim rips kaneisha’s shirt and stuffs her mouth closed” (harris 2019, 158). in this violent act of silencing, the song is ripped away from her at the exact moment that she physically loses her hard-won ability to enunciate her pain. in this paper, i have demonstrated several ways in which the songs of slave play are decidedly interconnected with emotional nuances of the black characters. upon leaving the theatre, the musical moments are concretely embedded in the audience’s impression of the production, representing moments that are some of the most highly engaging, comical, disturbing, and complex. additionally, the use of recognizable, contemporary popular songs makes them even more likely to retain memorability—leaving the opportunity for the memory to be reignited upon hearing the song again, out in the world. these factors push the temporal experience of kaneisha and gary to the forefront of the audience’s memory, ahead of their white partners, in a satisfying act of resistance against the white, hegemonic broadway scene. i end with two suggestions for further research. my arguments naturally ebbed towards the hallucinations of kaniesha and gary. however, musical compulsions of the third black character, phillip, also raise compelling questions over music’s diegetic role on the stage. he obsessively plays 26 current musicology a beethoven melody on his violin, which could perhaps be incorporated into a body of work centered on music and slave ownership, working with research such as ronald radano’s “black music labor and the animated properties of slave sound” (2016). secondly, early in the paper i discuss harris’ autofictional relationship with music and the text. by allowing songs to shape the choreography of his writing, and then teaching the audience how the music affects the brains of kaneisha and gary, he leaves behind a layered signature of embodied cognition. my work celebrates the amplification of queered and racialized temporalities from the stage and urges the inclusion of ‘diverse’ perspectives within music theory and theatre studies. the thrilling musical connection between harris and his characters suggests that an exploration of the listening practices of theatrical creators may provide a poignant intertextual lens in the theoretical consolidation of queered temporalities. notes 1. brathwaite, jahron, matthew samuels, allen ritter, rupert thomas, jr., aubrey graham, robyn fenty and monte moir. “work” from anti. robyn fenty. roc nation, 2016. 2 nielson, roban and kody nielson. “multi-love” from multi-love. unknown mortal orchestra. jagjaguwar, 2015. references adorno, theodor w. 1998. beethoven: the philosophy of music. translated by rolf tiedemann. cambridge: polity press. ahmed, sara. 2006. queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others. durham: duke university press. arehart-treichel, joan. 2004. “ocd patients more likely to hear the music.” psychiatric news 39 (10): 24. baston, kim. 2015. “not just ‘evocative’: the function of music in theatre.” drama studies 67: 5-27, 204. brett, phillip, elizabeth wood and gary c. thomas, eds. 2006. queering the pitch: the new gay and lesbian musicology. new york: routledge. broadway direct. 2019. “first look: slave play.” photographs by matthew murphy. accessed april 1, 2020. https://broadwaydirect.com/first-look-slave-play/. ellis, sarah taylor. 2010. ‘‘no day but today:’ queer temporality in rent.” studies in musical theatre 5 (2): 195–207. euser, anne margriet, ingrid van balkom and menno oosterhoff. 2016. “stuck song syndrome: musical obsessions—when to look for ocd.” british journal of general practice 66 (643): 90. doi: 10.3399/bjgp16x683629. exposito, suzy. 2015. “multi-love.” rolling stone. july 24, 2015. www.rollingstone.com/ music/music-album-reviews/multi-love-196946/. fanon, frantz. 1967. black skin, white masks. translated by charles lam markmann. new york: grove press. george, kat. 2016. “rihanna’s patois and your misinformed memes.” dazed digital. february 29, 2016. www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/30102/1/rihanna-s-patois27 imogen wilson and-your-misinformed-memes. grosz, elisabeth. 2004. the nick of time: politics, evolution and the untimely. durham: duke university press. halberstam, jack. 2005. in a queer time and place: transgender bodies and subcultural lives. new york: nyu press. harris, jeremy o. 2016. “decolonizing my desire.” vice. december 19, 2016. www.vice. com/en_us/article/8qgm9g/decolonizing-my-desire. harris, jeremy o. 2019. slave play. new york: theatre communications group. hartman, saidiya v. 1997. scenes of subjection: terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth-century america. new york: oxford university press. james, robin. 2010. the conjectural body: gender, race, and the philosophy of music. plymouth: lexington books. johnson, e. patrick. 2001. “quare” studies, or (almost) everything i know about queer studies i learned from my grandmother.” text and performance quarterly 21 (1): 1-25. kae, darol olu. 2019. “jeremy o. harris: slave play.” kaleidescope. august 9, 2019. http:// kaleidoscope.media/jeremy-o-harris/. langer, susanne k. 1953. feeling and form. new york: charles scribner’s sons. lodge, mary jo. 2014. “dance breaks and dream ballets: transitional moments in musical theatre” in gestures of music theater: the performativity of song and dance. eds. d. symonds and m. taylor. oxford: oxford university press. lorde, audre. 1984. sister outsider: essays and speeches. trumansburg, ny: grossing press. marston-firmino, amauta. 2019. interview with imogen wilson. new york city, december 3, 2019. personal recording. mcmillin, scott. 2006. the musical as drama. princeton: princeton university press. merleau-ponty, maurice. 2012. phenomenology of perception. translated by donald a. landes. new york: routledge. moreland, quinn. 2019. “what jeremy o. harris is listening to right now.” pitchfork. october 31, 2019. https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/what-slave-play-writer-jeremy-oharris-is-listening-to-right-now/. muller, rene j. 2000. “when a patient has no story to tell: alexithymia.” psychiatric times 17 (7). www.psychiatrictimes.com/when-patient-has-no-story-tell-alexithymia. nelson, maggie. 2015. the argonauts. minneapolis: graywolf press. paulson, michael. 2019. “is broadway ready for slave play?” new york times. september 11, 2019. www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/theater/slave-play-broadway-jeremy-harris. html. pavis, patrice. 1992. theatre at the crossroads of culture. translated by loren kruger. london: routledge. pinkins, tonya. 2019. you can’t say that! episode 1 with jeremy o. harris and joaquina kalukango. podcast audio. october 23, 2019. https://open.spotify.com/ episode/0zyhjqsatpqyursvdbr5dq radano, ronald. 2016. “black music labor and the animated properties of slave sound.” boundary 2 43 (1): 173–208. scott, david. 2006. “the “concept of time” and the “being of the clock”: bergson, einstein, heidegger, and the interrogation of the temporality of modernism.” continental philosophy review 39 (2): 183-213. segal, lynne. 2014. out of time: the pleasures and perils of aging. london: verso. janet schmalfeldt. 2011. in the process of becoming: analytic and philosophical perspectives on form in early nineteenth-century music. new york: oxford university press. reviewed by benjamin hansberry classical form has again become a central topic in contemporary music­ theoretical discourse largely due to the recent publication of two major treatises on the subject, namely william e. caplin's classical form (1998) and james hepokoski and warren darcy's elements of sonata theory (2006). these theoretical titans exemplify, in some ways, two contrasting conceptions of form. while caplin concerns himself with the ways that sections relate to each other functionally (specifically referring to the importance of harmonies and cadences), hepokoski and darcy take a "dialogic" approach, comparing any given sonata (particularly the size, content, and punctuations of sections) with a sort of idealized version of the sonata form. yet, both theories lack a fully worked out account of time and the emergence of the sonata movement's sections for a listener, in most cases contenting themselves with identifying sections and examining their relationships to other sections. in in the process of becoming: analytical and philosophical perspectives on form in early nineteenth-century music, janet schmalfeldt develops a theory of form as a process: the form of the work is the development of formal functions in our perception of the piece. her book expands the processual form theory first laid out in her analysis of beethoven's "tempest" sonata (1995), based on the analysis of carl dahlhaus. in his analysis, dahlhaus argues that to try to classify the opening measures of the "tempest" sonata (where is the main theme?) is ultimately a fruitless enterprise. the argument as to whether the 'real' first subject is stated at the opening of the movement ... or in bars 21 ff. is a waste of time; it requires a decision when the whole point is that decision is impossible, and ambiguity should be understood as an aesthetic quality ... nearly all the formal sections occupy a twilight world, in which it is difficult or impossible to make unequivocal pronouncements about their functions ... the beginning of the movement [m. 1] is not yet a subject, the evolutionary episode [m. 21 ff] is one no longer. (dahlhaus 1991: 169-170) schmalfeldt seizes upon this last, oft quoted, sentence in her extension of dahlhaus's analysis. she sees the formal functions emerging as the process itself. the formal unit, if we must find one, is the span during which this current musicology, no. 92 (fall 2(11) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 111 112 current musicology process occurs. schmalfeldt uses the symbol "==) "in her analytical overlays between two formal designations to show "becoming:' thus, mm. 1-22 of the sonata are labeled "intro. ==) mt;' which is read, "introduction becomes main theme" (schmalfeldt 2011:38-41). schmalfeldt places her project within what she calls the "beethoven­ hegelian tradition;' taken from theodor adorno's understanding of beethoven's music as essentially hegelian (29-32). hegel's metaphysics is known for its use of the dialectic method. overall, this method is a series of integrations of ideas and their negations that ultimately give rise to the totality of the world or "the whole;' being the eventual integration of everything. 1 in this method, an idea is given, which necessarily gives rise to its negation. the given, discrete idea, which starts the dialectic process (e.g., "being;' "finite;' or "unity"), if it is anything less than "the whole;' possesses conceptual borders; that is, in understanding the concept one must understand its limits. but if there are limits to a concept, then there must be something beyond those limits: there must be something other than the concept under discussion-this is the negation. despite the negation necessarily being outside the idea, it is nevertheless definitively dependent on the idea, and the idea is dependent in the same way on the negation. that is, we know the idea by understanding its relationship to the negation and vice-versa. because of the close relationship between the idea and the negation, and both being a part of the whole, they become integrated into a new idea, a concept that includes both the idea and the negation. with this integrated new idea the dialectic process continues, defining new negations and new integrations until the whole is completed (redding 2010). adorno understands form in beethoven's music as this kind of dialectic process. "[m]oments, taken individually;' he claims, "seem to contradict each other. but therein lies the meaning of beethovenian form as process:' the form of the music is the constant "mediation" of these contradictions (adorno 1994:35-36, cited in schmalfeldt 2011:3-4). within this tradition, schmalfeldt gives this aesthetic, metaphysical soul an analytic body. her analyses often invoke schenkerian ideas, but also incorporate her processual formal concepts.2 her method also bor­ rows from both caplin's and hepokoski and darcy's formal theories. from caplin she takes the concept of formal functions (opposed to the "spaces" of sonata theort), but she allows such functions more fluidity than caplin (schmalfeldt 2011:16-17). according to schmalfeldt, when functions are defined too "rigidly;' listeners become unable to acknowledge "genuine formal innovation" (17). from hepokoski and darcy, schmalfeldt accepts the "dialogic" premise: that listeners understand form as a dialogue between historically-conditioned formal expectations and the instantiated music benjamin hansberry before their ears. such a premise is necessary because there could be no sense of transformation (from one formal function to another) if there was no expectation for certain formal functions in the first place. borrowing from both formal theories, schmalfeldt significantly loosens their specific claims, allowing her to make use of the concepts without necessarily running into the complications arising for both of these theories in an overdetermined practice. after laying out the shape and place of her project in the introductory first chapter, the rest of the book is a collection of relatively unconnected analytical essays, most of which show her dynamic formal system in action. she begins by reviewing her analysis of the "tempest" sonata (chapter 2), including a new section on the relationship between her analysis and those of caplin and hepokoski (51-57).4 she then shows the pre-beethovenian history of processual form in the 18th century in analyses of haydn, clementi, and mozart (chapter 3), followed by a new beethoven analysis of the "bridgetower" violin sonata, op. 47 (chapter 4).5 in the "bridgetower" analysis, schmalfeldt shows not only the processual character of beethoven's music (which became a staple after the middle period) but how, in this case, the process was based on the back-and-forth between artistic equals, the piano (beethoven) and the violin (george bridgetower) (schmalfeldt 2011:92-94). a central claim of schmalfeldt's book is that the processual character of developing formal functions, and indeed the formal functions themselves, can be usefully applied beyond the classical period. 6 moving beyond beethoven, schmalfeldt presents several schubert analyses and their relationship to performance (chapter 5).7 schmalfeldt argues on behalf of an analyst-performer-an analytically-minded pianist (in this case) whose analyses affect her performances, but also an analyst sensitive to performance practice and experience, whose analytical decisions are affected by performative aspects (unambiguously, schmalfeldt herself) (114-115). moreover, such a performer-analysts recognizes the effect that particular performances have on a listener and such a person tries to communicate her analyses through performance (118). continuing with schubert's music, schmalfeldt then examines "inward turning" secondary themes (chapter 6).9 in the nineteenth century, self-realization, and, specifically, the self-real­ ization of the composer in his music, became a central trope. processual formal analyses, schmalfeldt argues, foreground this concept (136). her last overtly processual analyses are of mendelssohn's music (chapter 7), arguing that while mendelssohn and mozart are often said in the same musicologi­ cal breath (indeed, the chapter is titled "mendelssohn the 'mozartean"'), mendelssohn's use of formal process is uniquely his own (136). 113 114 current musicology the final two essays deal less with processual form. in chapter 8, schmalfeldt explores the "ascending-thirds" progression in chopin's cello sonata, op. 65, arguing that the progression i-iii v in chopin is so common that it becomes a "signature progression" (195). finally, schmalfeldt closes the book with her keynote address to the society of music theory in 2003, reflecting on the concept of "homecoming" in analysis (chapter 9). schmalfeldt's analytical style foregrounds the listener and musical experience more than many other contemporary approaches to form. the final chapters explore music as it is experienced personally (in stunning prose, no less) as a listener, performer, or composer. such an analytical method is invaluable, especially in formal analysis, because it allows the analyst some way to express her personal connection to the music in terms other than dry, predetermined, analytical categories (if other formal theories could be caricaturized as such). further, by basing her analyses on listener/ performer/analyst experience, schmalfeldt's theory incorporates temporality into formal analysis. by considering the form not as an a priori division of the piece but as a process, schmalfeldt steps closer to the way we experience music (especially in our first hearing). musical experience itself is, after all, not given all at once, but is a process in time. schmalfeldt gains this temporal feature in her analysis by employ­ ing the concept of "becoming:' which, in regular language, necessarily implies temporality ("at one time you have x which later becomes y"). moreover, bringing in a hegelian sense of "becoming" allows the analyst to synthesize formal functions in the style of hegel's dialectic. in hegelian dialectic, as described above, there is utter combination of the two terms that include each other from the start and transcend their original scopes. in the "tempest" example above, the introduction function always has something of the character of the first-theme function and vice-versa. 10 but to ally the normal-language use of "becoming" with hegel's concept of "becoming" also brings much extra, metaphysical baggage into the theory. few contemporary philosophers think that hegel was right in his dialectic project, despite his importance for german idealism, matched only by kant. crucially, hegel believed axiomatically that the whole is totally and absolutely unified and that any sort of separation is impossible. and this necessary unity motivates the integration of ideas in the first place. l ! but, in assuming this inevitable unification, hegel speciously side-steps any need to explain the mechanisms or motivations by which integration occurs: in his theory, the idea and negation do not integrate for some demonstrable purpose, but rather because they must, because the whole must be unified by definition. hegel's method therefore has an air of question-begging to benjamin hansberry it: the only motivation for its progress is assumed from the get go. for this reason, few philosophers after hegel's time have been convinced that the dialectical process is an accurate representation of reality. moreover, to incorporate a specifically hegelian concept of becoming does not actually bring in temporality as hegel's metaphysical dialectic is outside of time. in philosophy of logic (which is surprisingly absent from schmalfeldt's bibliography), hegel argues that the integration of being (idea) and nothing (negation) into becoming occurs not as a temporal process, but as a logical process. the idea is prior to the negation, which are both prior to the integration, logically and not temporally. in unifying being and nothing, hegel says, "the truth is neither being nor nothing, but rather that being has passed over into nothing and nothing into being'has passed over;' not passes over" (emphasis added; hegel 1816 [2010],59-60). note the deliberate avoidance of an active noun-the synthesis is not happening over time or happening now, but has happened and now (in time) the synthesis is more or less utter and stable. further, in his first remark of this section, hegel gently chides greeks and buddhists for placing the integration in time. he compliments their ability to "express at bottom the same unity of being and nothing. but;' he goes on, "these expressions have a substrate in which the transition takes place; being and nothing [represented by life and death] are held apart in time, presented as alternating in it; they are not thought in their abstractions and also, therefore, not so that they are the same in and for themselves" (emphasis added; 60). thus, a "real" hegelian, conceptual synthesis cannot take place if it occurs in time; the elements cannot be "held apart;" instead everything happens, and is given, all at once. such a logical process can have an analog in time-as hegel's world history does, moving from being as china to the culmination of all civilization in the prussian state (russell 2007 [1945]:735)-but even here, hegel sees time as an illusion, because we are incapable of perceiving the always-existing, immutable whole (ibid.). taking such an idealistic, metaphysical stance when approaching form begins to steer us away from musical experience, and indeed the pieces them­ selves that draw us, as analysts, into music scholarship in the first place. by appealing to musical experience and not a "beethoven-hegelian" tradition, i think we can retain many of schmalfeldt's achievements in her personal encounters with music through listening and performing. in fact, excising the hegelian sense of becoming allows her analyses to exist in time and therefore better model musical experience of forms, unfolding occurrently throughout the composition. if instead we refer to the "everyday language" sense of "becoming;' we preserve the temporal identity of processual formal functions (i.e., formal designations that utilize "=} "). 115 116 current musicology of course, schmalfeldt's invocation of hegel is not needless. beethoven and hegel, born in the same year, lived in more or less the same time and place. it therefore makes historical sense to try to approach beethoven's music with a method informed by beethoven's world, particularly if one values rooting analysis in history.12 moreover, integration like hegel's al­ lows for maximally-unified formal functions: the functions are completely unified and always have been unified. but, as i argued above, in rejecting a hegelian metaphysical framework one is able to step closer to an experi­ ence-based analytical method, which i take to be the most important part of schmalfeldt's project. the cost is the sense of total synthesis of the two formal functions, but a listener does not experience those forms as a com­ plete integration of functions anyway. though a total synthesis gives one a convenient label for a section, it does not capture the sense of changing formal functions. one starts thinking that one has one formal function (in the case of the "tempest" sonata, a slow introduction in m. 1), which is then complicated when the form does not progress as we expect it to. in the end, it is this sense of "becoming;' not the maximally-unified hegelian sense, which models our experience of processual formal features. in hegel's philosophy, there is room for interpretation, and it might be possible to read him in such a way as to have it both ways-to retain temporality while gaining maximally-unified functions. but i do not really see a good reason for such an interpretation. i do not (usually) experience formal functions as totally unified, but rather as processes, transforming from one into the other. under retrospective reinterpretation, one might see how a formal function might lay the groundwork for becoming another function (martin and moortelle 20ll), but this really only enters into our thought when looking back on the piece, when doing the analysis, and usually not when we are listening to the music unfold in time. despite these departures of hegelian metaphysics from an experience­ based analytical method, schmalfeldt's analytical method helps to further bring musical experience into the sometimes-antiseptic world of formal analysis, a great achievement for any kind of music theory. 13 notes 1. in my overview of the hegelian dialectic, i use the triad idea-negation­ integration to stand in for the "traditional" thesis-antithesis-synthesis. 2. in lieu of schenkerian voice-leading graphs, schmalfeldt often gives full scores with formal markings and surface-level schenkerian symbols. 3. in hepokoski and darcy's theory sonatas are analyzed into spaces, defined usually by strong cadences. the sonata itself occurs in "sonata-space" which includes the standard exposition-development-recapitulation scheme. expositional space is divided into p-space (primary theme), s-space (secondary theme), etc. spaces broadly refer to a span of measures wherein some feature of benjamin hansberry a sonata takes place (hepokoski and darcy 2006, 281). 4. originally published as schmalfeldt 1995. for form-functional and sonata theory analyses of the "tempest" sonata see caplin 2009 and hepokoski 2009. 5. more commonly referred to as the "kreutzer" sonata, schmalfeldt uses the name "bridgetower" presumably to highlight the important role of the violinist to the piece's composition. 6. note that in both caplin's and hepokoski and darcy's theories they limit themselves to "the instrumental music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven" and the "late eighteenth century" (respectively). 7. this chapter was originally published as an article. see schmalfeldt 2003. 8. n.b., inversion of terms is deliberate. 9. this chapter in an expansion on a previously given address at the sixth conference of the dutch society for music theory, in utrecht, february 20th , 2004. 10. nathan martin and steven moortele even suggest using a "¢:::) "between formal-functional labels, thus showing the dependence ofthe first element on the second, just as much as the second is dependent upon the first. (martin and vande moortele 2011). 11. russell and others identify this as hegel's "mystical" axiom which he seems to have arrived at intuitively (russell 1945 [2007], 731). 12. this is more or less the point richard taruskin recently re-stated in music theory spectrum, which was met by varied and lukewarm responses from the music theory community (taruskin 2011). 13. of course, this preference to defer to musical experience is in line with methods of experience-based analysis. see for instance dubiel 2010 or guck 2006. references adorno, theodor w. 1994. beethoven: philosophie der musik. second edition. edited by rolf tiedemann. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. caplin, william e. 1998. classical form: a theory of formal function for the instrumental music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven. new york: oxford university press,. _____ . 2009. "beethoven's tempest exposition: a springboard for form-functional considerations" in beethoven's "tempest" sonata: perspectives of analysis and performance. edited by pieter berge, coedited by jeroen d'hoe and william e. caplin, 87 -125. leuven, belgium: peeters __ . 2010. "what are formal functions?" in musical form, forms, and formenlehre: three methodological reflections, edited by pieter berge, 21-40. leuven, belgium: leuven university press. dahlhaus, carl. 1991. ludwig von beethoven: approaches to his music, translated by mary whittall. new york: clarendon press. dubiel, joseph. 2011. "analysis" in the routledge companion to philosophy and music, edited by theodore gracyk and andrew kania, 525-534. new york: routledge. guck, marion a. 2006. "analysis as interpretation: interaction, intentionality, invention." music theory spectrum 28 (2): 191-209. hepokoski, james and warren darcy. 2006. elements of sonata theory: norms, types, and deformations in the late eighteenth-century sonata. new york: oxford university press. hepokoski, james. 2009. "approaching the first movement of beethoven' tempest sonata through sonata theory" in beethoven's "tempest" sonata: perspectives of analysis and 117 118 current musicology peljormance. edited by pieter berge, coedited by jeroen d'hoe and william e. caplin, 181-212. leuven, belgium: peeters __ .2010. "sonata theory and dialogic form" in musical form, forms, and formenlehre: three methodological reflections, edited by pieter berge, 71-89. leuven, belgium: leuven university press. hegel, georg wilhelm friedrich. 1816 [2010]. science of logic, translated and edited by george di giovanni. new york: cambridge university press. martin, nathan john and steven vande moortele. 2011. "formal functions and retrospective reinterpretation in the first movement of schubert's string quartet, d. 956:' paper presented at the annual meeting of the society for music theory, minneapolis, mn, october 26. monahan, seth. 2011. "review ofjanet schmalfeldt: in the process of becoming: analytical and philosophical perspectives on form in early nineteenth-century music (oxford: oxford university press, 2011)" music theory online 17 (3). http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/ mto.11.17.3/mto.11.17.3.monahan.html (accessed august 28 2011). reddick, carissa. 2010. "becoming at a deeper level: dimensional overlap in sonata forms from the late nineteenth century." music theory online 16 (2). http://www.mtosmt.org/ issues/mto.lo. 16.2/mto. 10.16.2.reddickhtml (accessed aug 30 2011). redding, paul. 2010. "georg wilhelm fredrich hegel:' stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/hegel/ (accessed aug 28 2011). russell, bertrand. 1945 [2007]. "hegel" in a history of western philosophy. repr., new york: touchstone. schmalfeldt, janet. 1995. "form as the process of becoming: the beethoven-hegelian tradition and the tempest sonata:' beethoven forum 4: 37-71. __ . 2003. "on performance, analysis, and schubert:' per musi: revista academica de m!lsica 5-6: 38-54. __ .2010. "response to carissa reddick." music theory online 16.2, 2010. http://www. mtosmt.org/issues/mto.1o.16.2/mto.1 0.16.2.schmalfeldt1.html (accessed aug 30 2011). __ . 2011. in the process of becoming: analytic and philosophical perspectives on form in early nineteenth-century music. new york: oxford university press. taruskin, richard. 2011. "catching up with rimsky-korsakov:' music theory spectrum 33 (2): 169-185. webster, james. 2010. "formenlehre in theory and practice" in musical form, forms, and formenlehre: three methodological reflections, edited by pieter berge, 123-139. leuven: leuven university press. current musicology 106 (spring 2020]) © 2020 barriere. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 barz, gregory, and cheng william. 2019. queering the field. sounding out ethnomusicology. new york: oxford university press. reviewed by louise barriere when ellen koskoff published the first feminist anthology in ethnomusicology, women and music: a cross-cultural perspective (1987), more than forty years ago, the discipline had to face its androcentric conceptions. yet, though sharing concerns on gender and normativity, queer ethnomusicological accounts were still, until very recently, scarce and scattered amongst a variety of publications. queering the field: sounding out ethnomusicology is therefore the first edited volume to bring together these kind of academic accounts. published in 2019 by the oxford university press, and edited by gregory barz and william cheng, queering the field is separated into eight parts. the book gathers the analyses of twenty-one different contributors, including phd students, early-career researchers and more established scholars of various fields. it builds bridges between ethnomusicology and several of its sister disciplines, such as musicology, anthropology, and sound studies; as well as between traditional and popular music. the first apparent strength of the book lies in its ability to cover an extended variety of scholarly backgrounds. both the foreword and the introduction (respectively the first and second parts of the book) recall how ethnomusicology has long been shaped by heteronormative sets of rules, and a “habitus of compulsory heterosexuality” (4). meanwhile, its sister disciplines (musicology, sociology, anthropology), represented in the following pages of the volume as well, have all made some space for queer theory within their fields of interests. indeed, if ethnomusicology has had its feminist moments (see also koskoff, 2014), queer perspectives are still running behind. also echoing ethnomusicologist deborah wong’s questions about ethnomusicology and sexuality, “how (...) do ethnomusicologists say so little about sexuality? what are the implications of erasing, ignoring, refusing, and disarticulating erotics from the musics we study?” (wong 2015,179), barz and cheng engage in a queer reading of ethnomusicology and sexuality. as an introduction, barz suggests considering “queer” as an action verb – as it already appears in the title of the book. for barz, “verbing” 10 current musicology queer (15) means acknowledging and welcoming the sometimes paradoxical meanings that the term has come to carry throughout its history. indeed, formerly an insult used to shame people whose gender or sexuality did not conform to hegemonic narratives, “queer” has been reclaimed by lgbt activists as a synonym of pride. reflecting on that contrasted history, the process of “queering ethnomusicology” aims to offer the ethnographer possibilities “to revisit, reexamine, and reinterpret” the ethnomusicological fieldwork, that is: “to redirect our gaze toward the purposeful decisions we make in the field, the assumptions we carry with us, and the habits we form that cause us to make the evaluations we do,”... “to explore elasticity and acknowledge ethnomusicology’s presence in the history of forming” gender and sexual categories, and “to acknowledge the complexity of embracing the existence of two (or more) ways of understanding a given scenario in our field research” (15). invoking the theories of judith butler, eve kosofky sedgwick and nick rees-robert, amongst others, queering the field thus issues an invitation “to define the act of doing ethnomusicology, specifically engaging in ethnographic field research that is, if not inherently queered, then open to the queer gaze” (13). in answering that call, the volume’s contributors use the attributes of queer theory to analyze self-proclaimed lgbtq cultural productions, to investigate the social deviations from gender and sexual norms in various cultural contexts, or to question the normative forces at stake in specific ethnomusicological field research and situations. the third unit is titled “queer silences” and investigates the systems of (in)visibilities that regulate queer presences in a variety of areas. in the opening chapter, zoe c. sherinian, questions her “outness” as a masculine-of-center, gender non-conforming, soft-butch lesbian, when doing fieldwork in india. as much as western musicology tends to impose its own categories on indigenous music styles, she addresses the impact of a western idea of universality on indian sex/gender/sexuality categories and relationships. meanwhile, nicol hammond explores a white afrikaans popular music community in post-apartheid times: karen zoid’s fanbase. as her online fieldwork in fan communities comprised a great number of queer references, hammond slowly came to discover how zoid’s music helped her informants deal with the repression targeting the south african lesbian community. yet, as zoid’s music brings her fans in a virtual – and sometimes physical – proximity, making them aware of their desires, there also comes a higher risk of homophobic repression. this experience led hammond to consider the intimacy of ethnographic fieldwork as “capable of being deeply pleasurable, deeply uncomfortable and deeply damaging” (54). such a perspective enriches the growing amount of scholarship on 11 louise barriere the ways in which a specific study may impact the researcher’s mental health. finally, gillian m. rodger considers the exploration of archives as fieldwork and offers an interesting perspective on an “ethnographic work in the past” (68). interested in male impersonation in nineteenth-century america, she shows how her first hope to find a “nineteenth-century lesbian, or at least a feminist or non-conforming woman who operated independently of men” and her need for representation in the field she studied, was naive since terms such as lesbian or feminist weren’t used in the same ways as they now are (67). in the fourth section “out/in the field,” the topic changes to the strategies of covering, passing, or outing oneself as a queer ethnomusicologist, in academia and in fieldwork, as barz examines the position of queer ethnomusicologists as a “marked category.” contrary to the “unmarked category” of “straight white cis male” ethnomusicologists, whose identity is alwaysalready recognized and visible, queer ethnomusicologists may have to face the cornelian choice to out or cover themselves. yet, looking for traces of a queer presence in ethnomusicology, barz applies a derridean idea to highlight the existence of queer identities “sous rature” (under erasure). next, christi-anne castro brings up the case of the “tomboy,” a word that, in the philippines, embodies a different meaning than in north america, overlapping with the term transgender but mainly remaining in an ambiguous gender position (111). castro both considers “the negotiations of gender presentation and the mutual impingement of attractionality, race and class” (114) in the field and investigates how the choice of the ethnographers to “out” themselves, cover, or “pass” impacts their relationship with informants. subsequently, alexander m. cannon draws on a queer phenomenology and urges “the ethnomusicologist to play in, around, and through concepts observed in the field” instead of following the “straight line” of dominant narratives (135). recalling his ethnographical research in north american queer nightclubs and vietnamese traditional music, he questions the methods of ethnomusicological fieldwork, their traditional sets of rules and boundaries, their constraints, and their transgression, and thereby reclaims “methodological no-nos”. at last, moshe morad’s chapter brings us to cuba’s gay ambiente: the festive underground spaces of cuba’s queer nightlife. as gay gatherings are not allowed in cuba, the ambiente remains a profoundly underground field site, where music acts as social glue in a surveilled state. morad’s analyses explore five different spheres of the ambiente: fiestas de diez pesos, drag shows, bolero music, ballet performances, and afro-cuban religious ceremonies involving spirit possession. the diversity of the spaces described in morad’s chapter pinpoints the peculiar vivacity of cuba’s gay scene, overpassing state repression. 12 current musicology the fifth section, “queerness in action”, investigates and challenges academic research on queer music communities. jeff roy reflects on the process of ethnomusicological film making through his documentary project on transgender hījrā music and dance. roy entered the “protected familial kinship system” (167) of the indian trans-hījrā community and followed its members’ lives through interviews and theatrical dance performances. in this chapter, he questions the presence and the impact of the researcher-videographer as reinforcing conventional boundaries between the foreigner, western academia and his collaborators. keen on decolonizing ethnographic queer filmmaking practices, roy made the members of the hījrā community his collaborators at all stages of the process and thereby transformed the production process as well as the researcher-informant relationship. matthew leslie santana dives into the realm of queer hip-hop and suggests that the very existence of queer rappers contradicts both the depiction of hip-hop as uniformly homophobic and the colonial idea of blackness as heteronormative. investigating the works of cakes da killa, mykki blanco and princess nokia, santana explores how their music refers to a queer genealogy of hip-hop and to voguing or ballroom’s lexicon as symbols of historical queer blackness or black queer cultures. their representation as “gay rappers,” also allows them to build coalitions, following the tradition of a queer of color critique. next, henry spiller makes a salient contribution that highlights the issues of a western queer gaze on topeng cirebong, a masked dance tradition from indonesia. during a performance, each performer (the dalang topeng) embodies a variety of characters whose visual and physical mannerisms are neither coded as all feminine or all masculine. yet, spiller demonstrates that the characterization of dalang topeng as queer by western scholars raise concerns as it doesn’t make sense for the performers themselves, whose personal lives remain framed by the structures of heteronormativity. finally, tes slominski underpins fieldworkers’ “queerness” for they do not ‘normally’ belong to the context they observe. thereby, she aims to encourage white, heterosexual and middle-class ethnographers to rethink their positionalities. moreover, as queer ethnomusicologists do not often fit the norms of their hometowns and countries they should use their experiences as an invitation to think outside “belonging-not belonging” and structured binaries that are part of the traditional ethnomusicological canon. the sixth section “institutions and intersections,” briefly looks at the consequences of academic normativity within queer ethnomusicological research. the first chapter brings together aileen dillane & nic gareiss, respectively self-introduced as “a cis-gender female, straight(ish), white, irish, traditional musician and american-trained ethnomusicologist” and 13 louise barriere “a cis-gender male, queer, white, american, traditional dancer and irishtrained ethnochoreologist” (236). the goal of this chapter is twofold. the first part brings up pertinent issues surrounding the normatively constituted ethical practices of ethnomusicology. for dillane and gareiss, the construction of formal guidelines provided by research ethics committees reveals an “institutional anxiety around issues of queer sex and gender.” the second part of their chapter proposes to “queer” the ethnomusicological project by reintroducing dance and dancers in its scope, arguing that due to its focus on the body, ethnochoreology “arguably has more deliberately engaged with sexual and gender diversity” (252). then, in her study of the panamanian dance-drama “la danza bungabita,” heather j. paudler challenges the ideological “overgeneralization” and globalization of queer theoretical frameworks that “[fail] to acknowledge the ways in which bodies are marked and read through raceand classspecific discourses,” as well (260). she warns against the institutionalization of drag performances as a “queer canon” that occults the plurality of meanings fostered by a performance. section seven, “who’s queer (w)here?” highlights the impact of “outness” or invisibility on researchers’ mental health. anthropologist amber r. clifford-napoleone offers a reflexive chapter on her experience as a lesbian ethnographer in and out of the field and academia. she explores “dichotomies of queer and straight, anthropology and ethnomusicology, popular and academic, respectable and unrespectable, alterity and concordance” that she describes as a series of conundrums (278). researching queer fans of heavy metal as an anthropologist necessitated her to “out” herself as both a lesbian and a metal fan and scholar. besides being an insider in the scene she studies, she didn’t expect that data collection would lead her to record the confessions of people who were struggling with their sexuality. impacted by these encounters, she addresses her own “queer issues” of internalized homophobia and self-shaming in a truly powerful piece. kathryn alexander’s chapter proposes an autoethnographical account of traditional dance spaces in cape breton island, nova scotia. while she understands square dance coded as heteronormative, she feels like her androgynous body led her to embody both sides of the dance experience, depending on how others perceived her. yet, this does not equate with any possibility to occupy a gender in-between, and square dancing is by no means a queer practice. more importantly, alexander also questions the impact of fieldwork on her well-being, as refusing to flirt with male dance partners equated to losing potential informants, but accepting flirtation felt like tolerating harassing behaviors. conclusively, willian cheng researches sound and voice in the male-dominated realm of first person 14 current musicology shooter video games. hearing a certain amount of racist, misogynist and homophobic slurs and harassment in his field site, often deemed as harmless “locker room talk”, he questions his place as a silent ethnographer in the game. reflecting on his belief that staying silent would help him grasp the authenticity of his fieldwork, he goes further and posits a necessity to queer his fieldwork as “a call for social justice and a quest for better worlds, real and virtual” and takes the bald decision to use his voice for justice, protesting harassment and hate speech (311). cheng thereby brings an interesting reflection on the queer ethics of ethnography. the eighth and final section, “clubs, bars and scenes”, explores a specific type of field sites mostly connected with nightlife. first, luis-manuel garcia puts his experience in dialogue with three other ethnographers of nightlife to address some of the concerns of fieldwork in queer spaces. the strategies deployed by those ethnographers often oppose the canons of ethnomusicological methods, and their stories highlight a critical “dissonance between their fieldwork sites and their disciplinary training” (335). garcia insightfully shows how the techniques of improvisation, trial and error, and adaptation to various scenes, developed by nightlife ethnographers, are embedded in what sedgwick’s terms a “weak theory.” indeed, while a “strong theory” is defined by “its ability to bring varying and disparate fields of experience under one simple and graspable explanatory regime,” to the cost of being sometimes reductive, sedgwick’s weak theory “can only account for a small range of phenomena, but it does so in great detail and with great flexibility” (351). sarah hankins follows with a reflection on the intersections of sex and race in her fieldwork in tel aviv’s nightclubs. she uses psychoanalysis as a way to discover more about herself and her relation to others. in doing so, she confronts her previously unacknowledged racial anxieties while conducting ethnographic research in a tel aviv nightclub that was popular among african immigrant men. hankins’ reflection on her comfort in the field echoes alexander’s chapter, furthering the previous considerations with a focus on interracial relations. through the observation of drag shows in cuban gay bars, cory w. thorne then discusses the entanglement of gender, spirituality, sexuality and ethics in cuban everyday life by looking at santeria’s religious ceremonies, amongst which many santeros define as gays or transformistas and perform drag shows where they embody oricha divinities. in the concluding chapter, drawing on the musicologist suzanne cusick’s affirmation that music is sex, peter mcmurray considers sensual ethnography. mcmurray asks, “what if all sound is sex?” and proposes to explore the potentiality of the body as a “queer archive of pleasure” through two case studies in berlin nightlife (386). 15 louise barriere as demonstrated throughout my description of the book content, the focus of the different sections sometimes seems to overlap. as chapters echo each other, queer ethnographic investigations appear to be more fluid than the section’s cases. if the sexuality of the ethnographers and their informants appears to have long been a taboo in the discipline, the recounting of fieldwork experiences begins with an account of intimate or romantic relationships that the researchers were involved in while in the field. this demonstrates the entanglement of intimacy in queer ethnomusicological research practices. being allowed, as a reader, to penetrate in such an intimate part of the authors lives, i felt entitled to write in a similar tone. despite the variety of topics and concerns unraveled in those pages, i found myself relating to the voices of the contributors more than once. this also highlights how questioning the heteronormativity of a discipline does not only raise concerns regarding the produced scholarship and the stories from the field. a “queer gaze” on the discipline, its methods, interests, and productions, also compels us to look at what is at play in the meetings, in the hallways, classrooms, and offices of our academic institutions. “who’s queer (w)here?”, is something we should ask once again. queering the field offers interesting snapshots and analyses of this dialogue between the field and the institution. the book also highlights a necessity to further develop a reflexive scholarship on how heteronormativity and queer “outness” impact all aspects of an academic career. besides, as luis-manuel garcia frames it when discussing nightlife fieldwork management, the “ethnographer identity impacts [the] processes of collaboration and negotiation” with informants (336). following a similar idea, the scholarship presented in queering the field also offers a queered perspective on methodology and ethics, the ways in which one navigates the academic institutions, and how one writes about the fieldwork experience. for instance, jeff roy explains writing in the 1st and 2nd person to implicate himself and his readers in his stories, while tes slominski’s piece aims to “queer the boundaries between theory, storytelling and call to action” (220). as a result, it seems as if the ethnographer identity does not only impact the fieldwork’s “tricks of the trade,” but also the processes of exposing the results of an ethnographic inquiry. yet, i would remain particularly cautious about defining ethnomusicology as a queer discipline per se. such definition also mirrors wong’s (2014 & 2015, 179) account of ethnomusicology as a feminized discipline, i.e. a discipline often left out at the margins of music departments. and both seem particularly paradoxical. on the one hand, they may serve to highlight, as barz frames it in the introduction, “the anxieties long harbored by ethnomusicologists, encouraging many to disavow queer theories 16 current musicology and avoid any direct address of queerness in their work for fear of even further marginalization in the academy” (12). but, on the other hand, presenting ethnomusicology and ethnomusicologists as queer without distinction may also contribute to the very process described in this quote. in using this analogy, we should remain careful not to turn a blind eye to the structures that specifically marginalize women and queer people in ethnomusicology (and music in general) scholarship. finally, as i closed the book, one question, echoing paudler’s chapter, remained with me, making me wish to further interrogate the reproduction of queer canons. if several chapters of the book addressed drag, i find essential to reflect on the prominence of such representations, which were already at the core of butler’s (2011) influential work. also challenging the western gaze, i consider crucial that we keep asking, in line with paudler’s observations: to what extent and how may queer ethnomusicology prevent the development of such a queer canon? i am not sure i have yet an answer to this question and would rather leave it wide open. yet, despite this repetitive interest for drag amongst its pages, queering the field also brings an interesting juxtaposition of topics, field sites and ways to look at and write about them. i believe that multiplying research focuses surely weakens heteronormative and queer canons. and the multiplicity of questions and concerns raised by the various contributors makes queering the field a very dense and thorough volume. one that will, without a doubt, be a foundational text for the consideration of queerness in ethnomusicology. references butler, judith. 2011. gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. new york and london: routledge. koskoff, ellen. 2014. a feminist ethnomusicology: writings on music and gender. champaign: university of illinois press. koskoff, ellen. (ed.). 1987. women and music in cross-cultural perspective. champaign: university of illinois press. wong, deborah. 2014. “sound, silence, music: power.” ethnomusicology 58, no 2: 347-353. wong, deborah. 2015. “ethnomusicology eithout erotics.” women and music: a journal of gender and culture 19, no 1: 178-185.] dvorak's armida and the czech oriental "self" martin nedbal in his path-breaking article on saint-saens's samson et dalila, ralph p. locke claims that nineteenth-century orientalist operas usually included a young, tolerant, brave, possibly nayve, white-european tenor-hero [who] intrudes, at risk of disloyalty to his own people and colonialist ethic, into mysterious, dark-skinned, colonized territory represented by alluring dancing girls and deeply affectionate, sensitive lyric soprano, incurring wrath of bruta1, intransigent tribal chieftain (bass or bass-baritone) and blindly obedient chorus of male savages. (1991:263) locke, reflecting a major stream in the criticism ofliterary and visual works set in exotic lands, posits that in most orientalist operas there exists a "binary opposition between a morally superior 'us' (or 'collective self') and an ap­ pealing but dangerous 'them' (,collective other') who come close to causing 'our' downfall" (1991 :263). as is the case with most binary concepts, however, this neat distinction does not reflect the full complexity of the relationship between "self" and "other:' this is true, as locke himself goes on to show, with regard to various aspects of samson et dalila itself (beyond the basic plot). and it is all the more true in respect to certain less canonical operatic works set in exotic locales, such as antonin dvorak's last opera armida (first performed at the national theater in prague on march 25,1904). on the surface, armida seems to project btnary oppositions similar to those described by locke. the opera features a brave european hero, rinald (whose name represents the czech version of the more familiar "rinaldo"). rinald intrudes, together with his fellow crusaders, into the mysterious kingdom of the syrian king hydraot during their campaign to liberate jerusalem. rinald endangers the war plans of the crusaders by falling in love with hydraofs daughter armida, and, as a result, he has to fight the brutal magician ismen. at the end of the opera, rinald and the crusaders overcome their muslim opponents and continue their (colonizing) campaign in syria. a closer consideration of the opera's libretto and music reveals that the distinction between the european crusaders and the muslims is not as straightforward as a simple us/them dichotomy would prescribe-a fact that several writers have commented upon. in his memoirs, the czech baritone bohumil benoni, who played the role of the magician ismen during the premiere of armida, writes of the work: current musicology, no. 84 (fall 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 25 26 current musicology armida is dvorak's tragedy [i.e., failure j. dvorak was too nayve and literal a christian, thus the magician ismen is barely believable, and he [the composer j only responded to the political life of the crusader knights of rome. (cited in smaczny 1996:90) benoni's statement resonates somewhat with locke's description of the basic orientalist operatic plot. in benoni's view, dvorak identified through his music with the christian crusaders who in his opera represent the sympathetic "collective self;' yet his musical characterization of the muslims is unsuccessful and unrealistic. similar to benoni, the czech musicologist jarmil burghauser suggests that dvorak's muslims are not exotic enough (or realistic enough, in benoni's language). he asserts that it is a pity that dvorak did not base more of the music associated with hydraot and his subjects on the muezzin's motive, as such musical characterization would have resulted in a more pronounced musical difference between the opera's muslims and christians (1994b:19). throughout his book on czech opera, john tyrrell expresses a similar opin­ ion of dvorak's last composition. tyrrell does not mind dvorak's approach to the muslims so much, but he takes issue with the musical characterization of the crusaders. he complains that "dvorak responded to ... the christian soldiers with four-square martial music of a particularly undistinguished cut" (1988:87-88). tyrrell, like benoni, assumes dvorak to be firmly on the side of the crusaders and is therefore disappointed that the strictness and uninventiveness of the crusaders' music does not create a sufficiently positive image of the european characters. by claiming that dvorak's last opera does not succeed in presenting a heroic image of the christian crusaders, or that it does not distinguish the saracens (muslims) with sufficiently exotic-sounding music, all three com­ mentators try to understand armida through the conventional formulas of orientalist operas that categorically distinguish the evil exotic other from the identifiable european self. as a result, they end up seeing the work as a failed orientalist opera. the problematic musical and dramaturgical relation­ ship between the crusaders and the muslims in armida, however, acquires a different meaning when considered in view of the nineteenth -century czech attitudes towards exotic countries and peoples. nineteenth-century czech exoticism differed significantly from the french and british orientalism described by locke. unlike french composers of orientalist operas, who belonged to an imperialist nation, many nineteenth-century czech artists perceived their own country as a colony of the habsburg empire. as a result, many nineteenth -century czech artworks dealing with exotic subjects blurred the boundaries between the european self and the non-european martin nedbal other, especially if this other was represented by a subjugated, colonized nation (or by a nation, as we shall see, in the process of being colonized by a european power or its equivalent). the tendency to create sympathetic images of ethnic groups threatened by imperial expansion becomes obvious in some nineteenth -century czech paintings, especially in the works by the czech painter jaroslav cermak. in the early 1860s, cermak traveled to montenegro and dalmatia, the balkan regions inhabited by a south slavic people who, in the nineteenth century, were under constant pressure of the ottoman empire. his paint­ ings of the people of montenegro resemble in many ways some of the french nineteenth-century orientalist paintings-in both cermak's and his french contemporaries' works we often find people in archaic, exotic dress with elaborate jewelry. but, unlike many french painters' depictions of various inhabitants of faraway countries, cermak's works portray the exotic montenegrin people in sympathetic and identifiable ways. his famous painting of a montenegrin woman, for example, shows her not as a menacing femme fatale, as was often the case with french depictions of exotic women, but as a mother caressing her child (figure 1). even in his depiction of the turks, cermak digresses from the typical orientalist tropes. in presenting the turks either as rapists or as overseers of enslaved women, for example in the 1865 painting "vnos" (the abduction) (figure 2) and the 1870 "zajatkyne" (the female captives) (figure 3), he to some extent evokes the orientalist image of the threatening other. but unlike the french depictions of oriental cruelty (as seen, for example, in henri regnaulfs painting "summary execution under the moorish kings of grenada"), cermak's unflattering images of the turks do not merely show the violent and barbaric qualities of the turkish culture; they also draw the viewers' attention and sympathies to the suffering of the oppressed montenegrins who always appear in the paintings as well. nineteenth -century czech artists used images of the turkish oppression of montenegrins as a powerful symbol of the austrian oppression of the czechs. the 1877 grand opera the montenegrins by the czech composer karel bendl reveals the significance of turkish-montenegrin symbolism in czech national consciousness by the 1870s. in his opera, bendl drew so many parallels between the ottoman empire's treatment of the montenegrins and the austrian empire's treatment of the czechs that the opera "was considered too provocative for the czech stage, and ... [ as a result, its] performance did not take place until 1881" (tyrrell 1988:125). when it was eventually performed, bendt's montenegrins "achieved immediate popularity which owed much to the domestic parallels that could be drawn by the czech audience" (tyrrell 1988:125). 27 28 current musicology figure 1: jaroslav cermak, "cernohorska madona" (the montenegrin madonna) (1865). photograph © copyright national gallery in prague, 2007. martin nedbal figure 2: jaroslav cermak, "vnos cernohorky" (abduction of a montenegrin woman) (1865). photograph © copyright national gallery in prague, 2007. 29 30 current musicology figure 3: jaroslav cermak, "zajatkyne" (the female captives) (1870). photograph © copyright national gallery in prague, 2007. martin nedbal cermak's and bendl's sympathetic portrayal of montenegrin suffering may have been influenced by the fact that this ethnic group represented fellow slavs to the czechs. yet their works with balkan themes parallel other artistic portrayals by czech artists of even more distant and exotic peoples and countries. the poet and writer svatopluk cech depicted "the conflict between [czech 1 national consciousness and austrian oppression" in his works with exotic subjects (becka and mendel 1998:126). his allegorical verse epic hanuman (1884), for example, describes the struggle of an indian tribe of monkeys to preserve their indigenous culture and lifestyle against western european influences. l a small number of czech exotic artworks directly criticized european imperial expansion. bendl's first opera, lejla, subverted and denounced european imperialism and, at the same time, openly identified with the non­ european other. bendl based his opera on a libretto by eliska krasnohorska that "set the plot in 1491 at the siege of granada and offered many oppor­ tunities for exotic coloring" (smaczny 2003:376). lejla appeared during the politically turbulent year 1868 (in which the habsburg monarchy split into a confederation of austria and hungary without acknowledging the national interests of the czechs), and its depiction of the struggle between the moors and the spaniards was filled with "current anti-habsburg and anti-viennese allusions" (stich 1984:339). a brief examination of the libretto of lejla shows that the muslim characters constantly express their love for the "nation" and their readiness to fight for the "fatherland" and its "liberty:' the spaniards are depicted as aggressive, greedy, and perfidious religious fanatics, prone to using violence against the innocent muslim people. that bendl's and krasnohorskas sympathetic portrayals of the exotic other in contrast to the cruel and treacherous european self reflected the commonly accepted archetypes of czech exoticism and czech national identity becomes obvious especially in view of the fact that lejla was "a popular success" and that "it was the first czech opera to be published after the bartered bride" (tyrrell 1988:78). (immediately after its premiere in 1866, smetana's the bartered bride became the czech opera par excellence and was thought of as reflect­ ing essential qualities of czech national identity and culture. the fact that lejla achieved similar popularity suggests that its sympathetic portrayal of exotic people and its vilification of the european christians resonated with the political and cultural outlooks of its czech audiences.) the idiosyncratic features of czech operatic exoticism as it appears in lejla, especially its benevolent view of the exotic peoples, can be identified in dvorak's armida as well. armida, like lejla, depicts muslims in a sympathetic manner and thus reflects the general trends in the czech artistic treatment of exotic, oppressed peoples. as a result, dvorak's musical treatment does 31 32 current musicology not naively sympathize with the crusaders and does not create easy distinc­ tions between the various ethnic groups. rather, the opera is imbued with ideological ambiguity about the relationship between the crusaders and muslims, an ambiguity that confounds the stereotypical distinction between self and other. vrchlicky's libretto in the libretto, poet jaroslav vrchlicky dramatized the most famous story from torquato tasso's sixteenth-century epic gerusalemme liberata: that of the sorceress armida's attraction to, and brief abduction of, the christian knight rinaldo. in spite of vrchlickj's familiarity with tasso's work (he produced the first translation of tasso's epic into czech), the libretto differs significantly from the original story, as well as from the many previous librettos on the subject.2 as albert gier shows in his study of the various armida librettos, most librettists from quinault to rossini's librettist reghini tend to present armida as an incarnation of evil, whereas vrchlickj presents her as an angel (1996:660). only the czech armida, for example, never shows hatred for the christians and refuses to go to the christian camp to bewitch the european knights. eventually she decides to go only when she finds out that rinald, whom she has seen and fallen in love with in a dream, is among the crusaders. in the idiosyncratic ending of the opera, vrchlicky combines the armida story with that of another heroine from tasso's epic: like tasso's clorinda, armida appears on the battlefield in disguise, and she fights rinald, who wounds her mortally without knowing her true identity. before dying, armida asks to be baptized so that she can meet rinald in heaven. armida's tragic yet heroic death and her refusal to do harm to the crusaders transform the character from an oriental femme fatale into a proto-christian mart yr. 3 unlike western european armidas, vrchlickj's heroine does not use spells to bind rinald to herself. rinald is deeply in love with armida when they meet for the first time in the opera; he has loved her ever since they met by chance in the woods before the opera's action begins.4 vrchlickj's rinald therefore leaves the christian camp with armida of his free will, unlike any of the previous operatic rinald characters. furthermore, armida does not lure rinald away from the christian army in order to weaken the military power of the crusaders; at one point during her impassioned dialogue with rinald in act 2 she says: "my love has no understanding of fighting for rich cities and holy graves:' by voicing support for pacifism and love rather than war, armida would have marked herself as much more sympathetic to the nineteenth -century czech audiences than the ascetic and religiously fanatic martin nedbal crusaders, since pacifism, as will be shown later, was considered to be one ofthe intrinsic traits of the czech people (and slavs in general). vrchlickfs libretto casts armida's muslim compatriots in a sympathetic light from the first act, set at the court of hydraot, the king of damascus and armida's father (the figure known as argante in settings by handel and others). a similar setting opens quinault's libretto for armide (set by lully and gluck): there we encounter the muslims in the midst of celebrat­ ing their recent victory over the christians; armide has captured several valiant christian knights through her magical powers. from the first scenes, quinault presents the muslims as aggressive and dangerous people who do not hesitate to use supernatural powers against their christian opponents. vrchlickfs libretto, by contrast, depicts the muslim courtiers of king hydraot in an idyllic, pastoral setting. according to the stage directions at the beginning of act 1, hydraot's courtiers are dispersed in small groups, and "the women entertain themselves by decking the scene with garlands and by joining their voices in song, while the men play chess or do mock­ fencing:' after the introductory orchestral music (supposedly accompanying the courtiers' activities described in the stage directions), the characters on stage sing about peace and love: ''as the delightful rosary beads glide in the hands of the dervishes, so our days pass by in peace and are entwined in garlands. hark, from the shady grove birds call happy lovers to amorous dalliance:' the idyllic scene is interrupted when hydraot comes forth with the magician ismen who announces that the country has been invaded by the franks. ismen's description of the franks' aggression is bleak: they advanced from the far north under the pretext ofliberating the holy grave of their god. they will spread terror in your realm: today you are still a king, tomorrow you will already be their slave. the world of the west threatens you now; you are the first [nearest] citadel of the east, yet you are badly equipped and could scarcely withstand them. gaza has already fallen, tyre also, and they are storming further with ever greater strength. rivers of our blood accompany their attack, and you ask who could bring them to a standstill? many think jerusalem, but you would be foolish, 0 king, if you gave that credence. they will advance further and yet further to conquer the whole globe. ismen's speech can be seen not only as a symbolic critique of the western european imperialism in the middle east, but also as a reflection on the habsburg imperialism in central europe, which would have been so familiar to the czech creators and audiences of the opera.5 the imperialist interests of the crusaders are reaffirmed by the monk peter. in act 4, rinald sees the crusader army marching through the desert, and he asks peter where the army is going. "to damascus" answers peter, 33 34 current musicology example 1: antonin dvorak, armida, act 1, scene 2, armida's entrance. hydraot (diva se do sceny, odkud armida pfichizi) (looking at amlida as she approaches) ppp larghetto j = 92-96 p tam pn -chit zi, there she comes, e.h. bn. '------_~ armida leitmotif ,--3---, s ni pro -mluv 0 -ka-mzi tel go and talk to her dim. example 2: richard wagner, lohengrin, act 1, scenes 1-2, elsa's entrance. elsa massig langsam. ob.~ e.h. bns. martin nedbal confirming ismen's prediction: jerusalem was only a pretext, and the real goal of the crusaders is indeed the conquest of the countries much to the east of the "holy land:' vrchlickfs libretto here presents the christian crusaders as imperialist aggressors and the muslim inhabitants of hydraofs kingdom as their innocent victims. early twentieth-century czech audiences would have probably identified with the muslims at this point, since czech national ideology tended to portray the nation's history as a constant struggle of the democratic and peace-loving czechs with western, or, more specifically, germanic aggression.6 dvorak's music dvorak's musical treatment of vrchlickfs libretto supports the messages encoded in the text. like vrchlicizy, dvorak portrays armida sympathetically, in a manner that echoes the musical characterization of other european operatic heroines. especially prominent is the connection between dvorak's musical introduction of armida and the way richard wagner presents the angelic elsa in his opera lohengrin. dvorak announces armida's approach to the stage through a motive that becomes one of the three main musical ideas connected with this character (example 1). the instrumentation of this passage is striking especially in its timbre: oboe paired with english horn playing a melody in octaves. this is the same instrumentation that wagner uses in lohengrin at the moment of elsa's first arrival on stage (example 2).7 soon after their appearance, both heroines launch into an aria in which they recount a dream. both arias have the same key signature, and in both the onstage audiences (king heinrich and the brabantians in elsa's case, hydraot and ismen in armida's case) comment on the strangeness of what they hear after the first stanza. there is also evidence suggesting that dvorak studied the scores of both lohengrin and tannhiiuser in the period immediately preceding his composition of armida (burghauser 1994a:15).8 this music immediately characterizes dvorak's exotic armida as similar to wagner's christian heroine, and it distinguishes her from the previous, demonic armidas. in act 3, after a moment of bliss with rinald in her magic gardens, armida encounters ismen, who by now has proven himself to be the real villain of the opera. because of his unfulfilled desire for armida, ismen decides to destroy armida's magic palace. armida nevertheless overpowers his spells and conjures the palace once more. as she leads rinald into this new palace, she says to her lover: "now entrust yourself to my power, my love: a blissful night awaits us:' as she utters this statement, the orchestra plays a motive that is otherwise connected with christ and the cross throughout the opera, and that, as john clapham has pointed out, is "a near quotation of 35 36 current musicology example 3: dvorak, armida, act 3, scene 4, the "cross" motive and armida. armida pojd', mi lac ku, ver v mo ji moc, __ come, my love, trust in my power, pi. p pojd', come! pojd', bla-zena.3 ______ nam ky-ne moc! bliss awaits us! p -===== ff== example 4: dvorak, armida, act 1, scene 2, hydraot's entrance-royal fanfares. royal fanfares vystoupf kril a ismen. dvorane ustoupi pied kralem, kter)' vyjde z palace, na signaly trub do pozadi. (enter tbe king and ismen. on hean'ng the trumpet call, the courtiers boll' to the icing.) poco meno mosso e maestoso martin nedbal the beginning of the grail theme" in wagner's parsifal (1979:291) (example 3). armida and her magic are therefore linked with the redemption and overcoming of evil through christ. thus, from the beginning of the opera, armida is a proto-christian heroine whose character cannot be understood if one insists on applying the template that opposes the european christian self and the oriental other. armida's father and his subjects similarly upset the self-other binarism usually associated with nineteenth -century operas set in the orient. hydraot's first appearance in scene 2 of act 1, for example, is accompanied by a c major brass fanfare of a type that was generally connected with european monarchs, not with oriental despots (example 4). once again wagner's lohengrin might have provided an important model for dvorak's musical introduction of hydraot: in wagner's opera the german king heinrich is introduced with a similar c major fanfare. more surprising still, the musical characterization of the muezzin also eschews the typical orientalist tropes. his call to prayer is heard several times throughout the first scene of act 1, and it also closes the act. instead of modally inflected melodies and erratic, improvisational rhythms-typical for western stage presentations of muezzin's songs (such as the one in felicien david's symphonic poem le desert, or the call of multiple muezzins in peter cornelius's opera der barbier von bagdad)-we hear a diatonic melody in regular triple meter (example 5). at the end of the act, dvorak develops the muezzin's melody contrapuntally, away from its initially heterophonic treatment, which further removes his musical image of the muezzin from conventional ways of representing non -western people and their culture in nineteenth-century opera (example 6). the rhythmic simplicity and clear diatonicism of dvorak's muezzin's music is striking especially in comparison with bendl's muezzin's song from lejla. as smaczny observes, "bendl's muezzin is far more inclined to floridity than dvorak's" (2003:376). moreover, bendl, unlike dvorak, actually based "some attractive numbers ... on a mock arab scale" (2003:376). had dvorak really wanted to mark hydraot, the muezzin, and the other inhabitants of damascus as oriental in contrast to the europeans, he could easily have used a more exotic sounding musical idiom, such as those found in other orientalist operas of the day, especially in bendl's lejla. in the few places in the score where dvorak does seem to evoke exotic­ sounding musical idioms, the music is not necessarily associated only with the muslims. true, parts of the muezzin's call seem to be built on a gapped scale, and his last descending sixteenth-note figure on the word "allah" sounds pentatonic.9 yet, similar exotic-sounding elements characterize the music associated with the crusaders, for example at the beginning of act 2, when the curtain opens on the crusaders' camp and we hear their morning 37 38 current musicology example 5: dvorak, armida, act 1, scene 1, muezzin's call. muezin (na vezi) (from a tower) pobofmff (with religious devotion)~ k cty-fern u hlurn sve ta to the four corners of the world ob. sta la, kslun-ci a it rises to the sun and re-echoes: ve ii ky great is allah! jest ai zpet lah! zni rna pi sen i send my call sle tao martin nedbal example 6: dvorak, armida, act 1, muezzin's motive developed. meno mosso maestoso lah! _________ _ = muezin (na viizi) f ve ii ky jest ai allah is great! e.h., b.cl., harp opona pada curtain goes down >­ >39 40 current musicology example 7: dvorak, armida, act 2, prelude, beginning. andante con mota mpwinds ~ () ~ i -~ ;--, ~ ~ .. r ;--# -.j -¥ -i· pp n j ~ . :.,. i . . : ~ i i i p prayer (example 7). the theme that begins the short overture of the second act and that the crusaders sing during their morning service is based on the minor pentatonic scale. when it appears during the act 2 prelude, the theme is played by winds in unisons and octaves with chordal accompaniment by the harps. the modal quality, instrumentation, and the heterophonic texture of this orchestral section make it sound as exotic as any of the passages linked to the muslims. if this exotic-sounding music appeared only in the prelude to act 2, it could be seen as simply setting the colorful scene, which depicts the christian camp in the middle of the syrian desert. by incorporating the modal theme into the crusaders' morning prayer, dvorak avoids the musical distinction between the eastern muslim setting and the western christian intruders. the tambourine and other unconventional percussion instruments have traditionally been used as markers of the exotic in nineteenth -century opera. yet once more dvorak's use of this orientalist musical trope is ambiguous: we hear the tambourine for the first time in act 1, during the opening chorus of hydraofs courtiers, but its exotic sound also accompanies a chorus of the crusaders in act 4. dvorak's score also suggests possible connections between the christian soldiers and the evil magician ismen. ismen's chromatic descending scalar leitmotif makes distinctive use of rhythm-a group of four sixteenth-notes followed by a group of three sixteenth-notes. this flourish appears for the martin nedbal example 8: dvorak, armida, overture, beginning. the crusaders' motive andante can mota ismen motive ~ ~~~~~~ thns. first time in the overture where it follows the first occurrence of the crusaders' motive (example 8). a closer look at the two motives establishes that they are rhythmically related, as both consist of a group of four notes followed by a group of three notes. thus from the very beginning of the opera, a musical bond links the crusaders to the evil magician ismen. as the plot develops, the crusaders become more closely associated with the evil magician. in act 3 two knights, sven and ubald, come to armida's magic palace to "liberate" rinald. ismen, who is furious after having been rejected by armida in favor of rinald, offers his help to the two knights. he shows them the place where the magical shield of the archangel michael is hidden. the shield has "magnetic" powers and will help the knights snatch rinald away from armida. the fact that the magical shield is supplied by 41 42 current musicology example 9: dvorak, armida, act 4, scene 1, the "shield" motive. meno mosso quasi moderato 7 ~ 3 thn. 3 shield motive poco cit. =ffv ismen is unique to vrchlickfs libretto: in all the other armida operas, the knights bring the magic shield themselves. the rescuing knights in all of the non -czech operatic versions need the magic shield in order to destroy the spell that armida has put on rinaldo to make him love her. but since the czech rinald is not really under any magic spell, in order to force rinald out of armida's palace the two knights have to actually put him under their own spell rather than liberating him from armida's. finally, the phrygian music associated with the magic shield suggests that the knights use a pagan magic of sorts to ensnare rinald (example 9). the musical association of the shield with demonic powers becomes more apparent in rinald's monologue at the beginning of act 3. as the act opens, rinald wakes up after his abduction from armida in the middle of the desert, where his knightly friends had left him when they went to fight a detachment of "moors:' rinald sings a long soliloquy in which he recounts the events that ended the previous act: he was passionately involved with armida in their magic bedroom when he heard knocking on the door; sven and ubald broke into the bedchamber, showed him the shield, and under its magical power rinald was forced to leave armida's palace. as rinald de­ scribes the magical powers of the shield, the tempo of his narration suddenly accelerates from allegro non tanto to malta vivace and the shield motive is frantically repeated, so the section evokes a bacchanal more than a musical depiction of christian conversion. this section resembles the prelude to act 2 of dvorak's opera cert a kaca (kate and the devil), especially through its instrumentation and the frenzied ostinato-like repetitions of the shield motive. the boisterous, orgiastic music of the act 2 prelude in cert a kaca effectively announces that the ensuing action takes place in hell. dvorak's allusion to the hellish prelude from cert a kaca during rinald's speech in armida further marks the magic shield as a devilish, sinister instrument of ismen's evil supernatural powers. by presenting the shield as a demonic tool, martin nedbal example loa: dvorak, armida, act 1, scene 2, ismen's speech and the "conquest-of-the­ globe" motive. tempo i. string. ismen >vsak jsi, kni ii, byl, tern ~ conquest-of-the-globe motive slav urn kdy bys u ve fil, ti pu jdou daj a o king, if you believed them, they will go further andfurther ---p (non legato) p ........ --. until they have conquered the whole world! sta ie vpfed, snad chte ji do -b:0: ce iy i v hydraot svet. ~ vsak vrchlicky and dvorak also disrupt the christian symbolism with which it is associated in most of the other armida operas. in his characterization of the crusaders, dvorak also makes use of the musical motive that first appears in ismen's anti-imperialist speech; the motive accompanies his words, "they will advance further and yet further to conquer the whole globe" (example loa). the same motive is sung by 43 44 current musicology example lob: dvorak, armida, act 2, scene 1, gernand's speech and the "conquest-of-the­ globe" motive. gernand conquest-of-the-globe motive my kle sli ju na we degenerated into a bunch afweak women; ~ fp 3 3 ':" >p lik na va sti the army needs more strength! fz hauf ce bab; je fp 3 3 ':" >p bar shib. gernand, one of the crusader knights at the beginning of act 3. throughout the first few scenes of this act we find out that there are disagreements between two major factions of the crusaders. the leader of the crusaders, bohumir z bouillonu (gottfried von bouillon) has temporarily halted the invasion of the western army in order to send envoys to the court of damascus. gernand belongs to the faction that wishes to continue the conquest as aggressively as possible without dealing with the local popula­ tion: he calls the less radical knights "a troop of women" and also "a bunch of empty bags who think too calmly:' gernand's fellow radical roger then adds that what the troops really need at that point is the use of strength. it is precisely during this dialogue that the conquest-of-the-globe motive martin nedbal recurs (example lob). thus dvorak's music suggests at this point that at least one faction of the crusaders is as aggressive and merciless as ismen depicts them in his speech. the military march throughout the opera dvorak associates the crusaders with the military march, a musical feature that clearly marks them as aggressors. the main march-like theme of the opera is identical with the main leitmotif of the crusaders. the first major exposition of the crusaders' leitmotif comes in the opening scene of act 2, in which the leitmotif becomes a full-blown march that accompanies the crusaders' prayers (it develops right after the pentatonic theme mentioned earlier). other military marches derived from the crusaders' leitmotif resound in scene 4 of act 2 and in scene 3 of act 4 (example 11); both of these marches are exoticized by dvorak's extensive use of trills, unusual rhythms, and alla turea instrumentation (including piccolos and various traditionally exotic percussion instruments such as bass drum, cymbals, and triangle). the alla turea military march has a special negative connotation in the grand operas of dvorak and in czech nineteenth-century opera in general. in the brandenburgers in bohemia, for example, bedrich smetana uses an alla turea march to characterize the brandenburger soldiers. the plot of this opera is somewhat related to that of armida: in the thirteenth-century, bohemia has been invaded and plundered by the troops of the germanic brandenburg margrave otto v; the czech people eventually tire of the foreign army's oppression; they revolt and finally manage to drive the invaders out of the country. as john tyrrell points out, the creators of this czech opera "were subjects of an austrian empire, with censorship regulations that specifically forbade the depiction of conflict between nations" (1988:160). as a result of this censorship, smetana in the brandeburgers characterizes "the sorrowing czech masses with a strong vocal force;' whereas he allows the german oppressors to appear only once throughout the opera as a small detachment of brandenburger soldiers (which is highly unusual for the genre of grand opera, which often employed two different choruses depicting opposing political or national forces). the only singing brandenburger character is captain varneman, "whose music-'quasi marcia' with a ubiquitous dotted figure supplemented by the occasional jaunty trill" and marked by alla turea instrumentation immediately differentiates him from the czech characters of the opera (tyrrell 1988:160). the words sung by the foreign soldier to the brandenburger march distinguish him further. addressing the czech peasants, the german soldier says: 45 46 current musicology example 11: dvorak, armida, act 4, scene 3, the alla turca march/religious hymn of the crusaders. se vilecny zpev khzkkeho vojska, viikhni the lvar-like chanl of the cnjsaders resounds, '''n'",",' i""',," andante maestoso marciale (j = 92-96) seor kfuzaku tenor~i i i i zas via je let's gather at the banner of christ basses i i por i .. . i sva tr. p pp r .. kris ....... i ~ thn. bdr., cym., trgl. i tuv i r .;. . i ty p~cc., <?b. , il il '--j p r .. kum, martin nedbal (example 11 cont.) dim. dill, r dim. dill, za ~ oj i i za nim f mm i dal, i p i kde il i i r-"1 {~ ~ ~ , inp r i ~ ~ . ~ ~ r • fp i == i == i == fp "stand still! not a single step further! in vain you run away and try to save your possessions. you rascals! leaving behind your empty huts! give us the bags. the bread and wine, the meat and everything you have, or else we shall burn down all of your houses! and we will throw you into the fire like wood!" the old man [responds 1: "for all of these cruel deeds, the lord shall curse you, all of you!" the soldier: "you bloody old fool, you! if i weren't just now in a good humor, indeed, i would put a piece of iron into your mouth to eat! get up, prepare a banquet for my men and for those women there-a room from which they cannot escape!" the cruelty presented in the speech of the brandenburger soldier recalls the depictions of the turks raping montenegrin women and burning montenegrin houses in cermak's paintings, and thus it fittingly reflects the alla turca elements of the accompanying march. the habit of portraying european military aggressors with a turkish march, however, did not originate in nineteenth -century czech opera and visual art; eighteenth-century musicians from bohemia used similar musical symbolism. frantisek kotzwara, for example, in his enormously popular 1788 composition the battle of prague, employs a turkish march although the program of the piece has nothing to do with the turks. instead, it depicts the 1757 siege of prague by the prussian army during the seven years' war. the turkish music therefore probably symbolizes the aggressive prussians. 47 48 current musicology the military march acquires a similar identifying function in yanda, dvorak's first grand opera. the heroine, in this case, is the mythical polish queen yanda, who is in love with the polish knight slavoj. the german count roderich, however, desires yanda as well. when he is rejected, he wages a war against the poles. in order to save her people, yanda sacrifices herself and drowns in the visla river. like smetana in the brandenburgers, in yanda dvorak avoids depicting the actual conflict between the poles and the germans. instead we meet roderich's envoy in act 1 and later, in acts 2 and 3, also roderich himself. the envoy's entrance features a military march that, like some of the marches in armida, employs several exotic elements, especially the alla turca percussion and harp accompaniment in its middle section. in his discussion of both operas, jan smaczny points out that" yanda ... was certainly very much in dvorak's mind in 1900 and 1901, ... within barely a year of these events, dvorak was at work on the score of his last opera, armida" (1996:83). smaczny also points out many similarities between the two works: "both operas have a strong ceremonial element replete with fanfares and marches, and both conclude with the voluntary self-sacrifice of the heroine in scenes that are structured in remarkably similar ways" (1996:91). the close ties between the two works make it possible to consider the german alla turca march in yanda as a direct predecessor of the crus ad ers' marches in armida, which suggests a possible connection between the crusaders of armida and roderich's aggressive armies in yanda. an anti-imperialist opera the finding that dvorak presents an unsympathetic portrayal of the christian crusaders contradicts the appraisals of scholars and critics of the music of armida. the generally accepted image of dvorak's last musical composition as a failed orientalist opera, presented in the writings of benoni, burghauser, and tyrrell, has probably contributed to the fact that this work has not achieved the tremendous success of his previous opera, rusalka, and that it never found its way to the international or even the czech operatic repertoire. but not all approaches to the opera were marked by insensitivity to and confusion about its unconventional portrayal of the opposition between the christians and the muslims. the 1987 production of armida in the national theater in prague, for example, strongly resonated with the opera's ambiguous approach toward the christian crusaders (a photograph from the production can be seen in figure 4). josef jelinek's costumes for this produc­ tion-black robes with horned helmets-made the crusaders look like devils rather than christian knights. 10 even without the reinforcement of stage design and costumes, the text and music of dvorak's armida suggest that martin nedbal figure 4: a photograph of the crusaders from the 1987 production of armida in the national theater in prague. courtesy of the national theater archive in prague. the opera should be seen as a fascinating anti-imperialist work. it presents an important example of a marginalized european nation's perspective on the discourse of orientalism and nationalism, showing these discourses to be heterogeneous and often filled with anti-hegemonic messages. notes 1. since there has been only little research and interpretation done in the field of czech nineteenth-century literature dealing with oriental subjects, polish literature can serve as analogy. in her study of nineteenth-century polish literary travelogues about the orient, izabela kalinowska claims that "in the nineteenth-century, scholarly and literary orientalism enjoyed great popularity in eastern europe in part because the eastern europeans desired to participate as equals in the intellectual life of europe" (2004:3). kalinowska then focuses on polish literature as a product of a nation that, like the czechs, was "relegated to the class of imperialism's victims" (2004:4). her exploration of the polish literary works dealing with the orient shows, among other things, that a small group of polish nineteenth-century writ­ ers (which included adam mickiewicz's sonnets, written during the poet's stay in crimea) would subvert imperialist ideology in their works, and that they were also "capable of en­ gaging the cultural traditions of the east in a non-imperialist, dialogical way" (2004: 187). czech interactions with the exotic peoples and countries in the nineteenth and twentieth century are gradually gaining more and more scholarly attention as well (see, for example, lemmen 2007). 49 50 current musicology 2. as tim carter writes, "almost 100 operas and ballets draw upon the love of the saracen sorceress armida for the christian warrior rinaldo (in french called armide and renaud [and in czech called armida and rinald]), with such titles as armida, rinaldo, armida e rinaldo, armida abbandonata and armida al campo d'egitto." tim carter, "armida," grove music online (accessed 16 march 2006). 3. the view of armida as a proto-christian character is further strengthened in several scenes in which she uses phrases with christian overtones. thus in her famous act 1 aria "the slender gazelle," armida compares rinald to "a gleaming archangel." similarly, in her dialogue with ismen in act 3, armida calls the magician a "spawn of hell" whose "repugnant, detestable, and sinful desire" can never impeach her "purity." (she says this after having spent the whole previous act with rinald in the magical gardens of delights.) 4. through this plot detail, vrchlick-y's rinald and armida parallel other sympathetic yet tragic couples from nineteenth-century opera, such as edgar and lucia in donizetti's lucia di lammermoor, raoul and valentine in meyerbeer's les huguenots, or carlos and elisabeth in verdi's don carlos. 5. ismen's speech may have also reflected a critique of the european imperialism in north america and of the european treatment of the native american population. dvorak, hav­ ing returned from his second trip to the united states just a few years prior to composing armida, may have been aware of such issues. 6. see especially sayer's discussion of the nineteenth-century czech interpretations of the fifteenth-century hussite revolution and of the sixteenth-century revolt of czech protestant estates against the catholic habsburgs, which ended unsuccessfully at the battle of white mountain in 1620 and resulted in forced re-catholicization and germanification ofthe czech­ lands. according to sayer, it was common among the czech nationalists in the nineteenth century to put aside the fact that they were roman catholics and identify with hussite her­ etics whom they admired for their "slavic virtues [such as 1 ... love of freedom, democracy, egalitarianism, and pacifism" (1998: 140). like the muslims in armida, the czech followers of hus were eventually defeated by foreign troops claiming, much like the twelfth -century crusaders, to be fighting for a religious cause. 7. both of these passages, moreover, arise out of an earlier tradition of having the sympathetic heroine represented or announced by an oboe (such as lucia's first entrance in donizetti's lucia di lammermoor). 8. according to burghauser, "dvorak's wissensbegierde erstreckte sich aber nicht nur auf neue gebiete und erscheinungen, sondern auch auf die vertiefung alterer kenntnisse: 1m museum der tschechischen musik befinden sich klavierauszuge von tannhauser und lohengrin mit dvoraks unterschrift und dem datum 1901, obwohl er beide opern schon als junger mann kennenlernte" (l994a:1s). 9. pentatonicism appears quite often in eastern and central european (including czech) folk music, and dvorak's decision to use it instead of other european musical markers of the exotic in the muezzin's song may be evidence of yet another connection between the muslims in armida and the oppressed nations of central europe. 10. jelinek's costumes resemble the attires of the teutonic knights in sergei eisenstein's alexander nevsky-another dramatic work in which christian westerners are portrayed as the menacing other. martin nedbal references becka, jm, and milos mendel 1998. islam a ceske zeme. praha: votobia. burghauser, jarmil 1994a. antonin dvohlk-ein europaer. in dvorak-studien, edited by klaus doge and peter jost, 11-24. mainz and new york: schott. ---. 1994b. hudebnedramaticke dilo antonina dvohika. in antonin dvofak-drama­ tik, edited by jana brabcova and jarmil burghauser, 10-29. pelhtimov: vydavatelstvi moryl clapham, john. 1979. dvorak. london: david and charles. gier, albert. 1996. ecco l'ancilla tua ... armida in der oper zwischen gluck und rossini (mit einem seitenblick auf antonin dvorak). in torquato tasso in deutschland: seine wirkung in literatur, kunst und musik seit der mitte des 18. jahrhunderts, edited by achim auernhammer, 648-60. berlin and new york: walter de gruyter. kalinowska, izabela. 2004. between east and west: polish and russian nineteenth-century travel to the orient. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. lemmen, sarah. 2007. representations of the non-european world and the self-image of czech society, 1890-1938. paper presented at the eighth annual workshop in czech cultural studies, university of illinois at urbana champaign. march 30-april1. locke, ralph p. 1991. constructing the oriental "other": saint-saens's samson et dalila. cambridge opera journal 3 (3): 261-302. sayer, derek. 1998. the coasts of bohemia: a czech history. princeton, nj: princeton university press. smaczny, jan. 1996. yanda and armida, a grand-operatic sisterhood. in rethinking dvorak: views from five countries, edited by david beveridge, 81-99. oxford: clarendon press. ---. 2003. grand opera among the czechs. in the cambridge companion to grand opera, edited by david charlton, 345-79. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. stich, alexandr. 1984.0 libretu dvorakova dimitrije. hudebni veda 21 (14): 339-53. tyrrell, john. 1988. czech opera. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. 51 current.musicology.84.1-100.pdf 118 in memory, theory: concluding unscientific postludes michael gardiner jon sakata binu tulachan (layout design) in a letter to a friend leibniz likens the material (i.e. physical) effects of monadic (i.e. nonphysical) aggregates to the phenomenon of refraction/ diffraction in the perception of a rainbow. [monads are the nonphysical, nonspatial, metaphysical units, the ‘simple substances’ of leibniz’s philosophical system] in much the same way light is prismatically dispersed through droplets of water in a mist, giving rise to an arc of spectral colors, for leibniz matter is the result of a comparable monadic refraction. bow, light, mist. all part of the same network. baudrillard’s real chimera: the thing perceived already an aggregate effect. buddhism’s real chimera: the skandhas (five aggregates) and the causal interplay of emptiness and form. likewise, perception and appetition are obverses of an interdependent process; “monads reach out confusedly to infinity, to everything, but they are restricted and distinguished from each other by the degrees of distinctness of their perceptions” (leibniz, monadology § 60). monads reach out. they are always part of an extension. but this extension is guided by “confused” perceptions, perceptions fueled by appetitions (desires). even though a monad’s theoretical extension is infinite, its particular desire(s) lead to distinct connections, and not to others (particular become the particulate). in this way desire forms the basis for a monadic aggregateconfiguration, a collection then subjected to diffraction. [bare monads] 1 [configuration] 1 [perception] (desire) (diffraction) seen in another light, leibniz unfolds a network model. desire constitutes a machinic connectivity in the formation of an assemblage. the aggregation of materials in the assemblage gives rise to perceptual arrays. “the working of the internal principle that accounts for the transition from one perception to another may be called appetition. it is true that appetition does not always completely attain what it strives for, but it always achieves something of it and so leads to new perceptions” (monadology §15). { ] current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 119 gr af fi ti musical networks no nmu si ca l ne tw or ks couperin investigation following a similar aggregation schema, the layout of this little essay is deliberately monadic. it presents four types of serialized writing: 1) the authors’ thoughts on musical networks 2) examples of networks drawn from other disciplines 3) poetic graffiti 4) an inspection of louis (?) couperin’s f major harpsichord suite. these four series proceed simultaneously and are typographically arranged in the following tabular manner; each series is a monad that can be blended or cross-referenced with the others (or not), following one’s appetite. we have not made any overt attempts to concretize the materials. readers are to assemble their own diffractions. can we switch to a mode of analysis that looks around for aggregate condition generators as opposed to only describing the diffracted results? can we look at our own monadic desires mist before matter and the networks they form? can we construct images that continue an intervention in and multiplication of the creative processus itself? 120 a panoptic egoism. the dream of an analysis that contains everything without letting itself be contained. an intellectual climate control, a bubble, erected against the gelid stellar winds of an incalculable uncertainty. a scholarship that vainly attempts to cobble together its very own immune system. 68° seems nice, yes? “an inquiry into our location [] examines the place that humans create in order to have somewhere they can appear as those who they are.”1 panoptic case study no. 1, an excerpt from the society of music theory’s mission statement (http://societymusictheory.org/): “the society for music theory promotes the development of all aspects of the discipline of music theory. the society construes this discipline broadly to be the formal study of music of the western tradition and beyond, embracing all approaches, from conceptual to practical, and all perspectives, including those of the listener, composer, performer, and teacher [and_____ pimp?].” in the order of things foucault describes the locus of an unthinkable space brought into being by tabular thought, one capable of reordering our standard classifications according to fixed categories. tables create a new, immaterial space, one that allows not only for recombination but additionally enables thought to “operate upon the entities of our world.” leibniz, monadology §20 we sometimes experience in ourselves states in which we remember nothing and have no distinct perceptions as when we fall into a faint or when we are overcome by a deep dreamless sleep. in such states our souls scarcely differ from those of bare monads. how long does a memory of tristan take? 1 sloterdijk, bubbles, 28. space is no longer absolute [something networks exist within]; rather, space is an effect of network activity. -murdoch, 75 unmeasured without measure the unmeasurable the uncoded nothing took place but the place -mallarmé pimp(-ing) education when med students are demeaned by instructors, mentors, and attendants during their residencies. also known to happen to musicians by conductors, department chairs, peer-reviewers, tenure committees, etc. 2) said of some stage parents [see also ‘tiger mom’]. 3) having to perform music for a living (formerly known as ‘gigging’). 4) parastic host. 5) louis pasteur. 6) google. manipulate[ graphics3d[{ color, specularity[white, 50], bsplinesurface[couperin, splinedegree -> floor[degrees]], if[mesh, , 42, 24}, {20, 42, 24}, 121       1 prelude (a) 2 prelude (b) 3 allemande (a) 4 allemande grave (b) 5 courante (a) 6 courante (b) 7 courante (c) 8 courante (d) 9 sarabande (a) 10 sarabande (b) 11 sarabande (c) 12 gigue (a) 13 gigue (b) 14 chaconne (a) 15 chaconne (b) 16 chaconne (c) 17 gaillarde 18 branle de basque 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher   david fuller ascribes the ‘quality of an aggregate’ to the keyboard suites of louis couperin and notes how publishers of the time not only freely rearranged materials, but often even inserted miscellaneous pieces by various composers into their formations. the composition of the individual movements and their arrangement into a publishable folio constitute two (or more) separate acts performed by two (or more) people. fittingly, we are not even sure that louis couperin (known also as a viol player and organist) is in fact the composer of these stylized keyboard works (perhaps another couperin was more suited to the task?). further complicating matters, there are two manuscripts (the bauyn and the parville), neither of which appear in the hand of louis. whereas the parville ms gives a particular ordering of the dances, the bauyn ms instead presents a tabular index of movements. the suite as a tabular site, grouping genres of dances without any specific ordering. the tables are arranged in ascending order of keys, from c major to c minor, d major to d minor, etc… listed below and numbered 1-19 are the movements available for a possible suite in f major: 122 where would we be located if every event unfolded a beyond, and what would appear if more could always be discerned in that beyond? a simple answer: we would be located in a network. but a network is not a simple location. actor-network philosopher bruno latour once asked if a railroad is local or global and notoriously answered, “local, at all points,” a mesh of continuous, extended paths (the same path at once connects neighboring townships but also extends across national borders). within a network the notion of absolute, measurable distance is disoriented within an unthinkable space. this pleated, polychronic paradox infects the field of music theory as soon as it intones the concept of networks (k-nets, l-nets, and the like) opening a pandora’s box of extension. at the same time, theory attempts (both institutionally and conceptually) to stabilize and control the field, revealing the political dimension of network establishment.2 “there arose in the wake [of this reorganization] the suspicion that there was a worse kind of order than that of the incongruous, the linking together of things that are inappropriate; i mean the disorder in which fragments of a large number of possible orders glitter separately in their [own] dimensions” [preface, xvii]. the tabular abstraction of space allows for organizational series that would not otherwise be possible. a circumstance that gives rise to ‘multiple originals’ in which partial solutions are fed back, ad infinitum, into the open system. 2 network actor henry klumpenhouwer — inventor of the infamous k-nets that have graced the covers of theoretical publications since the 90’s and a student of david lewin at harvard (whose transformational theory has likewise saturated the market) — was editor-in-chief of music theory spectrum for many years, a favorable position indeed for a network operator. in graph theory the terms “indegree” and “outdegree” describe the way nodes are influenced by and exert an influence upon their neighbors, and thus details the way a node is embedded in the overall network. being editor-in-chief would certainly qualify as an example of high “outdegree,” to the point of constituting what might be called a “provincial hub” (sporns, 15). the post-foucauldian approaches of actornetwork theory (as laid down by latour, callon & law) downplay the influence of science as originating solely in its methodological accuracy, alternatively locating its power in the ability to disseminate influence “beyond the centers of scientific practice” (see murdoch 57, 59). latour cites louis pasteur as the pre-eminent example of a symbolic and political construction of scientific influence through varied sociological and technical inscription devices. pasteur successfully extended his laboratory conditions into the social milieu, thereby making himself into an indispensible figure. in medieval japanese lore the paired pines (aioi no matsukaze) of takasago and sumiyoshi stand a three days journey apart (a distance or a time?) and yet a divine presence, a divine resonance has held them in an unwavering hybridmorph over the course of ten-thousand autumns. provincial hub of alberta calculation i simulation i both at play in a para-participation i 相 生 の 松 風 123 louis couperin unmeasured prelude option (a), pg1 for the assembalge of a suite in f major 124 the order of things begins with a description of the wonderment and charm of another system of thought… foucault takes from borges the literary example of a fictitious encyclopedia of fantasic animals, arranged along an alphabetic series. it is not the fabulous and exotic animals that are “impossible,” nor the oddity of their juxtapositions…rather it is the alphabetical series itself, a simple arrangement capable of reorganizing and linking all these categories together. what is the measurable distance between encyclopedic entries for a and b? “the nature of fields is inevitably mysterious. according to modern physics, these entities are more fundamental than matter. fields cannot be explained in terms of matter; rather, matter is explained in terms of energy within fields.” [biologist, rupert sheldrake, 99] unpasteurized theoretical discourse sometimes, in the altitudes of becoming, bubbles burst. under the right conditions, however, music theory’s orientations, its panoptic desires, are capable of being applied outside their proper sphere through a process of network coupling. there, in extension, outside its bubble, in the high altitudes where oxygen is scarce, theory becomes hypoxic, becomesdeformed.3 an extension-become-distension (distensio)4 in the activation of an uncertain vapor-space. we parasitically appropriate this hypoxic shell towards a euphoric, experiential usage, one maintained through desirous, amnesiac looping mechanisms. a fix. 3 hypoxia is a pathological condition in which the body as a whole or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply. the symptoms of generalized hypoxia depend on its severity and acceleration of onset. in the case of altitude sickness [ie, ‘becoming’], where hypoxia develops gradually, the symptoms include headaches, fatigue, shortness of breath, a feeling of euphoria and nausea. in severe hypoxia [ie,department meetings] changes in levels of consciousness, seizures, coma, priapism, and death occur [the now scholarly wikipedia]. furthermore, in the altitudes of becoming amnesia [and identity loss] is not an uncommon symptom. (http://www.human-memory.net/disorders_amnesia.html) 4 distention spasm; distortion; tear; the act of expanding by pressure from within. related term diastasis spreading out. the meticulous elaboration of catalogues of uncoded fantasies… in order to function, the fantasy must remain at the level of a crudely coded image. -m. de sade i have come to think that time is simply a distension. but of what is it a distension? i do not know, but it would be surprising if it is not that of the mind itself. -st. augustine, confessions [240] openness (zangtal) means that the wideopen, natural state of awareness is neither composed of nor produced by conceptual thoughts. it is a complete openness that is not obscured [confused] by the world and beings, the animate and inanimate, nor even the aggregates, elements or sense bases. it is an unchanging openness of awareness that continues throughout the day and night. -dzogchen buddhism whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the synagogue cast on the pavement, who vanished into nowhere zen new jersey... -allen ginsberg 125 changement de mouvement louis couperin unmeasured prelude option (a), pg2 126 through a milky, cataracted lens, the aged theorist examines a diagram of the iconic automorphism of the tn/in group, is first distracted, but then rather taken by the presence of retinal floaters (taken, by the degenerative changes of the vitreous humour), contemplates their thread-like morphologies, experiences scintillation owing to the refractive index of the late afternoon light, and momentarily daydreams an alternate taxonomy. every event discerned has a beyond even if it remains inaudible. we might make out the song of a nightingale but not the circulation of its blood (or perhaps the song to which its own song is, in turn, a response). furthermore, since we never know what lies beyond, nor how exactly to discern what lies in that distance, it is crucial that we not block the channels of extension by demanding concise, coded definitions of how the process works. uncoded qualities facilitate extension. proximity without connection angela ndalianis, who draws connections between leibniz’s use of series and open structures in baroque thought as well as in contemporary neo-baroque gaming/cinematic technologies describes the situation as follows: “the use of multiple centers (multiple originals) typical of seriality requires a reconsideration of traditional perceptions of linearity and closed form. neo-baroque seriality demands that a single linear framework no longer dominate the whole…” among twenty snowy mountains, the only moving thing was the eye of the blackbird. -wallace stevens alien vs. predator “ich fühle luft von anderem planeten” (i feel air from other planets) -stefan georg listening now, i hear the pond’s waves and rain upon the window, each beating as they will. [aya no tsuzumi, 53] floating proximity argus, with his clairvoyant, all-scrutinizing occular globe of a thousand eyes can “integrate all the information available from a single point.” hermes, on the other hand, invents the syrinx [the panpipes] and charms panoptes into a deep sleep, kills panoptes with his flutes. pan vs. panoptes; hearing against sight. hermes intercepts “all information in all places.” sight is always localized, but “a sound has no specific place; it occupies space,” its source is vague. (see serres, panoptic theory, 38) 127 the emergence of the repeated note amidst the flux of the prelude constitues nothing less than the protogenesis of a dotted feel (that particularly french form of striation) a framing condition and its network extension and territorialization, first of the changement de mouvement section of the prelude, followed by the infection of virtually every subsequent movement. the striated territorializing the smooth. but the opposite is also true the performer’s ornamentations/diminutions expose the potential for creating an open time field within the measured. furthermore, the term ‘unmeasered’ does not indicate a specific performance practice, some keyboardists play them as measured (francois couperin even notated his unmeasured preludes as measured with the instruction to play them in an unmeasured style). at any rate, we’re afraid the couperins beat boulez to the desert of the smooth and the metropolis of the striated to say nothing of the open folio condition of the suite and its various dys-ordres... prelude (a) changement de mouvement allemende grave (b) prelude (a) system 3 prelude (a) system 4 courante (b) courante (c) courante (d) courante (d) allemende (a) sarabande (a) sarabande (b) microworld of the repeated note and its extension: additional micro-elements of future striation; mordent turn trichoral/tetrachoral scanning arpeggiations octave leapsmacro-elements of striation at work in the dance movements; incessant binary partitions giving way to compressed chaconne looping modules 128 the successful fruition of imaginative experiments (an evolution whitehead outlines in process and reality) should be gauged by the applicability of results — results achieved through the “play of free imagination” — beyond the narrow circumstances under which they originated. ideally these results should, “enlighten observation in remote [transversal] fields.” how does this extensive continuum work? whitehead asks, “how can concrete fact exhibit entities abstract from itself and yet participated in by its own nature?” (process, 20) to answer this question he makes reference to three terms; nexus, actual entities, and prehensions. and what drives this train (i.e. god’s creative immanence in the world)? a principle of “unrest” encapsulated by a notable term; appetition. whitehead defines appetition as “the urge towards realization of the datum conceptually prehended.” “thirst,” is an “appetite towards difference” that marks the “germ of a free imagination” (process, 32). nexus: the fact of togetherness of actual entities actual entities (or, actual occasions): the “drops of experience, complex and interdependent” (18) that involve each other by reason of their prehensions of each other prehension: an external referent embedded within an actual occasion. there is a fundamental relationship, a form of structural coupling, that accumulates prehensions into actual occasions, and actual occasions into societies or nexus (the nested interrelations of actual occasions). any characteristic of an actual entity is reproduced in a prehension. “it might have been a complete actuality; but, by reason of a certain incomplete partiality, a prehension is only a subordinate element in an actual entity.” (19) might harmony [or the obsessive focus on musical language] be a somewhat excited variety of flatness? analytical technology desiring machines inscription devices with bergson we always start in the middle. he decenters an absolute, panoptic viewpoint by means of images; “here i am in the presence of images, in the vaguest possible sense of the term...” (mm, pg 1) a field of images. 129 tired of equations and expressions substituting for musical thought? tired of getting pumt? [obviously] we are not opposed to a fold involving music, science or mathematics (or theology, literature, and programming languages, for that matter), not at all. but what figure of thought emerges from this complex mixture, from these vortices? the answer to this question is what theory designs. manipulate[ graphics3d[{ color, specularity[white, 50], bsplinesurface[couperin, splinedegree -> floor[degrees]], if[mesh, 42, 24}, {20, 42, 24}, {40, 66.1, 25}, {50, 66.1, {{0, 46, 21}, {__, , {20, 46, 21}, {40, 72.45, 26}, {50, 72.45, 26}, {60, 72.45, 26}}, {{0, 48, 22}, {10, 48, 22}, {20, 48, 22}, {40, 75.6, 19}, {50, 75.6, 19}, {60, 75.6, 19}}, {{0, 50, 14}, {10, 50, 14}, {20, 50, 14}, {40, 78.75, 31}, {50, 78.75, } t h e o ry-asdesign o p e n s d i a g r a m m a t i c spaces a diagram is different from a structure or the representation of a structure. it would be closer to say it is a possible structure. but that’s not quite right either. a figure of the previously unfigured, yet immanent process written across the surface of the real. a diagram reveals a system of multiple, generative traces. a screen upon which potential forces mingle in the extensive continuum, “[causing] the already imprinted to appear as other figurations, both blurring and revealing what already exists” (eisenman, 103). an image set to work in the micromorphological aggregate of our phenomenological architecture(s). an image-set to work. ‘diagrams’ are the necessarily distorted format of these interfacing processes. this essay itself is a diagram (one leaving behind, or at least setting adrift, the old morality of the musical example’s rationalism, minus the musicological fear of tearing open a score and getting your hands dirty [the fear of all those parasites]) . 130 131 132 music theory has presented one possible version (typically involving the limited parameters of interval cycles and transposition) of what ‘networks’ in music might be. rather than add to the undue attention these networks have already been given, and following the inventor’s own recommendation,5 we choose to go elsewhere. the terminological deterritorialization of any k-net or l-net with a gardineriansakatian notion of a network will henceforth be called a g-spot.6 5 henry klumpenhouwer writes in response to a critic, “... if a reader doesn’t find k-nets useful or interesting, then by all means she should use another approach” (mto volume 13, number 3, september 2007). don’t worry, she will. 6 we also enthusiastically urge readers to consider the re-territorialization of hybrid all-inclusive riemannian networks (hair-nets) into poly-vocal transcoded flows. on page three of matter and memory bergson refers to an aggregate of images (he later mentions leibniz’s monads by name, along with faraday’s field theory, see pg 31). images are what is given, what is the case. their origin is not of concern to him, or really even knowable, for that matter. and in this sense, even though bergson is talking about the relation of images to the image of the body, a context fairly divorced from the concerns of heidegger (writing some thirty years later), there is nevertheless a sentiment of “thrown-ness” to his descriptions of the aggregate—namely, we are already within the aggregate, and therefore unable, from the standpoint of the body, to see its complete extension. a desert of images (as borges reminds us, in the desert one is always in the middle). images are not things or appearances. the body, the soul, and the brain are themselves just images. “to make the brain the condition on which the whole image depends is in truth a contradiction in terms, since the brain is by hypothesis a part of this image. neither nerves nor nerve centres can, then, condition the image of the universe.” (mm, 4) what things are contemporary? consider a late model car. it is a disparate aggregate of scientific and technical solutions dating from different periods. -latour & serres, 45 -neolithic wheel & radio -flamingo pink steering fluid -i-pod deck -car seats/furniture -vulcanized rubber... -image systems & strange attractors 133 there are arguments for any number of conceivable orders of dance movements; (p)relude, (a)llemande, (c)ourante, (s)arabande , (g)igue with further possible inserts or extensions is one of the more common arrangements. with louis couperin’s suites we add the chaconne (ch) onto the end and arrive at a template used by a large number of performers. also note that with the a-c-s-g-ch, there are often at least two selections to choose from within each class of movement — in some recordings performers only play a single dance from the same category, in others they play two or three in a row before moving on [for example, lawernce cummings chooses only one courante and one sarabande, whereas richard egarr plays three of the four courantes in a row followed by two sarabandes]. with froberger, 1 prelude (a) 3 allemande (a) directed (edge no. 1) 1 prelude (a) 4 allemande (b) directed (edge no. 2) 1 prelude (a) 17 gaillarde directed (edge no. 51) 1 prelude (a) 18 branle de basque directed (edge no. 52) 1 prelude (a) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher directed (edge no. 53) 2 prelude (b) 3 allemande (a) directed (edge no. 3) 2 prelude (b) 4 allemande (b) directed (edge no. 4) 2 prelude (b) 17 gaillarde directed (edge no. 54) 2 prelude (b) 18 branle de basque directed (edge no. 55) 2 prelude (b) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher directed (edge no. 56) 3 allemande (a) 4 allemande (b) undirected (edge no. 5) 3 allemande (a) 5 courante (a) directed (edge no. 6) 3 allemande (a) 6 courante (b) directed (edge no. 7) 3 allemande (a) 7 courante (c) directed (edge no. 8) 3 allemande (a) 8 courante (d) directed (edge no. 9) 3 allemande (a) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 57) 3 allemande (a) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 58) 3 allemande (a) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 59) 4 allemande (b) 5 courante (a) directed (edge no. 10) the ordering of suites was often allemande, gigue, courante, and sarabande last... even if we take the fairly conservative ordering a-c-s-g-ch, beginning with a prelude, and making allowances for the miscellaneous movement inserts (gaillarde, branle de basque, tombeau de mr. blancrocher) we arrive at an already fairly diverse array of versions involving almost one-hundred edges (the nineteen dance movements are the ‘nodes’ that give rise to ninety-eight ‘edges’, or connections. in graph theory an edge is considered ‘directed’ if it flows in a single direction, for example a prelude will always precede an allemande, and not vice versa. however, allemande (a) could come before or after allemande (b), establishing a ‘undirected’ connection); {the 98 [conservative] edges of louis couperin’s f major suite 134 sheldrake’s research applies theories of morphic resonance to domains such as protein folding, crystallization, genes/mutations, animal behavior and memory, human learning, habituation and awareness, and to theories of social and cultural organization. sheldrake says that each kind of system has its own field, “there is an insulin field, a beech field, [a schenker field?] a swallow field, and so on. such fields shape all the different kinds of atoms, molecules, crystals, living organisms, societies, customs, and habits of mind” (intro xviii). “of the aggregate of images we cannot say that it is within us or without us, since interiority and exteriority are only relations among images” (bergson, mm,13). images facilitate action, not knowledge. we respond to images, but this is not knowledge precisely because the images we receive are limited, necessarily filtered. and here bergson returns us to leibniz’s confused monadic appetition. in the case of bodily perception we relate the aggregate of images to our possible or eventual actions upon it. this is because the body becomes a center, a “privileged image” that distorts or conditions relationships between images: “at each of its [the body’s] movements everything changes... despite the air of quasi-scientism that surrounds the institution of music theory klumpenhouwer himself has expressed more hermetic goals. in response to the same critic quoted above we read: “[21] let us turn now to the last two sentences of buchler’s essay. he writes that ‘[w]e all have different goals for analysis, but surely one central purpose is to clarify and explain.’ well, no.” klumpenhouwer goes on by referencing his mentor at harvard on the topic of clarity, “while lewin may be interested in clarifying and explaining analytical technology, this is decidedly not lewin’s goal in carrying out analysis.” hermes; the figure of a free mediator who wanders through folded time. “[he] always produces an effect of foreignness, always brings strange news.” -latour & serres, 66 listener composer zombie performer network actor teacher pimp } { > < ) ( ] [ comfort. comfort intrudes 135 prelude (a) prelude (b) allemande (a) allemande (b) courante (a) courante (b) courante (c) courante (d) sarabande (a) sarabande (b) sarabande (c) gigue (a) gigue (b) chaconne (a) chaconne (b) chaconne (c) gaillarde branle de basque tombeau de mr. blancrocher there is no particular reason, at this point, that the data must remain in a tabular form — the information might be the same, but the emergent figure is not. 4 allemande (b) 6 courante (b) directed (edge no. 11) 4 allemande (b) 7 courante (c) directed (edge no. 12) 4 allemande (b) 8 courante (d) directed (edge no. 13) 4 allemande (b) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 60) 4 allemande (b) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 61) 4 allemande (b) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 62) 5 courante (a) 6 courante (b) undirected (edge no. 14) 5 courante (a) 7 courante (c) undirected (edge no. 15) 5 courante (a) 8 courante (d) undirected (edge no. 16) 5 courante (a) 9 sarabande (a) directed (edge no. 20) 5 courante (a) 10 sarabande (b) directed (edge no. 21) 5 courante (a) 11 sarabande (c) directed (edge no. 22) 5 courante (a) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 63) 5 courante (a) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 64) 5 courante (a) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 65) 6 courante (b) 7 courante (c) undirected (edge no. 17) 6 courante (b) 8 courante (d) undirected (edge no. 18) 6 courante (b) 9 sarabande (a) directed (edge no. 23) 6 courante (b) 10 sarabande (b) directed (edge no. 24) 6 courante (b) 11 sarabande (c) directed (edge no. 25) 6 courante (b) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 66) 6 courante (b) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 67) 6 courante (b) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 68) 7 courante (c) 8 courante (d) undirected (edge no. 19) 7 courante (c) 9 sarabande (a) directed (edge no. 26) 7 courante (c) 10 sarabande (b) directed (edge no. 27) 7 courante (c) 11 sarabande (c) directed (edge no. 28) 7 courante (c) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 69) 7 courante (c) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 70) 7 courante (c) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 71) 8 courante (d) 9 sarabande (a) directed (edge no. 29) 8 courante (d) 10 sarabande (b) directed (edge no. 30) 8 courante (d) 11 sarabande (c) directed (edge no. 31) 8 courante (d) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 72) 8 courante (d) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 73) 8 courante (d) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 74) 9 sarabande (a) 10 sarabande (b) undirected (edge no. 32) 9 sarabande (a) 11 sarabande (c) undirected (edge no. 33) 9 sarabande (a) 12 gigue (a) directed (edge no. 35) 9 sarabande (a) 13 gigue (b) directed (edge no. 36) 9 sarabande (a) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 75) 136 he continues, “at the end of his essay on fétis (1987), lewin quotes schoenberg as a way of declaring his own analytical project: ‘one searches for the sake of searching... . finding ... can easily put an end to striving. our age seeks many things. what it has found, however, is above all: comfort. comfort, with all its implications, intrudes even into the world of ideas and makes us far more content than we should ever be... . we solve problems to remove an unpleasantness. but, how do we solve them? and what presumption, even to think we have already solved them! ... it is ... easy to have a ‘weltanschauung,’ a ‘philosophy,’ if one contemplates only what is pleasant and gives no heed to the rest. the rest—which is just what matters ... these philosophies may very well seem made to order for those who hold them ... the thinker, who keeps on searching, does the opposite. he shows that there are problems and that they are unsolved ... those who so love comfort will never seek where there is not definitely something to find.’” [quoted in mto volume 13, number 3, september 2007] on this point, we find ourselves in total agreement with mr. klumpenhouwer. ...as though by a turn of the a kaleidoscope. ” bergson counterpoises this mode of perception with the same aggregate of images “but [now] referred each one to itself… this is what i term the universe.” (12) and thus, paradoxically, to restore a truly panoptic viewpoint, one would have to descend into the awareness of a material object, the lower depths of a panpsychism, what chalmers means by the question “what is it like to be a thermostat?” (the conscious mind, 296). what is it like to be a music student at harvard? “indifferent to each other because of the radical mechanism which binds them together, they [images] present each to the others all their sides at once: which means that they act and react mutually by all their elements, and that none of them perceives or is perceived consciously.” (mm, 29)one could say that the one could a desiring state precedes any version of a work the work is but a postlude to a desiring-production the ‘state’, a prelude to an infinite extension monad nomad augustine’s image of the historical process is that of a flowing river of rivers, with many stormy cataracts. -see note 31 confessions, 244 137 9 sarabande (a) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 76) 9 sarabande (a) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 77) 10 sarabande (b) 11 sarabande (c) undirected (edge no. 34) 10 sarabande (b) 12 gigue (a) directed (edge no. 37) 10 sarabande (b) 13 gigue (b) directed (edge no. 38) 10 sarabande (b) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 78) 10 sarabande (b) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 79) 10 sarabande (b) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 80) 11 sarabande (c) 12 gigue (a) directed (edge no. 39) 11 sarabande (c) 13 gigue (b) directed (edge no. 40) 11 sarabande (c) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 81) 11 sarabande (c) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 82) 11 sarabande (c) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 83) 12 gigue (a) 13 gigue (b) undirected (edge no. 41) 12 gigue (a) 14 chaconne (a) directed (edge no. 42) 12 gigue (a) 15 chaconne (b) directed (edge no. 43) 12 gigue (a) 16 chaconne (c) directed (edge no. 44) 12 gigue (a) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 84) 12 gigue (a) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 85) 12 gigue (a) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 86) 13 gigue (b) 14 chaconne (a) directed (edge no. 45) 13 gigue (b) 15 chaconne (b) directed (edge no. 46) 13 gigue (b) 16 chaconne (c) directed (edge no. 47) 138 at the end of the day it’s as easy to criticize music theory as it is to pronounce the death/erasure of an author (may ’68 seems nice, yes?). criticism itself generates nothing, produces nothing. how much harder to continue to write in the space of erasure, to continue to theorize from within the poverty of the current state of theory (new haven?). we must remain steadfast in our unclarified, neo-lewinian groping. we must go back to the state we affirmed of eternity, unwavering life, undivided totality...time was not yet... time lay, though not yet as time, in the authentic existent together with the cosmos itself. but there was an active principle there...it chose to aim at something more than its present: it stirred from its rest...stirring to a ceaseless succession to a next...[it] traversed a portion of the outgoing path and produced an image of eternity, produced time. [time = image of oneness] for the soul contained an unquiet faculty, always desirous of translating elsewhere what it saw in the authentic realm, and could not bear to retain within itself all the dense fullness of its possession. a seed is at rest; the nature-principle within, uncoiling (diastasis) outwards -plotinus, enneads, 227 the place humans create in order to have somewhere they can appear as those who they are } they can appear who they are as the places humans create to order somewhere { when will the next microworld show up? “one could say that the perception of any unconscious material point, in its instantaneity, is infinitely more vast and more complete than our perception, because this point receives and transmits the actions of all the points of the material world, whereas our consciousness only attains certain parts of it, from certain perspective.” [guerlac, 116] although we don’t gain knowledge through images, we do become operators or conductors within the world of images. bergson describes the nervous system as an interface, a network of ‘threads’, between the images that affect our body and those that we, in turn, have influence upon — a network that runs from a center out to the periphery, and vice versa. 139 prelude (a) prelude (b) allemande (a) allemande grave (b) courante (a) courante (b)courante (c)courante (d) gigue (a) gigue (b) chaconne (a) chaconne (b) gaillardebranle de basque tombeau mr. de blancrocher sarabande (a) sarabande (b) sarabande (c) the term ‘hybrid space’ often refers to the specific material effects in which spatial designs are projected across and through each other (the ‘blobular’ approach, say of the architectural firm zolatan mcdonald and their patented ‘co-citation mapping’ technique that surveys and morphs elements of a landscape with forms introduced into that landscape, resulting in smoothed continuous surfaces). but equally important, hybrid space refers to a betweenspace, to the gaps and intervals that exist between various design approaches. software presents an overt example of this; if we start with a sonic image, perhaps a wav. file generated from a max/msp or reaktor patch, and import it into a melodyne application (a.k.a. ‘auto-tune’ software), and then import the cumulative result into a granular cloud generator, then take all the source files and the cumulative results and place them into an ableton live patch and improvise a micro-montage, etcetera ad infinitum. as soon as results are shuffled between various applications (sheets-ofpast), between-spaces begin to emerge. but books or concepts function much like software as well, do they not?—whatever you happen to be reading, say, adorno, william burroughs, claude simon, japanese noh drama (to take a current sampling from our attaché cases), if you run a thought through these various literary programs you will likewise arrive at a hybrid. 140 gonzo analysis: fear and loathing in new haven did you know that panoptic egoism is one of the leading causes of intellectual hypoxia in music departments across the united states, which, in some severe cases has even led to zombied states of scholarship?7 perhaps, one could sublimate or transmute the desire for a panoptic analysis while dispersing its monadic elements in such a way that short circuits the totalizing myth, what mallarmé (node addict) referred to as the prismatic subdivision of the idea? maybe we can still write ‘in memory’ of analysis, that is, turn analysis into a memory-function, a network memory. the first memory would be that of analysis itself. this ensures that a trace will be retained (my degree must mean something?). say perception of any unconscious material point, non-unitary selves and cognitive agents “we always operate in some kind of immediacy of a given situation... a ready-at-hand. we have a readiness-for-action proper to every lived situation. moreover, we are constantly moving from one readiness-for-action to another. often these transitions are virtually imperceptible...sometimes they are overwhelming [and lead to a breakdown or a gap], as when we come face to face with unexpected danger... i call any such readiness-for-action a microidentity and its corresponding lived situation a microworld.” [cognitive scientist, francisco varela, 9-10] 7 sometimes refered to as the prolonged unconscious of music theory (pumt). according to the conceivability argument in current philosophies of mind, it is conceivable that there exists a being, physically identical to a human, but one that does not posses consciousness. such a thought experiment points to the problem that we could conceivably be perfectly functional in tasks such as discrimination, reporting, monitoring, controlling, etc., without needing subjective consciousness. david chalmers elucidates some possible zombie sub-categories: 1) an invert zombie, in which some of the original human-being’s experiences have been replaced [in the zombie] with other experiences (we imagine something like this happened with students enrolled in david lewin’s seminars at harvard); and 2) a partial zombie with only some experiences absent (such as experiences of musicality or creativity); or 3) some combination of 1 & 2. thinking with whitehead: a free and wild creation of concepts trans.cambridge, univ.press, 2011 the presence of the past: mor-phic resonance 141 having the order [ordre]in flux (as well as the number of any given dance type of a single category in flux), being able to counter and contour the energies of the suite in novel ways; all this had as much to do with the scene and the mood one was in on a particular occasion as with anything else. the emergence of an everyday functional folio. looking around for various inclusions and exclusions, the profound or banal aggregate desire of an i-tunes playlist. nothing more, nothing less. distortions desire diagrams 13 gigue (b) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 87) 13 gigue (b) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 88) 13 gigue (b) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 89) 14 chaconne (a) 15 chaconne (b) undirected (edge no. 48) 14 chaconne (a) 16 chaconne (c) undirected (edge no. 49) 14 chaconne (a) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 90) 14 chaconne (a) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 91) 14 chaconne (a) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 92) 15 chaconne (b) 16 chaconne (c) undirected (edge no. 50) 15 chaconne (b) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 93) 15 chaconne (b) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 94) 15 chaconne (b) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 95) 16 chaconne (c) 17 gaillarde undirected (edge no. 96) 16 chaconne (c) 18 branle de basque undirected (edge no. 97) 16 chaconne (c) 19 tombeau de mr. blancrocher undirected (edge no. 98) 142 mnestic deformation as a mode of production what kinds of images does memory give rise to? superimposed states of recaptured timelessness. when the imagination forms an image it is already disfigured (for bachelard, imagination is precisely that which deforms). why? because the elements of memory abide in a fragmented, uncoded/transcoded state. the site of memory does not order its nodes in linear succession (even if that’s how they were initially given to us). rather, they orbit and cluster around the center of the network, where they remain in virtual modes of correspondence/aggregation. “in the breakdown before the next microworld shows up, there are a myriad of possibilities available until, out of the constraints of the situation and the recurrence of history, a single one is selected.” [varela, 52] “networks of overlapping ensembles multiply exponentially as we move ‘up’ the evolutionary chain of complexity, in humans connecting some 1011 interneurons connect up some 107 sensory neurons arrayed in receptor surfaces across the body.” [varela, 46] the overlapping systems of dense interconnections result in non-linear feedback networks that operate according to what varela calls the law of reciprocity, which reads; “if a region a is connected to another region b, then b is also connected to a, but by a different anatomical route.” [ibid, 46-7] leibniz, monadology §14 the passing condition, which involves and represents a multiplicity in the unit [unite] or simple substance, is nothing but what is called perception. in this matter the cartesian view is defective, for it treats as non-existent those perceptions of which we are not consciously aware. this has also led them to believe that minds [esprits] alone are monads, and that there are no souls of animals nor other entelechies. thus they have failed to distinguish between a prolonged unconsciousness and absolute death, which has made them fall again into the scholastic prejudice of souls entirely separate [from bodies], and has even confirmed ill-balanced minds in the opinion that souls are mortal. site s(u)ite recurrence of history which/ whose history reoccurs? to give an accurate description of what has never occured is the proper occupation of the historian -oscar wilde like its english equivalent, the word histoire also has the related meaning of story or account, but in french common usage it has, when used in the plural, two sarcastic meanings which it does not have in other languages: lies or bullshit, and problems or hassles. -john howe 143 and then there is the figure of marin mersenne: french theologian, mathematician, music theorist, (monadologist) and contemporary of couperin. mersenne led a string ensemble, les vingt-quatre violins du roy in which the dessus violinists would each (simultaneously) improvise their own diminutions (ornamentations) of the melody, resulting in multiple versions sounding at the same time. describing the sonic effect of this practice mersenne wrote “the beauties and graces have great effect on the passions and affections of the body and soul.” [cambridge history of western music theory, pg 544]. 144 “what i wish to underscore here is the relatively recent (and stunning) conclusion that lots of simple agents having simple properties may be brought together, even in a haphazard way, to give rise to what appears to an observer as a purposeful and integrated whole, without the need for central supervision. [varela, 52] “this corresponds exactly to what i mean by a... in proust’s project, this is what kristeva names the translation of linear time into the timelessness of literature. within such a network, memories initially spread across the space of one’s entire life are inserted into, cross-cut, and morphed with each other, resulting in hybrids. a childhood memory {x} is perhaps triggered by, and morphed with a lover’s rejection {y}. “memories are both destroyed and recaptured, without any solution of continuity. [the] faculty of memory is lodged in an unknown domain, in the entire existence of our bodies, with the effect that a series of different and parallel states of the self are superimposed.” [kristeva, 13] in confronting an all-encompassing panoptic perspective, one of the key sites, the very mind of the reader (the guard in the tower), is made impossible through imagistic dispersions preventing totalization. when forced into scanning one’s own memory-ofwhat-has-been-read, the apparently clear demarcations and segregated threads turn out to be a network of complicating states and flows, of fragments and recaptured information (in the film last year at marienbad the main character, according to director robbegrillet, is not person x or y, or even the resort, but the brain of the viewer of the film). concentrate on the point where a physical voice begins to sound. -st. augustine, 240 in computer science, a zombie is a computer connected to the internet that has been compromised by a hacker, computer virus or trojan horse and can be used to perform malicious tasks of one sort or another under remote direction [the now scholarly wikipedia]. 145 analyzing the outcome of decisions as opposed to the potential (aggregate) space they represent is perhaps comparable to the difference between a collage and a hybrid. peter zellner writes: “because each component in a collage or montage remains discrete, the whole can be broken down and disassembled. within the chimerical hybrid, on the other hand… a union between distinct elements is seamless and indistinguishable and thus irreversible and irreducible” [zellner, 24]. smooth, hybrid topologies are capable of mapping continuums of difference and thus support a figure of thought, a preludes 12 (top) & 13 (bottom) opening melodic contour striated (left) and smooth (right) versions design, able to layer varied aggregate desires and capture the shimmering sound of mersenne’s violins. so how might one arrive at a hybrid topology of couperin’s aggregate incompossibles? one method could be borrowed from architecture’s diagrammatic use of bézier curves and splines in model rendering. the following images take the contour of the opening phrases of each of the two f major preludes, and using bézier and spline functions in the mathematica programming language, renders a smooth version. 146 clusters of memory-nodes give rise to an ever-expanding network of linkages. “the interconnectivity [of experience] normally ensures that when a situation jogs to life one particular set of responses we continue to have [resonances throughout] a wider web of recollections” (carter, multiplicity, 55). specific neural routes begin to form habits of co-firing by means of a process known as ‘long-term potentiation’ or ltp (a synchronous bond between two or more neurons that fire in close sequence, making them more likely to fire together in the future). these habits, in turn, begin to shape ways and modes of being/ perceiving. if, however, a cluster of nodes fails to form connections with the rest of the network, a strong filtering of consciousness, sometimes with amnesia-like effects of derealization, can ensue, in some cases leading to euphoric experiential states. steven gold has argued that states of dissociation, dissagreggation, depersonalization and derealization are so common these days that they could be regarded as “normative characteristic[s] of modern life.” gold even writes that “the structure of contemporary society promotes a dissociative existence” (gold, quoted in carter, 72). selfless (or virtual) self: a coherent global pattern that emerges from the activity of simple local components, which seems to be centrally located, but is nowhere to be found, and yet is essential as a level of interaction for the behavior of the whole.” [varela 53] suppose i am about to recite a psalm which i know. before i begin, my expectation is directed towards the whole. [timelessness of musical literature ?] but when i have begun, the verses from it which i take into the past become the object of my memory. the life of this act of mine is stretched in two ways, into my memory because of the words i have already said and into my expectation because of those i am about to say. but my attention is on what is present... what occurs in the psalm as a whole occurs in its particular pieces and its individual syllables. the same is true of a longer action in which perhaps the psalm is a part. (prehensive whiteheadian discernment of a holonic beyond) see how my life is a distension in several directions. -st. augustine, confessions, 244 co-arising hypoxic-affects looping machine “what is impossible is not the propinquity of the things listed, but the very site on which their 147 t h e n , t h e smoothed contours of both prelude options a r e morphed a g a i n into a s i n g l e t o p o logical skin exp o s i n g a ‘pure d u r a tion’, a duration in which various o t h e r d u r a t i o n s are coordinated 148 relatively large quantities of trail pheromone provide a sufficient amount of initial attraction and induction to get the process started. once turned on by these relatively short lived signals, the ants also follow trails consisting of small amounts of orientation pheromones. the ants are able to detect the complex by smelling the vapor it emits. when activated, they do not, however, simply track the liquid trace itself. instead, they move through the vapor created by diffusion of the pheromone into the air. all around the liquid deposit and within the vapor cloud is an “active space.” -e.o. wilson, the super-organisms, 61 theory as a practice of normative derealization memory is not a single system but a process involving encoding, storing, and retrieving (making use of sensory memory, short-term/working memory, and long-term memory, respectively).8 ‘consolidation’ is the process of moving memories from shortterm to long-term storage. for a memory to be established in long-term memory, it must be ‘marked’ by an emotionally significant event, causing the release of norepinephrine, which in turn promotes protein synthesis in the amygdala. but ‘marking’ is not the same as fixing a location. rather, the event gives rise to floating, ‘recaptured’ nodes. 8 sensory memory is made up of the fleeting ‘iconic’ and ‘echoic’ (visual & auditory) traces held for approximately 10 milliseconds in a ‘recognition buffer’. short term/working memory actively holds small amounts of information over the period of a few seconds which is then reinforced by means of a subvocal articulatory rehearsal process (baddeley and hitch, 1974). we forever silently sing memory-traces to ourselves in phonological looping machines. long-term memory, as proposed by squire (1992), involves components of explicit/declarative memory (open to intentional retrieval), implicit/nondeclarative memory (performance based, eg. ‘muscle memory’), semantic memory (assumed knowledge of the world), and episodic memory (capacity to remember events). “the storms of incoherent events tear to pieces my thoughts...until the day when...i flow together to merge into you.” -st. augustine, 245 memory as body spray klump @ discotheque conference attend(ants) gather around morphic resonance: the research of rupert sheldrake opens the possibility, based on the theory of formative causation, that memory is inherent and cumulative in nature by arguing that each system has its own kind of field, which he calls a morphic field. sheldrake’s work, in a sense, is a theoretical extension of the kinds of fields already recognized by physics (gravitation, electro-magnetic, electron fields, neutron fields, etc.) into other domains. 149 you can see a kind of pleating happening at the bottom of the image; this is a form of temporal folding. because the opening sections of the two unmeasured preludes are different lengths, specifically a different number of attack points, in order to make a single skin we placed the differing proportion of attack points into the same field, a container to hold both versions. upon doing this, the surface folded back onto itself, exerting a pull, a functioning omega point, further warping the image by revealing a temporal differential. 150 once consolidated and marked, it is the long-term, episodic memory that has the most proustian of implications. tulving (2002) even coined the term ‘mental time travel’ in reference to the way memory scans and retrieves episodic cues/nodes. one such proustian constituent involves the layering of sheets-of-past (alain resnais), the composite construction of images based on accumulated experience.9 [our version of the couperin’s prelude also involves egarr’s and wilson’s versions...] such a construction also leads to the distinct, derealized possibility of confabulation (i.e., the memory of events that did not occur the construction of ‘virtual’ prelude performances [{shift0. 9 hasselmo proposes that divergent connections between the entorhinal cortex and the dentate gyrus could help us discriminate between separate episodes (141). “what is impossible is not the propinquity of the things listed, but the very site on which their propinquity would be possible. where could they ever meet, except in the immaterial sound of the voice…or on the page transcribing it.” [foucault, the order of things, xvi] morphic fields are “non-material regions of influence extending in space and continuing in time. they are localized around the systems they organize. when any particular organized system ceases to exist, as when an atom splits, a snowflake melts, an animal dies, its organizing field disappears from that place. but in another sense, morphic fields do not disappear: they are potential organizing patterns of influence, and can appear again in other times and places, wherever and whenever the physical conditions are appropriate. when they do so, they contain within themselves a memory of their previous physical existences.” (intro xviii-xix) attempt assemble a l l o w flows of k n o w l e d g e up and down the network a w u t d g m i 151 object set ensemble flocks fields manipulate[ graphics3d[{ color, specularity[white, 50], bsplinesurface[couperin, splinedegree -> floor[degrees]], if[mesh, {black, line[couperin], line[transpose[couperin]], red, pointsize[.001], point /@ couperin}, {}]}, boxed -> false, lighting -> “neutral”, rotationaction -> “clip”, viewpoint -> {-4, -2, 4}], row[{control[{{degrees, {1, 1}}, {1, 1}, {16, 8}, imagesize -> {400, 200}}], dynamic[floor[degrees]]}, spacer[10]], row[{control[{color, colordata[“html”, “olive”]}], control[{mesh, {false, true}}]}, spacer[10]], initialization :> (couperin = { {{0, 0, 0}, {10, 0, 0}, {20, 0, 0}, {40, 0, 23}, {50, 0, 23}, {60, 0, 23}}, {{0, 2, 12}, {10, 2, 12}, {20, 2, 12}, {40, 3.15, 24}, {50, 3.15, 24}, {60, 3.15, 24}}, {{0, 4, 24}, {10, 4, 24}, {20, 4, 24}, {40, 6.3, 26}, {50, 6.3, 26}, {60, 6.3, 26}}, {{0, 6, 28}, {10, 6, 28}, {20, 6, 28}, {40, 9.45, 0}, {50, 9.45, 0}, {60, 9.45, 0}}, {{0, 8, 31}, {10, 8, 31}, {20, 8, 31}, {40, 12.6, 7}, {50, 12.6, 7}, {60, 12.6, 7}}, {{0, 10, 14}, {10, 10, 14}, {20, 10, 14}, {40, 15.75, 12}, {50, 15.75, 12}, {60, 15.75, 12}}, {{0, 12, 28}, {10, 12, 28}, {20, 12, 28}, {40, 18.9, 19}, {50, 18.9, 19}, {60, 18.9, 19}}, {{0, 14, 26}, {10, 14, 26}, {20, 14, 26}, {40, 22.05, 24}, {50, 22.05, 24}, {60, 22.05, 24}}, {{0, 16, 28}, {10, 16, 28}, {20, 16, 28}, {40, 25.2, 28}, {50, 25.2, 28}, {60, 25.2, 28}}, {{0, 18, 29}, {10, 18, 29}, {20, 18, 29}, {40, 28.35, 24}, {50, 28.35, 24}, {60, 28.35, 24}}, {{0, 20, 26}, {10, 20, 26}, {20, 20, 26}, {40, 31.5, 26}, {50, 31.5, 26}, {60, 31.5, 26}}, {{0, 22, 23}, {10, 22, 23}, {20, 22, 23}, {40, 34.65, 28}, {50, 34.65, 28}, {60, 34.65, 28}}, {{0, 24, 24}, {10, 24, 24}, {20, 24, 24}, {40, 37.8, -1}, {50, 37.8, -1}, {60, 37.8, -1}}, {{0, 26, 23}, {10, 26, 23}, {20, 26, 23}, {40, 40.95, grain/pixel attackpoint scratch phrase movement playlist mathematica code for hybrid-morph couperin images 五 蘊 皆 空 度 一 切 苦 厄 ご う ん か い く う ど い っ さ い く や く five skandhas empty of suffering -heart sutra 152 which/whose memory recurs? 153 7}, {50, 40.95, 7}, {60, 40.95, 7}}, {{0, 28, 24}, {10, 28, 24}, {20, 28, 24}, {40, 44.1, 14}, {50, 44.1, 14}, {60, 44.1, 14}}, {{0, 30, 26}, {10, 30, 26}, {20, 30, 26}, {40, 47.25, 19}, {50, 47.25, 19}, {60, 47.25, 19}}, {{0, 32, 23}, {10, 32, 23}, {20, 32, 23}, {40, 50.4, 28}, {50, 50.4, 28}, {60, 50.4, 28}}, {{0, 34, 17}, {10, 34, 17}, {20, 34, 17}, {40, 53.55, 28}, {50, 53.55, 28}, {60, 53.55, 28}}, {{0, 36, 0}, {10, 36, 0}, {20, 36, 0}, {40, 56.7, 29}, {50, 56.7, 29}, {60, 56.7, 29}}, {{0, 38, 16}, {10, 38, 16}, {20, 38, 16}, {40, 59.85, 28}, {50, 59.85, 28}, {60, 59.85, 28}}, {{0, 40, 23}, {10, 40, 23}, {20, 40, 23}, {40, 63, 26}, {50, 63, 26}, {60, 63, 26}}, {{0, 42, 24}, {10, 42, 24}, {20, 42, 24}, {40, 66.15, 25}, {50, 66.15, 25}, {60, 66.15, 25}}, {{0, 44, 19}, {10, 44, 19}, {20, 44, 19}, {40, 69.3, 25}, {50, 69.3, 25}, {60, in addition to the cumulative nature of episodic memories, research suggests that there is an ‘episodic buffer’ which functions like “a screen on which information from a range of sources is displayed” and presented for re-arrangement (baddeley et al., 57). the very nature of the information tabulated on this screen is exceedingly pliant: the episodic buffer, as proposed, can hold up to four ‘blocks’ of information in a kind of multidimensional code, but there is a great deal of representational flexibility concerning the nature of these informational blocks. three types of representations could serve as a block or item; an object, a set of objects (set-binding), or an ensemble (flocks, populations, and other statistical summaries of a scene) [feigenson, 13-22]. additionally, episodic memory also allows us to encode a spatiotemporal trajectory and positions/nodes along this trajectory without needing to rely on a linear chaining model (since we are capable of remembering, for example, the end of a sequence after missing some elements of a linear chain, or capable of reordering positions of a trajectory in a variety of configurations) [hasselmo, 127]. hasselmo also discusses the emergence of ambiguity due to “overlap in the location representations, [where] the network can miss segments of the trajectory or become trapped in loops,” causing retrieval to skip [130]. 154 looking around “the shift from narration to tabulation as the destination of experience” [fisher, torn space, 668]. the shift to experience as tabulation corresponds to the machination of awareness. the screens and interfaces upon which our thoughts are constantly projected allow for an endless editing (photoshop, pro-tools, max/msp, finale, burroughs, gephi, deleuze, mathematica, plotinus, and the rest…). the ever-present availability of multiple originals, of an always editable fluid object creates a neo-baroque presence, a non-place, in which destinations lose much of their narrative charm. “everywhere the transparency of interfaces ends in internal refraction” [baudrillard, america, 59]. “an open or torn space: a multiple, distracted, interrupted spatial experience that is related to ‘looking around’ and derives from our everyday, usually overlooked experiences in the city street” [fisher, 668]. a theoretical lens that acknowledges the various bubbles in which we live exchanges an exacting, quasi-scientific ‘looking-at’ for a nodal ‘looking-around’, making and extending whatever connections are at hand, churning them into effervescent daydreams — a monadic, spectral fizz of aggregate arisings and passings. a reconsideration that converts, sorts, pulverizes, reconstructs (and regains) knowledge into flows of evental information upon the screen of memory. 155 {{0, 0, 0}, {10, 0, 0}, {20, 0, 0}, {40, 0, 23}, {50, 0, 23}, {60, 0, 23}}, {{0, 2, 12}, {10, 2, 1 2 } , {20, 2, 12}, {40, 3 . 1 5 , 24}, {50, 3.15, 24}, {60, 3 . 1 5 , 24}}, {{0, 4, 24}, {10, 4, 24}, {20, 4, 24}, {40, 6.3, 26}, {50, 6.3, 26}, {60, 6 . 3 , 26}}, {{0, 6, 28}, {10, 6, 2 8 } , {20, 6, 28}, {40, 9 . 4 5 , 0}, {50, 9.45, 0}, {60, 9 . 4 5 , 0}}, {{0, 8, 31}, {10, 8, 3 1 } , {20, 8, 31}, {40, 1 2 . 6 , 7}, {50, 12.6, 7}, {60, 156 serres, parasite: but the leibnizian solution, through an unexpected paradox, is maximally poor, to minimize the disorder. order having taken everything over, the mote of the dissonant seventh still remains facing the flow of harmony. the outlay is not great, but the diversity remains weak. as far as i know, perfect tuning is not the height of art, and perhaps it is only its misery. might harmony [i.e. the obsessive focus on musical language/pitch] be a somewhat excited variety of flatness? might it be an antechamber of death? this order from which parasitic dissonance is chased as much as possible, this homogeneity, this similar moving toward identity, this repetition, this straight line that is also the shortest, this flatness--aren’t we slipping toward this when we lose acuity, consciousness, life? i fear that harmony [pitch] is only a heavy fol-derol for minds that crave only repetition. the world around us, in us, victoriously defends itself against this stupidity with the miraculous torrent of the unexpected. what remains intelligent in the cursus of the sciences is what is ahead, escaping the law. 157 sporns, olaf networks of the brain cambridge, mit press, 2011 the principle quality of a theory or of an idea japanese noh dramas translated by royall tyler london, penguin books, 1992 its traditional value, clarity finds itself overtaken saville, anthony routledge philosophy guidebook to leibniz and the monadology london & new york, routledge, 2000 [note the appendix contains a full translation of the monadology] by the speed of its passage. pan or hermes kills panoptes... audio-visual or computerized kristeva, julia proust and the sense of time trans. stephen bann new york, columbia univ. press, 1993 circuits make the guard towers of the last war, borrowed from roman camps seem laughable... saint augustine, confessions trans. henry chadwick oxford university press, 1991 whoever can control as he wishes our codes and their circulation in space carter, rita multiplicity: the new science of personality, identity, and the self new york, little brown and company, 2008 can let his watchers rest: they may fall asleep on their watches listening to music. barthes, roland the preparation of the novel trans. kate briggs new york, columbia univ. press, 2011 the murmuring passage of messages hasselmo, michael e. how we remember: brain mechanisms of episodic memory cambridge, mit press, 2012 put the watchdog, the spy, and the informer to sleep; serres, michel with bruno latour conversations on science, culture, and time trans. roxanne lapidus ann arbor, univ. of michigan press 1995 it anesthetizes the warder... sloterdijk, peter spheres volume i: bubbles, microspherology trans. wieland hoban los angeles, semiotext(e), 2011 all the avatars of panoptes are sent on vacation {from serres’ panoptic theory} ndalianis, angela neo-baroque aesthetics and contemporary entertainment cambridge, mit press, 2004 158 feigenson, lisa “objects, sets, and ensembles” in space, time and number in the brain: searching for the foundations of mathematical thought ed. stanislas dehaene and elizabeth brannon elsevier (academic press), 2011 stengers, isa-belle thinking with whitehead: a free and wild cre-ation of con-ceptstrans. mi-chael chasecambridge, h a r v a r d univ. press, 2011 sheldrake, rupert the presence of the past: morphic resonance and the habits of nature rochester, park street press, 1995 hölldobler, bert and e.o. wilson the super-organism: the beauty, elegance, and strangeness of insect societies new york, w.w. norton, 2009 murdoch, jonathan post-structuralist geography london, sage publications, 2006 chalmers, david j. “consciousness and its place in nature” in philosophy of mind: classical and contemporary readings ed. david j. chalmers oxford univ. press, 2002 chalmers, david j. the conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory oxford university press, 1996 thermostat stuff, pg 296 guerlac, suzanne thinking in time: an introduction to henri bergson ithaca, cornell univ. press, 2006 bergson, henri matter and memory trans. nancy margaret paul and w. scott palmer london: george allen & unwin new york: humanities press 1911 (1970) whitehead, alfred north process and reality ed. david ray griffin and donald w. sherburne new york, the free press, 1978 leibniz, g.w. the monadology and other philosophical writings trans. robert latta oxford univ. press 1898 (1951) shakya shri jñana “the vital essence” in quintessential dzogchen: confusion dawns as wisdom trans. erik pema kunsang and marcia binder schmidt rangjung yeshe publications, 2006 zellner, peterhybrid space: new forms in digital architecture london: thames & hudson, 1999 b a d d e l e y , alan, eysenck, michael w. and anderson, michael c. memory psychology press (taylor & francis group), 2009 tulving, e. “ e p i s o d i c memory: from mind to brain” annual review of psychology, 53, 1-25 2002 latour, bruno [1993]w e have never been mod-ern hemel hempstead: harvester wheatsheaf. plotinus the enneads trans. stephen mackenna p e n g u i n books, 1991 varela, francisco j. ethical know-how: action, wisdom, and cognition stanford university press, 1999 foucault, michel the order of things vintage books 1994 the cambridge history of western music theory albert cohen pg 544 michel ser res t h e paras i t e trans. l a w r e n c e r . s c h e r u n i v . o f m i n nesota p r e s s 2007 “ e p i s o d i c memory: from mind to brain” annual review of psychology, 53, 1-25 2002 latour, b r u n o [1993] w e have never been modern hemel hemps t e a d : h a r v e s t e r wheatsheaf. plotinus 159 fisher, phil-ip“torn space: j a m e s j o y c e ’ s ulysses”in the nov-el, volume 2: forms and themesed. franco morettiprinceton, princeton univ. press, 2006 {aggregate windows {uncoded temporalities {diagrammatic granulation {morphic imagery 160 161 david levin. 2007. unsettling opera: staging mozart, verdi, wagner, and zemlinsky. chicago and london: university of chicago press. reviewed by delia casadei david levin's unsettling opera: staging mozart, verdi, wagner, and zemlinsky is an ambitious book, and one that opens with an unusual insight: namely, that the onstage performance practice of opera in the last twenty years is a field ripe for academic discourse, one that promises to uncover new perspec­ tives on the restricted repertoire of historical musicology. levin suggests that operatic productions in europe and the united states have amply paid homage to academic concerns about the production of meaning and other post-modern enthusiasms. yet academia has not returned the favor, instead preferring studies of historical performance practice that largely ignore contemporary productions. of course, it is by no means the case that no one cares about these new productions. levin spends a good part of his preface quoting the financial times's and the new york times's dismissals of two provocative productions of don carlos and die entfuhrung aus dem serail.l indeed, levin may even have taken his cue for this book from the sheer volume of critical bile elicited by the work of directors such as hans neuenfels or peter sellars; he knows full well that a reception marked by anger and rash dismissal is the signpost to an interesting field of inquiry. levin's project employs shifting analytical angles and takes the form of six chapters, each of which is devoted to the contextualization of a repertory opera in its contemporary staging. following an introductory chapter on aims and methods, his second chapter treats die meistersinger von nurnberg as a locus of intertwining musical and dramaturgical ambitions. he discusses the contradictory effect of wagner's ideas about theatre on contemporary stage designers and directors. in chapter 3, levin seeks the conceptual support of theoretical writing on translation-here to be understood as the transition of a text from one culture and language to another, and most importantly from one medium to another-to outline a framework for the evaluation of peter sellars's notoriously controversial staging of le nozze di figaro (1988). in chapter 4 he focuses on hans neuenfels's 1998 production of die entfuhrung aus dem serail and its deconstructionist take on singspiel. with chapters 5 and 6 levin turns the methodology of the two previous chapters on its head: rather than studying a specific production for hermeneutic insight, he works as dramatist and scans two operatic textscurrent musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 123 124 current musicology verdi's don carlos and zemlinsky's der konig kandaules-for musical and psychological concerns that can translate into ideas for staging. chapter 6 presents a new problem for the author: levin is dealing with an opera writ­ ten in the twentieth century that is very rarely performed. he thus tests the validity of his interpretive methodology on a work that has no performance canon to react against. the appeal of this slim book lies in its ability to capture and confront several core concerns of many contemporary musicologists. can musicolo­ gists talk about performance? if so, can it be recorded performance? can musicology influence performance practice? to each of these questions, levin's short answer is a sonorous "yes," a heartening "yes;' but also a "yes" whose vigor it is difficult to sustain while negotiating a fully-fledged scholarly answer. let us take the issue of discussing recorded performance (a dvd re­ cording of an operatic production, in levin's case). given that the array of available dvds is vast, levin faces a difficult question that deeply impacts on his analysis: which recordings should he choose for discussion? he picks recordings that, in his eyes, are successful "post-modern" productions and feels compelled to justify his choices on grounds of artistic quality. this is unsurprising given that the two productions he looks at in significant detail (sellars's ie nozze di figaro and neuenfels's die entfuhrung) generated heated controversy in the press. indeed, his emphasis on demonstrable artistic value lands levin right in the middle of the journalistic reviewer's territory. this agenda is in conflict with what he calls (borrowing from kristeva) "polylogical criticism": that is, analysis that seeks out the fissures between the systems of signification at play in opera. on the one hand, levin questions the ways in which meaning is created, rather than attending to an intrinsic, immanent signification. on the other, though, he is trying to set up a framework to judge whether a production is, to be blunt, any good. this is bound to be problematic: one cannot pass judgment on the efficacy of a form of expression unless one also makes assumptions about the objectivity of the meaning that is being conveyed. the result is a confusion that tends to obfuscate the brilliant insights levin has about the subtle dialectics of an opera's transition from score to theatre. chapter 2 provides an apt example. levin introduces the reader to the complex negotiations at stake in the staging of an opera by talking about wagner, and with good reason: wagner was one of the first opera compos­ ers to proactively and radically re-invent the technicalities of theatrical performance. more importantly, however, he was the one composer for whom these issues accrued such deeply ideological value that they achieved allegorical representation in his operas. levin introduces die meistersinger von nurnberg as a prime example of this type of allegory. wagner endeavdelia casadei ored to portray theatrical illusion as a natural phenomenon by hiding the infrastructure of production from the audience's gaze. this is mirrored in his negative portrayal of beckmesser, who, unlike walter, cannot simply break into spontaneous song, but needs the mediation of technical instructions: he has to read the music from the score. levin interprets the beckmesser­ walter opposition as one between two types of readings: the petulant literal reading or "weak reading:' and the "strong reading:' which appropriates and re-enacts the message. the next step in levin's argument is problematic: the dichotomy between "strong" and "weak" reading is transferred to the evaluation of three stagings of the song contest. the uncomfortable assumption here is that whatever elements make a reading strong or weak are intrinsic to the staging itself however, it is ultimately impossible to say whether the stagings here classified as "weak" readings are simply those whose strengths are not apparent to the author. after all, he is discussing one short excerpt from a five-hour performance, and what is more, his discussion is essentially a "silent" one: specific vocal performances are generally not taken into account. most importantly, levin's allegorical link between walter's song and strong staging fails to take into account a crucial factor: reception. just as walter's song is received with wild acclaim, one would expect "strong" readings to speak powerfully to audiences and critics; yet levin ends up defending the work of directors like neuenfels, whose work is, to say the least, by no means universally enjoyed by the opera-going public. how can a reading truly be strong if its most appreciative audience is located not in the theatre seats but in the rarefied atmosphere of scholarly circles? this problem is not, fortunately, omnipresent. indeed, in chapter 4 levin demonstrates the hermeneutic scholarly potential of neuenfels's die entfuhrungin a manner that displays the full potential of his critical imagination. his explanation of neuenfels's production is compelling: the song and speech of the opera are taken as a point of departure for a tight game of doublings, where each singer is accompanied by a speech-only doppelganger. the curtain rises to reveal another stage within the stage, and the human voice is the sound of both order and disorder, while the theatre becomes the locus of both "pres­ ence" effects and rationalizing distance. it is clear that levin is quite taken with neuenfels's work, and this enables him to communicate the visionary element of the production. in this chapter levin does precisely what he said he'd do at the outset: read productions for scholarly insight on new stagings of well-established classics of the operatic repertoire. should we wish, however, to challenge levin's interpretation of neuenfels, we would quickly reach an impasse. what could we weigh his reading against? on what is his interpretation based? is it a mixture of his impressions of the live opera and the further elaboration of his insights 125 126 current musicology afforded by the dvd? if it is, then his interpretation stems, at least in part, from the live performance-an experience to which few can have access. dvd is a format that gives us something that may well have value in itself, and yet must surely be kept separate from live performance. this is best illustrated by way of an example: unlike levin, i am not entirely sure that declaimed speech in this production has such a strong link with mladen dolar's "voice of the father" (2006). the principle of order embodied by the voice that speaks but refuses to sing (as found in pasha selim, who has a speech-only part in die entfuhrung) seems to me more the embodiment of eighteenth-century rationalism than of the devastating archaic power of dolar's "father."2 my possible disagreement is not necessarily a problem-this kind of debate is the fun part of scholarly exchange. what frustrates me is that the dvd of neuenfels's production can do very little to support either levin's argument or mine, for the sound of the voice on digital reproduc­ tion has little in common with the live theatrical performance. the sheer volume of delivery is my concern. it is easy to read, say, the commendatore in don giovanni as the voice of the father, because this character sings, and does so in an obviously imposing manner. however, the onstage singing voice tends to be a lot louder than the speaking voice. how does this shift in volume reflect on the role of the spoken word as levin interprets it? this is a question that the dvd, in which voices are mixed separately and then synched into the visual recording, presents in a significantly different way from anything we would experience in live performance. i would go further and suggest that levin's decision to use dvds as a means of studying operatic productions tout court is deeply problematic. had the author chosen opera on dvd as his specific field of inquiry, this problem would not have arisen: it is the fact that levin uses the dvd as a substitute for live performance that is troubling. "this is a book about opera in performance," he writes at the top of his first page. the element of ineffability that comes with musical performance-as sound in time and, most importantly, as sound in time produced before our ears and eyes-has recently become an urgent object of inquiry for musicologists. a case in point is carolyn abbate's 2004 article on the·matter, which is among the most widely-referenced and discussed musicological writings of the last several years. admittedly, levin engages with abbate's work ten pages into his book, challenging her claim that recorded performances cannot offer solace during the scholar's tortured commute from music as sound and "presence" to music as object of academic absorption. he suggests that the possibility of returning again and again to the dvd imbues the medium with a double purpose: it is an object of both "critical" and "experiential" absorption, offering an escape from the impressionistic tone that is often delia casadei the result of attempts to describe a unique experience such as that of live performance (9-10). but the differences in psychological effect and cultural valence between the live performance and its reproducible counterpart-the presence/absence of the audience, the difference between watching opera in the sitting room (or at the work-desk) and in the theater, to mention just a couple-do not enter into levin's analysis. as he puts it: "there is no reason why we couldn't be transported by a recording as by a live performance: it is, i think, a question of openness and approach" (9). he also dismisses abbate's circumspection towards recordings, suggesting they are motivated by an abstract search for authenticity of performance per se. yet the issue of authenticity distracts us from the awareness that, whether or not we consider "live" performance to be the "real thing;' live opera and dvd opera are two radically different performance contexts, reflecting the deep rift between the media of theatre and film.3 the screen-shots in levin's book are mostly close-ups, views entirely inaccessible from a theatre seat. the stage perspective is imposed by the camera and inevitably turns the viewer's attention to those aspects of the production that the director deems important. more often than not, this is done to afford clarity to the symbol­ ism of the staging, a clarity that can turn a subtle reference into something banal and obvious or, conversely, turn an inscrutably complex staging into a sophisticated allegorical play. (could the latter have happened, i wonder, with neuenfels's production?) the experience ofdvd viewing and that of theater are-to repeat-radically different, making value judgments about the one not transferable to the other. further insight could have emerged had levin reflected more insistently on the fundamental differences created by the production process of the video-recording he chose to analyze. was it made from one live performance, or was it a cut and paste of the best bits? was it recorded in the theater or in a studio? in the case of the former, was the audience present at the time of recording? how much of the theatrical infrastructures, the audience, the orchestra, does the video show?4 this last question is of pressing im­ portance for levin's discussion of sellars's figaro. here the camera focuses strictly on the happenings onstage-in particular on the characters and their expressions-in a manner strongly reminiscent, as marcia citron (2002) has remarked, of soap-opera. read in this light, sellars's decision to update beaumarchais's historical context to the gloriously yuppified manhattan of the late 1980s takes on an entirely new dimension, as does the type of audience sellars must have imagined for his dvd release. another possible pathway is closer consideration of the medium of dvd. emanuele senici has remarked recently on the readerly quality of a dvd's division into chapters, a slicing up that implies the obliteration of the temporal dimension of the 127 128 current musicology show into discrete, "skipp able" chunks (worthen 2007:228-47). the list of possible angles on the topic goes on; the dialectic between live opera and dvd is not only fascinating in its own right but would, perhaps, have added a further dimension to the fine conceptual correspondences levin is so good at tracing. yet levin's aim is not limited to the appraisal and examination of opera in performance. as mentioned earlier, in the last third of the book (chapters 5 and 6) he emancipates himself from the academic role of "reading" productions and turns to the active task of examining the opera text (music, libretto, and staging instructions) in order to produce practi­ cal ideas for mise-en-scene. levin's reasoning makes sense on paper: the academic study of performance usually focuses on the past, and it's about time we started dealing with the present. yet this is a difficult path. after all, historical performance practice studies were accepted into academic practice because they involved the type of niche research (old scores, the collection and piecing together of evidence retrieved from libraries and archives) that has characterized historical musicology. they were not pure hermeneutic exercises; had they been, the performers would have rightly complained that an academic's imagination is not necessarily better than that of the performer. it is no coincidence that the performer and the researcher of historical performance have sometimes been the same person-we only need to think of performers like thurston dart, christopher hogwood, robert levin, and john hsu, who held or still hold prestigious academic appointments. the combination of the academic and the practical has always been one of the most difficult intellectual negotiations, one that is either done individually or through very close collaboration. levin knows this. he describes the team effort that always goes into the creation of a mise-en-scene: someone comes up with ideas, and they are measured against the requirements of the players, singers, conductor, director, and budget. thus the ideas of any musicologist regarding mise-en-scene, no matter how clever, are of little use to either academics or directors unless they become part of the joint effort that takes place in the opera house. chapter 5, "between sublimation and audacity," which centers on verdi's don carlos, is a telling example of the issues at stake. the quality of levin's insights is influenced, i believe, by the purpose and readership he is imagining for his chapters. the stimulating interpretive efforts he made in the previous chapters-characterized by an awareness of the historical context and performance practices of the opera-are here replaced by a somewhat gruff freudian reading. don carlos has oedipal "issues" with former fiancee-turned-stepmother elisabeth: both sublimate their repressed desire for each other by devoting themselves to higher causes and by singing delia casadei wonderful music. we are, alas, far from the allegories levin drew in chapter 2 (between wagner's project for the theatre, the practice of dramaturgy in the late twentieth century, and the song-contest in die meistersinger) or chapter 4 (between actor and singer, speech and song, the voice as "law" and as "expression"). my suspicion is that here, levin is sacrificing scholarly insight for the type of interpretation that could lend itself to staging. yet i am not sure it is a sacrifice that can yield substantial results. the somewhat underdeveloped practical suggestions for staging found at the end of the chapter seem to demonstrate that practical ideas for mise-en-scene are not well-suited to the demands of scholarly writing. for all this, levin's book is thought-provoking because it proposes a domain where academia can hope to not only grasp and evaluate cultural phenomena, but to actively influence them. yet the problem with many academic publications talking about practice is that, by their very nature, they shrink from direct confrontation with the concrete reality they seek to describe and perhaps alter. the clash between academia and cultural phenomena-or an academic stepping into the workshop of a theatrical! operatic production or of a musical performance-opens up a new field: one marked by unpredictability, headaches, doubt, or as levin might have it, "unsettledness." this is a field for which levin is perfectly suited, and yet one which he stops short of entering fully.s he does, however, point us (and perhaps himself) towards his goal: boldly, and with an eloquence wholly to be admired. notes 1. both productions were presented in berlin in june, 2004. verdi's don carlos was presented at the staatsoper unter den linden, in a production by philipp himmelmann. mozart's die entfuhrung aus dem serail was presented by the komische oper berlin in a production by calixto bieito. 2. dolar refers to a jewish religious musical instrument, the shofar, when talking about the valence of the voice of the father. a voice is an archaic force that turns the word into law by enacting it, but it is not itself a speaking voice: "so shofar, whose sound is louder than all the thunder, is there as the voice without content that sticks to the law [ ... j it seems that the voice, as a senseless remainder of the letter, is what endows the letter with authority, making it not just a signifier, but an act" (54-55). 3. on the other hand, in liveness: performance in a mediatized culture, philip auslander sug­ gests that our notions of what is "live" and what is "reproduced" have been much confused by the medium of television (2008). this does not mean thatthe dvd recording of an operatic performance is equivalent to the "live" performance, but rather that the very faculties that allow us to discern what is "live" from what is not are forever changing, and that they should be examined closely, perhaps especially in the context of levin's discussion. 4. these are some, but not all, of the excellent questions raised by emanuele senici's forth­ coming article in ii saggiatore musicale,"il video d'opera 'dal vivo': testualizzazione e liveness nell' era digitale:' i would like to thank senici for allowing me to read a pre-publication version. 129 130 current musicology 5. levin has already done some work in this area, and i am puzzled that he has decided not to incorporate it into this particular book. see levin (2004). references abbate, carolyn. 2004. music-drastic or gnostic? critical inquiry 30: 505-36. auslander, philip. 2008. liveness: performance in a mediatized culture. london and new york: routledge. citron, marcia. 2002. the performance of vision in peter sellars's television production of cos! fan tutte. in music, sensation, and sensuality, edited by linda phyllis austern, 213-29. london and new york: routledge. dolar, mladen. 2006. a voice and nothing more. cambridge, ma, and london: mit press. levin, david. 2004. opera out of performance: verdi's macbeth at san francisco opera. cambridge opera journal 16: 249-67. senici, emanuele. forthcoming. ii video d' opera "da! vivo": testua!izzazione e liveness nell' era digitale. ii saggiatore musicale. worthen, william b. 2007. performing shakespeare in digital culture. in the cambridge companion to shakespeare and popular culture, edited by robert shaughnessy, 228--47. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 gordon. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 179 iverson, jennifer. 2018. electronic inspirations: technologies of the cold-war musical avant garde. new york: oxford university press. reviewed by ted gordon jennifer iverson’s electronic inspirations explores the history of electronic music in the studio of cologne’s westdeutcher rundfunk (wdr) in the immediate post-war era, during which elektronische musik developed as an admixture of music, science, and technology. iverson shows how elektronische musik inhabited a particular social milieu, including figures like impresario herbert eimert, ex-nazi scientist walter meyer-eppler, and firebrand composers such as karlheinz stockhausen, john cage and david tudor. as iverson argues, closely following these actors through the wdr studio illustrates what elektronische musik meant in cold war germany: a promise of a better future through what she calls a “reclamation” (2) of the past, achieved through collaborative work between scientists, technicians, musicians, and performers. through thorough analyses of numerous works produced in the studio, iverson concludes that these reclamations were ultimately “attempted, incomplete, [and] tenuous”: they failed in achieving their ostensible goal, a “timbral utopia” inhabited by enlightened composers (29). instead, these reclamations produced what iverson calls “invisible collaborations,” obscuring the distribution of authorial agency, aesthetic possibilities, and ideological meanings created at the wdr and instead reproducing heroic narratives of “remasculinization” and german musical hegemony (18). electronic inspirations illuminates those invisible collaborations through rich and detailed analyses of archival recordings, sketches, concert programs, and planning documents that show exactly how science and technology contributed to the creation of elektronische musik at the wdr. the wdr studio was initiated by three men—herbert eimert, robert bayer, and walter meyer-eppler—who had met in 1949 at a sound engineering conference, participated in the 1950 seminar on electronic music at the darmstadt fereinkurse für neue musik, and made a proposal for a new facility to be built at the westdeutscher rundfunk in 1951. all three men positioned the wdr studio within linear, teleological narratives of musical innovation. beyer framed the studio as continuing what he thought of as the emancipation of dissonance, idiosyncratically citing ferruccio busoni and the telharmonium, an early american electrical instrument from 1897; eimert framed it as emerging from weberian serialism, promising 180 current musicology more complete control over sonic parameters; meyer-eppler framed it as an exploration of timbre. all three avoided discussing the development of electrical and electronic music technologies between 1930–1945, when electrification and electronic instruments became embraced by the nazi regime in their aesthetic of “steel modernism.” as iverson argues, the founding of the wdr studio was a “reclamation” of wartime technologies that fantasized a neutral, technoscientific “blank slate” that would allow for a new kind of musical composition unburdened by the past: “such reclamations do not so much heal the wounds of war as accumulate new meanings and layers that distance us from the trauma” (137). however, iverson shows, the traumas of the past were always present— especially in the figure of walter meyer-eppler, a physicist who specialized in radio communication and information theory. meyer-eppler authored eight reports for the kriegsmarine u-boat division between 1943–1945, and was classified a category iv mitläufer during the denazification process. pivoting away from radio-communications in the post-war era, he brought his substantial background in information theory to bear on experimental phonetics, which he taught to many of the composers at the wdr. meyer-eppler appears throughout electronic inspirations as a composer, teacher, technician, and impresario, and is perhaps the prime example of the “invisible collaborator” that iverson wishes to make visible; along with “technicians, administrators, performers, and scientists,” people like meyer-eppler “[made] the creative work of the composer possible” (29). iverson’s discussion of meyer-eppler brings up one of the central questions that informs nearly every chapter of her book: “in what sense can the technicians (in a laboratory, studio, etc.) be understood as co-creators?” (30) this question of authorship lies at the heart of electronic inspirations, and could be read in at least two significantly differing ways. in one reading, it could ask: “to what extent should we also credit technicians as the creators of musical works”? in another, it could ask: “what does it mean for a musical work to be created?” the first reading retains the integrity of the musical work as a bounded object produced by a human, or a group of humans. the second reading questions both the integrity and boundedness of the work, and also the valorization of human authorship in a studio full of new technologies. as iverson suggests, creating elektronische musik at the wdr was a practice that produced artifacts legible as objects in the musical economy: tape works and scores. but as she also shows, those tape works and scores were co-created by a widening network of humans and technological objects. especially in the early days of the studio, with composers using technologies they were still struggling to understand, it wasn’t 181 ted gordon quite clear where one “work” ended and another began; it was also unclear who (or what) held agency over their sound and even their organization. iverson’s concept of “invisible collaborators” suggests that the experimentation undertaken at studios such as the wdr extended far beyond “aesthetics;” indeed, experimentation at the wdr fundamentally destabilized what it meant to be a musicking human, throwing into question the closely held ideological pillars of authorship, mastery, and innovation that formed the self image of this particular community of post-war composers. the porous boundaries of compositional work at the wdr studio are illustrated through iverson’s deft analyses of some of the earliest “tape works” produced there, including spiel für melochord, morgenröte, klangstudie ii, and klang im unbegrenzten raum (kur). in all of these cases, the same “sonic material” recorded to magnetic tape was “repurposed” (41)—sometimes cut and spliced, sometimes sped up or slowed down, and sometimes simply copied verbatim. in the case of spiel für melochord, eimert and beyer re-organized sounds from a catalogue of sound-types produced by meyer-eppler. this creative process, as iverson argues, mirrored traditional understandings of “composition”: composers organize sonic material in time, rather than creating the sonic material itself. as she writes, “the ‘mastery of the apparatuses’—the production of sound effects using the machines—was only the precursor to the work of the composer, who was then responsible for the logical aesthetic development and ‘mastery of the material’” (35). but iverson challenges this strict separation between “apparatus” and “material” in her analysis of morgenröte, a tape produced by the studio’s technician, heinrich schütz. schütz himself had internalized the division between composer and technician: he is on record as stating “i do not see myself as a composer. pure chance” (46). but as iverson shows, morgenröte is more than a catalogue of “raw sound-types,” and could be read as an integrated work with its own compositional and musical logics. indeed, morgenröte became the basis for two additional tapes produced by people who did think of themselves as composers: eimert and beyer. these two tapes—klangstudie ii and kur—were presented as co-composed compositions in concert performance programs, with no mention of schütz. as iverson’s thorough analysis shows, however, these two tapes essentially “cannibalized” schütz’s work, copying the tape wholesale (40). again, there are at least two conclusions one could draw from iverson’s analysis. one is that schütz was actually a composer, and was simply ignored because he only thought of himself as a lowly technician. iverson comes close to making this conclusion herself in the passive voice: “technicians remained invisible not only because their skill set differed from that of the 182 current musicology composers, but because their aesthetic orientation and expertise was connected to low-brow, mass-media genres” (48). but iverson goes on to make a more radical argument: that electronic music does not emerge from a vertical chain of agency, from the lowly technician to the lofty composer; rather, it emerges from a more horizontal network between composers, technicians, instrument designers, and instruments themselves. for wdr studio musicians, this network extended far beyond cologne, and included the american musicians john cage and david tudor. chapters 2 and 5 discuss their important role in the development of compositional practices at the wdr, both in terms of cage’s “proportional form” and tudor’s role as a social connector between america and germany. even as the wdr studio was being built in 1952, eimert prominently featured music by cage—encountered via an lp record given to him by pierre boulez—on his musikalisches nachtprogramm, which introduced cage to other interested musicians and composers in germany. for eimert, cage represented an independent american ethos, so much so that eimert mistakenly credited charles ives’s three quarter-tone pieces of two pianos to cage; the new sounds produced by tudor performing cage’s works for prepared piano seemed like a harbinger of the “timbral utopia” to come. iverson presents substantial archival research on cage and tudor’s trips to europe in the early 1950s, showing just how much europeans like eimert would pay to hear fleeting moments of a timbral utopia; she also presents substantial analyses showing how cage’s “square root form” contributed to stockhausen’s “proportional form” in studie ii. stockhausen, along with karel goeyvaerts, paul gredinger, and henri pousseur, becomes the center of the network examined in chapter 3, which shows how he and others at the wdr developed new studio techniques for producing electronic music. this chapter corrects two commonly held misconceptions about the wdr studio: that it was focused on the technique of “additive synthesis” (adding individually synthesized sounds together to produce complex new sounds), and that the works produced with such techniques were created by individual composers. iverson shows how work at the wdr studio occurred through collaborative experimentation with a variety of techniques, eventually embracing both the subtractive synthesis supported by meyer-eppler’s phonetics research, as well as ad hoc techniques that emerged from contingent and idiosyncratic humaninstrument interactions with the studio’s equipment. she also shows how these techniques were co-created by groups of humans working together to experiment and explore the possibilities of those instruments, arguing that the emphasis on heroic, individual composition made “these important collaborations quickly [become] invisible” (103). 183 ted gordon beyond collaborations among humans, the question of human-instrument co-creation holds significant philosophical consequences for the concepts of composer and work. to describe human-instrument interaction, iverson cites andrew pickering’s concept of the “dance of agency” between human intentions and machinic captures, and their dialectical interaction that eventually produces results (pickering 1995). to describe “co-creation” between multiple humans and instruments, iverson loosely cites a spectrum of “actor-network theories” authored by bruno latour, michael callon, and others. however, discussion of secondary literature and the philosophy of science and technology is kept relatively brief; instead, iverson addresses these issues empirically through her extremely detailed analyses. iverson argues that “the wdr studio of the early-to-mid 1950s was above all collaborative,” claiming that her scholarly intervention is located in revealing the connections between composers, technicians, engineers, and scientists at the wdr studio that have previously been kept invisible (103). in addition to making individual composers visible, iverson also elucidates the scientific knowledge and theory that undergirded much of their collaborative work. chapter 4 examines the “reclaiming of technology” at the wdr, “showing direct lines of transmission that connect [claude] shannon’s information theory to midcentury music” through careful and exacting study of archival letters, diaries, sketches, and scores by stockhausen, gottfried michael könig, and iannis xenakis (105). this chapter traces the translation of concepts from information theory into elektronische musik through the affordances of specific instruments in wdr studio, which wdr composers described as creating “statistical” and “probabilistic” form in their compositions (128–132). iverson argues that these composers began to critique their own adherence to serialism in the 1950s, because in the new paradigm of information theory, serialist techniques were revealed to be too “information dense,” making them difficult to be perceived by humans. instead, iverson argues that many shifted towards statistical forms, sampling and continuity, and probabilistic forms in order to “better accommodate human perception” (137). in addition to information theory informing the compositional structures of these new works, the related fields of phonetics and speech research were also explored through “aesthetic experiments” by european avant-garde composers (167). indeed, one of the more profound questions that iverson’s study raises is: what is the relationship between experimental science produced in a laboratory and experimental music produced in a laboratory-like studio? iverson addresses this question though musical analysis, focusing on works by mauricio kagel and luciano berio, in ad184 current musicology dition to tracing those composers’ interests in phonetics through meyereppler and the writings of roman jakobson and james joyce. this question is addressed most directly in her analysis of kagel’s transición i: iverson’s archival research shows that kagel’s notebooks are full of empirical questions about the nature of sound and music. this could be where experimental music most closely resembles experimental science: the composer wants to find out answers to questions, to make knowledge, and does so through experimentation. but is that the same as making music? iverson suggests that “[kagel’s] experimental practice with the studio equipment very much mirrors scientific laboratory experiments” (171). iverson’s use of the verb “mirror” suggests a morphological similarity between what happens in a scientific laboratory and what happened in the laboratory-like wdr studio, but she also argues that the similarities are methodological and ultimately epistemological. though iverson frequently cites scholars of science and technology studies, electronic inspirations does not provide an extended theoretical discussion of the relation between experimental music and experimental science. instead, iverson offers rich historical detail of how the musicians themselves imagined this relation. at the end of a short but vibrant section on cathy berbarian and luciano berio, iverson concludes: in the electronic studio, berio and berberian moved from a contextual phenomenon—phonemes in language—into a sensory-aesthetic hypothesis that was demonstrated with the help of technology. it was the studio’s technology, and the tape recorder in particular, that allowed them to crack language open, to see what it really contained, and to imagine how it can be further deconstructed, synthesized, and remade as music. (185) this conclusion contains a nested argument: first, that musical experimentalists like berio and berberian were engaged with the production of new knowledge, “mirroring” scientific experimentation; and second, that musicians used new knowledge to create new music. this nested conclusion relies on the assumption that “language” is an objective phenomenon that could be scientifically “cracked open,” deconstructed into constitutive parts; and that those parts could be reconstructed into “music” as a “sensory-aesthetic hypothesis.” this is perhaps the way that berio and berberian imagined their work: they were discovering new universal scientific truths, not producing them as social facts, just as they were likewise remaking music as a universal category, not one that emerged out of social and political discourse. though iverson’s discussion of the tangle between experimental music and experimental science is brief, her description of berberian and berio’s experiments clearly addresses a topic that has mostly 185 ted gordon remained vaguely metaphorical and too often overlooked in scholarship about experimental music. iverson’s book concludes with a hermeneutic interpretation of the works of elektronische musik produced at the wdr: they “[make] cold war anxieties audible” (191). while listening to this music, iverson argues, “we stumble over the non-sense, we are disgusted by hearing all that which is extra-musical, and we are provoked by sounds that threaten to obliterate and overwhelm” (193). this interpretive stance resonates with iverson’s general ideological critique of the wdr, which holds that its self-narrativization often belied selective, political ideologies of elektronische musik, swerving from wartime origins and instead positing itself as an inevitable rung in the eternal ladder towards “timbral utopia.” iverson stops short of a kittlerian criticism of electronic music as universally “tainted” with a kind of ontological wartime violence (see winthrop-young 2002); rather, she embraces what she calls a “networked perspective” that shows how different composers, and different collaborators, each created their own use and meaning for these technologies (191). this “networked perspective” begins with material—compositions, tapes, sketches—and shows how those objects were co-created by networks of people, whose ideas emerged from networks of technoscientific discourse. books like electronic inspirations are a crucial opening in the discipline of music studies, and especially within the study of experimental and avant-garde musics. indeed, electronic inspirations is an extremely valuable model for future scholarship seeking to examine how “the cultural work of electronic music stemmed from its unending dance with the affordances of technologies” (199). such work has already been undertaken regarding european art music in the 18th and 19th centuries, video game music, and improvised music; iverson’s book examines a musical community where technology was not naturalized or hidden, but was rather the very object of experimentation. showing how people at the wdr studio re-inscribed ideologies of the heroic world-historical composer, selectively “reclaimed” technology, and fantasized a “timbral utopia” are crucial first steps to understanding how science and technology have shaped both the specificity of elektronische musik and the more general category of electronic music, pointing readers to other possible meanings, social milieus, and networks that have so far remained largely unexamined. references pickering, andrew. 1995. the mangle of practice: time, agency, and science. chicago: university of chicago press. winthrop-young, geoffrey. 2002. “drill and distraction in the yellow submarine: on the dominance of war in friedrich kittler’s media theory.” critical inquiry 28: 825–854. 186 current musicology "on stage, everyone loves a black": afro-ukrainian folk fusion, migration, and racial identity in ukraine adriana helbig in the harsh snowy days of late november, 2004, i joined hundreds of thousands of ukrainian citizens on maidan nezalezhnosti, independence square in kyiv, to protest the unfair presidential election which had been rigged in favor of the corrupt government -sponsored candidate. i was there as an international election observer and was simultaneously researching the role that ukrainian-language popular and folk music were playing in the protests, dubbed as the orange revolution (helbig 2006). music has had such a long history of politicization in ukraine that newspapers printed the names of ukraine's most well-known musicians and the candidate they supported, either the opposition candidate or the government -sponsored one (klid 2007). these affiliations were based less on political ideology as they were ruled by ethnic identity, language choice between ukrainian and russian, regional identity, and religious identity. among the performers on maidan nezalezhnosti were an african-jamaican duo calling themselves "chornobryvtsi" (black -browed), performing ukrainian folk songs dressed in ukrainian folk garb for the crowd. the passion with which the crowd embraced chornobryvtsi made it clear that outsider validation of ukrainian ethnic identity and culture was at the root of the protests. the crowds' chants of "chor-no-bryv-tsi! chor-no-bryv-tsi!" signaled an embrace of non­ ukrainians who supported ukrainian language and culture, perceived by protestors to be under threat by the russian -oriented policies of the political regime. the role of african and jamaican musicians in that critical historical moment also brought forth the role of migrants and foreigners living in ukraine in ukraine's ongoing political and cultural identity struggles, in terms of its vacillating leanings between more pro-russian and pro-western ideologies and policies. since the 2004 orange revolution, the highly mediatized involvement of african musicians in ukraine's pop-folk music scenes has broadened the contemporary public sphere beyond the ongoing ethnic russian and ethnic ukrainian culture wars since ukrainian independence in 1991. the continued popularity of african musicians helps foreground issues of pluralism and multiculturalism that reinforce the notion of ukraine as a patchwork quilt made up of many different ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups, including ethnic russians, russian-speaking ukrainians, ethnic current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 31 32 current musicology ukrainians, crimean tatars, roma ( gypsies), armenians, and jews. african folk musicians' appearances on talk shows, at folk music festivals, at public city events, in newspapers and on the internet, have influenced the ways that people speak about ethnicity and race, albeit with a greater sense of conflation of identities as regards people with dark skin. it is common for locals to refer to musicians from africa as african american or to use "african" and "african american" or "afro-american" interchangeably when speaking or writing about performers from the african continent in the media. musicians from africa capitalize upon the popularity of u.s. popular music genres associated with african americans, conflating the widely marketed stereotype of "african american as musician" to local­ ize their social acceptance via ukrainian folk music idioms. are africans accepted in their own right or only to the extent that they adhere to more localized cultural norms, such as participation in ukrainian folk-influenced music? how do soviet -era and contemporary attitudes regarding africans and african americans influence levels of inclusion for african migrants in post-orange revolution ukraine? african musicians, who have moved to independent ukraine to study and make a living, engage with more than half a century of african and african american presence in the soviet union. as early as the 1920s, a handful of african americans traveled to the soviet union, enticed by propaganda regarding the building of a socialist society based on equality and respect for all races (carew 2008). personal experiences, documented in memoirs, reflect the relative failure of the communist system to overcome social racism and cultural exoticization of african americans by local soviet populations (khanga and jacoby 1992; robinson 1988). by the 1950s, however, the soviet union, guided by the ideology that socialist society was not as racist as its capitalist cold war enemy, the united states, began to extend educational scholarships to growing numbers of students from the african continent to study in the soviet union. couched within rhetoric of equal opportunity, the educational offers were motivated by the soviet government's hopes of developing african communist allies in world affairs (quist adade 2007: 153-157). the predominantly male students came from uganda, kenya, the congo, nigeria, and were allowed to stay in the soviet union for the duration of their studies. students were expected to return home upon completion of their studies. no opportunities were extended to them to work and seek soviet citizenship. many students fathered children with local women but were not allowed to stay together as families. referred to by the term mulat (mixed blood), most of these children grew up without knowing their fathers, who had been forced to return to their home countries. thus the educational opportunities became a double-edged sword, offering adriana helbig education, but denying africans and their descendents the basic equal rights that socialist rhetoric had promised. the silenced histories of africans and african americans living in soviet spaces form the backdrop for recent migrations from the african continent to countries such as russia and ukraine. independent ukraine is now home to significant populations of africans who have moved for reasons of economic betterment (ruble 2005) and religious outreach, as in the case of nigerian pastor bishop sunday adelaja, whose mega-church embassy of the blessed kingdom of all nations is the fastest growing church in ukraine (wanner 2007). contemporary migration patterns place ukraine as the fourth largest migrant -receiving nation -state in the world, following the united states, the russian federation, and germany (mansoor and quillin 2006:3). according to a 2005 study conducted by the united nations department of economic and social affairs population division, there were 6,833,000 foreign-born people residing in ukraine, a figure that constitutes 14.7 percent of ukraine's population offorty-eight million (ruble 2008:5). the rate of population change has greatly influenced the broader inter­ racial milieu and the ways in which local populations relate to newly-arrived africans living in their midst. racial violence against african students and migrants has risen dramatically in the last two decades. eighty-eight percent of africans who were surveyed by researchers from the kennan institute for advanced russian studies in 2001 stated that they would not have moved to ukraine had they known "what experiences were in store" (ruble 2005:164). despite such statistics, many have worked to gain citizenship and change the mindsets of the local populations. bishop sunday adelaja has organized public lectures and awareness programs regarding racial discrimination. african soccer players playing in the ukrainian league have also spoken out about racial equality. alongside sports and religion, music has played an increasingly important role in bringing attention to the african presence in ukraine. various musical groups, mostly comprised of students from east africa, particularly uganda, have participated in a series of television interviews, newspaper interviews, and have been featured in local performance venues and clubs. in interviews, these young performers share experiences of rac­ ism in ukraine and try to find ways to connect with their audiences. one seemingly successful way has been to incorporate ukrainian language folk music as the basis of performance. two groups in particular, chornobryvtsi (meaning "black browed" and also "marigolds") based in kyiv, the capital, and alfa-alfa, based in the university city of kharkiv in eastern ukraine, have gained significant popularity by performing ukrainian folk fusion music. alfa -alfa has begun to incorporate original compositions in russian, 33 34 current musicology the lingua franca of popular media in ukraine, and to expand beyond the marketing niche they created by hosting ''africa'' -themed r&b dance parties in kharkiv, where they have lived since completing their studies. this article focuses on the ways in which music groups like alfa-alfa attempt to positively shape african migrant-related discourse in ukraine. by fusing stereotypical images of ukrainian, russian, and exoticized im­ ages of "africa," they work to garner a public voice for all migrants of color from the african continent living in ukraine. issues of citizenship and long-term cultural acceptance are at the forefront of their concerns. these young musicians have drawn on their folk music-based popularity to comment on escalating racial violence, discrimination, and anti-migrant attitudes in ukraine. what might an analysis of what the media has dubbed "afro-ukrainian" folk music tell us about the relationship between music, migration, and race relations in a postsocialist society? how might musically reconceptualized ideas of ukrainian folk music influence public attitudes towards migrants living in ukraine today? music and politics in postsocialist ukraine the influx of african migrants who came to ukraine in search of economic betterment in the early 1990s expanded african presence in ukraine beyond that of student populations. african musicians, who perform in ukrainian folk costumes, present themselves in interviews as potential citizens who are willing to go to great lengths to assimilate and accept the cultural practices of people living in ukraine. these musicians attempt to alleviate contem­ porary racialized anxieties regarding growing migrant populations, while simultaneously working to overturn soviet -era discourses regarding africans as transient actors without legal claims for citizen rights. african musicians involved in folk music scenes present themselves in television and newspaper interviews as spokespersons for all african migrants living in ukraine. the general public has responded positively to accepting africans on stage. as bawakana michael kit yo, lead singer of the kharkiv-based afro-ukrainian folk music group alfa-alfa, observes, "on stage, everyone loves a black." i first came across images of the kyiv-based afro-ukrainian group chornobryvtsi on the internet while conducting research on the political impact of music during the 2004 orange revolution (helbig 2006). their performance of ukrainian-language folk music was politicized alongside the actions of other ukrainian-language folk and popular musicians who used ukrainian-language music to garner support against pro-russian government policies. chornobryvtsi performed for protestors in kyiv during the orange revolution precisely because they sang in ukrainian and not in adriana helbig russian. continued research led me from kyiv to kharkiv, where the group had originated. kharkiv is home to one of the largest populations of migrants and foreign students in ukraine. the city boasts a musical network that connects african musicians associated with folk music idioms to the city's interracial hip-hop and reggae scenes. i befriended the members of alfa­ alfa, the kharkiv-based ugandan group performing ukrainian folk music with whom chornobryvtsi had performed in the past. in 2009, i visited the families of alfa-alfa members in kampala, the capital of uganda, in order to gain a better understanding regarding the role of folk music in political discourse. i researched the ways in which african students, migrants, and their families related to ongoing ethnic tensions in ukraine through the prism of inter-tribal relations in their home countries. african presence in ukraine's folk music scenes has wide-reaching socio-political effects due to music's long-reaching influence on local politics. in the soviet union, ethnic ukrainian popular musicians fought against moscow's linguistic and political oppression by using the ukrainian language and various anti-government topics in their lyrics (bahry 1994; wanner 1996). this soviet-era ideology, regarding the power of popular music, has carried over into the first decades of ukraine's independence and casts musicians into political camps.l musicians have a great deal of power to influence the direction of various social and political movements. during ukraine's movement for independence, ukrainian-language musi­ cians composed satirical songs making fun of socialist living conditions. the 1989 ukrainian-language song titled "brekhunets;' the liar, is also the local name for the radio system that was built into soviet -era apartment housing. the song, sung by andriy panchyshyn, member of the musical theater group ne zhurys (don't worry), popular in western ukraine during the movement for independence, comments on the lack of truth in soviet government propaganda. "brekhunets" (the liar/soviet kitchen radio), 1989 (excerpts) lying from birth, the end has come. my soviet kitchen radio, chokes on the truth. my ear wilts from the truth, even in the program chas (time) they finally say: it's not so bad over there (in the west) and it's not great over here. 35 36 current musicology truth to the right, truth to the left, truth from a-top, truth from bellow ... it's an epidemic, more dangerous than aids. perestroika will burn, in a fiery hell, and the kingdom of clear lies will rise again. musicians from this time also composed songs with nationalist overtones and revived ukrainian-language repertoires from wwi and wwii-era struggles for independence (bahry 1994). during the anti-government­ corruption campaign in 2004, commonly known as the orange revolution, some musicians rallied for the opposition candidate viktor yushchenko in the ukrainian language while other musicians supported the government candidate viktor yanukovych in russian. ukrainian-language musicians, including the afro-ukrainian group chornobryvtsi, performed for the hundreds of thousands protestors on kyiv's independence square (helbig 2006; klid 2007). folk-based music in ukraine, such as afro-ukrainian folk fusion, taps into a postsocialist revival of musical genres categorized by scholars and journalists as "newly-composed folk music;' fusion folk, folk revival, and avtentyka, a category defined by ethnomusicologists as pre-soviet village­ based music genres and performance practices recorded in villages, or recreated by folk performers.2 in other words, the african musicians with whom i conducted my research began their careers as hip-hop and reggae musicians. they were enticed by local producers and musical entrepreneurs to dress in folk costume to capitalize on the growing folk music revivals. the ethnic ukrainian producer for alfa-alfa in kharkiv, vladyslav zyuban, also known as dj fixa mixa, states that his motivation in creating the folk fusion group was more economic than politica).3 however, this proyekt (project), as zyuban referred to it, took root and evolved into a social phenomenon with wide-reaching, socio-political consequences. according to bawakana michael kit yo: no one was interested in redoing the ukrainian music in a modern style­ hip-hop, r&b, reggae, all these kinds of styles. we started it. truly. that's a fact. we made the ukrainian artists realize that their music is still beautiful, adriana helbig it's still informal, it still unites people. and they could welcome us now that we are also respecting and loving the culture, speaking the language. (interview with bawakana michael kit yo, kharkiv, june 7, 2008) this representation of africans performing in the ukrainian language, dressed in modernized ukrainian folk costumes, appears to be typical only in ukraine in terms of postsocialist folk music scenes. spurred on as an internet phenomenon via youtube videos and websites, it is now fashion­ able in ukraine to hire africans in ukrainian garb to perform at birthday parties and to host them on talk shows. in 2007, chornobryvtsi appeared as contestants on a talent show titled fabryka zirok (factory of stars). viewer reactions to their appearance on fabryka zirok were generally positive re­ garding the group's ukrainian-language repertoire, though some comments on the internet were reactionary, stating that they don't play original music, but rather "monkey" (mavpuvaty, a word used to negatively describe "copy­ ing") ukrainian folk music in different styles. the reference to "monkey" is rooted in racialized discourse that stems from soviet -era representations of africans in the public media and satirical magazines (discussed later). historian maxim matusevich notes that soviet cartoonists drew relation­ ships between african american jazz and its "jungle nature" (matusevich 2009: 70). in the soviet satirical magazine krokodil no. 17 (october 1964) for instance, a popular musician is depicted as a monkey playing a guitar, racially branding african american musicians and their music, as well as those who participated in american and african american rock and jazz scenes in the soviet union (ibid). today, chornobryvtsi, and groups similar to them, have a significant number of performance opportunities and enjoy relatively positive media coverage. whether performing on television or at folk festivals, in western or eastern ukraine, the more-than eight afro-ukrainian groups i have identified on youtube and local ukrainian television talk shows and news broadcasts share a similar repertoire, namely, widely popular folk-influenced songs sung in the ukrainian language, performing in modernized poltava-region and carpathian-region embroidered shirts and blouses. in a highly publicized event, a group of african migrants sponsored by a non-governmental organization performed at a hutsul folk music festival in the carpathian mountains in 2006 (horodnytska 2006: 12). in the article that ran in the lviv-based vysokyi zamok (high castle) newspaper, the performers were identified as "afro-americans." the article positioned the musicians as cultural outsiders who appreciate ukrainian culture and help strengthen the tenuous position of ukrainian -language music in ukraine. while it is difficult to precisely assess how many such afro-ukrainian fusion groups exist in the territories of ukraine, this is viewed as a relatively 37 38 current musicology acceptable form of cultural expression within african migrant communi­ ties, among ethnic ukrainians and russians living in ukraine, among the ukrainian diaspora in north america, and among viewers in countries such as uganda, where afro-ukrainian musical clips have been featured on local television. what accounts for the widespread support and interest in this cultural caricature of africans and ukrainians? in what ways does this particular form of folk-fusion influence race relations and policies toward african migrant workers and students in ukraine? aside from africans, why have no other migrant groups participated in this type of folk-based fusion and what does this reveal about intercultural and racial relations in ukraine? race, caricature, and performances of blackness musical fusion projects that feature african youths dressed in ukrainian folk costume, singing ethnic ukrainian folk songs, function socially and politically in a variety of ways. they tap into a long history of cultural representations that are rooted in a highly stratified relationship between ethnic groups in the soviet union. an internal exoticization of others was prevalent in soviet media, such as films, literature, and political cartoons. ethnic ukrainians were oftentimes caricatured as country bumpkins in soviet film adaptations of nikolai gogol's evenings on a farm near dikanka, written in 1832. it was the indirect goal of russophile soviet cultural policy to manipulate ukrainian folk expressions, such as embroidery, village tradi­ tions, and folk music, to reinforce identities of ethnic ukrainians as peas­ ants in socialist discourse, and to present them as backward and culturally less developed than ethnic russians (koropeckyi and romanchuk 2003). similarly, roma were represented as exoticized nomads, deeply steeped in their cultural practices through films such as tabor ukhodyt v nebo (camp descends to the heavens) (helbig 2009). satirical magazines published in the soviet union, such as krokodil (crocodile, established in 1922), and its equivalent perets (pepper) in the ukrainian ssr, lampooned africans as "mawgli;' creating a popular cartoon character based on joseph rudyard kipling's the jungle book (1894). depictions of mawgli-inspired characters still appear on chocolate ice-cream wrappers in ukraine and russia, index­ ing the visual relationship between shokoladnyi (chocolate) and skin color as racial identity (matusevich 2007:393). africans were also caricatured as children or black puppets. in krokodil no.4 from april 1984, ''africa'' is depicted as a small child policed in handcuffs by larger soviet authority figures. this satirical othering of africans in political cartoons reinforced adriana helbig example 1: a promotional picture for alfa-alfa, an afro-ukrainian folk fusion ensemble based in kharkiv, ukraine. used with permission. a costumed, caricatured lens through which all others were depicted and socially categorized. alfa-alfa and chornobryvtsi consciously choose to sing in ukrainian so as to create a connection with the local population. though ukraine's media sphere is more supportive of russian-language expression because russian is the lingua franca in ukraine's major cities, the visual incorporation of ethnic ukrainian folk costumes strengthens their attempted connection with ethnic ukrainian segments of the population. alfa-alfa's linguistic ability to sing in ukrainian reinforces these efforts. they use ukrainian folk music to bring attention to their physical blackness, oftentimes choosing songs that incorporate the word chornyi (m.) or chorna (f.) meaning black. the ukrainian folk costumes and the presence of ethnic ukrainians in their videos function in juxtaposition with their dark physical features and woven hair braids. the visual element is crucial in reinforcing the fusion aspect of their music and their music videos are oftentimes played on television, and shared among listeners via youtube, facebook, and local social sites. musically, they often rap parts of the folk song or remake the well-known songs in reggae style. the ukrainian-language folk song that propelled alfa-alfa to fame, "rozpriahajte khloptsi koni" (harness your horses, men), was released with an accompanying video on the internet and on local television in kharkiv. the song narrates the story of a man who meets his love but is rejected for having loved another. the video does not depict the story literally but introduces a subtext of dark-skinned beauty. it begins 39 40 curlrent musicology with a group of ukrainian girls dancing khorovody (ritual dances) near a river, wearing ritual ivan kupalo (st. john's eve) wreaths associated with the magic midsummer night's eve when girls seek their fate in love. among them is adong becky prossy, the african female singer from alfa -alfa. her husband, bawakana michael kit yo, rides through the village on a horse, drawing on animal tropes that depict masculinity in ukrainian folk songs. as michael describes it, ok, this is the story. i am a black man, living in ukraine. and i fall in love with a ukrainian girl. that girl is a twin, and i am confused about who is who. but in my mind i know that the one i am in love with has a beauty mark. so i go to their village, searching in the village, where is my chornobryvaya (ukrainian, translated as black browed beauty). i come across the twin that i'm not in love with, and i'm like, is she the one, could she be the one, because i have a bouquet of flowers for her. then when she speaks, she speaks so-so close and alike with the one i'm in love with, but then i look close to her, and i find that she doesn't have the beauty mark. so i'm, like, oh, you know, i have to go, i have to keep on looking. i move from village to village, i don't find her. then, towards the end, i find my love sitting at the lakeside, then that's when i meet her. (interview with lbawakana michael kit yo, kharkiv, june 7, 2008). michael's interpretation of the song as reflected in the music video differs from the song's traditional lyrics, which focus on the love of one peasant woman and a warrior man (most probably a cossack, who is typically referenced in folk culture with a horse). michael adds a literal interpretation to the term chorna (black) to describe the young woman and weaves a story in which he chooses the dark-skinned girl because she is the more beautiful of the two. the video (not the traditional song lyrics) represent a courtship between two africans dressed in folk costumes by the river in a ukrainian village setting. young love represents hope and a future of settling down among a group of people who have a different skin color but wear similar folk costumes. though the visual narrative implies assimilation in terms of language, folklore, and regional traditions, the video narrative is interjected with michael and becky dressed in white costumes decorated with black, red, and yellow stripes that index the ugandan flag. the musicians appear to embrace the ways of their new homeland but simultaneously reinforce their ugandan identity. the singers incorporate hand gestures, body postures, and side-to-side body movements from hip-hop that place the singer in a physically framed relationship with the imagined listeners. they clearly depict a difference between the narrative, as it unfolds in the verses, and the ugandan identity rooted in popular music associated with the refrain. adriana helbig example 2: a publicity photo of the afro-ukrainian group chornobryvtsi, featuring rastaman davis and steve d in cossack-inspired costumes. used with permission. similar to alfa-alfa, chornobryvtsi-comprised of steve d from uganda and rastaman davis from jamaica-attempt to connect to their audiences by utilizing ukrainian-language folk songs as the base of their repertoire. in the early 2000s, adong becky prossy and bawakana michael kit yo from alfa-alfa, and the two musicians from chornobryvtsi, performed together as students in kharkiv. the group split and steve d and rastaman davis formed chornobryvtsi and moved to kyiv. having performed for protestors at the 2004 orange revolution in kyiv, chornobryvtsi has had a wider-reaching audience than alfa-alfa, putting on concerts in cities such as lviv, a city in western ukraine known for its strong ethnic ukrainian nationalism. while members of alfa-alfa feel they have a wider audience because they have marketed themselves on their own internet site (www. alfa-alfa.com.ua), facebook, and were the first afro-ukrainain group to produce a cd, chornobryvtsi are at an advantage because they live in kyiv, which is the center of ukraine's growing music industry. members of chornobryvtsi feel that their music opens a dialogue between africans and the local population regarding acceptance and toler­ ance. rastaman davis of chornobryvtsi states, "we are trying to show the ukrainians that it is not bad, and not so difficult to live together as one peo­ ple." (interview with rastaman davis, kyiv, august 24, 2006). chornobryvtsi fuses reggae rhythms and hip-hop elements, such as sampling and rapping, to 41 42 current musicology example 3: the cover of the june 29, 2007 magazine focus no. 26 (39) features migrants from asia, the middle east, and africa wearing ukrainian embroidered shirts. used with permission. create new arrangements of ukrainian folk songs, their most popular being "tyzh mene pidmanula" (you deceived me).4 in "tyzh mene pidmanula;' an elderly white male sculptor works on a statue of a white young female nude that comes to life in his dreams. she deceives him by turning back to stone when he awakes. steve d and rastaman davis are not part of the unfolding song plot as depicted in the video, but rather feature themselves during the song's refrain, "you deceived me and brought a young man out of his mind." they are dressed in contemporary clothes and sit on a hood of a car in a european old city location that is difficult to pinpoint. when chornobryvtsi perform their repertoire live, however, they wear traditional ukrainian outfits that combine elements of hip-hop and cossack culture, including the zhupan (overcoat) and sharavary (long flowing pants). in so doing, they revert back to the old meanings of the songs by not adding a secondary story line made possible by the music video. the group draws on reggae as part of their musical fusion, explaining that reggae has a long history on the african continent.5 in their understand­ ing, reggae promotes peace and a laid back attitude towards relations between people. for them, reggae lyrics focus on the beauty of love, highlighting positive qualities of character, and acceptance. members of chornobryvtsi and alfa-alfa note in interviews that reggae musicians shun violence and do not condone personal tensions, whether on a personal level or in terms of inter-group interaction. they incorporate reggae into their folk fusion adriana helbig because they argue that in their home countries reggae musicians are con­ sidered politically neutral commentators on inter-racial tensions, economic unfairness, and inequality that they attempt to overcome through messages of peace and love. what messages have audiences interpreted from afro-ukrainian folk fusion music and what ideas have performance groups such as alfa-alfa and chornobryvtsi introduced into public discourse? for one, the wide market­ ing of these groups in the ukrainian media has influenced representations of other "ukrainianized" migrants. the july 29, 2007 cover of ukraine's russian-language magazine focus, titled "new ukrainians;' reinforces the socio-political salience of ethnic discourse within an increasingly racially diverse country. this representation of migrants wearing ethnic ukrainian garb points to the complex ways in which the migration is seemingly being recast in terms of ethnicity and less so in terms of racial identity. in the magazine cover, the ukrainian shirt/blouse symbolizes an ethnic layer that the newcomers wear. the costuming creates a familiar point of departure to observers and presents the foreigners as more similar than different to the local population. furthermore, the cover of focus magazine aims to reinforce a pluralist, multicultural identity for independent ukraine, one that is in opposition to policies in other former soviet republics, such as the increasingly russo­ centered concept of the russian federation as promoted in recent politics by former president and now prime minister vladimir putin. additionally, it introduces the idea that migrants accept ethnic ukrainian culture as part of their identity to increase their potential acceptance as citizens of ukraine. the subtitle on the cover states "migrants from the middle east, asia, and africa bring the world closer to us. and we become more beautiful." while the emphasis still lies on categorizing and relating to others in terms of outward appearance, it builds on orange revolution discourses of inclu­ sion. in other words, migration-rooted discourses in the cultural realm are interpreted as positive, enriching, and breaking the boundaries of access and information that have kept ukraine relatively isolated from globalizing cultural processes. ii afro-ukrainian ll concepts of ethnicity and race how does the participation of african musicians within ukrainian folk music scenes influence the nationalizing rhetoric of folk revival movements throughout the country? the term ''afro-ukrainian" has become common in political discourse in response to the highly mediatized term that journalists and television announcers have used to describe the presence of africans in 43 44 current musicology ukrainian folk music scenes. the prefix "afro" has gained common usage in ukraine, while less so in other postsocialist countries, such as russia, where african musicians do not participate in folk-based music genres. perhaps a certain flexibility regarding the nominator "ukrainian" exists because in ukraine, differences in religion, language, and customs throughout the country allow for strong regional identities, but a less cohesive national identity. in russia, the centralized system of government and religion leaves less room for the inclusion of racial, religious, and cultural difference, and a less tolerant policy of accepting people as russians. in this sense, "russian" continues to serve as a marker of ethnic identity but does not imply that a person is a citizen of russia. there is increasing discrimination towards foreigners in russia and it is very difficult for migrants to gain citizenship. in 2007, the russian government issued a ban on foreign workers in russia's large indoor and outdoor food and clothing retail markets (osborn 2007). such markets, similar to the barabashov bazaar in kharkiv where many migrants work, are one of the primary sources of income for a significant majority of people in many urban centers throughout the former soviet union.6 the racist outlook regarding migrants mayor may not be directly related to soviet -era ideologies regarding foreigners. concepts of race were identified in soviet policy as rooted in physiological traits that did not necessarily correlate to behavior or specific needs (hirsch 2002:33). soviet anthropologists and scholars rejected german ideas associating concepts of race with immutable behaviors and genetically transferrable traits. they believed that social reform could improve the human condition and that every being could be molded into a soviet citizen (ibid). in many ways, this is why the soviet union appealed as a utopian society to african american migrants in the 1920s. anthropologists keisha fikes and alaina lemon report that color-based racial slurs prevailed in popular culture despite the soviet state's positioning as a racially-inclusive society (fikes and lemon 2002:516). cultural stereotypes that fell outside official discourse associated dark complexions with "naturalized proclivities," such as "cleverness in the market," "hot-blooded" temperaments, and "clan-like" family networks (ibid). ethnically-defined frameworks of difference have influenced the development of minority politics in ukraine and all groups continue to be viewed through the prism of ethnicity. however, a confusing race-based discourse is gaining ground in reaction to the increasing presence of migrants in the postsocialist sphere. it is common for politicians and the general public to state "ukrajina chorniye;' which translates to "ukraine is becoming (physically) darker." the emphasis on physical attributes regarding rasa (race) in relation to specific behavior (associated with migration) seems adriana helbig to conflate soviet associations of race with physical appearance, cultural associations with specific behavior, and postsocialist minority discourse categorizing difference along ethnic lines, particularly in terms oflanguage and culture. looking ahead this article highlights some of the complex ways in which national, politi­ cal, and cultural policies regarding migration influence the ways in which africans stake claims for themselves in ukrainian society. more research is needed to fully analyze how other migrant groups, such as the chinese and vietnamese, are faring in the country's changing racial and ethnic dynamics. it seems that discourses relating to africans differ from those relating to other migrants. i have experienced great difficulties in finding scholars wishing to collaborate on african music-related research projects in ukraine. my colleagues have shared that their hesitations are rooted in a fear of being physically close to people with black skin. they have used the words "strashny" (scary) to describe african men in particular. in contrast, chinese migrants are readily accepted into ukrainian conservatories, and music teachers from vietnam living in kharkiv have successful careers as private music instructors among the local population. this means that africans have been racialized into a specific rubric of others based on locals' fears of physical blackness. this might explain, in part, why africans are the only migrant group that has participated in folk fusion music projects. they must work harder and must appear more willing to recast themselves as those whose social circles they wish to join. by dressing up in familiar outfits and singing well-known songs, they attempt to put their listeners at ease. preliminary research indicates that concepts of rasa are specific to ideas about africans, though extensive ethnographic research has not been conducted to date among other immigrant groups in ukraine. thus far it seems that delineations based on physical appearance reinforce prevailing concepts of africans as transient agents who should not attempt to seek citizenship and social acceptance in ukraine. ukrainians often state that there are only a handful of africans in ukraine, pointing to groups such as chornobryvtsi and mulat singers like gay tan a (haitana), whose mother is ukrainian and whose father was a student from the congo. racial killings of africans, particularly young men, go unreported in the national media. musicians site such heinous crimes as motivators for their involvement in afro-ukrainian folk fusion. this practice gives afro-ukrainian folk music groups a way through which they can gain a voice in a society that is not ready to welcome them. the drawbacks for such representations are many and such 45 46 current musicology performance practices reinforce caricatured, staged identities. nevertheless, the positive impact these groups have had in garnering cultural support has gradually begun to shape inter-racial relations in more positive ways, particularly in staking an african presence in ukraine's public sphere. notes research for this article was funded through generous support from the american councils for international education, the national endowment for the humanities, and the interna­ tional research and exchange board. 1. as already noted, during the orange revolution, newspapers published the names of the country's most popular musicians and the political party they supported, either the pro-russian governmental party in power or the pro-western opposition party that led the government protests. see klid 2007. 2. the close alignment of newly-composed folk music, village-based genres categorized as avtentyka, and folk-influenced popular music with anti-russian, postsocialist frameworks has been widely documented by scholars, particularly as regards the 2004 orange revolu­ tion, where music was one of the most influential cultural forces in garnering opposition support against the pro-russian leadership in power. the role of non-ethnic ukrainians and non -ukrainian citizens in such socio-sonic movements has not been analyzed, particularly in terms of pluralist discourses of inclusion that have attempted to guide ukraine's closer relations with the european union (helbig 2006, klid 2007). 3. interview with vladyslav zyuban (dj fixa mixa), kharkiv, june 4, 2008. 4. the video for "tyzh mene pidmanula" by chornobryvtsi is available on youtube. 5. the history of reggae on the african continent from the origins of reggae in jamaica, and in africa reggae's popularity grew immediately. in addition to the lyrical and also politically­ charged elements within reggae that connect jamaica to the rastafarian culture and ethiopia, the musical rhythms typical of reggae are similar to the rhythms of various musical genres throughout africa. 6. ukraine's overall level of economic growth is much stronger than in the 1990s, but foreign­ ers find it difficult to work through the legal workings of business dealings and very few have been successful in starting their own businesses. primary economic occupation is trading at the bazaar. kharkiv's sprawling barabashov bazaar, built on restricted vacant land above a subway station named after akademik barabashov, offers a glimmer of financial opportunity for the local population and foreigners. while trading at the bazaar may seem like a limited opportunity for economic advancement, kharkiv locals say that the barabashov bazaar is the biggest in "europe" and can allegedly be seen via satellite pictures. this discourse attests to the importance that both migrants and kharkiv locals attribute to the bazaar itself, which employs 80,000 vendors from twenty-three countries (ruble 2008:6). kyiv's largest market in the troeshchyna neighborhood employs migrants from afghanistan, turkey, and iraq and had 20,000 workers by 2000. odesa's seven-kilometer market spans 170 acres. 16,000 vendors serve more than 150,000 customers. the market's central administration is comprised of 1,600 workers (ruble 2008:6). this high percentage of foreign presence in petty-trade, a large employment for local populations as well, has contributed to the perception of foreign­ ers as economic competitors. adriana helbig references bahry, romana. 1994. 'rock culture and rock music in ukraine', in rocking the state rock music and politics in eastern europe and russia, ed. s. ramet, 243-296 (boulder, san francisco, oxford, westview press). carew, joy. 2008. blacks, reds, and russians: sojourners in search of the soviet promise. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press. fikes, kesha, and alaina lemon. 2002. ''african presence in former soviet spaces:' annual review of anthropology 31: 497-524. helbig, adriana. 2011. "brains, means, lyrical ammunition": hip-hop and socio-racial agency among african students in kharkiv, ukraine. popular music. __ .2009. "representation and intracultural dynamics: romani musicians and cultural rights discourse in ukraine:' in music and cultural rights. edited by andrew weintraub and bell yung, 269-295. urbana: university of illinois press. __ 2006. "the cyberpolitics of music in ukraine's 2004 orange revolution:' current musicology 82: 81-101. hirsch, francine. 2002. "race without the practice of racial politics:' slavic review 61(1):30-43. horodnytska, bozhena. 2006. "fest brynza na festyvali brynzy" vysokyi zamok no. 173,21-27 september, 2006:12. khanga, yelena and susan jacoby. 1992. soul to soul: a black russian american family 1865-1992. new york: w.w norton & co. klid, bohdan. 2007. rock, pop, and politics in ukraine's 2004 presidential campaign. journal of communist studies and transition politics 2311: 118-137. koropeckyj, roman and robert romanchuk. 2003. "ukraine in blackface: performance and representation in gogol's 'dikanka tales; book 1. slavic review 62 (3): 525-547. lemon, alaina. 1995. "what are they writing about us blacks" roma and "race" in russia. anthropology of east europe review 13 (2): 34-39. mansoor, ali and bryce quillin, eds. 2006. migration and remittances: eastern europe and the former soviet union. washington dc: the world bank. matusevich, maxim. 2009. black in the u.s.5.r: africans, african americans, and soviet society. transition 100: 56-75. osborn, andrew. 2007. "russia bans foreign workers from retail jobs" the independent. april, 2, 2007. http://www.independent.co. uk/news/world/ europe/russia-bans­ foreign-workers-from-retail-jobs-442963.html accessed on june 6, 2009. quist-adade, charles. 2007. "the african russians: children of the cold war", in africa in russia, russia in africa: three centuries of encounters, ed. m. matusevich, 153-173. trenton, nj: african world press. robinson, robert. 1988. black on red: my 44 years inside the soviet union. washington d.c.: acropolis books ltd. ruble, blair. 2008. establishing a new right to the ukrainian city. washington, d.c.: woodrow wilson international center for scholars; kennan institute and comparative urban studies eurasian migration paper no. 1. __ . 2005. creating diversity capital: transnational migrants in montreal, washington, and kyiv. washington dc: the john hopkins university press/woodrow wilson center press. wanner, catherine. 2007. communities of the converted: ukrainians and global evangelism. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. __ . 1996. nationalism on stage: music and change in soviet ukraine. in retuning culture: musical changes in central and eastern europe, edited by mark slob in, 136-55. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. 47 48 current musicology wickstrom, david-emil. 2009. okna otkroi! open the windows! scenes, transcultural flows, and identity politics in popular music from post-soviet st. petersburg. phd dissertation. kobenhavns universitet, copenhagen. karin bijsterveld and jose van dijck, eds. 2009. sound souvenirs: audio technologies, memory and cultural practices. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. reviewed by geeta dayal r. murray schafer coined the term "sound souvenirs" in the soundscape (1994 [1977]: 240) to describe what the editors of the eponymous book sound souvenirs describe as "endangered sounds, such as the sounds of pre-industrial life, that could be captured by recording technologies or stored in archives, and thus remembered after their extinction" (2009:13). schafer himself, however, only casually mentioned the phrase in tandem with the more predominant concept of "sound marks; , the sonic equivalents oflandmarks (1977: 1 0,239). subsequent scholarship also did not explicitly address sound souvenirs as it did other ideas from schafer's work, such as "schizophonia;' or the splitting of a sound from its source (e.g., feld 1994, truax, 2001, sterne 2006). over 40 years later, editors karin bijsterveld and jose van dijck build on the soundscape's lineage, as interpreted and expanded by steven feld (1994), thomas porcello (2005), and other works that foreground sound technologies as central to cultural memory; they argue in their introduction that the "sound souvenirs" lining our shelves still have yet to receive significant scholarly attention, and this book at­ tempts to address that gap. its contributors explore the cultural practices of archiving, collecting, resuscitating, and restoring past sounds in order to probe the links between sound and memory; this includes examining the ephemera surrounding recorded sound-reel-to-reel tapes, vinyl records, and so on-along with the sound-making devices themselves, old and new, from transistor radios to cassette recorders to ipods. the ambitious collection encompasses twelve chapters in four sections-"storing sound," "auditory nostalgia," "technostalgia," and "earwitnessing"-each attending to different aspects of the connections between memory, cultural practices, and audio technologies. the first sec­ tion, "storing sound," explores the history of archiving sound recordings, from the supposed permanence of digital file storage to the practice of creating mix tapes. "auditory nostalgia" explores the connection between memory and portable audio technologies such as radios, walkmans, and ipods. "technostalgia," refers to the nostalgia for the sound of antiquated technologies: that special analog amplifier, that vintage 1970s synthesizer. "earwitnessing;' the final section, is titled after another word schafer de­ fined (1994 [1977]: 2 72), the aural counterpart to being an eyewitness; the current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) (i;) 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 119 120 current musicology two chapters in this section investigate sound memories of world war ii, particularly the memories of german survivors of the nazi period, told through sound. bijsterveld and van dijck have assembled an impressive stock of con­ tributors from the fields of science and technology studies and communica­ tion studies, many of who specialize in sound studies (including jonathan sterne, trevor pinch, michael bull, and hans-joachim braun). only one is a musicologist by training, timothy d. taylor-dually an ethnomusicologist known for his work on global circulations of recorded music-who writes brilliantly here on performance and nostalgia in the oldies doo-wop circuit. bijsterveld herself is one of the leading scholars in sound studies; she is the author of mechanical sound: technology, culture and problems of noise in the twentieth century (2008) and the paper "the diabolical symphony of the mechanical age: technology and symbolism of sound in european and north american noise abatement campaigns, 1900-40" (2001). jonathan sterne, offering a taster of his highly anticipated second book, mp3: the meaning of a format and a followup to hi" 2006 article "the mp3 as cultural artifact;' writes on the paradox of digital preservation: "although digital technology allows for unprecedented ease in the transfer and stock­ piling of recordings, the current condition of plenitude is something of an illusion" (64). the minute a hard drive fails, data is lost-completely and most likely irretrievably. analog recordings may fade, vinyl records and magnetic tape may get damaged and dusty, but a hard drive of mp3s can be lost immediately and forever, and the life span of these digital recordings is far more fleeting than we think. in "taking your favorite sound along: portable audio technologies for mobile music listening," heike weber focuses on the use of portable radios in the 1950s-60s and the emergence of the walkman during the 1970s and 1980s in west germany. weber's well-researched contribution brings a number of intriguing statistics to the fore. the increase of portable radio sales in the 1950s, she writes, "demonstrated west germany's transforma­ tion from a postwar economy of scarcity and tight household budgets to a mass consumer society with increasing consumption, leisure and mobility" (71). "mobile music listening" is not what we may mean it to be today; the average west german "portable" radio in the 1950s boasted high sound quality, but tipped the scales at up to five kilograms (71). listening to the radio back then tended to be a communal activity; by the time of the walkman in the 1970s, many west germans saw headphone listening-and the individualized consumption it portrayed-as rather odd. the "wiring" of headphones to individual listeners was even sometimes compared to a medical transfusion (77 -78). geeta dayal timothy taylor's chapter on nostalgia for doo-wop, a form of american "oldies" music, proves another striking contribution. taylor begins with anecdotal observations from his visits to a small town on the jersey shore where the genre thrives to this day. doo-wop encapsulated youthful inno­ cence and teenage passion-taylor quotes the lyrics to the penguins's classic "earth angel" to illustrate this-but as compelling of a fantasy as it was, the music had a very brief shelf life. it was quickly replaced by rock 'n' roll, a genre with more "adult" themes, as the 1950s progressed. doo-wop's rapid rise and fall also helped to make the genre the domain of rabid collectors; taylor quotes jeffrey melnick, who argues that "doo-wop was transformed into a collector's artifact more quickly, more decisively, and more zealously than perhaps any other sub genre of american music" (melnick 1997:137, 97). despite its status as a recorded artifact, doo-wop plays out its nostalgia today, interestingly, through live performances-a "technology of nostalgia, or prosthetic memory," as taylor writes, where performers in these revival groups and listeners act out the "passions of youth and the promise of racial harmony" (106). continuing to probe the connections between doo-wop and race in the 1950s, taylor contends that the genre articulated promises of integration and optimism about race. "this was a unique cultural moment in american history," he argues, "where there was perhaps more crossover by african american musicians to white audiences than at any other point in american history" (101). trevor pinch and david reinecke's chapter, "technostalgia: how old gear lives on in new music," examines the musicians and collectors who value vintage synthesizers, such as the moog minimoog, and bygone guitars, so much so that a process known as "relicing," in which new guitars are made to look and sound aged, has become popular. pinch already has a good deal of experience with technostalgia; in his book analog days (2004) with frank trocco, he traced the history and impact of the cultish moog synthesizer, along with the arp, buchla, and ems synthesizers. in sound souvenirs, he and reinecke focus on interviews with four musicians who all profess a fondness for old gear, such as analog synths, vintage amps, and classic les paul guitars. but what is striking here is that all four of the musicians are men, several of whom hold positions in academic depart­ ments. do, for instance, female artists share a similar fascination with old '70s analog technology? do they find value, in pinch and reinecke's words, in "the uniqueness of analog sound, its imprecisions and imperfections, and the noise it produces, which [john, one of the musicians profiled] also thinks evokes human emotion" (l65)? what about musicians of different cultures, races, ages, and ethnicities? in its small sample of examined cases, pinch and reinecke's contribution raises further questions by its exclusivity and the nature of its omissions. 121 122 current musicology one of the most revelatory pieces is carolyn birdsall's chapter, "earwitnessing: sound memories of the nazi period." for her contribution, birdsall interviewed several german survivors of the nazi era living in dusseldorf. while many survivors have been repeatedly asked about their visual memories, few have been specifically questioned regarding their memories of sounds. the relationship between trauma and visual images has received considerable scholarly attention (e.g., bennett 2005, kraft 2006, katalin 2007), but the connections between sound and trauma are less well explored (outside the realm of music therapy and medical literature ). during birdsall's extensive oral history interviews, she observed that her interviewees would often jump out of their chairs or raise their arms to demonstrate how they were forced to perform the "heil hitler" salute; some began to stamp their feet while others would begin singing the lyrics to the national anthem. birdsall uses the cultural geographer ben anderson's framework on the role of sound in the embodied process of remembering, with its three categories: "habit memory;' "intentional remembering;' and "involuntary remember­ ing" (2004). of her explorations into these three forms of remembering, the involuntary variety is the most striking. birdsall dwells on the nature of unanticipated memory through this lens of anderson's concept and marcel proust's related idea of "memo ire involuntaire," (176). one interviewee still panics and clutches her chest whenever she hears sirens; another said that she can only speak in plattdeutsch, a german dialect she has not used since world war ii, when she experiences a shock today (177). the elderly subjects that birdsall studied had difficulty with their "sound memories," mixing the sounds of the past with the sounds of the present. "while the sounds associ­ ated with bombings, such as sirens, were referred to as memories located in the past," birdsall writes, "the actual event of the bombing was acted out as occurring in the present" (177-178). sound souvenirs is an ambitious volume, with a vision, depth, and expansiveness that stretches far beyond its mere 218 pages. uniting the four disparate sections under the umbrella of "sound souvenirs" feels unwieldy and somewhat arbitrary at points. this collection is really four separate books in one; each of the four sections could have easily been expanded into its own anthology. the book could also benefit from expanding its scope beyond western europe and the united states. overall, sound souvenirs is an admirable effort in the rapidly growing field of sound studies, anticipating several entry points for further exploration. geeta dayal references anderson, ben. 2004. "recorded music and practices of remembering." social and cultural geography 5: 3-20. bijsterveld, karin. 2008. mechanical sound: technology, culture, and public problems of noise in the twentieth century. cambridge, ma: mit press. ~. 2001. "the diabolical symphony of the mechanical age: technology and symbolism of sound in european and north american noise abatement campaigns, 1900-40." social studies of science 31 (l): 37-70. feld, steven. 1994. "from schizophonia to schismogenesis: the discourses and practices of 'world music' and 'world beat.'" in music grooves, charles keil and steven feld. chicago: university of chicago press. melnick, jeffrey. 1997. '''story untold: the black men and white sounds of doo-wop." in whiteness: critical reader, ed. mike hill. new york: new york university press. pinch, trevor and frank trocco. 2004. analog days: the invention and impact of the moog synthesizer. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. schafer, r. murray. 1994 [1977]. the soundscape: our sonic environment and the tuning of the world. rochester, vt: destiny books. sterne, jonathan. 2006. "the mp3 as cultural artifact." new media and society 8(5): 825842. 123 215 originally published as a special supplement to the open space magazine © 2013 by j. k. randall © 2013 by j. k. randall cover painting “larch” by b. y. randall book & cover design by open space music published 2013 by open space www.the-open-space.org special supplement to the open space magazine issn #1525-4267 { -in response to intero and canto infinito -} j.k.randall to astonish the roses 7 e-mails to walter branchi roses #1 dear walter, since your last visit { – when you played us a cd of an intero episode, in a bedroom chock-full of beds, desks, chairs, stacks of books and music, bookcases, lp’s & cd’s, lp-cases, cd-cases, tv and stereo systems, a filing cabinet, and (says ruth) a certain amount of dirt; and featuring a picture window with a pleasant enough view out to vegetation of the season; -and you left me a copy of your forthcoming book – } i’ve been thinking and scribbling about more or less everything, not excluding my 12+1 liszt tone-poems, nor defunct music theory / history 101, nor why i balk at your systems-theory superstructures. { – but not at your music ( -i’m always sure i’m with you. -), nor at your quirky experiences and inspiring visions, nor at seeing a patch of sky fully for the first time, nor at sonic integration with our environment, nor at your astonishing, perspicacious sentence for the ages : (born immortal : don’t fail to instruct your heirs, when they plant you in a deservedly green cemetery, to engrave this line on your principal monument) : “i write music to astonish the roses.”. -} as a result, i think i have distilled some questions on which our attitudes run skew; so who better to inflict it all on than him who set me off. you’ve earned yourself e-mails! but where to start? well, how about here?: from all the way back to our talk in rome (late 70’s?) about a nono piece in a car on the way home after, i’ve gleaned that we have contrasting attitudes toward the drift of history, and in particular the drift of music history. i think you think that history is going somewhere (or at least flowing in some direction) and that we should create for, and in response to, our location, or moment, in that drift. say i: bullshit. the only thing that history ever did for me was put me in the middle of it. for this favor i owe it nothing in particular. i’m happy to cherish, or deplore, or ignore its leavings, and i enthusiastically do: but we call our own current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 216 3 14’20”(haitink), where -across a reverberant silence - { -no doubt i have precedingly immersed my ear in a web of motivic transformations. but a motivic description, while knowledgeably “analytical”, consigns what follows (a great moment in a great piece, by the way ) to the wrong dimension at the wrong temperature; shies away from probing, or even ‘fessing-up to, what it is we love about all this, and why it’s on the program. as with intero, we seem to be listening thru. -} we ease into a space we’ve been waiting all our lives to enter. (sounds suspiciously like heaven -a sort of tibetan heaven -a heaven of desire become nostalgia.) socko so far. we’ve all been there & back. so what? (liszt went there all the time.) !hold it! q & a: can’t we just say that the trajectory of transformed motifs, with whatever conventional penumbra, induces our private extramusical fantasies? sure. so what are your scenarios supposed to do for us? they go fishing in the waters of your psychic whatnots; which is surely the dimension in which music thrives. is such a scenario a programme? depends who wrote it. the composer? or not. do such scenarios name entities and define techniques? no. what, then? they attempt to capture flavor, point, tone, bite, feel, drift, raison d’etre. of? intensely focused listenings. in what sense of focused? at deepest attention fully absorbing, and absorbed by, and acoustically invested in, an ongoing piece-driven psychic integration.. will your scenario tell us how the piece goes, what the piece does? no. not quite. sort of. it will try, from its angle, to induce in us, after the fact, an appropriately conducive sensibility. 2 shots. (in saying this, i feel very much the american cowboy; but as bob sadin and henry james both insisted, that’s america vs. europe for you.) just as there is no god and he’s my personal enemy, there is no drift and it flows every which way. we even put leonard bernstein and geo. w. bush in charge of it for a while. so what now? sit tight. roses #2 follows at my leisure. love, jim roses #2 dear walter, you asked me a striking question once -i’ve forgotten what i was blathering about; something future-oriented i think -namely: was i talking about music or about sound? from almost anyone else, i would have assumed that the questioner valorized, as i habitually do, music. but no, you were implying something unexpected: that it was desirable to speculate about sound divested of “musical”. (you’ll be able to judge how far i’ve progressed.) sound. intero originates in an initially uninterpreted set of ratios which, in composing, you interpret into the domain of frequency, and thence into (all?) domains of spatial and temporal interest. intero ( -with all that crap in the room plus a bureau which i forgot to mention -) integrates us with our environment in a sonically driven healing to which nothing is external because everything (especially all that crap in my room) is embraced. cool! but how is it with my liszt tone-poems? (i’ve got the whole baker’s dozen of them.) i imagine i’m noticing the difference between listening to (l t-p) and listening thru (int); - but pretty soon i balk. it goes like this: (i draw freely from canto infinito.) my liszt tone-poems (haitink/a.joo/karajan/halasz) are indeed oozing with thematic temporal processes: transformations of time-loaded cells, trajectories (i like that word used this way), and outcomes (logical? – more often existential). we listen to, and to them: and of course we reject any environmental action as external, as interloper. roger. so check out that place in heroide funebre/(haitink) at 217 3 14’20”(haitink), where -across a reverberant silence - { -no doubt i have precedingly immersed my ear in a web of motivic transformations. but a motivic description, while knowledgeably “analytical”, consigns what follows (a great moment in a great piece, by the way ) to the wrong dimension at the wrong temperature; shies away from probing, or even ‘fessing-up to, what it is we love about all this, and why it’s on the program. as with intero, we seem to be listening thru. -} we ease into a space we’ve been waiting all our lives to enter. (sounds suspiciously like heaven -a sort of tibetan heaven -a heaven of desire become nostalgia.) socko so far. we’ve all been there & back. so what? (liszt went there all the time.) !hold it! q & a: can’t we just say that the trajectory of transformed motifs, with whatever conventional penumbra, induces our private extramusical fantasies? sure. so what are your scenarios supposed to do for us? they go fishing in the waters of your psychic whatnots; which is surely the dimension in which music thrives. is such a scenario a programme? depends who wrote it. the composer? or not. do such scenarios name entities and define techniques? no. what, then? they attempt to capture flavor, point, tone, bite, feel, drift, raison d’etre. of? intensely focused listenings. in what sense of focused? at deepest attention fully absorbing, and absorbed by, and acoustically invested in, an ongoing piece-driven psychic integration.. will your scenario tell us how the piece goes, what the piece does? no. not quite. sort of. it will try, from its angle, to induce in us, after the fact, an appropriately conducive sensibility. 2 shots. (in saying this, i feel very much the american cowboy; but as bob sadin and henry james both insisted, that’s america vs. europe for you.) just as there is no god and he’s my personal enemy, there is no drift and it flows every which way. we even put leonard bernstein and geo. w. bush in charge of it for a while. so what now? sit tight. roses #2 follows at my leisure. love, jim roses #2 dear walter, you asked me a striking question once -i’ve forgotten what i was blathering about; something future-oriented i think -namely: was i talking about music or about sound? from almost anyone else, i would have assumed that the questioner valorized, as i habitually do, music. but no, you were implying something unexpected: that it was desirable to speculate about sound divested of “musical”. (you’ll be able to judge how far i’ve progressed.) sound. intero originates in an initially uninterpreted set of ratios which, in composing, you interpret into the domain of frequency, and thence into (all?) domains of spatial and temporal interest. intero ( -with all that crap in the room plus a bureau which i forgot to mention -) integrates us with our environment in a sonically driven healing to which nothing is external because everything (especially all that crap in my room) is embraced. cool! but how is it with my liszt tone-poems? (i’ve got the whole baker’s dozen of them.) i imagine i’m noticing the difference between listening to (l t-p) and listening thru (int); - but pretty soon i balk. it goes like this: (i draw freely from canto infinito.) my liszt tone-poems (haitink/a.joo/karajan/halasz) are indeed oozing with thematic temporal processes: transformations of time-loaded cells, trajectories (i like that word used this way), and outcomes (logical? – more often existential). we listen to, and to them: and of course we reject any environmental action as external, as interloper. roger. so check out that place in heroide funebre/(haitink) at 218 4 conducive to what? conducive to absorbing, and being absorbed in, an intensely focused listening. shouldn’t we absorb such a scenario in advance? no. don’t. a scenario should blossom only in the garden of memory. why not just say how the piece goes, what the piece does? because only the piece can say what it does. only the piece can do what only you can hear. aren’t we talking about just romantic music? no. get off that. don’t resist the dance/gesture/voice of bach suites & partitas; the ingenious discourse of late haydn quartets; beethoven’s existential roil; the soul-to-soul of slow chopin; bruckner’s exaltations; the psych wards of middle schoenberg. so are all the masterpieces of standard repertoire, then, programme music? sure. -with several conspicuous exceptions: le sacre du printemps (diaghilev & disney notwithstanding), and the keyboard sonatas (the fast ones) of domenico scarlatti. but what about intero, our original psychic integrator? (perhaps it will resurface in roses #3.) and sound? love, jim roses #3 dear walter, let’s back up to the sound of all that crap in my room (atcrimr). clearly the locus of my psychic integration is my own idiosyncratic head, whatever may have accumulated in my room. but atcrimr is not merely an environment in which a cd got played, it’s what intero was processing and being processed by. (for heroide i‘m somewhere else. i’m off to 219 5 siegfried’s funeral, on our way to heaven. and you?) in hearing the atcrimr manifestation of intero, i’m with it: but what’s the it that i’m with? better question: what am i doing? i need some terms: “crossover” will mean what it needs to mean (my model is humpty dumpty) to render insightful the sentence in which it appears, and will thus acquire meaning on the fly. -to “click in” is to cross over. for plato’s slaveboy, geometric talk suddenly clicks in as proof. listening is revelatory. anonymous road and driveway noise -for benji and lacey too -suddenly clicks in as here comes ruth! listening is triggered. a puzzling birdcall, researched, clicks in as cardinal. listening is reasoned. is that warhorse by sch? sch? mend? dvor? can’t place it. just doesn’t click in. (-as always, it’s grieg --) no crossover. listening is competitive. evidentiary. reminiscent. emma and beth tune the viola to the flute. verdict: no, for a while, then yes! bango! (almost a composing-out of crossover.) from jangling, we suddenly emerge in tune. there blooms, in humble glory, in the doubledback-upon domain of pitch, a pitch. listening is purposeful. acquisitive. conquers. doubling-back-upon, to vivify the sheer fact of pitch, is rampant in scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas (the fast ones (say, k443, k1, k283)) which show off for us by juggling the crown jewels; by making glittering notes the whole show. in their procrustean beds, sacre’s doubled-back-upon pitches -in neon, under strobelights -whine, cringe, stompdance, chatter, wiggle, seethe, scuffle, drag, strut, bump & grind, trudge, stutter, wriggle, proclaim, scamper, moan, twirl, scrape, riot, yowl, kibbitz, wheeze [ pick 6 ] ; 4 conducive to what? conducive to absorbing, and being absorbed in, an intensely focused listening. shouldn’t we absorb such a scenario in advance? no. don’t. a scenario should blossom only in the garden of memory. why not just say how the piece goes, what the piece does? because only the piece can say what it does. only the piece can do what only you can hear. aren’t we talking about just romantic music? no. get off that. don’t resist the dance/gesture/voice of bach suites & partitas; the ingenious discourse of late haydn quartets; beethoven’s existential roil; the soul-to-soul of slow chopin; bruckner’s exaltations; the psych wards of middle schoenberg. so are all the masterpieces of standard repertoire, then, programme music? sure. -with several conspicuous exceptions: le sacre du printemps (diaghilev & disney notwithstanding), and the keyboard sonatas (the fast ones) of domenico scarlatti. but what about intero, our original psychic integrator? (perhaps it will resurface in roses #3.) and sound? love, jim roses #3 dear walter, let’s back up to the sound of all that crap in my room (atcrimr). clearly the locus of my psychic integration is my own idiosyncratic head, whatever may have accumulated in my room. but atcrimr is not merely an environment in which a cd got played, it’s what intero was processing and being processed by. (for heroide i‘m somewhere else. i’m off to 220 6 should they speak, they address neither us nor any concern of ours. (for kierkegaard’s knight of faith, the crossover to sanctity likewise doubles back on itself. returns to the same old world of ordinary, of everyday. but with the difference that’s everything.) couldn’t we say that all masterpieces of standard repertoire, having clicked in, enliven, even electrify, the sheer fact of pitch? -bearing whatever burdens. sure. listenings all. composing is listening. originating in a precompositional pitchclass-construction, an incipient piece burgeons. i project & follow. {by the way, do you remember your silent darkened-room shtick with a flame, and michela with a reflecting mirror (--did you know that michela refers to you as a magician? (to whom greetings, by the way. congratulate her for her contributions to canto, and ask her to tell you the plot of body heat (wm. hurt & k. turner), which we saw in trenton with florence. (she’ll give you a european recount.))--), and a darkened tv screen reflecting, and reflecting mirrored reflections?} (a classic, from the old days in the atcrimr-room -but a classic of what?)} to cross over is to happen. crossovers swing. diz & bird on an old folkways lp. aborted takes on #’s 1 & 2: just notes, man. (what the hell are they trying to do?) take #3!!!!! they hit it and you know it. ensemble is listening. to listen musically is voluntary, willful. -is to cross over afresh, even unto bizarre or unwanted. (tom hajdu & andy milburn on late beethoven quartets: “they mess with your mind, man.” jkr on a moment in heroide: “i’ve waited all my life for this.”) 221 7 {in a sentimental vein, i remember a sensitive, very bright student, whose pianoplaying was practiceroom primitive. i tell her this & that, make intricate or sweeping gestures, hum & grunt, and take a few swipes at the keyboard myself. she earnestly makes no progress for about 20 minutes; until **eureka!**, she suddenly sounds like an artiste. the class is justifiably astonished, as i am, and she is. she crosses over and never reverts. (did you know that she is alive and well in wisconsin, married to a preacher, and happily immersed in music?)} solo is listening. my best try so far for intero: atcrimr clicks in – absolved? -as posed, angular, efflorescence; destabilized by that faintly insidious underground purr. (have we raised the obvious question?) in our future: freedom from what. why i balk at other people’s generalizations. visual timeshapes. can intero find a clean home? and much more. so don’t fret! love, jim roses #4 dear walter, of space & time. and ethics. (sound can wait.) (it’s back to the old days again.) even then, seeds & symptoms of diverging paths lurked. and a veritable gulf yawned between princeton’s early sonic sessions and the sparkling improvisations of rome’s nuova consonanza on the lp which you gave me. convincingly, your group had aimed explicitly at a sonically specified style and outcome ( -one of your favorites “ended in forte” -) and had achieved riveting concert pieces on the cutting edge of instrumental and compositional virtuosity. but for us, as you understood, such outcomes were not merely unobtainable; ( -– nuova consonanza was already in your rearview mirror, and you were 6 should they speak, they address neither us nor any concern of ours. (for kierkegaard’s knight of faith, the crossover to sanctity likewise doubles back on itself. returns to the same old world of ordinary, of everyday. but with the difference that’s everything.) couldn’t we say that all masterpieces of standard repertoire, having clicked in, enliven, even electrify, the sheer fact of pitch? -bearing whatever burdens. sure. listenings all. composing is listening. originating in a precompositional pitchclass-construction, an incipient piece burgeons. i project & follow. {by the way, do you remember your silent darkened-room shtick with a flame, and michela with a reflecting mirror (--did you know that michela refers to you as a magician? (to whom greetings, by the way. congratulate her for her contributions to canto, and ask her to tell you the plot of body heat (wm. hurt & k. turner), which we saw in trenton with florence. (she’ll give you a european recount.))--), and a darkened tv screen reflecting, and reflecting mirrored reflections?} (a classic, from the old days in the atcrimr-room -but a classic of what?)} to cross over is to happen. crossovers swing. diz & bird on an old folkways lp. aborted takes on #’s 1 & 2: just notes, man. (what the hell are they trying to do?) take #3!!!!! they hit it and you know it. ensemble is listening. to listen musically is voluntary, willful. -is to cross over afresh, even unto bizarre or unwanted. (tom hajdu & andy milburn on late beethoven quartets: “they mess with your mind, man.” jkr on a moment in heroide: “i’ve waited all my life for this.”) 222 8 moving, by way of intermedia (not “mixed”, not “multi”: the distinction was important to you), into the computerized suburbs of intero -) they were also unwanted. in fact, they were not just frowned upon; they were outlawed. why was that? first of all, there was no audience – only the small handful of participants: we weren’t performing for anybody. (quoth dave madole: we got together to make a tape which we could admire ourselves for having made.) and a participant need not be a musician. nor was any kind of sound either prescribed or proscribed. conventional sounds, unconventional, musical, nonmusical; instruments, voices, devices; all were welcome. our preliminary agreements were, in fact, neither sonic nor musicformal: they were ethical and social. be nice: contribute as needed -invitingly. listen to the whole, not just yours, as yours. no soloistic takeovers -which inject their own, not your, inflection into the timeflow {krishnamurti: you didn’t create the world, you’re just responsible for it.} as the number of participants increased, we began to envision our sessions as model interactions within an anarchist community ( -most of us were, of course, on the university dole -), with equal emphasis on anarchist and community. our objective was to maintain and shape whatever was emerging -with a bias toward enhanced presence, and away from crowding -devoid of invidious virtuosity; dazzle-free. ii. my maiden voyage into extrasonic space (by way of pineconepushing on a bounded surface) was a direct outgrowth of sonic sessions (solos & interactive duos, both yclept meditations), whose exclusivity of sound had begun to seem arbitrary. yet so centrally was timeflow my addiction, that i felt that pushing pinecones around was, in the peculiar sense in which we used them, not only like music, it was music. sure, they were nonsonic, and sure, they formed configurations in space -even little dramas, when pushed by michela or elisabeth -but for me each push was an inflection of, a stage in, a timeflow. and i realized then that music for me was not so much timeflow in the particular domain of sound, as a particular way of 223 9 shaping and apprehending timeflow. the field of action is my desktop we, two of us, (but neither of us you: you’re busy with marc, tweaking the computer) sit comfortably across from, and facing, each other (we cooperate, not compete) (no object, no win) each of us has a concealed stash of small objects, somewhere off the desk (at birth in rome, pinecones, which proliferate on the academy lawn; and a massive old desk, from some other century -with 2-ended drawers which facilitate subrosa chicanery) action consists of onputting, moving, offputting, faking -in whatever sequences or combinations -and includes whatever associated bodily movements or immobilities occur on or above the desktop who does what, when, and with what intention (if any), follows the same paths as an interactive sonic session -namely, the ethical and social penchants of a model anarchist community -except that the paths, albeit temporal, are visual, not sonic; but may accept sound and since it was as a musictime megalomaniac that i approached the extrasonic, our overarching aspiration was to create, shape, and maintain a (my) sense of timeflow in a visual field (some of our clearest, most dignified outcomes irresistibly suggested hermann hesse’s unformulated glass bead game. (once, we actually invited a well-known professor of german – specialty: hermann hesse – to sit in with us. (fuhgeddaboudit. no sale.))) we also very gradually, if but briefly, arrived at a way of incorporating our videotaper as an interacting participant, rather than as just a creative recorder whose result we would watch later. we placed the monitor where we all (including the videotaper) could focus on it, rather than on the desk, as our field of action: thereby, deskplay becomes the players’ way of responding to, and inflecting, the videotape. we and the videotaper are enabled to focus continually on one and the same evolving visual field, most importantly when 8 moving, by way of intermedia (not “mixed”, not “multi”: the distinction was important to you), into the computerized suburbs of intero -) they were also unwanted. in fact, they were not just frowned upon; they were outlawed. why was that? first of all, there was no audience – only the small handful of participants: we weren’t performing for anybody. (quoth dave madole: we got together to make a tape which we could admire ourselves for having made.) and a participant need not be a musician. nor was any kind of sound either prescribed or proscribed. conventional sounds, unconventional, musical, nonmusical; instruments, voices, devices; all were welcome. our preliminary agreements were, in fact, neither sonic nor musicformal: they were ethical and social. be nice: contribute as needed -invitingly. listen to the whole, not just yours, as yours. no soloistic takeovers -which inject their own, not your, inflection into the timeflow {krishnamurti: you didn’t create the world, you’re just responsible for it.} as the number of participants increased, we began to envision our sessions as model interactions within an anarchist community ( -most of us were, of course, on the university dole -), with equal emphasis on anarchist and community. our objective was to maintain and shape whatever was emerging -with a bias toward enhanced presence, and away from crowding -devoid of invidious virtuosity; dazzle-free. ii. my maiden voyage into extrasonic space (by way of pineconepushing on a bounded surface) was a direct outgrowth of sonic sessions (solos & interactive duos, both yclept meditations), whose exclusivity of sound had begun to seem arbitrary. yet so centrally was timeflow my addiction, that i felt that pushing pinecones around was, in the peculiar sense in which we used them, not only like music, it was music. sure, they were nonsonic, and sure, they formed configurations in space -even little dramas, when pushed by michela or elisabeth -but for me each push was an inflection of, a stage in, a timeflow. and i realized then that music for me was not so much timeflow in the particular domain of sound, as a particular way of 224 10 the camera, though always pointing at the desk, moves its aim around or zooms. iii. then you showed up with a flame. a candleshtick? or was it a matchshtick? or a zippo? reflections, reflections of reflections -there, elsewhere, nowhere - destabilized any sense of location or direction. space seemed not so much a dimension occupied by, as a fluid quality of. timeflow? flameflow? seize time by the forelock? action in the flamefield? -creating, inflecting, & sustaining the flow of time? perhaps. not likely. time had no footing, let alone flow or shape; in short, hung suspended. (nonsonic i could handle; but my music-derived sense of timeflow as the key to all got a jolt. perhaps the outreach of my musictime really did have inescapable limits, as when my attempted interactions with painters typically foundered on their unshakeable alternations of busy-busy time-in vs. have-a-look time-out, both shapeless.) or perhaps my formulation as flow was off the mark. indeed, in composing i am always aware of, and approve of, my bias against perfunctory propulsion, against “keeping it moving”, against reliable, automatic flow; and in favor of its earning its way. musictime must above all be the shape of its own events: layered, often gnarled, or stuttering, or still, or violent. but insubstantial? evanescent? perhaps. as for time and space, candleshtick suspended not just one or the other, but both. (must be what they mean by disembodied fantasy.) (or by intermedia?) hard to say. like any gripping “art”-work, it “crossed over” into, “clicked in” as, its own world. but what world was that? [footnote] my own most convincing occupancy of intermedia occurred when, in some contrived context or other, i hollered “cow!” as i flipped the lightswitch into the off position. (doesn’t surreal always verge on inter?) inter because i amalgamated sound, light, gesture, whatever. not mixed or 22511 multi precisely because cleansed of constituency or plurality. !!cow!! just a newdimensional uniblurt. iv. consider intero: forget all that marxist noise from your painter friends. anarchist community a la kropotkin? -not too close. interactive? other people are (part of the) environment. like buddhism, or any mysticism, it attunes you directly to a larger pre-existence -although not to a pre-existent all, or to some higher plane: to this actual environment. quietist? clarifying, intensifying, accepting. leaves you alone; needs no attention; has no designs. leaves time to you; seizes nothing by the forelock. will travel. indifferent? fosters a cleansed, refreshed, and renewed awareness of, and orientation within, real and present worlds. [coda] a last twist on our favorite interactive sonic sessions: in listening to the 45-minute tapes thereof, what was, in the doing, sensitively maintained and shaped timeflow becomes, in the listening, vast space containing arrested sonic populations discernible only as they choose, in small bits like fireflies, to notice us. having temporalized space, we have spatialized time, having meanwhile suspended both. is it any wonder that i reverted to pushing pianokeys one at a time? in which quagmire, let us adjourn to await roses #5. love, jim p.s. intero is color, tone, mood, texture, focus, illumination, subliminal, narcotic, self-immolating, transportable, all of the above, none of the above [ pick 3 ] . as i will further show. 10 the camera, though always pointing at the desk, moves its aim around or zooms. iii. then you showed up with a flame. a candleshtick? or was it a matchshtick? or a zippo? reflections, reflections of reflections -there, elsewhere, nowhere - destabilized any sense of location or direction. space seemed not so much a dimension occupied by, as a fluid quality of. timeflow? flameflow? seize time by the forelock? action in the flamefield? -creating, inflecting, & sustaining the flow of time? perhaps. not likely. time had no footing, let alone flow or shape; in short, hung suspended. (nonsonic i could handle; but my music-derived sense of timeflow as the key to all got a jolt. perhaps the outreach of my musictime really did have inescapable limits, as when my attempted interactions with painters typically foundered on their unshakeable alternations of busy-busy time-in vs. have-a-look time-out, both shapeless.) or perhaps my formulation as flow was off the mark. indeed, in composing i am always aware of, and approve of, my bias against perfunctory propulsion, against “keeping it moving”, against reliable, automatic flow; and in favor of its earning its way. musictime must above all be the shape of its own events: layered, often gnarled, or stuttering, or still, or violent. but insubstantial? evanescent? perhaps. as for time and space, candleshtick suspended not just one or the other, but both. (must be what they mean by disembodied fantasy.) (or by intermedia?) hard to say. like any gripping “art”-work, it “crossed over” into, “clicked in” as, its own world. but what world was that? [footnote] my own most convincing occupancy of intermedia occurred when, in some contrived context or other, i hollered “cow!” as i flipped the lightswitch into the off position. (doesn’t surreal always verge on inter?) inter because i amalgamated sound, light, gesture, whatever. not mixed or 226 12 roses #5 dear walter, having greatly sharpened my head in writing roses #4, i was moved, almost immediately upon e-mailing, to ask myself what some of my older (but still post-session-era) compositions might have to say to me now (in 2010) about “timeflow”. recall that roses #4, as is my preference, exacerbates uncertainty; yields no stance or doctrine. so i exhumed gap1-8, a series covering, i suppose, about 1.5 subsequent decades, and still close to my heart. (gap5 is your favorite; and i hope i gave you gap7 (4 discs and a deer) - which we’ll need when roses arrives at the awaited topic of ur-sound.) and? so. here’s my report: {2010 report on “timeflow” in gap1-8} gap -1st batch: sarcastically nailed to the clock; kills time, kills it dead; but does nothing, especially when it tries; masticates its own locations. gap2 (excl. pro. & epi., both of which i hereby expunge): nailed to the clock, but simply, willingly; childlike; straightforwardly curious; eyes wide & straight forward. gap3 (the 2 prelims): nailed to the clock, taking inventory; probing required investigatory tedium. gap3 (3): bits of the clock in cautious, tested flotation. gap4: time awaits occupancy, and is thrice gratified: 1st, with space; 2nd, with shape; and 3rd, with nostalgia. gap5: time in flotation; in highart ga-ga-land; melds now with eternity; turns stage into altar, auditorium into cathedral; breathes; waxes & wanes, humanly. gap6: public exploratory time; onstage; no holds barred; from rigor to tchaikovsky (also moussorgsky); a time had by all. gap7: ordinary, everyday time; private time; quite unfamiliar; no clock, but 22713 no highart gagaland either; entry is a sweat, but unimpeded; continues, indecipherable, thru iron necessity -unforced, but not revealed either; intimations of the higher plane; of time beyond time; of time within time. gap8: looks back; then vanishes. (i discover that neither western man nor the mysterious east has attained unequivocal display here.) which puts us on the verge of a new feature!: { cautionary crankytales } cct no.1: why other people’s generalizations & abstractions piss me off let’s hypothesize ourselves as sensitive, imaginative, thoughtful, creative, experienced, humans. and let’s say that, aside from having occupied x years of it, our chief insights into time derive from intimate involvement with ensemble improv, candleshtick, pinecones, gap1-8, and intero . and we wish to put our insights onto a solid scientific footing. ( -because science is the real thing.) so how do we do that? we ask the man who owns one: i.e., a physicist, a biologist, a psychologist, a historian, a mathematician, a mystic, whomever. it goes without saying that our expert has formulated his all-embracing theory of whatnot in relative ignorance of our hardwon, composerly insights. in fact, we discover that he, like several of his eminent colleagues who think of themselves as musiclovers, is thoroughly in the grip of conventional, disastrously inadequate, pseudomusical apprehensions; and it is these to which he has applied his all-embracing theory. so what do we do? in the overweening hope that we, after diligent study, will grasp his theory well enough to apply it more appropriately than he did, we study and we devise new applications and we thus advance to the forefront, to the cutting edge. we have put our hardwon insights on a respectable foundation. yes? 12 roses #5 dear walter, having greatly sharpened my head in writing roses #4, i was moved, almost immediately upon e-mailing, to ask myself what some of my older (but still post-session-era) compositions might have to say to me now (in 2010) about “timeflow”. recall that roses #4, as is my preference, exacerbates uncertainty; yields no stance or doctrine. so i exhumed gap1-8, a series covering, i suppose, about 1.5 subsequent decades, and still close to my heart. (gap5 is your favorite; and i hope i gave you gap7 (4 discs and a deer) - which we’ll need when roses arrives at the awaited topic of ur-sound.) and? so. here’s my report: {2010 report on “timeflow” in gap1-8} gap -1st batch: sarcastically nailed to the clock; kills time, kills it dead; but does nothing, especially when it tries; masticates its own locations. gap2 (excl. pro. & epi., both of which i hereby expunge): nailed to the clock, but simply, willingly; childlike; straightforwardly curious; eyes wide & straight forward. gap3 (the 2 prelims): nailed to the clock, taking inventory; probing required investigatory tedium. gap3 (3): bits of the clock in cautious, tested flotation. gap4: time awaits occupancy, and is thrice gratified: 1st, with space; 2nd, with shape; and 3rd, with nostalgia. gap5: time in flotation; in highart ga-ga-land; melds now with eternity; turns stage into altar, auditorium into cathedral; breathes; waxes & wanes, humanly. gap6: public exploratory time; onstage; no holds barred; from rigor to tchaikovsky (also moussorgsky); a time had by all. gap7: ordinary, everyday time; private time; quite unfamiliar; no clock, but 228 15 useful, handles on the world, inner and outer. (we can even scratch the itch that led stephen hawking to assert that soon we’ll have explained everything.) but the downside claims its own when we seek maximum rapport with some single individual in all its fullness ( -say, a rose, or the waldstein). what must we do to listen to the waldstein sonata as instantiation, as a sonata? my late musicologist colleague, harry powers, favored listening to music this way – known as intelligently. for me – and i hope for harry -we must not just notice what and where the second theme and development are, and snooze thru roughage and recap: we must really soak up and construe them as the vividly unique and specific flesh on this supportive, if previously owned, skeleton. this is heavy, predetermined spin. awkward but possible. occasionally harmless. even rewarding. okay. but why this spin? where did this “as” come from? we know wherefrom: from a peeling away of any and all things which weren’t evinced by all members of the target population; and were peeled away for that very reason. so why should that denuded leftover govern our hearing of any individual piece? in the waldstein, as in most pieces which engage me, the crosscurrents of the action are quite sufficient to vaporize any such thin articulant as sonata form; or at most to leave traces of it more as conceit than as structure, or essence, or seed, or path. so it’s not the mere fact of generalizing that i balk at: it’s the return to, the doubling-back-upon, the embraced, denuded individual. in performing this retro-maneuver, generalizing enables us to assert less & less about more & more. a degree is awarded. imagine that maligned, legendary ph.d. thesis entitled “misspellings in old southern cookbooks”. (i would have supported it.) surely such skewed angles and busted windows on language, custom, and culture might serve up the old south as intricately, as informatively, and as opulently as many an imaginable agricultural/sociological tract. 14 well, no. many of our insights didn’t fit -some of them were even in scientifically inadmissible dimensions -and were ignored or dropped. we achieved glossy solutions to problems not ours. our borrowed wisdom ejected the genuine and we feel no pain. ( -cct’s are designed to burrow, not to fly. -) my own opinion? ( -in hassling an issue, keep your nose close to the ground. -) we need pregnant specifics, not exotic abstractions. ( -jean shepherd, in his 4-hour midnight monologues on old time radio, used to sign off with a piece of advice: “keep your duff down and your knees loose; never give ‘em that high silhouette.”. -) ensemble improv, candleshtick, pinecones, gap1-8, intero, and the reflections which these and their progeny generate, are themselves our most potent and far-seeing investigators. and are more redolent of our talents and habits. which leads to cct no.2: { cautionary crankytales } cct no.2: another reason why other people’s generalizations & abstractions piss me off truth is not enough. sometimes it’s no use at all. consider: every note in the waldstein sonata is a transposition of the 1st. in heroide also. in fact, every note in the former transposes the 1st of the latter; and the latter, of the former. (if we pitch the snare.) a generalization embraces; and sheds light thru inclusion vs. exclusion. we must of course have peeled away all special or unique attributes from each of our included individuals, which thereby become instances, examples of. the upside is knowledge, principles, truths, laws; interesting, sometimes 22915 useful, handles on the world, inner and outer. (we can even scratch the itch that led stephen hawking to assert that soon we’ll have explained everything.) but the downside claims its own when we seek maximum rapport with some single individual in all its fullness ( -say, a rose, or the waldstein). what must we do to listen to the waldstein sonata as instantiation, as a sonata? my late musicologist colleague, harry powers, favored listening to music this way – known as intelligently. for me – and i hope for harry -we must not just notice what and where the second theme and development are, and snooze thru roughage and recap: we must really soak up and construe them as the vividly unique and specific flesh on this supportive, if previously owned, skeleton. this is heavy, predetermined spin. awkward but possible. occasionally harmless. even rewarding. okay. but why this spin? where did this “as” come from? we know wherefrom: from a peeling away of any and all things which weren’t evinced by all members of the target population; and were peeled away for that very reason. so why should that denuded leftover govern our hearing of any individual piece? in the waldstein, as in most pieces which engage me, the crosscurrents of the action are quite sufficient to vaporize any such thin articulant as sonata form; or at most to leave traces of it more as conceit than as structure, or essence, or seed, or path. so it’s not the mere fact of generalizing that i balk at: it’s the return to, the doubling-back-upon, the embraced, denuded individual. in performing this retro-maneuver, generalizing enables us to assert less & less about more & more. a degree is awarded. imagine that maligned, legendary ph.d. thesis entitled “misspellings in old southern cookbooks”. (i would have supported it.) surely such skewed angles and busted windows on language, custom, and culture might serve up the old south as intricately, as informatively, and as opulently as many an imaginable agricultural/sociological tract. 14 well, no. many of our insights didn’t fit -some of them were even in scientifically inadmissible dimensions -and were ignored or dropped. we achieved glossy solutions to problems not ours. our borrowed wisdom ejected the genuine and we feel no pain. ( -cct’s are designed to burrow, not to fly. -) my own opinion? ( -in hassling an issue, keep your nose close to the ground. -) we need pregnant specifics, not exotic abstractions. ( -jean shepherd, in his 4-hour midnight monologues on old time radio, used to sign off with a piece of advice: “keep your duff down and your knees loose; never give ‘em that high silhouette.”. -) ensemble improv, candleshtick, pinecones, gap1-8, intero, and the reflections which these and their progeny generate, are themselves our most potent and far-seeing investigators. and are more redolent of our talents and habits. which leads to cct no.2: { cautionary crankytales } cct no.2: another reason why other people’s generalizations & abstractions piss me off truth is not enough. sometimes it’s no use at all. consider: every note in the waldstein sonata is a transposition of the 1st. in heroide also. in fact, every note in the former transposes the 1st of the latter; and the latter, of the former. (if we pitch the snare.) a generalization embraces; and sheds light thru inclusion vs. exclusion. we must of course have peeled away all special or unique attributes from each of our included individuals, which thereby become instances, examples of. the upside is knowledge, principles, truths, laws; interesting, sometimes 230 17 is intero sublime? regrettably, i’ve long since forgotten the drift of jim webster’s informed discussion of the sublime in the liner notes to a volume of hogwood’s aborted series of haydn symphony recordings. (for our convenience, it’s translated into several languages none of which is italian.) let’s put the question more sharply: is intero transcendent? (sorry, jim w., if i’m way off.) there’s an obvious answer: the answer is no. no, because intero is avowedly designed for realworld settings. (this answer will be ignored.) i. piano sound is a ping, resonated; not actively sustained like flute or viola by human propulsion, just resonated. a ping won’t maintain or direct, or even have much, energy. at the core of individual pinged notes, we’ve got the reverse of urge -we’ve got instant nostalgia, decay, loss. some external force must initiate each next ping. successive pings must of course be timed and delivered just so: the next note always constitutes a rescue mission, an attempt to save and shape resonance. melody is like a pinball route -ping...........pingping...ping -and so on. since there is no flow of breath or lifeblood, continuity is an illusion -to be faked by the performer. but by what means? without pedal, the forging of continuity relies even more heavily on timing and weighting and overhang into what’s next. 16 so go ahead: delve in far enough, through a narrow enough window, to find out more & more about less & less; to smoke out the seed of everything. from which all will follow. does this sound like hawking too? to me, it sounds like penetrating. -like incising. what an individual piece of music does for me is sharpen or extend my sense of the possible. i emerge not with forms or styles or truths, but with stretched awareness, with clarified attention. { a last catechism } is it the case that for any statement, be it e’er so unlikely, some context, be it e’er so hokey, can be devised, within whose confines it will float? is it the case that for any statement, be it e’er so likely, some context, be it e’er so hokey, can be devised, within whose confines it will sink like a stone? in short, cannot your hokey be my swimming pool? yo ! truths: own your confinements. – your purposes. your ranges of applicability. yo ! falsies: ditto. – your purposes. your available loci of disagreement. intraculturally. >check< crossculturally. >check< {a $reward$ is posted for the 1st scintillatingly negative response.) $disqualification$ awaits a) statements about statements about statements about statements. b) barbers who shave themselves. c) any reference to helmut lachenmann. love, jim p.s.: can ur-sound wait much longer? roses #6 dear walter, a question arises. a question which must be addressed, sooner or later: (i prefer later.) (or perhaps, by indirection, sooner.) 23117 is intero sublime? regrettably, i’ve long since forgotten the drift of jim webster’s informed discussion of the sublime in the liner notes to a volume of hogwood’s aborted series of haydn symphony recordings. (for our convenience, it’s translated into several languages none of which is italian.) let’s put the question more sharply: is intero transcendent? (sorry, jim w., if i’m way off.) there’s an obvious answer: the answer is no. no, because intero is avowedly designed for realworld settings. (this answer will be ignored.) i. piano sound is a ping, resonated; not actively sustained like flute or viola by human propulsion, just resonated. a ping won’t maintain or direct, or even have much, energy. at the core of individual pinged notes, we’ve got the reverse of urge -we’ve got instant nostalgia, decay, loss. some external force must initiate each next ping. successive pings must of course be timed and delivered just so: the next note always constitutes a rescue mission, an attempt to save and shape resonance. melody is like a pinball route -ping...........pingping...ping -and so on. since there is no flow of breath or lifeblood, continuity is an illusion -to be faked by the performer. but by what means? without pedal, the forging of continuity relies even more heavily on timing and weighting and overhang into what’s next. 16 so go ahead: delve in far enough, through a narrow enough window, to find out more & more about less & less; to smoke out the seed of everything. from which all will follow. does this sound like hawking too? to me, it sounds like penetrating. -like incising. what an individual piece of music does for me is sharpen or extend my sense of the possible. i emerge not with forms or styles or truths, but with stretched awareness, with clarified attention. { a last catechism } is it the case that for any statement, be it e’er so unlikely, some context, be it e’er so hokey, can be devised, within whose confines it will float? is it the case that for any statement, be it e’er so likely, some context, be it e’er so hokey, can be devised, within whose confines it will sink like a stone? in short, cannot your hokey be my swimming pool? yo ! truths: own your confinements. – your purposes. your ranges of applicability. yo ! falsies: ditto. – your purposes. your available loci of disagreement. intraculturally. >check< crossculturally. >check< {a $reward$ is posted for the 1st scintillatingly negative response.) $disqualification$ awaits a) statements about statements about statements about statements. b) barbers who shave themselves. c) any reference to helmut lachenmann. love, jim p.s.: can ur-sound wait much longer? roses #6 dear walter, a question arises. a question which must be addressed, sooner or later: (i prefer later.) (or perhaps, by indirection, sooner.) 232 19 but not yours (and not an it), doesn’t assert or make demands, doesn’t announce itself or exhibit itself or proclaim itself or solicit attention. nocturnes transcribed for strings is a horse of a different color. notes become waystations of inner-directed pseudo-vocal curvatures, whose ping-free individual integrity neither owes much to, nor creates, any overwash of global resonance. a cutely compounded twist cct the contrast between brahms/handel on piano and the rubbra orchestration thereof is quite other. ever since michael conducted shostakovich’s sym 10 and the brahms double on the same princeton concert, i’ve hoped that an orchestration of the latter by the former would surface some day. but the rubbra arrangement of b/h, an expert sorting-out and colorizing of motifs and phrases, showed me my misconception. the frequently deplored dullness and monotony of brahms’ orchestration seems essential as a voice for the degree and style of his differentiations. rubbra puts marilyn’s gown on jackie. (atcrimr is ok for intero though.) some sweet sophistry sss pings, because there is no active propulsion by a performer’s breath or bow, are the foundation most amenable to a description of composition as composition with ( -as external to, as an arrangement of -) pre-existent sounds. gotcha!! (cf. canto infinito) but for breath and bow, a composer is specifying only some ground rules within which the performers -like the computer -must generate, in real time, every aspect of every microsecond of sound. the sharp contrast is with composition for keyboard, where the specifications leave microseconds to a higher power. a new feature { the complete course in theology } art of the fugue is notoriously ungrateful to performers. cct no.1: bach: contrapunktus xi / kocsis contrapunktus xi, on my cd’s, is available for harpsichord, for organ, or for various ensembles of winds or strings, or for some mixture. none have the least idea what this piece might become in actual sound -in which fix, much 18 with pedal, the flow of an accumulating resonance doubles back on the pings, creating a forward-pushing urge, or confirming a fade-out, or refreshing an opened space. pianists all groove on the shapes and shifts of this resonance, but none so gaudily, so inwardly, as leonskaja. a new feature { chopin comes to town } (if pianists “rush” more congenitally than string or wind players, it’s because they’re trying to ride that forward-pushing resonance -to catch up with it in order to keep it alive and pushing. so it pushes.) cct no.1: nocturnes op.9 / leonskaja in the actual polyphonic thing, the forward push of accumulating pedaled resonance washes over pings like water over pebbles - large pebbles, tiny pebbles, strings of pearls -multicolored, varicolored - (washedover pebbles, strings of pearls, whose undulations have created the overwash) which emerge upfront as you -as your (its) voice in the world, as upfront melody seeking just you in the anonymous resonance; your grammar deliciously overridden by the ebb & flow, by the billow & surge, of the worldvoice which singles you out, and is you -worldvoice of resonance which roars or caresses or whispers or tussles with you at your command. it is you -recognized -who has transcended. (david lewin used to complain about people who thought that if you flogged a dead horse long enough you’d get a horse of a different color.) intero transcends as sanctity transcends didn’t begin, has no end, favors no order, enhances all environments (question: is the pantheon episode of intero exportable?), is your life’s work 23319 but not yours (and not an it), doesn’t assert or make demands, doesn’t announce itself or exhibit itself or proclaim itself or solicit attention. nocturnes transcribed for strings is a horse of a different color. notes become waystations of inner-directed pseudo-vocal curvatures, whose ping-free individual integrity neither owes much to, nor creates, any overwash of global resonance. a cutely compounded twist cct the contrast between brahms/handel on piano and the rubbra orchestration thereof is quite other. ever since michael conducted shostakovich’s sym 10 and the brahms double on the same princeton concert, i’ve hoped that an orchestration of the latter by the former would surface some day. but the rubbra arrangement of b/h, an expert sorting-out and colorizing of motifs and phrases, showed me my misconception. the frequently deplored dullness and monotony of brahms’ orchestration seems essential as a voice for the degree and style of his differentiations. rubbra puts marilyn’s gown on jackie. (atcrimr is ok for intero though.) some sweet sophistry sss pings, because there is no active propulsion by a performer’s breath or bow, are the foundation most amenable to a description of composition as composition with ( -as external to, as an arrangement of -) pre-existent sounds. gotcha!! (cf. canto infinito) but for breath and bow, a composer is specifying only some ground rules within which the performers -like the computer -must generate, in real time, every aspect of every microsecond of sound. the sharp contrast is with composition for keyboard, where the specifications leave microseconds to a higher power. a new feature { the complete course in theology } art of the fugue is notoriously ungrateful to performers. cct no.1: bach: contrapunktus xi / kocsis contrapunktus xi, on my cd’s, is available for harpsichord, for organ, or for various ensembles of winds or strings, or for some mixture. none have the least idea what this piece might become in actual sound -in which fix, much 18 with pedal, the flow of an accumulating resonance doubles back on the pings, creating a forward-pushing urge, or confirming a fade-out, or refreshing an opened space. pianists all groove on the shapes and shifts of this resonance, but none so gaudily, so inwardly, as leonskaja. a new feature { chopin comes to town } (if pianists “rush” more congenitally than string or wind players, it’s because they’re trying to ride that forward-pushing resonance -to catch up with it in order to keep it alive and pushing. so it pushes.) cct no.1: nocturnes op.9 / leonskaja in the actual polyphonic thing, the forward push of accumulating pedaled resonance washes over pings like water over pebbles - large pebbles, tiny pebbles, strings of pearls -multicolored, varicolored - (washedover pebbles, strings of pearls, whose undulations have created the overwash) which emerge upfront as you -as your (its) voice in the world, as upfront melody seeking just you in the anonymous resonance; your grammar deliciously overridden by the ebb & flow, by the billow & surge, of the worldvoice which singles you out, and is you -worldvoice of resonance which roars or caresses or whispers or tussles with you at your command. it is you -recognized -who has transcended. (david lewin used to complain about people who thought that if you flogged a dead horse long enough you’d get a horse of a different color.) intero transcends as sanctity transcends didn’t begin, has no end, favors no order, enhances all environments (question: is the pantheon episode of intero exportable?), is your life’s work 234 21 environmental prospectus: bach heeds the resonance it has created. beethoven rides the resonance it’s creating. chopin bathes, luxuriates, in resonance. intero is a resonance. bruckner doesn’t need any so what’s left? { never was anguish so familiar or continuance so steadfast or anticipation so accommodated, so glowing } cct no.2: bruckner: symphony #6, ii. adagio / celibidache but could what it asserts be true? it’s especially the bowed strings -sure, a lockerful of brass enjoys the occasional wagnerian sidestep; sure, the flutes flutter -but it’s the massed bowed strings which stretch out your breathing and mess with your pulse rate. (it is in this inmost, moment-by-moment, sense -not in elapsed clocktime - that bruckner runs long. and it’s thru his devoted care in the shaping of the interior of each note that celibidache makes even jochum sound cautious, and the rest of ‘em, as he himself has conceded, like slobs.) these forever overreaching strings evade the stricture -( “generalization tells us less & less about more & more”) -by embracing so aggressively, and penetrating so mercilessly, a core of human. they up the dose to the same thing about more & more. they smoke out the seeds of everything for microscopic empathization. all follows. every tremor is sought and undergone. every guilt is massaged. every confession is ratified. every joy is finessed. rapport trumps power & 20 praise is accorded the composer as a master of pure mathematics. (that just ain’t it: in the electronic age we’ve been able to explore, as sound, many ingenious mathematical paths, none of which lead to j.s.bach.) of my cd’s, some feature a jiggy bounce; some, a heartfelt innigkeit; some, solid oldfashioned musicianship with well-formed phrases and highlighted entrances of subjects (3 i think); and all make silly or deadly music, either on their own, or in comparison to the performance on (of all things) solo piano by zoltan kocsis. kocsis plays at an unflinching granite pace in an unvarying mezzo dynamic; there is no curvature of motif or phrase; there is no overhang of one note onto the next; no accumulating resonance (i hear no pedal, ever); no forward impulse, no articulation, no entrances, no distinctions between voices -in short, no yielding to any human preference of thought or grasp or feeling. it terminates by grinding to a halt. { how about we follow from music and go past hollowed-out sound & the integrity of drained pitch down to ursound? } that a mere human could bring this all off is astounding when you consider how awkwardly 4-voice fugues lie under the hand. but this is inside skinny, extraneous to what actually transpires: there is no sweat, no such thing as difficulty, and no concession to exigency or virtuosity which might reveal the existence of, even draw attention to, an executant. there is just the inexorable passage of suprahumanly inevitable necessity. contrapunktus xi transcends gloriously. and in rising above human concern, it surely surpasseth understanding. there is something beyond, something larger than. and this is the window. notice that the all-too-human impulsions of blowing and bowing would seem to remove them from contention here. but might something similar be achieved on harpsichord? no: the transcendent cannot cluck like a chicken. nietzsche to the contrary notwithstanding. (it’s ok with me that only computer or piano can serve.) (cf. canto infinito) why are we hung up on transcendence in the first place 23521 environmental prospectus: bach heeds the resonance it has created. beethoven rides the resonance it’s creating. chopin bathes, luxuriates, in resonance. intero is a resonance. bruckner doesn’t need any so what’s left? { never was anguish so familiar or continuance so steadfast or anticipation so accommodated, so glowing } cct no.2: bruckner: symphony #6, ii. adagio / celibidache but could what it asserts be true? it’s especially the bowed strings -sure, a lockerful of brass enjoys the occasional wagnerian sidestep; sure, the flutes flutter -but it’s the massed bowed strings which stretch out your breathing and mess with your pulse rate. (it is in this inmost, moment-by-moment, sense -not in elapsed clocktime - that bruckner runs long. and it’s thru his devoted care in the shaping of the interior of each note that celibidache makes even jochum sound cautious, and the rest of ‘em, as he himself has conceded, like slobs.) these forever overreaching strings evade the stricture -( “generalization tells us less & less about more & more”) -by embracing so aggressively, and penetrating so mercilessly, a core of human. they up the dose to the same thing about more & more. they smoke out the seeds of everything for microscopic empathization. all follows. every tremor is sought and undergone. every guilt is massaged. every confession is ratified. every joy is finessed. rapport trumps power & 20 praise is accorded the composer as a master of pure mathematics. (that just ain’t it: in the electronic age we’ve been able to explore, as sound, many ingenious mathematical paths, none of which lead to j.s.bach.) of my cd’s, some feature a jiggy bounce; some, a heartfelt innigkeit; some, solid oldfashioned musicianship with well-formed phrases and highlighted entrances of subjects (3 i think); and all make silly or deadly music, either on their own, or in comparison to the performance on (of all things) solo piano by zoltan kocsis. kocsis plays at an unflinching granite pace in an unvarying mezzo dynamic; there is no curvature of motif or phrase; there is no overhang of one note onto the next; no accumulating resonance (i hear no pedal, ever); no forward impulse, no articulation, no entrances, no distinctions between voices -in short, no yielding to any human preference of thought or grasp or feeling. it terminates by grinding to a halt. { how about we follow from music and go past hollowed-out sound & the integrity of drained pitch down to ursound? } that a mere human could bring this all off is astounding when you consider how awkwardly 4-voice fugues lie under the hand. but this is inside skinny, extraneous to what actually transpires: there is no sweat, no such thing as difficulty, and no concession to exigency or virtuosity which might reveal the existence of, even draw attention to, an executant. there is just the inexorable passage of suprahumanly inevitable necessity. contrapunktus xi transcends gloriously. and in rising above human concern, it surely surpasseth understanding. there is something beyond, something larger than. and this is the window. notice that the all-too-human impulsions of blowing and bowing would seem to remove them from contention here. but might something similar be achieved on harpsichord? no: the transcendent cannot cluck like a chicken. nietzsche to the contrary notwithstanding. (it’s ok with me that only computer or piano can serve.) (cf. canto infinito) why are we hung up on transcendence in the first place 236 22 power subserves. music asserts and is. asserts what it is, and is what it asserts. welcomes no such contentious kicker, no such thin articulant, as is true. (how could it not be?) bruckner adagios are an ultimate in transcendence. but it’s a different transcendence. far from dissolving you into your surroundings; far from raising you up, endorsed & reinforced; and far from rising above the human by expunging all traces; they rise by investing in every available unease and coming up roses. more of jesus transfigured. less of god. yo ! jim w. i’d better stick with transcendent. sublime is too enlightened, or old roman. not atheist or christian enough. sidebar: on aspiration every composer is in the grip of two intertwining aspirations: 1. to be god 2. to be everyman you create god in your own image. you imagine that everybody is just like you. you know that there is nobody quite like you. the hard thing is to create yourself in your own image. to be “different”? that’s not the point. say what? there is an otherwise that things should be. so transcend. edification will be had by all. it’s quite premature. why sound rather than music? now let”s generalize about all those late beethoven string quartets and piano sonatas!! 23723 imagination has no boundaries that cannot be forced. abrupted. transgressed. imagination is willful (like keith hernandez). (he was in game 6.) (also on seinfeld.) it can do what it wants. ries was here (ferdinand: beethoven’s acolyte & amanuensis) never there. you can’t get there from here. (that’s half the charm and most of the message.) a new feature { capsule comprehension testers } cct quiz 1: to you from them intero: you are your location chopin: baby it’s you bruckner: where you can hope to get beethoven: where you can’t get bach: you wouldn’t know cct quiz 2: in view chopin looks at you bruckner looks up bach looks beyond intero looks around, looks everywhere 22 power subserves. music asserts and is. asserts what it is, and is what it asserts. welcomes no such contentious kicker, no such thin articulant, as is true. (how could it not be?) bruckner adagios are an ultimate in transcendence. but it’s a different transcendence. far from dissolving you into your surroundings; far from raising you up, endorsed & reinforced; and far from rising above the human by expunging all traces; they rise by investing in every available unease and coming up roses. more of jesus transfigured. less of god. yo ! jim w. i’d better stick with transcendent. sublime is too enlightened, or old roman. not atheist or christian enough. sidebar: on aspiration every composer is in the grip of two intertwining aspirations: 1. to be god 2. to be everyman you create god in your own image. you imagine that everybody is just like you. you know that there is nobody quite like you. the hard thing is to create yourself in your own image. to be “different”? that’s not the point. say what? there is an otherwise that things should be. so transcend. edification will be had by all. it’s quite premature. why sound rather than music? now let”s generalize about all those late beethoven string quartets and piano sonatas!! 238 25 lay. some angels screech. or a nasty drops. plummets in fact )scherzo and then ? forget about then when it was, it was is what it may yet be, will be is the only thing that history ever did for you was put you in the middle of it. for this favor you owe it everything. not#7drainedpitchgap7 love, jim roses #7 dear walter, so here it is already!! why sound, not music ur-speak i used to claim, 1/2 seriously, that atheism comes naturally to me because my religion is music. (by now i’m well past the 50% mark.) i asked a mennonite friend – a reformed trumpeter -whether several of my blurbs in birds ( -the early ones, about ravel, haydn, bruckner -) don’t resemble her treatment of bible stories when she’s “teaching bible”. she e-mails me that they are “exactly like” what she does. (elated over this confirmation, i’m changing my card to exegete & gapman.) freedom from what 24 beethoven looks where he wants beethoven: late / rangell or gould “messes with your mind, man” arietta: within the resonance of now, no time passes. but much happens. hush: stretch up there almost beyond the reach of gravity. quietly contemplate the vast space that buoys you up and separates you from your support. now very slowly stretch even higher, pulling gently away from your support, even as your support withdraws deeper, farther away, from you. float on, in the treacherously thin air, into the calm. never has vacancy been so empty, or so charged. is intero a philosophy of history? forget about being something forget about getting somewhere sharpen up where you are (wherever you are) sharpen up on is and then ? essence is all. beethoven: late / tokyo or vermeer if you’re quick. breathe. stop. show it. clobber it. then ram it tightfisted( into the wall & leave it 23925 lay. some angels screech. or a nasty drops. plummets in fact )scherzo and then ? forget about then when it was, it was is what it may yet be, will be is the only thing that history ever did for you was put you in the middle of it. for this favor you owe it everything. not#7drainedpitchgap7 love, jim roses #7 dear walter, so here it is already!! why sound, not music ur-speak i used to claim, 1/2 seriously, that atheism comes naturally to me because my religion is music. (by now i’m well past the 50% mark.) i asked a mennonite friend – a reformed trumpeter -whether several of my blurbs in birds ( -the early ones, about ravel, haydn, bruckner -) don’t resemble her treatment of bible stories when she’s “teaching bible”. she e-mails me that they are “exactly like” what she does. (elated over this confirmation, i’m changing my card to exegete & gapman.) freedom from what 24 beethoven looks where he wants beethoven: late / rangell or gould “messes with your mind, man” arietta: within the resonance of now, no time passes. but much happens. hush: stretch up there almost beyond the reach of gravity. quietly contemplate the vast space that buoys you up and separates you from your support. now very slowly stretch even higher, pulling gently away from your support, even as your support withdraws deeper, farther away, from you. float on, in the treacherously thin air, into the calm. never has vacancy been so empty, or so charged. is intero a philosophy of history? forget about being something forget about getting somewhere sharpen up where you are (wherever you are) sharpen up on is and then ? essence is all. beethoven: late / tokyo or vermeer if you’re quick. breathe. stop. show it. clobber it. then ram it tightfisted( into the wall & leave it 240 26 back in the old days, mike dellaira (who’s back in touch) once claimed that us princeton folks were like religious fanatics in our reverent preoccupation with german classics. he figured that beethoven, observing us obsessing over his scores, would think we were crazy. i was very struck with the remark at the time, and could see its justice. i still am, and do. except that now i look at beethoven as a supreme touchstone not just for all things musical, but for all things period. so what does that mean? nothing musicstylistical; no one’s chords, tunes, time-signatures, forms, clefs, motivic procedures, barlines, genres, have become mandatory for something. instead, an intensity of focus, a totality of commitment, an infinitude of inner human possibility, as music, has been made flesh; -specified by stringently heard music, manifested by the music heard. exegesis what that music is, when stringently heard, is why, for the hearer, it’s a touchstone for all things period; and is why, for the hearer who would report, it’s a text for exegesis. so why sound, not music ~~ could be to slough off suffocation by german masterpieces. ~~ could be to clear out notions best seen as the presumptions of a particular style or era. as in “sonata form”. or “quietly contemplate the vast space that buoys you up and separates you from your support.” ~~ could be a rejection of stuff like heroide; a call for hard-assed, objective new music. (sounds very 1st-half-of-the-20th-cent.) as in stravinsky’s symphonies of wind instruments. or copland’s early piano variations. ~~ could be a protest, more extremely anti-romantic (or more extremely romantic), against the exclusion of noise. as in varese’s ionisation. ~~ could be a rejection of all traces of the pre-ww2 bourgeoisie: helmut lachenmann, if i understand him (and i do), not only objects to musical sound, but actively cultivates the sound of trashing all such in the very belly of the misbegotten bourgeois beast (concert halls, musiclovers, awards, commissions, symphony orchestras, universities, usw.) the pol pot approach 24127 to progress. ~~ could be a more fundamental rejection from a quite different direction: giacinto scelsi (whose work you and michela brought to my attention) was fed up with all that ego, all that overemotional fuss & feathers - and went eastern. he mobilized michiko’s voice to move toward asian traditions of meditative, private, music-making; music as a religious obligation. (like the purple monks of san miniato.) (his music, his example, and his encouragement meant a lot to me. to you, too?) { ~~ could be ~~ } actually, it’s none of the above and all of the above. we’re after root & seed. a return to, a rediscovery of, origin. let sound step forth (like matter, like energy) as a universal substratum from which all musics emerge. (this is major if intero is to embrace the emergent atcrimr chastely.) (gap7 doesn’t get that far; doesn’t make the cut; doesn’t attain ur status.) (as sound.) (as music?) pink elephant there’s a pink elephant in my pianoroom. martin goldray has observed that my gap pieces -or gap sonatas, as brad bassler calls them: i sort of like that -are mostly devoid of busywork and familiar musical gestures. certainly for me, such doing without is an asserted quality of doing. not just an absence, but an absence of x and of y and of z. to an uzbek observer my bowl may be clean, but to me it’s cleaned. what then might a clean ur-sound be like? were we there? 26 back in the old days, mike dellaira (who’s back in touch) once claimed that us princeton folks were like religious fanatics in our reverent preoccupation with german classics. he figured that beethoven, observing us obsessing over his scores, would think we were crazy. i was very struck with the remark at the time, and could see its justice. i still am, and do. except that now i look at beethoven as a supreme touchstone not just for all things musical, but for all things period. so what does that mean? nothing musicstylistical; no one’s chords, tunes, time-signatures, forms, clefs, motivic procedures, barlines, genres, have become mandatory for something. instead, an intensity of focus, a totality of commitment, an infinitude of inner human possibility, as music, has been made flesh; -specified by stringently heard music, manifested by the music heard. exegesis what that music is, when stringently heard, is why, for the hearer, it’s a touchstone for all things period; and is why, for the hearer who would report, it’s a text for exegesis. so why sound, not music ~~ could be to slough off suffocation by german masterpieces. ~~ could be to clear out notions best seen as the presumptions of a particular style or era. as in “sonata form”. or “quietly contemplate the vast space that buoys you up and separates you from your support.” ~~ could be a rejection of stuff like heroide; a call for hard-assed, objective new music. (sounds very 1st-half-of-the-20th-cent.) as in stravinsky’s symphonies of wind instruments. or copland’s early piano variations. ~~ could be a protest, more extremely anti-romantic (or more extremely romantic), against the exclusion of noise. as in varese’s ionisation. ~~ could be a rejection of all traces of the pre-ww2 bourgeoisie: helmut lachenmann, if i understand him (and i do), not only objects to musical sound, but actively cultivates the sound of trashing all such in the very belly of the misbegotten bourgeois beast (concert halls, musiclovers, awards, commissions, symphony orchestras, universities, usw.) the pol pot approach 242 28 preferably impossible to hear. you feel its vibes first. it doesn’t even need an orifice principal apprehensible contender: !om! pronounced a-u-m but as a monosyllable. the 8-minute-or-so episode of intero which embraced atcrimr was similarly deep, soft, just barely undulating. rethinking intero and gap7 together has shown me something: (yes, i know. you told me. canto infinito told me. but i like to figure it out myself.) intero is a single drawn-out syllable. a candidate we can, as with a-u-m, spot phases. but, as with a-u-m, it’s its smoothly prolonged oneness that’s the upshot. i’ve heard one other episode of intero, years ago. also slowly and softly undulating, perhaps not so low. (low is why my little cd-player on the breezeway delivered zilch and chased us upstairs. thus was atcrimr born!) also a monosyllable. also, and here’s the rub, a phase of the same monosyllable -the same indefinitely prolonged, boundless, monosyllable. so intero makes the cut: -but could yet face denigration as technological, as too blatantly western. hollowed-out sound & drained pitch i remember, back in the days of gap2, sitting at my upright piano and grooving on the sound of midregister tones, played singly mp, and respectfully allowed to decay without pedal, unmolested. everyday. ordinary. normal. more or less clear of my musical biases. (or more or less glorifying my musical biases.) candidates for ur? at least 24329 come clean. re-conceive what music might be! yes disavow entertainment, exhibition. re-instate intimacy. of course re-engage respect for sound. flash forward! by the time of gap7, i had come to feel that gap5’s flotation in ga-ga time was stagey, artsy. (i do still love gap5 - and especially your revelatory appreciation of its measured silences. and i do remember my special delight, then and now, in how you really listened!!) (actually, my precision of time-measurement had crested a few years earlier in a lather over whether a silence of 47 metronome clicks was prematurely interrupted, but at 49 too drawn out. i always felt schizoid in having to secure free-floating fluidity with metroclicks: but i wanted it just so, and i wanted my notation to enforce it.) gap7 was still supposed to aim high -beyond, in fact. but to transcend without ga-ga! to see what else is out there. -or in there. how’s this? so stay within haydn/mozart keyboard range: let a few licks evoke humanoid; but for reference, not as commitment. let everything happen transparently, up front; no dazzle, no amazing, no how did he get that. inhibit familiar all-too-human grabbers. don’t spurn metrical snippets, but don’t allow energy internal to a snippet to overflow & build up: let metrical be a quality of the snippet, not a universal connector. succession, yes. accumulation, no. ! a dark horse ! let iron pitchlaw, felt but unseen, rule. 28 preferably impossible to hear. you feel its vibes first. it doesn’t even need an orifice principal apprehensible contender: !om! pronounced a-u-m but as a monosyllable. the 8-minute-or-so episode of intero which embraced atcrimr was similarly deep, soft, just barely undulating. rethinking intero and gap7 together has shown me something: (yes, i know. you told me. canto infinito told me. but i like to figure it out myself.) intero is a single drawn-out syllable. a candidate we can, as with a-u-m, spot phases. but, as with a-u-m, it’s its smoothly prolonged oneness that’s the upshot. i’ve heard one other episode of intero, years ago. also slowly and softly undulating, perhaps not so low. (low is why my little cd-player on the breezeway delivered zilch and chased us upstairs. thus was atcrimr born!) also a monosyllable. also, and here’s the rub, a phase of the same monosyllable -the same indefinitely prolonged, boundless, monosyllable. so intero makes the cut: -but could yet face denigration as technological, as too blatantly western. hollowed-out sound & drained pitch i remember, back in the days of gap2, sitting at my upright piano and grooving on the sound of midregister tones, played singly mp, and respectfully allowed to decay without pedal, unmolested. everyday. ordinary. normal. more or less clear of my musical biases. (or more or less glorifying my musical biases.) candidates for ur? at least 244 30 are we aiming for a multiphoned om? a multiphonetic ur thru the ear? a multisyllabic musical one? music thru its sound -and beyond? ?have we listened ?alertly, ?meditatively, ?invasively, ?anaesthetically, ?homeopathically, ?musically, ?therapeutically. [ pick 4 ] ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, intero? easy. om in velvet. ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, atcrimr? (atcrimr: i jkr am accidental accessory, ephemeral core; you wb & ruth are among, are, furniture.) (are other environments for intero anything to me now?) ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, some web, some coexistent stasis, not of furniture, but of consonants: hss, spt, clck, cgh, zhxcdgr, pq$$?/ qm? (these as’s are about as tricky as about’s) ~~ can i imagine this very web, this coexistent stasis, flickering, undulating, oscillating, running scree? even so: also: seek and ye shall find #4 in intermezzo in midi (timeflow has become a space in which timeflow becomes a space. oneness, when attained, is as multicolored as, is the multicolor of, the temporal path of becoming: the blue path to blue heaven as if, & as, heaven.) (or green/green; or yellow/yellow; or ……………..) ( do you hear it coming, coming? ) ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, gap7 - slowly, slowly, walking: running velvetine scree? (is a work, in its oneness, its retained & 24531 retainable oneness, its temporalized multiphonic & multiphonetic oneness, functionally an om?) ++ perhaps not ++ ohno who cares hey friend, the conceptual difference between your ratio-system and my pitch-systems is not the time-free thing. ~~ may we have maybe some more masterpieces with musically enhanced understanding now ~~ #1. it’s continuous vs. discrete. ( -vibes per? ) if we were so interested in marbles pitches would be marbles easy now, easy #2. you want ptolemaic contortions? intersecting orbits? ratios of interval-ratios? no vibes per? messes with your mind, man [ pick #1 ] says who? and when you claim innovation for the time-free essence of your ratiosystem %%you overlook the familiar uninterpreted set.%% speaking foundationally -and i balk. {a picked bone} ~~ canto infinito ~~ if you flog a dead horse long enough you bring coals to newcastle you build straw men to shoot clay pigeons you get stem-cell research with pitchbabies still bouncing in that pitchwater ~*~* red herring *~*~ and a pale rider -bestrides the chimera of musical and historical necessity. {start next} ~~intero illdear walter: the clear, and unprecedented, bite of your work is spiritual & ethical & social & ( -don’t mind if i use the word! -) musical. but as much 30 are we aiming for a multiphoned om? a multiphonetic ur thru the ear? a multisyllabic musical one? music thru its sound -and beyond? ?have we listened ?alertly, ?meditatively, ?invasively, ?anaesthetically, ?homeopathically, ?musically, ?therapeutically. [ pick 4 ] ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, intero? easy. om in velvet. ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, atcrimr? (atcrimr: i jkr am accidental accessory, ephemeral core; you wb & ruth are among, are, furniture.) (are other environments for intero anything to me now?) ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, some web, some coexistent stasis, not of furniture, but of consonants: hss, spt, clck, cgh, zhxcdgr, pq$$?/ qm? (these as’s are about as tricky as about’s) ~~ can i imagine this very web, this coexistent stasis, flickering, undulating, oscillating, running scree? even so: also: seek and ye shall find #4 in intermezzo in midi (timeflow has become a space in which timeflow becomes a space. oneness, when attained, is as multicolored as, is the multicolor of, the temporal path of becoming: the blue path to blue heaven as if, & as, heaven.) (or green/green; or yellow/yellow; or ……………..) ( do you hear it coming, coming? ) ~~ can i imagine a-u-m embraced as, & as, gap7 - slowly, slowly, walking: running velvetine scree? (is a work, in its oneness, its retained & 246 32 as your marvelous “short lyrics” lift up the verbalizing-musicthinker-in-me, so much is the academic-lifer-in-me displeased and let down by your borrowed (and not needed) philoscientifical summae; which tell us l & l about m & m, by celebrating the vanishing points where everything is the samething – matter, energy, sound, whatever. do my om-fantasies seem that way to you? (or do your “summae” do for you what my om-fantasies do for me??) love, jim. gapman. exegete. (2010; 2012) p.s. { consubstantial catechismic tagalong } oneness: depleted to ultimate (unitary) same (out there) remote, inferential universal, neutral matter / energy / sound sonata form, instantiated l & l about m & m basis for, substratum [ pick one, please ] oneness: enriched to maximum (unique) specificity (in here) intimate, familiar concentrated, intense a multiformed om waldstein, the work m & m about l & l as if, as current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 halberstam. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 225 nothing/nada jack halberstam in the great woman singer: gender and voice in puerto rican music, licia fiol-matta continues a project that she began in her first book, a study of gabriela mistral. that book, like this one, reads questions of ideology and belonging through the ambiguous case history of a figure whom we can claim from a historical distance but whom we must also necessarily reject. in a queer mother for the nation (2002), fiol-matta offers a critical biography of mistral, who was characterized as both radical and conservative in her lifetime; she never came out publicly as a lesbian and, while she was embraced after her death, many chileans roundly rejected her while she was alive. her own politics were scrambled and misaligned while her personal life was a mess. because mistral was unmistakably masculine, fiol-matta suggests that she seems available for queer canonization. but fiol-matta warns: “queerness is as susceptible to normalization as any other sexual or gender experience and . . . queerness can abet certain forms of heteronormativity” (2002, xxix). fiol-matta looks at mistral’s legacy, then, not to pull forward a heroic and martyred figure of repressed lesbianism and dynamic female masculinity, but to seize upon the contradictions of desire, rejection, cruelty, and melancholy as they coalesce in one queer figure. in this way, she refuses the conventional function of the case history—as something that establishes clear relations between the general and the particular. the case histories to which fiol-matta is drawn, always, are those that defy the case and rethink history in the process or at least the way histories are relayed through individual lives, bodies, examples, and, in her new book, voices. her diva figures myrta silva, ruth fernández, ernestina reyes, and lucecita benítez similarly stand in ambivalent and contradictory relation to queer and gendered histories of voice and song; indeed, the last singer on this list, lucecita benítez was both dubbed “the national voice of puerto rico” and reviled for her avowedly masculine voice and performance persona. but fiol-matta deploys them, as she deployed mistral, as “case studies” in a transnational, cross-genre study of the voice, listening, vocalization, and gendered and racial performance. this new book makes a number of important interventions into the gendered history of music and performance and, in the process, offers some new and potentially deeply influential formulations: 226 current musicology 1. divas transcend performance norms. the singularity of the diva resides not in the exceptional status of the artist herself but in the singer’s ability to break through the sexist and heterosexist strictures that bind women to certain performances and certain versions of femininity and power. here fiol-matta links singularity to the special power of these voices and the persistence and wily ingenuity of the women’s manipulation of the scene of performance. there is no claim of simple genius or talent, but instead, fiol-matta wants to “isolate the performing voice as an object . . . while advancing the study of voice as thought producer” (8). here voice is not a natural emanation but a form of study, a practice of thinking, and the sound of theory. 2. genres are made to be broken. the singers fiol-matta focuses upon choose boleros where they should be singing guarachas, baladas when they should be singing boleros, and boleros when they should be singing back up. they play instruments, they croon, they wear tuxedos, they lead when they should follow, they command when they should flirt and submit. in contrast to the conventional notion of the diva who represents an inflated sense of femininity or womanliness, and whose big voice is an expression of a kind of female capaciousness, benítez and fernández in particular explore the low range of the female voice and in the process they convey its ability to disrupt the listener’s sense of gendered appropriateness. silva, on the other hand, insistently improvised and refused the lyrics she was given. ernestina reyes performed within a working-class aesthetic that was considered to lack femininity. all four women break the ability of genres to manage the relation between body and voice. the gender violations are part of the refusal of genre and they throw into doubt the very concept of the “female voice.” the larger implication here is that the part of the work of music history has been to line up neatly gender binaries, genre, and national identity—in fiol-matta’s book, these vectors of identification come undone. 3. the thinking voice: with this concept, fiol-matta offers to counteract the tendency to cast female singers as just naturally good, as pure voice absent calculation, manipulation, staging; fiol-matta looks through archives of the voice and finds in the female singer a staging of history, a record of loss, a biography of race and gender. the thinking voice, she proposes, must be met by a practice of “musical listening” where we hear the pauses, the breath, the silence, the tune, and the dissonance. the thinking voice, fiol-matta counsels, directs our listening in very specific ways, in ways that undo the fictions of greatness, woman, and singer. she writes: “it should become clear by now that i do not believe in the ideology of the great woman singer, the specificity of the female voice, the logic of women’s resistance, 227 jack halberstam or the inherent beauty of feminine music” (228). for fiol-matta, instead, these woman singers are not figures for some specific politics or identity but, as she puts it, “placeholders of the nothing” (228). the nothing, no thing, nada, is not castration, not simply silence, not absence only—nothing is something we fail to hear. 4. nothing is something: refusing to perform either simply the melodrama associated with camp or the high drama associated with opera, fiol-matta’s singers flirt instead with the negative. often cast as failures, as asexual or overly sexual, as too masculine, as controlling or completely passive, these women refuse the expectations projected onto them, resist the adoration, and refuse the derision and often sing of a “nothingness” that both defines them and becomes for them a kind of weapon of refusal. as fiol-matta writes in her introduction of the women she studies: “in one way or another, all expressed, directly or subliminally, the philosophical protestation, ‘i am nothing.’ all have been subjected to an oblivion that, up to this day, remains as profoundly puzzling as it is disturbing, rendering them as the ‘nothing’ in pop” (15). ultimately, like fiol-matta’s earlier work, this book makes its intervention at many levels at once. it rewrites the history of genius that has made grand detours around female figures and rendered them as mouthpieces for a male composer. the book also approaches singing as a dismantling of seemingly obvious connections between timbre and gender, register and body, vocalization and character. the great woman singer, in the end, is neither great nor simply a woman, she is not a case, not a representative, not a singular instance of talent; the great woman singer is not the worker, the mother, the mistress, the whore, the angel, the peasant, or the deity—she is a thinking voice training us to listen not to her voice but to the nothingness that trails in its wake. fiol-matta is that most rare scholar—she is an original thinker who pushes against the grain of several fields at once while making a mark that is at once indelible and seemingly inevitable. in this book, fiol-matta changes completely the way we read “great female singers” but in the process she questions the value of “greatness,” “femaleness,” and “singing.” offering a wealth of biographical detail alongside elaborate performance histories and media archaeologies for each of the figures she explores, fiolmatta both refuses and expands our concept of the diva and situates it in an uneasy set of relations to nation, gender, and voice. references fiol-matta, licia. 2002. queer mother for the nation: the state and gabriela mistral. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. current musicology, no. 96 (fall 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 97 “a disturbing lack of musical and stylistic continuity”? elliott carter, charles ives, and musical borrowing david thurmaier elliott carter and charles ives shared a complex personal and professional relationship. ives supported carter’s musical pursuits as a young man and remained a guiding influence throughout his career. as jan swafford writes, however, “carter, whose mature music would owe a great deal to ives . . . would pay back his mentor with a baffling mixture of admiration, advocacy, and cold repudiation” (swafford 1998: 334). although he eventually softened his early criticism of ives and acknowledged his musical debts, carter was consistently puzzled by the stress in ives’s music on musical borrowing—i.e., the procedures by which a composer includes material from or refers to pre–existing musical pieces in the context of an original work.1 as carter put it, ives’s reliance on quotations accounted for “a disturbing lack of musical and stylistic continuity” (perlis 1974: 145). on another occasion, carter described ives’s inclusion of popular songs and hymns as “constantly perplexing” (edwards 1971: 63).2 in view of these and numerous other statements, it is equally perplexing that carter borrows from ives’s music on several occasions, most overtly in his 2001 figment no. 2 (remembering mr. ives) for solo cello. this composition contains literal snippets and gestures from, as well as stylistic allusions to, two ives pieces: the concord sonata and hallowe’en. in what follows, i explore the ways in which carter borrows from ives both literally and figuratively; how he incorporates those quotations into his music; and how he evokes ives’s memory and musical style in several works. along the way, i illuminate some contradictions of carter’s aesthetic stance and connect them to broader problematics in late twentieth–century modernism. the quotation problem in nearly all of his writings on ives, carter acknowledges and admires ives’s musical innovations, particularly those in rhythm and temporality. for example, in a 1973 letter to john kirkpatrick, carter observes: “what is interesting about ives, today, are the many different procedures he thought up, so it seems, to produce his polyrhythmic and dissonant textures” (quoted in meyer and shreffler 2008: 210). several scholars have previously investigated current musicology 98 carter’s interest in ives’s abstract compositional techniques. felix meyer and anne shreffler explain that “carter the composer continued to find solutions for the same musical problems that ives had posed: the combination of different groups of instruments moving at different speeds, new formal concepts, new ways to control the flow of time, and ways of orchestrating so that complex polyphonic textures could be clearly heard” (6). david schiff also notes that “textures reminiscent of ives’s music can be heard throughout carter’s mature works, in abstract form” (schiff 1983: 35). considering his admiration for such compositional procedures in ives’s music, it is peculiar that carter seldom comments on the large body of music ives composed without any trace of musical borrowing. many of these pieces such as the piano studies were intended as compositional experiments and show ives’s imagination at its most fertile. in them, he creates and solves particular musical problems of rhythm, pitch, and temporality in smaller settings.3 in fact, a majority of these works would have interested carter in light of their compositional rigor, but he chose not to comment on them, highlighting instead his disagreements with ives’s music that contains quotations. to take an example of his problematic stance toward quotation in ives’s music, consider what carter wrote in an essay from 1974: as for myself, i have always been fascinated by the polyrhythmic aspect of ives’s music, as well as its multiple layering, but perplexed at times by the disturbing lack of musical and stylistic continuity, caused largely by the constant use of musical quotations in many works. to me a composer develops his own personal language, suitable to express his field of experience and thought. when he borrows music from another style and thought from his own, he is admitting that he did not really experience what he is presenting but has to borrow from someone else who did . . . it is, to me, disappointing that ives too frequently was unable or unwilling to invent musical material that expressed his own vision authentically, instead of relying on the material of others. (quoted in perlis 1974: 145) in carter’s view, ives’s use of quotations demonstrates a lack of originality and creativity and leads to a sense of discontinuity in the music. though carter was initially interested in ives’s music as a young man, as he developed as a composer he harbored a “mounting sense of frustration . . . because much of it [ives’s music] then seemed so disordered and even disorganized . . . [and] it was nearly impossible to understand how or why much of it was put together as it was” (quoted in perlis 1974: 139). for a composer like carter who valued qualities such as cohesion and stylistic continuity, this reaction may have been expected. as he put it, “i am always interested in a composer’s phrases and their shape and content, the way they are joined, david thurmaier 99 the type of articulation used, as well as the general drift or continuity of a large section, and the construction of a whole work” (carter 1997: 217). in another essay carter explained that, “like him [ives], i enjoy writing music of constant variety and change, but within a more highly focused and coherent sound–character and musical style than interested him” (carter 1997: 256). carter’s conflicted opinions about ives’s music first appeared publicly in his infamous review of the concord sonata from 1939 entitled “the case of mr. ives” in the journal modern music. in the review, carter fires numerous shots at ives and the concord, asserting that the piece is “formally weak,” suffers from a “lack of logic,” and is hampered by “helter–skelter harmonies.” he also comments on the use of quotations: “the piece’s aesthetic was too naïve to express serious thoughts, frequently depending on quotation of well–known american tunes, with little comment, possibly charming, but certainly trivial” (carter 1997: 88–89). carter later noted that his problems with ives’s music (including the concord sonata specifically) around the time of the review arose out of its lack of clear and systematic temporal organization: “there seemed to be very large amounts of undifferentiated confusion . . . during which many conflicting things happen at once without concern either for the total effect or for the distinguishability of various levels” (carter 1997: 222). carter’s review greatly hurt ives; after its publication, carter never saw ives in person again, thus effectively ending their friendship.4 i wish to suggest a few reasons for why carter would want to distance himself from ives’s use of musical borrowing. first, carter’s ambivalence may have grown out of his own background and training, which differed significantly from ives’s. carter began his studies at harvard as an english major, where in addition to being exposed to philosophers like alfred north whitehead, he read numerous works of modernist literature by authors such as eliot, cummings, joyce, and stein. after switching to study music and receiving his master’s degree, he went to france to study with nadia boulanger. these experiences must have strongly shaped his cosmopolitan literary and musical tastes.5 although ives was a strong formative influence on carter, his most memorable youthful musical experiences developed from encounters with music by “progressive” european composers like stravinsky and the second viennese school. as a result, carter came to favor a more abstract conception of music, looking with suspicion at ives’s use of more familiar models and styles. by contrast, ives’s most salient early musical experiences were driven by his father and by his work as a church organist. during his undergraduate years at yale (1894–98), ives also studied with horatio parker, who advocated a conservative approach to composition strongly influenced by the austro–germanic composers of the early to mid–nineteenth century. though by the time carter met him current musicology 100 in 1924 ives was established in the hustle and bustle of new york city, the older composer’s heart was always firmly invested in the hymns and popular songs associated with the rural environment of danbury, connecticut, his beloved hometown. as such, carter’s more cultivated and urban upbringing in new york city likely made it difficult to comprehend why ives felt so strongly about the music he used. carter’s rejection could have simply resulted from his efforts to distance himself from his mentor. given that innovation and originality were prized modernist musical traits, it would follow that a student at this time would try to differentiate his or her music from that of a mentor. ives, for instance, fused borrowed material with more traditional forms and standard compositional techniques in ways that often obscured the musical texture, creating a different sense of how music flowed temporally. whereas, as stated earlier, carter dealt with some of the same temporal and textural issues, he advocated a decidedly more rigorous and systematic compositional method that produced new conceptions of time and structure. part of this detachment is a matter of chronology: ives composed the bulk of his music before compositional methods such as serialism were widely known in america. by contrast, carter not only interacted with composers who employed these approaches, such as stravinsky and roger sessions, but he also embraced these progressive compositional developments as catalysts for his own music. carter’s ambivalence toward ives also reflects the much–discussed paradox of twentieth–century composers engaging with music of the past while at the same time trying to disavow its influence. this problematic relationship to the music of the past reached its zenith during the height of modernism, precisely at the time when carter began his compositional career. as robin holloway puts it, “the only permissible past is an invented trajectory of perpetual progress, arrogantly prescribing that every work must be a completely new start” (holloway 2001: 97). to take an example of this mindset, consider joseph straus’s description of arnold schoenberg, which provides a portrait of a composer conflicted about the musical past: what history requires, for schoenberg, is progress. music is in a continuous process of evolution. it is the composer’s task to comprehend the historical trend and to keep it going in the proper direction. the musical works of the past are tyrannous; one can only choose to obey. (straus 1990: 7)6 carter, like schoenberg, was preoccupied with “progress,” personal language, unity, and stylistic consistency, and was acutely aware of his music’s relation to the past. for example, instead of trying to recreate the past musically or suggesting a nostalgic reading of it as ives often did, carter david thurmaier 101 expressly wrote his music for the present day: “i try to find continuities that gain meaning, change, and operate in time on a level that is parallel to our present experience of living” (quoted in meyer and shreffler 2008: 216). in another contrast, whereas carter’s music exemplifies the modernist penchant for creating pieces “associated with scrupulous choice of artistic materials, and with hard work in arranging them,” ives’s music has often been viewed as lacking unity and consistency (albright 1999: 31).7 these qualities of unity and coherence were embedded early in carter’s aesthetic as a young student at harvard, where he gleaned ideas from the philosopher and professor alfred north whitehead, “whose philosophy of organicism and progression made a deep impression [on carter]” (schiff 1998: 11). whitehead’s “philosophy of organism,” explained best by carter in his 1960 essay on the music of goffredo petrassi, defines an event (in this case, musical) as a “unit of action in a total sequence in which the event contains within itself not only its own history but as well its prefiguration of possible futures and its own individualized character” (carter 1997: 187). this produces a unique approach to musical continuity where a gesture is heard as an individual entity, yet it contains—and requires—elements that connect to what comes before and after it. this strategy of temporal organization differs markedly from what happens in many pieces by ives, where his use of musical borrowing creates a more stylistically heterogeneous and variable aural experience. carter’s views about quotation are particularly puzzling because he used the technique several times in his own music. j. peter burkholder argues that carter’s beliefs showed a lack of understanding of how ives “conveys his experiences of music through the ways he reworks [borrowed materials] and the forms he uses” (burkholder 1995: 469, n. 69). i propose instead that carter probably did understand the musical techniques associated with borrowing and reworking in ives’s music, but that he chose to de–emphasize their importance in favor of compositional features that appealed more closely to his own aesthetic preferences. thus while carter clearly admired ives’s music, its heterogeneous mix of late–nineteenth century american and european musical gestures and styles must have seemed to him rather dated. moreover, ives’s use of borrowing seems to have represented these antiquated styles with special prominence. and yet, as did every conflicted modernist, carter quoted and emulated music by ives and others. however, because of his predilection for formal clarity and compositional coherence, carter’s purpose for using quotation differed greatly from ives’s. current musicology 102 solution 1: stylistic borrowing—“view of the capitol from the library of congress” carter borrows ivesian musical mannerisms in his own compositions in two prominent recurring ways: stylistically and motivically. stylistic borrowings suggest ives’s general musical characteristics but do not include exact material. more specifically, stylistic borrowing reveals common compositional traits between carter’s music and ives’s—or at least how carter interprets ives’s music. this process evokes the musical sound of ives and can be achieved in several ways: by emulating ives’s use of idiosyncratic instrumental combinations; by incorporating ivesian rhythmic, melodic, or harmonic constructions; or through the inclusion of text or narratives that model existing pieces by ives. these characteristics are particularly prominent whenever carter tries to evoke american elements in his compositions. in a 2002 interview with alan baker, carter again reiterated his gripes with the use of quotation in ives’s music, but he also presented his own alternative: the thing that bothers me all the time about ives is, as far as i’m concerned . . . i don’t like his quotations from other kinds of music because from my point of view if you want to express, let’s say something about america, you don’t do it by quoting “yankee doodle.” you do it by writing what you feel about it. you don’t take somebody else’s music and stick it in there. (quoted in baker 2002)8 here carter criticizes ives’s procedures of direct borrowing yet still professes his own interest in borrowing, though by using a different method. in the above statement (and elsewhere), carter states his belief that quoting a tune directly (e.g., “yankee doodle”) to comment on or suggest the idea of america would be too obvious and unoriginal; instead, a composer should sonically capture a nationalist “feeling” through compositional techniques and characteristics that evoke what may be perceived as an american “sound.” one rebuttal to carter’s point is that it oversimplifies how ives incorporates quotation, as he does not simply “quote ‘yankee doodle’” in any of his pieces without some other reason behind it. a patriotic tune in ives’s music, for example, can suggest and comment on many things: the chaos or excitement of a parade, nationalism, the sadness marking a soldier’s death, nostalgia for an earlier time, and so on. furthermore, there may be intertextual references between the borrowed tune and ives’s original music that suggest even more meanings behind a given tune’s appearance. carter’s interpretation also ignores the possibility that by using direct quotation that ives was writing what he felt about america. even with this apparent david thurmaier 103 disagreement, both composers did engage in stylistic borrowing to create the essence of an “american” sound in several key pieces. to take an example, carter’s song “view of the capitol from the library of congress,” from his 1975 cycle a mirror on which to dwell, channels his perspectives on america through means closely resembling those of ives. the original poem of the same title by elizabeth bishop contains lots of musical imagery: it describes an air force band, brass instruments, and music played “hard and loud” (bishop 1969: 78). carter’s musical setting depicts these textual ideas with techniques reminiscent of ives. particularly evident is carter’s reliance on ives’s ability to recreate aurally a sense of chaos and frenzy through the use of multiple temporal layers.9 this technique is suggested by bishop’s poem, which presents a frustrated narrator unable to perceive the music of the band clearly: “the air force band in the uniforms of air force blue is playing hard and loud, but—queer—the music doesn’t quite come through.” the musical setting presents two different temporal layers: the narrator expressing her inability to hear the band’s music even though it is audible; and the band itself playing at its own speed and style, oblivious to the narrator. to compound this dual sense of aural confusion, carter writes disjunct music throughout the movement, which becomes particularly frantic at this point in the text. example 1 shows an excerpt of the music (mm. 28–29) between the lines “playing hard and loud” and “but—queer—the music doesn’t quite come through.” the chattering woodwinds and piano evoke a sense of scurrying activity under the narrator’s utterances, thus illustrating the perception of non–clarity. a parallel to this dual disorientation can be found in ives’s orchestral work “putnam’s camp, redding, connecticut” from three places in new england—a composition that may have inspired carter in “view of the capitol.” carter was familiar with the piece, referring to it first in his 1955 article ,“the rhythmic basis of american music,” where he comments on how ives presents two different, unrelated “rhythmic planes” for programmatic reasons, and then later citing it in what became a controversial passage about the nature of ives’s revision process (carter 1997: 57–62).10 the program note for “putnam’s camp” describes how a child attends a fourth of july picnic and experiences an aural “queerness” similar to that in bishop’s poem after wandering away from the festivities and falling asleep. ives’s response to this story was to create a sonic landscape that weaves disjointed snatches of quotations in and out of the texture to express the child’s dream state in which he sees soldiers marching at different speeds. in “view of the capitol,” carter references ives’s method of writing superimposed temporal levels to achieve this sense of distortion musically. current musicology 104 the two texts (bishop’s poem and ives’s program) share subtler details as well, which is reflected in both ives’s and carter’s musical settings. the child in “putnam’s camp” and the narrator in bishop’s poem “explore spaces, distances, perspectives, and contrasts” that are not always clearly perceived or expected (shreffler 1993: 3). for example, hoping to “catch a glimpse of example 1: carter, “view of the capitol from the library of congress,” mm. 28–29. david thurmaier 105 some of the old soldiers,” the child in “putnam’s camp” falls asleep while escaping from the picnic and ends up dreaming of something else: the “goddess of liberty” who pleads “with the soldiers not to forget their ‘cause’ and the great sacrifices they have made for it” (ives 1935: 20). after the child sees the goddess and emerges out of his sleepy haze, the soldiers “march out of camp with fife and drum to a popular tune of the day,” and the fog lifts. similarly, bishop’s narrator can hear the band but cannot process it coherently: the music “comes in snatches, dim then keen, then mute.” this inability to make out clearly what one expects to hear or see, whether band music or old soldiers, is analogous in both pieces. but the subject of the two texts and their general stylistic depiction through music are as far as the similarity between the two composers’ compositional approaches goes: the musical execution in “view from the capitol” contains numerous elements associated exclusively with carter’s individual style. as shreffler’s analysis shows, carter devised a highly organized rhythmic and metrical plan, in addition to highlighting certain instruments in the texture associated with bands like the piccolo and snare drum, to produce a distorted, frantic effect. by contrast, ives approached the inclusion of multiple bands as a concrete musical effect used to depict events in his programs, and compositionally there is a lack of systemization compared to carter’s more rigorous methods.11 this section of “view from the capitol” only sounds somewhat like ives, or even a marching band. instead, carter merely suggests the style of a band and its wild sound, and reshapes it into his own aesthetic, borrowing the general approach and inspiration from ives. solution 2: motivic borrowing—first string quartet motivic borrowing occurs when carter appropriates pre–existing musical elements from ives’s compositions—intervals, scalar fragments, or short segments that are recognizable as melodic ideas. these are exact quotations from pieces by ives, though they are obscure enough to contrast with ives’s more prominent borrowings from familiar sources, marking a distinction in how each composer uses extant material. an example of motivic borrowing appears in mm. 27–30 of the first movement of carter’s first string quartet, where he inserts a short passage from ives’s first violin sonata as a key melodic theme. carter was intimately familiar with the sonata since he owned a score of this particular piece as a young man (shreffler 1994: 53). he even discussed it in a letter to ives from 1928, extolling its “quiet emotionality which is the real inspiration of music” (ives 2007: 151). carter acknowledged his indebtedness to ives when current musicology 106 he called his use of the quotation in his first string quartet a “tribute” and “homage” to the older composer in some of his essays discussed below. in addition to saluting ives (the first of several such tributes, as we shall see), richard taruskin has suggested that the use of the quotation may have been “an act of atonement for the slight delivered in 1939 [the ‘concord sonata’ review]” (taruskin 2010: 284). carter’s later comments about borrowing in some of his essays reveal some confusion about his own use of the technique in the first string quartet. for example, when writing in 1974 about his brass quintet, carter states: i have avoided conscious quotation of other music except for the one case in my first string quartet of 1951, in which i quoted the opening theme of ives’s first violin sonata as a tribute to the composer whose works had suggested some of the general ideas of my music. (carter 1997: 257)12 here he acknowledges using the ives melody but does not mention that he also borrows “certain elements of metric–rhythmic organization” from conlon nancarrow’s rhythm study no. 1 in the same quartet (stojanović– novičić 2011: 70). the statement that he “avoided conscious quotation of other music except for the one case in my first string quartet of 1951” seems misleading, or at the very least misremembered, because he explicitly admitted borrowing from nancarrow in an earlier essay about the first string quartet from 1970 (carter 1997: 233). carter argues, moreover, that he employs quotation for different reasons than ives. in the brass quintet essay he writes, “unlike [ives], i have been concerned with finding idioms that would help express the special vision behind any particular work, that would give it its own identity and differentiate it from others” (carter 1997: 257). this approach to borrowing seems consistent throughout his career, as we saw earlier with his remark disparaging ives’s direct use of the technique to express feelings about america. carter seems to suggest that if one excerpts from other music, the individual and original qualities of the work in which that quote appears become somehow violated. the modernist preoccupation with originality, progress, and personal style comes to the forefront in statements such as these, which highlight again carter’s complicated relationship to past music. in an attempt to contrast his technique of borrowing with ives’s method, carter explains that the use of ives and nancarrow excerpts in his quartet is part of a formalistic desire to parallel “many characteristic devices found in joyce and others,” including “the controlled ‘stream of consciousness,’ the ‘epiphany,’ the many uses of punctuation, of grammatical ambiguities, including the use of quotation” (carter 1997: 233). for carter, then, david thurmaier 107 quotation in the first string quartet is used both as an homage to ives and as an important expressive technique employed to serve his conceptual plan in the movement. carter expressed his dislike for the familiar origin of many borrowings in ives’s music (e.g., hymn tunes, popular tunes), and this short segment in the first string quartet does not sound like a borrowed tune in the way we normally think of quotation in ives’s works. in other words, the melody has no “extramusical” association, as a hymn or patriotic tune might, but rather it contains a recognizable interval that can be exploited to contrast with other themes, and it is integrated into the first movement because of its developmental possibilities. the passage thus serves a dual function: it is a self–described “homage” as well as an integral structural theme of the quartet’s first movement. as such, carter was attracted to its motivic properties, which fit into the quartet’s melodic design. what appears most striking is that, despite his attempts to distance himself from ivesian borrowing, carter actually treats this quotation in a similar manner to ives’s treatment in his violin sonata (schiff 1998: 60).13 carter’s manipulation of material in the first movement of the quartet through transposition, augmentation, diminution, and inversion resembles how ives treats the same segment in the sonata. example 2 shows mm. 1–4 of the first violin sonata by ives; example 3 shows mm. 27–30 from the first movement of the first string quartet by carter. the borrowed segment is marked in both excerpts. in the ives sonata, the six–note melodic pattern in m. 1 is used as a recurring motive throughout the movement. ives subjects the pattern to various melodic and contrapuntal transformations, including transposition, inversion, fragmentation, diminution, and sequence, thus marking it as a primary melodic idea. example 4 contains the segment in a modified form that appears frequently throughout the first part of the sonata. in this excerpt, at m. 11 ives transposes the music up a half step from the quasi–f–minor piano introduction and alters the rhythm through diminution by adding a neighbor tone in the right hand of the piano. additionally, the passage is heard at key formal points in the movement, appearing down a half– or whole–step each time (e.g., at m. 30 it is transposed to begin on e; at m. 134, it is presented on d at the return of the a section). ives also writes the six–note pattern to function on two different simultaneous temporal levels. in example 2, the first level appears in the tenor line as quarter notes, while in the bass line the identical pattern is presented in augmentation (mm. 1–2). ives remains consistent with each restatement of the pattern, keeping the fast and slow presentations sounding on two different time levels throughout the movement. as a result, the tune is used both melodically and harmonically. current musicology 108 example 2: ives, first violin sonata, i, mm. 1–4. arrows highlight the main melody and its augmentation in the bass. example 3: carter, first string quartet, i, mm. 27–32 (arrow denotes ives quotation in cello from mm. 27–30). david thurmaier 109 example 4: ives, first violin sonata, i, mm. 11–12. both the motivic development of the theme and its multiple temporalities must have strongly appealed to carter, and in his own piece he subjects the theme to similar compositional procedures. for example, he combines and expands the theme with his favored pitch material in the movement (and in his early works): one of the two all–interval tetrachords, [0146]. unlike much of carter’s later music, which is unified by intervallic relationships (e.g., each instrument in the second string quartet is “assigned” specific intervals), this quartet uses the pitch–class set much more freely and contrapuntally. as david schiff writes, “this chord [0146] occurs in various spacings, inversions and transpositions throughout the piece, more as a primal sonority like the ‘elektra chord’ than as the systematic fusion of intervallic harmonies that carter would use it in later works” (schiff 1998: 60). as it turns out, a trichordal subset [014] of the 4–z15 [0146] collection also appears in the ives sonata theme (notes 3, 4, and 6) and happens to fit with the surrounding pitch material in the first movement. this makes appropriation of the ives theme even smoother and directly related. in addition to finding similarities in pitch content, carter and ives both emphasize the p5 interval formed by the first two notes of the melody. example 5 shows the original ives collection, followed by six extracted statements from carter’s quartet.14 this collection, a 6–z10 hexachord [013457], is subjected to transposition, and in the final two excerpts, carter presents a descending p5 instead of an ascending p5. carter marks each statement of the ives fragment by emphasizing the opening p5 interval with dynamics and textural changes, as in the initial presentation in the cello (refer back to example 3). here (mm. 27–30) he writes in fuori above the cello, which is marked at the loudest dynamic of the passage, and he drags the notes over each bar line creating a displacement effect across the ensemble. current musicology 110 example 5: the “ives” segment and prominent statements of it in carter’s first string quartet, i. as this analysis shows, carter did more than borrow a short segment from ives in his “tribute.” he used the melody in similar ways to ives, marking it as a key motivic idea, writing it to function both melodically and within a consistent harmonic framework, and emphasizing its intervallic properties. the use of borrowing in such a structural and sophisticated way demonstrates that carter knew ives’s compositional techniques thoroughly, including his methods of employing quotation. david thurmaier 111 channeling the influence of charles ives through quotation: figment no. 2, (remembering mr. ives) carter included motivic and stylistic borrowing in works written in the 1990s for other late seminal musical figures in his life such as roger sessions and aaron copland. for example, statement—remembering aaron from 1999 draws motivically from copland’s ukulele serenade and statements and borrows key elements of copland’s musical style: quartal and quintal sonorities, consonances, and, in carter’s words, copland’s “warmth and generosity and nobility” (carter 2001a). to get a sense of his concept of borrowing, example 6 shows mm. 30–33 from statement (the title itself is a borrowing from copland, who wrote a piece with the same name) that feature music inspired by the pizzicato section of the violin part in the ukulele serenade. here carter borrows a snippet of the ukulele serenade—just enough to be recognizable. example 6: carter, statement—remembering aaron for solo violin, mm. 30–33. carter composed five pieces from 1994–2009 called “figments” for string instruments (nos. 1–4) and marimba (5), the second of which is dedicated to ives and shares some similarities with the copland tribute in its evocation of ives’s music and style. in figment no. 2, fragments of imagination, memory, and remembrance fuse together in revealing ways that paint a picture of carter’s cumulative (and perhaps final) thoughts about ives and his music over eighty years of acquaintance with it. this piece contains both stylistic and motivic borrowing, and clearly attempts to capture the music and personality of ives.15 in his brief program note, carter states that the piece “recalls fragmentarily bits of the thoreau movement of the concord sonata and hallowe’en by my late friend charles ives, whose music i have known since 1924 and have loved these works in particular” (carter 2001a). carter’s comment that he “loved” the concord sonata seems particularly ironic in light of his harsh and critical review cited earlier. yet carter acknowledged the influence of the concord sonata on his own compositional development many times; for instance, in his interview with allen edwards, carter notes that the concord sonata was one of several pieces that initially led him to decide on a career in composition (edwards 1971: 45). his fondness for the concord sonata makes its way into figment no. 2 several times: carter not only includes a key motive from its fourth current musicology 112 movement, but he also borrows stylistically from “the alcotts,” the sonata’s third movement. though he does not mention borrowing specifically from “the alcotts,” the allusions to its hymn–like qualities in figment no. 2 seem unmistakable.16 in addition to quotation and stylistic mannerisms, carter channels the spirit of ives in other ways in figment no. 2. in a fascinating exchange from the documentary elliott carter: a labyrinth of time, carter and the cellist fred sherry (for whom the piece was written) discuss certain sections of the piece, its inspiration, and how it should be performed (carter 2006). in one clip, carter plays a short passage from the hymn section of “the alcotts” on the piano and shares some thoughts on what makes the piece suggestive of ives, mentioning the prominent use of thirds that appear in figment no. 2. he also explains that in the middle section he planned to use the italian term for “like a hymn” as a tempo marking. but sherry counters, arguing that he should use the english equivalent to capture the essence of ives the american. with an impish grin, carter agrees and says doing so will make the piece more “ivesian.” the whole piece thus becomes “ivesian” with its musical and extramusical allusions. figment no. 2 consists of four short continuous sections, three of which refer to ives directly through motivic and stylistic borrowing. although the first part of the piece (“majestic,” mm. 1–22) suggests carter’s own music more than ives’s, the opening fanfare–like gestures recall the general dynamic and pitch sweeps common in ives’s works with cello such as the piano trio. this section also introduces the salient pitch material found throughout the piece, as well as certain key unifying intervals. john roeder has shown that the pitch material here (and in most of the piece) is organized through the use of a recurrent pitch–class set that appears in most of carter’s late music—the all–interval hexachord [012478] (2007). carter cycles two prominent intervals arising out of that hexachord that emerge frequently throughout the piece: the major third and perfect fifth, along with their inversions, minor sixths and perfect fourths. the focus on these particular intervals allows carter to achieve a more consonant sound overall. in the second section, marked “hymnic,” (mm. 23–32, shown in example 7), carter alludes to ives’s fondness for hymns, particularly the tune in “the alcotts” that he discussed in the video mentioned earlier. example 8 shows an excerpt from ives’s composed hymn tune from “the alcotts.” ives marks the music “slower and quietly,” sets it in the key of e–flat major, and writes two lyrical phrases supported by a simple harmonic progression. david thurmaier 113 ex am pl e 7: c ar te r, fi gm en t n o. 2 , m m . 2 3– 32 . current musicology 114 example 8: ives, original “hymn” tune in “the alcotts,” concord sonata, mvt. iii. in “the alcotts,” ives’s diatonic harmonic setting of this tune, along with its melody–and–accompaniment texture, contrasts from the highly chromatic and more agitated music that surrounds it. a similar scenario occurs in carter’s rendition of his own “hymn.” the “hymnic” section provides a strong contrast to the more angular and disjunct melodies of the opening section by featuring consonances (thirds and fifths, and their inversions), paralleling how ives harmonized his hymn melody in “the alcotts.” even though there are differences in musical materials and presentation, in this section carter comes closest to a realization of ives’s “hymnic” style. the third section of figment no. 2 suggests the playful and humorous side of ives’s music and personality (mm. 33–42, shown in example 9). although thirds and fifths continue to be stressed melodically, the music also emphasizes virtuosity over lyricism. for example, the cello plays in a very high tessitura, with glissandos, harmonics, and tremolos that create a light and playful texture. moreover, carter enhances his portrayal of ivesian humor and allusion by including literal and stylistic references to ives’s hallowe’en (the beginning of which is also shown in examples 8 and 9). carter’s love of abstract musical structures as well as his rigorous compositional planning may explain his attraction to hallowe’en, an ives composition for string quartet, piano, and (optional) bass drum, written in 1907 and revised in 1911. in his memos, ives explains the intricate canonic structure of the piece, “not only in tones, but in phrases, accents, and durations or spaces” (ives 1972: 91). peter burkholder states that the entire piece is based on this type of “contrapuntal accumulation,” a common ives technique where “the definitive statement of the entire contrapuntal complex appears only at the end, after a gradual accumulation of elements” (burkholder 1995: 228). carter’s own music often works in a similar fashion to hallowe’en: it features a prominent use of counterpoint and is crafted from pre–compositional schemata, yet it frequently displays a sense of humor. david thurmaier 115 ex am pl e 9: c ar te r, fi gm en t n o. 2 , m m . 3 3– 42 . current musicology 116 example 10: ives, hallowe’en, mm. 1–4. carter emulates ives in this third section of figment no. 2, but he imbues this music with his own individual style. the allusions to hallowe’en are subtle. for example, the jagged melodies and improvisational character in this section evoke the irregular entries and metric instability associated with the strings in hallowe’en. moreover, the harmonic glissandos found in mm. 33, 38, and 41 constitute an instance of stylistic borrowing since, as carter has confirmed, they are a direct reference to hallowe’en.17 carter also recalls motivically the cello part in hallowe’en, written in d major throughout while the other string parts and piano play either in different keys or no key at all. as if a figment of his imagination in a distant memory, carter writes several parts of this third section to outline gestures that suggest a tonal center of d or even of d major. for instance, the glissando in m. 33 begins david thurmaier 117 with a d–major quintuplet, ascending to an a (with chromatic alterations of c–natural and g–sharp suggesting a lydian–mixolydian scale), and other passages hint at a major (the dominant of d) such as the tremolo in m. 37 and the glissando in m. 41. the exact motivic quotation from hallowe’en is extremely short. in m. 38, following the sixteenth–note rest, the cello plays the first five notes of a descending d–major scale, the only place in this section that contains a literal fragment of a major scale. in comparison, each scale in hallowe’en played by the string instruments is grouped irregularly and jumps up and down at uneven points; in m. 4, the cello plays the five notes found in figment no. 2, on beats three and four (see example 10). carter quickly departs from the ives reference after this, but the pitch, grouping, and stylistic connections to hallowe’en seem clear. by inserting the fragment into this section, which sounds like the majority of carter’s other music, past and present are fused once more. two additional important ivesian references occur in the final section of the piece. the first concerns form; here carter crystallizes the preceding music together as a quasi–cumulative form that contains and synthesizes elements from the other sections.18 carter presents a culmination of musical and gestural figures from the previous three parts (mm. 43–57, following the glissando to the high e in m. 42): the use of analogous intervals to the first section (thirds, fifths), the lyrical character of the second section, and the halting stops and playfulness of the third section. as is well known, ives also adopted cumulative form for many of his pieces in which he presents thematic fragments gradually throughout a piece that then culminate in a full statement of the main theme toward the conclusion of the work. in a variation on this technique, carter writes contrasting music in each of the first three sections and then suggests each of them in the final part, acting as a summation of the entire piece. in this way, the formal structure can be read as an allusion to ives, melded and shaped by carter’s own compositional techniques. the second, more direct reference to ives in this final section is carter’s quotation from the “thoreau” movement of the concord sonata, a piece about which he especially noted its “lovely beginning and its beautiful ‘walking theme,’” which i will abbreviate as wt (carter 1997: 89). example 11 shows the final two measures of “thoreau”; example 12 displays the final section of figment no. 2 (arrows denote the a–c–g “walking theme” and its quotation, respectively). the theme is omnipresent throughout ives’s “thoreau,” functioning as an ostinato over which the sonata’s main themes (particularly a pair of hymn tunes) are stated; it is especially prominent at the end of the movement, as the sonata concludes quietly with the wt current musicology 118 exam ple 11: ives, final m easures from “th oreau” from the concord sonata. david thurmaier 119 ex am pl e 12 : c ar te r, fi gm en t n o. 2 , m m . 4 3– 56 . current musicology 120 trailing off into silence. carter models ives’s emphasis on the theme at the end of the movement by quoting it in the last measures of figment no. 2: it receives a partial statement at mm. 49–50 and then is quoted literally at m. 56. this short, three–note theme—a, c, g—is significant for both composers. a closer examination of the context of these two moments reveals again carter’s incorporation of quotations within his own melodic conception—in other words, it demonstrates that carter’s motivic borrowing is always coupled with stylistic borrowing. in m. 49 of figment no. 2, carter writes the first two notes of the wt (a, c) at a mezzo–forte dynamic as the second and third notes of a triplet. but he quickly modifies the melodic line, avoiding the jump to the g, and instead writes a quintal trichord (a–flat, e–flat, b–flat). it is worth pointing out that these two notes—a and c—and the next four—a–flat, e–flat, b–flat, e—once again spell an all–interval hexachord [012478], the piece’s unifying pitch–class set. when carter writes the final two measures of the piece (mm. 56–57) with the complete wt, it is also combined with the final three notes to form an all–interval hexachord and thereby sum up the pitch organization of the entire piece. by placing ives’s wt within all–interval hexachords, carter further combines past and present; the ives borrowing and the concluding interval of a major third recall ives and “the alcotts,” and the pitch–class set to which they belong was carter’s favored collection in his late music. conclusion the preceding analysis attempts to illuminate the complexity of the motivations behind carter’s musical borrowing. as has been noted, carter’s public statements on this topic are all over the map; most of his comments suggest that he was against borrowing because he thought it diluted a composer’s “true ideas” and was a crutch for a lack of original material. but at the same time, carter borrowed freely from a variety of composers and sources throughout his career. it is clear that these statements merely represent the two most extreme positions that informed carter’s approach to the music of charles ives. another aspect of carter’s problematic and complex attitude towards musical borrowing arises from his claims that appropriating pre–existing music creates a “lack of musical and stylistic continuity” in ives’s music. it might seem that this claim exposes a fundamental difference between the two composers, but ives often created stylistic continuity through borrowed music to suit a programmatic function or theme (e.g., a song like ives’s “he is there!” is laden with patriotic quotations). the difference is that the quotations carter uses are brief and lack the overt familiarity and associadavid thurmaier 121 tions found in ives (i.e., he avoids familiar tunes), and thus he can integrate them into his music in a formalistic manner that impacts compositional coherence. even in a piece such as figment no. 2, designed to be an homage to ives, carter skillfully blends into his own music the borrowed segments, which function on two levels: as quoted passages, and as the basis for what develop into original ideas. i have also argued for another look at carter’s musical relationship with ives. carter’s use of borrowing is far more complicated than just taking tunes from the music of ives; there is a union of motivic and stylistic references that reveal an intimate familiarity and connection with ives’s music. moreover, in addition to whatever materials are literally used, carter consciously or unconsciously appropriates compositional techniques from ives into his own music. though in his writings and music carter asserted his preferences for originality, progress, and, above all, consistency of musical language in keeping with modernist traits, he could not help being haunted in his compositional choices by his personal connection to ives and his highly unique and idiosyncratic music. this complex problematic of reconciling the past with the present and future looms large in carter’s music, as evidenced by the pieces discussed here. in his 1974 essay about ives, carter writes the following about his early mentor: “he was a complicated, quick, intelligent man with obviously an enormous love and wide knowledge of music, and with a determination to follow his own direction, believing in it deeply” (perlis 1974: 145). it seems appropriate that the same description also could be applied to carter himself, which shows that he and ives borrowed and shared more than he would admit. notes 1. the literature on borrowing in ives’s music is vast. some of the seminal texts include: ballantine 1979; burkholder 1995; henderson 2008; sinclair 1999; starr 1992; and essays in block and burkholder 1996, and burkholder 1996. 2. in the same answer, carter expresses similar reservations about gustav mahler, explaining that “some of his works remind one of those old ‘patriotic symphonies’ that were simply potpourris of national and religious anthems” (edwards 1971: 63). 3. philip lambert describes these works as “systematic” compositions (1997: 4). 4. in subsequent years, carter’s public opinion of ives’s music became more favorable, as evidenced by several essays and gestures that support ives’s position and legacy in twentieth–century music. for example, he cofounded the charles ives society in 1944 and assisted with the preparation of the concord sonata and other works for publication. in addition, he cited ives as a seminal compositional influence many times and frequently discussed ives’s influence on him in interviews. current musicology 122 5. as anne shreffler puts it, “carter’s ambivalence [toward borrowing] is not surprising, given his training . . . it could simply not be evaluated in terms of anything carter had learned at harvard or in france” (1994: 52–53). 6. i am borrowing the definitions of progressive music laid out in burkholder 1983. 7. some writings that discuss the lack of unity in ives’s music include whitesell 1994, thomson 1984, and ives 1972, especially 196–7. 8. in the same interview, carter states that he does not believe in a unique “american” musical sound but notes that “my music doesn’t sound like anybody else’s music that i’m aware of. i guess that’s american.” 9. for an interesting discussion of this work, see shreffler 1994: 55. 10. the famous quotation from carter about observing ives “jack[ing] up the dissonance” in three places in new england is in perlis 1974: 138. 11. ives’s experience of hearing multiple bands playing different parts of a piece around the town square appears in the “conductor’s note” in the score of the second movement of the fourth symphony (ives 1965). an example of carter’s pre–compositional workings for “view from the capitol” can be found in facsimile 2 in shreffler’s (1993) article. 12. also see the essay, “string quartets nos. 1, 1951, and 2, 1959,” in carter 1997: 231–35. 13. schiff notes eight separate themes in the first movement of the quartet; the ives quotation is theme four. 14. schiff asserts that carter includes the ives segment in large swaths of music (e.g., mm. 73–133), but the examples i have cited here are explicit usages, not merely suggested by related intervals or contour. see schiff 1998: 60. 15. alan thiesen notes that carter wrote his ives tribute long after saluting many other composers musically and suspects it may represent carter’s anxiety about ives’s influence on him (thiesen 2010: 17). 16. whereas in the 1939 review of the concord sonata he pays a lukewarm compliment to “the alcotts,” pointing out that “though less characteristic of ives’s best, ‘the alcotts’ maintains a consistent level,” carter tempered his views about the movement in subsequent years as seen in the 2006 frank scheffer film. 17. fred sherry, e–mail message to the author, august 23, 2011. 18. there are other opinions concerning the form of the piece. john link argues for an aba form that contains two “stately outer sections . . . while the middle section is a playful scherzando of harmonics based on ives’s playful miniature hallowe’en.” strangely, link’s formal analysis lacks any mention of the prominent section marked “hymnic” where the musical material changes significantly (2008: 9). references albright, daniel. 1999. untwisting the serpent: modernism in music, literature, and other arts. chicago: university of chicago press. baker, alan. 2002. “an interview with elliott carter.” american public media. accessed july 25, 2013. http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_carter.html. ballantine, christopher. 1979. “charles ives and the meaning of quotation in music.” the musical quarterly 65: 167–84. bishop, elizabeth. 1969. the complete poems. new york: farrar, straus, and giroux. david thurmaier 123 block, geoffrey and j. peter burkholder, eds. 1996. charles ives and the classical tradition. new haven: yale university press. burkholder, j. peter. 1983. “museum pieces: the historicist mainstream in music of the last hundred years.” journal of musicology 2: 115–34. _______. 1995. all made of tunes: charles ives and the uses of musical borrowing. new haven: yale university press. _______, ed. 1996. charles ives and his world. princeton: princeton university press. carter, elliott. 1997. elliott carter: collected essays and lectures, 1937–1995. edited by jonathan bernard. rochester: university of rochester press. _______. 2001a. program note for figment no. 2 (remembering mr. ives). new york: boosey and hawkes. _______. 2001b. program note for 4 lauds for solo violin (1984–2001). new york: boosey and hawkes. _______. 2006. elliott carter: a labyrinth of time, dvd. directed by frank scheffer. new york: juxtapositions. edwards, allen. 1971. flawed words and stubborn sounds: a conversation with elliott carter. new york: w.w. norton. henderson, clayton w. 2008. the charles ives tunebook, 2nd ed. bloomington: indiana university press. holloway, robin. 2001. “modernism and after.” in reviving the muse: essays on music after modernism, edited by peter davidson, 93–111. chippenham, uk: claridge press. ives, charles e. 1935. program notes to three places in new england. theodore presser company. _______. 1965. conductor’s note for symphony no. 4. new york: associated music publishers. _______. 1972. memos, edited by john kirkpatrick. new york: norton. _______. 2007. selected correspondence of charles ives, edited by tom c. owens. berkeley: university of california press. lambert, philip. 1997. the music of charles ives. new haven: yale university press. link, john. 2008. “elliott carter’s ‘late music’?” tempo 62 (246): 2–10. meyer, felix and anne shreffler. 2008. elliott carter: a centennial portrait in letters and documents. rochester, ny: boydell press. nordlinger, jay. 2008. “carterpalooza.” national review, december 30. accessed june 9, 2013. http://article.nationalreview.com/381798/carterpalooza/jay–nordlinger. perlis, vivian, ed. 1974. charles ives remembered: an oral history. new york: da capo press. roeder, john. 2007. “a transformational space for elliott carter’s recent complement–union music.” in mathematics and computation in music–first international conference, mcm 2007, berlin, germany, may 18–20, 2007, edited by thomas noll and timour klouche, 300–307. berlin: springer. schiff, david. 1983. the music of elliott carter. new york: da capo press. _______. 1998. the music of elliott carter, 2nd ed. ithaca: cornell university press. shreffler, anne. 1993. “‘give the music room’: on elliott carter’s ‘view of the capitol from the library of congress’ from a mirror on which to dwell.” in quellenstudien ii: zwölf komponisten des 20. jahrhunderts, edited by felix meyer, 255–83. winterthur: amadeus. _______. 1994. “elliott carter and his america.” sonus 14: 52–53. sinclair, james. 1999. a descriptive catalogue of the music of charles ives. new haven: yale university press. starr, lawrence. 1992. a union of diversities: style in the music of charles ives. new york: schirmer books. stojanović–novičić, dragana. 2011. “the carter–nancarrow correspondence.” american music 29: 64–84. current musicology 124 straus, joseph. 1990. remaking the past: musical modernism and the influence of the tonal tradition. cambridge: harvard university press. swafford, jan. 1998. charles ives: a life with music. new york: w.w. norton. taruskin, richard. 2010. music in the late twentieth century. new york: oxford university press. thiesen, alan. 2010. “a multifaceted approach to analyzing form in elliott carter’s boston concerto.” phd diss., florida state university. thomson, virgil. 1984. “the ives case.” in a virgil thomson reader, edited by john rockwell, 460–67. new york: dutton. whitesell, lloyd. 1994. “reckless form, uncertain audiences: responding to ives.” american music 12: 304–19. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 133 carol vernallis. 2013. unruly media: youtube, music video, and the new digital cinema. new york: oxford university press. reviewed by paula harper “i love the media swirl,” begins carol vernallis’s (2013) unruly media. in this exploratory, whirlwind, and sometimes frustrating volume, vernallis acts as an exuberant tour guide through the bleeding edges of twentieth– and twenty–first–century media content. vernallis cares deeply about the material under scrutiny in her book—pop culture artifacts from the “sneezing baby panda” video to baz luhrmann’s 2001 moulin rouge!—and the thesis of unruly media is, in part, that these objects are worthy of serious scholarly attention. outing herself so blatantly as a fan of her material is a bold scholarly move, and, despite weaknesses in unruly media’s argumentation and execution, vernallis’s call for further, rigorous, interdisciplinary attention to music video and other contemporary audiovisual phenomena is one that deserves to be heeded by scholars across a wide spectrum of disciplinary backgrounds. in unruly media, vernallis triangulates a contemporary audiovisual aesthetic paradigm, emerging from music video and feeding into other media forms and genres—specifically, youtube and digital cinema. vernallis dubs this paradigm “intensified audiovisual aesthetics,” and argues for specific investigation of the “musical” qualities and parameters of these genres. in many respects, unruly media fits squarely into vernallis’s body of work, from her 2004 experiencing music video, to her work as editor of the oxford handbook of sound and image in digital media and the oxford handbook of new audiovisual aesthetics. while vernallis’s disciplinary roots in film theory clearly resonate through unruly media’s attunement to issues of narrative and the visual parameters of media, vernallis’s work is anything but silent, championing the audio of the audiovisual. her analyses of pop culture artifacts always take sonic features into account, often using sound, music, or “musicality” as an entry point into the reading of a particular scene or video. when a reader is swept along in the unrelenting current of evocative metaphor and wide–ranging association, vernallis’s prose is exhilarating. her writing is vivid, distinctive, perhaps even “musical” in its striking juxtapositions and giddy tumultuousness. but as soon as one is jolted out of this stream by a moment of skepticism or critical inquiry, unruly media’s mode of address can quickly become frustrating, obstructive, baffling. key 134 current musicology concepts are rarely explicitly theorized; the reader is left to glean the meanings of terms like “flow,” “musicality,” or even “music video” through context and vernallis’s varied usage. additionally, the analyses in unruly media assume a single vantage point, indicated by a near–ubiquitous use of the pronoun “we.” we hear a set of sounds, we experience a scene in a movie, we escape from our day jobs into the three–minute stasis of a youtube clip. this collective second person is accompanied throughout the book by the also near–ubiquitous “might”/“may be”/“perhaps” auxiliary verb constructions. one assumes that the perpetual “perhaps”es are an attempt to mitigate the singular and privileged subject position enunciated by the “we,” but this once again is never explicitly laid out; the whole complex highlights the precariousness of vernallis’s aesthetic arguments, but never grounds that precariousness in a—potentially quite productive—theorization of the author’s own vantage point. might we experience some primal fear upon viewing the “badger song” on youtube? sure—but we might not. any such distance between the reader’s own perspective and unruly media’s ubiquitous “we” opens up a productive and tantalizing space, in which the plurality of spectator experience in the digital age manifests as a site for much–needed scholarship. unruly media is divided into three segments, one for each of the media forms in the title’s post–colonic. three chapters on digital cinema come first, followed by three on youtube, and three on music video. this configuration might initially seem somewhat confusing, as vernallis’s central argument is that music video functions as the “supertext” from which these new “intensified audiovisual aesthetics” emerge. however, vernallis offers the interpretation that music video “synthesizes the genres of post–classical film and online viral media,” making its placement sensible (21). additionally, the book’s structure foregrounds aesthetic and media interpenetration in its inclusion of “crossover” chapters that begin and end each of the three sections, performatively mirroring a central tenet of vernallis’s argument: contemporary media aesthetics bleed across genre boundaries. in that regard, no linear ordering of vernallis’s three genres would afford a truly intuitive progression. the book’s introductory chapter functions as a highly comprehensive road map for the book that follows, laying out vernallis’s arguments and objects of inquiry with some specificity. unruly media’s first section, dealing with digital cinema, comprises six short chapters, across which vernallis tracks an emergent set of aesthetics that break from those of classical hollywood cinema. these “intensified audiovisual aesthetics” also, vernallis argues, engage the human body in new ways, reflecting the situation of late–modern identity (40, 96). throughout this argument, vernallis sets up an implicit binary, situating linear narra135 paula harper tive (normative, homologous with classical hollywood tradition) opposite “musicality” or “music video aesthetics.” “music,” “music video,” or the “audio” of “audiovisual” thus frequently get mapped onto cinematic moments that vernallis perceives as “non–narrative” or “anti–narrative.” run lola run’s looping plot line “turn[s] the film into a music video. there is no past, no future”; moulin rouge! is notable for how it “holds us in its ‘now,’ rather than letting us stray to its future”; in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, “[a]s with music video, it is difficult to see where we are going; the viewer just has to go with the flow” (46, 79, 96). such a stance is unsurprising given vernallis’s own scholarly positioning—in this section, her theoretical reference–point is overwhelmingly the work of film theorist david bordwell, who is cited dozens of times throughout the first section and numerous times throughout the rest of the book. his theorization of “intensified continuity” is a clear antecedent to vernallis’s own “intensified audiovisual aesthetics,” and his concept of filmic “parameters” underpins vernallis’s arguments of how audiovisual components shape narrative and meaning. in relying so heavily on bordwell, however, unruly media sometimes feels insular, detached from broader scholarly and theoretical dialogues in music, film, and media theory. the second section of unruly media focuses on youtube, which vernallis alternately understands as a platform and a genre, often problematically conflating the two. while characterizing the site as “vast and uncharted,” vernallis mainly concerns herself with a particular strain of youtube videos that are entertainment–oriented, employing music and visuals (9, 127). vernallis acknowledges the existence of youtube videos outside this paradigm—for example, archival footage, pirated media, or tutorials on everything from photoshop features to cat nail clipping—but these other genres play no significant part in her analyses. it is clear that, for the purposes of unruly media, “youtube” is largely synonymous with “viral videos,” those mega–popular phenomena disseminated to and consumed by an enormous, content–hungry audience. in this vein, vernallis suggests the “badger song” as a contender for “one of the best exemplars of youtube,” perhaps unaware that the song in fact predates youtube, originating as a looping flash video on weebls–stuff.com in 2003. in its original format, the “badger song” was essentially endless, playing until the viewer navigated away from the website—quite different from the finite form of youtube videos, which in 2006 were capped at a length of ten minutes. the “badger song” misstep, while seemingly minor, is symptomatic of the problems that can arise from close readings that don’t attend to platform specificity and, more broadly, the variety of lived practices and media products that comprise twenty–first–century audiovisual consumption. 136 current musicology vernallis seeks, in this middle section of unruly media, to establish a typology of youtube aesthetics, and suggests a “map” of “aesthetic features” that typify the youtube landscape: 1. pulse and reiteration; 2. graphic values; 3. a sense of scale that matches the medium 4. irreality and weightlessness (what [vernallis calls] the “digital swerve”); 5. reanimation; 6. unusual causal relations; 7. intermediality and transmediality; and 8. sardonic humor and parody (130). vernallis moves through a dizzying array of media objects in a survey of these aesthetic parameters, which blur and bleed into each other kaleidoscopically. throughout, voices of critical media theorists like lev manovich, alexander galloway, and jonathan sterne are promisingly proffered, and terms like “just–in–time” production practices, “speedup,” and “precarious labor,” suggest engagements with issues of contemporary capitalism and circulation. however, vernallis’s arguments often skim, skipping–stone–like, over the complicated economic and political issues in which her “intensified audiovisual aesthetics” are implicated; the above scholars and concepts feature suggestively. unruly media opens tantalizing doors, offering ways in which its aesthetic claims might be related to shifting modes of perception, embodiment, and social relations in the twenty–first century—but vernallis rarely stays in one place long enough to work through the implications of any of these suggestions. at times, the reader might find herself distracted by an awareness of what’s bracketed out of such aesthetically–focused analyses: the downward and upward head gestures in will.i.am’s “yes we can” video might well have helped convey an emotional shift to viewers, but that hardly fully accounts for the video’s success in barack obama’s 2008 presidential bid. to treat the conditions of such a video’s material existence and circulation as vestigial to its aesthetics—rather than as collaborative, constitutive factors—seems remiss, especially given that vernallis champions contemporary audiovisual media in part because of its ubiquity and mass dissemination (165). springing as it does from vernallis’s previous scholarship, unruly media’s treatment of music video is the most nuanced and richly theorized set of chapters in the book. in the third and final section, vernallis first considers music video aesthetics diachronically, juxtaposing the music video language of a flock of seagulls to that of lady gaga. these chapters are refreshingly grounded in historical and material reality, as vernallis considers the technological affordances and constraints of various eras of music video production. a further chapter is dedicated to the consideration of the proprietary styles of auteur music video directors, while an epilogue considers possible aesthetic futures, in the shifting mediascape under vernallis’s perceived and imagined purview. here, vernallis advances some of her most intriguing potential arguments, like how accelerated or 137 paula harper intensified aesthetics might be related to contemporary modes of attending, cognition, and perception. in these arguments at unruly media’s close, a reader is offered tantalizing provocation towards further scholarship. throughout the book, a number of weaknesses occur on an editorial level. whether as an artifact of the book’s formal arrangement, or by design, unruly media is shot through with repetition. at times, lines or paragraphs are re–used verbatim (for examples, see 9 and 127; 85 and 93; 130 and 184). numerous introductory chapters are often so similar in structure and content to those that follow that a reader might easily find herself in a state of bewildered déjà vu—didn’t i just read this? one might understand this repetitiveness as performative on the part of the author; after all, vernallis posits that “insistent reintegration” is the key feature of an emergent youtube aesthetic (127). other factors, however, like absent or uninformative citations, copy–editing errors (most egregiously, in the book’s first sentence) or the lack of a bibliography, might vex a reader eager to build on vernallis’s work. vernallis variously adopts the notions of “glance” and “multitasking” to describe her unruly media methodology, playfully appropriating otherwise pejoratively–inflected terms for the inattention characteristic of (and, for some opponents, engendered by) the digital age (42–43). performative or not, however, this analytical mode does a disservice to the material it considers if it brackets film, music video, and viral phenomena as aesthetic objects, and engagement with them as merely “practice” for contemporary social experience, rather than giving real attention to their imbrication in the contemporary political, economic, material, and social realities of their audience. the strength of unruly media lies precisely in its author’s acknowledgement of its limitations. at a number of points, vernallis presents her work as door–opening, a cartographical exploration. she poses a number of questions for future scholars to take up in their own research. how, for example, does a scholar deal with the inaccessibility of data from corporate bastions such as mtv and youtube (152)? how can one best construct an “archive” of youtube and other viral materials, for personal use or scholarly study (150)? what, apart from aesthetic parameters, makes a successful youtube clip (135)? finally, as vernallis asks in her epilogue, how does the increasing interpenetration of cross–platform media aesthetics relate to the broader media and labor landscape of the early twenty–first century (227)? ultimately, unruly media is an effusive (if at times vexing) ride through a number of contemporary cultural forms. its value lies in the problems it raises, rather than those it solves. ignacio corona and alejandro madrid, eds. 2008. postnational musical identities: cultural production, distribution, and consumption in a globalized scenario. lanham: lexington books. reviewed by shannon garland in postnational musical identities, ignacio corona and alejandro madrid bring together twelve scholars working with (primarily) popular music in (primarily) mexico and latin america to consider the relationship between music, identity, and globalization. assuming that identity is inherent to human subjectivity, the editors analyze the relationship between ethnic and national musical identifications and the globalizing processes that might rearrange, reinscribe, or call into question such correlations. corona and madrid layout their frames for thinking about globalization and music (i.e., "the idea of the postnational," "music scholarship in times of postnationality," and "the collapse of grand narratives in popular music") in the introductory chapter, "the postnational turn in music scholarship and music marketing." they rely heavily on cultural studies and postmod­ ernist scholars such as stuart hall (1996) and frederick jameson (1998), on pop music scholars drawing on these tradition such as tony mitchell (1996); on appadurai's (1990) basic charter for an anthropology of globalization (his famous "-scapes" framework); and on hardt and negri's (2000) vision of the "postnational," neoliberal political-economic order. corona and madrid draw on these scholars to form their main analytical rubric: "postnationality;' which they define as the inadequacy of the nation state as a framework for both identity and analysis following neoliberal structural adjustment and the emergence of a postnational corporate "em­ pire" (as framed by hardt and negri 2000). postnationality thus replaces the nation state as the frame for considering the relationship between identity and music, including those cases in which national identification plays a prominent role. this model is particularly salient in the chapters (including corona and madrid's own chapter on nor-tec) that deal with us-mexico border relations and the mexican and central-american diasporas in the united states. in other chapters, especially those in the second part of the book, "postnationality" is either not directly referenced or remains implicit. these final chapters call into question the relevance of the concept of post­ nationality as a general framework of analysis. current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 103 104 current musicology in fact, a striking and seemingly inadvertent juxtaposition in the book arises from the difference in approach and perspective between scholars working in dialogue with us-mexico border studies and scholars working on transnational exchange with and within south america. the former emphasize the expression of mexican identity in music created in or in reference to diaspora communities, while the latter emphasize blurry and fleeting identifications with "abstract" points of reference (magaldi). thus, scholars working heavily with theories of transnational immigration sug­ gest that "imagined communities" are created because of diaspora, finding that music is fundamental to this cohesion. in contrast, those who focus on technological mediation over greater geopolitical areas find that music coheres experience, rather than community. in chapter 7 ("quest for the local: building musical ties between mexico and the united states") helena simonett concludes her analysis of musical practices in the mexican diaspora within the us by arguing that it is the "local" that gives credibility to music (119). although it is not always easy for the reader to understand who comprises the "subcultures" and "supercultures"-terms simonett borrows from mark slob in (1993) in relation to the micro musics of the mexican diaspora, simonett nevertheless shows how various musics derived from rural traditions in mexico both transform and become reinscribed as sounds of the "local" in chicago, new york, and los angeles. this relocalization of musical practices does not, however, always imply coherence in meaning and interpretation (and identity) for communities on both sides of the border. members of the mexican diaspora in chicago, for example, transform rural mexican ranchera and balada song styles with synthesizers and drum sets to create the new pasita duranguense, which signifies a local authenticity of home to those in chicago, but connotes falseness and contrivance to people in durango, mexico-the place from which the new genre name derives. in chapter 9, "rockin' la frontera: mexican rock, globalization, and national identity;' greg schelonka contrasts one of these rural mexican styles, ranchera, with mexican rock, framing the current proliferation of both styles as an effect of the fragmentation of the nation following nafta and other neoliberal economic adjustments. for schelonka, rockers are a countercultural tribe "that resists the processes of globalization by adhering to a local identity" (153). schelonka arrives at this interpretation by analyzing the lyrics of several mexican rock bands (especially those of resorte and molotov) which, while different from the ranchera lyrics that mourn an idyllic mexican ethos lost to economic globalization, continue to articulate mexicanness by vocalizing some of the issues associated with it, such as the migration issues so central to us-mexico relations. mexican shannon garland rock bands, including those that incorporate diverse musical styles and non-spanish lyrics, have been unable to break into us markets or to appeal to non-mexican or non-spanish-speaking listeners. schelonka attributes this to the rockers' expression of "mexicaness" (though he never specifies what this is), through divisive lyrics that touch upon us-mexican political and social relations, despite the commonality of such contestatory lyrics and attitudes in rock around the world. (indeed, one could argue that this attitude is what helps define rock as rock.) schelonka tries to strengthen his argument that rock articulates local, regional, or even national identities by referencing alan o'connor's study of two punk communities, one in mexico city and one in toronto, which appear to be completely isolated from each other. this summary, in highlighting the highly specific logics of exchange and ideals of community organization that characterize punk as a field of practice, contradicts schelonka's argument for the rock field he analyzes in this chapter, which is strongly defined through mass media. the emphasis on national identity in these essays is balanced by an emphasis on transnationalism and cosmopolitanism in others. in "before and after samba: modernity, cosmopolitanism, and popular music in rio de janeiro at the beginning and end of the twentieth century," cristina magaldi analyzes the cosmopolitan identifications in rio de janeiro as articulations of national identity through music. the contrast with other chapters is especially apparent in magaldi's discussion of rapper mv bill and hip hop in brazil, which has become a powerful form of expression for poor, black youth, particularly in rio de janeiro. magaldi first gives a short history of cosmopolitan musical tastes in turn-of-the-century rio and the process through which samba became the "cosmopolitan" music most intimately associated with ideas of brazilianess. this association was predicated on positioning black brazilians as poor and internal others, and was the mechanism through which brazil could be articulated as other to europe (178). thus for blacks in brazil, a "local" appropriation of hip hop one that would articulate brazilianness by incorporating "brazilian" sonic elements such as those found in samba could only reinscribe the kind of socio-economic marginalization that us rap and the cosmopolitan category of "black music" could help disrupt. magaldi notes a somewhat similar process of identification in the popularity of rock in brazil in the 1980s. rock became popular at the close of brazil's twenty-year dictator­ ship precisely because of its distance to sonic representations of the nation, articulating instead an urban cosmopolitanism. similarly, denilson lopes, in "transnational soundscapes: ambient music and bossatronica" (chapter 12), analyzes the emergence of ambient music and its various incarnations as an inherently transnational phenom105 106 current musicology enon that attempts to articulate the "landscape" of the urban, cosmopolitan experience. drawing on josh kun's concept of the "audiotopia" (2005), lopes argues that ambient music sounds the experience of urban modernity, dissatisfaction, and "the nostalgia for a different future" provoked by the insecurities of chaotic cities which failed to fulfill the promise of modernity, and thus the "fragility of a subject deprived of subjectivity" (212). for lopes, music doesn't articulate a national or ethnic affiliation, but rather becomes a particular kind of space that resembles the space-time of urban cities, the organization of sensibilities common to modern (especially urban) subjectivity. other contributors to this collection of essays analyze neither local identities nor cosmopolitan ones, but rather focus on the production of sound through transitional exchange. in "the miamization of latin­ american pop music," daniel party details the emergence of the "latin pop" genre, which includes ballads that sound "halfway between american adult contemporary and balada, and fast songs half-way between american dance pop and latin american dance rhythms" (76). party connects the emergence of the latin pop industry in miami to the migration of multinational con­ glomerate headquarters in general to the city, illustrating the convergence of multinational business strategy with preexisting regional musical styles and business interests. he begins by tracing the seventy-year evolution of the latin pop aesthetic from bolero through balada to the "miami sound" using poetic descriptions of musical form and giving a history of pan-latin american music marketing strategies. he then provides a concrete example of "miamization," illustrating the musical and lyrical changes in chilean balada artist myriam hernandez's music after she signed to sony latin and relocated to the company's headquarters in miami. party corroborates these changes through ethnographic work in chile with hernandez's (former) fans. not only does party's chapter offer an important contribution to music scholarship by destabilizing the divisions between folk and popular music that are often idealized or demonized as resistance or hegemony in the academy, he also offers a glimpse of the too-often missing history of musics that have been consumed en masse throughout latin america for the better part of a century. likewise, in "productive orientalisms: imagining noise and silence across the pacific, 1957-1967," barry shank traces how both orientalist and anti-essentialist ideas were heard and misheard in a series of influences between us and japanese modernist composers, particularly john cage and toru takemitsu. shank shows how cage's (often orientalist) ideas about japanese and asian philosophy and aesthetics enabled him to hear indeter­ minism in the "japanese" music of takemitsu. meanwhile, takemitsu had shannon garland composed this music with the specific intent of escaping all connotations of "japaneseness," which at the time was still strongly linked to the highly militaristic japanese nationalism developed prior to and during the second world war. in this way, shank argues, the minimalist ideas of american composers such as cage offered japanese composers a route for composing modern music outside of the nationalistic framework they sought to escape, because "japan" could still be heard in the music and recognized as japanese by (admittedly orientalist) western composers and audiences. in exchange, japanese aesthetic concepts of sawari and rna that cage found in japanese composers' works offered him a route to the kind of minimal indeterminism he sought but could not find until his encounters with the "the east." as such, shank details the way in which national and regional imaginaries ("japan," "the west," "the east") became productive for animating transnational encounters, and in creating shared compositional aesthetics. the essays in postnational musical identities offer diverse scholarly interpretations of music in relation to globalization through varied musi­ cal examples; however, the book as whole reflects a reading of music as a cultural text, an approach common to the disciplines and training of many of its contributors (musicology, cultural studies, comparative literature, and american studies). corona and madrid leave the reader wondering how the insights into globalizing processes offered by these disciplines can be used to reconsider assumptions about the very categories of identity and place, and in turn, the ways in which the study of music can aide in critiquing these assumptions and analytical methods. while many of the individual chapters suggest such new alternatives, the insights offered are not brought together in the introduction to articulate the new perspective corona and madrid seem to perceive and obviously desire. despite the lack of synthesis in the introductory chapter, the individual pieces have much to offer. they contribute to knowledge of particular musics, illustrate varied processes of musical production and explicate the interpretive frameworks these musics both engender and by which they are engendered. taken together, the examples show the tenuousness of grand analytical theories or categories, such as the "local" and the "global," when confronted with particular data that may not easily fit into such general modes of analysis. in this sense, the book offers a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches to the study of music production and meaning in the complicated, "globalized" world in which we all live. 107 108 current musicology references appadurai, arjun. 1990. disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. public culture 2 (2): 1-24. jameson, fredric. 1998. notes on globalization as a philosophical issue. in the cultures of globalization, edited by fredric jameson and masao miyoshi, 54-78. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. hall, stuart. 1996. introduction: who needs "identity?" [n questions of cultural identity, edited by stuart hall and paul du gay, 1-17. london: sage. hardt, michael, and antonio negri. 2000. empire. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. kun, josh. 2005. audiotopia: music, race, and america. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. mitchell, tony. 1996. popular music and local identity: rock, pop and rap in europe and oceanea. london: leicester university press. slobin, mark. 1993. subcultural sounds: micromusics of the west. hanover, nh: the university press of new england. current musicology, no. 96 (fall 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 147 charles m. joseph. 2011. stravinsky’s ballets. new haven: yale university press. reviewed by maeve sterbenz charles m. joseph’s recent monograph explores an important subset of stravinsky’s complete oeuvre, namely his works for dance. one of the aims of the book is to stress the importance of dance for stravinsky throughout his career as a source of inspiration that at times significantly shaped his development as a composer. joseph offers richly contextualized and detailed pictures of stravinsky’s ballets, ones that will be extremely useful for both dance and music scholars. while he isolates each work, several themes run through joseph’s text. among the most important are stravinsky’s self–positioning as simultaneously russian and cosmopolitan; and stravinsky’s successes in collaboration, through which he was able to create fully integrated ballets that elevated music’s traditionally subservient role in relation to choreography. to begin, joseph introduces his motivation for the project, arguing for the necessity of an in–depth study of stravinsky’s works for dance in light of the fact that they comprise a significant fraction of the composer’s output (more so than any other western classical composer) and that these works, most notably the rite of spring, occupy such a prominent place in the western canon. according to joseph, owing to stravinsky’s sensitivity to the “complexly subtle counterpoint between ballet’s interlocking elements” (xv), the ballets stand out in the genre for their highly interdisciplinary nature. in the chapters that follow, joseph examines each of the ballets, focusing alternately on details of the works, histories of their production and reception, and their biographical contexts. the first chapter broadly contextualizes stravinsky’s work, offering an introduction to the cultural history and musical traditions that stravinsky inherited at the turn of the twentieth century in russia. joseph provides a thorough account of the practical realities of musical life in st. petersburg that resulted in certain developments in stravinsky’s compositional style and early career. one of the major focuses of the chapter is the tense institutional divide in the mid–to–late nineteenth century between the western european classicism of the st. petersburg conservatory and the russian nationalism of the new russian school. while joseph acknowledges that, “ultimately, these highly charged contraries would prove not so contrary after all” (12), he argues that the reconciliation and integration of musical slavophilia and europhilia would greatly influence stravinsky’s training (particularly under the tutelage of rimsky–korsakov) and eventually shape current musicology 148 his compositional commitments. joseph goes on to describe the gradual escalation of stravinsky’s reputation during his early career, while admitting that his father’s celebrity as an opera singer enabled many of the composer’s opportunities. the firebird, stravinsky’s first ballet, is the focus of chapter two. joseph first adumbrates an historical backdrop for the work, providing relevant biographical details about the firebird’s producer serge diaghilev and the inception of the ballets russes. interestingly, joseph notes that stravinsky only fell into the commission by chance and was actually diaghilev’s last–minute backup choice of composer (nikolai cherepnin, anatoly lyadov, and others had previously declined diaghilev’s offers). by exploring primary source material—testimony from dancers and collaborators involved in the ballet as well as information provided by stravinsky’s sketches—joseph goes on to describe how the work came together. these details go a long way in making a case for the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of the firebird. comparison between the finished score and the piano autograph completed about a month before the debut, for instance, suggests that the composer responded to choreographic needs over the course of rehearsals. joseph also discusses musical details of the score—especially its orchestration—and points to the ways in which the music serves as a “handmaiden to the dance” (40). while expressing admiration for certain aspects of the work, joseph acknowledges the sometimes derivative nature of stravinsky’s musical style, citing in particular its resemblance to the music of rimsky–korsakov. often, however, joseph attributes weaknesses in the score to the limiting force of the choreographer, michel folkine. he observes, for instance, that during the build up to the villain kashchei’s climactic death the music is “embarrassingly histrionic”; he also speculates that stravinsky was “severely limited by the demands of the libretto” because “folkine must surely have stipulated such insipidly programmatic music” (44). nonetheless, as joseph makes clear, the ballet enjoyed an enthusiastic reception in paris. the third chapter discusses the 1911 ballets russes work, petrouchka. similar to the previous chapter, joseph’s study of petrouchka comprises a mixture of biographical history, sketch study, and music and dance analysis, forming a richly contextualized picture of the work. joseph acknowledges the practical nature of stravinsky’s career trajectory, noting that the success of firebird positioned stravinsky as a marketable celebrity to the benefit of diaghilev, who consequently commissioned stravinsky’s second ballet. one of the interesting analytical claims that sketch study enables joseph to make is the idea that petrouchka’s pitch collections are rooted in piano technique. according to joseph, sonorities and melodic lines that have previously been understood in the octatonic scale or as instances of bitonality are better maeve sterbenz 149 explained as originating from the black and white keys of the keyboard. the arpeggiated petrouchka chord, for instance, “has everything to do with the division inherent in the keyboard’s layout . . . whereby the black keys and white keys retain their own autonomy in sharpening the clash desired” (51). joseph examines earlier drafts of the score in order to show that the piano served as a “primary shaping force” in the ballet (50), both in terms of pitch materials and in terms of musical symbolism. according to joseph, compositional features of many works in stravinsky’s literature are attributable to their origins at the piano. a major theme that surfaces in this chapter is the influence of stravinsky’s russian heritage on his work. in petrouchka, an element of russian nationalism is most apparent in the ballet’s plot, which is derived from russian folklore, and scene, which is largely based on balagni, vibrant russian fairs of the nineteenth century. joseph devotes the majority of the chapter to describing how the work was created and emphasizes that “the role of music seems to have been elevated to a status equal to that of dance” (72). at the same time, joseph positions stravinsky as a kind of visionary whose collaboration with other artists created difficulties in rehearsals when dancers and orchestra alike were left “baffled” by his score (54). joseph also attends to details of the work, and sometimes provides blow–by–blow accounts of the ballet’s music and choreography. these accounts are quite effective in bringing an evocative sense of the ballet to the reader, though they serve much less often as sites of critical analysis of the work. in the fourth chapter, which focuses on the rite of spring, joseph spins his discussion around threads begun earlier in the book, especially stravinsky’s balance of western european cosmopolitanism with russian nationalism. the rite is contextualized largely in terms of the metaphorical “distance between st. petersburg and paris” (73). while revolutionary energy continued to build in russia, stravinsky, embracing european modernism, rode the momentum of his blossoming career. perhaps because of the copious ink already spilled over this ballet, joseph largely avoids description and analysis of the work; instead he focuses on the historical context that lead to its production as well as its famously contentious reception. joseph mostly foregoes the project of unpacking the various “isms” (modernism, primitivism, etc.) with which the rite of spring is typically associated, though he recapitulates interpretations of the work given by several historians, including modris eksteins, who reads the rite as an allegory for russian revolutionary ideology (eksteins 1989). once again, joseph looks to stravinsky’s sketches and commentary, which he believes to “provide a revealing a roadmap of the composer’s thinking” (88). one of the interesting results of joseph’s sketch study in this chapter is confirmation that stravinsky current musicology 150 used pre–existing russian folk songs as the basis for melodies in the score as opposed to an unconscious, impressionistic “folk memory.” to parisian audiences, the ballet “overstepped the limits of propriety” (74), in both musical and choreographic features, an offense that joseph argues was calculated: “the parisian upper crust in attendance that opening night got what they bargained for: an inflammatory, sublimely unintelligible desecration to fuss over in chic conversation” (97). still, joseph exalts the rite as a landmark achievement of the twentieth century. in chapter five, joseph discusses the development of stravinsky’s neoclassical style, which would eventually lead to the composition of apollo. joseph does not identify a clear motivation for this change, but cites “clarity of contrapuntal textures and ostensibly unethnic spirit” among its stylistic markers (103). in passing, mention is made of stravinsky’s 1920 ballets russes ballet pulcinella, one of the earliest works for dance to feature this new musical style (103). though the reader is offered little detail here, pulcinella receives further attention in the penultimate chapter. more central to this chapter are stravinsky’s initial encounters with george balanchine, a figure whose collaboration with stravinsky would prove crucial in shaping the rest of his career. joseph describes their first collaboration, chant du rossignol as a work that, while not responsible for “blazoning a new path” artistically, was nonetheless important as a precedent for future work between the two artists (111). joseph emphasizes the integrated, interdisciplinary approach that both artists exhibited even at this early stage in their relationship: “just as stravinsky carefully monitored the way balanchine choreographed in the studio . . . so balanchine learned from stravinsky’s physically demonstrative, kinesthetic approach to working with dancers” (110). joseph also notes balanchine’s particular sensitivity to and comprehension of music, even in comparison to stravinsky’s previous choreographic collaborators, such as vaslav nijinsky. according to joseph, the success of balanchine’s choreography in this and later ballets lies in his nuanced approach to the music–dance relationship wherein the choreography provided a subtle counterpoint to the music (as opposed, for instance, to nijinsky’s more obvious articulation of every accented beat in the rite of spring). this collaborative spirit is cited by joseph as a crucial factor in the success of their next, better–known collaboration, apollo. joseph positions apollo at the pinnacle of stravinsky’s neoclassicism and claims it represents a renunciation of his previous musical styles—a change that the author links biographically to stravinsky’s personal search for orderliness, serenity, and repentance (112–14). in apollo, joseph claims, “stravinsky sought a melodic style that demonstrated pure beauty, free of ethnicity” (111). this statement is certainly suggestive, especially when considered alongside maeve sterbenz 151 joseph’s earlier theme of stravinsky’s bridging western and eastern european compositional styles; unfortunately, however, joseph never makes this connection explicity. some unpacking and contextualization of the rhetoric surrounding stravinsky’s neoclassicism would have been welcomed here.1 nonetheless, joseph’s analysis of apollo’s score, along with information provided by sketches and correspondences, reveals interesting features of the music’s structure and its relationship to the choreography. several neoclassical ballets that stravinsky composed in the period after diaghilev’s death, between 1928 and 1948, are examined in chapter six. many of these ballets were collaborations between balanchine and stravinsky that prefigured the 1948 formation of the new york city ballet by balanchine and lincoln kirstein. among the works explored are: le baiser de la fée (originally choreographed by bronislava nijinska), jeu de cartes, danses concertantes, scènes de ballet, and orpheus. joseph focuses on varying mixtures of each work’s historical context, compositional and choreographic content, and process of creation. similarly to other parts of the book, joseph provides more in the way of detailed accounts of how each work is assembled than critical analyses or interpretations. chapter seven centers on stravinsky and balanchine’s final major ballet agon. joseph suggests that agon, far from serving as a final chapter in a neatly packaged greek trilogy, was separated by nearly thirty years from apollo—it was completed in 1957—and “stood a world apart from orpheus” (167). agon marked a significant change in stravinsky’s compositional style, mixing renaissance music and serial techniques. agon thus stands as an exemplar of one of joseph’s central claims, namely, that ballet stood out as a particular site of compositional innovation for stravinsky. while stravinsky began to explore alternatives to the diatonicism of his neoclassical works in a number of concert pieces dating from the early–to–mid 1950s, it was ultimately ballet that “provid[ed] the testing ground for a new direction” (167). in addition to explaining the motivations for stravinsky’s serial turn, joseph traces the many artistic influences informing agon. these included greek verse, the poetry of t. s. eliot, and, especially, apologie de la danse—a seventeenth–century dance manual by françois de lauze with accompanying music by theologian, mathematician, and musician marin mersenne. once more, joseph stresses the highly collaborative nature of stravinsky and balanchine’s project, citing each artist’s immersive engagement with the other’s medium. stravinsky precisely timed the music to accompany the choreography and was “immersed in the choreographic conception from the outset, often notating specific dance patterns as he worked through his initial compositional sketches” (174). in the other direction, balanchine “understood the basic compositional principles at work” and created “a current musicology 152 choreographic parallel that could be grasped only through understanding the complex interior network of stravinsky’s intricate score” (186). thus, agon represents “a synergistic achievement if ever there was one” (186). going beyond a purely formalist discussion of the ballet, joseph contextualizes agon in terms of relevant contemporary social issues: the ballet was described as “futuristic” and emblematic of the dawning space age; it also featured interracial partnering and choreography that asserted female sexual agency and empowerment, both of which joseph argues were suggestive of a “bold new spirit” in 1957 (187). joseph devotes chapter eight to what he calls stravinsky’s “terpsichorean hybrids”: “compositions incorporating dance in a rich variety of guises, many of which could hardly be classified as traditional ballets” (197). since these hybrids appear throughout stravinsky’s corpus, this constitutes the first break from the book’s chronological organization. among the works discussed are renard, l’histoire du soldat, pulcinella, les noces, perséphone, and the flood. on the whole, however, the chapter uses a similar methodology to that of the preceding chapters: references to sketches, primary sources, and the author’s own analyses are mobilized in order to contextualize and investigate the works at hand. the ninth and final chapter of the book considers stravinsky’s enduring legacy in the world of dance in the latter half of the twentieth century as well as into the twenty–first. joseph cites balanchine’s continued engagement with stravinsky’s compositions after the latter’s death, as well as the countless restagings of stravinsky’s ballets by a diverse range of dance companies, as evidence for the composer’s lasting and ever–evolving impact on the world of dance and music. in pulling together such a wide range of primary sources and providing an in–depth and comprehensive study of stravinsky’s ballets, joseph’s book presents an important resource in stravinsky scholarship. though at times the book tends to adopt an aggrandizing rhetoric that seems out of place in its otherwise thoroughly historicized accounts (works are frequently exalted as timeless masterpieces, for instance), the writing style is engaging and accessible to a wide variety of readers—perhaps even those looking for an introductory text. the reasons for limiting the scope of the book to stravinsky’s dance works are obvious; however, one of the major aims of the book—to show that ballet as a compositional impetus served to shape stravinsky’s career as a whole—is somewhat difficult to convincingly achieve without recourse to analyses of the concert works themselves. still, as joseph notes towards the end of the book, “these ballets provide a looking glass into stravinsky’s compositional evolution . . . [e]ach is replete with observable stylistic changes, discrete turns in the road, and overarching commonalimaeve sterbenz 153 ties that speak to matters of unity and coherence” (247). as such, joseph’s investigations provide useful information, not only with regard to the ballets he studies but also with regard to stravinsky’s entire compositional oeuvre. readers approaching the book from any number of perspectives will likely find joseph’s research both stimulating and illuminating. notes 1.this charged rhetoric might warrant unpacking especially given how much it seems to resonate with efforts of stravinsky’s artistic contemporaries in the us and europe, such as isadora duncan, to employ greek classicism as a strategy for white self–determination. see, for instance, duncan, 1995 [1927]: 242–245. references duncan, isadora. 1995 [1927]. my life. new york: liveright. eksteins, modris. 1989. rites of spring: the great war and the birth of the modern age. boston: houghton mifflin. microsoft word timmermans typeset current musicology 108 (spring 2021) ©2021 timmermans. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 1 matthew timmermans this review essay is about a field that does not yet exist. it considers the relationships among opera, sound recording, and critical race theory,1 and explores them at a moment when these fields are beginning to converge.2 one of my concerns will be the recent and ground-breaking studies and collections on opera and race by naomi adele andré (2017, 2019), kira thurman (2012, 2019), pamela karantonis and dylan robinson (2011), and mary i. ingraham, joseph k. so and roy moodley (2016). another will be the neglected history of opera and sound recording; notable scholars here include karen henson (2020), robert cannon (2014), and richard leppert (2015). finally, i will focus on the thought-provoking analyses of race and sound by alexander weheliye (2005), brian ward (2003), jennifer lynn stoever (2016) and nina sun eidsheim (2019). there are obvious connections among these three bodies of scholarship, yet these connections have not yet been clearly identified and explored. although many scholars have come to embrace opera as a material and embodied phenomenon, the artform’s dissemination, analysis, and enjoyment through sound recording is still overlooked as a site of enquiry, especially its potential as a fertile site of inquiry about identity. to overlook the issue of identity in relation to recording is to perpetuate the belief that recordings are primarily documents of performance practice. it ignores the army of technicians who invisibly craft the acoustic object, many of whom are historically white and male. this review essay seeks to address this neglect and to suggest some ways in which the processes of making and consuming opera recordings is intimately related to whiteness and anti-blackness—but also to black possibility. in what follows, i cast a broad net, ranging widely and at times unexpectedly. i begin with some recent events in american musicology and in the new york operatic scene; then, turn to a consideration of some of the scholarship just mentioned; and finally conclude with a brief discussion of a specific recording, the metropolitan opera’s “live” sound recording of the 2019 production of gershwin’s porgy and bess. 2 i: the problem(s) in 2020, the american musicological society (ams) responded in solidarity with the black lives matter (blm) movement and included, in that year’s annual meeting, an unprecedented number of papers, discussions, and events on the subject of music and race.3 several panels focused on different aspects of blackness and music; the plenary keynote speaker was daphne brooks, an esteemed figure in african-american studies who writes about music, performance, sound recording, gender, and race; and the committee on race and ethnicity invited farah jasmine griffin, a similarly esteemed africanamerican studies scholar and cultural critic, to present her research on quiet and stillness in black music.4 the ams is a large and powerful institution that seeks to represent musicology’s scholarly interests and investments, and this was a radical shift in programming that made space for voices, bodies, and research that had until that point never been so centrally represented.5 on the one hand, this shift inspires hope, particularly for young scholars such as myself, who are just entering the discipline. one hopes to see musicologists not only better appreciate, respect, and consider the thoughts, experiences, and contributions of its bipoc and other underrepresented scholars, but also use their work toward amending, dismantling, and replacing the structures that make the field forbidding and even harmful to such scholars. on the other hand, one wonders whether the ams will continue to pursue a progressive scholarly agenda, once the turbulence of the last few years has passed.6 in her groundbreaking article, “mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: an american grammar book,” hortense j. spillers created a vocabulary to address the histories of black people, especially black women, generating a discourse that the mainstream academy would recognize. her writing made black history and bodily knowledge desirable to scholars and necessitated that black women were included in the ensuing conversations. yet, thirty years later, she (2007, 301) warned us: you know, people are going to have to keep doing it, or rediscover it again, or reassert it because the forces of opposition are so forceful and so powerful and they’re always pushing against us, they always want to enforce forgetfulness. they always want to do something that forgets the african presence or reabsorbs it, reappropriates it in another way. the need to confront psychological violence, epistemic violence, intellectual violence is really powerful. although i am taking a risk by committing this to print, i was reminded of spillers’s prognosis when i attended one of the ams’s 2020 sessions devoted to 3 blackness and music, the “black opera” panel. the session was chaired by andré (and the session title most likely inspired by her book, black opera). all five panelists presented as white, and andré had invited some notable black figures to respond, including the scholars thurman and brenda (innocentia) j. mhlambi and the distinguished opera composer anthony davis. the papers were excellent, and the discussants made thought-provoking comments. thurman seemed to echo spillers’s warning when she observed (and i am paraphrasing) that, “often when white institutions attempt to address racial inequity whether in academia, the opera industry, or the united states more broadly, these attempts often fortify the foundations of whiteness and white supremacy, rather than dismantling them.” she then invited the panelists to respond, and the speakers emphasized the importance of archival research and of finding, curating, and amplifying black creativity, experience, and thought. although archival work is undeniably essential, the near absence in the responses of new or alternative theoretical models (new or alternative to opera scholars and musicologists) was concerning, as if scholars did not need critical tools that specifically address subjects, objects, and people that have hitherto been neglected by the field of opera studies. and the fact that all the speakers on the panel presented as white (although not their responsibility or fault) was of course also concerning. what does it say about the field of opera studies? how should opera studies move forward, bringing the music of marginalized figures and communities out from what andré might call the “shadows” while also addressing the field’s lack of bipoc representation? before giving the impression that i am somehow not implicated in these issues, i would like to juxtapose these questions with an experience i had a year earlier. as is well known, in 2019, in an attempt to respond to its own dearth of black representation, another large and powerful institution, the metropolitan opera, mounted a production of porgy and bess, the first at the house since 1990. as andré (2017; 2019) and others have pointed out, the opera’s depiction of blackness is profoundly problematic; but it is also a piece beloved by black audiences. i attended several of the performances and then hosted a black musicologist and friend from out of town who also wanted to attend. following the performance, my friend disclosed to me that the performance haunted and disturbed him: performers willingly inhabiting minstrel stereotypes; black singers given an otherwise rare opportunity to appear on the met stage; and most devastating, spectators looking past these issues to revel in a moment of black excellence. i responded by trying to exonerate porgy, condemning what i had seen on stage, but justifying my enjoyment by making arguments about 4 gershwin’s music and referring to a selection of recordings of the opera that i have long loved. i retreated behind my academese and the pleasures of recorded sound. i even implied that my marginalization as a gay opera lover (and a canadian!) gave me a unique understanding removed from america’s history of slavery. i had of course reverted to one of the most established theoretical models in talking about opera and music: privileging “the music itself.” i spoke of recordings as if they were simply transparent representations of a performance or the score, rather than carefully crafted artifacts bound up in issues of identity. needless to say, my reaction offended and harmed my friend, who admitted that he would have to think twice before confiding in me again. ii: vampire portraits, fleshy archives, and the “new racism” in the second part of this review essay, i will turn to some of the scholarship on opera and race, opera and sound recording, and race and sound, and consider the evident, but not yet explored connections among these three bodies of scholarship. this scholarship offers a variety of ideas and approaches that can be used to address what spillers described as the “forgetfulness,” “reabsorption,” and “reappropriation” of race, especially blackness. i will also suggest models for how opera studies should move forward. a central concern in my discussion will be how to think more critically about the subject of opera and sound recording, and in particular, the investment opera studies and musicology (still) has in divesting music from bodies and race. the ontology, artistic value, and economy of mechanical reproduction have been vehemently debated since at least the end of the nineteenth century. walter benjamin describes what he defines as a work’s aura, its initial and ideal essence that cannot be captured outside its original context of creation. mechanical reproduction removes the artwork’s “unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” in doing so, benjamin ([1935] 1982, 218-20) explains that it “emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual.” benjamin (ibid., 218) revels in the democracy afforded by mechanical reproduction as well as its possibility, noting that “in photography, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will.” like benjamin with photography, theodor w. adorno ([1969] 2002) considers sound recording to have transformative technical and aesthetic potential because it removes distracting visual spectacle, embarrassing 5 productions, noisy audiences, and the ephemeral nature of operatic performance. after almost two decades of record labels distributing operas using the long-playing record, adorno claimed that listeners now had the necessary intimacy and control with which to closely study these works.7 for benjamin ([1935] 1982, 218), and arguably adorno, sound recording projects the musical experience into new contexts that offer new possibilities of interaction between the listener and the work; but neither thinker draws critical attention to how the identities of those wielding the lens or microphone might impact the artistic experience. in the form of records, opera has become accessible to those historically not often seen at the american opera house, those who do not often see themselves represented or, if they do, see themselves portrayed as harmful stereotypes. but, rather than being a reprieve, the record can also replicate or reinvent these stereotypes, burying them within itself and then projecting them in new spaces. more recent explorations of listening and sound recording broaden our understanding of the individual’s relationship with a sound recording. wayne koestenbaum (1993, 51) revels in the unwieldy and uncontrollable meanings of the record: records are tokens of disappearance and comeback; they are also portraits. i think of records as equivalents of the degenerating portrait of dorian gray in oscar wilde’s 1891 novel. a record pretends to be a boundaried, attractive, flattering portrait. but its instabilities, its mysteries, its potentially horrific features, need to be quarantined. the portrait annexes the soul of its beholder and grotesquely mutates it. the portrait is vampiric. it doesn’t keep a secret. it blurts out vices. a record can’t limit the voice’s meaning. a voice, once recorded, doesn’t speak the same meanings that it originally intended. every playing of a record is a liberation of a shut-in meaning—a movement, across the groove’s boundary, from silence into sound, from code into clarity. a record carries a secret message, but no one can plan the nature of that secret, and no one can silence the secret once it has been sung. koestenbaum draws our attention to the enigmatic qualities of listening as a material experience and the mysterious power of a record. these possibilities escape what carolyn abbate (2004) might describe as gnostic reductions. his understanding of the record encourages us to look for the tensions between the work, its performers, and their reproduction. in annexing “the soul of its beholder,” a record’s “shut-in” meaning may no longer be directly descended from the “original.” koestenbaum’s poetics centers the power of the record in the object itself. in doing so, we are left to assume that he overlooks the legions 6 of producers, technicians, and performers who decide how to adapt the “live” experience into a mediated one—actors who operate through a web of biases that later thinkers draw our critical attention to. the recorded presence overlooked by adorno and exposed as chimeric by koestenbaum is reinterpreted in alexander g. weheliye as black possibility. what weheliye (2005, 46) defines as “sonic afro-modernity” denotes the inextricable, co-creative, and co-constitutive relationship between whiteness and blackness, “human and inhuman, sound and vision.” weheliye deconstructs our understanding of the recording as an insufficient copy, or any kind of mediation for that matter. rather, he argues that it constitutes a completely new entity. weheliye wants to completely invert our understanding of what constitutes “the original,” sonically and beyond. drawing on w.e.b du bois’s seminal concept of “double consciousness,” weheliye challenges our teleological understanding of the phonograph and demonstrates how this technology contributed to the creation of the very divisions of “live” versus recorded performance, original sound versus its copy, and white versus black. however, he argues that by reifying “live” performance, sound recording unleashed blackness from a state of abjection and helped transform it into a fundamental co-, or perhaps even, original creator in a shifting musico-technical assemblage. what adorno dismisses from the record, and koestenbaum opens to the possibility of uncapturable refraction, weheliye (2005, 46) interprets as “the occasion to think and hear these matters in slightly different versions that do not lose sound or sight of the surplus gift inherent to afro-diasporic double consciousness.” redirecting the agency koestenbaum gives to the record as a vampire portrait instead to the listener, weheliye (2005, 16) “does not relegate these practices to the apparatus itself, at least not any notion thereof in which technology’s materiality remains anterior to or outside of the machinations of (black) culture.” rather, we find ourselves focusing on the horizon of the listener, an approach comparable to fredrich a. kittler’s (1999) interpretation of technology as extensions of the creator or listener’s wants and desires, and the social processes those engender.8 much like the concept of the listener’s horizon, simon frith (1996, 227 and 205) describes listening as a performance in itself, a process through which the listener interprets the performer within the frame of his, her, or their own experience: “and yet ideologically—as a matter of interpretation and fantasy— 7 the old values remain (presence, performance, intensity, event), and listening to recorded music becomes contradictory; it is at once public and private, static and dynamic, an experience of both past and present.” weheliye recontextualizes frith’s observations within the debate of liveness. for him, the hundred-year-old argument that a mediated performance is inferior to a “live” one is no longer a given (as the dominant ideology still purports); rather both are experienced and interpreted by the listener in the present and informed by his, her, or their past conceptions of a work, performer, and performance. drawing on michel foucault (1978), jonathan sterne makes a parallel intervention in the historiography of sound recording. he (2003, 28) argues that a history of sound recording is inseparable from a history of the body, explaining that “the history of sound must move beyond recovering experience to interrogating the conditions under which that experience became possible in the first place. experiences are themselves variables shaped by the contexts through which they then help their subjects navigate.” like kittler, sterne calls for a contextual approach to the history of sound recording (and sound studies more broadly) one that erodes its immaterial façade. he emphasizes the listening practices of those creating sound recording technologies, including their impact on the sounds and objects those technologies produce. sterne’s reinterpretation of sound recording as an extension of listening opens the subject to questions of identity, often overlooked in the early scholarship on sound and technology. fifteen years before sterne’s audible past and contemporaneous with the theoretical work sterne draws on, spillers poignantly denounced the violent absence of black female bodies in our histories and critical praxis in her seminal 1987 essay, “mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: an american grammar book.” spillers's writing provides useful tools for thinking about the treatment of identity in the histories and practices of sound recording. she interrogated “the conditions under which that experience became possible in the first place,” tracing it back to the middle passage when black bodies were violently stripped of their humanity, ungendered, and rendered fungible in the eyes of a system maliciously crafted by their oppressors. spillers names these undone victims—the flesh—in direct opposition to the body or the liberated human of the colonizers. in an arresting passage, one that is worth quoting at length, she (1987, 446) writes that: the anatomical specifications of rupture, of altered human tissue, take on the objective description of laboratory prose—eyes beaten out, arms, backs, skulls branded, a left 8 jaw, a right ankle, punctured; teeth missing, as the calculated work of iron, whips, chains, knives, the canine patrol, the bullet. these undecipherable markings on the captive body render a kind of hieroglyphics of the flesh whose severe disjunctures come to be hidden to the cultural seeing by skin color. we might well ask if this phenomenon of marking and branding actually “transfers” from one generation to another, finding its various symbolic substitutions in an efficacy of meanings that repeat the initiating moments? as elaine scarry describes the mechanisms of torture, these lacerations, woundings, fissures, tears, scars, openings, ruptures, lesions, rendings, punctures of the flesh create the distance between what i would designate a cultural vestibularity and the culture, whose state apparatus, including judges, attorneys, “owners,” “soul drivers,” “overseers,” and “men of god,” apparently colludes with a protocol of “search and destroy.” this body whose flesh carries the female and the male to the frontiers of survival bears in person the marks of a cultural text whose inside has been turned outside. the flesh is the concentration of “ethnicity” that contemporary critical discourses neither acknowledge nor discourse away. it is this “flesh and blood” entity, in the vestibule for “pre-view” of a colonized north america, that is essentially ejected from “the female body in western culture,” but it makes good theory, or commemorative “herstory” to want to “forget,” or to have failed to realize, that the african female subject, under these historic conditions, is not only the target of rape— in one sense, an interiorized violation of body and mind—but also the topic of specifically externalized acts of torture and prostration that we imagine as the peculiar province of male brutality and torture inflected by other males. a female body strung from a tree limb, or bleeding from the breast on any given day of field work because the “overseer,” standing the length of a whip, has popped her flesh open, adds a lexical and living dimension to the narratives of women in culture and society. this materialized scene of unprotected female flesh—of female flesh “ungendered”—offers a praxis and a theory, a text for living and for dying, and a method for reading both through their diverse mediations. spillers’s notion of the “hieroglyphics of the flesh” demands that we consider the ways in which identity, and specifically embodied black female identity, operates as the flesh, a plethora of meanings associated with the fungible and abject body. in her analysis, spillers relates the theory to the process of familial rupture that was central to the slave trade, using this process to deconstruct the naturalized and racialized notion of gender and the “nuclear” family. she ultimately advocates for an intersectional approach to culture and history, one that considers the complex interactions among categories of identity including gender, race, and trauma.9 such an approach could usefully be applied to the study of listening to sound recordings, perhaps drawing on nina sun eidsheim’s work on opera and race and how listening shapes technologies and bodies. eidsheim (2015; 2019) formulates a meta-theory of listening. for her, works, performers, and experiential knowledge are limit cases that allow us to deconstruct naturalized assumptions about listening; the larger aim is to foster a 9 more inclusive practice of listening. her work on racialized sounds locates the idea of race in the listener’s ear as opposed to the sounding body. like spillers, eidsheim analyzes moments of trauma to reveal how racialized sounds and bodies are constructed. in her work on opera singers (2019), she draws on interviews with vocal pedagogues to analyze how they project notions of racialized sound onto the bodies of their students, physically entraining them to sound like the teachers’ own perceptions of the other. unlike andré, who uses critical race theory to unearth black operatic life, eidsheim uses opera to expose and dismantle oppressive modes of listening. in the realm of sound recording, susan schmidt-horning, brian ward, and karl hagstrom miller have drawn the curtain back on the once invisible technicians and, in the process, address issues of inequity. although several histories of recorded sound exist, schmidt-horning (2013, 6) explains that: “how that [history] happened from the perspective of those engaged in the recording process has remained relatively unexamined.” schmidt-horning draws upon a series of over seventy interviews to reveal the “tacit knowledge” audio engineers acquired on the job in a rapidly changing industry, and the social skills they developed to manage the artists. while tracing the balance between the engineer’s “low position in the recording hierarchy” and the artist’s dependence on him to work his “magic,” schmidt-horning (2013, 9) explicitly states that the music industry has historically been dominated by white men and shows the ways that they cultivated the technologies and practices still used in the studio today. ward advocates more explicitly on behalf of the racially oppressed. ward (2003, 11) rejects “the earnest quest for some sort of mythical, hermetically sealed, ‘real’ black american music, unadulterated by white influences and untarnished by commercial considerations” and traces how black artists negotiated the co-constitutive relationship of blackness and whiteness from the 1950s through the 1970s in the recording studio. miller (2010) illuminates an earlier period in sound recording history, the 1880s to the 1920s, focusing on the ways in which record industry executives racialized both their artists and their recordings, literally describing products for and by african americans as race records. but there is more work to be done. the majority of scholarship that explores the impact of identity on listening and the process of recording tends to focus on musical idioms considered fundamentally black, and intersectional analyses of western classical music and sound recording remain few.10 it is of course well known that opera has a problematic history with representation. opera’s investment in whiteness, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism is not only reflected in the repertoire, but also in the 10 lack of diversity onand off-stage and in the audience.11 based on the 2020 census, demographers project that the white population will soon become a minority in the united states (lu et al. 2021), and yet the opera industry is nowhere near responding to these projections. by perpetuating the belief that opera is eternally relevant despite being polluted with problematic words, images, and sounds, the industry successfully continues to protect its deeply sedimented structures of white privilege. saidiya v. hartman’s scenes of subjection (1997) is one of several seminal works that offers tools with which to begin to identify and dismantle this privilege, not only in the opera house, but also in the recording studio. she explores the brutal history of slavery in the united states, but she warns us against sensationalizing this history and its violence: in doing so one can overlook the complex network of power and oppression that has survived. hartman (1997, 21) is specifically interested in “the desire to don, occupy, or possess blackness or the black body as a sentimental resource and/or locus of excess enjoyment [and …] to consider critically the complicated nexus of terror and enjoyment.” hartman explains that this nexus or dialectic of terror and enjoyment derives from the plantation, where slaves were forced, whipped, and terrorized to dance and sing to give the impression of happiness, wellbeing, satisfaction, and ultimately naturalness in bondage. hartman argues that this torture-cum-entertainment was not abolished with slavery, but rather transformed and adapted into new and more insidious forms in the united states. her arguments demand that we think about the ways that the nexus of terror and enjoyment was passed down through the generations, physically, emotionally, and systemically, and perpetuated in white institutions, including the opera house and the recording studio. hartman’s writing has already been a significant source of inspiration for scholars on blackness and music. matthew d. morrison (2017, 15), for example, has explained that her work compels him “to amplify how the sounds of black people, blackness, and the (commodified) embodiment of the two within popular entertainment are key to how identities are constructed and how these formations continue to shape our society.” morrison (2017; 2019) builds on hartman’s ideas by developing a concept specifically for music that he calls blacksound (2017, 18), which he defines as follows: a theory of historical embodiment to trace the ephemerality and materiality of the sounds produced by black bodies within the history of popular music in the united states. the concept allows for the consideration of how black bodies and their myriad aesthetic practices have been subjected through spectacular and quotidian popular 11 performances during enslavement, through emancipation, and persisting into the structuring of our (post)modern economies of popular entertainment and identity. developed further in relation to nineteenth-century minstrel performance, blacksound is a notion that centers the issue of domination in american cultural objects and seriously considers the re-instantiation of nineteenth-century racist musical traditions in contemporary performance practices. while morrison’s notion of blacksound has only just begun to be applied to opera, thurman’s work on the black operatic voice (2012; 2019) offers a model for how scholars might explore the dialectic of terror and enjoyment in the art form.12 her research on soprano grace bumbry’s tenure as the first black woman at wagner’s festspielhaus in bayreuth, where she appeared as venus in wagner’s tannhäuser, draws attention to the creativity and pleasure of the episode and bumbry’s fear for her physical safety. thurman also exposes how racism was often disguised as maintaining tradition or defending the sanctity of wagner’s operas and opera in general. the literature explored thus far encourages us to examine how opera, and opera recordings, might replicate, transform, and create new racial boundaries. when it comes to developments in opera’s technological mediation in the last ten years (streaming, youtube, the phenomenon of “live-in-hd,” and so on), patricia hill collins’s (2004, 32) idea of “the new racism,” which she outlines in her book black sexual politics, could be particularly useful. for collins, “the problem of the twenty-first century seems to be the seeming absence of a color line. formal legal discrimination has been outlawed, yet contemporary social practices produce virtually identical racial hierarchies as those observed by du bois”—in other words, from over a century earlier. collins explores the survival and transformation of racism during the course of the rapid economic and technological developments of the 1990s, such as in hip-hop music videos. she (2004, 31) observes that: camera angles routinely are shot from a lower position than the rapper in question, giving the impression that he is looming over the viewer. in real life, being this close to young african american men who were singing about sex and violence and whose body language included fists, angry gestures, and occasional crotch-grabbing might be anxiety provoking for the typical rap and hip-hop consumer (most are suburban white adolescents). yet viewing these behaviors safely packaged within a music video protects consumers from any possible contact with black men who are actually in the videos. just who are these videos for? what are the imagined race, gender, and sexual orientations of the viewers? 12 collins explicitly raises the issue of racism and technological mediation, in this case observing how the music videos are curated for an imagined white audience. her observations about the positionality of the viewer suggest that scholars might want to think about late twentiethand early twenty-first-century media as a new form of segregation. in a time when performance spaces are being radically redefined, including in opera, collins warns us about the new and more insidious guises in which the “hieroglyphics of the flesh” might appear. taking a more historical approach, and drawing again on du bois, jennifer lynn stoever (2016, 18) proposes the concept of the “sonic color line” and uses it to scrutinize the “process of racializing sound—how and why certain bodies are expected to produce, desire, and live amongst particular sounds—and its product, the hierarchical division between ‘whiteness’ and ‘blackness.’” stoever (2016, 7) draws together several seemingly isolated examples of black sound creation from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and uses the idea of “the listening ear” as a figure for “how dominant listening practices accrue—and change—over time, as well as a descriptor for how the dominant culture exerts pressure on individual listening practices to conform to the sonic color line’s norms.” stoever’s ideas are potentially extremely useful for scrutinizing whiteness and its related practices of listening. she (2016, 53) also emphasized the importance of uncovering “potential sites of freedom and resistance that evade the sonic color line and the listening ear.” there is a similar emphasis foregrounding both resistance and liberation in the historical past in the work of andré and denise von glahn (2020, 714), who use the term “shadow culture narratives” to refer to “how women’s histories—especially histories of women of color—exist in the shadows of the conventional white (and black) narrative norms.” daphne brooks in her most recent book liner notes for the revolution (2021, 43) has meanwhile used the term “subterranean blues” to articulate “how central black women musicians are to modernity and, likewise, how modernity and its cultural archives [have] repeatedly betray[ed] these artists, the conduits of ‘nurturing, healing, life and love giving for the majority culture,’ as well as their own legacies.” brooks, andré, and collins have all advocated on behalf of black feminist thought and have drawn particular attention to the importance of “lived experience” in their scholarly work on blackness and race. for brooks, black archives are a crucial space to find and study this lived experience in the past; however traditional scholarly notions of the archive need to be reassessed and reimagined. brooks asks us to broaden our traditional notion of the archive. she (2021, 4) wants us to: 13 [take] seriously the notion of the archive—both the documentary record preserved by institutional powerbrokers and the faded pages we might imagine stored in an elderly sister’s trunk—as a crucial, culture-making entity that black women musicians and critics have had to negotiate in relation to their own artistic ambitions and to the problem of black historical memory more broadly. black women artists have played crucial roles as archives, as the innovators of performances and recordings that stood in for and as the memory of a people. though often trivialized and minimized for their import, their cultural acts have amounted to a potent and forthright response to the class in control of libraries and universities, the publishing apparatuses and the awards councils, the film industries and the television industries, which saw fit to merely use up and dispose of the sounds created by black people—to say nothing of the cycles upon cycles of “love and theft” [(lott 1993, 6)] that resulted in the obliteration of the history from whence these sounds first came. as archives, these black women artists have operated through their music as the repositories of the past. just as well, however, they have often engaged in active projects to archive their own creative practices, to document the intellectual and creative processes tied to their music, all of which, as we shall see, amounts to a black feminist intellectual history in sound that has thus far gone unmarked and unheralded. brooks reminds us that omission or exclusion in the academy is not only due to a lack of appropriate methodological models, but also to the scope of what scholars are trained to believe is worth researching. brooks explains that one issue is finding and re-evaluating black archives. another is what to do when you find little or nothing at all. in the latter case, brooks urges scholars to listen to contemporary black poets and canonic literary figures such as toni morrison to learn from their approaches to historical or archival absence and silence. she (2021, 40) explains that: genius poets like [fred] moten [(2003)] and [nathanial] mackey [(1992)] have made such dazzling inroads in black sound studies by altogether pushing the language that we use to talk about the prodigious complexity of black music, the magnitude of its weight and depth. the field-altering work that mackey and moten have each executed by way of issuing what amounts to a series of poetically rendered correctives—about, for instance, the presumed “legibility” and tenacious resonances of black sound—are crucial to any study of modern sonic culture because their work forces us to confront with, among other things, the long historical arc of black phonic meaning that precedes, rivals, and runs parallel to the characters whose acts are “really happening” in marcus’s study. [...] and still here, we might think of the ways that my dear brothers, too—as they would surely agree—follow a black feminist model of formalistic philosophizing, the kind of which morrison [(2004, xvii)] speaks when she talks of the importance of “getting language out of the way” in her approach to writing about slavery and its afterlives. the majesty and invention of her speculative prose revolutionized black studies thought as well as the style and content of said thought for the last half century. i, too, follow the morrisonian path of the speculative at key 14 points, drawing inspiration from hartman and others as well so as to open up our relationship to the depths of the opaque black sonic past. what brooks calls “the morrisonian path of the speculative” has been notably pursued by hartman in response to what brooks has described as “the opaque black sonic past.” in her brilliant wayward lives, beautiful experiments: intimate histories of riotous black girls, troublesome women, and queer radicals (2019), hartman takes a radical approach, telling a history of black female life in the early-twentieth century that weaves together the limited evidence she has found and fills in the gaps with the methodology she has developed over decades, what she has described as “critical fabulation.” hartman takes the term “intimate histories” seriously, using speculation and a partly personal literary approach to invite the reader into the private lives and also the minds and feelings of a series of black radical women. as scholars, we are trained to remove ourselves from, or at least conceal ourselves in, our writing and analysis. scholars such as hartman have suggested that it is also worth asking what not removing ourselves might do. while brooks, hartman, and collins foreground lived experience in their work, scholars such as nahum chandler and sylvia wynter make metadiscursive arguments, deconstructing and recomposing fundamental notions about race and categorization. wynter (2003), for example, strives to expose and deconstruct the hegemony of “man” in favor of a new theory, system, or concept of humanity that might account for a plethora of gendered and racialized categories. she shows how historical narratives tend to privilege white men and construct other identities as inferior. chandler, by contrast, places himself in the lineage of du bois and seeks to unsettle or “desediment” historicized and essentialized notions of race. in a dense but important passage in his x—the problem of the negro as a problem for thought, chandler (2014, 43) writes that: a tracking of the problem of the negro for thought exposes, then, the fault lines within the layers of sedimentations that have gradually gathered as the very historicity of modern thought. these fault lines, and the shiftings that they both register and make possible, direct us toward an instability in the architectonics of any thought, or thought as practice, that would simply declare its position with regard to the question of essence (especially, for example, as the question of the status of the sign or under the heading of another term such as the symbolic), whether it be of origin or end, or of the universal or of the particular. in a manner similar to weheliye, chandler questions the distinction between origin and derivative, but on a much larger scale. chandler asks us to uncover the process of “sedimentation” by which the idea of race has become historically 15 naturalized. to do this, scholars must excavate what he describes as the “fault lines”: the moments when a concept or “truth” was established. it is there that we can analyze how that belief came to be and then possibly rectify it. chandler sees the process of excavation as an opportunity to uncover a neglected horizon. for him (2014, 60-1): du bois’s naming of the african american as a figure of double identification, “an american,” “a negro,” neither of which one disavows, both of which one maintains, in a certain way, can be understood (to the extent that it is never simply or only double, if the double could ever mean that) to name the heterogeneous gathering that attends any formation or postulation of identity or figure of sameness. du bois’s formulation would be an example of the double gesture. [...] for, in the interval, the space or spacing that opens between tactic and end, arises the possibility of something other than what has been, something other than the simple repetition of the past in the future. it would be in such an interval that the problem of the negro as a problem for thought becomes something other than simply or only the problem of the negro, if there is such. chandler rethinks how we approach the construction of race and in doing so creates space for black agency where possibility is usually overlooked, appropriated, or eviscerated. such a re-thinking or, to use chandler’s term, a doubling, calls for new, hybrid, alternative research methods to respectfully handle subjects, materials, and topics that intersect with issues of race and all the histories (bipoc and white) that are entwined with it. iii: “selling” it: listening to porgy and bess in a conversation with hartman, griffin, shelly eversley, and jennifer l. morgan, spillers (2007, 306-7) cautioned them about the current state of racial and gender activism in the united states. she warned, “we have reached one of the most dangerous periods in american history, and it is borne on the back of the civil rights and feminist movements that was spearheaded by black people and radical white people and that has now been co-opted by neofascist forces in this society. you can now sell it.” although i am (again) taking a risk by putting this in print, i am inspired by spillers’s warning to return to the metropolitan opera’s 2019 production of porgy and bess to consider not the production itself, but the commercial civic initiatives that surrounded and emanated from it. i must begin by stating that i think the production can be thought of as an example of spillers’s “selling” of the civil rights movements and blackness more generally because, with the exception of camille a. brown, who choreographed porgy and bess, and of course the singers, no black creatives were given leading roles in the 16 production. in the final section of this review essay, i would like to focus on two of the projects adjacent to and that contributed to the production’s “selling” of black activism: the “black voices at the met” exhibition, mounted in 2019 on the house’s sub-floor, and especially the accompanying sound recording, black voices rise: african american artists at the met, 1955–1985; and the “live” recording of porgy and bess released in 2019 (which won the 2021 grammy award for “best opera recording”). the “black voices at the met” exhibit was the met’s celebration of black operatic talent at the house, and also an attempt to acknowledge the house’s problematic history of segregation, use of blackface, and other failings. the accompanying recording, black voices rise, is revealing. according to an “official” description (on the met opera shop website), the compilation “showcases live performances by some of the nation’s most celebrated and history-making singers,” beginning with contralto marian anderson, who famously crossed the met’s color line on january 7, 1955.13 unlike the exhibition (which ranged from the jim crow era to the end of the twentieth century), the recording ends after only thirty years, in 1985. as such, black voices rise chronicles the performance history of black artists at the met during the heights of the civil rights and black power movements. it also, in effect, exposes that relatively few black performers appeared (and were recorded) in leading roles at the house in the last three decades. the relative scarcity of high-profile black stars at the met in the late-twentieth and early-twentieth first centuries could more easily be glossed over in the original “black voices” exhibition, which drew on primarily visual sources (for example, playbills and photographs). this issue has yet to receive any scholarly attention, but it was raised at the time by one of the met’s 1960s and 70s black stars, the soprano shirley verrett in the 1999 documentary aida’s brothers and sisters. verrett observed that: we’re going backwards. we’re going back to where it was. now i don’t know because i’m not at the met now, i was there almost twenty-five years and i thought that at that time when [leontyne] price, [grace] bumbry, martina [arroyo]—there were not that many of us, even at that time—but we were there on a regular basis. [...] but now, who is there? [...] i don’t know really what can be done about it because during the years that we were all there. [...] there were many people that did not want to see us there, but we did help to sell tickets. along with the soprano barbara hendricks and the tenor george shirley, who were also interviewed for the documentary, verrett connected the trickle of high 17 profile performers to a diminished interest in and awareness of the ongoing black social and political struggle. unlike black voices rise, which consists of excerpts from “live” performances, the met’s 2019 recording of porgy and bess is a conglomeration of two “live” performances (specifically september 23 and october 16). although this approach is a common tactic for recording opera, it raises the question of who determines which performances are most artistically appropriate and for whom. how does this person (or more likely people) hear porgy and bess—a complex question if one considers the echoes of minstrelsy in this opera? what is their identity, their positionality? and what is the assumed identity and positionality of the imagined listener? these questions are not often considered when consuming recorded operas, traditionally imagined as transparent representations of the score or a performance. indeed, for many, the recording allows one to bypass the physical and visual world of the stage à la adorno and imagine an ideal performance. in the privacy of one’s own home, or on public transit, or walking outside, one can conjure fantastic bodiless voices, or breathe life into the two-dimensional bodies on the record cover, or draw upon the last performance he, she, or they saw—or even imagine oneself to be the performer. there is a connection to be made here with collins’s diagnosis of “the new racism.” in the last two decades, spectators no longer need to pay for an expensive front-row seat at the met to get close to the performers. they can now go to a movie theatre for the intimate “live-in-hd” experience or even stream performances from the met at home. these performances are curated with intimate close-ups and these images can be consumed without the performer or any spectators around you witnessing your reactions. as collins (2004, 31) has argued with reference to video performances of hip-hop artists, black male and female images “could now enter private white spaces, one step safely removed because these were no longer live performances and black men no longer appeared in the flesh. these technological advances enabled the reworking of black male sexuality that became much more visible, yet was safely contained.” is there a parallel set of arguments to be made about operatic images—and sounds? does the “live-in-hd” or the recorded experience give the observer the power to curate his, her, or their own operatic experience and, by extension, its connection to or expression of race? in an attempt to apply some of the theoretical ideas i have discussed, i would like to think in more detail about how sound recordings construct an imagined listener by focusing on a few moments from the met’s “live” recording. one of the most powerful—and problematic—moments in porgy and bess 18 occurs at the end of act iii, when bess (soprano) succumbs again to the drug “happy dust,” leaving behind clara’s baby and her attempt at a new life. spillers’s theory of “the hieroglyphics of the flesh,” the concept that stereotypes of blackness are carved from a history of violence and subjugation and then projected back on to black bodies, is particularly productive for thinking about this scene. when bess finally submits to sportin’ life (tenor) and takes a hit of “happy dust,” the orchestra builds to a climax dominated by sportin’ life’s dance-like theme. the theme is incredibly catchy, and the performers are often actually instructed to dance, as in the famous 1976 houston grand opera production starring clamma dale as bess and again in the san francisco opera production from 2009. when they do, the scene is almost overwhelmed by one of the minstrel stereotypes that the opera draws upon, the “sexy jezebel” who actively desires sexual relations with men. in a documentary for the san francisco production, david gockley, the houston grand opera director, recalled that the audience went wild at this moment (when bess-dale emerged from the house and then proceeded to dance with sportin’ life, performed by tenor larry marshall). there is no filmed record, but the 1976 rca studio recording leaves little to the imagination as bess-dale whoops and cries in response to sportin’ life’s encouragement. the jezebel stereotype is sonically reinscribed. in the 2019 met production, the moment is staged differently. james robinson, the director, does not have bess dance with sportin’ life; rather she follows him off stage in a drug-induced haze. it is a clear attempt to make bess appear less “willing” and more “dignified”—one that is somewhat undermined by the fact that immediately before the director has bess offer to give sportin’ life a blowjob (?!). on the met recording there are no extra-musical cues to communicate this to the listener. given the history of the opera’s staging, and the dance-like theme itself, should—does—the listener imagine dance and movement at this moment? or does he, she, or they hear this as more pathetic and dignified? a different kind of example is in act ii of porgy and bess, when the street vendors sell their wares at the dawn of a new day in catfish row. the moment is atmospheric and establishes a sense of local color, with each vendor singing a variation on the same theme set to african-american vernacular english (which can potentially sound like minstrelsy if performed in an exaggerated manner). the first is the strawberry woman who announces, “oh dey’s so fresh an’ fine, an’ dey’s jus off de vine, strawberry,” sung on the recording by the soprano leah hawkins. despite the vernacular nature of the scene and its music, hawkins 19 shows off her skills as a coloratura and steps into a long tradition of altering the musical line by singing the final repetition of “strawberry” in alt, taking the simple phrase up the octave to a high d and e—now the highest notes performed in the opera. with this alteration, hawkins defies our expectations of a quaint, simple, sleepy morning in catfish row, transporting us from minstrelsy to grand opera, and the 2019 audience captured on record loudly applauds hawkins’s feat. the moment is immediately followed by the crab salesmen, sung in 2019 by the tenor chauncey packer, who announces “i’m talkin’ about devil crabs, i’m talkin’ about de food i sells.” packer clearly executes the vocal slides, written by gershwin to evoke what he believed was authentic black music-making, and accompanies his singing with comical and exaggerated gestures. the audience enjoys the moment and the contrast with hawkins, laughing along—laughter that is included on the recording. the juxtaposition reminds one sonically of what jennifer bloomquist (2015, 422) has described as “the push-pull” of the african-american experience and african-american expressive culture, being at once celebrated, appropriated, and exploited—in this case in the course of only a few minutes within a single scene. it would be interesting to know more about how scenes like this one were put together. what role did the performers play in relation to porgy’s primarily white creative team? what kind of spectator and response was imagined? what discussions were had and which decisions were made when transforming porgy into a primarily sonic (rather than theatrical and audiovisual) experience? perhaps counterintuitively, i would like finally to turn to dance in the met’s porgy and bess recording, and the approach and importance of the choreographer brown. a tony-nominated choreographer, brown was the only black person on the production’s creative team of seven (which also included james robinson [production], michael yeargan [set designer], catherine zuber [costume designer], donald holder [lighting designer], luke halls [production designer], and david leong [fight director]). the choreography in porgy and bess is crucial to how the characters are portrayed, and although it is usually created to be seen, traces can be heard on a “live” recording or even be a source of special sonic effects, as on the houston grand opera recording. working with the cast, many of whom are not trained dancers, brown claimed to be tapping into the performers’ “blood memory,” echoing brooks’s idea of black women as vocal and bodily archives. approaching the black body in general as an archive, brown explained in an interview for playbill between the 2019 fall and spring runs of porgy and bess that: “movement is such a strong part of africanamerican culture [...] we have all of this history in our bodies, and i wanted the 20 cast to tap into that. everyone has a very specific view of what dance is—the turns, the spins, the flips—but there’s also another side of dance that comes from the black experience that is inside each one of us.” the result was a choreography that, in the surprisingly evocative description by the new york times critic anthony tommasini (not usually known for his dance criticism) is “highly stylized,” a “daring” and “intricate” vision of “stomping feet and flailing arms.” tommasini (2019) goes on to explain that, though effective on its own terms, brown’s approach at times sits uneasily within the met production, which is designed by robinson “to reveal the dignity of the characters.” in other words, the emphasis on an uninhibited physicality can at times end up reinforcing some of the opera’s ideas and stereotypes, and this effect is intensified in the recording, where much of the choreography survives only as shouts, bangs, and other extramusical sounds. one example is sportin’ life’s “it ain’t necessarily so” in act ii, one of the most popular numbers in the opera and one that borrows a great deal from minstrelsy. in the number sportin’ life shares his cynical view of religion in a call and response with the chorus, and in the 2019 production brown has the singers accompany the tenor’s quasi-sermon with dance, including synchronized snapping and stomping and playful yells and gasps. the choreography has echoes of minstrelsy, particularly in its evocation of the cakewalk (which was regularly performed by black performers in minstrel shows in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries). in the recording these echoes, or rather the potential for the number to simply reinforce minstrel stereotypes, are intensified because the choreography is now reduced primarily to extra-musical sounds. conclusion these are just a handful of examples of how one might approach a recording such as porgy and bess. my brief suggestions and analyses could be the starting point for larger projects: a history of sound recording that focuses on how race has impacted the technology used to record opera and the process more generally; a record label case study, perhaps from key eras such as the 1960s and 70s or our current decade; and even a study analyzing a single recording and its relationship to race across several decades. such projects would not only focus on previously overlooked perspectives, experiences, voices, and bodies, they would also contribute to the larger goal of much of the scholarship i have explored in this review essay: deconstructing the very idea of race itself. despite no longer seeing the physical body, we still racialize sound when we listen to a 21 sound recording, especially a recording of opera, a thoroughly embodied art form even when those bodies are absent. to begin to understand such issues better, musicologists need to expand their view to enthusiastically consider writing outside of musicology, particularly radical scholarship in black studies. they also need to foster a profession that welcomes, listens, and respects bipoc individuals and their lived experiences. notes 1 “critical race theory” is currently the focus of much anger and confusion in the united states and beyond. the term refers to the large body of thought and scholarship that built on the pioneering work of black legal scholars including derrick bell, kimberlé crenshaw, and others in the 1980s. such scholarship typically departs from the premise that race is a social construct and is intersectional (in other words, it cannot be understood without also thinking about gender, class, and other categories). the ultimate aim of such scholarship, as richard delgado notes, is to change the relationship “among race, racism, and power.” for more, see cobb 2021. 2 i am grateful to karen henson, emily wilbourne, samuel teeple, and robert wrigley for their time and extensive feedback on earlier versions of this essay. 3 for the ams’s response to the murder of george floyd, see cusick 2020. 4 for more detail about the offerings at the ams/smt meeting, see the 2020 program: https://cdn.ymaws.com/ams-net.siteym.com/resource/resmgr/files/virtual2020/final_guides/ams-smt_program-guide_20201.pdf. 5 for more on the relationship between the ams/musicology and race, see dolan and lewis 2018, levitz 2012 and 2018. for more on the marginalization of bipoc communities beyond musicology, see ahmed 2012. 6 in a blog post for musicology now, carol oja traces the history of the ams’s committee for cultural diversity. her work demonstrates that race and intersectionality has been a problem at the ams since the 1990s. see, oja 2021. 7 for a more thorough analysis of adorno’s writing on the phonograph and its racial implications, see moten 2017, 118-133. 8 for the impact kittler’s ideas about technology have had on musicology, see rehding et al. 2017. 9 for more on intersectionality, see crenshaw 1991 and collins 2019. for a compelling overview of black feminist thought, see the introduction and chapter 1 of weheliye 2014 and brooks 2021. 10 it was brought to my attention by the editor that another burgeoning area of research on race and sound recording are the biographies on early-twentieth-century black recording artists. an important example is shana redmond’s everything man: the form and function of paul robeson. redmond (2020, 9) explains that: “while this book is about robeson, he is 22 less subject than opportunity for an experiment that attends to crucial questions of representation and form through examinations of the multitextual, technological, and international afterlife of black political cultures in the long twentieth century.” redmond uses robeson’s biography as a case study to explore the ways that his voice and body were mediated by and (re)presented in recordings. 11 for more on the history of opera and race, see henson 2021. 12 for an example of morrison’s blacksound in opera studies, see wilbourne 2020. 13 see the met opera shop website: https://www.metoperashop.org/shop/black-voices-riseafrican-american-artists-at-the-met-19551985-cd-22775. references abbate, carolyn. 2004. “music—drastic or gnostic?” critical inquiry 30 (3): 505–36. abbate, carolyn, and roger parker. 2012. a history of opera. new york: w.w. norton and company. adorno, theodor w. 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matthew d. 2017. “the sound(s) of subjection: constructing american popular music and racial identity through blacksound.” women & performance 27 (1): 13–24. ____________. 2019. “race, blacksound, and the (re)making of musicological discourse.” journal of the american musicological society 72, (3): 781–823. morrison, toni. 2004. beloved. new york: vintage. moten, fred. 2003. in the break: the aesthetics of the black radical tradition. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. ____________. 2017. black and blur. durham: duke university press. oja, carol j. 2021. “race and the american musicological society: founding the committee on cultural diversity.” musicology now, april 30, 2021. https://musicologynow.org/race-and-the-american-musicological-societyfounding-the-committee-on-cultural-diversity/. redmond, shana. 2020. everything man: the form and function of paul robeson. durham: duke university press. rehding, alexander, gundula kreuzer, peter mcmurray, sybille kramer, and roger moseley. 2017. “discrete/continuous: music and media theory after kittler.” journal of the american musicological society 70 (1): 221–56. schmidt horning, susan. 2013. chasing sound: technology, culture, and the art of studio recording from edison to the lp. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. spillers, hortense j. 1987. “mama's baby, papa’s maybe: an american grammar book.” diacritics 17 (2): 65–81. spillers, hortense j, saidiya v. hartman, farah jasmine griffin, shelly eversley, and jennifer l. morgan. 2007. “‘whatcha gonna do?’: revisiting ‘mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: an american grammar book’: a conversation with hortense spillers, saidiya hartman, farah jasmine griffin, shelly eversley, & jennifer l. morgan.” women’s studies quarterly 35 (1-2): 299–309. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham: duke university press. 25 stoever, jennifer lynn. 2016. the sonic color line: race and the cultural politics of listening. new york: new york university press. thurman, kira. 2012. “black venus, white bayreuth: race, sexuality, and the depoliticization of wagner in postwar west germany.” german studies review 35 (3): 607–26. ____________. 2019. “performing lieder, hearing race: debating blackness, whiteness, and german identity in interwar central europe.” journal of the american musicological society 72 (3): 825–65. tommasini, anthony. 2019. “review: a splendid ‘porgy and bess’ opens the met opera season.” new york times, september 24, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/arts/music/porgy-bess-met-operareview.html. ward, brian. 2003. just my soul responding: rhythm and blues, black consciousness, and race relations. london: taylor and francis. weheliye, alexander g. 2005. phonographies: grooves in sonic afro-modernity. durham: duke university press. ____________. 2014. habeas viscus: racializing assemblages, biopolitics, and black feminist theories of the human. durham: duke university press. emily wilbourne. 2020. “music, race, representation: three scenes of performance at the medici court (1608-16).” il saggiatore musicale 27 (1): 5–45. wynter, sylvia. 2003. “unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation—an argument.” cr: the new centennial review 3 (3): 257–337. dave tompkins. 2010. how to wreck a nice beach. chicago and brooklyn: stop smiling/melville house. steve goodman. 2010. sonic warfare. cambridge, ma and london: mit press. reviewed by wayne marshall at first glance, dave tompkins's how to wreck a nice beach and steve goodman's sonic warfare would seem to have a lot in common. both books feature the creative "abuse" of military technology by musicians, an abiding appreciation for afro-sonic futurisms, prose styles at times so idiosyncratic as to be arcane, and brief but key appearances by william burroughs. both also depart, whether implicitly or explicitly, from the general preoccupation with form still guiding the musicological status quo. this formalist bias affects both how we tend to listen as well as how we write. instead, these books, each in their own way, propose novel and provocative modes of grappling with and making sense (or nonsense) of music and sound. in contrast to the lion's share of academic writing about music, these texts eschew too straightforward a tack. they take shape in a manner often as unpredictable as their strange and slippery subjects. goodman's work, while principally written for other scholars, proceeds in a seemingly non­ linear manner, using non-chronological dates to mark each brief chapter, suggestively (but often without explication) yoking each unit's theme to a particular historical moment. his lexicon is at times dense, at other times playful, bearing the marks of british cultural studies, continental philosophy, and afrofuturism. writing for a more general audience, but in perhaps an even more abstruse register, tompkins generally proceeds chronologically while juxtaposing chapters on military experimentation with those on musical innovation, an estranging effect that serves to heighten the topic's unexpected intersections of cold war technology and hip-hop. neither author talks much about pitch content, harmony, or song form; in place of musical transcription, we encounter viruses and an architectures, robots and dinosaurs. in other respects, these books could hardly be more different, especially with regard to tone and language. but reading them together makes for a refreshing exercise. by investing in and projecting their own idioms so strongly, both offer something sorely lacking in music and sound studies: theory that dances. current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 93 94 current musicology tompkins's book is a study of the "double life" of the vocoder, which, for those who aren't aware, is "perhaps the only crypto-technology to serve the pentagon and the roller rink" (20). a vocal encryption process that enjoyed a second life as a musical effect, the vocoder attained a sort of audible ubiquity in the dance-pop of the 1970s and '80s, appearing on hundreds of records and spanning such disparate genres as progressive rock and electro-funk. appropriately, in rendering this amazing story, the author himself becomes a cryptologist. because tompkins is not an academic and not beholden to its disciplines, he hardly writes like one. but despite publishing regularly in such outlets as the wire, vibe, and the village voice, he doesn't exactly write like a journalist, either. he writes like dave tompkins,"the best hip-hop writer ever born," according to a back cover blurb by hip-hop historian jeff chang. chang is similarly lauded, and only half joking. tompkins describes writing the book as something that he felt he "owed" to hip-hop, and he has clearly absorbed-and made his own-hip-hop's love of language, whimsy and slippage, and orthogonal riffs and sudden twists. in some cases, it is not clear that anyone but tompkins will understand how certain non-sequiturs actually follow. plenty of readers will be frustrated by passages that defy comprehension. i recommend granting him some poetic license and going happily and dizzily along for the ride. tompkins manages something that few music writers do: to rise to the occasion, to meet what charles seeger called "the musicological juncture" head-on, to make words make sense about sound-or, when such a task seems utterly impossible, to sing along in noise and nonsense. the book's title embodies this fundamental problem as well as tompkins's tack. how apt that the phrase, a machine-mangled version of "how to recognize speech;' also hap­ pens to describe what happened, as coordinated via transatlantic vocoder duets between roosevelt and churchill, at normandy or iwo jima. this is one of dozens of landmine-like puns that tompkins finds scattered across ibm technicians' notebooks, in wartime cables, and on obscure electro-funk jams. is it only a coincidence that one of early hip-hop's deftest musicians, pumpkin, bears a nickname that was also a misheard word in a churchillian vocoder transmission (224)? most likely, but tompkins doesn't miss a chance to make the connection for us in a cheeky caption. (the book's margins are crawling with such side-commentary.) or take, for example, though no single passage can stand for the sprawling range of his style, the following description of peter frampton performing his talk-box anthem, "do you feel like i do," in the concert immortalized as frampton comes alive (1976): wayne marshall imagine ice cubes and doritos cracking up inside your head. replace that with madison square garden losing its voice. replace larynx with guitar. listen to teeth. calcareous conduction. frampton opens mouth, drool catches light and there it is, a word, or at least the shape of one. "eeeeel." (131) without sacrificing the sort of economy on display here, tompkins seems to squeeze into the book every bit of signification he can, enlisting chapter titles, subheadings, captions, epigraphs, and all manner of marginalia. in particular, the creative use of oblique epigraphs illustrates how tompkins approaches his craft and burdens his reader. they are figurative, funny, and sometimes fictional. (on page 281, for instance, he offers a lyric he "misheard" on a mobb deep recording). research and reading are interpretive endeavors, and tompkins's kitchen-sink style, where jokes and personal anecdotes sit alongside archival documents and vinyl plates, serves to remind readers that, as with vocodered vocals, it helps to know what is going in to understand what is coming out. in this sense, it is fitting that the author weaves stories of his youth, and of myriad odd encounters with the vocoder and other talking machines, into the narrative. indeed, the idiosyncratic inflections that give the book its distinct shape and tone seem, to this reader, among the text's most important (and hopefully influential) features. tompkins splices together the personal, the popular, and the geopolitical, as if all are of equal importance. he also does an admirable job of cross-fading the crosstalk about this machine and how it affected so many lives, including his own. after a while one starts to suspect that the vocoder was invented so that tompkins could write this book. while the vocoder never recedes from earshot, tompkins's investigation takes the reader to many unexpected places. among other things, readers receive: 1) an overdue and alternative narrative of early hip-hop that centers on new york, los angeles, and the seemingly peripheral but fascinating site of north carolina, where tompkins grew up and where we learn a lot about rap's early circulation and reception; 2) a secret history of late twentieth century robot-enraptured pop culture, connecting neil young and herbie hancock, georgio moroder and laurie anderson, and detroit techno with disney's dumbo; 3) truly astounding and unexpected musical genealogies and circulations of material culture, such as the story of how a vocoder-ed imitation of a record executive saying "fresh" became the most scratched syllable of all time (250-5), or how elo's machine ended up in the hands of man parrish, "the gayest vocoder expert to make a hip-hop ode to the bronx" (212). the book also includes what must have felt like an obliga­ tory afterword on auto-tune (302-3), the popular software plug-in often mistaken for the vocoder, but which is actually a distant cousin that also emerged from cold war science to help people sing like machines. 95 96 current musicology it is easy to be glib about crooning cyborgs, but tompkins offers a more nuanced portrait-a gallery, actually-of how humans dance with technol­ ogy, of the deep drive many have to transform, with a little mechanical help, our voices, our realities, and ourselves, often from an early age. as tompkins writes, "talking to fans is as much a part of growing up as interrogating ants with a magnifying glass" (268). in the end, the book is less about machines than human characters: alan turing and afrika bambaataa, homer dudley and michael jonzun, and tompkins, his late brother, and his childhood friend, nate. one of the most touching parts of the text is the penultimate chapter, a profile of vocoder devotee and pioneer rammellzee, the sui generis hip-hop iconoclast who passed away in the early part of 20lo. it reads as a fitting coda to the work. although he synthesizes an impressive amount of odd information, tompkins burdens readers additionally by taking a great deal of knowledge (or perhaps just google-ability) for granted. this assumption sometimes allows him to say what he wants rather than, perhaps, what he should. this represents another way that the author departs from certain scholarly norms. (there's no glossary, either.) but don't get your cables twisted: despite few genuflections to standard scholarly procedure, tompkins has done his share of research, especially when it comes to combing archives and interviewing everyone from retired world war ii-era scientists to classic rock icons, to hip-hop vocoder freaks. (to their credit, the hip-hop artists he talks to-bambaataa, grandmaster dxt, rammellzee-are all convincingly unsurprised to learn about the vocoder's crypto-military provenance.) this book was a decade in the making, but it reads more like a life's work. finally, and not to be underappreciated: the book itself, published by stop smiling books, is a beautiful thing. elegantly laid out and lavishly il­ lustrated, with photographs and drawings appearing on nearly every page, it is best appreciated as a chunky hardcover, despite that it might be fun­ whenever the e-text arrives-to hear it read by a robot. in sonic warfare, steve goodman, a lecturer in music culture at the university of east london, calls the vocoder "the upside to the militarization of everyday life" (166). it is one of the few optimistic notes in the book. the rest of the text examines all the downsides, with particular attention to the role of sound-and sonic technologies-in producing what goodman calls, after mike davis (2000), an "ecology of fear," a sonically triggered state of agitation and foreboding, produced under an increasingly global regime of "military urbanism" and the looming threat of preemptive capitalism foreclosing possible futures. on the way, goodman proposes some radical ways of approaching how we theorize sound, the transmission of culture, wayne marshall and the power of popular music. sonic warfare is an occasionally paranoid, consistently provocative text, all the more so because of how it takes explicit aim at prevailing frames of musicological inquiry. unlike tompkins's book, which mounts an implicit critique of con­ temporary music writing, goodman's includes direct salvos at music and sound studies. if, as he says, the italian futurists proposed an "assault on the harmonic order" (6), sonic warfare might be said to launch a similar campaign. goodman's route to a critical position vis-a.-vis musicology's "harmonic order"-its lingering biases toward musical form, semiotics, and phenomenology-is not via recourse to sound, seeking to flatten longstanding hierarchies between pitch content, rhythm, timbre and the like, but through a focus on frequency and an exploration of what he calls "unsound." vibrating at or beyond the peripheries of the audible and the tactile, unsound includes infrasound (lower than 20 hz) and ultrasound (higher than 20 khz), as well asin a bit of poetic license-the "unactual­ ized nexus of rhythms and frequencies within audible bandwidths" (xv). it may come as little surprise that many of the weapons surveyed in sonic warfare target this synaesthetic threshold of the heard and the felt. the way that sound and unsound can physically affect bodies means that, for goodman, they operate at the level of affect, a "subsignifying" realm. he is primarily concerned, then, not with "sound as text" but rather "sound as force" (10). for those in music or sound studies who might bristle at an approach so concerned with what "impresses on but is exterior to the sonic," goodman throws a small but sharp dart, referring almost dismissively to "the narrowband channel of the audible" (9)! ultimately, he contends, a "nonrepresentational ontology of vibrational force" (xv) can productively "sidestep" recent preoccupations of music studies, namely "representation, identity, and cultural meaning" (9). while not naming names, goodman professes no love for popular music stud­ ies' "dismal celebrations of consumerism and interminable excuses for mediocrity" (17). (he also includes some snarky asides, for instance, when he remarks that this is not a book about "white noise-or guitars" [xv]). while acknowledging recent work on the use of music to produce pain or torture (e.g., cloonan and johnson 2002; cusick 2006 and 2008), goodman seeks to counter "the evangelism of the recent sonic renaissance within the academy" by focusing on sound's "bad vibes;' including the use of pop as torture, never mind lrad cannons and mosquito™ repellents. further, he charges that any account of sonic culture must grapple with that which exceeds unisensory perception, with so-called "sonic" experience that opens into tactile realms, for instance (9). barbed critiques notwithstanding, goodman is writing from sound's 97 98 current musicology corner. while his academic training and affinities span media and cultural studies as well as philosophy, his scholarly attention has been devoted to the reggae-inflected sound system culture of the black atlantic, especially the uk-based genealogy of styles and approaches-from jungle, through garage, to dub step-famously and controversially dubbed "the hardcore continuum" by critic simon reynolds; moreover, under the moniker kode9, goodman is a practicing producer of electronic dance music, a globe-trotting dj, and the head of acclaimed record label hyperdub. notably, he seems to prefer metaphorical language that borrows from sound, rather than from ocularcentric discourse. so we're told that vibrational force is an important missing dimension in music and sound studies because of the "ethico­ aesthetic paradigm it beckons" (xv, emphasis mine). we also hear of things resonating and rippling, while modulation, if borrowed more directly from deleuzean philosophy than compositional techniques, figures as a key term throughout. but while such subtle linguistic choices may stem from efforts to resist an ocularcentric framework, goodman's focus on sound as physical force, as something subpolitical and pre-ideological, is intended to needle the more profound bias in music and sound studies toward an overriding emphasis on phenomenology and signification, rather than ontology and affective mobilization. for goodman, such preoccupations miss the boat by overlooking the more elemental workings of sound. his wide-ranging and deeply synthetic project-drawing from philosophy, cultural studies, physics, biology, fiction, and military and musical history (81 )-constitutes an important and incisive contribution to our growing, shifting appreciation of how sound works and how it figures in the sensorium. opening with the 2005 sound bombing of the gaza strip, goodman's narrative would appear to be firmly situated in a certain politics, but the author also takes pains to theorize at a more micropoliticallevel. he seeks to understand and explicate how sound produces "virtualized" fear in individu­ als as well as populations, whether in palestine or elsewhere. like the sound of an actual incoming shell, sound bombs and other sonic weapons possess power to trigger "the same dread of an unwanted, possible future" (xiv). considering military-urbanism's "full spectrum dominance;' an analysis of how sound works-and how certain technologies exploit sonic force-is imperative. for goodman, the sonic is "particularly attuned" for examin­ ing "dread," one strand of the ecology of fear, or one key dimension of the affective status quo at a historical juncture in which the "militarization of the minutiae of urban experience" turns war into an "ontological condition" that "reconstitutes the most mundane aspects of everyday existence through psychosocial torque and sensory overload" (33). as an "affective tonality," wayne marshall modulated by vibrational force, fear enters the remit of sonic warfare. thus, even while writing against a "unisensory" perspective (and continually returning to sound's crucial "viscerality" [220]), goodman finds it useful that, within the affective sensorium, "sound is often understood as generally having a privileged role in the production and modulation of fear" (65). in goodman's definition, sonic warfare extends beyond obvious weap­ ons such as sound bombs and nausea-inducing crowd-control devices to forms of (preemptive) sonic branding, including "predatory earworms" and holosonics (186), the precisely targeted "beams" of sound that might implant a commercial jingle into a moving body. with regard to the lat­ ter phenomena, goodman imagines a future in which we're bombarded with audio advertisements for products that don't yet necessarily exist to subconsciously build brand loyalty. mirroring the unreliable and often occultist information about sonic weapons under development-whether issuing from government reports or press accounts, or circulating among conspiracy theory enthusiasts-goodman is refreshingly candid about the ways that dystopic projections can seep into thinking about such matters: "for sure, a certain amount of paranoia accompanies this micropolitics of frequency" (188). the deployment of the mosquito (a device used at malls and other quasi-public, commercial spaces that emits a tone so high it repels teenagers while remaining inaudible to adults) leads goodman to write, with pun intended, "the future of sonic warfare is unsound" (183). if this sounds rather dire, goodman develops another side to the story of contemporary sonic dominance. counterposed to the military-entertain­ ment complex's insidious deployments of sound and unsound is another set of experiments in vibrational force and affect modulation: sound systems, patterned on the jamaican model but today dispersed globally, serving as labs for "affect engineering and the exorcism of dread" (5). considering goodman's overarching concern with ecologies of fear, it is a convenient bit of resonance that a complex notion of dread is already emically embed­ ded in reggae discourse. goodman hears and feels the forceful-and often subsonic-projections of sound systems, whether playing dub reggae or funk carioca, as meeting a certain "masochistic" desire for the "active production of dread" (27) that he describes as "fear activated deliberately to be transduced and enjoyed in a popular musical context" (29). this is an innovative and suggestive reading of practices that have already been examined in great detail in the reggae literature (e.g., bilby 1995; stolzoff 2000; henriques 2003; veal 2007). he pursues the idea of an alternative and recuperative practice of sonic dominance, and inflects it with a black atlantic (if not jamaican) accent, by examining what he calls "dub virology;' a model of "affective mobilization"99 100 current musicology later glossed as a way "to move the body in dance" (1 57)-rather than the "modulation of preemptive capital;' the use of sound and unsound to manipulate mood and incite creativity and commerce (155). goodman argues, without offering much detail about the techniques in question, that "the virologies of the black atlantic ... constitute a wealth of techniques for affective mobilization in dance;' but that, in turn, "virosonic capital hijacks these techniques ... for modulation" (162). the "core focus" of an audio virology is, therefore, the "decreasing gap between mobilization and modulation" (162). in chapters 24-2 7 goodman carefully sketches out what is entailed by an "audio virology" and how such an approach is better suited than memetics for understanding how power relations infuse the contemporary circula­ tion and transmission of culture. given the intense uptake around memes in the web 2.0 era, goodman's intervention here is useful. if memetics carries an intrinsically cognitivist bias with its focus on information, an audio virology offers, in contrast, "a nexus that synthesizes the flows of information, matter, and energy into a virulent rhythmic consistency" (138). such an "assemblage;' according to goodman (nodding again to deleuzian philosophy) goes beyond memetics in recognizing that "replicators" are always "embedded in an ecology," that is, in a material environment. memes themselves "are material processes," pulse patterns emitted by "billions of networked neurons." rather than transmission networks, goodman suggests we think of "affective vectors" and "affective contagions;' and though he notes that we already have the fairly neutral but useful concept of affection available to us, a model of infection appeals to him as a way to "dramatize" the concern with power that he accuses memetics of lacking (130). viruses, or virological models, are also important to goodman because they pose "threats to cybernetic control societies" (179), the looming threat of capitalist affect modulation. if there is a clear political agenda in this book, the most specific it ever gets is anti-capitalist, but the best way to characterize it might be, more broadly, anti-colonialist. goodman's perspective is informed by the antiand postco­ lonial discourses running through british cultural studies and afrofuturism alike, and his concerns move from geopolitical frames to the more subtle micropolitical colonization of our thoughts, our bodies, our futures. for this reason, mobilization-and understanding sound's relation to it-stands at times as an idealized end in itself. goodman stops short of discussing why one would want to mobilize collective populations, however, and he takes pains to distance his analysis from obvious ideological commitments. he is far more interested in "models for affective collectivity without any necessary wayne marshall political agenda" (175). the battle ground for goodman-and it is a literal field of combat-is the affective status quo, modulated by sonic weapons of all sorts. more generally, goodman appears concerned with understanding "how audition is policed and mobilized" (189), which is not really the sort of question that musicologists ask. he makes a persuasive case that music and sound studies would do well to turn some attention to these topics. the closest goodman comes to offering an interpretation of sonic mobilization is to suggest that bass materialist affect modulation-the use of palpable bass frequencies to vibrate bodies-constitutes a "cultural pragmatics" that can "make existence bearable" in what is increasingly, again following mike davis (2006), a "planet of slums" (172). theorizing across contemporary global sound system culture ("planet of drums"), goodman argues that they construct "temporary bass ecologies to hijack sonic dominance" and to "attract and congeal populations" (173). but it would be naive, he contends, "to pretend that there is a necessarily politically progressive agenda" underlying the organization of sound system parties (174). goodman's overall aim here is laudable: to shift focus from questions of content and meaning and toward understanding the "more basic power of organized vibration" (172). for the most part, this allows him to purpose­ fully sidestep a great number of questions about the discursive realm. it's a provocative bit of bracketing, with enough barbs planted in the introduction and the footnotes to set seminar discussions ablaze. ultimately, goodman allows sound to guide his project. he places sound, via vibration, at the center of everything. "one way or another, it is vibration, after all;' he notes, "that connects every separate entity in the cosmos, organic or nonorganic" (xiv). although his theories of affect and rhythm are underpinned by some heady philosophical discussions, stretch­ ing from spinoza through deleuze to massumi, and connecting the dots between bachelard, lefebvre, bergson, and whitehead, goodman claims to be less concerned with bringing theory to bear on sound than in the reverse. instead, sound "comes to the rescue of thought," undermining the "linguistic imperialism" and "phenomenological anthropocentrism" that animate "almost all musical and sonic analysis." but rather than resorting to a "naive physicalism," goodman asserts that what is key is "a concern for potential vibration and the abstract rhythmic relation of oscillation" (82). using sound to unsettle theoretical frames, while synthesizing a diverse and demanding philosophical literature, goodman's efforts recall more than any other recent work shepherd and wicke's ambitious music and cultural theory (1997), another text that could have resonated more strongly in musicological circles. it remains to be seen whether sonic warfare will speak to musicologists 101 102 current musicology and the increasingly trans disciplinary enterprise of sound studies. if! express some pessimism here about its potential uptake, that has more to do with the unorthodox and challenging dimensions of the text. while brimming with ideas and sharp provocations, the book sometimes seems designed to stymie comprehension. although goodman rarely takes anything akin to tompkins's flights of fancy, his prose can be disorienting and at times nearly impenetrable. (at least there's a glossary for help). although each of the mostly short chapters could be read as an autonomous "singularity," as the author recommends (xvii), there are several chapter-spanning sections of the book that sustain arguments, which, a la carte, might go unappreci­ ated. (chapters 15-20, for instance, elaborate on the philosophical core of "rhythmanalysis.") his use of non -chronological but pregnant dates to mark each chapter, although interesting conceptually, also proves problematic. many of the dates go entirely without explication, so they can seem arbitrary or orthogonal to the discussion. as much as i appreciate and would like to see greater formal experimentation in music and sound studies, too often the organization of sonic warfare comes to feel like a conceit of sorts, an afterthought, or an evasion of hard, connective writing. as the asymmetry in this joint review suggests, these books also differ insofar as one, written from within and directed toward the academy, is working at the level of an overarching argument that can be summarized, debated, and re-deployed in future research, whereas the other resists any sort of boiling down or segmentation. tompkins's book is an irreducible thing, not least because of its often-untranslatable idiom, and i like that about it. i do not mean to privilege one or the other, nor to confer some greater degree of legitimacy on either. in the end, what makes these texts relevant to an academic readership-to those working in music and sound studies, whom i address here-should have little to do with their institutional pedigree or even their form and everything to do with how they contribute to rigorous debates about the place of music and sound in our world. do their ideas effectively invite response, revision, and/or citation? both books have the power to continue opening up the musicological conversation, to let some new vibes in, and to shake things around a bit. taken together, these books should help to retune (or is that detune?) the study of music and sound. they force us to ask hard questions of ourselves: what is our subject? what is our lexicon? how do we make sense of our audible past and present without foreclosing possible sonic futures? how do we engage, or ignore, the role of soundl and music in the context of creeping, global militarism? if taken up with the vigor they merit, how to wreck a nice beach and sonic warfare may better prefigure the future of music and sound studies than many other contemporary offerings. wayne marshall references bilby, kenneth. 1995. "jamaica." in caribbean currents: caribbean music from rumba to reggae, ed. peter manuel, 143-182. philadelphia: temple university press. cloonan, martin and bruce johnson. 2002. killing me softly with his song: an initial investigation into the use of popular music as a tool of oppression. popular music 21 (1): 27-39. cusick, suzanne g. 2006. music as torture/music as weapon. revista transcultural de musical transcultural music review. 10: 1-18. ___ .2008. "you are in a place that is out of the world ... ": music in the detention camps of the "global war on terror." journal of the society of american music 2 (1): 1-26. davis, mike. 2000. ecology of fear: los angeles and the imagination of disaster. new york: vintage. ___ . 2006. planet of slums: urban involution and the informal working class. london: verso. henriques, julian. 2003. "sonic dominance and the reggae sound system session." in the auditory culture reader, ed. michael bull and les back, 451-80. oxford and new york: berg publishers. shepherd, john and peter wicke. 1997. music and cultural theory. cambridge: polity press. stolzoff, norman. 2000. wake the town and tell the people: dancehall culture in jamaica. durham: duke university press. veal, michael. 2007. dub: soundscapes & shattered songs in jamaican reggae. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. 103 randall sandke. 2010. where the dark and light folks meet: race and the mythology, politics, and business of jazz. lanham, maryland: the scarecrow press. reviewed by aaron j. johnson a few years ago i was hurrying across midtown manhattan trying to make it from the port authority bus station to rockefeller center on time. although it was about forty-five minutes before curtain time for most broadway shows, i wasn't headed to radio city music hall, but to a television studio at 30 rock-not to play the trombone but as part of my day gig to attend a local meeting of the society of motion picture and television engineers. as i traversed the theater district i fell in behind a bedraggled looking young white man with trumpet case. this guy really looked spent-he could barely walk a straight line and had clothes that were only bordering on clean. "he'll change into his theater black when he gets there;' i thought. i was behind him for several blocks and with each one my outrage grew. "how can this raggedy white motherfucker have a broadway gig and i've never even subbed on broadway?;' even though one of the benefits of having a great day gig is never having to work a repetitious job like broadway. i was trailing behind this musician for several blocks, my rage escalating, until we reached a corner on broadway where my "rival" stopped, knelt down, opened his case, and began busking on the street corner for the arriving show crowds. my privileged white trumpeter was in fact a scuffling street musician. i continued on to sixth avenue realizing that i had made foolish assumptions and worked myself into a righteous lather on the basis of scant evidence. which brings me to randall sandke's where the dark and light folks meet, a very personal, but seriously flawed, consideration of racial issues in jazz. in where the dark and light folks meet sandke attempts to tackle a large number of race related topics and claims about the jazz discourse with uneven results. his targets include activist jazz writers, "radical" racial politics, claims of discriminatory practices in business, pay, and intellectual property, and neo-conservative music trends. although sometimes the act of troubling can be a good thing, sandke's book is troubling in ways that undermine his best arguments about the music's lack of innovative vitality, and for expanding its history beyond iconic musical figures. he sets out to, in the words of george e. lewis, "trouble the settled" of the dominant narrative-an altogether worthy ambition-but sometimes sandke merely comes off as feeling personally left out of jazz's past and present, a not current musicology, no. 92 (fall 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 137 138 current musicology uncommon frustration for many jazz musicians. he initially describes his project as one of inclusion. my book does not purport to be a full accounting of jazz history, but rather an examination of interracial contact-where the dark and light folks meet-as it applies to the music. plenty of jazz history is intra-racial: of and between african-american musicians, or, to a lesser extent, white musi­ cians. but i feel that this history, particularly as regards black contributions to jazz, is already well documented. some may accuse me of overstating the importance of cross-racial influences on jazz. however, i am not trying to place a strict quantitative value on my findings, but simply presenting them so others can draw their own conclusions. (11) one can see that sandke is not unaware that addressing racial issues as he does will result in controversy. though he takes great pains to stress that this is not yet another attempt to insert whites into the story of jazz at the expense of blacks, at times it reads as exactly that. in his [martin williams] influential book the jazz tradition [1970], only one chapter of twenty devoted to individual musicians profiles a white player, bix biederbecke ... in 1970 williams became director of a jazz pro­ gram at the smithsonian institution. there he produced the smithsonian collection of classic jazz, a seven-lp box set that was meant to reflect a cross-section of the music ... out of eighty-six selections, only three were by white artists, and even for this tiny sampling he was apologetic. (27) when the smoke clears, sandke is dissatisfied with racial discourse that binds concepts of jazz authenticity and blackness. (in early jazz writing blackness was often used as an indicator of primitivity and therefore "realness;" from the '60s onward jazz's perceived authenticity has factored into a larger project of re-claiming black identity and pride.) this is not an altogether unreasonable point of view for a non-black jazz practitioner. but rather than wage a direct assault on fragile and cliched notions of authenticity that permeate jazz history and continue to dominate its discourse, sandke makes sweeping claims about the motives of historical and recent jazz writers that seem designed to create ill will. in "the activist jazz writers;' sandke links popular front associated figures (including john hammond, ralph ellison, langston hughes, milt gabler, and norman granz)-whom he allows might not all have been "ardent stalinists" (17), early modernist critics (such as marshall stearns, martin williams, and gary giddins) on through to black music writers (amiri baraka, stanley crouch, a. b. spellman, and albert murray) with the continuing fallacy that "blues and swing are not just musical styles but ways of life rooted in the black experience" (34). aaron j. johnson sandke's basic method is to analyze racial representations in jazz dis­ course via the work of jazz writers, mostly published before the mid-1990s. sometimes musicians' memoirs are used to buttress his arguments, but these sources are taken at face value and are rarely read critically. 1 one of the book's principal flaws is that in his zeal to recompose jazz's racial mythology, sandke largely fails to acknowledge that the central project of jazz scholarship over the last twenty to thirty years (deveaux, m. tucker, gabbard, magee, gushee, lewis, s. tucker, monson, radano, porter, ake et. al.), has been one of demystifying legendand anecdote-driven jazz history and challenging its dominant narrative.2 instead, sandke takes john genari, scott deveaux, and ingrid monson to task for acknowledging what is today largely accepted, that [jazz] music is socially constructed and reflects the black experience (34). his "absolute music" model of discourse seems quaintly anachronistic. after lauding black music and artistry and expressing his wishes for black artists to get more attention he writes: the point i wish to make is that the leading figures of jazz, regardless of race, have created music that can stand on its own terms next to the best art of any epoch. their work doesn't need to be propped up with the aid of socio-political theorizing. and any true understanding of jazz music re­ quires a wider lens than a narrow "black culture" perspective provides. (12) despite the contradiction between jazz "not needing to be propped up" with "socio-political theorizing" and calling for "a wider lens" to reach a "true understanding of jazz music" sandke seems to call for some old-fashioned work-centered musicology, while overlooking the reciprocal possibilities within the music for a greater understanding of socio-political matters. therefore, where the dark and light folks meet falls somewhat outside mainstream scholarship, not only for its controversial conclusions about race and about the motives of the writers who have invoked race, but for its failure to distinguish qualitatively between the claims of sourced and peer-reviewed scholarly writing, jazz journalism and criticism, and mem­ oirs. in addition, and surprisingly so for a book published in 2010, sandke employs a restricted conceptual space concerning racial discourse: "folks" are either black, white, perhaps italian (with a slight bow to new orleans sensitivity about c( c)reoles). he completely fails to consider latinos, native americans, or the constructed nature of whiteness and its evolution over the history of jazz, not to mention the music's growing internationalism. too often the book takes an aggrieved tone and implies that a particular notion -such as the ambivalent attitudes of the black middle class towards jazz-is little understood or discussed, when it has in fact been written about and discussed at length in recent and not-so-recent jazz discourse. 139 140 current musicology sandke questions who benefits from racialized discourse about jazz and whether the latter helps or hurts "the music:' he asserts that many writers were not above compromising historical accuracy in their zeal to promote social change. some constructed elaborate theories out of the scantest evidence, if not whole cloth, and these in turn have been cited over and over throughout the jazz literature. facts that did not fit prevailing ideologies were ignored, and mythology often trumped reality. although myths have undoubtedly played a large and sometimes beneficial role in the popularization of jazz, they often bear little or no relation to reality. (2) it must be noted that such is the process of writing the historical narrative, flawed as it may be. at the time of writing the "facts" were not always readily available, nor were there many jazz writers who were not outsiders to the jazz community. as the last sentence attests, easily digestible myths become the stuff of streamlined narratives. while it is a rewarding act of critical thinking to recognize and interrogate a writer's ideological position, sandke does not make a persuasive case that the writers he cites-and the many more he does not cite who have contributed to the construction of these myths-have acted so primarily to advance the cause of social justice any more than to burnish their own reputations as jazz authorities. his critical analysis of john hammond, rudi blesh, and leonard feather can be read equally validly as defenses of black musicians the writers had grown fond of rather than some grand calls for social justice (18-25). while i am not going to assume these writers were against social justice, advocating for the careers of these celebrity black musicians was hardly the same as calling for a workers' paradise and racial equality in all aspects of society. certainly some writers were primarily concerned with racial justice, but more often the early writing (before wwii) is by advocates of "authentic" jazz trying to control the application of the term, which soon was applied to almost any popular music with or without syncopation or a lively beat. gershwin was jazz, cohen was jazz. many early advocate writers' advocacy used racially essentializing language that equated blackness-and its as­ sociated primitivism-with the authentic practice of jazz performance. this process may indeed have worked to the disadvantage of earnest white jazz musicians as sandke claims, but he neglects the important corollary dimension-that such attitudes served to severely restrict black musical participation to racially "appropriate" musical genres such as jazz and blues. nowhere in the volume does sandke address jazz musicians' century-long discomfort with the label "jazz;' in large measure for just that reason. aaron j. johnson one of sandke's most pervasive arguments is that white musicians accordingly were denied the opportunity to play real jazz and that white musicians' contribution to jazz has been systematically undervalued. he cites the outstanding saxophonists mike brecker-winner of 15 grammys and eulogized upon his death as "widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since john coltrane" -and chris potter as examples of underrated white players.3 yet the world of jazz has hardly been a strict meritocracy, but rather a largely social scene where performing groups reflect social networks. the non-transparent and informal process of selecting and hiring musicians has always focused attention on race, with black players accusing whites of garnering a disproportionate share of the financial rewards-which sandke attempts to refute in chapter 8, "it's strictly business" -and white players blaming "crow jim" as the major obstacle to their success. one of sandke's most egregious arguments is to posit a false binary dis­ course, largely of his own invention, of exclusionist and inclusionist models of jazz development as underlying jazz history (4-5). in his exclusionist model, jazz is "portrayed as arising from an insulated black environment, unsullied by commercial pressures" (4). sandke's sole citation to illustrate the supposedly dominant exclusionist model is frederic ramsey and charles edward smith's 1939 book jazzmen, a book allied with the revivalist's side of the folk versus commercialized swing debate that preceded the better known "moldy figs" versus modernists one of the bebop era. since their side was largely conservative and reactionary in nature, could there be much surprise that it would hearken to a pro-folk, pre-mass media vision of pure jazz? but more to the point, who could or would claim that jazz was created in an exclusive black environment when the history of america is full of interactions and mutual adaptations between whites and blacks? rather, proponents of the value of black culture point with pride at the amazing and ingenious adaptations of dominant cultural practices and artifacts that african americans have made. at no point in american history, excepting geographically isolated communities such as the gullah, could any serious claim be made that black life was not economically, socially, and culturally intertwined with white america. certainly sandke does not make that claim, stressing as he does the continually undervalued white contributions to jazz, but it seems from his tone that he assumes that everyone else does. i argue that virtually no one believes jazz developed in any exclusionary vacuum. does pointing out that jazz was created by black americans erase any contributions by whites? black trinidadians didn't invent, manufacture, or introduce the oil drum into their culture, but the resulting steel pan music is no less black trinidadian. 141 142 current musicology in chapter 3, "good intentions and bad history:' sandke attempts to minimize the footprint of africa in jazz in favor of an american one. he downplays african rhythmic contributions, plays up the harmonic (that is, european) basis of bebop, and quotes black jazz musicians on their often strained relations with africa and african audiences. for instance, mary lou williams asserted that ''afro has nothing to do with jazz. jazz grew up on its own here in america. black americans don't have to go back to africa to get their dignity. they've got it here:' and art blakey said "no america, no jazz ... it couldn't have come from anyone else but us. it couldn't come from the africans" (43). contextually, of course, williams and blakey were both speaking in a time when black americans' concepts of africa and africaness were quite fluid, while the early civil rights movement was struggling to get blacks respected as americans, and when belief in "black is beautiful" was still a generation away. the comments by williams and blakey could be read not merely as musical ones but also as a reaction to an african-american over-idealization of africa that was rampant during the era of african independence movements, when musicians such as randy weston were rhapsodic in expressing their deep connections with africa (weston and jenkins 2011). at the time of these comments, black americans were grappling with their identity as americans of african descent while a great deal of the population, black and white, still considered africans to be savages. emblematic of the identity crisis was the rapid sequence of re-naming: colored, negro, negro, afro-american, black, black, and african american. it seems as though sandke finds a racial ideologue in every author. his thesis paragraph for the chapter states: several generations of jazz writers believed it was their duty to combat racism by depicting the music as an outgrowth of african culture; as the product of an insular black community; and as a reaction to segregation and discrimination. but how does the historical record actually compare with these assessments? (39) to represent the argument for the african origins case, sandke presents passages from the story of jazz (stearns 1956) and shining trumpets (blesh 1946), both products of pioneering and influential jazz writers to be sure. he follows with a vigorous attack on the notion that the sense of rhythm in jazz is at all related to that in african musical practice. ''as musicologist a. m. jones writes: 'rhythm is to the african what harmony is to the europeans, and it is in the complex interweaving of contrasting patterns that he finds his greatest aesthetic satisfaction: likewise john miller chernoff says, 'in african music there are always at least two rhythms going on. there seems aaron j. johnson to be no unifying or main beat''' (40). jones' post wwii, colonial-era work and even chernoff's 1979 updates have been questioned by more recent scholars. aside from jazz's uses of polyrhythm, more fundamental issues undercut these former benchmark studies on african music. agawu (2003) critiques the jones-chernoff school of work on at least three fronts: unsustainable pan-continental generalizations about african music and africanness; a tendency to shoehorn african music into a western discourse of rhythm while under-examining local discourses about music making; and an essentializing view of rhythm that stresses the african other rather than considering the relationship between music, language, and specific african communities. still sandke runs with these highly contestable generalizations about african music, and finds the connections lacking between african music and jazz. notably, he repeats the broad and over-generalized claim that in african music "opposing rhythmic groupings furnish an ongoing structure from which the entire performance derives its basic identity;' part of a body of thought that maintains that african music is purely about rhythm (40). agawu cuts through these othering notions of indecipherable african polyrhythm by noting that ethnomusicologists such as jones and chernoff failed to note that for all its complexity, dancers are able to find a consistent beat (,'africans have only two feet!") and demonstrates that the use of so-called additive rhythm and polymeter are related to the rhythms of african language. sandke fails to recognize african rhythmic practices that are well out in the open in jazz-such as the fluid shifting between duple and triple meters, clashes of rhythms against the underlying pulse, syncopation that can be derived from polymetrical practices, and jazz phrasing that "floats" above the steady pulse only to lock back onto it from time to time. instead he looks for resemblances to the static polymetrical passages of ethnomusicological field recordings of african music-sounds taken out of the societal context that produced them-and locates these resemblances instead in the music of stravinsky; in other words, he finds the kinds of polyrhythmic examples from the ethnomusicologicalliterature in the music of precisely the kind of composer who would read such transcriptions. no less an authority than dizzy gillespie also expressed the opinion that the use of rhythm in africa was different from black music when he wrote that "our music in the united states and the african concept of rhythm have one difference: the african music is polyrhythmic and we are basically monorhythmic"(43). while sandke implies that because of this conceptual difference gillespie preferred to play with afro-cuban drummers rather than african ones-he doesn't seem to consider the relative availability of afro-cuban and african drum143 144 current musicology mers in post wwii new york -a counter-argument was made by gillespie's cuban collaborator chano pozo, as recollected by gillespie himself, "deehee no peek pani, me no peek angli, bo peek african" [dizzy doesn't speak spanish, i don't speak english, but we both speak african 1 (gillespie 1979). in the same chapter, sandke makes a much more sound argument in countering claims that bebop innovations were basically ones of rhythm. he argues that the tin pan alley songs of the 1930s, largely composed by non­ black composers, provided a framework for the higher-interval harmonic treatments that were to become part of the bebop language. his notions about the role that repertoire may have played in the bebop revolution are appealing to those taking a sociological approach to jazz scholarship and are clearly worthy of further study. while sandke's attention to the evolution of bebop harmony is a welcome addition, he seems to have overlooked bebop's enduring innovation of a much more dialogical and interactive performance paradigm as opposed to that of the swing era, a paradigm that both echoed the contrapuntal style of early jazz and foreshadowed the return of collec­ tive improvisation in the free jazz of the 1960s. however, why challenge the notion of rhythmic innovation other than because rhythmic properties have been so thoroughly associated with blackness in jazz? another major concern for a book that deals with race is sandke's lack of nuance on the topic of race itself (that is until the last chapter, when he magnanimously calls for the dissolution of the concept of race). while sandke clearly understands the blunt force aspects of racism such as violence, segregated life, and hiring discrimination, when his book touches on issues such as black self-loathing-in fairness why would anyone expect him to be an expert here-or monolithic presentations of whiteness, these shortcomings deflate the book's value. two topics that suffer from this lack of nuance are the issues of black community support for jazz and the career limitations of black musicians. in chapters 4 and 7, "what gets left out;' and "the biggest myth of all;' sandke addresses connections between audiences and performers of both races: much of the jazz literature emphasizes a close connection between jazz and african music, while the more direct and demonstrable link between jazz and the european classical tradition has been largely ignored. i'm not saying that jazz belongs to this tradition, or that the language of jazz owes more to "white" culture than to black. what i am saying is that much of what we consider "black culture" is richly heterodox, and that the greatest exponents of jazz were curious and wide ranging individuals who sought training and inspiration from a variety of sources. jazz has repeatedly been able to renew itself by acquiring and transforming new musical influences-one reason for its worldwide appeal. (87) aaron j. johnson once again, sandke states what appears to be obvious. only the earli­ est fan-driven writing would claim jazz to be african music brought to america. in the following chapter, sandke discusses black musicians' and audiences' interest in performing and hearing classical music. he produces a long list of prominent black jazz musicians whose first training was in classical music. these stories of classical ambitions and jazz realities are familiar to most jazz fans and are hardly revelatory. if anything, a more novel discussion would be about how jazz itself has provided an alternative pedagogical system to classical training that has proven valuable to a wide range of american music forms. nor is there any novelty in sandke's reflections on the hostility towards jazz on the part of black colleges (93). not only does any black jazz musician older than fifty know about this historical anti-relationship, it has been described in musicians' memoirs (smith 1991, wesley 2002), in a 1975 doctoral thesis, and in the advocacy of billy taylor for more than forty years before this book (taylor and clarke 1982).4 what does get left out of sandke's account is the self-hating elevation of white culture above black at black colleges for generations and the deep divides over this issue. when sandke goes on to consider the attitudes of the black middle class towards jazz, his discussion is superficial and fails to account for dissenting positions (93-97). however, when he observes that "jazz, throughout its history, has only been deeply understood and appreciated by a small group of admirers that has always cut across boundaries of race and class" he does a good job of cutting through the self-important haze those of us devoted to the music operate within. sandke overstates the case in "the biggest myth of all" where he at­ tributes jazz's commercial viability primarily to white audiences, a notion demonstrably disproven in memoirs of jazz stars and journeymen alike (love 1997, smith 1991, basie 1985). one of the consistent methodological flaws in the book -and for that matter in much of jazz writing and scholarship in general-is the overreliance on accounts of iconic figures such as ellington, monk, armstrong, etc. these musicians commanded the highest fees and ticket prices and attracted the wealthiest (white) audiences but also had the name value to be able appear anywhere.5 when sandke laments the lack of good jazz playing opportunities for white musicians, his plane of reference is always the fortunes of the very best black iconic figures. these figures are jazz icons because of their singular talents, so it is expected that they would have extraordinary career opportunities. "it was unthinkable for a white musician to make a living playing jazz alone;' he writes about the pre-bebop era (109). but sandke fails to take into account that only the very top tier of jazz musicians, regardless of race, play only jazz. even world-class jazz talents play other musics in order to make a living, or even out of enjoyment. 145 146 current musicology where the dark and light folks meet suffers from a consistent lack of inclusion of recent and important jazz scholarship. sandke discusses the new orleans jazz origin myths without any reference to the more recent work that uses the concepts of transculturation, creolization, or hybridity (dessens 2007, fiehrer 1991, hirsch and logsdon 1992, lomax 1993, g. hall 1992) and without reference to work on jazz's contemporary emergence in detroit (milan 2009), new york (welburn 1987, rye 2009), and california (gushee 1985). his attempt to recast our racial understanding of minstrelsy was preceded by eric lott's unci ted love and theft, and indeed in the last couple of decades the discourse concerning minstrelsy has taken a decided turn away from narratives of exploitation and ridicule. his generally cou­ rageous efforts to upset notions of black-white pay disparity ignores the detailed primary source work ofingrid monson's freedom sounds (2007). the lack of citations related to important claims can be disturbing. sandke writes that "the jazz avant-garde has never gained broad popular acceptance, leading to cries of racism" (65). yet no such teary outbursts are cited or even described in support. he also gives what is supposed to be a long list of (mostly) black avant-garde figures who allegedly trained a generation of "politicized students" who have transmitted "the mythology of jazz" to a new generation-actually he only names twelve including a few who are deceased and a few that only taught a course or two (66-67). sandke gives the impression that his claim of indoctrination is supported by this passage from eric porter: because of the revolutionary meanings associated with their music, jazz musicians who became teachers had an appeal across racial lines to politi­ cized students who sought alternative intellectual training and a validation of black cultural practices. [musician and author 1 ben sidran noted that by 1966 the new jazz and other black musics had gained increasing popularity with white college students who wanted to identify with black liberation struggles or who linked black musical expression to their own antiestablishment orientation. (67) however, other than a mention of west coast composer-pianist -organizer horace tapscott, sandke's list of avant-gardists who stormed the ivory tower are not the people porter was writing about in the cited passage. rather, porter was describing the activities of the much more mainstream cba (collective black artists) of new york who are linked to tapscott only because they shared a strategy of organizing musicians' collectives (porter 2002:234). porter is in fact commenting on how straight-ahead musicians' attempt to storm the tower was aided by the burgeoning black studies move­ ment. sandke makes the specific argument that the black arts movement and the allied black studies movement created an opportunity for radicalized aaron j. johnson avant -garde musicians to gain access to college campuses, but porter shows that the movements opened those doors more broadly to jazz music and musicians of many styles. while a number of avant-garde musicians did find a place in academia, their appeal at some schools was due to similarities of that music to parallel developments in western art music. far more often, it was not the avant-garde but mainstream musicians who found employment in programs that stressed applied musical studies (ake 2002). another moment of citation absentia occurs in chapter 5,"the road to radicalism;' within sandke's critique of the multiculturalism movement, which he links to black separatism and ultimately to the neo-classical at­ titudes of the institution jazz at lincoln center. he proffers the following historical fact: "mayor john lindsay, of new york, who'd been a member of the kerner commission, oversaw the firing of scores of white teachers, to be replaced by black 'role models'" (114). this assertion is completely unsupported by citation despite the apparent complexity of such personnel moves involving a strong teachers' union and a then-independent school board. statements such as this appear to frame notions of social and racial justice-or just plain giving folks their due-as zero-sum games, where qualified white teachers (substitute jazz musicians) are sacrificed for unquali­ fied black ones merely to assuage white guilt. sandke's best moments are the ones where his arguments take him away from the iconic figures of jazz and look to include the contributions of minor and peripheral figures. for example, he attempts to neutralize the argument that black jazz musicians were exploited or underpaid to a greater degree than their white counterparts. here sandke is to be applauded for trying to affix numbers-salaries, gross earnings, etc-to the topic. yet he is not the first to dig in here, as monson performed a similar analysis, to different conclusions, based on the pay records of the u.s. government for black and white musicians performing state department tours during the cold war. while sandke has the unenviable-and methodologically elusive-task of comparing salary and gross earning numbers in memoirs and (typically inflated) trade paper accounts concerning a wide range of dissimilar musi­ cal engagements occurring over long time frames, monson's analysis is far more tractable; she is comparing payroll data for musical contemporaries performing comparable work. the other issue where dark and light achieves some traction but fails to make its case is the neo-conservative direction of much of institutionalized jazz. at the dawn of the eighties, another seismic shift would confer a new societal role to jazz. this new age was to see jazz enshrined as a cultural icon representing the black experience. the music itself was to be a celebration 147 148 current musicology of past achievements, guided largely by a young generation of well-dressed, well spoken african american musicians. the outer boundaries of jazz would be defined and set, and the goal of a jazz musician would be to reassert and revive the glories of "the tradition:' new ideas would be largely unwelcome, as would older black musicians and most white musicians of any age. (110) here is the book's noble purpose-to trouble the self-satisfied status quo that has beset jazz, at least, the institutionalized version ofjazz--to question the legitimacy of the jazz at lincoln center model as the music's standard bearers. indeed sandke's central critique of jalc and the jazz establish­ ment seems simultaneously out of date as it remains enduringly in fashion. however, there are some unsettling uses of language here too. perhaps sandke did not mean anything but to describe the sartorial proclivities of the 80s "young lions;' but "well-dressed, well spoken african americans" strikes me with the same subtextual punch as comedian-conservative jackie mason's description of new york city mayor david dinkins as "a fancy schvartze with a moustache" in 1991. the bigger problem here is that sandke tries to lay the blame for this neo-classical stagnation on the claim that jazz is black music. despite the logical fuzziness of the claim, he overlooks the contributions of other institutions in producing the current state of affairs, including the recording industry, jazz's residency on public radio, and the intellectual gaze of educational institutions. far more people than wynton marsalis, stanley crouch, and albert murray have hungrily sought equal institutional footing for jazz, yet many others have been wary of the impact of institutional patronage on the music itself. this is an important point which sandke overlooks; there can be stifling consequences when creative artists are aligned with powerful institutional forces. instead, he ignores this possibility while blaming black identity politics for all that is stale in jazz. how then does sandke explain the adventurous music from los angeles's ugmaa (union of god's musicians and artist's ascension), saint louis's bag (black artists group) and chicago's aacm (association for the advancement of creative musicians), all of whose creations are tied directly to the black arts movement and black power politics? it is unfortunate that this book has reportedly earned sandke undeserved enmity, because his motives do not appear to be the least malicious. it is part of sandke's biography that he has encountered the frustration of be­ ing pigeonholed as a traditional jazz musician to the point of limiting his chances to play other styles. perhaps as a result, the book has an undercur­ rent of resentment; that, for example, black jazz and black jazz musicians had a virtual monopoly on opportunities to play "real" jazz. it is curious that he fails to note the obverse; that all black efforts at art music have been aaron j. johnson steered-analogous to segregated housing patterns-to the jazz bin. sandke exerts considerable effort to demonstrate that black musicians have long been interested in and influenced by classical music, but at least until the 1960s, that love has hardly been reciprocated by major cultural institutions. since then, perhaps because of the synergy of compositional and performance techniques, and the at times unfortunate advancement of the notion of jazz as america's (black) classical music, black musicians and improvisers working outside the jazz tradition repeatedly find themselves pulled in, willing or not. as hard as sandke tries to claim that studio work, film work, and other employment avenues were unsuitable to the temperament of jazz players, these avenues, when they were good gigs-despite his salary figures-were largely closed to black musicians. one reason sandke's analysis falls short on this count is his failure to realize that there have been far more black musicians who sometimes play jazz than there are fulltime jazz musicians. the final thing missing from sandke's discussion of race is a sense of justice. sandke leans on the conservative voices of shelby steele and dinesh d'souza to offer critiques of "identity politics" which he curiously extends to jazz without modification-curiously because jazz is one of the few american fields of intellectual endeavor where african americans are considered the leaders, a meritocracy that works, thus inverting the typical american social order. statements like the following are offensive: "the balance of power has shifted so that now, in an age of racial redress, black skin can entitle its bearer to preferential treatment in many areas of education and employ­ ment" (237). few black people see the world this way. i'm sure sandke is at least familiar with some of the other "privileges" to which black skin has historically entitled its bearers. notes 1. sandke cites many memoirs of musical figures including armstrong (1954), barker (1986), bigard (1985), clayton (1986), ellington (1973), goodman (1961), manone (1984), and (willie "the lion") smith (1965). 2. there are so many examples of outstanding writing that question prevailing jazz dogma, but here are just a few. scott knowles deveaux, the birth of bebop: a social and musical history (berkeley: university of california press, 1997); nichole t. rustin and sherrie tucker, big ears: listeningfor gender in jazz studies (durham: duke university press, 2008); krin gabbard, ed. jazz among the discourses (durham: duke university press, 1995); mark tucker, duke ellington, and alexander street press, the duke ellington reader, (new york: oxford university press, 1993); george lewis, a power stronger than itself" the aacm and american experimental music (chicago: university of chicago press, 2008); ronald michael radano, lying up a nation: race and black music (chicago: university of chicago press, 2003); ingrid t. monson, freedom sounds: civil rights calls out to jazz and africa (new york: oxford 149 1 ~)o current musicology university press, 2007); lawrence gushee, "the nineteenth-century origins of jazz," black music research journal 22(2002); eric porter, what is this thing called jazz?: african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists (berkeley: university of california press, 2002); david andrew ake, jazz cultures (berkeley: university of california press, 2002); jeffrey magee, the uncrowned king of swing: fletcher henderson and big band jazz (new york: oxford university press, 2005). 3. ap obituaryan inspiring coda to the career of a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since john coltrane 4. london g. branch, jazz education at black colleges and universities. doctoral thesis, southern illinois university, 1975, 103-105. marilyn marshall, "are blacks giving away jazz," ebony, 1988, 19. 5. i have toured as ajazz musician for almost twenty years, but it is only with bands like the count basie orchestra that i have appeared in the most diverse locations. wynton marsalis can appear at any high school auditorium in america and draw an audience, but this is probably not the case for james carter or jason moran. references agawu, v kofi. 2003. representing african music: postcolonial notes, queries, positions. new york: routledge. ake, david andrew. 2002. jazz cultures. berkeley: university of california press. basie, count, and albert murray. 1985. good morning blues: the autobiography of count basie. 1st ed. new york: random house. blesh, rudi. 1946. shining trumpets, a history of jazz. new york: a. a. knopf. branch, london g. 1975. jazz education at black colleges and universities. doctoral thesis, southern illinois university. dessens, nathalie. 2007. from saint-domingue to new orleans: migration and influences. gainesville: university press of florida. fiehrer, thomas. 1991. from quadrille to stomp: the creole origins of jazz. popular music 10, no. 1: 21-38. gans, charles. 2007. facing death, musician michael brecker provides moving coda. ljworld.com. gillespie, dizzy. 1979. to be, or not . .. to bop: memoirs. 1st ed. garden city, ny: doubleday. gushee, lawrence. 1985. a preliminary chronology of the early career of fred "jelly roll" morton. american music 3, no. 4: 389-412. hall, gwendolyn midlo. 1992. the formation of afro-creole culture. in creole new orleans: race and americanization, edited by arnold r. hirsch and joseph logsdon. baton rouge: louisiana state university press. hirsch, arnold r. and joseph logsdon, eds. 1992. creole new orleans: race and americanization. baton rouge: louisiana state university press. lomax, alan. 1993. mister jelly roll: the fortunes of jelly roll morton, new orleans creole and "inventor of jazz." new york: pantheon books. aaron j. johnson lott, eric. 1993. love and theft: blackface minstrelsy and the american working class. new york: oxford university press. love, preston. 1997. a thousand honey creeks later: my life in music from basie to motown-and beyond. hanover: wesleyan university press. marshall, marilyn. 1988. are blacks giving away jazz. ebony, february. milan, jon. 2009. detroit: ragtime and the jazz age images of america. charleston: arcadia. monson, ingrid t. 2007. freedom sounds: civil rights call out to jazz and africa. new york: oxford university press. porter, eric. 2002. what is this thing called jazz?: african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley: university of california press. rye, howard. 2009. the southern syncopated orchestra. black music research journal 29, no. 2: 153-228. smith, w 0.1991. sideman: the long gig of w.o. smith: a memoir. nashville, tn: rutledge hill press. stearns, marshall winslow. 1956. the story of jazz. new york: oxford university press. taylor, william ("billy") and catherine k. clarke. 1982. the jazz-mobile man. the black perspective in music 10, no. 2: 179-188. wesley, fred. 2002. hit me, fred: recollections of a side man. durham: duke university press. welburn, ron. 1987. james reese europe and the infancy of jazz criticism. black music research journal 7: 35-44. weston, randy, and willard jenkins. 2010. african rhythms: the autobiography of randy weston refiguring american music. durham nc: duke university press. 151 current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 vágnerová and garcía molina. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 93 academic labor and music curricula lucie vágnerová and andrés garcía molina in this paper we parse recent initiatives rethinking music curricula—in particular, those critiquing the enduring centrality of the western art music canon—in connection to questions of academic labor and service. many of our interlocutors ask us: “why are conservative curricula a problem now?” the short answer is that canon-driven music curricula have always been problematic, as reflected by historical initiatives for curricular reform. however, even if the present moment in us music departments is far from unique, it does stand out in particular institutional and disciplinary ways that offer new insights into how curricular design operates and resists change. specifically, we argue that when it comes to matters of curricular design, students of music would merit from departments thinking differently about structures of labor and academic seniority. as we discuss, contingent faculty have recently become the majority of teaching staff in higher education. even though this labor force has a much higher representation of minority and women scholars than tenured faculty, their control over curricula is minimal. while many of these scholars channel their desire for change into public-oriented initiatives and other forms of curriculum-adjacent academic service, this work is less valued than research and teaching, and thus contributes to a self-sustaining cycle of exclusion. intimately entwined with the histories of music disciplines, the canon remains obstinate. in response to calls for reform, it is typically only adjusted by placing similar texts and objects in play (natvig 2002, xi) or by mobilizing the language of “diversity” to justify and nominally amend a canon-driven curriculum. from our own positions as contingent faculty, we thus argue that the relative invisibility of academic service is a curricular issue in its own right. aside from this shifting, increasingly vocal, but still largely disempowered labor force, the current political moment also animates the long and tense relationship between the humanities and social movements. since at least the presidential campaigns of 2016 that polarized the country on the issue of immigration, if not the black lives matter movement (2013–) that shone a light on the deadly repercussions of systemic racism, there has been increased pressure on academia to recognize its complicity in imperial, colonial, racist, sexist, and classist social formations, as current social movements influence initiatives variously calling for critical teaching, diversity, and decolonization. we propose that music departments 94 current musicology recognize the performative properties of curricula, and we suggest entry points to redressing the influence of coloniality and empire that undergird the institutionalization of music. contingent faculty and academic service we write as colleagues and friends, a graduate student instructor trained as an ethnomusicologist and a lecturer trained as a musicologist, both in the early stages of our academic careers, both committed to thinking about, and valuing, our work as teachers as much as our work as researchers. while we hail from international backgrounds (from honduras and the czech republic), the conversation we present is us-centric: we work at institutions based in the united states, and notice that us institutions of higher education have given particularly short shrift to their country’s multicultural musical heritage (moore 2017, 4).1 our contribution to this volume is distinctly shaped by our positions and experiences as different from those of faculty on and beyond the tenure track. this article stems from previous collaborative work on matters of curricula, including an allcolumbia–contingent-faculty panel titled the music survey at the (post) global university (vágnerová et al. 2018). questions about “intergenerational dialogue,” as well as the panelists’ relative juniority, came up in the q&a and in discussions before and after the panel, informing our thinking towards this paper. we underline the importance of dialogue with our senior colleagues across the academy: after all, questions of curricula stand metonymically for entire departments. that is, they pertain to all areas of a music department (e.g. historical musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, composition, performance, music education) and personnel (e.g. tenured and tenure-track faculty, faculty who only teach elective courses, contingent faculty, postdoctoral fellows and visiting scholars, administrative and support staff, and graduate and undergraduate students). in spite of these broad ramifications of curricula, and even though contingent faculty have done the majority of teaching at all types of institutions of higher education since at least 2013 (hurlburt 2017; birmingham 2017), curricular decisions are still typically only made by tenured and tenuretrack faculty (thurman and turner 2017). how can we think about these disjunctures in a generative way? what effects do they have on the curricula in question (and by extension on our students)? and what do they tell us about the relationships among labor structures, pedagogy, curricula, and the canon at this moment in the humanities? academic labor is typically divided into research, teaching, and service, “the trinity of promotion and tenure criteria” (massé and hogan 2010; see also mountz et al. 2015). in the political economy of academic 95 vágnerová and garcía molina labor, these three categories are not on equal footing, however: the undervaluing, gendering, and invisibility of academic service is well documented (massé and hogan 2010, 18; see also ahmed 2006; sterne 2011; guarino and borden 2017). granted, service is difficult to define with specificity: it “is rarely tabulated or analyzed” and can include activities as diverse as mentoring and advising students, serving on committees and task forces, writing recommendation letters, and so forth (massé and hogan 2010, 1). even when items of service are explicitly listed, such as on a curriculum vitae submitted towards an academic position, service always comes last, after research and teaching in either order. meanwhile, recent studies aiming to explain the “leaky pipeline” of promotion of women and faculty of color have determined that “faculty of color, queer faculty, and faculty of working class backgrounds [are] especially saddled with invisible service work” (university of oregon 2017, 228) and that “women faculty perform significantly more service than men, controlling for rank, race/ethnicity, and field or department” (guarino and borden 2017, 1). the invisibility of academic service and this gendered, racialized, and classed seniority gap produce and exacerbate one another and determine whose curricular work has impact. because of the exclusive terms of access to curricular design, much critical work takes place outside of official committees and curricula vitae—in staff meetings of instructors, informal meetings, email chains, and online collaborative platforms of contingent faculty navigating how to responsibly and critically teach the material they are tasked with imparting. and again, as the above studies bear out, contingent faculty do this from subject positions that are, in the aggregate, more diverse than those of tenured faculty, and thus at a remove from subjectivities represented in the very curricula they teach.2 invisible forms of academic service, sometimes culminating in calls for curricular change, also frequently take shape through interactions among graduate student instructors and teaching assistants across departments and universities: friendships from crossdisciplinary seminars, graduate student conferences, and graduate student workers’ picket lines provide a context for discussing what we are asked to teach, how it compares to the other disciplines, and how we might envision changes.3 in music departments, maintaining long-standing curricular structures that favor one particular history—that of the white and male west— at the expense of other histories perpetuates the idea that any subjectivities (e.g. women, people of color, genderqueer persons) and approaches to music, sound, and listening that diverge from the master narrative of the western art canon are peripheral and thus dispensable. questioning 96 current musicology music curricula, it follows, calls into question the very same entrenched hierarchies that perpetuate labor inequities along the lines of gender, race, class, ability, and sexuality. when curricula are treated as default structural arrangements that simply are, any work on revising them can strategically be perceived as unwelcome and “unproductive” (both in the colloquial and the marxist sense). and yet, keeping curricula current is arguably an especially productive form of service central to the everyday operations of music departments, as courses mandatory for undergraduates guarantee much departmental funding and contribute greatly to the academic and public tenor and image of the department. disciplinarity, pedagogy, and curricula the present moment is not an exceptional one in terms of demands and calls for curricular revision. rather, it is but one iteration within a longer history of changes and initiatives taking up the question of what we should be teaching, why, and how. although our disciplines have changed dramatically throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, music curricula continue to express old conventional wisdoms of what is considered common knowledge in the humanities and social sciences (natvig 2002, x–xii). of course, “conventional wisdom[s]” as susan mcclary writes, are only the effects of “shared procedures” of knowledge production, and tend to portend a “rude reversal, whereby something that seemed to have possessed truth-value gets relegated to the scrap heap of superseded misconceptions” (2000, 5). to understand what the “reversals” of canon-based music curricula might look like, we must first unpack the “shared procedures” of our disciplines and their institutionalization, and question the terms of access to sharing in the knowledge production that establishes curricular convention. two of the central projects of post-war historical musicology, the largest of the music disciplines, were deeply uncritical at first: to produce authoritative editions of musical works deemed important and to write detailed histories of the contexts from which this music arose.4 the scope of musicological scholarship, privileging the music of european and to some extent us-american white men, was meanwhile distinctly shaped by the contexts from which the discipline arose. these contexts include silencings, such as the gender panic of the men of the new york musicological society who in 1930 closed the door on ruth crawford in order “to avoid the incipient criticism that musicology was ‘women’s work’ ” (hisama 2001, 18; cusick 2011, 471–72), as well as the simple blanket non-admittance of women to columbia college before 1983. it was only in the 1980s that the discipline saw a new wave of critical thinking about music (e.g. kerman 97 vágnerová and garcía molina 1985; mcclary and leppert 1987), and only in the late 1980s and early 1990s that it saw a flurry of analyses of gender and sexuality in music (tick and bowers 1986; clemént 1988; mcclary 1991; citron 1993; solie 1993; cook and tsou, 1994), though similar work did take place earlier outside of musicology proper (mcclary 1990). even so, most of this new feminist scholarship still dealt with canonical music and the depictions, lives, and works of white cisgender women. one of the disciplinary lineages of ethnomusicology goes back to comparative musicology, with its inseparability from histories of colonialism (agnew 2005), to a negation of the western art canon that also prominently denied the adequacy of popular music as an object of study (e.g. kunst 1950; hood 1971), and to an emphasis on an unchanging “traditionality” that denied certain populations participation in modernity (mcallester 1979). although for some ethnomusicology has absorbed influence from intellectual movements in the social sciences at a faster rate than musicology and music theory (e.g. cook 1998, 99), others have pointed out that it suffers from its own “canonical obstinacy”: that is, in spite of emerging to a great extent in opposition to historical musicology’s obsession with the western art canon, ethnomusicology countered by creating its own canon of sorts (danielson 2007). that ethnomusicology emerged concomitantly with the rise of audio technologies and in the service of colonialist projects, and later thrived in symbiosis with a market for world music, also makes for a troubling history of profit from seldom-compensated subaltern labor (feld 2000). the stakes of rethinking music curricula always necessarily pivot around these and other elements of our disciplinary histories: in deciding what we teach and how, curricular committees act as a jury evaluating not only the musical material on the table, but also how that material came to be on the table, who built the table, who is sitting at the table, and who is outside the door.5 until recently, the desire to change the intellectual and social culture of music classrooms has largely been understood as a matter of pedagogy rather than curricular design. although pedagogy and curricular design overlap, pedagogy focuses on the methodology of teaching whereas curricular design audits the very catalogue of texts, materials, and content introduced in individual courses, majors, and departments. addressing questions of pedagogy in isolation thus merely skims the surface while leaving intact the systemic criteria that uphold one particular corpus of knowledge. for example, even though many contributions to teaching music history (2002, ed. mary natvig) critique the concept of the canon, essays on “women in music” (natvig), “film music” (pisani), and “american music” (cook) nevertheless appear under a section titled topics courses, 98 current musicology signaling that these subjects are to be explored electively, and not within a mandatory curriculum. another essay collection, vitalizing music history teaching (2010, ed. james r. briscoe) also largely focuses on pedagogical strategies from musicology and ethnomusicology, though susan cook’s explicit critique of survey courses stands out. then there is the music history classroom (2016, ed. james a. davis), which opens with susan mcclary’s declaration in the foreword that “the music history survey will continue to matter as long as we can make it relevant to the musicians of today and tomorrow” (xix). the essay collection that follows again mostly addresses hands-on pedagogical strategies, such as bringing mozartkugeln, eggs berlioz, and other “music-themed food” into the classroom (natvig 2002, 28). for all these texts’ valuable contributions to discussions on music pedagogy, they largely inherit the assumption—indeed, the conventional wisdom—that only the west (often narrowly understood as europe and the united states) “has” the titular “music history.” a broad survey of instructors of music history courses for music majors in 2011–2012 confirms that over a decade into the new millennium teachers still prioritize teaching “the basic chronology of western art music” over cultural context, the lives of composers, non-western music, musical instruments, western popular music, and performers (baumer 2015, 40). that is, the construction of the canon does not merely happen to be central to most music curricula, it is the justification for having a set curriculum to begin with. the problematic assumptions that confer the west’s exclusive possession of (music) history, we argue, foreclose a more critically articulated engagement with histories of sound, music, and listening. why only study the west? why only through the prism of the canon? in contrast to this recent work on pedagogy, the last few years see the institutionalized debate turn more explicitly towards curricular change. the 2014 meeting of the american musicological society hosted a roundtable titled “the end of the undergraduate music history sequence?” with j. peter burkholder, don gibson, and melanie lowe, though also with the non-committal punctuation in the panel title. a different panel at the same meeting asked “what do we want them to know? teaching ‘introduction to musicology’ in a changing field,” with charles m. atkinson, suzanne cusick, judith peraino, and richard taruskin. the 2015 meeting of the ams saw a panel on “strategies and opportunities for greater inclusion of ibero-american music in the curriculum,” with walter clark, ana alonsominutti, drew edward davies, jacqueline avila, and alejandro l. madrid. two of these panels were published in abridged form in the the journal of music history pedagogy, published by the pedagogy study group of the ams, which has itself become a vital platform of discussing curricular 99 vágnerová and garcía molina interventions. a conference titled the idea of canon in the twenty-first century met in september 2018 at smith college, and a pre-conference symposium titled “decolonizing strategies in ethnomusicology, teaching, and performance: perspectives from the u.s. southwest and latin america” was held at the 2018 society for ethnomusicology conference at the university of new mexico.6 publications like college music curricula for a new century (ed. moore 2017) offer arguments for centering “commitment to social justice” among the goals of performance degree curricula (moore 2017, 16–17; bradley 2017). we add our voices to this growing corpus of work that seeks to move questions of pedagogy into questions of curricula, which, we maintain, are also questions of academic labor. the canon and its alternatives that the musical canon is smaller and narrower in just about every way (geography, gender, race and ethnicity, class) than the canons of other disciplines in the humanities may have lulled us into believing that “covering” the canon completes something that might pass for music education. however, as reflected by many of the recent curricular changes that involve destabilizing the prominence of the western canon and historical musicology in favor of a more interdisciplinary music education rooted in the humanities (campbell, myers, and sarath 2014; myers 2016), it is becoming patently clear that “coverage cannot be the goal,” as anne shreffler put it in reference to recent curricular changes at harvard (robin 2017; see also lowe 2015, 65). harvard brought new flexibility to majoring in music by eliminating the requirement to take classes in music theory and replacing the traditional “sequence”—a universalizing and troublingly teleological approach referring to the history of european music patronized by the church, the court, and the university from the middle ages to the recent past—with courses titled thinking about music and critical listening (hovis 2016; robin 2017). similar changes at cornell involved deprivileging notated music and instead, for instance, valorizing the study and practice of improvisation (hovis 2016). a new curriculum at vanderbilt university now opens with courses titled music as global culture, which explores indigenous and western art traditions, and music in western culture, a topically organized writing seminar. only music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is taught chronologically. the broad aim of the curriculum is to hone transferable skills both in the sense of preparing students for the job market and in the sense of preparing students for music that has not been written yet (lowe 2015, 66–68). perhaps most recently, yale’s music majors no longer have to take sixteen required courses but only twelve, which are to be chosen flexibly from offerings 100 current musicology under four areas of musical study: music theory and technology, creative practice, western art music, and non-western art, popular, and vernacular musics (turner 2018). ripple effects among institutions are palpable here, but what is perhaps most important is that the resulting music curricula not only step away from the canon but also differ from one another significantly more than they used to, valuably pluralizing the “shared procedures” of music studies. another key goal of the above curricular revisions is to open up the music major to students interested in popular music, which continues to be sidelined by the academy (see covach 2015) but which has the potential to bring students of more diverse backgrounds to the table. due to systemic inequalities, “minority” students are less likely to grow up with music lessons and music-oriented leisure activities that fit the conventions of “classical music” education (shreffler in robin 2017). this, however, does not mean that students from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds are not interested in majoring in music. opening up the major to those interested in popular music, music production, or music of the global south—in short, to those who are interested in music beyond the “classical”—invites a more diverse set of scholars and perspectives to the table. this is not to say that students and scholars from historically disenfranchised populations do not or cannot engage the canon of western art music. rather, it is to question how a corpus emerges as canonical to begin with, and from which point of view. where one impulse of those seeking greater diversity in the canon has been to expand the catalogue of canonical objects, we are critical of tokenistic efforts to diversify music curricula—what madrid calls “adding new spices to the dish we have” (2017, 126). such an intervention only deflects from the reason the canon exists in the first place and camouflages the colonialist and imperialist foundations of music disciplines. therefore, the question is not as simple as enriching the canon with a few guest stars from historiographical and geographical margins. as we see it, the greater issue at hand is that the canon models a rather limited approach to questions surrounding musical archives—that is, curated collections of sound, music, and the different histories that give shape to their attendant practices and modes of valuation. our curricula are so inculcated with the work concept (goehr 1992; steingo 2014) that we seldom pay attention to practices, techniques, and other less text-like processes that make up musical culture. walter benjamin writes about the “prismatic fringes of a library”—the non-books, pamphlets, and family photo albums—that hold the potential to refract the very image of a master “catalogue,” which is to say any dominant narrative or organizing logic (1955, 66). foregrounding 101 vágnerová and garcía molina these less object-like “prismatic fringes” of music, we suggest, leads to a more radical decentering of the logic of the canon wholesale, and offers a clearer reflection of how music means and what it does in our lives. ana maría ochoa gautier, for example, writes about the impossibility of “packaging” the latin american (post-)colonial (sonorous) archive: “the acoustic dimensions of the colonial and early postcolonial archive are not presented to us as discrete, transcribed works or as forms neatly packaged into identifiable genres. they are instead dispersed into different types of written inscriptions that transduce different audile techniques into specific legible sound objects of expressive culture” (2014, 3). ochoa gautier thus questions where one draws from in the construction of an archive, an operation that is always selective and a priori empowered. her formulation also valuably signals to the labor required in “neatly packaging,” in bringing a vast array of practices and competing discourses into some sort of unificatory logic. as junior scholars we are particularly aware that our intellectual and institutional labor is “performative,” as eduardo herrera put it at a conference debating the canons of experimental music (2018). happily, we may look to recent models studying how something as un-object-like as listening histories came to have an objectness—what ahmed calls a “sensuous certainty” (2006, 41; fantinato 2018). thinking more critically about the academic labor that translates music into music curricula would up the contrast on what is included and what is left by the wayside in us higher education. then we could proceed to teaching curricula that are, perhaps, less packaged, more multivocal, full of situated perspectives and points of audition, more attentive to a broader range of musical practices, and more different from institution to institution than they currently are. such curricula would encourage instructors and students of diverse backgrounds to learn with their own and one another’s particular positioning in mind. such curricula might be non-chronological, trans-historical, and taught “across borders,” while attending to the asymmetrical relationships underpinning the construction of various canons (alonso-minutti 2017, 107; serrati 2017, 97). humanities and social movements the canonical orientation of our disciplines makes us forget that the modern humanities have been and should continue to be influenced by social movements. the humanities study how we have documented our world and how we have reflected upon its logics and epistemologies. their frameworks teach us that this world is malleable. our point should not be to instill the “appreciation” of historical texts but to teach the intellectual skill to audit our present moment (our disciplines included) and the way it 102 current musicology structures our futures. in fact, the work of rethinking curricula is humanities work par excellence. edward said, in a series of lectures at columbia at the millennium, names the project of the humanities as “the critical investigation of values, history, and freedom” (said 2004, 14).7 he sees the modern humanities as shaped by nietzsche, marx, and freud, and coming of age with levi-strauss, foucault, and barthes—that is, thinkers who understand the documentation of our world as socially constituted, who came to prominence as analysts of systems of power in society and who were influenced by social movements. after all, marx’s work on capitalism emerges out of proletarian revolts in northern europe in the so-called “hungry forties,” and foucault’s theory of power is inspired by the student protests of spring 1968. said’s own foundational work in postcolonial studies (driven by his own participation in the struggle for palestinian justice) and the work of feminist theorists, queer theorists, and critical race theorists (fueled by the women’s movement, gay liberation, civil rights and black nationalist movements) have expanded upon the work of the humanities since at least 1970. like movements for intellectual and curricular change before them, current calls for reform are deeply indebted to a history of student protest and movements for civil rights, labor protections, and gender equity reanimated in their contemporary iterations (black lives matter, no dapl, no ban no wall, #metoo, time’s up, fight for $15, the unionization of graduate student workers and contingent faculty, protests of hate speech on college campuses, and so on). these movements have emerged in response to the rise of right wing extremism and political conformity on the one hand, and the destructive effects of neoliberal political economy on the other. they have brought an intersectional ethos and language to address racism, sexism, and neocolonialism to the liberal mainstream, which prominently includes college campuses. in the classes the two of us teach—music humanities (short for masterpieces of western music) and asian music humanities at columbia, and diverse worlds of music at montclair state university—we have noticed students’ increasing metareflection on the politics of music curricula, mobilizing the critical thinking skills they develop in and out of class to question the logics underpinning the courses themselves. this is evident, for example, in responses to a writing assignment that one of the authors of this article (vágnerová) conducts during the very first session of “masterpieces.” the response of alejandro d. (they/them/their) in january 2018 reads: “what does it mean to take a course that is, in ideology, somewhat archaic in a time of increasingly intersectional approaches to exploring culture and society?” this is to say, the twenty-first century university does not have a patent on critical 103 vágnerová and garcía molina thinking: the discourses and goals in the classroom intersect with those on social media, activist movements, and everyday life outside the walls of the university, often drawing on older academic ideas responding to issues of social justice decades ago (e.g. kimberlé crenshaw’s [1989] concept of intersectionality, which has found its way into the mainstream in recent years and crops up in alejandro d.’s question). music departments teaching survey courses, appreciation courses, and entire curricula centered on the european canon—and, in fact, the humanities writ large—should be asking not only what it means to privilege the canon but also what it means to privilege it now, in 2018. it is no coincidence that many of the recent demands for curricular change are published alongside calls for transforming the social atmosphere on campuses. for example, an anonymous letter detailing issues such as sexual harassment and discrimination in the department of spanish and portuguese at yale simultaneously indicted an outdated and nontransparent curriculum and tenure review process (platoff 2015); a manifesto titled the demands called out the academic and social values of no less than eighty american universities and colleges (thedemands.org 2015); and calls for decolonizing curricula at american university came in response to a racist hate crime on its campus (matlon 2017; choutka et al. 2017).8 a number of extra-institutional, public-oriented “syllabi” (some of which border on curricula in their size) inspired by recent social movements and oriented towards the public also index a lacuna or, at best, a lag in the academic response to current issues. examples include the standing rock syllabus (simpson et al. 2016), the charleston syllabus (blain 2017; williams, williams, and blain 2016), the lemonade syllabus (benbow 2016), the trump syllabus 3.0 (crawford and wray 2017), the diversity in classical music syllabus (thurman 2017), and activities such as the music privilege walk (leonard 2017) and the columbia tour of white supremacy (liberation coalition 2018). to their readerships and audiences, these documents provide a catalogue of intellectual tools to understand current events that are studied in elective courses (if at all) eversubject to waning trends in registration. and, predictably, much of this work reaching outside of the academy is done by faculty who are women and/or persons of color who perform this work even during periods when feminism and antiracism are not the tenor of the popular mainstream. our own work on these topics is most deeply indebted to the work of our advisors, who have long sought to reimagine music departments as more collaborative, equitable, and pluralist spaces. ellie hisama’s instruction of a multidisciplinary graduate seminar titled feminist pedagogy at the institute for research on women, gender, and sexuality, her work 104 current musicology as chair of the 2018 humanities equity committee, and her directorship of a music workshop for young women of color from public high schools reflect a model of academic service work that rethinks what the humanities should “be like” from the perspective of gender, racial, and labor justice. equally, ana maría ochoa gautier’s mentorship across various areas of the department, as well as through the center for the study of ethnicity and race, in addition to her scholarship that critically engages the mutual constitution between western discourses and colonial territories, carve out new intellectual, institutional, and social spaces for reenvisioning the study of sound and music. we contend that scholars of music should not shirk away from initiatives that originate in activist sentiment. to make this possible for untenured and contingent faculty and instructional staff, however, institutions need to recognize, address, and correct the collective implicit bias surrounding that very type of academic service, particularly curricular-like work oriented towards the public and work on institutional schemes that address inequity. diversity and decolonizing while some of the most radical calls for curricular change use the language of “decolonizing” (which we address below), much more common—and much more palatable to university administrations—are various “commitments” to “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “the global.” in addition, the embattled humanities, ever under suspicion for being useless, are under pressure to prepare students to meet the exigencies of the twenty-first century job market driven by the imperative of economic growth (garvey 2015; the ends of the humanities 2017). this section parses the meanings and limits of the terms taken up by various initiatives at twenty-first century universities, particularly the language of “diversity” and “decolonization.” initiatives promoting diversity are rightly criticized for their surface strategies: “diversifying” often stops at students of color smiling in photographs on the cover of university brochures instead of impactful policy changes addressing issues disproportionately faced by this population (from being unrepresented in curricula, to being targets of hate speech on campus, to studying and teaching under financial duress). who is diversity for? and, more specifically, what is the role of race, gender, sexuality, coloniality, and imperialism in imagining progress (gilroy 1993, 72; hisama 2018)? for music scholars, these questions should resonate with historical diversity-like initiatives like the time the us state department paid louis armstrong, dizzy gillespie, and many other jazz musicians to perform “cultural diplomacy” abroad during the cold war, while “the government continued to deny black americans full citizenship at home” (griffin 2004, 105 vágnerová and garcía molina 120; von eschen 2004; davenport 2009, monson 2007, jankowski 2016; jazz ambassadors, dir. berkeley 2018). critiques of diversity might also evoke the official pop anthem of the 2010 fifa world cup in south africa, “waka waka (this time for africa),” which sees the white-presenting colombian singer shakira sampling and covering the 1986 hit “zangaléwa” by the golden sounds, a cameroonian makossa group, which assumes the function of a “souvenir” that “authenticates a tourist’s (or ethnographer’s) experience” (hammond 2012, 41). like “diversity,” “inclusion,” too, involves relationships of unequal power. the recent wave of attention to the life, vocal work, and protest music of gay african american composer and vocalist julius eastman (clayton 2013–; hisama 2015; leach and packer 2015; ross 2017; the otolith group 2017; the kitchen 2018; savvy contemporary 2018) should be understood both as long overdue and, as writer and filmmaker kodwo eshun put it, as “the new music world apologizing for its racism” to reform its own image dominated by “dead white men” (2018). as brazilian scholar of coloniality and intersectional queerness jota mombaça notes, “the benevolent narratives of white alliances—formulas such as ‘giving space,’ ‘giving visibility,’ ‘giving voice,’ all predicated on the normative desire of adjusting the social world—have as a more evident limit their own incapability of incorporating the negative dimension of that work, that is, ‘losing space,’ ‘losing visibility,’ ‘losing voice’ ” (mombaça 2017).9 the language of “decolonizing” is certainly not innocent either: the work of mario cancel-bigay (2018), for example, interrogates the many valences of “the colonial,” problematizing the relationship between different lineages of postcolonial, decolonial, and settler colonial studies and thought (see also ochoa gautier 2014).10 as cancel-bigay argues, while decolonial studies are indebted to latin american scholars and scholarship, the debate’s institutionalization in the global north has “provincialized” other lineages of thought (see also rivera cusicanqui 2014). what we find valuable about the term “decolonization,” however, is that it helps us acknowledge that many music curricula are modeled on a value system and organization of the world that originated in european colonialism and imperialism.11 what might it mean to “decolonize” music studies? to start, it means to accept that music education is not a neutral agent in music history and culture. we create meaning by directing our attention to some musics and not others, and in the process of continuously reinforcing one particular canon, hierarchies are enforced to the point of appearing default. thus, music appreciation cannot be the goal, as that in itself mirrors a colonial ethos—think jesuit missionaries teaching baroque music to indigenous bolivians as a form of conversion (e.g. castagna 1999; rondón 106 current musicology 1997; waisman 2011). the ubiquitous imaginary of greece as cradle of (western) civilization is part and parcel of a logic that presumes that we must all be western, or, at minimum, become “civilized” through becoming informed about “western culture” through university-level humanities courses.12 the notion of a well-rounded individual cultivated through an exclusive education selectively focused on europe and the united states can easily coexist with diversity discourses, which are simply subsumed under its logic. the same cannot be said for decolonization. in a decolonized music curriculum, the west would have to be approached as a construction: what “western culture” (and its music history) means has only been possible through imperial/colonial relations. to decolonize music studies means to question the origins of value systems that largely originate in and pertain to white european and north american culture, values, gaze, and listening; to understand musical cultures as having multiple and often contradictory histories; and to ultimately recognize that a well-rounded, responsible, and critical study of music requires the re-centering of “subaltern subjectivities” (mombaça 2017). to be clear, a re-centering of the subaltern is a very different project than an inclusion of the other, so often instrumentalized in the service of constructing the west. even though music scholarship has recognized the global histories of violence that have made and make possible the very idea of “the west” (e.g. ochoa gautier 2014; tsou 2014; hisama 1993), music curricula do not reflect this vital insight, insofar as “western” music courses remain at the center, and at best address colonial and imperial relations critically. more frequently, they obfuscate or take them for granted. as mombaça (2017) puts it, “to envision [such a] repositioning of subaltern bodies, subjectivities, and lives outside of subalternity is a project that can only be undertaken insofar as privileged bodies, subjectivities, and lives are repositioned outside of dominance.” decolonizing music studies, in other words, must involve the canon’s ceding of curricular territory—“losing space” (mombaça 2017). • it is an obstinate but false corollary that the musical canon defines so many curricula because of its inherent greatness and power. instead, conservative curricula are kept in place by insulating the growing pool of contingent labor from impactful curricular work. to be clear, it is often simply not possible for departments to obtain funding for tenure-track positions, but it is very much within their power to cede space at the table of curricular review to contingent faculty, and thus counteract the academy’s implicit devaluing of their service and public-oriented work. the politics of privi107 vágnerová and garcía molina leging a canon-driven curriculum impact research, work environments, teaching, classroom politics, the allocation of space and funding, and most importantly the student bodies we teach. as georgina born and kyle devine write on the topic of gender inequities in the teaching and practice of electronic music, “the assemblage-like character of these relations means that real change can begin anywhere, and that critiques and initiatives introduced [in one place] have the potential to reverberate across all of the others” (2016, 8). for meaningful change to happen in the landscape of music curricula, however, the “anywhere” of curricular decision-making specifically needs to expand to include the academic service of minority scholars, women, and contingent faculty, academic work that is in dialogue with contemporary social movements, student viewpoints, and a critical engagement with decolonial frameworks. notes for reading an early draft of this paper, and sharing references, comments, and their own work, we thank maria fantinato and mario cancel-bigay. for his editorial eye and generative questions, we thank tom wetmore. we also thank paula harper and sky macklay, our colleagues and co-panelists at “musicology in the age of (post)globalization: the barry s. brook centennial conference,” held at the graduate center of the city university of new york in april 2018, as well as the conference participants who engaged us in generative conversation. finally, for their long-term collaboration, we thank the graduate student and lecturer working groups who meet to discuss teaching at the music department at columbia university. 1. a more global view of the question of music curricula is thus outside the purview of this paper, though we hope our intervention can contribute to a broader international dialogue. for a recent contribution to this conversation from a latin american perspective, see the special issue of revista internacional de educación musical edited by favio shifres and guillermo rosabal-coto, “hacia una educación musical decolonial en y desde latinoamérica” (2017). 2. even contingent faculty pools do not reflect the diversity of the country: for graduate students in musicology, the cost of instrumental lessons to acquire “keyboard skills” required by many graduate music programs, or the expectation of passing a french and a german exam (as opposed to, say, spanish or hindi) are clear structural barriers. the pre-ams/ smt symposium on diversifying music academia: strengthening the pipeline (project spectrum 2018) is sure to speak to this topic. 3. a yale student petition asking to “decolonize” the english major, for example, resonated with graduate student instructors at columbia. the petition led to some restructuring of the major, dethroning english poetry from its place of privilege in the curriculum, and bringing about new course offerings featuring writing traditions from around the globe, with a special look to the work of women and persons of color (wang 2016; philyaw 2016). 4. music theory, historically the discipline’s closest relative, has often functioned as a technology of corroborating musicology’s claims, and similarly focuses largely on the european canon (for two recent critiques, see hiser 2017; gill 2017). 5. it is worth noting that curricular changes are not always the result of committee work 108 current musicology but instead come out of particular contract negotiations or a specific departmental appointment. at uc berkeley, for instance, when olly wilson was hired in 1970, “the faculty met his stipulation that half of his teaching would be devoted to african american music (and its african roots)”; when bonnie wade was hired, also in 1970, she was tasked with singlehandedly developing a full ethnomusicology curriculum of eleven courses (bonnie wade, personal communication). on tables as an entry point into questions of equality and labor, see ahmed (2006). 6. while not exclusively about curricula, the fall/winter 2016 volume of sem student news is entitled “decolonizing ethnomusicology,” and includes discussions around student representation, the dominance of the english language in the discipline, ethnography and fieldwork, indigeneity, and archival repatriation, among others. questions around academic labor are not discussed explicitly, though they are hinted at in various places, particularly in the perduring concerns around the centrality of the western art canon. as one anonymous survey respondent put it, the stakes of “feel[ing] like the ‘ethno’ to someone [else]’s ‘musicology’ ” are high (8). 7. edward said taught literature and music in the columbia core curriculum, which he often defended. in post-9/11 america, however, he identified a new need “to reconsider, reexamine, and reformulate the relevance of humanism” (said 2004, 6). 8. during the editing of this article, the columbia university campus experienced traumatic anti-semitic and white supremacist hate acts. both the graduate workers of columbia (solidarity statement against white supremacy on campus, 2018) and the students of color alliance (soca statement on recent acts of racial hostility on columbia’s campus, 2018) have condemned these acts, linking critiques of the pernicious effects of a eurocentric curriculum to questions of labor. 9. maria fantinato (2018) valuably discusses these ideas in the context of contemporary politics in brazil. at the same time as we question whom diversity really serves, valuable work is certainly being done under its banner, in part, we venture, because the language of decolonization and social justice simply doesn’t fly inside job letters, tenure folders, graduate student publications (hello!), and grant applications. kira thurman’s research, including her recent project diversity in classical music, for example, spotlights marginalized figures in the classical music world. by constructing a robust catalogue of exclusions in music history, thurman documents the logics and processes that keep the canon going. 10. ochoa gautier points out that “the multiple temporal displacements of the latin american debate as well as the diversity of positions in proposing decolonial politics throughout this long history, makes it difficult for scholars foreign to the region’s debates to recognize this long legacy on critical thinking on the colonial” (2014, 10). 11. tamara levitz’s ongoing project titled “decolonizing the american musicological society” is a valuable critical historiography of these currents running through one of the most powerful academic institutions in music studies (see levitz 2016). 12. conventional wisdoms about the origins as well as geographical and historical limits of “western culture” were valuably shown to be reductive by a recent exhibition titled music in antiquity at the caixaforum madrid (2018). references agnew, vanessa. 2005. “the colonialist beginnings of comparative musicology.” in germany’s colonial pasts, edited by eric ames, marcia klotz, and lora wildenthal, 41–60. lincoln, ne: 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years, a number of performance practice scholars writing on brahms's piano music have commented on the prominence of low-lying melodic lines, thickly-written accompaniments, and often dense saturation of the lower register.! for such writers these textural features constitute proof that brahms could not have intended performance on the modern piano. firms such as steinway, bechstein, and chickering were manufacturing pianos by the early 1860s, roughly the midpoint of brahms's life, that already exhibited most of the important design innovations that distinguish modern pianos from earlier ones, and these firms enjoyed enormous success across europe.2 performance practice scholars have argued that the increased power and sustain of these pianos create irreparable problems of balance and clarity in much of brahms's music, implying that he was writing for the lighter and more transparent instruments that predate the modern piano, many of which were still manufactured up until the end of the century. the view that low-lying melodies and densely packed textures in the lower register present an undesirable muddiness on the modern piano was already being elaborated towards the end of the nineteenth century. during the last decades of brahms's life, several treatises appeared elucidating the fundamental principles of what they proclaimed to be the "modern school of pianoforte playing." three treatises in particular, those by hans schmitt (1893), aleksandr nikitich bukhovtsev (1897), and adolph christiani (c. 1885), each promote melodic projection, transparency of sonority, and clear hierarchization of the texture through dynamic layering as important ideals for piano music. in addition to providing numerous examples of piano textures suited to achieving those ideals on the modern piano, they warn against other textures that result in harsh or muddy sonorities. in fact, their discussions of undesirable piano writing focus on qualities of register and spacing which are precisely the characteristics of brahms's piano music current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology pointed to by modern performance practice scholars as evidence of brahms's preference for lighter, more transparent pianos. this modern presumption is founded on the supposition that brahms would agree that such textures do indeed produce adverse and inartistic effects on the modern piano and that textural clarity was brahms's intent. the musical examples referred to in this article, however, demonstrate this supposition to be a misinterpretation of brahms's piano writing. on the contrary, the examples represent cases where the avoidance of melodic projection and textural clarity was an essential aspect of his aesthetic intent, and the source of a unique and evocative type of ambiguity. although the same kind of textural ambiguity and predilection for the lower registers may be found in other genres (particularly the vocal music and chamber music), in this article i have confined the discussion to examples from his solo piano literature in order to compare my remarks to the late nineteenth-century treatises; their discussion of musical clarity is directly linked to acoustic aspects of the piano itself. to consider brahms's piano writing in the context of these late nineteenth-century writings and to recognize his cultivation of textural ambiguity leads one to reconsider the aesthetic implications of brahms's ambiguous textures, and to arrive at an understanding that is altogether different from the interpretations that have been widely accepted in modern performance practice literature. brahms and the iiveiled ll melodic line the opening of the b section of brahms's ballade in b minor, op. 10, no. 4 (example 1), contains a unique performance direction: "col intimissimo sentimento, rna senza troppo marcare la melodia" (with the most intimate sentiment, but without marking out the melody too much).3 this provoca­ tive admonition describes the composer's vision for twenty-five measures of haunting pianissimo music. the deeply introspective theme evokes a profound longing and grief, whose intensity is never released in an ardent or violent outburst but instead remains muted and distant. brahms's direction to the performer suggests that the poignant melodic line is meant to remain a translucent specter, dimly emanating from behind the delicate sonic veil of the accompaniment.4 aside from the specificity of his performance indications in this section, brahms has written a piano texture designed in every respect to partially obscure the melodic line. to begin with, the melody is embedded within the accompaniment rather than isolated above it. as indicated by the double stemming, the melodic line remains an inner voice within the undulating accompanimental figure, and it is covered throughout by an upper voice. augustus arnone example 1: ballade in b minor, op. 10, no. 4, mm. 47-55 (1854). 53 ) , 54b i 2 furthermore, the theme is confined to a relatively low tessitura, primarily settled below middle c. the timbre of a piano is mellow and dark in this register in contrast to the piercing quality of its treble, and therefore the melody is not as penetrating as it would be if set higher. another effect of the melodic voice's low tessitura is that, because it inhabits the same register as the accompaniment, it is not timbrally distinct from the rest of the texture. a pianist can counteract this tendency by consciously voicing the melodic notes with their own distinct sound quality, but brahms's direction indicates that he does not want the melody clearly separated from the rest of the texture. finally, the melodic voice is doubled by a lower, primarily parallel harmonic voice, lending a still darker quality to the melody. 9 o current musicology another factor that contributes to the "veiled" quality of the section is the dense saturation of the lower register. on a piano, the fundamental pitches of individual chord members are markedly less distinct in close-positioned chords than in widely spaced ones. this effect is far more pronounced in the lower registers than in the treble register, where increased resonance amplifies the effects of sympathetic vibration. in the ballade, the dense background of overtones resulting from brahms's saturation of the lower register creates a kind of sonic fog that interferes with melodic clarity. the extreme depth of the bass notes also contributes to the complexity of the halo of overtones. the combination of all these textural and registral features represents brahms's utilization of the unique acoustic behavior of the piano to obscure the musical surface and minimize the clear delineation of the melodic line. this passage typifies a kind of textural ambiguity that is prevalent in a number of brahms's piano works. though he never again explicitly asks for the melody to be played without clear delineation, there are other cases where the melodic voice, owing to its low tessitura and the density of the accompaniment, is not clearly projected in the foreground. one such piece is the c# minor capriccio, op. 76, no. 5. in the opening section of the piece, brahms has done everything possible to obscure the melody (example 2). projection of the primary thematic line is limited by its register, and the close proximity to the chromatic line prevents separation from the rest of the texture. brahms's chromatic saturation creates a snarl of sound that blurs individual notes within the moving eighth-note passage. the resulting clamor presents a sonic backdrop from which the melodic strand is unable to ring out clearly. furthermore, the bass line is reinforced by octave doublings, while the melody itself is not doubled. when the capriccio returns to the opening material, however, its texture is transformed. once the primary theme makes its return (example 3), the obstacles preventing the clear projection of the melody have been removed. indeed, this section takes on a triumphant character with the theme's acces­ sion to authority. the octave doubling of the bass line is absent, thinning the sonic backdrop, while it is the melody that is reinforced through doubling. the execution of the accompaniment is relegated entirely to the performer's left hand, facilitating a more powerful execution of the melody by an unfet­ tered right hand. furthermore, the theme soars high into the treble and is separated registrally from the chromatic movement. comparison of brahms's initial treatment of the theme in example 2 and its recapitulation in example 3 suggests that he was well aware of the effect of his "over-written" accompaniment and over-saturation of the piano's lower register. in the c# minor capriccio brahms crafts an almost impenetrable "tangle of sound"5 at the outset to signify chaos, and yet he uses the murky example 2: c~ minor capriccio, op. 76, no. 5, mm. 1-11 (1878). ) , agitato, rna non troppo presto sehr aufgeregt, doch nicht zu schnell ~. example 3: c~ minor capriccio, op. 76, no. 5, mm. 86-90 (1878). augustus arnone quality of the piano's lower register not merely as an arbitrary experiment in local color, but as a distinct thematic region with a specific function in the work's dramatic structure. the dramatic transformation at measure 86 of the material from the opening bars, with the contrasting clarification of texture and marked stratification of the theme, embodies a kind of struggle with and ultimate ascension over the chaos in which the piece opens. thus, in this work brahms's characteristic textural ambiguity is an integral part of the narrative. trends in piano composition by the end of brahms's career in order to understand the unique aesthetic problems that brahms creates through textural ambiguity, it is illuminating to compare his writing for the piano with ideas on piano performance and composition embraced by some of brahms's contemporaries. hans schmitt's the pedals of the piano-forte and their relation to piano-forte playing and the teaching of composition and acoustics (1893) was an edition of a series of four lectures that schmitt 11 2 current musicology gave at the conservatory of music in vienna-brahms's own backyard. in this book, schmitt discusses "the modern use of the pedal," which he declares has "occasioned ... a revolution in the manner of composing for the piano" (1893:29). summing up the differences between his own and earlier generations of pianists, he declares, the importance to which the pedal has in our days attained can be appre­ ciated when we consult the older piano schools. from what is to be seen in his grand school for the piano, [johann nepomukl hummel seems to have regarded the pedal mainly as a means of creating confusion ... he seems never to have discovered how much the instrument gains in resonance by the use of the pedal, apparently holding it immaterial for beauty of tone whether, during a long tone, the pedal be used or not. (1893:30) it is clear that for schmitt the beauty of the piano's sound lies in the richness of its resonance. through lengthy discussions of the overtone series and the piano's capacity for sympathetic vibration he hopes to guide performers and composers to a cultivation of that richness. not surprisingly, he holds the conviction that the piano sounds more beautiful when the pedal is used than when it is not used. according to schmitt, because the pedal strengthens and beautifies the tone, it should be used with every single tone and chord whose duration is long enough to admit of the foot being lowered and raised during the same, whether the composer has indicated it or not. (1893:30) this emphasis on the pedaled sound is an important part of the shift in piano aesthetics over the nineteenth century. interestingly, though he refers to "the older piano schools;' he makes no mention of differences between instruments from the end of nineteenth century and those designed at the beginning. hummel, who died in 1837, would not live to see the iron -framed, cross-strung pianos that began to dominate the piano market by the early 1860s. the use of iron enabled pianos to support much greater string tension, increasing the overall resonance and slowing the decay of sound. the effects of these developments were bound to affect how some composers wrote for the piano, and what schmitt calls the "modern school" of pianoforte playing demonstrates how a large group of his contemporaries responded to those developments. one of the most important characteristics schmitt sees in his own generation of pianists and composers is a new appreciation of the resonance gained through sympathetic vibrations on the piano. example 4 shows one of several musical figures schmitt uses to demonstrate sympathetic vibra­ tion. to execute the example, schmitt instructs the player to "press down the key of the large c without allowing it to sound, and then strike the augustus arnone example 4: demonstration of the effect of sympathetic vibration (schmitt 1893:33). sounding silent ~-effect small c above, strong and staccato, whereupon the tone c will sound clearly from the c string and be sustained as long as it is held down" (1893:33). what the example demonstrates is that strings of pitches that are closely related in the overtone series will vibrate sympathetically even when not struck by the hammer and thus contribute to the overall richness of the sonority. however, the significance of this demonstration would have been entirely lost on hummel for the simple reason that on the pianos that existed during his lifetime the after-ring from the silently held note would not be nearly as audible-it would quickly disappear. sympathetic vibrations did not contribute as much to the overall sound on pianos of hummel's day, even with the dampers raised. the piano tone that schmitt is describing comes from substantial reverberations of sympathetic vibrations from the undamped strings. virtually every design feature that distinguishes the later nineteenth -century pianos from earlier ones maximizes the reverberations of undamped strings; the effect on the tone is unlike that of any piano hummel could have heard. developments in piano building ultimately led to a marked shift in musical aesthetics toward the end of the nineteenth century. schmitt assesses the aesthetic differences between earlier generations and his own: speaking in general, it seems as though the history of music manifests changes similar to those in the history of painting. at certain epochs color was especially cultivated: in others, drawing enjoyed the pre-eminence. our present music seems in particular to be characterized by a development of tone color. (1893:28) we can understand why he identified "the development of tone color" as the focus of his generation's "modern music" if we appreciate that this generation experienced changes in instrument-making that offered richness and complexity of tone as new resources, the creative potential of which had only begun to be explored. in this quotation, it is evident that schmitt considers the cultivation of the pedaled sound to represent the defining cultural/artistic development of his own generation's piano music. 13 14 current musicology schmitt's preference for the pedaled sound has considerable ramifica­ tions for what he considers to be ideal ways of writing for the piano. though he considers the resonance and sustain of the piano to be the instrument's great virtues, at the same time he is eminently conscious of the potential obstacles these attributes present to textural clarity. schmitt consistently promotes clarity of sonority as a fundamental artistic aim. therefore, his ideal textures for the piano are those in which the pedal may be used liber­ ally without fear of creating a muddy or indefinite sound. he describes various conditions in which the use of the pedal is dangerous or impossible, consistently relegating these types of piano texture to the "older school." he further claims that such textures are "disappearing from the music of today" because they do not permit the use ofthe pedal (1893:29). chief among these problematic textures are harmonic progressions where inner voices move by stepwise motion or contain notes foreign to the harmony, such as sustained tones sounded across underlying harmonic changes. schmitt seems to identify the prevailing piano aesthetic of his generation as heavily favoring homophonic passages. in fact he repeatedly refers to "the older polyphonic style;' in which music "made up equally of chord and scale passages" was more prevalent. indeed, he even claims that scales themselves have gone "out of vogue" (1893:29). he also warns against including non-harmonic tones in arpeggiated figures unless they occur at points that permit a change of pedal. this instruction proceeds from his belief that the pedal should be changed with every harmonic change unless the latter occurs in the upper register of the piano where the strings are undamped anyway (1893:20, 53). a major point of emphasis for schmitt is the special handling required for the piano's middle to low registers, where the resonance of overtones is at its thickest. in addition to warning of the dangers of scalar passages in the lower register, he emphasizes the need for spacing between chord members in order to create what he considers the ideal sonority on the piano: in the lower part of the instrument, chords in extended positions sound much better than those in close positions. from acoustics we learn that in the nature of musical sounds a low, close position does not exist. (1893:23) schmitt's claim here is that his aesthetic positions have a basis in the laws of acoustics. chord spacing must follow the natural overtone series, which begins with an octave followed by a fifth; therefore open spacing is considered more natural and thus more artistically pleasing. he extends the need for spacing to arpeggios as well: augustus arnone it must also be remarked that arpeggios in close position taken with the pedal sound much worse on the lower part of the piano than in the middle or higher part ... the lower the pitch of the chords, the less endurable becomes this holding of the pedal during changes of harmony, and on the very low keys even the close position of a broken chord played with the pedal sounds more or less false. (1893:53) schmitt considers problematic any texture that in some way interferes with the clear presentation of melody. he claims that while unaccompanied close-position chords and scales sound "confused" and "dissonant," they become acceptable when pulled into focus by a clearly projected melody. "players who have the skill to bring the melody out clearly soften many dissonances even without the pedal; the related tones blend with the melody, while the others fade away" (1893:57). for schmitt, a firmly projected melody counteracts the "confused" sound of "problematic" textures by providing focus. in his words, "the strongest tone is, so to speak, the focus from which the tone-waves emerge, all the other tones being governed by it" (1893:58). schmitt does offer one caveat in the midst of these prohibitions: the use of close-position chords or arpeggios, though a major impediment to clarity and purity of tone, is permissible when "such a mingling of tones is necessary in order to characterize the spirit of the composition!' from his point of view, any deviation from optimal textural clarity constitutes a kind of special effect, which, though perhaps not particularly beautiful, may be appropriate to certain kinds of expression (1893:55). he explains that examples of such effects are often to be found in compositions of a "wild and gloomy character" (1893:73). another contemporary publication, aleksandr nikitich bukhovtsev's guide to the proper use of the pianoforte pedals (1897), reinforces many of the same notions. like schmitt, bukhovtsev associates polyphonic music with older generations and urges special consideration of the middle to lower registers of the piano: the pedal can be used only very sparingly in older polyphonic works, and then only for a short time, because these works are played principally in a moderate tempo, are written for the middle portion of the pianoforte, and contain comparatively few harmonic figures. (1897:25) the reference to "harmonic figures" echoes schmitt's assertion that accom­ panimental arpeggios and other figurations should not be melodic in and of themselves, but rather should simply help create a harmonic backdrop. he also warns against close-positioned sonorities, except in cases "where the effect of a rustle or noise is intended" (1897:26): 15 16 current musicology the pedal always sounds unclear when used with harmonic figures in close position in the lower portion of the pianoforte, however well the instru­ ment may be in tune. the reason is that the over and under tones assert themselves strongly in this part of the pianoforte. (bukhovtsev 1897:33) bukhovtsev's discussion of the half-pedal (pressing the damper pedal down halfway for a somewhat reduced sustaining effect) makes note of another textural requirement for clarity of sonority in piano music: the separation of the bass line from the rest of the texture. he claims, "the use of the half pedal is successful in proportion to the depth of the bass note, its distance from the other voices, and the strength with which it is struck:' in certain cases he allows that a half-pedal can be held through changes of harmony occurring above a sustained bass note, but only "if no particular clearness and precision of tone are required ... [and] if, contrary to the highest artistic claims, a certain mist-like, cloudy, or indefinite effect is to be produced" (1897:36). this passage is revealing in that it equates "the highest artistic claims" with clarity. both schmitt and bukhovtsev emphasize avoiding close-position sonorities because of the more pronounced "mingling of tones" (1897:55) resulting from sympathetic vibration. both also note that playing the bass or the melody more distinctly can mitigate the effect. from their remarks it is evident that a stratification of the texture through dynamic contrast, what pianists call "voicing;' was an important feature of the "modern" piano performance style promoted by these treatises and that this hierarchization was directly related to the overtones and resonance of the late nineteenth­ century piano. another treatise from the period, adolph christiani's the principles of expression in pianoforte playing (c. 1885),6 illustrates how important clear hierarchization of texture was to some of brahms's contemporaries. christiani declares, the real sphere for pianoforte music is certainly "polyphony:' polyphony is the proper domain of the pianist in which he is supreme, and in which no other instrumentalist, not even the organist, can compare with him. (c. 1885:222) the reason for this, according to christi ani, is the "judiciousness of touch" (c. 1885:222), or in other words, dynamic contrast-possible on the piano but not on the organ or harpsichord. this type of polyphony is different from the "older polyphonic style" referred to in the other treatises cited. it is one in which the separate layers of the texture are kept distinct and in a clear hierarchical order through dynamic contrast, rather than one characterized augustus arnone by balanced activity or melodic interest in multiple voices that may share the same register. a fundamental aspect of christiani's ideal handling of texture is the clear division between melody and accompaniment and the audibility of that division to the listener. whereas christi ani asserts that the melody "invariably demands primary power" (c. 1885:223), accompaniments on the other hand "have no dynamic rank at all, excepting a negative one, that of being least important" (c. 1885:242). in fact, he claims, no passage or embellishment around a canto can ever be in good taste or of good effect, unless they are played in subdued proportion to the melody. they should be transparent as trelliswork, delicate as arabesques,-an or­ nament, not an encumbrance. this is a maxim universally accepted, the gist of which holds always good, even in fortissimo playing. (c. 1885:225) within christi ani's section on "the dynamics of melody," he includes a subsection called "not plainly discernible melodies." this subsection deals with cases where the melody is "doubtful or hidden" (christiani c. 1885:224). referring to textures in which the melody is interwoven into the accompanimental fabric instead of isolated from it, much like the piit lento section from brahms's b minor ballade, christiani declares, "its discernment assumes the proportion of an intellectual task which to solve correctly not every pianist is sufficiently thoughtful or capable" (c. 1885:224). christiani's stance on the aesthetics of textural ambiguity is interesting in that he views a composer's obfuscation of melody as a problem for the pianist to solve and, in a sense, to eradicate for the listener. rather than presenting a texture in which the identity and primacy of a thematic line is in question, he requires the pianist to come to a firm decision about which is the primary thematic line and to make sure it is well marked off from the rest of the texture. as for textures in which two or more true melodic threads exist simultaneously (calling into question the hierarchy of parts), christiani urges the pianist to impose a hierarchy on the texture and be sure that it is clearly audible to the listener: the importance of deciding which of two simultaneous melodies is the principal one can hardly be overrated; and the necessity of bringing this perception clearly before the listener, must be evident to everyone. (c. 1885:237) the kind of textural clarity called for in these treatises depends on practical considerations of acoustic transparency for the purpose of presenting music that is conceptually clear, facilitating a kind of cognitive 17 18 current musicology transparency for the listener. thus, there is a specific aesthetic outlook underlying the practical advice offered by these authors. their estimation of the listener's capacity to enjoy the music is linked to their estimation of the listener's capacity to understand it. careful handling of the lower registers and avoidance of close-spacing and frequent non-harmonic tones are acoustic strategies for taking advantage of the richness of the piano's pedaled sound without leading to a mass of sound that might confuse or disorient the listener. hierarchization of the texture likewise leads to a more "penetrable" sonority. by selectively foregrounding only part of the texture c often just one melodic voice) and subordinating the rest of the texture, the pianist can minimize the build-up of sound and allow everything to be more easily heard. at the same time, however, this hierarchization is a means of separating the various components of a texture, clearly defining the role and importance of each separate part. the music is thus packaged in a way that is easier for the listener to grasp. brahms and textural ambiguity treatment of balance and thematic primacy remain among the most notorious problems confronting performers of brahms's music. evidence of brahms's own views on these issues is scarce, but some hints can be found in his letters and in recollections by contemporaries. there is one particular case, the string quintet in g major, op. ill, in which the difficulties in balance and melodic projection caused a great deal of consternation for the performers premiering the work, leading to a valuable exchange between brahms and joseph joachim.? the cellist premiering the work, reinhold hummer, complained that his opening solo could not be heard properly because it was set underneath four other string lines, all playing sixteenth notes sempre forte. turning to joachim for advice on this passage, brahms complains of his contemporaries' tendency to underplay accompaniments: "now here [i.e., in vienna], in my opinion, one is all too accustomed to accompanying every solo p" cavins 2003:30). ultimately, the passage proved troublesome not only for the players but also for brahms himself. he did not acquiesce to hummer's plea that the upper strings play the accompaniment piano but still felt "the proper sound wasn't achieved either" cavins 2003:30). he appealed to joachim for advice, proposing some alternative ideas. nevertheless, in what is perhaps an instance of a composer indicating his disdain for the unhappy collision of his idealized conceptualization with unavoidable laws of acoustics, he dismissed the whole problem saying, "forgive me, but this trivial point was quite irksome to me" cavins 1997:676). augustus arnone did brahms set the melody in the quintet underneath the accompani­ ment because he didn't want it to project as well as it might have had it been in a brighter upper voice? as we have seen, this seems to have been the case in the len to section of the b minor ballade, where the low tessitura of the melodic line and its submergence beneath the accompaniment leads to a "veiled" sonority, and where his directions for the performer confirm an intention to partially obscure the theme. brahms himself alludes to an enthusiasm for low-lying vocal lines in an 1857 letter to julius otto grimm: "what can be done with the impossible alto part in my sacred things? i had got myself so enmeshed in my passion for low alto, without considering that they aren't around anymore" (avins 1997:154). if brahms was sometimes reluctant to stratify his melodic lines, he was also often reluctant to push his accompaniments wholly into the background. gustav jenner, who has the distinction of being brahms's only real composition student, relates in his memoirs how brahms was "not one to be impressed by ... complicated or 'atmospheric' accompaniments" ([1905]1990:199). speaking of vocal music, jenner recalls brahms's disdain for composers hiding a "pitiful, shabby" compositional idea behind the "sumptuous and glittering cloak" of a merely decorative accompaniment. brahms instead "loved to elevate the accompaniment to a fully equal, even independent, element and sometimes to move it canonically in relation to the voice" ([1905]1990:199-200). given brahms's apparent disdain for superficial accompaniments and for his contemporaries' tendency to underplay accompaniments, it is not surprising that max graf's first-hand account of brahms's manner of accompanying singers emphasizes his tendency to elevate the piano part to an unusually prominent role: brahms never accompanied in the manner to which we are accustomed today [1945]. accompanists of great singers perform in the same man­ ner as lackeys laying a carpet at the feet of their mistresses. they are in the background, obsequious and bending to the whims of the artist and never step forward to attract attention. but not brahms ... the singer was not the main feature, the song was important, and both singer and pianist worked toward the same goal ... brahms's accompaniments had a strong foundation of basses, even in sweet songs like the wiegenlied, the accompaniment of which is usually sublimated and pampering. brahms himself always used firmness in the basses ... his hand was somewhat heavy. (musgrave 2000:135-36) accounts such as these seem to indicate that brahms had ideals of sonor­ ity and dynamic balance that were altogether different from the kind of textural clarity being espoused by late nineteenth-century writers on piano 19 20 current musicology example 5: variations and fugue on a theme by handel, op. 24, variation 13, mm. 1-6 (1872). var.13 largamente, rna non pili performance and composition. though the quotes from brahms and his acquaintances are not specifically concerned with solo piano music, they do give some idea of his general attitude towards the relationship between melody and accompaniment. moreover, his piano music provides countless examples of the kind of writing for the instrument expressly discouraged by late nineteenth-century piano treatises. one frequently finds, for example, close-positioned chords in the lower registers, stepwise motion in the middle to lower registers where change of pedal at each semi tone is not possible, and textures where the boundaries separating melodic lines from the accompaniment are somewhat blurred. one of the most striking examples of brahms's use of close-positioned chords in the lower register to create a murky, rumbling effect can be found in variation 13 of the variations and fugue on a theme by handel, op. 24 (example 5). in this variation, the closely spaced chordal texture remains fixed primarily in the register around and below middle c. in particular, the tight spacing of the left hand's rolled chords, set in the bottom octaves of the piano, results in a menacing rumble that is almost more noise than harmony. furthermore, the timbre of the upper melodic voice, because of its low range and proximity to the lower chord members, does not have the distinctive, piercing quality that might distinguish it from the rest of the texture, were it set in a higher register. the overall balance is decidedly weighted towards the bottom, especially because of brahms's doublings. the melodic line is reinforced not by octave doubling, but rather by a single harmonic tone, usually a sixth, whereas the bass voice, on the other hand, is doubled at the octave throughout. finally, brahms usually thickens the left augustus arnone hand with inner chord members, further skewing the balance away from the melody. the result is an evocation of immense weight and gravity. this is precisely the kind of sonority that the treatises characterize as "harsh," and one of many examples where brahms sacrifices "purity of tone" to create a particularly "wild and gloomy" effect. indeed, the intense expressivity of this exceptionally dark variation can be attributed to the pronounced "mingling of tones" that the treatises warn is inevitable with close-positioned chords in this register.8 an example discussed earlier, the opening of the c# minor capriccio, op. 76, no. 5 (example 2), also owes its intensely chaotic quality to the dense saturation of the lower register. in that case, another factor that ensures a blurring of the musical surface is the rapidly moving chromatic line, which, when combined with the pedal, inevitably results in sustained dissonant non-harmonic tones. this effect is diametrically opposed to the ideas advanced by bukhovtsev and schmitt, both of whom favor passagework that allows for a liberal use of the pedal to sustain consonances. because of this, they recommend reserving non-harmonic tones for places where the pedal may be changed, particularly in the middle and lower portions of the piano. however, brahms uses the diminished clarity of a low-lying chromatic line along with close spacing as a point of contrast, maximizing the effect of the transformation of these opening measures in their recapitulation. in the capriccio, brahms turns the "problem" of pedaled dissonances into a virtue. by creating impenetrable sonic backgrounds that serve to mask thematic lines, brahms defeats the clear division and hierarchization of melody and accompaniment. however, using overtone buildup and registral saturation is not the only means by which he hinders stratification of the melody. another device he employs frequently is the fusion of melodic and subsidiary lines into a single strand, blurring their separation. one of the best examples of this technique is the b minor intermezzo, op.119, no. 1 (example 6).as the opening chain of thirds gradually descends, it seems that we are hearing one distinct melodic thread. it is only as the piece continues that we are able to discern a top voice, separate from the accompanimental voice. although the uppermost voice is maintained through the first sixteen measures as the primary thematic voice, it is continually merging with the secondary line beneath it. for example, in m. 4 the upper voice is quite clearly a separate thematic voice, but in the following measure it sinks to a b on the last sixteenth note. this final note is at the same time part of the continuing chain of thirds that comprises the secondary line, and it is stemmed upward and downward to show its double function. the two lines merge into one another again in mm. 7-8 and in mm. 11 and 13. the ambiguous number 21 current musicology example 6: intermezzo in b minor, op. 119, no. 1, mm. 1-17 (1893). example 7: intermezzo in b minor, op. 119, no. 1, mm. 43-54 (1893). in tempo 22 augustus arnone of voices (one or two) is maintained throughout the sixteen measures that comprise the opening section. at some points the separation of the two voices in the right hand is quite clear, at other times it is dissolved. when the passage is revisited later in the piece (example 7), starting in m. 47 the descending chain of thirds has been embellished with triplets. the extra non-harmonic tones heighten the line's status as a true melody, though its function of filling out the harmony does not change. the entangling of primary and secondary lines in the intermezzo represents an altogether different aesthetic from the clear separation and hierarchization of simultaneous voices that christiani promotes as an ideal. it is also different from the marked distancing of melody from accompaniment endorsed by all the treatises cited. brahms was certainly aware of the differ­ ence; he uses it as a point of contrast in variations 1 and 2 of the variations on an original theme in d major, op. 21, no. 1. as the composer's stemming indicates in variation 1 (example 8), the melody is embedded within the accompanying filigree from which it emanates. this variation has a great deal in common with the piu lento in the b minor ballade. the melody is an inner voice and is embedded within the accompanimental figure, it is confined to a low tessitura and narrow overall compass, and brahms instructs the pianist to play pianissimo with pedal. one can readily imagine that the marking "senza troppo marcare la melodia" is also appropriate for this variation. variation 2 (example 9) is derived from variation 1, but here the right hand's melody is isolated from the accompaniment and set above it. the melody is further distinguished by its escape from registral confinement, as it moves out from behind the covering shadow of its accompaniment. set high up into the treble register, it can penetrate through the texture more distinctly. thus, brahms creates contrast between the two variations through an initial entangling of melody and accompaniment followed by a marked delineation of these elements. the figurations in the first variation of brahms's op. 21, no. 1, and in the intermezzo, op. 119, no. 1, tread a thin line between melodic foreground and harmonic backdrop. they are not simple harmonic filler creating a lush background from which the thematic notes are easily distinguished, but rather exemplify brahms's penchant for blurring the distinction between the melodic notes of the line and the harmonic notes. these examples call to mind jenner's comments about brahms's aversion to merely decorative filigree, cited above. they also present a stark contrast to the treatises by schmitt and bukhovtsev, which idealize subservient and clear harmonic figuration. 23 24 current musicology example 8: variations on an original theme in d major, op. 21, no. 1, variation 1, mm. 19-27 (1860). var.l pp teneramente 24 1. , . ~. """'.~ """" ) oj r i i i i 'lj ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ : i i r i i r example 9: variations on an original theme in d major, op. 21, no. 1, variation 2, mm. 37-43 (1860). pill moto rejection of modern instruments in recent scholarship one of the central concerns of performers who play historical pianos has been the question of balance and pedaling, and the possible relation of these issues to the more transparent sound of various pianos built in the first half of the nineteenth century as compared to modern pianos.9 referring to a recording of beethoven sonatas for cello and piano made by malcolm bilson and anner bylsma (1992), bernard sherman concludes that, "the period instruments solve balance problems that modern pianos create in these works, making it clear that beethoven would have written the piano parts differently for a modern grand" (1997:313). the basic tone is clearer and decays more quickly on any piano from the first half of the nineteenth century than on the modern piano, albeit to varying degrees. because of this difference, performers using period pianos have pointed to numerous examples where accompaniments that on a modern piano threaten to create augustus arnone a confusing mass of sound and obscure the melody present no such problem on a period piano, and sherman's remark epitomizes this attitude. the references to an older polyphonic keyboard style (no longer in use because of problems of textural clarity) in the treatises cited above strongly support the belief that the greater resonance and sustain oflater nineteenth -century pianos did indeed force many composers to reconsider their treatment of register and chord spacing in piano music. the basic premise that brahms was writing piano textures designed specifically for lighter pre-modern instruments has dominated approaches to performance practice scholarship for his piano music as well. scholars have maintained that brahms's handling of the bass register was largely determined by his "strong leanings" (cai 1989:59) toward the more conserva­ tive mid-century viennese pianos, and therefore "need[s] to be understood in respect to [their] capabilities" (cai 1989:62). brahms himself owned a piano by johann baptist streicher (built around 1868), given to him in 1872 and which he kept in his vienna flat until the end of his life. this piano, like pianos from the first half of the century, did not have the cross-stringing, one-piece cast-iron frame or the heavy, rigid case found on steinway-type pianos from the early 1860s to the present day, and so brahms's streicher would have had a quicker decay and a more transparent tone than a modern instrument. thus, several writers maintain that brahms's predilection for particularly low bass writing and thickly scored accompaniments is proof of his prefer­ ence for more transparent "conservative" pianos of the nineteenth century, like the streicher. scholars have emphasized the difference between straight and cross-strung pianos because of the latter's vastly more complex overtone pattern in the lower registers. for robert winter, the difference is so crucial as to essentially disqualify cross-strung instruments as "appropriate" instru­ ments for brahms's piano music: the introduction of crossor overstringing in the 1850s led to character­ istics of the piano bass that are equally at cross-purposes with romantic piano literature. on a piano where many tones generally sound at once, the distinctness of individual tones is the tradeoff for greater sustaining power. (1990:37) winter goes so far as to argue that the technical innovations of the steinway piano, emulated to varying degrees by rival piano makers until their eventual standardization in the early decades of the twentieth century, represent a "fatal blow" to the fundamental aesthetic premises of nineteenth-century piano works. winter asks, "how ... can we celebrate the varieties of color in nineteenth-century piano music when the instruments themselves have 25 26 current musicology been purged of so much of that color?" (1990:30). numerous other scholars have likewise presumed that brahms's thickly-written piano textures demand the clarity offered by performance on straight-strung instruments. edwin good, for example, writes, on an instrument like the streicher, brahms's music comes cleaner and clearer, the thick textures we associate with his work, the sometimes muddy chords in the bass and the occasionally woolly sonorities, light­ ened. those textures, then, are not a fault of brahms's piano composition. (2001:239) a similar conclusion is drawn by cai: one of the most common complaints about brahms's music ... concerns the thickness or "muddiness" of brahms's bass parts ... however, the sound of the conservative german or austrian piano from the second half of the nineteenth century supports the conclusion that this particular concern may not have existed for brahms. (1989:67) robert pascall also invokes this ideology in reference to brahms's chamber music for piano: it is sometimes claimed that brahms's piano parts in his chamber music works are over-written; but this judgment, as we can now appreciate, is a modern error. (1991:10) thus, these writers agree that to perform brahms's piano music on the modern grand is to misrepresent it. in winter's words, convincing performances of many of the late character pieces face serious obstacles on our modern instrument, for example, the opening of one of the most atmospheric, brahms's intermezzo in e~ minor, op. 118, no. 6. no modern pianist can hope to replicate brahms's distant, disembodied (but clear!) bass response to the plaintive solo opening. (1990:33, emphasis added) instead, we should use instruments that represent "the sound quality he was most used to and preferred" (1990:9), a "sound ideal clearly different from the one now accepted in the twentieth century" (cai 1989:58). all of the arguments cited here rest on the assumption that brahms preferred textural clarity, and specifically, that he preferred a clearly audible melody against the background accompaniment. for instance, cai writes, "the textures brahms chooses for the late piano pieces ... reveal his clarity of intent to produce a defined, balanced piano sound" (1989:62). a "defined, balanced" texture, in this context, is one that is balanced so all parts are easily augustus arnone intelligible, and the subsidiary, accompanimental parts do not interfere with the projection of the main melodic lines. for cai, the clear delineation of melodic material is an a priori objective behind brahms's piano writing. she asserts that "the problem of delineating [brahms's 1 middle-range melodies lies not just with the pianist;' but with the modern piano: on the pianos of brahms's time ... the distinctive middle range-particu­ larly around and below middle c-sounds full, mellow, and prominent, and it easily dominates the treble and bass ranges. brahms undoubtedly heard this middle area as the richest on the piano, and therefore chose to exploit it in his piano pieces. (1989:66) by contrast, my contention is that brahms often sets melodies in this register precisely because he does not want them delineated from the accompaniment, but rather he intends for them to sound covered, muted, or "veiled." in the examples cited above, i have argued that the low tes­ situra is part of a constellation of compositional devices through which he undermines delineation and hierarchization of the musical texture, creating a special kind of ambiguity. the assertion that brahms used tenor-range melodies such as those encountered in the c# minor capriccio and variation 13 from op. 24 because he believed this was the register in which they project most clearly is dubious, and it misinterprets the essential character of these works. in the former case, were the pianist to thin out the accompaniment in the opening measures and project the melodic line, he or she would eradicate the contrast between the initially ambiguous textures and their subsequent clarification, upon which the dramatic thrust of the work is founded. in the b minor ballade he has explicitly directed the pianist not to project one of these tenor range melodies. however, if one is sensitive to the way brahms uses register, chord-spacing, and the overall density of the accompaniment, one can perceive where he desires a transparent texture and where he does not, even in the absence of explicit directions. the problem of overestimating the relationship between music and instrument paradoxically, though these performance practice scholars attempt to understand brahms's music from an aesthetic viewpoint not based on the modern piano, they reinforce the very same premises of the late nine­ teenth-century compositional/performance treatises cited above-treatises which express new attitudes towards piano music that emerged because of the modern piano. modern performance practice scholars, like the late nineteenth-century treatise writers, take for granted clarity of texture and 27 28 current musicology delineation of melody as necessary artistic aims. these scholars also rely on the presumption that brahms's dense saturation of the lower register and seemingly"overwritten" accompaniments create an intolerable and inartistic mass of noise on the modern piano. at the same time, but without any supporting documentary evidence, they accept the assumption that brahms himself held the same view, and that he thus did not intend performance on modern-type pianos-for supposedly we can be sure he never would have composed in this way for such an instrument. this stance is even more restrictive than that of the treatises, which at least allow that with such writing a composer might be after a certain effect, and if "contrary to the highest artistic claims, a certain mist -like, cloudy, or indefinite effect is to be produced" (bukhovtsev 1897:36). the modern presumptions preclude the possibility that brahms, instead of seeing the reduced clarity of the modern piano as a problem, used it as an opportunity to explore a new and unique kind of expressive ambiguity. this is not to say that brahms's use of such textures was specifically inspired by the modern piano. the examples of brahms's "veiled" piano aesthetic referred to in this article span almost four decades, from the 1854 ballades, op. 10, to the 1893 klavierstucke, op. 119. the continuities in his piano aesthetics and his persistent use of analogous textural devices across decades which saw major changes in piano design suggest that we should not interpret the relationship between his music and the changing instru­ ment as a rigid one-to-one relationship. the ballades, op. 10, date from 1854 and it would be roughly another decade before the steinway piano, with its over-strung bass strings and one-piece cast-iron frame achieved widespread success across europe. however, by the time the capriccio, op. 76, was composed in 1878, the steinwaypiano had become well established. by then, many of europe's most important piano-making firms, including the bechstein firm in berlin and the bosendorfer firm in vienna, were also making over-strung pianos with heavy cast-iron frames. brahms's idiosyncratic writing for the instrument is already present in his earlier works that predate the modern piano. it does not necessarily follow from this, however, that the style established in earlier works was compromised by later technological developments in piano design. brahms, like all pianists who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century, played on an enormous variety of instruments. 10 it is well known that he performed for many years on lighter, straight-strung instruments like the streicher that he owned, and that he expressed admiration for those instruments (avins 2003: 11-16).1l nevertheless, as styra avins has pointed out, brahms's letters reveal nothing but admiration for the modern steinways and bechsteins that appeared later in his life. in fact, he made efforts on nuaugustus arnone merous occasions to secure either one or the other for public performances (avins 1997:587-88,753-54). rather than suggesting brahms wrote for the specific characteristics of a particular piano, we should understand that his writing was more generally directed towards his idealized concept of artistic piano playing. this is an important distinction that allows for the composer's lifelong assimilation of a rich variety of musical experiences into a complex composite aesthetic conception. this composite concept was entirely fluid and expanded over time, influenced by experiences with new piano designs as well as an awareness of the accomplishments of new and original keyboard artists. by adapting this attitude we can appreciate the flexibility of brahms's aesthetics against the background of the changing piano. conclusion analysis of brahms's music has recently focused on a number of different types of ambiguity. 12 the brahms analytical literature has primarily discussed harmonic, metrical, formal/structural, and motivic ambiguity. this article is concerned with still another type of ambiguity found in brahms's music, which i have called "textural ambiguity." one of the central recurring themes in the analytical literature is brahms's obscuring of various fundamental compositional frameworks. for example, walter frisch, in his article on shifting bar lines in brahms's chamber music, identifies the establishment of a basic motive whose true metrical framework is obscured through a process of displacement, with the result that "even the most astute listener will become utterly disoriented:' frisch describes such passages as containing "an ambiguity between notated and perceived meter" and points out that the listener without a score or previous knowledge of the music will likely misinterpret the true metrical context (1990: 140-47).13 attention to processes of concealment is characteristic of brahms analy­ sis in other areas as well. scholars have commented on brahms's obscuring of tonal structure through the avoidance of root-position tonic chords. 14 the ambiguity under discussion in these articles arises from brahms's concealment of the harmonic orientation by withholding the stabilizing tonic chord. within the schenkerian literature, allen cadwallader has focused on what schenker called "concealed motivic repetition," identifying note successions that "create the impression of a motive, but one which ap­ pears incongruous or indistinct in the prevailing harmonic/linear context" (1988:59). cadwallader attributes ambiguity in brahms's music to the fact that "components of any given harmonic/contrapuntal framework ... are not always clearly articulated. on the contrary, they are sometimes concealed by conflicting characteristics" (1988:60). 29 30 current musicology my remarks on brahms's subversion of the boundaries between melody and accompaniment, and his blurring of the separation of individual voices are entirely congruous with prevailing characterizations of formal, metrical, and harmonic ambiguity, suggesting a unifying aesthetic outlook inherent in numerous aspects of brahms's compositional style. the ambiguity i have focused on arises in textures that resist a clear separation into layers of foreground (melody) and background (accompaniment), and pas­ sages where the identity of separate voices is obscured through continual entangling and disentangling. my characterization of textural ambiguity, like the analytical works cited above, recognizes a challenge extended by brahms to the listener-a challenge that provides important clues to brahms's expectations of his audience. awareness of textural ambiguity is a critical issue that performers of brahms's music must confront, and therefore it is vital to the study of performance practice. its absence in the performance practice literature to date has led scholars to misinterpret the character of certain works and to make untenable claims about brahms's expectations regarding the instru­ ment. this type of misunderstanding can result when historically informed performance is pursued in a way that is too partisan. it should not be the overriding goal of performance study to disqualify modern instruments at all costs, but rather to use documentary evidence and experience with period instruments to engage in more nuanced ways with the aesthetics and style of a given composer or work. notes 1. see, for example, cai (1989), pascali (1991), and winter (1990). 2. for comprehensive histories of piano making in the nineteenth century and beyond, see ehrlich (1990) and good (2001). 3. this direction appears at m. 47, also marked "pili lento." when this material is recapitu­ lated at m. 135, brahms writes "mezza voce;' which is another way of telling the performer to restrain projection of the theme. 4. the work was composed in 1854, a particularly painful and turbulent year for brahms because of robert schumann's attempted suicide and subsequent removal to an asylum at endenich. that year also marks brahms's admission of hopeless love for clara schumann in a letter to joseph joachim. this letter is published in avins (1997:48). 5. this characterization comes from ethel smyth's famous recollection of brahms at the piano: "lifting a submerged theme out of a tangle of music he used jokingly to ask us to admire the gentle sonority of his 'tenor thumb'" (smyth 1919, 1:266, quoted in cai 1989:62). 6. christiani was a student of franz liszt. 7. my information on this affair is drawn from avins (2003:30-34). see also avins (1997:67478). 8. other examples of brahms exploiting the murky quality of the lower register to great augustus arnone effect include the rhapsody in b minor, op. 79, no. 1, and the rhapsody in e~ major, op. 119, no. 4. 9. see, for example, bernard sherman's interview with malcolm bilson (sherman 1997:297314). 10. for a comprehensive overview of the pianos brahms played on during his lifetime, see bozarth and brady (1990). 11. in an 1873 letter to adolf schubring, brahms confessed, "i consider streicher to be good and reliable ... i like them quite a lot in a room, and for myself, even now, cannot get used to the local grand pianos in the concert halls" (quoted in avins 2003:13). 12. discussions of metrical ambiguity in brahms's music include fankhauser (1998), smith (1994), epstein (1990), and frisch (1990). for discussions offormal ambiguity, see dunsby (1981). studies focused on harmonic ambiguity include smith (1997), dubiel (1994), cad­ wallader (1988), and graybill (1988). studies that deal with a combination of these topics include lewin (1981) and rink (1999). additional pertinent studies are agawu (1994), jordan and kafalenos (1989), and webster (2001). 13. frisch credits schoenberg as the first critic to call attention to such ambiguities. 14. investigations of this aspect of brahms's style in the c major capriccio, op. 76, no. 8, (a work that does not contain a single root position c major chord until the final harmony) include lewin (1981) and mcclelland (2004). see also brahms's intermezzo in b~ major, op. 76, no. 4, for another example of a work where brahms avoids a root-position tonic chord until the final measure. references agawu, kofi. 1994. ambiguity in tonal music: a preliminary study. in theory, analysis and meaning in tonal music, edited by anthony pople, 86-107. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. avins, styra. 1997. johannes brahms: life and letters, translated by josef eisinger and styra avins. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---. 2003. performing brahms's music: clues from his letters. in performing brahms: early evidence of performing style, edited by michael musgrave and bernard sherman, 11-47. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. bozarth, george s. and stephen h. brady. 1990. the pianos ofjohannes brahms. in brahms and his world, edited by walter frisch, 49-64. princeton, nj: princeton university press. bukhovtsev, aleksandr nikitich. 1897. guide to the proper use of the pianoforte pedals: with examples out of the historical concerts of anton rubinstein. leipzig: bosworth. cadwallader, allen. 1988. foreground motivic ambiguity: its clarification at the middle­ ground levels in selected late piano pieces of johannes brahms. music analysis 7 (1): 59-91. cai, camilla. 1989. brahms's pianos and the performance of his late piano works. performance practice review 2 (1): 58-72. christiani, adolph. c. 1885. the principles of expression in pianoforte playing. new york: harper. dubiel, joseph. 1994. contradictory criteria in a work of brahms. in brahms studies i, edited by david brodbeck, 81-110. lincoln: university of nebraska press. dunsby, jonathan. 1981. structural ambiguity in brahms: analyticalapproaches to four works. studies in british musicology. ann arbor: umi research press. 31 32 current musicology ehrlich, cyril. 1990. the piano: a history, rev. ed. oxford and new york: oxford university press. epstein, david. 1990. brahms and the mechanisms of motion. in brahms studies: analytical and historical perspectives, edited by george s. bozarth, 191-228. oxford: clarendon press. fankhauser, gabe. 1998. rhythmic dissonance as motion propellant in brahms's intermezzo in a flat major. gamut 8: 53-64. frisch, walter. 1990. the shifting bar line: metrical displacement in brahms. in brahms studies: analytical and historical perspectives, edited by george s. bozarth, 139-64. oxford: clarendon press. good, edwin m. 2001. giraffes, black dragons, and other pianos. stanford, ca: stanford university press. graybill, roger. 1988. harmonic circularity in brahms's f major cello sonata: an alternative to schenker's reading in free composition. music theory spectrum 10: 43-55. jenner, gustav. [1905] 1990. johannes brahms as man, teacher, and artist. in brahms and his world, edited by walter frisch, translated by susan gillespie, 185-204. princeton, nj: princeton university press. jordan, roland and emma kafalenos. 1989. the double trajectory: ambiguity in brahms and henry james. 19th-century music 13 (2): 129-44. lewin, david. 1981. on harmony and meter in brahms's op. 76, no. 8. 19th-century music 4 (3): 261-65. mcclelland, ryan. 2004. brahms's capriccio in c major, op. 76, no.8: ambiguity, conflict, musical meaning, and performance. theory and practice 29: 69-94. musgrave, michael. 2000. a brahms reader. new haven, ct, and london: yale university press. pascali, robert. 1991. playing brahms: a study in 19th-century performance. papers in musicology, no. 1. nottingham: university of nottingham. rink, john. 1999. opposition and integration in the piano music. in the cambridge companion to brahms, edited by michael musgrave, 79-97. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. schmitt, hans. 1893. the pedals of the piano-forte and their relation to piano-forte playing and the teaching of composition and acoustics, translated by frederick s. law. philadelphia: theodore presser. sherman, bernard. 1997. inside early music: conversations with performers. oxford and new york: oxford university press. smith, peter h. 1994. liquidation, augmentation, and brahms's recapitulatory overlaps. 19th-century music 17 (3): 237-61. ---.1997. brahms and motivic 6/3 chords. music analysis 16 (2): 175-217. smyth, ethel. 1919. impressions that remain: memoirs, 2nd ed. 2 vols. london. webster, james. 2001. the alto rhapsody: psychology, intertextuality, and brahms's artistic development. brahms studies 3: 19-45. winter, robert. 1990. orthodoxies, paradoxes, and contradictions: performance practices in nineteenth-century piano music. in nineteenth-century piano music, edited by r. larry todd, 16-54. new york: schirmer. discography bilson, malcolm and anner bylsma. 1992. beethoven: sonatas for fortepiano and cello, vols. i & ii. nonesuch 79152. current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 81 black labor and the deep south in hurston’s the great day and ellington’s black, brown, and beige brendan kibbee in the decades following world war i, as a black intellectual and artistic public sphere in new york city was rapidly expanding, several musical representations of a deep south heritage were staged by artists concerned with performing black history and culture in new ways. often—as in popular reviews like dixie to broadway (1924), and concerts like the john hammond-produced “spirituals to swing” series (1938)—these representations followed a progression, locating an originary cultural moment in the rural south that was shown to “evolve” into the more sophisticated styles of the cosmopolitan north. in other representations, like james p. johnson’s yamekraw (1928), the sound of the south was stylized and stood alone as a reminder of a key reference point for african american life. the deep south was subject to differing, sometimes competing representations by african american composers and performers—and occasionally concert and record producers—as they created new forms and contexts for their art. zora neale hurston’s musical revue the great day (1932) and duke ellington’s black, brown, and beige (1943) were among the works presenting the deep south as the ultimate source of black culture, and these two works share another important similarity: both of them locate the laboring body as a vessel through which culture is performed and transmitted. while hurston’s novels and folkloric writings have long received a great deal of attention, her thoughts on staged performance are coming into clearer view in light of recent scholarship (kraut 2008; diamond 2015; penier 2015). the great day, which premiered in 1932, chronicles a day in the life of a group of florida railroad workers, and much of the first act featured a company of dancers singing work songs while simulating the labor of “lining” and “spiking” railroad tracks. duke ellington gained widespread fame when his revues at harlem’s cotton club were broadcast on national radio, but as his career progressed, he moved increasingly towards writing large scale works, often addressing socially conscious themes. black, brown, and beige, premiering at carnegie hall in 1943, opened with a “work song” motif, and put into musical form ideas about black labor that ellington had been developing over the previous decade, often expressed in his poetry and other writings. 82 current musicology hurston’s staging and ellington’s musical and poetic writing place labor in a geographical setting that is both rural and southern. as they emphasize the role of laborers in transforming southern landscapes, they foreground a representation that connects the body, culture, and geography in a way that is distinct from other staged performances of the era. while emerging from different intellectual genealogies, ellington and hurston positioned their ideas in relation to the contemporaneous new york city art worlds of tin pan alley and the harlem renaissance. tin pan alley, a collection of manhattan-based music publishing houses, closely connected to theater and film productions, had inherited much from the legacy of nineteenthcentury blackface minstrel theater and tended to present southern plantation life through bucolic and nostalgic tableaus and through playful naturally rhythmic dancing black bodies, extracting the practice of labor on these plantations. many harlem renaissance intellectuals were hostile to jazz and cast the concert spiritual as the music best suited to put black cultural actors on equal footing with their white counterparts. respectability politics, through the mode of the concert spiritual, meant adopting such features as art-song-style arrangements, a bel canto vocal aesthetic, and attention to “proper diction” (newland 2010). emphasis on the “soul” drew attention away from the role of the body as the bearer of black culture as writers correlated this music to the “inner longings and millennial expectations of african america” (anderson 2002, 66). set against these representations, ellington’s and hurston’s emphases on labor show a desire to re-center bodily practice in conceptions of black culture, while resisting essentialist stereotypes about natural rhythm. by locating the laboring body in the deep south, these artists involved themselves in the cultural work of reinserting labor that had been erased in previous representations. zora neale hurston and the great day hurston’s interests in theater, ethnography, and literature reflect the circuitous path that led her to the artistic and academic circles of new york. raised in eatonville, florida, an all-black town where her father was mayor and where she would later carry out fieldwork, hurston dropped out of school and left home as a teenager to work as a wardrobe assistant for a touring company specializing in gilbert and sullivan productions. leaving the company to re-enroll in school, hurston earned her high school diploma in 1920 at age twenty-nine, then enrolled as an undergraduate at howard university, earning an associate’s degree. she remained in washington, dc for several years and worked closely with the writer alain locke. in 1925, hurston moved to new york, where she enrolled in barnard college, columbia university, completing her ba in anthropology in 1927 under 83 brendan kibbee the tutelage of franz boas, who would continue to advise her fieldwork into the 1930s. immediately upon arriving in new york, hurston had become involved with the literary and artistic movement that came to be known as the harlem renaissance. one of her stories was published in locke’s important 1925 anthology the new negro and, along with langston hughes and wallace thurman, she was involved in creating the literary magazine fire!! hurston’s interest in anthropology and folklore, from her training with boas, to her fieldwork, to her emphasis on presenting folkloric materials for their own sake, provided her with a distinct perspective among her harlem renaissance colleagues. biographer robert hemenway writes of hurston’s role, “the folklorist could become an essential tradition bearer, reconciling the new negro with the racial past, not as an elite artist interpreting the racial essence, not as an abstract intellectual with a vague and romantic commitment to the spiritual legacy, but as a careful scientist, documenting the techniques of imagination in black american culture” (1977, 82). throughout hurston’s career, she resisted any hierarchical model placing “high art” above “folk art” (102). this created a contrast with many of her harlem renaissance colleagues, who tended to see african american folklore’s value less as a significant artistic achievement itself than as a resource for new works of “conscious art” (anderson 2001, 13). between 1927 and 1931 hurston undertook fieldwork throughout central florida as well as the bahamas, new orleans, and mobile, alabama. the research was first sponsored by the association for the study of negro life and history, then by charlotte osgood mason, a wealthy white septuagenarian patron of many important harlem-based artists and writers. despite mason’s opposition to the form, hurston signaled her plans for creating a staged revue based on her collected folkloric materials in a 1928 letter to locke (kraut 2008, 93). in her 1934 application to columbia’s graduate program in anthropology, written two years after the initial production of the great day, hurston further emphasized her view that musical theater was an ideal setting for presenting materials that she collected during her fieldwork, writing, “it is almost useless to collect material to lie upon the shelves of scientific societies. . . . the negro material is eminently suited to drama and music. in fact, it is drama and music and the world and america in particular needs what this folk material holds” (hurston 1995, 970). the great day appears early in hurston’s corpus, before any of her published books, although she had written much of mules and men by the time of its release. plans for the revue began to materialize in the fall of 1931 when locke helped to foster a collaboration between hurston and composer and choir director hall johnson. hurston quickly assembled a 84 current musicology troupe of dancers and began rehearsals (hurston 1995, 805). after clashing with johnson, hurston completed the work along with wendell “wen” talbert and his choir, and in december she moved to secure the john golden theater on forty-fifth street, near broadway, for the debut performance. the one-night-only debut, on january 10, 1932, required hurston to pour nearly all of her financial resources into the production, even selling her car and radio to help pay the deposit for the theater. hurston would have versions of the revue performed an additional eight times at different venues over the next three years. in her autobiography, dust tracks on a road, she wrote of the revue that, although it ultimately became secondary to her literary endeavors, “i am satisfied in knowing that i established a trend and pointed negro expression back towards the saner ground of our own unbelievable originality” (hurston 1995, 808). the genesis of black, brown, and beige black, brown, and beige was written for the occasion of ellington’s carnegie hall premiere, taking place january 23, 1943. it was ellington’s first important performance on a major american concert stage (feather 1977). although the suite borrowed bits of material from previous ellington compositions, and although many aspects had already been conceptualized in ellington’s sketches of an opera called boola (cohen 2004), the bulk of black, brown, and beige was written in the weeks preceding its debut. both hurston and ellington had arrived in new york around the same time, just as the “new negro” movement was beginning to flourish. yet, even as ellington operated in close proximity to hurston, locke, hughes, and others, he did not identify with, and has not been generally portrayed as being part of, their artistic and literary sphere. ellington, in the early part of his career, was establishing himself in an entertainment world that was seldom taken seriously from an intellectual standpoint. he had arrived in new york at age twenty-four in 1923, quickly finding success selling songs to tin pan alley publishers and performing, first at a harlem nightclub called barron’s, then soon after as leader of the house band at the kentucky club near times square. ellington’s famous cotton club engagement began in 1927, and with the club’s live radio broadcasts ellington could establish himself on a larger scale. his reputation extended nationally and internationally, leading to many touring opportunities. in the decade preceding the carnegie hall concerts, two of ellington’s projects began dealing with themes that would resurface in black, brown, and beige. the first is the short film symphony in black (1935). the film cuts between scenes of ellington sitting at the piano in his studio composing a “symphony of negro roots,” a performance of the symphony by ellington’s 85 brendan kibbee example 1: “work” theme from symphony in black, author’s transcription. orchestra, and reenactments of, among other things, hard labor, a child’s funeral, and a nightclub dance. during the section of the film depicting hard labor, as workers are shown shoveling coal into a furnace, an echo of the opening work-song motif of black, brown, and beige can be heard. the second precursor to black, brown, and beige was a musical revue called jump for joy (1941), a collaboration between ellington and a handful of hollywood writers keen on addressing issues of race in america. the revue began with a number called “the sun-tanned tenth of the nation” and ended with “uncle tom’s cabin is a drive-in now.” the significance of this project, as ellington would later write, was “the feeling of responsibility” that it engendered, a feeling that ellington would try to recreate with black, brown and beige (ellington 1973, 180). “the dixie chamber of commerce dream picture” and “musical octoroons” ellington’s congenial public persona often belied the incisiveness of his private views. in a 1944 new yorker profile, richard boyer commented that “new acquaintances are always surprised when they learn that duke has written poetry in which he advances the thesis that the rhythm of jazz has been beaten into the negro race by three centuries of oppression” (quoted in cohen 2004, 1003). with black, brown, and beige, ellington desired to present a conception that stood apart from mainstream representations of african american life. he would do this again in 1946 with his deep south suite. in this suite, after presenting a movement showing what he called “the dixie chamber of commerce dream picture . . . with beautiful blue skies, creole gals with flashing eyes, fried chicken, watermelons, and all those good old nostalgic memories,” he went on, in the second movement, to represent “other things that were told about the south, things that were not at all in accordance with the chamber of commerce dream picture, things that were at times almost directly the opposite” (ellington 1973, 184). this so-called “dream picture” had been a mainstay of popular song for more than a century leading up to ellington’s comment. the dominant force in nineteenth-century american popular song was blackface min86 current musicology strel theater, a field in which images of bucolic southern landscapes and demeaning depictions of african americans were omnipresent. cockrell and zinck note that minstrelsy’s most prolific composer, stephen foster, who embraced abolition, “did not challenge important stereotypes: the demeaning dialect is still there, the plantation image holds, slaves continue to be helpless and childlike, music remains their palliative, ‘ole massa’ is kindly and good” (2000, 187). musical theater after world war i, drawing mostly from songs published on tin pan alley, had inherited the minstrel legacy. al jolson, one of the primary figures in this field, captured many central qualities of minstrel theater in his performance of “swanee” in the 1945 movie rhapsody in blue. jolson, his face darkened with cork, dances jauntily center stage while singing, doing bird calls, and calling out for his “mammy.” the backdrop is a plantation set, with regal columns, a lazy river, and white women in white lace dresses. the african american male and his relation to the southern american landscape, presented by foster and jolson and critiqued by ellington as the “dixie chamber of commerce dream picture,” parallels a trope that raymond williams noted in english pastoral poetry. in this trope, nature, on its own, provides an abundance of riches, leaving a population of tenant farmers who are absent from the landscape, except for when they receive charity from the country lord, to whom they are always grateful (williams 1973, 32). williams explains this trope in relation to what he calls the “curse of labour,” the idea that labor is god’s retribution for the original sin. williams explains: what is really happening . . . is an extraction of just this curse, by the power of art: a magical recreation of what can be seen as a natural bounty and then a willing charity: both serving to ratify and bless the country landowner, or by a characteristic reification, his house. yet this magical extraction of the curse of labour is in fact achieved by a simple extraction of the existence of labourers. the actual men and women who rear the animals and drive them to the house and kill them and prepare them for meat; who trap the pheasants and partridges and catch the fish; who plant and manure and prune and harvest the fruit trees: these are not present; their work is all done for them by a natural order. when they do at last appear, it is merely as the “rout of rurall folke” or, more simply, as “much poore”, and what we are then shown is the charity and lack of condescension with which they are given what, now and somehow, not they but the natural order has given for food, into the lord’s hands. (williams 1973, 32) labor, the same element that had been extracted from the english countryside by the pastoral poets, had been removed from the southern plantation in the minstrel-derived images of tin pan alley. 87 brendan kibbee williams’s key insight on this pastoral poetry was that a new form of production (early agrarian capitalism) gave rise to new hegemonic representations of the “country.” the hegemonic representations supporting the institution of racialized slavery—and the forms of unfree labor that followed it—relied both on ideologies of natural landscape and on those of the racialized bodies. as cedric robinson writes, “the creation of the negro was obviously at the cost of immense expenditures of psychic and intellectual energies in the west. . . . it was an effort commensurate with the importance black labor power possessed for the world economy sculpted and dominated by the ruling and mercantile classes of western europe” (2000, 4). in minstrelsy’s representations, black bodies were not only denied the work they did in reshaping the south and producing its commodities, they were also equated with products of nature, objects that could be harvested, sold, transformed, and discarded. in his seminal book on minstrel song, eric lott writes: “one notes the relentless transformation of black people into things, as though to clinch the property relations these songs fear are too fluid. . . . [b]lack men are roasted, fished for, smoked like tobacco, peeled like potatoes, planted in the soil, or dried and hung up as advertisements” (1992, 155). an insistence on representing black labor, and showing this labor as culture, worked to undo hegemonic discourses that shaped ideas of racialized bodies and the landscapes where they labored. hurston and ellington made black southern labor central to their presentations of african american cultural life, but this move was hardly a characteristic response among the artistic vanguard of the era. while many harlem renaissance figures recognized the discord between popular images and realities of african american life, they often responded by embracing artistic forms meant to undercut stereotypes that presented black culture as standing outside of middle-class norms. “the new negro,” writes samuel floyd, would be “one who would attend concerts and operas and would be economically and socially prepared to enter an ideally integrated american society. . . . the ‘lower forms’ of black music were frowned upon by those of this outlook” (1990, 4). following w. e. b. du bois, many cultural leaders had responded by promoting the concert spiritual as the music best suited to represent the uniquely black contribution to american life. the performance of spirituals by artists ranging from the fisk jubilee singers to paul robeson involved carefully arranged harmonies, attention to “proper” english diction, and formal modes of presentation rooted in the european concert tradition. advocates of the music emphasized how the melodies and lyrics arose from the oppressed soul of black america. du bois, for example, wrote that it was through spirituals that “the soul of the black slave spoke to men. . . . [they] tell in 88 current musicology word and music of trouble and exile, of strife and hiding; they grope toward some unseen power and sigh for rest in the end” ([1903] 1982, 210). but for hurston, an important aspect of black expression was lost in the presentation of these concert spirituals. in a characteristically blunt assessment, hurston stated that the “negro music” of the urban elite was “a determined effort to squeeze all of the rich black juice out of the songs and present a sort of musical octoroon to the public. . . . [r]eal negro music is not done for the sake of agreeable sound” (hurston 1995, 802; see also hurston 1967). ellington and hurston, like other artists of the era, recognized that the cultural work of creating narratives and worldviews through artistic representation would be important to realizing racial equality in america. unlike most of these artists, ellington and hurston focused on the body. between hurston’s insistence that the “rich black juice” of music lay in its embodied sounds, including the grunts of laborers, and ellington’s thesis that rhythm was not a racial essence, but a quality that had been “beaten into the negro race by three centuries of oppression,” both artists showed their dedication to addressing the absence of labor in musical theater and black concert music. the sound of labor the great day follows a day in the life of a group of florida railroad workers, beginning with a brief scene in which the workers are woken up by a “shack rouser,” leading into a second scene, “working on the railroad,” focused on the working portion of the day. while the last three sections of the great day—“back in the quarters: dusk dark,” “in the jook: black dark,” and “in the palm woods”—do not directly involve labor, their framing against the narrative action of the labor scene is important. as a whole, the revue gives an understanding of the working day and laboring bodies in relation to periods of rest and play when workers’ energies are directed towards recuperative and pleasurable ends. the printed program for the original performance indicates seven songs performed during the “working on the railroad” scene: “captain keep a-hollerin’,” “oh, lula!,” “can’t you line it?,” “mule on de mount,” “east coast blues,” “black gal,” and “john henry” (kraut 2008, xiv). “east coast blues” is sung during a work break by a female character named maimie, who walks past the workers and is joined by one of them on guitar. “john henry” is a well-known song about a worker who falls dead trying to outpace a steam drill. in the great day, it is sung by a single worker at a moment of rest near the conclusion of the scene, with the captain and the other workers listening carefully. the setting emphasizes the song’s ballad89 brendan kibbee like text and its political message addressing railroad laborers’ plights (kraut 2008, 127). the other five songs are identified either as “lining rhythms” or “spiking rhythms,” and were accompanied by dancers simulating railroad work. “lining” refers to the action of shifting rails into place, either while building track or repairing rails at curved track sections that have been pushed out of alignment by the force of passing trains. hurston explained to folklorist herbert halpert that the workers, standing with their backs to the rail and holding five-foot-long steel lining bars between their legs, would “push the flange of this lining bar under the rail and then pull back on it” (hurston and halpert 1939a). “captain keep a-hollerin’,” a lining rhythm, does not seem to appear elsewhere in hurston’s corpus, but a 1939 recording of the song (released on lomax 2000), sung by henry hankins at tuscumbia, alabama, reveals that it follows a common formula for lining rhythms: each verse begins with a rhymed couplet then proceeds with four consecutive three-beat phrases, each of them leaving a beat of rest where workers would presumably pull their lining bars up and toward the track (see example 2). the pauses for pulling the lining bars up are less frequent in the other two lining songs, “mule on de mount” and “can’t you line it?” the verses of “mule on de mount” begin with two nearly identical phrases, each leaving a space for the physical exertion at the end, followed by another identical pair of phrases sung while the workers rest (see example 3). finally, “can’t you line it?” features a form similar to “captain keep a-hollerin’,” a rhyming couplet followed by four similar phrases. only here, the second of the four phrases features a cue (the six-beat phrase “shaka-laka-laka-laka-laka-laka”) preparing the worker’s exertion on the seventh beat; there is only one point of exertion in each twelve bar verse (see example 4). example 2: “captain keep a-hollerin’” as sung by henry hankins, author’s transcription. 90 current musicology the great day followed the model that hurston had observed during her fieldwork in alabama and florida labor camps, which she described to halpert (hurston and halpert 1939a). there was a designated “singing liner,” a person whose sole job was to accompany the workers with singing. the singing liner had the ability to control the pace and intensity of the labor, and the ability to tailor verse lyrics to different groups of workers according to their preferences. these included verses of anticipated travel north (see example 4, “can’t you line it?”), bawdy verses (see hurston and halpert 1939b), and verses expressing dissatisfaction with working conditions (see example 2, “captain keep a-hollerin’”), among others. the singing liner thus provides these melodies with multiple (sometimes contradictory) meanings, urging the laborers on while simultaneously registering their discontent. in addition to the lining rhythms, hurston also included two “spiking rhythms,” “oh, lula!” and “black gal” (“john henry,” which hurston also identified as a spiking rhythm, was performed in the revue as a ballad). these were the songs sung while workers drove the spikes that held example 4: “can’t you line it?,” as sung by hurston (hurston and halpert 1939c), author’s transcription. example 3: “mule on de mount” as sung by hurston (hurston and halpert 1939b), author’s transcription. 91 brendan kibbee the newly positioned rails into place. as hurston explained to halpert (hurston and halpert 1939d), spike drivers worked with a tool called a “spike maul,” similar to a sledge hammer, but with an elongated head, one side longer and thinner than the other. workers would often pair up on each spike, standing on opposite sides of the rail, each worker hitting the spike in quick succession, first with longer intervals between pairs of hits, then rapidly with each worker swinging the spike maul around on its axis in a windmill-like motion as they drove the spike all the way in the ground. the first phrases of both spiking songs used by hurston end with two stressed syllables. the stress of these syllables would be echoed by the hammers during a pause at the end of the phrase (see example 5, mm. 1–2). after two or four opening phrases, the singing liner sings a few bars, presumably while the workers rest. then, at the next pause, they finish driving the spike in with their rapid windmill-like hits. hurston’s emphasis on ethnographic detail—including her attention to how melodies coordinate specific laboring activities and to how grunts index the laborer’s exertion—provide a useful starting point for analyzing ellington’s representations of labor in the first movement of black, brown, and beige. subtitling his first piece performed at a major concert hall “tone parallel to the history of the negro in america,” ellington sought to follow figures such as w. e. b. du bois and frederick douglass, who highlighted the importance of the black contribution to american (and world) culture through history. ellington, by opening the suite with the memorable “work song” theme, made it clear that labor was to be considered the central aspect of this contribution (see example 6). the most obvious parallel between this phrase and the work songs recexample 5: “oh, lula!,” as sung by hurston (in hurston and halpert 1939d), author’s transcription. the timing of hammer hits on railroad spikes are represented by x’s. 92 current musicology reated by hurston is the index of the worker’s exertion, heard on the commercially released recording in the coordinated timpani and trombone hit two beats before the melody’s entrance (“there’s a place for the song and a place to grunt,” ellington explained to the audience just before the piece began; ellington 1977). during subsequent repetitions of the phrase, an additional accent emphasizes the first beat of the second measure, giving the impression that the measure’s opening three-note flourish parallels the worker’s energy being transmitted onto the object of labor. using hurston’s melodies as a model, one may also note the echo of the archetypal “spiking rhythm” in the last two notes of the work-song phrase (compare these notes with the two-note sequence ending the first phrase of “oh, lula” that precede the rhythmic hammer hits). ellington, in the context of this orchestral composition, thus combines multiple details of work songs’ bodycoordinating capabilities into a single phrase. ellington’s concern with labor, signaled by its prominent position at the beginning of the suite, can also be inferred through sources external to the music itself. these include an unpublished scenario described in a personal manuscript for an opera called “boola” that was never realized, but which provided many of the themes for black, brown, and beige, as well as ellington’s spoken introduction to the movement (see cohen 2004, 1005–7). the boola scenario narrates the actions of its eponymous character, who for ellington represented a “negro who has performed an outstanding deed or made a noteworthy contribution to the history of his race” (belle ayer quoted in cohen 2004, 1006). the scenario begins with a passage in which boola proudly looks over a rural american landscape that he has helped to shape: example 6: opening theme to black, author’s transcription. 93 brendan kibbee 1700 boola put down his heavy load and gazed about. he’d been looking at this tree-swept land reclaimed by steady swinging of his ringing axe, and was proud of what he saw there. honest toil was not without reward. had not this toil restored those steel-y muscles rippling ‘neath the black satin smoothness of his skin? had not the sun erased the mark of cruel, cold hate that etched his face the night they brought him to this strange and friendless place? . . . work! work! work! work! but to work was to grow strong, and he knew weak men could not survive this test of worthiness to be free! (quoted in cohen 2004, 1014) it is easy to imagine this resilient image of the worker in the opening theme. underneath the “work song” melody, chord accents produce a resounding impact—the “steady swinging of [boola’s] ringing axe.” the sustain of these chords leaves an impression of a wide open space, perhaps vast hills and valleys—“this tree swept land.” the final vi-iv-v-i cadence over the third repetition of the melody projects triumph and conviction—“and he was proud of what he saw there.” later in the boola scenario, ellington evokes more hostile conditions of slavery: boola sang while he worked . . . boola danced away from a boot in the britches . . . a song eased his master’s conscience . . . boola reasoned: i’ll sing . . . and hide my thoughts from him . . . a silent slave was a brooding slave . . . a brooding slave was a dangerous slave . . . too many masters found dead or not at all . . . so! sing, you black bastards . . . sing! . . . (quoted in cohen 2004, 1014) alternate possibilities for hearing the opening passage of black are revealed here. boola’s “work song” melody is simultaneously a genuine triumph and his way of disguising real thoughts from his master. this dual character of the work song echoes that of the singing liner—who simultaneously helped to satisfy the overseer’s need to produce and registered the laborers’ discontent. we are reminded of ellington’s thesis that “jazz has been beaten into the negro race by three centuries of oppression.” throughout the first six minutes of black, it appears that ellington is making this argument musi94 current musicology cally by weaving the work-song material through both the iconic opening passage and the more typical big band swing passages that follow (all references are to the lp released as ellington 1977). the programmatic rendition of the work-song motif occurs three times at regular intervals (1:00, 3:00, and 5:00), with each of these occurrences giving way to swing passages that highlight different textures and techniques of big band composition. for example, in the first “swing” passage, after a brief counterpoint between the saxophone and trombone sections (1:28–1:40), the trumpet section resumes the work song theme then transposes it. soon after (1:52), the theme is repeated in quick succession by the trombone, saxophone, and trumpet sections. here, the saxophones and trumpets omit the twobeat rest at the beginning of the theme to create a rhythmic variation where the sections’ entrances alternate from beat three to beat one, then to beat three again. through the continual reuse of the work-song motif, alternating between symphonic evocations of labor and the varied rhythms and colors of a more typical dance-music style, ellington shows us how the culture of labor is embedded in big band jazz. in his spoken introduction, ellington ties the work song to both the laboring body and the spiritual: the work song is sung while you work, of course. there’s a place for the song and there’s a place to grunt, you know, and the impact of your work. and, of course, after that comes the spiritual theme, which is the second theme of the first movement. and today we find that the two are very closely related. and so this naturally necessitates developing the two and showing their close relationship. (ellington 1977) just as ellington had connected the work song to swing in the opening minutes of black, he does so with the spiritual, using a transitional theme played on “tricky” sam nanton’s vocal-style trombone (see example 7). this transition theme shares with the opening theme “the place for the song and the place to grunt.” however, in both of nanton’s iterations of this theme (7:29 and 8:28), the rhythmic work and impact of the first six measures give way to a softer, less-accented final phrase, with the final note landing against orchestration that foreshadows the background to the “spiritual” theme (first heard on a muted trumpet at 9:23). the songs of the laboring slave now acquire a third meaning. beyond triumph and disguise, there is also spiritual recuperation that arises from the act of singing. ellington’s composition gives a musical indication of the form and motion of the laboring body. in conjunction with the boola material from which the programmatic aspect of the composition derives, it suggests the role of african american labor in transforming the southern landscapes depicted by others in an idyllic light. as the work-song motif is repeated 95 brendan kibbee in different settings, ellington posits this labor as an important means through which other artistic forms like swing came into being. the spiritual, according to ellington’s musical and spoken statements, is not simply a matter of the soul and the inner self: it too arises from labor. finally, with its prominent placement at the beginning of a “tone parallel to the history of the american negro,” labor constitutes ellington’s opening statement on the african american contribution to american life. conclusion through labor, human beings transform nature and transform themselves in the process. in capital marx writes: labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and nature participate. . . . he opposes himself to nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. by thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. ([1894] 1986, 283) for ellington and hurston, black music had been shaped through the laboring bodies of the african american workers who shaped the south. this labor was shown to have a dual character. on one hand it was brutal, it was resented, it caused pain and separation, it was enforced by “masters” and “overseers.” but on the other hand, labor, rather than being “extracted” in favor of more romantic and nostalgic notions, rather than being set aside in favor of an immaterial, transcendent soul, deserved a central place in the historical memory. the movements and grunts of the laboring body could set black music apart as a mark of an enduring contribution. the laboring body transforms both geography and culture. “natural” landscapes are actually the product of those who cleared the land and laid down the railroad tracks that transverse them. the work of clearing the land and laying down the track is imprinted in the bodies of the workers as rhythms, melodies, and movements that transcend the laboring activity. works rooted in cultural studies often start from the standpoint that the arts have an important role in naturalizing ideas about socioeconomic and example 7: “tricky” sam nanton’s theme, author’s transcription. 96 current musicology environmental relations. as we saw with raymond williams, the realities of environmental conditions can be, and often are, reconfigured with the effect of reifying certain class inequalities: the imagined god-given privilege of the country lord is supported by images that hide the relationship between labor and the natural landscape. for cedric robinson, the historical specificity of the transatlantic slave trade, coupled with the industrial and financial advancements of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, created the conditions for a form of capitalism that relied on a dehumanizing construction of blackness (i.e. “racial capitalism”). an understanding of real socio-environmental conditions and real forms of labor leads us to confront necessary moral questions. against the backdrop of minstrelsy’s long shadow, hurston and ellington presented uncharacteristic (for their time) representations of a region built on black labor. in doing so, they undermined dominant ideologies that operated through a particular construction of the relationship between race and nature in imaginings of the deep south. the possibilities for the advancement of black america offered by ellington and hurston placed artistic value in a culture that was largely derived from the conditions of labor (ellington’s thesis) and that prized the “unbelievable originality” of the creative achievements of laborers. notes i would like to thank stephen blum for his help on earlier drafts of this article as well as tom wetmore and the other reviewers at current musicology for their insightful comments. references anderson, paul. 2001.  deep river: music and memory in harlem renaissance thought. durham, nc: duke university press. cockrell, dale, and andrew zinck. 2000. “popular music of the parlor and stage.” in the garland encyclopedia of world music. vol. 3: the united states and canada, edited by ellen koskoff, 179–201. new york: routledge. cohen, harvey g. 2004. “duke ellington and ‘black, brown and beige’: the composer as historian at carnegie hall”. american quarterly. 56 (4): 1003–34. diamond, elin. 2015. “folk modernism: zora neale hurston’s gestural drama.” modern drama 58 (1): 112–34 du bois, w. e. b. (1903) 1982. the souls of black folk. new york: penguin books. ellington, duke. 1973. music is my mistress. garden city, ny: doubleday. ellington, duke. 1977. the duke ellington carnegie hall concerts, january 1943. prestige p-34004, 3 lps. feather, leonard. 1977. liner notes for the duke ellington carnegie hall concerts, january 1943. duke ellington. prestige p-34004, 3 lps. floyd, samuel. 1990. black music in the harlem renaissance: a collection of essays. new york: greenwood press. hemenway, robert e. 1977. zora neale hurston: a literary biography. urbana: university of illinois press. hurston, zora neale. 1967. “spirituals and neo-spirituals.” in the negro in music and art, edited by lindsay patterson, 15–17. new york: publisher’s co. 97 brendan kibbee _____. 1995. folklore, memoirs, and other writings. new york: library of america. hurston, zora neale and herbert halpert. 1939a. “description of lining track.” sound recording. from library of congress, herbert halpert 1939 southern states recording expedition. https://www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000007. _____. 1939b. “mule on da mount.” sound recording. from library of congress, herbert halpert 1939 southern states recording expedition. https://www.loc.gov/item/ flwpa00000. _____. 1939c. “shove it over.” sound recording. from library of congress, herbert halpert 1939 southern states recording expedition. https://www.loc.gov/item/flwpa000006. _____. 1939d. “gonna see my long-haired babe.” sound recording. from library of congress, herbert halpert 1939 southern states recording expedition. https://www. loc.gov/item/flwpa000003. kraut, anthea. 2008. choreographing the folk: the dance stagings of zora neale hurston. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. lomax, john a. 2000. field recordings, volume 4. vienna: document records docd 5578, compact disc. lott, eric. 1992. “love and theft: the racial unconscious of blackface minstrelsy.” representations 39: 23–50. marx, karl. (1894) 1986. capital volume 1. london: penguin books. newland, marti. 2010. “concert spirituals and the fisk jubilee singers.” american music review 40 (1): 4–5, 14–15. penier, izabella. 2015. “zora neale hurston’s creative collaborations: the new negro, the new theatre, and new anthropology.” in muses, mistresses and mates: creative collaborations in literature, art and life, edited by izabella penier and anna suwalskakolecka, 154–70. newcastle-upon-tyne, uk: cambridge scholars. robinson, cedric. 2000. black marxism the making of the black radical tradition. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. tucker, mark, and duke ellington. 1993. the duke ellington reader. new york: oxford university press. williams, raymond. 1973. the country and the city. new york: oxford university press. 4 editor’s note this is the first issue of current musicology to exhibit what i hope will become a standard feature of the journal. the first article of this issue is a literature review, addressing itself to a topic of current interest in music studies. the goal is to include such a literature review as the lead article of each issue of the journal, in time creating an archive of diverse surveys that scholars can turn to in order to be brought up to date on a particular topic. issue 103’s, written by russell millard, is titled “telling tales: a survey of narratological approaches to music”; it takes on the topic of musical narratology as discussed by scholars from the 1980s to the present. millard’s review includes scholarship both on the established classical canon of western art music, where the current notion of musical narratology first took hold, as well on popular music, film music, and music in video games. i hope that millard’s contribution to the journal will be the first of many and that, as the archive grows, our lit reviews will help current musicology continue to be a hub for its namesake. ian sewell signification, objectification, and the mimetic uncanny in claude debussy's "golliwog's cakewalk" elizabeth de martelly figure 1: claude and chouchou debussy picnicking (unknown photographer, ca. 1915?). on october 30, 1905, emma bardac gave birth to claude debussy's only child, a daughter named claude-emma (1905-1919), affectionately known as "chouchou." according to family friend arthur hartmann, chouchou, who bore a striking resemblance to her father, was remarkably mature, and at five or six years old, she "could not be treated as a child" (hartmann 2003:62-63). debussy was a doting father, and the two were inseparable companions until the composer's death in 1918 (figure 1). he dedicated his 1908 piano suite entitled children's corner to her, a piece in which he explores the world as seen through a child's imaginative eyes-perhaps even chouchou's. to be sure, the piece bears chouchou's specific imprint, with four of the six movements named after her toys: "jimbo's lullaby," after her stuffed elephant; "serenade for the doll," after chouchou's favorite doll; "the little shepherd;' after a toy shepherd boy; and "golliwog's cakewalk," after a popular minstrel doll. yet, several elements about this suite disrupt the lighthearted musical current musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology depiction of childhood. to begin, debussy's dedication contains the follow­ ing message: "a ma chere petite chouchou, avec les tenders excuses de son pere pour ce qui va suivre" (to my dear little chouchou, with her father's tender apologies for what follows). this request for forgiveness offers an initial clue that there is more beneath the playful surface of children's corner than meets the ear. but what about this youthful suite, which "exudes charm and tenderness," (hinson 2007:4) could merit such an apology? the final movement, "golliwog's cakewalk," particularly problematizes the childlike innocence portrayed in children's corner. this movement has attracted much critical attention mainly for its juxtaposition of a ragtime­ inflected cakewalk-a popular music and dance form that was in vogue at the turn of the twentieth century-with parodied quotations of richard wagner's "prelude" to tristan und isolde. most notably, lawrence kramer has suggested that the combination of these musical materials is the move­ ment's raison d'etre, as the once-revered wagner is put into dialogue with a "lowbrow" popular music idiom (kramer 2004: 113). kramer echoes the familiar debussy-wagner topos, where debussy struggles to escape the shadow of wagner's influence, asserting that in "golliwog's cakewalk," debussy "smilingly relativizes wagner into insignificance," putting" tristan cheek to cheek with music doubly primitive, being both american and african american" (kramer 2004:113; emphasis added). however, this interpretation of"golliwog's cakewalk" is not entirely satisfying, as kramer neglects important and perhaps more salient features of the movement. relegating the history and meaning of the golliwog doll and the cultural importance of the cakewalk to mere "trifles" (kramer 2004: 113), kramer deals with neither title element of "golliwog's cakewalk" in any depth. but the status of golliwog and the cakewalk as popular "trifles" makes an examination of their historical residues and functions in debussy's music especially compelling. the term "cakewalk" describes a dance form that came to characterize a specific musical genre in mid-nineteenth century united states. dance historian and musicologist davinia caddy's exploration of the cakewalk traces the history of the dance from its roots in african-american slavery, to popular american entertainment, and finally to its arrival on french soil as a white, bourgeois leisure activity (caddy 2007). after summariz­ ing this trajectory, caddy plucks the cakewalk from its racial context and considers its emphasis on a particularly strange style of movement as part of contemporary french tastes for "physicality." caddy uses this term to describe both the bodily postures of the cakewalk and exercise regiments of the same time period. she wishes to avoid reductive racial interpretations of the dance, as she notes that the arena of cultural identity is "unavoidably elizabeth de martelly complex" (caddy 2007:291). however, despite her professed desire to avoid racial terms that "enslave," the concept of physicality has a history of racial connotations, which caddy either ignores or represses in her discussion (caddy 2007 :300). as such, while her analysis provides considerable insight towards a more complete reading of debussy's movement, caddy fails to recognize the significance of the cakewalk's mimetic re-contextualization as a transnational white bourgeois phenomenon, overlooking the ways in which this complicates the dance's signification. social historian eric lott elaborates upon the cakewalk in the context of nineteenth century american minstrelsy, addressing how contemporary attitudes towards race and class shaped the dance's various meanings. in love and theft: blackface minstrelsy and the american working class, lott emphasizes the importance of historically constructed definitions of race as he describes how these categories were produced in part through theatrical entertainment (lott 1995). he argues that amid strong anti-irish sentiment in the mid-nineteenth century united states, working class irish americans legitimized their status as "white" through their performances in minstrel theaters by creating social distance from the african americans they caricatured, while also enacting a complicated investment in the black male body. 1 lott's analysis figures the minstrel cakewalk as one strategy for shifting the boundaries around race and class. in babylon girls: black women performers and the modern body, cultural historian jayna brown extends lott's research and situates the discussion of the cakewalk in relation to changing gendered and racial identities in turn-of-the-century united states and europe. beginning with an account of african -american minstrel cakewalking, brown describes the ways in which "ideas of the raced body were performed, navigated, and challenged" through this dance 0. brown 2008:1). african-american women and children, who increasingly performed major roles on post -emancipation minstrel stages, worked within this theater, adopting "racialized gestural vocabularies to shape and redefine their own bodies as modern" and to critique the white spectacle of blackness-a theme that also permeates daphne brooks's bodies in dissent: spectacular performances of race and freedom, 1850-1910 0. brown 2008:3; brooks 2006). brown then considers the dislocation of this dance from minstrel stages as she explores the various urban spaces in which african american and white individuals cakewalked as a way of delineating and contesting racial territories in american cities in the final decades of the nineteenth century. tracing the cakewalk's migration to europe via touring african american performance groups, brown contends that cakewalking black female bodies "offered nostalgic evocations of agrarian innocence, reas9 10 current musicology suring examples of a happy rural folk, and titillating forms of imagined contact with women from the [african] colonies" while simultaneously creating a means of expressing affluence, leisure, and bodily control for an emerging class of wealthy whites that emulated these performances 0. brown 2008:7). in stimulating the colonial imagination through a popular activity that became problematically associated with "exotic" africa, the cakewalk helped construct modern european white subjecthood by reifying perceived cultural difference, geographical distance, and europe's economic control over the african continent. brown's analysis takes into account how african-american dancers brought the cakewalk to europe and how these performances influenced the nostalgic, exotic, and colonial meanings europeans ascribed to the cakewalk as an embodied articulation of imperial power and white european modernity 0. brown 2008). however, while these scholars help clarify the complicated history and signification of this dance, they tell only half of the story of debussy's "cakewalk," because they do not address the composer's invocation of golliwog, a caricature of a minstrel caricature. i will synthesize the cakewalk's cultural history with analyses of how turn -of-the-century racist commodi­ ties, such as the golliwog, reveals a permeable boundary between reified human subjects and fetishized objects within this particular historical trajec­ tory. in scenes of subjection: terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth century america, historian saidiya hartman considers "the extended servitude of the emancipated" in the years following the formal dissolution of slavery, where various legal and cultural practices maintained the status of black bodies as objects of capitalist commodification (hartman 1997:9). by "de familiarizing the familiar," hartman illuminates "the terror of the mundane and quotidian" embedded in objects like the golliwog doll, which figured the black body as a "thing" necessitating white paternalistic care and control (hartman 1997:4; emphasis added). hartman's work establishes the relationship between commonplace objects in the post-emancipation era and their legacies in chattel slavery. literary scholar bill brown, in the essay "reification, reanimation, and the american uncanny," examines slavery's "ontological scandal," which transformed people into objects to be bought and sold (b. brown 2005). revisiting karl marx's notion of commodity fetishism, "where things ap­ pear to have lives of their own;' brown demonstrates how this ontology is congealed within singularized, fetishized objects-namely, early twentieth­ century material representations of african americans-that "perform" the ambiguity between subject and object (b. brown 2005:180). drawing on sigmund freud's theoretical work on the uncanny, brown argues that such racist artifacts embody the residue of a repressed history of slavery, elizabeth de martelly and these once-common household objects uncannily disclose "the horror of the familiar" (b. brown 2005:201). as such, commodities like golliwog dolls bespeak "the hyperactive persistence" of a romanticized american past as they were circulated in other contexts (b. brown 2005:207). bill brown's analysis maintains a sense of the sheer modernity of the seemingly trivial children's toy as well as its uncanny haunting by racism. this scholarship provides a framework through which to analyze the relationship between the golliwog and the cakewalk as signifiers of american past animated in an early twentieth century french colonial context. i contend that the history of slavery in the united states, mediated and circulated through cultural activities like the cakewalk and material commodities like the golliwog doll, shaped french citizens' imaginations of the nation's colonized african subjects. this process helped enable the black body to become an "exotic object"of white capitalist control. i will examine how debussy's particular appropriation of these complex signifiers calls attention to the unstable relationship between the black human subject and the inanimate object in "golliwog's cakewalk" by exploring how layers of mimesis in the histories of the dance and the doll altered their original significations and effected a transformation of african-american humans into fetishized "african" commodities. i argue that debussy's "cakewalk," itself a cultural commodity that both probes and reproduces these rela­ tions, prompts an uncanny experience of slavery's "ontological scandal" as congealed within a specific material object-chouchou's toy. golliwog: a history of commodifying the black body even as we point to a certain moment in a certain place where it is no longer possible for a person to be a slave (to be someone else's property, to be [negotium 1 a thing), we nonetheless find, in the post -history of that moment, residue of precisely that possibility-in other words, an ongoing record of the ontological effects of slavery. (b. brown 2005: 192) when debussy employed golliwog in children's corner, the doll had already become a favorite children's toy in many western european homes. golliwog, described as a "grotesque creature, with very dark, often jet black skin, large white-rimmed eyes, red or white clown lips, and wild, frizzy hair," was first introduced as a character in florence kate and bertha uptons' 1895 book the adventures of two dutch dolls (pilgrim 2000). in the uptons' story of toys who come to life and "taste human joys / and revel in their power," peg and sara jane, two rose-cheeked wooden dolls clothed in the stars and stripes of the american flag, confront "a horrid sight! / the blackest gnome" 11 12 current musicology figure 2: illustration of golliwogg (sic) and wooden dolls from the adventures of two dutch dolls by florence kate upton (illustration by bertha upton, 1895). the golliwogg character was so popular that in subsequent printings of the book, the title was changed to the adventures of two dutch dolls and a golliwogg. (upton and upton 1895:2,23; figure 2,). after their initial encounter, the dolls learn that in spite of golliwog's unsightly appearance, he is a lovable and silly child.2 based upon a doll that the upton family likely purchased at a minstrel show in the united states in 1880, golliwog's earliest illustrations frequently depicted him with paws instead of human hands and feet (pilgrim 2000). this depiction draws upon popular, prototypical late nineteenth-century notions about race and temperament promoted by figures such as francis galton, william z. ripley, and georges vacher de lapouge, reinforcing the image of blacks as sub-human but friendly servants. such stereotypes of childlike and/or animalistic african americans were ostensibly buttressed through contemporaneous scientific movements like eugenics, which sought to codify racial characteristics to "improve the inborn qualities of a race" (paul 1995:3 ). the uptons' book, the first in a series of thirteen "golliwog" publications, was immensely popular in england, where golliwog became a "national star" and commercial icon before his popularity spread throughout europe (pilgrim 2000). following the success of the book, many prominent european toy manufacturers began mass-producing golliwog dolls. however, golliwog's european ubiquity obscures his origins, which can be traced from american slavery, to blackface minstrelsy, and to the doll, where the image of the happily enslaved black person was translated into a toy product. these three imitative strata separate the golliwog doll from his enslaved human referents, filtering his image and subsequent signification elizabeth de martelly through minstrelsy, a type of theater that enabled a large-scale cultural re-imagination of the past (lott 1995; hartman 1997; j. brown 2008).3 an examination of this historical trajectory reveals how mimetic layers main­ tained the status of african americans as dehumanized commodities in the years following slavery. critically, within this process of commodification runs a theme of white fascination with blackness, or, more specifically, an anxious fascination with a repressed history of the black human body as object (brooks 2006). these themes come to bear on golliwog as a post­ slavery commodity and as the protagonist of "golliwog's cakewalk." during american slavery, cultural and legal practices sought to reduce enslaved people to the status of owned "things." for instance, in 1828, a kentucky court ruled in jarman vs. patterson, "whether it be politic or impolitic, a slave by our code is not treated as a person but (negotium) a thing" (quoted in b. brown 2005:179). with this law, the transformation of african americans into commodities was made legally concrete. saidiya hartman examines the link between the commodity status of blacks and their legal constitution as sub-human, arguing that "the selective recogni­ tion of humanity that undergirded the relations of chattel slavery had not considered [african americans 1 deserving of rights or freedom" (hartman 1997:5). but more significant than the legal implications of such laws were the ontological results, what harriet beecher stowe referred to as "the moral horror of slavery;' which rendered the distinction between human and object disturbingly artificial (stowe 1852). of particular note in connection with the golliwog were the "picaninny" children born into chattel slavery who often elided the distinction between the sanctified progeny of the white, christian plantation owner and a multiplication of his labor force (hartman 1997; j. brown 2008). deprived a fully human life and reduced to the status of a commodity, slaves and their children were considered bodily implements in the united states' expanding economic system. blackface minstrelsy, an american theatrical form established in the early 1830s "in which white men caricatured blacks for sport and profit" in its first iteration, offered a very different take on the commodification of black (or blackened) bodies (lott 1995:3). notably, african americans also performed in minstrel theaters; however, white men were minstrelsy's original actors 0. brown 2008). during the nineteenth century, especially after emancipation, the concept of whiteness was being actively produced and negotiated. irish americans used the minstrel theater as a means of recasting racial categories and legitimizing themselves as white by projecting a fantasized image of slavery as benign, while also "playing black" for com­ mercial entertainment and personal pleasure (lott 1995). by the end of the 1840s, blackface minstrel troupes such as the virginia minstrels and christy's 13 14 current musicology minstrels had grown very popular, and these companies toured the united states and europe, spreading the circulation of minstrel imagery across the atlantic. the typical form of the minstrel show was divided into three sections: the first act presented song, dance, and jokes; the middle section culminated in a political "stump speech"; and the final section featured a short play usually set on a southern plantation with various minstrel stock characters. in minstrel theaters, african americans were rendered in cartoon­ ish character types that reinforced a conception of their limited humanity, such as jim crow, the ignorant, carefree slave; zip coon, the buffoonish black dandy who never manages to assimilate into white, bourgeois society; and mr. tambo, the jolly musician who is always prepared to sing and dance. with this theater, which registered a complex mixture of "panic, anxiety, terror, and pleasure:' white actors and spectators collectively romanticized american slavery as a rustic idyll filled with jubilant "singing and dancing children" (lott 1995:6; j. brown 2008:64).4 minstrelsy was a dynamic cultural form, and its meanings and circula­ tion shifted with the increasing participation of african american actors. in the late1840s, two african americans, william henry lane ("master juba") and thomas dilward ("japanese tommy"), performed in blackface with white minstrel troupes. however, in early minstrel shows, african -american actors were the exception rather than the rule, and this remained true until after the american civil war, when many newly freed slaves were hired for major roles in these shows. with this new cast of actors, the blackface minstrel show grew even more popular, soon becoming "a transnational phenomenon" (smalls 2003:358). african-american performance troupes toured the united states and took minstrel shows abroad first to london and eventually to other major european cities like vienna and paris (brooks 2006; j. brown 2008).5 importantly, these touring black minstrel shows coincided with the new imperialism movement (1876-1912) in what has been called "the scramble for africa," where european governments (principally britain, germany, and france) divided and aggressively colonized the african continent (pakenham 1991). as a result, european audiences craved the "exotic spectacle" of "visual manifestations of colonialist/imperialist dreams of control and conquest," images that reflected the reach of their nations' political and economic power (smalls 2003:357). minstrel performances by white actors in blackface became passe in europe, as spectators increasingly demanded "authentic" african-american actors who "played themselves" in theatrical re-performances of chattel slavery 0. brown 2008:141; deaville 2001). this notion of "playing themselves" highlights two critical confla­ tions regarding the european relation to the touring african-american elizabeth de martelly performers. first, on a temporal level, there is a slippage between past and present, where black actors were "to pretend to exist in a timeless southern past" of contented slavehood 0. brown 2008:140). second is a geographic conflation, as performing blacks recalled the "exotic" colonized africans for white european audiences.6 this imagined contact with colonial africans, mediated through simulated african -american slavery, played a critical role in shaping european attitudes towards blacks as natural workers tied to the land and requiring imperial management 0. brown 2008). for instance, in britain, where golliwog was developed, "narratives surrounding the child from the system of plantation slavery were folded in with ideas of childlike races from colonies in africa, ... supporting britain's idea of itself as a stabilizing and beneficent force in the lands over which it ruled" 0. brown 2008:30). the image of the picaninny, a caricature of an african-american slave child, thus came to symbolize both chattel slavery and the colonized african continent o. brown 2008). the touring minstrel shows, which reached britain as early as 1848 with "boz juba and the ethiopian serenaders" before waves of other groups came and toured the rest of europe, had a clear and direct impact on black actors in france who borrowed elements from american minstrelsy in fashioning their own routines. for example, the turn-of-the-century parisian circus duo footit and chocolat, "the most famous and successful interracial clown team in nineteenth-century france," drew heavily upon minstrel stereotypes for the characterization of chocolat, a "dim-witted, passive simpleton" portrayed by afro-cuban actor raphael padilla (smalls 2003:365, 367). dressed as a northern dandy with "foolish" middle-class aspirations, chocolat was the unsuspecting butt of the white clown footit's jokes and insults. the duo, with whom debussy was acquainted (lockspeiser [1962]1978: 137), played a major role in "the racialized spectacle of modern parisian life;' becom­ ing household names in france (smalls 2003:354). images in footit's and chocolat's likeness were used in commercial advertising to sell a variety of products, some of which were exported from the new french colonies in africa, including coffee and cocoa (smalls 2003). this "commodity racism" helped to legitimize "french colonial activities in the name of market capital­ ism and cultural progress" while obscuring the bloody realities of african colonialism (smalls 2003:369, 367). through this process, the image of the friendly-but-foolish black, an image rooted in the united states, was used to stimulate a rapidly growing french economy strengthened by imperial exports from africa. the golliwog contributed to the project of transforming human black bodies into homogenous, mass-produced commodities. as europe's control over africa increased, consumers particularly in britain and france sought 15 16 current musicology commodity representations of the "exotic" black figures from the land their nations were colonizing. initially produced in britain, golliwog's image was a transnational collage of the african-american child slave and the imagined african subject. such images, perpetuated in popular products like the golliwog doll, featured prominently in the toy industry and in children's literature, establishing the colonial relationship as formative to a child's development 0. brown 2008:64). fully dehumanized and distorted, golliwog appears as "a cross between a dwarf-sized black minstrel and an animal" alongside the moral play narrative of "taming the native child" as an act of christian charity (pilgrim 2000; j. brown 2008:65). through mimetic stages, the doll's relation to slavery had been obscured, filtered through the alchemy of minstrelsy, miniaturized and trivialized to the status of a child's toy. in golliwog, the ontological horrors of slavery and colonialism congeal, but only as a latent memory buried beneath the doll's smiling cotton visage. however, golliwog's status as a commodity complicates his significa­ tion, endowing him with a life-like aura. while at first sight, the commodity appears "a very trivial thing, and easily understood;' karl marx argues that concealed behind the product is a network of social structures: on one side of the commodity are the producers, the human laborers who have created it, and on the other side are the consumers, the people who desire and purchase the commodity (marx [1867]1906:81). but in a capitalist economy, the relationship between these two spheres is necessarily alienated and indirect, mediated only through the commodity itself. thus, the commodity is reified as having a certain power independent of humans, as if it possessed intrinsic value detached from the people who produce or consume ic through commodity fetishism, marx's term for this process, "capitalists deny their own creation and control of the commodity, explaining it as objective, natural reality" (baptist 2001). as a result, objects approach the status of "independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and [with] the human race" (marx [1867]1906:83).b with toy commodities that are representations of people, the story is all the more complex. in the essay "a philosophy of toys," french writer and philosopher charles baudelaire, whose poems debussy set to music, describes the toy world as a "whole life in miniature," where children act upon and through their toys, searching for their "souls" (baudelaire [1853]1964:199). baudelaire writes that playing with toys lays the "moral foundation" for how children will interact with people in their adult lives (baudelaire [1853]1964: 199). this relationship between children and their toys complicates the person/thing dichotomy, a slippage made readily visible in the broader modernist fascination with "the toy come to life" trope in conelizabeth de martelly temporary children's stories such as the nutcracker and pinocchio. in these stories, as in the adventures of two dutch dolls, toy commodities disrupt the boundary between subject and object and relinquish their status as things, becoming "independent beings endowed with life" (marx[ 1867]1906:83). golliwog's story reveals the ways in which material emblems of american slavery continued to be circulated through capitalist networks, helping to establish and legitimize european attitudes towards colonized africans. in golliwog, the concepts of fetishized object and objectified human bleed together, converging in a singular history originating in slavery. but if, according to slavery historian edward baptist, racist memorabilia are "the product[s] of determined and meaningful self-deception and forgetting," then golliwog is distanced from this history, allowing the consumer to "pleasure the self with the unacknowledged remembrance of a transgres­ sion without blame, an ambiguity controlled and fixed, displaced onto and encoded in the fetish object" (baptist 2001). created in children's fiction and materialized as a stuffed toy, golliwog naturalized the commodity relation­ ship between the young white consumer and the objectified black body as one of "benevolent" ownership and control. the third section of this study will examine how debussy's composition draws upon these discourses in its musical characterization of chouchou's toy. the cakewalk and "mimetic vertigo" wrenching their gestures from themselves and hammering the artificial floor with the taps on their patent shoes, they danced, they glided, they reared up, they broke themselves in two, three, four, then they straightened up and bowed ... and behind them the whole city, the whole of europe, began dancing. (cocteau [1935]1988:74) with its layers of fetishistic imitation, the cakewalk follows a trajectory similar to golliwog's: from slavery, to minstrelsy, to a fashionable leisure pursuit for wealthy white urbanites. according to davinia caddy, by the time the dance reached europe, it was largely read as a "generic american commodity, sequestered from [its] black roots and from any attendant feral or ritualistic overtones" (caddy 2007:284; emphasis added). on the parisian stage, the stylish cakewalk, performed in fancy dress and jewels, "was thought to represent a cultured, codified creativity, worthy of paris's musical elite" (caddy 2007:296; figure 3). how a satirical plantation dance could take on connotations of white bourgeois leisure is perhaps difficult to imagine, but the cakewalk was a prime example of the complex significance of slave-era expressive culture. 17 18 current musicology i i figure 3: two women dancing the parisian cakewalk (photograph by paul boyer, 1903) in the context of slavery, dancing served the dual function of entertain­ ment and as a means of assessing the physical strength and "spirit" of an individual prior to sale (tuhkanen 2001). one slave trader remarked that slaves were often forced to dance on the auction block "when their cheeks were wet with tears" in order "to make them appear cheerful and happy" (baptist 2001). dancing in this instance was used to ensure that a slave would fetch a decent price in a market that "dane [ed 1 on strings held by the abstract forces of supply and demand" (baptist 2001). narratives like this underscore the ways in which dancing operated as a signifier of the slave market and as a marker of white investment-both monetary and erotic-in the black body's health and physicality. bearing this context in mind, the cakewalk's genesis as a plantation dance takes on particularly complicated implications, working both within the accepted social boundaries as a form of entertainment and outside of elizabeth de martelly them as a critical commentary on slavery. according to oral testimonies from ex-slaves, the cakewalk originated in the southern united states as a dance in which slaves imitated the gestures of their white owners and competed for cake (baldwin 1981).9 its exaggerated movements, which include high steps and an arched back, were intended to reflect the bodily postures of white slave owners' ballroom promenades (baldwin 1981:201). more than a recreational dance, the cakewalk "was an outlet for satirizing the manners of whites" and, in turn, the very institution of slavery (baldwin 1981 :20 1). meanwhile, white audiences mistook the dance as a genuine, though "failed" attempt to emulate bourgeois mannerisms (baldwin 1981:208). taking pleasure in what they viewed as "grotesque" performances of white gentility, slave owners invited slaves to perform this dance in competition for cake as entertainment for plantation guests (hartman 1997).10 however, as jayna brown argues, this plantation setting is not "the sole location of the dance's authentic meaning;" rather, this site represents only one venue in a larger history of the cakewalk's circulation and shifting meanings 0. brown 2008:130). with the cakewalk's migration to the minstrel show in the mid-late 1870s, the original slave dancers were supplanted by an imitated image of them. 11 on this stage, when performed by white ac­ tors in blackface, one of the dance's purposes was "to portray cakewalking blacks as buffoons who could never take that final step, no matter how high-kicking, into white culture and high society" (baldwin 1981 :207). here, the cakewalk emerged as a means for illuminating the nexus between race and class, where working-class whites performed black social and economic disenfranchisement as popular comedy. but, as eric lott indicates, white minstrel depictions of black culture were not quite so reductive; integral to these performances was a fascination with blackness, what eric lott describes as a kind of "love" (lott 1995). cakewalking enabled white actors to perform an objectification of the african-american body in "a dramatic spectacle based on an overriding investment in [that 1 body" (lott 1995, 6). these dances provided a conduit for whites to appropriate elements of fetishized african-american bodily physicality and culture, which, accord­ ing to lott, troubled white audiences "all the more because they were so attracted to the culture they plundered" (lott 1995:8). moreover, minstrel cakewalking enabled white actors and audiences to re-imagine slavery as a time of economic "collaboration" between the races, a jubilant celebration filled with singing and dancing workers. in the decades following the emancipation, large numbers of black individuals performed the cakewalk in public spaces beyond the confines of southern plantations, both on minstrel stages and in other public venues. importantly, the various meanings ascribed to the dance differed markedly 19 20 current musicology depending upon who was performing the cakewalk and where these per­ formances took place. particularly between approximately 1880 and 1910, black dancers staged the cakewalk "in critical territories within the city," where "ideologies of american wealth were being ritualized" as a means of contesting the racial annexation of urban space 0. brown 2008: 129). cakewalkers congregated in city centers for dance competitions that drew hundreds of performers from across the united states and "as many as ten thousand spectators" 0. brown 2008:142). the largest of these cakewalk competitions, held at new york city's madison square garden, attracted massive crowds of african americans, their cakewalking a claim to urban space both literally and symbolically. white dancers soon followed suit by participating in these competi­ tions, and this juxtaposition of dancers had a deep impact on modes of racial and gendered performance at the turn of the twentieth century, but to very different ends 0. brown 2008). as upperand middle-class white women's ideals of modern female bodies shifted in response both to the "first wave" feminist movement and to changes in the industrial workforce, these women sought out leisure activities and exercises that would fashion their bodies as "modern" (j. brown 2008). the cakewalk, a physically demanding dance, remade the soft, fleshy victorian body into a thinner, more muscular form, one that signaled health and physical control (caddy 2007; j. brown 2008). to be sure, this new image had a specific referent: the muscular build achieved through labor, particularly associated with black "physicality." for white cakewalkers, "black bodies came to model ... the ideal bodies of urban sophistication, wealth, and fantasies of access to that wealth;' and white audi­ ences were eager to learn the dance that signified democracy, grace, bodily control, and modernity 0. brown 2008:l30; emphasis added).12 however, "new women" were not to achieve these bodies through work, but through the luxury of leisure and exercise. with the adoption of the cakewalk by white bourgeois women and their male dance counterparts, the dance's circulation expanded to american parlors and social venues associated with middle and upper class whites. meanwhile, african americans established all-black acting and danc­ ing troupes that performed throughout the west, and when they brought the dance to europe in the 1890s, this historical layer further removed the cakewalk from its original geographic and social context. one particular stage act popular in european theaters helped establish the significance of the dancing black body in the european white imaginary. topsy, a child slave originally created in harriet beecher stowe's uncle tom's cabin, became a favorite character in "tom shows;' staged nostalgic "antislavery" performances based on stowe's novel, which incorporated song and dance elizabeth de martelly routines. in uncle tom's cabin, topsy is first introduced jubilantly dancing after being ordered to do so by her new slave owners. embodied by a human actor, however, the theatrical topsy is arguably more complicated: casting her dance in another light, topsy's cakewalk portrays her black body as one that is never fully "tamable" or containable 0. brown 2008:59). in one particular dance routine, topsy, performed by ida forsyne, emerges on stage in a potato sack with her limbs free, back arched, arms waving, and legs running from gunshots until she is finally hit and collapses to the ground. however, ida forsyne described this dance not as ending in topsy's death, but as rolling "over, over and up" at the end of the potato sack cakewalk, as if topsy had escaped death or had even been resurrected 0. brown 2008: 61). jayna brown describes the white pleasure in this cakewalk performance as bolstering the "fantasy of black subjects' inhuman ability to survive bondage, poverty, and peonage," which reinforced the public support of the project to colonize africa and its resilient, "childlike" inhabitants 0. brown 2008:61; emphasis added). tom shows and other variety acts were popular in several major european cities around the turn-of-the-century, where african american dancers, like ida forsyne, toured and further spread the cakewalk's circulation. so popular was the cakewalk that almost as soon as dance troupes brought it to france, it sparked a national craze, spreading to the bourgeois ballroom, encouraging white participation, and spawning competitions that, at least on the surface, seemed "detached from black cultural production" (caddy 2007:300). this "detachment" was partially accomplished through a separation of venues in which white europeans and african americans danced. while african americans typically cakewalked on variety stages and in circus acts, white europeans danced in social settings such as parlors and ballrooms. this public separation of black dancers from the cultural product they helped circulate, coupled with the various layers of cakewalk imitation, seemingly erased the original african-american subjects and replaced them with white dancers, as if the popular consumption of this dance were both appropriate and natural. in the context of this historical trajectory, imitation of the black body in motion functioned as a kind of unconscious suppression of the cakewalk's first dancers, leaving only a vague trace of their history or the original meaning of their dance. moreover, the peculiar "physicality" of the dance itself enacted another transformation, as it visually morphed the human body into an object. in contrast to the bodily symmetry of other contemporary dances, the cakewalk "was characterized by agitation and unrest; it not only emphasized the body's angles, but proceeded by juts and starts" (caddy 2007:301). davinia caddy describes the cakewalk's ragtime-inspired syncopated musical accompani21 22 current musicology ment as unemotional and detached, serving merely to lock "the dancers' movements to a codified aural pattern" with a "propelling effect, driving physical movement forward with engine-like regularity" (caddy 2007:304; emphasis added). french artist jean cocteau emphasizes the perceived exotic nature of the cakewalk, recalling "the strange contortions" of the dancers' bodies, observing that the cakewalk "accentuates angularities, protrusions, asymmetry, dismemberment, aggression, the urban, and even the machine­ like" (paraphrased in caddy 2007:300). the overwhelming effect of the dance was a de-centering and fragmentation of the body with a focus on flailing limbs, evoking the image of a marionette controlled by invisible strings (caddy 2007:301). thus, with its origins obscured by layers of imitation, the parisian iteration of the cakewalk came to signal an inhuman physicality, a literal objectification of the body. "golliwog's cakewalk": a convergence of historical trajectories i'd seen nothing like it before. a grinning doll ... which some mysterious mechanism was causing to move up and down in a loose-jointed, shoulder­ shaking, infuriatingly sensuous motion, a dance that was completely detached from the black, mask-like face ... [the] doll [was] throwing itself about with the fierce defiance of someone performing a degrading act in public, dancing as though it received a perverse pleasure from its motions. (ellison 1952:326) in debussy's "cakewalk;' there are no human dancers at all, but a doll is evoked in their stead. whereas in the popular european incarnation of the cakewalk, the human body is made to look puppet-like, debussy takes the dance a step further in conjuring golliwog. golliwog is no ordinary doll, but one in whom a particularly painful history is congealed and concealed, and in juxtaposing this doll with the cakewalk, debussy converges two uncanny signifiers of american slavery: histories of human objectification that had been repressed and resignified through historical layers of mimesis. it would be difficult to argue that the composer consciously intended to bring the golliwog and the cakewalk into musical conversation specifi­ cally to draw attention both to their european re-appropriations as african "exotica" and to their common roots in american slavery. however, whether or not debussy composed the suite with this in mind, in considering the contemporary cultural discourses surrounding the doll and the dance, the music nonetheless conveys these associations and their parallel histories. this circulationand reception-focused perspective opens a critical space to examine how these repressed histories of black bodily objectification were elizabeth de martelly transnationally circulated in popular "trifles" of debussy's day-as golliwog and the cakewalk-and rearticulated in france as exotic, african commodi­ ties for white bourgeois consumption. viewed through this lens, "golliwog's cakewalk" conveys a great deal of information about turn-of-the-century french attitudes towards products of black signification and the ways in which these products worked to support french colonial projects. golliwog's has always been the story of a doll brought to life in the human world, but debussy's anthropomorphosis registers more than a playful animation, particularly when parodied quotations from richard wagner's tristan und isolde interrupt the movement after the second theme. lawrence kramer suggests that debussy's interpolation of tristan is a type of grotesque, where wagner, an institution of european refinement, is debased and trivialized to the level of a popular and "primitive" trifle. however, the concept of grotesque operates more fully on another level embedded not in the wagner quotations, but in the inhumanness of the stiff and puppet-like parisian cakewalk. in the grotesque in art and literature, literary theorist wolfgang kayser writes, "among the most persistent motifs of the grotesque, we find human bodies reduced to puppets, marionettes, and automata, and their faces frozen into masks" (kayser [1963]1981: 183). as we have seen, this is in fact the story of golliwog's production, one that transformed the image of the african-american slave into a common minstrel doll. the parisian cakewalk adds another layer to kayer's grotesque, where white dancers perform a stylized bodily control that bespeaks a history of the physical and economic control of black bodies. through the cakewalk, french dancers sought to maintain the status of the body, and particularly the black body, as a controlled "thing." these performances repress the humanity of their referents, instilling in the white dancers "fear of life" -in other words, a repressed fear that the referent african-american/ african "objects" of their dance are not objects at all (kayser [1963]1981:183). sigmund freud defines the uncanny as "that class of the frighten­ ing," that is "nothing new or alien, but something which is familiar and old-established in the mind and which has become alienated from it only through the process of repression" (freud 1919:224-225; emphasis added). an uncanny experience must involve a thing that resonates with familiar­ ity but is experienced in a new, frightening light when a forgotten history surfaces. indeed, debussy's golliwog is no mere commodity, undifferentiated from a mass of replicated objects-he is a particular doll with whom the composer was intimately familiar, one that was a gift for his daughter. in the finale to children's corner, it is chouchou's golliwog who is made to perform slavery's ontologicalliminality, uncannily dancing in the threshold between living subject and inanimate object. as freud further writes of the 23 24 current musicology uncanny, "dismembered limbs ... [and] feet which dance by themselves .. . have something peculiarly uncanny about them, especially when, as in the last instance, they prove capable of independent activity" (freud 1919:244). in debussy's piece, the doll's anthropomorphosis precedes the music, starting with the movement's title, "golliwog's cakewalk;' signaling that the listener is-that chouchou is-to imagine the golliwog performing this "strange;' popular dance, a dance that rightly belongs to him. in "golliwog's cakewalk," debussy uses a ragtime-inspired cakewalk as the musical mechanism to activate golliwog. while the cakewalk's original musical accompaniment was an unsyncopated two-step march, debussy's juxtaposition of the genre with stylistic elements of ragtime was character­ istic of the cakewalk's french iteration (morgan and barlow 1992; caddy 2007). although ragtime and the cakewalk first developed and circulated independently in the united states, the music and dance genres were later often combined in large dance competitions, where ragtime's syncopation added a new level of contemporary fashion and energy to the dance (morgan and barlow 1992). at the 1900 paris exhibition, american composer and conductor john philip sousa presented french audiences with what was, for many, their first experience of ragtime and cakewalk music, two burgeoning african-american genres. sousa arranged the selections himself, combining the cakewalk with rag elements, including a four-measure introduction featuring a repeated rhythmic motif; a turnaround, a chord progression that leads back to the beginning of the main theme called a "turnaround." this syncopation, perhaps the most recognizable trait of the ragtime genre, distinguished it from other contemporary dance music and reinforced the ''african americanness" of the cakewalk (berlin 1980:82). arthur pryor, trombonist, assistant conductor, and co-leader of sousa's band, recalled the musicians' discomfort and embarrassment with the syncopation associated with black composition, feeling it was "beneath [the players'] dignity and they couldn't or wouldn't give in to it" (quoted in blesh and james 1958:75). pryor's comment helps contextualize the meanings upon which debussy possibly drew upon in using ragtime elements in "golliwog's cakewalk." before examining how "golliwog's cakewalk" deploys these elements to bring golliwog to life, let me first briefly consider another movement from children's corner: "serenade for the doll." this movement, the third in the suite, provides a point of contrast in its portrayal of the toy world, suggesting very different modes of animation and consequent ways in which chouchou might have related to these dolls. far from the "primitive" and popular cakewalk genre, the serenade is a musical greeting traditionally performed in the evening to honor a guest, situating the doll in the world of refined european tradition. debussy instructs the player to depress the elizabeth de martelly example 1 (mm. 5-9): emphasized ragtime syncopation in right hand. soft pedal throughout and play "leger et gracieux," which places this doll in a delicate, serene sonic environment. here, chouchou's "favorite doll" is not so much handled as doted upon; she is the beloved but passive recipient of gentle sonic adoration, and the composer's music suggests that she is to be treated with love and care. in "golliwog's cakewalk;' debussy evokes a very different relationship between chouchou and her minstrel doll. florence kate upton, golliwog's creator, recalled playing with a similar doll as a child, where the upton children treated it roughly, "his unkindly face the target for rubber balls" (quoted in pilgrim 2000: unpaginated). upton's comment frames golliwog as a natural target of abuse, and debussy's music seems to suggest a similar rough treatment, though less extreme. unlike the passive doting in "serenade," "golliwog's cakewalk" positions the doll as restless, active, and animated from within as he performs the cakewalk. in debussy's composi­ tion, golliwog seems to be tossed around, stretched and pulled, made to dance for a child's pleasure. the composer draws upon many ragtime and cakewalk conventions in order to make golliwog dance. following a four-measure introduction featuring the movement's main cakewalk theme, debussy presents another four-measure figure, isolating the characteristic syncopation of this hybrid genre. in the measures of example 1, the staccato off beats in the right hand propel the music and golliwog's dancing body forward. this motion is especially emphasized in measures 6 and 8, where forte sixteenth notes give the syncopated line added energy, with a crescendo that propels the music towards a beat that is continually denied in the right hand and only touched upon for a short eighth note in the left hand. these measures suggest golliwog twitching to life as debussy's music enlivens him. in example 2, we see measure 10, which initiates the cakewalk melody, where golliwog's animation is awkwardly and unnaturally strict and con­ trolled throughout the first third of the movement. debussy's direction "tres net et tres sec" (very clear and very dry) signals an "engine-like regularity," where golliwog dances with the parisian cakewalk's forced, mechanical jolliness (caddy 2007:304). controlled by debussy's music like a dancing 25 26 current musicology p :> >,0. -~ ~ l > :> ;.. i p ::::::=-f molto f :> example 2 (mm. 10-17): syncopated cakewalk theme in right hand soprano line f-_ ff example 3 (mm. 26-35): the cakewalk melody suddenly dips into the bass (mm. 30-32), where the melody reaches a low b-f1at,before suddenly returning to the treble clef(mm. 33-34) puppet, the cakewalk melody unexpectedly plummets an octave lower in m. 30 (example 3), reaching a low b-flat] three measures later, emphasized with an abrupt forte crescendo to fortissimo. this gesture has a particularly striking effect, especially when in the following measure, the bass casu­ ally returns to the treble clef with the return ofthe quiet, light, syncopated cakewalk melody. here, the alternating narrow and wide ranges between the right and left hands suggest golliwog's limbs being stretched, controlled, and contorted like those of a marionette. 13 of this image, kayser writes, "it is as if an impersonal force, an alien and inhuman spirit had entered the soul" of chou chou's toy (kayser [1963]1981). when another version of the syncopated figure from example 1 re­ turns, the music has undergone several critical changes. in these measures elizabeth de martelly example 4 (mm. 46-51): altered syncopation with decreased forward momentum cedez p a/'ee uti/! grl!ude emot/(m example 5 (mm. 61-67): the first of four melodic quotations of the "tristan" chord (mm. 61-63); the cakewalk's characteristically syncopated grace notes indicate golliwog's presence (mm. 63-64) (example 4), debussy undermines the forward momentum by adding tenuto marks over the right hand's syncopation and omitting the more rhythmically active crescendo of sixteenth notes presented in this figure's first iteration. unlike the music in example i, here the left hand lands on the downbeat with a full quarter note followed by one and a half beats of rest, further diminishing the forward motion of the ragged cakewalk. these changes seem to evoke an internal resistance to the cakewalk's propelling force, as if chouchou's doll now refuses to capitulate the order to perform this dance. when parodied quotations from tristan und isolde interrupt the move­ ment in m. 61, the music takes on a very different mood (example 5). the famous opening leitmotif from tristan is recalled four times, and following each quotation, debussy injects the cakewalk's grace notes, signifying that golliwog's body is woven into this music.there are perhaps several ways to interpret this musical centerpiece of"golliwog's cakewalk." in one reading, the wagner quotations depict golliwog's psychological interiority, where debussy explores the "inner life" of chouchou's doll. in contrast to the rigid­ ity of the movement's opening, the middle section of"golliwog's cakewalk" 27 28 current musicology example 6 (mm. 124-128) a sudden "crash" to the ground depicted musically, as if golliwog's body is once again a lifeless object (mm. 126-127) (mm. 61-92) is marked with frequently shifting tempos, expanding and contracting with "une grande emotion." here, golliwog transgresses the boundary between the physical world of the mechanical cakewalk and the emotionally complicated human world. through these quotations, debussy gives golliwog the melodic means to express a more complex range of emotions, humanizing the doll to some degree. if we connect this musical moment with the slavery and colonial nar­ ratives surrounding the cakewalk and golliwog, this juxtaposition registers more complicated and potentially troubling associations. the two styles engage in a back-and-forth dialogue with a fluctuating tempo along with alternating syncopated and on-the-beat melodic material. the musical volley between the tristan quotations and the syncopated gestures of the cakewalk presents a tension between two apparently disparate musical styles: where wagner's opera is harmonically complex and "refined;' the syncopated cakewalk represents a lowbrow, "wild," and "animalistic" musical idiom. here, debussy frames wagner and the cakewalk as "humorously" incompatible, from disparate worlds incapable of communicating with one another. indeed, this tension also evokes extra-musical associations as a confrontation between golliwog as africanized "primitive" and wagner as the epitomized figure of high western culture. as in "serenade for the doll" and the sonic distinctions it makes between chouchou's favorite doll and her golliwog, the tristan quotations establish a cultural and geographical distance between wagner's european world and golliwog's home, be it black america, europe, or africa. after the fourth and final iteration of the tristan melody, the cakewalk melody resumes control of the piece. at the close of the movement and suite, golliwog returns to the mechanical world of the european cakewalk. in m. 121 (example 6), as the rhythm slows, the dynamics fade, and the melody elizabeth de martelly sinks into the bass clef, golliwog is slowly de-animated and returned to object status. golliwog-once again a toy imitation of a slave-crashes to the ground with a sudden fortissimo. nevertheless, like the conclusion ofida forsyne's "topsy" cakewalk, in which the finale could be doubly interpreted as both her death and resurrection, "golliwog's cakewalk" suggests a similar ambiguity, when the final chord is reiterated a measure after the doll's charm has been broken. 14 it is tempting to read this final chord as a moment in which golliwog symbolically peaks through a musical score that cannot fully contain him, somehow acknowledging the histories that led him to dance the cakewalk in a french composer's musical suite for his daughter. through converging the dance and the doll in "golliwog's cakewalk;' debussy points to their latent origins in slavery and to their french reviv­ als as "african." such repressed histories are made "visible when an object becomes something else, emerges as a "thing" dislocated from the circuits of everyday life or [is] singularized by the doting meditation of lyric or fiction or film" (b. brown 2005:183). in animating this particular golliwog, debussy separates him from a mass of identical objects; the doll relinquishes his status as a commodity and becomes something more particular, more real than chouchou's toy. in "golliwog's cakewalk," debussy converges the repressed origins of two signifiers of african-american slavery and african colonialism, uncanny things "which ought to have remained hid­ den but [have] come to light" (freud 1919:224). like bill brown, i want to understand "golliwog's cakewalk" as the "revenge of the black collectible come-to-life," "as the recollection of the ontological scandal perpetrated by slavery," a history suppressed and resignified by layers of mimesis (brown 2001:197). debussy's musical seance brings the golliwog and the cakewalk into conversation, allowing the past to speak through these seemingly trivial, modern cultural products. conclusion the starting point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is "knowing thyself" as a product of the historical process to date which has deposited in you an infinity of traces without leaving an inventory. (grarnsci 1971:324) the concept of modernism, as traced through african-american and postcolonial history, signals at once an optimistic hope that the present can offer something more, as well as an anxious, paradoxical desire to trace a connection with the past while establishing a present point of departure from it. in tracing the hidden histories of seemingly modern forms, we are 29 30 current musicology always led back in time. embedded in "golliwog's cakewalk" in its context of french modernism is the imagined notion of the exotic, objectified, dancing african native, mediated through a past by means of a post-american -slavery commodity. the story of "golliwog's cakewalk;' with its perpetuation of racist signifiers in the context of a modernized western culture, underlies a "desperate, and probably futile, struggle to imagine modernity otherwise;' perhaps as something more stable, more ethical, or more promising and at a greater distance from the past, even if only through illusion and fantasy (clark 1999:9). frederic jameson theorizes one of the problematics of modernity as the attempt to make sense of a world rapidly expanding by the forces of colonialism and capitalism (jameson 1991). he argues that modernist writers brought the influence of the "exotic" outside world into their own more familiar contexts as a way of metaphorically condensing an increasingly expanding sense of geography. we might relocate jameson's metaphor from geography to chronology, where disparate historical moments are similarly brought into close juxtaposition as a way of dealing with the "shocks" of an accelerating, modernizing world in which commodity exchange with africa became a part of day-to-day european material and cultural life (benjamin 1968). seen through this lens, golliwog and the cakewalk represent a romanticized version of a familiar, though exotic american past brought into a fragmented, rapidly changing turn-of-the-century french colonial present in order to provide a template for the relationship between european citizens and colonial african subjects. here, the american past becomes an imagined, romanticized space in which to forge modern relationships with distant others. but the past is also never just the past, a dead memory to be resurrected as a present fantasy; it is always a history of living people and the things they created. thus, in "golliwog's cakewalk," animation of the inanimate might more broadly signal the animation of an objectified people who were considered to be part of a haunting past with which the people of the modern era so desperately wished to break free, while simultaneously invoking a re-imagined version of that history. in seemingly trivial objects of day-to-day material life, painful, sometimes horrific stories of enslaved and colonized people are congealed, waiting to be brought back to life and to be acknowledged within our imaginations. notes 1. as eric lott argues, minstrelsy offered whites an arena in which to act out fetishized, homoerotic desires for the black body while also negotiating the boundaries of race. 2. subsequent renditions ofgolliwog depicted him as "unkind, mean-spirited, and even more visually hideous" (pilgrim 2000). nevertheless, this initial characterization is equally racist, elizabeth de martelly mirroring minstrel depictions of the dim-witted jolly slave who accepts his fate. 3. as many scholars have noted, minstrelsy was an immensely complex arena whose cultural effects remain a nebulous subject of scholarly debate. nevertheless, minstrelsy's perpetu­ ation after the formal dissolution of slavery served at least in part to re-imagine slavery as more benign (lott 1995; hartman 1997; j. brown 2008). 4. bill brown argues, "the nostalgic embodiment of some fantasmatic past [as performed through minstrelsy 1 compensates for uncertainties about the future place and role of at ric an americans" (2005: 186). minstrelsy's compensatory nostalgia brings to light the unfulfilled promise of modernity for african americans, who remained symbolically enslaved and marginalized long after the formal dissolution of slavery. however, black americans also challenged this type of slavery through acts of resistance (hartman 1997; brooks 2006). 5. although the focus of this study is the constitution of blackness in commodity forms, the ways in which african-american performances of blackness functioned to critique white control over black representation is critical in this process. daphne brooks argues that african-american minstrel performances functioned as a way of undermining the spectacle of blackness, where african americans challenged previously exclusively white depictions of black bodies (brooks 2006). saidiya hartman adds that while on the surface these "small acts of resistance" seemingly differed little from complicity and contented subjection, they diverged radically in terms of how they constituted black subjecthood and agency (hartman 1997:8). 6. during the last quarter of the nineteenth century in what has been called "the scramble for africa," european colonial powers (most notably britain, germany, and france) invaded and annexed africa into territories. however, most european citizens maintained only an indirect relationship with africa, feeding their curiosity about this continent's inhabitants through cultural and material products that circulated transnationally and transcontinentally. this trend of exotic fetishism's broader cultural impact manifests in contemporaneous art and in operas like giuseppe verdi's aida and giacomo puccini's madama butterfly. 7. this notion of value is particularly sticky, controlled as it is by the vague and invisible forces of "supply" (production) and "demand" (consumption). 8. marx notes that commodity fetishism runs contrary to modernity's focus on rational, scientific progress as achieved through industrialization. 9. some scholars also note that the cakewalk seems to owe much to the west african dance tradition (see, for example, krasner 1997). 10. in bodies in dissent, daphne brooks argues that, while on the surface, cakewalking appeared complicit with slavery, embedded in these performances were seeds of resistance (brooks 2006). ii. it is difficult to specify exactly when the cakewalk became part of the minstrel tradi­ tion. in the late i 840s, african american minstrel actor william henry lane toured with the ethiopian serenaders as "master juba" or "boz juba," performing what was perhaps an early version of the cakewalk (for a description of this dance, see dickens 1842). however, the cakewalk as an independent and established dance form did not become a formal part of the minstrel show until the year after a large cakewalk competition was held in celebration of the 1876 philadelphia centennial (baldwin 1981). 12. key to understanding how the cakewalk acquired meanings of wealth and luxury is the notion that african americans ostensibly had newfound access to wealth and social mobility in the post-emancipation era. nevertheless, access to the class mobility that the cakewalk signified was denied to many urban blacks: "physical closeness does not imply the intent to 31 32 current musicology share or the realization of natural egalitarianism," and the illusion of modem urban equality belied the vastly different social and economic classes to which black and white dancers belonged (1. brown 2008:152, 129). jayna brown highlights the paradox of representing modem european white wealth, achieved through industrial and colonial enterprises, with "the creative practices of politically and socially disenfranchised people" from across the atlantic (1. brown 2008: 136). 13. recall that the parisian cakewalk has a similar effect on human bodies, making them appear de-centered and marionette-like. 14. i have come to hear the final chord in m. 128 is golliwog's musical "wink." this wink brings to mind the closing credits of spike lee's 2000 film bamboozled, wherein a col­ lection of tum-of-the-century racist objects are individually animated of their own accord, "frantically dancing or fiddling, bouncing or swinging, ... grinning and smiling, unable to stop" (b. brown 2005:207). in the film, the camera zooms toward the face of the final object, a smiling black musician who rocks from side to side. as the camera nears his face, he seems to wink. this final moment is, for me, by far the film's most haunting, as this object momentarily relinquishes its status as object in order to "bespeak a life of things that is no social life, only the hyperactive persistence of the past" (b. brown 2005:207). references baldwin, brooke. 1981. "the cakewalk: a study in stereotype and reality." journal of social history 15(2): 205-218. baptist, edward e. 200]. "cuffy," "fancy maids," and "one-eyed men": rape, commodification, and the domestic slave trade in the united states. american historical review. accessed august 3],2010. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/ 106.5/ ah0501001619.htmi. baudelaire, charles. [1853 j 1964. "a philosophy of toys." in the painter of modern life and other essays, edited and translated by jonathan mayne. london: phaidon press. benjamin, walter. 1968. "on some motifs in baudelaire:' in illuminations, edited by hannah arendt, 155-200. new york: shocken books. berlin, edward a. "ragtime." grove music online. oxford music online. accessed november 22,2010. blesh, rudi and harriett janis. 1958. they all played ragtime: the true story of an american music. london: sidgwick and jackson. brooks, daphne. 2006. bodies in dissent: spectacular pelformances of race and freedom, 1850 -1910. durham: duke university press. brown, bill. 2005. "reification, reanimation, and the american uncanny." critical inquiry 32: 175-207. brown, jayna. 2008. babylon girls: black women performers and the modern body. durham: duke university press. caddy, davinia. 2007. parisian cakewalks. nineteenth century music 30( 3): 288-317. clark, timothy j. 1999. farewell to an idea: episodes from a history of modernism. new haven: yale university press. cocteau, jean. [1935j 1990. souvenir portraits: paris in the belle epoque, translated by jesse browner, new york: marlowe and company. deaville, james. 2002. "cakewalk in waltz time? african american music injahrhundertwende vienna." in reverberations: representations of modernity, tradition, and cultural value in· between central europe and north america. frankfurt am main: peter lang. elizabeth de martelly debussy, claude. 1908. golliwog's cakewalk. in children's corner. paris: durand & fils. dickens, charles. 1842. american notes. paris: baudry's european library. ellison, ralph. 1952. invisible man. new york: random house, inc. freud, sigmund. 1919. the uncanny, translated by laurel amtower. dan diego state university. accessed august 31, 2010. http://www.rohal1.sdsu.edu/~amtower/uncal1l1y. html gilman, sander. 1982. on blackness without blacks: essays on the image of the black in germany. boston: g. k. hall. gramsci, antonio. 1971. selections from the prison notebooks, translated by q. hoare and g. n. smith. london: lawrence and wishart. hartman, saidiya. 1997. scenes of subjection: terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth century america. oxford: oxford university press. hartmann, arthur. 2003. claude debussy as i knew him and other writings, edited by samuel hsu, sidney grolnic, and mark peters. rochester: university of rochester press. hinson, maurice. 2007. forward to debussy: children's corner for the piano, 2-4. essex, uk: alfred publishing. jameson, frederic. 1991. postmodernism: or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. durham: duke university press. kayser, wolfgang. [1963] 1981. the grotesque in art and literature, translated by ulrich weisstein. new york: columbia university press. kramer, lawrence. 2004. opera and modern culture: wagner and strauss. berkeley: university of california press. krasner, david. 1997. "rewriting the body: aida overton walker and the social formation of cakewalking." in resistance, parody, and double consciousness in african american theater 1895-1910, 75-98. new york: st. martin's press. lockspeiser, edward. [1962] 1978. debussy: his like and mind, vol. 1: 1862 -1902. cambridge: cambridge university press. lott, eric. 1995. love and theft: blackface minstrelsy and the american working class. new york: oxford university press. lotz, rainer e. 1997. black people: entertainers of african descent in europe and germany. bonn: birgit lotz verlag. marx, karl. [1867 j 1906. capital: a critique of political economy, volume 1, edited by frederic engels, translated by samuel moore and edward aveling. now york: random house, inc. morgan, thomas l. and william barlow. 1992. from cakewalks to concert halls: an illustrated history of african american popular music from 1895 to 1930. washington dc: elliott & clark publications. nowakowski, konrad. 2009. the syncopated orchestra in vienna. blaclc music research journal 29(2): 229-282. pakenham, thomas. 1991. the scramble for africa: white man's conquest of the darlc continent from 1876-1912. new york: avon books. paul, diana b. 1995. controlling human heredity: 1865 to the present. atlantic highlands, nj: humanities press international, inc. pilgrim, david. 2000. the golliwog caricature. jim crow museum of racist memorabilia. access august 30, 2010. http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/golliwog. smalls, james. 2003. "'race'as spectacle in late-nineteenth century french art and popular culture." french historical studies 26(2): 351-382. 33 34 current musicology stowe, harriet beecher. 1852. uncle tom's cabin: or, life among the lowly. boston: john p. hewett & co. tuhkanen, mikko. 2001. "of blackface and paranoid knowledge: richard wright, jacques lacan, and the ambivalence of black minstrels." diacritics 31 (2): 9-34. upton, florence kate and bertha upton. 1895. the adventures of two dutch dolls and a "golliwogg." london: longmans green & co. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 319 a timely musical discourse, or a music treatise from lost times, part i alexander bonus eschewing some serious scholarly reservations, i wish to present a significant portion of a heretofore unknown treatise that concerns the nature of musical time. it takes the form of a dialogue between two musicians, a teacher and his student. the characters might represent actual musicians, or perhaps they personify two entirely contrasting musical cultures. in all likelihood, they are both fictional. yet if we take their discussion as an allegorical representation of a fundamental rift in the understanding of musical time, then the characters seem to function as every–musicians, who offer a variety of arguments in support of fundamentally oppositional stances. their wandering discussion, as is typical of the socratic style, nevertheless revolves around a central thesis. what quickly comes to the fore is the teacher’s assertion that objectivist ideals regarding temporality fail to reflect complex performance practices from past western traditions. i regret to admit that the full origins of this treatise confound the present scholar, which is one reason why i cannot reveal the entirety of the document at the present juncture. the date and location of its creation, along with issues of provenance, are inconclusive. yet the theories juxtaposed within the work suggest that it may have been drafted either many centuries ago, or as recently at the previous fortnight. it is an amalgamation of historical thoughts—a pastiche—one not entirely balanced or comprehensive, which splices theories from many different places and eras. if we consider the text to be “authored” and not simply compiled, then the author might have conceived the work over many years of obsessive study, or perhaps it simply sprung to him, athena–like, from a very bad headache into reality. again, since we can only speculate upon the work’s originating circumstances, it is best not to mythologize such mysteries. although the treatise’s origins remain obscured, i took pains to fully annotate this work with all of the appropriate references to passages that are either paraphrased or restated outright from other historical texts. i added quotation marks to those passages repeated verbatim or near–verbatim from past documents. it is my sincere hope that any concerns over the treatise’s provenance will be overlooked once readers consider the valid arguments and neglected evidence on which the work is founded. indeed, despite any perceived failings, this treatise does much to reintroduce some historical theories and practices that are seldom addressed by today’s very modern, yet anachronistically named “classical music” culture. vale, fruere, et indulge. *** current musicology 320 master alejandro: good doctor, i wish to know the nature of musical time, specifically how i should exactly determine all kinds of tempo intended by composers both alive and departed. doctor bueno: such a simple question, and yet so complicated an answer. i know you to be a faithful student, and your intention is an honest and sincere one. but by the terms of your question, i can tell your mind is riddled with preconceptions that color your view not only of musical time, but of musicality itself. anyone truly committed to understanding musical temporality must tackle such false premises, and challenge a mind filled with mere opinions now taken to be immutable truths. are you willing to cast out those unquestioned falsities about time and tempo that you now hold in high esteem? ma: i think so, good doctor, yet i cannot promise that i will quickly accept notions the likes of which i have never heard before. how can i promise not to fight ideas that have yet to invade my mind? what prejudices are barricaded within my head that have so easily betrayed my noble desire for understanding? db: your uncertainty is understandable, since it is difficult to dismiss an education that your educators have always claimed to be absolutely true. but often we must challenge truths merely told to us, truths that we have not earned but have nevertheless paid dearly for. i have noticed your progress, and you are now at the age to unlearn the elementary times of music; they are childish notions that ground your most basic musical beliefs. to prove this false grounding, please tell me, what is the definition of time in music and how do we obtain it? ma: i readily know the answer, for “time in music, is expressed by steady, even counts, or beats . . . we reckon time by the clock in seconds and minutes, and the metronome ticks in exactly the same way as the clock . . . each tick of the clock means one second—each beat of the metronome means one quarter.”1 db: you see! such a rapid response, and so off the true mark! certainly you must recognize, even without a lesson, that there is not one time, but many in our lives. certain times can be told by clocks and metronomes, others cannot. the clock may tell you the time for supper, but only your belly can tell you it’s time to eat. alexander bonus 321 we often mistake one time for another, especially since the machine age. only “modern life is run on a timetable. the stop watch is perhaps the most typical modern invention, because it symbolizes the infinite subdivision of time that has come in since the industrial revolution . . . really precise time telling has not been needed in the world until within a few years . . . it would be hard to run the twentieth century on a sun dial.”2 so tell me, would you also measure music to a gnomon? ma: in all honesty, i don’t know how to tell the time of day by shadows at all. and i don’t see how a sundial could explain the musical beat when i can’t even judge what minute it is with that reference. db: but you too easily assume that a clock has always told the musical beat! a clock is a machine just as conceptually distant from historical tempo as the sundial. but today we believe in the clock and the specific time it tells. and through our education we have come to think and act in terms of the clock and its beat—in daily life and by extension in music performance. time is in many ways a secular religion; yet it is a religion that offers its believers no conscious initiation, no clear rite of passage ritual, and no explicit tenets. we are born into our culture’s “time,” unconsciously and unquestioningly accepting of it. time–belief demands no conversion; to those living within its constructs, “time” is a worldview with little competition.3 modern culture has moved away from the sundial; we no longer read it, thus we no longer believe in its time. we believe in a clock time divorced from the sun—accompanied by the artificial time zones and daylight saving time our clocks validate. western culture’s faith in musical tempo was once placed elsewhere, away from our clocks, metronomes, and the beats–per–minutes they tell. you see, before society’s faith rested in clocks, the time or tempo in music was once “rather loosely defined as the speed of the music, but it ought rather to be regarded as the speed of the rhythm.”4 for once it was always true that “the rhythm decided the time [tempo], and not the time which prescribed the rhythm.”5 indeed, for centuries “time in music was concerned, either with respect to the general movement of an air, and in this sense it was said to be swift or slow: or it was considered with respect to the aliquot parts of every bar; these parts are marked by motions of the hand or foot, and in a current musicology 322 particular sense are called times . . . now, to render this equality sensible, every bar was struck, and every time distinguished,” not by a metronome click, but “by a motion of the hand or foot. by these motions the different values of notes were exactly regulated,” again, not by invariable clockwork, but “according to the genius and character of the bar.”6 time was rhythm, and rhythm was interpreted through physical motion and inner sensation. no clocks, metronomes, or sundials needed. ma: but i was taught by eminent scholars and musicians that tempo is judged by the basic pulse beat, as reflected in the metronome. this makes all the more sense given that “ours is a mathematically counting notation [and] the quarter note [is] our motor unit.”7 your reference to tempo is something much less . . . absolute. how can such whimsical actions create the right tempo when compared to the certainty of math and machines? db: these anti–mechanistic ideas, neglected by many in our present age, are vitally important to your inquiry. the meaning of tempo is but the beginning. tell me, young music master, why again do you seek to know, in your words, the nature of musical time? ma: the reasons are many, good teacher. in order to perform the true, exact tempos of composers, for each and every one of their compositions, so that i may perform their music as these composers intended. this understanding will allow me to perform with authenticity and accuracy and become a faithful servant to the music, which is the duty of all good musicians. db: it is just as i thought. beyond the simplistic and simplifying notion of “tempo,” you presume much about the role of performers and the intentions of composers—as with many trained in your time, you search for the fool’s gold of exact tempos for exacting purposes, while ignoring the non–mechanical answers that appear all around you! ma: if i were a more confident musician, and a less respectful pupil, i would be offended by your remarks. how is the desire for exact tempos like fool’s gold? alexander bonus 323 db: your search for exactitude and precision merely reflects the tools presently available to you. the more precise you want to be, the more you seek out machines that redefine, with ever more exacting standards, the rules of time. temporal precision is thus an endless, all–consuming goal; you never find its end, because machines can always be more precise: it begins with a beat per hour, then per minute, per second, per millisecond. first a simple pendulum, then a clockwork metronome, a quartz beat box, a digitized click track. and all the while, as you search for a never–to–be–found answer, you yourself will keep changing to meet the standards imposed upon you by the latest, most–precise machine at your disposal. thereafter you begin to lose sense of the real truth: the past music and musicians you so cherish cared not for these machines, or the precision beat you wish to mimic. where past music is concerned, there are more vital times to be sought. ma: i fear there is much, good doctor, that you will need to repeat, for at the moment, you offer me the riddle of the sphinx—i suspect you will next tell me meter can hardly compare “to anything simpler than the movements which are natural to us” such as “each step taken in walking. [as] we can walk faster or slower, the meter may be faster or slower.”8 or perhaps that “due to a person’s melancholy temperament there would be no harm for him to play a piece moderately fast, but still well; while a more volatile person played the same work with greater liveliness.”9 i cannot understand how this whimsy could stand. and even if i accept that exactitude is fool’s gold of time, surely, composers wanted their music played exactly! db: composers, the ones i have spent my life with, want their music played well, and to good effect. a metronomically exact tempo that sacrifices everything in its wake leaves little to be admired. “that the composer should say to the player that here and here, and thus and thus shall he make these expressive alterations of speed, is impossible. rarely does he attempt to do so. here and there he will write ritardando or accelerando, but precisely how much slower or faster, or exactly at what instant these changes begin, cannot be indicated. in the wide spaces of the piece, however, no directions are given.”10 current musicology 324 ma: it is true that for historical music, the page looks rather bare. does this mean that we as performers ought to imagine what is not there? that seems to go against the composer’s specified wishes. db: not against the composer’s wishes, but rather in keeping with the composer’s unspoken traditions. you see, “the composer implicitly says to the player: in the matter of tempo i put myself in your hands, your musicianship is the arbiter; if my music sounds dull and monotonous you must take a part or the whole of the blame, if otherwise a goodly share of the honor shall be yours.”11 besides composers well knew that “time signatures indicate the movement of pieces only very imperfectly” and while musicians “all use the same terminology, they do not all understand tempo words in the same way.”12 ma: but we certainly do understand tempo words and time signatures with aid of a metronome! after all, it is the surest way to “indicate the precise degree of speed or movement, or, in other words, the exact time in which any musical composition is meant to be performed.”13 metronome numbers are placed “at the head of a composition for exactly indicating its tempo.”14 db: although the very notion of tempo is not stable across centuries, your belief in a metronomic truth to tempo steadily clicks on! perhaps your former teachers failed to mention that a metronome “reduces to mere mechanics what formerly rested wholly on the performer’s feeling.”15 and that in the end “tempo is an individual matter; it must be felt, or it will not convince. i, personally, would ten times rather listen to a wrong tempo with a conviction [in] back of it, however erroneous it might be, than to a right tempo dictated by a machine or, for that matter, by any influence extraneous to the player’s mind.”16 ma: but “the invention of the metronome marked an important step in the evolution of musical notation.” surely musical tempo always equates to the metronome’s beats–per–minute whether the machine is there or not? a metronome, after all, “is valuable as an expression of the composer’s exact intentions regarding the rate at which his works should be performed.”17 alexander bonus 325 it is “an important element not only in determining the tempo that a certain composition shall be played at, but in aiding the student in technical exercises to maintain a precision of rhythm in any tempo from largo to presto.”18 db: how certain you are, reciting the lessons most recently read, as if no meaningful times could exist prior to your beloved technology. so many forgotten musicians once considered “maelzel’s scale to be needlessly and arbitrarily complicated. the value of the machine is exaggerated, for no living performer could execute a piece in unvaried time throughout, and no student could practice under the tyranny of its beat.” it was divorced from true musical practices and composer intentions, because “conductors of music, nay, composers themselves, will give the same piece slightly slower or quicker on different occasions, according to the circumstances of performance.” 19 indeed, “the musical world once knew that marking time by a metronome is but a slight guide for performers and conductors. its object was to show the general time of a movement, particularly at its commencement; but it was not to be followed strictly throughout.”20 ma: i cannot believe such a different musical world once existed, with such different views towards the metronome! when did this world exist, during the rule of the pharaohs? db: your question should not be “when,” but in what kind of world was this truth known? you must realize that all claims about absolute rules and unchanging practices in time and tempo, reiterated ad nauseam by conventional educators, only champion anachronisms in historical cultures and compositions. the non–sequitur is evident: composers’ “exact intentions” cannot include the repeating sound of a machine that did not exist at the time they composed their works. these exact intentions you seek are not those of past composers—but of a contemporary culture that relies too heavily on the time of “soulless clockwork.”21 many presently mistake their own reliance on machines for a deceased composer’s exact intention. these presumptions are reiterated by user manuals, publishers and promoters of technology, not the originators of music itself. besides, current musicology 326 “how any musician could ever play with a metronome, passes my humble understanding. it is not only an inartistic, but a downright antiartistic instrument . . . it is easily seen that the impulse leading to the invention did not come from an artistic temperament.”22 ma: but good doctor, metronomes have existed since beethoven’s time, and much has been made about the accuracy of his machine. “opponents of the metronome will even go so far as to make the unbelievably nonsensical assertion that our modern metronome differs considerably from beethoven’s. (my answer: that could be true only if the speed of the earth’s rotation had changed in the meantime.)”23 db: it is true that the basis of the metronome is found in clocktime, which as a counting system has existed since the babylonians. and “in principle, the metronome is, mathematically and astronomically, as correct as any good clock is supposed to be. the unit being always a minute. a minute being the 60th part of an hour. an hour, the 24th part of a day. a day, the 365th part of a year. and a year, the time it takes the earth to go around the sun. in practice, however, a metronome is seldom as correct as a good clock.” nevertheless, that level of accuracy is simply not necessary.24 and why should it be otherwise? where does an astronomer’s clock, used to chart every small shift of the sun and the moon, the earth and the heavens, find time in your orchestral suite? nowhere! not even in holst! despite the fact that “there is a great difference between one metronome and another,”25 musical tempo cannot be found in metronome, however accurate it appears to be. to respond to your assertion, it is not the metronome that has changed so drastically, but musical culture’s relationship to it! a society can change its views about the importance of clock time with stronger revolutionary force than planets can spin. ma: but beethoven . . . wasn’t he one of the first composers to welcome maelzel’s metronome? db: and one of the first to denounce it, too! ah yes, our mercurial and petulant beethoven! he supposedly provides the only paradigm for us all; he alone bolsters the “tempo sticklers and metronomes alexander bonus 327 believers,”26 who wish to apply their mechanical methods to our own musical age. but in beethoven’s own century, so many famed composers—greater than you or i—repeated his final words on the matter: “no metronome at all!” besides, “the metronome marks in beethoven’s works are not always of his own putting.”27 what concerns most people are the original marks suggested for his last symphony, provided in a letter to moscheles, well after the composition was fully completed without aid of a metronome. “these marks had been sent by beethoven—eight days before his death—to the philharmonic society of london in his great anxiety to lessen the difficulties of studying and performing his gigantic work.”28 few realize that the zealous attention paid to these trifles have done great injustice to beethoven’s rhythmic intentions. “at the present time the true conception of free interpretation is utterly lost,” thanks in part to these metronomic sticklers.29 despite the slight metronomic indications handed down to us through the moneyed hands of publishers, all we definitively know is this: “for godlike as are the revelations of his soul, it was human blood that ran through the veins of [beethoven’s] body,”30 not metronome numbers. ma: but i read allegro, andante, etc.—are these simply the work of publishers too? aren’t these words the tempo decisions of composers, and even beethoven himself? db: to quote beethoven, “andantino is sometimes . . . very nearly an allegro; on the other hand, it is often to be played adagio.”31 words afford a clue to the spirit of a composition, but they can never dictate a precise mechanical constant. many during beethoven’s century realized “approximative directions of the composer are more appropriate for music’s true nature than metronomic exactitude,”32 and “however valuable the instrument [i.e., metronome] may be to the composer, for a safe placing of the tempo desired by him, an absolute determination of the tempo is not in accordance with the spirit of art.”33 “i am of the opinion that metronome marks go for nothing. as far as i know, all [nineteenth–century] composers retracted their metronome marks in later years.”34 in the end, “those who have a right feeling do not need it, and those who have not, will not be helped by it.”35 current musicology 328 ma: but words and metronome numbers often exist on the same page, giving mechanical constants to the sensation of movement. i have wondered how terms could both denote a living spirit and the numbers of clock beats. the two are as different as a bird and a fish.36 did beethoven intend for us to follow the metronome and our performer’s spirit at the same time? db: my good student, “if we consider the matter impartially and candidly, we shall acknowledge that, continuous uniformity of any motion is quite as unnatural in music as in every other department of human activity.”37 “the tempo is determined not only by the thought out of which a work of art has sprung, and by the manifold contents thereof, but also by the temporary mood of the performer; the amount of vibrating material (whether an orchestra is abundant or limited in numbers), the breadth of the room in which the tone waves are to be developed, require consideration. this probably explains (at least in part) the unanimous declaration of czerny, madame von ertmann, and others [that even our] beethoven played his compositions differently every time.”38 it’s a shame so many blindly follow the clicks of machines, and the numerical indications of ignorant publishers, those “professional metronomers,” who are more concerned with sales than true artistic expression. “to hear beethoven’s op. 27 according to the metronomic signs affixed to them leads one to wish that all pianoforte metronomers were put under the ban.”39 ma: so absolute tempo goes against the very meaning of musical movement? db: in regards to music’s motion, the metronome and its chart shows much that is in error and leaves even more out. the original purpose for the machine was to show the variability, the non–normative nature, of tempo words. throughout any given piece, every “allegro” results in a different tempo when we consider the specifics of the meter, melody, and harmony. individual difference was the temps du jour. indeed, “in order to know rightly the true meaning of the time signatures in regard to tempo, it would be necessary for all musicians to gather together and in a general concert by means of a demonstration addressed to the eyes, or rather the ears of all, to come to an agreement as to what is meant by the tempo of the major time signature, the minor time signature, and the others.”40 ma: would any group of musicians agree to such a convention on musical time, i mean, without their metronomes? alexander bonus 329 db: well, ideally, “after that meeting there would be no more ambiguity, at least not for those who had been present at the assembly, and for them the time signatures would be sure indications of the tempo of pieces. but this so useful concert being impossible to do, their meaning will always remain confused.” 41 ultimately, the vagaries of words and time signatures require individual interpretation—a fact which we should realistically welcome, since personal choice shouldn’t be considered a musical problem. such eclectic understandings of tempo words continued well through the age of maelzel’s metronome. look at this chart i made from the recent publications of novello.42 it shows that there was never an accepted, absolute range to allegro, or andante, or adagio. we too easily forget how meter greatly informed the many movements of music. and by neglecting metrical sensation as the primary element of rhythm, modern musicians have unwittingly validated the supreme lie of the metronomic chart. see here: 43 ma: what unexpected variations of tempi! some adagios are faster than allegros. and most andantes fall alongside adagios and allegros. this is nothing like my metronome chart at all! db: yes, my student, since “we recall to our minds that such terms as adagio, allegro, etc., are not designations of speed but, primarily, of mood.” such number–ranges provide very poor substitutes for the more vital movements of music. these living interpretations cannot be penned up so easily in numerical cages. “then, the metronome has been ‘found out’ as an artistic impossibility.”44 see here an earlier study, where the words have no standard metronomic relationship to the actual pulse: 45 current musicology 330 ma: even using identical time signatures and tempo words, so many composers conceived such wildly different tempi! there seems to be no exact rule to musical time at all. even beethoven is at odds with himself when it comes to pinning down an ideal presto beat, marking a range between 152 and 224! db: would you expect any less from the temperamental master? there were no precise rules to tempo words because clockwork values never held the exact answers to time. beethoven’s true movements were founded upon volatile, elastic tempi46 that stretched across an entire piece. even when beethoven performed, which he never did with aid of a ticking metronome, “he followed entirely the inner impetus—the demand of the thing—when he resorted to free movement.”47 the reasons are obvious: any metronome number “can refer to the first measures only, for sentiment has also its peculiar rhythm; but this cannot be entirely expressed in an initial grade.”48 alexander bonus 331 the metronomes failings are too many for us to count, even with the machine clicking away. for instance, do you find other tempo designations beyond the four basic winds49 and their side gusts of presto and larghetto? ma: are there other general tempos? looking at the machine, i had no idea. db: certainly you have seen them in music publications: tempo di menuetto, tempo di valse, di marcia, di bravura. they are all known tempi—times of music—functioning outside of the clockwork realm. these qualities of musical time hold no specific quantity. “such indications can be found only in the feelings of the performer, or of the director; if they exist not in one of the two, the metronome is unable to supply the want; all that this can do is, mechanically to prevent any gross mistakes. as to an attempt to denote all the delicate shades of feeling, and the consequent modifications necessary to give full effect to a performance, i have found every endeavor to supply metronome values fruitless, and have desisted from the task as hopeless.”50 to prove how impotent the metronome is in relating temporal qualities of music, please tell me the rate for a tempo di affettuoso? ma: an affectionate time? given my metronome chart, i don’t know for certain. db: then perhaps you are experiencing the tempo di imbroglio now!51 such a shame that particular time is forgotten by so many. haydn’s music would beat afresh if it were rediscovered. and what about the multitude of french designations: tendrement, vite, and the like? the term mouvement itself opposes the very notion of clockwork. “i find that we confuse time, which is meter, with what is called cadence or movement. meter defines the quantity and relative equality of beats in a measure; cadence is properly the spirit, the soul that must be added to it.”52 the metronome tells nothing about meter, cadence, or movement! indeed, how would you fix the beat of rameau’s “la boiteuse” or “les niais de sologne” to the clock minute?53 ma: i am at a loss . . . current musicology 332 db: no, it is your modern–day metronome which should be lost! it only sounds a tempo di machina.54 drop it, and you will assuredly find your way. why do you need a lifeless tool to define your own feelings, your own sense of beat? my pupil, “in truth music is little concerned with the mathematically exact division of quarters. her object is to excite and to manifest the emotions of the heart and of the soul.”55 “therefore the only good chronometer that it is possible to have, is an expert musician, who has a fine taste; who has well considered the music he is to execute, and knows how to beat the time. machine for machine, it is best to keep to this.”56 ma: so historical tempo words at best suggest emotional qualities or physical motions, which by their very nature are variable? db: yes but in practice, “the true mouvement of a musical work . . . is beyond words. it is the ultimate perfection of music, accessible only through eminent experience and talent.”57 for example, modern “conductors so frequently fail to find the true tempo because they are ignorant of singing,”58 and dancing for that matter. from numerous accounts we find that “every singer imparts, though unconsciously, the coloring of his own individual character to the dramatic character which he sustains. thus two singers will give the same composition in a manner widely different and yet both may do justice to the composer, inasmuch as both mark the gradations of passions in his composition, faithfully and expressively, according to the nature and degree of power possessed by each.”59 [the two characters go on to discuss the history and merits of the simple pendulum in performance practices. it is a section sizable enough to form a separate chapter. this editorial truncation does not detract from the remainder of the published excerpt.] db: again your need to find a mechanical answer to historical music represents a thankless quest for less–than illuminating knowledge. “a musician, who is master of his art, has not played four measures of an air before he seized its character, and gives himself up to it: it is the pleasure of the harmony that alone directs him. here he endeavors after strong accords, and there he passes them slightly over; that is to say, he sings or plays more or less slow from one measure to another.”60 i wonder, given all of your pendulum evidence, have you ever used one? alexander bonus 333 ma: well, no . . . i use my metronome. db: just as the sundial is not a modern clock, the simple pendulum isn’t a modern metronome! you can see and hear that fact for yourself. the pendulum stops, the metronome does not. the pendulum swings, the metronome (your modern one) does not. the pendulum is silent, your metronome—well, the only thing it does is click away until you decide to stop it. the pendulum must be viewed for reference—it is your choice to look upon it. the metronome’s sound is ever–present regardless of your natural desire for varied movement. it promotes the “incessant now,” not the sentimental motion of music. if you so believe in the simple pendulum, then by all means use it! try the plumb–bob just once. you will find that the pendulum is no metronome. yet it is just as ineffective, “because musicians change the pulse many times, either binary or ternary, in performing a single piece of music, and by hurrying or holding back the lowering and raising of the hand according to the character and the words, or the different passions of the text which they treat, it is difficult to apply any certain rule if they do not use as many different pendulum strings as they wish to have different pulses.”61 ma: given that pendulums and metronomes are insufficient time indicators, do you suggest that the most useful and convenient guide for tempo, because of the ease with which it is obtained (since everyone always has it upon himself), is one’s own hand, which can dictate a healthy pulse? of course this practice supposes the musician is healthy himself.62 db: yes, even when one wishes to keep to the tempo giusto throughout an entire piece,63 “it is a surprising phenomenon to observe with how much precision, by the assistance of a little habit and practice, initiates may be brought to follow and distinguish the times, with an equality so perfect, that no pendulum can vibrate more justly than the hand or foot of a good musician, and that even the internal perception of this equality is sufficient to conduct them and to answer with accuracy every purpose of sensible motion.”64 pendulums and clockwork are needlessly precise where human motion is present. ma: why is there so much conflict between these two ways of understanding musical time? the tempo tools are everywhere—how can they be doing us such disservice? current musicology 334 db: the answer is simple: “to be emotional in musical interpretation, yet obedient to the initial tempo and true to the metronome, means about as much as being sentimental in engineering. mechanical execution and emotion are incompatible.”65 “i myself have never believed that my blood and a mechanical instrument go very well together.”66 unfortunately, “there are many persons who mistakenly think that the intention of the metronome is to have its unvarying beat followed throughout an entire piece, denying all freedom to the play of feeling.”67 “we, [should] understand [that what is meant] by ‘strictness in tempo’ [is] only the strictness of a steady musician, and not an invariable and absolute coincidence with the strokes of a metronome.”68 ma: the feeling you are alluding seems exceedingly imprecise and subjective. how can such a feeling be relevant when considering the abundance of metronome numbers telling us the exact tempo? db: in your vain search for composer’s definitive metronomic intention, you’ve missed the most vital intention of all, one that does not appear on the page. this intention was understood by all eminent musicians before the machine age, but only slightly referenced by the notes themselves: the sensation for musical meter. for you see, “rhythmic verve is a more important factor in determining this spirit. therefore, a vital performance does not necessitate the pushing of the speed to the metronome requirements.”69 the feeling of rhythmic pulse rests at the heart of tempo, since it defines meter. by nature it is subjective, just as is your sense of smell or taste. once the observation went unquestioned that “singers and instrumentalists observed the pulse instinctively, especially in connection with tunes to which we are accustomed to dance and sway.”70 so despite the metronomes clicking away in every practice room today, “please, understand that if you wish to play ‘music’ you must attend to this accent—the ictus metricus, so to speak. the bars are simply used as guides. a real musician could play without bars at all,”71 or any metronome clicks, to achieve the sensible time of music. ma: you speak of an intended accent? one not found on the page? db: yes. it is this lingering pulse–sense that defines the meter. “upon these accents the spirit of music depends, because without them there can be no expression. without them, there is no more melody alexander bonus 335 in song than in the humming of a bee.”72 so, it is true, this feeling is comparatively imprecise, especially if you think clocks tell the time of all things. nevertheless sensation is a more significant reference for the artistic performer. ma: but if rhythmic feeling was once standard practice as you claim, where then is this imaginary sensation, the ictus metricus of which you speak? db: many revered musicians and theorists—and the composers you so faithfully desire to please with the use of your modern metronome—have shown how and where this sensation exists (or where it ought to) in the course of music performance. just because something is invisible, doesn’t mean it is imaginary. look here at a depiction by my friend mattheson, showing the varied time—the accent–sense—of a typical minuet:73 [in the manuscript, a discussion now ensues about certain lessons for cultivating the sense of meter alluded to above. i omit this section presently, yet it will appear in its entirety elsewhere, pending the necessary rigors of peer review.] ma: these are intriguing examples in support of a link between poetic rhythm and music movement. extending this line of reasoning, some have spoken of music as rhetoric, although i confess not to know the full extent of this connection. db: it is truer, and far more fitting to link music to rhetorics than to mechanics. “although a poet writes his monologue or dialogue in a regular, progressive rhythm, the reciter must, none the less, observe certain divisions and pauses in order to bring out the sense, even where the poet could not indicate them by punctuation; and this style of declamation is equally applicable to music, and is modified only by the number of participants in the execution of the given work.”74 it would do us all well to regain and relate this knowledge. for at the present we speak of phrases and periods in music, forming expositions, developments, recapitulations and the like, yet we learn current musicology 336 to parce these elements out at a machine’s pace. our concert halls are filled with such mechanical orations. ma: these lessons are all very revealing, yet so opposed to my early studies. but i still cannot accept the basic premise, since you say nothing of synchronization? how can such practices arrive at anything but temporal chaos? db: what of synchonization indeed! if our art is so closely allied to speech, what place does the technique of clock makers, navigators, and battlefield soldiers have in music performance? why do you presume that music which is not synchronized—a state of clockwork and not oratory—must end in chaos? it is true, you might not calucate longitude correctly or storm the beaches precisely when your captain shouts the command midway through a sonata, but in the course of music performance a myraid of events occur, which do not require, and cannot accept, reference to exacting mechanical regulation. ma: from your lessons, it sounds as if the culture of clocks has had very little to do with musical tempo at all. db: you are keeping apace! words and numbers at the start of “the movement ought not to be a tyrannical check—a driving mill–hammer, but must be to the composition, what pulsations is in the animal economy. there is no slow movement in which passages demanding acceleration do not occur. on the other hand, there is no quick movement but what requires, in many passages, moderate retardation. these changes, in particular cases, are absolutely necessary to expression.”75 these one–time truths defy that inflexible usurper, the metronomic click. therefore, “let no orchestra attempt to play very fast, which is obliged to be merely mechanical in its playing . . . no strict time– keeping by maelzel’s metronome can possibly produce a piece of music as it existed in the composer’s mind, or fail to sacrifice its life and glow and meaning; and consequently that swift rail–road speed, which does not yield to all the varying impulsations of a controlling feeling, will express as little as a rapid locomotive with a long train of dirt cars after it.”76 and any conductor who believes it is his duty to “beat off the measures like a metronome, will, with the orchestra following his lead, only play like an assembly of artisans.”77 clock time is for workers, the expressive tempo is for artists alone. alexander bonus 337 ma: but when many musicians sing and play a single work, they must be together. and when you add dancers to the crowded mix, how is it all possible without the guidance of the clock and the precision it engenders? db: prior to messieurs jacques,78 people could perform together on a stage with out being synchronized to the chimes of a clock tower. once more stated, the togetherness you assume is of a different order. why, when i lead the orchestra for the ballet, “it is well known that most dancers understand little or nothing of music, and frequently do not know the tempo themselves; for the most part they regulate themselves only by the mood at the moment, or by their ability. experience also teaches that dancers rarely require as lively a tempo at rehearsals that take place in the morning before eating.” so the most sure–footed technique for playing with the dancers is to attend to the movements of their feet.79 thus, we perform exceedingly well together, with an ebb and flow like the tides; and just as the sea, we never once moved to a metronome’s rule. musicians and dancers performed together “in concert”80 before they ever played in synchronicity. ma: but why is there such little written evidence for this practice? db: because expression is an expected behavior of living people, musicians included. expression requires no published “evidence.” do you need the permissible notation to cry in tragedy, laugh in comedy, or swoon in romance? there is no metronome for your expressive spirit—that bit of evidence is what’s truly non–existent, thank the heavens! for despite the limited intentions found on the page, “when we come to be masters, so that we can command all manner of time at our own pleasures; we then take liberty (and very often, for humour, and good adornment’s sake in certain places) to break time, some times faster, and sometimes slower, as we perceive the nature of the thing requires, which often adds much grace and luster to the performance.”81 ma: it seems so few musicians understand this fact, or if they do, they ignore it entirely. current musicology 338 db: yes, i too have heard the willful expression of musical time to be wanting, replaced by something of “mathematical regularity” and “freezing stiffness” that projects “so flat a uniformity.”82 “a very impersonal, reserved, and stone–like form.”83 perhaps one reason is because “today there is no music showing any trace of the power of the historical [time] that has remained totally unaffected by the decline of [individual] experience . . . the dying out of subjective time in music seems totally unavoidable in the midst of a humanity which has made itself into a thing—into an object of its own organization.”84 ma: or perhaps it is music notation that needs to change, to assure performers that at each moment they may choose what the tempo ought to be, and how it ought to fluctuate? db: although modern–music notation frequently marks changes to metronomic tempi, the specifics of rhythmical expression and musical nuance will forever remain limited. historical notation poses a greater challenge, since it seldom accounts for tempo flexibility, which “is older than the romantic school, it is older than mozart, it is older than bach. girolamo frescobaldi, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, made ample use of it.”85 please recognize that “the so–called ‘elastic’ tempo is not a new invention, con discrezioné should be added to [the page] as to many other things.”86 this reminder just might settle the matter—the living performer is vastly more essential to historical musical time than can be shown in notation, the clockwork click, or a pendulum swing. ma: you talk as if time is but an opinion, a choice, and nothing more. the implication being that if and when a culture agrees upon a single opinion about time, then it becomes a truth. db: yes, and as the new truth catches on rapidamento, many cannot recognize the shifting trends in musical time. so “after a century of trained orchestral performers, and of the present system of training, we find ‘musicians’ who are solely sensitive to size. their ability to count, their metronomic ability, has engulfed them, and they have become insensitive to shape.”87 ma: it does seem to me that in light of these past practices, our treatment of musical time is far more mechanically and even scientifically oriented. perhaps one day we will find that “the mind, even the musician’s mind, is conditioned by contemporary things, our minimum, in a time when alexander bonus 339 the old atom is ‘bombarded’ by electricity, when chemical atoms and elements are more strictly considered, is no longer the minimum of sixteenth century pre–chemists.” both machine age composers and executants have acquired—perhaps only half consciously—a new precision.88 db: you are now contemplating the real truth of musical time, good student. for despite the myth of the objective tempo—a false machine–rhythm that both counters and refashions the qualities of human movement and pulse–sensation—all time requires human agency above and beyond a composer’s mere notational intention. “the good effect of music depends almost as much upon the player as the composer. the best composition can be spoiled by a bad rendering, and a mediocre composition is improved by good expression.”89 and yet due to the modern precision training in music, “it can almost be said that the ideal unconsciously animating the best musicians of to–day is the expression of positive, decided feeling in a very impersonal, reserved, and stone–like form.”90 ma: precision music training? db: yes, you too have received it. this is how a new tempo–faith begins. as the first successful purveyor of the clockwork metronome believed, “there are stupid and lazy people who must be fed the truth with a cooking ladle, and who do not want to take any, not even the least trouble to learn something” new, modern, and scientific:91 an efficient musical training based on gears and springs. eventually, under threat of starvation, students open their mouths to accept the only meal presented to them. ma: you suggest many are force–fed a mechanized form of musical time against their will? db: we are seldom given another option, so choice has nothing to do with the matter. the question now is, with our metronomes so close to our mouths, “have we no time or taste for anything but hurry up music, because we travel by express train and do business by wire? must we also have our music ground out, machine–like, on high–speed gearing and served against time, like current musicology 340 hash at a depot lunch counter? what wonder that our people have musical indigestion!”92 with so many convinced that a clock offers the only true tempo reference, can anyone return to our mother’s milk—a source “more convenient because of the ease with which it is obtained, given that everyone always has it upon himself. it is the pulse beat at the hand of a healthy person.”93 ma: your lessons are beginning to click with me more strongly than my old ideas of tempo. as you implied, my initial desire to know the exact tempo of historical music cannot be answered because that which is exacting to our modern standards is not within the ideals of past musical movement. and despite the limited tempo information transmitted by composers themselves, “all ultimately depends upon the performer’s own animus, and the degree in which the work identifies itself with his feelings; for from his own inspired conception alone can it be rendered with animation and effect; while, if performed according to mere abstract and mechanical rules, it remains inanimate and unanimating.”94 db: undoubtedly it can be said that “no piece, except a march or a dance, would have any real life and expression, or light and shade, if the solo performer, or the orchestra under its conductor, were strictly to adhere to one and the same tempo, without regard to the many marks which command its variations . . . the player or conductor, who enters into the time and spirit of the piece must feel when and where he has to introduce the necessary changes: and these are often of so delicate a nature, that the marks of the metronome would become superabundant, not to say impossible.”95 if there is any law to historical musical time it is in this: “rhythm is the expression of the will and pleasure of him who formed it.”96 ma: a law once so essential, and yet so little taught today. how different is this education we receive, full of time–rules considered absolute and incorruptible for music past and present. the metronome’s rhythm as king that forever was and forever shall be! db: you have come to recognize the absurdity of it all. the metronome is a temporal king with no rightful claims to rule over the compositions you so cherish. the machine is a pretender in the realm of historical musical time. past composers’ intentions were never instilled with the standards of your modern day tempo tools or technologically alexander bonus 341 dependent training. nor was a skilled performer’s sense of movement cultivated through such rigorously artificial means. a willful elasticity was afforded to musical meter through one’s innate sense of pulse and accent. and this sensation could never find constancy upon fixed clockwork rhythm. my good student, although your heart was in the right place, and remains there still to guide your way, your initial question will forever remain unanswered by these lost musical times. the precise answer has always been thus: tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. [here ends part i of a music treatise from lost times] notes 1. see mary ann torrey kotzschmar, half–hour lessons in music (boston: oliver ditson co., 1907), 13–14. 2. from “time and clocks,” new york times, june 27, 1920, 60. (proquest) 3. expanding upon the notion, original marginalia stated: “time” is something far greater than mechanical measurement. beyond clockwork clicks, “time” is a culture’s faith in temporality, one that alters over the ages. indeed, “knowing the time”—whether the time of day or the time of music—is more accurately considered “believing in the temporal convention” being told. 4. the citation “tempo,” from charles elson, elson’s music dictionary (ditson: boston, 1905), 259. 5. adolph friedrich christiani, the principles of expression in pianoforte playing (new york: harper & brothers, 1885), 88. 6. encyclopædia britannica; or, a dictionary of arts, sciences, &c. the second edition; greatly improved and enlarged, vol. 9 (edinburgh, 1778–83), 8612. 7. curt sachs, rhythm and tempo (new york: w.w. norton & co., 1953), 168, 173. a similar statement appears on page 201. 8. jean–philippe rameau, traité de l’harmonie, trans. philip gossett (new york: dover publications [1971]), 197–8. 9. johann joachim quantz, versuch einer anweisung die flöte traversiere zu spielen (berlin: j. f. voss, 1752); translated by edward r. reilly as on playing the flute (boston: northeastern university press, 2001), 183. 10. edward dickinson, the education of a music lover (new york: charles scribner’s sons, 1911), 118–120. 11. ibid. 12. michel de saint lambert, principles of the harpsichord (paris, 1702), trans. and ed. rebecca harris–warrick (london: cambridge university press, 1984), 44. 13. j. a. hamilton, description and use of maelzel’s metronome (london: robert cocks, 1840), 5. 14. theodore baker, a dictionary of musical terms, third edition (new york: g. schirmer, 1897), 121. current musicology 342 15. the encyclopedia britannica, ninth edition, vol. xvi (american reprint, philadelphia: j.m. stoddart co., limited, 1884), 207. this article is reprinted verbatim at least through the 1911 edition of the encyclopedia. 16. constantin von sternberg, ethics and esthetics of piano–playing (new york: g. schirmer, 1917), 82. 17. clarence hamilton, how to use the metronome correctly (philadelphia: presser, 1916) 3, 9. 18. ernest adams, “electric metronome,” u.s. patent #734,032 (filed july 30, 1902; patented july 21, 1903): 5. 19. the encyclopedia britannica, ninth edition, vol. xvi (american reprint, philadelphia: j.m. stoddart co., limited, 1884), 207. 20. words of moscheles, from anton schindler, the life of beethoven: including his correspondence with his friends, numerous characteristic traits, and remarks on his musical works, ed. ignaz moscheles (london: henry colburn, 1841), 111fn. 21. quoting gustav nottebohm in c. a. b., “george grove’s analyses of beethoven,” the musical world, nov. 3, 1888, 850. 22. sternberg, 79–80. 23. the argument of staunch modernist musician rudolf kolisch, in “tempo and character in beethoven’s music,” the musical quarterly 77 (spring, 1993), 90. this article is a reprint from his 1942 work. kolisch seemed not to consider that beyond technological developments, it was western musical culture—with its scientific faith in chronographic rules and regulations—that had changed in the meantime. 24. a close paraphrase from christiani, the principles of expression in pianoforte playing, 262. n.b. he makes no mention of seconds, since the second continued to be an unusually precise temporal measurement outside of nineteenth–century astronomical observatories and experimental laboratories. 25. edward bradford titchener, experimental psychology, a manual of laboratory practice, vol. 1. (newyork: the macmillan company, 1901), 339. 26. a phrase coined by pianist ignacy jan paderewski (1860–1941). 27. george grove, beethoven and his nine symphonies (london: novello, 1896), 337. 28. reprinted in c. a. b., “george grove’s analyses of beethoven,” the musical world, nov. 3, 1888, 850. 29. schindler, life of beethoven, 213. 30. the musical world, nov. 3, 1888, 850. 31. ludwig van beethoven, beethoven’s letters: a critical edition, trans. j. s. shedlock, vol. 1 (london: j. m. dent, 1909), 281. 32. adolf bernhard marx, general musical instruction (allgemeine musiklehre), trans. george macirone (london: j. alfred novello, 1854), 33. 33. a close paraphrase from adolf bernhard marx, introduction to the interpretation of beethoven piano works, trans. fannie louise gwinner (chicago: clayton f. summy co., 1895), 68. 34. comments from brahms to george henshel. found in c. a. b., “george grove’s analyses of beethoven,” the musical world, nov. 3, 1888, 850. also carl van vechten, in the garret (new york: alfred a knopf, 1920), 218. alexander bonus 343 35. commonly attributed to beethoven in the nineteenth century. see for instance, adolf bernhard marx, introduction to the interpretation of beethoven piano works, 68; and franz kullak, beethoven’s piano–playing, trans. theodore baker (new york: g. schirmer, 1901), 22. 36. a more appropriate comparison would involve a bird and a mechanical bird. 37. adolf bernhard marx, the music of the nineteenth century and its culture (london: robert cocks, and co., 1854), 261. 38. derived from marx, introduction to the interpretation of beethoven piano works, 68. 39. a close paraphrase from schindler, ed. moscheles, 108–109. 40. michel de saint lambert, les principes du clavecin contenant une explication exacte de tout ce qui concerne la tablature & le clavier (paris: ballard, 1702) trans. rebecca harris–warrick (london: cambridge university press, 1984), 44. 41. ibid., 44. 42. the source is from 1844. it is evident that many of the theories here arise before the twentieth century and apply to pre–modernist music. 43. i have traced the following information to boston musical visitor, oct 8, 1844; vol. 3, no. 24, 374. 44. sternberg, 44. 45. this more familiar chart prominently appears in johann nepomuck hummel, ausführlich theoretisch–practische anweisung zum pianoforte spiel (wein: tobias haslinger, 1828), but might in fact derive from maelzel himself. the inventor–promoter sent similar data to beethoven to prove the necessity of his tempo tool. 46. the nineteenth–century term “elastic tempo” lost out in the following century to the more commonly used phrase, “tempo rubato.” 47. marx, introduction to the interpretation of beethoven piano works, 73n. 48. ibid., 74. 49. an allusion to beethoven’s comment about the four italian time words found in multi– movement sonatas and symphonies of his age. 50. c. m. von weber, “letter by c. m. von weber on the performance of dramatic song,” the harmonicon v, part 1 (1827): 220. 51. this temporal quality was noted in many nineteenth–century sources. another definition states: “such revulsive, jerking, jolting rhythmical movements frequently occur. they are sometimes designated by the expression tempo rubato, i.e. stolen or robbed time, and also by the word confusion,” from james f. warner and gottfried weber, a universal dictionary of musical terms (boston: j. h. wilkins & r. b. carter, 1842), 49. “an imbroglio is caused by irregular accentuation, sometimes by syncopation, but more frequently by the intermingling of several voices, each voice accenting its phrases independently, as though a room full of people were talking together at the same time, the result being that the grammatical [invisible and weighted metrical] accents are no longer to be detected by the ear. hence, a rhythmical confusion.” from adolph friedrich christiani, the principles of expression in pianoforte playing (new york: harper & brothers, 1885), 72. 52. from françois couperin, l’art de toucher le clavecin (paris,1717), trans. in arnold dolmetsch, the interpretation of the music of the xvii and xviii centuries revealed by contemporary evidence (london : novello, 1946), 20. current musicology 344 53. the deliberate choice of titles should not go unnoticed. “the lame one” and “the pretending fools,” respectively, are dances from rameau’s 1724 (rev. 1731) collection of harpsichord pieces. 54. a neologism. i have not found another instance of the phrase in my research. 55. marx, general musical instruction, 33. 56. jean–jacques rousseau, “chronometer,” trans. in appendix to grassineau’s musical dictionary, selected from the dictionnaire de musique of j. j. rousseau (london: j. robson 1769), 10–11. 57. from johann mattheson, quoted in curt sachs, rhythm and tempo, 321. 58. richard wagner, on conducting (über das dirigieren), trans. edward dannreuther (london: william reeves, 1897), 19. 59. a truncation from c. m. von weber, “letter by c. m. von weber on the performance of dramatic song,” the harmonicon v, part 1 (1827): 220. 60. jean–jacques rousseau, “chronometer,” 10. 61. a paraphrase from marin mersenne, traite’ de l’harmonie universelle ou est conteu la musique theoretique et pratique (paris, 1627); found in “critical translation of the second book” by john bernard egan (phd diss., indiana university, 1962), 43–4. 62. a close paraphrase from johann joachim quantz, versuch einer anweisung die flöte traversiere zu spielen (berlin: j. f.voss, 1752); trans. by edward r. reilly as on playing the flute (boston: northeastern university press, 2001), 183. 63. one of many possible times, defined as “an expression generally applied to the manner of performing a steady, sound movement, less directed to the feelings than to the judgment; more scientific than impassioned.” from h. w pilkington, a musical dictionary (boston: watson & bangs, 1812), 75. 64. from the entry, “time,” encyclopædia britannica, vol. 9 (edinburgh, 1778–83), 8613. 65. the belief of ignacy jan paderewski (1860–1941), found in henry t. finck, success in music and how it is won (new york: charles scribner’s sons, 1909), 455. 66. c. a. b., “george grove’s analyses of beethoven,” the musical world, nov. 3, 1888, 850. also found in carl van vechten, in the garret, 218. 67. richard storrs willis, “on musical tempo,” musical world and new york musical times, june 11, 1853, 82. 68. franz kullak, beethoven’s piano–playing, trans. theodore baker (new york: g. schirmer, 1901), 31. 69. clarence grant hamilton, piano teaching, its principles and problems (boston: oliver ditson company, 1910), 85. 70. rené descartes, compendium musicae (ms., 1618; utrecht: jansson, 1650); trans. walter robert ([rome]: american institute of musicology, 1961), 14. 71. this commentary first appeared in the english mechanic and world of science 53 (may 8, 1891): 232. 72. christiani, 22. 73. johann mattheson, kern melodischer wissenschafft (hamburg, 1737), 109. 74. quoted in franz kullak, beethoven’s piano–playing, 24. 75. c. m. von weber, “letter by c. m. von weber on the performance of dramatic song,” the harmonicon v, part 1 (1827): 220. alexander bonus 345 76. “musical review,” the harbinger, devoted to social and political progress, feb. 27, 1847, 185. 77. “the symphony society,” the new york times, jan. 4, 1894, 2. this quote refers specifically to the conductor walter damrosch. 78. in all likelihood, a reference to emile jaques–dalcroze and his pedagogical system of eurhythmics. 79. see quantz, trans. reilly, 289–290. 80. the operative pun “concert” employs the meaning “togetherness.” 81. the abrupt change in style signifies the likely source as being thomas mace, musick’s monument (london, 1676). 82. hector berlioz, a treatise on modern instrumentation and orchestration, trans. mary cowden clarke, (london: novello, ewer, and co., 1856), 246. berlioz suggests that such a rigid performance practice could never be accomplished. but it must be recognized that he did not live into the twentieth century to hear the effects of metronomic training methods. 83. see paul rosenfeld, modern tendencies in music (new york: the caxton institute, 1927), 37. the conceptual correlation between these two very different sources is remarkable. 84. the treatise takes an abrupt turn toward the modern age with this quote from theodore adorno, philosophy of modern music (1948), reprinted in daniel albright, ed. modernism and music (chicago: university of chicago press, 2004), 77. 85. paderewski’s words, discovered in louis c. elson, mistakes and disputed points in music and music teaching (philadelphia: theodore presser co., 1910), 96–97. also found in henry t. fink, success in music and how it’s won. 86. a sentiment attributed to brahms. found in louis c. elson, mistakes and disputed points in music and music teaching (philadelphia: theodore presser co., 1910), 95. 87. ezra pound, antheil and the treatise on harmony (reprint, new york: da capo press, 1968), 132. 88. pound, 148–9. the last sentence is a close paraphrase. 89. quantz, versuch, 102. trans. in arnold dolmetsch, the interpretation of the music of the xvii and xviii centuries revealed by contemporary evidence (london : novello, 1946), 23–24. 90. see paul rosenfeld, modern tendencies in music, 37. 91. theodore albrecht, ed., letters to beethoven and other correspondence, volume 2 (lincoln & london: university of nebraska press, 1996), 137, letter 248. 92. edward baxter perry, stories of standard teaching pieces (philadelphia: theodore presser co., 1910), 43–44. 93. quantz, versuch einer anweisung die flöte traversiere zu spielen (1752); trans. reilly as on playing the flute (boston: northeastern university press, 2001), 183. 94. adolf bernhard marx, universal school of music, trans. a. h. wehrhan (london: robert cocks and co., 1853), 85. 95. these words are from the early editor of beethoven’s works, moscheles, and are found in anton schindler, the life of beethoven, ed. ignaz moscheles (london: henry colburn, 1841), 111fn. current musicology 346 references albrecht, theodore, ed. 1996. letters to beethoven and other correspondence. three volumes. lincoln & london: university of nebraska press. albright, daniel, ed., 2004. modernism and music. chicago: university of chicago press. b., c. a. 1888 nov. 3. george grove’s analyses of beethoven. the musical world: 850. baker, theodore. 1897. a dictionary of musical terms. third edition. new york: g. schirmer. beethoven, ludwig van. 1909. beethoven’s letters. edited by dr. a.c. kalischer, translated by j.s. shedlock. london: j. m. dent; new york: e. p. dutton. berlioz, hector. 1856. a treatise on modern instrumentation and orchestration. translated by mary cowden clarke. london: novello, ewer, and co. bonus, alexander. 2010. the metronomic performance practice. phd diss. case western reserve university. _____. 2014. “metronome.” in oxford handbooks online. new york: oxford university press. christiani, 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gottfried weber. 1842. a universal dictionary of musical terms. boston: j. h. wilkins & r. b. carter. weber, c. m. von. 1827. letter by c. m. von weber on the performance of dramatic song. the harmonicon v: 219–220. willis, richard storrs. 1853 june 11. on musical tempo. musical world and new york musical times: 82. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2016, duke university press. all rights reserved. this work is not part of current musicology’s creative commons license. republished by permission of the copyright holder. www.dukepress.edu 209 introduction: i am nothing licia fiol-matta in 1969, at the height of the cold war, the puerto rican singer lucecita benítez won the first festival of latin song in the world with her performance of “génesis”: cuando nada en la tierra quede que tibie el sol cuando nadie en la tierra quede que evoque a dios cuando sobre la tierra no haya ya ni dolor solo habrá una lumbre y esa será el amor ¡el amor, el amor! ¡para empezar! when nothing is left on earth to feel the warmth of the sun when no one is left on earth to invoke god when not even pain will be felt on earth there will only be a flame and that flame will be love love, love! to begin again! considering its lugubrious content, it seems odd, more than forty years later, that the music industry and listening public frantically celebrated “nothingness” in this very melodramatic way. the muscular symphonic orchestra rushed to keep pace with the singer who had appeared, seemingly, out of nowhere and literally came out of the nowhere that was puerto rico to latin america, the united states, and the world. ironically, the singer’s name means little light, akin to the flame of love that rises after the apocalypse’s destruction in the last, triumphant bars of the song. it is not the name her friends and family use to address her: she is luz, luz esther, or lucy. lucecita is a stage name, a diminutive that always has seemed not quite right for this mercurial singer, and yet also on the mark in latin american spanish as a signifier for the enormous affection she has evoked in generations of puerto ricans. “lucecita” incorporates the love that the song names as the world’s salvation—resonating with the adoration the singer easily provoked—but it also contains a kernel of societal diminution, mockery, and domestication: women as marginal, minor, and suspect. the song attempted to re-create beginning and end, alpha and omega, genesis and dissolution. it was a response to both the terrifying prospect of global, nuclear annihilation, and the colonial condition of puerto rico that diminished social life. it stands as a testament to the increasing paranoia of 210 current musicology the small colony, its anguish expressed as an anxiety over its smallness and presumptive incapacity to affect its destiny or the world’s. “génesis” also entailed a subliminal protest of the topsy-turvy gender and sexual world which the star, paradoxically enough, embodied in her dashing tuxedo and grippingly loud vocal volume. its author, fellow puerto rican guillermo venegas lloveras, found himself suddenly owing his major triumph to a masculine woman, one the public did not know how to read. at the dawn of her career, she was often described as “boyish” or “androgynous.” in 1969, she disconcerted all of latin america by presenting as mannish. venegas lloveras could not have foreseen the artist’s eruption onto the world stage with his song, since she had been a wondrous but inoffensive and “feminine” youth star up until that moment. he probably never imagined that his status as the songwriter of “génesis” would become subordinate to the performer’s. in a music industry practice that is not yet quite extinct, singers functioned as the placeholders for someone else’s genius. furthermore, that genius was invariably male, whether the songwriter’s, musician’s, or bandleader’s. figure 1: lucecita benítez performing “génesis.” primer festival de la canción latina, mexico city, 1969. costume design by martin. 211 licia fiol-matta lucecita had transformed venegas lloveras’s predictable song into a watershed sonic and visual event. she had single-handedly put puerto rico on the map. she was the one the adoring public rushed to see when the winning cohort returned to puerto rico. she was the figure that admiring singers and musicians came to respect. it is telling that in his 1992 memoir, venegas lloveras wrote, “total genius is men’s priority. a true man is he who can penetrate everything. women were born for flirting, not for knowledge; to be dominated, not to dominate; to give children, not ideas. do you know of a single woman who has attained the status of thinker? a single woman who has shaken or altered the intellectual conscience of the world? do you know of a single woman possessing an unparalleled probing capacity [inigualable penetración]?”1 “génesis” expressed extreme male melancholy, yet a masculine woman unexpectedly delivered this affect home. the songwriter’s lament for women and men who did not conform to the expected roles of a misogynistic and homophobic society, who dared usurp the masculine domains—music among them—throws into the sharpest of relief just how vexed women’s incursion into pop music can be. in lucecita’s case, no scripts were available to subordinate and tame her eruption. she was not feminine. she did not sing softly or croon about heterosexual love. she claimed the masculine prerogatives of expressing social and political ideas outside of marriage and motherhood, eschewing the roles that her managers sought to implant in her earliest persona. when it came to representing difference, decked in her stage costume that night in mexico and armed with her mind-blowing delivery, she proved she had no intention of merely supplying a commercial hook to sell songs. lucecita benítez would become an international icon in only a couple of years; would survive attempts to erase her career and silence her magnificent voice; would claim her right to speak and not merely to sing; and would refuse all imperatives to civility, moralism, and even proper nationalist performance. in her later career, all the way forward to the 1990s, she would be baptized the national voice of puerto rico in the simulacrum of late colonial society, when difference did become a commodity and nationalism coexisted with—indeed fueled—banco popular television specials honoring the people, selling brands and financial products more than songs and music. lucecita’s career arc is like a crash course in history combined with an embodiment of the crucible voice can throw us into. the absolute nothing of dissolution, of ceasing to be, which “génesis” evoked, gave way to the relative nothing that the singer claimed for herself, when she informed the public that it could not dictate what she was. “i am nothing,” she said in 212 current musicology 1974, furiously and presciently. she was not legibility, but potentiality. she could not be generalized: she was singular. that’s what she meant when she said, “i am nothing.” lucecita troubled several paradigms that have dictated matters when it comes to women’s careers as pop singers, in puerto rico and elsewhere in latin america. almost all women who entered pop when the pop music business began did so under some kind of pressure to perform values— whether of the moral kind, nationalism, the home and reproduction, or liberationist politics. lucecita was not the only singer in puerto rico who had troubled morality, class-defined participation in music, or politics. in this book, i discuss three other women who, each in their own way, did so too. and there are others. however, lucecita was, decidedly, one of the first women singers who broke out of any possibility of being described as a “great woman singer.” the qualifier did not make any sense after her triumph with “génesis”; she became a great singer, period. this meteoric rise did not solve problems for the artist so much as it created an excruciating existence where she found herself increasingly dissatisfied with the content of her repertoire, to the point of asking herself, “why am i singing this nonsense?”2 the answer is more complex than resorting to a straightforward repressive paradigm, to recall foucault’s critique of how power operates.3 the “great woman singer” reveals the procedures of the pop music singing career established as an arc, a feat of determination and stamina, a fight to the death with oversignification, a zealous, successful stewardship of persona, and the ultimately successful defense of the voice. it also reveals the toils of the biopolitical uses of voice within a collectivity, and the “distribution of the sensible” that makes plain an inside/outside partition.4 the book aims squarely at a critique of the logic of the exceptional—still the critical rule in dominant accounts, despite commonsense knowledge about marquee artists who were women since the nascent days of the pop music industry in the region, back in the 1930s or so. the great woman singer refuses to espouse a predetermined idea of what is feminist in music, nor does it seek to theorize what this standard of feminism in music might be. it is not a survey of women in music or a tracing of resistance by women to the strictures of dominant music making. my interest in the female pop music star is about querying instances where singularity erupts despite heterosexism and misogyny, through the vehicle of voice. my goal is to disrupt the normative business of scholarly studies on women artists. overall, i aim to really listen to women’s voices, in the sense of paying attention to their conceptual dimension, away from notions of natural or intuitive performance. 213 licia fiol-matta i detail how four paradigmatically iconic artists elaborated their concept, troubling the gaze on their figures as simple manifestations of artistic serendipity or, alternatively, as creations made possible by male insufflations of spirit. the book narrates their histories and analyzes their work outside the poverty of critical tools and the near-universal gesture of dismissing women artists as merely women singers.5 yet, it’s not as easy as merely rejecting or ironizing the epithet, however much we may wish it gone from our consciousness. the ideology we seek to disrupt influences our apprehension of these voices, inescapably. if we do not critically isolate this problem of the collectivity—this imposition of acritical listening—we won’t be able to dispel it.6 the grouping, then, of these four artists qua women is a function of the hermeneutic: a move to unsettle matters, not to reaffirm them. speaking of the voice as if it were not in actuality covered by gender (riffing on hortense spillers, who spoke of a subject “covered by race”)7 is simply to contribute to the further buttressing of the status quo we see verified in books on latin popular music, which to this day only name celia cruz and la lupe, usually in passing, in their surveys; or in university courses on latin american popular music that can run for years without studying any women artists; or in the record store, however vanishing, that includes a section on women, which women are expected to browse and men should not approach lest they be taken for members of “the gender vanquished for all time, women.”8 politically speaking, the cold war had crossed lucecita’s performance of “génesis” in a chilling way. the prospect of nuclear war lent a hair-raising quality to the last verse of the song, “sólo habrá una lumbre” (there will only be a flame). regardless of whether the flame represented love, listeners were clearly preoccupied with extinction, with war. several great women singers had labored within the protocols of the good neighbor policy and the cold war, becoming either goodwill ambassadors performing the folklore of latin america, like libertad lamarque; steamy sex symbols, like carmen miranda; or maternal stalwarts in mexican movies, like rita montaner (although this great star was burdened with problematic “black” roles, such as the “mammy” figure of the 1948 angelitos negros [little black angels]). in this book, i refrain from making value judgments on any decisions to represent, preferring to investigate matters in terms of their historicity: what was allowed or possible, individual temperaments, and voice operating in the realm of the future perfect. the future perfect is the time of the arkhé, according to giorgio agamben: the arkhé towards which archaeology regresses must not be understood in any way as an element that can be situated in chronology (not even 214 current musicology one with a large grid, of the sort used in pre-history); it is, rather, a force that operates in history—much in the same way in which indoeuropean words express a system of connections among historically accessible languages; in which the child in psychoanalysis expresses an active force in the psychic life of the adult; in which the big bang, which is supposed to have originated the universe, continues to send towards us its fossil radiation. but the arkhé is not a datum or a substance—different from the big bang, to which the astrophysicists try to assign a date, even if it is in terms of millions of years. it is much rather a field of bipolar historical currents within the tension of anthropogenesis and history, between the point of emergence and becoming, between arch-past and present. and as such—that is to say, to the extent to which it is, as anthropogenesis itself, something that is necessarily supposed to have factually happened, and which yet cannot be hypostatized in any chronologically identifiable event—it is solely capable of guaranteeing the intelligibility of historical phenomena, of “saving” them archeologically within a future perfect, yet not grasping its (in any case unverifiable) origin, but rather its history, at once finite and untotalizable.9 when it came to war and pop music, lucecita troubled paradigms too. in early interviews, when she was a youth star, she had spoken out against the vietnam war: “what’s happening in puerto rican music is happening all over the world. we love independence and have a rebellious spirit. for instance, we are against the draft and we can make that part of our music. why should we fight for something that does not concern us? some people are looking for adventure but, there are so many dead puerto ricans and for what? for nothing, it is not our quarrel. i for one am against all these impositions.”10 here we have an example of a disquieting, societal “nothingness” that is not the same artistic and political “nothing” she later claimed. in “génesis,” lucecita eschewed the edifice of goodwill. she presented as anything but folkloric in sartorial terms. musically, she unleashed a powerful balada that departed from the esteemed pan-americanist bolero. lucecita’s performance of “génesis” did not offer the “latin american” sound, or the “american” sound of her youthful lps. even the theme of the song—planetary trauma—hardly corresponded to the usual fare women sang all over the hemisphere. most women’s pop hits were about failed heterosexual romances; hardly any were about the state of the world. that discourse was reserved for political song, which knew one “great woman singer” of its own by 1969, the chilean violeta parra. yet parra became encased in the well-worn, gendered narratives of doomed love affairs and an unspecified depressive personality. i am resolutely not interested in indicting any singer’s political stances, or in interpreting any career as a reflection of personal woes. critical biography is a mode of analysis in this book because, from a benjaminian 215 licia fiol-matta perspective, the “biographical historicity of an individual” contains what is allegorical in their life and therefore is an avenue to grasping the arkhé, what in history is “untimely, sorrowful, unsuccessful . . . expressed in a face, or rather in a skull.”11 keying into the career of women singers must entail this approach to history for three reasons: their histories have not been written, nor a general history of a collective subject; it is hard to piece together the actual sources of these histories, necessitating a method that will privilege the question over the answer; although associated with freedom and play, music careers in given contexts are very tough and often unsuccessful, notwithstanding the existence of talent. if we add to this women’s dominant treatment as all nature, as body, animal, and so forth, the benjaminian allegory emerges as not only suitable but also urgent. in reconstructing an archive of voice, i do address and in certain cases redress the problems of omission, politics of memory, and, last but not least, plainly sexist approaches to popular music that still hold sway in popular culture. yet my purpose is to examine embodied existences within the very dense grid of significations in which multiple subjectivities circulate, which includes music producers, arrangers, entrepreneurs, politicians, fans, and citizens who are not especially attracted to music. women singers labor along the twin poles of adoration and derision. with the complexity of such affects in mind, i cite singers from puerto rico as paradigmatic for latin american and american studies. adoration is presumptively benign, but the widely regarded positive aspects of music performance require critical attention, in order to detect their “patterning” effects.12 we associate derision with disciplinary power. examining contempt, aside from charting its obvious negative impact on careers, also affords insights into collective fantasy, which pop women singers symbolize in an easily consumable and shareable way. in this book, i examine the reining in, ordering, correcting, or training of women’s vocal performances, but also the lines of flight opened up in these performances, their écarts and silences. all the women i named in the preceding section, from the more straightforwardly political to the more conservative, were “great women singers” because a thinking voice took up residence in their careers, unleashing questions and providing answers—consciously or not—in response to the cultural moment of their times. in this book, a narrative toward elucidating how voice calls to thought unfolds, until the thinking voice appears fully formed in chapter 4. i mimic the qualities of “future perfect” that the voice in music performance must have, presenting the reader with a problem that takes its time in becoming graspable or knowable. sidestepping dominant notions of voice, particularly notation (as in the highbrow musical peda216 current musicology gogy that recognizes voice solely as a musical instrument) and intuition (the widespread notion that a singer trades not in conceptual thinking, but only in spontaneous execution), i come to isolate the performing voice as an object (thinking voice in performance), while advancing the study of voice as thought producer (presenting the voice as it thinks, riffing on martin heidegger’s treatise what is called thinking?). chapter 1 details jacques lacan’s treatment of the voice as part object or objet a. in a nutshell, the part object exists as both an illusion and its foil. i employ the part object to indicate the breach between associations of voice with plenitude and the reality that voice, in the last instance, represents lack or, to put it more colloquially, a puzzling absence that must be reckoned with and is not pacified by enjoyment (which musical voice represents for most listeners). applied to the voice, the part object entails separating from accounts of the voice as always already knowable, as certain, and focusing on its status as having “no specular image, no alterity.”13 the rest of the book follows this template, establishing a relationship to the archive but not allowing it to dictate interpretation. i have had in mind, among others, sylvia molloy, who pithily stated, it is true that archival work is absolutely necessary as a starting point for any reflection on gender. but i would like to think that those of us who work on this unstable category of gender do it from gender more than in gender; that we are attempting to articulate, not just a reflection on gender, but a re-flexion (if i can be allowed the word game here), that is to say, a new flexion in the latin american cultural text (in that text’s totality, not in select parts) that will allow us to read otherwise, in many different “otherwises.”14 while the book is, in a certain sense, an archive, bringing into painstaking play both sonorous and nonsonorous items from the past (and as such thinks from an archive), it is, above all, a critical theorization of voice and gender, with an anchor in psychoanalytic thought without being exclusively psychoanalytic. in “recommendations to physicians practicing psychoanalysis” (1912), sigmund freud explained the nature of psychoanalytic listening, which specialists often refer to as “distracted” or “wavering” listening: “[it] consists simply in not directing one’s notice to anything in particular and in maintaining the same ‘evenly suspended attention’ . . . in the face of all that one hears. to put it in a formula: [the analyst] must turn his own unconscious like a receptive organ toward the transmitting unconscious of the patient. he must adjust himself to the patient as a telephone receiver is adjusted to the transmitting microphone.”15 peter szendy usefully paraphrases freud, closer to our purposes: “if i summon here the expression ‘wavering listening,’ it is of course because i am thinking 217 licia fiol-matta of freud’s famous phrase, a phrase that might basically be saying this: the sense of a discourse is not a given to be deciphered, but must be constructed conjointly by the one who utters it and by the one who listens to it. it obviously does not go without saying that this psychoanalytic listening can be translated into the vocabulary and practice of musical listening.”16 as in freud’s technological metaphors, this book’s method imitates “the telephone adjusted to the microphone” and listens distractedly to all available objects in the sound archive. needless to say, some sounds are distorted or missing. others are too loud. singers don’t always speak into the microphone. and so it goes. an archive might give a sense of plenitude and illusion of mastery, but i have worked with its incompleteness and contingency in mind. i could also not include everything i encountered: a process of selection and indeed forgetting had to take place. without the latter, i would have encountered a disquieting “nothing to say.” relatively ignored, local music had been of passing interest to the spanish imperial state. at the dawn of puerto rico’s second colonial period, in the early twentieth century, professional ethnologists bolstered their credentials in managing imperial subjects through ethnographic recordings. photojournalists trained in the american works progress administration (wpa) presented the occasional portrait of the native musician. columbia and rca victor pressed 78s according to the racist conception of ethnic music that ruth glasser encapsulates in her classic, my music is my flag: “the record companies persisted through the years in treating puerto ricans and other ethnic audiences as dumb animals with an unreasonable instinct for music, or at best as mere sale ciphers.”17 the prócer (founding father), the spanish-born manuel fernández juncos, cleaned up the lyrics of the revolutionary anthem into the official version of “la borinqueña” in 1903. he simultaneously churned out wholesome children’s ditties to be sung by rote by schoolchildren suffering from spanish being intermittently, yet consistently, banned in instruction. the peasant figure, the jíbaro, was characterized as having only one talent— music—while afro–puerto ricans were tasked with the entertainment of elites. both were folklorized. musical pedagogy evolved around european classical music and for decades was taught as the only music worth studying in a formal setting. women in puerto rican music occupied a decidedly minoritarian place in the sounded world, being, in discourse and in the aggregate, representative of the qualities that made up the presumed secondariness of pop—capable, at best, of incidental music in the classical vein. the state invested popular music with a degree of power and prestige upon the establishment of the estado libre asociado (ela, commonwealth 218 current musicology of puerto rico) in 1952. controlling pedagogical channels from primary school to higher education, shaping markets after the ela, creating the country’s institute for puerto rican culture and other cultural institutions to advance its agenda, the state largely succeeded in its quest to employ music as palliative; revenue-generating arm of tourism to provide the needed “local color”; and card to assure investors that puerto rico was “peaceful” and, as such, represented a safe haven for investors. the climax of the state’s success in controlling the musical happened in the 1950s and 1960s, captured in the 1957 david ogilvy advertising campaign for the festival casals de puerto rico, “pablo casals is coming home—to puerto rico,” paid for by the commonwealth of puerto rico (see original publication). naturally, the state could never control all of the arenas that affect touches, even if that is its sustaining fiction. the performance space is one arena where the designs of mandated enjoyment might falter. in this book, i trace both mandated enjoyment and when its designs fail. i unpack enjoyment’s dependency on the performing, female body and detail when, how, and why various forms of control short-circuit, despite their certainty of managing women. i examine, in equal measure, the advantages of music as a profession where some women could craft a space of artistic expression, and the limitations of their careers in music. with the ela, song opened up to female stars, who were still regarded as exceptions. what was thought of as feminine subjectivity was barely considered a locus for creativity. as to women singers specifically, they entertained. they did not think. the lives and works i have selected came to exceed power’s advantages as well as the limits power imposes. hence their singularity. they also became uncannily aligned with standardized music genres, immediately putting them in touch with larger cultural scripts. as women who persevered in the face of a world that denied them the hallowed space of the artist, women who succeeded as professionals but also became icons, the four artists studied in this book give the lie to normative functions of music, showing the parallel ability of music to disrupt and reorder a variety of injunctions, among them how enjoyment should proceed and where, how patriotic allegiances should be expressed, how obscenity should appear in the repertoire, how politics should enter music lyrics, and how consumption should become the main activity of subjects in capitalism. as elsewhere, the puerto rican musical constellation has many more women singers than i can study here, many excellent in their own right, many beginning full-fledged careers around the founding of the ela in 1952. they have loyal fans and successful records, despite the industry’s prejudiced practice of limiting the number of women recording artists 219 licia fiol-matta because they felt that women did not sell records since women did not buy records. however, the four chapters present four careers that are singular within this context, which merit a distinct grouping to consider voice, gender, power, and thought. chapter 1, “getting off . . . the nation,” reviews myrta silva’s (1927–1987) stellar music career. i detail how the artist was able to wrest the dominant perception of a problematic female performing body and create a highly autonomous and conceptual intervention, which i theorize as a cynical ethics. this meeting ground of jacques lacan’s ethics and michel foucault’s parrhesia focuses on the relationship between speech and song. contra jacques derrida’s famous critique of the autoaffectivity of voice in voice and phenomenon, which assigned voice a metaphysical burden that it simply could not shake off, myrta silva as figure and her simultaneous practices of parlando and self-reference mock the very idea of autoaffectivity and provide a template from which to examine similar uses of speech-song and self-referential lyrics. this chapter sets up an extended meditation on the obscene as the obverse of a cleaned-up repertoire, as the stage from which to construct an approach to the symbolic capacities of voice. the star female body veers from being apprehended as a beautiful object visually to becoming a visual disturbance in multiple ways, while her vocal capacity to enthrall through play with voice’s role in the symbolic order dispenses with notions of the beautiful as the needed identity of presumptively female pop music. voice is installed in thought instead. silva proved that an exceptional pop voice is one that knows how to foreground listening. i examine silva’s voice also as a television producer, host, gossip columnist, and social chronicler, which together comprise the totality of her figure and represent the multifaceted aspects of voice. the chapter rescues her musicality from accounts that have buried it, examining her repertoire of self-referential songs, many obscene, and articulated almost completely around word play. concomitant with a psychoanalytic understanding of voice as part object, the treatment of words is not just semantic but sounded. of all the singers studied in this book, silva comes closest to having carefully thought her singing. chapter 2, “so what if she’s black?,” discusses ruth fernández (1919–2012), a black contralto working in pop genres whose nostalgic selfnarrative of star inception would point us to a linear account of progress from early u.s. empire to the modern commonwealth of puerto rico. an unusual call, “so what if i’m black?,” is the center of a preoccupation over being, the classic analytic quandary. this call is not a statement as much as a demand, for recognition as much as reparation. it is difficult to decipher. 220 current musicology the protestation indicates a permanent suspension in which metaphysical and ontological questions are never settled. while race is an important analytic in chapter 1, it takes center stage in chapter 2, not primarily because the singer was black (although this is no small detail in a racist society) but because the singer’s entire career is threaded around this cry and its attendant societal questions: what are you, and why are you? are you a woman? should you exist as a singer? dialogical models are put to the test in a radically unequal structure of interlocution. i isolate intraand intergroup interpellations figured in songs, together fissuring the oneness of the polity that “nationalist sonorousness” attempted to manufacture in the early days of developmentalism in puerto rico and through its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s (as elsewhere in latin america).18 here the star female body is routinely derided as unsuitable visually and attractive sonically. the chapter’s twist is this subject’s entry into the certifiably political sphere, where she helped install a conservative mode of thinking via pop music, manipulating the listener as shrewdly as chapter 1’s exemplar even if, ultimately, her decisions might have restricted the freedom of her music. chapter 3, “techne and the lady,” pivots to migration and music. it seeks to prove the solidity and importance of more modest forms of the star female body, and their crucial role in the larger structure of which they are a part, refuting the general notion that huge sales numbers and big markets alone determine fame. each latin american nation has its own set of local stars, like ernestina reyes, la calandria (1925–1994), who perhaps did not reach hemispheric fame but were critical to localized musical politics. these stars often found their reception in circuits excluded from today’s archive of music, which mostly records middle-class practices of middlebrow culture and middlebrow attempts to enter musical culture considered high in the pedagogical imagination of music (classical music). in this scheme, country music mattered only as occasional spice or entertainment, or as values vessel. country musicians often were forced to create personas that were buffoons or dimwitted. some knowledge of their practices is available in manuals of folkloric music, anthropological investigations into instruments, preserved ditties, and folk songs, all studied within the matrix of the national popular. focusing on local circuits of exchange that underwrite the star female body in latin american country musics dislodges the primacy of lettered interpretations, and their moralizing injunction toward collective representation, in favor of an aesthetics of the moment favoring bricolage and invention. la calandria mobilized a prototypical women’s folk voice, similar in color and texture to those found in flamenco, perico ripiao merengue, or mexican rancheras (the latter was a favorite genre of the singer’s and her working-class audience). calandria was fun loving 221 licia fiol-matta and unconventional, embodying country music’s class-defined aesthetics, which seemed garish and uncouth to elite listeners but were delightful to the working-class audiences of puerto rico and new york. she pursued her free-wheeling, party-going ethics in the jíbaro milieu, which was more permissive and elastic than middle-class, highly capitalized entertainment, thus putting an accent on the present and undercutting the state’s tight conceptualization of temporality and women’s role in its reproduction. chapter 4, “the thinking voice,” grows out of the three preceding chapters, which lay out an argument for understanding the propitious moment when this voice emerges, showing how—along with the exhilaration it provokes—the voice carries with it the history of struggles, the reality of duress, and the relative triumph of endurance. pure pop is not readily associated with thought, although female stars often evoke feelings precisely because they only come to being as creatures of thought. usually propped up on spurious grounds that have little to do with their own conception of self (sometimes when they are too young to have one to begin with), they have to truly fight to the death in order to arrive at independence of concept—to formulate an alternative to heteropatriarchal ideas of what their art should be about and the form it should take. otherwise they are simply mowed down, spit out by the machine when capital is done with them. if, on top of that, a singer becomes aligned with the arkhé, the expression of thought in voice reaches beyond the recording, concert hall, or tv screen into the very psychic structure of a collective. this i demonstrate by taking lucecita benítez (b. 1942) seriously as a musician. identified with left-leaning politics, the artist’s residence there and elsewhere was never entirely comfortable. lucecita traversed successive stages when she changed personas very swiftly, going from being a youth star in the 1960s to her three iconic incarnations: the auteur of the late 1960s, the artiste of the early 1970s, and the diva of the 1980s. i examine these in turn. in music, you have to play the cards you’re dealt. women artists know this from the get-go. their lives as working musicians are complicated. aside from all the labor that most musicians face, the years of debt if not poverty, the long hours playing and recording (often for a pittance), women singers must confront their intense symbolization, one whose decisive elements they have a tiny or no hand in shaping. the women portrayed here are remarkable for their intellect, iconic significance, and influence. all expressed ambivalence about the pedagogical imperative to represent what national music should: respectability, accomplishment, values, and triumph. in one way or another, all expressed, directly or subliminally, the philosophical protestation, “i am nothing.” all have been subjected to an 222 current musicology oblivion that, up to this day, remains as profoundly puzzling as it is disturbing, rendering them as the “nothing” in pop. as in the festival casals ad (see original publication), where the machinery of advertising evacuated the body of the world-famous cellist, absented any hint of the act of performance or any visual trace of listening to performance, and stated that the inclusion of casals playing the instrument would be equivalent to a “visual bromide,” the nothing is the center of this book, its key.19 my approach to the nothing, though, proceeds to different ends from that of the ad, resolutely away from latin america as paradise and latin americans as natural-born performers for someone else’s pleasure and profit. i do not expel the visual from my archive. i do not make claims for the sonorous over the visual. i place them side by side as part objects, elements of a sensorium, while centering the sounded voice. i listen “distractedly.” not confined to the nation-state, or any regional understanding of the musical phenomenon, the inquiry that follows hopes to approximate what lauren berlant wrote of the “case”: “when it doesn’t work to change the conditions of exemplarity or explanation, something is deemed merely a case study, remanded to banal particularity. when it does, a personal or collective sensorium shifts.”20 notes all translations from spanish are my own. 1. venegas lloveras, marzo dos, 215. 2. diego manso, “lucecita benítez: ‘yo no canto tonterías.’ ” revista ñ, june 14, 2013. 3. foucault, the history of sexuality, vol. 1. 4. le partage du sensible, the distribution of the sensible, is jacques rancière’s well-known concept. see rancière, the politics of aesthetics. 5. feminist scholars have considerably complicated this narrative. farah jasmine griffin (if you can’t be free) on billie holiday, judith halberstam (gaga feminism) on lady gaga, gayle wald (shout, sister, shout!) on sister rosetta tharpe, laura gutiérrez (performing mexicanidad) on mexican cabaret stars, deborah r. vargas (dissonant divas in chicana music) on the “dissonant divas” of the texas border, alexandra t. vazquez (listening in detail) on cuban music, and shane vogel (the scene of harlem cabaret) on harlem cabaret come to mind as examples of how the study of female stars is at a much different place than when i began this book a decade ago. these scholars debunk dominant narratives, in which female stars don’t have complex histories or put a great deal of intelligence into their performances. 6. many works have discussed this problem of listening critically. see, for example, kun, audiotopia, who takes his cue from his objects of study, in a move that is similar to mine in this book: “kafka’s dog performs the same kind of critical listening that los tigres [del norte] do, the same kind of listening that all of the subjects in this book do—a critical listening that does not necessarily reject consensus or harmony, but questions its default functionality as an apparatus of obligatory group belonging and nationalist solidarity” (16). in this book, i privilege dissonance over harmony, following vargas, dissonant divas, but do not discourage and, when called for, document the positive affects that may be created by liberating 223 licia fiol-matta “spaces of music” (kun, audiotopia, 22). i do, however, query any “sanctioned citizenship as women members” within nationalist formations (vargas, dissonant divas, ix). 7. “the individual in the collective traversed by ‘race’—and there are no known exceptions, as far as i can tell—is covered by it before language and its differential laws take hold.” spillers, “ ‘all the things you could be by now,’ ” 378. 8. monsiváis, “ ‘los que tenemos unas manos que no nos pertenecen,’ ” 50. 9. agamben, “philosophical archaeology,” 230. 10. rubén torres, “en pr al igual que en todo el mundo, la música busca la libertad” [in puerto rico and elsewhere, music searches for freedom], clipping found in the oscar hernández scrapbook, fundación nacional para la cultura popular, san juan, puerto rico; source and exact date not available, circa 1968 or 1969. 11. benjamin, “allegory and trauerspiel,” 166, translation modified. 12. “my method is to read patterns of adjustment in specific aesthetic and social contexts to derive what’s collective about specific modes of sensual activity toward and beyond survival. each chapter focuses on dynamic relations of hypervigilance, unreliable agency, and dissipated subjectivity under contemporary capitalism; but what ‘capitalism’ means varies a lot, as each case makes its own singular claim for staging the general forces that dominate the production of the historical sensorium that’s busy making sense of and staying attached to whatever there is to work with, for life. . . . [affect’s] activity saturates the corporeal, intimate, and political performances of adjustment that make a shared atmosphere something palpable and, in its patterning, releases to view a poetics, a theory-in-practice of how a world works.” berlant, cruel optimism, 9, 16. 13. lacan, “subversion of the subject,” 693. lacan discussed the voice as a part-object in anxiety. mladen dolar has brilliantly glossed lacan’s contributions to the study of the voice (extending their application in multiple manifestations as objet a) in a voice and nothing more. 14. molloy, “la flexión del género en el texto cultural latinoamericano,” 54. 15. freud, “recommendations to physicians,” 357, 360. 16. szendy, listen, 122. 17. glasser, my music is my flag, 168. 18. carpentier, “del folklorismo musical,” 44. 19. “one day ogilvy observed that the program for industrial development was going well, with hundreds of new factories, but if they were not careful, they would turn that lovely island into an industrial park. what do you suggest? asked [teodoro] moscoso. ‘well, my native island scotland was always regarded as a barbarous place until rudolph bing went to edinburgh and started the edinburgh festival. why don’t you start a festival?’ moscoso made a note in his little diary. three months later, he persuaded the cellist pablo casals to come to live in puerto rico and start the casals festival of music. in one ad, instead of showing pablo casals just sitting there, playing the cello, which ogilvy said would have been a ‘visual bromide,’ the photograph showed an empty room, with a cello leaning against a chair. the evocative scene, described by a creative man as ‘lit by vermeer,’ became a classic.” roman, the king of madison avenue, 94–95. although moscoso was put in charge of the festival, as head of the compañía de fomento industrial, the official invitation came directly from the governor, luis muñoz marín, acting on the advice of abe fortas, in 1955. 20. berlant, “on the case,” 665. 224 current musicology references agamben, giorgio. “philosophical archaeology.” law and critique 20, no. 3 (2009): 211– 231. benjamin, walter. “allegory and trauerspiel.” in the origin of german tragic drama, 159– 235. london: nlb, 1977. berlant, lauren. cruel optimism. durham, nc: duke university press, 2011. carpentier, alejo. “del folklorismo musical.” in tientos y diferencias, 41–56. montevideo: arca, 1967. dolar, mladen. a voice and nothing more. cambridge, ma: mit press, 2006. foucault, michel. the history of sexuality, vol. 1: an introduction. new york: vintage, 2012. freud, sigmund. “recommendations to physicians practicing psycho-analysis.” in the freud reader, 356–363. new york: norton, 1995. glasser, ruth. my music is my flag: puerto rican musicians and their new york communities, 1917–1940. berkeley: university of california press, 1997. griffin, farah jasmine. if you can’t be free, be a mystery: in search of billie holiday. new york: free press, 2001. gutiérrez, laura g. performing mexicanidad: vendidas y cabareteras on the transnational stage. austin: university of texas press, 2010. halberstam, judith. gaga feminism: sex, gender, and the end of normal. boston: beacon, 2012. kun, josh. audiotopia: music, race, and america. berkeley: university of california press, 2005. lacan, jacques. anxiety: the seminar of jacques lacan, book x. cambridge, ma: polity, 2014. . “the subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in the freudian unconscious.” in écrits, 671–702. new york: norton, 2006. molloy, sylvia. “la flexión del género en el texto cultural latinoamericano.” revista de crítica cultural 21 (2000): 54–56. monsiváis, carlos. “ ‘los que tenemos unas manos que no nos pertenecen’: a propósito de lo queer y lo rarito.” in que se abra esa puerta: crónicas y ensayos sobre la diversidad sexual, 49–75. mexico city: paidós mexicana, 2010. rancière, jacques. the politics of aesthetics: the distribution of the sensible. london: continuum, 2006. roman, kenneth. the king of madison avenue: david ogilvy and the making of modern advertising. new york: st. martin’s griffin, 2010. spillers, hortense. “ ‘all the things you could be by now, if sigmund freud’s wife was your mother’: psychoanalysis and race.” in black, white, and in color: essays on american literature and culture, 376–427. chicago: university of chicago press, 2003. szendy, peter. listen: a history of our ears. new york: fordham university press, 2007. vargas, deborah r. dissonant divas in chicana music: the limits of la onda. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2012. vazquez, alexandra t. listening in detail: performances of cuban music. durham, nc: duke university press, 2013. venegas lloveras, guillermo. marzo dos: una voz para los siglos. san juan, pr: n.p., 1991. vogel, shane. the scene of harlem cabaret: race, sexuality, performance. chicago: university of chicago press, 2009. wald, gayle. shout, sister, shout! the untold story of rock-and-roll trailblazer sister rosetta tharpe. boston: beacon, 2007. fink, robert. 2005. repeating ourselves: american minimal music as cultural practice. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. reviewed by rob haskins the music of the american minimalist composers-above all, steve reich and philip glass-continues to excite an increasingly diverse, international public. djs have hammered out artful and groovy remixes; online mavens have banded together in chat groups; and the advertising industry has licensed glass's music and commissioned reich knock-offs as parts of cam­ paigns for cars, cereal, soft drinks, and many other products. the composers have found success in more conventional venues as well. last fall, reich won the edward macdowell medal, while glass saw the premieres of his eighth symphony and his twenty-first opera. this unusual assortment of venues and events connected with mini­ mal music makes it-perhaps more than any other twentiethor twenty­ first-century western classical repertoire-admirably suited to a sustained examination of its wider cultural contexts. for the most part, however, few have ever attempted such a study. most scholarly works on minimal­ ism resolutely privilege its formalism and have used sophisticated music­ analytical tools to explicate the music's structure (among many fine examples, see cohn 1993); only recently have scholars undertaken broader, culturally grounded inquiries (grimshaw 2002). thus, robert fink's repeating ourselves, a major work of such cultural criticism, is long overdue. fink, an associate professor of music at ucla, has a lively mind that has led his teaching and scholarship in a variety of directions, from the dizzying array of genres (and subgenres) of electronic dance music to freudian readings of brahms and schoenberg. in all his work, he profitably reads music against the grain to disclose unexpected cultural connections and resonances; his best work discusses popular and classical musics in such a way that he honors both without reinscribing traditional (and sometimes problematic) methods of determining their value. fink situates american (and some european) minimal music in anum­ ber of concurrent cultural activities. in chapter i, "do it ('til you're satis­ fied): repetitive musics and recombinant desires;' he counterpoises reich's music for eighteen musicians with donna summer's "love to love you, baby" (both from 1976) to explore the multivalent and erotically charged teleology of minimalism and disco. chapter 2, "'a colorful installment in the twentieth-century drama of consumer subjectivity': minimalism and current musicology, no. 81 (spring 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 147 148 current musicology the phenomenology of consumer desire;' examines the culture of repeti­ tive advertising in the 1960s, theorizes it (with the help of jean baudrillard's ideas of postmodernity), and briefly considers how several compositions by reich and glass might be heard to echo it. fink continues this inquiry in chapter 3, "the media sublime: minimalism, advertising, and television;' with more sustained analyses of reich's eight lines (1979), terry riley's in c (1964), louis andriessen's hoketus (1977), and "the grid," from glass's score for godfrey reggio's film koyaanisqatsi (1982). chapter 4, '''a pox on manfredini'; the long-playing record, the baroque revival, and the birth of ambient music," considers the repetitive, mood-regulating therapy of­ fered by automatic record changers loaded up with mediocre performances of vivaldi, telemann, and other composers of baroque tafelmusik. finally, fink turns to the intersections of minimalism and suzuki violin instruction in america in chapter 5, '''i did this exercise 100,000 times': zen, mini­ malism, and the suzuki method;' and ultimately concludes that repetitive musical and social activities facilitated the minimalist process-works of the midand later 1960s. the brilliant central chapters 3 and 4 provide the finest examples of fink's talent for interdisciplinary scholarship. his central thesis in chapter 3 asserts that minimal music "arises with and mirrors a key historical trans­ formation of the consumer society: the self-conscious postwar transfer of the repetitive structures of mass production from the material realm of the object into the symbolic realm of discourse ... the mass production of desire for goods through discourse" (81-82; original emphasis). this desire, fink tells us by way of baudrillard, is wholly inauthentic, and the need we think we perceive for specific objects is actually a need to create social meaning, which can never be fulfilled (97). the system of mass production and mass advertising creates a discourse in which consumption is no more than an act of signification-and the constant proliferation of signs within the discourse ensures that consumers will be forever lost in a hall of mirrors, consuming without ever feeling satisfied. minimalism reflects this feeling not merely through its use of repeti­ tion as a surface compositional device, but more deeply in its ambiguous interpenetration of slow metamorphosis-or even slower rhythmic strata (as in many of reich's works)-and sparkling, kinetic surface activity. in a dazzling passage, fink calls attention to the resonance that this characteristic of minimal music shares with the experience of two principal characters in georges perec's novel les choses (1965), characters so obsessed with objects and the act of consumption that they experience, as perec writes, '''a pleasure so intense as to verge on numbness: an impression, almost exactly opposite and almost exactly identical to the experience of speed'" (101; original emphasis). rob haskins fink uses this image as a complement to his analysis of reich's music for mal­ let instruments, voices and organ (1973). in this work, a two-chord harmonic progression in the voices and organ slowly and systematically appears in longer rhythmic values as the faster-moving percussion parts grow in­ creasingly dense. at a certain point, the rhythmic values of the harmonic progression gradually return to their original durations. eventually, reich repeats this design twice more, with different progressions and (in one in­ stance) a different meter. in the final section of the work, a fourth progression appears; this time, however, the augmentation of rhythmic values results in longer note values than in any other section of the piece, and is not fol­ lowed by a complementary diminution process. in fink's words, this section functions "as if a potentially infinite process of doubling and redoubling had simply broken off at the limits of human endurance" (114). something in this characterization represents the experience as emptied of expressive content, much in the same way that the principal characters of les chases are never authentically satisfied by the objects of their con­ sumption. this impression is most plausible, of course, when one considers the rhythmic processes alone. but certainly the affective experience of the music rests on more than its rhythmic processes. what of the choices reich makes for the pitch and harmonic content of the work's four sections? in the case of music for mallets, the progressions of the first three sections all follow a similar pattern: the second chord of each progression is a minor triad preceded by a major chord a minor third higher. this gives the music a somber, serious affect, which is made more poignant since the pattern occurs throughout the first three sections of the work. in the final section, however, the progression is completely different, culminating on a flat domi­ nant seventh chord-a dominant for a major chord that never appears. the chord's unexpected appearance, and its concurrent projection in continu­ ously augmented rhythmic values, suggests a subtle expressive strategy in the music more nuanced than the rather bleak and hopeless evocation of postmodern subjectivity that fink offers in his reading. i can imagine an important reason for fink's neglect of such details, however. just as certain modes of formalist musical analysis too often privilege the content of a musical score without an adequate account of its surrounding cultural context, a comprehensive reading of multiple aspects of a musical composition might foreclose the experiences of different kinds of musical audiences. i believe fink means to describe the listening experience of the (largely) untrained musical audience-such people listen to music in their daily lives but do not experience musical details as carefully as might a classical musician, a dj, a critic, a record producer, or many other pro­ fessionals who work with music regularly. fink's acknowledgement of this 149 150 current musicology audience deserves the highest respect i can give, especially since it allows wider access to music scholarship than is often the case. of course, fink also speaks to more traditional audiences of music scholarship. he deals helpfully with details of harmony in several passages of the book, for instance. a discussion of a descending long-range linear bass pattern in reich's music for eighteen musicians explains the dramatic shift of tonality (to f# minor) that occurs midway through the work and thus elucidates the special kind of teleology that occurs in minimal music (52-55). but for him this shift is something rather momentary, like the ef­ fect dj frankie knuckles produces by suddenly turning off the lights and playing a recording of a train for drugged-out and otherwise altered revelers struggling toward their final ecstatic moments after a night-long adventure on the dance floor (41). for me, however, the expressive impact of that sud­ den turn to f# minor only continues to deepen as reich extends this tonality in successive sections of diverse instrumentation and figuration and as he works his way back to the d major/b minor tonality with which the piece began. the effect is not unlike the subtle changes of beat patterns, tempos, and timbres that contribute to the "build" in extended mixes of electronic dance music. i would argue that the most discerning enthusiasts for this music could savor the long-range planning in reich's work as well perhaps the most effective analysis-and by far the most entertain­ ing-is the one fink supplies for andriessen's hoketus (153-57). drawing on advertising theory, fink describes television as a "low-involvement" medium that blandly prepares consumers (in a future purchase situation) to apprehend a sudden rush of desire for the product they had previously seen hawked ad infinitum in intermittent television ads-ads to which they had paid hardly any attention. for fink, the process is similar to the sudden wrenching shifts of tonality and texture that occur in hoketus. aspects of this reading resonate strongly with my own experience of the work, and, like fink, i can savor his analysis without losing any of my great admiration for hoketus itself. still, i suspect there is some difference between the way i hear the piece and the way fink does. he insists that the architects of repetitive television advertising assume viewers will remain largely unaware of individual iterations of the ads, which suggests that his claim for minimal music's complicity in the same zeitgeist similarly assumes that most listeners will not-cannot-attend to the repetitive content of the music. fink occasionally makes explicit this corollary assumption in the book, as for example in this description of the sensibility underlying the rise oflight baroque and minimalist music in the 1960s: the most characteristic venue for vivaldi was not the party where he was ignored, but the study or office, where he was indeed listened to, but in rob haskins a new way. barococo minimalism is music not for pleasure (eros), but music for mental discipline, for mood regulation ... the repetitive listen­ ing habits of the barococo revival were early harbingers of the way most music is consumed now, which in turn is a constituent of the way most people are now . . . . minimalism pioneered the deliberate creation of this kind of musical ambience in the 1960s, but it was not the first music to address itself successfully to the ubiquitous subject-in other words, like television, to influence everyone and be fully attended to by no one. (12-13) i will readily admit that some listeners do not pay the kind of close attention to minimalism that various other musical professionals might. i will even grant that some of my musician colleagues are unlikely to pay this music the kind of close attention that i do. but fink seems to deny that close attention is truly possible, which is why he hopes we will find a way to extricate ourselves from the emptiness of repetitive culture: if mozart speaks only in the language of power to [christopher] small, perhaps we would be better off listening to shinichi suzuki, who heard in the clarinet quintet, k. 581, a musical expression of profound equality within "the great soul of buddhism." if in the west, mozart and vivaldi have been trapped in repetition, perhaps only the zen-like repetition of saino-kyoiku can set them free. we repeated ourselves into this culture. we may-nurtured through love-be able to repeat ourselves out. (235) concomitantly, fink suggests that when close attention is attempted at all, it necessarily consigns a consideration of minimalist music to an arid, formal­ ist wasteland that segregates it from wider, more traditionally humanistic domains: some music theorists began to realize in the 1980s that this music in fact resonated perfectly with the extreme formalism in musical analysis that held sway within their discipline ... in each case the analytical methodo­ logies that had served to parse schubert and schoenberg [were] tweaked somewhat so as to pay attention less to harmonic stasis and more to rhythmic complexities. (18)1 the only other responses to minimalism that fink acknowledges are those of insiders who, echoing susan sontag's famous dictum against interpre­ tation, simply describe the music (17) or of those who see the music as a revivifying transferal of eastern philosophies and cultures "into a dying 151 152 current musicology eurocentric musical discourse" (13). i would like to believe in the existence of another community of listeners, one who listens carefully to minimalism and responds thoughtfully and proactively to it. as a modest example, i offer the following supplement to the discussion of glass's "the grid" in chapter 3 (161-66). this music accompanies the climactic sequence in godfrey reggio's film koyaanisqatsi that shows various aspects of urban life-traffic patterns, people entering and leaving subways, conveyor belts bearing twinkies and hot dogs, and more-usually at diz­ zyingly fast speeds. fink characterizes the relentless assault of images and the progressively faster rhythmic values in glass's rapid music as a careful preparation for a shot in which a woman and her children watch a televi­ sion set in the middle of a sales floor surrounded by other television sets. in the next scene, we see an onslaught of quickly alternating images from television programs and commercials: in this culminating moment the overall trajectory of the film becomes clear. monumental scenes of unspoiled nature have given way over the course of an hour to machines and industry that rip at the land; then to a completely man-made landscape of repetitive production and consump­ tion; and, finally, to the utter alienation of televisual flow washing over us at the speed of media. (162-63) but we have heard other variations of "the grid" music in previous scenes of the film: in the majestic evocation of unspoiled nature in "cloudscapes;' and in "vessels," where the first human beings in the film-along with the audience-contemplate some monumental edifices of the modern world in­ cluding skyscrapers and jet planes. both these scenes include clear statements of a three-chord harmonic progression that also figures prominently in "the grid." in "cloudscapes;' reggio portrays clouds and waterfalls untouched by man, so that the music originally accompanying unspoiled nature later recurs with images that (for fink) suggest only a one-dimensional rejection of life mediated by technology and industry. at the very least, these three instances of related music problematize the more straightforward indictment of technology that one might apprehend from reggio's imagery alone. the scoring might also offer a way to view technology and mechanized society as cultural sites that can engender both concern and celebration, an inter­ pretive stance that seems more in line with a quotation fink cites of glass describing the "vitality, and a sense of beauty" that the composer sees in the hyperactive city imagery (164-65). fink's cultural reading of minimalist music also suggests how important it is to consider the larger aesthetic fabric and sociocultural dimensions of twentieth-century music after 1950. minimal music forms only one thread rob haskins in this fabric, of course, and the compositional choices of glass, reich, and others respond both musically and culturally to other composers of their time as surely as they do to the repetitive culture that fink considers. the very different responses of john cage and reich to the idea of process, for example, extend the model of fink's repetitive culture in other valuable direc­ tions. reich's sustained critique of cage in the well-known essay "music as a gradual process" (2002:34-36) points out cage's reliance on compositional processes that cannot be heard as such. but reich fails to see that cage's interest in a music emphasizing the process of life actually offers listeners a myriad of possible interpretive stances of equal validity. put another way, cage's music does not alienate listeners searching for meaning so much as it creates a space in which they can find their own particular meanings. and in the 1960s, as evidenced by his computerization of the i ching with the help of lejaren hiller, cage thought of computers and similar process-oriented technologies as tools of artistic creation used by many people working in concert, and thus as models of societal cooperation without hierarchies (see cage 1973:22-24). a broader look at such ideas about technology and its cultural reception would help contextualize reich and cage alike. no book is free of errors. i will mention two particularly unfortunate ones involving musical examples since they might mislead readers who have not seen these scores. first, the final vocal/organ chord in example 10 (115) should read a~-e~-o-ek in example 18 (232), i believe fink wants to cite glass's strung out (1967) as an example of an ultra-repetitive violin piece that shinichi suzuki would not enjoy playing. instead, he quotes a kind of impromptu realization of glass's ensemble piece two pages (1968). strung out, a work far less repetitive than two pages, might well have appealed to the famed pedagogue as an interesting exercise.2 these lapses should not deter readers of various backgrounds and viewpoints to read and re-read (and re-read) repeating ourselves and to enjoy it as a thoroughly researched, vastly entertaining, and often surprising tour de force of musicology and cultural studies. i believe the book provides an important example of how we might read a musical repertoire and its various realizations in larger socio-historical contexts. i hope it stimulates further work that addresses other audiences for and experiences of minimal music, as well as scholarship that considers other twentieth-century concert music with respect to its wider socio-cultural aspects. notes 1. of course, it is possible for sustained music-analytic scholarship to elucidate twentieth­ century music in more traditionally humanistic domains. as an example, see arnold whittall's discussion of elliott carter's syringa (2003:153-57). 153 154 current musicology 2. for score excerpts of both works, see potter (2000:278) (strung out) and (2000:289) (two pages). references cage, john. 1973. m: writings '67-'72. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. cohn, richard. 1993. transpositional combination of beat-class sets in steve reich's phase­ shifting music. perspectives of new music 31 (2): 146-77. grimshaw, jeremy n. 2002. high, "low;' and plastic arts: philip glass and the symphony in the age of postproduction. musical quarterly 86: 472-507. potter, keith. 2000. four musical minimalists: la monte young, terry riley, steve reich, philip glass. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reich, steve. 2002. music as a gradual process. in writings about music, 1965-2004, edited and with an introduction by paul hillier, 34-36. oxford and new york: oxford univer­ sity press. whittall, arnold. 2003. exploring twentieth-century music: tradition and innovation. cam­ bridge and new york: cambridge university press. current.musicology.81.109-169.pdf here be dogs: documenting the visual culture of the czech indie scene michal nanoru the eye has always been suspect in rock culture, after all, visually, rock often borders on the inauthentic ... it was here-in its visual presentation-that rock often most explicitly manifested its resistance to the dominant culture, but also its sympathies with the business of entertainment. (grossberg 1993:195) for saturday night live he wore the same clothes from the previous two days: a pair of converse tennis shoes, jeans with big holes in the knees, a t-shirt advertising an obscure band, and a mister rogers style cardigan sweater. he hadn't washed his hair for a week, but had dyed it with strawberry kool-aid, which made his blond locks look like they'd been matted with dried blood. never before in the history oflive television had a performer put so little care into his appearance or hygiene, or so it seemed. kurt was a complicated, contradictory misanthrope, and what at times ap­ peared to be an accidental revolution showed hints of careful orchestration ... he obsessively-and compulsively-planned every musical or career direction, writing ideas out in his journals years before he executed them, yet when he was bestowed the honors he had sought, he acted as if it were an inconvenience to get out of bed. (cross 2001:2) in may 2011 i went to an opening party at the tony shafrazi gallery in new york city, where hollywood stars and celebrities, including mickey rourke, quincy jones, and naomi campbell mingled near amish-mash of eastern european -related artworks, including robert crumb's comic book rendition of kafka's metamorphosis, vladimir tatlin's statue "monument to the third international;' and an exhibition called revolutionary film posters, a trove of russian constructivist imagery from between the wars. i it was a bizarre sight for me, a person who grew up in 1980s czechoslovalda, a satellite nation in the soviet bloc. in the 1980s, czechoslovak cultural policy, theoretically and declaratively (if not always in practice) respected the norms of socialist realism, and it was in the name of the very ideals promoted by these posters that western popular culture (and kafka, for that matter) were banned as "bourgeois" and "decadent" imperialist propaganda. here in the spectacle of a chelsea gallery, the stars of hollywood the most visible exponent of american capitalism-celebrated the repurposing of political propaganda current musicology, no. 91 (spring 201 1) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 49 50 current musicology into aesthetic objects, as if theatrically reasserting capitalism's victory over the ideologies of the soviet bloc. this victory is not always that absolute in the former czechoslovakia, and although its been more than twenty years since the ideologies were officially abandoned, the impact of their pre-1989 influence can still be traced in many areas oflife in the central european region. my aim here is to confront some of the issues raised by the above situation, especially attitudes towards art, fashion, and popular culture in the context of post-totalitarian czech republic. my focus will be the relationship of members of the 1990s and contemporary czech independent music scenes to visual presentation of their own and others' musical objects and performances. as a cornerstone i am going to use zde jsou psi/here be dogs, a czech/ english book about visual culture of czech independent music scenes that i edited in 2010. (fellow czech journalist martina overstreet served as a producer for the book). the book features thirty-two musical projects now active in the czech republic, each introduced by a) a studio portrait of its personnel by the photographer adam holy, b) a representative set of the project's visual communications-costumes, album covers, booklets, flyers, posters, documentary and promotional photographs, video projections used during performances, merchandise, banner ads, computer wallpapers, buddy icons, etc., and c) a short text written by a third party author familiar with the czech music scene. the image of the visually compelling part of the indie scene is complemented by dusan tomanek's documentary photographs, which were taken of czech audiences in the past four years at festivals, clubs, and various other venues. my experiences as pop music critic, editor of two independent arts and culture publications, and advocate for popular music studies within czech media studies at prague's charles university informed my enthusiasm for the topic and allowed me to foresee the obstacles in the production and reception of this project in the czech cultural space. there were several. the book packed more than forty names in its colophon, with some ninety members of bands (plus their designers and photographers), and sold out its initial run of a thousand copies. as such it became a useful indicator of positions on the role of the image in the indie music sphere. i began research for the book in 2009 by examining more than 300 contemporary czech acts that had at least some web presence, and my col­ leagues martina overstreet and marie hladikova also conducted a similar scope of research. most bands i researched got by with the default page settings on myspace, or a profile on its czech counterpart, wvltw.bandzone. cz. the thirty-two projects included in the book represent only a minority of bands, with our primary criteria being that those selected showed interesting approaches to their visual presentation or at least showed interest in visual michal nanoru presentation. they were singled out as exemplary and the introductory text of the book served as defense of such interests. the authors featured in the book come from very different backgrounds: they are graphic designers, artists, curators, critics, art theorists, and fellow musicians. i state in the book's introduction: "our texts were written by experts, however they are experts on something else. we haven't found an expert on the visual part of indie bands" (nanoru and overstreet 2010:234) there are several reasons for this. the book, with its documentary ambition, originated partly as a reaction to the vacuum in contemporary czech writing about popular music in its institutional framework and social context. the study of popular music had a strong tradition in the czech scientific milieu throughout the second half of the twentieth century, but after the 1989 velvet revolution no one was able to meaningfully build on it and develop it further. 2 books devoted to popular music (other than popular biographies and interviews with artists) are virtually nonexistent, and those that do exist focus on the history of popular music before 1989 (kotek 1990, 1998; matzner, polednak, and wasserberger 1990; doruzka 1991). these works also use visual materials strictly for illustration. the post-revolutionary change of priorities, the transformation of funding for the sciences, and the somewhat unchallenged division of high and low art prevented wider attention to contemporary popular music in the country's musicological research departments. in catching up with what was being neglected for the forty years under soviet command, popular music fell behind. the humanities and social sciences departments are not particularly quick to adopt popular music studies into their curricula either-my attempts to implement it into media and communications studies program at the faculty of social sciences of charles university were met with skepticism. the increasing influence of british cultural studies in czech university classrooms that would suggest the possibility of future changes to this situation has not so far resulted in many publications or conference papers on popular music. more activity can be seen coming from indepen­ dent enthusiasts than from scholars; for instance the first serious book on the history of black popular music, hudba ohne: radikalni cerna hudba od jazzu po hip hop a dale [fire music: a radical black music from jazz to hip­ hop and further], was written by a younger music journalist karel vesely and published in december 2010 by biggboss, a record label specializing in hip-hop. the hardcore/diy scene put its lyrics into a compendium in 2009, but that was it; the editor and publisher tomas weiss gathered the verses without context or any introductory text. there is, however, a body of literature dealing with pre-1989 "parallel culture;' or "the underground" as it is was called in the czech context (pilar 1999; hlavsa and pelc 2001; 51 52 current musicology jirous 2008; machovec 2008). here be dogs picks up from these histories, exploring subsequent generations of musicians and fan cultures while dif­ ferentiating between the social conditions of the past and post -89 times.3 the lack of relevant czech literature, together with the fact that the czech indie scene often follows popular culture developments in the west (especially in britain and the united states) also leads me to the use of works published in these countries in this article. perhaps the main reason for the lack of interest in the visual culture of in die outside czech academia, and the reason some bands declined to be included in the book, is the precariousness of the suggestion that indie bands market themselves not so dissimilarly from commercially oriented musical enterprises, or the suggestion that members of the bands would stylize themselves. in my experience working in and writing about the independent scene, and especially putting together here be dogs, contemporary czech indie bands often refuse to acknowledge the role of graphic and product design, of on-stage or off-stage clothes and accessories, and/or performance, or at least they avoid openly discussing it. their members claim they don't feel confident in the areas of visual representation, or don't care about them, often also suggesting that showing too much preoccupation with polishing visuals could or should have direct consequences for their credibility. i will go more deeply into in die ethics and definition of indie later, but here i want to suggest that both scholar wendy fonarow (2006) and music journalist michael azerrad's work on indie ethics and discourse work well in my analysis, as fonarow dissects british indie as a symbolic system with particular focus on the questions of authenticity. throughout the article i'm going to adhere to her understanding of indie as an ideology, an ethos revolving round the idea of creative and sometimes political autonomy, rather than as a mode of distribution or a genre definition. azerrad's book our band could be your life (2001), an account of the emergence of the american indie scene in the 1980s, inspired and strengthened ethic codes of the czech in die scene in the 2000s. copies of our band could be your life has circulated in the scene and on one occasion it was handed to me by a member of the czech promoter team and record label silver rocket as "the scriptures:' fonarow writes that "the indie community has an elaborate discourse concerning what constitutes 'authentic' music:' (2006:188) and indeed, following azerrad, the czech indie scene currently screens its members for excess with puritanical consistency under the guiding principle that "the in die underground made a modest way of life not just attractive but a downright moral imperative" (azerrad 2001 :6). openness about one's sartorial choices and general consideration of appearance is considered contradictory to pure artistic intention and, in many cases, attracts criticism, michal nanoru often leading to the collective hypocrisy of stylizing one's act only to hide the embarrassing fact of such vanity. overstreet discussed the communication with the musicians in here be dogs as being fraught with anxiety about even the term 'indie': "bands were bothered by the term 'indie' and they understood 'style' as something superficial that might compromise their deep and serious creations. when i started using the words 'club scene' instead of 'indie' and 'your visual expression, which might also include clothes; everyone was much happier:' (email correspondence, nanoru, june 29, 2011)4 the leader of one band was asked whether their fans could be photographed for the book: i don't like the idea anyway. personally, rather than some hipster poseurs, i would prefer photos of keyboards we use, and stuff, and guitars. make great photos of them, because for us as a band they are quite a bit more substantial than a bunch of dumb trendy girls that let themselves be entertained by [pop singer 1 peter nagy on sunday and by us on monday. sorry. and thanks very much. (anonymous email correspondence, overstreet, june 9, 2010)5 expressions of reservations towards style and issues of appearance can, to some extent, be found in most alternativelindie music scenes (see fox 1987; muggleton 2000; gelder 2007; greif201o), but a scene in a post-communist country like the czech republic has its specifics, some of them stemming far before the 1989 revolution. i therefore begin my article with a brief historical exploration, which exposes the tendencies that have shaped and intensified the czech independent scene's perspective-especially the unusually strong legacies of 1960s american counterculture and 1980s czech folk singers, both of which were relished as a oppositional forces under communism. from there i approach indie as a moral system and demonstrate how it is now used for policing in the czech indie scene, using voices heard during the making of and in here be dogs. particularly the uneasy relationship of southern-bohemian band sunshine with the punk/hardcore scene it came from is introduced to point to the in die scenes' quest for authenticity as the primarily criteria for exclusion. then i'm going to investigate the complex ways in which in die as a western concept is adopted in a context of post­ communist country, by both the older and the newest generation. the quest for authenticity in the context of the czech independent scene is complicated by the complex information interchange between the sources in the centers that determine global popular culture and their local counterparts in the periphery that-to a certain extent-make the czech independent artists dependent on whatever information can travel through the traditional and often mainstream media and, more recently, via blogs and social media in affiliated communities. the aforementioned generational change then 53 54 current musicology represents the increased attention that in the past two years gained artists in their early or mid-twenties, whose bands often come from art school and/ or regional backgrounds. such new bands bring important value changes into the czech in die discourse, whether concerning more open attitudes towards bands' presentation or their position within the global music scene. i conclude with examination of here be dogs's reception and its possible implications for the development of visual culture of czech independent music culture. the 19805: laying ground for indie there are three periods in the twentieth century during which information was flowing with a relative lack of restriction in and out of czechoslovakia/ czech republic. the first was the first republic, from the founding of czechoslovakia in 1918 to the nazi occupation in 1938; the second was circa 1963 to 1968, when the relaxation of soviet grip, and subsequent attempts at system reform, allowed for an economic and cultural "prague spring:' which was followed by soviet occupation and a harsh crackdown on civil society, a time called normalization; and the last came in the 1990s, following the velvet revolution in 1989. in retrospect, the movements defining the cultural atmosphere of these eras, much debated and celebrated in the wake of the post -1989 reconstituted democracy, correspond to the idealism of interwar modernist avant-gardes (attempts at art as inseparable from the praxis oflife, and art in the service of public good), the liberating sixties, and the 1990s, which saw a revisitation of sixties countercultural ideals with the ethos of the pacific northwest "grunge" rock scene. the early 1990s hippie revival was a wider process seen as a reaction to the reagan-thatcher eras in the west (from acid house to madchester to techno, see for example smith 1992; reynolds 1998), but in the czech republic, the sixties were revived in bookstores, record stores, and in the media by way of a publishing frenzy that was stirred by those who remem­ bered the last days of relative freedom in the 1960s, and by a general hunger for everything that had been long forbidden. in the early 1990s, formerly banned books and lps were being released and re-released in large num­ bers' and classic 1960s films enjoyed renewed premiers with unparalleled audience turn outs. then, as "europe fell in love with the idea of sweaty, flannel-wearing, blue-collar lumberjacks with screaming guitars rocking out in the wilds of the pacific northwest" (mcmurray 2011:ix), grunge became the first "credible" major western musical happening to hit czech popular music culture without censorship. the public theater of kurt cobain's never-resolved conflict between the diy ethics of 1980s punk, "the desire michal nanoru to rail against the dark milieu of the post -hippie early '70s and the calcified world of contemporary corporate rock" (ibid.:viii), and the demands of mainstream success and major label pressure, were important parts of the czech fascination with grunge. cobain, as much as the czech president vaclav havel and many others on the turbulent threshold of the 1990s, went swiftly from being a dissident to being a commander in chief, blurring the barrier between the underground and the establishment. devotion to the ideas of 1960s was not exclusive to the post-revolu­ tionary release. frozen by the 1968 cutting of ties with developments in the west, the czech underground movement of the 1970s and 1980s organized itself around the legacy of the beats and the 1960s counterculture. jachym topol, a member of the youngest underground generation, calls the beats their "prototypes" (topol 2011). the greatest source of inspiration for the emblematic band of the underground, the plastic people of the universe, was the velvet underground, followed closely by the mothers of invention and the fugs. books by the beats and associated writers circulated in samizdat, publications reproduced in small numbers on typewriters or mimeographs and passed from reader to reader, and translations of the beats' poetry and prose still enjoy great response in the czech republic. the poet egon bondy, one of the central figures of the czech underground, was named the "the no.1 czech beatnik" (blumfeld 1992)6 and poets jan hane, milan koch, zuzana trojanova, svatava antosova, vaclav hrabe, and later petr placak and jachym topol also drew inspiration for their literature as well as outsider lifestyle from the beats. for the non-academic public in the early 1990s, lou reed, frank zappa, and allan ginsberg remained as cultural icons (see on this pilar 1999, janousek 2008, armand 2010). the discourse of "the underground" itself was adopted from the west, but its form intensified under the totalitarian condition. in the first account of the underground literature, underground, literary historian martin pilar quotes canadian paul wilson, who at the very beginning of the 1970s performed with the germinal czech underground band plastic people of the universe. wilson remembers how, in the czech environment, he began to perceive american avant-garde rock quite differently: "filled with heavy dumplings, sauerkraut and beer, i comfortably sat back and listened to the velvet underground, captain beefheart and the doors and the fugs, and as i listened, i felt the depth of the music, which i did never feel before, as if i first heard it with the czech ears" (pilar 1999:25)? pilar sees causes of this transformation and the strong effect the 1950s and 1960s american counterculture had on its czech counterpart in the "lack of intellectual pluralism and free thought, which in the central european context has always been very difficult to promote" (ibid.). 55 56 current musicology singer-songwriters were a substantial influence on the overall czech cultural atmosphere of 1980s and 1990s. since the late 1970s, they had been more or less tolerated by the regime. they played at summer folk festivals, and, in the second half of the 1980s, recorded for the state record label panton. rock bands, whether "alternative" (those who preferred to play legally, when possible) or the more radical "underground" (who preferred to have no contact with the establishment, chadima 1992: 10) however, had more public scrutiny. while even banned songwriters (such as vladimir merta, vlastimil trdn<ik, jaroslav hutka, or pepa nos) could always secretly perform with a guitar at private concerts and at the semi -legal art exhibition openings (and, if needed, quickly hide traces of it), whereas larger productions or louder musicians tended to attract the attention of the authorities. these more noticable events were generally reserved for "official" groups whose production was prescreened by censors for "objectionable" lyrics, musical style, or general appearance.8 the underground acts lacked the permission to perform and therefore risked imprisonment, loss of employment, exclusion from school, and other penalties (providing they found a space to perform, since the management of the venues risked similar sanctions). continuing police repression against underground rockers, and harsh methods of "in­ terrogation" after the 1976 process with the underground band the plastic people of the universe9 successfully destroyed the radical wing of unofficial groups. soon after, the establishment began to view even the "alternative" as a significant risk for the implementation of its "ideological education" plans and "ideological supervision" of independent cultural activities, and in the 1980s they hardened cultural policy towards popular musicians with repeated use of artificial judicial procedures and series of imprisonments (see skvorecky 1983, 1988). in this climate, the bards of the 1980s maneuvered between the state-sponsored and underground worlds, and were perceived as an island of relative freedom by the audiences, who valued the credibility of songwriters' personal beliefs and their self-tortured role as the guardians of morals. the critical force of ridicule and liberating humor of their lyr­ ics defied the regime's pathos and its general handling of words. 10 a large portion of the production comprised rhymed, guitar-accompanied citizen journalism that balanced the popular distrust of the media. spontaneous expression by (at first) amateur songwriters represented an antithesis to the kitsch of commercial popular music promoted by the state-controlled media. what azerrad notes in our band could be your life that applied to the 1980s diy movement in the united states applied also to the reality of 1980s czechoslovakia (with the exception of the college education, since many potential students were not allowed to enter universities): michal nanoru there are interesting parallels between in die rock and the folk movement of the early sixties. both hinged on purism and authenticity, as well as idealism about the power of music within culture and society; both were a reaction to shallow, complacent times and their correspondingly shallow, complacent entertainment; both had populist roots but were eventually commandeered by white middle-class college kids. (2001:8) in the czech mainstream of the 1980s there was consumer socialism, a kind of state-controlled mass conformity, where those who did not hide their dissenting opinions or simply stood out in any way, personal appearance included, were persecuted, and where consumer goods, whether food, fashion or music, were produced in state-monopolized, mass-standardized forms. the question was then whether goods would be delivered at all, given the frequent shortages and generally limited supplies of the failing state­ planned economy. the centralized, nationwide five-year plans and ban on private entrepreneurship significantly limited the potential for seasonality, for "trends:'ll for an alert minority of listeners in and around the under­ ground, a great many of whom after the revolution became public figures in their own right, the folk (and punk) formula "three chords and the truth" became sort of formal standard (whatever the truth may happen to be). by the end of the eighties and the dissolution of the soviet bloc approaching, this group grew rapidly. 12 vaclav havel describes the dual nature of life in "normalized" czechoslovakia in his 1984 essay "six asides about culture": something is always banned, now as then; virtually nothing is permitted, suppressed journals remain suppressed, manipulated institutions continue to be manipulated, and so on. the regime genuinely behaves like a grave dig­ ger, while virtually all that is lively and yet has to be permitted lives almost by accident, almost by mistake, almost only on a word of honor, though with endless complications and no assurance about tomorrow. what is true about the will of the regime, however, is not necessarily true of the real spiritual potential of our community. however suppressed beneath the public surface, however silenced and even however frustrated, in some way that potential is still here ... i see evidence of this in far more than the hundreds of samizdat volumes, tens of typewritten magazines, private or semi-official exhibitions, seminars, concerts and other events: besides, there are theaters crammed full of people grateful for every nuance of meaning, frantically applauding every knowing smile from the stage . . . queues at book stores when one of [writer bohumill hrabal's books, emasculated though it may be, was about to appear; expensive books on astronomy printed in a hundred thousand copies (they would hardly find that many readers in the usa); young people travelling half way across the country to attend a concert that may not take place at all. is all that-and more-really a graveyard? (1987:125) 57 58 current musicology the strength of the folk tradition was not without consequences for the visual part of the credible music productions. according to performance studies scholar philip auslander, both western and eastern resistance to show business "stemmed from the belief that the dominant culture controlled the means of producing socially influential images (e.g., the mass media)" (2006:15)y the 1960s counterculture and its heirs' investment in the idea of authenticity and subsequent antipathy to theatricality in music is derived from three ideological commitments, argues auslander: "the emphasis on spontaneity and living in the present moment, the desire for community, and the suspicion that spectacle served the interests of the social and political status quo" (ibid.:io). seeing the folk singers and their craft on one hand and spectacular popular culture on the other as a part of the "clash between an anonymous, soulless, immobile and paralyzing centropic') power, and life" (havel 1987:133) helped shape the czech alternative views of what was authentic and trustworthy way into 2000s, sometimes resulting in paradoxical and counterproductive uncritical formalism. this point was clear to havel: at times we encounter something we might call a sectarian view of parallel culture, that is, the view that whatever does not circulate only in typescript or whatever was not recorded only privately is necessarily bad and that not being printed, publicly performed or exhibited is in itself an achievement or an honor while the reverse is always and automatically a mark of moral and spiritual decay, if not outright treason. (ibid.) in principle, not much has changed since. the larger, more elaborate, more visible productions in the czech independent scene attracting attention by their design or visual exuberance and not only by lowly musical expressions tend to entice examination and risk being associated with social and political mainstream. indie is a way of life there are many definitions of "indie;' with the original one stemming from an independent financial relationship to the-six, five, or four respectively­ transnational major label music corporations (negus 1999, azerrad 2001, fonarow 2006), and this is the definition from which czechs have come to use the term, in english. the move from economic descriptor to aesthetic/ genre descriptor began, shortly after it did in the united states, around the early 2000s (abebe 2010). as in the united states, the space between the two meanings is a site of conflict and self-definition for each artist. likewise, czech indie music culture has its own narratives and heroes who define and michal nanoru shape the terms of the argument. one legendary instance occurs in the plot of miuiga happy end (zelenka 1996) a mockumentary film in which an all-powerful record company turns a simpleminded band into dancing fruit to promote an international fruit producer. but according to international federation of the phonographic industry (ifpi), the sales of recorded music in the czech republic in 2010 were close to $20 million usd. the regional branches of major labels 14 operate budgets that wouldn't support many of the western independents and they were almost never able to exercise the relative amount of power their parent companies do in their environments (negus 1999; nanoru -pospisil 2005; elavsky 2005). the economic definition of indie as matter of access to the corporate distribution networks, however, was rather unpractical and limiting even before the music industry collapsed under the digital revolution. indie also cannot be confined to any musical genres or styles-the label has been applied to college rock as much as trip hop, disco, or dance-punk. many of the 2010 annual indie "best of" lists in the western media were topped by my beautiful dark twisted fantasy, a best-selling hip-hop album dealing with celebrity and excess, recorded by kanye west, an international celebrity, and put out by roc-a -fella records, a subsidiary of universal music group. for this reason it seems most useful to define indie as an ideology. the moral and ideological system of indie, developed in the united states and particularly in britain and adopted by a select group of fans during the past twenty years in the czech republic, defines itself against "the mainstream" through a set of binary oppositions: small labels vs. major corporations, intimate venues vs. stadiums, local vs. global, personal vs. impersonal, 10-fi vs. elaborate production, live vs. prefabricated, spontaneous vs. choreographed, original vs. mass-produced, natural vs. artificial, utilitar­ ian vs. ornate, individual vs. uniform, authentic vs. constructed ... (ibid.; fox 1987; muggleton 2000; gelder 2007). these forms of opposition cohere into an ethos similar to that of hippie, and indeed romantic ideology of the artist, and these binaries are mutually reinforcing of one another. likewise, one element of an artist that is on the wrong side of the binary can potentially negate all "correct" elements of the group as fonarow argues: for indie, 'authentic' music is personal, live, youthful, organic, self-made, original, and motivated by concerns of artistic expression rather than commercial acquisition. this aesthetic morality is one of the ways indie asserts its music as more valuable than other genres. (2006: 188) an indie artist always has to consider what creative decisions could position him or her outside of the indie acceptability, and being preoccupied with one's image in this equation often has a tendency to do just that. 59 60 current musicology the most important distinction for czechs is between music produced for profit and that which is espoused as being made with pure enthusiasm. in this sense, czech indie in 1990s and 2000s often takes on the attitude of rockism, the belief that rock is the best musical form, more authentic than the other forms of popular music and therefore superior to them. rockism equates rock fandom as natural or naturalized while other types of fandom are artifice, which is in and of itself a systematic denial of the constructedness of rock fandom. the term "rockism" had been in use within british popular music criticism discourse since the 1970s and entered into mainstream with a new york times article by kelefa sanneh: like rock'n'roll itself, rockism is full of contradictions: it could mean lov­ ing the strokes (a scruffy guitar band!) or hating them (image-conscious poseurs!) or ignoring them entirely (since everyone knows that music isn't as good as it used to be). but it almost certainly means disdaining not just ms. [ashley] simpson but also christina aguilera and usher and most of the rest of them, grousing about a pop landscape dominated by big -budget spectacles and high -concept photo shoots, reminiscing about a time when the charts were packed with people who had something to say, and meant it, even if that time never actually existed ... rockism is imperial: it claims the entire musical world as its own. (2004) these views, in condensed form, represent the romantic aesthetic prefer­ ences and values within the generic trope of rock fans as described by keith n egus-favoring "timeless" rock over "consumer" pop, album over single,15 author over performer or artists that "express themselves" through writing their own songs over the ways in which singers or groups of performers may work with arrangers, session musicians, and songwriters in putting together a composition or project (2002:121). perhaps not surprisingly for a domain almost exclusive to a small, mostly college-educated, lower­ middle class to middle-class white male cohort -and the czech republic is one of the socially, ethnically, and nationally most homogeneous states in europel6-the in die doctrine often acts as a residuum of high art values in postmodern situation. one of the high art values reaffirmed within indie ideology is that of the autonomous creator. as writes fonarow, "for many, indie is the spirit of independence, being free from control, dependence, or interference. self-reliance, not depending on the authority of others, has been the guiding value of indie music, as has the autonomy of artist" (2006:51). with "rock musician as an artist;' this "rebellious individualist" is, in this mythological context, expected to express his innermost feelings through music and without interference. anything that would resemble established professional marketing tricks, such as "superficial" and "extraneous" design or fashion, michal nanoru suggests paying attention to "unessential" elements and losing of the one of the most reiterated indie values, individual artistic control. the ideal here is "unmediated" expression, or rather, something as impossible as unmediated music, unmediated media. one of the important indie binaries juxtaposes style not as temporal but eternal, formed by internally held attitudes. the indie ideology travels well. by deriding fashion as superfluous, equaling attention to visuals as manipulative, saying that marketing tech­ niques are only for commercial (or propagandist) acts, contemporary czech rock musicians and fans are consistent with disparagement of the "low taste of the masses:' actively refining an image is considered cheating and rejected on the same grounds the hipster figure is declassed as a pretender because of the hipster's adoption of subcultural styles without sharing of social conditions or imagined ideologies (see greif 2010; hebdige 1979:46-51). j akub adamec, a member of the extravagant silesian band i love 69 popgeju, writes in here be dogs about another band known for its visual exuberance: "[it's] a frequent prague phenomenon: the attempt to look and be coolon the outside, which doesn't go hand in hand with inner originality" (nanoru and overstreet 2010:241). by this dismissal he actively sets and defends the boundaries of indie as coherent, with core and surface. other artists in the book mobilized their bids for authenticity in a classic gesture of negation as outlined by bourdieu in distinction (1984). one such case was that of amak, the leader of the darkwave post-punk band night. in here be dogs he states: i wear dirty shoes cause i'm a pig and i don't have time to clean them. my t-shirt is torn from the guitar, and i wear everything inside out, cause i don't like the type on my shirt. if someone needs to wear a blond wig and big sunglasses for the same reason and feels comfortable, then it's ok. (nanoru and overstreet 2010:255) amak is a former bassist of sunshine, a band formed in 1994 in tabor that had been part of the southern bohemian punk/hardcore scene, but which was ostracized from the scene for its "inauthentic" style sense and for courting mainstream success first abroad then back in the czech republic. a review of the sunshine album moonshower and razorblades, which was released by the american record label custard (run by mainstream pop producer linda perry, and distributed by warner brothers in united states and universal music in the czech republic), appeared on the diy culture website czechcore, which prompted a lengthy thread about the appropriateness of publishing a review of such an album, regardless of how positively or negatively the reviewer evaluates them. cvalda anticipates this in the review: 61 62 current musicology i can already see the discussion, that review of major label record shouldn't appear on czech core (who knows if the review will be even published after they rejected my review of the last mbtorhead album), but i think that sunshine has strong roots in what czechcore presents, even if it headed somewhere else ... i know how many people in the hardcore scene view sunshine, i understand, on the other hand, this album is simply good and i'm sincerely glad that in this fuddy-duddy country, where radios are dominated by the greatest of musical waste, sunshine caught on and brought the masses something of at least some arty value ... (2005) 17 a user named premek posted comments that were echoed by many: i don't even know if you're serious about this ... next time i'll have to read reviews somewhere on mtv, they have more pictures there :0) ... i think that hardly anybody here thinks that sunshine leaped further with this album ... maybe further into (i hope not only) my ass. (2011)18 given this type of reaction to sunshine within the indie community, amak's assertions in the book project are part of his own present attempts to claim authenticity relative to that of his former band, who are still active and play primarily in a circuit of "commercial" festivals and club performances frequented mainly by czech teens. 1he exclusiveness of rockist ideology extents further in its dismissal of exterior. one of the more fashion-conscious people on the czech cultural scene is jan p. muchow of the mid -1990s czech shoegaze and later electronic band the ecstasy of st. theresa. muchow confirms his mistrust of style in favor of "taste;' saying in here be dogs: "style is something you can buy, but taste is something you either have or don't have" (nanoru and overstreet 2010:248). in deriding style as easily acquired and corrupt, muchow aligns taste as a kind of ideological superiority (bourdieu 1984). he denies the constructedness of taste and its determination by person's social-economic and educational background, implies the existence of category of "tasteless" opposing the one and only "good taste" (i.e. the bourgeois taste, in bourdieu's reading), and uses it as a way of actively distancing himself from a social group lacking cultural capital. aesthetics here take the shape of a disciplinary system used to reinforce an elite status, "a cultural turnstile-it admits only those with the right tickets and excludes the masses" (fiske 1989:121).19 a new generation of musical artists contradicts earlier czech indie tendencies. these younger fans and musicians appearing on the czech independent scene in the late 2000s tend to be exposed to and expecting of international travel, have access to post -secondary education abroad, and a engage in a direct, instant flow of media. they often have more playful attitudes toward the relationship between their work and the presentation michal nanoru "which is worst off-czech thrift stores or czech hip hop?" asks petr vizina, the author of text about cokovoko (above) in here be dogs. cokovoko, part of the brno scene, make explicit parodies of the creation of credibility through flow, dynamic stage presence, and the seemingly unmediated transition from street to stage that is a dominant part of czech hip-hop since its inception in the 1990s. © 2010 adam holy. used by permission. of themselves. one such person is painter, promoter, and dj jakub hosek of prague's dj duo indie twins and promoters team amls0, who says in here be dogs: "we don't live ordinary lives. we don't wear ordinary clothes. we don't have to" (nanoru and overstreet 2010:246). the new generation, especially those coming from the art school envi­ ronment, are markedly more open about their aesthetic and sartorial choices. "we frequently borrow clothes from each other. it depends on our mood;' says edgar, a member of aggressive electro group schwarzprior, formed in 2010 by three students of the faculty of fine arts of the university of ostrava, who support themselves by doing construction jobs. "when i'm feeling fine, i remember what i was wearing the last time i was pissed off, and that i put on. when i'm enjoying myself on stage, i might take my shirt off" (ibid.:241). those czech artists, whose experience with music and popular culture was primarily gained after the digital turn and the collapse of the music industry's late twentieth century model, tend to see music less bound by genre rules. this development, partly caused by eroding hierarchy of media and rapid generation of short-term trends and styles that do not replace each other, but exist side by side, manifests itself in more open relationships between art forms. theatrically-sophisticated electronic band midi lidi, taken out of the club context, becomes "a conceptual, audiovisual work, whose goal 63 64 current musicology is to do contemporary pop" (ibid.:242). but still, even the most extravagant of the young projects on the indie scene, such as brno's feminist, parodic rap duo cokovoko, continue to view costumes as an evasive action and point to music's supremacy over other components of their expression: "we won't wear jeans and white tees and play the lute until we know how to do something, which is far away in the future. so for the moment wearing masks is a necessity for us, just like it is for [mask-wearing shock metalists 1 slipknot:' (ibid.:244). however, the new generation of artists entering the independent scene in the past two years brings with it vital changes, whose consequences will the scene continue to feel in the future. performance the czech indie scene's resistance to sophisticated presentation doesn't stop with design and fashion. performance and theatricality are also subject to suspicion in the indie environment. on the hunt for authenticity, fans ap­ pear to perpetuate a systematic denial of the fact that any live performance is in great part theatrical, or, as simon frith writes in performing rites, that "all live performance involves both spontaneous action and the playing of a role. this is obvious enough in live music: it must involve a combination of improvisation and note-following" (1996:207, frith's emphasis).20 the conventions of performance are actually what the performances are judged and valued against. as popular music scholar theodore gracyk maintains, rock exists primarily as recorded music. the audience experiences it mostly in album form and as such, "rock is not essentially a performing art" (1996: 74-5). gracyk claims that the media represent rock musicians as live performers and not as the studio artists they are, marketing rock as live even though it circulates mostly recorded, which perpetuates the myth of rock as live. both auslander (1999:76) and frith (1996:211) add that most rock records misrepresent rock musicians by pushing the artifice of their studio recording in the background and posing as if the recording were a mere performance. the pose reinforces some fans' belief in liveness as the most important element of popular music. one instance of this is the story of cobra killer, a german girl group famed within the much larger and diverse berlin scene primarily for their performances rather than sonic sophistication. mlada fronta dnes, the czech national daily newspaper, reported in 2007: 'shut up and play!' and 'here you're not in germany!', sounded from the audience at the performance by the berlin girl's duo cobra killer in prague's club rock cafe. also, broken shards of a broad-shouldered man's pint glass hit the stage after his girlfriend's shirt was stained by few drops michal nanoru of red wine, which [cobra killer's members 1 annika and gina poured on themselves during the show. the intolerance of the prague audience does not lie in the rejection of music, but rather in a non-acceptance of the theatrical and cabaret element. we cannot assume that visitors would not know cobra killer's music, they have certainly heard their albums many times-but they expect a concert experience where music plays the lead. instead, they are faced with two crazy, exhibitionist girls with a sequencer and prerecorded sounds trying to excite reactions that are not entirely normal in the environment of a music club. for many berlin artists it is typical not to be ashamed to come to the concert hall with prerecorded music, to change into an extravagant costume, run an animated projection, sing out of tune and accompany it with, say, a painted maraca. czech clubs are not yet attuned to this game, a concert is considered an event worthy of respect on both sides of the stage. (turek 2007)21 this example bares the basic elements of czech rockist resistance to the performative component dominating over the music in club environment. the audience of the cobra killer came with expectations of (gendered) musical skills, or at least attempts at such skills, and was upset by the obvious disinterest of the duo in technical mastery or musical innovation and its concentration on the performance and provocation. the audience expected to witness serious on-stage creation or recreation of music they know from the band's records, but was met with music only serving a whole different­ frivolous, vaudevillian, willful-idea. for some, the playful distancing carried the performance away to the realm of a toy, a trick or magician's deceiving paraphernalia. the out-there subcultures after going through the historical developments and considering the indie's concept and the way it is applied by the members of the czech indie scene in its basic forms, it's necessary to identify the specifics of czech indie as opposed to its american or british counterparts in more than just chrono­ logical way. the position of the country on the fringe of world's stage leads to regional indie specifics. first, independent scenes are characterized by high permeability and closeness between those on stage and below it, and the size of the czech scene (prague, the largest city, has 1.3 million inhabitants and the whole country's population is 10.5 million) makes distance impossible, in literal terms or in terms oflifestyle. very few czechs obtain the status of "stars;' in as much as this means the adoration of many and its subsequent requirement for removal from everyday society. if indie rock artists are not supposed to be remote untouchable rock gods but "one of us;' then in czech this 65 66 curr'ent musicology rule applies absolutely. in the indie scene, fans and performers often swap roles, and the sticky environment where members of different subcultures must share venues, media, and resources with aesthetic or social opposites to survive makes it possible for style and genre ideologies to intersect and collide, which lays the ground for misconceptions about the inner work­ ings of style, subculture, or marketing. one example is the curious mix of metal, punk, hip-hop, and ska fans who support prague's diy venue 007. the criteria imposed on a club serving different groups, such as 007, or on radio 1, the first and only fm alternative radio in the czech republic, vary deeply. for instance, while certain forms of conspicuous consumption such as participating in "sneaker culture" are acceptable or even desirable in the current czech hip-hop community, it is generally condemned by (indie) rockers or by hardcore/punk fans. however may the czech hip-hopers derive their musical origins and inspirations primarily from the british or american mainstream, as does the young czech grime artist smack, they share the indie scene's minority position in opposition to the czech mainstream. this position is recognized by other alternative groups who often need to form coalitions with them. now i would like to address the question of authenticity of the subculture that has been transplanted from the west into the significantly different environment of a post -communist country. while the purity of the original subcultural cores and their ability to isolate themselves from the dominant consumer culture must not be overstated and overly romanticized-as subcultures are never isolated from their media environment and the majority of people who frequent any traditional subculture are followers (thornton 1996; trowler and riley 1985:157)-the story of alternative culture's constant struggle to retain its authenticity and opposition towards mainstreaming is here further complicated by the fact that the position on the global cultural periphery means that czech indie scene is derivative from the start. it's difficult to pursue "authenticity;' "originality;' or being "natura1"22 and "unstylized" if styles, including the music industry system and its terminology (and the very dispute about authenticity) have been imported as models from abroad where they originated as a local response to local problems. most of the projects in here be dogs and in the czech music scene during the 1990s and 2000s conform to already established western indie musical styles. most bands sing in english, and most feature members who look up to western musical heroes.23 americans or brits complain that elvis or the rolling stones took the "negro sound" and translated it into the language of the white teenagers (leland 2004); that hippies were inauthentic children of the middle class who were not interested in jazz, literature, and philosophy of the 1950s counterculture, but only in sex and michal nanoru drugs (greif 20 1 0); that punk was a stylistic game of two fashion designers with situationist leanings (muggleton 2000); that the velvet underground was a caprice of andy warhol; that every known subculture has always been nothing else but a romanticized image of poverty or disemboweling styles of the inner city ghettos and dragging them out to lush green lawns of suburbia. but very little of that critique has made it to the czech republic-indeed, these "inauthentic" artists are the basis of our own musical countercultures. czech bands and their fans operate in different cultural context to that of both the originators and disseminators of the style.24 of course the czech indie culture cannot be entirely dismissed as deriva­ tive. it is impossible to have an "authentic" local culture, which wouldn't be influenced by the media, commerce, and poses, because it wouldn't be globally interconnected and thus available to us. nothing would catch on in the czech republic unless it resonated with local needs and desires, reflected or otherwise dealt with something the czechs are dealing with, in whichever idiosyncratic way. smack, the czech grime musician, boasts of being the first to copy the latest styles from the united kingdom, acoustically and visually. he mocks those who are behind him in the information chain (nanoru and overstreet 2010:258). the czech hopefuls fit into the category of "out -there subcultures" as cagle defines them, those who take: ... styles from mass-mediated sources (out-there) and appropriate them in subcultural manner ... [they] may engage in the recontextualization of an already commercialized (incorporated) style, but in so doing, they also engage in an act that symbolically resists the supremacy of dominant/ mainstream culture. (1995:208) the blogging boom, that has has created a discursive space where informa­ tion doesn't necessarily have to enter western mainstream media to enter the czech republic, is still fairly new and untested phenomenon. whereas it would be easy to align the adoption of traits of american and british independent scenes in the context of the czech republic with western cultural imperialism, the ways in which the czech fans acquire information about its western models and the ways in which they are able to distribute their music these days suggest a slightly different scenario. there's no doubt that after 1989 the czech republic became a target for products of universalizing cultural industries promoting the hegemonic interests of western, international elite producers, but it is increasingly difficult to argue that the ideologies of western independent scenes were simply imposed on czechs along with other commodities such as food or jeans. members of the czech independent scene, and especially the newest generation, are on a constant look out for coalitions with the outside world. the czech 67 68 current musicology bands may feel more affiliated with musical happenings in other countries than in their own immediate vicinage, but their opportunities are limited. fiordmoss, an electronic folk duo formed at the faculty of fine arts of brno university of technology and included in here be dogs, is one of the first to gain minor international recognition through blogs and facebook connections, while being virtually unknown in the czech republic. they soon realized that mp3s travel far better than a tour van and refused offers for international concerts due to lack of resources. the same is confirmed by tomas kopacek who runs the acoustic project mon insomnie, the first czech artist ever mentioned by the influential us internet indie music website pitchfork media. kopacek declined to be included in here be dogs, because he did not want to be associated with the czech scene. he already defines his community in other than national terms. correspondingly, he also belongs to a generation that ignores the domestic, traditional media. 'tve never listened to any radio. i do not know why would i ever want them to play my songs;' he said to the czech news weekly respekt in july 2011 (turek 2011). kopacek, fiordmoss, or others in here be dogs want to overcome the limits of their region, of sounding limitedly "regional;' and anxiously seek to be a part of the global music community. for vladimir 518, the czech rap and graffiti legend, this is done by respecting genre boundaries (nanoru and overstreet 2010:257). for midi lidi, this means mixing kraftwerk­ inspired electronic music with czech folk song. the motivation remains the same: a strong desire for affiliation with alternative musical cultures from all over the world. the art school shift here be dogs tries to locate and address some of the contradictions in the czech indie scene and set the agenda for discussing themes we considered neglected. the book also reflects several groundbreaking shifts in the past two years. with increasing speed, the youngest generation of artists and their audiences are adopting tendencies that also shape music, art, and fashion scenes in the west. the growing affluence of the czech people, the flourishing of consumer marketplaces filled with a large selection of internationally-produced and name brand items, and the proliferation of the digital media have impacted many elements of czech society, one change of which is an increase interest in fashion. 25 as the society homogenized by the totalitarian regime stratifies, consumers, even those the context of an "alternative" scene, face the widened supply of consumer goods, and their attention starts to turn to the use of michal nanoru material goods as communicators. pointing out to the fact that consumption of material utilities is also, and now more importantly, a consumption of signs (baudrillard 1981), was one ofthe main aims of the book. this brings to the fore musicians born near the year 1989 and highlights the cultural shift towards attitudes and uses of art and the visual in the west. the continuing aesthetization of societies, mediatization (krotz 2001; schulz 2004; couldry 2008),26 the pictorial turn (mitchell 1994), the designing of everything, are also increasingly apparent in the czech republic. the emerging processes­ and the book itself-are a part of wider movement in the society of spectacle, in a "time in which fashion moves from an expression of individual style to something photographed, blogged, reported on, turned into a trend, marketed, and sold" (greif201o:27)y british style magazines in the beginning of the 1980s (such as i-d, the face, blitz, see hebdige 1988) launched sections devoted to street style, which were the precursors to today's fashion blogs, and these magazines influenced a new generation of american magazine counterparts in the 1990s (ray gun, vibe, spin) to become more explicitly fashion-oriented. they became "consumer guides to the latest sounds and styles and places written in the language of art history:' as wrote frith and horne (1987:4). on pages of these and many other magazines, fine art seized rock'n'roll's status of the primary source of cool. fine art since the 1960s continues its move from the wall to the performance space or media sphere, and in the czech republic, art schools have recently become places filled with the technologies for producing media and a talented, ambitious young work force waiting for new projects. jih ptacek, who teaches at the brno university of technology, writes that: ... every quality art school has a recording studio, where you can record and mix tracks [and] ... in the art community it's easy to persuade your colleagues to help you make videos, photographs, projections. (email correspondence, nanoru, october 9, 2010)28 art school bands are becoming an unmistakable force on the czech indie scene. in the west, the art school space as a natural setting for a coun­ terculture and as one of contested but continual presence in rock culture is well documented. but in the czech context it represents a fairly new phenomenon. while sharing much of the ethos, art school bands stand indie puritanism on its head with the provocative question-why should music always come first? in the art school context the visual doesn't come after music, offering help, serving the music. they are created together and they are created equally. the roles members of such group perform are usually highly separated, with one person vjing, one person playing or 69 70 current musicology at least monitoring a stream of electronic music, and one person on vocal and dancing duties, with all tasks usually highly independent of what the others are doing. the fact that the art school band phenomenon, incubated in glam rock but fully hitting the western world in the form of the new wave, was repressed in the 1980s czechoslovakia, increases its current, still unfolding impact. in the small brno new wave scene of the 1980s, some bands worked with tempting influences of art rock, punk, and nascent electronic scene, however, the amount of information from the west was so limited that they mostly had to rely on their own fantasies of how the music sounded and the performances would go. art school projects-1a2vl, indie twins, the silesian/wallachian, or the brno scene-have progressed to the foreground of the national in die panorama in the past two years. they represent more than a third of the bands selected for here be dogs and their approach is radi­ cally different from their predecessors. "[symbols and costumes 1 determine the borders between the human race and those on stage;' states jaro haro, the sole member of audiovisual project 1a2v1, which came to existence as a semester-long project at the studio of graphic design and new media at the academy of arts, architecture and design in prague (nanoru and overstreet 2010:242). haro builds a thin, but clearly visible wall between himself and presumed indie egalitarianism-he is in no case "one of us;' when performing he is not even human. compared to older generations of czech indie, namely those of 1990s and 2000s hardcore/post -punk and rock, bands coming form the czech art school environment tend to view music as no less a matter of gaining control, but they have a tendency to abandon class rhetorics and alliances, and view their work much more as a way of achieving broad goals of aesthetic and autonomy rather than moral or political ones. in connection with art school bands, there has also been an embrace, resurrection, and/or update of local czech or central european culture within the indie scene within the last few years. until very recently, local identity was the source of embarrassment for czechs. this process is analo­ gous with rise in visibility for regions other than prague within the czech republic, especially the moravian centers of ostrava, olomouc, and brno. long after the 1989 revolution, for most czech musicians, the label "czech sound" was mostly synonymous with creative poverty and parochialism, but now the country is witnessing the rise of a generation that exhibits local references openly and tries to take them as a starting point for original work. these references however typically don't concern the sound of the bands, but their visual presentation. michal nanoru the kratochvils, or dva, outside a diy plastic greenhouse in padouchov, the village where they record their albums at parents' weekend house. their parents took the casual photo just for family use, but dva took a liking to it and since that time they have released a seasonal series of promotional photos posed by the greenhouse. © 2010 dva. used by permission. dva, a moniker of married couple bara and jan kratochvil, with a matter-of-factness that felt subversive, embraced signifiers of czech provincial homeliness such as mushroom picking, gardening, and holiday photographs, and cultivated the kratochvils from eastern bohemia, to be a working image that's unique but complex, original and contemporary. they abandoned the ubiquitous question of the czech transitional period "when do we get to europe?" (how to be worldly? how not to be provincial, awkward and peripheral?), and instead answered the question that until now nobody dared to ask-how to re-imagine such signifiers of cultural intimacy as cross-country skiing, fruit preserves, and high-waisted sweatpants as our own kind of cultural cool? certain 2000s brooklyn indie music trends helped; for instance, freak folk (with its crookedness, foppishness, and sensitivity) was easier to cultivate in the czech republic than was the imperial arrogance of britpop in the 1990s.29 it is exactly the same point, where part of the czech indie scene decided to abandon its long cultivated restrictive puritanism and introduce new, art school influenced elements into its realm, where it also started allow itself to embrace its local peculiarity. 71 72 current musicology reception: 'as if the songs were only an accessory' there are several points from which a polemic with indie's restrictiveness could depart; and several conditions that help to amplify the indie's czech variety-and most of them can be traced in here be dogs's reception. the famous cover ofxtc's go 2 album (1978) was called a "the triumph of design" simon by frith and howard horne (1987:146). it is a text-based meta -cover, cheekily proclaiming: "what we are really suggesting is that you are foolish to buy or not buy an album merely as a consequence of the design on its cover:' but people do buy records by their cover, especially since "buying" means waiting for an open slot on any of many of the file sharing services, as most of the czech music lovers do. when albums are "free" and come in seemingly unlimited quantities, covers function as an indispensable guide, if nothing else. there's nothing foolish in it, as there's nothing foolish in itunes cover flow, the way itunes organizes media libraries as covers for faster orientation. but here be dogs argues that the visual is an integral part of the popular music experience. image is as a part of the discipline we today call "a band" as, for instance, lyrics, and the band that doesn't pay attention to its look wipes out a good portion of its vocabulary. peter saville, the designer for joy division, wasn't the only one inspired by roxy music, the british band legendary for their mix of music, fine arts, design, and fashion: "i saw roxy music as a pop art concept. they were a band, and there was a sound, but i saw the image as an art concept rather than dressing-up" (saville 2003:23). from my ten years' experience in czech publishing, doing work for musicians is popular and prestigious amongst filmmakers, designers, and photographers. in 2006 i helped escape, an "indie" subsidiary of czech emi, to launch its money­ losing and therefore short-lived singles edition. it was envisioned by a&r executive libor lisy more as vehicle for design and photos, an outlet and a space for realization of dreams of the labels' unpaid photographers and designers (in a special example offan labor), rather than a teaser to boost sales. although it could certainly count as an investment in the bands credibility, the promotional effect (lost on many journalists and suffering commercially because only a small number of collectors were willing to pay half the price of a regular album for just two songs in a paper sleeve) was tiny compared to the rewarding feeling shared by the creative team that having a strong visual identity is what constitutes great bands. great bands have (great) collector items, however they might not have, as in this case, collectors to collect them. public displays of enthusiasm are a rare sight in the czech republic. vaclav havel describes in his 1988 essay "bfemeno 21. srpna;' that there was a general malaise and constraint even twenty years after the tanks of michal nanoru the warsaw pact ended the liberalization of the prague spring of 1968. he uses as his example charter 77, the human rights civic initiative formed in part because of the jailing of the plastic people of the universe: people follow the work of charter 77-and much more-on foreign radio with interest and sympathy, but they would think twice before supporting it publicly. or at all if they were to publicly express their true feelings. czechs and slovaks are not enthusiasts, they don't get on something too often. in 1968 they were passionate about something, for a few months they acted as citizens enjoying their full rights, but they were hit hard: twenty years they were persecuted for their enthusiasm. after this bitter experience, their current cautiousness is more than understandable. (havel 1999:188)30 havel follows a view of the national character, of the "famous realism" (havel 1987:125), that resonates in czech culture throughout the twentieth century and further: czechs are said to generally not be vain, to not risk jumping on every wave, to invest in tested quality. they're as wary, practical, and resistant to storms and trends as the outdoor clothes they wear. such assessment is here applied to the czech culture in general (a comparative study of the level of spectacle on, for example, czech, slovak, and german television still awaits deeper academic scrutiny, but it will certainly have to consider the areas' protestant or catholic traditions), but what if it is in the independent/alternative territory exemplified by aspects of the heritage of the 1960s counterculture, folk singers and the investment in the idea of authenticity already described above? the legacy of these years can be seen today in everyday moments of czech expression and life: forced hominess, the absence of large urban centers, the market where certain needs are not yet created, the stagnant economic situation, the restricted access to information (at the moment, there is no itunes store or any other way of legally obtaining digital music this side of germany?! and still generally low level of experience with the language of fashion. these elements combine to make what has been called the czech "cult of casual" (formanek 2010): a way of holding on to the ( seemingly) un mediated, informal, and nonchalant as a way of hiding from the spotlight, evading responsibility, and altogether disqualifying the uneasy question of appearance. however problematic it would be to ascribe this to a nation, it certainly applies to many members of bands that we interviewed in the preparatory stages of here be dogs. the existence of bands that could be included in the book, that acknowledge their work with the visual, proves a substantial shift has happened since the mid-2000s. martin hula, prominent figure of the hardcore/d iy scene, formerly part of the post -punk/hardcore record label and promotions group silver rocket as well as member of several highly credible bands, reinvented himself as 73 74 cun-ent musicology rapper in 2010. hula underwent the controversial move in to the new terri­ tory partly in response to conservativeness of his own scene. as bonus, his rapping alter ego, he perpetuates the national image outlined by havel: a thousand times more crowns spent on beer than music, and we still whine that we can't make ends meet. it's all new, don't hurry us, coffee and cigarettes, two years to get used to it, we want what we know, again and again, no attitudes, no swearing, or foreign words ("ztracime cas" ["losin' time"] from the album konee eivilizaee, starcastic 2010; translated from czech.)'2 similarly, one of the final paragraphs of here be dogs's introduction reads here be dogs means several things. first, hic sunt leones, here be dragons: this is dark, uncharted territory. this area is not even on a map. no one before us was exactly eager to explore in die bands' approach to visual communication. the czech republic is a barbaria, visually illiterate. people who deal with covers systematically, or who conceptually control projects or labels, are scarce. critics won't cast their eyes on visuals. the same trouble is with fans. (235) repeating and strengthening national stereotypes doesn't help, on the con­ trary, and here be dogs aimed at disrupting stereotypes by exposing bands that challenge the status quo. the amassment of such dire assessments in the intro was also somewhat corrected by the book's reception. the book sold out of its print run of 1,000 copies in eight months (60 percent through a national distributor, 20 percent through independent sellers, 20 percent online), was reviewed in six publications and it was featured in uddlosti [events l, the flagship daily evening television news program for czech television and later also in its analytical news program. roughly 300 people attended the launch party for the book. similarly, an opening for subsequent exhibition of selected photographs from the book was attended by 150 and facebook auction of the prints yielded 12,000 czech crowns ($730) for a prague dog shelter. the designers were selected to introduce the project at pecha kucha night in prague, an international series of presentations by designers, architects, and photographers. the book has won the second michal nanoru place in the most beautiful czech book 2010 [nejkrasnejsi ceske knihy roku 2010] competition in the category of books about fine art and photo and picture books. it was also selected for the international photobook award 2011 at fourth international photobook festival, documenta-halle kassel, germany. this is not normally how a book about popular music would be received in the czech republic, or in fact, how any book is received. the controversial subject fueled popular criticism of the book, and subsequent discussions in newspaper and web boards proved that visuality is a contested subject of inquiry in czech culture. one review fulminated: "the publication is nicer than the intentions of its origin. the authors of this book like to look at the music rather than listen to it ... fascinated by the surrounding culture, as if the songs were only accessory ... they got it a little bit messed up in their heads" (slavik 2011).33 another wrote: "a little more comprehensive vice magazine, minus the blather" (pagoda 2011),34 and the title of the next asked: "the new bible of czech hipsters?" (waldhauserova 2011).35 facebook user satanislava novakova commented on photographer james mollison's series of photos documenting fans dressed up as stars (2008), which was posted on the here be dogs facebook fan page: "here be dogs, according to its own words, focused on the 'unexplored' places of the 'independent club scene; and yet it admires photos of clones of commercial stadium fillers such as rod stewart, dolly parton, and iron maiden:'36 others were similarly resolute, although in a very different way: "hardly a word about music and yet perhaps it is the most that has been ever written about music in this country;' wrote designguide.cz (2011).37 lidove noviny, a national daily, even saw alternative culture and attention to surface as traditionally bonded: "the music that stands outside the superficial mainstream, or that positions itself as its direct opposite, has always been associated with a considerable degree of attention to surface-on stage and in front of it" (stind12010).3s some simply agreed with the book's intro: "while musicians beyond our borders use the visual as a tool in attracting listeners, the czech republic, after decades of forced uniformity, remains a country where an artist caring about his appearance is brushed aside by the majority audience as narcissistic freak" (ded 2011). 39 there is one comment that needs addressing more than the others. facebook user lukas pokorny expressed his disappointment on here be dogs fan page, stating that he "imagined more input from the bands-their own ideas of their functioning in the society that deserves criticism for its limitless consumption, but in which it is impossible to exist without a style:'40 i had to confess that we also expected input from the bands and were similarly disappointed. our experience dealing with the band members informed the 75 76 current musicology assessments in this text. most of the bands approached, even those included in the book, don't have a set agenda regarding the questions of image, style, or visuality, on group or individual level, and they refrained from taking a stance or saying anything. the mere fact that they let themselves be photographed, and submitted some of their own visuals-after many urgencies-was a major victory for us. as mentioned in the beginning, some declined to be included. this proved us how morally laden the topic of style in indie culture is and how important it is to initiate a discussion about it. the book aimed to dissociate attention paid to visual presentation of musical acts with mere commercialism by showing different creative strate­ gies employed by bands and projects within various subgenres on the czech music scene (from metal to electro to weird folk). it advocated for diversity and openness in a reaction to the indie scene's ideological limiting of modes of expression. the concepts of verisimilitude and artificiality might be jokes for a poststructuralist, but they continue to have real meanings for music fans. in defining what is real and fake about a scene, for instance, fans are making assessments that themselves constitute new genre categories, or new scenes themselves. this can be seen constantly in the history of popular music, as in other forms of art: white blues fans, for example, redefined the genre in the name of authentic­ ity to exclude anything too jazzy or upbeat, thus enforcing a snobbish and racist exclusion of certain blues artists from the canon because they were too sophisticated. instead, they lauded the most primitive blues artists they could find, such as john lee hooker, from whom blacks turned away. (barker and taylor 2007:xi) the czech-and any-independent scene faces similar reductionist danger by not understanding the role of performance, design and/or fashion, sup­ pressing the varied tradition, and/or by winnowing "its heritage down to one single inbred white gene" (azerrad 2001:498). those who find success at innovating while staying within the indie scene, such as bonus, are rare and their position on the scene is constantly reevaluated and renegotiated, with the risk of discrediting always present. however, they increasingly manage to create a broader leeway that can be then used by the younger generations of artists. conclusion this articles describes a situation in the last two decades of history of czech popular music, where the certainties caused by the historical development of the country are now undergoing rapid changes due to a new generation that michal nanoru was not substantially shaped by experiences of czechoslovakian communist rule and its immediate aftermath and is weaned on globally networked information and communication technologies. a particularly strong form of czech rockism, that finds its sources in the rebellious tradition of 1980s folk singers, 1990s idealism, and the exceptional homogeneity of the country, has been recently challenged, but still vastly unaltered by the rising speed of information exchange and the consequent emergence of art school bands. working on a book about creative approaches to visual presentation of in die and alternative bands allowed me to test the applicability of western critical theories to what is increasingly western-inspired social phenomenon. or is it? indie has been naturalized in the czech republic with surprising, if not widespread, vigor. two essential features come along with widespread availability of the internet. the first is a tendency to follow global trends in more timely fashion, and with much greater precision in replicating them, even if only in a very small group within the indie scene. this includes not just musical aspects, but visual aspects of presentation. the second is the somewhat contradictory tendency of reconciliation of these trends with local culture. the first tendency is evident especially in the recent onset of the young generation of music associated with art schools in major czech cities. simultaneously, the very access to and wide array of information provided by the internet leads to growing confidence (and much better exposure), that is then evident mainly from the adoption of regional and previously repressed elements. academic research of czech musical culture declined significantly after the velvet revolution and now only slowly begins, with the institutions still in the making. however, its advantage lays in the unique and valuable experience of transition from a planned economy with a limited range of consumables and consistent censorship to consumer capitalism. the size of the czech market, its relative transparency, and its geographical position on the westernmost tip of the former soviet bloc makes it an interesting ground for monitoring the circulations of ideas naturalized in the western cultural space, and consequently, to see these ideas anew. this article manages to capture only a tiny aspect of the complicated position of visual communication within the indie/alternative worlds. scholars of popular music studies, visual culture studies, and media stud­ ies would all benefit greatly from further inquiries into the strategies that bands and their fans use for dress, fashion, and/ or design in different media environments and over time. the czech bands are keeping quiet for now, but the situation is changing fast. 77 78 current musicology notes i would like to thank current musicology's anonymous readers for their suggestions and editorial assistance. i am grateful to daphne carr, whose encouragement, insight and much needed perspective were invaluable to this article's completion. i also wish to thank martina overstreet and everyone involved in the making of here be dogs, as without them the article would not be possible. all translations, unless otherwise stated, by myself. 1.revolutionary film posters, aesthetic experiments of russian constructivism, 1920-33; vladimir tatlin, "monument to the third international"; r. crumb, "kafka"; may 6-july 29,2011. 2. sociology was ostracized as "bourgeois science" by the communists before 1989, but after the 1948 coup music and the culture surrounding it were considered to be very important ideological tools, and so valuable research was conducted since 1947, see karbusicky and kasan 1964; kasan and kosta! 1990; lysek 1956. important works were published especially by josef kotek, lubomir doruzka, or jii'i cerny, see kotek 1998; doruzka 1978, 1987; cigler 1980; matzner, poledmk, and wasserberger 1990. 3. the only work on post -1989 subcultures, the history of the czech graffiti, was written by the here be dogs producer martina overstreet and published as in graffiti we trust (2006). 4. [kapelam vadi vyraz in die a vsichni chapou slovo styl jako neco povrchniho, co by mohlo jejich zavaznou a hlubokomltvorbu poskodit. takze ve chvili, kdy jsem v mailech zacala pouzivat slova "klubova scena" a "vas vizualni projev, do ktereho patri mj. i obleceni" jsou vsichni spokojeny] 5. [me se ten napad stejne moc nezda. a ja osobne bych uprednostnoval spis nez nejaky hipstersky pozery, udelat fotage nasich idaves co pouzivame a veci a kytar a udelat z toho super fotky ktery jsou pro nas jako pro kapelu 0 dost zasadnejsi nez banda trendy blbek. ktery v nedeli bavi peter nagy a v pondeli nas.sorry a diky moe.] 6. the bohemian entourage around bondy lived in an information vacuum in the 1950s, and did not know anything about the beats. the similarities in approach to life and literary production were not due to foreign inspiration at the time. it was a remarkable, but unrelated, parallelism. from the 1960s onward however, the czech underground was well aware of the beats (see pilar 1999). 7. [nasycen tezkymi knedliky, kyselym zelim a pivem, pohodlne jsem se opiel a naslouchal velvet undergroundu, captain beefheartovi a skupine doors a fugs, a jak jsem naslouchal, ucitil jsem v te muzice hloubku, kterou jsem nikdy piedtim nepocitoval, jako kdybych to poprve uslysel ceskyma usima.] 8. censors were aware of the "dangerousness" not only of freedom of speech, but also of "uncensored feelings;' even if expressed through seemingly apolitical lyrics. as noted by frantisek cunas starek (kostur and starek 2011:13), "for the totalitarian regime is danger­ ous even a cricket singing in his own way [pro totalitu je nebezpecny i cvrcek, preludujici si po svem]". the regime tried to push songwriters into an acceptable form and those who appeared incorrigible were not only prohibited, but also persecuted. in the 1980s deciding on the acceptability of the acts was usually left up to individual approbatory organs, so for example folk singer jaroslav hutka was practically banned in eastern bohemia, but from time to time could perform in other parts of the country, see janousek 2008. 9. the still-active cult legends the plastic people of the universe were also included in here be dogs. as noted in a study by historians petr blazek and filip pospisil, vrafte nam vlasy! [give us back our hair!, 2000], the first nationwide "pogrom on the long-haired" was held in autumn 1966. hundreds of young men were then forced to cut their hair and were beaten michal nanoru for their appearance or attitude, after which other repressions followed. in 1970 the regime forbade the use of english language in music: bands could no longer sing in english, take english names, or cover songs from british or american bands. the most famous trial against underground, however, remains the case of the arrest, trial, and imprisonment of the plastic people in 1976. after a series of searches and hundreds of interrogations, seven people were sentenced. the plastic people, inadvertent pioneers of the white label (the secret police couldn't link them to nameless things) and guerilla marketing (concert announcements for those in the know) went to prison for their western image. can there be a bigger acknowledgement of its importance? (see karasek, hajek and plzak 1999; jirous 2008; laube, pokorna and sustrova 2010) the legacy of the theatrical new wave costumes of the '80s is represented in here be dogs by karel haloun, author of one of the texts and a graphic designer considered to be a non -playing member ofthe principal czech new wave band jasna paka/hudba praha. haloun's work on a cover in the 1980s guaranteed the quality of the music. 10. in a very similar sense to: "in the nineties, it had become commonplace to assume that one could no longer say heartfelt, sincere things outright, because all genuine utterance would be stolen and repeated as advertising" (greif 2010: 168). 11. whereas in the 1950s and beginning of 1960s the commitment and active participation in the building of socialist society was forced on the public, in the 1970s and 1980s the confor­ mation was bought by little allowances. the regime benefited from the political resignation of people and their escape to the private sphere. as janousek points out: "the communist regime of the seventies no longer aspired to direct approval, but contented itself with a quiet loyalty of citizens whom it tried to offer some kind of standard of living" (2008:15). between the narrow layer of those who actively participated in stabilizing the state after the soviet invasion and the layer of dissidents lived "the gray zone': a mass of citizens adapted to totalitarian conditions with which they quietly disagreed. 12. jii'i cerny, the legendary czech critic, recalls in kritik bez konzervatofe [the critic with­ out conservatory, riedel 2007: 123]: "when [songwriter vladimir] merta, accepting golden porta award in 1986, said in front of twenty-five thousand spectators that he wished those with whom he started could stand alongside him on stage, everyone knew he was talking about [banned singer-songwriters] kryl, hutka, and tfesnak. and to watch the sour faces of the central youth unionists in pubs at night, when next to them boys intoned kryl's songs, was very joyous for me:' 13. this was true regardless of the fact that the status quo and the messages disseminated by the media on either side of the iron curtain, were, at least technically, as far from each other as the cold war allowed. at its core the conflict of underground and mainstream culture in the second half of the twentieth century retained similar traits in both west and the east. "it seems that our regime can sniff out far better than many an art theoretician what it should consider really dangerous to itself. hundreds of examples testify that the regime prosecutes most vigorously not what threatens it overtly but has little artistic power, but whatever is artistically most penetrating, even though it does not seem all that overtly 'political: the essence of the conflict, that is, is not confrontation between two ideologies (for instance a socialist with a liberal one) but a clash between an anonymous, soulless, immobile and paralyzing centropic') power, and life, humanity, being and its mystery. the counterpart of power in this conflict is not an alternative political idea but the autonomous, free human­ ity of man and with it necessarily also art-precisely as art!-as one of the most important expressions of this autonomous humanity" (havel 1987:133). 79 80 current musicology 14. warner music closed its doors in 2010 but universal, emi, and sony remain; supraphon and popron music are local labels with second and fifth place in market share (elavsky 2006). 15. according to a study commissioned by emusic, the alternative digital retailer popular with american in die fans, seventy-five percent of its users tend to download full albums, while single-track downloads dominate the sales at the big digital outlets (sisario 2011). 16. according to the 2001 census czech ethnicity is claimed by 90.4 percent of the county's population (czech statistical office). 17. [uz vidim diskuse, jak by na czechcore nemela byt: recenze na desku, ktera vysla major labelu (kdo vi, jestli se tady tahle recenze vubec objevi po te, co mi zamitli recezi na posledni album miitorhead), ale myslim, ze koreny sunshine silne vychazeji z toho, co se na czech­ core prezentuje, i kdyz vzdycky smerovali nekam dal ... vim, ze spousta lidi v hardcore na sunshine pohlizi tak, jak na ne pohlizi, chapu, na druhou stranu tahle deska je proste dobra a ja jsem upfimne rad, ze v tehle zaprdene republice, kde nidiim vladne ten nejvetsi hudebni odpad, se sunshine chytli a donesli do masovejsi populace neco, co ma aspon nejakou arty hodnotu ... ) 18. [mno ... :0) ... ja ani nevim,jestli todle myslite vazne ... za chvili abych si cet recenze nekde na mtv,tam u toho maj vic obrazku:o) ... myslim si ze malokomu tady pride,ze by se sunshine touhle deskou dostali dal...mozna tak dal do (doufam ze nejen) moji prdele ... ) 19. "reading [designer peter) blake's sgt pepper sleeve-name the faces, spot the cannabis, decode the lyrics-was like reading the underground press. this was a skill, which could easily be acquired-from friends, from the neighborhood dealer, even across the counter-but it was always constructed around a sense of difference from the 'mass' pop audience. art rock was 'superior' at all levels, and fans took seriously the prime romantic axiom: the philistines had to be kept out" (frith and horne 1987:58). 20. performances are not necessarily restricted to art forms-the most obvious reference here would be erving goffman's classic dramaturgical analysis of social interaction in the presentation of self in everyday life (1959), benignly renamed we all perform [vsichni hrajeme divadlo) by its czech translator (1999). and the relegating of performance from music (and music from performance) is not necessarily restricted to fans: "if cultural and media studies of popular music have neglected performance, performance studies has been remiss in its general neglect of musical performances. the principal journals in the field seldom publish articles about music as performance or musicians as performers, and only a small (but growing) number of papers on these topics are presented at academic confer­ ences. at a commonsense level, the absence of music from the array of subjects considered by performance scholars seems odd-musicians are performers, after all, and it would be eminently reasonable to discuss them as such" (auslander 2006:2). 21. [drzte huby a hrajte! a tady nejste v nemecku!, znelo z publika na vystoupeni berlinskeho divciho dua cobra killer v prazskem klubu rock cafe. nehlede na strepy z rozbiteho pullitru, jenz na p6dium mrstil ramenaty typek pote, co triko jeho pfitelkyne potfisnilo nekolik kapek cerveneho vina, kterym se annika s ginou v ramci show polily. koncert cobra killer totiz predstavuje zazitek, na kterem ma zhruba stejny podil hudba jako provokativni komunikace s navstevniky, dadaisticke proslovy a vtipne testovani hranice, kam az divky mohou zajit. netolerance casti prazskeho publika nespocivala v odmitnuti hudby, nybri v nepfijeti te­ atrilniho a kabaretniho prvku. nelze se domnivat, ze by navstevnici neznali hudbu, desky maji jiste naposlouchane ale cekaji koncert, zazitek, kdy hudba hraje prim. misto toho se objevi dye potrhle exhibicionisticke holky se sequencerem a predtocenymi zvuky a snazi se vybudit reakce, ktere nejsou v prostredi hudebniho klubu zcela obvykle. pro mnohe berlinske michal nanoru interprety je typicke, ze se nestydi pfijit do koncertniho salu jen s cedeckem, na nemz maji kompletni hudbu, prevleknout se do extravagantniho kostymu, spustit animovanou projekci, falesne zpivat a doprovazet se maximalne pomalovanou rumbakouli. ceske kluby na tuto hru stale jeste neslysi, koncert se bere jako udalost hodna ucty na obou stramkh p6dia.] it feels appropriate to state here lawrence grossberg's opening citation in full: "the eye has always been suspect in rock culture, after all, visually, rock often borders on the inauthentic. ... it was here-in its visual presentation-that rock often most explicitly manifested its resistance to the dominant culture, but also its sympathies with the business of entertainment. it might be objected that the importance oflive performance argue against this view of authenticity. however, the importance of live performances lies precisely in the fact that it is only here where one can see the actual production of sound ... it is not the visual appearance of rock that is offered in live performance but the concrete production of the music as sound. the demand for live performance has always expressed the desire for the visual mark (and proof) of authenticity" (1993:175). 22. natural here means "gradual:' nothing else. "by the very fact that all social phenomena are constructions produced historically through human activity, no society is totally take for granted and so, a fortiori, is no symbolic universe" (berger and luckmann 1967:106; see also foucault 1980). 23. fredric jameson writes, "in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum" (1997:7). 24. for more on cross-cultural readings see liebes and katz 1993. 25. anyone who would want to study prague's hipsters could easily do that at any given concert by the promoters am180, usually at a venue the size of a classroom. vice magazine czechoslovakia managed to put out three print issues during its three years of existence. there are no american apparel or urban outfitters stores in the country. 26. forcing mark deuze to claim, that "our life should perhaps be seen as lived in, rather than with, media-a media life" (2009:468). 27. "nothing can resist the force of this current of technical images-there is no artistic, scientific or political activity which is not aimed at it, there is no everyday activity which does not aspire to be photographed, filmed, videotaped. for there is a general desire to be endlessly remembered and endlessly repeatable. all events are nowadays aimed at the television screen, the cinema screen, the photograph, in order to be translated into a state of things" (flusser 2000:20). 28. ["na kazde lepsi umelecke skole je k dispozici hudebni studio, kde lze natacet a mixovat tracky" a "v prostredi umelecke immunity neni problem presvedcit kolegy, aby pomohli s klipem, fotografiemi, projekcemr'] 29. the writer and musician jace clayton explains this partly in what was the hipster? (greif 2010:25): "peruvian hipster ism meant that the middle-class kids who looked down on cum­ bia music all their lives were suddenly throwing parties and dancing to it -all because of a compilation called "roots of chicha: psychedelic cumbias from peru:' "roots of chicha" was released on a french -run brooklyn label called barbes. the cool new york label allowed these kids to see this old music in a new light; it wasn't simple recontextualization, it was an awareness that this poorly dressed and deeply unhip aspect of their peruvian-ness had entered into a global conversation:' 81 82 current musicology 30. [lide totiz pnici charty 77 a zdaleka ne jenom ji sleduji se zajmem a sympatiemi ze zahranicniho rozhlasu, ale velmi by si rozmysleli, kdyby ji meli verejne podpofit. anebo wbec kdyby meli verejne projevit sve skutecne smysleni. cesi a slovaci nejsou nadsenci, nenadch­ nou se pro neco ptilis casto. v roce 1968 se pro cosi nadchli, nekolik mesicu si pocinali jako svepravni obcane, ale se zlou se potazali: dvacet let pak byli za toto sve nadseni perzekvovani. po teto horke zkusenosti je jejich dnesni opatrnost vic nei pochopitelna.) 31. tile website www.i-iegalne.cz.adigital music store operating since november 2006, bankrupted and folded in february 2011. it was struggling thoughout its existence. 32. [cely je to novy, na nas se nesmi rychle i kaficko a cigarko i a dva roky nei si zvyknem i chceme to, co zname, i a pokud mozno znova i a hlavne zadny postoje i a sprosty i a cizi slova.] 33. [publikace je hezci nez zamery jejiho vzniku. auton tehle knihy se na hudbu radsi divaji, nez ji poslouchaji ... fascinuje je okolni kultura; jakoby pisnicky byly jenom dopliiek. trochu se jim to v hlavach prehazel.) 34. [trochu obsaznejsi vice minus blby kecy) 35. [nova bible ceskych hipsteru?) 36. [zde jsou psi je podle vlastnich slov zamerena na 'neprobadana mista 'nezavisle klubove sceny', a pritom obdivujou fotky klonu komercnich plnicu stadionu jako rod stewart, dolly parton a iron maiden) 37. [0 hudbe skoro ani slovo a presto mozna nejvic, co 0 ni bylo u nas kdy napsano) 38. [k hudbe, ktera stoji mimo povrchni mainstream, nebo se proti nemu pfimo vymezuje, vzdycky pattila znacna mira pece 0 vlastni povrch-na p6diu i pod nim) 39. [zatimco za nasimi hranicemi hudebnici pouzivaji vizualitu jako nastroj, kterym vabi sve posluchace, cesko po desetiletich nucene uniformity zustava zemi, kde je umelec starajid se o sviij vzhled zavrhnut vetsinovym publikem jako narcisistni podivin) 40. [jsem si predstavoval vetsi vstupy primo od kapel-jejich pojeti sarna sebe ve spolecnosti, ktera si zaslouzi kvuli durazu na neomezenou spotrebu kritiku, ale zaroven bez stylu v ni nelze fungovat) references abebe, nitsuh. 2010. 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"hearing things;' in the new york times magazine. september 12, 2010:20. weiss, tomas. 2009. zpev do odposlechu vic [more sining into the monitor]. beroun: za trati. xtc. 1978. go 2. lp, virgin records. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 113 images of time and timelessness: a musical reading of death in venice marlies de munck this essay is based on an old, well–known question in aesthetics: how to represent time in its fleetingness without halting, appropriating, objectifying, or transcending it? the question inspires a reading of thomas mann’s death in venice as the account of a transformation in which a wish to overcome time turns into the erotic desire of being delivered to time. as such, the story reflects the tension between two competing views of music: music as an apollonian play of time–transcending, auditory forms, and music as the dionysian art in time. a phenomenological reading of luchino visconti’s adaptation of the novella complicates this plainly dualistic opposition. the essay traces how the aesthetic suspension of time is contrasted with, but also depends on, the spectator’s real–time experience. similarly, the two classical, competing views of music stand in a complex dialectical relation to each other and reflect our existential relation to time. like the harmony of the spheres, the time that is not our time—time in general—is excluded from immediate sensory perception. yet, as it is filled with things, episodes, and actions, we can abstractly distinguish between its worldly effects and time as the cause that transcends experience. still, it is hard to conceive of time in itself without imaginatively turning it into an abstract state of timelessness, a static, eternal realm of time. to be sure, many great thinkers have questioned the “out–thereness” of time and have regarded it, rather, as a universal post rem or a priori form of intuition. even within the confines of human experience time causes philosophical puzzlement. it dictates our whole lives, imposes its monomaniac regime of irreversibility on everything it touches, but eludes our grasp whenever we try to engage in it, in and of itself. at first sight, its intangibility may facilitate a common desire to bracket time or our consciousness of it. who has never longed for a world in which the persons and things we love simply stay the way they are? on the other hand, we are also obsessed with time, as we love punctuality and as we delight in races against the clock. the obsession with exact time can easily be exposed, however, as yet another attempt to control its unceasing and unforgiving movement. it is as if time plays with us, being both present and absent, not only in and to our experience but even in our thoughts. time does not just fly—it plays hide–and–seek. 114 current musicology in and out of time in its play of presence and absence, the experience of time is closely related to the fear of death. to appease this fear, it is often said that death needs to be given a face. following emmanuel levinas and philippe ariès, rudi visker argues that naming or representing death symbolically separates it from life and fends it off as a heterogeneous element. the correct way to exorcize the dead and keep them from haunting the living consists neither in explaining death philosophically nor in calculating its medical probability. to be a successful image of death, not even resemblance is needed. all that is required is for us to put it boldly in its proper place—on the shelf—thereby isolating it from life (visker 2007, 140–54). similarly, time can be represented symbolically. successful images of time offer a handle on its otherwise uncontrollable fleetingness; by bringing it under our explicit attention and making it graspable to the senses they enable us to relate to time and vicariously help us deal with life’s transience. the question, however, is what kind of time such images relate us to. when time is placed “out there,” is it not transfigured into something else—a timeless object—just like symbols of death are purported to do? to what extent, then, is it still an image of time? music—not the celestial, inaudible music of the spheres but our own earthly music—has often been considered to be the perfect medium to represent time. according to arthur schopenhauer, however, music offers an escape from the threat of time by taking us out of it. it creates a safe realm of timelessness while we play or listen. schopenhauer (1969) thought of music, on the one hand, as the purest art in and of time,1 but also held it capable, on the other hand, of engendering the aesthetic experience in which “the individual . . . is pure will–less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge” (179; emphasis mine). other philosophers maintain that music does not take us out of time but rather delivers us to it: for them, music is an attempt to come to terms with time and to control its powers. theodor adorno (1995, 66), for instance, often pointed out that music structures time: the self–evident, that music is a temporal art, that it unfolds in time, means, in the dual sense, that time is not self–evident for it, that it has time as its problem. it must create temporal relationships among its constituent parts, justify their temporal relationship, synthesize them through time. conversely, it itself must act upon time, not lose itself to it; must stem itself against the empty flood. music, in his view, deals with time, rather than escapes it. 115 marlies de munck through music we can interfere with time’s pace, slow it down or speed it up, stop and repeat it as much and as often as we like. since it allows us to manipulate time, music seems to be able to go against its grain. it cuts time–slices out of the continuum of history and holds them fixed, saves them from the omnivorous appetite of the past. music, in this sense, lives in the realm of the aesthetic “as if ”—as if time were not so unforgiving. this is why, according to gilles deleuze and félix guattari (2011), we sing or play refrains: in doing so we create our own territory and keep our fear of death at bay. their “plateau” on the refrain opens accordingly: a child in the dark, gripped with fear, comforts himself by singing under his breath. he walks and halts to his song. lost, he takes shelter, or orients himself with his little song as best he can. the song is like a rough sketch of a calming and stabilizing, calm and stable, center in the heart of chaos. perhaps the child skips as he sings, hastens or slows his pace. but the song itself is already a skip: it jumps from chaos to the beginnings of order in chaos and is in danger of breaking apart at any moment. (343) and yet, if we conceive of music primarily as a container of time, we risk denying it as a phenomenon in time. time might be held captive in acoustic structures but music also unfolds in time and is enfolded by it. we can understand adorno’s remark in this sense: if it is music’s primal goal to overcome time’s merciless hold over it and to afford us a glimpse of what it would mean to reverse the odds, it does so primarily by structuring time, not by halting it. repetition, for instance, takes place in time and yet it challenges the irreversibility of it. thus, music aims at a kind of timelessness—it seeks to overcome time—not by escaping or stopping it but by playing with it—indeed, by domesticating it. deleuze and guattari (2011) push the argument for music’s time– bound nature even further and contest music’s repeatability itself. repetition makes the refrain unmusical, they say, because it renounces the developmental nature of music as a becoming in time. “the refrain,” the authors maintain, “is rather a means of preventing music, warding it off, or forgoing it” (331; emphasis mine).2 in the same vein, vladimir jankélévitch (2003, 20) suggests that the idea of perfect repeatability in music classifies, just like the idea of musical symmetry, as a “spatial projection of the temporal process of becoming.” reflecting on music’s temporal nature he wonders: “thus, is repetition in music not a priori a shock, are the refrains and ritornellos of strophic song, or the periodic recurrences of rondo form, not also a shock?” (21). influenced by henri bergson’s concept of durée, jankélévitch takes the irreversibility and the diversifying effects of time seriously, the consequences of which naturally extend to the very nature of music. even though we can recognize a theme or a whole piece of music 116 current musicology when played more than once, it can never be exactly the same precisely because it is repeated in time. thus, jankélévitch provides an answer to his earlier question: independent from any memory, the pure fact of succession and the preterite, in other words the naked past–ness of the past, prevents the “same” from remaining exactly the same; this continuous conditioning, in the process of becoming, assumes the form of a continuous alteration. this is why the da capo is a ravishing surprise, why a theme does not give up all that stirs us in its meaning until it is recognized again. (24) this answer not only implies that music, like everything else in life, is subjected to time’s irreversibility; it also confirms adorno’s earlier suggestion that music lives by virtue of a struggle with time—a struggle that, though it can never be won, proves more than fertile for the sake of music itself. “for if it is entirely temporal,” jankélévitch (2003, 97) writes, “music is at the same time a protest against the irreversible and (thanks to reminiscence) a victory exacted from the irreversible, a means of resuscitating the same in the form of the other.” apparently, as much as music is an art in and of time, it is always also on its way out. it cannot help but try to overcome its time–bound condition. vanity a look into iconology suggests the same, deep connection: traditionally, music has always been linked to time and its dreaded companion, death. tempus fugit and we better be aware of it. music renders time tangible, makes it perceptible not just to the ear but also, through its instruments and scores, to the eyes. as such it has become a particularly strong pictorial symbol of life’s transitoriness, as is prominently shown in the vanitas still lives of seventeenth–century flemish and dutch painters. vanitas tableaux typically consist of objects symbolizing either the passing of time or death itself, such as hourglasses and clocks, musical instruments and scores, skulls, withered flowers, bubbles, rotten fruit, and many more. each depicted object in pieter claesz’s famous vanitas with violin and glass ball, for instance, symbolizes the finiteness of worldly activities and pleasures: the violin and bow take up a prominent place in the composition as the rival art of painting, yet they are muted by the painter. the glass is overturned, empty, and the book remains prominently closed, overshadowed by a skull—the accompanying quill and holder remain forever still. a candle is extinguished, a solitary walnut cracked, and a watch 117 marlies de munck lies upside down with its mechanism exposed, as if someone had tried to unravel the secret of time. reflected in a glass ball, the image of the painter looks frail and quasi–transparent, ready to burst like a bubble and vaporize in the air.3 even though these images are non–temporal themselves, they do evoke the idea of passing time, of mortality and the ephemeral nature of human existence. they remind the viewer, in accordance with the then prevailing calvinistic spirit, that it is vain to search for beauty or happiness in this life. pious humbleness and serene devotion: these are the keys to the afterlife. “memento mori,” vanitas paintings say: remember your own mortality, do not use up time as if it were unlimited but aspire for the timeless world beyond—accordingly, do not waste time on the mundane, fleeting joys of music making. example 1: pieter claesz, vanitas still life with violin and glass ball, c. 1628, oil on panel, 36 x 59 cm. germanisches nationalmuseum, nuremberg. however, didn’t music also contain that particular promesse de bonheur, essential to the appeal of the afterlife: the promise of eternity, a utopian escape from time? isn’t it precisely music’s tendency to conceal time or its attempt to overcome it, rather than its mundane use of it, that makes it such an appropriate symbol of vanity, perhaps even of hubris? indeed, the iconological relation between music and time is ambiguous: does the image of music, in vanitas painting, symbolize the plain consumption of time or rather its ingenious aspiration to create its own realm of timelessness within time? according to wayne martin (2006) such ambiguity is characteristic of 118 current musicology the genre of vanitas painting. their semiotic structure consists of different layers of meaning and results in so–called “dialectical polysemy.” by accumulating multiple symbolic codes, one set of meanings, i.e. the connotations of pleasure and accomplishment, is balanced by an opposing set of meanings, i.e. vanity and death, to the effect of a subtle critique that works both ways. “like the book of ecclesiastes,” martin writes, “the still–life tradition catalogs and celebrates the very worldly pleasures and accomplishments which it at the same time submits to a critique” (564).4 apparently music owed its central place in vanitas painting precisely to its ambiguous relation to time—or, perhaps more accurately, to its treacherous aspiration to a “false” kind of timelessness. for the pious calvinist, music’s vanity shone through either way: it either appeared as a sheer waste of time or as a vain challenge to time itself. throughout western history, the tension between music’s transcendent aspirations and its worldly pleasures has elicited ambivalent reactions, not in the least from philosophers and church fathers, often leading to elaborate censorial claims. the ancient greeks solved this ambiguity pragmatically by simply assigning music to two different gods. under the reign of apollo, music was perceived as a crystalline structure that seals up time and turns it into a stabile, intelligible order. under the influence of dionysus, music revealed a seemingly irreconcilable aspect: as a time–devouring medium it embodied life in its most transient, bodily form and was therefore closely connected to death. and yet, according to friedrich nietzsche (1993), the dionysian art, even though it implied the dissolution of the principium individuationis, unmasked the apollonian principle as the true antagonist of life. that is to say, by making the dionysian bearable for human ears and eyes, apollo was the greater deceiver because he lent a blissful aura to the delusive idea of a world beyond time: apollo overcomes the suffering of the individual by means of the luminescent glorification of the eternity of the phenomenon; beauty triumphs over the suffering inherent in life; pain is, in a certain sense, deluded away from amongst the features of nature. in dionysiac art and its tragic symbolism, the same nature addresses us with its true, undisguised voice: “be like me! the primal mother, eternally creative, eternally impelling into life, eternally drawing satisfaction from the ceaseless flux of phenomena!” (80; emphasis in the original) music, according to nietzsche, does not offer an escape from time in the schopenhauerian sense. being both dionysian and apollonian, it inherits all the ambiguities that circle the experience of time in life. still, in the birth of tragedy nietzsche regarded music more as a dionysian than as an apollonian art. the inevitable question is therefore not whether music 119 marlies de munck embodies time rather than timelessness, but how it does so. how can music represent “the ceaseless flux of phenomena” without at once hypostatizing it, if only by making it repeatable, and thus isolating it from life? how can it retain its dionysian nature without being ultimately neutralized by its apollonian appearance? death in venice time’s janus–faced appearance is a prominent theme in mann’s early novella death in venice ([1912] 1989). the story has often been read as a moral tale about the apollonian ideal being shattered by the destructive forces of dionysus. according to this interpretation the main character of the story, the famous writer gustav von aschenbach, gradually falls prey to a moral decline during a holiday at the venetian lido.5 as soon as the stunning appearance of the young tadzio catches his eye, aschenbach is infatuated with the boy and becomes increasingly intoxicated by his own desire. his blatant incapacity to react properly to the situation soon amounts to an emotional paralysis that hinders the healthy channeling of his forbidden desire, and this, slowly but steadily, strangles him. meanwhile, venice is struck by a devastating cholera epidemic and turns into the mirror image of aschenbach’s inner state: both are heading straight, like the title ominously foretells, for a fatal ending. put like this, the story reveals itself as a clear instance of the age–old conflict between the intellect and the passions and is indeed easily translated into nietzschean vocabulary as an example of the clash between the apollonian and the dionysian principle. inspiring aschenbach’s pedophilic desires, the dionysian is understood as an immoral force of decay, whereas the emblem of his professional success evokes the apollonian realm. this, however, is a distorted use of nietzsche’s terminology since he never defined the terms as morally good or bad, nor did he consider the greek tragedy as a contest to be won either by apollo or dionysus. an interpretation concerned with the experience of time, on the other hand, can preserve the genuine ambiguity of the story and avoid moral one–sidedness. thus, aschenbach, who has always lived the static life of a disciplined man, rediscovers time as an essential part of his life. the confrontation with illness and death makes him acutely aware that his time is continuously ticking away, whereupon he feels an increasing need to give in to his passions. as a fictional representation of the experience of time one can wonder whether death in venice is not a variant of the vanitas–genre. could it be read as a literary still life, a novelistic memento mori? is it meant to de120 current musicology liver a moral message, a reminder that no one is immune to the workings of time—that time cannot be deceived with idle tricks and gimmicks? a short passage in the novella supports this reading as it explicitly refers to a typical vanitas–object: the hourglass. near the end of the story aschenbach remembers that long ago, in his parental home, he had watched the sand filter through an hourglass—he could still see, as though it stood before him, the fragile, pregnant little toy. soundless and fine the rust–red streamlet ran through the narrow neck, and made, as it declined in the upper cavity, an exquisite little vortex. (mann 1989, 61) just like music, the hourglass traditionally symbolizes life’s transience and therefore often serves as an image of death. in mann’s doctor faustus the motif of the hourglass pops up several times, always in connection to the main character’s appointed death. hourglasses not only display the present in the trickling sand, they also visualize the future and the past by keeping the two neatly separated yet simultaneously present inside the two glass bulbs. this makes them a remarkably strong symbol of time’s omnipresence. however, the passage just quoted does not refer to the object as a straightforward symbol of time as such. aschenbach’s recollection of the hourglass is far more ambiguous than the traditional, moralistic understanding of vanitas symbolism suggests. as he marvels at the object, he realizes that it does not draw attention to the passage of time but rather conceals it by hiding the sand’s movement inside, the escape of the fine streamlet being hardly visible. only in the end does the little vortex reveal time’s true fleeting nature, as an insight that comes too late. it is not clear which aspect of time the hourglass symbolizes here: does it stand for time’s omnipresence or rather for its tricky concealment? or, is it meant to remind of our desire for control over time? after all, the hourglass is an instrument designed by man, to be turned upside down, again and again, just as long as we want. in the gay science nietzsche (2001) introduces his famous idea of the eternal recurrence of the same, a passage very well known by mann. the demon who first utters the idea uses the image of an hourglass to evoke a distorted version of the more common anxieties about time: [the demon] “this life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and i myself. the 121 marlies de munck eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” [nietzsche] would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? (194) the dilemma is reversed, it is no longer the thought of death’s inescapability that is frightening but the idea that time will never cease, that death will never come as a relief. in the hands of the demon the hourglass becomes an instrument of torture, it is turned against man to keep time going, always and forever. on further consideration these vanitas symbols prompt more and more questions. what does the saying “tempus fugit” actually teach us about time? is it to be handled with care or to be feared as an enemy? should we try to stay out of its haunting hands, use it sparingly, or should we conscientiously use up every minute as if it were our last?6 these are precisely the questions that suffuse aschenbach’s time in venice. for his whole life, in order to attain the disembodied, panoramic view of a true historian, he has systematically neglected an entire range of time–bound pleasures, only to get paralyzed by the revenge of his severely suppressed emotions, having forgotten how to engage in life: aschenbach had once given direct expression—though in an unobtrusive place—to the idea that almost everything conspicuously great is great in despite: has come into being in defiance of affliction and pain; poverty, destitution, bodily weakness, vice, passion, and a thousand other obstructions. and that was more than observation—it was the fruit of experience, it was precisely the formula of his life and fame, it was the key to his work. (mann 1989, 10–11) only in venice, upon the encounter with tadzio, does he realize that his so–called apollonian way of life has been a pose all along, a streak of vanity based on an illusory and even dangerous ideal. moreover, the hourglass reminds him that his time has actually been ticking since the very beginning, deeply hidden inside his dry, sedentary life. only now, when looking back, can he see that he has in fact always participated in time, albeit it without taking the slightest delight in it, simply because there is no life outside it. there is no way either, however, to retrieve all the time lost to his experience. his last, frantic efforts to turn back the clock merely result in embarrassing traces of hair dye and the artificial smell of cosmetics, now mixed with the shameless odor of disinfectant that penetrates the city. if the story centers on the removal of the life–denying apollonian veil, shouldn’t we conclude that aschenbach’s attempts to embody his emotions are fundamentally healthy, rather than a sign of moral decline? aschenbach indeed wonders, 122 current musicology . . . has not form two aspects? is it not moral and immoral at once: moral in so far as it is the expression and result of discipline, immoral—yes, actually hostile to morality—in that of its very essence it is indifferent to good and evil, and deliberately concerned to make the moral world stoop beneath its proud and undivided scepter? (mann 1989, 13) the moral seems to be reversed: timelessness equals death, whereas time is the condition of real life. isn’t aschenbach’s fall from the apollonian paradise, therefore, a return to life rather than the victory of death—doesn’t he die willingly, perhaps even happily? this is hard to say, given the fact that after his supposed illumination in venice aschenbach immediately falls back on evenly idle ways to camouflage time with make–up and hair dye, the very attributes of fakery that he had so much despised before. moreover, in his lebensabriß, mann (1930, 754) referred to death in venice as “die tragödie einer entwürdigung,” which hardly supports an interpretation in terms of a moral resurrection. it is difficult to formulate a straightforward interpretation of the story, especially if one seeks to decipher and spell out its moral content without misusing nietzsche’s terminology one way or the other. all interpretations seem to get entangled in the paradox that circles the experience of time: as a force ruling over our lives it is something we seek to escape, while we regret not having lived it more consciously when we risk falling out of it for real. time, like timelessness, is bound up with life and death. thus, regardless of how we interpret the story morally, it seems safe to conclude, for now, that a reading in terms of the conflict between the apollonian and the dionysian principle will be misleading as long as it is presented as a clean dilemma with a clear outcome. a phenomenological approach, on the other hand, allows for a subtler, dialectical understanding of the story by taking into account the sensory perception of time and not merely its symbolic representations. death in venice—the film7 although the adaptation to film required considerable changes and adjustments, visconti succeeded in preserving the ambiguity of mann’s original story as he keeps the protagonist wavering between life–denying and life– affirming forces. in visconti’s hands it is precisely the experience of time that becomes palpable as a crucial key to the story. the heart of the matter, therefore, lies in the question of whether visconti’s adaptation can be considered successful on account of the temporality of the cinematographic medium. how do the music and the moving images on the screen affect 123 marlies de munck our understanding of the story? in my view, visconti’s use of the filmic medium brings about a layer of meaning that complements and deepens the narrative.8 in the novella (mann 1989) music is mentioned only a few times. there is a reference to the music of strolling players (57) and another one to flute music in an orgiastic dream (65). each of these scenes bathes in an oppressive atmosphere dominated by the life–threatening power of dionysus. in visconti’s film more music is added to the story, yet it does not unambiguously confirm nor contradict these dionysian connotations. furthermore, since film consists of moving images, the question needs to be raised of how this influences our perception of aschenbach’s pursuit of timeless, ideal beauty, and how it connects to the vanitas–theme that is normally associated with still lives. as i shall try to demonstrate, it is through specific audiovisual effects that visconti’s death in venice captures the unassailable reality and irreducibility of time, both closely connected to the fear of running out of time, and to the longing for timelessness, i.e. the desire to escape from the shackles of time. both drives are acutely present in aschenbach’s long chain of hesitations and it is only when we look at their deep entanglement that we can truly comprehend his frustrations. in what follows, i analyze the film’s moving images and music from the point of view of the spectator, as they heighten the viewer’s sensitivity to precisely those elements in the story that relate to aschenbach’s changing experience of time. that is to say, rather than imposing a clear interpretation, the film makes the spectator feel the tensions that make up the nucleus of the plot. it does not merely represent the double mode of experiencing time but presents it in a way that cannot be released from the images and the music itself. the importance of the music is emphasized by visconti’s decision to make aschenbach into a composer instead of a writer. throughout we hear parts and even entire movements of gustav mahler’s third and fifth symphonies, mildly suggesting that they are aschenbach’s own creations.9 most prominent is the fifth symphony’s famous adagietto, which resounds at least four times at key moments in the story. furthermore, mahler’s setting of nietzsche’s mitternachtslied from also sprach zarathustra plays a pivotal role.10 this song is heard only once, in the middle of the film, where it literally underscores the hinge point of the story when achenbach fails, semi–deliberately yet irrevocably, to seize on the occasion to be cured from his infatuation. the last lines of the verse couldn’t be more appropriate, not only because they illustrate aschenbach’s failure but because the song’s words draw attention to the paradoxical nature of his desire in relation to time: “doch alle lust will ewigkeit—,—will tiefe, tiefe ewigkeit!” 124 current musicology the adagietto introduces and concludes the film. while the opening credits roll it resounds for almost three full minutes before the first shot appears on the screen. it continues as we see the hazy panorama of the venetian sea, blinking in the twilight of a glorious sunrise and providing the most enchanting setting for the slowly approaching boat that brings aschenbach to his final destination. from this very first moment on, both the music and the images set the pace: this story will be slow—very slow. adagietto means “slightly faster than adagio” (but still rather slow) and as a dynamic indicator it refers not only to the music but also to the visual tempo on the screen. visconti’s images are anything but typical for a “motion picture” as they display a strong tendency to slow down. not only the panoramic opening shot but nearly all the following scenes—notoriously those in the hotel lobby and those on the beach—evoke a particular kind of nostalgia: the yearning for a standstill. the camera moves sluggishly inside static settings of practically immobile persons and objects. alternately, the images look like landscape paintings, still lives, and portraits in the most traditional sense of the genre, for instance the first shot of tadzio, and they hardly conceal the artificial poses and the weariness of their models. we can almost smell the museum–like mustiness of the hotel lobby where the guests are waiting endlessly for dinner to start. here, the atmosphere of profound boredom is only worsened by the out–of–tune scraping of a local string quartet, which fossilizes the scene to the extent that the images really appear to be heading back to their still ancestors, fleeing from the immense weight of waiting. this remarkable tendency to slow down is acutely palpable by contrast with the real portraits of aschenbach’s wife and daughter. when he takes them out of his luggage and kisses them, these images give the impression, ironically, of containing more life, albeit it in the past, than the entire next scene in the lobby. the curious aspiration of the film’s moving images to escape from their own temporality by searching for the point where they become stills again persists throughout—a tendency that certainly accounts to a large extent for the often heard critique that the film is too long and, above all, too slow. not surprisingly, mahler’s adagietto does not help in this regard. the movement illustrates with great precision how music can slow down time—in fact, the composer added the instruction “sehr langsam” to this movement. the broadly spun out melody drags the chords along, changes them like arpeggios spread out over a long stretch of time. passing from one note to the other we can only anticipate what lies within each momentary horizon of time as there is no momentum or cadence to project us further into the future with a sweep of élan. in this sense the adagietto 125 marlies de munck can be heard as a vivisection, a close–up of the musical experience: in slow motion it allows us an intimate view of the music’s deepest inside while still at work. we experience the isolated pulse of time that usually passes by unnoticed. precisely by not going fast, by not making grand gestures but flirting with the idea of prolonging every moment into eternity—by pushing every note onto the very brink of timelessness, but never beyond—does the music draw our attention to its vital dependence on time. we get to hear how every note is called into existence by the preceding one and only then can lead us to the following, their links utterly arbitrary yet forever knitted together into one particular fabric of musical time. while every note keeps the music in the moment, each one of them also seems to yearn heartbreakingly for the next, calling out for continuation and, as we silently assume about most music, heading towards an eventual resolution.11 dialectical plays of time and timelessness in visconti’s hands, mahler’s adagietto makes one wonder to what extent music can possibly slow down before it stops being music. evidently, it cannot come to a complete standstill, lest it stop being music. but how long can one chord be spun out, how long can a melody survive on one single note? what is the minimal input we need in order to hear music?12 the feeling of excessive slowness—yet not timelessness—is enhanced by the images prompting a similar question: how long can one single shot remain immobile before it stops being a “moving image”? how long does it take for a film shot to return to its cradle and become photography again?13 how can music span time without falling apart in meaningless bits and pieces? or, how can the arch of expectation be stretched without the listener losing the thread? these are important questions for all music, not only for slow or long movements. adorno, as we have seen, refers to the formal aspect of music as that which sews together all the notes and makes for a coherent whole, a being in time. “zeitkunst,” he writes, the temporal art, is equivalent to the objectification of time. this applies to the individual events, or musical content, to the extent that they come together in a context by means of the organization of their sequence, rather than dissolving as they pass away; and to the temporal dimension itself, which aims, potentially, at its own self–transcendence, based on the strength of the unity of what occurs within it. 126 current musicology music’s formal organization not only makes a composition into a whole, in doing so it also transcends the “real time” of its own performance. some have said, therefore, that musical form necessarily also appropriates time—a fact that adorno obviously didn’t fail to notice: if time is the medium that, as flowing, seems to resist every reification, nevertheless music’s temporality is the very aspect through which it actually congeals into something that survives independently—an object, a thing, so to speak. (adorno 1995, 66) objectification through structures and forms allows the listener to grasp time as embodied by the music and to achieve a unified experience of it. in other words, by reifying time, musical form overcomes time’s otherwise ungraspable fleetingness but also turns it into a kind of timelessness. in visconti’s film the music and images make time graspable as well, yet, i maintain, not primarily by appealing to an all–embracing form. the effect is equally dialectical as the one described by adorno but it is achieved by virtue of a play of presence and absence that closely resembles the experience of time in life. by testing the limits of the temporality of their medium, the music and images evoke the idea of timelessness as the object of their desire and fear. they embody the midnightsong’s punch line in an unexpectedly literal sense: “doch alle lust will ewigkeit.” precisely by not arriving at a complete standstill but by approaching it ever so closely, the music and images, in all their slowness, evoke the idea of being out of time. in doing so, however, they draw attention to the thin line that separates them from it and thus demonstrate the impossibility—and, ultimately, the undesirability—of absolute stillness. instead, they become even more palpable as being radically situated within time. this dialectical mechanism draws on a common experience of time in life, when by the desire to forget, escape, or reverse time we are made most aware of its obstinate irreversibility. just like aschenbach, the music and images can only aim at a crystalline world beyond time, asymptotically, without ever being able to fully reach that final point, unless they cease being the temporal medium they are. thus they evoke a realm of timelessness as the other side of the line that is permanently there—sometimes astonishingly close, but always, like tadzio in the mitternachtslied–scene, just beyond reach—only to the effect of throwing aschenbach back into the real world of longing. it is this real world of longing, then, that we hear and see, through the aspirations to a timeless, apollonian world beyond. the story can be understood accordingly, as the account of the transformation of aschenbach’s purely aesthetic, distant fascination for tadzio’s apollonian beauty into an erotic desire for proximity. urged by a strong 127 marlies de munck sense of death approaching, he starts to engage in the daily routines at the venetian lido. soon he no longer wishes to contemplate the object of his desire as a timeless ideal but wants to engage in it, touch and feel it, incarnate his desire within his life. precisely by being confronted with the frigidity of the apollonian ideal—the plain fact that timelessness excludes life, and thus equals death—he becomes aware of his strong need to participate in life. the more death gets a hold on aschenbach, the more he becomes aware of his own time ticking away. he increasingly realizes how his former refuge into a timeless world of beautiful forms will not help him escape from death. consequently, he feels less and less inhibited to live every minute as if it were the last. in this sense, the story recounts how the longing for an apollonian ideal is inevitably bound up with the dionysian lure of the “ceaseless flux of phenomena.” the film conveys this complex connection by tying the spectator down to the here and now of the filmic experience itself. neither the story, nor the excessive visual beauty or the intoxicating, opulent music, allow the audience to be entirely carried away into a strictly separate aesthetic realm. rather, the excessive slowness elicits an almost bodily experience of real, un–transfigured time passing; it installs impatience in the spectator, the subtle frustration of eager anticipation, or at least a subliminal sensory awareness of the impossibility to accelerate or transcend the film’s pace, as it is only in the moment that the images can be seen and the music heard. the film, then, asks its spectators to engage in it, to pay close attention to its every detail, without offering a real escape route to an aesthetic realm where time is objectified or domesticated. indeed, there is no transcendence, no transfiguration or forgetfulness of time. it is the flow of time itself that we are asked to experience while the music and images linger on. two musical images of time phenomenologically, the film works by virtue of effects of contiguity—it makes palpable the quasi–physical pull of “almost–continuity” between time and timelessness—instead of relying on a reifying mechanism of form that unifies what is and remains essentially heterogeneous. it is the promise and the all–too–real danger of this “almost” that allows timelessness to shimmer through, rather than the detachment of the illusory “as if ” that creates a timeless realm as a product of the aesthetic imagination. this difference is important, since the “almost,” dialectically, heightens our attention to the insurmountable presence of the moment, whereas the “as if ” sooths our longing by separating us from it. in the face of death, then, 128 current musicology aschenbach catches sight of a kind of timelessness that does not, like his former apollonian world of timeless beauty, lock him out of his own life but instead makes him conscious of the momentous here and now of his experience. the distinction resembles an opposition between two modes of temporality described by deleuze and guattari (2011). the first mode—aeon— refers to the so–called “plane of consistency” where only relations of speed and slowness obtain, while the second—chronos—indicates a “plane of transcendence” that consists of proportional relations of structure and development (288– 98). with regard to music, they indicate different modes of organizing time: “to the transcendent, organizational plane of western music based on sound forms and their development, we oppose the immanent plane of consistency of eastern music composed of speeds and slownesses, movements and rest” (298). on a deeper level, the opposition between chronos and aeon reflects two conflicting modes of conceptualizing time that underlie the practices of composing, performing and listening. on the phenomenological level, however, music’s transcendent and immanent plane are always competing, so that either the former is felt to dominate the latter, or the latter is perceived as undermining the former. in order to rehabilitate the dimension of “becoming,” i.e. the immanent plane, the authors seek to deflate the role of musical forms and structures in what they see as a typically western conception of musical time: the whole becoming of western music, all musical becoming, implies a minimum of sound forms and even of melodic and harmonic functions; speeds and slownesses are made to pass across them, and it is precisely these speeds and slownesses that reduce the forms and functions to a minimum. (298) whether or not the authors are phenomenologically accurate in claiming that a heightened awareness of the immanent mode of consistency necessarily reduces the appreciation of music’s formal aspects, is open to debate. what matters most for the present discussion is that the mere possibility to distinguish between the two modes reveals a tension that can be felt in all music and that is relevant even to our understanding of non–temporal art works. in his essay on rembrandt’s portraits, for instance, georg simmel (2005) similarly distinguishes between two modes of representing the relation between life and death in art, thereby revealing a fundamental difference between the underlying conceptions of death. given the remarkable parallel to the two conceptions of the relation between music and timelessness that we have distinguished—the “as if ” versus the “almost”—it is worth quoting him at length: 129 marlies de munck now, his way of experiencing death speaks out of rembrandt’s conception of the human being only there, where he draws this conception up from the ultimate depths; not in an elegiac or emotionally emphasized sense, because the latter originates precisely there, where death appears as a violation of life from the outside, as a fate that has waited for us at some point on the course of our life, unavoidable as a fact, not as a necessity out of the idea of life itself but as that which contradicts it. if death is conceived of in this way—as an extraneous power over this life—then it attains the atrocious, deplorable character against which one either revolts heroically, or toward which one lyrically subjugates oneself, or with which one has nothing to do inwardly. (71–72) death, when conceived of in sharp opposition to life, is a stranger with whom we have nothing to do. this is frightful, as it seems to be utterly arbitrary and unrelated to who we are as a person. death, in this sense, is “out there”; it is a murderer. when understood as an intrinsic part of life, however, death becomes more personal and less frightening. it is our own death as it reveals itself gradually within our lives. according to simmel, it is the nearness of death, its being “almost” present, that is palpable in rembrandt’s portraits, and this is precisely what makes them so touchingly accurate. they do not “signify” death by symbolically referring to it, but instead represent individual lives as embracing life and therefore also death: rembrandt’s figures have the half–light, the muteness, the questioning into the darkness; exactly that which in its clearest, finally, absolutely dominating appearance is called death, and which, regarded superficially, precisely to that extent appears to contain less life. in reality, they contain precisely thereby the whole life. (simmel 2005, 74; emphasis in the original) life and death, simmel maintains, are no strict opposites. instead, death inhabits life the way time inhabits it: hidden at first, but more and more visible as time goes by. death as we commonly know it is nothing more than that little vortex, the last stage in which it fully reveals itself, but as it is part of life, it is also in time. the parallel with aschenbach’s reflection on the hourglass is striking. “it seems to me beyond doubt,” simmel writes, that death inhabits life from the onset. indeed, death reaches macroscopic visibility—absolute domination, so to speak— only at the moment of death. but life would be different from birth on, and in each of its moments and cross–sections, were we not to die. (71; emphasis in the original) 130 current musicology similarly, visconti’s film installs an almost physical awareness of the complex relation between the experience of time, and the longing for and fear of transcending it. all are present yet not strongly opposed—rather, they dialectically reinforce each other. it is no surprise, therefore, that even the moment in which aschenbach eventually passes away is stretched out in time. only when bystanders come to his aid do we see that the unavoidable has taken place; that the long, drawn out “almost” of his death has finally given way to the full presence of its “now.” indeed, aschenbach’s two dominant preoccupations—his desire to petrify time and his fear of succeeding all too well in that task—have reinforced each other in a dispute that could only be decided by that ultimate gesture of time. not coincidentally, the little streamlets of hair dye trickling over the deceased aschenbach’s forehead evoke strong iconic reminiscences of christ with the thorn crown. aschenbach—the former apollonian artist—is now wholly exposed: the hourglass is broken and finally releases what was always hidden inside. the warm blood of a human being has replaced the trickling sand. in dying, he is revealed as a fully incarnated, true being in time. who wins? apollo or dionysus? depending on how we approach it, music can show itself as a structure transcending time or rather reveal its radical being in time. traditionally, western aesthetics has prioritized the first: it is only by creating the auditory illusion of “timeless” time that music attains its place among the fine arts. the according ideal of “disinterested” listening turns music into the object of an aesthetic experience and so reifies its musical time. the other conception of musical time is less discussed, perhaps also less appreciated as the basis for an aesthetic mode of perception, yet it surely is just as real in listening practices. it asks the listener to engage in music without objectifying its flow or hypostatizing its forms. it is only in this second mode of listening that we can truly experience what jankélévitch called the “delightful shock of repetition,” as we recognize time as it is in us, not “out there.” notes 1. “i might still have much to add on the way in which music is perceived, namely in and through time alone, with absolute exclusion of space” (schopenhauer 1969, 266). 2. wittily, the authors oppose the refrain to “music”: “music is a creative, active operation that consists in deterritorializing the refrain. whereas the refrain is essentially territorial, territorializing, or reterritorializing, music makes it a deterritorialized content for a deterritorializing form of expression. pardon that sentence: what musicians do should be musical, it should be written in music” (deleuze and guattari 2011, 331). 3. pieter claesz, vanitas still life with violin and glass ball, c. 1628, oil on panel, 36 x 59 cm. germanisches nationalmuseum, nuremberg. 131 marlies de munck 4. vanitas painting derived its name from the opening sentence of the book of ecclesiastes: “vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas.” 5. for example: “underlying this complicated process which, in mann’s phrase describing death in venice, ‘turned the intoxicate song into a moral fable,’ there is the dualism of a book which deeply influenced mann’s whole way of looking at life and art, nietzsche’s the birth of tragedy . . . in the orgiastic dream that destroys the last shreds of aschenbach’s self–esteem apollo is routed by dionysus, aschenbach cannot preserve ‘his own god’ against the onslaught of barbaric lust and the ‘stranger god’ becomes ‘his own’” (becket 1973, 579). 6. similarly, wayne martin (2006, 5) asks: “what lesson does one take from the insistent reminder of the vanity of worldly pleasure and accomplishment? what ethics is prescribed by a skull? here we may be tempted to close the semiotic structure by presupposing a christian moral: lay up your stores in heaven; live not for pleasure but for final judgment; pursue the good rather than delight . . . however, the paintings sometimes resist or at least question such hopeful closure.” 7. luchino visconti, death in venice, 1971. 8. many reviewers and theorists did not find visconti’s adaptation successful at all. see, for instance, hutchison 1974, 36: “the film does not provide, with regard to aesthetics, the subtlety, the depth of analysis that the novella death in venice can accommodate.” or vaget 1980, 171: “thus the film has reduced and considerably simplified the complexity of mann’s case against aschenbach.” 9. visconti’s motives for turning aschenbach into a composer ranged from personal preferences over biographical and interpretive considerations to purely filmic concerns. he meticulously modeled his protagonist after the image of gustav mahler, just like thomas mann had paid tribute to the recently deceased composer by adorning aschenbach with mahler’s first name and fine physiognomy. as many have noticed, this particular adaptation is not entirely unproblematic from a dramatic point of view. how could the composer of such dazzling, sensual music ever be so fatally incapacitated when confronted with his own emotions? in fact, the music seems to take over the task of embodying aschenbach’s emotions every time he fails to do so himself. 10. the mitternachtslied is part of the fourth movement of mahler’s third symphony, indicated as “sehr langsam—misterioso.” 11. this description is closely connected to husserl’s (1991, 5–53) analysis of the perception of melody in terms of protention and retention. our present focus, however, is not on how we come to hear a series of notes as a melody but on the experience of music as an embodiment of time. in the philosophy of music, the borderline between phenomenological descriptions of the musical experience and metaphysical claims about the nature of music has oftentimes been blurred. the danger to slip from one into the other has lurked especially in discussions concerning the perceived movement in and of music. see, for instance, victor zuckerkandl’s (1973, 94) ambiguous description of the “motion of tones”: “we have understood the dynamic qualities of tone as the particular kind of unfulfillment peculiar to each tone, its desire for completion. no musical tone is sufficient unto itself; and as each musical tone points beyond itself, reaches, as it were, a hand to the next, so we too, as these hands reach out, listen tensely and expectantly for each next tone. to be auditively in the tone now sounding means, then, always being ahead of it too, on the way to the next tone. inasmuch as we thus continually participate in the transition from tone to tone, we hear each interval as a step, as motion” (emphasis in original). it is important to keep in mind that the present account does not intend to make any metaphysical or ontological claims about the nature of music itself, but always and only refers to the products of different modes of perception, as shaped by particular concepts of time. 132 current musicology 12. evidently, mahler’s adagietto is not particularly experimental or groundbreaking in this regard. it is only within the context of the present discussion about time and in relation to visconti’s use of the music that it becomes paradigmatic for such a line of thought. in fact, many twentieth–century composers, for instance john cage, to name but the most obvious example, have been much more explicit and radical in testing music’s dependence on time, whereas this was surely not on mahler’s mind when he wrote his fifth symphony. 13. a similar remark ought to be made here: most probably, visconti was not intentionally experimenting in this sense, whereas many contemporary video artists, for instance bill viola, actually do test the medium with this particular question in mind. visconti’s death in venice becomes interesting in this regard mainly because of the particular story that it tells and the central role of time in it. it is noteworthy, though, that visconti was working on an adaptation of proust’s à la recherche du temps perdu right before he started shooting death in venice. unfortunately, this project was canceled before the actual filming ever took place. references adorno, theodor w. 1995. “on some relationships between music and painting.” translated by susan gillespie. the musical quarterly 79 (1): 66–79. becket, lucy. 1973. “aschenbach, mann and music.” the musical times 114 (1564): 579–82. deleuze, gilles and félix guattari. 2011. a thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. translated by brian massumi. london: continuum. husserl, edmund. 1991. on the phenomenology of the consciousness of internal time (1893–1917). translated by john b. brough. dordrecht: kluwer. hutchison, alexander. 1974. “luchino visconti’s death in venice.” literature & film quarterly 2 (1): 31. jankélévitch, vladimir. 2003. music and the ineffable. translated by carolyn abbate. princeton: princeton university press. mann, thomas. 1930. “lebensabriß.” die neue rundschau, band i. berlin amd leipzig: s. fischer verlag. . 1989. death in venice and seven other stories. translated by helen lowe–porter. new york: vintage international edition. martin, wayne m. 2006. “bubbles and skulls: the phenomenology of self–consciousness in dutch still–life painting.” in a companion to phenomenology and existentialism, edited by hubert l. dreyfus and mark. a. wrathall, 559–84. oxford: blackwell publishing. nietzsche, friedrich. 1993. the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music. translated by shaun whiteside. london: penguin books. . 2001. the gay science. translated by josefine nauckhoff. cambridge: cambridge university press. schopenhauer, arthur. 1969. the world as will and representation, vol. 1. translated by e. f. j. payne. new york: dover publications. simmel, georg. 2005. rembrandt: an essay in the philosophy of art. translated by alan scott and helmut staubmann. new york: routledge. vaget, hans rudolf. 1980. “film and literature. the case of ‘death in venice’: luchino visconti and thomas mann.” the german quarterly 53 (2): 159–75. visker, rudi. 2007. lof der zichtbaarheid. amsterdam: sun. zuckerkandl, victor. 1973. sound and symbol. translated by willard r. trask. princeton: princeton university press. current musicology, no. 94 (fall 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 97 an account of emotional specificity in classic– romantic music jeffrey swinkin many, if not most, contemporary philosophers of music contend that the musical expression of an emotion does not depend upon the perceiver feeling that emotion.1 that is, while these scholars do not necessarily deny that emotional responses to music are valuable, even inevitable, they do not view such responses as properly part of the emotional content of the work itself, or even properly part of an aesthetic experience of the work (as opposed to a more informal one). some argue this on the basis that musical emotions lack intentional objects: if a piece expresses sadness, for example, this could not consist in the listener feeling sad for the piece gives him nothing to be sad about.2 others invoke the problematic paradox of negative emotion: if music really made us feel sad, why would we want to listen to it? (davies [1997] and levinson [1997] explore this issue.) still others observe that pieces often evoke feelings they do not express and vice versa; as goodman states, “whatever emotion may be excited [by music] is seldom the one expressed” (1976:47). as a consequence, even when the emotions expressed by the music and those felt by the listener happen to coincide, the latter are nonetheless incidental to musical expression. equally incidental is what composers feel when they compose. as peter kivy avers, “it is unthinkable that i should amend my characterization of the opening bars of mozart’s g–minor symphony (k. 550) as somber . . . if i were to discover evidence of mozart’s happiness . . . during its composition” (1989:14–15). while none of these arguments is ironclad, collectively they make a compelling case for the fundamental separation of musical expression and arousal. departing from this axiomatic distinction, i will attempt to demonstrate precisely how music possesses emotional content, how emotional qualities arise from (if not completely inhere in) musical form and structure. in the process, i hope to demonstrate that musical emotions need not be of the most general sort, such as joy and sorrow (what kivy designates “garden–variety” emotions) but may at times be subtle, specific, and “cognitively complex.”3 this view runs counter to those of eduard hanslick, peter kivy, and susanne langer, to cite three prominent aestheticians. however, rather than dismiss their ideas, which are extremely valuable in their own right, i hope to assimilate them into what i feel is a more satisfying theory of musical emotion—one that accounts for more nuanced shades of emotion than these theorists allow. in what follows, i shall neither comprehensively survey the current musicology 98 published positions on musical emotion nor offer an entirely original theory; rather, i shall attempt to synthesize these well–known stances toward musical emotion, incorporating my own, music–analytic approach (which utilizes formal, motivic, schenkerian, and implication–realization methods). my two related aims are (a) to account for the multiple musical parameters and structural levels that generate emotional content; (b) to explicate the means by which music in certain instances is able to convey specific emotions. the following is not a universally applicable theory but rather an account of the mechanisms of expression primarily within germanic music of the late eighteenth and early–to mid–nineteenth centuries (what i shall henceforth designate “classic–romantic music”). the means by which such music generates emotional content are especially susceptible to theorization because, as i will argue, this music generally boasts clearly delineated themes with distinctive emotional profiles,4 and also because thematic development in this style elaborates and modifies themes and their corresponding emotions in relatively transparent ways. granted, a theory of musical emotion based on such a relatively narrow range of repertoire will inevitably be of somewhat limited application. this predicament, however, cannot be avoided, for the simple reason that music of different styles engenders emotion in different ways (although some techniques, of course, are held in common). hence, theories of musical emotion must be situated historically, however tempting it may be to attempt a universal theory. that said, my theoretical stance is not entirely limited to the classic–romantic paradigm on which it is based, no more so than such music itself exists in a historical vacuum. the emotional processes of beethoven’s music, for example, may be more patent and potent than those of some other repertories, but they are also somewhat continuous with those of other repertories. that is to say, we might hold up beethoven’s music as a particularly lucid example of how music might mean, and thus as a window into some aspects of the emotional content and processes in other music, even where these are somewhat different or less salient. i should also clarify that the listener i envision here is one thoroughly immersed in the conventions of classic–romantic repertoire, receptive to its personified contours (able to empathize with its anthropomorphic elements) and capable of listening “structurally,”5 of following a linear musical argument and its attendant emotional niceties. i do not believe that the emotional elements i will adumbrate are “built into” configurations of pitch and rhythm, such that anyone perceiving such configurations will by necessity perceive musical emotion. rather, musical emotion arises from the intersection of sounding music and the perceptions of a listener equipped with certain cognitive and emotional predispositions. in other words, emotional elements, while in some sense present in (correlated with jeffrey swinkin 99 and delimited by) musical sound rather than imposed willy–nilly from without, are nonetheless only potentially present—to become manifest, they require a stylistically competent, structurally comprehending, and empathic listener.6 that said, there are degrees of emotional apprehension, such that a listener lacking the ability, for example, to follow a musical argument—to attend to music–structural unfolding—might nonetheless glean emotional content from other parameters, such as foreground gestures and topics, as i will discuss. with these caveats in mind, i proceed to consider the three crucial components of musically embodied emotion mentioned above: first convention and contour, and then formal process. convention and contour kivy (1989) cites convention and contour as two sources of musical emotion. by the former he means expressive codes with widely recognized denotations. the most central among these are the major and minor modes, which have been understood to correlate with the positive and negative sides of the emotional spectrum. insofar as these modes govern entire pieces, they can be understood to generate broad emotional contexts within which more detailed emotional cues occur. other conventional idioms are more localized and more dependent on style. for example, the topics (topoi) of the classical period possess relatively standardized emotional connotations: horn calls (horn fifths) commonly express aggressiveness; sturm und drang angst; the lament bass (held over from the baroque) ceremonious grief; the mannheim rocket intense expectancy; the sigh (seufzer) motif plaintive longing, and so forth.7 the “contour” theory, conversely, “explains the expressiveness of music by the congruence of musical ‘contour’ with the structure of [human] expressive features and behavior” (kivy 1989:77). here kivy draws a distinction between expressing emotion and being expressive of emotion (1989:12–13). to cite his paradigmatic example, a saint bernard is not necessarily sad, but to a human observer his countenance is nonetheless expressive of sadness because it resembles the countenance of a person when he or she is sad. by contrast, the dour countenance of a person who is in fact sad expresses sadness—his countenance directly reflects how he is feeling. music, kivy submits, is more like the saint bernard than the sad person: a piece is expressive of sadness not because it is sad in any literal sense—nor because it expresses the sad feelings of the composer or evokes them in the listener—but because its contour closely resembles the physical forms we associate with sadness.8 a drooping façade or posture, whether of a saint bernard, flower, current musicology 100 or melody—say, one in a minor key and replete with descending leaps, as in the first two measures of mozart’s mass in c minor, k. 427—is likely to convey a negative emotional quality, a dejected state; the opposite holds for an uplifted façade. in short, music is expressive partially due to its isomorphic relation to animate features.9 emotional contour is not confined to melodic physiognomy. we also detect emotion in musical behaviors that are analogous to human behaviors—in particular, to physical gesture and vocal utterance. as to the former, just as we might infer an emotion from a person’s gait, so might we from a musical gait, as conjured by tempo and rhythm. to take an obvious example, a slow tempo commonly intimates a sluggish gait, from which we infer sadness (especially if conjoined with the minor mode). on a more local level, much music is replete with gestures that can be understood as analogous to human ones; this is particularly true of the mature classical style, with its heterogeneous phrase rhythms and detailed articulations. regarding vocality, kivy states that we hear sadness in music when we “hear musical sounds as appropriate to the expression of sadness . . . when we hear them as human utterances, and perceive the features of these utterances as structurally similar to our own voices when we express our own sadness in speech” (1989:51).10 in short, whereas musical conventions bear a relatively arbitrary relation to emotion, musical contours are congruent with the human behaviors indicative of emotion. kivy, however, is careful to note that the boundary between the two categories is permeable: some conventions are rooted in contour–resemblances; conversely, many contour–resemblances, often slight in themselves, accrue expressive force by dint of long–standing association—by becoming conventionalized. the minor mode, for example, may at first have expressed melancholy due to the fact that its mediant is a semitone lower than that of major and so has a comparatively drooping contour, but it has acquired expressive weight due to the influence of association over many years.11 the sigh figure, to take a more localized example, is probably also expressive by virtue of both contour and convention. kivy suggests that this figure might express sadness “by analogy to human expression,” but that its intensity depends on convention: “ . . . the figure has been associated, since time out of mind, with intense rather than transient and shallow grief ” (1989:78). in the cases of minor mode and sigh figure, then, a somewhat faint resemblance to human form amounts to a marked expression due to conventional association. since a fine line separates convention and contour—or put differently, since they often operate in tandem—it is frequently difficult if not impossible to discern which, if either, is more responsible for establishing a particular musical emotion.12 jeffrey swinkin 101 formal process kivy’s argument is compelling to a point but it does not sufficiently account for the influence of music–formal procedures upon affective conventions and contours. o’dey notes that “kivy’s work has been criticized for focusing exclusively on small–scale musical details and for neglecting the expressive potential of overall form” (2000:10). a theory of musical emotion that does not sufficiently acknowledge the role of form will likely fail to discern many emotional particularities in musical works. enter hanslick and langer: both assert, in similar ways, that musical expression derives from formal unfolding. hanslick denies that music is capable of representing specific feelings; these, he claims, can only arise in conjunction with specific thoughts and circumstances, which music is incapable of denoting. he does maintain, however, that music can represent the more general dynamic qualities associated with and capable of modifying emotions. music can do so because such qualities are perfectly compatible with purely musical processes—the “tonally moving forms” that, for hanslick, are the sole content of music. that is, such qualities are susceptible “to audible changes in strength, motion, and proportion” (1891:10).13 to paraphrase hanslick, music can represent whispering, albeit not the whispering of love; it can represent violence, albeit not the violence of conflict. music “can only express the various accompanying adjectives and never the substantive” (9).14 it is fine, he suggests, to extrapolate particular emotions from these abstract qualities, to imagine concrete scenarios, but one must not conflate the two.15 langer has likewise argued that the dynamic processes of music are isomorphic with the general forms of emotional experience. echoing hanslick, she enumerates various processes or patterns that music shares with emotions, such as those of “motion and rest, of tension and release, of agreement and disagreement, preparation, fulfillment, excitation, sudden change, and so on” (langer 1957:184–185). these dynamics are common to many if not most emotions.16 in fact, langer argues, some emotions we consider oppositional might actually partake of the same or a similar dynamic pattern.17 both happy and sad conditions, for example, often assume the form of initiation—climax—denouement (whether over short or long time–spans). like hanslick, she restricts expression to these general states, claiming that music can convey only the structure, not substance, of emotion: “for what music can actually reflect is only the morphology of feeling” (1957:238, her italics). consequently, music is an “unconsummated symbol”: it is expressive and significant, but not of any one thing in particular. another, perhaps more affirmative way to put this is that music is emotionally multivalent or polysemous. current musicology 102 for kivy, hanslick, and langer, then, musical emotion is synonymous with neither self–expression nor arousal. rather, it is something that resides in the musical substance itself—the musical sound, whether actual or imagined, as denoted by notation. for all three, emotion arises from isomorphic correspondences: for kivy, between musical contour and the external, demonstrable dimensions of feeling; for hanslick and langer, between musical processes and the dynamic structure of feeling—between music and the way feelings feel. hence, kivy allows only for the expression of concrete, “garden–variety” emotions, since these are the only ones inferable from physical contours, while hanslick and langer allow only for the expression of generalized emotional dynamics. these two views are not incompatible, for, when combined, they can account for different dimensions of any given musical emotion: on kivy’s view, contours and conventions indicate the physical or behavioral profile of the emotion; on hanslick’s and langer’s view, formal processes indicate the inner experience of an emotion, the way an emotion unfolds in time. far from being mutually exclusive, it would seem that both dimensions would necessarily operate and reinforce one another in any instance of musical expression. beethoven, piano concerto in c minor: opening examining a brief passage from beethoven’s c minor piano concerto will serve to consolidate my argument to this point. the opening thematic idea (example 1, measures 114–117), with its minor key, forte dynamic, and stark octave doublings, possesses a severe quality; moreover, the fanfare topic, sforzando–accented g, and hammer blows in the last two measures suggest a somewhat aggressive stance. from these conventions and contours we may infer the emotion of anger—or perhaps, to be a bit more specific, bellicose anger.18 to be sure, this description is too reductive to precisely capture the emotional content of this passage as i perceive it (much less the emotional nuances others may hear). here we encounter the inevitable problem of applying words to music, of how language is inadequate for fully describing musical emotion (or perhaps emotion generally), a problem i can hardly resolve here. suffice to say, if we wish to talk about musical meaning at all, we must learn to live with the ineluctable disparity between words and music. however, two tactics can mitigate this disparity. first, in explaining musical emotion we should strive to employ language sensitively and artistically in order to bridge the language–music gap at least to some degree. indeed, we can look to nineteenth–century critics such as e. t. a. hoffman and a. b. marx as models in this regard, for their hermeneutic readings often embody jeffrey swinkin 103 example 1: beethoven, piano concerto no. 3 in c minor, op. 37, first movement, measures 114–130 current musicology 104 or exemplify some of the aesthetic qualities of the music they discuss. bent (1994:141–142) points out, for example, that hoffman, in his celebrated 1810 review of beethoven’s fifth symphony, at one point withholds verbs in his description of the opening in order to convey the music’s sense of “breathless orientation” (bent’s words). to take a much more recent critic, adorno, according to michael spitzer, often writes in a manner analogous to the music it treats—it exemplifies the very musical qualities to which he refers. for example, in referring to adorno’s remarks on beethoven’s string quartet in a minor, op. 132, spitzer claims, “this . . . synergy between the content and medium of representation, whereby criticism mimics qualities of its object, is absolutely typical of adorno’s philosophical aesthetics. here adorno’s procedure is most pronounced in the late–beethovenian fragmentation of his argument, which unfolds as cryptically as the actual quartet” (2006:39). second, and more crucially, our descriptions of emotions, however imperfect, will derive a measure of objective—or better, intersubjective—validity from their basis in objectively present musical elements (conventional, contoural, and formal) as derived from astute observation and analysis. returning to our example, the next phrase (measures 118–121) features a homophonic, chorale–like texture/topic, which connotes harmonious communality and spirituality. this phrase thus transcends or assuages the anger of the previous phrase, especially given its piano dynamic and the trill figures in measure 120 that partially obscure the hammer–stroke rhythms of the left hand, attenuating their angularity. yet this phrase is not entirely ameliorative: tension is still evident, especially in the pungent dissonance on the downbeat of measure 119, arising both from the minor ninth between ab and g (within each hand) and from the ab itself, which, as � ˆ 6 in a minor key, has an inherently yearning or anxious quality. however, this tension is now more internally contained than acted out. the anger is further assuaged in measures 122–123, which evince a contemplative stance toward the anger as well as a degree of emotional distance. this is because the fanfare—a vestige of which is present in the bass voice (circled in the example)—is somewhat eviscerated by its piano and legato treatment and by the fact that its final third (eb–g) is transformed to a fourth (eb–ab). this figure thus delineates a first–inversion triad, which is somewhat milder than the root–position triad of the original fanfare. as the fanfare is softened, so is the anger with which it was previously associated; as it is modified (intervalically), so the anger is modified and redirected. the more reflective or contemplative stance is also evident in the rhythmic elongation: whereas the initial fanfare figure (the triad) occupied one measure plus one beat, this one is expanded to two full measures. likewise with the fifth–motive (g–f–eb–d–c) in the right hand: origijeffrey swinkin 105 nally occurring over five quarter notes (measures 115–1161), it now occurs over eight (measures 122–123). this expansion is the result both of the motive being embellished and of starting prematurely—it now coincides with the start of the fanfare rather than following it as before. in stark contrast to the terse, tense opening, both the bass and melody spin more leisurely, more lyrical lines. consequently, this passage intimates a protracted, linear thought process, a more considered stance, rather than, as in the theme, an erratic emotional outburst.19 this holds even if, given the nature of music, the precise content of this thought process must remain “unconsummated.” however, the musical persona has not achieved complete emotional detachment—pain or tension is still clearly evident, as in the poignant dissonance (accented passing tone d) on the downbeat of measure 123 and in the continued emphasis on � ˆ 6 (ab in the bass, measure 123). measures 124–128 initially continue this contemplative stance but grow increasingly restless: each sequential statement is a fourth higher, each one expressing a more intense yearning than the previous, as if one finds herself unable to maintain the emotional distance needed to reflect rationally upon the initial emotional state, and is inexorably devolving into it. indeed, the statement beginning in measure 126 is unable to retain its composure—it exceeds the two–measure boundary established by the previous two statements, its accelerated activity in measure 127 (f–eb–d–c of the piano’s bass) spills into measure 128.20 then, the sforzando–accented g of measure 129, as a salient reference to that of measure 115, brings us full circle and seems to forebode a recurrence of the initial anger. such a recurrence, however, is not to be found in the next statement of the theme starting in measure 138, which is garbed in the relative major and accompanied by buoyant eighth notes. this thematic statement perhaps consolidates the positive perspective toward which the persona was striving in measures 122–130, despite the threat of emotional regression in measure 129. to summarize, the emotion of bellicose anger is derived from convention and contour. however, formal dynamics subsequently come to the fore, developing both the theme and its concomitant emotion. that is, as the theme is modified by the formal processes of elongation (augmentation), sequential repetition, (sub)phrase expansion, and return, the emotional correlate of the theme (anger) is likewise modified by the experiential correlates of those formal processes; in this context, these seem to be, respectively, contemplation, intensification, spilling–over (losing composure), and regression (review example 1). these dynamics modify the basic mood in more fluid and subtle ways than conventions or contours by themselves could. current musicology 106 this example demonstrated how an emotion may be musically specified. in a moment, i will build upon this idea, exploring the role of tonal and motivic structure in music–emotional specification. first, however, i would like to step back and consider the crux of our issue more generally. music–emotional specificity what is the relation of musical emotion to ordinary, non–musical emotion? we may adduce two polarized views. at one extreme, a musical emotion is considered not fundamentally different from the corresponding emotion one experiences in life, outside of music. at the other, a musical emotion is considered sui generis, uniquely and irreducibly musical, such that the musical experience of anger, for instance, is only nominally related to the anger we experience outside of music. the first view runs counter to the intuition that a musical emotion, if not wholly unique, is surely somewhat distinct from and perhaps more refined than a non–musical emotion. the second view runs counter to the intuition that musical emotions are not completely removed from the emotions we experience in non–musical settings—that music does not exist in its own, rarified realm, entirely divorced from ordinary experience. i think we need to mediate between these polarized views, regarding musical emotion as neither commonplace nor sui generis; that is, i regard musical emotion as at once musically specific and also related to everyday emotional experience. classic–romantic music commonly performs such a mediation. in such music, the theme, due to its relative conventionality and topicality, will usually establish a basic, relatively general emotion. (of course, most pieces have multiple themes, with each one typically expressing a different emotion.) the opening theme of beethoven’s sixth symphony expresses bucolic contentment, that of liszt’s piano sonata demonic anger, and that of the finale of mahler’s ninth symphony funereal melancholy. as is evident from the adjectives “bucolic,” “demonic,” and “funereal,” even these emotions are not entirely general or “garden–variety”—most of us experience contentment at some point, but not necessarily bucolic contentment. an emotion presented so coarsely as to elicit no such qualification would rarely appear in the sophisticated repertoire under consideration here. still, these emotions are relatively general in serving as emotional points of reference within their respective pieces, to be rendered even more specific by subsequent musical processes. indeed, once the theme has been stated and its process of development and variation begins, the emotion expressed by the theme will likewise be developed and varied.21 that is, it will be subjected to formal processes that jeffrey swinkin 107 serve to specify the emotion in two, interrelated ways. first, the (relatively) commonplace musical emotion as established by contour and convention is progressively wed to the formal processes and musical events by which it is shaped, such that, ultimately, it is indelibly imprinted by musical qualities. in other words, an emotion that begins as an extension of, or reference to, common experience is progressively rendered more specifically musical—increasingly inseparable from its musical instantiation. second, it would seem that the development of a theme would conduce to even greater emotional generality, since these formal processes, according to hanslick and langer, are isomorphic with the general dynamics of experience. yet, in my view, this is not the case, for the simple reason that these processes and their experiential correlates occur in conjunction with or in relation to a theme and its basic expressive signification and hence serve to specify or modify that signification, whether demonstrably or subtly. in other words, when the theme is developed, its emotional correlate is colored by various dynamics, by varying degrees of tension, delay, fulfillment, dissolution, and so on; in this way, additional qualities accrue to the basic emotion, which thereby assumes a more particular meaning than it did initially. the idea that a musical theme establishes or entails an emotional theme is hardly new: one can trace it back to the eighteenth century, where music was commonly viewed as analogous to rhetoric. in this view, the musical oration, no less than its linguistic counterpart, possesses a particular subject of interest, one that can be expressed and elaborated in manifold ways, both in terms of rhetorical tropes (elocutio) and in the sequence of ideas (dispositio). such elaborations modify the emotional content of the subject (and, according to eighteenth–century theorists, arouse various passions in the auditor). heinrich koch, for example, claims the composer modifies the principal idea in order to “modify the feeling which he is treating” (1787, in baker and christensen 1995:188).22 that is, the principal idea defines the primary affect of the piece, and as the theme is developed, so is the affect with which it is associated.23 later, he emphasizes that for a basic affect even to be sustained, it must be varied, presented in various guises. he states, “if the feeling is to become a pleasure, then the touching of these nerves must be continuous, indeed, must persist in differing strengths and weaknesses, that is, the feeling must be presented in various modifications . . . in short, the feeling will be continuous by our imagining it in several contexts” (ibid:202–203). in koch’s view, to sustain an emotion is necessarily to vary it. carl dahlhaus confirms that the concept of a theme in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries entailed not just a musical but also an emotional idea—an affect or character—and that development is not solely of the musical idea but also of its emotional correlate. he declares, “the motivic working of the ‘formal theme’ will have a correlative in a growing elaboration of the ‘aesthetic theme’” (1991:125). current musicology 108 returning to our beethoven example, we can now more fully appreciate the precise manner in which it specifies its basic emotion of bellicose anger. again, the theme establishes this emotion primarily by virtue of convention and contour. the theme is not so much developed as sequentially restated on the dominant (typical of a sentence structure). correspondingly, its mood is not so much developed as counterpoised by the quiescent chorale. then the theme and its anger begin to be developed in earnest. as the theme is subjected to formal unfolding, its emotion becomes increasingly imbued with musical substance, such that it becomes increasingly difficult to extricate the emotion from its musical context. in other words, as the music proceeds, it refers to the idea of anger less and embodies it more—the anger becomes more musically specific (we might even call it “musical anger”). yet, at the same time, this formal unfolding exposes general states of sentient experience that in turn specify and modify the anger: what was initially bellicose anger becomes bellicose anger contemplated, then gradually resurging, then (almost) regressed to. this example amply demonstrates that, contrary to hanslick’s assertion that music “can only express the various accompanying adjectives and never the substantive”—emotional dynamics but not emotion per se—a basic emotion (in this case, bellicose anger) can effectively serve as the substantive, the emotional subject that is adjectivally qualified by formal dynamics. in hanslick’s model, even where discernible musical moods exist (and we have seen that hanslick does unwittingly accede to such moods [see note 15]), they would ultimately be subsumed by formal processes. that is, they would ultimately yield to abstract states that for him are synonymous with purely musical structure. for hanslick, in other words, the purely musical (or something close to it) is the end result. by contrast, i am arguing that these formal processes never (or rarely) become independent of the theme and its corresponding emotion; they necessarily particularize this emotion, and in doing so acquire much of their interest and import. put another way, i contend that in classic–romantic music, the emotional point of reference will not cease to hold sway in the course of development; rather, it will continue, even amidst the most dense developmental permutations, to provide a clearly defined emotional context in relation to which these permutations carry significance.24 this music almost always has an emotional subject (or several) which is susceptible to specification or predication. beethoven, sonata, op. 7, second movement while we have considered the effect of formal processes and procedures upon musical emotion, we have yet to consider the effect of tonal structure, voice leading, and motivic relationships. an adequate theory of musical emotion jeffrey swinkin 109 will need to account for these parameters as well, for music–emotional specificity derives not just from foreground thematic development but also from higher–level processes. let us parse the opening of beethoven’s piano sonata in eb, op. 7, second movement (example 2) from this standpoint. i begin with a formal overview. this passage, the a section of a large ternary form, itself comprises a small ternary: a1, measures 1–8; b, pickup to 9–14; a2, 15–24. the small b section is distinguished by its own theme and key (the dominant). a2 is a variant and expansion of a1; the expansion is due mostly to an evaded cadence on the downbeat of measure 20 and a subsequent interpolation, as i will discuss in a moment. in terms of voice leading, as my graph in example 3 shows, an e kopfton ( � ˆ 3 ) is prolonged within the a1 section by means of two third–progressions, one nested within the other.25 in the b section, the fundamental line is interrupted at � ˆ 2 (d2). a2, naturally, reinitiates the fundamental line—the kopfton � ˆ 3 — whose descent is once again obstructed by the aforementioned evaded cadence into measure 20. the structural descent, when it finally arrives, is rather tenuous, given that the � ˆ 2 (measure 23) is merely implied (or perhaps can be seen to retreat into the alto voice, covered by the soprano’s g, as in measure 2. beethoven reserves the decisive descent for the final two measures of the movement (the descent in measures 73–74 is not definitive since it is not in the obligatory register. more prominent and perceptible than the underlying descent in measures 22–23 is the leap from g1–c1 (measures 23–24), by which the g is registrally abandoned; its thread is picked up in the large b section by ab1 in measure 25 (this g–ab motion serves to bridge the large a and b sections). as for an emotive overview, the governing topic appears to be sensibility (empfindsamkeit). the piece exemplifies many of the features ratner cites as characteristic of this idiom: “interrupted continuity, elaborate ornamentation, pregnant pauses, shifting, uncertain, often dissonant harmony” (1980:22). such features suggest a mercurial emotional disposition. more specifically, a1 is governed by a chorale–like topic, whose hushed chords couched within sighing figures (two–note slurs) suggest a gentle yearning—they are plaintive, but, because in the major mode, not morose. in b, the mood turns brighter due to the brighter key (the dominant tonicization), higher register, and increased rhythmic animation. if the a theme is listless and contemplative, the b theme is more lithe and outwardly expressive. a2, finally, is even more taciturn than the opening due to its pianissimo dynamic but quickly gains a sense of urgency and motion in measure 17, the precise point at which a2 deviates from a1. the evaded cadence in measure 20 is then immediately followed by audacious hammer strokes, which comprise the emotional apex of the entire passage (the large a section). this aggression current musicology 110 example 2: beethoven, piano sonata in eb, op. 7, second movement, measures 1–24 jeffrey swinkin 111 is abruptly curbed, however, by a denouement that restores the serenity of the opening. each formal section, then, has its own distinctive emotional qualities, as defined by particular topics and contours. now let us delve into greater detail, discussing for each section the finer, more localized emotions arising from conventions and contours; their specification by formal processes; and their specification by a few suggestive aspects of tonal and motivic structure.26 i will not attempt an exhaustive emotive analysis but will rather weave a few narrative threads i find particularly salient. a1, measures 1–8 as i have already mentioned, the opening is a quasi–chorale partitioned into sigh–like figures, expressing a somewhat mournful quality. the pregnant pauses lend the persona a reticent character—she expresses her sorrow hesitantly, or perhaps merely contemplates it tacitly. the second measure presents a more overt sigh than does the first, in the form of a descending–fourth leap, g–d; a more solemn variant of this gesture, traversing a tritone, follows in the bass of measure 3. moreover, the unexpected slide from v6/v to v 4/2 as well as the strident, sforzando–accented c appoggiatura in measure 4 create an unsettling, even tragic ambiance. hence, the passage thus far expresses ever more intense instances of melancholy as it proceeds. the variants of the basic emotion derive from, or correlate with, variants of the initial two–chord and g–d gestures. (notice that the motivic variants engender an emotional progression—one of increasing intensity or severity—even though formally the phrase is relatively static and paratactic.27) then, the angst that culminates with the chromaticism and dissonance of measure 4 is assuaged by the pristine diatonicism of measures 5–72. this reprieve is slightly soured, however, by ab, (b � ˆ 6 , a byproduct of modal mixture) in the alto of measure 7, which is evocative of a pang, given its tonal coloration and abrupt off–beat accent. the section comes full circle with the sigh figure of measure 8, which, like that of the first measure, is wistful but relatively benign in comparison with the others encountered in this phrase. now i will consider the tonal structure (example 3) and its emotional implications. to begin, the g in m. 21 would seem to partake of a third motion: e–f–g (measures 1–2); yet i would contend that the g is actually a cover tone28 and thus has no direct syntactical connection to the f. rather, an e–f–e neighbor motion underlies the first two measures (i hear the d in measure 2 as embellishing the f). this reading is substantiated by the bass of measures 1–2, whose unambiguous lower–neighbor motion can be seen to crystallize and mirror—in the senses of both reflect and invert—the underlying upper–neighbor motion of the right hand. it is also substanticurrent musicology 112 example 3: voice–leading graph of measures 1–24 jeffrey swinkin 113 ated by subsequent events. in the transition from b to a2, the kopfton (e) is reintroduced by f. even though f is part of a 8–7 passing motion, its octave–shift (measure 14) calls special attention to it as well as to the e to which it inevitably resolves. however, this resolution is somewhat equivocal: although f1 resolves directly to e1, f2 is left hanging. this pitch is not picked up until measure 18, where it finally resolves to e2. hence, as the piece proceeds, f–e becomes increasingly explicit as a motive; this process, in turn, retroactively grants motivic status to the initial (e–)f–e of measures 1–2. if in the first two measures the conjoining of e and f (as an entity separate from the following g) is nebulous, subsequent events eventually clarify the relationship of these pitches, hypostatizing them as a distinct motive.29 based on this analysis, one might say the g desires to be integrated into a linear framework. stated more metaphorically, the g in measure 2 intimates a character who longs to belong in some sense but is prevented from doing so (at least for the moment). the character connoted by g desires greater ontological certainty—the kind of identity and security one enjoys as a member of a community. the voice–leading environment, as i see it, thus specifies both a particular musical agent experiencing the melancholy or distress (the g, which throughout the piece is framed as an outlier with respect to the � ˆ 3 –line urlinie) and, more importantly, a reason for the melancholy: g is denied what it apparently seeks, which is to be more firmly entrenched in its surroundings. to summarize: the mood of melancholy as expressed by foreground conventions/contours is specified and rendered multidimensional by means of (a) the successive motivic transformations in measures 1–4, which render the melancholy increasingly intense; and (b) middleground structure, which establishes a context by which one can attribute the melancholy to a persona, and by which one can adduce a reason for the melancholy. the structure connotes both an agent and a circumstance by which that persona would possess a particular frame of mind, a desire. the outcome is no generic melancholy; rather, it is melancholy in response to frustrated desire. b, measures 8–14 this section establishes a fresh, somewhat more buoyant mood since, in contrast to the previous section, it is fluid rather than halting: rests no longer abound and the melody, in a singing style, is marked by greater rhythmic heterogeneity and vivacity. also, measure 9, preceded by an animating anacrusis, is itself anacrusic in relation to measure 10. as a result, the theme has a leading, directional quality, in marked contrast to the static, downbeat–oriented opening theme. moreover, the open spacing of the right–hand chords in measures 9 and 11 creates a sense of expectancy, a raised–eyebrow physiognomy expressing (cautious) optimism. relatedly, the ascent of the current musicology 114 upper voice in measures 10–12 through g2 and b2—accented by a sforzando and in a high, conspicuous register—suggests a more assertive, even slightly fanfarish quality. however, this relative extroversion is somewhat countered by the cadenza–like ruminations of measures 10 and the last beat of 12. g2 and b2, moreover, never continue to d3 as one might expect on the basis that (per leonard meyer) the initiation of a triad implies its completion. rather, measure 14 ascends merely to f2, undermining the tonicity and brighter mood of g major. thus the register is noticeably curbed, connoting emotional inhibition and waning optimism. such inhibition is also evident in the manner in which this section formally unfolds. the first four measures seem to initiate a sentence: given that measures 9–10 state a basic idea and measures 11–12 its (partially) sequential variant, we might well expect a four–measure continuation, along the somewhat crude lines of example 4.30 this expectation is provisionally fulfilled in measures 13–141, especially given their harmonic acceleration (which caplin [1998] cites as characteristic of a continuation). this expectation, however, is thwarted by the “premature” arrival in measure 14 of v7, which results in a foreshortened subphrase (two measures instead of four). this truncated phrase rhythm reinforces and is reinforced by the registral containment of the right hand, and both, in turn, dampen the elevated mood with which this section began. this section, then, initially expresses a more positive mood than does the previous one, as evident in the contoural elements of rhythmic animation and spacious voicings, and the convention of fanfare, followed by a dejection of mood based on registral and formal curtailment. this reading is substantiated by tonal and motivic considerations. the g, which in the previous section had trouble finding a niche, is now the local tonic as well as the focal point in the bass, where it repeated as part of an a–g motion that replicates that of the tenor voice in measures 6–7 (as shown by the arrow in example 2). there the figure was quickly undermined by ab (b � ˆ 6 ); here it revels in an unproblematic presentation and the � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 is offered as an antidote to the pessimism of b � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 (both versions of the motive are highlighted in example 3). yet, this figure returns in measure 133. 31 this ab, however, is less turbulent than the one in measure 7 since it exhibits greater rhythmic regularity and control—the chromatic line in which it participates unfolds with greater composure. to summarize, the initial treatment of a–g supports and specifies the cautious optimism and extroversion of the right hand, providing a reason for it—the g has found a raison d’être, if only for the moment—and � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 is proffered as a corrective to b � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 . by contrast, the injection of ab in measure jeffrey swinkin 115 13 communicates the dejection connoted by the formal and registral contraction of the next measure. the motivic interplay between � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 and b � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 mirrors and reinforces the emotional transformation as exhibited by surface contours and conventions. a2, measures 15–24 the melodic lead–in to this section (measure 14, second and third beats), by means of its tripping gesture, dissipates the tension that had arisen due to the resurgence of the b � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 motive. the statement of the theme that follows is more reticent than that in a1, perhaps in response to the extroversion of b, as if the melancholy subject is taken aback by her own momentary assuredness.32 this diffidence, however, is promptly reversed by an unexpected deviation from a1 in the form of a “premature” statement of the descending–fourth leap in measure 17. that is, here two such figures occur in consecutive measures (16 and 17), whereas in a1 the second figure (measure 4) was separated from the first (measure 2) by an entire measure. this surprise, enhanced by the rinforzando, in turn precipitates a marked increase in rhythmic and harmonic activity in the form of an ascending 5–6 sequence. the onset of this sequence induces a brief metric shift: as shown in example 5, the second beat of measure 17 is heard as a downbeat—due both to the previous descending–fourth gesture arising prematurely, thus possessing an anacrusic quality, and to a fresh rhythmic idea starting on that second beat. the sequence leads to the right–hand sigh figure, f–e in measure 18, which is intensely sorrowful, especially given the tense sonority—a full–diminished seventh chord, a viio7/vi—of which the f is part, not to mention the deceptive motion on which the measure ends. this gesture is the emotional apotheosis of the f–e neighbor motive i have discussed. this reading is both supported and qualified by the undercutting motive that follows in the left hand; as example 6 demonstrates, measures 18–20 in a sense recompose measures 1–4. yet the undercutting motive here is considerably softened, in three ways. first, though starting out in the lowest–sounding voice, the figure becomes absorbed by the tenor. second, the figure is diluted by the g example 4: hypothetical continuation phrase in the b section (starting measure 13) current musicology 116 that intervenes between f# and fn, which eviscerates what was initially direct chromaticism. finally, the f# is approached from a rather than from c as in a1, thus forming a milder minor third in contrast to the strident tritone. hence, whereas the undercutting figure in a1 intensified the melancholy, the one in a2 mitigates it. however, this dark mood is restored forthwith: in measure 20, the previously missing tritone now returns in the form of the soprano’s leap from g–c#. the undercutting, previously attenuated, returns with a vengeance, in the form of an evaded cadence that alights on vii 4/2 of ii, a tensely enigmatic sonority to say the least.33 (this dark turn is immediately presaged by the funereal dotted rhythms of measure 19). the hammer blows that follow in measures 20 and 21 are shocking as much due to the pregnant pauses by which they are framed as to the stentorian sonorities themselves. the exclamatory, intrusive demeanor of these chords derives not only from their fortissimo dynamic and rhythmic rigidity but also from the formal context in which they occur: these chords are part of an interpolation, an inserted module (in relation to a1) that extends from the evaded cadence in measure 201 to the end of measure 23 (see the brackets in example 2). hence, measures 20–21 constitute not only a dynamic interjection but a formal one as well. this outburst is promptly pacified, however, by the resumption in measure 22 of a pianissimo chord progression and by a repetition and resolution of the cadence initially evaded (the g–c# leap is peaceably converted to g–cn). however, the repetition of the solemn, funereal figure as well as the inconclusiveness of the lingering g (the subterranean resolution of the fundamental line notwithstanding) suggest that the persona is mollified only in the sense of coming to terms with her grief. that is, she accepts it rather than lashes out against it as she had in measures 20–21; but the grief is not extinguished. example 5: metric displacement in a2 jeffrey swinkin 117 in short, the foreground in a2 expresses in turn taciturn melancholy, waxing confidence and optimism, ambivalent anguish, funereal grief, bellicose defiance, and finally equivocal repose. in no other section of this movement is the governing empfindsam aesthetic and mercurial sensibility more patent. regarding structural processes, the g of measure 16 is assimilated by a full–fledged line, as shown in examples 2 and 3: whereas the g of measure 2 was left hanging, it now continues upward to the a in measure 17 (which is conspicuous for the reasons already mentioned), initiating the 5–6 sequence, the upper line of which then transfers to the tenor voice. hence, what was in measure 2 an isolated, alienated tone is now a bona fide member of a melodic line. this moment thus represents an actualization, a realization of g’s desire to become linearly integrated—g finds a connection, musically and metaphorically, with other entities—initially with a and then, in turn, with the broader line that g–a relation initiates.34 the positive emotion also derives from the fact that g’s connection with a resonates with the a–g, � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 motive. only now, rather than a descending to g, a figure that, as we have seen, is susceptible to a dour b � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 inflection, g ascends to a, a figure much less susceptible to an emotional downturn. this contoural reversal, then, signifies an emotional reversal. also symptomatic of emotional reversal is that the bass’s g# in measure 18, part of the ascending chromatic 5–6 sequence, is arguably an enharmonic respelling of ab, b � ˆ 6 , such that what had been a morose ab–g is now a much more hopeful g#–a. example 6: measures 18–19 as recomposition of measures 1–5 current musicology 118 this reversal is also evident on a broader scale when we consider the transition from this large a section to the large b that follows it: as shown in example 3, the g in measure 19, at least at the foreground, is left hanging—it is registrally abandoned. but ultimately finds a home in the ab that begins the large b. this inverted statement of the b � ˆ 6 – � ˆ 5 motive and the emotional reversal it intimates is a crucial impetus for the much more ebullient demeanor of the large b. if g is momentarily actualized, given a sense of purpose and belonging by the unexpected, beneficent a (the emotional impetus, perhaps, behind a’s rinforzando), a metric element is actualized as well. recall that the second beat of measure 17 initiates a metric displacement; this can be construed as reframing the previously accented second beats (measures 4, 10, and 12) as a downbeat, as if they had aspired to downbeat–status all along. in other words, this moment actualizes the potential or desire of those rhythmic accents to become full–fledged metric accents. this event is arguably a metric counterpart to the integration of g: both the g and the second beat begin as ancillaries to structure (tonal and metric, respectively) but are ultimately transformed into integral components of structure.35 measure 17, then, is the culmination and resolution of both tonal and metric processes, and thus serves to motivate and substantiate the confidence, if ephemeral, suggested by the foreground. measure 18, on the other hand, evinces a discrepancy between the foreground topic and the broader structural process: the mournful character of the f–e sigh figure is mitigated not only by the bass’s g#–a, as discussed, and the subsequently softened undercutting, but also by the fact that f–e is a fulfillment of sorts. that is, the e2 is a resolution of the f2 neighbor left hanging at the end of the b section, as shown by the arrow in example 2.36 topic and voice leading once again converge at the hammer strokes: the disruptive effect of these gestures is substantiated by and in part results from the voice leading. as the graph indicates, g (measure 21) is no longer neatly integrated into a continuous line. that was possible in measures 16 ff. due to the homogeneity of the sequential voice leading, where all notes were at the same level; here the g is clearly subordinate to, a passing tone in relation to, the surrounding f and a (the predominant is being composed out). interestingly, the soprano in measures 20–22 can be read as recalling the bass line of measures 17–18, with slight modifications—it excludes the chromatic tones. this line too is dissolved (see brackets in example 3). hence, the sequential progression of measures 16–18 is subsequently dissolved, in terms of both underlying voice leading and surface rhythmic fragmentation. such dissolution can be construed as a hostile response to the linear integration of g. jeffrey swinkin 119 conclusion the above analysis demonstrates how emotional conventions and contours are modified and specified not just by thematic development and formal processes—phrase expansion or foreshortening, sequences, metric displacement, and so on—but also by tonal structure and voice leading, motivic interrelations, and melodic implications/realizations. that is, the structural refinement of basic moods is not only diachronic but also synchronic; it occurs not only in horizontal space, as the foreground linearly unfolds, but also in vertical (hierarchical) space, as a result of the foreground interacting with, perceived in relation to, deeper, concurrent levels of structure. diachronically, a basic emotion is specified by the dynamic form it assumes, a form that predicates various attributes about its emotive subject. synchronically, the basic emotion is specified by higher–level processes. the latter, metaphorically construed, yield states of mind, beliefs, attitudes, and desires that lend both cognitive complexity and situational specificity to emotions denoted by foreground signifiers. musical emotions, in short, grow more specific and complex not only as the music unfolds in time but also as one delves into structural strata, as one uncovers the structural context of particular events. in closing, i want to reemphasize that tonal and other structural processes do not necessarily conform to and confirm the emotional content of the foreground, but can imply a different, even opposing emotion. for examples of confirmation, we saw how the melancholy of the opening was created not just topically but also structurally—by the lack of linear connection. we also saw how the striving optimism of measure 17 was created not just by the energetic gestures at the foreground but also by the fulfillment of long–awaited tonal and metric promises. in these two cases, structural processes support and specify the comparatively vague emotional implications of the foreground by furnishing musical metaphors for mental attitudes or states of belief (“i desire to belong to something”; “i am now part of something”). such mental states are arguably necessary components of an emotionally complex experience. for an example of incongruity, recall measure 18, whose sadness, as expressed by the sigh figure, is mitigated or countered by several factors, especially by the e2 providing a long–range resolution of f2. the voice leading here connotes a positive emotional state at odds with the pathos of the surface. in cases such as this, one might contend that surface and structure offer mutually exclusive emotional scenarios one must choose between. alternatively, and i think preferably, one might contend that multiple and conflicting emotional strata coexist, engendering irreducible emotional ambiguity. one might view such music as indicative of a psychologically conflicted and complex persona, one that current musicology 120 feels a particular emotion on one level of consciousness, a different or even antithetical emotion on another. whether structural processes amplify the emotions of the musical surface or, conversely, suggest emotional nuances at odds with them, one thing is clear: schenkerian, motivic, and other analytical methods, in revealing and parsing a piece’s structural complexity, also potentially provide a window into its music–emotional complexity. they afford us a glimpse beyond the often simple or basic emotions derived from foreground features into the more subtle tinges and subtexts that derive from non–obvious structural relations. indeed, inviting these methodologies into music–emotional exegesis is advantageous precisely because they have the capacity to elucidate a music–emotional experience more nuanced than kivy’s “garden–variety” types;37 this is because they connote the mental states that are integral components of specific emotions. by teasing out the experiential intimations of structural processes, one can more readily see how music is proximate to and expressive of our lived emotional experience. notes this essay is based upon talks delivered in the fall of 2007 at stanford university and drury university. i thank kumaran arul and george barth for inviting me to speak at the former, christopher koch at the latter. i also thank scott burnham, kevin korsyn, and wayne petty for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this essay. 1. the most ardent proponent of this view in recent scholarship is kivy (1989); other “anti– arousalists” include tischler (1972), goodman (1976), davies (1994), and goldman (1995). perhaps one of the earliest anti–arousalists was johann mattheson, on whose viewpoint kivy (1993a) expounds. 2. budd (1985:63) notes an exception: when the listener is sad or angry about the piece itself for some reason (such as its perceived poor quality). in such a case, the piece would be the intentional object, albeit not an aesthetically relevant one. 3. karl and robinson (1997) (whose phrase i borrow) and levinson (1990) both argue for this thesis. 4. a caveat regarding beethoven’s music, on which i will focus in this paper: many themes of beethoven’s middle period are not at all the melodically distinctive, self–contained modules of earlier classical music, but rather relatively generic, consisting of primordial musical material. recall the themes of the openings of the “eroica” symphony and “appassionata” sonata, for example—both consist of mere arpeggiated triads. adorno (1988:23, passim), for one, attributes this phenomenon to beethoven’s proclivity in the middle period toward organic unity and processuality. beethoven de–particularizes themes in order to give them over to the totality, to submit them to a thoroughgoing developmental process. yet, i would suggest, most of the middle–style themes, even if not musically distinct and self–contained, are nonetheless emotionally distinct enough to serve as emotional points of reference. the opening motto of the fifth symphony is a case in point: thematically no more than an impetus for further motion and development, emotionally it is a rather concrete point of departure. in short, even where beethoven attenuates (or negates) musical thematicity, he preserves emotional thematicity. jeffrey swinkin 121 5. in adorno’s typology (1962:5), “structural hearing” is practiced by the “expert” listener. structural hearing, in my view, does not require specialized, technical knowledge but merely a capacity to store musical events in memory, to hear them in relation to previous ones—in short, to hold them in a state of “conceptual tension” (to invoke schenker’s term [1926, passim]). 6. this view, which affords the listener/reader an indispensable role in the meaning–making process, strongly resonates with the reader–response theory of wolfgang iser (1978). 7. kivy does not deal extensively with topics; for a general introduction, see allanbrook (1983:31–70) and ratner (1980:9–29). incidentally, topics, like the major and minor modes, may also generate broad expressive contexts. robert hatten notes, for example, that in the first movement of beethoven’s piano sonata, op. 101, the pastoral is “the fundamental topical premise coordinating formal features and expression” (hatten 1994:92). 8. the expressiveness of musical contours, kivy argues (1989:172 ff.), also derives from our strong “animistic” tendencies, which in turn derive from basic survival instincts and are thus evolutionarily advantageous. 9. davies (1994:201–278) similarly submits that music presents not felt emotion but “emotion characteristics in appearances”; that is, music utilizes the same primary expressions of feeling as operate in people. small (1998, passim) expresses a related view: that music expresses emotions not directly but rather through the physical gestures with which emotions are associated. 10. perceiving music as evocative of speech depends in no small measure upon performance, especially regarding articulation. the eighteenth century witnessed a significant shift in the manner by which performers conveyed a linguistic sensibility. barth (1992:38 ff.) recounts how the “syllabic nonlegato” of c. p. e. bach and mozart gave way to beethoven’s predominately legato touch. while the latter would seem far less conducive to a declamatory style than the localized articulation and pianistic punctuation of earlier composers, in fact, beethoven’s “cherished innovations—the legato style, the slurs that more frequently crossed bar lines to subsume points of arrival, the lengthy passages of unarticulated figuration” (47)—became means of conveying larger dramatic arcs. beethoven sublated the periodicity of eighteenth century rhetoric, preserving it but on a higher level, one compatible with his grander structural proportions. his use of legato less often conveyed long–lined lyricism than “dramatic breadth” (45). 11. gioseffo zarlino, who was perhaps the first to characterize the major triad as happy (“allegro”) and the minor triad as sad (“mesto”), derives these affective qualities less from static, physiognomic aspects than from mobile, gestural ones. as recounted by dahlhaus (1990:235), zarlino supported these associations by “a psychological interpretation [of the] rule of thirds and sixths,” by which major thirds and sixths derive their ebullient quality from their tendency to expand, to fifths and octaves, respectively, while minor thirds and sixths derive their melancholy quality from their tendency to contract, to unisons and fifths, respectively. i would add that the dialectical or dualistic theorists, such as moritz hauptmann and hugo riemann, similarly ascribed the sadness of minor to a dynamic quality, if one less pronounced than zarlino’s—to the fact that the minor triad, as the inversion of a major triad, is generated from the top down; in hauptmann’s words, it expresses “not upward driving force, but downward drawing weight . . . . we therefore find in the minor chord the expression for mourning, the hanging boughs of the weeping willow,” the nature of harmony and meter, his italics; translated in mickelsen (1977:13). 12. meyer (1973:214) similarly posits a fluid boundary between melodic “archetypes,” which are based on melodic contour and syntax, and melodic “schemata,” which are based on conventional use. in fact, he no sooner establishes this dichotomy than dissolves it, conjoining current musicology 122 the two terms: “archetypal schemata.” 13. sulzer (1774) claims that “every passion is actually a series of moving impressions” and “there are passions in which impressions flow evenly like a gentle brook . . . [others] which flow onward faster and with more turbulence. in a few the succession of impressions rush forward as if a raging stream” (in baker and christensen 1995:52). however, unlike hanslick, he does not deny that music can express particular emotions; in fact, he seems to suggest that music can do so precisely by representing the motions with which particular emotions are associated. 14. robinson (1987) likewise argues that music can describe an object but not depict it—that it can posit a predicate but not a subject. 15. kivy (1993c) detects a telling inconsistency in hanslick’s argument. at one point, hanslick (1891:17–19) invokes gluck’s famous aria “che farò senza euridice!” from orfeo ed euridice, noting that the music, though on its face appropriate to the grief expressed by the text, upon reflection proves not to be sad enough, such that, in fact, it could be used for a text expressing the opposite emotion: gaiety. from this situation—not an uncommon one among eighteenth– century composers, who often reused music to set emotionally disparate texts—hanslick concludes that music possesses no definite emotion, for if it did, it would not be amenable to such multi–use. however, as kivy notes, hanslick’s argument is self–contradictory, since, in the case of “che farò,” hanslick seems initially to have implied that the music does indeed have an inherent, specific emotional quality (happiness) independent from and contrary to that of the text. kivy ultimately concludes that hanslick, despite himself, accedes to the possibility of particular emotions in music. 16. we might liken langer’s processes to johnson’s (1987) “embodied image schemata,” which are schemata derived from somatic experience, from our physical interaction with the world around us, and which are metaphorically extended to serve as models for internal, cognitive and emotional, experience. as defined by zbikowski, the image schema “is a dynamic cognitive construct that functions somewhat like the abstract structure of an image and thereby connects together a vast range of different experiences that manifest this same recurring structure” (2002:68). 17. meyer (1956:19) subscribes to this view as well, claiming that affect is inherently undifferentiated and can only be differentiated by a situational context, which music cannot provide. 18. by contrast, the theme as stated in the previous, orchestral exposition is emotionally milder, due to its piano dynamic and lack of sforzando on the g. in fact, we would probably attribute anger (or more precisely, subdued or latent anger) to this earlier passage only in retrospect—on the basis of its more overt appearance in the solo piano. 19. sulzer (1774) states “all that is . . . serious, thoughtful . . . requires long phrases; the cheerful as well as the furious [require] very short phrases.” quoted in ratner (1980:174). 20. as a whole, this nine–measure passage of the second exposition (measures 122–130) is a slight expansion of the corresponding eight–measure passage of the first exposition (measures 9–16), as it augments the cadential progression of measure 15 to two measures (128–129). hence, the local expansion (of the two–measure model) results from acceleration, the global expansion (of the first exposition) from ritardation. 21. in a sonata form, this will often happen right away, prior to the development section proper schoenberg states: there is development everywhere in a piece of music, especially in the first division [i.e., the exposition], where a number of themes are developed from a basic motive. nothing can jeffrey swinkin 123 remain without being elaborated or worked out. what happens in this second division [i.e., the development] is something different. themes of the first division and their derivatives are found in a constant modulatory movement through many . . . [tonal] regions” (schoenberg 1948:145). for schoenberg, what characterizes the development section is not thematic development per se, not developing variation as occurs in the exposition, but placing themes in various tonal environments. for this reason, he prefers for this section the term durchführung: “which means that the themes which have not modulated in the first division are now [led through] contrasting regions in a modulatory procedure” (ibid.). one can trace back this stance toward development further still, indeed to the first two decades of the nineteenth century with antoine reicha’s grande coupe binaire, a nascent formulation of what became known as sonata form. as documented by hoyt (1996), reicha adopted a very broad view of “développement,” applying it to almost any modification the musical idea receives, which can happen anywhere in the form. 22. koch’s basic views on musical emotion—regarding the emotions music can elicit, the circumstances under which music can elicit them, how the composer can access them, and so on—are found throughout this section, especially pp. 144–57 (baker and christensen 1995). incidentally, mccreless (2002) notes that, in the late eighteenth century, the centuries long connection between music and rhetoric began to dissolve. in particular, with the rise of the galant style and its emphasis upon tangible affects, the music–rhetorical figures (figurenlehre) took a back seat; in other words, with the shift from a mimetic to an expressive aesthetic, figures became obsolete. however, johann forkel, among other theorists, attempted to preserve at least some components of rhetoric, in particular the notion of the subject of an oration. indeed, as mccreless (2002:873) observes, “late eighteenth–century compositional theory is full of discussions of the idee, gedanke, thema, or motivo.” 23. within koch’s framework, the principal ideas are devised in the initial, planning [anlage] phase, their modifications in the realization [ausführung] phase. 24. to be accurate, hanslick at one point actually comes close to articulating essentially this very point: “everything in the structure is a spontaneous continuation and consequence of the theme, conditioned and shaped by it . . . . the composer puts the theme, like the principal character in a novel, into different situations and surroundings, in varying occurrences and moods—these and all the rest, no matter how sharply contrasted, are thought and shaped with reference to it” (1891:82). once again, we detect some ambivalence on hanslick’s part. 25. forte and gilbert (1982:139) read measures 3–4 as forming a local interruption on � ˆ 2 (in measure 3, then prolonged in the following measure). i do not think an interruption is viable here since the � ˆ 2 is not supported by a root–position dominant. the bass in these measures, in fact, is so chromatically unstable and fluid (with a progression of f#–fn–e) as to promote unbroken continuity into measure 5. 26. in examining the interaction of topics and other foreground emotional signifiers with schenkerian structure, i will employ a methodology similar though not identical to agawu (1991). in a more general way, my approach is also indebted to cone (1986), hatten (1994), maus (1997), and klein (2004), to cite four of the more celebrated studies exploring the intersection of musical structure and meaning. 27. both schoenberg (1948:115) and caplin (1998:76–77) read this phrase as a more tightly knit, linear unit—as a sentence, wherein measures 1–2 comprise the basic idea, 3–4 its variant, and 5–8 the continuation. however, given how fragmented the events are due to the pregnant pauses and slow tempo, i do not hear this phrase as a sentence; even if such a form applies theoretically, i do not think it is relevant perceptually. in particular, it is quite difcurrent musicology 124 ficult to perceive measures 1–2 as a single module (the basic idea) since the figures in those respective measures are so isolated and distant. 28. or rather, i was thus persuaded by an anonymous reader, whom i thank. 29. cadwallader (1988) supplies several examples of this phenomenon—where initial foreground motivic ambiguity is eventually resolved or clarified by middleground structure—in the late piano music of brahms. 30. the b section of robert schumann’s albumblatt in f# minor (from his bunte blätter, op. 99, and on which brahms composed his variations, op. 9) is remarkably similar to beethoven’s b section: both feature partial melodic sequences in which a triadic arpeggiation is promised but not fulfilled (elsewhere [2012], i have demonstrated how brahms’s variations actualize the foiled arpeggiation in the theme). yet, unlike beethoven’s b section, schumann’s does in fact delineate a sentence. 31. interestingly, if the bass’s ab–g (measures 13–14) recalls the alto of measure 7, the bass’s larger a–ab–g motion recalls the alto’s f#–fn–e of measure 4 (see arrow in example 2). both have an undermining, or, at robert hatten terms it, “undercutting” quality (on this trope generally and its use in beethoven’s op. 101 in particular, see hatten [1994:99–100]). 32. or by someone else’s, if we construe the b section to represent another persona. i think one of the central narrative ambiguities in wordless music generally is whether salient musical contrasts and oppositions are more indicative of conflicts between personae or rather of conflicting psychological states within a single persona. though in a few rare cases certain factors might suggest one more than the other, i think the matter is usually ambiguous, and it certainly is here. 33. chopin uses a v 4/2 of bii in measure 72 of the nocturne in c minor, opus 48, no. 1 to similar effect, except chopin’s chord, rendered fortissimo and placed at the apex of a quick crescendo, undercuts in a brazen manner, in contrast to beethoven’s cryptic one. 34. meyer (1973) would probably consider the g in measure 2 a “potentiality,” in that its melodic prominence, as part of a salient sigh figure, is at odds with its lack of structural importance. this disparity, precisely because it is so conspicuous, suggests the potential for congruence between the melodic and structural domains; this potential is realized in measures 17 ff. i regard this actualization, like most, as having an empowering, positive emotional connotation. 35. this narrative of integration also applies to ab, b � ˆ 6 , which appears twice in this section as a chromatic outlier. the large b section starting in measure 25, whose key is ab major, might be seen to integrate and centralize the ab—this is yet another basis for this section’s aura of repose and contentment. 36. the motion from f2 to e2 within measure 14 is, of course, no true resolution, for this e is merely a passing tone within a g7 sonority and is subsumed by the octave coupling f2–f1. 37. in this, i am in fundamental agreement with anthony newcomb, who, moreover, attributes kivy’s 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music, ed. jenefer robinson. ithaca: cornell university press: 242–253. dahlhaus, carl. 1990. studies on the origin of harmonic tonality, trans. robert o. gjerdingen princeton: princeton university press. _____. 1991. ludwig van beethoven: approaches to his music. trans. mary withall oxford: clarendon press. forte, allen and steven gilbert. 1982. introduction to schenkerian analysis. new york: w. w. norton. goldman, alan. 1995. emotions in music (a postscript). journal of aesthetics and art criticism 53 (1): 59–69. goodman, nelson. 1976. languages of art: an approach to a theory of symbols. indianapolis, hackett. hanslick, eduard. 1891 (8th edition). on the musically beautiful: a contribution towards the revision of the aesthetics of music. trans, geoffrey payzant. indianapolis: hackett. hatten, robert. 1994. musical meaning in beethoven: nakedness, correlation, and interpretation. bloomington: indiana university press. hoyt, peter a. 1996. the concept of développement in the early nineteenth century. music theory in the age of romanticism, ed. ian bent. cambridge: cambridge university press: 141–162. iser, wolfgang. 1978. the act of reading: a theory of aesthetic response. baltimore: the johns hopkins university press. johnson, mark. 1987. the body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. chicago: university of chicago. karl, gregory and jenefer robinson. 1997. shostakovich’s tenth symphony and the musical expression of cognitively complex emotions. meaning and music, ed. jenefer robinson. ithaca: cornell university press: 155–178. current musicology 126 kivy, peter. 1989. sound sentiment: an essay on the musical emotions. philadelphia: temple university press. _____. 1993a. mattheson as philosopher of art, the fine art of repetition: essays in the philosophy of music. cambridge: cambridge university press: 229–249. _____. 1993b. something i’ve always wanted to know about hanslick, the fine art of repetition: 265–275. _____. 1993c. what was hanslick denying? the fine art of repetition: 276–295. klein, michael. 2004. chopin’s fourth ballade as musical narrative. music theory spectrum 26: 23–56. koch, heinrich christoph. 1787. introductory essay on composition, vol. ii, part i, reprinted in aesthetics and the art of musical composition in the german enlightenment: selected writings of johann georg sulzer and heinrich christoph koch, ed. and trans. nancy kovaleff baker and thomas christensen. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1995: 137–204. langer, susanne. 1957. philosophy in a new key: a study in the symbolism of reason, rite, and art, 3rd edition. cambridge, mass: harvard university press. levinson, jerrold. 1990. hope in the hebrides. music, art, and metaphysics. ithaca: cornell university press: 336–375. _____.1997. music and negative emotion. music and meaning, ed. jenefer robinson. ithaca: cornell university press: 215–241. maus, fred everett. 1997. music as drama. music and meaning, ed. jenefer robinson. ithaca: cornell university press: 105–130. mccreless, patrick. 2002. music and rhetoric. the cambridge history of western music theory, ed. thomas christenesen. cambridge; cambridge university press: 847–879. meyer, leonard b. 1956. emotion and meaning in music. chicago: university of chicago press. _____. 1973. explaining music: essays and explorations. chicago: university of chicago press. mickelsen, william c. 1977. hugo riemann’s theory of harmony. lincoln: university of nebraska press. newcomb, anthony. 1984. sound and feeling, critical inquiry 10: 614–643. o’dea, jane. 2000. virtue or virtuosity: explorations in the ethics of musical performance. westport: greenwood press. ratner, leonard g. 1980. classic music: expression, form, and style. new york: schirmer. robinson, jenefer. 1987. music as a representational art. what is music? an introduction to the philosophy of music. ed. philip alperton. university park, pa: university of pennsylvania press: 165–192. schenker, heinrich. 1926. further considerations of the urlinie: ii. the masterwork in music: a yearbook. volume 2. trans. john rothgeb. cambridge: cambridge university press: 1–22. schoenberg, arnold. 1948 (rev. ed. 1969). structural functions of harmony. ed. leonard stein. new york: w. w. norton and company. small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. hanover, nh: wesleyan university press. spitzer, michael. 2006. music as philosophy: adorno and beethoven’s late style. bloomington: indiana university press. sulzer, johann georg 1774. general theory of the fine arts, excerpts reprinted in aesthetics and the art of musical composition in the german enlightenment: selected writings of johann georg sulzer and heinrich christoph koch, ed. and trans. nancy kovaleff baker and thomas christensen. cambridge: cambridge university press, 1995: 25–108. swinkin, jeffrey. 2012. variation as thematic actualisation: the case of brahms’s opus 9. music analysis 31, no. 1: 37–89. tischler, hans. 1972. a proposal for a multi-relational aesthetics. international review of the aesthetics and sociology of music 3 (2): 141–159. zbikowski, lawrence. 2002. conceptualizing music: cognitive structure, theory, and analysis. oxford:oxford university press. the 1990s "kutaisi wave": music and youth movement in a postindustrial periphery lauren ninoshvili in the summer of 2001, long before i became an ethnomusicologist, i first traveled to tbilisi, capital of the republic of georgia, to intern in the now­ defunct state ministry of property management. one of my assignments was to accompany a german energy engineer to kutaisi, a former industrial center in the western region of imereti and georgia's second-largest city, to assess the condition of three local hydroelectric plants. more than the obvious signs of neglect and resultant decay in kutaisi, i was struck by the plurality of layers of history visible on the city skyline. there were ancient cave dwellings carved in the cliffs of the surrounding greater caucasus foothills and, dating from the period in which georgia was first unified politically, dramatic architectural monuments like the ruins of bagrat'i cathedral (constructed 1003 ce) and the exquisitely preserved monastery­ academy complex at gelati (1120-30 ce). beneath these were the swollen dams, giant, corroded pipes, and mildewed skeletons of former industrial command centers once powered by the waters of the mighty rioni river. the workers at one plant, i was told, had to jump into the river to check the chemical levels since they had no instruments to do the work for them. still, they were considered lucky to have a job. in the shady park adjacent to the city's central square, dreary-looking men sat or milled about throughout the afternoon, halfheartedly hawking their wares and services to passersby. my hosts told me that the local unemployment rate had soared to seventy percent. hyperbole or not, that figure spoke to residents' lived experience of acute economic decline and attendant social crisis in the first decade of post -soviet georgian independence. aside from functioning as a hub for the production of hydroelectric energy in the soviet era, kutaisi also developed into a prosperous manufac­ turing center. there were truck and tractor factories, rubber factories, and lighter industrial works for producing glassware and paint. there was even a confectionery. in tbilisi today, however, kutaisi is commonly perceived as backward and caricatured as a "big village." the practice of jumping into the river to test levels instead of using modern tools, for example, is the sort of anecdotal material that commentators engaging in the dominant discourse draw on to construct an image of the city as primitive and unsophisticated. as i would observe over the course of many ensuing visits to georgia and interactions with georgian migrants in the united states, attitudes and current musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 9 10 current musicology discourses provincializing kutaisi proliferate among outsiders to the city. in the post-soviet period in particular, tbilisi-based elites have applied the pejorative stereotype mat'rabazi-braggart or fraud-to kutaisi natives to imply that they bear false pretenses of sophistication, worldliness, and even westernness. in this paper i treat popular music as a lens for exploring the intersec­ tions of place and postsocialist youth identity in kutaisi in the early-mid 1990s, bearing in mind throughout the noticeable cultural rivalry between kutaisi and georgia's political capital. kutaisi-based musicians maintain that georgia's rock and alternative music industry began in their hometown in the final years of socialism and spread from there to tbilisi. after the civil war that spoiled the initial euphoria of independence in 1991, a dynamic kutaisi-based popular movement mobilized locally produced rock, punk rock, and related genres to publicly articulate disaffection with the condi­ tions of postsocialism. while the dominant discourse on kutaisi dismisses this movement as inconsequential or even a national disgrace, those who were involved consider it the first and only post-soviet manifestation in a long genealogy of forms of liberal, cosmopolitan consciousness to emerge from kutaisi. 1 the latter also maintain that it marked an instance of anti­ establishment grassroots social organizing, which is relatively rare in modern georgian memory. while some participant -observers assert that the popular music produced in kutaisi in this period was characterized by"uncompro­ mising protest" (gabunia 2005), i argue that the movement's greater social significance lay in its clustering of a whole repertoire of music-centered activities to create a platform for youth-centered solidarity in the face of ubiquitous social and economic uncertainty. many of the songs also served as vehicles for civic activism and/or resistance to authority. what were the aesthetics of difference salient to young kutaisi musicians and their audiences in this period? how did these articulate with a local sense of place in the context of a contested national cultural geography? my study emphasizes the importance oflocality within the bounds of the nation-state as a site of identity struggle in the postsocialist space. today, all that is left as aural documentation of the dynamic 1990s kutaisi movement is preserved on low-fidelity, limited-run recordings or even rarer amateur videos. the methodology of my study, therefore, focuses on critical engagement with extant journalistic accounts, interviews with scene participants, and analysis of available audio-visual materials. i begin with a broad sketch of kutaisi's contribution to some of the formative moments in georgia's cultural and political history in order to demonstrate that the city's relative invisibility and apparent inconsequentiality in the twenty-first century is more an anomaly than the rule across history. my discussion of lauren ninoshvili the rock and punk rock movement's emergence during perestroika and the transitional years out of socialism leads to a description of the specific sonic features of the music. a case study of one of the most influential ensembles to emerge from kutaisi in this period illustrates my claims about the movement's aesthetics and socially committed character. i conclude by describing the performance practices associated with the kutaisi wave: the "rock demonstrations" through which a young community of music fans created venues for their art by repurposing specific public spaces as sites of impartial assembly and sociability, redeeming them from their soviet -era lives as platforms for symptomatically over-determined symbolic action. o wind blown in from ts'q'alt'ubo ... if the kutaisi may asks who you are, say you're a breath, but don't say whose the text of this poem, published in 1922 by kutaisi modernist galakt'ion t' abidze, speaks to kutaisi's identity as a city that, at key moments in history, has served as georgia's primary window to the west. (ts'q'alt'ubo is a town west of kutaisi, and t' abidze seems to be depicting kutaisi as a place where the crosscurrents of east and west sometimes meet uneasily.) as a parallel to tbilisi in the east, historically, kutaisi was the political and cultural center of western georgia and, arguably until the russian annexation at the turn of the nineteenth century, the most european-oriented of all the georgian cities. local accounts of its history usually begin in antiquity, with kutaisi and its environs as the seat of a prosperous ancient civilization, which served as the setting for the greek myth of jason, the argonauts, and the golden fleece (kacharava and kvirkvelia 2008).2 its easy accessibility from all the western georgian regions and its location along the rioni river made the city an important regional center in the middle ages, especially when eastern georgia was constantly under threat of arab and persian invasion. from early in the eleventh century ce through 1122, kutaisi was capital of the georgian feudal state and the focal point of its political and cultural "golden age." after several centuries under the yoke of persian, mongol, and then ottoman rule, the early nineteenth century saw a relative peace restored as georgia came under the russian protectorate; shortly thereafter, kutaisi reemerged as an important intellectual and cultural center. later in the same century, the city nurtured politically radical intellectuals like nik' 0 nik' oladze, an activist in georgia's menshevik national liberation movement who had befriended karl marx in zurich while becoming the first georgian in history to earn the phd from a european university. at the turn of the twentieth century, kutaisi emerged as "a bastion of georgian gentry nationalism" (ram 2007:1549) oriented toward a western europe-and paris in particularperceived as 11 12 current musicology culturally progressive.3 the city that many referred to as a "small provincial backwater to tbilisi" gave birth to the nation's first cafes, soft drinks, and electric street illumination in the name of european-style urban public so­ ciability (manning 2010: 10). in this same period, kutaisi emerged as a center of avant-garde literary and artistic experimentation. it was the birthplace of some of the most innovative artists and intellectuals in georgia's modern history, including zakaria paliashvili, the nation's first opera composer; the poets galakt'ion t'abidze and his cousin t'itsian t'abidze, along with p'aolo iashvili and grigol robakidze of the "blue horns" literary avant­ garde; modernist painter davit k'ak'abadze; actress verik'o anjap'aridze; and puppeteer/cinematographer revaz gabriadze. yet during the winter of 1918, kutaisi was effectively abandoned by its own intelligentsia in a matter of days. according to contemporary novelist and literary historian ak'a morchiladze (a tbilisi native), for some reason, everyone who had in some way contributed to forging kutaisi's identity decided at once to go to tbilisi-poets, painters, actors, teachers and engineers. i think because georgia was independent [the menshevik government proclaimed georgia an independent republic in may 1918] and tbilisi was perceived to be its appropriate center. this event has gone unnoticed in our history. despite its strangeness. but it really happened. it was a big mistake that will probably never be corrected. the teachers at kutaisi's legendary gymnasia become professors of [the newly established] tbilisi university. renowned kutaisi doctors settled into new positions in tbilisi's hospitals. kutaisi poets took up residence at the tbilisi cafe "kimerion" ... 4 as a result, one city shrunk while the other continued to grow. (morchiladze 2009) after the bolshevik annexation of georgia in 1921, the communists turned kutaisi into a major industrial center-in georgia, second only to tbilisi. in addition to the factories described above, a tourist industry revolving around the medieval monuments at gelati and bagrat'i served as a key source of income for the city, and nearby resorts attracted tourists from across the soviet union. state support for industry and infrastructure collapsed with georgia's declaration of independence from the soviet union in april 1991. kutaisi's factories were shut down, hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost, and hyperinflation set in, devastating the local economy. the communists had lauren ninoshvili "hurled the rioni from kutaisi" in the name of industry and hydropower, harnessing the city's primary ecological resource for all it was worth and leav­ ing rocks in its wake (morchiladze 2009). tourism all but ceased as violent conflict broke out in the separatist regions of abkhazia and south ossetia. destitute, desperate residents of kutaisi moved east to tbilisi in hopes that they would find more opportunities to build a sustainable life in the capital. it could be that the derisive attitude towards kutaisians dates from this period, as residents of georgia's capital resented the competition for jobs, housing, and basic necessities, which were in increasingly short supply. living conditions in kutaisi continued to decline. political corruption, organized crime, unemployment, and illegal drug use were on the rise, and widespread pessimism accompanied a new crisis of social values. the per­ sistence of violent conflict in abkhazia and south ossetia exacerbated fears about basic security and an increasing distrust of authority. significantly, kutaisi in the 1990s would become home to a particularly large number of non-governmental organizations, with missions ranging from support for internally displaced populations to monitoring government activity for corruption (usaid 2008:110-1). while the concentration ofngos in the area may be interpreted as a sign of political weakness and the proliferation of social ills, it may also suggest that georgia's second-largest city has a particularly strong culture of civic engagement. taken further, one might contend that postsocialist georgian citizens' earliest efforts to forge a public sphere independent of the mechanisms of the state took place in kutaisi, rather than in the nation's capital as might be expected. in the tumultuous years that followed georgia's declaration of inde­ pendence from the ussr, kutaisi managed to preserve a fragile peace, while tbilisi crumpled amid disorder. in tbilisi, paramilitary resistance against the newly elected nationalist government of soviet dissident zviad gamsakhurdia began late in 1991 and culminated in a violent military coup lasting from late december 1991through early january 1992. the rebel forces seized government buildings, violently subdued pro-government demonstrations, and devastated the capital's historic main thoroughfare, rustaveli avenue. more than one hundred people were killed in the fight­ ing, while the incumbents eventually fled with vain hopes of establishing a government -in -exile. in march 1992 former soviet foreign minister eduard shevardnadze returned from moscow to tbilisi and assumed control of the state, but violent clashes between gamsakhurdia supporters ("zviadists") and supporters of the new government persisted throughout 1992. political parties and civilian organizations formed armed sub-divisions, empower­ ing the civilian population to bear arms without license (mch'edlidze 1999:339).5 13 14 current musicology later in 1992 the epicenter of violent conflict in georgia shifted to abkhazia on the northern part of georgia's black sea coast, but the capital city was far from peaceful or secure. police and internal security forces deployed to the war zones in abkhazia and tskhinvali (in south ossetia) while crime ran rampant in the capital (mch'edlidze 1999:339). theft, robbery, and banditry were commonplace, curfews were set by the local government, basic public security measures like street lighting were more the exception than the norm, and informal forces of young men patrolled the streets at night with heavy artillery (manning 2007:176-7). in this general context of political unrest, socio-economic crisis and ubiquitous danger, basic survival became the main occupation of most tbilisi dwellers. anthropologist paul manning who spent time in tbilisi in 1992 writes that even "the children of the intelligentsia were often close to the world of thieves ... cafes were filled with members of the mkhedrioni [lit. "horsemen," a paramilitary organization led by career criminal/general jaba ioselianil by day, both poets and criminals, with kalashnikov rifles propped against the tables, and by night, gunfire, chaos, robberies" (manning 2009a). in a city where it was unsafe to go out at night, social diversions like live concerts and nightclubs were unimaginable. by the end of 1993, some 200,000 georgians had fled abkhazia, and tens of thousands of them took shelter in tbilisi, creating an acute humanitarian crisis where food, medicine, secure housing, and currency were already in short supply and chaos ruled the streets (see manning 2009b).6 disruptions in the communication and transportation infrastructure between tbilisi and the rest of the country meant that residents of the capital were largely unaware of musical and other cultural developments in cities outside of their own. not only musicians, but writ­ ers and visual artists who made their names in kutaisi and other georgian cities remained largely unknown to residents of tbilisi in this period (p.c. gabunia december 28, 2010). the kutaisi wave7 takes shape: perestroika, independence, and civil war for much of the soviet era, the state had treated popular music as either a potential tool for the promotion of the ruling ideology or as a dangerous force which threatened to undermine it-that is, as either for or against the regime (see bright 1985; szemere 2001:70). in the late 1960s, the state began to sponsor and promote professional "vocal-instrumental ensembles" (vias )-essentially light pop-rock groups-to offer the many young people who were turned on by the beatles and other electric-guitar-heavy western rock bands an analogous, more prudent form of musical entertainment lauren ninoshvili (bright 1985:124). listening to western-produced rock or performing or composing in a rock-inflected style independently of an approved via was interpreted as an act of defiance of the socialist order; as a result, amateur soviet rock persisted almost exclusively underground until gorbachev introduced his perestroika reforms in the mid -1980s. 8 during perestroika, rock and other western popular genres were stripped of their power of dissent and granted a place among the multifarious forms of expression now officially tolerated. youth movements in support of radical regime change now drew on rock and punk rock to convey their political message in localities across the soviet union and socialist eastern europe. in georgia it was not until the late 1980s, in kutaisi, that young amateur musicians began composing and performing music and lyrics in a frustrated, belligerent punk rock style that sought to (re)connect popular culture with the dreary realities of everyday life. while the forms of musical expression that emerged in kutaisi in this period were indeed countercultural, they appeared after the state had dramatically relaxed its constraints on cultural production and thus too late to have constituted a true underground move­ ment. further, western popular music as a whole had enjoyed considerable tolerance in the georgian soviet socialist republic-particularly after 1972 when reformer eduard shevardnadze assumed leadership of the georgian communist party. consequently, genres such as rock and punk that had been treated as subversive and condemned to the underground in leningrad and moscow lacked the same transgressive quality in kutaisi and tbilisi. the first official soviet rock music festival, called "spring rhythms" and featuring an adjudicated competition of bands from across the ussr, was held in tbilisi in 1980. there is no single explanation for the soviet georgian leadership's relative leniency toward the consumption of western popular music, but the simplest one is that the georgian party elite enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy on account of the republic's location on the geographic periphery of the soviet empire, and that the georgian party leadership was more tolerant in matters of cultural consumption.9 another theory identifies popular demonstrations in the spring of 1978 against the georgian party's initiative to amend the constitution so that georgian was not the sole official language of the georgian ssr as a turning point in the party's position on the dangers of west ern cultural influence. popular resistance to the language change initiative convinced the party leadership to reject their plan, but it also made them frighteningly aware of the power of informal social organizing to call their legitimacy into question. as a result, according to this theory, the party leadership began doing everything it could to prevent further public expressions of dissent. this included relaxing its enforcement of official policies restricting western music consumption in hopes that youth might 15 16 current musicology find an outlet for their discontent in private listening practices rather than on the streets. turning a blind eye as young music fans circulated dubbed cassettes of western rock and added missing meter bands to their soviet-built radios in order to catch popular music broadcasts from nearby turkey was one easy way of doing so.1 0 according to kutaisi native music journalist lasha gabunia, in the late 1980s there was suddenly an "unprecedented abundance" of popular music in kutaisi (2005). most of its performers were young and educated, either holding a recent university degree or in the process of completing their studies. they had no particular socioeconomic privileges, but rather came from the same proletarian background as all but a tiny percentage of their fellow soviet georgian citizens. in the very beginning, temur jokhadze (known popularly as "t'usovk'a") and vakht'ang nebieridze ("st'radivari") founded georgia's original popular music performance and production club, called "meloman" (from the latin for "music lover"), in the building of the kutaisi opera and ballet theater, thereby repurposing one of the local communist party's most important cultural institutions (gabunia 2005).1l in such a way, they established a practice of "appropriating and reworking urban spaces to construct new urban narratives" (bennett 2000:66) that subsequent kutaisi wave participants would carryon for nearly a decade to follow. several pioneering punk rock bands were formed at the club, among them outsider, the best-known of all the bands to come out of kutaisi in this period (discussed below). with the assistance of meloman's manage­ ment, outsider was invited to perform at soviet alternative music festivals in tallinn, estonia, and then in moscow (gabunia 2005). the bands pulse, bunk' eri [dumpster], and tribunal were formed, and the individual performers bajoo and goga zhorzholadze launched their careers in this period. shortly thereafter, the bands best history, archaeopter x, shavi ghvino [black wine], radical, coma, alk' 0 [likely short for alcohol], burusi [fog], reflex, and dzebnili [wanted, as a criminal] were formed. while these musicians' attitudes towards the appropriation of western popular music was ambivalent in many ways, one area about which the vast majority seemed to agree was the attractiveness of an english-sounding band name (see also yurchak 2006:193-4 on late soviet youth naming practices). further, many seem to have taken their cue from western punk aesthetics by choosing names that eschewed every kind of sentimentality and assumed instead an abject, deadpan posture. after its declaration of independence from the ussr, georgia was hurled almost immediately into civil war, and as a result very little new music was produced in kutaisi or elsewhere in 1991-3. many musicians fled the country. within just a few years of the founding of meloman, there lauren ninoshvili was no longer an authoritative political or ideological establishment against which to enact resistance-that is, no discrete dominant "culture" from which an "underground" or "subculture" might selfidentify as distinct (see hebdige 1979). rather, the political climate at the time was characterized by a disorderly struggle for power between militant zviadists (followers of independent georgia's nationalist first president) on the one hand, and the installed government of eduard shevardnadze and his communist -reformer colleagues on the other. still, it was during the war that lasha gabunia, in his mid-twenties, developed the original rock television broadcast for kutaisi's newly founded local television station. he also promoted it in tbilisi, and in 1992 tbilisi's second channel began broadcasting the program called k' edeli [the wall]. tbilisi audiences first heard the music of outsider, goga zhorzholadze, and bajoo via these broadcasts. according to gabunia, he and his co-producers worked like a family, gathering material produced by local musicians and sharing it with one another in a kind of do-it-yourself aesthetic not unlike that of a western punk or indie band (see andersen and jenkins 2003; rachman 2006; reynolds 2005). "preparing those broad­ casts got us through the war and the terror," he said in a recent interview (murghulia 2011). shortly thereafter, gabunia started his own radio station in kutaisi and contributed a column to the first independent newspaper in postsocialist kutaisi, which was called piece (ibid.) listening to kutaisi after socialism stylistically, the music produced in kutaisi in the late 1980s-early 1990s drew inspiration from punk rock, alternative rock, and-to a lesser extent­ grunge and rap. by this point, recordings by the clash, sex pistols, the ramones, joy division, and other british and american punk, post-punk, and contemporary bands had been circulating underground in georgia for more than a decade, mostly on lps and cassettes dubbed from contraband imports. (there was no magnitizdat industry in the georgian ssr, as prohibited music was copied and circulated by fans for other fans locally, never for sale or profit.) still, the first attempts to perform punk rock in a georgian context emerged only in the late 1980s, with the bands outsider, bunk' eri, and machia & co. (p.c. gabunia june 24, 2011). the instrumentation of these and most other kutaisi bands in this period was traditional for rock, consisting of one or two electric guitars, electric bass, and a basic rock drum kit, occasionally with the addition of a synthesizer. the songs and their manner of execution were typical first-generation british punk fare: heavily distorted power chords in the guitar dominated a riff-based instrumental texture, and songs were typically comprised of 17 18 current musicology just two or three short harmonic progressions. most songs were in simple verse-chorus form, with moderately fast or fast tempos in 4/4 time. vocals were delivered in a characteristically aggressive manner; growling and shout­ ing was common. variation in vocal pitch, dynamics, and timbre, however, was rare. the musical language was primitive and anti-virtuosic-indeed, "radically rudimentary" (szemere 2001: 170). consistent with a punk aes­ thetic, the kutaisi performers had no pretensions of musical competence or sophistication (andersen and jenkins 2003; hebdige 1979; rachman 2006). while the musicians did not go so far as to call their performances something other than (greater than) music or to reject musicality as such (in the manner of certain new york punks, for example), it seems to me that for them instrumental performance was more a means to achieving a bigger-picture social objective than an end in itself. song lyrics were the primary site of originality and social intervention. they were typically disenchanted and focused on themes of alienation, frustration, boredom, and sometimes expressed explicit criticism or anger. rejecting the vapid, formulaic platitudes of soviet estrada and vias, musi­ cians of the kutaisi wave sang instead about the crime, political corruption, poverty, and hunger that plagued their country and permeated their immedi­ ate urban surroundings. they delivered most of their texts in georgian. in a song called "maktsia" ["werewolf"], goga zhorzholadze-a professional architect and punk musician-confronted government abuse of power and ineptitude directly, shouting: hey you, having found your way up high and thinking you behaved like a man, having licked the man they spat on, you yourself behaved like a werewolf ... you found money, possessions, and power-what more do you want? the people's weeping no longer bothers you; your own brother put his foot down against you ... werewolfl 12 in a song called "tsarieli jibe" ["empty pocket"], the band pulse depicted an elite government assembly machinating over the fates of a city's powerless, impoverished citizens while one man consoles himself simply for continuing to exist: the city sits, quietly debating who should perish and who should survive. he perished, he survived; i survived and there remained ... [chorus 1 an empty pocket, a room and a stair; i'm still alive; i comfort myself. 13 in pulse's arrangement, a whistled melody woven between stanzas suggests at once a kind of (feigned) glib contentedness and an irritated exasperation with the persistence of political vice in an era of profound economic crisis. delivered with the feel of a waltz-an emblem of european bourgeois lauren ninoshvili sophistication-the song calls attention to the hypocrisy of government leaders whose words pay lip service to western ideals of transparency and accountability (suggested by the waltz) while their deeds prolong the nepotistic practices of the previous era. while many of the song texts and performance practices associated with the kutaisi wave challenged prevalent right-wing nationalist politics, discourses, and certain music-related practices, they also revealed a fear of homogenization with the global culture industries and a distrust of individuals and institutions prepared to adopt western ways uncondition­ ally. some kutaisi artists, wary of the new hegemony of euro-american influence on popular culture, occasionally sang in german (burusi, goga zhorzholadze) or russian (alk' 0, bunk' eri)-the prestige languages of the previous era. gabunia contends that this was not because they found their own language inadequate, but because they sought to protest the practice of singing in english that had recently come into fashion among tbilisi-based popular musicians (p.c. december 28, 2010). their choice oflanguage also served to index their stated disinterest in mass, international appeal and commercial profit. 14 having grown up during the perestroikaand glasnost'­ era reforms, which had conflated westernness with an enviable freedom of expression, many of these young musicians now sought to distinguish this essentialized, "imaginary" west from the more mundane, "real" west of bourgeois materialism and freedom to consume. 15 still, the discourses of western cultural imperialism that they mobilized to explain their avoidance of english-language texts is difficult to accept at face value, since they were simultaneously appropriating the formal and stylistic features of globally circulating popular music genres which originated in the west. somewhere between the rejection of english-language texts and the embracing of predominantly anglo-american music styles appears to have been their ideal of artistic integrity and authenticity. the kutaisi wave was at its core a live local music scene, as most of the musicians involved had neither the financial resources nor access to the technology needed to produce records. 16 there were also no media outlets for circulating and promoting new music. in kutaisi, fm radio broadcasting was launched only in the second half of the 1990s. after the launch of fm, amateur recordings oflive performances broadcast on the radio became an important means of circulating locally produced rock, rap, and punk rock, but this was already too late to have significantly impacted the development of the scene in question (p.c. khubuk' elashvili may 21,2011). the few studio recordings made were circulated among a relatively small, geographically limited circle of fans on cassettes dubbed from compact discs or other cassettes. fans would purchase blank cassettes and bring them to a local 19 20 current musicology recording studio for dubbing. i? it seems that many bands recorded single tracks, but complete albums were rare. a key source of information for this article, for example, was a two-volume compilation album released in 2002 featuring various kutaisi artists from the period. the title of the release, kartuli t' algha i & ii [georgian wave i & ii], is notable for positing the music produced in kutaisi in the mid-1990s as standing in, metonymically, for georgian popular music as a whole. the kutaisi wave on record: outsider given the dearth of recordings made in this period, it can be difficult to piece together the sound of the music nearly two decades later. the trio known as outsider, however, was exceptional in leaving a relatively rich material record. they recorded three albums in 1992, 1997, and 1999; this feat likely helped these musicians to eventually achieve a national following and, over time, to sustain a reputation as the most radical musical project to emerge from postsocialist kutaisi. outsider was among the original architects of the kutaisi wave. as i argue in this brief case study, the musicians' formative years spent abroad in moscow and their corresponding access to key material resources early on played an important role in facilitating their success. twenty-four-year-old singer/guitarist/songwriter robi k'ukhianidze founded outsider in kutaisi in 1989 after dropping out of a university pro­ gram in "mass event production" (masobriv ghonisdziebata rezhisoroba), but during the war he fled with his bandmates to moscow where they recorded their debut album, inside (1992 )-the first album by a georgian rock band to be recorded abroad (gabunia 2001). on account of the breakdown in communication during the war and the significant time the band spent abroad, k'ukhianidze and his bandmates were better known in moscow than in tbilisi until 1996, when they first performed in georgia's capital. while he has been called the father of both kutaisi rock and georgian alternative music, k'ukhianidze rejects both labels. he also refuses to call his music "punk" or "alternative," instead telling audiences everywhere that the music he performs is georgian and that his greatest teacher was eastern georgian traditional singer hamlet' gonashvili (gabunia 2005; see szemere 2001:66 for a similar genre-rejecting discourse among postsocialist hungarian punks). to this author, however, the mention of gonashvili seems more a rhetori­ cal, authenticating gesture than anything else, as the pathos and warmth of gonashvili's vocal delivery and his long, thoughtfully crafted melodies bear no trace in k'ukhianidze's deliberately uncultivated, pedestrian vocal sound. like the musicians who claim to avoid singing in english as a matter of principle, k'ukhianidze seems to hover between a desire to draw on the lauren ninoshvili sounds and ethos of certain western popular music styles as an expressive resource on the one hand, and an ethical commitment to upholding the idea of an "uncontaminated" georgian culture on the other.18 attacking the fallacies and moral vacuity of elite discourse, outsider established a model of musically mediated defiance that would capture the attention of thousands of kutaisi youth in the first decade after socialism. the band's best-known song, "kalakshi bnela" ["it's dark in the city"]' was composed after they returned to kutaisi and is widely regarded as the anthem of the kutaisi wave. it consists of three repeating guitar chords and vocals sung on just a few pitches in a narrow range. on the verses, k'ukhianidze sounds almost apathetic, but his delivery on the chorus, "it's terribly dark in my city today;' is more insistent. his vivid verses paint an image of a stark postsocialist dystopia: "every mask in this land deserves to be spat on/ some create idols and some dance with death/ today the light is extinguished in this city/ instead of children madness is born."19 k'ukhianidze's text calls attention to the loss of civility in his hometown and the falsity and sense of dread that seemed to reign in its place. the refrain was both literal and metaphorical: there were constant power blackouts in kutaisi (as elsewhere in georgia, including tbilisi) in this period, so the city was literally dark much of the time; at the same time, the darkness symbolized the city's moral, intellectual, spiritual, and social crisis.20 a 1992 "kalakshi bnela" music video, produced for broadcast on gabunia's television program the wall, documented the murky reality of daily life in kutaisi at the time. without a narrative thread or actors, the video depicted the city through a sequence of short, thematically unified clips and a photographic slideshow featuring littered alleyways and heaps of trash in public places; streets and sidewalks riddled with potholes; gutted, roofless former residences with empty window frames and four walls barely vertical; columns of slow-moving, no-frills soviet -built zhiguli sedans; street -corner stockpiles of brick and concrete as reminders of unfinished urban renewal projects; and throngs of urban pedestrians with bewildered, tired faces. 21 kutaisi live: "rock demonstrations" and the new youth autonomy the "kalakshi bnela" music video featured a live soundtrack of outsider performing in kutaisi in one of the many rok' -aktsiebi (literally "rock actions/ demonstrations") that kutaisi-based music fans organized in the earlyto mid-1990s in the name of a greater social cause. while they never had an explicit plan for political action, through these events, the musicians and their audiences forged a certain kind of solidarity, cultivated spaces for autonomous youth assembly (most participants were between the ages of 15 21 22 current musicology and 40), and promoted awareness of the social ills that surrounded them in a manner that was still novel in the post -soviet space. in the soviet period, it had been all but impossible for a large group of people to congregate in public without official sanction; instead, fans had listened to unauthorized music on vinyl or cassette at home, alone, or with friends. nightclubs were unheard of in the georgian ssr (p.c. gabunia december 28, 2010). after the collapse, young kutaisi musicians took advantage of their newfound right to freedom of assembly by colonizing public spaces and turning them into performance venues. similar to the self-styled american "hardcore" punks in the early 1980s, they eschewed the performance of nihilism, apathy, drunkenness, and juvenilia associated with the original punks for a form of grassroots civic engagement which registered a serious contempt for incumbent authority without actually endorsing any clear political alterna­ tives (see also szemere 2001:69). neither the hardcore punks nor the kutaisi musicians had access to clubs, so the former temporarily inhabited churches, basements, gas stations, backyards, and shopping centers to pursue their culturally radical program (rachman 2006), while the latter occupied the buildings of former communist cultural institutions, apartments, garages, and outdoor gathering places. the rock-demonstration mentioned above, which was filmed and later broadcast on the wall, took place in kutaisi on july 12, 1992. the tbilisi­ based bands taxi, genetic code (these featuring future bandleader irak'li chark'viani, who would become tbilisi's most outspoken rock persona), and retsep't'i [prescription or recipe 1 were invited to join kutaisi locals outsider and bajoo in a performance at the lado meskhishvili theater in kutaisi. the event, one of the earliest of its kind, was called "rock against the phonogram and aids;' emphasizing the importance that both live performance and civic consciousness held for its organizers.22 though it was rendered in georgian, the construction "rock against. .. " in the event's title strongly evokes the 1970s british rock -punk-reggae campaign "rock against racism;' as well as the british right -wing punk project "rock against communism" (reynolds 2005:123) and the slightly younger "rock against sexism," which would also establish roots in the us. the audience primarily consisted of teenagers and those in their early twenties. the setting was informal and intimate, with a low stage and plenty of performer banter between songs (though there was not even mention of aids in the segment captured on video). there was none of the stage-diving, pogo-dancing, moshing, destruction, violence, or other deliberately provocative "shock effects" associated with first generation and hardcore punk performances. in fact, the performers and audience alike were rather restrained, and a number of the songs performed were on the commonplace, un controversial theme of unrequited love. with the lauren ninoshvili notable exception of robi k'ukhianidze, the performers were short-haired, clean -shaven, and cagey in front of the camera. they were scrawny, awkward post-pubescent men in printed t-shirts, denim jackets, cargo pants or jeans, and white sneakers. they did not wear leather and chains like the western punks, nor did they spike their hair or paint garish makeup on their faces. while the lack of availability or unaffordability of a proper punk wardrobe may have shaped their choice of apparel, i suspect that these musicians were fully content to dress like others their age. k'ukhianidze stood out with long straight bangs that concealed his eyes when he looked down and could be tossed back dramatically with a flick of the neck. the print on his t-shirt flashed the english-language profanity "fuck off," and appears to have been the most provocative element of the whole event. in other words, as far as can be concluded from the video documenting "rock against the phonogram and aids," the discourse of uncompromising aggression participants have constructed around the kutaisi wave may be a bit of an exaggeration-a self-authenticating move, perhaps. given the socio-political context in which they emerged, however, the musical styles, lyrics, and performance practices were radical. after the war, kutaisi's rock demonstrations became more systematic. in 1994-5, a group of individuals active in the kutaisi music scene formed a club of sorts around the band outsider, calling themselves "the masks." over the course of a year, on the eighth of each month, the masks staged a different music-centered event at a different location. the main attrac­ tion was the live music, but some events also featured art exhibits, food, or collective listening to radio broadcasts. each event was assigned a title and an associated social program: "demonstration-rehearsal dedicated to the day of the protection of four-legged dogs" took place in a garage ("dog" was slang for police officer, underscoring the utter disrespect with which the country's internal security force was treated by higher ranking government officials); "return my life to me" was enacted in the center of town, in the street; "yesterday, today ... " was staged at a former communist social club; "my city" took place at a fine arts school for children where the musicians performed in front of an exhibition of children's drawings; and "musical [boxing] ring" was staged in a boxing arena. other events were held among the ruins of collapsed buildings, in garages, apartments, or the offices of social organizations (gabunia 2005). kutaisi-based guitarist zaza khubuk' elashvili recalls that power shortages and blackouts in kutaisi and indeed, all of georgia, were a common source of grievance at these events. some musicians adopted a light, ironic stance, singing about how they missed having lights; others directed their diatribe against corrupt state energy of­ ficials (p.c. khubuk' elashvili may 21,2011). most rock-demonstrations took 23 24 current musicology a full month to prepare for and were open to the public free of charge. they were promoted in the community by word of mouth (with club activists literally going door-to-door to announce an upcoming event) and, in some cases, on flyers posted in conspicuous places around the city (p.c. gabunia december 28, 2010). music, postsocialist citizenship, and a tale of two cities following their emancipation from soviet hegemonic discourses of national unity and international socialist solidarity, and in light of the formidable obstacles to communication with tbilisi during the civil war, the genera­ tion of kutaisi residents who came of age in the 1990s had an opportunity to inscribe their own highly localized meaning onto globally circulating musical styles. freed from the constraints of managed cultural produc­ tion, they exercised control over their own creative process, in spite of the absence of institutions to support them (cf. szemere 2001:33). while their music may have been largely inaudible to the georgian public on account of the failure of communications infrastructure in this period and the scene's strong emphasis on live, unmediated performance, most of those who were aware of the movement passed it off as trivial, tasteless, or even a source of national embarrassment. this does not seem to be a source of regret, however; the kutaisi musicians would likely find a kindred spirit in former american hard core punk greg hetson, who stated, "normal people did not listen to [us 1 and we liked it that way" (rachman 2006). for the majority of georgian listeners of all generations, light, politically aloof estrada in the soviet style remains a more "legitimate" heritage than local manifestations of punk rock inspired by british and american performers perceived as social misfits. westernness per se has never been problematic for georgian mainstream audiences in the postsocialist period, so it seems that the denigration of kutaisi popular music can be attributed more to differences of taste and to the implicit, if long-standing, cultural rivalry between georgia's two largest cities. did the kutaisi wave have any meaningful impact on georgian popular culture as a whole? at the very least the kutaisi wave can decenter the current dominant narrative which locates tbilisi as the site of most every form of political ferment and originality of expression in the last hundred years. like the washington, dc-based american hardcore punks who "wouldn't desert for the music-industry capitals, new york and la" (andersen and jenkins 2003), they maintained a small community which sent subtle ripples-rather than dramatic, revolutionary waves-of music-and-youth-centered energy across the country. according to lasha gabunia, today tbilisi residents idenlauren ninoshvili tify georgian rock, rap, and electronica with kutaisi, while kutaisi musicians active in the evolution of these genres regard them as a broadly georgian cultural development (p.c. december 28, 2010).23 that is, while the loyalty of the latter to their own hometown is fundamental and evident in the fact that almost every ensemble has at least one song about kutaisi, they regard themselves as georgian artists first, and only secondarily as kutaisians. further, while it is difficult to know for certain, i would speculate that the music-centered youth activism which drove the kutaisi wave may have served as a model for the tbilisi-based, university-student-ied protests which generated much of the momentum for georgia's 2003 rose revolution. indeed, some of the same musicians took part in both movements. in november 2003, robi k'ukhianidze took center stage in downtown tbilisi as one of many "rain musicians" to perform during the rose revolution demonstrations that culminated in the peaceful overthrow of president eduard shevardnadze. (the moniker "rain musicians" evolved out of respect for the artists' unwavering dedication to large-scale acts of civil disobedience despite unseasonably cold, damp weather.) the student-led campaign had demanded government transparency, accountability, and an end to the kinds of nepotistic practices the shevardnadze government had failed to put an end to after the collapse of communism. while students had been agitating in various locations across the country for months, the final days of the revolution were staged, literally, in front of the parliament building and tbilisi mayor's office as a "high-energy public event somewhere between a rock concert and a political meeting" (skrypka in helbig 2006:90). now, k'ukhianidze's rock indexed an authentic capitalist modernity that op­ position leader mikheil saakashvili and his young, western-educated peers promised to deliver to the georgian people. this was, indeed, the most direct and visible role outsider's founder and leader had ever played in support of concrete political issues. coda in september 2009, six years after the rose revolution, the saakashvili-ied government announced plans to relocate the seat of georgia's parliament from tbilisi to kutaisi, in a gesture apparently intended to redeem what was once a thriving city from the threat of total obscurity. consistent with the sweeping "out with the old (anything and everything that indexes the country's communist past), in with the new (anything and everything that signals western capitalist modernity)" change that has characterized saakashvili's political course from the very beginning, on december 18 of the same year, he dispatched a private demolition company to make 25 26 current musicology room for the new parliament building. despite protests from the political opposition, the workers exploded a 46-meter-high concrete and bronze soviet-era memorial to the georgian victims of world war ii on the site where the new government building will be built. but the workers failed to abide by basic safety measures, and communities nearby were unexpectedly assailed with flying chunks of concrete. a mother and her eleven-year-old daughter were killed in the yard of their home as a result, and several others were critically wounded. having apologized for the unanticipated human cost, the ruling party defended the move, claiming that it would partially relocate the country's "political epicenter" from tbilisi to western georgia, contribute to political stability and the "revitalization of political life" in georgia's second largest city, and help "to increase economic dynamism" in the region (civil georgia 2009). for the current georgian government, dramatic acts like the removal of the kutaisi monument are a means of staging a cathartic break with the previous regime; for the young people who lived in kutaisi in the transitional years, the symbolic interventions of politicians are tiresome, insincere, and out-of-touch.24 both the incumbent government in 2009 and the kutaisi wave participants in the 1990s contributed in a significant way to ongoing negotiations over kutaisi's political and cultural identity vis-a-vis tbilisi and the rest of georgia. a discrediting of the old regime and an impatient agitation for change was common to both projects, and both made a point of reinventing the urban landscape in some way. yet the government struck resolutely from the outside in, literally pummeling over the resistance in its path, while the musicians and their fans directed their dissent from a powerless insider position outwards, despite the criticism and naysaying against them. the latter, as i have demonstrated in this paper, were decidedly less hubristic, less authoritative, and less spectacular about proclaiming the kind of change they believed was most appropriate for the country-and for their city-at the turn of the twenty-first century. perhaps, in time, they too will earn a place in the canon of cultural innovators and political rebels who have called this city home. lauren ninoshvili notes my gratitude is due to lasha gabunia and zaza khubuk'elashvili for their generous assistance in the preparation of this article. i would also like to thank farzaneh hemmasi, anna stirr, nino tsitsishvili, the editors and anonymous reviewers of current musicology, and the other contributors to this issue for their thoughtful feedback at various stages in the writing process. all translations within the text are the author's. 1. when i related to a georgian acquaintance (a native of rustavi, a city outside of tbilisi in southeastern georgia) my intention to reconstruct the buried history of the 1990s kutaisi rock scene, he quipped, "i didn't think they [kutaisi locals] knew anything more than khink'ali [traditional meat dumplings] and khashi [rustic tripe soup typically eaten to relieve the symptoms of a hangover] !" 2. in 200s new york university's institute for the study of the ancient world curated its inaugural exhibition, called wine, worship, and sacrifice: the golden graves of ancient vani, on precisely this area of the ancient kingdom of colchis. 3. kutaisi has historically been more homogeneously georgian than tbilisi. in the nineteenth century, tbilisi could hardly even be called an ethnically georgian city: it was home to an armenian majority and large numbers of russians, azeris, and kurds. according to one account, ethnic georgians made up only 1s.9 percent of the population of tbilisi in 1917 (vardosanidze 2000:107). 4. the cafe "kimerion" was transformed into a european-style literary salon for the mi­ grant kutaisi poets' collective known as the blue horns. the name of the cafe gestures to a fantastic "elsewhere" -a chimera or cimmeria, an imaginary beast or an imaginary place (manning 2010:7). 5. while its central narrative is fictional, levan zakareishvili's 2005 film tbilisitbilisi paints a compelling portrait of the city in the dark decade following georgia's declaration of inde­ pendence from the ussr. 6. it is estimated that some 20,500 residents abandoned tbilisi-most to migrate abroad-in the same year (gachechiladze 1997). according to a 2001 report of the united nations high commissioner for refugees, as a result of the conflict in abkhazia another 33,000 internally displaced georgians sought refuge in imereti, the western province of which kutaisi is capital. some eighty percent of these settled in kutaisi proper. the waves of migration from kutaisi to tbilisi came to a halt, but they picked up again after 1994 when the country's political crisis began to stabilize. 7. the designation "wave:' or t'algha in georgian, is a calque of the english term used to designate a time delineated cultural movement. s. see bright 19s5, cushman 1995, pilkington 1994, ramet 1994, ryback 1990, and stein­ holt 2005 on music-centered youth resistance in the late soviet period in some of the other republics. 9. another theory reaches back to the very beginning of the soviet period, arguing that the independent georgian menshevik republic had acquired such a strong cultural orientation towards europe in 1915-21 (after its declaration of independence from the russian empire and before its annexation by the bolsheviks) that the bolsheviks faced special difficulty censoring the consumption of western culture in georgia and in gaining the support of georgian communist party elite for their cause. according to this theory, throughout the soviet period the moscow-based party leadership allowed the georgian party elite a kind of 27 28 current musicology limited autonomy as far as this aspect of cultural policy was concerned. the georgian party elite were apparently less concerned with limiting citizens' consumption of western goods than their counterparts in moscow. 10. see yurchak 2006:175-81 for an explanation of how the design of soviet-produced short­ wave radios both enabled and selectively limited listening to foreign radio programming. 11. like bajoo (whose real name i have not been able to determine), jokhadze and nebieridze assumed evocative stage names (t'usovka is a russian slang term used by young people to denote an informal social milieu in the late soviet period [see pilkington 1994:172-5]; s'tradivari is the name of both the renowned italian violin-making family and a certain pistol model) to create an image for public consumption, possibly drawing on models from western popular culture. 12. shen hei, asulkhar zemot, da gipikria k'atsad maktsia, dapurtkhebuli agilok'ia, mit'om iketsi tavad maktsiad ... puli ishove, k'idev koneba, dzalauplebats, met'i ra ginda? aghar gats'ukhebs khalkhis godeba, sak'utari dzma gverdze gagidga ... maktsia! 13. kalaki zis, chumad archevs yin daighup'os da yin gadarches. is daighup'a, is gadarcha; me gadavrchi da darcha ... tsarieli jibe, otakhi da k'ibe; tsotskhali var isev; vinugesheb tavs. 14. see andersen and jenkins 2003, rachman 2006, and szemere 2001:166-7 on tropes of disdain for broad popularity and commercial success among rock and punk musicians. 15. yurchak coined the term "imaginary west" to denote a specific cultural construct "intrinsic to and constitutive oflate soviet reality" (2006:205; see also 158-206). 16. i invoke the term "local scene" in the sense suggested by bennett and peterson: "a focused social activity that takes place in a delimited space and over a specific span of time in which clusters of producers, musicians, and fans realize their common musical taste, collectively distinguishing themselves from others by using music and cultural signs often appropriated from other places, but recombined and developed in ways that come to represent the local scene" (2004:8). 17. this is also how they acquired older, foreign recordings, dubbing them from cds, cas­ settes, vinyl, and reel-to-reel tapes (p.c. gabunia december 28, 2010). 18. in at least one interview, instead of gonashvili he cited iconic russian underground-rock­ musician -turned -actor pyotr mamonov as his "greatest teacher" (gabunia 2001 a). mamonov converted to orthodox christianity in the 1990s and went on to play the lead role in pavel lungin's award-winning, deeply religious 2006 film ostrav [the island]. k'ukhianidze and others active in the kutaisi wave have acknowledged their respect for religious authority-a point which marks their ethics as distinct from those of punks in general, who historically resisted every kind of authority (p.c. tsitsishvili march 1, 2011). 19. purtkhis ghirsia q'vela nighabi kveq'nad;zogi k'erp'ebs kmnis, zogits sik'vdiltan tsek'vavs. dghes am kalakshi sinatle kreba; bavshvebis natsvlad sigizhe chndeba. 20. in fact, a rock quartet formed in tbilisi in 2000 took the name shuki movida, or "the lights came on;' as this was apparently the most commonly heard phrase circulating in the capital at that time. the band lasted just a few years until its french expatriate lead vocalist, fred payen, returned to france. 21. the video, called "outsider-zamtari (qalaqshi bnela);' is posted by ermonia at http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hg82j-x8iw. 22. it is unclear why event organizers chose aids in particular as the focus of their program. the number of hi v cases reported in georgia in this period was relatively low for the post­ soviet region (1.4 million individuals were tested between 1985 and 1992, and only 10 were lauren ninoshvili found to be my-positive [unesco 2005:68-9]), but the united nations has suggested that "registered levels substantially underestimate actual hiv prevalence" (ibid. 16). this may be due to strong cultural stigmatization of the disease. in the early 1990s, hiv was spread primarily through the use of injected drugs, and secondarily during unprotected sex between heterosexual partners (nutsubidze 1999:369). where reported, hiv prevalence is highest among men ages 21 to 40 in urban areas of georgia (unesco 2005:70). while levels of infection were relatively low in the early 1990s, the un, world health organization and local experts placed georgia at high risk for widespread hiv / aids infection on account of increased use of injected drugs, increases in infection in neighboring countries (especially ukraine), a shortage of diagnostic and treatment resources, and a lack of public education about how the virus is spread. it may be that the organizers of "rock against the phonogram and aids" sought to counter the stigma surrounding hiv / aids and/or to spread aware­ ness concerning its prevention and transmission among a population with very low levels of knowledge of the subject. 23. while i have focused here on the emergence of georgian rock and punk rock, these were not the only western genres to gain significant attention in kutaisi in the 1990s. in fact, one of the eldest representatives of the kutaisi wave-shavi printsi (black prince)-is regarded as the father of georgian rap. (the politics of race entailed in this performer's stage name, and in the guiding ideologies of georgian rap, could be the subject of a separate paper.) local experiments with electronic dance music began taking shape in kutaisi much more recently. 24. saakashvili has torn down many other soviet -era monuments as well, including a statue of stalin in his hometown of gori, which was brought down unannounced, "under cover of darkness;' to make room for a new memorial to victims of the stalinist purges and the august 2008 war with russia (lomsadze 2010). discography outsider. 1992. "inside." moscow: fee lee records. -.1997. "p'rimit'ivi (live on the radio)," nighbebis k'lubi. -. 1998. "mk'vleli (live in tbilisi)," nighbebis k'lubi. -. 1999. "kutaisi--tsotskhlad (xxi sauk'une)," nighbebis k'lubi. -.2009. "singles and duets (1997-2006)," nighbebis k'lubi. various artists. 2002. "kartuli t'algha i;' kartuli t'algha. -.2002. "kartuli t'algha ii," kartuli t'algha. zhorzholadze, goga. 1999. "homegrown," goga's own home studio. references andersen, mark and mark jenkins. 2003. dance of days: two decades of punk in the nation's capital. new york: akashic books. bennett, andy. 2000. popular music and youth culture: music, identity and place. new york: st. martin's press, inc. bennett, andy and richard a. peterson. 2004. "introducing music scenes;' in music scenes: local, translocal, and virtual. edited by andy bennett and richard a. peterson. nashville: vanderbilt university press. bright, terry. 1985. soviet crusade against pop. popular music 5:123-148. cushman, thomas. 1995. notes from underground: rock music counterculture in russia. albany: state university of new york press. 29 30 current musicology gabunia, lasha. 2001. "q'velaze sashineli bozi aris adamiani, romelits sak'utar grdznobas zhimavs". in anarekly.blogspot.com. ---.2005. "tanamedrove kutaisuri p'rot'est'i da kartuli t'algha." anabech'di. (january 27,2005). gachechiladze, revaz. 1997. "population migration in georgia and its socio-economic consequences." undp discussion paper series. hebdige, dick. 1979. subculture: the meaning of style. london: routledge. helbig, adriana. 2006. "the cyberpolitics of music in ukraine's 2004 orange revolution." current musicology 82:81-101. lomsadze, giorgi. 2010. "stalin statue purged in hometown gori." eurasianet.org. manning, paul. 2009a. "the city of balconies: elite politics and the changing semiotics of the post-socialist cityscape." in city culture and city planning in tbilisi: where europe and asia meet, edited by kristof van assche, joseph salukvadze and nick shavishvili. lewiston, ny: edwin mellen press. ---. 2009b. "the hotel/refugee camp iveria: symptom, monster, fetish, home." in city culture and city planning in tbilisi: where europe and asia meet, edited by kristof van assche, joseph salukvadze and nick shavishvili. lewiston, ny: edwin mellen press. ---.2010. "the theory of the cafe peripheral: laghidze's waters and peripheral urban modernity." unpublished manuscript. mch'edlidze, giorgi. 1999. ist'oria udist'antsiod (mghelvare 1988-1995 ts'lebis kronik'ebi). kutaisi: kutaisis g. t'abidzis sakhelobis saaktsio sazogadoeba "st'ambis" sagamomtsemlo tsent'ri. morchiladze, ak'a. 2009. kutaisi, zghvis p'iri. tskheli shok'oladi. murghulia, nino. 2011. "lasha gabunias kartveli momgherali kurdebtan sakmis garchevit emukreboda." reit'ingi. na. 2009. "mps endorse partial relocation of parliament to kutaisi." civil georgia. nutsubidze, nick. 1999. "hiv/aids prevention strategies in the republic of georgia." medicine and law 18:359-62. pilkington, hilary. 1994. russia's youth and its culture: a nation's constructors and constructed. new york: routledge. rachman, paul, director. 2006. american hardcore: the history of american punk rock 1980-1986. sony pictures. ram, harsha. 2007. "the sonnet and the mukhambazi: genre wars on the edges of the russian empire:' pmla:1548-72. ramet, sabrina petra, ed. 1994. rocking the state: rock music and politics in eastern europe and russia. boulder, co: westview press. reynolds, simon. 2005. rip it up and start again: post-punk 1978-84. london: faber and faber. ryback, timothy w. 1990. rock around the bloc: a history of rock music in eastern europe and the soviet union. new york: oxford up. steinholt, yngvar bordewich. 2005. rock in the reservation: songs from the leningrad rock club 1981 -86. new york: mass media music scholars' press. szemere, anna. 2001. up from the underground: the culture of rock music in postsocialist hungary. university park, pa: pennsylvania state up. usaid. 2008. the 2007 ngo sustainability index for central and eastern europe and eurasia. vardosanidze, vladimer. 2000. georgian culture and urbanization. urban design studies 6.yurchak, alexei. 2006. everything was forever, until it was no more: the last soviet generation. princeton: princeton university press. zakareishvili, levan, director. 2005. tbilisitbilisi. national film center of georgia. corpo-realities: keepin' it real in "music and embodiment" scholarship tracy mcmullen in 1980, abbie conant, a white american trombonist living in germany, won the solo trombone chair of the munich philharmonic, beating out thirty-two other candidates, all male. l invited to the audition via a letter addressed to herr abbie conant, the trombonist achieved this success as a disembodied performer-from behind an auditioning screen. with the entire orchestra and director listening, as is the custom when auditioning solo chairs, conant's sound was consumed as pure musical expression; indeed, her winning performance was exactly the realization the orchestra hoped for. however, when she stepped out from behind the screen, this seemingly unproblematic purity of sound was disrupted: for there stood a female body. although she received no formal or informal reprimands, conant was nonetheless demoted after her probationary year. director sergui celibidache made his reasoning clear, telling her, "you know the problem, we need a man for the solo trombone" (osborne 1994).2 conant then embarked on a twelve-year court battle with the munich philharmonic while enduring continual harassment from the director and orchestra members. she eventually triumphed, but not without grievous suffering and insult. in this article, conant's story in munich and the separate case of the vienna philharmonic's behavior toward women and racial minorities are touchstones for two salient issues in recent scholarship on music and embodiment: the implications oflive music versus recorded forms and the ramifications of intercorporeality in musical performance. after challenging the often vision-centered and universalizing conceptions of corporeality in these discussions, i turn to scholarship that focuses primarily on the performer's sentient body. i believe such research affords an important new means to situate embodiment (and its promise) more fully within cultural studies, a contribution music scholars may be uniquely situated to offer. however, i begin with a hard look at some tough corpo-realities. recordings versus embodied performance recent trends in music scholarship have worked to overturn the hegemony of the score in musical analysis and to emphasize the embodied act of musical performance. however, i caution against simply reversing the hierarchy by privileging performance, which implicitly or explicitly relegates recordings current musicology, no. 82 (fall 2006) © 2006 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 61 62 current musicology to second place, behind performance and just above the score. the path­ breaking work of susan mcclary, suzanne cusick, and others has provided long-overdue analyses of gendered meanings in the aural dimension of music. music means aurally, as mcclary in particular has shown through her detailed textual and hermeneutical analyses, yet such aurality also harbors a potential for resistance through misfired meanings, misconstruals, and aural drag performances.3 many scholars have investigated the impulses toward and effects of preserving music in recordings. remarking on the arrival of the phonograph at a time when western artists and philosophers were engaged in destabilizing identities and meanings, charles grivel writes, just as rimbaud was writing that "je est un autre" (i is someone else), mallarme that a blank volume is his expression, ... and nietzsche, of course, that since god is dead, the voice, without reservation, dissolves ... a machine arrives in the nick of time to capture all this and give it an appearance. (1992:33) here, recording provides a specious bulwark against the necessary decline of western enlightenment. for susan mcclary, recording technology pal­ liates western culture's discomfort with music as a particularly corporeal practice. she writes, "the advent of recording has been a platonic dream come true, for with a disk one can have the pleasure of the sound without the troubling reminder of the bodies producing it" (1991: 136). such observa­ tions highlight the view that recording changes music from an ephemeral and embodied evocation to just another signifier in the play of signification: a disembodied, interchangeable commodity awaiting its turn on the cd player. these concerns carry particular weight with music educators, among whom the plague and promise of recordings continually riddle pedagogical decisions. writing on the afro-brazilian music and martial art form, capoeira, ethnomusicologist greg downey states, in many ways, recordings are a blessing, saving my audiences from a slew of adjectives and vague metaphors, but they also leave me uncomfortable. music objectified as a recording ... generates its own distortions in our understanding of musical events ... i fear that by presenting an objectified recording as "the music," i may seem to imply that the musical object alone determines musical experience. (2002:487) downey's essay concerns the phenomenology of hearing and how culture "shapes the way we hear:' and indeed, capoeira is an art form that begs a visual understanding. i want to use downey's comments, however, to explore what it may mean for a recording to "generate its own distortions tracy mcmullen in our understanding of musical events." music, unlike painting, film, per­ formance art, theater, and dance, is not necessarily dependent upon sight, and although scholars are doing fascinating work on the visual element of music (particularly leppert 1988 and 1993),4 i find music's most radical feature is its disruption of vision's authority. in his best-selling book blink: the power of thinking without thinking, malcolm gladwell lays bare the cultural context of a symphony orchestra in terms of viewed embodiment, and includes a section on abbie conant's experience with the munich philharmonic. since the advent of screened auditions in american orchestras (and the consequent rise in female and minority placements), gladwell states that, "what the classical music world realized was that what they had thought was a pure and powerful first impression-listening to someone play-was in fact hopelessly corrupted" (2005:250-51). some people look as if their playing sounds better than it actually does because of confident behavior or good posture. others may look belabored but sound great. julie landsman, principle french horn player in the metropolitan opera orchestra, states, 'tve been [on the panel in] auditions without screens, and i can assure you that i was prejudiced. i began to listen with my eyes, and there is no way that your eyes don't affect your judgment. the only true way to listen is with your ears and your heart" (quoted in gladwell 2005:251). contemporary scholars may chortle at the suggestion that "true listening" demands the disappearance of the performer. however, live music fully ensconced in its context cannot lay claim to any higher "authenticity," at least not without problematizing what such authen­ ticity entails. the vienna philharmonic, which eliminated blind auditions just after the second world war when a japanese applicant qualified as the best (gladwell 2005:246), is the hallmark of such musico-cultural authentic­ ity.s it would seem that the philharmonic and many of its listeners prefer a less competent-sounding orchestra over an orchestra consisting of female or asian bodies because they, like many music scholars and other listeners, appreciate music as the situated, embodied phenomenon. allowing for the phenomenological perspective that culture shapes the way we hear and that part of the listening experience involves perceiving musicians visually, the music presumably sounds better to these listeners if performed by less musically competent, but more "culturally authentic" musicians.6 since we seem to hear with our eyes, it is not surprising that women use recordings as opportunities to be heard without prejudice (that is, to harness the prejudice that they are men). an msnbc online article on the vienna philharmonic's exclusion of women maintains a side bar with anonymous recorded brass performances, asking, "can you tell if a man or a woman is playing?" (herman 2000).7 vocalist, producer, and educator carol comer 63 64 current musicology begins her jazz workshops by playing recordings where students guess which instrumentalist is male and which is female. 8 press materials for the all-women big band diva assert that in playing a recording of them "no one would be able to identify the gender of the players" (meaning of course, no one would be able to tell they were women).9 clearly, women's experience contradicts the implications that recorded music is less authentic than live, for it would seem that women instrumentalists often create "real" music only when they are not seen. even at a live performance, stanley kay, the creative director of diva, continually exhorts listeners to, "turn around and tell me if women or men are playing" (quoted in hentoff2005:d8, emphasis added). their excellence, which equals "playing like men," is best perceived when one is not looking at them. with the "embodied" experience, the music is embedded in its cultural context-a context where women are not com­ mensurate with lead trombone players, nor with "real jazz." the fact that blindfold tests need to be routinely enlisted in defense of women instrumentalists seems to reveal the tests' short-lived effect. women take refuge in this disembodiment again and again because once their identity is revealed, a retroactive re-reading often takes place that necessitates yet another blindfold test. i wonder, however, if we could actively engage the slippage present in recordings as a new counter hegemonic practice of listening. when listening to an unfamiliar recording, if we remember to ask, we are forced to admit that we don't know-that there could be an aural cross-dressing performance going on where we just can't tell. certain instru­ ments (piano, violin, clarinet, jazz flute) more easily beg the question: man or woman? others are disruptive after our assumptions have been revealed: trombone (woman!). one practice could be to imagine that all the brass sections, guitar soloists, or berimbau artists we listen to for two weeks are women. do they sound the same? does our evaluation sink as rapidly as the price for artworks ascribed to male painters did when revealed to be of female provenance?lo such information about our listening habits is neces­ sary if we want to recognize our own stereotypes about musical authenticity. indeed, such stereotypes help to explain why women instrumentalists still face resistance as they try to enter musical communities. intercorporeality in music music scholars, particularly those working in the areas of improvisation and intercultural popular music, have proposed that intercorporeality (face-to­ face embodied collaborations) involving musicians of diverse backgrounds may offer productive models of communities that both encompass difference and generate unity. 11 ajay heble and daniel fischlin hosted a colloquium and produced an important anthology on the potential of improvising ensembles tracy mcmullen and communities to offer "critical modes of resistance" (fischlin and heble 2004:2) through their "discrepant engagement;' a foundational concept for the conference. 12 poet nathaniel mackey writes that he, coined ["discrepant engagement"] in reference to practices that ... accent fissure, fracture, incongruity ... , [and that] engage discrepancy rather than seek to ignore it ... [it voices] reminders of the axiomatic exclusions upon which positings of identity and meaning depend. (mackey [1993] 2000:19) in the exhortation to hail improvising communities or intercultural exchanges as exemplifying such practices, however, i often find meanings cohering around "community" and "intercorporeality" that inadvertently reinforce rather than disrupt axiomatic exclusions. i3 indeed, some scholars seem to take music's distinctive relation to embodiment as the only neces­ sity to produce this valued intercorporeality, as if intercorporeality in itself were the goal. in his essay cited above, greg downey lauds music's communal aspects, describing "musical tuning-in" (how musicians perform together in rhyth­ mic time) as an "archetypal example of the intersubjectivity demanded by everyday life" and characterizing capoeira as "emphatically intercorporeal;' with musicians and dancers deeply enmeshed in the performance (downey 2002:502). while performing in or listening to a live musical group is often a profoundly intercorporeal experience, it is not necessarily a progressive one. to return to the vienna philharmonic, when asked how he would feel about performing with a woman instrumentalist, helmut zehetner, a second violinist in the orchestra, said, we would be gambling with the emotional unity that this organism cur­ rently has ... when the orchestra [really starts] cooking with a mahler symphony, i sense very strongly and simply that only men sit around me . . . i would not want to gamble with this unity. (quoted in osborne n.d.) dieter flury, the orchestra's principal flutist, added, from the beginning we have spoken of the special viennese qualities, of the way music is made here. [it] is not only a technical ability, but also something that has a lot to do with the soul. the soul does not let itself be separated from the cultural roots that we have here in central europe. and it also doesn't allow itself to be separated from gender. (quoted in osborne n.d.) these gender and racially specific souls animating one unified organism espouse their treasured form of collaboration in order to keep women and 65 66 current musicology racial minorities out of their orchestra. indeed, paeans to intercorporeality may simply put a new name on some very old phenomena: male bonding, racial segregation, heteronormativity, and the good 01' boys network. abbie conant's problems sprang directly from male desires for homo­ social intercorporeality in music. when the topic turned toward music communities in a personal interview, i sensed her discomfort with criticizing the communal aspect of music, and i eventually offered, "it just sounds like communities ... have posed a lot of difficulties [for youl." conant responded, that's exactly the problem ... the community part. through working on the individual level you come to the point [where 1 you sort of go beyond wanting to be part of things. maybe that never really goes away, of course. we all want to be part of things, a community, to be nurtured and also to be able to do some nurturing-you know that give and take, feeling a part of the flock of humanity. but there is a point of no return, "well ok, it's not going to happen in this life:' (conant 2006b) clearly, conant is not against the idea of community, but the concrete manifestations of these communities posed real problems for her. she also described the problems presented when groups of outsiders form their own communities. her work with the all-women trombone quartet prisma in the early 1990s was initially a powerful opportunity to share experience, provide support, and acknowledge the difficulties of being a woman trombonist. she said, i don't think any of us realized how powerful it was going to be, just the fact that we decided to get together and form this group. and all kinds of things came up for each one of us and we just started telling each other our stories and sometimes we ... couldn't get down to actually rehearsing because we had so much processing to do. (conant 2006b) conant stayed with the group for only one year, however, and the ensemble disbanded in 1995. acknowledging the downside of these communities, she stated that, unfortunately, it didn't last too long before it got destructive, because this kind of repres­ sion and sexism [in our musical worlds 1 creates illness. it creates all kinds of problems and so not only is there the liberating part of it, but there's also the concentration of poison and the inability to distinguish who is friend and who is foe. (conant 2006b) conant's description of her collaborations with other "women on the margins" is as eloquent as it is heartbreaking. even as these outsiders tracy mcmullen attempted to work together, the prejudice they endured continued to wreak its consequences. aware of the hegemony enforced in many musical collaborations, some scholars make difference central to their analyses. in a recent essay, george lipsitz heralds pianist horace tapscott's (2001) autobiography as a model of new jazz historiography in its emphasis on diverse collectivity in the jazz tradition. even here, however, lipsitz must acknowledge that "the collectivity tapscott celebrates included women, but in subordinate and secondary roles" (lipsitz 2004:21). and in writing on pan-african musical collaborations, jason stanyek emphasizes "african [music's 1 ... tendency to promote embodied interaction and dialogue between people with disparate personal and cultural histories" (2004:87). for him, the most profound thing that pan-african jazz has offered the world ... has been the ability of musicians to use pan-africanism as a basis for constructing a collaborative space in which they make direct contact with each other and communicate and create in spite of extreme differences of musical style and despite profound linguistic, historical, and cultural disjunctures. (2004:91) and although stanyek mentions the participation of a few women mu­ sicians, he does not describe how gender presents examples of "extreme differences" or "cultural disjunctures" for them or their male collaborators. both scholars are doing important work in highlighting the promise of "discrepant" musical collaborations; however, i believe it is imperative to present an analysis of the way these forms of collaboration also work against "emancipatory ends."14 indeed, the cultural juncture of male hegemony poses a strong delegitimization to their conclusions. i fear that scholars may limit their conception of cultural difference, eliding the complex and ongoing intersections of race, class, sexuality, and-most pointedly in these examples-gender, in the service of making a claim for the exemplary status of certain musical communities. while there are lessons to be learned from tapscott's collectivity and from pan-african jazz, by presenting these col­ laborations as models or bases for interaction while simultaneously obviating such complexity, these analyses tend toward master narrative, rather than producing the dis rupture that mackey encourages. 15 if "community" is to resist becoming a new master narrative of "prog­ ressive" music scholarship, we cannot continue to view it as a noun, but, following mackey, must understand it as a verb, much like sherrie tucker's designation of the marginalized group, "women-in-jazz": an ongoing methodology that interrogates comfort-zane-communities (tucker 2004). however, a methodology that may be even more flexible and resistant to 67 68 current musicology master narrative than the linguistic model of the verb is one that places emphasis on the in-the-moment bodily practice of a performer. sentient corporeality theorizations of corporeality that do not recognize the displeasures of mu­ sical embodiment cited above would benefit from distinguishing the body as something viewed from the body as a site of sentience and audition. in this last section, i focus therefore on the body not as a sign but as a site of practice experienced by the musician.16 although the aurality of recorded music can interrupt hegemonic visual cues, such disruption is often attenu­ ated when stereotypes are simply reinscribed retroactively after discovering the musician's identity. when aurality is understood in terms of its visceral power in the body, however, i believe the rewriting of subjectivities can be more radical and abiding. recent feminist music scholars (who are also active musicians) have analyzed music from the performer's perspective, and more specifically from the vantage point of the performer's sensuous body. positioned in a lineage that recognizes the personal as political and the necessity of interrogating "the body" in western theoretical and popular discourse, these scholars have integrated firsthand experience as performers into their analyses. in her dis­ sertation, diva dogs: sounding women improvising, scholar/improviser julie dawn smith argues for the power of aurality, corporeality, and improvisation to create new subjectivities, writing that, sound writes upon the exterior surfaces and interior substances of the body with an invisible ink that leaves its mark as it evaporates and disappears. the invisible presence of sound complicates the visual basis of intelligibility to underscore the corporeal as an improvisational process of sounding, audition, (re)writing, and transformation. (smith 2001:ii) moving within the body, sound complicates our usual vision-based epistemologies and draws attention to our resonating bodies as sites of reconfiguration. suzanne cusick has argued for the inclusion of the performer's "actual body" into music theory as a possible solution to the "mind/body problem;' suggesting that emphasis on corporeal performance can relocate music away from the "mind side" of western culture, toward a space that includes mind and body (cusick 1994: 15). developing the idea that the performer's perspective can be a valid analytical stance, scholar and cellist elisabeth le guin employs a "carnal musicology" that "pays very close attention to ... the sensations and experiences of playing [a piece l" (le guin 2006:3). le guin tracy mcmullen describes an intimate intercorporeality joining composer and performer dur­ ing performance, and she demonstrates how information gleaned from this experience provides an approach to musical analysis based in performance. perhaps idiosyncratically, i take le guin's book also as an exaltation of the deep pleasure of practicing an instrument: of working with the body to deepen knowledge of one's instrument, one's body, and of a musical work. for example, she writes, no music i have ever played seems so to invite and dwell upon the nuances of physical experience as does boccherini's: one can count on tiny variations of position, weight, pressure, friction, and muscular distribution having profound structural and affectual consequences. (2006:5) in le guin's words i recognize the deep attention that i relax into over the course of practicing. i believe it is this space of pleasure that provided a source of strength for conant during her ordeal with the munich philharmonic, to which i now return. conant's body was an explicit site of contention in her confrontation with the munich philharmonic. unable to provide any evidence of her alleged incompetence as a musician, munich city lawyers presented this general statement: "the plaintiff does not possess the necessary physical strength to be a leader of the trombone section" (osborne 1994). to counter this accusation, conant received testing at the gautinger lung clinic, breath­ ing inside a sealed cabin and having blood taken from her ear to see how efficiently her body absorbed oxygen. she blew into machines to measure the capacity of her lungs and the speed at which she could inhale and exhale, and a doctor examined her rib cage and chest (osborne 1994). conant's results were far above average, but as she said in our interview, the idea that she was physically unable to perform the task was never the real problem. claims against her "interior, measurable body" were merely a cover for the orchestra's dismay at its surface. i? rather than turn against her body, however, conant turned to it. she discovered the body alignment and relaxation techniques developed by frederick matthias alexander (1869-1955), known as "alexander technique;' "right after it all blew up" (conant 2006a). like other musicians, she used the method to improve musical performance through a heightened awareness of her body. she was then drawn to "every body-related activity i could find;' interested in developing creatively and personally (2006a). she studied yoga and pantomime, attended dance workshops, and performed in beckett's "act without words;' a purely physical theater piece, among other activities. the techniques conant acquired through these activities opened up creative channels, reduced emotional stress, and improved con centra69 70 current musicology tion, and she soon discovered she could apply them to the harassment she encountered in rehearsals. when taunts or direct hostility were aimed at her, conant practiced "keeping [her 1 body neutral;' a technique she learned in pantomime (2006a). the procedure is used to create a "clear palette" between motions, but conant began using it to reduce her reactivity to taunts, the physical practice of "neutrality" being a powerful embodiment of the mental position to which she aspired. similarly, she used breathing exercises and body awareness (relaxed posture, feet firmly planted, etc.) to maintain composure in tense encounters. on the performer's stage (which always includes some form of adjudicating audience), conant rehearsed for the larger societal stage that measures individuals according to expectations of gender, race, class, and sexuality. using these corporeal practices to learn to maintain composure and excel on the first stage, the trombonist found these same practices could help her do the same on the second. 18 the predominant corporeal practice conant used in dealing with both of these stages, however, was her method with the trombone. her emphasis was on embodied pleasure as an active and ongoing practice against the pervasive idealism of "getting the body out of the way" in the pursuit of "mastering" one's instrument. 19 she says, it is an utter pleasure to practice, to play. when you are playing correctly it is a tremendous pleasure, it is very freeing. your body is resonating as much as the instrument. you become one resonating animal if you will. i don't like the word "mastering:' i've always been appalled by that word. [1 think of it] more in terms of coming to an agreement with the trombone in the sense that we are resonating together, it's a relationship. (2006b) in describing how she maintains this pleasure in her practice, she says, [1 stay] away from music 1 don't want to play, music that makes my body hurt, or makes my soul hurt. i practice according to what you might call a pleasure principle. i usually start off with a sensing of a note that is the first note 1 want to play. depending on how that feels, how it makes my body feel, how it sounds, how it resonates, 1 kind of go from there and actually try not to interrupt the sense of feeling good ... i ask, "ah, what would feel good today? oh these ... trills. ooh, that's nice. that's not working so well, i'll do some of these. 1 just need to breathe a little more freely here, and ah, that feels good. ooh, let's play some low notes." i will go through a routine but i will make that routine as conscious and pleasurable as 1 possibly can. (2006b) in answer to my questions, "how has the pleasure principle of practicing been of benefit?" and "do you find it helpful also in life, in living your life?" she says, tracy mcmullen absolutely, no question. part of the palette of sexism, racism-all of those "isms"-is sort of the repression of pleasure, isn't it? pleasure is out of control, is dangerous, is non -intellectual. it is all of these dangerous things. it's definitely second class ... to come from pleasure. and yet pleasure is an intelligence in itself. it has a wholeness, a sanity to it, a peace-loving nature. i think getting older i understand ... on just about every level that that is the way to go, that it is the clue, what you should follow. there's always this pull, "i'll practice that until my lips bleed;' that idealism, that tran­ scendental ... dedication, where you just, you make yourself into a object that you torture until you reach this transcendent state of great musician. i'm [not about 1 that, i'm all about that pleasure principle. (2006b) conant's philosophy is rich, containing many opportunities for fruitful investigation.20 my interest here is in how conant reworks her subjectivity from "outsider" to "insider" by emphasizing corporeal balance and pleasure. and although barthes, irigaray, or kristeva would seem likely thinkers to enlist in the elaboration of the transgressive nature of pleasure, i find that baudrillard's ([1981]1994) discussion of symptoms and simulated illness provides the most illuminating framework for conant's practice. for baudrillard, simulation involves pretending to have what one does not have, but in simulating illness one actually generates real symptoms, throwing into contention meanings of real and imaginary.2! entering the world of professional classical music, conant soon discovered from various diagnosticians (munich philharmonic director celibidache and others) that she had an illness-the cultural illness of woman playing lead trombone (wplt). of course, conant did not realize she was sick-she was told so, and confronted with the diagnosis she had to make a decision. she could "cure" the disease, which would involve excising the w from plt, that is, relinquishing her position as solo chair in the orchestra. this was something she was unwilling to do. another alternative was to consider the finding a misdiagnosis: that indeed, there was nothing whatsoever sick or abnormal about wplt. however, her painful daily experiences with the orchestra belied this thought. clearly something was wrong with her body; to deny the sickness would be to deny her experience. conant therefore recognized that this disease was both real (her body causing dis-ease for many, includ­ ing herself) and not real (conferred upon her only after she stepped from behind the screen)-a conundrum that i assert she resolves through ongoing corporeal practice. as we have seen, conant employed sensuous corporeal practices in order to find strength, centeredness, artistry, and creativity to fuel her career despite significant obstacles. indeed, through such practices, conant resolves the paradox of the real/unreal disease caused by her body in music: she simulates the (false) disease of wplt, taking on its real symptoms. 71 72 current musicology those musical endeavors that confer masculinity (playing jazz saxophone, rock guitar, or orchestral trombone) also harbor the fear that somehow women will so completely perform them that the conferred cultural illness of woman playing masculine musical role will become "real": a worry that women will actually produce the performance not as an anomaly, not as an illness that is aberrant-either you're cured, or you die, or you're perpetually weakened-but as if this role were "normal" and commensurate for women, which would undercut its designation as normatively male. it is a disease conferred upon women out of a fear that they might really catch it. by continually reinforcing sensations of pleasure, relaxation, connection, and balance while minimizing those associated with pain, competition, domination, and hierarchy, conant simulates: she elevates subtle bodily sen­ sations into more manifest ones-thereby creating new sensations entirely. through this she (re)writes and (re)performs the meaning of her body in music from the inside out.22 stated simply, the "real symptom" that conant generates is the commensurability ofw and plt, changing wplt's status from disease/conferred/periphery to ease/real/center-from aberration to fully embodied illness/health-and undermining the "transcendental truth" of man plays lead tromboney this is, of course, the very symptom of commensurability the diagnosticians feared-the body that doesn't need a cure, the illness that is now the definition of health, the simulator that is most authentic. however, this generated symptom is first, and most importantly, real for her. whereas wplt may have been commensurate for the young conant auditioning behind the screen, her subsequent experience neces­ sitated a new approach to embodying this commensurability. by returning again and again to her body in music, conant transforms her relationship from "outsider" musician (back) to an "insider;' a sense of being inside the music-full, complete and centered within it. thus, by manufacturing wplt as real for herself, conant can begin to transform her body as sign, producing this meaning for others. my research into this form of "performance practice" is in the early stages, but i am gaining inspiration from the scholars cited above and oth­ ers who are "analyzing from the body:'24 like le guin, many scholars are demonstrating how attention to embodiment can reveal new insights in musical analysis (fisher and lochhead 2002; iyer 2002). others, such as julie dawn smith (2001; 2004) and john shepherd and peter wicke (shepherd and wicke 1997), describe music's and sound's resonance and vibration in the body as a way to open up to new possibilities of being, unconfined by our usual visualist ontologies. for these scholars, the power and practice of music offers means to thrive in a diverse and still prejudiced world. because detrimental generalities about "the body;' race, ethnicity, or styles of music tracy mcmullen can sometimes appear in scholarship on embodiment, however, i advocate a particularist approach that is based in a musician's own physical experi­ ence, something fisher and lochhead also propose (2002:45). as cultural theorist elizabeth grosz has argued, "there is no body as such, there are only bodies" (1994: 19), and music scholarship seems especially poised to examine the potential of the individual body and its performance in culture. since each musician's relationship to her or his body, and to the racial, gender, and other corporeal expectations prevalent in the given style of music will be unique, each will have a different question to answer and challenge to overcome. their answers may suggest ways that all of us can improve our performance on the larger cultural stage. conant's practice and performance demonstrated how she was able to incarnate wplt for herself in a community troubled by the sight of her female embodiment. by establishing and reinforcing a musical world based in the pleasure of her physical experience rather than on the gaze of the other, conant's method suggests how women can keep going, gigging, working, playing, creating-enjoying music despite/with "the disease." in this conant was not working to change others, or even to change the story, but rather to embody (catch) the disease so fully as to reveal its salubrious soundness. conant continued with the important, indeed heroic and nearly sacrificial, work oflitigating against the munich philharmonic and eventually succeeded, receiving back pay and total vindication in court.25 as great as her success has been, it was also draining, painful, and at times overwhelm­ ingly disheartening. and unfortunately, women musicians continue to be diagnosed as diseased. in answer to this continual diagnosis, conant found a joyful, resonant, and sound praxis that led her to a new configuration of her body as woman playing lead trombone. she became her disease against all doctors' orders, offering inspiration for all women unwilling to cure their deviant bodies. notes 1. my title makes reference to susan leigh foster's book corporealities: dancing knowledge, culture, and power (1996). dance scholars have been at the forefront of theorizing the body and performance within cultural studies. see, for instance desmond (1997a; 1997b), foster (1995; 1996; 1997), and thomas (2003). 2. composer william osborne is conant's husband. he has compiled a history of her experi­ ence with the munich philharmonic on their website, www.osborne-conant.org. 3. sherrie tucker's research into gender and sexuality in jazz has unearthed many examples of women jazz musicians depicted as borderline transvestites. she notes how in the swing era "skilled women musicians were described as cross-dressers of sorts: 'the female louis armstrong' or 'a gene krupa in girls' clothes'" (tucker 2002:294). 4. leppert (forthcoming) also addresses the power of aurality to disrupt the visual in a forthcoming chapter on werner herzog's fitzcarraldo. 73 current musicology 5. according to gladwell, the orchestra's former chairman, otto strasser, described this as a "grotesque situation: ... as the screen was raised, there stood a japanese before the stunned jury." gladwell goes on to write, "in the past thirty years, since screens became commonplace, the number of women in the top us orchestras has increased fivefold. 'the very first time the new rules for auditions were used, we were looking for four new violinists: remembers herb wekslebatt, a tuba player for the metropolitan opera in new york, who led the fight for blind auditions at the met in the mid-1960s. 'and all of the winners were women. that would simply never have happened before. up until that point, we had maybe three women in the whole orchestra. i remember that after it was announced that the four women had won, one guy was absolutely furious at me. he said, 'you're going to be remembered as the sob who brought women into this orchestra'" (gladwell 2005:250). 6. i am not arguing that disembodied music is free of cultural context. indeed, mcclary maintains that disembodied music is a particular construct of western culture. while tropes of "world music" presume authenticity through the inclusion of bodies in the musical experi­ ence, western classical music is more authentic without its bodies. for mcclary's discussion of western music as "the sound itself;' see mcclary (1991: l36). in the munich philharmonic, conant's female body would doubly reveal its corporeality by being both a body and, in being female, a signifier of body. whenever music is forcibly written as "mind;' the female body becomes an undesirable semiotic element. in such cases, a woman performing is offensive not for having a body, but for having a body that bears the signification of corporeality. conant's body also unveiled "pure" musical expression as a gendered expression, an assumption of maleness. this circumstance may seem obvious, but it persists as a problem when scholars look for authentic musical expression without acknowledging how such authenticity rests on visions of gender and race. 7. the msnbc article (herman 2000) chronicles william osborne's activism against the vienna philharmonic orchestra. in 1997, after a proposed us tour was threatened with demonstrations and the austrian government applied pressure to abandon their "men only" rule, the vienna philharmonic orchestra finally made their long-standing harpist, anna leikes, a full member. in the past nine years they have accepted no other women as members (buzzarte 2006). there are some in the pipeline, however, but the road is steep. for a recent update on their progress, see osborne (2006). 8. comer states: "when i give workshops, i use a blindfold test with a tape of men and women musicians. i ask the participants to guess who is the man and who is the woman. for piano, for example, i play gil evans and joanne brackeen. guess who they pick!" (quoted in ottinger 1997). 9. see page 15 of the diva e-press kit, available at http://www.divajazz.com/e-press/e-press .htm!. such tests are reminiscent of the famous roy eldridge blindfold test where the trum­ peter boasted to leonard feather that he could easily discern white from black players. in the test, however, eldridge was correct less than half the time. for a recounting of this blindfold test, see gennari (2006:56). a similar claim was made regarding women jazz musicians by a recent online commentator. he wrote, "when women play jazz, they don't sound at all like men. i think there is something to that. something mentally that makes the two sexes think different, attributes to women playing so differently than men do. i wish i could describe this better, but it's hard to explain. it's just weird, but i can usually tell which players are male, and which are female, just by listening" (posted august 19,2000, by josh [sic] appleby on a forum at the website, jazzcorner, http://jazzcornertaik.com). it is important to acknowledge that whereas racialized meanings in jazz aurality produce a complex story of cross-pollina­ tion and include misreadings in various directions among black, white, latino, jewish, etc., tracy mcmullen women instrumentalists are still perceived as playing "like a man" until it is revealed that they are "good-for a woman." this essay "brackets out" the question of the gendered nature of musical sound that equates superior instrumental performance with male instrumental performance. 10. whitney chadwick has shown that famous artworks by men that were later attributed to women lose their value and indeed, regain value if re-attributed again to a man (2002). 11. following jason stanyek, i employ gary weaver's use of the term "intercultural," which emphasizes the "actual interaction of people from various cultures;' as opposed to the term "cross-cultural;' which involves "comparing and contrasting;' and i use patrice pavis's phrase "face-to-face embodied collaborations" to describe intercorporeality in musical collabora­ tions. see stanyek (2004:90). 12. the 1998 colloquium's theme was "collaborative dissonances: jazz, discrepancy, and cultural theory." in the anthology, nathaniel mackey recounts the topics for consideration in the original call for papers, which sought to investigate "the 'cognitive dissonance' that results when creative practitioners enter [into] collaboration from different disciplinary and/or cultural locations" and "the extent to which the dissonances that result from collaborative practices might be seen to reduce the effects of hierarchies in the production and valuation of knowledge" (mackey 2004:367). 13. fischlin and heble acknowledge that "not all minority communities in which improvisa­ tion is practiced necessarily exist in opposition to dominant social structures, nor is all musical improvisation necessarily rooted in alternative communities and activist practices" (fischlin and heble 2004:2). essays contributed by sherrie tucker (2004) and julie dawn smith (2004) offer important critiques of the utopian conception of improvising communities, highlighting how such communities often reinforce stasis rather than rupture when dealing with women. both authors stress a type of cultural improvisation that would continually break open definitions of woman, jazz, community, and other fixed identities. tucker's essay in particular offers examples of how the marginalized category "women-in-jazz"-following norma coates's (1997) work on "women -in-rock" -could provide productive methodologies for keeping the borders, as well as the concept, of community fluid. 14. for example, pan-african jazz could be analyzed in terms of the creation or perfor­ mance of an essentialized (male) blackness. focusing on african american music and its historiography, ronald radano describes how "what [holds] black music together as a story [is] blackness as such." the historians radano cites in the paragraph from which the quote is drawn (amiri baraka, dena j. epstein, lawrence levine, roger abrahams, claudia mitchell-kernan, and eileen southern) "uncritically [employed] tropes of the coloniallegacy ... especially the fixities of ' black music' as a racial-musical category" (radano 2003:58). such ideas of blackness may factor into the desire for pan-african musicality even when musicians hail from countries other than the us. likewise, one could investigate how constructions of masculinity established through musical production limit the desirability of collaborations with women. through such analysis we can continue to work across boundaries of identity, rather than within and behind them. 15. i want to stress that private music ensembles or collectives do not have a magical immunity to the stereotypes and discrimination of society at large and may actually participate more fervidly in sexist practices when the style of music is strongly coded as masculine (jazz, rock, brass sections, etc.). despite such discrimination, sexual harassment laws or protections for victims do not exist in the vast majority of these groups. to think that musical communi­ ties are free of the types of discrimination and unfairness that universities and corporations protect their members from is frighteningly unrealistic. 75 current musicology 16. i am not saying the scholars above focus only on the body as a sign. indeed, i believe they neglect to theorize how different bodies signify differently. however, their discussions implicitly consider the body as viewed-the beingand seeing-there-ness of performance. 17. conant herself initiated these tests in order to provide some "objectivity" in the situa­ tion. eerily, they may call to mind the long-standing scientific pursuit for biologically based categories of difference. for a recent installment in this ongoing saga, see the investigation into how gay men allegedly react differently than straight men to "pheromones" (savic, berglund, and lindstrom 2005). i thank sherrie tucker for this reference. 18. note that conant's focus has been on embodied performance. indeed, she does not like to record her music. she states, rather poignantly, "a lot of musicians play in a sense to become invisible, to become only sound. and i guess maybe i started out that way, you know, but i changed. and i think [it is important], the fact of me, a female being playing the trombone ... showing myself ... : that i have a big horn! [laughter] that my voice can be loud, my voice can reach the ends of the earth. trying to show myself that all my life and never getting it, quite." although i would argue that conant is "getting it" more than she realizes, i also surmise that conant's sensuous corporeal practices may be even more emancipatory than, or at least a necessary foundation to, the courageous act of "showing herself" to herself and others. when listeners still must "look away" to hear the "truth" of women instrumentalists, the use of corporeal practices to feel her body in music, to practice it, to listen to it, and to train it over a period of time, may more effectively produce the belief, knowledge, and actuality that she is commensurate with "solo trombone chair" than would any effort to show it. 19. to "get the body out ofthe way" is a common explanation made by musicians and teachers for why we practice: to eliminate any awkwardness the body presents to instrumental facility, making us less and less burdened by such limitations. i thank vijay iyer for reminding me of this phrase and its connection to the pervasive idealism of much western art music. 20. for instance, conant's relationship with the trombone demands consideration alongside scientist barbara mcclintock's intersubjective approach as famously documented in ellen fox keller's a feelingfor the organism (keller 1984). 21. baudrillard writes, "to dissimulate is to pretend not to have what one has. to simulate is to feign to have what one doesn't have. one implies a presence, the other an absence. but it is more complicated than that because simulating is not pretending: 'whoever fakes an ill­ ness can simply stay in bed and make everyone believe he is ill. whoever simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms' (littre). therefore, pretending, or dissimulat­ ing, leaves the principle of reality intact: the difference is always clear, it is simply masked, whereas simulation threatens the difference between the 'true' and the 'false,' the 'real' and the 'imaginary'" (baudrillard [1981]1994:3). 22. i am not arguing that conant finds some pure interiority from which to construct her own subjectivity. indeed, i recognize that conceptions and experiences of the sentient body are embedded in culture and history. late twentiethand twenty-first -century western musicians' experiences of sentient embodiment are often informed by meditative philosophies from india, tibet, and japan, as can be seen in the wealth of pedagogical books on instrumental performance influenced by such philosophies (bruser 1999; chase 1981; werner 1996). additionally, feminist theory, queer theory, phenomenology, and critical race studies are influ­ encing how we experience, understand, and view the body. although a detailed investigation into these constructions is beyond the scope of this article, i want to make clear that i am not asserting a culturally neutral space found "in the body:' indeed, bringing aurality and sentience into discourse is both challenged by, and disruptive of, our usual visualist linguistic models based in debordian spectacle (debord [1967] 1995), foucauldian panopticism (foucault tracy mcmullen [1977]1995), or visualist lacanian psychoanalysis (lacan [1966] 2002). and while i do not want to debate the superiority of one sense over another, john shepherd and peter wicke have noted that whereas vision functions to separate and locate, establishing a world that is "out there;' "sound ... enters the body and is in the body ... visually disposed language, furthermore, favors thinking about sound as an object, but sound functions poorly in this regard: it dissipates, modulates, infiltrates other sounds, becomes absorbed and deflected by actual objects, and fills a space surrounding them (shepherd and wicke 1997:127-28). this point underscores the locations of pleasure and displeasure conant encountered in her experience of music and embodiment. while separated and dislocated from the philharmonic after appearing from behind the auditioning screen, conant nonetheless could return to musical pleasure through attention to her corporeal resonance with sound. 23. conant reveals the truth of men playing lead trombone as a simulation and indeed her performance is also a simulacrum. as baudrillard quotes ecclesiastes, "the simulacrum is true" (baudrillard [1981]1994:1). 24. this is the title of an important essay on music and embodiment by george fisher and judy lochhead (2002). the article gives a very helpful primer on the main philosophical theorizations of embodiment and how these theorizations relate to extant scholarship on music and embodiment. the authors then offer various approaches to analyzing music via embodiment theories and conclude with two examples of such analysis, examining joan tower's fantasy (those harbor lights) and the third movement of johannes brahms's sonata in e~ for clarinet and piano, op. 120, no. 2. 25. for a full accounting of conant's experience in munich, see osborne (1994). from 1979 to 1980 conant had been solo trombonist of the royal opera of turin before winning the solo chair in munich where she stayed until 1993. in 1992 she became full professor of trombone with tenure at the staatliche hochschule fur musik in trossingen. recently she has focused on a solo career, performing in over 115 american and european cities. her international trombone camp is popular with students from around the world. for more information on conant and osborne, see http://www.osborne-conant.org/index.html. references baudrillard, jean. 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improvising group. in the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and communities in dialogue, edited by daniel fischlin and ajay heble, 224-43. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. stanyek, jason. 2004. transmissions of an interculture: pan-african jazz and intercultural improvisation. in the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and communities in dialogue, edited by daniel fischlin and ajay heble, 87-130. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. tapscott, horace. 2001. songs of the unsung: the musical and social journey of horace tapscott, edited by steven isoardi. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. thomas, helen. 2003. the body, dance, and cultural theory. new york: palgrave macmillan. tucker, sherrie. 2002. when subjects don't come out. in queer episodes in music and modern identity, edited by sophie fuller and lloyd whitesell, 293-310. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. 79 80 current musicology ---.2004. bordering on community: improvising women improvising women-in-jazz. in the other side of nowhere: jazz, improvisation, and communities in dialogue, edited by daniel fischlin and ajay heble, 244-67. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. werner, kenny. 1996. effortless mastery: liberating the master musician within. new albany, in: jamey aebersold jazz. interviews conant, abbie. 2006a. interview with the author, january 3. ---. 2006b. interview with the author, june 18. current.musicology.82.1-126.pdf periods in progressive rock and the problem of authenticity john j. sheinbaum though "largely ignored" by much mainstream popular music scholarship, and "largely despised" by most critics (macan 1997:3), the genre of "self­ consciously complex" rock music usually known as 1970s "progressive" (or "prog") rock was very popular and influential across england and north america in its time (holm-hudson 2002:2), and its fan base remains dedicated to this day. progressive rock exhibits a startling eclecticism and diverse sources of influence, and as such is notoriously difficult to define from a stylistic point of view (holm-hudson 2002:2). the label "progres­ sive" instead implies association with the late 1960s counterculture (macan 1997:13-14, 144-66) and, more directly, an aesthetic of experimentation and artistic freedom at a time when recording technologies were developing rapidly and record companies enjoyed a large degree of financial success (moore 2001 :65). overall, though, the genre is perhaps "best remembered" for "epic subject matter:' "gargantuan stage shows:' and "dazzling virtuosity" (macan 1997:3), and, in the wake of the beatles' 1967 sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band, for developing a rock music that seemed to invite the audience to listen rather than dance (covach 1997:3). of the numerous tropes surrounding progressive rock bands, some of the most pervasive and persistent concern the perception that these groups' music and public personae are indebted to the classical music tradition. edward macan argues that "the defining features of progressive rock ... are all drawn from the european classical tradition:' and these range from "orchestral" timbres to extended structural forms to "metrical and instrumental virtuosity" (1997:12-13). in all likelihood fans do not hear these references the way a musicologist would, but the perception of complexity, seriousness, and "depth" in the style does mean that many fans consider the music a sort of rock-based "art-music substitute" (bowman 2002:184-89; covach 1997:8). in interviews, jon anderson of yes has talked about "creating music that is around us today in an orchestral way" (quoted in covach 1997:7), and carl palmer of emerson, lake, and palmer (elp) has somewhat patronizingly stated, "we hope if anything we're encouraging the kids to listen to music that has more quality" (bangs [1974] 2002:52). while onstage, progressive rockers often move very little so they can concentrate on their individual parts and seem "serious" (keith emerson's animated knife stabbing of his keyboard during elp performances is a notable exception), current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 29 30 current musicology and characteristically many bands attempt, like classical musicians adher­ ing to a written score, to recreate the sonic experience of a recorded album (macan 1997:64; bangs [1974] 2002:49). i argue that progressive rock may also evoke the "classical" in the ways these groups changed stylistically at strategic points in their careers to mark their artistic development, akin to the periodizations many find in the work of classical composers, such as the ubiquitous use of "early;' "middle," and "late" labels for beethoven's music. as james webster has shown in his studies of classical music history, periodizations are shot through with understated but critical value judgments. webster outlines three chief periodization narratives. an "originary" narrative valorizes the "early" period, an "organic" narrative valorizes the "middle" period, and a "teleological" narrative valorizes the "late" period. the narratives that a given periodization presents can seem so compelling that we may ignore pieces within a given "period" if they do not fit the expected characteristics of that style, and we may marginalize the music of entire periods if our narrative tells us that a different period contains more interesting or important music (webster 1994,2001-2).1 the specific case explored here concerns the widely acknowledged changes in progressive rock in the early 1980s, when many prominent bands' increasing use of digital signal processing and simpler, more conventional song forms led audiences and critics to identify the beginning of a new period in the genre characterized by commercialized and "inauthentic" releases. as with the example of beethoven, the notion of a new period largely fits a nexus of observable stylistic changes within the music and biographical shifts for the musicians themselves, all against a background oflarger cultural trends and value systems (webster 1994:1). the conventional historical narrative of progressive rock tends to fit an "organic" model of periodization quite well: a story of rising (the late 1960s), a peak period of artistic maturity (the 1970s), and then an inevitable decline (the 1980s and after).2 assumptions that progressive rock flourished during the 1970s are indeed quite common. for macan "the genre ... achieved its 'classic' form at the hands of english bands during the early 1970s" (1997:10), and john covach posits a "rich period from about 1967 to 1977" (1997:4).3 bill martin also links the style to a historical period, asserting that "progressive rock was able to partake of a certain energy, that of the late sixties, and to propel itself into the middle and even later seventies" (1998:58). meanwhile, the common reaction to a perceived new period that begins around 1980 is one of strong criticism, where the defenders of progressive rock identify the dissolution of the style. as covach puts it, "by the early 1980s progressive rock was thought to be all but dead as a style, an idea john j. sheinbaum reinforced by the fact that some of the principal progressive groups had developed a more commercial sound ... what went out of the music of these now ex-progressive groups when the more commercial sound came in was any significant evocation of art music" (1997:5).4 for macan, the same moment "was marked by the fragmentation of the genre into simpler, more commercially mainstream subgenres such as american stadium rock and british symphonic pop, as well as a noticeable decline in the creativity of the major progressive rock bands" (1997:179). and jennifer rycenga, who interprets the extended nonstandard structures of progressive rock as "queering the concept of form;' laments the fact that "by the end of the 1970s, they abandoned more experimental long forms for traditional song styles" (2006:237). kevin holm-hudson has recently posited a label of"prog lite" for the commercially minded and "conceptually thin" mid -1970s style that was strongly influenced by progressive rock but tailored for heavy radio play, and this designation would presumably apply to the "classic" groups' changes in the early 1980s as well (2005:379). the music industry at this time was changing to accommodate new digital music technologies and the popularity of cable television's mtv, and the effects of these new forces on this new period in progressive rock cannot be underestimated. music video quickly became the "preferred method for launching a new act or promoting the release of a major superstar;' creating a "new generation" of telegenic musician -celebrities who were supported by heavy doses of contemporary technology such as synthesizers and digitally manipulated samples of sound (starr and waterman 2007:383). as theo cateforis has recently asserted, "at the time of its greatest popularity in the early 1980s, few paradigms rivaled the growing use of synthesizers associated with the rise of important new wave groups" (2007:207), and the technology was easily matched to the "dizzying melange of depthless surfaces and signs ... typical" of the "music video aesthetic" (2007 :213). the new and explosively popular postmodern genre of the music video, comprised of "multiple layers of media and ... authorship;' may even have led consumers to qualitatively new modes of collective listening (dell' antonio 2004:201). the same moment also saw the widespread rise of thatcherand reagan-era political, cultural, and economic conservatism, which was felt quite strongly in the music industry by record companies that were increas­ ingly identified as "subdepartments of huge transnational corporations" (starr and waterman 2007:384). these new industry demands required progressive rock bands to adapt if they were to continue to enjoy the benefits of active promotion from their labels and to command a large audience. while stylistic experimentation and change were important parts of the progressive rock aesthetic, pressures from corporations to develop slick 31 32 current musicology products were antagonistic to these bands' expectations of artistic freedom and their tendency toward nonstandard musical constructions. at the same time, fans' expectations of music that sounded and felt like the bands' earlier, defining releases would not rest easily with either imperative. what was at stake was nothing less than a supposed loss of "progres­ sive rock authenticity." the change toward a commercial sound did indeed lead to continuing platinum album sales and, in the case of yes's "owner of a lonely heart;' discussed below, the band's only number-one single on the billboard chart. but with these changes came a perception that these bands had turned their backs on the musical style that made them notable in the first place. timothy warner, for example, has recently asserted that "owner of a lonely heart" is a "radical departure" (2003:73) and "contrary to the typical work of the band;' and its chart success is "inappropriate to the group's musical aspirations" (2003:64); the song is best understood as part of a "trivial" and "ephemeral" pop music rubric as compared to a "seri­ ous" and "lasting" category of rock music (2003:4). critics and scholars of progressive rock, who tend to be faithful not to the musicians but to their perceptions of a particular musical style, instead focus on the "underground" bands who continued to cultivate the traditional sound of progressive rock in the 1980s and beyond. but to call these bands "neo-progressive" (covach 1997:6) and "post-progressive" (macan 1997:197-219), as they do, signifies that for them the mainstream of progressive rock had indeed succumbed to a three-stage "organic" narrative. instead, i argue that while many progressive rock bands' music did indeed change in the early 1980s, to focus on those changes exclusively ignores the significant connections to the bands' earlier music that remain and overlooks the ways "old" and "new" interact. in the newer music, overt electronic manipulations of sound and more conventional musical forms are often cleverly paired with sophisticated musical devices familiar from these bands' "classic" releases. paradoxically, the very sonic signifiers that progressive rock bands employed to conform with the demands of main­ stream popular music can also be seen as signifiers of progressive stylistic development that follows a familiar narrative from the world of classical music. the reception of progressive rock in the 1980s intersects in provocative ways with the discourse around the notion of "late style" more generally, especially that centered on beethoven. indeed, though recent approaches problematize the very idea of "late style;' such a designation and its complex constellation of meanings remain widespread (painter 2006:5). "middle period" beethoven is usually interpreted as exhibiting "a reconciliation of opposites, a grand synthesis, at the end, ... and with it an idea of a better world" (said 2006: 13). similarly, in macan's view of "classic" progressive rock, john j. sheinbaum a "major concern of the genre ... [was a] symbolic playing out of many of the conflicts that were of great significance to the hippies ... [in a way that] integrated into a larger whole" (1997:43-44).5 the conventional sense of beethoven's "lateness;' in contrast, concerns "the weight ... of originality, his expanded rhetorical vocabulary, his formulation of unprecedented ways of representing states of being that flourish beyond the boundaries of ordinary experience, and his transformations of classical structural models, preparing the way for their eventual dissolution" (solomon 2003:2). such a description does not sit easily with the view of progressive rockers selling out their ideals for the commercial success of a simpler and more conventional pop-based approach. but theodor w. adorno's approach to "late style;' perhaps surprisingly, may resonate with the changes in progres­ sive rock in question here. he argues that just as characteristic of "late" music is the pronounced presence of "conventional formulae ... in unconcealed, untransformed bareness," and that this represents "a peculiarity which is studiously ignored by ... the accepted view of the late style" (1998: 124). as would be expected from adorno, his conception of "late style" focuses on potentially irreconcilable poles in the music itself, as well as the notion that such a negative dialectic signifies the "concrete historical reality" of a broken modern society "bypassing ... individual freedom" (subotnik 1991:17). from this perspective, progressive rock's changes around 1980, rather than only constituting an abandonment of countercultural and related musical concerns, also represented a continuing process, essential to the authentic artistic endeavor, of interacting critically with the changing culture and the music industry that functions within it. the palpable sense of progressive rock abandoning its earlier ideals and audience resonates with a further aspect of adorno's late beethoven; as edward w. said paraphrases, the late style is "a moment when the artist who is fully in command of his medium nevertheless abandons communica­ tion with the established social order of which he is a part and achieves a contradictory, alienated relationship with it. his late works constitute a form of exile" (2006:8). these echoes are complex and contradictory at best; the notion that beethovenian "late style is in, but oddly apart from the present" (said 2006:24) is in clear distinction to the ways post-1980 progressive rock constructed its sense of "late style" through connections to the musical trends of its present. and moving toward the commercial tendencies of that present stands in direct opposition to adorno's desire for a music that fundamentally resists mass culture. along these lines, i would like to discuss in some detail two songs that announced such changes in the early 1980s: yes's "owner of a lonely heart," from their 1983 album 90125, and rush's "subdivisions;' from their 1982 album signals. these songs are largely representative of the stylistic 33 34 current musicology changes-and the notion of style change in general-widely perceived in the music of many progressive rock bands in the early to mid-1980s.6 both "owner" and "subdivisions" were commercially successful (and were the first "concept videos" produced by these bands for airplay on mtv), and both were flash points around the notion of a lost progressive rock authenticity. yet both songs show essential dialectics between the "simple" and the "complex," and hence between the sense of a new period and the sense of continuity with earlier albums and styles. as webster states with regard to perceptions of period change in beethoven, "the prevailing image" centers around "reception history," while "the picture that emerges from ... compositional history is quite different" (1994:3-4). a new identity for yes in 1983 was practically a foregone conclusion. the group had officially dissolved after their 1980 album drama-the only yes album without lead singer jon anderson-and when the musicians assembled for these sessions, the group planned a release under a different name entirely. even for a band long known for frequent personnel changes, the yes lineup for 90125 was notable. rick wakeman and steve howe, the keyboardist and guitarist who played a large part in defining the "classic yes" sound, were both gone, replaced by tony kaye, the original keyboardist, who returned to the band after more than a decade away, and trevor rabin, a south african guitarist with virtuoso chops but a more pop-based sensibil­ ity. the only points of stability were in the rhythm section: co-founder and bassist chris squire and drummer alan white, who had been with the band for the better part of a decade. more than anything else, it was anderson's return midway through the recording process that signaled that this band could-perhaps should-be called yes. with 90125, yes turned away from the nature imagery, musical virtuosity, and complex song structures most fans associated with the band and with progressive rock in general. this announcement of the new began before a single sound was heard. roger dean's fantasy-nature landscape cover art, which visually marked most of their 1970s releases, was replaced with a stark computer-generated image. dean's painting "green towers" was the cover of the 1981 greatest-hits collection classic yes, which was released in the wake of the group's at-the-time breakup, and the collection's title itself does much to construct the sense of a period ending (figure 1). "green towers" is representative of the imagery fans had come to expect from the band's album covers. under dean's rounded, liquid lowercase "yes" logo in a deep blue sky with fading light in the far background, serene water stretches from the middleground to the foreground, broken only by grass, trees, hills, and rocks. out of this landscape, aqua and green towers that look like enormous stalagmites lit brightly from below rise high into the sky. fans' reactions to these images demonstrate the perceived connections between john j. sheinbaum figure 1: cover of classic yes (1981), © 1982 roger dean www.rogerdean.com. reprinted with permission. the band's music, the depth and wonderment of a romanticized natural world, and fantastical but warm elements not of that world. for example, on the website rogerdean.com, one representative comment alongside this painting by a viewer posting under the name of a greek saint, "spyridon," reads as follows: "the covers of roger on the yes albums become one with the music of the band, taking me to all those other worlds that roger, yes, and many other people have been. roger's paintings [have] made our eyes see places that 'exist' since the dawn of mankind, which we have only felt in our hearts."7 the cover of 90125 presented a bold contrast. 8 the title itself announced the recording as a commercial product, since "90125" is the album's number in the atlantic records catalog and therefore is part of the universal price code (upc) printed on the back. the background is a monochromatic 35 36 current musicology gray, and while "yes" appears in roughly the same position as it does on classic yes, here the logo is set in plain white capital letters in a nondescript sans-serif font. the center of the cover contains an abstract image of a disc split at sharp angles into synthetic shades of the three primary colors, which are partially encircled by a dark gray border punctuated by thin white lines, open only at the top. the border extends downward at the bottom, and this creates an overall shape that could be seen as a letter "y." if most earlier yes albums credited a single artist with a cover painting, this album's artwork is a technological creation "produced" by the graphic designer garry mouat, as the liner notes state: "cover image produced on robograph 1000 system utilizing apple lie 64k ram micro-computer and bitstik controller. plotted same size on hp7580b line plotter at 10 cm/sec courtesy robocom ltd. london:' 90125-especially the hit single "owner of a lonely heart" -was heard as different and more commercial than yes's earlier music, and reception focused on the album's uses of technology and its decidedly simpler textures, harmonic progressions, and song structures. j. d. considine's review in rolling stone is a case in point: "owner of a lonely heart" does not sound like the yes of old. with its supple, understated dance beat ... and noticeable lack of pseudo-classical overkill, it seems too hip, too street-smart for a band whose idea of a pop song was once something as rococo as "round about" ... the result is a sound that relies on production and arranging tricks instead of instrumen­ tal flash ... and most of the album is surprisingly spritely and poppish. electronics, especially the new generation of synthesizers, are heavily used ... [the] emphasis on melodic appeal over instrumental prowess may alienate some of yes' longtime fans, but if it continues to result in records as listenable as this one, then this may turn out to be one reunion that tops the original. (1984) a close reading of the song suggests productive tensions between "simple pop" and "complex progressive rock." as example 1 shows, the overall structure is indeed quite conventional for a pop song and quite far from the multisectional extended forms of many of the group's songs from the 1970s. after an introduction that presents the main riff, there is a verse-pius-chorus structure that is repeated, a contrasting bridge section in the parallel major that leads to a guitar solo over the riff, two more choruses, and another bridge section that leads to a fadeout. more to the point is that this song is not formally "simple" so much as it seems to be constructed to highlight its presentation of pop-song simplicity. instead of contrasting verse and chorus sections, the norm in rock songs (covach 2005:72)-especially in multisectional progressive rock structures that utilize a repeated chorusjohn j. sheinbaum example 1: yes, "owner of a lonely heart" (1983), overall structure. (0:00-0:24) introduction (0:25-0:55) verse 1 (0:55-1:12) chorus 1 0:13-1:43) verse 2 0:43-1:56) chorus 2 0:57-2:31) bridge (2:31-3: 17) guitar solo and "retransition" (3:18-3:32) chorus 3 (3:33-3:46) chorus 4 (3:46-4:27) bridge 2 to fade this song uses the same chord progression in both, a particularly simple song form that, coming from a progressive rock band, seems to highlight how repetitive a conventional song may be. 9 in the introduction and the second verse the progression sounds in a distorted electric guitar; during the first verse and the guitar solo it is set in a thinner texture where the riff is easily heard in the bass guitar; and during the chorus sections the bass guitar is often joined by an arpeggiating "clean" guitar sound. but these texture changes, which communicate the section-to-section structure of the song, never conceal the main idea, which is almost always present at its original pitch and rhythm. meanwhile, the riff's progression of power chords is equally clever in its simplicity. counting one eighth note for each letter and slash, the riff does little more than move stepwise up the alphabet: a / / b c / d d, occasionally adding a turnaround g g that brings the riff back to the beginning. this simple riff is not painstakingly crafted nor is it the result of creative inspiration; rather, it is a self-consciously "pop" progression. yes may evoke some of their signature complexity in the texture and phrase rhythms of this song (discussed below), but they have largely traded it for a qualitatively different sort of complexity, a witty play on the "simple" and the "commercial" in rock, and an ironic genre-based complexity somewhat distinct from the formal complexities of the band's "classic" output. and yet, in tension with this pointedly simpler style are a number of intricacies not unlike those in yes's earlier music (see example 2). for instance, the song's phrase rhythm is unconventional. the riff's two-bar phrases in the introduction are grouped into six-measure units, not the standard units of four or eight bars. after opening with a one-measure pickup in the drums, the electric guitar presents the riff three times alone, and then, as the rest of the band enters in support, the riff is sounded three more times before the entrance of jon anderson's vocals and the first verse. the pattern of six-bar phrases in the introduction results in a mildly ironic 37 38 current musicology example 2: yes, "owner of a lonely heart" (1983), phrase rhythm examples (all within ~ meter). introduction no.ofmm.: 1 i 6 6 texture: drum pick-up i guitar riff i riff + rhythm section choruses 1: 9 mm. (8 + 1; or 7 elided with 2-mm. hold) 2: 7 mm. (elision with bridge 1) 3: 8 mm. ("model") 4: 7 mill. (elision with bridge 2) bridges 1: no. of mm.: 6 i 4 +4 event: parallel major i lead vocal 2: no. of mm.: 6 i 4 + 2 event: parallel major i lead vocal 4 i lead-in to solo i 8 i key change to fade situation where the conventional 8 + 8 phrase rhythm of the verses can sound out of the ordinary. meanwhile, the chorus sections are based on an eight -measure model, but this "normal" version of the chorus appears intact only once, on the section's third presentation (out of four). the ends of the other choruses are elided with other material: the first chorus by a two-bar held sonority (making for a nine-measure first chorus), and the second and fourth choruses after seven measures by the bridge section. the two bridge sections themselves, which are announced by bright a major brass-like sounds in the synthesizer, also exhibit complex phrase rhythms. the first bridge contains phrases of 6 + 4 + 4 measures plus a four-bar transition to the guitar solo; the second comprises a 6 + 4 + 2 structure plus an eight-bar fadeout at the end of the song. most provocatively, while "owner of a lonely heart" is both in a pop­ song format and about the conventions of the pop song, from the beginning the sound and structure threaten to open up beyond those conventions. while the first occurrence of the riff shows off the distorted electric guitar's power by sustaining the concluding d chord with no loss of volume over an entire measure where nothing else happens,1o the same held sonority after the second occurrence of the riff is overshadowed by an intrusive, heavily processed drum break and a downward slide of the bass guitar on the last beat. after the rest of the group enters for the second half of the introducjohn j. sheinbaum tion, yes demonstrates how a well-amplified synthesizer can interrupt even a full rock band: after the second occurrence of the riff in this subsection the texture is dominated by a screaming timbre followed by a lower, fast-paced slithery figure. the first verse and chorus operate on more of an even keel, but during the second verse, while the lyrics describe a "dancing eagle in the sky" and tell the listener to "give your free will a chance," the seemingly straight­ forward section-sixteen bars long with the too-simple chord progression throughout-is continuously disrupted by further timbral intrusions. these include synthesized trumpet screams, jangling sounds, sustained keyboard atmospheric effects, unpitched sounds of wind and motion, and acoustic guitar. ll the sonic interruptions even become structural: between the first bridge section and the guitar solo is a four-bar subsection consisting of nothing but such intrusions-all synthesized screams and drum breaks with heavy effects processing. this concludes with a final measure that adds disturbances of pitch and rhythm to the timbral and structural ones, as the screams and drums effect a chromatic rise in quarter-note triplets, a figure heard for the only time in the entire song. the tension is finally released on the next downbeat, as the triplet figure leads to one last scream on a to announce the entrance of the guitar solo. if the song continually defies its tightly wound structure and seems unable to fully contain itself, the final move breaks free. in the middle of the second bridge section the song leaps from the a tonal center, which has defined the entire structure up to this point, and the lyric "don't deceive your free will at all-just receive it" is set in the distant flat-vi area of f. in the world of romantic music the flat submediant is a common "other" tonal area, and within this song f provides a strong contrast, as every other diatonic pitch of a minor is either part of the main riff (which uses the collection g-a-b-c-d) or is an important note in the melody (the remaining pitch­ class e ends half of the verse's twelve sub phrases, and ebegins each subphrase of the chorus). in a "prog lite" song like styx's "come sail away" (1977), the flat-vi area notably is also a structural surprise, set with electronic minimalist textures that wouldn't be out of place in a terry riley composition, but ulti­ mately the move is little more than a momentary interruption, an interlude between electric guitar riffs reminiscent of the british band the who and sing-along choruses in the main tonal area (holm-hudson 2005:386-88). in contrast, the new tonal area in yes's supposedly pop-oriented "owner of a lonely heart" is used in an almost radical way: the music never returns to its tonic, and the "sublime" flat-vi is the final destination, from which the song fades out with no contained conclusion. 12 in contrast to the ever-fluid lineup of yes, the canadian group rush has consisted of the same three members since the mid-1970s; the only person39 40 current musicology nel change occurred between their first and second albums. yet over their career rush has been very concerned with periodic musical change, which has happened at a steady pace every four studio albums. after their fourth album the group released a live album, titled all the world's a stage (1976b), and the liner notes state "this album to us signifies the end of the beginning, a milestone to mark the close of chapter one, in the annals of rush:' this pattern of four studio albums and capstone live recording was followed for their first sixteen studio albums. 13 their steady output stands in contrast to the fact that, overall, they operate in a bit of a stylistic no man's land. durrell s. bowman suggests a label of "progressive hard rock" (2002: 189-91) for rush, a moniker that crosses at least two genres. and indeed, given the conventional desire for "purely authentic" examples of a given style, rush is excluded from macan's discography of progressive rock, and in robert walser's study of heavy metal, a subgenre of the hard rock category, it seems that rush "fails the standards of most metal fans" (1993:7). perhaps the most palpable stylistic change for rush occurred on signals (1982), their ninth studio album. like yes's 90125, rush's new album used a simpler style and up-to-date technology. drummer and lyricist neil peart has said that "we were determined to get a different sound from the ground up:' and that extended to details like where the instruments were placed in the room and what brand of tape was used for the recording (banasiewicz 1988, chapters 10 and 11). song titles such as "the analog kid" and "digital man" highlight the self-conscious linking of technology with periodization and particularly with notions of musical maturity. for the heavier sound of rush, and in contrast to "pure" progressive rock, the overt use of syn­ thesizers as a lead instrument was a clear sign of a new period for the band. previously, as on their earlier hit "tom sawyer" (1981), if synthesizers were used at all, they were largely employed for sound effects and atmosphere. in bowman's opinion, rush's "later music" continues the band's identity, but only in "substantially moderated treatments" within "various shorter songs" (2002:213-14). it is notable that the band members themselves placed a premium on not abandoning their own sense of "authenticity" amidst their increased use of music technology. peart writes: in the '80s, we again discussed bringing in a fourth member, a keyboard player, at least for live shows. but we were ... proud of what we could do with just the three of us. so we decided to carryon ourselves ... we used whatever we needed-keyboard samples, background vocal effects, string parts, whatever. the line we drew was that they were all samples of us, and every note, every "event," had to be triggered manually (or pedally, as the case might be) by one of us. (2006:75-76) john j. sheinbaum j. d. considine also reviewed this album for rolling stone, and he drives home points about both technology and pop simplicity: although signals is chockablock with state-of-the-studio gadgetry, ranging from the requisite banks of synthesizers to the latest in digital recording and mixing, none of these electronic add-ons enhances the group's music. if anything, rush emerges from this jungle of wires and gizmos sounding duller than ever ... ironically, rush falls into this technological morass on an album that is otherwise their most poppish yet. by and large, the songs on signals are tuneful and unencumbered by the sort of gratuitous flash that made previous albums seem like clearinghouses for worn-out art-rock licks. (1982) like "owner of a lonely heart;' rush's "subdivisions;' the opening song and one of the singles from signals, thematizes tensions between the older "classic" sound of the band, represented by the "complex;' and the new period, which focuses on the "everyday." synthesizers, a staple of early 1980s pop, are used as the lead instrument for almost the entire song, grounding it in the sounds of the here-and-now. the lyrics, about the difficulties oflife within a conventional suburban subdivision, further place the song in the routine lives of rush's main fan base of white, suburban, male teenagers, in strong opposition to the sci-fi and mythological fantasy worlds of previous albums. 14 in effect, the band shifted from the landscapes of the dreamy teenage imagination to the humdrum but harsher ones of suburban reality. the solo sections of the song also exemplify the sense of routine. they are composed and not improvised, which is not uncommon for rush, but it is notable that the synthesizer solo appears twice, in virtually identical fashion; this does not occur on any other track by the band before or after this album. further, and also anomalous for rush, each four-bar phrase in that solo melody largely repeats the material in the other phrases. and much of the song is based around a flat-vi-flat-vii-i chord progression in b minor, a rock chord progression so common it borders on the mundane. but rush's signature and longstanding use of difficult time signatures and mixing meters also comes to the fore in this song. (example 3 shows the metrical structure for the introduction and first verse.) at some points, as during the opening phrases of the introduction, a time signature like ~ (with eighth notes grouped in a 2 + 2 + 3 pattern) is placed within conven­ tional four-bar units. at other points, as during the verse, conventional: bars are placed within complex threeand six-measure groups. these sec­ tions, from subphrase to subphrase, move quite freely from complex meters to simple ones and back again, and from simple to complex phrase structures and back again. there are even, at times, metrical changes from one iteration of a section to the next, which brings the moment-to-moment metrical play 41 42 current musicology example 3: rush, "subdivisions" (1982), phrase rhythm, introduction and verse 1. introduction (0:00-0:51) [meter x mm.]: [~x 4] event: synth verse 1 (0:51-1:40) [~x 2] band [~x 2] band [~x 4 x 4] [~x 4 x 6 x 4 x 4] whole band [~x2] [~x6] [~x3] lead vocal [~x 2] [~x 6] [~x 6] lead vocal to bear on larger structural levels, and perhaps uses the "subdivisions" title as a pun for the musical activity in the song as well as for the song's setting in a conventional suburban neighborhood. for example, while the first verse uses a grouping of six measures in ~ time, the equivalent spot in the second verse alternates between ~ and 2 for those six bars; the total number of eighth notes is the same, but the metrical structure has a different feel. the chorus shows a great confluence of this metrical play. the governing meter is 2, which organizes the vocals, bass, and guitar, and the metrical structure (as can be seen in example 4) partakes of two-, four-, and six-bar groupings. peart's drumming, meanwhile, creates a pattern of cross rhythms by simul­ taneously using a duple-meter pattern reminiscent of a conventional ~ rock beat; this is most audible in the snare drum hits every other beat. and if the drum part is considered structural, then the section would use even more surprising groupings of 1.5, 3, and 4.5 bars. the overall effect is a feeling of constant restlessness. there is a strong connection to progressive rock, especially rush's hard-rock version of the style. thick block chords, virtuosic drumming, and edge-of-your-seat metri­ cal play are used to set lyrics concerned with and skeptical of the possibility of individual agency, similar to their earlier space epic"2112" (1976a).15 but these musical choices are also an effective means of constructing a sound world for this specific song and its turn toward the everyday. unlike the optimistic breaking free in yes's "owner of a lonely heart:' the bridge of "subdivisions" posits that "any escape might help to smooth / the unat­ tractive truth / but the suburbs have no charms to soothe / the restless dreams of youth." the unending pushing and pulling between and within time signatures evokes the imaginary protagonist's struggle, a struggle with which the core of rush's fans could have easily identified. the use of the synthesizer as the lead instrument for the first time in rush's music, as opposed to its occasional earlier use for interplanetary sound effects or john j. sheinbaum example 4: rush, "subdivisions" (1982), phrase rhythm, chorus 1. chorus i (1:40-2:04) mm. of2 meter (vocal, bass, guitar): 4 6 + 6 + 2 event: band lead vocal mm. of~ meter (drums): 3 4.5 + 4.5 + 1.5 event: band lead vocal momentary melody, dramatizes the trope of synthetic life in mtv-watching suburbia at the end of the twentieth century. the paradox lies in the fact that, while rush was using this timbre-based style change to connect with fans' day-to-day existence, such a change may have marked this song as a less authentic version of rush and may have served instead to alienate segments of that very same core audience. in popular music, "authenticity" may be the "most loaded value term;' as allan f. moore puts it (2001:199), and often has no single meaning. lawrence grossberg, for example, has tied constructions of authenticity to phenomena as widespread as the utterances of a particular subculture, the sexuality of a dancing body, and even postmodernism's reflexive inauthenticity (1993). moore notes that at times the term can be used for a perception of "intimacy" and "immediacy" between performer and listener; at other times to capture a sense of an artist's "responsibility" to his or her art, audience, background, or self; and at others as a judgment of "integrity" bestowed on performers who seem to lack artifice and pretension (2001:199). in general, a label of "authenticity" is simply a shorthand, or code, used to communicate a posi­ tive value judgment. moore suggests a useful framework for organizing the multifarious uses of the term: a "first-person authenticity, or authenticity of expression;' where a performer communicates his or her "real emotion" with an audience in a seemingly unmediated way; a "third-person authenticity, or authenticity of execution;' where, as in british blues, performers may appropriate the discourse of authenticity surrounding a preexisting style; and a "second-person authenticity, or authenticity of experience;' where a performer "validates" and "represents" listeners' life experiences and cultural situations (2001:200-1,2002). in the case of progressive rock, the hallmarks of the genre often contrast what counts as "authentic" in other pop and rock styles. invitations to bodily movement and sexuality and expressions of everyday experiences are not key elements of the genre's musical style. the expectation of grandiose musical journeys surely does not lend itself to any parallel expectation of intimacy and immediacy. peart writes that in the mid-1970s rush was 43 44 current musicology "urged to be 'more commercial'" and to "write some 'singles,'" and when the band responded with the "contrarian;' "ambitious;' and "weird" album 2112 (1976a), which featured a "side-long piece about a futuristic dystopia;' their sales quadrupled (2006: 17). indeed, from the musicians' point of view, progressive rock's "authenticity" seems directly related to perhaps another sort of authenticity, a "musicianly authenticity" where the performers' job is to create challenging music whether or not it results in a sense of direct communication with most listeners. for peart, there are talented performers who are capable of making really good music, but waste their abilities by contemptuously "dumbing down" their work for a mass audience. when i hear that kind of market-driven music, produced and sold as a mere commodity, like any other, by those who could do better, i feel it in my skin, like a physical revulsion. to a discern­ ing listener, such music is tainted by a fundamental dishonesty, a shallow aspiration for fame and riches-at any cost. (2006:90) and perhaps befitting many fans' and critics' emphasis on connections to classical music in their reception of progressive rock, "authenticity" in pro­ gressive rock may also partake of the term's application to classical music, as in the discourse surrounding "historically informed" performances of music from previous centuries on "period instruments" that attempt to follow the "original intentions" of the composer (beard and gloag 2005:17-18). thus the most lauded progressive rock concert experiences are often those by the original recording artists painstakingly reproducing the sounds of decades-old recordings. the very idea of a "progressive rock authenticity" is ironic in itself, given that, historically speaking, most rock critics have been highly antagonistic toward progressive rock as a most inauthentic sort of rock music. in the late 1960s and 1970s, critics conventionally argued that "good" rock was music that would move people to work against the establishment and to effect social change. thus progressive rock-a style that, in its indebtedness to classi­ cal music, was not obviously anti-establishment and was not "pure" rock musically, either-was considered a highly problematic genre (sheinbaum 2002).16 the specter of race clearly raises its head as well: many influential critics of the time assumed as axiomatic an "idealization of the blues and of things 'black'" (moore 2001:66) and an "implicitly anti-european ... anti-high culture stance" (macan 1997:172). though such a perspective stemmed from a politically progressive point of view that championed disadvantaged groups, viewpoints like these also treaded "dangerously" close to implying that "black" music was more authentically "natural" and closer to true "feeling" because people of african descent possessed a lower degree of civilization and "thinking" (moore 2001:75; macan 1997:171-73). john j. sheinbaum the best concise statement i know of this sort of value judgment comes from the infamous rock critic lester bangs, who considered progressive rock as representing "the insidious befoulment of all that was gutter pure in rock" ([1974] 2002:50). no wonder that while fans of the genre think of the 1970s as the style's high point, some critics see 1970s progressive rock as the "decline" phase of rock itself in a very different "organic" narrative (rockwell 1976:322)y even within the progressive rock subculture, a calcified sense of what counts as "authentic" progressive style has left some bands, and certain long periods of artistic output, for dead. this may come into relief not from focusing exclusively on constructions of "authenticity;' which "all are applied from the outside" (moore 2001:199), but instead from exploring a potentially fundamental tension between the creators and receivers of popular music. a given genre may stem from a "constellation of styles" but takes on a powerful sense of singular identity because it becomes socially based in a network that is connected to a "sense of tradition" (holt 2007:18). as listeners become dedicated to artists or styles, they can become wedded to particular constructions of what constitutes the "authentic." and such a strong identification with what is considered traditional for the artist or style can result in listeners expecting future iterations to conform to a stereotype. as mark mazullo puts it, "popular artists are subject not only to the whims of the market but also to the demands of their fans in terms of what music they make and what messages such music relays" (1999:21). but the artists themselves may have a very different orientation; they, rather, are likely to be "dedicated to expanding the possibilities of their work, demanding of their music the defiantly 'anti-authentic' qualities of versatility, change, indeed aesthetic 'progression'" (mazullo 1999:179). thus johan fornas, contemplating the "future of rock," argues against traditional dialectics of "authentic rock" versus "commercial pop," and rather for "pop/rock as one single, continuous genre field rather than as distinct categories," a field that "contains a wide and open range of subgenres, moving within certain similar economical and social frames and circuits" (1995:112). instead of assuming that a given style can be defined in a satisfying, tangible way, it may be more useful to focus on the notion of persona, on the subtle and fluid ways bands and their audiences communicate with each other to construct a mutually agreed upon image and musical identity. in all likelihood the original audiences for progressive rock shared age, class, and british cultural backgrounds with the musicians themselves, as well as a physical proximity in the intimate club settings in which most of the bands got their start. and as the genre became popular through the 1970s and attracted arena-size audiences in the us, largely white and male american fans were drawn to the virtuosity and visual spectacle and perhaps to an 45 46 current musicology "implicit british nationalism" (macan 1997:151-58). though it may be a full generation "too late to do a statistically accurate demographic study of progressive rock fans" (macan 1997:151), "fanzines" of the last two decades provide important audience perspectives. chris atton argues that these publications arose at such a temporal remove from the genre's original popularity not only because of flourishing internet culture in the 1990s, but also because mainstream popular music publications such as melody maker previously did the job of providing "a link between fan and musician" (2001:29-31). on the evidence of fanzines, fans are less interested in the particulars of progressive rock's connections to classical music than in valu­ ing progressive rock as an "authentic ... type of ' real' rock music. it may be musically sophisticated and technically difficult to play, but these are factors that give it viscerality, not cerebrality, the argument runs" (2001:35-36). at the same time, devoted listeners are indeed attracted to complexities in the music, especially within the parameter of meter, and the ability to recognize such details becomes "a signifier of the progressive rock fan" (2001:34). for the progressive rock genre around 1980, we may have an example where musicians miscalculated this exchange. songs like "owner" and "subdivisions" are the very first tracks on albums meant to be heard as new territory, and as such are self-conscious manifestos of period-based differences. the irony is that while progressive rockers attempted to develop a classical-like reception around themselves in this way, periodizations are anything but neutral chronologies of musical changes, and often can have unintended consequences on reception. their efforts to transform-as an important part of a "progressive authenticity" -were instead read as a move away from, rather than a change within, fans' understanding of the style. a preliminary quantitative analysis of progressive rock fanzines, for example, shows that from fans' points of view a "classical period is clearly distinguishable from the subsequent neo-prog era" (ahlkvist 2006:2), with the early 1970s british releases treated not only as canonical, but paradig­ matic for evaluations of later releases. fan reviews show that "complexity" and "thematic unity" are taken as the chief signs of musical quality (ahlkvist 2006:23), while "unadventurous and predictable" features are reasons to "pan" a release (2006: 17). meanwhile, scholars of progressive rock-whose academic training may result in different perspectives from the conventional fan but whose training nonetheless may draw them to progressive rock in the first place (robison 2002:233 )-can surely also be counted as a certain stripe of fan, and their comments about a perceived post-1980 period are equally telling. for macan, the major musicians' output of this time signals the "wreckage" of the classic bands, the result a "commercial rock" with "musical creativity ... no longer apparent"; such "bland, pop-radio john j. sheinbaum friendly" music "signaled" the end of "the dream" (1997: 189). though there is "of course nothing wrong with the new digital sounds per se, ... the elimination ... [of the genre's] distinctive tone colors ... destroy[ed] the soul of progressive rock" (1997:193). as atton characterizes the resulting paradox, "much of progressive rock fandom is not interested in music that 'progresses' at all" (2001:43). the problem lies not in progressive rock per se, but in the fact that both the detractors and the defenders of progressive rock assume that there is such a thing as an authentic stylistic purity in the first place. one would never confuse 1970s progressive rock with classical music; the style evokes both "highbrow" and "lowbrow" music, and plays on the tensions between them (sheinbaum 2002:30-39). even suggesting that progressive rock itself exhibits a unified "style" is obviously problematic, given the diversity of individual bands' sounds and the diversity across bands commonly grouped under the "prog" umbrella. similarly, focusing solely on the "commercial" features of the major bands' changes around 1980 masks the extent to which there are also important continuities with the bands' previous music and with "classic" progressive rock in general. these bands were not simply abandoning the tenets of progressive rock; in a complex way they were attempting to continue and develop its ideals by constructing what can be read as a classical-like periodization. as is the case within classical music, such a structure both can help make sense of complex multidimensional phenomena and can result in ideologically based receptions of those phe­ nomena. such transformations were no mere dissolution of the genre, but instead represented a deliberate new phase of the progressive rock persona within the changing bounds of popular culture. notes an earlier version of this essay was presented at the annual meeting of the rocky mountain chapter of the college music society, denver, 2005. i thank jay keister, becky sheinbaum, and the readers and editors of the journal for their thoughtful comments. 1. a provocative point, to be explored in a future study, is that in the realm of classical music the most common periodization narratives are the "organic" or "teleological" type, which valorize later music, lean on tropes of maturity, and marginalize so-called "early" music; while in popular styles, where an artist's "authenticity" is often prized, it is precisely the early albums that are often considered the best. 2. what may happen to the "organic" narrative of progressive rock if the style currently en­ joys a resurgence, as recently suggested by pareles (2005), and therefore a full fourth stage, is an open question. 3. akitsugu kawamoto (2005) has recently argued, though, that in some cases even 1970s progressive rock can be thought of as representing a bloomian "misreading" of prog ideals that allowed the style to change in ways that could lead to higher sales. it should be said, 47 48 current musicology though, that kawamoto's model still involves conscious periodizations of progressive rock history and still suggests increasing movement toward commercialization. 4. and indeed, when writing recently about the late 1970s, covach (2003) leaves progressive rock altogether to concentrate on "new wave" bands like the cars. 5. though this is not the only way to interpret diverse stylistic strands within 1970s progres­ sive rock; compare sheinbaum (2002, especially 30-39). 6. other hit singles in a similar orbit include genesis's "abacab," the opening and title track from the band's 1981 studio album; "heat of the moment" (1982), the opening track from the self-titled debut album asia by a "supergroup" made up of alumni from yes, king crimson, and elp; and "touch and go" (1986) from the only 1980s studio album with the "elp" label. (elp's lineup for this album included cozy powell, who filled in for carl palmer's "p" on drums.) 7. this page can be found at http://www.rogerdean.com/upclose/greentowers.htm (accessed march 19,2008). 8. for more discussion of the contrast between the 90125 visuals and those on many of yes's earlier albums, see warner (2003:64-65). 9. covach draws a clear distinction between "contrasting verse-chorus form;' for which he provides three examples and asserts that "a large number of other songs" use such an organizing principle, and "simple verse-chorus form;' where "the harmonic scheme offers no contrast between these sections," and for which the only songs mentioned were released in the 1950s and early 1960s (2005:72-73). 10. for a convincing description of the masculinizing power often accorded to the distorted electric guitar in terms of its perceived volume, addition of frequencies above and below the struck pitches, and electronically enhanced sustain, see walser (1993:41-44). 11. even a full quarter-century later, these invasive sounds remain one of the most notable elements of the song. for example, on a recent episode of the animated television series the simpsons, titled "the debarted" (originally broadcast march 2, 2008), the character homer simpson is allowed to drive a dealer-owned vehicle while his own is being repaired. while cruising through town he sings a few bars of "driver of a loaner car" ("driver of a loaner car / much better than a / driver of my normal car"), and for the few seconds this gag appears onscreen the character vocalizes an extended approximation of these sonic disturbances. 12. while warner is right that it is "not particularly rare in popular music" for a song to modulate to and end in a new key area (2003:68), most often that move is in an upward direction to create a sense of intensity upon (yet another) repetition of the chorus, and such a structure, which is within the stylistic norms of popular music, does not create any important tonal conflict. warner cleverly suggests that tonal resolution of concluding modulations is indeed achieved, but only, as appropriate to a hit single, when the track is played again. i would instead argue that to some extent yes creates a quite different effect that highlights the tonal breaking away: this move is down a major third, to the distant area of f, and the very next track on the album, "hold on," stays there, with f as its home tonic. 13. this long-standing pattern was recently broken. rush's 2002 studio album of original materia\' vapor trails, their seventeenth, was followed by the live album rush in rio (2003). the timing of these releases, though, has much to do with personal events in the members' lives and less to do with "musical development" per se (peart 2002). 14. peart writes, "for reasons i have never understood, our audience has always been pre­ dominantly male, 90 percent or more" (2006:100). john j. sheinbaum 15. bowman (2002) argues that this theme in the lyrics is an essential part of rush's style at the height of their "progressive" albums in the mid to late 1970s. 16. in holm-hudson's study of the styx hit "come sail away;' this reasoning is taken a step further, as he suggests that "prog lite" is "doubly lacking;' "an imitation of an imitation" (2005:380). 17. this conventional point of view is problematized in keister and smith (2004). references adorno, theodor w. 1998. beethoven: the philosophy of music-fragments and texts, edited by rolf tiedemann, translated by edmund jephcott. stanford, ca: stanford university press. ahlkvist, jarl a. 2006. re-inventing the "progressive" paradigm: appreciating progressive rock from the classical and neo-progressive eras. unpublished paper. atton, chris. 200l. "living in the past"? value discourses in progressive rock fanzines. popular music 20 (1): 29-46. banasiewicz, bill. 1988. rush visions: the official biography. london and new york: omnibus press. bangs, lester. [1974 j 2002. blood feast of reddy kilowatt! emerson, lake, and palmer without insulation! in mainlines, blood feasts, and bad taste: a lester bangs reader, edited by john morthland, 47-55. new york: anchor books. beard, david, and kenneth gloag. 2005. musicology: the key concepts. london and new york: routledge. bowman, durrell. 2002. "let them all make their own music": individualism, rush, and the progressive/hard rock alloy, 1976-1977. in progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm-hudson, 183-218. london and new york: routledge. cateforis, theo, ed. 2007. the rock history reader. london and new york: routledge. considine, j. d. 1982. review of signals by rush. rolling stone 381 (october 28). ---.1984. review of 90125 by yes. rolling stone 413 (january 19). covach, john. 1997. progressive rock, "close to the edge;' and the boundaries of style. in understanding rock: essays in musical analysis, edited by john covach and graeme m. boone, 3-3l. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ---.2003. pangs of history in late 1970s new-wave rock. in analyzing popular music, edited by allan f. moore, 173-95. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---. 2005. form in rock music: a primer. in engaging music: essays in music analysis, edited by deborah stein, 65-76. oxford and new york: oxford university press. dell' antonio, andrew. 2004. collective listening: postmodern critical processes and mtv. in beyond structural listening? postmodern modes of hearing, edited by andrew dell' antonio, 201-32. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. fornas, johan. 1995. the future of rock: discourses that struggle to define a genre. popular music 14 (1): 111-25. grossberg, lawrence. 1993. the media economy of rock culture: cinema, postmodernity, and authenticity. in sound and vision: the music video reader, edited by simon frith, andrew goodwin, and lawrence grossberg, 185-209. london and new york: routledge. holm-hudson, kevin. 2002. introduction. in progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm-hudson, 1-18. london and new york: routledge. ---.2005. "come sail away" and the commodification of"prog lite." american music 23 (3): 377-94. 49 50 current musicology holt, fabian. 2007. genre in popular music. chicago and london: university of chicago press. kawamoto, akitsugu. 2005. "can you still keep your balance?": keith emerson's anxiety of influence, style change, and the road to prog superstardom. popular music 24 (2): 223-44. keister, jay, and jeremy smith. 2004. from new jerusalem to the babylon of the apocalypse: the nasty side of british progressive rock. paper presented at "britannia (re)sounding: music in the arts, politics, and culture of great britain," first biennial conference of the north american british music studies association. oberlin, ohio, june 19. macan, edward. 1997. rocking the classics: english progressive rock and the counterculture. oxford and new york: oxford university press. martin, bill. 1998. listening to the future: the time of progressive rock, 1968-1978. chicago: open court. mazullo, mark. 1999. authenticity in rock music culture. phd dissertation, university of minnesota. moore, allan f. 2001. rock: the primary text-developing a musicology of rock, 2nd ed. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. ---.2002. authenticity as authentication. popular music 21 (2):209-223. painter, karen. 2006. on creativity and lateness. in late thoughts: reflections on artists and composers at work, edited by karen painter and thomas crow, 1-11. los angeles: getty research institute. pareles, jon. 2005. strike up the band in 13/4 time: progressive rock returns. the new york times (february 27): section 2, p. 30. peart, neil. 2002. ghost rider: travels on the healing road. toronto: ecw press. ---.2006. roadshow: landscape with drums-a concert tour by motorcycle. burlington, ma: rounder books. robison, brian. 2002. somebody is digging my bones: king crimson's "dinosaur" as (post) progressive historiography. in progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm­ hudson, 221-42. london and new york: routledge. rockwell, john. 1976. art rock. in the rolling stone illustrated history of rock and roll, edited by jim miller, 322-26. new york: rolling stone press and random house. rycenga, jennifer. 2006. endless caresses: queer exuberance in large-scale form in rock. in queering the popular pitch, edited by sheila whiteley and jennifer rycenga, 235-47. london and new york: routledge. said, edward w. 2006. on late style: music and literature against the grain. new york: pantheon. sheinbaum, john j. 2002. progressive rock and the inversion of musical values. in progressive rock reconsidered, edited by kevin holm-hudson, 21-42. london and new york: routledge. solomon, maynard. 2003. late beethoven: music, thought, imagination. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. starr, larry, and christopher waterman. 2007. american popular music: from minstrelsy to mp3, 2nd ed. oxford and new york: oxford university press. subotnik, rose rosengard. 1991. developing variations: style and ideology in western music. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. walser, robert. 1993. running with the devil: power, gender, and madness in heavy metal music. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. warner, timothy. 2003. pop music: technology and creativity-trevor horn and the digital revolution. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. john j. sheinbaum webster, james. 1994. the concept of beethoven's "early" period in the context of periodizations in general. beethoven forum 3: 1-27. ---. 2001-2. between enlightenment and romanticism in music history: "first viennese modernism" and the delayed nineteenth century. 19th-century music 25 (2-3): 108-26. discography asia. 1982. asia. geffen ghs 2008. elp. 1986. emerson, lake, and powell. polydor pold 5191. genesis. 1981. abacab. atlantic sd 19313. rush. 1976a. 2112. mercury srm-l-1079. ---. 1976b. all the world's a stage. mercury srm-2-7508. ---.1981. moving pictures. mercury srm-i-4013. ---.1982. signals. mercury srm-i-4063. ---.2002. vapor trails. atlantic 7567-83531-2. ---. 2003. rush in rio. atlantic 83672-2. styx. 1977. the grand illusion. a&m sp-4637. yes. 1980. drama. atlantic sd 16019. ---.1981. classic yes. atlantic sd 19320. --.1983.90125. atco 90125-1. 51 current.musicology.85.1-112.pdf current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 259 eleven theses on sound and transcendence brian kane i. listening can only be localized in the ear by force of reduction. imagine a room (call it the “music room”), in which sounds are heard; any normal person entering the room is presented with sounds which are audible only there, but which can be traced to no specific source . . . a specific sound—middle c at such and such a volume, and with such and such a timbre—can be heard in the room. yet there are, let us suppose, no physical vibrations in the room: no instrument is sounding, and nothing else happens there, besides this persistent tone.1 the “music room” is a hypothetical. to function, it requires the force of reduction. this is most apparent in the claim that, “let us suppose,” these sounds are correlated to no physical vibration. that moment authorizes the philosopher to distinguish the sonic from the musical: one vibrational, with everything that comes in tow, such as the acoustic, the resonant, the spatial, and the causal; the other, a pure event bathed in divine ontological indifference. ii. to split the senses one needs technê. [the acousmatic situation] symbolically precludes any relation with what is visible, touchable, measurable. moreover, between the experience of pythagoras and our experiences of radio and recordings, the differences separating direct listening (through a curtain) and indirect listening (through a speaker) in the end become negligible.2 don’t be fooled by this dubious negligibility. even if one were to doggedly maintain the historical difference that distinguishes the pythagorean curtain from the loudspeaker, the conceptual difference would be subsumed, for the modern–day akousmatikoi, by the end to which the technology is applied. even the “music room” would require some hidden technology to remove the vibration from sound; otherwise it would be a supernatural experience. technê is the prerequisite for isolating a sense modality. a philosopher’s rule of thumb: veiling the visual unveils the auditory—and veiling is a technique. current musicology 260 iii. technê is to be understood as both technique and technology, no matter how rudimentary. cognitive scientists and german romantics agree: the closed eyelid and averted glance are the most rudimentary acousmatic techniques! closing one’s eyes while listening to sound . . . evokes shifts in style of processing by modifying focus of attention, while keeping targeted stimuli the same. the main outcome of such a shift could enhance the perceived intensity of emotional stimulus, making positive attributes more positive and negative ones more negative . . . closing the eyes indeed characterizes a specific brain state that can be affected by the individual’s mental set. accordingly . . . eyes closed position represents a well defined mental set by which perceived emotionality can be modulated, thus probing its neural respect.3 whenever joseph [berglinger] was at a big concert, he seated himself in a corner, without looking at the brilliant gathering of auditors, and listened with the very same reverence as if he were in church, —— just as quietly and motionlessly and with his eyes fixed upon the ground before him . . . 4 the eyelid can be projected outward, onto screens, veils and coverings: to explain the plan of the festival–theater now in course of erection at bayreuth i believe i cannot do better than to begin with the need i felt the first, that of rendering invisible the mechanical source of its music, to wit the orchestra . . . 5 the prevailing doctrine of nineteenth–century music aesthetics—the idea of “absolute” music, divorced from purposes and causes, subjects and clear–cut emotions—gave rise . . . to the demand for an “invisible orchestra” concealing the mundane origins of transcendental music. what wagner was able to institute in bayreuth was also, around 1900, attempted in the concert hall.6 or permanently sealed in its sublimation by sound recording: at the time when music critic paul bekker was trying his hand as opera house director, he may have been the first to have spoken of opera as a museum . . . the form of the lp makes it possible for more than a few musically engaged people to build up such a museum for themselves. nor need they fear that the recorded works will be neutralized in the process, as they are in the opera houses . . . these recordings awaken to a second life in the wondrous dialog with the lonely and perceptive listeners, hibernating for unknown purposes.7 brian kane 261 iv. technê cannot be subordinated to physis. do not be persuaded by purposiveness. the end to which technê is applied does not mean the end of technê. to resist the hardheaded forgetfulness of purposiveness, one could do worse than follow the peripatetic as he takes art and nature—technê and physis—for a walk. step one: “art imitates nature.”8 technê, which follows after the products of physis, develops its capacities by copying from the works of nature. technê would take what physis has already provided, as a model, and imitate it. technê reproduces, replicates, or copies an original. step two: “technê carries to the end what physis is incapable of effecting.”9 technê has no model, it reproduces nothing given; rather, it gives itself over to supplement a deficiency or lack found in physis. the blockage that halts the achievement of physis is overcome by a technique, trick, know–how or art. yet what comes to the aid of physis lacks physis altogether. how can technê both imitate nature, and thus duplicate the model that nature provides, while simultaneously perfecting or accomplishing what nature cannot achieve? where would technê have learned its skill at fulfilling nature’s ends (and better than nature itself)? how can technê be both disciple and master of physis? the peripatetic’s competing views about the relationship of physis and technê cannot be consistently reconciled (with apologies to the apologetic ancient commentators). if technê comes to the aid of physis, and brings physis to completion, then physis cannot be conceived as a simple plenitude or potentiality without lack. thus the inability of physis to realize its ends without the aid of technê reveals that the relationship of the two cannot be simple subordination. rather, the relationship is supplementary. (don’t believe me? get a load of this: “the supplement adds itself, it is a surplus, a plenitude enriching another plenitude . . . it cumulates and accumulates presence. it is thus that art, technê, image, representation, convention, etc. come as supplements to nature and are rich with this entire culminating function.”10) v. veiling is the technê of truth. and while we’re speaking of plenitude: [heidegger] enabled us to perceive the ontological plenitude or the truth that addresses us in art through the twofold movement of revealing, unconcealing, and manifesting, on the one hand, and concealing and sheltering, on the other.11 current musicology 262 heidegger’s essence of truth depends on the the double movement of concealing and unconcealing, argued via an appeal to an anamnesis of the greek notion of truth, ἀλήθεια (aletheia), a condition of being un–hidden or dis–closed. the essence of truth, as the overcoming of hiddenness, also contains the nonessence of truth. this is to be contrasted with the view that untruth is simply a human deficiency, as if the truth were simply “out there” but inaccessible because of a failure of human cognition or intellect. originally for the greeks hiddenness, as an act of self–hiding, permeated the essence of being and thus also determined beings in their presentness and accessibility (“truth”); and that is why the greek word for what the romans call “veritas” and for what we call “truth” was distinguished by the alpha–privative (ἀ–λήθεια). truth originally means what has been wrested from hiddenness. truth is thus a wresting away in each case, in the form of a revealing. the hiddenness can be of various kinds: closing off, hiding away, disguising, covering over, masking, dissembling. since, according to plato’s “allegory,” the supremely unhidden must be wrested from a base and stubborn hiding . . . [it] gives us a special glimpse into how “privation”—attaining the unhidden by wresting it away—belongs to the essence of truth.12 heidegger offers an exposition of the essence of truth through a reading of plato’s allegory of the cave. in heidegger’s reading, the confusion of idea and eidos distorts the original meaning of aletheia by turning the essence of truth into an anthropomorphic adequacy of (human) subject and object. alethetia must be recovered from this distortion. yet, the anamnesis of the essence of truth as aletheia doesn’t clear out the ghosts of purposiveness that haunt heidegger’s views. the double movement of concealing and unconcealing ultimately avoids the problem of physis and technê, of hiddenness as the technê of the unhidden, of truth’s physis. if “concealment preserves what is most proper to ἀλήθεια as its own,” then what is proper to concealment?13 is hiddenness only to be the handmaiden of unconcealedness, the matrix from which aletheia perpetually wrests itself? heidegger neglects to note how the opening passages of the “allegory” allegorize the role played by technê in the production of truth. when socrates describes the cave’s mise–en–scene to glaucon, one might recall its archi–tectural design. (note the use of present perfect tense.) between the fire and those who are shacked there runs a walkway at a certain height. imagine that a low wall has been built the length of the walkway, like the low curtain that puppeteers put up, over which they show their puppets.14 brian kane 263 and don’t neglect the sound design either: and now what if this prison also had an echo reverberating off the wall in front of them? whenever one of the people walking behind those in chains would make a sound, do you think the prisoners would imagine that the speaker were anyone other than the shadows passing in front of them?15 here technê has already set the stage for a scene of aletheia, of wresting away one’s perpetual (cue the litany) closing off, hiding away, disguising, covering over, masking, dissembling. the physis or essence of truth as unconcealedness is wrested away from that which is concealed only after the stage has been properly set for the production of concealment. technê can be nothing more than an unconcealment effect. a repoussoir. vi. transcendence is a form of separation. a narrow definition of transcendence: that which lies beyond our sense modalities and knowledge, and thus a form of separation. the transcendent is separated from the everyday world of sensation, knowledge and experience. according to the sage of königsberg: we will call the principles whose application stays wholly and completely within the limits of possible experience immanent, but those that would fly beyond these boundaries transcendent principles.16 transcendent principles are those that “incite us to tear down all those boundary posts and to lay claim to a wholly new territory that recognizes no demarcations anywhere.” and thus, “transcendental and transcendent are not the same.” indeed, a condition of the possibility of experience is not an experience of the unconditioned. this narrow definition must be relaxed when moving outside the boundaries of philosophy. while preserving the importance of separation, there is a broader definition of transcendence: the positing of any sphere (whether it be religious, secular, philosophical, ethical, aesthetic or otherwise) that exists outside the bounds of the mundane world, and which is manifested to this world only at special or singular moments. one could easily appeal to wagner’s description of the “mystic gulf,” charged with the task of “part[ing] reality from ideality,” however i prefer this anonymous bit of musical prolepsis from 1826. imagine a hall in which, first of all, the orchestra with its people and instruments is hidden from the audience’s view by a light curtain, this current musicology 264 would put a whole crowd of destructive demons in chains, not to mention how much more atmospheric music becomes when it resounds unseen. imagine further that instead of the many burning candles there is a single hanging light, which gives forth only as much subdued illumination as wretched decency demands . . . would not the dim light, full of foreboding, compose the souls of those who entered, purifying away the dross of everyday life and setting them into that mood which alone is appropriate for the enjoyment of art? would not the spring–like sounds, coming as though from another world, lift these poor earthly worms, swimming in the sludge of the everyday world, for a moment at least into the bright, heavenly regions of a more beautiful world?17 vii. sound has often been understood as the site for the revelation of transcendence. ἀρμονία. q. e. d. viii. the divided sensorium is applied to support the production of transcendence. in eighteenth–century aesthetics, the experience of music often prefigured the angelic choir. every saturday evening at the hour of compine one sings the salve regina . . . thus, at the appointed hour therein one finds music, the organist and the sacerdotes . . . the music begins and the organ responds, and then the organ and the music [sound] together, with such sweetness and such beautiful harmonies, which, because they seem an angelic choir, generate in the hearts of the listeners a whole–hearted composure and a holy devotion to the mother of god.18 in milan, federigo borromeo, employed the trope of the angelic voice in his discourses on music. in his assumption day sermon, borromeo began with the topos of the angelic song, “surely no accident considering that the prelate’s audience was probably composed of musical nuns” and returned to the trope as a musical model to be imitated by the nuns’ own performances.19 this model went hand in hand with a prohibition on vanity during the nun’s performances, which had begun to veer, for church officials, uncomfortably close to the kinds of spectacular musical performances taking place outside the cloister. in the period following the council of trent, when the practice of clausura was instituted, it was declared that nuns “should, without exception, be brian kane 265 confined within convent walls.”20 many of the convents were walled in, with only grilles to allow for the passage of sound. [the tridentine reforms are] so esteemed not only in rome but through al italy that thou shalt never see nonne out of her cloister, and being in the churche thou shalt only hear their voices singing their service most melodiously, and the father him self, that is, their ghostly father heareth their confession through a grate in a wall, where only voice and no sight goeth between: and i have seen the blessed cardinal of milan borromaeo say masse in their chapel at milan before them, when i could not possibly see any of them . . . and in bononie [bologna] and rome having been many times at their service in the chappels and hearing the goodly singing, never did i yet see one of them.21 sound, which penetrates and pierces enclosures, became an important mechanism by which the nuns could still be present to the world beyond the convent wall. although the voice of the nun can resemble the voice of the angel even without any kind of visual reduction, clausura can be understood as a technology that, despite its obviously repressive aspects, splits the senses in order to make the transcendent audition of the angelic voice all the more sensuous. the convent of santi domenico e sisto in rome, in addition to containing a extraordinarily high altar with grated windows above it, to the left and the right, possessed an interior punctured by a series of grated openings placed high up near the vaults that circled the church. the voices emanating from these high grates were juxtaposed against the frescoed ceilings, depicting images of the heavenly host. the architectural space reinforced the fantasy: the listeners were encouraged to identify the vocalic body, imagined in the nuns’ voices, with the celestial figures floating above their heads.22 but the trope was never completely secured. the vocalic body heard in the nun’s voice could just as easily be associated with an angelic source as with the actual mundane, and potentially erotic, body from where it emerged. for rousseau, the dialectics of the angelic voice fascinated and maddened him on his trip to venice in 1743. every sunday, in the church . . . motets are sung during vespers, for full choir and orchestra, composed and conducted by the greatest masters in italy and sung in the grilled galleries by these girls, the oldest of whom is under twenty. i cannot conceive of anything so pleasurable or so moving as that music . . . never did carrio or i miss those vespers in the mendicanti, and we were not the only ones. the church was full of music–lovers; even singers from the opera came here to have a real lesson in tasteful singing from these excellent models. what distressed me were the accursed grilles, which only let the sound through but concealed those angels of beauty—for the singing was worthy of angels—from my sight. current musicology 266 rousseau’s erotic drive to peer behind the grilles and behold the (real) heavenly body fantasized in the nun’s voice, leads to a cruel and misogynist joke. after begging, rousseau is taken to meet the girls. as we entered the room where sat these beauties i had so desired, i felt such an amorous trembling as i had never known. m. le blond introduced me to one of these famous singers after another, whose names and voices were all i knew of them. “come sophie” . . . she was hideous. “come, cattina” . . . she had only one eye. “come, bettina” . . . she was disfigured by small pox . . . two or three, however, seemed passable to me; they only sang in the chorus.23 in the musical art–religion of the nineteenth century, the grilles of the convents were reinstalled, now as injunctions to obscure and erase the traces of musical performance. the sonorous element in music . . . [is] the ultimate consideration. the visual element of the performance does not belong to the work’s essence . . . it is for this reason that orchestral musicians rightly appear in the simplest clothes; it would be best if they were not visible at all.24 we could say that berglinger’s averted glance became an architectural apriori for constructing the ideal concert hall. i would like to see a hall which is rather small, seating no more than a thousand persons, with only one kind of seat throughout, with no boxes, neither large nor small. i would like the orchestra to be out of sight so that neither the musicians nor the lights of the music desks can be seen by the audience. this would create a magical effect . . . 25 the presence of the orchestra amongst the audience, playing in full view of them, is every bit as disturbing as would be the sight of the back stage machinery and the stage hands working away on it . . . 26 or, when the concert hall wasn’t adequate, there were other solutions. one could employ forms of bodily technê in the production of transcendence: i have sat close up, i have sat farther and farther back, i have tried a corner in the theater where i could completely lose myself in the music. the better i understood it . . . the farther away i was . . . i stand outside in the corridor; i lean up against the partition which divides me from the auditorium, and then the impression is most powerful: it is a world by itself, separated from me; i can see nothing, but i am near enough to hear, and yet infinitely far away.27 brian kane 267 and, as always, there is wagner who, as a young man, attended a rehearsal of beethoven’s ninth at the paris conservatoire. arriving late, he is placed in a room separated from the main hall by a partition or half–wall; entranced by the sound coming over the divider, he later writes that music, when freed of the visual aspects of its mechanical production, “came to the ear in a compact and ethereal sort of unity.”28 according to lydia goehr, the ideal of invisibility in musical performance entails two demands: first, that visual aspects of performance are inessential given music’s purely sonorous essence; second, that what is heard in the performance is subordinated to the transcendent meaning of the work. given that transcendence can never be materialized without loss of fidelity, the performer must produce a performance that “undermines their own presence as necessarily flawed mediators.”29 the ontological condition of sound as the resultant of an event was subordinate to an ontology of sounds as bearer of a content whose transcendence is heard in the sounds, and whose very status as transcendent undermines their material clothing. the signifier cannot sully the (transcendental) signified. ix. the fantasy of transcendence produced without technical mediation is divine listening. wackenroder articulates the fantasy of unsullied musical transcendence through the guise of joseph berglinger: i venture to express from the depths of my being the true meaning of the musical art and say: whenever all the inner vibrations of our heartstrings . . . burst apart with one outcry the language of words, as the grave of the inner frenzy of the heart—then they go forth under a strange sky, amidst the vibrations of blessed harpstrings, in transfigured beauty as if in another life beyond this one, and celebrate as angelic figures their resurrection.30 the signifier is the grave in which the musical soul lies; yet the musical outcry, which shatters the tomb of language and resurrects the musical soul, departs from the subject in its transfiguration. wackenroder’s image depends on the transformation of the heartstring (herzenfibern) into a harpstring (harfensaiten)—a metamorphosis that musicalizes the language in which it is written. musical sublimity overtakes the subject, carrying the listener away to “another life beyond this one.”31 the iconic listener who gladly leaves this world for another life, different in kind, is st. cecilia. in raphael’s depiction, which circulated widely amongst the early german romantics, cecilia stands above a pile of discarded current musicology 268 and broken instruments, eyes turned upward, listening to the sounds of the angelic choir. the angels are positioned in the intermundia: visible to the viewer, invisible to the depicted figures, audible only to cecilia. raphael’s junk heap guarantees that the viewer will not mistake the sounds in cecilia’s ears with any sort of musica mundana. by drawing an ontological line between the earthly and the divine, raphael also grants the viewer an image of listening without seeing, which lacks technical mediation. neither pythagorean veil nor grilled interior separates the figures. but raphael’s image is itself a form of technê that indicates the conceptual content of divine listening, but never fills our ears with its sound. for nietzsche, raphael’s necessary failings deserve mention. populate the air with the imagination of a raphael and contemplate, as he did, how st. cecilia is listening, enraptured, to the harmonies of angelic choirs: no sound issues from this world though it seems to be lost in music. an image or word stands to music as a schema to a concept; the schema can only act as an illustration for the concept but can never be adequately substituted for it. it sacrifices generality for phenomenality. if the power of the general were to manifest itself directly, all schematism and individuation would be burst asunder as quickly as wackenroder’s grave. but if we imagined that this harmony did actually acquire sound by virtue of a miracle, where would st. cecilia, paul and magdalen and the singing angels suddenly disappear? we would immediately cease to be raphael, and even as the instruments of this world lie broken on the ground in this painting, our painter’s vision, conquered by something higher, would pale and vanish like shadows.32 x. divine listening can only be taken on faith. it is solipsistic and cannot be shared. it leaves no artifact. it can only be simulated through artificial means. if divine listening ruptures the order of the signifier and lies beyond all acts of individuation, then there can be no artifact of divine listening. it can only be taken on faith. in kleist’s story, “holy cecilia or the power of music,” there is no sonic account of the transformation, effected by the corpus christi festival music, which sublimes the four iconoclastic brothers. just after the moment when the music begins, the narrator leaps ahead six years, only to brian kane 269 retrospectively relate the events from the perspective of an eyewitness. the lacuna is necessary; even a description of the music would not be able to bridge the gap, because the question of divine listening is not an objective question concerning the music played—for kleist offers precisely such a description in the guise of the witness—but a solipsistic question concerning what is being heard in the music by the brothers. although moved by music to the point of self–annihilation, wackenroder’s joseph does not experience divine listening, as do kleist’s brothers. wackenroder positions joseph between the immediacy of divine listening and an anxiety directed at musical technê. in the first half of the tale, cecilia remains an icon to whom joseph begs assistance, so that i, through music’s power, master of their souls might be; that my soul the world infinite sympathetically penetrate, intoxicate in fantasy!33 in the second half of the tale, after joseph has become a conductor and composer, he grows disillusioned and despondent with his new life. it is a wretched life that i am leading . . . i thought that i wanted to dream on ceaselessly and pour out my full heart in works of art—but how strange and austere the very first years of apprenticeship seemed to me. how i felt when i stepped behind the curtain! that all the melodies . . . were based upon a single compelling mathematical law! that, instead of flying freely, i first had to learn to climb about in the awkward scaffolding and cage of the grammar of art! how i had to torment myself in order to first produce a correct work with the ordinary, scientific, mechanical understanding . . . it was a tedious mechanical effort.34 joseph’s despondency registers his intermediate status: poised between the ideal of the transcendent listener and the charlatan who has “stepped behind the curtain” to learn the mechanical tricks that produce such transcendence, joseph becomes an icon unlike that of st. cecilia. by acquiring technê, he can no longer experience the transcendence for which it is employed. despite the modern distaste for wackenroder’s style of “outpourings,” one could do worse than to recall joseph’s state of disillusionment. for “sound” is easily carried by ahistorical and ideological fantasies that misrecognize their reflection in the past. only rarely are such fantasies held in check. current musicology 270 the immersiveness of sound, its three–dimensionality, set a precedent then for the evacuation of the technological apparatus in the production of audio, supporting the belief that three–dimensionality overrides the fact of mediation, and thereby creates a space that is beyond technology and culture. like the speaking tube of deific transmission, it has been necessary to construct and then deny a mechanism that channels, delimits, transduces and sanitizes the materiality it transports. these interfaces are both technical and conceptual—consisting of wires, circuits, relays, etc. and transcendent spaces, such as the ether, the cosmos, or the irreducible vibration, to which the technical infrastructures are conceptually attached, and through which the presence of technology is masked.35 xi. in the production of transcendence, technology must be hidden. it cannot appear as the real cause, but must hide its own role by becoming invisible or remaining a black box. we know, now, the supernatural wonders wherewith a priesthood once deluded childlike men into believing that some good god was manifesting himself to them: it was nothing but mechanism, that ever worked these cheating wonders. thus to–day again the super–natural, just because it is the un–natural, can only be brought before a gaping public by the wonders of mechanics; and such a wonder is the secret of the berliozian orchestra.36 wagner’s critical words also betray the lesson he learned—hide the machinery. but a tension runs through wagner’s thinking. on the one hand, the dreamlike state “into which we thus are plunged through sympathetic hearing” produces an experience where “our eyesight is paralyzed” to the point that “we no longer intensively see.” this experience of musical blindsight is produced anytime the music “really touches us” despite the fact that “the most hideous and distracting things are passing before our eye,” such as “the highly trivial aspect of the audience itself, the mechanical movements of the band, [and] the whole peculiar working apparatus of an orchestral production.” wagner argues from the fact that we are ordinarily inattentive to such a spectacle, and that absorbed listening puts us into “a state essentially akin to that of hypnotic clairvoyance”.37 (mcluhan could have cited wagner to support his claim: “psychologists define hypnosis as the filling of the field of attention by one sense only.”)38 brian kane 271 on the other hand, the subversion of vision by hearing is compromised in the opera house, where musical blindsight is unacceptable. here the mechanism of the orchestra must be literally concealed, so as to regulate and discipline the attention of the audience in the correct manner. the reader of my previous essays already knows my views about the concealment of the orchestra and . . . [my condemnation of] the constant visibility of the mechanism for tone–production as an aggressive nuisance . . . i explained how fine performances of ideal works of music may make this evil imperceptible at last, through our eyesight being neutralized, as it were, by the rapt subversion of the whole sensorium. with a dramatic representation, on the contrary, it is a matter of focusing the eye itself upon a picture and that can only be done by leading it away from the sight of any bodies lying in between such as the technical apparatus for projecting the picture.39 but even this might not be enough. in september of 1878, cosima transcribed this statement: i cannot stand all this costume and grease–paint business! and when i consider how these figures such as kundry will have to be masqueraded—i immediately think of these repulsive artists’ carnivals, and, after having invented the invisible orchestra i would like to create the invisible theater.40 wagner just missed the mark. the phonograph was invented the year before. even musique concrète, predicated on the use of recorded sound, is also premised on concealing the machinery involved in its production, in order to produce an acousmatic situation where the ear can begin its act of l’écoute réduite. this condition persists from its very moment of discovery. 19th april. by having one of the bells hit i got the sound after the attack. without its percussion the bell becomes an oboe–sound. i prick up my ears. has a breach appeared in the enemy ranks? has the advantage changed sides?41 experimenting in the studio, schaeffer discovered that by removing the transient attack from a recording of a bell its source became unrecognizable. rather than conceptualize this feature as an affordance of recorded sound, schaeffer interpreted his discovery as disclosing an entryway into the phenomenology of listening. a number of historical circumstances have led to the notion of the sound object. first, the initial discoveries of “musique concrète” with its two inaugural experiments: the closed groove and the cut bell; then, the awarecurrent musicology 272 ness of a listening situation, not new but whose originality had never been identified or given a specific name; the acousmatic situation.42 like the gestalt figures that littered the pages of merleau–ponty’s phenomenology of perception, schaeffer understood this little cloche coupé as emblematic of a much larger field—namely a field of listening, constituted not simply as a response to an auditory stimulus, but as a field of sound objects intentionally constituted by the listener’s acts and modes of attentiveness. what this cloche coupé revealed was the way in which the listener’s intentionality preceded the auditory stimulus. one forgets that it is the sound object, given in perception, which designates the signal to be studied, and that, therefore, it should never be a question of reconstructing it on the basis of the signal.43 wrap that up with the phenomenological reduction and you’ve got a situation where the essence of listening is now understood as being utterly indifferent to its mode of presentation, that is, whether the sound was real or imagined. only the content matters, and the content is understood as indifferent to its ontological status. (a prolongation of kantian disinterestedness.) schaeffer’s manipulations become theorized as sonic attempts at “eidetic reduction” via husserl’s method of imaginative free variation. for example, starting from this table–perception . . . we vary the perceptual object, table, with a completely free optionalness, yet in such a manner that we keep perception fixed as perception of something, no matter what. perhaps we begin by fictionally changing the shape or color of the object quite arbitrarily . . . in other words: abstaining from acceptance of its being, we change the fact of this perception into a pure possibility, one among other quite “optional” pure possibilities—but possibilities that are possible perceptions. we so to speak, shift the actual perception into the realm of non–actualities, the realm of the as–if.44 change the example from a table to a tape loop and you’re well on your way to an orthodox musical phantasmagoria—oops, i meant, phenomenology. but like the “music room,” this too only succeeds by force of reduction. for this kind of phenomenology refuses to recognize the remainder produced in its drive towards the eidetic reduction. the question is not simply whether a sound can present itself qua perception or qua imagined. because these modes of presentation are not indifferent to the haptic aspect of vibration simultaneous with these sounds, a different set of possible modes of presentation is needed: perceived sounds with perceived vibrations, perceived sounds with imagined vibrations, perceived sounds without vibrations; brian kane 273 imagined sounds with perceived vibrations, imagined sounds with imagined vibrations, imagined sounds without vibrations; and lastly, perceived vibrations without sounds, and imagined vibrations without sounds. only by bracketing the haptic aspect of sonic modes of presentation, can the musical phenomenologist be satisfied with free variation as a technique for disclosing sonic essences.45 orthodox musical phenomenology deludes itself about its haptic condition, neglecting the fact that the mode of presentation for sounds is not totalized between real and imagined perception, or between seeing and hearing, but includes another sense modality. but this is not to assert that the haptic aspect of vibration is primary for a sonic ontology, for that too would depend on the isolation and privilege of one modality from the rest—and the production of such isolation would require its own set of techniques. it would be the technê of some other phantasmagoric physis. to praise blindness in order to privilege listening, as arnheim did, is to substitute the centrism of the eye for that of the ear, while ignoring the incorrigible fact that both modalities are not independent of touch. that problem, easy to state, is difficult to conceptualize. even diderot vacillated in his “letter on the blind,” calling idealism, “an extravagant system, which must have been invented by the blind,” while putting these words in the mouth of the blind mathematician samuelson: “if you want to make me believe in god you must make me touch him.”46 notes 1. scruton, aesthetics of music, 3. 2. schaeffer, traité des objets musicaux, 93. 3. lerner et al. (2009). 4. wackenroder, “the strange musical life of the musical artist joseph berglinger”, in confessions and fantasies, ed. mary hurst schubert, 149. italics mine. 5. wagner, “the festival–playhouse at bayreuth,” in actors and singers, trans. ellis, 333. 6. dahlhaus, nineteenth–century music, 394. 7. adorno, “opera and the long playing record,” in adorno on music, ed. leppert, 285. 8. aristotle, physics, 194a. 9. ibid., 199a. 10. derrida, of grammatology, 144–5. 11. gadamer, relevance of the beautiful, 34. 12. heidegger, “plato’s doctrine of truth,” pathmarks, trans. thomas sheehan, 171–2. 13. heidegger “on the essence of truth,” pathmarks 148. current musicology 274 14. plato, the republic, vii 514b. 15. ibid., vii 515b. 16. kant, critique of pure reason, trans. guyer and wood, b352/a296. 17. anonymous, “our concerts”, musikalische eilpost 4 (march 1826). in the critical reception of beethoven’s compositions by his contemporaries, vol. 2, ed. wayne senner and william meredith, trans. robin wallace (lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press, 2001), 127. 18. morigia, paolo, la nobilita’ di milano, 306. 19. kendrick, robert, celestial sirens, 158–9. 20. monson, craig, “putting bolognese nun musicians in their place,” in women’s voices across musical worlds, ed. jane bernstein, 119. 21. martin, gregory, roma sancta (1580–1), 141–2. 22. monson, 122. 23. rousseau, confessions, book 7. 24. robert zimmerman, allgeimein aesthetik als formwissenschaft, excerpted in bujić (ed), music in european thought, 46–49 25. andré–ernest–modeste grétry, mémoires, ou essais sur la musiqu, vol. 3, paris (1797), 32. 26. alexandre choron, and j. adrien de la fage. nouveau manuel complet de musique vocale et instrumentale, ou, encyclopédie musicale. pt. 2, tome 3. paris: roret (1838), 117–120. 27. kierkegaard, either/or, trans. d. f. and l. m. swenson, i. 119. 28. see geoffrey skelton, “the idea of bayreuth,” in the wagner companion, ed. burbidge and sutton, 390–1. compare with wagner’s claims about the evils of the berliozian orchestra, with its emphasis on the mechanism of production: “we know, now, the supernatural wonders wherewith a priesthood once deluded childlike men into believing that some good god was manifesting himself to them: it was nothing but mechanism, that ever worked these cheating wonders. thus to–day again the super–natural, just because it is the un–natural, can only be brought before a gaping public by the wonders of mechanics; and such a wonder is the secret of the berliozian orchestra.” (wagner, opera and drama, trans. ellis, part i, sec. v.) 29. lydia goehr, the quest for voice, 142–3. 30. wackenroder, confessions and fantasies, 190–1. 31. i am indebted to john hamilton’s reading of wackenroder in his music, madness and the unworking of language, 121ff. 32. nietzsche, “fragment on words and music,” reprinted in dahlhaus, between romanticism and modernism, 109–10. 33. wackenroder, 153. 34. ibid., 155. 35. frances dyson, sounding new media, 47. 36. wagner, opera and drama, part i, sec. v. 37. wagner, “beethoven” in actors and singers, 74–5. 38. marshall mcluhan, the gutenberg galaxy, 17. 39. wagner, “the festival–playhouse at bayreuth,” in actors and singers, 333. 40. cosima wagner’s diaries: volume 2, 1878–1883, entry of september 23, 1878. brian kane 275 41. pierre schaeffer, in search of a concrete music, 7. 42. schaeffer, from the traité, quoted in chion, guide des objets sonores, 18. 43. schaeffer, traité des objets musicaux, 269 44. husserl, ideas, trans. w. r. boyce gibson, 70. 45. notice that, to husserl’s credit, his visual example works better than the sonic example; in the specular situation, the tactility of the object seen is available to the viewer if they reach out to touch it; thus, there is no necessary simultaneity between visual and tactile perception, and this is in distinction to sound, where auditory and tactile perception can never be dissociated, even if the tactile is attenuated to the point of imperceptibility. 46. diderot, “letter on the blind,” in diderot’s early philosophical works, ed. and trans. margaret jourdain, 104 and 109. references: adorno, theodor w. 2002. opera and the long playing record. in essays on music, edited by richard leppert. berkeley: university of california press. anonymous. 2001. our concerts. musicalische eilpost 4 (march 1826). reprinted in the critical reception of beethoven’s compositions by his german contemporaries, vol. 2, edited by wayne m. senner. lincoln: university of nebraska press. aristotle. 1941. the basic works of aristotle, translated by richard mckeon. new york: random house. chion, michel. 1983. guide des objets sonores. paris: buchet-chastel. choron, alexandre, and j. adrien de la fage. 1836. nouveau manuel complet de musique vocale et instrumentale, ou, encyclopédie musicale, part 2, tome 3. paris: roret. derrida, jacques. 1976. of grammatology, translated by gayatri chakravorty spivak. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. dahlhaus, carl. 1989. nineteenth-century music, translated by j. bradford robinson. berkeley: university of california press. diderot, denis. 1916. letter on the blind. in diderot’s early philosophical works, translated by margaret jourdain. chicago: open court. dyson, frances. 2009. sounding new media. berkeley: university of california press. gadamer, hans-georg. 1986. the relevance of the beautiful and other essays, edited by robert bernasconi. cambridge: cambridge university press. goehr, lydia. 1998. the quest for voice. berkeley: university of california press. grétry, andré-ernest-modeste. 1971. memoires; ou, essais sur la musique, volume 3. new york: da capo press. hamilton, john t. 2008. music, madness, and the unworking of language. new york: columbia university press. heidegger, martin. 1998. pathmarks, ed. william mcneill. cambridge: cambridge university press. husserl, edmund. 1931. ideas: general introduction to pure phenomenology, translated by william ralph boyce gibson. london: g. allen & unwin. kant, immanuel. 1998. critique of pure reason, translated by paul guyer, and allen w. wood. cambridge: cambridge university press. kendrick, robert l. 1996. celestial sirens: nuns and their music in early modern milan. oxford: clarendon press. kierkegaard, søren. 1944. either/or, vol.1, translated by d. f. and l. m. swenson. princeton: princeton university press. current musicology 276 lerner y., papo d., zhdanov a., belozersky l., and hendler t. 2009. eyes wide shut: amygdala mediates eyes-closed effect on emotional experience with music. plos one. 4 (7). http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc2705682/ martin, gregory. 1969. roma sancta. roma: edizioni di storia e letteratura. monson, craig. 2004. putting bolognese nun musicians in the place. in women’s voices across musical worlds, edited by jane a. bernstein. boston: northeastern university press. morigia, paolo. 1979. la nobilità di milano. bologna: forni. mcluhan, marshall. 1967. the gutenberg galaxy. london: routledge & kegan paul. nietzsche, friedrich. 1980. fragment on words and music, translated by walter kaufmann. in carl dahlhaus, between romanticism and modernism. berkeley: university of california press. plato. 1961. the collected dialogues of plato, including the letters, ed. edith hamilton and huntington cairns. new york: pantheon books. rousseau, jean-jacques. 1953. the confessions, translated by j. m. cohen. london: penguin books. schaeffer, pierre. 2012. in search of a concrete music, translated by christine north and john dack. berkeley, calif: university of california press. _____. 1966. traité des objets musicaux, essai interdisciplines. paris: éditions du seuil. scruton, roger. 1999. the aesthetics of music. oxford: oxford university press. skelton, geoffrey. 1979. the idea of bayreuth. in the wagner companion, edited by peter burbidge and richard sutton. new york: cambridge university press. wackenroder, wilhelm heinrich. 1971. confessions and fantasies, edited by mary hurst schubert. university park: pennsylvania state university press. wagner, cosima. 1980. cosima wagner’s diaries, volume ii: 1878-1883, edited by martin gregor-dellin and dietrich mack, translated by geoffrey skelton. new york: harcourt brace jovanovich. wagner, richard. 1995. actors and singers, translated by w. ashton ellis. lincoln: university of nebraska press. _____. 1995. opera and drama, translated by w. ashton ellis. lincoln: university of nebraska press. zimmerman, robert. 1988. excerpts from allgemein aesthetik als formwissenschaft. in music in european thought, 1851-1912, edited by bojan bujić. cambridge: cambridge university press. aida and the empire of emotions (theodor w. adorno, edward said, and alexander kluge) lydia goehr for alexander kluge l let's start with the facts: two lovers are buried alive, their lungs are full of gas from the crypt; they are cramped with hunger and, as they perish, decay does its unspeakable work on their bodies. in the end, there are two skeletons, one now indifferent to the other. i am describing the end of an opera as thomas mann described it in a chapter from the magic mountain on the "fullness of harmony:'2 his point in 1924 was simple but critical. surrounded by his desert-island disks, castorp listens to a record of the last scene of verdi's aida over and over again, yet oblivious to the facts: he hears only the beauty and power of the music. whatever the suffering of aida and radames, no trace of it reaches his ear. or does it: is the fullness of harmony really enough for castorp to forget the facts? 1. this essay investigates how theodor w. adorno, edward said, and alexander kluge read verdi's opera aida with respect to the theme of being buried alive, where being buried alive can occur not only to characters in an opera but, according to a discourse of fate, also to the opera itself. to write about being buried alive but living as it were to tell the tale, the three critics ask whether a residue of resistance in the opera remains that allows the opera to escape a totalizing discourse of fate or fatality that threatens to destroy it. i begin by presenting the more familiar views of adorno and said, although hopefully in a new light. after that, i present and develop the less familiar view (in an anglo-american musicological context) of the frankfurt filmmaker and critical theorist, alexander kluge. to focus on the work of these three exemplary critics is to show what it means to offer a critical reading of an opera that takes aida as its example. this is the focus of my essay. to offer a critical reading is to refuse to take the opera at face value, which means in part, as it appears on the stage. the point is, nothing should be taken at face value, and certainly not a work of art. the three critics refuse in interestingly different ways. adorno and kluge read the opera against its grain first, with the aim, second, to find buried in current musicology, no. 87 (spring 2(09) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 133 134 current musicology its tomb the fragile terms of its resistant meanings or gestures. how they differ from one another is more subtle than how they jointly differ from said, who engages the first task but not, as far as i can tell, the second. in general, critical theorists seek in an opera its aesthetic-political contradiction, blind spot, or tragic knot in order to undo it. the rescue of the opera, if such is possible, depends on how the knot is undone. the knot may be variously undone. one way is to show how the woman protagonist who, though almost completely undone by the opera, may still be heard as undoing that which undoes her. another way is to refuse the opera's triumphant ending to subvert the inevitable closure to which the opera seems at first sight musically and dramatically to lead. a third way, which i develop here as the authorial thread of this essay, disrupts the explicit alli­ ances that are set up between opera and nationhood, especially to the extent that these alliances suggest a history of fated nations. for critical theorists, the social significance of a great artwork-and aida is exemplary-lies in its immanent potential to rescue itself from being experienced as merely "a thing of the past," which is to say, as a "museum piece" that no longer has meaning for us in the present. 2. in january 1929, the young adorno positively reviewed a new frankfurt pro­ duction of aida conducted by clemens krauss. 3 he commented particularly on the liveliness of the production by which he meant its non-dustiness. 1929 was a year in which opera was often proclaimed to be in a crisis, in fact to be in a moribund condition. adorno wondered whether it was still possible to produce traditional operas in the grand old style. authentic productions, he maintained, were only increasing the alienation audiences were apparently feeling towards the works themselves. asking what contemporary directors ought to do to bring opera back to life, he suggested they should do perhaps what some russians were then doing, when, in the montage style of the revue, they interrupted the traditional production of operatic illusions with near documentary images of contemporary life. "perhaps," he wrote, "the scenic rescue of works like aida happens only if the immanence of the scenic structure is blown up, by interspersing it with intentions from other more current spheres."4 adorno did not pursue the thought much further in this brief review. instead, with an "and yet" [aber doch 1 already characteristic of his prose, he turned his attention to the music, to seek there some trace of what the genre once stood for. he found what he was looking for in what he described as lydia goehr aida's most beautiful music: "aber das schonste war doch die musik der aida"-"but the most beautiful [compared to the other singers 1 was still the music of aida." whether he was praising only the singer in the production or only the music she sang isn't entirely clear. he could have written: "but the most beautiful was the singing of aida." i believe, however, that he was aiming for both meanings at once. this becomes more evident in the final lines of his review. here, he wrote that when he heard aida's beautiful music and the beautiful singing thereof he heard the beauty only as a trace, which means that it no longer presented itself immediately to the ear. this idea fitted a view that he would develop later on in his life: under the critical condition of advanced bourgeois society, beauty had to conceal itself, for fear that were it overtly to appear it would be silenced before even the first note had been sung. to hear the music as trace was also, for adorno, to hear it archaically, as a secure (proustian) memory of something long past. "this ethiopia!," he thus concluded: "it sounds as if one had been there a thousand years ago, so distant and sure, as only memory can be." and then he added: anyone who must live in egypt with its "high priests, pyramids, and generals" will find themselves "buried alive there before they have even begun to live."5 i would like to pursue adorno's thought further with a question: if the beautiful music had to conceal itself given a modernist condition of crisis, had it always had to conceal itself? in other words, had the opera always been aware of its fate? if it had, then arguably the most beautiful music had always had to be identified (at least in part) with the lyrical music of its protagonist, the ethiopian slave, whose fate to be buried alive was certain before even she began to sing. in other words, aida was always the angel of death as she was always the angel of love, long before she furtively entered the tomb. more even than this, but pursuing the same terms, aida embodied the larger fate of the history in which her life and death were entangled: hence, both the fate of her country at war as well as the fate of an opera that had never made it quite clear whether, given the complex circumstances of its creation, it was an opera about egypt, italy, or france. (surely, it was about all three.) as far as i can tell, there has been almost no interpreter who has resisted the inclination to determine to which single nation this opera properly belongs. yet, most interestingly and despite its title, no one has ever described aida outright as an ethiopian opera, as though, despite sympa­ thies expressed to the contrary not least by the composer, the ethiopians, being the "underdogs" or "savages," were never really to be counted as a legitimate side in this nationalist or colonialist war. in later life, as we shall read below, adorno even once forgot something essential and identified aida as egyptian. 135 136 current musicology to identify an opera with a particular nation has so often been an identification of assumed success: the opera names the victor in advance and the desire for victory necessitates the destruction of any person or people that gets in its way. in these terms, aida is less a reflective opera about a war between two nations and more an engaged, one-sided opera of colonialist achievement. from the very first moment (act i, scene 1) ethiopia is chosen for destruction because, to recall the rationalization sung by the high priest ramfis in militaristic echo of words once uttered by the king of prussia,6 god has already taken egypt's side. "fur dai numi votati alia morte" -the libretto says: god's will is to be obeyed; the death and devastation of the barbarians is inevitable, predetermined. the victory for the egyptians will therefore be "easy" -''facil vittoria."7 3. in his book on culture and imperialism, edward said identified aida as an egyptian opera, thereby arguably overlooking the fact that the egyptians, in this opera, are the aggressors.8 said argued that the opera was one less of nationalist achievement than of western, imperialist domination. so conceived, it displayed a false alliance between pleasure and power and it displayed it loudly, with all its musical pomp and political circumstance. i use the phrase "pomp and circumstance" to bring to mind shakespeare's othello (also made into an opera by verdi) in which betrayal and warring ambitions try to destroy the love of the lovers. "i had been happy," othello recalled when it was already too late (act iii, scene 3), leaving him to bid "farewell the plumed troops and the big wars, that makes ambition virtue! 0, farewell ... pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!"9 for said, the fact that aida displayed the false alliance between pleasure and power is what allowed the opera, first, to present itself as a perfected aesthetic image of a glorious civilization, yet, second, to embody what was also its "curious falsity." said borrowed this phrase from joseph kerman with the intention more adequately to describe its cause. why, he asked, does the opera strike the listener as curiously false?, and answered by showing how the opera offered both an aesthetic sphere for fantasy and a social sphere of fear, which, in their intertwining, triggered a deep sense of alienation in the audience. verdi once said that to "copy reaiity can be a good thing, but to invent reality is better, much better."lo this proclamation lies at the heart of the problem, why the opera could not easily be assigned a singular national character, just because its egyptian character was an invention of the french made to serve the interests of italy. for all verdi's attempts to be authentic, lydia goehr said noted, verdi was able, with the help of his librettist, as well as his stage, costume, and instrument designers, to pick and choose his authenticities, to select what suited the construction of a civilization entirely severed from the actual interests of contemporary egypt. that the opera was commissioned by the khedive to celebrate the recent opening of the suez canal and even more the erection of his new and altogether european opera house appar­ ently interested verdi very little. said remarked that verdi's indifference to egypt gave him the aesthetic freedom to create a perfect operatic illusion or "to pursue his artistic in­ tentions with what appeared to be an uncompromising intensity." 11 the operatic illusion verdi created was not, however, purely aesthetic but was constituted also out of a political imaginary in which one national power was constructed by another. in this construction, the pleasure allied with power was stereotyped, cliched, and false. it was the imperialist construction of an idealized "east," in which the orient was portrayed as a distant place of promise, of exoticism and extravagance, of monumental aura created out of the archeological or egyptological plunder sitting in the museums of the parisian west. with the antique vision of egypt divorced from any contemporary one, the aesthetic substance of the opera was effectively divorced from its social substance. for said, this double divorce jointly explained the work's "curious falsity."12 unlike adorno, however, said did not say that he heard an archaic trace of beautiful music in an opera that was constructed to appear to its audience as dead on arrival. even if it left the audience alienated, it seemed to offer nothing to said to mitigate that alienation. although the deadness became most apparent in the final, "deadlocked" scene, the entombment of a dead civilization was present before even the first note had been sung. said deeply resented the fatalistic picture the opera presented of a society already fallen: what was meant to be alive in the opera, the love and the military ambitions, were buried a priori in verdi's idealized construction, as though the imperialist conquest of the east was already complete. the fact that egypt was still a living society was apparently for verdi just a mildly annoying fact. said equally resented the fact that by displacing a living people into a dead civilization, and thus denying them a living voice, the imperialist power presumed, with false claims of authenticity, to write a people's history on its behalf. 13 however, although said refused the opera for its falsity, he did not leave it at that. as noted earlier, he identified the opera as egyptian, although now that we know his argument, this seems a little surprising. for his argument suggested that it was not only the ethiopians who were silenced or absented in the work, but also the egyptians given how far their image 137 138 current musicology was also produced entirely in and for the west. perhaps i am missing the subtlety: maybe, by calling the opera egyptian and not ethiopian, said was calling attention to how far dominating powers will go to create entirely artificial visions of the other, visions that, although thoroughly exotic, are also entirely alienating. this means, dialectically, that to declare the opera aggressively egyptian was really to mark it as imperialistically french. this, ultimately, is how i read said's dialectical strike against the opera: that in failing to be about what it purports to be about-namely, an opera about the plight of the ethiopian/egyptian other-it became a disquieting opera entirely about a western us that is or should be self-alienating. if, for said, aida showed the lie of western or european imperialism, for adorno, it demonstrated the lie of bourgeois society. said wrote of aida as promoting an imperialist vision of the east; adorno wrote of the opera as offering a "bourgeois rest and recreation spot" (burgerliche erholungsstatte). 14 like said, adorno noticed how the work was divorced by the composer from the immediacy of the particular social conflicts. yet the divorce troubled him less, or at least it opened up a space for critique. for only in an aesthetically detached and generalizing state could a work become a cipher of social meaning, a perfect, even if a crass, mirror of the catastrophes of domination toward which bourgeois opera and society were tending. and only in such a detached state could a work show any resistance toward the inevitability of a historical narrative in which it seemed to be enmeshed. although there was certainly something shared by the arguments of said and adorno, there was a difference. one difference turned on how far each critic wanted to claim that the work, being a late work of verdi, was somehow conscious of its imperialist tendency and bourgeois fate from the outset. for construed as a late work, a work perhaps of pessimism and anxiety, the opera must always have been aware of its own implicit tendency to accept the terms of its fate. said did not accept this construal and seemed to think that the imperialist tendency exhausted the work's meaning without its being challenged from inside the work. adorno did accept this construal and accordingly looked within the work for its own, internal expression of resistance. hence, his reference to the archaic trace of the most beautiful music, a reference that he placed deliberately in the last lines of his own review (a technique he often used), to gesture toward a future hope that was not, however, to be identified with the opera's redemptive ending. hearing redemption in an opera and finding a gesture that might rescue the opera and the society of which it is part were not, for adorno, the same thing. indeed, precisely this difference separated a positive from what he termed a negative dialectic. lydia goehr the work of roger parker is useful here in further elucidating the theme of lateness. he has also written about aida as a late work and of how it showed a loss of confidence and a pessimism that threatened constantly to be revealed in aida's "long sigh."ls parker cites two relevant sources: the first speaks of that "long sigh from aida [that 1 threatens to reveal everything:' where, as for both said and adorno, "everything" refers to far more than just aida's love for the equally ardent radames. the second source, from a letter of 1869 to camille du locle, describes how, with rossini's william tell, opera assumed a sense of fatality, as if something were halting the "flow of the music." 16 since il barbiere di siviglia, what verdi heard in opera was a melody that was no longer "free" and "secure." as we know, what verdi heard, wagner also heard. both composers desired that opera be given back its "single breath" of music, to use wagner's phrase, or its "single jet:' to use verdi's, to fight the modern tendency for operas to be constructed haltingly or discontinuously as "patchwork."1? what is meant, however, by the use of the term "fatality"? blandly, it suggests that opera in general was following the wrong course and needed to change that course. from a grander perspective, it suggests that opera was heading toward a decline given the peak of development it had allegedly reached with rossini. both these perspectives assume that history is not random, that the operatic genre tracks some sort of teleological course. it is the grander perspective that one so often finds in the writings of richard wagner and the late verdi, where the thought is, that if the contemporary tendency to produce only fragmented or pessimistic works is to be overcome, then now is the right historical moment for opera to transform itself into unified music drama. the unified music drama would be the redemption of the overall genre. however, the lingering worry did not go away for either wagner or verdi, that, at any given time, it might be too late for the genre to be so redeemed or too late to produce unified works. as parker suggests, such anxious questions lay behind the composition of aida, putting into question what sort of work it was: a work blind to, or conscious of, its own fatality or of the genre's fateful character altogether. like adorno, but not with his particular terms, parker has also aimed, as a contemporary critic and commentator, to break through and to break free from the fateful discourse and moribund productions of nineteenth-century opera. more than once verdi balked at the idea that his music, any of it, would be assigned a national character, and this despite his having composed many a loud and rousing chorus, one, the most famous (from nabucco) almost achieving the status of a national anthem. verdi proclaimed that his music was written for the sake of music alone, for the sake of the pure art of opera. 1s nevertheless, it is undeniable that verdi also always wanted to 139 140 current musicology show political sympathy toward the "underdogs," for those who were not yet the victors in nationalist wars. he thus composed his music in the hope that the underdogs would eventually be the victors, that at least italy would win its independence and unification in the context of the franco-prussian and hapsburg wars. in this light, verdi arguably had good reason in 1870 to give the beautiful music to aida, just so that she, as an ethiopian, would alone express the hope of the italians. for this reason, to brand the opera "italian" is also to brand it "ethiopian." the fact that verdi seemed to give aida the most beautiful music was what adorno interpreted at the dialectical extreme. for adorno, implicit in the very idea of nationalist victory, or in the mentality or emotion associated therewith, was always the tendency to dominate, whichever side wins in war. to make the point more forcefully, adorno effectively distinguished aida the individual from even the "underdog" nation to which she belonged, to mark her as the individual alone fated to be ostracized. for innocent victims or individuals, there is no victory in war. with her beautiful music, aida alone came to express the condition of the outcast, removed from the space in which she would take a side. ethiopian, egyptian-perhaps this was not a westerner's blindness, as said suggested. perhaps the difference really makes no difference. indeed, it is consistent with adorno's view to say that, in her fated role, aida was made to assume the guilt and suffering of both sides because nothing was allowed to remain at stake for her in the battle between opposed nations. to make of her an outcast was to displace the guilt of both fighting sides onto the shoulders entirely of the one who was denied a patriotic voice. this perhaps explains why aida sang the most beautiful music, as though, from the first note, her fate to be buried alive was already decided and somehow even known to her. however, in this music and insofar as adorno heard in it an archaic trace, hearable by anyone, he liked to say, who still had ears open enough to hear it, there lay the potential seeds that would outlast her destruction. these were seeds that would allow her finally to escape from the displacement of guilt, and, if her, then humanity, too. hence, humanity's general cry implicitly expressed for its liberation from having to take sides in wars too often fought (as we know in our own times) for the wrong reasons. 4. the displacement of guilt, suffering, and responsibility is what, after the second world war and to this day, remains most often at stake in the broken narratives produced by the frankfurt critic, theorist, and filmmaker alexander kluge. this is evident particularly in his essay-film of 1983/84 (appearing both as a book and on screen) titled die macht der gefuhle lydia goehr (a title i translate just below), as well as in the experimental stories and commentaries he has written to accompany this essay-film. 19 his work has everything to do with opera and operas like aida. with adorno, kluge moves this opera from its earlier war-ridden context to the catastrophic context of a later war, the second world war. he speaks of telling parallel stories (parallelerzahlungen) in which all the destructive irony of historical repetition comes to the fore, but where there are concrete or material and often sadly ironic ruptures in the repetition. in the case of aida, whereas earlier the ethiopians sang for italian victory, they were later seen in 1935-36 at war with the would-be conquering italians, the ethiopians seeking their release from the italy's grip. kluge, as adorno, is interested in society's structures and emotions that come to be lived, absorbed, and condensed in all manner of distorted and disrupted forms, in the intense or "congealed" experiences of singular subjects.2o his phrase "die macht der geflihle" is well translated as "the power of feeling" or "of emotion." the english word "power" misleads, however, if it suggests that kluge is speaking only about an emotion's intensity or strength. with the word "macht," he intends also to capture the authority that an emotion has over us, how it is able to hold us like an empire in its (colonial) grip. i think we should also preserve in translation the plural­ ity of the phrase "die geflihle," because kluge is speaking not only about emotion as a general state but also about the hold that particular emotions have on us. "there really is," he writes, "this macht and there really are also the emotions."21 i am tempted also to translate his title as "the grip of emotions" or even more imaginatively as "the strong arm of emotions," where, as another interpreter has suggested,22 it is as though the emotions were anthropomorphized, i.e. given a life, history, and agency of their own. emotions are the sorts of things that, in kluge's words, "have (or take or claim) their own time." (he uses the term "haben.")23 thinking about kluge's grip of emotions, one is better positioned to understand adorno's idea of displacement and aesthetic distancing. kluge writes of how a given emotion seizes an entire society for perhaps a hundred or even a thousand years. but he also writes of how, in the short span of a human life, a singular individual may come to experience that emotion as belonging to her alone, as if, like jenma, to recall another of kluge's own references, an individual had really lived through twenty-eight wars.24 in his die macht der gefuhle, kluge says that "emotions have gravitati­ ons [gravitationen j." next to this line, he places another in large type: "in unhappy stories the emotions weigh more heavily."25 then he summarizes aida's plot with extraordinary, intentional abbreviation: the bloody war between the egyptians and the ethiopians lasted a hundred years. after which he suggests that it was the hold that this war had on its peoples-the emotions of nationalism and patriotism-which prevented 141 142 current musicology aida's and radames's love from ending happily.26 his title die macht der gefuhle refers as well to the empire of emotions or to die macht des schicksals, hence, he tells us, to la forza del destino (the force of destiny), a verdian title that fits "almost all operas."27 aida asks "what power [or force 1 so binds me to him!"28 yet, the point of kluge's work is to throw radical doubt on the belief that there really is ever so absolute a power that binds anyone, or that there really could be a destiny that so overdetermines a person's life. the power radames has over aida symbolizes the power the empire has over her, and kluge wants to subvert this power. more likely, he says, there are "a hundred thousand different reasons [grunde]" why we do things, any of which we might choose in hindsight, to interpret in terms of destiny. 29 this is one of kluge's central points, as it is for the present essay, because it leads kluge to rewrite every operatic story of automatically assumed fate as a mode of social critique. with certain large emotions, their grip is over a society as a whole. in so holding the society, however, they hold the happiness of any particular individual or any couple in love at ransom. put otherwise, even if an emo­ tion has held a country in its grip for a hundred years, it may pick out a single individual to make her feel as if the consequences of having that emotion are seen in her life alone. i use the feminine pronoun here because, for kluge as much as for adorno (and so many others engaged in recent modernist and postmodernist critique), the lonely individual, who is made to experience a history's crimes as her own, is usually a woman. for adorno it was self-consciously the unnamed woman of schoenberg's erwartung; before that, it was the exotic carmen, butterfly, or aida. since mozart's die entfuhrung aus dem serail, adorno wrote, opera has always loved exogamy, foreign blood, or what is otherwise "outside:' he made a list: "halevy's la juive, meyerbeer's l'africaine, la dame aux camellias in verdi's version [la traviata l, and the egyptian princess aida [here is the error l, delibes's lakme, as well as the 'long march of the gypsies' (der zug der zigeuner) culminating in il trovatore and carmen:' all these figures are "strangers or estranged." around them suffering is "enflamed" and "powerful emotions explode." this is how "conflict with the established order" comes about. 30 for kluge, the feminine figure is also senta of der fliegende hollander and gilda of rigoletto. it is just as often tosca, carmen, or aida. it is rarely if ever isolde, though it is not obvious why not. adorno also excluded isolde from his almost leporellian list of operatic conquests. in kluge's list, as in adorno's, the death of the soprano is different from that of the tenor. whereas the male death is treated as a contingent fact of politics and history, the female death is made to bear all the weight of inevitability. it is she who is made to tie the tragic knot of the opera, although it is also she lydia goehr who must then sever it. (the tragic knot of opera was something with which verdi was much concerned.}]) in kluge's view, the woman is slave, worker, foreigner, gypsy, jew-metaphorically the outcast, thereby also representative of dominated nature, shown, however, not in her refusal to conform to the status quo but instead in her inability (wished for by her and by us) to be domesticated or tamed. whereas the ability or attempt to domesticate the woman signifies the social possibility and sometimes also the actuality of her disempowerment, her refusal to be domesticated signifies her hope, as ours, for her, as for our, liberation from domination. (according to the dialectic of enlightenment, this liberation only occurs if nature is liberated too. this is why themes of domesticated outcasts and dominated nature are so often deeply intertwined in the frankfurt school of critical theory to which both adorno and kluge have both significantly contributed. 32 ) partially following nietzsche in his essay "fantasia sopra carmen," (and "fantasia" is a crucial term) adorno described how all the operas of exogamy have eulogized the escaping or bursting out of civilization into the unknown, although not so that the outburst was then automatically absorbed, as in wagner's operas, into a glorified view of love. perhaps this is why isolde was left out.33 to capture both the suffering and hope situated with the outcast, kluge writes more specifically of how fantasy remains outside the public sphere and of how it is given to the figure of the gypsy. given the authoritar­ ian drive of the public sphere, it is in the sphere of fantasy that we seek our escape from domestication. 34 for kluge, as for adorno, we constantly seek in our fantasy or in our emotions our escape from what is fixed as public or established, to break out of what is given to us as the self-evident natural order of our commonplace world. however, the escape is fragile, tentative, splintered, sudden, and surprising. any severing of the tragic knot, when and if it occurs, is achieved in something small, minute, in something almost unheard, which is to say, anywhere and in anything but in a triumphant gesture. this is a position that returns us to nietzsche's thought that only by moving his ear away from german song with all its redemptive leaps and songs of love and death was he able to hear a "cheerfulness" in a song that was "african" (but really "french"). even if fate also hung over bizet's music from carmen, there was a moment of happiness, nietzsche noted, that was "brief, sudden, and without pardon."35 if aida was an opera that, for said, revealed the lie of imperialist domi­ nation, and, for adorno, the lie of bourgeois society, for kluge, it revealed the lie of patriarchy. here are three sides of the critical coin, each portrayed through musically informed, dissonant interpretations, counter stories, or contrapuntal interventions. each critic reads the verbal and musical lines of the opera between the lines or behind the scenes. this is how each aims 143 144 current musicology to be true, without being blindly true, to the work (werktreu). thomas mann's description, with which this essay began, prompts one to ask about the advantage of one's being deliberately oblivious or partially oblivious to the facts. for the critical theorist, it is one thing for an opera to present itself factually, another aesthetically. the different presentations do not necessarily coincide, as said made explicit, but weigh against each other potentially to produce a critical or dialectical argument. for each critic, the primary aim is to expose the necessary lie of aesthetic illusion, set against the assumption that opera has and should have the capacity to disturb the audience in social terms. however, while said seems less tempted to find something noble in the lie of art, adorno and kluge suggest that something truthful or hopeful about and for society might still emerge from aida's ashes. for them, the contradiction or "curious falsity" in the artwork is constructed through the discourse of inevitable death, yet in the tomb a residue remains of something still alive. "the past:' kluge writes in quotation of christa wolf who is quoting william faulkner: "is not dead; in fact, it is not even past."36 adorno agrees: the past remains a repository for our lost or destroyed meanings, meanings still offered to us in our experience, although, given the administered condition of modernity, they are offered only in the most concealed pleasured pains of our spectatorship. in kluge's work, the woman is often sister, mother, grandmother, who might seek to be what she cannot be: namely, die patriotin (the complex title of another of his films) but who is made to absorb or personalize the guilt of the society as a whole, thereby relieving the society of the guilt it should but refuses collectively to feel. aida cries out a question to herself alone, for not even the suffering of amneris will allow this other woman, an egyptian, yet to understand it. "ah!," aida cries in descending tones (act i, scene 1): "non fu in terra mai da pili crudeli angosce un core affranto"-never on earth has there lived a person-as she-who has had to bear so cruel and deep an anguish. the personalization of the political is one of kluge's central themes, which is evident also in the theoretical work he has done with his co-thinker and writer, oskar negt. one reads in their shared work of a counter public sphere (gegenoffentlichlceit) in which resistance is expressed to the heavy weight of history that is placed on the shouldering lives of outcasts, who, like aida but not yet amneris, look as though they only survive as the en­ tombed or living dead. just at the moment (act i, scene 1) when amneris is publicly proclaiming the victory of "our leader," aida withdraws to express her fright.37 in other terms, though a site of the living dead, the counter public sphere is the site of resistance to social administration and to the grip therefore of the latter's most powerful emotions. however, conceived as a sphere, it runs lydia goehr the danger of being sustained as a site of resistance only if those excluded unconsciously accept the displacement of society's guilt onto their own lonely, outcast selves. however, it is not so obvious that, by existing in a counter sphere, the outcasts do not play into what the established public sphere demands of them, that they speak their resistance in childlike, wild, or anarchic voices that are silenced somehow before they have even uttered their first word. kluge was once criticized for using the term die patriotin with too much seriousness; it was claimed that he had not realized sufficiently the contradiction contained in the very term-that women as outcasts are automatically excluded from the structures of patriotism or the patriotic emotion that grips the society as a whole. 3r whether or not this is a valid criticism of kluge's work, the observation runs deep insofar as the very idea of a counter public sphere is beset by a comparable contradiction. just as die patriotin must as an outcast be denied that very description, so too must any act or feeling of resistance-any counter-emotion (gegenemotion) as one might name it-be refused identification with any so-called counter sphere. for so identified, first, the counter public sphere runs the risk of becoming congealed in its own structure and, second, the emotion used to characterize the sphere threatens to lose its "counter" or resistant quality. this is why adorno and kluge always stress that a sphere as such, even a counter one, can never be a guaranteed site of resistance. resistance is found only in the dialectical particularity of that which remains genuinely excluded from a sphere: thus in a particular grimace or a smile or in a sideward glance of an eye that almost goes unnoticed. the difference is subtle: in aida, it is a matter of listening to what in this overall spherical opera of pomp and circumstance is (almost) unhearable. despite his overt theorizing of the counter public sphere as a site of counter production, kluge has sought to counter any tendency toward social or aesthetic congealment in his own produced works by using radi­ cally broken and disjointed montage. his preoccupation with experimental form, with its inherent risk and surprise, explicitly subverts the tendency to rigidify the counter public sphere as a guaranteed site of resistance. similarly, his central concept of experience (erfahrung) is employed to break down traditional linear narratives, intent as its use is to challenge patterns of human lives lived as though they were being lived only in a state of mere survival. for kluge, mere survival is not enough. in the works of both kluge and adorno, the concept of experience is linked to the idea of sacrifice, an idea that, like the traditional bourgeois operas themselves, suggests a double character. thus aida, though it could also be senta, sacrifices herself as much to the society that denies her her freedom as for the man she loves. one might well differentiate a sacrifice to from a sacrifice for. senta sacrifices herself for the dutchman and (almost) 145 146 current musicology to her father daland who has sold her to the first man seemingly willing to pay the material price. aida sacrifices herself for radames and (almost) to her father when he asks her, through her acts alone, to save the ethiopians. amonasro sings: "per te soltanto risorger puo"-"through you alone will a conquered and tormented people be given back their life" (act iii, scene 1). he tells her that if she acts correctly she will be able to assume the public position that amneris now has; she refuses that public place, desiring rather only "un' ora di tal gioia, e poi morir!" -one hour of joy, and then to die. critics often suggest that all these kinds of operas are about the conflicts men and women equally face between patriotic duty or family and love. the conflicts, however, are different. the male lover is typically given a public trial to see whether his reason will finally release him from the grip of his emotion. the female lover is often forced by intense distress or madness to make her decision in private or in solitude. if the public-private distinction does not adequately capture the point, one may also say that, whereas for the man, his freedom to choose his outcome is rarely denied him whereas, for the woman, the outcome seems always to have been decided from the start or long before. this is why she (and lucia is a good example of this too) is denied the use of her reason that might release her either from the grip of her emotion or from her belief that she is fated to die. as much as kluge is interested in couples in love, he pays more attention to the sacrificial life of women. at the opera's beginning, and long before the final act, aida sings of how her tears mourn her sad, unlucky love. that she already mourns is symbolic of what the french theorist, catherine clement, at roughly the same time as kluge, described as the opera's inevitable "undoing of women."39 here, the stress, now in kluge's terms, is given to the inevitability of a woman's being undone by the grip of a depersonalized emotion that pits her between her father, her country, and her lover. her private emotion is displaced by a public one from the very first moment of the opera. what is decided by the end was in truth decided long ago. the personalization of the political is the plight of the one who is denied a public role; the feeling that pervades the society is absorbed by one sacrificial person alone. her raw experience fights against the grip the feeling has on her. but she cannot win and knows she cannot win. this is why she lives as though in a state of mourning. although as outsider who cannot win, she nevertheless wants to believe that her own private emotion might in the end loosen the hold that the nationalism, patriotism, and intolerance has over her society as a whole. in a contrary act now of what i shall describe as depersonalizing the per­ sonal, she might decide that it makes more sense for her to die in a redemptive act that will show us the inevitable course not only of the opera itself but also the fated history in which she, as the opera, is enmeshed. this marks a lydia goehr decisive change in the direction of the argument i have been presenting so far, a move that pulls us temporarily (but only temporarily) away from any reading of resistance in this work. kluge writes that "in every opera that is about redemption a woman will be sacrificed in the fifth act."40 the middle clause of this sentence (in my italics) is the one that matters. rather than hearing an outsider singing in soft lyrical tones, we are now made to hear a world-redemptive heroine trying to save a society from which she alone is excluded. as an outsider who would become savior, she chooses to identify no longer with the "i" but with the public "other" that is fated to become the victorious "all." in kluge's view, this tragic identification leads only to a false redemption. for kluge, it does not matter that the opera aida has only four acts: only french grand operas typically have five. however, it does matter that aida seems freely to choose to enter the tomb to die together with radames and that she resists being buried alive by embracing death in a swoon. verdi described aida's call to the angel of death-di morte l' angelo-as sung in a delirium, but in her delirium she achieves something we do not expect. verdi gives her the high and decorporealized tones of an angel; he disembodies her voice to make it appear that she actually escapes what should, according to the ancient ritual, have been the proper form of her death: starvation in the egyptian tomb. for this reason, her father amonasro is mistaken to tell her (in act iii) that he foresees in her "a terrible image" of a ghost rising from among the ashes. for, in entering the tomb, somewhere between a human and phantom state (as radames suggests), she gives her flesh and bones away in pure, disembodied song and thus in something other than "a terrible image." kluge observes that according to the ancient rituals of being buried alive, aida and radames must stand in darkness; they cannot be given any means (the fire from a torch, say) to bring about their own deaths. yet there remains a difference in their respective deaths. in the libretto, aida's but not radames's death is specified, although given drafts of and changes to the libretto, the present argument does not do full justice arguably to the interpretive complexities of this issue. nevertheless, blandly stated, the difference fits the idea that aida dies because, in this "fated" opera about lateness or too-lateness, she was always going to die or somehow had always been dead. even in his opening aria in act i, radames describes aida not in human terms but already in celestial terms, as a goddess of divine form, an inspiration of a dream that will lead him to victory, to which the completely human amneris responds by asking him whether he has not just heard a joyful tale that stirs him. here, aida and amneris stand to radames in ways similar to how the fully human erik and the non-human dutchman stand to senta. senta, like radames, also fatefully sees a picture and hears a tale. to see aida as already dead or as a person whose death is inevitable, might be to 147 148 current musicology interpret her image as the product of the ultimate male gesture in the overall silencing of women. however, the image is not just that. if it were, it would threaten to make radames solely responsible and more consciously solely responsible for aida's fate than he seems to be. given the present reading of the opera, it is not only women who are silenced but everyone else insofar as aida's final acceptance of her fate, as senta's, is an act performed on behalf of all. it is the "all" that is the true modern (totalizing or totalitarian) subject of so fated a work as this. to hear aida sing her song as a song of acceptance is no longer to hear what kluge and adorno want to hear, namely, that at the very moment when she sings her victorious song of fate she still manages to show her resistance. in the victorious reading, her resistance is transformed through "pity" into complete acceptance. where earlier she asked whether she was mistaken to weep, later she sings only her hymn of death. adorno and kluge believe she should have stuck to the more doubting question. kluge is right to observe that the lovers never stop being at odds even when they sing in and proclaim their complete accord. when radames enters the tomb he remains the patriot however much he sings of taking aida's side. in the opera, radames is not, as aida is, excluded when the libretto specifies that "all" shall sing. in an early scene of military might, when all the other voices proclaim the cry of war, aida sings in uncanny lyrical tones that separate her from them. while she hails the angel of death, he tries to move the "fatal stone" from the tomb. even if he tries this out of kindness, to save her from a punishment that is (meant to be) his alone, he stm acts non-deliriously as she does not. realizing he cannot move the stone, he resigns himself to death: "it's over," he sings, after which he joins her in singing the hymn of death. nevertheless, the point remains that the certainty of death belongs, as it always belonged in this fated reading, to her alone. initially excluded from the all, she finally becomes, in a remarkable transfigurative act, the representative of the all, the role radames once claimed for himself. this transition in roles is arguably marked musically at the most moribund moment in the opera. this is when radames enters the tomb and sings on a single tone until the moment he utters the name "aida" as if, having recognized his failure to be the victor in the war, he hands his voice over to her for her to proclaim the "ascension" now in their shared hymn of death. it is she who now on behalf of he and everyone else, too, becomes the victorious figure in a story in which nations are at war. though they do not know she is in the tomb, the chorus of priests and priestesses sing as if they do know and thus of the spirit of life and of the peace that she has now made possible for egypt. if this is seen as aida having changed sides, then this is as it must be if the victory was always certain. maybe adorno was right after all to name aida an egyptian. lydia goehr if the opera ends with a transition of roles between the lovers, it also arguably ends with a role-transition between the two female protagonists. when aida assumes the place of radames, so amneris, with her dark mezzo tones, assumes the private and distraught "outsider" place, lying as she does prostrate above the tomb to sing the last notes of peace on her own single moribund note. when adorno heard aida's most beautiful music, perhaps it was, after all, not only the music of aida he heard but also, in this substitution of roles, the music of the egyptian voice of amneris in her final sad refusal to takes sides with lovers who have been turned into the victors of this war. 5. i have just told a story of the opera's ending that makes radames look far more ordinary or less heroic than the world-redemptive aida. i tried to show how from one perspective aida alone achieves a final grace in her willingness to die. rising from the ashes or from the tomb, neither the tragic. schillerian connotations nor the redemptive christian connotations can be ignored.4 ! i have told the story this way to make explicit something these operas always tend to do: to trick the audience into believing that even for the outcast there is a happy ending if only she would agree to becoming the tragic or epic heroine. however, there is another reading, one more "counter," that allows aida (or amneris) to remain the outcast, singing of her resistance to the victorious song. this is the reading kluge wants to find when he hears the resistant strains in the silent space of the work, behind its aesthetic surface. what he hears are aida's early dark words foretelling her "terrible sentence" but not yet expressing glory. the prophetic words, however, are heard at the end only by those who find, like amneris, that they cannot celebrate the lovers' hymn of death. most hear the early prophe'tic words displaced by later words of glory. "what the opera is silent about!" kluge writes: "the people will not stand by while a couple in love is buried alive." however, he knows only too well that people generally do stand by, because though they may cry at the tragic end they are deceived or confused by the opera's aesthetic reconcilia­ tion that tells them in the end, in "the fifth act," that the woman refused to die as others would have her die-alone. she rather chose to die with joy, for love, for a "fullness of harmony" that symbolized a freedom for and of the all. her death was a heroic act of forgiveness or an act of acceptance of a guilt that no one other than she could overcome. "smiling through tears:' the audience thus leaves the opera house believing that all has turned out well even if it remains mildly disturbed by the lie of bourgeois, imperialist, 149 150 current musicology or patriarchal domination to which she, as the audience, has been subjected. the audience knows about her death, his death, or even about the couple's death, but not enough to care. to bury is to forget. as said argued, it is not for nothing that we are deceived by this opera into thinking that it all happened so long ago, since what happened "so long ago" is dramatically stripped of any relevance it might have for us in the presenty such are the dangers of the sort of aesthetic distancing that allows us to forget the facts and to treat the work as simply "a thing of the past." kluge says he understands why we will all return to see this opera at least eighty-four times.43 each time we know how it turns out. but why, he asks, are we so content to leave its ending in place, the knot tied as it has always been tied? he doesn't want us to accept the terms. said wants us to reflect back on our own imperialist assumptions and not to glorify that which we hear as "egyptian;' ''african.'' adorno wants us to hear the archaic residue of beautiful music so that we will not hear any song merely as a triumphant one. yet, as both critic and artist, kluge goes further than both adorno and said, to produce parallel, counter, or even overlapping works of art in which the original work is juxtaposed or overlaid with critical commentary. through "associative montage," kluge rearranges the relations of opera's traditional narratives, to disarm or dismantle (abrusten) the happy endings. "por years i have tried through literary and filmic means to change the stories of the operas."44 he wants to unsettle the contentment we feel even as we are made to cry: to dismantle the happy ending of the bourgeois satisfaction. more, he wants to show his profound modernist disbelief in "the tragic," given his view that redemptive optimism and tragic endings have come to signify two sides of the same bourgeois or patriarchal coin. even if kluge's own works sometimes have happy endings themselves, the works and the endings are no longer about the provision of bourgeois or prepackaged satisfaction. the works are intended to show the hunger that still exists for genuine experience (erfahrungshunger).45 he seeks the potential surprise that is still possible in experience and, with this, shows his refusal to accept the traditional discourse of modern tragedy that allows spectators all too readily to accept their own social or historical fate. with adorno, he says he would like to write "imaginary opera guides" for tradi­ tional operas, to contravene our operatic and cinematic habits: the way we look and listen.46 it is also almost as though he desired to reintroduce into the present one element of the original "ethiopian story" by heliodorus, when, having been condemned to die in a ritual sacrifice, the lovers escaped this fate, allowing them to fulfill the other "oracle" behind the story that found them happily married at the end. their escape from sacrifice differed from aida's final song of acceptance. it reflected an earlier moment in the opera lydia goehr when aida begged radames to escape with her. from this we learn that it makes all the difference in the world to speak of a woman as having been buried alive singing her song unto death as opposed to her having almost been buried alive, having escaped at least one of the established patterns of tragic or sacrificial expectation. kluge rewrites many works and specifically their endings to change the aesthetic and social terms of the whole. he takes sides with the sort of conditions oflife that refuse the sacrificial and grandiose. perhaps, he argues, there is a local happiness in living a more ordinary life if one sticks to the "thousand" contingent reasons why we do things and feel things without seeking a necessity to our acts and feelings according to a higher rationale. here, a happy marriage might be the achievement of precisely this close escape and thus an ironic bourgeois strike against so much of nineteenth­ century opera conceived as a fated art. critique is performed by an interpretation that exposes a work's internal contradictions by reading an opera against its grain. the distortion of facts or the hammering exaggeration of interpretation is central to critique. critique is also performed when modern artists rewrite old works in the form of new works, new works that show what is at stake in trying to produce the works of old. kluge produces new works that refuse precisely to be works of the past from the first moment of their existence. these works one may well call counter-works, following in a tradition of the anti-work works that adorno identified with some of arnold schoenberg's and samuel beckett's productions. however, like the counter public sphere, a counter-work does not guarantee that resistance will be expressed, only that a space of pos­ sibility is opened up in which it might be. what a counter-work tries most to do is subvert the tendency toward becoming a resolved or fully-fledged work. to produce such a work is no easy task. there is no formula and no fixed set of counter-emotions to which one can appeal to sever the grip of those emotions that have brought about, to use ramfis's words, our "terror, thunder, and death" (terror,folgore, morte)y when after the second world war, adorno wrote that authentic experi­ ence or writing poetry was no longer possible, he submitted too completely to the tragic discourse of historical fate. after corresponding with paul celan he realized he had been wrong to so submit even if his first extreme expression had carried a particular weight. thereafter, he tried to articulate the terms for the continuation of experience and poetry.48 kluge assumed the second approach from the start. he does not ask whether experience is still possible in a society under the grip of total administration. whatever the condition of society, experience, in its hundreds and thousands of variations, is inescapable. 151 152 current musicology kluge appeals to the inescapable fact of experience to loosen the grip of deep melancholy that attends a human existence that feels that it is living only in the "rivers of blood" of our once proud european cities-cities, to use more of amonasro's words, that are now "ruined and beaten." kluge looks and listens to opera to refuse its fiction, its illusion, its implied fatalism, to reopen the space for experience, for experience of what is most raw, most real, most painful, but also sometimes pleasurable. one cannot simply put pleasure aside. however, even as raw or real, experience is never pure, as we see every time kluge juxtaposes the real with the irreal, or personal with public emotions.49 kluge intersperses scenes of operas with images of opera houses-"the power-stations of emotions" as he describes them-lying now in the rubble. 50 for adorno, too, aida is one of the bourgeois operas of secular "pomp" that held the bricks of the old european opera houses in place. being a bourgeois genre heading toward crisis, it was not surprising when, during the second world war, the bricks tumbled down. after the war adorno sought the terms of opera's uneasy survival, a survival that was not intact, which was a fact brought home to any audience that still went to the bourgeois opera seeking the shelter it once provided, yet unable to rid itself of the feeling that something had been lost. an audience, adorno insisted, will try to build its own bomb shelter out of the rubble of the nineteenth century, though the emotion or force (kraft) uniting the audience will only be (paradoxically) a secure memory of something that few present there can actually remember. 51 once more, though experience lay ruptured in the ruins, the trace of what once was had not disappeared altogether, even if only few could still hear it. earlier in his life, adorno stressed the archaic trace; later, he stressed the longing or residual desire that shapes a contemporary experience that is only too aware of loss. nevertheless, the desire, he argued, yields only a most fragile sense of security. kluge writes that the strongest provocation for emotion is war. "actually war is the strongest provocation facing all projects of power [macht], so long as it testifies to the fact that no power can arrest it, and historically so far no power has been able to arrest it." against which he concludes: "i want to tell stories about why emotions are not powerless."52 here is one such story. on april 7, 1945, kluge was not yet an adult. he heard an italian broadcast of aida in his home on the german radio. 53 the war was approaching its end and the radio still the primary medium of the news. his war at this moment was an audible war. kluge sat with his father listening "to the distorted mystery music ... from far off and a little garbled." his father told him what was going on in "brief german sentences:' by one 0' clock the lovers were being buried alive in the tomb. kluge and his father discussed what it might mean, medically, to be buried alive. the next day there was an air raid and kluge was now with his father in the shelter. lydia goehr he could not help but recall aida's tomb, though the reality of his own experience cut into the recollection. whereas aida saw the delivering angel of death, the child heard the real planes delivering their real bombs from above. the juxtaposition in his experience of irreal air waves with real air raids later gave him the material for his art. there are surprisingly few writers in the last two centuries who have not written about taphephobia, the fear of being buried alive. as fear trans­ muted into fantasy, it enters into writing with every conceivable literal and metaphorical significance. edgar allan poe's story "the premature burial," to offer but one example, tells of how the protagonist traverses the shadowy and vague space between life and death. the protagonist becomes lost in "worms, tombs and epitaphs;' in the "phosphoric radiance of decay," in "spectacles of woe;' where memory becomes man's dominion. being buried alive, or should one say, being almost buried alive and living to tell the tale is incontrovertibly the stuff of art. it would be truly surprising to discover that freud had not written about taphephobia, but i don't think he did. nevertheless, he did write about the related fear of claustrophobia, where this fear is not so much of being enclosed in a small space as of coming out, in association with the fantasy, of the space, of the tomb, of the womb-ofbeing born. kluge shows a scene of a man, in conversation with a woman, who cannot believe what he tells her, that though he has sung the opera eighty-four times he is always able in the first act to suspend what he knows will happen at the end. one might say of this singer that he is a man without claustrophobia who has no fear of being born, which is why he is able to sing each time in this state of suspended disbelief. in kluge's account, this is an expression of hope. the man asks the woman: are you against success? she says no, but still she reminds him that the opera does not turn out well. the man says, as if in repetition of adorno's earlier "aber doch" -and yet it could have come out differently-"konnte doch aber." in this conversation, it is he and not she who gestures toward the possibility. but does he see the right sort of possibility? here is the tensest moment in the conversation, as in the entire argument of this essay. does the singer who sings with hope that the ending might be different actually break out of the fateful terms of the work or does he not rather only suspend those terms temporarily given a need to dramatize his performance? is his "konnte doch aber" or adorno's "aber doch" enough? one way to read the gesture is through the result it brings about. at the extreme, it leaves us in a negative space of possibility where no attempt is made to fill in that space with concrete or substantial suggestions as to how life ought to be lived. whereas adorno declared, after auschwitz, that life is no longer lived, kluge argues that we cannot avoid living life. adorno thought that offering the new terms of life risked putting us back where we were before. kluge wants to take the risk 153 154 current musicology anyway. adorno warned, however, against our being too optimistic about the outcome, which leaves us with onily the gesture itself, with the potential power of art to tell us that the ending, our ending, like the work itself, could be different. for both adorno and kluge, to refuse the terms of the work of art is not automatically to refuse the terms or potential of art that resists the totalizing workhood. in the present argument, it is the beautiful music that adorno heard that gives us something that prevents the fatal stone from closing down the operatic work altogether. it is an age-old or archaic gesture to appeal to music-both literally and as social metaphor-as that which saves us and saves society from falling apart. in a marvelous story entitled "god bless you, mr. rosewater;' kurt vonnegut wrote that until the last scene of the opera "everything was fine." but then he continued: the hero and heroine were placed in an airtight chamber to suffocate. as the doomed pair filled their lungs, eliot called out to them, "you will last a lot longer if you don't sing." eliot stood, leaned far out of his box, told the singers, "maybe you don't know anything about oxygen, but i do. believe me, you must not sing." castorp listened to the beautiful music but he listened oblivious to the facts. he was quite happy for the singers to keep on singing. said, contrarily, was rather too aware of the facts and found that he could hardly listen to the opera anymore at all. adorno and kluge saw the curious falsity said saw, but they also saw a space of possibility in the voice that refused the heroic role. in my view, the latter offers the most dialectical reading of the work given that it does not silence a work that is troubling but seeks potential within its own concealed space to make contemporary and challenging productions worthwhile. opera survives, in this view, not as the art of the future-by no means-but rather as an art of the potential. 6. a last unraveling thought. in his book of 2004, michael p. steinberg argued that critics have long been prone to dismiss nationalism in toto, as if national­ ism were always of a dominating and destructive kind.54 he sought to show, and to show in verdi's operas in particular, that some forms of what he called benevolent nationalism actually give a space from the inside not only for the retention but also for the renewal of individuality. not every voice of a people, he rightly insisted, is a totalitarian voice of das volk. from which he concluded that resistance or subjectivity does not always have to be located in the ruined or shadowy lives of exiled individuals. steinberg's argument is lydia goehr extremely important. it suggests that seeking either redemption in a principle of fate or destiny or in some sort of antior counter-redemption in the lonely figure of the outcast-be she/he a woman, a jew, or a gypsy-might be to think on either side of the same false coin-a janus-faced coin that forces more a collaboration than a separation between the gazes of the outside and the inside, thereby preventing any genuine change from coming about. given this worry, one might also ask whether it has not been a mistake all along to interpret an "italian" opera, as i have done here, too much in these polarized, outcast, foreign, and oh so very german terms. on the other hand, whether aida is an italian opera and what it means to say that it is remains an open question, as open in fact as the question whether critical theory belongs only or too much to germany and to the more catastrophic moments of its history. notes 1. this essay originated as a lecture for the conference "the public spheres of alexander kluge," german department, princeton university, december 2004. i thank patrick calleo, karen henson,alexander kluge, gertrud koch, roger parker, hans vaget, and an anonymous reader for helpful comments. 2. mann 1995:636. 3. the review was published in adorno [1929] 1984:140-41. there is no published english translation. in this essay, all translations are my own unless specified otherwise. 4. adorno 1984:140. 5. adorno 1984: 141. 6. for further detail on the words of the king of prussia, see rose 1980: 12. 7. all quotations from the italian libretto by antonio ghislanzoni are from aida (new york: dover publications, 1989); translations are myown. 8. said 1994:111-32. paul robinson also introduces this point to counter said's reading of the opera in 1993:133-40. see also locke 2006:45-72; and herbert lindenburger's chapter on orientalism and otherness in 1998:160-90. for extensive details on the background to the opera, see budden 1992:161-259. 9. arrigo boito, the librettist for verdi's otello, adapted this line in the opera in act ii, scene 5. 10. quoted in rose 1980:10. 11. said 1994:116. 12. said 1994:ll3. 13. for a differently focused article on the death-like character of the opera, also inspired by the work of said, see cruz 2002: 177-200. 14. adorno 1978a:33, my translation. for a compete translation, see "bourgeois opera," in levin 1993:25-43. 15. parker 1980:13 and 31-33. 155 156 current musicology 16. the letter is printed in full in busch 1978:4-5. 17. i pursue this theme in detail in a companion essay, "undoing the discourse of fate. the case of the der fliegende hollander" (2005:1-22). 18. busch 1978:296-299. 19. kluge 1984:176. all translations of kluge's text are my own. the text of the film more or less corresponds to the text from the book. quotations are drawn from the book. 20. gertrud koch makes this point with the term "congealment" in "alexander kluge's phantom of the opera" (1990:79). 21. "die macht gibt es wirklich, und die gefiihle gibt es auch wirldich;' kluge 1984, "vor­ wort." 22. see lutze 1998: 117-18. 23. "gefiihle haben ihre eigene zeit," kluge 1984:211. 24. "alle ihre gefiihle haben ubersicht tiber 28 grosse kriege," kluge 1984:70. for more on this displacement, see hansen 1981-82: esp. 55. the extension of time embodied in the generalized figure of woman is also discussed in relation to the figure of kundry by carolyn abbate in 2001: 1 08 and by stanley cavell in 1994: 156. both refer to the line at the end of goethe's faust ii: "jungfrau, mutter, konigin, gottin, bleibe gnadig!" 25. "in den traurigen geschichtenwiegen die gefuhle schwerer;' kluge 1984:213. 26. kluge 1984:69. 27. kluge 1984, "vorwort." 28. "qual poter m'avvince a lui!;' my free translation. 29. kluge 1984:78. 30. adorno 1978a:32. for a contemporary critique of exogamy in kluge's work, see koch 1990. 31. see this marvelous letter from boito to verdi in 1889 (july 7) on knots in comedy and tragedy: "in comedy there's a moment when the audience says 'it's finished; but when on stage the action has to continue. a knot can't be unraveled without being loosened first, and when it's loose, the solution can be foreseen and the interest is gone before the knot is. comedy unravels the knot; tragedy breaks or severs it" (conati and medic 1994:140-41). cf. also nietzsche's comment from sec. 153 of the gay science [18821 2001: "homo poeta.i myself, having made this tragedy of tragedies all by myself, insofar as it is finished; i, having first tied the knot of morality into existence before i drew it so tight that only a god could untie it-which is what horace demands!-i myself have now slain all gods in the fourth act, for the sake of morality! now, what is to become of the fifth act? from where am i to take the tragic solution? should i begin to think about a comic solution?" 32. adorno and kluge were in regular contact in frankfurt in the 1960s. 33. adorno 1978b:299, translated in livingstone 1992:54 as "carmen too is one of those op­ eras of exogamy which begin with la juive and l'africaine and proceed via aida, lakme and butterfly to berg's lulu. all of them celebrate eruptions from civilization into the unknown." cf. mcclary 1992 for a more contemporary development of this view. 34. kluge 198111982:215. 35. cf. section 2 of nietzsche's the case of wagner, in 1967: 158-59. lydia goehr 36. cf. kluge 1990a:20. 37. negt and kluge 1993. 38. cf. helke sander 1990:59-68, esp. 65. 39. clement 1989: esp. 116ff. 40. "in jeder oper, die von erlasung handelt, wird im fiinften akt eine frau geopfert," kluge 1984:68. 41. i am thinking here of schiller's play the bride of messina where the relation of heroic death to destiny is explored in great detail. 42. in his film, die macht der gefiihle, kluge shows a clip from ernst lubitsch's silent film das weib des pharaoh. in this scene, the people are angry with the lovers. they feel betrayed the more they think the lovers have willingly relinquished their role as representative in this time of war in favor of love. the lovers are stoned by the crowd. however, in my reading at this moment, i am interpreting their love as rather symbolizing the peace with which the war is meant to end. 43. kluge 1984:78. recall nietzsche's remark in the opening sentence of his the case of il\tagner, that he has only heard bizet's masterpiece twenty times. "!eh harte gestern-werden sie es glauben?-zum zwanzigsten male bizets meisterstiick." 44. "seit jahren versuche ich mit literarischen und film is chen mitteln die opern erzahlungen zu andern," kluge 1984: 176. 45. kluge 1984: 178. cf. gertrud koch's observation that "kluge believes that opera and film correspond to different needs: whereas opera invokes the feeling for irreparable tragedy, the majority of films imagine themselves obliged to offer a happy ending" (1990:81). kluge takes the term erfahrungshunger from michael rutschky's classic essay on "the sixties." 46. kluge 1984:176. 47. gertrud koch describes kluge's position as "pragmatic utopianism" in contrast to adorno's more redemptive model. in part she draws this distinction to mark the difference between the continuing needs of opera (for adorno) and the new needs of film (for kluge) (1990:86-7). 48. i have discussed this matter in detail as many other matters pertaining to critique in my elective affinities: musical essays on the history of aesthetic theory (2008: 197-203). 49. for more on kluge's "antagonistic realism:' see lieberman 1988:4-22, esp. 12. 50. kluge 1984:68 ("das kraftwerk der gefiihle"). in her chapters (part ii) on kluge, caryl flinn also pays much attention to the theme of rubbles and ruin in kluge's work on opera (2004). taking her cue from the work of walter benjamin (given benjamin's influence upon kluge), she describes kluge's technique in the compelling terms of "explosive historiogra­ phy." 51. cf. adorno 1973:266. 52. kluge 1984, "vorwort." 53. kluge narrates his own story far better than i. the translation of the story appears in "kluge on opera, film, and feelings" (l990b:89-138). 54. steinberg 2004: 178-86. 157 158 current musicology references abbate, carolyn. 2001. in search of opera. princeton, nj: princeton university press. adorno, theodor w. 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[review of aida]. in musikalische schriften vi: gesammelte schriften 19, 140-41. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. ---. 1973. einleitung in die musiksoziologie. gesammelte schriften 14. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. ---. 1978a. biirgerliche oper. in klangfiguren. gesammelte schriften 16,24-38. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. ---. 1978b. fantasia sopra carmen. gesammelte schriften 16,298-308. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. ---. 1992. fantasia sopra carmen. in quasi una fantasia: essays on modern music, edited by rodney livingstone, 53-64. london and new york: verso books. ---.1993. bourgeois opera. in opera through other eyes, edited and translated by david j. levin, 25-43. stanford, ca: stanford university press. budden, julian. 1992. the operas of verdi: volume 3. oxford and new york: clarendon press. busch, hans. 1978. verdi's aida: the history of an opera in letters and documents. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. cavell, stanley, 1994. a pitch of philosophy: autobiographical exercises. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. clement, catherine. 1989. opera, or the undoing of women, translated by betsy wing. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. conati, marcello, and mario medic, eds. 1994. the verdiboito correspondence. chicago and london: university of chicago press. cruz, gabriela. 2002. aida's flutes. cambridge opera journal 14: 177-200. flinn, caryl. 2004. the new german cinema: music, history, and the matter of style . berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. goehr, lydia. 2005. undoing the discourse of fate: the case of der fliegende hollander. the opera quarterly 21(3): 1-22. ---.2008. elective affinities: musical essays on the history of aesthetic theory. new york: columbia university press. hansen, miriam. 1981-82. cooperative auteur cinema and oppositional public sphere: alexander kluge's contribution to german in autumn. new german critique 24 (5): 36-56. kluge, alexander. 1981/ 1982. on film and the public sphere, translated by thomas y. levin and miriam hansen. new german critique, 24 (5): 206-20. ---. 1984. die macht der gefuhle. frankfurt am main: suhrkamp. ---. 1990a. the assault of the present on the rest of time. new german critique 49: 11-22. ---. 1990b. kluge on opera, film, and feelings, translated by miriam hansen and sara s. poor. new german critique 49: 89-138. koch, getrud. 1990. alexander kluge's phantom of the opera, translated by jeremy gaines. new german critique 49: 79-88. lieberman, stuart. 1988. why kluge? october 46: 4-22. lindenburger, herbert. 1998. opera in history: from monteverdi to cage. stanford, ca: stanford university press. locke, ralph. 2006. aida and nine readings of empire. nineteenth-century music review 3: 45-72. lutze, peter c. 1998. alexander kluge: the last modernist. detroit, mi: wayne state university press. lydia goehr mann, thomas. 1995. the magic mountain, translated by john e. woods. new york: vintage books. mcclary, susan. 1992. georges bizet: carmen. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. negt, oscar, and alexander kluge. 1993. public sphere and experience: toward an analysis of the bourgeois and proletarian public sphere, translated peter labanyi, et al. minneapolis and london: university of minnesota press. nietzsche, friedrich. [1882] 2001. the gay science, edited by bernard williams. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---. [1888]1967. the case of wagner. in the birth of tragedy and the case of wagner, translated by walter kaufmann. new york: vintage books. parker, roger. 1980. the genesis of aida. in aida: english national opera guide, edited by john nicholas, 31-40. london and new york: calder publications/riverrun press. robinson, paul. 1993. is "aida" an orientialist opera? cambridge opera journal 5 (2): 133-40. rose, michael. 1980. verdi's "egyptian business." in aida: english national opera guide, edited by john nicholas, 7-15. london and new york: calder publications/riverrun press. rutschky, michael. 1980. erfahrungshunger: ein essay uber die siebziger jahre. cologne: kiepenheuer und witsch. said, edward. 1994. the empire at work: verdi's aida. in culture and imperialism, 111-32. new york: vintage books. sander, helke. 1990. "you can't always get what you want": the films of alexander kluge. new german critique 49: 59-68. steinberg, michael p. 2004. listening to reason, culture, subjectivity, and nineteenth-century music. princeton, nt: princeton university press. vonnegut, kurt. 1965. god bless you, mr. rosewater, or pearls before swine. new york: delacorte press. 159 current musicology 103 (fall 2018) © 2018 buffington. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 45 through the fabric of my own: louise alenius and embodied interrelationality adam buffington several manners of being or of living can find their place in the ruins or the broken instruments which i discover, or in the landscape through which i roam. (merleau-ponty 1962, 405) “i want the music to be visible on their skin.” feet. the nebulous drone of a viola and cello emerges within the performance space, intermittently punctured by the intrusive tearing of white gaffer’s tape. as discreet variations arise in instrumental timbre and texture, the performers’ legs and feet are, ostensibly unbeknownst to them, systematically bound to their chairs. ankle. the melodic material of the viola and cello progressively intensifies in tempo, rhythm, and dynamics, as a pair of hands commences an exploration of the cellist’s ankle. softly tracing the contour of the bone, the fingertips linger achingly upon the surface, and gradually proceed upward. skin. a violent slap on the cellist’s leg is briskly succeeded by abrupt viola and cello pizzicati. soon, the hands transfer to the violist’s thigh. repetitive triplet figures emanate from the viola, incessantly swelling and dissipating, as fingernails sink deeply into the violist’s skin and scratch lines vehemently, rendering the gently pale flesh inflamed, raw, and subsequently, bruised. these abrasions, the embodied remnants of said submissive torment, lingered upon the performers’ bodies for several days following the performance, and only worsened in appearance, devolving in color from an effulgent red to a blackened blue. though the pain itself had largely subsided, cellist karolina öhman nevertheless documented the transformation, photographing the various blemishes and contusions on her body: “the first time we did it, [karolina] was blue for five days, and she sent me pictures of blue body parts… perhaps i need to change the title” (alenius 2017a). this amusingly wry remark from danish composer louise alenius, 46 current musicology who perpetrated these staged acts of violence upon the performers, not only reflects an unforeseen prolonged aftereffect of the performance itself, but also encapsulates the extreme measures that alenius, öhman (or, in another performance, cellist lea emilie brøndal) and violist mina fred were willing to enact and endure. congruously entitled after the performers’ reddened and bruised skin, rouge provokes an unusually intense encounter between the composer and performers. though presented as one uninterrupted stream, the musical score itself is divided into multiple segments designated by a specific bodily area to be affected, or somatic action to be committed, by the composer: “feet,” “skin,” “nails,” etc. (alenius 2016). alongside musical notation for the violist and cellist, each of these segments include meticulous stage directions for the composer to enact during a performance: “work cellist’s forearm, pushing fingertips to the bone,” “draw long red lines, scratching nails on violist’s leg,” etc. (figure 1). such scrupulous detail is intrinsic to rouge’s realization, albeit not purely on account of technical precision. for alenius, the score—like any score proving physically and mentally arduous for a performer—functions as a binding contract between herself and prospective performers. as she expresses: if i don’t really know the people and they get the contract, and it says everything that i’m going to do, then they can choose to be a part of it. i can say, “play this, while i’m doing something to you, which you have already subscribed to,” and we’ll see how it goes. (alenius 2017a) figure 1. rouge, mm. 102–105. words and music by louise alenius. copyright (c) 2016 by edition wilhelm hansen as, copenhagen. this arrangement copyright (c) 2019 by edition wilhelm hansen as, copenhagen. international copyright secured. all rights reserved. reprinted by permission of hal leonard llc. 47 adam buffington thus, in order for her performers to engage assiduously with the material, alenius utilizes the score to clearly articulate the principal aspiration of rouge, the infliction and endurance of bodily pain: i will apply this “engagement” to their own bodies—it might be painful, but i want the music to be visible on their skin. at the same time this will test how strong their focus is, and how much i can do to them, while they are still staying in the music. (alenius 2017b) the impetus for rouge’s keen emphasis on physical trauma initially arose from two elements, the first of which is the composer’s idiosyncratic fixation upon pain. pain occupies an enduring presence within alenius’ life, as she reports a heightened sensitivity for even the most minuscule of aches stemming from the act of composing, habitually observing residual discomfort in her arms and back.1 nevertheless, alenius acknowledges attaining pleasure from these sensations, divulging that: i like pain. i like strong pain on muscles and skin. . . . you don’t know this as a child, because you’re just told that it hurts, but when you grow up, you realize “i know it hurts, i know what it means when it hurts, but i like it.” (2017a) this receptivity to pain not only conditions alenius’ fundamental relationship with her body, but also her being to the surrounding world: “it feels good to feel something… it feels good to feel connected to the body. it’s a strong connection to the body, this pain. i feel very alive” (ibid.). consequently, through the contract of the score, rouge invites the performers to momentarily “enter her world” to endure, and even embrace, somatic pain; indeed, alenius (2018a) relates that cellist öhman, initially wary of such harsh infliction, subsequently derived fervent gratification from the recurrent exposure to the composer’s torment. intertwined with this invitation into alenius’ experience, to in some sense inhabit her skin, is an impulse to deepen performers’ engagement, to “wake them up” and “have them be as into it as i am” (alenius 2017a), with alenius expressing: “i almost ‘fall in love’ with the people i work with, but i also hate them in a way, because i have such high expectations, and no one can live up to them” (2017b). despite her (self-perceived) fastidious nature, alenius does not wish to deprecate or to malign her performers during rouge. rather, she encroaches upon their individual boundaries to propel them beyond the traditional conceptions and limitations of their discipline, so she and they can collectively obtain an unusually intense engagement within a performance: “where will my limit meet their limit? will the music breakdown before, or will we meet at some point” (2017a). 48 current musicology ultimately, for such vitality to transpire, alenius maintains that the effort must be rooted in a mutual commitment to trust: “i want to both connect in the music and humanly… i think it’s about trust; it’s about creating a safe space… you need to feel each other. to me, it cannot only be through the art, it has be a holistic project also” (2017a). this peculiar “holistic project” is one component of a more encompassing inquiry into recent developments of contemporary musical performance within the nordic region. the composer as performer rouge was commissioned by sanne krogh groth, associate professor of musicology at lund university and former editor-in-chief of the danish online contemporary music journal seismograf, as part of her investigation into the fluctuating role of composers in the 21st century. groth’s work examines composers who engage in the performance of their own work, “not as professional musicians but involving themselves in other ways” (groth 2016, 686). she asks “how such performances can be perceived and received by their audiences, how they work within the institutions, and how they relate to larger historical contexts” (ibid., 694). this research led to a performance-centered seminar, “the creator on stage: the death and resurrection of the composer in 21st-century contemporary music performances,” at the royal danish library in copenhagen on september 15th 2016. shortly after (september 30th), it was reconfigured as “the composer as performer,” a performance panel at nordic music days, the oldest continuous new music collaboration between the nordic nations, at harpa concert hall and conference center in reykjavik. sponsored by the nordic arts council, groth possessed significant freedom in organizing and curating both symposiums; and with ample financial assistance from the danish state, she commissioned three new compositions from three danish composers. the parameters groth established for these works were specific: the compositions, each approximately twelve minutes in duration, must elicit substantial though non-traditional performative involvement from their composers. besides alenius, groth commissioned works from juliana hodkinson and kristian hverring (though due to hodkinson’s inability to attend the panel discussion at harpa, alenius and hverring were joined by a similarly diy-minded composer, simon steen-andersen). groth recruited alenius for this investigation after witnessing her performance at the 2015 nordic music days festival in copenhagen, in which alenius sang alongside a dying character (an arresting moment from alenius’ 2015 dramatic work when silence came, a harrowing account of familial incest). groth was enamored by alenius’ musical style, which deviates considerably from many contemporary com49 adam buffington posers in the danish new music community; in particular, groth (2018) notes alenius’ “quite unique and brave” insistence on lyricism and tonality, in spite of the intrepid and uncompromising explorations of controversial subject matter. groth (2016) published her research in contemporary music review, with an article titled “composers on stage: ambiguous authorship in contemporary music performance.” in this text, groth engages with the writings of 20thand 21st-century scholars from multiple disciplines (historical musicology, theater and performance studies, literary criticism) to assess and illuminate this contemporary trend, a phenomenon bearing historical precedence within the western classical tradition yet also deeply rooted within avant-garde practices that endeavored to upend the stylistic and performative restrictions of western art music. groth dissects this dichotomy by analyzing the role of the composer within it. according to groth, much contemporary music is informed by the post-structuralist notion (such as that formulated by roland barthes) that a work’s inherent meaning is not established by the artist’s intention, but constructed through the viewer’s perspective. yet, the contemporary composer also inhabits a culture frequently acknowledging and celebrating the composer as the singular author of a composition, an idea effectively rooted in 19thcentury romanticism. while this dichotomy situates contemporary composers and audiences, this is mediated when the composer embodies the role of a performer (but not primarily a musician) within experimental interdisciplinary settings: this appearance . . . contains a “doubleness” in which both representation and presentation are present: the institutional context strongly represents conventions of western art music; meanwhile, a type of performance and live art aesthetics are presented at the same time, stressing the presence of the artist with the intention to avoid semiotic communication with the audience. (groth 2016, 687) according to groth (2016, 687), “this tension, the simultaneous appearance of two conventions and traditions, perhaps even to be considered paradigms, in the one and same performer” initiates an ambivalence; these compositions “reveal the processes of musical performance in ways that undermine the romantic idea of the composer while concurrently celebrating that very same idea through their exposition and staging of the composer” (ibid., 686), a dichotomy which groth argues permeates throughout her chosen composers’ oeuvres. this approach also constitutes an exploration of music as performance, an embodied act that is more than the aural reproduction of a score, an in50 current musicology clination distilled into a compositional manifesto by the impetus for groth’s investigation, irish composer and vocalist jennifer walshe.2 presented in march 2016 at borealis festival in bergen, “the new discipline” is the term utilized by walshe to articulate the manner of labor in which particular composers, regardless of disparity of interest or aesthetic, share a concern for the physical, theatrical, visual, and musical elements of a work, and how they are interrelated with the bodies on stage. according to walshe, “the new discipline” does not advocate for a new style or subgenre of musical performance, but rather accentuates the interdisciplinarity inherent within these composers’ methods, as they cultivate influence from dance, theater, video, visual art, installations, literature, stand-up comedy, and social media. walshe’s approach entails the means by which composers develop new compositional and performative techniques to resolve challenges emerging from such plurality: how to locate a psychological/physiological node which produces a very specific sound; how to notate tiny head movements alongside complex bow manoeuvres; how to train your body so that you can run 10 circuits of the performance space before the piece begins; . . . how to dissolve the concept of a single author and work collectively; how to dissolve the normal concept of what a composition is. (walshe 2016) this dissolution is vital, as the methods walshe outlines freely subsume a plethora of both technological and aesthetic approaches. walshe acknowledges the relation with 20th-century precedents such as dada, fluxus, and the music-theatre of mauricio kagel,3 yet sees “the new discipline” not as a regurgitation, but an extension cognizant of the innumerable artistic, cultural, and social progressions that have transpired in the 20th and 21st centuries. despite her emphasis on interdisciplinarity, walshe ultimately regards this work as music, and concludes that musical performance is an embodied act where physicality and aurality simultaneously arise from the same locus of creative expression: [t]hese modes of thinking about the world, these compositional techniques—they are not “music theatre,” they are music. or from a different perspective, maybe what is at stake is the idea that all music is music theatre. perhaps we are finally willing to accept that the bodies playing the music are part of the music, that they’re present, they’re valid and they inform our listening whether subconsciously or consciously. that it’s not too late for us to have bodies. (walshe 2016) as evidenced by the extreme encounter of rouge, alenius undoubtedly shares an affinity with the interdisciplinarity articulated by walshe and manifested within the works of her colleagues in groth’s investigation. 51 adam buffington moreover, as indicated by the stage directions incorporated into rouge’s score, the meticulous consideration of corporeality (even within rouge’s vehement display of torment) is imperative for alenius, for the performers’ bodily actions are as integral to the performative conception and realization of rouge as the sounds these actions give rise to. likewise, alenius’ own performative involvement, required by groth’s commission, is a key feature of several of her works, echoing the sentiments by walshe and other composers working in the vein described by the new discipline. this commitment is not ego-driven, but rather based on practicality, for the composer’s direct involvement in a demanding interdisciplinary work can often be the most cost-effective and time-efficient solution. yet, despite these similarities, alenius deems her oeuvre a peripheral development due to a self-perceived disconnection with walshe and the other composer-performer artists examined within groth’s inquiry. alenius ultimately does not relate aesthetically to their modalities of performance, and maintains that comprehension of her “holistic project” would not benefit from, or may even be hindered by, associations with a distinct manifesto or artistic movement. as she herself states: i generally don’t care a lot about being part of an environment, just as i don’t care for fan culture. i think it means that people forget the essence. it’s not about the artists—it’s about the art. (quoted in grønborg 2018) context can predetermine interpretations of a performance, and for alenius, the audience member should be “blank,” devoid of as many ideological preconceptions as possible until the performance is experienced. alenius’ conception of musical performance as a holistic endeavor stems from her distinctive extra-musical background. though passionate for music and theater since her youth, alenius briefly studied anthropology and ethnology while attending a music academy in france, particularly enthralled with phenomenological inquiries into human consciousness and interrelationality. despite alenius’ aversion towards classification under “the new discipline,” these elements undeniably resonate with walshe’s manifesto and, though interwoven within the compositional fabric of rouge, radically manifested within rouge’s predecessor, a series of secretive, intimate compositions entitled porøset. engaging porøset with phenomenological models for human intersubjectivity formulated by emmanuel levinas and maurice merleau-ponty will illuminate the synergistic dynamic between performer and audience, and alenius’ ultimate aspiration for these esoteric encounters. 52 current musicology “the ruins . . . through which i roam.” porøset, a series of distinct works with alenius as the sole recurring participant, commenced in 2014 in collaboration with the royal danish theater in copenhagen. the title “porøset” is a term invented by alenius, derived from the french word “poreuse” (“porous” in english), meant to evoke the decaying state of aging wood, the moment in which “wood gets very old and very dry, and it crumbles when you touch it. . . . [porøset] is something that will fall apart when you touch it, something very fragile” (alenius 2017a). the ephemerality suggested by the title alone reflects alenius’ desire to produce an oeuvre nurturing sensations of stark intimacy and vulnerability between its audience and performers. though each porøset possesses a distinctive thematic premise and artistic identity, each iteration (titled porøset i, porøset ii, etc.) does retain definitive structural components essential to the work’s ultimate realization. the duration of each performance of porøset is approximately fifteen minutes, an exceptionally brief work compared to the large-scale opera and ballet productions usually staged within the royal danish theater. additionally, every iteration of porøset is mounted within a concealed location inside the theater, information that is deliberately withheld from the audience prior to its commencement. yet, the most distinguishing attribute of porøset is not only where it is performed, but for whom: each performance of porøset is presented for only a single audience member at a time, their seating designated by a lone blue-green upholstered chair, a slender white “1” sewn conspicuously into its cushioned back (figure 2). alenius’ idiosyncratic and radically minimal conception of porøset is the result of an impetus to transcend the artistic frustrations she encountered whilst immersed in large-scale ballet productions at the royal danish theater. specifically, alenius was considerably dissatisfied with the audience’s function within these performative situations: i think they’re too comfortable. i think they’re too lazy, i think they know too much about the piece beforehand. . . . even if they want to, they can’t be open-minded, because they are simply guided too much before they can experience the piece. (alenius 2017a) these (blunt) criticisms of the audience’s role within traditional musicaltheatrical settings is accompanied by the composer’s detestation of, in her mind, the unnecessarily lengthy durations exploited by works to justify proper theatrical productions, often at the expense of a work’s thematic and narrative development. furthermore, alenius grew weary of the extensive gaps which frequently occurred between the processes of composition and 53 adam buffington production, oftentimes “being driven mad” by the inability to experience a completed work until a year later. unable to reconcile these vexations within conventional ballet productions, alenius sought to address her grievances by establishing a new format of performance: works, concise in duration and extremely minimal in production value, which solicit the audience’s engagement through unanticipated degrees of secrecy and solitude: “for porøset, it’s about experiencing things that you don’t know before you are in it, and where you are alone . . . so you must interpret it on your own” (alenius 2017a). another distinct characteristic of porøset is alenius’ choice of venue within the royal danish theater: the old stage, the original structure of the theatre constructed in 1874. the decision to mount porøset within a “grand old institution” was fundamental to alenius’ initial conception and realization of these works. she opposed the notion of programming porøset within an encompassing “contemporary” or “avant-garde” festival, noting that the probable audience enticed by such work “would have expectations of being shocked or getting something very edgy, which is something i don’t try to do. i don’t want to be violent, i don’t try to shock people. i try to give people a present, . . . a present they don’t expect” (2017a). with porøset, alenius does not wish to align herself with contemporary performers, oftentimes perceiving them as overtly “aggressive,” “eager to shock,” and “political,” the antithesis to her conception of porøset. to alenius, mounting porøset within the concealed corridors and decrepit attic spaces of the old stage, a preeminent landmark of danish cultural figure 2. “1” blue-green chair, on set of porøset v. photo by alastair wiper. 54 current musicology heritage, renders porøset not just an intervention in the social positions of the performer, composer, and audience, but also an intervention in the conventional social spaces they inhabit, and ultimately expands the pieces’ scope of reception to “an audience which could be anybody. . . . a lot of people came because they knew i made ballet music; they thought they were going to see a ballet. they had no idea they were going to be alone” (alenius 2017a).4 in terms of conception and execution, each iteration of porøset is eminently site-specific. alenius either envisions a work upon discovering a distinct location within the old stage, or permits an abstract mood to arbitrate and curate a space for the eventual performance. the impetus for porøset iv arose coincidentally, as alenius stumbled upon an attic space overladen with fragile wicker baskets and furniture. enamored by the attic’s dilapidated contents, alenius conceived of porøset iv instantaneously, envisioning a nude woman sitting idly in a wicker chair. with the weathered baskets and furniture proving as integral to porøset iv as the performers themselves, little of the space was altered for the performances, a testament to alenius’ minimalistic approach to porøset’s production: “if your idea is good enough, then you can do it with very little” (alenius 2017a). during a performance of porøset iv, an usher escorts the audience member to the attic space. instructed to sit in porøset’s characteristic bluegreen chair, the audience member encounters two performers situated in front of them. as depicted in figure 3, positioned stage left is alenius, clothed in a charcoal black jumpsuit, sensuously singing in a distinctively airy, nasal voice. kneeling down inspecting a taxidermied crow perched upon a branch, alenius utilizes a pair of tweezers to flatten the ruffled feathers, disentangle the bird’s talons, and remove extraneous filth from figure 3. louise alenius (left) and marie louise tüxen (right) performing porøset iv. 55 adam buffington its perch. seated stage right is a nude woman in a wicker arm chair, her catatonic eyes gazing outwards, ostensibly incognizant of her surroundings. to the audience member, she exudes the solemn, lifeless qualities of a costume mannequin. encircling them are disheveled stacks of wicker baskets and chairs, all accentuated underneath the dim radiance of two antiquated floor lamps. upon returning the tweezers to a basket by her feet, alenius grasps a bottle of yellow oil. placing one drop upon each of the woman’s knees, she leisurely spreads the oil across the woman’s skin, caressing her knees, thighs, and legs. retrieving a razor blade from a basket, alenius carefully draws it across the woman’s oiled thigh, before proceeding upwards around her breast, arm, and shoulder. as with the taxidermied bird, alenius is employing the blade to excise any “imperfections” from the woman’s body. softly tucking the woman’s hair behind her shoulders, alenius ceases her involvement. the piece concludes with the nude woman inhabiting a physically rejuvenated and immaculate state, mirroring the freshly pruned crow resting upon its perch. this inference is reinforced by the presence of a disembodied male narration, chronicling the life of a woman who, after a bitter divorce, receives an opportunity for a life anew. as with many incarnations of porøset, porøset iv was realized in collaboration with close colleagues of alenius. the male narration was supplied by kim bildsøe lassen, a well-known television presenter and journalist whose distinct and authoritative voice, familiar to danish audience members, was rendered achingly elusive within this performative context. the seated woman, marie louise tüxen, is a danish author chosen by the composer for her stereotypical nordic physique; alenius (2018b) considered her “the prototype of a danish woman in 2016.” prior to porøset iv’s conception, tüxen experienced personal frustrations similar to those detailed by lassen’s narration, thus inspiring porøset iv’s thematic premise. with her “prototypical” nordic appearance presented in a detached, exhibition-like manner, alenius frames tüxen’s body as a broad metaphorical representation of women in denmark, and the possibility of triumph over trauma. porøset ii whereas porøset iv is an example of alenius permitting a physical space to enthrall and dictate her compositional process, porøset ii entails an engagement in the disaggregation of a particular space’s distinctive material culture in order to curate an experience which explicitly and graphically confronts the audience, thrusting them without prior knowledge (or consent) into an intimately harrowing encounter. porøset ii was developed in 56 current musicology collaboration with danish cinematographer klaus birkenfeldt. prior to the work’s conception in 2014, birkenfeldt was dying of terminal cancer. residing with a friend due to his dissolving medical and financial situation, birkenfeldt, wishing not to burden others with his impending demise, was deeply concerned with discovering the most suitable place in which to die. initially apprehensive, yet imbued with an insatiable desire to grant him solace, alenius devised a manner in which to gift birkenfeldt the dignified “death” he desired: she proposed curating a space within the old stage in which birkenfeldt, wishing to be candidly exposed and witnessed in his deteriorating physical condition, could “die” peacefully. prior to a performance, an usher escorts the audience member to the tailor room. navigating the hallways and corridors of the old stage, through a set of headphones they hear an unidentified man’s voice chronicling his failing health and the daughter he will abandon. this audio was compiled from a six-hour interview alenius conducted with birkenfeldt beforehand, though not structured linearly; alenius classified this as a type of “poem,” a fractured narrative whose precise context and implications remained elusive to the listener prior to entering the performance space. upon arrival at the tailor room, the audience member is seated in the bluegreen chair, positioned alongside a hospital bed in which birkenfeldt is lying unresponsive, ostensibly asleep. for several minutes, they sit beside birkenfeldt, alone and in silence.5 with all of porøset, and especially this second work, an instant of jarring disruption often occurs for the audience member upon entering the performance space. for the philosopher emmanuel levinas, this disruption is fundamental in establishing an ethical relationship with another being. it is a universal quality of the other, one which enables the self to discover they are in “possession of a world i can bestow as a gift upon the other—that is, as a presence before a face” (levinas 1969, 50). levinas denotes this encounter, which transpires not abstractly but between two corporeal beings, as the “face to face”: the proximity of the other is the face’s meaning .  .  . that goes beyond those plastic forms which forever try to cover the face. . . . but always the face shows through these forms. prior to any particular expression and beneath all particular expressions . . . there is the nakedness and destitution of the expression as such, that is to say extreme exposure, defenselessness, vulnerability itself. (levinas 1989, 82–83) within the face of the other, beneath all exterior expression, lies an impending finitude, a mortality inexplicably recognizable which constitutes fathomless vulnerability, a frailty so raw that the totalizing ego of the self is disrupted, destabilized, and dissolved into an emergent intersubjectivity. 57 adam buffington through this defamiliarizing encounter, the self relinquishes their selfassured grasp upon their conscious existence, and surrenders themselves irrevocably to the beckoning cry of the other. this solemn bond between self and other materializes from the self ’s recognition of the other’s perpetual alterity, a particularity immune to the ego’s reductive infringements, an otherness “whose bounds do not cease to extend” (levinas 1998, xiv). in levinasian terms, to behold the face of the other—an irreducible exteriority which cannot be totalized, appropriated, or possessed—is to glimpse a horizonless trace of infinity: “the infinite in the finite, the more in the less . . . is produced as desire—not a desire that the possession of the desirable slakes, but the desire for the infinite which the desirable arouses rather than satisfies. a desire perfectly disinterested—goodness” (levinas 1969, 50). this “goodness” articulated by levinas ultimately establishes the ethical foundation of the self ’s bond with the other inherent within this vision of the infinite. amidst the recognition of the other’s boundless and ungraspable vulnerability, the self responds to this suffering through an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the other, an ethical duty transforming egotistical tendencies of possession and reduction into generosity and decency. pain, loneliness, abandonment, death—these constitute the corporeality binding the self to the other. to selflessly receive the other’s infinite suffering is to render the self infinitely responsible, “incapable of approaching the other with empty hands” (ibid., 50). levinas designates this ethical metaphysics as the “first philosophy” (1989, 76), a pre-ontological occurrence unknowable by the ego, from which the entirety of ethical human interaction arises. by collaborating with birkenfeldt and bluntly exposing his deteriorating physical state, alenius is, to evoke levinasian language, calling the audience member into question by interrupting their perceived notions of reality through confounding exposure to another’s suffering. through birkenfeldt’s vulnerability, the audience member recognizes their transience, and are confronted with their own inevitable dissolution: “beyond the visibility of whatever is unveiled, and prior to any knowledge about death, mortality lies in the other” (ibid., 83). to further intensify this interpersonal disruption, alenius sought to accentuate such impermanence by contrasting birkenfeldt’s failing body with a meticulously curated space of exceeding dissimilarity. she struggled immensely with locating the proper space in which to frame birkenfeldt’s “death,” before settling upon an unexpected area within the old stage (figure 4): i ended up in the tailor’s room, where they have all the ballet dresses. i decided to make a space in the middle, . . . one spotlight on a hospital bed 58 current musicology and the chair . . . above it; i made a big cloud of tutu skirts. . . . it was very simple, yet that was the idea. i wanted to put people in a beautiful space, and present something really nasty. (alenius 2017a) in this space, the audience member experiences a levinasian disruption as they are situated, without forewarning, within mere inches of birkenfeldt and the devastating state of his pale, emaciated, deteriorating form. birkenfeldt, the “rupture of death embodied” (levinas 1969, 58–59), is starkly juxtaposed with sleek white mannequin forms and a billowing mass of tutu skirts nestled in the rafters above, epitomizing the emergence of material creation imbued with the interminable possibilities of life. gazing upon birkenfeldt, the audience member, engulfed in disbelief or despair, surrenders their existential certitude as they witness the unappeasable insistence of death, a force which inexorably demands from all “an obedience where there is no desertion” (levinas 1998, 52). subsequently, unbeknownst to the audience member, alenius discreetly enters the space and briefly sings lyric-less music (“as no words can describe this situation” [alenius 2018a]), after which they remain in silence together, until the performance’s conclusion. like all incarnations of porøset, porøset ii possesses the potential to fulfill the levinasian infinite, and arguably embodies levinas’ phenomenology of ethics more substantially than traditional artistic performance or quotidian modalities of existence, due to the exceptional parameters which alenius has constructed. porøset enacts a performative intervention in the rigid social norms which constitute human life, whether they be the complex triangulation of the composer-performer-audience dynamic within figure 4. klaus birkenfeldt on the set of porøset ii. photo by klaus birkenfeldt. 59 adam buffington western art music, or the conventionally bounded positions one inhabits within diurnal social interaction. whether these orientations themselves are inherently prohibitive or even unethical in nature, the interruption of these positions, through the ineluctable intimacy and vulnerability of porøset, compels the audience member to encounter the boundless alterity of the other with a diminished possibility of egotistical reduction or ignorance, an occurrence relatively external to porøset’s distinct performative context. as previously elaborated, this disruption is further accentuated by alenius’ subtle reconceptualizations of material, cultural and social space, the milieu in which the innumerable modes of human experience, whether ethical or unethical, transpire. in the case of porøset ii, the parameters established by alenius force the audience member to confront the threshold of life’s eternal cessation, an intangible permanence deliberately buried beneath the mundanities of daily life, enabling the cognizant avoidance of others’ suffering and one’s own mortality. yet, alenius’ conception of porøset not only embodies levinas’ ethical metaphysics but also transcends it, as the ethical interrelationality formulated by levinas, though by no means a nihilistic conception of suffering, is nevertheless problematic once engaged with the broader intersubjectivity of porøset. throughout the numerous performances of porøset ii (which, according to alenius, occurred forty to forty-five times), she and birkenfeldt cultivated an astonishingly powerful connection between one another, and even more so with the audience members, with alenius noting “when they get touched, we get touched as well” (2017a). somewhat paradoxically, although porøset always begins by concealing information from the audience, birkenfeldt expressed that a profound sense of trust emerged between himself, alenius, and the audience members unknowingly thrust into an inconceivable and impossible situation. indeed, for alenius, trust arose as the defining conviction behind porøset, and established the foundation for all successive iterations.6 when considered alongside levinas’ ethical metaphysics, this notion of trust (though emanating from the interpersonal disruption articulated by levinas, and periodically fulfilling the levinasian responsibility towards the other) is ultimately an interrelationality encompassing elements beyond the scope of levinasian ethics. according to levinas, the face of the other incessantly precipitates an event of transcendence, as the self is confoundingly exposed to the other’s mortality, an ungraspable ephemerality that is perpetually infinite, and thus, transcendent. because the self cannot possess what is transcendent, the ethical injunction of the face is ultimately unilateral, and responsibility for the other’s suffering is placed upon the self, as opposed to the self 60 current musicology freely enacting a responsible duty. the self is summoned by the other to recognize the ethical demand for responsibility inherent within the other’s vulnerability, and the degree to which the self enacts the responsibility accorded to them determines their ethicality as a human being. this radical conception of human interrelationality hinges on levinas’ deduction that ethics is pre-ontological, a good beyond being; responsibility is not generated by the self but rather bestowed upon one by the infinite transcendent face of the other. thus, with ethics emanating outside of being (and the natural world in which all beings inhabit), levinas designates ethics as strictly a pre-human relationality, functioning as a radical intervention or disruption of one’s existence, which establishes a unilateral intersubjectivity that ultimately fails to recognize and engage with the indeterminacy inherent within all human interaction. levinas’ immutable definition of human intersubjectivity cannot encapsulate alenius’ notion of trust, an emergent interrelationality not of pre-ontological origin, but cultivated and nurtured between two embodied beings.7 the innumerable physiological, psychological, and societal factors which mold an individual’s corporeality can never be fully ascertained by another being, and thus remain obscured and opaque. but, through the vulnerability of porøset, the audience member and performers alike possess the opportunity to expose their enigmatic depths through a bilateral construction of trust, a delicate bond fashioned through the fragile interweaving of their somatic experiences. as alenius (2017a) later states, “i think that almost everything grows out of trust in one form or another. it is a basic premise that we can create a good dialogue and believe that we want the best for each other.” this formulation of human trust is fundamentally inseparable from the worldly environment, and thus subject to innumerable contextual conditions. this notion, neglected by levinasian ethics, is embraced by alenius, as evidenced by her ability to encapsulate the harrowing nature of birkenfeldt’s failing body through its juxtaposition to the adjacent space. yet, only in the aftermath of this “perfect death scenario” (alenius 2017a) did she wholly comprehend the implications and ramifications of performing alongside birkenfeldt: then it was over, and then he went back to the hospital, and i had to tell the people at the theatre “okay, take this hospital bed, it came from that stockroom.” . . . i had a few hours where i was just like, “what the fuck? . . . why did we do that? what the fuck was this about?” that’s when i realized, that’s how i work. i just don’t know what [the piece] is until it’s over .  .  . and suddenly i was there, and it was over, and i totally broke down. i was so sad; i was so, so sad. . . . i think it might have been some kind of a long goodbye: “let’s say goodbye forty-five times.” but then, he was still alive. he was still there. (alenius 2017a) 61 adam buffington prequiem two weeks following porøset ii, birkenfeldt succumbed to cancer. devastated by his passing, alenius determined that the holistic endeavor she commenced alongside birkenfeldt, the cultivation of trust that emerged from the unbearable intimacy of porøset ii, was left abandoned and unfinished. subsequently, porøset ii materialized as the catalyst for alenius’ 2016 piece, prequiem. performed in collaboration with the 2016 copenhagen opera festival which encouraged musical performance within unconventional locales throughout copenhagen, prequiem (meaning “pre-requiem, or requiem for the living” [alenius 2017a]), was performed at the diakoniss foundation’s hospice for a single terminal patient (and any present relatives) at a time. though the conceptual premise of prequiem resembles that of porøset, one crucial distinction lies within alenius’ performative role. as opposed to meticulously devising a set of succinct stipulations conditioning a performative situation unknown to the audience member, alenius contacts the patients directly for permission to perform. it is not the audience member encountering the composer’s furtively devised parameters, but rather alenius who is entering their space, and thus reduced to a more vulnerable state. according to alenius (2017a), “the prequiem was really about getting me in there. and my way to get in there, and to sit with people, and to do something for them, is to call it art. and i didn’t really care if it turned out to be art. . . . i wanted to get in there, and build up that trust.” with each performance lasting approximately twenty minutes, alenius, accompanied by violist jenni luning, enters a hospice room, sits beside the patient, and gently sings lyrics of memory, death, and confession. nestled within alenius’ hands is an indian shruti box, a bellows-driven instrument possessing a timbre akin to that of a harmonium, producing chord-based drones. a woven scarf extends between alenius and the patient, a ritualistic gesture signifying the intertwining of their experiences, and from that, a mutual cultivation of trust. with one patient dying just hours following alenius’ performance with them, prequiem entails an intimacy even more harrowing than porøset ii, and like porøset effectively dissolves the traditional boundaries between performance and reality. for alenius, prequiem and porøset not only engender a manner in which others nurture trustworthiness, but also provokes an opportunity to witness others’ inner emotions manifested externally, and for her to recognize her own enigmatism distilled and reflected through the exterior expressions of others. this sentiment articulated by alenius presents a facet of embodied perception imbued with a seemingly paradoxical reflexivity, an experiential phenomenon poetically formulated by maurice merleau-ponty (1968, 11) as écart: 62 current musicology “somewhere behind those eyes, behind those gestures, .  .  . coming from i know not [where], another private world shows through, through the fabric of my own, and for a moment i live in it.” écart, a term which defies exact translation (hass 2008, 129), functions not only as a philosophical construct but also an expressive device utilized by merleau-ponty to designate the subtleties inherent within intersubjective experience, and embodied relationalities to the encompassing world. with écart, elusive yet ontologically essential, merleau-ponty ventures to disavow the notion that differences between self and other must categorize them in strict opposition, or that the other is purely transcendent towards the self (a distinction denoted by levinas). merleau-ponty forgoes both opposition and transcendence, instead invoking separation as the key dissimilarity between human beings, a non-dualistic divergence permitting myriad relationalities besides opposition. to merleau-ponty, only by recognizing this separation can the self perceive the other’s existence, or even identify themselves as a “self ”. thus, according to merleau-ponty, écart is the “separation-difference” which enables embodied perception to occur: my body is made of the same flesh as the world (it is a perceived), and moreover . . . this flesh of my body is shared by the world, the world reflects it, encroaches upon it and it encroaches upon the world; . . . they are in a relation of transgression or of overlapping—this also means: my body is not only one perceived among others, it is the measurant . . . of all the dimensions of the world. (merleau-ponty 1968, 248) merleau-ponty stresses that écart does not emanate prior to or outside of being (as with levinas’ conception of ethics), but rather from within it, functioning as a perceptual “overture” into the world, an opening through which all corporeal beings and environments are encountered: “with the first vision, the first contact, the first pleasure, there is initiation; .  .  . the opening of a dimension that can never again be closed, the establishment of a level in terms of which every other experience will henceforth be situated” (merleau-ponty 1968, 151). within this situatedness, écart initiates a reflexivity in human perception which entails a specific model for interrelationality, signified by merleau-ponty’s utilization of the word “overlapping.” in this context, “overlapping” articulates interrelationalities shaped through the perpetual intertwining or encroachment of beings who are separate, but not primarily in opposition. it is this cohesion of divergences that constitutes merleau-ponty’s idea of “reversibility,” the reflexivity in which the self not only acknowledges the existence of others, but also recognizes their own existence through the perspectives of others, and vice-versa. 63 adam buffington with these subtly interlinked concepts of écart and “reversibility,” merleau-ponty confounds the notions of relationality and identity as formulated through opposition. beings are not dichotomized as “self and other”, but rather differentiated as “self and another,” beings who are irreducibly dissimilar, yet engaged in synergistic interrelationalities with themselves and the encompassing world. merleau-ponty denotes this realm as “the flesh,” a provocative expression accentuating, amongst many elements, the chiasmic, sensual carnality of human experience, “the mysterious tissue or matrix that underlies and gives rise to both the perceiver and the perceived as interdependent aspects of its spontaneous activity” (abram 1996, 66). alenius’ cultivation of trust, the holistic hallmark of porøset and prequiem, is emblematic of merleau-ponty’s conception of écart. embodied beings and their surrounding environments are symbiotically involved, and the sedimented constructs of thought and language inhabiting all beings “surge up amid the world” (hass 2008, 196), manifesting in new relationalities and paradigms which illuminate and transform that world, incessantly intertwined in a synergistic cycle of becoming. to merleau-ponty, no hierarchy divides thought from somatic experience; these abstractions “are not islets, isolated fragments of being; all this .  .  . is of being” (1968, 63). therefore, the formulation of embodied intersubjectivity, the intricate interweaving of beings, ideas, and paradigms, is a generative process defined by contingency and, ultimately, creativity. porøset and prequiem function as intimate ceremonies, ritualistic interventions proffering the creative possibility of trust between autonomous beings. a dimmed stage in harpa, the antiquated spaces of the old stage, a lone hospice bed—all are of “the flesh”, framed within and amidst the perennial envelopment of beings perpetually inscribed in the world. for me, this facet of alenius’ diverse oeuvre, and her rationale for continuing this holistic venture, is best encapsulated by her own remarks on prequiem: i don’t know if i could call that a piece of art; . . . it was more like a meeting. a meeting of nothing, because we had nothing in common. they would disappear, i would go back to life, and we would never meet again. but we met in a crazy situation, and we sat there for twenty minutes together, and that’s pretty life-assuring; . . . it’s a good thing. it’s one of the best things that can happen. (alenius 2017a) 64 current musicology notes 1. though i have inquired about this in my interviews (alenius 2017a, 2018a, 2018b), alenius has never disclosed any medical condition that would contribute to this acute awareness of physical pain, mentioning only that she has always felt this way. 2. examining music as an embodied performative act is also a current research interest of several scholars in the us and uk, including philip auslander, eric clarke, nicolas cook, and daniel leech-wilkinson. groth herself engages extensively with both auslander and cook within her essay. 3. traditional music scholarship may trace this all-encompassing perspective of an artwork back to wagner’s concept of gesamtkunstwerk. 4. the only advertising i have seen related to porøset was a small, nondescript white poster placed on a stand in the old stage lobby, with a black and white photograph of alenius and the word porøset in a cursive font framing part of the image. aside from the name of the composer and of the piece, it gave no specific details as to what the performance would entail. 5. with respect to the audience members’ response to porøset ii, i have been unable to contact anyone who experienced this piece, and alenius has had no further contact with them either. 6. with trust emerging as the key concept behind porøset, one could interpret alenius’ conception of porøset (and the various parameters in which she constructs) as a breach of trust, which makes this emergence of trust seem puzzling or even contradictory as a central concept. yet, it is arguable that a large percentage of performance-based or other intermedial art made during and after the 20th century could be seen as “deceiving” or misleading the viewer by disrupting, challenging, or outright ignoring the traditional “framings” of public musical and artistic events. as noted earlier, alenius conceals information from the audiencenot purely for deception’s sake, but as a means to allow them a less-filtered experience of the piece. 7. all of the writing in regard to levinas and porøset ii is entirely my own work. i met with alenius in copenhagen in july 2018, and we discussed this portion of the essay. she was familiar with sartre and merleau-ponty (wholly agreeing with the inclusion of merleauponty’s philosophy within this essay), but had never encountered levinas before. alenius responded very enthusiastically, and felt engaging with levinas’ concepts illuminated much of what she was exploring experientially, especially with porøset ii. references abram, david. 1996. the spell of the sensuous: perception and language in a more-than human world. new york: pantheon books. alenius, louise. 2016. rouge. copenhagen: edition wilhelm hansen. ———. 2017a. skype interview by author. columbus. november 15. ———. 2017b. “performer composer panel.” interview by sanne krogh groth. seismograf, may 31, 2017. http://seismograf.org/artikel/performer-composer-panel ———. 2018a. skype interview by author. columbus. january 14. ———. 2018b. skype interview by author. columbus. october 21. groth, sanne krogh. 2016. “composers on stage: ambiguous authorship in contemporary music performance.” contemporary music review 36 (1): 686–705. ———. 2018. skype interview by author. columbus. april 11. 65 adam buffington grønborg, morten. 2018. “of course, i can sit like that!” scenario magazine. hass, lawrence. 2008. merleau-ponty’s philosophy. bloomington: indiana university press. levinas, emmanuel. 1969. totality and infinity. translated by alphonso lingis. pittsburgh: duquesne university press. ——— 1989. “ethics as first philosophy.” in the levinas reader, edited by seán hand, 75–86. oxford: basil blackwell. ———. 1998. otherwise than being. translated by alphonso lingis. pittsburgh: duquesne university press. merleau-ponty, maurice. 1968. the visible and the invisible. translated by alphonso lingis. evanston: northwestern university press. ———. 1962. phenomenology of perception. translated by colin smith. london and new york: routledge walshe, jennifer. 2016. “the new discipline: a compositional manifesto.” http://www. borealisfestival.no/2016/the-new-discipline-4/ 66 current musicology tess knighton and alvaro torrente, eds. 2007. devotional music in the iberian world, 1450-1800: the villancico and related genres. aldershot, uk, and burlington, vt: ashgate publishing. reviewed by elisabeth le guin this lively collection of sixteen essays plus an introduction is the fruit of an international conference, secular genres in sacred contexts? the villancico and cantata in the iberian world, 1400-1800, held in london in july 1998. the editors point out that to their knowledge this was the only conference ever to have been dedicated to this topic; and even ten years later, this is still only the second published book in english dedicated to the villancico. (paul r. laird's towards a history of the spanish villancico appeared shortly before the conference, in 1997.) 1 "villancico" is a baggy term for an enormous range of related practices and genres, and as such, a good analogy to the equally baggy term "cantata." indeed, there was for a time a certain amount of crossover or fusion between the two terms in spanish-speaking lands, as juan jose carreras has pointed out. 2 the huge range of time during which things called villancicos were produced (the 1450-1800 of the title is only the period of greatest flourish­ ing), the large number of communities in which they appeared, and the great variety of purposes that they therefore came to serve, all make it both urgent and impossible to define "the villancico." only partial definitions, hedged about with qualifiers, can ever aspire to any accuracy, and the term is subject to infinite amounts of contestation. it is a necessary peculiarity of this collection, therefore, that every single contribution defines its object of inquiry differently, while the introduction makes a heroic effort to find some kind of center to it all the editors have restricted themselves chronologically to three and a half centuries and six countries (the "iberian world" of the title includes spain, portugal, south-western france, the philippines, mexico, and bolivia), and they offer a set of interlocking working definitions: on the one hand, villancico is used to refer to compositions distinguished by formal traits-particularly the combination of estribillo [refrain] and cop las [verses]-disregarding poetic content, musical style and function; this formal meaning of villancico is dominant in the 15th and 16th centu­ ries. on the other hand, villancico is used generically to denote all learned songs in the vernacular performed in a sacred context; this meaning is predominant from the late 16th to around the mid-19th century. (3) current musicology, no. 87 (spring 20(9) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 191 192 current musicology this double "form-vs-genre" definition, devised by alvaro torrente, is cited by a number of the volume's contributors as being useful, and probably comes about as close as anything can to defining the villancico. however, the editors are quick to offer a counter-definition from one of their own contributors, bernardo illari, who uses the term "metagenre" to explode any too-tidy, too-concrete idea of genre: "the villancico seems to result from what we can call a metageneric attitude, of writing part songs with references to other kinds of songs (especially, popular references), adapted for different social and aesthetic functions, and through different means and procedures" (2001:140). so: a sprawling mess, a conundrum, an endlessly rich fund of musical practices and products, mingling devotional and secular, learned and popu­ lar, official and indigenous, complexities overt and covert-the villancico is a genre emblematic of the impossible historical and cultural diversity of the iberian empires. it includes some of the most bewitchingly beautiful, intellectually interesting, and culturally representative music of the early modern period in all western (or westernized) culture. yet try telling your colleague down the hall that you are "interested in the villancico." unless they, too, are a hispanist (and how fortunate the music department that has more than one!), their response will probably be, "the what?" by any standard, it is high time that this marvelous hippo griff of a genre be brought more squarely into the anglophone field of vision, and this book makes a fair bid to do so. the editors are very conscious of this as their mission, and they make no bones about scolding richard taruskin and other historians of encyclopedic bent who have overlooked the villancico. 3 they also provide an invaluable critical review of extant scholarship on and editing of villancicos (up to about 2005), which for my money forms one of the most useful parts of this book. i found myself wishing that a similar review might be made of recordings of villancicos, perhaps as a website or wiki due to the ever-changing landscape of recorded music. the boat leaves shore riding a stiff wind: pepe rey's "weaving ensaladas," treating related genres and sacred-secular crossover practices at the early end of the villancico's history, is erudite, passionate, and breakneck, jammed with church history, cultural criticism (bakhtinian carnival), and the kind of insights into music that can only come from hands-on experience. it leaves one rather breathless, unsure whether there was actually a thesis to it all, but desiring more: a fine choice for an opening essay, and a refreshingly brisk angle on academic prose style. the essays are arranged in rough chronological order, with rey, knighton, and alberto del rio covering the period to about 1600; torrente, andrea bombi, pablo-l. rodriguez, rui cabral lopes, janet hathaway, and elisabeth le guin alain begue, the seventeenth century; pilar ramos lopez, michel benoit, and maria gembero ustarroz, the eighteenth; and then-abandoning the chronological for the geographical in a spatio-temporal switcheroo very fa­ miliar to scholars of colonial cultures-the last three essays, by david irving, geoffrey baker, and bernardo illari, concern non-european villancicos. in her "song migrations," knighton offers a meticulous reading of several different settings of the late-fifteenth -century villancico "adoramoste, senor:' she teases out nice little descriptions oflikely performance scenarios and possible situational meanings from these textual correspondences, serenely ignoring one of the current supposed "fault -lines" within musicol­ ogy: this is a deceptively easy-going demonstration of how good textual scholarship can lead naturally to considerations of performance. as one of the editors, knighton's methodological influence in this regard is quiet but pervasive; it can be felt in most of the volume's contributions, which tend to follow her lead of mingling close readings of texts with close descriptions of contexts, making this an exemplary book in yet another way. this style is also fundamental to alvaro torrente's long piece, "function and liturgical context of the villancico in salamanca cathedral," a meticulous account of specific contexts for villancico performances, based on the cathedral's libra de ceremonias, a book of norms and prescriptions for the mounting of festivals and processions around 1700. torrente's stated aim here is to show that "the [villancico 1 genre was cultivated more extensively than has traditionally been thought" (100); and he is able to show that there were no fewer than forty-nine villancico performances (with some re-use of works) in three festive periods in the period of one year-christmastide, corpus christi, and the assumption of the blessed virgin mary. by hewing closely to his source, strategically supplementing it with key information such as cathedral architecture, and maintaining a clear prose style, torrente at times manages to elevate close description to a kind of visionary status: with such a wealth of data at hand, one begins to envision what it might have been like to be there. to "fill in the picture" on the sonic end, only some record­ ings of the works involved-villancicos by antonio yanguas and tomas de miciezes-are needed. between these two essays comes alberto del rio's "the villancico in the works of early castilian playwrights;' approaching sixteenth-century villancicos from the theatrical point of view. the villancico is one fruit of what del rio calls "the close bond between religious ceremony and dramatic representation" (81). his essay is exciting and thought-provoking for the numerous parallels it suggests among para-liturgical and para-dramatic genres like villancico, egloga, and auto sacramental, as well as their relation­ ships to later theatrical practices; but it reads like a transcription of a brilliant 193 194 current musicology lecture delivered under time pressure, and is intermittently confusing for the sheer wealth of information it attempts to deliver in too short a space. here, uniquely among the essays in this volume, i wished for a stronger editorial hand. andrea bombi's '''the third villancico was a motet'" tackles the genre question by means of references in literary cancioneros that clarify-and duly complicate-the receptive and patronage contexts in which villancicos were used in the period roughly comprising 1675-1725 in valencia. as in torrente's piece, the basic aim here is to show that things were more diverse and various than has generally been assumed, and that we should not be in a hurry to over-define "the" villancico. bombi closes eloquently: "the only possible conclusion, at this point, is that analysis of this repertory does not allow for simplification and calls for a flexible approach, based on the sensi­ tive application at different levels of the appropriate criteria" (162). in "religiosity, power and aspects of social representation in the villancicos of the portuguese royal chapel;' rui cabral lopes points out that the villancico is "a special conduit for understanding the cultural panorama and mentalites of the ancien regime," but that "the focus of research has been limited to the gathering and inventorying of the texts and music ... " (203). attempting a corrective to this limitation, cabral emphasizes the familiar, reassuring nature of devotional music in the vernacular-scarcely a new observation-and discusses the proliferation of character types and stereotypes in these works, from the shepherds we would expect in a christmas-oriented repertory, to the "local color" of gypsies, galicians, sail­ ors, princes, and negros. he makes a brave start at a typology of these "social representations," and his exegeses of them as "conduits for understanding" are sensitive, but as yet rather rudimentary. the treatment of the villancicos de negro in particular is tentative, and it comes up hard against geoffrey baker's extremely acute handling of this topic later on in the volume. janet hathaway's" 'music charms the senses ... ': devotional music in the triunfos festivos of san gines, madrid, 1656" is very similar in approach to torrente's essay: another exercise in close reading of a descriptive/prescrip­ tive text in order to build up a picture of villancico practice in a given time and place. the visionary effect of torrente's piece, however, is much more subdued here. this may be due in part to hathaway's rather diffident style, but it must also have to do with the fact that none of the music described in hathaway's text, the triunfos festivos, is known to survive. that she does not reveal this crucial detail until halfway through her essay, and then in a footnote, left me feeling shortchanged. certainly we need not always have "the music itself" before us in order to glean vital information about its function, its meaning, and its nature--and indeed, only a minority of the elisabeth le guin essays in this volume actually provide score examples-but contextual ac­ counts of a music no longer extant are in an epistemological class of their own, demanding very special treatment. the contribution of alain begue, "a literary and typological study of the late 17th -century villancico," is as concrete and well-put -together a realization of its title as one could hope to find. begue, who along with bombi and del rio forms the "literary contingent" among this book's authors, bases his typology upon 206 surviving villancico texts by jose perez de montoro (1627-94). despite the author's protestations that "the polymorphism of the villancico of this period ... makes any attempt at categorization dif­ ficult" (232), he arrives at an elegant, well-thought-out typology based on structural, dramatic, and topical features of these works, flexible enough to permit its application to works by other poets, and indeed, in some measure, to works in other genres altogether. 1 can see myself returning to this essay more than once as a model of how to think about large bodies of material. the elegance of begue's presentation is unfortunately not equaled by the graphic presentation of his essay, which suffers from a large number of blank half-pages and a generally awkward, clunky look, a result (i assume) of difficulties in formatting the large number of double-column poetic text extracts that he supplies. elegance of typesetting is not this book's strong suit in general, but it is on the whole serviceable, with only occasional oddities. only here did 1 find that the formatting problems became really obtrusive. pilar ramos l6pez focuses on a single sub-genre in "pastorelas and the pastoral tradition in 18th-century spanish villancicos," bringing together a useful breadth of materials and perspectives to help define a surprisingly elusive network of terms. one of her essay's greatest strengths is not even adumbrated in its title: she offers a refreshingly direct approach to some fundamental questions about gender in the performance of villancicos. she asks, "why did a piece usually written by a priest to be performed by a male choir in a liturgical context involve the pretence of being sung by girls? and what was the effect of this 'feminine' singing in a church where womens' singing was forbidden?" (296). as the tale of the emperor's new clothes reminds us, a well-placed question may be worth a thousand explanations. we postmoderns are prone to forget the peculiar gender landscape of the villancico-certainly 1 had allowed myself to forget it, until 1 ran straight into ramos's apparently art­ less queries. furthermore, she has the wit not to try too hard to answer her own questions, offering instead the interesting observation that devotional singing in church exactly reversed spanish stage practice of the period, where 195 196 current musicology women did the great bulk of the singing; and suggesting that these reversals may relate to differing ideas of "representation" in each context. she ends this short but memorable excursion into gender analysis with yet another ingenuous question: "might it ... have offered an attraction to the public?" (297). this is an exceptionally deft handling of a topic too often (one must excuse the expression here) manhandled. in "the noel a grand choeur of south-western france and the iberian villancico: a comparison," benoit michel presents a straight-forward parallel between two contemporary genres coexisting on either side of the pyrenees. the entire essay leads toward the hypothesis with which it ends: "[i]t is tempting to think that these sources, so closely alike physically, are evidence for a common line of development ... " (320). by "physically" i take michel to mean, in terms of ecclesiastical and social function, general subject matter, and multi-partite, para-dramatic musical structure. indeed it is tempting; the parallels, as presented here, are both clear and compelling; it only remains for someone to take this intriguing hypothetical bull by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. "de rosas cercada: music by francisco de la huerta for the nuns of santa ana de avila (1767-78);' by marfa gembero ustarroz, treats the only place where the gender questions raised by ramos in her essay would not apply: villancicos performed by and for nuns in convents. careful, methodical, and concise, this essay offers not only a detailed description of the matter of its title, but a useful treatment of key aspects of musical life in a spanish convent during the late-eighteenth century. the story is a familiar one, of course: a woman of ordinary means with musical gifts could brave social contempt and excommunication by performing on the stage, or she could retire from the world and pursue music from behind the veil. with a couple of well-chosen examples, gembero manages to suggest that retirement did not have to mean giving up the latest in musical fashion: the villancicos supplied to this convent by de la huerta were up-to-the-minute galant, requiring notable skill to execute. gembero ties this neatly to the special status of certain novices admitted to the community specifically on the strength of their musical skills. the title of david irving's essay, "historical and literary vestiges of the villancico in the early modern philippines," adumbrates (as hathaway's does not) the central absence at the heart of its account: very, very little in the way of decipherable, complete musical scores survives from the early years of spanish colonies in the philippines. (it came as a shock to learn that a great many of them were destroyed, not in some ancient upheaval, but in the bombings of 1945.) scholars like irving exercise heroic powers of creative inference to recreate what most of us take for granted; this essay, a dense, informative synthesis of what must be a huge amount of research, is elisabeth le guin a model performance of this rather tragic mode of musicology. its terminus ad quem, i think, can be one of two things, each of them painful for utterly different reasons: egregious para-musicological re-creative efforts, or the aching silence with which gary tomlinson's recent work on aztec music culminates (2007). geoffrey baker and bernardo illari, taken together, end this volume with a bang: these are by far the most politically engaged and strongly worded essays of the bunch. baker, in "the 'ethnic villancico' and racial politics in 17th -century mexico;' argues forcefully that "the apparent valorization and inclusion of negroes and their cultural activities in the villancicos de negros is illusory" ( 400), and that these works in fact served to reinscribe the vicious and enduring oppression of the negros by the peninsulares. departing from jose maravall's dark view of the baroque as systematic cultural coercion, baker makes a strong, indeed an irrefutable case. what he does not do, and i wish he had, is to address what we are to do today with the villancicos de negros, which by their rhythmic complexity, their declamatory brilliance and vivacity, present to the innocent (or denying) ear one of the most engaging corners of the villancico repertory. one wants to hear them or participate in them; they are, on the purely auditory level, utterly delightful. that they represent in tones a particularly shameful corner of spanish colonial behavior is a cruel irony indeed, one which it seems can be neither evaded nor rectified. should we therefore stop performing them? bernardo illari's powerhouse essay, "the popular, the sacred, the colonial, and the local: the performance of identities in the villancicos from sucre (bolivia)," is also out to demolish a few excessively comfortable assumptions, chief among them the idea that latin american art is somehow intrinsically "different" simply by virtue of being latin american; and the idea that the inclusion of popular idioms and characters in villancicos represents some sort of irruption of folk practices, much less a pure-hearted inclusionary maneuver on the part of the church. illari is a thinker and writer capable of conveying complexity, and here he oscillates skillfully between minute details and occasionally breathtaking overviews (his notion of meta-genre, mentioned above, is only one of several he proffers in this essay). here he investigates the work of three composers, each representing a principal type in the society of the day-the peninsular juan de araujo, the criollo roque de chavarria, and, rarest of the rare, an anonymous presumed indigene, composer of a villancico entitled "una pobre serranita." illari's musical and cultural analyses are equally sensitive; and, uniquely among the authors of this collection, he has dedicated considerable time to recording projects connected with his scholarship, so that he can refer the glad reader to some (very well-executed) sound examples. 197 198 current musicology every reader will of course chart a somewhat different course through this collection, depending on their needs and their predilections. this is the nature of edited collections, and it is also their great virtue-something i feel needs saying in these days when academic presses, under growing financial pressure, look increasingly askance at this way of putting together a scholarly book. it is certainly true that not all edited collections are as good as this one is; it owes its excellence in part to the topic at hand, which is just too rich to be usefully subsumed under single theses or points of view-and yet sorely in need of being treated as comprehensively as possible, in order for the villancico to achieve something like canonical status.4 this is a noble mission, and a necessary one, and brings with it a very important question about hegemonies within our discipline, or, to put it more colloquially, the question of who gets to tell whose story. the whole set-up of this book in english on an indelibly hispanic topic makes very plain that the "center" of our discipline, once squarely germanic, remains anglo-saxon; and it suggests that something cannot be considered fully canonic (and thus, in an inescapable sense, valid) unless it is known and studied in english. leaving aside for now the question oflinguistic imperial­ ism, it is strange that this should be taking place exactly when a good many anglophones are busy trying to unmake, for once and for all, the very idea of canonicity. possibly at a certain point the anti-canonic strain in current musicology will "meet up" with some of the more adventurous efforts represented by this collection, and the field will abruptly find itself a good deal larger. a consummation devoutly to be wished. notes 1. there have been a number of monographs in spanish, including ripolles (1935), sanchez romeralo (1969), tejerizo robles (1989), capdep6n (1993), villanueva (1994), and suarez­ pajares (1997). in addition, over the last twenty-some years, there have been a number of dissertations in which the villancico has figured more or less centrally: the editors cite laird (university of north carolina, 1986), villanueva (universidad de santiago de compostela, 1988), sanchez sis cart (universidad de zaragoza, 1991), capdep6n (universitat hamburg, 1991), rife (universidad aut6noma de barcelona, 1992), caballero (universidad de val­ ladolid, 1994), ezquerro (universidad aut6noma de barcelona, 1996), torrente (university of cambridge, 1997), cabero pueyo (ludwig maximilians universitat, 1997), lambea (uni­ versidad aut6noma de barcelona, 1998) and bombi (universidad de zaragoza, 2002). to this might be added martin quinones (1997, universidad de granada), davies (university of chicago, 2006), hathaway (new york university, 2005), and king (university of toronto, 2004). 2. "villancicos and tonos reflect the close adherence of 17th-century iberian composers to strophic songs (coplas) with refrain (estribillo). in the late 17th century this repertory began occasionally to include recitative and aria sections as well, and this gradual transformation of the villancico and the tono makes it difficult to draw a clear line between the older genres and the new cantata-a distinction that it is nevertheless desirable to make ... " see juan elisabeth le guin jose carreras, "cantata, §v: the spanish cantata to 1800, 1. terminology and context;' the new grove dictionary of music online, edited by l. macy, http://www.oxfordmusiconline. com/subscriber/book/omo_gmo (accessed october 1,2008). 3. "no single reference to this web of devotional genres is found in the 3.500 pages of tar­ uskin's titanic contribution to recent music historiography, the oxford history of western music [2005 j, which perpetuates its historical oblivion already evident in the volumes edited by abraham [1968j and lewis and fortune [1975j ... " (7). 4. in this light, it was a particular pleasure to see this collection win the robert stevenson award for outstanding scholarship in iberian music at the annual meeting of the ams in nashville, november 2008. references illari, bernardo. 2001. "polychoral culture: cathedral music in la plata (bolivia), 1680-1730." unpublished phd dissertation, university of chicago. laird, paul r. 1997. towards a history of the spanish villancico. detroit monographs in musicology/studies in music, no. 19. warren, mi: harmonie park press. 199 deborah pacini-hernandez. 2010. dye como va!: hybridity and identity in latino popular music. philadelphia: temple university press. reviewed by simon calle despite the fact that the number of latin american immigrants and persons of latin decent in the united states has increased significantly in the last two decades, mainstream mass media and academia have often neglected the contributions of these communities to us popular culture, and especially to music. however, this trend seems to be changing in the past few years with the production of documentaries such as latin music usa (aired in 2009 on pbs), and the increasing publication of academic books that focus on specific music genres performed by latinos (eg. ragland 2009; rivera, et al. 2009; washburne 2008). with oye como va!, deborah pacini-hernandez contributes to the literature on latino music and culture by blending sophisticated and comprehensive socio-cultural analysis of several music genres performed by latinos such as rock, salsa, meregue, reggaeton, hip­ hop, and cumbia, along with basic histories of the genres and a tracing of their multiple interconnections. as an anthropologist, pacini-hernandez's is primarily concerned with the question of latino identity formation through popular music performance, recording, marketing, and reception. since most of this music emerge from the crossroads of transnational flows of music and people from different nations in the caribbean and the americas, she provides a comparative and connective history of national and transnational music genres and their transformation in relation to cultural, social, economical, and political processes primarily within the united states, and also the americas. thus, the book's main interest groups would be those within academia, especially anthropologist, ethnomusicologist, and cultural studies scholars, interested in american and latino studies, and those who study mass-mediated popular music in the united states; yet, it is accessible for the general reader. pacini-hernandez uses the term latino to name the people of latin american descent who grew up in the united states; nevertheless, above all, she acknowledges the cultural heterogeneity of this population and the tensions within it. throughout the book, she recognizes that these tensions often emerge from the fact that many latinos belong to bilingual and racial minorities, and at the same time, are americans and participants in us mainstream popular culture. this is not a fine-grained analysis of one currerlt musicology, no. 91 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of colum bia university in the city of new york 161 162 current musicology musical genre in its immigrant communities, but rather a macroscopic view of latino music, acknowledging its diversity while unveiling another set of tensions that emerge from the different origins, population size, and visibility of the different latino communities in the united states. pacini -hernandez does not conflate the distinct nationalities and cultural heritage of latin american immigrants and their descendants, but rather acknowledges their differences, similarities, and the tensions that complicate the general idea of a unified "latino cultural identity." nonetheless, the book focuses primarily on the music and histories of latinos whose music has had a significant impact in north american mainstream popular culture and elsewhere. therefore, she focuses primarily on those latinos of puerto rican and mexican origin, the two groups with the largest presence in the united states; but pacini­ hernandez also includes chapters on the music and experiences of recent migration waves of dominicans and colombians, and how their music has transformed and responded to previous waves of immigration. however, in a few chapters she touches on the role of cubans and their music, both of which have had a great impact in american popular culture. in the first chapter, which serves as a theoretical introduction, pacini­ hernandez approaches the question of latino identity formation through popular music. she states that latino music, a result of the crossing and in-betweeness of musical, geographic, racial, and ethnic boundaries, should be analyzed in terms of the multiple transnational flows of people and culture, the engagement of latinos with us mainstream culture and music industry, and latin american hybridity. through this approximation, she acknowledges the diversity within latino music, always conflated by the commercial music industry under the rubric "latin music. "this term erases the differences between the different musics produced and performed in latin america and by latinos in the united states; yet, she recognizes the interconnection between musical aesthetics often associated with particular national groups and migrant communities. second, she identifies processes of hybridity, defined as "the mixture of two or more dissimilar elements," which "produces objects and people that are in between and out of place" (pacini-hernandez 201o:vii), within the united states. despite centrally positioning hybridity as one of the key concepts throughout the book, pacini­ hernandez often uses the term simply as a trope for mixture. the definition ofhybridity is highly contested within postcolonial studies, latin american cultural studies, and in anthropological literature (see garcia -canclini 2005), a debate she evades; however, in acknowledging cultural and racial mixture in her study of popular music in the united states, pacini-hernandez makes an important contribution to the field of latino popular music studies. simon calle recognizing processes of racial and cultural mixture is crucial to the understanding of racial and cultural formations and imaginaries in latin america. scholars and commentators of music from latin america and the spanish-speaking caribbean have pointed to these processes to understand musical practices and their transformations (eg. austerlitz 1997; moore 1997; ortiz 1995; wade 2000). at the same time, they have used terms such as creolization, transculturation, hybridity, and mestizaje to name such processes. pacini-hernandez states that this has not been the case for the study of the united states, where racial and cultural identity has historically been imagined within the clear, divisive binary of black and white. this imagined racial division has marked the way in which people understand popular music in the united states, as well as the scholarship and popular literature on this topic. however, in order to understand and capture the nuances of latino identity and musical productions, it is important to incor­ porate into the theoretical framework concepts like hybridity and mestizaje (racial mixture), which challenge the american racial imaginary. for this reason, hernandez focuses the remainder of oye como va! on distinct, yet shared cultural processes that are characterized by the blending of musical genres, transnational flows, and the tensions that emerge from migration and negotiations of national and cultural identity. the second and seventh chapters focus on the history of the latino music industry in the united states. the former deals with its emergence in the early twentieth century until 1980s. pacini-hernandez looks at the music industry in both in the west and east coast, but focuses in extent with the second one, narrating the histories of landmark latino music labels tico, seeco, alegre, and fania. in chapter 7, she deals with the transformations of the latino music industry since the 1990s when not only did immigration from latin america to the united states increased during this period, but also circulation of music from around the world grew in the us market. the chapter divided into three parts that looks at the ways in which latino music has participated in the "world beat" or "world music" market, the impact of increasing immigration to the united states, and the role of major record labels and the concentration of the latino music industry in miami. chapter 3 is a comparative study from a historical perspective of the way in which mexican immigrants in los angeles and puerto ricans in new york adopted and transformed rock en' roll in relation to their own national identities and ethnic consciousness. through this, pacini-hernandez ex­ plores the emergence and development of chicano rock, latin boogaloo, and salsa. chapter 4 deals with the involvement of latinos of cuban, mexican, and puerto rican origins with rap, disco, and freestyle. the chapter first focuses on the different ways in which latinos in new york and los angeles 163 164 current musicology were involved with these genres, which are often considered to be "black music" during the 1970s and 1980s. in a second section, pacini-hernandez explores the emergence of reggaeton in puerto rico from the international circulation of different caribbean musical genres between the 1980s and 1990s, and its subsequent success in the united states in the 2000s. chapter 5 looks at recent dominican migration and the resulting transformations of merengue and bachata carried out by second-generation dominicans in new york, which consequently transformed the performance and reception of those same musical genres in the dominican republic. in the chapter, pacini-hernandez goes in depth in the history of these musical genres and its significance in terms of race and class relations and social the dominican republic. she argues that the new styles of merengue, and bachata produced island's traditional hierarchies. chapter 6 offers one of the first approximations in english language scholarship of colombian music genres such as cumbia and vallenato as performed and received in the united states. in a second section, pacini­ hernandez considers cumbia as cosmopolitan musical form, which lost its original connection to the colombian caribbean, as peruvian, argentinean, and mexican musicians have adopted the genre as their own and transformed it, later bringing their own versions of cumbia to the united states. in oye como va! pacini-hernandez offers the reader a solid introduction to some of the genres of latino music in the united states, their relationship to one another, as well as to music from latin america and the caribbean. at the same time, the book focuses on music from the perspective of the effects of the flows of people between nation-states, and culture. one important contribution of the book is its recognition of hybridity within the united states, and the relating of hybridity to music as a processes of identity formation. this book extends beyond presenting a historical survey of latin american and latino music in the united states to make an overarching argument about latino music culture-a necessary part of critical discussions on race and ethnicity in the united states. references austerlitz, paul 1997. merengue: dominican music and dominican identity. philadelphia: temple university press. garcia-canclini, nestor. 2005. hybrid cultures in globalized times. in hybrid cultures: strategies for entering modernity. pp. xxiii-xlvi. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. moore, robin. 1997. nationalizing blackness: afrocubanismo and artistic revolution in havana, 1920-1940. pittsburgh: universi ty of pittsburgh press. ortiz, fernando.l99s. cuban counterpoint: tobacco and sugar. durham n.c.: duke university press. ragland, cathy. 2009. musica norteiia: mexican migrants creating a nation between nations. philadelphia: temple university press. simon calle rivera, raquel z., wayne marshall, and deborah pacini-hernandez. 2009. reggaeton. durham nc: duke university press. wade, peter. 2000. music, race, & nation: "musica tropical" in colombia. chicago: university of chicago press. washburne, christopher. 2008. sounding salsa: performing latin music in new york city. philadelphia: temple university press 165 current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 9 the historical soundscape of monophonic hi–fidelity murray dineen an article in high fidelity magazine, entitled “listening is believing?” and dated july/august 1953, sets forth the contemporary limits of sound reproduction in the inimitable style of advertisement copy: “technical electronics can go only so far. the rest of the job must be done by the imaginative mind of the listener. that’s not a platitude; it’s a technical specification” (campbell 1953, 28).1 the connection drawn between imagination and sound reproduction, that the imagination can be an aspect of “technical electronics,” is meant to salve the “imaginative mind of the listener.” in doing so, however, it betrays an anxiety: the relationship has gotten out of balance, with human imagination falling short in the face of advances in “technical electronics.” the author, john campbell, puts a firm boundary around the latter: it “can go only so far” (campbell 1953, 28). but in this arrangement, human imagination is a supplement, an accessory to technology, not vice versa.2 campbell situates this technical fusion of electronics and imagination in what he calls a “psycho–physiological” approach to music reproduction: “for true high–fidelity enjoyment, the total psychological aspect of the listener is an integral part of a psycho–physiological approach to music reproduction.” this psycho–physiological angle seems to involve primarily a belief in one’s equipment, in its veracity as the best “practible” equipment: a man with equipment system a, who feels that he has the best practible system possible to him will enjoy his music greatly. given the same equipment exactly, but the conviction that he was a fool not to have bought system b instead—he won’t enjoy the music as much. wherefore, for him, system b is in fact better. (campbell 1953, 28) in essence, confidence in one’s equipment and a full aesthetic experience are assured only in the absence of suspicion. the emphasis campbell places on his equipment—“technical electronics”—marks a formal shift in our knowledge of musical sound. i shall call this epistemic in a moment. this shift produces an effect, an aesthetic effect. i quote campbell again: “a man with a speaker system he knows within himself is good, an amplifier he convincedly believes to be top–notch—for him, the music is deeper, richer and more rewarding” (campbell 1953, 28).3 10 current musicology campbell’s psycho–physiological approach encompasses belief in the merit of technical electronics as a determinant of musical enjoyment. all of this is encapsulated in the following, in which life and sound are breathlessly homogenized: “‘know thyself!’ must be the ultimate ideal, and the basic instruction for enjoying life fully. but if that’s too tough a job—‘know thy sound system’” (campbell 1953, 28). the confusion between life and reproduced sound is worth addressing, and not merely dismissed as bad advertisement copy. such a confusion between truth and life is characteristic of what i call here the “historical soundscape” of monophonic hi–fidelity, a soundscape made explicit in the discourse of sound reproduction in the early 1950s. i label this “historical” and refer to it as “monophonic” because of its delicate position: poised between an early realm of sound reproduction prior to the hi–fidelity era and a later realm dominated by stereophonic sound reproduction. its status as a “soundscape” is assured by the reputed integrity of the sound: the concern for hi–fidelity presumes a sonorous whole based upon veracity, as if the sound reproduced were a whole, or at least wholistic, “chunk of life.” such concern for matters such as fidelity and veracity is pathological; no referential object, no standard, other than the solipsistic listener is invoked. i shall label as “pathological” the mind set that engages both sides of this soundscape.4 on campbell’s account, in the reproduction of musical sound, the imagination is a supplement to “technical electronics,” which, to repeat, can “go only so far,” before imagination must take over. this supplementary relation of imagination to technology reverses the norm by placing imagination in a secondary position. let us say that sound is normally a product of the musical imagination: the composer’s imagination produces virtual sound realized in a performance or recording.5 in this putative normal scenario, sound reproduction is an accessory, an action subsequent to an original act of imagination.6 this is campbell’s key assertion—“technical electronics can go only so far. the rest of the job must be done by the imaginative mind of the listener.” it subordinates imagination, indeed listening per se, to the status of a supplement to an originating technical electronics. in this regard the term sound reproduction is a misnomer: the veracity of technical high fidelity is the originating object, to which imaginative reproduction is the supplement. campbell is equivocal on this point. in the instance of live music, the imagination is original. as he puts it, the act of “knowing” your physical situation, situating yourself concretely in carnegie hall is to know imaginatively that hundreds of other listeners are with you: “part of the enjoyment of the philharmonic at carnegie hall is knowing that you’re at 11 murray dineen carnegie hall, with hundreds of others, who enjoy with you the experience you’re enjoying” (campbell 1953, 27). when it comes to live music, on campbell’s account, the human capacity for imagination is the locus, fons et origo of the experience. when, however, it comes to music “reproduced” by sound equipment, the position of musical imagination becomes fraught. curiously, campbell tries to make this clear by analogy to canned peas. campbell initially poses the question as one of fidelity: if live music at carnegie hall is like garden– fresh peas, older forms of musical reproduction (including radio and wax cylinders, presumably) are like canned peas. by analogy, it was never difficult to distinguish fresh from canned in both peas and music: older forms of sound reproduction sound like canned peas taste, “tinny.” but campbell (1953, 27) asserts that such is no longer the case for “modern frozen peas are getting hard to distinguish from the garden–fresh article.” he means, implicitly, that modern reproductions of music are getting harder to distinguish from the concert–hall article. with fidelity like this, one might conclude that nothing is left to the originating imagination: listening to a recording, one might as well be sitting in carnegie hall.7 except that, as campbell reassures us, “technical electronics can go only so far” (28). perhaps he means that the horizon of veracity in the reproduction of sound will forever recede behind a foreground of technical electronics. on this account, imagination will be ever necessary, albeit squeezed into an ever declining space between the foreground of electronically reproduced sound and the horizon of live sound. on this account, imagination will be given an ever smaller portion of the pie as electronic reproduction reaches ever closer to fidelity to live performance. implicit in campbell’s thought, however, lies a far more generous possibility, albeit one given to a less positive aesthetic of hi–fidelity musical appreciation. consider the possibility that campbell’s imagination is given to worry, to concerns of infidelity. as i shall show in a moment, the task of the merchants of sound equipment in the 1950s was not merely to show that high–fidelity could begin to be equated with real carnegie–hall sound. the task instead was to arouse, indeed to enrage the question of infidelity in the mind of the listener. to this end, an imaginative notion of infidelity became apposite. and this brought about a change in the nature of imagination from an originating impulse to a vehicle for growing a pathology. at work here is an epistemology, or at least an episteme. i mean by episteme a system of possibility, more pointedly a shift bringing about a new system of possibility.8 evoking epistemology, i am referring not to rational value or objective form (as if sound fidelity could be measured rationally or objectively) nor to the history of the perfection of under12 current musicology standing (as if the perfection of fidelity were something historical). i refer instead to the conditions under which new values might appear, the “conditions of possibility” that might bring about a new valuation of fidelity. something in the medium of sound reproduction changes around 1950 and transforms the issue of fidelity into an episteme. the epistemic change lies in what campbell calls the “psycho–physiological.” the conscious awareness of one’s equipment carries with it a certain anxiety, a pathological anxiety in some instances, which on campbell’s account has a physiological component. when the norm alluded to above (where musical sound originates in the imagination and is then supplemented by sound reproduction) is reversed, this makes the listener dependent upon technical electronics, dependent upon a vehicle of reproduction whose performance lies out of their immediate, willed control. (hence the dependency upon the supplementary imagination, to enliven the merely technical.) how could this dependency not give rise pathologically to anxiety? in what i call the normal state of affairs, the composer and listener are fully compatible, or at least sufficiently compatible to produce an act of musical creation. sound reproduction is merely a vehicle by which to bring about the equation of two imaginations: creator and receiver, composer and listener. the satisfaction produced by the experience depends upon the balance of the equation, a mutual respect from both parties. but in campbell’s scenario, the listener’s imagination must defer to an inanimate object—technical electronics.9 if the exercise of musical reproduction is to be consummated, the imagination must enliven the otherwise inanimate vehicle of sound, enlarge it to fit the task at hand. under the aegis of the pathology alluded to above, the supplementing imagination must engorge the object of technical electronics. the supplement must grow beyond a size necessary for normal (live) musical consummation. such distortion lends to technical electronics the quality of the fetish. this is the pathology implicit in the concept of soundscape, to which i alluded above.10 in concentrating upon a putative whole, the soundscape creator (campbell’s listener) elevates the “scape” above the actual sound in importance. the soundscape creator gives the status of original, or at least originating, to the acts of capturing raw sound and manufacturing a soundscape from them.11 this turns the listener’s imagination into a supplement: taking the sound captured raw in field recordings, for example, as an incomplete technical object, it works to make the raw sound into an originating whole, as if the soundscape thus produced were original. as i have suggested, this inverts the relationship of listener and original. 13 murray dineen instead of mutual agreement, the two are put in a dependent relationship: the soundscape is dependent upon the listener’s imagination for its veritable wholeness. this produces what i call the pathological soundscape. i follow emily thompson (2001, 1), who, in her influential the soundscape of modernity, seems to make a similar distinction between equipment and imagination when talking about the soundscape in and of itself: i define the soundscape as an auditory or aural landscape. like a landscape, a soundscape is simultaneously a physical environment and a way of perceiving that environment; it is both a world and a culture constructed to make sense of that world. thompson, however, sees no pathology in that relationship. in live music, let us say, the direct equation of composer to listener is sustained by the imagination of the latter, even if the performance is bad. the category of performance competence is eclipsed by the question of fidelity to the score: even in a bad performance we can sense imaginatively what the composer had in mind. the sympathetic equation of composer to listener, then, is sustained, even if (and in some instances because) the performance is not true to the score. infidelity in the form of a bad performance is accessory to the equation of composer and listener. for campbell, however, infidelity is as tangible to the listener as it was to othello. in “psycho–physiological” terms, campbell (1953, 28) describes a particular source of annoyance for the “high–fidelity” addict: many and many a time the addict’s wife insists that bill jones’ sound system is better than her husband’s. this frustration imposed upon hubby does not stem from [the] inherent cussedness of women, but from the fact that the music system embodies a psycho–physiological approach. to paraphrase campbell: the addict’s wife insists that bill jones’ reproductive equipment is better than her husband’s. (let us set to one side the slight of “inherent cussedness.”) the root cause of our addict’s problem is not bill jones per se, but rather the indisputable fact that the reproductive system embodies a “psycho–physiological approach.” freud was right. my point here is that in the early 1950s, “music enjoyment” came to embrace a kind of anxiety that gave rise to a new musical understanding. questions of fidelity began to carry with them questions of 14 current musicology infidelity and concerns of performance failure—it was not that the performer didn’t get it right but that the reproductive equipment failed to perform. this might be described in terms of an epistemic shift: from listening as an act of sympathy or mindful tuning with an originating human (a composer) to listening as a form of covert labor. (i shall come back to labor in a moment). given this anxiety, the listener must work imaginatively to supplement the basic material offered by their technical equipment. the listener must engorge the imagination so it rises to fulfill its expectation: putatively to reproduce sound but in truth to verify the veracity of technical electronics. recall the first clause to my definition of soundscape: a “sonorous whole . . . as if the sound reproduced were a whole” (see above). given the pathological second clause of my definition, i do not mean the reproduction of an original sonic whole. instead by pathological soundscape in this instance i refer to a whole produced by the listener’s imagination laboring to supplement the sound equipment. the epistemic shift involves the reconfiguring of labor: in lieu of the labor exerted by the live musician to create the equation of composer and listener, the listener must now labor imaginatively—and labor alone, without monetary recompense—to create the sounding whole.12 i turn now to a long–playing recording, an lp dated 1954 and entitled hearing is believing. the liner notes speak of “high fidelity” in terms reminiscent of cigarette advertisements: “there really is no mystery to high fidelity. it’s simply a matter of brighter, clearer sound. you can easily tell it when you hear it, particularly when it is played side by side with old recordings for contrast, as it is on this recording” (hearing 1954). such unbridled fetishism approximates 1950s ad copy of a well–known cigarette manufacturer: “try marlborough cigarettes, fresher and with livelier taste. most doctors recommend them.” the lp juxtaposes two recordings of one and the same work; for example, there are two recordings of a brahms waltz. one half of the track is produced with older recording equipment suited to the extended play 45 rpm; the other half uses a technology suited to the new 33 rpm lp. but no exact standard for comparison is introduced. instead, the standard of judgment applied here is that of the man who links the following two clauses together with faultless logic: “i know what i like, and i don’t like that!” the clauses “i know what i like” and “i don’t like that” lack any common basis for comparison: they are two distinct judgments—liking and disliking—with quite separate reactions involved. their confusion, however, produces a spurious whole in the listener’s mind. 15 murray dineen in comparing the recordings, we would want to ask, “what is the measure of fidelity?” our answer would be a solipsistic and fetishistic “us.” the liner notes firmly declare this: many people are confused about what high fidelity means . . . and a lot of confusion comes from the technical language sound engineers use when they try to explain it. so in this recording we are not trying to explain the technique that made high fidelity possible—we are simply giving you a chance to hear the tremendous improvement it makes in recorded sound. (hearing 1954) here again is a covert form of labor: the listener, not the engineer, is put to work to discern the difference between high fidelity and its low counterpart. in the live setting, the listener might have attuned themselves sensibly to the imaginative work of the composer as conveyed by the laboring performer; now, however, they are enlisted into a form of technical labor quite the opposite of attunement.13 implicit here is a paranoia, the germ of what i call monophilia. i situate this paranoia in the shadow of impending stereophilia. if you can’t hear the improvement which the liner notes declare as so very accessible, perhaps you lack the equipment with which to measure. conveniently, the right side of the liner notes carries an advertisement of record players by which one might improve oneself and one’s equipment. there is a historical balance attained around the time of this recording, which i shall call the “historical soundscape of monophonic hi–fidelity.” as noted earlier, this was a moment of poise. in the years prior to the early 1950s, sound–reproducing media was only a part of musical enjoyment, and reproduced sound could be referred to carnegie hall as a standard. media’s role was so new, so diminutive, that it could not provoke the anxiety of fidelity and infidelity that i touched upon above. by 1953, awareness of media had grown to the point that for some (witness campbell’s addict) the question of fidelity could be salved only through confidence in technical equipment, through being convinced your equipment was the best possible. confidence and conviction—these were the key factors a listener brought to this new equation. both involved unpaid imaginative labor and not just a little anxiety. by the late 1960s, however, such questions of fidelity or infidelity were rendered irrelevant by the exuberance of technologies like quadrophonic sound.14 the historical soundscape of media circa 1953, then, existed in a delicate state of balance at the turning point of an epistemic shift. on the one hand, the capacity of media to steer the criteria of fidelity in new directions was not yet fully affirmed, waiting upon stereo sound equip16 current musicology ment for confirmation. on the other hand, the whole category of “high fidelity” necessitated a break with the past, as the experiment conducted in hearing is believing sought to attest. transitory moments such as the one just described tend to produce anxiety. in the mind of the monophile, the question of hi–fidelity becomes a source of anxiety that is specifically understood in relation to performance, the ability to accomplish “the rest of the job.” to paraphrase campbell, this anxiety becomes itself a “technical requirement” of the soundscape. the adherent of monaural sound reproduction—the monophile—was forced pathologically to invent an imaginary, mystical realm in which his rapidly–aging mono equipment might yet function with rigor. this imaginary realm of recovered virility centers upon the notion of high–fidelity that campbell so brilliantly makes the basis of his psycho–physiological epistemology. in 1953, the monophile, perhaps seeing where technology was leading, sought to justify a sound system that— given the exercise of hearing is believing—might reasonably be suspect as out of date. on this account (and despite campbell’s insinuations to the contrary), the question of recorded sound fidelity is not one of veracity but instead a question of postponing sterility. if fidelity in the context of media means “truth in comparison with some thing,” then the term presupposes a “thing,” an object of fidelity as referent of truth. the relationship between the two is fraught, however, since the object need not reciprocate let alone confirm the comparison. looking at the mirror in the morning, i ask myself: “is that really me?” i don’t hear the mirror confirm: “yes.” yet i beg the question again day after day. anxiety does not depend upon reciprocity; indeed, as foucault’s (1977, 195–228) familiar description of the panopticon would suggest, anxiety depends in large part upon being unrequited. since the mirror in my bathroom works “one way,” i presume that the fellow on the other side goes about his business blissfully unconcerned about my graying beard and sagging jowls (having been born in the early 1950s). indeed since he won’t ever reassure me, won’t ever say a word of reassurance, i grow more and more anxious every day. i might try to fool him with hair dye or a chin tuck, but in my instance these would be merely pathological, leading to an inordinate concern with appearance, futile given its present state of decline. i know he would not be fooled, but remain as silent as the sphinx. i worry nonetheless at his lack of commitment. such are the whiles of fidelity under suspicion. a similarly fraught engagement with the sphinx is happening in the instance of campbell’s hi–fi addict. i have relatives that embody the type. rather than simply listening to the music, they are quite involved in un17 murray dineen paid labor—they work quite hard—checking sound levels and balances, on guard, ever on guard for a speaker wire gone frayed or nasty interference from some errant radio. ever on guard, lest their equipment should malfunction, flag in its rigor, and let us down. around the advent of stereophony as a force in retail sound reproduction, the much vaunted sexual revolution of the 1960s began to pick up. its principal symptom, however, was not so much an increase in varieties of sexual intercourse. instead its essence is to be found in the growth of popular and respectable writing about sexuality, in texts such as the joy of sex, texts that were meant to salve anxieties about sexuality but instead merely enraged them. prior to the 1960s, let us say, sexual intercourse got along without much sexual discourse (at least where i presently work, in anglophone canada), certainly without the plethora of manuals meant to facilitate if not merely enable the act. and so too, i would contend, prior to the 1950s and monaural high fidelity, the field of sound reproduction got along largely without the kind of popular discourse we find exemplified in campbell and in hearing is believing. but then along came lubricants, ribbed, colored, and flavored condoms, and high fidelities, and the whole epistemology of both sex and sound reproduction was transformed necessarily to include a discourse about fidelity; not, however, about whether your partner was being “true” to you, but rather whether you were getting the real, full, true experience of sex and sound. and that transformation of fidelity was the root cause of the anxiety i am attempting to identify here. curiously, this development in sound and sex—and perhaps even in the sounds of sex—coincides roughly speaking with the advent of what is called euphemistically “artificial intelligence.” in order for something to be intelligent it must measure up to some standard. prior to the invention of artificial intelligence, we drew a simple albeit capricious line in the sand: some people were intelligent, some were not, tant pis. the advent of an artificial intelligence—and all the fascinating discourse that came along with it—did nothing if not raise the anxiety level of those with mere human intelligence. it posed the unnerving possibility that the most naturally intelligent person, hitherto blissfully unconcerned with their indisputable superiority, might not measure up against a machine’s superior equipment: “open up the pod–bay door, hal.” prior to the advent of artificial intelligence, those with ordinary intelligence would make their way quietly into the study of quantum physics or the study of epistemology. in a similar way, prior to high fidelity, listening was a matter of taking a seat quietly in carnegie hall. now, with the full flowering of artificial intelligence, we are only slightly disconcerted when word (with its biblical initial capital “w”) magically completes our 18 current musicology thoughts as we type, or our ipad, ipod, or iwhatever begins to dictate its preferences in musical repertoire to us—as though they were our preferences. now, with the protocol of the mp3 (among others), we are only slightly alarmed when the sound of neil young’s guitar is reduced in its vigorous fullness, this for the sake of cramming several hundred thousand songs onto a portable drive. i find this moment in the early 1950s fascinating, an ever rewarding field of examination.15 no doubt, there have been developments in recording and sound reproductive technology since.16 but these do not permit us to lose sight of a brief historical envelope—the historical age of monophonic hi–fidelity—in which a fraught epistemology of fidelity surged anxiously for dominion over the soundscape. notes 1. i am indebted to eric barry for this source. 2. this accessory role is not addressed by james lastra’s otherwise useful distinction between fidelity and intelligibility. postulating from lastra’s account, let us say technology and imagination would be equal participants in sound reproduction. see lastra 2012. 3. the emphasis is campbell’s. 4. which is not to suggest that what comes after—our perennial engagement with stereo as a thing in its own regard—is any less pathological (but this is beyond discussion here). 5. see the account given in lippman (1977, 150–55), which carries out this notion of composition to an extreme by making music itself an originating factor. compare matheson and caplan (2011, 42–46), especially the passage entitled “meta–ontology.” 6. the act of sound imagination need not necessarily be realized in concrete terms. this is exemplified in the fugue, whose subject (or sogetto), as a product of the composer’s conception, can be realized—made into concrete sound—in many different fugues as a fugal res facta. see dineen 2004. 7. but see thompson 2002 on the fraught nature of the concert hall. 8. i have in mind foucault’s (1972, 187) various “thresholds,” most importantly the “threshold of epistimologization,” where a “group of statements . . . exercises a dominant function . . . over knowledge . . .” 9. we cannot address here the role of the record cover in the reworking of imagination. see auslander 2004. 10. the root of that pathology might lie in the nature of sound itself, especially in its fraught comparison with the visual. see carpenter and mcluhan (1960, 68) and their concept of “argus–eared.” for a useful summary of the issue, phrased in terms of “soundscape,” see schulz 2008. 11. this pathology is not to be confused with the pathology of noise described by r. murray schafer (1969, 19–23). also see schafer’s discussion of the concept of “schizophonia” (43–47). i find the missionary zeal of schafer’s approach disconcerting. 19 murray dineen 12. in fact, through the purchase of the equipment, the listener pays to labor. here i am adapting an idea expressed by adorno (1981, 149–50) in his prisms essay where he suggests that schoenberg’s music requires work on the part of the listener, whereas the latter expected leisure. i have discussed this at length in my book friendly remainders: essays in musical criticism after adorno, where i suggest the analysis is as characteristic of all music under the aegis of capitalism as it is schoenberg’s. the latter is merely an extreme case (dineen 2011, 9–10 and passim). 13. see bull 2001. however, despite drawing extensively on adorno, bull does not express this in terms of labor. following upon the work of tia denora, tim edensor (2003, 160) addresses the fertile idea of reconstituting listening as a vehicle for the creation of use values, but in doing so ignores the durable nature of exchange value implicit in listening as discerned by adorno. with reference to jacques attali, jonathan sterne (2003, 242–43) speaks of a use–value labor of accumulating recorded sound. i disagree: this is a covert form of exchange value. i am indebted, nonetheless, to sterne who, hearing a similar paper read at carleton university in 2012, questioned whether the idea of labor i raised here was “automatist” in either the marxist sense (operaismo or autonome) or in the sense of lacan’s “automatism.” after consideration, i think it is neither, although both involve a kind of virtual labor like pathological listening. consider michael hardt and antonio negri’s (2000, 293) term affective labor: “this labor is immaterial, even if its corporeal and affective, in the sense that its products are intangible, a feeling of ease, well–being, satisfaction, excitement, or passion . . . such affective production, exchange, and communication are generally associated with human contact, but that contact can be either actual or virtual, as it is in the entertainment industry.” their concept, however, is entirely positive, while mine denotes a pathology. see, however, their discussion of “biopower” and affect (364–65). space forbids discussion of lacan’s concept, but see “tuché and automaton” in lacan 1981, 53–56. 14. the use of four speakers to approximate the experience of being surrounded by sound. it arose in the 1970s. 15. and would accord it a kind of dystopian prescience like that attributed by frederic jameson to the thoughts of jacques attali. i paraphrase jameson (1985, xi) thus: the music of the 1950s “stands both as a promise of a new, liberating mode of production, and as the menace of a dystopian possibility which is that mode of production’s baleful mirror image.” 16. see sterne’s (2012, 46) discussion of the term surplus definition. references adorno, theodor. 1981. prisms. translated by samuel and shierry weber. cambridge: mit press. auslander, philip. 2004. “looking at records.” in aural cultures, edited by jim drobnick, 150–56. toronto: yyz books. bull, michael. 2001. “soundscapes of the car: a critical study of automobile habitation.” in car cultures, edited by daniel miller, 183–202. new york: berg. campbell, john w., jr. 1953. “listening is believing?” high fidelity 3: 27–28. carpenter, edmund and marshall mcluhan. 1969. “acoustic space.” in explorations in communication: an anthology, edited by edmund carpenter and marshall mcluhan, 65–70. boston: beacon. dineen, murray. 2004. “fugue, space, noise, and form.” international studies in philosophy 36 (1): 39–60. . 2011. friendly remainders: essays in musical criticism after adorno. montreal: mcgill–queen’s university press. 20 current musicology edensor, tim. 2003. “m6—junction 19–16: defamiliarizing the mundane roadscape.” space and culture 6 (2):151–68. foucault, michel. 1972. the archeology of knowledge and the discourse on language. translated by alan sheridan. new york: pantheon. . 1977. discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. translated by alan sheridan. new york: vintage. hardt, michael and antonio negri. 2000. empire. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. hearing is believing. rca victor slr–12–1, 1954, long–playing record. jameson, frederic. 1985. foreword to noise: the political economy of music, by jacques attali, vii–xiv. translated by brian massumi. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. lacan, jacques. 1981. the four fundamental concepts of psycho–analysis. edited by jacques–alain miller. translated by alan sheridan. new york: norton. lastra, james. 2012. “fidelity versus intelligibility.” in the sound studies reader, edited by jonathan sterne, 248–53. new york: routledge. lippman, edward. 1977. a humanistic philosophy of music. new york: new york university press. matheson, carl and ben caplan. 2011. “ontology.” in the routledge companion to philosophy and music, edited by theodore gracyk and andrew kania, 38–47. new york: routledge. schafer, r. murray. 1969. the new soundscape: a handbook for the modern teacher. don mills, ontario: bmi canada. schulz, dorothea. 2008. “soundscape.” in key words in religion, media, and culture, edited by d. morgan, 172–86. london: routledge. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, nc: duke university press. . 2012. mp3: the meaning of a format. durham, n.c.: duke university press. thompson, emily. 2002. the soundscape of modernity: architectural acoustics and the culture of listening in america. cambridge: mit press. current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 5 editor’s note issue 101 of current musicology presents five articles that exemplify the journal’s commitment to critical discussions of music and sound across the disciplines. in her article, “as time goes by: car radio and the travel experience in twentieth-century america,” sarah messbauer explores the advent of car radio in the united states during the first half of the twentieth century. tracing car radio’s transformation from an object of suspicion— often evoking fears of distracted driving—to a near-ubiquitous feature of the automobile experience, messbauer elucidates deep links between the evolution of car radio and a constellation of associated shifts in the cultural experience and practice of space and time. such changes include fundamental alterations of human geography through patterns of routinized travel, evolving methods of disciplining industrial labor, and shifting patterns of mass production and consumption. sarah kirby’s article, “cosmopolitanism and race in percy grainger’s american ‘delius campaign,’” analyzes grainger’s early-twentieth-century campaign to promote the works of frederick delius in the united states, exposing the campaign’s underpinnings in grainger’s racist, nativist, and eugenicist ideologies and projects. kirby exposes a peculiar construction of cosmopolitanism at the root of grainger’s modes of presenting delius to us audiences, arguing that by downplaying his european national roots, delius and his music could be deployed as a “blank canvas” upon which grainger could superimpose his own “developing racist ideologies.” the issue’s third article, alison maggart’s “milton babbitt’s glosses on american jewish identity,” outlines the evolution of babbitt’s engagement with jewish themes over the course of his career, arguing for the centrality of the jewish exile narrative to the composer’s discourse and music. in babbitt’s articulation of the narrative, maggart argues, schoenberg is often framed as the prophet moses, the united states as the promised land, and the university as the site of refuge or asylum. babbitt thus “interweaves the plight of american academic composers with that of the jewish people in ancient, recent, and contemporary history.” maggart supports her historical work with a theoretical analysis of three key moments in babbitt’s glosses (1988). brendan kibbee’s article, “black labor and the deep south in hurston’s the great day and ellington’s black, brown, and beige,” highlights the representation of the laboring black body in two landmark works by zora neale hurston and duke ellington. kibbee frames the emphasis on black labor as a form of resistance to predominant representations of deep south life at the time of their premieres. indebted to legacies of blackface minstrelsy, such representations tended to present southern plantation life in nostalgic and racist framings. building on the writings of cedric robinson and raymond williams, kibbee argues that hurston’s and ellington’s pieces critically reimagine the deep south landscape, exposing the ideological work entailed in the construction of race and space. a more recent topic is found in erol koymen’s article, “from coups that silence ezan-s to ezan-s that silence coups!: sonic resistance to the 2016 turkish military coup.” koymen argues that islamic calls to prayer, mediated by electroacoustic amplification and internet social networking, forged turkish citizens into a “synchronized, collectivized body politic” that resisted the military coup by occupying urban streets and squares. by filling secular urban spaces with sacred sounds, koymen asserts, these events underline the importance of sound to an “epochal neo-ottoman shift in turkish politics.” indeed, by altering the meanings and feelings associated with various urban spaces, these events “embedd[ed] the materiality of sound and sonically disciplined bodies into the stone and concrete of urban spaces, thus transforming them and turkey’s public sphere.” this issue would have been impossible without the exemplary work of the entire editorial board and advisory team, especially didier sylvain, my predecessor as editor and closest collaborator, and paula harper, the reviews editor for this issue. i also wish to single out the exceptional work of the team of associate editors that worked particularly hard in bringing this publication to fruition: jesse chevan, kyle decoste, mike ford, jane forner, julia hamilton, and ian sewell. tom wetmore current musicology 162 current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york a picture is worth a thousand words: road maps as analytical tools brian alegant i. initial considerations my experience with road maps began fifteen years ago, when i was teaching an upper–division course on 20th–century music. sarah z, a senior, was simultaneously pursuing degrees in violin performance and studio art. she chose to analyze for her final project arvo pärt’s fratres (1977). a week before the project was due, sarah came to see me during an office hour. she told me that she had spent nearly two months studying fratres, comparing performances, modeling the small–scale and large–scale form, and learning about pärt’s musical language, including his use of plainchant and tintinnabuli.1 yet she was experiencing (for the first time in her academic life) a debilitating case of writer’s block. frustrated and nearly distraught, she wanted to analyze a different piece for her final project. i said no—it was much too late in the semester to re–start the entire process—and then brainstormed with her until we found a compromise: rather than write an essay, sarah would submit an annotated score and a painting of some sort. while i wasn’t entirely thrilled with this solution—how would a music theorist assess a work of art?—it seemed far better than scrapping the project altogether and beginning anew. one week later, sarah submitted an annotated score and an exquisite two–foot by three–foot watercolor. much to my surprise, she also handed in a seven–page analytical essay. she explained that, once she had finished the artwork, her writer’s block vanished; the paper “seemed to write itself.” her paper was not only musical and insightful, but more compelling than her previous essays. sarah’s epiphany inspired me to investigate the literature on multiple intelligences, left–brain versus right–brain processing, and learning theory.2 encouraged by these readings and emboldened by sarah’s breakthrough, i made a conscious decision to have every student do a road map the following semester. i’ve continued this practice, without regrets, ever since. a road map is a representation or documentation of how one hears a work unfold in time. in its simplest form, a road map can be a time line or flow chart. but it can also be an elaborate landscape of observations, brian alegant 163 correspondences, and associations, with text descriptions, symbols, staff notation, rhythms, colors, and shapes. a road map can be teleological or non–linear; literal or abstract; monochromatic or multi–colored; sparse or dense; small or large; hand–drawn or created with a music notation program such as sibelius or finale. i would argue that a road map—like any piece of writing—is provisional. there is no right or wrong way to create one, although some maps are definitely more compelling, thoughtful, and musical than others. the idea behind a road map is to capture the important characteristics of a work and represent them in some way that makes sense. for this reason i occasionally ask students to re–map the same work later in a semester. the results often reveal (to student and instructor alike) significant refinement in hearing and sophistication in modeling. a map can trace the history of pitches, pitch–classes, set–classes, rhythms, gestures, themes, registers, dynamics, articulations, texture and other parameters; it can highlight phrase structures, structural upbeats and downbeats, and climaxes; and it can model formal organization and energy flow, character, compositional strategies, and narrative. road maps facilitate deeper engagement with music, foster critical listening skills, and provide a creative outlet for students, especially those who are visual learners. over the years my students have created road maps of compositions by ablinger, ades, aperghis, babbitt, bartok, berg, cage, carter, cassidy, chopin, crumb, debussy, eckhart, feldman, ferneyhough, glass, gubaidulina, harbison, harvey, hurel, lang, messiaen, merzbow, reich, riley, saunders, schoenberg, scelsi, sciarrino, stravinsky, xenakis, webern, wolpe, and yi among others. students have also mapped electronic compositions and graphic works by aaron cassidy and helmut lachenmann. ii. best practices over the years i have arrived at a set of best practices for introducing, cultivating, and assessing road maps. (i offer these as guidelines, not absolutes.) for the first mapping assignment i choose a relatively short and transparent work for one or two instruments. we analyze the composition in class in some detail, comparing and contrasting different performances and listening closely with and without score. students then carefully annotate clean copies of their scores, identifying important events or ideas and tracing them throughout the work. finally, they transfer their observations to paper, adding text commentary and any symbols that seem appropriate.3 in my view, this transferring stage is where most of the learning occurs. ideally, a student will create a feedback loop between the map and the current musicology 164 score, listening repeatedly and adding or subtracting details as needed. the objective is to communicate effectively an analytical interpretation, a “take.” students often ask, especially at first, “how do i know that i’m on the right track?” and “how do i know when to stop?” i respond to the first question by saying that they should be able to listen to the piece while following the map, and that the map should communicate in a glance the essence of their hearing and understanding. to the second question, i tell them to adopt a less–is–more aesthetic, as i maintain that there is no such thing as a complete analysis or a complete road map. students who are risk–averse and students who (like me) are artistically challenged find that mapping takes them out of their comfort zones. on the first day of class that i talk about mapping i bring a stack of examples by former students; the diversity among the maps invariably puts the students at ease.4 if students still balk, i suggest that they focus on a select number of critical events or ideas—the things that resonate most in their hearing—and provide a context for these events. i also remind students that it’s important to be willing to take intellectual and interpretive risks, and that those who struggle with mapping often have an easier time with writing, and vice versa. occasionally, when a mapping assignment is due, i begin class by having students share their maps in small groups. this “pair and share” strategy becomes a point of departure for discussion, and provides an ideal opportunity to revisit the piece with fresher eyes and ears. gradually, students become increasingly comfortable creating road maps of longer, taller, and more challenging works.5 maps are not easy to grade, however. over time, i have come to assess them primarily on level of engagement rather than visual artistry or acumen. i look to see what events surface and how these events are contextualized. is the map coherent and engaging? does it convey a non–trivial understanding of the composition? the first few maps are risk–free, “low–stakes” assignments that i assess pass/fail. as the semester progresses maps become “higher–stakes,” which is to say that i expect deeper analytical insights and more sophisticated modes of representation.6 i grade higher–stakes maps according to a three–tier rubric: a p+ for excellent work (this corresponds to an a), a p for satisfactory work (b+ through d), and an f for unsatisfactory work. while no grading system is entirely objective, i find that this scheme is fair and simplifies the grading process enormously. put simply, a p+ map is compelling, makes a genuine attempt to get below the surface, and exhibits ownership.7 for midterm and final projects i usually ask students to create a map and write an essay; this way, they have two distinct opportunities to engage with the music. brian alegant 165 iii. some illustrations road maps come in a bewildering variety of shapes, sizes, and viewpoints. the following discussion illustrates select maps of tonal, twelve–tone, and atonal works. schubert’s moment musical in a–flat major, op. 94, no. 6, is a kind of acid test for 19th–century harmony. its sophisticated use of modal mixture and enharmonic revaluation provides a wonderful opportunity for mapping. depending on the level of the class and the time of year, i will either ask students to learn the piece on their own and map the allegretto, or teach the piece in class and assign e.t. cone’s “schubert’s promissory note.”8 in the latter case i usually spend two classes on the allegretto. we trace the histories of e–natural and f–flat, and discuss modal mixture, phrase structure, hypermeter, harmonic ambiguity, distant modulation, and the notion of a harmonic breakthrough. we also explore other surface details, such as the re–spelled tonicization of the neapolitan and the barren octaves at the final cadence (which in my hearing suggest incorporeality). not all of these observations, of course, can or should be included in a map; my intention is merely to give students angles to pursue. examples 1, 2, and 3 reproduce three maps of the allegretto, each originally done in color and on 8.5x11” paper. the maps are very individualized, with varying degrees of whimsy, detail, and risk–taking. these low–stakes maps were accompanied by informal, two–page reflections.9 the first movement of anton webern’s saxophone quartet, op. 22, allows students to learn to hear symmetrical inversion in a “classical” twelve–tone work.10 there is a great deal to say about the movement, which is structured as a rounded binary form framed by an introduction and coda. in class, we listen repeatedly with and without score. we examine the abstract properties of the row, including its intervallic and set–class profile. we examine the large–scale distribution of rows and the pervasive influence of axial symmetry about the axis, f#4. we scrutinize—and strive to hear in real time—the saturation of [014] and [016] trichords, and the pitch– and pitch–class invariance among segments of rows and at the boundaries of rows and phrases. we discuss the ritardando … a tempo markings and repeat signs; we debate the label of “sonata form”; and we talk about harmonic rhythm, timbre, and dynamics. finally, we compare performances, evaluating the merits of a pointillistic interpretation versus a linear/contrapuntal one.11 for this assignment students have free reign, though i make three requests: that they invest themselves in the process, that they don’t include anything that they can’t hear, and that they step outside their comfort zone.12 examples 4 through 7 give a sense of the diversity of approach and representation, with varying degrees of emphasis on pitch, gesture, timbre, current musicology 166 dynamics, form, and register. (again i cannot show here the most elaborate and panoramic maps, some of which are nearly six feet in length.) iv: final thoughts: maps, interpretation, and performance my experience has shown me that road maps facilitate deeper engagement with music through repeated listening and careful score study. the act of creating a map can help to unlock writer’s block, demystify contemporary music, and refine listening skills. additionally, maps offer a creative outlet for self–expression, and provide a welcome respite for visual learners and students who struggle with writing. i will conclude by suggesting two other benefits of road maps: they are invaluable tools for interpretation and memorization. many of the performers that i coach often struggle with cadenzas, development sections, fantasies, and improvisatory preludes. their struggles seem to transcend style and era: they can feel lost in a bach suite, a mozart or schoenberg fantasy, a brahms or dvorak development, or a britten or shostakovich cadenza. most students find that road maps help them come to grips with the music, whether their maps focus on character, form, motivic transformation, rhetoric, harmony, color, or narrative. these performers report (in retrospect) that the act of creating a map not only provides an invaluable conceptual framework, but also helps them with memorization. jonathan hepfer is a former student pursuing a doctoral degree at the university of california, san diego. jonathan has a knack for creating elaborate road maps that are specifically designed for performance. he specializes in avant–garde works for solo percussion, and feels strongly that these works need to be memorized, as he finds it nearly impossible to follow the score and maintain visual contact with the instruments. jonathan’s solution for performing long and complicated works is to create specialized road maps that summarize the detail and essence of the original score, but in miniature. such mini–maps, which can be as small as an index card, offer many advantages. they allow a performer to give the appearance of playing from memory (while providing a safeguard against memory slips); they free up the sightlines for the performer and the audience; and they obviate the need for any page turns. example 8 is a map of a passage from walter zimmermann’s riuti: rödungen und wüstungen (1981); example 9 is a map of a section from pierluigi billone’s mani.matta (2008).13 i offer these without commentary, since—after all—a picture is worth a thousand words. brian alegant 167 example 1 current musicology 168 examples 2 and 3 brian alegant 169 ex am pl e 4 current musicology 170 example 5 brian alegant 171 ex am pl e 6 current musicology 172 exam ple 7 brian alegant 173 ex am pl e 8 current musicology 174 exam ple 9 brian alegant 175 notes 1. as described in hillier (1997) and roeder (2011), tintinnabulation is pärt’s idiosyncratic approach to triadic–based voice leading in pitch space. 2. see for instance brandsford et al. (1999), and gardner (1993) and (2011). 3. i’ve found that staff paper is best for maps that focus on collections, pitches, or rhythmic cells whereas blank paper is best for modeling gestures, timbre, or narrative. graph paper, poster boards, and larger canvases can also be effective. occasionally students try—and sometimes fail epically—to create three–dimensional maps. once an art student did a road map on the wall of his dorm room and sent me a picture of it via his iphone. 4. schenker’s five graphic music analysis (1932/1969) are examples of road maps that students can emulate, though i ask that they strive to emulate something closer to the middleground or deep background than the foreground level. (as i envision it, a road map is not meant to be a transcription or facsimile; the learning happens through prioritizing.) as an aside, i should note that multimedia presentations of musical compositions are becoming increasingly popular on the internet. the difference between these and a road map is that a map can be perceived in a single glance. 5. debussy’s preludes for piano are ideal for mapping collectionally–based works. i have had much success with “voiles,” “des pas sur la neige,” “la fille aux cheveux de lin,” “la cathédrale engloutie” from book i, and “bruyères” and “canope” from book ii. alegant and sly (2004) offers sparse pitch–based maps of “la fille aux cheveux de lin” and “feuilles mortes.” for atonal works i’d start with individual movements from berg’s opp. 4 or 5, schoenberg’s op. 19, or webern’s opp. 5, 7 and 11. 6. i borrow the notions of low– and high–stakes writing from elbow (2005), who writes eloquently on many aspects of writing across the curriculum. exploratory writing, blogs, and journaling are low–stakes whereas essays and term papers are high–stakes. 7. i’m far more comfortable assessing maps with a p+/p/f system than a traditional letter scheme. (in fact, i prefer the p+/p/f rubric for written work, too.) of course, it’s possible to design a grading rubric to distinguish between, say, an a– and a b+ map. but it’s much easier to differentiate a p+ from a p. further, i’d rather spend my time responding to a map than getting embroiled in the rubric so that i can justify a grade. 8. see cone (1982). 9. many other maps were more intricate and more aesthetically striking; some of the maps were works of art in and of themselves. however, despite my best efforts, these were rendered unintelligible when reduced from colored 11x17” format to a black–and–white 6x9” size. 10. bailey 1991, fennelly 1966, mead 1994, and rochberg 1962 are among the many analyses of this movement. some background: before we study this movement, we explore axial symmetry in bartok’s “subject and reflection” and the first movement of music for strings, percussion, and celesta; webern’s op. 27/2; and “contrapunctus secundus” from dallapiccola’s quaderno musicale di annalibera. we also practice hearing trichordal set–classes in real time. then i devote up to three or four classes to the quartet so that students can gain practice listening through various “filters” or lenses. 11. a comparison of boulez’s multiple performances in this regard is highly instructive. 12. this assignment can take various forms. some years i ask students to just make a map. other years i ask for a map and a reaction. lately i’ve been asking students to create map and include a (meta–)reflection that describes what they’ve learned from the process and what grade they would give themselves (and why). current musicology 176 13. i am grateful to jonathan for permitting me to show these maps here. writings on walter zimmermann’s music by christopher fox and richard toop can be found at http://home. snafu.de/walterz/toopwz.html. references alegant, brian and gordon sly. 2004. taking stock of collections: a strategy for teaching the analysis of post–tonal music. journal of music theory pedagogy 18: 23–51. bailey, kathryn. 1991. the twelve–note music of anton webern: old forms in a new language. cambridge: cambridge university press, 171–78. bransford, j.d., a.l. brown, and r.r. cocking. 1999. how people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school. washington, d.c.: national academy press. cone, etward t. 1982. schubert’s promissory note: an exercise in musical hermeneutics. 19th–century music 5: 233–41. elbow, peter and mary deane sorcinelli. 2005. how to enhance learning by using high– stakes and low–stakes writing. in wilbert mckeachie’s teaching tips: strategies, research and theory for college and university teachers, 12th ed. available at http://works.bepress. com/peter_elbow/1. fennelly, brian. 1966. structure and process in webern’s opus 22. journal of music theory 10: 300–28. gardner, howard. 2011. frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences, 3rd edition. (new york: basic books). _____. 1993. multiple intelligences: the theory in practice. (new york: basic books). hillier, paul. 1997. arvo pärt. oxford: oxford university press. mead, andrew. 1993. webern, tradition, and composing with twelve–tones. music theory spectrum 15/2: 173–204, especially 187–96. rochberg, george. 1962. webern’s search for harmonic identity. journal of music theory 6.2: 109–22. roeder, john. 2011. transformational aspects of arvo pärt’s tintinnabuli music. journal of music theory 55.1: 1–41. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 87 “hear what you want”: sonic politics, blackness, and racism-canceling headphones alex blue v shot: a person sits on a couch, book in hand, coffee table at the knees. we have not yet seen their head—the camera has kept their identity concealed, showing only the shoulders down. as the camera slowly pans, and the person carefully turns the page in their book, we hear voices being broadcast from a television. the camera switches gaze, turning to show a sports commentator speaking on screen “i think there’s zero threat. my problem is, kg’s a little too ‘over-the-hill’...” shot: the camera returns to the still headless body, slowly panning upward to unmask the secret identity: the body belongs to kevin garnett, also known as kg, a long-tenured, well-known professional basketball player in the united states. a well-timed pause shows he is reading sun tzu’s the art of war. his dark skin and sharp features are accentuated by the lighting; he appears part man, part shadow. as the tv speakers sound the phrase “over-the-hill,” his eyes shift focus from down at his book up to the television. the on-screen diatribe continues, his nostrils flare, and his eyes burn with the determination of a man seeking retribution. as the verbal attacks continue, their presence fades into the background, being replaced by the sounds of high-pitched strings, ambient noise, synthesizer, and a pulsing sub-bass that sounds much like a heartbeat. garnett rises from the couch, walks to a small table near the door to his apartment, and picks up three items: his wallet, his keys, and a pair of headphones. as he turns and walks away from the camera, exiting his apartment, we see words emblazoned across the screen. ‘hear what you want’ his television remains on. shot: the inside of a bus, looking out the window. cityscapes pass quickly through the frame... a distant skyline, a park surrounded by buildings, a busy downtown street. the musical sounds that overtook the television now give way to road noise. garnett is sitting in a window seat, wearing headphones around his neck and an ominous look on his face. his team88 current musicology mates are on the bus, but out-of-focus. suddenly, the distant murmur of a crowd enters the soundscape. it crescendos. shot: a security guard pushes back a tall gate, allowing the bus access to a long, concrete tunnel. the tunnel is flanked on both sides by a rabid, angry mob of fans only separated from the bus by a chain-link fence. reaching a fever pitch, their volume becomes deafening, even from inside the bus. they jump and pull at the fence, reminiscent of zombies in a horror film. the camera zooms in to focus on individuals within the mob, allowing viewers to hear what they are yelling: “you’re too old to be playing!” “you big gorilla motherfucker!” “[get] your black ass back to boston!” within the mob, people spit and throw eggs at garnett’s window. he reaches for his headphones, and as he puts them on his ears, the crowd is muffled to a point near inaudibility. he closes his eyes and a song begins to play. “girl, you can tell everybody, yeah you can tell everybody; go ahead and tell everybody: i’m the man, i’m the man, i’m the man. . . .” surrounded by chaos, he is at peace. end scene. beginning in 2013, beats electronics launched the first in an ongoing series of commercials and internet advertisements promoting their product—beats studio headphones with adaptive noise canceling. beats electronics, originally known as beats by dre, is an audio company founded in 2006 by interscope records chairman jimmy iovine and iconic rapper/entrepreneur andre young, better known as dr. dre. the company debuted its first product, beats by dr. dre studio headphones in 2008. the duo promoted the headphones by claiming that listeners were not able to discern all of the sounds and nuances in a song with most headphones on the market; beats by dre studio headphones would allow the listener to hear what the artists actually intended for them to hear, to “listen to the music the way they should.” with the namesake of an urban cultural icon, and a price tag over $300, the headphones were highly-valued accessories. the headphones are known for their ability to deliver low frequencies with a lot of power, and this is seen as a negative among many self-proclaimed audiophiles, but an advantage among fans of some popular music styles like hip-hop, pop, and various styles of electronic dance music. they are also known for their look, and are as much a fashion accessory as an audio device; in fact, their look and their marketability as a “bass-delivery system” may be more important to their success than their overall perfor89 alex blue v mance (dorris 2013). though “by dre” has since been dropped from the product names, they still carry immense value based on their association with dr. dre and urban culture. in 2014, beats was acquired by apple for the meager sum of $3 billion dollars; with his earnings, dr. dre apparently became “hip-hop’s first billionaire.”1 noise-canceling headphones work to reduce ambient noise through a method known as active noise control in which the headphones listen to outside noise through the use of a microphone, then produce a sound wave with the same amplitude of the sound that they wish to cancel, in an inverted phase. the original sound wave and the inverted sound wave then combine (interfere) and cancel each other out. active noise control is most effective at canceling low frequencies of constant ambient sounds, like the hum of an engine. the technology of noise-cancellation has been used for decades in the aviation industry, but was developed for mass production by the bose corporation to help clientele reduce ambient noise to focus on work—or, to negotiate conflicts of sound and space in modernity (hagood 2011). the addition of noise-canceling headphones to the beats product line is relatively recent, as the company had primarily focused on studio headphones, earbuds, and speakers; noise-canceling headphones from bose, sony, sennheiser, and other popular audio companies had been on the market for years. as beats entered this market, their website displayed an impressive collection of endorsements by prominent black male athletes including lebron james, richard sherman, and kevin garnett. the use of black bodies to sell products has a problematic history, beginning with black people being sold as products, transitioning into a fascination with black bodies as other, primitive, and natural that allowed white advertisers to to market their products as natural and authentic (bristor, lee, and hunt 1995). in particular, there is an overwhelming legacy of white fascination with black male bodies as athletic, black men as sexually virile, and black culture as fun that has strong roots in blackface minstrelsy—america’s first widely-popular entertainment form (lott 1992). the use of black male athletes to sell headphones can be seen as an extension of this legacy. the website also promised consumers the ability to “cancel out the haters,” and implored them to “join the #beatsarmy,”2 positioning beats headphones as some sort of subversive, anti-establishment, righteous weapon in a world full of enemy combatants. the commercials and internet advertisements deployed by beats electronics featured some of the same athletes seen on their website, and the advertising campaign, developed by new york-based creative firm r/ga, was titled “hear what you want.” the vision for the ad campaign, as stated on r/ga’s website: 90 current musicology the beats studio has become a fixture on the heads of the world’s best athletes. our campaign linked this insight with one of the key features of the headphone: adaptive noise-canceling. sports’ elite colin kaepernick of the san francisco 49ers, kevin garnett from the brooklyn nets, and richard sherman of the seattle seahawks are shown using beats studio to escape the intimidation of rival crowds and reporters and get into their zone. juxtaposing an uplifting track by aloe blacc, now #2 on itunes, with imagery of fan abuse creates a disarming scene that demonstrates the power combination of noise-canceling and precision sound quality that the studio brings to your ears. there is no explicit mention of race noted here, but race is a prominent feature of the commercials. the ads—notably the ads featuring future pro basketball hall of fame inductee kevin garnett and pro football all-star richard sherman—typically showed black male athletes withstanding, then silencing, a barrage of racially-charged ‘noise’ with the use of beats headphones. they displayed the agency these headphones bestowed upon the user: the ability to resist domination, cancel out the haters, and enter a personal, silent safe zone while in a bellicose, racist public space. that noise-canceling headphones could protect their user from sonic violence or deafen them to the world outside is not a preposterous notion; in fact, this was one of the primary objectives of the bose corporation in the initial development of noise-canceling headphones for a mass market. that headphones could block out the noise and effect of racism, however, is slightly harder to accept. the use of headphones to create real/imagined personal space is part of a discourse involving the proliferation and intrusiveness of sound in public spaces (sterne 1997; corbin 1998; kahn 1999; novak 2010; eisenberg 2013), and the use of mobile music technology to manufacture privacy (hosokawa 1984; chow 1990; bull 2006; hagood 2011). at the same time, beats by dre stands somewhat peripheral to this discourse—a discourse that has not typically focused on race, with a couple of exceptions—through its blatant insertion of ‘blackness’ into what is assumed to be a racially-neutral [white] technology. in a society that exists under the heel of white dominance, the neutral and unmarked will always signify as white; white people are able to see themselves reflected in technology without having to be aware of their race, or that the technology is raced3 (cooks and simpson 2007; dyer 1997; lipsitz 1998; roediger 1991). while bose, sony walkman, and other mobile sound technologies were theoretically marketed only as technologies, through the hear what you want ads, beats by dre headphones are unapologetically—and, necessarily—sold as resistant black technology. in this article, i focus on these advertisements 91 alex blue v and examine their portrayed use of noise-canceling headphones as a means of investigating a vast matrix containing intersections and collisions between black subjectivity, sound, technology, space, and the neutral consumer. i also challenge the trope of blackness as inherently resistant, offering an alternate interpretation of the advertisements that rests on the ideas of interiority, inwardness, and quiet. sonic politics and blackness in the emerging field of sound studies, many scholars have taken notice of and brought attention to issues of human subjectivity through which sound is constantly filtered, always feeding back: gender, sexuality, space, religion, and, most relevant to this article, race. but while there have been quite a few murmurs in the field concerning race, not as many of these murmurs have risen to the level of an audible conversation, let alone a shout. this is not unexpected, as sound is supposed to be an objective, neutral medium. sound is science. of course, the ways in which sound is expressed are hardly ever neutral. in his foundational monograph the audible past (2003), jonathan sterne is apt to point out that his history of sound reproduction and listening is informed primarily by the history of white, middle-class culture. sterne also noted that at the time of his writing, within sound studies, a “history of the collision between a new emphasis on sonic details in predominantly white spheres of cultural practice and white interest in african american musical forms [had] yet to be written” (2003: 158). the charge for studies on sound and race has been taken up in recent years, sounding out in the writings of regina bradley, nina eidsheim, gus stadler, and others. many of the articles in the 2011 special “sound clash” edition of american quarterly deal explicitly with race. even before the work of these scholars, there have been numerous monographs focused on race and sound in the fields of ethnomusicology, sociology, cultural studies, popular music studies, and others. however, from leroi jones’ blues people (1963) to josh kun’s audiotopia (2005), the vast majority of these works are focused on black music, white obsession with the black musical voice, black musical agency, black resistance-cummusic. academic orientations towards blackness and sound are anchored firmly in the discourse of black music; gus stadler (2015) emphasizes this point, stating that foundational works in sound studies seem to imply that no sound-related topics other than black music have anything to do with race. this is not to say that scholars should not continue to make efforts to interpret black music; i am merely restating the fact that there is an opportunity to turn the conversation elsewhere. this article is not about black music. it is not about resistance through 92 current musicology the use of black music, and thus represents a departure and reorientation from the typical narratives on blackness and sound that circulate within academia and within popular music discourse. it is about black technology displayed as resistance technology, the assumption that blackness is inseparable from resistance, and the commodification of this resistance. it is an intervention in the fields of ethnomusicology, musicology, sound studies, and adjacent fields that focuses on race, sound and technology— how sound technology signifies as black. it is about black techniques of listening, black personhood, interiority, black silence, and black quietude. it is about the construction and preservation of a black masculinity that is crafted through both noise and quiet. it is also about the way that multiple facets of black subjectivity are compressed, branded, packaged, and sold as an all-encompassing, easily-controlled blackness to consumers in the us—again, consumers that are assumed white unless difference is specifically notated. sound policing: noise, power, privacy, and public order noise is considered an inevitability of modernity. my position within discourses of sound/noise in public/private space begins with jacques attali’s maxim that noise is a display and a source of power (1977, 6). the exertion of this power typically manifests in two related, but distinct ways. first, who gets to make noise—and when they get to do it—is often overdetermined to the point of being legislated. this display of power takes shape in the form of noise ordinances and noise abatement task forces (novak 2015), disturbing the peace charges, “quiet area” signs in the library, “no engine brake” signs in residential areas, and so on. second, sound in many forms is used as a means of announcing authority, exerting force, disabling non-compliant citizens. it is used in military prisons to torture the imprisoned. it is used by the fbi in the form of sonic grenades to disorient subjects, and the form of overly amplified music recordings to disrupt sleep. emergency vehicles use their sirens to compel citizens to pull to the side of the road. in both cases, the power rests in the hands of those that control sound, whether they are deploying/producing it or keeping it from being produced. embedded in the policing of noise-making are the ideas that noise is an antagonist to peace, that it destroys any illusions of privacy that people may have by forcibly penetrating their acoustic space, and that silence— and the illusion of privacy that may come with it—is a human right. jonathan sterne theorized that the construction and expectation of private acoustical space developed over the course of the last two centuries with audile technique, which he defines as “a set of practices of listening that 93 alex blue v were articulated to science, reason, and instrumentality and that encouraged the coding and rationalization of what was heard” (2003, 23). not only did the tools for listening become more standardized during the end of the 19th century leading into the next—stethoscopes, phonographs, telephones, radios, headphones—the objectives of our listening became more standardized and coded. sterne writes: a new practical orientation toward acoustic space developed alongside audile technique: listening became more directional and directed, more oriented toward constructs of private space and private property. the construct of acoustic space as private space in turn made it possible for sound to become a commodity. audile technique did not occur in the collective, communal space of oral discourse and tradition (if such a space ever existed); it happened in a highly segmented, isolated, individuated acoustic space. (2003, 24) mack hagood also theorizes the production of and collisions between sonic public and sonic private in his 2011 article “quiet comfort: noise, otherness, and the mobile production of personal space.” hagood is particularly interested in the problematic of noise in an era of neoliberalism that seems to dictate that human beings are entitled to freedom as “an individual matter, and relations with others that do not result from individual choice are seen to impinge on that freedom” (574). throughout his writing, we are reminded that noise is heard as othered sound by the users of bose’s noise-canceling headphones, and that to cancel noise is to create privacy while exercising choice and proclaiming individuality, the most powerful expressions of humanity within modernity. privacy through consumption of noise-canceling technology in the free market becomes the ultimate neoliberal marker of freedom. the conflation of silence with privacy and personal space is so embedded in modern identity in the us that breaching this silence is seen as a violation of rights. in extreme cases, these violations can lead to physical violence, or even death. in 2012, a black male teenager named jordan davis was shot multiple times by an older white male named michael dunn in a dispute over how loudly music was playing from the vehicle occupied by davis and his friends. davis is dead, and dunn is currently serving a life sentence with no chance of parole. this shooting happened in the parking lot of a convenience store, an overwhelmingly public place where one would typically not expect to be insulated from the noise of others. dunn’s decision to shoot davis displays not only dunn’s belief that he was entitled to a certain amount of privacy, regardless of his location, but also that he believed in a particular order for society, one in which certain people were allowed to be noisy. violation of this social order resulted in death. 94 current musicology i’ll now pause for a commercial break. shot: the screen is black, save for the words “richard sherman” and “hear what you want” appearing in shaky, distorted white letters. there are many voices speaking at once, and the sound of camera shutters and flashes floods the soundscape. one voice rises above the others and asks a question. richard, the atmosphere was electric, what’s it like playing in front of these fans? it’s incredible, man. i think we have the most outstanding fans in the world. we’re at an interview with multiple reporters. shot: the black screen disappears. a team locker room. a tightly formed ring made up of bodies, cameras, microphones, outstretched limbs cramped into a relatively small space. camera flashes erupt in rapid succession illuminating the center of the ring. peering closely, we see the subject of the commercial, pro football player richard sherman. he is surrounded by reporters, each hoping to get the perfect sound bite, the perfect quotable from this gregarious, assumed ostentatious athlete. the camera zooms in and we see sherman enclosed by this mostly-white mass of reporters and cameramen. his beats headphones are wrapped around his forehead, like a visor. after another general, innocuous question, the inquiries from various reporters begin to turn extremely personal. his responses are typically cut off by the start of the next badgering question. [indiscernible] your trash talk is a distraction to your teammates? it doesn’t distract anybody, it motivates. a carefully placed black reporter asks: what’s your responsibility to the kids on the streets in compton? well—you try to set an example, you try to be an example— how do you cut down people that say [you and your teammates] play dirty? well i take exception to that— do you have a problem with aggression? uh, not off the field. 95 alex blue v the camera cuts away to a closeup of two media members having a private conversation: he thinks he’s so fucking untouchable. the camera returns to the larger combative scene. did you fight a lot as a kid? not everybody in compton is a gang member have you gone downhill since college? ... no! a visibly irritated sherman does his best to deflect the questions, and an off-camera voice asks something that gives him pause: what do you think about your reputation as a thug? after a long pause, richard closes his eyes and lets out an exasperated sigh. ... i don’t have that reputation. richard, do you think you are above the law? the noise of the mob rises to an unmanageable level. sensing his anger rising, sherman halfheartedly and dismissively thanks the reporters, turns his back to them and faces his locker, closes his eyes, and puts on his headphones. the noise is canceled, and his peace returns. the picture fades. ‘hear what you want’ hearing what you really want a vast majority of audio technologies—including noise-canceling headphones—use the terms hearing and listening somewhat interchangeably in their advertising, though they are not the same thing. as roland barthes states, “hearing is a physiological phenomenon; listening is a psychological act. it is possible to describe the physical conditions of hearing (its mechanisms) by recourse to acoustics and to the physiology of the ear; but listening cannot be defined only by its object or, one might say, by its goal” (1985, 245). in a chapter on “listening,” tom rice also notes this distinction between hearing and listening, finding that the two are not necessarily diametrically opposed, but that listening is marked by more effort and choice than hearing (2015). i find the distinction quite important, 96 current musicology as it points to the fact that the ability to hear what you want is likely not physiologically possible. listening has a lot more variance, different intentions. hearing, on the other hand, does not. hearing cannot be turned off, it can only be redirected. as r. murray schafer points out in his book the soundscape: our sonic environment and the tuning of the world, “there are no earlids…. the ear’s only protection is an elaborate psychological mechanism for filtering out undesirable sound in order to concentrate on what is desirable” (1977). devices like earplugs, speakers, and headphones, therefore, are all just technologies used to redirect our hearing mechanism to listen to something more desirable. so, can we actually hear what we want? not quite. we can decide what we want to decode as meaningful to us, we can decide what should alert us. we can, theoretically, listen to what we want. in these ads, the headphones are helping these athletes ignore their surroundings, or to pretend to ignore them. however, both of the athletes in the aforementioned ads close their eyes after putting on the headphones. the headphones don’t actually reach their full advertised ability without shutting off other senses. you can’t hear what you want unless you also decide not to look around. the athletes, in a sense, hear what they see. beyond the silencing of the outside world in the advertisements is the silencing of black voices, a policing of what can be sounded and in what space. kevin garnett remains silent throughout his entire commercial, and this is compelling as he is known not only for his adeptness at playing basketball, but also for being quite boisterous. in the commercial featuring sherman, the headphones don’t just silence the outside world—they also silence the user. but this silencing cannot only be viewed as an act of violence imposed by some oppressive force. for black people, silence can be a survival technique. the self is one of the only locations that can be controlled and possessed.4 headphones, then, can act like a hoodie or a hat; they are more than fashion, they are a means of self-containment and maintenance of personhood; they are a tool to help resist white dominance. the ad spotlights sherman becoming more and more agitated as he fights off an oppressive, racially-coded line of questioning.5 eventually, his frustrations run so high that he must turn to the headphones as a means of escape from the scene. richard sherman has to keep his accused untouchableness, his reputed thugness, his blackness, internalized, so as to not play into an “angry black male” stereotype like the media wants (and like the audience assumes). the headphones are necessary because in sherman’s life, you can’t “say what you want.” through the manipulation and application of sound technology, he is able to resist the oppressive sound of whiteness. the brilliance of these advertisements is that they convince the consumer, regardless of race, that these headphones will give an ability that 97 alex blue v no other headphones will. in reality, noise-cancellation technology is not necessary to block outside noise if a person is listening to music—earbuds and any over-ear headphone will perform this same function if the music is turned up loudly enough. music can also be externally sounded via speakers to block outside noise, assert individuality, and create space, as seen in the use of boomboxes,6 or jamaican sound systems (veal 2007). and if no music is to be played, but the dampening of sound is desired, earplugs are a much less expensive solution. the marketing campaign also convinces consumers that beats can provide, or at least enhance, an ability people already possess: the ability to ignore things. as noted previously, the primary reason beats can do this successfully is that there is an extensive history of white fascination with black bodies that has been particularly amplified and proven to be successful in commercial advertising. these commercials play specifically on historical tropes of black masculinity that have been used to sell countless products that came before and after—uncle ben’s rice, colt 45 malt liquor, old spice deodorant, and so on. richard sherman appears as animalistic, surrounded on all sides by an angry mob, yet still able to gain the upper hand in the situation, because of the headphones. within capitalism, every consumer wants to feel victorious. the sounds of (cultural) capitalism beats headphones come in just about any color you can imagine,7 and they’re just as often seen around people’s necks or atop their heads like crowns as they’re seen on people’s ears. it is obvious that the visual aspect of the headphones, both how they look and how you look while wearing them, is an important feature to consumers, perhaps more important than how well they perform their primary function as headphones. to quote beats electronics president luke wood, “if you’re wearing a pair of beats, it says, ‘music’s really important in my life.’” along with the high fashion sense associated with the brand, another type of visibility contributes to beats’ appeal: celebrity endorsements. a successful form of advertisement throughout history due to their widespread visibility (and due to the aura and cult of celebrity), it is no coincidence that beats electronics is interested in being seen on successful athletes and generally appealing pop stars. it is also obvious why the headphones are still associated with dr. dre, though the company is now owned by apple and dr. dre has no involvement with the company itself. his blackness, celebrity, and his “urban” reputation sell. beats electronics has also paved the way for the once disparate world of athlete endorsement and sound technology. however, the wearing of beats in the nfl has become complicated, due to the nfl signing an 98 current musicology exclusive deal with bose in 2014. bose is now the “official sound of the nfl.” the headsets worn by referees and coaches now prominently display the bose logo for all cameras to see. because of this official deal with bose, players like richard sherman, who have endorsement deals with beats, now incur $10,000 fines if and when they are seen wearing beats on camera, further complicating the tangled web of professional sports, corporate money, race, and society that exists in the us (a proper critique of this web is far too grand to fit into this article). beats electronics pays the fines for these athletes, and now wearing beats can be seen as even more subversive, even more defiant, all the more able to help you hear what you want. in an interesting attempt to counter the highly-effective hear what you want ad campaign, bose electronics began a campaign in 2015 titled “music deserves bose,” an obvious jab aimed at the assertion of jimmy iovine and dr. dre that consumers weren’t hearing music the way it is intended without the assistance of beats headphones. bose spokesperson joanne berthiaume states that the campaign’s goal is to “break through the cluttered media landscape and emotionally connect with consumers” (quoted in duffy 2016). in a highly problematic commercial, viewers witness moments from a day in the life of professional quarterback russell wilson (a teammate of richard sherman) in his home. the popular us rapper macklemore is also present in wilson’s home, though wilson doesn’t see him—he is there for the audience to see. wilson remains silent throughout the commercial, while macklemore narrates his life. put differently, wilson, a black man, is silent in a commercial about sound while his subconscious is represented and sounded by a white man.8 at the end of the commercial, as wilson sits at the edge of his pool, headphones suddenly appear on his ears and macklemore’s body fades away, though we still hear his voice—now in musical form. bose is attempting to exploit the appeal of athletes like their competitor, but is not interested in presenting their products as resistant, rebellious, or black, even when a black body is used in their advertising.9 to further contrast the overt blackness attached to beats headphones, i to turn to the opening description from mack hagood’s article on bose headphones, “quiet comfort: noise, otherness, and the mobile production of personal space.” a series of white male faces appears on-screen, business “road warriors,” men of action facing the camera in their natural domain—the airport. with enthusiasm tempered by an almost solemn sense of wonder, each offers a one-word testimonial between crossfades: “fantastic.” “quality.” “wow.” the object of their admiration, and the product on display in this advertisement, is the bose quietcomfort acoustic noise cancelling headphones. cut to another white businessman as he leans back in his 99 alex blue v airline seat, headphones on, eyes closed. the other passengers fade into nothingness, dematerialized by the magic of quietcomfort phase cancellation. (573) through this artful description, and as hagood is apt to point out throughout his article, the faces in bose advertisements are typically white, male, suit-clad, and in need of some peace and quiet so they can continue with their important work. but through the act of using bose headphones, these business men are not just producing personal space—they are converting the entire space around them into an office. this is the neoliberal paradise, a world in which one can engage in capitalism without having their personal space disturbed. hagood also identifies a gendered, ageist world among the consumers of quietcomfort headphones—through reading their customer reviews, he illuminates salient moments in which people note the types of noise they are successfully canceling: chattering women, nagging wives, crying babies (584). when the white bodies of these bose ads are conflated with the black bodies in beats electronics advertising, what is revealed is two companies creating and perpetuating a discourse about raced sound technology. in hagood’s article, we learn that in putting on bose noise-canceling headphones, diverse people can put on the neoliberal, western subjectivity that has been built into their technology, one that attempts to construct an on-off interface with the aural environment and the space one shares with others (586). this reading can be mapped onto beats to account for their success through advertising using black male athletes. consumers—and to reiterate, the assumed neutral consumer is white—are able to put on what is most likely an unobtainable subject position not just through the act of putting on beats, but also through the very act of consumption. though we see black resistance through sound technology in the ads, they are about capitalism, about consuming resistant black subjectivity in a world dominated by white noise. from silence to quiet i conclude by presenting alternative readings of the advertisements and the technology that have been at the center of this article. in this writing, i found it necessary to focus on the consumption of blackness and the muting of black subjectivity that seems to appear so prominently in these ads. however, i would be remiss if i did not note that it is equally important to see that my critique, and a majority of the discourse involving race and sound, is difficult to mount without relying on some fairly large essentialisms. in particular, the assumption of blackness and facets of black culture as disempowered and inherently resistant are necessary 100 current musicology to analyze beats in the way that i have. however, this assumption, often taken as fait accompli and left uncritiqued, allows for one particular reading of the advertisements. in fact, these very assumptions are necessary for beats to sell headphones using black male athletes, as they are shown as helpless and disempowered without the technology. in order to resist a white fantasy version of racism,10 noise-cancellation becomes a technique of resistance. black sounding and silence as resistance is a valuable framework with which to critique old dominant discourse concerning african americans being a people without a culture and without a voice. in addition to this, resistance is often used as a shorthand way to explain the (generally musical) innovations made by black people. if black people are assumed to be oppressed, disadvantaged, disempowered, any innovation made is out of necessity for survival. this has led to some common narratives: black people didn’t get access to the same food as white people, so they learned how to clean pig intestines and cook them in a palatable way. black kids didn’t have access to “real instruments,” so they started messing around with their parents’ record collections, and the scratch dj/hip-hop were born. “poison turns into medicine.”11 the use of noise-canceling headphones can easily be placed into this narrative. however, the work of stephanie batiste and kevin quashie allows us to pose different questions concerning the commercials, and the use of noise-canceling technologies: what if these athletes, fully aware of their roles as actors in these commercials, are performing a different side of blackness—one of quietness and interiority? in darkening mirrors: imperial representation in depression-era african american performance (2011), stephanie leigh batiste remains highly critical of two modes of understanding racial identity and power. first, batiste rebukes the notion that “african americans as a subaltern population raced by a dominant white population, by virtue of a history of oppression in the us, inherently and necessarily disidentify with oppressive modes of power” (3). black people are not always already resistant, though they descend from a legacy of oppression that still haunts everyday life in the united states. additionally, there is no innate need to exist solely as a member of a resistant counterculture. second, the notion that “the disempowerment resultant from racial oppression keeps people from imagining or, more important, enacting themselves as empowered subjects” (3) is dismantled by batiste. aside from the painfully-obvious yet rarely-acknowledged fact that black people are complex individuals capable of independent thought and imagination, batiste’s careful, yet radical, analysis and critique reveals that it was possible for black people to be “invested in or complicit with” imperialist power structures (3–4). she 101 alex blue v notes that “african americans ironically maintain[ed] a national identity that figures them as empowered on the global stage, particularly, but not solely, in relation to diasporic black populations” (4). black people possess agency, and it is naïve to assume that all decisions are resistant in nature; in fact, some decisions are made with full intent to participate in dominant culture. this is not to say that black people are not oppressed and not disempowered, but to say that those forces do not remove the possibility of imagining and enacting oneself as empowered. acknowledging the myriad of agential possibilities possessed by the black subject is crucial for an alternative reading of the beats commercials. complementary to batiste’s views on black agency, kevin quashie examines what the concept of “quiet” “could mean to how we think about black culture” in his 2012 monograph the sovereignty of quiet: beyond resistance in black culture. he writes that blackness is typically understood as outwardly expressive, public, or loud, and that this reflects societal expectations—and impositions—of black culture as resistant. perhaps globally, but certainly in the united states, blackness is intensely public, formed in the crucible of a white gaze, and it is always considered communal. this always public form of blackness appears antithetical to modern articulations of neoliberalism in the us, in which individuality, freedom, and privacy are axiomatic; quiet seems to be the furthest thing from blackness. yet quashie’s conception of quiet reveals the existence and importance of a blackness that is inward, interior, divorced from outward, public, expressive life. quiet refers to “the full range of one’s inner life—one’s desires, ambitions, hungers, vulnerabilities, fears” (6). it offers a solution to the problem of a limiting, simplified view of blackness as always-resistant; black expressiveness can be inward, not handcuffed to public life. the idea of an aesthetic of quiet might seem foreign or counterintuitive to black culture, but it is not. in fact, there is a strong contemplative tradition in black culture, a tradition inspired by the existential struggle of living with the confines of racial identity. the earliest writings by black americans exemplify this capacity to question not just the imposition of identity but also the very meaning of human existence; this self-reflexiveness is evident through almost every form of black art. and yet this existential consciousness is often read through the discourse of resistance and therefore is reduced to what it says about the nature of the fight with publicness. (24) by reading black culture through a frame of quiet, we make space for black subjectivity without assuming that it is always subaltern and that all actions are in protest. quiet exposes beauty, power, joy, fear, chaos, and peace. it demonstrates an expressiveness that is not subject to the pub102 current musicology lic, and herein lies the sovereignty to which quashie refers. the athletes become quiet, empowered subjects, able to express a subjectivity that the public cannot mold and cannot control. given this important take on the concept of quiet, my deliberate shift in words from “silence” to “quiet” is necessary. silence, as a verb, implies dominance. to silence a subject is to take away their voice, their identity, their political power and presence; silence imposes a limit (ochoa gautier 2015). in extreme cases, silencing enacted by the state can result in “disappearances,” the complete loss of a citizen’s social and political identity, the elimination of any record of those citizens, the destruction of the physical body (taussig 1992; gordon [1997] 2008). quiet is self-active, an empowered move towards full realization of subjectivity that can exist in many modes—not just a mode of resistance. quiet is dignified and human. returning now to the first commercial, quietly: shot: kevin garnett sits on his couch, reading a book that inspires him as a voice on the television asserts that his talent has faded. he has heard this critique before, and it did not stop him from winning a championship. though he is visibly irritated, he calmly rises from his couch, picks up his keys, wallet, and headphones, and heads out the door. perhaps he is leaving the privacy of his own home, but he carries this privacy with him, quietly. public be damned. shot: garnett is seated near the window on a bus as it heads through the city on the way to work. ever quiet, he gazes out the window, thinking of his existence, reminiscent about his path to success, and focusing on his ambitions for the evening. he is centered. quiet. shot: the bus arrives at the basketball arena and a throng of unruly fans is there waiting behind a fence. the bus drives down the gauntlet and the fans erupt, some throwing objects at the bus, some spitting, some hurling racial epithets in garnett’s direction. he is annoyed not just by the rowdy scene of “haters,” but by the extreme publicness of his life, his blackness, his humanity. seeking to reconnect with himself, he resorts to putting on his headphones, as maybe a reduction in noise will allow him to refocus on his humanity. this move does not close him off to the world outside, as he remains fully aware of the scene. in fact, in putting on the headphones, he may have just exposed himself as vulnerable to attack. but, he doesn’t mind showing his humanity. he closes his eyes and smiles, as there is once again space for him to imagine himself as a human who can exist without having to resist. 103 alex blue v the beats ads are intent on displaying the use of noise-canceling headphones as a means of empowering the self via resistance. reading the commercials through the invaluable frames provided by batiste and quashie allows for a powerful interpretation of the use of noise-canceling headphones for non-resistant personhood, for the enactment and expression of an empowered interiority that is so central to humanity, regardless of race. they are existing, not always resisting, and it is naïve (and racist) to assume that there cannot be space for their own articulations of self and identity. kevin garnett and richard sherman, through their portrayals of self, are able to present a quiet blackness that is contrary to typical narratives of blackness and loudness. in the end, we can take these narratives of resistance and existence to form a useful dialectic with which to investigate black life and black sound. again, in the lens of resistant blackness that is being exploited and sold through the commercials, the headphones are necessary to create a distance that is needed for existence in a place and space that seeks to marginalize. the would-be consumer must then attempt to put on a resistant black subjectivity which they cannot truly occupy, or translate the verbal attacks on black ears into an attack on themselves from whatever noise exists in their life. this noise-cancellation speaks to a need for survival, a need to extinguish the other, a need to hear what we want. alternative readings show that while the headphones may be used to maintain the self, it does not necessarily have to be done out of resistance. there is a sovereignty in quiet that the headphones may help some users achieve. it seems appropriate, or perhaps just jocular, in closing to briefly return to the science behind active noise canceling headphones. basically, they work by listening to external sound waves, then creating sound waves that match and replaying them in an inverted phase as a means of destructive interference. in the hear what you want ads, then, the noise-canceling headphones work by generating white noise to cancel out white noise. perhaps there was more truth in beats advertising than i initially realized! notes 1. in a video posted to facebook but subsequently removed, dr. dre and actor/model/ singer tyrese gibson boast that dr. dre is hip-hop’s first billionaire, and that the “forbes list just changed.” it is unconfirmed what dr. dre actually earned from apple’s acquisition of beats by dre. 2. though the beats electronics website no longer mentions canceling out the haters, the call to arms is still there, soliciting consumers to enlist by entering their email addresses for important updates from beats headquarters. this displays the perverse normalization of military aggression in the life of us citizens, that conscription metaphors would be used as selling points for a pair of headphones. 104 current musicology 3. band-aids and “nude” or “flesh” colored pantyhose are prime examples of neutral technologies that are intensely obvious if one does not have white skin. 4. historically speaking, this was not always the case for black people, and often, it still is not. 5. professional football broadcasting mimics this coding in the way white athletes vs. black athletes are described. white athletes are often referred to in cerebral, mindful terms while black athletes are noted for their bodies, their athleticism. 6. in the introduction to his 2015 monograph sounding race in rap songs, loren kajikawa delivers a compelling analysis of some moments in spike lee’s (1989) film do the right thing involving the character radio raheem and the use of his boombox to constantly sound his blackness and his identity through the constant playing of public enemy’s anthemic “fight the power.” 7. in extremely stark, monochromatic, but ironic contrast, one would be hard-pressed to find the headphones of beats’ primary competitors in many colors besides black. 8. the use of macklemore is even more problematic than many other white people would be. bose likely included him because he is from seattle, and russell wilson is the quarterback for seattle’s professional football team. however, as a rapper, macklemore has often been accused of appropriating hip-hop from black musicians, and of stealing song ideas from black musicians. there has also been controversy over his success in popular music, the argument being that he was able to ascend to the “top” so quickly, and win so many prestigious awards in the music industry, because of his whiteness. 9. bose also launched a campaign called “better never quits” in 2015. so far, russell wilson is the only black athlete featured in a commercial. the other commercials feature a white football player, a white football coach, and a white golfer. 10. i maintain that the racism displayed in the advertisements is the creation of a white imagining of racism. in fact, a glance at the staff page on the website for the creative firm responsible for the commercials shows that with the exception of a few people (a few white women and and perhaps an asian-american male), the staff is entirely made up of white men. those who have experienced systemic disenfranchisement, disproportionate incarceration for equal or lesser crimes than their white counterparts, oppression, would likely not represent racism as name calling. however, name-calling often gets miscategorized as racism itself, and not a byproduct of larger racist structures. therefore, i refer to it as a white fantasy in that it reads as racism to those who do not experience racism, and that it can somehow be counteracted by covering one’s ears. this is similar to assuming that the way to stop racism is to stop talking about racism. 11. this statement has been attributed to many speakers, but it seems to date back at least to a 3rd century buddhist philosopher/poet named nagarjuna. references attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. barthes, roland. 1985. the responsibility of forms: critical essays on music, art, and representation. new york: hill and wang. batiste, stephanie leigh. 2011. darkening mirrors: imperial representation in depressionera african american performance. durham, nc: duke university press. “beats by dre | headphones, earbuds, speakers & accessories.” beats by dre. accessed 105 alex blue v january 02, 2016. http://www.beatsbydre.com. “beats by dre x kevin garnett: hear what you want director’s cut commercial.” youtube video, 2:51. november 24, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yuj0ta44di. bristol, julia m., renee gravois lee and michelle r. hunt. “race and ideology: africanamerican images in television advertising. journal of public policy & marketing. 14, no. 1 (spring). 48–59 bull, michael. 2006. “investigating the culture of mobile listening: from walkman to ipod.” in consuming music together: social and collaborative aspects of music consumption technologies, edited by kenton o’hara and barry brown, 131–149. dordrecht: springer. chow, rey. 1990–91. “listening otherwise, music miniaturized: a different type of question about revolution.” discourse 13 (1): 129–48. cooks, leda m., and jennifer s. simpson. 2007. whiteness, pedagogy, performance: dis/ placing race. lanham, md: lexington books. corbin, alain. 1998. village bells: sound and meaning in the nineteenth-century french countryside. new york: columbia university press. dorris, jesse. 2013. “the beats with a billion eyes.” slate. september 11, 2013. http://www. slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/09/beats_by_dre_market_share_how_ the_headphones_ company_conquered_the_market.html. duffy, thom. 2016. “from m&m’s to sonos, 5 new music marketers with attentiongrabbing campaigns.” billboard, june 24, 2016. http://www.billboard.com/articles/ business/7415523/new-music-marketers-campaigns-list-2016. dyer, richard. 1997. white: essays on race and culture. london: routledge. eisenberg, andrew j. 2013. “islam, sound and space: acoustemology and muslim citizenship on the kenyan coast.” in music, sound and space: transformations of public and private experience, edited by georgina born, 186–202. cambridge: cambridge university press. gordon, avery. (1997) 2008. ghostly matters: haunting and the sociological imagination. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. hagood, mack. 2011. “quiet comfort: noise, otherness, and the mobile production of personal space.” american quarterly 63 (3): 573–89. “hear what you want: kg.” r/ga: an integrated, full-service agency for the connected age. accessed august 4, 2016. https://www.rga.com/work/case-studies/hear-what-youwant-kevin-garnett. hosokawa, shuhei. 1984. “the walkman effect.” popular music 4: 165–80. “jbl presents “listen in color” featuring stephen curry with song by dame dolla.” youtube video, 2:19. december 24, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj6quiktho. jones, leroi. 1963. blues people: negro music in white america. new york: w. morrow. kahn, douglas. 1999. noise, water, meat: a history of sound in the arts. cambridge, ma: mit press. kajikawa, loren. 2015. sounding race in rap songs. berkeley: university of california press. kun, josh. 2005. audiotopia: music, race, and america. berkeley: university of california press. lipsitz, george. 1998. the possessive investment in whiteness: how white people profit from identity politics. philadelphia: temple university press. lott, eric. 1992. “love and theft: the racial unconscious of blackface minstrelsy.” representations, no. 39 (summer): 23–50. “music deserves bose featuring russell wilson and macklemore.” youtube video. october 15, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1he5-czke90. novak, david. 2010. “listening to kamagasaki.” anthropology news 51, no. 9 (december): 5. novak, david. 2015. “noise.” in keywords in sound, edited by david novak and matt 106 current musicology sakakeeny, 126–138. durham, nc: duke university press. ochoa gautier, ana maria. 2015. “silence.” in keywords in sound, edited by david novak and matt sakakeeny, 184–192. durham, nc: duke university press. rice, tom. 2015 “listening.” in keywords in sound, edited by david novak and matt sakakeeny, 99–111. durham, nc: duke university press. “richard sherman commercial: hear what you want | beats by dre.” youtube video. january 19, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hesjgpyyuym. roediger, david r. 1991. the wages of whiteness: race and the making of the american working class. london: verso. schafer, r. murray. 1993. the soundscape: our sonic environment and the tuning of the world. rochester, vt: destiny books. stadler, gus. 2015. “on whiteness and sound studies.” sounding out, july 06, 2015. http:// soundstudiesblog.com/2015/07/06/on-whiteness-and-sound-studies. sterne, jonathan. 1997. “sounds like the mall of america: programmed music and the architectonics of commercial space.” ethnomusicology 41, no. 1 (winter): 22–50. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, nc: duke university press. taussig, michael. 1992. the nervous system. new york: routledge. veal, michael e. 2007. dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in jamaican reggae. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 37 “sing about me”: social media memorial and inventory form shana l. redmond there is a catalog of names that haunt black political imaginaries and protest cultures; icons and leaders, family and strangers, whose names are weighted as evidence in the long histories of and movements toward liberation. each is spoken of individually at the moment of the crime and meant to display a double burden of proof: the spectacularity of their particular demise as well as the quotidian nature of black death. violence is the original connection tying them together—sean, sandra, ezell, and quintonio—but in the last few years they have a new relation, new communion, and a new life in sound. music is oftentimes where and how people live. it’s a dynamic experience of performance and reception that requires vigor, from the breath and muscle twitch of the singers and/or musicians to the hearing and processing of those melodies by the receiver. music, then, is the perfect technology through which blackness is animated, even that of those presumed dead and gone. songs of tribute for the deceased, including nina simone’s “why? (the king of love is dead)” and, more recently, “trayvon” by pittsburgh emcee jasiri x, are sonic memorials intended as life support for the memories and visions of loved ones as well as hopes of and for communities who face ongoing structural and physical brutalities. some of the latest incarnations of this musical strategy are directly influenced by contemporary protest technologies. musicians have picked up on and expanded upon the labors of social media, which have turned the changing same of state violence into rallying cries delivered in 140 characters or less, hashtags, and memes. music as a method of communication, organization, and vision is meeting the call again from insurgent communities for new narratives and representations of the many people gone. social media is animated by the local crowd sourcing of its participants, growing attention and information at a pace that outstrips network competition. it is now common for the mainstream media news to gain their information from facebook or twitter, making for a situation in which violent events reveal “native informants” who become experts, too often, of their own demise. the 2016 video that attended the case of black minnesota man philando castile, in which his partner captured his murder by police in the passenger seat of the car she was driving, is the terrifying evidence of a spectacular loss in real time. news networks were late to the 38 current musicology footage that became a part of the too-long memory of unprovoked police violence now encased in the matrices of the internet. the hashtags that document this person (#philandocastile) and so many others are stored in a digital evidence locker to which the public might return as the victim’s stories unfold. as bonilla and rosa explain, these hashtags are part of a “social imagination” that “serves as an indexing system in both the clerical sense and the semiotic sense. in the clerical sense, it allows the ordering and quick retrieval of information about a specific topic” (2015, 5). from this information new conversations and communities are made possible. the types of publics created by twitter emerge from the hashtag’s capacity to serve not just as an indexing system but also as a filter that allows social media users to reduce the noise of twitter by cutting into one small slice. however, this filtering process also has a distorting effect. social media create a distorted view of events, such that we only get the perspective of the people who are already in our social network. (bonilla & rosa 2015, 6) while the constitution of new publics of similarly positioned peoples can certainly “distort” perspective, this insularity also reflects the optimal use of the technology. if i am made to condense the announcement my anger, sadness, disgust, and frustration into 140 characters or less, it helps to do so with and to people who will understand and share in a common shorthand. though a tweet of #sandrabland may be radically different when delivered by me (a black woman) versus a black man, we can nonetheless create identification with one another without the need for further language or context.1 imperfect, yes, but “the dialogicality and temporality of twitter create a unique feeling of direct participation. twitter allows users who are territorially displaced to feel like they are united across both space and time” and this is especially true for african american twitter users whose numbers are almost 50% higher than those of white americans (bonilla and rosa 2015, 7, 6).2 with the rise of “black twitter,” which journalism scholar meredith clark defines as “a temporally linked group of connectors that share culture, language and interest in specific issues and talking about specific topics with a black frame of reference,” activists and other politically motivated people can tap into an ongoing and multiplatform narrative of redress, affirmation, and vindication (ramsey 2015). in the transition from personal phone to globally-accessible social media, these events are amplified, drawing attention, gasps, outrage, studies, and curricula through the hashtags that organize them in public consciousness. through the multisensory liveness of video, with its dramatic scenes and sounds, we might begin to hear another metamorphosis from the event to the video to the hashtag and back into an alternative sonic ex39 shana l. redmond perience. the epistemo-archival impulse that energizes black twitter—the urgent need to reveal, to document, to record—has continued offline in an effort to collate and reanimate the women and men condensed in social media by technological necessity. unbound by word count, contemporary black musicians translate ip addresses into time signatures in order to organize the “noise” of the twitterverse into a unique repertoire of continued debate and rebellion. a number of these communiqués between the artists and their publics have taken the form of an accompanied roll call, listing the names of those murdered as a way to both acknowledge the unrecognized while also, through the sheer numbers of them, demonstrating the pervasiveness of the damage by populating the siege of black communities. like the books that held tight the names of the enslaved, these sonic ledgers chronicle bodies but add to them the details of circumstance, history, and family that the slaver’s manifest simplified or denied altogether. both sets of evidence are located along the historical trajectory that katherine mckittrick has named the “mathematics of unlivingness” in which the “breathless numbers” of the black disappeared are used to document the fact that they ever lived at all” (2014, 18, 17). while those named encountered violence differently, they nonetheless are drawn together by their shared dispossession through racism, which abolitionist scholar ruth wilson gilmore defines as “the state-sanctioned or extralegal production and exploitation of groupdifferentiated vulnerability to premature death” (2007, 28). oakland born jazz trumpeter and composer ambrose akinmusire’s “roll call for those absent” (2014) models and announces this form but the attendance that he marks as absent is left amorphous, prodding the listener into a deeper engagement as those missing are identified one by one. the song begins by literally turning up the volume on the composition, bringing into higher pitch and frequency our engagements with kimani gray of new york, oscar grant of oakland, and the now iconic florida teenager trayvon martin. martin’s name is the song’s leitmotif, being said by the child narrator more than a dozen times in just over three and a half minutes of haunting free form organ and drum. “roll call for those absent” is one of the first to reflect this contemporary form as a method of critique and serves here as a guidepost for the readings of two popular examples. the names represented in these songs belonged to women and men killed by police, vigilantes, and unknown neighbors yet those distinctions are productively collapsed in these inventories, allowing the listener to hear the structural relation of antiblackness shared between them. these lists—names falling from the speaker’s mouth one after another—are, like the consolidated tweets before them, their own manifestoes, document40 current musicology ing the incredible dispossession that some live while others only witness. music activates these lists in real time, making them leap off of the page, and organizing them as an analog opportunity for collective performance and remembrance. these pieces appear through a variety of genres and traditions. in the case of “hell you talmbout,” which has been labeled an anthem for this moment’s activists, its power lies in part in its easy adaptability for a cappella use in mobilizations. in fact, this is precisely what happened at a georgia fundraiser for hillary clinton in october 2015. a group of young black people representing #aucshutitdown performed the song as a part of the demonstration, which interrupted her speech on policing reform at clark atlanta university. the song is a perfect representation of that location, that demographic, and that political conjuncture. performed by the atlanta-based wondaland collective and lead by its founder—resident cyborg and pop/r&b star janelle monáe—“hell you talmbout” places listeners firmly in the u.s. south. its opening of rapid snare is the sound of southern drum lines popularized by historically black colleges and universities and their call and response style, in which one voice takes the lead only to then disappear into the soundscape of the masses, is a model for the organizing that has historically grounded black social movements. the drum introduces the voice that repeats the bodies of the fallen: freddie gray, say his name freddie gray, say his name freddie gray, say his name freddie gray, won’t you say his name the final line (“won’t you say his name”) is structured as a question but performed as a declaration, allowing for no ambiguity of message or intent. singers go on to speak the names of sharonda singleton and emmett till as a part of this litany, again condensing time/space by drawing a straight line between the 2015 charleston church murders and the lynching of a teenager (till) in 1955. the repetition is insistent—the vocalists sometimes yell and scream, voices trembling as if about to break for tears or breath— and the musical composition, which is held together only by voice and drum, adds the structure and coherence that media platforms often lack. in distinction to these technologies, no one is anonymous in this song’s efforts—your name is spoken aloud or you are a part of an identifiable “we” (chorus) who sings, “hell you talmbout?” this question, as monáe described at a performance of the song in philadelphia, was intended to change the conversation and she did so through amplifying the already loud tenor of the #sayhername campaign.3 41 shana redmond figures 1 & 2 crossover jazz titan, pianist, and arranger/composer robert glasper also expanded the energies and reach of twitter and social media by exploring again the inventory form through improvisational music. his album covered (2015), which (re)arranges pieces by musiq soulchild, jhene aiko, and others, ends with “i’m dying of thirst,” a cover of kendrick lamar’s song of the same name from his 2012 release, good kid/m.a.a.d city. in its original form, the twelve-minute “sing about me, i’m dying of thirst” is a hybrid mash-up of two different productions held together by the language of a community elder who tells lamar and his crew, “you young men are dying of thirst.” like monáe’s composition, glasper’s cover begins with the drum, suggesting the steady, consistent meter of the violence implicitly addressed in the voices that follow: “i am eric garner. trayvon martin. michael brown. john crawford. rekia boyd. aiyana jones. oscar grant, iii . . .” taking advantage of the #iam language popularized in the demonstrations after the 2011 execution of georgia death row inmate troy davis, this roll call signals the intimate entanglements of blackness in which a 42 current musicology violation to one is a violation to all. the recitation is not high intensity like “hell you talmbout”; the glasper trio guides the calm pace of its delivery by children, making the impact of these losses perhaps starker, more devastating. eventually the voices overlap, developing an unintelligible cacophony of names with the echo “i am” overlaying them. from this accumulation, we hear the voice of a single child who offers an alternative narrative of this frightening present, saying “i feel proud to be brown everyday. . . . i enjoy being brown.” this is the sound of possibility as the drum disappears and the piano fades toward its final chord. music called for recognition and justice, and forecasted new possibilities, well before the explosion of social media influenced it, but this merger has produced unique opportunities for reinforcement and amplification by musicians whose creations and impact exist as much in the digital realm as in the analog traditions of industry review and consumption. inventories and roll calls are now a strategy in amassing discursive authority in media and, through music, they make meaning of and extend the lives that may only appear as blips on the radar of unrelenting u.s. and global casualty. this is why musical creation of and for the dead remains a request from those imperiled. the repeated refrain of lamar’s “sing about me” compels listeners to lean into the genealogies that make us vulnerable to singing and being sung for: “when the lights shut off and it’s my turn to settle down, my main concern: promise that you will sing about me. promise that you will sing about me.” this promise remains upheld; the repeating bodies that akinmusire, monáe, and glasper name and compose are now documented and cataloged, both online and off, as black music establishes itself again as archive, technology, and political demand. notes for their insights on this project, i would like to thank the anonymous readers as well as sarah haley, lacharles ward, elliott powell, and deborah wong. 1. in july 2015 sandra bland was found dead from asphyxiation in her jail cell after being arrested in texas during a routine traffic stop. the conditions and causes of her death are disputed. 2. the percentage of african american twitter users (22 percent) is significantly higher than that of white americans, who number 16 percent (bonilla and rosa 2015, 6). 3. nastybd concerts, “janelle monae & wondaland—hell you talmbout (eephus tour philadelphia 8-12-15),” youtube, uploaded august 13, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=sttwb9mdp3q. 43 shana redmond references akinmusire, ambrose. 2014. the imagined savior is far easier to paint. blue note/capitol/ universal records, b00iofw7r2. bonilla, yarimar and jonathan rosa. 2015. “#ferguson: digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the united states.” american ethnologist 42 (1): 4–16. gilmore, ruth wilson. 2007. golden gulag: prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing california. berkeley: university of california press. glasper, robert. 2015. covered. blue note, b00v5j1jlo. lamar, kendrick. 2012. good kid/m.a.a.d city. top dawg entertainment/aftermath, b00913p6g0. mckittrick, katherine. 2014. “mathematics black life.” the black scholar 44 (2): 16–28. ramsey, donovan x. 2015. “the truth about black twitter.” the atlantic (online). https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/04/the-truth-about-blacktwitter/390120. wondaland records. 2015. “hell you talmbout,” soundcloud, uploaded august 13. https://soundcloud.com/wondalandarts/hell-you-talmbout. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 107 rhythms of relation: black popular music and mobile technologies alexander g. weheliye in this essay i focus on the singular performances of the interface between (black) subjectivity and informational technologies in popular music, asking how these performances impact current definitions of the technological. after a brief examination of those aspects of mobile technologies that gesture beyond disembodied communication, i turn to the multifarious manifestations of techno-informational gadgets (especially cellular/mobile telephones) in contemporary r&b, a genre that is acutely concerned, both in content and form, with the conjuring of interiority, emotion, and affect. the genre’s emphasis on these aspects provides an occasion to analyze how technology thoroughly permeates spheres that are thought to represent the hallmarks of humanist hallucinations of humanity. i outline the extensive and intensive interdependence of contemporary (black) popular music and mobile technologies in order to ascertain how these sonic formations refract communication and embodiment and ask how this impacts ruling definitions of the technological. the first group of musical examples surveyed consists of recordings released between 1999 and 2001; the second set are recordings from years 2009–2010. since ten years is almost an eternity in the constantly changing universes of popular music and mobile technologies, analyzing the sonic archives from two different historical moments allows me to stress the general co-dependence of mobiles and music without silencing the breaks that separate these “epochs.” finally, i gloss a visual example that stages overlooked dimensions of mobile technologies so as to amplify the rhythmic flow between the scopic and the sonic. the artifacts in question boost the singular corporeal sensations of informational technologies without resorting to a naturalization of these machines. in other words, black musical formations relish the synthetic artificiality of cell phones and other mobile gadgets as much as making these a vital component of the performed body. they achieve this by transforming the sounds of mobile telephones into rhythmic patterns vital to their musical texts, which make audible how humans and mobile machines form a relational continuum. i frequently return to samuel r. delany’s constructive differentiation between “the white boxes of computer technology” and “the black boxes of modern street technology,” because it highlights the racialized core of the very definition of technology (cited in dery 1994, 192). although things 108 current musicology have changed somewhat—delany made this statement in 1994—due to the proliferation of mobile devices (laptops, netbooks, smart phones, portable music players with web capabilities, tablet computers, etc.), and the move away from “white boxes” as the de facto model for personal computing, delany’s pithy distinction still holds, both in its general implications and in the racialized provenances of this split. as recent studies have shown, most youth of color in the united states log on the internet from mobile devices or public personal computer terminals, and thus still only have access to the “the black boxes of modern street technology” (schiffer 1991; black digerati 2009; contreras 2009; lang 2009; watkins 2009; wortham 2009; brustein 2010). moreover, black and latino youth have been early adopters of “street technologies,” especially portable music players such as the boom box and walkman. the culture of using boom boxes and other portable music devices to occupy public space continues today in “sodcasting”: “the public playing of trebly mp3s off mobile phones on british public transport—mostly buses, mostly in london, mostly by teenagers, often non-white teenagers . . .” (hancox 2009; marshall 2009). generally, the pioneering use of mobile “black boxes” such as pagers and boom boxes in non-mainstream cultures does not figure into the histories cellular telephones, mp3 players, or current internet-enabled mobile devices, showing how the inclusion in or exclusion of particular machines determines how technology is defined (araujo n.d.; schiffer 1991; heckman 2006). much of the critical literature about cellular telephones tends to focus on how radically this technology has altered communicative patterns at the node of public and private through its mobility and how people use cell phones to distinguish themselves from others or project images of themselves as hip teenagers or successful businessmen in a veblenesque or bourdiuesque fashion. communications studies scholars james katz and mark aakhus, for instance, propose a theory of “apparatgeist” that encapsulates the particular historical instantiation of cell phones as well as other social technologies; they write: “we coin the neologism apparatgeist to suggest the spirit of the machine that influences both the designs of the technology as well as the initial and subsequent significance accorded to them by users, non-users and anti-users” (2002, 307). this approach is useful for locating the significance of technologies in the interstices between the apparatus and a variety of attendant practices, rather than accenting one at the cost of the other. writing more specifically about the cell phone, katz and aakhus argue that the machine’s apparatgeist follows the logic of “perpetual contact” that combines mobile communication, private talk, and public performance. still, the notion of “perpetual contact” leaves intact the largely communicative and content centered bias in many theories of 109 alexander g. weheliye information technologies. while those aspects clearly remain important in any considerations of technology, too often the tactile or haptic dimensions of these machines remain muted. how can we think about cell phones as communicative devices without losing sight and sound of their ringtones, vibrate modes, visual displays, touch screens, keypads, and so forth, as well as the feel and color of the material the machines are made of? many critics have noted how mobile communication reduces the nonlinguistic aspects of the communicative performance between the two or more speakers given that they appear to each other only as disembodied voices and/or snippets of text (email, sms, mobile chat, for example), including leopoldina fortunati, who asserts: “mediated communication lowers the quality of communicative performance, as far as to deprive it of the support by non-verbal language, proxemics, kinesics, etc.” (2002, 517). nevertheless, these forms of interaction also buttress the non-face-to-face tête-à-tête, for instance through the different environments (temporal, geographic, social, etc.) the speakers inhabit and the various textures (sonic, haptic, visual, olfactory, etc.) of the mobile devices. accordingly, body-to-body communication does not vanish in mobile communication but (re)materializes in both the participants’ respective location and in the apparatus itself (fortunati 2005). put simply, mobile devices are bodies too, even if they exist chiefly in relation to and in symbiosis with humans. given the ubiquity of mobile devices in the western world and across the globe, it would behoove us to conceptualize them not merely as disembodied tools that facilitate pure communication but also devise languages that allow for the analysis of the “fuzzy” and textural dimensions of mobile communication and the different apparatuses in which it is bodied forth. for my purposes, contemporary black popular music not only presents sonic redactions of techno-ecologies, but more importantly their transposition into the realms of sensation via rhythm. these musical formations stage the “rush” of itinerant information technologies, what anna everett has referred to as “digital plentitude” (2003, 14). instead of merely focusing on the communicational dimensions of these machines, contemporary r&b unearths the aspects of technology above, beyond, and between the transmission of zeros and ones, highlighting, for instance, a body registering a pager set to vibrate mode. brian massumi elucidates the different modalities through which humans experience the world, differentiating “perception,” “[which refers] to object oriented experience” from “sensation,” “[which refers to] ‘the perception of perception,’ or self-referential experience. sensation pertains to the stoppageand stasis-tending dimension of reality. . . . sensation pertains to the dimension of passage, or the continuity of immediate experience. . . . perception is segmenting and ca110 current musicology pable of precision; sensation is unfolding and constitutively vague” (2002, 258–59, n11). conveying sensation is crucial for it locates the import of technologies not merely in the contents they transmit or their socio-political significance, but also in the textural provenances of these machines, which are a considerable part of their allure and utility while oftentimes eluding the grip of critical discourse. in this regard, the sonic represents an ideal venue for hearing and being affected by “the constitutive vagueness” of information technologies due to its non-linguistic qualities such as timbre and rhythm that resonate throughout the body. whereas scholarly discussions tend to focus on the perception of mobile technologies, (black) popular music intensifies their sensation: the textural relay and relation between human bodies and machines. i will now make a few points about the generic parameters of r&b, particularly its overdetermined relationship to hip-hop. although recent post or hyper-soul manifestations of r&b have imported certain masculinist tendencies from hip-hop, it still remains a “feminine” genre (bat 2001). while hip-hop routinely transacts black “masculine” exterior braggadocio in its obsessions with guns, hypersexuality, and conspicuous consumption, r&b might be said to stage a more “feminine” version of the (black) subject that traffics in love and sex stories without hip-hop’s hardened outer shield. i am not, however, suggesting any strict correlation between biology and the performative body, although r&b is the only musical category in which black female performers dominate; i merely wish to register some broad discursive markers. modern r&b is also the popular musical field most concerned with interpersonal relationships, and while it is considered a particularly ‘black’ genre due to the racial identity of most of its performers, obvious socio-political overtones remain a rarity. for every “i’m black and proud,” there are numerous invocations of “will you satisfy?,” “turn off the lights,” or “where is the love?” even in some of the more politically inspired soul of the 1960s and 1970s explicit political messages appear in a rather oblique fashion, hence song titles like “a change is going to come,” “respect,” and “people get ready.” this tendency to circumvent the strictly political and the genre’s “femininity” might explain the absence of any sustained critical discourse about r&b (particularly when contrasted with the sizeable archive of hip-hop criticism), or discussions that do not reduce the genre to the musical manifestation of the civil rights movement. in this way, r&b figures in scholarly debates primarily through its manifest (political) content, echoing the functionalist cartesianism found in so many considerations of technology. when not fettered to benchmark of political content r&b emerges as the deterritorialization of hip-hop, especially in the genre’s differently 111 alexander g. weheliye tuned configuration of the black (female) voice. in the wake of hip-hop, singing appears as “softer” and less assertive than rapping, which has now become the standard against which black musical expressivity is measured. hence, the statements by many rappers, who claim that they feature r&b singers to sing hooks on their records to “appeal to the ladies.” while contemporary hip-hop is engulfed by and has in some sense been superseded by r&b in popularity, its femininity is often kept at bay by masculinist retrenchment. because r&b centers on a variety of interpersonal intimacies, it creates a complex rhythmic arrangement for the sensation of humanmachine enmeshments. communications and other technologies have been a steady presence on r&b recordings as lyrical topics and as structural components for some time. at the moment, lyrically, nary a hit song exists without the mention of cellular phones, beepers, two-way pagers, iphones, blackberry’s, answering machines, various surveillance gadgets, email messages, the internet, twitter, etc., stressing the interdependence of contemporary interpersonal communication and informational technologies. this penchant for machines in r&b can also be found in the genre’s use of cellular telephones both as a voice alteration apparatus and as part of the sonic tapestry. in fact, the uses of the “cell phone effect” have recalibrated conceptions of the voice and soul within the contemporary popular musical landscape. lately, a plethora of mainstream r&b productions feature parts of the lead or background vocal performance sounding as if they were called in over a cell phone as opposed to produced in a state of the art recording studio. the increased prominence of these technological artifacts in r&b indicates the enculturation of informational technologies in practices that are customarily relegated to the dominion of the nonand/or pre-technological, as well as amplifying some neglected attributes of current techno-informational flows. instead of trying to downplay the technological mediation of the recording, the “cell phone effect” does away with any notion of the self-same presence of the voice. jeremy gilbert and ewan pearson explain that in majority popular musical practices newer technologies are considered artificial and inartistic, creating a hierarchy of counts as technological: some items are considered more technological in status than others. in this scheme, a drum machine is more technological than a drum. . . . such considerations are founded on an order of the real within which aesthetic preferences are transformed into ontological distinctions. . . . such distinctions almost always proceed by rendering the technological components utilized in their favored forms invisible as technologies— they are more ‘real’ or ‘natural’, absorbed wholly into those that play them as expressive extensions of the performing body. (1999, 112) 112 current musicology the “cell phone effect” resists such principles of the “real,” choosing instead to stage voice processing devices as both technological and expressive “extensions of the performing body.” more importantly, the “cell phone effect” makes audible the sensation of hearing the human voice distributed across the digits of binary code. in addition, cell phones appear not as cumbersome synthetic obstructions of “authentic” and “natural” human speech at either end, but as integral to post-millennial interpersonal communication, while also rhythmifying their acoustic properties. the mobile “black boxes” of street technology break through the sound barrier between humans and machines; their mobility allows for a relational engagement with the technological. r&b features numerous lyric incantations of cell phone use qua social interaction, often positioning this ubiquitous feature of current life worlds as the embodiment of interpersonal relations. on her 2000 track “hey kandi,” kandi, one of the only prominent female r&b song writers and producers, responsible for such hits as destiny’s child’s “bills, bills, bill” and tlc’s “no scrubs,” deploys a variety of voice processing maneuvers to almost baroque extremes. “hey kandi” is structured around a cell phone heart-to-heart between the artist and a friend concerning kandi’s new beau. all the background vocals are sung and/or spoken through the phone, we often hear a dial tone, and the track makes ample usage of the popular auto-tune voice alteration software. here, the cell phone functions as the conduit for interpersonal communication as well as aiding the creation of intimacy. this particular track also renders audible quite a few sounds associated with cell phones (voice at the other end of the “line,” busy/free signal, and ringing), producing a technological intimacy that arises from both the content and mode of transmission. aaron soul’s “ring, ring, ring” (2001), which echoes the previous recordings that bear similar names by abba and de la soul, begins with a shout out to “one to one erickson,” and then tells a sad story about the hurtful words he uttered to his girlfriend “when [they] were last face-toface,” leading the couples’ subsequent estrangement. by the time we get to the chorus, aaron’s cell phone has transmogrified into a prime indicator of his amorous woes: “ring, ring, ring, my cell phone’s not ringing,” and apparently his girlfriend’s “cell phone keeps ringing,” because the caller id feature on her phone allows her to ignore his persistent calls. what strikes the ear here is that aaron soul’s voice almost shapeshifts into a cell phone through the incessant chanting of “ring, ring, ring,” in what initially sounds like a musical figuration of onomatopoeia. nevertheless, the repetition of ring fails to dissolve into a mimetic ocean since it sounds nothing like the “real world” ringing of a cell phone. 113 alexander g. weheliye instead, the track imagines a sonico-linguistic modality of hearing mobile technologies that traverse the fields of desire and are embodied in the recorded human voice. later in the song, soul tells us that he wishes his mobile would sing, thus affecting a reversal in which the singer transforms into a cell phone, and the machine takes on the singer’s attributes. rather than accurately reproducing cell phone sounds, aaron soul channels and seems possessed by its ring-tones. the song brings to mind sadie plant’s comments regarding the cell phone’s significant realignment of contemporary acoustic bionetworks: the warbles, beeps and tunes of the mobile have become so common that their calls have begun to constitute a new kind of electronic bird song, changing the soundtrack of cities and altering the background noise in regions as varied as the forests of finland and the deserts of dubai. [in fact,] many urban song birds have become adept at impersonating mobile tones and melodies.” (2002, 29) perhaps we can think of aaron soul’s sonic redaction of his cell phone as the emergence of a different sort of urban songbird, one that codes humans and machines not as separate entities but both as components of a constitutive relation, which performs the technicity of the human via rhythm and the humanity of machines through vocalization. on “call me” (2000) soul’s compatriot jamelia tells a different story. accompanied by the ringing of a cell phone and the sounds of an ultramodern clavichord, jamelia instructs her own man and, by extension, all other men, “don’t forget to call your boo tonight, baby is waiting for your call.” this track differs most manifestly from “ring, ring, ring” by weaving cell phone ring tones into its rhythmic fabric, albeit only during its final minutes. rather than hearing these tones as similitude, i want to ask how we might understand the effects of their rhythmic recurrence within the confines of black musical formations? these musical examples equate verbal communication with mobile technologies by merging the supposedly deeply personal with technological gadgets. in this way, the technological appears not so much in the nokia’s and erickson’s as it does in the spaces between the apparatus and social practices, what edouard glissant (1997) calls “a poetics of relation.” in these songs mobile phones are so much more than mere facilitators for the intricacies of intimate affairs, they serve as sonic indices of desire and as machines of longing. ginuwine’s “2way” (2001) revolves around the two-way pager, which, as opposed to regular pagers (only numeric and one-way) allows its users to exchange text messages. when this song was released over ten years ago two-way pagers and similar devices were widespread in the united states, 114 current musicology while cell phone text messaging was already hugely popular in europe and the rest of the world. the track begins with the ring tones of a pager, which give way to a cascade of strings and ginuwine’s introductory speech and is followed by the chorus: “it’s a two-way street, it a two-way door/it’s a twoway life (pick it up and two way me)/it’s a two-way sky it’s a two-way tel/it’s a two-way life, pick it up girl and hit me.” this passage is striking because it only references the pager implicitly, choosing instead to signify on the interpersonal connotations of the two-way moniker. ginuwine equates the give and take of an intimate relationship with the machine’s reciprocal attributes so as to sound the constitutive technicity of “human communication.” as the song continues ginuwine offers a cornucopia of sensations through the aural lens of the two-way pager: the auditory “now i got mine on loud/ if you get at me i’ll hear you;” the visual: “if it’s dark light it up, put ‘em up. put ‘em up/if it’s closed, flip it up/ in the club, beam me up;” and the haptic “i got mine on vibe, so if you get me/i’ll feel you/i’ll call you back real quick/no lie better yet, i’ll just reply.” while communication surely represents one of main functions of the two-way pager, ginuwine’s track is more interested in exploring the “constitutively vague” dimensions of this machine. in this context, sound performs the sensation of communicational technologies by virtue of its a-signifying signifying properties; those aspects of the sonic that exceed linguistic content, but nonetheless engender strong tactile and aural responses. all the recordings i have discussed thus far were released at the dawn of the millennium when ringtones were primarily monophonic and could easily be differentiated from music. while early mobile ringtones consisted of a particular sequence of tones and did not differ significantly from the functional sounds of a ringing landline, mobile phone ringtones are now largely mp3 clips (usually around 15 seconds in duration) of existing musical recordings. besides featuring only parts of songs, these clips attain ringtone character by virtue of their repetition, which blurs the line between their utility as sonic indicators of incoming calls and musical consumption. moreover, just as the previous examples musicalize functional ringtones via rhythmification, using excerpts of songs as ringtones embeds them in a different rhythmic context (gopinath 2005; licoppe 2008, 139–52; goggin 2011, 55–79). in fact, the incorporation of monophonic or polyphonic ringtones into popular musical recordings is now largely a historical relic given the almost complete disappearance of these types of ringtones specifically designed to alert users to incoming calls, which have largely been replaced a with ringtone sounds culled from musical recordings. for, in order to achieve the same effects as jamelia, ginuwine, or kandi, current artists would have to interpolate, repeat and rhythmify 115 alexander g. weheliye other pieces of music, which would be akin to the practice of sampling and require a completely different set of musical and legal practices. in 2000 consumers used the functional ringtones that were preinstalled on their mobile, now users either acquire bits and pieces of preexisting songs or create ringtones from their own mp3 collection, if they use ringtones at all. despite this virtually total move to using digital audio recordings as indicators of incoming voice calls and the absence of actual ringing sounds, these sonic marks still carry the name and operate as ringtones. due to the steep decline in ringtone sales since 2009, alternative modes of the interanimation between mobile devices and popular music have flourished: the immensely popular app by musician t-pain that allows everyone to emulate the musician’s trademark auto-tuned voice, or the purchase of songs for the massively popular rhythmic iphone game tap tap revenge, for instance. more generally, with the advent of apple’s iphone and similar devices, mobile phones and portable music players are no longer separate physical entities but housed in the same gadget. recorded music and mobiles enjoy an unprecedented symbiotic relationship in term of content and at the hardware level. furthermore, mobile devices have become the embodiment of “convergence culture,” since they now also include calendars, alarm clocks, notebooks, compasses, e-readers, still and video cameras, voice recorders, flash lights, calculators, navigation devices, answering machines, and video players. in another instance of the continual blending of popular music and mobile technologies, hip-hop star drake proclaims that he can only write his rhymes on his blackberry mobile device. in a mtv documentary (mack and warren 2010) drake’s producer describes the artist’s process thus: “all drake’s raps for eternity have been written inside of a blackberry. . . . i’ve had dummy blackberrys around that i just pull out for him to write on, like if he needs one . . . that don’t actually even work!” this is how drake portrays how he works: “i can’t write my raps on paper. the blackberry keys—my thumbs were made for touching them” (quoted in ziegbe 2010). the documentary then cuts to a shot of drake in the sound booth of a recording studio, reading his raps from a blackberry. it bears noting that of all the functions contained in such a device, drake singles out the haptic sensation of the keyboard in the portrayal of his compositional process. ringtones and mobile technologies have become an essential part of composing, recording, distributing, and commodifying contemporary popular music: all musical recordings can potentially be used or sold as ringtones, all ringtones can possibly become songs, but only some of them are currently used in this way. in addition, the success of ringtones has lead to the creation of a (al116 current musicology most universally derided) sub-genre of hip-hop dubbed “ringtone rap.” the recordings by artists such as soulja boy, mims, dem franchize boyz that fall into the purview of ringtone rap are generally written/produced (catchy short sing-song hooks, tinny beats, non-sensical rhymes) so as to sound best when heard through cell phone speakers, and, therefore sell as many ringtones as possible (moody 2007). hence, ringtone rap reverses the absorption of monophonic ringtones into popular music that occurred at the turn of the millennium by transmogrifying songs into extended ringtones. although trey songz’s “lol:-)” (2009) is sung rather than rapped, it features a prominent ringtone rapper soulja boy, and bears the sonic hallmarks of the subgenre, sounding like a crunk version of the children’s song “frère jacques.” the lyrics further compound the interweaving of popular music and mobile technologies: “cruisin’ in that benz around the city (round tha city yup!)/ then i felt my phone buzz, i know that she like thugz/...then she sent a text that had read, ‘baby, i’m at home’/then she sent another one that said she’s all alone/so i texted her a smiley face and said, ‘let’s do the grown’ she said, ‘lol boy you crazy, come on’/sent that lil’ face with the tongue ‘cause i’m nasty/i’m on my way (way), girl i can’t wait (wait) twitter me a picture, lemme see that okay.” songz song narrates his mobile interaction with a female love/lust object via text messaging, which is why his phone does not ring but buzzes. in response to her initial written missive, songz sends an sms that contains a “smiley face’” emoticon, and later he includes another emoticon a face with its tongue sticking out—“:-p”—, which is usually used to indicate playful defiance. here, it presumably works as an indicator of songz’s willingness to engage in cunnilingus (“cause i’m nasty”). the “smiley face,” like other emoticons, is a pictogram, which can be formed either by combining punctuation marks [:-)] so that they visually approximate the shape of a smiling face or by using a graphic image (☺). the emoticon’s power of signification does not rely on the sound of the graphic marks, it is solely based on the iconic shape of its signifiers. in this way, pictograms operate in diametrical opposition to logograms (u = you, 2nite = tonight, etc.), which depend entirely upon the sound of the letters and numbers (crystal 2008, 37–62). instead of substituting a short series of punctuation marks or an image for two words for the sake of brevity, the “smiley face” symbolizes a particular sentiment (happiness). conversely, this pictogram enters the phonetic record as a linguistic approximation of an image (“smiley face”) and not a description of a sentiment, otherwise songz’s would sing the words “happy” or “happiness” instead of “smiley face.” songz’s rendition of the “smiley face”—translating the emoticon to words and ensconcing this alphabetic amalgam in his rhythmically stylized vocalization—extends the sign’s reach into the realm of the sonic, albeit only insofar as it refers back to the graphic image of a “smiley face.” 117 alexander g. weheliye the chorus of “lol:-)” introduces another composite that hails from the land of electronically mediated communication: “shawty just text me, say she wanna sex me (lol smiley face, lol smiley face)/shawty sent a twit pic saying come and get this (lol smiley face, lol smiley face).” lol is one of the most common abbreviations used in internet and mobile written communication, and it also represents one of the few instances in which initialisms from this jurisdiction have successfully crossed over to spoken english. as with “smiley face,” the lol (initially a contraction of three words: laughing out loud) makes the jump from written to spoken language not by simply restoring the acronym to its original three word glory but by giving voice to the letters: l o l. thus, the invocation of lol and smiley face, both of which were initially used to append affect to written communication, achieve their effects in the context of the song, because they have already transitioned from electronic script/image to oral communication. they have become a part conversational spoken english as noticeable symbols of and for (mobile) electronic communication. in addition, the backing track—expressly designed to sound like a simulacrum of a now historical monophonic ringtone— as well as the singing and repetition further accent the sonorous dimensions of these traditionally silent signs/phrases. rhythm, which is defined by recurring patterns of sound, sets in motion a conversion of the expressive signification that has accrued to “lol” and “smiley face.” accordingly, “lol” and “smiley face” cease connoting humor and happiness, they are now phonic signifiers for the rhythmic relationality of mobile technologies. in a slightly different vein, monica’s “blackberry” (2010) track begins with a non-musical sonic indicator for an incoming text message and goes on to narrate the singer’s powers of electronic detection (her willingness to check his phone and her ability to crack the device’s lock code). these powers impart warnings to monica’s boyfriend, whom she accuses of infidelity (who you sneakin’ wit ‘cause i already got the code to ya phone), and the “other woman” (get yo hands off my man/girl you already know). monica’s beau conducts his affairs on a blackberry smartphone, which was launched in 1999 as a two-way pager, took on its current smartphone capabilities in 2002 (email, web browsing, sms, etc.) and owes its success primarily its outstanding emailing capabilities. at the outset blackberrys were pitted against similar devices produced by motorola: blackberrys were used by the elite personalities such as bill gates or al gore while motorola pagers were allied with rappers and sports figures, jay-z and shaquille o’neal, for instance (century 2001). rapper jay-z’s immensely popular “i just wanna love u (give it 2 me)” (2000) includes the following lines: “only way to roll, jigga and two ladies/ i’m too cold, motorola, 118 current musicology two way page me, c’mon,” which cemented the gadget’s place in the popular imagination. according to howard rheingold, “hip-hop culture, streetwise and fashion-conscious fans of rap music, favor motorola’s two-way pagers, while young stockbrokers, suits, and geeks in the information technology industry favor the blackberry wireless pagers from research in motion” (2003, 23). blackberrys have until recently been associated almost exclusively with white-collar work, the corporate world, masculinity, and whiteness, motorola two-way pagers (and subsequent devices such as the sidekick), on the other hand, have signaled leisure, sexuality, youth, femininity, blackness, etc., thus rescripting the black/white boxes of technology partition for the era of ubiquitous mobile communication and computing (sage 2009). as a consequence of the widespread dissemination of smartphones, the blackberry has since traveled beyond its early professional stomping ground, yet it still registers in the cultural imagination primarily as a professional and masculine tool. all these factors contribute to how monica mobilizes the blackberry, since the device stands in for her male love object as well as his infidelity. on the one hand, this provides a reference to the pivotal role of the blackberry in the public spectacle of tiger woods’ extramarital affairs: monica, like woods’ wife, will uncover his dalliances by monitoring his mobile phone. on the other hand, the blackberry, as a signifier for the business world and masculinity, magnifies the lover’s transgression, since he is using the device to conduct personal and illicit communication. monica’s “untrustworthy boo” does not appear in the song, he is personified by the repurposed blackberry and the singer’s affective relationship with the machine. akin to aaron soul’s “ring, ring, ring” chant, the word “blackberry” materializes in this song in such an interrupted, rhythmic, and digitally altered way that it barely registers any relation to the linguistic unit that it is based on: “i’m the one that checks (checks), check the (chicks) black (black) ber (ber) ry (ry)/yep that’s me/i’m the one that checks his phone when he falls asleep early in the morn/you better have a call, go to your phone, ring leave it on with the black (black) ber (ber) ry (ry).” in fact, if the song were not named “blackberry” the listeners would probably not be able to decipher the signification of the word through the auto-tune haze, and, accordingly, it signifies chiefly in the domain of sensation. while the verses concentrate on the intricacies of intimate relationships as refracted through mobile technologies, the scat-like singing and auto-tuning of “blackberry” in the chorus locate it beyond the grasp of wordness and meaning. the chorus is the only part of “blackberry” in which monica intonates in this scat-like fashion (emphasizing rhythm and sonority rather melody or meaning) and 119 alexander g. weheliye her voice appears audibly digitally altered, providing a stark contrast to the naturalistic and melismatic grain of the singer’s voice throughout the rest of the track. thus, monica’s particular staging of the word “blackberry” relies on its cultural meanings (mobile device and attendant practices) at the same time as it recodes this linguistic unit as a sonic emoticon. the way monica vocalizes “blackberry” in the chorus supplements the song’s narrative with non-linguistic affect. monica’s “blackberry” takes a different path than trey songz’s “lol:-)” to the aural rendering of emoticons: songz takes written electronic signs, sounding them out through song while fully retaining their sociolinguistic signification, monica, however, transforms a word into a sonic affective sign that almost leaves behind linguistic meaning altogether. in both cases r&b allows for the rhythmic ensnaring of machines and emotions, because the genre possesses an expansive repertoire—in lyrical content, available styles of “emotive” singing, and musical gestalt—for the sonic transaction of interpersonal affairs. i will now turn to the british tv series metrosexuality (1999) to draw attention to the rhythmic representation of mobile technologies in a chiefly ocular medium. in metrosexuality much of the social interaction between the characters takes place on mobile and sedentary telephones, and phone conversations constitute at least half of the screen time. in the very first scene after the opening credits, we are introduced to teenager kwame, who is desperately trying to reunite his divorced fathers max and jordan. before kwame makes a visual entrance on the screen, we witness a fast paced montage of the telephone call kwame places on his mobile. rather than showing kwame dialing his father’s number, however, the screen is taken up by a series of accelerated motion images featuring city streets and buildings that are soundtracked by swishing sounds and accelerated recordings of mobile dial and ringing tones. moreover, the camera angles are frequently irregular, which only adds to the perplexity engendered by these shots, especially since these shots also function as an introduction to metrosexuality. the expedited noises and visual montage come to an abrupt halt with the tone of max’s mobile as he answers kwame’s call while sitting in a hair salon. then, the editing crosscuts between kwame’s position on the streets of noting hill (the lettering on screen reads “in the heart of noting hill . . .”) and max’s location at the salon as up-tempo dance music plays in the background. in this part of the sequence the camera circles restlessly around kwame as he moves around and speaks to his father, while a stable camera frames a medium close-up of max’s face. once the phone conversation between the two has ended, we cut to a close-up of kwame’s hands as he dials papa jordan’s number, which is followed by another fast-motion montage that depicts the rapid travel of 120 current musicology information over cellular networks via the rhythmic editing of image and sound. jordan takes kwame’s call on a grey cordless phone whilst working in a recording studio with mid-tempo bass heavy music emanating from the studio speakers. in his conversations with his fathers, kwame tells both that the other parent has failed to pick him up from soccer practice, and, as a result, max and jordan arrive at kwame’s location at the same time, while kwame and his two best friends watch the them interact at a distance. sadly, max and jordan do not reconcile as kwame had hoped in devising this elaborate ruse. in jordan’s portion of this tripartite interaction, the diegetic music, the telephone, and jordan’s clothing provide a muted contrast (monochrome, largely grey clothing, enclosed space, only the bass of the music is audible, etc.) to the brash, colorful, and buoyant sounds and colors that structure the shots featuring kwame (canary yellow hip-hop outfit, electric blue cellular phone, lots of movement, etc.) and max (red mobile phone, blond dreadlocks, red flowery outfit, etc.). there are many instances like this over the course of the show’s narrative that imagine how aural information traverses space via the deployment of highly accelerated and rapidly intercut images accompanied by swishing and ringing noises to accentuate the velocity of the montage. here, velocity registers as the intensification of sensation, because the viewer is forced to bear witness to the duration of its escalation. the collages of the telephone calls in metrosexuality punctuate the triangulated visual and sonic flow between the different locales/characters, channeling the rush mobile communication in ways that are specific to the medium of television; they also set in motion a rhythmic “poetics of relation” at the juncture of mobile devices and humans. nicola green’s treatment of rhythm accents the different temporal structures of mobile technology use, distinguishing between three modalities of mobile rhythm: “the rhythms of mobile use; the rhythms of integrating mobile use into everyday life; and the rhythms of relation between use in everyday life and institutional social change” (2002, 285). the examples discussed in this chapter add another rhythmic layer to the relational complexities of mobile time by initially removing mobile technologies from everyday life. wrested from the vagaries of the quotidian and interfaced with pop songs or televisual narratives, these machines have radically different functions, moving, to put it in schematic terms, from practical use to aesthetic sensation. surely, both of these aspects already commingle before their musicalization, and in this way, it is a shift not in kind but in degree and intensity that amplifies those rhythmic dimensions beside and below routine information transmission. moreover, once they have entered into rhythmic relations with other matters and forces, the textural facets of 121 alexander g. weheliye mobile technologies reenter the annals of every day life, becoming integral to these devices’ allure and functionality. according to gilles deleuze, “rhythm...is more profound than vision, hearing, etc. . . . what is ultimate is thus the relation between sensation and rhythm, which places in each sensation the levels and domains through which it passes. . . . sensation is not qualitative and qualified, but has only an intensive reality, which no longer determines within itself representative elements, but allotropic variations” (2003, 37–39). the instances of mobile rhythm analyzed above produce the polymorph variations mentioned by deleuze in their emphasis on the diverse rhythms of the technological and the human, hinting at an embodied relational theory of mobile technologies that accents their communicative and aesthetic facets. as a conceptual tool and a mode of apprehending the world “rhythm” mobilizes “the processes of bringing-into-relation” that are fundamental to any social formation and/or object but are habitually neglected in favor of their stagnant counterparts (glissant 1997, 95). still, these models of rhythm (and glissant’s notion of relation) do not simply replace the metronomic beat of the inert and unchanging with sheer flux; instead they dwell in the uneven territory at the junction of mobile use, everyday life, institutional social change, and aesthetics. indeed, rhythm names and transacts the dialectical liaison of these at times opposing forces, making them constitutive of the objects or practices they envelop. therefore, rhythm produces the multifaceted processes through which mobile technologies (along with a host of other technologies and rituals) come into being as consuming textural, sonic, and haptic relations, or in henri lefebvre’s phrasing: “to grasp a rhythm it is necessary to have been grasped by it . . .” (2004, 27, original emphasis). taken together, the cell phone rings, the pager sounds, drake’s blackberry authorship, ringtone rap, the repeated sung vociferations of ring, ring, ring, call me, 2way, lol, smiley face, and blackberry, as well as the optico-sonic overflow of metrosexuality boost the mobile sensations of communication technologies through the conduit of rhythm. the aforementioned rhythmifications might appear auxiliary, but they tap into facets central to the existence and utility of mobile technologies that do not register on the metronomic radar of many critical dialects. if, as john urry remarks, “humans are sensuous, corporeal, technologically extended and mobile beings,” then cellular telephones, because they are highly mobile and facilitate interpersonal contact, operate as prime indicators of what it means to be human at this point in history (2007, 51, original emphasis). the sonic incorporation of mobile technologies into popular music extends and remixes these machines’ anthropomorphic bass line, and, as a result embodies the rhythmic relation of all technologies. 122 current musicology notes 1. these “facts” should not be construed as providing sociological evidence for the musical examples i will discuss later but contextualize the pivotal place of mobile technologies and sound in black culture. 2. see also urry (2007, 177). 3. according to the 2009 ict (information and communication technologies) development index there were four billion mobile subscriptions worldwide (61% penetration rate) while there existed 1.3 billion land-lines (19% penetration rate). given that these numbers only include subscriptions and exclude various modes of mobile sharing that are prevalent in the poorer parts of the globe, the overall penetration rate is likely higher. see international telecommunication union (2009). on mobile sharing, see, for instance, steenson and donner (2009). 4.these tendencies have shifted somewhat in recent years with the growing popularity of rappers (kanye west and drake, for instance) that do not conform to hip-hop’s masculinist template. 5. see ward (1998); werner (2006). the problem here is not r&b’s inherently apolitical nature but that critics value the genre if the lyrics ‘transcend’ the interpersonal and putatively private domain by espousing recognizably political themes, which rehashes the longstanding gendered qualities of the public/private divide. for a general consideration of the public/private split and gender, see elshtain (1993). 6. here is a partial list of contemporary songs (1995–2010) that devote a significant part of their lyrics and sounds to mobile technologies. r. kelly: “3-way call,” “remote control,” and “text me.” soulja boy: “kiss me through the phone.” ludacris: “sexting.” christina milian: “call me, beep me! (the kim possible song).” hi town djs: “ding-aling.” jackie boyz. “callin’ me.” the firm: “phone tap.” field mob: “stop callin.” vybz kartel: “video recorder” and “u nuh have a phone (hello moto u).” three 6 mafia: “2 way freak.” jluv: “telefon liebe.” romeo: “romeo dunn.” beyonce & lady gaga: “video phone.” trina: “phone sexx.” the game: “camera phone.” ciara: “pick up the phone.” adina howard: “phone sex.” next: “phone sex.” rayvon: “2-way.” teairra marí: “phone booth.” lil’ romeo: “2 way.” destiny’s child: “bug-a-boo.” sammie: “twitter freak.” big boi: “ringtone.” the following songs contain references to previous communication technologies: skyy: “call me.” blondie. “call me.” missy elliott: “beep me 911.” de la soul: “ring, ring, ring.” abba: “ring ring.” jodeci: “my phone.” a tribe called quest: “skypager.” 7. see woods (2000); weheliye (2002). 8. kandi, hey kandi..., cd (columbia records, 2000), http://www.discogs.com/kandi hey-kandi/release/1486224. 9. auto-tune software was initially designed to correct the pitch of a singer’s voice in the recording process, it was, however, taken up primarily by popular musicians as a voice distortion mechanism that rendered the human voice robotic. this altered use of auto-tuning, which has now become the defining feature of the software for the majority of pop music audiences, was initially popularized by its prominence in r&b at the end of the 1990s. see tyrangiel (2009). for a general consideration of voice altering techniques in black popular music, see weheliye (2002). 10. aaron soul, ring, ring, ring, cd (def soul, 2001), http://www.discogs.com/aaron soul-ring-ring-ring/release/465459. 11. jamelia, call me, cd (rhythm series, 2000), http://www.discogs.com/jamelia-call me/release/1108420. 123 alexander g. weheliye 12. ginuwine, “2 way” the life, cd (sony music, 2001), http://www.discogs.com/ ginuwine-the-life/master/258621. two-way pagers were en vogue popular communicational devices when ginuwine’s song was released in 2001.they have since been replaced by text messaging on mobile phones. see “pager,” in wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pager (accessed july 27, 2010); and the 1999 entry “paging” in focal dictionary of telecommunications, focal press. oxford: elsevier science & technology, http://www.credoreference.com/entry/bhfidt/paging (accessed july 27, 2010). 13. on the history of text messaging, see goggin (2006, 65–88). there are a variety of reasons for the initial slow adoption of text messages in the united states; however, as of 2008 us mobile subscribers send and receive more written messages than they do voice calls. see reardon (2008). 14. sumanth gopinath describes different mobile ringtones thus: “the commodification of the ringtone has occurred in several stages. these stages provide the outline of a model for ringtone development, whereby functional tones become: (1) monophonic ringtones or simple melodies; (2) polyphonic tones (midi synthesizer music); and (3) digital sound files (true tones or other company–specific formats, and ultimately mp3 files)” (2005). in the earlier period around 2000, ringtones were primarily monophonic and slowly being replaced by polyphonic ringers, now digital sound files have all but eclipsed the other two forms. nonetheless, non-musical sounds (beeps, chirps, and so on) are still prevalent in signaling incoming text messages, twitter alerts, instant messages, emails, calendar reminders, etc. 15. due to the increasing demand for these recordings, billboard magazine introduced its “hot ringtones” chart, which tracked the sales of polyphonic ringtones, in the november 6, 2004 issue. the “hot ringmasters” chart that tabulates the sales for all ringtone species superseded this chart in december 2006 (see billboard 2006). even though ringtones based on popular hits still represent a significant portion of digital musical sales in the united states, it has become quite easy to produce ringtones from digital music files in itunes or smartphone apps such as ringdroid. see may and hearn (2005); bull (2007). 16. the “i am t-pain” iphone app sold 300,000 in its first three weeks of release and continues to average 10,000 downloads per day. the game requires players to tap a series of colored balls in accordance with the rhythm of a particular song. as of june 2010, tap tap revenge had sold more than five million tracks through its in-game music store. see johnson (2009); dredge (2010). 17. see goggin (2006, 143–211); jenkins (2006). 18. trey songz, lol:-), cd (atlantic recording corporation, 2009), http://www.discogs. com/trey-songz-lol---the-remixes/release/2044187. 19. even though musical ringtones are now used for voice calls, incoming text messages, and emails, ims are frequently signaled by a buzz, a beep, or other “non-musical” noises. 20. wikipedia defines emoticon as “a textual expression representing the face of a writer’s mood or facial expression. emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text.” “emoticon,” in wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/emoticon (accessed july 12, 2010). in instant messaging, email, and text messaging images such as these ☹ ☺ are used rather than punctuation marks. for instance, whenever i typed the title of songz’s song while writing this chapter, ms word autocorrected the punctuation marks to look like this☺. 21. the abbreviations rofl (rolling on the floor laughing), ttyl, (talk to you later), and 124 current musicology omg (oh my god) have also made the jump to spoken english. see crystal (2006); ulaby (2006); tagliamonte and denis (2008). lol also plays a crucial role in the codification of a sociolect (“lolspeak” or “kitty pidgin”) particular to the internet phenomenon lolcats, which combines images of cats with witty captions. see dash (2007). in her discussion of “cyberpunctutation,” jennifer brody (2008) shows how emoticons are mobilized in contemporary cinema, which suggests another modality for the cultural logics i have been outlining here. finally, the transposition of lol into face-to-face communication has a precedent in the “air quotes” (using one’s fingers to make quotation marks in the air during conversation) that are now synonymous with the “ironic 1990’s” (beers 2001). although “air quotes” are not spoken per se, they are written characters that are at present used to punctuate verbal communication with affect (irony). 22. monica, “blackberry” still standing, cd (j records, 2010), http://www.discogs.com/ monica-still-standing/release/2279141. 23. barack obama’s avowed dependency on his blackberry and the public discourse about obama’s relationship with this device epitomize the apex of blackberry’s cultural omnipresence in the united states. see clifford (2009); hauser (2009). 24. jay-z, i just wanna love u (give it 2 me), cd (roc-a-fella records, 2000), http:// www. discogs.com/jay-z-i-just-wanna-love-u-give-it-2-me/release/781701. 25. the now discontinued sidekick (introduced in 2002) was the precursor to today’s smartphones, featuring an lcd screen, a full qwerty keyboard, email, im, and web capacity. the gadget entered the annals of popular culture in 2005 when a group of hackers appropriated the private information from paris hilton’s sidekick and posted it on the web. 26. in the aftermath of woods’ much publicized text message conversations with his mistresses, there is now an iphone app (tigermail: tigers don’t always leave tracks) that promises to erase the traces of potentially incriminating notes once they have been received. as gerard goggin shows, mobile technologies have acquired cultural meaning in part by being associated with the uncovering and making public of illicit celebrity romances (prince charles’ taped phone conversations with camilla or the text messages found on paris hilton’s stolen motorola sidekick) (2006, 126–40). 27. rikki beadle blair, dir., “metrosexuality,” dvd, 1999, http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0212216/. for an extended consideration of mobile music players in the cinematic construction of urban space, see weheliye (2005, 123–44). 28. i am not advocating the privileging of rhythm as a sign of afro-diasporic alterity as occurs frequently but attempting to make its formal properties usable for a conceptualization of mobile technologies. for a critical genealogy of how rhythm came to be heard as an enactment of radical black difference, see radano (2003), especially chapter five. references araujo, luiz. n.d. “history of pagers and beepers.” lafacity.info. http://lafacity.info/ index. php/cell-phones-history/3-history-of-pagers-and-beepers. bat. 2001. “what is hypersoul?” riddim dot ca. accessed july 20, 2010. http://www.riddim. ca/?p=180. beadle blair, rikki, dir. 1999. “metrosexuality.” dvd. http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0212216. beers, david. 2001. “irony is dead! long live 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columbia university in the city of new york 7 a psychological approach to musical form: the habituation–fluency theory of repetition david huron with the possible exception of dance and meditation, there appears to be nothing else in common human experience that is comparable to music in its repetitiveness (kivy 1993; ockelford 2005; margulis 2013). narrative artifacts like movies, novels, cartoon strips, stories, and speeches have much less internal repetition. even poetry is less repetitive than music. occasionally, architecture can approach music in repeating some elements, but only sometimes. there appears to be no visual analog to the sort of trance–inducing music that can engage listeners for hours. although dance and meditation may be more repetitive than music, dance is rarely performed in the absence of music, and meditation tellingly relies on imagining a repeated sound or mantra (huron 2006: 267). repetition can be observed in music from all over the world (nettl 2005). in much music, a simple “strophic” pattern is evident in which a single phrase or passage is repeated over and over. when sung, it is common for successive repetitions to employ different words, as in the case of strophic verses. however, it is also common to hear the same words used with each repetition. in the western art–music tradition, internal patterns of repetition are commonly discussed under the rubric of form. writing in the oxford companion to music, percy scholes characterized musical form as “a series of strategies designed to find a successful mean between the opposite extremes of unrelieved repetition and unrelieved alteration” (1977: 289). scholes’s characterization notwithstanding, musical form entails much more than simply the pattern of repetition. discussions of form also commonly specify certain kinds of passages or rhetorical treatments, such as distinguishing expository, developmental, transitional, or closing passages (see, e.g., brown 1970; caplin 1998; dahlhaus 1978; hepokoski and darcy 2006; kielian– gilbert 1990; koch 1793; mccredie 1983; nattiez 1975, 1987; root 1986; sisman 1993). in addition, much music involves the concatenation of common patterns, such as partimenti, scripts, clichés, or licks (e.g., gjerdingen 2007; pressing 1988; sanguinetti 2012; sawyer 1998). forms also frequently involve broad harmonic patterns, especially key– or modulation–related patterns (e.g., salzer 1952; schenker 1906; schoenberg 1954). in the western art–music tradition, examples of conventional forms include strophic songs, current musicology 8 binary, rounded binary, and ternary forms, theme–and–variations, canons, chaconnes, passacaglias, fugues, rondos, medleys, overtures, suites, and sonata–allegro form. in western music, the concept of form is historically and culturally situated. although discussions of musical form can be found throughout the history of western music, the concept rose to prominence in the nineteenth century and has remained a central topic in art–music scholarship. form is often distinguished from the concept of genre, but the two concepts are intertwined (greene 1992). for the purposes of this article, we will sidestep the conceptual issues. although the title of this article includes the word “form,” the focus here will be exclusively on patterns of exact or inexact repetition. that is, our sole concern will be with that aspect of musical form that has to do with the structure of repetitions. in considering musical forms, one might suppose that many repetition structures arise solely due to cultural convention. theoretically, any arbitrary pattern might become established as a cultural norm that is replicated by successive generations of musicians. at the same time, one wonders if there exist deeper underlying principles. over the centuries, various music scholars have proposed different theoretical accounts based on philosophical, metaphysical, or other premises. in this paper, we focus on empirically established psychological phenomena that might plausibly influence the patterning of musical repetitions. specifically, we will focus on two psychological phenomena that relate directly to repetition. we begin by reviewing research on a venerable topic in psychology—habituation. this is followed by a discussion of the phenomenon of processing fluency (and two precursor concepts—the mere exposure effect and perceptual fluency). on the one hand, repetition induces habituation in which familiar stimuli lead to a reduction in responsiveness. on the other hand, processing fluency induces positive feelings toward familiar stimuli. the two processes appear to contradict each other. however, we will see that by attending to the details of both processes, it is possible to organize patterns of repetition so as to maximize processing fluency while circumventing the problems due to habituation. using the psychological concepts as premises, we will derive a series of repetition strategies that, from a theoretical perspective, successively improve the overall hedonic effect. two studies are then reviewed—one correlational and one experimental—that test two conjectures arising from the theory. we will see that two commonplace patterns of repetition are notably consistent with the theory: a “variation strategy” (in which a passage is repeated with persistent slight modifications), and a “rondo strategy” (in which sequences of repetition grow shorter over the course of the work and new material is introduced sparingly). in short, david huron 9 our study will endeavor to account for at least two “strategies” that percy scholes would have regarded as achieving a balance between “unrelieved repetition and unrelieved alteration.” along the way, we will see that the theory also provides a parsimonious account of the trance experience. 1. habituation when experiencing the world, it is important not simply to pay attention to certain stimuli, but also to ignore certain stimuli. brains have limited bandwidth, which precludes attending to everything around us (cherry 1957). minds need filters—mental mechanisms that block low–priority stimuli from commanding conscious awareness. when something is novel, it makes sense that an organism should direct its attention towards it. however, most of the sounds encountered in daily life do not warrant much mental effort. one of the most important mental mechanisms organisms have for ignoring stimuli is habituation—the brain’s version of “been there, done that.” habituation is regarded as the simplest form of learning. formally, habituation is defined as a decrease in responsiveness resulting from the repeated presentation of an eliciting stimulus. with successive repetitions of the same sound or sound–pattern, a listener becomes progressively less responsive to the stimulus. in neurological terms, habituation is considered a central process rather than a peripheral process. that is, habituation happens in the brain, not in the ear or the eye. habituation should not be confused with sensory fatigue or sensory adaptation. it is not that certain neurons in the cochlea, for example, reduce their rate of firing because of repeated stimulation (see, e.g., worden and marsh 1963). habituation is an attentional process; it is the brain simply ignoring particular sensory inputs. habituation is commonplace in human listening; however, the most detailed research regarding habituation has been carried out with non–human animals. in animal research, it is common to demonstrate habituation using the startle response. playing a loud tone to a mouse will result in a momentary frozen posture. after a minute or so, repeating the loud tone will again result in a startle response. if the process is continued, the mouse will become progressively less and less responsive until the startle response is extinguished. the animal will go about its business without showing any sensitivity to the tone. the speed of habituation depends on several factors. one factor is how frequently the stimulus occurs (e.g., harris 1943). if the stimulus is repeated every 10 seconds, habituation will occur sooner than if the stimulus is repeated once per minute. for example, a mouse might habituate to a tone current musicology 10 after only eight presentations—if the tones are presented in relatively quick succession. however, it might take twelve presentations for habituation to arise if the sounds are more widely spaced in time. another factor that contributes to habituation is the predictability of the stimulus. by way of illustration, compare the following two scenarios: if a stimulus is presented every 10 seconds, then an animal might habituate after just six presentations. by contrast, the same stimulus might be presented at random times: the tone might still be presented six times over the course of a minute, but they now occur at random moments and so are less predictable. typically, it will take more presentations before the animal habituates to the sound. suppose that an animal habituates to a sound after nine presentations. the animal is then left alone for some period of time—perhaps an hour, or an entire day. after the elapsed time, the experiment is then repeated. typically, the animal will have regained its responsiveness to the sound. for example, a mouse might again be startled by a loud sound to which it had habituated the previous day. this regaining of responsiveness is referred to as spontaneous recovery. spontaneous recovery might be formally defined as the re–sensitizing of an animal to a previously habituated stimulus due to the passage of time. it is possible to have many cycles of habituation and spontaneous recovery. however, these recurring cycles leave a mental legacy. following each spontaneous recovery, researchers observe that it takes fewer repetitions of the stimulus before the onset of habituation (harris 1943). on monday, it might take nine sound presentations before a mouse habituates. on tuesday, it might take only seven sound presentations. on wednesday, it might take just four presentations. this phenomenon is referred to as the potentiation of habituation. in formal terms, potentiation of habituation may be defined as the facilitating effect on habituation due to a past history of habituation. in short, habituation becomes easier when we have habituated to something in the past. dishabituation: there is another way in which an organism can become re–sensitized apart from spontaneous recovery. spontaneous recovery arises simply through the passage of time. however, re–sensitization can also occur in response to a novel stimulus (pavlov 1927). after habituating to a sequence of identical stimuli, the introduction of a single novel stimulus—expressed schematically as a a a a a a a b—will tend to cause the listener to re–orient to the stimulus stream. moreover, the presence of the novel stimulus may cause a listener to lose his/her habituation to the first stimulus. consequently, an ensuing return to the initial stimulus will david huron 11 tend to cause the listener to respond as though he/she had not habituated to it. this phenomenon is known as dishabituation, and the novel stimulus is referred to as a dishabituating stimulus. formally, dishabituation can be defined as the recovery of responsiveness due to an intervening novel stimulus. it is appropriate to note that a dishabituating stimulus will tend to lose its effectiveness with time. in effect, there is a kind of “habituation of dishabituation.” in practice, this limits the number of times a given stimulus can be used in a dishabituating role (see lehner 1941 and thompson 2009). in summary, there are two processes by which an organism might regain its responsiveness to a stimulus after habituation. the first is spontaneous recovery, which arises simply through the passage of time. the second is dishabituation, which arises due to the introduction of a dishabituating stimulus. stimulus generalization: to this point, our discussion has presumed that a given stimulus is identical on each presentation. in practice, there is room for variation. for example, a mouse might habituate to a loud 1,000 hz tone with a duration of 0.5 seconds and a 50 millisecond onset envelope. that same mouse might similarly exhibit habituation to a 1,050 hz tone, whose duration is reduced by half, and whose onset duration has been tripled. in practice, researchers find that there is a range over which the animal will deem the stimulus to be sufficiently similar that it will respond (or not respond) accordingly (sharpless and jasper 1956). moreover, if a little bit of variety is introduced during the initial training or exposure period, it is especially likely that the animal will treat modified stimuli in the same way. consequently, rather than regarding a stimulus as a single item, it is more appropriate to view it as a class or range of stimuli that will all evoke similar responses. this phenomenon is referred to as stimulus generalization. formally, stimulus generalization can be defined as the class of stimuli that an animal treats as similar or equivalent. resistance: the phenomenon of habituation applies to all types of stimuli. however, research shows that certain types of stimuli are less prone to habituation. in general, high–intensity or high–energy stimuli are more resistant to habituation than low–intensity stimuli (e.g., harris 1943). bright lights, intense smells, forceful contact, extreme temperatures, and loud sounds require more exposures to induce habituation than dim lights, dilute smells, light contact, moderate temperatures, and quiet sounds. moreover, there exists a class of stimuli to which animals (including humans) do not habituate. the most important of these is pain. in fact, pain can sometimes lead to the opposite experience where repeated stimuli current musicology 12 produce an increase in the elicited response rather than a decrease. this is referred to as sensitization. sensitization is not common, and when it occurs it is usually short–lived. a novel stimulus might evoke pain, and that makes the animal more sensitive the next time it encounters the stimulus. however, this usually just happens once or twice. then the response returns to normal. in other words, sensitization is ephemeral. formally, sensitization can be defined as the (rare and normally short–lived) process by which a repeated stimulus produces an increase in the elicited response rather than a decrease. whether or not a person experiences sensitization, the important point is that we do not habituate to pain. for many medical conditions, this failure to habituate represents a grave tragedy. it means that people who suffer from chronic pain have great difficulty adapting to their situation. another class of stimuli that resists habituation is fear. although fear is quite resistant to habituation, unlike pain, it is possible to habituate to fear–inducing stimuli. it is not uncommon for people to suffer from various anxiety disorders or pathological fears—such as excessive fear of spiders or open spaces. the typical approach to treating these conditions is “exposure therapy,” where a person is exposed to fear–inducing stimuli a little bit at a time (richard and lauterbach 2006). exposure therapy is really just a therapeutic application of habituation. the process typically entails hundreds or thousands of presentations of the fear–inducing stimulus, beginning with the least intense or least salient examples. because fear resists habituation, the treatment typically takes a long time. formally, resistance can be defined as the tendency for certain types of stimuli (notably intense, fear–inducing, or painful stimuli) to resist habituation. speed of habituation: a number of factors are known to influence the speed of habituation. we have already touched on these factors; however, it is appropriate to assemble a single succinct list: 1. the number of presentations. with more exposure, the likelihood of habituation increases. 2. the rate of repetition. more frequent presentation leads to faster habituation. 3. the predictability of the repetition. habituation is faster when the presentations are predictable. 4. the stimulus intensity or magnitude. habituation is faster for less energetic stimuli. 5. the animal’s history of past cycles of habituation and spontaneous recovery. if the animal has habituated to a stimulus in the past, then it is likely to habituate more quickly the next time around. david huron 13 habituation summary: by way of summary, there are seven central concepts related to habituation (see thompson and spencer 1966). habituation is a simple form of non–associative learning in which an organism shows reduced responsiveness to repeated stimuli. after habituation occurs, simply leaving the organism alone for a period of time will lead to re–sensitization so that a future presentation of the stimulus will result in a full response. this is referred to as spontaneous recovery. alternatively, an organism can often be re–sensitized to a stimulus by encountering a novel stimulus. the effect of the novel stimulus might be likened to pressing a “reset” button—so that responsiveness is partially or fully restored. this phenomenon is known as dishabituation. any novel stimulus that produces dishabituation is referred to as a dishabituating stimulus. in responding to a stimulus, there is a range over which an animal will treat similar stimuli in an identical manner, i.e., stimulus generalization. if an organism has a history of habituating to a stimulus, then subsequent habituation is facilitated (see, e.g., humphrey 1933; coombs 1938). that is, an organism will more quickly habituate to a stimulus that it has habituated to in the past. this phenomenon is known as potentiation of habituation. finally, organisms are slower to habituate to some stimuli compared with other stimuli, exhibiting resistance to habituation. for example, quiet sounds will produce faster habituation than louder sounds. it is important to note that these concepts are supported by a large volume of classical research in the behavioral sciences (see thompson 2009 for a historical review). moreover, the various phenomena related to habituation have been observed in every species examined, including humans. for example, in their comprehensive review of the phenomenon, thompson and spencer offer the following summary: “in reviewing the behavioral habituation literature, it is striking to find virtually complete agreement on the parametric characteristics of the phenomenon in such a wide variety of animals and responses” (1966: 18). in the context of music, these concepts might seem irrelevant, or at best tangential. however, as already noted, music is among the most repetitive stimuli experienced by humans, so one might expect that habituation is never far away when listening to music. as we will see later, these concepts appear to have direct applicability for understanding patterns of repetition in music. 2. processing fluency apart from the effect of repetition on attention and responsiveness, repetition also has a relationship to enjoyment. to begin with, repetition leads to familiarity, and familiarity influences preferences. in the 1960s, research current musicology 14 on the effects of familiarity led to the discovery of something dubbed the mere exposure effect—commonly referred to as simply the exposure effect. exposure effect: people and animals show a marked preference for familiar stimuli (zajonc 1968). it is not simply that people prefer familiar foods and smells over unfamiliar foods and smells. we prefer familiar environments, objects, people, and voices. researchers have manipulated the amount of exposure to different kinds of stimuli, and have shown that they can influence preferences simply by the amount of exposure. this can be done with all kinds of stimuli ranging from nonsense words to geometric shapes—including tone sequences and whole melodies (wilson 1975, 1979). when we are shown photographs of ourselves, we prefer the mirror images to the actual photo. that is, we prefer the version of ourselves that we regularly see in the mirror (mita, dermer, and knight 1977). a preference for the familiar is not limited to humans: ethologists have shown that all kinds of animals prefer familiar over less familiar stimuli (reviewed by bornstein 1989). when told of this research, people commonly find the results obvious. however, many people also expect that if a person continues to be exposed to a stimulus, at some point, the preference declines. as the saying goes, “familiarity breeds contempt.” indeed, a few studies have observed that frequently repeated stimuli are rated by some participants as less pleasing—even when habituation is avoided. however, this intuitive change of preference disappears under a very revealing circumstance. an important discovery has been that the exposure effect is evident whether or not a participant is conscious of having perceived something. participants do not need to be consciously aware of which stimuli they have encountered before in order to show a preference for the most familiar (kunst–wilson and zajonc 1980; van den bosch, salimpoor, and zatorre 2013). in experimental research, two techniques have been used to prevent participants from becoming consciously aware that some stimuli are more familiar than other stimuli. one technique involves subliminal presentation where visual stimuli are presented too quickly to register in consciousness. the second technique involves distracted presentation, where the stimuli are presented while the participant is attending to some other task. by way of example, monahan, murphy, and zajonc (1997; reported in berkowitz 2000: 30) exposed viewers to individual chinese characters for just 5 milliseconds. participants simply see a brief flash of light and are unable to describe or identify which character was presented. nevertheless, when asked to select which chinese characters they prefer, participants show a striking preference for whatever characters they had been exposed to most frequently. they preferred certain chinese characters without knowing why. david huron 15 at least sixteen different experiments have been carried out testing the exposure effect using subliminal or unattended presentation of the stimuli. all sixteen experiments show that the exposure effect is independent of conscious perception (see bornstein 1990 for a review). moreover, these experiments also show that the exposure effect is greater under these conditions than when participants are consciously aware of the stimuli. when participants are aware that some stimuli occur more often than others, some of the participants appear to stifle their inclination to prefer the familiar and instead respond in a manner that suggests they prefer novelty over familiarity (see also burgess and sales 1971; kihlstrom 1987; bornstein 1990. for a review, see huron 2006: 132–5). in other words, a preference for novelty occurs only when participants are consciously aware of which stimuli are most common and are able to think about what they are experiencing. an even more compelling demonstration of the exposure effect is evident when a delay is introduced between the exposure phase and the testing of preferences. in an experiment, a person may be exposed to stimulus x much more often than stimulus y. when asked to identify their preferred stimulus, some participants might select the more novel stimulus y. however, when asked to return a few days later, they are likely to have forgotten which stimulus was presented more often. when asked to identify their preferred stimulus, they are more likely to select stimulus x—the stimulus to which they had been most exposed. the implication is that, independent of habituation, the preference for novelty is a conscious override of an underlying disposition to prefer the familiar (bornstein 1990). one might expect that with continued exposure, at some point, the exposure effect would disappear or reverse itself. however, the experimental research simply does not support this intuition. the exposure effect continues to strengthen with each stimulus presentation. each additional repetition tends to increase the preference, although the amount of increase gets progressively smaller (bornstein 1989: 270–71). so what accounts for the origin of the exposure effect? why should humans and animals prefer the familiar? robert zajonc (1968) proposed the first explanatory account, suggesting that familiar stimuli reduce the need to pay attention, and that this reduces an organism’s arousal level. the result is a more relaxed state—which might be experienced as more pleasant (berkowitz 2000). in effect, familiarity gives us the luxury of paying less attention to the world: familiar stimuli allow us to lower our guard and relax. subsequent research, explored below, has led to better theoretical explanations. current musicology 16 perceptual fluency: continued research related to the exposure effect has produced some curious anomalies. for example, research has shown that readers judge written stories as more compelling, more interesting, and more enjoyable when the font is easier to read. similarly, readers also judge written arguments as more logical and convincing when the font is easier to read. moving the eyes in a familiar pattern causes viewers to prefer the object tracked more than when the eyes are moved in an unfamiliar pattern (topolinski 2010). altogether, this research suggests a more general principle: namely, that people prefer stimuli that are easier to perceive. notice that familiarity facilitates perception: we are faster and more accurate in processing sounds and images that we have experienced frequently in the past. consequently, the exposure effect can be absorbed into a broader concept known as perceptual fluency. the idea is that familiarity per se is not the operative principle. instead, it is the ease of perception. this idea is captured in an alternative to zajonc’s theory—the perceptual fluency/attributional theory proposed by robert bornstein and paul d’agostino (1994). bornstein and d’agostino argued that when we perceive a familiar stimulus, the ease of perception produces a positive hedonic effect that is then attributed to the stimulus itself. in short, the ease of perceptual processing makes us positively disposed toward the stimulus. however, they also note that when a person is aware of the familiarity, this unconscious automatic positive response can be overridden by cognitive attitudes. processing fluency: fluency effects are not simply restricted to perception. fictional purported food additives are rated as less harmful when their names are easy to pronounce than when their names are difficult to pronounce (song and schwarz 2009). people judge sayings or aphorisms as more truthful when they rhyme than when they do not rhyme (mcglone and tofighbakhsh 2000). for example, the rhyming aphorism “what sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals” is judged more truthful than its logical synonym “what sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks.” people prefer pictures when preceded by a related word. for example, when primed with the word “father,” people tend to prefer a picture of a baby compared with a picture of a bridge. conversely, when primed with the word “road,” people tend to prefer the picture of a bridge compared with the picture of a baby. studies such as these suggest that the fluency is not simply perceptual, but more broadly related to mental processing. accordingly, in recent years, the phrase “perceptual fluency” has tended to be supplanted by the phrase “processing fluency.” that is, we prefer, not just easy perceptions, but also easy thoughts. processing fluency embraces perceptual, motor, and cognitive behaviors. david huron 17 unlike perceptual fluency, processing fluency provides an answer as to why people would prefer the picture of a bridge over the picture of a baby when the bridge is preceded by a word like “road.” “road” facilitates the mental processing of the bridge picture, and the positive hedonic effect arising from easy processing is attributed to the photograph, causing it to be preferred. the processing fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure: in 2004, rolf reber, norbert schwarz, and piotr winkielman published an influential article entitled “processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience?” the article presents a theory that is essentially a restatement of the bornstein and d’agostino theory published a decade earlier: easy mental processing leads to positive hedonic feelings which are attributed to the stimulus, but this assessment may be discounted if the perceiver is aware of the processing fluency. the main difference is that reber et al. replaced bornstein’s and d’agostino’s emphasis on perceptual fluency with the broader concept of processing fluency. in addition, their article provided a laudable introduction that situates the theory within the context of classic philosophical issues in aesthetics. finally, reber’s work scored an important success by giving the theory a name that has attracted attention among arts scholars—the processing fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure. the ensuing positive reception to this theory might be regarded as self–referentially consistent with the research itself: labroo, lambotte, and zhang (2009) showed experimentally that simply providing a memorable and simple label for a research finding can enhance the finding’s perceived importance. the research history notwithstanding, there exists ample evidence for a two–step theory—that ease of mental processing leads to a positive affective state, and that the positive feelings are then misattributed to the stimulus itself. as a consequence, frequently encountered stimuli tend to evoke pleasure and are preferred. as originally noted by bornstein and d’agostino (1994), the important caveat is that this unconscious automatic response can be overridden by cognitive attitudes. as briñol, petty, and tormala (2006) have shown, if ease of fluency is consciously interpreted as bad, then easily processed stimuli or thoughts will be less valued. 3. psychologically inspired strategies for music repetition as we have seen, the psychological research points to two very different effects of repetition. on the one hand, repetition leads to processing fluency and so increased liking for the repeated stimulus. on the other hand, the current musicology 18 research also suggests that repetition leads to habituation, in which familiar stimuli lead to a reduction in responsiveness. at face value, the research suggests a sort of entanglement in which the two processes inevitably contradict each other. processing fluency offers an opportunity by which repeated sound patterns might be expected to be experienced positively. yet habituation appears to take away the positive response by attenuating the overall responsiveness. repetition is both good and bad. however, processing fluency and habituation are not simply mirror images of each other. they are quite different mental processes with their own distinctive properties. by paying attention to these properties, we might suppose that it is possible to create patterns of repetition that take advantage of the positive hedonic effects of processing fluency while minimizing habituation. in light of the foregoing discussions, let us consider a practical problem. suppose a composer wants to create a musical work that listeners find enjoyable, but requires the least amount of work on the part of the composer. in the following account, we will make two assumptions. first, we will draw heavily on the positive hedonic effect associated with processing fluency. the underlying assumption is that a motivating impetus in musical organization is the pursuit of pleasure. some readers may understandably be unnerved by this emphasis on the evoking of pleasure. art has no predefined function, which means that it can be harnessed to serve any number of purposes including no purpose at all. sometimes art is successful because it educates us, inspires us, challenges us, disturbs us, or even insults us. but if art never offered any element of pleasure, it would cease to play much role in human affairs (huron 2006: 366). the assumption here is not that pleasure is the ultimate goal of music making, nor that the evoking of pleasure ought to be the ultimate goal for music making. instead, the assumption is that the evoking of pleasure will inevitably be attractive to both listeners and musicians, and that one should not be surprised if much music making succumbs to these allures. in addition, a second assumption will be made that musicians will be attracted by repetition as a way of amplifying the effects of their musical labors. from a musician’s perspective, repetition significantly reduces the amount of effort involved in creating musical works or experiences. simple repetition can transform one minute of music into (say) four minutes of music. repetition allows the musician to create long musical works from a modest collection of original musical materials. how, then, might a musician achieve a maximum hedonic effect with a minimum of compositional effort? in the ensuing discussion, we will consider eight compositional strategies. for each strategy, we will identify david huron 19 its advantages as well as its shortcomings. with each successive strategy, we will attempt to improve the approach, either by amplifying the advantages or minimizing the shortcomings of earlier strategies. strategy 1 approach: for our first strategy, we will compose a short passage. this will represent our entire musical work. advantages: the main advantage of this strategy is that very little work is required. because the music is short, it will be easy to remember and easy to perform. disadvantages: the main disadvantage of this strategy is that any pleasure will be short–lived for listeners. since all of the material is novel, little or no processing fluency will arise. strategy 2 approach: like strategy 1, strategy 2 will involve composing a short passage. however, we will then repeat this segment over and over. advantages: once again, the main advantage of this strategy is that little work is required. because the amount of original material is small, the music will be easy to remember and easy to perform. an additional advantage is that the music will now benefit from processing fluency. in fact, with increasing repetition, processing fluency will be maximized. (let us refer to this as the “trance strategy.”) disadvantages: unfortunately, after some number of repetitions, listeners will habituate: responsiveness will decline, and, for many listeners, pleasure will also decline. (see later discussion.) strategy 3 approach: like strategy 2, strategy 3 entails repetition of a short composed passage. however, with the advent of habituation, we will stop the music. we will then wait in silence for spontaneous recovery to occur. then we will start the music again—pausing again with the advent of habituation. advantages: little work is required, and the music is easy to remember and perform. the strategy benefits from processing fluency, and minimizes habituation. current musicology 20 disadvantages: unfortunately, the music will be interrupted by long periods of silence. spontaneous recovery might take several minutes, hours, or even days. consequently, the strategy is not practical. strategy 4 approach: once again, the composer creates a short passage, which is repeated a relatively large number of times. however, with each repetition, the composer makes slight modifications to the passage. (let us call this the “variation strategy.”) advantages: somewhat more work is required, but much less than if the music were through–composed. the music is somewhat more difficult to remember and perform. the advantages for the listener depend on the extent of the variation. if the modifications are not too extreme, the repeated presentations will still benefit from processing fluency (although less so than for exact repetition). if the modifications are enough to escape “stimulus generalization,” then the likelihood of habituation is reduced. in short, this variation strategy has the potential to create rather long works that benefit from processing fluency while circumventing habituation. ostensibly, the strategy provides a potentially very good compositional approach for evoking high pleasure with minimal effort. disadvantages: the principal disadvantage is that more work is required to concoct the different variations. strategy 5 approach: in this strategy, the composer creates two brief passages. the passages are composed so that they are sufficiently contrasting that they can act as dishabituating stimuli for each other. repeat the first passage until habituation begins, then introduce the second passage as a dishabituating stimulus. repeat the second stimulus until habituation begins, then switch back to the first stimulus. repeat. advantages: since two passages are needed, this strategy requires double the amount of work compared with strategies 1, 2, and 3. however, this strategy requires considerably less work than the variation strategy. the music is relatively easy to remember and relatively easy to perform. for the listener, the pleasure is much longer than for strategies 1, 2, and 3. disadvantages: ultimately, habituation will set in. with each return to the previous passage, due to the history of past habituation and dishabituation, potentiation of habituation will occur. david huron 21 strategy 6 approach: this approach is the same as for strategy 5 with one difference. with each successive sequence of repeats, the number of repetitions is reduced in order to offset the possibility of potentiation of habituation. for example, the two patterns might begin with four repetitions each: a a a a b b b b a a a b b b a a b b a b. advantages: once again, the composer need only create two relatively brief passages. the music will be relatively easy to remember and perform. for the listener, the pleasure evoked can be very long compared with the other strategies. disadvantages: although habituation is significantly delayed, after a while, the material will be “exhausted” and habituation will be unavoidable. strategy 7 approach: this approach involves a further refinement. suppose you have heard four instances of “a” followed by a single instance of “b.” which passage (“a” or “b”) should follow next? that is, which of the two passages will generate the highest processing fluency? since the listener is more familiar with passage “a” than passage “b,” the greatest processing fluency will be associated with passage “a.” in other words, processing fluency is maximized by returning to a single passage and using the other passage principally as a dishabituating stimulus. consequently, the revised strategy would lead to patterns such as: a a a a b a a a b a a b a. advantages: once again, little work is required. the composer need only create two relatively brief passages. the music will be relatively easy to remember and perform. for the listener, the pleasure due to processing fluency will be greater than for strategy 6. disadvantages: compared with strategy 6, the approach results in slightly shorter music for the given set of musical materials. strategy 8 approach: our final approach adds a further refinement. when the musical material is finally about to succumb to habituation, this is the time to introduce yet another novel (dishabituating) stimulus. for example: a a a a b a a a b a a b a c a a b a. let us refer to this approach as the “rondo strategy.” current musicology 22 advantages: the strategy offers the same advantages as strategy 7 with the additional benefit of extending the length of the musical work with a minimum of additional compositional effort. disadvantages: compared with the other strategies, there are no readily identifiable disadvantages. *** starting with the twin phenomena of habituation and processing fluency, we have seen that these phenomena lead logically to three repetition strategies that appear well–suited to optimizing the amount of listener pleasure with a minimum of effort. one strategy we have referred to as the “trance strategy.” inspired by their similarity to common forms in western music, we have referred to the other two strategies as the “variation strategy” and the “rondo strategy.” the variation strategy hinges on the phenomenon of stimulus generalization—subverting habituation by making minor changes to repeated material while using similarity to tap into the positive feelings evoked by processing fluency. the rondo strategy hinges on the phenomenon of dishabituation— subverting habituation by introducing novel materials at crucial points, and shortening later repetition cycles to offset the potentiation of habituation. trance: the “trance strategy” produces a considerably different effect. habituation by itself does not negate the pleasure arising from processing fluency. recall that habituation is an attentional mechanism that exists in order to filter out low–information stimuli. the whole point of habituation is to free the mind from having to attend to redundant stimuli. when an environment ceases to be informative, the principal source of attention and stimulation switches to one’s own thoughts; in the face of highly repetitive sounds, the listener necessarily turns his/her attention inward. the ensuing experience therefore depends critically on the individual’s internal state including his/her cognitive interpretation of the experience. if a listener’s physiological arousal is already relatively low, then extreme habituation is apt to lower the arousal further. this can provoke nature’s most common response to a sustained changeless environment—sleep. alternatively, the listener may experience one of several relaxed unfocussed states commonly described as reverie, dreamy, or hypnotic. conversely, if the listener’s physiological arousal is high, extreme habituation might lead to trance, hypnotic stupor, or daze. once again, in the relative absence of external stimulation, the listener’s internal state and interpretation are crucial. studies of music–induced trance david huron 23 emphasize the importance of cultural context and cognitive interpretation in defining the experience (e.g., becker 2004; herbert 2011a, 2011b; jankowsky 2007; rouget 1985). if a person remains awake, the lack of novel stimulation might produce strong feelings of boredom, annoyance, or frustration. however, in the case of reverie or trance, habituation is not the enemy but the enabling key. processing fluency is given free reign, even as the listener is released from attending to the (uninformative) external world. depending on the listening context (including cultural scripts, personal attitudes, and physiological arousal), the extreme processing fluency may lead to a state of substantial pleasure, ranging from mild bliss to rapture or euphoria. cross–cultural patterns of repetition: in an informal cross–cultural survey of musical forms, we found a significant proportion of musical works that simply repeat a single passage over and over—from beginning to end. these forms appear to be especially commonplace in cultures associated with low or subsistence economic development, such as australian aboriginal music and the musics of native american origins. two types of verbatim repeated forms might be distinguished: those works that repeat the identical passage each time (what we are calling a “trance strategy”), and those (sung) works in which new lyrics are employed with each (or most) repetition(s). we might refer to the latter as a “strophic strategy.” european folksongs and psalm–singing provide ready examples of strophic forms in which several verses are sung to a repeated melody. to be sure, there are intermediate examples between strophic and trance forms. for example, the playground song 99 bottles of beer on the wall entails only a minor change of lyrics with each iteration. in the case of strophic songs, if the lyrics represent the principle point of interest—and therefore the principle focus of a listener’s attention—then the mental effect will be similar to a variation strategy. however, if a listener does not understand the language of the lyrics, or pays little attention to the lyrics, then habituation is apt to ensue quickly. a long, sung, strophic ballad may tend to evoke a trance experience. although the strophic strategy is common in western music, the trance strategy is much less common compared with some other cultures. the variation strategy and rondo strategy appear to be much more commonplace in western culture. what about the use of the variation and rondo strategies in other cultures? musical practices exhibit considerable variability between cultures. a priori, there would be little reason to expect similar patterns of repetition in musics from different cultures. however, the psychological principles described here are believed by researchers to be ubiquitous. the research on habituation and processing fluency spans all sensory modalities current musicology 24 (vision, olfaction, audition, etc.), and entails a wide variety of stimuli (bornstein 1989, 1990; thompson 2009). most especially, the research also embraces multiple species. as noted earlier, the phenomenon of habituation has been documented in a wide range of species, including humans and single–celled protozoans. if the claims of psychologists hold any merit, and if these phenomena commonly influence musical organization, then we might well expect to see evidence of similar strategies in other musical cultures. to this end, ollen and huron (2003) carried out a formal empirical study of musical organization in a broad sample of music from around the world. our aim was to test a specific prediction arising from habituation theory. it is common for music to exhibit large amounts of repetition. moreover, it is common for repeated musical passages to alternate. do we see any evidence of the phenomenon of the potentiation of habituation? that is, when a passage is repeated, do cycles of repetition tend to get shorter as the musical work unfolds? expressed as a hypothesis, we might predict that there will be a cross–cultural tendency for “early repetition.” the pertinent work was reported in ollen and huron (2003). here i will simply summarize that work. in ollen and huron (2003) we assembled a cross–cultural sample of fifty recorded works including calypso music, inuit throat singing, japanese new age, estonian bagpipe, punjabi pop, chinese guqin, navaho war dances, ghanaian drumming, spanish flamenco, australian didjeridu, hawai’ian slack key, kalimantan ritual music, north african berber music; macedonian, tuvan, turkish, ugandan, gypsy (romani), malagsy musics; as well as a selection of overtly western genres, including a baroque flute sonata, haydn string quartet, sousa march, ginastera piano music, miles davis jazz, romanian foxtrot, british war song, american bluegrass, cajun music, norwegian polka, easy listening, plus twenty similarly diverse culture sources. recorded materials were selected from a used cd retail shop that offered an extensive collection of international and world musics. the sample of music explicitly excluded vocal works whose repetition structures can be strongly influenced by the narrative or poetic demands of the lyrics. in addition, we sampled only those works that exhibited repetitive structures with identifiable units of repetition. exclusively improvisatory and through– composed works were omitted from consideration. we analyzed the repetition structure for each work following a standardized protocol. musical segments were assigned letter names, beginning with the letter a. variations of a unit were indicated by appending a number. hence, an analyzed structure of a a b a a1 c would correspond with a work whose opening segment was played twice in succession, followed by some novel material, a return of the opening segment, followed by a varied repetition, concluding with yet another novel passage. david huron 25 in the first instance, we observed a marked tendency to repeat passages: on average, we found that 94 percent of all musical passages longer than a few seconds in duration are repeated at some point in a recorded “work.” moreover, we found a strong tendency for repetitions to be clustered together. for example, if a recorded work contains just two main musical ideas (“a” and “b”), they are more likely to be arranged in a pattern like a a a b b b or a a b b b a than the pattern a b a b a b. compared with a random ordering of segments, real music exhibits a tendency to have “clumps” of repetition. pertinent to our hypothesis, we found a significant tendency to repeat more in the first half of recordings than in the second half of the recordings—consistent with a cross–cultural preference for early repetition. that is, structures like a b b b b c c b and a a a b c are more common than the reverse structures (a b b a a a a c and a b c c c). incidentally, the 94 percent figure cited above probably underestimates the amount of repetition in our musical sample. “repetition” need not be verbatim in order to convey useful predictive patterns. for example, the meter for many works is constant throughout the work. even if a work were constructed using pitch sequences without any repetition, the stable meter would still help listeners predict some elements of the music. another source of predictive patterning can be harmony. it is possible to construct a twelve–bar blues work without any verbatim melodic repetition. however, the underlying harmonic pattern will still provide an element of predictability that can be coded in memory. similarly, stable instrumentation can become a predictable element, since most musical works exhibit comparatively few changes of instrumentation. although ollen and huron (2003) showed a tendency for early repetition, this still leaves unanswered the question of whether listeners prefer music that exhibits early repetition. in a subsequent study (ollen and huron 2004) we carried out a pertinent perceptual experiment. the study made use of a series of 110 brief atonal piano textures that were specially composed for the study. the passages ranged in durations from 0.3 to 11.8 seconds. using these passages, we constructed short “modernist–sounding” compositions by randomly assembling a pallet of two or three segments. using the randomly selected materials, a composition was created following one of forty–four pre–existing forms (e.g., a a a b a a b a). for each created composition, a reverse symmetrical form was created (e.g., a b a a b a a a). forty–four compositions were created using this process, twenty–two employing a pallet of two randomly selected segments (“a” and “b”), and twenty–two employing a pallet of three randomly selected segments (“a,” “b,” and “c”). for each pair of stimuli, we used the same musical material. current musicology 26 having constructed our stimuli, twenty–nine listeners heard pairs of symmetrical forms and were asked to choose which of the pair they preferred. the order of the symmetrical forms was randomized for each participant. in addition, each participant heard entirely novel compositions constructed from different atonal passages. the results of the experiment showed a statistically significant perceptual preference for forms exhibiting early repetition. that is, a form like a a a b a was preferred to its mirror image: a b a a a. notice that the preference for early repetition we observed in our listeners may be an artifact of western enculturation. that is, listeners familiar with western music might simply be responding according to established patterns characteristic of western music. regrettably, no similar data has been collected for non–western listeners, so we cannot claim that a preference for early repetition applies to people from other cultures. this caveat notwithstanding, the experiment minimally suggests that early repetition is musically preferred—at least among one group of western–enculturated listeners. energetic music: recall from our discussion of habituation that intense or energetic stimuli are more resistant to habituation. there are good reasons why organisms might attend to especially energetic stimuli. consequently, energetic sounds can offset the loss of attention associated with habituation. the principal acoustical property associated with stimulus energy or intensity is loudness—although timbre, tempo, and other factors also contribute to the experience of intensity or energy. accordingly, increasing dynamic levels can help to forestall habituation, whereas decreasing dynamic levels accelerate habituation. especially for works that involve lots of repetition, organizing the work as an extended crescendo may prove useful. maurice ravel’s bolero and led zeppelin’s stairway to heaven offer illustrative examples. similar gains can arise through increasing tempo, and/or increased textural density or activity. 4. units of repetition in the discussion to this point, no consideration has been given to the duration of the units of repetition. in our examples of different compositional strategies, we posited passages of indeterminate but “brief ” duration. however, the same logic applies to both longer and shorter passages. as we have seen, habituation arises more quickly when stimulus repetition occurs in rapid succession. on the other hand, the longer the time delay between repetitions, the longer a listener goes without the hedonic benefit of prodavid huron 27 cessing fluency. so should the units of repetition be short or long? is there some optimum length or duration for a repeated passage? unfortunately, neither habituation theory nor processing fluency theory provides guidelines for estimating a potential optimum unit length. it may be that there is no optimum; moreover, if an optimum exists, it may prove to span a rather wide range. in the absence of any theoretical guidelines, we might simply turn to consider musical practice. in ollen and huron (2003) we analyzed musical repetitions in our world–music corpus using two different definitions of a unit or segment. one definition of a repeated unit was rather strict or narrow. we also analyzed the music using a less strict or broad criterion. in the case of the strict criterion, the average unit of repetition was 5 seconds in duration. in the case of the broad criterion, the average unit of repetition was 23 seconds in duration. using the broad criterion, complete works spanned an average of eight sections or units. that is, there was an average of eight large sections over the entire span of the work. however, these averages mask a remarkably wide range of units of repetition. in our world–music sample, the shortest observed unit of repetition was at the level of individual beats (i.e., less than a second), whereas the longest unit of repetition was over three minutes in length (194 seconds). as music scholars have long known, units of repetition in music commonly exhibit a nested or hierarchical structure (e.g., lerdahl and jackendoff 1983). it may be that such hierarchies allow multiple concurrent levels of repetition, and that each level facilitates processing fluency. indeed, it may be that processing fluency is the principal reason why nested hierarchies are favored in musical organization. apart from the duration of repeated units, musical organization also appears to exhibit a wide range in the degree of precision of repetition— whether the repetition is truly exact, or very loosely similar. these two forms of variability are schematically illustrated in figure 1. the horizontal axis represents the duration of the repeated segment; the vertical axis represents the perceived segment variability. segment variability is a subjective sense of the similarity of nominally repeated units: it ranges from exact “verbatim” repetition to successive statements of units that bear no resemblance to one another. in musical terms, we might dub the latter “through–composed” arrangements in which the music is constantly changing. in the lower–left corner is the metronome: each metronome click is identical, and the rate of repetition is typically fast, usually on the order of a second or less. towards the lower–right corner is the encore, where an entire musical work is simply played again. here the unit of repetition can be very long—the duration of an entire work. like the metronome, the encore represents a verbatim (or nearly exact) repetition. current musicology 28 figure 1: schematic illustration plotting various common musical forms with respect to two factors: the typical length or duration of repeated segments (horizontal axis), and the perceived variety between segments (vertical axis). for example, the clicks of a metronome are perceptually identical (“verbatim” repetition) and employ a short period of repetition (each beat), whereas the encore involves verbatim repetition of a whole (comparatively long) musical work. n.b. plotted items are only impressionistic. the upper–right region of the figure represents music that is mostly through–composed with very little repetition; when repetition occurs, it tends to involve longer units of time. program music is plotted near the corner. here, the organizing narrative tends to result in a through–composed work; the narrative itself often tends to limit the amount of repetition. finishing our tour around the periphery of the figure, we find the collage in the upper–left corner. popular in the early years of electroacoustic music, the collage involves brief recorded snippets that are edited together in a sort of pot–pourri of sounds. typically, the edited snippets are very short, and often, sounds are not repeated. moving horizontally along the bottom of the figure, we move from the metronome toward the ground bass. by “ground bass,” we refer here only to the repeated bass line. the repetitions are typically verbatim, but the period of repetition is somewhat longer than the metronome. trance patterns are commonly shorter in duration than ground bass lines. in its simplest form, the strophic song (strophe) consists of a series of repeated verses—placing it roughly midway between the metronome and the encore. where the unit of repetition for an encore might be many minutes, and the unit of repetition for a metronome less than a second, the strophic verse might range between 10 and 30 seconds in duration. david huron 29 when the words change with each verse, there is some degree of perceived variability in the repeated units—which explains why the strophe is plotted slightly above the horizontal axis. if a song employs a two–part alternating verse/refrain structure, then the variety is effectively doubled, although the unit of repetition remains roughly the same duration. the call and response genre involves units that are slightly shorter than strophic songs but is likely to exhibit an intermediate variety between the strophe and the verse/refrain. theme and variations (alternatively, “head and improvisations”) continue the movement toward longer duration segments with increased variety. by comparison, the rondo (such as exemplified by the dvořák slavonic dances) perhaps employs slightly longer units of repetition with less variety. an overture typically presents several different melodies in succession. the melodies are comparatively long, but they tend to be presented once or with few repetitions over the course of the work. compared with the overture, the melodies in a medley are usually assembled from more disparate sources and so are usually more varied or contrasting. an example would be enescu’s romanian rhapsodies, in which various melodies follow each other in relatively rapid succession. in comparison to a medley, the dance movements in a baroque suite are normally more contrasting. repetition may occur within the movements forming the suite, but the movements are commonly sequenced to form a sort of through–composed mini concert. near the ground bass we find groove, trance, minimalism, the chaconne and the passacaglia. as noted, trance patterns are commonly shorter in duration than ground bass lines. groove patterns are similarly short, although they tend to exhibit greater variety than trance patterns or the ground bass. in the case of minimalist music, the units of repetition are relatively short—on the order of a few measures—while the degree of variability tends to be minimal. the chaconne arguably tends to involve a shorter period of repetition compared with the passacaglia. returning to the upper–right region, most 12–tone music exhibits little repetition, and when repetition occurs the units tend to be short. where the collage tends to involve disjointed materials spliced together, the montage endeavors to tell a sort of sonic story (the electroacoustic parallel of program music). consequently, the segments tend to be longer with a greater probability of repetition than is found in musical collage. other plotted points include the long loop—such as the one–hour music tape played in perpetuity at a clothing shop. here the unit of repetition is a loop containing several individual works. it is important to recognize that the positions of the materials plotted in figure 1 are entirely impressionistic; they are not plotted on the basis of any measurements. to the extent that the figure 1 captures our intuitions current musicology 30 about musical organization, it illustrates the wide range of timescales for music–related repetition, as well as the high degree of variability in the precision of repetition. in short, musical practice does not appear to favor a specific frequency of repetition, nor does it appear to favor a specific degree of precision. this great variety is consistent with what is known about both habituation and processing fluency. both habituation and processing fluency are known to occur over many timescales, from seconds to days. 5. conclusion this paper has presented what might be dubbed the habituation–fluency theory of musical repetition. we have described two key psychological phenomena where repetition figures prominently: habituation and processing fluency. repetition leads to processing fluency, which in turn tends to evoke a positive hedonic feeling in listeners. however, repetition also leads to habituation in which familiar stimuli lead to a reduction in responsiveness. beginning with these two phenomena, we derived a series of compositional strategies. three strategies are of particular interest: the trance strategy, the variation strategy, and the rondo strategy. the trance strategy involves high levels of repetition that fully exploit the pleasure–inducing potential of processing fluency. however, high repetition induces habituation, which reduces attentiveness to external stimuli. the habituated listener tends to ignore the external world, and so tends to turn inward and focus on his/her own internal state instead. accordingly, the resulting experience is critically dependent on listener disposition including cultural context (becker 2004; herbert 2011a; rouget 1985). when listening to highly repetitive music, listeners may experience anything from acute boredom or annoyance to bliss or euphoria. the variation strategy involves a passage that is repeated with persistent slight modifications. according to the theory, the variation strategy hinges on the phenomenon of stimulus generalization. that is, sufficient changes are made to circumvent habituation while simultaneously ensuring sufficient similarity to evoke processing fluency. the rondo strategy involves sequences of repetition that grow shorter over the course of the work, with new material introduced sparingly. according to the theory, the rondo strategy hinges on the phenomenon of dishabituating stimuli. that is, new material is introduced at critical moments in order to forestall habituation, with the result that familiar material can be reused—with the attendant benefit of processing fluency. note that composite musical forms can be created by mixing the variation and rondo strategies. david huron 31 notice that in comparison to the trance strategy, the variation and rondo strategies are likely to produce more reliable psychological effects. due to habituation, the effect of the trance strategy is strongly dependent on the cognitive state of the listener. by circumventing habituation, the variation and rondo strategies are less reliant on listener disposition in order to achieve their effects. a characteristic feature of the rondo strategy is the reduction in the number of successive repetitions as a work progresses (a feature dubbed “early repetition”). an analytical study produced results consistent with the presence of early repetition in a heterogeneous cross–cultural sample of musics. evidently, early repetition is not limited to western music making. moreover, a controlled perceptual study produced results consistent with a preference for early repetition compared with late repetition—at least among a group of western–enculturated listeners. in considering the unit of repetition for music, we saw that the theory offers no guidelines for identifying an optimum duration. actual musical practice suggests a wide range of durations for the units of repetition. moreover, we saw cross–cultural evidence of nested or hierarchical repetition, which is consistent with the notion that processing fluency can act at many temporal levels concurrently. the habituation–fluency theory relies on the positive hedonic effect associated with processing fluency. it bears emphasizing that our assumption is not that pleasure is the ultimate goal of music making, nor that the evoking of pleasure ought to be a goal for music making. instead, the assumption is that the evoking of pleasure will inevitably be attractive to both listeners and musicians, and that one should not be surprised if much music making succumbs to these allures. nor should it be assumed that the positive feelings evoked by processing fluency represent the only source of music–related pleasure (huron 2005, 2010). finally, it must be noted that the discussion offered here is not intended to provide an exhaustive account of patterns of repetition in music, let alone of musical form in general. in the first instance, the subject of musical form entails much more than simply patterns of repetitions. secondly, we may expect that other psychological phenomena might ultimately contribute further insights regarding repetition in music. for example, no effort was made to address the experiences of performers or performer–listeners. that is, the theory presented here focuses exclusively on the experiences of music listeners. in the broad sweep of human history, music listening as a passive activity isolated from participatory music making is historically recent and culturally narrow (see, e.g., merriam 1964). in many existing cultures, especially those associated with developing economies, no distinction is current musicology 32 made between musician, dancer, and listener. consequently, focusing on the listening experience to the exclusion of the motor–behavior experience is necessarily limited. in defense of the restricted focus pursued here, much more is known about the psychology of listening to repeated acoustic stimuli than is currently known about the psychology of repetitive motor action, especially the social psychology of repetitive action in groups. in particular, there is little research dealing with the hedonics of movement—what motor actions and contexts typically induce pleasure in people who move. there may be important hedonic principles associated with repetitive motor action in social contexts that may potentially also shape music making. however, more basic research is needed in order to address the kinds of affordances pleasurable movement might contribute to the repetitive organization of music.1 notes 1. in the past, it has been common to misconstrue empirically oriented research as establishing verified truths about the world. it bears emphasizing that there is no empirical proof, either regarding observations, purported facts, or nominally explanatory theories. all claims are open to challenge and reinterpretation. 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musicking pirkko moisala, taru leppänen, milla tiainen, and hanna väätäinen in this article, we expand conceptually upon approaches in cultural musicology and ethnomusicology that conceive of music in terms of shifting textual signs and performances of cultural meaning.1 our aim is to propose some new ways of considering music in terms of relational events, doing, and becoming. we ask: what if music does more than symbolically mediate and represent worlds? what if music constantly comes into being and does things as part of intrinsically messy realities that consist of relations between a variety of processes and things: vibrations, sounds, sensations and feelings, human bodies and minds, non–human entities, words and meanings, spaces, movements and materialities, (re)arrangements of social organization and power, and more? how might our conceptions of music, on the one hand, and our methodological stances, on the other, reconfigure if we harness this kind of relational and inherently heterogeneous occurring as a starting point? our questions are inspired by the process thinking of french philosophers gilles deleuze and félix guattari and by the work of latter–day theorists who develop this thinking, such as rosi braidotti, claire colebrook, rebecca coleman, elizabeth grosz, and brian massumi. deleuze and guattari’s work can be regarded as an effort to contest transcendent ways of thinking. deleuze and guattari pursue this aim by aspiring to an ontology that is not grounded upon being but upon the processuality or primary dynamism of reality. in his early sole–authored work difference and repetition, deleuze equates being with becoming by stating that identities only emerge from repetition as difference: “returning is thus the only identity  .  .  .  ; the identity of difference, the identical which belongs to the different, or turns around the different” (1994, 41). this to say that things—whether human subjects, philosophical ideas, or musical formations—are not founded on an essence. their being, or identity, consists in their processual, and thereby inevitably varying, situationally actualizing, open–ended existence. being is the effect of (the return of) difference rather than difference being the effect of being (see, for e.g., deleuze 1994, 41, 55). the order between being and becoming gets overturned. better 72 current musicology put, the category of being loses explanatory power and dissolves into becoming. it is, indeed, becoming that will figure and be elaborated as the guiding concept of our theoretical reflections in this article, illuminated by examples drawn from our recent ethnographic work. deleuze and guattari’s theorizations have started to gain increasing attention in scholarship on music over the past decade (see bogue 2003; stivale 2003; buchanan and swiboda 2004; hulse and nesbitt 2010; macarthur 2010; redner 2010; thompson and biddle 2013; and campbell 2013). despite their best intentions, many of these studies still overlook the potential inherent in deleuzian and guattarian philosophy for rethinking music ontology. for instance, the collection sounding the virtual takes as a promising starting point the profound challenge that deleuze’s philosophy poses to “a discourse on music that is rooted in extended, object–oriented metaphors, or that presupposes dualisms between ‘the listener’ and ‘the music’” (hulse and nesbitt 2010, xvi). yet many of the collection’s articles delineate their subject matter conventionally as musical works created by one agent—the composer. similarly, edward campbell’s music after deleuze aims to demonstrate how deleuze and guattari “direct attention away from the agency of the composer to the mobile and transient forces active within a particular musical artwork or repertoire” (campbell 2013, 65). campbell claims to explore the multiple “rhizomatic” connections that operate “between concepts of music, social practice, the development of instruments and instrumental techniques, musical systems, notation, performance styles and practice, developments in technology, performance spaces, musical institutions, recording and reproduction of music, relationships with literature, visual arts and philosophy and innumerable other factors” (ibid., 36). however, he focuses mainly on musical parameters of pitch, timbre, tempo, rhythm, and duration, as well as on the insights deleuze and guattari offer for musical semiotics.2 in distinction from deleuzian studies of music as scores or structures of sound attributed principally to composers, our reflections adopt christopher small’s (1998) idea of musicking as a starting point.3 that is, we engage musics as acts that establish and emerge from sets of relationships in the places and times in which they are occurring. in small’s words, “it is in those relationships that the meaning of the act [of musicking] lies” (small 1998, 9). we expand small’s concept in this article in ways guided by concepts from deleuze–guattarian thought, with the aim of diversifying the relations and processes that can be discerned within musicking. in our examples, the notion of musical performance, central to small’s approach, takes on new forms and participants, stretching beyond its more established meanings. 73 pirkko moisala et al. up until now, most adaptations of deleuze and guattari’s thinking by music scholars have concentrated methodologically upon philosophy or music theory and analysis.4 unlike most previous deleuze–guattarian– inspired studies of music, our insights concerning the usefulness of their thinking arise from our ethnographic examinations of a variety of musickings, ranging from musical practices involving a deaf rapper, students of operatic singing, and indigenous women, to experimental dance and contact improvisation. we present short descriptions of these ethnographic projects later on in this paper to illustrate how deleuze–guattarian philosophy, especially their concept of becoming, has helped us to engage with and understand our research subjects differently, enabling new capacities for experiencing music, becoming with it, researching it, and grasping its emergences as part of socio–material realities.5 our ethnographic studies exist relative to recent work in cultural musicology and ethnomusicology on music as a contextual and signifying process. some of the key presuppositions of such studies begin to appear problematic from the vantage points of deleuze–guattarian thought. these include the priority given to meaning or signification and the primacy of human participations or agencies in musicking. we are keen to expand upon conceptions of music focused on signification, illustrating with our ethnographic examples that it is not only systems and processes of symbolic meaning–making that shape the relationships of musicking. the registers involved in relationships of musicking encompass a wider scope: musical becomings emerge within varying interplays of both material and symbolic or discursive forces. in fleshing out these deleuze–guattarian lines of research, we expand the focus from musicking in the context of culture and symbolic mediation to consider the constant becoming and actualization of musical occasions, which acquire corporeal and more broadly material, kinetic and tactile, aural and visual, spatio–temporal, and social forms. actualization is the always temporary outcome of becoming as the potentiality for being; actualizations unfold from becoming. actualizations are actual, accomplished acts, states of affairs, and so on, which are re–mobilized by the infinite processuality and differing of becoming (see e.g. colebrook 2005, 9–10). deleuze and guattari strive not to privilege the becomings of human existence at the expense of the wider living and inorganic world, which has been a recurring tendency in western philosophy. their concept of becoming seeks to acknowledge the varied ways in which diverse things exist as process, ranging from human bodies, concepts, and languages to, for example, microorganisms and animal species. their major collaborative work a thousand plateaus is replete with examples of becomings of 74 current musicology different kinds (see, for e.g., deleuze and guattari 1987, 7–8, 22–23, 39–74, 232–309). becomings intermingle: highly various things, stretching from human cultural expressive patterns to material resources and textures, may encounter, impact on each other, and thus become anew through their mutual co–productive relations. heterogeneous elements have situationally formed agency of their own kind, and they participate divergently in building and transforming existence in its material, social, and cultural dimensions.6 in this article, we refer to these other– or more–than–human processes that nonetheless intrinsically affect human becomings with the general term non–human.7 while the non–human is not the focus of our article, we will point out that non–human processes attain their own veritable agency, inasmuch as they can affect and be affected by other types of becomings, such as human ones. toward noticing musicking in her book ordinary affects (2007), kathleen stewart employs noticing as a methodological principle for approaching the surrounding worlds of which the researcher is a part. deleuze–inspired sociologists rebecca coleman and jessica ringrose have drawn upon stewart’s approach, arguing that “putting to work some of deleuze’s ideas about the world and ways of studying it might help to shed light on other ways of knowing, relating to and creating the world, ‘noticing’ . . . different kinds of things that might be happening, or things that might be happening differently” (coleman and ringrose 2013, 4).8 inspired by deleuze and guattari, and as one way of reaching toward new styles of observing, studying, and conceptualizing musickings as profoundly processual, always multiple, relational comings into being—as becomings—we suggest an associated epistemological and ontological shift from knowing music—being able to read its “codes” or pin down its meanings—to noticing musicking in its ever–fuller diversity and variation.9 in music studies, a move away from knowing toward noticing could be explained as a move away from certainty regarding what music(king) is toward a productive uncertainty that leaves room for new imaginings, research encounters, and methodological experimenting. thus, being sure about the kinds of activities that comprise musicking and the kinds of actors involved in those activities represents in our account the ethos of knowing. noticing, in its turn, proceeds from never being definitively sure of the features, qualities, or participants of musicking in the first place. it 75 pirkko moisala et al. seeks to move toward observing—and taking seriously—becomings, the unexpected, and what we will later call singular processes of differently situated musickings, including the researcher’s entanglements with them. thus, we suggest that noticing consists of efforts to remain open to the proliferating becomings and relations of music(king). it is one way to re–map both musics and methodological approaches in conjunction with deleuze–guattarian philosophy, particularly their notion of becoming. becomings cannot be known in advance or reduced in any straightforward manner to cultural and analytical features recognized a priori. in contrast to its more customary connotations, noticing, in this sense, does not primarily identify preexisting identities and structures “behind” occasions of reality. as a methodological guideline adopted in the ethnographic case studies that follow, it is more concerned with remaining open to the different agencies and interconnections that particular becomings of reality might include—“different” in the sense of different from what has already been encountered. defined in this way, noticing presents a means for reinvigorating research approaches to what musics can be and do—how they become. case study 1. noticing vibrations by becoming deaf when studying the musicking of signmark (marko vuoriheimo), a finnish rap artist born deaf into a signing family, i (taru leppänen) found that the concept of vibration allowed new becomings to emerge in connection to conventional ideas of musical authorship.10 signmark describes his music as party hip hop that takes a stand. he raps about the experiences and history of deaf communities and about his own experiences as a deaf person. signmark’s performances differ from those of more conventional hip hop artists because he does not produce sound while musicking. he performs by signing, moving, and dancing, while computers, sound equipment, amplifiers, and his human collaborators produce musical sounds.11 signmark’s live shows are always bilingual, performed using international sign language and spoken finnish or english—he uses sign language, and his collaborator brandon sings in english. signmark rhymes signs by ensuring the reminiscence of hand forms and signs, and he reinforces the signs with facial expressions. improvisation is an essential part of the overall package. low frequencies have a crucial function in signmark’s musicking. palpable vibrations help him to feel musical sounds and to adapt his signing and lyrics to a given rhythm. signmark has explained that he “finds 76 current musicology it easiest to feel instruments that produce low–frequency vibrations, such as bass, drums, and piano.” a strong bass line is an essential element in his performances, since it enables him to follow the music and time his rhymes. according to signmark, “[my] own realm consists of lyrics, message, and music in connection with the sense of touch. this includes basses and vibrations” (mattila 2014, translated from finnish by the author). signmark embraces musicking as a practice to be negotiated through bodily vibrations: “it is often thought that music is only for the hearing, but this is not true. the vibrations coming from the bass provide the rhythm that i use to connect to the music. i use my full body to tap in and visualize with emotions and bodily motions. if there is no motion, there is no rhythm” (cited in menon 2012). heard music evidently also consists of vibrations, but signmark mostly feels vibrations without hearing them as pitches or other sonic qualities. signmark’s musicking loosens the often–presupposed connection between music and hearing while manifesting the multimodal sensory becomings of musicking as vibrations. as deleuze argued, rhythm is essentially connected to sensation—“[s]ensation is vibration” (deleuze 2002, 39). signmark’s musicking consists, then, among other factors, of vibratory communication between human and non–human bodies. the sounds that he feels are generated by technology; the beats are made with computers and sound equipment. the vibrations disperse over human and non–human bodies as part of a shared formation of authorship. in so far as music is approached as musicking, its authorship is always shared. authorship does not reside in any individual body or subjectivity. it is rather an assemblage composed of manifold components. for deleuze and guattari (1987, 406), assemblages are provisional groupings of components that affect one another and co–produce reality without being subsumed under a totalizing identity. musicking often comprises agents, human and non–human, who are not directly producing sound. even if there is only one person singing, musicking involves, as signmark’s case illustrates, non–human capabilities and agents, such as technologies and vibrations. in my view, signmark’s musicking entails two specific kinds of new becomings in relation to the question of authorship. firstly, deaf musicians are rarely considered as authors in western music cultures or music studies; in this example, we can notice the becoming–author of a deaf musician through vibrations. secondly, signmark’s musicking creates a particular musicking assemblage that contains deaf and non–deaf bodies as well as human and non–human agents. the politics of these two kinds of becomings differ from each other. at a moment when deaf studies seem to be operating on the margins of western societies and music studies, recogniz77 pirkko moisala et al. ing the latter kind of becoming—the becoming of a musicking assemblage that entails distributed authorship—could appear to undo the possibility of recognition for deaf musical authorship and identity in conventional terms. however, i argue that these two kinds of becoming coalesce in the processes of becoming deaf and are both needed in order to acknowledge signmark’s and deaf musicians’ authorship. importantly, signmark does not want to pass as a hearing musician. rather, he both maintains and blurs the difference between non–deaf and deaf in his performances. in his musicking, deafness is not expressed as a disability. according to him (signmark productions 2014), “society should not treat the deaf as handicapped people, but as a linguistic minority with their own culture, community, history, and heritage.” instead of inhabiting a fixed deaf identity, signmark is becoming deaf while musicking. because of the open–ended and unpredictable nature of becoming, we cannot know what deafhood is. in considering becoming, we turn away from stabilized identities—from how deaf and non–deaf people are usually understood in the context of musical practices—to pay attention to change and transformation. a deaf or a hearing person is becoming–deaf when he or she is related to forces that are attached to deaf people. understood in this way, deaf and non–deaf people’s bodies are capable of affecting each other within signmark’s musicking. affect is “the chance, or variation, that occurs when bodies . . . come into contact” with each other (colman 2005, 11). signmark’s fans and audiences consist of both deaf and hearing audiences, and his performances give non–deaf audiences a possibility to become deaf. they, including me as a researcher, can celebrate deafness even if it is not experienced in their own bodies. becoming deaf does not mean becoming non–hearing or non–listening. becoming deaf denotes moving away from audism and from conventional ways of experiencing music in terms of non–deaf people. in the processes of becoming deaf, deafhood transforms from a restriction or confinement into potentialities for new becomings and actualizations. this process is enabled by understanding sound as “a vibration of a certain frequency in a material medium rather than centering vibrations in a hearing ear” (friedner and helmreich 2012, 6). in other words, when deaf and hearing bodies are musicking in signmark’s performances, they are no longer merely deafs or non–deafs. the co–action of their bodies enables subjectivities and embodiments that cannot be simply designated as characteristic of either deaf or hearing people. the above–offered ideas—of sound as processes of vibration, and of musical authorship as an enmeshment of human and non–human, multisensory activities—provide us with one means of thinking musically with 78 current musicology the deleuze–guattarian concept of becoming. what we tend to conceive of as (relatively) stable entities making up a musical reality can be understood to comprise processual becomings on a fundamental constitutive level. for instance: objects we may perceive as solid consist molecularly of vibrating particles; seemingly steady musical pitches are comprised of oscillating air pressure waves; and human bodies constantly re–form in terms of biological and psychosomatic processes, affective states, social framings, and situationally enacted capacities and relations. one of the ways in which deleuze and guattari shift western thinking from the prioritization of essences and being toward the primacy of processuality is by equating becoming with “the middle.” they write: “a line of becoming is not defined by points that it connects, or by points that compose it; on the contrary, it passes between points, it comes up through the middle.” “[t]o speak of the absence of an origin,” they continue, “to make the absence of an origin the origin, is a bad play on words. a line of becoming has only a middle” (deleuze and guattari 1987, 293). to sum it up simply, this connection drawn between becoming and “the middle” emphasizes that things do not begin from a point of origin and arrive at the next point–like state of being. rather, they are always in the midst of potential or actual transition, and this constitutes their manner of existing. the concept of vibration offers one means for grasping the “in the middle” nature of musical becomings. case study 2. singularities of operatic music–making: assemblages and experimentation musical events, expressions, and sound–making bodies become differently across occasions and settings of musicking. no two becomings or actualizations can be identical. this is because both the relations between the heterogeneous participating elements and the ways identities continually re–emerge vary from one moment to the next. difference reigns over sameness. becomings can hence be described as singular.12 singularity, for deleuze and guattari, refers precisely to the unrepeatability of any becoming and actualization in an identical form due to the primacy and returns of difference. as tom conley encapsulates it in his outline of deleuze’s understandings of the term, “[a] singularity is a unique point but it is also a point of perpetual recommencement and of variation” (conley 2005, 253). for us, these ideas raise some new questions: what could be music or 79 pirkko moisala et al. musicking as a singularity? how far will the concept of music stretch along these deleuze–guattarian lines? whose capacities (bodily, epistemic, and so on) are increased if we expand the concept of music in this manner? the ineradicable singularity of musical occasions—even when they concern the long–rehearsed performance of musical textures that have a detailed notated form and a lengthy performance history—became a key concern in our second example. this example concerns an ethnographic study that i (milla tiainen) conducted with students of western classical and operatic singing at the sibelius academy in helsinki. from the outset, my main interest within this project was how music takes shape as performance in the practices of operatic singers.13 my fieldwork on the students’ vocal studies and on their remaking of mozart’s così fan tutte in particular stretched over two years. i observed singers’ individual lessons, coaching sessions, ensemble rehearsals, and performances of così, and i conducted semi–structured interviews with the singers and some of their coaches. maybe due to my own past studies of classical singing, i entered the sibelius academy with presuppositions about how the authoritative figure of the composer and “his” elusive intentions, work– and notation–fidelity, musical canons and conventions, would shape the singers’ music–makings to a notable degree.14 the idea of transmitting the composer’s intentions and the preexisting musical work without disturbance, as it were, did sometimes appear during rehearsals and interviews. one student stressed, for instance, that he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to perform mozart’s così fan tutte with the elvis– and john travolta–inspired dance moves that the students’ remaking of the opera had come to include. mostly, however, the students’ music–making occasions and discussions broached an array of topics that diverged from work– and composer–centered tenets.15 closely following these singers’ practices, i became aware of a range of elements participating in their music–making that we might, after the deleuze–guattarian–inspired cultural theorist brian massumi, call “more–than–human.” with this expression, massumi (2013, xxiii) refers both to any number of contingencies that are not directly human but which affect human existence and capacities, and to the excess of “currently human potential.” through the latter formulation, massumi refers to the unpredictability of human futures and ways of being in local as well as wider historical and ontological senses. in my field material, more–than– human participants can be said to have been at play, for example, when the stage director suggested that one of the singers could search for a suitable kinaesthetic style for his aria by reworking the relationship between his body and the rehearsal room floor. echoing principles of movement improvisation, the director urged the singer to seek ways of putting his body 80 current musicology in contact with the floor—whether by crawling, by jumping, or by other means of occupying space and time—that would diverge both from his habitual bodily dispositions in classical singing and his embodied past in classical ballet. this exercise in reconfiguring one’s felt and enacted relation with a more–than–human material construct resulted in new body movements, which found their way into the singer’s choreography. a second example of more–than–human elements pertains to the repeated references that the singers made to the role of site acoustics in their musicking. one female singer underlined the radical change in her auditory and proprioceptive perceptions of her own voice that was brought forth by the transfer from the rehearsal room (“that basement”) into the performance auditorium (“a shower box”) in the final stages of rehearsals. in this instance, the more–than–human materialities of these two venues became an active—and in each case singular—part of the interrelating and co–productive elements from which my interviewee’s vocalizations, her (and others’) sensory experience of them, and the students’ rendition of così fan tutte emerged. while i had entered the field with an interest in the processual and interactive features of classical music–making, the examples above and many others greatly expanded my perception of the kinds of processes and relations involved.16 ethnographic immersion compelled me to notice, in coleman and ringrose’s sense, numerous variables or registers of operatic musicking that i had not acknowledged before. it initiated the need to turn to deleuze and guattari’s philosophy of becoming and to their specific concepts, such as assemblage, to better account for the occurring realities of operatic singing and performing. i became convinced of the fruitfulness of approaching these practices as always taking shape in the middle (in the ontological sense proposed by deleuze and guattari), instead of putting excessive stress on discipline, work–aesthetics, and other aspects more commonly associated with classical music. the ethnographic material had challenged me to rethink the very units of analysis: during the fieldwork, it started to seem increasingly important not to begin the analysis from individual musical textures, musicians, or even groups of performers; rather, it seemed crucial to ask what elements coexisted at a given moment, across divides (human/non–human or material/symbolic), and how each element appeared to emerge anew from this togetherness. in line with deleuze and guattari’s concept of assemblage, i could understand each new element or connection as qualitatively changing the whole constellation. in the process of noticing operatic music–making in terms of becomings and assemblages, i came to realize the prominence of experimentation in classical music culture. following deleuze and guattari (1983, 371), the 81 pirkko moisala et al. term experimentation refers to methods of doing and interactive arrangements that do not involve permanent rules, nor firmly defined preconceptions about hoped–for outcomes. each new experience is partly an experimentation in as much as it comprises an encounter between things—such as a performer, a voice, a space, and a listener—that did not exist before, and whose unrolling and effects cannot be exhaustively predicted. the singers’ practices that i researched were replete with experimentation concerning, for example, how different and situationally improvised modes of spoken address might—or might not—affect the workings of a particular singer’s voice and body during singing lessons. once, for instance, a teacher encouraged a student to re–imagine her body first as a well–rooted tree, and then as a “mother eagle” that spreads its wings, in order to discover a more relaxed mode of vocal projection. following deleuze and guattari (see 1987, 75–85), the language used about singing in this situation operated experimentally, as the teacher and singer explored what words can do to the singer’s voice/body and mental processes, and what her specific voice and body/mind can do in relation to the words in turn. instead of a hierarchical model with a composer and musical work on top, performers in the middle, and listeners at the bottom, the singers’ practices i engaged with disclosed a much more horizontal plane of varying, singular, experimental, and co–productive “in–betweens,” such as those between language and bodies, between voices, scores and physical locales, between fellow human sound–making and listening bodies, and so forth. case study 3. noticing musicking in the formation of common notions in my ongoing artistically oriented research on movement improvisation, i (hanna väätäinen) have used experimentation as a method of noticing music(kings) with the aid of deleuze and guattari’s philosophy. deleuze’s interpretation of spinoza’s concept of forming common notions offered me a way to combine artistic and scholarly work and connect music research with dance practice.17 deleuze understands spinoza’s common notions to be the art of “organizing good encounters, composing actual relations, forming powers, experimenting” (deleuze 1988, 119). the formation of common notions proceeds, in my study, from encounters of movement improvisers with their surroundings—with what they see, hear, feel and touch, as well as with concepts. these encounters, by chance, empower the improvisers in some respects, reflected in the qualities of the bodies 82 current musicology involved. i take common notions to be kinetic as well as conceptual—a way of moving or approaching a problem can be a common notion between two or several bodies. in this kind of experimental framework, musickings can be noticed in situations that do not involve performances of musical sound. dancing without music, or without sounds commonly defined as music, is typical in contact and movement improvisation. the practice of noticing musickings in such dancing can acquire a variety of forms—paying attention to the sounds of the dancing or of dancers’ breathing and clothing, to the thumps produced by their jumps and bounces, to the tramping of feet and the squeaking of wheelchair wheels. it can also mean noticing changes in the relations between dancers’ bodies and their surroundings. my current collaborator is anneli tiilikainen, a movement improvisation enthusiast who has a visual disability and who lives in the town of joensuu in eastern finland. during our encounters in 2013 and 2014, we combined verbal discussions with dancing in different locations. these encounters were documented on video camera and through written notes made after each session. we alternated between discussion and movement improvisation, using movement to respond to physical locations and to develop dancerly and theoretical ideas. the process resulted, among other things, in the formation of analytical movements or movement qualities—kinetic analytical tools for music research. experimenting and noticing in this research project involved inventing ways of making anneli tiilikainen’s ideas accessible for deleuze–guattarian–influenced music and dance scholarship and rendering deleuze–guattarian concepts accessible for anneli tiilikainen. it entailed developing scenarios for fieldwork situations, planning ethnographic encounters, and analyzing research topics in constitutive co–operation with research participants. in one fieldwork experiment, anneli tiilikainen and i watched a ten–minute short film on experimental dance titled point (directed by pirjo ojala). the film tells a story of a group of people with different disabilities finding their way from one floor to another in a finnish shopping center. while watching, we simultaneously danced with the film. during this dancerly viewing, anneli tiilikainen created rapid hand movements back and forth as a bodily and movement improvisational response to the film. we developed these hand movements as analytical tools, as ways of forming common notions between movement improvisation, questions of disability and access, and deleuze–guattarian philosophy. common notions in this context were ideas that enabled bodily movements and philosophical concepts to approach and adapt to each other, and to work collaboratively in the analysis. 83 pirkko moisala et al. anneli tiilikainen chose to describe her hand movements with the word “splintered,” relating the experience of touching a sharply textured or somewhat broken surface. she associated the shaking quality of the movement with the hostility of inaccessible places from the point of view of a disabled person. i later tried out this movement quality together with anneli tiilikainen in a market place, on a children’s playground, at a botanical garden, in a meeting room at a university library, in a listening room at a municipal library, and in her two flats, in order to see how it functioned as an analytical tool in these different locations, discovering what these places did to the movement and what the movement did to the places. we discussed the splintered quality of the movements in relation to the characteristics of the places and to the concepts of the smooth and the striated (generated by composer pierre boulez and modified by deleuze and guattari in a thousand plateaus).18 a back–and–forth movement can produce both a smooth and a striated space depending on who or what makes the movement and on what kind of relation the movement has to other parts of the assemblage (deleuze and guattari 1987, 474–500). “splintered” emerged as a third quality in addition to the smoothness and striatedness of spaces, one that reflects a way somebody experiences the combination of smoothness and striatedness in a particular space in my research, noticing musicking involved engaging a disabled dancer’s response to an inaccessible place. the fast back–and–forth hand movement articulates the ways in which anneli tiilikainen experienced the combination of smoothness and striatedness in the public spaces depicted in the short film that we watched and moved to together. noticing musicking entailed considering this splintered movement as a special kind of spatio–temporal process, bodily vibration, and site–specific relation between bodies and spaces—as a a dancerly way of musicking. case study 4. affects of musicking in my current ethnomusicological study of the āma samuha (mothers’ group) musicking of the gurung village women of nepal, i (pirkko moisala) have used the concept of affect to study how bodies and communities are influenced and reshaped in preconscious ways. as brian massumi explains (2009, 1–2), affect, according to deleuze and guattari as well as spinoza, can be understood as a basic transition, a qualitative change, in a being’s state and powers of existence. this transition cannot be perceived fully consciously, but it has a noticeable impact upon ways of acting, felt experience, and/or ways of thinking. on the one hand, af84 current musicology fect is conditioned by the accumulated history of the one undergoing the transition; on the other hand, it always occurs in contingent relations with other beings and bodies. affect is a reconfiguration of capacities of being—of capacities to feel, to participate in occasions, and to stumble across new connections, courses of action, and thoughts (deleuze 1988; massumi 2002). in our understanding of the term, in short, affect ultimately refers to movements of becoming. in november 2013, i did fieldwork in klinu, a mountain village in mid–nepal inhabited mainly by tamu/gurung19 people. it had been twenty years since my previous visit.20 at the outset, the village looked very much the same, with a few exceptions: all yards were clean, each house had an outhouse, and many houses received running water from a pipe in the yard. many men and some youth had mobile phones. tin roofs had replaced stone and thatched roofs, and a few houses had a small solar power system on the roof. instead of having to walk for two days to reach the village, it was now possible to drive close to the village by bus. the village soundscape was also much like before, filled with people’s shouts, the voices of chicken and roosters, goats, dogs, and water buffaloes, and the sounds of bird song. an airplane flying overhead once a day was the only sound of an engine to be heard. teenagers’ drumming and singing no longer echoed in the crisp evenings, because their parents wished for their children to concentrate on schoolwork. however, the same public music and dance performances were still arranged, such as the epic ghātu, which tells the story of an ancient king and his court, and the thetār of the youth, which are dance performances to popular tunes. all of these daily sounds can be regarded in deleuzian terms as rhythms that create the village milieu by providing it with consistency: “every milieu is . . . a block of spacetime constituted by the periodic repetition of the components” (deleuze & guattari 1987, 345). one of the most noticeable changes in the village soundscape was musical performances provided by adult women of the āma samuha (mothers’ group). twenty years ago, it was against the community’s social norms for older women to perform music in public. the singing voices of older women were considered ugly and, when some of the older women tried to join performing male singers, they were laughed out of the situation. i was told that the āma samuha was established after women gained a couple of additional hours of daily work–free time thanks to the installation of a water pipe that discharged them from carrying water. according to retired schoolteacher shova gurung, who was active in promoting and gaining legal recognition for the group, the process was gradual and not easy: “in the beginning, only a few of us would meet, to discuss the mothers’ group 85 pirkko moisala et al. and to make plans.  .  .  . we talked about how to develop the village, save its culture and how to establish a care center for elderly people in the old school. after several discussions, we decided to form a society. . . . it was very hard to form a formal mothers’ society because many people were against it, but i did not give up. finally, our society is now registered officially and we have legal authority [which is needed for establishing the care center]” (translated from tamu–kwai and nepali by tanka gurung and the author). the women collect money for charitable purposes by performing music on special occasions, such as weddings, to occasional visitors and villagers returning from work in cities or abroad. “we just come together and perform sometimes when there are guests and villagers working abroad who come to visit,” shova gurung explained to me. “gradually we save the money and use it for developmental work in our society and to help people in distress.” this practice is customary in tamu society; villagers never arrange musical performances only for pure entertainment. the custom is that the ones to whom the performance is addressed have to pay for the music. now the women had decided to do the same, arranging musical events in order to collect money for the needs of the village. at āma samuha performances, middle aged or older women sing and dance popular lok git and dohori songs, using two–headed cylinder–shaped mādal drums as accompanying instruments.21 some of the songs are of local origin, but most are learned from radio programs. all women present clap their hands to the music, most of them sing, three mādal drums circulate from one woman to the next, and two to three women at a time take turns as dancers on a small area in the middle of the crowd. tens of women take part in these performances; many told me how enjoyable it was to come and have fun (in nepali, ramailo garnu) together with other women, and i observed how enthusiastically women took part in these performances. the president of the āma samuha kashi gurung expressed how proud she was of the society’s accomplishments in the village: “the activities of the āma samuha make me feel great because women have power and they have achieved so many things in the village, such as the community house and the (buddhist] ghumba temple, and have raised social and cultural awareness [among the villagers]. we feel very proud and happy about this and we wish to do more” (translated from tamu–kwai and nepali by tanka gurung and the author). through āma samuha, village women are reconstituting themselves in their social and material lives. public music–making for the material gain of the village is providing them with a new empowered position in the village society. stating simply that āma samuha with its activities constitutes 86 current musicology a remarkable socio–musical change in the village could be the conclusion of my report. however, there is more to this event than women escaping and transcending social norms placed upon older and married women. rather than just changes in the gendered socioeconomic structure of the village being demonstrated at these performance events, the subjectivity of the women as well as the whole village milieu were becoming in new ways. when the middle–aged and older women first began to make music, they had to open their rusty voices to sing, train their hands and arms to play the double–sided cylinder–shaped mādal drums, and move their bodies in novel ways in order to dance.22 however, if approached through deleuzian philosophy, a musicking body is not only a corporeal human body; it is a body coming into being through relations, since bodies are affected and they affect through their relations (deleuze 1992, 625). examined from this perspective, becoming in these musical performances is less about encounters between discrete individual bodies and other (pregiven) entities than an event of emergent potentiality created by affective work. if approached as events in the deleuzian sense, these performances are not fixed entities with a clear beginning and end; they are “rather inside what occurs” (deleuze 1990, 147). the affective work of these musical performances is not only about the sounds, their human makers and listeners but, as an event, it involves the whole emerging milieu. according to the tamu worldview, engagements between humans and environments, as well as between human and non– human entities are holistic, connective, and relational (strickland 1982 and mumford 1990, 31). local deities and gods are approached for blessings, and the flowing water of mountain streams and human encounters with the contours of steep mountain slopes are involved in the formation and aesthetics of group singing and dancing. for instance, the frequently stated aesthetic ideal of musicking “salalā pāni page jastāi” maintains that excellent dancing and singing “flows like the water [in a mountain stream].” affects thus arise here from relations between the human and the non–human, the material and the immaterial, as well as the social and the physical. musicking creates encounters of sounds, environments, human minds and bodies, non–human beings and materialities, musical instruments and other material paraphernalia of the event. āma samuha performance achieves affective work by drawing the participants within its space and time, re–embodying, reorienting, and re–ontologizing them. furthermore, even though such a musical performance may seem to repeat an already– known pattern, as an event and when approached from the deleuzian perspective, it “does not bring back ‘the same’ but returning constitutes the only same of that which becomes” (deleuze 1994, 41). 87 pirkko moisala et al. examining āma samuha performance as an event from this perspective reveals the powerful agency possessed by the women performers and their singing, dancing, and drumming female bodies: the new expressive embodiments of these performers and the socioeconomic positions they have claimed for themselves through these musical activities, when connected with other materialities, cosmologies, and discursive forces, create affects and intensities that carry potential transformative vitality for the whole village milieu. there are already signs of how these women’s performances have begun to create a socially more equal and sustainable community. according to shova gurung, “in the past, it was the custom in klinu that only poor people should perform [music], and men used to say that women should not perform in public. but after we women united and have started to perform, not only the poor but everyone—women, the poor, the rich—can perform, with no division in performing.  .  .  . today, men do not boycott our performances, but they also support the mothers’ society” (translated from tamu–kwai and nepali by tanka gurung and the author). by approaching musical performances like these as affective events, one may witness the musical precedents of “a people to come.” epilogue. on noticing musickings in this article, we introduced lines of thought into our theory and ethnographic practice that strongly problematize a worldview premised on being—on things having an identity prior to their relations and occurrences in time. we sought to move beyond affording primacy to concepts of symbolic meaning and representation. inspired by deleuzian and guattarian radical process philosophy, we have proposed an alternative line of enquiry—noticing—that can open new possibilities for ethnographic studies of various kinds of musicking. it involves paying particular attention to becomings. in order to highlight the utility of deleuzian and guattarian thinking, we chose to provide brief examples from our own current studies that are linked to several areas of music research: popular music studies, art music studies, musical performance studies, dance studies, and ethnomusicology. we have examined how musicking bodies can produce new becomings of milieus; the importance of vibrations within rap musicking; the methodologically experimental creation of common notions in improvisatory dance; the ways in which non–human factors can participate in constituting musical events; and the ways that the significantly codified practices of western classical music are ultimately a dynamic confluence effect of diverse becomings. 88 current musicology supported by deleuzian and guattarian thinking, we took the approach that it would be beneficial to allow ourselves as music scholars an openness to new possibilities of encountering and grasping what composes the musickings we study, instead of mainly seeking already known structures and categories in relation to our research topics and fields. noticing itself required an epistemic and methodological shift from the predominance of meaning and acts of recognition (knowing) toward engaging with musics increasingly as becomings: as ever–processual relational events that prompt the concepts and methods of music studies to also become in new ways. we propose that notions of becoming, affect, noticing, singularity, assemblage, and experimentation can enhance understandings of musical practices by figuring them as ontologically open–ended in terms of their social and material potential. coleman and ringrose have noted that a deleuzian approach is “as much a mapping of what is impossible, what becomes stuck or fixed, as it is of flux and flow” (coleman and ringrose 2013. 9). elaborating on this, we conceive of the task of a music studies informed by the concepts of becoming and noticing to be about discovering what knowledges and identities related to musics we may have unnecessarily fixed, who or what these stabilized formations may prioritize or marginalize, and what as yet unrecognizable processes might be flowing within phenomena we thought we had grasped, which will propel our research approaches and engagements with musics into reinvigorated becomings. notes 1. this article is a product of our research project “deleuzian music research,” financed by the academy of finland and conducted at the university of helsinki in 2011–2016 (www. helsinki.fi/deleuzian). we wish to thank the anonymous readers and kip pegley for their valuable suggestions, as well as the swedish literary society in finland for the financial support provided to moisala’s study. 2. aspects of musical structure that can be identified in the score also have a central position in gregg redner’s (2010) deleuzian discussion of film music, which seeks to develop a methodology based upon and combining theories of music and cinema. 3. the concept of musicking has been very influential in the field of “new” musicology and cultural studies of music (see, for instance mcclary 2012, xi). 4. the challenge of deleuze and guattari’s thought to ethnographic mappings of musickings is reflected in the absence of ethnographic work drawing upon their thinking in existent music research literature. a notable exception is charles j. stivale’s disenchanting les bons temps (2003), which examines cajun music in encounters between a wealth of elements such as sounds, movements, lyrics, sensations, racial tensions, and different types of venues. jocelyne guilbault (2005, 2007) has developed the idea of musicking as a relational event. she uses the concept of audible entanglements to “foresound sites, moments, and modes of enunciation articulated through musical practices. so, far from being ‘merely’ musical, audible entanglements . . . assemble social relations, cultural expressions, and political for89 pirkko moisala et al. mulations” (guilbault 2005, 20–21). sally macarthur’s towards a twenty–first–century feminist politics of music (2010) echoes a similar ontological understanding of music to the one we explore in this article, although she does not use the concept of musicking as such and her study is not ethnographic. her study conceives of music as doing and action and interlinks multiple cultural and institutional factors, such as music education for composers, consumer culture, and concert halls. 5. more detailed discussions of the specific ethnographic projects that are discussed in this paper can be found in leppänen (forthcoming in 2017), moisala (forthcoming in 2017), tiainen (forthcoming in 2017) and väätäinen (forthcoming in 2017). 6. see, for e.g., alaimo and hekman 2008, 7. 7. this term has broad currency in so–called posthumanist or post human–centric research burgeoning in many disciplines of the human and social sciences, including literature, sociology, political science, performance studies, and, gradually, sound studies. for examples of recent posthumanist research, see braidotti 2013, bennett 2010, wolfe 2009, haraway 2007, and grusin 2015. the deleuze–guattarian notion of non–human becomings also has connections to the growing research strand of eco–/ethno–musicology. see feld 1982 and 1996, guy 2009, allen 2011, and pedelty 2012. 8. see also stewart 2007; and blackman and venn 2010. 9. deleuze and guattari’s process thinking includes some discussions of music. at its broadest, music, for them, “is not the privilege of human beings: the universe, the cosmos, is made of refrains; the question in music is that of a power . . . permeating nature, animals, the elements, and deserts, as much as human beings” (deleuze and guattari 1987, 309). on the other hand, deleuze and guattari often concentrate on composers and musical artworks—especially those of the western classical and modernist canon—while touching fleetingly upon performance practices, such as operatic singing. in this article, we mainly employ deleuzian and guattarian notions that do not stem directly from their writings concerning music. 10. sound studies theorist steve goodman (2012) has suggested that scholars should exceed the philosophy of sound with the ontology of vibrational force. in my study of signmark, i noticed how truly significant vibrations are in his creative processes and performances, which inspired me to elaborate on goodman’s suggestion. 11. when a rapper does not produce sound but performs by signing, dancing, and moving, his or her authorship might become questioned. in 2012, signmark was denied royalties by the finnish copyright society gramex. the reason for denying the royalties, according to gramex, was that signmark does not create sound. 12. such a statement does not ignore or downplay the development of habits or of relative regularities in the shaping of realities. 13. in terms of theoretical impulses, the project was inspired by and hopes to expand upon previous insights emphasizing the crucial place of performance in the very ontology of classical music (e.g. cusick 1994 and 1999; abbate 2004; and cook 2003). by the time the project began, performance had started to increasingly interest western art music scholars as a source for fresh music analytical findings and also as significant social processes within this musical field (see, for e.g., rink 1995 and 2002). yet, there was little research on opera as performance that drew on ethnographic methodologies. 90 current musicology 14. as landmark projects in music philosophy and feminist musicology demonstrated in new critical light already twenty years ago, these notions are integral to modern art music culture; their formation and the hierarchies they posit between composers and musical works, performers, and listeners must be untangled and challenged (see, for e.g., citron 1993 and goehr 2007). 15. to give one example, many of the singers and teachers were preoccupied with the role of bodily habit memory and proprioceptive experiences in “installing” musical textures in the vocalizing body, in detecting changes in the voice, and in unlearning “wrong” modes of sound production (e.g. vocal straining). 16. for more in–depth accounts of this research, see, for example, tiainen 2008 and tiainen forthcoming. 17. for more information on the use of artistic methods in music and dance research inspired by deleuze and guattari’s thought, see, for example, tromans 2014 and damkjaer 2015. 18. the concepts of the smooth and the striated refer to qualities of spaces and to the kinds of movements that different spaces enable. consider a fabric, for example, as a striated space and a felt as a smooth space. in principle, the movements of the yarns are different in these two spaces. in felt, the threads are entangled in a way that produces an open texture; the same kind of texture is not possible in a fabric, where a back–and–forth motion of the yarns implies a closed space. the smooth and the striated always intermingle, which means that there is something striated and something smooth in every space. 19. “gurung” is most frequently used in the scholarly literature and official administration, whereas “tamu” is how people call themselves in their own unwritten language, tamu–kwai. 20. i have done ethnomusicological fieldwork in this village several times since my first visit in 1975–76 (see moisala 1991). 21. lok git is a genre that was created by studio musicians and producers of the state–run radio nepal in the 1960s and 1970s to unify the diverse ethnic groups of nepal (grandin 1989). dohori git is a song duel that has become hugely popular in nepal during the last decade (stirr 2009). 22. for instance, chandi kumari gurung had not played any instrument before. “when i was young, i did not play mādal,” she explained to me. “i never played it. i never was taught to play the mādal, i just saw people playing and then learned from watching it. . . . when i now sing, play, and dance together [with other mothers], i enjoy it and feel very happy.” references abbate, carolyn. 2004. “music—drastic or gnostic?” critical inquiry 30 (spring): 505–36. alaimo, stacy, and susan hekman, eds. 2008. material feminisms. bloomington: indiana university press. allen, aaron s. 2011. “ecomusicology: ecocriticism and musicology.” journal of the american musicological society 64 (2): 391‒94. bennett, jane. 2010. vibrant matter: a political ecology of things. durham, nc: duke university press. blackman, lisa, and couze venn. 2010. “affect.” body & society 16 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minnespolis and london: university of minnesota press. tromans, steve. 2014. “cageian interpenetration and the nature–artifice distinction.” in artistic experimentation in music: an anthology, edited by darla crispin and bob gilmore, 197–202. leuven: leuven university press. väätäinen, hanna. forthcoming in 2017. “forming common notions in a kinetic research collaboration.” in musical encounters with deleuze and guattari, edited by pirkko moisala, taru leppänen, milla tiainen, and hanna väätäinen. new york: bloomsbury. wolfe, cary. 2009. what is posthumanism? minneapolis: university of minnesota press. variations ii: "escaping stagnation" through movement of signification elizabeth hoover variations v, a collaborative event by the merce cunningham dance company and composer john cage, premiered on july 23,1965 at lincoln center for the performing arts as part of the new york philharmonic's french-american festival. following edgard varese's hyperprism, pierre boulez's improvisation sur mallarme ii, and elliot carter's second string quartet, variations v contrasted greatly in composition and media with the pieces of the first half of the philharmonic's program. instead of orchestral instrumentalists performing live on their trumpets, cellos, and violins, recorded and radio sounds filled the concert hall through six speakers "distributed around philharmonic hall" (hughes "leaps" 1965:10); the choreographed movements of seven dancers occupied the stage; and filmed images projected on a screen behind them. the performance was an over­ whelming multimedia display, with no immediate connection between the various modes of artistic expression. this was not the case, however, as performances of variations v in the 1960s depended on a complex interface for the production of simultaneity between visual and aural media, as woven by multiple voices of artistic authority. this interface may initially be traced to cage and cunningham, and their shared desire to create a performance in which movement on stage set sound into motion. however, multiple collaborators contributed their electronic designs to make performances of variations v possible. to begin, a team of sound engineers created technology to mediate between motion and sound. the first piece of equipment was a fifty-channel mixer built by max mathews-an innovator in the field of computer and electronic music-one year prior to the french-american festival in 1964, for cage's new york philharmonic premiere of atlas eclipticalis. cage then called on a swedish research scientist at bell labs, wilhelm (billy) kluver, to construct a series of photocells. whenever a dancer passed in front of a light source on stage and interfered with a cell's reception of that light, the interruption would trigger a change in sound. to add to this method of electronic sound activation were twelve high capacitance antennae constructed by robert moog, yet another innovator of electronic music; each one taken into consideration by cunningham when he devised his choreographic design. sounds emanated primarily from two types of sources: tape recorders and radios. all of the tapes were created by cage before the premiere and currel1t musicology, no. 90 (fall 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 57 58 current musicology have been described as consisting primarily of "ambient sounds" (miller 2001:554). musician and composer frederic lieberman gathered radios from electronic stores on canal street and-along with james tenney and malcolm goldstein, also associates of cage at the time-acted as the team in charge of operating these sound devices. cunningham also attached contact microphones to props with which his dancers interacted during the performance. the recorded, radio, and microphone sounds were fed into mathews's mixer. cage and virtuoso pianist and composer, david tudor, sat at its dials. to complete the audio-visual collaboration were films and still shots supplied by american filmmaker stan vanderbeek, some of which were distorted by the video artist, nam june paik. this included clips from a film of a cunningham dance company rehearsal, as well as imagery from mid-twentieth century television and film produced in the united states. during the premiere performance these images were shown on one screen, their occurrence in time not influenced by the motions of the dancers. the technological innovation and interdependency between artistic media in variations v has posed serious problems for musicologists who depend on prescriptive notation and the authority of the composer to form histories of music. there was no musical score that the collaborators followed while performing variations v-the score that exists today was created by john cage in october 1965, three months after the premiere performance. subtitled "thirty-seven remarks re an audio-visual performance," the score lists just that-thirty-seven brief statements which specify certain resources, collaborators, methods of sound generation, and general attitudes in regards to its performance, such as "escape stagnation" (cage 1965:4). featuring no traditional notation, this indeterminate score has been interpreted as cage's own reflection on the collaboration, rather than a prescriptive series of directions for future performance. l problems with this interpretation have been confronted by musician and writer david p. miller, who points out, in an article on the performance practice of cage's variations series, that "indeterminacy is not synonymous with an absence of boundaries," but is "responsive to changing technological, art-historical, or sociological conditions" (david miller 2009:64). however, by using the score as a figure of agency-one that had not even existed for the premiere and for many of its performances in the united states before the european tour-miller also places all authority in the hands of john cage.2 as a result, aural forces take precedence over the visual, despite a dependency of both. leta miller has conducted the most thorough historical investigation of variations "ii, which reconstructs how the premiere of variations v came to be, and the challenges each collaborator faced in "a project in which technical elizabeth hoover equipment was so central to the concept of the work" (2001:555). through a number of personal interviews with many of the original collaborators­ those in the team of sound engineers and those in the team who operated the sound devices, miller continuously underlines the important role technology played as a figure of authority in the premiere. unfortunately, this agency of technological mediation is never explicitly articulated because miller avoids hermeneutical discussion. as a result, her article, as valuable as it is for tracing the conception, development, and reception of variations v during the 1960s, does not discuss it in terms of meaning. the purpose of this article is to move the discussion of variations v away from pure descriptive accounts-whether historical or in regards to performance practice-and towards an understanding of its cultural mean­ ing, the importance of which was ascribed by the new york times critic allen hughes only one day after the premiere performance: "in a sense variations v was a monumental symphony of the visual and aural banalities of our age and as such was highly successful" (1965). a derridean framework for the moment of performance the collaboration premiered and toured the united states during the middle of the 1960s, a decade which has never been characterized historically in terms of stasis. on the contrary, it is often historicized and described in terms of movement: in revolution, as going overseas to war, as moving "upwards" and embodied in social unrest.3 following hughes's claim, it would seem plausible to read the sounds, images, and gestures of variations vas referring to culturally significant topics of the time and thereby relate the collaboration to that which what was experienced as americans went about their daily routines. however, i am interested in the meaning revealed from such a semiotic reading-is it the same one that transpires in the time and space of performance? in the first half of this article i investigate the performance's sounds, images, and gestures, and historically contextualize them as signs associated with everyday environmental and ecological topics in the news that would have been experienced by americans during the 1960s.4 this reading, however, serves to demonstrate the futility behind such an abstrac­ tion of signification as a result of its inconsideration for indeterminacy, and its relationship to determined elements in the collaboration, principally the choreography of merce cunningham. i argue that variations v, as cage's last remark in his own "report" on the piece urges, escapes stagnation. during 1960s-era performances of the collaboration, the system of signification would have been projected through indeterminate interaction between artistic media, and it is through 59 60 current musicology this indeterminacy that i believe the collaborators succeeded as innovative activists. by creating potential intersections between media in space and time indeterminacy in performance functions as a method in which the experimental avant-garde questioned modes of social and political activism. the nexus between what a performance could be and how it was inscribed in time constitutes what i call the "culture of indeterminacy:' images, sounds, and gestures of nature, urbanity, technology, suburbia, etc., were shown and heard in a different way: overlapped, interrupting, and yet equal in relevance, no matter the media-a visual and aural critique of hierarchical projection. this essay will display that through the culture of indeterminacy, cage, cunningham, and the rest of the collaborators offered a different approach to the same set of political concerns as expressed in mass media. philosopher and cultural theorist jacques derrida offers a compelling framework to account for both signification and performance within the culture of indeterminacy through his writings on culture and literature. an analysis of cultural signification that persisted through signs in the multimedia display of the filmed version of variations v may ground the performance in the 1960s; however, it is the continuous play of relations during performance that needs to be considered in terms of understanding its cultural, political, and social meaning; that is, a stagnant surface can be broken to reveal a movement of signification. during the 1960s, this move­ ment was considered by derrida as differance: "it is because of differance that the movement of signification is possible only if each so-called 'present' element, each element appearing on the scene of presence, is related to something other than itself ... " (derrida 1982: 13). in the case of variations v, each "present element" -whether image, sound, gesture, or a relation between them-depends on "something other than itself" as a result of indeterminacy. the second half of this article thus refuses anyone reading of signs as it explores the role of merce cunningham's choreography for variations v in thematizing a derridean play of relations. in the influential paula higgins article "the apotheosis of josquin des prez and other mythologies of musical genius," higgins confronts the "genius" status of composers in the musicological community-what she postulates to be the motivating drive of josquin historiography-as a construction of barthesian myth. it is myth that creates a definition of genius as one who takes painstaking efforts, is devoid of technical error, and is, in essence, perfect and natural. "genius" historiography promotes the "creative trajectory as a strictly linear progression from the unskilled works of youth to those of consummate artistic maturity" (higgins 2004:474) which binds and paralyzes historiography to "great men" and their works. as gary tomlinson proposed in his article for a special edition of current musicology in 1993 elizabeth hoover about "approaches to the discipline": " ... we might try to see more clearly that categories such as 'work; 'art; 'the aesthetic; even 'music' itself are not truths given us by the world through which we and others must always conceive musical utterances but rather are themselves cultural constructions darldy tinted for us with modernist ideology" (tomlinson 1993:23). the central concerns of musicologists such as higgins and tomlinson­ both the fetishization of the composer and the musical work-mirror the undercurrent of my own argument and illuminate my use of a derridean lens for the study of a cagean collaboration. to elucidate differance, derrida employs the metaphor of the sheaf to rhetorically mark its "complex struc­ ture of a weaving" (derrida 1982:3). as a result of its woven assemblage as sheaf, there is nowhere from which to begin tracing differance. according to derrida, it puts into question "precisely the quest for a rightful beginning, an absolute point of departure, a principal responsibility" (derrida 1982:6, emphasis added by author). john cage penned his score three months after the premiere; however, performances of variations v depended on the collaborative efforts of sound engineers, the choreographer, dancers, visual artists, and the composer. although this collaborative effort could be likened to the "art worlds" of howard becker in which "a network of people whose co-operative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things, produces the kind of art works that the art world is noted for," (becker 1984:x), the end result and primary objective of such an art world ultimately relates back to the art object as work. in variations v i posit that its cultural, social, and political meaning-like differance­ cannot be grounded precisely because the collaboration is caught in between determinacy and indeterminacy in the moment of performance. sound, image, and gesture in variations v signifying environmental and ecological concerns two weeks before the premiere of variations v, adlai stevenson addressed the environment in his last major speech to the economic and social council of the united nations: "we travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, i will say, the love we give out fragile craft" (nash 1990: 187). although the philosophical and organizational beginnings of environmen­ talism may be traced to the early nineteenth century, and acts of conservation and preservation occurred throughout the first half of the twentieth, as riley e. dunlap and angela g. mertig state in american environmentalism: the u. s. environmental movement, 1970-1990, "these old and new issues began 61 62 current musicology to coalesce in the 1960s and gradually evolved into environmental concerns" (dunlap 1992:2). rachel carson's silent spring (1962), a series of articles in the new yorker analyzing the "wide-ranging impacts of pesticides on the natural environment and human beings" (dunlap 1992:2) served as the impetus for broadening the concern for the environment and also ecology at the opening of the decade. by 1965, public concern, expressed on local and regional levels, was slowly answered by government legislation.5 these local stories serve as a possible route of signification that could have been related to the sounds, images and gestures of variations v depending on the indeterminate relations that unfolded. drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drop. the most pervasive sound in the filmed performance of variations v is that of water dripping on a drain. it is one of the first sounds introduced, and often interrupts and overcomes other sounds as more and more enter the aural arena. water was also a dominant topic in the news in 1965; so much so, that the persistence of the dripping drain in variations v could be read as taking part in this conversation. in 1948, congress enacted the federal water pollution control act (fwpca) in recognition of the threat of polluted water, and in aim of expanding federal regulation of the nation's water resources. this regulation was expanded through the water quality act, signed by president lyndon b. johnson on october 2, 1965.6 although the wqa was passed after the premiere performance of variations v, the act had been in local newspapers since the spring of 1965. the washington post briefly mentioned senator edmund muskie's (d-me) warning to take action and ensure an adequate supply of clean water for a "booming population" at a luncheon of the northern virginia on april 29, 1965. muskie introduced the act to the senate earlier and endorsed it by stating that the wqa of 1965: "will help bring our national program of pollution abatement and control up to date and to put ourselves in a position to deal with the problems of the future" (l965:f6). the value of water entered the minds of many americans by the sum­ mer of 1965 as the northeast continued to experience a drought, which was ongoing for several years. as the snow melted in early march, the low water table raised fears of a severe summer water shortage: a fear that grew by april when mayor robert wagner of new york city called for the stiffest restrictions in years to aid conservation efforts. on april 11 , 1965, the new york times reported: "they will leave the streets dirty, may cause lawns to turn brown, should silence thousands of dripping faucets, change the tooth­ brushing habits of the young-and save a minimum of 50 million gallons a day" (curbs 1965:1). the mayor was hopeful that these efforts would help nyc deal with a storage system that was predicted to be at only 65 percent elizabeth hoover capacity by the end of spring runoff by june. this prediction turned out to be more hopeful than the actual capacity that resulted, as indicated in a headline in the times on the third of that month: "city's water supplies fall to 55 percent of capacity" (benjamin 1965:37). by the end ofjune, the city began to weigh the option of using water from the hudson river, which could be made possible by rebuilding a pumping station that had once been located at chelsea. as the water situation for the state became more dire by august, other cities-most notably philadelphia-started to feel the effects of the water shortage, the federal government was finally called in to take action. bearing in mind the location of cage and his collaborators in new york city, it appears as if the sound of water in variations v could have carried with it a specific association to the contemporaenous topics of preservation, conservation, and shortage. many images within the variations film carry connotations of the natural or of nature, including multiple photographs of outdoor landscapes featuring trees and mountains, an image of a herd of sheep, a photograph of a beetle, and close-up images of sedimentary rocks. as more americans became active in environmental reform in the 1960s, the government also turned its attention to issues of land and air. in november 1965, the environmental panel of the president's science advisory committee ad­ dressed the growing pollution problems and the necessity of establishing environmental quality standards. 7 according to the columbia guide to america in the 1960s, "reformers saw the government apparatus and ratio­ nal application of science and technology as a means by which to protect both the human and natural world" (farber 2001: 275-76). not only did membership in the sierra club more than double from 16,000 to 33,000 members between 1960 and 1965, but new groups also formed, such as the chesapeake bay foundation (1966).8 johnson's administration received the reform called for by these organizations, as it paralleled the president's vision of a "great society," described in a speech delivered on may 22, 1964 at the university of michigan: we have always prided ourselves on being not only america the strong and america the free, but america the beautiful. today that beauty is in danger. the water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. green fields and dense forests are disappearing. (johnson 1964) 63 64 current musicology the importance of preventing an ugly america was continuously "sup­ ported in legislation that would limit air, water, and solid-waste pollution," beginning with the land and water conservation fund and the wilderness act of 1964, followed by: the wqa (already discussed above); the clean air act (1965), which established a mandate on including pollution control devices on automobiles; and also the air quality act of 1967, concerned with industrial air pollution. in the wilderness act, 9.1 million acres of land were labeled as "wilderness" and protected in national forests. the act also defined the concept of the "wilderness" for the first time by a federal government: a wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. (1967)9 many of the panoramic views of outdoor landscapes in variations v feature no human "visitors," except for the photograph of the herd of animals in which some men are present. they appear to be suggestive of johnson's conception of a natural and untouched wilderness; and, when these images are contextualized into the time period in which they were shown in perfor­ mance, they could be interpreted as signs of johnson's political agenda. of particular note in regards to these landscapes is the presence of mountains, and their possible association to storm king mountain, a mountain of the hudson highlands that had been in the news since 1963. in january of that year, consolidated edison proposed a project to the federal power commission that called for an 800-foot long power house, reservoir, and transmission lines to be built around the base and behind storm king mountain. to intervene with the power commission hearings, a small group of citizens who believed the project threatened not only the cornwall water supply and fisheries of the hudson river, but also the natural beauty the scenic mountain landscape, created the scenic hudson preservation conference. despite their efforts, in march of 1964 the commission granted a license for edison's project. scenic hudson and the surrounding towns con­ tinued to protest and the joint legislative committee on natural resources intervened. 10 as storm king mountain appeared frequently in the headlines of the new york times, it became more familiar to americans as they went about their daily routines, transforming into a symbol of environmental concern. the repetition of mountainous landscapes in variations v could have been linked with that of storm king and the environmental controversy in which it was enveloped. elizabeth hoover the imagery of johnson's american wilderness could also have been heard in variations v. throughout the performance different sounds which evoke the outdoors are incorporated, including: cawing birds, crickets, growling, and even sheep baa-ing. the piece's gestures have ties to nature as well. when cunningham first enters the stage in the filmed performance of the collaboration, he carries with him a plant. as soon as he places the plant on the ground, he begins to pull the leaves; however, after ten minutes he returns to the plant and begins to put its leaves back on. carolyn brown also tends to the plant: instead of removing leaves and then putting them back on, however, she brings it a new pot. after filling it with crumpled newspaper, brown releases the plant from its original pot by breaking it with a shovel. once she frees the plant, she then replants it in the new one, anchored by the newspaper. now the plant is grounded by paper earth. the attention cunningham and brown devote to the plant could be decoded as any number of different readings; however the amount of time dedicated to it-over ten minutes if all of the moments with the plant are added together-point to the significance of engaging nature, or what seems to be a product of her natural environment (perhaps it is just a plastic plant), with the movement of human bodies. differance and the play of absence and presence images of outdoor landscapes, the act of planting or gardening, and the sound of water, aural, and visual signs were not unique to the concert halls in which variations v was performed: they were sights and sounds experienced everyday by its audience members. they inhabited, however, a positive conception of time and space, events that were of a fully self­ sufficient realm, closed in representation. although these images, sounds, and gestures may have acted as socially encoded signs, were these cultural, social, and political meanings necessarily the same as those to arise during the act of performance? in the act of performance, indeterminate interaction is essential for creating sound and its relation to image and gesture. the political, cultural and/or social signification resulting from such interplay between differing media cannot be grasped, unless the dialogue is considered as existing as always and already possible; and what is always and already possible is not always present. therefore, to speak of any sort of meaning, and of political and social meaning in particular, one must also consider spaces of absence, the spaces of mediation in performance which did not occur, but could have occurred, and could always occur. in the next performance, for instance, how will these spaces change? which interactions will be absent and which will 65 66 current musicology now be present? it is the continuous play of absence and presence during performance that needs to be considered in terms of understanding cultural, political, and social meaning for variations v. as derrida states, "in the system oflanguage, there are only differences," there is no fixed system of difference (with an e): "these differences play ... " (derrida 1982: 11). and, this play of difference between differing/ deferring, temporization/ spacing, and absence( outside )/presence(inside) allows for a movement in regards to signification. differanee hosts this movement and is "movement according to which language, or any code [including musical], any system of referral in general, is constituted 'historically' as a weave of differences" (derrida 1982:12). cunningham's voice and the sheaf of differance to elucidate this "weave" of differences, derrida compares his analysis to a sheaf: ... 1 would like to attempt, to a certain extent, and even though in principle and in the last analysis this is impossible, and impossible for essential reasons, to reassemble in a sheaf the different directions in which i have been able to utilize what i would call provisionally the word or concept of differance ... the word sheaf seems to mark more appropriately that the assemblage to be proposed has the complex structure of a weaving, an interlacing which permits the different threads and different lines of meaning-or of force-to go off again in different directions, just as it is always ready to tie itself up with others. (derrida 1982:3) the concept of the sheaf is what foregrounds a derridean play of dif­ feranee in performances of variations v in the mid -1960s. to understand this complex structure is to address the individual agents in charge of the different aspects of sound, image, and choreography: the sound engineers, john cage, david tudor, james tenney, malcolm goldstein, and frederic lieberman; the lighting designer, beverly emmons; merce cunningham, the choreographer; and visual artists stan vanderbeek and nam june paik. variations v brought together many artists and musicians; however, these individuals took part in an intricate web of relations, a metaphorical derridean sheaf that consisted of potential interactions between multiple modes of media that featured indeterminate and determined elements. crucial insight into the multimedia design of variations v can be gained by considering the responsibility of cage's equal partner in conceptualizing the piece, choreographer merce cunningham. knowledge of his agency in the structure of the sheaf of differanee puts into question "precisely the quest for a rightful beginning, an absolute point of departure, a principal elizabeth hoover responsibility" (derrida 1982:6). cunningham's insistence on detailed accuracy was known by all of hid­ dancers. according to gus solomons, a performer in variations v, "clarity of movement was all there was ... it forced us to be absolutely precise" (miller 2001 :555). it is no surprise that cunningham had a detailed and determined vision as to the choreographic events for variations v. he expressed this vision through a multitude of personal notes, currently held at the merce cunningham dance company archives in new york city. incorporating these notes into the discussion of the collaboration helps for understanding the space of the stage, the agency of choreography, and its interaction with sound and image during performances of the 1960s. to speak of the sheaf of differance in variations v, i turn to the last ten minutes-the point of cunningham's choreography given the title, "aerial sweeps." in the film: cunningham walks on stage from the front, stage right. there is the quiet dripping of water on a drain. an image of a pueblo is projected behind cunningham on a screen. one after another the dancers follow imitatively. they jump, step, skip, jete, and leap, dispersing from the back stage left of the the stage, and to the front. a boat's low horn sounds. and again. now there is an abstract painting projected behind them; it switches to graph paper. there are two films: one of an airplane taking off, over and over again; and one of cunningham dancing. the dancers perform the same balletic actions in repetition. radio noise, quiet voices, and loud vacuum-like sounds. carolyn brown is the last to finish the sequence. (author transcription, 2010) cunningham's sketches for the ''aerial sweeps" demonstrate the extent to which the choreography was predetermined. he outlined a specific order in which the dancers gathered together, dispersed in movements, regrouped, and moved across the stage in repetition. after arranging an order, they should "sweep" the area of the stage with the movements of their bodies four times and regroup three times. see cunningham's eight instructions listed on the bottom of figure l.this drawing also includes the initials of the four male dancers (cunningham, gus solomons, albert reid, and peter saul) and three female dancers (carolyn brown, barbara dilley lloyd, and sandra neels) for variations v, along with dashed lines along the sides of the stage and straight lines diagonally across the stage. even though it is not clear as to what dancers followed which lines, it is clear that they did follow them as routes across and around the stage, determined by cunningham before the premiere performance. this is also evident on another pair of sketches devoted to the ''aerial sweeps" (figure 2). similar to figure i, this drawing of the stage by cunningham also features diagonal and horizontal lines; however, there are half as many, 67 68 current musicology figure 1: notes detailing the choreographic "aerial sweeps" in variations v; specifically the order of sweeping and regrouping. merce cunningham, choreographic notes for variations v, 1965, page not numbered. merce cunningham dance company archives, new york, ny. photograph by author. reproduced by permission of david vaughan and the merce cunningham dance company archives. \ figure 2. diagram of the choreographic "aerial sweeps" in variations v. merce cunningham, choreographic notes for variations v, 1965, page not numbered. merce cunningham dance company archives, new york, ny. photograph by author. reproduced by permission of david vaughan and the merce cunningham dance company archives. elizabeth hoover figure 3. list of instructions for the individual movements of the dancers in the "aerial sweeps" in variations v. (merce cunningham, choreographic notes for variations v, 1965, page not numbered. merce cunningham dance company archives, new york, ny. photograph by author. reproduced by permission of david vaughan and the merce cunningham dance company archives). and the routes for the dancers do not consist of any dashed lines. on the right-hand side of the page, the initials of all seven dancers appear again. initially they seem to correspond to a list of eight instructions, beginning with "bl, 1.) jete big & small." further down this list however, the initials stop lining up with the balletic gestures, and some numbers are not even given a corresponding movement, even if they are assigned an initial. as a sketch, this drawing demonstrates a "working out" of the space of the stage for the "aerial sweeps" design. following the drawing seen in figure 2, there is an accompanying page provided in figure 3. 11 it is a more finite list of eight instructions in regards to the dancers' movements: side leap & turn [(also rep. with leg stretched to the side on 3) 1 & 2 & leg lift circle; jump into att. & rise jetes: one large & one small-(also: with collapse on 3) (also in circles around antennae) beats: beat etc/run & repeat step-step-ieap & change direction (slalom) 69 70 current musicology step-step-ieap & change direction (slalom) step-step-ieap & skip (with arms); also add au to rear & close leaps in circles around poles drawn choreography (stick figures) on this page cunningham does not assign anyone dancer to each of the eight instructions. although the dancers "arranged an order," as so directed in the first instruction of figure 1, all were expected to "sweep the area:' through an examination of his multiple sketches for these instructions, cunningham's "aerial sweeps" demonstrate an intricate eight-part dance event that was repeated ("swept") four times after the dancers initially ar­ ranged order, and regrouped thrice. the event only lasts about two minutes, as indicated on the bottom right-hand corner of figure i, as well as in one of cunningham's charts for the order of all of the choreographic events of variations v as printed in his book changes: notes on choreography. 12 while watching these two minutes on film, they seem full of sporadic ideas; however, after examining cunningham's notes on the movements of the dancers, the choreography is no longer seen as random, but highly staged. cunningham's drawing shows a consistent setup: the musicians, labeled "jc/dt" (john cage/david tudor) on one diagram are always on stage right in a rectangle. he also draws one screen on the back to represent where the images were to be projected; this implies that the drawings were prepared for the premiere performance, and not the subsequent tour in europe, in which multiple screens appeared. the number of antennae on figure 2 also points to this conclusion: there are twelve, instead of the six that traveled overseas for the european tour. cunningham always had a concern for the agency of his counterparts: not only did he incorporate the possible presence of films and photographic imagery behind his dancers, but he also wove his choreography around the censors, which indicated the production of sound. the web of authority pertaining to sound comprised an intricate system of checks and balances. although cunningham's choreography acted as an agent of authority that called on sound to occur whenever a dancer passed a photoelectric cell or antenna, neither the choreographer nor the dancer could determine the parameters of the resulting sound, how loud or soft it would be; nor how long it would last. john cage selected the tapes that were operated by james tenney, malcolm goldstein, and frederic lieberman: he thus chose the taped sound world. yet even though cage preselected the types of sounds, he relinquished control over their order and occurrence: whenever the dancers triggered an antenna or cell, tenney, goldstein and elizabeth hoover lieberman chose how to operate the tape recorders, thus selecting the actual sounds from cage's gamut. this choice by all men was done improvisator i­ ally, as recollected by many of the original collaborators. in an interview with leta miller, for instance, goldstein reminisced: "i operated the tapes in the spirit of not knowing what would come out." 13 as a check on the authority of everyone involved with the sound world were sounds that emanated from twelve short-wave radios-sounds obviously not able to be predetermined by any collaborator. adding to the authority of the men controlling the tape recorders and radios were cage and david tudor at the dials of mathews's fifty-channel mixer, the function of which was to control the amplitude and duration of the output of all sounds. as soon as the mcdc dancers initiated the "aerial sweeps," any taped or radio sound could have resulted, as controlled by james tenney, malcolm goldstein, frederic lieberman, david tudor, and john cage. although the images were not triggered by the photoelectric cells or antennae, the same may be said of the relationship between the choreography and the order and timing of the visual imagery, produced by stan vanderbeek and nam june paik. the order of the imagery in the premiere performance was predetermined by vanderbeek before the premiere. this order was then played straightforwardly with no relation to the antennae and photoelectric cell system. in the filmed performance, however, a woman (possibly beverly emmons, the lighting designer) operates the film reel and appears to assert control in regards to the order and frequency of filmed imagery. the images however, are never activated by the movement of the dancers. conclusion i began discussing cunningham's choreographic role in performances of variations v during the mid -1960s through a description of the 1966 film: a two-minute segment titled "aerial sweeps."whereas cunningham's choreography would remain relatively the same for each performance, as his detailed notes demonstrate, the indeterminate parameters of sound resulted in indeterminate interaction between sound, image, and gesture. consequently, a description of variations v could instead read as: cunningham walks on stage. a short second of silent air. a photo of an as­ sembly line followed by a portrait of an old man. one after another the dancers they follow imitatively. they jump, step, skip, jete, and leap, dispersing from the back, stage left of the stage and to the front. the sound of a dripping drain interrupts the sound of a vacuum. now there is geographical map projected behind the dancers; it switches to graph paper. there are two films: one of a coffee commercial; and one of cunningham dancing. the dancers perform the same balletic actions in repetition. an operatic tenor and the faint sound of instrumental music. carolyn brown is the last to finish the sequence. 71 72 current musicology to continuously describe the multitude of possible interactions between sight and sound in variations v is to miss the point: it is impossible to "reas­ semble in a sheaf the different directions ... " of differance. instead, variations v evokes the derridean sheaf, woven by a complexity of determined and indetermined relations, which fosters the play of differance, and a movement of signification. as the authority is passed and overlapped, the interaction between the images, sounds, and gestures changes. this foregrounds the movement of dijferance, which cannot "be" or "exist": precisely because it is caught in between the "present" relations of the collaborators, the presence of the sounds, gestures, and images they make, and the "absence" of indeterminacy. as historically contextualized in the first part of this article, the sights and sounds in variations v demonstrated an interest in the same ecological concerns as those addressed in mass media; however, the collaborators for variations v widened the limited perspective of single media outlets (newspapers, the television, the radio) and united them on one stage. by no means were these images, gestures, and sounds only ecological in concern: multiple topics in the news, on television, and on the radio could have appeared in concert halls in which variations v was to be performed in the mid -1960s: the point is that what they signified was always and already possible. to understand the movement of variations v is not to grasp just the politics of representation in the presence of its sights and sounds, but also the signification that could result through the potentiality of the culture of indeterminacy. the slippage of dijferance allows for any number of ecological, political, or technological statements. through this derridean play, john cage, merce cunningham, and the rest of the collaborators of variations v critically engaged with american culture during the 1960s. notes 1. for instance, this claim has been made by william fetterman in john cage's theatre pieces: notations and performances (amsterdam, netherlands: harwood academic publishers, 1996; 130). 2. leta e. miller provides the complete list of tour dates in the united states and in europe, as given to her by the archivist at the merce cunningham dance company archives, david vaughan, in her article, "cage, cunningham, and collaborators: the odyssey of variations v." before the creation of the score, variations v was also performed at sundance, upper black eddy, pa, july 31, 1965 and c.w. post college, brookville, ny, august 20, 1965. 3. see john robert greene, "we'll have the opportunity to move upward: the great society of lyndon b. johnson;' in america in the sixties, (new york: syracuse university press, 2010) for his discussion of movement "upward" by johnson in his speech at the university of michigan on may 22, 1964, in which johnson stated: "in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich and the powerful society, but upward to the great society" (greene 2010:68). see also m.j. heale, the sixties in america: history, politics and protest (chicago: elizabeth hoover fitzroy dearborn publishers, 2001), edward p. morgan, the 60's experience: hard lessons about modern america (philadelphia: temple university press, 1991), terry h. anderson, the movement and the sixties (new york: oxford university press, 1995) for discussions of the social unrest, activism and political movements of the 1960s (including their relation to war); beth bailey, "sexual revolution," david farber, "the silent majority and talk about revolution," and "the new american revolution: the movement and business;' in the sixties from memory to history, ed. david farber (chapel hill, nc: university of north carolina press, 1994) for essays on movement in terms of revolution; and, terry h. anderson, the sixties, 2nd ed. (new york: pearson/longman, 2004) for a general introduction to the 1960s in terms of movement. 4. the filmed version is a filmed performance in hamburg while the merce cunningham dance company was on the european leg of its tour with john cage, david tudor, and gordon mumma in 1966. before the performance begins, there is a five minute introduction by the producer hansjorg pauli in german. the film was co-produced by norddeutseher rundfunk, hamburg and sveriges radio television (1966) and has not been released commercially by the meree cunningham dance company on dvd (such as the most recent release in february 2011 of meree cunningham danee company/robert rausehenberg featuring suite for five, summerspaee and interseape). it is available through the dance in video series by alexander street press as a streaming video and also through 16mm film reel the new york public library for the performing arts, mgzhb 20-85. 5. it was not until 1970, that environmentalism became a national movement, with the "transformation formalized by the national celebration of earth day," (dunlap 1992:2) and a support base of 20 million participants. 6. according to the united states environmental protection agency, the act "provided for the setting of water quality standards which are state and federally enforceable; it became the basis for interstate water quality standards." the importance of these interstate regulations was called "the most controversial provisions of the new law," ("federal role" 1965:10) by the wall street journal on the day the act was signed. the water quality act "double [ d] the dollar limit on individual city projects to $1.2 million from $600,000, and double [d] that for multi-city projects to $4.8 million from $2.4 million;' ("federal role" 1965:10) in the grant program for sewage-treatment plants. 7. in this address, the environmental pollution panel pointed to a broadening impact of pollution: "the pervasive nature of pollution, its disregard of political boundaries including state lines, the national character of the technical, economic and political problems involved, and the recognized federal responsibilities for administering vast public lands which can be changed by pollution, for carrying out large enterprises which can produce pollutants, for preserving and improving the nation's natural resources, all make it mandatory that the federal government assume leadership and exert its influence in pollution abatement on a national scale." (nash 1990:196). 8. "history: sierra club timeline;' sierra club, accessed marc h 3, 2011, http://www.sier­ raclub.org/history/timeline.aspx. 9. "wilderness act of 1964;' wilderness.net, accessed september 27, 2010, http;lllwww. wilderness.netl index.cfm ?fuse= nwps&sec= legisact&error404#2 10. "in a letter to the federal power commission the committee unanimously expressed its view that granting a license to the consolidated edison company to build a hydroelectric plant on storm king mountain would be 'contrary to the best interests of the people of new york state'" ("new hope" 1965:24). 73 74 current musicology ii. cunningham's choreographic notes for variations v consisted of 47 pages; however they were not n umbered, and were kept in order in a file folder by the merce cunningham dance company archivist david vaughan. the folder was labeled "variations v." 12. the ''aerial sweeps" is listed as the eleventh event of twelve and lasts approximately 2 minutes 29 seconds. no page numbers are given in notes: changes in choreography. in an interview with jacqueline lesschaeve, cunningham was asked about the way in which he "composed" this book. cunningham responded: "it was just notes on dances, which were never complete notes since they were sometimes sketches, sometimes indications of steps, sometimes fairly full instructions about the dance; or they were simply line drawings that i'd made to give me an indication of course in it, and the writings were not so much articles as they were notes for lecture demonstrations. everything was overlaid, one on top of another as you've seen if you've looked at the book. two points about that: the idea was to make a presentation that was comparable in a way to some of the dances i make. in the book where the dances are simple, the pages about them are simple, and not overlaid necessarily. where the dances themselves are complex then things are overlaid and it is in that sense that it was com­ parable to the dance." (cunningham 1985:29). for his section on variations v cunningham overlaid his sketcheslinstructions/notes on top of his typed description of the collaboration on top of black and white photographs: a "complex assemblage" of text and image. 13. telephone interview conducted with malcolm goldstein by leta miller on july 31, 2000. references 1965. "curbs on water imposed in city; stiffest in years." new york times, aprilll. 1965. "federal role in fighting water pollution is strengthened by bill signed by johnson." wall street journal, october 4. 1965. "new hope for the hudson." new york times, february 27. 1965. "water may be problem." the washington post times herald, april 29. anderson, terry h. 1995. the movement and the sixties. new york: oxford university press. -2004. the sixties, 2nd ed. new york: pearson/longman. bailey, beth. 1994. "sexual revolution," david farber, "the silent majority and talk about revolution," and "the new american revolution: the movement and business," in the sixties from memory to history, ed. david farber. chapel hill, nc: university of north carolina press. becker, howard. 1982. art worlds. berkley: university of california press. benjamin, philip. 1965. "reservoir levels continue to drop: city's water supplies fall to 55 per cent of capacity." new york times, june 3. cage, john. 1965. variations v (thirty-seven remarks re an audio-visual performance). new york: henmar press. cunningham, merce. 1968. changes: notes on choreography. new york: something else press. --. choreographic notes for variations v. 1965. [47j leaves. by permission of david vaughan and the merce cunningham dance company archives, new york. --.1985. the dancer and the dance: mcree cunningham in conversation with jacqueline lesschaeve. new york: marion boyars inc. derrida, jacques. 1982. margins of philosophy. translated by alan bass. chicago: university of chicago press. dunlap, riley e. and angela g. mertig. 1992. american environmentalism: the u.s. elizabeth hoover environmental movement, 1970-1990. philadelphia: taylor & francis. fetterman, william. john cage's theatre pieces: notations and performances. amsterdam, netherlands: harwood academic publishers, 1996). 130. greene, john robert. 2010. "we'll have the opportunity to move upward: the great society of lyndon b. johnson," in america in the sixties. new york: syracuse university press. heale, m.j. 2001. the sixties in america: history, politics and protest. chicago: fitzroy dearborn publishers. higgins, paula. 2004. "the apotheosis of josquin des prez and other mythologies of musical genius." journal of the american musicological society 57 (3): 443-510. hughes, allen. 1965. "dance: created on stage: cunningham rides bike for 'variations v." new york times, july 24. --. 1965. "leaps and cadenzas." new york times, august l. johnson, lyndon baines. 1964. "the great society," american rhetoric: top 100 speeches, accessed september 27, 20 i 0, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbjthegreat society.htm. lucy, nial. 2004. a derrida dictionary. malden, ma: blackwell publishing. miller, david p. 2009. "indeterminacy and performance: practice in cage's variations." american music 27 (i): 60-86. miller, leta e. 2001. "cage, cunningham, and collaborators: the odyssey of'variations v.'" musical quarterly 85 (3): 545-567. nash, roderick frazier. 1990. american environmentalism: readings in conservation history. 3rd ed. new york: mcgraw-hill publishing. tomlinson, gary. 1993. "musical pasts and postmodern musicologies: a response to lawrence kramer." current musicology 53: 18-24. 75 current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 moten. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 229 licia’s lectures on nothing fred moten when nothing is left on earth to feel the warmth of the sun when no one is left on earth to invoke god when not even pain will be felt on earth there will only be a flame and that flame will be love, love, love! to begin again. considering its lugubrious content, it seems odd, more than forty years later, that the music industry and listening public frantically celebrated “nothingness” in this very melodramatic way. the muscular symphonic orchestra rushed to keep pace with the singer who had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and literally came out of the nowhere that was puerto rico to latin america, the united states, and the world. licia fiol-matta, the great woman singer, 1 and god said let there be a little light: and there was this little light of nonbelonging, lucecita and her “génesis.” her light is given brightest in an incoherence she bears. it’s not that lucecita can’t but that no one can be the voice of the nation. having already shown how the nation can’t have a mother, licia fiol-matta shows us that the nation can’t have a voice, either. women, in being continually enjoined to do the impossible, are irreducible to that imposition, which is why and how they carry the extranational flavor and desire of the nation’s refusal, its nonperformance. licia allows us to hear lucecita’s perfectly deviant moral perfectionism (the truth; the objective account of the good life which is, eventually, crystallized into a sense of the absolute necessity of freedom): i have only one weakness / which i share with all my might / i must be free. i want to be perfect. i am not pro-independence, i am not a nationalist, i am nothing. the only thing you can’t allow is to have your freedom taken from you because then you become nothing. i must be free. i desire freedom. i want to enjoy freedom. i have a taste for liberty. i can taste it. i can feel it in my mouth. freedom is very sweet. the mouthfeel of freedom. evangelical perfectionism, neither identification nor plenitude, but truth in transport, suspension, via signal not symbol, having refused the readily legible. there is a discourse on nothing, on nothingness and nowhere, with which licia begins. is the lyrical content of “génesis” really lugubrious? what about that little drum figure, that husky-voiced intro to a bombast of strings and woodwinds? isn’t it the music and not the words that threaten too sweetly to overwhelm. what would it be for nothing to be left on 230 current musicology earth? this pop-zen attitude hit the english-speaking world a couple of years later with john lennon’s “imagine,” also echoing a convergence that had already occurred in don cherry’s 1970 mu, re-echoed a few years later in billy preston’s “nothing from nothing.” but “the nowhere that is puerto rico” is where it all begins, remaining special, as it were, in the manmade persistence of the storm. what is the nature of this sub-national, antiand ante-national, international nowhere? if we consider the residual insurgency of the historical irrelevents, as zbigniew brzenski calls them, which greil marus famously recites in his history of punk music, lipstrick traces, then lucecita is a punk artist, as much as the slits, in being more + less than a “great woman singer.” more precisely, she exemplifies that proto-punk thing that constituted the insurgency that punk came along to mourn in its recrudescent whiteness. this is almost like the historical transition and loss of the lower east side, which will have already occurred by the mid-seventies, if you’ll forgive that weird sleight of hand with tense and case, a subjunctivity already buried. what was the mood of the times? the loss will have occurred long ago. if it occurs, the loss will have occurred long ago. the absolute nothing of dissolution, of ceasing to be, which “génesis” evoked, gave way to the relative nothing that the singer claimed for herself, when she informed the public that it could not dictate what she was. “i am nothing,” she said in 1974, furiously and presciently. she was not legibility, but potentiality. she could not be generalized. she was singular. that’s what she meant when she said, “i am nothing” (3). she pits a supposedly general anxiety regarding nuclear apocalypse against a singular assertion of a non-generalizable self. but what if lucecita’s position in all this is the other way around—a refusal of geo-politics that is also a refusal of self? in this regard, being nothing is more + less than singular. it undermines that math, that structure of accounting, its spatiotemporal constitution. and this will have moved by way of the specific gender-non-conformity of a richly internally differentiated, puerto rican anti-colonial and internationalist anti-nationalism. can there be a shared anti-nationalism that mobilizes certain features of nationalism on its behalf? what would the dangers of such expediency be? if the nation has a queer mother is it stillborn or, deeper still, mutant? must it have certain developmental delays or disorders? perhaps it’s disorder will have been total, in a fanonian sense. and this disorder must be thought with greater intensity in the wake of unnatural disaster. what if the thing people think they want to call decolonization is an effect, finally, of these subnational ensembles and (non)performances, these errant underdevelopments 231 fred moten that emerge when the antiand ante-nation is handed, as spillers might say, by the mother? of course, the normative discourse of nationhood is deeply committed to a certain fixation on and of the mother, her necessity troubled by a vulnerability she constitutes in being-constitutive. but here, the nation is disfigured by a kind of patriarchal absence or eclipse even within the general atmosphere of the settler’s patriarchal order. it’s like lucecita is the dissident star of the moynihan report, her diminutive female masculinity constantly subject to a diminution she won’t take, an infantilization her deviant function will have actively failed to bear. it’s like las nietas de nonó literally obliterates the mathematics of a single subject’s relation to nation and the boundaries that structure what it is or is not to be a singer. the iconic figure of the nation, of national womanhood, just won’t work out. what if the first move of decolonization is to accept this monstrosity, this disfiguration? this is a modified arturo escobar/ manfred max-neef kinda question regarding the necessity of the embrace of and the continual differentiation and cultivation of underdevelopment, something which the current intensification of disaster, which is a disaster of development, not underdevelopment, itself only further intensifies. it makes you want to consider, again, national moral perfectionism and the future (im)perfect—an action that will have been completed at some point toward which we incompletely tend with errant precision. puerto rico will have developed, or will have been developed by, when? what if the end of the world that lucecita finds in the song is not so much marked by extinction but by the refusal of development, of a certain national perfection? perhaps the imperfect future of or in the voice coincides with that which hasn’t happened yet. lucecita would bear this—even as she shows that kind of singularist moral perfectionism that licia shows—as something not quite bearable. what if self is not only in defiance of the nation but also its secret sharer, its accursed share, its irreducibly necessary instrument, element and remainder? “nada,” as licia teaches us, is also “that’s it,” or that’s all, or that’s the end— enough of all that. it is equivalent, in a way, to elis regina’s “el todo,” at the end of some live versions of “águas de março.” it’s like all or nothing at all, each the other’s ally or double or deconstruction in the refusal of the (every)thing. this brings us to myrta silva. this brings us, with licia, to the great woman singer’s discomposing embellishment of (male) composition, as in what betty carter does to neal hefti or cole porter; what lucecita does to guillermo venegas lloveras; what myrta does to rafael hernández; what elis does to tom jobim. licia amplifies myrta’s longrunning making of much ado about nothing—and it runs not just through 232 current musicology psychoanalytic and semiotic protocols of disavowal and (de)signification but against the grain, by way of but also in excess of kaja silverman and shoshona felman, showing how this making of something out of nothing always tends to undermine the seduction of meaning within phallic economies and the reduction of non-meaning in psychoanalytic interpretation. in other words, licia hips us to how myrta brings off—in getting the nation off, or in getting off the nation—the seduction that non-meaning bears in/as sound and gesture, rhythm and glance, in what j. l. austin calls “mere accompaniments of the utterance.” jack halberstam says, the diva is she who transcends the norms of performance. we might also say: she is she who discomposes; or, she’s2 who mobilizes nonperformance. the voice as a thinking object. thinking is myrta working that low register, alongside big maybelle, say, or, in another way, sarah vaughan. what’s cool is just the way myrta says “nada.” she uses her whole face. or, there is a mutual discomposition of face and voice in defiance of portraiture. what’s cool is the production of a sound and a persona—through and against voice and face or, at least, their reduction to (national or personal) identity. “personare,” as damien-adia morassa would say, with regard to machado figure 1: myrta silva performing “nada” on the banco popular special in tribute to an ailing rafael hernández, 1965. she is seen leading the band. 233 fred moten de assis, but, somehow impersonal, or more + less than personal. radical impersonation, radical ante-nationality, a hyperreality to which myrta ought not be reduced but which she seduced into a non-normative, nondesertified fecundity, as the queer, more + less than rational productivity that marks the un(der)development of the nation. licia teaches us how to want nothing but that! current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 285 composing breathtails (a song cycle in 21 breaths) anne lebaron #1: unleashed in the composer candy store my good fortune: a commission from mutable music for baritone thomas buckner, with some unusually open conditions: no restrictions on duration, instrumentation, or delivery time. there’s more: an invitation to engage in a collaboration with a living poet. #2: breath – at the center i immediately envisioned a piece with a central role for the shakuhachi (japanese bamboo flute),1 simply because i adore the instrument and its earthy and ethereal colors. sonic images of breath–driven sonorities emanating from the shakuhachi, combined with the human voice and its infinite variety of breath sounds, grew to include strings—the most “vocal” of western instruments. my desire to explore the notion of breath in this composition led to a collaboration with poet charles bernstein, culminating in a series of fierce, witty poems. essentially a secular treatment of ruminations on the breath, the poems embody references, often quirky, to yoga, buddhism, and meditation. #3: why breathtails (as opposed to breathtales)? charles bernstein suggested this title. it immediately struck me as perfect for the piece. by his own admission, charles is obsessively drawn to the “wrong” version of a homophone. in response to my query about the tail/ tale business, he clarifies: “the sense of tales of breath is there, irrevocably. for our work, it’s a call to attentiveness, slight shifts of spelling creating other meanings. but also trails of breath that one leaves if you could make the breath, say of the singer, visually manifest itself like smoke rings from a cigarette. for some reason i also think of dragon tails in ancient chinese paintings . . . or angel tails.” (personal communication, july 9, 2013) for me, the title conjures yet another image, of wispy echoes of sound left in the wake of the shakuhachi music. current musicology 286 #4: 21 poems i was fixated on a total of 21 poems due to my attraction, for numerological purposes, to the number 3. i wanted a compound number that could reduce to 3 when the digits were added. the number 12 seemed to be too small, and 30 too large—hence, 21, manifested in different ways throughout the piece. indeed, the basis of song 11 is that poem’s 21–line structure. #5: counting breaths how many physical breaths were required to complete breathtails? an investigation, using low–tech and esoteric math, led to some surprising results. consideration: my first email inquiry to charles bernstein: oct. 19, 2007 (2:32 pm) final delivery of the musical score to tom buckner: aug. 11, 2011 (2:06 am) the 1392.5 days between those two events resulted in the inhaling and exhaling of approximately 36,093,600 breaths—a number sporting some intriguing properties.2 how did i arrive at this figure, 36,093,600? 25,920 = approximate number of human breaths in a 24– hour period (each “breath” consisting of one inhale/exhale); 1392.5 = number of days between my first email to charles bernstein and the date of score delivery; 25,920 x 1392.5 = 36,093,600 breaths! #6: gift of time why did it take all these millions of breaths, spanning nearly four years, to compose breathtails? inter–ruptures: illness prior creative commitments teaching underscored by: no deadline anne lebaron 287 #7: january 20, 2013 today the sun–drenched wind whistles and whirls, a serendipitous quasi–sostenuto. gliding to–and–fro on a swing my husband built overlooking the grand sweep of green valley, california, immersed in the rush of earth’s breath in all her infinite nuance, i’m inspired to recollect the construction of breathtails in reverse gear. #8: nourishment from the cosmos which brings me to rudolf steiner.3 what he wrote about breath: “man’s breathing is a living expression of the course of the sun.”4 what he advised before falling asleep: to recount, in reverse, one’s activities of the day. (and, for teachers, prior to sleep, he suggested an additional step: invoking the likeness of each student, and regarding that image with love.) #9: wind, bamboo, wood although i first encountered live shakuhachi performances during a visit to japan in 1983, recordings i heard a few years earlier of toru takemitsu’s works, especially november steps,5 left an indelible impression. some years later, during the 1996 international computer music conference held in hong kong, i attended a concert where riley lee6 performed works for electronics and shakuhachi. hearing the instrument in this contemporary context, particularly with an electronic component, was a revelation. i couldn’t imagine, at that time, that i would eventually not only write for the instrument, but would perform and record (on my harp) with a player. this came to pass when i held the visiting darius milhaud professorship current musicology 288 at mills college where kiku day, a shakuhachi player, studied composition with me. during the period that i taught at mills, kiku and i, along with koto player kanoko nishi, made a studio recording of trio improvisations.7 i subsequently asked kiku to perform the shakuhachi part in my opera, wet, which was produced at redcat in los angeles. 8 the sounds of the shakuhachi are of this world and yet, otherworldly. the fuke sect of zen buddhist monks in japan, known as “priests of nothingness,” were renowned for their shakuhachi performances of “honkyoku” songs.9 for them, the shakuhachi was a spiritual instrument. paced to their breathing, the very act of playing it was a meditation. indeed, when i listen to shakuhachi music, i find myself transported, enveloped in an aura of all–pervasive calm. therefore, it seemed natural to conceive of an instrumentation for this composition that included shakuhachi. after all, it would be written for tom buckner, a gifted and fearless singer equally adept at performing notated and improvisatory music (and everything in between), and a committed supporter of composers and musicians. i began to imagine the shakuhachi functioning as a bridge, connecting the string quartet to tom’s voice. bamboo, the plant from which the traditional shakuhachi is constructed, is extremely versatile. while used for culinary preparations, medicinal treatments, textiles, paper, and musical instruments, it’s also valuable as material for construction, sometimes replacing wood. this similarity to wood aligns the shakuhachi, in this respect, with the wooden instruments of the string quartet. yet it is essentially a wind instrument, bringing it into the sphere of the voice. unlike western wind instruments, the shakuhachi has no metal components, being constructed solely of bamboo. in this way, it has a direct affinity with the human voice: both are elemental, yet also essentially complex, despite their apparent simplicity. when composing breathtails, i didn’t wish to impose extreme demands on the player. rather, i wanted to allow the instrument to bloom with a natural clarity, while coloring the voice, the strings, and sometimes the poem itself. while designing the form and other elements of the piece, prior to the actual composing, i primarily listened to recordings of tom buckner singing, as well as both traditional and contemporary solo shakuhachi music. score study was essential, and i found frank denyer’s scores to be especially helpful.10 books such as minoru miki’s composing for japanese instruments provided detailed information regarding techniques and notation, with an accompanying cd illustrating the notated examples. selected anne lebaron 289 journal resources and online sites were also useful.11 when the outstanding performer christopher blasdel12 visited the california institute of the arts, where i teach, i asked him to play through some of the material composed by that time. in fact, i had been consulting his book, the shakuhachi, a manual for learning, for assistance with the techniques and terminology of the instrument. hearing him play through these preliminary sketches confirmed that my writing for shakuhachi was going in a productive direction. his suggestions regarding notational nuances for the instrument were most insightful.13 #10: 13 songs, 21 breaths described as a “song cycle in 21 breaths,” breathtails14 is comprised of 13 songs and 8 breath interludes. originally i asked charles bernstein to write 21 poems15 (which we also thought of as “breaths”), but i felt that with his 13th poem, the cycle was complete. how, then, should the remaining 8 breaths be integrated into the composition? early in the process of living with the poems and investigating their possibilities, i was drawn to a collection of textured white papers in a stationery store near ucla. purchasing one of each, i imagined integrating them into the composition in some fashion. but throughout the composing process those papers remained an enigma, lying dormant in their brown paper bag until just after the piece was completed. (or so i thought—in fact, it wasn’t yet finished, since the breath interludes had not yet been conceived.) while contemplating these lovely letter–sized sheets of papers at my desk, conjuring images of tom buckner performing the piece,16 an epiphany! for the 8 remaining breaths, i would offer him guided improvisations, via those white papers. the textures of the papers—rough, smooth, swirling, transparent, and some embedded with rose petals—suggested specific senses: touch, sight, and smell. i cut a 4” x 4” square from each, labeling the squares with one of these three senses. the more roughly textured or extremely smooth papers seemed most appropriate for the sense of touch; visually oriented textures, for sight; and thicker papers, for smell. (these would be infused with a scent prior to the performance.) the score invites the singer to freely select a sheet of textured paper labeled with one of the senses, at eight specific points. drawing upon the sense of touch, sight, or smell labeled on the selected paper, and the qualities of the paper itself, the singer improvises within the context of the score. the general style and duration of each breath interlude is influenced by the singer’s awareness of what has already transpired in the music and poetry, and what is to come. current musicology 290 (in the future, perhaps the senses of hearing and of taste should be engaged as well. is it possible to hear the essence of a stationary piece of paper? could it have a discernable taste?—a milky aroma enlivened by a hint of saltiness, wrapped in a gossamer veil of white honey . . . ) #11: summary breathtails, scored for baritone singer, shakuhachi, and string quartet, consists of 13 poems, studded with 8 breath interludes17 to be freely interpreted by the singer, guided by sensory input from randomly selected squares of textured white paper as well as by the surrounding music and poetry. how does the form of each musical “breath” connect to the poems? a redux: #12: jupiter mountain breakdown back in that swing facing jupiter mountain, while considering approaches to this essay, i recall the beginnings of breathtails. wintery winds rush about, silently cavorting with the glowing conifer needles. white noise rushes into and past my ears—distinct from distant road and revving engine sounds, mingling with the occasional sustained hum of a small plane, dogs barking in call–and–response, wisps of rock music from someone’s far away home, and the insistent cawing of crows. a sonic snapshot of a sunday afternoon in green valley: six sounds, half generated from nature, the other half from human invention. all co–existing, each with its own distinctive shape, timbre, amplitude, duration, even tessitura. and that swirling wind, giving rise to breath of one sort or another, a constant, knowing no boundaries, the ever–present backdrop. #13: candy store again, second floor when tom buckner invited me to compose a work for him with my choice of text (living or deceased writer, or write it myself) and instrumentation, i immediately knew that i wanted the poetry to focus on the breath, and that the shakuhachi, with its haunting breath–infused sonorities, would be central to the ensemble. what a rare opportunity—a coveted chance to collaborate in a non–operatic context (and thus dispense with all the baggage that such endeavors can sometimes entail) and to tailor the composition for a singer whom i greatly admire. the choice of string quartet, to complete the ensemble, was made intuitively—a united front that would function alternatively and at times simultaneously as a foundation, a foil, and a greek chorus. anne lebaron 291 my friend marjorie perloff, the brilliant poetry critic, suggested several poets to me for consideration. my investigations led to the evocative, innovative, and risky work of charles bernstein, whose writing i was already familiar with—primarily his remarkably inventive libretto for shadowtime, an opera by brian ferneyhough. charles and i explored notions of “breath” together, via phone, email, and face–to–face meetings in new york, where we breathed the same air. i made some suggestions up front, such as the number of poems i’d like to have in the piece, their general trajectory, and a desire for the occasional deconstruction, facilitated by isolating syllables and phonemes. i also shared some of my research related to breath and breathing with charles. ultimately, i wanted to set his poems for breathtails in ways that would reflect and enhance his uncanny ability to infuse playfulness with gravitas—or vice versa. early in the process of composing breathtails, i purchased one copy of all the different textured white papers carried by a westwood shop specializing in fine stationery. lacking any hue, they invoked an aura of invisibility, of purity, of serenity, yet were charged with individuality. some were even transparent, allowing light to pass through. they all had woody origins. perhaps they became talismans. #14: breathing the course of the sun why so much focus on the breath? rudolf steiner believed that with our first breath, we take in nourishment from the cosmos, along with the element of soul. the latter functions, in part, to keep us breathing until our very last breath, when the soul element is set free, returning to the spiritual world. steiner calculated that humans inhale/exhale 18 times a minute, equating to 1080 times per hour, and 25,920 times in a full 24–hour day. he then estimates that if a person lives 72 years on average, she would live as many days (72 x 360 = 25,920) as she draws breaths in one day.18 imagine 72 years to be one cosmic day, and one single breath; multiplying by 360 results in one cosmic year, or 25,920 “cosmic days.” in other words, steiner calculates that 25,920 represents a “cosmic year” (72 years (= 1 single breath) x 360), and that the sun requires 25,920 years to pass through all the signs of the zodiac. he concludes that we accompany the sun’s circuit of 25,920 years, from its rise in pisces marking the spring equinox (march 21), as it moves through all 12 signs of the zodiac, and as it returns to rise in pisces once again, completing the circuit. our longest breaths on current musicology 292 earth are the initial breathing in of soul and spirit at birth, and breathing these elements out at death. however, we take our absolute longest breath, according to steiner, when entering the world of stars, accompanying the sun during its circuitous traversal of 25,920 years. reflecting on the order prevailing in the universe, and marveling that a human breathes as many times in a day as the sun needs years to make its circuit of the universe, steiner concludes: “man’s breathing is a living expression of the course of the sun.” how did these esoteric computations of steiner, which contributed to my initial research and plans for the piece, affect my composing process? it’s impossible to articulate, yet something in my creative process was triggered—unidentifiable, unnamable, ineffable. #15 “as long as there is breath in the body, there is life. when breath departs, so too does life. therefore, regulate the breath.”19 #16: collaboration my correspondence with charles bernstein, despite unforeseen obstacles of significant health crises for me and, later, unspeakable tragedy for him, exemplified an ideal composer/writer collaboration. we maintained a stimulating dialogue, trading suggestions for readings, concepts, and serendipitous notions related to the breath and the act of breathing. an email correspondence began in 2007, with charles inquiring about temporal dimensions and matters of structure, while mentioning charles olson’s 1950 “projective verse” that emphasized the centrality of the breath (as line) for poetry. in response to my reference to “der atem,” a german word for breath, he was reminded of paul celan’s atemwende (translated by pierre joris as “breathturn”)—also the title of the first of three major volumes of poetry by celan. sharing my research with charles, i sent readings connected to the buddhist “minding of breath,” including the anapanasatti sutta, along with selections from rudophs steiner’s writing on the cosmic scale of breath. he worked with many of these texts and sources as he developed the poems for breathtails, augmented by his own source material. (osip mandelstam, for example, inhabits the first poem.) we explored various permutation strategies in poetic and musical contexts, clearly observable in some of the poems. anne lebaron 293 #17: leaving the station the train of selected correspondence between and composer (al) and poet (cb): destination al cb ideas vaguely forming 11.24.07 al, elated, welcomes cb to project 11.26.07 olson (dada) / celan: atemwende 12.21.07 fractals/breath/21 12.27.07 10 of 21 done, having fun 2.4.08 myocardial infarction, not having fun 2.6.08 looking back on life from the other side of it 2.7.08 (12:35 pm) your first 4, a balm and gift 2.7.08 (11:59 pm) 12 of 21 now – end with acute breathlessness 2.24.08 luscious, ripe for setting 2.25.08 (12:11 am) negative space? 2.25.08 (8:00 am) mandelstam’s windowpanes of eternity 2.26.08 (3:57 pm) neshemet ruach chayim, or prana 3.4.08 (5:27 pm) instrumentation & underlying poetic structures 3.4.08 (5:38 pm) publishing the libretto 6.22.08 song #10: 4 cycles distributed among 5 performers 6.23.08 #18: setting the rules before placing bernstein’s poems in a musical context, i lived inside, outside, and around them, turning each one over and over, a malleable prism for the imagination. charts and graphs were constructed to function as current musicology 294 maps guiding me into the piece—a kind of twisted schenkerian impetus to prolongation, but moving way beyond the “tonal space.” one pre–compositional chart related various parameters to each poem—i.e., interpretive ideas; treatments of string quartet and of shakuhachi; methods of breathing; indications of physical movements for the vocalist. ultimately, the poems broke through these structural constraints and had their own way with the music. #19: time and breathing some of the songs are in strict tempi, regulated by bar lines, while others are freer, with bar lines and time signatures banished—and these contrasting treatments also occur within certain songs. (this is true horizontally as well as vertically—i.e., there are passages combining freedom in the execution of certain parts with simultaneous regulation in other parts.) notation for the baritone voice includes symbols for different methods of inhaling and exhaling. various types of breathing are suggested for the singer during the breath interludes: noisy; quiet; fast; slow; regular; irregular; jerky; smooth; deep; shallow; forced; effortless; through the mouth; through the nose; nervous/anxious; relaxed/peaceful; and breathing as a function of the whole body, soul, and universe, as in the practice of pranayama. #20: underpinnings one of the recurring and unifying compositional choices was double harmonics in the strings (ex. 1). they were chosen for their specific sound quality, for the pitch content, and for their symbolism related to the act of breathing.20 the principal shakuhachi line is a solo passage constructed from a series of pitches derived from segments of the twelve–tone row of alban berg’s violin concerto.21 structurally important on a number of levels, this shakuhachi passage frames the piece at beginning and end, and often appears throughout, fragmented or otherwise transformed. #21: song 1 in the first song, the shakuhachi represents eternal breath—magnified and extended in the strings by a glassy pane of four double harmonics (at times, sustained, at other times, frantic) pressing against the singer’s anxious human gasping, or by white noise—a kind of “faux” breath induced by bowing the wooden body of the string instruments, enhancing the shakuhachi’s breathiness. (ex. 2 and 3) anne lebaron 295 #22: songs 2 and 3 as the “world passes by” in the second song, the music rushes headlong into pilings– on of ostinati in the strings, offset by meditative, sustained passages in the shakuhachi, along with the singer’s serene delivery. in contrast, the third song functions as a reflective commentary, with downward quasi–glissandi in the spoken voice and strings, and a general descending motion in the shakuhachi as well. the string players ultimately reach a place where they audibly inhale and exhale while bowing the instrument body—barely perceptible, “on the border” of sound. (ex. 4) #23: songs 4 and 5 the music of song 4, with its breathless series of permutations in the text, was intended to be difficult for the singer, requiring a delivery not supported by the breath (counter to best practices!).22 torturing the vocalist to such an extreme would likely backfire or at the very least, lead to compromises. so instead, i composed a stylized “breathlessness” into the song, with bursts of accented inhalations and exhalations. meanwhile, the strings are rushing about playing tremolo phrases that recur in subtly displaced patterns, keeping the balance slightly off. the end of this song elides with the beginning of song 5. by virtue of its length, its episodic nature, and the vocal participation of the players, the fifth song is the most complex of all of the 13 songs. in the form and content of the poem, there are many references to the anapanasati sutta.23 the poem for this song goes into a retrograde at its center. in different formations determined by a schematic,24 the string players speak those words enclosed by parentheses in the poem. (these are in the third person and refer to the person reciting or singing the main text.) in preparation for the emphasis on syllables, vowels, and phonemes in two of the subsequent songs, i’ve elongated, deconstructed, and repeated certain words. the shakuhachi often “shadows” the singer, imitating or supporting him. (ex. 5 and 6) #24: song 6 song 6 is related to song 5 by virtue of the text spoken by the string players (“with reference to the work”). in song 6, however, they speak in a more neutral, straightforward, repetitive response to the singer. the strings play a driving, syncopated, constantly shifting rhythm throughout, while the singer has a more “floating” sense of time—that is, until he aggressively current musicology 296 snaps his fingers in rhythm with the cello during the passages spoken by the rest of the quartet. in this way, the singer projects a more concrete (and less disembodied) connection to the string quartet.25(ex. 7) #25: songs 7, 8, and 9 songs 7, 8 and 9 are pithy, characterized by increasing fragmentation of the text. breath interludes #3 and #4 connect these three songs. the 20 lines of song 7—one word per line—refer back to the text of the first song (as do songs 8 and 9), so the music recycles the material introduced in song 1 as well. the reprise of the shakuhachi melody, now shared with the singer (who “shadows” the shakuhachi), results in a shak/singer duo with a short coda of “breathing” by the strings. (ex. 8) the textual and musical fragmentation becomes more pronounced in song 8, with 21 lines of text amputated from its origins (“eth ettle on etern ut,” and so forth). the vocalist sings fragments originating in the long phrase of the shakuhachi from song 1, over an articulated cello drone and a quasi– imitative viola. in song 9, the shakuhachi reprises the main theme heard at the beginning of the piece, and functions to frame the beginning and end of the song (divided into three sections of 7 lines each), while the strings perform a simple ostinato figure against the vocal line. when the alphabet is literally scrambled in the text of song 9 (the first 7 of 21 lines: “tling o ops nly tu etern ut”), i set the text fragments as though they were real words and meant to be comprehended as such, and instruct the singer to interpret the material with great conviction. #26: song 10 a kaleidoscopically absurdist feast of imagery, cleverly personalizing numbers from 1 to 21, characterizes the poem for song 10. a perpetual–motion 16th–note figure winds its way through the ensemble—sometimes autonomous, and sometimes shared. the instruments are encoded by a numerical pattern related to the additive structure of the poem. a schematic for correlating the form of the music with the text was constructed with a pattern determined by the coding system, indicating how the instruments would be activated in this song. to demonstrate: anne lebaron 297 vn.1 = 1 vn.2 = 2 va. = 3 cello = 4 shak = 5 line of poem instrument entering (or remaining) in the fray 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 1 + 5 7 2 + 5 8 3 + 5 9 4 + 5 10 5 + 5 11 1 + 2 + 3 + 5 12 1 + 2 + 4 + 5 13 1 + 3 + 4 + 5 14 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 15 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 16 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 (+1) 17 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 (+2) 18 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 (+3) 19 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 (+4) 20 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 (+5) 21 spoken by singer in the first ten lines, the additive schematic works beautifully: with each subsequent number, another instrument is added or retained, equaling (by virtue of the coding system) the number of the line of the poem. beginning with the 11th line of this poem, i felt that the music needed to sustain its forward propulsion, hence the additive schematic was abandoned, trumped by the insistence of intricate rhythmic subdivisions already set loose in the piece (such as a bar of 11/16 + 11/16 (or 5/16 + 6/16 + 5/16 + 6/16). furthermore, the 11th line of the poem, “11 runs like rivers under the night,” justified and solidified my decision to keep the perpetual–motion figure alive. the second half of this song is therefore driven by the essential material laid out in the first 10 lines, and does not adhere to the schematic (see crossed–out carefully laid plan). (ex.9) current musicology 298 #27: songs 11 and 12 songs 11 and 12 are joined at the hip, so to speak, despite the intrusion of breath #6. the former has a more conventional song structure, suggested by the form of the poem and its regular rhyming, constrained to the long “a” vowel. the musical setting of the latter, functioning in poetry–land as a mashup of song 11, is divided into three groups of seven lines each. #28 the seventh breath interlude, the only interpolation of breath that is scored (as opposed to a free interpretation), serves as a premonition of the final song. save for the initial breath improvisation, the singer is absent. instead, nuggets of phrases or single words lifted from the last poem—sometimes split into syllables—are disseminated among the string players. the shakuhachi performs a variant of the main theme that began the work. (ex. 10) #29: song 13 song 13 reflects, in the poetic form, steiner’s focus on 18 breaths per minute. the poem has 36 lines (18 x 2), broken into 4 stanzas of 9 lines each, 3 words to each line. (note the predominance of 9; 3 x 9 = 27(!), a cool, serendipitous connection to 36,093,600—the projected number of breaths it took to complete the piece.)26 this last song should convey a gently assertive quality, and function as a resolution of sorts. therefore, musically, this is the most declamatory setting of all the songs. the return of the predominant shakuhachi material provides a mini–coda to the piece. the final and eighth breath interlude reflects the attentive breathing of all performers, extending the shakuhachi coda beyond the performance time of breathtails, spinning it out, like tales and tails, into space and time. #30 breathtails was composed in cherished memory of emma bee bernstein. anne lebaron 299 & & & & & b violin i violin ii viola ! ! ! ! ! !œœ# ·œ·œ# œœ ·œ·œ œœ# ·œ·œ œœb ·œ·œbb œœ ·œ·œ œœ## ·œ·œ## œœb ·œ·œbb œœ ·œ·œb œœ# ·œ·œ# œœ ··œœ œœ ·œ·œb œœ# ·œ·œb œœb ·œ·œ#b œœb ·œ·œ#b œœb ·œ·œ bb œœ ·œ·œ œœb ·œ·œ bb k œœ# ··œœ œœb ·œ·œ bb k œœ ·œ·œ œœ# ·œ·œ## œœ ·œ·œ œœ# ·œ·œ œœ ·œ·œ œœb ·œ·œbbb œœ# ·œ·œ# œœ# ·œ·œ # resultant pitches for double harmonics in breathtails ii. example 1 current musicology 300 ? & & & b ? b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ 9 œ œ# ˙# ‹n ‰ ‰ œ. ·œ·œ bb ·œ·œ bb alternate freely among these choices, with increasing intensity alternate freely among these choices, with increasing intensity alternate freely among these choices, with increasing intensity p p ric./sustain ric./sustain (q = 66): voice and shakuhachi ƒ (re amplitude, bow pressure, rate of change) (re amplitude, bow pressure, rate of change) (re amplitude, bow pressure, rate of change) (q = c.72): shakuhachi only jœ# œ œb œ œ jœb ‰ jœb ˙# jœn ‰ ·œbb . ·œ. ·œ. ·œ. ·œ. ·œ·œ ·̇·̇æ ·̇bb ·˙ p ric./sustain yuri decresc. poco a poco œn œ# ˙# ‹n ‰ ‰ œ. j·œ·œ# j·œ·œ ric. ric. yuri œ# œb œ jœ ‰ œb œ œ jœb ‰ jœb ˙a j ··œœ ric. yuri ? & & & b ? b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 13 œ œ .œ œ œ jœb j— , jœ i go on but on ly in jœn ‰ œ ó œ# œ œ alternations among boxed groups becoming increasingly frantic alternations among boxed groups becoming increasingly frantic alternations among boxed groups becoming increasingly frantic (inhale)p p rœ , rœ œu —> óu flits and stops œ# . rœ .œ jœn jœ .œ , œ œ œ ˙ 6 jœ# jœ >pizz. f ƒ ƒ ƒ *bow vn body at curve: breathy, extending the shakuhachi breath *bow vn body at curve: breathy, extending the shakuhachi breath *bow cello body at curve: breathy, extending the shakuhachi breath *bow va body at curve: breathy, extending the shakuhachi breath (inhale) yuri yuri f p rœ , to ‹ ÷ ÷ ÷ ÷ œ@ " " " " " " (arco) ~~~ 5 song #1 example 2 anne lebaron 301 ? & & & b ? .. .. .. .. .. .. 44 44 44 44 44 44 b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 32 œb œ ˙ œ pressed a gainst the œ ˙ .˙b ·̇·̇ œ ·̇·̇ œ œ . .... ·œ·œ œ . .... ·œ·œ ! ˙b œ œ œ œ œ œq = 132 f accel. (cello only) f œ œ ˙ œ œ win dow pane when e .˙ .˙ ·̇·̇ œ ·̇·̇ œ " œ . .... ·œ·œ œ ·˙·̇ " ó . œ œ ·œ·œ " œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œgradually move to sul pont, then end with singer's word, 'stop,' on scratch tone ƒ ƒ ƒ wide vib. œ œ œ œj > " œb ven as i stop the œj " & œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ¿ä " ï ï p stop suddenly with singer's word 'stop' stop suddenly with singer's word 'stop' stop suddenly with singer's word 'stop' stop suddenly with singer's word 'stop' ƒ ? & & & & ? 44 44 44 44 44 44 b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 35 ˙b œb œn pain ! ! ! œ ....·̇·˙ # ! & q = 66 falsetto (should sound strained) ossia: gliss as high as possible poco " œ œ ó œ œ .˙ œ# ó . ·œ·œbbb ó . ·œ·œ# ·w·w œ@ œb@ œ@ œb@ œ@ œæ œ 5 $ p p p ! jœ ‰ œ ó œ ‰ j·œ·œbbb ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ œ ‰ j·œ·œ# ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·w·w œn@ œb@ œ@ œb@ œ@ œb@ œ œn œb œ œb œb 3 3 3 3 b accel. " f 8 song #1 example 3 current musicology 302 ? & & & & b b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 38 ‰ œb œ œ œn œ pres ses a gainst me ! ·œ·œbbb ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ# ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·w·w ˙b ‰ œb jœ̆ q = 72 p p cresc. cresc. (ossia 8va) w ! ·œ·œbbb ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ# ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ‰ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·w·w œb œ œ œ œb œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œb œ œb œ6 6 6 ? cresc. f cresc. ? & & & & ? b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 40 w ! ·œ·œbbb ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ# ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·œ·œ ·w·w œb œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œb œ œb œœ œ œ>6 6 3 f ˙ œ œ# ! j·œ·œbbb fl ‰ œ ó j·œ·œ# fl ‰ œ ó ·w·w w f f whistle tones: alternate around eb and f w ó œb œ ! ! ·w·w ˙ ó f $ ! ! ! ·w·w ! niente (overlap with singer's breath #1) ! óu ! u ! u ! u ! u breath #1 (singer's breath #1) (singer's breath #1) (singer's breath #1) (singer's breath #1) (singer's breath #1) 9 song #1 example 3 (continued) anne lebaron 303 ? & & & b ? b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 21 y .y y y y y œ œ3 bor der of death and life ˙ ‰ jœb œ œb œ œ œ œ œb œ 5 f y j y ‰ y y œ hear not hear ing ˙ œ jœb ‰ when singer ends, complete one more cycle of your descending gliss; for final 3 bars, bow the curve of the instrument body and blend your own audible breathing when singer ends, complete one more cycle of your descending gliss; for final 3 bars, bow the curve of the instrument body and blend your own audible breathing when singer ends, complete one more cycle of your descending gliss; for final 3 bars, bow the curve of the instrument body and blend your own audible breathing when singer ends, complete one more cycle of your descending gliss; for final 3 bars, bow the curve of the instrument body and blend your own audible breathing p ! ! ! ! ! ! ? & & & b ? b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 26 ! ! ÷ ± % ÷ ± % ÷ ± % ÷ ± % & & & & (bow the curve) (bow the curve) (bow the curve) inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale exhale each string player proceeds at independent pace, based on natural breathing rhythms; blend sound of inhalations / exhalations with bowing the curve of the instrument (bow the curve) ! ! ÷ ± % ÷ ± % ÷ ± % ÷ ± % # # # # sim. sim. sim. sim. ! ! ÷ ± % ÷ ± % ÷ ± % ÷ ± % ø ø ø ø breath #2 (doesn't have to end when string breaths end) 16 song #3 example 4 current musicology 304 ? & & & b b 44 44 44 44 44 44 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 48 jœb œb jœn ˙ time and space ó ˙ ˙ œœ# œœ œœ œœ ‰ . rœb > # # . she pro œœbn œœ œœ œœ œœb œœ œœ œœ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œn œ œ œ œ œ œ jœb .œb jœœb œœ œœ jœœ pizz. f p f forcefully f f f œ œ œ jœ ˙ i willbrea(the) ˙ ˙ .œ œb œb .œ . œ> œ> # œ œœb œœ œœ œœb tests œœ œœ œœ œœ œœnb œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œ œœb œœ œœ œœ œœb œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ ? arco p p p p jœ# ˙# ee w# ˙̇ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ..˙̇ ‰ œœb 3 ..˙˙ ‰ œœ 3˙ œ œœ# j œœ# 3 œ# jœ# ‰ œ (independent from sq until next metered section) (independent from sq until next metered section) f slow gl., as smooth as possible ' port. p p p p ' ' ' sul pont c ? & & & b ? b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 51 jœ ˙ jœ# œ# jœ œ ee ee ee jœ# œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ jœ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœb ..œœ j œœ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœ ..œœ œœ œœ ‰ œœ œœ œœ 3 & œœ # œœ# j œœ œœ# œœ ..œœ œœ ..œœ 3 ord 26 song #5 example 5 anne lebaron 305 ? & & & & ? 45 45 45 45 45 45 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 52 jœ# œ# rœ œ rœ œ rœ œ rœ œ rœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ee ee ee ee ee eeœ# œ œ œ jœ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œb œ œ œb œ# œn œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ 3 œ œ œ œ œ .œ œb .œ œ .œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ b ‰ œœ# œœ ..œœ# œœ ‰ œœ ..œœ œœ 3 3 sul pont ˙ œ œ, breatheœ# œ œ , æ̇ œ# œ, œ œ œb jœ ‰ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ , ˙̇# œœnn œ,wide vibr. p wide vibr. (1/2 step) ord p p ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ? & & & b ? 45 45 45 45 45 45 44 44 44 44 44 44 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ÿ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 54 .œb jœ œ œ ¿ in with out hope ó . œ œ .œb œ .˙ ˙œ ó ó ‰ 3 mind less œb œ .˙ .˙b ˙ ˙ 3 mind less .æ̇ œ ‰ 3 mind less pizz. sul pont ord(ord) (move to) (move to) molto ' f f p p p ' f p molto ! jœ œ jœn œb jœ œ jœn œb w j œ . ˙b ˙ ly w wbj ly j ‰ œ ó ly accel. molto sul pont sul pont(move to) (move to) p ' ' (') 27 song #5 example 5 (continued) current musicology 306 ? & & & b ? 44 44 44 44 44 44 45 45 45 45 45 45 44 44 44 44 44 44 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ÿ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 74 ! w . ó . 6 mindless ly . ó .6 mind less ly . ..ȯ6 mind less ly ! ' ' ' whisper whisper whisper (') ! ¿ , ± ± ± ± " " " "u , .˙ ˙ œ ˙ ˙ ȯ œ .œ# œ œ .œ œ œ 6 6 œ œ# œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œn 6 6 6 6 inhale exhale simile, as before arco ord al niente ' p p j¿ ¿ j¿ .¿ j¿ mind less of time and ¿ ¿ w ˙ ˙ ˙b (p) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ? & & & b ? b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ÿ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 77 ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿b ¿ ¿n ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿b ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿n space ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿# ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿n ¿ ¿ œ œ w w wb grad. ascending gl. grad. ascending gl. quasi-shakuhachi sensation: pitches aren't as important as the circling, chromatic motion shadow the singer; pitches are only a suggestion of the contour normal vibr. ' ' ' legato: in one breath legato: in one breath ¿ ¿ ¿b ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿# ¿ ¿ ¿b ¿ ¿ ˙b œb & ord ' ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 33song #5 example 6 anne lebaron 307 ? & & & & ? 85 85 85 85 85 85 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 79 ¿ ¿b ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿b ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ & point of termination, in time, is not specified; can end before or after other players point of termination, in time, is not specified; can end before or after other players f al niente al niente al niente al niente ¿ , ¿u ¿# , ¿¿bb , b ¿¿ , ? inhaling and exhaling, breathing and playing inhaling and exhaling, breathing and playing inhaling and exhaling, breathing and playing inhaling and exhaling, breathing and playing p ' ! ! yyb , " " r÷ > # yybb , " " r÷ > # y " r÷ > # y " r÷ > # (e = 80) inhale only inhale only inhale only inhale only poco poco poco poco p p p p f ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ? & & & b ? 43 43 43 43 43 43 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ÿ~~~~~ ÿ~~~~~ 82 ! ! " " yy r÷> # " " b yy r÷> # "# y r÷> # "# y r÷> #œ exhale only exhale only exhale only exhale only ! ! ‰ . rœb > # # . . œb > œ> # she pro tests yyb "" r÷ > ‰ . yy# "" r÷ > ‰ . yn " r÷ > ‰ .œ pizz. inhale only inhale only inhale only f jœb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ jœ# jœ# > ""# ,æ sh ""## ,æ sh " " n , æ sh " ,æ sh í í í í p f cut off with singer's inhalation cut off with singer's inhalation cut off with singer's inhalation cut off with singer's inhalation œ jœ œ# œ œ# jœ u j÷ u > ,3 i will brea(the) jœn ˙ .œ ,œ inhalef poco 34 song #5 example 6 (continued) current musicology 308 ? & & & & ? 87 87 87 87 87 87 85 85 85 85 85 85 87 87 87 87 87 87 85 85 85 85 85 85 87 87 87 87 87 87 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 8 œ œb œ œ œ jœ 3 put ting a side need ! " œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . " œœ . œœ . œœ . ‰ " œœ# . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. " œœ. œœ. œœ. ‰ " œ œ # . œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. " œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. ‰ ó œ jœb œ jœ œb and care ! œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ# . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œ œ # . œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. jœb fl œ œ .œ ˙ ! œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ# . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œ œ # . œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. ó œ jœb ! ! " œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . " œœ# . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. " œ œ # . œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. jœb fl œ œ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ? & & & & ? 87 87 87 87 87 87 86 86 86 86 86 86 89 89 89 89 89 89 87 87 87 87 87 87 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 12 ! ! " œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . " œœ . œœ . œœ . ‰ " œœ# . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. " œœ. œœ. œœ. ‰ " œ œ # . œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. " œ œ. œ œ. œ œ. ‰ ! finger snaps (alternate hands) y y y y y y ‰ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. ‰ œ . œ j# with œ . œ j# with œ . œ j# with œœ# . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. ‰ grad. lift arms from waist high to overhead p p f (sync snaps with cello and shak) y y y y y y y y y y œ œ# . œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. ‰ ‰ œ . ó # # # re fer ence œ . ó # # # re fer ence œ . ó # # # re fer ence œœ# . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œ p 43song #6 example 7 anne lebaron 309 ? & & & & ? 87 87 87 87 87 87 85 85 85 85 85 85 87 87 87 87 87 87 85 85 85 85 85 85 87 87 87 87 87 87 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 15 y y y y y y œ œ. œ. œ. œ. jœ . .œ œ . œ # # to the œ . œ # # to the œ . œ # # to the b œœ# .$ œœb .$ œœn# .% œœb .$ œœn# .$ œœ .$ œ f f j¿ ¿ > œ œ j œ̆ ‰ œ ‰ j# œ œ œ œ œ work j# œ œ œ œ œ work j œ# œ œ œ œ work j œœ ¨ œ œ pizz. pizz. pizz. (both hands snap) f f ! ! œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ! ! ! " œ œ œ œ œ œ " œ œ œ œ œ œ " œ# œ œ œ œ œ ! ? & & & b ? 87 87 87 87 87 87 85 85 85 85 85 85 87 87 87 87 87 87 85 85 85 85 85 85 87 87 87 87 87 87 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 19 ! œ . œ " œ# œ œ# " œ œ œ œ œ " œ œ œ ‰ " œ œ œ œ œ " œ œ œ ‰ " œ# œ œ œ œ " œ œ œ ‰ ó œ jœb f f ˙b jœ art less jœ . œ œ œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ## . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. jœb fl œ œ arco arco arco f (return to 'floating 4/4') ‰ jœ œb ‰ jœ jœ ber serk and stri ! œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ## . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. ó œ jœb sim. jœ œ œ dent ! " œœb . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . " œœ## . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . œœ . " œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. œœ. jœb fl œ œ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 44 song #6 example 7 (continued) current musicology 310 ? & & & b ? b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 3 œ œ# œn œ# œ œl œ œ rœ œ œ# œ œn œ œ œ# œ œb œb j÷ > on ly to un set tl ing as as in pressed the the when as the the œn œn œ œ œb œ œb œb œb ˙n > ! u ! u ! u ÷ f " sharp inhalation attaccaƒ exhale (in unison)f p ? & & & b ? b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ 4 ÷ ˙ j÷ ˘ ÷ ÷ haa ah haah j÷ ˘ ÷ ÷ haa ah haah j÷ ˘ ÷ ÷ haa ah haah j÷ ˘ ÷ ÷ œb haa ah haah forcible exhale, non-voiced forcible exhale, non-voiced forcible exhale, non-voiced forcible exhale, non-voiced inhale (in unison) inhale (in unison) inhale (in unison) inhale (in unison) exhale (in unison) exhale (in unison) exhale (in unison) exhale (in unison) bow vn body at curve, extending your breath bow vn body at curve, extending your breath bow va body at curve, extending your breath bow cello body at curve, extending your breath whistle tones (strings only: inhale/exhale in one breath) p p p p " f f f f exhale (in unison)f p breath #3 50 song #7 example 8 anne lebaron 311 ? & & & b ? 48 48 48 48 48 48 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 16 œ .jœ œ .jœ œ ‰ . œ ‰ . coolœ .jœ œ .jœ œ .jœ œ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ ‰ . œ œ ‰ . œ œ ‰ . ‰ . œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ arco arco pizz. pizz. ? & & & b ? 48 48 48 48 48 48 47 47 47 47 47 47 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 17 ó œ ‰ . rœ œ .œ œ œ œ .œ œ œ œ 3 e le ven runs like ri vers un der the œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ! œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ jœ ‰ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ arco arco p p p p p p 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 16 16 16 16 -61 song #10 example 9 current musicology 312 ? & & & b ? 47 47 47 47 47 47 46 46 46 46 46 46 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 18 œ .jœ œ .jœ œ ‰ . œ ‰ . nightœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ jœb ‰ ‰ . œb œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œb œ rœ ‰ . œ œ œ rœ ‰ . œ œ œ rœ ‰ . œ œ œ œb ‰ . œ ‰ . œ ‰ . œb ‰ . œ ‰ . œ ‰ . œb ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ 7 + 7 + 7 + 7 16 16 16 16 ? & & & b ? 46 46 46 46 46 46 45 45 45 45 45 45 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 19 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ jœ œ œ ‰ twelve is all o ver be fore it start edœ jœ œ jœ œ jœ jœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œb œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ jœ œœ jœ œ jœ j œœ. œœb 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 16 16 16 16 œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ thir teen is be lov ed of all in con œ .œ .jœ jœ jœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ .œ œb .œ œ .œ œ .œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ jœœœ> ‰ . ‰ ‰ . jœœœ ‰ . j œœœ ‰ . 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 16 16 16 16 62song #10 example 9 (continued) anne lebaron 313 ? & & & b ? 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 165 ˆ86 85ˆ86 85ˆ86 85ˆ86 85ˆ86 85ˆ86 85ˆ86 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 21 œb œ œ .jœ ‰ . œ . gru ous saints œb œ œ .jœ ‰ . œ . œ.œ.œ.œ.œb ..œœ‰ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ .œb .œ j œœb 5 + 6 + 6 16 16 16 œ œ œ œ .œb œ œ œ ‰ œ . fou teen is for flat tax jœ œ œ œ œ .œ œ œb œ ‰ œ . œœb ..œœ œœ..œœ ..œœ..œœ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œb œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœœ ..œœ œœ ..œœ œœœ ..œœ œœ ..œœ ‰ 5 + 5 + 6 + 6 16 16 16 16 ? & & & b ? 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 1611 ˆ1611 45 45 45 45 45 45 b shak vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 23 œ .œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ fif teen likes com pote with a pri cots œ œ œ jœ œ œ œ œ jœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œœœ .œ œœœ œ œ j œœœ ‰ . œ . 5 + 6 + 5 + 6 16 16 16 16 ! .œ œ œ œ œ " œ jœ œ .œ œ œ œ œ œ œ jœ ‰ . œ œ œ œ œ œ jœ ‰ . œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ .œ ‰ . ‰ œ œ œ .œ ‰ . ‰ œ œ œ .jœ ‰ œ œ œ .jœ ‰ 6 + 5 + 6 + 5 16 16 16 16 63 song #10 example 9 (continued) current musicology 314 ? & & & b ? b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ 14 œ .œ jœ jœ œ̆ œ̆ ˙̇bb ˙ ˙ b ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ o p f f sul a sul g con sord. p p p p arco jœn œb œb rhy e thm ra sure ic kara kano p f ˙ , > œ œœb k œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ. # œ œ. œ œ. œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ repeat freely ƒ p (as before) í f kazaiki yoko yuri ? & & & b ? b shak. vln. i vln. ii vla. vc. 17 jœb > ˙ ¿. ¿. ¿. ¿. ¿ , . jœfl jœ œn œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ w> œ œ w# jœœbb ‰ œœ œœ # jœœ ‰ œœ œœ ‰ . œœ ‰ œœ ˙̇ œ œ b œ œ # r œ œ # œ œ œ œ ‰ j œ œ ˙ ˙ œ œ œ œ ‰ . j œ œ ‰ j œ œ ˙ ˙ pp f ß ! p f !f f repeat freely repeat freely repeat freely repeat freely ro kori ma washi yuri 75 interlude betw #12 & 13 example 10 anne lebaron 315 notes 1. shakuhachi is a compound of two words indicating measurement: shaku, equal to 30.3 cm, and hachi, equal to eight sun, or tenths of a shaku. (the unit of measurement known as sun, or cun in chinese, was originally used to chart acupuncture points.) therefore, shaku–hachi translates literally as one shaku eight sun, or 1.8 shaku—a length of about 55 cm (30.3 + 24.24), the standard length of a shakuhachi. the 1.8 shakuhachi is tuned to d. 2. 3 and 6 surround their sum, 9; 9 x 3 = 27; 9 x 6 = 54; when the two digits are added, of each of these numbers (2+7; 5 + 4), they sum to 9—(or 3 squared); 3 falls on the 1st and 5th places, followed both times by 6, in that long string of numbers representing the number of breaths; 3 x 6 = 18, also summing to 9 (1+8). 3. active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, rudolph steiner based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. his particular philosophy, “anthroposophy,” can be described as “wisdom of the human being.’ 4. rudolph steiner, from sunspots to strawberries . . . answers to questions (london: rudolph steiner press, 2002), 156. 5. commissioned by the new york philharmonic in 1967 for its 125th anniversary, november steps is scored for shakuhachi, biwa, and western symphony orchestra. 6. the first non–japanese to attain the rank of grand master, riley lee (who makes his home in australia), has probably done more than any other westerner to promote the shakuhachi around the world. 7. these recordings are now available on my 2–cd innova recording, entitled 1, 2, 4, 3, featuring collaborations with nearly one dozen performers during the decade spanning 2000–2010. 8. my next opera, crescent city, included shakuhachi in the orchestra, for the new york city opera vox performances (2006 and 2009). however, in the full production that took place in los angeles in 2012, we replaced it with flute due to budgetary constraints. 9. the term “honkyoku” literally means “original piece” and can also refer to the repertoire of “original” songs for the shakuhachi, transmitted anonymously and aurally by the komuso monks of the edo period (1603–1868). to learn more, riley lee’s phd thesis, yearning for the bell: a study of transmission in the shakuhachi honkyoku tradition (university of sydney, 1992), can be accessed here: http://www.rileylee.net/thesis.html. 10. denyer, a british composer, has composed extensively for the shakuhachi. 11. see, for example, jeffrey lependorf, “contemporary notation for the shakuhachi: a primer for composers,” perspectives of new music 27/2 (summer, 1989): 232–251. online resources, while mostly focused on teaching and performing, are also worth checking out. a couple of comprehensive ones: the international shakuhachi society (http://www.komuso. com/top/index.pl) and the european shakuhachi society (http://www.shakuhachisociety.eu/). 12. christopher yohmei blasdel studied the shakuhachi with japan’s living national treasure, goro yamaguchi, beginning in 1972. blasdel’s performance at calarts, on april 27, 2011, included traditional honkyoku as well as contemporary works by minoru miki and ryohei hirose. 13. there are many playing techniques unique to the shakuhachi, including different degrees of emphasis on the sound of the performer’s breath (such as muraiki, kazaiki, and sorane), and various types of vibrato (yuri). current musicology 316 14. the set of poems, with the same title, is published in charles bernstein, recalculating (chicago: university of chicago press, 2013), 111–119. 15. i asked for 21 poems because the number 21 carries a symbolic personal significance. 16. i was searching for ways to bring a more open, improvisatory approach to the vocal part, in contrast to the more “traditional” notation used in many sections of the piece. 17. there are eight “breaths” embedded throughout the piece, represented by special white papers in the score. the singer will draw out and embellish the “breath” of the papers by the senses of sight, touch, and smell, labeled as such. each breath is a brief interlude, functioning a bit like a palette cleanser, between certain songs. the order of the types of breaths is determined by the singer, and may differ with each performance. papers labeled with “sight” are distinguished by 1) curving, swirling, slithering tails and branches; 2) recurring white– on–white patterns; 3) smooth reflective surfaces. the singer is asked to interpret by the sense of sight as filtered through the breath. for those papers labeled with “touch,” sounds can be produced by running fingers, fingernails, a card, or other objects over the paper. the sound of the paper should be blended with, or lead to, the sound of the breath. (one “touch” paper has a rough texture; the other a smooth, matte texture.) for the thicker “smell” papers, the singer should ask a close friend, partner, or other loved one to infuse the papers with scented oils or perfume prior to rehearsals and performances. the “smell” breath improvisations will be inspired by the effect of these scented papers on the olfactory sense of the performer. 18. the 360–day calendar, represented by 12 groups of 30 days each (or 18 groups of 20 days), was used by ancient cultures such as the babylonians, and continues to be useful for measuring durations in financial markets and computer models. 19. attributed to svatmarama, hatha yoga pradipika—ch.2, s.3 in b.k.s. iyengar, light on pranayama (london: unwin, 1981), 15. 20. breathing, so central to this composition on every level, is essentially two–fold: inhale, exhale. 21. the row used by berg is especially poignant in the context of the creation of breathtails, as the first 5 pitches—d, f, a, c, e—spell out, in subsequent linear trichords, the d minor – f major – a minor harmonic progression used by franz shubert in the exposition of the first movement of his string quartet no. 14 (also known as “death and the maiden”). 22. originally i had planned for the singer to engage in physical activity reflecting and amplifying the content of the poems—in this case, running. 23. the anapanasati sutta, or “breath–mindfulness discourse,” provides instructions given by the buddha on the use of breathing in meditation. 24. just as the 16 lines of the poem are mirrored symmetrically, the assignment of spoken passages to the string players follows a separate but consistent pattern, namely cello—viola—cello—viola—violin 2—violin 1. in that order, the players are instructed to speak the first six lines of the poem that are enclosed in parentheses (“he trains himself; she discerns; she trains herself; he discerns; he demurs; she protests”). for the four central parenthesized lines of the poem (“mindlessly; mindfully; mindfully; mindlessly”), i’ve retained the basic formulation of cello—viola—violin 2—violin 1, but now have them cycling in groups of three for each line, so that these central lines are always spoken in unison by three players. with each subsequent line, the trio formation changes, according to the cycling pattern. finally, the last 6 parenthesized lines (“she protests; he demurs; he discerns; she trains herself; she discerns; he trains himself ”) follow a retrograde pattern of violin 1—violin 2—viola— cello—viola—cello. the manipulation of instrumentalists, in this way, generally parallels the form of the text. anne lebaron 317 25. when i first envisioned breathtails, it was in a more theatrical context, and i had the vocalist ostentatiously marching about in this song. 26. for the significance of these numbers, refer back to #5: counting breaths, in this paper. references christopher yohmei. 2008. the shakuhachi, a manual for learning. japan: printed matter press. iyengar, b.k.s. 1981. light on pranayama. london: unwin. miki, minoru. 2008. composing for japanese instruments, edited by philip flavin. translated by marty regan. new york: university of rochester press. steiner, rudolph. 2002. from sunspots to strawberries . . . answers to questions (14 lectures, dornoch, june 30–september 24, 1924). revised translation by matthew barton. london: rudolph steiner press. current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 dawes. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 5 editor’s note this special issue of current musicology was inspired by e. patrick johnson’s 2001 article, “‘quare’ studies, or (almost) everything i know about queer studies i learned from my grandmother.” i read it for a seminar in the spring of 2019, and it was the first time i had ever encountered “quaring” as a way to describe the theorization of race and identity within traditional queer studies. here is johnson’s description: because much of queer theory critically interrogates notions of selfhood, agency,and experience, it is often unable to accommodate the issues faced by gays and lesbians of color who come from‘‘raced’’communities. gloria anzaldua explicitly addresses this limitation when she warns that‘‘queer is used as a false unifying umbrella which all ‘queers’ of all races, ethnicities and classes are shored under.’’ while acknowledging that‘‘at times we need this umbrella to solidify our ranks against outsiders,’’ anzaldua nevertheless urges that‘‘even when we seek shelter under it [‘‘queer’’], we must not forget that it homogenizes, erases our differences.’’ ‘‘quare,’’ on the other hand, not only speaks across identities, it articulates identities as well.‘‘quare’’offers a way to critique stable notions of identity and, at the same time, to locate racialized and class knowledges (johnson 2001, 3). johnson’s essay and later scholarship was foundational in shaping this issue. we wanted to create a collection of writings that acknowledged the transitions we have seen within music scholarship within the past four decades, and highlight contemporary scholarship that reflected how queering and quaring scholarship within today’s academic research holds promise in the future of musicology. steven moon’s literature review introduces the queering of music studies with an overview of the history of queer studies within ethno/musicological (his phrasing) projects and within our courses of study, and queer methods that over time, have prominently appeared in popular music studies, both in relation to the positioning of the writing subject, but also in the merging of identity, performance and politics in our ethnographic work. moon also provides his analysis of how queer/trans-inclusive ethno/ musicological methods could eventually be commonplace in contemporary scholarship. 6 current musicology morgan woodsley, blair black and imogen wilson take a similar approach in their observations of queer representation within predominately black-centric film, theatre and underground music scenes. as well, david farrow explores the importance of do-it-yourself (diy) performances sites are to queer, trans and non-binary new yorkers, not just as spaces to perform or create experimental art, but crucial for the creation and maintenance of communities. isaac jean-françois’s writing provides an important look at american composer julius eastman, who merged his minimalist / “organic” music pieces with powerful, provocative statements on race, sexuality and class. our book reviews are all on recent works pertaining to exploring queer and quaring perspectives within music scholarship. this issue was assembled during a global health pandemic and elevated racial, social and political unrest. much gratitude to the all authors and book reviewers who found the physical, intellectual and emotional space to contribute during this upsetting time, creating important scholarship that is reflective of the present issues within our musical worlds: their work and dedication will serve as a foundation for future scholars interested in further diversifying music scholarship. an additional “thank you” to our roster of graduate student volunteers who assisted during the submission and manuscript review process, despite the closing of columbia’s campus and the fast transition to online-only communication. i appreciate your commitment to current musicology. laina dawes references anzaldua, gloria.1991.‘to(o) queer the writer:loca, escrita y chicana,” in inversions: writing by dykes and lesbians. betsy warland, editor. vancouver: press gang, 249– 259. johnson, e. patrick. 2001. “quare” studies, or (almost) everything i know about queer studies i learned from my grandmother, text and performance quarterly, 21:1, 1-25. __________1998. ‘‘feeling the spirit in the dark: expanding notions of the sacred in the african american gay community.’’ callaloo, 21. 399–418. microsoft word cm_111_matostovar_final.docx current musicology 111 (spring 2023) ©2023 matos-tovar. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commonsattribution-non-commercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). transitional functions: the emergence of the anticipatory transition in nineteenth-century sonatas luis matos-tovar introduction scholars that specialize in form acknowledge that there are three distinctive sections of a sonata—exposition, development, and recapitulation—and each of those sections contain different thematic modules. in this paper, i focus on the thematic module known as the transition (tr), whose primary function is to take the music from point a to point b–the primary theme (p) to secondary theme (s). i examine musical concepts within the transition as it contains the melodic, rhythmic, and/or thematic material of a new subsequent theme. seemingly, this concept builds on the notion of an independent transition as noted by hepokoski and darcy (2011, 95), but rather than the independent nature of the music looking backwards, the music in the transition foreshadows the music in subsequent modules as a main theme. this idea is an original concept i call an anticipatory transition. different from hepokoski and darcy’s “the developmental transition'' which discusses how motivic material in the p theme is seen again in the transition and then altered or develops the material much like a developmental section would. it is important to highlight that the anticipatory transition contains new material and that this theory builds on the independent transitions novelty. hepokoski and darcy share, “[any] aspect of the transition one wishes to emphasize, its seeming newness of tone and verve or its relatedness to certain features of past material,” insinuating that the tr contains elements of p that can be reworked, but not subsequent material (2011, 95, 97). although, “the developmental transition” is similar to my original idea of “the anticipatory transition,” the main difference is that the former discusses how motivic material in the p theme is seen again in the transition and the latter explains how material in the tr comes back in a subsequent module as the main theme. hepokoski provides in brief from his book a sonata theory handbook the different types of common transitions with specific regards to the “developmental transition,” as it emphasizes motivic development and harmonic action from p that is seen in the tr (2021, 60). additionally, hepokoski and darcy discuss many different types of transitions, but each of those types are labeled in short as independent, developmental, and the dissolving types of transitions which either reuse p in some fashion or contain something new in the tr module, but do not anticipate any sort of melodic/thematic ideas (2011, 95-108).1 the takeaway from these assertions is that these musical ideas derive from p that inform and affect 27 current musicology _______________________________________ the tr modules and with “independent” types, the new material in the tr does not come back in a subsequent module. this is contrary to my concept of the anticipatory transition as it oversees all musical aspects, as does henrich schenker’s theory of “linkage technique,” from the tr as a whole formal unit and examines how it is translated over to a subsequent module, namely the s or cl modules.2 the anticipatory transition focuses on the overall transition or a significant phrase within the transition, not just smaller motivic units, which is different from hepokoski and darcy’s idea. it is also relevant to mention that hepokoski and darcy do state a “tr-like fortspinnung,” and although this is similar to one of the methodologies proposed in my concept, it is different since hepokoski and darcy conclude with a denial of the medial caesura (mc) whereas the anticipatory transition presents a mc (2011, 46). background as we delve deeper into the formal design, musical facets like smaller forms within the entire sonata form (for example a primary theme with an antecedentconsequent phrase) are more complex and may contain more idiosyncrasies than expected (gjerdingen 1986, 25; vande moortele 2013, 408). gjerdingen describes in their 1986 article “the formation and deformation of classic/romantic phrase schemata: a theoretical model and historical study,” that as scholars focus on the [classical] period, the more original and idiosyncratic those individual themes appear to be (1986, 25). in the same vein, vande moortele’s 2013 article, “in search of romantic form: in search of romantic form” discusses the problems of insufficient scholarship of romantic form results on theorizing based on classical norms–this proposes nineteenth-century works as a deformation or an idiosyncrasy to its formal design (2013, 408). hepokoski and darcy lay out the following model to describe the expected thematic module timeline in an eighteenth-century sonata exposition: primary theme → transition → secondary theme → closing—p-tr-s-cl (hepokoski and darcy 2011, 17).3 in poundie l. burstein’s 2020 book, journeys through galant expositions he suggests that sonata-form expositions containing these thematic modules also show “two resting points” (burstein, 2020, 103 & 107): a mc (förmliche absatz) following the tr, and an essential expositional closure (eec, förmliche cadenz) after the s theme (burstein, 2020, 340-341). burstein summarizes heinrich christoph koch’s approach to these phenomena (mc, eec, including mc of recap and esc) as “formal punctuation,” specifically the “final cadence” (cadential closures, musical breaks, and pauses) of each “period” (thematic section) all contribute to the structural foundation of each major section of the sonata (2020, 42). additionally, hepokoski and darcy refer to the concept of formal punctuation as melodic punctuation (hepokoski and darcy 1997, 115). 28 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ it is essential to understand the structure and formal punctuation of the exposition because material that does not conform to this model is considered loosely organized (caplin 1998) and a deformation to the formal structure of the sonata (hepokoski and darcy 2011, 11). please note that hepokoski and darcy offer this idea of the “independent transition” which in essence is the same idea of the anticipatory transition by virtue of both concepts dealing with new material in the tr. the main difference is that the independent transition focuses on material preceding it, hence making new material in the tr independent, whereas the anticipatory transition focuses on the material succeeding it. for transparency, my original theory, the anticipatory transition, is a distinctive musical subject first presented in the tr module and then emerges as the main thematic unit in a subsequent formal module. theoretical framework of the anticipatory transition the anticipatory transition involves two main avenues through which a composer may create a new theme succeeding the tr. these two avenues are what i call “copy-and-paste” and “spun-out” anticipatory transitions, each of which lead into a new theme, a secondary or closing theme (or a hybrid of those two theme types).4 in further detail, the anticipatory transition has material that later returns, whether it is spun-out or pasted verbatim, as part of a new theme. the material can pertain to any musical aspect (such as rhythm, melody, or contour) and may be supported by other features like dynamics and/or harmony. the copy-andpaste anticipatory transition copies material in the transition and pastes those musical subjects in a subsequent module that results in its main theme. the spunout anticipatory transition takes material in the transition and develops it into a new theme that is altered to a certain extent yet recognizable enough to be linked to the tr. james mackay (2004, 41-42) and hepokoski and darcy (2011, 11) state that any sort of atypicality to any of these musical concepts, including form, will be interpreted as an “deformation.” rather than using “deformation,” which hepokoski and darcy do not entirely agree with (2011, 11), i will refer to these phenomena as an “idiosyncrasy” as a more up-to-date and appropriate term. although, hepokoski and darcy’s concepts do not derive from nineteenthcentury sonatas, it is still crucial for an analyst to understand these concepts to help contextualize what may be deemed a “deformation” or “idiosyncrasy” to be considered as a standard practice succeeding eighteenth-century works. this is important to discuss because there is a misconception that the transition has no function other than to shift the music from the primary theme to a secondary theme—and when this expectation is not followed, it is considered an 29 current musicology _______________________________________ idiosyncratic feature (hepokoski and darcy 2011, 101). however, closer examination of this specific type of compositional feature reveals that the transition has a much more complex function in some nineteenth-century sonataform expositions–yielding a new function of the tr in romantic-era sonatas. schenker explains the alteration of musical concepts like melody and rhythm is known as “linkage technique.” linkage technique contributes to the development of new themes in subsequent thematic modules; for example, the secondary or closing theme (smith 2007, 109), and this relates to schmalfeldt’s adoption of dahlhaus’s' ideas to form as a process and the idea of “becoming” (2011, 9-10). in adopting and developing schenker’s theory of linkage technique, it allows for the anticipatory transition to oversee musical concepts (like melody and rhythm) and tie those melodic/thematic features of the tr into a subsequent module. thus, creating continuity and a sense of unity from one module to the next. schmalfeldt's book in the process of becoming: analytical and philosophical perspectives on form in early nineteenth-century music foregrounds this notion of processual form in late eighteenth-century works and nineteenth-century works. my original idea of an anticipatory transition combines these two concepts by schenker and schmalfeldt into one, and through the dialogic framework of hepokoski and darcy, the material in the tr suggests a new function of the transition. moreover, the notion of an independent transition is similar to the anticipatory transition, but the key takeaway is that my theory links the transition into a subsequent module, whereas the independent transition is in relation to the preceding modules. i will be focusing on compositions in the nineteenth-century repertoire, and i will utilize hepokoski and darcy’s concept of “dialogic form” as it constitutes a general framework, or rather a model (2011, 10). additionally, caplin, hepokoski, and webster assert that these models according to form constitute “generic norms, guidelines, possibilities, expectations, and limits of [a] given genre” (2010, 71-72). by using a dialogical model for analyzing eighteenthcentury form, its accessibility and applicability becomes fundamental and easily comprehensible, and it also allows the analyst to discern the overall structure of the sonata–specifically each thematic module–despite any ambiguities presented (schmalfeldt 2011, 17). caplin notes that classical and romantic composers are more susceptible to experiment with the functionality of music, this as a result leads to less conventionality and in essence does not abide by a general framework. he also notes that classical music provides a better sense of clarity, thus insinuating that the thematic modules are simpler for music theorists to analyze (1998, 3-4). this dialogic approach these formal theories derive from allows an analyst a general framework, or rather a specific set of rules and model they can use to instill in their analysis. 30 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ overview of the anticipatory transition research to reiterate, the focus of my analyses is on the material within the transition and how it later appears—either pasted or spun-out—in subsequent thematic modules. in discussing my theory, i will focus on mid-nineteenth-century compositions by charles valentin-alkan (1813-1888), clara wieck schumann (1819-1896), and frédéric chopin (1810-1849).5 the research commenced with an interest in understudied composers where the paper focused on the works of clara schumann. as a result, the research branched into sonatas that were composed around the same period of time which then ties were made from schumann to chopin, and chopin to alkan, therefore these composers are the primary focus. focusing on sonatas from the early to mid-nineteenth century, i was able to connect charles alkan, clara schumann, and frédéric chopin, all of whom followed my anticipatory transition theory. from a historical perspective, chopin moved to paris in 1839 and became friends with alkan, and it is evident that chopin's musical associations greatly influenced alkan's compositions (im 2021, 21). moreover, schumann frequently performed chopin's works in many of her recitals (pettler 1980, 70-76). after analyzing their works, i discovered that they all exhibited this idiosyncratic trait in their compositions. the piano works of a french composer, a polish-french composer, and a german woman composer/pianist portrayed interconnected yet idiosyncratic traits. furthermore, the de-germanization of these sonatas was likely influenced by a desire to challenge the norms and expectations established by early eighteenth-century german and austrian composers. building on this notion, these composers created a space for innovation and experimentation in their compositions. additionally, as the nineteenth century progressed, composers embarked on an era of increased experimentation, paving the way for novel approaches in their compositions, striving to distinguish themselves (brown 2013, 371). consequently, the evolution of the sonata form was undoubtedly characterized by composers emphasizing originality over conformity (brown 2013, 374). these compositions highlight substantive aspects of the broader anticipatory transition concept such as: melodic and rhythmic development, alteration in accompaniment, and similar contour and melodic shapes.6 it is widely acknowledged that nineteenth-century sonatas tend to contain more formal ambiguities than earlier, eighteenth-century examples (horton 2017, 1-2). however, late-eighteenth century sonatas are also prone to ambiguities and idiosyncrasies, and the prevalence of those elements in the late classical and romantic eras help support my main theory of the anticipatory transition 31 current musicology _______________________________________ (hepokoski & darcy 2011, 11). this is due to the general framework of a sonata where the anticipatory transition emerges. by understanding sonata-form structure, the tr is decipherable and the content within allows an opportunity to be examined thoroughly and considered for other functions such as my anticipatory transition concept. below, i will discuss the two methods of composing an anticipatory transition—copy-and-paste and spun-out—in four musical examples, followed by my thoughts about the broader significance of the anticipatory transition in those pieces. the first methodology is a “copy-andpaste” anticipatory transition, where it takes a thematic unit presented within the tr and then presents it the same in a subsequent module. the second methodology is a “spun-out” anticipatory transition which takes a thematic unit presented in the tr and examines it developed in some fashion in a later thematic module–both methodologies present the idea in the tr, and it could be in either or both the s and cl themes. copy-and-paste anticipatory transition in charles alkan charles-valentin alkan utilizes the copy-and-paste style anticipatory transition, which in this example the concept is presented in the exposition and in the recapitulation. although the material in the exposition is a literal copy-and-paste, the recap applies a variation of the motive–resulting in both a copy-and-paste and spun-out anticipatory transition. in the exposition of alkan’s piano trio in g minor op. 30, he uses a motif that is presented in the transition and returns all throughout the first movement of the composition. the tr’s theme later becomes the thematic material in the closing section of the exposition and subsequently comes back redeveloped in the recapitulation. as hepokoski and darcy suggest, the significance of the tr module is to propel the primary theme into the secondary theme, and could potentially have thematic substance, but it does not characterize it as the main theme in later modules. table 1 below outlines the formal structure of the exposition in this sonata to help better understand where the thematic modules begin and how they correspond to each other. table 1 below shows the beginnings and endings of each thematic module, which helps us decipher what material within the section supports the anticipatory transition. as shown in example 1, the example is a copy-and-paste anticipatory transition meaning that the motive in the transition is presented the same in a different spot, specifically as the closing theme. 32 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ thematic modules key area measures primary theme (p theme) g minor measures 1-12 transition (tr) g minor → b-flat major measures 13-19 medial caesura (mc) – with a mc fill iii: hc measures 16-19 secondary theme (s theme) b-flat major measures 20-39 essential expositional closure (eec) iii: pac measures 38-39 closing theme (cl) b-flat major measures 40-49 table 1: charles alkan, piano trio no. 1 in g minor op. 30, mvt. 1, expositions formal outline. example 1: charles alkan, piano trio no. 1 in g minor op. 30, mvt. 1, 13-14, tr melody. example 1 is an independent modulating transition due to the rhythmic and melodic differences it has in relationship to the primary theme. understanding the structural framework of alkan’s exposition is important since it helps with having a clear distinction of the thematic modules through a dialogical perspective. example 2 contains the motive of a 16th note-dotted 8th-16th note and two quarter notes, and the closing theme presents the same motive in the cello while the piano and violin play a consistent moving 16th note theme. 33 33 current musicology _______________________________________ example 2: charles alkan, piano trio no. 1 in g minor op. 30, mvt. 1, 40-41, cl melody. the violin presents the motive first in the transition and in the closing the cello takes over the motive. the cello takes over the thematic motive and almost functions as if it were trying to close the exposition since it is on the lower end of the instrument's tessitura and is easy to decipher in the cl module because of the copy-and-paste style.7 alkan continues with the copy-and-paste methodology within the exposition, but proceeds and develops this motive into the recapitulation of the movement. he presents the copy-and-paste anticipatory transition throughout the exposition, but moving to the coda of the recapitulation, alkan recomposes the motive and uses a “spun-out” anticipatory transition. it is recognizable as the new closing theme in the exposition and the recapitulation, then the motive develops rhythmically in the coda, and the tr motive is augmented in the very last two measures. example 3 uses the same motive as a finale in the coda: alkan keeps the rhythmic component going and passes it from the violin and cello to the piano. 34 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ example 3: charles alkan, piano trio no. 1 in g minor op. 30, mvt. 1, 106-112, developed tr theme in the codetta of the recapitulation. lastly, in example 4, alkan’s last two measures are rhythmically enlarged which results as a spun-out anticipatory transition of the former motive. example 4: charles alkan, piano trio no. 1 in g minor op. 30, mvt. 1, 115-117. 35 current musicology _______________________________________ throughout the first movement, an anticipatory transition is used in a variety of ways. alkan uses the copy-and-paste style of the anticipatory transition concept. this method is (quasi)identifiable because it is rhythmically developed and it is enlarged from its initial presentation, in addition to being placed in different sections such as the cl of the exposition and redeveloped in the recapitulation. alkan’s piano trio in g minor is a clear-cut example of the copy-and-paste anticipatory transition. clara schumann’s use of anticipatory transition clara schumann uses the anticipatory transition in some of her own compositions. it is the focus of this section to bring to the forefront the style of a copy-and-paste anticipatory transition in schumann’s piano sonata and not the loosely-knit structure of this example. one of the main concerns in schumann’s piano music is that of formal structure and ambiguity to formal design as stefaniak describes in his article “clara schumann’s interiorities and the cutting edge of popular pianism'' (2017, 723).8 i examine the tr material which becomes a new theme in schumann’s works. in both of her works that i utilize in this paper, the tr module is “loosely organized,” and the flexibility of the formal construction has allowed for more ideas to emerge, hence the anticipatory transition in both her sonata works (caplin 1998, 17 & 19). sock siang thia acknowledges the two distinct subjects (in schumann’s piano sonata), the first being in g minor which purports the idea of p theme material, and the second in e-flat major which insinuates the s theme (2014, 57-58). although thia does not refer to these sections as hepokoski and darcy would (p and s themes), these concepts are essentially one and the same. thematic modules key areas measures primary theme g minor measures 1-14 transition g minor → e-flat major measures 15-25 medial caesura – with a mc fill vi: hc measures 24-25 secondary theme e-flat major measures 26-70 essential expositional closure vi: pac measure 70 closing theme e-flat major measures 70-89 table 2: clara schumann, piano sonata in g minor, mvt. 1, expositions formal outline. 36 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ table 2 above shows each thematic module with respect to hepokoski and darcy’s dialogic approach to sonata form. while thia presents the “first” and “second” subjects in her analyses, she fails to mention the tr module, but we can infer the location of the tr module through hepokoski and darcy. in elements, the issue of where the tr module begins is a matter of importance, and thus the two theorists posit “common transition strategies: the independent and developmental types” to have a clearer sense of any tr ambiguities. focusing on measure 15, the p theme is then restated, yet the material that follows begins to “dissolve” and move away from p. the elements describes this phenomenon as a “dissolving restatement” as the melodic material of p is restated then transforms its harmonic proponents and causes tonal instability (hepokoski and darcy 2011, 100-101). elora grace lencoski describes the material in the transition–reused in six different areas– does not uphold the expectations for a substantive tr (2019, 3). arguably, the musical structure in the piano sonata adequately supports the notion of a tr that functions accordingly. in other words, there is a tr and the elements that constitute the tr are upheld according to hepokoski and darcy. in many cases it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where the starting and ending areas of certain thematic modules are, but jiaying zhu’s analysis of schumann’s piano sonata denies grace’s claim of a nonfunctional transition (a tr that does not conform to the expectations that are keen of a transition), and her analysis coincides with my argument and original concept of the anticipatory transition because of the same conclusions to the overall structure of the composition. the material within the tr, which zhu identifies in the thematic timeline, returns into a later module (2016, 4). zhu’s contribution allows for my analysis of the formal structure to be confirmed, and as a result, the anticipatory transition is able to be fabricated. schumann’s piano sonata in g minor embeds the concept of an anticipatory transition. in this case, it is in the style of a copy-and-paste that is brought back all throughout the exposition. the tr spans from measure 15-25. material from the pickup to measure 18-20 is subsequently quoted in later themes. as example 5 below shows, the tr material begins with a pickup note, followed by a rolled dominant seventh chord, then two articulated quarter notes, concluding with a descending eighth note line (blue brackets labeled a and b in example 5). transpositions of this motive make up the remainder of the tr. subsequent quotations of this motive are the focus of the different thematic modules throughout the exposition.9 37 current musicology _______________________________________ example 5: clara schumann piano sonata in g minor, mvt. 1, 14-22, in blue brackets shows the initial two units of the tr. this is first seen in the tr, which happens to be a dependent transition since it recycles material from the primary theme. the s theme begins in measure 26. example 6 shows the copy-and-paste anticipatory transition and how it is reorganized in between the two secondary themes which are measures 33-43. in this instance, it is visible on the score how schumann rearranges the order of the theme and by comparing example 5 to example 6 it demonstrates how schumann plays and develops the theme in her own creative way. she takes two sections depicted in example 5 that comprise the tr and rearranges them in example 6. the ideas are the same with changes to harmonies and evidently the rearrangement of the sections of the tr (taking a and b and turning it into b and a, see examples 5-6). the tr comprises measures 19 and 20 in example 5, which contains two juxtaposing motives as examined earlier (examples 5–6). it is evident that, in example 6, the initial presentation (example 5) is reorganized and altered slightly by the duration of the motive. rather than a 1:1 measure ratio it is 2:2 and the harmonic rhythm continuously shrinks while being developed melodically and thematically. 38 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ example 6: clara schumann piano sonata in g minor, mvt. 1, 31-43, in blue brackets shows the different units of the tr after s has begun. finally, at the very end of the exposition, beginning at measure 70, is where the cl module begins and concludes in the idea of the copy-and-paste anticipatory transition (example 7). example 7: clara schumann piano sonata in g minor, mvt. 1, 67-74, in blue brackets shows the different units of the tr going into the cl and succeeding it. 39 39 current musicology _______________________________________ considering the fact that once the theme from example 5 is heard, this conditions the audience to anticipate a new theme since after each occurrence of example 5 a new theme manifests.10 she uses this technique in a manner that serves to not confuse the listener, but to help guide their ears and to help them understand the music a little more in an informal way. schumann almost blatantly highlights the anticipatory transition idea as she uses it in three different sections throughout the exposition. furthermore, clara schumann not only uses the copy-and-paste anticipatory transition technique, but in another piece, she utilizes the spun-out anticipatory transition to make a new theme. thematic modules key areas measures primary theme g minor measures 1-21 transition g minor → b-flat major measures 22-44 medial caesura – with a mc fill iii: hc measures 41-44 secondary theme b-flat major measures 45-83 essential expositional closure iii: pac measure 84 closing theme b-flat major measures 84-89 table 3: clara schumann, piano trio no. 1 in g minor op. 17, mvt. 1, expositions formal outline. table 3 above presents a clear p and s theme with the independent transition modulating from g minor to bb major. in another of schumann’s notable compositions, her piano trio in g minor op. 17., one issue that occurs in measures 30-32 (example 8) is what the musical content succeeding the tr module is. in this instance, schumann writes a melody that occurs in the tr module. a melody different from the p theme is presented–and not quite the s theme–but is connected to each other by virtue of contour and its melodic material which is altered slightly. the independent transition allows us to pinpoint where the tr is, and thus encapsulates the concept of an anticipatory transition because we can identify what materials are within the tr. the tr shares the characteristics of a new melody or theme and presents it as a new theme or is introduced in a later theme where it is recognizable. more often than not, these spun-out themes occur near the transition section of a given sonata. in schumann's case, she composed a melody in the tr (example 8) which is presented as the s theme (example 9) with an alteration in the piano, but it is still recognizable when presented. 40 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ example 8: clara schumann piano trio in g minor, op. 17, mvt. 1, 26-37, in blue brackets shows the material of tr. example 9: clara schumann piano trio in g minor, op. 17, mvt. 1, 44-50, in blue brackets shows the tr material that is developed. example 8 showcases the material in the tr and example 9 is the spun-out anticipatory transition. looking at how these two sections are different but how they are related through contour and melody is what makes this anticipatory transition most interesting. this theme is recognizable by looking at the emphasis of where the melody is stressed (example: beat one and beat two is where the 41 current musicology _______________________________________ melody is most noticeable) but is not rhythmically alike. an anticipatory transition does not need to be exactly the same but altered enough to be recognized as the anticipatory transition material. in summary, schumann’s works produce both avenues of the anticipatory transition. the copy-and-paste and spun-out anticipatory transition is clear in her sonatas, and her compositional style demonstrates her command as a composer especially to formal structure. clara schumann’s piano sonata and her piano trio, both in g minor, clearly present both methodologies of the anticipatory transition as each theme presented in the tr module has been spun-out or been copy-andpasted later in the exposition of the sonata. after analyzing schumann’s piano sonata composed in 1841-42 it is clear that the idea of an anticipatory transition falls along the lines of a copy-and-paste, but redirecting the focus to her piano trio composed in 1846, she masked this concept by altering the melodies presented in the tr and s themes. the piano sonata’s tr is a spun-out anticipatory transition, yet the two sections (examples 5-7, a and b) that comprise the tr are restructured as the cl theme. moreover, the piano trio op. 17 showcases the melodic material in the tr module which unfolds to be the s theme, declaring it a spun-out anticipatory transition. it is apparent that with these alterations to the thematic modules, the anticipatory transitions material coincides with its subsequent themes by virtue of foreshadowing. schumann composed liberally of the thematic modules after the transition, but as well as many other sections and labels. schumann’s examples contribute to the idea of an anticipatory transition where a rhythmic or melodic idea is presented in the tr module and then is either copy-and-pasted or spun-out into a new theme in a later module. spun-out anticipatory transition in frédéric chopin another composer who uses this technique is frédéric chopin as he blends other musical elements into the mix which impart the anticipatory transition in more intricate ways. the method of an anticipatory transition is spun-out and concealed quite effectively, yet in a stately manner within chopin’s piano trio in g minor op. 8. chopin uses a combination of different musical concepts like melodic contour, shape, rhythm, and meter all of which contribute to the anticipatory transition concept and creates a new theme in a later module. the focus of chopin’s piano trio is how he blends different musical concepts within the tr and how he spins them into new themes throughout the exposition. 42 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ thematic modules key areas measures primary theme g minor measures 1-28 transition g minor → b-flat major measures 29-39 medial caesura – with a mc fill i: hc measures 39-42 closing-zone modules (c-zone) g minor → eb major → g minor measures 43-70 “essential expositional closure” i: pac measures 69-70 “closing theme” g minor measures 71-78 table 4: frédéric chopin, piano trio no. 1 in g minor op. 8, mvt. 1, expositions formal outline. table 4 displays an approximate formal outline with respect to andrew aziz’s analysis (2015) and hepokoski and darcy’s approach in the elements. as a final point to table 4, acknowledging that the final two thematic modules, namely the “essential expositional closure” and the “closing theme,” are labeled as such in an attempt to configure the formal outline to understand the overall structure of the exposition from a dialogical perspective. chopin’s tr, starting in measure 29, possesses the necessary elements such as a proper mc and a new thematic idea that is contrasting from p which in essence creates theme group 2. it is important to highlight that in aziz’s 2015 article “the evolution of chopin piano sonatas: excavating the second theme group” proposes that the following theme group succeeding the mc in the op. 8 does not abide by the rules hepokoski and darcy have to be considered the s theme, and the thematic material following the mc will be considered and referred to as a “closing gesture group,” essentially skipping over the s theme (2015, [2.4]). furthermore, as the s theme is absent and the music moves to “czone modules,” the material in the tr anticipates the material into the subsequent module (aziz 2015, [2.8]). 43 current musicology _______________________________________ example 10: frédéric chopin, piano trio in g minor, op. 8, mvt. 1, 27-30, two units of tr (a,b). example 11: frédéric chopin, piano trio in g minor, op. 8, mvt. 1, 43-46, two units of tr developed in the cl gestures group. the assemblage of concepts stated above, melodic contour and shape, and rhythm and meter are transformed and altered enough to be recognizable but spins out into what is considered the closing gestures group. highlighting the examples within the transition, before the mc the violin and bass hand of the piano part contain the same rhythm (example 10; box “b”). the rhythmic motives are simplified inside cl gestures group (example 11; box “b”), but still maintain the basic foundation of that idea when it was initially presented in the tr, and keeping in mind that the rhythmic motive is passed from the violin to the cello. along the same vein as rhythm, the piano right hand at the start of the tr undergoes a shift when it is presented in the “c-zone module.” the melodic material and contour of a rising four-note motive followed by the descent of a minor third is offset by a sixteenth note and because the notes are not identical and spun-out from the tr module (example 10; box “a”) to the subsequent module (example 11; box “a”). the tr is essentially a spun-out anticipatory transition towards the c-zone module. due to the ambiguous nature of the thematic modules, the s and cl modules are perceptively deceiving, but it can be concluded that the tr begins at measure 29 and that a mc occurs at measure 42 with a mc fill thus initiating the closing gestures at measure 43 (aziz 2015, [2.7-2.8]). these two sections share 44 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ similar elements yet are not quite the same and it is important to bring to the forefront of how they correlate to each other. the notion of the anticipatory transition is executed quite clearly from an analytical sense and listeners' experience. chopin uses a variety of musical concepts within the transition and recycles it into theme group 2 which after analysis becomes visible and recognizable throughout the entire sonata (the exposition and the recapitulation). conclusion throughout these four case studies—alkan’s piano trio, schumann's piano sonata and piano trio, and chopin's piano trio—there is a hidden sense of connectedness between the modules that share this idea of an anticipatory transition. the anticipatory transition concept—in which transition material is copy-and-pasted or spun-out in subsequent thematic modules—increases the complexity of how the transition functions in these nineteenth-century sonata expositions, the significance of which is downplayed by the term “deformation,” or more accurately an “idiosyncratic trait.” through my analyses of anticipatory transitions in this paper, i hope to bring greater scholarly attention to the significance of transition material and its function(s) in the broader sonata exposition. my analyses demonstrate that such anticipatory transitions—though considered “idiosyncratic traits” or “aesthetics” that contribute to a loosely-knit formal structure, or lower-level defaults—offer a deeper sense of motivic/thematic unity within the sonata-form exposition (and in some cases the sonata as a whole). acknowledgments i would like to give my thanks and gratitude to those who have supported this project in its entirety. to all my peers for your encouragement and time. dr. aziz for your encouragement and mentorship to pursue this topic. dr. sam for your attention and feedback to this project. lastly, dr. losada for your commitment to the improvement of my writing, encouragement to develop this personal project, and for your support as my advisor. this project would not have been attainable without all of your care and attention to my success. notes 1 as an added note, there are multitudes of concepts that contribute to the construction of transitions, or rather, other labels that help differentiate what type of transition a given example is analyzed as, but as a reminder most prospects are linking the primary module to the transition module and therefore allowed for my anticipatory transition theory to come into fruition. 2 in oswald jonas’s 1982 book, introduction to the theory of heinrich schenker: the nature of the musical work of art, shares that the concept of “linkage technique, mean[ing] that a new phrase takes as its initial idea the end of the immediately preceding one and then continues independently, either within the same formal unit: or to initiate a new section” (7-8). essentially, 45 current musicology _______________________________________ linkage technique is an idea of musical repetition that links formal sections together and in effect allows for more continuity and cohesion in a given work. 3 the thematic module timeline is proposed by hepokoski and darcy in their textbook elements of sonata theory. 4 this idea is similar to the fortspinnung technique, but on a smaller scale. it can also be recognized as a linking anticipatory transition since the concept is very similar to schenker’s theory of linkage technique, but for now i will stick with spun-out. 5 in another example by alkan, he composed “symphony for solo piano op. 39” in 1857. his composition shows elements of the anticipatory transition. with a long two-part transition and a v/v harmony supporting the s theme’s melody it makes the music sound very unstable and difficult to decipher, but using welborn’s 1995 dissertation, his formal analyses align with the assertions i make about the symphony (1995, 43-47). motivic elements in the two-part transition of the op. 39 resonate with the s theme, but not so explicitly. symphony for solo piano op. 39 is not a transparent example of my anticipatory transition theory, but it is important to note that with further analysis, it can be perceived as such. as used in this paper, alkan’s piano trio recycles that motivic unit that becomes a later theme, a copy-and-paste style of the anticipatory transition which is reminiscent of the symphony for solo piano op. 39. as this project develops and i continue to research my anticipatory theory, i anticipate more examples will come to fruition in mid-to-late nineteenth century sonatas. 6 melodic shapes and contour refers to how the melody looks despite the notes that are on the score. 7 the lower end of the ranges on the instruments being played creates a more stable and definitive closing statement. it helps ground the music more and inadvertently becomes louder because the cellos range and texture are dense, especially in that section. by using a different register of the instrument, it builds more color in the ensemble and makes for a more fitting cadence since it builds more stability and grounded-ness towards the eec when it occurs. 8 alexander stefaniak’s 2017 article “clara schumann’s interiorities and the cutting edge of popular pianism,” discusses how certain elements in clara schumann’s music are susceptible to ambiguities which in essence allows the postulation that she was able to make these elements in her more profound and showcased her expertise as a musician. schumann was able to compose music in more eloquent ways and in many instances her music can build more character from her style. stefaniak describes her music in a very theoretical way and implicitly states that she was ahead of her time and more so a pioneer of experimentation in some ways. 9 the analysis shows the beginning of the transition and two sections all bracketed in blue. bracket a shows the first unit of the tr which is the pickup note(s), rolled dominant seventh chord, and the moving quarter notes (about a measure and a half), and bracket b shows the descending eighth notes. these two sections comprise the transition and each section of the tr can be seen restructured later in the paper. it is also important to note that the tr begins with a dependent dissolving restatement concept that hepokoski and darcy note in their textbook elements. 10 anytime example 5 (the transitions theme comprising section a and b together) is heard, the listener can expect to hear a new theme. example 5 almost reacts as a prerequisite for subsequent themes to unfold in the overall form. as if clara schumann deliberately composes it to enact as an initiatory statement for subsequent thematic sections. examples 5-7 illustrate the different moments in the piano sonata’s exposition where the anticipatory transition material is present. to further elaborate, anytime the motive from the tr (example 5) is heard, whether it is developed or reorganized, the listener can assume that a new theme is to come. as a side note, the second movement of schumann’s piano sonata does recycle this tr theme and is the 46 luis matos-tovar ____________________________________________ opening gesture in the second andante movement. this grants the tr module to higher status for an additional function as the material is used in a bigger development of the work rather than a simple motive in the expositions tr module. references aziz, andrew i. 2015. “the evolution of chopin’s sonata forms: excavating the second theme group.” music theory online 21. no. 4. https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.15.21.4/mto.15.21.4.aziz.html brown, julie hedges. 2013. “study, copy, and conquer: schumann’s 1842 chamber music and the recasting of classical sonata form.” journal of musicology 30, no. 3: 369–423. https://doi.org/10.1525/jm.2013.30.3.369. burstein, l. poundie. 2020. journeys through galant expositions. oxford, new york: oxford university press caplin, william e. james hepokoski. and james webster. 2010. musical form, forms & formenlehre: three methodological reflections. leuven university press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9qf01v. caplin, william e. 1998. classical form: a theory of formal functions for the instrumental music of haydn, mozart, and beethoven. new york: oxford university press. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb06328. gjerdingen, robert o. 1986. “the formation and deformation of classic/romantic phrase schemata: a theoretical model and historical study.” music theory spectrum 8. https://doi.org/10.2307/746068. hepokoski, james a. 2021. a sonata theory handbook. new york, ny: oxford university press. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=6402762. hepokoski, james a., and warren darcy. 2011. elements of sonata theory: norms, types, and deformations in the late-eighteenth century sonata. new york, n.y.: oxford university press. ____________. 1997. “the medial caesura and its role in the eighteenth-century sonata exposition.” music theory spectrum 19, no. 2 https://doi.org/10.2307/745751. horton, julian. 2017. “criteria for a theory of nineteenth-century sonata form.” music theory and analysis (mta) 4, no. 2. https://doi.org/10.11116/mta.4.2.1. im, kunhwa. 2021. “recherche sur les techniques pianistiques à travers l’analyse comparée des études d’exécution transcendante s. 139 de franz liszt et des douze études dans les tons mineurs op. 39 de charles-valentin alkan.” université laval. https://libraryarchives.canada.ca/eng/services/serviceslibraries/theses/pages/item.aspx?idnumber=1250628981. jonas, oswald. introduction to the theory of heinrich schenker: the nature of the musical work of art. new york: longman, 1982. http://archive.org/details/introductiontoth0000jona. lencoski, elora g. 2019. “organicism in a piano sonata by clara schumann.” (self-published, research gate). mackay, james s. 2004. “musical proportion and formal function in classical sonata form: three case studies from late haydn and early beethoven.” theory and practice 29. pettler, pamela susskind. 1980. “clara schumann’s recitals, 1832-50.” 19th-century music 4, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.2307/3519814. 47 current musicology _______________________________________ schmalfeldt, janet. 2011. in the process of becoming: analytic and philosophical perspectives on form in early nineteenth-century music. oxford studies in music theory. oxford university press. https://books.google.com/books?id=luxpyiinm8yc. smith, peter h. 2007. “new perspectives on brahms’s linkage technique.” intégral 21. stefaniak, alexander. 2017. “clara schumann’s interiorities and the cutting edge of popular pianism.” journal of the american musicological society 70. no. 3. 697–765. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2017.70.3.697. thia, sock siang. 2014. “portfolio of recorded performances and exegesis: fanny mendelssohn-hensel and clara wieck-schumann: a study through performance of their selected piano works.” the university of adelaide. https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/handle/2440/86635. vande moortele, steven. 2013. “in search of romantic form: in search of romantic form.” music analysis 32, no. 3. 404–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/musa.12015. wellborn, william eugene. 1995. “the op. 39 symphonie for solo piano by charles-valentin alkan: analysis and perspective.” d.m.a., the university of texas at austin. https://www.proquest.com/docview/304251439/abstract/a93369efff8144f1pq/1. zhu, jiaying. 2016. “clara schumann’s piano sonata in g minor: a preview of things to come.” honors program theses and projects. https://vc.bridgew.edu/honors_proj/134. 48 current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 banerjee-datta. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 281 chávez, alex e. 2017. sounds of crossing: music, migration, and the aural poetics of huapango arribeño. durham, nc: duke university press. reviewed by nandini rupa banerjee-datta alex chávez’s bold and engaging study of huapango arribeño in the everyday lives of mexican migrants fills a void in anthropological and ethnomusicological scholarship. based on his 2010 dissertation at the university of texas at austin, sounds of crossing is an anthropologically based study of how lived politics informs performance in the poetic genre of huapango arribeño, an understudied musical form that originated in the mexican states of guanajuato, querétaro, and san luis potosí. chávez argues that huapango arribeño is crucial in meeting everyday needs for intimacy, place, and belonging—“beyond culture, beyond illegality, and irrespective of geography; through it postnational subjectivities are fashioned and necessary, aquí (here), not allá (out there)” (54). his book includes colorful photographs from the everyday lives of performers and poignant transcriptions of conversations and songs, as well as musical notation—all of which add to his ethnography’s depth and multiplicity, reaffirming his argument that his book is not so much the study of huapango arribeño as an object but as “an analytical lens into the contemporary experiences of mexican migrants” (34). sounds of crossing is teeming with moments of intimacy, and a genuine attention to humanity—a trait that is seldom associated with the lives of mexican migrants in the united states. the book articulates a theoretical network of affect, semiotics, voice, and place through the scholarship of américo paredes, michel de certeau, gilles deleuze and félix guattari, kathleen stewart, and josé limón to name a few. chávez positions himself among these scholars with the assertion that the material enactment of voicing takes place. voicing, he says, “constructs mattering maps that represent the ways social actors move through the world, or desire to do so” (8). sounds of crossing crosses back and forth over the border, from xichú to austin, from san luis potosí to tennessee, and takes shape around the individuals who sing, perform, and enjoy huapango arribeño—the stories of their lives, the politics that have inspired their lyrics, the clever and metalinguistic ways in which huapangueros, or the troubadours, build discourse throughout the course of a night, the interactions between huapangueros and the audience, and the ways in which huapangueros create 282 current musicology an aural space with a sense of purpose and dignity. chávez transcribes the back and forth compositions of particular performances with precision to show the unfolding debate of the night. he writes, “this coconstituted reflexivity focused on each other’s [the troubadours’] linguistic, poetic, and performative competences involves an assessment of how sound and wellinformed instances of poetic discourse actually are, that is, how grounded they are in grammatical and performative patterns” (125). chávez sets the tone of the book through descriptions of doña rosa’s home—a space full of life and overflowing with arduous tales of migration and love. her home creates a point of reference throughout the book. it is a meeting place for huapangueros and a space for collective remembering. in chapter 1, we read about the aural formation of mexican culture through the construction of a nationalized space in mexico and a racialized one in the united states. chávez elaborates on the symbolism of the mexican rancho—a small rural piece of land, but also “a repository for an assumed collective heritage rooted in expressive cultural practices tied to subsistence ranching and horsemanship” (44)—and introduces the ranchero chrono-trope as an imagining of the rancho as a proto-national space-time that represents authentic mexican culture, or a “spaciotemporal construct” (46). drawing from mikhail bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, or the intrinsic connectedness in literature of spatial and temporal relationships, chávez uses the concept of the ranchero chrono-trope as a way of understanding the history behind essentialist and racialized representations of mexican culture. chávez builds his narrative in this chapter by lucidly connecting the imperialist mexican-american war with present-day oppressive politics in the united states. he writes, “it was a war of modernity waged against a supposedly barbarous people and justified as an integral part of god’s will to make the geographic expanse of america fruitful and free” (49). chávez historically maps the construction of the mexican other and connects it to his musical analysis of huapango by challenging conventional narratives that position huapango as a static tradition. by highlighting the multiplicitous origins of huapango, we no longer see the genre as an “othered” object, but as an organic and dynamic product of historical, political, and cultural events. listening to stories of individuals and interacting with huapango, rather than providing an account of it, is chávez’s way of understanding the us-mexico border. in his detailing of the poetic and semiotic structures of huapango arribeño in chapter 2, we learn about the different musicians and their roles, and about types of compositional structures such as the poesía, decimal, and jarabe. through transcriptions of compositions between huapangueros pablo and celso, notations, and thick description, we are plunged into the multisensorial and metalinguistic world of a topada, 283 nandini rupa banerjee-datta or a performance, in chapter 3 and are led to the festival del huapango arribeño y de la cultura de la sierra gorda in xichú, mexico. we attend different topadas throughout the book, in both mexico and the united states, and through chávez’s visceral descriptions of both the constructed outdoor venues and adapted venues inside school gymnasiums, it is as if we can hear the stomping of dancers and feel the heat rising from their bodies. the dense and intimate ethnographic fieldwork once again reiterates chávez’s insistence on viewing the humanity of mexican migrants. in chapter 4, chávez constructs his theoretical discourse on place through accounts of racialized ethnonationalism. he sees place as porous and shimmering, a meeting of meaning, economic relations, and shared experiences, both physical and metaphysical. chapter 5 continues his theoretical discussion of place, bringing in the body as the primary somatic medium of being in place. he emphasizes the construction of connection and dignity by linguistically analyzing the saludado, the improvised greeting and a moment of ordinary interpersonal talk, by the troubadour. anyone in the audience can request a saludado for a loved one, in turn giving form to the troubadour’s compositional effort. the improvised moment compresses time and space momentarily and reignites the space with intimacy. saludados, chávez writes, “may be understood as embodied acts of self-valorization expressed by people who are subject to genocidal policies designed to kill them as they cross the border and to exploit them once they make it across” (271). they create a moment in space and time that cannot be contained by the border. “it is a necessary aural poetic affirmation of social structure” (276), one that poetically narrows the distance that is felt with the body. sounds of crossing is courageous and timely. chávez writes from a critical anthropological perspective about a subject that is uncomfortable for many: the alienation of undocumented life and the grim reality of oppressive and racist political structures in the united states. as a son of mexican migrants himself, chávez paves the way for anthropologists who write about their own communities and engages in the larger project of decolonizing anthropology. as chávez eloquently puts it, “these circulating forms of often disparaging, damaging, and, more specifically, prejudiced forms of knowledge retain a deep legacy that extends well beyond the academy, which we labor to disarticulate through our scholarship” (319). sounds of crossing will be of interest not only to scholars across disciplines and musical genres, as it relates aurality and aesthetics to political and social life, but also to non-academic lovers of music. this is a book of humanity, and a book of stories. ralph locke. 2009. musical exoticism: images and reflections. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. reviewed by kristy riggs western artists, writers, and scholars have long used images to represent the exotic other. in 1835, the french writer and poet alphonse de lamartine entitled his travelogue souvenirs, impressions, pensees et paysages, pendant un voyage en orient (1832-1833) ou, notes d'un voyageur. a few years later, franz liszt unveiled his album d'un voyageur (1837-1838) labeling the first book impressions et poesies. ralph locke's new book follows in a similar vein with the title musical exoticism: images and reflections. just as travel to a foreign region conjured snapshots and images in the minds of lamartine and liszt, locke uses impressions and observations to arouse curiosity and appreciation for musical representations of exoticism. the overarching goal of musical exoticism is to survey the "vast and varied repertoire of western musical works that evoke exotic locales" (i). locke presents his book as adding to and building on the growing body of music scholarship dedicated to examining the construction of the exotic other. the opening chapters critique studies of exoticism and orientalism-both music and otherwise. the overview brings together a wide variety of important scholarship. however, the majority of these studies-including several by locke himself-focus on musical representa­ tions of a specific locale or people. examples include studies of the alla turca style during the eighteenth century and the representation of roma gypsy music in the early twentieth century.! because of the prevalence of such narrowly focused accounts of musical exoticism, locke chooses to take a broader, more comprehensive perspective that seeks to examine exoticism throughout western art music. this approach has its strengths and weaknesses. by not limiting his study to a single composer or time period, locke is unable to offer the rich, highly detailed accounts afforded by a study of only a few compositions. despite this sacrifice, the book's far-reaching parameters allow locke to trace the changes in exoticist trends and thus give exoticism a historical trajec­ tory. this strategy offers a fuller understanding of exoticism as a recurring phenomenon rather than as a smattering of unique occurrences. music scholars and neophytes alike will appreciate the new material and creative approaches presented in musical exoticism. locke addresses many well-loved works within the western art music tradition, such as current musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 117 118 current musicology rameau's les indes galantes, verdi's ii trovatore, and debussy's prelude it l'apres-midi d'un faune. these explorations weave together musical analysis with thoughtful reflections. for instance, we learn that nineteenth-century audiences in europe"viewed mozart's alla turca style as "totally from the orient" (114) and that liszt meticulously transcribed folk melodies that inspired his hungarian rhapsodies (139). these anecdotes provide fresh insight to time-honored classics for readers of all backgrounds. musical exoticism begins with a series of introductory chapters that delve into postcolonial theory and critical theories of race and ethnicity. in the last few decades, scholars have wrestled with how to discuss representations of otherness in art and literature. edward said, homi bhabha, and gayatri chakravorty spivak, among others, have grappled with the historically constructed binary of east and west and have offered approaches to help scholars better understand and write about these multilayered issues.2 locke evaluates various terms used to describe the musical other such as "exoticism," "orientalism;' and "local color." as one might expect from his title, locke prefers the term exoticism and draws attention to the ambiguity and confusion that surrounds the widely-used orientalism. he argues that the latter term is not always applied in the full saidian sense and is some­ times used to invalidate or reject musical works. "naturally enough, then, 'orientalism' has also become for some music critics and scholars-just as for literary critics and such-a curse word, a sharply disapproving substitute for a word-'exotic'-that had so long been used in a (now-considered-nalve?) spirit of delighted endorsement" (38). the term exoticism is not without its own drawbacks. in the definitions cited by locke, art and music scholars describe exoticism as the "imitation" or "borrowing" of "elements in alien cultures" (44-45). however innocent or neutral these definitions may sound, the representation of difference has strong historical and political implications. addressing artistic representa­ tions of difference requires the identification of self and other, insider and outsider. these categories present a swirl of controversy as scholars seek to understand the implications of power and hegemony in such representa­ tions. locke acknowledges the deeper issues surrounding exoticism, stating that "we need to pay attention to what the chosen musical materials were intended to signify, in context, and what they have meant to audiences and critics over the years" (46). locke offers a brief overview of the term exoticism, tracing its etymol­ ogy to the designation of "places or settings 'away from' some vantage point considered normative" ( 43). he then provides his own definition of the term that illustrates the complexity of the topic at hand. his definition involves five lengthy considerations that serve only as starting points (46-47). through his "broader definition," locke states his aim to "encompass various considkristy riggs erations that previous definitions have generally not addressed;' including the function of musical exoticism within culture (47). he also identifies what he describes as the two reigning paradigms that dominate studies of exoticism: the "exotic-style only" and "all the music in full context." locke uses the former label to refer to the "just-the-notes approach." the latter paradigm takes a more holistic approach by accounting for the full context surrounding a composition. locke argues that too often music scholars are preoccupied by the "exotic-style only." this approach leads to the perception that exoticism only exists if the notes themselves represent the other. locke writes that musical compositions may exhibi.t exoticism through other means than the notes on the score: the conventional first line of approach in dealing with [exotic 1 repertoires is to look for some fairly evident relationship between the musical notes and the intended extramusical image ... but music, once it is given a text to comment on and support, commands a much wider range of expressive devices than this. (58) although the titles for his paradigms are a bit wordy and even awkward-i might suggest instead compositional and contextual exoticism-locke crucially urges us to move beyond "just-the-notes" in order to understand music within its full context. parts ii and iii are ordered chronologically and reveal western compos­ ers' long fascination with the exotic other. locke identifies larger trends within musical exoticism such as "baroque portrayals of despots," "gypsy characters and poor andalusians;' "submerged exoticisms," and "pop exotica." within these trends, locke discusses compositions that are best approached using the "exotic-style only" paradigm alongside those that are better understood through the "all the music in full context" paradigm. bizet's carmen serves as an example. locke describes the "exotic-style" characteristics heard in the prelude: the use of the augmented second and "slithering chromatic tremolos:' however, he contends, "once the curtain rises, we need the (broader) full-context paradigm of musical exoticism if we are to grasp the full range of ethnic portrayals" (162). features of the "full context paradigm" of carmen include the characters (spanish and gypsy) that exhibit ethnic stereotypes, costumes and staging (locke examines photos of emma calve and rosa ponselle in costume) and the portrayal of gender stereotypes, notably, the "irascible spanish male" (don jose) and the "impudent and coquettish" female (andalusian tobacco factory workers). throughout the book, locke touches upon the subjects of empire and hegemony. ranging from rameau's les indes galantes to paul simon's album graceland, he notes the musical repercussions of the building and aftermath of empire. these thorny issues also point to a weakness of musical 119 120 current musicology exoticism, in that we are left wanting to know more about the political and social histories surrounding the music. for example, locke's discussion about russian musical exoticism in the early twentieth century barely addresses the overlapping cultural and political implications between nationalism, folk influence, and representations of the exotic other in this period. the omission illustrates the difficulty of keeping in playa larger cultural and historical context in a book that stretches nearly three centuries. an excep­ tion to this is in the chapter "imperialism and 'the exotic orient.'" under the subtitle "multiple empires, multiple orients;' locke argues that several examples of exoticism were neither innocent nor a mere representation of a composer's well-meaning interest in the other. rather, they were culturally and politically influenced by european colonialism. establishing such links results in a valuable portrayal of the relations between music and empire. in the subsequent chapter, "exoticism in a modernist age," locke further classifies and systematizes various types of exoticism using terms such as "overt;' "submerged;' "absorbed," and "transcultural."3 locke sees these adjectival appendages as crucial to understanding the use of the exotic from 1890-1960. the chapter covers a large amount of musical ground with discussions ranging from debussy to milhaud, cowell to partch, puccini to respighi, and many in between. the end of the chapter brings us to exoti­ cism in popular song, jazz, musical theater and film. in this section, locke addresses questions of intentionality and explores how composers altered their "exotic practices" to suit the audience (246). in many of his previous publications, locke has been highly adept at uncovering obscure composers and/or works that exhibit character­ istics of the exotic. musical exoticism is no exception. here, he discusses (among other pieces), gluck's la rencontre imprevue, ou les pelerins de la mecque (1764), gottschalk's le banjo: grotesque fantaisie (1855), joseph achron's baal shem (1923), and alan hovhaness's and god created great whales . .. (1970). in his penultimate chapter, "exoticism in a global age;' locke examines the use of exoticism in music written after 1960. he looks at the music of aminollah hossein, isang yun and halim ei-dabh, three composers who blend non-western and western musical techniques in their compositions. these examples exhibit the transforming use of exoticism. locke suggests that in the mid-twentieth century, exoticism shifted from a device that represented the foreign other to a tool used by the other as a means to represent one's own heritage. this shift, coinciding with the advent of what we now call postcolonial scholarship, reveals the unstable categories of the representer and the represented. another recurring issue throughout musical exoticism is the question of value. indeed, for locke the subject is so pressing that he uses it as the title of his second chapter and returns to it in his epilogue. these queskristy riggs tions articulate the tension that arises from listening to exotic pieces that are aesthetically enjoyable but ethically fraught. locke acknowledges that many of the works discussed in the book exhibit racism, sexism, and other problematic characteristics. a paradoxical tension emerges as he describes his disapproval of certain offensive traits in musical compositions that he nonetheless loves and enjoys. in culture and imperialism, said recognized a similar tension. he argued that the historical context or "worldliness" of works of art does not reduce or diminish the value of the work but rather "because of their worldliness, because of their complex affiliations with their real setting, they are more interesting and more valuable as works of art" (1993:13). the question arises: can we still value music that expresses or depicts prejudice and discrimination? locke makes a resilient plea to do just this. by striving to better understand and reflect on such pieces, he argues, we may acquire a fuller appreciation of them. several weeks after first reading musical exoticism, i am still contemp lat­ ing the images, sounds, and impressions explored throughout the book. locke's project is an ambitious attempt to explore the musical evocations of the other from the early eighteenth century until the present. evident throughout the book are locke's strengths uncovering and discussing little­ known works, his deep passion for the music at hand, and his far-reaching knowledge of exoticism throughout music history. in a book that stretches such a large historical span, it is impossible to explore and discuss each of the multi-faceted questions and issues posed. nevertheless, musical exoticism opens new doorways for further scholarship. true to its name, musical exoticism: images and reflections fulfills exactly what it states in its title. the book offers a series of snapshots, impressions, and sounds that will inspire deeper contemplation on the musically exotic. notes 1. for example, see hunter (1998), head (2000), and brown (2000). 2. see said ([1978]1994, 1993), bhabha (1994), and spivak (1999, 1988). 3. sindhumathi revuluri's recent doctoral dissertation also addresses the topic of musical modernism and the absorption of exotic tropes (2007). references bhabha, homi. 1994. the location of culture. london and new york: routledge. brown, julie. 2000. bartok, the gypsies and hybridity. in western music and its others: difference, representation and appropriation in music, edited by georgina born and david hesmondhalgh, 119-42. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. head, matthew. 2000. orientalism, masquerade and mozart's turkish music. london: royal musical association. 121 122 current musicology hunter, mary. 1998. the alia turca style in the late eighteenth century: race and gender in the symphony and the seraglio. in the exotic in western music, edited by jonathan bellman, 45-73. boston: northeastern university press. de lamartine, alphonse. 1835. souvenirs, impressions, pensees et paysages, pendant un voyage en orient (1832-1833) ou, notes d'un voyageur. paris: c. gosselin. revuluri, sindhumathi. 2007. on anxiety and absorption: musical encounters with the exotique in fin-de-siecle france. phd dissertation, princeton university. said, edward. [1978]1994. orientalism. new york: vintage books. ---.1993. culture and imperialism. new york: vintage books. spivak, gayatri chakravorty. 1988. can the subaltern speak? in marxism and the interpretation of culture, edited by c. nelson and l. grossberg, 271-316. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. ---. 1999. a critique of postcolonial reason: toward a history of the vanishing present. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 125 hibbert, sarah, and richard wrigley, eds. 2014. art, theatre, and opera in paris, 1750-1850: exchanges and tensions. aldershot, uk: ashgate. reviewed by julia doe the eleven essays in this volume were produced for an interdisciplinary conference, “correspondances: exchanges and tensions between art, theatre, and opera in france, c. 1750–1850,” held at the national gallery, london in the spring of 2010. this event coincided with an exhibition of the history paintings of paul delaroche. the artist’s purportedly “theatrical” style, and longstanding engagement with the theater more broadly, serve as a fitting starting point for a series of explorations of the interplay between the visual arts and the parisian stage during the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. that relationships between artistic media flourished during these years is a scholarly commonplace, as the editors of the collection, sarah hibberd and richard wrigley, readily admit. they insist, however, (and rightly so) that a framework for interrogating these networks of exchange remains critically underdeveloped. the tasks set forth for these essays, then, are both lofty and laudable: the authors aim to establish new models for examining the points of contact between artists and artistic forms and to more precisely identify “which ideas and images were crossing over, how this occurred, and to what effect” (9). in so doing, they are able to shed light on several larger themes relevant to the study of painting, music, and drama during this period. first, the collection provides fresh insight into persistent questions of genre—so crucial to the production and reception of the arts in france—examining how well (or how problematically) hierarchical divisions might be mapped across media, and probing how the subversion of these boundaries might be imbued with resonances of wider sociopolitical meaning. moreover, through their generous topical and chronological scope, the contributions to this volume address issues of aesthetic continuity and rupture, seeking to untangle how and when different media were affected by the various institutional restructurings of the turbulent revolutionary and post-revolutionary years. the authors of art, theatre, and opera in paris suggest a number of diverse and promising approaches to the study of interaction between artistic media. most straightforward, perhaps, though nonetheless thoughtprovoking, are essays that pinpoint the material sites of this intersection and describe how specific agents forged relationships across disciplinary bragi hibberd 5 126 current musicology fields. olivia voisin, for example, discusses the involvement of romantic painters in the creation of stage dress for the comédie-française, demonstrating how the costume functioned as a “go-between” bridging the dramatic and the pictorial spheres. in his costume designs for the theater, louis boulanger made key contributions to broader aesthetic debates concerning historical accuracy and local color in painting; for boulanger, the function of a costume—which would be widely seen and repeatedly reused in a repertory company—was to consolidate a system of iconography that might then be more broadly “recognized as standard through visual culture” (138). mark ledbury, along similar lines, assesses the association between a painter (the acclaimed jacques-louis david) and a set designer (ignace degotti, known primarily for his work at the théatre feydeau). ledbury employs the concept of “facultative mutualism” to describe the relationship between david and degotti, arguing that the creative dialogue between the two artists went beyond mere professional influence to encompass “a complex social, cultural and personal tale of multiple entanglements” (72). what is novel in this essay are the variety of sources analyzed (ranging from correspondence to provisional set designs to completed paintings) and the richly textured view of creative collaboration that emerges from this methodological scope. if several chapters of this volume provide an updated take on recognized models of interplay between media, others place an emphasis on previously neglected loci of exchange. particularly stimulating in this regard is a group of essays addressing instances of cross-fertilization at the level of critical discourse. what did it mean for musicians to adopt the vocabulary of art criticism (and vice versa)—and what is there to be gained from charting the modalities of this interaction? mark darlow explores the abundance of pictorial allusions in late eighteenth-century writings on opera, positing that critics adopted such rhetoric to describe effects for which “musical language had not evolved a terminology of its own” (47). he traces the musical application of chiaroscuro to interrogate issues of variety and contrast in lyric theater, providing fresh insight, especially, into the kinds of generic hybridity in play in the drame lyrique. richard wrigley, for his part, moves beyond a study of transfer in critical rhetoric to describe overlap in the activities of the critics themselves. outlining the careers of journalists working in restoration paris—foremost among them the history painter-turned-commentator étienne-jean delécluze—wrigley demonstrates how these figures moved fluidly between salon and theater criticism, eschewing any explicitly media-exclusive outlook as they did so. forming a counterpart to these discussions of criticism are essays that investigate parallels in the relationships between artists and their audiences across a number of genres and forms. patricia smyth argues that the 127 julia doe “theatricality” so often identified in delaroche’s salon paintings stemmed not from commonalities of subject matter (between specific paintings and specific dramatic works) but rather from coinciding methods of interaction with the spectator. in this view, visual artists and playwrights grappled with analogous tensions, as each group negotiated the demands of two current—but foundationally contradictory—paradigms of spectatorship (one based on direct, emotional appeal and another rooted in detached, intellectual analysis). céline frigau manning examines modes of audience engagement not with the autonomous work but with the techniques of the dramatic interpreter. she suggests that the acting of maria malibran (a star singer of the théâtre italien, known for her “excessively” expressive style) was situated at the interface of multiple, distinct theatrical traditions—and that it was this ambiguity that so forcefully commanded the attention of the spectator. this case study serves as a reminder that artistic hybridization might be enacted through the processes of both production and reception (in this particular instance, “both in the singer’s performances and in the reactions of audiences” involved [14]). a final, recurring theme of this volume is the rich tension between the diachronic and the synchronic—in attempts to collapse the boundaries between art forms that unfold in time and those that exist in space. beth s. wright posits that the “dramatic” quality of delaroche’s paintings stemmed from their ability to convey multiple temporal states simultaneously; the artist created a new rhetoric of expressive gesture in response to emerging trends in the composition of historiographic literature, utilizing “different visual languages to represent momentary action and enduring historical significance” (191). stephen bann underscores a related spirit of expansion in the output of delaroche, proposing that his works were imbued with a quality of dynamism influenced by contemporary theater. more precisely, delaroche drew inspiration from split-stage scenes and the interplay between onand off-stage action to reconfigure the connection between the “in-frame” and the “out-of-frame” in his paintings, experimenting with new means of energizing pictorial space (154). in these examples, intriguingly, innovation was driven through an adoption of the very traits that a stated medium was not “supposed” to be able to appropriate. the challenges of the interdisciplinary approach at the heart of art, theatre, and opera in paris are not insignificant, and the authors should be commended, collectively, for overcoming a set of difficulties both pragmatic and historiographic. on the one hand, many of the multimedia works worthy of investigation in this context suffer from a lack of extant sources, or confound reconstruction even when their sources are recoverable. in other words, the sites of overlap between the dramatic and the pictorial— 128 current musicology the costumes, sets, and scenographic plans of an opera, for example—often no longer exist in a complete state or offer only tantalizing glimpses as to how disparate elements of music and staging were actually coordinated in a given tableaux. highly informative, especially for the musicologist, are essays that analyze little-studied lyric repertory in order to articulate how such material relationships functioned. david charlton focuses on the musical evocation of imagistic topoi (landscapes and “sunrise” scenes) in the opéra-comique of the late eighteenth century, demonstrating that opera “aspire[d] to the condition of painting” not through facile descriptive gestures but through a shared aesthetic orientation with the visual sphere (23). on the other hand, and more critically, the contributors to this volume must work to combat longstanding historiographic biases against certain forms of cross-media influence, which exist amongst critics, scholars, and practitioners in both the visual and musical disciplines. it is an irony worthy of note (and one underscored by the editors) that the term théâtral was far from complimentary when applied to the visual arts in france, a marker instead of decadence and deleterious artifice. and, as musicologists are well aware, an analogous suspicion of the visual realm (or, at least, a privileging of the strictly musical over the spectacular) has often haunted the production of lyric theater—as evidenced, for instance, by wagner’s influential disparagement of grand opera for its reliance on scenic effects. the authors must therefore overcome the prejudices of their individual fields before moving outwards to explore the productive links between them—an endeavor in which they make significant forward strides. for example, in his discussion of dramatic adaptations of the gothic novel the monk (famous for its supernatural “bleeding nun”), thomas grey demonstrates how music might be integrated into the broader study of representational technology in opera. in scenes of spectral apparition, he argues, music plays a central “role in mediating between the material and the spiritual” (79), working seamlessly alongside—rather than at a privileged remove from—other elements of stagecraft (scrims, specialized lighting, and so forth). sarah hibberd provides a similar rehabilitation of the visual in her study of the tableau vivant and its transformations during the july monarchy, detailing how scenes of climactic catastrophe depended closely upon the multi-sensorial engagement of the spectator; here, she suggests, “music and image offer alternatives that create meaning through their interplay,” and must accordingly be assessed in tandem (118). this collection, then, is a valuable resource: it provides innovative methodological models for conceptualizing the intersections between the visual, musical, and theatrical realms and for confronting the challenges, both practical and historiographic, inherent in this process. as befitting a 129 julia doe study with a strong emphasis on the visual arts, the volume benefits from the inclusion of a number of high-quality images, and it is well-produced overall. (there are but a few unfortunate inconsistencies of copyediting and orthography; within the span of just three pages, for instance, luigi cherubini’s médée is also given as médee and medée.) the only real hesitation of this reader concerns the organization of the volume. even as the individual essays advocate convincingly for the adoption of an interdisciplinary perspective, the structure of the collection as a whole stymies, if only to a certain degree, the authors’ stated goals. the chapters of art, theatre, and opera in paris are arranged roughly chronologically (or, at least, are clearly divided between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), and one certainly cannot fault the editors for making this straightforward choice. but the effect of this arrangement is that, strictly by virtue of the authors and sub-specialties involved, the fields represented seem somewhat demarcated: the first half of the collection is dominated by the contributions of musicologists and scholars of lyric theater, while the second is focused mainly on the work of art historians. and, while the introduction to the volume provides a concise and compelling summation of the thematic links between the interior essays, these connections are not always so simple to discern from the essays in and of themselves. the result is that the keen insights of each chapter do not always translate into a vivid dialogue between these chapters and that certain portions of this specialized book will be more accessible than others, depending on the discipline of the reader. but this structural quibble—which is of course dependent, in the end, on the conference format from which the collection derives—should not detract from the utility of its broader frame and component parts. the volume offers an important addition to the body of scholarly work on the visual arts, music, and drama of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as a persuasive argument for further exploration of the rich and varied intersections between them. music for the last supper: the dramatic significance of mozart's musical quotations in the tafelmusik of don giovanni nicholas j. chong in the act ii finale of mozart's don giovanni, as the title character enjoys his dinner, a domestic wind band, called a harmonie in mozart's time, plays some tafelmusik music intended to accompany a meal. 1 the tafelmusik that mozart chose for don giovanni's last supper consists of melodies quoted from three contemporaneous opere bujfe (example 1): vincente martin y soler's una cos a rara (1786), giuseppe sarti's fra i due litiganti il terzo gode (1782), and mozart's own the marriage of figaro (1786).2 such musical quotation is a specific type of allusion. as christopher reynolds has pointed out, an allusion is not simply a "reference to another work made by means of a resemblance;' but must be intentional; since "motivic possibilities are finite;' unintended similarities between two works are bound to occur.3 quotation employs an especially high degree of resemblance to the source being alluded to; in the case of the tafelmusik, whole melodies are reproduced from other operas, not just smaller motives. "quotations;' reynolds writes, "are neither more nor less meaningful than less exact references-only a different degree of artistic appropriation:'4 i would go further and argue that quotations, in comparison to less exact forms of allusion, demonstrate intentionality. leaving aside situations where there exists documentary proof of a composer's intentions, it is always possible to argue that resemblances between two pieces are unintended. with quota­ tions, however, this possibility is greatly diminished because the reference is much more exact. in the tafelmusik, not only are the melodies unmistakable quotations from other operas; mozart even has leporello announce them as such to the audience. there can thus be no doubt that mozart intended these quotations to be heard and easily identified. as the quotations from martin's and sarti's operas begin, leporello announces their titles. "bravi! 'cosa rarat' he cries (mm. 53-54), then later "evvivano i 'litigantit' (mm. 123-25). finally, leporello hears the quotation from figaro-the tune of figaro's aria "non pili andrai:' this time, instead of announcing the title of mozart's earlier opera, he sings, "questa poi la conosco pur troppo" (mm. 164-66; "this one, then, i know only too well"). at the prague premiere of don giovanni, this line would have had a special significance for the local audience, for felice ponziani, the baritone singing leporello, had also sung the role of figaro-and "non pili andrai" in prague the year before.5 current musicology, no. 92 (spring 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology example 1: the tafelmusik quotations and their sources. from vincente martin y soler, una cosa rara (1786): act i finale, final chorus (mm.444-593). from giuseppe sarti, fra i due litiganti il terzo gode (1782): act i, aria, "come un agnello" (mingone). from mozart, the marriage of figaro (1786): act i, aria, "non pili andrai" (figaro). hit shows and in-jokes: the tafelmusik as light--hearte·d comedy despite the voluminous amount of scholarship on don giovanni, the tafelmusik scene has received relatively little specific attention. critical commentary on the scene has tended to characterize the scene in two main ways: as an attempt to please mozart's audience by quoting music that it would have recognized, and as a vehicle for the composer to play private jokes on his colleagues. nicholas j. chong it seems fair to assume that the identification of these quotations would, in itself, have been a delight for mozart's audience. as mary hunter has sug­ gested, the recognition of the familiar in opera buffa was one way in which the genre provided "pleasure for its own sake:'6 though martin's and sarti's operas have, along with their composers, failed to establish a place in the standard operatic canon, all three of mozart's source operas, not just figaro, would have been particularly well-known to the composer's audience. they were, in robert freeman's words, "the operatic smash hits of the 1780s:'7 in vienna, mozart was in many ways a less established composer than martin or sarti. cosa rara and i due litiganti were huge popular successes. statistics compiled by peter branscombe show that between 1781 and 1791 mozart was the seventh most performed composer on the viennese operatic stage.s paisiello was first, followed by salieri. martin was the third most performed composer and una cos a rara was the second most performed opera in his oeuvre, receiving 55 performances. domenico cimarosa and pietro guglielmi ranked fourth and fifth respectively. sarti was the sixth most performed composer and i due litiganti was his most performed opera, receiving 63 performances. by way of comparison, figaro was performed just 38 times in vienna during mozart's lifetime, including the 1789 revival. in fact, upon its premiere in 1786, it was cos a rara that kicked it off the viennese stage after just nine performances. 9 don giovanni would end up being performed in vienna only fifteen times before mozart's death. branscombe's rankings generally accord with those found in johann pezzl's contemporary "sketch ofvienna:'lo in pezzl's list of the five most successful operas, i due litiganti comes second (behind paisiello's ii barbiere di siviglia) and una cos a rara comes fifth; mozart's name does not appear at all. 11 it is clear, then, that martin's and sarti's operas were hardly obscure works in their day.12 there is little to suggest that this would have been any less the case in prague than in vienna and, besides, mozart always intended for don giovanni to be performed in vienna after its prague premiere. 13 if the quotations from cos a rara and i due litiganti might have acknowl­ edged the popularity of those operas in vienna, the quotation of "non pili andrai" must have been specifically aimed at a prague audience. figaro had, after all, been an extraordinary success there, following its less-than-suc­ cessful premiere in vienna. as mozart himself wrote from prague, "here they talk about nothing but 'figaro: nothing is played, sung, or whistled but 'figaro: no opera is drawing but 'figaro: nothing, nothing but 'figaro:"14 "non pili andrai" was particularly beloved. konrad kuster relates an ac­ count of a concert in prague in january 1787, after which mozart continued improvising at the piano for the enthusiastic audience: "[he 1 played no fewer than three improvisations on this occasion, the last of them-by popular 9 10 current musicology demand-based on 'non pili andrai:"15 later, in 1791, presumably conscious of this aria's popularity, mozart also arranged it as a contredanse (k. 609).16 leaving aside the popularity of the quotation sources, the tafelmusik quotations might also have embedded several in-jokes that would have been a source of light-hearted fun for mozart's singers and collaborators. apart from ponziani, the original leporello, who sang the role of figaro in the prague premiere of the earlier opera, the overlap of singers between productions of figaro and don giovanni in prague extended also to luigi bassi, the original don giovanni, who had sung the role of the count in figaro. 17 mozart's leporello in vienna, francesco benucci, had, like ponziani, also sung the role of figaro there,18 so the joke suggested by "questa poi la conosco pur troppo" would have worked on a viennese audience as well. the first giovanni in vienna, francesco albertarelli, did not sing in the vienna figaro but, as julian rushton has suggested, mozart would initially have expected the vienna production of don giovanni to use the same singers as those for figaro. 19 additionally, as daniel heartz points out, the text for the tafelmusik incorporates puns on the names of two people involved in don giovanni's prague premiere. giovanni's exclamation, "ah che piatto saporito!" ("ah what a tasty dish!"), puns on the name of the soprano singing donna anna-teresa saporiti,20 who was famous not just for her vocal skills, but also for her figure. heartz further suggests that "the pun can be extended from teresa saporiti to include giovanni's relishing of donna anna:'21 the second person on whose name mozart puns is the opera orchestra's harpsichord player, jan kritel kuchar. kuchar is czech for "cook;' so leporello's words "si eccellente e il vostro cuoco" ("your cook is so excellent") may refer to kuchar.22 kuchar arranged both figaro and don giovanni for keyboard, and the idea of cooking might also have referred to his work as an arranger of mozart's operas. 23 da ponte is another figure to whom the tafelmusik quotations make oblique reference. da ponte wrote the libretto for una cosa rara, so leporello's remark, "e conforme al vostro merto" ("it conforms to your worth"), made during the quotation from that opera, can be read as praise from mozart for da ponte's skills as a librettist. da ponte, of course, had also written the libretto for figaro. tomislav volek has suggested that mozart might also have acknowledged his friend and patron count thun through the quotation from i due litiganti, since sarti's opera had been performed in the count's private theater in 1783.24 finally, the tafelmusik quotations can be interpreted as referring to two figures from the don juan literary and theatrical tradition. the libretto for i due litiganti was based on le nozze, a libretto written by carlo goldoni.25 goldoni was also the author of the play don giovanni tenorio, 0 sia ii dissoluto (1736), with which da ponte would likely have been familiar.26 earlier, i pointed out that leporello's praise of giovanni's nicholas j. chong cook could be connected to the harpsichord player kuchar. however, it might also be read as a reference to bertati's libretto for gazzaniga's opera, don giovanni tenorio (1787), which contains a character, lanterna, who is a cook.27 as is well known, da ponte's don giovanni libretto relied heavily on bertati's as an exemplar. treating the tafelmusik seriously much of the information i have outlined in the preceding section appears in previous scholarship on don giovanni, and reflects the tendency in discourse on the opera to accept the tafelmusik quotations at face value-as simple crowd-pleasers or sites for compositional in-jokes. more than sixty years ago, edward dent wrote that "neither of these choices seems to have any particular significance; they were probably chosen merely because they were popular:'28 since then, such trivialization of the tafelmusik has persisted, per­ haps encouraged by the scholarly consensus that the details of the scene were not fully worked out until during the rehearsals, possibly with input from the performers themselves: leporello's words identifying the three quotations are in the autograph score but not the final libretto printed in prague.29 the usual assumption seems to be that since the quotations were incorporated into the opera at such a late stage, and with the possible help of the singers, the scene-if not in terms of the very employment of quotation as a device, then at least in terms of the choice of quotations-is somehow less integral to mozart's and da ponte's conceptions of the opera. in her book, rhythmic gesture in mozart: le nozze di figaro and don giovanni, wye j. allanbrook does suggest multiple ways in which the choices of music for quotation can be connected to the dramatic action at this point in don giovanni. (indeed, i shall cite some of her observations later in this article.) yet, she still per­ plexingly insists that "mozart seems to have chosen the pieces more in play than to make a particular poinf'30 one wonders if allanbrook might have thought her speculations indefensible given the apparent historical evidence that the tafelmusik was meant only as a kind of last-minute improvised joke. as reynolds argues, however, any allusion, by definition, "affects the meaning conveyed to those who recognize if'31 mozart's superficial desire to supply the audience with comic relief, and to playa few in-jokes on his colleagues, does not in any way exclude the possibility that there is in these quotations, to borrow a formulation of philip keppler's, the "delivery of a concealed commenf'32 the issue of how mozart would have expected the tafelmusik quotations to affect the audience's understanding of the scene deserves serious consideration. 11 12 current musicology aside from allanbrook, heartz has also hinted at the possibility that the tafelmusik has serious musical and dramatic importance, though his brief discussion of the significance of mozart's quotations is but a small part of a general account of the historical circumstances surrounding the opera's creation.33 in the rest of this article, i seek to expand on heartz's work by engaging in a detailed exploration of how each of the sources for mozart's quotations in the tafelmusik-martin's opera, sarti's opera and finally figaro-might relate to the music and plot of don giovanni. after considering each of these sources in turn, i conclude with a reflection on how the tafelmusik as a whole-that is, all three quotations taken together as a single unit -affects the dramatic structure of don giovanni and, more broadly, the manner in which the opera is received by an audience, both in mozart's time and in our own. i am interested in two central issues: first, why mozart might have chosen to quote from these three sources in particular; second, why mozart would have constructed the tafelmusik by cobbling together music from previously composed works rather than writing new music. in attempting to answer these questions, i hope to show that the tafelmusik is much more than just a musikalischer spa fl. even before examining mozart's quotation sources in detail, it is worth mentioning two important reasons which argue against the trivialization of the tafelmusik quotations, and which should prompt a search for something more. these have both been addressed in previous scholarship, making it all the more surprising that the tafelmusik has not been treated more seriously. firstly, mozart apparently took great care to integrate the tafelmusik into the larger musical and dramatic structure of the opera. as several writers have pointed out, the three quotations in the finale of act ii form a neat parallel in several respects with the three dances in the finale of act j.34 as barbara barry points out, the dances and the tafelmusik comprise the two "'real life' activities in the context of the opera and [are 1 internally framed by it as a dramatic device, like a play within a play:'35 moreover, as both allanbrook and kuster have suggested, each quotation in the tafelmusik can be related to one of the dances in the act i finale,36 even if metrically they do not occur in the same order (table 1). the 6/8 of the cos a rara quotation, which allanbrook calls a "gigue;' doubles the 3/8 of the teitsch. the 3/4 aria from j due litiganti sounds like a minuet, corresponding to the minuet in act i. indeed, for the tafelmusik, mozart alters sarti's original aria more than either the quotation from martin's opera or "non pili andrai;' and he does so precisely to make the sarti quotation a genuine minuet. in addition to eliminating the second section of sarti's aria, which is in 4/4, mozart shortens the 3/4 section to fit a conventional minuet structure, aaba. finally, the cut-time aria from figaro parallels the 2/4 contredanse. significantly, the dances of the act i nicholas j. chong act ii finale, act i finale, tafelmusik dances 1 st quotation: 3,-0 dance: cosa rara teitsch 6/8 3/8 2110 quotation: 1st dance: j due litiganti minuet 3/4 3/4 3,-'1 quotation: 2"d dance: "non pill andrai" contredanse 2/2 2/4 table 1: parallel between tafelmusik quotations and dances in the act i finale. finale and the tafelmusik are also the two occasions in the opera when on­ stage instruments are employed. though in the autograph score there is no instruction for on stage instruments given for the tafelmusik as there is for the dances, the score used for the viennese performances contains the direction "sopra il teatro:'37 as freeman suggests, mozart's scoring of the tafelmusik can be attributed to the love of wind music particular to prague audiences, and to the high skill level of prague wind players. 3h however, at the prague premiere, there may not have been enough wind players available to have a separate wind band on stage for the tafelmusik (the act i dances require fewer instruments).39 when an onstage band was included in vienna, this was done in spite of the considerable cost,40 suggesting the great importance mozart attached to having onstage instruments in both the dances and the tafelmusik-a situation that would have reinforced their parallelism. the tonal structure of the three quotations in the tafelmusik provides further evidence of the compositional attention mozart must have devoted to their musical integration within the opera (table 2). the tafelmusik begins with the quotation from cosa rara in d major, preserving the original tonality in martin's opera. the beginning of the tafelmusik thus connects seamlessly with the music that immediately precedes it-the opening of the act ii finale, which is also in d major, the tonic key of the opera as a whole. the other two quotations, however, have their original tonalities altered. the sarti quotation is originally in a major, but occurs in f major in the tafelmusiky to move from d major to f major, mozart reduces the d-major triad in measure ll5 to a single unison d in measure 116. this d then initiates an unharmonized d-e-f ascent, leading the music to f major (example 2). heartz writes that this "represents an extreme reduction (to one bass note, e-natural) of the transition from d to f at the end of the overture:'42 the f 13 14 current musicology key in key in tafelmusik ori!!inal source 151 quotation: d major d major cosa rara 2nd quotation: f major a major i due litiganti 3rt quotation: b-flat major c major "non pili andrai" table 2: tonal structure of tafelmusik scene. example 2: transition between martin quotation and sarti quotation, vocal parts omitted (mm. 112-21). ~~=~~=[=iiw-=-l1]~~~~~~=j~~=~~ f pi! etc. ,. ~ t=fl-l~~ .. ~·,.r:i~! r: ~ ~-r---"'~~~~~i'~ . ~. -~~~~~~~--t:f3::=i'--~~ '~j=~~t~-~~+=i=i~ e'-~~ ~f~¢'m=r~ _-r-= ~t-~~==.:---~~· ··~·-~--;:--1::t~. :~-=...:=~ example 3: transition between sarti quotation and quotation of "non pili andrai" vocal parts omitted (mm. 157-64). nicholas j. chong major of the second quotation then easily acts as dominant to b-flat major (example 3), the key in which "non pili andrai" is quoted, departing from the c major of the original. the overall sequence of keys in the tafelmusik is not incidental. as heartz points out, the succession d major-f major-b-flat major is the same as that which occurs at the beginning of the opera, from the overture to "notte e giorno faticar" and then to the struggle between anna and giovanni.43 more importantly, the tonalities ofd, f and b-flat can, as ki.ister emphasizes, be considered the three most important keys in the opera as a whole.44 in addition to the tonal structure, one could also point to motivic connections between the tafelmusik, in particular the martin quotation, and mozart's music elsewhere in the act ii finale. as f. r. noske has argued, the forty -six measures preceding the tafelmusik are based on two basic motives: a threeor four-note descending arpeggio on the tonic chord, d major; and a fouror six-note ascending scale. these same two motives dominate martin's melody from una cosa rara.45 in-jokes and cheap laughs aside, it is clear that the tafelmusik quotations were chosen and manipulated to fit well, musically, with the rest of the opera. the importance of intertextual meanings for opera buffa has been much discussed in the scholarly literature on the genre. indeed, hunter has argued that intertextuality is one of opera buffa's defining characteristics.46 this provides the second reason for treating the tafelmusik seriously. in opere buffe, hunter writes, "we find gestures and scenes from opera seria and tragedie lyrique, as well as quotations from and allusions to other opere buffe:'47 one of the many examples hunter cites is the end of ii convitato di pietra (1776), another don juan opera, this time by nunziato porta and vincenzo righini.48 here don giovanni is dragged off to the underworld accompanied by music that makes unmistakable reference to gluck's orfeo. the allusion to orfeo, in hunter's view, might suggest a "moralising purpose;' partly because by evoking gluck's work, porta and righini are also evoking its genre, opera seria, and its moralistic associations.49 john platoffhas also written extensively on opera buffa's intertextuality. in one example that crosses paths with the subject of the present article, he demonstrates that in cos! fan tutte, alfonso's aria "vorrei dir, e cor non ho" shows striking similarities to a passage from martin's cosa rara. 50 both passages are in f minor and use similar musical figures to depict agitation. the ironic use of these figures in alfonso's aria, platoff argues, is strengthened by its allusion to their non-ironic use in cos a rara. if, as hunter and platoff contend, intertextuality in opera buffa clearly serves a significant dramatic purpose beyond simply giving the attentive and knowledgeable listener the delight of recognition, there is no reason why the tafelmusik in don giovanni should 15 16 current musicology be treated any differently. to borrow platoff's formulation, might it have been the case that mozart's audience "would have understood something more"?51 the quotation from una cosa rara i would now like to turn to a detailed consideration of the relationship between each of the sources for the tafelmusik quotations and don giovanni. a chart showing how the text for the tafelmusik corresponds to various lines in the sources is included as an appendix, and should be consulted in connection with this section of the article, and the two sections that follow. texts and english translations for the tafelmusik are in the right two columns, those for the quotation sources in the left two columns martin's una cosa rara begins with the arrival of a spanish royal hunting party at a mountain village where the queen isabella, the prince giovanni, and the equerry corrado are drawn into a local dispute. lilla, the village beauty, wants to marry lubino, a mountaineer. tita, lilla's brother, wishes to prevent this, and wants his sister to marry the mayor lisargo instead. lilla seeks the queen's help but before she can intervene, ghita, tita's betrothed, persuades him to drop his opposition to his sister's desired marriage. the queen then orders that a double wedding take place-between lilla and lubino, and between tita and ghita. in the meantime, the prince, who earlier had declared his love for lilla, continues to woo her. he is helped by corrado, who secretly also wants her for himself. the prince and corrado harass the two couples, leading lubino, now lilla's husband, to ask the queen for assistance. corrado is punished, after which the queen and prince depart (see figure 1 for the dramatis personae). the title of martin's opera (,'a rare thing") would, in the first place, have allowed mozart a clever double entendre: "cosa rara" could refer to both the opera and to the food don giovanni devours.52 moreover, the superficial similarities in plot and character between cos a rara and don giovanni are easily apparent. both operas are purportedly set in spain (martin was, incidentally, a spaniard himself). both involve a high-born man wooing a peasant girl, and in this respect, the fact that martin's prince is also named giovanni is more than a casual coincidence. as heartz points out, "substitute zerlina for lilla and the allusion becomes clear:'53 one could even consider the possibility that giovanni and corrado in martin's opera correspond to giovanni and leporello respectively in mozart's. unlike corrado, leporello does not go after zerlina but when don giovanni meets the crowd of peasant girls in act i (scene viii, recitative, mm. 4-6), he makes it quite clear that he wants one for himself ("fra tante, per mia fe' / vi sara qualche cosa per me"; ''among so many, by my faith / there will be something for me too"). isabella, a spanish queen giovanni, a spanish prince corrado, giovanni's equerry lilla, a village girl lubino, a mountaineer tita, lilla's brother lisargo, the mayor of the village ghita, tita's betrothed figure 1: martin, una cosa rara: dramatis personae. nicholas j. chong the music mozart chose to quote from cosa rara comes from the final chorus (mm. 444-593) of the act i finale, beginning with the line "0 quanto un s1 bel giubilo" ("0 what beautiful rejoicing"). putting the cosa rara text side-by-side with the tafelmusik text, we find that leporello's first line, "bravi! 'cosa rara!'" ("great! a rare thing!"), occurs to music correspond­ ing to the lines "0 quanto un s1 bel giubilo, / 0 quanto alletta e piace!" ("0 what beautiful rejoicing, / 0 how it tempts and pleases!"), matching the emotional content of the lines in the source. a few lines later, the tafelmusik texts have giovanni and leporello exclaim, ''ah che piatto saporito! / ah che barbaro appetito!" (''ah what a tasty dish! / ah what a savage appetite!"), corresponding to the lines beginning "e il figlio mio non parla?" in which the queen, lilla and ghita point out the prince's silence. this draws a connec­ tion between the prince's disappointment and don giovanni's appetite-an appetite which, in its sexual form, has apparently been left unfulfilled since, notwithstanding leporello's catalogue, it is not certain that he has made a successful conquest during the opera itself.54 such a conflation of sexual and gastronomic appetites occurs elsewhere in the opera. at the beginning of act ii, don giovanni's asserts that he needs women more than he needs food (act ii, scene i, recitative, mm. 12-16): lasciar ie donne? pazzo! sai ch'elle per me son necessarie pili del pan che mangio, pili dell'aria che spiro? (porsake women? crazy! do you know that for me they are more necessary than the bread that i eat, more than the air that i breathe?) 17 18 current musicology similarly, in the scene following the tafelmusik, when elvira makes one last attempt at persuading giovanni to change his ways, the don lumps together women and wine: "vivan ie femmine, / viva il buon vino, / sostegno e gloria d'umanwtl" (mm. 303-40; "long live females, / long live good wine, / sustenance and glory of humanity!"). it is important to note that the chorus mozart quotes from cos a rara condudes the first act of martin's opera. its sense of finality is unusual, 55 more suited to the end of the opera than to its middle, and apparently depicts quite unadulterated jubilation at the impending wedding of the two couples. however, the queen's command for the double wedding is not, as it may first appear, the end of the story. the asides of the prince and corrado express their annoyance at being thwarted in their attempts to woo lilla. all, in other words, is not resolved, and martin's chorus thus constitutes but a deceptive or unsuccessful resolution. that this chorus is quoted in don giovanni suggests that despite the relative calm, even the levity, of the tafelmusik scene, things are not as they appear. in this sense, mozart's choice of quotation can be read as a dramatic device foreshadowing the return of the commendatore that will soon occur. the idea of a deceptive resolution has been applied to another part of don giovanni, namely the act ii sextet in don giovanni, which kuster calls a "pseudo-finale:'56 this designation explains the sextet's length, unusual for a scene occurring in the middle of an act. in kuster's view, the sextet mimics the musical construction of a finale because "individual numbers-predominantly small ensembles-are linked together in a kind of chain."57 the sextet creates the expectation that don giovanni will be caught and punished, except, of course, that it is leporello, disguised as the don, who is actually caught. hence, the sextet can be understood as failing in its promise to punish don giovanni, and we must wait until the real finale for the fulfillment of this promise. kuster's interpretation allows us to conceive of the tafelmusik as participating in the postponement of don giovanni's punishment promised by the sextet, prolonging the dramatic tension yet longer as we await the final coming of that punishment. to return to the cosa rara chorus, the words "10 moro" (mm. 547-48; "i am dying"), sung by the prince and corrado, could point to don giovanni's eventual fate. the line "10 moro" also occurs in don giovanni (mm. 418-19), where it is sung by donna anna. anna is answered by don ottavio: "simulate" (mm. 420-21; "keep up appearances"). in the taj'elmusik, don giovanni is himself keeping up appearances-though, of course, unwittingly so. to an audience familiar with the don juan legend, who would already know the don's eventual fate, his apparent ignorance of what is about to befall him comes across as a kind of unintentional pretense. the words sung by all the characters at the end of the cosa rara chorus further suggest the inevitability of don giovanni's downfall-"quel cfie fatto e fatto / e non si nicholas j. chong puo cangiar" (m. 551ff.; "what is done is done / and cannot change").58 such fatalism is only reinforced when, in the prince and corrado's parts, the words are altered to the more emphatic "quel ch'e fatto e fatto / e non si cangiera" (m. 578ff.; "what is done is done / and will not change"). the quotation from i due /itiganti count belfiore countess belfiore dorina, a serving-maid to the count and countess masotto, a steward to the count and countess, and one of dorina's suitors titta, a suitor of dorina's supported by the count mingone, a suitor of dorina's supported by the countess livietta, the countess' maid figure 2: the dramatis personae of sarti's fra i due litiganti il terzo gode. sarti's i due litiganti is the story of three men vying for the affections of dorina, a serving-maid to the quarrelling count and countess belfiore. masotto, a steward to the count and countess, wins dorina's hand, outwit­ ting titta and mingone, who are supported by the count and countess respectively. at the end, titta settles for livietta, the countess' maid, while mingone remains wifeless. (the dramatis personae for the opera is provided in figure 2). platoff writes that "many of the characters and some aspects of the story are similar to mozart's le nozze di figaro . .. the tone of the work, however, is far lighter and more farcicai:'59 the tafelmusik quotes mingone's aria from act i of sarti's opera, "come un agnello;' in which mingone, believing he has won over dorina, boasts of this accomplishment to his rival, titta. mingone's gloating tone recalls the ever-cocky don giovanni. the final lines of the aria, ''a dente asciutto / lei restera" (mm. 78-80,94-96,106-108; "starving / you will always remain"), though set to music that is omitted from the quotation in the tafelmusik, can be related to don giovanni's callous indifference towards leporello, who is literally starving while his master feasts. 6o as was the case with the cos a rara quotation, these lines also point to don giovanni's failure to win over any 19 20 current musicology women in mozart's opera: he has, it could be said, been starved of women. putting the aria's text side-by-side with the corresponding tafelmusik text re­ veals connections that once again evoke the inseparability of don giovanni's gastronomic and sexual appetites. when don giovanni commands, "versa il vino" ("pour the wine"), and when leporello remarks "questo pezza di fagiano / piano, piano vo' inghiottir" ("this piece of pheasant / very quietly i am going to swallow"), these words are sung to music which in the original could have accompanied the line "10 colla bella mia rondinella" ("i, with my beautiful little swallow"), "the swallow" being dorina. similarly, giovanni's "eccellente marzimino" corresponds to the words "viva la sposa" ("long live the bride") in the original, marzimino being a type ofitalian wine.61 the relationship between the text of "come un agnello" and the tafelmusik text thus serves as another reminder that for don giovanni, women exist to be consumed, just like wine and pheasant. the relationship between the first line of sarti's aria, "come un agnello che va al macello" ("like a lamb which goes to the slaughter"), and don giovanni has inspired commentary by a number of writers. allanbrook speculates that this line foreshadows elvira's impending arrival. "the de­ scription;' she writes, "well suits the innocent self-sacrifice of her passionate entry:'62 this reading points more generally to the strong religious connota­ tions of the idea of a lamb going to the slaughter. the quotation of "come un agnello" would hence emphasize elvira's role as a kind of christ figure, seeking to save the sinner don giovanni, offering him a final chance at redemption. this image of the lamb representing elvira's self-sacrifice finds a parallel with zerlina offering herself to be beaten by masetto in her act i aria "batti, batti" (act 1, scene xvi). there, zerlina actually describes herself as a lamb: "stan'> qui come agnellina / le tue botte ad aspettar" ("i shall stay here like a little lamb / to wait for your blows").63 "batti, batti" -the only place in the opera where a reference to a lamb literally occurs in the text-is also in f major, the very key in which mozart sets the quotation from sarti's "come un agnello:' heartz offers a different view from allanbrook, suggesting instead that the lamb of sarti's aria could refer to don giovanni himself, who is "on the verge of going to his own slaughter:'64 giovanni could even be thought of as an innocent lamb, in the sense of his cluelessness: until the moment that the flames of the underworld actually begin to engulf him, the man never appears to have even the slightest inkling of the downfall that awaits him. this seems a more persuasive reading, since elvira does not enter until after "come un agnello" is quoted. the religious associations of the lamb still apply to don giovanni, but now they operate as a form of grotesque irony. as steffen losel has argued, don giovanni's last supper is "a negative nicholas j. chong image of the institution of the eucharisf'65 losel's vivid elaboration of this idea merits extended quotation: just like jesus, giovanni here is enjoying his last supper, yet at his table no friends or disciples are present. [while] jesus's last supper centered altruistically on the giving up of his life for others, giovanni's last supper centers egotistically all on himself. "since i am spending money, i want to distract myself;' he announces at the beginning of the scene, and to underscore what he means, he makes sure that leporello is not sharing his culinary delights. in refusing food to leporello, he contrasts starkly with jesus, who shares both the bread and the cup with his disciples. again, while jesus, the sinless master, according to the gospel of john (13: 1-20), kneels down to wash his disciples' feet, giovanni, the sinner, has elvira, the innocent victim of his sins, fall down at his. in short, giovanni does everything that jesus does not, and so for the christian spectator his last supper becomes a eucharistic celebration ex negativo.66 taking don giovanni to be the lamb of "come un agnello" also supports karol berger's view that his death is a necessary "sacrifice:' "a liberal society;' berger writes, "can function peacefully and harmoniously only so long as everyone recognizes that individual freedom has limits:'67 don giovanni is a danger to this society not merely because he refuses to be bound by such limits, but because others are themselves easily attracted to the "absolute, unlimited freedom" he espouses-a freedom which ifleft uncontrolled can lead only to the destruction of society. 68 the threat he poses is so great that he must be killed, not just punished or put away: "in killing don giovanni, all members of this community-and the community at large-killed, or rather, limited, something within themselves so as to make better, more autonomous, more fully human individuals and communities possible:'69 unlike heartz, losel and berger do not refer to don giovanni as a lamb, but the sacrifice of don giovanni is easily tied to the "agnello" of sarti's aria. the quotation of "non piu andrai" since the marriage of figaro is better known today than the operas by martin and sarti, i shall omit a summary of its plot. even leaving aside the quotation of figaro in don giovanni, the two operas, written so close to each other chronologically and sharing the key of d major, have invited much mutual comparison. the themes of both operas have often been perceived to overlap. some writers have described the two operas as opposites. losel, for example, sees a dichotomy between the "enlightened christian society supported by mutual love and forgiveness" depicted in figaro and the "dangers [arising] when this foundation is lost" in don giovanni. 70 nicholas 21 22 current musicology till makes a similar argument. "the world of don giovanni;' he writes, "is the negative of the portrait of the luminous society of le nozze di figaro: a world in which custom and tradition have reverted to their dark, tribal origins of murder and revenge:'7! it is reasonable to ask whether, by quoting from figaro in the tafelmusik, mozart might be inviting such comparisons. indeed, mozart's choice of figaro's aria, "non pili andrai;' which concludes act i of the earlier opera, points to the affinities between giovanni and cherubino, the libidinous young page to whom figaro's aria is addressed. kierkegaard famously made this link when he wrote that "the page is the eventual don giovanni;'72 though cherubino's development into a fully adult philanderer-like don giovanni-might already be suggested by beaumarchais in la mere coupable, the third play in his figaro trilogy, where the countess gives birth to cherub in's illegitimate child but passes him off as the count's. recalling kierkegaard, berger describes cherubino as "an immature, lighter, more poetic, and less dangerous version of don giovanni:'73 what cherubino and giovanni share is, to borrow rousseau's expression, an "[intoxication] with love that [lacks] an object:'74 their sexuality, in till's words, is "neither individuated nor clearly directed:'75 this notion is encapsulated in the meaning of cherubinds name-"little cherub" -which, as hunter writes, marks him as "a kind of cupid figure, representing, if not the power to make people fall in and out oflove, at least the disruptive power of eros:'76 cupid was the roman god oflove-amor. when don giovanni exclaims ''amor, consiglio" in response to donna elvira disrupting his attempted conquest of zerlina (act i, scene x, m. 7), we are easily reminded of giovanni's resemblance to cherubino, the arrior of figaro. the text of "non pili andrai" perfectly suits the position of the tafelmusik in the plot of don giovanni. cherubino has just been sent into the army by the count, and figaro tells him that his days as an "amorous philanderer;' as a "little narcissus, little adonis of love" are now over. put quite simply, these words could just as easily be addressed to don giovanni, whose own career in sexual promiscuity is about to come to an end. tellingly, mozart only quotes the section of figaro's aria where he tells of what cherubino will no longer be able to do, no longer be able to have. completely omitted from the quotation is the music of the second half of the aria, beginning with the line "fra guerrieri poffar bacco" (m. 44), where figaro describes what life will be like in the military for cherubino. the original aria offers cherubino an alternative to his philandering-"gloria militar" ("military glory"). cherubino is, as it were, given a future. the omission of the second part of the aria from the tafelmusik suggests that don giovanni has no future. there is no alternative to his philandering, for the end of his philandering will also be the end of his life. for the man who needs women more than the air he breathes, death and the denial of women are one and the same thing. nicholas j. chong author dramatic character dramatic audience t t figure 3: kirby's "double rhetorical situation" (reproduced with permission from kirby, p.2). mozart's decision to quote from one of his own operas in the tafelmusik deserves special comment. as laurel zeiss writes, "the excerpt from figaro directs attention to the controlling hand behind the opera's fa<;:ade"77-to mozart's own role in the world of don giovanni. the literary theorist john kirby has proposed a theory of "a rhetoric of poetics:' against the aristotelian distinction between rhetoric and poetics, kirby argues that literary and dramatic works can be as rhetorical as oratory or interpersonal discourse.78 in a drama, a "double rhetorical situation" exists (figure 3). direct rhetoric takes place within an inner system-the text-where characters speak to each other. indirect rhetoric takes place as part of an outer system operating between author and audience. since the author cannot communicate directly to the audience, an audience's understanding of a work is not limited to the author's intention. that said, kirby argues that the two systems "are not entirely closed" (2) to each other, for instance, when there is a play within a play. in kirby's view, the tafelmusik from don giovanni is a variation on the "play within a play": when leporello recognizes mozart's tune from figaro, there occurs what he describes as a "subordination of historical reality to the fictive 'reality' of the drama" (3). by "[straining] the boundaries" between the two rhetorical systems, kirby suggests, the author (in this case, mozart) approaches but does not fully achieve a direct communication with his audience (3). figure 4 shows kirby's explanation for this. kirby argues that, notwithstanding barthes' "death of the author;' audiences still wonder about what the author is trying to communicate because "they recognize that they are in a rhetorical relationship with him or her" (5). in reality, however, audiences wonder about the scriptor, a term which kirby defines-differently from barthes-as an image of an author conjured up by an audience (5). the author generates a muthos-a method of stimulating emotions-which is received by an audience. the audience then evaluates the muthos to form an 23 24 current musicology ~criptor author l text audience figure 4: kirby's model of "indirect rhetoric" between author and audience (reproduced with permission from kirby, p. 4). ennoia, "a notion of what the muthos means to them" (5). the audience's view of the scriptor derives from this ennoia. the scriptor is thus not identical to the author, and concern for the scriptor is not automatically an assumption of authorial intentionality. kirby's theory has some affinities with edward cone's concept of the composer's persona. cone proposes that in vocal music, the composer speaks with a double voice-through the singer or singers (the "vocal persona"), and through the instrumental accompaniment (the "instrumental persona").79 paradoxically, the instrumental persona is both the more direct and the more veiled form of communication. on the one hand, the instrumental persona is more direct because the composer speaks to the audience without media­ tion "by the words of a specific personality" but "through the gestures of the music alone" (17). on the other hand, the vocal persona, precisely because it does use words, speaks more directly to the audience, since "the world of the voice is the one we accept as closer to our own" (15). both personas are united in the figure of the composer, who is responsible for creating both (13,18). in opera in particular, we do not have multiple characters talking as in a spoken play, but a single composer's voice quoting multiple characters (13). importantly, however, cone clarifies that this figure of the composer is not the real composer but the composer's persona-a voice that a composer assumes for a particular composition (18). mozart's self-quotation in don giovanni has understandably invited attempts at biographical interpretation. allanbrook and hunter have both suggested, for instance, that mozart's quotation from operas by his rivals alongside "non pili andrai" might be the composer's way of showing off the superiority of his music in comparison to theirs.80 such a reading forms a nicholas j. chong part of a broader tradition of identifying mozart with don giovanni, and especially with its title character. kierkegaard, as daniel herwitz points out, practically conflated mozart with the don.8! questions like the one till poses are fairly commonplace in the literature: "was there perhaps an identification in mozart's own mind between the rebellion of don giovanni and his own subversive spirit?"82 some might be made uncomfortable by such imputations of authorial intentionality, but kirby's and cone's theories allow us to view the quotation of "non pili andrai" as an opportunity for biographical interpretation, without assuming that it is really mozart who is speaking to the audience through the aria from figaro. such biographi­ cal readings can side-step the issue of intentionality by setting aside the historical mozart in favor of who the audience imagines mozart to be in a particular work-mozart as kirby's scriptor or, in cone's formulation, mozart's persona. the tafelmusik as a whole and its effect on the audience having shown some of the ways in which the individual sources for the tafelmusik quotations are connected to don giovanni, i would now like to consider how the tafelmusik taken as a whole affects our understanding of mozart's opera. first, i shall reflect on how the structure of the scene informs the opera's characterization of don giovanni. next, i examine how the light-hearted nature of the tafelmusik acts as a kind of dramatic foil whose levity highlights the serious tone of the scenes to follow. the quick succession of the three quotations, in contrasting meters and keys, serves as a musical analogue for don giovanni's restless promiscuity. it is telling that in all three instances, mozart has shortened the original material from which he quotes. at least in the transition from the martin quotation to the sarti one, the change in music parallels the serving of a new course to don giovanni. though no explicit instructions exist in the libretto, it is possible to imagine a similar change-of -course happening when "non pili andrai" begins. the music flits swiftly from one tune to the next, just as don giovanni moves from one dish to another-just as he, having already made 1,003 conquests in spain alone, moves from one woman to the next. this restlessness, as many writers have pointed out, is also reflected in the constantly shifting nature of his melodic language in the opera. don giovanni "adapts the style of each of his victims:'r3 as noske writes, "the kaleidoscopic picture of the don is merely the negative application of the principle of individual characterization. our hero lacks the others' homo­ geneity simply because he adapts himself subtly to every situation:'84 the quick shifts from one piece of music to another in the tafelmusik can thus be 25 26 current musicology understood as a microcosmic reflection of don giovanni's shifting musical identity. moreover, in the entire scene giovanni makes just one comment that has anything to do with the music, when near the beginning he asks leporello, "che ti par del bel concerto?" (m. 62, "how does this pretty concert seem to you?"). as allanbrook points out, "leporello is in each case the one to notice and comment on the wind band's selections, while don giovanni is intent on consuming food and drink:'85 don giovanni seems to display little interest in the particular content of the music, in what exactly is being played, just as he displays little if any interest in the individuality of each of his conquests. in berger's words, women are for him "interchangeable occasions rather than persons:'86 don giovanni may adopt different tactics in his attempts to conquer different women but ultimately he is not choosy. as leporello remarks to donna elvira in the catalogue aria, "purche porti la gonnella / voi sapete quel che fa" (mm. 143 ff.; "provided that she wears a skirt / you know what he does")-fat or thin, brunette or blonde, noble or commoner, a woman is a woman all the same. the parallel i discussed earlier between the tafelmusik and the dances in the act i finale invites us to consider how the two scenes differ. the socially complete isolation of the don at dinner receives greater emphasis because it presents such a sharp contrast to the crowded setting of the act i dances. in comparison to the earlier scene, don giovanni, to use kuster's expression, "goes down to hell in privacy;'87 even if leporello and donna elvira know what is happening. this party, unlike the first, has no guests. depending on one's point of view, this could be an extreme assertion of individual liberty. or it could be a depiction of don giovanni's pitiful alienation from anyone outside of himself: in allanbrook's words, "this finale reduces the dissolute life to a figurative onanism-don giovanni playing host to himself'88 either way, it is clear that the juxtaposition of the tafelmusik with the act i dances, a comparison encouraged by the parallelism between them, serves to emphasize don giovanni's isolation as he nears his downfall. after all the mischief he has wrought among other people, he takes his dinner by himself; leporello, his servant, is no dining companion. don giovanni is alone by choice, but he is nevertheless alone. the comic nature of the tafelmusik scene stands in sharp contrast to the seriousness of the two scenes that follow: the entry of elvira and the death of don giovanni. tafelmusik, as hubert unverricht points out, "always tended to be light and entertaining:'89 indeed, in mozart's time, tafelmusik was considered a form of the divertimento, a genre in which mozart himself wrote numerous pieces, and whose name-italian for "diversion;' "recreation" or "enjoyment" -quite literally speaks to its lack of seriousness.90 allanbrook aptly describes the tafelmusik in don giovanni as consisting of "very jolly nicholas j. chong pieces, appropriate as occasional music for revels:'91 stage antics such as leporello trying to get away with stealing some of his master's food would have made the scene border on the farcical, as would the aspects of low comedy i discussed at the beginning of this article. it would have been fairly easy for this entire scene to come across as farce, for farce was very much part of the don juan tradition. as andrew steptoe writes, "by the middle of the eighteenth century, don juan had fallen very low in the esteem of intellectual and cultured people. it had been reduced to a clown's piece in the german-speaking world:'92 in some earlier versions of the don juan story, the lieto fine found in tirso's original el burlador was even followed by a finallamento scene depicting don juan suffering in hell-a scene which "was greeted with shouts oflaughter and applause instead of fear and awe:'93 don juan plays were usually performed at carnival time, and often grotesquely parodied church teachings on death and eternal punishment.94 the apparent levity of the tafelmusik scene is underscored by the quota­ tions mozart has chosen. the source operas are not merely all buffa works, but ones that are especially emblematic of a kind of" buffa conventionality" in their plots. by this i mean that they end with problems resolved, with a happy ending, with stability restored, with characters forgiven and recon­ ciled. this "buffa conventionality" reflects hunter's observation that opera buffa was often a socially conservative genre, "the overdetermined predict­ ability of the plot -outcomes [reinforcing] the notion of immutability:'95 for the most part, as christopher ballantine argues, mozart's operas do stress forgiveness and reconciliation in their endings.96 though much has been written about the ambiguity of figaro's ending, it surely does not subvert opera buffa conventions anywhere near as much as don giovanni, in which the dragging of its protagonist down to hell casts an unavoidable cloud over the customary lieto fine. as jessica waldoff contends, don giovanni is unusual in mozart's operas in being "a protagonist who is neither reformed nor forgiven by the end of the opera:'97 similarly, lior barshack writes that in the da ponte operas, the condemnation of don giovanni is "the single exception to the rule of pardon:'98 a key component of "buffa conventionality" is the affirmation of the institution of marriage. marriage, till points out, is not merely about romantic love, but is representative of fidelity, of promises. don giovanni "makes a point of breaking promises, thus making a mockery of one of the very foundations of modern human community:'99 by the ends of all three source operas for the tafelmusik quotations, not one but two couples have been married, regardless of when in the operas the double weddings occur (figure 5). marriage acts as a symbol for the resolution of conflict, for the re­ stabilization of what has been de-stabilized. in don giovanni, however, anna 27 28 current musicology cosa rara lubino-lilla tita-ghita i due litiganti masotto-dorina titta-livietta figaro figaro-s us anna bartolo-marcellina figure 5: double weddings in the tafelmusik source operas. and ottavio do not marry before the opera's end, and the zerlina-masetto marriage appears marred by the suggestion, in "la. ci darem la mano;' that zerlina would have given in to don giovanni's advances if donna elvira had not intervened. zerlina's "continued resistance;' rushton writes, "is merely verbal; she accepts his melody, intoxicated by this apparition of a noble lover, and yields most sweetly:'100 moreover, as elaine sis man has pointed out, zerlina's failure in her aria "batti, batti" to tell masetto what happened between her and don giovanni in his absence seems evidence of a guilty conscience.101 the uncertainty over whether anna and ottavio will marry as they intend, and over the true extent of zerlina's devotion to masetto, gives don giovanni, the seemingly cheerful scena ultima notwithstanding, an unsettled ending. as sisman argues, at least figaro promises one healthy marriage, that of the title, and even as it takes a dim view of some aristocratic habits, marital forgiveness offers a lieto fine, however temporary in practice. but in don giovanni, every couple or would-be spouse has been sorely tested and left damaged, and the only pair to emerge with a reasonable chance at something like happiness is the peasant couple whose sposalizio has furnished the action for half of act 1.102 it is not just that don giovanni's promiscuity is at odds with the faith­ fulness required by marriage, but that he shows a complete contempt for the very idea of marriage itself. his exploitation of a promise of marriage simply so he can add donna elvira to his catalogue of conquests spits in the face of marriage as a social institution. moreover, in a society where, as sisman points out, the promise of marriage constituted legally presumptive marriage,103 don giovanni's use of it as just another libido-driven ruse debases the very concept of promise which seems fundamental to an ordered society. as till writes, nicholas j. chong in le nozze di figaro marriage that has been undermined must be restored to health for the good of society. but in don giovanni, once the promises of contractual society have been dissolved, faith in the possibility of recon­ structing society upon such promises is apparently destroyed for ever. 104 the fact that mozart has chosen in the tafelmusik excerpts to quote from three operas which signify conventional buffa tropes of reconciliation and re-stabilization thus creates a striking irony, for don giovanni distinguishes itself by negating these conventions. quotations from sources affirming marriage occur in an opera whose protagonist rejects it. operas with typical happy endings are quoted within an opera whose title character will soon be consumed by the fires of hell. in terms of dramatic structure, the comic nature of the tafelmusik scene, combined with the "buffa conventionality" suggested by the quotations, lulls the audience into a false sense of security. as freeman observes, the tafelmusik "distracts our attention and even increases the suspense as we are momentarily diverted from the possibility that the commendatore just might make his appearance at the dinner table:'ios da ponte may have had this in mind when writing the libretto, for he rearranged the order of scenes he found in bertati's text. bertati has elvira's plea to giovanni come before he eats his dinner. this reordering, as edward forman argues, "ensures a more dramatic build-up of tension:'1()6the comedy of the tafelmusik scene is followed by the seriousness of elvira's entry, before a dramatic climax is reached in the terrifying statue scene. the opera then ends with an abrupt shift back to the comic for the scena ultima. two serious scenes are thus framed by two comic ones. comedy is strikingly juxtaposed with tragedy. 107 such shifts between the comic and the tragic are central to the opera's construction. don giovanni's killing of the commendatore, for example, is followed abruptly by a light-hearted secco recitative. in both the duel scene and the act ii finale, comedy masks the seriousness of the death of an individual but paradoxically heightens that seriousness by standing in such sharp contrast to it. quotation as a device and the breaking of the "fourth wall" i would like to conclude by examining the device of quotation itself and its possible effects on audience reception. the idea of having music play while don giovanni eats his final meal was not mozart's, and nor was it da ponte's. for even in spoken plays based on the don juan story, the playing of music during giovanni's dinner is not unusual, occurring in sources as early as tirso's el burlador.108the use of onstage musical instruments for this scene first occurs in bertati's libretto for gazzaniga's don giovanni tenorio, the 29 30 current musicology immediate operatic precursor to mozart and da ponte's version. 109 although mozart had to include music for don giovanni's dinner, it bears repeating that he did not have to use quoted music. he could, like gazzaniga, simply have composed his own tafelmusik, just as he composed dance music for the act i finale. besides the specific links i have already suggested between don giovanni and the quoted material, what, more generally, is achieved by employing quotation? since, as i discussed earlier, opera buffa regularly made use of intertextu­ ality, it could be argued that quotation -a more exact type of allusion is not all that unusual. moreover, as hunter writes, mozart "regularly referred to other operas on the viennese stage in his own works:'l1o figaro, for instance, contains allusions to paisiello's il barbiere di siviglia (1782),111 while martin's earbore di diana (1787) and salieri's la gratta di trafonio (1785) served as "important local points of intertextual reference for cosi:'112 however, to return to an observation i made at the beginning of this article, the use of quotation in the tafelmusik does draw special attention to itself in that it is announced from the stage. if, as allanbrook writes, the quotation sources were so recent and so popular that "they would be recognized without leporello's identifications;'113 then leporeho's explicit identification of the quotation sources gives them an unusual amount of emphasis. in so doing, it stresses the fact that the quotations break the "fourth wall" by merging the world of the stage with that of the audience. as zeiss observes, the importation of music from three other well-known operas during the dinner scene ruptures customary borders, including crossing the line that separates the noumenal (operas normal mode of discourse) from the phenomenal (music perceived as music by the characters.) the quotations break the "fourth wall' by inserting music from the "real world" beyond. 114 leporello knows cos a rara, i due litiganti and figaro the same way that a contemporary audience would have. when he identifies the operas, he speaks both to don giovanni and to the audience. but is it really leporello who is speaking? i would argue that the line, "questa poi la con os co pur troppo" is a joke that is really told by the singer ponziani, rather than by the character leporello. ll5 perhaps leporello himself has heard "non pili andrai" a little too much lately. nevertheless, what would have made this line funny was the prague audience's recognition that ponziani was referring to himself and his singing of the role of figaro. the breaking of the "fourth wall" is thus reinforced by the confusion of the actor's identity with the character's. paolo gallarati has argued that the occasional "dismantling [of] the illusory barrier of the 'fourth wall'" he observes in mozart's da ponte operas are "allusions to the artifice of the stage:'116 if this is so, these works might present examples, avant la lettre, of bertolt brecht's verfremdungseffekt, nicholas j. chong which brecht defined as performing "in such a way that the audience [is] hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play. acceptance or rejection oftheir actions and utterances [is] meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of, [as in traditional western theater], in the audience's subconscious:'ll7 for brecht, this "distancing effect" was crucial to his belief that theater should be didactic, that an audience should not merely be entertained, but should be consciously critical and thereby learn something from the drama. as referenced earlier, hunter argues that the conventionality of plot outcomes in opera buffa reflected a sense of social conservatism. 118 it must be said that hunter does also problematize this contention in two ways. firstly, she points out that, in vienna, opera buffa was often strongly distinguished from german drama, whose style more explicitly emphasized "nation-building, proto-bourgeois, and generally edifying ideals" in contrast to a genre that was considered by many to be "mere entertainment:' this was generally the case even though opera buffa and german drama shared similar audiences and venues. 119 secondly, she describes how opera buffa plots frequently upend established social hierar­ chies. although such reversals of the social order might be neutralized by being contained within traditional rules governing "comedy and carnival;' hunter argues that the genre's progressive socio-political potential cannot be entirely dismissed. 120 these qualifications notwithstanding, it remains true that, as hunter herself acknowledges, opere buffe "repeatedly affirm two important and socially relevant conservative principles: that hierarchy is inevitable and necessary, and that social stability is always to be desired:'121 hunter rightly implies that opera buffa is not simply a didactic genre, yet the pervasiveness of conservative ideas in plots must surely mean that it at least possesses some sort of moralistic function. hence, it does not seem far-fetched to suggest that there is a kind of brechtian didacticism at work in don giovanni, as a consequence of the breaking of the "fourth wall" effected by the tafelmusik quotations. this interpretation, moreover, would seem to accord with the undeniably moral­ izing tone of the lieto fine: "questo e il fin di chi fa mal" ("this is the end of he who does evil"). perhaps the most important aspect of this didacticism, arising from the tafelmusik quotations, might be to historicize an opera that otherwise tries its best to suppress historical and geographical specific­ ity. as hunter notes, many opere buffe are ostensibly set in real places but these geographical settings are often not easily recognizable from the plots, especially when the plots also contain unrealistic elements. the result is an unsettling feeling, in hunter's words, of "like here but not here": the later eighteenth-century practice of putting an operas geographic loca­ tion at one or two removes from immediate reality ensures some glimmers 31 32 current musicology of recognition; at the same time, the distance from the immediate location of the performance allows the events of the opera both the comforts of separation (this is not about me) and the potential discomforts of generality (this is about many people like me). 122 hence, in its settings, opera buffa attempts to maintain a balance between foreignness and familiarity-enough foreignness to keep the audience, as brecht would put it, conscious of the theatrical work as a theatrical work; enough familiarity to ensure that the audience does not treat the work merely as fantasy. 1be geographical ambiguity hunter discusses is clearly at work in don giovanni. it is a common assumption that the opera is set in seville, likely owing to the long literary tradition of don juan, beginning with tirso's el burlador de sevilla ("the trickster of seville"). however, da ponte's libretto is less specific. the drama tis personae announces the setting only as "una citta della spagna" ("a city in spain"), and the description of donna elvira as a "dama di burgos" ("lady of burgos") is a reference to her origins, not to the city in which the opera takes place. discussing the scene in which don giovanni and leporello first encounter the peasants (act i, scene vii), rushton remarks, that the town is "never named, but is probably not meant to be seville:' 123 during the opera itself, there are just three references to spain. elvira, in the recitative after "ah! chi mi dici mai;' reveals that she met don giovanni in burgos. in the catalogue aria, leporello's line "rna in ispagna son gia mille e tre" ("in spain there are already one thousand and three") implies that don giovanni is currently in spain. finally, don giovanni refers to "la follia" -an old spanish dance-during his aria "fin ch'han dal vino:' heartz writes that the choice of the follia "accords with the spanish setting of the opera;' but otherwise the opera "has even less local color than figaro, with its fandango indebted to gluck's don !uan:'124 tellingly, however, the spanish follia is not actually danced during the act i finale; a contredanse appears instead. 12s even if an audience familiar with the don juan story would have assumed spain, or even seville, as the opera's location, it seems fair to say that the libretto draws little attention to it. moreover, there is no explicit identification of the historical period. as john bokina writes, "the seventeenth-century seville of don giovanni [bokina, too, assumes seville as the location 1 is stripped of its historical particularity:'126 if don giovanni generally de-emphasizes its geographical and historical specificity, the tafelmusik quotations are striking because they do clearly point to a time and a place. but it is not seville that they evoke, not anywhere in spain. rather, the quotations suggest that the action might actually be set nicholas j. chong in prague, or vienna, circa 1787. for leporello and the audience know the same operas-cosa rara, i due litiganti, figaro. his world and, presumably, the world of don giovanni and every other character, is also the world of mozart's audience. it is not just mozart's quotations that place don giovanni in the vienna or prague of 1787, but the very presence of a domestic wind band-don giovanni's own harmonie. in having a harmonie accompany his dinner, the don would, in dent's words, have been "like any fine gentle­ man of prague:'127 the harmonie had been popular in prague and on the estates of the bohemian nobility since the early 1760s; haydn composed frequently for a standard sextet of pairs of oboes, bassoons and horns. 12r when imported into vienna, it was used to play arrangements of operatic scores,129 a practice that, freeman points out, "was [still] quite new at the time of don giovanni's first performance:'13o robbins landon writes that in vienna, the imperial wind band was used, as was also the case with others in the provinces, to provide the household with tafelmusik, i.e. pleasant music at mealtimes. since operas were always the most fashionable form of music in society, the wind-band arrangements provided a particularly delightful way of recalling operatic melodies.!3! the use of harmonie to perform operatic arrangements in particular remained for a time a specifically viennese practice; however, by 1787, the year don giovanni was composed, the practice had spread to bohemia. 132 the dances in the act i finale perform a similar historicizing function. as heartz has pointed out, the types of dances mozart includes, and the performance of those dances in a single room simultaneously, conform to practices that actually occurred in the vienna of mozart's day.!33 indeed, to return something i have already discussed, the dancing of the contredanse, rather than the follia don giovanni announced in "fin ch'han dal vino;' replaced a spanish dance with a dance that "within mozart's time became a universal favorite:'134 as with the act i dances-the tafelmusik-both the practice itself and the specific choice of quotations, allows mozart to bring the opera into what for his audience would have been the present world. this situation would still apply even for an audience in our own time, albeit to a lesser extent. though audiences today are unfamiliar with cos a rara and i due litiganti, figaro, and "non pili andrai;' remains well-known among the opera-going public. as long as figaro stays in the standard repertoire, its quotation in the tafelmusik scene will continue to bring the world of don giovanni's audience onto the stage, and vice versa. i admit that this interpretation might be a bit of a stretch, given that many other elements of the plot of the opera-feudal social divisions, to name just one obvious example-are more foreign to us than they would have been to an audi33 34 current musicology ence in 1787. nevertheless, at least in the tafelmusik scene, it would not be ridiculous to suggest that it is our present world, not merely the present world of the late eighteenth-century audience, into which the opera is brought.135 mozart's don giovanni is no longer fairy tale or fantastical farce as many other versions of the don juan myth had been. it is not set in some imaginary place, or in some distant historical time. the composer forces us to consider the possibility that the world of the opera is our world, that those watching don giovanni might have a lot more in common with the characters on the stage than they may have at first imagined. in the composer's voice, cone suggests that in opera, the world of the audience and the world of the singing character are not as separate as they may first appear. this is because the instrumental accompaniment provides a "sonic environment" in which both audience and character participate. 136 "the vocal character;' cone writes, "implicates in his own world every sympathetic member of the world of his audience, and every such listener shares the character's experience:'137 cone proposes that this situation always exists in opera. if so, then the tafelmusik in don giovanni, by quoting from operas familiar to the audience and having a character announce these quota­ tions, only makes more explicit the blurred boundaries between stage and listener already inherent to opera as a genre. the tafelmusik also blurs the boundaries among don giovanni and each of the three operas from which it quotes. as berger writes, "while what a quotation or allusion refers to may be itself outside the world of the work, the quotation or allusion induct [sic 1 it, so to speak, into the world of the work:' 138 a quotation or allusion exists in more than one work, and puts different works into mutual communication. it should further be pointed out that this communication necessarily takes place in the world of the listener. it is the listener who observes inter textual communication; he is the medium through which that communication takes place. hence, the very notion of intertextuality itself contributes to the blurring of the divide between stage and audience. finally, the use of quotation in the tafelmusik brings the composer­ and here i do mean the historical figure rather than an imagined artistic persona-closer to his audience. this would be true even if one only paid attention to what i earlier called the "superficial" reasons for these quota­ tions-the playing of in-jokes and the desire to elicit cheap laughs from the audience. as reynolds correctly points out, "the importance of the link between allusion and play is fundamental in any era:'139 even allusion as play, however, reminds the audience of the presence of the composer. when leporello announces the quotations in the tafelmusik, he acts as an intermediary between mozart and his audience, just as he has often been an intermediary between don giovanni and his women. mozart speaks nicholas j. chong through leporello to tell the audience which operas he has quoted from. regardless of what deeper meanings one may wish to find in the tafelmusik quotations, the act of quotation itselfbrings composer and audience together. the tafelmusik reminds us that we the audience are welcome into the world of don giovanni and into the world of its creator. the continued impact of mozart's opera might owe something to the warmth of this welcome. 35 ~ appendix: text of tafelmusik corresponding to texts of quotation sources repeated lines of text in the quotation sources are included on~y if they correspond to changing text in the tafehnusik. square brackets show lext repetitions which do not literally occur, but which have been included tofacilitate comparison. where this applies to the quotation sources. the text is not repeated in the quotation sources, but the music associated with it is repeated in the tafehnusik. parentheses (round brackets) sholt' text that, in the quotation sources, is on{v sung to music that is not quoted in the tafehnusik. all translations are by the author. vincente martin y soler, ulla cosa rara (1786), end of act i mozart, doll giol'a11tu, tafelmusik (mm. 47-117) the queen regina o what beautiful rejoicing, (:0 quanto un ,i bel giubilo, l.eporello leporello o how it tempts and pleases' o quanto alletla e piace! bravi! '''cosa rara"'1 great! "a rare thing!" of pure joy and peace di pura gioia e pace it will be a source for all hme. sorgente ognor sara. lilla, ghita, lubino, tita, podesta lilla, ghita, lubino, tita, podesta let us be glad, come on, let us be glad godiamo, sll godiamo don giovanni don giovanni and with sincere love e con slncero amore che ti par del bel concerto? how does this concert seem to you? leporello leporello let us give thanks to the heart rcndiamo grazie al core e conforrne, it conforms, ofyout majesty. di vostra maesta. e conforme 81 vostro merto. it conforrns to your worth. the queen regina don giovanni don giovanni and my son does not speak? e il figlio mio non parla? ah che piatlo saporito! ah what a tasty dishl lilla, ghita lilla, ghita ,",l1d you say nothmg? e v oi non dite niente? ah che piatto saporito i ah what a tasty dish! lilla (to the prince) lilla (.41 principe) look at my lubino. guaj'date il mio lubino. the prince principe leporello (a parte) leporello (aside) go, i haye seen him, i have seen him. andate, ho visto, ho visto. ah che barbmo appetito! ah what a savage appetite! ghita (to corrado) ghita (a corrado) look at my tita .. guardate tita mio. n c: ~ ~ :::l r+ s: c: iii ;:;­ o 0" ul '< w -...j coi'rado go, goodbye, goodbye. all except corrado and the prince corrado remains silent, the infante seettis sad to me. i do not knovv vvhat story this ls, i do not knovv what to think. but vv-hat is. done is clone and cannot change, and cannot cbange. the prince, corrado i !rem ble at my fale, i am losing the one ii'i'hom i adore, neither iullst 1 say: i ain dying, nor c.an 1 contest that what is done is done and cannot change. v/hat is done is already done idiu will not change. vihat is done is already done and vvill not change. and vi/ill not change. corrado andate, adruo, adelio. tutti salvo corrado e il principe corrado muta festa, 1 'infante 1111 par mesto. non so ehe staria e questa, non so casa pens dr. ]via quel eh' eo f"lto eo ratto e non 5i puc. cangiar, e non s1 pl1l~ c<lllgiar. principe. corrado fremo del mio ue.:3tino, perdo colei che adora, n6 cleggio dir: io mora, ne posso contraslar, che quel eh'e [atto e [alto e non si puo cangiar. gi" qu~l eh'e fatto e [allo c noll si cdngiera. gia quel eh' e fauo e fatto e non 3i eangiera. e non g1 cangiera. clle bocconi da gigante! l'vh par proprio di gvenir. don c;iovanni (a parte) nel veder i 111iei hocconi gli par proprlo di svenir, gli par proprio di svenir. leporello ah ehe barharo appetitol che bocconj da gigante! don giovanni nel \"eder 1 miei boeeoni gli pal' proprio di svenir. rdon (3-iovanni (a par/e) nel veder i ntiei bocconi gli par proprio di svenir, gli par proprio di svenir. leparello ah che barbara appdilo! che bocconi cla gigante!] ah ehe barbaro appelitol ljon giovanni oli iji:lt proprio di 3\'(:.':llir. leparella c~he bocconi da gigante! don giovanni gli par proprio cii svenir, j dlle glilini par proprio di svenir. don giovanni piatto. 1,eparella servo. "\vhat ltiouthfuls of a giant it seeins proper t.o me to faint. don giovanni (aside) seeing my nlouthfuls it seen1s proper to him to faint, it seenlg proper to hill1 to faint. leporello 1\h what a savage appetite! \vhat mouthfuls of a giant! don gio\'anni seeing my mouthflils it seems proper to hiln to faint. [don giovanni (aside) seeing my ntouthfuls it seents proper to him to faint, it seems proper to hiin to faillt. leporezla .,.l\h what a savage appetile~ what mouthfub o[ a giant·' 1 ah what a savage app"til,,1 don giovanni it se em 5 proper to hiln to f aiul. 1"eparella what mouthfuls of a giant l don giovanni tt seems proper to hiin t.o faint. both it seem s proper to hin1/n1e to faint. don giovanni next counle. 1,eporello i am serv ing it. z n' :j o iii' iii 'n :j o :::j c,q w co giuseppe sarti, fi'a i due litiganti il terzo gode (1782), act i mingone .iy1ingone like a lamb which goes to the come un agnello che va al macello slaughter you will go bleating through the city. belando andrai per la citta. i, with my beautiful little swallow, io colla bella mia rondinella shall go around from here to there. andra rondando di qua, di la. i already expect io gia m' aspetto to hear it said: sentirmi dire: look at how lovable guarda che amabile is this perfect bridegroom! sposo perfetto! from over there is repeated: di lit ripetere: long live the bride. viva 1a sposa. o incomparable o impareggiabile channing couple, coppia vezzosa, may heaven grant you ii ciel concedavi happiness. i felicitit. [like a lamb which goes to the [come llll agnello che va a1 macello slaughter you will go bleating through the city. belando andrai per la citta. i, with my beautiful little swallow, io colla bella mia rondinella shall go around from here to there.] andra rondando di qua, di la.] (there is no need lo tremble, en 011 serve fremere, you scoundrel, signor frabuuo, to titta, who is threatening him a titta che nllnaccia starving a dente asciutto you will always remain.) lei restera.) ------mozart, don giovanni, tafelmusik (mm. 118-61) leporello leporello evvivano i "'litiganti"! long live the "litigants!" don giovanni don giovanni versa il vin~. pour the "vine. eccellente excellent marzimino! marzimino wine! leporello leporello questa pezza di fagiano this piece of pheasant piano, piano vo' inghiottir. very quietly i am going to svvallovv. [questa pezzo di fagiano [this piece of pheasant piano, piano vo' inghiottir.] very quietly i am going to swallow.] don giovanni don giovanni sta mangiando quel marrano; that lout is eating~ fingen) di non capir. i shall pretend not to understand. n s::: "'" ~ :::l r+ s: s::: iii n· o 0' ul '< w '" ~lozart, le nozze di figlli'o (1786), act 1 figaro no longer .... vill you go, cliilotous phi18i1del-~r, night and day l,vandering arouncl disturbing the repose of the ladies, little narcissus, little adonis of love! -::q 0 lonf!.er ·wlll you have these little plullles, this light and gallant hat, this h .. :!ad of hair, this brilliant air, this v\'omanly vermilion color! r..,-:-o longer vi/ill you have these little phuues, this light and gallant h;:}l this head of hair, this brilliant air. ='to longer "",viii you go_ mn01'ou5 philanderer: '--night and day \v8ndl,.'rillg arow1.d disturbing lhc repose of the ladies, liltie narcissus, little i\dolli~ of love! di::;lurbing the repose of the laclie:::, little karcissu:::. liule .... i\donis of love! (among "v~1jtjors you can be bacchus! \vide mustaches, tight tunic, figaro non pill andrai, far i'allouc 31lloroso, nott~ e gioitio d'intoitlo girando, delle belle turbando il riposo, n arciserto, adonci no d'am or! non pili avrni qu.estj bei penacchini, quel cappello leggiero e galante, quell1. chiol1l<j, quell'aria brillante, quel vertiliglio doid'lesco color! non pi,tl avrai questi bei penacchini, quel cappello leggiero e galante, quell a chiotila, queuaria brillante. non piu andrf"li, farfallone amoroso, notte e gionlo d'illloit'lo grrando, delle belle lurbando il riposo, narcisetto, adoncino cj'mnod delle belle turbando il riposoo narcisetlo, adoncino d'amor! (fra guerrieri poffar bacco! gran mustacchi, ::;trerto ::;acco, lvlozart, doll giovanni, itifelmusik (mm. 162-99) lepore-llo questa poi la conosco pwt.roppo don c;iopanni leporello. leporello padron jnio. doi1 giovanni parla schietto, ma::;cal zone! leporello non j11i lascia una flussione ie parole proferir. don giovan}"]i l'vfentte io mangio, fischia un poco leporello non so far! 0011 giovanni cos'e'? leporello scu::;ate, scusate; sl eccel1ente e il vostro cuoco, si eccellelll~ e il vosiro cuoco, che 10 valli anch'io provar, che 10 valli 3nch'io provar. dan c;ia1.:anni si eccellente e i1 cuoco inio, leporella 3i eccellente, i due che 10 volle/valli anch'eilanch'io provar. leporello this one, then, i kno'\;v on 1 y too \'yell. 0011 giovanni leporello. leporello 1vfy inaster. don giovanni speak honestly, l-asc~ll~ lepoj'ello a bad cold does not al10vv me to utter \vord::>. don c;iovqnn.i \~lhile i eat, vithist1e a bit. leporello r do not knovv ho\v to! don giovanni \:vhat.? ijepol'ello excuse me, excuse me~ your cook is so excellent, your cook i::3 so excellento tha t i a iso wante d to t1)' hirn out, that i also vv311lt.:'u to lry hinl out. don cjiovanni 1vly cook is so excellelll, leporeffa so excellent, both tlral hell also vvanted to try him out. z n° :r o iii" iii c... n :r o ~ (q .j:> o rifle on shoulder, sword on hip, straight neck, frank expression, either a big helmet, or a large turban, lots of honor, little cash. and instead of the fandango a march through the mud, through mountains, tlrrough deep valleys, with snow, and in great sunshine, to the music of trombones, of shells, or cannons, tllat tlle bullets in all tlleir thunder, make whistle past your ear. cherubino, to victory, to military glor:v!) schioppo in spalla, sciabla al fianco, collo dritto, muso tranco, o un gran casco, 0 un gran turbante, molto onor, poco contante. ed invece del fandango una marcia per il fango, per montagne, per valloni, colle nevi, e i sollioni, al concerto di tromboni, di bombarde, di call1oni, che ie palle in tutti i tuoni, all'orecchio fan fischiar. cherubino, alia vittoria, alia gloria militar!) n s:: .., .., (i) :::l r+ s: s:: iii ;::;" o 0" ul '< nicholas j. chong notes i would like to thank elaine sisman, and the editors and anonymous readers at current musicology, for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this article. ideas for the article first arose in the course of a graduate seminar on "don giovanni" led by professor sisman at columbia university in spring 2010, and i am grateful to her and my fellow seminar participants for inspiring my thinking about the tafelmusik scene. an abbreviated version of the article was also presented at a meeting of the greater new york chapter of the american musicological society at columbia university, new york, on january 28,2012; and at the mcgill music graduate symposium, schulich school of music, mcgill university, montreal, on march 10,2012. comments and suggestions offered by members of the audience at both presentations were invaluable for helping me refine my arguments as the article reached its final form. unless otherwise stated, all translations in this article are by the author. 1. this scene lasts from measure 47 to 199 in the act ii finale. the measure numbers for each of the quotations can be found in the appendix. on the practice of harmonie in vienna and prague during mozart's time, see edward 1. dent, mozart's operas: a critical study, 2nd ed. (1947; repr., london: oxford university press, 1955), 171; h. c. robbins landon, mozart: the golden years 1781-1791 (london: thames and hudson, 1989),32-33; and robert n. freeman, "the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni," opera journal 9, no. i (march 1976): 28. on tafelmusik, see hubert unverricht, "tafelmusik (i)," in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 24, ed. stanley sadie (london: macmillan publishers, 200 i), 921-22. the historical contexts for these musical practices will be discussed in greater detail later in this article. 2. for convenience, i use the term opera bujja to refer specifically to the repertory of italian comic opera created in the second half of the 18th century and performed on the stages of vienna and prague in particular~that is, opera bufja as mozart and da ponte would have understood the genre. it should be stressed, however, that the conventions of opera bujla do evolve from its birth in naples in the early 18th century, as it spread to other italian cities before moving elsewhere in europe. a brief overview of the genre's history can be found in piero weiss and julian budden, "opera buffa," in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 18, ed. stanley sadie (london: macmillan publishers, 2001), 474-77. 3. christopher alan reynolds, motives for allusion: context and content in nineteenth-century music (cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 2003),6. although reynolds' book, as its title suggests, deals with allusion in nineteenth-century music, his exploration of the concept of allusion more generally (especially in chapters 1 and 9) is pertinent to my discussion. 4. ibid., 7. 5. julian rushton, w a. mozart: don giovanni, cambridge opera handbook (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1981),66. 41 42 current musicology 6. mary hunter, the culture of opera buffa in mozart s vienna: a poetics of entertainment (princeton: princeton university press, 1999),30. 7. freeman, "the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni," 24. 8. peter branscombe, "mozart and the theatre of his time," in the mozart compendium: a guide to mozart s life and music, ed. h. c. robbins landon (new york: schirmer, 1990),366 and 368. see also dorothea link, the national court theatre in mozart s vienna: sources and documents 1783-1792 (oxford: clarendon press, 1998), 5-190, which lists in chronological order all performances that took place at the burgtheater in vienna from 1783 to 1792. 9. freeman, "the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni," 26. 10. johann pezzl, "sketch of vienna," in mozart and vienna: including selections from johann pezzls sketch of vienna 1786-1791, by h. c. robbins landon (london: thames and hudson, 1991), 137. ii. branscombe speculates that mozart's relative unpopularity in vienna is attributable to the fact that, in a musically conservative city, he was a non-italian writing in the supposedly italian genre of opera buffa. mozart was, at least, the most performed non-italian composer (branscombe, "mozart and the theatre of his time," 366). 12. sarti's was held in high regard even by mozart himself. after meeting him for the first time, mozart wrote that "sarti ist ein rechtschaffener braver mann!" ("sarti is an honest, good man!"; quoted in daniel heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," in mozart s operas, ed. thomas bauman (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 1990), 169). indeed, mozart composed a set of piano variations (k. 460) on the same aria from i due litiganti, "come un agnello," that he would later quote in don giovanni. 13. julian rushton, "don giovanni (ii)," in the new grove dictionary of opera, vol. 1, ed. stanley sadie (london: macmillan press, 1992), 1203. 14. emily anderson, ed. and trans., the letters of mozart and his family, 3rd ed. (london: macmillan press, 1985), 903. 15. konrad kuster, mozart: a musical biography, trans. mary whittall (oxford: clarendon press, 1996),242; emphasis added. 16. wye jamison allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart: le nozze di figaro and don giovanni (chicago: university of chicago press, 1983),378, n26; and freeman, "the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni," 26. 17. rushton, w a. mozart: don giovanni, 66. 18. ibid., 67. nicholas j. chong 19. rushton, "don giovanni (ii)," 1203. 20. heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," 168. 21. ibid., 168-69. elaine sisman has suggested to me that if "piatto saporito" can be taken to refer to donna anna, by way of the pun on teresa saporiti's name, this could suggest that don giovanni had indeed been successful in his conquest of donna anna. that he can describe the dish as tasty implies that he has already tasted it. the libretto leaves it unclear whether don giovanni did actually rape donna anna in the opening scene, or whether he merely attempted to rape her. in the recitative following the killing of the commendatore, leporello sings of don giovanni, "bravo! due imprese leggiadre! / sforzar la figlia ed ammazzar il padre" ("great! two graceful deeds! / forcing himself on the daughter and killing the father"; act i, scene ii, mm. 6-8). "sforzar" is ambiguous; in any case, even if rape is implied, leporello is speaking only based on his personal assumption of what occurred, and was not an eyewitness to the events in the bedroom. later in the opera, donna anna tells don ottavio, in the recitative preceding "or sai chi l'onore," that she had broken free of don giovanni before he managed to dishonor her (act i, scene xiii, especially mm. 45-53). note also the first lines of anna's aria: "or sai chi l'onore / rapire a me volse" (mm. 70-74; "now you know who my honor / sought to steal"). we may have reason to disbelieve anna. she may be lying so that her fiance does not doubt her virginity; the importance of this issue is clearly suggested by don ottavio's expression of relief, "ohime! respiro!" (mm. 52-53; "alas! i breathe!"). nevertheless, the fact remains that the libretto is silent on what actually occurs in the bedroom between don giovanni and donna anna, prior to anna managing to free herself. see also note 54 below. 22. ibid., 169. 23. ibid. 24. tomislav volek, "prague operatic traditions and mozart's don giovanni," in mozart s "don giovanni" in prague (prague: divadelni ustav [theater institute], 1987), 70, cited in heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," 169. 25. john platoff, "fra i due litiganti il terzo gode," in the new grove dictionary of opera, vol. 2, ed. stanley sadie (london: macmillan press, 1992), 269. 26. rushton, w a. mozart: don giovanni, 31. 27. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 378, n29. for a detailed study of bertati's libretto and gazzaniga's opera, see stefan kunze, don giovanni vor mozart: die tradition der don-giovanni-opern im italienischen buffa-theater des 18. jahrhunderts (munich: wilhelm fink verlag, 1972),33-71 and 93-119. 28. dent, mozart s operas, 172. 43 44 currlent musicology 29. david caims, mozart and his operas (london: allen lane, 2006), 166. see also heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," 170 and 172. 30. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 289. 31. reynolds, motivesfor allusion, 6. 32. philip keppler, "some comments on musical quotation," musical quarterly 42, no. 4 (october 1956): 473. 33. heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," 169-70. 34. extended discussion of this parallelism can be found in allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 288; and kuster, mozart: a musical biography, 283-85. 35. barbara r. barry, "the spider's strategem: the motif of masking in don giovanni," opera journal 29, no. 2 (june 1996): 48. 36. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 288-289; and kuster, mozart: a musical biography, 285. 37. freeman, "the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni," 29. 38. ibid., 27-28. see also landon, mozart: the golden years 1781-1791, 32-35. 39. ibid., 29. 40. ibid., 29-30. 41. in the piano variations on the same aria, k. 460 (see note 12 above), mozart preserves the original tonality. 42. heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," 170. it is worth noting that mozart excises a section in 0 minor from the original music in cosa rara, even though it would presumably have made for a smoother transition to move from 0 minor to f major, its relative major. the omission of the minor was likely necessary as the minor mode may not have fit the light-hearted mood required of the tafelmusik. 43. ibid. 44. kuster, mozart: a musical biography, 284. the importance ofthese three tonalities can be easily seen in the useful tables of keys for each number and important section in don giovanni found in eveline andreani, "le don giovanni de mozart: construction musicale et reseaux de sens," in don giovanni, ii dissoluto impunito, ed. sara zurletti (naples: cuen, 2008), 153-54 and 156-57. nicholas j. chong 45. f. r. noske, "don giovanni: musical affinities and dramatic structure," studia musicologica academiae scientiarum hungaricae, t. 12, fasc. 114 (1970): 172-73. 46. mary hunter, "some representations of opera seria in opera buffa," cambridge opera 10urnal3, no. 2 (july 1991): 89-108; and culture ojopera buffa in mozart's vienna, 30 and 34. 47. hunter, "some representations of opera seria in opera buffa," 89. 48. ibid., 97. 49. hunter concedes the possibility that porta and righini might be attempting a parody of opera seria but seems to imply that, nevertheless, the use of an allusion to opera seria to elevate this scene to the level of moralistic seriousness is equally plausible. hunter does not explain why she considers orjeo ed euridice an opera seria, even though gluck called his opera an azione teatrale. most likely, hunter is defining opera seria broadly, regarding orjeo as belonging to the genre because it has a serious plot derived from classical myth. as is well known, gluck's "reform operas," of which orjeo is emblematic, were intended to reform opere serie. perhaps hunter would argue that orjeo is a reformed opera seria, but an opera seria all the same. 50. john platoff, "how original was mozart? evidence from opera b~!ffa," early music 20, no. 1 (february 1992): 107. 51. ibid. 52. keppler, "some comments on musical quotation," 480. 53. heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," 170. 54. the uncertainty over whether don giovanni makes a successful conquest hinges on the ambiguity as to what actually happened between him and donna anna in the very first scene. this issue is discussed in detail in note 21 above. 55. dorothea link, "cosa rara, una," in the new grove dictionary ojopera, vol. 1, ed. stanley sadie (london: macmillan press, 1992), 964. 56. kuster, mozart: a musical biography, 282; emphasis added. for a similar view to kuster's, see karol berger, bach's cycle, mozart's arrow: an essay on the origins oj musical modernity (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 2007), 250-51. 57. ibid., 281. 58. da ponte, in his memoirs, reports that una cosa rara provoked a revolt by the singers of the first production, who were dissatisfied with the quality of martin's music (though da ponte is adamant that his libretto was excellent). 45 46 current musicology the singers' complaints, according to da ponte, reached emperor joseph ii himself. joseph wrote da ponte a note: "my dear count: tell my singers that i have considered their complaints about martini's opera. i am terribly sorry but-'what is done is done, and can not now be changed. [quel ch'e fatto e fatto, e non si puo cangiar].'" da ponte had presented joseph with a copy of the libretto and joseph happened to have opened it to the page containing this line. see lorenzo da ponte, memoirs, trans. elisabeth abbott (1959; repr., new york: new york review of books, 2000), 146--49. the original italian can be found in lorenzo da ponte, memorie (milan: claudio gallone editore, 1998), 147~50. perhaps this incident with joseph was fresh in da ponte's mind when he wrote the libretto for don giovanni. it is also not inconceivable that da ponte may have told mozart about it. one wonders ifthis may have played a role in the selection of this particular passage from cosa rara for quotation in don giovanni. 59. platoff, "fra i due litiganti il terzo gode," 269. 60. i thank elaine sisman for suggesting this interpretation to me. 61. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 289. 62. ibid. 63. these lines occur in measures 5~8 and 36--44. 64. heartz, "don giovanni: conception and creation," 170. 65. steffen losel, '''may such great effort not be in vain': mozart on divine love, judgment, and retribution," journal of religion 89, no. 3 (july 2009): 388. 66. ibid., 388~89. 67. karol berger, bach's cycle, mozart's arrow, 252. 68. ibid. 69. ibid., 255. 70. losel, '''may such great effort not be in vain,'" 375. 71. nicholas till, mozart and the enlightenment: truth, virtue and beauty in mozart's operas (new york: norton, 1992),203. 72. s0ren kierkegaard, either/or, vol. i, trans. howard v. hong and edna h. hong (princeton: princeton university press, 1987), 100. 73. berger, bach :~ cycle, mozart's arrow, 257. nicholas j. chong 74. jean-jacques rousseau, confessions, trans. j. m. cohen (harmondsworth, middlesex: penguin, 1953), 410, quoted in till, mozart and the enlightenment, 205. 75. till, mozart and the enlightenment, 205. 76. mary hunter, mozart's operas: a companion (new haven, ct: yale university press, 2008), 143. 77. laurel elizabeth zeiss, "permeable boundaries in mozart's don giovanni," cambridge opera journal 13, no. 2 (july 2001): 118. 78. john t. kirby, "toward a rhetoric of poetics: rhetor as author and narrator," journal o{narrative theory 22, no. 1 (winter 1992): 1-7. all further page references in my summary of kirby's theory will be given parenthetically in the text. i thank kirby, and the journal o{narrative theory, for granting permission to reproduce figures from this article. 79. edward t. cone, the composer:s voice (berkeley and los angeles: university of california press, 1974), 17-18. all further page references in my summary of cone's theory will be given parenthetically in the text. 80. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 288; hunter, mozart's operas: a companion, 108. 81. daniel herwitz, "the cook, his wife, the philosopher, and the librettist," musical quarterly 78, no. 1 (spring 1994): 54. 82. till, mozart and the enlightenment, 226. 83. rushton, "don giovanni (ii)," 1206. 84. noske, "don giovanni: musical affinities and dramatic structure," 169. 85. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 289. 86. berger, bach s cycle, mozart:s arrow, 254. 87. kuster, mozart: a musical biography, 283. 88. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 288. 89. unverricht, "tafelmusik (i)," 922. 90. hubert unverricht, "divertimento," rev. cliff eisen, in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 7, ed. stanley sadie (london: macmillan publishers, 2001), 392. 91. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 290. 47 48 current musicology 92. andrew steptoe, the mozart~da ponte operas: the cultural background to le nozze di figaro, don giovanni, and cos! fan tutte (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1989), 1 j 5. 93. carol lazzaro~weis, "parody and farce in the don juan myth in the eighteenth century," eighteenth~century life 8, no. 3 (fall 1983): 36. 94. ibid., 36--41. 95. hunter, culture ojopera buffa in mozart's vienna, 67. 96. christopher ballantine, "social and philosophical outlook in mozart's operas," musical quarterly 67, no. 4 (october 1981): 521~24. 97. jessica waldoff, recognition in mozart's operas (new york: oxford university press, 2006), 170. 98. lior barshack, "the sovereignty of pleasure: sexual and political freedom in the operas of mozart and da ponte," law and literature 20, no. 1 (spring 2008): 55. mozart's is not the only don juan opera to destabilize the idea of the lieto fine. see michael f. robinson, "the alternative endings of don giovanni," in opera buffa in mozart's vienna, ed. mary hunter and james webster (cambridge: cambridge university press, 1997),268: "among the obvious exceptions to the observation that eighteenth~century comic opera ends in a mood of joyous celebration are the works based on the subject of don giovanni." 99. till, mozart and the enlightenment, 209. 100. rushton, w a. mozart: don giovanni, 12. 101. elaine sisman, "the marriages of don giovanni: persuasion, impersonation and personal responsibility," in mozart studies, ed. simon p. keefe (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2006), 186. 102. ibid., 163. 103. ibid., 172~75. 104. till, mozart and the enlightenment, 211. 105. freeman, "the 'tafe1musik' in don giovanni," 24. 106. edward forman, "don juan before da ponte," in rushton, w a. mozart: don giovanni, 36. see also note 27 above, and dent, mozart's operas, 172. 107. herwitz goes so far as to imply that the commendatore's entry belongs more in the realm of opera seria than opera b~ifla. see herwitz, "the cook, his wife, the philosopher, and the librettist," 51. nicholas j. chong 108. forman, "don juan before da ponte," 33. 109. freeman, "the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni," 27. see also note 27 above. 11 o. hunter, mozart's operas: a companion, 108. 111. daniel heartz, "constructing le nozze di figaro," in mozart's operas, 140-46, cited in hunter, mozart's operas: a companion, 118. 112. hunter, culture of opera buffa in mozart's vienna, 250. (hunter goes on to explore the connections of cosi with the martin and salieri operas in great detail. see pp. 250-72.) cited in hunter, mozart's operas, 118. the libretto for martin's l 'arbore di diana was also written by da ponte. 113. allanbrook, rhythmic gesture in mozart, 290. 114. zeiss, "permeable boundaries in mozart's don giovanni," i 18. 115. if "questa poi la conosco pur troppo" is understood to be addressed to the audience, then the very next thing which don giovanni sings-"leporello" (mm. 171-72)-could be heard as pulling leporeiio/ponziani back to the world of the stage from the world of the audience. i thank benjamin downs for suggesting to me this intriguing interpretive possibility. 116. paolo gallarati, "music and masks in lorenzo da ponte's mozartian librettos," cambridge opera journal 1 , no. 3 (november 1989): 245. 117. bertolt brecht, "alienation effects in chinese acting," in brecht on theatre: the development of an aesthetic, ed. and trans. john willett (new york: hill and wang, 1964),91. 118. hunter, culture of opera buffa in mozart's vienna, 67. 119. ibid., 7-13. 120. ibid., 20-22, and 71-92. 121. ibid., 56. 122. ibid, 55. 123. rushton, w a. mozart: don giovanni, 50. 124. daniel heartz, "an iconography of the dances in the ballroom scene of don giovanni," in mozart:5' operas, 182. the fandango in figaro occurs during the act iii finale (mm. 132-74). 125. heartz suggests that don giovanni's reference to the follia in "fin ch'han dal vino" occurs simply to match the meter and rhyme scheme of the verse, "chi 49 50 current musicology la fouia" corresponding to "la danza sia" two lines earlier. "chi la contredanza" would not have worked (ibid.). 126. john bokina, opera and politics: from monteverdi to henze (new haven, ct: yale university press, 1977),50. 127. dent, mozart~' operas, 17l. 128. landon, mozart: the golden years, 32. 129. ibid., 33. landon also cites a diary entry of the moravian count zinzendorf from march 1787, in which the count reports hearing the imperial harmonie play none other than music from una cosa rara. 130. freeman, "the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni," 28. 13l. landon, mozart: the golden years, 33. see also p. 70: mozart himself was called upon to make an arrangement of die entfuhrung for harmonie. 132. ibid. 133. daniel heartz, "an iconography of the dances in the ballroom scene of don giovanni," 179-93. 134. ibid., 184. 135. i thank richard kramer for encouraging me to consider this issue. 136. cone, the composer s voice, 22. 137. ibid. 138. karol berger, a theory of art (new york: oxford university press, 2000), 180, quoted in reynolds, motives for allusion, 181. 139. reynolds, motives for allusion, 163. references allanbrook, wye jamison. 1983. rhythmic gesture in mozart: le nozze di figaro and don giovanni. chicago: university of chicago press. anderson, emily, ed. and trans. 1985. the letters of mozart and his family. 3,d ed. london: macmillan press. andreani, eveline. 2008. le don giovanni de mozart: construction musicale et reseaux de sens. in don giovanni, ii dissoluto impunito, edited by sara zurletti, 147-'76. naples: cuen. ballantine, christopher. 1981. social and philosophical outlook in mozart's operas. musical quarterly 67 (4): 507-26. barry, barbara r. 1996. the spider's strategem: the motif of masking in don giovanni. opera journal 29 (2): 38-55. barshack, lior. 2008.the sovereignty of pleasure: sexual and political freedom in the operas of mozart and da ponte. law and literature 20 (1): 47-67. nicholas j. chong berger, karol. 2007. bach's cycle, mozart's arrow: an essay on the origins of musical modernity. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. __ . 2000. a theory of art. new york: oxford university press. bokina, john. 1977. opera and politics: from monteverdi to henze. new haven: yale university press. branscombe, peter. 1990. mozart and the theatre of his time. in the mozart compendium: a guide to mozart's life and music, edited by h. c. robbins landon, 358-70. new york: schirmer. brecht, bertolt. 1964. alienation effects in chinese acting. in brecht on theatre: the development of an aesthetic, edited and translated by john willett, 91-99. new york: hill and wang. cairns, david. 2006. mozart and his operas. london: allen lane. cone, edward t. 1974. the composer's voice. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. da ponte, lorenzo. 2000. memoirs. translated by elisabeth abbott [1959]. new york: new york review of books . . 1998. memorie. 2 vols. milan: claudio gallone editore. dent, edward j. 1955. mozart's operas: a critical study. 2nd ed. [1947]. london: oxford university press. forman, edward. 1981. "don juan before da ponte:' in rushton, w a. mozart: don giovanni,27-44. freeman, robert f. 1976. the 'tafelmusik' in don giovanni. opera journal 9 (1): 22-32. gallarati, paolo. 1989. music and masks in lorenzo da ponte's mozartian librettos. cambridge opera journal 1 (3): 225-47. heartz, daniel. 1990. mozart's operas. edited by thomas bauman. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. herwitz, daniel. 1994. the cook, his wife, the philosopher, and the librettist. musical quarterly 78 (1): 48-76. hunter, mary. 1999. the culture of opera buffa in mozart's vienna: a poetics of entertainment. princeton: princeton university press. __ . 2008. mozart's operas: a companion. new haven, ct: yale university press. __ . 1991. some representations of opera seria in opera buffa. cambridge opera journal 3 (2): 89-108. keppler, philip. 1956. some comments on musical quotation. musical quarterly 4 (4): 473-85. kierkegaard, s0ren. 1987. either/or, vol. 1. translated by howard v. hong and edna h. hong. princeton: princeton university press. kirby, john t. 1992. toward a rhetoric of poetics: rhetor as author and narrator. journal of narrative theory 22 (1): 1-22. kunze, stefan. 1972. don giovanni vor mozart: die tradition der don-giovanni-opern im italienischen buffa-theater des 18. jahrhunderts. munich: wilhelm fink verlag. kiister, konrad. 1996. mozart: a musical biography. translated by mary whittall. oxford: clarendon press. landon, h. c. robbins. 1989. mozart: the golden years 1781-1791. london: thames and hudson. lazzaro-weis, carol. 1983. parody and farce in the don juan myth in the eighteenth century. eighteenth-century life 8 (3): 35-48. link, dorothea. 1992. cosa rara, una. in the new grove dictionary of opera, vol. 1., edited by stanley sadie, 964-65. london: macmillan press . . 1998. the national court theatre in mozart's vienna: sources and documents 1783-1792. oxford: clarendon press. 51 52 current musicology losel, steffen. 2009. "may such great effort not be in vain": mozart on divine love, judgment, and retribution. journal of religion 89 (3): 361-400. noske, f. r. 1970. don giovanni: musical affinities and dramatic structure. studia musicologica academiae scientiarum hungaricae, t. 12, fasc. 1 (4): 167-203. pezzl, johann. 1991. sketch of vienna. in mozart and vienna: including selections from johann pezzl's sketch of vienna 1786-1791, by h. c. robbins landon, 53-191. london: thames and hudson. platoff, john. 1992. pra i due litiganti il terzo gode. in the new grove dictionary of opera, vol. 2, edited by stanley sadie, 269-70. london: macmillan press. __ . 1992. how original was mozart? evidence from opera buffa. early music 20 (1): 105-17. reynolds, christopher alan. 2003. motives for allusion. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. robinson, michael f. 1997. the alternative endings of don giovanni. in opera buffa in mozart's vienna, ed. mary hunter and james webster, 261-85. cambridge: cambridge university press. rousseau, jean-jacques. 1953. confessions. translated by j. m. cohen. harmondsworth, middlesex: penguin. rushton, julian. 1992. don giovanni (ii). in the new grove dictionary of opera, vol. 1., edited by stanley sadie, 1203-06. london: macmillan press. __ . 1981. w. a. mozart: don giovanni, cambridge opera handbook. cambridge: cambridge university press. sisman, elaine. 2006. the marriages of don giovanni: persuasion, impersonation and personal responsibility. in mozart studies, edited by simon p. keefe, 163-92. cambridge: cambridge university press. steptoe, andrew. 1989. the mozart-da ponte operas: the cultural background to le nozze di figaro, don giovanni, and cosl fan tutte. cambridge: cambridge university press. till, nicholas. 1992. mozart and the enlightenment: truth, virtue and beauty in mozart's operas. new york: norton. unverricht, hubert. 2001. divertimento. revised by cliff eisen. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 7, edited by stanley sadie, 392-94. london: macmillan publishers. ~~_. tafelmusik (i). 2001. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 24, edited by stanley sadie, 921-22. london: macmillan publishers. volek, tomislav. 1987. prague operatic traditions and mozart's don giovanni. in mozart's "don giovanni" in prague. prague: divadelni ustav [theater institute]. cited in heartz, mozart's operas. waldoff, jessica. 2006. recognition in mozart's operas. new york: oxford university press. weiss, piero and julian budden. 2001. opera buffa. in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., vol. 18, edited by stanley sadie, 474-77. london: macmillan publishers,. zeiss, laurel elizabeth. 2001. permeable boundaries in mozart's don giovanni. cambridge opera journal 13 (2): 115-39. current musicology, no. 96 (fall 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 37 experiencing alba tressina’s anima mea liquefacta est through bodily humors and the sacred erotic lindsay johnson alba tressina sits, lute in her lap, in the choir room behind her convent’s sanctuary, a sheet of music written in her own hand laid out in front of her on a small table. it is a hot weekday in early august, and the windows are flung open to the wide, tree–filled park that wraps around the back of the convent and abuts the river. if she were to look out the windows and beyond the walls of her convent, she would see several upper–class families taking advantage of the last summer warmth, picnicking leisurely on the grass by the river, within earshot of the nuns’ rehearsal. tressina, however, is deep in conversation with the three sisters with whom she is rehearsing. two stand near one another, sheets of music in their hands, while the third sits at a small, portable organ nearby. a young servant girl stands quietly next to the organ, ready to begin pumping its small bellows. tressina is explaining to her ensemble that they will perform this piece, her latest, for the rest of the sisters and possibly their father confessor on the feast day of the assumption of the blessed virgin mary. she confides that she chose the text she did—“anima mea liquefacta est”—because she wanted to demonstrate in music her close relationship with the holy mother, out of whose very body sprung the lord jesus christ. tressina asks the nuns to meditate on the virgin mary’s holy body. during her pregnancy, her bodily humors—blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile—had become jesus’s humors, and after christ’s birth, her milk had fed and nourished the infant. in a similar manner, the virgin mary might spiritually nourish the nuns devoted to her. finally, her assumption—her bodily removal from the earth to heaven—demonstrated the sanctity of her body, as well as the physical merging of her body and soul with god. tressina explains to her sisters that by meditating on these holy attributes of the blessed virgin, and by aspiring towards the perfection of the holy mother through prayer, music, and mystical practices, a nun might attain a higher level of closeness with god, perhaps even reaching ecstasy or a physical union with the divine. tressina asks the singers to pour their love for the virgin mary into their singing and to remember that although they would be performing for their own sisters they would also be performing for the holy mother and for god himself. thus, they must sing and play with a pure heart and absolute humility and love. current musicology 38 in this article, i situate tressina’s anima mea liquefacta est (1622) at the nexus of renaissance and early modern intellectual and religious frameworks. i demonstrate the ways in which it connects with the sacred erotic, a major component of european religious thought in the seventeenth century, and galenic humorism, which by the end of the renaissance had regained popularity.1 through close reading of tressina’s composition, i explore the artistic and cultural celebration of the sacred erotic and its offshoot, liquid eros, as well as the link between humorism and musical performance. finally, i analyze anima mea with respect to humorism, mapping galen’s four humors and their cultural connotations line by line onto the piece itself in order to more fully appreciate the associations between sacred eroticism, the psychology and emotion of performance, and the physical bodies of the nuns who performed this music. tressina’s compositions employ many conventions of sacred polyphonic music popular in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.2 such pre–existing conventions function as a shorthand version of collectively agreed–upon cultural meanings, performing cultural work that is easily recognizable to a wide variety of listeners living in a common time, society, and geographic area.3 by linking anima mea to prevailing ideas about the body and its connection with the divine, i demonstrate the extent to which tressina interacted with and contributed to her artistic and political communities—not cut off from society, as many in the church hierarchy expected from a cloistered nun, but very much a part of it.4 music in the convent as prominent sites for the cultivation of musical talent, convents often gave nuns access to musical instruction, providing one of the only reputable environments for female performance.5 nuns could receive musical training in several ways. families often provided music lessons for their daughters before they even entered the convent and sometimes would arrange for lessons to continue upon the girls’ profession of vows. when further lessons were approved, a suitable teacher had to be found; if the teacher came from outside the convent, he was generally a man who was old and morally beyond reproach. teacher and pupil sat on either side of a metal grate, often in the presence of an additional nun to ensure propriety. in the event that the church hierarchy forbade the hiring of an outside teacher, a musically gifted nun took over the duty of teaching her fellow sisters (monson 1992). in the case of tressina, her teacher was the renowned leon leoni, maestro di cappella of vicenza’s cathedral, an ordained priest, and an old man by the time he began working with tressina. lindsay johnson 39 convent musical performances took on various forms. the most– described performances, both in period writings and in recent scholarship, were part of ceremonial rituals, processions, and feast days. performances by nuns for the public, if allowed at all, required the nuns to be hidden from view, creating in the listener the experience of hearing a voice without seeing its provenance, an unusual and fantastic experience at the time. for many listeners, the invisibility of the nuns created a shift in perception: for them, the nuns became their voices. as nun scholar gabriella zarri states, “the nuns become an invisible presence, they are transformed into a voice,” a concept that craig monson terms the “disembodied voice” (zarri 1986: 412; monson 1992). to accomplish this invisibility while still allowing laity to listen to their music, nuns sang through grates in the wall, behind screens, and out of windows, and they played loud instruments (organ, trombone, cornetto) whose sounds could penetrate the walls to the spaces beyond.6 many convents in italy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were renowned for the quality of music they produced. the evidence of excellent music issuing from convent churches appears in travel diaries, official church correspondence, city chronicles, and in the form of published music. visiting aristocrats made sure to go to some of the most famous convents to add to their “collection” of listening experiences.7 robert kendrick quotes the 1664 accounts of grand duke cosimo iii de’ medici’s visit to milan and the convent of s. radegonda which describe the two musical ensembles in residence there, made up of “fifty nuns counting singers and instrumentalists of utter perfection” (filizio pizzichi, quoted in kendrick 1992: 215). as kendrick states elsewhere, “the renown of the repertory is no secret; most urban panegyric literature of the seicento remarked on nuns’ performances (while normally omitting or downplaying music in other institutions) and ecclesiastical historians have mentioned it repeatedly” (kendrick 1996: 15). italy’s cloistered religious communities were vital centers of musical production, and in line with sacred musical trends in the wider world, many nun composers made use of popular, sacred–erotic compositional techniques. besides alba tressina, nuns sulpitia cesis (publication in 1619), lucrezia orsina vizzana (publication in 1623), chiara margarita cozzolani (publications in 1642 and 1650), and bianca maria meda (publication in 1691) all wrote pieces with sacred–erotic texts and musical characteristics. before i explain what these characteristics were, i want briefly to explain sacred eroticism and how it manifested in early modern religious culture. current musicology 40 sacred eroticism and its uses in the arts in the mid–sixteenth century, the catholic church realized its fallibility as thousands left for the new promise of personal salvation that martin luther preached. in luther’s church, both men and women could speak directly with god without the necessity of a trained priest to intercede, shifting the lay person from a position of relatively passive religiosity to one of great personal and spiritual power. confronted with this revolutionary idea, the catholic church grew uneasy, for in this alternate religious paradigm lay the potential that not only the priest, but also the entire hierarchy of the church was superfluous. in response and as a means to regain both members and spiritual clout, the catholic church embarked on a series of reforms that in effect tightened the church’s control both bureaucratically and socially. one aspect of these reforms was an emphasis on earthly eroticism as a metaphor for sacred love. while luther’s followers could speak directly to god, devout catholics could unite with god both physically and spiritually. the possibility of this union must have been a powerful draw for individuals disenchanted by roman catholicism as it became a strong selling point for the church seeking to bring newly avowed protestants back into its folds. the catholic church’s emphasis on the sacred erotic comes sharply into focus in the influential and widely distributed works of mystic and saint teresa of ávila (1515–1582). the highly sexualized descriptions of her unions with god in her writings such as the interior castle and the life of saint teresa of ávila offered a new, powerful means of communion with god. st. teresa’s use of sexual metaphor to describe divine union, her myriad writings, and the church’s approval of her work all served to elevate her fame and holiness while making way for others to use the sacred erotic in their own devotions. st. teresa’s works opened the floodgates for religious individuals, mystics or not, to seek ecstasy through devotion, often aided by works of art, literature, or music. the church capitalized on this tradition, patronizing artistic endeavors that depicted, described, and demonstrated personal ecstasy (generally among women) all across europe. male excitement surrounding the idea of the female mystic in ecstasy can be seen in numerous works of visual art generated during these centuries, such as bernini’s ecstasy of st. teresa or guido reni’s st. cecelia. in the visual depiction of union with god, anyone, literate or not, could view and contemplate divine encounters and strive for such experiences in their own lives. by rendering holy women in ecstasy, visual artists could graphically demonstrate for the masses the soul’s ultimate goal: complete physical, emotional, and spiritual union with god. literature and the visual arts in the seventeenth century depicted this ecstasy while the performing arts, and music in particular, were uniquely lindsay johnson 41 situated both to depict and to provide it. intellectuals and theorists such as federigo borromeo, milan’s archbishop from 1595–1631, saw music as an especially well–suited medium for divine union.8 women in particular, thought to be less rational than men and therefore more prone to supernatural influence, were often known to experience trance states while performing, as long as they were both devout and humble.9 multiple aspects of a composition or performance allowed for the emergence of the sacred erotic: in the use of sacred–erotic texts; in modal shifts; in the interplay between the vocal or instrumental lines; or in performance contexts that suggest non–normative expressions of gender (through, for example, the use of castrati and other male voices to celebrate the physical body of jesus). the song of songs provides a large percentage of the sacred– erotic texts for all composers in this style—men and women, cloistered and worldly alike. this short book in the old testament is the primary locus of the sacred erotic in the bible, and its metaphor of earthly love as a way to demonstrate and understand divine love has held great meaning for roman catholics throughout the centuries. eleventh–century saint bernard of clairvaux wrote a series of sermons on the song of songs, meditating on “the gift of holy love” that he characterizes as both “ardent” and “perfect” (bernard de clairvaux 2005, sermons 1 and 7). along with the nun composers mentioned above, claudio monteverdi, girolamo frescobaldi, and alessandro grandi (all roman catholics), heinrich schütz (a protestant), and salamone rossi (a jew) used these verses to great effect, underlining the significance of corporeal ecstasy and union with god in music brimming with eroticism and pain. grandi’s o quam tu pulchra es, for example, is rife with emotional agony and languishing, which is portrayed musically as a modal meltdown meant to depict (and potentially aid in) an out–of–body ecstatic experience (see mcclary 1991 and 2012). frescobaldi uses the same technique in maddalena alla croce, his sonetto spirituale published in venice in 1630. the text of this piece describes a union between christ and mary magdalene, saying “for if you wish to die, my soul is united/with you (you know this, my redeemer, my god)/therefore with you i must share both death and life.”10 susan mcclary describes the climax of this piece as a sexual release: “here is mary magdalene at the site of christianity’s most holy site—the crucifixion—enacting a fantasy of simultaneous orgasm with the dying christ” (mcclary 2007: 137). mcclary bases her assertion on the numerous and rapid modal shifts (eleven in all). the turning point and the chord that depicts mary’s rapture is an f#–major triad, “wildly” out of place in the previous harmonic landscape, much as a true mystical encounter with god would be in daily life (mcclary 2007: 140). one additional technique for demonstrating sacred–erotic experiences was the manipulation of timing and desire, and seventeenth–century comcurrent musicology 42 posers used dissonance and consonance to create in the listener a longing for resolution. during crunching dissonances, the listener’s yearning deepens and intensifies as phrase endings are withheld, thereby delaying gratification until it either explodes in a burst of ecstasy or dissipates in frustration and fear. st. john of the cross described the latter outcome in angst–ridden detail in the mid–sixteenth century (see st. john of the cross 2005). this musical withholding of gratification parallels the desire a believer would have for god’s love and the subsequent rush of joy she might experience in attaining a mystical union with the divine. these compositional techniques culminate in the act of singing, which provides, palpably and in the flesh, these sacred–erotic effects in real time. the set of musical practices that composers developed not only referred to sacred eroticism, but also demonstrated it outright, opening the door for the more spiritual performers among them to use such works as a means of becoming closer to god via performance. devout listeners too could attain trance states through “inner participation” as they found their minds and bodies swept up in the performance (see johnson 2013). for those nuns who did not have regular mystical encounters (surely the majority of them), the attraction towards bodily and emotional union with god remained strong, motivating these women to continue to strive for closer relationships with the divine. liquid eros as part of the sacred erotic liquid eros was one component of the sacred erotic during the seventeenth century, and bodily liquids like blood, tears, breast milk, or the common metaphor of the melting soul were used in meditative devotions.11 the body’s carnality and its internal liquids, or humors, were thus a celebrated aspect of spirituality within roman catholic practices. even as early as the mid–sixteenth century, liquid imagery was indispensable in mystic writings as a metaphor for bodily union with god. to say that one’s soul is melting is to suggest that the now–liquid soul can easily merge with other sacred liquids, such as the blood of christ or the virgin mary’s breast milk, two of the more important liquids in the christian tradition. richard rambuss writes extensively about the role of bodily fluids in sixteenth– and seventeenth–century personal devotions, revealing how combining bodily liquids in the name of faith opens the door for countless fusions of the erotic and the spiritual. furthermore, the mixing of liquids is permanent—once tears and blood are melded together, the two cannot be parted (rambuss 1998). this strong symbolic pairing of humorism and sacred eroticism in early modern religious traditions was particularly lindsay johnson 43 powerful for women, whose bodies had the capacity to produce three of the most prominent liquids in christian imagery: blood, milk, and tears. blood, notably the blood of jesus, is the most celebrated of these three liquids and therefore the most obvious link between the body and the divine for us today. during the rite of communion, the high point of every mass, the devout take the body and the blood of christ into their own bodies as spiritual nourishment. tears and breast milk, on the other hand, both carry strong associations with women, and their sacred connotations are perhaps less obvious. mary magdalene and the virgin mary weep heavily below the crucifix after jesus’s death, as well as in the days during which jesus’s body lies in the tomb. indeed, the two marys are depicted mourning by the cross in countless works of art, poetry, and music, including the oft–set text “stabat mater dolorosa, juxta crucem lacrimosa, dum pendebat filius” (“the grieving mother stood weeping beside the cross where her son was hanging”). tears, however, are not specific to the female body, like breast milk. the holy status of the virgin mary’s breast milk was a mainstay of christian imagery throughout the middle ages and renaissance. the physical and spiritual nourishment that jesus ingested with mary’s breast milk allowed believers to view mary and her life–giving breasts as a source of nourishment for them as well.12 mary’s body offered a parallel to jesus’s in that her life–giving breasts, like jesus’s bleeding side wounds, had the power to feed and nourish a believer. unsurprisingly, such female–centric imagery struck a resonant chord with nuns at the time. indeed, the nuns felt a strong connection with both the virgin mary and mary magdalene in their grief over jesus’s death and the subsequent disappearance of his corporeal shell, while the virgin mary served as a sympathetic intercessor from whom they could take divine nourishment. water, another life–giving liquid, also provided an important metaphor for divine ecstasy. in her autobiography, st. teresa uses water to delineate the four stages of prayer a devout believer must obtain before experiencing rapture. she likens personal prayer to the cultivation of a garden for god’s pleasure. the four stages are: 1) the water is drawn from a well (difficult); 2) the well–water is drawn with a water–wheel and buckets, worked by a windlass (less laborious, and brings up more water); 3) the water comes from a stream or a spring (easy, and better saturates the ground); and 4) heavy rains water the garden (easiest—sent by god himself; no labor necessary) (st. teresa 1957: 78). this last metaphor references divine union, when the soul is inundated with god’s love. these unions can be unexpected, yet intense. as st. teresa says, “in one of these visits, however brief it may be, the gardener, being as he is the creator of the water, pours it out without stint; and what the poor soul has not been able to collect in perhaps twenty current musicology 44 years of exhausting intellectual effort, the heavenly gardener gives it in a moment” (st. teresa 1957: 117). the idea of languishing of love for the divine also appears several times in st. teresa’s text. in her sixteenth chapter describing the “third water” (the third stage of prayer), st. teresa expresses her emotional state as “bewildered and intoxicated with love” (st. teresa 1957: 113). this intoxication later causes the soul to melt in ecstasy, as she makes clear in one of her chapters on rapture (the “fourth water”): “but it is plain from the superabundance of grace that the sun must have shone very brightly here, to leave the soul thus melted away” (st. teresa 1957: 126).13 the melting soul that languishes of love is evidently an image that teresa found useful in evoking divine ecstasy—an image that many other authors, artists, and composers appropriated to similar ends. liquid eros in the arts before the end of the renaissance, imagery of sacred bodily fluids existed apart from erotic connotations. for example, visual artists during this time generally did not depict mary’s naked breast realistically; often it came out of her shoulder, or was not proportional to the rest of her body. in the eighteenth century, images of (specifically female) bodies became more life–like and scientific, and were increasingly secularized and sexualized. the turn of the seventeenth century, however, was the point at which eroticization of holy bodies and their fluids coexisted in single works of art and music with profound devotion (miles 2008). chiara margarita cozzolani (1602–c.1678), perhaps the most famous nun composer of her time, wrote numerous pieces using texts that celebrate the corporeal bodies of both mary and jesus, each flowing with its own sacred liquid. one example is her concerted duet o quam bonus es (1650), which overtly rejoices in the nourishment that springs from christ’s side wound and from mary’s breasts. indeed, the protagonist has a difficult time deciding which liquid to experience first, eventually alternating between the two: o me felicem, o me beatum. hinc pascor a vulnere, hinc lactor ab ubere, quo me vertam nescio. in vulnere vita, in ubere salus, in vulnere quies, in ubere pax, in vulnere nectar, in ubere favum, in vulnere jubilus, in ubere gaudium, in vulnere jesus, in ubere, virgo. lindsay johnson 45 o happy, blessed me. now i graze from his wound, now i nurse at her breast, i do not know where to turn next. in his wound is life; in her breast, salvation; in his wound, quiet; in her breast, peace; in his wound, nectar; in her breast, honey; in his wound, rejoicing; in her breast, joy; in the wound of jesus; in the breast, o virgin. later on in this text, the desire of the protagonist becomes even more fervent: sanguis amabilis, nectare dulcior, manna jucundior. lac exoptabile, melle suavior, favo nobilus. te amo, te diligo, te cupio, te volo, te sitio, te quæro, te bibo, te gusto. o lovable blood, sweeter than nectar, happier than manna. desirable milk, sweeter than honey, more refined than the honeycomb. i love you, i desire you, i want you, i thirst for you, i seek you, i drink you, i enjoy you. other nuns made use of preexisting religious texts such as the erotically charged song of songs. alba tressina used texts from this book of the bible in two of her four surviving compositions: anima mea liquefacta est and vulnerasti cor meum. while vulnerasti cor meum indirectly hints at the eroticization of mary’s nourishing milk, exclaiming, “how beautiful are your breasts” (“quam pulchrae sunt mammae tuae”), anima mea liquefacta est is both textually and musically awash with liquid imagery, and thus lies at the nexus of spirituality and early modern liquid eros with respect to both text and music. the text comes from chapter five, verses six and eight of the song of songs: anima mea liquefacta est ss 5:6 ut dilectus meus locutus est. ss 5.6 paraphrase vocavi illum et non respondit mihi ss 5.6 quesivi illum et non inveni ss 5:6 nuntiate dilecto meo ss 5:8 paraphrase quia amore langueo. ss 5:8 my soul melted when my love spoke. i called him and he did not answer. i searched for him and did not find him. tell my beloved that i languish of love. current musicology 46 apart from the text, tressina’s musical setting similarly makes use of techniques and conventions common within sacred–erotic musical composition. one of the more striking musical techniques still part of the italian musical landscape in the early decades of the seventeenth century is textual mimesis: the close relationship composers crafted between a given text and the musical “translation” of that text, often depicting the meaning of the text both visually and aurally.14 the mimetic style that tressina employs in this piece is straightforward and uncomplicated, yet vital to the piece’s sacred–erotic theme: her melodic lines imitate the movement (and perhaps the sound, as well) of flowing water. during the first thirty–two measures, phrases melt into one another, cascading down the staff like a waterfall, spilling from voice to voice over a descending octave. these watery characteristics are paired with the first line (“anima mea liquefacta est”) and intensify on the word liquefacta, which for more than half of its nine iterations is set to pairs of descending fusae (see example 1). example 1: alba tressina, anima mea liquefacta est: tenor, mm. 9–11. one other motive, also repeated in each voice part, further emphasizes this piece’s connection to liquid imagery. the word “vocavi,” which means “i call out,” bubbles up from the depths of the singer’s voice like a spring, similar to st. teresa’s third stage of prayer (see example 2). example 2: alba tressina, anima mea liquefacta est: tenor, mm. 37–39. why did liquid imagery hold such a place of prominence in certain kinds of sacred–erotic devotion? part of the reason liquid metaphors were such an effective tool for pious individuals desiring a closer, even visceral connection with god in sixteenth– and seventeenth–century europe has to do with how people of all classes and religions viewed their bodies. st. teresa’s reliance on water as a central image was no coincidence. her writings were intended to aid the devout in bettering themselves (that is, aligning the interior aspects of themselves with christian spiritual and mystical beliefs) in order to become closer to god. what better metaphor to use, then, than lindsay johnson 47 liquids, which, according to galenic humorism and renaissance medicinal teachings, not only filled the interior spaces of the body, but also directly affected sickness, health, personality characteristics, and emotions? galenic humorism and its effects on performance humorism, championed by the greek physician and philosopher galen in the second century c.e., stated that the body was made up of four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm), which regulated the body’s health, characteristics, and physiological make–up. the humors, when balanced according to each individual’s bodily constitution, assured a healthy body wherein all processes ran smoothly. at times of humoral imbalance, the patient showed symptoms of sickness. in this way, the body resembled a great vat of liquids and spongy organs that bobbed around in pools of mixed humors, absorbing what they needed, assimilating and transforming these liquids into useable substances, and expelling any surplus. problems, both psychological and physical, began to occur when the humors became unbalanced and the humoral mix within the body became stagnant, clogged, and putrid (roach 1985). the four humors could be loosely associated with the four elements (air, fire, earth, and water, respectively), and also the four seasons, the four stages of life, and four key personality characteristics: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. each humor had two qualities associated with it, and each quality in turn pertained to two different humors. blood and phlegm were both moist humors, while yellow and black bile were dry. blood and yellow bile were warm, while phlegm and black bile were cold (see figure 1). the properties of the most prominent humor in the body affected a person’s personality. for example, a sanguine person was extraverted, social, and prone to “amatory passions,” while a choleric person was energetic, passionate, and charismatic (roach 1985: 39). melancholics were creative, kind, and considerate, though also prone to bouts of grief. phlegmatics were dependable, kind, and affectionate, though also prone to fear or astonishment (see figure 2). each person’s humoral makeup was different: balance in one person may have been unbalanced for another. some people were naturally choleric, but when a sanguine person started to become choleric, it signaled imbalance. such a person would begin to take on the character and physical traits associated with an excess of yellow bile. physical stature and weight also could be explained by the humors: for example, a fat person was viewed as having an excess of cold moisture, and thus too much phlegm (burton 1621; roach 1985). current musicology 48 figure 1: chart of the four humors, their characteristics, and correlating factors. the renewed interest in ancient greek and latin philosophers, intellectuals, and authors in the renaissance helped to re–popularize galenic medicine, as physicians took galen’s works as a starting point and either sought to refute his ideas or champion and expand upon them. as a result, even though anatomists such as andreas vesalius (1514–1564) began to disprove many of galen’s assertions (due largely to the fact that by the renaissance the dissection of human cadavers was becoming legal), in the seventeenth century diagnostic medicine still relied heavily on galen’s work (stelmack and stalikas 1991).15 reprints of his works appeared throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries across europe in latin, german, greek, and english. in fact, bloodletting, a remedy popular with galen that would drain away the supposedly putrid, stagnant fluids from the body, was still used to treat patients as late as the nineteenth century. thus, the image of the body as a stewpot full of sloshing liquids and spongy organs that dictate emotion, physical health, and human actions was a commonly known “fact” among all levels of seventeenth–century european society, much as the knowledge that “germs make us sick” is today. the influence of the humors on how people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries viewed their bodies cannot be overestimated, especially since humors affected both physical and mental health. an imbalance of lindsay johnson 49 figure 2: the four temperaments. from lavater (1789: 254–255). public commons. humors could either cause physical or psychological issues or be caused by them (burton 1621, part 1, member iii, subsection i “definition of melancholy, name, difference”: 45). excessive emotion could be the cause of humoral imbalance as much as a physical malady—an immediate danger for actors, lovers, musicians, or anyone in a position to experience sudden changes in either embodied or projected emotion. since the humors controlled the passions and thus a person’s actions, they also affected all aspects of social and public life, especially in situations where a person sought to sway or alter another’s emotions or intellect. public orations, political speeches, or theatrical or musical performances all had close ties to humoral movement and thus had the worrisome capacity to alter one’s physical or psychological make–up. especially dangerous was a performance that elicited a rapid emotional shift, for as galen states in his art of physick, “nature abhors all suddain changes” (galen and culpeper 1652: 91). performers “discover[ed] the passions of the mind with their bodies,” causing their own internal liquids to shift, possibly throwing them off balance in order to act their roles more effectively and believably (roach 1985: 32). the rapid emotional changes necessitated by a good performance, current musicology 50 therefore, were actually “sudden, violent metamorphoses” within the physical body, as performers generated and embodied genuine emotions originating in a fictitious world (roach 1985: 42). the truly great performer could effect physiological changes at will through three key steps, outlined in john bulwer’s 1649 work pathomyotomia: 1) the person imagines the emotion or character to portray, 2) this internal image in turn moves the person’s appetite, which then 3) causes the “mobile spirits” to “flie forth with stupendious obedience to their destinated organs” (bulwer 1649: 21–23). even more perilous was the belief that actors could effect physiological changes on audience members through their performances. as theater historian joseph roach has written, the actor, with his “passions irradiating the bodies of the spectators through their eyes and ears, could literally transfer the contents of his heart to theirs, altering their moral nature. the exercise of this power entailed certain dangers” (roach 1985: 27). roach writes of actors in particular, but this same idea extended to musicians as well. obviously, the ability of an actor or musician to produce physiological changes in audience members could have devastating implications. at the very least it could cause discomfort in the spectator, but a good performance could also incite violence, make spectators physically ill, and even generate in the audience members strong emotions such as depression and uncontrollable rage. music’s dangers were not unlike those of magic; indeed, linda austern makes a parallel between music and witchcraft, citing the practitioner’s ability to enchant. she quotes from alexander roberts’s treatise of witchcraft (1620), wherein roberts states that witches “[stir] up men to lust, to hatred, to love, and the like passions . . . by altering the inward and outward senses, either in forming some new object . . . or stirring the humors,” which is similar to what music could do, according to henry cornelius agrippa von nettesheim in his 1533 publication three books of occult philosophy: singing can do more then [sic] the sound of an instrument, in as much as it arising by an harmonial consent, from the conceit of the minde, and imperious affection of the phantasie and heart, easily penetrateth by motion, with the refracted and well tempered air, the aerous spirit of the hearer, which is the bond of soul and body; and transferring the affection and minde of the singer with it, it moveth the affection of the hearer by his affection, and the hearers phantasie by his phantasie, and minde by his minde, and striketh the minde, and striketh the heart, and pierceth even to the inwards of the soul, and by little and little, infuseth even dispositions: moreover, it moveth and stoppeth the members and the humors of the body. (quoted in austern 1990: 199, 203) the musical practitioner, then, could change the listener’s physiological makeup through violent alterations of humoral balance, “striking” and lindsay johnson 51 “piercing” the “inwards of the soul” and renting the listener out of his or her “even disposition.” alternatively, a great performer’s power over audiences was thrilling for audiences of theater or music, who during a performance could give themselves up entirely to the performers and in turn experience not only elation, joy, excitement, and suspense but also helplessness, anger, and grief. in fact, an actor or performance was judged as “good” relative to the extent to which audience members got swept up in the moment and felt the actor’s passions in their own bodies. in other words, the best performers could transfer their own emotions, made possible by the changing ratios of bodily liquids, to the audience members, altering audience members’ physical bodies in turn. a particularly excellent performance could put listeners in a type of trance or stupor, or could generate ecstatic experiences. through his performances, the renowned sixteenth–century lutenist francesco da milano “ravished” his audiences and was able to manipulate the listeners’ bodies by dulling their senses “save that of hearing” for the duration of his performance. after inciting a kind of “ecstatic transport of some divine frenzy,” da milano would gently restore the audience’s bodies to a normal, though invariably altered, state. french tourist jacques descartes de ventemille gives a detailed account of his experience in his travel diary: he had barely disturbed the air with three strummed chords when he interrupted the conversation that had started among the guests. having constrained them to face him, he continued with such ravishing skill that little by little, making the strings languish under his fingers in his sublime way, he transported all those who were listening into so pleasurable a melancholy that—one leaning his head on his hand supported by his elbow, and another sprawling with his limbs in careless deportment, with gaping mouth and more than half–closed eyes, glued (one would judge) to the strings of the lute, and his chin fallen on his breast, concealing his countenance with the saddest taciturnity ever seen—they remained deprived of all senses save that of hearing, as if the spirit, having abandoned all the seats of the senses, had retired to the ears in order to enjoy the more at its ease so ravishing a harmony; and i believe that we would be there still, had he not himself—i know not how—changing his style of playing with a gentle force, returned the spirit and the senses to the place from which he had stolen them, not without leaving as much astonishment in each of us as if we had been elevated by an ecstatic transport of some divine frenzy. (weiss and taruskin 1984: 159–160) for de ventemille, one of the most noteworthy aspects of his experience is da milano’s ability to exert control over and effect change on his audience’s physiology. da milano effortlessly alters the listeners’ humoral ratios, inciting a “pleasurable . . . melancholy” that physically changes the bodies of the audicurrent musicology 52 ence members, both externally (one is “sprawling with his limbs in careless deportment”) and internally (he is also “concealing his countenance with the saddest taciturnity ever seen”). the audience is completely and utterly at the mercy of the performer. indeed, the author notes that they would all still be there today, enraptured and in a trance, if da milano had not eased them back into themselves. a common belief throughout the renaissance and into the seventeenth century was that these emotional changes occurred in the physical air between the performers and the spectators. de ventemille reminds us of this idea at the beginning of his account when he describes da milano as “disturb[ing] the air.” medical theorists such as robert burton, author of the wildly popular anatomy of melancholy,16 used galen’s theory of attraction, the longstanding idea of the pneuma,17 to explain that spirits, becoming agitated by a person’s passions and emotions, create a “wave of physical force” that rolls through the ether and affects the spirits of others (roach 1985: 45). burton speaks of this “phantasie” of imagination which can “so imperiously command our bodies” and which “is of such force. . .that it can work vpon others, as well as our selues” (burton 1621: “of the force of imagination,” part 1, section 2, member 3, subsection 2, page 127). in a section entitled “musicke a remedy”, he goes on to say, “the spirits about the heart, take in that trembling and dancing aire into the body, & are moued together, & stirred vp with it” (burton 1621: “musicke a remedy,” part 2, section 2, member 6, subsection 3, page 373). galen himself wrote that air “helps to engender both vital and animal spirit,” “cools the heart by inspiration,” and “is the author of life, diseases, and death to mortal men and women” (galen and culpepper 1652: 91). because stirring the passions required throwing off the equilibrium of humors, such an action necessitated a strong degree of self–control on the part of the performer so as not to succumb to physical disease or psychological malady, which only time or a trained physic could heal. musicians and actors kept on hand a full range of emotions, including ecstasy, rage, passionate love, and devastating sorrow, and were able to access them quickly and easily. the true art in seventeenth–century performance stemmed from the level of restraint and self–control that a performer could wield: “to attain restraint, control over these copious and powerful energies, represents both artistic challenge and preventative medicine” (roach 1985: 52). sometimes, though, it may have been desirable for the performer to relinquish herself to the emotional and humoral changes that performance entailed if the end result could be a closer relationship with god. lindsay johnson 53 humoral analysis alba tressina’s composition draws from liquid and sacred–erotic metaphors as well as a collective understanding of how the body functioned. its performance thus had the potential to effect bodily changes in performers and listeners alike and consequently afforded the opportunity for performers and listeners to tune their souls to god and experience divine ecstasy.18 in tressina’s setting, each line of poetry presents an affect whose emotional content corresponds with the characteristics of one or two of the four humors; one or two because in humoral theory, the varying combinations of humors produce markedly different qualities than just the single “pure” humoral form.19 as the emotions of the text become increasingly fraught, the humors become more complex and inflected with melancholy. melancholy holds primacy of place in this humoral reading for two reasons: 1) the text describes a love–sickness that renaissance doctors would have labeled as melancholy. this is the same type of melancholy that de ventemille ascribes to da milano’s performance—a “pleasurable melancholy.” 2) melancholy is unique among the four humors in that any of the other humors can inflect and influence one’s melancholic state. these combinations produce complex aggregates of humoral effects. as burton says, this naturall melancholy is either simple, or mix’t . . . according to mixture of those naturall humors amongst themselues, or foure vnnaturall adust humors, as they are diversly tempered and mingled . . . from melancholy adust ariseth one kinde; from choler another, which is most brutish: another from fleame, which is dull; & the last from blood, which is best. (burton 1621: “of the matter of melancholy,” part 1, member iii, subsection iii, page 50) melancholy mixed with blood (the “best” kind, according to burton) results in sanguine melancholy, or love–sickness, which is caused by passionate yearning and amorous desires. sanguine melancholy is particularly important in anima mea liquefacta est because the nature of tressina’s selected text is overtly melancholic in this vein—most notably the last line, “tell my beloved that i languish of love.” the piece begins with overlapping, descending melodic lines that mimic moving water. the lines flow into one another with no beginning and no end. after the first iteration, each subsequent entrance seems to grow out of the previous line. the explicitly liquid nature of these initial eleven measures depicts the first line of text—anima mea liquefacta est—and corresponds humorally with phlegm, the humor of water (see figure 1). the first entrance, in the altus primus, begins on a g’, ending in the next measure a fourth lower, on d’. the second entrance, by the altus secundus, is identical to the first current musicology 54 except in the duration of the first g’ and begins just as the first motive is ending. in measure four, the first alto begins its descent from d’ down to g, imitated slightly differently by the second alto. the tenor voice, picking up on this descent, begins its motive—an imitation of the primary motive—a fourth lower, on d’. the tenor ends its iteration of “liquefacta est” with falling fusa pairs that come to rest on g (see example 3). measures 12 through 17 (set to “ut dilectus meus locutus est”—“when my love spoke to me”) depict black bile, the humor of melancholy and of earth. the harmonies shift subtly into a new modal framework as the text introduces a new person: “my love.” the voices suddenly enter a period of momentary stasis made possible by a stable homophonic texture that contrasts with the instability of the previous watery motives. the fluid lines flow gently up to the wall of homophony, which rises from the texture in a new modal space and in a new meter (3/2) (see example 4). the two iterations of “locutus est” return to the opening mode, and to duple time, though in performance the two–measure change to triple meter has little to no actual effect beyond a hemiola. during these measures, while the part–writing is conventional, the brief shift to the soft hexachord during the first iteration of “locutus” is nonetheless melancholic in affect. to perform this affectual change from phlegmatic to melancholic, the performers must pull themselves out of the depths to which they had cascaded individually and come together in unison. thus, not only must they shift affects through humoral change within their bodies, they must do it together as one person, breathing at the same time and entering on the same tempo, even though the tenor solo in the three measures previous might have included a small rubato to signify the end of the first, phlegmatic section. since the changes in performed affect had the potential to physically alter the humoral balance of singers, instrumentalists, and other performers, who in turn might effect similar changes on audience members, such an event occurring simultaneously among three performers (or four, if the bass line was not played by one of the singers) must have been compelling. the homophony does not last long, however. after six measures, the singers drop out completely—the first and only time this happens. a continuo solo beginning in measure 18 and cadencing on the downbeat of measure 22 showcases a contrasting affect, and consequently a contrasting humor. the solo, featuring a repeated anapest rhythm20 over a steady ascent from g’’ to f ’, counteracts the initial languid, liquid descents and the melancholy stasis in the vocal lines. yellow bile, opposite phlegm in figure 1, represents fire, summer, and youth in contrast to the watery phlegm associated with winter and old age. the new rhythm, full of energy and optimism in its driving upward movement (as opposed to the downward movement of the earlier motives) points to the warm fiery dryness of yellow bile (see example 5). lindsay johnson 55 ex am pl e 3: a lb a tr es sin a, a ni m a m ea li qu ef ac ta es t: m m . 1 –1 1. current musicology 56 exam ple 4: a lba tressina, anim a m ea liquefacta est: m m . 12–17. lindsay johnson 57 example 5: alba tressina, anima mea liquefacta est: basso, mm. 18–23. this continuo solo is interesting both in its uniqueness within the structure of the piece as well as in its location. it appears after the first iteration of “ut dilectus meus locutus est” (“when my love spoke”). i argue that this solo represents the voice of the beloved, which, for nuns seeking further intimacy with the divine by way of biblical texts, would be jesus. it is fitting that the bass line takes over at this point, both due to the line’s tessitura21 and in the fact that there are no words—indeed no human voices. in roman catholicism, god speaks to the people through intercessors, interpreters, and symbols: saints, priests, the pope, other holy individuals, a burning bush, a voice in the wilderness. nuns therefore would have readily welcomed the idea that god might speak through someone else in a medium requiring a degree of interpretation, such as a continuo solo.22 thus, in convent repertoire, the voice of god could be generated by an instrumental solo and also through the bodies of the nuns themselves (as in some compositions by nuns that require performers to envoice holy characters),23 allowing for multiple types of musical interpretations of doctrine to exist simultaneously. after the bass solo, which re–energizes the piece by bringing a new, warm, fiery affect, the voices enter once again with material similar to the beginning. in a symmetrical framing gesture, the singers repeat the first line (“anima mea liquefacta est”) and return to their flowing, descending motives. this second iteration is more emphatic: this time, each new voice now interrupts the one before at the height of the phrase, entering during the falling fusa pairs. additionally, all three voices sing the liquid motive on the word “liquefacta” for even more emphasis. measures 33–36 (“dilectus meus”) create an appropriate transition between the first half of the piece, which aurally depicts the speaker’s passion and ecstasy, and the second half, which focuses on searching for the lost lover. while liquid is a main theme throughout, the water imagery changes at this point from a gently flowing descent to waves of sound washing over singers and audience alike. regardless of where in the convent this might have been sung, it is likely that the space was highly resonant, replete with stone walls, arched ceilings, and minimal furnishings. in such a space, these dynamic few measures would briefly immerse the audience, “drowning” them in sound as the speaker’s soul melted, or perhaps drowned in love (see example 6). current musicology 58 exam ple 6: a lba tressina, anim a m ea liquefacta est: m m . 33–36. lindsay johnson 59 the phrase cadences on a semibreve in measure 36—a natural point of rest that allows both the singers and the audience a moment to breathe after the immersion. in the following measure, rapid semifusa runs bubble up from the depths of the voice in each part, as the water imagery once again changes slightly from immersing ocean waves to a freshwater spring. for all three singers, this motive begins near the bottom of the tessitura and dips to the lowest pitches scored for these lines (g for the two alto lines, and e for the tenor), only to rise swiftly up the scale a minor seventh and then an octave. this demonstration of fluid motion offers a chance for virtuosity within the confines of an octave, fittingly over the word “vocavi” (“i called out”) (see examples 2 and 7). example 7: alba tressina, anima mea liquefacta est: two further iterations of “vocavi.” as the singers take turns “calling out,” as it were, the other voices reply with “et non respondit mihi” (“and he did not answer”). at first, after the initial “vocavi,” the various iterations of the response are spread out over five measures. as the other voices “call out,” the response section shortens to two measures, their entrances cutting off those already sounding. by measure 49, all three voices are singing “et non respondit mihi” at the same time, though not homophonically. while the musical setting for “vocavi” is both phlegmatic (due to the bubbling, spring–like nature of the setting) and sanguine (the music rises and the text expresses hope in finding the beloved) in affect, the text of “et non respondit mihi” is melancholic and full of yearning. each time this line appears, the motive rushes forward with fusae towards a goal—a fifth below the starting pitch—but must pause on the penultimate pitch for a minim before coming to rest on the final. this sudden notated ritardando, in emphasizing the second scale degree, creates a sense of longing that mimics the longing in the text. the second time this occurs, the second alto line includes a suspension that further augments the sensation of desire. these measures, 37–51, layer two different humors on top of one another: phlegm and black bile. phlegm arises from the bubbling settings of current musicology 60 “vocavi” while the text reveals the melancholy of black bile. in humorism, the mixture of phlegm and black bile produce phlegmatic melancholy, a form of melancholia that burton fascinatingly attributes to “maides, nunnes, and widowes”24—in other words, women refraining from sexual intercourse (burton 1632: 202). phlegmatic melancholics, as burton describes, are prone to weeping, fascination with water, and vivid dreams of drowning. burton’s attribution would likely have made a great deal of sense to his readership, since according to galen, “women are dominated by cold and moist humors, are deficient in essential heat, and are thus passive, imperfect humans” (quoted in harvey 2000: 13). the meter change in measure 57 marks a longer tenor solo, repeated in measures 63–68 by the upper voices. once again, the 3/2 meter appears for the words “nuntiate dilecto meo” (“tell my love”). calling out for the beloved had no effect, and so the protagonist has switched to the imperative, and is imploring someone to pass the message to the beloved. this particular line is paraphrased, not directly quoted, from the song of songs. chapter 5, verse 8 says, “adiuro vos, filiae ierusalem: si inveneritis dilectum meum, quid nuntietis ei? ‘quia amore langueo’” (“i adjure you, o daughters of jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him that i languish of love”) (emphasis mine). the speaker in the bible is addressing the daughters of jerusalem. thus, the nuns themselves would have been implicated in both sides of this scenario: as the individual who searches for her beloved, and as the daughters of jerusalem who may be able to reach him. seeking and finding occur simultaneously in this message of love and suggest union with the divine, this time intensified by the trinitarian imagery suggested by the triple meter. these factors demonstrate both visually and aurally how intimately connected the speaker and the beloved are, and how they function with one mind within a trinitarian framework (see example 8). the piece ends in sanguine melancholy—the melancholy of love. indeed, the text here states, “i languish of love.” short melismas occur on the word “amore” in the penultimate bars, and the harmonies hearken back to the fluid lines of the beginning. whereas the music set to the first line consistently descends, here it falls initially, but rises at the end. as a result, each line finishes the phrase higher than it began, as though reaching towards the heavens, ever searching for the beloved. the vocal lines are not as spread out as before. rather, the points of imitation occur much closer together, at one point resulting in parallel thirds on the word “amore” (see example 9).25 the liquid lines, flowing and often paired off in intimate parallel thirds, intensify the erotic nature of the text. the emphasis on bodily liquids that melt, mix, and flow positions this piece firmly at the crux of the corporeal and the sacred erotic. perhaps the single most important factor in demonstrating the ecstatic potential of this piece, however, is its performance. lindsay johnson 61 ex am pl e 8: a lb a tr es sin a, a ni m a m ea li qu ef ac ta es t: m m . 5 7– 68 . current musicology 62 exam ple 9: a lba tressina, anim a m ea liquefacta est: m m . 71–end. lindsay johnson 63 in closing, instead of listing and analyzing numerous performance possibilities26 or reiterating the effects of performance on musicians and audience members alike, i am going to develop the scenario that began this article, and in so doing, demonstrate possible conditions and outcomes that might have been associated with the performance of this piece. separating modern ideas about corporeality in performance from my imaginative recreations of the period has been admittedly complicated. surely no one can be conclusive on that front, though i have made a concerted effort to immerse myself in sixteenth and seventeenth–century conceptions of the body. many aspects of musical performance and rehearsal have likely remained unchanged in the intervening years. subtle gestures and bodily movements that occur in communication between singers, such as leaning closer to one another to tune tricky passages, seem less culturally and historically specific and more grounded in acoustics and basic operations of the senses; to hear a pitch or a chord better, no one will move farther away from it. in attending to the corporeal experience of modern–day performance as a legitimate source of knowledge about past practices and experiences, i follow the example of elisabeth le guin’s boccherini’s body: an essay in carnal musicology (2006). le guin explores boccherini’s chamber music from a largely tactile and experiential perspective, detailing how specific physical movements during performance can inform the living cellist about the long–dead composer, his compositional choices, and his reasons for them. given the conditions and contexts described in this article, my scenario is a plausible account of nuns employing music as both a private form of devotion and as a means of expressing creativity and feminine autonomy. such speculative re–creation allows me to illustrate specific aspects of nuns’ music making as well as provide answers to questions of performance logistics, textual significance, and musical meaning. back in the choir room, the sisters commence their rehearsal. the organ and lute intone their first notes, and donna maria teresa, the highest alto, begins to sing, leaning gently into each sustained note. shortly thereafter, donna emilia, the second alto, enters, increasing the intensity of her entrance as teresa’s statement fades away, suspending the musical line until teresa once again takes the reins, sliding gently into the d that emilia is sustaining, resting briefly on the unison pitch before moving on. in the sixth measure, tressina’s strong yet nuanced tenor voice enters the tapestry, fleshing out a g–major chord and making teresa and emilia shiver slightly at the beautiful harmonies coursing through their bodies. for a moment, teresa is unsure which of the chord’s pitches she is singing, so seamlessly are they blending their voices into one sound. all three singers begin to sense a current musicology 64 distinct yearning from deep within themselves, and emilia feels tears begin to grow at the corners of her eyes. the singers’ bodies begin to relax and change; the humors inside of them are responding to the liquid lines they are singing. the short vocal motives and statements that dovetail and intertwine with one another leave the singers feeling breathless, as if they were gasping for air, overtaken with the love and beauty pouring out of their bodies. the organ begins its brief solo. the organist feels her pulse quicken as she pushes her line forwards and upwards, sequencing nearly an octave before falling back down to a low g. as tressina begins to sing the second iteration of “anima mea” over the organ’s g, donna maria teresa prepares for her entrance. she eases into “anima mea,” two octaves above the bass line, pressing tressina’s line between the two. as she crescendos into her suspension, she realizes that her line has become inseparable from tressina’s as she renews the cycle of “anima mea liquefacta est.” donna emilia’s line will follow a similar model, creating an unbroken string of suspensions and cascading couplets as her iteration of the first line of text creates patterns of suspension and resolution with maria teresa’s line. the low tessitura of the vocal parts creates further intimacy amongst the singers, for their voices are softer and slightly grainier at the lowest pitches. the nuns lean towards one another to tune, and to match one another’s tone, especially at the crucial junctures where voices trade off on a unison pitch. for brief moments, it feels as though their voices are all one voice, their bodies are all one body. as they reach the second half of the piece, the singers throw themselves into their syncopated, measure–long descending motives over “dilectus meus” and their rapid phrases that rise from the depths of their ranges over “vocavi.” they gasp for air in the short rests, and breathe deeply during the longer ones. they take turns, imitating one another’s entrances, style, and breathless quality. the waves of sound wash over all four musicians as their yearning and excitement deepen. by the last line, teresa’s desire for god is so strong she feels the interior of her throat tense in pain, holding back tears as her f–natural rises to an f–sharp in the final cadence, her suddenly pinched voice wavering as she tries to keep from going sharp. all the musicians feel this change to major, and though not unexpected, the new major harmonies seem to open the heavens. as the sound dies away, the singers and organist are silent and still, swooning individually in god’s love as they recover from the physical intensity of performing tressina’s newest piece. they can feel their humors begin to stabilize, their heart rates to slow. tressina, glancing at the mesmerized expression of the servant girl tending the bellows, suggests that the next time they rehearse this piece donna noella, lindsay johnson 65 the sister in charge of the young girls boarding in the convent, might want to bring the educande in preparation for the upcoming feast of the assumption. perhaps by listening to the music and watching the nuns perform, the girls would more fully understand the love of the blessed mother, and feel god’s love within their own bodies. for isn’t that one of music’s ultimate purposes? to directly connect humans with the divine? notes 1. though primarily a facet of roman catholicism, sacred eroticism also found supporters among other faiths, largely because the biblical provenance of the sacred erotic was the song of songs—a text that roman catholicism, protestantism, and judaism share. 2. these decades (1590s–1620s) mix aspects of what we would consider to be renaissance and early modern thought, and therefore do not fit comfortably in either category. i do not use the terms interchangeably in this essay, but try to distinguish among the milieu of change those ideas that were beginning to decline in popularity (“renaissance”) from those that were beginning to take hold (“early modern”). 3. these conventions would have been recognizable to a majority of western europeans (most notably roman catholics and urban lutherans) from the late sixteenth century into the mid–seventeenth century. 4. the series of catholic reforms in the sixteenth century tightened bureaucratic control of convents, requiring all nuns to submit to clausura (enclosure); those groups that refused were threatened with excommunication or were stripped of their official recognition as extensions of the church. for more information, see kendrick 1996 and monson 1992 and 1995. 5. indeed, milanese archbishop federigo borromeo insisted on “basic musical competence” as a prerequisite for sacred profession. see kendrick 1996: 76. 6. craig monson has documented the practice of nuns increasing the size of a convent’s organ in order for it to be better heard through the walls, thus enabling the nuns to transmit their music to the public despite being confined behind layers of stone. see monson 1992: 194. 7. for more in–depth examination of the practice of wealthy aristocratic men collecting “listenings,” see dell’antonio 2011. 8. borromeo was a particular proponent of female spirituality, especially female mysticism. see his 1616 four–volume treatise on female mysticism entitled de ecstaticis mulieribus, et illusis (“on women who have ecstasies and illusions”) that delineates the differences between male and female spirituality, concluding that women through their very constitutions are more likely to experience ecstasy—either “true” ecstasy from god or “false” ecstasy from the devil—than men. 9. in his fourth volume on female mysticism, borromeo recounts an episode in the life of “una mistica, di grande santità,” whose sisters pester her to demonstrate for them one of her experiences of “celestial harmony” (“celeste armonia”). she puts them off for a time, and finally relents. she takes up a stringed instrument (likely a lute), and slowly begins to accompany herself as she sings. the song dramatically affects the listeners, who explained afterwards that they had never heard music of this kind before (“non avere mai sentito al mondo una melodia del genere”). borromeo goes on to say that while singing, the nun, in ecstasy, was removed from her senses, yet she continued to play and sing “perfettamente i modi specifici dell’arte musicale.” see borromeo 1988: 195. current musicology 66 10. “che se morir pur vuoi, l’anima unita/ho teco (il sai, mio redentor, mio dio)/però teco aver deggio e morte, e vita.” translation by susan mcclary (2007). 11. the family of metaphors that combines liquid imagery and descriptions of divine ecstasy has been around for thousands of years; indeed, the text of the song of songs, wherein the idea of the “melting soul” (“anima mea liquefacta est”) can be found, was likely written between 960 and 400 b.c.e. stylistic differences in the writing of certain verses suggest that the book is a collection of songs written over the course of several hundred years. abraham mariaselvam 1988 argues that the book was compiled around 400 b.c.e., though certain verses were written much earlier. 12. i must also point out the existence of a different line of thought in the seventeenth century of jesus as a mother figure, indeed a mother capable of producing nourishing milk. one example of this arises in the poetry of george herbert (1593–1633). see his “lucus 34 (to john, leaning on the lord’s breast)” (originally in latin), wherein he writes: you won’t really hoard the whole breast for yourself! do you thieve away from everyone that common well? he also shed his blood for me, and thus, having rightful access to the breast, i claim the milk mingled with the blood . . . (lines 1–7; quoted in rambuss 1998: 37) 13. chapter 18 is central to both st. teresa’s argument and to mine. there are numerous statements within these few pages that link water and the rapture. indeed, this chapter, in describing sacred–erotic experience, sheds light on sixteenth–century ideas regarding ecstasy, sexuality, and liquids. 14. this use of music as a mimetic extension of the text is highly effective. the texts of religious pieces were paramount and served multiple purposes, including instruction and as a means towards heightened spirituality, as authors as early as st. augustine argued. therefore, music that successfully emphasized and built upon the words was an important part of devotional experience, especially in religious communities whose members knew these texts by heart. 15. see also the introduction to galen and a.j. brock 1928 and carlino 1999. 16. first published in 1621, burton’s multi–volume work was reprinted at least nine times in its first 55 years and is still in print today. 17. galen describes the pneuma as both breath (inspired air) and as a sort of vital spirit. culpeper’s says that the spirit “taken in a physical sense, is an airy substance, very subtil and quick, dispersed throughout the body, from the brain, heart, and liver, by the nerves, arteries, and veins, by which the powers of the body are stirred up to perform their office and operation.” see galen and culpepper 1652: 5–6. 18. the ancient greeks believed that the universe was made up of sounds that harmonize together (the “music of the spheres”), and that the human soul, a microcosm of the forces of the universe, was a lyre that resonated with the cosmos. this idea was renewed by medieval and renaissance philosophers and theologians such as cassiodorus and clement of alexandria. see nancy van deusen 1989: 202–4. 19. a metaphor for these conjunctions that many modern–day readers might appreciate is the zodiac: the motions of the planets in combination with one’s primary sun sign (taurus, virgo, libra, etc.) give rise to myriad combinations that affect one’s personality characteristics. lindsay johnson 67 20. although the rhythm appears to be dactylic based on the way this example is barred, momentum during performance relies on grouping each fusa pair with the following minim to produce an anapest rhythm. 21. in early modern operas and oratorios, a significant number of wise, father–like characters or characters in positions of authority sing in the bass range. heinrich schütz (1585–1672) scored the role of jesus for bass in his st. john passion, and in j.s. bach’s st. matthew passion, jesus is a bass as well. in schütz’s st. matthew passion jesus is a baritone. in his oratorios, giacomo carissimi (1605–1674) was particularly fond of scoring god as a bass; see jonas, ezechias, and abraham and isaac. carissimi also set other authority figures as basses, such as balthazar, christ, abraham, and king solomon. 22. seventeenth–century instrumental music written for devotional purposes capitalized on the idea that instrumental music, absent words, represented the ineffable, thereby bridging the gap between the earthly world of logic and the heavenly realm of transcendence. see mcclary 2012 and strand–polyak 2013. 23. a few such compositions include maria magdalena et altera maria, magi videntes stellam, angelus ad pastores, and ecce ego ioannes by sulpitia cesis and chiara margarita cozzolani’s dialoghi that take place between a pious soul and a holy entity. see “ritual and performed embodiment in sulpitia cesis’s maria magdalena et altera maria” in johnson 2013. 24. see burton’s part 1, section 3, member 2, subsection 4, whose title is “symptomes of maides, nunnes, and widowes melancholy” (page 202 of the 1632 edition). burton hypothesizes that the association between phlegmatic melancholy and these groups of women was likely due to the women’s reproductive systems, as such women were childless, menopausal, and/or celibate. this section is an addition to the original 1621 publication; it appears in the 1632 edition. 25. parallel thirds was one of several techniques common in the seventeenth century that was used to depict intimacy and in some cases to incite arousal. one example of this technique in context can be found in cozzolani’s o quam bonus es (1650). parallel thirds occur in particular when the two voices rapidly and breathlessly sing “o me felicem, o me beatum,” a motive that returns periodically throughout the piece. parallel thirds also depict intimacy in alessandro grandi’s anima mea liquefacta est (1614). this practice may stem from the earlier idea of the “contenance angloise” and parallel thirds being “sweet.” 26. possibilities include rehearsals in the choir room or in private cells; impromptu performances in the courtyards or another common space as entertainment during times of relaxation or genteel labor (i.e. needlework); or semi–private performances in the convent’s parlatorio, a double room divided by a grate where nuns visited with family and friends. references austern, linda phyllis. 1990. “‘art to enchant’: musical magic and its practitioners in english renaissance drama.” journal of the royal music association 115 (2): 191–206. bartel, kate. 2006. “portal of the skies: music as devotional act in early modern europe.” phd diss., ucla. st. bernard de clairvaux. [1135–1153] 2005. on the song of songs. the works of bernard of clairvaux, vol.1. translated by kilian walsh. kalamazoo, mi: cisterian publications. borromeo, federigo. [1616] 1988. “de ecstaticis mulieribus, et illusis.” in da dio a satana: l’opera di federico borromeo sul “misticismo vero e falso delle donne.” translated into italian by francesco di ciaccia. milano: xenia edizioni. current musicology 68 bulwer, john. 1649. pathomyotomia or a dissection of the significative muscles of the affections of the minde. london: printed by w. w. for humphrey mosely. burton, robert. 1621. the anatomy of melancholy, what it is: with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prognostickes, and several cures of it. in three maine partitions with their several sections, members, and subsections. philosophically, medicinally, historically, opened and cut up. oxford: printed by iohn lichfield and iames short for henry cripps. carlino, andrea. 1999. books of the body: anatomical ritual and renaissance learning. translated by john tedeschi and anne c. tedeschi. chicago: university of chicago press. dell’antonio, andrew. 2011. listening as spiritual practice in early modern italy. berkeley: university of california press. van deusen, nancy. 1989. the harp and the soul: essays in medieval music. studies in the history & interpretation of music, vol. 3. lewiston: the edwin mellen press. galen. [170] 1928. galen on the natural faculties. translated by arthur john brock. london and new york: w. heinemann and g. p. putnam’s sons. galen and nicholas culpeper. 1652. galen’s art of physick...: translated into english, and largely commented on. london: printed by peter cole, at the sign of the printing–press in cornhill, neer the royal exchange. harvey, tamara. 2000. “‘now sisters . . . impart your usefulnesse, and force’: anne bradstreet’s feminist functionalism in ‘the tenth muse’ (1650).” early american literature 35 (1): 5–28. st. john of the cross. [1577–78] 2005. dark night of the soul: a masterpiece in the literature of mysticism by st. john of the cross. translated and edited by e. allison peers. new york: image books/doubleday. johnson, lindsay. 2013. “performed embodiment, sacred eroticism, and voice in devotions by early seventeenth–century italian nuns.” phd diss., ucla. kendrick, robert l. 1992. “the traditions of milanese convent music and the sacred dialogues of chiara margarita cozzolani.” in the crannied wall: women, religion, and the arts in early modern europe, edited by craig monson, 211–233. ann arbor: university of michigan press. _______. 1996. celestial sirens: nuns and their music in early modern milan. oxford: clarendon press. lavater, johann kaspar. 1789. essays on physiognomy, designed to promote the knowledge and the love of mankind. london: printed for john murray. originally published as physiognomische fragmente between 1783–1787 in winterthur. le guin, elisabeth. 2006. boccherini’s body: an essay in carnal musicology. berkeley: university of california press. mariaselvam, abraham. 1988. the song of songs and ancient tamil love poems: poetry and symbolism. roma: editrice pontificio istituto biblico. mcclary, susan. 1991. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. _______. 2007. “mediterranean trade routes and music of the early seventeenth century.” inter–american music review 17: 135–144. _______. 2012. desire and pleasure in seventeenth–century music. berkeley: university of california press. miles, margaret r. 2008. a complex delight: the secularization of the breast, 1350–1750. berkeley: university of california press. monson, craig. 1992. “disembodied voices: music in the nunneries of bologna in the midst of the counter–reformation.” in the crannied wall: women, religion, and the arts in early modern europe, edited by craig monson, 191–209. ann arbor: university of michigan press. lindsay johnson 69 _______. 1995. disembodied voices: music and culture in an early modern italian convent. berkeley: university of california press. rambuss, richard. 1998. closet devotions. durham: duke university press. roach, joseph r. 1985. the player’s passion: studies in the science of acting. newark: university of delaware press. spaccini, giovanni battista. [1588–1636] 1911. cronaca modenese. edited by giulio bertoni, tomasso sandonnini, and emilio p. vicini. modena: g. ferraguti. stelmack, robert m. and anastasios stalikas. 1991. “galen and the humour theory of temperament.” personality and individual differences 12 (3): 255–263. strand–polyak, lindsey. 2013. “the virtuoso’s idiom: spectacularity and the seventeenth– century violin sonata.” phd diss., ucla. st. teresa of ávila. [circa 1567] 1957. the life of saint teresa of ávila by herself. translated by j. m. cohen. london: penguin books. underhill, evelyn. 2000. mysticism: the nature and development of spiritual consciousness. oxford: oneworld publications. weiss, piero and richard taruskin, eds. 1984. music in the western world: a history in documents. belmont, ca: schirmer wadsworth group/thompson learning. wistreich, richard. 2000. “reconstructing pre–romantic singing technique.” in the cambridge companion to singing, edited by john potter, 178–191. cambridge: cambridge university press. zarri, gabriella. 1986. “monasteri femminili e città (secoli xv – xviii).” in storia d’italia, annali 9: la chiesa e il potere politico dal medioevo all’età contemporanea, edited by giorgio chittolini and giovanni miccoli, 357–429. turin: giulio einaudi. current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 53 milton babbitt’s glosses on american jewish identity alison maggart in 1987 milton babbitt’s longtime collaborator, the jewish poet and literary critic john hollander, compiled several translations of psalm 150 for babbitt’s choral work, glosses (1988).1 the men had worked together since the sixties. they regularly sat on panels together, discussing the relationship between music and text.2 and, when babbitt set hollander’s texts, the two men would correspond. hollander would not only give detailed explanations of his poems’ structures and contents, but also suggest appropriate musical settings.3 it is therefore likely that babbitt and hollander discussed hollander’s conception of biblical literature as it related to his reworking of psalm 150 for glosses, particularly because the same year that hollander supplied the translations for the musical work, he also contributed an essay on the psalms to congregation: contemporary writers read the jewish bible, a collection of meditations on the books of the old testament. in his reflection, republished as “hearing and overhearing the psalms” in 1997, hollander argues that the psalmic glosses exemplify how fluid, situated, and subjective the construction of literary meaning is. each gloss, fashioned according to individual or collective contingencies and susceptible to circumstantial agendas, is not only valid, he claims, but in fact essential to the verse. he concludes: “biblical poetry exists in and for its interpretations” (123–24). hollander’s approach to the psalms, which gives ontological power to interpretation, reflects a particularly american understanding of jewish identity and meaning in the postwar period. many american jews in hollander’s and babbitt’s generation felt an obligation to reaffirm their jewish identity in the post-holocaust era. yet, because they had matured in predominantly secular or purposefully assimilatory households, they lacked a clear or unified understanding of what it meant to be jewish (shapiro 1990, 73–74). this indeterminacy obliged each jewish individual to design his or her own “jewishness” in congruence with prior convictions. thus, american jewish identity in the postwar period was often constructed upon the rediscovery and assimilation of judaism into one’s preexisting, personal worldviews. for babbitt, this manifests in symbols, derived from jewish history and mythology, which he employs as metaphors for essentially non-religious, aesthetic views. 54 current musicology in what follows, i outline how babbitt’s relationship to his jewish identity evolved over the course of his career: from concessions he made to princeton’s anti-semitic policies early in his career to his active participation in conferences devoted to jewish issues later in his career. then, i examine allusions to jewish history in babbitt’s lectures and published essays. the exodus narrative proved especially rich for babbitt’s aesthetic philosophy, having implications for how he understood schoenberg (as moses) and (exiled) academic composers in america (the promised land). lastly, i examine the repercussions babbitt’s constructed jewish identity had for his music. to this end, i offer an analysis and interpretation of some of the more salient features—in particular, three climactic unsung moments—in glosses. these three unpitched vocalizations, i argue, realize the jewish tradition wherein god, in defying definition, also resists signification. moreover, they allude to the musical symbol for yhvh, established by schoenberg in his gloss of psalm 150, modern psalm op. 50c (1950). the unspoken “jewish issue” despite claiming that he “regarded himself as jewish and did not wish to be in any way evasive about being jewish,” babbitt rarely discusses his jewish heritage in his published writings (quoted in rosenburg 1979, 46–47).4 when he does, he describes having been raised in a “lower upper class, economically well off ” jewish household (quoted in cohen 1982, 235). additionally, although he attended reform services at the beth israel temple in jackson, mississippi, where the musical repertory, he laments, “consisted of one tune which was anton rubinstein’s melody in f and another tune that was not,” he never considered himself a religious person (quoted in cohen 1982, 235). even among his colleagues (at least early in his career), babbitt’s jewish heritage often went unrecognized. for example, despite having taught babbitt privately since 1935, roger sessions remained unaware of babbitt’s jewish background until he recommended babbitt for a teaching appointment at princeton. when babbitt’s 1937 application was rejected because, as babbitt divulges, “it was felt by someone that perhaps the first junior appointee in the music section should not be jewish,” sessions “was surprised” (quoted in hilferty 2011). sessions, babbitt describes, “thought of me as a ‘southern boy,’ and because the name babbitt wasn’t normally taken to be ‘jewish,’ ” he hadn’t suspected it (quoted in rosenburg 1979, 46). despite the disclosure, sessions continued advocating for babbitt’s employment, and the next year babbitt was given a position. anti-semitic discrimination was common at elite universities during the interwar years. policies instated by several ivy league universities 55 alison maggart (most prominently harvard, yale, and princeton), which included numerical quotas and application qualifications purportedly judging student character and leadership abilities, allowed admissions committees to shape the demographic profile of incoming classes and severely curtail the number of jews in attendance and on the faculty.5 as babbitt recounted, “[in the late 1930s] i was aware that there was a problem with the ‘jewish issue’ in ivy league music (and other) departments. . . . it did make a difference . . . even if . . . [one] claimed no particular adherence to the religion” (quoted in rosenburg 1979, 46). babbitt’s conduct, when he did receive an appointment as instructor in 1938, suggests that he believed quiet integration to be the most advantageous approach to academic bureaucracy. the first substantial work he completed after being hired was music for the mass (1941). as he put it, the work was composed for political reasons, namely, to “comfort [princeton’s] chairman” and to assuage departmental doubts about having a jewish composer on the faculty (quoted in brody 1993, 168). babbitt’s acquiescence to university prejudices demonstrates a typical tack taken by jewish academics during the thirties. at the height of discrimination, many intellectuals felt that jewish culture was incompatible with hegemonic american culture and that professional success necessitated assimilation (shapiro 1990). a case in point, lionel trilling, the first jew to be hired in columbia university’s english department, asserted that jewish culture could “give no sustenance to the american artist or intellectual who is born a jew” (quoted in shapiro 1990, 71).6 despite babbitt’s quiet conformity, his professional development and security at princeton remained impeded (brody 1993). he wasn’t offered a position as associate professor until 1956, despite repeated letters from sessions to whitney oates, princeton’s chairman of the special program in the humanities, on his behalf: [babbitt has] great prominence and responsibility and influence . . . in the world of music. it would be a very important consideration for me that milton’s position in the department should be secured. . . . i can only say that i feel the rank of assistant professor is in no way commensurate either with his abilities, with his stature in comparison with some of the other younger members of the department, or with his very real services to the university. (sessions 1952) as institutional anti-semitism abated following world war ii, earlier initiatives for assimilation or cosmopolitanism were replaced with calls to rediscover the distinctiveness of american jewish culture. as cultural historian edward shapiro describes: the [previous] era of “shah”—the reluctance of jews to draw attention to themselves—abruptly ended. . . . in view of the holocaust, assimilation 56 current musicology appeared to be a cowardly betrayal. . . . american jews believed that they could dignify the memories of the slain by remaining true to their jewish heritage. (shapiro 1990, 73–74) however, after years of distancing themselves from their jewish heritage in order to identify with american culture, working out what “being jewish” meant was a daunting question for american jews, particularly because they were aware of how vastly different their shared experiences were from those of european jews. some individuals, attempting to mediate the two identities, postulated a symbiotic, or at least parallel, relationship between american and jewish characters. two generations of editors of the american jewish journal commentary, for example, conflated notions of american exceptionalism with jewish chosenness.7 promoting america as the new bastion of an evolving jewish culture, founding editor elliot cohen described the vast possibilities for jews in america in the 1945 inaugural issue. the country, he argued, provided opportunities not only for individuals but also for the development of jewish culture at large: “we have faith that, out of the opportunities of our experience here, there will evolve new patterns of living, new modes of thought, which will harmonize heritage and country into a true sense of at-home-ness in the modern world” (cohen 1945, 1–3). likening america to the “promised land” even more explicitly, cohen’s successor norman podhoretz claimed jewish culture would finally be able to escape “the desert of alienation in which it had been wandering for so long and into the promised land of democratic, pluralistic, prosperous america where it would live as blessedly in its jewishness as in its americanness, safe and sound and forevermore, amen” (1967, 134–35). hollander similarly proposed that american and jewish cultures are intrinsically linked; for him, however, the two identities were analogous precisely because they both defied definition. like babbitt, hollander claimed little religious connection to judaism, although he felt a political and social obligation to affirm his “jewishness” after world war ii (hollander 1985).8 still, babbitt “felt that anomalousness, the anomalousness of being jewish, in history, and how being american-jewish was a different kind of hyphenation from other kinds” (quoted in hollander 1985). according to hollander, american jews faced difficulties different from other jewish individuals because neither jewish identity nor american identity was fixed. such indefiniteness, however, allowed for self-determinacy, and in this manner jewish and american identities were allied. in a 1985 interview he stated: being american is a very special version of the condition of being a citizen of a country, that it is anomalous in the history of nationalisms. it 57 alison maggart is quite as anomalous in one sense as being a jew is in the whole world of nations, races, religions, since trying to define being a jew by any of those is very difficult, almost impossible. it’s a tradition of identity that for some reason has continued. america, which has, of course, all of the physical and outward attributes of continuation, nevertheless was from the beginning a special case of being a nation. . . . being americans, we have a special burden on us, a burden of invention of self, and i feel that these matters are somehow related, metaphorically. that is, being jewish and being american are in a way parables for each other. but i say that with some hesitation. perhaps those two conditions are like two lights burning together, lights of two different colors. (hollander 1985) hollander’s insight—that what it means to be a jew is an invention—has proven a lasting attitude among american jews. in their 2000 sociological study, steven cohen and arnold eisen found that many american jews, ambivalent toward traditional structures of judaism, place “principal authority” in “the sovereign self ” (2) and, accordingly, “aim to make jewish narratives part of their own personal stories, by picking and choosing among new and inherited practices and texts so as to find that combination they as individuals can authentically affirm” (9). in accepting a pluralistic american jewish identity, this attitude has encouraged the creation of many different jewish delineations, which may or may not be compatible, under the single moniker “american jew.” problematically, these internal divisions can sometimes lead to discriminatory practices within the american jewish community. as certain parties attempt to validate their own understandings of what it means to be jewish, others who do not meet their criteria are excluded. within the context of an already marginalized group, such divisions can be destructive.9 more radically, in recognizing the invented nature of identity, such an attitude can empower individuals to construct jewish cultural history with hindsight. as hollander’s colleague harold bloom argued in regard to freud and kafka, for instance, the artworks of one’s predecessors can become jewish not because of any stylistic feature, but rather because their creators’ accomplishments come to be seen as having “redefined jewish culture” (1988, 357). as bloom put it, “[freud and kafka] are jewish cultural figures only when they are viewed retrospectively. . . . [consequently,] whatever the future american jewish cultural achievement will be, it will become jewish only after it has imposed itself as achievement” (357). breathing the air of the diaspora in the 1960s babbitt increasingly began supporting musical developments in israel and contributing to conferences and workshops devoted 58 current musicology to jewish culture.10 in 1958 the israeli composers josef tal and tzvi avni, with funding from unesco, studied electronic music with babbitt at the columbia-princeton electronic music center. these two composers seem to have become advocates for babbitt in jerusalem. tal, for example, likely helped to arrange visiting lectures for babbitt at the rubin academy of music, where he was professor. in 1963 babbitt first traveled to israel to give a lecture, “on the human limitations in the perception of sounds” (boehm 1963, 3). two more trips followed, one in 1977 and one in 1978, during which babbitt gave lectures and participated in seminars as part of the rubin academy summer program and the world congress on jewish music. the wide scope and variety of topics addressed during these programs reflects a flourishing time for israeli musicology.11 at the rubin academy summer program babbitt spoke on “the vienna school,” “20th-century music,” and “the music academy and university.” although these subjects are representative of babbitt’s interests throughout his career, the topic of the last roundtable in which he participated was a departure. in 1978, immediately following the close of the summer program, the hebrew academy hosted the world congress on jewish music, convened in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of israel’s founding. subtitled “musical tradition and creation in the culture of the jewish people—east and west,” the congress was dedicated to detailing the ontology and morphology of jewish music (harrán 1979, 20). however, as don harrán recounted, “participants encountered problems of definition. how does one describe the culture of the jewish people[?] . . . more fundamentally, what is the jewish people, or put bluntly, who is a jew?” (1979, 20). babbitt participated in the roundtable “how does the jewish composer relate to his jewish tradition?” (cohen 1982, 233–35).12 perhaps rather caustically interpreting the question, tal, who also partook in the conversation, concluded his thoughts by saying, “the question about jewishness [in music] belongs to the frame of mind of a jew breathing the air of the diaspora and desperately seeking an identity” (quoted in cohen 1982, 233). simply put, the question of jewishness was an american one. babbitt took the point at issue “very seriously” (quoted in cohen 1982, 234). unsurprisingly, he centered his discussion around schoenberg. recounting an anecdote to which he frequently returned throughout his career, he narrated how, in a “cosmic cataclysm,” destiny brought him (from jackson, mississippi) and schoenberg (from vienna) together in new york city in the same year (babbitt 1976, 335–36). in this fated moment, european tradition was transferred “suddenly and summarily” to america (334–35). while after this point in the account babbitt typi59 alison maggart cally segues into descriptions of his early career—lessons with sessions, the influence of marion bauer’s twentieth century music on his professional development, etc.—at the congress’s roundtable, he reveals, “we were always, as jews, very much aware of what created this condition” (quoted in cohen 1982, 235). the devastating effects of the war on the jewish people, made vivid by the influx of european jewish émigrés like schoenberg to the united states, roused in babbitt (and other american jews) a profound self-awareness and sense of responsibility. confronting european jewish refugees not only underscored the varieties of jewish experience, but also gave american jews a new and more positive perspective on the opportunities the united states afforded jewish individuals and culture.13 “any of us who survived world war ii know perfectly well, as jews,” babbitt stated, that we had a tendency at all moments to think rather differently about its consequences. those of us, for example, who couldn’t write a note of music for a half dozen years came back to that music affected very differently by what had happened in europe and what had happened to us. (quoted in cohen 1982, 235) recognizing the distinction between american and european jewish experience led babbitt, like hollander, to invent a personal jewish artistic identity: one that enveloped both european art tradition and american popular tradition (a common expression, jack gottlieb claims, of the “jewish american dilemma” [2004, xiv]). thus, in his congress comments, in addition to schoenberg, babbitt also claims jerome kern, irving berlin, richard rodgers, and other broadway and tin pan alley composers to be part of the jewish musical tradition that influenced him. the music of these composers, babbitt reminds us, is not only “very centrally jewish,” but also, unlike some of schoenberg’s music, “ecumenical” (quoted in cohen 1982, 235). berlin composed “white christmas,” “easter parade,” and “god bless america,” and gershwin and kern composed music about the south. babbitt thus makes it clear that, at least for him, jewishness in music is not dependent upon jewish subject matter. at the end of the roundtable, most composers agreed that delineating one’s jewish identity from one’s national heritage was difficult, if not impossible. rather, it was decided that a composer or composition’s status as “jewish” was as much a product of one’s perspective as anything else. around the same time that babbitt began participating in these programs, he also began incorporating allusions to jewish tradition in his lectures and essays (gleason 2013).14 taking his cue from the rhetoric of the commentary editors, babbitt enlists a particularly powerful and emotion-laden symbol from the contemporary discourse and secures it for 60 current musicology his own cause: the exile. in his retelling, the holocaust is often correlated to the exile so that he may advance the united states as the new cultural “promised land” and thereby bolster the prestige of (his) american music. such a narrative appears in its most developed rendition in a 1974 banquet speech babbitt delivered for schoenberg’s centennial celebration: [when schoenberg arrived in america] suddenly and summarily the global course of contemporary musical development was transported and diverted from the european continent to our own, and our role was transformed from that of our wandering predecessors . . . to that of participants. . . . ours was an upheaval within a cosmic cataclysm . . . [and] if we, trying to come of musical age, sinned on the side of over-anxiety, oversusceptibility unto naiveté, even gullibility, it was with a voracious enthusiasm and energy born of the unnatural suddenness of our new situation. . . . schoenberg could not have foreseen . . . the wilderness into which his music has led us. . . . but those who are the legitimate, if abandoned, children of the schoenbergian revolution, who do not measure their success by their successes, in flight from persecution under gresham’s law, gladly would accept musical asylum in any society where the air conditioner provided a zephyr touched by the sweet smell of such “alter duft.” (1976, 335–40, emphasis mine) babbitt’s allusions are manifold: first, he champions america as the new promised land of cultural prosperity; then, in analogizing pharaoh’s law with gresham’s law, he secularizes the exile narrative at the same time that he reiterates his inveterate concern for the economic wellbeing of academic composers; and, finally, in a characteristically nostalgic and romantic fashion, he places himself within the tradition of a more fragrant, schoenbergian past.15 fidelity to the biblical exile narrative is less important than its connotations and how those relate to babbitt’s aesthetic philosophy. schoenberg, unquestionably, substitutes for moses. his journey to the united states incites the “cosmic cataclysm,” just as moses’ meeting with god incited a violent shaking on mount sinai. schoenberg leads the new generation of composers into the “wilderness,” and his society (for private musical performances) and music, like the ark of the covenant, emit an intoxicating sweetness.16 however, the identity of the exiles is ambiguous. at first, it seems that the earlier generation of american composers—the “wandering predecessors”—are the exiles and that with schoenberg’s arrival, american exile from participation in serious music is over. yet, later in the passage, babbitt marks the disciples of schoenberg, babbitt among them, as the exiles. they follow schoenberg, they are sinful, and they are described as abandoned children.17 still, the status of their exile is unclear. are they in the wilderness or have they found asylum? further examination of his writings reveals that, for babbitt, even if 61 alison maggart america is the promised land, true asylum can only be found in the university. indeed, the exile narrative not only supports babbitt’s argument that the university should act as a safe haven for alienated composers, it also turns the institutional support for which babbitt advocates into a dramatic and powerful moral dilemma. for example, when babbitt bases the physical well-being of composers on the support of the university in his 1987 essay “the unlikely survival of serious music,” he again resorts to mixed religious metaphors in order to garner emotional support for university patronage. he writes, the corporal survival of the composer . . . [relies on] the survival of the university in a role which universities seem less and less able or willing to assume: that is, of the mightiest of fortresses against the overwhelming, outnumbering forces, both within and without the university, of anti-intellectualism, cultural populism, and passing fashion. (1987a, 163, emphasis mine) the analogy of the university as the “mightiest of fortresses” in this passage is particularly charged. brody interprets the “allusion to luther’s hymn and its formidable history” as uncharacteristically self-effacing; the wit in incongruously juxtaposing the institutional and spiritual resources associated with luther or bach and contemporary academe seems adequately ironic to undercut babbitt’s own rhetoric, as if he were particularly anxious about the virulence of his arguments. (1993, 168) i would argue, however, that because of the hymn’s entanglement with anti-semitism—from its authorship to its vital place within early-twentiethcentury german national identity—babbitt’s allusion to it is central to his argument insofar as it helps dictate how we respond to a subtle correlation, masked in humor, that babbitt makes later in the essay between german discrimination against both jews and americans.18 he writes, to consign us [american academic composers] to the great world out there . . . is to consign us to oblivion . . . [because] the very term academic is conceived to be an immediate, automatic, and ultimate term of derogation. . . . if the best thing a composer can be is dead, the next best thing he can be is german. the worst thing, one of the worst things he can possibly be, still, is american. (1987a, 181) sympathy for american composers is thus carefully crafted against a background of german oppression. a more nuanced interpretation of babbitt’s use of “fortress” can also be 62 current musicology gleaned by comparing “the unlikely survival” to other articles in which babbitt employs similar language. given babbitt’s recent participation in the israeli conference “the university and the academy,” with its similar subject matter, it seems probable that “the unlikely survival” derived from (or at least is related to) his lecture there. babbitt also used similar terms in a letter to yohanan boehm, the music critic of the jerusalem post. lamenting the israeli philharmonic orchestra’s decision to cancel schoenberg’s violin concerto from the season’s program, babbitt wrote, “schoenberg was the greatest jewish composer. . . . and [yet] his music still so suffers, not only behind the iron curtain but in other cultural citadels” (quoted in boehm 1971, a15, emphasis mine). the similar rhetorical structures in this letter and in “the unlikely survival,” wherein cultural philistinism threatens both from the outside and from within suggests that the fortress/citadel image is a single signifier in babbitt’s symbolic system, referring to institutions, which, despite their promise of refuge for serious music, fall victim to external pressures. for israeli audiences, the parallel to masada and the masada story would have been evident. the hillside fortress, which served as the jews’ last sanctuary during the first jewish–roman war and in which the jews, rather than face defeat, committed mass suicide, was a powerful symbol for zionists. indeed, despite its problematic aspects, the legend gained new prominence in the early 1940s and came to symbolize jewish heroism in the face of impending doom. as s. j. goldsmith put it for the jewish advocate, “masada is an ethos . . . among jews; it is an inspiration to guard the frontiers. . . . it is a way of life . . . and remains a monument to the human spirit” (1966). drawing parallels between the fates of the masada refugees and the jewish rebels in the ghettos of nazi-occupied lands also allowed theologians to depict those killed in the wartime uprisings as righteous and deeply courageous (ben-yehuda 1995, 86). babbitt most certainly knew the narrative and its connotations, not only because large-scale excavations of masada began the year he first traveled to israel, but also because tal composed masada 967 (1973), an opera on the subject that babbitt likely knew. it is also probable, thanks to the 1981 abc miniseries, masada, starring peter o’toole, that by 1983 (the year babbitt gave his “unlikely survival” lecture) american audiences would have also recognized the allusion. hence, when babbitt likens the university to a fortress that safeguards the survival of serious music (even though this survival is “unlikely”), he restructures modernist isolation as an active, heroic, and necessary condition. taking refuge in the asylum does not mean a withdrawal from society—it is no retreat to the ivory tower—so much as a desperate and losing battle with anti-intellectual populism. 63 alison maggart one final example will suffice to demonstrate the ingenuity with which babbitt interweaves the plight of american academic composers with that of the jewish people in ancient, recent, and contemporary history. in “on having been and still being an american composer” babbitt explicitly advocates for an active battle against the “intellectual philistines” of contemporary culture: “the defensive strategies of survival of [music’s] elite have to be applied on many fronts: against the coercive coalition, that union of journalists, media meddlers, performers, and even (some) music historians” (1989, 432). energizing his argument, he then again invokes personal and collective jewish narratives: if i feel that i am confined to a populist concentration camp under the dictatorship of the mental proletariat, i also often feel that we (i can only hope that this is not an editorial ‘we’) composers in america are in the position of israel in the ‘family’ of nations; i think particularly of the moment during the ‘yom kippur’ war when tens of thousands of denizens of cairo poured into the streets screaming with hysterical joy in response to the report (false) that the weizmann institute had been leveled by egyptian planes. why this elation at such destruction? because the weizmann institute represented that scientific, intellectual achievement which the egyptians could not equal, or even comprehend. in egypt as in america, there is nothing a no-nothing [sic] resents more than someone who knows something; he knows plenty of nothing and nothing’s plenty for him. (babbitt 1989, 433–34; emphases mine) in his diatribe, babbitt unequivocally associates american composers, attacked by the “most recent self-appointed custodians of culture,” with an oppressed jewish people (be it by nazism, communism, recent egyptian politics, and, by association, ancient egyptian enslavement). more subtly, he correlates his music in particular to the height of “scientific, intellectual achievement,” represented by the weizmann institute, by employing terms (“scientific” and “intellectual”) often used to characterize his compositions and theoretical discourse. in addition to asserting sympathy for the jews within recent political history, he also reaffirms his affinity for jewish popular tradition by alluding to george gershwin’s “oh i got plenty of nothin’” in the final sentence. in this quotation, babbitt also snidely implies that those who attack his music are similarly “know-nothings,” who endeavor to disguise their intellectual shortcomings through belligerence. thus, cleverly interweaving these different layers of literal and metaphoric meaning, babbitt argues for the value and relevance of “serious” music, despite the increasing antagonism it faced in the late 1980s both from within and from outside the university. by drawing from jewish narratives, babbitt’s rhetoric in these various 64 current musicology articles and lectures thus reinforces conceptions of the evolution of western music history that babbitt had developed early in his career. in correlating schoenberg to moses and in likening the university to a fortress, babbitt not only legitimizes serious music, but he also underlines the valor of its practitioners. interspersed references to jewish participation in american popular culture further emphasize the role of american jewish composers, like babbitt, in realizing the consummate western art music. is it possible, therefore, as bloom suggests, to retrospectively interpret babbitt’s music as jewish? new meanings in glossed translation there is nothing in babbitt’s music that sounds “jewish” (at least in terms of characteristic phrase formulas or modal collections), a feature, which as gottlieb (2004) paradoxically argues, characterizes much american jewish music.19 and yet, i would argue that allusions to schoenberg in babbitt’s music, such as i will describe in glosses, can be interpreted as symbols of babbitt’s jewish heritage. from this perspective, the multiple-determination and function of musical events as well as the meaningfulness of interdimensional correspondences in babbitt’s works (such as between pitch and rhythmic parameters) might also be interpreted as resonating more generally with jewish beliefs concerning the multiplicity of meaning in a religious text (such as described by hollander and many others). babbitt composed glosses for the american boychoir in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of its founding. it is unusual within babbitt’s oeuvre in that it sets a religious text: psalm 150 in four different translations (hebrew, latin, german, and english).20 the commission does not appear to have been subject to contractual restrictions, aside from those stipulating the performers (two soprano parts and two alto parts); other works on the program during which it was premiered are not accompanied by religious texts. glosses begins with a sequential introduction of each of the glossing languages (example 1). each translation is restricted to a single vocal part (from lowest to highest): the second alto sings in hebrew, the first alto sings in latin, the second soprano sings in german, and the first soprano sings in english. mapping a metaphoric archeology, in which the lowest voice, singing in hebrew, symbolizes the deepest, oldest sediment in the linguistic history of the psalms, the voices enter in staggered imitation, proceeding from lowest to highest voice, oldest to most recent translation. the voices not only accumulate in number and range but also dynamic intensity, symbolically representing the multitude of prayerful congregants intimated in the text.21 thus, the different voices both perform translational 65 alison maggart glosses on the hebrew source text as well as enumerate a history of biblical translation. the power of translation to transform a text’s meaning is a point that hollander develops considerably in his essay “hearing and overhearing the psalms” (1997). translation, hollander claims, inevitably and inconspicuously produces new meanings. however, these new meanings are not only the product of inadvertent connotations connected to a new denotation or of intended connotations lost in a new denotation. many “misconstruings” and “reconstructions” (words he stresses as derived from the same latin root) can be the result of unplanned formal and rhetorical by-products of the translation (anaphoric constructions, assonances, pseudo-metrical schemes, and allusions) that highlight certain words or phrases unremarkable in the original. for example, hollander describes the “[incomprehensible] rhythmic component of the [king james’s] psalm,” created in translation (116). for a listener attuned to metered poetry, verses in pseudo-dactylic pentameter transform certain words or phrases by endowing them with accentual emphasis; they also seem to initiate quatrains, only to frustratingly break off before completion. in trying to make sense of the inadvertent aftermath of translation, of linguistic archaisms, and of thwarted (and anachronistic) expectations (that is, quatrains had not been formalized at the time of the psalter’s compilation), readers are compelled to construct their own interpretations of the new text. thus, meanings are not lost in translation; rather, they proliferate. according to hollander, the psalms’ rich history of exegesis, translation, and propagation has made them particularly fertile sites for intertextual play. he describes how his childhood “misreadings” of the psalms example 1: partitioning of glossarial translations in the different vocal registers, glosses mm. 1–8. 66 current musicology “marked the growth of [his] inner ear for poetry” and came to influence how he viewed all textual meaning to be constructed (hollander 1997, 116). as the psalms taught him, a deep engagement with any text’s formal, poetic structure is fundamental to understanding its meaning. imagine a child who mishears the penultimate verse of psalm 23—“surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”—as “surely mrs. murphy shall follow me all the days of my life” (114). hollander claims that the child’s misunderstanding is “a more viable, powerful reconstruction of what had otherwise faded into abstraction than any primer’s glossing” because it evinces the child’s closer attention to the psalm’s poetic structure and cadence (114). in substituting a literal being (“mrs. murphy”) for abstractions (“goodness” and “mercy”), the child transforms the “mechanical allegory” produced by the verb “follow me” into a literal possibility (114). in recovering the poem’s syntax, the child, although misunderstanding the poem’s semantics, realizes the psalm’s poetic truth (114). as texts and formulaic prose structures become more familiar to adult readers, the dynamism of the text’s architecture becomes invisible, and the meaning thereby created is often lost: “losing, in mature literacy, the ability to make such mistakes can mean being deaf and blind to the power of even the kjv text, let alone that of the hebrew. one’s reading slides over the figuration, and thereby over the force of the line of verse” (114). thus, attending to the linguistic syntactical structure, even if at the expense of the meaning created by surface-level rhetorical embellishment, is central for hollander to grasping the text’s truth. that babbitt likewise approached the psalms from a literary perspective, examining the poetic interrelationships of the psalms foremost, is evident in his sketches and program notes for from the psalter (2002) (another choral work that weaves verses from psalms 13, 40, and 41 in sir philip sidney’s translation into one “conjoining continuity”). in his program notes, babbitt reveals himself to be more captivated by the structural and sonic aspects of poetry—how the rhythmic and rhyme schemes interact, coalesce to produce meaning, and transform through translation—than by interpretation. he writes, the syntax of the poetry may sometimes seem inarticulate, even convoluted; an occasional word is “archaic” (at least, for us), and familiar words are occasionally employed unfamiliarly, but the verses of the remarkable poet, essayist, and courtier are never ultimately obscure, but elegant, original, and—even—memorable. (babbitt 2002) babbitt’s impression of sidney’s translation expresses amusement and pleasure at the musical qualities afforded through idiosyncratic translation. his 67 alison maggart description of the “familiar words occasionally employed unfamiliarly” (a phrase that, elsewhere jotted down singly, appears to have been the mainspring of babbitt’s program) also suggests that babbitt attributed greater significance to the text’s sonic quality than to its semantic meaning insofar as when one hears a familiar word employed unfamiliarly one perceives the word musically. momentarily divorced from its meaning, the text’s decontextualized vowels, consonants, and rhythms offer themselves for an instant as no more than sound.22 babbitt’s turn of phrase is not just stylistically similar to hollander’s assertion that “reading through the book of psalms . . . meant encountering many commonplaces in their uncommon original” (1997, 119; emphasis mine); it also resonates with hollander’s sentiment that “mysterious poetry [is engendered] by distance from the english usage of a much earlier text” (124). hollander concludes “hearing and overhearing the psalms” by proposing that the whole history of psalmic exegesis has been fraught with such musical hearings and misreadings, and that such glosses are, in actuality, what give the psalms their meaning: “the layers of misreading and rereading are part of the poetry of the text itself in the poetic portions of the bible” (1997, 128). viewing the psalmic glosses as a synecdoche for how all textual meaning is constructed allows hollander to then make a more extreme claim: that all poetical meaning is intertextual. as he puts it, “all poetry is in some way or another unofficial midrash, a revisionist commentary upon some kind of canonical text” (hollander 1988, 114).23 by identifying the roots of intertextual hermeneutics in jewish tradition, hollander locates “jewishness” in a practice, not in a fixed characteristic. he furthermore proffers a symbol of jewish identity that is structural— engagement with a glossarial intertext—rather than stylistic. thus, when babbitt alludes to the history of biblical translation in the opening measures of glosses, he both performs and affirms jewish tradition. glossing miracles in glosses babbitt follows directives that he lays out in his program notes for paraphrases (1979): “[glosses are] restatements [meant] to clarify, to reinterpret, to amplify” (babbitt 1979). in the opening measures, the underlying structure of glosses is made wholly transparent: the source hexachord (an all-combinatorial c-type hexachord) is immediately and unambiguously stated in the second alto (figure 1). such enumeration of the composition’s fundamental material is unusual for babbitt, who, as andrew mead has demonstrated, tends to compose works that are “revelatory” in character (that is, he does not reveal the underlying series until a climactic moment later in the piece). in fact, babbitt associated 68 current musicology such straightforward expositions with schoenberg. schoenberg, babbitt claimed, had a “taste for a phanic, foreground statement of the set at the outset of a work” (mead 1994, 107). thus, one might already perceive a faint suggestion of schoenberg in babbitt’s initial concession. in 1950 schoenberg published die wunder-reihe (“the miracle set”), an article in which he describes striking features of the prime series he uses in modern psalm, op. 50c. modern psalm’s “miracle set,” schoenberg explains, consists of two symmetrically arranged hexachords, each of which contains tonal subsets (figure 2). what schoenberg found “miraculous” about the series was its ability to preserve hexachordal collections and intervallic successions under certain transpositions and inversions. for example, a transposition of the prime row down by whole-step produces a series in which the first hexachord is a retrograde of the prime row’s second hexachord (figure 3). these “strongly related configurations,” schoenberg notes, “produce a greater variety than double counterpoint” (quoted in neff 1999, 79). throughout modern psalm, schoenberg emphasizes this feature of the series by freely pairing aggregate-creating hexachords to create a surface proliferating with imitative pitch structures and retrogrades. as thomas michael couvillon describes, “schoenberg’s tendency . . . to freely retrograde individual hexachords is [in modern psalm] . . . incorporated into the serial structure” (2002, 69). of course, as babbitt was quick to point out, this feature is not unique to the miracle set. it is rather a consequence of the interval content of the third-order all-combinatorial hexachord and its symmetrical arrangement across the series. in fact, in his madison lectures, babbitt implies that by failing to grasp the ramifications of his own syntactic structures, schoenberg overlooked the true import of his system: figure 1: pitch array of glosses, blocks i and ii. figure 2: schoenberg’s “miracle set.” 69 alison maggart toward the end of his life, [schoenberg] wrote the modern psalms, a set of little pieces for which he wrote the text. he never realized that the series he uses there—a third all-combinatorial hexachord—he had already used in the ode to napoleon and in the opus 29 suite. he didn’t realize it was exactly the same hexachord. he never thought of these hexachords except in a particular ordering, and he never saw the generality of the unordered form. (babbitt 1987a, 14) in glosses babbitt clarifies, reinterprets, and amplifies (that is, he glosses) the structural properties of schoenberg’s miracle set in order to even more explicitly project the miraculous surface features that schoenberg prized. like schoenberg had done in modern psalms, babbitt constructs a series comprised of diatonic subsets in glosses.24 the first hexachord can be perceived as a subset of an f-major scale and the second hexachord can be perceived as a subset of a c-sharp minor scale (figure 4). babbitt also arranges the series symmetrically, thereby constraining the number of uniquely ordered series from twenty-four to twelve.25 needless to say, these underlying characteristics influence the surface of glosses, making allusions to tonality possible and producing a surfeit of retrograde relations. for example, in the final climactic section (mm. 170–85), wherein the psalm’s author implores “all that hath breath” to sing god’s praises, babbitt composes two large-scale retrogrades: one sung in unison by the first soprano and first alto and one sung in unison by the second soprano and second alto; the central point of both retrogrades occurs at measure 179 (at the system break in example 2).26 additionally, in staggering the entries of these paired retrogrades (the first parts enter at measure 170 and the second parts enter at the end of measure 173), babbitt draws attention to two smaller, transposed and inverted retrogrades that occur between the figure 3: hexachordal retrogrades between schoenberg’s miracle set and the t-2 series. figure 4: the prime series of glosses. 70 current musicology hexachords of the two parts. at “praise ye” (measure 176), under sustained fs in the first soprano and first alto, the second soprano and second alto project (8, 3, e, 1, 6, 4) an inverted retrograde of the second hexachords of the first parts (9, 7, 0, 2, t, 5), which had set “alleluia” in measures 173 through 175 (example 2).27 in thus glossing the structural “miracle” of schoenberg’s set, babbitt suggests that he, like hollander’s child, who recognized poetic truth in the syntax of the kjv verse, recuperates the poetic truth of schoenberg’s modern psalm. a glossarial reinterpretation of the structural basis of glosses also example 2: retrograde in all voices in glosses, mm.170–185 71 alison maggart manifests in this section when babbitt translates the opening measures’ pitch array into the rhythmic dimension. beginning in measure 170, a new time-point array alludes to the partitioning and transformation of pitch hexachords in the first two blocks.28 dynamic (as opposed to registral) projections traverse from the lowest to highest level, and at the midpoint of the section, the different dynamic lynes undergo the same transformations at the same transposition levels as had the pitch lynes of the first array (compare figures 1 and 5).2 on the one hand, such self-reflexivity emphasizes the self-sufficiency and autonomy of babbitt’s system. on the other hand, however, the time-point array presents a complication within babbitt’s system. unique to the culminating section in glosses is the presence of three example 2: continued. 72 current musicology unpitched vocalizations, notated with cross note heads (“×”). these vocalizations set the words “lord” and “yah” (example 3). during the section in which all “that hath breath” are called upon to sing god’s praises, these unsung moments defy the text’s demand. more importantly, the timepoints—(9), (1), and (5)—at which they occur cannot be understood in relation to the underlying structure. they do not constitute a subset of the originating hexachord, nor do they seem to play a secondary role in the development of the work. however, understanding glosses in relation to modern psalm illuminates the significance of the three unpitched instances of “lord” and “yah.” for one, the audible effect evokes schoenberg’s opera moses und aron, wherein moses, rendered mute in front of hebrews, can only articulate his message from god in sprechstimme. more importantly, in his method of deploying these unsung moments, babbitt also alludes to a jewish tradition that schoenberg engaged in his religious works: that the name of the lord is unutterable and yet can be represented and understood through esoteric numerological structures. in fact, in glosses babbitt employs the same numerical symbol of yhvh that schoenberg tenders in modern psalm. in his religious works, schoenberg frequently associates [048] pitch collections with yhvh.30 joe argentino finds the prevalent (4, 0, 8) motive in modern psalm to be representative of “schoenberg’s god” (2010, 104). and, david michael schiller finds the same set to be significant in the “adonoy elohenu” section of schoenberg’s a survivor from warsaw. as he describes, schoenberg substitutes the pitches (4, 0, 8, 0) for yhvh; thus, “like the adono itself,” he writes, “the augmented triad is presented as a substitute for the unpronounceable name of god: it is a god motive” (schiller 2003, 103). schiller proposes that schoenberg made the association between (4, 0, 8, 0) and the name of god, symbolically represented by the tetragrammaton and transliterated as yhvh, simply because (4, 0, 8, 0) and the transliteration are similarly patterned (the second and fourth elements are duplicates). the mutability of letter and number being a basic method in jewish exegesis, schoenberg perhaps saw such conversion pertinent. he might have also viewed the set, which contains an augmented triad, as representative of the unknowability of god, being, as it were, beyond the realm of human understanding (represented by major and minor figure 5: time-point arrays in glosses, mm. 170-99 73 alison maggart tonalities). or, maybe the set’s cyclic character, its ability to map onto itself at any transformation, was meant to represent the circular and infinite nature of ein-sof. scholars have long recognized that number symbolism in schoenberg’s music derives from his interest in swedenborgian theology and the kabbalah (schiller 2003, 104). his belief in the impossibility of defining an invisible and hidden god has roots in kabbalistic hermeneutics, wherein god is named “metaphorically as ein-sof—that which is infinite, without end—but which is often understood as ayin—nothingness” (samolsky example 3: “unsung” moments in glosses, mm. 193–200 74 current musicology 1991, 179). in order to uncover the infinite and hidden nature of god, practitioners of kabbalah seek to understand concealed meaning in the esoteric and foundational structures by which god created the universe and through which he manifests himself in the universe: the hebrew alphabet and its numerical conversions.31 thus, treating hebrew letters in the bible as a cipher of the universe, kabbalistic exegesis focuses on the “textual algebra in which words, names, letters, and spacing are open to manifold permutations,” and which in “affording an infinite arrange of signification” reflect the multiplicity and infinite nature of god (179). searching for instances of “submerged significance,” interpreters will mine, rearrange, and convert numbers, letters, and other formal aspects of the biblical text (levi 2009, 950–51). whereas the mystical significance of numbers seems to have resonated with schoenberg, other aspects of kabbalah might also have resonated with babbitt.32 kabbalah practitioners’ structural approach to meaning encourages many scholars to conceive kabbalistic exegesis as an objective science with an objective language. michael laitman, founder of bnel baruch kabbalah education & research institute, for example, describes “the science of the kabbalah” as “a precise objective language that describes sensations” and consequently can allow access to “the whole reality” (laitman 2011). or, as amnon shiloah, one of the speakers at the 1978 world congress on jewish music, described in regard to the experiential pleasure and knowledge we gain from listening to music: “the jewish kabbalist abstains from revealing his personal experience. . . . he describes the objects of his contemplation objectively” (1992, 135). indeed, for kabbalists, the closest one can ever come to understanding the ineffable is to understand its formal, structural manifestations in the world. indeed, attempts to describe the cosmos beyond these formal relationships and correlations will inevitably fail. a similar conviction in the meaningfulness of internal, formal correspondences underlies babbitt’s aesthetics. his insistence on the multiplefunctionality of individual pitches—each note’s ability to be proleptic and analeptic, to contain the past and future—the parallelism between pitch and rhythmic domains, the infinite relational structures in his music, and the necessity of speaking of those structures objectively: these characteristics all affirm an aesthetics based on the belief that the microcosm can reveal the macrocosm. just as a biblical text both internalizes and reflects a transcendental or universal unity, babbitt’s contextual structures do so too. moreover, i would argue that the impossibility of ever wholly perceiving the complete structural coherence of babbitt’s music is fundamental to taking pleasure in it. the simultaneous concealment and infiniteness of reference in babbitt’s music is essential to its meaning. 75 alison maggart in glosses the three different time-points that set the un-pitched vocalizations of “god”—(9), (1), and (5)—comprise a [048] set. this set is not an obvious manifestation of the underlying series nor does it play a significant role on the musical surface in other parameters. its prominence on the musical surface is thus inexplicable, unless the collection is symbolic. i propose that these unsung moments in glosses signify schoenberg’s yhvh. just as the enslaved israelites came to know god as yahweh from moses, babbitt employs the musical symbol of god that schoenberg established. his allusion not only marks schoenberg as his moses, however; it also reinforces and thus redefines what might be considered “jewish” in music. as paul zukofsky described, “milton [babbitt] picked and chose the cultures that he wished to make his own, and that is that amalgam of schoenberg and stravinsky with the american jazz element thrown in” (quoted in hilferty 2011). i would add that babbitt also picked and chose what elements of his jewish heritage to incorporate into his rhetoric and music. although many of these elements were likely adopted later in life and grafted onto preexisting aesthetic and philosophical convictions, they nonetheless offer new perspectives from which we can interpret babbitt’s work. fashioning jewishness in glosses in this manner, babbitt reminds us of the constructed nature of identity. indeed, as we each reinvent our identities by building upon our pasts, we can, like the biblical glossers, not only give new meanings to our lives, but also rewrite our histories. notes i would like to thank richard taruskin and scott gleason for their very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. 1. hollander is the only living poet whose works babbitt set. the first work on which hollander and babbitt collaborated was philomel in 1964. in addition to philomel, babbitt also set hollander’s the head of the bed (1982), the virginal book (1988), quatrains (1993), and pantuns (2000). 2. in 1988 babbitt and hollander spoke together as part of harvard university’s “vision and resonance” series in two separate discussions, “words and music” and “reflections and responses.” they also jointly participated in symphony space’s face the music: concerts & conversations for fans & skeptics in 1990, and the guggenheim’s works and process series’ panel, “poets & composers,” in 2001. 3. in regard to the head of the bed and pantuns, for example, see the letters from hollander to milton in the library of congress. 4. babbitt did freely acknowledge being jewish to colleagues and students. discussion of his heritage in the written record therefore occurs mostly in transcribed interviews or conferences. see babbitt quoted in cohen (1982) and hilferty (2011). 5. for more on jewish discrimination among ivy league admissions committees see karabel (2005) and synnott (2010). 76 current musicology 6. brody (1993) has described how the new york intellectuals’ ideas influenced babbitt. trilling was also, coincidentally, one of hollander’s professors at columbia. 7. girard argues that sentiments of american exceptionalism were particularly ardent in new york city in the postwar era; he attributes this sentiment to both the decline of parisian cultural life following nazi occupation as well as the commercial and financial success of new york following the war. for a general discussion of exile-related language in commentary see balint (2010). for a discussion of the new york intellectuals’ postwar commitment to topics centered around their jewish heritage see bloom (1986). 8. in contrast to babbitt’s adolescence, religion had played a significant role in hollander’s upbringing. he spent his adolescence in a kosher household, took childhood lessons in hebrew, and attended conservative synagogue services. nevertheless, in his twenties he “drifted” from religion. 9. i thank scott gleason for this perspective. 10. for more on babbitt’s participation in europe during the postwar era see beal (2006). in this book, beal describes how babbitt declined offers to participate in the darmstadt summer program after 1964, despite repeated offers, which included financial support from wolfgang steinecke (beginning in 1958) and ernst thomas (through 1966). several factors undoubtedly attributed to his absence at darmstadt. to name just a few: babbitt’s evolutionary view of music history would have been considered conservative and backwardsthinking in comparison to the tabula rasa approach to history that many darmstadt composers maintained; and, within the cultural manifest destiny framework that many new york intellectuals held, to participate in programs geared towards reviving german musical culture, perceived as obsolescent, would have been regarded as inconsequential. finally, as babbitt revealed in an interview with beal, he “disliked spending time in germany” because he felt uncomfortable “as a jew coming to terms with horrific postwar revelations about the nazi era” (beal 2006, 138–41). 11. take, for example, the historian and musicologist amnon shiloah. shiloah had recently published a book on the musicologically relevant findings from the recent excavations of ancient israeli geological sites as well as on kabbalistic interpretations of the zohar; at the congress, he lectured on “the medieval arab world.” 12. others that participated in this discussion were zvi avni, moshe cotel, alexander ringer, leon schidlovsky, ralph shapey, robert starer, leonard stein, and josef tal. 13. shapiro writes that world war ii was a watershed moment in forming a distinctive american jewish identity because it “impressed upon american jews the radical difference between their situation here and the conditions of jews in europe. . . . [thus,] if prior to 1941 american jews tended to view their status as glass half-empty and emphasized the barriers to jewish equality, after 1945 they viewed their status as a glass half-full and stressed the opportunities for jews in america” (1990, 73–74). 14. gleason has demonstrated that jewish themes are pervasive in many of the second generation of princeton theorists’ writings as well, including benjamin boretz, john rahn, j. k. randall, brian kane, david lewin, and others. furthermore, even when these themes are very subtly presented, they are consistently interpreted as jewish (for example, by martin scherzinger and dániel péter biró). gleason has also argued that the utopian outlook inherent in much princeton theory harbors social and ethical implications consistent with jewish thought. 15. babbitt’s reference to gresham’s law was also, undoubtedly, meant to bring to mind dwight macdonald’s 1953 essay, “a theory of mass culture,” wherein macdonald, in a sub77 alison maggart section titled “gresham’s law in culture,” bemoans the disintegrating distinction between high and mass culture. 16. “o alter duft” is the final song in schoenberg’s pierrot lunaire. 17. it is perhaps notable that hollander, in his essay “the question of american jewish poetry,” also relates modern poets to jewish exiles: “it is not merely that modern poets and jews are outsiders, it is more that both carry the burden of an absolutely inexplicable sense of their own identity and history” (1988, 34). 18. the topic of luther’s anti-semitism garnered intense interest in the 1970s and 1980s, so much so that steven rowan described it as “a best-seller” that is often “used as a means of highlighting basic flaws in . . . german society in particular [and as] a curtain raiser to what has come to be known as the holocaust” (1985, 80). for brief overviews on the status of scholarship on luther and the jews at the time babbitt published his madison lectures see amaru (1984); pawlikowski (1975); rowan (1985). 19. as gottlieb (2004) describes, jewish tin pan alley and broadway composers frequently incorporated jewish elements in their songs that could go unnoticed by non-jewish audiences by choosing jewish melodic and cadential formulas that can function as “melodic puns.” these “musical homophones,” he continues, “have different meanings in different contexts, [and so they] have multiple resonances depending upon the cultural experiences of both the creator and listener” (3). it is worth noting that babbitt was one of the authorities on tin pan alley who gottlieb interviewed for his book. 20. from the psalter (2002) also sets a religious text, although not in hebrew verse. it was also commissioned by the american composers orchestra for a program devoted to settings of the psalms. 21. in addition to these linguistic transformations, serial transformations of each subsequent voice render the pitch and interval content ever more distantly related to the first collection. following his usual practice, babbitt employs a series derived from an all-combinatorial hexachord in glosses. unusually, however, the second alto projects the hexachord—ordered and unobscured—in the first three measures: (t, 0, 7, 5, 9, 2). each subsequent voice then projects some variant of this model hexachord, demonstrating progressively more abstract and distant relationships that can be generated between source set and transformation by twelve-tone operation. the first alto realizes the implications of the source’s combinatoriality by completing the series; its r6-transformation introduces a new pitch collection while at the same time retaining the series’ initial progression of intervals in retrograde. the second soprano, projecting an rie-transformation, reiterates the source-hexachord pitches, although their order is deranged. finally, the first soprano, projecting an i5-transformation demarcates the most abstract connection to the model: it shares no pitches in common with the source hexachord and inverts the intervallic progression. further amplifying and reinforcing the import of the introduction, the staggered and progressive registral trajectory of these opening measures is also reflected in the partitioning scheme of the first twenty-seven measures, over the course of which solos, evenly distributed across the voices, progress from lowest to highest voice. 22. babbitt was also perceptive of translational differences in poetic structure and rhyme scheme. in his sketches for from the psalter, he compared sir philip sidney’s translations of psalm 13 to the king james version (milton babbitt, box 7, folder 2, babbitt collection, library of congress, washington, dc). 23. the midrash is an ancient interpretative method that seeks to uncover biblical meaning through elaborate and often metaphorical analyses of the torah. 78 current musicology 24. diatonic subsets are, in fact, unavoidable in c-type hexachords. perhaps for this reason, they rarely form the bases of babbitt’s works. 25. having this constraint is atypical in babbitt’s series, which tend to maximize combinatorial possibilities. 26. sections in glosses are delineated by the text. babbitt evenly divides the six psalm verses into three tripartite sections, demarcated by a praise refrain (“praise ye the lord”) so that the general organization is as follows: refrain (mm. 1–27), verse 1 (mm. 28–59), verse 2 (mm. 60–87); refrain (mm. 88–114), verse 3 (mm. 115–43), verse 4 (mm. 144–69); refrain (mm. 170–207), verse 5 (mm. 208–23), verse 6 (mm. 224–45); refrain (m. 256). these divisions are underscored musically by the following: the partitioning of glossing languages among the voices, the tempo, the array structure, the partitioning of the series among voices, and the pitch collections maintained in each voice. 27. this is merely one instance of a retrograde in glosses. in truth, the work is saturated with them. 28. before this section in glosses, babbitt correlates rhythmic time-points to pitch dyads that remain invariant across trichordal arrays. for example, trichords in the first blocks of the first soprano in verses 1 and 2 share the dyad pc-(e, 6). these pitches occur in both verses at time-point-(2, 6) (measures 31 and 61). the tonal implications of many of these invariants (in the soprano parts, for example, each invariant dyad is a perfect fourth/fifth) make their pairings more easily perceptible. 29. the forte lyne undergoes an ri1 transformation, the mezzo-forte lyne undergoes an ri9 transformation, the mezzo-piano lyne undergoes an ri3 transformation, and the piano lyne undergoes an r0 transformation. 30. the history of converting the tetragrammaton into numbers extends back to the renaissance, when the florentine christian theologian johannes reuchlin conflated jewish kabbalistic and neo-pythagorean traditions. first in on the wonder working word (1494) and then more extensively in on the art of the kabbalah (1517), reuchlin correlates yhvh to the pythagorean tetractys: the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, which had special significance within the platonic tradition because the sum of the numbers is 10 (the perfect number) and because the ratios between them constitute the perfect harmonies (2:1 is an octave; 4:3 is a fourth, 3:2 is a fifth). see celenza (2001). 31. according to the sefer yetzirah, god created the universe by permuting letters of the hebrew alphabet. 32. perhaps lurianic kabbalah’s ontology of the jewish exile—that the perpetual state of jews as exiles reflects an original disaster of creation, when shards of the shattered vessels of god’s divine attributes were captured by evil powers—gave foundation to the social exile in which babbitt perceived his music, as it did for hollander (roth 1994). references amaru, betsy halpern. 1984. “martin luther and jewish mirrors.” jewish social studies 46 (2): 95–102. argentino, joe. 2010. “transformations and hexatonic tonnetz spaces in late works of schoenberg.” phd diss., 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harvard university. gleason, scott. 2013. “princeton theory’s problematics.” phd diss., columbia university. . n.d. “music utopianism in the princeton school, preand post-turn.” working paper, shared in e-mail correspondence with the author. . n.d. “princeton theory’s judaism.” working paper, shared in e-mail correspondence with the author. goldsmith, s. j. 1966. “the magic of masada.” the jewish advocate. gottlieb, jack. 2004. funny, it doesn’t sound jewish: how yiddish songs and synagogue melodies influenced tin pan alley, broadway, and hollywood. new york: state university of new york press. 80 current musicology hilferty, robert, director. 2011. milton babbitt: portrait of a serial composer, edited by laura karpman. karpman. “deceptive cadence,” npr. https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/ 2011/04/10/133372983/npr-exclusive-new-documentary-on-the-late-composermilton-babbitt. harrán, don. 1979. “report from jerusalem: world congress on jewish music.” current musicology 27: 20–23. hollander, john. 1982. letter to milton babbitt. milton babbitt collection. box 8, folder 2. library of congress. . 1985. interview by j.d. mcclatchy. “john hollander, the art of poetry no. 35.” in the paris review 97. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2866/the-art-of-poetryno-35-john-hollander. . 1987. “psalms.” in congregation: contemporary writers read the jewish bible, edited by david rosenberg, 293–312. new york: harcourt, brace, jovanovich. . 1988. “the question of american jewish poetry.” tikkun 3 (3): 33–37, 112–116. . 1997. “hearing and overhearing the psalms.” in the work of poetry, 113–128. new york: columbia university press. . n.d. letter to milton babbitt. milton babbitt collection. box 12, folder 1. library of congress. karabel, jerome. 2005. the chosen: the hidden history of admission and exclusion at harvard, yale, and princeton. new york: houghton mifflin company. laitman, michael. 2011. “physics and lyricism.” kabbalah and the meaning of life. http:// laitman.com/2011/09/physics-and-lyricism. levi, jerome m. 2009. “structuralism and kabbalah: sciences of mysticism or mystifications of science?” anthropological quarterly 82 (4): 929–984. mead, andrew. 1994. an introduction to the music of milton babbitt. princeton, nj: princeton university press. neff, severine. 1999. “schoenberg as theorist: three forms of presentation.” in schoenberg and his world, edited by walter frisch, 55–80. princeton, nj: princeton university press, 1999. pawlikowski, john t. 1975. “martin luther and judaism: paths towards theological reconciliation.” journal of the american academy of religion 43 (4): 681–693. podhoretz, norman. 1967. making it. new york: harpercollins. rosenburg, denna and bernard rosenburg, eds. 1979. the music makers. new york: columbia university press. roth, laurence. 1993. “statues of liberty: assimilation and twentieth-century american jewish poets.” ph.d. diss.. university of california, los angeles. rowan, steven. 1985. “luther, bucer and eck on the jews.” the sixteenth century journal 16 (1): 79–90. samolsky, russel. 1999. “metaleptic machines: kafka, kabbalah, shoah.” modern judaism 19 (2): 173–194. schiller, david michael. 2003. bloch, schoenberg and bernstein: assimilating jewish music. oxford: oxford university press. sessions, roger. 1952. letter to whitney j. oates. music department records. box 9. princeton university mudd library. shapiro, edward s. 1990. “world war ii and american jewish identity.” modern judaism 10 (1): 65–84. shiloah, amnon. 1992. jewish musical traditions. detroit: wayne state university press. synnott, marcia graham. 2010. the half opened door: discrimination and admissions at harvard, yale, and princeton, 1900–1970. new brunswick, nj: transaction publishers. current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 25 cosmopolitanism and race in percy grainger’s american “delius campaign” sarah kirby we are sitting in the sunshine on the terrace of our villa overlooking the beautiful bay of rapallo and talking of you; and we were wondering whether ever any other composer had met with a colleague and friend like you, so devoted and interested in his friend’s work and understanding thro’ his own genius. (delius 1983, 286)1 composer frederick delius (1862–1934) wrote this to percy grainger (1882–1961) on january 23, 1924 in acknowledgement of the significance of their friendship and grainger’s work on his behalf. despite the reciprocal appreciation reflected in their correspondence, the importance of their relationship and its musical and personal consequences is rarely acknowledged in the scholarly literature. this relationship prompted grainger, on his arrival in the united states in 1914, to coordinate what he described as a “delius campaign” after noticing that delius’s music was not “being pushed here at all” (grainger 1914a). designed to promote and disseminate the music of his friend throughout the country, grainger’s main goal for this campaign, as grandly outlined in a number of letters, was to do his part in establishing delius “as one of the greatest of the greatest” (grainger 1915a). his approach to this was manifold, organizing performances of delius’s music, giving lectures and writing articles about delius, as well as consistently championing delius’s music when in contact with the press, publishers, and other musicians of influence. as so often happens with grainger, however, these efforts were quickly influenced by his strident racist views, and from around 1919 grainger expanded his campaign to include not only delius, but all music he deemed to be of “anglo-saxon” or “nordic” origin: music, by his own definition, “written by blue-eyed people anywhere, and showing the characteristics of that race” (grainger 1930a). grainger began to manipulate the image he presented of delius through both his writings and concert programming, attempting to establish him as an exemplar of this constructed “anglo-saxon” or “nordic” musician. grainger specifically drew attention to the american genesis of some of delius’s compositions and the trope of the natural landscape present in many of his works, suggesting that these were manifestations of a supposed “nordic” compositional impulse. in this article, i explore grainger’s promotion of delius in america 26 current musicology between grainger’s arrival in 1914 and delius’s death in 1934 as both a product of their personal relationship and as an aspect of grainger’s own racist ideology in the context of the wider american nordicist movement— a particularly virulent form of racial nativism—that had become prevalent in postwar america (decker 1994, 53). i argue that while american audiences’ already firmly established ideas of delius’s “cosmopolitanism”—albeit rather euro-centric in conception—made grainger’s campaign initially difficult for critics to accept, it was only through this perceived detachment from a single national or compositional school that grainger was able to racialize both delius and his music. i do this first by examining the critical trope of cosmopolitanism in delius reception, with specific reference to its appearance in the american press and how this was received in the context of the social and musical “americanization” movements of the early twentieth century. i then explore the development of race in grainger’s delius campaign as its expression moved from vague and contradictory terms to a virulent nordicism. by linking delius with america, either explicitly through referencing the inspiration delius took from the time he spent in florida, or through grouping delius with american composers under the “anglo-saxon” banner, grainger consciously exploited the widespread contemporary search for an american compositional voice, as well as a more sinister, growing cultural nativism. i also argue that by presenting delius’s music in this racialized framing, granger specifically mobilized an array of eugenicist ideologies in service of the music’s reception, specifically in line with his own espousal of a variety of racist political and ideological projects. cosmopolitanism and race the issue of delius’s personal and musical national identity is an area of ongoing debate. while regarded in many popular representations throughout the twentieth century as a typically “english” composer, the depiction of delius as a cosmopolitan was widespread in discourses both during and after his lifetime. much of this was related to delius’s varied associations with a number of different countries and cultures. born in bradford, yorkshire in 1862 to german parents, he received much of his early musical training in the united states while running an orange grove in florida between 1884 and 1886. he continued his musical education in leipzig where he developed a lasting friendship with grieg, reinforcing his strong emotional attachment to norway—a place where he spent over twenty summers of his adult life. moving to paris in 1888, he spent the next decade absorbing the influence of his wide circle of friends, made up of artists, writers, and musicians (including gabriel fauré, maurice ravel, paul gauguin, and 27 sarah kirby edvard munch), before settling in grez-sur-loing outside fontainebleau in 1897 with his future wife, painter jelka rosen (anderson, payne, and carley, n.d.). delius was described as a cosmopolitan from his earliest reception, and this label has persisted well into modern scholarship. most explicitly articulated by christopher palmer in his 1976 delius: portrait of a cosmopolitan, this trope remains in even very recent publications, including martin leebrowne and paul guinery’s 2014 delius and his music which notes that the word is “nowadays often used” to describe delius “quite correctly” (51). yet the definition of what actually constitutes a musical cosmopolitan is a fraught one, both in terms of wider historical musicological studies and in delius’s reception specifically. dana gooley explains that, from the nineteenth century onwards, the term has been “used loosely as a synonym for ‘sophisticated,’ ‘worldly,’ ‘international,’ or ‘widely travelled.’ ” (2013, 523). but cosmopolitanism in music as a theoretical concept, often postulated in a dichotomous relationship with musical nationalism, is, as martin stokes argues, a “messy term,” aiding in understanding “the intellectual formations and dispositions of nationalist ideologues and reformers” but also able to be “used and asserted in local struggles for prestige and cultural authenticity” (2007, 9–10). such “messiness,” as gooley argues, can be seen in the difficulty present in attempting to identify the “location or site” of cosmopolitanism (525). it can be defined in particular practices, through distinct compositional techniques, genres, or styles (often through the amalgamation of “available national idioms”), by foregrounding repertoire or institutions, or by examining the lives of musicians compelled to become “citizens of the world” (526). richard taruskin, in the context of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century russian composers, for example, argues that cosmopolitanism was judged by the assorted criteria of ethnicity, training, and style (2011, 133), giving what gooley also describes as “the impression that the cosmopolitan consolidated various forms of otherness” (2013, 525). in relation to delius specifically, sarah collins’s pioneering 2015 study describes how “the notion of cosmopolitanism” itself could be “actively mobilized . . . not only to signal a political and cultural position, but also to describe a particular attitude—a distanced or detached persona—which applied to both music composition and music criticism” (106). through the application of the term based on an understanding of these notions, collins ultimately describes delius’s cosmopolitanism as one that transcends matters of “nationality, language or spirit,” being greatly informed by delius’s other “apparent transgression” of cultural expectations regarding social behaviour and engagement (2015, 106–7). this can be demonstrated in a number of ways. 28 current musicology first, the “elusive problem of [delius’s] nationality,” as it was articulated by philip heseltine in the musical times in 1915, appears in contemporary literature with a pervasiveness that collins has described as “striking” (2015, 105). even from his earliest reception in england, such as the first british concert of his works in 1899, critics seemed preoccupied with questions of delius’s national identity, noting the diverse range of musical influences as well as countries with which he was associated. second, in addition to this ambiguity created by his lack of ties to one particular country, delius’s music was also “highly individual”—described by jeremy dibble as a sort of “musical marmite” (2015)—and was not associated with any precise national or aesthetic compositional school. finally, delius’s public image was also further complicated by what appears to be a distinct lack of concern with self-promotion in the public eye (he did, however, frequently promote himself to conductors and other composers, as demonstrated throughout andrew boyle’s recent study delius and norway [2017]). for example, as lionel carley has described, following delius’s first concert in england, he returned to france almost immediately, showing a profound lack of interest in capitalizing on the positive public interest this concert created in him and his music (1998, 4). thus, delius’s cosmopolitanism can be considered a combination of “geographical, geo-cultural and ethnic associations . . . (namely, his foreign parentage, overseas travel, and sympathies with broader european art)” along with “other aspects related to delius’s refusal to participate in economic, commercial, cultural, and political life” (collins 2015, 112–13). all of these aspects contributed to the labeling of delius as a cosmopolitan, in what collins has argued demonstrates the “hermeneutics of musical modernism” which is “predicated upon the association of [the] musical autonomy” that dibble and others have described of delius’s style “with other, non-aesthetic types of detachment” (2015, 97). the ambiguity created by delius’s apparent cosmopolitanism has provided, at times, opportunity to shape perceptions of his persona and music to deliberate political ends. as robert stradling argues, delius’s music was consciously “repatriated” to england by figures such as heseltine and cecil gray during his lifetime. gray was among the most influential of delius’s english promoters. exploiting the “first great movement of middle-class pacifism” following the first world war, he attempted to replace elgar and the “jingoistic imperialism with which . . . [he] was ineradicably associated” with the “tranquillity and repose” of delius in the british national consciousness (stradling 1989, 79). following delius’s death, thomas beecham also worked hard to reestablish delius’s reputation as an “english” composer. beyond promoting and conducting delius’s work, beecham was 29 sarah kirby also involved in organizing for the literal repatriation of delius’s body to england, where he was reinterred to a churchyard in limpsfield, surrey in 1935 (stradling 1989, 78–79). all these men profited from delius’s sparse public image—as well as his musical individualism and lack of obvious national ties—by aligning specific elements of his persona and music with an ideology appropriate to postwar british audiences. through his apparent cosmopolitanism and the fact that he rarely challenged any public representation of himself made by others, delius was, in a way, a blank canvas upon which individual ideological—and, in particular, nationalist—values could be painted. this same lack of concrete alignment made delius a particularly suitable vessel through which percy grainger could exploit and transplant his own developing racist ideologies, as will be discussed below. the critical trope of cosmopolitanism prevalent in descriptions of delius in europe during his own lifetime presents what collins considers to be “a surprising absence of delineation” between the various “locations” or “sites” of cosmopolitanism (those sites described by gooley, noted above), “demonstrating instead the multilevel operation of cosmopolitanism” (2015, 108). it is equally evident that in early twentieth-century america, both the critical trope of cosmopolitanism and the distinct lack of delineation in its meaning are also consistently present in assessments of delius’s music. for example, following the 1910 premiere of brigg fair (1907) (only the second delius work performed in the us) by the new york philharmonic orchestra, a review in the american hebrew & jewish messenger commented on delius’s “lonely life . . . under widely varying musical influences,” while other articles described a socially detached man under the influence of composers ranging from grieg and debussy to wagner and brahms. for example, carl van vechten in the symphony society bulletin suggested a mixture of french and english influence in the work, with “the bearded face of debussy, together with his strange harmonies” being occasionally “noticed peeping over the fence and looking into the english garden to which we are introduced in ‘brigg fair.’ ” similarly, the program notes to the january 1912 us premiere of in a summer garden (1908), by joseph stransky and the new york philharmonic society, open by describing delius as coming “as near [to] being a cosmopolitan in art as anybody alive.” biographical articles often reference his cosmopolitanism. for example, eric de lamarter’s “frederick delius: cosmopolitan composer” in the boston evening transcript in 1916 describes delius as obviously having taken “all musical knowledge for his province,” intending “to be a cosmopolite” (gillespie and beckhard 1998, 85). yet the united states at this time did not provide the most tolerant atmosphere for the acceptance of a “rootless” european like delius. the new 30 current musicology york in which grainger launched his campaign in late 1914 was one whose musical tastes and expectations had been framed by more than a century of european romantic domination. late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century audiences were essentially conservative, and while new works were frequently premiered, contemporary composers were often poorly received. attempts to promote new compositions in this period often failed (shanet 1975, 232) as “democratized new audience[s] . . . preferred canonized european masters to contemporary or american creators” (horowitz 1995, 71). audiences in fin-de-siècle america were also deeply concerned with victorian notions of morality (shanet 1975, 227–28). this preoccupation is made clear, in relation to delius, in the critical response to the first performance of his music in america. the boston globe reported that a “wild night of orgy is set to music” following the 1909 premiere of paris: the song of a great city (1899). this review contrasted the “orthodox musical creed” of a mozart symphony also on the program with the “doubly distilled heresy” and “cacophonous profanities” of paris, describing delius as “a new musical pagan” (gillespie and beckhard 1998, 60). however, leading up to and during the first world war, a reaction to this prevailing eurocentric model of high culture created a “sometimes militantly nationalistic americanization movement . . . [that] swept across u.s. cities” (gienow-hecht 2009, 159). while american musical audiences were “increasingly interested in how their country fit in with the rest of the world—politically, intellectually, and culturally,” as katherine preston states, “a desire for transnational connection . . . did not inevitably negate a quest for national identity” (2013, 535). this search for a national compositional voice, coupled with building international tensions, created a fervent patriotic atmosphere in which the musical community “in addition to trying to develop a national music identity, feared cosmopolitan corruption” (levy 1983, 88). this climate of distrust in cosmopolitanism can be seen explicitly in some of the criticism of delius in the us. some articles, such as henry krehbiel’s november 1915 new york tribune piece entitled “a german englishman writes american music,” go beyond simple references to delius’s detachment from a single national compositional school. while krehbiel is highly enthusiastic about the idea of delius’s music overall, he also deems delius’s cosmopolitanism to be “not without its embarrassments.” as gooley has argued, cosmopolitanism was something largely defined negatively in the nineteenth century in a highly nationalistic europe, as the “absence of roots, folk spirit, developed subjectivity or the capacity to transmit authentic feeling” (2013, 524). it is clear that such a response remained present in early-twentieth-century america, as krehbiel demonstrates, seemingly implying that a lack of a single national 31 sarah kirby identity was something of which to be ashamed. later, british critic ernest newman, writing in the new york times magazine, highlighted some of the aspects that had contributed to the perception of delius as cosmopolitan or rootless, particularly in america, and voiced many of the prevailing anxieties surrounding his earlier reception. newman believed that the difficulty of placing delius within any particular local or national musical tradition was a reason for his lack of popular success in the united states, stating that, as he “is difficult to fit into any of the categories so beloved of the general public,” the listener would have difficulty knowing exactly what he “stands for” (newman [1930] 2008, 108). while the racism behind grainger’s promotion of delius in his later “anglo-saxon” campaign was perhaps uniquely applied to music by grainger, these ideas were linked to those of the time more generally.2 grainger’s intensely problematic discussion of what he interchangeably called “anglo-saxon” and “nordic” music, as will be discussed below, built on the racist texts of prominent early-twentieth-century eugenicists. grainger’s terminology, for instance, was taken directly from madison grant’s 1916 the passing of the great race, a work he had read in 1919 (grant himself had taken his terminology from william z. ripley’s 1899 the races of europe) (pear 2000, 34). the writings of grant and his followers (including houston stewart chamberlain and lothrop stoddard, both also influential to grainger’s ideas) gained popularity through what john higham has called america’s “tribal twenties”—a period that saw the rise of both eugenics and american nordicism in social and political thought (higham 1988, 265).3 nordicism, an ideology derived from a racial eugenics that divides populations into separate races based on characteristics of physical appearance, espouses the belief that northern europeans, or “nordics,” are the most genetically superior of the three “white” races—more intelligent and physically strong than their “alpine” or “mediterranean” counterparts—and that the intermingling of nordics with any of the other races was “a destructive process of ‘mongrelisation’ ” (higham 1988, 272). a continuation of prewar prejudices against catholic, jewish, and southern and eastern europeans, the influence of these theories cannot be underestimated, circulating in “academic and popular forums alike” (decker 1994, 54). the widespread eugenicist and nordicist movements were ultimately responsible for several international congresses on eugenics held in the united states, and the immigration act of 1924, which restricted the migration of people from southern and eastern europe in favor of those from the north. by the end of the decade, eugenic measures were widely implemented, including widespread restrictions on interracial marriage 32 current musicology and government-imposed forced sterilization of people with disabilities in twenty-four different states (burgers 2011, 138). as burgers argues, given that the “defects” that could suggest an individual for sterilization included “moral degeneracy” and “general tendencies toward criminality,” this discourse had a “direct analogue in . . . immigration policy” (2011, 138). as eugenicist henry laughlin presented to the 1922 house committee on immigration and naturalization, he believed that migrants “present[ed] a higher percentage of inborn socially inadequate qualities” (quoted in burgers 2011, 138). arguments for the superiority of nordics also appeared in the popular press, including letters and articles in the new york times, which grew particularly heated in the years 1921 and 1922 (decker 1994, 54), and, in the early twenties, as higham notes, “the most widely read magazine in the united states, the saturday evening post, began to quote and urgently commend the doctrines of madison grant” (1988, 265). the movement even found outlets in revisionist history. as jeffry decker describes, the new york times published debates on the supposed nordic origins of modern america itself, with some arguing that christopher columbus had scandinavian heritage. alternatively, others argued that it was not, in fact, columbus who had colonized the country, but rather icelandic explorer leif erikson, “from whose strong nordic stock our early pioneers derived their rugged virtues” (quoted in decker 1994, 54). by the early 1920s, grainger was able to articulate his own racist views in the context of these widely circulating ideas, and, consequently, was able to participate in and reinforce this populist racism in order to promote music that he believed fit within “nordic” and “anglo-saxon” constraints. the delius campaign delius and grainger first met in 1907, and immediately established a close friendship that would endure throughout the rest of delius’s life.4 this friendship—which involved ongoing correspondence, meetings throughout germany and norway, and grainger’s visits to an increasingly infirm delius in grez-sur-loing—blossomed through a mutual love of each other’s music, and they both felt a reciprocal and particularly special understanding of each other’s work. as delius wrote to grainger in 1914, “you understand better than anyone what i am trying to do” (delius 1983, 126), and, in 1917, “we have an enormous lot in common, perhaps even more than you realise and i feel that i understood you like no one else— right from the first too” (delius 1917). similarly, grainger often wrote of the emotional connection he felt to delius’s compositions, telling delius in 1914, in his ever-effusive style, that the musical mood of both on hearing 33 sarah kirby the first cuckoo in spring (1912) and the dance rhapsody (1908) “feel closer to me personally than my own work does, it utterly voices what i most inwardly long to hear expressed or to express” (grainger 1914b). beyond his emotional response to delius’s music, grainger also referred frequently to what he saw as its aesthetic affinity with his own work. following their first meeting, delius provided grainger with a score to his appalachia (1896). soon after, grainger wrote out delius’s first eight-bar iteration of the “old slave song” upon which these variations were based and sent them to his girlfriend, karen holten, disguised as his own harmonization (figures 1 and 2). he asked her to “please (& the truth) let me know if you think the harmonies are really typical of me, or if they’re too griegish, or wagnerish, or something” (grainger 1907). in his next letter he told her that he had tricked her, and that he was “jubilant” that she had “fallen into” his trap (grainger 1985, 108). grainger wrote of delius: frequently he and i write exactly the same harmonies without ever having heard each other’s works, as in the piece i sent you. . . . in him & me many same impressions must have occurred in somewhat the same proportions to produce moments of such undistinguishable likeness. (grainger 1985, 107) grainger concluded that while the work itself was in many ways “very different” to his own output, the treatment and setting of the african american folk tune in appalachia “nobody could tell from my work, i am sure” (grainger 1985, 107). this first encounter with appalachia in 1907 was clearly striking enough to grainger for him to recount it several times throughout his life. he wrote of his first playing through the score, “i was so amazed to find that anything so like my own chordal style existed. it struck my mother in the same way: ‘what piece of yours is that?’ she called from the next room, taking for granted that it was mine, yet not able to recognize it” (grainger [1934] 1976, 122). this feeling was apparently reciprocated by delius, and grainger claimed that around the same time, when first shown a selection of grainger’s compositions and settings of folk tunes delius’s immediate response was “but our harmonies are identical!” (bird 1998, 126). grainger wrote to delius in june 1917 similarly, stating that “there has been something in common between us,” citing their mutual love of scandinavia and folk song, and their general “freedom-yearning.” he concluded, “it was a tremendous moment for me when i first saw the score of appalachia and felt so close to it, and it so close to my own music” (grainger 1917). grainger’s belief in both the aesthetic and emotional closeness between his own and delius’s music clearly provided the initial motivation for his monumental delius promotional campaign, but there were also other reasons. 34 current musicology figure 1: percy grainger, letter (holograph) to karen holten, 16–21 april 1907. w21-59, bay 5: box 34. reproduced with permission, grainger museum, university of melbourne. figure 2: frederick delius, appalachia piano reduction arr. otto singer ii (berlin: harmonie, 1907), mm. 100–9. 35 sarah kirby grainger’s championing of delius in such a substantial way has been questioned repeatedly in the literature as something that requires an explanation beyond an aesthetic preference for delius’s music on grainger’s part. rachel lowe (1981) suggests that grainger’s promotion of delius was based on his need to repay an imagined debt for delius’s own early promotion of grainger’s work. when they first met in 1907, delius had facilitated grainger’s transition from performer to working composer, organizing the first public performance of a grainger composition (lowe 1981). conversely, lionel carley proposes that their friendship may have stemmed from delius having no children and grainger, having had little paternal contact, requiring a successor for his “filial affection” following the death of grieg (1981, 33). carley also suggests that grainger was simply a self-promoter, especially in the early new york years, and that his promotion of delius was merely a tool to further his own career (36). yet, in 1915 grainger was still establishing his own reputation. given delius’s relative anonymity in america, and the rather negative view many of those who were aware of him took of his cosmopolitanism, grainger must have genuinely believed in the worth of the music to risk his own career prospects on it. ultimately, while lowe’s and carley’s suggestions are as valid as any, as the campaign developed, there is evidence of a wider ideological motivation behind grainger’s efforts. while it is evident that grainger genuinely loved delius’s music, his categorical nordicist racism also clearly informed the way he encountered delius’s music. before grainger’s arrival in new york, delius was not considered a particularly significant composer. grainger wrote to delius in early 1915, laying out his plans for a promotional campaign in detail: of course it will everywhere be my plan to establish myself a solid favourite with the public before introducing your concerto, but as my success with the grieg concerto . . . was gorgeous i now consider new york ripe for the delius concerto, have suggested it to the philharmonic and am definitely booked to play it here on friday, nov 26. . . . i now wish to work on as much of a “delius campaign” as i can before i play the concerto for both our sakes, and shall write about you in the musical papers and do all i can in every way. (grainger 1915a) grainger’s approach to the dissemination of delius’s music in america was manifold. the new york press, no doubt aware of grainger’s international reputation as a pianist, and perhaps even of his successful performance of the delius concerto at the torquay festival in england the previous year, provided grainger’s first line of promotion, manipulating the press’s interest in himself to the advantage of delius. he told delius that “as my coming tour will be largely advertised in the musical papers here i think i shall have numerous chances of bringing your name forward again 36 current musicology and again” (grainger 1915a). along these lines, grainger asked delius to copy or rewrite and send back to him a letter to distribute to the press which read: “it is a great joy to me that it will be you who will introduce my piano concerto to america. your perfect performances of my work at the various festivals remain in my memory as singularly satisfying feats of true interpretive genius. i only wish i could be in new york to hear you do it! you are that rare phenominon [sic]; a musician who is equally great as a creator and as an executant.” could you write me this, or something similar (laying the jam on pretty thick as i have, as u.s.a needs this!) in a letter so that i could show it in your writing if need be? (grainger 1915a)5 in addition to attempting to influence the press in this manner, grainger also wrote to delius’s publishers requesting more scores be sent to the us and contacted many american conductors to introduce them to delius’s works. he was quickly able to report that both walter damrosch and leopold stokowski (the latter “a big bug here,” according to grainger) were eager to introduce more delius to the us public (grainger, 1915b). beyond these logistical considerations, november 1915 saw a proliferation of delius, as filtered through grainger, in new york. in all of grainger’s writing on delius, race and the natural landscape played a significant role in the way he framed his discussion, but the manner in which these themes are presented is often vague and sometimes contradictory. at this point grainger had not yet firmly established the specifically “nordicist” theories that would characterize his later writings. in a 1915 article in the musical quarterly, for example, grainger described delius as “the rarest and most precious musical genius of our age,” linking “the inspiration he received . . . in florida” with what he later describes as delius’s “superlative genius among ‘nature music’ composers.” citing as evidence delius’s use of african american song in appalachia, what he called “english peasant song” in brigg fair, and norwegian folk song in on hearing the first cuckoo in spring, grainger emphasizes the highly problematic, primitivist concept of folk-song as intrinsically linked to “nature” (grainger 1999a, 43). simultaneously, grainger was heavily quoted in daniel gregory mason’s program notes to walter damrosch and the new york symphony society’s performance of the two pieces for small orchestra: works grainger had introduced to the conductor in june that year (damrosch, 1915). again, grainger highlights the inspiration delius had taken from features of the natural landscape of norway, the river in france, and the english countryside. elsewhere, grainger specifically emphasized the influence of america 37 sarah kirby on delius, in many places attempting to present delius as an american himself, or at least a composer of american music. in these instances, he focused on themes inspired by the orange grove in florida that pervade many of delius’s compositions (themes like that of appalachia, which, as demonstrated above, first attracted grainger to delius’s music) (anderson, payne and carley, n.d.). in the musical courier in november 1915, writing of the delius piano concerto (1897, rev. 1906) that he was soon to perform, grainger argued that delius was composing truly american music, emphasizing what he felt to be the influence of african american music particularly present in the slow movement (grainger 1915c). in so strongly emphasizing delius as a product of america, grainger was clearly attempting to capitalize on a growing atmosphere of musical patriotism. in the week prior to this concert, henry edward krehbiel, a critic and writer with a particular interest in african american music (having in the previous year published a book on this topic), also published his abovementioned new york tribune article, discussing the influence of america on delius (grant 1998, 82). while krehbiel was undoubtedly attuned to the inclusion of african american themes, it is probable that much of his information was provided by grainger as part of these widespread promotional efforts.6 this article described the concerto as “in a two-fold sense an american document”: by its genesis in florida and by the inclusion of two distinctly american melodies. it seems that grainger’s attempts to situate the piano concerto within the discourse surrounding the search for a distinctive “american” music were unconvincing. this can be seen in the critical reception of the premiere, as reviewers unsuccessfully searched for audible american elements. it appears that most critics accepted the inclusion of african american music as integral to the conception of an “american music,” as had been articulated by many musical theorists well back into the previous century. examples of this can be seen in ralph waldo emerson’s 1837 essay “the american scholar,” which argues for an american cultural model that acknowledged “america’s own ethnic and racial diversity” (tibbets 1998, 346). similarly, discussions of white or european composers quoting african american folk song, much like in delius’s piano concerto, were ongoing in music circles for at least the previous two decades, since dvořák’s new world symphony and his famous statement of “a great and noble school of music” founded on “negro-melodies” that he had made in 1893 (peress 2004, 24). dvořák’s words, “which stirred bitter controversy . . . presented a sharp contrast to the prevailing social, political, and cultural attitudes in american society at the time,” which continued well into the twentieth century (snyder 1993, 129–30). yet, even krehbiel, in his tribune review of november 27 of that year, 38 current musicology while indeed noting the presence of a “habanera rhythm . . . we can well believe mr. delius picked up on his florida plantation,” was disappointed by the work overall, believing it to be “sadly invertebrate—lacking in continuity of architectural line and coherence of purpose,” and was unable to find any further tangible references to america. on the same day richard aldrich of the new york times voiced a fairly representative opinion when he wrote that there was nothing to describe as a “potent reminder of the negro influence.” the proliferation of references to landscape and nature in grainger’s writings on delius also had the unfortunate consequence of distracting the press from critically engaging with the music. in the case of the mood pictures program, one critic thanked grainger for the addition of “geographical data,” and most got sidetracked by grainger’s description of the bassoons mimicking the frogs on the river loing.7 as beckhard and gillespie have noted, critical coverage was diverted “into areas of geology and zoology. birds and frogs replaced musical substance” (gillespie and beckhard 1998, 79). despite the somewhat unfocused efforts of grainger to “place” delius’s music geographically, either in america or in a more general “natural” landscape, the trope of cosmopolitanism remained far more prominent in the reception of these 1915 concerts. there are numerous examples of critics referring to delius’s cosmopolitanism, and describing him at once as english, french, and german. there was also a clearly marked preoccupation with place and nationality in many of the reviews, but rarely in the way in which grainger intended. this is most strikingly demonstrated in an unsigned morning telegraph review of the piano concerto entitled “young australian pianist tires audience with yorkshire tschaikowsky’s concerto—why?”: percy grainger, the pianist, who has been literally acclaimed in new york, and deservedly so, not only as a costly exotic golden human chrysanthemum, but as a composer and pianist of striking merit, makes a serious error when he compromises the prosperity of his own appearances by foisting the compositions of his british compatriots upon us. yesterday it was delius of bradford, yorkshire, who spins music, much as the looms of his native town manufacture cloth, only the cloth can be worn, and misterherr delius does not wear. . . . oh! percy, percy, the hotspur of the piano: thou who hast redeemed the kangaroo from the reproach of a lack of creative imagination; thou who hast thrilled the hearts of the matrons of st. kilda, which is the suburb of the suburb of the universe: we gathered in our thousands to hear thee yesterday and thou didst hurl raw chunks of delius, the yorkshire-pudding tschaikowsky, at us.8 39 sarah kirby this review demonstrates a clear distrust of cosmopolitanism, emphasizing and undermining delius’s relationship to several different countries. firstly, this is done through repeated and unflattering references to the english county of yorkshire in which delius was born. this is compounded by a barb directed at delius’s german heritage in addressing him as “misterherr,” in a further demonstration of the anti-german sentiment that gillespie and beckhard argue was present in america at the time (1998, 89n65). grainger is also attacked in this review in terms of nationality in the critic’s open disparagement of australia. for example, st. kilda, an area of melbourne close to where grainger was born, was described as “the suburb of the suburb of the universe,” in a way intended to emphasize the parochial, colonial nature of australia. this reference plays on a quote from arthur wing pinero’s iris, in which england is described as a “land of money-worship, of cant and pharisaism, of false sentiment and namby pamby ideals, in every department of life, the suburb of the universe!” (hamilton 2013, 388). all of these comments show a preoccupation with individual nations and appear to overshadow in the critic’s mind any of the american influence that grainger had tried to emphasize. the “anglo-saxon” campaign while grainger’s delius campaign took a hiatus following his enlistment in the united states army in 1917, on his release in 1919 he carried on with his delius promotional efforts. this time these were presented under the guise of an explicit and newly formulated campaign for “anglo-saxon” music, which was based on theories of the american nordicist movement. as grainger’s ideas on race crystallized, this campaign took on an explicitly racist agenda, as his efforts expanded to promote all music that he believed could be classified within his own definition of “anglo-saxon” music. this campaign can be seen as rather self-serving, in that grainger was using the music of his friends not for their own individual artistic merits, but to present an aesthetic element to his own, quite idiosyncratic political and ideological viewpoint. however, grainger also seems to define the boundaries of his campaign around music he already liked and wanted to promote, rather than the rigid race categories espoused by grant, leading to some bizarre inclusions. for example, as described below, rather than eschewing music by african american composers from his campaign (as they did not fit within the traditional “anglo-saxon” categorization), he instead decided that african americans must in fact be composing “anglo-saxon” music. as gillies and pear state, what grainger gained from the american nordicist movement was “a simple framework for his racial thinking and 40 current musicology new racial terminology; beyond that, he tended to pick and choose what he found personally useful to justify his preferences, prejudices and inspirations” (gillies and pear 2007, 120). grainger’s application of these theories differed from the mainstream nordicism outlined above, as “he professed not to believe in the ‘magic of blood’ ” (harris 2000, 24). instead, he felt the local landscape to be most important in forming musical-racial traits, arguing that as a product of their environment “scandinavian and english speaking people have craved, above all things, plenty of elbow room for themselves” and that this was manifested musically in their composition (grainger 1999c, 115). here grainger diverts considerably from the eugenicist definitions of specific races (such as those espoused by grant, chamberlain, and stoddard). he believed, due to the influence of supposedly similar local and natural landscapes, that, for example, african american and polynesian people could also be regarded as “nordic” or “anglo saxon.” additionally, he considered the people of the whole of east asia to fall within a subset which he defined as “mongolian-nordic” (gillies and pear 2007, 122). this is perhaps the most striking example of grainger’s picking and choosing between different elements within various racist theories to justify his own individual musical preferences within his specific racial ideology. thus, it was common for grainger to include non-western musics among what he considered to be the highest forms of art (once describing the māori songs he had heard sung by cook islanders as a “treat equal to wagner” [barwell 2005, 7]) and to place works by african american composers such as nathaniel dett alongside those by composers who fit within mainstream nordic categorization (that is, from scandinavia, england, australia, and white north america) in programs during his campaign. the music and people who bore the brunt of grainger’s racism were of central and southern europe, fitting within the other two putative “european races” seen in opposition to the “nordic”—that is “alpine” and “mediterranean”—as they were described by grant. grainger was particularly critical of music of southern europe, describing a “ ‘gradual fading of loftiness into frivolousness’ as one moved from the nordic north to the mediterranean south” (gillies and pear 2007, 123). he had a particular hatred of austrian and italian music, for example, once claiming, in his idiosyncratic “blue-eyed english”9 that mozart’s music was “the heartless tonery that caused the french realm-clash ((revolution))10” (grainger 2006b, 207). by the mid-1940s he had developed a complex ranking system for particular composers and types of music, in which he placed mozart as the absolute worst, closely followed by german folksong and verdi (grainger 2006b, 205). oddly, he ranked delius somewhere in the middle, 41 sarah kirby and himself just below cyril scott, in equal ninth place with african american songs in arrangements by natalie curtis. much later in life, he also explicitly linked european music to migration, writing in 1953 that as a democratically minded and socialist australian (he often described australia as the “scandinavia of the south”) he felt about playing the music of chopin, haydn, mozart, and beethoven as he did about immigration of “inferior” races to australia (grainger 2006a, 172). in this respect, grainger’s racism clearly fit with the american zeitgeist, with sections of both public actions and government policy attacking many european groups. the early 1920s particularly saw many violent racist incidents, with the west frankfort riots targeting italians in illinois in 1920 as just one particularly striking example (ueda 1998, 143). the 1924 immigration act, cited above, also intensified this racism by placing restrictive quotas on migration from countries outside of britain, germany, and scandinavia, in what higham describes as the essential continuation of prewar ideological “trends” through systemic discrimination (1988, 266). the fact that “remarkably few” americans (excepting members of the groups being targeted) opposed this sort of policy indicated, as murrin et al. argue, “how broadly acceptable racism and nativism had become” at this time (2016, 659). at times, grainger also synonymously used the label “teuton” alongside “nordic” and “anglo-saxon” (as in his “nordic characteristics of music”), clearly taking on elements of houston stuart chamberlain’s 1899 die grundlagen des neunzehnten jahrhunderts that advocated that “the greatest minds in the world were teutonic” (pear 2000, 40). yet at the same time, he sometimes classed germans as amongst “the more southerly european races” (grainger 1999c, 115). this highlights the ambivalent position of germany in grainger’s campaign, and indeed, in grainger’s thinking more broadly. regardless of where grainger placed germans within his racial categories, the fact remained that the musical community in the united states during and following the first world war maintained a strong anti-german sentiment. this is demonstrated through programming by, for example, joseph stransky’s new york philharmonic, which in the prewar era programmed about 60 percent austro-germanic music. by 1917, only around 40 percent of their programming could be considered broadly german, and this was made up of entirely of works by canonical and long-dead composers. richard strauss, for example, while relatively popular pre-war, was dropped completely from programs, as he was still living and would have therefore been entitled to royalties, which could have been seen as providing financial support for the enemy (shanet 1975, 227–28). in the race politics of those who subscribed to american 42 current musicology nordicism, germany also did not fit: according to carl c. brigham’s a study of american intelligence, germany was only racially 40 percent “nordic,” but 60 percent “alpine” (pear 2000, 35). delius, who was certainly kept informed of the campaign’s progress (grainger regularly sent him copies of the articles he wrote and press clippings of reviews) and rarely commented on it with anything other than pleasure, was clearly aware of the effect an association with germany might have on his reception. it is telling that the only time throughout the whole campaign where he makes any explicit reference to his own nationality in corresponding with grainger is in relation to the use of the label “german.” in a letter to rose grainger in 1915, jelka delius wrote on behalf of her husband, “we are entirely disgusted with the behaviour of the germans. . . . fred is most anxious that percy should on no account proclaim him as an anglo-german. his feelings are and always have been entirely english” (delius 1915). delius was evidently thinking of his reputation during the war, and it has indeed been suggested that knowledge of his german parentage may have affected his reception in the us (he was occasionally referred to by his german name fritz in the american press) (gillespie and beckhard 1998, 89n65). delius, however, apparently held no ill will against germany more generally, reestablishing his relationship with his german publishers as little as three weeks after the armistice as though nothing had changed (delius 2007, 136–37) and continuing to visit throughout the 1920s. as the conductor alfred hertz wrote to grainger of delius in february 1916, “i suppose the poor fellow has to be a real cameleon [sic] during these war years. he never knew exactly what nationality he was, and it must be pretty hard for him now to balance between english, french and german” (hertz, 1916). grainger described what he believed to be the characteristics of “anglo-saxon” music in vague terms, listing the use of “solemn or spiritual” melodies that lacked ornaments, long passages of sustained notes, “gapped scales,” and a focus on harmonic or polyphonic complexity in contrast to the “mediterranean” tradition that he felt comprised “nervous excitable florid tunes with quickly fluctuating notes, closely filled-up scales and a tendency to seek surface complexity in technical passage-work and vocal coloratura” (grainger 1933). it hardly needs to be said that few of these characteristics hold up to close examination. as amanda harris has shown, while grainger identified sliding chromatic notes as “characteristic of nordic composers’ attempts to include sounds heard in nature in their music,” the example of chromatically sliding notes in delius’s north country sketches given by grainger makes the melody appear “less ‘gapped’ than ‘closely filled-up’ ” (harris 2000, 28). 43 sarah kirby through a series of lectures and articles given in the 1920s grainger racialized the use of references to nature in music, suggesting these were the domain of the “nordic” composer, using delius as his most common example, alongside his own work and that of grieg, macdowell, and cyril scott. grainger suggested that “no other racial group has been so consistently inspired to write music about the elements and about rivers, mountains and plains as we have” (1933, 264), although much of his argument appears to come from programmatic titles of works rather than extended musical analysis. he wrote: “we are not sentimentalizing unduly when we say that typical nordic music is the voice of the wide open spaces, the soul of virgin nature made manifest in sound, and this is as true of our greatest art music (such as the song of the high hills, by frederick delius) as it is of our most primitive folksongs” (grainger 1933, 261). he contrasted this with the gallic composers (namely, debussy and ravel) who “paint the charms of fountains, of gardens, of temples, or semiurban scenes, of life where man’s hand and mind has left its impress” (grainger 1999b, 135). (this does lead one to wonder where he would place delius’s paris in all of this.) throughout these lectures and articles, grainger employs delius’s apparent cosmopolitanism to his own campaign’s ends. by sometimes emphasizing delius’s ties to several different nations and supposed racial groups—or those things that made his cosmopolitan label applicable— grainger could demonstrate what he believed to be the direct impact of the natural landscape on his imagined musical-racial characteristics. race, as he saw it, like nature, transcended both place and “blood.” he wrote, “the most truly english . . . one of the most truly nordic composers is frederick delius. yet he is, i believe, partly jewish of race. . . . it seems local influences are more potent in determining artistic type than is blood,” specifically citing delius’s long stretches in norway as the most influential to his composition (grainger 1999b). it should be noted that grainger, also a notorious anti-semite, developed something of an obsession with describing delius as jewish, or partly jewish, in his later life, despite the fact that there is no evidence that he was (grainger 2006, 150). as gillies and pear note, by the 1950s, grainger was becoming “particularly vexed” by the fact the he “actually liked” music composed by people who he believed to be jewish (2007, 121). it is possible that the way in which grainger emphasized the influence of an external environment on racial characteristics was an argument he felt necessary to justify his own identity as a “nordic” or “anglo-saxon.” he thought of himself as a “genetic flaw” that had “contaminated his mother’s nordic line” due to his “father’s ‘dark-eyed,’ ‘southern mediterranean’ background” (pear 2000, 28). this demonstrates 44 current musicology how deeply grainger’s ideas of race were steeped in the eugenic project. his irish father, simply by virtue of his dark-coloured eyes, was classified as “southern mediterranean.” in concert practice, grainger’s “anglo-saxon” campaign began with two monumental events in which he conducted the bridgeport oratorio society. the first of these was held on april 28, 1924 in bridgeport, connecticut, and the second two days later at carnegie hall. here, grainger presented the us premieres of delius’s north country sketches (1913–14) and song of the high hills (1911–12). grainger had written of these concerts to cecil sharp: this is the beginning of what i hope to be a long and lasting campaign for the spread of anglo saxon music not only in america but also in europe in later seasons. it was always my mother’s idea and mine that i should some day earn enough money to be able to do for other composers somewhat what liszt did in his day. (grainger 1994, 67) the campaign is clearly demonstrated in the repertoire choices grainger made, including several of his own works, two psalms from grieg’s op. 74 (1906), and rachmaninoff ’s vsenoshchnoye bdeniye (1915, known colloquially as two songs of the church). gillespie and beckhard (1998) describe this as the event “probably responsible for halting lagging interest in delius’s music in america after world war i” (89). however, while this concert was, as a whole, well received (gillespie and beckhard describe the carnegie hall concert as “receiving unanimous critical praise”), the delius works received almost universal negative press, particularly in new york (kirby 2015, 39–50). the extravagant program notes grainger provided for the two works by delius were filled with descriptions of “alpine nature in all its virgin austerity” and the gentle “more domesticated scenes of northumbria,” emphasizing the continuity nature provided to a composer “unusually cosmopolitan in his affinities, divorced alike from modernistic and anti-modernistic limitations.” in reception, once again the explicit references to specific features of the natural landscape tended to distract critics from engaging with the music more thoroughly. though one critic in the bridgeport times of april 29 thought delius “makes one think of all kinds of outdoor things,” the critic felt that, without grainger’s program notes, “the average concert attendant would not have understood” these references. in new york, the song of the high hills was described, “with its succession of four climaxes,” as reminding critic frank warren of the evening world on may 1 “of the duke of york, who led his army up the hill and led them down again.” similarly the north country sketches were found by w. j. henderson in the 45 sarah kirby sun on the same day to be “chromatically discursive observations . . . on the seasons in northern england [that] did not inspire confidence that they would survive the chill of last evening.” however, despite negative reviews, grainger continued his “anglosaxon” efforts unabated, combining his ideological writing and concert programming through a series of lecture-recitals on “anglo-saxon music” given between 1924 and 1926, some of which were also broadcast over local radio. through these lecture-recitals grainger made concerted attempts to present works by “anglo-saxon” composers including cyril scott, henry balfour gardiner, and herman sandby (whose identities as categorically british or scandinavian fit with far less manipulation into the “nordic” ideal), and, importantly, american composers john alden carpenter, leo sowerby, and natalie curtis. delius’s dance rhapsody (in grainger’s own two-piano arrangement) was performed numerous times throughout 1924, 1925, and 1926, in programs that also contained, among other “anglosaxon” works, carpenter’s concertino for piano and orchestra (arranged for two pianos), and a grainger arrangement of curtis’s group of negro spirituals—a work that could be deemed “anglo-saxon” by grainger’s standards twice over, with curtis being american and grainger’s categorization of african american music as “nordic.” these lecture-recitals were given in a number of cities across the northern part of the united states including new york; chicago; st. paul, minnesota; and spokane, washington. here, grainger framed his campaign for promoting “anglo-saxon” music in association with the movement championing american composition. much as the now widespread nordicist movement saw north america and northern europe as racially unified, grainger hoped audiences would see music of the “anglo-saxon” world as a logical extension to their american tradition—a tradition he described as “typically nordic” with its depictions of “virgin nature.” for example, grainger repeatedly described carpenter’s concertino (1920) as inspired by the mississippi, while conveniently ignoring his more recent ballet skyscrapers (1923–24) (grainger 1999b, 134–35). there is a perceptible shift in the reception of grainger’s efforts, including the presentation of works by delius from around this time. american nordicism reached its political peak in 1924–25 with the new york eugenics conferences and restrictive immigration act, and the movement maintained momentum for some time (higson 1988, 327). it is at this point that critics generally begin to accept grainger’s argument for the promotion of an apparently discrete “anglo-saxon” musical tradition. the “anglo-saxon” lecture-recitals were generally received very well, with one performance at the schubert club of schenectady, new york on april 16, 1926 prompting the suggestion in the schenectady gazette that the town should institute an 46 current musicology annual grainger festival. in the same review, the critic appears to accept grainger’s justification for the “anglo-saxon” campaign, conflating composition by american composers with grainger’s racial labels. the critic explains that all programs should include at least one anglo-saxon work, “not for exaggerated patriotism, but for the same reason that no program would be given in paris without a french composition or in berlin without a german number,” concluding that “the hearing of american works is the only way to come to a real appreciation of them.” this acceptance can be seen across the country, with, for example, the spokane review of november 4, 1924 reporting that the label “anglo-saxon should include the american and the english composers, as german and austrians had been grouped.” the shift in the reception of delius’s music particularly can be seen most dramatically in the us premiere of the cello concerto (1920–21) in december 1925, conducted by grainger in new york’s aeolian hall in another “anglo-saxon” concert. the program also contained herman sandby’s havstemning (or sea mood, 1921), grieg’s songs for male voices (1863), balfour gardiner’s shepherd fennel’s dance (premiered 1911), natalie curtis’s arrangement of “four negro folk songs” (1918–19), and leo sowerby’s piano concerto (1916, rev. 1919). grainger’s program notes for this concert focus particularly on the musical depictions of landscape and nature in the grieg, sandby, and gardiner, and, while speaking little of delius’s works alone, emphasize the apparent similarities between all the works. in this context, the cello concerto was perceptibly better received, described in the musical courier of january 9, 1926 as a work that would “repay further hearings because of its individuality, its poetic sincerity and its moments of melodic beauty. it is a subjective and rather contemplative rhapsody in one movement, with occasional flights of exaltation.” grainger seems to have finally hit upon the right balance in his presentation of these works to elicit a positive response from the musical press. the critical consensus was that the american works were important, but that the entire program was worthwhile. grainger, now an american citizen, was showing “his loyalty,” to quote the sun of december 30, 1925, “by making constant propaganda for not only english and scandinavian but american composers as well.” this generally positive, if subdued, response to delius continued through the rest of the campaign, where even repeat performances of the rather problematic piano concerto found a largely sympathetic audience. * * * as i have shown, grainger manipulated the presentation of delius and his music in america to deliberate political and, ultimately, strikingly racist 47 sarah kirby ends. in writing, lecturing, and curating concert programs, grainger specifically used the location of composition and musical allusions to nature and landscape that appear in many of delius’s works to reinforce his idea of musical “nordicism” or “anglo-saxonism.” while grainger may not have achieved his initial goal—to establish delius “as one of the greatest of the greatest”—he was able to provide opportunities for the american public to hear and engage with his music. at first unsuccessful in his certainly energetic but equally scattered attempts to present delius as a composer of “american” and “nature” music, by racializing some of the musical and programmatic content of delius’s compositions, grainger’s later efforts provided critics with a new framework within which to view his music. by situating him within the same “anglo-saxon” or “nordic” field as local american composers and drawing out their (sometimes tenuous) similarities in inspiration, grainger could both exploit the “almost desperate search for a ‘great american composer’ ” that had regained momentum during the 1920s (dupree 1983, 305) as well as capitalize on the extraordinary racism of the american nordicist movement that was gaining traction in the wider sociopolitical sphere. the prevalence of the critical trope of cosmopolitanism in the discussion and reception of delius in the early part of the campaign was initially a hindrance to grainger’s attempts to promote delius as a composer of “american” music. critics’ perceptions of delius’s persona and music were often colored by his reputation as a european cosmopolitan as well as a marked distrust of this “rootlessness.” yet it was, ironically, this very perception of delius’s cosmopolitanism that would ultimately facilitate grainger’s later campaign. firstly, grainger would not have been able to present delius as the paradigmatic “anglo-saxon” if delius already had an established national or compositional allegiance (say, one founded on his german heritage or french residence—groups decidedly not within grainger’s nordic ideal, but arguably holding equally valid claims on his compositional and personal identity). secondly, grainger was able to use delius—with his multinational background and sea of influences—as an example of what he saw as the overarching impact of race and the natural landscape on a common compositional output. while it is clear that grainger genuinely cared for and loved delius’s music, and did sincerely want to help his music thrive in the us, this aim became secondary to his overarching racist objective to promote music he considered “anglosaxon” or “nordic.” notes i would like to thank stewart manville and barry ould of the percy grainger society for granting permission to quote from previously unpublished letters from the grainger mu48 current musicology seum at the university of melbourne, australia. i would also like to thank kerry murphy, sarah collins, and the two anonymous readers for their feedback. shorter versions of this article were presented at the music history and cosmopolitanism conference at helsinki, 2016 and rethinking delius: a critical symposium at the british library in london, 2016 and i am grateful for the feedback i received at these. 1. grainger’s distinctive spellings and use of punctuation have been retained throughout. his liberal use of underlining for emphasis has been represented in italic. additionally, occasional instances of his eccentric “blue-eyed english” appear (see footnote 9). where quotations have been found in secondary sources, the editorial decisions made in those publications have also been retained. for more information on the idiosyncrasies of grainger’s writing, see dreyfus (1985, xviii–xxi). 2. a similar example could be given in john powell (1882–1963), also a pianist and racialist making a public case for the promotion of anglo-saxon folk song (see frogley 2007, 254–56), however he appears not to have had such a complete and manifest agenda in the same way as grainger. 3. nordicism, in the form of the racial theories postulated in the united states by grant and others, is here considered as distinct from the form of national identity within the nordic countries that reached its political peak in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. for discussion of music and nordic identity, particularly in relation to nature and landscape in the music of grieg in norway, sibelius in finland, and nielsen in denmark, see the work of daniel grimley, particularly grieg: music, landscape and norwegian identity (2006), “‘tonality, clarity, strength’: gesture, form, and nordic identity in carl nielsen’s piano music” (2005), and the edited collection jean sibelius and his world (2011). 4. an outline of their friendship is given in varying levels of detail by lionel carley in his chapter in the percy grainger companion (1981), christopher palmer’s music and letters article “delius and percy grainger” (1971), and rachel lowe’s preface to the a descriptive catalogue with checklists of the letters and related documents in the delius collection of the grainger museum, university of melbourne, australia (1981). 5. delius, in fact, had never heard grainger perform the concerto; however, a letter of this nature from delius (lacking the sycophantic tone of grainger’s original, and much truer to delius’s writing style) was published in several new york newspapers in the week preceding the concert. 6. while no correspondence between them has so far been found, there are letters of a familiar tone between rose grainger and krehbiel’s wife which predate this concert in the grainger museum. 7. this work goes by a number of different titles. often referred to in the press as the mood pictures, it is also known as the two pieces for small orchestra, or by the names of the two pieces “on hearing the first cuckoo in spring” (1912) and “summer night on the river” (1911), which are performed both independently and as a pair. 8. the “human chrysanthemum” reference draws a comparison between grainger and polish pianist ignaz paderewski, alluding to their fair and unruly hair. the maitland daily mercury quotes some of the “transatlantic gush about paderewski: ‘the peerless pole-star of the pianistic firmament;’ ‘the tawny tyrant of the keyboard;’ ‘the champion ivory-spanker;’ and ‘the human chrysanthemum,’ ” in “items of interest,” february 7, 1894, 3. 9. “blue-eyed english” was the title given by grainger to a language he constructed as a result of his belief that english had been “weakened by the uncritical adaptation of words of foreign derivation” (dreyfus 1985, xx) and his consequent “desire to purge english of 49 sarah kirby mediterranean, particularly latin, influences” (gillies and pear, n.d.). he began to substitute words he believed to be of “foreign derivation” for ones he felt were closer to the anglosaxon origins of english. for example, “conductor” becomes “band-boss,” and “museum” becomes “hoard-house.” (this also extended into his composition: “molto crescendo,” for example, becomes “louden lots.”) 10. when writing in “blue-eyed english,” grainger often provides the more common english version of a word in double brackets following a “blue-eyed” term in order to make his meaning clear. references anderson, robert, anthony payne, and lionel carley. n.d. “delius, frederick.” grove music online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.49095. barwell, graeme. 2005. “percy grainger and the early collecting of polynesian music.” journal of new zealand studies 2–3: 1–17. bird, john. 1998. percy grainger. sydney: currency press. boyle, andrew. 2017. delius and norway. woodbridge: boydell press. burger, johannes hendrikus. 2011. “max nordau, madison grant, and racialized theories of ideology.” journal of the history of ideas 72 (1): 119–40. carley, lionel. 1981. “impulsive friend: grainger and delius.” in the percy grainger companion, edited by lewis foreman, 31–50. london: thames publishing. carley, lionel, ed. 1998. frederick delius: music, art, and literature. aldershot, uk: ashgate. collins, sarah. 2015. “the composer as ‘good european’: musical modernism, amor fati and the cosmopolitanism of frederick delius.” twentieth-century music 12 (1): 97–123. covell, roger. 2010. “an australian composer?” in the new percy grainger companion, edited by penelope thwaites, 140–48. woodbridge: boydell. damrosch, waler. 1915. letter (holograph) to percy grainger, june 12, 1915. reg. no. 02.004, grainger museum, university of melbourne, australia (gm). decker, jeffry louis. 1994. “gatsby’s pristine dream: the diminishment of the self-made man in the tribal twenties.” novel: a forum on fiction 28 (1): 52–71. delius, jelka. 1915. letter (holograph) to rose grainger, may 13, 1915. reg. no. 02.0115, gm. delius, frederick. 1917. letter (holograph) to percy grainger, june 23, 1917. reg. no. 02.0115, gm. delius, frederick. 1986. delius: a life in letters, 1909–1934, edited by lionel carley. aldershot, uk: scolar press. delius, frederick. 2007. music and copyright: the case of delius and his publishers. edited by robert montgomery and robert threlfall. aldershot, uk: ashgate. dibble, jeremy. 2015. “frederick delius – the cosmopolitan composer.” gramophone. http:// www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/frederick-delius-%e2%80%93-the-cosmopolitancomposer. dreyfus, kay. 1985. “editor’s note.” in the farthest north of humanness: letters of percy grainger 1901–14, xviii–xxi. south melbourne, vic.: macmillan. dupree, mary herron. 1983. “the failure of american music: the critical view from the 1920s.” the journal of musicology 2 (3): 305–15. frogley, alain. 2007. “‘the old sweet anglo-saxon spell’: racial discourses and the american reception of british music, 1895–1933.” in western music and race, edited by julie brown, 244–57. cambridge: cambridge university press. gienow-hecht, jessica c.e. 2009. sound diplomacy: music and emotions in transatlantic 50 current musicology relations, 1850–1920. chicago: university of chicago press. gillespie, don and robert beckhard. 1998. “on hearing the first delius in america: critical reaction to frederick delius’s music in the united states 1909–1920.” in frederick delius: music, art, and literature, edited by lionel carley, 57–98. aldershot, uk: ashgate. gillies, malcolm, and david pear. n.d. “grainger, (george) percy.” grove music online. https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.11596. gillies, malcolm, and david pear. 2007. “percy grainger and american nordicism.” in western music and race, edited by julie brown, 115–124. cambridge: cambridge university press. gooley, dana. 2013. “cosmopolitanism in the age of nationalism, 1848–1914.” journal of the american musicological society 66 (2): 523–549. grainger, percy. 1907. letter (holograph) to karen holten, april 16–21, 1907. w21-59, bay 5: box 34, gm. grainger, percy. 1914a. letter (holograph) to frederick delius, november 11, 1914. reg. no. 02.0114, gm. grainger, percy. 1914b. letter (holograph) to frederick delius, april 26, 1914. reg. no. 02.0114, gm. grainger, percy. 1915a. letter (holograph) to frederick delius, april 18, 1915. reg. no. 02.0114, gm. grainger, percy. 1915b. letter (holograph) to frederick delius, august 18, 1915. reg. no. 02.0114, gm. grainger, percy. 1915c. “the genius of frederick delius.” musical courier, november 18, 1915. grainger, percy. 1915d. letter (holograph) to frederick delius, june 19, 1915. reg. no. 02.0114, gm. grainger, percy. 1917. letter (holograph) to frederick delius, june 4, 1917. reg. no. 02.0114, gm. grainger, percy. 1930a. letter to mrs. james f. d. lanier (née harriet bishop), april 13, 1930. reg. no. 02.0508, gm grainger, percy. 1933. “characteristics of nordic music.” broadcast wevd, july 4, 1933. reg no. 03.2011, gm. grainger, percy. 1943. letter (holograph) to martha richmond, september 23, 1943. reg. no. 02.0109, gm. grainger, percy. 1976. “the personality of frederick delius.” australian musical news 24 (12) [1934]. reprinted in a delius companion, edited by christopher redwood, 117– 29. london: j. calder. grainger, percy. 1985. the farthest north of humanness: letters of percy grainger 1901–14, edited by kay dreyfus. south melbourne: macmillan. grainger, percy. 1994. the all-round man: selected letters of percy grainger, 1914–1961. edited by malcolm gillies and david pear. oxford: clarendon press. grainger, percy. 1999a. “the impress of personality in unwritten music.” musical quarterly [1915]: 416–435. reprinted in grainger on music, edited by malcolm gillies and bruce clunies ross, 43–64. oxford: oxford university press. grainger, percy. 1999b. “nordic characteristics in music.” typescript, march 5, 1921, gm, for yale university lecture, march 6, 1921. reprinted in grainger on music, edited by malcolm gillies and bruce clunies ross, 131–42. oxford: oxford university press. grainger, percy. 1999c. “the influence of anglo-saxon folk music.” evening post, october 30, 1920. a condensed version of grainger’s longer lecture entitled “the potential influence of anglo-saxon folk music upon art music” presented in portland, maine, on 51 sarah kirby october 4, 1920. reprinted in grainger on music, edited by malcolm gillies and bruce clunies ross, 113–20. oxford: oxford university press. grainger, percy. 2006a. “things i dislike.” reprinted in self-portrait of percy grainger, edited by malcolm gillies, david pear, and mark carrol. new york: oxford university press. grainger, percy. 2006b. “a world-wide tone-wright ((composer)) guild (1945).” reprinted in self-portrait of percy grainger, edited by malcolm gillies, david pear, and mark carrol. new york: oxford university press. grainger, percy. 2006c. “why ‘my wretched tone-life’? (1953).” reprinted in self-portrait of percy grainger, edited by malcolm gillies, david pear, and mark carrol. new york: oxford university press. grimley, daniel m. 2005. “‘tonality, clarity, strength’: gesture, form, and nordic identity in carl nielsen’s piano music.” music and letters 86 (2): 202–33. grimley, daniel m. 2006. grieg: music, landscape and norwegian identity. woodbridge: boydell. grimley, daniel m., ed. 2011. jean sibelius and his world. princeton: princeton university press. hamilton, clayton. 2013. social plays of arthur wing pinero. london: forgotten books. harris, amanda. 2000. “the nature of nordicism: grainger’s ‘blue-gold-rosy-race’ and his music.” musicology australia 23 (1): 19–48. hertz, alfred. 1916. letter (holograph) to percy grainger, february 14, 1916. reg. no. 12.0042, gm. higham, john. 1988. strangers in the land: patterns of american nativism, 1860–1925. new brunswick, nj: rutgers university press. horowitz, joseph. 1995. “dvořák and the new world.” in the post-classical predicament: essays on music and society, 58–74. boston: northeastern university press. kirby, catherine sarah. 2015. “percy grainger’s promotion of delius in the usa: part two.” delius society journal 158: 39–50. lee-browne, martin, and paul guinery. 2014. delius and his music. woodbridge: boydell press. levy, alan howard. 1983. musical nationalism: american composers’ search for identity. westport, ct: greenwood press. lowe, rachel. 1981. “preface, concerning the friendship of frederick delius (1862–1934) and percy grainger (1882–1961).” in a descriptive catalogue with checklists of the letters and related documents in the delius collection of the grainger museum, university of melbourne, australia. london: delius trust. murrin, john, pekka hämäläinen, paul johnson, denver brunsman, james mcpherson, alice fahs, gary gerstle, emily rosenberg, and norman rosenberg. 2016. liberty, equality, power: a history of the american people, vol. 2. boston: cengage. newman, ernest. 2008. “his country at last claims delius.” new york times magazine, march 16, 1930. reprinted in delius society journal 143: 105–11. oja, carol j. 1994. “gershwin and american modernists of the 1920s.” musical quarterly 78 (4): 646–68. palmer, christopher. 1971. “delius and percy grainger.” music and letters 52 (4): 418–25. palmer, christopher. 1976. delius: portrait of a cosmopolitan. london: duckworth. pear, david. 2000. “grainger on race and nation.” australasian music research 5: 25–47. peress, maurice. 2004. dvořák to duke ellington: a conductor explores america’s music and its african american roots. oxford; new york: oxford university press. preston, katharine. 2013. “opera is elite/opera is nationalist: cosmopolitan views of opera reception in the united states, 1870–90.” journal of the american musicological 52 current musicology society 66 (2): 535–39. shanet, howard. 1975. philharmonic: a history of new york’s orchestra. new york: doubleday. snyder, jean e. 1993. “‘a great and noble school of music’: dvořák, harry t. burleigh, and the african american spiritual.” in dvořák in america: 1892–1895, edited by john c. tibbetts, 123–48. portland, or: amadeus. stokes, martin. 2007. “on musical cosmopolitanism.” the macalester international roundtable 2007. paper 3. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/intlrdtable/3. stradling, robert. 1989. “on shearing the black sheep in spring: the repatriation of frederick delius.” in music and the politics of culture, edited by christopher norris, 69–105. london: lawrence and wishart. taruskin, richard. 2011. “non-nationalists and other nationalists.” 19th-century music 35 (2): 132–43. tibbetts, john c. 1998. “the missing title page: dvořák and the american national song.” in music and culture in america, 1861–1918, edited by michael saffle, 343–65. new york: garland. ueda, reed. 1998. “status changes and ethnic conflict in twentieth-century america.” in nationalism and violence, edited by christopher dandeker, 139–69. london: transaction. randall sandke. 2010. where the dark and light folks meet: race and the mythology, politics and business of jazz. lanham, md: scarecrow press. reviewed by mark c. gridley randall sandke has written a new jazz history book. but it is not the usual jazz history. rather than offering decade-by-decade accounts of different jazz styles, where the dark and light folks meet offers facts that differ from popular understanding of the origins of jazz styles. it presents fresh perspec­ tives on the ways that the music industry in the united states has treated jazz. like other jazz histories, this one addresses the origins of jazz in new orleans, what in the music is retained from africa, the origins of modern jazz, and recent trends in jazz styles. but this volume overturns common wisdom about these topics. instead of recounting traditional notions about jazz history, sandke raises crucial questions about how jazz history has been told: what are the dangers of combining the telling of history with social activism? how have both black and white jazz musicians been negatively affected by stereotypes? are the rhythmic approaches of jazz and african music fundamentally the same? was the music in new orleans' congo square a decisive influence on jazz? did jim crow laws actually affect the creation of jazz? when did white musicians begin playing jazz in new orleans? did big business dominate the jazz world in the past thirty years? where the dark and light folks meet provides behind-the-scenes glimpses into the business of the jazz world, touching on audiences and presenters, studio work, copyrights, agents and managers, and the decline of major record companies in the age of the internet. sandke's history of jazz is based on voluminous research, much of which is fresh. instead of merely repeating the accounts of the best-known jazz historians, sandke highlights their errors. instead of celebrating the thinking of prominent jazz journalists, he identifies their biases. where the dark and light folks meet boldly attacks jazz critics, and, quite understandably, jazz critics have attacked the book for this. in order to dispel misconceptions about jazz history and the music busi­ ness, where the dark and light folks meet culls materials from more than three hundred written sources. the author also draws upon twenty-eight fresh interviews that he conducted and eighteen oral history interviews at the hogan jazz archive at tulane university. offering an account of percep­ tions of race effects in jazz by the press, the public, and the business world, sandke's immense collection of research data overturns the belief that jazz current musicology, no. 92 (fail20ll) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 125 126 current musicology is solely an african-american creation. instead, the author demonstrates how a continuous interaction has always existed among heterogeneous musical sources. sandke is a working musician with comprehensive playing experience on the jazz scene since the 1980s. he has played trumpet in traditional early jazz, bebop, post-bop, and jazz-rock fusion bands, as well as performing in broadway pit orchestras and on numerous film soundtracks. he is also a distinguished composer, and he has written an innovative music theory textbook. 1 yet, where the dark and light folks meet is not written primarily from the perspective of a working musician. it is informed instead by the standards of academic scholarship. the choice of sources does not appear to reflect a racial bias, although the author is white. many of the experts sandke quotes are african americans, for example, william julius wilson (author of the declining significance of race, 1978), thomas sowell (author of black rednecks and white liberals, 2005), shelby steele (social commentator and author of harper's article "the age of white guilt and the disappearance of the black individual;' november 2002), jazz trumpeters nicholas payton and terrence blanchard, and jazz bassist christian mcbride. in fact, the literature review here constitutes a major contribution to jazz historiography. the research displayed in each chapter could constitute a journal article, yet the writing is clear enough that the book might appeal to a lay audience. additionally, the book might serve as a supplement in any jazz history course that covers business and social aspects of the music, and it should prove to be a welcome addition to the bookshelf of those who teach jazz history and appreciation courses. where the dark and light folks meet is a multi-purpose work. it is an account of jazz history within the us music industry. it demonstrates how the early accounts of the music's evolution have biased popular perceptions of its musical advances while serving to promote the social and political agendas of its chroniclers. sandke writes: i want to see music judged on its own terms, free of external considerations ... one view of history paints jazz as restricted, limited, conditioned by the evils of segregation-a cultural expression so ingrained in the black experience that whites can barely fathom its true meaning. the other view, the one presented in this book, places jazz squarely within the mainstream of american culture, even though it was created and in large part creatively driven by blacks. as a living art form, jazz is open to anyone with something personal and unique to contribute. (10) in reviews of this book on the blogosphere and discussions in college classrooms, some readers have been distracted by elements in sandke's research data that they do not like. unfortunately, this has led them to miss mark c. gridley the importance of the rest. additionally, a few readers have felt that sandke diminishes the role of african americans in jazz by presenting evidence of non-african-american contributions to jazz. earlier writings about jazz history may have biased their presentations in favor of african-american musicians, and sandke's attempts to offset this have given some readers the impression that he is skewing the evidence in the opposite direction. however, such interpretations are not warranted. sandke does not intend to lessen the pride that african americans should have for their culture's contributions. a goal ofsandke's labors is to stimulate readers to think in new ways about jazz mythology and the racial divide. the enormity of sandke's research invites in-depth study. jazz in the us music business sandke presents a fascinating history of the american music industry's treatment of jazz. he separates facts from misconceptions by drawing upon forty-six interviews and numerous documents of salaries and sales figures. from the large amount of data that he amasses we can conclude that some of the neglect and mistreatment experienced by jazz can be attributed to conventions that favor commerce over creativity. interestingly, sandke's data shows that racism played less a part in this than we had been led to believe by previous writers. overlooked white contributions to jazz the book reminds us about european and anglo-american contributions to jazz that have been missing from some jazz histories. sandke clearly states that jazz has been primarily the product of african-american musicians, but he also identifies important traits that derived from non-african and non-african-american sources. he emphasizes numerous interactions that contributed to different jazz styles throughout the music's history. to give an example of the extensive training in european classical music that many jazz musicians had, sandke cites african-american pianist james p. johnson, who became known as the father of stride piano style. johnson studied for four years with european american bruto giannini and incorporated concert effects he learned from giannini into blues and rags. african-american saxophonists lester young, buddy tate, benny carter, and marshall royal all cited white saxophonist frankie trumbauer as an influence on their own improvisations. discussing coleman hawkins, the greatest pre-modern tenor saxophone improviser, sandke notes that he "started out on the cello and later practiced the bach cello suites on his tenor 127 1 :28 current musicology sax:' he continues, "this not only helped develop technique on the horn, but also provided him with valuable lessons in harmony and voice leading. he once advised aspiring jazz musicians, 'do what i do every day. i spend at least two hours every day listening to johann sebastian bach, and man, it's all there'" (89). in chapter 3 sandke offers a significant insight regarding sources for several outstanding harmonic characteristics of bebop: the melody and harmony of "fine and dandy" and "time on my hands" emphasize upper intervals ... "between the devil and deep blue sea" and "out of nowhere" feature unusual harmonic shifts (f to a going to the bridge in "devil;' and g to e-flat in the opening bars of "nowhere"). half-diminished chords are found in ''april in paris" and "yesterdays" ... hoagy carmichael's "ballad in blue" is a study in chromatic alterations. (61) this is to say that some of what leroi jones, gunther schuller, and martin williams had attributed to charlie parker, dizzy gillespie, and thelonious monk had already been readily available in american pop music (61). taking issue with some contentions of journalist albert murray (1978:205), sandke writes: it wasn't the "traditional folk-type blues strain" that inspired gillespie, parker, and monk to veer off in another direction ... to me it is obvi0us that these musicians worked diligently to come to terms with the harmonic implications of the pop tunes of their day, and develop a way of improvising in which all the harmonic nuances found in these tunes could be brought out. (60) it is important to keep in mind that sandke is not diminishing the genius of bebop's founders by citing pop tune precedents for harmonic characteristics of bebop. he is merely reminding us that, like all jazz, bebop drew from a variety of sources. in identifying pop tune materials used in bebop sandke is simply fleshing out our knowledge of the ingenuity that was crucial to bebop's origins. sandke points out other non-african-american sources, observing that saxophonist-composer-bandleader john coltrane "was fascinated with bartok's use of quartal harmony, which he and pianist mccoy tyner developed along with their own improvisational language" (89). sandke also could have mentioned the influence of twentieth-century european music in african-american pianist-composer mary lou williams' zodiac suite and the study of scores by twentieth-century european composers as part of the salon that she conducted for jazz musicians at her apartment in new york city during the 1940s. in addition, sandke could have mentioned the influence of ravel's and debussy's harmonic concepts on the innovative mark c. gridley style of white jazz pianist bill evans and their subsequent influence on african american pianist herbie hancock by way of evans. in chapter 4 sandke reports that "in 1958 the ford foundation provided funds to tape record interviews with all the surviving figures of the early new orleans jazz scene, both black and white. this source brings us as close as we're likely to get to resolving the many mysteries surrounding the creation of jazz" (80). but a serious methodological flaw pervaded the interviews. as sandke notes, "[the interviewers'] questions varied significantly depending on the race of the person interviewed. white musicians were consistently asked about their early exposure to black bands, but black musicians were not similarly questioned. thus that direction of influence was not explored, though it does occasionally surface in asides and digressions" (81). such a discovery is groundbreaking because it reveals that the interviewers already had their minds made up before they began asking about the origins of jazz. it would seem that the interviewers neglected to ask black musicians what they had learned from white musicians because the interviewers presumed that jazz had solely african-american origins. against this a priori judg­ ment, sandke mounts evidence that indicates considerable interaction among musicians of the various cultures in new orleans during the birth of jazz (85-86; 97). journalists who hold racially exclusionist positions come under con­ siderable fire in sandke's book. in chapter 4, sandke writes, "by stressing the insularity of black culture, many inconvenient truths are swept under the ideological rug. white participation in jazz is viewed with suspicion, and obvious connections between jazz and mainstream american culture or the western artistic tradition are downplayed if not simply ignored" (71). in order to counter such positions, sandke quotes early new orleans trumpeter wingy manone's (b. 1904) explanation of the racial situation in the earliest days of new orleans jazz: it was all mixed up there. buddy petit, sidney bechet, freddie keppard, bunk johnson, nick larocca, the bigards ... we were all in one area. the musicians listened to each other, and sometimes played together in parades ... the young jazz musicians listened to everyone who came up who could play, white or colored. (86) sandke also cites louisiana historian jerah johnson's summary of this situa­ tion: "jazz had its origins not in segregation, but in the assimilative tradition of easy interaction of peoples that prevailed in new orleans" (54).2 sandke reiterates the components of that fusion because a few recent writers seem to have overlooked them. 129 130 current musicology addressing frank kofsky's contentions that african americans possess "sophisticated rhythmic sensibility" (98) and that "whites just aren't able to play the music very well;' sandke writes: if we accept the common stereotype, it's hard to explain why duke ellington and count basie hired so many white drummers, including louie bellson, buddy rich, dave black, ed shaughnessy, jake hanna, steve little, butch miles, greg fields, duffy jackson, and ed metz, jr., among others. (99) sandke counters the contentions of several journalists and jazz historians, such as albert murray and leroi jones (blues people 1963:149;153;219), who felt that "for whites jazz was a 'learned art; while for blacks it was an indigenous cultural expression" (sandke 29). sandke observes: we have been told for the better part of a century that the blues and swing are endemic to black culture, yet many well-known jazz musicians have frankly admitted that they had to sit down and learn these styles just as much as anyone else. fletcher henderson figured out how to play jazz by studying james p. johnson piano rolls, and though he accompanied a plethora of blues singers on record in his early career, he never really mastered the style. vocalist jimmy rushing recalled the time when "basie had come to the west with a show. he couldn't play the blues then:' the arranger jimmy mundy once had to coach paul robeson on how to sing the blues for a recording session. (100) is jazz african? in chapter 3, sandke points out a significant irony. he notes that jazz writers "have often bent over backwards to demonstrate the african origins of jazz. however, at the same time many african-american musicians have been quick to deny any such direct link, insisting instead that jazz was created in america by african americans" (41). for example, sandke points out that jazz historians have erred in overestimating the presence and mistaking the function of polyrhythms in jazz: in african music, opposing rhythmic groupings furnish an ongoing structure from which the entire performance derives its basic identity. in jazz, polyrhythms function by creating a feeling of momentary tension that ultimately resolves by re-emphasizing the basic meter-much like the role that dissonance plays in harmony ... examples of continuous polyrhythm in jazz are practically nonexistent. (40) mark c. gridley sandke also mentions that writers have missed paul oliver's observation that "improvisation on a theme, which is fundamental to jazz, also appears to owe little to improvisation with tight rhythmic patterns on the [african] drums ... whatever the links with african drumming, conceptually jazz music is very different" (cited in sandke 41). interviews quoted by sandke show that not even such knowledgeable insiders as drummer-bandleader art blakey and trumpeter-bandleader­ composer dizzy gillespie contend that jazz is african. eminent african­ american pianist-composer mary lou williams said, "afro has nothing to do with jazz. jazz grew up on its own here in america" (43). moreover, african-american new orleans musicians, in particular, have railed against the assertion that jazz came out of africa. regarding jelly roll morton's jazz recording of maple leaf rag, the african american guitarist from new orleans danny barker (b. 1909) said, "that's something that came out of new orleans. it didn't come out of africa. i've heard hundreds of records of, and from africans. african is nothing like no new orleans music ... king oliver, kid punch [miller], buddy petit, [henry] kid rena; they have nothing to do with africa" (44). a frequently repeated story about an african connection in the origins of jazz concerns public performance of african music in new orleans, particularly on sundays in a region that is today known as congo square. this story continues to be told in twenty-first-century writings. for instance, in the textbook jazz: an american journey, brian harker writes, "the weekly performance rituals at congo square lasted through the civil war, and then died out sometime in the 1880s" (2005:37). connecting early jazz to african musical traditions would be persuasive if such performances were occurring near the time that jazz originated in the 1890s. however, as sandke demonstrates, this is a misconception. documents indicate that the period when undiluted african music was performed in congo square ended much earlier. such musical assemblies had been outlawed there since 1829. moreover, sandke points up the irony that by the 1820s the music played there had already assimilated aspects of european music. in addressing an emphasis that previous writers have placed on african rhythmic complexity emerging in bebop, sandke notes that much of what was essential to bebop was harmonic, and that its precursors had been readily available within the music of white composers associated with the "great american songbook:' sandke departs from contentions of leroi jones (blues people, 1963), martin williams (the jazz tradition, 1970), and gunther schuller (early jazz: its roots and development, 1968) regarding african rhythms characterizing bebop. he writes: 131 132 current musicology the increased speed of the harmonic rhythm in such tunes as "liza" and "cherokee" encouraged parker and gillespie to adopt eighth note phrases for spelling out the intricacies inherent in the harmony ... if you slow parker's and gillespie's phrases down, their syncopations are not that dissimilar from armstrong's. the main difference is that boppers thought in terms of shorter time spans dictated by faster harmonic rhythm. (62) journalism or activism? in chapters 5 and 6 sandke pointedly addresses the effects that ideology and politics have had upon the telling of jazz history. some of his coverage is reminiscent of similar analyses by john gennari in his book blowin' hot and cool: jazz and its critics (2006). sandke openly addresses early examples and recent revivals of reverse racism, writing that "several generations of jazz writers believed it was their duty to combat racism by depicting the music as an outgrowth of african culture; as the product of an insular black community; and as a reaction to segregation and discrimination" (39). challenging leroi jones' ideological conception of jazz, sandke includes a line from african-american novelist-essayist ralph ellison's review ofjones' blues people (1963): "the tremendous burden of sociology which jones would place upon this body of music is enough to give even the blues the blues" (29). other writers have similarly objected to jones' understanding of jazz. for instance, in his book this is our music (2007), historian lain anderson also quotes ellison who notes that jones "ignored the cross-pollination between black and white influences:' anderson ad­ ditionally mentions observations by african-american historian j. saunders redding, who pointed out that jones' attempts to reclaim an african past, in anderson's words, "floundered on a poor historical understanding of african cultural norms:' anderson continues: "too few champions of afrocentric traditions appreciated the diversity of the continent's languages, religions, arts or fashions. redding believed that scholars deceived themselves by attempting to recover a homogeneous cultural impulse where none existed" (2007:106-107). in the same passage anderson notes that in urban blues (1966) the ethnomusicologist charles keil had written that jones had, in effect, created a new "myth of the negro past:' preservation versus innovation chapters 5 and 6 decry the neo-conservative (aka neo-classical) trends of the past thirty years, in which young players, more than during previous periods, were content to learn and perform earlier styles instead of inventing mark c. gridley new styles of jazz. controversy has swirled around the lincoln center jazz orchestra's conservative repertory for which african-american journalist stanley crouch is an artistic consultant and african-american trumpeter wynton marsalis is bandleader. sandke voices dismay at prominent musi­ cians, such as marsalis, and journalists, such as crouch, who encourage young players to remain imitators. during the early 1980s an increasing interest in earlier jazz styles was evident in explorations by a number of jazz musicians, both black and white, newcomers and veterans. the origins of some of these practices among black musicians, according to sandke, partially lie in an earlier period in which jazz "became widely touted as a product of a hermetically sealed black environment:' sandke writes, "the importance of originality and innovation would be replaced by a new aesthetic calling for a celebration of bygone heroes and a recapitulation of the jazz tradition" (121). though not explicitly stated by sandke, it may be useful to note that the neo-classical jazz musicians and journalists seem to have missed three facts: (a) if jazz has had any traditions at all, one of the most prominent has been its emphasis on originality. (b) because jazz is an improvised music, recreating and performing "repertory" is not equivalent to such practices in classical music, in which the essence could be extracted from written scores and be performed for centuries thereafter. jazz had no real counterpart to classical music in that regard, except perhaps the extent to which sound recordings of improvisations provided a repertory. (c) as a music that places considerable emphasis on collective improvi­ sation, jazz has been more about process than product. clarifying jazz history among the misconceptions that sandke's research dispels is the belief that the earliest musicians in america who had african ancestry made music that reflected exclusively african-american culture. in chapter 4, the author mentions that band repertoire among the earliest african-american jazz musicians, from buddy bolden to joe "king" oliver, commonly included such european dance forms as mazurkas, schottisches, polkas, quadrilles, and waltzes. sandke demonstrates that these were versatile musicians who made their livings playing almost any form that was demanded of them 133 134 current musicology and not only what we routinely designate as jazz today. sandke writes, "the record clearly shows that bands of all racial hues shared more or less the same repertoire before the advent of jazz" (79). another misconception that sandke dispels is that white musicians necessarily out-earned black musicians. in chapter 8, the author reveals documents from the eras in which there was demand for early jazz and swing styles: "these contracts indicate that in many cases, african-american performers earned roughly as much as their white colleagues" (170). he also shows that "the recording industry has been an equal opportunity exploiter" (168). a pervasive misunderstanding that sandke upends is that the birth of jazz was expedited by the discriminatory racial legislation, known as the black codes or jim crow laws, through their forced mixing of new orleans creoles with blacks in new orleans (or "negroes"), consigning creoles to the low social and occupational status of negroes. (this reverses statements in numerous jazz histories, including one by this reviewer.) in chapter 3 sandke explains that alan lomax introduced this misunderstanding in 1950. actually, the codes did not take effect until after the birth of jazz, and they did not really change the work of creole musicians. for instance, code # iii referred to mandated separate train cars for white and black passengers traveling in first class only, and, as noted by jerah johnson, "these regulations were not systematically enforced until near or during world war i, which meant by the time segregation became effective, jazz had already developed:' furthermore, creoles and black musicians did not come together for legal reasons. after the birth of jazz they came together because, in sandke's words, "there was growing demand at all levels of society for the hot new style of dance music that was jazz;' and "anyone who couldn't or wouldn't play it would be left out of a competitive and lucrative market" (53). again, we find the situation well summarized in a telling statement by historian jerah johnson: "jazz had its origins not in segregation, but in the assimila­ tive tradition of easy interaction of peoples that prevailed in new orleans, undiminished by the ... jim crow laws of the 1890s" (cited in sandke 54).3 in chapter 7 "the biggest myth of all;' sandke shows that white listeners have historically predominated within the jazz audience at large, though in absolute percentages the relative popularity of jazz is greater in the african-american community than in the white community. (recent studies suggest that african americans make up 16 to 20% of the audience for various performances of jazz despite constituting only 11 % of the adult population of the united states (cited in sandke 162).) several of the most historic venues for the giants of jazz catered almost exclusively to white patrons. historic examples in new york city include the cotton club, roseland ballroom, and kentucky club, to name just a few. a few examples mark c. gridley in chicago include the three deuces, the garrick show bar, the band box, and the preview. among examples from the swing era in kansas city are the reno club and the hey hey club. after recounting the history of audi­ ence profiles for jazz sandke brings us up to date with a quote by nicholas payton, a currently prominent african-american jazz trumpeter: "jazz, sad to say, probably has no social significance to most black people's lives" (161). sentiments similar to this appear in quotes by other currently prominent african-american jazz musicians, including trumpeter terrence blanchard and bassist christian mcbride (162). intellectual property issues in his wide-ranging chapter 9 about intellectual property, ''accounting without accountability;' sandke shows that "those who have reaped ill-got­ ten gains by way of 'copyright protection' have come in all colors. and many times the offenders have been the musicians themselves" (201). for example, despite the miles davis name listed for authorship of many tunes on davis albums, the composer of tune up and four was eddie "cleanhead" vinson. the tune solar was written by chuck wayne, not by davis. bill evans, not miles davis, conceived a large portion of the music on the kind of blue album. gil evans, not miles davis, conceived much of the music on the filles de kilimanjaro album. sandke also writes, "if a publisher commissions a tune and arranges for it to be recorded, the composition may be considered a 'work for hire: so, however distasteful it might have been for irving mills to attach his name to so many duke ellington compositions, technically mills was within his legal rights" (202). conclusion where the dark and light folks meet is a revisionist history of jazz. sandke's work tackles many different angles in the various roles that jazz has played in the music business. the author combines neglected interview data with fresh interviews of his own, and he organizes information from widely disparate written sources to make everything easily digestible. in presenting this vast array of research he revises common wisdom about several aspects of jazz history, particularly the influence of race. he tries to help understand racism within the larger picture of mistreatment of jazz as a whole, and he identifies elements of reverse racism among jazz journalists and historians. sandke reminds us of the substantial contributions that non-african-american sources have made to jazz, and he provides a fresh look at the interrelation­ ships among sources that some writers have overlooked. 135 136 current musicology notes 1. trumpeter randy sandke has performed at festivals, clubs, and concerts around the world. he has toured europe over forty times and performed extensively throughout japan, the united states, canada, brazil, and india. 2. see johnson's "the jim crow laws of the 1890s and the origins of new orleans jazz: correction of an error;' popular music 19 no. 2 (2000): 243-51. 3. once again, see johnson's "the jim crow laws of the 1890s and the origins of new orleans jazz: correction of an error:' references anderson, lain. 2007. this is our music: free jazz, the sixties and american culture. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania. gennari, john. 2006 . blowin' hot and cool: jazz and its critics. chicago: university of chicago. keil, charles. 1966. urban blues. chicago: university of chicago. kofsky, frank. 1998. black music, white business. new york: pathfinder. harker, brian. 2005.jazz: an american journey. upper saddle river, new jersey: prentice-hall. johnson, jerah. "the jim crow laws of the 1890s and the origins of new orleans jazz: correction of an error:' popular music 19 no. 2 (2000): 243-51. jones, leroi. 1971. black music. new york: quill, 1967; morrow. murray, albert. 1978. stompin' the blues. new york: da capo. oliver, paul. 1970. savannah syncopators: african retentions in the blues. new york: stein & day. schuller, gunther. 1968. early jazz: its roots and development. new york: oxford university press. williams, martin. 1970. the jazz tradition. new york: oxford university press. current musicology 103 (fall 2018) © 2018 blaszkiewicz. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 67 writing the city: the cosmopolitan realism of offenbach’s la vie parisienne jacek blaszkiewicz as the curtain of paris’s théâtre du palais royal rose on october 31, 1866, spectators saw before them a mise-en-scène unprecedented in the city’s operatic history: a railway station—specifically the gare de l’ouest, one of paris’s newest and busiest. a chorus marches onto the stage, announcing that they are the employees of the ligne de l’ouest rail company. against an aggressive triple-meter orchestral accompaniment, the workers list off the names of the french cities and towns served by the company: conflans, triel, poissy, barentin, pavilly, vernon, bolbec, etc. this list is doubly humorous. first, it captures the mechanical repetitiveness of the ever-expanding french railway system, rendered musically through an eleven-measure dominant prolongation in bb major. second, it pokes fun at mass-produced travel literature aimed specifically at tourists; the chorus, in essence, sings a version of the itineraries found in lehaguez’s le nouveau paris: guide à l’étranger, a popular guidebook series that contained endless pages of station names in miniscule typescript. the workers follow this list with a second: an account of various professional tasks, such as selling tickets and newspapers, opening and closing gates, and signaling incoming and outgoing rail traffic. these two lists are repeated twice, before the employees march off the stage, presumably back to work. the employees’ exit concludes the first vocal number of la vie parisienne, an opéra-bouffe by henri meilhac and ludovic halévy with music by jacques offenbach. set in the paris of the 1860s, the operetta centers around two bourgeois men, gardefeu and bobinet, who were both rejected by the socialite métella and who both vow to avenge their dignities in high society. an opportunity arises when the gondremarcks, a wealthy swedish couple who have just arrived by train, mistake gardefeu for their tour guide. smitten by gondremarck’s wife, gardefeu plays along, and enlists bobinet and others to stage a hotel-style dinner party in his own apartment. mr. gondremarck, for his part, secretly seeks métella’s company, and is eager to leave his wife behind. in a climactic café scene, a bloodthirsty and hedonistic brazilian tourist simply named “the brazilian” encourages gardefeu and gondremarck to settle their dispute in a public duel. they stop when métella and mrs. gondremarck reveal their secret alliance and forgive their respective partners. 68 current musicology nineteenth-century french operetta was particularly equipped to stage such brief encounters between specific social or ethnic groups within a one-act timespan. a gradual loosening of theatrical regulations beginning in 1858 meant that composers of so-called “light” theatrical works could mount larger, multi-act productions featuring costumes, elaborate sets, and, most significantly, a chorus (see levin 2009). moreover, the very idea of mounting a multi-act spectacle featuring activities such as train travel and sightseeing was itself a novelty. opéra-bouffe librettists and composers had thus far resorted to what jean-claude yon has called a “double mask,” a dramaturgical technique that created both temporal and geographical distance from the object of satire, for instance jupiter satirizing napoléon iii in orphée aux enfers (yon 2000, 334). the authors of la vie parisienne, however, removed this double mask. the stage was instead saturated to an unprecedented degree with a diverse and entirely contemporary urban community: laborers rub shoulders with young bourgeois citizens and wealthy tourists in paris’s train stations and cafés. in particular, offenbach’s operetta staged an ideal mode of sociability for the modern, urban woman; a common thread among the operetta’s female characters, writes ethel matala de mazza (2017, 55), is a refusal “to leave the privilege of elegant public appearances to a select few, but to reclaim that privilege democratically as the common property of women.” this onstage socioeconomic mélange, i argue below, depended on a fluency not only in social behaviors, but also in navigating the spaces in which those behaviors were performed. as a model of what i call “cosmopolitan realism” in mid-nineteenthcentury opera, offenbach’s la vie parisienne did far more than present a satirical tableau of city life during the 1860s, a decade of touristic speculation and urban renewal overseen by georges-eugene “baron” haussmann. rather, the operetta functioned as an operatic anthology—analyzing, taxonomizing, and mythologizing paris’s spaces, citizens and visitors. in order to uncover the dense web of intertextual prescriptions present in the libretto, this article begins by surveying the phrase “la vie parisienne” as a literary trope with a long history that is closely tied to the touristic economy of nineteenth-century paris. echoes of this trope reappear in critical responses to the operetta, which debated how accurately offenbach and his libretto team had represented “parisian life.” i then show how the operetta’s authors drew on material published in a popular illustrated magazine likewise titled la vie parisienne; henri meilhac and ludovic halévy both worked for the magazine, and eventually dedicated the score of the operetta to the magazine’s editor, émile marcelin. the pair also borrowed substantially from three stage works that they had penned in the early 1860s—la clé de métella, le brésilien, and le photographe—in drafting the la vie pa69 jacek blaszkiewicz risienne libretto.1 rather than merely reflecting societal quirks, the operetta provided a pedagogical guide to navigating a city whose historical identity was shaken by the massive urbanization projects of the 1850s and 60s.2 to understand the history of second empire parisian life, therefore, is to study its modes of representation.3 in recent years, scholars of nineteenth-century opera have turned their attention to the distinctly urban contexts that dictated how specific operatic works were created and brought to performance (see charle 2008, sala 2013, and willson 2014). to situate music in a specifically urban context is also to understand the particularities of a city in a given time and place. this renewed focus on the city, or what emanuele senici (2015, 198) has recently dubbed “operatic urban studies,” includes everyday urban living as fodder for new historiographical or hermeneutic perspectives on individual operatic works. yet to date, there is a far murkier understanding of how operetta functioned as a literary text within nineteenth-century discourses of urbanization, tourism, and imperialism. as literary historian christopher prendergast (1995, 11-24) has convincingly argued, nineteenth-century paris inspired cryptic metaphors for modernity; to charles baudelaire, the city was a “swan,” and to alfred delvau, it was a “sphinx.” these literary musings, prendergast observes, were an attempt to “write the city,” or a way to come to terms with the rapid changes to the geographic, demographic, and cultural landscape. urban-inspired literature thus served as an ideal venue to explore the conflicts between everyday life and the urban planners’ vision or, as prendergast puts it, between the lived and the imposed (prendergast 1995, 214).4 this article extends prendergast’s well-known heuristic of “writing the city” into the operatic sphere. reframing french operetta as a prescriptive, pedagogical, literary genre and not merely a descriptive, satirical, performative one, i situate la vie parisienne in a web of “everyday” literature of the second empire, including tourist guidebooks, arts newspapers, and lifestyle magazines that anthologized and commented on the city’s metamorphosizing public and private spaces.5 by dramatizing societal minutia that preoccupied paris’s denizens and tourists alike, la vie parisienne functioned as a secondempire mode of “edutainment,” a neologism that captures media’s ability to process and distribute knowledge.6 in tracing a more holistic reception history that expands well beyond the trodden paths of music criticism, this article shows how parisian operetta featured in serious discourses about the shifting geographies of la vie moderne. 70 current musicology “real life” as theatrical genre critics present at the premiere of la vie parisienne questioned whether what they had seen and heard was, in fact, “real” parisian life. in his review of the premiere in revue et gazette musicale de paris, for instance, edouard déaddé (“d”) remained unconvinced by the operetta’s portrayal of contemporary society: “it is a world turned upside down, which has no equivalent, not even during the delirious orgies of carnival.”7 paul foucher, brother-in-law of victor hugo, attacked the operetta’s libertine representation of contemporary life, noting that the onstage action reminded him of the rue de bréda, a famously seedy street in paris’s ninth arrondissement: “you will see that not one protest will be raised against this witty piece of pornography, which, under the title ‘parisian life,’ turns our capital into an immense bréda.”8 léo lucas, on the other hand, took issue with the work’s nebulous genre: “it’s a vaudeville, it’s an opéra-bouffe, it’s a mix of both genres at once.”9 yet despite facing quibbles regarding genre, la vie parisienne provoked some critics to contemplate the relationship between urban fantasy and urban reality, both on and off stage. repeating the operetta’s title in a sardonic manner, lucas nonetheless drew a line connecting the characters to the spectators: “not a single true character, not a single truly comic situation, but instead a continual onslaught; that is what parisian life is like (voilà la vie parisienne).”10 paris’s pleasure-obsessed gentry, lucas seems to suggest, were almost operatic in their over-the-top theatricality. it is thus unsurprising that the marxist cultural critic siegfried kracauer cited la vie parisienne as symptomatic of what he deemed the “un-reality” of second empire paris. in his widely cited and famously problematic book jacques offenbach und das paris seiner zeit, published in 1937, kracauer placed tremendous weight on la vie parisienne, identifying it as “that most enchanting of all paeans of praise that have ever been written to any city” (kracauer 2002, 295). to kracauer, offenbach was both a critic of his time as well as its greatest victim; the rise and fall of the composer’s career was inextricably linked with the rise and fall of napoléon iii’s second empire. as kracauer saw it, the operetta portrayed paris as a truly modern city, one that obliterated class distinctions and left its citizens and visitors susceptible to moral transgressions. in a similar vein, walter benjamin admitted in a 1928 essay that none of offenbach’s works fulfils the requirements of operetta as completely as la vie parisienne; nothing in la vie parisienne is as parisian as the transparent nature of that nonsensical nightlife through which not the logical but certainly the moral order takes its appearance. (benjamin 2005, 111) 71 jacek blaszkiewicz in other words, kracauer and benjamin both believed that la vie parisienne was as much a product as it was a representation of the frivolous world of second empire paris. kracauer’s famous indictment of the second empire as a consumerdriven society that dictated offenbach’s professional and artistic decisionmaking naturally shows its age. under-cited and laid with what laurence senelick (2017, 6) dubbed a “marxist grid” that obscures the intricacies of the operetta industry, the book is more an artifact of offenbach’s early twentieth-century reception history than it is an example of current thought on the subject. even kracauer’s colleague theodor adorno penned an unforgiving review of kracauer’s study, claiming that the author supports his analysis on the assumption that artist and society are in some sort of fundamental “harmony” (see everist 2004, 111). indeed, to claim that operetta was merely a farcical funhouse-mirror through which society viewed itself—the essence of kracauer’s argument—is to neglect the intertextual aspects of operetta as a musical and theatrical genre.11 just as the city of paris was curated through guidebooks, cartoons, oil paintings, and novels in the 1850s and 1860s, the “parisian life” portrayed in la vie parisienne was an assemblage of myths and realities, a juxtaposition of realistic urban spaces with character stereotypes. offenbach’s la vie parisienne, then, was far more than merely a “mirror” reflecting society; as we shall see, it also served as a manual on how to navigate through multicultural interactions within the city. defining “la vie parisienne” the operetta’s very title contains a wealth of intertextual data that ties it to discourses of mid-century urban mythmaking. during the 1850s and ‘60s, it became extremely fashionable to use the word “paris” in the titles of books, poems, and songs. according to théophile gautier, the very word connoted that an author understood the mass appeal for all things parisian: with this magic title, paris, a play or review or book is always assured of success. paris possesses an inexhaustible curiosity that nothing as yet could satisfy, neither large serious works, nor lighter publications, nor histories, nor columns, nor studies, nor memoires, nor paintings, nor novels. put this word on a playbill and there will be six months’ worth of queues and crowds.12 within the realm of theater, the phrase “la vie parisienne” specifically alluded to the behaviors, customs, and savoir-faire of those lucky enough to live in the french capital. two examples dating from the second empire include les femmes de gavarni: scènes de la vie parisienne en 4 actes 72 current musicology mêlées de couplets, by théodore barrière, adrien decourcelle, and léon beauvallet (1852), and les portiers: scènes de la vie parisienne en 1 acte, by  édouard louis alexandre brisebarre  and eugène nus (1860). these two works, both of which contain leading characters who are cooks, chambermaids, and butlers, feature humorous tales of street life on stage. les femmes de gavarni even contains a character who is simply named flâneur, that archetypal urban walker made famous by baudelaire and made legendary by benjamin (see tester 1994). within the realm of tourist literature, “la vie parisienne” connoted much more than physical existence within the walls of the french capital; it also referred to a set of behaviors that were spelled out to foreigners in guidebooks. according to the 1864 guidebook le nouveau paris, the expression refers to “a manner of being, of living, and even of thinking, which is completely unique to the parisian population. this way of living constitutes a sort of individuality. the general characteristic is to above all be more ‘foreign’ than any european capital.”13 it was thus possible—even profitable—to construct and reproduce a universalized image of “parisian life” and market it to a cosmopolitan audience. of all the appearances of the phrase “la vie parisienne” in literature and journalism, meilhac and halévy drew above all on one particular source in the composition of their libretto: the weekly illustrated magazine whose full title was la vie parisienne: mœurs élégantes, choses du jour, fantaisies, voyages, théâtres, musique, modes, which began printing in 1863 (figure 1). the operetta, named after the magazine, also bears a dedication to magazine’s founder and editor, émile marcelin (figure 2). furthermore, meilhac and halévy were both regular contributors to the magazine in its early years, as both columnists and illustrators. although this connection between offenbach’s operetta and marcelin’s magazine has been glossed in biographical studies, a deeper, intertextual exploration of the magazine, the three vaudevilles, and the operetta reveals the extent to which offenbach and his collaborators combined fiction and reality to “write the city.”14 paris, according to marcelin émile-marcelin-isidore planat, who published under the pseudonym “marcelin,” made his career by contributing cartoons and caricatures to some of paris’s most widely circulated magazines, such as le rire, le journal pour rire, l’illustration and le journal amusant. in addition to his work in magazine journalism, marcelin was also a costume designer, who worked primarily in the realm of vaudeville. the magazine la vie parisienne, therefore, married his two professional interests: the theater and the street. marcelin’s magazine capitalized on the hedonism of haut-bourgeois 73 jacek blaszkiewicz life of the second empire, and was marketed directly at those who were prospering from the healthy stock market and from urban speculation. as le figaro reported in marcelin’s obituary on december 25, 1887, the epoch in which la vie parisienne was conceived was marked by a “joie de vivre, . . . a fever of unparalleled prosperity . . . in which all aspirations were turned towards luxury, towards pleasure, towards partying, and towards brouhaha.”15 yet marcelin did not simply report on the happenings of parisian society; rather, he crafted a periodical that offered a panoply of critical impressions, editorials, and reviews. as the preface to the january 9, 1864, issue put it, marcelin’s was “a magazine that is a kind of salon of people who are not fools, where everyone shares news and speaks their mind without thinking of those who are listening.”16 by referring to the magazine as a “salon,” the author reimagines it as an imaginary social space for like-minded parisians.17 figure 1: cover of la vie parisienne: mœurs élégantes, choses du jour, fantaisies, voyages, théâtres, musique, modes, 1866. 74 current musicology although the operetta’s librettists staged social spaces widely covered in contemporary periodicals—a train terminal (act 1), a bourgeois salon (act 2), a table d’hôte (act 3), the café anglais (act 4)—it was meilhac’s and halévy’s depiction of tourists that most closely paralleled the cosmopolitan aesthetics of marcelin’s magazine. in the october 20, 1866, issue of la vie parisienne, an article titled “étrangers et étrangères” begins by identifying two “types” of foreigners, the étranger sérieux ou curieux (“the serious and curious foreigner”) and the étranger noceur (“the party-going foreigner”).18 the former is only interested in monuments and palaces, while the latter is more inclined to shop and people-watch. the former walks with a steady gait, eyes looking forward—he speaks little french, but speaks often. this foreigner is usually english or german, and can be identified with distinctive signifiers—all of which also conform to gendered stereotypes of the bourgeois family: “a guide, a parasol, a glasses case or a pince-nez, an figure 2: la vie parisienne, title page of the 1867 published vocal score. 75 jacek blaszkiewicz opera glass slung over the neck, no gloves, and with a wife and children, many children, a trail of children.”19 by contrast, the latter is most often a blasé youth of about nineteen years of age, whose only interests are “private rooms and backstage parties.”20 the author takes a guess that the étranger noceur is likely a “brazilian from london or from new york”—a newly affluent visitor to paris whose primary objective is to spend money. in short, the real is rendered theatrical: foreigners are assigned stereotypical behaviors and dress. the resulting descriptions of boulevard life read like character sketches for an operetta: gondremarck was originally german in the early version of the libretto (named “gourdakirsch”), while the character of “le brésilien,” as we will see shortly, embraces la vie parisienne with as much hedonism as marcelin’s “swaggering brazilian from london or from new york.” like offenbach’s singing characters, marcelin’s urbanites pop off the page as archetypal examples of types parisiens that one may encounter on the street, in the café, or, indeed, in a theatrical production. it was this interplay between the journalistic and the theatrical that defined marcelin’s aesthetic, and it subsequently informed the dramaturgical premise of offenbach’s operetta. with its balance of humor and sobriety, prose and illustration, culture and gossip, la vie parisienne was a hugely successful publication, and it continued to publish new issues until as late as 1970. the magazine not only guided parisians through their everyday lives, but it also propagated the myth of paris as the world capital of theater, entertainment, and general good taste. marcelin achieved this by eliminating the distinction between the theater of the stage and the theater of everyday life, and this interchangeability was not lost on contemporaries. in his retrospective 1902 essay on the careers of meilhac and halévy, francisque sarcey commented on the libretto team’s apparent tendency to leaf through marcelin’s magazine for inspiration. sarcey noted that their la petite marquise, a three-act comédie that premiered at the variétés in 1874, was yet another in a series of works in which “articles from la vie parisienne were simply transported to the stage and adapted to the optics of the theater.”21 yet while sarcey did not condone such blending of the real and the written, others sympathized with this theatrical view of modern life. as hippolyte taine noted in the preface to marcelin’s posthumously published memoir—which bore the inevitable title souvenirs de la vie parisienne—marcelin “found that there is little difference between a thing that is real and a thing that is illustrated; after a few hours, this difference evaporated.”22 this idea of the city-as-spectacle fit comfortably within the social world of the second empire; as social historians have demonstrated, the fête impériale stood as the quintessential symbol of imperial modernity (see truesdell 1997 and hazareesingh 2004). 76 current musicology meilhac and halévy skillfully translated the fête impériale trope into marcelin’s magazine as well as their own stage works. by 1866, the two had established a reputation on the vaudeville stage and had already gained renown for their comical portrayals of everyday modern life. as the journalist gustave claudin reminisced in his 1884 memoirs, “what was so successful in the stage works of these two authors was what one could call their modernity [original emphasis]. no one else was able to mock the manias, ticks, and absurdities of the day so exactly.”23 by exposing the cyclical relationship between the real and the staged, marcelin, meilhac, and halévy portrayed social life as what richard schechner (2003, 71) has called a “scripted performance ‘in life’,” or that fluid oscillation between expectation and spontaneity.24 it was thus in homage to their former employer that meilhac and halévy titled their 1866 operetta after the magazine, and dedicated it to that magazine’s founding editor. in drafting their libretto, meilhac and halévy combined their own lived experiences of parisian bourgeois life with familiar literary trends in order to stage a farcical paris that feigned to represent reality. the two librettists appropriated the stereotypes of parisian bourgeois culture into comedic plays written in the early 1860s, and from there, into the 1866 operetta. given how little attention musicologists have hitherto paid to the careers of vaudeville and operetta librettists, we must first consider meilhac’s and halévy’s distinct relationships to the french capital. paris, according to meilhac and halévy henri meilhac was a born-and-raised parisian. soon after completing his studies at the collège louis-le-grand, meilhac found work as a columnist and draftsman for the journal pour rire, a satirical newspaper founded in 1848. working under the pseudonym “talin,” meilhac covered a variety of parisian topics: restaurant openings, the lives of actors and actresses, couture, prostitution, as well as vaudeville dramaturgy.25 as a journalist, meilhac was praised for his lyrical prose and for his minute observations of everyday life. as jean-camille fulbert-dumonteil observed in an 1869 issue of le gaulois, meilhac “understood the recesses of the soul as well as he understood the behind-the-scenes of parisian life, and he knew the human heart as well as he knew the boulevard.”26 meilhac was also a skilled illustrator. teaming up with abel damourette, a colleague at the journal pour rire, meilhac published several collections of illustrations titled petits albums pour rire that caricatured various types parisiens, such as actors, comedians, street performers, college students, bureaucrats, and prostitutes. in addition to publishing their own illustrations, damourette and meilhac also commissioned issues from other art77 jacek blaszkiewicz ists and caricaturists for the series, with “paris”-inspired titles like les folies parisiennes and on nous écrit de paris by the photographer nadar and vie d’une parisienne by the illustrator gustave janet. meilhac’s early career was thus defined by a concentrated exposure to the people and institutions that critiqued, mocked, and mythologized city life. moreover, his professional training allowed him to capture those experiences through both word and image. unlike meilhac, whose professional life began in journalism, ludovic halévy began his writing career while working in civil service. as a secrétaire-rédacteur  to the corps législatif, halévy won the favor of the duc de morny, the illegitimate half-brother of louis-napoléon bonaparte (the future napoléon iii). in 1854, halévy wrote his first stage work, la fille d’un mécène, while traveling throughout france on assignment for the ministère d’état. his career as an operetta librettist effectively began in the summer of 1855, during which offenbach was scrambling to assemble a program for the opening night of his new bouffes-parisiens theater. offenbach, who needed a prologue, called on the impresario henri duponchel (1794–1868) to recommend someone. duponchel suggested halévy. in his notebooks, published in 1880 (the year of offenbach’s death), then-civil servant halévy recounted the humbling experience of first meeting composer offenbach and the effect it had on his subsequent literary career: “it was the beginning of my collaboration with offenbach and the beginning of my life in theater.”27 despite their different professional backgrounds, meilhac and halévy became widely regarded for the meticulous way in which they documented parisian life; as carolyn abbate (2017, 21) has recently noted, halévy in particular processed his experience of everyday life through a blend of nostalgia, attentiveness, and skepticism. even émile zola, a virulent critic of offenbach’s operettas, praised the libretto team’s ability to conjure accurate images of contemporary society that were at once funny, realistic, and dramaturgically sound. adopting the famous baudelairean slogan, zola reflected in 1881 that “meilhac and halévy are very subtle painters of modern life. they have marvelously appropriated the distinct codes of certain societal worlds, and their comedies are at times works of great veracity that are executed by artists. i find (their one-act comedies) to be much superior to their other works.”28 to zola, the one-act vaudevilles that meilhac and halévy penned in the early years of their collaboration—works that are all but forgotten today—were more successful in depicting the spectacular society of la vie moderne than were their more famous operettas. la clé de métella, le brésilien, and le photographe—vaudevilles almost entirely ignored in francophone opera studies—not only contained the prototypical 78 current musicology scenarios for la vie parisienne, but also addressed the subtle relationships of the parisian bourgeoisie to the aristocracy, to wealthy foreigners, and to one another. a tale of two dames: la clé de métella (1862) the prototype for the character of métella, the female lead of la vie parisienne, is found in la clé de métella, a one-act comédie that premiered on november 24, 1862, at the théâtre du vaudeville. meilhac and halévy’s play explores the distinct ways in which married women and professional courtesans were perceived by men. lucien, marquis de volsy, is married to jeanne de volsy, a woman of aristocratic roots who rarely leaves her apartment. bored of domestic life, lucien frequently attends spectacles, balls, soirées, as well as the salon of the famous courtesan métella. lucien’s cousin gontran, on the other hand, is a quiet bachelor who spends more time with jeanne than her husband does. but gontran is eager to win the favor of métella and enlists his cousin to coach him on how to gain access to métella’s rarefied social circle. in exchange, gontran helps lucien to understand his own wife’s needs and desires in order to rescue their marriage from perpetual unhappiness. the two cousins are assisted by the chambermaid jacqueline, who offers advice on both domestic and boulevard life. la clé de métella was received favorably by the press and by the literary community. as the actor and librettist victor koning reported, “the success of clef [sic] de métella continues to grow every night.” then, speaking on behalf of envious playwrights, koning wryly adds, “but we hope that this success doesn’t continue to grow.”29 through the contrasting female figures of métella and jeanne, meilhac and halévy parody the constant desire of the parisian male gentry to leave the domestic sphere to frequent social spaces such as the salon, the hotel restaurant, the theater box, and the café. each of these spaces bore witness to performative rituals, with specific rules for entering, exiting, socializing, seducing, and gazing. in fact, the gaze (or its conspicuous absence) was crucial to meilhac and halévy’s dramaturgy: the eponymous character of la clé de métella is not a character at all, since métella never actually appears on stage. instead, she is presented to the audience as an object of male protagonists’ desire and is the main subject of conversation between the four characters throughout the play.30 lucien repeatedly abandons his wife jeanne at home to attend the théâtre des variétés, where métella rents a private box. as a foil to métella, jeanne assumes the role of domestic grande dame, a term that connoted married upper-middle-class women who, as susan mcclary (1992, 37) has observed, “withdrew from participation in the public sphere,” often denying themselves sexual and social 79 jacek blaszkiewicz expression “in conformity with images found in conduct manuals, novels, and operas.” this vicarious mode of living is confirmed in scene 2; jeanne recalls having recently devoured an issue of revue des deux-mondes, a monthly cultural affairs magazine in print since 1829. a bookworm and a recluse, jeanne is nonetheless aware of her husband’s shuttling between the home and the boulevard. as she complains in the opening scene, “during every intermission, a dozen young men . . . survey the women who are in the theater. when they arrive at this . . . lady, they repeat her name out loud several times; i thus concluded that there is a certain pride in seeming to know her.”31 to jeanne, the life of the grande dame is associated with domesticity and intimate encounters. unlike the invisible métella’s dynamic sociability, jeanne leads her life by the letter—namely, the simulated worlds of guidebooks and lifestyle magazines. in la vie parisienne, meilhac and halévy refashion métella from a faceless subject of discussion in la clé de métella into a character with a substantial speaking and singing role. métella’s entrance in act 1 takes bobinet and gardefeu by surprise. she pretends not to recognize them and walks past them holding the arm of another man. meilhac and halévy employ comedic mirroring to emphasize the ability of a courtesan to attract two men into her orbit. métella’s unexpected reaction to seeing bobinet and gardefeu causes the two to console each other about the way they were just treated: “elle se moquait de moi,” bobinet complains, echoing the same words uttered by gontran in la clé de métella. yet bobinet continues by explaining how he and métella do not “speak the same language.” this mismatch is expressed in bobinet’s first couplets, “elles sont tristes les marquises.” (example 1). over a light string accompaniment, bobinet bemoans the strains (both financial and moral) placed upon him by pursuing women in salons. the jaunty motive that opens the verse, a leap of a fourth followed by threefold pitch repetition, seems to recall the piano quadrilles that pervaded middlebrow parisian salons and parlors of the time. in his example 1: “elles sont tristes les marquises,” act 1, la vie parisienne. 80 current musicology refrain, bobinet expresses hope that “honest women” could be found in the affluent saint-germain neighborhood of the sixth arrondissement. bobinet underscores his enthusiasm with faster note values as he vows to “crowd the salons of the faubourg saint-germain,” while leaps of fifths and octaves provide a contrast to the repeated-note melody of the verses. through subtle musical characterization, offenbach paints a picture of two distinct social spaces, which in the plot are identified by two opposite embodiments of the parisian socialite: respectively, métella and the baroness de gondremarck. a foreigner enters the furnace: le brésilien (1863) if the character of métella is the embodiment of the rarefied parisian social sphere accessible to a select group of (male) insiders and predominantly female target audience of magazines such as la vie parisienne, then the character of the “brazilian” functions as an archetypical albeit heavily exoticized representation of the rich “outsider’—or, to use a term from marcelin’s magazine quoted previously, an étranger noceur. meilhac and halévy’s le brésilien, a one-act comédie mêlée de chant, premiered at the théâtre du palais royal on may 9, 1863. it was a lasting success; in offenbach’s lifetime, le brésilien was revived ten times, totaling nearly three-hundred performances between its premiere and the end of the century (goninet 1994, 234). the action takes place in the salon of madame rafaëli, who is eager for monsieur blancpartout to ask for her hand. but the cowardly blancpartout is convinced by rafaëli’s conniving chambermaid that rafaëli is seeing a short-tempered brazilian prince. when rafaëli learns about this lie, she plays it to her advantage: this will force blancpartout to ask for her hand more quickly. rafaëli and her chambermaids enlist greluche, a young singer, to play the brazilian, while blancpartout goes in disguise as a barber to avoid direct confrontation. in the end, all plots and identities are revealed, and blancpartout and rafaëli are finally engaged. an examination of costume designs for the “brazilian” reveals the extent to which the actor contorted his physical features to portray the erratic, hedonistic visitor to paris. it also allows for a closer examination of visual representations of tourists, and how these representations in turn betray collective sentiments regarding class and race, specifically concerning visitors. a photograph from the 1863 premiere of the vaudeville (figure 3) shows the celebrated comic actor brasseur (1829–1890) as the “brazilian” and the vaudevilliste gil-pérès (1822–1882) as blancpartout. the costume loosely resembles the stage directions in the published version of the vaudeville. according to the staging instructions for scene 4, greluche, who disguises himself as the eponymous “brazilian,” enters 81 jacek blaszkiewicz wearing a “black wig and moustache” and sports “a copper skin tone, expensive and eccentric clothing, vibrant colors, jewelry.” the character’s afro-styled hair (evident in the photo) and vibrant jewelry (not shown here) suggest a desired contrast to gil-pérès’s presumably more reserved, “gallic”-looking features. the libretto reinforces the not-so-subtle exoticization of the non-parisian foreigner; when rafaëli commends greluche on his acting, greluche replies, “you could have asked me to play a turk or a little peasant from normandy, i would have pulled it off in the same way.”32 this comment can be read (charitably) as a self-disparaging remark aimed at greluche’s poor acting, a remark that would have been especially funny given brasseur’s fame as an impersonator. however, this juxtaposition of travelers of places near and far—brazil, turkey, normandy—appeared frequently in marcelin’s la vie parisienne, as we have seen with the aforementioned article on tourist archetypes. by reducing brazilians, turks, and french provincials to a fixed set of “foreign” mannerisms, meilhac and halévy—following marcelin’s lead—projected an image of fish-out-ofwater parisian tourists, who were an increasing presence on paris’s streets leading up to the 1867 world’s fair. in cosmopolitan, imperial paris, it folfigure 3: brasseur (left) and gil-pérès in le brésilien, 1863. bibliothèque nationale (henceforth bnf). 82 current musicology lows, not all parisians were created equal. we can trace this connection between tourism and exoticism further through the character of the “brazilian” in offenbach’s operetta. costume sketches suggest that he was to assume an even more ostentatious persona than that of his vaudeville predecessor (figure 4). for the character’s act 1 entrance, the designer indicates an overcoat of red and black satin, silver embroidery, jewelry, and a golden vest. brasseur is given a top hat, which indicated his wealth and social status, while a travel bag embroidered in gold signified his status as a visitor to the city. as photographs from the premiere suggest, the brazilian’s costume was most outlandish in act 5, in which he sports a sombrero to the café anglais. although the character’s makeup, hair, and props immediately strike the modern-day viewer as teeming with exotic stereotypes, the brazilian’s primary function in the operetta is to demonstrate the ethnic range of wealthy foreigners who, upon arriving in paris, coalesce into greedy, hedonistic urbanites. though “realist” in its depiction of cosmopolitan public spaces, la vie parisienne teems with sonic, visual, and textual signifiers of french colonization, or what ralph locke would call “full-context” stereotypes of non-western identity (see locke 2009). if the costumes for the two “brazilians” betray a bourgeois conception figure 4: draner, costume sketch for the “brazilian,” act 1, la vie parisienne. bnf. 83 jacek blaszkiewicz of the character as an “exotic” entrant into parisian society, the two solo musical numbers—the ronde from the vaudeville and the rondeau from the operetta—further serve to translate the non-european foreigner into a parisian archetype. an obscure little chanson entitled “voulez-vous acceptez mon bras,” better known as the ronde du brésilien, appears in scene 14 of le brésilien (example 2). despite contributing the linchpin musical number, offenbach humbly attempted to downplay his authorial status; in a congratulatory letter addressed to both librettists dated may 9, 1863, he writes: “i applaud your play and [the performance of] my chanson. it goes without saying that my name will not be mentioned for this little ditty tonight, nor will it appear on tomorrow’s poster.”33 despite offenbach’s modesty, the musical number was a stand-alone success. the couplets were published by g. brandus and dufour in two versions, one with piano accompaniment and one without, while the title page of both versions bears a dedication to the two stars of the play, brasseur and gil-pérès.34 jules lovy of le ménestrel singled out offenbach’s ronde, comparing its success to some of the repertoire of the cafés-concerts: the ‘ronde du brésilien!’ certainly the most hair-raising song written in a long time. one must hear it sung by brasseur and gil-pérès. [its success owes] not only to the extremely entertaining text of the two witty vaudeville writers, which will make you burst into laughter. it is also one of offenbach’s most joyful musical concoctions, one of the most original melodies that the fecund composer has drawn from his fertile imagination.35 a year later, in 1864, henri thiéry and paul avenel adapted the ronde, with new text, in their vaudeville les calicots, giving offenbach’s tune a life of its own.36 the ronde du brésilien concludes a rather convoluted scene between blancpartout (disguised as a barber) and greluche (disguised as a generic “brazilian” nobleman). greluche, upon learning that barbers enjoy attending vaudevilles, decides to entertain blancpartout with a “chansonnette comique.” greluche then sings about a man who follows a woman around the world trying to offer her his arm, while blancpartout offers an extra layer of humor to the scene by repeating lines sung by greluche. the music follows a conventional couplet-with-refrain pattern, in which each couplet continues the story of the courtship. the refrain serves as a vehicle for comedic virtuosity by having the singer imitate, alternately, a trumpet, a clarinet, and a cymbal. the accompaniment is a straightforward “oom-pah” pattern with an eight-measure introduction that also serves as a ritornello between the refrain the next couplet. while the ronde served as the vaudeville’s musical centerpiece, it also offered the audience a tour of paris. in the first couplet, brasseur shoots 84 current musicology 85 jacek blaszkiewicz example 2: offenbach, “voulez-vous accepter mon bras?” couplets from meilhac and halévy, le brésilien, piano score. paris: g. brandus et dufour, ca. 1863. 86 current musicology off the names of obscure parisian locales: the rue du bac (present-day seventh arrondissement), the quai des lunettes (now the quai d’horloge, in the first arrondissement), the impasse saint-andré-des-arts (presentday sixth arrondissement), and the rue des haudriettes (present-day third arrondissement). this evocation of paris’s liminal spaces—side streets, alleyways, docks—is especially striking given that the singer is purportedly a brazilian noble who is an outsider to the city. although in no way advancing the plot, the ronde was instead an exercise in “writing the city” through musical placemaking. street names became poetic content, thus giving liminal urban space a moment in the spotlight. like the vaudeville ronde, the rondeau from la vie parisienne functions predominantly as a dramatic non-sequitur to the plot. in the finale of act 1, the brazilian enters amidst a crowd of tourists who have just disembarked from a train at the gare de l’ouest (example 3). a short choral outburst praising paris is followed by six suspenseful orchestral measures that serve the dramaturgical purpose of allowing the brazilian to emerge from the crowd, as well as the harmonic purpose of modulating from c major to f, the key of the brazilian’s solo number. rather than recount a story, the operetta’s brazilian sings in the first person, and confesses his desire for conspicuous consumption on his third visit to paris. this zeal is underpinned by the rapid-fire text setting and brisk allegro vivo tempo and galloping accompaniment. in paris, the rich foreigner boasts, he twice blew his wealth on clothing, on jewelry, and on drunken revelry with friends and mistresses. the brazilian’s rondo leads directly into the choral finale of act 1, a galop in which the chorus of tourists alternately describe paris as a “charming place” and a “furnace.”37 joined by the brazilian and the other lead roles, the tourists describe paris as a hub for visitors from around the world, and they chant the names of the many nationalities on the trains and ships arriving in or leaving paris: “brésiliens, japonais, hollandais, espagnols, romagnols, egyptiens et prussiens, etc.” for audiences in 1866, this impressive list of nations visiting paris was an all-too-true reflection of paris’s last exposition universelle, which attracted over five million visitors, as well as the one that would soon take place on the champs de mars. moreover, the list offers a stark socioeconomic contrast to the one pattered by the railroad workers in act 1: one list recounts sites of labor, the other sites of pleasure. the character of the “brazilian” sheds light on how meilhac and halévy evaporated racial difference under the umbrella of parisian tourism. while his appearance, mannerisms, and way of speaking and singing are in stark contrast to his fellow characters, the wealthy brazilian nonetheless feels at home in parisian culture, with its conspicuous consumption, its diverse 87 jacek blaszkiewicz social spaces, and its sexual freedom. indeed, this sense of cosmopolitan identity was reiterated in the monumental paris guide 1867, an exhibitionyear guidebook that included literary and philosophical essays on the meaning and nature of modern life in the city. in one chapter, gustave frédérix (1867, 1015) notes that being “parisian” is more of an attitude than it is a strict geographic affiliation. he then adds—almost certainly alluding to la vie parisienne—that there are “parisians from paris” as well as “parisians from brazil.” what is real: le photographe (1864) in the march 16, 1864, issue of la vie parisienne, marcelin published a half-page cartoon devoted to the studio of the famous photographer pierre petit.38 surrounded by a diverse group of clienteles, the famed photographer is pictured riding a chariot in the sky, mimicking either the sun-god apollo or the “sun-king” louis xiv. marcelin presented the portrait photographer’s studio—a relatively new social space—as saturated with old social codes. perhaps inspired by marcelin’s enduring fascination with the sociological ramifications of new technologies, meilhac and halévy turned to a tried-and-tested scenario (a cunning portraitist and his oblivious sitter) in le photographe, a one-act comédie-vaudeville that premiered on christmas eve 1864 at the théâtre du palais-royal. here, meilhac and halévy recycled the eponymous heroine from la clé de métella into an onstage role, and, for the first time, created a character named “raoul de gardefeu.” the plot also bears an uncanny resemblance to la vie: eager to forget his onetime lover métella, gardefeu attempts to seduce the baroness von gourdakirsch, who thinks she is having her portrait taken by a professional photographer. example 3: la vie parisienne, the brazilian’s entrance, act 1, finale. 88 current musicology gardefeu’s servant alexandre assists in refashioning his employer’s salon into a believable photographer’s studio. the baroness’s husband is in turn interested in métella, while gardefeu struggles to keep everything a secret. of the three vaudeville predecessors to la vie parisienne discussed in this article, le photographe comes closest to encapsulating the humorous encounters between parisians and foreigners that are so prominent in marcelin’s magazine and offenbach’s operetta. there is the obvious transference of characters’ names: gardefeu and métella appear in both vaudeville and operetta, and it is a short jump from “gourdakirsch” to “gondremarck.” but the clearest parallel is through the character of gardefeu. it is through him that the wealthy on-stage foreigners experience what they believe to be “real” parisian life. in both vaudeville and operetta, gardefeu functions as the primary mediator between the theater audience and the on-stage action: the plots of both works are beholden to his selfish interventions. if we interpret gardefeu as a meta-character whose single-minded lust and fluency in bourgeois norms dictates the drama, he emerges as an archetypal example of a gandin, an epithet widely used during the nineteenth century that roughly translates to “dandy.”39 in albert wolff ’s review of le photographe, gardefeu is described as “a gandin of the boulevards who, in order to entice a beautiful german baroness to his apartment, transforms his salon into a branch of nadar’s studio.”40 the review of offenbach’s la vie parisienne in the revue et gazette musicale de paris uses the same terminology to describe gardefeu; he is a “young gandin . . . who made the acquaintance of a swedish baroness.”41 in nineteenth-century parlance, gandins were young men who frequented the cafés on the boulevard de gand, a street that was a playground for the wealthy during the restoration and would later be replaced by the equally vibrant boulevard des italiens.42 although the gandin could be placed on the same social spectrum as the dandy, he is typically younger, smugger, and has not yet achieved a level of refinedness. as literary historian miranda gill has observed, the second empire gandin was seen as a vulgar successor to the lion of the july monarchy, and the use of the word dandy as a foil to gandin implied that parisians associated proper decorum with english street culture (gill 2009, 75). gandin was never intended as compliment. in his 1865 dictionary of “eccentric french terms,” gustave naquet summarized gandisme as “ridiculous folly.”43 indeed, marcelin himself often portrayed the gandin as a sulking, unemployed youth in the pages of la vie parisienne. as an embodiment of the conspicuous consumption that came to define social life in the second empire, the gandin appeared in a variety of dramatic and literary works that foregrounded city life. the playwright 89 jacek blaszkiewicz théodore barrière examined the social practices of the street in his 1855 play les parisiens de la décadence, which features a character named paul gandin. émile zola would later use the term in the kill, the controversial 1871 novel that scrutinized the negative effects of haussmannization on male sociability. zola’s description of the activities of the teenage maxime saccard and his schoolboy friend is one of the most vivid literary accounts of blasé youth culture in second-empire paris: “the two youths would smoke, look at women, and spatter pedestrians with mud as if returning from the races. it was an astonishing little world, a breeding ground for the snobs and imbeciles who could be seen every day on the rue du havre, nattily dressed in their dandyish jackets, playing at being blasé men of means” (zola 2004, 96). one could easily adapt zola’s words to describe gardefeu and bobinet. indeed, meilhac and halévy use the word gandin obliquely in the brazilian’s la vie parisienne rondeau, in which the foreigner complains of the “cold,” “judgmental,” and “conniving” stares of young parisian men when they are confronted with people not of their own kind. the brazilian utters the word at a brief caesura as if to mock the young men who sulk in the backs of theater boxes: . . . this gandin, who, posh yet needy, hides in the back of the [theater] box, and complains, while chewing on his moustache, where the hell to find more money! meilhac and halévy thus deploy one stereotypical parisian “type,” namely the rich brazilian foreigner, to lampoon another, namely the blasé youth. yet, as we have seen, gardefeu and bobinet were not the first gandins that meilhac and halévy had created. blancpartout (le brésilien) and lucien (la clé de métella) also exhibit the traits of this well-known second empire type parisien. parisian heroes nineteenth-century operas tend have a hero. yet amongst the dueling tourists, mendacious courtesans, and lustful gandins, we search in vain for any heroism in the paris of la vie parisienne. who, then, emerges as the hero(ine) of offenbach’s operetta? in his classic essay “paris, a modern myth,” the sociologist roger caillois (2003) notes that a palpable shift took place in characterizations of the literary hero beginning around 1840. romantic literary tropes of ennui, interiority, and escapism made way for 90 current musicology a fictional hero who was more aggressive and enterprising; writers such as balzac, baudelaire, flaubert and, later, zola “sought to incorporate into real life the exigencies that the romantics (e.g. chateaubriand, musset, and early hugo) had resigned themselves to satisfying on an artistic level, and that sustained their verse” (caillois 2003, 187). in other words, the urban environment came to play a key role in defining the social and psychological ambitions of literary heroes. whereas caillois looks to the popular novel as a sign of this paradigm shift—specifically, the shift in taste from the escapist adventure novel to the urban detective thriller—this article has shown how popular musical theater in mid-nineteenth century paris also saw an increased receptivity towards the technologies, materialities, and circumstances that distinguished the metropolis from the provinces. vaudeville and operetta, two genres wrongfully neglected by opera scholars, provide a valuable corpus of literature that dramatized everyday life in the city. scores, libretti, costume sketches, and staging instructions provide the historian with keys to understanding how fictional heroes, such as those found in novels and poems, shifted from being perpetual outsiders to parisian streets (e.g. balzac’s rastignac, stendhal’s julien) to being products of those streets (e.g. baudelaire’s flâneur, offenbach’s femme du monde). in “the painter of modern life,” baudelaire (1981, 422) also acknowledged that the new modern hero is not a swashbuckler or revolutionary, but rather an informed street dweller: dandyism, wrote baudelaire, was the last flicker of heroism in an age of decadence. indeed, caillois (2004, 188) notes that the emergence of the “modern hero” owed much to a literary aesthetics that prioritized both sociological and theatrical representations of urban life, or what he calls a “dramaturgy” of urban society (caillois 2004, 188). just as nineteenth-century guidebooks and magazines briefed readers on social spaces, linguistic quirks, and urban legends, so too did operetta equip critics with language to “dramatize” mid-century parisian life. while some critics, as we have seen, were unsettled by the operetta’s all-too-real depiction of paris’s seedy nightlife, humorists and caricaturists (figure 5) were as fascinated with the “physiognomy” of the theater audience as they were with the onstage characters that mocked that audience. in his memoirs, gustave claudin even referred to the onslaught of foreign tourists as resembling gondremarck, paraphrasing the character’s lustful act 2 couplets “je veux m’en fourrer jusque-là” (i want to throw myself in up to here): since visitors had well-stocked purses, they flocked directly to the most fashionable neighborhoods. real parisians disappeared in the crowd and were nowhere to be found. in the evenings, the restaurants where they used to dine, the theater boxes and stalls where they used to go and listen to comedies and operas, were all taken over by a cohort of curious 91 jacek blaszkiewicz [foreigners] who, like baron de gondremarck from la vie parisienne, “wanted to throw themselves in up to their necks.”44 as claudin suggests, la vie parisienne was “read” by its public, in terms of whom they would encounter, where they should go, and how they ought to behave in the french capital. but at the same time, the operetta, like its namesake magazine, was itself a “reading” of parisian life, drawing on lived experiences as well as on scripted stereotypes. viewed from a distance, it becomes evident that are no “good” or “evil” characters in la vie parisienne. rather, the operetta—like any cosmopolitan city—was populated with characters whose expectations of personal gain clashed with the realities of living in the metropolis. this fluidity between written discourses and lived practices played a profound role in constructing the myth of a distinctly parisian urban identity during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. figure 5: “the public at the premiere of la vie parisienne. this curious engraving shows the ebullient physiognomy of the spectators present at the premiere of the famous operetta.” lithograph by draner. bnf. notes 1. la clé de métella, comédie in one act, 1862; le brésilien, comédie mêlée de chant in one act, 1863; le photographe, comédie-vaudeville in one act, 1864. 2. by 1866, paris was undergoing several major urban development projects. overseen by baron haussmann, the so-called “second phase” of construction included expansion of the boulevard magenta and the construction of the boulevard malesherbes and the avenue daumesnil. it also included the construction of what are today the place de la république and the étoile, as well as a near-total demolition of the winding streets of the île de la cité. an auxiliary urban project was the construction of edifices in preparation for the 1867 92 current musicology world’s fair. it is well beyond the scope of this essay to detail haussmann’s tabula rasa approach to urban renewal; but, for a detailed study of haussmann’s politics of urban planning, see jordan 1995. 3. laurence senelick (2017) has recently explored modes of representation in offenbach’s works—both how offenbach staged modernity, and how his works were in turn adapted to represent an idealized image of second-empire paris. while senelick notes that for offenbach “the genuine mark of modernity is a concern for triviality” (ibid., 9), i argue here that operetta assumed the same earnestly informative role as did the guidebook or the realist novel. all three genres provided narrative maps of the urban experience, both for tourists and for residents who could not keep up with the pace of haussmannization. 4. citing prendergast, jan pasler (2009, 24) has noted that late-nineteenth-century writers and critics pointed to the city’s fleeting ontology as one of its most prominent pleasures— as well as one of its hazards. 5. while peter mondelli (2017) has recently explored the unspoken or “ineffable” modes of satire in offenbach’s operettas, my article provides an alternate reading of the genre that looks beyond modes of critique and instead at operetta’s capability to function as an instructive text. 6. there is to date no scholarship that frames opera or operetta as “edutainment,” but the term has been increasingly used in recent work in popular-music pedagogy. in his study of knowledge’s role in the cultural formation of hip-hop culture, travis l. gosa (2016, 64) takes musical “edutainment” to mean “a mix of fun and socially conscious music and discourse.” in adopting the term, i aim to grant the authors of operetta and vaudeville moralistic agency over how they portrayed their city. in other words, like hip-hop, operetta and vaudeville had the power to explain. 7. “c’est un monde à l’envers qui n’a pas son pareil, même au sein des orgies délirantes du carnaval.” review by “d.” (edouard déaddé), revue et gazette musicale de paris, november 4, 1866. 8. “vous verrez que pas une réclamation ne s’élèvera contre la pornographie spirituelle qui, sous le titre la vie parisienne, fait de notre capitale un immense bréda.” foucher, 1867, 427. 9. “ce n’est qu’un vaudeville, qu’un opéra bouffe, c’est un mélange des deux genres à la fois.” léo lucas, journal des marchandes de modes, november 15, 1866. 10. “pas un caractère vrai, pas une situation vraiment comique, mais une charge continuelle, voilà la vie parisienne.” léo lucas, journal des marchandes de modes, november 15, 1866. 11. carolyn abbate and roger parker (2015, 325) offer a kracauer-inspired interpretation of operetta in claiming that “offenbach farces can be seen as mirrors on society, with politics and social undertows satirized and negotiated within their libretti.” 12. “avec ce titre magique de paris, un drame, une revue, un livre est toujours sûr du succès. paris a sur lui-même une curiosité inextinguible que rien n’a pu satisfaire encore, ni les gros ouvrages sérieux, ni les publications légères, ni l’histoire, ni la chronique, ni l’étude, ni la mémoire, ni le tableau, ni le roman. mettez ce mot sur une affiche et en voilà pour six mois de queue et de foule.” gautier, 1856, p. i. 13. “ce que l’on nomme la vie parisienne est une manière d’être, de vivre et même de penser toute particulière à la population parisienne. cette vie constitue une sorte d’individualité. son caractère général, c’est surtout d’être plus extérieure que dans aucune autre 93 jacek blaszkiewicz capitale de l’europe.” de cesena 1864, 677. 14. yon’s hefty biography of offenbach mentions the operetta’s dedication to marcelin but does not elaborate on their relationship. tracing meilhac’s and halevy’s contributions to the magazine presents a particular challenge; illustrations are rarely if ever attributed, and writers adopted pseudonyms to hide their identities. while critics have attempted to decipher these pseudonyms, there is no evidence of their veracity; and perhaps the authors changed pseudonyms over time. according to parisis’s obituary of marcelin in le figaro, meilhac signed his name under the pseudonym “h…off,” while halévy adopted the pseudonym “puck.” 15. “une joie de vivre . . . fièvre d’une prospérité sans précédent . . . dont toutes les aspirations étaient tournées vers le luxe, vers le plaisir, vers la fête et vers le tintamarre.” le figaro, december 5, 1887. 16. “un journal qui soit en quelque sorte un salon de gens pas bêtes, où chacun apporte sa nouvelle et dit son impression sans songer à ceux qui l’écoutent.” la vie parisienne, january 9, 1864. 17. this allusion to the salon could be stretched further. as yon (2000, 334) notes, meilhac and halévy’s work for marcelin’s magazine and in their vaudevilles capitalized on the popularity of thierry chavanne’s salons caricaturaux (“caricature-salons”), or humorous illustrations of the artistic and literary salons. 18. “étrangers et étrangères,” la vie parisienne, october 20, 1866. 19. “un guide, un parapluie, un carnet des lunettes ou un binocle, une lorgnette en sautoir, pas de gants, mais une femme et des enfants, beaucoup d’enfants, un sillage d’enfants.” 20. “les cabinets particuliers et les avant-scènes.” 21. “la petite marquise continue, dans un cadre un peu plus agrandi, cette série de pièces, qui ne sont que des articles de la vie parisienne transportés à la scène et mises au point d’optique du théâtre.” sarcey 1902, 209. 22. “[marcelin] trouvait qu’entre la chose réelle et la chose dessinée la différence est petite; au bout de quelques heures, cette différence s’évanouissait.” marcelin 1888, p. ix. 23. “ce qui fut réussir les pièces de ces deux auteurs, c’était ce qu’on pourrait appeler leur modernité. nul autre ne raillait aussi exactement qu’eux les manies, les tics et les ridicules du jour.” claudin 1884, 241. 24. schechner distinguishes between the “written script” and the people who perform it. in other words, scripts provide “the basic code and sequence” of an event, while the actors must interpret that script on a spectrum from the literal to the liberal. in marcelin’s magazine, the “real-life” characters of paris—those who attend the theaters—are no better at breaking from the “script” than are the professional actors who perform at those theaters. 25. talin (meilhac), “comment se fait un vaudeville,” journal pour rire, july 9, 1853. 26. “[meilhac] connaissait les replis de l’âme comme les coulisses de la vie parisienne, et le cœur humain comme le boulevard.” fulbert-dumontheil, le gaulois, november 9, 1869. 27. “ce fut le commencement de ma collaboration avec offenbach et le commencement de ma vie en théâtre.” see yon 2000, 140. 28. “mm. meilhac and halévy sont des peintres très souples de la vie moderne. ils ont saisi à merveille les codes particuliers de certains mondes, et leurs comédies sont parfois des tableaux d’une grande vérité, exécutés par des artistes. je les crois même de beaucoup 94 current musicology supérieurs à leurs œuvres.” see zola 1881, 268. 29. “le succès . . . de la clef [sic] de métella, ne fait que grandir tous les soirs.” koning 1864, 119. 30. the name “métella” may be a reference to george sand’s novella métella, which was first published serially in 1833 in the revue des deux mondes, a magazine that is referenced in meilhac and halévy’s play. sand’s métella, in turn, could possibly have been inspired by balzac’s la femme abandonée, which would extend the intertextual web of la vie parisienne to include urban fiction from the early nineteenth century. as an archetypal femme du monde, the invisible métella in clé de métella remains an offstage fetish object that only the male characters are able to see. for a revisionist reading of offenbach’s métella as an affirmative image of nineteenth-century female sexuality, see hadlock 2016. 31. “à chaque entr’acte, une dizaine de jeunes gens . . . passaient en revue les femmes qu’il y avait dans la salle…quand ils arrivaient à cette . . . demoiselle, ils la nommaient tout haut et plusieurs fois; j’en ai conclu qu’il y avait un certain orgueil à avoir l’air de la connaître.” 32. “vous m’auriez fait jouer un turc ou un petit paysan normand, ça aurait été absolument la même chose.” 33. “je vais applaudir votre pièce et ma chanson. il va sans dire que mon nom ne sera pas prononcé pour cette bêtise, ce soir, ni mis sur l’affiche demain.” goninet 1994, 60. 34. the score remained in circulation at least until the end of the century; in 1899, erik satie recycled the ronde du brésilien into an original song entitled “loubet assassin.” he transposed offenbach’s original tune down a tritone, wrote a new introduction, and rewrote the accompaniment. for a discussion of satie’s arrangement as well as a reproduction of satie’s sketch, see whiting 1999, 200–201. 35. “la ‘ronde du brésilien!’ voilà certes la plus ébouriffante chanson qui ait été imaginée depuis longtemps. il faut l’entendre chanter par brasseur et gil-pérès. ce ne sont pas seulement les paroles ultra-plaisantes des deux spirituels vaudevillistes qui font pouffer de rire, mais c’est une des plus heureuses trouvailles musicales d’offenbach, une des plus originales mélodies que le fécond compositeur ait, jusqu’à présent, puisées, dans sa fertile imagination.” le ménestrel, april 12, 1863. 36. les calicots premiered at the théâtre des folies-dramatiques on may 24, 1864. 37. as david rissin (1980, 179 n.1) argues, offenbach, halévy, and hector-jonathan crémieux deliberately used the word “fournaise” as a metaphor for contemporary society in orphée aux enfers, where it signified both pleasure and hell. 38. la vie parisienne, march 16, 1864. 39. in baudelaire’s (1981, 420–21) formulation, the dandy is a cultivated aesthete who regards urban living as a metaphysical experience: “dandyism in certain respects comes close to spirituality and to stoicism, but a dandy can never be a vulgar man.” 40. “un gandin des boulevards qui, pour attirer chez lui une jolie baronne allemande, a transformé son salon en une succursale de la maison nadar.” le journal amusant, december 31, 1864. 41. “un jeune gandin . . . qui a fait . . . la rencontre d’une baronne suédoise.” revue et gazette musicale de paris, november 4, 1866. 42. “gandin,” in le trésor de la langue française informatisé (tilf), www.atilf.fr (accessed september 24, 2018). 43. “le gandinisme, c’est le ridicule dans la sottise.” larchey 1865, 153. 95 jacek blaszkiewicz 44. “comme les visiteurs avaient des bourses bien garnies, ils se dirigèrent tout droit vers les quartiers les plus à la mode. les vrais parisiens disparurent dans la foule, et ne purent se retrouver. le soir, les restaurants où ils avaient coutume de diner, les loges et les stalles de spectacle où ils allaient écouter des opéras et des comédies, étaient pris d’assaut par des cohortes de curieux voulant, comme le baron de gondremarck de la vie parisienne, s’en fourrer jusqu’au cou.” claudin 1884, 17–18. references abbate, carolyn. 2017. “offenbach, 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anecdotique. levin, alicia c. 2009. “a documentary overview of musical theaters in paris, 1830-1900.” in music, theater, and cultural transfer: paris, 1830-1914, edited by mark everist and annegret fauser, 379-402. chicago: the university of chicago press. locke, ralph. 2009. musical exoticism: images and reflections. new york: cambridge university press. marcelin, émile. 1888. souvenirs de la vie parisienne. paris: victor-havard. de mazza, ethel matala. “the diva: fates of an archetypal figure in operetta.” the opera quarterly 33 (1): 49-61. mcclary, susan. 1992. georges bizet: carmen. cambridge: cambridge university press. milne, anna-louise, ed. 2013. the cambridge companion to the literature of paris. new york: cambridge university press. mondelli, peter. “offenbach’s bouffonnerie, wagner’s rêverie: the materiality and politics of the ineffable in second empire paris.” the opera quarterly 32 (2–3): 134–59. pasler, jann. 2009. composing the citizen: music as public utility in third-republic france. berkeley: university of california press. prendergast, christopher. 1995. paris and the nineteenth century. london: wileyblackwell. rissin, david. 1980. offenbach: ou, le rire en musique. paris: fayard. sala, emilio. 2013. the sounds of paris in verdi’s la traviata. new york: cambridge university press. sarcey, francisque. 1901. quarante ans de théâtre: feuilletons dramatiques. vol. 6. paris: bibliothèque des annales politiques et littéraires. schechner, richard. 1988. performance theory. new york: routledge. scott, derek b. 2008. sounds of the metropolis: the nineteenth-century popular music revolution in london, new york, paris and vienna. new york: oxford university press. senelick, laurence. 2017. jacques offenbach and the making of modern culture. new york: cambridge university press. senici, emanuele. 2015. “delirious hopes: napoleonic milan and the rise of modern italian operatic criticism.” cambridge opera journal 27 (2): 97–127. tester, keith, ed. 1994. the flâneur. new york and london: routledge. truesdell, matthew. 1997. spectacular politics: louis napoléon and the fête impériale, 18491870. new york: oxford university press. whiting, steven moore. 1999. satie the bohemian: from cabaret to concert hall. oxford: oxford university press. willson, flora. 2014. “of time and the city: don carlos and its parisian critics.” nineteenth-century music 37 (3): 188–210. yon, jean-claude. 2000. jacques offenbach. paris: gallimard. zola, émile. 1881. nos auteurs dramatiques. paris: g. charpentier. ———. 2004. the kill. translated by arthur goldhammer. new york: modern library classics. current musicology 103 (fall 2018) © 2018 rothe. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 131 kreuzer, gundula. 2018. curtain, gong, steam: wagnerian technologies of nineteenth-century opera. oakland, ca: university of california press. reviewed by alexander k. rothe in a recent journal of the american musicological society colloquy, “discrete/ continuous: music and media theory after kittler,” alexander rehding argues that the late friedrich kittler’s media theory—and its subsequent development by media theorists after kittler (sybille krämer, bernhard siegert, wolfgang ernst, jussi parikka)—has a great deal to offer current musicology (rehding et al. 2017, 225). despite criticisms from geoffrey winthrop-young (2002, 832) that kittler adheres to a form of technological determinism, and focuses too narrowly on the connection between media technologies and the military-industrial complex, rehding claims that kittler’s media theory can nevertheless help musicologists make sense of the material and technological underpinnings of music and sound. one such application of kittler’s media theory comes in the form of gundula kreuzer’s curtain, gong, steam: wagnerian technologies of nineteenth-century opera. kreuzer’s book is an outstanding example of the productive ways that kittler’s media theory can be applied within opera studies, and more specifically to the integrative multimedia experience of wagner’s gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). yet what makes curtain, gong, steam such an effective book—and without a doubt this book is truly remarkable for the ways it has changed the way i think about wagner and opera in general—is that while it is in dialogue with kittler’s media theory, it is not confined by the latter’s ideas or methodologies.1 as kreuzer states in her contribution to the aforementioned jams colloquy (“kittler’s wagner and beyond”), kittler relied too much on wagner’s idealized theoretical writings, and not enough on the material realities of how these operas were realized on the stage (rehding et al. 2017, 231). as a corrective, kreuzer aims to present her own media archaeology of the wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk—a history of the technologies involved in the immersive multimedia experience at the bayreuth festspielhaus (230). kreuzer’s book carries out this media archaeology by considering three often-overlooked technologies—the curtain, gong, and steam—which enable her to explore the mechanical aspects that wagner sought to hide in his theoretical writings. each chapter examines a particular wagnerian technology, and each one illuminates some aspect of the relationship of the media involved in the gesamtkunstwerk. 132 current musicology the introductory chapter outlines many of the book’s key points. drawing on lydia goehr’s (1992) scholarship on the emergence of the work concept in the early 1800s, kreuzer maintains that the operatic work concept expanded over the course of the nineteenth century to include stage technologies and directions, in an attempt to fix these details for future productions. wagner was not the first to exercise authorial control over the singers and staging details, as demonstrated by the “holistic approach” of his contemporaries carl maria von weber and giacomo meyerbeer (12). yet what made wagner different from his predecessors was that he sought to make these technologies invisible, for example when he used steam at bayreuth to hide the scenic changes and create the illusion of continuous action. kreuzer’s consideration of the curtain, gong, and steam enable her to examine more closely the “intersecting points” (schnittstellen) between technologies—kittler’s term for how technologies come together to create an immersive multimedia experience (17). all three technologies are multisensorial and contribute to the overall multimedia experience. a key argument of kreuzer’s book is that wagner’s operas are paradigmatic examples of illusionist theater, which simultaneously relied on advanced stage machinery and realist detail to create the illusion of idealized nature. the technologies of the curtain, gong, and steam are especially important here since they helped veil the essentially mechanical aspects of wagner’s operas, while contributing to the interfacing of the other technologies to create a seamless multimedia presentation. it is for this reason that kreuzer refers to these three technologies as “wagnerian” technologies. more so than composers before him, wagner was able to veil the mechanical aspects of opera production and integrate them to create this immersive experience. kreuzer’s methodological approach to technology focuses on “composers’ visions and the technologies applied toward their realization” (5). in other words, she examines how composers such as wagner, meyerbeer, grétry, and berlioz implemented specific sonic and visual technologies to accomplish their intentions. in doing so, she concentrates primarily on composers and technologies of the long nineteenth century, in some cases moving up to the present day. chapter one interprets the venusberg scenes of tannhäuser as an allegory of wagner’s “lifelong yet ambivalent pursuit of absolute directorial powers” (30). like venus, wagner sought to enchant his audiences at bayreuth with a total multimedia experience. that this was a life-long quest for wagner is reflected in the fact that wagner repeatedly revised tannhäuser over thirty years, resulting in four different versions. kreuzer 133 alexander k. rothe describes tannhäuser as a “laboratory in which [wagner] tested those music-dramatic ideas and technological ideas that his later productions would famously seek to deliver openly to the world” (30). more specifically, she interprets the venusburg scenes as a proto-gesamtkunstwerk, where wagner first experimented with seamlessly integrating the various media and technologies into a single, all-encompassing experience. for example, wagner makes the solo singing of venus and tannhäuser seem dramatically motivated by what precedes it—a sonic evocation of venus’s grotto and an instrumental depiction of both character’s emotions. in other words, the singing seems to flow naturally from the sound and instrumental music, contributing to the overall effect of the immersive experience of the gesamtkunstwerk. moreover, venus’s failure to convince tannhäuser to stay in her grotto foreshadows wagner’s own failure to gain complete control over technology at bayreuth—a theme to which kreuzer returns in the epilogue. chapter two discusses the first of the wagnerian technologies, the curtain. kreuzer outlines how composers, increasingly aware of the curtain’s expressive potential, coordinated its movement with the music and drama. no longer limited to signaling beginnings and endings, the curtain became part of the immersive illusionist experience, especially in the case of wagner. far from being just an optical technology, the curtain’s careful coordination with music made it a key audiovisual medium for guiding the spectator’s multimedia experience. a good example of this is the prelude to das rheingold, when the curtain guides the spectator’s attention away from the music and sound of the rhine river (136 measures of instrumental music) to the immersive experience of singing rhinemaidens. though the coordination of curtain and music existed before wagner’s operas, he fine-tuned the technology to such an extent that he required a custommade curtain with light fabric, which was opened via a diagonal pull and conic winches. to this day, this type of curtain bears the composer’s name: “the wagner curtain.” chapter three explores how the gong’s non-periodic vibrations and extended resonance challenged “the boundaries between what was perceived as music and noise,” and how the instrument’s multiple uses as “music, prop, and machinery” made it an indispensable audiovisual component of illusionist theater (111). following 19th-century conventions, kreuzer uses the terms “gong” and “tam-tam” interchangeably, except when referring to specific types of pitched gongs. the chapter outlines the history of the tam-tam’s use in western european opera, providing readers with a rich “historiographic listening” of the instrument’s ever-changing semantic and cultural meanings (112). this part of the book is especially rewarding, 134 current musicology because it traces the gong’s circulation across cultural and national borders in a way that makes us rethink existing boundaries. for example, the gong first made its european appearance in britain, where spectators could encounter it in curiosity cabinets, ballet, upper middle-class homes, and the opera house. at opera houses in london, the gong was used as a “tool for rendering the other, a technology of cultural colonialism” (117). apart from its “exotic allure,” the gong was also rendered in ceremonial funerals in napoleonic paris, simultaneously signifying death and “terror of doomsday” (120). it was this dual connotation of death and fear that shaped the gong’s use in french opera, as in le seur’s 1796 télémaque and halévy’s la juive. finally, the gong evoked “archaic peoples,” but not in the geographically specific way of the early british examples (123). wagner was careful to avoid this association of the gong with primitive peoples, which he thought would undermine the idealist nature of his gesamtkunstwerk. yet, as kreuzer points out, wagner nevertheless incorporated the gong into his sunken orchestra pit at bayreuth to add color and solemnity to the “ring’s dark magic” and “erda’s prediction of the gods’ demise”—but in a way that masked the instrument’s metallic attack (145). in keeping with the narrative found elsewhere in the book, wagner transformed the gong from noisy technology to an artistic medium of his illusionist theater. chapter four’s discussion of steam is based on kreuzer’s 2011 article, “wagner-dampf: steam in der ring des nibelungen and operatic production,” which was initially my first encounter with her scholarship. as was the case then, what strikes me most about kreuzer’s consideration of steam is the way that she is able to approach a seemingly nonmusical aspect of production to illuminate the sound and music of wagner’s operas. for example, the ring’s fire music reoccurs in connection with loge and brünnhilde’s rock, and this music becomes an integral part of the latter’s scenery. as kreuzer puts it: “wagner also captured the sonic nature of a crackling and blustering fire” (178). this audiovisual pairing in the musical scenery drives home kreuzer’s larger argument about wagner’s use of technology to veil the mechanical constituent elements of the gesamtkunstwerk in the service of a total immersive experience. another key point of this chapter is how steam enables wagner to reconceive the relationship between scenes. in other words, what used to be a transition between two separate, static images (tableaux vivants) becomes a single continuous image by means of the application of steam (182). finally, though wagner relied on steam to suggest idealized scenes of nature, the mechanical production of steam ultimately betrayed itself during initial performances of the ring through the steam’s smell, hissing, and inability to be controlled. yet, in spite of this, steam took on a life of its own, and it 135 alexander k. rothe remains in use as a staging technology to this day. the epilogue considers what kreuzer refers to as the “inevitable failure” of wagner’s gesamtkunstwerk. she writes: “wagner had tried to advance his technologies to such a degree as to make them appear ‘natural’…. yet even as such they would always remain in the realm of artifice rather than animated life: technology cannot overcome itself ” (219). that is, wagner’s illusionistic theater depended on technologies that were subject to malfunction and obsolescence. at the ring’s premiere in 1876, there was the failure of the gas lighting, a broken-down dragon, and the noisy hissing and wafting of the steam engines. furthermore, kreuzer returns to kittler’s argument that wagner was the great innovator of media storage. the bayreuth festival was wagner’s means of preserving his works and their performance for future generations, a type of recording technology prior to the phonograph. although wagner experimented with the idea of creating a school for the performance of his works, it was the festival itself and traveling productions across europe and north america that served this purpose best. yet, even these were subject to failure, as touring singers became sick and bayreuth’s staging technologies became obsolete. in summary, kreuzer draws attention to how wagner incorporated existing technologies, in many cases from composers and genres that he elsewhere attacked and/or dismissed (e.g., meyerbeer, grand opéra, rossini). furthermore, in keeping with her previous monograph, verdi and the germans: from unification to the third reich, kreuzer traces the circulation of these materials and technologies across borders in a way that moves beyond existing cultural and political boundaries. for example, the gong first appeared in english opera houses, before making its way to france, followed by germany. this rethinking of opera and technology beyond borders is what i find most rewarding about her book curtain, gong, steam. so often wagner scholarship focuses on how his operas were used to reinscribe existing national borders and types of national identity (dennis 2016; grey 2002). curtain, gong, steam is an invaluable resource for all opera scholars, especially because it sheds new light on the multisensorial technologies used to create the illusion of a seamless multimedia experience. kreuzer’s account of often-neglected technologies is in keeping with jonathan sterne’s recent call for an expanded understanding of technology as technicity (sterne 2016)—as we consider not just acoustics, architectural design, and stage machinery design, but also modes of perception, aesthetic motivations, and the interaction of bodies and machines. in keeping with this broader conception of technology, i think curtain, gong, steam is best 136 current musicology read alongside several other recent books on opera and technology. karen henson’s edited book, technology and the diva, focuses on technologies surrounding the singers, something that kreuzer’s book only touches upon in passing. david trippett’s monograph wagner’s melodies: aesthetics and materialism in german musical identity—which is also in dialogue with kittler’s media theory—includes a broader consideration of music, sound, and noise in the context of 19th-century germany. these three books complement existing literature on opera and cinema—for example, on wagner, see citron (2000) and joe and gilman (2010). when read in tandem with these books, curtain, gong, steam offers a highly insightful way of thinking about how sonic and visual technologies interact in the immersive multimedia experience of opera. notes 1. a reference point for kreuzer is kittler’s famous 1987 essay “world-breath: on wagner’s media technology,” which makes the argument that wagner’s “music-drama is the first mass-medium in the modern sense of the word,” by replacing opera’s symbolic order of representation (libretto, musical score) with data streams that “correlate in the real itself to the materiality they deal with” (215). references citron, marcia. 2000. opera on screen. new haven: yale university press. dennis, david b. “their meister’s voice: nazi reception of richard wagner and his works in the völkischer beobachter.” in opera in a multicultural world: coloniality, culture, performance, edited by mary i. ingraham, joseph k. so, and roy moodley, 138–150. new york: routledge, 2016. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. oxford: oxford university press. grey, thomas s. 2002. “wagner’s die meistersinger as national opera (1868–1945).” in music and germany national identity, edited by celia applegate and pamela potter, 78–104. chicago: university of chicago press. joe, jeongwon and sander l. gilman. 2010. wagner and cinema. bloomington: indiana university press. kittler, friedrich. 1994. “world-breath: on wagner’s media technology.” in opera through other eyes, edited by david j. levin, 215–235. stanford: stanford university press. kreuzer, gundula. 2011. “wagner-dampf: steam in der ring des nibelungen and operatic production.” the opera quarterly 27, no. 2–3: 179–218. ______. 2010. verdi and the germans: from unification to the third reich. cambridge: cambridge university press. rehding, alexander et al. 2017. “discrete/continuous: music and media theory after kittler.” journal of the american musicological society 70 (1): 221–256. sterne, jonathan. 2016. “afterword: opera, media, technicity.” in technology and the diva: sopranos, opera, and media from romanticism to the digital age, edited by karen 137 alexander k. rothe henson, 159–164. cambridge: cambridge university press. trippett, david. 2013. wagner’s melodies: aesthetics and materialism in german musical identity. new york: cambridge university press. winthrop-young, geoffrey. 2002. “drill and distraction in the yellow submarine: on the dominance of war in friedrich kittler’s media theory.” critical inquiry 28: 825–854. 138 current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 139 david novak. 2013. japanoise: music at the edge of circulation. durham, nc: duke university press. reviewed by andrés garcía molina first, a disclaimer: this is not a review if “book review” implies the existence of an explicit map or the provision of a summary of sorts. japanoise is an extraordinary book that requires something else, a different strategy. just like a project around noise with a capital n (a musical genre), and noise (a more general concept), required from david novak a different kind of engagement, a different kind of listening, a different kind of writing. novak’s japanoise, based on over ten years of fieldwork in japan and north america, provides no transparent, easy definitions, nor does it strive to produce a definitive history of noise in any sense, whether as genre or metaphor. and while novak’s work pushes towards an approximation to noise as a potent critique of many things (some of which will be addressed in this review), in japanoise he manages to investigate generative questions around noise without merely opposing it to other categories (like music, signal, or information), enacting an all–out critique of a tendency to define objects and subjects too neatly in ethnomusicological and anthropological research. in novak’s hands, noise can refer to an underground genre of music, forms of circulation, a commodity, and everyday techniques of creating and listening. methodologically, novak’s work is an intensive application of how to engage with a slippery subject, one that appears to be virtually inapprehensible and not reducible to a straight, linear story with a set of discretely identifiable ancestors sitting atop a family tree. part of novak’s merit lies in resisting writing an account that adduces a limited group of people as calling the shots or having direct or singular accountability. any traceable lines of kinship and communication, relation, and exchange are overlapping and uneven. similarly, noise cannot be reduced to a single place or places. novak admits it is constantly changing, as ubiquitous as it is unperceived. in that sense, novak’s style of ethnography is vigorously detectivesque minus the fetish. novak writes that ethnographic writing can be “as much a force of ambiguity as of explanation,” admitting that the project he embarks upon might be “unsettling” (26). japanoise is careful in and committed to writing against exoticization and reification. and while there is no clear family tree, throughout the book we are presented with a host of characters, people of bone and flesh with first and last names; at stake is nothing less than livelihoods and 140 current musicology ways of being. there are performers of varying renown and those who travel from near and far to hear their performances. japanoise follows the circuitous paths activated by noise through multiple cities: osaka, tokyo, and kyoto in japan; san francisco, new york city, providence, and london, ontario in north america. within those cities, there are multiple places that noise—and consequently, novak—treads: record stores, live performance venues, coffee shops, bars, recording studios, radio stations, living rooms, even the intimacy of headphones blasting dangerously loud sound waves. and noise travels in various forms: mail–order albums and cassettes, in–person exchanges, subsequent listening sessions at home or in public spaces, but also through live performances. in 233 richly detailed, poetically descriptive pages, novak manages to also pay equal attention to the wider historical contexts of these histories of circulation, all the while maintaining an accessible tone that is unwaveringly rigorous. novak’s admittance of unsettling–ness, “i will not touch down in particular sites for long,” is deceptively simple (26). for describing a performance that takes place, say at a small bar in osaka, also means knowing about the history of that small bar. who runs it, who owns it, who else has performed there, what kind of public goes there, which kinds of practices are enacted. it might also mean knowing about that neighborhood’s history. if a performance is part of an annual event, say, like the no fun fest, novak doesn’t downplay the importance of knowing which record labels might be involved, who the organizers might be, which other festivals and publics might intersect. novak also discusses a range of magazines that were and a part of noise’s circulation, drawing on the various kinds of discourse presented in different publications. entering a record store, too, is not simply entering a record store: in novak’s treatment, it also means paying attention to the broader history entailed, to the store’s connections in town, nationally, and internationally. or take, for example, novak’s engagement with drugstore, an alternative listening “free space” in 1980s kyoto, a site that played an important role in the coming together of a generation of noisicians. but engaging with drugstore means, for novak, also engaging with the broader historical sociality of “listening cafés” in japan, and in particular, the institution of jazu–kissa. novak guides us through a particular way of listening that consolidated across japan in the post–war decades. in doing so he engages a particular history of jazz circulation and a broader history of us–japan relations. novak is complex and thorough in his treatment of encounters between the united states and japan, encounters that “have historically been un141 andrés garcía molina equal, but unequal in particularly repetitive, cyclical ways” (25). novak explores these “asymmetries” in detail, asserting that his “extension of japan studies into a context of transnational reception . . . is also a step toward globalizing american studies through the circuits of japanese media. in both contexts, distinct projects of cultural and subcultural identity emerged from shared but separate loops of consumption” (25). novak seems equally well informed and familiar with japanese scholarship and forms of popular culture as he is with those of the west. all of this, of course, implied doing an impressive amount of fine–grained ethnographic research and archival work. and despite all the specificity that at times comes through in japanoise, novak insists on a productive paradox: he writes rigorously while taking head–on the challenges posed by a reflexive authorial voice that does not strive to be authoritative. in a gesture i read as densely significant, the introduction of japanoise does not end with the usual roadmap characteristic of anglo–american academic publications: “in chapter 1, i explore . . . chapter 2 traces an outline of . . . chapters 3 and 4 theorize . . .” in leading us through detailed histories, in presenting with great care the different work ethics and aesthetics of a wide range of international artists like merzbow, incapacitants, sonic youth, masonna, nihilism spasm band, hijokaidan, and their numerous ilk, novak consistently resists any totalizing act, steadily writing against a style of singularity that has been uncritically produced and received in our disciplines. for maps, as novak puts it, also draw the outsider. japanoise is also a sustained critique of jacques attali’s seminal noise: the political economy of music (1977), a critique that is only spelled out explicitly at the very end of the book, in the epilogue. novak presses the fact that what attali means by noise presupposes a narrow, romantic understanding of what “music” is. attali limits noise to the outside, as a noise that can only exist in the margins and “can never enter into the spinning wheel of musical systems” (231). attali’s noise is strictly negative, disallowing any possibility of it having any kind of productive presence in a circulatory present; it is too neatly the opposite of music. the noise novak describes did not emerge through its pure distinctions from music but in the overlapping and repetitive feedback between “noise” and “music,” “local” and “global,” “old” and “new” that generates new modes of musical and social experience. even when these fluctuations of identity, production, mediation, and creative practice are drawn into specific and observable loops of sound and performance, noise does not settle. (232) 142 current musicology along similar lines he writes, “any story of noise must account for the transnational circuitry of its subjects, and also acknowledge their dogged pursuit of antisocial, antihistorical, antimusical obscurity. this multisited struggle against cultural identification makes noise extremely difficult to place” (15). novak also writes about the lower case noise, a broader concept deployed in discourses about technology, globalization, race, class, ethnicity, modernity, and the environment, in disciplines ranging from history to musicology, anthropology, media studies, to science and technology studies. in critiquing such uses of “noise” as a concept, novak draws attention to how “[s]ome narratives take for granted its unity as a sonic object” (229; emphasis mine). what simultaneously becomes apparent is a powerful critique of the way boundedness is too easily attributed to objects of study, how a sonic object’s unity is indeed often left unproblematized. novak’s theoretical agenda is particularly rich in the complex interweaving of noise, circulation, and feedback. his understanding of circulation is one that openly challenges existing models that “represent circulation as something that takes place between cultures” (17; emphasis in the original). in a radical move, in privileging the concept of feedback, novak proposes that “circulation itself constitutes culture” (17; emphasis in the original). it is also important to note that he sustains this position without simply proposing another version of medial determinism à la friedrich kittler. at the same time, novak is deeply concerned with “how technological mediation transformed the global scale of cultural exchange, even as it undermined its historical continuity” (17). his account is not simply about how culture travels and appears changed elsewhere, but it is also about remediation as feedback. whatever circulates doesn’t end as diffusion, propagation, or dispersion; it comes back, feeding back onto itself. if there is some critique i offer, i must first preface it with acknowledging again novak’s open admittance of not necessarily resolving, of writing an unsettling ethnography, and also foregrounding the ambitious scope of japanoise. novak writes, “[a]nother goal of this book is to examine the role of technology in the formation of cultural subjects,” naming a fundamental question in the social sciences and the humanities (23). while novak presents detailed literature reviews in other areas of academic enquiry, his engagement with the literature that deals with the various ways in which the relationship between humans and technology is understood to unfold seems lacking. while novak is convincing in his account of technology as something central to noise’s aesthetics of live performance, ways of circulation, and techniques of creating and listening, his account does not present explicit theorization about ways 143 andrés garcía molina in which we might be able to think about the unfolding of the human and the technical within specific localities. in this particular point, his approach is empirically rich, leaving ample room for theorization. there is that famous line—“we murder to dissect”—in william wordsworth’s “the tables turned.” but if we turn the tables another time—if we dissect to murder—we find precisely that which novak does not do but, that which an inordinate amount of academic work does: divide a “problem” in order to conquer it, in order to get closer to “the truth.” mirroring novak’s resistance to laying out neat maps, i am risking writing a non–review, something far from a summary or a faithful– enough miniversion of the book that could stand in place of reading the book. in this risk i hope to purposefully provoke readers to go do some reading and listening for themselves, but perhaps more importantly, to do something beyond finding out or getting lost in a map. medievalism and exoticism in the music of dead can dance kirsten yri in 1991, the alternative rock band dead can dance released an album that caught the attention of music reviewers by constructing an aural allegiance to the middle ages. suitably called a passage in time, the album was described as imitating medieval chant, troubadour and trouvere music, latin hymns, and courtly songs and included dead can dance's hybrid medieval songs as well as performances of actual medieval repertoire. 1 released and widely distributed by warner, the album was in fact a compilation of material from their earlier the serpent's egg (1988) and aion (1990), both carried by the independent label 4ad. both dead can dance's newly composed renditions as well as their performances of medieval music were modeled after historically informed performances and thus drew on the sounds of medieval music as it was constructed in the early music revival of the 1960s and 1970s. in modeling their songs and sounds after historical recordings of medieval music, dead can dance also adopted some of the ideological parameters of these perfor­ mances and historical reconstructions. examining the output of dead can dance against these performance practices reveals similar preoccupations with the middle ages as simultaneously "naive," "pure;' and "uncorrupted" by modern conventions (haines 2004a), or "distant,""exotic;' and strangely unfamiliar or "archaic" (leech-wilkinson 2002).2 for listeners in the uk, and for those familiar with the medieval-inspired progressive rock music of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a rock band's foray into the sound world of the middle ages may appear to be nothing new.3 indeed, in some ways, dead can dance's interest in medieval sounds and technical features parallels what susan fast identified in the 1960s bands gentle giant, gryphon, and pentangle as a "longing for the other, in particu1ar as a source of power alternative to that possessed by the dominant culture" (2000:35). yet the musical parameters adopted by dead can dance differ significantly from those fast describes, insofar as dead can dance combine sacred medieval musical traditions with contemporary bulgarian, north african, and arab practices, collapsing the different times and places into one. dead can dance's vision and use of the middle ages is thus caught up in complex signifying discourses of the other, constructing an arena where the exotic, alluring, natural, and spiritual are mapped onto the medieval and non-western musical practices from which the band borrows. current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 53 54 current musicology dead can dance's appropriation of bulgarian, north african, and arab musical practices also participates in what edward said has called "orientalism." as said has argued, the practices of geography, travel writ­ ing' literature, political theory, economics, and even anthropology were all constituents of a discourse ultimately responsible for constructing the orient as the west's other. for said, the issue was not simply that orientalism was not truthful or accurate, but that it became "a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the 'orient'" (1978:3). as he and other postcolonial scholars have argued, the appropriation of foreign peoples' cultures or ideas invariably amounts to representations that reinscribe power and racial divisions, and, to follow arguments by homi bhabha (1994) and gayatri spivak (1988), result in the continuous silencing and colonizing of non-western cultures. by juxtaposing bulgarian, north african, and arab practices with a western medieval past, dead can dance can also be seen to reinscribe western stereotypes that locate the contemporary non-western other as frozen in the past. as johannes fabian (1983) has argued, such a view is the heritage of a theory of unilinear evolutionary process comprising set stages of progress with the same content for all peoples. in the underlying paradigm of a scientific time, these stages are ordered chronologically, and a position on the evolutionary line is equal to a position in time; difference is thus affirmed as distance. through a process of de familiarization, the mapping of bulgarian, north african, and arab practices onto the middle ages increases the distance of the middle ages from the present. the middle ages thus becomes an internal other, looked at, as gary tomlinson notes, from "the superiority of the present;' failing "to perceive difference without its degenerating into superiority/inferiority" (1993:10, quoting todorov). finally, the process by which dead can dance collapse "our" medieval past and orientalist others, assigning "premodern" attributes of spirituality or naturalness to both, echoes marianna torgovnick's exploration of western spirituality (1996). torgovnick argues that connections between humans and their universe that cannot be cast into a rational mode have been written out of the west: "bit by bit, thread by thread, the west has woven a tapestry in which the primitive, the oceanic, and the feminine have been banished to the margins in order to protect-or so the logic went-the primacy of civilization, masculinity, and the autonomous self" (1996:212). the primitive is "conceived to be the conduit for spiritual emotions;' so that the desire for the primitive is often a desire for the spiritual (1996:7). in their construction of a spiritual and exotic other, dead can dance prefigured and anticipated the 1990s popularity of recordings of gregorian chant, the music of hildegard von bingen, and medieval crossovers such as the hilliard ensemble's officium. in the case of chant, some of this increased kirsten yri visibility and popularity has been attributed to new marketing and promo­ tion campaigns that aligned chant with the promise of a better world. as katherine bergeron remarks, in the 1990s chant was marketed with imagery and rhetoric that aligned it with the mysterious, spiritual, and exotic, a rheto­ ric that dates as far back as 1830s france (1995:30). hildegard von bingen became immensely popular in the 1990s, in part due to marketing strategies that presented her as a medieval mystic. as jennifer bain demonstrates, the cover art for the most popular hildegard recordings revealed a new format, "popped up" for a new age market by modern typeface and bright colors (2004). paula higgins considers the popularity of medieval music to be "a belated symbolic payoff (or poetic justice?) to generations of earlier scholars (and teachers of notation courses, no doubt) whose careful, painstaking, and unglamorous work in locating manuscripts and preparing the editions has begun to yield substantial returns" (1993:118). such enthusiasm for the middle ages and for medieval music has roots in the early music revival and the wide dissemination of recordings by the studio der fruhen musik, the early music consort, and the ensembles that followed in their path. formed in munich in 1961 by americans thomas binkley and sterling jones, the estonian-german mezzo-soprano andrea von ramm, and the english tenor nigel rogers (later replaced by william cobb and then richard levitt), the studio der fruhen musik was acclaimed for its performances of songs from the carmina burana manuscript and troubadour and trouvere chansons.4 the studio's signature sound, defined by composed and improvised instrumental accompaniments and vocal ornamentation modeled on arab music, came to be known as the ''arabic style." the early music consort, founded in 1967 in england by david munrow, with james bowman, oliver brookes, christopher hogwood, and later james tyler, was also a well-known purveyor of early music. munrow, often referred to as "the pied piper," after his long running and successful bbc radio program, was known for his lively and virtuosic performances on hitherto unknown instruments like the crumhorn as well as "oriental" instruments like the middle eastern shawm. dead can dance's allusions to medieval music via bulgarian, north african, and arab musical styles also anticipates the popularity of certain forms of world music and world beat in the 1990s that layered "exotic" tracks against various forms of spiritual chant-gregorian chant in enigma, baka singing in deep forest, hildegard von bingen in delerium, and secular and sacred medieval music in the mediaeval baebes.5 as timothy taylor (1997,2001) and steven feld (2000) have discussed, forms of music like "ethnotechno" and "pygmy pop" continue to reinscribe stereotypes of the timeless, the natural, and even the exotic when it comes to the use of indigenous musics by western artists. in the words of feld, what emerges are 55 56 current musicology "romantic and patronizing renditions of an old theme, the pygmy as timeless primal other" (2000:273): even in the genres of world music, where artists are viewed as having agency in the music they write and the way they choose to represent themselves, holdovers to these primitivist discourses are still strong because the music industry encourages and rewards musicians for staying true to their indigenous styles, whereas collaborations and hybrids have hi'storically been viewed with suspicion (born and hesmondhalgh 2000). dead can dance envision an idealized middle ages untouched by industrialization and other "modern" practices. contemporary society is described by band member lisa gerrard as a "culture that just keeps churning out robots." malaise is the obvious consequence: "people are not content with their lot in life ... they can sense that there's something else living in their unconscious being ... we've been brought up to deny the inner being" (garcia 1993-94:46). or, in dead can dance founding member brendon perry's words, "i'm very interested in medieval society because the actual structure was very simple to understand. the relation of music and religion and other aspects portrayed more things simply. we live in a world now, which is far more complex" (shea 1989:65). the band's comments are symptomatic of the paradoxical search for the authentic that defined the "alternative" rock music world from which they emerged. dead can dance appeared in 1984 as an alternative act on 4ad, the same british independent label that had released the ethereal­ sounding music of the cocteau twins and this mortal coil. as part of this alternative rock scene, dead can dance and their fans subscribed to an ideology of authenticity that was rooted in an opposition to mainstream, commercial music industries. bands in the alternative music scene disdained the artificiality of the image and generic attributes of popular music and performers. as charles fairchild remarked, ''at the core of an alternative music are fundamental questions of autonomy, self-definition, and resistance in the music industry" (1995:18). alternative musicians did not subscribe to one particular musical style, but shared an attitude that music produced by the mainstream recording industry for commercial gain lacked integrity, originality, and personal, artistic vision. musicians on an alternative or inde­ pendent label were viewed by fans as artists whose personal and expressive commitments were pure and unmediated by industry forces. 6 with a name that includes the word "dead" and imagery that is often dark, it is no surprise that dead can dance has occasionally, to the band­ members' chagrin, been included under the heading gothic rock, though the band actively protests this moniker.7 a type of alternative music cultivated in the uk in the mid-1980s and born out of the post-punk moment, gothic kirsten yri rock translated punk rock's angry cries for action into a depressing fatal­ ism where death, horror, decay, and the grotesque were used to express the pain and suffering seen in modern life. it was the gloomy imagery found in gothic literary genres (themselves the products of a romantic medievalism), including works like mary shelley's frankenstein and bram stoker's dracula that gave the genre its name. like a few gothic rock bands-bauhaus, christian death, and the cure-dead can dance borrows musical tropes from medieval chant, but while goths put chant in the service of the satanic and grotesque, dead can dance uses it to convey reverence.8 where gothic rock voices its critique of the modern industrial world in dark, nihilistic terms by using imagery that draws attention to the body, suffering, and mortality, dead can dance focus on offering a panacea: "what on earth is music for anyway, but a way to transcend the everyday common world. it's through music that we pretend to be something else, somewhere else, and at some other point in time" (berger 1994).9 medievalism dead can dance's discourse of the middle ages as a place of spiritual remove is evident in their choice and treatment of medieval repertoire. "the song of the sibyl;' one of the authentic medieval songs the band performs, is a catalan version of a non-liturgical latin song that surfaces in manuscripts from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. the song features the pagan figure of sibyl who was known for her ability to see into the future and who was brought into the catholic church during the middle ages. dead can dance's dirge-like approach to the piece, coupled with their atmospheric, reverent vocalization of the conjunct melody of the song's refrain with organ accompaniment, psaltery, and bells, conjures up an image of spiritual wor­ ship (example 1). alternating with the refrain, the two melismatic verses are performed with the strumming of psaltery and rendered by gerrard with vocal tension. long pauses and digital reverberation give the impression of a large cathedral and are reminiscent of religious worship. dead can dance's performance of "the song of the sibyl" clearly imitates the performance by ars musicae, ensemble de musique ancienne de barcelone, on the album dictionnaire des instruments anciens (1974).!odead can dance make use of the same instrumental combination and setting, the same harmonic underpinnings, and the same placement of rhythmic markers. moreover, gerrard's vocal quality is remarkably similar to ars musicae's irene miret. bergeron reminds us that that there is nothing inherently spiritual issuing from recordings of medieval music and chant (1995:32). instead spirituality is conveyed through the rhetoric of liner notes and the imagery 57 58 current musicology example 1: transcription of "the song of the sibyl," performed by dead can dance (aion, 1990), refrain. words and music by lisa gerrard and brendan perry, © 1990 momentum music ltd. and beggars banquet music. all rights controlled and administered by emi virgin music, inc. all rights reserved. international copyright secured. used by permission. 1\ ben lo:r . 1\ gerrard oj --.--. .. u ~ . .. p. ai jom d'il ju di i cj par ra qui hau fa fet peny : j~67 1\ i {v r rr r r -.:y rr .. if r r r r organ 1\ ps alt ery .."....., ben {oj .. .. .. .. . .. 1\ 5010 _______ ~ gerrard .. ser i qr -oj -u -e... ~ vi ci peny : 1\ {-eo os, ,au-organ of the packaging, and the emotional impact that creates an out -of-this-world experience is culturally constructed through a complex and ever-changing interweaving of musical signs. the ringing of bells, the use of organ, acous­ tic resonance, responsorial form, conjunct motion, and ametricism are all constituents of this particular musical discourse of medievalism that, because of their prominence in western religious practices, have come to symbolize the spiritual. dead can dance's choice to include "the song of the sibyl" out of an endless array of selections from the middle ages reveals something of the image they wish to communicate and illustrates the connection to crossover albums of hildegard von bingen as well as other mid-1990s chant albums. like the medieval chant explored by bergeron, "the song of the sibyl" presents a "virtual liturgy;' where, as bergeron remarks on the contemporary function of chant outside the church, "it is the condition of being between two realities, both of which are offered and both of which are denied, that kirsten yri creates the desired effect of this music" (1995:34). such virtual spirituality, to use kreutziger-herr's extension of bergeron's term, is a peculiar kind of religious experience that one may either participate in or simply observe, and lies "somewhere between the secular and the sacred" (1998:98). like ensembles who perform medieval music-anonymous 4, sequentia, ensemble organum-dead can dance also encourage a kind of virtual spirituality through their performance venues. when dead can dance toured with this material, they performed in old cathedrals when­ ever possible, making use of the aura such ritualized spaces communicate. reviewer ian gittins said of one concert, "i can't escape the idea of a church service, all the litanies and latin cries which fill the air" (1989:39). for encores during tours of their medieval-inspired music, gerrard, usually clad in a flowing white gown, often sang songs interpreted by reviewers and fans as liturgical chant (brown 1993:87). the text for "the song of the sibyl" includes an invocation to prayer, and the refrain issues a warning to those who have strayed from the path of righteousness. (the catalan "al jorn del judici / parra qui haura fet servici" translates as "on the day of judgment, it will be seen who has done his duty.") but this message is hidden from listeners, since the band does not print the catalan lyrics nor provide a translation for them. this act of nondisclosure helps shift the emphasis from a specific religious prayer for spiritual salvation to a vaguely mystical statement. the evocative and aesthetic sound qualities of the words' performance are more important than their textual meaning. dead can dance also construe the medieval as spiritual in their own hybrid medieval songs. inspired no doubt by medieval performances such as ars musicae's "song of the sibyl;' the band employs several techniques: the use of digital reverberation, church bells, and the absence of a steady beat; a preference for smaller intervals and conjunct melodic motion; and the allusion to specific medieval traditions such as chant, organum, sequences, conductus, motets, or troubadour and trouvere music. the band exploits these musical markers for communicative and emotive purposes. the song "end of words" is a good example of the band's allusion to several different medieval music traditions (example 2). two voices enter in parallel mo­ tion, in octaves, and sing in a mostly stepwise motion fit for monastic or liturgical medieval chant. medieval markers include the responsorial style, narrow melodic range, conjunct motion, repetition and slight alternation of phrases, and the practice of ending the phrase with a rising major third falling to a full tone below. the intervallic content of the line conforms to medieval mode 2, though the use is not governed by a specific, historically "authentic" practice. 59 60 current musicology example 2: transcription of "end of words," performed by dead can dance (aion, 1990), first two phrases. words and music by lisa gerrard and brendan perry, © 1990 momentum music ltd. and beggars banquet music. all rights controlled and administered by emi virgin music, inc. all rights reserved. international copyright secured. used by permission. (8ve unison with overdub) kum ba kum b~ ri va al vei, kum ba kuru ba_ ri vakum ba kuru b<1ri va:~.:::::: :::: ; :~ j err al vei, kum ba kum b~ ri va al vei. the form of the piece loosely implies a medieval liturgical sequence, where pairs of musical phrases are repeated, though here dead can dance allude to the early medieval polyphonic tradition by using two and then three part polyphony. the pairs of versicles also alternate between monophonic and polyphonic renditions, and are in the form of a response. the lower voice carries a musical motive that is repeated in all phrases, a practice that is also a feature of some motets and conductus. ll in "end of words;' the upper voices sing in unison or in harmony with this repeated phrase in much the same way as in a conductus. when the voices sing in polyphony, the lower voice takes the bottom tetrachord while the upper voice takes the top. this vocal texture, together with church bells, an organ drone, a sedate tempo, the intervallic content, and vocal declamation summon a spiritual and reverent setting that anticipates the virtual spirituality bergeron and kreutziger-herr identify in early to mid-1990s recordings of medieval music and their contemporary crossovers. as the title of the song suggests, there are no words; instead, the sing­ ers are limited to intoning six syllables that imitate the sound of the latin language-another marker for an archaic middle ages. indeed, dead can dance carefully construct all features of the melodic lines, the harmonic content, and form to evoke the middle ages, the salient markers for the archaic here being the monophonic, unison singing, the repetition of phrases, and the lowered seventh degree. another example that illustrates the construction of the middle ages as spiritual and the amalgamation of different medieval genres into one is the song "orbis de ignus." even the title evokes a medieval sacred tradition in its use of (grammatically incorrect) latin. like "end of words;' this song also kirsten yri example 3: transcription of "orbis de ignus;' performed by dead can dance (the serpent's egg, 1988), first complete phrase. words and music by lisa gerrard and brendan perry, © 1988 momentum music ltd. and beggars banquet music. all rights controlled and administered by emi virgin music, inc. all rights reserved. international copyright secured. used by permission. ~:: ~~;: : :: ::;; :: ::: ;::: ;::: :: uses vocables that sound latin but are non-lexical. reverence is suggested by the ringing of a bell followed by a long silence and then an allusion to the sounds of the earliest organum (example 3). two voices enter singing a conjunct melodic phrase in parallel fifths, akin to the practice of note­ against -note organum. 12 however, midway through the line, the two voices employ a mixture of contrary and parallel motion until landing on and continuing in parallel sevenths for two notes. the sevenths then expand to a ninth for the close, before jumping to an octave to begin the second part of the phrase. the linear succession of intervals, the avoidance of the leading tone, and the approach to the final f from a full tone above emphasize the archaic or medieval sound. the musical examples above illustrate not only how dead can dance musically construct the medieval, but also how they construct "difference" from the popular and alternative rock music world that is their contemporary context. in the examples above, the band eschews any reference to these musical domains by avoiding a steady drum beat, functional tonality, the usual guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums combination common to popular bands, and the post-punk gloom that defined the alternative rock scene of the late 1980s. exoticism as mentioned at the outset, a significant facet of dead can dance's medi­ evalism is their conflation of the middle ages with the foreign and "exotic" through references to arab, bulgarian, and north african musics. this cultural "difference" is marked through the use of non-western instru­ ments and reconstructions of early instruments and the adoption of a vocal timbre that has vague references to the balkan singing style made famous by recordings of the bulgarian state vocal choirs, le mystere des voix bulgares (1986,1988,1990)y the pairing of medieval sounds with balkan vocal practices and north african and arab instruments results from the band's exposure to record61 62 current musicology ings of medieval music that do the same. significantly, in describing his inspiration for the music on the album aion, dead can dance's brendan perry says, we've listened to almost nothing else in the last two years except trou­ badour and trouvere music (music that developed in 12th and 13th century france, resulting from a fusion of european secular folk music and oriental instruments and influence brought back by the crusaders). (harkins 1990:62) leech -wilkinson (2002) and haines (2001) argue that early music record­ ings' in particular those of troubadour and trouvere music that the studio der friihen musik modeled on north african and arab practices, were based on the "oriental hypothesis": the theory that through arabic rule in the iberian peninsula, and through contact with the arabs during the crusades, medieval european music took on oriental flavors. dead can dance's performance of a medieval saltarello, an instrumental dance favored by early music ensembles, exemplifies the musical link they draw between the exotic and the middle ages. 14 they impart a distinctly othered sound that vaguely references the north african or arab world by including non-western, "early," and north african instruments such as medieval hurdy gurdy, timbales, moroccan hand drums, and an instrument (presumably a digital patch) referred to in the recording's notes as a snake charmer. thrown into the mix are chinese cymbals and uilleann bagpipes, other signs that orientalism is at play in the conflation of everything non­ western as other. with the added percussion of tambourine and drum, this performance resembles the famous version of this piece recorded by the studio der friihen musik. but the performances differ in tempo, register, and timbre. dead can dance's performance is slower than the studio's. this and the percussion help to shift the setting from a fast-paced, sprightly dance to a militaristic march. the tune is presented on recorder in the studio's ver­ sion, while dead can dance employ the uilleann bagpipes with drone and hurdy gurdy accompaniment. the light, airy recorder is thus replaced by a significantly lower, reedy, and heavy sound. the dead can dance version also uses a military bass drum that simulates the complex patterns often heard in moroccan music. is these changes in percussion, register, tempo, and timbre are dramatic, and alter the locale from the inner chamber of a (northern) italian court to the expansive grounds of an arab palace. dead can dance and the studio der friihen musik may have believed there was historical precedent for adopting arab and north african practices, but both adopted contemporary performance practices and claimed them as past. as haines has argued, the studio's espousal of the oriental hypothesis kirsten yri is linked to a nineteenth-century orientalism of "looking to the islamic orient for its own roots" (2001:369). embedded in the myth-making about the orient and viewing it as an idealized repository of the past, both groups participate in inaccurate and problematic representations of the middle east and north africa, reinscribing the dangerous, sensuous other that is typical of orientalism's narrative. the song "orbis de ignus:' discussed earlier as an example of medievalist spirituality, is a good example of the mix of "reverence" with the "exotic." its use of parallel octaves intermixed with strains of parallel moving dissonant intervals against a drone evokes balkan folk music practices, specifically a bulgarian practice from the pirin region where songs usually begin in unison and then develop into distinct layers of melody and drone, producing as many intervals of seconds and thirds as possible. 16 in addition, gerrard uses what she calls an "open-throat bulgarian technique" of pharyngeal resonance and glottal stops (lanham 1995:34). the combination of pharyngeal resonance, glottal stops, parallel dissonances with the bells, and allusions to organum, liturgical latin, responsorial singing, and medieval modes distance the middle ages not only in time, but also in place. dead can dance's choice to adopt vocal practices that lie outside the realm of western popular music thus suggests "an act of strange-making, a de familiarizing of musical practice," to borrow a phrase bergeron uses to describe the greek orthodox priest lycourgos angelopoulos on ensemble organum's 1995 album. such practices distance us from the middle ages and promote "a remote and unattainable music that recalls an equally remote past" (1995:30). besides referencing the bulgarian state choir, the open-throat tech­ nique gerrard adopts recalls the australian ensemble sinfonye, whose pairing of balkan vocal techniques with medieval repertoire is a hallmark of their historically informed performances and was probably inspired by the vibratoless, nasal quality of musica reservata's jantina noorman. sinfonye's main singer, mara kiek, is trained in balkan singing techniques and uses pharyngeal resonance in her performances in much the same style as dead can dance's gerrard. 17 the two groups are also similar in their use of drones, layering of instruments, privileging of particular timbres such as reed instruments, inclusion of moroccan drums, and plucked-string accompaniments. a further example, "host of seraphim:' demonstrates how dead can dance combines the exotic with the contemplative in a medievalesque setting. the elements that stand in for the medieval ritual are the church bells, organ drone, and chant. tonal harmonies provide the foundation for gerrard's tight vocal production, which centers around ak as is often the case with songs by dead can dance, there are no lyrics, only syllables, which gerrard sings to a lugubrious melismatic melody over perry's drone. the 63 64 current musicology example 4: transcription of "host of seraphim," performed by dead can dance (the serpent's egg, 1988), fifth and sixth phrases. words and music by lisa gerrard and brendan perry, © 1988 momentum music ltd. and beggars banquet music. all rights controlled and administered by emi virgin music, inc. all rights reserved. international copyright secured. used by permission. freely i'l ,...., =---voice u y \' \' i..j i'l syn. strings u (drm.)j j : ------i'l u '-j l.j i'l u : pharyngeal resonance of her vocality, and the ornamented melody against a drone are, again, evocative of bulgarian music from the pirin region (example 4). however, this setting is then juxtaposed with a "western" vocal practice common to performances of chant: at the end of the piece, as if imagining a religious ceremonial practice, gerrard changes her vocal quality, which has until this point used pharyngeal resonance, vibratory ornament, and glottal stops in the style of balkan practice, to a straight tone, releasing an embellished melodic line on the syllable "a:' thus conjuring up an amen or alleluia. to be sure, this balkan vocal sound is "exotic" only insofar as it has been constructed as such in popular discourse. donna buchanan (1991, 1997) points out that the bulgarian state choirs were marketed to highlight the spiritual, mystical, exotic, and ancient qualities of what was in reality a modern, government-sponsored music aimed at creating a sense of natural heritage. in european and american publicity materials and reviews, this vocal technique and musical style were presented as "natural" for the bulgarian singers and were equated with the sounds of an exotic tradition. such a representation is also echoed in the 1994 recording, missi primi toni de per luigi da palestrina par les voix bulgares, produced by ivan lantos, which presents a palestrina mass sung by the contemporary bulgarian enkirsten yri semble bulgarka jr 3+ 1, rewritten and reset to reflect a ~ time signature. lantos chose palestrina because, "in keeping with the renaissance's concern with humanism, palestrina, a composer of humble peasant origin, was more in tune with the natural state of the earth and its people" (buchanan 1997:151). i include this example as another apparently incongruous pair­ ing that from a medievalist perspective is often considered straightforward: the premodern (renaissance) combined with a "natural" tradition of folk singing. indeed, the idea that the bulgarian singers were somehow "back in time" and had access to what are perceived as past vocal traditions is ex­ plicit in the notes for the album: the music of palestrina is totally in the spirit of the epoch, and marks a return to simplicity, to the natural noblesse of the people and of the earth. the voices of the traditional bulgarian singers grow naturally from their bodies, without any mannerism. one can even suppose without great risk of error that this dense and rustic sonority, produced by singing outdoors, is closer to the sixteenth century manner of singing ... the purity, the ecstatic quietude and celestial character of palestrina remain intact. the originality of the work is enhanced thanks to an approach that is simpler, less polluted by artifices, more savage than the aesthetic manner in which we have presented palestrina up to now. (quoted in buchanan 1997:151) buchanan is quick to point out that this view "perpetuates the belief that these cosmopolitan, highly trained professional musicians are peasant girls endowed with raw and rustic talent of archaic vintage" (buchanan 1997:151). such beliefs problematically locate the other as frozen in the past and reinscribe western discourses rooted in the logic of progress and evolution. as fabian argues, this view is dangerous not only because it claims the contemporary other as distanced in time, but also because change is predetermined down one path-that of western progress and technological advancement. to be sure, dead can dance's interest in bulgarian, arab, and north african music or instruments is not only a consequence of hearing perfor­ mances of early music ensembles do the same. rather, the band's interest also points to a cultural fascination with the other and its representations. a focus on non-western sounds and traditions is evident in a few songs on these and earlier albums, anticipating their post -1990 interest in "world music." "echolalia" (the serpent's egg) references a number of non-western musical traditions, particularly bulgarian and arab. the song begins with perry's energetic presentation of an arc-shaped conjunct melodic line. this is heard twice before it is taken up by gerrard, who sings it an octave higher and with pharyngeal resonance. one noticeable feature is the use of what resembles the arab saba scale, but in this case with no neutral second degree. 65 66 current musicology example 5: transcription of "echolalia;' performed by dead can dance (the serpent's egg, 1988), statements two, three, and four. words and music by lisa gerrard and brendan perry, © 1988 momentum music ltd. and beggars banquet music. all rights controlled and administered by emi virgin music, inc. all rights reserved. international copyright secured. used by permission. female voice [ rna-gna-hi rna-gna-hi ma-dye-ho dye-ho do -nei male voice il::~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > me-ga-hi me-~a-hi me-dye-ho dye-ho do -nem me-ga-hi me-~a-hi me-dye-ho dye-ho do -nem il ;. ~ ~ ;. ~ ~ ~ 1>; ~p~ ~i>; ~ female voice 0) rna-gna-hi rna-gna-hi rna-dye-ho dj.e-ho do-nei il > > > 1>;' > >>>p..-.. >female voice 0) il rna-gna-hi rna-gna-hi rna-dye-ho dye-ho do -nei rna-gna-hi rna-gna-hi ma-dye-ho dye-ho do-nei male voice ,oj * ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 1>";* > *1>";~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~i>";* > *1>";~ me-~a-hi me-ga-hi me-dye-ho dye-ho do -nem me-ga-hi rne-ga-hi me-dye-ho dye-ho do-nem as in other songs, the vocal layers are gradually built up, with a statement by perry, followed by another with gerrard at the octave. the third statement adds gerrard a perfect fifth above, while the fourth adds her a fourth higher, at the upper octave (example 5). as the song builds, gerrard increases her pharyngeal resonance and uses glottal stops to heighten the dramatic tension. in addition to the "exotic" sounding vocal inflection, the song uses asymmetrical rhythms, here 3 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 2 with shifting accents forming heterometric patterns. while a mixture of 3 + 2 may be in keeping with the shifting accents of bulgarian music, dead can dance's rhythmic treatment is not an authentic recreation, but like their medievalism, borrows from various traditions and genres to communicate an othered sound that cannot be located in anyone culture. is an exotic image is also conveyed through the use of vocables that convey sounds typical to the bulgarian language such as "gn" as in magna and "dy" as in dyeho. dead can dance's interest in these non-western traditions stems not only from the otherworldly sounds present in performances, but also from the ideological import these musics carry. it is not the mere use of the non-western musics and instruments that situates the music within these discourses; rather, it is the particular way in which these traditions and allusions are used to communicate the "natural," the pure, and the premodern. the band's essentialist and orientalist attitudes are palpable in perry's description of the song "tell me about the forest": kirsten yri "tell me about the forest" is about that, about watching the gradual erosion of cultures and peoples, ruralized people around the world, seeing emigra­ tion as a key to the cultures of the world, all the capitalist mechanisms that rob people of their spirituality, of their roots. (garcia 1993-94:46) for dead can dance, the contemporary west has given birth to changes that may once have been viewed as progressive but are now blamed for wreaking havoc with (our and other) culture(s). perry asserts, "it's all part of this modernistic ideal where you must strive for this destiny in the future, and it works in this linear line, modernism, western science, technology is our savior-that's the godhead" (garcia 1993-94:46). the belief that many of the changes brought about by the west were detrimental to other cultures in more than just economic terms has encouraged a nostalgia for the other, viewed as a holdover of an authentic and pure culture. in other words, the same impulse that led dead can dance to the middle ages-a desire for transcendence from the modern world and a critique of the modern­ steered them into the terrain of the exotic other. conclusion in their output between 1988 and 1991, dead can dance borrowed medieval compositional features and created an aesthetic that drew on the sounds and ideological parameters of historical recordings of medieval music. if dead can dance's medievalism privileges the spiritual and exotic other, it was, in part, inspired by recordings of medieval music that appeared to do the same. one of the many differences between dead can dance's recordings and those of historically informed performances is that dead can dance construct their other in a way that collapses multiple past and present traditions into one monolithic, essentialist presentation. for this reason, it may be easier to see and hear the spiritual or exotic other in music of dead can dance than in historically aware performances whose practices are generally song or genre specific. still another difference is the way the folk-inspired, "naive" imagery of 1960s ensembles is altered by dead can dance in the late 1980s and early 1990s to offer spiritual transcendence. one of the problematic implications of dead can dance's appropriation of medieval, bulgarian, north african, and arab musics concerns their mapping of spirituality onto the other, suggesting that both can only exist outside of time and culture. whether located in the middle ages or in non-western cultures, this form of medievalism seeks to escape the modern, "corrupted" world rather than contend with the difficult processes of altering current cultural or social conditions. 67 68 current musicology while it might be said that the interest in medievalism was a short -lived trend in dead can dance's music, the band's treatment of the middle ages and the increased number of medieval music ensembles inspired by folk or popular music practices confirms that the boundaries between popular culture and academic practices are permeable, and that "knowledge" from one can and does inform the other. however, dead can dance's medieval­ ism also illustrates that such knowledge of the medieval is never complete, nor is it immune to the problematic ideological parameters that inform its production. notes i would like to thank joseph auner, sarah fuller, and jane sugarman for their insightful com­ ments and critiques on earlier drafts and judy lochhead for encouraging me to pursue the subject. my appreciation also extends to peter lamont and heather olaveson for their techni­ cal assistance with the musical transcriptions. all musical transcriptions are my own. 1. the following reviewer's comparison is typical: "most of the pieces here have a timeless quality, which isn't surprising when you consider how faithfully dead can dance manage to recreate the styles, textures and traditional instrument sounds of their chosen period (elizabethan chamber music, latin hymns, gregorian chants)" (lester 1991:35). 2. haines explores the idea of a "naive middle ages" and twentieth-century revivals of trouvere music that were inspired by and modeled on folk song, on the practitioners' as­ sumptions that "trouvere songs flow from living folk traditions which lead straight back to medieval song" (2004a:245; see also 2004b). katherine bergeron's work, though examining an earlier time period, also has much to offer here. decadent enchantments (1998) traces the restoration of gregorian chant by the benedictine monks at solemnes in the nineteenth century and discusses the ideological narrative that helped shape this restoration: an inter­ est in authenticity, in purity, and in restoring what was seen as a natural tradition that had been lost to a corrupt modern world. leech-wilkinson links the practice of adopting arabic and north african instruments to assumptions made by scholars in the early part of the twentieth century (2002). 3. for a brief exploration of medievalist rock, see macan (1997). 4. these included the recordings: chansons der troubadours und trouveres (1970), carmina burana, 20 lieder aus der originalhandschrift (1964), and carmina burana (ii): 13 songs from the benediktbeuern manuscript (1967). 5. deep forest, in their album deep forest (1993), sampled polyphonies vocales des aborigines de taiwan and mongolia musique vocale et instrumentale (maison des cultures du monde 1988, 1989); enigma, in mcmxc a.d. (1990), borrowed a kyrie eleison and procedamus in pace from capella antiqua's gregorian chant: paschale mysterium (1976); delerium, in karma (1995), sampled gregorian chant, elizabethan songs, and-as if in tribute-dead can dance; and the mediaeval baebes, in salve nos (1998) and undrentide (2000), presented secular and sacred songs from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries in an alternative rock context. 6. of course, rock music in general, as simon frith has argued, depends on an ideology of authenticity that equates "good" music with "the authentic expression of something-a person, an idea, a feeling, a shared experience, a zeitgeist;' and "guarantees that rock perfor­ mances resist or subvert commercial logic" (1987:136). the alternative scene reacted against kirsten yri what was viewed as punk's and post-punk's co-optation by the record industry. many have discussed the impossibility of the "alternative" distinction and the irony of the cycle from independent label to mainstream label in "in die" and rock music more generally (frith 1981; frith and goodwin 1990; cohen 1991). 7. lisa gerrard commented, "i don't know how you can call us gothy. it's a very lazy descrip­ tion that was picked up on from one album and it's stuck" (ali 1993:7). for an overview of gothic culture, see punter (2001). for gothic rock, see hannaham (1997) and gunn (1999). 8. an example that comes to mind and that epitomizes the values of gothic rock is bauhaus's "stigmata martyr;' from in the flat field (1980), which features a blend of ghostlike sounds, repeated minor thirds, tritones, and echoes that make the sound appear to emanate from a large vacant space, as if to sound like a gothic cathedral in ruins. through this echo-y space, bauhaus singer peter murphy punctuates his cries of "stigmata" with the phrase, "in nomine patri et filii et spiriti sanctum;' which he intones in a bitter-edged acerbic low voice. 9. gerrard even goes so far as to describe their music as medicine: "and that's what we make-medicine. we make medicine for ourselves, and hopefully make medicine for other people" (thrills 1984). 10. higini angles cites twenty-three versions with latin text, ten versions in vernacular, and six polyphonic versions (1988). the version ars musicae perform is listed by angles as "palma de mallorca, cantorale, convent de la concepci6, manuscript del segle xiv, segons sembla provinent del convent de santa margarida" (1988:296). 11. examples dead can dance may have heard include "veris ad imperia" performed on the studio der fruhen musik's chansons der troubadours und trouveres (1970), and "0 virgo splendens" and "landemus virginem" on the studio's secular music c. 1300 (1966) as well as on hesperion xx's recording llibre vermeil de montserrat (1978). 12. the style can be compared to kyrie cunctipotens genitor from the twelfth century treatise ad organum faciendum (eggebrecht and zaminer 1970). besides sharing parallel fifths, both examples feature contrary and parallel motion, and both begin and end phrases either on unison or fifths. 13. interestingly enough, the 1986 recording was released on the same label (4ad) as dead can dance. ivo watts-russell, founder of the label, must have seen the attraction this music would have for his listenership. 14. the saltarello can be found in ms london, brit.mus. add. 29987, f.62v. a modern edition is printed in mcgee 1989: 110. 15. see aydoun (1992) for a discussion of moroccan music. 16. for a discussion of this practice, see donna buchanan, "bulgaria, §ii, 2: pre-socialist musical culture, 1800-1944," the new grove dictionary of music online, edited by l. macy, http://80-www.grovemusic.com.libproxy.wlu.ca (accessed may 4, 2003). 17. compare for instance, dead can dance's "song of sophia" (the serpent's egg, 1988) with the sinfonye performance of"aj deus se sab'ora meu amigo" (1988). 18. it is unlikely that two sets of three side by side would occur in authentic practice. i would like to thank jane sugarman for pointing this out. references ali, lorraine. 1993. cross over. alternative press (november): 7. 69 70 current musicology angles, higini. 1988. la musica a catalunya fins al segle xiii. barcelona: universitat autonoma de barcelona. aydoun, ahmed. 1992. musiques du maroc. casablanca: maroc. editions eddif. bain, jennifer. 2004. hildegard on 34th street, chant in the marketplace. echo: a music­ centered journal 6 (1): http://www.echoe. ucla.edu/volume6-issue libain/bain 1.html (accessed october 14,2005). berger, fred h. 1994. interview with lisa gerrard. propaganda magazine (spring): http:www .nets.com/dcd/info/propaganda.html (accessed april 23, 2003). bergeron, katherine. 1995. the virtual sacred: finding god at tower records. new republic 212 (february 27): 29-34. ---. 1998. decadent enchantments: the revival of gregorian chant and solesmes. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. bhabha, homi. 1994. the location of culture. london and new york: routledge. born, georgina, and david hesmondhalgh, eds. 2000. western music and its others: difference, representation, and appropriation in music. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. brown, joe. 1993. dead can dance and evolve. washington post (october 22): 87. buchanan, donna anne. 1991. the bulgarian folk orchestra: cultural performance, symbol, and the construction of national identity in socialist bulgaria. phd dissertation, university of texas, austin. ---. 1997. review essay: bulgaria's magical mystere tour: postmodernism, world music marketing, and political change in eastern europe. ethnomusicology 41 (1): 131-57. cohen, sarah. 1991. rock culture in liverpool, popular music in the making. oxford: clarendon press. eggebrecht, hans heinrich, and frieder zaminer. 1970. ad organum faciendum. lehrschriften d. mehrstimmigkeit in nachguidon. zeit. neues studien zur musikwissenschaft, no. 3. mainz: schott music. fabian, johannes. 1983. time and the other: how anthropology makes its object. new york: columbia university press. fairchild, charles. 1995. alternative music and the politics of cultural autonomy. popular music and society 19 (1): 17-34. fast, susan. 2000. days of future passed: rock, pop, and the yearning for the middle ages. in mittelalter-sehnsucht? texte des interdisziplinaren symposions zur musikalischen mittelalterrezeption an der universitat heidelberg, april 1998, edited by annette kreutziger­ herr and dorothea redepenning, 35-56. kiel: wissenschaftsverlat. feld, steven. 2000. the poetics and politics of pygmy pop. in western music and its others: difference, representation, and appropriation in music, edited by georgina born and david hesmondhalgh, 254-79. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. frith, simon. 1981. sound effects: youth, leisure, and the politics of rock 'n' roll. new york: pantheon books. ---. 1987. towards an aesthetic of popular music. in music and society: the politics of composition, performance, and reception, edited by richard leppert and susan mcclary, 133-49. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. frith, simon, and andrew goodwin, eds. 1990. on record: rock, pop, and the written word, new york: pantheon books. garcia, sandra. 1993-94. lisa gerrard in interview. the beauty of naivete. b side (december/ january): 42-47, 58. ' gittins, ian. 1989. dead can dance, stage frights. melody maker (april 29): 39. gunn, joshua. 1999. gothic music and the inevitability of genre. popular music and society 23 (1 ): 31-50. kirsten yri haines, john. 2001. the arabic style of performance practice. early music 29 (3): 369-78. ---. 2004a. eight centuries of troubadours and trouveres. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---. 2004b. living troubadours and other recent uses for medieval music. popular music 23 (2): 133-53. hannaham, james. 1997. bela lugosi's dead and i don't feel so good either: goth and the glorification of suffering in rock music. in gothic: transmutations of horror in late twentieth century art, edited by christoph grunenberg, 91-119. cambridge, ma: mit press. higgins, paula. 1993. from the ivory tower to the marketplace. current musicology 53: 109-23. horkins, tony. 1990. interview with brendan perry, control zone. melody maker (december 1): 62. kreutziger-herr, annette. 1998. postmodern middle ages: medieval music at the dawn of the twenty-first century. florilegium 15: 187-205. lanham, tom. 1995. the day of the dead. san francisco weekly (october 18): 34. leech-wilkinson, daniel. 2002. the modern invention of medieval music. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. lester, paul. 1991. dead can dance. melody maker (november 2): 35. macan, edward. 1997. rocking the classics: english progressive rock and the counterculture. oxford and new york: oxford university press. mcgee, timothy j. 1989. medieval instrumental dances. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. punter, david, ed. 2001. a companion to the gothic. oxford: blackwell. said, edward. 1978. orientalism. new york: vintage books. shea, mike. 1989. silent mourning. alternative press (may): 43-44, 64-65. spivak, gayatri. 1988. can the subaltern speak? in marxism and the interpretation of culture, edited by cary nelson and lawrence grossberg, 271-313. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. taylor, timothy d. 1997. global pop: world music, world markets. london and new york: routledge. ---. 2001. strange sounds: music, technology, and culture. london and new york: routledge. thrills, adrian. 1984. dead can dance. new musical express (august 18): http://www.nme .comlreview/dead_can_dance/htm (accessed april 23, 2003). tomlinson, gary. 1993. music in renaissance magic. chicago and london: university of chicago press. torgovnick, marianna. 1996. primitive passions. chicago and london: university of chicago press. discography ars musicae, ensemble de musique ancienne de barcelone. 1974. "le moyen-age en cata­ logne," directed by enric gispert. in dictionnaire des instruments anciens. harmonia mundihmu 445(3). bauhaus. 1980. in the flat field. 4ad 70013. bulgarian state radio & television female vocal choir. 1986. le mystere de voix bulgares. 4ad cad 603. ---.1988. le mystere de voix bulgares, vol 2. nonesuch 79201-4. ---.1990. le mystere de voix bulgares, vol 3. polygram 846 626-4. 71 72 current musicology bulgarka jr 3+ 1. 1994. palestrina: missi primi toni de per luigi da palestrina par les voix bulgares. bailon noir/lambarena 66951-2. capella antiqua miinchen. 1976. gregorian chant: paschale mysterium. proarte palx-1004. dead can dance. 1988. the serpent's egg. 4ad cad 808. --. 1990. aion. 4ad cad 0007. ---. 1991. a passage in time. 4ad 71010. deep forest. 1993. deep forest. sony 57840. delerium. 1995. karma. nettwerk 30113 27. enigma. 1990. mcmxc a.d. virgin 077778622420. hesperion xx. 1978. llibre vermeil de montserrat. emi reflexe 63071. mediaeval baebes. 1998. salve nos. virgin tcve 935. ---.2000. undrentide. bmg classics 75605513592. maison des cultures du monde. 1988. polyphonies vocales des aborigines de taiwan. inedit 26001. ---. 1989. mongolia musique vocale et instrumentale. inedit 260009. sinfonye. 1988. bella domna: the medieval woman, lover, poet, patroness, and saint. hyperion cda66283. studio der friihen musik. 1964. carmina burana, 20 lieder aus der originalhandschrift. teldec sawt 9455-a. ---. 1966. secular music c. 1300. teldec sawt 9504-a. ---. 1967. carmina burana (ii): 13 songs from the benediktbeuern manuscript. teldec sawt 9522-a. ---.1970. chansons der troubadours und trouveres. telefunken sawt 9567-b. current.musicology.85.1-112.pdf debussy as storyteller: narrative expansion in the trois chansons de bilitis william gibbons every song cycle presents its audience with a narrative. such an idea is hardly new; indeed, the idea of an unfolding plot or unifying concept (textual or musical) is central to the concept of the song cycle as opposed to a collection of songs, at least after the mid-nineteenth century.l a great deal of musico­ logical literature devoted to song cycles is aimed at demonstrating that they are cohesive wholes, often connected both musically, by means of key relationships, motivic recall, and similar techniques, and textually, by means of the creation of an overarching plot or concept.2 one type of narrative results from a poetic unit being set to music in its complete state, without alteration. i am interested here, however, in another type of narrative-one that unfolds when a composer chooses to link previously unrelated poems musically, or when a poetic cycle is altered by rearrangement of the songs or omission of one or more poems. this type of song cycle may create its own new narrative, distinct from its literary precursors. in an effort to demonstrate the internally cohesive qualities of these song cycles, typical analyses assume that the narrative is contained entirely within the musical cycle itself-that is, that it makes no external references. i do not mean to disparage this type of analysis, which often yields insight­ ful results; however, this approach ignores the audience's ability to make intertextual connections beyond the bounds of the song cycle at hand. to turn briefly to the works of schumann as an example-which in many ways form a nexus in the study of narrative in song cycles-a number of analyses have attempted to clarify or interpret the narrative of the cycles by illustrating (with varying degrees of success) the unifying features of the works.3 david neumeyer (1982), for example, has argued for the need to analyze the music and the text jointly in order to fully understand the way in which the narrative functions in dichterliebe, and patrick mccreless (1986) has examined the effects of schumann's song selection and order on the eichendorff liederkreis, op. 39. more recently, in responding to the argument that the concept of an immanent narrative in most schumann cycles is anachronistic-put forth largely by david ferris (2000) and beate perrey (2002)-berthold hoeckner (2006) has attempted to establish anew the musical unity of the cycle. each of these excellent analyses focuses on the importance of the creation of narrative in these works, yet despite the extreme popularity of current musicology, no. 85 (spring 2008) © 2008 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology heine and eichendorff as poets, none of these studies seriously examines the possibility that audiences would be familiar with their works before hearing the cycle, and that such knowledge might affect a listener's understanding of the work. in cases in which well-known literary or poetic works provide the sources for the song texts, surely listeners familiar with the original would be tempted (or even forced) to project that narrative onto the song cycle, despite whatever alterations a composer might have made to the texts. in other words, while composers are indeed free to create new narratives through, for example, the selection of particular poems from a larger poetic cycle, the audience's knowledge of the original will affect their understanding of the work at hand. this layered understanding may at first seem to limit the ability of composers to create a narrative in song cycles with preexisting texts. on the other hand, there also exists the possibility for composers to make use of the audience's knowledge. one way of doing so is to use the music composed for a song cycle to refer outside itself and beyond the text, sug­ gesting elements of the original narrative that do not appear in the texts selected for a song cycle. umberto eco (2004) has explored the possibilities of a similar literary technique that he terms "intertextual irony;' in which authors make frequent allusions to outside sources of which readers are aware-a play of intertextuality that often has important ramifications for the interpretation of their works (or, at least, for some interpretations). eco goes on to demonstrate the resulting need for at least two types of idealized readers: a first-level reader, who is interested only in the actual material at hand, and a second-level reader, who is-in being interested in the nature of the narrative rather than merely its content-aware of the intertextual references in the text.4 without too much work, eco's ideas may be applied to the genre of the song cycle, especially the variety whose texts are a small portion of a larger poetic body of work. analyses that concentrate solely on the new narrative established in the song cycle presume audiences that are first-level model listeners; that is, that audience members are unaware of poetic texts outside the context of the cycle. a different type of analysis might take into account the outside knowledge of second-level model listeners and composers who would compose music aimed at this type of audience. composers in a way must rewrite the narrative of poems that they set to music; it is only a small step, then, to include (in both the selection and compositional aspects of the creation of a cycle) references designed specifically for listeners aware of the original narratives produced by the original literary sources of the cycle's texts. claude debussy's trois chansons de bilitis (1899) provides an ideal case study for this possibility. this short song cycle features three poems culled from pierre louys's large poetic cycle, les chansons de bilitis (1894). william gibbons although the three songs represent only a small fraction of louys's complete work, for listeners familiar with the original literary material (which probably included much of paris in the 1890s) debussy's music distills the narrative of the first section of the cycle. the three songs present a core version of the overall plot, which the music serves to expand by suggesting elements of other poems in the cycle. this type of intertextuality (designed to appeal to a second -level listener ), which i call narrative expansion, allows the three poems to substitute for a much longer cycle, filling in the gaps in the poetry by using musical signifiers of the absent information. those with knowledge of the complete original narrative are able to find connections between the music for the trois chansons and poems not actually set to music (and, for that matter, listeners not acquainted with the original poetic cycle might be able to infer some general narrative developments from the music alone). in order to understand the intertextuality inherent in the narrative expansion in debussy's cycle, we must first be familiar with the narrative structure of the literary work from which the songs' texts are drawn. the poet and the poetry pierre louys's collection of poems, les chansons de bilitis, presents the reader with a detailed autobiography of the eponymous "author;' a greek courtesan writing in the sixth century bce. the poems are the reflections of the mature bilitis on the events of her life from childhood to death. the narrative is organized into three sections, each corresponding to a distinct phase of bilitis's life: her idyllic youth in pamphylia, her young adulthood in the city of mytilene, and her maturity as a courtesan of aphrodite on the island of cyprus. each section also presents bilitis involved in a differ­ ent manifestation of love: the pastoral first section describes the youthful relationship between bilitis and the shepherd boy lykas, the second section details a ten-year lesbian affair in a sophisticated urban setting, and the final section explores the sexually liberated lifestyle of a metropolitan courtesan. taken as a whole, the chansons create an overarching narrative of their fascinating narrator's life. many readers believed that the poems had been collected and translated from greek by the french poet pierre louys. this "translation;' however, was an elaborate literary conceit; bilitis is an entirely fictional character, and the songs were written by their supposed translator, a fact not widely known until well after the work's initial publication.s authorial confusion aside, the chansons de bilitis were a great success, and in combination with the novel aphrodite (1896), they established louys as one of the preeminent literary figures of fin-de-siecle france.6 9 10 current musicology the commercial and critical success of the chansons prompted several enhancements to louys's original project, including the gradual increase in the number of poems in subsequent editions of the collection from 93 to 168. the sheer size of the collection has ramifications for its musical offspring; because the literary work presents a complex tapestry-like narrative of bilitis's life, debussy's selection of only three poems for the songs necessarily limits the depth of the narrative. however, as we will see, through the clever choice of poems and compositional techniques, debussy's three songs are able to reconstruct the narrative depth present in the complete first section of the chansons de bilitis. like many french artists of his time, louys drew much of his inspira­ tion from classical antiquity, in particular greece. so great, in fact, was his attachment to this ancient culture that he altered his name-originally the traditional "louis"-to make it appear more greek.7 this culture came to symbolize for louys a type of moral, and above all sexual, freedom. he found parisian life far too restrictive, and through his works he presents an ideal, sexually liberated alternative to prevailing societal attitudes towards morality. sexuality plays a major role in his writings, ranging from the styl­ ized and elegant in chansons de bilitis to the startlingly graphic, as in trois fizzes de leur mere (first published posthumously in 1926).8 most of louys's considerable fame stemmed from the chansons and aphrodite; after the turn of the century-the height of his fame-his output reduced dramatically and he largely withdrew from public life. his contribution to french literature was summarized by fernand gregh as "ten years, then silence for twenty years, then death" (gregh 1956:36).9 louys was acquainted with many of the major artistic figures of his time, most visibly in his friendships with andre gide, paul valery, and claude debussy. debussy and louys met in 1893 and remained close until around 1904, after which time the two drifted apart. this rift between the two friends seems not to have been the result of any animosity, but rather of changes in debussy's lifestyle: as christian goubault puts it, "the new life that began with emma bardac ... meant a redistribution of friendships, and pierre louys had no part in the new circle" (goubault 2002:147).10 the friendship between debussy and louys was not particularly fruitful in terms of artistic output (though mutual influence may be another story); though they frequently discussed large-scale collaborations (most often in the form of an opera based on aphrodite), only the trois chansons de bilitis and some incidental music to accompany readings of other poems in the cycle emerged explicitly as the result of combined efforts. i! the three songs that debussy set to music all originate in the idyllic first section of the chansons, which describes the events of bilitis's youth. the william gibbons tale of her early years relies heavily on the topoi of the pastoral genre, a debt louys acknowledged explicitly by subtitling them "bucoliques en pamphylie." the pastoral mode, in the most literal sense, is typified by a focus on the lives of shepherds. more loosely, however, the mode emphasizes some or all of the following aspects of those lives: "idyllic landscape, landscape as a setting for song, an atmosphere of otium [leisure], a conscious attention to art and nature, herdsmen as singers, and ... herdsmen as herdsmen" (alpers 1996:22). louys was certainly not alone in this appropriation of such an ancient form.12 we often encounter the pastoral and the depiction of pastoral scenes from antiquity in french art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as artists turned towards an idealized past to find a setting less morally and culturally repressive than their own. 13 steven f. walker, for example, in his discussion ofmallarme's l'apres-midi d'un faune as pastoral, points to william bouguereau's painting nymphes et satyre (1873) as a prominent example of erotic depictions of ancient pastoral scenes in the latter half of the nineteenth century (walker 1978: 107). louys remained close to the pastoral archetype in establishing a back­ ground for the chansons. for example, in the fictional biography of bilitis included with the chansons, louys describes her home in pamphylia as follows: the country is harsh and forlorn, made somber by the darkness of an impenetrable forest, dominated by the enormous mass of the taurus mountains; mineral springs flow from its rocks, large salt lakes reside on its heights, and silence fills its valleys ... in this nearly deserted land she lived a tranquil life with her mother and her sisters ... the shepherds pastured their flocks on the wooded slopes of taurus. she awoke every morning to the crow of the rooster and went off to the stable, led the animals out to drink, and milked them. during the day, if it rained, she stayed in the women's quarters and spun woolen threads from her distaff. if it were a beautiful day, she would run in the fields and, with her friends, playa thousand different games about which she tells us. (louys 1995:233)14 this passage describes a perfect setting for pastoral poetry, and indeed louys acknowledges this fact by referring later in the biography to bilitis's "pastoral existence" during this time (louys 1995:233). he presents pamphylia as a kind of arcadia-complete with requisite shepherds and nymphs-and in the beginning of the poems bilitis seems to fit in completely with her surroundings. the first poems of the collection focus on establishing the pastoral environment. for example, poem 1, "l'arbre," expresses her close connec­ tion to nature in the form of sexually innocent sensual contact with a tree that she has climbed. the following poem, helpfully titled "chant pastoral," 11 12 current musicology begins "we must sing a pastoral song, calling on pan, the god of the sum­ mer wind" (louys 1995:241). almost immediately these poems present the reader with two prominent features of the pastoral: the literal and figurative invocation of the god pan and a close communion with the natural world. also typical of the pastoral environment is the fact that these poems take place in what initially seems to be perpetual spring and summer. poem 4, "les pieds nus," demonstrates another tapas of the pastoral as bilitis describes her distance from urban life: "if i lived in the city, i would wear jewels of gold and tunics woven with golden thread and shoes made out of silver. .. i look down at my naked feet in their slippers of dust" (louys 1995: 242; ellipsis in original). many of the following poems present similar unmistakably pastoral elements, including pervasive natural imagery and frequent references to nymphs. completing the pastoral atmosphere, however, requires an actual shepherd. to this end, bilitis's first sexual attraction is to the flute-playing shepherd lykas, and the remainder of the first section of the poems concerns itself chiefly with their developing relationship. her attraction to lykas begins as a sort of adolescent infatuation, as seen in poem 24, which bears his name, and in which she describes him as being as "beau comme adonis:' the relationship becomes increasingly serious as the poems continue, with a female friend first serving as a physical substitute for lykas in poem 26, "l'amie complaisante" (foreshadowing the second section of the poems), followed by increasing contact between bilitis and lykas himself, including in "la flute" (poem 30) and "la chevelure" (poem 31). after several near-misses (most notably in poem 34, "les remords"), lykas initiates the first sexual liaison between the two while bilitis sleeps (poem 35, "le sommeil interrompu"). this nonconsensual act, rather than producing the animosity that one might expect, leads to the two engaging in an ongoing amorous relationship, typified by bilitis's comments in "la nuit;' poem 44: "each night, very quietly, i leave the house and i take a long path to his meadow to see him sleeping" (louys 1995:261). eventually she becomes pregnant, and apparently lykas abandons her (though the text remains unclear on this issue). nevertheless, the poetry leaves no doubt that their relationship ends unhappily, and in "le tombeau des naiades;' the final song of the first section, the perfection of the pastoral environment dissolves into an icy winter. the three poems debussy selected for his brief song cycle express the major aspects of louys's narrative by invoking what barthes (1977) refers to as the "cardinal points" of the relationship between bilitis and lykas: the attraction, the consummation, and the termination of the relationship. cardinal points, as barthes describes them, are the "real hinge points" of a william gibbons narrative, which serve "to open (or continue, or close) an alternative that is of direct consequence for the subsequent development of the story" (1977 :93-94). these three poems also represent the stages of this relationship symbolically through the pastoral idiom, the breakdown of which reflects the loss of bilitis's innocence and her initial sexual naivete. by focusing on the narrative cardinal points, these three poems distill the plot down to a highly simplified (and consequently less rich) narrative. debussy's music, however, offers suggestions of the missing material to those looking for it (i.e., second-level model listeners); this added music assists in the expansion of the narrative back to its original size, reclaiming the depth of the original poetic collection. a closer look at the interplay of music and poetry of the three poems themselves will demonstrate how this process takes place. lila flute de pan" the first of the three songs of the trois chansons de bilitis, "la flute" (in some editions called "la flute de pan"), describes a purely pastoral scene, in which lykas teaches bilitis to play the syrinx, or pan flute: for the day of hyacinth, he gave me a syrinx made of carefully cut reeds united with white wax that is sweet as honey to my lips. he is teaching me to play, seated on his lap, but i am trembling a little. he plays after me, so softly that i can hardly hear him. we have nothing to say to each other, so near we are, one to the other; but our songs want to answer each other, and taking turns our lips unite over the flute. it is late. now comes the song of the green frogs that begins with the night. my mother will never believe that i have stayed so long searching for my lost sash. (louys 1995:254; translation altered) the most significant pastoral tapas in this poem is the presence of the syrinx, an instrument with strong idyllic associations. the greek poet theocritus, long recognized as the originator of the pastoral genre in his idylls, refers to it several times as the instrument of shepherds, as does virgil in the eclogues. ls in attempting to recreate the vision of antiquity represented by these authors, references to the syrinx also abound in fin-de-siecle france; the in­ strument features prominently in arcadian visual art, poetry, and literature. pierre puvis de chavannes, regarded as the greatest idyllic painter of the period, highlights the image of the syrinx in his vision antique (ca. 1886-88), 13 14 current musicology example 1: "la flute de pan;' mm. 1-2. "syrinx" motive, with modal elements. lent et sans rigueur de rhythme 1\ j,i +.i. i -==== ===-===-. . ~. u~: u~u i and henri matisse presents the instrument in a similar way in his celebrated le bonheur de vivre (1905-6).16 similarly, mallarme makes extended use of the associations with the pan flute to create the pastoral atmosphere in his poem l'apres-midi d'un faune. for these artists the instrument formed a critical part of recreating the ethos of the classical world. as margaret werth puts it, the "piper is an image of rustic innocence, adolescent sexuality, simple habitation of the natural landscape, and harmony with the animal world" (2002:151). the syrinx is an erotically charged instrument, even from its mythologi­ cal creation: the nymph syrinx was transformed into reeds to escape the god pan, who cut the reeds and crafted them into the flute with which he became associated. thus, through making music he literally has syrinx on his lips, a connection that helps to establish the sexual tension between lykas and bilitis, a tension already present by the physical proximity of her sitting on his lap. as it does for pan and for mallarme's faun, the flute serves here "to transform sexual frustration into art" (wenk 1976:180). like louys's poem, debussy's setting exploits both aspects of the syrinx's meaning, to which the composer was no stranger. julie mcquinn points out that the "erotic power of the syrinx, its ability to seduce with its floating melody, constitutes a dominating theme in the works of debussy" (2003:126).17 he made musical reference to the syrinx in several other compositions, most notably the prelude it l' apres-midi d' un faune (1894) and syrinx (la flute de pan) (1913). the first bilitis song begins with an initial seven-note flourish in the piano, evoking the seven tones of the traditional pan flute (see example 1). this theme recurs both at a central point in the text and at the end, becoming a type of seductive ritornello, as steven rumph has stated (1994:468). even before the text begins, the presence of the syrinx suggests both an idyllic landscape and, through its association with pan, a sexually charged atmosphere. karol berger has pointed out that the function of accompaniment in vocal music "is analogous to that of the setting [in literature], namely, to william gibbons provide an environment for the personage, a background against which he may appear" (1994:419). the choice of musical material for debussy's "recreation" of the sound of the syrinx plays a significant role in establishing both a pastoral sense and a more general evocation of antiquity-elements that, while critical to the creation of the narrative of louys's poems as well as to the usual understanding of debussy's selection, are almost entirely absent from the actual text of "la flute." each time the syrinx motive appears, its florid seven-note pattern forms a lydian scale using the raised fourth scale degree (in this case, e#). the use of the lydian mode is not limited to the initial expression of the syrinx; the e# appears in the repeating cadential patterns, where it functions as the third of a c# major triad (in m. 2, for example). lydian is not the only scale suggested, however; the initial descend­ ing fifth in the bass suggest the possibility of a g# dorian harmonic center. this use of these "greek" modes helps to establish, if not a specifically greek atmosphere for the piece, then at least a sense of the piece as in some way "ancient." this technique serves to communicate a sense of the temporal (and, to a certain extent, the geographic) setting of the poems, effectively creating a musical allusion to the introductory materials to the poems, found in louys's "biography" of bilitis. without in some way acknowledging this allusion, listeners-those with no previous knowledge of the poems and without the aid of program notes, say-would have no background to the narrative of the cycle, which essentially begins in medias res. the continued presence of the syrinx music also affects the listener's perception of time in the song. in the poem, the verb tenses vary significantly between the stanzas, making the exact time frame for the action of the text difficult to pinpoint. louys sets the first stanza in the past tense, as bilitis identifies a specific event: lykas's gift of the syrinx. following these initial lines, however, the tense switches and the ensuing action occurs in the present. is at this point in the poetry, the passage of time becomes unclear: how long do the two young lovers continue to play the flute, "taking turns"? the verb "unite" (s'unissent) is ambiguous-the action may take place once or multiple times, further disorienting the temporal grounding. this confusion comes as a result of the fact that bilitis herself has lost track of time; only in the last stanza does the poetry return to real time-the action of the poem unfolding in the same (or approximately the same) amount of time as it would in the real world-as she realizes how long she has spent with lykas. the music accentuates each of these features of the time frame. the repetition of the syrinx motive implies the ongoing action of exchanging the syrinx back and forth but offers no specific temporal indications other than that the action continues. it becomes symbolic of the inner world of lykas and bilitis, which exists outside the flow of time. 15 16 current musicology example 2: "la flute de pan," mm. 22-23. "frog" motive, particularly in the left hand. plus lent as in the poetry, however, the music jars us back to reality in the fourth stanza; debussy replaces the recurring syrinx theme with a mimetic representation of the frogs' song-a reference to bilitis's sudden awareness of the external world (see example 2). the hypnotic repetition of the syrinx motive and its accompanying musical texture give way to the almost comic music of the frogs, with the result that the listener, like bilitis, is forcibly removed from the temporally static sense of indolence established by the piece to this point. the presence of the syrinx motive in the postlude, even after the return to real time, serves both as a reminder of the events of the night and as foreshadowing-the sexual tension established by this poem persists, since bilitis has resisted completely giving in to the seduction of the music. one final point regarding "la flute de pan" involves the lyric aspect of the poem.!9 in keeping with the lyrical tradition, the text contains no dialogue and instead represents a first-person description of events in which the speaker recalls or presents a particular moment in time.20 this mode of presentation is standard for post-classical pastoral poetry, and it demonstrates louys's desire to remain close to the traditions of the genre, at least initially. similarly, the sense of temporal stasis in "la flute" typifies the lyric mode it adopts and binds the poem closer to the pastoral tradition on which it clearly relies. the almost stereotypically pastoral nature of this first poem makes the dissolution of lyric elements in the following songs more effective. lila chevelure ll from the first line of "la chevelure," the next poem in the poetic cycle, louys departs from the lyric form established so carefully in "la flute:'2! he casts nearly the entire poem as a quotation: lykas speaks to us through the voice of bilitis, as she relates a dream he has described to her. the exact nature of this dream is unclear: although in the complete chansons de bilitis this william gibbons poem takes place before the two have had sexual intercourse, the context of the trois chansons suggests that lykas may be remembering a version of past events. in any event, the relationship has advanced by this point, and the two no longer require the syrinx as a sexual mediator; it is replaced by the recurring image of bilitis's hair (rumph 1994:472). he said to me, "last night i dreamt i had your hair around my neck. i had your locks wrapped like a black collar around the nape of my neck and over my chest. "i caressed them and they were mine; and we were bound like this forever, by the same locks, mouth on mouth, like two laurels having only one root. "and little by little, it seemed to me our limbs were so entwined-that i became you or that you entered into me like my dream." when he had finished, he softly laid his hands on my shoulders and looked at me so tenderly that i lowered my eyes, shivering. (louys 1995:255) as steven rumph points out, the two laurels allude to daphne, syrinx's mythological sister, who escaped the god apollo by being transformed into a laurel tree, just as syrinx escaped pan by being transformed into reeds (1994:472). thus the laurel-hair connection lends another level of sexual metaphor to the poem, though one more difficult than pan's flute to express musically. 22 unlike "la flute," this poem has a fairly straightforward time frame-on one level, the quotation occurs in real time. however, another temporal level also unfolds: although bilitis's quotation of lykas must, like all dialogue, take place in real time, the events she relates are less clear in their progression, a quality that finds its way into the music as well as the text. thus, as in "la flute de pan;' the time for the lovers (in this case, reflected in lykas's dream) passes at a different rate from real time. in the final stanza, the phrase "when he had finished" does not necessarily indicate an immediate action, and it suggests a sexual double entendre. as lykas finishes telling bilitis of his dream about a sensual union with her, have the two actually consummated the act? is lykas describing a desired future or reminiscing on an idealized past event? in reading the three poems selected by debussy as a narrative microcosm of the larger poetic cycle, the latter interpretation takes on a certain measure of importance, since the sexual relationship between bilitis and lykas represents a cardinal narrative point. therefore, the actions described in the final stanza (lykas's tender touch and look, and bilitis's response) would seem to refer to events after the two had been physically intimate and not to events after 17 18 current musicology example 3: "la chevelure;' mm. 18-19. musical "climax." man 1\ son ge." 1\ iij. he describes the dream to her. bilitis, the speaker of the final stanza, joins lykas in remembering the life-altering event. the composer accomplishes this depiction largely through tempo, dynamic, and texture changes. the highly chromatic music focuses on creat­ ing a sense of tonal displacement and uncertainty, rather than establishing a goal-directed sense of tonality. the tempo, however, is substantially more goal-directed; marked in the beginning as assez lent, it increases steadily in urgency, moving through stages of moins lent, en augmentant peu a peu, en pressant, and en pressant peu a peu et en augmen tan t, with only a single brief interruption halting the acceleration that culminates at the fermata in m. 19 (see example 3). this measure likewise marks the high point dynamically; while the majority of the song is piano or pianissimo, mm. 18 and 19 reach fortissimo. in addition, the piano texture changes rather abruptly in m. 18, becoming denser and entering a higher register. the voice behaves in much the same manner, reaching up to a high f#-the highest note of the vocal part. in short, all musical elements build to mm. 18 and 19, which set the text where lykas recounts his complete union with bilitis, an obvious allusion to the buildup and release from sexual climax. william gibbons the idea of physical union forms the crux of the poem. as their limbs intertwine, lykas becomes bilitis, and in a certain sense, through narrating his dream to the listenerlreader, bilitis becomes lykas as well. this union (physical and poetic) forms the central point in the cycle: the first poem leads up to it, and the third deals with its consequences. "la chevelure" also functions as a fulcrum between the other two poems in its removal from any sense of landscape-the action could happen anywhere. this feature assumes importance for the poem's intermediate role in the pastoral develop­ ment of the cycle. both the first and last songs in the cycle depend heavily on landscape to serve as a symbol of bilitis's life (as we will see later in "le tombeau des naiades"). the lack of a sense of bilitis's physical environment in "la chevelure" creates a point of neutrality or transition in the pastoral aspect of the song cycle; it represents neither the idyllic world of "la flute de pan" nor the barren landscape we will see in "le tombeau des naiades." the narrative function of "la chevelure" in the trois chansons (as op­ posed to in the larger cycle) is to demonstrate that the relationship between lykas and bilitis has become physically intimate; the loss of that relationship will eventually destroy the pastoral atmosphere and force bilitis to leave pamphylia. as we have seen, the text of the poem is somewhat vague on this issue, but the music serves to remind the second -level model listener of this critical element of louys's plot. in order to make the point clear, debussy's music for "la chevelure" must essentially narrate the sexual act. following these two measures, the piano returns to the placid initial figure, the tempo relaxes to premier tempo, plus lent, and the dynamics fall to piano. all three musical features then begin to die away, a process that continues through the end of the piece. even the inexorable eighth-note pattern of the introduction falters in the last few measures, where rests and fermatas separate individual musical cells. given an awareness of the over­ arching poetic narrative, the musical parallels to the physical culmination of bilitis's and lykas's relationship in "la chevelure" are unmistakable. debussy constructs the song so as to leave little doubt in the listener's mind about the nature of the relationship between the two characters, even for listeners unfamiliar with louys's poetic cycle. for that matter, if the listener were unaware of the extent of the relationship between the two (if, for example, the listener were to assume that lykas's dream never came to fruition), then the depth of melancholy seen in the final song would be disproportionate to the relationship as debussy frames it. here the narrative expansion works to a certain extent on both firstand second-level model listeners; the latter are again given music that reflects the elements of the larger plot with which they are familiar, while basic elements of that same plot are, to an extent (and perhaps subconsciously), conveyed to first-level listeners in preparation for the final song of the set. 19 20 current musicology "le tombeau des na·iades" like the first song of the cycle, "le tombeau des naiades:' relies heavily on landscape imagery. in contrast to the idyllic warm summer evenings presented in "la flute;' however, "le tombeau" presents a harsh winter scene: along the length of the woods covered with white frost 1 walked; my hair before my mouth blossomed with tiny icicles and my sandals were heavy from the soiled, compacted snow. he said to me, "what are you searching for?" "i follow the tracks of the satyr. his small cloven steps alternate like gaps in a loosely woven white cloak." he said to me, "the satyrs are dead. "the satyrs and the nymphs also. for thirty years there has not been such a terrible winter. the track you see is that of a goat. but let us rest here, where their tomb is." and with the iron of his hoe, he broke the ice from the spring where once laughed the water-nymphs. he lifted the large frozen pieces, and raising them toward the pale sky, he gazed through them. (louys 1995:262; translation altered) with this poem, louys shatters the pastoral atmosphere of the first section of the chansons de bilitis beyond any hope of repair. we are told bluntly that the fantastical satyrs so strongly associated with the syrinx have died, and been replaced by a mundane goat. in addition, louys upsets the standard lyric form of the pastoral through the intrusion of a significant amount of dialogue, the seeds for which he had sown in "la chevelure." the continued use of "he said to me" to introduce the speaker is highly reminiscent of the first line of that previous poem, but this time, bilitis responds in her own words, not merely quoting lykas. the apathy with which the two converse at this point suggests that the heat of their passion has become as frigid as the weather. another break with the lyric pastoral tradition occurs in the sense of time and action in the poem. unlike either "la flute de pan" or "la chevelure;' this poem's events seem to occur entirely in real time, with no pauses in the action for reflection. this change in the flow of time suggests that bilitis no longer has any reason to dwell idly on specific moments. rather, her childhood languor has given way to feelings of loss. in searching for satyrs and nymphs, bilitis seeks her lost youth and in­ nocence aimlessly, only to find them irrevocably lost. the repeated image of the hole in "le tombeau des naiades" functions as a window to her happier past: the footprints of the joyful "satyr;' the vestiges of bilitis's halcyon days, william gibbons appear as holes in a white garment. similarly, the ice taken from holes cut into the ice with a hoe-a pastoral tool-provides retrospective vision to the one looking through it; it is "a frozen once-present" (wenk 1976:193-94). as steven rumph suggests, the music also conveys this sense of searching: "debussy's piano ritornello evokes bilitis's fragile state of mind, the inde­ terminate, directionless harmonies and the static repetitions of the cycling ostinato aptly portraying the numb aimlessness of her trek" (1994:480). aside from this evocation of bilitis's mournful state, however, the music for this song carries less narrative burden than the two others. in louys's les chansons de bilitis, "le tombeau des naiades" stands apart; the poet provides little preparation for the unhappy state of affairs in which the poem finds bilitis. the two preceding poems both adopt a largely idyllic tone, depicting happy hours spent with lykas and the impending birth of bilitis's daughter. if we assume in large part that debussy's task in the trois chansons de bilitis is to allow the expansion of their narrative to match the overarching narra­ tive of the original poetic cycle, then this last song presents something of a problem. "le tombeau des naiades" is the only anti-pastoral poem in the complete collection, and so the music cannot serve to suggest plot elements from the larger collection that were left out of the trois chansons. as we have seen, the texts for the "la flute de pan" and "la chevelure" represent cardinal narrative points that debussy's music must expand in order to maintain the narrative from the first section of les chansons de bilitis. the third song, however, presents a cardinal point without connection to other poems: it needs no expansion from the music, because that cardinal point, which serves to close the action of the narrative, is all the information that louys gives the reader in the complete chansons. without the need to reestablish the narrative of the complete poetic collection, debussy writes music that in fact goes beyond the strict confines of louys's poems. rather than filling in the gaps in the plot of the overall nar­ rative, the music of"le tombeau des naiades" explores another important theme of the poem: reflection on the lost past. as the music approaches the place in the text where the male speaker breaks the ice with his hoe, elements of musical topoi often associated with the pastoral creep into the texture, emerging prominently after the key change to f# major at m. 25 (see example 4). the repeated left-hand sixteenth and dotted -eighth pattern in this section evokes a pastoral rhythm,23 particularly when introduced as a completely new rhythmic gesture emerging from the incessant wintry sixteenth notes found up to this point in the music (see example 5).24 these pastoral topoi effect subtle reflection on bilitis's idyllic past. just as the speaker in the text looks through the ice into the past, the music suggests bilitis's reflections on her lost pastoral youth. though louys's poem provides no such indication, 21 22 current musicology example 4: "le tombeau des naiades:' mm. 24-27, piano part. fd. j1. n. n. dim. n. i~ ~ pn· . i debussy's setting allows the listener some idea of what she sees-through the music (and only through the music), we also are allowed to glimpse through the ice.25 similarly, in the final measure of the piece the piano concludes with the same rising sixteenth-note figure heard in the opening of"le tombeau des naiades;' but the final iteration occurs in a higher register for the first time, suggesting the register of the "syrinx" motive from "la flute de pan" with a similar rising gesture. this final statement of the cycle thus also represents reflection on the beginning of the cycle. in a larger sense both of these subtle musical references to the first song hint at a framing device for the entire narrative: the older bilitis looking back at the events of her youth, a gesture made more explicit throughout the complete chansons de bilitis. regardless of the ways in which the music of"le tombeau des naiades" expands upon the themes of the poem, it is the only one of the trois chansons that has no narrative requirement to express cardinal points of the larger cycle. the text of the poem makes the plot perfectly clear. we find therefore a somewhat ironic relationship between the text and the music of the three william gibbons example 5: "le tombeau des naiades," mm. 1-2, piano part. opening sixteenth-note pattern. pieces. in the purely pastoral first poem, although the text dwells lyrically on a single evening, the music is responsible for the creation of a complex narrative spanning dozens of poems in the larger collection, establishing with its topoi the framework of the poems and bilitis's childhood. similarly, in "la chevelure" debussy uses the music to inform the listener about the nature of the relationship with lykas. in contrast, "le tombeau des naiades" contains the most textual action of the three, but the music has no responsibility to the narrative other than to describe the cardinal point outlined in the text of the poem. conclusion pierre louys elaborates on the life of bilitis throughout the cycle of poems that bear her name. as stacy kay moore points out, she "is a clearly defined, three-dimensional, almost novel-like character, whose persona develops throughout the collection-she acquires a past, a history that impinges on later poems" (2001:162). the cardinal points-bilitis's infatuation with lykas, their sexual relationship, and the loss of her innocence following her abandonment-provide a framework or "core narrative;' and in a nod to those familiar with the source poems, debussy's music suggests aspects of the larger narrative to savvy second-level listeners. in closing, it is important to note that no music is capable of narrating a complex series of specific events in the absence of prior knowledge on the part of the audience (i.e., program notes or at least a programmatic title). the type of narrative intertextuality that i have outlined above "privileges the more intertextually aware readers [or listeners], but it does not exclude the less aware" (eco 2004:220). while debussy's cycle still provides a fascinating narrative when viewed from the perspective of a first-level model listener-a good thing, considering that the vast majority of modern audience members are unaware of louys's larger poetic cycle-readers more familiar with the chansons de bilitis are 23 24 current musicology privy to a rich web of intertextuality extending far beyond the three poems of the musical cycle. each setting fills in the gaps for the listener, either by employing pastoral topoi, as in the case of "la flute de pan," or in the depiction of important events missing from the selected poems in the case of "la chevelure." in the trois chansons de bilitis, debussy demonstrates one possible way that music can contribute to the development and per­ petuation of an overarching narrative that exceeds the boundaries of the texts themselves. my reading of debussy's trois chansons de bilitis presents only one possible application of narrative expansion to a relatively short song cycle. one might easily (and quite rightly) make a case that the aesthetics of symbolist poetry and of debussy's music lend themselves well to the sort of narrative play found in the trois chansons. 26 i have, however, hesitated in making this argument because i do not wish to suggest that narrative expansion is a particularly symbolist technique, or that it is in any way less applicable to song cycles from other periods and places. numerous other cycles feature texts derived from larger poetic works: dichterliebe (the texts of which are drawn from heinrich heine's larger lyriches intermezzo) again stands out as a prominent example. i hope that my brief analysis of debussy's cycle will encourage others to explore the ways in which composers and audiences interact through this intertextual technique, which allows new interpretations (both through performance and listening) of song cycles today, while expanding our understanding of how contemporary audiences likely heard them. certainly, for example, debussy's audience for the trois chansons de bilitis was much more familiar with louys's works than are most modern audiences that hear the cycle. more generally, approaching song cycles of this nature from the perspective of narrative expansion can lead to a rethinking of the importance of the audience-and specifically their outside knowledge-in the interpretation of these works. notes i would like to thank those who have read and commented on this article at various stages, in particular jon w. finson, annegret fauser, roy howat, and my anonymous readers for their numerous helpful suggestions. all translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 1. a few scholars have questioned the validity of such distinctions for the compositions of early nineteenth-century composers. david ferris (2000:1-24), for example, has persuasively argued that scholars tend to force later nineteenth (and twentieth) century "organicist" musical ideals onto earlier music-in ferris's case, onto schumann's song cycles. see also perrey (2002). 2. the literature on song cycles is vast, and largely centered around nineteenth-century germany, with beethoven, schubert, and schumann as key figures. a few of the many excel­ lent sources on the general concept of song cycles that, while i do not specifically cite them, have influenced my thought on the matter include: youens (1991, 1997), kramer (1994), william gibbons turchin (1985), and muxfeldt (2001). literature on the french song cycle is less common; some notable examples include rushton (1992) and fauser (1994). an older though still indispensable source is noske (1970). 3. for an excellent summary of the literature on unity in schumann's cycles see ferris (2000). 4. the concept of the model reader is a recurring element in eco's writings on literature. put simply, the abstraction of the model reader posits a reader that can perfectly understand the elements of the text within prescribed limits. for example, our first-level model readers as outlined here would perfectly understand any individual work given to them, but would view these works in a vacuum, with no reference to other literary works. similarly, model authors are those that act perfectly within given constraints: one that, for example, intends to create every allusion that scholars might find in their works (regardless whether or not the real author did, in fact, intend them). perhaps eco's most straightforward outline of these ideas may be found in eco 1994. 5. literary fakes of this nature were not entirely uncommon, the most famous of which being james macpherson's ossianic poems, first published in 1763, which he claimed were written by the third-century bard ossian. though the true author was a mystery to no one in the twentieth century, maurice ravel set a similar group of literary fakes-the chansons madecasses traduite en frant;ais, by evariste-desire desforges, ritter von parny (1787), who, like louys, purported only to translate the poems. 6. for detailed examinations of louys's life and works during this time, see goujon (1988) and clive (1978). 7. in a letter of september 16, 1890, louys describes the changes to his name, which began with the substitution of the "y" in the late 1880s, but went on to include the dieresis as well: "ce n' est pas seulement l'y grec, c' est ie trema main tenant. un de ces jours je supprimerai 1'0. peuh~tre l'u aussi. mais je laisserai ie trema" (quoted in clive 1978:31). [it isn't only the greek "y," it's the dieresis now. one of these days i'll do away with the "0." maybe the "u" also. but i'll leave the dieresis.) 8. in addition to expounding upon the virtues of such a sensual utopia in his works, he ap­ pears to have applied this ideal in his personal life. many of the chansons de bilitis, in fact, are widely thought to have their origins in his continued relationship with meriem ben atala, a sixteen-year-old girl louys met during his extensive travels in 1894 with andre gide-and with whom both authors were sexually involved when many of the chansons were written (clive 1978:105). 9. "dix ans, puis ie silence pendant vingt ans, puis la mort" (gregh 1956:36). 10. "la nouvelle vie qui commence avec emma bardac ... est synonyme d'une redistribution des amities, et pierre louys ne fait pas partie du nouveau cercle" (goubault 2002:147). 11. other pieces are certainly indirectly related, however, including the six epigraphes antiques and the piano prelude des pas sur la neige (see routley 1993). 12. it is worth noting that although the formal pastorals of antiquity blended dramatic and lyric elements, after the renaissance pastoral poetry was typically lyric, a form louys adopted in the first section of les chansons de bilitis. 13. the influence of a return to neo-greek pastoral images and ideology on music has been explored by fleury (1996, chapter 8). 14. for the original french of the poems, see louys (1990). 25 26 current musicology 15. see, for example, the prominent role of the instrument in both the first idyll of theocritus and the first eclogue of virgil. 16. for more on the recreation of pastoral antiquity in the work of both these artists, see werth (2002). 17. in addition, debussy's choice to replicate the syrinx musically is a practical one. since, as carolyn abbate (1989) and others have pointed out, musical narrative functions in a mimetic (rather than diegetic) fashion, a musical instrument provides an easy source of mimesis. in other words, the fact that an instrument features prominently in the poem allows the music playa large role in contributing to the poem's narrative. john daverio (1998) has pointed out this connection as well in noting that the musical settings of ossianic poetry during the nine­ teenth century relied heavily on the frequent appearance of the harp in the poetic texts. 18. moore provides another examination of the effect of the verb tenses in "la flute;' from which mine has benefited significantly (2001:166-218). 19. for a thorough description of the main elements oflyric poetry, see staiger (1991). 20. this is in contrast to the greek pastoral tradition, which relied heavily on dialogue. 21. though "la chevelure" was the next poem in the cycle as eventually completed, it was not present in the original edition, but was introduced somewhat later. when debussy suggested setting "la flute de pan" to louys, the poet·sent him the manuscript of the as­ yet-unpublished "la chevelure." for a more thorough examination of the chronology of the songs, see grayson (2001). 22. a connection between long hair and sex was common in fin-de-siecle europe. in pelleas et melisande, for example, melisande's long hair frequently serves as a symbol for her sexuality. the same idea may be seen also in, among numerous examples, ernest chausson's opera le roiarthus, wherein the unfaithful genievre strangles herself with her long hair-the symbol of her seductive powers (see fauser 1991). 23. nicholas routley also finds this rhythm to be significant in the work, but not for its pastoral associations. the dotted -eighth! sixteenth pattern occurs as an ostinato in several of debussy's winter-themed pieces, and in particular in works related to this song (des pas sur la neige and some of the incidental music that debussy wrote for les chansons de bilitis). however, these two analyses are not mutually exclusive. if, as routley (1993) compellingly argues, these pieces are all related to the setting of louys's text (which predates the others), then the ostinato may not simply refer to the icy landscape, but also to the poem's focus on the usurpation of the pastoral and regret for the lost past. 24. the repeated pattern of four sixteenth notes moving through a rising fourth also appears prominently as an image of frozen landscape in "the snow is dancing," from children's corner. 25. raymond monelle, in his discussion of pastoral in music, says of debussy's pastoral style that "the image of innocence, of happy love, is rendered crystalline, is slightly colored with risk" (2006:268). this parallels exactly the development in the trois chansons-the innocence of the pastoral is literally crystallized into the ice of the third poem. 26. susan youens (1987-88) has explored debussy's creation of symbolist narrative in his fetes galantes ii, drawing poems from a larger verlaine cycle, for example, although she deals with qualities of the newly created narrative rather than examining any intertextual elements. william gibbons references abbate, carolyn. 1989. what the sorcerer said. 19th-century music 12 (3): 221-30. alpers, paul. 1996. what is pastoral? chicago and london: university of chicago press. barthes, roland. 1977. introduction to the structural analysis of narratives. in image, music, text, translated by stephen heath, 79-124. new york: hill and wang. berger, karol. 1994. diegesis and mimesis: the poetic modes and the matter of artistic presentation. journal of musicology 12 (4): 407-33. clive, h. p. 1978. pierre loujis (1870-1925): a biography. oxford and new york: clarendon press. daverio, john. 1998. schumann's ossianic manner. 19th-century music 21 (3): 247-73. eco, umberto. 1994. six walks in the fictional woods. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. ---.2004. intertextual irony and levels of reading. in on literature, translated by martin mclaughlin, 212-35. orlando, fl: harcourt. fauser, annegret. 1991. die sehnsucht nach dem mittelalter: ernst chausson und richard wagner. in les symbolistes et richard wagner/die symbolisten und richard wagner, edited by wolfgang storch and josef mackert, 115-20. berlin: hentrich. ---. 1994. der orchestergesang in frankreich zwichen 1870 und 1920. freiburger beitrage zur musikwissenschaft, no. 2. laaber: laaber-verlag. ferris, david. 2000. schumann's eichendorffliederkreis and the genre of the romantic cycle. oxford and new york: oxford university press. fleury, michel. 1996. l'impressionisme et la musique. les chemins de la musique, no. 23. paris: fayard. goubault, christian. 2002. claude debussy: la musique ii vif paris: minerve. goujon, jean-paul. 1988. pierre loujis: une vie secrete, 1870-1925. paris: seghers/j.-j. pauvert. grayson, david. 2001. bilitis and tanagra: afternoons with nude women. in debussy and his world, edited by jane fulcher, 117-39. princeton, nj: princeton university press. gregh, fernand. 1956. l'age de fer: souvenirs 1925-1955. paris: grasset. hoeckner, berthold. 2006. paths through dichterliebe. 19th-century music 30 (1): 65-80. kramer, richard. 1994. distant cycles: schubert and the conceiving of song. chicago and london: university of chicago press. louys, pierre. 1990. les chansons de bilitis; pervigilium mortis: avec divers textes inedits, edited by jean-paul goujon. paris: gallimard. ---. 1995. two erotic tales, translated by mary hanson harrison, edited by dorothy kavka. evanston, il: evanston publishing. mccreless, patrick. 1986. song order in the song cycle: schumann's "liederkreis:' op. 39. music analysis 50): 5-40. mcquinn, julie. 2003. exploring the erotic in dubussy's music. in the cambridge companion to debussy, edited by simon trezise, 117-36. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. monelle, raymond. 2006. the musical topic: hunt, military, and pastoral. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. moore, stacy kay. 2001. words without songs, and songs despite words: poetry and music in the french melodie. phd dissertation, cornell university. muxfeldt, kristina. 2001. "frauenliebe und leben" now and then. 19th-century music 25 0): 27-48. neumeyer, david. 1982. organic structure and the song cycle: another look at schumann's dichterliebe. music theory spectrum 4: 92-105. 27 28 current musicology noske, frits. 1970. french song from berlioz to duparc: the origin and development of the melodie,2nd ed., translated by rita benton. new york: dover. perrey, beate julia. 2002. schumann's dichterliebe and early romantic poetics: fragmentation of desire. cambridge studies in music theory and analysis, no. 18. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. routley, nicholas. 1993. des pas sur la neige: debussy in bilitis's footsteps. musicology australia 16: 19~27. rumph, stephen. 1994. debussy's trois chansons de bilitis: song, opera, and the death of the subject. journal of musicology 12 (4): 464-90. rushton, julian. 1992. les nuits d'ete: cycle or collection? in berlioz studies, edited by peter bloom, 112-35. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. staiger, emil. 1991. basic concepts of poetics, translated by janette c. hudson and luanne t. frank, edited by marianne burkhard and luanne t. frank. university park: pennsylvania state university press. turchin, barbara. 1985. robert schumann's song cycles: the cycle within the song. 19th­ century music 8 (3): 231-44. walker, steven f. 1978. mallarme's symbolist eclogue: the "faune" as pastoral. pmla 93 (1): 106-17. wenk, arthur b. 1976. debussy and the poets. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. werth, margaret. 2002. the joy of life: the idyllic in french art, circa 1900. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. youens, susan. 1987-88. to tell a tale: symbolist narrative in debussy's fetes galantes ii. nineteenth-century french studies 16 (1-2): 180-91. ---. 1991. retracing a winter's journey: schubert's winterreise. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. ---. 1997. schubert, milller, and die schone miillerin. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. current.musicology.85.1-112.pdf current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 139 smirnov, andrey. 2013. sound in z: experiments in sound and electronic music in early 20th-century russia. london: koenig books reviewed by thomas patteson the history of experimental sound technologies in the early twentieth century has long been standardized into a well-trodden tour of the same familiar highlights: thaddeus cahill’s telharmonium, russolo’s art of noises, the prophetic visions of busoni and varèse, the novelties of theremin. in both general histories and specialized accounts of “electronic music,” these topics are generally treated as appetizers preceding the main course, which commences promptly after world war ii with the emergence of the dueling schools of musique concrète and elektronische musik. in recent years, this narrative has been questioned and extended in a number of important ways, and the previously unsuspected depths of early twentieth-century musical technoculture have begun to be sounded.1 this is not merely a matter of quibbling over whether electronic music began in the 1950s or the 1920s; broadening the historical scope to include earlier phenomena makes for a new image of electronic music, one that highlights the social and cultural contexts that are often written out of canonic histories. adding to this effort is andrey smirnov’s book sound in z, a thorough and thought-provoking study of sound technology and musical experimentation in russia during the first decades of the twentieth century. smirnov, senior lecturer and head of the sector for multimedia at the center for electroacoustic music at moscow state conservatory, deftly combines lucid technical explanations of relevant artifacts with the broader cultural history of a uniquely turbulent milieu. his book illuminates how the technological experiments of russian artists in the early twentieth century were integrally related to parallel developments in the arts and sciences, philosophy, and politics. sound in z traces a welter of activity that encompasses not only music in the conventional sense, but a seemingly centrifugal expansion of the art into fields both adjacent and far-flung. the book’s eight chapters comprise a comprehensive survey of technology and experimental sound in the young soviet union. given the ambitious nature of his project, smirnov’s book inevitably becomes something of an omnium-gatherum, but he succeeds in doing justice to the period’s musical ferment, one which was previously all but unknown outside of russia. those looking for familiar signposts in the history of electronic music will not be disappointed. the inventions of léon theremin are given an 140 current musicology entire chapter, which provides a fine overview of the still underappreciated scope of his work. the instruments of lesser-known inventors are featured as well, from the “sonar” of nikolai ananiev—which seems to have paralleled the trautonium in germany, both in playing technique and in popular esteem—to the “ekvodin” of konstantin kovalsky and andrei volodin, an elaborately developed instrument that anticipated the analog synthesizer of the 1960s. the centerpiece of the book’s treatment of instrumental technology, however, is the two chapters on sound-on-film and graphical sound technologies, which together occupy about a third of the text. smirnov provides a richly detailed tour of these techniques, from the early soviet sound films of avraamov, eisenstein, and vertov, to the intricate graphical sound techniques of voinov, sholpo, and yankovsky. the degree of technical detail in these chapters may be overwhelming for some readers, but smirnov is to be commended for making the bewildering variety of these techniques largely comprehensible to english audiences. another little-known aspect of early twentieth-century russian music was the domain of microtonality, a fascinating phenomenon whose broader history is yet to be written. smirnov sheds valuable light on microtonal research in russia, from speculative proposals such as arseni avraamov’s forty-eight-tone “ultra-chromatic” approach to more systematic approaches of scholars such as pavel leiberg. again, smirnov makes clear that microtonal research, far from being an esoteric artistic novelty, was fueled by the speculative, universalist spirit of the time. virtually all of those pursuing various alternatives to twelve-tone equal temperament saw their work as part of a more ambitious cultural project rooted in metaphysical concerns and/or, in the case of avraamov, radical politics. throughout sound in z, smirnov weaves into his account the broader cultural history of russia in the first decades of the twentieth century. the frenzy of activity in sound and music was part of broadly ramified projects to reinvent society from the ground up. by giving indications of the profound intellectual and cultural upheavals of the years around the soviet revolution, smirnov helps to illuminate the seemingly quixotic artistic undertakings of the time, which can otherwise appear ungrounded or simply bizarre. the synoptic, all-encompassing aspirations of figures such as avraamov, for example, make more sense in light of the influence of alexander bogdanov’s “tectology,” an interdisciplinary, proto-cybernetic search for a scientific basis underlying all knowledge. given this interdisciplinary gyre of influences, it’s hardly surprising that many of the most far-reaching musical speculations of the time emerged not from the ranks of conservatory-trained composers, but rather from visual artists, poets, scholars, and engineers. to give just two examples, the painter kazimir malevich spoke of musical dynamism being replaced by “stati141 thomas patterson cism, i.e. holding back musical sonorous masses from temporal evolution” (21), while denis kaufman—later known as the pioneering filmmaker dziga vertov—conducted experiments in his homemade “laboratory of hearing” that anticipated the mid-century techno-phenomenology of pierre schaeffer (25). also striking is the degree of institutional support extended to these experimental undertakings. smirnov devotes an entire chapter to the plethora of new, state-sponsored organizations founded in the wake of the revolution, many of which were squelched in the wake of stalin’s rise to power, as the soviet union turned toward a more conservative approach to the arts. many important projects in instrument building and microtonal research were supported by the state institute for musical science (gimn), founded in 1921, which was probably the first government-supported music technology laboratory in the world. sonic experiments were also undertaken apart from any explicitly musical impetus, for example at the phonological department of the state institute for art culture (ginhuk), headed by the poet-artist igor terentiev, who undertook a scientific study of sound along the systematic lines of soviet constructivism. the fascinating complexities of early soviet culture emerge as well in smirnov’s discussion of the organization proletkult (proletarian culture), which involved many members of the russian avant-garde in an undertaking of what might be called experimental arts education for the masses. originally an emphatically independent institution, proletkult had 400,000 members at its height in the early 1920s, but it was soon absorbed into the state apparatus and officially shut down in 1932. sound in z also reveals hidden facets of the man-machine debate in twentieth-century technoculture. at the central institute of labor (cit), founded by alexei gastev in moscow in 1920, fordist notions about the rationalization of working methods were aligned with quasi-anarchist principles of radical individual autonomy: mechanization was seen to presage a new kind of human freedom. the cit spawned a school of “biomechanics,” which sought a unified understanding of movement encompassing both artificial objects and human beings, the “living machine.” biomechanics branched out from studies of labor processes to provide theoretical grounding for the motion of human bodies on the theatrical stage, as pioneered by the actor and director vsevolod meyerhold and the polyartist solomon nikritin, whose “projection theater” was a kind of in-house artistic wing of gastev’s cit. members of the projection theater participated in elaborate, strictly planned exercises encompassing not only bodily movement, but also psychological states and sound projection. the early twentieth century’s fascination with the machine remains only 142 current musicology dimly understood, and too-easily dismissed as mere technological fetishism. smirnov’s work helps show how soviet “machine-worshippers” saw the new technologies not as engines of “dehumanization” but as means of achieving a higher humanism by transcending biological limitations. of course, any history of the period can hardly ignore the threat (and quite often, the reality) of political violence that permeated early soviet society, especially under stalin’s great terror in the late 1930s. igor terentiev, alexei gastev, and vsevolod meyerhold were murdered by the state on account of aesthetic transgressions or imagined conspiracies against the government. others suffered less drastic punishments: nikritin was blacklisted as a “formalist,” while theremin was imprisoned and his career undone. understandably, the fates of these men cast a dark tone over the book as a whole, which often reads as something of an epitaph for a doomed movement and those who died while trying to further it. smirnov ranges freely across wide historical terrain, relating the aesthetic experiments that are his primary concern to the scientific, social, and political currents of the times. the book doubles as a compelling introduction to early soviet history, and includes a truly staggering collection of photographs, diagrams, and historical documents, drawn primarily from the archives of the theremin center in moscow, which smirnov founded and directed from 1992 to 2012. although the organization of the book seems at times a bit haphazard, the chapter subsections are short enough and the general flow of things clear enough that this doesn’t amount to a major problem. occasionally, however, the proclamations and manifestos that smirnov quotes, often at great length, could benefit from the same meticulous explications that he provides for instruments and technologies. smirnov’s approach as a historian has clearly been influenced by an idea of one of his historical objects: just as solomon nikritin’s notion of “projectionism” eschewed the production of artworks for the sake of the “meta-artistic” methods of creating future art forms, smirnov describes his work as an attempt “to sketch a map” and as a “platform for further research” (6). this it is; all the same, it’s hard to imagine the book being eclipsed any time soon. sound in z is a vital contribution to the history of twentieth-century musical technoculture. notes 1. some recent studies have broadened perspectives on this period, from the uncovering of occult and scientific influences in the work of luigi russolo to the hitherto unknown wealth of activity in the domains of early electronic instruments and sonic media in germany and austria during the 1920s and ‘30s. see chessa (2012); russolo (2012); peter donhauser (2007); patteson (2015). 143 thomas patterson references chessa, luciano. 2012. luigi russolo, futurist: noise, visual arts, and the occult. berkeley: university of california press. donhauser, peter. 2007. elektrische klangmaschinen. vienna: böhlau. patteson, thomas. 2015. instruments for new music: sound, technology, and modernism. berkeley: university of california press. russolo, luigi. 2012. futurist: noise, visual arts, and the occult. berkeley: university of california press. current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 frisch. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 85 on teaching the history of nineteenth-century music walter frisch this essay is adapted from the author’s “reflections on teaching nineteenthcentury music,” in the norton guide to teaching music history, ed. c. matthew balensuela (new york: w. w norton, 2019). the late author ursula k. le guin once told an interviewer, “don’t shove me into your pigeonhole, where i don’t fit, because i’m all over. my tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions” (wray 2018). if it could speak, nineteenth-century music might say the same ornery thing. we should listen—and resist forcing its composers, institutions, or works into rigid categories. at the same time, we have a responsibility to bring some order to what might seem an unmanageable segment of music history. for many instructors and students, all bets are off when it comes to the nineteenth century. there is no longer a clear consistency of musical “style.” traditional generic boundaries get blurred, or sometimes erased. berlioz calls his roméo et juliette a “dramatic symphony”; chopin writes a polonaise-fantaisie. smaller forms that had been marginal in earlier periods are elevated to unprecedented levels of sophistication by schubert (lieder), schumann (character pieces), and liszt (etudes). heightened national identity in many regions of the european continent resulted in musical characteristics which become more identifiable than any pangeographic style in works by composers like musorgsky or smetana. at the college level, music of the nineteenth century is taught as part of music history surveys, music appreciation courses, or (more rarely these days) as a stand-alone course. before addressing specific aspects of nineteenth-century music we might want to explore with our students, i will present a bit of local and personal history. up until the last fifteen or so years, the multi-semester music history sequence was almost universal as a requirement for music majors at liberal arts universities and colleges in the u.s. at columbia, when i arrived to teach in the early 1980s, we had a four-semester sequence. the last course in that sequence, which i taught frequently, encompassed (as described in the columbia college bulletin) “western music from the early 19th century to the mid 20th century.” covering so much material—in effect, most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—in one semester was daunting. eventually recognizing this 86 current musicology situation, our department reframed the music history sequence in 1989 so that the third of the four semesters would cover “music of the classical and romantic periods: from haydn and mozart to the death of wagner,” and the fourth “music of the modern period: western music from the death of wagner to the present.” this arrangement still made for a lot of material to cover within two semesters. and as the years went on, of course, “the present” kept moving forward, making the last semester even more challenging to teach (and take). in 2003, bowing to reasonable pressures on the columbia music major and concentration to include more options in music theory, composition, and non-western and popular musics, the required music history survey was compressed to two semesters, where it remains today. the first semester covers western music from the middle ages through bach; the second begins with haydn and mozart and moves to the present. the core of the western standard repertory, from beethoven to chopin to verdi, lies within the nineteenth century. even—or perhaps especially—when it is reduced to a sliver of a few weeks or classes within a broader survey, as at columbia, the nineteenth century needs careful curating. which of its many tentacles demand our attention, and how do we prioritize them? as the author of a textbook about the period, music in the nineteenth century (frisch 2012), i have grappled with these questions. i will share here some thoughts on five topics: (1) the century’s chronological delimitations; (2) the elusive concept of romanticism; (3) the career of clara wieck schumann; (4) the possibilities of a global perspective; and finally, (5) a late piano piece by brahms. where does it begin and end? the idea of the century as an experiential and historiographical unit is by no means universal. some non-western cultures have other markers for periodization. hindu calendars are reckoned in sixty-year cycles; the aztecs calibrated time in fifty-two-year groupings. there is even some lexical ambiguity in the west. the latin term “saeculum” originally meant a period of time equivalent to a generation or an individual’s lifetime, but in romance languages today, the cognate term (french, siècle; italian, secolo; spanish, siglo) has come to mean precisely 100 years, or a century. for historians of western culture and music, the century has been a tool at once conceptual and practical. literally, the nineteenth century extends from 1801 through 1900. those dates line up with significant musical events. beethoven’s symphony no. 1, published in 1801, was critical for the development of instrumental music across the next one hundred years. puccini’s tosca, which premiered in april 1900, marks the culmina87 walter frisch tion of a grand italian operatic tradition that had blossomed from rossini through verdi. but the stylistic and technical dimensions of music—not to mention its cultural, social, and political contexts—will rarely coincide with the calendar. some musicologists have adopted the notion of the “long” nineteenth century (made popular by the historian eric hobsbawm) bounded on either end by major events, the french revolution of 1789 and the outbreak of world war i in 1914, and punctuated in the middle by the revolutions of 1848. these dates also correlate with important shifts in music history. mozart dies in vienna in 1791, and the following year beethoven moves to that city to begin what would be an illustrious career. in 1912–13, the concert world was shaken by the modernism of schoenberg’s pierrot lunaire and stravinsky’s le sacre de printemps. the late 1840s marked a significant moment with the deaths of chopin and mendelssohn and the emergence of brahms and wagner. in my own history of nineteenth-century music, partly for practical reasons of space and partly to coordinate with adjacent books in the series, i opt for a “short” nineteenth century, which also has plausible musical and historical boundaries. i begin in about 1815, with the congress of vienna, when representatives of various european states and nations assembled to reconstruct the continent after the disruptions of the napoleonic wars. this is when schubert arrives on the scene and beethoven begins to retreat from public view. it is also a time when, broadly speaking, enlightenment values give way to the more mundane priorities of biedermeier, middleclass culture. music in the nineteenth century concludes in the early 1890s, at a time when urbanization and industrialization are changing the cultural landscapes in both the u.s. and europe, and when richard strauss, puccini, debussy, ives, and mahler are all emerging as major figures. romanticism romanticism is the concept most often associated with the nineteenth century in music historical writing. three major english-language textbook surveys do so explicitly in their titles: alfred einstein’s contribution to the first norton history series, music in the romantic era (einstein 1947); rey longyear’s 1973 volume for the prentice hall series, nineteenth-century romanticism in music (longyear 1973); and leon plantinga’s influential norton textbook from 1985, romantic music: a history of musical style in nineteenth-century europe (plantinga 1985). the two multi-author volumes that cover the nineteenth century in the series “music and society” (1991) use romanticism in their titles: the early romantic era: between revolutions, 1789 and 1848 (ringer 1991) and the late romantic era: from 88 current musicology the mid-19th century to world war i (samson 1991). these books are all classics (or should we say “romantics”?) of their kind and have served many hundreds of students over seventy years. yet their framing of the entire nineteenth century as romantic is problematic. in my view, romanticism is better suited and especially relevant to the first half of the nineteenth century, after which it is displaced or overtaken by other “-isms” or movements. romanticism developed mainly in germany in the late eighteenth century, as a philosophy or worldview that reacted against the values seen to derive from classical antiquity. these classical values included order, balance, and purity, as well as an emphasis on community and on the present, the here-and-now. the early romantics emphasized subjectivity over objectivity, the individual over the community, the infinite rather than the finite, the imagination over reality, and “becoming” rather than “being.” romantic writers often adopted a specifically christian perspective as a counterforce to the polytheistic religions depicted in artworks from ancient greece and rome. some romantics idealized indigenous folk culture, following johann gottfried herder, who had argued that folk poetry, rather than art forms based on ancient classical models, best expressed the purest essence of a national culture. collections of folk poetry, folk tales, and folk tunes began to appear frequently in the early nineteenth century. many composers in the decades after 1800 absorbed these ideas, including beethoven, who read romantic literature in the last decade of his life; schubert, who adopted the tuneful folk style in many of his songs; schumann, who based many of his compositions on german romantic fiction and poetry; and berlioz, who absorbed the french romanticism of françois-rené de chateaubriand and victor hugo. but by the late 1840s, romanticism fades as a major phenomenon in ways that should be reflected in our teaching and writing about the nineteenth century. i prefer to interpret the music of the nineteenth century in two halves, conveniently dividing at about the midpoint. the revolutions of 1848 in different parts of europe, in which various populations rose up unsuccessfully against authoritarian rule, could be said to be as important in ushering out romanticism as the french revolution and its aftermath were in bringing it into being. romanticism was now seen as too inward and self-indulgent, associated with passive or escapist behavior in an era that required active engagement. “the political gravity of the present situation has dealt a serious blow to romanticism,” wrote one german music critic in 1848. “the time for dreams is past” (frisch 2012, 114). during the latter half of the nineteenth century, in the context of this 89 walter frisch set of attitudes, romanticism is superseded by other perspectives, including materialism and realism. writers as diverse as friedrich nietzsche, hermann helmholtz, and gustave flaubert, and painters like gustave courbet and edouard manet, place an emphasis on the everyday, physical, “phenomenal” world, rather than the ideal, metaphysical, or “noumenal” one. in our music history courses, we can reflect this shift in any number of ways. brahms, who kept up with the scientific and historical writing of his day, adopts a grimmer, more pessimistic worldview. strauss and mahler make use of realistic effects like wind machines and cowbells. in the vocal and operatic music of wolf and musorgsky, singing becomes more natural and speech-like, with careful attention to declamation, often at the expense of more purely lyrical lines. the case of clara wieck schumann all “-isms” remain ultimately abstract. discussions of romanticism in music tend to revolve around white men and their compositions. as such, romanticism, even when supplemented by concepts like realism, remains an incomplete framework for what happens in nineteenth-century music, where everyday musical life in the nineteenth century was also directly affected by issues involving gender, class, and ethnicity. we can get at such topics with our students by considering the life and career of clara wieck schumann (1819–1896), the wife and then widow of robert schumann. (i prefer to use both maiden and married names when referring to her alone, so as to avoid potential confusion with robert.) wieck schumann does not conform easily to conventional romantic notions of subjectivity and imagination. although her compositions, mostly piano pieces and lieder, share romantic characteristics with those of her contemporaries, they shaped less of her identity than did her other activities. wieck schumann published fewer than two dozen opuses during her life. most of the time, she juggled commitments as a hardworking professional pianist, who toured frequently, pioneered recitals focused on the baroque and classical composers, and was one of the first artists to play from memory; a prominent and admired piano pedagogue, some of whose students went on to major careers; a busy mother of (and often the breadwinner for) eight children, one of whom died at sixteen months and two of whom suffered severe lifelong medical problems and also predeceased her; and a devoted wife to robert schumann, whose work took precedence over hers both during his life and, to some extent, after his death, when she tirelessly promoted his compositions through performance and editions. by most accounts, including their own, the schumanns had a loving 90 current musicology marriage and a rewarding family life. but two-career relationships in which each partner had equal status were rare in the nineteenth century, and it was the male who usually won out. framing wieck schumann within romanticism (or any other “-ism”) is in many ways misleading; it tells only part of the story of what defined her life and of the activities that made her one of the most significant musical figures of the nineteenth century. a global nineteenth century? the case of clara wieck schumann points up the limitations of the approaches many of us take when teaching and writing about nineteenthcentury music. those limitations—often dictated by time pressure and the overall curriculum into which our courses fit—involve a failure to consider not only gender, race, and class, but also geography. did cultures in other parts of the world outside europe and the united states think in terms of a “century” and care about where it began and ended? did romanticism, materialism, or realism appear elsewhere on the planet in any meaningful sense? these questions lead us to consider the concept of a global nineteenth century—how the era was perceived and experienced around the world, and how music was involved in these perceptions and experiences. in recent years, some historians have attempted global accounts of the nineteenth century, most notably christopher bayley in the birth of the modern world, 1780–1914: global connections and comparisons (2004) and jürgen osterhammel in the transformation of the world: a global history of the nineteenth century (2009, trans. 2014). neither author takes a primarily narrative or chronological approach. both seek to distance themselves from eurocentrism and postcolonial perspectives that tend to frame the nineteenth century in terms of the west against (or over) the other. they aim to make (as bayley’s title implies) more even-handed and less value-laden comparisons and connections across many regions of the earth. bayley explores what he calls growing “global uniformity” and “internationalism” in political, cultural, and social spheres. osterhammel looks at broad themes like “cities,” “labor,” “living standards,” “knowledge,” and “religion.” bayley’s and osterhammel’s are magisterial studies that only seasoned historians could have written. given their particular professional expertise, it is not surprising—but it is disappointing—that they treat the arts with less depth than politics and society. bayley devotes one chapter to the arts, in which his main focus is on uniformity and hybridity in literature and the visual arts (bayley 2004, ch. 10). music does not make an appearance. osterhammel leads off his book promisingly with a short segment on “the nineteenth century as art form: the opera” (osterhammel 2014, 5–7), in 91 walter frisch which, to show the global spread of certain aesthetic practices, he discusses how, in the nineteenth century, european opera reached the united states, asia, and latin america. but the book contains no further discussion of the arts. and unusually for osterhammel, this vignette imparts a whiff of hegemonic bias. to my knowledge, no one has to date attempted the daunting task of a comprehensive global history of nineteenth-century music. an impression still prevails among many music scholars that understanding the wider world requires an ethnomusicological or comparative approach, while musicologists do “history,” which is more purely suited to—and, some believe, even an invention of—the west. but recent scholarship has begun to dismantle such dichotomies. in the cambridge history of world music (2013), thirty-five different contributors—musicologists and ethnomusicologists—explore the historical dimensions of musical practices and musical thought in many regions of the world and eras, including the nineteenth century. individual studies by other scholars complement this work. thus, even in the absence of a global history of nineteenthcentury music, we have available resources that can bring a more global perspective into the classroom. i will briefly suggest ways in which such approaches could enrich our exploration of two topics central to the period, italian opera and romanticism. almost everyone teaches operas by rossini and bellini in the nineteenth-century survey. most of us emphasize the stylistic and dramatic aspects of the bel canto style that would dominate the era. some explore the rough-and-tumble business side of italian opera (as i do in my textbook) with its cutthroat, profit-seeking impresarios, imperious singers demanding high salaries, and overworked composers writing on short deadlines for low pay. but with benjamin walton we could also shift our students’ gazes across the ocean to latin america, specifically to buenos aires in argentina. here in the 1830s, the works of rossini and bellini were immensely popular, but took on what might seem, from the european perspective, surprising political associations. rossini was celebrated for creating “the glorious music of the people,” in line with the populist dictatorship of juan manuel de rosas. bellini was taken up by the opposition, a literary and political group called the generation of 1837 that had absorbed many ideas of european romanticism and celebrated bellini’s otherworldly, more lyrical and contemplative style. bellini’s music became known in argentina not through live performance, but through excerpts printed in the generation of 1837’s journal, which appealed to a small salon culture, while rossini’s music was played by the military bands of buenos aires to accompany public parades and festivals (walton 2012, 465–66). 92 current musicology and what of non-european music in this latin american context? bernardo illari explores the role of the argentine gauchos, an ethnically mixed nomadic group of cattlemen that became renowned for their guitar-accompanied songs and their strong values of independence (illari 2013). the music of this group would likely have been much admired in western europe, where, as we saw above, romantics prized the apparently authentic simplicity of folk culture. but in argentina, these ideals interacted with local cultures in a way that illari calls “paradoxical romanticism.” the generation of 1837 absorbed many of the concepts of romanticism, including some of herder’s ideas about the folk. but this new urban, learned elite, who were largely in sympathy with the dictator rosas, found the gauchos and their music threatening. in their view, as described by illari, the gauchos were savages lacking “any nobility that could enable them to become the carriers of the deepest national sense” (illari 2013, 384). the gauchos became targets of romantic criticism rather than subjects of praise. when we teach italian opera and romanticism, most of us will maintain our primary focus on western europe. but we should allow time to explore with our students how such genres or concepts appear in other parts of the world. as the writings of walton and illari suggest, and as is clear from bayley and osterhammel, imperialism and colonialism tell only part of the story. as in the case of argentina, they can be nuanced to reflect local histories and culture. an intermezzo by brahms no matter how many classes or weeks are involved, any course that covers nineteenth-century music will devote some time to musical analysis. looking in detail at carefully selected works helps ground the broader cultural or historical discussions. thus, from the expanse of the globe, i will in conclusion narrow our focus to one short piano piece by brahms. this is the intermezzo in e minor, op. 116, no. 5, from the group of seven pieces published in 1892. brahms’s piece is an ideal candidate for close examination in a nineteenth-century survey, because it looks backward to the eighteenth-century and early romanticism and forward to aspects of modernism. one of the principal voices of romanticism, robert schumann, saw brahms as his true successor, while a pioneer of musical modernism, arnold schoenberg, claimed brahms as a genuine “progressive” (schumann 1969; schoenberg 2010). the designation “intermezzo” dates back well before 1800. as used by composers in the nineteenth century it came to mean a short instrumental work that formed part of a larger whole—a sonata, symphony, or a 93 walter frisch collection of pieces. in op. 116, as in so many instances, brahms rethinks a tradition by grouping these works (which have various titles) into what one critic has called a “multipiece,” with distinct motivic, textural, and harmonic relationships among the different parts (see dunsby 1983). like its title, other aspects of brahms’s thirty-nine-measure intermezzo reflect generic norms that reach back into the eighteenth century. it is in what is often called rounded or “recapitulating” binary form, ||:a:||:b a´:||. the a section modulates to a secondary key, here the dominant, and is then repeated. the b section sustains the dominant, in this case over a long pedal, and leads back to the return of a, which closes in the tonic. this description could apply to countless shorter pieces written after the mid-eighteenth century, from scarlatti onward. brahms’s intermezzo also shares features of early romanticism, as reflected in the character pieces of schubert, schumann, mendelssohn, and chopin. these works are usually based on a single lyrical melody or memorable rhythmic figure; there is often a contrasting middle section. (an instructor could profitably ask students to compare one of the intermezzi from schumann’s op. 4, composed in 1832, some sixty years earlier, with the e minor intermezzo of brahms’s op. 116.) brahms adopts but utterly transforms these principles. the entire intermezzo is derived from a single rhythmic motive, a two-note, upbeat-to-downbeat figure in eighth notes, which is repeated continuously or with slight variations (example 1). this kind of thematic concentration or economy would become a hallmark of later music, especially of the second viennese school. even more forward-looking are the kind of spatial symmetries exhibited by the music. the chord played by each hand in the first six measures is an exact mirror of the chord in the other: in the upbeat to the first measure, both hands play octaves that enclose thirds and sixths. none of these example 1: johannes brahms, intermezzo op. 116, no. 5, mm. 1–3. 94 current musicology sonorities is tonally ambiguous; each harmony can be analyzed in the key of e minor. but they all appear on weak beats and “resolve” to bare, two-note dissonances (including augmented fourths and diminished sevenths) on the downbeats. another unusual feature is the return at a´ (example 2). brahms prepares the return to the tonic with a dominant-seventh chord sustained for four measures. but at the moment of reprise, he avoids e minor and shifts the original theme up a fourth, so that we begin on a minor. the rest of a´ is recomposed such that the tonic is reached at the very last possible moment, with the root arriving on the weaker second half of the measure, under a dominant-seventh chord (example 3). the rest of the tonic harmony, now e major, comes only on the subsequent downbeat. one could scarcely imagine a more attenuated cadence in tonal music. with this gesture—as with the piece that leads up to it—brahms seems to be either weakly affirming or subtly undermining so many of the premises on which nineteenth century music was based. it is hard to say which; and therein lies the core of the intermezzo’s very modern ambiguity. in analyzing a work like the brahms intermezzo, we are tempted to example 2: johannes brahms, intermezzo op. 116, no. 5, mm. 28–30. example 3: johannes brahms, intermezzo op. 116, no. 5, mm. 36–39. 95 walter frisch get lost in the remarkable musical details. but it is equally rewarding to consider the broader context of the piece’s creation. the intermezzo is one of twenty-six short pieces that brahms grouped into various opuses late in his career. they seem to have been intended by the composer for a liminal societal-musical sphere lying between public and private. at this point in his career brahms was rarely concertizing; he played the late pieces almost exclusively for small gatherings at the homes of close friends. of course, brahms was famous, and professional pianists were eager to take up these works. but when they programmed the pieces in concerts in the 1890s and early 1900s, the blend of intimacy and complexity, such as we have seen in the e minor intermezzo, often led to a puzzled reception among audiences and reviewers. two of the most perceptive critics of the day seemed to have grasped the paradoxical qualities of brahms’s pieces. philip spitta wrote to the composer that they “are really meant to be absorbed slowly in peace and solitude.” eduard hanslick heard the late piano works as “monologues, which brahms holds with himself and for himself in solitary evening hours” (rich 2014, 102–103). brahms neither confirmed nor denied such assertions. but it is worth investigating with our students the notion that some of the most beloved works of classical music, written by one of its most renowned composers, were perceived in their day as solipsistic utterances best suited for an audience of one (oneself). as removed as our students are from brahms’s day, they might relate to that idea as they listen to the intermezzo on their smartphones with earbuds—intimately, privately. brahms’s little intermezzo reveals how a piece composed in the nineteenth century can have its own local historical-cultural-social milieu yet also reach back into the eighteenth century and forward into the twentieth, and even the twenty-first. when we teach music of the nineteenth century, we should always stress how contingent it is: it exists in our own time and place, but also in other eras, other worlds. brief coda: in defense of music history the value of the music history survey has been in question for a number of years. in 2015, the journal of music history pedagogy published a roundtable (based on a session held the prior year at the annual meeting of the american musicological society) entitled “the end of the undergraduate music history sequence?” (roust 2015). in answering the question, the authors, all experienced instructors, took what might be considered relatively conservative positions, suggesting, for example, how survey courses could be modified to be less chronological, or how to help students navigate and assess the vast quantities of sources available in the informa96 current musicology tion age. more recently, some scholars have made a more radical appeal for the “decolonization” of music history courses and the de-emphasizing of the western canon. they argue for a fundamental reshaping of our curricula to explore trans-historical and cross-cultural perspectives, as well as the social and political forces that keep canons in place (madrid 2017, vágnerová and garcía molina 2018). in the context of these discussions, harvard, cornell, and vanderbilt have given up the required music history survey, substituting a range of elective courses that involve critical thinking, reading, and listening from both western and non-western perspectives. no doubt more universities and colleges will make, or already have made, similar changes; i cannot predict what will happen at columbia in the years to come. for intellectual as well as practical reasons, the music history survey may not survive. there is no question that academic programs should evolve in response to the perspectives and skills we want our students to develop as music majors. the western classical repertory of the nineteenth century can retain its value as a site of study, whether as part of a broader survey or not. the issues this era and its music raise—around periodization, labels and “-isms,” gender roles, global reach, and the ontology of individual works—are still relevant and relatable to other parts of our music curricula. references bayley, christopher. 2004. the birth of the modern world, 1780–1914: global connections and comparisons. malden, ma and oxford: blackwell. dunsby, jonathan. 1983. “the multi-piece in brahms: fantasien op. 116.” in brahms: biographical, analytical and documentary studies, edited by robert pascall, 167–89. cambridge: cambridge university press. einstein, alfred. 1947. music in the romantic era. new york: w. w. norton. frisch, walter. 2012. music in the nineteenth century. new york: w. w. norton. illari, bernardo. 2013. “a story with(out) gauchos: folk music in the building of the argentine nation.” in the cambridge history of world music, edited by philip bohlman, 371–94. cambridge: cambridge university press. longyear, rey. 1973. nineteenth-century romanticism in music. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. 2nd ed. 1988. madrid, alejandro. 2017. “diversity, tokenism, non-canonical musics, and the crisis of the humanities in u.s. academia.” in journal of music history pedagogy 7: 124–29. osterhammel, jürgen. 2014. the transformation of the world: a global history of the nineteenth century. princeton and oxford: princeton university press. plantinga, leon. 1985. romantic music: a history of musical style in nineteenth-century europe. new york: w. w. norton. rich, katrin. 2014. “where was the home of brahms’s piano works?” in brahms in the home and the concert hall: between private and public performance, edited by katy hamilton and natasha loges, 95–109. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press, 2014. 97 walter frisch ringer, alexander (ed.). 1991. the early romantic era: between revolutions, 1789 and 1848. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. roust, colin (ed.). 2015. “the end of the undergraduate music history sequence?” journal of music history pedagogy 5 (2015): 49–76. samson, jim. 1991. the late romantic era: from the mid-19th century to world war i. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. schoenberg, arnold. 2010. “brahms the progressive.” in style and idea: selected writings of arnold schoenberg, edited by leonard stein, 398–441. berkeley: university of california press. schumann, robert. 1969. “new roads.” in on music and musicians, edited by konrad wolff, translated by paul rosenfeld, 252–54. new york: w. w. norton, 1969. vágnerová, lucie, and andrés garcía molina. 2018. “academic labor and music curricula.” current musicology 102: 93–113. walton, benjamin. 2012. “italian operatic fantasies in latin america.” journal of modern italian studies 17 (july): 460–71. wray, john. 2018. “the category-defying genius of ursula k. le guin.” new york times, january 25. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/opinion/ursula-le-guin.html. 98 current musicology a paper trail: missa jouyssance vous donneray, uncertain identity, and the national institutes of health's "bathtub collection" emily robertson in a storeroom of the national institutes of health (nih) library of medicine's history of medicine division are seven gray boxes full of enve­ lopes of yellowed paper scraps. these fragments constitute the little-known "bathtub collection." dr. dorothy schullian, a curator at the national library of medicine (nlm), discovered the collection during the late 1940s and early 1950s while working on a restoration project for the nlm that was intended to make the library's wealth of medical books available to the public in modern, sturdy bindings. found stuffed in the bindings of early medical treatises, these fragments were soaked free of centuries-old glue in a bathtub, thus earning their unique name. the hundreds of tiny pieces of paper span almost eight centuries, eight languages, and countless sources, both print and manuscript. their contents include pages from the vulgate bible, personal letters, pamphlets, playing cards, announcements, and music. at present, the fragments are catalogued in file folders according to the bookbinding from which they came. i little research has been done on the "bathtub collection:' after examin­ ing the bindings, schullian wrote a paper chronicling their contents that was read at the 1953 meeting of the bibliographical society of america and subsequently published. in 1997, dr. walton schalick iii submitted a similar article to the american historical association suggesting that more work be done on this remarkable collection, both in preservation and research. in response to schalick's article, the nih hired a preservation intern, sandra provenzano, for four months to re-package the fragments in more archive­ friendly envelopes and boxes (waring 2002). carol clausen, current curator at the nlm, then wrote a detailed report focusing on four manuscript pages of music taken from the binding of giovanni andrea della croce's chirurgiae ioannis andreae a cruce, veneti medici libri septem (henceforth chirurgiae), published in venice in 1573 (clausen 2004).2 the four leaves of manuscript staff paper contain latin­ texted music from franco-flemish masses and motets. these liturgical compositions were usually written for four to six voices overall, but they often included duo or trio sections. the manuscript contains only these bicinia, or sections of music for two voices. each sheet of manuscript paper current musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 63 64 current musicology is divided in half horizontally, with the music facing the top of the page on one half and the bottom on the other, indicating that the pages were intended to be cut and bound as a partbook. over the centuries, the paper has been marked, cut, torn, and chewed. most of the surviving notation is still legible, but large pieces are missing from the pages (see figure 1). a roughly two-inch square was neatly cut out of the center of the last sheet of staff paper, on which no music was copied. all of the selections are numbered, and the names of the composers are written in the margins. the pages include only the two-voice sections of the credo, benedictus, and agnus dei from lupus's missa hercules dux ferrariae; the benedictus from francesco de layolle's missa 0 salutaris hostia; the credo, sanctus, and agnus dei from johannes sarton's missa jouyssance vous donneray; and four motets by henricus isaac, as identified by clausen. 3 only one of the two voices in each of these sections appears in the "bathtub collection" music manuscripts. none of the masses or motets are present in their entirety or identified by title in the manuscript. in the case of sarton's missa jouyssance vous donneray, the altus part of the crucifixus and agnus dei ii and the bassus part of the et resurrexit and pleni sunt are copied on one sheet of paper, or two partbook pages.4 (see the left margin of figure 1 for an attribution to sarton.) the numbering of the selections indicates that there were evidently fifty-eight musical selections copied in all, but numbers 1-10 and 31-43 are missing from the manuscripts.5 of the four composers listed in the "bathtub collection" manuscripts, three are well-known to music scholars: lupus, layolle, and isaac. the fourth composer, johannes sarton, has been practically unknown to modern historians and musicologists; his name has only been connected solidly to one composition, m. jouyssance vous donneray. perhaps because of this low compositional output and lack of other direct historical references to m. jouyssance, musicologists have largely ignored sarton. he must have been franco-flemish or french, but no archival records listing "johannes (10.) sarton" have been uncovered, although my research, building on that of a few others, has uncovered several archival references to other permutations of "sarton" and shed some light on his identity. without the impetus of the attribution in the "bathtub collection:' this research would never have been conducted, and m. jouyssance and its unfamiliar creator could have remained unexplored. when introducing the "bathtub collection" to the academic world for the first time in 1953, schullian directed her audience's attention to a dilemma of archival research: [i]n our modern age the chances of making bibliographical discoveries grow fewer year by year. it is discouragingly true, for a bibliographer, that most english lumber rooms and american attics have already been explored ... rarely indeed can a bibliographer point with gleeful pride emily robertson figure 1: a fragment containing a portion of m. ]ouyssance vous donneray and the attribution to sarton. washington, d.c., national institutes of health, the national library of medicine, history of medicine division, the "bathtub collection" manuscripts. (now housed in the library of congress, music division.) (-;tj;~·.~·i'; ·~j1y \1. ," ,/~ 65 66 current musicology to an item utterly unknown to his fellow bibliographers. where, then, is the joy of the chase for him, where a beckoning frontier to promise him adventure and new finds? (schullian 1953: 201) schullian's quote underscores the significance of my studies: the addition of new "items" to historical and musical knowledge. my research begins and ends with the music manuscripts in the "bathtub collection." in order to produce a more complete picture of the importance of the collection, my research combines history, musical analysis, and material culture studies. these scholarly methods are applied to the various questions that arise when we consider the contents and implications of the discovery of these music manuscripts. the most important of these questions is that regarding the identity of the obscure composer whose music forms a small part of the "bathtub collection": johannes sarton. through a trail followed from the forlorn paper fragments in the nih to well-known renaissance music in modern editions and public histories in the bibliotheque nationale in paris, i have come to the conclusion that this "10. sarton" was probably the famous french composer known as pierre certon. certon was a prominent composer and choirmaster in the mid-sixteenth century. he was possibly born in melun, a small town outside paris (lhuillier 1869).6 most educated guesses place his birth date sometime around 1510 based on his activities in paris in the late 1520s and 1530s. according to aime agnel and richard freedman, there was a "jehan certon" who was appointed "fermier du fourrage," or hay farmer, to francis i in melun in 1527.7 many historians believe this to be the earliest archival reference to certon, although the mystery of why a budding musician would be called a "hay farmer" has yet to be solved. perhaps, rather than being a reference to young certon the musician, it is a reference to his father or another member of his immediate family. many years later in his life, after a brilliant career in paris, pierre certon set up a memorial service for himself in notre-dame de melun. according to bernard de la fortelle, mayor of melun, in his histoire et description de notre-dame de melun of 1843: pierre certon, master of the choirboys of the sainte-chapelle, founded at notre-dame de melun, of which he was canon, a solemn evening song service to be sung each year on the feast of the annunciation on march 25, at twilight, in hora ignis tegii, as one reads in the martyrology and finds contained on the stone [plaque 1, attached to the pillar near the pulpit of the preacher.8 (de la fortelle 1843: 44) de la fortelle mentions certon in an earlier reference to "la redaction de la coutume de melun:' or "the drafting of the [liturgical] custom of melun," which took place in 1560: ' emily robertson table 1: selected records and spelling variants of "pierre certon." date record 1527 "jehan certon" in melun 1529 "pierre serton" at notre dame de paris 1530 "jehan serton" reprimanded twice, arrested, and released at notre dame de paris 1532 "pierre certon" at sainte chapelle 1532, "ioannes sarton" attrib. m. jouyssance vous donneray 1540 1539 "ioannes sarton" attrib. haec dies quam fecit domino 1540 "ioannes certon" attrib. m. jouyssance vous donneray 1540 "pierre certon" attrib. m. ave sanctissima and m. dulcis arnica 1543 "pierre certon" attrib. six mass sections 1560s "pierre certon" was named "compositeur de musique de la chapelle du roy" [francis ij and established a "solemn evening song service" in melun 1572 "pierre certon" died in paris pierre tappereau and pierre certon, the singer, canons, chapter and com­ munity of the collegiate church of notre dame de melun, lords ofperthes, together appear by isaac pinot, one of them, to the drafting of the melun custom [rite], wednesday, aprill7, 1560. (1843:22)9 de la fortelle continually references sebastian rouillard's histoire de melun of 1628 for his information about melun's citizens during the middle ages and the renaissance, including pierre certon (rouillard 1628).10 despite the fact that certon founded a memorial service for himself, and that he was mentioned by de la fortelle as a canon, no "pierre certon" is listed in de la fortelle's roll of canons, choristers, choirmasters, feasts, or obituar­ ies at notre-dame de melun (1843). de la fortelle's lists of choristers, organists, and choirmasters only stretch back to the seventeenth century, but his lists of canons, feasts, and obituaries extend much further into the past. thus, the omission of certon's name is strange. also, the list of "fetes, obits ou anniversaires" has no record for certon anywhere, despite de la fortelle's earlier reference to "a solemn evening song service" being founded by certon. ll these contradictions in de la fortelle's text can perhaps be attributed to technicalities of titles and gaps in church records. all of this intriguing evidence of connections to melun aside, it is certain that pierre certon lived most of his life in paris. the early records of his time in paris are few and difficult to piece together because of frequent spelling variants (see table 1). certon was first appointed matins clerk at 67 68 current musicology notre dame de paris on october 29,1529 as "pierre serton:'in 1530,hewas reprimanded for bad conduct ("overly high spirits") during the assumption service. in september of the same year, "jehan serton" was arrested and brought to trial for unruly behavior-playing ball in the court of notre dame during the service and refusing to perform his office. he escaped the punishment of a prison sentence, apparently because of his youth (expert and agnel 1967:v). appointed clerk at the sainte chapelle in 1532 and maistre de choeur in 1536, he is also recorded as "compositeur de musique de la chapelle du roy" and "chantre de la chapelle du roy" during the late 1560s (brenet 1910:87). 12 he traveled outside of paris only a few times on journeys to recruit new choirboys and probably never left france at all (van solkema 1963:7). certon died in paris in 1572 and may be buried in the sainte chapelle or notre dame de melun. because of his nearly lifelong residence in paris, pierre certon was acquainted with many of the most influential musicians of his day. it is sig­ nificant that claudin de sermisywas a personal friend as well as a colleague at the sainte chapelle. certon lauded him in his second book of motets, p. certon institutoris symphoniacorum puerorum sancti sacelli parisiensis recens modulorum editio of 1542.13 he also composed a light-hearted homage, a fricassee, vivre ne puis content, using melodies from sermisy's chansons (expert and agnel1967: no. 34).14 when sermisy died in 1562, certon wrote a six-voice deploration for sermisy that was modeled on josquin's famous lament for ockeghem. he published it in les meslanges de la maistre pierre certon (certon 1570). of his sacred works, eight complete masses are known (six of these are parody masses).ls six bicinia on mass texts were attributed to certon and published by antonio gardane in il primo libro a due voci de diversi autori (1543), a bicinia collection. 16 for many years, these six pieces have been assumed to be musical fragments oflarger unknown or unfinished works by certon (van solkema 1963:40). although it is not indicated in the print, two of these bicinia on page 24 of gardane's print, an agnus dei and a crucifixus, are one and the same as the agnus dei ii and crucifixus of m. jouyssance vous donneray. the bicinia in gardane's print feature cadences with light ornamentation not found in the "bathtub collection" manuscripts and the liber decem missarum, a volume printed by jacques moderne in 1532 and 1540 that is the only complete source for m. jouyssance vous donneray. gardane may have added these ornamentations himself, and they are not critical variants. in his dissertation on certon's liturgical music, sherman van solkema mentioned gardane's bicinia print; referring to the later edition of 1553, he reported that six single mass movements were included in gardane's il primo libro a due voci. 17 he identified three of the mass movements in gardane's source emily robertson as having been taken from the missa ave sanctissima from attaingnant and jullet'smissarum musicalium quatuorvocum cum suis motetis (rism 15402 ). however, van solkema was unable to link the other three bicinia to the masses with which he was familiar. he writes, "they may have been taken from earlier works. if so, at least two masses are suggested by the modes of the movements" (van solkema 1963:40, n.1). he goes into no further detail about gardane's bicinia and was clearly unaware of the johannes sarton­ pierre certon conflicting attribution. absent any other evidence, the m. ]ouyssance vous donneray will remain an opus dubium. however, given the fact that the crucifixus and agnus dei bicinia in 154319 match two of the bicinia in the "bathtub collection" manuscript, the case for considering pierre certon as a possible composer of the m. ]ouyssance vous donneray demands attention. the early records of his life, which use "jehan" and "pierre" interchangeably and spell his surname "sarton;' "serton," and "certon," seem to strongly support this conclusion. if this is true, then the ghostly johannes sarton can finally be laid to rest just as pierre certon's life takes a firmer shape. stylistic comparison with his authenticated masses can substantiate a more certain attribution to certon. van solkema spent a significant por­ tion of his dissertation, "the liturgical music of pierre certon," discussing certon's personal compositional style, especially as it was manifested in his liturgical music. in his introduction, van solkema writes: the young certon's vital contribution to sixteenth-century french music was a strong injection of the rough vigor of popular art. from all evidence, simple joy and earthiness emerge as basic qualities of certon the man, and these are carried without inhibition into his music for the church. still, he observed the traditional frames more carefully than many who wrote with less inner abandon. (van solkema 1963:4) he continues to reference this "rough vigor" throughout his analysis of certon's music as both "a certain rudeness" and "rough good humor" (van solkema 1963:3). this quality is not surprising in a composer who was probably born in a country town, was himself or was related to a "hay farmer," and evidenced a distinct impertinence and high-spiritedness in his younger days. most musicians and musicologists are familiar with this side of certon's personality because it shines through in his hundreds of chansons, many of which are settings of bawdy or simple texts. as van solkema notes many times, this earthy quality permeates his sacred music as well, although "certon was less adventurous in his masses than in his motets" and tended to stay within the boundaries of the established josquin tradition (1963:7). 69 70 current musicology according to van solkema, freedman, and agnel, some of the specific hallmarks of certon's early liturgical compositional style are as follows: a lack of foreign influence; poor attention to latin text setting and declamation; loose imitation; bold, clean-cut rhythms; simple melodies with angular, chanson-like lines; series of repeated-note motives; instrumental-style end-melismas; a distinct preference for dorian or ionian mode (sometimes transposed); and part-writing for four to six voices with occasional pas­ sages for two or three voices. 18 these traits can be seen in his early m. ave sanctissima (1540), which is a parody mass on one of certon's own motets; m. dulcis amica (1540), a cantus-firmus/parody mass on an anonymous motet; and the later m. sus lepontd'avignon (1553), a parody mass on a very famous chanson. it is interesting to note that the same chanson tune certon uses in m. sus ie pont d'avignon is used by sermisy alongside jouyssance vous donneray in m. plurium modulorum (van solkema 1963:54). m. jouyssance vous donneray evinces these attributes as well. it is a mass in eighteen sections in a prevailing four-voice texture, with five of those sections for two, three, or five voices (see table 4). as was discussed previously, it is a parody mass in franco-flemish, post -j osquin style on a famous french chanson. its two main motives are a series of repeated notes and an angular, leaping melody, respectively, and they are used in loose imitation throughout the work. these factors, along with the strong, clean-cut rhythms, emphasize a stylistic connection between certon and the m. jouyssance vous donneray. the mass survives in only three sources: the liber decem missarum, the "bathtub collection;' and ii primo libro a due voci. m. jouyssance vous donneray, a parody mass on one of the most popular chansons of the sixteenth century, is one of only two works attributed to johannes sarton. robert eitner lists the other work, a five-voice motet (eitner 1963:832). the motet haec dies quam fecit domino in two parts was printed by petrus schaffer of augsburg in his cantiones quinque vocum selectissimae (eitner's 153ge or rism 15398). in the index of the copy now held in the bayerische staatsbibliothek is found a handwritten attribution of haec dies quam fecit domino to "ioannes sarton:' eitner must have consulted the munich copy of schaffer's print, for in his quellen-lexikon, he notes that sarton is a composer from the first half of the sixteenth century known only for a four-voice mass and a five-voice motet (eitner 1959:432). this attribution is not particularly reliable, thus m. jouyssance vous donneray is the only work solidly identified with johannes sarton. sarton's mass is modeled on jouyssance vous donneray, a chanson by claudin de sermisy.19 jouyssance vous donneray was enormously popular during the first half of the sixteenth century. for example, the "master of the female half-figures" depicted a lutenist, a flutist, and a singer performing this chanson in one of his most famous paintings.20 the text is the first emily robertson examples 1-3: motives from louyssance vous donneray 1. 2. 3. "m j. }j rttr:frjjuj j jill stanza of a poem by clement marot, "chanson quatre" from l'adolescence clementine (defaux 1990-93: 145-46). marot was one of the most prominent french poets of the renaissance; his poetry, both secular and sacred, was circulated throughout europe. although often in political trouble owing to his religious views, marot kept the position of valet de chambre to francis i for most of his life. this information is significant when we consider the fact that pierre certon also spent most of his life working in the court of francis i. it is possible that these men knew each other, and this might explain the composer's choice of sermisy's setting of jouyssance vous donneray. when we regard m. jouyssance vous donneray as a work by sarton, an almost unheard-of composer, his use of jouyssance vous donneray is merely interest­ ing. when we consider m. jouyssance vous donneray as a work by certon, a prominent composer at the sainte chapelle who was well-acquainted with sermisy and probably with marot also, his use of the chanson brings a new weight to the mass. sermisy's ownm. plurium modulorum uses the chanson melody (allaire 1986:187-212).21 the only other known mass based on the chanson is johannes sarton's m. jouyssance vous donneray. sarton's parody of jouyssance motives in the music of m. jouyssance vous donneray does not always follow general modern analytical expectations of sixteenth -century composition. for example, he uses the second theme of the chanson almost three times as often as he uses the first theme. this second motive, over the text "la ou pretend" in the first stanza, consists of a falling fourth followed by a rising third. the opening "jouyssance ... " motive is three repeated notes followed by a small step or skip (see examples 1-3). the first triple-repeated-note motive seen in example 1 was a common type of beginning for many of sermisy's chansons. le coeur de vous ma presence desire, le content est riche en ce monde, and rigueur me tient et doulx accueil m'attire all begin with a similar repeated-note motive. one would expect sarton to refer to this opening melody often in his parody mass, because the opening is what most listeners would recognize; after all, the musical source being parodied is supposed to be identifiable in the music of a parody mass. instead, sarton uses the second chanson motive 71 72 current musicology table 2: number of motivic appearances (examples 1-3) in sarton's m. louyssance vous donneray and sermisy's m. plurium modulorum. "jouyssance ... » "la ou pretend ... » " . .. esperance » (example 1) (example 2) (example 3) m. louyssance vous 54 135 23 donneray m.plurium 66 15 4 modulorum most often. he quotes "jouyssance ... " (example 1) fifty-four times; he employs "la ou pretend" (example 2) one hundred and thirty-five times (see table 2). perhaps this simple motive was more memorable to his sixteenth-century audiences. that theory would be especially plausible if the motive were a unique feature of jouyssance vous donneray, and it would explain sarton's heavy repetition. on the other hand, the second motive may have been easier to use with sarton's personal compositional techniques. by comparison, sermisy's own parody mass,m. plurium modulorum, quotes the opening chanson motive far more than the second line. another distinctive chanson phrase, the melismatic cadence figure over "esperance;' is quoted twenty-three times in m. jouyssance vous donneray but only four times in m. plurium modulorum.22 all of the chanson motives are suitably quoted, inverted, and ornamented per the standard customs of the time, but sarton also includes some innova­ tive and unusual compositional methods. for instance, he uses his favorite "la ou pretend" motive (example 2) in retrograde inversion in the altus part of the gloria. this motive also provides the source for chained sequences, especially in the agnus dei iii and credo. the falling fourth followed by a rising third provides an easy foundation for that technique. the last section of the agnus dei iii has all five voices singing chained sequences of "la ou pretend" in imitation, providing the music with a rolling impetus toward the final cadence (see example 4). the compositional techniques outlined above are remarkable in a piece of music that was composed c. 1530 because they did not become popular until later in the sixteenth century. the music of m. jouyssance vous donneray is in transposed dorian mode, just like three of certon's eight established masses. when not in four lines of independent imitation, the voices are most often either split into imitative duos of two voices against the other two voices. if one vocal line is independent, it is typically in the tenor voice part. the voices usually enter by means of loose points of imitation. in general, the melodies begin with imitation that degenerates into free polyphony with some returning themes. the melodies are not particularly inventive; they tend to be simple pastiches of motives quoted or adapted from the chanson, with filler material added as necessary to comply with the rules of contrapuntal part-writing. emily robertson example 4: agnus dei iii from m. jouyssance vous donneray (robertson 2006). alto tenor! tenoril bass 7 jl s. u jl a. u jl t. ~ ~ t. ~ b. 13 ~ s. oj ~ a. oj " t. ~ t. missa jouyssance vous donneray agnus dei iii oj :;;t.... -# ,!~ ... -#.~ -# ~ fl a· gnus __ de 1, qui johannes sarton ". tol-lis __ i~ a gnus __ de i, a gnus de tol pee tol . ~ lis pee '-# u cern, a gnus_ de qui a gnus de lis pee ta mun ca-ta mun -# di: qui tal lis pee ca ta mun di: ca ta, qui tal-lis pee ca a-gnus de i, qui tal-lis pe ca di: __ do na no bis _________ _ pa . . . . .. do oa no-bis pa cern, no bis____ pa cern, do na_ no bis, __ . do nano-bispa ~ -ta, qui tal-lis pee ca-tamun di: do na no-bis pa b. t"--------'-'" di: __ 73 current musicology example 4: agnus dei iii from m. jouyssance vous donneray (robertson 2006), continued. 20 ~ s. oj j"l cern, a. u ~ do~nano-bis pa cem,_~ do na not. ~ cern, do na no-bis pa cern, do-na no bis pa t. ~ cern, .. ,...., b. .....do na no bis pacem, ___ pa cern, do na no bis pa26 ~ -s. oj bis ~ do na no pa # cern, a. u .".:. :a-~ pa ... -~ fj bis ___ pa cern, do t. ~ cern, do no bis pa cern, t. ~ -do na no bis pa cern, do n"-no b. cern, do na bis, do na 32 ~ s. oj . . . i ~ do n"--bis pa cern. a. oj ~ .". 4_ c1m, . -c:j ~ do na nobis pa-cem, pa t. ~ do na no-bis pa cern. i t. ~ .,.,. cej. bis pa cern, do na no-bis pa b. bis, do -na no bis pa c:j 74 emily robertson table 3: comparison of "bathtub collection" mss with liber decem missarum, 1532 edition. "bathtub collection" mss liber decem missarum (rism 15328 ), index order m. stephane gloriosa, p. moulu m. adieu mes amours, francesco de layolle m. veni sponsa christi, richafort m. quem dicunt hominess, ia. mouton m. ces fascheulx sotz, guillaume preuost m. si bona suscepimus, gardanne m. hercules dux ferrarie, lupus, ms nos. m. hercules dux ferrarie, lupus 21-23 m. la bataille, janequin m. jouyssance vous donneray, sarton, ms m. jouyssance vous donneray, johannes nos. 14-17 sarton m. 0 salutaris hostia, layolle, ms nos. m. 0 salutaris hostia, francesco de layolle 18-20 motets [isaac] motets [layolle] the rhythms are simple, and, once again, often dictated by the chanson material, especially the signature initial measure of a quarter rest followed by three quarter notes or one longer note followed by two notes half as long. as was discussed above, the most often-used motive consists of two falling fourths separated by a rising third, which provides easy mate­ rial for imitation, sequences, and so forth. (see example 5 for instances of these motives and rhythms.) there is very little chordal writing; the most prominent instance of such material is the beginning four measures of the "et incarnatus" section of the credo. m. fouyssance vous donneray is complete in only one known source, jacques moderne's liber decem missarum (rism 15328 ), with a second, revised issue (15401 ). moderne, who printed the two liber decem missarum sets, began printing books in lyons between 1525 and 1526 and started printing music in 1530 after some prompting from francesco de layolle, who was a well-known organist and composer in lyons. layolle was a friend and close colleague of moderne. moderne continued publishing music until his death sometime in the mid-1560s. the city of lyons was an important hub of trade and travel, so his location made it possible for him to gather and publish music from all over europe. liber decem missarum was moderne's first publication of polyphonic music. its preface indicates that layolle edited this "book of ten masses;' therefore it is not surprising that the collection includes his music. (see table 3 for a comparison of the 75 76 current musicology bathtub mss contents with moderne's liber decem missarum of 1532.) when it was reprinted in 1540, two masses were added: pierre de villiers's m. de beata virgine and layolle's m. ces fascheux sotz. also, the music was exten­ sively corrected. according to samuel f. pogue, who catalogued moderne's prints, "the 1532 edition has more mistakes than any other music book moderne printed" (pogue 1969:72). he theorizes that layolle himself was responsible for correcting the second edition, because three layolle works are the only pieces that remain unchanged from edition to edition. layolle collaborated with moderne until layolle died sometime around 1540. the printer published a lament, alma felice e lieta, for layolle in his 1540 edition oflayolle's cinquanta canzoni (d'accone 1969: no. 50). despite these strong connections to a large figure in the community of french musicians and composers, there is no evidence that moderne was personally acquainted with certon. however, he may have learned of certon through layolle or another musician who traveled through lyons, perhaps another member of the court in paris. striking agreements between moderne's print and the manuscripts indicate the "bathtub collection" scribe was copying from the 1532 edition of the liber decem missarum. all of the mass selections in the "bathtub collection," including layolle's work, can also be found in moderne's print (see table 3). in the manuscripts, the sections of m. jouyssance vous donneray appear exactly as they are in moderne's print, with no scribal errors or changes. this is unusual; even the most diligent copyists often made errors when copying music, and many changed the music to reflect their tastes, memories, or habits. the liber decem missarum edition of 1532 attributes the mass to "10. sarton." the edition of 1540 also attributes the mass to "10. sarton" in its index, but gives the composer's name as "10. certon" in the superius partbook of the kyrie. the "bathtub" manuscript gives the composer's name as "sarton" instead of"certon;' therefore the scribe must have been copying from moderne's first edition. there are a few unique features to sarton's mass as it appears in the liber decem missarum. whenever a voice drops out, moderne indicates its absence in the appropriate partbook. (see table 4 for the vocal layout of this mass.) these performance directions are particularly interesting because they vary from one movement to the next and reach beyond utility into witty conceit (see table 4). for the et resurrexit and crucifixus, moderne indicates the duos with a simple "tacet" in the other voice parts. for the pleni, a duo for tenor and bass, he writes "pleni non sunt" in the discantus part and "pleni joue alesbay" in the altus part. in the corrected edition of 1540, this instruction reads "pleni ioue a lesbahy;' which can be translated as "playas if astonished" or "play with amazement."23 perhaps the singers were to be silent as if awestruck by the glorious lord of hosts. the tenor is emily robertson example 5: kyrie i from m. jouyssance vous donneray (robertson 2006). soprano alto tenor bass ie 13 () s. oj .1j.. a. "' s'e!., () t. f b. -ie ky ky missa jouyssance vous donneray kyriej ri e e k· i 50o, ___ _ ri e e ie ri e -ie i son, johannes sarton ri e -it:' i 50n, _______ _ i-son, t' ie i-son, c ie i-son, ky ri c, ____ _ ky ri e f.! ky ri e ie i-son, ky riie i-soil, e ie i-son, e ie . -~ i-son, ky-ri e, ky ri c, 77 78 current musicology example 5: kyrie i from m. jouyssance vous donneray (robertson 2006), continued. 19 ti s. oj e lei son, ti a. oj j _'ii i son, ti t. ~ e ie b. -ky ri c, ky 23 e ie ky . e ie ri c . i-son, ri ky ri -e~ ie told "benedictus est mud' or "benedictus is mute." in the agnus ii, over the tenor staves is written "secundus agnus: ne dit mot" or "secundus agnus: says no word"; over the bassus is written "secundusagnus tao vii." moderne could count on amused musicians to interpret this instruction correctly as "tacet" (pronounced ta-sept-it's a french rebus!). in the 1540 issue, that instruction is replaced by "secundus agnus regarde en sa bource" or "the second agnus looks in its purse:' perhaps this is a reference to the low salaries and empty purses of the musicians, similar to the satirical "starving artist" theme of josquin's faulte d'argent. alternatively, it may symbolize the musicians searching in vain for the missing vocal part. these creative instructions are a tantalizing glimpse into a sixteenth-century music profes­ sional's attitude about his work. they seem to imply a certain levity toward an otherwise serious task. were it not forthe "bathtub collection" music pages, the links explored here to moderne, gardane, layolle, sarton, and certon might never have been made. however, the pages continue to hold in store some historical mysteries. in concluding her article on the "bathtub collection," belle waring wrote: and yet, its beauty and rarity notwithstanding, the bathtub collection provokes troublesome questions: what use are these scraps? what are they for? how are we to read history in pieces? as contested? as something whose meaning is unresolved? (waring 2002: 18) emily robertson table 4: vocal scheme of m. jouyssance vous donneray, from the liber decem missarum (1532,1540). mass section number of voices special instructions kyrie (3 sections) 4 voices (discantus, altus, tenor, bassus) gloria (3 sections) 4 voices credo (5 sections) 4 voices [also in the bathtub collection] crucifixus 2 voices (discantus, altus) tenor and bassus: "tacet" et resurrexit 2 voices (tenor, bassus) discantus and altus: "tacet" sanctus (4 sections) 4 voices [also in the bathtub collection] plenisunt 2 voices (tenor, bassus) discantus: "pleni non sunt" altus: "pleni joue alesbay" agnus dei (3 sections) [also in the bathtub collection] agnusdeii 4 voices agnus dei ii 2 voices (discantus, altus) tenor: "secundus agnus: ne ditmot" bassus: "secundus agnus ta.vii" agnus dei iii 5 voices (4 + secundus tenor) one might despair at being confronted with fragments, but sometimes history has to be read in pieces because that is how it has come down to us. not all records of the past are written in neat script on the pages of a ledger; some must be inferred from the pattern on a china plate, deduced from the origin of a silk lining, or construed from a catalogue of tiny bookbinding fragments. however, the historian may have to struggle in order to make these connections. this is the moment at which another point of view from which we can observe the "bathtub collection" music manuscripts becomes important. the study of material culture of music, musical objects as they symbolize, connect, save, and express cultural identities and values, may help us to examine these fragments in a new light. the intrinsic cultural worth of these pages of music and the book in which they were found, the chirurgiae, can be easily understood by a quick study of their identifying marks. the book itself became an unintentional time capsule by holding many tiny artifacts for centuries, from their creation by hundreds of anonymous people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to their discovery hundreds of years later in a bathtub. schullian deftly made this point in the title of her 79 80 current musicology groundbreaking 1953 paper on the "bathtub collection:' she titled the paper "here the frailest leaves," from a line in the beginning of walt whitman's leaves of grass: "here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest­ lasting ... "24 (1855:112). the "bathtub collection" fragments, although some of the frailest leaves of paper one could imagine, have also been some of the strongest-lasting. they were trash-refuse in the bin of a bookbinder's shop-useful then only for stuffing inside a beautiful parchment binding. one would doubt that this disparate collection of scrap paper would have survived a few years, much less a few centuries, outside of the binding of the chirurgiae. on the other hand, the fragments and the binding together ensured the survival of the chirurgiae by doing what a bookbinding is designed to do-protect the book inside, of course. the "bathtub collection" papers and the chirurgiae carry direct physi­ cal marks, types of historical fingerprints, of the people connected to them throughout history. even the most casual observer would note items such as the owners' names on the book's cover. a book historian or archivist would also observe the method of binding, the types of paper, and any connections in the medley of scrap paper included in the cover. for example, several characteristics of the "bathtub collection" music manuscripts identify them as a german bicinia source and connect them to the educational culture of sixteenthand seventeenth-century europe. during this period, bicinia from masses or secular songs were very popular, especially in germany. lutheran choirboys were taught to sing using these duos, which were compiled into both print and manuscript anthologies. bruce bellingham and edward evans note that the two most important early german collections, georg rhau's bicinia ... germanica (1545) and erasmus rotenbucher's diphona amoena (1549), include much franco-flemish music. the "bathtub collection" pages do as well (bellingham and evans 1974). this preference is also evident in other early german bicinia sources; the artis canendi (1537) by sebald heyden included two-voice selections "sought out with especial care from the best musicians ... josquin, obrecht, pierre de la rue, heinrich isaac and the like:'25 second, the manuscript was copied as a partbook that was apparently intended for performance use. third, two of the manuscript pages have watermarks which have been identified and which indicate the music was probably copied in bavaria in the 1560s or early 1570s (clausen 2004:1).26 although the chirurgiae was printed in venice, it was without a doubt bound in germany. during the volume's residency in the nlm in the 1940s and 1950s, its ancient wooden boards were discarded and replaced by emily robertson modern ones, which were, fortunately, re-covered with the original cover­ german parchment chant pages. sizable fragments of another similar chant page have survived inside the front cover of the book and might indicate that the inside surfaces of the back and front boards were once covered with parchment also. a variety of papers, ranging in size from mere confetti to nearly complete pamphlets, were taken out of the bindings, all of them meticulously catalogued by schullian (1953 ).27 some of the papers are dated, the latest being eight pages from defensio historica ludovici crocii lasphaeo wittgensteinii, ... of 1609, thus establishing that year as a terminus ante quem for the binding. that defensio was printed in marburg; other binding papers were printed in dusseldorf, frankfurt, and herborn. as was mentioned previously, the watermarks point to a bavarian origin as well. there are two clear indications of ownership on the book. the signature "johannes wolffi medic. liber a 1574" is evidence that a german doctor was in possession of the book when it was not yet bound, only a year after its publication in 1573 in venice.28 a later owner of the book was carl christian von klein (1772-1825), a court physician in stuttgart (clausen 2004:4). his bookplate adorns the initial flyleaf. after this evidence of ownership during the first part of the nineteenth century, no other information on the chirurgiae's whereabouts can be traced until the record of its purchase by the nlm from an unknown bookdealer in 1946.29 this short investigation into the probable provenance of the music manuscript pages has already shed some light on the story of the chirurgiae. to track what we already know-the pages of the chirurgiae were printed in venice, the binding was made in germany-probably bavaria, and the music was composed and published in france. it is at this point that a particular facet of the interconnected nature of art, books, and especially music in the sixteenth century comes to the foreground. the chirugiae is not only a book but also a cultural text (in the sense of "text" as "weaving"), which interlaces many different cultural threads and gathers more as it moves through time (brockmeier 2001). the book bears traces of its circulation in a complex european network of book and musical arts. as people travel, they inevitably bring their culture with them, and music has always been a mainstay of culture and of cultural exchange. as david mcallester writes in "the astonished ethno-muse": human culture is not a flower with fragile petals ready to drop at the first frosty touch of a new idea. culture is more like an irresistible plague, pandemic to humankind. new ideas are the food it feeds on, and these can no more be stopped than the perpetuation of life itself. the musical manifestations of culture are, by their sonorous nature, highly evident. they give public notice of the spread of culture. (1979: 181) 81 82 current musicology this was true even in the sixteenth century. as trade routes flowed from city to city, artists traveled from court to court, and religious persua­ sions shifted from region to region, music moved with them. we can see a brilliant example of this sometimes astonishing cosmopolitanism in the chirurgiae and its binding. speaking of the "transactions" between readers and writers natalie davis writes, "we should consider a printed book not merely as a source for ideas and images, but as a carrier of relationships" (howsam 2003:69).30 this vision of the book as a "carrier of relationships" applies well to the "bathtub collection" and the chirurgiae. by their survival, the chirurgiae and its contents have brought to light connections between book and binding; geographical locations-bavaria, venice, lyons, and paris; music and books; art and attribution; religions-catholicism and protestantism; and so forth. as grassby notes in his article on material culture: goods ... carry social and personal information within a larger framework. inanimate relationships and mediate progress through the social world; their diffusion bridges cultural boundaries and connects centers with peripheries. although artifacts are produced at particular moments, their persistence creates histories. (2005:593) the "bathtub collection" has created a musical history as the book and the bookbinding fragments have also revealed another important relationship between pierre certon, a famous sixteenth-century composer, johannes sarton, an unknown composer, and m. jouyssance vous donneray. the scholar's perspective on this music is in some ways unavoidably changed when he/she examines it from its two attribution possibilities. until the day that someone finds a record in paris naming "pierre certon, formerly known as jehan sarton, the famous chapelmaster;' no one can declare with absolute inflexibility that they are two names for one and the same person who wrote the m. jouyssance vous donneray sometime before the printing of the liber decem missarum in 1532. the evidence, however, seems to point quite strongly to that conclusion. ironically, the man whose personal motto-tene certum, dimitte incertum-punned on his name and affirmed his confident philosophy of "take hold of certainty, let go of doubt" may, by virtue of his name, remain the source of historical and musical uncertainty. this research has endeavored to ease that uncertainty as much as humanity's limited ability to look into the past will allow by examining the "bathtub collection" manuscripts, pierre certon, and m. jouyssance vous donneray from multiple historical, analytical, and cultural perspectives. emily robertson notes 1. the history of the collection was summarized by belle waring (2002). in 1942, because it was recognized that washington, d.c. was a potential target for attacks, the then-army medical library shipped all of its rare books to cleveland. the staff of the army medical library cleveland branch recognized that the books needed conservation, and made the books the focus of their attention, bringing in dorothy schullian, a classics scholar from albion college. it was not until 1997 that walton schalick iii and sandra parker provenzano re-catalogued the collection and rebound the books. the bookbinding fragments fill seven hollinger boxes. 2. the pages were not actually transferred to the library of congress until june 15,2005. this article would not have been possible without clausen's gracious assistance and willing­ ness not only to provide information but also to make scans of della croce's book and the bathtub manuscripts. see also de ferrari (1988). 3. lupus's mass was printed in rism 15328 , jacques moderne's liber decem missarum. for layolle's mass, see franka. d'accone (1973 vol. 6:21-37). isaac's proper settings were first published in primus tomus coralis constantini ( 1550); see webern, (1898). the proper settings are: no. 19 tract for septuagesima sunday de profundis; no. 20 tract for quinquagesima sunday jubilate domino omnis terra; nos. 21-22 tract for quadrgesima sunday qui habitat in adjutorio altissimi; no. 23 tract for palm sunday deus meus respice in me. note that the "lupus" listed in the "bathtub collection" and the liber decem missarum is only known today by one name. his nationality and place of employment are uncertain, but quite a few of his works have survived to the present day in various volumes and publications, including the medici codex. see the new grove dictionary of music online, s.v. "lupus" (by bonnie j. blackburn), http://www.grovemusic.com/(accessed april 2008). 4. the parts were written in the manuscript in the order in which they would appear in the mass: first the crucifixus and et resurrexit on one side and the pleni sunt and agnus dei ii following on the opposing side. these sections are numbered 14 through 17. 5. clausen notes, "number 58 is followed by blank staves, suggesting that it is the final piece of this collection" (2004:1). also, the upper voice parts (superius and tenor) of the bicinia may have been on pages that did not survive, possibly the missing numbers 1-10 and 31--43. alternatively, the manuscripts may have never been finished, hence their subsequent use as bookbinding scrap material. 6. lhuillier notes that certon was a canon of notre-dame de melun, master of choirboys at the sainte-chapelle, and that rabelais mentioned him in the nouveau prologue du livre iv de pantagruel. he writes that certon's motto, obviously punning on his name, was tene certum dimitte incertum (hold certainty, let go of doubt) and that the composer had established a mass to be sung yearly on march 25 at "couvre-feu" (curfew). see also note 8. 7. the new grove dictionary of music and musicians, 2nd ed., ed. stanley sadie, vol 5, s.v. "certon, pierre." 8. i am grateful to laura youens for the translation of this passage: "pierre certon, maitre des enfants de choeur de la sainte-chapelle, fonde it notre-dame de melun, dont il etait chanoine, un salut solonnel qui se chantait tous les ans ie jour et fete de l' annonciation au mois de mars, ie 25, it l'heure du couvre-feu, in hora ignis tegi~ comme parle ie martyrologe et selon qu'il etait contenu en la pierre, pour ce attachee au pilier proche la chaire du predicateur." 9. "pierre tappereau et pierre certon, les chanter (sic), chaniones, chapitre et communaute de l'eglise collegiale notre-dame de melun, seigneurs de perthes, en partie, comparaissent 83 84 current musicology par me isaac pinot, l'un d'eux, it la redaction de la coutume de melun, ie mercredi 17 avril 1560." translated by the author from de la fortelle (1843). 10. see de la fortelle (1843:44); he also references rouillard (1628:295) for his information regarding certon's memorial service and takes notice of certon's motto. 11. see note. 1 o. it is interesting to note that pierre tappereau, who is mentioned alongside pierre certon in both entries quoted above, is recorded in the list of "fetes, obits ou an­ niversaires" with an entry that alludes to "two solemn obituaries for pierre tappereau, died 1530." however, as noted above, there is no accompanying record for certon anywhere in the list. 12. see also brenet (1910:87,97 fn. 3,109-111,116,120-22) for the notice of his death and the text establishing a memorial office; a summary of his life and works appears on pp. 333-34. 13. lisette michelle canton quotes the preface to recens modulorum editio in her dissertation (2000: 119-120). the dedication makes certon's admiration for sermisy evident. the opening sentence sets its fulsome tone: "in abundance i had heretofore conceived great joy in my heart claudin, the most learned of musicians and the best friend of the most learned, because your relations with me had been so courteous that you did not spurn our friendship." 14. see also rism 15381 \ cinquiesme livre contenant xxviii chansons nouvelles a quatre par­ ties en ung volume et en deux imprimeres par pierre attaingnant et hubert juliet librares et imprimeurs de musique demourans a paris ... (paris: p attaingnant). 15. there is no complete modern edition of certon's masses. henry expert edited the m. sur ie pont d'avignon, m. adiuva me, and m. regnum mundi. (1924-29] 1940). sherman van solkema edited the m. christus resurgens, m. le temps qui court, m. pro defunctis, and m. sus ie pont d'avignon in his dissertation (1963:38-68). 16. a facsimile edition of ii primo libro a due voci de diversi autori from the copy at the vienna sterreichisches nationalbibliothek was published in viborg, denmark: special-trykkeriet vi­ borg a-s, 1991. for a complete description and inventory, see lewis (1988, vol.l:399-405). 17. van solkema seems to have been unaware of the earlier edition of 1543. 18. this list is a compilation of stylistic hallmarks mentioned by van solkema, aime agnel, and richard freedman in their various analyses of certon's liturgical music. for a more extensive study of certon's compositional practices, see expert and agnel (1967) and van solkema (1963). 19. it was first printed in rlsm 15283 chansons nouvelles en musique a quatre parties . .. (paris: p. attaingnant). see allaire and cazeaux (1974, vol. 3:138-39). the chanson is also attributed to pierre de la rue in vienna, in the austrian national library, ms. 18810, which was copied between 1524 and 1533; therefore it has to be listed among sermisy's opera dubia. nonetheless, it is generally (or even overwhelmingly) accepted as a work by sermisy because of the preponderance of evidence pointing to sermisy's authorship. 20. although untitled, it has been labeled "musizierende damen." the original is held in the graf harrach'sche familiensammlung in austria, schloss rohrau. 21. there are also two other settings of this same marot text by nicolas gombert and adrian willaert, both of which borrow musically from sermisy's chanson. see schmidt -gorg (1975: 220-24) and bernstein (1992). in addition, there are eight extant instrumental adaptations of jouyssance vous donneray, including three for lute and one for keyboard. see brown (1967), b 1529 3 tres breve et familiere introduction pour entendre & apprendre par soy mesmes a jouer toutes chansons reduictes en la tabulature du lutz, ... (paris: p. attaingnant); b1531 3 vingt et six chansons musicales reduictes en la tabulature des orgues espinettes manicordions & telz emily robertson semblables instrumentz musicaulx . .. (paris: p. attaingnant); b1546 18 des chansons reduictz en tabulature de luc . .. (lyon: p. phalese); and b1546 19 carminum quae chely vel testudine canuntur, trium, quatuor, et quinque partium liber secundus (lyon: p. phalese). 22. this comparison of sarton's and sermisy's compositional choices was conducted before i had any inkling of the sarton/certon connection. in the near future, i hope to conduct a more thorough and applicable comparison of the use of motives in certon's established parody masses and m. jouyssance vous donneray. 23. i am grateful to mary-beth winn of suny-albany for this translation. 24. see also waring (2002). 25. see the new grove dictionary of music online, s.v. "bicinium" (by bruce bellingham), http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/ article.html?section =music. 03041 (accessed april 2008). 26. the watermark has been identified as briquet 2154. see briquet (1923:159). 27. see also clausen (2004:3). schullian's references to the chirurgiae binding fragments are scattered throughout her article. 28. clausen searched diligently for a medical doctor named johannes wolf whose handwrit­ ing would match that of the signature, but the name was simply too common for her search to be successful. 29. clausen notes that the dealer is identified as "ch;'but she could find no other informa­ tion leading to any bookdealers using these initials. 30. leslie howsam was quoting natalie zemon davis (1975: 192). references allaire, gaston, and isabelle cazeaux, eds. 1974. claudin de sermisy (c. 1490-1562) opera omnia. vols. 3 and 6. corpus mensurabilis musicae: vol. 52. american institute of musicology. bellingham, bruce, and edward g. evans, jr., eds. 1974. sixteenth-century bicinia: a complete edition of munich, bayerische staatsbibliothek, mus. ms. 260. recent researches in music of the renaissance: vols. 16-17. madison, wi: a-r editions. bernstein, jane, ed. 1992. the sixteenth-century chanson. vol. 23: adrian willaert, the complete five and six-voice chansons. new york: garland publishing. brenet, michel. 1910. les musiciens de la sainte-chapelle du palais: documents inedits, recueillis et annotes. paris: librairie alphonse picard et fils. brockmeier, jens. 2001. texts and other symbolic spaces. in mind, culture, and activity. vol. 8, no.3, 215-230. university of california. brown, howard mayer. 1967. instrumental music printed before 1600: a bibliography. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. canton, lisette michelle. 2000. the motets of pierre certon. phd dissertation, university of illinois at urbana-champaign. cazeaux, christelle. 2002. la musique a la cour de fran<;:ois in paris: programme "ricercar." chansons nouvelles en musique a quatre parties. 1528. paris: p. attaingnant. chirurgiae ioannis andreae a cruce, veneti medici libri septem: quamplurimis instrumentorum imaginibus arti chirurgicae opportunis suis locis exornati, theoricam, practicam, acerissimam experientiam continentes. 1573. venice: apud jordanum zilettum. cinquiesme livre contenant xxviii chansons nouvelles a quatre parties en ung volume et en deux imprimeres par pierre attaingnant et hubert juliet librares et imprimeurs de musique demourans a paris. 1538. paris: p attaingnant. 85 86 current musicology clausen, carol. 2004. a sixteenth-century manuscript partbook: national library of medicine. a description written to accompany a sixteenth-century manuscript partbook upon its transfer from the national library of medicine to the library of congress music division. memorandum. davis, natalie z. 1975. society and culture in early modern france. stanford, ca: stanford university press. d'accone, frank a., ed. 1973. music of the florentine renaissance. vols. 4 and 6. corpus mensurabilis musicae, vo!' 32. american institute of musicology. defaux, gerard, ed. 1990-93. clement marot, oeuvres poetiques. vo!' 1. paris: bordas. de ferrari, a. 1988. "della croce (dalla croce, de cruce, crucejus), giovanni andrea:' enciclopedia italiana. vo!' 36. de la fortelle, bernard. 1843. histoire et description de notre-dame de melun, par m. bernard de de la fortelle, maire de la ville de melun, chevalier de la legion-d'honneur, executees par les ordres et aux depens de la ville. melun: imprime de desrues. eitner, robert. [1898-1904] 1959. biographisch-bibliographisches quellen-lexikon der musiker und musikgelehrten der christlichen zeitrechnung bis zur mitte des neunzehnten jahrhunderts, vo!' 8. leipzig; graz, austria: akademische druckund verlagsanstalt. eitner, robert. [1877] 1963. bibliographie der musik-sammelwerke des xvi. und xvii. jahrhunderts. berlin; hildesheim: georg olms verlagsbuchhandlung. expert, henry. [1924-29]1940. monuments de la musique fran~aise au temps de la renaissance. vo!' 2. paris: m. senart; ny: broude brothers. expert, henry and aime agnel, eds. 1967. pierre certon: chansons polyphoniques publiees par pierre attaingnant, livre i (1533-1539). vo!' 1. paris. grassby, richard. 2005. material culture and cultural history. journal of interdisciplinary history 35: 591-603. howsam, leslie. 2003. book history unbound: transactions of the written word made public. canadian journal of history 38 (1): 69-82. lewis, mary s. 1988. antonio gardano, venetian music printer 1538-1569: a descriptive bibliography and historical study. vo!' i: 1538-1549. new york: garland publishing, inc. lhuillier, theodore. 1869. notes sur quelques artistes musiciens dans la brie. bulletin de la societe d' archeologie sciences, lettres et arts du department de seine-et-marne 5: 1-8. mcallester, david. 1979. the astonished ethno-muse. ethnomusicology 23(2): 179-89. les meslanges de maistre pierre certon, compositeur de musique de la chappelle du roy et maistre des enfans de choeur de la saincte chappelle . .. 1570. paris: n. du chemin. pogue, samuel f. 1969. jacques moderne: lyons music printer of the sixteenth century. geneva: librairie droz. primus tomus coralis constantini. 1550. nuremburg: hieronymus formschneider. robertson, emily. 2006. missa jouyssance vous donneray. unpublished modern edition. rouillard, sebastian. 1628. histoire de melun. plus la vie de bourchard, conte de melun ... ensemble la vie de jacques amyot. paris: g. loyson. schullian, dorothy m. 1953. here the frailest leaves. papers of the bibliographical society of america 47: 201-217. schmidt-gbrg, joseph, ed. 1975. nicolai gombert (1500-c.1556) opera omnia. vo!' 11: cantiones saeculares. american institute of musicology. van solkema, sherman. 1963. the liturgical music of pierre certon. phd dissertation, university of michigan. waring, belle. 2002. the bathtub collection: a constellation of fragments. nlm newsline 57: 15-16, 18. webern, anton, ed. 1898. choralis constantinus. erster theil. denkmaler der tonkunst in osterreich, vo!' 10. vienna: artaria. current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf microsoft word baron typeset current musicology 108 (fall 2021) ©2021 baron. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 137 reviewed by derek baron western ontologies of music, sound, and listening have been constructed as normative and universal, casting all others as deficient, pathological, or primitive. the ongoing history of settler-colonial dispossession of indigenous land and life has shaped this colonial structure of listening in ways that music and sound studies has yet to fully confront. in his crucial new book, hungry listening: resonant theory for indigenous sound studies, dylan robinson addresses these topics through a rich engagement with contemporary musicological discourses, sound studies, and indigenous knowledge. perhaps most importantly, this critical interrogation of settler musical and listening structures helps him imagine and identify indigenous practices of artistic and material justice for aural sovereignty. rooted in his own positionality as a stó:lō person who grew up in the suburbs of vancouver, robinson’s book investigates “sonic encounters between particular perceptual logics,” namely indigenous and settler listening orientations and their “admittedly uncomfortable pairing” (2). robinson offers the conceptual hermeneutic of “hungry listening” as a way to describe an extractive settler-colonial mode of perception that persistently misapprehends indigenous sound as available for dispossession. by theorizing hungry listening and identifying its epistemic violence in action, robinson makes way for the careful consideration of indigenous sounding practices that resist its appropriative logics. while the critique of hungry listening is a central concern for robinson, it is these insurgent indigenous practices that animate the text. robinson thereby insists that scholarship need not limit itself to the description of dominant power but can also help us to perceive and imagine worlds beyond ongoing settler-colonial domination. hungry listening considers two principal sites for the struggle between hegemonic and insurgent listening practices: scenes of music-making (such as composition, curation, and spectatorship) and scenes of writing about music (such as musicology and sound studies). opening with an epigraph revealing the deeply entrenched settler bias of celebrated canadian composer r. murray 138 schafer, robinson’s identification of settler-colonial listening tendencies in scholarly discourse on music makes hungry listening a direct and much-needed intervention in the field. despite the field’s growing attention to questions of racial and settler-colonial injustices, music and sound studies discourse remains rooted in eurocentric ontologies of music, listening, and justice. by contrast, robinson’s text offers theories of listening and critiques of musical discourse that are deeply rooted in indigenous aural, scholarly, and material knowledges. rather than simply using indigenous knowledges to critique eurocentrism, however, the deeper concern, and possibly the most lasting contribution, of this book is to articulate a positive “resonant theory” that can more adequately describe and respond to practices of indigenous sonic sovereignty. the book’s chapters are interwoven with shorter performative texts that disrupt the sanitized modes of discourse endemic to music scholarship. many of these interstitial performative texts, which robinson terms “event scores,” imagine embodied experiments in sonic and aural activity not merely “oriented towards aesthetic contemplation” but rather guiding its performers into experiential practices of an “unsettling” aurality, inviting the reader to “let go your holding-on, let go your safe-keeping, let-go” (41, 147). a short chapter situated after the introduction is explicitly written for indigenous readers only, while settler readers are encouraged to “rejoin” the text at chapter 1 (25). this gesture manifests one of the central concepts of the book, namely the defense of indigenous sovereignty from the surveilling gaze of settler perception. as a white settler reader, i was made materially aware that my engagement with the text can only be rooted in a respect for indigenous opacity; i was made to realize that i was a guest in the text just as settler society was and remains an (uninvited) guest on indigenous land. since i was not invited to read this interstitial text, my experience of the book will be necessarily incomplete, but this is indeed precisely the point of robinson’s gesture, which reveals settlers’ assumption of access to information by denying that access. furthermore, since hungry listening is addressed to both indigenous and non-indigenous readers (in that order of priority [25]), the settler reader’s experience of respecting opacity can be understood as not simply a lack, but as one of the purposeful lessons of the text. in addition to the book’s formal gestures of opacity and its performative event-scores, robinson also includes a number of transcribed conversations between indigenous artists and scholars, giving the book a deeply multivocal character. for example, the chapters on indigenous compositional practice contain uninterrupted transcriptions of conversations between indigenous artists and composers talking about their work. these lengthy transcriptions 139 eschew the trap of the authoritative voice translating native thought into recognizable scholarly text. rather, they manifest the practice of what robinson identifies as “longhouse work”: a way of “doing sovereignty” that instantiates the “indigenous methodologies and protocols of gathering” and sharing history, knowledge and song (166). in a final gesture of performative writing, robinson’s conclusion contains an extended dialogue on the book itself between musicologists ellen waterman and deborah wong, later joined by robinson. this gesture of radical hospitality again highlights the collaborative potential of scholarly writing, offering space in the monograph to host a “group improvisation on decolonial listening and action” (235, 240). in chapter 1, robinson further theorizes the concept of “hungry listening.” the term refers to the halq’eméylem word for settler, xwelítem, or literally “starving person” (48). the term calls to mind not only the european settlers’ physical malnourishment when they arrived in america, but also their insatiable hunger for gold, land, and, ultimately, capital and power. the “hunger” of hungry listening transmits this fundamentally expropriative, expansionist, and proprietary logic to the very modes of perception by which settlers encounter indigenous life. by calling settler-colonialism a “state of perception,” of which hungry listening forms a part, robinson insists on regarding it as an ongoing “structure” rather than a one-time “event” (10). thus, robinson refuses the liberal view of colonial violence as a thing of the past, putting him into conversation with the foundational indigenous studies work of patrick wolfe (1999) and glen coulthard (2014). it also allows us to consider the normative force that hungry listening exerts on processes of subjection in the ongoing colonial present. this concept creates space for a crucial intervention on the phenomenology of music and the musicological affect theories that valorize a pre-intellectual space of sonic experience. robinson argues that even this preintellectual space is in part shaped by colonial structures of subjectivity rooted in certainty and possessiveness. this theorization will be crucial for robinson’s interrogation, in later chapters, of the affective power of “inclusionary performances” involving indigenous and settler art music, because the emotional responses to such performances are coded as universal and selfevident while they are in fact rooted in hungry listening (202). to exemplify hungry listening, robinson discusses delgamuukw v. the queen, a 1985 land claim trial brought by gitxsan and wet’suwet’en nations against the crown, in which mary johnson, a gitxsan woman, sang a limx oo’y (dirge song) that served as a literal expression—rather than mere representation—of gitxsan law. the presiding judge’s refusal to acknowledge 140 the limx oo’y as law lays bare the violence of hungry listening: the very coherence of settler-colonial law depends upon its annulment of the indigenous ontology of the song “as a primary legal and living document with importance for conveying the embodied feeling of history” (45). robinson’s discussion of this case, as well as his larger conceptual offering, helps us to perceive the relationship between epistemic violence and material violence: the hungry listener’s inability to comprehend indigenous song can often literally facilitate the state violence of land dispossession and legal domination of the dispossessed communities. in opposition to hungry listening, robinson then considers practices of “resurgent listening” by way of indigenous artists peter morin and jordan wilson, whose work “begin[s] not in refusal but instead [in] indigenous logics” of active sovereignty and responsibility (62, 65). in this way, chapter 1 models the argumentative structure of the book as a whole: the critical interrogation of settler-colonial aurality as “hungry listening” makes room for the positive elaboration of “resurgent listening” as a practice of indigenous sovereignty. chapter 2, “writing about musical intersubjectivity,” explores possibilities for a performative, transgressive writing that would reflect indigenous conceptions of sound and listening. beginning with an engagement with roland barthes’ (1977) classic call for a mode of writing adequate to musical experience beyond mere adjectival description, robinson then engages with various discourses on musicological style, from suzanne cusick’s (1994) and wayne koestenbaum’s (1993) queer experiments in performative music writing to david levin’s (2012) counterinsurgent defense of midcentury stylistic austerity. robinson’s contribution to this conversation involves what he calls an “apposite methodology” that reframes the relationship between writer, music, and space as irreducibly intersubjective and relational due to active subjective agency of sound and space (82). by insisting that the agency of song, sound, and space are fundamental to indigenous listening practices, robinson maps the question of musicological style onto the antagonism between settler-colonial listening and indigenous, sovereign listening. the chapter offers a generative framework from which to consider the conceptual possibilities for a place-based music writing that insists on the subjectivity of the music at hand as much as that of the writer. he illustrates this correspondence by considering the work of indigenous artists like laura ortman (white mountain apache), mike dangeli (nisga’a), mique’l dangeli (tsimshian), and peter morin (tahltan), whose performances within museum spaces manifest the intersubjectivity between artist and ancestors. in morin’s 2013 performances at the museum of anthropology in vancouver, for example, the artist sang directly to various 141 headdresses and statues, understood not as reified cultural artifacts but as the non-human forms of morin’s ancestors (88-89). museums, in misapprehending these ancestors as artifacts to be displayed in glass cases, reduce them to mere objecthood, imposing onto them a representational logic that inflicts real psychic and spiritual harm on indigenous people. museum-based performances by indigenous artists, in refusing the objectification of the non-human ancestors, provide robinson with ways of conceptualizing a music writing in which the writer is one subject among others in a relational field of sound, action, and responsibility. like the headdresses and statues on display in the museum in vancouver, music and sound are not abstract cultural objects but living, agential beings that demand a mode of music writing that respects their agency. an important emphasis here is on the agency of the space itself. this calls to mind coulthard’s and leanne betasamosake simpson’s (2016, 254) concept of placebased “grounded normativity” that resists the geographies of settler violence by identifying practices that are “based on deep reciprocity” and rooted in nonexploitative and “respectful diplomatic relationships” between indigenous and non-indigenous nations. in this way, robinson’s concept of a writing practice apposite to the agency of sound and space interlocks with place-based theories of indigenous political practice. between the second and third chapters, robinson offers a poetic meditation on diné artist raven chacon’s report (for firearm ensemble), interspersing english and halq’eméylem phrases that guide the reader towards an unsettled listening beyond the “accumulative desire” for possession and certainty (109). shifting focus to the ongoing history of colonial listening, chapter 3, “contemporary encounters between indigenous and early music,” identifies the tendency in the canadian historical imagination to bundle together indigenous and early modern european musics as part of canada’s collective cultural heritage. the chapter proposes four models of aural encounter between indigenous and settler societies, presenting both historical precedence and contemporary enactments of each. in the first model, the sonic encounter is figured as “integration,” or the extraction of indigenous song from their context and into western ontologies of music (119). the “integration” paradigm encompasses a broad range of encounters, from the seventeenth-century french missionary gabriel sagard’s transcriptions of mi’kmaq song to the twenty-firstcentury public intellectual john ralston saul’s description of canada as “a métis nation” (121). through their intercultural translations and universalizing pretensions, both of these instances reveal what philosopher denise ferreira da 142 silva (2007) calls the “strategy of engulfment” in which the violent incorporation of indigeneity becomes fundamental to canadian national identity (and the national identity of other settler states). the second model of encounter is the “nation-to-nation exchange,” which robinson argues presents the fantasy of settler-indigenous contact as consisting of a peaceful sharing of musical gifts (133). indeed, this “exchange” model can become so ideologically inverted as to present the indigenous society as the “visiting” nation that bestows its cultural gifts to its settler hosts. these two models combine in robinson’s third model of engagement, which figures an equanimous exchange of music as a precondition for subsequent integration. the case study in this model is settler composer mychael danna’s winter, an adaptation of vivaldi’s “l’inverno” which incorporates recordings of inuit throat singing, written for early music ensemble tafelmusik’s 2014 concert, the four seasons: a cycle of the sun. robinson shows how winter’s incorporation of inuit throat song reveals a “semiotics of inclusion” that unavoidably reduces the inuit tradition to a conquered object forced to serve the composition’s vision of a canadian multicultural universalism (140). though robinson’s focus here is directed on contemporary canadian art music, his theories of encounter speak to the broader dynamics of neoliberal multiculturalism that jodi melamed (2011), in a different context, has identified as “represent and destroy.”1 true to his interest in indigenous refusals of hungry listening, robinson’s terms his fourth model of colonial encounter “the agonism of non-integration” (143). this model bypasses the aesthetics of representational reconciliation and holds the antagonistic forces of the colonial scene in an unresolved tension. considering mohawk cellist dawn avery’s sarabande (2007)—in which a suite for solo cello by j.s. bach is performed alongside a traditional buffalo performance—robinson shows how the refusal to “integrate cultural aesthetics” may sound unsettling for the analytically-oriented listener, but effects a defense of indigenous sovereignty (143). because the logic of inclusion fundamentally serves the hegemonic (aesthetic and political) structures in which a piece appears, avery’s composition troubles the ideological smoothness of settler “inclusion” frameworks. robinson’s four models of encounter are highly generative for tracking politics of musical composition involving unequal power differentials. these models, robinson argues, are not merely reducible to formal archetypes; rather, they are deeply internalized and affectively coded scripts for racial knowledge that, in all cases but the last, reinforce white settler fantasies of universality. in this way, music scholars and artists alike may find robinson’s taxonomy a welcome occasion for critical reflection on their own work: his 143 taxonomy interrogates the power dynamics underlying the affective codes by which a given music may make itself felt and understood as meaningful. chapter 4, “ethnographic redress, compositional responsibility,” takes up the history of ethnographic collection of indigenous song and the legacies of this history in both settler and indigenous composition. while this topic is a central theme in discourses on the history of ethnomusicology, robinson raises the stakes of this critique by framing the collection of indigenous song in the context of the criminalization of potlatch from 1880 to 1951 (150). the forcible suppression of indigenous practices of sharing songs, histories, and other forms of knowledge provides the political context for the ethnographic song collection project not as merely a matter of archival representation but as inextricable from histories of settler violence. furthermore, the subsequent use of these songs as raw material in the work of settler composers such as ernest macmillan and r. murray schafer reveals the brutal coordination between state-sanctioned dispossession and hegemonic cultural production. this chapter considers the violence of the archival protocols of indigenous song collections, in particular the tendency to identify the settler ethnographers who collected the materials and erase the indigenous peoples from whom they were extracted. state archives then justify their colonial holdings as geared towards education and “public benefit,” erasing the specific protocols of knowledge sharing in the indigenous communities (158). this specious justification mobilizes a notion of a universal “public,” to whom all knowledge supposedly belongs, in order to further stigmatize indigenous activists who refuse this false universality and argue for the return of propriety materials and knowledges to those who rightly claim them as their tribal heritage.2 examining the contemporary resonances of this history, robinson considers the “song cleansing” practices of composers peter morin and jeremy dutcher (wolastoqiyik), according to which “songs that have been kept in drawers, boxes, and servers of online archives [are] ‘brought to life’” (167-68). robinson compares morin and dutcher’s practice with settler composer alexina louie’s take the dog sleds (2008), which takes as its subject matter the slaughter of many hundreds of inuit sled dogs by canadian mounties in the mid-twentieth century as a technique of forced acculturation. through this juxtaposition, robinson critiques musical representations of anti-indigenous violence not because they are misrepresentations, but moreover because of their very nature as representational. beyond the “spectacle of sound tourism” that louie’s piece enacts (188), the very translation of indigenous life into the reified realm of the aesthetic, robinson argues, is already a misappropriation of indigenous song: 144 indigenous song, he argues, cannot fit into the representational frame of western art music without significant ontological deformation.3 this deformation is at work not just in louie’s piece, but in western art music in general, and in particular in the celebrated “soundscape” compositions of r. murray schafer, whose work is discussed throughout robinson’s text. the work of morin and dutcher provides a counter-discourse in that their reanimation of cultural knowledge stored in colonial archives manifests real sovereignty rather than merely representing and depoliticizing past traumas. following this chapter, robinson offers an “event-score for responsibility” that inverts the framework of louie’s blundered mishandling of indigenous material by imagining her piece as an instance of archival violence that can be “cleansed,” à la morin and dutcher. this text-score not only enacts a mode of composition and performance irreducible to settler representationalism but also opens new avenues towards understanding and critiquing louie’s work (191). robinson’s final chapter, “feeling reconciliation” probes into the libidinal economy of settler aesthetics with an opening meditation on the tears shed by the audience of bruce ruddell’s rock musical beyond eden (2010) loosely based on the life of wilson duff, a canadian anthropologist who oversaw the removal of twenty-three haida memorial and mortuary poles in 1957. robinson writes, “perhaps you yourself have witnessed intercultural music featuring indigenous performers and felt moved; […] perhaps you have cried. but what, exactly is at the heart of all this crying?” questioning performance studies scholar jill dolan's valorization of the “shared affect” or the communitas of musical experience, robinson draws our attention to the way that “intercultural music” may elicit radically different responses from audience members depending on one’s listening positionality (202). ruddell’s own reference, in an interview, to his audience’s tears signifies the affective success in representing reconciliation, friendship, intercultural exchange and redemption, ultimately activating a framework of racial sentimentalism that operates like a closed affective circuit for the white spectator who enjoys the aesthetic resolution of irresolvable real-world antagonisms.4 by contrast, robinson’s own tears, shed in response to the same performance, arose from his resentment of colonial affect, along with his refusal to participate in the standing ovation and tears of affirmation of the audience around him. he uses this contradiction to cut through the normative conception of intercultural music (what he calls throughout the text “inclusionary performance”) as an innate good, born out by “the overwhelming presupposition of music’s positive efficacy” (226). 145 music’s affective power, he argues, is often coded to create a sense of resolution and reconciliation that, in the context of intercultural performances involving indigenous musics or performers, aims to provide the listener with a fantasy of peaceful reconciliation and “settlement” that covers over the ongoing structures of dispossession in the present (229). an alternative to this harmful mystification is proposed in the concept of “empathetic unsettlement,” a rubric for music composition that would refuse the conciliatory engulfment of indigenous music into settler structures, requiring the listener to dwell in the discomfort of this refusal. this alternative may raise the question of why “empathy” is a candidate for recuperation after being so thoroughly critiqued throughout the chapter. that is, why not point to “resentful unsettlement” as a new model for anti-reconciliatory composition, since resentment is such a key hermeneutic throughout the text? it is a testament to this book’s orientation towards collaboration and reciprocity, however, that the conceptual offerings made by robinson serve as occasions for further engagement, rather than rigid theoretical categories. hungry listening offers wide-ranging interventions on indigenous music studies that scholars from each of the musical subdisciplines and beyond will be compelled to consider. the arguments of the book also leave room for further engagement, collaboration and dialogue. at issue for robinson is not just the coloniality of ethnomusicology’s origins, historical musicology’s canonicity, or music theory’s analytical tools. rather, robinson requires us to perceive the potential coloniality of musical experience itself, pointing the reader towards contemporary work that either reinscribes or refuses the settler “narratocracy” of reconciliation.5 robinson’s scholarship is supplemented by rich curatorial work for indigenous art music and performance, modelling an engaged academic-activist practice that refuses to separate between the scholarly, artistic, and social conditions for indigenous resurgence. notes 1 melamed’s text focuses on the relationship between economic formations in post-world war ii capitalism and literary studies in the united states. however, the logic of state-sanctioned racial liberalism and the depoliticization of race-radical critique is just as much at issue in robinson’s discussion. 2 in represent and destroy, melamed identifies the stigmatization of the insufficiently global citizen as one of the primary ways that neoliberal multiculturalism enforces its ethics of universality. 146 3 robert nichols (2020) has recently articulated a notion of dispossession that attends to the seemingly paradoxical temporality of settler colonialism. rather than indexing a form of simple theft, in which a dominant settler culture steals the (tangible or intangible) property of the indigenous society, dispossession actually brings the very ontology of property into being; by stealing land, music, or artifacts, settler society forces a logic of property onto those holdings that they did not carry in advance. this retroactive propertization, which can help us rethink the dominant conversation on “cultural appropriation,” is at play in robinson’s discuss in this chapter. 4 the literature on the racial politics of sentimentality and sentimentalism is vast. on the american nineteenth century, see cruz (1999) and schuller (2018). 5 robinson mobilizes davide panagia’s concept of narratocracy as “the organization of a perceptual field according to the imperative of rendering things readable” (panagia 2009, 12). robinson’s use of the concept links this imperative to the felt experience of settlement and resolution in the works under discussion. references barthes, roland. 1977.“the grain of the voice. in image, music, text, edited and translated by stephen heath, 179-189. london: fontana press. coulthard, glen. 2014. red skin, white masks: rejecting the colonial politics of recognition. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. coulthard, glen, and leanne betasamosake simpson. 2016. “grounded normativity / placebased solidarity.” american quarterly 68, no. 2: 249-55. cruz, jon. 1999. culture on the margins: the black spiritual and the rise of american cultural interpretation. princeton: princeton university press. cusick, suzanne. 1994. “on a lesbian relationship with music: a serious effort not to think straight.” in queering the pitch: the new gay and lesbian musicology, edited by philip brett, elizabeth wood, and gary c. thomas, 67-83. new york: routledge. louie, alexina. 2008. take the dog sled. toronto: esprit orchestra. melamed, jodi. 2011. represent and destroy: rationalizing violence in the new racial capitalism. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. nichols, robert. 2020. theft is property!: dispossession and critical theory. durham: duke university press. panagia, davide. 2009. the political life of sensation. durham, nc: duke university press. schuller, kyla. 2018. the biopolitics of feeling: race, sex, and science in the nineteenth century. durham, nc: duke university press. silva, denise ferreira da. 2007. toward a global idea of race. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. small, christopher. 1998. musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. hanover, nh: university press of new england. wolfe, patrick. 1999. settler colonialism and the transformation of anthropology. london: bloomsbury press. current musicology 105 (fall 2019) © 2019 dawes. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 3 editor’s note this general issue of current musicology begins with a literature review that stresses the importance of ethnographic research within hip-hop scholarship. kevin c. holt writes that “one of the most basic concerns when approaching a sociomusical phenomenon critically is understanding the parameters of the subject one wishes to engage; many hip-hop scholars emphasize the work hip-hop does (or should do) without clearly defining what hip-hop encompasses.” in addition he deftly articulates the issues of how, based on the positionality of the author, various definitions of what hip-hop is or means creates not just differing opinions but that conducting ethnographic research is crucial in making sense of how hip-hop music and its accompanying culture has made an indelible impact in popular culture. similar to our past publications of current musicology, this issue is musically and as culturally diverse as our contributors. jim coyle writes about benjamin britten, widely considered as the most prominent english composer, conductor and pianist in the 20th century, and jan-peter herbst contributes his results from his research on equipment and distortion preferences among hard rock/ heavy metal guitarists. sean parr writes about vocal practices in richard wagner’s opera works, and christa pehl evans offers an overview of women’s music education in the late 18th century. in 2020, we will continue to highlight unique and thought-provoking musical scholarship, ensuring that we remain reflective of the ideas and concepts that has maintained current musicology’s reputation of being an important academic music journal throughout its 50 years of publication. laina dawes current musicology, no. 94 (fall 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 troubadour song as performance: a context for guiraut riquier’s “pus sabers no’m val ni sens” susan boynton the songs of the troubadours present the fundamental challenge of understanding poetry as music. although the old occitan lyric corpus was a sung tradition from its origins in the twelfth century, we do not know exactly how it sounded; the poetry and musical notation of troubadour song are only skeletal vestiges awaiting completion by the imagination. miniature biographies of the troubadours known as vidas, which combine elements of fact and fiction, describe some poets as performers who sang and played instruments, while others apparently did not.1 most manuscript sources of troubadour song lack musical notation; the few chansonniers that do include it provide the pitches and text underlay for one strophe of melody, with the remaining strophes of text laid out in prose format. the absence of music from so much of the written transmission of the corpus can be attributed to factors such as predominantly oral transmission of the melodies (resulting in their loss as the tradition waned) and the circumstances of compilation, which favored the presentation of the songs as poems.2 the repertory travelled in the thirteenth century to northern france, italy, the iberian peninsula and beyond through the movement of poets, singers, patrons, and not least, the formation of the manuscript tradition. as marisa galvez notes, the very concept of a troubadour corpus as an authorial tradition emerged from the chansonniers. the constitution of poetic personae in these manuscripts stands in for the construction of poetic agency and voice that would have occurred in performance (2012: 59–64). many nonmusical, nonverbal components of performance that are now irrecoverable were as much part of the song as the melody and text, and were probably embedded in its early reception: the performers’ appearance and gestures, their relationship to the audience, their present or absent patrons.3 the framework of performance and reception takes on particular significance in the analysis of guiraut riquier’s “pus sabers no’m val ni sens,” a song whose unique structure invites close attention to its novel combination of music and text. studies of riquier (c. 1230–c. 1300) note his innovative assemblage of his songs into a self–referential “book” in chronological sequence (bossy 1991; bertolucci pizzorusso 1978, 1994). as the only coherently ordered autobiographical collection created by a troubadour, current musicology 8 riquier’s book emblematizes the performance of the self that is central to the troubadour tradition. 4 in the context of riquier’s book, “pus sabers” performs the construction of a persona through lyric conventions and the deployment of the troubadour’s agency as a historical subject; it also exploits the possibilities of musical and poetic form to the fullest, drawing attention to the roles of singers, listeners, and readers in the performance of the song. although oral performance is often imputed an unquestioned primacy, literate modes of reception (as attested by the chansonniers) also had a formative role in the tradition that riquier inherited (gaunt 2005; haines 2004). audition, reading, and singing are overlapping actions: singer and audience may both know the song aurally, and a reader must reconstruct a song while viewing its written record on the manuscript page or in modern transcription.5 as most sources of troubadour poetry do not contain melodies, their musical dimension must be conjured from memory or the imagination. even songs with preserved melodies are typically notated only for the first strophe of the text; thereafter, the relationship between melody and text must be reconstructed for each successive strophe. joining melody to text using the manuscript page is itself an act of performance that establishes a verbal and sonic profile. a modern singer using the manuscript record of a troubadour song must determine the pronunciation of words, the duration of syllables, the notes to sing to each syllable (when the manuscript leaves doubts about this juncture) and the length of each note. this performative recreation emerges in the singer’s interpretation of the poem. because the alignment of music and text is demonstrated graphically for the first strophe only, musical analysis of troubadour song sometimes focuses on the shape of the melody in the first strophe without taking into account the associations between music and text that are established over the course of the song. even though the first strophe sets up the expectations for the remainder of the song, the performance of subsequent strophes consolidates the musical and poetic parameters in the memory; while a strophe is sung, the aural memory of previous strophes is combined with the testing and fulfillment of expectations about the melody as it unfolds in real time. expectations are both structural and tonal. melodic repetitions within the strophe and rhyme sounds (which articulate both melodic and poetic structure) also incur a complex of memories (musical and textual) that overlap with the memory of the previously repeated strophes. furthermore, a listener who knows the language or follows a printed text with a translation into a modern language also perceives to some extent the semantic units of the text, which in troubadour song can be correlated from strophe to strophe, even in the same metrical positions and using the same rhymes. a reader analyzing the manuscript or transcription of a troubadour song combines visual and aural apprehension. in all these modes of reception and performance, memory is a determinant of the song’s perceived form. susan boynton 9 the exercise of memory in the performance and audition of sung latin verse, as described by augustine, can be applied as well to the troubadour corpus. in the sixth and final book of his treatise on metrics, de musica, augustine states that the elements of poetic meter, in the moment of performance, may be located in several places at once: in the sound of the utterance, in the ears of the listener, in the action of the speaker, and in collective memory: when we recite that verse, deus creator omnium, where are those four iambs, and where do you think the twelve beats are? that is, should it be said that these numbers are only in the sound that is heard, or also in the listener’s aural perception [literally: the sense of the listener which pertains to the ears] or even in the action of the reciter, or since the verse is known, also in our memory?6 the model for the perception of meter described in this passage can be applied to the troubadour corpus, mutatis mutandis.7 although the hymn augustine cites (written by the fourth–century bishop ambrose of milan) is in quantitative meter, in which the combinations of long and short syllables make up feet that are the elements of metrical patterns, most medieval hymns are written in rhythmic verse. rhythmic poetry imitates the accentual patterns of classical quantitative meters without observing the quantities that enable scansion of the verses.8 in troubadour song, as in latin rhythmic poetry, prosody is based on stress accent and the number of syllables in a line.9 moreover, the consistent use of rhyme in troubadour poetry is characteristic of the new style of latin rhythmic poetry that emerged in the twelfth century along with the troubadour corpus. among the most influential genres of twelfth–century latin verse are the sequences associated with augustinian regular canons from the abbey of st. victor in paris, who followed augustine’s rule for the common life. the place of augustine’s thought in the canons’ aesthetics was so prominent that their sequences emulate the hymns of ambrose cited by augustine, such as deus creator omnium.10 another influence on the victorine understanding of sung verse was augustine’s discussion of psalm singing in book 11 of the confessions: i am about to say (sing) a psalm that i know: before i begin, my attention encompasses the whole, but when i have begun, in my memory there is still stretched out as much of it as i will have gathered into the past. the duration of my action is divided between my memory, because of what i have said, and my expectation, because of what i am about to say: nevertheless, my attention is present, and that which was future is drawn through it to become past. the more this is done and repeated, the more the memory is prolonged and the expectation is abbreviated, until the entire expectation is used up, when the whole action, finished, passes into memory.11 current musicology 10 this reflection on the roles of time and action in the formation of memory illustrates the point with which book 11 concludes, namely that the singer’s apprehension of the text is divided into anticipation and reminiscence. here, the exercise of memory is tied indissolubly to the recitation (singing or speaking) of a psalm. in the passage from de musica, the text is a verse from a hymn. in both cases, augustine specifies that the text to be sung is known; memory is the point of departure and then, as remembrance, becomes the point of return after singing. the processes of performance and memory described by augustine are effectively illustrated by the strophic form of troubadour song.12 although strophic form theoretically entails a precise repetition of the melody for each strophe, in practice variation occurs because the melody must be adapted to the changing alignment of musical and textual phrases. the manuscript transmission of other strophic genres, such as the office hymn, suggests that medieval singers made minute alterations of melodies from strophe to strophe (boynton 2003). whether imperceptible or significant, changes in a strophic melody condition the perception of the text by singers and listeners in ways that can be illuminated by the study of music cognition.13 recent studies show that the linguistic and melodic components of song are processed in interaction with one another, building on earlier findings of integration in memory for melody and text (patel 2008 and 2012; schön, gordon, and besson 2005; serafine et al. 1986). in some conditions, either melody or text may predominate;14 favoring one parameter over the other can be triggered by particular features of a song. as christelle chaillou has shown, many troubadour songs contain a distinctive melodic feature (which she calls a “sonic marker”) that calls attention to the middle of the strophe and relates to the text and its meaning. such markers create expectations for the listener and accrue significance with the “accumulation of events” in the song (chaillou 2010:44). likewise, the textual and musical markers of the lament genre found in a troubadour planh (lament) as well as in other medieval songs call the listener’s attention to a particular position in the strophe (boynton 2009). another form of melodic marker highlights the naming of the addressee, dedicatee, or subject of a song (pollina 2007). in sum, the manipulation of text and melody can make a song’s important features perceptible and memorable. the sonic profile of the poetry adds yet another parameter to the processing of melody and text. alfred lerdahl has demonstrated an analytic method for mapping the conjunction of musical and prosodic structures that models the sounds of poetry—its phonological structure—on the phrase groupings, melodic contours and metrical patterns of music (lerdahl 2001; lerdahl unpublished). such musical elements create hierarchies of accent susan boynton 11 and emphasis in a manner similar to the accentuation of words in poetry. through this approach lerdahl finds significant formal parallels that suggest close relationships between the processing of music and language in the brain, with some differences: the perception of rhythm, melodic shape, and sound quality (timbre) works similarly for music and language, but not the perception of syntax and semantics. a musical structure that becomes apparent through performance, as a composition unfolds in time, is a function or result of process. strophic song represents a special instance of the way that structure is revealed through performance, because the melody and text are parallel processes that occur simultaneously (nichols 1984). these two strands combine the qualities of linear and horizontal direction, and thus have both diachronic and synchronic aspects. thus, rendering the combination of text and music in the performance of troubadour song (as in any strophic form) constitutes a distinctive cognitive task for the singer, who must continuously reshape the repeated melody while adapting it to different strophes of the text. through the process of matching text to melody, the singer’s memory recontextualizes both elements as the text’s substance and meaning develop cumulatively over the course of a performance. the listener’s task of melodic and textual reception is configured differently from the singer’s production, but is comparable to it in its active shaping of the song. guiraut riquier’s canso redonda et encadenada “pus sabers no’m val ni sens” (1282) is a remarkably self–conscious example of the processes of performance described here. (for the text, translation, and musical transcription, see examples 1 and 2.) the song’s unique musico–poetic form traces a circular pattern designated by the appellation redonda (“round”).15 the verse structure is encadenada (“enchained”), meaning that the final line of each strophe is repeated in the first line of the subsequent one, with the result that the last line of the song is the same as the first. the end rhymes recur in reverse order from one strophe to the next (coblas capfinidas). like the text, the melody exhibits a chiastic form that is unveiled through the reversal of the two equal parts into which the melody of each strophe is divided. each half–strophe consists of the repetition of two different lines of music, followed by one contrasting line, yielding an ababc form in which each letter corresponds to the melody for one line of poetry. this form is common to many melodies of troubadour song. however, in “pus sabers” each half of the strophe’s melody is distinct, so the musical form of one complete strophe is ababc dedef. according to the rubric preceding the song, the first half of the melody in each strophe is sung as the second half of the melody in the previous strophe. the rubric in chansonnier r reads: current musicology 12 canso redonda and encadenada, of words and melody, by guiraut riquier, made in the year 1282 in april. for the melody of the second stanza, begin at the middle of the first and stop at the end. then return to the beginning, and finish at the middle where the sign is. and thus sing the fourth and the sixth, and sing the third and fifth like the first, not returning to the start.16 the resulting melodic form of the entire song can be outlined as follows: strophe 1: ababcdedef strophe 2: dedefababc strophe 3: ababcdedef strophe 4: dedefababc strophe 5: ababcdedef strophe 6: dedefababc both the chiastic musical structure of the song and the presence of this rubric are extremely unusual, calling attention to the increased importance of writing for the transmission of troubadour song in the late thirteenth century.17 the performance of “pus sabers” combines several distinct, yet complementary activities on the part of poet, performer, listener, and reader. the notation for the song, preserved only in troubadour chansonnier r, sets its reader a dual task of recognition: in addition to deciphering the text and its melody, one must interpret the cross that is inserted rather unobtrusively in the middle of the first strophe. (figure 1: paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, fr. 22543, fol. 107v.) to determine the meaning of the cross requires recourse to the prose rubric prefacing the song, which describes the musical structure using the sign as a point of structural articulation in the middle of the strophe. the combination of the cross as a visual cue and the rubric as a verbal description enables a reader to formulate a mental representation of the song’s realization. decoding the melody thus demands a combination of visual, musical, and verbal acuity along with the exercise of memory. the graphic presentation of the melody in chansonnier r and its sound in performance (its so) are not perfectly aligned because the melody must be divided in half and its parts reversed in alternating strophes; the reader of the manuscript must make a mental effort to bridge the gap, using the sign (senhat) as a guide. the rubric and sign constitute a conceptual challenge to the viewer of the manuscript, an invitation to perform the song in the imagination simply in order to comprehend its musical form (as opposed to its textual structure). the inscription of the song in troubadour chansonnier c lacks musical notation but nonetheless includes the prefatory rubric, which concludes with slightly different wording from the one in r. after stating that the middle of the melody ends at the sign, the text continues: “then the entire song is sung thus: the first and the third and the fifth one way, and susan boynton 13 the second and the fourth and the sixth the other way: and this song is the 23rd.”18 the difference between these two rubrics shows that there was more than one way to describe the realization of the musical form implied by the sign; in chansonnier c, the presence of the rubric in the absence of melody and visual cue indicates that the explanation was transmitted along with the text to ensure correct performance of the song. in the case of “pus sabers,” then, the distance between aural and visual apprehension of the melody is considerable. a listener unaware of the rubric or the visual cue of the cross in the manuscript version could follow the melody linearly while perceiving repetition in the text and melody. without the visual prompt, listening to guiraut’s song could be comparable to the experience of hearing of a troubadour song with a more conventional strophic form, in which repetitions of end–rhyme and lines of melody draw attention to recurring features even as the performance proceeds linearly. the listener’s perception of form in this scenario is fundamentally based on information received by the ear. as a result of the reversal within each successive strophe of the melody, the alignment of music with text changes continually; in other words, alternate strophes present differing combinations of the melodic lines with the poetic lines. at the same time, the order of end–rhymes in each strophe is inverted or reversed in the subsequent strophe. text and music follow different trajectories. this dizzying combination of repetition and alteration creates a macrostructure for the entire song that challenges verbal and musical memory to a greater extent than other strophic forms. guiraut may have intentionally crafted the melody so as to make it particularly difficult for a listener to discern the song’s musical–textual form. the reversal of the two halves of the melody is counterintuitive for a listener accustomed to songs in strophic form. furthermore, the enjambment (continuity of meaning and syntax over the line break) between the fifth and sixth lines of every strophe (except the sixth) sets up a discursive continuity that is attenuated in successive strophes by the alternation of the two halves of the melody. consequently, the text and music differ in their structural logic: each strophe of the text begins with a premise that recasts the previous strophe’s conclusion, whereas in the music, the strophe begins with a phrase that was heard in the middle of the previous strophe, thereby creating a bridge or transition. within the two half–strophes are embedded relationships between individual lines of melody, creating microstructures of allusion and subtly varied repetition that complement the verbal web of meaning in the poem.19 individual phrases creating musical cross–references permeate the melody with so much repetition of contour that the listener may not be able to distinguish between the two halves of the strophe. current musicology 14 comparison of this song to guiraut’s other vers and cansos, several of which feature exceedingly ornate music, suggests that he chose to make the details of this melody so hypnotically repetitive that it effectively embodies the circular movement of the text.20 a few examples of this technique will suffice to demonstrate its pervasiveness in “pus sabers.” most lines of the melody begin with a stepwise ascent of three notes: the ascents in lines 1, 3, and 5 are matched by similar gestures that occur in the second half of the strophe, in lines 6, 7, 8, and 9. not all these ascending phrases are at the same pitch level, but their common rising motion creates an analogy for the ear. similarly, a descending ornament of three notes occurs on the sixth syllable of lines 1–4 and in lines 7 and 9. in the second half of the strophe, two of the lines that do not have this descending three–note ornament, namely lines 6 and 9, instead include an analogous ornament on the seventh syllable. the six–note ornament of the fifth syllable in lines 1 and 3 is complemented by a similar ornament on the sixth syllable of lines 7 and 9, but the turning figures contrast in the direction of their movement. the six–note ornaments occur in different positions within their respective half–strophes; lines 7 and 9 are not the first and third lines of the second half–strophe, but rather the second and fourth ones. as the song unfolds in performance, the shifting position of the six–note ornaments has the effect of a subtle and yet important displacement. the significance of melodic contrast within the context of repetition of direction and contour becomes even clearer in the complementarity between the settings of the final lines of each half–strophe. line 5 begins with an ascent and the highest note, on the fifth syllable, is ornamented before reaching the cadence. line 10 begins with a descent and includes an analogous ornament (albeit earlier in the line). these contrasting final lines anchor the two halves of the melody and reinforce its tonal organization. “pus sabers” occupies the tonal space between c and c, with a subtle but noticeable difference of range between the two halves of the melody. while lines 1–5 explore the d–f–a chain of thirds, the melody of lines 6–9 lend greater emphasis to the f–a–c chain, returning to d only in line 10. the melody as a whole is strongly oriented around f, which as pitch center and cadential note is the point of departure and return for each half of the strophe. each of the first five lines of the melody ends with the half–step e–f, which recurs at the end of the strophe. lines 7 and 9 end with a g–f cadence. among guiraut’s 48 extant melodies, only “pus sabers” makes such prominent and systematic use of a cadential pitch.21 most of guiraut’s songs are centered on d; g is the second most common final note in his corpus. (see table 1 for a listing of all the pitch centers in guiraut’s songs.) only three other songs of guiraut’s are centered on f, all susan boynton 15 of them composed before “pus sabers” (according to the stated chronology of guiraut’s collection). the first two, among the earliest in guiraut’s corpus, both take up the theme of love’s loss of power: “aissi pert poder amors” (dated 1255) and “amors, pus a vos falh poders” (1257) both begin with the same melodic phrase as “pus sabers” and occupy a similar tonal space. in “aissi pert” all but two of the lines conclude with a cadence on f. however, only two of these six cadences employ the half–step e–f. the second of these two early songs, “amors, pus a vos falh” occupies a more limited tonal compass, and has only three cadences on f, two with the half–step. closer in time to “pus sabers,” the song “fis e verais” (1275) features a florid and wide–ranging melody that is unusually repetitive: all verses except for line 5 are paired and set to the same two–line melody. the three cadences on f articulate the main sections of the strophe and all approach f from above as in lines 7 and 9 of “pus sabers.” in the first strophe of “pus sabers,” only lines 6 and 8 do not conclude on f. the melody shared by these lines comprises the first part of a longer phrase that concludes with a descent to f in the subsequent line (7 and 9). the beginning of lines 6 and 8 (f–g–a) echoes the beginning of lines 1 and 3, which is the phrase that initiates the establishment of f as a pitch center. the next melodic unit of lines 6 and 8 (g–f–e) echoes the penultimate phrase of lines 1 and 3, creating the expectation of a cadence on f; instead, a leap from e to g is followed by a stepwise ascent to b–flat. the three–note descent followed by the upward leap of a third is repeated a third higher in line 7, followed by gradual descent to f. in the second half of the melody, then, continuity from line 6 to line 7 (and lines 8 and 9, which repeat the melody of lines 6 and 7) causes the f cadence to occur at the end of two lines rather than at the end of each line (as in the first half of the song). the continuity of these two lines generally correlates with poetic enjambment except in the fourth strophe, where each line of poetry expresses a complete thought. technical complexity in “pus sabers” conveys a self–reflexive celebration of form that is tempered by the ironic self–effacement in the first and last lines of the poem. according to michel–andré bossy, the concatenation of text and melody signals a return to imprisonment by love after five years of release from suffering (bossy 1991:283–84). while riquier shows the full potential of his saber, the purpose of the poem is to lament the effects of love in accordance with lyric tradition. the first strophe deploys the convention of autobiographical allusion that is at the core of the collection’s narration of the self: “i had unhappily / been for twenty years a true lover, / and since she has held me for five years.” while the second and third strophes are devoted to praise of the lady, the fourth strophe turns to the contradictory behaviors and desires that are caused by love, introduced by the statement current musicology 16 that “i am driven to folly by/ love, of whom i do not complain.” when the final line of the third strophe is repeated in the first line of the fourth strophe, the paradox of complaining about love “of whom i do not complain” is reinforced by the concatenation and then furthered, within the strophe, by the rhetorical device of anaphora (repetition creating added emphasis) in a series of mutually contradictory pairs: love, of whom i do not complain, has made me give and withdraw and desire profit and harm and be firm and changing and strive for tears and songs and be foolish and wise. in the fifth strophe, the subject shifts rather brusquely from the futility of love to the need for a patron. the sixth strophe indirectly petitions peter iii of aragon, who in march 1282 (the month before the stated date of “pus sabers”) had defeated charles of anjou by inciting the bloody easter uprising known as the sicilian vespers. according to michel–andré bossy (1996:69) the reference to peter in “pus sabers” signifies guiraut’s decision to leave the service of king alfonso x of castile. as a whole, then, the poem signals both a return (to the condition of unrequited love) and a departure (from a patron). this sense of change and mobility takes form in the performance of the song; it is realized in the concatenation of verses and the continuous alteration of the melody. just as the text repeatedly invokes the irresistible attraction of love and of the lady, proclaiming the destructive power of this magnetism, the melody is pulled in one direction and then in the other by the alternation of half–strophes. while the two–part musical form of the strophe underscores the binary in the song’s thematics, the oscillation between the two parts also instills symmetry through repetition. adding a layer of symbolism to its symmetrical structure, “pus sabers” lacks a tornada, the partial concluding strophe that often addresses (indirectly or directly) the love object, the poet’s patron, or an ambiguous conflation of the two. as judith peraino has pointed out, the tornada tends to call attention to the presence of the performer, self–consciously effecting a thematic turn from the language of love to more concrete referents in the world outside the poem (peraino 2012:33–75). from a purely structural point of view, the tornada disrupts the form of the song because it is shorter than a full strophe and thus can be sung to only part of the strophic melody applied to the rest of the poem. in some poems the substance of the tornada continues the themes of the rest of the poem, while in others its message brusquely reminds us that a song’s closed system of lyric conventions may susan boynton 17 coexist uneasily with the material conditions of its production, circulation, patronage, and audience. in “pus sabers” the sixth and final strophe assumes the discursive function of the tornada; it is instead a full strophe that completes the cycle of the melody, and it features the appeal to the patron that often appears in the tornada, thus accomplishing the “autobiographical” gesture of a tornada without disrupting the ornate structure of the song. the absence of the tornada in “pus sabers” anchors the end of that part of guiraut’s song collection, and also perfects the “enchaining” circle of the “canso redonda.”22 immediately after the conclusion of the poem in chansonnier c, a final rubric in smaller script than the manuscript’s other rubrics states “aissi no cap tornada” (“here (or thus) there is no return to the beginning/tornada”), evidently conflating the absence of a tornada with the instruction at the conclusion of the prefatory rubric in chansonnier r that the singer should not return to the start of the poem.23 perhaps this is just an instance of scribal confusion, but it highlights the fact that generic and formal expectations have been contravened: the final strophe has taken on the rhetorical function of a tornada. “pus sabers” is the only poem by guiraut riquier that lacks a tornada. given its signal importance as a marker of performance, the structural absence (but discursive presence) of a tornada is more than simply a requirement or a structural consequence of the song’s idiosyncratic form. by incorporating the address to peter of aragon into the body of the song, guiraut riquier dissolves the boundary between the autonomy of the lyric and the contingency of its context. the rubric ensures that subsequent copyists or performers will not add further strophes to the poem and that the metrical structure of concatenation will preserve the order of strophes.24 through the form of the song guiraut asserts control over future performances and fixes its musicopoetic structure as a testimony to his craft. at the same time, the affirmation that love is hopeless and that knowledge is ineffectual at obtaining rewards (whether in love or in patronage) tempers the poem’s implicit message of efficacious virtuosity. operating simultaneously on the levels of form and convention, the song effectively constitutes a performance of poetic identity, projecting the troubadour’s roles as lyric subject and as creator of the elaborate artifact framing his voice. guiraut’s dual agency reminds us further that the poem is not only a self–contained cyclical composition but also an element of the linear narrative outlined by his poetic anthology. with its prefatory rubric specifying the month and year of composition and its numbering within the collection, “pus sabers” points beyond itself to the autobiographical framework in which guiraut retrospectively embedded his songs, his making of songs (trobar), and his own lyric persona. current musicology 18 the self–referentiality of “pus sabers” is taken further at the beginning of a vers by guiraut dated 1285: “res no.m val mos trobars/ mos sabers ni mos sens/ per penre honramens” (“neither my trobar, my knowledge, nor my wisdom is any good for obtaining honor at court”; ed. longobardi 1982–83: 133). the evident textual echo of “pus sabers no.m val ni sens” is particularly noticeable in the order of chansonnier r, where the two poems, both situated on the verso sides of their respective folios, are separated by no more than the turning of a page. a formal connection between the songs complements the intertextual reference; although the melody of “res no.m val” is lost, its rubric in chansonnier c describes a concatenated and retrograde melody and text like that of “pus sabers,” explaining that the first, third, and fifth strophes are sung differently from the second and fourth.25 by means of these two songs so explicitly linked by their incipits and musical structures, guiraut shows his artistry while also indicating the interrelationships between the contrasting genres of the lyric canso and the more didactic vers.26 “pus sabers” is also thematically related to a nonlyric text, the verse epistle of 1274 in which guiraut asked king alfonso x of castile to distinguish troubadours from joglars or minstrels. this supplicatio dwells on the nature of poetic knowledge from its very beginning: “since god gave me knowledge and true understanding of making poetry” (“pus dieu m’a dat saber / et entendemen ver / de trobar”) (linskill 1985:167), and presents saber as the troubadour’s divine gift (“if god does not give someone the knowledge of trobar from the outset, he will never have it”).27 saber makes troubadour poetry more memorable than joglar performance, for the songs of troubadours contains wisdom (sens) and teachings (ensenhamens) that listeners can retain.28 the distinction between poets and performers made by the supplicatio is also articulated in the troubadour vidas.29 the vida of elias cairel, for instance, exists in two versions: one states that he performed badly but composed well, while the other notes only that he was instructed in letters and good at trobar (egan 1985:74). the vida of elias fonsalada characterizes him as a joglar but not a good poet (egan 1984: 32). some poems, too, offer pointed commentary on the difference between performance and poetry; for instance, peire d’alvernhe’s satirical “cantarai d’aquests trobadors” describes the unsatisfactory singing of troubadours at a festival, and concludes with the poet’s praise for his own vocal skill.30 the manuscript tradition supports a connection between “pus sabers” and the supplicatio, which appears only in chansonnier r, the sole source of musical notation for the song’s melody. in concert with guiraut’s other statements concerning the art of trobar, “pus sabers” performs an ironic display of formal virtuosity demonstrating susan boynton 19 consummate knowledge that can never overcome the demands of love. even as the ever–shifting melody undermines the projection of a coherent lyric self, it showcases the clever structure of the poem. the musical form of the song also calls attention to the symmetries underlying the play of conventions: the acknowledgment of submission to love in the first strophe is melodically the mirror of the declaration of service to peter of aragon in the last strophe. yet, while the song’s cyclical shape expresses the stasis of unfulfilled desire, the concluding encomium to peter of aragon introduces a linear trajectory by stating guiraut’s aspiration for a new patron. as in augustine’s account of poetry, “pus sabers” takes form as it unfolds in performance and its meaning is realized fully only when singing has passed into memory. current musicology 20 paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, fr. 22543, fol. 107v (detail of “pus sabers”). image courtesy of the bibliothèque nationale de france, reproduced with permission. susan boynton 21 paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, fr. 22543, fol. 107v (full page). image courtesy of the bibliothèque nationale de france, reproduced with permission. current musicology 22 example 1: text transcription from paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, fr. 22543, fol. 107v. translation modified after that of margaret switten. canso redonda et encadenada, de motz e so, d’en guiraut riquier, facha l’an .m.cc.lxxxii en abril, el so de la cobla segonda pren se el miehc de la premiera, e sec se tro la fi. pueys torna al comensamen e fenis el mieg aisi co es senhat et aisi canta se la .iiii.a e la via e la tersa e la va. aisi co la premieira e no y cap retornada. canso redonda and encadenada, of words and melody, by guiraut riquier, made in the year 1282 in april. for the melody of the second stanza, begin at the middle of the first and stop at the end. then return to the beginning, and finish at the middle where the sign is. and thus sing the fourth and the sixth, and sing the third and fifth like the first, not returning to the start. pus sabers no.m val ni sens, c’as amor aus ren desdire que.m fassa voler, parvens m’es, qu’aman me deu aussire; tant li soy obediens. qu’ieu avia malanans estat d’ans .xx. fis amaire, e pueys a.m tengut .v. ans guerit ses ioy del maltraire, eras ai de mal dos tans. eras ai de mal dos tans, car amors m’a fag atraire ad amar tal, que semblans m’es, que ia nulh temps retraire non l’auzarai mos talans, tant es nobla e plazens dona, don non es a dire beutatz, honors ni iovens, ez a bon grat e dous rire ab faitz, ab ditz avinens. ab faitz, ab ditz avinens tolh a tot home cossire o.l dona sos gais cors gens, pus que son captenh remire; car sos bels aculhimens es grazitz e benestans, tant que quascus l’es lauzaire, don sa valors es tan grans, qu’ieu sai, que.m fai follor faire amors, don no soy clamans. since knowledge is of no avail to me, nor wisdom, and to love i can refuse nothing that she makes me desire, it seems to me that, loving, i shall have to die; i am so submissive to her that i had unhappily been for twenty years a true lover, and since she has held me for five years cured, without the joy of suffering, now i have two times as much anguish. now i have two times as much anguish, for love has made me attracted to loving to such a degree, that it seems to me that never will i dare to speak my desire, so noble and pleasing is the lady, of whom one cannot describe the beauty, distinction or youth, with good will and a sweet laugh, attractive in deeds and in words. attractive in deeds and words, she removes care from every man or gives him her sweet, gentle self since he contemplates her behavior; for her lovely welcome is gracious and becoming, so much so that everyone praises it, with the effect that her merit is so great that i know, that i am driven to folly by love, of whom i do not complain. 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 susan boynton 23 amors, don no soy clamans, m’a fach donar et estraire e dezirar pros e dans et esser ferms e camiaire e percassar plors e chans et esser pecx e sabens que ren no.l pus contradire. donc qual esfortz fa, si.m vens e.m fai languir de dezire, ses esper d’esser iauzens? ses esper d’esser iauzens m’a donat novel cossire amors per lieis, qu’es valens, tant qu’en perdos en sospire. mas d’aisso.m conort al mens, que tost m’ausira l’afans, pus que senhor de bon aire, ab que bel sabers m’enans, non truep, que pro.m tenha gaire. mas assaiar m’ay est lans. mas assaiar m’ay est lans, ab lo rey, de saber paire, peire d’aragon, c’ab mans bos faitz comple son veiaire de mals volens et d’amans. e si m’es degutz guirens, ye.l serai lials servire e.l soi amicz ben dizens, si non, cor ai, que m’azire, pus sabers no.m val ni sens. love, of whom i do not complain, has made me give and withdraw and desire profit and harm and be firm and changing and strive for tears and songs and be foolish and wise, for nothing can contradict her. so what is accomplished, if she conquers me and makes me languish with desire without the hope of being joyous? without the hope of being joyous, love gave me new trouble through the one who is so worthy that i sigh in vain. but i find solace at least in the idea that soon the suffering will kill me since no lord of noble birth, though fine knowledge advance me, can i find, who may be useful to me. but i have to test this chance. but i have to test this chance with the king, the father of wisdom, peter of aragon, who with many fine actions realizes his opinion of those with bad intentions and of lovers. and if he is a dutiful protector to me, i will be a loyal servant to him, and i am a fair-speaking friend to him if not, i desire that he hate me, since knowledge is of no avail to me, nor wisdom. 35 40 45 50 55 60 current musicology 24 & ‹ pus paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, fr. 22543, fol. 107v guiraut riquier sa bersno.m val b ni sens, & ‹ c'as a moraus ren des dire& ‹ que.m fas savo ler,b par vens& ‹ m'es, qu'a manme deu au ssire;& ‹ tant li soy o bediens.& ‹ qu'ieu a viama b lanans& ‹ es tatd'ans .xx. fis a b maire,& ‹ e pueys a.m ten gut.v. b ans & ‹ gue ritses ioy del mal b traire,& ‹ e rasai de mal dos tans, œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ example 2: musical transcription susan boynton 25 & ‹ e strophe 2 rasai de mal dos b tans. & ‹ car a morsm'a fag b a traire& ‹ ad a martal que sem b blans& ‹ m'es, que ia nulh temps re b traire& ‹ non l'au zaraimos ta lens.& ‹ tant es no blae b pla zens & ‹ do na,don non es a di œ & ‹ beu tatz,ho norsni b io vensre & ‹ ez a bon grat e dous ri re œ & ‹ ab faitz, ab ditz a vinens.œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ current musicology 26 & ‹ ab strophe 3 faitz, ab ditz a b vinens& ‹ tolh a tot ho mecos sire& ‹ o'l do nasos gais b cors gens, & ‹ pus quecon cap tenhre mire;& ‹ quar sos bels a culhimens & ‹ ez gra zitze be ne b stans,& ‹ tant que quas cusl'es b lau zaire,& ‹ don sa val lors es tan b grans & ‹ qu'ieu sai, que.m fai fol lor b fai re& ‹ a mors,don no soy cla mans.œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ susan boynton 27 & ‹ a strophe 4 morsdon no soy cla b mans& ‹ m'a fach do naret b e straire& ‹ e de zirarpros e b dans & ‹ et es serferms e cam b iaire& ‹ e per cassarplors e chans & ‹ et es serpecx e b sa bens& ‹ que ren no.l pus con tradiœ & ‹ donc qual es fortzfa b si.m vens re. & ‹ e.m fai lan guirde de zire, œ & ‹ ses es perd'es seriau zens?œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ current musicology 28 & ‹ ses strophe 5 es perd'es ser b iau zens& ‹ m'a do natno velcos sire& ‹ a morsper lieis qu'es b va lens& ‹ tant qu enper dosen so spire& ‹ mas d'ais so.mco nortal mens & ‹ que tost m'au siral'a b fans,& ‹ pus que sen horde b bon ai re& ‹ ab que bel sa bersm'e b nans,& ‹ non truep que pro.m ten ha b gai re& ‹ mas as saiarm'ay est lans. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ susan boynton 29 & ‹ mas strophe 6 as sai arm'ay est b lans & ‹ ab lo rey, de sa ber b pai re& ‹ pei red'a ragonc'ab b mans & ‹ bos faitz com pleson b vei aire& ‹ de mals vo lenset d'a mans.& ‹ e si m'es de gutzb gui rens& ‹ ye.l se raili alser vire œ & ‹ e.l soi a miczben b di zens& ‹ si non, cor ai, que m'a zire œ & ‹ pus sa bersno.m val ni sens. œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ current musicology 30 pitch centers in guiraut riquier’s songs, in order of van der werf 1984: 166*-214* pitch center first line of text number in pillet-carstens 1933 g ab lo temps agradieu, gay 248: 1 g ab pauc er descauzitz 248: 2 d aissi com selh que franchamens 248: 5 f aissi pert poder amors 248: 6 d aissi com es sobronrada 248: 7 d amon dan soy esforsieus 248: 8 f amors, pos a vos falh poders 248: 12 g anc may per aytal razon 248: 13 d anc non agui nulh temps de far chanso 248: 18 d be.m meravilh co non es enveyos 248: 19 d be.m volgra d’amor partir 248: 21 d creyre m’an fag miey dezir 248: 23 d de far chanso soy marritz 248: 24 d de midons e d’amor 248: 26 g en res no.s melhura 248: 27 d en tot cant huey saupes 248: 29 f fis e verais e pus ferm que no suelh 248: 30 g fortz guerra fay tot lo mon guerreyar 248: 31 g gaug ai car esper d’amor 248: 33 g grans afans es ad home vergonhos 248: 44 d humils, forfaitz, repress e penedens 248: 45 e jamay non er hom en est mon grazitz 248: 46 d jhesu crist, filh de dieu vieu 248: 48 d karitatz et amor e fes 248: 52 d lo mons par enchantatz 248: 53 d los bes qu’ieu truep en amor 248: 55 g mentaugutz auch que dieus es 248: 56 d mot me tenc ben per paguatz 248: 57 d non cugey mais d’esta razo chanter 248: 58 d no.m say d’amor si m’es mala o bona 248: 59 d oguan no cuguey chanter 248: 60 d obs m’agra que mos volers 248: 61 d per proar si proprivatz 248: 62 d ples de tristor, marritz e doloiros 248: 63 d pus asters no m’es donatz 248: 65 f pus sabers no.m val ni sens 248: 66 a car dretz ni fes ni sens ni lialtatz 248: 67 g qui.m disses, non a dos ans 248: 68 d qui.s tolgues e.s tengues 248: 69 d razos m’aduy voler qu’ieu chant soven 248: 71 e si chans me pogues valensa 248: 78 d s’ieu ja trobat non agues 248: 79 susan boynton 31 d si ja.m deu mos chans valer 248: 80 d tant m’es plazens le mal d’amor 248: 82 d tant vey qu’es ab joy pretz mermatz 248: 83 g voluntiers faria 248: 85 g cristas vey perilhar 248: 87 g yverns no.m ten de chanter embarguat 248: 89 current musicology 32 acknowledgments this article, which originated in the conference “poetic knowledge and/in troubadour song” at the johns hopkins university’s villa spelman in florence in 2006, is a significantly revised and expanded version of an article published in catalan translation in the journal motz so razo (2007). i am grateful to the conference participants, and to tyler bickford, jane huber, fred lerdahl, nick patterson, and the editors of current musicology for suggestions and assistance. notes 1. on the evidence for the performance of troubadour songs see particularly aubrey 1996: 237–73, which discusses the contributions of christopher page and others on this subject. for texts and translations of the vidas see egan 1985 and egan 1984. 2. for a useful brief introduction to the chansonniers see burgwinkle 1999. the idea of a “notationless” culture as context for the origin of troubadour and trouvère song was first set forth in van der werf 1965. 3. according to field (2006), performance was the context for the emergence of the particular form of the old occitan language shared by the troubadours. 4. on performance as the creation of the lyric persona see kay 1990: 138–61; peraino 2011. for a recent case study of performance as the construction of identity see newman 2012. 5. admittedly, reading is a distinct mode of performance; as mary franklin–brown (2012: 56–59) has pointed out, aspects of the song that are not visually prominent may receive less attention from an individual reader of a manuscript. 6. all translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. aurelius augustinus de musica, vi.2.2 (jacobsson 2002:8): cum istum uersum pronuntiamus deus creator omnium, istos quatuor iambos, quibus constat, et tempora duodecim, ubinam esse arbitreris, id est, in sono tantum qui auditur, an etiam in sensu audientis, qui ad aures pertinet, an in actu etiam pronuntiantis an, quia notus uersus est, in memoria quoque nostra hos numeros esse fatendum est? 7. for introductions to versification in troubadour poetry see chambers 1985; switten 1999. 8. for a summary of the difference between quantitative and rhythmic poetry in the middle ages see most recently tilliette 2011: 241–45. 9. for a useful comparison of latin hymns to troubadour song see wingell 1994. 10. fassler 2011: 137–60; see also boynton and fassler 2011: 390–91. 11. aurelius augustinus confessiones xi.xxviii.38 (verheijen 1981:214): dicturus sum canticum, quod noui: antequam incipiam, in totum expectatio mea tenditur, cum autem coepero, quantum ex illa in praeteritum decerpsero, tenditur et memoria mea, atque distenditur uita huius actionis meae in memoriam propter quod dixi et in expectationem propter quod dicturus sum: praesens tamen adest attentio mea, per quam traicitur quod erat futurum, ut fiat praeteritum. quod quanto magis agitur et agitur, tanto breuiata expectatione prolongatur memoria, donec tota expectatio consumatur, cum tota illa actio finita transierit in memoriam. 12. the majority of troubadour songs are in strophic form except for the descort and lai. on the musical structures of these genres see aubrey 1994, 2000; peraino 2012: 76–122. 13. although there are as yet no cognitive studies of the perception of medieval song by susan boynton 33 modern subjects, chaillou (2010:52) suggests that recourse to cognitive science methods may offer further elucidation of perception and structure in troubadour song. 14. schön, gordon, and besson (2005) call this “the allocation of attentional resources to different dimensions of song” (73). 15. for a critical edition of the text, see mölk 1962:103–6; for the melody see van der werf and bond 1984:202*. 16. paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, fr. 22546, fol. 107v: canso redonda et encadenada, de motz e so, d’en guiraut riquier, facha l’an .m.cc.lxxxii en abril, el so de la cobla segonda pren se el miehc de la premiera, e sec se tro la fi. pueys torna al comensamen e fenis el mieg aisi co es senhat et aisi canta se la .iiii.a e la via e la tersa e la va. aisi co la premieira e no y cap retornada (text and translation from aubrey 1996:173). 17. aubrey states that the sign was written with the same ink as the musical notation, and is likely to have been added by the same hand that wrote the melody, and suggests that “pus sabers” was copied from a model combining text and melody (1996:294, 48). 18. paris, bibliothèque nationale de france, fr. 856, f. 300r: canson redonda y encadenada de motz e de son d’en guiraut riquier facha l’an m.cc.lxxx.ii en abril. el sos de la segonda cobla pren se el mieg de la primeira e sec se tro la fin, pueys torna al comensamen de la primeira e fenis en la mieja de la primeira aissi quon es senhat, pueys tota la cansos canta se aissi: la primeira et la tersa e la quinta d’una maneira, et la segonda et la quarta et la sexta d’autra maniera: ez aquesta cansos es la xxa iiia. 19. i disagree with chantal phan’s characterization of the repeated cadential motion as creating “extreme monotony” (1987:70). 20. on guiraut’s more melismatic melodies see phan 1996. 21. the versions of guiraut’s melodies preserved in manuscript r could reflect intentional alterations by a scribe, whether guiraut’s own retrospective editing when the collection was compiled, or subsequent interventions carried out with the intention of making the melodies conform to a notator’s ideals of musical coherence. elizabeth aubrey states that “the main music scribe of r ... appears to have manipulated, adapted, and regularized the melodies” (1996:65). 22. on the numerical and chronological structure of guiraut’s collection see bossy 1991. 23. “noy cap retornada”: see example 1. 24. according to holmes (1994), the exceptional proportion of concatenated verse forms in guiraut’s corpus point to a conscious exploitation of the shift from oral to written transmission. like other poets in the same period, guiraut perceived the need for an ordered authorial book rather than a fluid poetic corpus of song. among the comparable examples in the late thirteenth century are dante’s vita nuova (finalized in 1292, thus contemporaneous with guiraut’s book) and the cantigas de santa maría compiled under the aegis of alfonso x (bossy 1991:288). 25. paris, bnf fr. 856, fol. 304r: lo xxii vers d’en giraut riquier, encadenat e retrogradat de motz e de son, fach en l’an mcclxxxvii en janoyer. e canta se aissi quon la cobla primeira la tersa e la quinta ez aissi con la segunda la quarta (ed. longobardi 1982–83:133). the song’s melody is not preserved. chansonnier c does not provide for notation, and in chansonnier r all the staves provided for the notation are left blank beginning with this song. 26. on the two genres in guiraut’s oeuvre see bossy 1991:280–81; longobardi 1982–83:17–18. 27. supplicatio, lines 760–63: mas si dieus non [destina] / home en comensar / al saber de trobar / ja nulh temps no l’aura (linskill 1985:186). current musicology 34 28. supplicatio, lines 721–22, 740–43 (linskill 1985:185). 29. the differentiation of poets from singers becomes particularly complex in the case of the female troubadours, or trobairitz (boynton 2001; cheyette and switten 1998). 30. on this poem see galvez 2012: 62–64; rossi 1995. 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by the national endowment for the humanities. mount holyoke, ma: mount holyoke college. patel, aniruddh d. 2008. music, language, and the brain. new york: oxford university press. _____. 2012. “advancing the comparative study of linguistic and musical syntactic processing.” in language and music as cognitive systems, ed. patrick rebuschat, martin rohrmeier, john hawkins, and ian cross, 248–53. new york: oxford university press. peraino, judith. 2011. giving voice to love: song and self–expression from the troubadours to guillaume de machaut. new york: oxford university press. phan, chantal. 1987. “le style poético–musical de guiraut riquier.” romania 108: 66–78. _____. 1996. “structures poético–musicales du chant mélismatique chez guiraut riquier et alphonse le sage.” tenso 11: 163–78. pillet, alfred and henry carstens. 1933. bibliographie der troubadours. halle: niemeyer. pollina, vincent. 2007. “named in song.” tenso 22: 9–28. rossi, luciano 1995. “per l’interpretazione di ‘cantarai d’aquests trobadors (323.11).” in cantarem d’aquestz trobadors. studi occitanici in onore di giuseppe tavani, ed. luciano rossi, 65–111. alessandria: edizioni dell’orso. current musicology 36 schön, danielle, reyna leigh gordon, and mireille besson. 2005. “musical and linguistic processing in song perception.” annals of the new york academy of sciences 1060: 71–81. serafine, mary louise, janet davidson, robert g. crowder, and bruno h. repp. 1986. “on the nature of melody–text integration in memory for songs.” journal of memory and language 25: 123–35. switten, margaret. 1999. “music and versification: fetz marcabrus los motz e”l so.” in the troubadours: an introduction, ed. gaunt and kay, 141–163. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. tilliette, jean–yves. 2011. “verse style.” in the oxford handbook of medieval latin literature, ed. ralph hexter and david townsend, 239–64. new york: oxford university press. van der werf, hendrik. 1965. “the trouvère chansons as creations of a notationless culture.” current musicology 1: 61–68. _____. and gerald bond, ed. 1984. the extant troubadour melodies: transcriptions and essays for performers and scholars. rochester, ny: the author, 1984. wingell, richard. 1994. “motz e chan: textual and musical rhythm in medieval latin poetry and troubadour songs.” in the cultural milieu of the troubadours and trouvères, ed. nancy van deusen, 99–115. kundry and the jewish voice: anti-semitism and musical transcendence in wagner's parsifal benjamin binder for angela maraventano kundry, the only female character in richard wagner's last opera, parsifal (1882), is also the only character to make an overwhelming impression on us with the raw power and extreme versatility of her singing voice. the most arresting vocal gesture of the opera, for example, comes from her mouth at the work's epicenter in the middle of act ii (example 1). as a preternatural calm descends over the sonic landscape,! grounded by the distant but ponderous tread of the timpani in mm. 1175-77, we are transported outside the time and place of the opera to a remote primal scene: golgotha, the site of christ's crucifixion.2 in mm. 1177-78, a theme swells up in the orchestra that we have come to associate with the holy grail and its original contents, the blood of the suffering christ (see example 26 for the complete theme). kundry now hesitantly sings-"i saw ... him ... him" -and the revelation of "his" identity in mm. 1179-80 is aligned precisely with a dissonant, paroxysmal orchestral idea heard here for only the second time in the opera. 3 the strings' hairpin crescendo and spasmodic triplet figure, convulsing onto the leaden harmony on the third beat of the bar,4 suggest the dense throbbing of christ's imponderable, intractable pain. the grail theme picks up where it left off in m. 1181, and as it dies away, kundry begins to re-enact her shocking response to the sight of christ on the cross: she laughed.5 her bold ridicule of christ is "voiced" not only by the orchestral music that betrays her laughter, but also by her singing voice. first, tonally-ambiguous triplet chords ripple in the woodwinds in mm. 1181-82, building in intensity until the precipitous descending melodic motif that usually signifies kundry's caustic laughter bursts forth irrepressibly in the first violins. in mm. 1182-83, the laughter motif tumbles headlong onto what we now hear as the dominant in d minor, clarifying the winds' earlier tonal function and setting up the extraordinary vocal outburst that follows. now, in the middle of m. 1183, kundry suddenly hits a high b~ on the first syllable of the word "laughed [lach-tel:' ushered in by the flutes and given an extra punch by the bassoons, horns, and a violent string pizzicato. the b~, a formidable feat for any dramatic mezzo, is also the highest sung note currellt musicology, no. 87 (spring 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 47 48 current musicology example 1: act ii, mm. 1175-83. 1175 kundry. quail! 1175 sehr ian os am und feierlich. p ausdrucksvoll iim __ him > ichsah i saw etwas heschleuiligend. p in the opera.6 if that weren't stunning enough, kundry's b~ brazenly exceeds the b~ called for by the reigning d-minor tonality.? the glaring major-mode brightness of the high note adds an extra dose of impudence and brash mockery to kundry's shriek oflaughter. she ends the word unaccompanied on a low c#, opening up a yawning vocal chasm that reverberates acoustically and psychologically in the vast silence that follows. s this voice, kundry's voice, is clearly a force to be reckoned with. benjamin binder a bit of dramatic context can help us appreciate the full impact and importance of this moment in parsifal. shortly after the curtain rises on act i, kundry hurtles onto the stage like a wild animal, with her coarse robe and unkempt black hair, in order to deliver comforting balsam to amfortas, the mortally wounded king of the knights of montsalvat who preserve the holy grail. after amfortas had been seduced by"a terribly beautiful woman [ein furchtbar schones weib] ," he dropped the holy spear that once pierced christ's flesh. klingsor, a former knight turned evil sorcerer, seized the spear and stabbed amfortas with it. now the king languishes with the unending pain of a wound that perpetually reminds him of his sin and prevents him from fulfilling his duty to uncover the grail during communion, the ritual that gives eternal life to the knights of his order. we will discover that kundry was amfortas's temptress (acting partly as klingsor's reluctant slave), although at the moment this is hardly imaginable, given kundry's ungainly manner, disheveled appearance, and guttural musical utterances. two squires express suspicion of kundry, but their aged mentor gurnemanz explains to them how kundry has always been of inestimable help to the knights as messenger and servant, perhaps "for the atonement of sin from a former life [zu bussen schuld aus fruh'rem leben ]." a young and thoughtless hunter, whose name we will later learn is parsifal, arrives on the scene after killing an innocent swan, earning the grim reproach of the knights. pressed by them for his life story, parsifal can remember very little of it, and so he is justifiably surprised when kundry jogs his memory by singing of the early death of his father and his subsequent wandering. kundry also reveals that parsifal's mother has since died, unbeknownst to him; in shock and horror, parsifal lunges at her throat, as if to cut off her voice. as the scene shifts to the knights' temple, kundry slinks away, not to be seen or heard from again until act ii. here, she first struggles with klingsor in his magic castle, unwilling yet ultimately fated to obey his command to seduce and corrupt parsifal, who may be the "pure fool [reine thor]," prophesied to amfortas in a celestial vision, that will finally bring redemp­ tion to montsalvat. the seduction and its aftermath occupy the majority of act ii, once parsifal finds his way to klingsor's enchanted flower garden and encounters a woman ofluxuriant and enticing beauty whom we know to be kundry, even though parsifal does not recognize her.9 kundry successfully fuses parsifal's maternal longing with his burgeoning sexual awareness, drawing him into a kiss. but this kiss suddenly makes parsifal aware of the meaning of amfortas's wound, and so he rejects kundry and the sin she invites. it is at this point that kundry takes center stage to unfold her own engrossing narrative of curse and possible redemption: she had laughed at christ, condemning her to an eternity of restless wandering in search of 49 50 current musicology him. with her monstrous laughter, the mystery that has shrouded kundry's identity, behavior, and motivation is powerfully revealed. in its wake, the grief of the knights of montsalvat seems like sanctimonious whining-unlike them, kundry actually beheld christ, and she has suffered for it for eons. her gripping vocal explosion simultaneously unmasks her authentic self and tears a hole in the phantasmal fabric that holds montsalvat together. after parsifal retakes the spear from klingsor and brings about the destruction of the sorcerer's magic realm at the end of act ii, he calls upon kundry to follow him into act iii and back to montsalvat, where he will restore amfortas to physical and spiritual health: "you know where you can find me again [du weiflt, wo du mich wiederfinden kannstl !"yet while kundry does join him there in body, she does not bring her singing voice along. now in a penitent's robes, pale and exhausted, kundry sings only once, toward the beginning of the act, even though she is on stage for the rest of the opera. to a perplexed gurnemanz who has just roused her from a death-like sleep, kundry haltingly whispers, "to serve ... to serve [dienen ... dienen l:' as if to account for her unusual silence (example 2). that vocal silence persists, even as she is baptized by parsifal, and even as she collapses in death in the opera's final transfigurative moments, just after the montsalvat community chorally celebrates the long-awaited healing of amfortas's wound with the opera's last words: "redemption for the redeemer [erlosung dem erloser l!" kundry's vocal disappearance is one of the most striking aspects of parsifal, and it calls for interpretation. many critics have risen to this call, yielding a wide spectrum of thought-provoking explanations that invoke various historical, philosophical, psychoanalytic, aesthetic, sexual, and religious dimensions of wagnerian ideology. this is no surprise, given the multi-layered complexity of the character of kundry and the extraordinarily dense and polysemic dramatic content of parsifal, an opera which gestated in wagner's mind over the course of almost forty years. what is surprising, considering the issue at hand, is that until quite recently critics have rarely delved into the music of parsifal in order to flesh out their claims. the implication is that the mere presence or absence of kundry's vocal line is the only salient aspect of the music that needs to be addressed in any attempt to elucidate the meaning of what happens to her in act iii. but the fact that kundry stops singing in act iii does not mean that her "voice" -here defined as her overall operatic subjectivity-ceases to exist. kundry's voice, housed not only in her throat but also in the musical material that she sings and that surrounds her discourse in the orchestra, survives substantially beyond the collapse of klingsor's realm, and this voice needs to be considered carefully if we are to understand the significance of kundry's fate. 10 benjamin binder example 2: act iii, mm. 129-37. 129 ,.., (k iii b i i h i un( ry sow y en{ s 1er eag: i u q!+j#~ j1 ~p~r,-/f" -=j~ ""ve. ~ r4-. ~~ ... . . ... ~~ fp 133 kundry ,.., at length she utters h()arsely and brokenly:) iu • • die-nen, die-nell. to serve, to serve. 133,.., massig bewegt. i u ... ••• 1-): ~ ~~ p pp~ pillp ~ ~ " ~ p ~ ~i i ... in this article, i will trace the development and manipulation of kundry's "voice" across acts ii and iii in order to shed some new light on one particularly problematic element of wagnerian ideology embedded in parsifal: anti-semitism. over the years, many have argued over the possible anti-semitic intentions of parsifal, a ritualistic "stage-consecrating festival play [buhnenweihfestspiell" depicting an insular community of christians who purify themselves of a corrupting element that aims to infiltrate and destroy their society through deception. ll both klingsor and kundry have sometimes been interpreted as the stereotypically"jewish" characters in the opera as well. j2 in focusing on kundry, my concern is not principally with the surface features that code her as "jewish;' nor is it with her putatively duplicitous playacting, although it will be crucial to my argument to examine how kundry seduces parsifal through such playacting and how parsifal ulti­ mately sees through the ruse. rather, i want to show how kundry's "voice" is used and abused in the opera to help make possible a kind of transcendence that resonates deeply with the aspirations of nineteenth-century german revolutionary thought, articulated most forcefully by wagner in his 1850 essay, "jewry in music [das judentum in der musik]," a pseudonymous article written for the neue zeitschrijt fur musik which wagner reprinted in an updated form under his own name in 1869. in the anti-semitic logic of the german revolutionary tradition, every progressive achievement of 51 52 current musicology modern society requires an evil and reactionary jewish obstacle that must be routed out and overcome. just as this tradition fabricated "the jew" in order to have something to vanquish on its way to utopia, wagner develops a powerful and destabilizing voice for kundry in act ii only to squelch it deliberately and repeatedly in act iii, after it slides into the orchestra. kundry is overcome not simply because she has two measly measures to sing, but rather because her "voice" becomes the stepping stone upon which the music of act iii conspicuously treads in order to elevate itself toward the sonic redemption of montsalvat. after considering several recent critical evaluations of kundry and her eventual silencing and death, i will explore some pertinent aspects of wagner's anti-semitic ideology in order to set up a close reading of what happens to kundry's voice in acts ii and iii. even beyond her last vocal utterance, kundry's "voice" remains, although its potency is subjugated and channeled into the work of a transfigurative redemption whose blinding musical sublimity moves us at the same time that it requires complicity with its deep-seated anti-semitic agenda. finally, in an epilogue, i will suggest another view of kundry's voice, inspired by a different facet of wagner's thought, that may help us understand more fully why anti-semitism and transcendence are so inextricably and uncomfortably linked in parsifal, both musically and dramaturgically: the voice of an animal. the problem of kundry's silence kundry became a particular fascination for scholars in the first half of the 19905, and the hermeneutical challenge she poses, especially with regard to her vanishing voice, continues to elicit an enormous amount of critical reflection. we can start with barry emslie (1991), who argues that kundry's plight is that of the paradigmatic nineteenth-century operatic woman, saddled with the contradictory burden of fulfilling both a narrative and a symbolic function. she must be the dangerous femme fatale who creates the opportunity for risky masculine pleasure with a formidable, plot-moving voice, but she must also be the static emblem of a patriarchal bourgeois ideol­ ogy that celebrates female repentance and servitude. thus, while kundry's seduction, kiss, and subsequent pleading with parsifal generate most of the opera's dramatic tension (and all of parsifal's mature experience with women), parsifal's definitive rejection of kundry empties her out as a full operatic character. as parsifal takes the moral high ground, kundry becomes a mute symbol of his virtue, her voice no longer required (or desired) for the oratorio-like pageantry of redemption that takes place in act iii. in act ii parsifal uses kundry and her agency to achieve self-actualization; by act iii he has used her up entirely. benjamin binder for michel poizat (1992), kundry's voice constitutes the most compel­ ling approximation of the vocal object in all of opera.]3 a core concept of lacanian psychoanalytic theory, the vocal object is the human cry in all its sheer materiality. when a baby first cries out because of some inner distur­ bance, the sound of its cry has no meaning. but once its mother answers the cry by providing satisfaction, that cry becomes a demand and acquires a linguistic function. as a result, the satisfaction (or jouissance) associated with that first, primal cry that preceded signification can never be regained (99-103). henceforth, for the human subject, "a quest for the [vocal 0 ]bject is set in motion, a search for lost phonic materiality, now dissolved behind signification" (103). identifying with the human voice in its pure resonance beyond speech provides the subject with momentary sensations of achiev­ ing this quest to regain the vocal object, and for poizat, kundry gives the opera-goer (and the other characters of parsifal) plenty of opportunities to feel this sensation: "[kundry] represents in its purest form that image of the woman ever present in opera, the privileged medium of the voice in its purest embodiment as [vocal o]bject. it therefore comes as no surprise that her vocal score calls for cry, plaint, moan, and then the silence to which the entire third act confines her despite her continued presence on stage" (194). this is "no surprise" because silence and the pure cry are related to one another as the two vocal phenomena furthest removed from speech, which turns vocal sound into a vessel of meaning (90). aside from kundry's musically unnotated cries, the extreme vocal writing of kundry's singing line in act ii constitutes "a literal unheard -of paroxysm that leaves the listener no option but flight, refusal, or the emotional collapse that signals the onset of jouissance" (91). poizat therefore concludes that" [0] nly silence can follow the paroxysmal cries of this finale [of act ii?] ... exit the word: enter silence [in act iii], and, in silence, death" (199). jean-jacques nattiez (1993, chap. 7) does not think of kundry as woman juxtaposed against man, nor as the vocal object, synonymous with woman, juxtaposed against the male fantasies that make them synonymous (see poizat 1992:155-58), but rather as the opera's chief representative of sexual difference itself, juxtaposed against a utopian androgyny that annuls desire altogether. in wagner's late writings, nattiez observes, sexual difference is intimately tied up with racial difference, since it is monogamous marriage that both enables the divided sexes to reunite in loving union and safeguards the purity of a race. overcoming one form of difference helps to overcome the other. kundry, then, helps to realize these aspirations in parsifal: "in dying, [the promiscuous, non-aryan] kundry symbolically destroys the element of femininity and the absence of racial purity that she embodies and that threaten to corrupt the purity and sanctity of the new christ" (171). 53 54 current musicology although nattiez does not comment directly on kundry's falling silent in act iii, we might extrapolate that this is a sanctifying gesture as well; without the fracturing voice of difference in the air, parsifal is free to redeem the world as "the symbolic embodiment of an angelic androgyny, proclaiming a new civilization and culture" (170). michael steinberg (1996) hears the power of subjectivity and modernity in kundry's voice, a power that unsettled wagner deeply. in steinberg's ac­ count, parsifal's principal project is to stop the unfolding of history fueled by the decadence of modernity. kundry's desirous, feminizing subjectivity threatens to sweep montsalvat into the fatal onward trajectory of history, but once parsifal locks kundry out of the homosocial community of the grail knights by rejecting her advances, her voice loses its effectual potency, and she is effectively silenced as history is locked into eternity. if, as steinberg claims, "amfortas's wound is the condition of modernity"-that is, social change brought about by the demands of "mobile subjectivity"-and if "modernity equals subjectivity equals the human, bodily voice" that cries out for all of this (177), then the conclusion of parsifal heals the wound and the knights of montsalvat insofar as it suppresses kundry's voice, allowing history to ossify into stasis. for elisabeth bronfen (1996), kundry's voice is the site of a different illness: hysteria. citing nietzsche's analysis of hysteria in the case of wagner (1888), bronfen explains that for the late-nineteenth century, (female) hysterics exhibited the "protean ability to take on many roles even as these are self-consciously presented as simulations, deceptions of what is true" (148). the hysteric's frenzied performances are attempts to screen a primal trauma, a "psychic gap" (155)-in kundry's case, her laughter at christ and his piercing, cursing gaze-that can never be fully and truthfully regained and healed in representation. yet the very artificiality of the hysteric's performances exposes the constructed, contingent nature of the paternal fantasies sustained by them. in parsifal, the hysteric's critique comes out most forcefully in kundry's laughter, which is the ultimate vocal extension of her hysteria-a "strange mixture of mockery and knowledge," as bronfen puts it. kundry's silence in act iii, therefore, may signal that she has given in to the psychotic delusions of the men around her who perform their ceremony of salvation as though it were the real thing. on the other hand, by remaining silent kundry continues her critique, since she is the only character not acting in bad faith. she realizes that" [parsifal] cannot fulfill her desire [and end her curse] because it is an impossible one to fulfill, because one can never return to the scene of trauma" (160). thus, bronfen seems to say, the stunning vocal silence (indicative of "psychic gap") that follows kundry's primal laughter at christ in m. 1183 of act ii is writ large across the whole of act iii, a constant reminder of the traumatic kernel of reality that cannot be accessed by representation. benjamin binder considered as a whole, the work of these five authors forms an intrigu­ ing composite picture of kundry that suggests various interpretations of her silence in act iii. the kundry of act ii is a dynamic, empowered agent who cunningly asserts sexual difference, subjectivity, desire, the historical impulse, and even the primal force of vocal sound itself against a hermetic and delusional patriarchy that seeks to neutralize or ignore these disruptive elements. in act iii, kundry is hollowed out and made impotent in the face of the inexorable fantasy of redemption surrounding her, falling into a puzzling silence that indicates either a total complicity with that fantasy or a stubborn critique of it from within. however, as stimulating as these readings of kundry may be, none of them actually delves into the musico-textual substance of parsifal. given these authors' broad ideological concerns, the simple fact of kundry's vocal disappearance is perhaps sufficient to justify their overall claims. but to the extent that these authors assert that the muting of kundry's singing voice indicates the total effacement of her subjective presence, they simplify matters, overlooking much musical and dramaturgical detail that might enrich their interpretations. in fact, that subjective presence-the music associated with kundry in act ii-is manipulated and reappropriated in act iii, becoming an object for use by the other characters. kundry's singing voice merely vanishes, but her "voice" appears over and over again, now reconfigured as an instrument of parsifal's redemption of the world (itself ultimately a lie, according to steinberg and bronfen). i would suggest, in fact, that what happens to kundry's voice is even more insidious than these authors would lead us to believe. not only is kundry robbed of self-expression, but the robbers enjoy the fruits of their plunder before her very eyes. by overlooking or underplaying the specific details of the transmutation of kundry's musical presence-the way in which her voice rises to its full sonic and expressive capacity in act ii before it is forced to take refuge in the orchestra in act iii-these authors risk reducing the musical and dramatic sophistication of kundry's plight to an obvious musical feature that can be addressed neatly by a socio-historical or psychological formula. some more recent considerations of kundry, in contrast, have wrestled substantially with the music of parsifal, ultimately yielding more acute insights into the ramifications of her vocal silence in act iii. carolyn abbate (2001) directly confronts the lack of any discussion of parsifal's music in various earlier commentaries on kundry (including those of emslie, nattiez and bronfen); with tongue slightly in cheek, abbate surmises that "one can­ not imagine that music has not been assimilated" into these commentaries, given their undeniable strengths (108-10). but her main concern is in fact an irrepressible sense of dislocation between parsifal's music and stage 55 56 current musicology action that may enable such commentaries in the first place. for abbate, parsifal's" [m]usic and all the rest [i.e., its dramatic and ideological con­ tent, with all its questionable implications] are together even as the music intermittently repels itself from the rest[.]" the result is "parsifal's grave condition of contingency and separation ... [the opera's] music goes off and yet is frequently looking toward traveling companions, across distances that attenuate relationships to greater and lesser degrees" (116).14 kundry therefore figures prominently in her discussion, since she encapsulates so many wagnerian fixations and bugaboos1s-i.e., "all the rest" -and yet has practically nothing to sing in act iii. abbate's discussion of the moment of kundry's death toward the very end of the opera illustrates her point most vividly. the death on stage­ kundry merely "sinks ... lifeless to the ground [sinkt . .. entseelt zu boden]" as the knights receive parsifal's benediction-occurs at the same time as an unnerving a-minor distension in the orchestra disrupts a seemingly endless, hypnotic sequential progression whose momentum has almost run out by the time we reach d~ major (see example 28). if we insist that parsifal's music is linked to its stage action, then the a-minor chord must indicate kundry's death and all it entails. abbate quotes nike wagner here: "[t]he sacrifice of kundry ... recalls the terror that had to be survived, the evil that had to be exorcised" in order to "find ourselves outside history, in a pure state: the terminal state" of "euphoric deadness." in fact, by highlighting the a-minor disturbance, abbate undermines nike wagner's own view that kundry's death is marked "only discreetly and schematically" (cited in abbate 2001:139). but what if the music has detached itself from the plot entirely by this point? in that case, abbate says, [ml aybe [the a-minor moment 1 is registering something else entirely, the listener's position within another world: the one constructed by music. the a-minor "shudder" measures how deeply that listener has been drawn into a web of sound, how deeply, therefore, he or she assimilates the narrowest and most disquieting fantasies of the stage action that unfolds in step with it and remains unprovoked by anything else that spills out. (141) it appears that, for abbate, the silencing of kundry's voice is one of the things that enables wagner's music to gradually transfix the listener completely on its own terms, such that this listener will then uncritically absorb whatever the dramatic content may suggest. and yet kundry's "voice" returns, even if only as an utterly remote, submerged call from a source no longer identifi­ able, prodding the listener into "the briefest act of mourning, a shudder that wakes a sleeper from dreams of falling, right before he or she falls asleep for good" (141).16 benjamin binder mary ann smart (2004) also shares the view that in act iii wagner's music overrides kundry's subjectivity and commandeers the listener's psychological autonomy. but smart's critical commitments lie elsewhere, in the specific relationship between music and physical gesture in nineteenth­ century opera. according to smart, wagner's theory of physical gesture as an active force in the creation of a complete operatic character, articulated most famously in opera and drama (1851), was contradicted by his actual practice: "for wagner the close matching of music to movement conveys not physical vitality or charisma, as in auber or verdi, but instead indicates that a character is half-conscious, in a state verging on trance" (179). smart points to kundry's mad dash onto the stage in act i which is graphically demonstrated in the orchestra by her characteristic motif (the "caustic laugh­ ter" motif identified in example 1). the aggressive outburst of the motif-a "purely orchestral explosion" (193 )-suggests that kundry is "physically driven by her music;' rather than an agent who motivates her own music (195).17 this reveals that kundryis trapped in the physical reality of her body, and for wagner this was a defective spiritual condition. in the first part of act iii, on the other hand, kundry carries water to gurnemanz to the ac­ companiment of shimmering, syncopated music in the strings that intimates the ravishingly lovely "good friday music" to be heard later on, just after parsifal baptizes her. smart observes in this moment of water-carrying that "[kundry's] apparently effortless, disembodied movements leave no trace on the orchestral fabric," in contrast to her frenzied entrance in act i (200). kundry's vocal silence in act iii is therefore part of her saving grace: it is precisely by silencing kundry and by failing to register her body musi­ cally that wagner aims to grant her purification and redemption: we are meant to hear the breaking apart of the previously synchronized music and gesture, together with the loss of voice, as ushering her into some new spiritual realm. reduction to an ethereal being who appears to glide through space-who is, in effect, relieved of her body altogether-is, for wagner in this late phase, equivalent to redemption. (201) for smart, this redemption is troubling because "the musical content that fills the void left by [kundry's] absent body leaves no room for independent thought;' either by kundry or by the audience. kundry loses "the power to stir the orchestra into motion around her," and as a result we in the audience "become puppets of a relentlessly referential [leitmotivic] discourse that erodes and interprets the present moment of dramatic experience" (204). i will suggest that kundry's body does rouse the orchestra into action at one critical place in act iii, as she struggles to regain her "voice," in both senses of the term. however, in line with smart's overall reading of act iii, the attempt ultimately fails, even though traces of kundry's "voice" will return later on. 57 58 current musicology wagner's suspicion of the body in theatrical representation is also the fo­ cal point for our most recent kundry analyst, matthew wilson smith (2007), who identifies wagner's encounter with schopenhauer's philosophy as the source of this suspicion. after reading schopenhauer, smith argues, wagner felt that music "does what gesture cannot: it takes us directly to the heart of that which gesture more clumsily attempts to capture. blinding our vision of the body, music shows us the body in its innermost form" (9). smith looks at kundry's laughter in acts i and ii in order to demonstrate how wagner's attempt to transcend the body in parsifal ironically turns back on itself in act iii. at a pivotal moment in act i, the stage directions have kundry laugh at parsifal, but it is the orchestra that sounds her laughter motif. here "music gives us kundry's bodily gestures in their innermost form." in act ii, on the other hand, kundry sings her laughter, and "in a fashion that unifies vocal and orchestral lines" (15). this occurs not only in the passage i have given as example 1, but also later in the act, as kundry derides the fallen amfortas by singing the laughter motif itself. now "the outrageously gestural kundry ... erupts, taking the orchestra with her" as the "vocal body" returns to the opera with a vengeance (16). in act iii, of course, kundry becomes silent, and smith accepts smart's verdict on the non-gestural music that surrounds her humble actions. the schopenhauerian version of the gesamtkunstwerk is saved by eliminating kundry's threatening "corporeal theatricality" (19). however, in a return-of-the-repressedl moment, musico-theatrical hysterics resurface toward the end of act iii, when the knights press amfortas to reveal the grail with "mob-like desperation" and amfortas himself tears his clothes (revealing his body) and barks out a delirious "ha!" to the accompaniment of a jagged descending unison line in the orchestra similar to kundry's laughter motif (20-21). smith therefore sees the distinctive attributes of kundry's act ii voice surviving into act iii after all, in the throats and orchestral music of the knights themselves. kundry's gestural, embodied voice cannot be evaded, as wagner undermines his own schopenhauerian aesthetics from within. these last three authors see wagner's ultimate goal in parsifal as the musical captivation of the audience. by overwhelming us with a deluge of intricate leitmotivic discourse, spellbinding orchestral textures, and mesmerizing harmonic patterns, wagner undermines our capacity to reflect on what is actually happening in the drama; instead, he would have us swallow it whole. kundry is there to resist this agenda by doing everything it aesthetically despises, but she is also there so that she can fall silent, be baptized, and die, as wagner exorcises the very demons she has invoked. nonetheless, kundry's presence-her "voice" -continues to protest against parsifal even into act iii, either by momentarily severing the "narcotic daisy benjamin binder chain" of harmonies that abbate hears strewn across the end of the opera (2001: 141) or by infecting the mode of operatic expression of her oppressors with her own supposed hysteria, as smith argues. (for her part, smart does not appear to hear any sort of protest from kundry in act iii.) my own analysis of kundry as she appears in acts ii and iii will comple­ ment and extend these arguments, but it will focus its hermeneutic energies upon one particular item in the constellation of wagnerian anxieties. all of the authors i have discussed so far have already aligned kundrywith many of these anxieties, including the femme fatale, the division of the sexes, decadent modernity, the perilous force of history, the emptiness of representation, the human body, and woman in the large. but there is another interpretive dimension of kundry's problematic persona, addressed to varying degrees by nattiez, steinberg, abbate and smith, lr that is of paramount importance in this putatively christian opera: kundry as jew. the "problem" of kundry's jewishness kundry's curse aligns her with ahasverus, the wandering jew oflegend who refused to comfort christ on his way to the cross and was similarly fated to roam the earth forever in search of redemption. 19 in klingsor's incantatory speech meant to summon kundry from her slumber at the beginning of act ii (mm. lo7-29), it is revealed that in one of her previous incarnations kundry was herodias, the heartless queen partly responsible for the death of john the baptist and hence a "religious villainess" and "hate figure for christians," according to anthony winterbourne (2003:62). klingsor also calls kundry a "rose of hell [holien rose)," putting her in direct opposition to the virgin mary-the rose of heaven (winterbourne 2003:63). this name also emphasizes the sinful and threatening nature of kundry's "foreign enticing fragrance," a sickly, ersatz sweetness that has "won over the defenses of many a grail knight" (weiner 1995:239-40).20 leaving aside for a moment the possible anti-semitic implications of these monikers, kundry also demonstrates through her actions many of the features associated with jews in anti-semitic writings of the period, includ­ ing those of wagner.21 she is a sexual predator who threatens to corrupt the chaste holiness (and pure blood) of the grail knights, and yet her very femininity (especially in association with klingsor's effeminacy) also codes her as a jew, in contrast to the noble, stoic masculinity that surrounds her. her lovelessness and lack of compassion are revealed in her callous, hysterical laughter at the knights and especially at christ. 22 to the overall extent that kundry exhibits hysterical attributes, in fact, she also reveals her jewishness; hysteria was considered, among other things, a disease to which jews were 59 60 current musicology particularly susceptible (gilman 1993:402-36). marc weiner argues that the exoticism and "oriental overtones" (1995:242) that kundry exudes grant her at disturbing (if, in this case, alluring) eastern otherness which wagner also associated with the jew in some of his writings (1995:241-47). kundry tells us that the balsam she brings to amfortas in act i is from arabia, and her costuming in act ii, according to the stage directions, is "of an almost arabian style [anniihernd arabischen stiles ]:'23 kundry's charms, however, are false, generated by occult magic and motivated by self-interest. for the anti··semite, her ubiquity and timelessness would have symbolized the stubborn persistence of the jews throughout history, a perpetual thorn in the side of the christian european tradition. perhaps this is why klingsor also calls her "the nameless one [namenlose]" in his speech; no one name can capture someone who has existed in various forms essentially since the beginning of time. in the same vein, wagner himself once associated kundry with eve. in a letter to his patron king ludwig ii of september 7, 1865, wagner tried to explain the meaning of kundry's kiss with an analogy: you know, of course, about the serpent of eden, and its alluring promise: "you will be like god, conscious of good and evil." adam and eve became "conscious." they became "aware of sin." mankind has to atone for this awareness in disgrace and misery, until it is redeemed through christ, who took the sin of mankind upon himself ... adam-eve: christ. how would it be if we put it to you like this: "anfortas-kundry : parzival?" (geck and voss:19-20)24 this connection to eve may explain yet another name that klingsor hurls at kundry: "primal she-devil [urteufelin ]." just as original sin, passed from eve to adam, can only be redeemed by christ, so must kundry ultimately take the blame for amfortas's suffering, and this is suffering only parsifal can effectively alleviate. in wagner's analogy, kundry is not just any temptress, but rather the first temptress in recorded history, and a specifically old testament one at that. the locus classicus of wagner's anti-semitic ideology and aesthetics is the judentum essay of 1850/69.25 many of his comments about jews and their relationship to christian european culture correspond strikingly well to kundry's own situation and manner(s) of expression in parsifal. for wagner, the european individual's fundamental, essential response to the jew, despite all of the european's liberal inclusionary intentions, is a feeling of "involuntary repellence" and "instinctual disgust, [a feeling] which we nonetheless clearly realize is stronger and more overpowering than our deliberate eagerness to let go of it" (1911, vol. 5:67) .26 for the whole of act i, the squires find kundry similarly repulsive, calling her a "wild beast [wildes thier]" and a brewer of "magic potio ns [zaubersaft ]." no matter how much benjamin binder the well-meaning gurnemanz (representing the liberal, tolerant perspective) gently reproaches the squires for their attitude, they cannot help but keep a wary distance: "but she hates us; how balefully she looks at us from over there! she's a heathen, a sorceress [doch hasst sie uns; sieh' nur wie hiimisch dart nach uns sie blickt! eine heidin ist's, ein zauberweib j." to a certain extent, gurnemanz condones their behavior and reassures them: "you do not nourish her, she never approaches you, she has nothing in common with you [ihr niihrt sie nicht, sie naht euch nie, nichts hat sie mit euch gemein j." again this directly echoes wagner's judentum essay: the jew ... initially catches our attention in everyday life with his outward appearance, which, no matter what european nationality we belong to, has something of an unpleasant foreignness to that nationality: invol­ untarily we wish to have nothing in common with a man who looks like that. (69)27 kundry is always an outsider to the montsalvat community throughout the whole of parsifal-an obvious point, perhaps, given her sex, but for that reason an overlooked point that says a lot about why she is in the opera in the first place. in kundry's defense, gurnemanz mentions her thankless service to the knights as their unfailing messenger, and when parsifal attacks kundry later on in act i for telling him that his mother is dead, gurnemanz has to reproach him as well: "what has this woman done to you? she has spoken truthfully; for kundry never lies, although she has seen much [was that dir das weib? es sagte wahr; denn nie liigt kundry, doch sah' sie vielj." kundry may never lie, but in order to stay under the radar and get what she wants in act i and the first half of act ii, she also refrains from disclosing the whole truth about herself and what she has seen. this is precisely what permits gurnemanz to trust her, and it is why wagner did not trust jews: the jew never gets excited in a mutual exchange of feelings with us, [but] rather [gets excited] atus, only in the particular self-serving interest of his vanity or his advantage; this [self-serving quality] gives to such excitement a character of ridiculousness, primarily because of the disfigured expression of his manner of speaking, and awakens everything in us except sympathy for the speaker's interests. (72, emphasis added)28 kundry's "manner of speaking" is certainly "disfigured" in act i, but it is not "ridiculous" or laughable (wagner's word in the essay is liicherlichen), and this is especially true in act ii. she also earns our deep sympathy as the opera progresses, a point to which i shall return. nevertheless, her hysterical agitation and manipulative duplicity in acts i and ii betray her pernicious outsider status, and for wagner all these things were tightly linked to the figure of the jew. 61 62 current musicology what was most important to wagner in the judentum essay, however, and what i believe is most relevant to understanding why kundry and her voice are handled as they are in acts ii and iii, was his passionate belief that, [w]e can now regard the [jew]'s appeal for emancipation as nothing other than extraordinarily naive, since it is rather we who see ourselves transplanted into the necessity of fighting for emancipation from the jews. given the current state of things in this world, the jew is really already more than emancipated: he rules, and [he] will rule as long as money remains the power before which all our efforts lose their force. (68 )29 in his 1992 book wagner: race and revolution, paul lawrence rose connects wagner's call for society's emancipation from the jews to the most elevated aspirations of german revolutionary thought. within this predominant strain of nineteenth-century german political ideology, all the ills of the modern german state were distilled in the stereotypical figure of the jew: the rules of money and exchange (as wagner noted in the previous quote from the judentum essay), self-interest, property, crass materialism, loveless marriage, and intellectualism, to name a few. (much of this resonates well with the work of the wagner critics i considered earlier; kundry the jew is also the kundry of decadent modernity, difference, and the threateningly exotic.) above all, the jew was the quintessence of unfreedom; with his unthinking obedience to an inscrutable old testament god, he typified the blind adherence to dogma that the german revolutionaries abhorred. 30 according to rose, this philosophical tradition dates back to kant and fichte, for whom "[tlhe jews represented, not only in theory but in real life, precisely that enslavement of the human spirit from which the german revolution promised redemption" (7). if society could precipitate out the offending jewish element within its ranks and cast it aside, then liberation would be at hand. this sets up a curious dialectic between race and revolution in which the jew consistently provided the necessary negative antipode against which the revolutionary mission could positively define itself. in a word, "the jew" was created in order to be triumphantly eliminated. slavoj zizek analyzes this process in wagner's works in terms of the composer's conflicted relationship with modernity: wagner's attitude to modernity is not simply negative but much more ambiguous: he wants to enjoy its fruits, while avoiding its disintegrative effects-in short, wagner wants to have his cake and eat it. for that reason, he needs a jew: so that, first, modernity-this abstract, impersonal pro­ cess-is given a human face, is identified with concrete, palpable features; then, in a second move, by rejecting the jew who gives body to all that is disintegrated in modernity, we can retain its fruits. (1996:218) benjamin binder in parsifal, the "human face" of modernity is kundry. she not only "gives body" to modernity, but voice as well, in all its "disintegrated," troubled complexity. for wagner, such a voice must be heard as fully as possible, if only so that the maximum benefit can be derived from its silencing. again from the judentum essay: "[ilt must ... become clear to us what we hate in that [jewish 1 being [wesen l; what we then understand clearly, we can stand up against; indeed, already through its naked exposure we may hope that the demon can be routed from the field" (69).31 wagner's use of the word wesen (being, essence, nature) demonstrates that he did not confine the scourge ofjewry to actual jews. rather, jewry was the malignant element of contemporary life and art in general-" [jl ewry is the evil conscience of our modern civilization" (s5)32-one which required brutal honesty and soul­ searching to successfully uproot, even for the non-jew. "whoever shrinks from this labor, whoever turns away from this investigation ... , even him we now classify under the category of 'jews in music'" (s4).33 jewry had seized upon the enervated body of contemporary music, infecting it now like a "teeming life-mass of worms [wimmelnde viellebigkeitvon wurmern l" (s4), much as kundry, i would argue, seduced and corrupted a king (amfortas) who was already susceptible to such erotic temptations. the worms bear a family resemblance to the wound. but how can the wound be healed, the worms expunged? for wagner, the cure was untergang, "going under." in the final passage of the judentum essay, wagner praised the writer ludwig borne, one of the luminaries of the young germany literary movement of the is30s, who had converted from judaism to lutheranism in isis. in his essay "the wandering jew" (1s21), borne excoriated the money-obsessed "jewishness [judentumlichkeit]" of european culture at large and looked forward to the day when jews would renounce their judaism and all that it implied, transforming society in the process (see rose 1992: 17). wagner saw borne as an exemplary figure in this regard, and in his panegyric to borne's accomplishment, he offered a recipe for the jew's "redemption [erlosung]": from his isolated position as a jew, [borne] walked out among us seeking redemption: he did not find it and had to realize that he would only be able to find it with our redemption too, into authentic men [wahrhaften menschen]. for [the jew] to become [such a] man conjointly with us, however, means first and foremost for the jew as much as: ceasing to be a jew. borne did this. yet [it is] precisely borne [who] also teaches [us] that this redemption cannot be achieved in comfort and dispassionately cold complacency, but rather that it costs sweat, misery, anxieties and the depths of suffering and pain, as it [costs] us. without looking back, take part in this work of redemption that causes us to be born again through self-an63 64 current musicology nihilation [durch selbstvernichtung wiedergebarende erlosungswerke] , then we will be as one and undivided! but keep in mind that your redemption from the curse that weighs upon you can be but one: the redemption of ahasverus-going under [untergang]! (85)34 the wandering jew and his "redemption" again remind us of kundry and parsifal, but what exactly did wagner mean by untergang? when wagner published the revamped judentum essay again in 1869, he framed it with a lengthy expansion and explanation of its main ideas, under the head­ ing "clarifications of [my essay] 'jewry in music' [aujklarungen uber das judentum in der musile ]."35 at the end of these "clarifications," he wondered what the ultimate remedy for the cultural crisis posed by the jews should be: whether the downfall of our culture could be stopped through a forcible casting-out of the corrosive foreign element, i am unable to assess, because forces must be available for this purpose of whose existence i am unaware. (1911, vol. 8:259)36 such language suggests banishment and extirpation of the jews, a literal untergang that brings thoughts of the "final solution" disturbingly to the present-day reader's mind. but wagner immediately followed these rumina­ tions with a more optimistic vision of integration: on the other hand, should this element be assimilated with us in such a way that, conjointly with us, it brings us toward the maturation of the higher development of our noble human nature, then it is apparent that [it is] not the concealing of the difficulties of this assimilation, but rather only the most open revealing of the same that can be conducive to this. (259-60)37 as in the final paragraph of the judentum essay itself, wagner advocated complete and unfiltered acceptance of the evil of jewry for the effective assimilation of this "corrosive foreign element," and nothing tempered the grim reality that such redemption could only be earned through extreme toil and suffering. indeed, wagner wrote, "i am certainly of the opinion that all that oppresses the true german essence [wesen] from that quarter [i.e., jewish society] weighs upon insightful and sensitive jews themselves in an even more dreadful manner" (258).38 hopefully, wagner surmised, his essay "would be able to strengthen [his enemies-i.e., jews and jew­ sympathizers who assailed him because of his beliefs] in their own battle for true emancipation [zum eigenen kampfe fur ihre wahre emanzipation star7cen leanne]" (259). perhaps it was the hard-fought untergang of "jewry" within every german soul, especially souls of jews like borne, that wagner benjamin binder was hoping to inspire. however, we might also recall that by 1869 wagner was fully under the spell of schopenhauer's philosophy, implying another perspective on the notion of untergang. especially given wagner's related remarks about being "born again through self-annihilation," untergang may imply a general buddhistic renunciation of desire, a purging of the will. in act iii of parsifal, kundry suffers all three of these untergangen, in reverse order. first, her powerful singing voice, suffused with desire and pain, is washed out and nullified; in its place we see a body delivered of inner conflict (at least for the most part, i should stress). smart's comment about kundry's "[r)eduction to an ethereal being who appears to glide through space" describes her schopenhauerian transformation particularly well. next, kundry is baptized by parsifal, who calls upon her to "believe in the redeemer [glaub' an den erloserj." in contrast to her generally placid state earlier in the act, kundry now "seems to weep violently [scheint heftig zu weinen j ," according to the stage directions. (we will investigate this moment much more deeply later on.) kundry's conversion to the christian faith elicits shudders of tears and agony in her; redemption has clearly "cost [her thej sweat, misery, anxieties, and all the depths of suffering and pain" mentioned in the conclusion of wagner's judentum essay. finally, kundry demonstrates untergang in its most non-metaphorical sense: she dies. but all of these things are required for the redemption of montsalvat, and vice versa. as wagner wrote, it was only with the redemption of european culture at large that the jew would gain his (or her) own redemption-a paradoxical situation from which kundry is unable to escape. all of this bears directly on the music of parsifal and tlle role of kundry's voice in making that music as overwhelming and totalizing an experience as it is. in particular, i think that the intimate connection between anti­ semitism and social transformation betrayed in the writings of wagner and the german revolutionary movement as a whole may help to explain why kundry and her music reappear as they do in act iii. the jewish implica­ tions of kundry's character, explored at length above and most assertively established by herlaughter at christ, mark her as the source of corruption that must be transcended if the knights ofmontsalvat are to find a specifically christian and germanic redemption. without kundry, in fact, there can be no such redemption, because there would be nothing to be redeemed from. kundry may be vocally silent in act iii, but her music and her body are repeatedly called forth so that they may be transcended, enabling some of the most resplendent moments of the score to unfold. just as "the jew" was created in order to be triumphantly eliminated, kundry's voice is recreated in the orchestra, despite (or because of?) her vocal silence, only to be demon­ stratively and repeatedly effaced by the music of montsalvat's redemption. 65 66 current musicology example 3: act ii, mm. 736-49 1 1 sehr zurlickhaltcnd. (~ kundry. hn~ 4'j parparfl parsifal. h.(he wants to .0 lasst ab! ihr fangt mich nicht! let go! yoll won't catch me.' b~j === fr ,.. b~;~~ ,. ~b;~ : : 40 l......::j 3" 3 dim~4~· ff f b~ ~ b~: ~. b~ ~ it sehr zurlickhaltcnd. : -p. 740 kundry. fr -no + p. immer etwas langsamer wen/end. si fall wei stay! .. pl7 ie! flce, and then hears kundry's voice coming from the flowery grove, and sfonds still in surprise.) immer ell vas lallgsalller wadend. ~u 74i parsifal fr h @) frl 40l p. par s; fal? parsflal? "7 ~ ,. ,. 'n •• .p. •. n •• .p. .. d: iig 5 °7 itel1 .. ~ ~~ :;plup "i •• .p. .. 0 •• .p.··i. +c:v'il'·~ (kundry (jraduafly becomes visible) so nannte tdu mend mich einst ,he + sehr langs(/m d h u.ge e nt. ~ut-t~· thus did my mother ollce call me ill (l dream. "7 -1----------------.. . -------. p'iip ~ n1rj #~~j .p. .• -h:j-'::11 "j ~-, + j. p. ~-.~ .. + 1j-======12 b:vq9~9 7 sellr fangsam u. gedehnt . "--------pp qvi g:j -------much of the beauty of redemption in act iii is necessarily purchased at kundry's expense, just as the utopian dreams of the german revolutionaries necessarily revolved around an imaginary jewish enemy. what is even more troubling about the case of kundry, however, is that, unlike "the jew," kundry is not a mythical invention, a distant symbolic repository of socio-cultural insecurities, but rather a fully fleshed-out operatic character with a highly developed voice (in both senses of the term). kundry's powerful narrative of confession in act ii elicits our genuine sympathy because of its sudden benjamin binder frankness, urgency, and authority. but precisely because we come to care for her as an individual in act ii, we are also guilty of condoning the abuse that she suffers every time her "voice" is manipulated to propel the process of redemption forward in act iii. it is now time to listen to that voice as it winds its way through these two acts of parsifal. the aufgang and untergang of kundry's voice: how wagner creates and "solves" the "problem" after her protracted dialogue with klingsor at the beginning of act ii, kundry subsides with the rest of his magic castle to allow a garden of flower maidens to bloom. their mission is to ensnare parsifal and lure him into a sexual transgression, but as their attempted erotic strangulation reaches its height, kundry and her voice arrestingly break out again in m. 739 (example 3). lost in the floral overgrowth, kundry is a voice without body, bringing the action to a halt by calling out parsifal's name-as yet unmentioned in the opera-to the second half of the "prophecy" motif.39 in the beginning of act i, amfortas sings the complete version of this motif to the words, "becoming aware through compassion ... the pure fool [durch mitleid wissend . .. der reine thor]," reciting the unsolved riddle he heard during his vision. here in act ii, we now discover that kundry is the holder of much privileged information. by replacing the ambiguous text of the second half of the motif with parsifal's name, kundry solves the riddle and reveals that parsifal is in fact "the pure fool" of the prophecy. shortly, in mm. 788-94, kundry will elucidate the riddle more definitively by restoring the motif's original harmonic context and offering an etymological dissection of parsifal's name (see example 4; mm. 790-91 and mm. 793-94 give a transposed version of the complete original form of the motif). 40 kundry is not only able to tell parsifal what the two parts of his name signify, but in mm. 795-800 (not given in the example) she also explains that "parsifal" had been his father gamuret's dying word to his mother herzeleide (literally, "heart-of-suffering") as the infant was gestating in herzeleide's womb. after kundry first sings parsifal's name in mm. 739-41 (again, see example 3), parsifal listens as if dumbstruck, sings his own name to the last three notes of the prophecy motif (mm. 745-46) and recovers the distant memory of when he had heard that sound before ("thus did my mother once call me in a dream [so nannte traumend mich einst die mutter]"). similarly, the harmony of mm. 741-47 gradually comes into focus as well; diminished and half-diminished seventh chords are magically reinterpreted above changing bass notes in the same way that the prophecy motif gradually takes on a different resonance with its new text (see the analytical annota67 68 current musicology example 4: act ii, mm. 786-94. 786 fl kundry. u [sehr langsaml dich fl parsifal. (still standing at a distance) ycju u rie fest itt! mich ff na _ l!;;n _ io _ sen') you called to me, to one who has no name? 786fl "~ i ---i u hr· yj !'r 1 ----------pp ~ ~ l.i , '-!'r _ltv 7m fl kundry. d iif iij i it t "1 i u nannt' ieh thc)r'-ger rei ner, "fa! par si,'1 ciich 78~ j called. jijolish pure one, "faiparsi, " you ~fl~ , .~ ~. i u~r~p q~~r~ ) v ___________ . ~j~.h ---~ , .' ~rd 7~2 fl l.i ~ u rei nen tho ren: ilpar si fal" 792fl pure/ool: "parsdal. ii i i -~ i u~i-~~ v 'pj.11 .------1--. -"". -€> i i '------------tions in example 3). in m. 749, on the word "mutter," memory and clarity are finally achieved with a pristine open-position g-major sonority in the strings, whose tremolos come to an end here as well. all the while, kundry is slowly emerging into view, as though she were the mother parsifal had been waiting for. she goes on to welcome him in g major, not quite as his mother, but as the only one who can tell parsifal what he has been longing to know about his mother. example 5: act ii, ll1ll1. 757-69. 7'17 fl " kundry. 0) 757fl 0) : 701 767,., d11' 0n-ui--,chcll . v~n buh-ien, weichet sehr hllhig . yoii childish paramours, m01'1? (["way limn him: i ----..... rjf r:jlf: r ~f' h· pp ~~ i~ i~ i i~ . [" . r' wun den, ein ~am c1' harrt elich man}" (/ hero waitsforyou in solitude j ~---.--=:= ,j.== i~~' (lllsdrucksvolf i ------------~ i . . i -===== benjamin binder ~ ihm~ ~~ -r~r[" j i i 3' = i p 'ii lj illancher helu. > d the maternal authority of kundry's voice, ensured by these musical and historical connections to herzeleide, can blend effortlessly into seductive sensuality, as her next utterance shows (example 5). g major becomes the site of kundry's attempt to manipulate parsifal's memories and emotions. here kundry is addressing the flower maidens with her words, enacting another motherly gesture by sending them off to bed (that is, to the beds 69 70 current musicology example 6: act ii, mm. 509-13. 509f1 i flower maiden lb. i ~ so wiu,l du uns wohl niehl 50~ [lebhaftj so you really doni! want to strike us '! h_ i i i. -if ............... /\ ~ ------~ '0 r dd' 'ii"r ~ .. , t ~ "i flower maiden ib " '/\ ~ schla gen? flower maiden lib. /\ l , )1 £ £ i i ~ willsl utis nicht schla gen? }fju don l { want to strike us'! /\ parsifal. .~ das mocht l ich niehl. j don it want to. 511/\ i~"'~i ~ 1~ u.....j '-u j......l...j ~3~ fi ,----. r3' ~ ,~~ ~ .. .. ~~7' • , ,~j of their wounded heroes), but her music anticipates that of the narrative discourse soon to follow, in which she beguilingly informs parsifal of the heartbreaking effect that his negligence toward his mother had wrought. at the start of this passage in m. 757, the open-position g-major sonority of m. 749 alternates with a kind of whole-tone neighbor chord, rocking back and forth in the manner of a cozy biedermeier lullaby. the gentle chromaticism and winding scalar voice leading of the ensuing muttermusik subtly evolve into the flower maidens' alluring sounds. notice, for example, the affinity between the music of"welkende blumen" and "ward er zum spiele;' indicated by the brackets in mm. 762-65 of example 5. the diatonic contour of the first phrase, smoothly doubled by the first violins, becomes the chromatic line of the second phrase, with frilly ornamentation in the second violins that benjamin binder expands the sonic sensuality of kundry's singing voice. in m. 765, the first violins let kundry's flowery melodic vine spool itself out even further, beyond the end of her sung line. mm. 764-68 repeatedly invoke the characteristic harmonic progression of the flower maidens themselves, with its distinctive chromatic voice exchange (see example 6 for the maidens' music). at the end of the passage, kundry's laughter motif erupts in the first violins in mm. 768-69, slowed down into a coy chuckle in this context but recognizable nonetheless. it is as though kundry is putting on the accent of a soothing mother for the benefit of her flower maidens (and with parsifal in earshot), while her native manner of expression-that of a magic seductress, in league with the flower maidens-occasionally presses to the surface. the crucial point, however, is that while we in the audience can hear the shifting inflections of kundry's voice, parsifal cannot. in all his "pure foolishness," parsifal cannot distinguish between the different kinds of feminine discourse being thrown at him, and so he takes them all in together as a fascinating but confusing melange. more specifically, what parsifal is not yet able to discern is that kundry is guilty of committing one of the classic faux pas of wagnerian jews, a phenomenon we might call "bad mimesis." marc weiner (1996) and david levin (1996) have identified the theoretical expostulation of this phenomenon in wagner's writings and connected its actual practice to wagner's depiction of the fiendish dwarf mime in siegfried and the bumbling pedant beckmesser in die meistersinger von nurnberg respectively.4! for wagner, the jew was the exponent of a coarse realism (an extension, of course, of his decadent modernity) that mistook external form for inner content. in order to make himself understood as an artist, the jew might imitate the surface features of the natural, authentic volk with whom he hopes to ingratiate himself, but his work will always appear strange to them, since he can never truly access the ideal that lies behind their transcendental mode of expression. as wagner put it in the judentum essay, "upon hearing jewish talk, our attention involuntarily dwells more on the repellent how, than on the what contained therein" (1911, vol. 5:71 ).42 weiner's best example of bad mimesis is the scene in act i of siegfried in which mime aims to trick the hero of the opera's title into drinking a sleeping potion. mime hopes to distract siegfried by flattering the boy with what he himself calls "intimate deceit-speech [traulichem truggeredel." if mime succeeds, he can kill siegfried and steal the hoard of gold that the boy has wrested from the dragon fafner. with suspiciously saccharine musical rhetoric, mime approaches siegfried with the drink, but his words are what give the game away. although he sings with a prettified lilt and affects a kindly physical demeanor, mime simultaneously makes admissions such as "i only want to chop off the boy's head [ich will dem kind nur den kopf 71 72 current musicology example 7: act ii, mm. 823-43. h2~ kundry. .. i viel +ti~l sah clas kind an sci-ncr mut icr brust, scin 82jfl (l'lrm; sellr massig lind ruhig. 1 sal'\! the child upon its l11()ther~\' breast, ~--~ .....,...., ~.. ;-::f:==:-.'~"q* r #r~· r p ----;----;: r' r 'i -=== ==@) cr stcs lal jen l::~cht mir n~ch im itsjir.)'! hahh/e.\' .'lim l({ligh i11m}" eal": 8''fi~~-1 oj ~i' f=--------------r~ ~ 'i 'i 854 v fl ~ fi ohr: clas 1't lcid~_ i~n l~er-zen, wic with sl!llerill'j in her hearl, ~. i • :---, i~ __ "i ~ .. ~ lach-tc ja auch her-lc h0l1 j her::.cleide stiff laughed, lei "dc, als;or ih rcnschmer as thisfeastfnr her eyes 7cn zujauch '= ztc_ . r--t-:, . ---:------. i ~l vw v, -mf. ~_ ~ -m.'1l p. abhau' n 1 !" sign and signified fail to correspond, and siegfried saves himself by exposing the (jewish) deception. mime's mimesis (pun intended) is "bad" in both senses of the term: it is defectively carried out and viciously intended. while kundry does not semiotically err as obviously as mime, she does let slip some musical signs that undermine the beneficent credibility of her words. we can perceive these moments of semiotic dissonance, but parsifal is still deaf to them. benjamin binder example 8: act ii, illill. 855-58. 855 kundry. thall der mut ter thr'i ncn. nur 855 {the hoi] dew u~ elwas belebend. -ii ii , --1 u j. llj· r . '----(l(fsdrucksvoll pii/]! pilip l. = i .-~.~i i r i . p. -} thus the sectional formality and relatively conventional musical lan­ guage of what happens next-kundry's lengthy narrative about herzeleide's motherhood, suffering, and death-might impress us as insincere and manipulative. but for parsifal, kundry's tale about his mother is deeply engrossing, inspiring profound regret and yearning.43 to the contemporary listener, the music of kundry's narrative may have sounded faintly like a grand-opera aria. its opening section (example 7) begins in m. 825 with the same lullaby chords from mm. 757ff (see example 5). this section maintains a fairly persistent g-major tonal center and initially unfolds in three discrete three-measure phrases (mm. 825-33) whose melodies each begin one step higher than that of the previous phrase. it modulates deliberately, with an almost classical purity, to the dominant in mm. 837-39, and immediately thereafter it rounds itself off with a half cadence on the dominant of g in m. 839 before returning to the original lullaby material in the next bar, kicking off a new section. similarly strong formal articulations follow: the full cadence (if elided) in the tonic in mm. 857-58 (example 8), the solid approach to a d-major cadence in mm. 892-94 that elides into a g-major cadence in m. 895, itself resolved deceptively into e~ major and the onset of new thematic material in m. 896 (example 9), and the humble close in d major to conclude the narrative in mm. 913-15, sentimentalized by the turn figure in m. 912 that leads to the appoggiatura climax of the phrase in m. 913. even a touch of modal mixture (the inner-voice b~) is thrown in to tug just a little more firmly at the heartstrings (example 10).44 like the fawning melodic style of the flower maidens' big musical number, worthy of operetta (example 11), the cloying chromaticism of kundry's tale also adds a touch of cheapness (in the context of wagner's otherwise more radical use of chromaticism in parsifal) that hints at meyerbeer and the decadent jewish culture, the vain striving for effect, that wagner associated with him (r. wagner 1911, vol. 5:81-83). 73 74 current musicology example 9: act ii, mm. 892-98. 892 kundry. ward dir ... did you really hecome 8921'\ i~~ u dilll. y q~~.j.---ji wieder ctwas mehr zuriickhaltend. 89~ j,i i i ..--------.. i . . i~r' 897 1'\ 1/ u we he du nlehl "vcr did no! perccil'c her woe, j.-~~ p i r ~~e nahm'st, nicht sen bang? ii, rei' i r~ l-____ =-=r=== : i "--------i dbch, ye/you sehmcr ihr zen nor {the rages] of her pain. 89j., j,i p {t;thelehcjld. ~ i i u jjf~:f ~~f ii' h~f: h .... " .... iig~ p ~ ~=---: ~, s 3 ~. ~ 3 f~r ~ + p. + in fact, we already know that another crafty stage magician is behind this devious discourse: klingsor. earlier in act ii, having subdued kundry into carrying out his plans, klingsor exclaims, "haha! i know the magic well which always binds you again to my service [haha! den zauber wusst' ich wahl, der immer dich wieder zum dienst mir geselltl!" his words are accompanied at first in mm. 394-95 by two bars of music directly associated with herzeleide (see example 12). this same motif appeared in act i as parsifal spoke of his past (mm. 904-7) and specifically of his mother (mm. 937-40). the motif has also been a recurrent component of kundry's herzeleide narrative in act ii. in mm. 832-33 she sings it to show that the literal meaning of herzeleide's name is no accident, and in mm. 835--36 the orchestra develops it as kundry sings of herzeleide's pain [schmerzen 1 (see example 7). kundry concludes benjamin binder example 10: act ii, mm. 910-15. 910 kundry 1\ ii u warb: ihr brach clas leid ftdas f~ und hcrl,~ 910 /shej collrted fa quiet death}: slijrting hroke her heart, (llld~ "1\ ii sehr lang sam . i u qr ... ....' #f· it r #r qlt~ piup i piup i r' j' # r 9131\ ii " u her· le . lei· (k sl,7;b [-[crzcleide died. 9131\ ii / -----.. ~ bewegler, doch nieht schnell. 3 ii i u r' ~r h, .. ~ ...... ~ .... ~ ........ ../ pp p mo/to cresc. -==== , r' her narrative with yet more wordplay on herzeleide's name-"suffering broke her heart, and heart-of-suffering died [ihr brach das leid das herz, und herzeleide starb]"-and in mm. 9lo-12 we hear herzeleide's motif again in the orchestra (see example 10). when klingsor sings above the motif in mm. 394-95 (again, see example 12), it ultimately looses itself into the sorcerer's swirling magic motif in mm. 396ff. remembering this earlier invocation of magic, we may regard kundry's use of the herzeleide motif in her narrative as cunning and calculated. even as she apes the language of parsifal's mother at klingsor's behest, the voice of the (jewish) other still gives itself away. we must also remember, of course, that kundry did witness what she narrates; as gurnemanz said, kundry never lies. but it is kundry's musical delivery of this information, her "voice;' that leads us to regard her as a suspicious other. (ultimately, this other's voice will also turn out to be a construction; for now it is one of kundry's convincing poses.) in the approach to her kiss, kundry takes advantage of the musical manipulation that she has wrought thus far, concocting a thick, intoxicating brew of motifs that ultimately overwhelms parsifal at the same time as it appears fairly transparent to us (example 13). as kundry elaborately invites parsifal to heal his guilty pain by fulfilling his mother's wishes in romantic 75 76 current musicology example 11: act ii, mm. 567-70. 5!i7 flower maiden chorus i. '1\ v ~ u i i i komm'!_ kol11m'!~ hoi del' kna be' come.' come.! dear boy/ 1\ i v --------, u ~ -------.,/ komm'l_ komm'!_ hoi der kna be' 1\ i cornel collie! deal:~ v ,-j .. ~ .. -------.,/ .. komm'!_ komm'!_ hoi del' kna be! come' come! dear buy i 56~~ i leicht bewegl i ' i i~'i 1 u .. ~ .. ,---,./ .. i t j1p j~ j ..---....~ j ~ i ~ i~------i love, her scornful laughter motif sometimes bubbles up to the surface of the orchestral texture-see the clarinet in m. 960, the flute in m. 966 (revealing the source of kundry's broader vocal melody in the same bar), and the first violins' cascade at the end of m. 971. kundry's own magic motif (m. 967) flows into a passionately pulsating development of herzeleide's music that signifies the promise of joyous family reunion (mm. 968-71). earlier, the orchestra had played herzeleide's music with similar passion as kundry sang of her warm embrace of her chilld. but this climactic moment ended abruptly in m. 892 (see example 9) as kundry chided parsifal for denying his mother the intimacy she fervently desired: "did you really become afraid of kissing [ward dir es wahl gar beim j(ussen bang]?" now, in mm. 971-72, this momentum collapses back into kundry's magic motif, leading ultimately to the end of the seduction. to seal her success, kundry stokes the fire of parsifal's regret by remind­ ing him of his negligence toward his mother. in mm. 978-80, kundry sings the rueful appoggiatura motif first introduced in mm. 895-98 after the chiding mentioned above (again, see example 9-"yet you did not perceive her woe [dach, ihr wehe du nicht vernahm'st]"). with the very same motif, kundry now offers parsifal a chance to rewrite history by accepting her kiss "as the final greeting of a mother's blessing [als muttersegen's letzten gruss ]." kundry skillfully weaves together the elements of an oedipal guilt benjamin binder example 12: act ii, mm. 389-400. 389 klingsor , b~ #,-. wic" schon am werk? what/loll'? already at work? 389!'j j,i ~3r1 6 3 *6"~ .!' i"t""i i u p l:::1::l=i tf··~··~ f , o~_~_~ j,i .0,9' ,~~ #8 -:¥, -~ 12 6 + p. 393 ~ .. ha-ha' den zan ber ,~. i ~ wnsst'leh wohl._ 11a-iui'! kllow the magic well, 393!'j j,i bcwcf{t. ---------u ~s;?::o--------71 ~. ~ w71 * 2c.r.f "qr dllll. rttfii9 f9 p -=== .~ i ii p r~r' r' ~. f i97 ~ .. ~d b ..... der im-mcrdich wie der zum dienst mirge sellt! -which always hinds you again to my service.' d~1~ ij,ljj~1 #1~ ujqj 39~ j,i : u r; ~~i = = pitip i ..-.,--, i vf' .. ~ .. f· ... #r gr #r t p. ~-----______________ -----trip with the thrilling sexuality of her magic, moving steadily and seamlessly from motif to motif. we can see (that is, hear) the individual strands in the treacherous tapestry, but parsifal is simply enveloped by it. with the kiss, of course, parsifal learns of the sinful desire that lies behind amfortas's wound, comes to realize the meaning of the christian ritual he had witnessed in act i, and accepts his mission to redeem the 77 78 current musicology example 13: act ii, mm. 956-983. f~r' f~r' f~r' lj60 3 er-kennt-niss in sinn die thor heit~ know/edge will turnfoo/ishllcss into sense. ii sr '~ jl'j ~ j' i ~ j' ~ 'i 'i r i f mr 1m ~f p wenden. die lie be ler ne lcarll to knolv the folie, ken nen, 0641'1 ttnich!_eilen! ~ t\ t\-ii j."--jlj .. 0) !.i~i· i v , "ll~ pp ~ ~""!. ~"'~..b-; ~ ",'1,..' ~ ~. ,.. to. p.' ... p. p. ~r' ... als her zc-je-id's ent­ bclchcl;~hen hef'zeleide's r.~ i knights of montsalvat and the king whom they serve. what i want to focus on here is the way that parsifal's newfound knowledge gives him the abil­ ity to unravel the tapestry of kundry's bad mimesis. as parsifal's flood of understanding subsides for a moment, kundry tries to refocus his attention on her as his beloved (example 14, mm. 1094-99). but parsifal immediately sees through her maneuver. as kundry caressingly entwines herself around benjamin binder example 13 continued. p. + fl u leib und leben cinst dir r hen, hd: r tod undt:,0r hell wei chen ge y7_~ ,vho once gave yoli ho(zji to whom death alld j()()/is/llicss mllst yidd, ..--.--, u ~ ~* ~~ \1~. l\* pilip pp d. ~ '1)<'j.'~.' ~"~+ ~~ + 976 p p fl u muss, bcul~~ elir hcut' __ als mut teroffers you (uday, as the final y7(/\ ---~gedchnt. -~ u ~./ 1'" " r' :r r . 'r ~ y pp ~i h j .--------------j phip ~k i : : i i r~i r~~.· + fl u letzten 6rll"~ dcr lic er ~:n ~!s! mother's bfessink, /ove:\'jirst 979fl ---------irmncr lang.~alllcr -schr langsam. _~ 1 ~ : u 1>,.-, ~ r f 'f~' ~ ~f!rv~ pp ersterhend ~~:h~ ~ -;---pi1 ~ : -~" r p ~-& !i.(.p. p. + him, reenacting the seductive physical gestures she made during her original approach to the kiss, parsifal stares intently at her and observes what we might anachronistically call a video replay of that event (example 14, mm. 1099-1116; see also the stage directions in mm. 1095ff).as parsifal describes kundry's actions in the manner of a play-by-play announcer, we hear a miniature version of the earlier musical texture from kundry's buildup to the 79 80 curlrent musicology example 14: act ii, mm. 1094-1116. ~ gc lob ter held! cnt-tlich clem wahn! blick'auf, sci hold del' hul din promised hero.' escape from madness! look lip. he kind to yoii.i' bclo~?pmach.' schr lang'>am. --===== > ~ .,-,.;-" . ------pp r p nah'n!_ parsifal. ja! dje-~e stimmel so fief sie f(l9~ u solo violi"-,, ~-_____ fre ye~'/ rills voice.' like this she called 10 hill!. schrau,i"(!ruc~ d, __ ~ 11()2 unci icscn blick. deutlich er-kcnn' ieh ibn, and this look 1 c!earf), recogl1ize it. this' one too, s()i(l>1~~ ~ auchdic-scn, ihm; >=====r---3~ 3 ll(~ clef ihm :-'0 fried 10:-' that laughed at him so reslless/r; cl _________ _____., __ ~-~===.e! n = pp ,---3 ----' r-;:! -----, ----------------. kiss, seen in example 13.45 there, a plush carpet of steadily pulsating string chords supported kundry's broad singing line; the interspersed flare-ups of her laughter motif were only momentary distractions, and parsifal was not even aware of them. here, a solo violin and clarinet trade off syrupy flights of kundry's laughter above a jerky, nervous accompaniment in the muted upper strings.46 through the speakers of his transcendental television, then, benjamin binder example 14 continued. 1/07 kuhn clas cres('. parsifal hears a tinny reproduction of kundry's earlier musical discourse, reduced from a perplexing and engulfing din of motifs to its barest, "truest" essentials. the replay shows that kundry's seduction was really much ado about nothing. the tenderness of her physical gestures in example 14 does not match the frenetic emptiness of her music, which consists of nothing but her laughter motif, developed from time to time into mawkishly sweet roulades. 81 82 current musicology example 15: act ii, mm. 1142~50. 114' 111 ii kundry. ~j scil vn.l for 114~ ausdrucksvoll -~::r:::r, ---------_ii /~ i u -=::::: f "'. •. p i ~#~ ~~, ,he, ~ > 1147 i~ ii u kci .1 _ deiner, e wig ten har re lch eternity i've waited!or you, 1111 ii -'1~i i '--3~~~ ~d~~ : i ~) 1 j . "!~ -'3 oj 3 p-===== iff30 u~j p n ~ i ~ ~ ~~. ~ p. having seen kundry for what she "really" is-a cackling witch playing the part of a comforting mother and passionate lover-parsifal is horrified and wants to cast her away. he turns off the replay in mm. 1120-22 (after the end of example 14) with a telling choice of words: "corrupter! get away from me [verderberin! weiche von mir l!" bad mimesis, the source of jewish artistic corruption, had almost managed to ensure parsifal's spiritual corruption as well, and like any genuine member of the german yolk, he is repulsed by the spectacle. indeed, the feverish, maudlin hyperactivity of example 14 is perhaps the most superficially "jewish" music in parsifal, in the terms set by wagner's judentum essay; it is "an unbearably contorted yakking" which "by no means ever rises to the arousal of a higher, more heartwarming passion" (1911, vol. 5:71),47 much as "parrots imitate human words and speaking in their squawking, but likewise without expression and genuine emotion" (75).48 now if parsifal has de constructed kundry entirely, act ii could come to a close forthwith. the problem of kundry has been solved-her duplici­ tous voice has been exposed as such and rendered harmless-and parsifal ought to go on and defeat klingsor. but there is more to kundry than what benjamin binder parsifal has seen and heard so far. at this point, kundry sheds the voice of the seductive other and finally lets her own story be heard, beginning in ill. 1146 (see example 15). right before she launches into that story ("for eternity i've waited for you ... [seit ewigkeiten harre ich deiner . .. ]"), we hear the music that parsifal had just associated with kundry's bad mimesis; compare mm. 1099-1100 in example 14 with mm. 1142-46 in example 15. in the latter passage, all the first violins play the melody, which has now been rhythmically expanded, increasing its acoustic heft and substance. the violins play "expressively [ausdrucksvoll]" and with two enormous crescendos to forte (m. 1143) and fortissimo (m. 1146), while the orchestra lays into the two accompanying chords with a heavier scoring, ironing out their previous agitation. with the volume turned up this high, the speakers of parsifal's transcendental television glow white-hot and explode. kundry breaks through the screen and grabs us by the shoulders, insisting on the immediacy and authenticity of her musical persona. she will not be written off as an ineffectual construction, a mere illusion resulting from a semiotic sleight -of-hand-she is real. 49 because of this conspicuous dropping of pretense, kundry's jaw­ dropping account of how she laughed at christ (example 1) can have a direct impact on us, and the force of this impact will continue to be felt throughout act iii. the immediate continuation of this scene is given in example 16. here kundry tells us of her encounter with christ's gaze which set in motion the curse that has plagued her ever since. the entire scene is framed by ominous timpani triplets (recall mm.1175-76 of example 1 and see mm. 1189-90 of example 16). these same sounds punctuated the former grail king titurel's first utterance in act i, when he beseeched his son amfortas to reveal the grail in a stark but urgent off-stage bass voice accompanied by nothing but these sporadic drumbeats. the aura of the paternal voice, with all its distant, archaic authority, is now transferred to christ himself and, by extension, to kundry's remembrance of him. 50 after kundry startles us by confessing and re-enacting her primal laughter (followed by bronfen's "psychic gap" in sound), the orchestra creeps back in with the music of christ's gaze in mm. 1184-89. this begins as a stretched-out variation on the circle-of-fifths chromaticism associated with amfortas's pain (mm. 1184-first half of 1186), but now this music is specifically connected with a direct encounter with christ, and kundry is the one who makes this possible. kundry is the only character to have actually received christ's gaze, even if in condemnation. only she has heard his music and understood its meaning. this is the music we hear in mm. 1186-88, music that seems to stop time: a languorous turn figure lands on c# minor, subito piit piano, breaking the circle-of-fifths sequence and unfolding into its own distinc83 84 curlrent musicology example 16: act ii, mm. 1184-91. 1184 " kundry. fj ~77-. cla traf mich wieder sehr lang~_ then upon mejfll--118;" ~~~ ti~"lbj~n~j797 ~.j tij ,j ii j!~ l : ~ p pilip u ~~ ~~:3 -ejlss -,., fj -. sein blick' his aaze' jj88~··j! ~ ~ l r pp timpani -i ........ pp.l tive phrase before trailing out into a minor on a single strand of melody in mm. 1189ff. we have heard this music a few times before, during act i; by connecting some of those moments together, we can see why kundry's invocation of this music in act ii is special. the music first appears in the prelude to act i (see example 22, mm. 99-100), following several instances of the spear motif (see the "ausdrucksvoll" melodic lines in mm. 95-98) which each decay chromatically, much as the blood of amfortas and christ seeped from their bodies after being struck by the spear. in a letter to king ludwig ii dated november 12, 1880, wagner apparently connected mm. 99-100 to our hopes for amfortas's salvation: "will the suffering of his soul that eats away at him become redemption [wird seinem nagenden seelenleiden erlosung werden l?" but without wagner's letter in front of us, we are hardly likely to attach such a concrete significance to mm. 99-100. indeed, wagner wrote that after we hear the music shown in example 22, " we are prepared for amfortas [auf amfortas ... sind wir vorbereitet l" and his struggle, implying that the music is not meant specifically to depict them at this point (geck and voss 1970:46).51 benjamin binder the second time we hear this music is during the orchestral interlude in act i that accompanies the scene change from the forest surrounding montsalvat to the knights' temple itself. in mm. 1123-26, we hear amfortas's circle-of-fifths pain music, but at full blast with the entire orchestra playing fortissimo, "preparing" us again for the actual scene of amfortas's suffer­ ing we will witness later in the act. the pain music subsides dynamically and registrally into material that virtually duplicates example 16 in mm. 1127-29.52 now, however, the continuation of the turn figure (m. 1187 of example 16) is fragmented and sequenced upward in the violins in small but irregular intervals, and the whole string ensemble churns in dense chromatic polyphony. this wrenching development finally claws its way into mm. 1134ff, where amfortas's pain music breaks out again in the full orchestra. the connection of example 16's music to amfortas is made stronger here, but at this point it may only connote some lower level of pain, a momentary respite that can be overtaken by the full anguish of the wound at any moment. in fact, according to william kinderman, wagner was not even planning to include this developmental section at all, until it became clear that the scene change would take more time than expected. only then did wagner reluctantly insert this passage, although as kinderman has argued, it does make possible the powerful resurgence of amfortas's pain music (l995b:150-55). once the scene has changed, we see the knights of montsalvat gath­ ered for communion. in m. 1207, we hear mm. 1187-88 of example 16 compressed into one bar, as the knights sing of how christ suffered "with a thousand pains, how once his blood flowed [mit tausend schmerzen, wie einst sein blut geflossen] " in order to save the souls of mankind. this begins to grant dramatic meaning to the passage, and not the meaning we might have expected. in amfortas's tortured monologue to the knights later in act i, we finally hear example 16's music (again, withoutthe turn figure) situated repeatedly within a lexical context (see example l7).53 in mm. 1369-75, the orchestra wails away with amfortas's pain music, and in between the outbreaks of pain (mm. 1369 and 1372), we hear the music of example 16, specifically mm. 1187-88-the same music that was agonizingly fragmented and sequenced in the passage from the act i orchestral interlude discussed above. now, however, amfortas's words clarify to whom that music and its mollifying effect truly belong: christ. singing of his wound in example 17, amfortas notes that he had been assaulted by the same spear "that there [on golgotha] inflicted the wound upon the redeemer, out of which the divine one wept with tears of blood on behalf of mankind's shame in compassion's holy yearning [der dort dem erliiser die wunde stach, aus der mit blut'gen 85 86 curr"ent musicology example 17: act i, ll1ll1. 1369-75. 1369 am~'ortas. der dort clem er 10 sci' die wun de stach, thai there i1?f/icted the wound ujjon the redeemer, gedchnt und brcit. :-:~c=~;;;;;;~=_ f p. j371 + p. + del' mit blut'-gen thra-nen clef gott ii chc wei nt' q/wljich the divine one wept with tears afblood ~+ 1373 sehncn, p. p --== thriinen der gottliche weint' ob der menschheit schmach in mitleid's heiligem sehnenl." mm. 1187-88 of example 16, as they appear here in amfortas's monologue, ultimately represent christ's saving pity. amfortas conflates himself with christ here at the same time as he longs for the healing salva­ tion that christ suffered for on the cross. but this moment of fantasy cannot last; amfortas is not christ, and only the "pure fool" who learns compassion (because of kundry) can save him. because of arnfortas' s monologue, we now know that this music signifies christ's pitying love for mankind.54 but nothing has prepared us for kundry's primal scene in act ii (examples 1 and 16), where this music appears, as it were, in its original historical context. 55 the breathtaking harmonic and benjamin binder dynamic shift on the downbeat of m.11s7, as though christ catches kundry's eye precisely at that moment; the prolonged unwinding of the turn figure in m. 11s6 (missing entirely from amfortas's monologue), undisturbed by any other musical activity and thereby commanding our complete attention; the sense of looking through a window onto the past, created by the frame of the timpani's isolated, gloomy beating and the slow-motion effect of the entire scene: all these things grant a weighty authenticity and legitimacy to mm. 11s6-ss that the previous incarnations of this music never approach. most importantly, kundry, not amfortas, reveals herself in this moment to be the opera's most direct connection to christ and the music of his gaze. this music, unlike her dissembling seduction music, cannot be deconstructed or unmasked. it becomes a critical element of her musical persona-from now on, this music is her cross to bear. but how will kundry achieve redemption? one of the principal musi­ cal manifestations of redemption in parsifal is melodic transfiguration: a melody that consistently appears in a frustrated form ultimately flourishes into something more elaborate and substantial that audibly overcomes the frustration. (we will observe such transfiguration in act iii.) after kundry's primal scene finally dissipates, she sings of her wretched condition, in which she must "look for him from world to world, in order to encounter him again [such: .. ihn von welt zu welt, ihm wieder zu begegnenj" and end her curse (example is). as she sings, the music of christ's gaze is sequenced upward in the orchestra by major thirds, starting on harmonies of c minor in m. 119s, e minor in m. 1201 and a~ minor in m. 1204. the tune, with its characteristic turn figure, is seeking some melodic outlet, some fuller continuation or completion, but it searches in vain, plunging desperately in mm. 1206-7 into fragmentation and the downward spiral of a circle of fifths before collapsing in c minor in m. 120s. it is as though christ had stuck this melodic fragment in kundry's head, and she is cursed to have it echoing there forever, always in this frustratingly laconic form. 56 soon kundry reverts to her hysteric's voice, vacillating between terrible laughter and erotic pleading, and parsifal can write her off again as the victim of petty earthly desire. her singing voice, however, will not be nudged off the stage without a fight. kundry sings a high b three more times in act ii. the first of these occurs in mm. 1356-57, in the context of a bitterly sarcastic diatribe against parsifal: "so it was my kiss that gave you such penetrating vision into the world? then let my embraces, full oflove, win godliness for you."57 on the first syllable of "godliness," kundry launches into a high b that lasts for five long beats. her brutal vocal blast suggests that she has no respect for parsifal's supposedly divine mission. 5b in m.1405, another high b pops out at the peak of a prolonged section of kundry's laughter; this is the passage that smith was talking about when he noted the "eruption" of "the outrageously gestural kundry" in act ii. finally, in the very last phrase we 87 88 current musicology example 18: act ii, mm. 1194-1208. sehr leidenschafilich 1194 -<if ~]}(lc'ol'al1. t i'..~ p. ich ihn 1202 p. t p. -tkundry. acee!. nun noh' hear her sing in act ii (mm. 1483-85), kundry ends on a high b, sentenc­ ing parsifal to the same endless wandering she has had to suffer for eons as klingsor appears with the spear. klingsor is soon dispatched and the spear recovered for montsalvat, but the primal scene that defined kundry's authentic voice will not be forgotten. in fact, it needs to be addressed in act iii, so that parsifal can "redeem the redeemer," in the language of the opera's last words. parsifal can only effect this redemption through kundry, since the music of the passion (mm. 1179-80 of example 1) and of christ's compassionate, saving gaze belong to her. benjamin binder example 19: act iii, 111111. 38-60. fl is h 1 c r <1ngsam cl. ~ (g i' f uri/email::, agf!( 111 () ({ii () id 111(/1/, -oj ~ ~u r -y r 'r t r~r or i--,,-r:=:~ f dolce pi~p ~ timpani / , .~~ : i \ -____________ ' i i-~ d 1 p. rl~r + 1 i i p. -===:==~ p. {i g i k i i {ii i i r i ,., ress(!, (is ({ !cr!}// 1'c(lrlng 011 y i 1(' lillie (~ l/(! 1"(/1 /iig li.s, .\fe js uti (~ ie lui (l11( is cii.i'. 0) r ~r~~r ~~~ ~,:oo"" .... · • ~~~ .... q""q~ ~~.~~~"".~ .... ~ pp pp : qg , g~g , u g ~+ p . + • 8 gurnemanz. •• h von dorl her bun das sloh-nell. so jam mer vollklagt kcin wild. from over there the groaning c({iiic 48,., ~ no hells! lfolild liloali so \\'retciledh; ~ = c====h'*p~'_' • p. + 52 : und y ,~n hei-lig-stcn mor gen heut', 52fl this holiest ()(/j10rnillgs'~ ~i,,.j~ : 0) l ~f r f··""..:j f3 ~ ;"'-."" ~r " (ii/sdl lekl'fo/if i j : 'i i r i' 56 56 (dulf gmallillg (?fkundr.-v's mice.) -:;; oj i ~ ~r:;'c pp r"'i'i"""1 i 0"'&, :6i: b~ :6i:~ mich dunkl, ichkcn-~c le-::.en kia gc rur. ilftink i f(:coglllze ihat lal/1enting cry. __________ be/chelld. p mf ~i as the curtain rises on act iii, however, we gradually discover that kundry can no longer occupy her music with any subjective power. motifs associated with her continue to course through the orchestral fabric (see example 19), including the flower maidens' chromatic voice-exchange motif (mm. 39-44, led by the clarinet) and her own magic motif (mm. 45-48) as well as klingsor's (mm. 48-51). unfortunately, kundry is unable 89 90 current musicology example 20: act iii, mm. 80~ 110. 80 gurnemanz. diess-mal hielt _ ieh sie fur todt:_ this time 1 tn/~v thought she lh1s dead: lan 'sam. muted horns qq!~ cb. pizz ppp r3 3 : doch war's ihr stolt-nen,was ieh ver nahm? 83 " yet vvas it her groans that i heard'! ii +l sehr ian{tsam. poco rit. 1 u =-1 -'== .~~-~ r!l~ ~~' ~ --==== ausdrucksvol : ~ r~v"l .......::i (a \ kill/dry fic/be/ore gurnefl/oflz., comptelely stilf he rub,1 her hallds (lnt! temple,i" vigorously, (llid does his best to relax her s(wiress.) 88 alimahlich etwas helebcnd. f=-~= = ===== dim. 3 (or unwilling, as bronfen would claim) to harness them into the service of self-expression by using her singing voice. the only sound to come from her mouth is a non-musical groaning (actually voiced on stage in mm. 57-58) that jarringly alienates her from the orchestral texture. gurnemanz has heard this groaning and tries to awaken her to life with the promise of spring, but his attempt fails. "this time i truly thought she was dead [diessmal hielt ich benjamin binder example 20 continued. j()i! ""'iih~i --==== " (she awakens/idly ~ -~ -~~~ " ~ u ~u\ •. ~r~ f" f'----l-diiidttl w 1-----"j !oj. j; ~.~~. e ~r p. + p. r 104 as she opens her e.-f'es a she lets our a ci)'.) p.·~· i07schnci'j~ .~ 'fl t 1. .".,~~~ .. " e(wa~cr . : !d/v 12 3 3 if' -f lb~: ~. i ii~ : : • . ~ . + p. sie wahl fur tadt] ," he exclaims in mm. 80-82, and on the word "dead" in m. 82, a ceremonious pizzicato figure in the contrabasses appears (see example 20) which will recur at the moment of kundry's baptism. he then wonders in mm. 83-84 if he had not been mistaken after all: "yet was it her groans that i heard [dach war's ihr stohnen, was ich vernahm]?" gurnemanz is very aware of the sound of kundry's voice (as opposed to the sound of her music in the orchestra, which is giving away her sullied history). it compels him to look for her on stage as a living physical presence that must be reckoned with. but unless kundry resumes her flexible singing voice to become a musical subject again, gurnemanz will not be able to understand her as such. in the cello recitative that follows (again, see example 20, starting in m. 88), i think we hear kundry's voice-her proto-singing voice, as it were-struggling to break out into subjective expression again. the cellos are surrounded by motivic intimations of gurnemanz's music in praise of good friday from moments before (see example 19, mm. 53-55; it recurs in mm. 87-88,90-91,93-94,96-97, and 100-1), as well as echoes of the flower maidens' chromatic laments (see mm. 97-99 and 101-3). yet the cellos play in a fluidly expressive, motivically free parlanda whose melodic richness is not bound to any of the symbolic musical codes that the opera has established thus far. in his article on parsifal, steinberg points to a similar display of melodic individuality in wagner's gotterdammerung; in act ii, with the words "bright steel! holy weapon! [helle wehr! heilige waffe!] ," brunnhilde silences her husband siegfried, who is not owning up to his 91 92 current musicology betrayal of her, by seizing his sword and singing outside the range of the opera's motivic repertoire. as steinberg states, "brtinnhilde easily controls the motivic language and achieves subjectivity and lyricism by liberating herself from the burden of leitmotivic submission" (1996:163-64). the merits of steinberg's specific musicall observation are debatable, but the interpretive notion is intriguing. in act iii of parsifal, the cello line of mm. 88-105 promises kundry a similar liberation, if only she would sing it, over and against the semantically and musically fixed motifs that are mere objects in the absence of her subjectivizing voice. at the climax of this passage, however, an old leitmotivic habit tragically locks back into place. as kundry finally opens her eyes in m. 104, she thinks she is having a holy vision; the "dresden amen," a conventional liturgical melody that signifies general holiness in parsifal, appears in mm. 104-6, as it did when kundry hallucinated christ's benevolent gaze, ending her curse, shortly after her primal scene in act ii (mm. 1216-20). but now as then, the fantasy of redemption crumbles with the eruption of kundry's laughter motif in the orchestra in mm. 107ff, and where we might expect her to sing, kundry releases another wordless cry. kundry's subjective voice cannot pierce through the encrusted shell ofleitmotivic objects that congeal around her. in the music that follows, the flexible cello line gradually expires, replaced by the music of kundry's servitude from act i (see example 2 for the final stage of the expiration). shut off from vocal access to her music (or perhaps unwilling to access it, as the case may be), kundry yields it entirely to the orchestra, so that, as she says in mm. 136-37, it may be of "service" to gurnemanz and parsifal, enabling their own realizations of redemption. here is kundry's first untergang; her voice permanently"goes under" into the orchestra, beneath the floorboards of bayreuth, leaving the air unperturbed by the penetrating and problematizing sound of her singing. the most stunning example of kundry's "service" takes place during her second untergang-her baptism, setting in motion the music of the so-called good friday spell (example 21). parsifal's first redemptive act in act iii is to bring kundry into the fold of christian believers to the accompaniment of the solemn processional music of montsalvat (mm. 615-22). soon this baptism will give rise to the redemption of the entire natural world. first, however, kundry's connection to christ must be invoked, since without it, this redemption would be an empty gesture. moreover, kundry's baptism cannot be an instant celebration, but instead must "cost sweat, misery, anxieties, and the depths of suffering and pain," as wagner put it in the judentum essay. in mm. 621-22, as kundry continues to "weep violently;' the processional music seizes up on an augmented triad, and all motion ceases. in mm. 623-25, we hear the pizzicato motif associated with kundry's subjective death (example 20, mm. 82-83), followed by the music of christ's benjamin binder example 21: act iii, mm. 615-39. 6/~ (kundrv ',illks her head deeplr to the {{rolllu!she w'(!i1l'l' to ~vet'p violcntlv) u i i i r' r r r' p ,..d. ~ .. j. ,.j ... ~: ~ ~ j. : (j2/ sehr langsam. glfsdrucksl'ol1 > (parsifal turns aroulld (lnd ga:es ill gejlfle "rapture °lljjon"./ic/d ~l!ldlo;'est! h'i1ich (ire noh' glowing in the {naming light.} 626 schr ruhig. ohnc dehnung. sehr zurt lind ollsdrucksl'nll ---------p. + p. + p. pitying gaze from act ii (example 16, mm. 1186-87), again with its hallmark turn figure and the heart -stopping drop to pianissimo (although now the harmonic transition across the bar into m. 625 is much smoother). what exactly is going on here? the music of christ's gaze may signify that kundry is finally being delivered from her curse, that christ is finally bestowing his mercy upon her with his gaze. on the other hand, this is also the music that set kundry's curse in motion, and christ is actually nowhere to be seen. for some clarification, we might turn to cosima wagner's diary entry from february 3,1879. that evening, richard was working on parsifal in his study when he suddenly felt the need to share something with his wife: 93 94 current musicology "[i] came up to tell you that the entry of the timpani drum in g is the most beautiful thing i have ever composed." i accompanied him below [to his study], he played for me parsifal's anointment by titurel with its wonderful canon [here cosima is mistaken; gurnemanz anoints parsifal, since titurel is dead] and kundry's baptism with the timpani drum's sound of annihilation [vernichtungsklang]; "annihilation of the entire being, of every earthly wish," says r[ichard]. (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2:303)59 apparently wagner decided not to let the timpani have the vernichtungsklang figure on g after all; in example 21, mm. 623-24, only the cellos and basses pluck the figure. in any case, the mention of "annihilation" in connection with this figure and this dramatic situation reminds us of the judentum es­ say, but from the schopenhauerian perspective, as wagner's final comment suggests. the musico-dramatic scenario here perfectly executes wagner's prescription for the jew's "work of redemption that causes us to be born again through self-annihilation" (my emphasis). kundry empties herself of "every earthly wish;' every sensual desire from act ii, and in place of her agitated, convulsive, "jewish" movements and musical utterances, we now see and hear (in the form of the solemn vernichtungsklang) a kundry who has achieved "calm" -that is, the schopenhauerian calm wagner speaks of in the judentum essay, so hard for jewish composers to achieve in their works: "true, noble calm is nothing other than passion placated by resigna­ tion" (r. wagner 1911:78).60 perhaps this music signifies the untergang of kundry's will. other evidence, however, points in a different direction. in the sixth volume of his biography of wagner (1911), carl friedrich glasenapp recalled a rehearsal of parsifal that he had attended in which wagner felt compelled to walk onto the stage and physically coerce marianne brandt (the soprano portraying kundry) into executing his vision of how kundry's baptism should be staged: [w]ith the most passionate good intentions, [brandt] did not embrace the appropriate amenability [in rehearsal], but rather constructed her own image of the portrayal of the character of kundry completely from the get-go, according to which she lay on the ground like a wild animal, as it were, in the first act, but in the third, as a converted christian, even after the reception of her baptism[,] absolutely only wanted to "kneel," [and] owing to this biased prejudice, there was practically a battle, in the moment of her [i.e., kundry's, not brandt's] distressed collapse, for the already exhausted and irritable master [i.e., wagner], who had to bring the resistant [brandt] into the prostrate position with force, her face toward the ground, while the music kept going,-a physical and moral effort that could probably have been spared him! (geck and voss ]970:61)61 benjamin binder far from the "true, noble calm of passion placated by resignation," kundry's vernichtung is here described as a "distressed collapse," a collapse wagner had to enforce by vigorously shoving brandt's recalcitrant body and face onto the floor. from the physical, visual standpoint, this suggests more than just a spiritual annihilation of "the self" within the soul, but rather a total annihilation of kundry tout court; if she is lying completely vertically on the ground, no one can see her. this, of course, grants the audience a more unimpeded vision of the spring meadow that will soon sparkle in transfigured splendor as a result of this baptism (to be discussed shortly). in true german revolutionary fashion, kundry's body is the obstacle that must be knocked down (or, in this case, pressed down) so that the redemption of the world can come to pass. in contrast to the selfless philosophizing of richard and cosima's cozy conversation of february 3, 1879, the unpleasant rehearsal fiasco that glasenapp observed recalls wagner's comments in the 1869 "clarifications" to the judentum essay about the "forcible casting-out of the corrosive foreign element." kundry's untergang may be more sinister after all. moreover, if kundry is truly the comprehending recipient of christ's pitying, merciful gaze here, then why does she fall to the ground in a quivering heap, sob uncontrollably, and become totally unseen? wagner's dramaturgy suggests instead that this is a terrible moment for her, calling up the deepest dregs of her pain, bringing her face to face with the moment of her greatest shame.62 her body seems to say, "i don't believe, i still suffer christ's gaze as a piercing, hounding curse." in the end, it will never be possible to determine precisely which untergang or vernichtung kundry is meant to experience at this moment. i would suggest, in fact, that this interpretive dilemma reveals the ultimate dialectical nature of wagner's concept of the jews' untergang: its uplifting elements are dependent on its destructive elements and vice versa. by considering how kundry's "voice" is used in act iii, we may gain a more productive view of the matter. returning to example 21, we recall that the music that marks the moment of her conversion (mm. 624-26) is also her music, the music of christ's gaze to which she holds the most authentic claim. kundry initially responded to this music by obsessively seeking to realize its melodic potential (example 18); spinning the figure into a more long­ breathed melody would be tantamount to atoning for her sin and achieving redemption. but the radiantly orchestrated melody of the good friday spell that follows here-all the more beautiful for rising from the ashes of christ's suffering, brought to us by kundry-redeems a different motif. bathed in the scintillating afterglow of a wi deceptive resolution leading into big major (mm. 625-26), the melody's first four notes (f#-g#-a#-b in mm. 627-30) 95 96 curlrent musicology example 22: act 1, mm. 95-100. ===-p v -----.!.-y uusdrucksvoll qj ~ -=== j --------+ p. + p. + (jusdnlcksvo" a a a dim .. molto cresco derive from the first four notes of the spear motif; as i mentioned earlier, this motif's basic form usually leads to a painful chromatic descent, possibly enacting the thrust of the spear and the subsequent bleeding of the wound it inflicts (example 22). now that rising tetra chord keeps ascending, higher and higher, as it blossoms into the first full-fledged melody of the entire opera (example 21, mm. 627-39). the pain of the passion is overcome, but at kundry's personal expense. she supplies the musical object of christ's gaze, but the beauty of the pearl that results from this irritating sand is not meant for her eyes. indeed, while kundry lies face down on the ground, the stage directions indicate that parsifal "turns around and gazes in gentle rapture upon forest and field, which are now glowing in the morning light [wendet sich um und blickt mit sanfter entziickung aufwald und wiese, welche jetzt im vormittagslichte leuchten j." while parsifal inhabits this wondrous music with his singing voice, in complete ignorance of kundry, the latter weeps in silence. she has lost the ability to take any kind of personal joy in the spectacle, because she is no longer a vocal subject. her voice has "gone under" so that it can be an instrument of montsalvat's redemption. she has been used.63 benjamin binder the music of christ's gaze as well as the material relating to christ's suffering on the cross that kundry introduced in act ii (example 1) con­ tinue to be used throughout the good friday spell in much the same way, engendering other moments of transcendence by reminding us of the painful musical place from which we have come-or rather, from which kundry has come, so that we may reap the benefit. the material once tightly linked to her musical voice now becomes a catalyst that can restart the process of redemption at any moment, since redemption must always have something to overcome. in mm. 666-74, parsifal bemoans the sorrow of good friday: "oh sorrow, that day of greatest pain! there, i believe, all that blossoms and breathes, lives and is reborn, should only mourn, alas!, and weep [oh wehe, des hochsten schmerzentag's! da sollte wahn' ich, was da bluht, was athmet, lebt und wiederlebt, nur trauern, ach! und weinen l." he sings above the very same music (at the same pitch level) that accompanied kundry's primal encounter with christ: "ich sah ... ihn ... ihn" (example 1, mm. 1177-81). but after the orchestra dies away in a murky b minor onto a lone b~ in m. 674, the good friday melody rises again from this low point, now in d major, as gurnemanz replies, "behold, it is not so [du sieh'st, das ist nicht so l" (mm. 673-78). without kundry's witness of the passion, without her musical observation of christ's agony, this gesture of redemption would be impossible. and again, in mm. 687-88, the passion music returns in the midst of another development toward the outburst of the good friday melody.64 the last time kundry's voice kickstarts the process of redemption is given as example 23. parsifal recalls the flower maidens (and, by extension, the kundry of act ii) in mm. 770-73, to the accompaniment of their twisting chromatic motif. in mm. 773-76, however, we hear the music of christ's passion, and parsifal wonders, "do they yearn for redemption today lob heut' sie nach erlosung schmachten l?" the music of christ's gaze follows in mm. 777-78, but it has been smoothed over: the turn figure is simplified, the harmony resolves deceptively to g~ major on the downbeat of m. 778 instead of continuing to fall down the circle of fifths, and this g~-major harmony persists into m. 779 (written as f# major), washed out into a ninth chord which slides chromatically through mm. 780-81 into d major and the onset, once again, of the good friday melody in all its splendor. parsifal has completely absorbed kundry's voice and made it his own. the passion music and the music of christ's gaze (minus its vernichtungsklang) are com­ mandingly strung together as though they had nothing to do with kundry. when parsifal sings, "do they yearn for redemption today?" in mm. 774-77, he essentially presents the passion music to kundry as though she had never heard it before. in mm. 778-80, parsifal does acknowledge that the gaze 97 98 curre!nt musicology example 23: act ill, mm. 770-89. 770 parsifal " c . v ich sah' sie 1 ,. ~e einst mir .1 .. ob wcl-ken, lach-ten: i smv them withe!; they that ollce laughed at me: 770" ~ ~'i ------i .-------------. i i ~ ,~ ;;~. r ~. r, f ~ >~ i lli i i j ~1 hj i : '~ 1 --./ i~ 775" rallenl. heut' s:' nach er ib· s~ng slchmachten" auch dci nethra do they yearn fhr redemption today? rallell!. ~'i schr iangsam'l • sehr zogernd your fears, too, have ~ ~ i~ 780 f} ii i'""'9 u ne ward zum 10 (hall e: du wei nest, gens hecome a dew of bel/ediclion: yo/{ 're crying, 78'h.jl rill hnupt7eitmas~. ohne de~ -n j .j j ;. 11 .j ~ _~~(i!'fj. u qq# ppp~ it#, 8jp j-j; ~. : ~u 'f r i-~ p. + 785 p 'f} ii u liacht_ . sieh' , __ es die au e! behold the meadow laughs.' z:==]j1~rj i r1 i f; -== i i 11 78.~ ii i 11 u i i i ~ s lrbt i j. j j ~.j : ~i i -------------i r i p. + music has something to do with her tears, but this music melts into the good friday melody so fluidly that we barely make the connection. ultimately, all of this functions as "the dew of benediction [segensthaue 1» that moistens the transfigured spring landscape. "you're crying;' parsifal sings in mm. 783-88, "[ and 1 behold, the meadow laughs [du weinest, sieh: es lacht die aue 1 !» the implication is not that kundry should stop crying so that she can behold benjamin binder example 24: act iii, mm. 1035-49. (arr{/"orfas'j(ice shines }vith holy rapture, he s{(lggers. (is though overcome wilh e//lotion; glfmeljlc/fi:: supports him.) p vc. ~d p. seh,. ol/sdrucksvol! "'" p. "'" parsifal. und cnt siihnt! ~~~-= p. "'" p. "'" " . denn ich vcr wal-te nun dein amt. ge· for f shall cany out yollr (~tfic(:. i!'ab. hn i ~--==== p ( q~ zar! [{lid (/[1.\'(lru~'ks 'of! jjoco cresc. = ",... p. seg net sei dein lei den. blessed be' your slijierillg. ~.;.~ ~ poco cresco p. "'" p. "'" p. "'" the meadow, but rather that her tears are precisely what enable the meadow to laugh. like the jew in the nineteenth-century anti-semitic imagination, kundry is stripped of her musical subjectivity so that her authentic voice can be frozen into an object that parsifal manipulates to achieve his revolution­ ary ends. her music becomes a foe that can be vanquished again and again in the regenerative process of redemption, allowing parsifal to become, in 99 100 current musicology example 25: act iii, mm. 1061-64. joo~ j.i parsifal. i i' den hei!' gen speer, /()(~ j.i j~:lq,g~, ieh 1 i---"" fp + p. bring' ihn euch zu riick! __ return it to you.' ., 3 , p i .~r -~ ~ p. p. + wagner's words (as quoted in his wife's diary), "completely human [ganz mensch l" at this moment (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2:318), or in the language of the judentum essay, an "authentic man."65 by the time we get to example 23, kundry's voice has almost completely yielded itself to this process; we only dimly feel its original traces in kundry's prior experience. as i mentioned earlier, however, redemption in parsifal also comes in the form of melodic transfiguration. we have already seen how the good friday melody itself is born as a melodic redemption of the pessimistic, melancholy ending of the spear motif. the music of christ's gaze, the small but momentous snippet of melody that kundry heard during her primal scene and that she obsessed over in an effort to find its comple­ tion or resolution, is not transfigured like this. in fact, after example 23, we virtually never hear this music again; it has done its work.66 but what about kundry's victim, amfortas, and his melody? in a way, amfortas is kundry's metaphysical twin; wagner gives the music of christ's gaze to both of them, although if kundry's voicing of this music jin act ii corresponds benjamin binder example 26: act i, 111111. 1-3. schr langsam. fl i sehr ausdrucksvoll u -j.~-j.. • -~ ~~ .. ~ .. ~ f p to the actual phenomenon, then amfortas's use of it in act i is the worn photograph of that original event. yet amfortas is the one whose leitmotif achieves the salvation of unfolding into a broad melody (example 24).67 after parsifal touches him with the spear and heals his wound, the rocky rhythm of the motif (evident in m. 1035) initiates a flowing four-bar phrase in the cellos that stays entirely within one key (a major) and ends clearly on a half cadence (mm. 1035-38)-this is amfortas's musical peroration. the horns follow with the same noble phrase in f major (mm. 1039-42), before the rest of the orchestra starts to develop the new phrase in sinuous, undulating lines worthy of a liszt symphonic poem (mm. 1043ff). even if amfortas physically "staggers" around the stage as "gurnemanz supports him," the orchestra reveals his renewed spiritual condition; at that level, he can stride confidently without any stagger whatsoever. the last moment of melodic transfiguration in parsifal occurs imme­ diately after amfortas is healed (see example 25). in mm. 1061-64, parsifal comes to the center of the stage and declares, "the sacred spear, i return it to you [den heil'gen speer, ich bring' ihn euch zuriickl!" the result of this holy reunion of spear and grail is the redemption of the grail melody (see example 26 for the original melody). throughout the opera, this melody strives upward to the tonic (ai, in example 26) only to descend into a mi­ nor key (c minor in example 26). in mm. 1063-64, however, the musical situation is adjusted so that a solo trumpet can now surpass the melody's upper limit, moving to d~ in m. 1064 and into g~ major, eliminating the minor mode from the theme. (the original grail melody, in ai, major, is transfigured again in just this way immediately after parsifal reveals the grail for communion; see mm. 1092-94.)68 the grail melody's transforma­ tion may imply that christ himself has been redeemed from corruption; some critics have read this as a sign of parsifal's proto-fascist, anti-semitic aims.69 regardless of where one stands on that debate, the final words of the opera, "redemption for the redeemer [erlosung dem erloser 1 ," are sung by the knights and the heavenly voices that inhabit the temple's dome to 101 102 current musicology example 27: act iii, mm. 1109-11. 1109 g s kni,ht. v ~-i""':i ~ 'g iii i r ki ser! er sung _dem er v ~n/or the redeemer! ~ ..... v kr r iii sung clem er redemption/or the [redeemer!! v ~ .... sa j i £ i kr r iii clem er -sung iio~ redemption/ilr the [redeemer!] jjj j .",. ...... rt1 u ljjlo ljj~ 'ljj ld ljj u... fi~~~ -# r -# semprep i i .f2j ~ v ?j i ~--~ ~ p. p. p. the tune of the transfigured grail melody (see example 27). from here on out, in fact, orchestra and chorus weave abbate's "narcotic daisy chain" of celestial harmonies, and the opera ends with one last transfigured version of the grail melody in ai, major, bringing the opera full circle to the key it began in while curing it of its melodic ills. the only thing that disrupts this avalanche of redemption is kundry's final untergang: her physical death (see example 28). it is here, i would argue, that we witness the ultimate sublimation of kundry's voice and can best ob­ serve how deeply and indissolubly anti-semitism and musical transcendence are connected to each other in parsifal. abbate suggests that the shudder of a minor within the context of d~ major in example 28 is like "an alarm" that reminds us, one final time, of the potentially noxious fictions we may be absorbing by succumbing so completely to wagner's enchanting music (141). for her, it is more interesting to consider this moment as somehow detached from the drama because of the spellbinding momentum of the music. debussy's famous comment that parsifal "is one of the most beautiful edifices in sound ever raised to the eternal glory of music," combined with his utter disdain for the opera's plot and characters, suggests that for him the dramaturgy of parsifal was a dispensable nuisance; abbate mines debussy's notion and yields extraordinary interpretive riches in the process. benjamin binder example 28: act iii, mm. 1123-25. [sehr langsam und fcicrlichj (kundrv, wilh her gaze llplificd [10 parsifal!, sinks slowly lifeless 10 the ground. an/jimas and gurnemanz kneel in homage before pars{j'al, tvho waves the grail in blessing over the vi'orshipping knighthood.) 1123 p p. if but what if we reattach the a-minor moment to kundry, in light of what has happened to her (jewish) voice? this is not in fact the first time that we have heard this music. the shift from d~ major to a minor and back again, this drop of a major third and into the minor mode, has already appeared throughout parsifal with some regularity. in his recent article on wagner's use of the chorus in parsifal, ryan minor (2005) labels this harmonic shift the "entseelung" progression (28), in simple reference to wagner's stage directions, which indicate that kundry is "de-souled [entseeltl" at this mo­ ment (in example 28, this word is translated as "lifeless"). but as kundrydies, parsifal is also waving the grail around the knights' temple, bestowing its holiness upon the gathered faithful. minor considers a series of passages from throughout parsifal which demonstrate that" [t 1 he 'entseelung' progression is consistently employed to convey a sense of the grail space's sanctity" (31).70 a passage that minor does not mention may best demonstrate this sanctity (see example 29). at the end of act i, after the knights have finally taken communion, wagner's stage directions state that amfortas sets the grail down, and it glows as the squires put it back in its shrine. the orchestra glows as well with two broad "entseelung" progressions connected by the "dresden amen." one occurs between chords of g major and e~ major and minor (mm. 1480-81). the e~-minor chord replaces the e~-major chord in its alternation with the g-major chord. it is also punctuated with an accent, emphasizing the striking modal shift at the heart of the "entseelung" progres­ sion in its usual form. the other one occurs between chords of d~ major and a minor (mm.1483-84), the very same chords as the final "entseelung" that marks kundry's death and parsifal's final blessing. but how can this chromatic shudder connote sanctity? indeed, theorists such as richard cohn have heard the "entseelung" progression in parsifal in terms of the uncanny: "the progression effaces the border between reality and appearance [in the way it destabilizes our assumptions about major and 103 104 current musicology example 29: act i, mm. 1480-84. 1480 + p. + p. ~ .----------+ p. p. .~ p. + p. + minor triads l, between death and life. and it is exactly such effacements that are the mark of the uncanny, as it was theorized in contemporaneous psy­ choanalytic writings" (2006:232). for all the wonder and amazement elicited by this mystifying progression, there is an equal amount of terror and awe. it is too forbidding, too disquieting to suggest that we should sweep kundry's death into this moment of "sanctity" without further interrogation. if we take a look at another instance of the "entseelung" progression, one that should provide us with a scene of unmitigated reverence, we discover instead that sanctity, in parsifal, is not a pure and simple affair. in act ii, after he has rejected kundry's kiss and begins to recall his experi­ ence of the montsalvat temple from act i, parsifal revisits the moment when he "stared, stupefied [dumpfj, at the holy chalice [es starrt der blick dumpf auf das heilsgefass l" (example 30). the orchestra registers parsifal's dumpjheit-dullness, hollowness, dumbfounded stupefaction-with two swollen "entseelung" progressions in the winds. or rather, those progressions inspire dumpjheit in parsifal. either way, the mystery of the grail does not exactly warm his heart, and the consistency of this progression throughout parsifal as a musical corollary to the grail's holy power suggests that sanctity and terror are inseparable. 71 in fact, this is precisely what wagner said about the final "entseelung" progression to his wife, as we read in her diary entry from january 13, 1882: benjamin binder example 30: act ii, mm. 1050-53. 105u parsifal (eerily quiet) fl i u es starrt dcr blick dumpf auf das heils-geniss: langsam~. stupefied, at the holy chalice. ~~~ q~ ~~d~ ,.j~}l. io~ i u p-c:::::~ -===~ pp--=== ====-pp~ ~~b "f ~~~ "~~ j ~j b .. i .. ~ p. + ~~p. [richard] told me that the a-minor chord (where kundry sinks down) would make an impression on me; [he said] it was the horror of sanctity [der schrecken der heiligkeit] that emanates from there [i.e., from the chord]. it must be played [by the winds and brass-wagner's word is geblasen] very beautifully. (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2:872)72 for the revolutionary anti-semite, sanctity, redemption, and transcendence are predicated upon horror, menace, and terror, because the former can only come to pass by triumphing over something else, something awful. the horror the revolutionary anti-semite felt before the jew, the menace he perceived in the jew's infestation of his society, the terror of what might happen if this threat were left unchecked: all this provided the necessary awfulness against which he could lead the charge of redemption. similarly, the beauty of the "entseelung" progression derives from the ugliness and evil it simultaneously evokes and transfigures. i have argued that kundry's "voice" is substantially, if obviously not entirely, the voice of "the jew." here, it presses up from below one last time in the orchestra's a-minor chord, raising the coffin lid of the bayreuth floorboards just a tad before sinking back down forever, never to be heard from again. the sinking down of her body completes the process of visual elimination that began at her baptism, so gruesomely enforced by wagner at the rehearsal glasenapp observed. musically, the "entseelung" progression is not even related to her voice, but the disturbance it creates amid the sequence of plagal cadences that end the work is enough to remind us of the impact of her voice. now, that voice has been submerged completely, with no traces left of its sung form or its musical material. its final gesture reveals the paradoxical relationship between empathy and revulsion at the heart of revolutionary anti-semitism. this disconcerting relationship is also at the heart of parsifal, in the way the opera treats kundry's voice; it is the very mechanism that generates parsifal's stifling beauty. 105 106 current musicology epilogue: compassion and cruellty; or, kundry and the voice of the animal unlike the other "jewish" characters in wagner's oeuvre such as mime and beckmesser, kundry is not a flatly repugnant or malignant figure; ultimately, we are not meant to despise her. one of the central keywords of parsifal is mitleid, or compassion (literally "suffering-with"), and kundry elicits our genuine compassion at least as much as any other character in the opera. she may have inflicted amfortas's wound and attempted a treacherous seduc­ tion of parsifal, but in both cases she was acting as the unwilling servant of a vengeful master (the unredeemable klingsor) and, more significantly, as the victim of a primordial curse. kundry's derisive laughter is the scourge of the opera, but it is also an old, regrettable habit that she finds impossible to break despite her best efforts. many of the harmful, insensitive or simply bizarre things that kundry does are framed as the involuntary behaviors of a being internally ruled by powerful psychological forces beyond her active control. thus, kundry's baptism and rapturous death in act iii might be seen as final compassionate gestures on her behalf, comprising a muted happy ending for her, literally and figuratively, after all the suffering she has endured. such gestures may explain why the nazis banned performances of parsifal during world war ii, even though the opera seems to be such a blatant "allegory of the judaization of christianity and of germany-and of purifying redemption," as rose asserts (1992: 166). robert r. gibson points out that parsifal presents us with "compassion, disarmament and pacifism as played out in an enclosed, all-male, sacred society" (1999:87) whose monastic qualities would have carried totally unacceptable associations of homosexuality during the third reich (83-86). add to this parsifal's lack of a female national socialist "role model"-herzeleide "has deliberately shielded [her son] from all knowledge of military life;' and kundry is an '"undesirable''' who is never "set against [any] character types who [exude] healthy, positive qualities [,] character types who would ultimately triumph and crush their decadent opponents" (83 )-and the unsuitability of parsifal as a piece of fascist and pro-aryan wartime propaganda becomes clear.73 wagner's treatment of kundry, it appears, was too humane for the nazis. this curious twist in parsifal's reception history does not wash away the torturous anti-semitic dialectic essential to the opera, however. in fact, it only helps to clarify yet another facet of this dialectic and another side to kundry that has rarely been explored in depth. i say that wagner treated kundry "humanely" because, at a certain level, kundry is less than human: she is an animal. in act i, the second squire heralds her entrance into the opera by calling out to the others, "look there, [it's] the wild rider [seht dart, benjamin binder die wilde reiterin] !"the squires and knights observe that kundry's horse has a flowing mane, and as the horse and rider approach the onstage world, we hear that the horse "crawls ... along the ground. with its mane it brushes the moss [kriecht ... am boden hin. mit den mahnen fegt sie das moos ]." finally, just before kundry appears, the second knight conflates the horse with its rider in describing kundry's dismount: "now the wild one [the woman or the animal?] leaps off [da schwingt sich die wilde herab ]." once kundry rushes onto the scene and becomes visible, her conflation with the horse is complete; as the stage directions state, she has "black hair that flutters in loose braids, a deep reddish-brown complexion, piercing black eyes, sometimes wildly sparkling, more often deathly rigid and motionless [schwarzes in losen zapfen jlatterndes haar, tiefbraun-rathliche gesichtsfarbe, stechende schwarze augen, zuweilen wild aujblitzend, afters wie todesstarr und unbeweglich j." (figure 1, a documentary photograph of kundry in act i from the original staging of parsifal, demonstrates some of these features, although it gives us kundry at her least animal-like moment; parsifal has just fainted, and out of concern kundry brings water to him in a horn.) immediately after her entrance, kundry throws herself onto a nearby grassy bank and stays there, prostrate, for most of act i, with her head in her hands or resting on one of her arms that she splays across the ground. from time to time she casts wary, darting glances at the others, sometimes hiding her face in her hair to avert their attentions.74 when amfortas asks who has brought him the vial of healing balsam for his bath, gurnemanz calls for kundry as though she were a shy but trusty pet: "there the wild woman lies. up, kundry! come [dort liegt's das wilde weib. auf, kundry! komm] !" kundry refuses to do so, and moments later she barks out a rejection of amfortas's gratitude while writhing restlessly on the ground: "[ give] no thanks! ha, hat how will that help? no thanks! go, go-into the bath [nicht dank! ha, hal was wird es helfen! nicht dank! fort, fort-in's bad]!" after amfortas is carried away, the third squire says to kundry what the audience must be thinking about her: "hey! you there! what are you doing lying there like a wild animal [he! du da! was liegst du dort wie ein wildes thier j?" in a stunningly ironic gesture that comprises her only fully "human" utterance during the entire act, kundry responds with the tune of the "dresden amen" and the words: ''aren't animals holy here [sind die thiere hier nicht heiligj?"75 normally in act i, kundry's statements are sporadic and fragmentary like the ones cited above, her vocal line broken into spasmodic bursts. even her vocal delivery was to be raw and guttural, hovering somewhere between song, speech and sheer animal utterance.?" throughout the opera, the stage directions often command her to let out various non-linguistic wails, cries, screams, moans, and cackles. following poizat, we might interpret these as eruptions 107 108 current musicology figure 1: original bayreuth production photograph of marianne brandt as kundry in act i of parsifal (geck and voss 1970:250). of the vocal object into the acoustic texture of the opera, but babies are not the only creatures who make vocal sound without symbolic function in response to an inner disturbance. the instinctual character of kundry's vocal outcries is apparent even when she does sing words, because these words are often nothing but unreflective labels for what she is feeling or desiring. benjamin binder kundry's vocal line is full of isolated gestures on words like "rest [ruhe];' "sleep [schlafen]," "horror [ grausen]," "madness [wahnsinn] ;"'rage [wut]," "misery (jammer] ," "death [tod];' "yearning [sehnen]" and "woe [wehe] ," not to mention the pure exclamations "ach!" and "oh!" that often surround these words, forming an intermediary zone between melodic singing and the inarticulate groaning of an animal. another one of kundry's characteristic behaviors points to her animal nature as well: she hibernates. in act i, gurnemanz tells us that titurel first found kundry sleeping in the undergrowth of the forests of montsalvat, "stiff, lifeless, as though dead [erstarrt, leblos, wie todt]," and this is always how the knights find her after she has been absent from their realm for any significant period of time. in act ii klingsor summons kundry from another deep sleep in order to carry out his nefarious plans, chiding her in the process for the time she spends with the knights: "[with them] you let yourself be regarded as a beast [wie ein vieh du dich halten ldsst]!" kundry awakens slowly and gradually; her first words, the stage directions tell us, are delivered "hoarsely and fragmentarily, as though in the midst of an attempt to regain [the ability of] speech again [rauh und abgebrochen, wie im versuche, wieder sprache zu gewinnen ]." and at the beginning of act iii, gurnemanz finds kundry once again after a long dormancy. after hearing her dull moaning, he looks for her with these words: "no beast would cry out so pitifully, and certainly not today, on the holiest of mornings [so jammervoll klagt kein wild, und gewiss gar nicht am heiligsten morgen heut']" (see example 19, mm. 4s-54). it is good friday, and even the animals are reverently quiet-except for kundry, who demonstrates her animal nature even more vividly by disturbing this peace. in fact, after locating kundry in the tangle of bushes, gurnemanz rouses her into consciousness as though she were quite literally a hibernating animal: "up! kundry! up! winter has fled, and spring is here! awaken! awaken to spring [auf! kundry! auf! der winter floh, und lenz ist da! erwache! erwache dem lenz]!" this time, however, kundry does not regain the ability to speak. as in act i, she again serves the knights-"as a beast," klingsor would say-but now that beast is tamed, with no trace left of her ferocious bark or bite. throughout his life, wagner nurtured a tremendous compassion for animals; he is one of the most famous vegetarians of the nineteenth century. he expressed this compassion in prose many times, especially in the essays "against vivisection" (1s79) and "religion and art" (1ss0-s1), written during the period of the composition of parsifal's music. 77 wagner's concern for the plight of animals comes directly to the fore several times during parsifal, perhaps most strikingly after parsifal kills the swan and the knights bring him before gurnemanz for judgment. gurnemanz shames parsifal 109 110 current musicology into realizing the senseless violence of his deed by showing him the swan's mangled carcass: "here-take a look!--here is where you struck it: now its blood is still congealing, its wings hang down weakly; its snowy feathers are darkly stained,-its eyes [are] broken, do you see its gaze [hier-schau' her!--hier traf'st du ihn: da starrt noch das blut, matt hangen die flugel; das schneegefieder dunkel befleckt,-gebrochen das aug; siehst du den blick]?" in painful remorse, parsifal breaks his bow and throws away his arrows, never to harm an innocent animal again. i want to conclude this essay by considering how wagner's staunch belief in the ethical treatment of animals related to his equally steadfast belief that the redemption of european culture could only come from the eradication of "jewry:' this relationship might help us understand how and why kundry and her voice are simultaneously the objects of such pity and such vilification throughout parsifal. during the late 1850s, wagner began to research the parsifal legend in earnest, and in his correspondence with mathilde wesendonck from that time,. we can see his ideas for the dramatic content of the opera coming into focus. wesendonck was a young married woman who served nonetheless as vvagner's muse and confidante; their passionate epistolary relationship eventually led to the demise of wagner's first marriage. in a letter to wesendonck from october i, 1858 (actually a diary entry addresed to wesendonck and ultimately intended for her to read), wagner ruminated at length on the concept of compassion [mitleid], and in light of the argument of the present essay, his remarks are stunning. the letter begins with a disturbing anecdote of violence against animals: recently my gaze turned from the street into the shop of a poultry butcher; i was absentmindedly looking over the piled-up goods, neatly and appetiz­ ingly arranged, as, while one [of the butchers 1 off to the side was occupied with plucking a chicken, another [butcher] reached into a cage right then, grabbed a living chicken and ripped off its head. the ghastly scream of the animal, and [its] pitiful, weaker wailing during the struggle, penetrated my soul with horror. since then, i have not been able to get rid of this impression again, [which i have] already experienced so often [before]. (r. wagner 1914: 101)78 this tale of the gruesome death of a bird brings the swan scene from parsifal immediately to mind. one is tempted to suggest that life may have influenced art here, but if we succumb to that temptation, then perhaps the greater significance of this passage is its focus on the chicken's voice. the chicken's "wailing" and its "scream" of agony in dying are what "penetrated [wagner's] soul with horror," and they continued to resonate in his head long after the event. the moaning and groaning of kundry's voice in act i of parsifal, the desperate raging, vehemence and volatility of that voice in the latter part of act ii: might all of this have been the artistic amplification benjamin binder of the anguished chicken's discordant screeching from wagner's own primal scene of horror? indeed, this screeching inspired such a pang of sympathy in wagner that it caused him to reflect on the role of compassion in his life, both at the personal and artistic levels: [e]verything moves me seriously only insofar as it awakens in me a sense of common feeling [mitgefiihl, literally "feeling-with"] , that is: compassion [mit-ieid]. i recognize this compassion in myself as the strongest trait of my moral being, and this is probably also the source of my art. (102)79 compassion is what kundry begs for at the end of act ii ("have compas­ sion for me [mitleid mit mir] !"), just before parsifal rejects her for the last time, and compassion is what kundry will finally receive in act iii. but this compassion and the redemption it enables are predicated upon her animal nature, as wagner already knew in 1858. here is another passage from the letter: [i]t has become clear to me why i can have even more compassion for lower natures [i.e. animals] than for higher [ones, i.e. humans]. a higher nature is what it is precisely because it is lifted up through its own suffering to the heights of resignation, or has in itself the capacity for this uplifting and nurtures it. [such a nature] is immediately close to me, is like me, and with it i achieve a feeling of mutual joy [mitfreude, literally "joy-with"]. as a result, i essentially have less compassion [mitleid] for people than for animals. in [animals] i see the capacity for upfliting above suffering, for resignation and its deep, divine calm, completely denied. if they come to suffer, as happens when they are tortured [durch gequaltwerden], then i see with my own, torture-filled despair precisely just that absolute suffering without redemption, without every higher purpose, with freedom [from this suffering granted] only through death, [a death which] consequently confirms that it would have been better if they had never come into being in the first place. if this suffering is therefore to have a purpose, then this [comes about] solely through the awakenening of compassion in a per­ son, who thus takes in the failed existence of the animal and becomes the redeemer of the world, because he recognizes the error of all existence in general. (this meaning will finally become clear to you from the third act of parsifal, [in the scene] on the morning of good friday). (103-4)ro in wagner's account, animals suffer with no possibility of redemption [erlosung] because they have no self-consciousness, no ability to reflect upon their circumstances which might lead to the transcendent peace of schopenhauerian resignation. only death can grant the animal a release from their perpetual, blind suffering. the higher function of this wretched phenomenon, however, is to provide the human being with an opportunity for compassion. by "suffering with" the animal, the human being absorbs that suffering into himself and uses it as more fodder for his own process of 111 112 current musicology resignation. he adopts and then rises above the animal's senseless suffering on behalf of the animal, and because that suffering now has some ultimate significance, the world as a whole is redeemed. in parsifal's good friday scene, parsifal is the human being who redeems the world in this fashion, and kundry is the tortured animal, lacking in self-awareness, whose hope­ less suffering enables him to accomplish this mission. in mm. 705-56 of act iii, some moments after kundry's baptism, gurnemanz explains the procedure in detail: they l i.e. the animals] cannot see him on the cross: therefore they look up to redeemed man; [man] feels himself free from the burden and horror of sin, pure and healed through god's sacrifice oflove: stalk and flower in the meadows now observe this, that today man's feet do not crush them, but rather, just as god with heavenly patience had pity for [man] and suffered for him, today man in pious grace also conserves [the flowers] with soft steps. every creature is thankful for this, each that blooms and soon dies away, for nature, freed of sin, today obtains its day of innocence.8 ! we recall that, at the beginning of this speech, kundry is still lying face down on the ground, sobbing and twitching uncontrollably after her baptism. records of the first two performances of parsifal from 1882 (see note 39) indicate that at gurnemanz's words, "therefore they look up to redeemed man," kundry lifted up her head, looked at parsifal and then gazed toward heaven, her hands folded in prayer.82 (all of this is conflated in figure 2, another documentary photograph from the first production of parsifal; in this image, parsifal baptizes kundry, gurnemanz marvels at the beauty of redeemed nature around him, and kundry kneels in prayer and looks to the sky, even though all three of these things happen at different times during the actual opera.) in light of wagner's 1858 letter to wesendonck and gurnemanz's own words, this dramatic gesture marks kundry indelibly (but not exclusively) as an animal (or flower, if we recall her act ii persona) whose redemption is always secondhand, filtered through the compassionate intervention of mankind. kundry's "entseelung" at the end of the opera might consequently be seen as a merciful, "humane" euthanasia of sorts; as wagner wrote in 1858, death was the animal's only avenue to freedom from suffering, even if its suffering formed part of mankind's redemption of the world. but terms such as compassion, resignation and redemption are already familiar to us from our consideration of wagner's judentum essay of 1850/69. in the anti-semitic context, these terms take on an entirely different resonance. in fact, further inspection of the judentum essay reveals that, for ~wagner, jews and animals are both less than human in their own ways. first of all, it is impossible for the jew of wagner's essay to belong to a true community, and his use oflanguage reflects that: benjamin binder figure 2: original bayreuth production photograph of therese malten as kundry, heinrich gudehus as parsifal, and gustave siehr as gurnemanz in act iii of parsifal (geck and voss 1970:254). a language, [in] its expression and its development, is not the work of individuals, but rather of a historical community: only he who is raised unconsciously in this community can also take part in its creations. the jew, however, stands outside such a community, alone with his jehova in [his] fragmented, groundless tribe[.] (r. wagner 1911, vol. 5:70-7i)k3 113 114 current musicology as a result, the jew can only express himself linguistically and artistically through external imitation (as with the parrot i cited earlier) but can never "truly poetize in speech or create artworks [wirklich redend dichten oder kunstwerke schaff en ]" (71). this is because the jew does not share bonds of genuine fellow feeling with the community: when we hear a jew talk, all lack of purely-human [rein menschlichen] expression in his speech unconsciously wounds us: the cold indifference of the curious 'blabber' in it rises by no means to the arousal of a higher, more heartwarming passion. (71)84 wagner surmises that "in communal matters amongst themselves, and par­ ticularly in the family setting where purely-human emotion [readily] comes forth, even jews may give expression to their feelings [bei gemeinschaftlichen anliegenheiten untereinander, und namentlich da, wo in der familie die rein menschliche empfindung zum durchbruche kommt, gewifl auch juden ihren gefuhlen einen ausdruck zu geben vermogen] ," but this is not wagner's concern, since none of this pertains to the jew's relationship ta the yolk, the authentic "historical community" of the (european/german) people (72). the "more high-minded [vornehmere] " jew who tries to cammunicate ar­ tistically or otherwise with the yolk is therefore misguided, not only because he lacks the "deepest, most soulful sympathy with a great community that strives along with him [die tiefste, seelenvollste sympathie mit einer groflen, gleichstrebenden gemeinsamkeit]:' but because he has broken himself off from his own community as well (74). wagner goes on: the true poet, regardless of the medium in which he poetizes, always takes his inspiration only from a faithful, loving observation of spontaneous life, of this life that appears to him only among the volk. now where does the educated jew find this volk? [surely it is] impossible [for him to find it] on the foundation of the society in which he plays his artist's role? if he has any kind of connection with this society, this is only with that ex­ crescence from it which has been completely removed from its authentic, healthy stem; this connection is rather a thoroughly loveless [one], and this lovelessness must become apparent to him when he climbs down to the foundation of this society to gain nourishment for his artistic activity: not only does everything become stranger and more incomprehensible to him, but the involuntary aversion of the volk towards him confronts him here with the most injurious nakedness[.] (75-76)85 the jew, wagner concludes, has never had "a life with content that could produce art: a content, a universally valid, human content cannot be taken from this life even now by the [jew] who searches for it rein leben von kunstfiihigem gehalte: ein gehalt, ein allgemeingiltiger menschlicher gehalt ist benjamin binder diesem auch jetztvom suchenden nicht zu entnehmen l" (76). like the animal, the jew of wagner's imagination is incapable of true compassion (that is, a loving connection with others), exists outside the "purely human" realm of "authentic men" that surrounds him, communicates by agitatedly imitating what he hears, revealing at once his subhuman status and inability to achieve the heights of resignation, and lives a life devoid of "human content;' a life that can therefore never be transfigured by art. only untergang may redeem the jew, but as we have seen, this untergang can take many different forms, and some of them intertwine with wagner's judgment of animal life, leading to many uncomfortable questions and comparisons. wagner's prescription for the jew's redemption is for him to cease to be a jew, but can an animal cease to be an animal? is death the only respite from the jew's impossible situation, as it is for the animal? if the jew cannot possibly be a target of the people's compassion, then how can the animal's suffering enable mankind's redemption of the world through this same compassion? ultimately, the animal and the jew are both "of service" to humanity at large in both cases, wagner asserted, our redemption is intimately linked to their redemption­ yet wagner's overall conception of service and redemption is like the head of janus. one face compassionately smiles at the animal world; the other face scowls in horror at the jew. it is not surprising, therefore, that in his letter to mathilde wesendonck from 1858, wagner immediately followed his discourse on compassion for animal suffering (and its connection to the third act of parsifal) with a scathing attack against human beings who failed to feel such compassion: however, when i see in a person this capacity for the redemption of the world through compassion left to spoil, undeveloped and even deliberately uncultivated, [it] makes me even now so revolted by [such] a person, and weakens my compassion for him to the point of a complete lack of feeling for his hardship. he has in his hardship the path to redemption, [a path] which is closed off just to the animal; ifhe doesn't recognize this, but rather he desires to keep [the path] absolutely obstructed, then in contrast i feel i must open this door wide open for him, and i can go to the point of cruelty in order to to make him conscious of the hardship of his suffering. nothing leaves me colder than the complaint of the philistine about his disturbed comfort: here every compassion [mitleid] becomes complicity in a misdeed [mitschuld, literally "guilt-with"]. because it is in my nature to unsettle [others] out of [their] ignoble condition, i thus feel here only the urge to sting, in order to make them feel the great suffering oflife! (r. wagner 1914:104-5)86 the self-satisfied philistine, walled off from the pain of life by his riches and insensitive to the essence of existence, is also the figure of the jew, who symbolized everything about society that wagner hated. contemplating 115 116 current musicology such a figure brought wagner to thoughts of cruelty, precisely in order to awaken the object of his cruelty to compassion. two years later, in 1860, wagner is writing to wesendonck again to tell her about the fascinating character he has created in parsifal, a "wondrously wild grail messenger [fabelhaft wilde gralsbotin l" in the first act who becomes the "temptress of the second act [verfuhrerischen weibe des zweiten aides l" (see note 9). the wild messenger elicits our mitleid, while the temptress's task is to seduce parsifal into mitschuld. and yet it is not as simple as that: in truth, the animal and the jew in kundry are maddeningly simultaneous most of the time, especially towards the end of act ii, when kundry's voice is at the height of its power. the animal and the jew are as inextricably linked in the character of kundry as wagner's moments of musical transcendence in parsifal are dependent upon overcoming and transforming kundry's voice. that voice is subjected to both compassion and cruelty; in parsifal, it appears that one cannot be had without the other. notes i would like to thank carolyn abbate and the two anonymous readers of an earlier version of this essay for their helpful comments and suggestions, kevin lucey for preparing the musical examples, the mary pappert school of music at duquesne university for its gener­ ous financial support of this project, james p. cassaro of the university of pittsburgh for his assistance with research materials, and gerald mccausland for his patient, sympathetic ear and unwavering friendship during the drafting of this article. 1. a visual aura may also have descended over the stage landscape at this moment. in felix mottl's edition of the piano-vocal score of parsifal, there is an indication, attributed to wagner, that reads, "the whole scene [becomes 1 mysteriously veiled [die ganze stelle geheimnisvoll verschleiert]" (wagner 1986:395). all translations in this article are my own; as a reference in translating passages from wagner's essay "jewry in music [das judentum in der musik 1:' i consulted william ashton ellis's english edition (r. wagner 1995:75-122). 2. heinrich porges and julius kniese, two onvagner's assistants for the rehearsals of the first productions of parsifal at bayreuth, also recorded some of wagner's verbal performance indications during the rehearsal process in their piano-vocal scores. these indications are tabulated in geck and voss 1970:165-228. according to the indications porges recorded for this scene, kundry's behavior reinforced the effect of temporal and physical dislocation from the rest of the opera. at first, in the moments just before this scene, kundry confuses parsifal, the opera's hero and the only other character on stage at this moment, with christ himself. in mm. 1175ff, this hallucination gives way to kundry's own internal vision of golgatha, as she "looks either up to the sky or down to the ground, only never out into the audience [man sieht entweder in den himmel oder auf die erde, nur nie ins publikum 1." in m. 1177, kundry steps forward and looks at the floor, and in the next bar, as she sings, we witness "kundry's vision; deeply bent over; everything must be as though from an eerie distance, as though sounding through a veil [kundry's vision; tiefgebeugt; mufl alles wie aus schauerlicher ferne, wie durch einen schleier erklingenl." in this measure in kniese's score, we read: "as though looking back across thousands of years l wie uber jahrtausende zuriickblickendl." finally, in m. 1179, porges's score reads: "here she becomes completely engrossed, as though in a dream [hier wird sie ganz entruclct, wie im traum]" (206). benjamin binder 3. the first appearance of this music occurs in act i, mm. 592-93. gurnemanz, an aged knight, is in the process of explaining how the members of his order received the holy grail from which christ drank at the last supper. during these two measures, gurnemanz states that this was "also" the grail "into which his divine blood flowed [as he was] on the cross [darein am kreuz sein gottlich blut auch floss ]." he then goes on to discuss other related mat­ ters pertinent to the opera, including the spear that pierced christ's flesh (to be discussed later). what separates this moment from the music's appearance at this point in act ii is its relatively weak intensity; mm. 592-93 of act i form just one element of a long narrative with many diverse elements, whereas mm. 1179-80 of act ii produce a staggering revelation in conjunction with kundry's words and the overall isolation of the scene. moreover, when we hear this progression in act ii, at least an hour or two has passed since our one and only exposure to it in act i. finally, because kundry was actually present at golgatha, her invocation of christ's suffering has a greater ring of authenticity to it than that of any other character in the opera. this is an important point to which i shall repeatedly return. 4. this chord could be vii-half-diminished-seventh in e minor, alternating with v (another dominant-function chord) above a destabilizing fi pedal point and momentarily displaced by the g in the melody on beat 2. or, if b is taken as tonic (with the timpani's fi as dominant pedal), one might hear the chord as a sui generis chromatic neighbor sonority to the tonic triad, inflected by the neapolitan (the 0). since e minor is clearly (if briefly) implied in the first half of m. 1181, we might favor the former interpretation retrospectively. either way, the specific dissonance and intervallic content of this harmonic progression are what catch the ear here, linking it to the dramatic content. 5. there seem to be two views about exactly when kundry laughed at christ. some critics assume that this occurred while christ was carrying the cross through jerusalem, while oth­ ers assume that this occurred during the crucifixion itself. to my knowledge, wagner never clarified the matter; for this article, i have decided to take the second view. 6. kundry also sings a high b at three later moments in act ii: mm. 1356-57, 1405, and 1485. all three moments are significant and will be discussed briefly in the analytical portion of this article. 7. given that we are in d minor, the chord on the third beat of m. 1183 should be a fully­ diminshed seventh chord (vii-fully-diminished-6/5); instead, it is only half-diminished, implying the major mode (vii-half-diminished-6/5). 8. in his study of the sketches for parsifal, william kinderman (1995a:92) demonstrates that wagner had kundry's act ii vocal scream oflaughter in mind very early in the compositional process; in fact, it was closely tied to kundry's laughter motif. in a sketch that kinderman links to cosima wagner's diary entry of september 27,1877, wagner wrote a large vocal interval (g5 to e4, a tenth) on one stafffor kundry's "lachte;' and on the staff below, he filled in that interval with a descending figure primarily composed of eighth notes and based roughly on a diminished-seventh chord. kundry's laughter motif, heard so often in act i, and her vocal scream oflaughter at christ here in act ii, were thus conceived simultaneously as extensions of the same phenomenon. 9. in the beginning stages of wagner's work on the parsifal libretto, there were two principal female characters, one for acts i and iii and another for act ii; the character we now know as kundry was essentially split into two separate women. in a letter to mathilde wesendonck from early august 1860, wagner revealed that he had overcome a great stumbling block in his creation of the drama by fusing the two characters into one: "have i already told you that the wondrously wild grail messenger shall be one and the same being as the temptress of the second act? since this occurred to me, almost everything about this material has become 117 118 current musicology clear to me [sagte ieh ihnen schon einma~ daft die fabelhaft wilde gralsbotin ein und dasselbe wesen mit dem verfuhrerisehen weibe des zweiten aktes sein soli? seitdem mir dies aufgegan­ gen, ist mir fast alles an diesem stoffe klar geworden] " (wagner 1914:286). for further details on kundry's gradual assembly as a single character from various elements of wolfram von eschenbach's medieval epic poem parzival, see beckett 1981 :7-13. 10. in this sense i am simply using a rudimentary definition of the concept of "voice" as it has been developed in musicology over the past four decades. the concept was first formulated by edward t. cone (1974), was revitalized and substantially critiqued by carolyn abbate (1992), and has since been historicized and developed further by lydia goehr (1998, chap. 3) and gary tomlinson (1999). moreover, wagner himself seems to have had a similar view of the orchestra's role in "voicing" kundry's subjectivity in particular. in her diary on august 28, 1878, wagner's wife cosima reported the following: "after dinner r[ichard] shared with me how he had a melody that pleased him greatly but was too broad for kundry's words; he [said he] then came up with the idea of writing [new] verses [for her], but then a countermelody suddenly appeared to him, and thus he had what he wanted. the orchestra would receive the broad melody, which would express the condition of her soul, while she [would receive] the theme [based on] her hasty words [nach tisch teilt r. mit, wie er eine melodie gehabt, die ihm sehr gefallen, zu breit aber gewesen sei fur die worte kundry's; er sei dann auf den gedanken ge/commen, verse zu dichten, pliitzlich aber sei ihm eine contre-melodie angekommen, und so habe er, was er wolle. das orehester bekame die breite melodie, welehe den zustand ihrer seele ausdruc7ce, wahrend sie das thema ihrer hastigen wortel" (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2:166). given the location of this anecdote within cosima's diary, the musical passage in question most likely occurs during the latter part of act ii, after kundry kisses parsifal; cosima's di­ ary entries for september refer to this section of act ii, and wagner signed off on act ii on september 30 (see geck and voss 1970:34). unfortunately, it is impossible to specify exactly which passage cosima had in mind. in fact, the passage may not have made it into the opera at all. incidentally, i am by no means implying that this is the only way wagner conceived of the relationship between the orchestra and his characters' singing voices. however, the description given in cosima's diary articulates one such relationship, and since the kundry of act ii of parsifal is its focus, the description warrants consideration here. 11. for a particularly strident interpretation of parsifal along these lines, see zelinsky 1978 and 1982. for an equally heated response to zelinsky's arguments, see dahlhaus 1984. 12. for readings of klingsor as "jewish," see rose 1992:163-64 and 166, and weiner 1995:18393 and 247-50. kundry's "jewishness" will be addressed later on in this article. 13. poizat's book the angel's cry appeared first in french in 1986; however, it entered the mainstream of anglo-american scholarship only with its translation in 1992. 14. it is therefore important to note that abbate persistently complicates the matter of the relationship between music and "the rest" in her essay, and quite rightfully. for example, in analyzing a passage from act iii (see example 23 of this article), she explains that" [parsifal's 1 music would not have come into being without this plot and these words and these stage actions. wagner still composed measure to measure, according to precepts of correspondence he had articulated decades earlier." her analysis-not unlike the sort of analysis i will be pursuing in the next section of this article-confirms that, in parsifal, "[ cl ertain [of wagner's compositional] techniques have not changed much since the 1850s" (114). 15. abbate enriches our understanding of one of these fixations with particular insight: kundry as the conflation of all womankind. abbate demonstrates how the male characters of wagner's tannhauser persistently confuse the separate identities of the various female characters and references that populate the opera-venus the divine courtesan and evening benjamin binder star, elisabeth the dutiful betrothed virgin, holda the goddess of spring, and the virgin mary. "men have been granted the blinding insight that venus is identical to the spring, the star, and the virgin, and after that the move to kundry was easy. all this is worth some concern" (i16-18). 16. in an earlier essay (1996), abbate analyzes this moment in somewhat more concrete terms vis-a -vis the plot, or plots, of parsifal: "this orchestral expression of mourning (the a-minor bar), if brief, is unsettling not the least because the gesture pulls us away from all that chris­ tian myth-making (visual and musical) at the end of the evening. it pulls us back into the inescapability of time. thus kundry is, within the grail world, a principle of the historical against the mythical-so the orchestral memento mori. through kundry the parsifal plot is subject to a historicizing principle, so that one could even speak of two conflicting parsifal plots, the grail-knights' biihnenweihfestspiel, which impresses one as circular and eternally continuous, and the tragic-ironic kundry tale, that reaches an absolute narrative close" (292). this view complements my own reading of kundry's musical and dramatic treatment across acts ii and iii, to be presented in the third section of this article. 17. like bronfen, in fact, smart sees in kundry a manifestation of the nineteenth-century female hysteric, although her diagnosis is based more substantially on musical observation: "hysterics are often verbally incapacitated, but their bodies speak for them through tremors and spasms-an impression wagner's music encourages by its tight shadowing of kundry's movements in the first act" (196). 18. see nattiez 1993:167-72, steinberg 1996:164-66 and 171-77, abbate 2001: 109,114-15, 122-23 and 138, and smith 2007:11-12 and 19. 19. wagner himself connected kundry to the wandering jew in his first prose sketch for parsifal from 1865: "kundry lives an immeasurably long life by means of continually vary­ ing reincarnations, as a consequence of an ancient malediction [she uttered] which damned her, much like the 'wandering jew; to inflict the suffering of love's enticement upon men in ever-changing guises lkundry lebt ein unermeflliches leben unter stets wechselnden wie­ dergeburten, in folge ciner uralten verwiinschung, die sie, ahnlich dem 'ewigen juden,' dazu verdammt, in neuen gestalten das leiden der liebesverfiihrung iiber die manner zu bringen j" (geck and voss 1970:72). anthony winterbourne argues that the figure of the wandering jew in the late-nineteenth century had come to stand for humanity's suffering at large and not for anything specifically anti-semitic. winterbourne's overriding concern is to demonstrate kundry's heathen essence; his view of kundry as a pagan problematizes accusations against parsifal as anti-semitic because, in his reading, kundry is not necessarily "jewish," but rather simply non-christian (2003:71-77). however, notwithstanding the merits and productive contribution of winterbourne's book, i would agree with marc weiner, who explains in the 1997 postscript to his book on anti-semitism in wagner's operas (1995) that "[t]he understanding of [wagner's dramatic] figures as constructed out of a host of anti-semitic stereotypes does not cancel out, exclude, or take the place of, but coexists alongside [other j meaningsl,]"because "wagner's music dramas [are] complex and multi-layered aesthetic and ideologically motivated accomplishments" (356). hence, i would not throw the (admittedly filthy) baby out with the bath water here; the wandering jew may have been more than a jew by the end of the nineteenth century, but he was still a jew, and given the welter of evidence of wagner's passionate and enduring anti-semitic worldview, i would suggest that this is a layer to the myth we should not ignore when contemplating kundry. 20. carolyn abbate has suggested that one might pause to consider the possibility that kling­ sor's laundry list of kundry's previous identities is "metaphorical, or just plain name-calling" (personal communication). the laundry list also includes "primal she-devil [urteufelin]" (which i will interpret momentarily as a reference to eve), gundryggia (a valkyrie whom 119 120 current musicology wagner called a "weaver of wars [strikerin des krieges]" -see c. wagner, vol. 2:1037), and, to top it all off, "nameless one [namenlosej." anthony winterbourne, however, implies that klingsor's list furthers the notion of kundry as a stand-in for all women: "with herodias at the beginning and gundryggia at the end, wagner encapsulates an entire catalogue of legends about women" (2003:64). winterbourne's observation, in fact, supports abbate's own claims on this issue; see note 15. 21. in making the following assertions about the "jewishness" of kundry, i am relying prin­ cipally on marc weiner (1995) and paul lawrence rose (1992) for information about facets of german anti-semitism in the nineteenth century. 22. schopenhauer would have condemned these outbursts of schadenfreude, "the worst trait in human nature" whose "delight in mischief is diabolical, and its taunts ... the laughter of hell" (2007:19-20). for schopenhauer, the laughter of schadenfreude was "fiendish and diabolical," "an infallible sign of a thoroughly bad heart ... , profound moral worthlesness ... , [and j an inclination to a sheer and undisguised malignant joy" (2005: 135). his language fits kundry uncannily well, and given wagner's abiding sympathy for the philosopher and the general agreement of their anti-semitic ideologies, the fit may not be a coincidence. 23. in the "compilation [zusammenstellungj" of observations and comments on the first stag­ ings of parsifal in 1882 and 1883, stemming from various eyewitness sources and transcribed most likely by cosima wagner in accordance with her husband's views, it is noted that in kundry's costuming in act ii, "above all, everything modern is to be avoided here-such as a tightly-fastened waist, a train, high heels, little curls on her forehead ... kundry's beauty is mysterious ('a terribly beautiful woman,' says gurnemanz), and so she may in no way remind us of contemporary life [hier mufl vor allem alles moderne wie festanschlieflende taille, schleppe, hohe hacken, lockchen auf der stirne vermieden werden . .. die schonheit kundrys ist geheimnisvoll ('ein furchtbar schones weib' sagt gurnemanz), sie darf also in keiner weise an das jetzige leben erinnernj" (geck and voss 1970:160). for more on the philological status of the zusammenstellung, see geck and voss 1970: j 64. 24. "die schlange des paradieses kennen sie ja, und ihre lockende verheigung: 'eritis sicut deus, scientes bonum et malum.' adam und eva wurden 'wissend.' sie wurden 'der sunde sich bewugt.' an diesem bewugtsein hatte das menschengeschlecht zu bugen in schmach und elend, bis es durch christus erlbst ward, der die sunde der menschheit auf sich nahm ... adam-eva: christus.-wie ware es, wenn wir zu ihnen stellen:-'anfortas-kundry: parzival?'" it should be noted that the very next sentence in the letter is: "yet with great cau­ tion [doch mit groj3er behutsamkeitj!" however, wagner's "caution" appears to be directed toward the comparison of parsifal with christ, as the next few sentences reveal: "the kiss which causes anfortas to fall into sin awakens in parsifal the full awareness of that sin, not however as his own, but rather that of the miserably suffering one [i.e., amfortasj whose laments he only dully sensed before. but now the reason for them has clearly arisen with his own fellow feeling [mitgefiihlj of the sin: with lightning speed he said to himself, as it were, 'ah! that is the poison which is causing him to waste away, whose misery i did not understand until now' r der kufl, der anfortas der sunde verfallen laflt, er weckt in parzival das volle bewufltsein jener sunde, nicht aber als die seinige, sondern die des jammervoll leidenden, dessen klagen er zuvor nur dumpf empfand, davon ihm nun aber, am eigenen mitgefuhl der sunde, der grund hell aufging: mit blitzesschnelle sagte er sich gleichsam: 'ach! das ist das gift, an welchem jener siecht, dessen jammer ich bisher nicht verstand'j! '" (geck and voss:20). eleven years later, in fact, \n'agner definitively rejected the notion that parsifal was meant to be seen as a christ figure. in her diary entry for october 21,1878, cosima wagner recorded that her husband did not agree with his acolyte hans von wolzogen, who "called parsifal an image of the savior [parsifal ein abbild des heilandes nenntj." richard felt that wolzogen "had gone too far [zu benjamin binder weit gingj," replying that '''with [parsifalll was absolutely not thinking of the savior' ['ich habe an den heiland dabei gar nicht gedacht'l" (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2:205). 25. i have taken all quotes from the 1869 version of the essay. even though the essay was originally written in 1850, wagner's 1869 revision and republication of the essay without hiding behind a pen name show how much he still believed in it. the revisions also reflect wagner's engagement with the philosophy of schopenhauer, and this engagement plays a significant role in parsifal as well. see also note 35. 26. "unwillkiirlich abstofiende"; "instinktmaeige abneigung ... von welcher wir doch deutlich erkennen, dae sie starker und uberwiegender ist, als unser bewueter eifer, dieser abneigung uns zu entleidigen." 27. "der jude ... fallt uns im gemeinen leben zunachst durch seine aueere erscheinung auf, die, gleichviel welcher europa is chen nationalitat wir angeh6ren, etwas dieser nationalitat unangenehm fremdartiges hat: wir wunschen unwillkitrlich mit einem so aussehenden menschen nichts gemein zu haben." 28. "nie erregt sich der jude im gemeinsamen austausche der empfindungen mit uns, sondern, uns gegenuber, nur im ganz besonderen egoistischen interesse seiner eitelkeit oder seines vorteiles, was solcher erregtheit, bei dem entstellenden ausdrucke seiner sprechweise iiberhaupt, dann immer den charakter des lacherlichen gibt, und uns alles, nur nicht sym­ pathie fur des redenden interesse zu erwecken vermag." 29. "[wlir konnen nun die bitte dieses konigs [in the previous sentence wagner used the word "king" in a pun to refer to the jew 1 um emanzipierung nicht anders als ungemein naiv finden, da wir vielmehr uns in die notwendigkeit versetzt sehen, um emanzipierung von den juden zu kiimpfen. der jude ist nach dem gegenwartigen stande der dinge dieser welt wirklich bereits mehr als emanzipiert: er herrscht, und wird so lange herrschen, als das geld die macht bleibt, vor welcher all' unser tun und treiben seine kraft verliert:' 30. needless to say, this anti-semitic worldview is riddled with contradictions. how can the "intellectualism" of the jew be reconciled with his "unthinking" devotion to law? 31. " ... mue es uns ... deutlich werden, was wir an jenem wesen hassen; was wir dann bestimmt kennen, dem konnen wir die spitze bieten; ja schon durch seine nackte aufdeckung durfen wir hoffen, den damon aus dem felde zu schlagen[.]" 32. " ... das judentum das iible gewissen unsrer modernen zivilisation ist." 33. "wer diese miihe scheut, wer sich von dieser erforschung abwendet ... , den eben begreifen wir jetzt mit unter der kategorie der 'judenschaft in der musik.'" 34. "aus seiner sonderstellung als jude trat er erl6sung such end unter uns: er fand sie nicht und muete sich bewuet werden, dab er sie nur mit auch unsrer erzosung zu wahrhaften menschen finden konnen wiirde. gemeinschaftlich mit uns mensch werden, heiet fur den juden aber zu allernachst soviel als: aufhoren, jude zu sein. borne hatte dies erfiillt. aber gerade borne lehrt auch, wie diese erlosung nicht in behagen und gleichgiiltig kalter be­ quemlichkeit erreicht werden kann, sondern dae sie, wie uns, schweie, not, angste und fulle des leidens llnd schmerzes kostet. nehmt rucksichtslos an diesem, durch selbstvernichtung wiedergebarenden erlosungswerke teil, so sind wir einig und ununterschieden! aber bedenkt, dae nur eines eure erlosung von dem auf euch lastenden fluche sein kann: die erlosung ahasvers,-der untergang!" 35. these "clarifications" were published in the form of a letter to wagner's longtime friend and supporter marie muchanoff, suggesting to the reader that it was muchanoff's concerns about \i\'agner's supposedly frustrated career that motivated him to republish the essay (see r. wagner 1911 :238-39). cosima wagner's diaries, however, reveal that her husband took on the revamping and amplification of the essay with an assiduolls zeal that was entirely 121 122 current musicology self-generated; the impetus from muchanoff to resuscitate the essay appears to have been extremely tangential at best (see c. wagner 1976-77, vo!' 1:22-23,27-29,40-41). 36. "ob der verfall unsrer kultur durch eine gewaltsame auswerfung des zersetzenden fremden elementes aufgehalten werden kiinne, vermag ich nicht zu beurteilen, weil hierzu krafte gehiiren mlibten, deren vorhandensein mir unbekannt ist." 37. "soli dagegen dieses element uns in der weise assimiliert werden, dab es mit uns gemein­ schaftlich der hiiheren ausbildung unsrer edleren menschlichen anlagen zureife, so ist es ersichtlich, dab nicht die verdeckung der schwierigkeiten dieser assimilation, sondern nur die offenste aufdeckung derselben hierzu fiirderlich sein kann." 38. "gewib bin ich auch der meinung, dab alles, was das eigentliche deutsche wesen von dorther bedrlickt, in noch viel schrecklicherem mabe auf dem geistund herzvollen juden selbs t lastet." 39. during the first two performances of parsifal on july 26 and 27, 1882, the singer anton schittenhelm took detailed "notes of recollection [erinnerungsblatter] " concerning the precise staging of the opera. these notes are reprinted in geck and voss 1970:139-55. concerning kundry's entrance in the middle of act ii, schittenhelm remarks: "kundry, lying on a grassy bank, in luxuriant, fantastical dress, is gradually made visible to the public. she is slowly advanced forward from [behind] the second curtain [kundry, auf einer rasenbank liegend, in reichem phantasiekostiime, wird allmahlich dem publikum sichtbar. sie wird langsam aus der 2. kulissegeschoben] " (148). kniese's score reports that kundrycan be seen in m. 748,just before the g-major bar: "two flower props which kept kundry hidden go up. [kundry is] here visible [zwei blumendekorationen, die kundry verdeclet hielten, gehen nach oben. [kundry] hier sichtbarl" (geck and voss 1970:198). porges's notes suggest that it is only the audience who can (or at least should) see kundry at this point, since in m. 758 he wrote, "parsifal cannot see kundry [parsifal darf nicht auf kundry sehen]" (198). 40. according to schittenhelm, it is only just before this passage that kundry becomes fully visible to parsifal and the audience. parsifal has been looking frequently toward the general area of the second curtain from which kundry's voice seems to be emanating (see note 39), but now, with the removal of one last rosebush, kundry's body and voice are both revealed in their entirety. see geck and voss 1970:148. at this moment in the score, porges wrote that "parsifal turns himself toward [the place] where the voice is coming from [parsifal wendet sich dahin, woher die stimme geleommen warl" in m. 784, and kniese wrote that kundry is bathed in an "electric light [elektrisches licht]" starting in m. 788, just as she begins to sing directly to parsifal-see example 4 (geck and voss 1970:199). 41. while weiner (1996) and levin (1996) are the two critics who have most thoroughly and directly investigated this dimension of wagner's musical expression of anti-semitism, neither of them actually uses the term "bacl mimesis" or "false mimesis" in the articles i have cited. carolyn abbate, however, quotes the term "false mimesis" in direct reference to weiner and levin (2001:122), and matthew wilson smith mentions "'bad' mimesis" in relation to mime (2007:21), although the critic he invokes is martin puchner (2002), and puchner actually uses the term "false mimesis" to describe mime's theatrical behavior (51). to make matters more complicated, adorno and horkheimer used the term "false projec­ tion" (interchangeable with "false mimesis" for some of their later critics) to describe the behavior of the anti-semite himself in the dialectic of enlightenment (1994). as opposed to "true mimesis;'which aims to make the inner world imitate the outer world, false projection forces the outer world to conform to the inner world, which explains how the anti-semite's neuroses become displaced onto the figure of the jew (187-200). be it "false mimesis" or benjamin binder "bad mimesis," this concept is now common currency among wagner scholars, and i take no credit for revealing its substance or giving it its name. 42. " ... bei dessen aufharung unsre aufmerksamkeit unwillkiirlich mehr bei dies em widerc lichen wie, als bei dem darin enthaltenen was der jiidischen rede verweilt." 43. schittenhelm noted that parsifal followed kundry's narrative with "tense concentration [gespannter aufmerksamkeit] ," and with each new turn of the tale, parsifal's physical move­ ments betrayed his spontaneous and sincere emotional reaction to what he was hearing (geck and voss 1970:149). 44. for another reading of kundry's narrative as "well-behaved aria" (6) that focuses on the sense of pastness that this behavior creates, see mcclatchie 1997. with regard to the formally repetitive aspect of kundry's narrative, carolyn abbate's comment that" f a]fter a certain point (about 1850), thfe] particular absurdity [of exact formal recurrence] would be practiced only by the worst of wagner's people" is somewhat apt (2001:122), although the narrative is not nearly as "absurd" as some of the examples abbate mentions. the main point for our purposes is that this kind of "empty formalism" was associated in wagner's mind with "jewish music ... and artistic incapacity" (122). 45. the zusammenstellung calls precisely for this effect: "it would be desirable above all that this whole place [involving kundry's] bending toward parsifal, caressing [him] and entwining [herself] around his neck could be executed more freely and naturally, and especially that kundry has done what parsifal later describes before [he describes it] and as though com­ pletely involuntarily [es ware uberhaupt zu wunschen, daft diese ganze stelle der neigung zu parsifal, der liebkosung und der umhalsung, freier und naturlicher ausgefiihrt werden konnte, und namentlich, daft kundry immer vorher und wie ganz unwillkiirlich, das getan hatte, was nachher parsifal beschreibt]" (geck and voss 1970: 160). 46. according to cosima's diary entry for september 28, 1881, it would appear that wagner originally gave these melodic passages to the clarinet alone, opting later to involve a solo violin: "[richard] worked during the morning and afternoon and shared with us how he employed a solo violin instead of a clarinct at [the words]: 'thus she shook her tresses' [er arbeitet vorund nachmittag und teilt uns mit, wie er anstatt der klarinette ein violin-solo angebracht habe bei: "so schuttelte sie die locken"]" (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2: 800). cosima gets the words wrong; the passage in question (mm. 1109-10 in example 14) actually reads: "like this she laughingly fluttered her tresses [so flatterten lachend die locken]." but wagner's orchestrational decision is telling. instead of having the clarinet take this particularly con­ voluted arabesque, which would have been more consistent with the orchestration of the previous passage (from before the kiss), he gives it to the solo violin, with its thinner tone and greater potential for treacly, sentimental vibrato. 47. "unertraglich verwirrten geplappers"; "steigert sich bei keiner veranlassung zur erregtheit haherer, herzdurchgliihter leidenschaft." 48. " ... wie papageien menschliche warter und reden nachpapeln, aber ebenso ohne aus­ druck und wirkliche empfindung[.]" 49. in fact, the revelation of kundry's raw, heart-rending voice (and "voice") in the second part of act ii was one of the major interpretative stipulations of thc zusammenstellung of 1882-83: "it is to be remarked that kundry's first scene with parsifal should be sung without truly large dramatic accents. kundry here is irresistibly attractive, divinely charming, thor­ oughly ingratiating, even in this melancholy imparting of information [e.g. about herzeleide's death]. only in the second part of her scene with parsifal may the violent dramatic accents emerge [es ist zu bemerken, daft der erste teil von kundrys szene mit parsifal ohne eigentliche grofte dramatische akzente gesungen werden soil. kundry ist hier unwiderstehlich anziehend, gottlich anmutig, durchaus einschmeichelnd, auch in dieser wehmutigen mitteilung. erst im 123 124 current musicology zweiten teil ihrer szene mit parsifal diirfen die heftigen dramatischen akzente hervortreten i" (geck and voss 1970:159). 50. wagner seems to have wanted a preternaturally forbidding sound from the timpani to surround this section of act ii. cosima reported the following anecdote in her diary on october 3, 1881:" [richard] asked my father [i.e. franz liszt] whether he had used the timpani beneath the pitch f, [and] my father said: no, it doesn't sound good, but r[ichard] said: he would do it anyway, and in my ear [he] said the place in which he used it: 'i saw him-him' [er . . . fragt mein vater, ob er die pauke unter f gcbraucht hatte, mein vater sagt, nein, es klange nicht gut, r. aber sagt: er wiirde es doch tun, und mir sagt er in's ohr die stelle, fiir welche er es gebraucht: "ich sah ihn-ihn"l" (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2:803). 51. wagner's gloss on example 22 as a whole reads thus: "for him, who-[with] dreadful remorse in his heart-had to immerse himself in the divinely punishing sight of the glowing grail, for amfortas, the sinful keeper of the sanctuary, are we prepared: will the suffering of his soul that eats away at him become redemption [aufihn, der-furchtbare reue im herzen­ in den gdttlich strafenden anbliclc des ergliihenden grales sich versenken muflte, auf amfortas, den siindigen hiiter des heiligtumes, sind wir vorbereitet: wird seinem nagenden seelenleiden erlosung werden]?" (geck and voss 1970:46). we should also consider richard's remark to cosima, as recorded in her diary on october 31,1878, that "[m]y preludes must all be elemental, not dramatic like the leonore overture [of beethoven i, because then the drama [itself] is superfluous [meine vorspiele miissen aile elementarisch sein, nicht drama tisch wie die leonore-overtiire, denn dann ist das drama iiberfiiissig]" (c. wagner 1976-77, vol. 2:214). 52. the music of m. 1125 to the second beat of m. 1126 is also the same as mm. 1187-88 of example 16. 53. we also hear a very brief reference to the passage earlier during this monologue in m. 1337. amfortas sings a long note here on the word "him [ihm 1:' referring to christ, the only possible guarantor of his unsatisfied yearning for salvation. 54. this explains why the music recurs later on in act i as amfortas consecrates the bread and wine for communion (mm. 1474-77, including the turn figure) and again as the knights solemnly march out of the hall (mm. 1605-6). 55. earlier in act ii (mm. 187-88), kundry did have a brief taste of this music shortly after klingsor awakens her. the word she sings in m. 187-"yearning [sehnen]!"-hints at her innermost thoughts, only to be revealed later on during her tale of confession. in m. 188, the music is soon twisted beyond recognition, and klingsor cuts her off in mm. 188-90 with a taunt that shows how little he understands about kundry's "yearning": "ha, ha! [you yearn] for the chaste knights there [ha, hal dort nach den keuschen rittern]?" parsifal also sings along with a small reference to the idea in mm. 1062-64 of act ii, after he has kissed kundry. as he sings, "i heard there the voice of the reeclemer [des heiland's klage da vernehm' ich]:' we hear the descending thirds and turn figure essential to the idea. parsifal is now realizing what he heard in act i during amfortas's monologue and the ki1ights' communion, but this epiphany does not prevent kundry from powerfully seizing this music for herself later on in act ii. after kundry's confession, anyone else's invocation of this music in parsifal reeks faintly of bad faith. 56. carolyn abbate (2001) makes the observation that kundry's vocal line here bears a strong similarity to certain segments of the pilgrims' music from the overture to wagner's tannhauser. in act 1, scene 3 of tannhauser, the words to this melody (in abbate's transla­ tion) are: "ah, the burden of sin presses heavily upon me, i cannot bear it any longer! ... therefore i want neither peace nor rest, and gladly choose to toil and to be tormented." for abbate, this implies that kundry goes not only "from world to world" in search of christ, benjamin binder but also from opera to opera within wagner's oeuvre. "[t1he line [about going "from world to world"] suggests that her quest has dragged her to places not even klingsor knows about, places outside the opera she otherwise inhabits" (142). i hear kundry's "voice" more broadly here, extended into the orchestra, and abbate is ultimately more concerned with the phe­ nomenon of "metempsychosis" -the passage of a soul (or, to the point, the essence of an operatic character or a particular musical figure) throughout an eternity of incarnations (or operas)-in wagner's work. still, with regard to my own concerns, kundry's connection to the tannhauser pilgrims reinforces the deep historical roots of her quest. 57. "so war es mein kuss, der welthellsichtig dich machte? mein volles liebes umfangen hisst dich dann gottheit erlangen." 58. porges's score contains a gloss on this high note that gives it a slightly less ironic (although no less extreme) significance: "the monstrous, ecstatic change. kundry says: 'embrace me completely, then you yourself will be god! redeem the world, [but] let me pass away in misery! i am happier with this wound in my heart than without it' l die ungcheure, ekstatische wend~mg. kundry sagt: 'umfange mich ganz, dal1n bist du gatt selbst! erlose die weit, mich lafl vergehn in jammer! mit dieser wunde im herzen bin ich gliicklicher als ohne sie']" (geck and voss 1970:209). kundry is mocking parsifal at the same time as she is inviting him to indulge her desire completely, come what may. 59. "'[i]ch komme herauf, um dir zu sagen, dab der eintritt der g-pauke das schiinste ist, was ich je gemacht habe.' ich begleite ihn hinunter, er spielt mir die salbung parsifal's durch titurelmit dem wunderbaren kanon und die taufe von kundry mit dem vernichtungsldang der pauke; 'vernichtung des ganzen wesens, jedes irdischen wunsches; sagt r." 60 "[w] ahre, edle ruhe ist nichts andres, als die durch resignation beschwichtigte lei denschaft." in the 1850 version of the essay, this passage had no such schopenhauerian overtones; it defined calm as "the pleasure of the satisfaction of true and noble passion [der gcnuss der sattigung wahrer und edler leidenschaft]." see william ashton ellis's comment in r. wagner 1995:93. 61. "[w]eil die letztere [i.e., brandt] mit demleidenschaftlichsten guten willen nicht die entsprechende fiigsamkeit verband, vielmehr sich von hause aus ein beliebiges bild von der darstellung des charaktefs der kundry fertig zurechtgelegt hatte, nach welch em sie im ersten akt, gleichsam als wildes tier, am bogen liegen, im dritten aber, als bekehrte christin, auch nach empfang der taufe durchaus nur 'knien' wollte, aus welcher befangenen voreingenom­ menheit heraus es im moment ihres erschutterten zusammensinkens geradezu einen kampf fi.if den, ohnehin schwer ermudeten und gereizten meister gab, der die widerstrebende mit gewalt in die liegende stellung, das gesicht zu boden, bringen mugte, wahrend die musik weiterging,-eine korperliche und moralische anstrengung, die ihm wohl hatte erspart bleiben konnen!" 62. in m. 624 of kniese's score (see example 21), the word "remorse-music l'reuemusik']" appears in quotation marks, suggesting that wagner himself coined the term in connection with this music. porges's score labels this same measure as the "central moment for kundry [hauptmoment fur kundry 1." see geck and voss 1970:221. 63. carolyn abbate (2001) also regards the moments of transcendence in the third act of parsifal as dependent upon the awareness of a darker force, but she makes the point in broader terms (without sacrificing analytical acumen). for her, transcendence and dark­ ness are related as inverse forms of what she calls "primalmusic"-"music [that arises] as if from a mystical onstage presence, and not from the orchestra pit" (127), or, as she puts it elsewhere, music that strikes us as "sounds barred from representational grasp;' creating "an illusion of noumenal sound" (134). abbate focuses on a passage from later in act iii 125 126 current musicology in which the "dresden amen" opens out onto the good friday spell melody, but in such a way as though the dresden motif "had gotten into a witness protection program" and is now "newborn with an innocent past;' no longer belabored by its previous semantic associa­ tions (128). the music now radiates as though from its own transcendental space and not from wagner's musical mind or even the theatrical stage itself. but abbate also postulates the existence of "negative primal music;' such as we hear at the end of the knights' funeral procession for titurel in the second half of act iii. here, onstage singing and the "panhar­ monic instrumental clangor" of tolling onstage bells become terrifying noise as the keys of bh minor and e minor collide against one another in a moment of "reverberation that seems to contain every note every imagined, all at once and almost louder than one can bear" (136). again we hear something from its own transcendental space, but one of "horror;' revealing that "the laughing meadows [of the good friday spell] are predicated upon the wretched existence of something whose name is undisclosed. it is what makes the laughing meadows so astonishingly beautiful" (137). 64. this is the passage that abbate (2001) discusses in depth with regard to the transforma­ tion of the "dresden amen" motif; see note 6.3. 65. the entire quote from cosima's diary reads thus: "before dinner [richard] came up to me, spoke of ' the elegy' and that he wanted to play it for me, he did indeed play it for me, this singular elegy, the process in parsifal's soul in which he once again 'is a complete man' before he becomes king [vor dem abendbrot kommt er zu mir herauf, spricht mir von 'der elegie' und daft er sie mir spielen wollte, er spielt sie mir auch, diese einzige elegie, den vorgang in parsifal's see ie, wo er noch ein mal ~~anz mensch ist,' bevor er konig wirdj" (318)! in con­ necting the "elegy" to this particular moment in the third act, i am following carl friedrich glasenapp's account of the good friday music in the sixth volume of his biography of wagner from 1911, in which he quotes this passage from cosima's diary; see geck and voss j 970:39 for glasenapp's comments. 66. i say "virtually" because of one fleeting moment in act iii that occurs after parsifal has healed amfortas with the spear (mm. 1077-81). in this passage, the gaze music begins in the violins, its turn converted into a trill, and in the second half of m. 1079 the continuation of the gaze music briefly recovers the same pitch-specific configuration of the second half of m. 1188 from kundry's primal scene in act ii (see example 16). here, however, the music does not end with an alienated single melodic line in a minor, but rather swerves into a sumptuous a~ major, itself overtaken in the next bar as the orchestra moves on to other mat­ ters. parsifal is singing here of the blood that coats the spear, which now is full "of yearning for its kindred source, which flows there in the grail's waves [of blood] [in sehnsucht nach dem verwandten quelle, der dort fliesst in des grales welle]." again, kundry's voice has been completely appropriated here, if it is even perceptible at all; the reference to the gaze music is fleeting at best, and to the extent that this music now finds redemption in the shift to ai, major, it is a redemption wholly associated with christ and the grail, and it only lasts for one measure. if anything, the reference to kundry's primal scene shows that her mockery of christ and its consequences are somehow part of the meaning of the grail itself, and this only reinforces the inextricable link between anti-semitism and transcendence that suffuses parsifal's music and dramaturgy. 67. for the first instance of this motif, see act i, mm. 2.38-39. 68. ryan minor (2005) makes the same point with regard to this passage. he also connects the grail melody's transformation to the dresden amen: "christian ritual (communion) and communal expression (the amen motif) have been joined" (6). (the grail melody is used to sing communion in act 1.) benjamin binder 69. see, for example, zelinsky 1982:98-106. 70. minor also argues that the "entseelung" progression itself is derived from kundry's sorcery motif (see example 14, mm. 972-73 and 974-75, for two instances of the motif), although now the modalities of the two chords are inverted. "the 'entseelung' [progression] appropriates properties of the sorcery motif (the major-third drop and the upper-neighbour motion) and re-forms them into the magic sanctity of the grail" (31). taking minor's observation in a different direction, i would suggest that this musical connection indicates the paradoxical commonality between kundry's evil attributes and the grail's sanctity rather than a progres­ sive transformation of the former into the latter. 71. in a letter to mathilde wesendonck of may 30,1859, wagner commented on amfortas's particular situation in precisely these terms. for amfortas, the grail bestowed tranquil salva­ tion at the same time as it inspired fearsome awe and anguish. these two dimensions of the grail were intimately interwoven with one another. here is the passage from wagner's letter; i have highlighted the phrases which bring this paradox to the fore most strongly: "what a terrible significanceamfortas's relationship to this wondrous chalice has now acquired; [amfor­ tas], lacerated with the same wound, which a paramour's spear inflicted upon him during a passionate amorous adventure for his sole refreshment he must yearn for the blessing of the blood that once flowed from the savior's very same spear wound as [he] languished on the cross, renouncing the world, reedeming the world, suffering for the world! blood for blood, wound for wound but here [vs.] there, what a chasm between this blood land] this wound! [amfortas,] completely spellbound, all adoration, all rapture in the wondrous presence of the cup, which reddens with a gentle, ecstatic gleam, [as] new life pours through him and [yet] death cannot approach him! he lives, lives anew, and more terribly than ever the unholy wound singes him, his wound! ardent prayer itself becomes torture to him! where is the end, where [is] redemption? the suffering of mankind through all eternity! in the madness of despair, might he want to turn completely away from the grail, shutting his eyes before it? he would like to do this in order to die. but he himself, he was assigned the post of protector of the grail; and a blind external power did not command him to this [post] no! because he was so noble, because no one understood the wonder of the grail as deeply and inwardly as he, how now his whole soul still endlessly yearns again and again for the sight [of the grail] whi.ch annihilates him in his ardent prayer, heavenly salvation granted with eternal damnation [welche furchtbare bedeutung gewinnt nun hier das verhaltnis des anfortas zu diesem wunderkelch; er, mit derselben wunde behaftet, die ihm der speer eines nebenbuhlers in einem leidenschaftlichen liebesabenteuer geschlagen, er mufl zu seiner einzigen labung sich nach dem segen des blutes sehnen, das einst aus der gleichen speerwunde des heilands jlofl, als dieser, weltentsagend, welterldsend, weltleidend am kreuze schmachtete! blut urn blut, wunde urn wunde aber hier und dart, welche kluft zwischen diesem blute, dieser wunde! ganz hingerissen, ganz anbetung, ganz entzuckung bei der wundervollen nahe der schale, die im sanften, wonnigen glanze sich rotet, gieflt sich neues leben durch ihn aus und der tad kann ihm nicht nahen! er lebt, lebt von neuem, und furchtbarer als je brennt die unselige wunde ihm auf, seine wunde! die andacht wird ihm selbst zur qual! wo ist ende, wo erlosung? leiden der menschheit in aile ewigkeit fort! wollte er im wahnsinn der verzweijlung sich ganzlich von gral abwenden, sein auge vor ihm schlieflen? er mochte es, urn sterben zu konnen. aber er selbst, er ward zum huter des grales bestellt; und nicht eine blinde auf3ere macht bestellte ihn dazu, nein! weil er so wurdig war, weil keiner wie er tief und innig das wunder des grales erkannt, wie noch jetzt seine ganze seele endlich immer wieder nach dem anblicke drangt, der ihn in anbetung vernichtet, himmlisches heil mit ewiger verdammnis gewahrt] " (r. wagner 1914:191-92) ! 72. "mir sagt er, der a moll akkord (wo kundry zusammensinkt) wiirde mir eindruck ma­ chen; es sei der schrecken der heiligkeit, der da ausstrahle. er miisse sehr schon geblasen werden." 127 128 current musicology 73. for more interpretation of the nazi wartime ban of performances of parsifal, see abbate 2001:ll4-15, who in turn invokes saul friedlander on this issue (2000). 74. see schittenhelm's notes for act i in geck and voss 1970:140-j. 75. see also steinberg 1996:176-77. 76. the zusammenstellung provides much evidence for this type of vocal delivery. con­ cerning act 1, it states that "places such as 'i am tired,' 'go to your bath,' [and] 'the evil ones' should not exactly be spoken, even though the words certainly must especially stand out; the sound [of the singing voice 1, however, must always be perceptible [stellen wie: "ich bin mude," "fort in's bad," "die bosen," nicht geradezu gesprochen wurden, wenn auch gewifl die worte besonders hervortreten mussen; del" ton/clang mufl aber immer vernehmbar sein j" (geck and voss 1970:156). moreover, "[w]ith kundry, everything in the first act is hasty, passionate, abruptly natural [alles bei kundry im ersten alet ist hastig, leidenschaftlich, jah ursprung/ich] " (157). the phrase "abruptly natural" suggests kundry's animal nature most vividly; she is a creature of the wild who responds instantaneously and instinctively to changes in her environment. wagner's correspondence also suggests that he was looking for a certain raw­ ness in kundry's vocal tone. on may 17, 1881, he wrote to ludwig ii that "even [amalie] materna [one of the singers portraying kundry in the first run of parsifal] .. . has shrunk back from entrusting the deep melancholic accents of an accursed primal woman to her bright, cutting voice [selbst die materna ... davor zuruclegeschreclet hat, ihrer hellen, spitzen stimme die tief schwermutigen alezente jenes verwunschten urweibes anzuvertrauen 1" (geck and voss 1970:49). again on june 19, wagner complained to his patron that none of the other singers he had worked with before would suffice for kundry, since "they have no deep tones, which are essential to the demonic character of this woman [sic haben leeine tiefen tone, die dem damonischen charaleter dieses weibes unerlafllich sind]" (50). to encourage materna in this regard, he wrote to her on march 31,1882: "really, don't be afraid of the low places: nowhere do these [places] call for power at allthey must almost sound toneless: in the third act of [die] walleure .. . you showed us how beautifully even these depths are at your disposalone really does everything with the soul [i.e. not with the voice per se] [vor den tiefen stellen furchten sie sich doch ja nicht: diese erfordern nirgends starlee sic mussen fast tonlos lelingcn: 1m 3ten alet der walkiire ... haben sie uns gezeigt, wie schon auch diese tiefe ihnen zu gebote steht mit dem gemiite macht man eben alles]" (57). 77. the first of these essays was actually published under the title "open letter to mr. ernst von weber, author of the essay: the torture chamber of science [offenes schreiben an herrn ernst von weber, verfasser der schrift: 'die folterkammern der wissenschaft ]." 78. "vor kurzem fiel me in blick von der strage in den laden eines gefliigelhandlers; ge­ dankenlos iibersah ich die aufgeschichtete, sauber und appetitlich hergerichtete ware, als, wahrend seitwarts einer damit beschaftigt war, ein huhn zu rupfen, ein andrer soeben in einen kafig griff, ein lebendes huhn erfagte und ihm den kopf abrik der gramiche schrei des tieres, und das klagliche, schwachere jammern wahrend der bewaltigung, drang mit entsetzen in meine seele. ich bin diesen so oft schon erlebten eindruck seitdem nicht wieder losgeworden." 79. "[allles mieh ernst nur insofern beriihrt, als es mir mitgefiihl, das ist: mit-leiden, er­ weckt. diese mitleiden erkenne ich in mir als starks ten zug meines moralischen wesens, und vermutlich ist dieser auch der quell meiner kunst:' 80 "ich bin mir. .. dariiber idar geworden, warum ieh mit niedreren naturen sogar mehr mitleiden haben kann, als mit hoheren. die hohere natur ist, was sie ist, eben dadurch, dag sie durch das eigene leiden zur hohe der resignation erhoben wird, oder zu dieser erhebung die anlagen in sich hat, und sie pflegt. sie steht mir unmittelbar nah, ist mir gleich, und mit ihr gelange ich zur mitfreude. deshalb habe ich, im grunde genommen, mit mensehen benjamin binder weniger mitleiden, als mit tieren. diesen sehe ich die anlage zur erhebung tiber das leiden, zur resignation und ihrer tiefen, gottlichen beruhigung, ganzlich versagt. kommen sie daher, wie dies durch gequaltwerden geschieht, in den fall des leidens, so sehe ich mit eigener, qualvoller verzweiflung eben nur das absolute, erlosungslose leiden, ohne jeden hoheren zweck, mit der einzigen befreiung durch den tod, somit durch die bekraftigung dessen, es sei besser gewesen, wenn es gar nicht erst zum dasein gelangt ware. wenn daher dieses leiden einen zweck haben kann, so ist dies einzig durch erweckung des mitleidens im menschen, der dadurch das verfehlte dasein des tieres in sich aufnimmt, und zum erloser der welt wird, indem er iiberhaupt den irrtum alles daseins erkennt. (diese bedeutung wird dir einmal aus dem dritten akte des parzival, am karfreitagsmorgen, ldar werden.)" 81. "ihn selbst am kreuze kann sie nicht erschauen: da blickt sie zum erlos'ten menschen auf; der ftihlt sich frei von stindenlast und grauen, durch gottes liebesopfer rein und heil: das merkt nun halm und blume auf den auen, dass heut' des menschen fuss sic nicht zer­ tritt, doch wohl, wie gott mit himmlischer geduld sich sein erbarmt' und fiir ihn litt, der mensch auch heut' in frommer huld sie schont mit sanftem schritt. das dankt dann aile kreatur, was all' da bluht und bald erstirbt, da die entsiindigte natur heut' ihren unschulds­ tag erwirbt." 82. see schittenhelm's notes in geck and voss 1970:153. 83. "eine sprache, ihr ausdruck und ihre fortbildung, ist nicht das werk einzelner, sondern einer geschichtlichen gemeinsamkeit: nur wer unbewubt in dieser gemeinsamkeit auf­ gewachsen ist, nimmt auch an ihren schopfungen teil. der jude stand aber auberhalb einer solchen gemeinsamkeit, einsam mit seinem jehova in einem zersplitterten, bodenlosen volksstamme[.j" 84. "horen wir einen juden sprechen, so verletzt uns unbewubt aller mangel rein mensch lichen ausdruckes in seiner rede: die kalte gleichgtiltigkeit des eigentiimlichen 'gelab­ bers' in ihr steigert sich bei keiner veranlassung zur erregtheit hoherer, herzdurchgliihter leidenschaft." 85. "der wahre dichter, gleichviel in welcher kunstart er dichte, gewinnt seine anregung im­ mer nur noch aus der getreuen, liebevollen anschauung des unwillkiirlichen lebens, dieses lebens, das sich ihm nur im volke zur erscheinung bringt. wo findet der gebildete jude nun dieses yolk? unmoglich auf dem boden der gesellschaft, in welcher er seine kiinstlerrolle spielt? hat er irgend einen zusammenhang mit dieser gesellschaft, so ist dies eben nur mit jenem, von ihrem wirklichen, gesunden stamme ganzlich losgelosten auswuchse derselben; dieser zusammenhang ist aber ein durchaus liebloser, und diese lieblosigkeit mub ihm im­ mer offenbarer werden, wenn er, um nahrung fiir sein kiinstlerisches schaffen zu gewinnen, auf den boden dieser gesellschaft hinabsteigt: nicht nur wird ihm hier alles fremder und unverstandlicher, sondern der unwillkiirliche widerwille des volkes gegen ihn tritt ihm hier mit verletzendster nacktheit entgegen[.]" 86. "diese anlage zur welterlosung durch das mitleiden im menschen, aber unentwickelt, und recht geflissentlich unausgebildet verkommen zu sehen, macht mir nun eben den menschen so widerwartig, und schwacht mein mitleiden mit ihm bis zm giinzlichen empfindungs losigkeit gegen seine not. er hat in seiner not den weg zm erlosung, der eben dem tiere verschlossen ist; erkennt er diesen nicht, sondern will er sich ihn durchaus versperrt halten, so drangt es mich dagegen, ihm diese tiire gerade recht weit aufzuschlagen, und ich kann bis zur grausamkeit gehen, ihm die not des leidens zum bewubtsein zu bringen. nichts labt mich kalter, als die klage des philisters iiber sein gestbrtes behagen: hier ware jedes mitleid mitschuld. wie es meine ganze natm mit sich bringt, aus dem gemeinen zustande aufzuregen, so drangt es mich auch hier nm zu stacheln, urn das grobe leid des lebens zu ftihlen zu geben!" 129 130 current musicology references abbate, carolyn. 1991. unsung voices: opera and musical 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john cumming. new york: continuum. kinderman, william. 1995a. die entstehung der "parsifal" -musik. archiv fur musikwissenschaft 52 (1): 66-97. ---. 1995b. die entstehung der "parsifal"-musik (fortsetzung und schlue). archiv fur musikwissenschaft 52 (2): 145-65. levin, david j. 1996. reading beckmesser reading: antisemitism and aesthetic practice in the mastersingers of nuremberg. new german critique 69: 127-46. mcclatchie, stephen. 1997. narrative theory and music; or, the tale of kundry's tale. canadian university music review 18 (1): 1-18. minor, ryan. 2005. wagner's last chorus: consecrating space and spectatorship in parsifal. cambridge opera journal 17 (l): 1-36. nattiez, jean-jacques. 1993. wagner androgyne, translated by stewart spencer. princeton, nj: princeton university press. poizat, michel. 1992. the angel's cry: beyond the pleasure principle in opera, translated by arthur denner. ithaca, ny and london: cornell university press. puchner, martin. 2002. stage fright: modernism, anti-theatricality, and drama. baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. rose, paul lawrence. 1992. wagner: race and revolution. london and boston: faber and faber. benjamin binder schopenhauer, arthur. 2005. on the basis of morality, translated by arthur brodrick bullock. mineola, ny: dover. ~~~. 2007. on human nature, translated by thomas bailey saunders. new york: cosimo. smart, mary ann. 2004. mimomania: music and gesture in nineteenth-century opera. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. smith, matthew wilson. 2007. laughing at the redeemer: kundry and the paradox of parsifal. modernist cultures 3 0): 5-25. steinberg, michael. 1996. music drama and the end of history. new german critique 69: 163-80. tomlinson, gary. 1999. metaphysical song: an essay on opera. princeton, nj: princeton university press. wagner, cosima. 1976-77. die tagebiicher / cosima wagner, edited by martin gregor-dellin and dietrich mack. 2 vols. munich and zurich; r. piper and company. wagner, richard. 1911. samtliche schriften und dichtungen. volksausgabe. 12 vols. leipzig: breitkopf und hartel!c.f.w. siegel. ---. 1914. richard wagner an mathilde wesendonk: tagebuchblatter und briefe, 1853-1871, edited by wolfgang golther. leipzig: breitkopf und hartel. ---. 1986. parsifal: tn full score. new york: dover. ---. 1995.]udaism in music and other essays, translated by william ashton ellis. lincoln, ne, and london: university of nebraska press. weiner, marc. 1995. richard wagner and the anti-semitic tmagination. lincoln, ne, and london: university of nebraska press. ---.1996. reading the ideal. new german critique 69: 53-83. winterbourne, anthony. 2003. a pagan spoiled: sex and character in wagner's "parsifal." madison and teaneck, nj: fairleigh dickinson university press. zelinsky, hartmut. 1978. die "feuerkur" des richard wagner oder die "neue religion" der "erlosung" durch "vernichtung." in musik -komzepte 5: richard wagner: wie antisemitisch darf ein kiinstler sein?, 79-112. munich: edition text + kritik. ---. 1982. rettung ins ungenaue: zu martin gregor-dellins wagner-biographie. in musik-konzepte 25: richard wagner: parsifal, edited by heinz-klaus metzger and rainer riehn, 74-115. munich: edition text + kritik. ziiek, slavoj. 1996. there is no sexual relationship. in gaze and voice as love objects, edited by renata salee! and slavoj ziiek, 208-49. durham, nc, and london: duke university press. 131 current musicology 106 (spring 2020] © 2020 black. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 the queer of color sound economy in electronic dance music blair black within electronic dance music cultures (edmcs), musicality and experimentation have been indebted to black and latinx djs of color since its inception in the 1980s. even today, queer djs of color continue to push the envelope of experimental edm by showcasing dance music from the “global south,” centering remix styles that border between hip hop and edm, and sampling cultural references popular in queer communities of color. this article explores music’s complex entanglements with identity and community for queer people of color in underground electronic dance music scenes. to be specific, the individuals within these communities self-identify as racial/ethnic minorities on the genderqueer spectrum of non-normative gender and sexual identities (gay/lesbian, trans, nonbinary, etc.). moreover, i argue that these socio-economic positions act as an impetus of a sound economy – the shared system of socio-cultural aesthetics – for queer communities of color in edm. the first section discusses the identity politics that underlie this sound economy by tracing how intertextuality allows djs to display these minoritarian1 perspectives. i then highlight why (re)centering racialized queer identities is radical by tracing edm’s political shifts. specifically, i highlight how narratives surrounding edm changed due to the demographic turn in europe during the 1990s. the last section explores the re-emergence of pivotal queer djs of color and the scenes they founded in los angeles, chicago, and new york by focusing on the flows of culture and people between cities to point to a more extensive global network of racialized queer communities in constant musical and political dialogue. this section also examines how the intercity networks of social media, identity-based collectives, independent records labels, and social activist organizations coalesced into an “underground” music culture and industry that focuses on the care and the pursuit of equity for queer people of color. lastly, i argue that this industry disrupts the cultural and musical hegemony of unmarked whiteness in the power structures that gatekeeping in mainstream edm. queer of color sound economy the sampling of music genres and the use of edit styles employed by queer 10 current musicology communities of color is a generative space to examine how minoritarians articulate the intersections of music, identity, and community. further, sampling, as a practice where producers take segments of “fixed musical text”2 to create newly articulated compositions, is deeply rooted in afrodiasporic musicianship.3 consequently, the music heard within these scenes include, but is not limited to, angolan kuduro, brazilian funk carioca, american r&b, hindi pop, and dominican dembow. what is most interesting is the editing styles used by djs to remix the genres, as mentioned above. techniques, such as ballroom, baltimore club, ghettotech, and house music, allow djs to recontextualize meanings of the source material. additionally, sampling as artistic expression reflects a sense of style and cultural knowledge4 wherein semiotic indices are essential in the genre’s music making.5 for example, “ha crash,” a cymbal crash on the fourth beat that informs dancers to “dip,” is a staple in ballroom music. the “ha crash,” which first appears in masters at work’s “the ha dance” (1991), is sampled from a scene where eddie murphy and dan ackroyd are disguised as racist caricatures in the movie trading places (1983). as such, remixing serves as a disidentificatory process that allows djs to create new meanings to suit their needs. the concept of musical intertextuality highlights how djs construct new “relationships, implicit and explicit, between different “texts,” including music, visual art, theatre, body movement, et cetera, in the process of creating, interpreting, performing and listening to music.”6 consequently, it is common to hear reality tv star tiffany pollard screaming “i don’t give a fuck” over a ghettotech track7 and congresswoman maxine waters’s “reclaiming my time” over a vogue music beat8 placed next to each other in an hour-long dj set. on the other hand, the practice of blurring lines between music and sound allows artists and djs to (re)center the politics that affect them. for example, deconstructed club innovator, dj total freedom, once sampled an audio clip of charges being laid against the officers involved in the extrajudicial killing of freddie gray.9 indeed, this practice of centering politics, whether overtly or implicitly, is a common aesthetic practice. this disruption of linear time is indicative of kara keeling’s conception of black polytemporality that seeks to use the past in service of present interest and desires.10 moreover, this play with time affirms the futurity often denied for minoritarian subjects. this is especially the case, given specters of various structural violence, such as police brutality, racialized homophobia, and transphobia. this sentiment is also shared by artist mister wallace whose cool mom persona is an “otherworldly being from roughly three thousand human years into the future who is ‘sent back here to right the wrongs of this time.’”11 therefore, music in this sound economy and club culture 11 blair black functions as an intervention and reminder for those living on the margins of society to celebrate their survival communally. in the example of the freddie gray sample, dj total freedom critiques the social condition of black life, while simultaneously imagining a future outside of oppressive structures. furthermore, djs and artists tap into an (afro)futuristic practice of using the past to reclaim narrative control of their communities and experiences.12 as such, remixing and re-editing points to how perception was influenced by personal history. that is, people’s background ultimately affects how source material will refract and give new meaning to the source material. for example, singer-songwriter kelela explains that any one song “could have three completely different lives for the same vocal and that’s what we do. that’s our culture. in the club you’re gonna hear a halftime version, then you’re gonna hear one with no drums, then you’re gonna hear one that’s 150 bpm.”13 within this aesthetic practice, djs that music is in a constant state of refraction because sound occupies “multiple systems and plays several roles.”14 this refraction is possible because artists’ and djs’ dispositions affect how they reinterpret and create music. as such, this sound economy is socially mediated and dialogic. in the same interview, kelela expounds on the role of collaboration: “there’s a way that we empower each other through that conversation. not only is the song better for it, but when your ideas are constantly being challenged and constantly questioned, there’s a way that you move through the world considering a lot of things. you can’t navigate the way that a man would navigate studio sessions or even dictate the drums on a track. it was really important to me through this project that everyone was going to have to go through us. not on some reverse-machismo shit, but really on a more profound level. there’s insight and intuition and consideration.”15 indeed, collaboration as a practice forefronts the importance of diversity in musicianship, positionalities, and politics. in highlighting these differences, this sound economy and more extensive dance music community work to prevent centralizing power and authority within the scene. in doing so, this scene philosophically vanguards an incommiserate communism16 as expressed by queer theorist jose esteban muñoz where “living-in-difference”17 is more representative of the messy negotiations of race, class, gender, and sexuality in diverse communities. this is especially important given how corporate structures have coalesced to flatten any representations of racial, sexual, and other socio-economic differences by universalizing edm’s function and meaning. 12 current musicology shifting demographics, shifting priorities three historical events in the 1990s would ultimately change the politics and overall perception of edm’s function in mainstream audiences. starting in the mid to late 1980s, the acid house movement – created by the chicago-based african american group phuture – made its way into europe and influenced new generations of british, dutch, german, and belgian djs who subsequently created new edm genres. these djs were affected by the african american djs playing techno in detroit and the dub and soundsystem cultures18 of british jamaicans. consequently, trance, house music, and techno became fixtures within largely white heterosexual club scenes and the music subsequently departed from its queer and african american sensibilities.19 moreover, the discursive shifts in european dance music scenes muted the liberatory politics central to the black queer underground scenes in the us. this was especially the case in the dutch house music scene where they envisioned dance music scenes as escapist youth culture that “has no messages and gives no comfort.”20 ethnomusicologists and dance music enthusiast hildegonda rietveld speculates that because the dutch were not economically and socially disenfranchised, like the racialized queer communities, they did not view edm as a refuge.21upon seeing its popularity in europe, record executives repackaged the various dance musics created by european djs under the umbrella genre, “rave music.” they then resold it to the unknowledgeable american youths. therefore it becomes clear that edm’s apolitical narrative is vital to consider given the prevalence of dutch edm from the 1990s well into the 2010s. additionally, the proliferation of british music magazines, such as i-d, the face, and mixmag on both sides of the pond further disseminated this perception of edm.22 lastly, the aids epidemic effectively diminished edm’s founding generations of queer djs of color whose presence could have pushed against edm’s lack of politics. those who were lucky enough to survive either joined the straight and whiter scenes of edm or joined pop-fueled circuit parties23 that notoriously center white gay “masc”24 (gender conforming) men.25 as a result, the more radical countercultural principles were decentralized in edm. communities marginalized by edm’s overrepresentation of white cisgendered men, (e.g. women, people of color, and sexual minorities) began critiquing the status quo. in the last five years, journalists outside of edm industries report the “canyons” between male and female djs,26 racist door policies,27 and institutions distancing themselves from sexual minorities to avoid “confusing edm event goers.”28 these incidents are symptomatic of the overwhelmingly straight and white men in executive positions of music institutions, such as club management, record labels, journals, and festival 13 blair black committees. in turn, straight, cis-gendered white djs are disproportionally hired and praised compared to their queer and non-white counterparts.29 even critiques of the representational politics within edm triggers “music purists” to react negatively. for example, dj mag posted a video30 of racially diverse demonstrators dancing to house music in solidarity with the nationwide black lives matter protests against the extrajudicial killing of george floyd by minneapolis police. however, some fans focused their anger towards a sign that read “house music is black music.” in the comments, people expressed that “music doesn’t have a race” and called for the dj mag page to stop “political sh****t.” despite others stepping in to explain how the sign serves as a reminder of house music’s history, those who were angered defaulted to the universalist rhetoric to justify their responses. in doing so, they perpetuated the narrative that edm is a largely apolitical party music. “it’s where you come to dance out your politics”: (re)centering community and politics in queer of color edm scenes “underground” industries represent a functional necessity for queer djs of color while simultaneously serving as one of the last bastions of politically ascribed countercultures in edm. indeed, this underground consisting of dj collectives, parties, independent record labels, promoters, clubs, and social activist groups all formed within underground dance music scenes with similar calls to re-center alternative sexualities and ethnic minorities in edm cultures. as a result, many of these scenes tend to collaborate by co-hosting events, sharing talent, and even operating as tour legs within an underground concert world. this section introduces some of the players that reignited underground queer and queer of color edm scenes in los angeles, chicago, and new york starting in 2008. these collectives, djs, and creatives have influenced models of current nightlife spaces and have also changed the trajectories of music-making in edm and popular music. los angeles though los angeles is no stranger to queer nightlife or edm, there was (and still is) a shortage of club spaces that cater to queer people of color. even with a healthy number of gay-friendly clubs in west hollywood, many establishments have a documented history of discriminatory door policies that deny entry to black, latinx, and gender non-conforming communities. the situation was made worse by the influx of apartment developments and rising rent prices that resulted in the closing queer of color edm institutions, such as arena and circus disco.31 moreover, after 14 current musicology the fatal overdose on ecstasy by 15-year-old sasha rodriguez at electric daisy carnival (edc) in 2010, the local government placed a moratorium on publicly held raves.32 the ensuing moral panic stirred by the death of rodriguez resulted in mainstream clubs, such as the exchange, avalon, and vanguard, dominating the edm scene (rodriguez 2020). on the other hand, illegal raves still operated, but due to safety reasons many women and queer people of color were wary of attending. however, a group of djs and creatives would emerge to diversify los angeles’s dance music scene. club nights, such as a club called rhonda, established in 2007 by gregory alexander and loren granic, harkens back to disco, house music, and techno’s golden eras when racial and sexual diversity was celebrated. indeed, the duo views nightlife as a cultural institution born from the politics of gay communities of color.33 around the same time in downtown los angeles, josh peace and ignacio “nacho” nava started their party of queer of color misfits. hailed as “la’s only straight-friendly queer dance party.”34 mustache monday was a menagerie of performance artists, drag queens, club kids, musicians and fashion designers that filled the void left by “great punk and art institutions” that disappeared in the 1990s.35 from this group of creatives, ashland mines, dj total freedom, emerged to give mustache monday their distinctive sound that would first entrench la’s underground scene and mainstream edm.36 in addition, mines and collaborators wu tsang and nguzunguzu had their party, wildness, at the silver platter, a trans-inclusive bar for latinx immigrants in koreatown.37 the collaboration between wildness and mustache mondays led to the formation of the fade to mind label by the then new york city-based rapper-cum-dj, kingdom. this label is currently home to a roster of queer, queer of color, and women of color artists who would eventually influence the eerily dissonant electronic club music that made its way into mainstream music.38 for example, former label darling kelela’s popularity illustrates the queer of color sound translatability for pop music.39 as a result of fade to mind’s success in promoting the ethnically diverse sounds from queer dance music scenes, a new vanguard of queer activists, promoters, collectives, and djs are emerging throughout the city. ravers-cum-activist groups, such as rave reparations, seek to build relationships between local black queer-identifying djs and edm promoters. additionally, they partner with underground edm scenes to subsidize ticket costs for marginalized bodies.40 moreover, collectives such as negress mag, you, and bodywork center queer femmes41 in black, afro-latinx, and latinx communities. negress mag and bodywork regularly feature international talent from cities such as toronto, montreal, and london. as 15 blair black a result, these creative communities often pool resources for community members in need while sharing radical ideas that ultimately foster radically experimental spaces.42 chicago known as the birthplace of house music, chicago is hailed for its diverse selection of edm clubs. smart bar, an institution considered to be the longest-running edm club, still regularly hosts dance music heavyweights as well as local talent. smart bar is located chicago’s boystown, thus illustrating the entangled histories between dance music and queerness. however, boystown and other well-known edm clubs located in the de facto racially segregated northside.43 consequently, boystown, as an affluent and predominately white neighborhood, is guilty of discriminating against lesbian, gender non-conforming, and their racialized peers.44 the neighborhood bars require multiple forms of id from black and brown patrons and even blamed violent crimes on queer youths of color. 45 however, south and west side nightlife spaces – such as jeffrey’s pub and club escape – have remained institutions for queer people of color. thus, a new generation of queer of color collectives continue to make space for their peers in chicago’s south and west sides. due to the racial covenants starting as early as 1900, african american, and then mexican, and mexican americans in the 1950s, were redlined into west and south chicago neighborhoods while simultaneously restricting their access to neighborhoods of the north side. trqpiteca, led by djs la spacer and cqqchifruit, is a performance and production collective-cum-company that centers queer women of color in techno and house. moreover, this company regularly hosts events in the historically mexican american neighborhoods of little village and pilsen in hopes of making edm clubs more accessible to the communities that inform their afrolatinx infused dance music. in 2018 the duo hosted their first music and visual arts symposium, icuqts,46 to highlight work by queer, trans, gender nonconforming, people of color, femme, and non-binary artists internationally and around the country. another southside based collective, party noire, hosts dance events that are intentional spaces for black femmes to enjoy themselves and reaffirm all parts of their personhood47 in the black and middle-class hyde park neighborhood. this collective regularly hires black femmes from other cities – such as nyc’s tygapaw, and toronto’s dance music vanguard, bambii. taylor and alder have expanded their reach by establishing the femme noir grant, which is awarded to black femmes working in the creative industry. lastly, the record label futurehood, owned by “cool mom” mister wallace, represents the queer men of color 16 current musicology from chicago’s southside. he explains that the mission of his record label is to create revolution music that liberates young black men who feel overdetermined by society’s perception of their gendered identities.48 new york city ghe20g0th1k is a well-known underground club event and subsequent scene created by native manhattanite, jazmin soto (dj venus x). as a budding dj and goth enthusiast, venus x wanted to push against the top 40 bottle service club model that was endemic to new york’s club scene. the deconstructed club music that became iconic to the party and the larger underground scene sought to destabilize the eurocentric conceptions of goth people of color by centering “darker” forms of popular afrodiasporic music: “‘me and my friends were listening to a lot of juke music, three 6 mafia and memphis rap, which is a very dark subgenre of hip-hop. i was like, ‘this is so goth!’ or, at least, i thought it was just as goth as the type of music being played at the parties i was religiously going to, which only played joy division, the cure and alien sex fiend – bands that are considered to be pioneers of what we’ve come to know as gothic music. i also went to a lot of raves, but they really lacked diversity. we definitely wanted to fuck up the assumption of what goth was but also keep it pretty dark.’”49 consequently, the party developed notoriety for its clashing genres and subcultures that catered to queer audiences of color50. moreover, venus x’s penchant for crossing music cultures led to a lasting collaborative relationship with la’s underground scene. indeed, throughout the decade, talent from ghe20g0th1k, mustache mondays, and fade to mind would often circulate talent and music edits among each other. adapting to a similar model in 2013, papi juice sought to diversify the manhattan circuit party scene severely lacking people of color, gender non-conforming communities, and gay men of color.51 interestingly, the party’s rise in popularity coincided with discwoman, a collective and booking agency for women and femmes along the sexual and gender spectrum. throughout the years, discwoman has worked to combat the rampant sexism within the edm industry by throwing events with all-female lineups. as a result of their shared interest in creating femme and queer-centric nightlife spaces for people of color, the two parties would often share talent. throughout the 2010s, the queer of color edm underground established itself as a contending cultural force both inside and outside its community. indeed, papi juice and discwoman regularly fundraise for local 17 blair black community organizations, such as the brooklyn community fund, and international non-profit organizations, such as the samidoun palestinian prisoner solidarity network. moreover, venus x’s ghe20g0th1k is considered important to the development of new york city’s diy club scene, while simultaneously influencing underground edm communities in berlin, mexico and stockholm.52 inspired by the success of queer of color parties in new york’s edm underground, newer iterations of parties arose to address the material realities of queer people of color. for example, for the gworls, a collective created by asanni armon, hosts a monthly party that fundraises for housing, gender-affirming surgeries, and general medical expenses for the black transgender community. similarily, discakes, the diy rave collective created by dj pauli cakes, established a common code of conduct for diy and corporate venues and most recently pivoted their efforts to raising money for immigrant families “as well as queer, trans, and nonbinary undocumented immigrants” dealing with the economic fallout from the covid-19 pandemic.53 concluding thoughts this article has attempted to explore the ways queer people of color build communities in underground edm scenes. relatedly, this article also serves as an introduction to the intricate webs of meaning created by diverse queer communities. i have argued how these marginalized communities’ liberatory politics render them largely illegible through mainstream edm networks that center cis-gender white men. i also argued that their experiences as minoritarians influence their music-making. i also argued that their experience as racialized sexual minorities influences their musicmaking and presented how the music from these highly specified networks has appeal outside their community. however, there are still more questions about the relationship between these queer of color undergrounds and the white heteronormative mainstream. in his dissertation about disco’s queer politics, brock webb (2013) argues that the emphasis on underground/ mainstream binaries obscures the more meaningful relationships and embodied experiences felt by those within the scene.54 indeed, the terms “underground” and “mainstream” are loaded55 because of the overlap between the two scenes, whether philosophical or in practice. however, there is significant evidence to suggest that the liberatory identity politics and aesthetics centered in these networks philosophically work in opposition to white capitalist patriarchy that structures the music industry. as such, further research is required to present the means by which and the extent to which queer people of color act as a creative resource that moves the culture and musical innovation for the mainstream dance music industry. 18 current musicology this is especially important given the well-documented history of the exploitative relationships endemic to the music industry. consequently, it is vital to analyze if these queer of color networks are blueprints for creating a more symbiotic music industry. notes 1. “subjects who do not conform to the phantasm of normative citizenship,” jose esteban muñoz, disidentification (university of minnesota press, 1999) . 2. kai fikentscher, “the disc jockey as composer, or how i became a composing dj.” current musicology 67/68 (october 1999). 3. dick hebdige, cut’ n’ mix: culture, identity and caribbean music (new york and london: routledge. 1987); donna hope, inna di dancehall: popular culture and the politics of identity in jamaica (university of west indies press, 2001); sandra d’angelo, “sampling the sense of place in baile funk music”. relocating popular music (palgrave macmillan, 2015), 44-62; jorge de la barre, “sampling lisbon: kuduro and the lusophone imagination.” journal of popular music studies 1:1 (march 2019). 4. tara rodgers, “on the process and aesthetics of sampling in electronic music production.” organised sound 8.03 (april 2004), 313-320; kai fikentscher, “you better work!”: underground dance music in new york (wesleyan university press, 2000). 5. thomas turino, “signs of imagination, identity, and experience: a peircian semiotic theory for music.” ethnomusicology 43.2 (april 2009). 6. göran folkestad, “intertextuality and creative music making.” intersection and interplay (2013). 7. tygapaw. “cringe mix #43 – tygapaw” (soundcloud, 2020). https://soundcloud. com/clubcringe/cringe43. retrieved june 16, 2020. 8. mikeq. “commentator buddah reclaiming my time (prod by. mikeq).” (soundcloud, 2018) retrieved june 16, 2020, from https://soundcloud.com/qweenbeat/commentatorbuddah-reclaming-my-time-prod-by-mikeq. 9. eugene carolus, “how total freedom’s devastating dj sets changed club music” (dazed, 2017) 11 january, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.dazeddigital.com/ music/article/34275/1/total-freedom-influence-interview. 10. tavia nyong’ o. afro-fabulations: the queer drama of black life. (nyu press, 2018). 11. later, m. “mister wallace & futurehood are liberating chicago’s music scene”. (out, 2018) 01 december, retrieved june 16, 2020, from https://www.out.com/out-exclusives/2018/11/30/mister-wallace-futurehood-are-liberating-chicagos-music-scene.12. kwodo eshun, “further considerations of afrofuturism.” cr: the new centennial review 3.2 (summer 2003), 292 13. khalila douze, “kelela and asma maroof on reimagining club music.” (dazed, 2018). 18 october, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/41859/1/kelela-asma-maroof-take-me-apart-remixes-interview. 14. rick altman, film sound: all of it. (1999). 15. khalila douze, “kelela and asma maroof on reimagining club music.” (dazed, 2018) 18 october, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/41859/1/kelela-asma-maroof-take-me-apart-remixes-interview. 19 blair black 16. jose esteban muñoz, “race, sex, and the incommensurate: gary fisher with eve kosofsky sedgwick” queer futures: reconsidering ethics, activism, and the political (ashgate, 2013). 17. “a sphere of relation structured less by the flat social fictions of possession equality, and equivalence, than by a mode of sharing out, just redistribution and being together in racial and sexual particularity,” joshua chambers-letson, after the party (nyu press, 2018). 18. simon jones, “rocking the house: sound system cultures and the politics of space.” journal of popular music studies 7:1 (july 1995). 19. hildegonda rietveld, this is our house: house music, cultural spaces and technologies. (routledge, 1998). 20. ibid, 142. 21. ibid, 143. 22. ibid, 59. 23. commercial parties that often cener white masculine gay men. 24. a term used to describe gender-conforming gay men. 25. shawn reynaldo, “reclaiming the queer dance floor.” (npr, 2016) 12 april, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2016/04/12/473817426/reclaiming-the-queer-dance-floor 26. lyndsey havens, “edm is a big, lucrative world, but not for women djs.” (chicago tribune, 2016) 26 jul, retrieved june 12 ,2020 from http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-edm-women-lollapalooza-ent-0727-20160726-story.html. 27. aimee cliff, “house legend felix da housecat got refused to berghain, was very unhappy about it.” (the fader, 2015) 21 february, retrieved june 15, 2020, http://www. thefader.com/2015/02/21/felix-da-housecat-vs-berghain. 28. doug brown, “‘a kick in the gut’: popular queer events booted from euphoria nightclub (updated).” (portland mercury, 2016) 2 jul, retrieved june 15, 2020, https:// www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2016/06/30/18308130/a-kick-in-the-gut-popularqueer-events-booted-from-euphoria-nightclub. 29. @itsfauzia, “i said i’d do this a while ago, but now seems like the best time…” (twitter, 2020) 10 june, retrieved june 11, 2020, https://twitter.com/itsfauzia/status/1270775130730487811. 30. dj mag, “scenes from atlanta’s peaceful black lives matter protests” (facebook, 2020). june 8, retrieved june 8, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/djmagazine/ posts/10158219149408796. 31. alessandro negrete, “where are los angeles clubs for queer, transgender people of color?” (q voice, 2016) 22 february, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://qvoicenews. com/2016/11/08/where-are-los-angeles-gay-clubs-for-queer-transgender-people-of-color/; zonkel, phillip, “circus disco gene la pietra owner who tore down club for a luxury condo development to receive community hero award.” (q voices, 2016) 30 october, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://qvoicenews.com/2016/11/15/circus-discoowner-gene-la-pietra-who-tore-down-club-for-a-luxury-condo-development-to-get-community-hero-award/ 32. billboard staff, “la officials question raves after electric daisy carnival death, injuries.” (billboard, 2013)14 january, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.billboard. com/articles/news/957562/la-officials-question-raves-after-electric-daisy-carnival-death20 current musicology injuries 33. katie bain, “can la nightlife institution a club called rhonda become an international brand?” (la weekly, 2014) 10 december, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https:// www.laweekly.com/can-l-a-nightlife-institution-a-club-called-rhonda-become-an-international-brand/; ariana marsh, ‘“a club called rhonda’ is a pansexual dance party and everyone’s invited.” (i-d, 2018) 13 july, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://i-d.vice.com/ en_us/article/a3qgvk/a-club-called-rhonda-is-a-pansexual-dance-party-and-everyonesinvited. 34. la cita bar, “mustache mondays – la’s only straight-friendly bar” (facebook, 2013), retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.facebook.com/events/la-cita-bar/mustache-mondays-las-only-straight-friendly-queer-dance-party/198979070248680/. 35. gustavo arellano, “ignacio ‘nacho’ nava jr., l.a. lgbtq nightlife icon, dies at 42 (los angeles times, 2019) 01 feb, retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/21 74138281?accountid=14512; marke b., “celebrating ten years of mustache mondays, la’s iconoclastic party.” (red bull music academy, 2017) 20 october, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/mustache-mondays. 36. christina von messling, “wildness: between reality, the stage and life” (la record, 2012) 21 july, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://larecord.com/uncategorized/2012/07/21/wildness-between-reality-the-stage-and-life. 37. ibid 38. august brown, “la record label fade to mind looks to expand its cultural reach.” (la times, 2015) 08 april, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/la-et-ms-fade-to-mind-record-label-la-music-underground-20150407-story. html. 39. ibid 40. andré wheeler, “‘make techno black again’: a social experiment subverts whitewashing in clubs.” (the guardian, 2020) 18 march, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https:// www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/18/african-americans-techno-music-los-angeles-clubs-whitewashing. 41. a floating signifier used to describe feminine identified and/or presenting individuals. see (levitt, gerrish and hiestand 2003) for more an overview of its modern conception. 42. julie tolentino, vivian a. crockett, tara hart, amira khusro, leeroy ky kang, dragon mansion, “the sum of all questions: returning to the clit club.” glq: a journal of lesbian and gay studies 24/4 (october 2018), 476. 43 arnold hirsch, making the second ghetto: race and housing in chicago 1940-1960. (university of chicago press, 2009); zach stafford “privilege, policing and living while black in chicago’s white north side.” (the guardian, 2016) 17 september, retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/17/privilege-policing-black-chicagowhite-north-side. 44. anthony taylor, “southside trash & proud: the vixen says there’s no place for prejudice in pride” (pride 2018) 21 june, retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.pride.com/ thevixen/2018/6/21/southside-trash-proud-vixen-says-theres-no-place-prejudice-pride. 45. steven jackson and jason, “making chicago’s boystown.” (wnez 91.5 chicago, 2017) retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/makingboystown/. 46. pronounced “i see you cuties.” international chicago underground queer transcen21 blair black dence symposium. 47. ashley ray-harris, “there’s an uplifting party scene just for black womyn in chicago” (red bull, 2019) 08 april, retrieved june 16, 2020, from https://www.redbull.com/us-en/ theredbulletin/party-noire-club-night-founders-interview. 48. matthew later, “mister wallace & futurehood are liberating chicago’s music scene.” (out, 2018) 30 november, retrieved june 16, 2020, from https://www.out.com/out-exclusives/2018/11/30/mister-wallace-futurehood-are-liberating-chicagos-music-scene. 49. nico amarca, “ghe20g0th1k: courting catharsis through choas.” (highsnobiety, 2017). 1 may, retrieved june 16, 2020 from https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/ghe20g0th1knyc/. 50. ibid 51. antwaun sargent, “meet papi juice, the collective behind brooklyn’s best qtpoc party” (the fader, 2017) 17 june, retrieved june 16, 2020, from https://www.thefader. com/2016/06/17/papi-juice-the-collective-brooklyn-qtpoc-party. 52. andra nikolayi, “the radical dissonance of deconstructed, or ‘post-club,’ music” (bandcamp daily, 2019) 09 july, retrieved july 3, 2020, from https://daily.bandcamp.com/ lists/deconstructed-music-post-club-list. 53. marissa matozzo, “this rave collective is helping nyc immigrants affected by covid-19” (paper magazine, 2020) 07 may, retrieved july 3, 2020 from https://www.papermag.com/discakes-fundraiser-2645943592.html?rebelltitem=9#rebelltitem9. 54. brock webb, this side of midnight: recovering a queer politics of disco club culture doctoral dissertation (bowling green state university, 2013). 55. ibid, 5 references altman, rick. 1999. film sound: all of it. amarca, nico. 2017. “ghe20g0th1k: courting catharsis through choas.” highsnobiety. 1 may, retrieved june 12, 2020. https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/ghe20g0th1k-nyc/. arellano, gustavo. 2019. “ignacio ‘nacho’ nava jr., l.a. lgbtq nightlife icon, dies at 42.” los angeles times. 01 feb. https://search.proquest.com/docview/2174138281?accoun tid=14512. b., marke 2017. “celebrating ten years of mustache mondays, la’s iconoclastic party.” red bull music academy . 20 october, retrieved june 15, 2020. https://daily. redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/10/mustache-mondays. bain, katie. 2014. “can l.a. nightlife institution a club called rhonda become an international brand?” la weekly. 10 december, retrieved june 15, 2020. https:// www.laweekly.com/can-l-a-nightlife-institution-a-club-called-rhonda-become-aninternational-brand/. bar, la cita. 2013. “mustache mondays – la’s only straight-friendly bar” facebook. retrieved june 15, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/events/la-cita-bar/mustachemondays-las-only-straight-friendly-queer-dance-party/198979070248680/. brown, august. 2015. “l.a. record label fade to mind looks to expand its cultural reach.” l.a. times. 08 april, retrieved june 15, 2020. https://www.latimes.com/ entertainment/music/la-et-ms-fade-to-mind-record-label-la-music-underground20150407-story.html. brown, doug. 2016. “‘a kick in the gut’: popular queer events booted from euphoria 22 current musicology nightclub (updated).” portland mercury. 2 jul, retrieved june 12, 2020. https://www. 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(1999) “the disc jockey as composer, or how i became a composing dj.” current musicology 67/68, 93-98. ____________. 2000 “you better work!”: underground dance music in new york. wesleyan university press. folkestad, göran. 2013. “intertextuality and creative music making.” intersection and interplay. 157. haven, lyndsey. 2016. “edm is a big, lucrative world, but not for women djs.” chicago tribune. 26 jul. retrieved june 12, 2020. http://www.chicagotribune.com/ entertainment/music/ct-edm-women-lollapalooza-ent-0727-20160726-story.html. hebdige, dick. 1987. cut ‘n’ mix: culture, identity and caribbean music. new york and london: routledge hirsch, arnold. 2009. making the second ghetto: race and housing in chicago 19401960. university of chicago press . hope, donna. 2001 inna di dancehall: popular culture and the politics of identity in jamaica. university of west indies press. later, matthew. 2018. “mister wallace & futurehood are liberating chicago’s music scene”. out. 01 december. retrieved june 16, 2020. https://www.out.com/outexclusives/2018/11/30/mister-wallace-futurehood-are-liberating-chicagos-musicscene. levitt, heidi, elisabeth gerrish, and katherine hiestand. 2013. “the misunderstood gender: a model of modern femme identity.” sex roles 48:3-4, 99-113. jackson, steven and jason nargis. 2017. “making chicago’s boystown.” wnez 91.5 chicago. retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/ makingboystown/. jones, simon. 1995. “rocking the house: sound system cultures and the politics of space.” journal of popular music studies 7:1, 1-24. mag, dj. 2020. “scenes from atlanta’s peaceful black lives matter protests” facebook. retrieved june 12, 2020. https://www.facebook.com/djmagazine/ posts/10158219149408796. marsh, ariana. 2018 “‘a club called rhonda’ is a pansexual dance party and everyone’s 23 blair black invited.” i-d. 13 july, retrieved june 15, 2020. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/ a3qgvk/a-club-called-rhonda-is-a-pansexual-dance-party-and-everyones-invited. matozzo, marissa. 2020 “this rave collective is helping nyc immigrants affected by covid-19.” paper magazine. 07 may, retrieved july 3, 2020. https://www.papermag. com/discakes-fundraiser-2645943592.html?rebelltitem=9#rebelltitem9. mikeq. 2018. “commentator buddah reclaiming my time (prod by. mikeq).” soundcloud. retrieved june 16, 2020. https://soundcloud.com/qweenbeat/ commentator-buddah-reclaming-my-time-prod-by-mikeq. muñoz, jose esteban. 1999 disidentifications: queers of color and the performance of politics (vol. 2). university of minnesota press. _________________. 2013. “race, sex, and the incommensurate: gary fisher with eve kosofsky sedgwick” queer futures: reconsidering ethics, activism, and the political. ashgate, 103-115. negrete, alessandro. 2016. “where are los angeles clubs for queer, transgender people of color?” q voice. 22 february, retrieved june 15, 2020. https://qvoicenews. com/2016/11/08/where-are-los-angeles-gay-clubs-for-queer-transgender-people-ofcolor/. nikolayi, andra. 2019. “the radical dissonance of deconstructed, or ‘post-club,’ music” bandcamp daily. 09 july, retrieved july 3, 2020. https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/ deconstructed-music-post-club-list. nyong’o, tavia. 2018. afro-fabulations: the queer drama of black life. nyu press. ray-harris, ashley. 2019. “there’s an uplifting party scene just for black womyn in chicago” red bull. 08 april, retrieved june 16, 2020. https://www.redbull.com/us-en/ theredbulletin/party-noire-club-night-founders-interview. reynaldo, shawn. 2016. “reclaiming the queer dance floor.” npr. 12 april. retrieved june 15, 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2016/04/12/473817426/ reclaiming-the-queer-dance-floor. rietveld, hildegonda. 1998. this is our house: house music, cultural spaces and technologies. routledge. rodgers, tara. 2004. “on the process and aesthetics of sampling in electronic music production.” organised sound 8.03 (april), 313-320. sargent, antwaun. 2017. “meet papi juice, the collective behind brooklyn’s best qtpoc party.” the fader. 17 june. retrieved june 16, 2020. https://www.thefader. com/2016/06/17/papi-juice-the-collective-brooklyn-qtpoc-party. staff, billboard. 2013. “l.a. officials question raves after electric daisy carnival death, injuries.” billboard.14 january. retrieved june 15, 2020. https://www.billboard.com/ articles/news/957562/la-officials-question-raves-after-electric-daisy-carnival-deathinjuries. stafford, zach. 2016. “privilege, policing and living while black in chicago’s white north side.” the guardian. 17 september, retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2016/sep/17/privilege-policing-black-chicago-white-north-side. taylor, anthony. 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uncategorized/2012/07/21/wildness-between-reality-the-stage-and-life. webb, brock. 2013. this side of midnight: recovering a queer politics of disco club culture doctoral dissertation. bowling green state university. wheeler, andré. 2020. “‘make techno black again’: a social experiment subverts whitewashing in clubs.” the guardian. 18 march. retrieved june 15, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/18/african-americans-technomusic-los-angeles-clubs-whitewashing. zonkel, phillip. 2016. “circus disco gene la pietra owner who tore down club for a luxury condo development to receive community hero award.” q voices. 30 october. retrieved june 15, 2020. https://qvoicenews.com/2016/11/15/circus-discoowner-gene-la-pietra-who-tore-down-club-for-a-luxury-condo-development-to-getcommunity-hero-award/. @itsfauzia. 2020. “i said i’d do this a while ago, but now seems like the best time…” twitter. 10 june, retrieved jun 12, 2020. https://twitter.com/itsfauzia/ status/1270775130730487811. originally appeared in: charles berstein, recalculating (chicago: university of chicago press, 2013) 277 breathtails: a song cycle in 13 breaths written for anne lebaron charles bernstein . . . 1 . . . my breath had already settled on the windows of eternity i go on but only in flits and stops to hear myself unsettling as i settled in as i go on pressed against the windowpane when even as i stop the pane presses against me. . . . 2. . . the world passed or i passed it as i live and breathe no one saw it coming no one coming saw it as i breathed i lived the world passes by or i passed it by the world i passed by passed by me current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york current musicology 278 . . . 3 . . . breath is the door from life to death on the border of hearing i hear not hearing on the border of death and life hear not hearing . . . 4 . . . in breathless anticipation i catch my breath then fall under the spell of respiratory arrest trial by rhythmic disturbance i lose my breath in anticipation of spell of arrest, trial by disturbance catch my breathless anticipation under arrest . . . 5 . . . i am breathing in long (he trains himself) or breathing out long (she discerns) or breathing in short (she trains herself) or breathing out short (he discerns) i will breathe inconstantly (he demurs) mindless of time and space (she protests) i will breathe in without hope (mindlessly) i will breathe out in despair (mindfully) i will breathe out in despair (mindfully) charles bernstein 279 i will breathe in without hope (mindlessly) mindless of time and space (she protests) i will breathe inconstantly (he demurs) or breathing out short (he discerns) or breathing in short (she trains herself) or breathing out long (she discerns) i am breathing in long (he trains himself) . . . 6 . . . strident, berserk, & artless putting aside need & care (with reference to the work) artless, berserk, and strident neither here nor there (with reference to the work) ardent, alert, and mindful putting aside grief and tare (with reference to the work) . . . 7 . . . breath settled on eternity but only stops only to unsettling as as in pressed the the when as the the current musicology 280 . . . 8 . . . eth ettle on etern ut nly ops o tling as sss ess whe as th th as whe ess sss as . . . 9 . . . tling o ops nly tu etern ut gnilt ettle eth hte ettle etern eltte ut nly tu ops o tling spo charles bernstein 281 . . . 10 . . . shivering in august shouting at the rain sleepy at noon pummeled, frayed no fences to guide me neither to the nays sense don’t hide me flushed in haze hopes at half mast fear rumples waves catch a glimpse of heather cut it out before it blows away . . . 11 . . . 1 is the ameliorative co-opt 2 is get even fast 3 is the liberal’s nostalgia 4 is sufficient unto the day but on sale every night 5 or more has 20 percent service added automatically 6 is the smallest perfect number 7 is the loneliest number & cries itself to sleep each night 8 fibs even when sincerity is easier 9’s the end of the line 10’s too cool to be cool 11 runs like rivers under the night 12 is all over before it started 13 is beloved of all incongruous saints 14 is for flat tax 15 likes compote with apricots 16 is sweetly silent on 17 17 won’t say 18’s twice the sum of its digits. 19 is still too young to die 20 is uncle max’s favorite 21 is the smallest distance from here to there current musicology 282 . . .12 . . . shivering august shouting frayed fences hide flushed haze hopes masked fear’s waves glimpse heather blows away masked fences frayed glimpse august hopes hide haze flushed fear masked waves heather fences shivering fray fear’s way shivering rays slows flush low august asked lush . . . 13 . . . everything we are the air, the sky that falls into our mouths the passing of day into sobs of night belies the fact in the name of substance, motion, rhythmic erasure, as if the food we eat replaces the fools we are the air, the everything we take as fake, as charles bernstein 283 real, gains substance in its absence the air the relocates rhythmic erasure into mouths passing falls, fooled as we are by the care we are, or will become, in the name of sky that falls as if name of night sobs in its absence, the fool belies, or will become, the name of, sobs. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 247 improvising compose yourself scott gleason the post–world war ii era in the usa saw the emergence of an intense new strain of composing music, begun by milton babbitt (1916–2011) and students collected around him, at princeton university. this high–modernist project also produced writings about music aspiring to the verifiability or corrigibility of scientific discourse, embodying the then–latest developments in science, philosophy, and linguistics. by the 1960’s princeton was the american center of avant–garde music composition, or, by extending to include electronic music and a certain geographical imagination, princeton and columbia universities and uptown manhattan—comparable to darmstadt in the cultural imagination. supporting the composition was the theory and a discourse purportedly rid of subjectivity, and projected through the journal perspectives of new music (1962–current). the notion of there being such a thing as “princeton theory,” as distinct from other forms of music theory, has been with us for many decades, for kerman (1963: 152–4) defined and problematized a “princeton school”; blasius (1997, 2) reports godfrey winham’s (1934–1975) unfortunately undated response to “a prospective ‘princeton issue’ of the journal of music theory”; and kerman’s (1985, 60–112) critique can be read largely as a response to the composer/ theorists working at princeton—kerman’s own alma mater. it is difficult to overestimate the importance of princeton theory’s writings for a vigorous engagement with the image of music (theory) as a science, with musical discourse purified of “incorrigible” personal criticism, hermeneutics. but around 1970, something happened. the sustaining premises of music theory as a scientific pursuit were challenged by some of babbitt’s own students and writers for perspectives of new music: prominently, elaine barkin, benjamin boretz, j. k. randall, and, eventually, some of their students. a drastic turn occurred, a turn away from the scientific ideals of the previous discourse, from enlightenment rationality, and towards a phenomenological discourse; a motion towards first–person narratives; towards pragmatism; towards the feminine, queer; towards language as a music; towards a leveling of the distinction between creation and criticism; towards improvisation; a search for poetics; towards, in short, the experimental. perhaps the single most decisive moment in the turn was j. k. randall’s publication of the first few sections of compose yourself—a manual for the young ([1972] 1995) serially in perspectives of new music from 1972 to 1973. a highly experimental document, compose yourself includes a kind of poem current musicology 248 of coming–into–being; a phenomenological yet didactic reading of a scene from götterdämmerung; a study of computer generation of phonemes across world languages; a kind of extended memory of a train ride; a discussion of multiple theoretical contexts for a baseball game; and a trippy script for a television show probing the boundaries of music composition’s role in the potential revolution. what follows takes place in two parts: the first offers a transcription of portions of randall’s drafts for compose yourself, housed at the new york public library for the performing arts, and a quotation by randall from a dvd interview with dorota czerner, also housed at the nypl. drafts have never been published, and they show a less abstract, more concrete, conception of compose yourself. the interview excerpt is crucial because, to my knowledge, it is the only time in a recorded medium that randall has himself offered an explanation for compose yourself and his experimental writings. during the longer part two, i offer my own improvisatory, experimental analysis or close reading of sections of compose yourself. the goal, as always, is to encourage readers unfamiliar with this work to explore it and other writings by princeton theorists after the turn, and to shed further light on an important document in the history of american experimentalism. at one point in the drafting process compose yourself was also subtitled, “echoes & mirrors of revolutions.” in the drafts, randall begins part i: dedication in the form of a prelude, with an inverted t. s. eliot quote from “east coker” from four quartets: love is most nearly itself when here and now cease to matter. home is where one starts from. (eliot 1943 [1971], 31) reference to mozart: “as a sound arises wrapped in mozart” more physical in drafts: eye, teeth, lips, ear, tongue *in draft: “(the revolution can wait: and starts now from here)” *in draft it was in one version smoke that arose “open with me smoking cigar.” “keep it faintly sarcastic” “printed language be read ‘out loud’ with attention to rhythm and tone of voice” (randall 1970–71, b. 39 f. 4 and b. 40 f. 3; see also, snyder 2012, 8) scott gleason 249 my writing looks peculiar, you know, like why did i do all this? and i remember that in working to describe music well, and as i think i’ve said plenty i was a real fanatic for analyzing music but that at the same time feeling that, “gee wait a minute, i haven’t yet found a way that’s really getting at what this is going on,” so that caused me not only to write a little funny but to write sometimes with the conscious idea that, wait a minute, how about writing like music, instead of writing about music. well there’s obvious mileage in that notion that others than me have also pursued with great results and i’ve pursued that from time to time. i think, yes, early on in compose yourself, like the baseball story and the revelstoke story, well in fact the whole thing i mean, it is clearly a question there of using words and meanings . . . by the way that was one thing that really did strike me that when we talk about musicalizing words that means to some people getting rid of their dictionary meanings—out of the way, deal with them for their sonic value. well, to me, their dictionary meanings are precisely part of their sonic value, like when you say, “amore,” that’s, the dictionary meaning of that is part of the sound of it. least of all did [musicalizing words] mean to me getting rid of grammar. a lot of people figure that, “hey, the way to do that is, you know, sort of make words that are lists,” and not that i don’t like to do that from time to time, but to me the sound of grammar is one hell of a sound, and that i don’t want to get rid of. on the contrary, i like to sort of pursue it and elaborate upon it. (randall 2011, disc 3, c. 44:39) current musicology 250 compose yourself—i.e., “get it together”; don’t talk about composition, go home. write. compose . (williams [1948] 1992, 84) am i young, anymore? i don’t care much for baseball, “get the water hot!” —of an answer to that question? scott gleason 251 *printed poem literally fills out in time and space while reading it. *“a manual for the young”: all things begin, all things end —how musical? 1—voice exchange lines 5–7: you/ours; i/mine 2—voice exchange lines 7–8: mirroring/mirrors; thought/thought 3—symmetries: 7: internal symmetry 4—octave/12 divisions with axis point ¯ ˘ / ¯ ˘ ¯ / ˘ ¯ ˘, ¯ a 1 “wrapped in sound” or: ˘ ¯ / ˘ ¯ ˘/ ¯ ˘ ¯ or: ˘ ¯ / ˘, ¯ ˘ / ¯ ˘ / ¯ 1—static; beginning without creation? axiom: here, now/space, time —allusion to logical system building 1—active 1—“now, here” accented, down, pauses; “arose”, rises up filling-out space from initial point (axiom): here/space down 1—simple present 2—present filling-out of time from initial point (axiom): now/time 6—“tongue”: body/only physical in a poem of ephemeral 12—answering: present tense (?) 13—*possible world, not this world; if this world, it is dying. —“death” but no “birth”; subject “arises” not born; the subject is a question: aporia. “das gegebene ist subjektlos.” *“death” vs. “starting” qualified with arise/life–subject —anthropomorphized vs. non-natural —qualifies a subject current musicology 252 1 beginning 2 wrapped 3 refrain 4 refrain 5 you/arise: beginning microcosm 6 talk/arises/close/wrapped/talk 7 mirroring mirrored/arise/i 8 ? 9 refrain? 10 refrain? 11 framing echo/arise/now & here 12 things distant/arise/framed/answering 13 some world/death: end/macrocosm 14 end/death 15 wrapping/ed 16 refrain 17 refrain refrain falls/most of the surrounding lines rise/11–14 die/fall *mirroring 1&11: now & here: octave framing of 6: tritone axis point 6: *or? 7: 9: center of poem: up & down/ left & right/ time & space/ beginning & end scott gleason 253 present non-simple location/ revises earlier statement which is now retrospectively altered. current musicology 254 now expansion of first gesture time juxtaposition of traditional dichotomy space —seeing in time future past *possible not actual here space juxtaposition of traditional dichotomy time —hearing in space elsewhere not here/possible world starting from a possible world scott gleason 255 —from here, all possible: if “most nicely” —mirrors —echoes “most fully” —contains me, my, mine, i: —self-assertion: there’s a prelude, & towards the end of it the curtain went up & then the moon came out plötzlich.” —sounds a standard babbitt ending in the face of self-assertion current musicology 256 plötzlich: : has abrogated bounce & snap. 1: focal for both –([before for a (& ~b) ᴠ before 2: for b (& ~a)] ᴧ after for a (& ~b) ᴠ after for b (& ~a) 1 (with cycles of one lock midcycle to cycles of the other, focal for one was focal for the other.) 2 (—: each focaltime referential for before in one & for after in the other — ) 3 (, —each mergingtime referring to after in one & to before in the other) 4 (; —sense of reference distinct, cycle spanning;) scott gleason 257 for their assistance with this paper, i am grateful to benjamin boretz, joseph dubiel, david gutkin, jonathan hiam and the new york public library for the performing arts, and j. k. randall. references blasius, leslie. 1997. the music theory of godfrey winham. princeton, nj: department of music, princeton university. eliot, t. s. 1943 [1971]. four quartets. new york: harcourt brace jovanovich. kerman, joseph. 1963. “the proper study of music”: a response. perspectives of new music 2/1: 151–60. _____. 1985. contemplating music: challenges to musicology. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. randall, j. k. 1970–71. compose yourself: a manual for the young: drafts. j. k. randall collection, jpb 12-03. music division, the new york public library for the performing arts. _____. [1970] 1995. compose yourself—a manual for the young. in benjamin boretz and j. k. randall, meta-variations and compose yourself. vol. 2. red hook, ny: open space. _____. 2011. “interview with j. k. randall.” dorota czerner. princeton, nj. recorded june 30. the new york public library for the performing arts. ldv 1723 dvd. snyder, matthew. 2012. “guide to the j. k. randall collection.” music division, the new york public library for the performing arts. williams, william carlos. [1948] 1992. paterson. new york: new directions books. microsoft word osborn typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 osborn. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 62 brad osborn example 1 transcribes a portion of “laura palmer’s theme,” from david lynch’s acclaimed series twin peaks. laura palmer, a teenager whose body is found in the first episode, dies under mysterious circumstances, and the ensuing investigation comprises the major story arc of the first season. introduced in the pilot episode, the theme acts as a leitmotif any time a character speaks of, or thinks of, laura palmer. click to play video [please note, playback may not work in some pdf readers] example 1: subdominant tritone (sdtt) in twin peaks pilot (s1-e1, 7:57, all transcriptions are my own). composed by angelo badalamenti (supposedly with david lynch sitting right next to him at the fender rhodes), the theme is meant to evoke “a very lonely girl, walking toward the camera from behind a tree in the back of the woods.”1 one of the theme’s most distinguished characteristics is the accented 63 tritone that occurs above scale degree 4 in the bass—what i call the subdominant tritone (sdtt hereafter).2 as badalamenti explains, this sdtt occurs at the exact moment that the theme’s affect shifts from “she’s so beautiful” to “she’s starting to leave, to fall down.” at 7:57 in the pilot episode, laura’s mother, not yet aware of the tragedy, calls upstairs for her daughter to come down for breakfast. the sudden dissonance of the sdtt serves to heighten the emotional state of the viewer, who is witness to the mother’s tragic ignorance and futile appeals. we hear the same sdtt again at 15:00 when she receives the terrible news over the phone, the timing now coinciding with her bereaved wail as we see the dangling handset. contextualizing the subdominant tritone badalamenti’s use of the sdtt to convey a heightened emotional state is by no means unique. the sdtt has a rich history in film music dating back as early as 1937, when it was used extensively in frank churchill’s score for snow white. this paper aims to catalog and contextualize sdtts in film and television music based on their associations with emotionally charged states. i have complied a partial catalogue of sdtts in film and television music from 1937 onwards as appendix 1. while extensive, this is by no means an exhaustive list—these examples might serve as a starting point for those who wish to explore the sdtt in film and television scoring (as well as sdtts in common-practice tonal music and pop–rock music in appendices 2 and 3, respectively). in appendix 1, i have noted the film, the episode (if applicable), the composer, the timing, and the key, so that these examples might be easily located. in examining the same sdtt motive in a number of different films, i aim to shed light on the essence of a complex and multivalent web of emotions it signifies. but what about the sdtt makes it musically suited to emotionally charged uses? to be sure, embellishing fourths are very common in diatonic music. however, while most embellishing fourths in diatonic music are perfect, in the sdtt (as the name suggests), the fourth above the tritone is augmented. relative to the fourths that might be suspended above the six other degrees of the diatonic scale, the subdominant tritone is perceptually marked due to its unique tension between what steve larson (2012) calls a scalar “magnetism” to resolve its top note upwards by semitone, and a contrapuntal obligation, qua fourth, to resolve its top note down by step.3 in approximately 82% of the examples given in appendix 1, the sdtt resolves obliquely to a major third (scale degree 7 to scale degree 6 over a subdominant bass), while most of the remainder resolve 64 obliquely in the opposite direction (scale degree 7 to scale degree 8 over a subdominant bass).4 though this contrapuntal formation sometimes occurs as a suspension or incomplete neighbor, sdtts appear in film and television music most frequently as accented passing tones (as the twin peaks example demonstrates). example 2 shows roughly the same figure in measure 14 of beethoven op. 2, no. 1, movement ii. both follow a stepwise descent from scale degree 4 to scale degree 1 with a comparatively longer accented tritone laid bare in the outer voices. this continuation of a descent, emphasized with pregnant pause on a signal dissonance, provides time to revel in the gravity of the figure before it resolves obliquely to a consonant third. example 2: accented passing tone in beethoven op. 2, no. 1, movement ii, m.14. filmic sdtts can be fruitfully compared to the broader common-practice universe represented by this example: the empfindsamkeit (sensibility) topic of the eighteenth century, which hinges on a two-note figure that always resolves a stressed dissonance by step to an unstressed consonance.5 the resulting interval may be the half-step sigh motive (pianto), but in the eighteenth century was just as often enlarged to become a major second.6 while the half-step pianto “signifies distress, sorrow, [and] lament” for raymond monelle (2006, 11), the whole-step figure regularly heard in eighteenth-century instrumental music eventually lost that association and began to be associated with the “sigh” (bauer 2011, 59).7 berg (1997, 95) describes these sighs in c.p.e. bach’s music as “introverted, gentle, pensive, somewhat melancholy.”8 all of these musical features give rise, semiotically, to the various emotional possibilities for the sdtt. in its scalar magnetism—its desire to resolve upward to the tonic—it signifies longing and striving—but a longing for something that is in the opposite direction from the target of its contrapuntal obligations, the perfect musical accompaniment to unrequited love. under the right musical circumstances, a tense resolution followed by release makes it possible to hear a kind of relief, or “sigh,” in the sdtt. taking at face value the immediate pairing of a dissonance (augmented fourth) with a consonance 65 (major third) also makes possible the same melancholy that berg hears in c.p.e. bach: a gentle, muted recollection of past trauma. the tugging in opposite directions at the heart of the sdtt also maps onto the etymological roots of nostalgia (boym 2001, 7)—a tension between nostos (returning home) and algia (aching, pain). i am certainly not the first music theorist to index harmonic, melodic, or contrapuntal aspects of film music to a particular emotion. perhaps the closest precedent for the current work is scott murphy’s 2014 article “scoring loss in some recent popular film and television.” through close analysis and an impressively large list of examples, murphy links a two-chord progression— which he notates as m4m, usually occurring tonally as i–iii—with “sorrowful loss” (murphy 2014, 301). frank lehman’s book-length study hollywood harmony (2018) catalogs many such harmonic/emotional pairings, including whole-tone passages with “expressive states of weightlessness, disorientation, and hypnogogia” (2018, 53). following in the footsteps of these and other important contributions to film music theory, this paper examines the sdtt in cues from feature films, proposing a homology between the musical structure of the sdtt and that of its narratival associates. examples of the sdtt in these films will be briefly punctuated by comparisons to similar examples in pop-rock and common-practice music to demonstrate the broader context of the contrapuntal figure itself. because the sdtt’s emphatic and sustained tritone may occasionally strain a listener’s tonal orientation (if only temporarily), a brief conclusion on the “lydian question” will help calibrate our tonal compasses. the subdominant tritone in film music though the tritone’s venerated designation as the diabolus in musica has long set it apart as the most semiotically infamous dissonance in music, it has taken on a special significance in film music for its ability to connote certain emotions. janet halfyard (2009) has written about the tritone’s role in helping a viewer discern between the comedic and the horrifying in films that involve both. philip tagg (1998) has even shown a correspondence between tritones and the detective genre in film and television. despite this emotional multivalency, a number of films from the past thirty years continue the time-honored tradition of associating the tritone with the spooky or suspenseful. these include the opening battle from bram stoker’s dracula (1992), the main title from signs (2002), and the first underscore from get out (2017). 66 yet melodic tritones nestled within a diatonic setting often betray a similar tension in comedies and dramas. the sdtt has been used by film composers to signify a range of complex emotions, especially longing, relief, melancholy, or nostalgia. each of these musical moments represents a rupture in the linguistic universe, a moment of heightened emotion that transcends simple one-word signifiers such as “longing.” in the paragraphs that follow, i present musical and emotional analyses for a number of sdtts in film music. associating the sdtt gesture with a persona of sorts is an effective way to describe these emotions in the following examples. as robinson and hatten (2012, 71) remind us, “[o]ur understanding of [emotions in music] will depend crucially […] on hypothesizing a fictional or virtual persona in the music whom listeners experience as an agent expressing genuine emotions.” i also invite the reader to think of each of these sdtts as opening what lawrence kramer calls a hermeneutic window, allowing us to “throw light on one object by seeking out its multiple affiliations with others” (1990, 13). the 2003 romantic comedy love actually contains two sdtts in its “portuguese love theme.” jamie is a recently divorced writer who, after renting a retreat in rural france, slowly but surely falls in love with aurelia, his cleaning person who only speaks portuguese. at the end of their time together, they each express to one another their unrequited (or at least misunderstood) love in a language neither can understand. once back in their home countries, each character begins to learn the other’s language in the hopes of making their love known. in the film’s final scene, jamie leaves his family’s christmas celebration to profess his love to aurelia in her portuguese village. we hear the sdtt transcribed in example 3a just as he begins his uncertain proposal in broken portuguese in front of a crowd of local onlookers. when he reaches the height of his uncertainty (“and, of course, i prediction [sic] you say ‘no’”), the second sdtt, transcribed in example 3b, begins and the camera cuts to aurelia’s pensive face staring down from the balcony. aurelia, of course, accepts (“my answer is being ‘yes’”) to a soundtrack of soaring string gestures and celebration. we might imagine the music here as embodying jamie’s awkward romantic escapade. the sdtt transcribed in example 3a connotes longing because jamie begins from a place of stability—a melody outlining scale degrees 3 and 5 over tonic harmony—then reaches for something greater, aurelia, standing in the balcony, imagined as the tonic pitch c in the higher octave, the implied goal of the melody’s ascent. but he makes the leap, ascending to the leading tone (measure 3, beat 1), only to fall short, and fall back down, 67 descending from the leading note to the submediant. he yearns for tonic/aurelia, and instead gets only the submediant. click to play video example 3a: “portuguese love theme” in love actually (2003, 1:20:13), mm. 1–4. click to play video example 3b: “portuguese love theme” in love actually (2003, 1:21:25), mm. 20–23 (onset of contrasting middle). 68 this implied upward trajectory confounded by an unexpected stepwise descent can of course be described as an incomplete neighbor, or an appoggiatura. though these incomplete neighbors are common in television and film sdtts, interestingly, a systematic study of the music21 and kernscores databases reveals the incomplete neighbor to be, by far, the least common contrapuntal formation for an sdtt in western classical music (accented passing tones and suspensions are far more common).9 an exception that proves the rule is the rare incomplete neighbor sdtt in measure 12 of emil waldteufel’s 1882 orchestral piece les patineurs (example 4), which features the same skip of a major third heard in love actually.10 example 4: incomplete neighbor in waldteufel, les patineurs, m. 12. incomplete neighbor sdtts are, by contrast, commonplace in pop–rock music (as may be gleaned from appendix 3). compared to the waldteufel example, swell season’s 2006 song “falling slowly” features a much wider incomplete neighbor leap at the end of each of the chorus’s two phrases. the upward leap of a major seventh from scale degree 1 to scale degree 7 suddenly transforms lead singer glen hansard’s full-voiced tenor into a plaintive cry. the incomplete neighbor figure, shown in example 5, marks a melisma on the words “time” and “now.” example 5: incomplete neighbor sdtt in swell season, “falling slowly” (2006, 1:10). most readers will recognize this song not from the 2006 swell season album but rather from the film once, released just one year later. the film follows a struggling busker (played by glen hansard himself) as he falls in love with the 69 pianist who will become his songwriting partner. most of the film’s music is diegetic, sounding as the two musicians compose or improvise together. this cue is heard as the couple is “falling slowly” in love as they workshop the music and lyrics to this particular song in an instrument store. all of the emotions that a listener may feel based on the lyrics and the sdtt contrapuntal figure alone are amplified when we see the two musicians on-screen, improvising the sdtt harmony together. selma, the powerful 2015 film that dramatizes the american civil rights movement in selma, alabama, uses the sdtt to express the complicated emotions we see on the faces of martin luther and corretta scott king at the end of the film. equal voting rights for african americans seem secured when president lyndon b. johnson signs the voting rights act of 1965. we hear the sdtt, transcribed in example 6, in a two-way shot that switches from lbj’s television broadcast to mlk’s and csk’s faces watching at home. first, their faces show exhaustion (rightfully so). a sense of apprehension on both of their faces reveals that they know a backlash will come. nevertheless, mlk in particular seems to experience relief through a deep and visible sigh. click to play video example 6: sdtt in selma (2014, 1:50:58). the sdtt’s ability to connote relief in this scene derives from a simultaneous release of scalar magnetism and resolution of intervallic 70 dissonance. in selma, the top note of this figure, the tritone suspension, might represent the violent and deadly struggle that the kings and other african americans have endured, while the consonant third to which it resolves represents a feeling of accomplishment, a hope that this law might put an end to the voter discrimination that had kept african americans from the polls. however, the added dissonance in a suspended perfect fourth over the dominant that follows might be heard as a partial negation to that relief. mlk and csk know that although the battle is won, the war for racial equality is far from over. it would, in fact, be socially irresponsible for the film to imply otherwise. a famous scene from the ending of field of dreams (1989) illustrates melancholy, a third heightened emotional state regularly connoted by the sdtt. melancholy in film music most often manifests in plots involving long-dead loved ones. in remembering our passed loved ones, there is of course sadness, but that sadness is balanced with positive memories. the two-note sdtt figure, with a dissonance moving to a consonance, highlights this balance of painful and grateful emotions. click to play video example 7: sdtt in field of dreams (1989, 1:35:08). though it could be possible for a film to highlight either end of this melancholy spectrum, field of dreams errs on the positive side. the film’s protagonist, ray, has just finished a long, expensive, and laborious mission to 71 build a baseball field in the middle of an iowa cornfield. once the project has been completed, his deceased father, john, visits ray from beyond the dead, dressed as an old-timey yankees catcher. after ray says to his father “maybe this is heaven,” we hear the sdtt transcribed in example 7 as his gaze moves back to john, to whom the camera then cuts. most of the happiness ray feels in this scene comes after the sdtt concludes, when he plays catch with this father for the first time since childhood. instead of tritones over subdominant chords, we now only hear its lush tertian extensions in a harmonic setting that treats the subdominant as a pastoral tonic-neighbor sonority. the association between sdtts and the melancholic is prevalent not only in television and feature films, but also in pop–rock music. grouper’s “the man who died in his boat,” an extremely self-serious meditation on mortality, is made all the more emotional through repeated vocal tritones over a looping i– iv harmonic progression. most of the song’s tritones, like that shown in example 8, are accented passing tones between scale degree 1 and scale degree 6. on the other hand, singer billy corgan’s frail sigh on “greatest” in the smashing pumpkins’ “today” (example 9) calls into question his sincerity, rendering the sentiment campy and sarcastic. this passage, perhaps more melodramatic than melancholic, features scale degree 7 supported consonantly by v, suspended over the barline, before descending by step over iv.11 example 8: sdtt in grouper, “the man who died in his boat” (2013, 2:23). example 9: sdtt in smashing pumpkins, “today” (1993, 0:36). an sdtt at the end of the 2015 film room showcases a number of diverse emotions for two different characters dealing with the same trauma in different ways. room details the kidnapping and eventual escape of a mother and son who 72 are imprisoned for seven years in a shed. the sdtt in example 10 appears when the now-escaped duo, under police supervision, revisit their former prison. the mother, captured at age seventeen, relives the traumatic experiences she has experienced in the shed. her life has become, in a word, melancholic. though she is happy to be freed, her residual trauma prevents her from entering the room even after she has escaped; she enters only as far as the antechamber. but her son, who was born two years into the ordeal and has thus known nothing other than “room” (as he calls it), feels nostalgia through this same sdtt, perhaps even a sense of longing for his past home. this nostalgia is most poignant when the young boy wanders around room saying goodbye to each of the inanimate objects. click to play video example 10: sdtt in room (2015, 1:52:20). these six filmic sdtts have at least three things in common. first, while they differ in their specific emotional content, each of these scenes uses the sdtt to depict a heightened emotional state, which the composer amplifies using this markedly emotive figure. whether feeling longing, relief, nostalgia, melancholy, love, or a combination of these, we identify that the characters on screen are experiencing a particularly fervid emotion. second, sound editors carefully synchronize the sdtt with corresponding emotional images. sarah palmer’s 73 grievous wail, mlk’s deep sigh, a son looking his dead father in the eyes, a mother and son exiting the yard and entering the rest of the world—each of these bears a level of synchronicity that links the sdtt with on-screen events. third, across the corpus of film examples i have collected, we find composers reserving the sdtt until a moment of apotheosis near the end of the film.12 sdtts almost never happen near the beginning of a film, and rarely occur throughout.13 addressing the “lydian question” to be sure, a major (or at least ionian-modal) context surrounds each sdtt discussed thus far.14 this mode is, of course, the only diatonic mode that has an augmented fourth above its fourth scale degree. but certain branches of music theory recognize and value the blurring between chord root and tonic.15 correspondingly, if the sdtt were sustained long enough, or perhaps if a cue began with the sdtt, a listener may identify the root of an sdtt as a temporary tonal anchor, and thus navigate that musical moment within a lydian compass, bringing in any number of extra-musical associations with “lydian-ness” not available under the purely major-key circumstances explored in this article. on the face of it, this appears to support potentially another explanation for the sdtt’s emotional associations, for the lydian mode not only is a frequent and distinctive aspect of hollywood musical styles of the past forty years, but, as frank lehman (2018) and others have taught us, it also employs distinctive significations within these styles.16 however, scrupulousness is needed at this point. musicians and scholars have applied the term “lydian” to a number of different musical textures and scenarios. table 1 provides pithy musical illustrations for four such lydian scenarios. in the upper-left quadrant one could make the case for c lydian based on c’s prominent location in the scalar passage (beginning and ending, lowest pitch). david temperley and daphne tan (2013) are working with such a definition of “lydian” when they report that non-musicians hear ionian melodies as happier than lydian ones. yet in these cases the telltale augmented fourth above that scalar center (f-sharp) is not functioning as part of a chord, unlike the upper-right example, where it acts as the chordal third of a d major triad. when tom schneller (2013) notes lydian’s special association with magic, wonder, and flight in film music, he is focusing on this “lydian-chord” definition as distinct from “tonic-chord” ionian music. in the bottom two examples, identifying c as a lydian pitch center would stem from identifying c as functioning as the root of a prominent “home” 74 sonority. unlike the ionian-only readings i have evinced throughout this article (a point to which i will return shortly), a scholar with lydian-tilted ears might hear this same passage in c lydian, with the accented-neighbor f-sharp not actually playing a role in the home chord. when that f-sharp is actually subsumed within the home chord, as in the lower-right example, we end up with the rather extreme example advanced by jazz musician and theorist george russell in the beginning of his lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization (1959), in which he aims to assert a certain intersubjective primacy of lydian over ionian. modal scenarios augmented fourth is not in a chord augmented fourth is in a chord scalar tonic provides lydian orientation “tonic-melody” lydian “tonic-chord” lydian harmonic root provides lydian orientation “root-melody” lydian “root-chord” lydian table 1: four lydian-modal scenarios. of course, certain musical scenarios blur the line between these four categories—especially those occupying either of the two upper quadrants of the table. tom howe’s “sparkle theme,” heard in moments of eager anticipation in the great british bake off (example 11), begins as an example in which the tritone is not a member of the tonic c major chord, but just before the repeat strongly implies the f-sharp as a member of the major supertonic chord, albeit in first inversion. and yet, ultimately, the ambiguity between these lydian scenarios in “sparkle theme” is not showcased in any of my prior analyses. though all sdtts i have analyzed in film clips could be considered transpositionally equivalent to the scenario shown in the lower-left corner of table 1, none of my analyses make room for lydian interpretations of any type. just as i analyzed room’s threesharp collection in a major (not d lydian), i would, in fact, analyze the lower 75 left corner of the table in g ionian rather than c lydian. hearing sdtts in ionian contexts, rather than lydian, relates to my understanding of their narratival association in these films. to hear the tritone as tugging in opposite directions, which so many films associate with longing, melancholy, nostalgia, and the like, we have to hear an inherent tension in it, with scale degree 7 wanting to ascend and scale degree 4 wanting to fall. to my ears, hearing these tritones in lydian settings condemns them to a “floating” quality, in which the raised fourth scale degree glides nebulously underneath the stable fifth scale degree. furthermore, hearing the four whole steps between scale degree 1 and scale degree 4, a whole-tone segment, would suggest associations with “weightlessness” or the “dreamlike” (following lehman 2018). click to play video example 11: “sparkle theme” from the great british bake off (2010–present, throughout). conclusion this paper began by proposing that the sdtt’s tonal position on scale degree 4 produces a unique harmonic tension. this tension arises from the upward pull of an expected leading-tone resolution and the downward pull of an expected resolution of a metrically accented dissonant fourth. this special musical structure thus analogizes its special narratival associations in film and television 76 music, including longing, nostalgia, melancholy, and unrequited love. and because such an emphatic tritone suggests associations with the whole-tone scale and lydian mode—two musical features long associated with film music—i addressed the possibility of hearing sdtts within those contexts, rather than in purely ionian settings. by squinting our ears (or perhaps opening them even wider) it may be possible to hear the sdtt—if only momentarily—as a small corner of the wider lydian universe, depending on which definition of “lydian” we adopt. ultimately, if our understanding of the sdtt in film and television music is based on a metaphor of tugging in opposite directions (as my analyses have suggested), then an ionian setting, rather than lydian, may best showcase this tension between what is expected tonally and what comes to pass contrapuntally. acknowledgements first and foremost, i’d like to thank my friend, mentor, and colleague at the university of kansas scott murphy for his support in bringing these ideas to fruition. his ideas on the history of tritones in film music and lydian harmonic theory (see especially table 1, for which he composed the musical examples) were basically lifted wholesale with his generous permission. i’d also like to thank my phd advisee matt ferrandino, who spent countless hours “factchecking” the musical examples contained in appendices 1–3, adding the relevant timestamps and metadata. finally, i’d be remiss not to express my gratitude to my wife, laura rossi, who was somewhat patient every time i paused a movie during its emotional apex to write down a plot summary, figure out a key, or sing in solfège; i’ll let her have the final word. “now that your article’s been published, i feel myself tugged in two opposing directions: glad that you’ll stop pausing movies but nostalgic for hearing you sing ti-la.” notes 1 badalamenti explains the genesis of this theme in a documentary called “secrets from another place,” which is included in the twin peaks definitive gold box edition. 2 the music for the opening credits uses this same i–vi–iv progression (in f, rather than c), but without the oblique motion from scale degree 7 to scale degree 6 over the subdominant, arguably making this theme’s sdtt more distinguishing. in fact, one gets farther and farther away from the sdtt over the course of this opening music: at 0:18 we hear an upward resolution from scale degree 7 to scale degree 1 over the subdominant; and at 0:55 we hear a stepwise descent from scale-degree 5 to scale degree 4 over the subdominant. 3 larson describes magnetism as “the tendency of unstable notes to move to the closest stable pitch” (2012, 2). 4 both the oblique descent heard in the majority of the samples and the distended duration heard in all of them distinguish the sdtt from quick or unaccented lower neighbors that regularly occur in pop–rock music; see for example, the upward resolutions from scale degree 77 7 to scale degree 1 in enya’s “only time” (2000, 0:18) or celine dion’s “my heart will go on” (1997, 0:44). 5 monelle describes all such figures as “appoggiaturas,” regardless of what interval precedes them (2000, 70). 6 thanks to olga sánchez-kisielewska for pointing out this intervallic distinction to me in a personal communication. 7 matthew head discusses the two-note sigh figure and its relationship to empfindsamkeit, concluding that it “amount(s) to a flexible topic of sensibility in late eighteenth-century music (2014, 269). thanks to greg decker for drawing my attention to this source in a personal communication. 8 this passage from berg is quoted in head (2014, 268). 9 my former student, nick shaheed, who performed this work, has agreed to make this script publicly available at https://github.com/nshaheed/sdtt_finder. appendix 2 presents a list of the common practice sdtts sourced from this search, as well as a few drawn from personal experience. 10 most sdtts that appear on the surface as incomplete neighbors are also possible to interpret as passing tones at only slightly deeper levels of structure. in the third movement of haydn’s op. 77, no. 2, for example, while it is true that the the g#5 appears as an appoggiatura in m.7, it is preceded by an a5 as part of a compound melody in the previous measure. 11 walter everett (2008, 152) analyzes this passage as an example of the dominant being subservient to the subdominant from a voice-leading perspective: “[t]hus, v supports scale degree 7 but has no harmonic power.” 12 the recurring leitmotif in twin peaks, as well as w.g. snuffy walden’s use of the sdtt in nearly every episode of the west wing over the course of all seven seasons (1999–2006), are exceptions that prove the rule. that both occur in a television series and not a feature film suggests that such long-range leitmotifs are better suited to cueing audience expectations over the course of years, rather than hours. 13 a notable exception occurs in the 2016 star wars reboot rogue one. an sdtt-laden motive is introduced first around 45 minutes into the film when protagonist jyn receives a transmission from her estranged father galen urso regarding a weakness that he has built into the death star, and acts like a leitmotif every time jyn thinks about either her father or the plans for the death star. 14 i have not addressed the possibility that a listener might hear any of these examples from the perspective of the relative minor. for example, i hear m. 44 of the prelude to wagner’s tristan und isolde as an sdtt from scale degree 7 to scale degree 6 in e major, but it could be heard as scale degree 2 moving to scale degree 1 over the lowered submediant chord in c# minor. in pop–rock and film music, such a hearing might be driven by a section or cue being directly preceded by its relative minor. the strongest candidate for such a hearing in this article is laura palmer’s theme from twin peaks, which, though strongly centered in c major, is usually preceded by a cue containing enough e and g# to suggest (yet never cadence in) a minor. 15 dmitri tymoczko (2011, 169) describes roots and tonics as “music-theoretic cousins, sharing a number of physiognomic characteristics while being of distinct parentage.” steven rings (2011, 107) acknowledges that both roots and tonics can be “centers of tonal attraction” and 78 foci of “tonal intension.” daniel harrison’s “chord key,” which “involves remaining on the chord long enough for it to be proposed as an asserted key” (2002, 144), acknowledges how composers and listeners might avail themselves of this blurring in practice. 16 lehman provides extensive analysis of lydian themes and cues in film music, and even in studio logo music, such as the lydian-heavy universal studios logo sequence (lehman 2018, 242n7). references abrahamson, lenny, dir. room. 2015. a24. “angelo badalamenti explains how he wrote laura palmer's theme.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-eqgr_gn4k, accessed december 22, 2020. bauer, amy. 2011. ligeti’s laments: nostalgia, exoticism, and the absolute. farnham, uk: ashgate press. berg, darrell. 1997. “carl phillip emanuel bach und die ‘empfindsam weise.’” in carl phillip emanuel bach und die europäishe musikkultur des mittleren 18. jahrhunderts, ed. hans joachim marx, 93–115. göttingen: vandenhoeck & ruprecht. boym, svetlana. 2001. the future of nostalgia. new york: basic books. curtis, richard, dir. love actually. 2003. universal pictures. devonshire, andy, dir. the great british bake off. 2010–present. aired on bbc. duvernay, ava, dir. selma. 2015. paramount pictures. everett, walter. 2008. “pitch down the middle.” in expression in pop–rock music, ed. walter everett, 111–174. oxford: oxford university press. halfyard, janet. 2009. “mischief afoot: supernatural horror-comedies and the diabolus in musica.” in music in the horror film: listening to fear, ed. niel lerner, 21–37. new york: routledge. harrison, daniel. 2002. “nonconformist notions of nineteenth-century enharmonicism.” music analysis 21 (2): 115–160. head, matthew. 2014. “fantasia and sensibility.” in the oxford handbook of topic theory, ed. danuta mirka, 259–278. oxford: oxford university press. kernscores. database. http://kern.ccarh.org/. kramer, lawrence. 1990. music as cultural practice: 1800–1900. berkeley, ca: university of california press. larson, steve. 2012. musical forces motion, metaphor, and meaning in music. bloomington, in: indiana university press. lehman, frank. 2018. hollywood harmony: musical wonder and the sound of cinema. oxford: oxford university press. lynch, david, dir. twin peaks. 1990–1991. aired on abc. monelle, raymond. 2000. the sense of music: semiotic essays. princeton: princeton university press. ____________. 2006. the musical topic: hunt, military and pastoral. bloomington: indiana university press. murphy, scott. 2014. “scoring loss in some recent popular film and television.” music theory spectrum 36 (2): 295–314. 79 music21. database. https://web.mit.edu/music21/. rings, steven. 2011. tonality and transformation. oxford: oxford university press. robinson, phil alden, dir. field of dreams. 1989. universal pictures. robinson, jenefer and r. hatten. 2012. “emotions in music.” music theory spectrum 34 (2): 71–106. russell, george. 1959. the lydian chromatic concept of tonal organization. new york: concept. schneller, tom. 2013. “modal interchange and semantic resonance in themes by john williams.” journal of film music 6 (1): 49–74. tagg, philip. 1998. “tritonal crime and ‘music as music.’” in norme con ironie. scritti per i settant’ anni di ennio morricone, ed. s. miceli, l. gallenga, l. kokkaliari, 273–312. milan: suvini zerboni. temperley, david and daphne tan. 2013. “emotional connotations of diatonic modes.” music perception 30 (3): 237–57. tymoczko, dmitri. 2011. a geometry of music: harmony and counterpoint in the extended common practice. oxford: oxford university press. appendix 1: subdominant tritones in film and television. year film/series song/description/episode composer timing nct key 1937 snow white "someday my prince will come." frank churchill 58:00 in g 1939 gone with the wind tara's theme. max steiner 12:10 sus e 1942 kings row title music. eric korngold 00:15 in b 1962 to kill a mockingbird title music. elmer bernstein 01:30 apt e 1984 neverending story bastian meets rockbiter. klaus doldinger, giorgio moroder 1:05:45 sus e 1984 the natural the final game. randy newman 2:19:20 in f 1985 cocoon main theme. james horner 2:30 apt a 1985 rocky iv training montage. vince di cola 57:25 in c 1986 an american tail "somewhere out there." james horner 42:17 apt e 80 (year) (film/series) (song/description/episode) (composer) (time) (nct) (key) 1990 total recall a new life. jerry goldsmith 1:48:15 in e 1990 twin peaks pilot. angelo badalamenti 08:10 in c 1990 poirot s2 e9 christopher gunning 02:20 sus g 1991 the rocketeer main theme. james horner 01:02 in d 1991 poirot s3 e4 christopher gunning 49:15 sus b 1992 aladdin "a whole new world." alan menken 56:05 in d 1992 inspector morse s6 e1 barrington pheloung 11:34 apt c 1993 the three musketeers queen anne reminisces about marrying louis. michael kamen 56:05 in g 1993 adventures of brisco county jr. s1 e24 velton ray bunch 45:08 in c 1994 the pagemaster richard despairs. james horner 45:50 apt c 1995 the american president andrew and sydney kiss. marc shaiman 53:10 in b 1995 first knight pyre at sea. jerry goldsmith 2:06:25 apt b 1995 jumanji allan parish. james horner 35:42 apt b 1996 courage under fire nat calls wife. james horner 1:05:20 in d 1997 contact after court hearing. alan silvestri 2:16:25 sus b 1997 mr. show s3 e7: “bush is a pussy.” mark rivers 7:40 sus c 1999 new york: a documentary part ii. brian keane 50:38 apt g 81 (year) (film/series) (song/description/episode) (composer) (time) (nct) (key) 1999 the west wing title music. w. g. snuffy walden 00:15 apt e 1999 the sixth sense anna says “goodnight.” james newton howard 1:42:00 in a 2000 farscape s2 e13: john and erin, find out their dna is compatible. guy gross 42:27 apt b 2000 farscape s2 e13 guy gross 42:38 unt c# 2001 samurai jack s1 e10 james l. venable 20:10 apt c 2003 farscape s4 e22: erin discovers that she is pregnant. guy gross 39:05 apt e 2003 love, actually title music. craig armstrong 01:28 in c 2003 how to lose a guy in 10 days andie’s in bathroom thinking about how much she loves ben’s family. david newman 1:21:18 apt d 2004 50 first dates lucy finally realizes she has amnesia. teddy castellucci 48:40 apt c 2004 dark place title music. andrew hewitt 00:50 in a 2004 house s1 e4: cameron watches healthy baby leave the hospital after possibly admitting she lost a baby. jason derlatka and jon ehrlich 40:00 in a 2005 family stone family’s realization that their mother is dead. michael giacchino 1:37:55 in c 2005 fever pitch ben learns linday’s not pregnant and puts away the red sox onesie. craig armstrong 1:03:35 sus c 2006 holiday amanda and graham say farewell. hans zimmer 2:03:55 sus d 2006 flyboys rawlings and luciane fly. trevor rabin 1:08:08 in c 82 (year) (film/series) (song/description/episode) (composer) (time) (nct) (key) 2006 venture bros. s2 e1: “powerless in the face of death.” remix of rozzala’s “everybody’s free” (pop song from 1991) 01:24 sus c 2006 avatar: the last airbender s2 e5 benjamin wynn and jeremy zuckerman 23:00 in b 2007 once a musician writes new songs about their ex. glen hansard, marketa irglova 39:45 sus c 2008 madmen s2 e13: don returns to office after missing in action in ca david carbonara 9:40 in e 2009 watchmen “as long as john is still watching us.” tyler bates 3:22:46 sus e 2009 the twilight saga: new moon bella tells jake she is marrying edward. alexandre desplat 1:58:31 sus f# 2010 touch of frost s15 e2: taking somebody off of life support. ray russel 1:22:00 apt a 2010 parenthood s1 e1: mother admits to son that he deserves a better father. jason derlatka and jon ehrlich 41:53 sus c 2011 melancholia title music. richard wagner (from tristan und isolde) 01:50 in c 2011 portlandia s5 e6 fred armisen, carol brownstein 13:35 sus d 2011 another earth first kiss. will bates, phil mossman 59:14 sus c 83 (year) (film/series) (song/description/episode) (composer) (time) (nct) (key) 2012 the news room title music. thomas newman 00:30 in e 2013 game of thrones s3 e7: man threatened with dragons. ramin djawadi 25:49 apt e 2014 s4 e3: jamie and cersei kiss over their dead inbred son’s body. 14:18 2014 tyrant title music. jeff danna 00:30 in e 2014 selma lbj passes equal rights act. jason moran 1:50:58 in d 2014 clouds of sils maria george frideric handel (largo from xerxes) 38:22 sus g 2014 touch of cloth (parody of touch of frost) s3 e2 christopher gutch 43:22 sus e 2015 the age of adaline adaline in hospital. rob simonsen 1:37:59 in c 2015 somm: into the bottle son tastes his father's wine. brian carmody 31:38 sus a 2015 room leaving shed. stephen rennicks 1:52:20 in a 2016 chance s1 e1 will bates 08:45 in c 2016 stranger things s1 e6 kyle dixon, michael stein 43:10 sus b 2016 passengers anticipates aurora's entrance at bar. thomas newman 1:45:05 ret d 2016 rogue one jyn erso receives secret death star plans from her father. michael giacchino 46:14 in e 2016 captain fantastic a family loses their wild lifestyle. alex somers 1:29:00 sus d 84 (year) (film/series) (song/description/episode) (composer) (time) (nct) (key) 2016 my big fat greek wedding 2 young woman supports her mother. christopher lennertz 45:00 apt c 2016 the magnificent seven a hunter realizes his trade is no longer valid after government stops paying for crow scalps. simon franglen and james horner 41:25 apt c 2016 planet earth ii s2 e1: penguins have just completed harrowing journey to feed their chicks. hans zimmer 49:37 sus f 2016 fantastic beasts and where to find them mind reader sees picture of zoe kravitz clearly newt’s lost love. james newton howard 1:31:08 ant a bird erases the city's memory and all destruction is fixed— but at the cost of the nonmagical people losing their memory of all things magical. 1:52:46 sus c investigator reminds newt of his lost love. 2:01:00 ant c 2017 the zookeeper’s wife diegetic piano playing when the hiding jews emerge. ludwig van beethoven (op. 2, no. 1, mvt. ii) 57:00 apt f 2017 love s2 e3: protagonist regrets having sex after addiction therapy. brady cohan 24:11 apt d 2017 a handmaid’s tale s1 e10: delivering contraband package. adam taylor 6:21 apt f 2017 phantom thread “the tailor of fitzrovia.” jonny greenwood 1:04 (in soundtr ack clip) apt e 2017 beauty and the beast belle realizes she loved the beast after he is shot. alan menken 1:50:13 sus e 2017 alien covenant daniels’s partner dies, she goes through his possessions. jed kurzel 11:40 apt a daniels remembers her dead partner. 18:15 apt a 85 (year) (film/series) (song/description/episode) (composer) (time) (nct) (key) 2017 stranger things s2 e7: an older sister gives tender talk about not killing somebody. kyle dixon and michael stein 33:10 apt b s2 e9: eleven closes the portal. kyle dixon and michael stein 44:14 sus b 2017 s-town (podcast) s1 e5: interviewing a man about suicide. daniel hart, try pollard, helado negro, and matt mcginley 54:45 apt e 2017 the post kay says “i love this paper!” john williams 1:30:00 sus b 2018 ready player one digital halladay dies after handing over egg to parzifal. alan silvestri 2:04:14 in b 2018 black panther one character is killed to save another. ludwig göransson 1:07:00 apt b 2018 the americans s6 e10: looking over their new russian cityscape. nathan barr 1:05:07 apt a 2018 a wrinkle in time meg meets her father. ramin djawadi 1:15:31 ant d mrs. ws leave earth. 1:31:38 ant c# 2018 casual s4 e8: diegetic funeral music. mateo messina 7:01 sus f 2018 the first s1 e7: scientist gets offer to go into space, maybe to die. colin stetson 36:56 in f 2018 the kissing booth first kiss in front of hollywood sign. patrick first 59:00 atp c 2018 dumplin’ willowdean is comforted by drag queen after her aunt dies. jake monaco 55:34 ant c 2018 juliet, naked tucker admits to abandoning his first daughter. nathan larson 1:11:53 in e 86 (year) (film/series) (song/description/episode) (composer) (time) (nct) (key) 2019 the aftermath just as rachael is leaving her husband for someone else, he admits that he thinks of their dead child still. martin phipps 1:37:13 sus c 2019 a handmaid’s tale s3 e5: offred refuses asylum and chooses to go back to gilead. adam taylor 42:33 apt b 2020 love, guaranteed 58:29 after a romantic night a woman extends her hand for a handshake. ryan shore 58:29 sus c 2020 david attenborough, a life on earth recounting the apollo 8 footage. steven price 19:24 sus a appendix 2. subdominant tritones in classical music. year composer work movement/ section measures nct key 1737 johann sebastian bach cantata bwv 197 mvt. v m. 1, b. 4 apt a 1738 george frideric handel xerxes “ombra mai fu” m. 23, b. 4 apt f 1772 wolfgang amadeus mozart divertimento in bflat major, k. 137 mvt. iii m. 15 apt b 1774 piano sonata no. 5, k. 283 mvt. i m. 5 sus g 1774–76 joseph haydn piano sonata no. 47, hob. xvi:23 mvt. ii mm. 42–45 in b 1775 wolfgang amadeus mozart violin concerto no. 2, k. 211 mvt. iii m. 110 apt f 1785 piano concerto no. 21, k. 467 mvt ii m. 50 apt c 1794 joseph haydn piano sonata no. 56, hob. xvi:42 mvt. i m. 11 apt f* 1795 ludwig van beethoven piano sonata no. 1, op. 2, no. 1 mvt. i m. 14 apt f 87 (year) (composer) (work) (movement/ section) (measures) (nct) (key) 1795–96 ludwig van beethoven piano sonata no. 20, op. 49, no. 2 mvt. i m. 11 apt g 1796–97 piano sonata no. 4, op. 7 mvt. i m. 69 apt b 1796–97 joseph haydn string quartet, op. 76, no. 3 mvt. ii m. 13 sus g 1799 string quartet, op. 77, no. 2 mvt. iii m. 7 in a 1803–04 ludwig van beethoven symphony no. 3, op. 55 mvt. ii m. 71 sus c 1803–04 piano sonata no. 21, op. 53 mvt. i m. 43 sus e 1809 piano sonata no. 25, op. 79 mvt. i m. 4 apt g 1811 piano concerto no. 5, op. 73 mvt. ii m. 20 sus b 1817–18 piano sonata no. 29, op. 106 mvt. iii m. 23 apt g 1825 felix mendelssohn piano sonata no. 1, op. 6 mvt. i m. 7 apt e 1829–45 song without words op. 19b mvt. iv m. 18 apt a 1830 theobald böhm fantasy on a theme of schubert, op. 21 thema m. 3 apt e 1832–45 robert schumann albumblätter, op. 124 no. 4 m. 18 apt f no. 8 m. 3 in f no. 11 m. 15 apt a 1840 dichterliebe, op. 48 "am leuchtenden sommermor gen" m. 4 apt b 1845 richard wagner tannhäuser, wwv 70 overture m. 31 apt e 88 (year) (composer) (work) (movement/ section) (measures) (nct) (key) 1850 richard wagner lohengrin, wwv 75 vorspiel m. 63 sus a 1865 tristan und isolde, wwv 90 prelude m. 44 apt e 1865–68 johannes brahms german requiem, op. 45 mvt. iv m. 12 apt e 1870 richard wagner siegfried-idyll, wwv 103 m. 79 sus b 1876–77 johannes brahms gesänge, op. 72 no. 3 m. 4 sus a 1878 violin concerto, op. 77 mvt. i m. 206 ant a 1882 emil waldteufel les patineurs, op. 183 m. 12 in a 1883 johannes brahms symphony no. 3, op. 90 mvt. iii m. 74 in b 1884 symphony no. 4, op. 98 mvt. iv m. 116 sus e 1885 antonín dvořák symphony no. 7, op. 70 mvt. ii m. 12 sus f 1886 johannes brahms op. 100 mvt. 1 m. 53 apt e 1888–95 gustav mahler symphony no. 2 mvt. v m. 701 in e 1893 johannes brahms 6 klavierstücke, op. 118, no. 2 intermezzo m. 31 apt a 1893 6 klavierstücke, op. 118, no. 5 romance m. 6 apt f 1893 antonín dvořák symphony no. 9, op. 95 mvt. ii m. 11 in d 1898 richard strauss ein heldenleben, op. 40 m. 6 sus e 1906–7 sergei rachmaninoff symphony no. 2, op. 27 mvt. iii m. 2 in a 1929–31 ferde grofe grand canyon suite no. 5 "cloudburst" ca. 31:20 apt e 89 (year) (composer) (work) (movement/ section) (measures) (nct) (key) 1937 eric h. thiman “i love all the graceful things” m. 36 in a 2010 james macmillan missa dunelmi sanctus m. 57 (harmony is ii7) apt a 2013 phillip glass violin concerto no. 2 mvt. ii m. 284 apt am 2018 ólafur arnalds re:member "partials" 1:34 sus a appendix 3: subdominant tritones in pop–rock music. year artist album track timing nct key 1960 elvis presley elvis is back! “it's now or never” 0:47 apt e 1961 henry mancini breakfast at tiffany's “moon river” 1:32 apt d 1972 neil young harvest “a man needs a maid” 0:01 apt f 1972 randy newman sail away “old man” 2:28 apt c “burn on” 1:06 in b 1974 good old boys “rollin” 1:40 in f 1974 david bowie diamond dogs “sweet thing” (reprise) 1:12 in f 1977 randy newman little criminals “baltimore” 1:24 sus g 1979 styx cornerstone “lights” 2:06 apt a 1980 eric carmen tonight you're mine “almost paradise” 0:32, 1:50 apt g 1981 journey escape “open arms” 0:40 sus/in d 1983 david bowie let's dance “modern love” 0:18 in g 1986 peter cetera solitude/solitaire “next time i fall” 0:39 in a 90 (year) (artist) (album) (track) (timing) (nct) (key) 1986 boston third stage “amanda” 1:24 in g 1987 dinosaur jr. you're living all over me “little fury things” 0:41 sus g 1987 neil diamond the jazz singer “hello again” 0:49 in c 1987 u2 the joshua tree “where the streets have no name” 0:14 sus a 1988 the pogues if i should fall from grace with god “fairytale of new york” 0:50 apt d 1990 slowdive slowdive ep “slow dive” 2:01 apt d 1991 mercury rev yerself is steam “chasing a bee” 2:30 apt e 1991 slowdive just for a day “catch the breeze” 1:04 apt g 1991 van halen for unlawful carnal knowledge “right now” 0:43 ant f 1991 r.e.m. out of time “losing my religion” 1:28 apt c 1993 smashing pumpkins siamese dream “today” 0:36 sus e 1996 kenny g the moment “the moment” 0:26 in e 1997 ben folds five whatever and ever amen “smoke” 4:32 in c 2000 a silver mount zion he has left us alone but shafts of light sometimes grace the corner of our room… “for wanda” 3:51 sus a “broken chords can sing a little” 0:06 in e 2001 yiruma first love “love me” 0:09 sus f 2001 michael w. smith worship “above all” 0:17 apt b “breathe” 1:20 ret c “purified” 3:00 apt a 91 (year) (artist) (album) (track) (timing) (nct) (key) 2002 michael w. smith worship again “lord have mercy” 0:42 apt g “you are holy (prince of peace)” 1:01 ant g 2003 m83 dead cities, red seas, & lost ghosts “unrecorded” 3:30 ant f 2003 mew frengers “she spider” 3:41 in d 2004 stars set yourself on fire “your ex-lover is dead” 3:25 apt c 2004 arcade fire funeral “wake up” 4:00 antapt c 2005 sufjan stevens illinois “the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us” 2:16 apt e 2005 jason howland little women “some things are meant to be” 4:10 apt g 2006 the swell season the swell season “falling slowly” 1:10 in c 2007 radiohead in rainbows “nude” 2:55 ret e 2007 wilco sky blue sky “on and on and on” 1:44 apt g 2008 hey marseilles to travel & trunks “to travel & trunks” 0:43 apt f 2009 sleepy eyes of death dark signals remixed “final heart beats black” 1:49 sus c 2010 alcest eccalieses de lune “eccalieses de lune part i” 0:37 in d 2011 panopticon social disservices “client” 8:27 apt e 2011 haken visions “nocturnal conspiracy” 10:11 sus g 2013 m83 oblivion “i'm sending you away” 0:50 sus g 92 (year) (artist) (album) (track) (timing) (nct) (key) 2013 hammock oblivion hymns “holding your absence” 3:12 ped c 2013 grouper the man who died in his boat “the man who died in his boat” 1:28 apt d 2014 chaos chaos committed to the crime “do you feel it?” 0:11 apt c 2015 muse drones “aftermath” 2:10 sus d 2015 alcest eccalieses de lune “eccalieses de lune 1” 0:37 in d 2015 theodore it is but it’s not “are we there yet” 0:33 apt a 2016 violet cold magic night “warm winter” 0:41 sus f 2016 mitski puberty 2 “your best american girl” 0:18 ant d 2016 dream theater the astonishing “dystopian overture” 4:05 sus a 2016 shawn mendes illuminate “there’s nothing holding me back” 0:24 in d 2018 leland sierra burgess is a loser (omps) “lights” 0:20 apt c# 2018 marc shaiman and scott whitman mary poppins returns “the place where lost things go” 0:52 in a editor’s note 5 there is a nice scene in annie hall where woody allen’s character, standup alvy singer, meets carol kane’s character, stage manager allison portchnik. waiting in the wings at a variety show, singer remonstrates with portchnik over the scheduling. “what do you mean, ‘next’?” he asks with amazement. “i’m not going after another comedian . . . because they’re laughing . . . so what are you telling me? they’re gonna laugh at him for a couple of minutes then i’ve gotta go out there and get laughs too? how much can they laugh? they’re laughed out!” i know how he feels. our previous special issue— experimental writing about music, edited by david gutkin—is impossible to follow. but only in that sense do i relate to singer: although experimental writing has its laugh–out–loud moments, it is also possibly the most ambitious and unique volume of current musicology to date. (if you haven’t already, find it at our website or order a hard copy). for the present issue, general operations resume: the articles collected here continue the journal’s unabating commitment to diverse content, high–quality scholarship, and rigorous peer review. in “a psychological approach to musical form: the habituation– fluency theory of repetition,” david huron investigates the psychological experience of musical repetition. as well as usefully reviewing research in psychology, huron posits by way of an original thought experiment the sweet spot of repetitive form. lindsay johnson explores the historical meanings of a seventeenth–century composition by nun alba tressina in “experiencing alba tressina’s anima mea liquefacta est through bodily humors and the sacred erotic.” weaving together historical research, hermeneutics, and flourishes of creative writing, johnson stresses the importance of the body and the sacred erotic for music making and expression in early modern convents. in “judging performance, performing judgments: race and performance in weimar germany,” brendan fay addresses the nationalistic and racist politics surrounding performance practice in weimar germany by drawing on an array of sources involving contemporary critics. the relationship between charles ives and elliott carter is the subject of david thurmaier’s “‘a disturbing lack of musical and stylistic continuity’? elliott carter, charles ives, and musical borrowing.” thurmaier offers a case study of a hardcore modernist (in this particular case, carter) confronting anxieties of influence, quotation, and borrowing. the book reviews section reflects the coincidence of a number of centenaries occurring in 2013; wagner turns 200 this year, britten 100. (incidentally, current musicology is soon to celebrate its own half–century— expect news on this in the near future!). jeremy coleman provocatively reviews two books dealing with issues of gender and sexuality in wagner’s operas: laurence dreyfus’s wagner and the erotic impulse and a translation from german of eva rieger’s richard wagner’s women. nina penner expertly reviews heather wiebe’s britten’s unquiet pasts: sound and memory in postwar reconstruction. stravinsky would have been 131 in 2013, which contains 13 twice (read forwards and backwards); is a palindrome; and is also a sophie germain prime (you’ll have to look that up). more significantly, of course, the rite of spring received its first performance 100 years ago; for that reason, maeve sterbenz’s review of charles joseph’s stravinsky’s ballet’s is especially apt. two issues back, the then editor–in–chief and i signed off the introductory note thanking benjamin hansberry for his work as subscriptions manager here at current musicology. i reiterate the sentiment as ben steps down after years of loyal service and welcome his replacement, lucie vágnerová. i would also like to thank the journal’s editorial board for their efforts in reviewing submissions; elliott cairns for organizing and editing the book reviews; and thomas smith for his assistance in every aspect of producing this issue. finally, many thanks to the authors featured in this issue. thomas fogg degenerate religion and masculinity in parsifal reception james kennaway our future historians will cull from still unpublished letters and memoirs ... the idea that the performances at bayreuth had really much the status of religious rites and that their effects were not unlike what is technically called a revival. -vernon lee (1911: 875) the idea that there is something religious about bayreuth is not new, and goes well beyond cliches about opera houses as the "cathedrals of the bourgeoisie:' the words used to describe the festival by wagnerians and anti -wagnerians alike have often been consciously religious. one makes a pilgrimage to the holy site, there are acolytes who serve the holy work and the orthodoxy, her­ etics are excommunicated-the comparisons are all too obvious. friedrich nietzsche referred to this phenomenon in a letter to his friend malwida von meysenburg when he suggested that "all this wagnerizing" was "an unconscious emulation of rome" (fischer-dieskau 1974:202). even in more recent times, after the moral, ideological, and organizational disasters that the festival was caught up in during the twentieth century, the skies above the festspielhaus were scoured for signs of the white smoke announcing which member of the dysfunctional clan was to succeed the composer's grandson wolfgang wagner. if this musical vatican has a central rite, it is surely parsifal. not an opera or a music drama but a "biihnenweihfestspiel" (a "stage-festival­ consecration-play"), wagner's last work leaves the cheerful paganism of the ring far behind. l the composer had toyed with aspects of christianity as far back as tannhiiuser, but in parsifal he went much further, almost to the point, many believed, of creating opera as sacrament. since the second world war, controversies about the piece have been essentially political, but it was its religious content that most engaged contemporaries. at the time of the 1882 premiere much ink was spilt about whether the piece was catholic or protestant, or even christian at all. there were plenty ofwagnerites who saw it as a profound new kind of religious experience, but other observers saw the work as heretical at best and out-and-out pagan at worst. the plot of parsifal certainly offered christian and secular critics a lot to talk about. amfortas, the king of the grail knights, has been stabbed in the side by the magic spear that pierced christ's side on the cross. this morbid penetration is a symbolic punishment for his weakness in the face current musicology, no. 88 (fall 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 35 36 current musicology of seduction by kundry, a kind of female ahaserus, a woman doomed to wander the earth after mocking christ's passion. the knights guard the holy grail, but, as with the legend of the fisher king, their kingdom is as sick as their king. only the "pure fool" can bring redemption. in the first act parsifal stumbles upon the grail kingdom, experiences the ritual of the unveiling of the grail, but does not yet understand its message. in the next act he resists kundry's attempts to seduce him, achieving compassionate wisdom at the moment they kiss. parsifal then takes the spear from klingsor, the castrated evil wizard whom kundry serves, makes the sign of the cross and destroys his castle. in the third act, parsifal returns to the grail kingdom on good friday after many years of wandering. kundry washes his feet and the oldest of the grail knights, gurnemanz, anoints him the new king of the grail. in the final scene, amfortas refuses to reveal the grail and begs to be killed, but parsifal heals and redeems him with the spear, orders the unveiling of the grail, at which point kundry dies, redeemed, and a white dove descends above parsifal's head. thus, although jesus is never named as such, christian imagery suffuses the whole work. the debate on the work's religious character occurred in the context of a fierce ideological struggle between church and state in the aftermath of the so-called kulturkampf, which bismarck had launched to establish the supremacy of the protestant pruss ian order over a united german reich that had a very large catholic population, including french and polish minorities. the new state demanded that priests pass state exams, made church weddings legal only when registered with the state, and excluded the jesuits from germany. this "culture-war" was arguably the most im­ portant political issue in germany in the 1870s and 1880s, with dozens of catholic priests imprisoned for refusing to accept the authority of the state in church affairs.2 there was even an assassination attempt against bismarck by a catholic. the death of pius ix in 1878 calmed the atmosphere to some extent, but relations with the vatican were only re-established in 1882. there was a strong ideological dimension to this struggle, as the progress, masculinity, and rationality associated with protestantism were contrasted with the supposed reactionary, effeminate, and mystical nature of catholicism and other "irrational" creeds. the medical profession, and psychiatry in particular, was one element in the new secular/protestant germany that was especially hostile to religious enthusiasm (schwarmerei), particularly within the catholic church. "rational" christianity, as a bulwark of moral behavior, was all very well, but religious enthusiasm was scorned by mainstream medicine. thus, far from simply making wagner more respectable, parsifal's religious tone also gave it dangerous associations. it became a key element in the emerging medical-moral critique of wagner's operas as degenerate, which can be seen in the work of friedrich nietzsche, max nordau, eduard james kennaway hanslick, and many other writers, journalists, and psychiatrists, and which later provided the psychiatric rhetoric for the nazi concept of degenerate music. in this context it is striking that although the debate was ostensibly about religion and pathology, issues of willpower and masculinity were never far away. the strange lack of willpower of parsifal, the "pure fool:' and the opera's schopenhauerian renunciation ethic seemed to compare unfavorably with the straightforward "healthy" manliness of siegfried. combined with the opera's sensual and mystical ritualistic pomp, and its touch of occult art -religion, this led again to imputations of effeminacy and references to the developing medical discourse on homosexuality in discussions of parsifal. in this article, i argue that anxiety about masculinity is at the heart of the "diagnosis" of the religious character of wagner's last work as degenerate, as the expression of a pathological mystical outlook. i look at this important and neglected aspect of wagner reception, examining the complex relation­ ship between medicine, religion, and parsifal. in considering the religious aspect of the debate on parsifal, this article is in line with broader trends in historiography. whereas twentieth-century scholars tended to downplay the influence of religious ideas on events, contemporary historians (who have seen the supposed decline of religion as a historical force dramatically reversed) are increasingly taking religion more seriously. the first section looks at the debate on the denominational character of the piece, its odd mixture of catholic sensuality and ritualism and protestant elements. this is followed by an analysis of the way that parsifal's catholic elements gave it associations of degeneration and effeminacy for contemporaries. next, i discuss the position of parsifal's religiously-tinged schopenhauerian pessimism in the light of psychiatry and nietzsche's notion of the will, both of which used medical language to denounce its renunciation ethic as pathological and effeminate. finally, iwilllook at the way that wagner's own "art-religion" was received in esoteric circles, and how that too was related to debates on masculinity and degeneration. how catholic is parsifal? wagner's last work is his most theatrical ... the art of the theater is already baroque, it is catholicism, it is the church; and an artist like wagner, used to dealing with symbols and elevating monstrances, must have ended by feeling like a brother of priests, like a priest himself. -thomas mann ([1933]1985:94-95) 37 38 current musicology wagner himself was brought up as a protestant and his letters and prose are full of verbal assaults on the catholic church, especially the jesuits. for him, as for many "progressive" protestants of the nineteenth century, the catholic church represented political reaction and obscurantism. even in 1878, wagner said it was a "scandal" that the catholic church still existed, and called it the "plague of the world" (c. wagner 1977, vol. 2:224-25).3 . nevertheless there are parts of wagner's work that clearly show catholic influence, if not as an ally, then perhaps as a rival. as wagner makes clear in mein leben, he had been accused of catholic tendencies long before parsifal, especially at the time of the premiere of tannhauser: it was just at that time when the german-catholic agitation, set in motion by czersky and ronge as a highly liberal and meritorious movement, was causing a great commotion. it was made out that by tannhiiuser i had provoked a reactionary tendency, and that precisely as meyerbeer with his huguenots had glorified protestantism, so i with my latest opera would glorify catholicism. the rumor that in writing tannhiiuser i had been bribed by the catholic party was believed for a long time. (wagner [1870-1880] 1963:378) this lack of clarity in questions of doctrine is borne out in cosima's com­ ments on wagner's religious beliefs. on january 30, 1880, she recorded in her diary that wagner admitted to a christianity "released from all denominations" (1977, vol. 2:224-25)4 such ecumenical aspirations would prove especially difficult at a time when confessional divisions were extremely politicized in the kulturkampf, as protestantism in discourse established itself as the patriotic and masculine denomination, in contrast to the effeminate and ultramontane (i.e., pro-vatican) tendencies of catholicism. wagner was told all about catholic mass by a benedictine monk in munich, who later outlined the experience in his book die errinnerungen des paters petrus hamp. parsifal's emphasis on the symbol over the word, and of the grail over any doctrine, has clear connections to catholicism, as does its dialectic of shame and grace-the core of much of the catholicism espoused by self-declared decadents in particular. some catholics viewed parsifal very positively, and without appealing to decadent elements in any way. for example, abbe marcel hebert's das religiose gefuhl im werke richard wagners (1895) and michel domenech espanyol's l'apotheose de la religion catholique: parsifal de wagner (1902) both strongly argued that parsifal was a catholic work in the most positive sense. the protestant critic johannes hermann wallfisch agreed that it was a catholic piece, but took a much more hostile view, seeing the adoration of the grail as nothing but catholic idolatry. he asked, "what do we children of the reformation, the bible in our hands, want with the grail?" (1914:9).5 james kennaway similarly, an anonymous social democrat in the friinkische tagespost in 1882 accused wagner of siding with the jesuits in parsifal (grossman -vendry 1977-83:67), and in the anglo-irish writer george moore's novel evelyn innes monsignor martyn denounces parsifal as "a parody of the mass" (moore 1898:298). wagner's most famous critic (and former acolyte), friedrich nietzsche, reserved his greatest hostility for wagner's last work, in which he sensed not only an ascetic pessimism, but also "a certain catholicism of feeling," not a positive thing for the son of a protestant pastor (1973:135).6 a poem in der fall wagner gets straight to the point: is that still german? did this sensuous screech come from a german heart? this tearing-oneself-apart from a german body? this priest's hands spreading, german? the incense sensuality? german this falling, faltering, dizzying this sugar-sweet ding-donging? this nun's ogling, ave bell-ringing? this entirely wrong over-heavening of heaven? is that still german? think! you are still at the gate ... what you hear is rome, rome's faith without words!7 nietzsche did not necessarily believe that wagner's "new" christian faith was sincere. at heart he suspected wagner of kowtowing to the weaknesses of the german public and of dressing up his own ideas in christian form. he wrote that he admired "the modesty of christians who go to bayreuth. for myself there are some words of wagner's that i would not be able to stand. there are concepts that do not belong in bayreuth" (nietzsche [1888] 1969: 124-25; italics in original). 8 the critics of parsifal who saw it as a move towards catholicism certainly had a point. the theatricality of the mass represented on stage owes little to the sobriety of lutheranism. the powerful rituals of catholicism, the "mythic symbolism" that wagner saw as the heart of true religion, are not just present (particularly in the first act), they dominate large parts of the opera. what wagner sought in catholicism was surely its aesthetic power, its potential as "art-religion," an idea that remained a constant throughout his career. the phrase appears for the first time in hegel's phenomenology of spirit of 1807 and became a favorite concept of the german romantics. for them, as for wagner, the truth of religion had passed into art, or, as wagner put it: "one could say that when religion becomes artificial it is the task of art to save the core of religion's mythical symbolism."9 nowhere is this clearer than in parsifal. 39 40 current musicology such was the theatrical appeal of catholic ritual in the nineteenth century that meyerbeer and scribe used it extensively, even in their depiction of the coronation of the extreme protestant jan van leyden the anabaptist in act iv of le prophet in 1849. although in the 1850s wagner had been very critical of parisian grand opera's catholicizing religiosity, scathingly describing meyerbeer's "monstrous piebald, historico-romantic, diabolico­ religious, fanatico-libidinous, sacro-frivolous, mysterio-criminal, autolyco­ sentimental dramatic hotch-potch" (wagner [1852] 1963, vol. 10:211), parsifal has a good deal in common with this tradition. like meyerbeer and scribe, wagner recognized that catholicism simply made better theater than sober protestantism. however, beyond these symbols, it is difficult to find any catholic influ­ ence on the doctrine implied in the piece. it would be hard indeed to argue that redemption in parsifal was in any way the result of good works, and the protestant doctrine of redemption through grace is certainly present. it is not the virtue of amfortas, kundry, or parsifal that brings redemption; it is the power of the redeemer to forgive all sins. protestant elements are also present in the music. the male choir, with its relatively simple arrangements, is reminiscent of protestant congregational singing, and the grail theme had its protestant credentials as a lutheran cantus firmus, confirmed by its appearance in mendelssohn's reformation symphony. the most observant writers on the subject saw a combination of protestant and catholic elements most clearly. wilhelm vollert, in his book, richard wagners stellung zur christlichen religion (1906), saw this in a positive light, arguing that, "if the celebration in the grail temple is similar to the catholic celebration of mass, then the doctrine of salvation through faith in the redeemer alone is at the heart of protestantism" (29).10 the wagnerite hans von wolzogen also made a claim that parsifal transcended confessional boundaries rather than breaking them. he noted that "a high-level french clergyman said that last summer's parsifal was his greatest religious experi­ ence, and the most important protestant preacher in germany, stocker, has written the most beautiful words on the stage-consecration-festival-play" (1895: 1 ).11 unsurprisingly, the compiler of fin de siecle cultural sickness and wagnerphobe max nordau was less generous, stating that parsifal combined "the staging of the catholic mass with the heretical addition of a protestant procession" (1993:187). the theatricality may be catholic in style, but it is shorn of overt reference to rome. it is also set before the reformation: it is a germanic christianity that we see, something of an aryan ur-christianity set in the northern mountains of gothic [i.e., germanic] spain. it offers little comfort to ultramontane sympathies. as ian moulton has noted, the wagnerite james kennaway wilhelm tappert wrote, significantly, "this is no longer theater, it is divine service. one must think and feel oneself german and christian if one is fully to recognize the beauties of parsifal" (moulton 1996:42). the proces­ sion implied by the score and the stage directions has obvious catholic connotations, and it is no coincidence that it is followed by the protestant "dresden amen" as the grail knights come onto the stage. a more apt demonstration of the deliberate mixing of catholic and protestant themes is hard to imagine. this combination of (catholic) ritualism with the idea of a (protestant) german church that parsifal implies was an important strand within pan-german nationalism in the late nineteenth century. whereas the protestant elements are used for their national associations, the references to catholicism seem to have been motivated more for the power of ritual involved, its political allegiances being always suspiciously ultramontane. the pseudo-catholic religiosity of parsifal clearly fits in with contemporary religious discourse in germany. it is an example of a german religiosity like the so-called "dombaupatriotismus" movement, which sought to complete germany's medieval cathedrals in the name of germanic christianity. other strands of nineteenth-century german nationalism also sought to transcend the sectarian divisions in favor of a pan-german religion; for instance, the austrian radical german nationalist georg von schoenerer's "los vom rom" (''away from rome") movement, which saw catholicism as an obstacle to real german unity (trauner 1999). degenerate catholicism in parsifal reception parsifal in particular was bound to overwhelm the neo-catholics and the mystics. -max nordau ([1892]1993:213) the (pseudo )-catholic elements in parsifal may have been anathema to many catholics as much as to protestants, but they were enough to embroil the opera in the ideological battle between the church and a broad range of medical secular opinion. this was the heyday of a medical critique of religiosity, when the leading french neurologist jean-martin charcot was comparing the ecstatic movements of christian saints to the convulsions of his hysterical patients. few of parsifal's hostile critics could resist drawing on this psychiatric rhetoric about the dangers of catholic schwiirmerei (blackbourn 1993:290). the language of perversion and intoxication, of sickness and hysteria was for the most part understood within the context of the theory of degeneration. the theory, which argues that crime, sickness, 41 42 current musicology and madness were often the result of inherited characteristics, had thrived since the (liberal catholic) french physician benedict morel published his book traite des degenerescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l' espece humaine et des causes qui produisent ces varietes maladives in 1857. morel may have had no brief against the catholic church, but his colleague paul legrain went as far as to suggest that in general "mystical thoughts are to be laid to the account of the insanity of the degenerate"(nordau 1993:45). the englishman john runciman turned to degeneration theory when describing parsifal in the context of the opera's catholicizing pessimism as "lacking health and vitality-probably his father suffered from rickets" (1919:212),' which is to say that parsifal's religiosity was the result of what we would call "bad genes": degeneration that had produced rickets in his father had caused catholicism and degeneration in the son. max nordau's critique of wagner is also quite explicit in connecting hereditary degen­ eration and religious enthusiasm, writing that mysticism is "a principal characteristic of degeneration. it follows so generally in the train of the latter, that there is scarcely a case of degeneration in which it does not ap­ pear" (1993:45). nordau attacked wagner for his graphomania, persecution mania, and erotomania, but his critique of wagner is in the mysticism section of degeneration, and the charge of degenerate religiosity is perhaps his main charge against the composer: ''although he is irreligious through and through, and frequently attacks positive religions, their doctrines and their priests, there have, nevertheless, remained active in him ... ideas and sentiments which he subsequently transformed so strangely in his degener­ ate mind" (1993:183). incoherent superstitious nonsense, he argued, was typical of "confused brains" such as those of tolstoy, the pre-raphaelites, and the symbolists. like an impatient schoolmaster, nordau argues that mystical ideas are simply the product of degenerate artists' inability to pay attention. "untended and unrestrained by attention, the brain activity of the degenerate and hysterical is capricious, and without aim of purpose" (1993:56), as he puts it. similarly, art historian wilhelm lubke's article bayreuther nachkliinge in the journal die gegenwart argued that parsifal's sensual catholic rituals, its bells and smells, were linked to hysteria and vice, and aimed at stopping rational thought. lubke described wagner's catholicizing as "narcotic:' which meant that "healthy human reason is buried with incense fumes" (grossmann­ vendrey 1977: 169) .12 he went on to write that parsifal represented "a refined pseudo-christianity which uses the holy figures and acts in a masquerade and presents a religiosity with sensual pomp and intoxicating mysticism, whose dizzying effects are calculated to work on hysterical ladies and smug men of the world ... we have here an art that is related to the jesuit art of james kennaway the baroque, there too the sensuality of a heightened naturalism is used to glorify intoxicated world-forgetting asceticism and hysterically heightened ecstasies with stupefying effects" (168-69).13 the debate on parsifal's degener­ ate religiosity is haunted by such images of the sickly, sensual, and effeminate man, the opposite of the healthy, rational, german bourgeois subject. such psychiatric assaults on the sensual manipulation involved in bayreuth's religiosity have much in common with those aimed at expressions oflate nineteenth-century popular piety, such as lourdes. perhaps, as vernon lee suggested, one should regard wagnerian reception of parsifal as a very modern kind of unorthodox religiosity. much of the same positivist language of sickness was used to attack them as was used against bayreuth. the religiosity of bayreuth and lourdes was seen as a retreat from enlightened, scientific progress, caused by degeneration. this religiosity was "mystical" (only ever a term of abuse), feminine, delusional, over-stimulated, and hysterical. bernadette's visions were seen (and indeed still are) by many catholics as genuine religious experiences, but the psychiatric establishment put them down to hallucinations. dr. voisin, a doctor at the salpetriere in paris, argued that "the miracle of lourdes is based on the word of a child suffering from hallucinations who has been locked up in a nunnery ever since" (deroo 1956:7).14 the religiosity of the oberammergau mystery play was another common comparison. wilhelm lubke, for instance, suggested that, "the great success of the oberammergau passion play may have shown [wagner l, who understands the desires of his time so well, how to mix modern catholicizing mysticism with sensual voluptuousness" (grossman­ vendrey 1977:169).15 not only did bayreuth, oberammergau, and lourdes each have the character of places of pilgrimage, they also all used music and images to overwhelm the visitor. religious intoxication did not exclude the power of phantasmagoria. in her study of the phenomenon, ruth harris writes at length about the role of music at lourdes (harris 1999), and the historian david blackbourn in his book on marpingen (a german version of lourdes in the saarland) makes a comparison with bayreuth: "there was clearly an element of cathartic release involved for pilgrims caught up in the great emotional drama surrounding the apparitions. the occasion touched every sense-sight, sound, touch, smell: it resembled a wagnerian total work of art, a gesamtkunstwerk" (1994:167). both lourdes and marpingen were mobilized by a catholic church on the defensive in the aftermath of the catastrophic period around 1870-71, in which rome fell to the new kingdom of italy, the secular third republic was established in france, and the kulturkampfbegan in germany. the catholic elements in parsifal of course have a very different agenda from that of the vatican, but it is remarkable 43 44 current musicology how many of the same means they employ. the response of psychiatric critics was also very similar: they were all attacked as manipulative and illusionist, as a threat to rational autonomy, and also as the result of hereditary sickness which made them corrupting and dangerous. this dichotomy between rational thought and personal autonomy on the one hand and sensual ritual and mysticism on the other is a common thread throughout such debates on parsifal. indeed, the propensity for hostile com­ mentators to use metaphors of drugs and hypnosis about wagner's music and visual aesthetic in general suggest that it is an important factor behind much wagner reception. in contrast to the autonomous, self-controlled, and rational model of subjectivity implied by critics such as nordau, wagner seemed to make listeners passive, sensual, and irrational. as we shall see, this connection between parsifal and irrational, degenerate passivity was intimately linked to anxieties about sexuality. the specters of effeminacy and homosexuality low church was healthy, high church with all that lace and bowing and scrap­ ing was unhealthy, while popery positively festered. -rupert croft-cooke (1967:286) the pathological side of mysticism was seen as principally erotic in character. the sexologist krafft-ebing for instance argued that "excessive religious urges are often a symptom of a sickly character or actual sickness and it is often the case that under the cover of religious enthusiasm one finds a level of sensuality and sexual excitement that is diseased" (1888: 157).16 too much religion seemed to threaten a model of mental health based on self-control, especially in terms of sexuality: it made one sensual, effeminate, "priest­ ridden;' and irrational-a decadent in nietzsche's terms and a degenerate to respectable bourgeois medical opiniony the idea that other forms of passion, especially religious feelings, are a sublimation of physical love has had currency at least since diderot. the english sexologist havelock ellis, for instance, in his the auto-erotic factor in religion, suggested that religious experience was often the result of the sublimation of sexual feelings during adolescence (2008:231-44)y another connection between religion and pathological sexuality was the tendency of self-proclaimed decadents to be interested in catholic mysticism (hansen 1997). a mixture of eroticism and mysticism was a crucial element of the neo-catholic decadent aesthetic of the 1880s. the ritualism of the mass attracted many decadents because of its high artifice james kennaway and theatricality, as a kind of spiritual dandyism. in huysmans's a rebours this link is made explicit; for des esseintes, "the christian religion had also instilled an unlawful ideal of voluptuous pleasure: licentious and mystical obsessions merged together to haunt his brain" (1959: 117). this combina­ tion of political reaction, sensuality, theatricality, and homosexuality made catholicism the religion of choice for decadents opposed to what they saw as the banality of modern secularism. crucially, this erotic mysticism was often linked in the mainstream bourgeois imagination to effeminacy and contrasted with more manly rational christianity. in the generation that followed the premiere of parsifal, catholicism became increasingly marked as effeminate, and indeed homosexual.19 the sensuality of the mass, the "bells and smells" of catholic ritual, were mistrusted by many, as were the celibate clergy, who had been accused of pederasty and effeminacy since the reformation and before. in the popular imagination, there was a widespread assumption about the connection between catholicism (and newmanite anglo-catholicism) and what came to be called homosexuality, albeit mostly expressed in euphemisms as david hilliard (1982) and others have demonstrated. the founder of "muscular christianity;' charles kingsley, for instance, wrote the following about the oxford movement: in ... all that school, there is an element of foppery-even in dress and manner; a fastidious, maundering, die-away effeminacy, which is mistaken for purity and refinement; and i confess myself unable to cope with it, so alluring is it to the minds of an effeminate and luxurious aristocracy; nei­ ther educated in all that should teach them to distinguish between bad and good taste, healthy and unhealthy philosophy or devotion. (1982: 188 )20 german commentators argued along similar lines. a rational male state was seen as being in competition with a superstitious female church. women were more likely to vote for clerical parties, and to be regarded as "priest­ ridden." the ideological struggle to claim the masculine high ground in discourse was dominated by the secular/protestant nationalist cause, which succeeded in portraying german catholicism as effete. the historian helmut walser smith explained it in the following terms: the dichotomies that underlay kulturkampf verse and that informed national identities were indeed very stark. in the nationalist imagination, german patriots were loyal, steadfast, honest; in the kulturkampf they struggled for light and for truth; and they were men ... gendered language, central to the german nationalist tradition generally, was especially impor­ tant to the religious component of that tradition. (smith 1995:36) 45 46 current musicology the so-called prussian school of history, most notably heinrich von treitschke, emphasized the masculine, virile virtues of lutheran germany, and of prussia in particular, contrasting them with the effeminacy of defeated catholic germany. the doctor, journalist, anti-semite, and future mental patient, oskar panizza (who was also the author of an article on wagner and homosexual­ ity) wrote a book, der teutsche michel und der romische papst, listing the crimes of catholicism and contrasting them with german virtues. he makes the link between catholicism and homosexuality quite explicit: "the celibacy of priests, which drives them to disgusting acts and makes them into a new psychopathic, homosexual race, so that on hygienic grounds one would be happy if the lords in lilac or the god in purple would touch a woman" (1894:266),21 using the perversions supposedly lurking behind clerical celibacy as a stick to beat parsifal, panizza was the first to connect the opera with homosexuality in 1895. in bayreuth und homosexualitiit, he called wagner's last work "the homosexual opera."22 indeed, he argued that it was "a spiritual delicacy for pederasts" (1895:90),13 he based this on the purely male environment of the grail temple and the attitude towards women implied: "in parsifal intercourse with women is seen as 'sin,' as a 'crime: as a disgrace against the male order of the grail. [parsifal] is homosexual willy-nilly"(91).24 in 1902 hanns fuchs wrote on the subject of wagner's supposed homosexuality, albeit with a much more positive angle, and again paid particular attention to parsifal. fuchs asked, "doesn't parsifal remind one of those homosexuals that enjoy the company of women, enjoy joking around and laughing with them, not shy of kissing them, but who run away when anything more is demanded?" (192).25 he went on to say that "parsifal un­ doubtedly proves the spiritual homosexuality of the older wagner" (199).26 nor were fuchs and panizza isolated in their views. the famous american writer and critic james huneker described parsifal as "this effeminate lad ... only an emasculate siegfried" (1904:96). and max nordau suggested that the decadent french writer josephin peladan's wagnerian novels were "entirely composed of reminiscences of parsifal . .. preoccupied with presentations of ... contrary sexual feeling" (1993:222). this theme also lurks beneath the surface of nietzsche's critique of wagner. he argued that parsifal and its creator were essentially feminine (a short step from effeminate), writing: "what? a christianity for wagnerian women of all people, perhaps by wagnerian women-after all wagner was thoroughly feminine at the end" (nietzsche [1888] 1969: 124).27 again, it is highly significant that nietzsche chooses to express his hostility to parsifal in the language of sickness and sexuality. in an extraordinary passage, he refers james kennaway to "that masculine (oh, so unmasculine) 'simpleton from the countryside,' that poor devil and child of nature, parsifal, who is made catholic with such compromising methods" (nietzsche [1888] 1969: 141).28 the questioning of parsifal's masculinity in the context of catholicism is striking. what "com­ promising methods" does nietzsche have in mind? the effeminate sensuality of catholic ritual? was he made catholic by the oedipal kiss with kundry? is the music so manipulative for nietzsche that it counts as a "compromising method"? nietzsche, in another remarkable phrase, writes of parsifal that "the sermon of chastity remains a stimulus of perversion: i despise everyone who does not regard parsifal as assault on morality" ([1888]1969:142).29 the "perversion" found amongst those who sermonize on chastity (i.e., catholic priests) was widely believed to be homosexuality. schopenhauer, effeminacy, and homosexuality wagner's era was sick. proof: schopenhauer. -heinrich pudor (1891:15) parsifal may contain forms that are largely christian, but the central idea of the piece is in fact closer to the philosophy of arthur schopenhauer than to either protestantism or catholicism. salvation ("erlosung"-a constant theme in parsifal, and, in various forms, throughout wagner's career) comes not from "good works" or from faith, but from renunciation. parsifal gains wisdom and is saved when he rejects sexuality (in the shape of kundry). despite the christian imagery and symbolism, this renunciation ethic owes more to schopenhauer, for whom the negation of the will was the only means to escape the misery of existence. schopenhauer's pessimism, his ethic of renunciation, brought associations with effeminacy and degeneration to discourse on parsifal just as much as catholicism. previously the composer's thinking on religion had been dominated by the materialism of the young hegelian ludwig feuerbach.30 wagner's association with the sensuality of the young germany movement also took him away from the conventional pieties of christianity. as wagner noted in mein leben, it was his friend georg herwegh who brought schopenhauer to his attention in 1854, radically altering his ideas about religion, or, as wagner put it, confirming him in the direction he was already going (wagner [1870-80]1963:614-15). the failure of the revolutions of 1848-49, which had left wagner more disillusioned than most, made the late nineteenth century fertile ground for schopenhauer's ideas, which had struggled to be heard earlier. in particular, his conception of the will seemed to suit an era 47 48 current musicology of social pessimism. for schopenhauer, desire, the will, was the central fact of the universe: it was "the thing in itself, the inner force, the essence of the world" (1974-80, vol. 1 :380).31 whereas nietzsche would argue that the will to power was the glory of life, for schopenhauer, it bred only misery, and peace could only be gained by extinguishing desire. this scarcely fitted rationalist progressive thinking on the self. wagner's schopenhauerian attitude towards the will obviously clashed with rational­ ist notions of the self. a discourse on subjectivity became dressed up as a discourse on health and disease-it was "morbid" and mystical. precisely for this reason his ideas suited the disillusioned decadents perfectly. in a rebours, huysmans wrote about des esseintes's interest in "the consoling maxims of schopenhauer" (1959:219) .. since the will was the center of rationalist conceptions of subjectivity, schopenhauer's call for the will to be crushed amounted to degenerate mystical resignation for many commentators, most notably in the 1872 book dr arthur schopenhauer vom medicinischen standpunkt aus by carl von seidlitz. the will, understood as rational self-control, was the centerpiece of nineteenth-century views of subjectivity. kant's was istaufkliirung? provided the classic defense of this view of the self, one that focused on autonomous, rational self-realization. during the nineteenth century this rational, autonomous view of subjectivity became the model of mental health, both for laymen and for professionals. the rise of psychiatry in the nineteenth century was in some ways the enforcement and institutionalization of a bourgeois conception of subjectivity. self-control was therefore not just a nineteenth-century ideal of behavior; it was a defining factor in ideas of sanity, masculinity, and indeed subjectivity in general. a lack of bourgeois self-control and delayed gratification was pathologized, and seen as a cause of mental illness, effeminacy, and nervousness. the white, male european was characterized by possession of willpower. the insane, the colonial subject, women, jews, homosexuals, the sexually "perverse," and drug addicts were all characterized by their lack of self-control. max nordau was quite clear on the relationship between willpower, mysticism, and degeneration. "mysticism," he wrote, "is innate or acquired weakness of will" ([1892] 1993:61). his opinion of schopenhauer is there­ fore no surprise. this diseased sense of self meant that "the degenerate and the insane are the predestined disciples of schopenhauer"(20). this is also marked in parsifal's religiosity and even in wagner's compositional technique. he describes wagner's "endless melody" in the following terms: "it is musical mysticism. it is the form in which the inability to pay atten­ tion is expressed in music" (355).32 for nordau, wagner's decadence is the james kennaway result of a physiologically-based lack of willpower that led him to steal other men's wives, indulge base instincts on stage, and made him incapable of seeing that the philosophy of schopenhauer and the religion of parsifal were nonsense. one of nietzsche's prime objections to the opera was its schopenhauerian pessimism, which he saw as symptomatic of contemporary culture's life­ negating decadence. his argument may be very different from that of nordau and other scientific rationalists, but the medical rhetoric of nervous degeneration is the same. he argued that in parsifal wagner "flatters every nihilistic (buddhist) instinct and disguises it in music, he flatters every christian and religious form of decadence" ([1888] 1969:118)y it was a betrayal of the "healthy sensualism" of wagner's earlier work.34 crucially, nietzsche brought the idea of the will, which was a largely unacknowledged basis for rationalist hostility to parsifal, very much to the surface. he wrote about '''selflessness'-the decadent principal, the will to end in art as well as in morals" ([1888] 1969:138).35 schopenhauer's crushing of the will, like christian asceticism, was the last word in life-negating pessimism for nietzsche as much as it was anathema to psychiatric critics. parsifal certainly does show signs of the "will to end." there is a rather morbid fixation with death, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, with the inability to die. already in oper und drama from the 1850s, when wagner's attitudes towards religion were radically different, he had written that, "this dying, with the yearning after it, is the sole true content of the art which issued from the christian myth" (wagner 1966:159). in tristan the lovers also long for death. the final lines of the opera, "unbewubt, hochste lust" (unconscious, highest joy), express a very schopenhauerian ideal of losing the ego, although the sexualized ecstasy of the liebestod owes more to wagner's own idiosyncrasies than to schopenhauer. but whereas tristan and isolde's sexual sin leads to death, amfortas, tristan's wounded alter ego, cannot die. in act i, amfortas does not want to be cured from his wound and survive. he wishes to die with the symbol of his sin removed so that he can die redeemed: "close the wound so that i die, healthy in you!"36 when finally amfortas can die, it is the result of parsifal's overcoming of sex, not of sex itself. in act ii kundry, too, longs to die, but cannot. "eternal sleep [ewiger schlaj]" is her only wish (wagner [1882] 1986:262.). not only does she long for death in a way that was alien to both rationalist and nietzschean vitalist critics, she is also bizarrely lacking in will. her apparently will-less behavior, obeying the grail knights and klingsor, marks her as a typical degenerate. she spends half the opera in a hypnotic trance, and the rest as 49 50 current musicology a sexually predatory hysteric. this combination may make little sense to modern audiences, but in light of contemporary views of the female hysteric psyche, it is more comprehendible. the idea of the will implied by parsifal, with its schopenhauerian renunciation ethic, seemed to threaten bourgeois ideas of subjectivity with the kundry-like specter of the feminine and the hysterical-those things that were outside the boundaries of rational, male autonomy. one much-discussed author who has been the subject of scholarly work on degeneration, otto weininger, saw kundry as the perfect representation of woman's nature, precisely because she had no will: "wagner, the greatest man since christ's time, understood the full significance of that act: until woman ceases to exist as woman for man she cannot cease to be a woman. kundry could only be released from klingsor's curse by the help of a sin­ less, immaculate man-parsifal" (2003:344). wagner's own ideas about women, although in some ways more progressive, were a crucial influence on weininger. the essence of woman was a "surrendering love" in which her own will would be subsumed in that of the man (wagner 1966: 11).' despite her pagan roots, the figure of kundry therefore represents most clearly some of the decadent themes associated with parsifal's religiosity. hysteria, a lack of all willpower, morbid eroticism, and a longing for death-all of her "symptoms" are fixations of the work as a whole. such was the role of the will in ideas of masculinity in this under­ standing of the self that parsifal's apparent lack of willpower also put his sexuality into question. several critics implied that parsifal's deficient vigor suggested homosexuality. oskar panizza argued that the schopenhauerian pessimism of the piece was itself tantamount to homosexuality. he wrote that "exactly this pity, this sentimental world view, this nobility, this admira­ tion at a distance, is a characteristic trait of the invert, of this psycho-erotic race" (1894:91).37 a comparison with the ultra-masculine siegfried-the embodiment of "natural" instinct-was often brought up. john runciman described parsifal as an "immoral work ... the mood of the exhausted and the effete;' and its message as "immoral and vicious" as siegfried's was "entirely moral, healthful and sane" (1919:211). words such as "morbid," "effete;' and "moral" had obvious implications in a society that was used to talking about homosexuality in euphemisms. hanns fuchs in his book on wagner and homosexuality also brought up the subject of pessimism, arguing that, "the will to life finds its highest expression in the love of a man for a woman" (1903:85).38 the reader is left to infer that a schopenhauerian inversion of the will to life is analogous to the sexual inversion of homosexuality. this kind of homophobic anti-wagnerism did not end in the twentieth century. the biographer robert gutman writes, "an air of homosexuality hangs heavy over montsalvat" (1968:435). but maybe the most startling comment in gutman's biography of wagner implies that the grail knights james kennaway are a kind of gay nazi society, a vision straight out of luchino visconti's 1969 film, the damned. he wrote of the similarity between "the monastic homosexuality of parsifal, centered around the intuitively inspired youth, and the not dissimilar fellowship of ernst rahm's troopers" (1968:300). ernst rahm was, of course, the homosexual leader of the nazi sa paramilitary group, who died on the so-called night of the long knives. gutman's allusion to the concept of the "gay nazi" was not original. it was commonplace for many years, and can be found in the work of many writers who combined a marxist and a freudian critique of nazism, notably theodor adorno. based on the known homosexuality of ernst rahm, many writers of the 1940s argued that homosexuality and nazism were intimately connected. this association between homosexuality and nazism was sharply criticized at the time by others, notably klaus mann (k. mann [1934]1990), thomas mann's homosexual son and an important writer in his own right. more recently it has been analyzed by andrew hewitt in his book, political inversions: homosexuality, fascism and the modernist imaginary (1996), in which he takes to task those who would seek to tar homosexuality with the same brush as those who murdered so many homosexuals. the pathologiz­ ing of homosexuality is one element of the discourse of degeneration that survived well into the twentieth century, and any attempt to discuss the homosexual elements in parsifal should be careful not to fall into this trap. responses to wagner and his racist politics have often included dangerous elements themselves: anti-semitic anti-wagnerism has been matched by homophobic anti-wagnerism. his enemies were not always any more ap­ pealing politically than the meister himself.39 parsifal, the occult, and the feminine wagner is the cagliostro of modernity. -friedrich nietzsche (1888:98) not all of the debate on parsifal and religion happened in the mainstream press. between the 1880s and the 1920s wagner was the composer that attracted by far the most attention amongst occultists, and parsifal was, it seems, their favorite opera. a whole discourse on the (non-christian) occult character of the opera developed. the supposedly occult themes in wagner's works were "revealed" in books such as frater achad's the chalice of ecstasy, being the inmost secret ofparzival by a companion of the holy spirit (1923), which explained the mysteries of the opera in terms of the kabbalah and theosophy. other books of this kind include otto julius hartmann's die esoterik im werk richard wagners (1960), adolph zippel's lohengrin: richard 51 52 current musicology wagners oper von philosophischen-esoterischen standpunkt aus betrachtet (1913), and kurt siegfried uhlig's richard wagners ring des nibelungen in seiner esoterischen bedeutung, which suggested that the ring had been written from "esoteric sources" (1909:47).40 these are only examples from a list that goes on and on: mostly of works from the 1880s to the 1920s, but continuing occasionally until today. in 1948, for instance, corinne heline published her esoteric music: based on the musical seership of richard wagner (1948). and robert p. leichman m.d:s unintentionally hilarious wagner returns of 1983 is an account of a conversa­ tion between the spirit of wagner and the author, a medium.4l innumerable articles about wagner appeared in occult magazines throughout the period. in a 1919 edition of the german magazine psychische studien, max seiling described wagner's occult powers, as recorded by eyewitnesses: after the final production of parsifal wagner had gathered his friends and colleagues to him one more time in order to say a few words of farewell to them. as he stood on the podium and spoke to those present, suddenly a strange change came over him. his body, although it kept its shape, became illuminated and transparent so that the objects behind him were quite clearly visible. (544)42 later in the same article seiling recounted another report that described wagner levitating (544)y such unorthodox wagnerism has been a rarity since the second world war, but in the decades between the 1880s and the 1940s it was a significant part of wagner reception. it has been almost entirely neglected by wagner scholars,44 but as the occult revival is taken increasingly seriously by historians as a historical and cultural phenomenon, it is time that occult wagnerism received due attention. wagner's own life offers a few insights into his own attitude to the occult. he was certainly influenced by his brother-in-law, friedrich brockhaus, from whom he received many works on eastern religion. wagner apparently believed that cosima had clairvoyant abilities and faith healing powers (gutman 1968:333). and in 1865, a soothsayer, frau dangl, told wagner that his destiny was to protect his patron king ludwig ii from evil counselors (gutman 1968:242). communicating with the dead and seeing into the future also cropped up in wagner's circle. after the very wagnerian death of her husband, the first tristan, ludwig schnorr von carolsfeld, the first isolde, malvina schnorr von carolsfeld, communed spiritually with the deceased through her pupil and medium isidore von reutter. schnorr's spirit apparently asked wagner to write less strenuous vocal parts and announced that malvina was to marry wagner and ludwig ii was destined to marry isidore (mackintosh 1982: 100-10 1). malvina spent her last years in a mental asylum (horowitz 1994:107). james kennaway although wagner did not write on the occult per se, there was also much in his voluminous prose to encourage this kind of reading. buddhism, vegetarianism, and anti-vivisection were also favorite subjects for many occultists. furthermore, astrid kury has suggested a set of common features in the occult revival into which wagner's ideas fit remarkably easily. the supposed inner unity of art, religion and science, and the notion that the aim of humanity is enlightenment (or redemption), for instance, are two themes that much of wagnerism and occult movements shared. wagner's self-conscious "depth:' his mythical subjects, and his quasi-religious tone surely marked him out for the attention of such unusual admirers. much of the occult wagnerism can be found among theosophists. the theosophical society was founded by madame blavatsky in 1875 in new york, but later moved to london. when the society laid the foundation stone for its new headquarters in bloomsbury in london, the society's general secretary played musical highlights from parsifal on the organ to accompany the ceremony (dixon 2001:1). the british wagnerian and translator of wagner's collected works, william ashton ellis, was blavatsky's private doctor for a time and a committed theosophist. his first article on wagner appeared in the transactions of the london lodge of the theosophical society under the title "theosophy in the works of richard wagner." in a paper given in 1887 and later published, ashton ellis wrote that "we may observe notable indications of a belief in psychic powers and manifesta­ tions" in wagner's operas (ellis 1887:27). in 1888 evelyn pyne wrote an article called "wagner's gospel" for the theosophical magazine lucifer (1888:224-34). in the struggles over control over theosophy after the death of madame blavatsky, wagner's name was used by the opponents of annie besant, the controversial successor to blavatsky. alice leighton cleather and basil crump hoped that wagner-as-parsifal would be victorious over besant-as-klingsor, writing that: richard wagner ... had considerable knowledge of magic ... the whole [of parsifal] may be taken as a drama of the theosophical society, which may now be said to be under the domain of klingsor, and still awaiting the coming of its parsifal who can shatter the vast fabric of psychic illusion. (cormack 1993:10) the leading german theosophist, educational reformer and later founder of anthroposophy, rudolf steiner, also showed considerable interest in wagner. he gave a series oflectures on wagner's link to the occult in 1905 with the title die okkulten wahrheiten alter my then und sagen, which explained wagner's connection to atlantis and claimed that the names "wotan" and "buddha" had the same aryan root (1999:148).45 53 54 current musicology occult wagnerism was not limited to the english-speaking world and germany. the french decadents were often interested in the occult, few more than the "rosicrucian" and wagnerian josephin peladan, to whom nordau devotes several pages. occult wagnerism, especially on the theme of parsifal crops up in several of his novels. in la vice supreme, for example, the magician merodack (an alter ego of the author in his "order of the rosy cross") attends a wagnerian style opera on a lesbian theme (another favorite theme of decadents and peladan [1979) in particular). mario praz, in his classic the romantic agony described the finale of another peladan novel, le vertu supreme, with the following words: the crowning moment of the novel is a replica of parsifal. merodack jour­ neys on a pilgrimage to the abbey of montsegur, which is dedicated to the cult of the rosicrucians-a copy of montsalvat with aesthetic refinements, flemish tapestries, renaissance seats ... inside the temple the organ gives the notes of parsifal. (1970:341) along with catholicism and schopenhauer, all of this esoteric interest in parsifal gave it another set of associations with degeneration. psychiatry was generally very hostile to the occult, as a particularly irrational form of mysticism, unredeemed by the traditional morality of conventional denominations. alongside chapters on wagner, the pre-raphaelites, tolstoy and the french symbolists, max nordau devotes a chapter of his mysticism section in degeneration to occult groups. his attitude is not surprising: "the hysterical and the deranged receive spiritual inspirations, and begin to preach and prophesy" (1993:214). even more than "mystical" christianity, the occult appeared to be a reactionary, superstitious phenomenon that challenged all of anti-degeneration campaigners' rationalist assumptions. like catholicism and schopenhauerianism, the occult also had danger­ ous associations with homosexuality. the english right-wing demagogue horatio bottomley, in his periodical john bull, argued that the occult theosophical society "is gathering into its ranks an army of morbid moral degenerates, whose teachings are calculated to undermine the character and sap the manhood of our race" (dixon 2001:lo7). magnus hirschfeld's journal on homosexual themes, jahrbuch fur sexuelle zwischenstufen, dealt with occult subjects on a regular basis. 46 this association between the occult and unmanly degeneration received a boost during the so-called leadbeater case, in which the leading occultist of british theosophy was accused of the sexual abuse of boys (including the proclaimed messiah), lending a damaging hint of decadent homosexuality to the occult (dixon 2001). this association with homosexuality was also one effect of the power and influence of women in the occult. the role of women in spiritualism, and of madame blavatsky and annie besant in theosophy, would scarcely have been possible within mainstream religion. there is a striking similarity between james kennaway the female dominance of many occult groups and the way bayreuth was run. although the power and influence of cosima and winifred wagner derived from their husbands, it is hard to imagine anything similar in orthodox religious circles, or among the rationalist critics who were so often hostile to the occult and to bayreuth. this female element was noted by others, for instance by friedrich lienhard, who took a mystic pro-female line, suggesting that parsifal was a call to "find the woman in yourself:' (heindel 1918:1). the feminine/effeminate associations of the occult and of parsifal linked the opera to the trope of the hysterical ecstatic female saint and marked it as the opposite of masculine, rational autonomy. in particular, the figure of kundry attracted their attention. one of the oddest characters in opera, she is, it seems, a cousin of the hysterical saints portrayed by charcot. her hysteria and lack of willpower represented precisely the elements of "feminine nature" that anti-degeneration writers were keen to keep within bounds. throughout discourse on parsifal and its mysticism this hostility to the feminine is a constant, whether its rhetoric is medical, protestant, or nietzschean. like the "feminine" mass culture that andreas huyssen pointed to as the other of modernism, feminine religiosity was also marked as sensual and passive (1994:188-207). of course, it is not only modernism that has seen itself as masculine and anti-sensual, since kant hostility to the senses had been a cornerstone of aesthetics (eagleton 1990). the (implicitly masculine) disinterested appreciation of form left little room for (implicitly feminine) sensual religion (heindel 1918 ). it is clear that parsifal's religiosity is a peculiar form of sensuality, a strangely sexual rejection of sexuality. its disavowal of sex in the language of religion and sickness makes parsifal fit with much "decadent culture," and paradoxically makes sex central to the piece-just as klingsor's self-castration only emphasizes his sexuality. kundry's question, ''are you chaste? [bist du keusch?]" is bitterly sarcastic. parsifal gains grace at the moment of his sexual awakening-his "purity" is not innocence, but overcoming of sex. george moore, in evelyn innes, has one character muse aloud on wagner's eventual rejection of his jesus and buddha projects in favor of parsifal: "in neither christ nor buddha did the question of sex arise, and that was the reason that wagner eventually rejected both. he was as full of sex-mysterious, subconscious sex-as rossetti himself" (1898:171). this sexualized, sensual, ritualistic religiosity was an obvious target for the emerging medical-moral discourse on both culture and religion that took secular masculinity as its measure of health. the relationship between masculinity, nationalism, and sexuality in parsifal reception continued to be problematic into the twentieth century. a view of wagner that suited the nazis-spartan, manly, martial, and ultra-german-came to dominate discussions of the composer. for both for supporters and critics of the composer, the composer's masculine and german character became axiomatic. on the other hand, unlike siegfried 55 56 current musicology or die meistersinger von nilrnberg, parsifal was not always easy to fit into this understanding of wagner. the piece's pacifist overtones, its lack of manly martial virtue, meant that the nazis in effect banned it during the second world war (gibson 1999:78-87). after the war, debate on the subject reflected the political atmosphere of the cold war and the rapid social changes of the period, which took most of the heat out of sectarian religiosity in germany. shorn of protestant eastern provinces, the foundation of the rump west german state in 1949 meant that catholics dominated the principal german state for the first time in one hundred years. the kulturkampfwas definitely over in an increasingly secular country run by the christlich demokratische union, the ideological descendent of the catholic zentrum party founded in the 1870s. at the same time, wieland wagner's influential new bayreuth production of 1951 for the most part dropped the signs of both teutonic heroism and catholic pomp. these developments, combined with the discrediting of cultural pathology after 1945, led to the current situation in which parsifal's links to national socialism are the main concern, and in which the religious character of the debate before the mid-twentieth century has receded from view. it remains to be seen how the twenty-first-century revival of religion in politics will affect the opera's reception in the future. notes 1. see croft -cooke ( 1967). its special status was underlined by the fact that performances were almost entirely restricted to bayreuth until 1913. as the copyright deadline approached for parsifal in 1913, cosima wagner appealed to the reichstag for a "lex parsifal;' reserving the work to bayreuth in perpetua, an appeal backed up by some 18,000 signatures. the religious nature of the debate around the opera was reflected in a cartoon in the new york times from december 27, 1903, which included signs saying, "sermon morning and evening denouncing parsifal as sacreligious," "lecture denouncing parsifal by i m pastor" and "signor parsifal mind reader and fortune teller" (storck [1910]1998:421). 2. see for example gross (2004) and smith (1995). 3. "skandal ... noch besteht." "pest der welt." 4. "losgelost von aller konfession." 5. "was wollen wir kinder der reformation, die bibel in die hand, mit dem gral angefan­ gen?" 6. "ein gewisser katholizismus des gefiihls." 7. ist das noch deutsch? aus deutschem herzen kam dies schwwe kreischen? und deutschen leibs ist dies sich-selbst-zerfleischen? deutsch ist dies priester-hande-spreizen, dies weihrauchdiiftelnde sinne-reizen? und deutsch dies stiirzen, stocken, taumelden, dies zuckersiibe bimbambaumeln? dies nonnen-augeln, ave-glockenbimmeln, dies ganze falsch verzuckte himmel-dberhimmeln? ... 1st das noch deutsch? erwagt! noch steht ihr an der pforte ... denn was ihr hort, ist rom-roms glaube ohne worte! nietzsche ([1888]1969:140). james kennaway 8. "ich bewundere, anbei gesagt, die bescheidenheit der christen, die nach bayreuth gehn. ich selbst wurde gewisse worte nicht aus dem munde eines wagner aushalten. es gibt be­ griffe, die nicht in bayreuth gehoren ... das bedurfnis nach erlosung ... ist die ehrlichste ausdrucksform der decadence . .. " (italics in original). this suspicion is supported by a com­ ment of wagner's recorded by nietzsche's sister: "the germans do not want to hear about pagan gods and heroes now, they want to hear something christian [die deutschen wollen jetzt nichts von heidnischen gottern und helden horen, die wollen was christliches hiiren ]." elisabeth forster-nietzsche, quoted in hildebrandt (1924:291). however, elisabeth forster­ nietzsche hardly counts as a reliable witness. her manipulation of her brother's work after his mental collapse is notorious. 9. "man konnte sagen, dab da, wo die religion kunstlich wird, der kunst es vorbehalten sei, den kern der religion zu retten, indem sie die mythischen symbole ... ihrem sinnbildlichen werte nach erfabt ... " 10. "erschient auch die feier im gralstempel als verherrlichung der katholischen abends­ mahlsfeier, so ist der preis der seligkeit allein aus gnaden durch dem glauben an den einen, den erloser, kern und stern des protestantismus." 11. "ein hoher franzosischer geistlicher nannte im letzen sommer den parsifal in bayreuth als sein grosstes religioses erlebnis, und der bedeutendste evangelische prediger deutschlands, stocker, hat die schonsten worte uber das buhnenweihfestspiel geschrieben." 12. "narkose ... der gesunder menschenverstand wird unter weihrauchqualm zu grabe getragen." 13. "es ist ein raffiniertes pseudo-christenthum, welches die heiligen gestalten und hand­ lungen zu einer maskerade verwendet und mit ahem sinn en pomp und berauschender mystik eine religiositat darbietet, deren taumelwirkungen etwa aufhysterische damen und blasierte weltmanner berechnet sind ... wir haben hier eine kunst, die der jesuitenkunst der barockzeit innerlich wahlverwandt ist; denn auch dort werden die sinnlichsten reizmittel eines gesteigerte naturalismus dazu verwendet trunkene weltvergessene askese, hysterische gesteigerte ekstasen in sinnbetaubenden effecten zu verherrlichen." 14. "das wunder von lourdes wurde verkundet auf das wort eines unter hahuzination leidenes kindes hin, das seither im ursulinenkloster von nevers eingesperrt ist:' the most notable example of this positivist approach to the lourdes phenomenon can be found in emile zola's novel, lourdes, which like so much of his work, draws heavily on degeneration theory, blaming bernadette's "hereditary nervousness" for her experiences (zola [1894] 2000:477). 15. "die groben erfolge des oberammergau passionsspiels mogen den klugen mann, der das begehren seiner zeit so gut versteht, auf dies en weg hingedrangt haben ... moderne katholisirende mystik sich mit uppiger sinnlichkeit:' 16. "vielfach ist der excessive, religiose drang bereits ein symptom einer krankhaften ori­ ginaren charakteranlage oder wirklicher krankheit und nicht selten verbirgt sich unter dem zuchtigen gewand religioser schwarmerei eine krankhaft gesteigerte sinnlichkeit und geschlechtliche erregung ... " 57 58 current musicology 17. although the idea of degeneration becomes almost synonymous with that of decadence in the nineteenth century it has a very different history. as david weir has pointed out, decadence refines corruption and degeneration is the corruption of refinement. it comes from the latin "degenere:' (defrom, and genusrace), and means to become unlike one's kind, to be a poor specimen of the race, i.e., a degenerate. this came to have a biological sense in the eighteenth century, of a decline between generations of a species. at the same time evolutionary thinking and moral and political anxieties created the bogeyman of the "degenerate:' whose atavistic nature was demonstrated in alcoholism, crime, revolution, or art. it is this last definition that becomes synonymous with decadence, as a "scientific" element added to the moral and political idea of decadence. in the discourse on wagner's decadence or degeneration the two words are used more or less interchangeably (weir 1995:ix). 18. william james attacked the "fashion, quite common nowadays, of criticizing religious emotions by showing a connection between them and the sexual life ... we wish that all this medical materialism could be made to hold its tongue" (1960:33). 19. discussion of homosexuality in the nineteenth century and my own research are greatly indebted to the work of michel foucault and eve kosofsky sedgwick. see foucault (1976-84) and sedgewick (1990, 1992). 20. see also reed (1989). 21. "der ehelosigkeit der priester, dab man diese ... scheusaligkeiten hineintrieb, die sie zu einer neuen, psychopathischen, homosexualen rasse machten, so dab man spater aus hygienischen grunden froh gewesen ware, wenn die herm in lila oder gott in purpur ein weib angeruhrt hatten." 22. "homosexulle oper." 23. "dab parsifal eine geistige kost fur paderasten sei." 24. "1m parsifal wird der verkehr mit dem weib als 'sunde: als 'vergehen: als frevel gegen den-manner-orden des grals konstuiert. [parsifal] ist nolens volens homosexuell." 25. "erinnert parsifal in dieser szene nicht an einen jener homosexuellen, die sich sehr gem in der gesellschaft von frauen bewegen, gem mit den frauen scherzen und lachen, ja vor tandelnden kussen nicht zuruckschrecken und erst fliehen, wenn-mehr von ihnen vedangt wird?" 26. "die geistige homosexualitat des alten wagners beweist der parsifal unzweifelhaft." 27. "wie? ein christentum, zugerechtnet fur wagnerianerinnen, vielleicht von wagneriane­ rinnen-denn wagner was in alten tagen durchaus feminini generis-?" 28. "dabei ist freilich jene andre frage nicht zu umgehn, was ihn eigentlich jene mannliche (ach, so unmannliche) 'einfalt vom lande' anging, jener arme teufel und naturbursch parsifal, der von ihm mit so verfanglichen mitteln schlieblich katholisch gemacht wird ... " 29. "die predigt der keuschheit bleibt eine aufreizung zur widematur: ich veracte jedermann, der den parsifal nicht als attentatr auf die sittlichkeit empfindet!' 30. bizarrely, as wagner recorded in mein leben, he was introduced to feuerbach's works by a revolutionary catholic priest (wagner [1870-80]1963:494). 31. "das ding an sich, der innere gehalt, das wesentliche der welt." 32. "sie ist musikalische mystik. sie ist die form, in welcher die unfahigkeit zur aufrnerk­ samkeit sich in der musik aubert." 33. "er schmeichelt jedem nihilistischen (buddhistischen) instinkte und verkleidet ihn in musik, er schmeichelt jeder christlichkeit, jeder religiosen ausdrucksform der decadence." james kennaway 34. but a brief examination of the history of the relationship between the two men leads one to be skeptical about nietzsche's denunciations of wagner's "sudden" life-negating christian position. nietzsche, whose critique of parsifal was based largely on the libretto of the opera from which he had heard the composer read out the text as early as 1865, at the peak of nietzsche's wagner enthusiasm. he only knew the music to the overture well, and liked it. and one could also point to the fact that wagner had been toying with themes of renuncia­ tion from the catholic middle ages as far back as tannhauser, which had been written in the 1840s, when nietzsche was only a child. 35. "'selbstlosigkeit' das decadence prinzip, der wille zum ende in der kunst sowohl wie in dermoral." 36. "schliebe die wunde, dab heilig ich sterbe, rein dir gesunde!" 37. "eben dieses mitleid, diese sentimentale weltanschauung, dieses edeltum, dieses be­ wundern par distance ist gerade einer der charakterischen ziige des urning, der psycho­ erotischen rasse:' 38. "der wille zum leben findet seinen hachsten ausdruck in der liebe des mannes zum weibe." 39. paradoxical as it may seem, anti-semitic anti-wagnerism was also commonplace. in the innumerable caricatures of wagner, there is a pronounced anti-semitic element accompany­ ing the references to wagner's physical idiosyncrasies. wagner is shown with a huge hooked nose and other cliches of anti-semitic iconography. james gibbons huneker wrote that wagner's music was jewishly nervous and "certainly unlike any music made by a german, with its vibratile rhythms, its dramatic characterization and magnificent decorative frame" (1922: 167). and german author and anti-semite gustav freytag argued that wagner's music was "typically jewish" (stefan 1914:21). 40. esotericism in the work of richard wagner, lohengrin: richard wagner's opera viewed from the philosophical-esoteric standpoint, and richard wagner's ring des nibelungen in its esoteric meaning. 41. in it wagner tells us that country and western music "deals with real people and real problems;' but that disco is "rather artificial," and expresses interest in the potential of the moog synthesizer. 42. "wagner habe 1882 nach der letzten parsifal-auffiihrung seine freunde and getreuen noch einmal urn sich versammelt, urn einige abschiedsworte an sie zu richten. wahrend er, auf einem podium etwas erhaht stehend, zu den anwesenden sprach, sie platzlich eine seltsame veranderung mit ihm vorgegangen. sein karper sei, obwohl die gestalt als solcher blieb, wie sie war, hell und durchsichtig geworden, sodab hinter ihm befindlichen gegenstande ganz klar und deutlich zu sehen waren." 43. similarly, the story of the six-year-old italian boy called ferero who had conducted the prelude to wagner's meistersinger did the rounds in occult magazines. the zentralblatt fur okkultismus wrote the following: "perhaps richard wagner was re-embodied in ferero. we all know that wagner had a great love of italy, and one can assume that richard wagner had by no means exhausted his artistic life-force [vielleicht hat sich richard wagner selbst in perera wiederverkorpert. wir wissen doch aile, dafl richard wagner eine grofle vorliebe fur italien besafl, und es ist anzunehmen, dafl richard wagner sich kunstlerisch noch lange nicht ausgelebt hattel" (1913:164). 44. david cormack's fascinating article "faithful, all too faithful: william ashton ellis and the englishing of wagner" is an exception (1993). 59 60 current musicology 45. another occultist, not a member of the theosophist society, but influenced by it, was a man who went by the name "parsifal braun." (the name is spelled in wagner's novel way, not "parzival" or "percivai:') parsifal braun was a german-american occultist and the author of many books on esoteric themes in the years before the first world war. at the back of one of his books i was surprised to see an advertisement for his "secret brotherhood" (what kind of "secret brotherhood" advertises for members?)-the "brotherhood of the grail;' which it seems aimed to combine the teachings of spiritualism, mary baker eddy's christian science, christianity, and various branches of paganism. 46. see for example freimark (1906) and sadger (1908). references battersby, christine. 1995. stages on kant's way: aesthetics, morality, and the gendered sublime. in feminism and tradition in aesthetics, edited by peggy zeglin brand and carolyn korsmeyer, 88-114. university park, pa: the pennsylvania state university press. blackbourn, david. 1993. marpingen: apparitions of the virgin mary in bismarckian germany. oxford: clarendon press. burleigh, michael. 2006. earthly powers. london: harpercollins. cormack, david. 1993. faithful, all too faithful: william ashton ellis and the englishing of wagner. wagner 14 (3): 104-137. croft -cooke, rupert. 1967. feasting with panthers. london: w.h. allen. deroo, abbe a. 1956. lourdes: stadt der wunder oder jahrmarkt der illusionen. aschaffenburg: paul pattlock. dixon, joy. 2001. divine feminine: theosophy and feminism in england. baltimore: johns hopkins university press. eagleton, terry. 1990. the ideology of the aesthetic. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ellis, havelock. 2008. the auto-erotic factor in religion. in studies in the psychology of sex. vol. 1, 399-414. charleston: bibliobazaar. ellis, william ashton. 1887. richard wagner as poet, musician and mystic. paper read at the society for the encouragement of the fine arts. february 3, 1887. london: society for the encouragement of the fine arts. espanyol, michel domenech. 1902. l'apotheose de la religion catholique: parsifal de wagner. barcelona: fidel giro. fischer-dieskau, dietrich. 1974. wagner and nietzsche. stuttgart: deutsche verlagsanstalt. foucault, michel. 1976-84. the history of sexuality. 3 vols. london: penguin. fuchs, hanns. 1903. richard wagner und die homosexualitat. berlin: h. barsdorf. freimark, hans. 1906. madame petrovna blavatsky, ein weiblicher ahasver. jahrbuch fur sexuelle zwischenstufen 8: 525-65. gibson, robert. 1999. problematic propaganda. wagner 20 (2): 78-87. gross, michael b. 2004. the war against catholicism. ann arbor: university of michigan press. grossmann-vendrey, susanna.1977-83. bayreuth in der deutschen presse: beitrage zur rezeptionsgeschichte richard wagners und seiner festspiele. regensburg: gustav bosse. gutman, robert. 1968. richard wagner: the man, his mind and his music. new york: harcourt, brace and world. hansen, ellis. 1997. decadence and catholicism. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. james kennaway hartmann, otto julius. 1960. die esoterik im werk richard wagners. freiburg: die kommenden. harris, ruth. 1999. lourdes: body and spirit in the secular age. london: allan lane, hebert, abbe marcel. 1895. das religiose gefiihl im werke richard wagners. munich: august schupp. heindel, m. 1918. die esoterik in wagners "tannhauser." leipzig: theosophisches verlagshaus. heline, corinne. 1948. esoteric music: based on the musical seers hip of richard wagner. los angeles: new age. hewitt, andrew. 1996. political inversions: homosexuality, fascism and the modernist imaginary. stanford: stanford university press. hildebrandt, kurt. 1924. wagner und nietzsche: ihr kampf gegen das neunzehnten lahrhundert. breslau: hirt. hilliard, david. 1982. "unenglish and unmanly": anglo-catholicism and homosexuality. victorian studies 25: 181-210. horowitz, joseph. 1994. wagner nights: an american history. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. huneker, james gibbons. 1904. overtures. london: ibister and co. ---.1922. variations. london: t. werner laurie. huysmans, joris-karl. 1959. against nature, translated by robert baldick. harmondsworth: penguin. huyssen, andreas. 1994. mass culture as woman: modernism's other. in studies in entertainment: critical approaches to mass culture, edited by tania modleski and kathleen woodward, 188-207. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. james, william. 1960. the varieties of religious experience: a study of human nature. london: collins. krafft-ebing, richard von. 1888. lehrbuch der psychiatrie. stuttgart: ferdinand enke. lee, vernon. 1911. the religious and moral status of wagner. the fortnightly review (may): 868-86. leichman, robert. 1983. wagner returns. columbus, oh: ariel press. mackintosh, christopher. 1982. the swan king: ludwig ii of bavaria. london: allen lane. mann, klaus. 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[1910] 1986. musik und musiker in der karikatur. laaber: laaber. trauner, karl-reinhart. 1999. die los-vom-rom-bewegung. gesellschaftspolitische und kirchliche stroemung in der ausgehenden hasburgermonarchie. szentendre: tillinger. vollert, wilhelm. 1906. richard wagners stellung zur christlichen religion. wismar: hans bartholdi. wagner, cosima. [1869-83]1977. die tagebucher. 2 vols. munich: piper and co. wagner, richard. [1870-80]1963. my life. london: constable. ---.1963. gesammelte schriften und dichtungen. 10 vols. frankfurt-am-main. ---. 1966. richard wagner's prose works. edited by william ashton ellis. new york: broude brothers. ---. [1882]1986. parsifal. new york: dover. wallfisch, johannes hermann. 1914. richard wagners parsifal und das bibel-christentum. konigsberg: harmonie verlag. weininger, otto. 2003. sex and character. new york: howard fertig. weir, david. 1995. decadence and the making of modernism. amherst, ma: university of massachusetts. wolzogen, hans von. 1895. introduction. in abbe marcel hebert, das religiose gefuhl im werke richard wagners, translated by a. brunnemann. munich: august schupp. zentralblattfurokkultismus.1913.7 (3): 164. zippel, adolph. 1913. lohengrin: richard wagners oper von philosophischen-esoterischen standpunkt aus betrachtet. lorch: karl rohm. zola, emile. [1894] 2000. lourdes, translated by ernest viztelly. amherst: prometheus. current.musicology.88.1-130.pdf jennifer milioto matsue. 2009. making music in japan's underground: the tokyo hardcore scene. new york and london: routledge. reviewed by kristen sollee jennifer milioto matsue's ethnographic account of tokyo hardcore in the late 1990s situates the scene both within the context ofjapanese society and underground music scenes in urban centers around the world. the author characterizes this enclave of hardcore music making as both distinctively japanese and simultaneously comparable to other music scenes outside japan. matsue's research spans from 1996 to 1999 and revolves around the band jug and the club or "livehouse" they frequent, 20,000volt. other bands and participants on the periphery of this particular group are discussed, although the ethnographer is most intimately involved with jug, and eventu­ ally joins them during a few live performances as a guest vocalist. crucial to matsue's narrative is a concept of performance that includes both acts onstage and (inter)personal contributions within the scene. making music in japan's underground: the tokyo hardcore scene is divided into four chapters that progressively delve into the tightly-knit world of tokyo hardcore. the first chapter gives context for the ethnography, providing an overview of tokyo at the end of the century and establishing the dominant traits of american and japanese hardcore music. while not attempting the dubious task of defining a genre, matsue begins by outlin­ ing the basics of american hardcore, briefly touching on the genre's birth out of the punk rock movement, and its subsequent connection to both grunge and alternative rock in the 1990s. taking punk tempos and speeding them up, hardcore is described by the all music guide (cited by matsue) as incorporating guitars with a "monochrome" timbre and "half-shouted lyrics venting the most inflammatory sentiments the singers and songwrit­ ers could devise" (2009:36). leftist politics are central to the early strain of hardcore in the united states and, as matsue writes, citing roy shuker, the music created in the hardcore scene was "initially distinct from mainstream production systems" (37). while matsue fails to explain how and when hardcore made its way to japan, her cursory overview of american hardcore allows her to compare and contrast the japanese scene with its western antecedent. stylistically, the hardcore scene in japan that she analyzes is "a range of musics loosely connected under the umbrella style of hard core ... [incorporating] a guitar rock or kitschy punk aesthetic, with quite a lot of screaming ... or intensive current musicology, no. 92 (fall 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 153 154 current musicology mumbling" (1). although independent modes of musical production remain important, radical politics are far less prevalent, and the performative aggres­ sion is more about momentary release than attempting to effect permanent political or social change. matsue writes, "performance in the scene allows participants a space to negotiate distinct individual and collective identi­ ties that can at times be further characterized by a sense of resistance, but this resistance is often temporary, even playful" (4). this description is in keeping with matsue's understanding of play. in her usage, play denotes a temporary leisure activity outside of work. play also encompasses her definition of performance, which is specifically the creation of music onstage and the methods of production and distribution offstage (such as creating promotional flyers or starting independent record labels) that perpetuate the scene and facilitate live performances (44). play can also include shifting aspects of one's identity and persona that may result in resistance against conventional societal roles, although in a fashion that is not permanent (46). the second chapter describes the infrastructure of the scene and the spaces in which the aforementioned play takes place. matsue paints a vivid picture of the centrality of trains to tokyo life. she contends that forms of behavior on these trains are broadly indicative of japanese cultural norms such as measured control of the body and voice (50). the trains that the author describes constitute one distinct space that allows performers of the scene to be transported to other spaces for play, including livehouses, rehearsal and recording studios, and record shops. matsue explains: "the importance of all three spaces-livehouses, recording studios, and rehearsal studios-is located in the social intimacy fostered, supported, and even reinforced by the similar small size, run -down appearance, and stressful pressures experienced in all these locations" (69). the theme of illicitness fits neatly within this chapter, as the run-down spaces in which this underground music is cultivated are often literally underground, and thus appear to be physically separated from mainstream society. concluding the chapter, the author interprets the floor layout of tower records in tokyo as a microcosm of the japanese music scene. the spatial arrangement of the store's many floors and their topographical organiza­ tion map the schematics and functioning of the music industry in greater japan. some of the higher level floors, like the classical or pop/rock floors, include both japanese artists and foreign artists, while others, specifically those closest to the ground floor, are dedicated solely to japanese music on both independent and maj or labels. tower records' infusion of its core local content with international products is analogous to japanese hardcore in the sense that it "inhabits a sonic space located within japan and the history kristen sollee of japanese music;' but at the same time "is part of a global movement of similar hardcore sounds and scenes ... it is neither uniquely japanese in its general sound nor entirely foreign" (79). the third chapter analyzes the identities of performers, including band members, audience members, and those who control the means of music production. while these performers come from disparate backgrounds rang­ ing from salarymen to college students living at home to the unemployed, all of them experiment with temporary identities that at times transgress the roles they play in japanese society at large. matsue explains: "hierarchical social positioning remained in the scene, but one's position had little to do with education or employment status outside of the scene:' she also devotes space here (and elsewhere) to a discussion of gender roles, suggesting that women in the scene have more potential for agency and equality than they do outside this safe enclave (106). this stands in stark contrast to prevailing stereotypes about male-dominated american hardcore. however, matsue continually emphasizes the temporary aspect of transgression in japanese hardcore, observing, for example, that suzuki miyuki, the drummer for the band jug, is a mother and housewife when she is not onstage and in the scene. "performers play with momentary imagined identities;' matsue notes, which may make behaviors that would challenge or subvert conventional social roles in mainstream society seem far less threatening and therefore less contested when enacted within the safe space of the scene (84). thus, when suzuki leaves her child and household duties to thrash around onstage while beating drums and wearing only a sports bra and shorts, her actions are not nearly as radical as they would be if it was not understood that this change in deportment is only for the night, and that she will resume her role as caretaker shortly after the show ends. the fourth chapter looks at the musical structures and sounds of songs by a few hardcore bands. matsue's investigation reveals vast sonic discrepancies amongst bands in the circle, leading her to conclude that "hardcore was not performed through the express production of music and lyrics on stage and the activity ofleisurely listening in the audience alone:' it is the "extramusical tropes" that include "the behavior of musicians on stage and their style of clothing and postures when performing ... [that] must be considered part of the local performance of hard core that ultimately create a sense of this scene as 'japanese'" (131). this behavior includes japanese-english hybridization in hardcore lyrics, as well as the transgression of the physical, vocal, and spatial norms of a tokyo subway ride. matsue's roster of such transgressive behaviors includes musicians "screaming and thrashing about" and chain smoking with the aim of achieving a gritty vocal performance, as well as audience members standing in close proximity to blaring stage speakers 155 156 current musicology without ear plugs (128). but while american hardcore audiences commonly engage in moshing and stage diving, matsue, in the previous chapter, notes that japanese participants often sit on the floor or bob their heads in rhythm with the music without moving around too much (100). like american hardcore, however, the communal rituals of creating flyers, stickers, and zines to promote bands and shows provides the social glue that unites the group of people involved in the japanese scene (l39). throughout her monograph, matsue's attention to detail shows a great deal of care for the subject matter. however, there is an unnecessary amount of self-reflexive meditation on ethnography itself and her role as ethnogra­ pher, foreigner, and woman within the scene, which takes up the majority of the introduction. the author devotes too much initial analysis to herself, which is both misleading and off-topic given her thesis, and can be construed as purely pedantic. the narrative is clearer and more enticing when matsue ceases analyzing her subjectivity and the practice of ethnography and moves on to a thick description ofjapanese culture and the tokyo hardcore scene. in her conclusion, matsue argues that the ultimate drive behind those playing in the band jug and in the scene at large is twofold: the love of music and the chance to play with one's identity. although hardcore has seemingly failed to have any documentable impact on mainstream japanese society, it has radically affected the personal outlooks of those involved in the scene. in interviews matsue conducted with jug ten years after the original research, members of the band she speaks with still cherish the chance they had to "get a glimpse of a world [they 1 had never seen before" and believe the experience introduced them to people they would have never met otherwise (149). however, it is matsue's love for japan's hardcore music scene that ultimately gives weight to her endeavor to elucidate this little studied facet of the country's vibrant musical underground. a great desire: autobiography in louise talma's three madrigals kendra preston leonard american composer louise talma's compositions are highly autobiographi­ cal, concerning, among other subjects, her conversion to catholicism (hound of heaven , 1938), her frustration with teaching and the limited career choices available to women of her day (the alcestiad, 1961), milestone events in her life and in those of her friends (ave atque vale, 1989), and her reaction to the vietnam war (voices of peace, 1973). in this article i examine ways in which talma's very early secular vocal works likely refer to another aspect of her life, namely, her love and desire for an erotic relationship with nadia boulanger. to that end, i read the music and text oftalma's three madrigals (1929, texts by sir thomas wyatt), and, lacking scores, the texts of her songs "la belle dame sans merci" (1929, john keats), "late leaves" (1934, walter savage landor), and "never seek to tell thy love" (1934, william blake), as a non-traditional form of autobiography, or what caren kaplan calls an "out-law genre" (kaplan 1992:122). talma was born in 1906 to opera singer alma cecile garrigues talma in arcachon, france. the two came to the united states when talma was a child, and "cecile;' as her mother was known, established a voice and piano studio in new york (us.s. niagara). first studying music with her mother, and later attending the institute for musical art (which would become the juilliard school) for her undergraduate studies, talma gave her first public new york recital in march 1925. around the same time she began teaching theory at the neighborhood music school and piano privately (new york times). talma began to compose in 1921, taking lessons and writing at least one song for voice and piano before 1925, and in 1926 both she and her mother enrolled at the conservatoire americain in fontainebleau. although talma enrolled in order to study piano with isidor philipp, she also studied harmony with nadia boulanger, who encouraged her to focus on composition rather than piano performance (jory 1967:1). talma fol­ lowed this advice, becoming a composition student of boulanger at the conservatoire american the following year, and she remained focused on composition for the rest of her career. eventually becoming the first female winner of two back-to-back guggenheim awards (1946, 1947) and the first female winner of the sibelius award for composition (1963), talma was also the first american woman to have an opera premiered in europe current musicology, no. 92 (fall 2011) © 2011 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 53 54 current musicology (1962) and the first woman elected to the american academy and institute of arts and letters (1974). little research has been published on talma to date. the bulk of her scores and papers are held by the library of congress in the louise talma collection, which contains recently processed materials including manuscripts, printed scores, correspondence, and reviews. yale university's beinecke rare book and manuscript library holds in both its thornton wilder collection and its louise talma collection materials relating to talma and wilder's collaboration on their opera the alcestiad. while a great deal has been written about boulanger, very little of that deals directly with her relationship with talma. however, with the materials from the library of congress now available, if not completely catalogued, it is possible to study this relationship in more depth. talma's extant letters to and from boulanger begin in 1929, but their frequent referencing of past events, meetings, and conversations also provides insight into the women's earlier interactions. before further considering talma's life and compositions, it is important to establish some theoretical underpinnings of this analysis. of women's autobiography, julia watson writes that "many fictions of female develop­ ment structure the incorporation of sexuality as the internalization of the only sexual identity to be spoken-that of female heterosexuality defined as the other of heterosexual masculinity. in autobiography, which as a genre has functioned as the keeper of the 'law' of patriarchal identity, women's sexuality has usually been presumed as heterosexual except when spoken otherwise" (watson 1992:140). sidonie smith further notes that when women set aside the "sanctities of official narratives;' which would have included personal writing such as journaling, and instead chose to write their lives through other forms, they were able to "evade narrative fixture in official scripts of the universal subject or embodied subject" (smith 1993:23). smith defines the "autobiographical manifesto" as follows: a public performance, the manifesto revels in the energetic display of a new kind of subject. the manifesto engages directly the cultural construction of identities and their sanctioned and legitimated performances, engaging the ideological systems pressing specific identities on specific persons. it takes a public stand on behalf of purposeful deflections, intervening in oppressive identity performances, troubling cultural authorized fictions. historicizing identity, the autobiographical manifesto implicitly, if not explicitly, insists on the temporalities and spatialities of identity and, in doing so, brings the everyday practices of identity directly into the floodlights of conscious display. (smith 1993:161) the manifesto need not be all-encompassing, nor a complete philosophical account of the writer's life or beliefs. rather, in the terms of autobiographical kendra preston leonard theory, it may be any statement about a narrator's self that aids in the con­ struction of the narrator's identity, and can be as limited or as extensive as the writer chooses. i propose that much of talma's compositional oeuvre is such an auto­ biographical manifesto. additionally, her early works may be understood in terms of kaplan's concept of the "out-law" narrative, a non-traditional autobiographical genre that "renegotiate [s 1 the relationship between personal identity and the world, between personal and social history" (kaplan: 130). while journal and diary-keeping was common among women who lived in the early and mid-twentieth century, pursuing a career as a composer was not. the realm of the composer remained, with a few notable exceptions, that of men. thus, by writing her life through music, talma created works that in both the medium (of a male-dominated art form), and the message (a declaration of same-sex love) function as out-law narratives. in these pieces, a narrator, whose role is assigned to female singers, addresses her unrequited desire for a woman, and laments the cruelty of the woman who spurns her. by setting multiple texts traditionally associated with a male narrator for a woman, talma establishes an identity outside of the hetero­ normative orthodoxy presumed by society and negotiates her own personal and social history. reading talma's early compositions in this manner, we may, as watson puts it, "trace a trajectory of naming an unspeakable;' namely, same-sex love and desire among women (140). talma and boulanger's relationship began as that of student and in­ structor, a dynamic that, as marjorie garber points out, is rife with erotic possibility. countless lesbian and bisexual narratives relate the phenomenon of a female student's "crush" or "flame" for an older female teacher (garber 2000:330). numerous characteristics of these "flame" relationships described by garber correspond almost exactly to talma's actions during the first several years of the women's relationship. as garber states, "the list is worth scrutinizing because it is a typology of love-any love, but especially what we call 'romantic:" the list includes: the extraordinary frequency with which, even by means of subterfuges, the lovers exchange letters; the anxiety to see and talk to one another, to press each other's hands, to embrace and kiss; the long conversations and the very long reveries; persistent jealousy, with its manifold arts and usual results; exaltation of the beloved's qualities; the habit of writing the beloved's name everywhere; absence of envy for the loved one's qualities; the lover's abnegation in conquering all obstacles to the manifestations of her love; the vanity with which some respond to "flame" declarations; the consciousness of doing a prohibited thing; [and] the pleasure of conquest, of which the trophies (letters, etc.) are preserved. (2000:304) 55 56 current musicology talma's relationship with boulanger demonstrated nearly all of these aspects with the exception of physical contact, which boulanger kept to a minimum-at least in public-and which talma craved beyond all else. during the early years of their relationship, spanning the late 1920s, the two women spent considerable time together during talma's summers in france at the conservatoire americain. boulanger invited talma to live in her paris home and at her summer home in gargenville. ethel chapman, a close friend of talma at the time, described the early relationship between mentor and pupil: "all the intimacy of those early years, the walks along the seine, the times at her summer place, and on and on" (chapman 1964). their relationship at this time may be characterized as what lillian faderman calls "romantic friendship:' faderman describes this kind of relationship as a passionate and devoted union that, while couched in the language oflovers, was nevertheless "not genital" (faderman 1981: 18). that the relationship excluded sexual activity is seemingly indicated in talma's letters which testify-with great pain and longing-to boulanger's inability to engage in physical affection. boulanger's affections could be variable, and she made it clear that she preferred working with male students over female ones (leonard 2007:46). nonetheless, talma pursued boulanger's affection, while at the same time beginning to compose her three madrigals-love songs whose texts speak of a lover's despair over the beloved's mixed mes­ sages and fickleness. talma's manuscripts indicate that the madrigals were composed in new york, and performances of them took place there, but it is unknown whether boulanger ever saw or heard them. while talma was more experimental in her early works-abandoning stable key areas and meter-the madrigals are written using common-practice period harmonic and rhythmic conventions, adoptions talma made only after studying with boulanger, possibly in an attempt to gain her teacher's approval. nonetheless, talma uses several of her common compositional hallmarks, including non-developmental blocks to structure a piece; minor and/or major seconds to indicate emphasis, often distress; and a distinct practice of dis/continuity, in which continuity is maintained through certain compositional elements while discontinuity is simultaneously created with others. during the 1930s, the period in which the love songs were written, when talma was away from fontainebleau she would write to boulanger up to several times a week. these writings include long letters, postcards, telegrams, and missives passed on by friends. additionally, talma wrote to friends of boulanger's greatness, overlooking any human foibles that she might display (chapman 1969). writing to boulanger in 1933, talma expressed her sincere devotion to her teacher. she writes, "you know that the smallest word from you is more to me than all the volumes of the world" kendra preston leonard (talma, may 26, 1933). in a later letter recalling the ceremony in which she converted to catholicism with boulanger as her godmother, talma couched her conversion ceremony as a wedding to boulanger as much as to the church: "we stood together before god's altar. that was the most joyous day of my life" (talma, july 4, 1941). she further wrote of the ceremony, in which boulanger presented her with a ring: my most dear one, you cannot fully realize what this so exquisite ring means for me. it is the one thing which i have really desired with a great desire-that i might wear a ring given me by you. you must have seen the wish in my eyes that i might at some time be so privileged as to have upon my finger a ring of yours. (talma, july 1, 1935) however, talma would continue to desire to live with or close to boulanger, and to have some kind of physical involvement. in 1935, she wrote to a mutual friend about the end of the summer in france: it was terrible, leaving her [boulanger]. i hardly knew what i was saying that last night with her, and there was so much that had to be said, and finally i left in a wave of despair without saying any of it. as for her-ida not know whether she feared that weakening effect on me of any softness on her part, or whether she just cannot bring herself to it, or whether it is absolutely against her principles, but she let me go without one gentle caress ... and yet i know she loves me well. (talma, 1935) boulanger replied frequently to talma's letters, but the majority of the extant responses, even those from the late 1920s, show her to be cool and detached, stating only in closing lines, alongside passages from scripture, that she was thinking of talma. despite the intimacies they apparently shared, and boulanger's seeming encouragement of talma's romantic pursuit that took place in person in france during the mid -1920s, it is clear from boulanger's letters at the end of the decade and into the next that she was not willing or able to openly reciprocate talma's feelings, eliminating any possibility for romantic development. following talma's 1934 conversion, boulanger, who was slowly be­ coming increasingly distant in her letters, took to signing them "marraine [godmother l:' as if to emphasize the necessity of keeping any emotions she had for her godchild repressed or secret. talma seems to have accepted the reality of the situation: that boulanger would not be her lover in the future, whatever had taken place in the past. the tenor of talma's letters changed drastically, and she begged boulanger for forgiveness for any inappropriate overtures she made: 57 58 current musicology i have only an immense sorrow that i can bring you nothing, and remorse without name that i have on the contrary given you, my most dearly beloved friend on earth, than to serve whom i can, i can think of no greater joy, i would wish to do nothing but that which could be of some good to you, so many painful hours with my sad, terse countenance and my selfish thoughtlessness and lack of restraint -and what is terrible is to have been for so long blind to this, and to know that no amount of regret can undo those hours. (talma, august 4,1935) talma later re-emphasized her anguish over the situation, writing: i am not yet accustomed to living with this being i am finding myself to be-so weak, so poor, so lost, whose relationships are all distorted ... i cannot even arrive at the peace of communion, and i need it so greatly. it is easy enough to confess fault, but it is horribly difficult to put into words intangible mental states which are as sinful as if not more so that actions:' (talma, august 9, 1935) following this outpouring, boulanger's only response, a month later, was a telegram stating that she had not wished to "renew painful emotions of the heart;' signing it "tenderly, godmother" (boulanger, september 4, 1935). despite this response, talma still struggled with her feelings for boulanger. only a month later she wrote, "i cannot envisage the thought of living permanently away from you ... i am so lonely and so unhappy away from you! i dream about you and that i am near you with such startling vivid­ ness, and i wake up with infinite sadness to realize it was only a dream and that this damned boat is taking me every hour further from you" (talma, september 1935). later she wrote that, "when all my thoughts should be directed towards home and the problems of the immediate future i cannot keep them from turning constantly towards you and towards means of returning to you:' talma's friend and fellow boulanger student marie brodeur frequently consoled talma, advising her in a letter, "do not let nadia hurt you. if she wants to remain frigid you cannot force her" (brodeur, letter written to talma, 1930s). talma devised methods of worshipping her beloved from afar by wearing jewelry boulanger had given her and creating shrines in her home: that you should bestow upon me these things so treasured to you, and thereby even more precious to me, is more than wonderful ... my room is filled with your presence. when i go to bed your cross which is with me all day hangs upon the wall above my head, and sends its blessings upon me throughout the night. in the morning when i awaken the first thing my eyes behold as they open is your beloved countenance looking down kendra preston leonard from the wall beside me out of four of the seven pictures i have of you (the other three are by the piano, so that you are beside me everywhere when i am at home). (talma, january 2, 1936) in may 1941, however, talma's attitude towards boulanger changed. shocked by boulanger's anti-semitism, talma wrote to her, eschewing the lavish language of the earlier letters. it is "very bewildering and sad;' she wrote. "perhaps you can enlighten me on how an expression of hatred can mean its opposite. meanwhile i know that my doctor, who is jewish, treats me with more, i notice, understanding and humanity than do you, my godmother. it's sad, but all this changes nothing to my love for you which remains as always" (talma, may 6, 1941). boulanger claimed not to understand what talma was upset about: "i continue not to understand you, but i don't doubt your sentiments" (boulanger, may 30, 1941). boulanger later wrote that, out of respect, talma should allow her to think what she liked, stating, "do not try to reform me" (boulanger, june 21, 1941). this rebuke did little to assuage talma, who, two months later wrote, "the day i heard you with your anti-semitism deny the first principle of your faith-our faith-was the saddest:' in a line, crossed-out in the draft, talma goes on to write, "because then i lost my most cherished possession-my respect for you:' she continues, "my only consolation is to remember that peter also denied his lord. but love you with all my heart i do, and that is why the anguish is so great" (talma, july 4, 1941). on good friday of the following year, talma returned to boulanger the ring and baptismal cross boulanger had given her upon her conversion. while they would remain in touch almost as often as before, and talma would struggle with her need for boulanger's approval and attention throughout her life, their relationship was unalterably changed, and talma's uncritical adulation of boulanger and her desire for their relationship to be openly romantic had ended. talma stopped setting works of romantic text and began to focus more intensely on religious and spiritual materials and forms. after her failed relationship with boulanger, talma retreated from seeking or sustaining many close personal relationships. she maintained a non-romantic friendship with marie brodeur throughout their lives, and, later in life, an intense romantic friendship with another woman, i both of whom had also been boulanger students at the conservatoire americain. there is no evidence of a physical element in her relationship with this other former boulanger pupil, but the epistolary documentation indicates that the woman felt considerable physical desire for talma. as talma once wrote to boulanger, so this woman writes to talma: 59 60 current musicology i committed myself to you long ago-with apprehension, that is true, but i did it anyhow, with full knowledge of my own responsibility to that commitment -knowing myself so well-knowing that once i turn loose of my heart it can never be mine again-knowing my vulnerability-knowing that every joy has a pain that is the price-knowing how lonely i get for the people i love-knowing the disparity of our own personalities, knowing the differences in the way we live ... i stood behind you, and held you in my arms, with my heart beating against your shoulder blade, your hand in mine ... (name redacted, february 6, 1965) the woman found the relationship difficult, and cites talma's tendencies to pull away or to turn unexpectedly cold (january 1965), bringing them both pain and causing the woman to equate talma's behavior with boulanger's of many years earlier. in addition, this woman, a catholic convert like talma, clearly agonized over the appropriateness of their situation, writing at one point, "i love you, louisa, were though i wish with all my strength that i didn't" (february 1965). talma's responses to these letters have not been discovered. nonetheless, it appears from the letters that they maintained this relationship for several years from the mid -1960s through at least the early 1970s. in no case did talma replicate the kind of relationship she had with boulanger with any of her own students, who recall her mostly as "cold;' (powers 2009) and "gruff" towards them (atlas 2009). between meeting boulanger and converting to catholicism, talma wrote several songs for women's voices or solo voice and piano, as well as her first orchestral composition, isabeau porme (1927-28), a work based on french -canadian folksongs and written for a canadian contest. apart from the contest piece, the majority of these works address unrequited or impossible love: three madrigals (1929, texts by sir thomas wyatt); "la belle dame sans merci" (1929, john keats); five sonnets from the portuguese (1934, elizabeth barrett browning); "late leaves" (1934, walter savage landor); and "never seek to tell thy love" (1934, william blake). the first of the songs, composed in 1929, is the cycle three madrigals, a setting of three poems by sir thomas wyatt. these poems, "the appeal: an earnest suit to his unkind mistress, not to forsake him;' "revocation;' and "the careful lover complaineth and the happy lover counseleth;' present a narrator who continually asks the beloved to affirm her loyalty and desire and implores her to deny that she has rejected the narrator. ultimately the narrator finds the lover cruel. talma set the songs for women's voices and string quartet, changing the narrator's gender from male to female while retaining the female gender of the beloved. she also arranged the songs for women's voices and piano for performances in which a string quartet was not available. kendra preston leonard the narrative suggested by the ordering of songs in this cycle corre­ sponds to talma's responses regarding her relationship with boulanger. just as talma felt confused that their early intimate period together was followed by contradictory messages from boulanger and finally a withdrawal from intimacy, the narrator of "the appeal" is perplexed that the beloved, whom the lover has "loved ... so long/in wealth and woe among:' has begun to cast off the lover by denying attention and affection: "wilt thou leave me thus, / and have no more pitye / of him that loveth thee? / alas, thy cruelty!/ and wilt thou leave me thus?" the lover entreats the beloved to change her mind, repeatedly pleading, "say nay! say nay!" the text ends with the relationship unresolved: the narrator yearns for the beloved, who returns no encouraging response; indeed, there is no response at all. and wilt thou leave me thus! say nay, say nay, for shame! to save thee from the blame of all my grief and grame. and wilt thou leave me thus? say nay! say nay! and wilt thou leave me thus, that hath loved thee so long in wealth and woe among: and is thy heart so strong as for to leave me thus? say nay! say nay! and wilt thou leave me thus, that hath given thee my heart never for to depart neither for pain nor smart: and wilt thou leave me thus? say nay! say nay! and wilt thou leave me thus, and have no more pitye of him that loveth thee? alas, thy cruelty! and wilt thou leave me thus? say nay! say nay! (oxford book of english verse, 1919) 61 current musicology ('j -----------~ s()pnmo u anu w1111hou l~avc-;nc thus~ say nay, for shame~ to ('j p~ ~ ===soprano ; --l-'"-. _-l-:, +j~ __ .l , -1-"'---1 u say nay. say nay. say nay. for shame! ('j p ~ ===-~ alto ----'---1u '-----' --.-/ to~mc! say nay. say nay, say nay. ('j p ~ alto u -.f~~ say nay,for shame! ('j '''nof ---~411" ---'---f~ u 't ~ ~ f: ~ .d -f2--1-1-: 62 i -g'j example 1: "the appeal:' mm. 1-8. while "the appeal;' with its emphatic cries of "say nay!" could be set in a declamatory manner, a musical interpretation of the text that might suggest that the narrator is chastising the beloved and ordering her to deny or reverse her rejection, talma sets the text as a lament, signified by the slow tempo (andante non troppo; eighth note = 100) and the quiet dynamic indications. despite the exclamation points that follow each "nay;' the choruses of "say nay" are set to falling major seconds and always marked with diminuendos from "say" to "nay;' negating the emphasis given by the poet and creating a textbook example of a musical "sigh" as used from bach to mahler (gritten 2006:51). talma's use of the "sigh" to indicate emotions of sadness, loss, and despair can be observed in her very first works, dating from at least as early as 1925. "for shame" is set identically to "say nay" in the inner voices; again, rather than serving as a rebuke, it sounds almost wistful, as if to echo talma's dismay over boulanger's lack of warmth. the "shame" is that the relationship is not proceeding, rather than that the beloved should be ashamed for her actions. nonetheless, the lover holds out some hope: in contrast to the inner voices, the outer voices crescendo slightly on "for shame;' and the questions asked by the narrator end on rising tones, just as genuine questions do in speech, whereas rhetorical questions move down in pitch. "and wilt thou leave me thus?;' which rises through each iteration to forte, is repeated, as if to counter disbelief, the question pushed over and over in long, slurred lines. contrasting modalities suggest an ambiguous outcome to the lover's kendra preston leonard (j soprano f) r. soprano f) r. aho f) .tl alto f) (j {p i j. p18no 22 r. " s. thus? a a "' and 1ii/~ -== ~. " and ,yilt thou leave me thus? p .~ ., • ~~ and wilt thou lcm'e me thus') ....., ~ 11 n~nn v i i j j j ..... i i tit e dlln ~ dilll. say nay' /--'~ . . > p '--' say nav~ say nay~ . dim. dim. =>r r "' --./ say na!'! > p ___ ----./u say nay! u'-j c~(sc. u / and ~. ~t' ~ ........ i i .4., poco rit. i example 2: "'the appeal" mm. 16-27. .~ ...... wilt thou leaw me_ f(~ . wilt thou leave me f ~ '~ ,yilt thou leaw 111e_ b., ~ *....; ~-:j. wilt thouleaw ltie_ ~( ~. f8"rj-' o. ~ [~ j ~j1 . 71,..j 7 ~ .. a felllpo ~ h :: 63 64 current musicology question. 'the song initially outlines the phrygian mode in the outermost voices and the melody. at measure 21, the voices state the query together at forte and the preceding tonality, centered around e, abruptly shifts with the introduction of b~, a contrast to the repeated b-naturals of the previ­ ous measures. 'thus briefly suggesting a lydian relationship based on the enharmonically spelled augmented fourth of e-b~, talma then cadences on an fm7. 'this tonal and modal discontinuity creates a harmonic instability in the work that is resolved only with a formal change of key at measure 27 from e phrygian to f# minor. 'the f#-minor section begins with an extended passage on dlm7, further creating a sense of harmonic instability before finally cadencing on f# eight measures later at measure 35. although it begins with a repetition of "and wilt thou leave me thus?;' this section, marked poco piu mosso, soon takes up the second stanza: "'that hath given thee my heart / never for to depart / neither for pain nor smart:' 'the slightly faster tempo here suggests that the lover makes one last urgent attempt to convince the beloved that the lover remains true, but the ritardando at measure 43, which leads to a transition back to tempo i and a modulation back to e phrygian by again using the b~/bb dichotomy, indicates that this plea has not been successful, as talma's continued pursuit of boulanger was also unsuccessful. 'the climax of "'the appear' arrives at measures 55 and 56. after several measures of singing at piano, submissively asking for pity from the beloved, the lover at last proclaims the beloved's cruelty in a dramatic crescendo to forte that occurs over three measures, talma all the while continuing to include the sigh motif before finally cadencing on e and a in the voices and an fm7 in the piano. 'this dissonance signifies the emotional tenor of the work and the anguish on the part of the lover. except in cadences, all of which land on the first beat of a measure, talma usually avoids using the fifth of any chord on a strong beat, preferring to add it in only fleetingly on an off-beat either in a single voice or the accompani­ ment. 'this coyness in establishing a tonal center may reflect talma's own sense of unease regarding the unresolved situation with boulanger; the root and third are present, but the fifth, which would help confirm the tonality/ modality, is persistently absent. in the song's coda, marked poco a poco pdt lento sino alia fine, there is a strong return to the e pentatonic of the opening, which, along with the inner voices singing "say nay" on descending minor seconds, suggests that the emotions of the narrator have come full circle. "nay" is the final answer. 'a revocation" continues the narrative of 'an appeal;' expressing the lover's anger at rejection, coupled with musical reminders of the previous song, including the use of the descending minor second sigh and swiftly kendra preston leonard fl 1jje-~ ~ soprano ~ lht:t:? ~ __ ty! anu fl p , ()rcsc. " soprano oj -lye? a las, lhv_ cru e1 lv' fl p /~, '------. alto ~ tre? !\ las, thy em el ty' thy em cl ty! fl p alto ., ~ ~ rv. -41t, -& thee? las, thy em e1 ty! thy em e1 ty! f --=::::-.~ ~ ~ • (. ... r-: ~. 1 1 j i y' ! ~_:j: ~ j pi\ i ... .,..--.,..(!:. .,.. ... = piano . u example 3: "the appeal:' mm. 52-56. shifting tonal centers. the text suggests that the lover and the beloved have exchanged meaningful words and promises to one another, but that the beloved has not been true to those assurances. what should i say? -since faith is dead, and truth away from you is fled? should i be led with doubleness? nay! nay! mistress. i promised you, and you promised me, to be as true as i would be. but since i see your double heart, farewell my part! thought for to take 'tis not my mind; but to forsake one so unkind; =f =3 65 66 current musicology and as i find so will i trust. farewell, unjust! can ye say nay but that you said that i alway should be obeyed? and-thus betrayed or that i wist! farewell, unkist! (oxford book of english verse, 1919) concepts of betrayal and doubleness run throughout the poem, and talma represents this in her setting. the narrator asks, "should i be led/ with doubleness?" in the first stanza, and then repeats the conceit in almost every stanza following, citing the beloved's "double heart;' calling her actions "unjust;' and decrying acts that caused the narrator to be "betrayed" by her. the lack of physical contact between the lover and the beloved is made abundantly clear and emphasized in the final stanza, in which the narrator abandons hope of reconciliation with an abrupt, "farewell, unkist!" as in ''an appeal;' the lover brands the beloved cruel, here calling her "unkind" and "unjust:' the song is structured in four blocks, each with a contrasting texture in the piano while the voices provide continuity through their use of a rising three-note motif. although in "the appeal" each voice was treated equally, in ''a revocation;' talma singles out the second alto-her own preferred voice part (talma, 1961)-for special treatment; aside from the introduction, it always enters before or after the other three voices and usually provides contrasting melodic and rhythmic motion. in contrast to the pleading quality of ''an appeal;' ''a revocation" is angry. the introduction, set in e major at a quick tempo, is emphatic and marked forte deciso. it quickly establishes the key, a tendency to modulate to the dominant, and the motif, after which the vocalists enter together with the first stanza's series of rhetorical questions: "what should i say?" voices are frequently doubled in this a section, both in rhythm and in pitch, before launching into counterpoint and coming back together again for "nay! nay! mistress:' a more lyrical b section in c major follows, starting at measure 17. accompanied by a rocking tonic-dominant line in the piano, the narrator recounts the promises she and the beloved have made one another. the key change may represent a different time and space, and the top three voices, in rhythmic unison, the close relationship of the narrator and the kendra preston leonard il u ~ soprano tj il u h soprano fj il h alto tj il u ~ alto ;tt tl u h i i i i {" • • ---t.. --... ~" 1 .... ~, ,-t-:j:f :##~ -t-t.fdeciso •• u ~ i i i ~ . . i i ,...... ...., i i i piano i -,}. "i flo'" ?,~----,} :;c;i:. ~-,} .... i ,; il u h .f i i s. . tj what should i say? since faith is dead, and il u h .f i s tj • • ... what should i say? what should i il ~ ~ .f a tj • what should i say'l what should i sj:/! since il u ~ .f a ,tj • what should i sa)'? il u h i i i ~ {j • t 1 r ~~ r ~ i . . u uj i i i i : 7 ~ .... • -,} ... i pno. r example 4: "a revocation;' mm. 1-11. 67 68 current musicology 10 1\ # s u truth a \vny from you is fled') should (j ti. s. -+!,,,1~ u say'.' since faith dead? should (j ti. /\ .-' faith is dead? should_ (j h a u (j h r---"1 c~ "no 1 u i r ~ i' #~ i i i .... i example 4 (continued): ''a revocation;' illill. 1-11. woman she loves. however, the second alto trails behind the top three and is more independent, providing motion when the top voices hold pitches, a reluctant echo like the lone ascending voice that hopes against hope in "an appeal:' as the text moves from the narrator's recollection of promises to her realization of the beloved's doubleness and the necessity of bidding the beloved farewell, the key modulates to g major and then back c major, perhaps indicating that the narrator's resolve to depart has grown and that her anger has returned. the b section cadences in c major, but the piano line descends chromatically, dragging the work into a short c section in f minor, although using d-naturals throughout to continue the major-second motif of the previous section. this stanza, too, ends with farewell; "farewell" and "unjust" are positioned against one another on a ii-i cadence that indicates that the narrator, while wishing to be finished, is not quite done addressing the beloved; an emphatic cadence is avoided. talma modulates from f minor through a~ major back to e major over the course of two measures, returning to the material of the a section and ending the song with emphatic statements of "farewell, unkist!" and an affirmative v iv v-i cadence in the piano. if "a revocation" stands as a declarative document oftalma's own narrative, supported by the epistolary evidence, her disappointment and anger over her treatment by boulanger are plainly in view here, emphasized by the often separate voicing of the second alto. kendra preston leonard ~ (j soprano tj , .. ~. , fare well fare well my pari, [are weill (j soprano tj , ~. .. fare well my pari, [are well! (j alto tj ~. .. q ... s' ~:e -.. fare well my part, well 1 (j alto ,tj q-eup!t l well my (j ,-.,. r"-o, .-.. __ ,.......,...... .....,....,;... 0. 0 r, r, {~ i qi i i '1 i 1 q~r , ~ . .. ' ...... i~~'" s ~ ~ i /1""1 ~ ~ i i~ -"" -piano .. ~ i (' 39 iiip ~ (j ~, .. s tj thougllillr 10 take. tis not my !l 7ilp~ ""'~ s. tj thougllillr 10 take. tis not my (j iilp a tj ~. s' ~. s thoughtfor \olake. tis nolmy mind~ !l mp a tj .. " lt~ ~ !tl~n~d; though\lo lae. (j ~\i i ~\i i ~11 {~ ~:':.' -& i~~·' .~ i/~ irj i i·~ i·~ i i'~ i i~ pno. oj u' example 5: ''a revocation;' mm, 35-51. 69 70 current musicology 44 ii t! i legg;ej'() mind: _____ _ and so will i trust. fares mind: _____ _ pare .. ~ a t) , -# -,; -# ~. tor sake one so un kmd; but to a t! but ~: ~ s~e ~e ~ ;: k~d ii 1 j ~ i ri i ,~. , \\'ell, un-just l leggiero so, legglel'o :j: so, i 1i;}giero -# i 48 fl , s t! \\'ell, unjust' fare -well, unjust' fl t! fare well. unjustl fare well! ii a t! ~:e fare well \\ell! il a tj fare \~l f!e \~ji il r--i i ~ ,.-, i no, {" i r i ~ ~ i i cres• '~ .. :g: ~g t • : example 5 (continued): "a revocation;' mm. 35-51. fare \\'ell, j-!----j1----oj-. will i trust -,; ~. fare well ~ r-:-i i ~ r i' leggiero i i i " h4 cendo ~nn i +--kendra preston leonard "the careful lover complaineth and the happy lover consoleth" is the last of talma's three madrigals. spurned, the careful lover tells the happy lover of her beloved's unfaithfulness: "my lady is unkind, perdie! she loveth another better than me, and yet she will say no;' the poem reads-a line applicable to the inconsistent boulanger, who chose and discarded pet students with regularity and at times seems to have delighted in the despair of struggling students who nonetheless admired her. the lover tells her happy friend, who is lucky in love, and experiences "no such doubleness;' to be wary, for "women's love is but a blast / and turneth like the wind:' in this song, talma selects a text that may be understood to depict her own path from being boulanger's would-be happy lover to being a resigned, hurt, and careful lover. rather than addressing the beloved directly, ''a careful lover" explores the idea of discussing the failed romance with a third party. however, the careful lover deems the happy lover naive and deluded in the ways of women's love, and insists on women's faithlessness. talma's setting of the poem as a sung conversation between women could be read as a warning to women new to boulanger's orbit of the teacher's habit of playing favorites, her prioritizing of men over women (while encouraging women to marry and raise their sons to become great musicians), and finally her inability to commit to a relationship. "the careful lover" begins with a dotted rhythm in the piano, represent­ ing the light heart of the happy lover. the second soprano and second alto, jointly serving as the happy lover, call out salutes to "joly robin;' but their warm greeting ends abruptly with the entrance of the first soprano and first alto, who voice the role of the careful, disappointed lover. at the entrance of the careful lover, the tempo slows from quarter note = 100 to 76, and talma effects a sudden chromatic shift from g mixolydian to distant g# minor. where talma gave the happy lover short phrases with articulated notes, the careful lover's text is set in long, slurred sighs of unhappiness. the happy lover responds with a slurred line, echoing the despair of the careful lover, albeit in her previous mode. the exchange continues in these contrasting modalities, and the careful lover has the last say, set by talma with basic text-painting techniques: the second time the careful lover sings "turneth like the wind;' the melody is an inversion and transposition of the original statement. the careful lover, embodied in talma's own vocal range, knows her beloved to be untrue. these three songs, composed for public performance and consump­ tion, constitute a significant document signifying talma's relationship with boulanger. the consistency of expression between these works and talma's correspondence of the same period indicates that the songs were written with boulanger in mind and as a manifesto in which the composer could voice her desire for boulanger and her despair over the relationship's failure to become a committed and physical one. 71 current musicology !l soprano t) !l p ~ i ~ . soprano t) ahl robini jo-ly ro bin' tell me how thy le-man doth? and tl alto u !l • • • • alto t) jo-l)' robini tell me how thy !l ,......, ~~ {i i pp.~ r-l g ~ .g. piano i meno mosso j = 76 16 !l f7\ mf -:---f7\ s . . tj ~ "mv lady is un kind, per diel" tl liif", tj ---.. thou shalt hear_ of mine. a tl liif ..--.-f7\ a ., . tj h· ~ ..... 7 ~ ..... ,---7 "my lady is un kind, per die'" liif tl . a tj (j 7~ [,c-111an doth?and thou shalthear of mine. atl r---::; ~ i f7\ meno mosso j = 76 f7\ { . ~ ~ c.....= u (.i ~r r r r ~"'" 7 y~ ~ n i i i i i f7\ • . ~ pno. i i example 6: "the careful lover;' mm. 11-22. 72 kendra preston leonard molto meno mosso j = 60 --===== iiif 1l p~ ~~ p/ ~ soprano o!) thou art hap-py while that cloth last, but i say as i 1l soprano o!) r. p~ alto ~ that doth ~-:t -# thou art hap-py while but r. alto ,~ molto mend mosso j = 60 r. ~ ~~ ,~ ~. ,..-, r-"1 ,...;.., ~ ..... {u h -ih"--• " h·h'f w-ih"--~ hr "rw"!i'-# ii it~ i!i-#r r pi = ~r i = ====-piano n h u h u 4i 15(j .--~ , = ====----------, ~ s . ~ find: that \vo-111a11's love is but a blast,and tur nclh like the \vind~ that (j s ~ (j --a . . " o!) hi ~_-#: man's ~:~ is but h: ~:st, i say as tind wo (j a ,~ ~#n .~. ~ h.rj #m ~h..j-----(j ji ~ r-::-1r;j {" . .. l!r it'!i-# .. """""" \....-.j r ~ ~ ll-l lh i : pno 4h u ':;4 example 7: "the careful lover:' mm. 39-55. 73 74 current musicology rll. -= (\ " . ~ ,-s _. . ) -------. ----\voman's love is hut u blasu\nu tur-neth like the \\lind. ~s. ~ tj -----------. -~ j\ ~ ~:.r ~:;t_ jj -:j and tuf tj neth, 1m -lleth like __ the \\j-------a --= .) (\~_ ti ~ ~ ti/~_ .------. ih.~n# • u h· #-j pno. {:~~ w#~ h::~" pp~ ~#b' "if. -,.., ~ 'lfcl :ec #it::? #~r ~ example 7 (continued); "the careful lover:' mm. 39-55. for the five sonnets from the portuguese, talma set sonnets xxi, "say over again"; vii, "the face of all the world is changed"; xii, "when our two souls stand up"; 1, "i thought once how theocritus had sung" and xxxiii, "yes, call me by my pet name!" each of these is an address from lover to beloved in which the beloved is implored to confirm her love and devotion. like the three madrigals, the five sonnets were composed for women's voices and piano. talma's choice of setting "i thought once how theocritus had sung" further suggests an intention for the works to represent same-sex desire. theocritus was well-known for his love poetry addressed to other men, and his bucolic poems focus on lovers remaining faithful to their beloveds, though they may be manipulated by the gods to love others or renounce their love. the rest of these early works, for which the scores are missing, likewise share themes of cruelty and rejection. in keats's "la belle dame sans merci" (1929), the narrator recounts a conversation with a knight dying for his love of a cruel (and older) faerie woman who has used and discarded him. in a vision, he sees the truth of his beloved: "i saw pale kings and princes too, / pale warriors, death-pale were they all: / they cried, 'la belle dame sans merci / hath thee in thrall!'" landor's "late leaves" (1934) is a statement of resignation and regret for a love that will never be truly reciprocated or consummated, with lines that must have resonated strongly with talma, who particularly felt the pain =:::::ii kendra preston leonard of separating from boulanger at the end of each summer in france: "and spring and summer both are past, / and all things sweet:' there is a final paroxysm of desperate hope, or perhaps resigned regret, in blake's "never seek to tell thy love" (1934). the early lines hold out some hope for the relationship, reading, "love that never told can be; / for the gentle wind does move, / silently, invisibly;' -perhaps a gesture from talma to boulanger indicating that even if their love could not be publically acknowledged, she was willing to be a discreet party to a secret relationship. but in the end, the beloved is repulsed by the lover's desire and desperation and rejects the lover, leaving her bereft: "i told my love, i told my love, / i told her all my heart; / trembling, cold, in ghastly fears, / ah! she doth depart:' indicated by the epistolary correspondence between these two figures, the connection between these texts and talma's own desire for boulanger seems clear. during the period in which she composed the five sonnets, talma repeatedly promised boulanger that her devotion had not faded, and writes, "as for you, you are enshrined in the inmost sanctuary of my heart where neither time nor the vicissitudes oflife can make the smallest change" (talma, august 1935). the five sonnets were, like the three madrigals, composed for women's voices and piano. they were premiered at a league of composers concert on february 23, 1936, a highly publicized and public setting. like the three madrigals, the sonnets function as public statements of a woman expressing her love for another woman. conclusion in these works, talma was able to take what smith calls a "public stand on behalf of purposeful deflections;' and thus "interven[ e 1 in oppressive identity performances, troubling cultural authorized fictions" (smith: 16 1). composing works that expressed her own sexual identity and desires, talma created an autobiographical manifesto. her works set aside traditional women's narratives of love for a man and instead represented a woman's desire for another, ultimately unattainable woman. by setting these texts for female voice, with several emphatic sections set in her own voice range, talma identified herself with the narrators of these texts and addressed those emotions and desires chronicled in her epistolary correspondence with boulanger. throughout these works, she used harmonic and melodic materials consistently, developing a compositional language in which the "sigh" motif and chromaticism indicated suffering, and in which rapidly changing moods signified changes in persona or emotion. talma's decision to compose works that contained explicit autobio­ graphical elements was set for the rest of her career. her archived materials from this period contain copious sketches for other works focusing on 75 76 current musicology themes of destined love and thwarted love, many of them echoing her let­ ters to boulanger, including settings of sonnets by shakespeare, marlowe's "a shepherd to his love;' and texts from antoine saint exupery's le petit prince, but none of these were completed. after her break with boulanger in the early 1940s, talma moved to radically different texts that dealt with her religious beliefs. the majority of her works immediately following the break are based on liturgical texts or poems by other adult converts to catholicism. these texts often reflect anxiety, fear, remorse, and inwardness, and as such may be seen to mirror talma's emotions as her relationship with boulanger crumbled and was rebuilt from a position of wariness, and as talma explored more deeply her own personal religious convictions. moreover, in setting these works, talma assigned the voice parts to the "proper" gender of the narrator. she did not seek further performances or publication of the love songs. in a sense, talma appears to have, at least for a time, "take[nl up the sanctities of official narratives" described by smith (smith 1992:23). she had come to the realization that not only was boulanger cruel to those she encouraged to love and worship her, but that she had other serious flaws that could not be overlooked. in focusing almost exclusively on religious works, talma appears to have sublimated her past desire for boulanger, invoking a realm of religious separateness, the love for and of a deity, in place of erotic love. it was not until 1973, when she set bisexual poet jean garrigue's (no relation) poem "rain song;' as a memorial to the poet, that talma engaged again with texts that hinted of same-sex desire. during the intervening years, she had worked to establish herself as a sexless, devout vehicle for composing religious works and taught much in the model of boulanger's public pedagogic persona. she appears to have succeeded in burying her personal life-her students knew nothing of her life outside of the classroom (powers 2009, atlas 2009), and she made a name for herself as a prickly, difficult woman (donadio 2006:7). nonetheless, as havelock ellis has observed, "every artist writes his own autobiography" (ellis:186). talma's early songs were her first step in constructing a body of work in which she could represent herself as both person and composer. notes 1. although this correspondence is archived and publicly available, i withhold the name of the woman at this time. references atlas, allan. 2009. interview with the author. donadio, rachel. august 20, 2006. "what i did at summer writers' camp:' new york times, section 7, page 23. ellis, havelock. 1892. the new spirit. london: the walter scott publishing co., ltd. kendra preston leonard faderman, lillian. 1981. surpassing the love of men. new york: william morrow and company. faderman, lillian. 1992. odd girls and twilight lovers: a history of lesbian life in twentiethcentury america. new york: penguin. garber, marjorie. 2000. bisexuality and the eroticism of everyday life. new york: routledge. gritten, anthony. 2006. music and gesture. aldershot, england: ashgate. jory, margaret fairbank. 1967. "interview with louise talma:' new york public library, rodgers and hammerstein archive. kaplan, caren. 1992. "resisting autobiography: out-law genres and transnational feminist subjects:' in sidonie smith, ed. de/colonizing the subject: the politics of gender in women:' autobiography, 115-138. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. leonard, kendra preston. 2007. "'excellence in execution' and 'fitness for teaching': assessments of women at the conservatoire americain:' women and music 11: 29-50. "mrs. kingdom gould sponsors a pianist:' april 5, 1925. new york times. smith, sidonie. 1992. de/colonizing the subject: the politics of gender in women's autobiography. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. smith, sidonie. 1993. subjectivity, identity, and the body: women:' autobiographical practices in the twentieth century. bloomington, in: indiana university press. powers, doreen. 2009. interview with the author. quiller-couch, arthur, ed. 1919. the oxford book of english verse: 1250-1900. clarendon, england: oxford university press. louise talma collection, library of congress. u.s.s. niagara. july 5, 1913. passenger manifest. watson, julia. 1992. "unspeakable differences: the politics of gender in lesbian and heterosexual women's autobiographies:' in sidonie smith, ed. de/colonizing the subject: the politics of gender in women:' autobiography, 139-68. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. 77 rebel girls and singing boys: performing music and gender in the teen movie theo cateforis midway through the 1986 teen movie pretty in pink comes a strikingly memorable scene. the film's main character, andie (molly ringwald), sits nonchalantly in the local record store where she works. adorned with posters of mid-1980s post-punk groups like new order and the smiths, the store represents andie's strong alternative music identity. in this particular scene, however, andie's boss places a recording of otis redding's "try a little tenderness" on the turntable, instantly transforming the mood. from out of nowhere, andie's best friend, the overly-dramatic duckie (jon cryer), bursts into the store and for the next two minutes proceeds to lip sync, dance, and gyrate his way through the climactic second half of redding's 1966 soul classic. it is an enraptured, exuberant performance, almost as if he is physically possessed by the music. andie, the object of duckie's affections, however, is clearly unimpressed. soon after his musical display, the deflated duckie sadly learns that andie's romantic longings lie elsewhere. his thinly masked musical cry for affection and tenderness has been in vain. as unique and unforgettable as this scene is, the gendered dichotomy that it presents between females as musical connoisseurs and males as emotional performers is far from rare within the teen movie genre of the mid-1980s to early2000s. from some kind of wonderful (1987) to 10 things i hate about you (1999) and juno (2007), again and again we see female characters positioned as social outsiders via their devotion to alternative musical tastes. likewise, in films as varied as american pie (1999), she's all that (1999) and napoleon dynamite (2004), teenage boys repeatedly assume the roles of dynamic performers. by breaking out into song, and often dance, adolescent males attempt to overcome social challenges. these recurring tropes raise important questions about the teen movie genre and its use of popular music. how and why does the teen movie divide its musical scores along gendered lines? what do these musical differences tell us about the contrast between female and male adolescence? what is the significance of the "rebel girl" within the history of the teen movie,2 and how are we to interpret the teen boy who bursts into song onscreen? my goal in this article is to dig more deeply into these questions by viewing the teen movie's soundtrack through the lenses of gender identity, musical genre, and the cinematic conventions of popular song scoring. as a "coming of age" film, the teen movie deals specifically with the gendered cllrrent ivilisicology, no. 87 (spring 2009) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 161 162 current musicology rites of passage that mark the symbolic transition from adolescence to adulthood. music in these films can thus help underscore a character's social transformation. regardless of how the music guides our understanding of these characters, popular song functions differently for boys than for girls. if we commonly find boys performing their gender in spontaneous moments of public music spectacle-what i calli a form of "karaoke masculinity"­ girls are more likely to maintain a consistent outsider musical identity. a female character like the rebel girl is granted a stability through her musical connoisseurship, only to meet with various threats and tests as she navigates her way through the teenager's turbulent social world. i begin this exploration by presenting a brief historical overview of the teen movie genre's birth in the mid-1950s and its musical scoring practices. from there i describe the changes that occurred in the early 1980s which ultimately served to redefine the teen movie. specifically, this new wave of teen movies began to portray adolescence in a way that resembles an­ thropologist victor turner's description of the "liminal journey," a socially defined process marked by rites of passage towards adulthood. director and producer john hughes is often credited with popularizing this narrative story structure, and from his very first teen movie feature, sixteen candles (1984), he deployed music as a way of enhancing character development, particularly along lines of gender, age, taste, and performance. through a consideration of hughes's influential 1980s films, and selected close read­ ings of post-hughes teen movies from the 1990s and 2000s, i demonstrate how the musical scores augment these tales of male and female teenage life. paralleling the rise of punk, post-punk, alternative, and riot grrrl, we find strong, empowered girls in these films using music to sustain bravely independent female identities amid the trials of adolescence. at the same time, it is the filmic genre's less developed male characters, the "duckies" of the teen movie world, for whom music more noticeably functions as a ritual act towards adult masculinity. seen in this light, the teen movie offers a window through which we can examine the function of popular music in late twentiethand early twenty-first-century film, as well as the gendered adolescent roles of this period. jukebox musicals and compilation scores as numerous studies and surveys have described, the teen movie genre as we know it today has its most prominent roots in the mid -1950s (lewis 1992; doherty 2002; shary 2002; tropiano 2006). while there were films, such as mickey rooney's andy hardy series, that starred youths prior to the 1950s, these movies were directed at and enjoyed by a general audience of adults theo cateforis and young family members. the 1950s american movie landscape, how­ ever, underwent a "juvenilization" (doherty 2002), in which the booming us teenage population emerged as a distinct sociological and subcultural class. filmmakers, well aware of this growing demographic, with its own leisure income and high media profile, relentlessly pursued the burgeoning adolescent marketplace. the "teenpics" (doherty 2002) that emerged during this time were produced for teens, about teens, and with teenage actors as the main characters. the teenpic was an enormously varied genre, and it appeared under many different manifestations. teenpics ran the gamut from themes of juvenile delinquency (1956's hot rod girl) and sensationalist horror (1957's i was a teenage werewolf) to fun, frolic, and romance in beach movies (1959's gidget). rock 'n' roll was an integral component of these early teen movies. no other cultural marker epitomized the rebellion, youthful energy, and consumerist passions of the 1950s teenager as directly as this new musical style. this association was first captured most powerfully in the 1955 juve­ nile delinquency drama blackboard jungle, which featured bill haley & the comets' 1954 single "(we're gonna) rock around the clock" playing over the opening credits. the film became a center of controversy when it was met with dancing and rioting young audiences, and newspaper headlines proclaiming the music's potential societal dangers. savvy filmmakers took note and soon began eagerly incorporating rock 'n' roll music into their productions, not only as an instant signifier of the adolescent lifestyle, but also as a marketing tool for specific artists and their recordings. many of these films, such as the 1956 quickie cash-in rock around the clock, took the form of what are commonly referred to as "jukebox musicals;' a direct descendent of the 1930s "backstage musical."3 like its predecessor, the plot of the jukebox musical revolves around the problems, pitfalls, and ultimate triumph of putting on a show for an onscreen (and consequently off-screen as well) audience. the music is most frequently diegetic-that is, it emanates from an onscreen source and is therefore audible to onscreen characters. songs in these films rarely advance the plot or enhance characterization; rather, the onscreen events typically stand as flimsy excuses for moving from one musical performance or dance sequence to another. in the 1950s rock 'n' roll teen pic, the film is rather transparently a vehicle for the music. by the mid-1960s, the rock 'n' roll teenpic had largely run its course and films specifically about adolescents had fallen out of favor. the genre's decline coincided with an increased media interest in the college-aged counterculture. accordingly, depictions of youth on screen began to slant towards more mature, twenty-something oriented features like the graduate (1967) and easy rider (1969). both these films drew critical acclaim and were 163 164 current musicology wildly influential, not only for their depictions of generational alienation, but also for their transformation of popular music scoring practices. the simon and garfunkel songs that accompany the graduate, for example, appear not simply for promotional purposes nor as stylistic markers, but rather to serve the film's narrative development. the moody folk rock strains of "the sounds of silence" convey benjamin braddock's (dustin hoffman) sense of isolation and disillusionment. they provide a glimpse into his thoughts and motivations, acting, as todd berliner and philip furia (2002) have sug­ gested, as an "internal song." likewise, in easy rider steppenwolf's "born to be wild" expresses the restless, rebellious mindset that fuels wyatt's (peter fonda) and billy's (dennis hooper) exploratory cross-country journey via motorcycle. unlike the music of the teenpics, the popular songs in these films are nondiegetic, and subconsciously underscore onscreen mood and character actions. film scholar jeff smith (1998) has labeled these types of popular music soundtracks that emerged at the end of the 1960s as "compilation scores." composed of pre-recorded songs, these scores introduced a new set of musical conventions that would have a profound effect on trailblazing "new hollywood" 1970s filmmakers such as martin scorsese, peter bogdanovich, and george lucas. in their hands popular songs were now embraced for their rich array of associational properties. they employed songs that audiences would easily connect with specific historical and social contexts, and that would open onto what anahid kassabian (2001) has termed "affiliating identifications:' the little italy locale of scorsese's mean streets (1973), for example, is augmented by a mixture of opera and classic rock 'n' roll songs, while the music of hank williams helps establish the 1950s small town texas setting of bogdanovich's the last picture show (1971). filmmakers also increasingly relied upon lyrics and song titles to "speak for" characters or comment on a film's action. in lucas's american graffiti (1973), the 1956 doo wop song "why do fools fall in love?" not only evokes the film's retro nostalgia, but also underscores one character's first amorous glimpse of a mysterious blonde. paired with the visible signs of youth fashion, pop and rock songs could denote a variety of subcultural identities. leather jackets and pompadours accompanied by rockabilly instantly identify a 1950s delinquent. psychedelic music and tie dye evokes hippies. as such, the songs in these soundtracks function as more than just marketing tools; they are intimately woven with the movie's characters and narrative impulses. theo cateforis the new teen movie genre the teen movie lay largely dormant throughout much of the 1970s, but by the decade's end it enjoyed a strong resurgence. as timothy shary (2002) has argued, this surge in popularity can be attributed in part to the development and rise of the suburban shopping mall, which not only served as a prominent setting within many early 1980s teen movies, but also provided the site of the new multiplex theaters that attracted teen film audiences in droves. like their cinematic predecessors from the late 1950s and early 1960s, these movies were made for young people and about young people, yet they differed dramatically from mid-century teenpics in their portrayal of teenage life. where the rock 'n' roll teenpic took alight-hearted, quasi-anthropological view of teen culture, treating young people and their music almost as if they were a distinctly different race than adults,4 the new teen film presented a more nuanced portrait of adolescent angst and the sometimes funny, often painful transition into the adult world. much of the drama and humor in this first wave of early 1980s teen movies centered on the uncertainties and discoveries of teenage sex life, and the loss of one's virginity. taking their cues from the frank onscreen treatments of sexuality that had revolutionized the 1970s cinema landscape, the teen film most commonly took the shape of an r-rated "sex quest" narrative. films like fast times at ridgemont high (1982) and the last american virgin (1982) highlighted the awkwardness of sexual encounters, and the emotional and physical consequences, including abortion, that teenagers could face. by the mid -1980s the teen movie had begun to drift away from its obses­ sion with teen sexuality towards a more sanitized focus on romance and the everyday complications of the teenage years. it is certainly no coincidence that this shift coincided with the first public recognitions of aids as a na­ tional health risk. the change was no doubt also largely guided by the motion picture association of america's 1984 institution of the pg-13 rating. in this new moral climate, writer/director/producer john hughes emerged with a series of popular films-sixteen candles (1984), the breakfast club (1985), weird science (1985), pretty in pink (1986), ferris bueller's day of{ (1986), and some kind of wonderful (l987)-which redefined the tenor of the teen movie. where previous teen movies had often veered towards titillation and exploitation, hughes treated his characters with empathy. he probed the adolescent experience in great depth, introducing character 165 166 current musicology stereotypes and opposing social cliques such as the breakfast club's "brain," "juvenile delinquent;' "basket case," "princess," and "jock," only to reveal the depth beneath these caricatures. as roz kaveney has written, "hughes took teenagers seriously and this seriousness manifests in the way that their problems and traumas are often complex back stories rather than mere givens" (2006:45-46). he presented a variety of characters with which young audiences could identify. hughes developed his characters along distinct musical lines that differed in numerous ways from the teen movie's earlier 1950s antecedents. following the innovative lead of his new hollywood predecessors, hughes used a mix of diegetic and nondiegetic popular songs to demarcate boundaries of age and social status. in sixteen candles, the heroine's snotty younger brother is constantly seen with his walkman headphones blaring heavy metal and hard rock songs, an unmistakable sign of his juvenile demeanor. in pretty in pink, andie's older record store boss is associated with both the warm nostalgia of her generational past (the association's 1966 hit "cherish"), as well as the bland conformity of her adulthood (barry manilow's 1978 disco hit "copacabana"). hughes's more comedic films, like sixteen candles, often employ nondiegetic music for ironic humorous effects, as with the spindly freshman geek (anthony michael hall) whose entrances are repeatedly scored with the swaggering, masculine themes from dragnet and peter gunn. his more dramatic films, like pretty in pink, occasionally use the nondiegetic "internal scoring" of contemporary songs to add insight into the characters. duckie's desperate lovelorn pining is amplified by the smiths' "please, please, please let me get what i want" (1984), and new order's dramatic, melancholy instrumental "elegia" (1985) signals andie's conflicted emotions and her growing sense of romantic and societal isolation. while all of hughes's films also contain liberal doses of composed underscoring, from a musical standpoint it is undoubtedly the popular songs that were most crucial in ensuring his films' success. one of the strongest factors in this success was the emergence of mtv in the early 1980s, which prompted movie and music companies to cross-promote their products not only through radio singles and album soundtracks, but also through music videos that often featured the artist edited together with select scenes from the film. effectively acting as movie trailers, the video for a song like the psychedelic furs' "pretty in pink" promoted the film while helping propel the teen movie soundtrack up the charts. by the middle of the decade, soundtrack releases for films like footloose (1984) and vision quest (1985), as well as the breakfast club and pretty in pink, had all cracked the u.s. billboard top 20, solidifying the connection between teen movies and popular music. given the reality of this synergistic relationship, it is tempting theo cateforis to view the presence of popular music in the teen movie primarily from an economic standpoint, as the result of sound marketing strategies. 5 as i will argue throughout the remainder of this article, however, the music of the teen movie reflects more than just the decisions of film company executives and music supervisors. rather, music in these films serves both to underscore primary narrative functions and a particular ideological view of adolescence as a time of transition. at heart, the hughes teen movie and the many films that subsequently followed his model are tales of social transformation. they relate stories of young people and the struggles that they face on the path towards adult­ hood. in this respect these teen movies draw on the popular perception of adolescence as a "troubled" time, one wracked by turmoil as teens fumble to forge an identity that will signal their growth and a newfound stability. as various historians of youth studies have pointed out, such characterizations have accompanied the concept of adolescence since its earliest introduction into american culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (kett 1977; lesko 2001). one of the first and most influential studies, g. stanley hall's adolescence (1904), romanticized youth as a period of "upheaval" and "storm and stress" that warranted careful monitoring and control. since that time, adolescents have routinely been seen as residing in an "awkward age" (kett 1977) on the fringes of their societal potential. the accomplishment of the hughes teen movie was to both dramatize and humanize this construction of the teenage experience as one of flux and transformation. if earlier teen movies had perpetuated a view of teenagers as members of some fascinating and mysterious "tribe," hughes and other teen movie directors shifted this anthropological tone towards a more nuanced narrative framework. perhaps recognizing that teenagers are commonly depicted as dwelling in a "border zone" or on the "threshold" (lesko 2001),6 they placed their teenage characters in a series of turbulent situations to emphasize their procession through a distinct "rites of passages" (van geimep 1960) or, to borrow turner's terminology, a "liminal" period of transition. the concept ofliminality is one that turner developed out of his field studies in central africa, where he observed the activities of liminal entities, or "threshold people ... betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, and ceremonial" (1969:95). as with arnold van geimep's earlier research on initiation rites, turner recognized the move from ambiguous liminality to a more defined social role as one accomplished through a ritual process stretched across three stages, which he labeled separation, margin (limen or "threshold"), and aggregation: 167 168 current musicology the first phase (of separation) comprises symbolic behavior signifying detachment of the individual or group either from an earlier fixed point in the social structure, from a set of cultural conditions (a "state"), or from both. during the intervening "liminal" period, the characteristics of the ritual subject (the "passenger") are ambiguous; he [sic 1 passes through a cultural realm that has few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state. in the third phase (reaggregation or reincorporation), the passage is consummated. the ritual subject, individual or corporate, is in a relatively stable state once more and, by virtue of this, has rights and obligations vis-a.-vis others of a clearly defined and "structural" type. (turner 1969:94-95) the typical hughes teen movie storyline deploys its teenage characters within a similar tripartite progression from crisis to climactic conclusion, one that also follows the conventional narrative structure of the three-act film paradigm (field 1979): act i (set up), act ii (confrontation), and act iii (resolution). in the hughes narrative arc, an initial crisis occurs (a "separation"), often in the form of romantic frustration, a struggle with adult authority, or class frictions. the characters enter a "margin" and must each endure some type of ritual trial (whether it be the denunciations of their peers, physical confrontation, or publjic humiliation) in order to realize their chosen goals and cross over into the realm of adulthood. a formal group gathering occurs-most usually, the high school prom-in which they must prove themselves to their peers as a testament of their newfound maturity and social status. at this point of "reaggregation;' the film ends with the main characters gaining a certain degree of independence and respect, tokens of their symbolic entry into the adult world. to be sure, such representations in the teen movie draw the teenage transformative experience in broad strokes rooted in heightened fantasies and cultural myths rather than any distinct realism. as ray raphael (1988) argues in his study of male initiation rites, however, such exaggerated portrayals have long captivated us because they relieve the journey from american adolescence into adulthood of some of its ambiguous mystery. the transition to adulthood is measured in so many different ways, ranging from the physical (an increase in strength) and the physiological (the growth of facial hair) to the legal (the drinking age) and the economic (securing a job), that there is no singular experience that can account for one's transformation. it is precisely for this reason that the anthropological stories of west africa, new guinea, and other cultures-in which boys achieve manhood through trials of starvation, humiliation, torture, and even genital mutilation-hold such a powerful and visceral allure. we are drawn to these rituals because theo cateforis they frame the rites of passage in definitive, dramatic terms. the "initiation as drama" (raphael 1988:12) dispels uncertainties about the process. the representation of the teenager as a liminal entity couches the adolescent to adult transformation in compelling, easy to grasp terms. repeatedly throughout its three acts, the hughes teen movie draws on popular music, particularly in its diegetic forms, to propel the film's liminal entities through their dramatic teenage transformations. in the first act, hughes introduces his characters in personal settings like the teenage bedroom or car, where a song playing on a stereo or radio serves as a marker of that character's taste and identity. in the second act, the characters are thrust into more ambiguous and potentially marginalizing settings, such as the socially charged space of the teen house party, where the loud, insistent music blasting from some unseen stereo drowns out conversation and en­ courages libidinous bodily encounters. lastly, the third act concludes with a gathering such as the prom, where the music of a live band or dj unifies the teenage community through the rituals of dance and public display. in each of these instances, the film's compilation score augments characterization and conveys details of settings and place that advance the narrative's liminal journey. in the two sections that follow, i examine in more detail the ways in which the teen movie uses music to denote adolescence as a period of liminal transformation. as we will see, these movies deploy their soundtracks and social dramas along specifically gendered lines. rebel girls of all hughes's contributions to the teen movie genre, one of the most notable was that he centered many of his films on female, rather than male protagonists, investing them with a strong sense of rebellion. the role of the "rebel girl" was not without precedent in the teen movie. 1950s exploita­ tion films like teenage crime wave (1955) and unwed mother (1958), for example, featured female rebels as deviant delinquents who flaunted societal and legal conventions. such films drew on the moral panics surrounding the new youth subculture, and the sobering possibilities that teenage girls might rebel against the family and be lost to the dangerous lure of the street. the rebel girl that emerged through the 1980s hughes teen movie, however, is decidedly different. portrayed within the safe white suburban environment of homes and schools, her rebellion is directed not against the parental structure, but rather against the social hierarchies and pressures of her peers. 169 170 current musicology figure 1: the "rebel girl" in her musical milieu. andie at work in the record store (pretty in pink, 1986). © 1986 paramount pictures. used by permission. the character of andie in pretty in pink presents the fullest realization of the hughes rebel girl as an outsider within her own teenage milieu. the daughter of a single unemployed father, andie is literally a girl from the wrong side of the tracks attending a high school full of wealthy students. rich girls taunt her in gym class, and the villainous steff (james spader) attempts to bribe her into compromising her virtue. hughes underscores andie's alienated status not only through her job at the local independent record store, but through various other musical cues as well. her bedroom is filled with the sounds of alternative artists like suzanne vega, and she is also portrayed as an active consumer, attending shadowy nightclubs to hear live underground music. this sense of exploration and personal autonomy extends to her eccentric homemade retro "punk-flapper" clothing (corliss 1986:67), which serves as a striking diy ("do-it-yourself") visual analogue to her musical interests. taken as a whole, andie's strong sense of personal style and cultivated musical tastes place her as an "other" in the midst of feminine conformity, while simultaneously suggesting that in some ways she already is a more fully developed and refined adult than her spoiled, affluent high school contemporaries. molly ringwald was without question the most iconic of the 1980s teen movie stars, landing on the cover of time magazine in 1986 with the release of pretty in pink. two decades later, the roles that she played, especially that of andie, remain a tremendous influence on the generation of teenagers to theo cateforis whom hughes directed his teen movie creations (clarke 2007; lee 2007). when that same generation began to enter the ranks of the young hollywood filmmakers in the late 1990s, it is little surprise that they continued to draw inspiration from both ringwald and hughes. as kirsten smith, screenwriter for such youth-oriented films as 10 things i hate about you (1999), legally blonde (2001), and she's the man (2006), explains, hughes's distinct combi­ nation of alternative music and rebellious female characters made a lasting and profound impression on her: i distinctly remember the soundtrack for pretty in pink as being a major turning point for me. the music in that movie-echo and the bunnymen, the smiths, psychedelic furs-was so cool and so far off the top forty dial that it made me change the kind of girl that i was. i wanted to be like molly ringwald, driving a karmann ghia and listening to new order and suzanne vega. john hughes did a great job of bringing an off-beat, new wave vibe to his movies. (kubernik 2006:289) the most obvious of andie's descendents appears in smith's 10 things i hate about you in the character of the caustic high school senior kat (julia stiles). kat's rebellion is couched in much more overtly feminist terms than andie's. she reads sylvia plath, dresses in black and combat green clothing, and rails against "the oppressive patriarchal values that dictate our education." like andie, however, her identity is inseparable from her musical taste, which is demonstrated through her allegiance to female indie and punk-oriented artists, and her desire to start her own band. in this respect, kat's character is very much a token of her 1990s era, when the media turned attention towards the activities of the feminist punk "riot grrrl" movement, and routinely heralded the growing numbers of "women in rock" as a seismic shift in the popular music landscape. indeed, as smith has explained, she conceived of kat's character at a time when she was listening to underground riot grrrl groups like bratmobile, sleater-kinney, and bikini kill. given this background, kat would appear to stand rather unambiguously as a marker of alternative independence poised against a suffocating commercial mainstream culture. at the same time, the film's distinction between the alternative and the mainstream is more muddied than kat's basic character sketch would sug­ gest, and this is reflected especially in the movie's soundtrack. while smith developed kat's character out of an appreciation for the riot grrrl movement, even going so far as to send a compilation of appropriate songs to the music division handling the film's score at walt disney studios, her suggestions were all rejected, mostly for their "lo-fi quality" (kubernik 2006:288). the music supervisors opted, instead, for a more polished, and safe, collection of 171 172 current musicology major label recording artists. letters to cleo, the female-fronted group that portrays kat's favorite band in the film, is a perfect example. while they are meant to represent kat's underground rock tastes, the boston-based band's sound is an accessible amalgam of post-grunge and power pop, one that earned them a mid-1990s record deal with warner brothers. by the time of 10 things i hate about you, letters to cleo had been road tested for a mainstream teen audience, having been featured on the soundtracks for the teen tv soap opera melrose place and the 1996 teen horror movie the craft. as an example of "alternative rock," letters to cleo was precisely the type of major label band that made alternative such a confusing and contentious term throughout the 1990s, and begged the obvious question: "alternative to what"? (frank 1995).as we will see in the analysis of 10 things i hateabout you that follows, while the storyline paints an unwavering portrait of kat as a rebellious music connoisseur, the tensions between the alternative and the mainstream, both musically and socially, render her symbolic liminal journey to adulthood problematic. like the majority of recent teen movies, 10 things stretches kat's liminal drama across the familiar three-act plot structure popularized in hughes's films. also, like many post-hughes films from the late 1990s, it adds a new intertextual narrative wrinlde, as it presents kat's transformation as a modern updating of shakespeare's the taming of the shrew.? as the "shrew," kat is defined by her utter disinterest in romance, while her younger sister bianca (larisa oleynik) is yearning to discover the world of boys. the girls' overly protective father has forbidden bianca to go on dates, but faced with her persistent pleading, he agrees to lift his restrictions, only if kat starts dating first. this sets in motion a series of events where two of bianca's potential suitors hire a mysterious juvenile delinquent, patrick verona (heath ledger), to entice kat to go on a date. despite her strong initial resistance, kat (pre­ dictably) begins to fall for him and finds herself thrust into a liminal position as she begins to embrace the romantic emotions she had previously sworn off. viewing the film's plot as a representation of turner's three stages, 10 things charts kat's separation from her initial independent, or alternative, state into an unfamiliar margin of conventional romance and relationships, and her subsequent aggregation and passage back into societal stability. 10 things establishes kat's independence in its very first scene, under­ scoring her alternative outsider status through definitive musical means. the camera focuses in on a carload of carefree high school girls, bouncing and singing along to the barenaked ladies' chart-topping hit single "one week:' kat pulls up alongside them, her car stereo blaring joan jett's raucous early '80s anthem, "bad reputation." this act of public sonic warfare, waged both against the school's mainstream crowd and a ubiquitous popular song, emtheo cateforis phasizes kat's isolation from the conservative teenage social realm. though kat does not utter a single word in the scene, jett's song instantly identifies her as a rebel, fusing kat's character with a long history of alternative and punk female-centered bands. jett, who had been labeled the "original grrrl" (vincentelli 1994) in the alternative music press for her production work and mentoring of groups like bikini kill, provides a potentially strong foundation for kat's feminist musical identity. the film's first act adds further nuance to this public depiction of rebellion as we learn more about kat through the privacy of her domestic surroundings, in particular her bedroom. as alison bain (2003) shows in her analysis of teenage girls and spatial representations in the teen movie, the adolescent female bedroom is a common filmic trope, presented as an intimate "place of retreat." it is a space that holds the secrets of the teen­ age girl's true inner self. in 10 things the bedroom reveals the depths of kat's music fandom, as her walls, adorned with the appropriate posters of underground riot grrrl-related bands like seven year bitch and the gits, position her as a knowledgeable, informed music connoisseur. when one of bianca's hopeful suitors probes kat's bedroom in search of revealing clues, he discovers her collection of ticket stubs from the various concerts she has attended. as he later explains to patrick, to engage with the real kat, one must master her deep-rooted love of "angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion." the connection is made clear. to know kat, one must know her musical taste. in the film's second act, which represents turner's "margin" period, kat meets with the uncertainty of new social situations, and these potential upheavals are accompanied by decisive shifts in the musical soundtrack. one pivotal sequence of events in particular illustrates in bold detail the line separating kat's alternative values from the mainstream she has as­ siduously avoided. patrick, having learned from his informants of kat's musical predilections, sets out to find her at a local club, where letters to cleo is playing live. as patrick enters the venue he is met by a steady stream of young females whose aggressive, defiant stares establish the club's space as one bracketed away from an oppressive, male social realm. the energy of the live music and the joyous participation of the dancing female crowd serve to authenticate kat's alternative identity. patrick eventually spots kat amidst the sea of bodies, enraptured by the mood and the music, and when she breaks away from the dance floor to get some water she finds him at the bar. armed with his newfound knowledge of kat's tastes, patrick casually mentions to her that the live band is ok, but they are clearly "no bikini kill or the raincoats" (another icon of female post-punk music). hooked by his bait, kat lowers her guard and eventually agrees to accompany patrick later that night to a massive house party. 173 174 current musicology the transition from the space of the club to that of the house party is significant, for it represents with one sweeping motion kat's separation from her alternative identity into the unfamiliar "margin" territory of mainstream youth consumption. unlike the club's unified alternative com­ munal female space or the solitary "place of retreat" that the girl's bedroom affords, the house party is a place both simultaneously private and public, where peer groups solidify and factions clash, and where the popular crowd usually reaffirms its superior social standing. it is also a highly charged exploratory liminal space (bain 2003), where the combination of alcohol, a loss of inhibitions, and the seclusion of sectioned off bedrooms offers the possibility of crossing social boundaries. this scene shift to the house party in 10 things is marked by a dramatic change in music, as the soundtrack switches from its predominantly alternative and modern rock score to a sequence of songs composed of late 1970s and 1980s r&b, funk, and rap selections from cameo, george clinton, salt-n-pepa, and the sos band. the symbolic racialized function of this music is fairly transparent, as its association with sexually liberated african american bodies serves to usher the movie's white teen characters into a space rife with carnal possibilities. kat's entrance into this liminal space proves to be tumultuous. disgusted by her environment and emboldened by a swift series of drinks, an inebri­ ated kat soon finds herself on display as she engages in a table dance to the thumping strains of the notorious b.i.g.'s rap hit "hypnotized:' urged on by the crowd, kat abandons her strong feminist principles for the gyrating maneuvers of a strip club dancer, fully accommodating the camera's prob­ ing male gaze. her suggestive body language highlights not only the erotic undercurrents that historically have accompanied much female performance, but also the potential dangers of what such sexual allure might attract-rape, pregnancy, or in the case of a white woman bumping and grinding to a black hip-hop song, miscegenation. kat is spared any such fate, however, when she hits her head on a chandelier and is knocked unconscious, only to be rescued by patrick. her dangerous exhibitionist diversion into the mainstream of pornographic entertainment proves to be short lived. kat's impromptu performance and her graceless exit illustrate the sharp divide between public female and male performances in the teen movie. when the teen boy performs, it is an ecstatic moment of transcendence. for the teen girl, however, her bodily objectification serves as a cautionary societal reminder that the flaunting of white teen female sexuality is a transgressive act deserving of punishment and shame. on another more functional level within the film, the sequence of events acts as a simple strategic plot device to further kat's initial separation and suggest a potential theo cateforis union with patrick. the r&b and hip hop score pushes kat in an uncertain, potentially catastrophic direction, but as patrick takes her away from the party, we leave behind that musical element, and patrick engages kat's rebel girl rock identity. this is reinforced on the car ride home when letters to cleo suddenly appears on patrick's car stereo and kat confesses to him her desire to start a rock band. in general, the placement and contrast of musical styles like rock and hip-hop in teen movies like 10 things reinforces divisions of space and cultural values that the teen characters must navigate in their liminal journey. the link between music, space, and gendered identity is especially significant to the teen movie's third act conclusion, which sees a shift from the second act's house party to the more formal, adult-sanctioned space of the prom. as the last threshold before high school graduation, the prom, and its accompanying music, is heavily laden with significance. as sociologist amy best (2000) aptly describes the prom, it is a predominantly "feminine space," one that foregrounds the fashioning and display of female bodies. it symbolizes the teen girl's imminent emergence into adulthood, and as such parallels the third and final step in turner's rites of passage, what he labels "aggregation" or "rein corporation." on the one hand, the presence of two female-fronted alternative rock groups, save ferris and letters to cleo, as the prom's musical entertainment seems to suggest that kat's feminist values and independent musical tastes have won out. kat's music has infiltrated the prom's formal space, serving as a bridge into the adult world. on the other hand, save ferris, like letters to cleo, was another late-1990s band with major label connections (epic records). their version of alternative was thus one subsumed within the mainstream, and fairly far removed from kat's purported riot grrrl roots. the conflict inherent in these musical representations bleeds over into the equally problematic post-prom developments that signify even more fully kat's reincorporation. it would appear, for example, when kat is finally accepted to attend college at sarah lawrence, that she will be leaving the film's west -coast seattle setting for an east -coast feminist utopia. here, we assume, she will enter an independent adult role, fulfilling the promises of her teenage aspirations. but this resolution is trumped by the movie's clos­ ing scene, in which patrick presents kat with an electric guitar. while the gesture implies that kat's adolescent dreams of rebellious musical creativity will become an adult reality, it also suggests that such ambitions can only be realized through her relationship with patrick. ultimately, kat's liminal transformation hinges upon weak dichotomies that blur the lines between the alternative and the mainstream, and independence and intimacy. 175 176 current musicology regardless of the compromises that defuse some of kat's power, the significance of the rebel girl should not be underestimated. while characters like kat and andie have become an accepted part of the teen movie genre over the past two decades, it is easy to forget just how radical a departure their alternative music personas were from the pre-1980s portrait of female adolescence. as angela mcrobbie and jenny garber pointed out in their pioneering 1976 study, "girls and subcultures," girls at that time were part of a bedroom culture largely confined to the domestic sphere, where their virtue could be shielded and their marriageability ensured.r unlike their male counterparts, whose street subcultures and public displays attracted the scrutiny of sociologists, girls and their ritual music activities were "pres­ ent but invisible" (mcrobbie and garber 1976). the irony is that studies have repeatedly shown that adolescent girls not only listen to considerably more music than adolescent boys (coleman 1961; christenson and roberts 1998; roberts and foehr 2004), but also use the bedroom as a site of active music-making and media production as well (kearney 2007). even so, girls' engagement with popular music has been generally, and wrongfully, dismissed, cast under the mass culture derogative of the "teenybopper" label. in this regard, the image of the teen movie rebel girl, raised on the audacious sounds and fashions of punk, alternative, and riot grrri stands as a laudable corrective. by introducing the public rebellion of the street into the sanctity of the white suburban middle class home, the rebel girl invests the female adolescent with a striking degree of agency and autonomy. her adventurous musical tastes symbolically threaten society's efforts at containing the teenage girl. most of all, the rebel girl represents a progressive female identity. read against the common view of female adolescence that paints the path towards adulthood in terms of a physical maturation and sexualization, the rebel girl enacts a different set of terms. she thwarts the male gaze, renouncing the uncomfortable mix of eroticized infantilization that renders so many filmic adolescent girls as passive "pretty babies" (nash 2006). instead, the rebel girl finds her voice, her identity through her mastery of the traditionally male dominated realm of music collecting.9 her musical knowledge speaks for her individuality. and while the soundtrack scoring of her musical taste, as we have seen with kat, is subject to the synergistic impulses and commercial designs typical of any hollywood studio music division, that fact should not blunt the message that the rebel girl sends. she carves a positive, empowering space in which girls wield their authority as refined musical connoisseurs. at the same time, from the perspective of the liminal framework it is significant that the teen movie does not highlight her acquisition of this musical knowledge as a transformational device. rather, her advanced theo cateforis musical tastes are already firmly established as a defining feature of her character when we first meet her. if the rebel girl is to grow and change, then it will most likely be through her pursuit of romance, or her assumption, literally or symbolically, of an appropriate social role such as that of mother, daughter, or girlfriend. it is this disjunction that makes the character of the rebel girl at times so unsatisfying. she is empowered through her musical agency, but her identity formation is bound to the teen movie's romantic conventions. so, when andie unites with her romantic interest at the end of pretty in pink, or when kat breaks down crying in public over patrick near the end of 10 things, it feels as if the rebel girl has been compromised. the overriding message is that her identity and sense of self can only be validated through her relationship to another (significant) masculine other. as we will see in the next section, while the teen movie's approach to male adolescence is no less stereotyped, the act of liminal transformation for teenage boys engages the popular music score in decidedly more spectacular and performative ways. singing boys unlike the rebel girl, who both begins and ends the hughes and post-hughes teen movie as an intelligent, assertive, and relatively fully formed character, the adolescent boys in these films are portrayed as immature and insecure figures. they are ill prepared, both for the adult world that awaits them, and for the emotional responsibilities of a romantic relationship. if the teen movie boy is to enter into the adult social order, this move will necessitate a drastic and dynamic transformation. he will need to confront and transcend the stereotype with which he is stamped at the movie's onset-that of the nerd, the jock, the juvenile delinquent-to assume a more acceptable, mature masculinity. as we have already seen with the example of duckie in pretty in pink, the teen movie suggests that such transformations might be accomplished symbolically through the public spectacle of musical performance. these performances are crucial, for they tap into a hidden reservoir of talent and native skill that otherwise lies dormant in the teen boy's characterization. we witness, along with them, their discovery of an innate musical ability. this act of performance is revelatory in part because the teen movie male is a relatively enigmatic character. whereas we typically encounter the female rebel girl listening to diegetic music in the private sanctuary of her bedroom or participating in the public sphere of concerts and live shows, rarely do we see a teen boy at home, or in a place defined as his own distinct personal space. as such, it is also uncommon to see him actively engaging with music. 177 178 current musicology figure 2: the nerd transformed. william surfs the crowd (can't hardly wait, 1998), "can't hardly wait" © 1998 global entertainment productions gmbh & co., film kg and spe german finance co. inc., all rights reserved, courtesy of columbia pictures. we have little sense of what constitutes his musical taste. in this context, the spectacle of his music performance stands as an initiation rite, a way of signifying his entry into and mastery over a risky, uncharted territory. of all the teen movie male identities, the nerd is the one whose masculine lack is most obviously foregrounded, and consequently most ripe for change. can't hardly wait (1998) plays upon these possibilities in memorable fash­ ion, crystallizing the nerd's transformation in one deliberately spectacular moment of musical performance. the scene is set up carefully. throughout' the film's first half, which transpires over the course of a single graduation night party rife with liminal possibilities, we witness the stereotypical nerd william (charlie korsmo) demonstrating a virtual litany of the nerd's most defining traits. he is a socially inept, desexualized character, one whose overly demonstrative intellect is used to compensate for his diminished physical presence. as the party progresses, however, and the alcohol begins to flow, william starts to loosen up. by the time the opening riff of guns n' roses' 1989 hard rock classic "paradise city" is heard playing, he is poised to move beyond his nerdish state. william grabs a microphone and plunges in, singing along with axl rose. while he struggles awkwardly through the song's first refrains, before long a cheering makeshift audience gathers around him and the house party space transforms into a stadium rock setting, complete with a "stage;' crowd surfing, and flashing lights. william rips apart his polo shirt to reveal a white tank top and he poses triumphantly to the enthusiastic theo cateforis approval of a throng of screaming girls. a transferal of masculine power occurs through william's adoption of rose's voice and gestures, as the guns n' roses song literally overtakes his body. the hard rock karaoke masculinity of "paradise city" serves to fill that which the nerd most obviously lacks-a strong physical presence, an embodiment. while william's transformation highlights in humorous fashion the ironic distance separating the nerd from the rock star, it also suggests that the rock star's hyper masculinity is an accessible form of knowledge. it is a gendered performance that can be learned. william admits as much when he excitedly explains, before leaping into his performance, that he knows "paradise city" because "a guy i tutored in math used to make me listen to it." manhood as such looms as a rite of passage handed down from men (such as william's presumably more physically masculine and domineering pupil) to boys like william. it is mostly by mimicking the actions and achievements of established male role models that boys come to know how to be men. seen in this light, one can understand why the teen movie filmmaker would let the sounds and words of older, canonical popular songs and their singers inhabit the bodies of teenage boys. a well-known song like "paradise city" essentially comes pre-coded, bolstered by a set of recognizable musical genre associations. as a prototypical hard rock and heavy metal anthem, its "vocal extremes, guitar power chords, distortion, and sheer volume" (walser 1993:108-9) articulate a form of power, a version of desirable masculinity to which a boy can aspire. in the context of the teen movie, the song and its performance serve as a convenient shorthand that frames the measures of manhood in easy to grasp terms. even more than this, william's performance taps into the fluidity of the rock star trope itself, a site through which men leave behind their private personal identities to assume a public, staged personality. the rock star is perhaps the ultimate symbol of individual attainment through the systems of industrialized leisure, and as such in turner's schema falls into the category of the liminoid (1982). as distinguished from the prescribed rituals of the liminal, participants enter into the liminoid freely, and thus enjoy a greater sense of malleability and room to play. "paradise city" is in many ways an unbridled celebration of the liminoid's trans formative possibilities, an ode to the means through which another william, the troubled indiana teenager william bruce rose, metamorphosed into the swaggering la rock star axl rose. as robert walser points out, the song's chorus, in which rose begs to be transported ("take me down"), draws on the ecstatic vocal style of the black gospel choir, and its double-time finale pushes his straining voice towards euphoric transcendence (1993: 168-69). as rose's voice emerges powerfully through the collective energy of the imagined live performance, so william's 179 180 current musicology figure 3: oz's liminal journey through song. from jock ... © 1999 universal pictures. used by permission. manhood is verified through public display and his playful rite of passage. staged within the communal power of the house party/rock music concert, with its carnivalesque crowd surfing and frenzied audience, william's hard rock connoisseurship suggests that even as marginalized a figure as the nerd can move, however fleetingly, into a fully integrated social identity. not all of the teen movie's male transformations from adolescence to adulthood are as brazenly symbolic as william's spectacular performance in can't hardly wait. the liminal journey that the male jock must travel in these films, for example, typically is more gradually paced across the duration of the movie. his position is particularly tricky. from the perspective of the teen world, the jock enjoys an unparalleled social status, perched atop the school's social hierarchy. he is popular, physically accomplished, and secure in his abilities. at the same time, viewed from the adult world, his boorish, brutish physicality, aggression, and objectifying views of women makes him an equally abject figure (stephens 2003:126). ifhe is to grow and cross over into adulthood, those traits must be sublimated. the character of oz (chris klein) from american pie (1999) illustrates an especially nuanced redemption through music of the jock persona and his progression from adolescence to adulthood. oz is one of a group of four frustrated high school seniors who make a pact that they will have sex by prom night, convinced that this initiation rite will serve to validate their manhood. while the film's basic plot hearkens back to the early-1980s r-rated male sex quest teen movie, its sympathetic portrayal of youthful adolescence is cut from the post-hughes cloth. each of the boys embarks theo cateforis figure 4: ... to jazz choir. the adolescent's reincorporation as an adult in american pie (1999). © 1999 universal pictures. used by permission. upon routes of personal discovery that reveal to them the complexity of heterosexual relationships and female sexuality. for oz, this occurs early on, when on a date with an older college woman, he casually implores her to "suck me, beautiful." unsurprisingly, she rebukes his fumbling and crude attempt at intimacy, but not before imparting some advice: he needs to become more sensitive to women's needs. oz sets his journey from abjection to subjectivity in motion when he decides to join the school's jazz vocal choir. oz fully embraces the act of musical performance, and with this new sensitivity in hand he comes to see the opposite sex as more than just passive bait waiting to ignite the male libido. oz's transformation is most of all highlighted by the dramatic shift in musical genres that accompany his integration into the choir. whereas the film's first act finds oz and his friends supported by a contemporary late 1990s melodic punk rock soundtrack, the jazz choir draws him into a performing repertory of 1960s and 1970s pop songs and ballads such as "do you believe in magid" and "how sweet it is (to be loved by you)." on the one hand, much like the nerd's hard rock karaoke, the movie plays the contradictions inherent in this musical and social collision for laughs. the sight of the stereotypical jock suddenly transported into a saccharine world of pop balladeering humorously underscores the drastic measures he must take in order to systematically dismantle his coarse masculinity. on the other hand, the move from the juvenile masculine hardness of the punk rock score to the choir's emphasis on songs of subtle romance and sentimentality signifies that oz has taken a major step towards acquiring the trappings of a more emotionally mature and considerate adult. the performing group itself 181 182 current musicology also represents a considerable departure from his cloistered circle of white male friends. not only is the group co-ed, but with its mixed membership of whites, african americans, and asian americans it functions as a multi -racial and multi-cultural ensemble. in this respect, oz has not simply discovered a new outlet for his previously untapped singing skills; he has relocated into an idealized diverse community, one whose harmonious social arrangement is mirrored in their close vocal harmonizing. the most significant path for oz's transformation lies not simply in the group workings of the choir, however, but in the realization of his own individual voice. in a key moment during rehearsal, oz continues singing through a break in the music and instinctively bursts into a solo improvisatory scat. eyes closed in emotional contemplation, his uninhibited expression taps into a deep reserve of soulful, musical blackness, one that has long stood for whites as a paragon of the masculine authenticity and depth of feeling that they ostensibly lack. oz's impromptu gesture draws the approval of the choir's black director, who through her position of power symbolically passes on to him the racialized gift of her musical culture. as krin gabbard (2004) has pointed out, there is a long history of such relation­ ships throughout the history of cinema. "white hollywood" films for many decades have perpetuated a type of minstrelsy "black magic," employing the voices of african americans to imbue their white on-screen actors with affective qualities, so they can express their most intimate feelings. in oz's case the implication is that the rituals of black male musical performance, of jazz improvisation, can offer a white teen like himself a liberating power, a sense of confident "romance and gravitas" (gabbard 2004:6).10 it soon has its desired effect as he wins the affections of one of the choir's members, the refined and sensitive heather (mena suvari). as with any teen movie male character who disrupts the social balance, oz must answer to his peers for his actions. in american pie it is oz's friend and fellow jock lacrosse player, the irredeemably vulgar stifter (seann william scott), who reacts most forcefully to oz's newfound vocal talents with the blunt pronouncement: "you're gay." like the teenage boys who populate the pages of c.l. pascoe's fascinating study on high school masculinity and sexuality, dude, you're a fag (2007), stifter polices the homosocial order with a ruthless genderphobia, disciplining "fag" activities and imploring the four sex pact members to "get some balls." his comments by implication serve as an indictment of oz's entry into the world of romantic ballads, soft rock and lite jazz, and the threat that these "feminized" musical genres pose to the group's masculine gender identity. stifter's fears, in many respects, echo the gendered epithets that rock critics for decades have hurled in disdain at the "weak" and "wimpy" realm of pop, soft rock and singer-songwriters (mcleod 2002). just as the dynamics of stifter's jock world demand that he label and denounce "fags," lest the physical intimacy of the male sports team theo cateforis boil over from homosocial bonding into homoerotic same-sex desire, so the critics protect and preserve the authenticity of rock's masculine fraternal order through their condemnation of a feminizing musical "other." from this perspective, oz's embrace of a smooth, middle-of-the-road (mor) vocal balladeering style looms as a dangerous, transgressive act. as much as these musical genres represent a feminizing threat to oz's circle of male friends, they also symbolize his potential rein corporation into a new adult realm. this is especially evident when examining the layered genre history behind the song that he performs as a duet with heather, "how sweet it is (to be loved by you)." for many, the first version that will come to mind is james taylor's 1975 top ten hit single. as one of the leaders of the early 1970s singer-songwriter movement, taylor was among those artists who first signaled rock's transition from its raucous countercultural identity to a more mellowed, mature medium. in this context, taylor's relaxed vocal style became synonymous with a new white middle class male vulnerability and sensitivity. by the time of "how sweet it is" taylor had also become an adult contemporary staple, a musically middle-aged alliance that propelled him even further from the juvenilia of rock and into material more suitable for wedding receptions and the harmony of romantic bliss. i i the original rendition of "how sweet it is," a top ten hit for marvin gaye in 1964, is equally important to understanding oz's transformation. like much of motown's music from the early 1960s, gaye's single was an em­ blem of the label's vision of african american upward mobility. the song's smooth, polished arrangement and gaye's soulful, emotionally charged romantic incantations conjures images of sharp suits, sophisticated dance steps, and adult respectability. motown was famed for its "finishing school," complete with an etiquette instructor who turned the rough and raw teenage talent from the detroit ghetto into well-mannered adult performers. in this respect, the process behind the label's gleaming product virtually thematizes oz's acquisition of a new identity. taken together, these two adult musical models-the white adult maturity of taylor and the "black magic" of gaye's motown-signify the impressive distance that oz has traveled on his liminal journey from the jock persona towards a more progressive masculinity. for all the significant weight that oz's musical adventures carry as a representation of his new adult development, his reincorporation in the end must also resolve the ironic dissonances of his identity. ultimately, oz must choose between the camaraderie of his jock allegiances and the choir's more socially progressive sphere. american pie's third act predictably distills oz's conflict: the last game of the lacrosse season and the jazz choir's final concert are scheduled for the same day. oz initially decides to play in the game, but after an epiphany deserts his teammates at halftime and makes it to the concert just in time to salvage his new identity and duet with heather. as with 10 things i hate about you, it is hard not to see the conclusion as 183 184 current musicology a compromise. while oz's performance at the concert certainly legitimizes his transformation, he is never truly part of the choir. oz arrives at the concert clad in his lacrosse uniform, a reminder that his masculinity is more hardened, and accomplished, than that of the choir's normal male cohort. the film even plays this discrepancy for laughs, as oz's last minute appear­ ance insures that heather will not be forced to duet with one of the choir's more humorously "feminized" and ineffectual male singers. in the end, oz's character never truly breaks free from the film's dominant heteronormative perspective. his social disruption is undoubtedly transgressive, but its impact is muted at best. on the whole, the transformations through music that both oz in american pie and william in can't hardly wait undergo stand as a bold reminder of how intimately masculinity and spectacle are bound within the cinema (neale 1983). men are constantly performing their gender in public, in full view. by no means is this limited to the teen movie. there are countless films in which adult males, trapped in abjection or a state of suspended adolescence, engage in musical performance in order to enact a change. the singing male is an endlessly renewable convention. many of these instances draw on the tropes of romantic courtship, as in 1989's parenthood, when the overly uptight nathan (rick moranis), in an attempt to save his failing marriage, surprises his wife at work and serenades her in front of her high school classroom with the carpenters' 1970 hit single "close to you." in other cases, adult men embrace music as a means of forging an entirely new identity. in 2006's stranger than fiction, for example, the regimented and robotic irs employee harold crick (will ferrell) undergoes a broad "humanizing" transformation in part by realizing his longtime dream of learning the guitar. his odyssey culminates in an untutored, heartfelt per­ formance ofwreckless eric's 1978 power pop classic "whole wide world" that wins over the adult "rebel girl" object of his desires. what is striking about all of the aforementioned examples is the degree of agency that they demonstrate. a cinematic teen boy or adult male cast into the margins freely chooses a way out of the morass through the spectacle of musical performance. in this regard, the male's liminal journey from adolescence to adulthood stresses a becoming, as opposed to the rebel girl's comparatively static sense of being. such representations suggest a freedom of play with which males can engage and construct their gender. at the same time, these performative gestures are carefully regulated. they are always enacted within the context of an adoring, approving female response, assuring that the teen boy's entrance into the adult world will preserve a heteronormative order. in the end, even though the teen boy's transformation is more dynamic and redemptive than that of the rebel girl, the portrayal of their liminal journeys must adhere to the teen movie's rigid romantic designs. for all its suggestive powers, the music can only take them so far. theo cateforis conclusion ever since its explosive emergence in the mid-1950s and its rebirth at the dawn of the 1980s, the american teen movie has been intimately associated with the sounds of popular music. in many respects the popular music that one encounters in a teen movie functions much as it does in most any other type of film. a popular song, and its specific style and range of cultural and historical associations, can be used to help establish settings and amplify dramatic situations. it also provides a convenient means for sketching a character's defining features and traits. this is especially significant to the teen movie, which typically emphasizes the social hierarchies-the divisions between "jocks and burnouts" (eckert, 1989) and "freaks, geeks, and cool kids" (milner, 2004)-that regulate the high school experience. whether punctuating the jock's aggressive masculinity with the sounds of hard rock, or using "alternative" styles to connote a social outsider, the teen movie strategically deploys the codes and conventions of musical genres in ways that help an audience "read" the film's characters. as this article has argued, these musical characterizations are mapped along discrete gendered lines. a particularly powerful example is that of the rebel girl. as a dedicated music connoisseur aligned with contemporary alternative styles, she challenges the common portrayal of the female ado­ lescent as a gullible consumer and an unwitting victim of the mass culture industry. the teen movie rebel girl is shown to have discriminating musical tastes; she is invested with a high degree of what sarah thornton (1996) has referred to as "subcultural capital." while the presence of a strong female character like kat in 10 things i hate about you is to be applauded, she is unfortunately stuck in a compromised position. she is bolstered by the liberatory powers of a rebellious musical stance, but because she must also carry the brunt of the teen movie's soundtrack, she is forced to conform to the film's obvious commercial designs. lodged in a collapsed alternative/ mainstream, her representation is affirming yet hollow. more than this, though, the "rebel girl" is problematic for the way in which her character must bend to the teen movie's narrative designs. as a film genre whose plot hinges on the symbolic transition from adolescence to adulthood, we constantly encounter teens in uncertain and vulnerable states as they search for their identity. in its most basic form, the teen movie perpetuates the popular perception of adolescence as a liminal "coming of age" period, where the teenager's rites of passage swell in importance and take center stage. the teen movie lays out for us in exaggerated detail the transformations of girls to women and boys to men. introduced into such a setting, the rebel girl walks a delicate, uneasy line. her strong musical individuality serves as an anchor of her identity throughout, but begins to wane in importance as her transformation is realized through the pursuit 185 186 current musicology of a romantic relationship. such caricatures revel in the "hip" possibilities of adolescent feminism at the same time as they undercut the rebel girl's autonomy by assigning her the adult role of "the girlfriend." the teen movie generally treats its male characters in a different fashion. where the teen girl is often a central protagonist, one who dwells equally in domestic and public spaces, the teen movie male tends to be a more broadly drawn, and predominantly public, figure. unlike the rebel girl whose identity is strongly tied to a rich variety of diegetic music sources-whether it be the bedroom stereo murmuring in the background, the radio blaring from a car, or the live music at a club-the teen movie male is a more musically enigmatic and pliable character. defined not as a dedicated music fan or consumer, the male nerd or jock instead is more likely to be found simply bursting into song. the teen male's acquisition of music through this act of spontaneous performance is particularly symbolic for it signals a dramatic change and growth in his character. in the case of a nerd like william in can't hardly wait, when he launches into "paradise city:' he is provided with a rugged masculinity and desirability that suggests a spectacular, idealized adult role. such moments of "karaoke masculinity," which invoke a familiar reper­ tory of established popular songs, are paradigmatic within the teen movie. certainly filmmakers have been drawn to these scenes for the ironic comic potential that they offer. but considered within the teen movie's liminal designs, there are other reasons why we commonly find the sounds and words of older songs placed in the mouths of adolescent boys. an established popular song communicates through its history and genre associations an accepted form of masculine identity. in a sense it has already articulated what the teen male wishes to say or become, in a way immediately recognizable to the audience. and in the case ofaxllrose's snaky stadium rock dancing or james taylor's mellowed sentiments, it comes with an entire array of bodily gestures symbolic of an iconic form of adult masculinity. as with the rebel girl, however, these transformations are carefully regulated within the teen movie's generic romantic conventions. for all the teen male's transgressive possibilities, his performance most always is defined through an onscreen female audience that preserves the film's heteronormative designs. more than two decades after john hughes popularized the particular social transformations and musical scoring practices that have become standard features of the contemporary teen movie, the genre continues to thrive and flourish. there is little mystery as to why the teen movie has had such a lasting appeal. adolescence, as a recognized period of youthful development, has captivated adults since the late nineteenth century, and fueled by media representations, marketing frenzies, and a "juvenilization" theo cateforis of american culture, its symbolic importance in the lifecycle has only grown in prominence over time. characterized as the last threshold before adult­ hood, adolescence has been portrayed as a time of uncertainty and volatility where identity formation is in a state of flux. the teen movie reduces the complexities of the adolescent experience to a series of stock dramatic ini­ tiation rites. it positions the teenager as a liminal entity, one whose rites of passage ensure a stable adult socialization. the teen movie's popular music soundtrack does more than merely accompany the film's ritual settings. it serves as a means through which the teen movie characters can establish and perform their identities, and it does so in a way that both challenges and reinscribes common cultural myths about the gendered differences between female and male adolescence. notes i wish to thank current musicology's anonymous readers for their suggestions and edito­ rial assistance. i am grateful as well to vincent stephens and stephen meyer, who provided helpful comments, and especially to margaret martin, whose encouragement, insights, and much needed perspective were invaluable to this article's completion. 1. the label "post-punk" refers to those bands, such as new order and the smiths, who emerged in the early 1980s on the heels of the original mid -1970s british punk movement. by the mid-1980s one would also have found such bands labeled as modern rock, college rock, or alternative, all of which connoted the music's non-mainstream stance. 2. i borrow the label "rebel girl" from a 1992 bikini kill song of the same name. 3. smith (1998:157) uses the "jukebox musical"label to describe these mid-1950s rock 'n' roll films. in recent years theater critics have appropriated the "jukebox musical" label to categorize stage productions such as mamma mia and mavin' out that base their plots and dramatic action around the back catalogs of popular recording artists like abba and billy joel. 4.1n some cases late 1950s/ early 1960s filmmakers even introduced the "anthropological" view of teenage culture as a specific plot device. the narrative of beach party (1963), for example, revolves around an astonished professor observing teenage mating rituals from afar. 5. certainly, there are teen movies where the music soundtrack bears the noticeable stamp of industry insider relationships and decisions. a particularly notorious example is fast times at ridgemont high (1982), a movie for which irving azoff served as both its co-producer and music supervisor. azoff took his dual positions as an opportunity to pad the film with acts from his front lines production artist management firm (denisoff and romanowski 1991:327-32). while music from azoff clients like stevie nicks, jimmy buffett, don henley, and timothy b. schmidt offered a convenient soundtrack solution, their relaxed adult rock sounds seem jarringly out of place with the movie's teenaged characters, especially when heard juxtaposed against the movie's memorable, and more appropriate, new wave contributions from the likes of the go-go's and the cars. 6. lesko's comparison of adolescence to a "border zone" makes a clear nod towards anthro­ pology. she takes the idea from donna haraway's study of primates (1989), where border zones signify the "imagined end points of adult and child, male and female, sexual and asexual, rational and emotional, civilized and savage, and productive and unproductive" (lesko 2001:50). the concept of adolescence, like haraway's primates, is cast in "evolution­ ary" terms, as a stage through which one must progress. 187 188 current musicology 7. as davis (2006) points out, within a roughly twenty month period in 1999 and 2000 at least half a dozen teen movies appeared that derived their plots from literary classics, including re-workings of pygmalion (she's all that) and as you like it (never been kissed). they were not the first teen films to do so. earlier in the decade, 1995's clueless presented an updated version of jane austen's emma, while 1996 saw the release of william shakespeare's romeo + juliet. 8. as mary celeste kearney (2007) points out in her critique of mcrobbie and garber's article, this portrayal of the girl's bedroom as a safe haven is problematic. it ignores both the intrusive power that parents may wield over that space, as well as the reality that girls may be subject to sexual abuse in their bedrooms. 9. numerous scholars have observed that record collecting is a particularly male gendered activity, with very few female participants .. see, for example, straw (1997) and shuker (2004). 10. black music does not always work as a form of "magic" in the teen movie, however. it can also be used to mark white teen males as inauthentic. in she's all that (1999) the filmmakers provide the loutish, narcissistic brock hudson (matthew lillard) with an ironic theme song, rick james's 1981 funk hit "give it to me baby," that connotes an iconic and "authentic" black male sexuality. during the movie's requisite teen house party, hudson solicits the dj to change the music to the james song so that he can perform a solo dance to it in the center of the room. lillard's comically awful performance-a bizarre melange of fractured breakdanc­ ing and improvisatory cocky posturing-demonstrates the gap between hudson's hollow bravado and the assured fleshly masculinity that "give it to me baby" infers. 11. i label taylor as a 1970s "adult contemporary" artist with the understanding that this is a retroactive designation. there was no such billboard category until 1979, when it replaced the "easy listening" chart, on which taylor had placed several hit singles 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(rossum’s universal robots), the play that would introduce the term “robot” into the english language, ventriloquism and masquerade become increasingly properties of technology. “mimetically capacious machines” were beginning to define the difference between centuries and, in the united states, between cultural powers and social groups (taussig 1992). robots are another product of automata: the phonograph is admirable when accurate and laughable when inaccurate. the robot, which we had imagined as a refined automaton, a statue that returned embraces, has turned out to be no such thing. in fact, the romance was over the minute karel capek, smack in the industrial heart of the habsburg empire, coined the word “robot” from the russian root for “work.” the robot was the image of alienated labour, what men would become after a few years on the assembly line. it was the pipe dream of the master, the nightmare of the slave. then it began to haunt the master (make your tools too sharp and they may turn on you) and secretly comfort the slave, who might soon have his own slave. (eisenberg 2005, 188–89) eisenberg is generally very aware of the relationships between african americans and the history of sound recording, yet he maintains the common reading of capek’s robots as merely representing “alienated labor” or as figures of class struggle. but in a country still reeling from racial violence and where, unlike europe, radical political assertion—of the kind that capek was also alluding to—was strongly linked to racial politics, the play’s vision of an extremely violent robot war depended on much more immediate concerns. then of course there is capek himself, consistently deploying race alongside all those other meanings that made the play as rich a work of literature as it would be an influential work of the genre of 78 current musicology science fiction, which was only a few years from being formally named. yet in the final two sentences of eisenberg’s passage the racial meanings intrude too far to be ignored. the slave haunting the master, turning on the master, becoming a master, and the master becoming a slave—clearly a great fear of proletarian revolt in the wake of the bolshevik revolution. and these meanings are present in r.u.r. just as they are in fritz lang’s film, metropolis (1927). in the nineteenth century such an expectation was so strong in the american south that it became a crucial set of narrative tropes: the black rapist, the brutish automaton that sets fire to the plantation, racial revenge as the first gesture of freedom. those two sentences prefigure the next chapter of the book, which charts in advance of capek the notion that machines and humans need be figured in a master/slave dialectic. in this tradition the necessary conclusion to that dialectic is not synthesis—as will be the case in cybertheory or “cyborg feminism,” topics of an even later chapter—but violence and supplantation. capek was not the first to narrate the relationship between human beings and machines in racial terms, but his vision has proven to be the most influential. interestingly, for eisenberg the difference between phonograph and robot is arguably based on “soul” or something very like it: why is it worse to be a robot than an automaton, worse to imagine oneself a phonograph than a music box? the eighteenth-century music box, like the eighteenth-century man, was endowed by its creator with a character. the phonograph, like the mass man, has no character to speak of, or sing from. it has no music of its own. it only reacts to the data fed it. (eisenberg 2005, 189) it’s an odd question. eisenberg doesn’t ask which machine one prefers over the other, but insists one imagine what it would be like to be one or the other. the difference here is “character,” something apparently had by automata, whereas robots and phonographs merely react, or possibly just mimic. phonographs function within a commercial enterprise and are products of popular culture. they are here described the way mass culture was almost always described in the twentieth century—soulless, artificial, reactive. despite his significant popular culture nous, eisenberg’s argument is essentially split between high culture and low culture, meaning that what gives automata “character” is their role within an elite socioeconomic (almost aristocratic) realm. at least they knew their master. this was only true up until, at least, johann maelzel and barnum, when automata became massified and put on public display. they were accessible to all and could be placed adjacent to joice heth, for example, as was the legendary 79 louis chude-sokei chess-playing automaton, “the turk.” the idea that the slave will have his own slave—its own machine that can be used against the master—is intriguing, as is the idea that the machine secretly comforts the slave. it suggests that it would be valuable to explore early interactions between slaves or ex-slaves and machines, particularly those that suggest the kind of intimacy that generates meanings. these interactions would be comparable to henry louis gates’s “trope of the talking book,” which he famously described in the signifying monkey (1988) as a crucial moment of black literary origins in a context where literature was the primary technology validating the human. in gates, scenes where slaves discover or witness the seemingly magical power of literacy and its attendant capacity to transform are at the roots of an african american literary and political tradition. for slaves the very act of reading was a mode of resistance to the notion that they could not read; their engagement with the bible was a mode of resistance to the notion that they had no souls; and the fact that books provided both comfort and modes of rebellion against the master requires little argument. the supplementary figure offered here, then, is the “trope of the talking machine.” “talking machine” was what phonographs and gramophones were colloquially called in the early days of their display and eventual commodification. this trope marks a necessary early stage in a history of black technopoetics, where technology emerges as a primary mediator between the inhuman and the human and does so through race and sound. these descriptions of a first black encounter with a new technology stand as important stagings of the interaction of race and technology, as was the display of joice heth, whose ability to speak was the primary source of wonderment. they occur before and at the cusp of an early recording industry that would partly establish itself with coon or “negro” songs by white singers until the first african american hit, “the whistling coon,” by ex-slave george w. johnson in 1891. johnson was the first african american to make records, and he recorded this song thousands of times before it was possible to mass duplicate master recordings. this trope would be a crucial first step in answering paul gilroy’s call for “a comprehensive history of that special period in which phonographic technology first made black music into a planetary force” (gilroy 1999, 261). it should be no surprise then to discover this trope of the talking machine in one of the most important and controversial “black” literary works of the nineteenth century. there is a brief discussion of that new, strange, and alien machine “the phonograph” in uncle remus: his songs and sayings by joel chandler harris (1880). the machine isn’t present in the conversation and is something closer to rumor; but the conversation 80 current musicology it generates—indeed, a discourse, or the ground zero of one—is both productive and predictive: “unc remus,” asked a tall, awkward-looking negro, who was one of a crowd surrounding the old man, “wat’s dish ‘ere w’at dey calls de fonygraf—dish yer inst’ument w’at kin holler ‘roun’ like little chillun in de back yard.” (harris 1986, 198) the discussion is framed exclusively within an african american plantation context with different types of blacks, ranging from the “tall, awkward-looking negro” to “younger negroes” to “one of the practical negroes” and becomes a reflection on a new technology as it is first made sense of within a vernacular culture (190). one hesitates to say a “black” vernacular culture, however. harris’s “uncle remus” tales remain controversial for their depiction of the docile rural darky whose dialect stories of wisdom and instruction, while charming in their day, became uncomfortable for black moderns desperate to redefine themselves according to their own largely urban and africa-centered self-images. like “rastus,” the mechanical negro slave manufactured by westinghouse in 1930, and “bessie,” harvard’s computing machine from 1944, uncle remus became a term of insult, much like uncle tom. but where rastus robot and bessie the computer were being deployed as comforting images of the past used to mediate the cold threat of a new technology, uncle remus was just that: a romanticized past quickly losing ground to a nation beginning to make absolute claims on technological newness itself. chandler harris’s association with minstrelsy isn’t simply due to his representation of blacks or his exaggeration and celebration of a black dialect common on the minstrel stage and eventually omnipresent in recorded “coon songs.” it is due also to his work featuring a ventriloquizing of blacks. one could say he was a coon singer of a sort: a white man who wrote as a black man who spoke in a dialect that was quickly becoming a significant political problem. despite this, black moderns highly rated harris for his archiving of folktales and folk idioms that were disappearing in the face of the rapid urbanization of african american culture. james weldon johnson, for example, assessed the uncle remus stories as crucial to the creation and emergence of a national poetics. in his introduction to his important book of american negro poetry (1922), he wrote that because it was rooted in african american culture, this national poetics was particular, “due to a remarkable racial gift of adaptability; it is more than adaptability, it is a transfusive quality” (22). race as both adaptable and transfusive—protean not essentialist— again brings to mind sylvia wynter’s (1979) argument that sambo was an 81 louis chude-sokei important scapegoat for alternative potentialities for all differences and antagonisms at work within a given social, cultural, or philosophical system. blackface was mutable, mobile, as were its sound and interpretations. it was always able to represent many contexts and types of intentions, including those which were seemingly opposed, like love and theft, or assumed contradictory, like africa and technology. it was clear to johnson that the particularities of african american culture could be traced back to africa, an argument much more controversial than it would be generations later. tellingly, johnson also links harris and uncle remus to the sounds of african american popular music made globally “all conquering” by performances, talent, drive, and racial pride, but technically by phonography (1922, 15). it’s not unusual, then, that the “tall, awkward-looking negro” would personify the machine as something able to “holler,” a living thing or a creature that shouts. the property of phonography to replicate the human voice is central to how and why anthropomorphizing machines became inevitable. these machines spoke, so they were like people, but not quite. in the early days of recording technology, people’s responses to these machines were generally with less wonder than absolute terror. they were encountering the human voice disembodied, the human itself disembodied, and the spectacle—both aural and visual—of speech rendered no longer exclusively human. the turk, for example, had a voice box that allowed it not only to speak, but in french, a language then associated with such cultural sophistication that it could only have generated greater insecurity. if you recall, joice heth’s own voice was argued to be in fact the voice of a white man behind her machine mask. uncle remus admits to not yet having seen a phonograph. he’s certainly heard much talk of them. he “kinder geddered in dat it wuz one er deze ‘ere w’atzisnames w’at you hollers inter one year an’ it comes out er de udder.” he says later: all you gotter do is ter holler at de box, an’ dar’s yo’ remarks. dey goes in, an’ dar dey er token and dar dey hangs on twel you shakes de box, an’ den dey draps out des ez fresh ex deze yer fishes wat you git fum savannah, an’ you ain’t got time fer ter look at dere gills, nudder. again, speech is emphasized, sound as doubled, ventriloquial, dubbed. but it is also reciprocal, indeed with a note of resistance, which as capek’s character helena discovered, is one of the defining qualities of “soul”: “hit’s one er deze yer kinder w’azisnames w’at sasses back w’en you hollers at it” (harris 1986, 199). slight though it is, there is a sense here that the machine “sasses you back,” which suggests volition, individuality, and a quality of refusal. such a hearing of the phonograph is a key step toward 82 current musicology personification, then anthropomorphizing, and then robota. but because uncle remus is generally being represented in this vignette as folksy and simple and rural, this response to technology comes off as naive and backward, quaint. good old uncle remus does say something fascinating, though, considering the impact the talking machine will have on the united states and on african american and black diaspora cultures. one could consider it prophetic: hit’s mighty funny unter me how dese folks kin go an’ prognosticate der eckoes inter one er deze yer 1’on boxes, an’ dar hit’ll stay on wel de man comes ‘long an’ tu’ns de handle an’ let’s de fuss come pilin’ out. (harris 1986, 199) to prognosticate is to prophesy, and echoes are important sonic qualities and symbolic figurations of space, time, and, of course, replication, doubling (aka dubbing). echoes are also signs of the past, in that they represent a sound or a signal that has already been deployed and is in decay. there is a creative tension here between that which foretells and that which has been told. a much later discussion on dub music as the most explicit space of black technopoetics in sound will depend on this hearing of black uses of technology and the technique of echo. but echoes here should be read as jacques attali would read them, as “premonitory,” when he argues that “the noises of a society are in advance of its material conflicts” (1985, 11). for attali, recorded sound and music “makes audible the new world that will gradually become visible” (11). eisenberg also suggests this and echoes the “all conquering” triumphalism of weldon johnson when he writes: “on records the black musician was no longer a minstrel with shining eyeballs, but simply a musician. . . . if invisibility betokened the fallen estate of the black man, it was also his main chance to conquer. and that is just how the black sensibility did—to a degree—conquer america” (eisenberg 2005, 73). uncle remus’s sense of the machine as generating or performing reciprocity as well as future possibilities and his prediction that blacks would engage recorded material as their primary interaction with informatics and technologies of reproduction; and capek’s idea that robots will inevitably develop souls since “soul” is something quite other to what we humans might think it is—this is all premonitory. after all, who would have thought at the turn of the century that race, sound, technology, and culture would take the shape they clearly have? or that soul and sound would be so intimately related? there is one more minstrel/machine connection of note, one more example of the trope of the talking machine and of echoic prognostication 83 louis chude-sokei necessary to complete this chapter. this occurs after joice heth, just under a decade after george w. johnson’s “whistling coon.” johnson’s song would, of course, anticipate a future in which hit songs performed by blacks would no longer be a novelty as his was, and by 1936, when blues legend robert johnson recorded his classic “phonograph blues,” a cornerstone of the blues and rock repertoire, black relationships with the talking machine were common and intimate enough for him to explicitly sexualize. but this version of the trope of the talking machine anticipates the relationship that the united states established between race and machines for the rest of the twentieth century. in 1901 the minstrel performer bert williams began what would be the first significant recording career of a black artist in the united states. george w. johnson may have had two or three “hits” (vaguely stated, given how many of them were just versions of “the whistling coon”), but bert williams would be the first that could be described as being as much a recording star as a stage performer. in 1906, five years after his first encounter with the talking machine, williams signed a lucrative exclusive contract with columbia records. up until the commercial boom of race records in the 1920s, he was one of the only black performers whose voice was readily available as a recording. one source claims that at his peak in the talking-machine business bert williams was making $100,000 a year, an astronomical amount for that period (sewell 1923, 40). williams was apparently very aware of the importance of the new technology and committed himself to the phonograph as a new site of dialect performance: williams was more absorbed in the sound of his own performance. it was hard to tell anything from the poor quality of the recording techniques, which could only reproduce a shouted roar, but he had practiced his songs and worked on his dialect so conscientiously that he wanted the records played over and over, comparing how he had always thought he sounded to the strained music coming from the cylinder machine. at that time theatrical stars refused to make records, contemptuous of the poor quality of the sound reproduction and afraid that people who owned their records would tire of their acts. but despite the apparent disadvantages of the new recording process, when williams was invited to come back to the victor studio in another month, he agreed. he was to sing into recording mechanisms for the rest of his life. (charters 1970, 64, 131) it’s a remarkable image to conjure, the great black blackface performer hearing his voice repeated back to him, over and over, studying his voice mask and perfecting it finally from a distance. his care and attention clearly paid off. an (archival) advertisement in new york’s age shows just 84 current musicology how popular he and, more important, his recorded voice were: bert williams, caruso, tetrazzini and other world famous artists can be heard in your own home by getting a tone-a-phone the latest and cheapest high-class phonograph made. $10.00 guaranteed to equal any $25.00 machine will play all disc records. (charters 1970, 64, 131) an early victor catalogue attests to the significance and success of williams and his partner, george walker, as early artists of sound and as incentives to a new market for these technological commodities: the most popular songs of the day are the “ragtime” or “coon songs.” the greatest recommendation a song of this kind can have is that it is sung by williams and walker, the “two real coons.” . . . although williams and walker have been engaged to make records exclusively for us at the highest price ever paid in the history of the talking machine business, and although their records are the finest thing ever produced, being absolutely the real thing, we add them to our regular record list with no advance in price. (smith 1992, 47) note the stress on the authenticity of the black voice—performed by minstrels no less, or rather black blackface minstrels in a metasignifying of irreducible realness. the power of this machine to introduce many whites to the sound of black voices, to the intimacy of spoken word or songs across social and legal gulfs, cannot be underestimated. soul is also the sound of a common humanity. but the stress on realness is remarkable because this hyperbolic claim on the black voice is used to naturalize the talking machine in a way that joel dinerstein would likely agree with (see dinerstein 2003). but naturalizing comes at a cost. as with rastus robot, dinerstein’s idea that this intimacy between blacks and technology is innately celebratory or even conceptually unique is challenged by science fiction, popular culture, and conceptions of labor, where it is far more complex, often sinister. remember, these machines were terrifying for the early consumer; sound recording had yet to strip itself of associations with the occult and the sheer size and alienness of these technologies took years to domesticate. race and sound played a significant part in that domestication. after all, if it speaks a black, vernacular voice, how alien can this machine be? if it speaks as a beloved darky minstrel, how cold and threatening could it 85 louis chude-sokei be? if it speaks in warm familiar tones of the negro stereotype as finally perfected by negroes themselves, how artificial can it be? the minstrel voice is here exploited as a sign of intimacy with the alien other, a sound used to mask the uncanny. in this case the analog warmth of sambo is used to domesticate a new technology—one other makes another other familiar—familiar enough to sell. where capek used machines to express deeply troubling racial concerns, here blacks are used to placate deep anxieties about technology to market machines and sustain a racist status quo through technology. the minstrel figure here mediates between two of the twentieth century’s great others: the machine and the african american in the first century of freedom. the quest to domesticate one requires the evocation of the other. here is intimacy without compromise, engagement without danger. the listener is guaranteed power over the machine, as it now operates within a stable racial and mimetic hierarchy. what should always be emphasized and certainly never forgotten is the fact that this particular iteration of the “trope of the talking machine” was prognosticated by the strange case of joice heth, a wizened black slave woman passing for or being passed as a machine. because she was a slave— a mere thirty years before full legal emancipation into the “human”—she was actually being passed as a machinic simulacra of something other than a human being, something already passing for something else and which could therefore be used to pass for anything as long as it existed on the far edges of the human. in her mask an old social and economic system passed as new and a new technological system of culture and power masqueraded as organic. with joice heth, dumbstruck audiences merely partook of the glory of a new commodity masquerading as an old one and witnessed an old performance of nature naturalizing and therefore legitimizing one that had already changed. references attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. charters, ann. 1970. nobody: the story of bert williams. new york: macmillan. dinerstein, joel. 2003. swinging the machine: modernity, technology, and african american culture betwen the world wars. amherst: university of massachusetts press. eisenberg, evan. 2005. the recording angel: music, records and culture from aristotle to zappa. new haven: yale university press. gilroy, paul. 1999. “analogues of mourning, mourning the analog.” in stars don’t stand still in the sky, edited by karen kelly and evelyn mcdonnell. new york: new york university press. harris, joel chandler. 1986. uncle remus: his songs and his sayings. new york: penguin books. johnson, james weldon. 1922. “modern american poetry.” preface to the book of american negro poetry. university of illinois online: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/ 86 current musicology g_l/johnson/preface1.htm. sewell, eugene p. 1923. sewell, balzac, dumas, and “bert” williams: poetry and a short story. n.p. smith, eric ledell. 1992. bert williams: a biography of the pioneer black comedian. jefferson, nc: mcfarland. taussig, michael. 1992. mimesis and alterity: a particular history of the senses. new york: routledge. wynter, silvia. 1979. “sambos and minstrels.” social text 1 (winter): 149–156. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 vazquez. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 239 the wonder of delays alexandra t. vazquez there are many things feminist music critics must too often defer by force or by choice. there is so much work and time involved in the mere fact of saying: there is more to the story. in the latinate new york world, trying to tell a different story—any shift in its form or its players—has long borne challenges that might or might not be particular to it. some of them have long been archival, at least before youtube, which has meant having to enter the difficult underworld of possessive collectors. the view from the shore, the view from the dance floor, the dancing mind and thinking body, are made decorative for rather than mutually formative forces to music making. market and marketing sense and nonsense have given too many empirical shelters from hard thinking about how music is lived and breathed in the social. and the narratives that are made from all this fodder—the wedging of musicians and genres into neat arcs—has meant that we’ve long foregone historical accuracy so that the story tells success in some way. for example, fania records: sure, body-rocking objects that trained many of us as listeners and dancers and thank heavens, truly, for that and them. we needed our motown too. we often desire some sense of success at any cost so that we can make provisional sense of all those lives as they’ve tried to survive here. but fania records. that corrupt boys club, which did much to privilege the sloppy musicality of the bro jam band, pernicious in its business practices and misogyny, ruthless on who and how it was able to exclude and start the record of latin new york in a false place. fania-as-narrative, or better put, entrepreneurial practice, is just one of the many distractions that have closed up our ears. i’m already distracted. note the compulsive habit, the getting mad that prevents another kind of work. let’s get to, and celebrate loud and now, the raptor-like intensity of not being distracted that is licia fiol-matta’s the great woman singer. by creating the complex badass ensemble of myrta silva, ruth fernandez, la calandria, and lucecita, fiol-matta asks us: what if we start here? what if we begin with the presumption of women’s musical activity rather than from that shorthanded place of negation? a place that doesn’t begin with how women entered, but made possible, the larger musical scene. this place, the beautiful migrant non-place of this book, goes straight for the historical fact of women in music, but also suggests how criticism (as a whole) 240 current musicology has never been able to make this presumption ordinary to talk about them in a sustained, rather than corrective way. what links these performers is their multi-decade careers—which means that we get to follow them from girlhood to golden age. the robust longevity of these musicians, of women who made and make things in colonial modernity, suggests that we have to refigure just about everything that we think we know about the culture industry. of the wonder of lucecita and her bendy artistry of the mid1960s, fiol-matta writes: “she had arrived at the scene, but she could not be interpreted yet” (184). i love this delay that the author leaves for herself and for all us here to say: these musicians require time and new words and worlds. let’s get behind the music of this book and imagine what might be involved in that delay—the work required—to make new tools to interpret these musicians. first, she had to get this group together. fiol-matta hosts the musician’s gathering of our dreams, the kind we imagine and hear about that took and take place in people’s living rooms. she makes a cohort where people falsely think there is none and makes the chapters and their players resonate. they are echolocational. along with this group there is the voluminous matter of their varied entourages. fiol-matta tracks and notes all the players, promoters, producers, press agents, and fans that stopped by the musician’s respective careers, and given the decades and publics they did and didn’t share, hurts in its analytic immeasurability. there are the wonderful delays made by archives, official and not, that soak her pages with all sorts of sensate information. fiol-matta raises a righteous fist reminder to her readership to say: the internet is not enough! we still need to talk to people, to interview the seemingly marginal, to go there. there are stunning photographs in the book that leave one imagining the real charm involved in getting permission for them, because these transactions aren’t always about financial compensation. talking to people carries galaxies of delays. what the original interviews that fiol-matta conducted as the book’s grounds don’t easily reveal are the difficult logistics, affective and otherwise, of getting them to sit down and talk. we’ll also want to hold a moment of silence for all those untold hours of preparation and homework for that sitting down and talking. and finally, there is the delay involved at daring to tread in the dizzying undertow of midcentury puertoricanhood stretching from the 50s to the 70s, with the rise, fake summits, and evaporation of what fiol-matta calls the “modernization fantasy” (173), all mobilized by the cold war program, whether operation serenity or bootstrap. in the midst of all this, fiol-matta and her book insist on wait-we’rejust-getting-started: we still have our/their records. her hyper-fluency in 241 alexandra t. vazquez the repertoires of these great women singers enables fiol-matta to deploy songs as historic signposts, as micro-things that give way to imagining the connectivity between music and musicians across the hispanophonic caribbean, which we recognize as new york and mexico city and havana, but also following fiol-matta’s cue: ponce, caguas, arecibo. songs are followed as indexes for the deep conceptual shifts in music made possible by these singers. fiol-matta employs another kind of bilingualism here—one that is fluent in both the highly commodified greatest hit and the underheard, undersold track. her engagement with these repertoires—across genres, and in an incredible diversity of performance venues—is the training we all need for listening to “salsa,” that mercantile but nonetheless feel-good genre, that can and can’t contain the sounds by and for the multitudes. “salsa” comes after many befores instituted by the book’s players. and so fiol-matta went to where many choose to live but few dare to write into words: those inter-american variety shows that featured this cohort of performers in their late-stage careers. across all these stages, fiol-matta extends the real, material prior behind all those figures that we’re handed as icons without knowing why. this book is an investigation that doesn’t refuse that wonder of childhood not knowing why. all this gives the reader more air and piqued curiosity, and makes one actually want to listen along, to scour youtube. but even in youtube, the author manages major surprises. for example, listening and watching along with fiol-matta to lucecita and supercuban percussionist cándido camero play together, like that (go there), on the ed sullivan show 1970. how did that performance happen? and now, what do we have? i ask that as an honest question, and yes, i’ll retain the we and the possessive not to enclose or exclude, but to long-term honor of the song innovators of the great woman singer. and now, what do we have? is another way of asking: where are they now, how to they show up (and they do) in a place like spanish trap, for instance? in some ways, the hardest questions fiol-matta asks over and over again in her book are: where are they, where are we? she shows us not how to answer these questions because that would suggest the possibility of some singular experience. instead the great woman singer gives us the ample material evidence and imaginative know-how to extend women’s vocal influence to record all kinds of different stories. microsoft word ps thomas typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 thomas. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 142 margaret thomas i have spent most of my career teaching music theory at a small liberal arts college where all students enter without a major. they’re encouraged to explore a range of disciplines before declaring a major; ostensibly, all fields are available to them. too often, however, interested students encounter barriers to entering the music major. they may find that their background doesn’t match the expectations of the music department, or they may find that their particular musical interests are not represented in our course offerings. in recent years these kinds of issues have driven curricular redesign at a number of institutions.1 when discussing the motivation for recent changes to the music major at harvard university, for example, anne shreffler noted that “our old curriculum was saying to those students: ‘you cannot major in music because your parents did not give you 12 years of this kind of education that we implicitly require’” (robin 2017). the implicit requirements that shreffler alludes to, requirements common to most undergraduate music majors, are complex and messy. the expectation of prior training in the western classical tradition is inextricably linked with factors of race, class, and cultural background. initiatives to decolonize and diversify our field, to recognize discrimination and injustices in it, and to improve the pipeline to music academia are generating important discussions. the discipline of music seems to be undergoing a kind of reckoning, of which widespread curricular redesign is one indicator. yet undertaking substantive curricular reform at the institutional level is challenging and time-consuming, and it alone is not enough: changes to the curriculum must be paired with changes in pedagogy. here i explore impactful steps that individual instructors can take to address issues of inequity in their own teaching, steps that not only complement broader institutional curricular undertakings but are critical to such undertakings. i don’t offer solutions so much as i offer questions, the first and perhaps most important of which is: how do we know what is keeping students away if we don’t have access to their stories? i was fortunate to serve as a faculty mentor for the posse foundation’s scholars program from 2016 to 2020, working intensively with eleven students (“posse scholars”) from chicago from the summer prior to their arrival at my 143 college through their graduation.2 i knew that this mentoring would be hard work, and that i would learn a lot. what i didn’t expect is that it would give me a radically new perspective on the student experience both at the college and in our music department. the scholars arrived with a wide range of academic interests. three wanted to become involved in music. one had a background as a saxophonist and had come from a public school with a pretty strong music program. one simply wanted to take a few music courses and sing in choir. and one was interested in majoring: she was passionate about music, even though she had never formally studied it. as it turned out, none of these three scholars persisted in our music department beyond one or two semesters. having intimate access to their experiences as their mentor woke me up, broke my heart, and inspired me to try to do even more to craft courses and classrooms that foster the full participation of all learners. one scholar’s experience in a theory fundamentals course exposed and personalized the inaccurate and biased assumptions we tend to make of students in music courses, assumptions that exemplify the implicit requirements for becoming a music major. let’s call the scholar “k.m.” throughout the semester, k.m. and i frequently discussed how difficult she found the theory course to be. it was only after she had completed it that i got a fuller sense of her experience. she said: as soon as i walked in and saw all those white kids, i knew it was going to be rough. the teacher asked about our musical background, and it seemed like everyone except me had played an instrument before, and already knew how to read music. the class moved so fast! i think those other kids were able to keep up in a way i couldn’t. the teacher just told me to work harder. – “k.m.,” a posse scholar a number of salient points in this quotation are likely obvious to the reader, and may feel familiar. my institution is predominantly white, and the music department is more so. although this class is advertised as being geared to students with no musical training, it appears that it is not, in fact, designed for students with no experience. once the class was underway, some students were clearly left behind. the course instructor did not comprehend the scholar’s experience, an experience that was no doubt shared by other students. how can we, as individual faculty members, confront the possibility that this may be happening in our own teaching without our awareness of it? what steps can we take as we design and deliver our courses to minimize the likelihood that we will create a situation like the one i describe, only discovering too late that we did not meet the needs of all of our students, that we did not create a 144 learning environment that supports all learners? i propose drawing on two educational theories: universal design for learning (udl) and equity pedagogy. udl is an educational framework that’s likely familiar to many faculty members. it is derived from the universal design movement in architecture and urban planning of the 1980s that advocated for proactive design that benefits the greatest range of physical abilities as possible, thereby reducing the need for individual accommodations and retrofitting existing structures. similarly, the principle of udl argues for proactive course design that plans for student learning variability by providing what the center for applied special technology (cast) describes as “multiple means of engagement, representation, and action/expression” (2020). bruce quaglia presents a rich and detailed application of udl specific to the music theory classroom, arguing: “only by clearly distinguishing between our intended learning objectives and the methods that we use to achieve them can we determine when an unnecessary barrier to learning has inadvertently entered into our curriculum” (2015, [3.1]). as with udl, the principle of equity pedagogy encourages a close examination of course design, paying attention not only to content, but to delivery and assessment. as a framework, it is likely less familiar than udl, but it has been fundamental to educational discourse since the 1990s (banks and banks 1995). the concept of equity pedagogy aligns so productively with the current movement to address biases and structural racism in music higher education—a movement exemplified by project spectrum—that (as i state in my title) i want to make a case for bringing it into our work as music pedagogues. equity pedagogy requires teachers to be vulnerable and to take a hard look at what we do, at how we behave, and at our own biases in order to work toward achieving “equity literacy.” its point of reference is inequity. paul gorski, a leading figure in equity pedagogy, notes that much curricular reform has been based on the “indefensible premise that we can achieve equity by ignoring inequity” (2016, 222). he adds that “no amount of cultural knowledge can prepare us sufficiently to recognize and respond justly to the insidious and often implicit and intersectional inequities experienced by many students—to the racism, xenophobia, heterosexism, ableism, economic injustice, islamophobia, sexism, and other oppressions they may experience through unjust educational policy and practice” (2016, 224). while gorski’s work largely focuses on k-12 education, i firmly believe that the framework of equity pedagogy has much broader applicability. gorski challenges us to develop our own equity literacy in order to “be a threat to inequity in our spheres of influence” (2018). how do we do that? we have to ask 145 ourselves some tough questions. we have to do a great deal of honest selfreflection. a starting point that can be very revealing is to examine our courses as objectively as possible for the ways in which they enact what gorski describes as four different curricula: (1) the official curriculum (the syllabus, assignment descriptions, exams, and so on); (2) the explicit curriculum (the content that is purposefully taught); (3) the hidden or implicit curriculum (the values and ideas that are taught implicitly); and (4) the null curriculum (the values and ideas that are taught by what is omitted from the explicit curriculum) (2018). an exercise like this can help us to begin the hard work of recognizing inequities that we may perpetuate in our own teaching. this process of recognition is the first step toward developing “equity literacy.” once we recognize inequity, gorski then challenges us to respond to inequity in both the immediate and in the long terms, and to commit to sustaining equity, “even in the face of resistance” (2016, 225). as our gaze shifts from scrutiny of particular courses outward, i would argue that we will need to consider how the dynamics of privilege and power have operated in our field—how they have affected us personally, and to what extent our curriculum and pedagogy recreate those dynamics. we will need to consider what assumptions we are making about our undergraduate students as they enter our majors. what and whom do we gain and lose by making those assumptions? if we want to understand and dismantle barriers to undergraduate music study, thereby broadening the pipeline to academia, these considerations are critical. the principles of udl and equity pedagogy can provide a useful framework for undertaking this work. they will help us answer kevin gannon’s 2018 call to action to develop methods of inclusive teaching, which demands “a realization that traditional pedagogical methods — traditionally applied — have not served all of our students well. it’s a commitment to put actual substance behind our cheerful declarations that all students deserve access to higher education.” breaking down the barriers that keep students like k.m. from entering the pipeline will be good for all of us. let’s get to work. notes 1 see, for example, robin 2017 for a discussion of harvard’s new curriculum, hovis 2016 for a discussion of cornell’s new curriculum, and tufts university department of music (n.d.) for a description of tufts’s new major in music, sound, and culture, which is “open to undergraduates with any and all prior backgrounds in music.” 2 as described on possefoundation.org, “posse started in 1989 because of one student who said, ‘i never would have dropped out of college if i had my posse with me.’ the posse foundation identifies public high school students with extraordinary academic and leadership potential 146 who may be overlooked by traditional college selection processes. the foundation extends to these students the opportunity to pursue personal and academic excellence by placing them in supportive, multicultural teams—posses—of 10 students.” references banks, cherry a. mcgee and james a. banks. 1995. "equity pedagogy: an essential component of multicultural education." theory into practice 34 (3): 152-58. bradley, deborah. 2015. “hidden in plain sight: race and racism in music education.” in the oxford handbook of social justice in music education, edited by cathy benedict, patrick schmidt, gary spruce, and paul woodford, 190-203. oxford: oxford university press. center for applied special technology. 2020. “the udl guidelines.” http://udlguidelines.cast.org/. accessed october 19, 2020. delorenzo, lisa c. 2016. “is there a color line in music education?” in giving voice to democracy in music education: diversity and social justice, edited by lisa c. delorenzo, 176-194. new york: routledge. gannon, kevin. 2018. “the case for inclusive teaching.” the chronicle for higher education. february 27, 2018. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-case-for-inclusive/242636. accessed march 5, 2018. gorski, paul. 2016. “rethinking the role of ‘culture’ in educational equity: from cultural competence to equity literacy.” multicultural perspectives 18 (4): 221–226. ____________. 2018. “strengthening equity in your teaching & course design.” presentation at connecticut college. january 17, 2018. hovis, kathy. 2016. “music curriculum expands to reach students of diverse musical backgrounds.” https://as.cornell.edu/news/playing-new-tune-revamped-musiccurriculum-reaches-students-diverse-musical-backgrounds. accessed march 11, 2018. koza, julia eklund. 2009. “listening for whiteness: hearing racial politics in undergraduate school music.” in music education for changing times: guiding visions for practice, edited by thomas a. regelski & j. terry gates, 85-95. new york: springer. madrid, alejandro l. 2017. “diversity, tokenism, non-canonical musics, and the crisis of the humanities in u.s. academia.” journal of music history pedagogy 7 (2): 124-130. quaglia, bruce w. 2015. “planning for student variability: universal design for learning in the music theory classroom and curriculum.” music theory online 21 (1). https://doi.org/10.30535/mto.21.1.6 robin, william. 2017. “what controversial changes at harvard mean for music in the university.” national sawdust log. april 27, 2017. https://nationalsawdust.org/thelog/2017/04/25/what-controversial-changes-atharvard-means-for-music-in-the-university/. accessed may 5, 2017. sarath, edward w., david e. meyers, and patricia shehan campbell. 2016. redefining music studies in an age of change: creativity, diversity, and integration. new york: taylor and francis. 147 smith, gareth dylan. 2016. “neoliberalism and symbolic violence in higher music education.” in giving voice to democracy in music education: diversity and social justice, edited by lisa c. delorenzo, 65-84. new york: routledge. tufts university department of music. n.d. “undergraduate studies.” https://as.tufts.edu/music/students/undergraduate/majormusic2. accessed january 5, 2021. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 45 african afro-futurism: allegories and speculations gavin steingo introduction in his seminal text, more brilliant than the sun, kodwo eshun remarks upon a general tension within contemporary african-american music: a tension between the “soulful” and the “postsoul.”1 while acknowledging that the two terms are always simultaneously at play, eshun ultimately comes down strongly in favor of the latter. i quote him at length: like brussels sprouts, humanism is good for you, nourishing, nurturing, soulwarming—and from phyllis wheatley to r. kelly, present-day r&b is a perpetual fight for human status, a yearning for human rights, a struggle for inclusion within the human species. allergic to cybersonic if not to sonic technology, mainstream american media—in its drive to banish alienation, and to recover a sense of the whole human being through belief systems that talk to the “real you”—compulsively deletes any intimation of an afrodiasporic futurism, of a “webbed network” of computerhythms, machine mythology and conceptechnics which routes, reroutes and crisscrosses the atlantic. this digital diaspora connecting the uk to the us, the caribbean to europe to africa, is in paul gilroy’s definition a “rhizomorphic, fractal structure,” a “transcultural, international formation.” […] [by contrast] [t]he music of alice coltrane and sun ra, of underground resistance and george russell, of tricky and martina, comes from the outer side. it alienates itself from the human; it arrives from the future. alien music is a synthetic recombinator, an applied art technology for amplifying the rates of becoming alien. optimize the ratios of excentricity. synthesize yourself. […] from the outset, this postsoul era has been characterized by an extreme indifference towards the human. the human is a pointless and treacherous category. (eshun 1998, 00[-006]-00[-005]) the debate that eshun outlines—along with its rich lexicon of terms— has a formidable history, both preceding more brilliant than the sun, and following that book’s publication.2 taking a cue from eshun, in this paper i examine a related—although not identical—tension within afro-futurism, namely the tension between allegory and speculation. while these terms correspond roughly to the soulful (humanism) and the postsoul (posthumanism) respectively, shifting the discussion to allegory and speculation enables me to detect a crypto-humanism within posthumanist discourse. 46 current musicology and it allows me, furthermore, to offer a somewhat different take on the postsoul—a speculative version that pushes the postsoul to its limits. in order to situate the discussion and render it less abstract, i examine the allegory/speculation tension through selected examples from africa. i will argue that african-based afro-futurist production heightens the tension while veering towards the speculative pole. but in order to understand how and why that is the case, it will be necessary, first, to more carefully theorize how allegory and speculation function within afro-futurism and then, second, to more fully contextualize afro-futurism in africa. allegories à speculations afro-futurism developed largely as a response to the condition of forced diaspora—of transatlantic slavery. such is already evident in mark dery’s “black to the future,” a text widely recognized as the movement’s seminal theoretical statement. dery begins his text by observing that only a handful of african-american novelists “have chosen to write within the genre conventions of science fictions,” something he finds especially perplexing in light of the fact that african americans, in a very real sense, are the descendants of alien abductees; they inhabit a sci-fi nightmare in which unseen but not less impassable force fields of intolerance frustrate their movements; official histories undo what has been done; and technology is too often brought to bear on black bodies (branding, forced sterilization, the tuskegee experiment, and tasers come readily to mind). (dery 1994, 180) the focus on forced diaspora as a kind of “alien abduction” laid the terrain for much of the theoretical and creative work to follow. of course, dery was only reflecting on decades of music, literature, and art that had explored this theme: sun run’s “intergalactic research,” jimi hendrix’s “astro man,” octavia butler’s parable of the sower, and anthony braxton’s “trillium r,” to name just a few. but what, precisely, does “alien” designate in afro-futurist production? although eshun is partly correct that afrofuturism “adopts a cruel, despotic, amoral attitude towards the human species” (1998, 00[-005), it is important to also note the opposing tendency to domesticate and re-humanize aliens. many argue, in fact, that afro-futurism derives its affective and political force by allegorizing conditions of slavery through the metaphor of the alien. the allegorical nature of afro-futurism is articulated in the pithy title of alondra nelson’s 2001 article, “aliens who are of course ourselves.” in nelson’s reading of artist laylay ali’s representations of an alien community called the greenheads, the key point of the images is 47 gavin steingo that they “reflect contradictions of the human condition” (2001, 99; my emphasis). “alienness” is on this view a metaphor for “human connection and detachment” (100–101), or as nelson notes, the alienness we project onto each other—and particularly the alien foreignness of black subjects in an inhospitable world. ken mcleod makes a similar argument in an extended discussion of “alien and futuristic imagery in popular culture” (2003, 337). he argues that the important afro-futurist musician george clinton “assumed the alter ego of an alien named starchild who was sent down from the mothership to bring funk to earthlings. starchild was an allegorical representation of freedom and positive energy—an attempt to represent an empowering and socially activist image of african-american society during the 1970s” (2003, 343; my emphasis). and indeed, a similar line of argumentation guides the interpretation of other non-human forms within afro-futurist discourse. discussing the issue of technology and the cyborg, tricia rose interprets afrika bambaataa’s use of android metaphors as “an understanding of themselves as already having been robots. adopting ‘the robot’ reflected a response to an existing condition: namely, that they were labour for capitalism, that they had very little value as people in this society” (in dery 1993, 213–4; original emphasis). for rose, the cyborgic confusion of human with technology only throws humanity into sharper relief. the human “robot” can never be an affirmative figure for rose—it can only ever represent the dehumanization and reification of certain humans through racial capitalism. as suggested by the above examples, afro-futurist theorization often trades on constitutive paradoxes to the effect of: “ruminating on alien life is really about human life”; “explorations of technology are really about human capabilities”; “visions of the future are really about the present.” these paradoxes can be formalized as “x is actually about non-x.” or perhaps a more pertinent formalization would be: “non-x is really about x”—since in each case “x” is really what matters. even kodwo eshun, who has long taken a strong anti-humanist position, advocates the allegorical position in a text published five years after his magnum opus. “the conventions of science fiction,” he writes, “marginalized within literature yet central to modern thought, can function as allegories for the systemic experience of post-slavery black subjects in the twentieth century” (eshun 2003, 299; my emphasis). here again, science fiction scenarios (“non-x”) are really about the here and now (“x”). for samuel r. delany, similarly—at least in as eshun’s reading of him—afrofuturism is less concerned with the future than with providing “a significant distortion of the present” (delany 1995, quoted in eshun 2003, 290). 48 current musicology writing about the future, in this rendering, is really a matter of distorting the here and now. what one witnesses in much afro-futurist interpretation, then, is a kind of crypto-humanism. this is a humanism rerouted through metaphors of the alien and the cyborg. rather than becoming something other than human, “aliens” and “cyborgs” are understood as metaphors for those humans who are denied humanity, for those humans who are not valued as such. in almost every case, what first appears to be the creation of something completely other (extraterrestrials, androids) turns out to be what is most familiar. there is seemingly no thought beyond what is already known—every thought of the outside is “in fact” about us. as nelson tells us, the aliens are of course ourselves. without diminishing the potency of this mode of interpretation,3 i want to ask if it may be possible to think about afro-futurism outside the rubric of allegory. i will be asking, that is, what afro-futurism might look and sound like if we think about it in terms of a speculative exploration of the unknown—an exploration of the unknown qua unknown, rather than as a metaphor of the same. a step in this direction is already suggested in a famous scene from the film space is the place. when sun ra teleports into a youth center in oakland, california, and announces his imminent departure into space, a young african-american man asks him: “are there any whiteys up there?” to this, sun ra responds: “they’re walking there today. they take frequent trips to the moon. i notice none of you have been invited.” in his response, sun ra makes a clear political point about the exclusion of african americans from u.s. society and technological development. but it is also relevant to view the exchange in terms of what george clinton (2016) has recently characterized as a “futurist standpoint” that came “from an era when we were contemplating space travel.” in the second half of the twentieth century, metaphors of space became indissociable from actual space navigation and exploration. in a similar vein, speculation about life on other planets, conspiracy theories about alien contact, and advances in space exploration technology form an uneasy relationship. discourses about extraterrestrial space—alien life included— are not necessarily or exclusively metaphorical. outer space is not merely a metaphor for earth. if certain african-american products push interpretation in this direction, it seems to me that african-based afro-futurism moves even further away from allegory. this move is due, in part, to the fact that african musicians and artists are not compelled to deal directly with the condition of diaspora. and because of this, references to “outer space” and “aliens” have less obvious metaphorical resonance. 49 gavin steingo in general, african-based practitioners of afro-futurism opt for a more speculative vision of “the outside.”4 whereas allegory reveals a hidden meaning about how things are, speculation is a form of thought or action about how things are not. allegory implies a vector of return—a reflection of or a detour through the other back to a (reconstituted) self. as such, allegory is ultimately about the here and now. speculation, by contrast, is directed outwards towards the unknown and the unanticipated. this paper focuses on those practitioners of afro-futurism who speculate on others who are not ourselves, on others who do not always reflect or echo the human back to the human. this form of speculation is at once political, epistemological, and ontological. in the face of humanist allegory or the vicious but irrefutable logic that one cannot think anything outside of one’s own thought, these practitioners respond with appeals to an absolute beyond. african afro-futurism in his important book, dub, michael veal (2007, 209) asks “whether afro-futurism is fundamentally an african american trope, reflecting a particular proximity to the apparatus of the cold war?” (original emphasis). as an example from outside the united states, veal notes that a number of aspects associated with jamaican sound production might easily be considered afro-futurist, for example: the reliance “on modern sound technology to craft sonic evocations of archaic africana” (208), the occult connections between sound and deep space (211), the conceptualization of the recording studio as a “hybrid of laboratory, spaceship, temple, jungle, or shaman’s hut” (211), and an understanding of “science” as a spiritual practice rooted in “neo-african black magic” (212). and yet, veal continues, “the sci-fi component” of jamaican music has generally been “more implicit than explicit” (210). he attributes the core of afro-futurism to the united states’ participation in the space race and the battle for global dominance during the cold war; and because jamaica was peripheral to these processes, its music “tends to be less concerned with images of flying saucers and interplanetary travel, and is more reflective of prominently interwoven dichotomies of nature/technology and past/future” (210). despite his hesitancy to place dub squarely (and neatly) within the lineage of afro-futurism, veal was one of the first scholars to theorize afro-futurist production outside of north america. nonetheless, what ties jamaican and african-american “sci-fi” together is the shared condition of diaspora. whether creative responses to the sci-fi nightmare of slavery take the shape of “images of flying saucers and interplanetary travel” or “interwoven dichotomies of nature/technology and past/future,” the question of 50 current musicology diaspora and of its relationship to africa remains a fixed reference point. this returns us to the question of how an african-based afro-futurism might operate. indeed, in the past few years there has been a proliferation of creative work by african musicians, artists, and writers exploring quintessentially afro-futurist themes. while some practitioners have registered a certain discomfort with the label “afro-futurism” (e.g., bristow 2015), the sheer prevalence of the term—applied both “externally” by critics and “internally” by musicians and artists—suggests the very real development of something like an african afro-futurist movement. i use the term “african afro-futurism” as shorthand to refer to creative practices and theoretical activity on the african continent, but with a full acknowledgement of the term’s ambiguities and limitations. for one thing, many important practitioners within this movement circulate between africa and other parts of the world, thus undermining my definition of african afro-futurism as a movement taking place “in” africa. i also readily acknowledge that speaking of an african afro-futurism may seem somewhat redundant or even disingenuous, since surely afro-futurism is already african at a fundamental level (that is, at an “existential” rather than geographic level). acknowledging these ambiguities, i nonetheless think it important to recognize the recent explosion of afro-futurist creativity in various african countries—even if this development has unclear borders and a much longer history. although not literally the same thing as transatlantic slavery, one could also easily point to similar forms of racial violence and “alienation” on the african continent. these include, amongst many other things: dispossession and expropriation under colonialism, the long history of capitalist predation and resource extraction, and the construction of “official” discourse by white historians and academics.5 furthermore, one aspect that is not sufficiently emphasized even in critical literature is the devastating affects of transatlantic slavery on communities in africa. so high was the number of enslaved africans between 1650 and 1890, in fact, that large swaths of central and west africa experienced an unprecedented decline in population. the disproportionate enslavement of african men also caused a massive demographic and social rupture in many african communities (manning 1990). rather than thinking about afro-futurism in the americas and in africa as distinct movements, then, it may be useful to establish a more inclusive black atlantic narrative, as for example recently outlined by south african journalist ntombenhle shezi (2015) in her concentrated afro-futurist timeline. shezi presents an annotated chronology of what she views as the major events of afro-futurism: 51 gavin steingo • w.e.b. du bois’ story “the comet” first appears in 1920 • vusamazulu credo mutwa publishes indaba, my children (1964), “a work of speculative fiction told through african mythology” (shezi 2015) • the film space is the place is released in 1973 • in the 1980s: afrika bambatha releases planet rock and “jeanmichel basquiat becomes celebrated for his graffiti-like works, featuring griots and robots” (shezi 2015) • from the 1990s: octavia butler’s parable of the sower, mark dery’s article “black to the future,” and hype william’s music videos for missy elliot, busta rhymes, and tlc • in the twenty-first century, shezi provides three examples, all of them from africa: the music video for simphiwe dana’s song “ndiredi” (2004), the kenyan film, pumzi (2009, directed by wanuri kahui), and the video for south african band fantasma’s song “eye of the sun” (2014), which prominently features musicians spoek mathambo and moonchild sanelly. these creative products engage tropes central to afro-futurism, including outer space, technology, mythology, and the question of the future. this paper will examine the first two south african examples included by shezi: mutwa’s book indaba, my children (1964) and simphiwe dana’s song “ndiredi” (2004). (i will examine fantasma’s song, “eye of the sun” [2014] elsewhere.6) these productions are very different from each other; one important task of this paper, then, will be to ascertain what the three examples share vis-à-vis afro-futurism. as i have already suggested, one notable aspect of african afrofuturism is the tendency towards speculation. but the examples of african afro-futurism provided by shezi are by no means straightforward—they may mix allegory and speculation, or may come down on one side more than the other. they require rigorous analysis before any general conclusions can be drawn. credo mutwa “1964: the first edition of indaba my children by vusamazulu credo mutwa is published. this is a work of speculative fiction told through african mythology.” (shezi 2015) born in 1921, vusamazulu credo mutwa (more commonly known simply as “credo mutwa”) is a zulu sangoma (diviner) who since the 1990s has 52 current musicology garnered international attention in communities of alternative medicine and new age spirituality (steyn 2003). in recent years, he has worked with a number of institutions, including the ringing rocks foundation (founded in philadelphia “to explore, document, and preserve indigenous cultures and their healing practices”) and the heart healing center in colorado, where he is lauded as a treasured representative of esoteric zulu knowledge (as cited in chidester 2005a). mutwa’s position within south africa is however far less secure. born in the province of natal to a mother deeply committed to traditional african religion and a father who converted to christian science in 1931, credo mutwa turned to his mother’s family when he fell ill and his father carefully avoided biomedical intervention (in line with the tenets of christian science). after being fully healed, mutwa recognized that his illness was in fact a call to initiation and to the process of ukuthwasa (becoming a sangoma) that he would undergo later in life.7 like many young zulu men living under apartheid, mutwa moved to johannesburg in search of employment and soon found a job in a curio shop geared towards tourists. the shop owner, a white man named a.s. watkinson, relied on mutwa to authenticate and interpret the african artifacts in the store, and in the process mutwa “emerged as a gifted and imaginative storyteller, recounting elaborate tales that he insisted were drawn from the authentic repository of zulu tribal history, legends, customs, and religious beliefs” (chidester 2006, 185). mutwa’s early experiences working for watkinson set him on a decades-long trajectory working in various ways for the tourist industry. his tourism work in the 1970s and 1980s took a dubious turn when he was hired by the south african government to design african cultural villages. his first effort was a culture village cum theme park located smack dab in the middle of soweto, on a plot owned by mining magnate ernest oppenheimer. the ill-conceived park, which still exists, sits adjacent to the oppenheimer tower, a turret-like structure built from the bricks of houses demolished during the forced removals of the 1950s. sponsored by the south african national parks board and intended to affirm the apartheid ideologies of “tribalism” and separate development, mutwa’s cultural village was denounced by most black south african residents in soweto at the time. in the wake of the 1976 soweto uprising,8 the village was raided and set on fire. mutwa’s “village,” whose many sculptures lack any obvious connection with zulu folklore and appear instead to be idiosyncratic mutwa creations, has remained a tourist site long since its 1976 ransacking. the blackened surfaces of many of the sculptures remained well into the 1990s, which, according to one tourist company, lent “the village an eerie 53 gavin steingo atmosphere” (excite travel 2004, quoted in chidester 2006, 187).9 known as kwa-khaya lendaba, mutwa’s creation remains an unpopular tourist destination in soweto (i have visited roughly a dozen times and have never seen another tourist there), bearing only the trace of a failed collaboration between the apartheid government and a zulu diviner and artist. driven out of soweto in the mid-1970s, mutwa attempted to develop another, more ambitious yet equally doomed, tourist village in the “homeland” of bophuthatswana. music scholars may recall bophuthatswana as the site of sun city, the casino and resort complex where musicians were invited to perform during the cultural boycott against south africa (which ended in the early 1990s). although a un-mandated boycott forbade musicians to tour south african, the apartheid-era government lured performers to sun city by insisting that the boycott did not apply there because the resort was located in the independent state of bophuthatswana (nixon 1994; drewett 2006). but bophuthatswana was never an independent state, it was a bantustan (or homeland) of south africa that was created artificially as part of the larger apartheid apparatus.10 each of the ten black national “units” was designated a specific homeland—with the consequence that even black people born and raised in cities such as johannesburg or cape town were “assigned citizenship on the basis of their ethnicity in one of the bantu states, thus becoming foreigners in their own land” (ferguson 2006: 56). this system of so-called “grand” apartheid became the bedrock of the policy of “separate development,” which sought to replace the discourse of racial segregation with one of national difference. hence, bophuthatswana was presented by the south african government as the national state of the tswana people. it was in this context that mutwa established the lotlamoreng dam cultural park in 1983, a tourist space consisting of adobe villages representing each of south africa’s national units. “around these displays,” writes david chidester, “mutwa erected clay statues of african deities, most prominently an african goddess twenty feet tall” (2006, 187). when bophuthatswana was dissolved into south africa in 1994 (despite serious resistance by puppet-leader lucas magope), mutwa was expelled. but like the strange remains of his burnt village in soweto, lotlamoreng developed a ghostly afterlife. as john and jean comaroff wrote in the second volume of their classic revelation and revolution: “when we visited the apparently abandoned site in august 1995, we found its ‘ruins’ inhabited. the ‘traditional tswana village’ had metamorphosed into a thoroughly modern private space: a neatly swept courtyard, plastic buckets, clotheslines, and a large transistor radio announced the presence of residents more real than authentic” (1997, 3–4). “in a truly surreal moment,” they continue, 54 current musicology “a woman recognized our confusion and, taking on the role of tour guide, began to offer utterly fanciful exegeses of the riot of ethnic images before us” (4). mutwa’s involvement in the soweto cultural village and later the lotlamoreng park has two important implications. first, it is impossible to deny mutwa’s complicity with the apartheid government—indeed, he openly declared his support for apartheid policies. (for example: “white men of south africa are only too right when they wish to preserve their purebred racial identity”; and “separate development . . . is the clearest hope that the bantu have thus far” [mutwa 1966b, 319]). while it seems that his position was based on a discomfort with the fact that in the 1970s and 1980s any affirmation of african culture or tradition was liable to the accusation of “tribalism” by the black left, there is obviously no way to justify his actions. the second important point to realize about mutwa’s work with the cultural villages is the manner by which he freely mixed african folklore with his personal contributions. amongst the sculptures at kwa-khaya lendaba, one finds a “zulu house and a venda shepherd’s shelter,” but also several ufos and a “large metal sculpture that represents the female rain god, nomkhubulwane” (simbao 2007, 45). as such, art historian ruth kerkham simbao (2007) takes issue with interpretations of mutwa’s work that too simply associate it with apartheid ideology. clearly, there is more going on at kwa-khaya lendaba than a promulgation of separate development. this mixing of “culture” with personal imaginings runs throughout mutwa’s work, and indeed much of his artistic and authorial output bears little resemblance to anything otherwise known about zulu customs and beliefs. hence, although the popular media in south africa has generally regarded mutwa as a charlatan or fraud (see chidester 2006), by mutwa’s own admission his work is a “strange mixture of truth and nonsense” (1966a, 353). another ambiguity that runs throughout his work is the tension between publically shared cultural knowledge and secret wisdom. at times, he claims to be simply relating african folklore, while at other times he claims to have access to secret knowledge gained only through painful ordeals. (i return to this issue later.) this brings us, finally, to the mutwa’s indaba, my children, a book included by shezi in her afro-futurist timeline. indaba, my children was commissioned by mutwa’s boss at the curio store, watkinson, and adrian s. brink, a white academic at the university of the witwatersrand in johannesburg. “indaba” is a zulu word that refers to a conference or gathering where important matters are discussed and evaluated. if brink was correct that mutwa named the book in order that the ideas expressed 55 gavin steingo therein might be evaluated for their “authenticity and acceptability,” this was a very strange choice for the title indeed, since “the wild, extravagant, and imaginative poetry and prose of these texts bore little if any relation to anything previously recorded in print about zulu religion” (chidester 2006, 185). although initially ignored or derided, mutwa’s book has unexpectedly reentered circulation in the past decade. in addition to new age practitioners and conspiracy theory buffs who laud mutwa’s work, indaba, my children is presented as a seminal text of afro-futurism on several websites, with one writer calling the book “a classic and indispensable resource for anyone interested in the cultural life of africa and the human experience as it is filtered into myth” (webb n.d.), and another placing mutwa in a list of afro-futurist authors alongside highly respected contemporary writers nnedi akorafor and ben okri (brown 2015). on the one hand, it seems that readers in the diaspora simply don’t know about mutwa’s troubling past. (the current wikipedia entry on mutwa downplays his earlier actions and frames his political position during apartheid in generous terms.11) on the other hand, however, it is of course necessary to allow for creative readings of mutwa’s work despite its earlier political associations. reflecting on joseph lelyveld’s (1985, 251) indictment of mutwa as portraying africa just as the apartheid government wanted to see it, terence ranger nonetheless notes that, even though it is tempting to dismiss mutwa, or the bantustan organic intellectuals who are manipulating religious traditions to invent convincing local identities, as mere puppets, the range of interests involved in creating this localized model of traditional religion and the increased reality of that model make it impossible to regard it as just a distorting fraud. (ranger 1993, 71–2) alluding to his earlier theorization of invented traditions (hobsbawm and ranger 1983), ranger asks us to view mutwa’s work as more than a mere distortion of something authentic. mutwa himself seems to have something similar in mind. in the postscript, he characterizes indaba, my children as “a strange mixture of historical fact and legendary fantasy, a strange mixture of truth and nonsense” (1966a, 353). this strange mixture, he contends, has less to do with content than with african storytelling as a mode of performative address. stating that “the african people do not tell stories the way they are normally told among other races,” he justifies the twists and turns of his book on the grounds that it must “maintain interest and avoid boredom” (354). as such, “flights of fantasy are permissible from time to time” (354).12 56 current musicology the book begins “when time itself was still in its infancy, so many hundreds of generations ago” (mutwa 1966a, 6), with a character named “simba the lion” devouring the husband of princess marimba, chieftainess of the wakambi tribe, daughter of odu and amarava (mother of the nations), and “youngest of the few immortals left upon this earth” (5). shortly following this episode, marimba, her son kahawa, and kahawa’s friend mpushu the cunning, realize that the wakambi are not the only nation on earth when they come across a man who introduces himself as a masai. carrying with him a “bow with a well greased string and a heavy quiver full of stone-tipped arrows” (14), the masai man boasts to marimba that for his people “war and killing are the very breath of life” (14–15). having unarmed the masai man and bound him “securely hand and foot” (13), the wakambi villagers prepare for an uneasy night, bracing themselves for a potential invasion. but instead of the sound of an invading army, the villagers hear something far stranger: . . . a sound that was not of this world, that flowed through the silent dusk like a silver river through dark forests. it was a sound such as no human ears have ever heard before. it penetrated the very depths of the soul like cool water down a thirsty throat—like oil, soothing oil killing a cruel pain. men stared at each other with incredulous wonder. others groaned, and wept, blatantly and without shame. it was a sound of unearthly beauty, and to the surprise of everything it came from the throat of marimba! she had taken the deadly bow of the captive masai and had fitted a gourd to the middle of the bow itself, transforming the deadly weapon of war thus into the first makweyana bow-harp the world had ever seen. (15) along with the music of the bow-harp, marimba also invented the world’s first song, as well as the act of singing itself. the transformation of a weapon of death into an instrument of music is a theme to which mutwa constantly returns. later in the story, a boy named malinge is apprehended for inventing a “particularly vicious and cowardly” animal trap (mutwa 1966a, 30) used to “wantonly and willfully destroy . . . a living thing for no other reason than to see the effect of the new kind of snare that he had invented” (33). following malinge’s trial (which results in his “legs being broken with clubs so that [he] may never walk again, and [his] hands destroyed by paralyzing [his] fingers” [34]), marimba transforms the cruel animal snare into a musical instrument: “thus the xylophone—the marimba—was born” (35). to this origin myth, mutwa appends a drawing of a marimba as well as a short set of instructions for the instrument’s construction. on another occasion in the book, music is used to protect the wakambi against a band of night howlers, creatures described as having 57 gavin steingo “eyes that blazed like glowing embers, veined with veins that glowed like red-hot copper” (mutwa 1966a, 20). just as a night howler begins to rip apart marimba’s son, she performs a song on the kalimba that paralyzes and destroys the vicious beast (22–23). later sections in the book describe the arrival of the “strange ones” (a category that includes many outside nations), as well as the histories of various southern african nations, including the zulu people. although the importance of music recedes somewhat in the later sections of the book, the perennial tension between war and peace remains center stage. mutwa’s lifelong insistence that the zulus are not a violent and warring nation stems in part from the fact that king shaka tends to dominate histories of the zulu people at risk of overshadowing all else. as mutwa remarks in the prologue to indaba, my children: “ask any anthropologist in south africa who was the greatest zulu king and he will reply instantly: ‘tshaka, of course.’ that is not so; tshaka (or shaka) was not the great chief white historians make him out to be” (1966a, x). mutwa also takes issue with cliché ideas to the effect that zulus work themselves into “frenzy and rage” by performing war dances (x). such distortions of zulu history, mutwa insists, breed “suspicion, hate and bloodshed” (xi). mutwa attempts to set the historical record straight by appealing to folklore, on the one hand, and creative storytelling, on the other. at times, this blurring creates uncomfortable pairings, for example when mutwa places the mythological figure of marimba into conversation with the warring community of the masai—the maasai, of course, being the more typical spelling of an actual ethnic group in east africa. if mutwa hopes to present a picture of the zulu people as peaceful rather than warlike, it is disappointing that he cannot extend the same courtesy to his neighbors in present day kenya and tanzania. mutwa’s relationship to non-africans is marked by an even more unsettling ambiguity—a blurring of boundaries between human outsiders and extra-terrestrials. in the 1960s, these “strange ones” seem primarily to be those from outside nations, including the ancient phonecians and, more recently, europeans. but in the 1980s mutwa seems to have shifted from talking about aliens in the metaphorical sense of outsiders, to aliens as “beings from outer space” (chidester 2006, 191). mutwa has insisted for at least three decades that africans have long known about many species of extraterrestrials. when asked about the significance of his bronze necklace pendant at an event in japan in 1985, mutwa responded: “[i]n africa we have a tradition that there are extraterrestrial intelligences watching the earth. do you not have reports in japan of what are called ‘flying saucers’?” (chidester 2005b, 1140). 58 current musicology figure 1: credo mutwa speaking about aliens in several elaborate accounts, mutwa has spoken of not only witnessing aliens but also eating them. of all the species, he speaks most frequently about the chitauri (a name that has since been appropriated marvel comics),13 and the “small servants of the chitauri” known as the greys (chidester 2006, 181). in addition to his scattered written accounts, mutwa’s view on aliens was the subject of a three-hour documentary by british conspiracy theorist and former sports commentator, david icke. in that documentary, the reptilian agenda (1999), mutwa argues for the need to publicize secret african knowledge in the face of colonial distortions. (“africa is being murdered,” he says at one point.) part of that secret knowledge concerns a species of shape-shifting aliens who have infiltrated human society on earth. the contemporary assessment of mutwa’s checkered past is uneven to say the least. it is probably fair to say that most black south africans view mutwa ambivalently, with perhaps a sense of vague suspicion. david chidester—a white south african academic who teaches at the university of cape town, and who has studied mutwa’s work extensively—views mutwa in balanced terms but ultimately takes a cynical position. communities associated with new age spirituality, alternative medicine, and—more recently—afro-futurist tendencies, often celebrate mutwa as a spiritual genius, a keeper of secret knowledge, or even a “shaman.” mutwa also has 59 gavin steingo some traction in so-called “traditional medicine” circles within south africa. for example, in the national heritage council’s “transformation charter” (2007) credo mutwa is listed in the acknowledgements as one of five “sage philosophers and organic intellectuals” whose comments contributed to the document. and although the popular media has often “sneered” at mutwa, the university of south africa has developed a new brand inspired by mutwa’s philosophy, arguing that he is “arguably one of the world’s finest contemporary philosophers” (quoted in steyn 2007, 272–3). in the midst of these competing disavowals or investments, mutwa continues to promulgate the dissemination of repressed african knowledge. as is the case with much afro-futurism, this project has a hazy relationship to “origins” and is at least partially speculative and fictive. most recently, mutwa has spoken about telepathic communication with dolphins and has elaborated his position on extraterrestrials. at the age of ninety-four, he continues to reveal new pieces of ancient african knowledge. simphiwe dana “2000s: simphiwe dana releases the music video for her song ndiredi off her debut album zandisile. the video sees her waking up in the future, with flying cars and cosmological motifs carried throughout the video.” (shezi 2015) in the midst of a history of deep colonial violence, says south african author pumla gqola, “simphiwe dana offers herself as wounded heroic figure who will change the future” (2013, 22–3). born in the eastern cape province of south africa in 1980, simphiwe dana is of a different generation than mutwa. dana, furthermore, is no healer or mystic; she is a musician widely known for combining “a completely unique jazz contralto intonation with xhosa jazz balladry, and weav[ing] the whole over an infectious, often danceable fusion rhythm from her superb backing ensemble” (coplan 2008, 349). drawing on the stylistic practices of the long history of south african jazz, but committed to xhosa (rather than english) lyrics, dana has crafted a deliberately afrocentric approach to musicking, stating in a recent interview: “well, i would say i’m an old-school afro-futurist as a musician” (barlow 2014). several recent articles and blogs have lauded the music video for dana’s “ndiredi” (2004) as an important african intervention in afrofuturism. gqola calls dana a “prophetess,” noting that in her music videos “characters are constantly moving, searching, travelling through different dimensions of existence—through walls, streets, forests, water, planets” (2013, 71). such is certainly the case in “ndiredi,” a video produced as a 60 current musicology collaboration between dana and director andrew wessels, and whose “basic concept was of african futurism and of creating a futurism based on african principles.”14 the video begins with the image of a tube tv displaying pure static. dana’s face appears on the tv screen, then on screens mounted on a large wall panel. while the images fade in and out, her voice enters: ndiredi ukundiza ndiph’ umoya (i am ready to fly, give me wind) this first line is already saturated with meaning. in xhosa and other nguni languages, umoya means “wind,” but also “breath” or “spirit.” anthropologist robert thornton (2008, 213) observes that in nguni cosmology spirit (umoya) is a “nonmaterial substance or essence.” spirit is like blood because it can flow, but whereas the transmission of blood is understood to be restricted to “direct lines of (biological procreation),” spirits may be deliberately called upon from afar (213–4). this is why dana may call upon spirit when she is ready—when she is ready to fly. the camera shifts to a wider angle; there are multiple television screens, at different angles, in different shades. then the camera switches to the other side of the room: dana is lying on a bed. she has dreadlocks, she wears white clothes and is wrapped in a black shawl. to the right of the screen is a tube tv with no case, its circuitry exposed; to the left, a bowl of impepho (incense with healing properties). a round window behind her bed, almost like the window in a ship cabin, allows a view outside: through the window, the viewer catches glimpses of a futuristic world with small flying vehicles. a second voice (also dana’s) enters the musical texture, singing the same words, and forming a melodic line in counterpoint with the first. we are then visually transported outside the room for the first time. it looks like a city with walkover bridges and bus-like vehicles, but there are also strange flying cars and spheres with saturn-like rings. referring to the futuristic cityscape, gqola comments: “the metallic early afro-futurist aesthetic is sustained throughout the video when simphiwe leaves her cabin and interacts with the physical and metaphysical world outside her bedroom and other women. all of these shifts make sense alongside afrofuturist musicians’ previous fascination with both the racism-free utopic future and examining the past” (2013, 70). as dana’s voice heightens to sing the second line of the song (ndinaw’ amandla okundiza ndiph’ umoya [i have strength to fly, give me wind]), we are back inside the room where she sleeps, and the camera zooms in on one of the screens. a dull green glow with retro writing appears: 61 gavin steingo “news 23/01/2017 tonight a group of stars will form a variant of the six pointed star.” on a nearby television screen a visualization connects stars into a slightly lopsided figure with six sides—a star with multiple layers of meaning in several religions. something mysterious is about to happen on this, the twenty-third of january, 2017.15 percussion begins to enter, and the visuals change dramatically: three women are seated on the desert landscape of a distant planet, their auras glowing brightly. figure 2: screen capture from the music video for “ndiredi” (2004). three women on the desert landscape of a distant planet. an elderly woman, represented as a kind of sangoma (diviner) figure, draws the same six-sided star in the sand. the sangoma then performs a ritual with two stones (one black and one white), finally smashing them together to form a single stone, which she drops into a hole. the hole acts like a membrane to another dimension, and the stone passes through to the cabin-like room in which the video began, finally landing on dana’s head and abruptly waking her from sleep. 62 current musicology figure 3: screen capture from the music video for “ndiredi” (2004). the stone passes through from another dimension, landing on dana’s head. we are made to understand, i think, that the desert landscape is a dream. during these scenes—and at the intersection of these two dimensions— dana sings: themba limbi andinalo (i have no other hope) nguw’ ithemba lam (it is you who are my hope) nguwe nguwe nguw’ ithemba lam (it is you, it is you, it is you who are my hope) dana then gets out of bed, packs some documents into a cylindrical shoulder bag and exits the room, landing herself magically in a forest at night. lost, she wanders in the moonlight, eventually breaking into a run. by this point of the song, her (non-diegetic) voice is supported by a full band, including drums, bass, and a horn section. the lyrics adumbrate a series of near failures, for example: “i nearly fell of a cliff / i nearly ran into a wall / i nearly stepped on a tail.” towards the end of the song, dana will shout defiance in the face of those who tell her that she does not have what it takes. dana comes across a misty river in the forest and bends down to drink—only to find herself transported into a yellow desert, wearing a long black cape and standing under a blistering sun. she then follows a bubble through the desert until she meets the three women from the desert landscape who woke her with the stone. the women clap gently, acknowledging dana’s arrival, and suggesting that they had been expecting her. removing the contents from her cylindrical shoulder bag—photos, pamphlets, and a 63 gavin steingo water bottle—she throws or pours these into the hole through which the stone first fell. this hole seems once again to dip into another dimension, and we see dana one last time—she lies in her bed in the strange cabin-like room filled with televisions. but this time it is dana herself who, having woken and then wandered through forest and desert, sends a wake up call to her still-sleeping self—who once again wakes with a start. there are several things to notice about the music video. first, the narrative is one of “a dream within a dream within a dream ”: a recursive pattern of cascading dream states common to sci-fi and afro-futurist imaginings that disrupts any clear division between waking and sleeping. second, notice that the addressee of the lines “i have no other hope / it is you who are my hope” remains unstated for the entire duration of the song. however, the line “themba limbi andinalo” (“i have no other hope”) seems to have religious or spiritual connotations, and can be found in hymn 302 of the xhosa-language anglican hymnal (iculo 1949), where the true “hope” (themba) is of course jesus christ. like many black south africans, dana seems to embrace a notion of the divine that is at once christian but that effortlessly incorporates african religious cosmology, including the importance of ancestors. relevant to this discussion is a recent interview in which dana reflects on her reluctance to sing in the church choir as a child because she felt that her “raspy” voice did not fit the texture of the music. she then recalls: “early on, my singing was very much tied to my understanding and my seeking of the god entity. i was a very serious child. i would take my time, and go off alone to the mountain like moses. go and sing, you know, just go and sing—it’s just me and the birds. and i would put my arms out and sing at the top of my voice, and i would feel so blessed.”16 here, dana invokes the old testament but also employs the unusual term “god entity,” which has vaguely new age connotations. third, consider the strange temporality implied by the director (wessels) when he comments that the video is “based on the idea of a future africa in which the west never had a hand . . . looking at utopian ideas based on african philosophy. maybe one day!”17 this comment is striking in light of wessels’ subject position as a white south african working to realize dana’s creative ideas. but it is also interesting because it speculates on a future (“maybe one day!”) in which the west had never intervened. the video, in other words, portrays a future with an altered past. allow me to now widen the scope of analysis a little. it is worthwhile pointing out that despite dana’s statement that she is “old-school afrofuturist,” the music video for “ndiredi” is actually quite unusual within her oeuvre for its explicit futurism. indeed, dana’s work taken as a whole is seldom (if ever) referred to as “afro-futurist.” nonetheless, i think that it 64 current musicology may in fact be possible to detect a different sort of afro-futurism in dana’s larger body of work, particularly in the manner by which she develops alternatives to the status quo. these alternatives are established dialectically through an affirmation of african languages, on the one hand, and a sharp indictment of contemporary urban spaces and consciousness, on the other. dana is one of south africa’s most assertive advocates for using african languages for education and in the public sphere. she reflects: the year is over and i am reminded of the pain i felt at the beginning of this year when i was looking for schools for my children. i am based in cape town, but i found it impossible to get them into a good school not far from home that offered an african language as part of the curriculum. now, i am not talking about a third language as is the norm . . . i was looking for a school that offered xhosa as a first language. [. . .] i believe that language serves many purposes, but most importantly it serves to inform you of the essence of your being. i believe that the different african languages and tribes have a common goal: that of informing us of our africanness, our identity. despite the existing tribal divisions, there is a unifying african culture that transcends these divisions. which is why i have no truck with these tribal divisions as they are ephemeral. (dana 2010) for dana, language is critical for consciousness: “we are pathetic versions of our colonial masters,” she writes. “no wonder we are so apologetic about the continued suppression of our identity, our culture, our languages…. language is the bringer of culture. what we have forgotten of ourselves is hidden in our african languages. language might be the revolution that africa needs” (dana 2010). through a series of high-profile newspaper op-eds, incessant social media statements, and presentations at international venues, dana has argued that zulu should be accepted as the “first language” in south africa. south africa has eleven official languages: afrikaans, english, ndebele, northern sotho, sotho, swazi, tswana, tsonga, venda, xhosa, and zulu. although dana’s first language is xhosa rather than zulu, she nonetheless advocates for zulu as a national lingua franca because “at least it’s african” (dana 2010).18 the question of language loomed large at a panel on south african music that i moderated in 2014 at the apollo theater in new york with simphiwe dana, rapper tumi molekane, and the vocal group the soil. earlier that year, there had been serious calls for a change of national anthem. the current anthem is an awkward hodgepodge of languages, styles, and keys: the first part is derived from enoch sontonga’s classic xhosa hymn, “nkosi sikelel’ iafrika” (1897).19 the second half of the anthem, 65 gavin steingo which begins with an abrupt modulation to the dominant key, is a version of the old, apartheid-era afrikaans national anthem, “die stem van suidafrika” (the call of south africa).20 in the post-apartheid version, a verse in afrikaans is followed by a verse translated into english. combining “die stem” with “nkosi sikelel’ iafrika” was meant as a gesture of reconciliation in the post-apartheid era—a way of reforming the country (by including “nkosi sikelel’ iafrika”) while at the same time maintaining a place for the white minority in the “new” south africa. musically, the post-apartheid anthem is irredeemably awkward, with an abrupt and completely unprepared modulation jolting the piece from “nkosi . . .” to “die stem.” furthermore, efforts to maintain the old anthem as a way to reconcile with south africa’s colonial past could not go unmediated: after all, certain lines from “die stem” explicitly refer to the afrikaner’s conquest of “deserted” land and were thus “insufferable . . . and had to be deleted” (coplan and jules-rosette 2005, 302).21 but what irks people like simphiwe dana most is the sheer insult of making black south africans sing any version of “die stem” at national events. at the panel discussion at the apollo theater, dana and i agreed on what we saw as the most elegant solution: to simply get rid of the second half of the anthem and keep “nkosi sikilel’ iafrika” as the entire national anthem without any additions. this move would be a clear affirmation of afro-centrism over and against the faltering project of a “rainbow nation,” at least insofar as the notion of a rainbow nation effectively freezes revolution in the name of a liberal politics of human rights. the question of the national anthem is a question, as filmmaker lebogang rasethaba has recently put it, of “the people versus the rainbow nation.”22 alongside her commitment to african languages, dana has simultaneously ushered an urgent call to leave the “townships,” which in south africa means those ghetto-like areas created during apartheid at the outskirts of cities as a way to house laborers. as gqola notes, townships for dana “are both the geographical ghettos that have come to define ‘authentic’ blackness and the mentality that polices legitimate forms of blackness. townships are a white supremacist construction, and although they have been shaped by vibrancy, defiance and counter-cultures, the time to claim the world beyond township borders has long been with us” (2013, 85). dana’s indictment of townships is very unusual in larger post-apartheid discourse; it is even “courageous” in light of “notions of locating black life in township as ‘authentic,’ or as ghetto-fabulous” (124). her position is redolent, it seems to me, of kodwo eshun’s bold critique of a similar set of valorizations in african diasporic musics. “everywhere, the ‘street’ is considered the ground and guarantee of all reality, a compulsory logic ex66 current musicology plaining all black music,” writes eshun (1998: 00[-004]). “rejecting today’s ubiquitous emphasis on black sound’s necessary ethical allegiance to the street,” he continues, “this project [more brilliant than the sun] opens up the new plane of sonic fiction” (00[-003]). of what then, for dana, does a “sonic fiction” consist? where is the alternative to the township or the street? dana presents several answers. “ndiredi” is a speculative intervention into imagining a future that might have happened; it additionally employs the notion of exodus through flight (“i have strength to fly, give me wind”) as well as the expansion of consciousness through layers of dreams. two of dana’s songs from 2006 provide a very different but complementary response. “bantu biko street” is an homage to steve bantu biko (1946–1977), pioneer of the south african black consciousness movement who was murdered by the apartheid police. the song is about a fictitious street, “an imaginary and metaphoric space of thought and memory, where collective struggle and healing take place” (d’abdon 2014, 87). another song from 2006, “sizophum’ elokishini,” is a direct call for people to leave the townships en masse. “lokishini” (or in more contemporary parlance, “loxion” or “kasi”) is a slang term for “township” and is in fact derived from the afrikaans word lokasie (location). when dana calls for an exodus from the townships, she calls as well for an exodus from location, that is to say, a dislocation. in a manner both poignant and ironic, the song “sizophum’ elokishini” is performatively very much within the style of older township musics—of marabi and various kinds of “african jazz” (see ballantine 1993; coplan 2008). in a popular music scene dominated by electronic musics such as house and kwaito (steingo 2016), dana remains committed to full bands and to what coplan calls “xhosa jazz balladry.” her commitment to full bands is due, in part, to a desire to distance herself from “mainstream” contemporary popular music—especially kwaito. typically, dana states merely that she does not “feel any great affinity with the current south african pop music style, kwaito” (quoted in franzen 2010). instead, she says, “i see myself more in the tradition of my people, the xhosa, and i work with elements of gospel and jazz, but at the end of the day it is my very own language” (ibid.). at other times, however, dana goes beyond the seemingly neutral language of non-affinity and makes fairly disparaging remarks about kwaito. for example, at her concert at the apollo theater in 2014, she joked about kwaito musicians who repeat a single word for the entire song. in every way, dana takes a critical distance to what she views as the status quo. in summary, dana employs a multi-pronged response to neo-colonialism in africa. the valorization of african languages and the use of afrofuturist imagery are part of the same decolonizing impulse. but the music 67 gavin steingo video for “ndiredi” seems to suggest that it is not enough to simply call for an exit, an exodus. rather, futures-to-come or presents that might-havebeen need to be actively imagined, visualized, and sounded. “ndiredi” is a call to be ready for the impossible present in which the west had never intervened. speculations in this paper, i have closely examined two very different cases of african afro-futurism. the question then becomes, how does one interpret the work of mutwa and dana? to what extent are the theorizations of dery (1993), eshun (1998, 2003), and nelson (2001, 2002) applicable to these quite different examples? the temptation for allegorical interpretation is strong. as mentioned earlier in this paper, alterity is typically understood within afro-futurist production as a kind of distorted mirror of the self. and the point, we are often told, is to gain a clearer image of the self through that oblique reflection. from mutwa’s ufo sculptures and his elaborate tales of extraterrestrial communication, to dana’s afro-centric dream worlds and her invocation of a time-space beyond the townships, it may once again be tempting to interpret all of these as allegories for a contemporary society that is both violent and false. or consider, at greater length, a paper by academics tyson lewis and richard kahn about david icke’s reptilian hypothesis—recall that icke is a “conspiracy theorist” who bases his work partly on flexible interpretations of credo mutwa. the reptilian hypothesis essentially holds that a species of shape-shifting reptoid aliens has taken control of the planet earth by assuming human form and manipulating all layers of society. icke’s elaboration of the hypothesis is extremely dense and forms the basis of several lengthy books (e.g., icke 1999, 2001). as lewis and kahn observe, “icke asserts a standard conspiracy-culture line that the pure aryan bloodline has ruled the planet throughout history, though he is unique in developing it in an exocultural [i.e., extra-terrestrial] direction. in icke’s mind, aryan lizards have been sumerian kings, egyptian pharaohs, and, in more recent history, american presidents and british prime ministers” (2005, 10). in brief, icke argues for the existence of a kind of age-old illuminati forged from the inter-breeding between humans and reptoid aliens. according to lewis and kahn, icke’s theory is allegorical through and through. it is a “historical critique,” they tell us, a “trenchant political analysis mixed with what reads like an over-the-top satire in the tradition of jonathan swift” (2005, 10). lewis and kahn interpret icke’s reptoid aliens as non-human animals (i.e., reptiles such as snakes and alligators). they propose that icke’s “theory simultaneously represents a progressive desire 68 current musicology for the construction of a holistic animal/human future and a reactionary attitude that is unable (or unwilling) to overcome the fetters of capitalist spectacle and conservative conceptualizations of liberal-humanist subjectivity” (2–3). as they make clear, such an interpretation is par for the academic course. the allegorical interpretation of icke resembles political philosopher jodi dean’s position that “the distortions and imaginative leaps of conspiracy theory may be helpful tools for coding politics in virtual realities of the techno-global information age” (1998, 144). the allegorical interpretation also resembles mark dery’s argument that alien conspiracy theories are “at once a symptom of millennial angst and a home remedy for it” (1999, 12).23 once again, allegories of home replace spectacular tales of outer space. all talk of aliens and the unknown are merely “tools,” “remedies” or “symptoms” of the here and now. lewis and kahn are probably correct that icke himself encourages such an interpretation, as he proposes in the conclusion to children of the matrix (2001, 406) that reality is constituted by a “multi-dimensional infinity” united only by that trans-dimensional force called “love.” “we are the reptilians and the ‘demons,’” he muses, “and, at the same time, we are those they manipulate because we are all the same ‘i’” (424, my emphasis). lewis and kahn comment that in the final analysis “it is not clear whether icke is in fact suggesting that reptoids are simply psychic projections and that his numerous treatises are little more than an elaborate allegory” (2005, 12). but icke’s conclusion seems to suggest precisely an allegorical interpretation: “if the reptilians and other astral manipulators did not exist, we would have to invent them. in fact we probably have. they are other levels of ourselves putting ourselves in our face” (2001, 423). fine, let icke have his allegory. but what if we think about mutwa’s and dana’s work, not as allegory, but as speculation? what would it mean to speculate on the possibility of aliens—not of aliens as versions of ourselves, not as those from different cultures, not as non-human animals—but as extraterrestrial beings? what if, when mutwa asks us—in the spirit of ubuntu, of humanity—to be hospitable to any and all visitors, before determination, what if he really does mean any and all?24 there is, after all, a long history of such speculative thought in africa (as attested to by mutwa, and also perhaps by the dogon of west africa25), as well as in continental philosophy. a young immanuel kant stated baldly: “i am of the opinion that it is just not necessary to assert that all planets must be inhabited, even though it would be nonsense to deny this in regard to all or even only most of them” (2012, 295). as peter szendy remarks, the question “why not?” forms the basis of kant’s early thinking, 69 gavin steingo for example, “why would there not be forms of intelligent or reasonable life (life endowed with reason) elsewhere than on earth?” (szendy 2013, 45).26 on the one hand, such speculation was for kant merely part of the “freedom to invent” (2012, 295). on the other hand, however, it opened a terrain of new and difficult questions, not least of which was the impossibility of comparing two beings (human and extraterrestrial) when “experience does not offer us this possibility” because we have never met such an extraterrestrial being (2006, 225; my emphasis). but despite kant’s urging in his early text, the theory of the heavens, that “it is permissible, it is proper to amuse oneself with such ideas” (2012, 307), the “critical” kant of the three critiques would bar all such speculation.27 hence, kant defined the critical project as follows: “such a thing would not be a doctrine, but must be called only a critique of pure reason, and its utility in regard to speculation [in ansehung der spekulation] would really be only negative, serving not for the amplification but only for the purification of our reason, and for keeping it free of errors, by which a great deal is already won” (1998, 149). what the “mature” kant hoped precisely to guard against is the temptation for thinking to stretch “its wings in vain when seeking to rise above the world of sense through the mere might of speculation” (563). hannah arendt comments on the consequences of philosophy’s “critical” turn: “modern man, when he lost the certainty of a world to come, was thrown back upon himself and not upon this world; far from believing that the world might be potentially immortal, he was not even sure that it was real” (1998, 320). if critical philosophy is precisely the prohibition of thought to engage any topic beyond our sense-perception, then the reemergence of speculative philosophy in the past ten years marks a radical departure.28 but if i am correct that african afro-futurism is a resolutely speculative project, then perhaps the speculative move against critical philosophy (against arendt’s “modern man”) needs to be aggressively provincialized. rather than allegories of the here and now, i propose interpreting african afro-futurism as a series of speculations about the absolutely other, about those forms of existence lying beyond the threshold of consciousness. this includes mutwa’s aliens but also dana’s dream encounters in “ndiredi.” the figures that dana encounters are not mere projections of her psyche, they are not simply “communications from different localities within the architecture of the dreamer’s personality”—as they are, for example, in psychoanalysis (jedrej 1992, 111; quoted in muller 1999, 85). following carol muller’s work with zulu nazarite communities in south africa, i would speculate that persons encountered in dreams are instead “communications from components of a cosmology in which the dreamer 70 current musicology is situated” (1999, 85). here, persons encountered in dreams are ontologically real and distinct beings that become known to the dreamer during sleep. persons encountered during a dream are fully fledged subjects rather than mere manifestations of psychic disturbances. likewise, the alternative future that dana portrays in “ndiredi” might be interpreted beyond the rubric of allegory. rather than a distorted image of the present, might it not be a speculative vision of a future-to-come? african afro-futurism reactivates the speculative question—“why not?”—that was lost to the west during the course of so-called critical philosophy. recognizing that the “whole is false” (marcuse 1982, 451), african afro-futurism proceeds not (or at least not only) through negative or immanent critique; rather, it ignores the kantian prohibition against the speculative amplification of thought, ignores the mandate to purify reason in order to keep it free from error. noticing that those images on the walls of the cave are mere shadows, african afro-futurism speculates on the great outdoors—thus anticipating the immanent and revolutionary step to come. notes: 1. i would like to thank bill dietz for comments on an earlier version of this paper. i would also like to express my appreciation to shirley taylor and jamilla deria at the apollo theater for inviting me to moderate a panel on south african music—the panel was an excellent opportunity to think through some of the issues i write about in the current article. finally, i would like to thank to didier sylvain for editing this wonderful special issue, and for being a fellow traveler on these strange paths. 2. perhaps the most prominent and direct critic of eshun was weheliye, who advocated for a more balanced perspective, and who sought to recover a different sort of humanity (outside of white liberalism) in african american music (weheliye 2002). goodman’s later defense of eshun is not incommensurable with the arguments of the current article (goodman 2009). 3. indeed, there are good arguments for a non-naïve, “reparative humanism” (see gilroy 2011). 4. i use this term roughly in ochoa gautier’s sense (2014, 61). ochoa gautier borrows the term from seeger (1987). i do however acknowledge that allegory forms the interpretive matrix for much science fiction (if not exactly afro-futurist) production in africa as well. for example, white south african author lauren beukes frequently refers to her south africa-based sci-fi novels moxyland (2008) and zoo city (2010) as “allegories” or “allegorical apartheids” (beukes 2013). and to provide one additional, completely banal example, consider roger ebert’s (2009) review of south african sci-fi film district 9, which he calls “a harsh parable… about the alienation and treatment of refugees.” 5. the term “alienation” of course also has a distinct marxist heritage, a heritage not at all unrelated to the violence of slavery and colonialism. 6. for a brief discussion of spoek mathambo’s afro-futurism, see steingo (2016, 149–150). see also young (2016). 71 gavin steingo 7. mutwa recounts that it was only in 1958 that he “visited my mother and grandfather in zululand after more than 30 years and, at their command, i renounced christianity and underwent the ‘ceremony of purification’ in order to begin training as a witchdoctor…” (1966a, xii–xiii). 8. on june 16, 1976, school students in soweto protested instruction in afrikaans. although the protest was peaceful, the students were met with extreme violence by the police, who shot several students, some in the back. this event marked a turning point in south african history and in the post-apartheid period june 16 is commemorated annually as a public holiday known as youth day. 9. simbao (2007, 44) notes that mutwa’s soweto cultural park has been “rebuilt and preserved with the assistance of musa ntanzi, a fellow artist and long-term friend of mutwa.” 10. for more on this, see steingo (2016, especially chapter 2). 11. the wikipedia entry reads: “credo believed that the great unrest in johannesburg and the popularisation of communism in the black struggle drew africans away from their traditional roots. unlike most political activists, he actually supported a separation between white and black in order to preserve black traditional tribal customs and way of life.” without any further information, the entry then attributes the attack on his cultural village in 1976 to his being “misquoted on afrikaans  radio,” although certainly those who set the village on fire knew about mutwa’s relationship with the government at the time. 12. “these are the stories,” he says on the first page of the prologue, “that old men and old women tell to boys and girls seated with open mouths around the spark-wreathed fire in the centre of the villages in the dark forests and on the aloe-scented plains of africa” (vii). 13. the chitauri appear in marvel’s 2002 series called the ultimates. chitauri also appear briefly in the film, the avengers (2012). 14. see wessels’ short post at: http://playithub.com/watch/grm74owziz4, accessed on september 26, 2016. 15. i am not aware of any particular significance of this date. 16. see the shaya fm interview at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrn4e_lh3ek, accessed on september 26, 2016. 17. see wessels’ comments at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grm74owziz4, accessed on september 26, 2016. 18. more recently, dana has advocated using swahili as a unifying language “because we are too divided to choose zulu or whatever other language is most commonly spoken.” see de lange (2012).  19. in the contemporary south african national anthem, sontonga’s original xhosa lyrics are translated into a first verse that is half in xhosa and half in zulu and a second verse translated into sotho. for an excellent history and analysis of the anthem, see coplan and jules-rosette (2005). 20. interestingly, the contemporary anthem remains in the dominant key until the end of the piece. 21. an example of such an insufferable line is: “through our deserted plains / with the groan of the ox-wagon” (or, in c.j. langenhoven’s original afrikaans: “deur ons vêr verlate vlaktes / met die kreun van ossewa”). 22. see rasethaba’s film, the people versus the rainbow nation (2016). 23. dean and dery, quoted in lewis and kahn (2005, 15, 6). 72 current musicology 24. “carrying an aura of indigenous authenticity, like the zulu shaman credo mutwa, the term ubuntu, whatever it might have meant in the past, is being authenticated through its appropriations by a variety of cultural brokers advancing new initiatives—social and economic, theological and political—that require indigenous authentication. arguably, like credo mutwa, this indigenous memory of what it means to be human—mobilized, creolized, and increasingly globalized for the market—is being authenticated in south africa in and through the process of being abducted by aliens” (chidester 2005a, 195). 25. griaule’s work on this topic remains controversial (see griaule and dieterlen 1965; van beek 1991). 26. szendy is here paraphrasing and distilling kant’s argument. 27. szendy notes that the “philosofiction of the theory of the heavens… survives in attenuated form in kant’s later writings” (2013, 53–4). indeed, it is perhaps too simple to divide kant’s work into his “pre-critical” and “post-critical” phases. but this is not the appropriate venue for such a discussion. i therefore leave such nuances to experts more knowledgeable than myself. 28. for an important statement on the so-called “speculative turn,” see bryant, srnicek, and harman (2011). examples of speculative philosophy (as well as various forms of realist philosophy) did of course exist before the oft-mentioned watershed events of 2006 and 2007 (bryan, srnicek, and harman [2011, 2] mention the publication of meillassoux’s après la finitude in 2006 and the speculative realism conference in london in april 2007). for example, in 2007, at around the time of the london conference, i was attending manuel delanda’s lectures at the university of pennsylvania. (delanda has since been recognized as a pioneer of speculative realism.) for an interesting although overstated critique of the alleged newness of speculative realism, see also golumbia (2016). there are also political and economic dimensions of speculation; many have pointed to the “speculative futures” of finance capital, for example. without becoming overly embroiled in a discussion of this topic, i point the reader to the careful consideration of progressive (or “affirmative”) and conservative forms of speculation in speculate this! 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2016. http://www.tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/309200/afrofuturism-#vars!da te=1919-12-19_02:20:49!. weheliye, alexander. 2002. “‘feenin’’: posthuman voices in contemporary black popular music.” social text 20 (2): 21–47. young, hershini bhana. 2016. ‘she’s lost control again’: representations of (dis)ability in contemporary performances of spoek mathambo and die antwoord.” african and black diaspora: an international journal 9 (1): 109–124. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 21 voice and instrument at the origins of music jonathan de souza during the summer of 2008, archaeologists uncovered some remnants of musical prehistory in the caves of hohle fels, germany. there, among burnt animal bones and flint–knapping debris, they found fragments of three flutes (conard, malina, and münzel 2009). one was remarkably complete. this delicate instrument, discovered in twelve pieces, had been fashioned from a vulture’s wing bone. it was thirty–four centimeters long (roughly the length of a piccolo), with several finger holes and a notched mouthpiece (like the japanese shakuhachi and other end–blown flutes; see figure 1). the other flutes at the site were less complete but represented more complex manufacturing. they were made from pieces of mammoth tusk that had been split, hollowed out, and then rejoined. yet headlines about the hohle fels flutes focused on neither their present condition nor their refined construction. instead journalists and scholars emphasized the artifacts’ age. these flutes were more than thirty–five thousand years old—the earliest musical instruments then known.1 incidentally, one of the earliest examples of figurative art, an ivory sculpture called the “venus of hohle fels,” was found less than a meter away from the bone flute (conard 2009). together these artifacts give compelling evidence for musical and artistic practices in the upper paleolithic era. writing and the wheel, by contrast, would not appear until almost thirty thousand years later, during the early bronze age (that is, around the fourth millennium bce). figure 1: bone flute from the caves of hohle fels. photo © h. jensen, universität tübingen. used with permission. of course, such evidence is always incomplete, and these instruments reveal only traces of paleolithic music making. their sounds and social functions have not been preserved. they are tokens of a culture that can be reconstructed only provisionally, through a kind of principled speculation. for example, given the flutes’ technological 22 current musicology sophistication, it is unlikely that they are the first instruments of their kind. earlier specimens have surely been lost, presumably including instruments made from less durable materials. indeed, a multidisciplinary review of archaeological evidence for the emergence of music, language, and symbolic behavior concludes that such instruments must, even at around 35,000 years, be several conceptual stages removed from the earliest origins, even of instrumental musical expression, to say nothing of those universal vocal, manual–percussive and dance forms which must have existed independently of—and before—any need for such tools. (d’errico et al. 2003, 46) “and before.” with this aside, the review’s twelve coauthors suggest that musicality originated with the body alone, that instrumental play came after singing. this claim is ubiquitous in writings on music and human evolution. ian cross (2007, 663), for example, argues that “the use of musical artifacts will have been preceded by the expression of musical capacities by voice and body.” the idea has a long history. charles darwin himself wrote, “with man song is generally admitted to be the basis or origin of instrumental music” (1871, 2:333). but this idea already appears in the eighteenth century in jean–jacques rousseau’s reflections on human and musical origins. this essay critically examines claims for the precedence of voice in musical prehistory, juxtaposing rousseau and twenty–first–century authors. though centered on music and evolution, this investigation more generally explores voice–instrument relations and their implications for a philosophy of musical technology—or, more precisely, musical “technics.” the term “technics” refers to technical matters in the broadest sense. it is an english equivalent to the german “technik” or the french “la technique,” which, depending on context, may be translated as either “technique” or “technology.” lewis mumford’s (1934) technics and civilization, for example, explores the interplay of technology and technique, bringing out continuities between hand tools and machines. technics thus includes—but is not limited to—modern technology. philosophical work on technics, combined with research from paleoanthropology and psychology, will help complicate narratives of vocal precedence. they will suggest that music is essentially technical and that vocal and instrumental capacities emerged together. 23 jonathan de souza rousseau on human origins jean–jacques rousseau’s 1755 discourse on the origin of inequality is concerned, more generally, with the origin of humanity. “for how can the source of inequality among men be known,” asks rousseau (1992, 12), “unless one begins by knowing men themselves?” to access humanity’s original state, the philosopher adopts a strategy that is common to other eighteenth–century writers: an anthropological fiction (e.g., condillac 1746; see thomas 1995, 45). he uses an imagined past to explore society and culture, law and freedom, language and music. rousseau sometimes bolsters this narrative with quasi–ethnographic evidence or claims for natural truth. but he can also be refreshingly clear about his speculations, which “must not be taken for historical truths, but only for hypothetical and conditional reasonings better suited to clarify the nature of things than to show their genuine origin” (1992, 19). rousseau’s fantasy begins with “natural man” in an age of wild individualism. at this time, he says, people’s only desires were physical—food, sleep, and sex. they did not live in families, much less larger social groups. an instinctive cry of nature provided some means of communication, but this was used only in emergencies, and humans had no everyday need for language. tools were unnecessary, too: the savage man’s body being the only [instrument] he knows, he employs it for various uses of which . . . our bodies are incapable; our industry deprives us of the [force] and agility that necessity obliges him to acquire. if he had an axe, would his wrist break such strong branches? if he had a [slingshot], would his hand throw a stone so hard? if he had a ladder, would he climb a tree so nimbly? if he had a horse, would he run so fast? (rousseau 1992, 21; translation modified) in their natural state, rousseau argues, humans were strong, self–sufficient, and happy. yet as the population grew and spread, people encountered rough weather and, for the first time, needed something outside of themselves. they needed fire—but also each other. in their new communities, people began to cook food, wear clothes, and build houses; they collaborated in activities like hunting and shared knowledge of new techniques and tools. with social pressure to communicate, the universal cry of nature gave way to conventional articulations of voice, to a kind of language. all of this created a new kind of human. in rousseau’s mind, it eventually separated savage people from civilized people, natural people from artificial people. rousseau’s narrative proposes a common origin for language, society, and technics. of course, as jacques derrida (1976, 199) observes, rousseau’s “origin” is not truly the beginning but “the beginning of the 24 current musicology end.” the “original” origin is always just out of reach, receding in a process of supplementary différance.2 in other words, the origin of inequality, like original sin, is a second origin. it is natural man’s corruption by society and technics, a fall into artifice. in technics and time, the french philosopher of technology bernard stiegler critiques rousseau’s fiction by comparing it to another human origin story: the greek myth of prometheus and epimetheus. when the gods created mortal creatures, these two brothers were given the important task of endowing the new beings with different qualities. epimetheus would assign the qualities, and then prometheus—the smarter brother—would inspect his work. plato’s protagoras recounts the myth: to some creatures he [epimetheus] gave strength, but not speed, while he equipped the weaker with speed. he gave some claws or horns, and for those without them he devised some other power for their preservation. to those whom he made of small size, he gave winged flight, or a dwelling underground; to those that he made large, he gave their size itself as a protection. and in the same way he distributed all the other things, balancing one against another. this he did to make sure that no species should be wiped out; and when he had made for them defenses against mutual destruction, he devised for them protection against the elements, clothing them with thick hair and tough skins, so as to withstand cold and heat . . . (1991, 13) yet epimetheus made a foolish mistake. he used all of the qualities on animals, leaving nothing for people. when prometheus came to inspect his brother’s work, he found humans naked and defenseless. they had no fur for warmth, no fangs for protection. prometheus, of course, saved humanity by stealing from the gods. in plato’s telling, he took not only fire but also technē. as martin heidegger (1977, 13) explains, “technē is the name not only for the activities and skills of the craftsman, but also for the arts of the mind and the fine arts.” this divine know–how compensates for the humans’ lack of qualities and makes it possible for them to exist. technics, in this myth, does not supplement humanity; it is a condition of humanity. in stiegler’s terms, the human pursues “life by means other than life,” through “organized inorganic matter.” for rousseau, by contrast, humanity was originally self–sufficient and powerful, needing neither tools nor artificial techniques. stiegler (1998, 114–15) observes that “rousseau . . . wants to show that there is no originary default, no prostheses, that the claws missing in man are not stones, or, should they be stones, they are precisely not cut or fabricated, being immediately at hand and not inscribed in any process of mediation.” besides claiming that the body is natural man’s only instrument, rousseau (1992, 20) assumes that 25 jonathan de souza natural man always walked on two legs, “using his hands as we do ours.” but here stiegler (1998, 113) senses a contradiction, since we humans use our hands to manipulate tools, and this capacity for manipulation seems to distinguish hands from paws. here stiegler invokes paleoanthropologist andré leroi–gourhan (1911–1986). considering early hominid fossils, leroi–gourhan (1993) argues that walking upright had profound effects on human evolution. it led to a bigger brain and a flexible vocal apparatus (see mithen 2005, 147), and it freed the hands for gestural communication and tool use. from that point humans were co–evolving with their technology. this process was partially biological: human hands emerged in interaction with tools; the human digestive system emerged in interaction with cooked food; human toes in interaction with shoes. yet technics also facilitated cultural evolution, the emergence of distinct social groups. though many details in leroi–gourhan’s work are now out of date, the basic idea stands (see odling–smee, laland, and feldman 2003; and malafouris 2013). many scientists still link paleolithic technology to “aspects of behavior, economy, mental capacities, neurological functions, the origin of grammatical language, and social and symbolic systems” (ambrose 2001, 1752). on this level, stiegler argues against rousseau, asserting that technics is originary to humanity, not supplementary. but in other ways, he agrees with rousseau. the discourse on the origin of inequality, for example, argues that natural man has no understanding of death, no understanding of temporality; natural man is supposedly immersed in “present existence without any idea of the future, however near it may be” (rousseau 1992, 28). human experiences of time, then, also begin with the second origin, with the development of tools and communities. this connection is explained by stiegler’s central theses on technics and time—or, he would say, on technics as time. technical objects represent an exteriorization of memory that outlasts the individual. this does not only happen with written records and other memory aids. any technical object—say a stone handaxe or a bone flute—preserves traces of its users. technics, then, provides access to a past through which we have not lived; it grounds the “historiality” (geschichtlichkeit) of the world theorized by heidegger (2010, 348–49). by forming the “already–there” into which we are inevitably thrown, technics makes cultural memory—and, indeed, culture itself—possible. in sum, both rousseau and stiegler connect temporality, politics, and language to technology, to humanity’s relation to exteriority. rousseau (1992, 66) asserts that “the savage lives within himself; the sociable man, always outside of himself.” stiegler, meanwhile, claims that this exteriority 26 current musicology constitutes the human. he concludes that “rousseau’s narrative of the origin shows us through antithesis how everything of the order of what is usually considered specifically human is immediately and irremediably linked to an absence of property, to a process of ‘supplementation,’ of prosthetization or exteriorization, in which nothing is any longer immediately at hand, where everything is found mediated and instrumentalized, technicized, unbalanced . . . rousseau will not, therefore, have been mistaken; he will have been right, almost” (stiegler 1998, 133). the technicization of voice stiegler’s critique is easily extended to rousseau’s writings on musical origins.3 in his dictionary of music (1768), rousseau (1998, 375) says that “song does not seem natural to man. although the savages of america sing, because they speak, the true savage never sang.” song, like speech, emerged with the second origin, when the cry of nature was transformed through social conventions. for rousseau, then, music starts not with sound but with the voice. furthermore, according to the 1781 essay on the origin of languages, speech and song did not simply originate at the same time. in the past, rousseau (1998, 318) claims, “there was no music at all other than melody, nor any other melody than the varied sound of speech.”4 today, though, speech no longer sings, and song no longer speaks. these dual aspects of the voice grew apart in a process of technicization that repeated the fall into artifice. rousseau suggests that writing distanced language from the emotional presence of voice. with music, he attacks the bloodless conventionality of french opera, jean–philippe rameau’s scientistic theories of harmony, and the denatured voices of castrati (see derrida 1976, 195, 210–12; christensen 1993; and feldman 2008, 180). for present purposes, though, i am more interested in the essay’s reference to an earlier stage in the technicization of voice, a stage before harmony: from the time of menalippides and philoxenus, instrumental players—who were at first the employees of the poets and worked only under them and, so to speak, at their dictation—became independent of them . . . thus melody, beginning to no longer be so attached to discourse, imperceptibly assumed a separate existence, and music became more independent of the words. that was also when the wonders that it had produced when it was only the accent and harmony of poetry gradually ceased . . . (rousseau 1998, 329) 27 jonathan de souza here song is corrupted not by harmony but by instruments. instrumental mélodie echoes vocal chant, while also distorting it (waeber 2009, 109). instruments supplement the voice, divorcing music from linguistic communication.5 they exteriorize, conventionalize, and constrain music, forming the eventual basis for harmony. “the system of the greeks had absolutely no harmony in our sense,” rousseau argues (1998, 328), except what was required to tune instruments on perfect consonances. all peoples who possess stringed instruments are forced to tune them by consonances, but those who do not possess them have inflections in their songs which we call false because they do not enter into our system and because we cannot notate them. song can still imitate primal, passionate voices (and that, for rousseau, is the source of whatever affective power it retains), but it is permanently “shackled” by the instrumental system. this shackling may be illustrated with a moment from rousseau’s most successful composition, le devin du village (1752).6 the one–act opera begins with the shepherdess colette, who is weeping because her lover, colin, has abandoned her. (after the piece’s premiere at court, louis xv reportedly sang this air all day [robinson 1992].) when colette exclaims “alas! alas!” her melody mirrors the falling inflection of an actual sigh (see example 1). for rousseau, this imitation grounds the melody’s emotional appeal. yet colette’s cry is also forced into the artificial steps of a chromatic scale. it is not continuous but discrete, divided according to the intervallic system of the keyboard and western notation. here rousseau the composer gestures toward purer forms of vocalization—both the prelinguistic cry of nature and pre–instrumental speech–song—that civilized humans can never fully recover. example 1: rousseau, le devin du village, “j’ai perdu tout mon bonheur,” mm. 43–46 rousseau’s musical polemics, then, recapitulate his anthropological speculations: song has its own double origin in which voice was supplemented by instruments, immediate expression turned to technique, and 28 current musicology natural music gave way to artificial music. again, the contradictions here are revealing. rousseau imagines a voice before articulation and before conventions, even though the prominence of these features distinguishes human voices from animal vocalizations. as rousseau (1998, 326) himself claims, “birds whistle, man alone sings.” but from this perspective, there is no voice without vocal technique; technique constitutes the voice as such. likewise, rousseau idealizes a kind of song whose inflections are not constrained by intervals, even though intervallic spacing differentiates singing from expressive speech. indeed, as derrida (1976, 200) notes, rousseau’s own definition of song in the dictionary of music invokes the interval, indicating that intervallic spacing is not extraneous to song but “an originary accessory and an essential accident.” in the end, it appears that music—like the human—emerges through mediation, exteriorization, and instrumentalization. rousseau’s quest for musical immediacy ultimately points to musical technics. language, tool use, and music twenty–first–century writers on music and evolution often echo rousseau. steven brown’s (2000) theory of “musilanguage” and what steven mithen (2005) calls “hmmmmm”—an acronym for “holistic, multi–modal, manipulative, musical, and mimetic” communication—both imagine a prehistoric form of vocal expression that would be equally protomusical and protolinguistic. emotion is generally considered central to such communication (see molino 2000, 171–72; richman 2000; and cross 2009). furthermore, it aligns with the idea that “music is first and foremost vocal” (molino 2000, 172. see also lehmann 2010, 92). according to nicholas bannan (2012, 306), “vocal music, which arises directly from the potential of evolved anatomy, is far older than instrumental, which employs extra– somatic tools.” musical instruments may then be conceived as a supplement to bodily musicality. for example, ian cross (2007, 663) understands instruments as “prosthetic devices,” “extending the sound–producing capacities of the human body (in terms of frequency range, intensity, and timbre).” iain morley (2013, 131) writes: “instruments constitute an accessory to existing human capacities; the origins of musical behaviour would not have relied upon the invention of instruments.”7 of course, these writers’ methodological and theoretical commitments differ significantly from rousseau’s, and the individual authors may not subscribe to all of these claims. nonetheless, at each point the philosopher haunts contemporary discourse on musical origins. 29 jonathan de souza these arguments often respond to perceived attacks from authors like steven pinker (1997, 534), who notoriously refers to music as evolutionary “cheesecake.” they aim to show that music is not merely a form of non– adaptive pleasure seeking (huron 2001, 45–46). they suggest instead that music is in our nature (e.g., levitin 2008). to this end, scholars adopt various strategies, considering social benefits of music making, vocalization in animals, musical universals, or connections between music, language, and other domains of human behavior. speech, song, and musilanguage, for example, would all rely on “vocal emancipation” (merker 2012, 222), an advanced capacity for voluntarily reproducing and varying vocal sounds. but this leads back to technics. for, as merlin donald argues, the “self–programmed” motor skills needed for protolanguage also support tool use. “all gestures and intentional vocalizations are ultimately actions of the musculature,” donald (1999, 141) writes, “and to generate greater varieties of gestures and sounds, primate motor behaviour must somehow have become much more plastic, less stereotyped, and subject to deliberate rehearsal.” as such, he concludes that language evolution would require “a breakthrough in hominid motor evolution” (141). the ability to consciously refine skills through practice and to imitate others’ actions would facilitate both communication and tool–based action, techniques of the body alone and techniques that incorporated external props. it would reflect the development of a mimetic system that would underlie “play, games, skilled rehearsal, nonlinguistic gesticulation, toolmaking, other creative instrumental skills, many nonsymbolic expressive devices used in social control, and reproductive memory in general” (donald 1991, 193). on a social level, mimetic skill would engender distinctively human forms of communication and cooperation based on shared intentionality (donald 1991, 171). for michael tomasello (2008, 108), this is the central cognitive adaptation that distinguishes humans from other primates: unlike chimpanzees and other apes, we understand conspecifics as agents with intentions and feelings like our own. this distinction is crucial to humans’ “capacity for culture” (tomasello 1999, 325). tomasello’s evidence from primate and developmental psychology aligns suggestively with anthropological research by tim ingold. drawing on ethnographic work with hunter–gatherer groups, ingold (1993, 436–42) insists that the technical, like language, is always social and cooperative. skill development is based in relationships between experts and novices (ingold 2000, 37). it involves watching and copying, working or playing together. tools, like gestures, then, already imply some intersubjective context of shared attention, understanding, and goals. in fact, an object is seen as a tool only when it is connected with some technique, some purpose (319). 30 current musicology this research strongly suggests that human capacities for gesture, language, and complex tool use—for communicative and material interventions in the world—evolved together. but the preconditions for the emergence of gesture, language, and complex tool use are equally preconditions for the emergence of singing and playing instruments. the flutes of hohle fels demand practiced motor control and mimetic understanding. these instruments depended on the manual capacities that differentiated anatomically modern humans from other primates—mobile wrists, sturdy and flexible thumbs, and fleshy finger– pads. to borrow two terms from raymond tallis (2003), the flute was not just “brachio–chiral,” involving the reaching, gesturing hand at the end of the arm; it required the precision of the “chiro–digital.” prehistoric flutists, like their modern counterparts, used their fingers, covering holes in different combinations to produce a range of pitches and coordinating such movements with the mouth and breath. as jeremy montagu (2003, 3) notes, this is not the easiest instrument to master: “with both end– blown and notch flutes, the player has to be careful to hold the instrument so that the air–stream impinges on the edge at precisely the right angle—otherwise there is only a hiss and no musical sound.” stiegler (2009, 66–69) would further emphasize how these techniques combine somatic memory and technical memory, the interiorized memory of an individual and the exteriorized memory of the group. singing, too, requires muscular self–programming, and vocal skill, no less than tool use, is cultivated in some social context. all cultures have vocal music (nettl 2000, 468), because the voice, as part of the body, is everywhere at hand. but there is no universal voice. as curt sachs (1961, 85) notes, “nowhere outside the modern west do people sing with a voice for which we have coined the honorific title of ‘natural.’” singing always has an accent. the voice is always already technical.8 and so, in a sense, the musical voice has always been a mediated “vocal instrument.” this is not to ignore differences between instrumental and vocal practices, which are substantial, nor to collapse the distinction between techniques of tool use and “techniques of the body” (mauss 1973). it is, instead, to point out a paradoxical interrelation of instrument and voice that resembles the relation between writing and speech: to paraphrase derrida (1976, 46), the musical instrument is at the same time exterior to the voice, not being a mere imitation of voice, and interior to the voice, which is already in itself instrumentalized or technicized. all of this implies that human vocal ability would not precede the ability to make music with objects. any early human that could learn to sing could also learn to drum with sticks or stones. indeed, the capacity 31 jonathan de souza to perceive and produce rhythms—with hands, feet, voices, or tools—is a key example of mimetic skill (donald 1991, 186–87). of course, the playing of instruments, in this view, does not necessarily coincide with the making of instrumental artifacts. after all, communities of hunter– gatherers today often use found objects as musical instruments (espi– sanchis and bannan 2012). or perhaps the primordial act of instrument making is simply the taking–up of an object as a means to music, the act of connecting a thing, whether found or fashioned, with some musical technique. coda again rousseau will have been right, almost. on this account, song and speech, voice and tools would have a common origin. vocal and instrumental skill would both be features of a musicality that is deeply entwined with the human capacity for culture (cross 2008)—a capacity, in other words, for technics. while reassessing claims for vocal precedence in terms of technics can help today’s scholars avoid rousseau’s metaphysical assumptions (that is, his “phonocentrism”), it can also bring narratives of musical origins into better accord with perspectives on human cognitive evolution from donald, tomasello, and others. if voice and instrument are not opposed in a metaphysical binary, they may interact more freely. just as flutes may imitate voices, voices may imitate flutes or drums. david burrows (2007, 90) even suggests that “stability of pitch in singing . . . could conceivably result simply from imitating the behavior of xylophones and other such instruments in which pitch level is built in.” interplay between vocal instruments and instrumental voices appears in countless repertoires—from jazz vocalise to pianistic cantabile, from konnakol vocal percussion in south–indian classical music to the “mouth music” of eighteenth–century scotland. briefly consider a more recent example: beat–boxing often incorporates song and speech but is irreducible to either. the word “beat–box,” now a verb, originally referred to the drum machine itself. beat–boxers virtuosically interiorize the machine’s rhythms, incorporating drum sounds into their bodies, their voices. beside mithen’s “singing neanderthals,” then, it might be useful to imagine “beat–boxing cro–magnons.” vocal percussion might be just as old as song. beat–boxing represents an instrumental mediation of voice that is grounded in technologies of sound reproduction. yet before cds or lps, even before musical notation, musical instruments (including techni32 current musicology cized voices) and their associated gestural programs help preserve musical materials. they contribute to the kind of technical memory theorized by stiegler, as forms of inscription or “recording” that ground musical culture (see gallope 2011, 61). making music repeatable, such mediation builds associations that direct future perception (stiegler 2011, 17–21). it shapes a musical “already–there.” this helps explain stiegler’s radical claim, made while he was director of the french music research institute ircam, that there is no music without instruments (donin and stiegler 2004, 7). this is to say, there is no music without technics. from this perspective, steven pinker might, like rousseau, be almost right. pinker (1997, 529) writes that music, alongside art, religion, and philosophy, “is a technology, not an adaptation.”9 saying that music is not adaptive does not mean that it is not functional, that it does not benefit individuals and communities who make it (see fitch 2006); it would mean that music was not created through the competition of “selfish genes.” arguments for music’s evolutionary significance, adaptive or otherwise, can easily replicate a dualistic metaphysics, trying to prove that music is natural not artificial for humanity. this essay suggests that it may be more productive to start from music’s technicity, considering the co–constitution of instrument and voice, tool and technique. ultimately this points to an ontological proposition demanding further thought. what if music is not simply produced via technology? what would it mean for music itself to be a form of technics?10 notes an earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2011 meeting of the society for music theory in minneapolis, as part of a special session organized by the smt music and philosophy interest group. i wish to thank michael gallope, berthold hoeckner, brian kane, jairo moreno, lawrence zbikowski, and the journal’s editorial board for their comments. 1. reports about the hohle fels flutes in the popular press include allen 2009, devlin 2009, and ghosh 2009. though an older bone artifact was once thought to be a neanderthal flute (see kunej and turk 2000), microscopic analysis reveals that its holes were not manufactured by humans but were produced by carnivore teeth (d’errico and villa 1997; and d’errico and lawson 2006). on more recent dating of musical artifacts, see higham et al. 2012. 2. the derridean term différance is, characteristically for this philosopher, a pun. it encompasses two meanings of the french différer, both “to differ” and “to defer” (see derrida 2011, 75). 3. stiegler (1998, 116) does not investigate questions of vocality here, simply noting that rousseau’s natural man “does not exteriorize himself, does not ex–press himself, does not speak: speech is already a prosthesis.” 4. here rousseau (1998, 318) mentions a classical source, strabo’s geography, which assumes a common origin for poetry and song (see strabo 2014, 50–51). 33 jonathan de souza 5. instrumental supplements are considered in recent philosophical work on voice: see cavarero (2005, 68) on the flute of marsyas, and dolar (2006, 52–56) on the shofar. it is interesting that these examples involve wind instruments, which rousseau (1998, 440) thought to be the earliest type of instrument. 6. for discussion of rousseau’s musical career, including analysis of idiosyncratic passages from le devin du village, see gjerdingen 2007. 7. christian lehmann (2010, 101–2) even argues that musical instruments did not truly develop until the invention of ancient greek music theory. 8. for further discussion of the singing voice as technology, see eidsheim 2008. 9. pinker (1994) believes that language is an evolutionary adaptation, a claim that is highly debatable (see huron 2001, 44; and sampson 2005). accordingly, pinker (1997, 534) privileges language over music, claiming that music may be partially founded 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“tool–use, sociality, and intelligence.” in tools, language and cognition in human evolution, edited by tim ingold and kathleen r. gibson, 429–45. cambridge: cambridge university press. . 2000. the perception of the environment: essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. london: routledge. kunej, drago, and ivan turk. 2000. “new perspectives on the beginnings of music: archeological and musicological analysis of a middle paleolithic bone ‘flute.’” in the origins of music, edited by nils l. wallin, björn merker, and steven brown, 235–68. cambridge, ma: mit press. lehmann, christian. 2010. der genetische notenschlüssel: warum musik zum menschsein gehört. munich: f. a. herbig. leroi–gourhan, andré. 1993. gesture and speech. translated by anna bostock berger. cambridge, ma: mit press. levitin, daniel j. 2008. the world in six songs: how the musical brain created human nature. new york: dutton. malafouris, lambros. 2013. how things shape the mind: a theory of material engagement. cambridge, ma: mit press. mauss, marcel. 1973. “techniques of the body.” translated by ben brewster. economy and society 2: 70–88. mcdermott, josh, and marc hauser. 2005. “the origins of music: innateness, uniqueness, and evolution.” music perception 23 (1): 29–59. merker, björn. 2012. “the vocal learning constellation: imitation, ritual culture, encephalization.” in music, language and human evolution, edited by nicholas bannan, 215–60. oxford: oxford university press. mithen, steven j. 2005. the singing neanderthals: the origins of music, language, mind and body. london: weidenfeld & nicolson. molino, jean. 2000. “toward an evolutionary theory of music and language.” translated by steven brown. in the origins of music, edited by nils l. wallin, björn merker, and steven brown, 165–76. cambridge, ma: mit press. montagu, jeremy. 2003. “why ethno–organology?” paper presented at the conference of the galpin society, american musical instrument society, and the international committee of musical instrument museums and collections, edinburgh. jeremymontagu.co.uk/ ethnoorganology.pdf. morley, iain. 2013. the prehistory of music: human evolution, archaeology, and the origins of musicality. oxford: oxford university press. mumford, lewis. 1934. technics and civilization. new york: harcourt, brace & co. nettl, bruno. 2000. “an ethnomusicologist contemplates universals in musical sound and musical culture.” in the origins of music, edited by nils l. wallin, björn merker, and steven brown, 463–72. cambridge, ma: mit press. odling–smee, f. john, kevin n. laland, and marcus w. feldman. 2003. niche construction: the neglected process in evolution. princeton, nj: princeton university press. patel, aniruddh d. 2008. music, language, and the brain. new york: oxford university press. pinker, steven. 1994. the language instinct. new york: morrow. 36 current musicology . 1997. how the mind works. new york: norton. plato. 1991. protagoras,. rev. ed. translated by c. c. w. taylor. new york: oxford university press. richman, bruce. 2000. “how music fixed ‘nonsense’ into significant formulas: on rhythm, repetition, and meaning.” in the origins of music, edited by nils l. wallin, björn merker, and steven brown, 301–14. cambridge, ma: mit press. robinson, philip e. j. 1992. “devin du village, le.” the new grove dictionary of opera. grove music online. oxford music online. oxford university press, www.oxfordmusiconline. com.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/subscriber/article/grove/music/o004634. rousseau, jean–jacques. 1992. discourse on the origin of inequality (second discourse), polemics, and political economy. translated by judith r. bush, roger d. masters, christopher kelly, and terrence marshall. vol. 3. collected writings of rousseau. hanover: university press of new england. . 1998. essay on the origin of languages and writings related to music. translated by john t. scott. vol. 7. collected writings of rousseau. hanover: university press of new england. sachs, curt. 1961. the wellsprings of music. edited by jaap kunst. the hague: martinus nijhoff. sampson, geoffrey. 2005. the “language instinct” debate. rev. ed. london: continuum. strabo. 2014. the geography of strabo. translated by duane w. roller. cambridge: cambridge university press. stiegler, bernard. 1998. technics and time, 1: the fault of epimetheus. translated by richard beardsworth and george collins. stanford: stanford university press. . 2009. technics and time, 2: disorientation. translated by stephen barker. stanford: stanford university press. . 2011. technics and time, 3: cinematic time and the question of malaise. translated by stephen barker. stanford: stanford university press. tallis, raymond. 2003. the hand: a philosophical inquiry into human being. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. thomas, downing a. 1995. music and the origins of language: theories from the french enlightenment. cambridge: cambridge university press. tomasello, michael. 1999. the cultural origins of human cognition. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. . 2008. origins of human communication. cambridge, ma: mit press. waeber, jacqueline. 2009. “jean–jacques rousseau’s ‘unité de mélodie’.” journal of the american musicological society 62 (1): 79–143. originally appeared in joan retallack, errata 5uite (washington d.c.: edge books, 1993). first performance as varications i for john cage: two voices, motion sensitive microphones, wall installation of errata staves. nyc: guggenheim soho, 1994. 379 current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york from errata 5uite joan retallack we talk about and try to think through these notions—like sounds in music—and we forget what really happens. we forget that we must always return to zero in order to pass from one word to the next. john cage, for the birds errata 5uite. errant phrase denoting a suc cession of 5 line errata slips of tongue composed of letter notes written on 5 line musical staves (invisible) together form ing a silent suite (fr. a following) read for for fore tu (large bird) errorious to be in motion o tu cara scienzia mia musica varied as were mixup agitatur not known the man could not swim and now apostrophe s restored to pronounce the ritual formula punch in code for teeth (love ’s savage splendor) read land and math for lang and myth ’s urgent isosceles smile read note on figs (body / rouge / mind / noire) for what reply does one make oil dependence as a form of music for gesamptkunstwerk read gesamtkunstwerk poetic verb for word this troubled devotion ewhich i had not (67-73) been singing whole moving fast almost motionless simplicity of for (seen) faces whose coordinates are read luck upon time past th’extravagant ‘n erring t’errortorio o (la cantatrice chèvre) the words once chief fig now obs quasi-trans cog object to variant germanic*res ras rushing medias race/mess words’words streaming firth in fifths ers-a-to wander in causal debt errabund erroarious (produces sneezing) rerum, tears to zero current musicology 380 readafresh another roman tic o postromodern time ‘n life a fresh ‘n new new fresh ‘n ergo blubber to this add read moist reeds should read musics aurora5 & erotema’s hethinks it wasn’t german (russian serb khmer... per se’s apostrophe’s tragik musico philosophicus esophagus or 5th wheel’s cranial nerve in errant interval estate read hail o reads too close sesame leek feet (but not in the music) grosteste or pseudo-grostextuality the best is no music mozart replide nicked vectors purpledicular alone alone unknown lone dis ordered fragments read erratic demon stranded p.5 on what sad eyes caress they cannot touch or hold or even to appear to interpret this as dawn i.e. to read o tu cara silènzio mia musica for late orts cracks figmenst dis coarse on terror incognita tort thud slipova girl light as 7 pt italic in which she only she appeared to know that he had asses ears (coughs in shrubbery) proverbial never no fortuitous timing the classical reference achieves the force of logic and yet but for theorem read either c or d read the giant transcendental (-ed up up and away) frown corrects the pagination this inter rhetoric is eating out my heaort reads the for every bauhaus dasein i sing choiristica’s bvent wood rocjer 5uite our peridoncal nite reade this liouminouscene ovsession rhubarbed re mark flesh with snakes/or/snacks in roots of speech no single act can find the music in current musicology 98 (fall 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 145 helbig, adriana. 2014. hip hop ukraine: music, race, and african migration. bloomington, in: indiana university press. reviewed by kevin c. holt the underpinning principles of hip hop ukraine: music, race, and african migration conform to broader trends within hip hop studies. scholars are increasingly breaking with the traditional approaches, which centralized (african?)americanness as a governing frame, in favor for approaches that emphasize the global reaches of the imagined hip hop community, taking into account the various ways that non–american hip hoppers negotiate meaning and authenticity through the subculture in their respective locales. in this way, scholars are actively interrogating the notion that american hip hop represents a universal base for hip hop studies. with hip hop ukraine, adriana l. helbig goes a step further than many of her contemporaries by presenting a complicated, multilayered negotiation of identity, which, as she observes, places american, african, african–american, black, ukrainian, ukrainian–american, white, and european identities in dynamic discourse. in order to present this delicate intersectional arrangement of race, ethnicity, and nationality, helbig offers an historical overview of the ways in which those tenets of identity have shifted throughout the twentieth century, particularly in relationship to socialist and post–socialist regimes in ukraine. she outlines various overlapping networks of migration between west africa, eastern europe, and the united states of america as a means of asserting an active exchange of subcultural particularity and meaning between the three, thereby challenging the concept of a unidirectional dissemination of hip hop music culture spreading from the u.s. to the rest of the world. the result is a stunningly intricate chronicle, which sets the foundation, not just for helbig’s discussion of hip hop in ukraine, but also for future research on popular music, race, ethnicity and identity more generally. it should be noted, however, that this project necessitates an emphasis on histories that long pre–date the formation of hip hop, american or otherwise, which means that, despite the name of this book, hip hop does not enter as a central focus until the latter chapters. the first chapter focuses on the historical construction of blackness in pre–world war ii ukraine and america, particularly the ways in which people came to formulate notions of what constitutes authentic blackness musically/sonically, going as far back as the mid–nineteenth century in order to depict the ways in which literature, art, theater, and music lead to the 146 current musicology formation of blackness in the ukranian public imaginary. helbig argues that american depictions of blackness, both from african–americans and white americans, became integral to ukranian understandings of what constitutes blackness universally. helbig cites the visits from prominent african–american thinkers to the ussr, including w.e.b. dubois, claude mckay, and paul robeson, who acted as ambassadors of blackness (the whole of blackness) for the ukrainian public. their receptions indicated a frequently paradoxical mix of reverence of their intellectual prowess and projections of, at least some central core of, racial primitivism. it becomes clear that american takes on race became important symbols from which notions african cultural particularity were extracted; those, in turn, are cyclically informed and affirmed conceptions of african retention. simultaneously, this era featured dynamic campaigns in ukraine and america based in the communist rhetoric of equality for all men, which was poised, rhetorically at least, as a political ideology that would eradicate racial subjugation. taken together, these phenomena set the stage for a complex interplay in ukraine, in which the political rhetoric of the land reinforced notions of sameness among all men, while the public imaginary construction of blackness hinged on an idea of fundamental difference along racial lines. chapter 2 focuses on immigration and racism in post–soviet ukraine. by this point of the cold war, the soviet union had begun asserting itself as the polar opposite of the united states in terms of racial policy and inclusion. the country extended student visas to many young africans, with the belief that they would return to their home countries after the completion of their schooling; many did not. helbig argues that these african “invaders” bore the brunt of social, political, and economic frustrations. furthermore, helbig found that political imagery often referenced notions of invader rhetoric and african incivility as the underpinning cause of social crisis in ukraine. throughout her fieldwork, helbig observes patterns of physical and psychic violence against africans. furthermore, helbig notes that the children of miscegenation became especially targeted in the 1990s, as rhetoric indicated fears that ukraine might lose its “whiteness” surfaced. the events outlined by the author suggest a continuation of the aforementioned paradox; officially, ukrainian discourse asserted that africans had the potential to be fully assimilated into ukrainian identity, yet many of the actions and unofficial rhetoric of ukrainian citizens suggest an ideology based in visceral racial difference, with true ukrainian–ness being inextricably linked to whiteness even as whiteness itself becomes “authenticated” through non–corporeally based identity structures (e.g. class and cosmopolitanism). helbig extends this argument 147 kevin c. holt to the complicated relationship that ukrainian audiences have had with the consumption of african–american music historically. mid–twentieth century jazz, for instance, at once represented something exciting, exotic, and virtuosic, and something primitive, guttural, and dangerous. helbig asserts that these ukrainian assessments of americans “performing blackness” sonically have become integral to racing music, and notes that non–white ukrainian musicians often code their performances in ways that perpetuate these conceptions of blackness, thereby simultaneously authenticating both the trope as authentically representative of blackness and the artist as authentically black. to further complicate this field, african immigrants in ukraine also bring with them conceptions of performing blackness (and african–ness) through appropriations of african–american musics and affiliated subcultural styles. it should also be noted that many of the african–american artists perform with notions of connecting to blackness through african–ness as well. the result is a multivalent and transnational negotiation of diasporic blackness and its relationship to whiteness and ukrainian identity remain in a near constant state of flux. this is the platform on which ukrainian hip hop developed. chapter 3 focuses exclusively on hip hop scenes in ukraine and the ways in which participants embrace and complicate notions of hip hop authenticity. as helbig asserts, hip hop itself is, in many ways, accepted in ukraine as a symbol of modernity and cosmopolitan urbanity, therefore, representing one of the tenets through which white ukrainian audiences can construct the self; on one hand, performing bodies racialized as black, as is often the case with the observed hip hop performances in this book, simultaneously mark other bodies in the space as white, and on the other, participation in a cosmopolitan music scene re–affirms some of the aforementioned notions of (ukrainian) whiteness as modern and worldly. helbig focuses her research in this area on two case studies of ukrainian language–based hip hop acts: tanok na maidani kongo (tnmk) and vova zi l’vova, both of which reside in what has quickly become known as ukraine’s hip hop center, kyiv. helbig finds that many of those involved with hip hop in ukraine assert commonalities between common themes in american hip hop and the lived experiences of displaced or socioeconomically marginalized ukrainians. in accordance with notions of hip hop cosmopolitanism, helbig notes an emphasis on professionalism in presentation, performance, and production among hip hop artists. these high standards work to further legitimize the scene in ukraine, as it did not represent a mainstream music scene when helbig conducted her fieldwork. still, helbig offers an account of an active hip hop community in which participants conform tropes of hip hop to the lived 148 current musicology realities of contemporary ukrainians and their navigations of traditional cultural–political ways of being/performing ukrainian/soviet identity. as with earlier genres marked by blackness in ukraine, hip hop is wrought with racialized notions of difference, which draws the emphasis back to the racial other, read black, as the harbinger of authenticity. as such, africans and their descendants in ukraine are offered a platform through hip hop to address issues specific to racial inequality and to build interracial coalitions through shared performance and audienceship. chapter 4 looks specifically at the ways in which some african immigrants in ukraine make use of tropes of both african–american hip hop and traditional ukrainian musics/culture. helbig presents a history in which the african donning traditional ukrainian garb presents a particular romanticized notion of ukrainian ideology; the racial other assimilated into, and celebratory of, ukrainian culture. from another perspective, this gesture represents african immigrants’ search for a place within ukrainain identity politics. helbig asserts that given their indeterminate positions within the context of citizenship and belonging in ukraine, african immigrants are able to use fusion in spectacular performance to create musical–cultural hybrids of ukrainian, american popular, and african performance, thereby forming an identity politic specific to their raced, classed, and national positions. in order to support this claim, helbig offers a close analysis of the ukrainian folk–fusion group chornobryvtsi, who, she argues “uses ukrainian folk music to bring attention to members’ physical blackness.” her analysis of this group indicates a carefully overlaid conflation of symbols (e.g. performing in outfits that feature traditional ukrainian garb with hip hop inflected elements and styling added). in this way, helbig propounds genre, performance, and sartorial gesture as an important means through which africans in ukraine come to understand themselves within the overlapping entanglements of race, ethnicity, and nation through frames defined by diasporic identity, immigration, and (non?) assimilation. in chapter 5, helbig recounts her fieldwork in uganda, a country with symbolic and actual significance as a source for ukraine’s developing sense of hip hop/blackness as an increasing presence. she recounts experiences navigating uganda in order to see a hip hop group, alfa–alfa, perform, noting the difficulty of finding performance locations, navigating interrogations of her presence as a white woman and, as an extension, concerns about her safety levied by her host family in uganda and others from whom she sought direction to hip hop events. when she did find the venues she sought after, she was met with groups who, like in ukraine, use african– american and caribbean music styles to perform notions of blackness 149 kevin c. holt molded specifically to pertinent national and ethnic dynamics to the region. this chapter is by far the book’s most self–reflexive. helbig is transparent about her methodologies, about what her presence as ethnographer means to her interlocutors and the immutable power dynamics therein, about the ways in which her (perceived) identity impacts the means and methods through which she obtained information, and, most interestingly, her own reflections about how she perceived differences thereto between her fieldwork in uganda and that in ukraine. helbig also shares fragments of her personal biography and family history in this chapter, which effectively ties the histories of the previous chapters into a finely woven narrative. the heavy emphasis on shifting ukrainian identity politics over the twentieth century, prominently here emphasizing the negotiation of “whiteness” and “blackness” becomes personalized as she shares a family history, where her grandparents immigrated from ukraine to the united states and the ways in which her own experiences as ukrainian–american ethnographer mirrors many of the central themes and negotiations highlighted throughout the book, including an ever fluctuating sense/performance of self. all players in the construction of this book, the author included, are thus presented as dynamic actors navigating the murky and frequently contradictory space of identity and authenticity, as they relate to and through popular musics that unify and divide, form and re–form; here, chiefly, but not exclusively, hip hop. hip hop ukraine provides an in–depth history which readers might come to expect from a book which seeks to lay the foundations for a subfield of study which has not received a great deal of attention in academic texts. rather than building from the accepted hip hop narrative, helbig takes great care to root ukrainian hip hop in ukrainian history, reaching as far back as the nineteenth century to do so, thereby resisting the notion that ukrainian hip–hop necessarily centralizes americanness. while this book is commendable for its historical data and its careful construction of identity politics, it should be noted that hip hop ukraine is a bit of a misnomer. as indicated in the chapter overview, hip hop gets very little mention until the second half of the book. helbig herself articulates in the introduction that this book “is not a study of hip hop in ukraine per se but rather a study of a specific connection between hip hop musicians and african musicians living in ukraine” and that it “analyzes changing ideas regarding race in soviet and post–soviet society and how hip hop factors into these changing ideologies.” hip hop is, in fact and in this book’s historical narrative, only the most recent in a string of racialized popular music genres around which identity politics are constructed and challenged. therefore, hip hop is not the focus of this book, but one of count150 current musicology less frames through which identity is negotiated and it is this complex and ever changing entwinement of bodies, identities, and popular music that demarcates the significant theoretical and historical contribution this book makes to the growing field of global hip hop studies and cultural popular music studies more broadly. microsoft word editor's note typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 blackmore. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 1 callum blackmore needless to say, this has been a tumultuous year for current musicology. the covid-19 outbreak has created unprecedented difficulties for the journal. our editorial board—once a tight-knit community of graduate students based on columbia’s campus—has been physically disconnected for the first time in the journal’s 55-year history, its members flung to every corner of the globe by the pandemic. even those who have remained in new york have found themselves unable to convene in person. our networks of scholarly support—which once seemed inextinguishable—have been relegated to makeshift online spaces, poorly adapted to the needs of such a vibrant and complex intellectual community. and there has been so much pain. so much fear. so much loss. yet, in the midst of this unfathomable human tragedy, the journal’s editorial board has come together to produce this issue. it is the product of countless hours of labor, undertaken in the wake of crisis after crisis. i wish to extend my sincerest gratitude to all the members of the editorial board who have volunteered their valuable time to review a manuscript at this unpleasant juncture. the pandemic has created new and unanticipated demands on your (already packed) schedules, and yet so many of you have undertaken reviews with enthusiasm and rigor. there are members of the editorial board who i have not yet been fortunate enough to meet in person, and who have still volunteered their time for the journal nonetheless. i would especially like to thank those who have been magnanimous enough to review multiple manuscripts this semester—your tireless efforts have helped to ensure the timely publication of the upcoming issue. i am deeply indebted to laina dawes, outgoing editor, and mary catherine stoumbos, outgoing reviews editor and subscription manager, for helping me transition into this editorial role during this difficult time. i would also like to thank subscription managers gabrielle ferrari and imogen wilson, and assistant editor david farrow for all their work in preparing this issue. and, above all, i would like to thank david c. newtown, johanna lopez, erica lockhart, gabriela kumar, and professor ana maria ochoa of the columbia 2 university music department for their tireless administrative assistance—it is thanks to their patience and perseverance that current musicology has managed to weather the adversities wrought by this harrowing year. *** as the pandemic rages on, i have been increasingly overcome with an irrepressible feeling of anger—anger at the senseless loss of life, at the senseless loss of livelihoods, and at the utter preventability of all this suffering. this nation’s leaders—in coalition with the ruinous forces of global neoliberalism— have conspired to treat the american people like so many sacrificial lambs, brought to slaughter on the altar of capitalistic greed. this is something that we must all be angry about. yet, it has been helpful—even therapeutic—to channel all this pent-up emotion, all this unquenchable outrage, into a more constructive outlet. having the opportunity, in light of all this destruction, to help facilitate the production of knowledge through this journal has been incredibly rewarding for me. this issue of current musicology stands in defiance of those noxious forces which have helped this pandemic to wreak unparalleled devastation through the violence of their inaction. as the pandemic severs more and more of our colleagues from the scholarly institutions that once fostered their intellectual activities, high-quality, open-access scholarship is becoming more important than ever. the pandemic and its economic aftershocks have rendered the academy even more exclusive than it was before: academic careers are now reserved only for the most wellresourced, the most privileged. the challenge, then, is to be as generous we can with our knowledge, to share our scholarship as widely as possible, to open ourselves up to the world. current musicology is proud to take up this challenge. in the face of so much darkness, the humanities light our way forward. *** the interminable chaos of the pandemic has somewhat overshadowed what was due to be the year’s biggest musicological event: the 250th anniversary of beethoven’s birth. the sestercentennial began in a flurry of controversy, with calls to ban the composer’s (near ubiquitous) music from concert halls in favor of more equitable programming. current musicology is thrilled to be publishing two articles which not only mark the beethoven anniversary, but also shed new light on the controversies which continue to haunt the composer’s legacy. 3 campbell shiflett’s contribution examines just one of the many musicological querelles which have sprung up in response to beethoven’s music. he lays bare the uses and misuses of adrienne rich’s 1973 poem “the ninth symphony of beethoven understood at last as a sexual message” in the hermeneutic disputes that surrounded beethoven’s ninth symphony during the heyday of the so-called “new musicology.” part reception history, part poetic analysis, shiflett’s study seeks to disentangle rich’s poem from the musicological baggage that it has accrued through these infamous debates, entreating us to examine it with fresh eyes, to appreciate its (rarely acknowledged) complexities and ambiguities. it is not just the musicological reception of rich’s “beethoven” poem that is at stake in shiflett’s article, but the act of interpretation itself and its various musical and literary fault lines. elaine fitz gibbon is concerned with an altogether different set of beethoven-related quarrels. her article reveals that many of the debates and controversies which surrounded beethoven’s 250th anniversary were very much present during the composer’s 200th anniversary. examining mauricio kagel’s 1969 film ludwig van, fitz gibbon deftly unpacks the ways that beethoven was celebrated and critiqued in a divided germany in the lead-up to his bicentennial. she argues that kagel’s critique of beethoven fetishism was inextricably linked to a critique of bourgeois ethno-centric nationalism and rooted in kagel’s own experiences of diaspora. for fitz gibbon, kagel’s film offers fertile ground for rethinking our treatment of beethoven today, calling for us to forgo celebration in favor of renewed dialogue around the politics of the composer’s legacy. i was fortunate enough to see the author present this research at the (virtual) annual meeting of the american musicological society and i am thrilled that we are able to offer it, in article form, as part of this issue. these timely reception histories are followed by two path-breaking repertory studies on genres of music that have been historically neglected in music-theoretical inquiry. in a sweeping survey of over 90 different film and television scores, brad osborn identifies a (formerly innominate) voice-leading schema—the subdominant tritone—which, he argues, is axiomatic to the expressive capacities of these genres. for osborn, the emotional power of the subdominant tritone lies in the tension between its two possible resolutions. the listener is torn between hoping that the leading note will resolve upwards to the tonic and hoping that the fourth above the bass resolves downwards to the third. cinephiles will recognize this unique musical device from many a heartbreaking movie moment. the author informs me that this article is the product of four 4 years of research—current musicology is proud to publish the fruit of this herculean effort. ben duinker’s study of form in hip hop is similarly impressive in its scope. duinker’s argument is both analytical and economic in nature: he suggests that the mainstreaming of hip hop over the last twenty years has inexorably transformed its formal conventions. duinker identifies the origins of a number of important hip-hop forms in african american vernacular music-making, before charting the ways in which these forms have changed to resemble the formal paradigms of more mainstream musical genres. many readers will find duinker’s ground-breaking taxonomy of hip hop’s various formal components to be a vital addition to the growing body of scholarship on this long-neglected genre. i should add that the articles by duinker and osborn are both accompanied by extensive appendices which will undoubtedly prove invaluable to future scholars of these repertories. finally, current musicology is proud to publish a colloquy from project spectrum, titled “strengthening the pipeline,” on equity and diversity in pathways to music academia. project spectrum are, of course, trailblazers in this area and their indefatigable efforts have already helped to prompt a muchneeded reckoning in music academia on issues of race, gender, sexuality, and disability. they are a graduate student-led organization and a dynamic scholarly community, committed to shifting the exclusionary culture of the musicological establishment. i would encourage readers who are unfamiliar with their work to check out their website and to follow them on social media. the colloquy is organized and edited by anna b. gatdula, one of the co-founders and co-chairs of this impressive collective. “strengthening the pipeline” is notable for its diversity of perspectives: a college professor reflecting on equity in the undergraduate music curriculum; a professor and his student making the case for alternative pathways and compassionate mentoring in music pedagogy; an incisive critique of the mental health crisis in the neoliberal university; and an indictment of ableism in music academia from an independent scholar. all of these amount to a powerful condemnation of the culture of discrimination in music studies and a clarion call for palpable action on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the academy. the colloquy contains gut-wrenching personal testimonies from these scholars, which might prompt us to reflect on the barriers that prevent scholars from under-represented and under-privileged populations from entering music academia. 5 as i write this editor’s note, a mob of white supremacists is storming the united states capitol in an act of fascist insurrection. in light of these events, project spectrum’s colloquy seems more urgent than ever. it is clear that we have so much work to do. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 21 ethnography, sound studies and the black atlantic a conversation between michael veal and whitney slaten the following discussion between michael veal and whitney slaten emerged amidst veal’s presentations for columbia’s center for jazz studies in the 2015-2016 academic year. drawing from the current research of veal and slaten, as well as the recent work in sound studies, this discussion explores the status of the human in black popular music studies. it begins by tracing the significance of how veal situates his subjects locally, yet also in dialogue with important centers of black popular music throughout the atlantic. in the wake of oppressive histories that have associated black musical expression to the permanent objectifications of slavery, the discourse about fred moten’s important analysis of aunt hester’s scream as the supposed object’s resistance, and sound studies’ new turn to decenter social categories in favor of foregrounding sounds and sonic phenomena as objects, the second section asks the following question: how does posthumanism juxtapose with scholarship on black music? considering the complexities associated with human and post-human approaches, the final section considers how blackness and labor figure in slaten’s ethnographic research on professional live sound engineering in new york city. michael veal’s work whitney slaten: since reading dub (veal 2007) and reviewing it in 2008, and hearing you speak about your research as recently as the 2014 tony allen center for jazz studies book talk, i’ve long admired your work—particularly the expansiveness of its presentation of a global and historical arc, that remains close in its intricate analyses of local and individual concerns. how would you describe this arc in your research? it does so well in complicating traditional ideas of area studies and it always has seemed so stable in representing the cultural dynamics of black music. michael veal: i would say that there is a connection across the entire arc of my work, and my first three books exemplify what i work on, which might be described as black music, broadly construed. when my first book was published, people tried to position me as an africanist. i consider myself an africanist, but not only an africanist. when my second book came out, people wanted to position me as a caribbeanist or a jamaicanist. 22 current musicology and i consider myself those things as well, but not only those. my current book project, which has to do with a specific period in the career of john coltrane, is a jazz project with a strong africanist underpinning, conceptually speaking. when that book is published—and i consider it to be the completion of a trilogy of sorts—i think the overall arc of my work will be clearer. so one reason that i’ve kind of operated under the radar until now is partially strategic on my part, but also because i haven’t really been slotted into a received category that people can recognize per se. and over the long term, i think that’s a good thing. it’s enabled me to pursue my work in a more expansive way than i might have otherwise. it’s not only me. other ethnomusicologists such as ingrid monson, paul austerlitz and others have what you might call multi-sited interests across the black world. they may have made their initial reputations as jazz scholars, africanists or caribbeanists, but they are moving around the black atlantic in their research interests. and in fact many of the older american scholars of african music—i’m talking about people such as charles keil and paul berliner—came out of earlier interests in blues and jazz. steven feld, also. so it’s really nothing new, but it’s still exciting to work that way. ws: your readers encounter the excitement of thinking through specific genres of popular music in ways that encourage them to consider the historical and contemporary flows of globalization, particularly within and beyond the black atlantic. i’ve always known you to do so well in achieving this without compromising your depiction of individuals and their agency. how you have treated fela comes to mind as an example of this. you never merely simplify his experience as just nigerian. you show how his experiences and the experiences of him and his music socially construct cultural expressions of himself, afropop, west africa, the united states, and europe, for instance. mv: you know, with the fela kuti book (veal 2000), there are people out there writing and talking about him as if he never left abeokuta—which is preposterous. you know, the whole “i knew his family” angle. but the reality is that this is a guy whose musical identity was formed in the cosmopolitan african city of lagos; it was transformed in the colonial center of london when he encountered jazz musicians, caribbean musicians and musicians from other african countries; and it was transformed again in los angeles, with african american funk, soul and free jazz musicians. and then it was transplanted back into an even more cosmopolitan lagos in the 1970s to serve a particular purpose during a period of social transformation and turbulence and cultural questioning. so although you can’t really talk 23 michael veal and whitney slaten about fela kuti without talking about the impact of highlife musicians like e. t. mensah, bobby benson and victor olaiya, you also have to talk about him in terms of james brown, john coltrane, louis armstrong, sun ra, and many other musicians that his work was in dialogue with. so i would say that the study of any musical tradition of the black atlantic today (if you want to use paul gilroy’s term as a point of reference) is most profitably predicated on this kind of comparative approach. in other words, one understands any particular location in afro-america, the caribbean or west africa as inherently in dialogue with the other locations. and, let’s face it—i was born in the early 1960s, i caught the tail end of the pan-african generation. i like the idea of african americans, caribbeans and africans being in dialogue. ws: i see. foregrounding such dialogues between individuals, groups, and places and how their expressive practices that entangle with hegemonic structures, has impressed upon me how you generally approach your representations of culture. considering power, particularly its historically uneven distribution among black people in africa, the americas and europe, how does your research negotiate this approach to culture of african americans, west africans, afro-caribbean and afro-europeans? mv: i have a vision of cultural interconnectedness; that’s one of the things driving my work. and it’s political at the heart. because there is a strong streak of afrophobia in african american culture (not to mention in the world at large, of course), as a result of colonization, slavery, racism and also the complexities of contemporary africa. a scholar like edwards sassine would refer to it as “afro-pessimism.” but the truth is that african americans will never be healthily oriented in the world until we come to terms with our african heritage—not in terms of afrocentric fantasies or mythological thinking. i’m talking about concrete historical and contemporary awareness of africa—culture, politics, etc. we cannot do it without that. we’re the only ethnic grouping in the united states that has had our connection to our ancestral culture systematically erased. that gives us a problematic relationship to history. african americans are probably the only culture on planet earth in which every generation has to essentially reinvent the wheel. and while it’s great for things like artistic creativity, it’s terrible for long-term cultural stability. only a small number of exceptional people are going to be able to prosper within that paradigm. so until we deal with that reality, we won’t be able to set the proper course into whatever the future may hold. ws: many producers of popular culture, following the ideological expectations of culture industries, profit from the exaggerated vernacularisms and 24 current musicology stereotypes of commodified blackness. would you say that your work is a critique of nativism, stereotypes and essentialisms? mv: yes, indirectly, in the sense that, by working comparatively, you automatically decenter the consolation of nativisms and essentialisms that have hobbled a lot of scholarship around black music. and that’s important because the ultimate goals are cultural and historical clarity and the transcending of a discourse of mere blackness, in order to recognize the universally human aspects of our experience. take the jamaica book [dub]. you can talk about those studio production trends as if they’re something specific to jamaica, which in a way they are. but they are also in dialogue with what was going on in the united states, not to mention what was going on in the centers in which a lot of the sound technology was being developed, like the post-war technological environments of japan and germany. so in that sense the cultural sphere becomes wider. it’s no longer just the black atlantic. you can trace it out along the global contours of the musical and technological environments of the post world war ii era, the cold war era. ws: your work continually deconstructs stereotyped imaginings of societies as premodern or pre-technological, usually by highlighting the complexities and cross-cultural circulation of your research subjects. your activities with this in jamaica and the united states exemplify this—but especially your presentation of tony allen takes what would have otherwise been understood as a west african drummer and shows how a local musician generates new definitions of african drumming locally and globally. mv: tony allen belongs to a lineage of great nigerian and ghanaian highlife drummers that includes people like kofi ghanaba, akanbi moses and rim obeng, but he wouldn’t be who he is had he not been inspired by the great african american jazz drummers like max roach, tony williams, philly joe jones, and elvin jones. and he himself is very clear about that. so, this is a way that we can see these cultural locations as inherently dynamic and in dialogue. in a way, it dramatizes the pan africanist ideal — regardless of the political contingencies of any particular moment. but then it goes beyond that, because the latter part of that book is as much about france, europe, “world beat” and globalization as it is about jazz, lagos, nigeria or west africa. . . . so, ultimately, all of these are human issues with global resonance. ws: it became clear to me that i could see and feel the extent to which your work has focused on specific places and artists across the black atlantic. 25 michael veal and whitney slaten you have done this while there is so much tension and anxiety about ethnography and globalization, especially in relation to capturing the global flows of certain musical activities. i’m thinking of your book dub as somewhat biographical, but also a history. mv: yes, somewhat. i would call it a genre study interpolated by historical, biographical and interpretive writing. ws: i took the interview-based engagement in the tony allen book as a very humanizing approach to studying his work. i found it both local and intimate and also broad, as it encapsulated the larger, nationalistic, international stylistic dimensions of his time. mv: yes, i think i tend to write about specific things—be they genres, musicians or issues—and work outward from there. everyone is concerned with the big picture issues at the moment—for crucial reasons and also because as scholars, we have to be systematic thinkers who can draw the big connections. but if it’s handled properly, the specificity of the biography or genre study can be an equally potent medium for concretizing broader issues. especially when you consider the fact that one of the primary symptoms of globalization and neoliberal economic policies is the individual’s loss of a sense of agency. furthermore, i am a musician myself and i am invested in documenting the important advances made by musicians. black music—by that i mean the musics of africa and the african diaspora—has been the musical driving force of the twentieth century. but the truth is that seventy-five percent of the histories will never be written. meanwhile, many of the scholars of the western classical tradition have moved on to other methodologies, because most of the historical and analytical accounting has been done at this point. those new methodologies are not inherently superior, they just reflect a different set of priorities. ws: how does your engagement with all of this intensify your choice to write in the ways that you do? mv: i simply wanted to do justice to these topics and the human beings behind them. i wanted readers to understand and experience the humanity and the complex histories behind these musical moments and movements. and i wanted to write in a way that was accessible to the people and cultures whose histories i was trying to represent. for me, it’s intuitive. i approach my writing more intuitively than i approach my music. in my musical projects, i’m pretty focused on which parameters i want to manipulate. i’m focused on that in writing, too. but i don’t always think about it in terms of clear-cut methodologies. in fact, 26 current musicology with some projects, the methodology sometimes doesn’t become clear until i’m substantially underway, because there are some things that i have to write my way through, just like there are some musical environments that you have to improvise your way through. in my current book, i used more of that approach. now that i’m reaching the end of it, the methodology is clear and transparent. but that shouldn’t give the impression that it was that way when i went into it. i had to keep writing, reading and keep listening until a clear vision emerged. and i’m sure the book will be much richer for it. of course, now that the methodology is transparent, i have to take my thumb and smudge the writing a little bit. i don’t want it to feel too clinical in the end—i want it to have some visceral, aesthetic power to it . . . when ornette coleman told a.b. spellman that “sometimes i don’t know how it’s going to sound until i play it,” that was a heretical statement in the context of bebop. jazz musicians were really up in arms about that statement. the post-charlie parker bebop orthodoxy held that you had to have such complete mastery that you could hear everything in your head before you played it on your instrument. and teachers began to teach students that they should be able to sing everything that they played. obviously, you should have control over your improvising. you can’t be up there just moving your fingers. and playing any musical instrument is ultimately a form of singing. but there is also an element of adventure and of sometimes even surprising yourself. otherwise it’s too predetermined and rule-bound. some of the great improvisers have said “let the music come to you.” and i think a lot of that also applies to the art of writing… it depends on the kind of thinker you are. sometimes you want to start with a set methodology and outline. you know what your methodological points are, you know what your interpretive axes are going to be, and you proceed on that basis. other times you have a loose idea, set of points or assertions or analyses or interpretations you want to make, or you might even begin with just a loose set of literary gestures, or images. then you start to work your way through “the stuff.” object-oriented ontology, speculative realism and black music ws: i am thinking about a current philosophical trend in music studies: object-oriented ontology. this movement, ascribed to graham harmon, takes speculative realism and resists a human-focused, anthropocentric kantian thought—as well as twentieth-century phenomenology—in favor of the activity, or charisma, of objects and their networks. from what i understand, the current critique of this new movement is that object-oriented ontology is too dehumanizing. the encroachment of 27 michael veal and whitney slaten object-oriented ontology and the study of black music and popular music could too quickly become a research trend that reinstantiates the problems and oppressions of structuralism yet again. i can see how useful an extension of a poststructuralist effort like object-oriented ontology could be in analyses of societies for whom western philosophic traditions of humanism are outright oppressive. but there are also other models that more compassionately decenter western conceptions of the human—steven feld’s (2015) concept of “acoustemology” stresses relationality between the human and nonhuman, and ana maria ochoa gautier’s (2014) critical juxtaposition of the linguistic and speculative turns reconsiders the oppressive arm of colonialism and elitist modernity in assessing the politic of the voice among people in nineteenth-century colombia. i am curious about your thoughts about this movement. i would like to hear more about how you think about your work—coming into focus through a process of improvisation, and its humanizing effort—in relation to black people who are located in the nodes of globalization, late modernity and late capitalism, committed to continually fighting for the adequate recognition of their dignified humanity in the wake of the spoils of colonialism and the failures of reconstruction. mv: i can see it in resonance with ideas of the “post-human” that are currently fashionable. and it’s true that the “human” is merely one very fluid identity on a continuum of possible identities in our reality. but even if it were true that humans were used by other forces in the creation of these objects, removing the human from the equation altogether strikes me as too nihilistic. i can see the organic benefits of that view: after all, so many problems in this world have been created by the human race’s disconnection from the world around us—nature, other species, etc. in fact, we’re not even connected with each other as part of the same species! but at the end of the day we’re still human beings, and the discourse of the post-human still arguably has its roots in human experience. in a way, what i have just said is very old school in its placement of the human at the center. i don’t mean to do that. my actual point is that instead of trying to depart from the category of the “human,” humans should be trying to reconsider the category of the human. it’s one thing to say it like that, and another thing to say that we’re going to analyze these as objects as existing in and of themselves. ws: i have hesitation about an effort to just think about objects and networks and to assert human beings as objects. it has potential to reproduce a very troubled past. the atlantic slave trade and early ethnology come to mind, a tragic objectification and technologizing black people as permanent laborers and symbols of primitivism. 28 current musicology mv: well that’s probably because it can be a double-edged sword for people coming from a history of slavery—it can easily be redeployed to resonate with the consideration of human beings as objects. ws: from the standpoint of a late postcolonial critique, i can understand an anxiety around perpetuating european continental philosophy. we must respect that there are many diverse ontologies around the notions of “being” among different societies that allow us to reconsider the human. while there’s growing interest in and excitement for these new approaches, the work of representing humans and human movements in music is not finished. mv: maybe the question is which discourse is best suited for the task at hand—the philosophical discourse or the ethnographic discourse. the whole effort to do away with the category of “human,” in some cases, reflects a profound fatigue with the experience of being human. if we’re looking at all of this from the vantage point of the western philosophical tradition (which is not my area), we have to observe that european culture has gone through so many dramatic upheavals in the twentieth century. all cultures have, in fact. but the point is the composite knowledge of humanity, and the composite ways of understanding human experience are still largely separated out across all these disparate cultural and geographic networks. until we can take account of the full store—globally speaking—of understandings of the category of the human, ways of being human, ways to understand the experience of being human, these individualized local cultural systems are going to continue to experience profound breakdown and fatigue because people are essentially culturally myopic and stubbornly resistant to engaging the ontologies of other cultures. but the flip side of it is that they are often liberated when they are forced by circumstances to engage them. for example, there’s a lot in the sub-saharan african cultural traditions that could rehabilitate the concept of the human in places like europe where a profound fatigue with the category of human has led them to propose all these post-human ontologies. even though africa gets almost nothing but negative press in the world today, there are many europeans, euro-americans and african americans whom i know whose concept of what it means to be human was radically revised through their encounter with african culture. their lives were changed forever. and having come up through ethnomusicology, i have a lot of first-hand knowledge of people whose lives were permanently altered (for the better) by their encounters with various cultural “others.” it’s hard to be human today. i get it. so many systems seem to be on the verge of collapse. but that’s where ethnomusicology and the other dis29 michael veal and whitney slaten ciplines that are concerned with cross-cultural inquiry can be helpful on a profound level. they expose people to different understandings of what it means to be human. it’s not only a question of different ways to be humanly musical, but different ways to be human. that’s the profound potential of ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology, comparative literature, and those types of fields. you can see an example in the sphere of jazz as a refraction of western european harmony, the tradition of functional harmony. after all of the massive upheavals after the second world war, many westerners wanted to do away with that system because it was seen as too intimately linked with cultural ways of being that seemed to be outmoded or bankrupted. but that simultaneously provided an opening for jazz musicians. one of the most iconic photographs of john coltrane—in my opinion—was taken in stuttgart, germany in 1963. he’s holding his tenor sax, leaning against a piano. and in the background you see all these germans seated as if at a concert of classical music (although they are much more casually dressed). the whole idea is that picture portrayed the way that jazz paved the way for a radically different understanding of the western musical system. it didn’t necessarily need to be completely abandoned. it simply needed to be reconceptualized through an encounter with a different cultural-musical system. in this case, that was the african american musical system (which of course, had partial roots in europe). that helped transform the understanding of music in europe. everyone benefitted from that. when you look at the impact that jazz had in europe during the 20th century—you know, from the old days of montmartre and expatriate new orleans musicians all the way up through experimental collectives such as the aacm and the bag, it had a profound impact on the musical landscape. that’s an example of a related-butdifferent musical ontology, having impact in a location where the so-called indigenous system was considered to have become bankrupt or obsolete. so what we see in music is true for culture in general. ws: extending from this, i would like to ask you about sound studies. how do you see the current trends in sound studies in relation to africanderived musical practices in ethnomusicological literature or beyond? mv: in a way, it continues on from your previous idea. from the standpoint of musical scholarship, one way the sound studies discourse can be understood as a reflection of this profound fatigue with the concept of the musical—as well as resentment at the monopoly that music scholars have held over the discussion of music. so, the philosophers want to get in on it. basically, everyone loves music and wants to talk about it. in addition to 30 current musicology enabling a broader sonic interrogation of the world, sound studies also allows scholars to engage the thing we call “music” from what we might call a post-musical perspective. the potential flip side is that the sound studies way of thinking will ultimately influence the music making of musicians and the musical thinking of music scholars. but i would say that, for the most part, the sound studies discourse has not been brought to bear on african-derived musics. there are some scholars that are doing it, like my colleague daphne brooks. she’s bringing it to bear. steven feld’s book on accra draws on it in an interesting way. i myself am toying with it in my current book project. but of course, there are many different cultural ontologies that problematize the western category of “music” and propose radically different ideas about the relationship between the human and the sonic that themselves could modulate the western tradition and lead to new understandings about those relationships without moving into this sphere of kind of disembodied—“we’re not talking about music anymore. we’re talking about sound.” it’s really not necessary to make that distinction so hard and fast. better to see them as existing on a continuum. keep in mind, i’m talking about the sound studies work that engages music, which is really only a particular portion of it. there are cultures that don’t have a word for “music” as we understand it in the western sense of the term. we as westerners hear their sound production in a musicalized way because it seems to conform to our own experience of what constitutes music. that in itself is a very provocative question for sound studies. where do you draw the boundary between music and sound, music and language, music and philosophy, music and spirituality, music and healing? all it takes is a willingness to engage other paradigms. if you take cultures and put them in dialogue with each other, they’re automatically going to be transformed. ws: i am teaching a world music history course at the new school this semester. randy weston is the artist-in-residence there right now. i was fortunate to have him come to my class, along with abdellah el gourd, playing the hajhuj, and gnawa musicians, who performed. el gourd spoke about colors and healing, which resonates with how you spoke of certain societies in africa that do not think of music in western terms. mv: yes. what the gnawa create is not unilaterally understood as music. it’s considered as much a curative practice as a musical practice. ws: it’s medicinal based on a kind of sonic color associated with each performance. my students are in awe of this. mv: sure. it’s like muslim devotional practices such as the adhan—the call to prayer—or like koranic recitation. it strikes the western ear as very 31 michael veal and whitney slaten musical, but within islam it’s not considered music, although it’s heard aesthetically. ws: what, in your view, are the best ways to ethnographically represent the human-nonhuman encounter? i am thinking about this in relation to my own ethnographic study of live sound engineers, and the importance of representing humanized engagements with technical objects in my work. mv: i think of some of jonathan sterne’s observations about recording devices, sound technology, and visual technologies essentially serving the prosthetic function of increasing the sensory capabilities of human beings. he’s not an ethnomusicologist but i still think that was a very helpful intervention and provides a useful bridge. beyond that, ethnography has always dealt with objects as components of culture. for example, what’s called “material culture” has always been a component of ethnography. musical instruments are objects. anytime you isolate something for study, in fact, it has been transformed into an object—an object of study. we could be a little more provocative and understand the ethnography itself as an object. and in the ethnographic fields, all of them are understood to be in dialogue with human beings. blackness beyond black bodies ws: i am currently working on my dissertation, “doing sound: an ethnography of fidelity, temporality and labor among live sound engineers.” the project is comprised of three case studies. one is about my own sound engineering at jazzmobile,1 grant’s tomb concerts in particular. another case is about a freelance engineer of rock concerts at hammerstein ballroom. the third case examines the engineer of porgy and bess on broadway in 2012, starring audra mcdonald and norm lewis. mv: this is wonderful. you’ve got three different sites. ws: three different sites and three different genres. the project extends from thomas porcello and louise meintjes’ work on recording studio engineers, aaron fox’s work on class culture, chris washburne’s work on musical labor, jonathan sterne’s work on fidelity and science and technology studies and george lewis’s work on technology and improvisation. i aim to contribute to sound studies scholarship by expanding discourse about “sound” beyond the recorded object, through describing how live sound is not natural in ways that current scholarship on music and technology emphasize. 32 current musicology mv: so what you do in your work is look at the particular mix as an object. ws: yes. mv: and at the event as an object. ws: that’s right. it’s a labor ethnography, on one hand, in that i talk about the shop floor experiences of amplifying sound in a given genre and venue. i have also been inspired by the phenomenological approach of tom porcello (1998) and write about encountering sounds as electronic signals transduced into air. something else that became really salient to me is the phenomenon of blackness and the extent to which all of the engineers wear black as a method to cloak themselves. this is an example of a predominantly white labor force temporarily participating in capitalist, modern ideologies of black labor as invisible. i am pondering object-oriented ontology not only in relation to black people who make black music, but i am also thinking about how humanistic and object-oriented analyses bode for studies of racially diverse listeners, musicians, producers and technicians who make, participate in, and transact blackness. mv: that’s a literary move right there. if you’re trying to reconcile that with “black” understood as a cultural or ethnic or racial designation, then you’re conjugating all of the different resonances of the term “black.” but you have to connect the dots at the lower levels. you can do it as long as you understand that it’s a literary interpretive move. its power is more in the rhetorical than the empirical. but you can bring it to bear on the empirical. ws: right. but at the same time, it’s been interesting to analyze how they wear black and how the equipment is all black, as you know. i observed the modern appeal for live sound engineers to be out of the sight lines of the audience, and the view of the artists. so there’s a politic of being hidden laborers. there’s a notion of transparency in the sense that, as people dressed in black, these live sound engineers could be seen through. my observation of the pervasiveness of black attire as a uniform for live sound engineers is influenced by miles grier’s (2015) historical and literary work on ink culture, blackness, and character.2 grier asserts blackness as a character in premodern and modern contexts, as well as how ideas and practices associated with black character transpose across different registers of meaning within the print industry and theater. mv: well, i sometimes think live sound engineers need to hide themselves because 80 percent of them are terrible at what they do. terrible. ws: sure. then there’s a dominant ideology, where the technique of engineering rock shows is placed on everything. i see it as imperialism. 33 michael veal and whitney slaten mv: that’s right. so many engineers transpose a rock mode of mixing to totally inappropriate genres. i’ve seen engineers destroy so many great concerts. i have a big problem with live sound engineers. big problem. that’s why, ideally, every band should carry their own engineer. ws: i found in my study that there’s a lot of resistance to artists among engineers. many of them feel subjugated by artists. mv: so there’s automatic resentment built into it. but a lot of that goes back to the 1960s. you look at the battles that had to be fought in the recording studios. musicians were becoming increasingly technologically savvy, but because of the labor structure of the music industry, musicians and studio engineers were in different categories and often at odds with each other. musicians were coming up with ideas, and the technicians felt that their territory was being encroached upon. some of them weren’t flexible about it. that’s what led to the spate of artists building their own studios because the artists didn’t want to have to deal with the guys who were beholden to the labor unions and their regulations. musicians were trying to execute creative ideas and the engineers would resist them, saying, “you can’t do this, you can’t do that. we’re on the clock. you can’t push it over into the red. this is a violation of procedure.” the whole environment of electric and electronic instruments was becoming increasingly sophisticated, and artists were developing a lot of sophisticated knowledge themselves. that is the problem right there. back in the 1950s, someone like elvis or little richard, they were not knob twiddlers. musicians would go into a studio and sing and bang on the piano or play it with their feet, and that’s about as technologically advanced as they were going to get. all the while, engineers were trying to keep everything out of the red. ws: below zero. mv: when it should have been going a little bit into the red. ws: in analog you could. mv: back then it was not an issue. but then in the 1960s, it started to become an issue and i think some of that resentment is still playing out today. an engineer can’t tell a musician, who probably has an entire studio in his or her home, to “sit down, and let me handle this.” it’s not going to happen. ws: right. and they’re also hidden by the dimension of engineering that is a service-oriented practice. and now, in the encounter with the musician, there’s an opportunity to resist this social and labor position by explicitly effecting the concert. the engineer may be thinking: “this is just another 34 current musicology gig. here we go. here comes the artist. i had this time to set up. and now i had my zen space here, the empty stage. i had my gearboxes. and now i’m bracing myself for the artist to show up. because i know that they are difficult. i already know it.” those are the feelings that i observed. mv: that’s another angle. some artists are unpleasant to work with and they buy into this idea of the hierarchy. but musicians need to adjust their attitudes, too, because the fact of the matter is that the engineer is nothing but a musician. you should bring that angle out in your project. that in fact, live sound engineers are—in the same way that studio engineers and producers in the current musical landscape—musicians, not just as technicians or functionaries. because what they do is as important to the realization of musical sound as the musicians. ws: right. live sound engineers’ work is the last gesture that transduces into the sound of the system. mv: that’s right. sometimes it’s more than the last gesture, depending on the skill level of the musician. sometimes it could be 50 percent of the whole presentation. that’s why the musicians themselves should understand the importance of engineers and not just see them as passive technicians, or as impediments, or necessary evils. and i mean that across genres. ws: sure. further, the corollary of working in a service industry—and the legacy of being an invisible worker—differed between my experience as a black sound engineer and the experience of white engineers. mv: how so? ws: at jazzmobile, however, there is a black audience, there are black artists, there is a black engineer, which exemplifies an alternative to my larger narrative about service and labor and blackness. at jazzmobile, unlike the rock and music theater events, people show up early to sit where i’m [the sound engineer] sitting. it’s as if the invisibility is gone. audience members want to get the best seat in the house because they know that i’m mixing for that spot. mv: i’ve never heard of that before, but i find it very interesting—a form of connoisseurship. but of course the average jazz listener has acutely sensitive ears, because they’re so attuned to the aesthetics of sound recordings. and part of it might be attributable to the fact that jazzmobile is an outdoor event. ws: in addition to the audience’s audile techniques as listeners, the audience, performers, promoters and myself as a sound engineer, participate 35 michael veal and whitney slaten in a subject-to-subject encounter that john jackson describes as racial sincerity in his 2005 ethnography of harlem. this interaction also exemplifies elijah anderson’s analysis of the cosmopolitan canopy, an urban constructed space in which individuals and groups interact in ways that promote comity and civility. the last part of my project has to do with temporality. when you say that live sound engineers are artists, i agree with you. in fact, i argue this in the dissertation. when i study live sound engineers, i see them performing many roles—at one moment, they are technologists, at another point they are manual laborers, lifting everything. then at the point when they’re mixing, they’re artists. mixing is the moment of artistry. i use alfred schutz’s ([1951] 1977) phenomenonology of time to describe various moments in live sound engineering labor—including engineers’ becoming artists, and their moves back into subjugated labor. thinking about how temporality determines different parts of a live sound engineer’s labor has repeatedly pointed me to your work, especially when as i’ve been thinking through object-oriented ontology in writing about the nuance in being human. mv: well, it probably wouldn’t have been so surprising if you hadn’t abandoned the human in the first place! (laughs) there’s so much incredible nuance to being human, that if we can find a way of explicating that, we don’t have to go with these nihilistic rhetorics of the post. and when we do finally morph into the post-human reality, it will be as the famous zen poem about death—“like a snowflake melting into pure air . . .” notes 1. dr. billy taylor and daphne arnstein founded jazzmobile in 1964 and it is the first notfor-profit arts organization committed to jazz. taylor founded jazzmobile to present live jazz, free of charge, to the greater harlem community that would not otherwise have access to professional jazz performances. a festival spanning the months of july and august, summerfest features professional live jazz performances throughout new york city neighborhoods. along with support from contributing corporations, community boards, block organizations, churches, and park associations co-host the outdoor concerts in addition to weekly performances at grant’s tomb in harlem. taylor’s vision was to bring jazz to the communities from which the genre developed, “directly to the people where they live.” 2. grier writes, “indeed, the racial palate has become a ‘metaphor we live by’ (lakoff and johnson 2003), capable of linking not only distinct, and sometimes far flung collectives in black ethic groupings, but also, occasionally, but predictably, imputing to persons the qualities associated with animals, objects, and colors” (2015, 195). 36 current musicology references feld, steven. 2015. “acoustemology.” in keywords in sound, edited by david novak and matt sakakeeny, 12–21. durham, nc: duke university press. grier, miles. 2015. “inkface: the slave stigma in england’s early imperial imagination.” in scripturalizing the human: the written as the political, edited by vincent l. wimbush, 193–220. new york: routledge. lakoff, george and mark johnson. 1980. metaphors we live by. chicago: chicago university press. ochoa gautier, ana maria. 2014. aurality: listening and knowledge in nineteenth-century colombia. durham, nc: duke university press. porcello, thomas. 1998. “‘tails out’: social phenomenology and the ethnographic representation of technology in music-making.” ethnomusicology 42 (3): 485–510. schutz, alfred. (1951) 1977. “making music together: a study in social relationship.” in symbolic anthropology: a reader in the study of symbols and meaning, edited by janet l. dolgin, david s. kemnitzer , and david m. schneider, 106–119. new york: columbia university press. veal, michael. 2000. fela: the life and times of an african muical icon. philadelphia: temple university press. . 2007. dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in jamaican reggae. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. current musicology 105 (fall 2019) © 2019 coyle. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 42 a reappraisal of the relationship between benjamin britten and walter greatorex jim coyle the authorized version that the young benjamin britten disliked walter greatorex, his school music teacher, is an apparently permanent part of the britten narrative; speaking, as it does, to the idea that the prodigious teenager’s musical persona and compositional output were beyond the comprehension of a provincial and conservative schoolmaster who, in kildea’s memorable phrase, was “emblematic of english philistinism” (kildea 2013, 45). this paper seeks to rehabilitate greatorex’s reputation, drawing on evidence that presents him as a humane and skillful teacher and as a musician with not only a breadth and depth of talent, but also a lifelong commitment to serve the musical needs of his community: a philosophy that has a certain resonance with britten’s stated views. the thesis is not so much that greatorex had a demonstrably positive influence on britten’s musical development, though there are unprovable suggestions that he might have been to some extent. rather, it is to rebut the received understanding that he was an incompetent reactionary whose lack of understanding of britten’s talent caused him to try and suppress the development of the young composer. a reputation for being reactionary and small-minded that has attached itself to greatorex is based on two sources. one is a description of britten’s first encounter with greatorex at the start of the former’s time at gresham’s school in 1928, which is an established piece of britten lore and first appeared in print in imogen holst’s 1966 biography. the second source, a prima facie more reliable one, are britten’s diaries and letters home from his time at gresham’s school. holst’s biography of britten was part of a series of composer biographies (other titles included beethoven by stanley sadie and haydn by c. robbins landon) aimed at younger readers. it is in this work that first appears a quote attributed to greatorex that has become, alas, the best-known thing about him. holst tells a story that on britten’s first day at gresham’s “a sudden shadow fell over his path and a tall, frowning man says ‘so you’re the little boy who likes stravinsky”’ (holst 1966, 22). this narrative has formed the basis of the received wisdom about what the relationship between britten and greatorex was like. although kildea questions the meaning of this of this encounter and argues a more sympathetic view of greatorex 43 jim coyle than britten’s other biographers (kildea 2013, 46, powell 2013, 29). both kennedy (1993, 2-13) and matthews (2003, 11-17) repeat the idea that greatorex was conservative to the point of philistinism and hampered britten’s development (although matthews presents another side to the story and reports poet w.h auden’s high opinion of greatorex). carpenter is even stronger in his condemnation, stating that this “tough, domineering schoolmaster” was “determined to discourage him [i.e. britten] in every way” (carpenter 1992, 27). the present paper will call into question the accuracy of the report of this encounter and its meaning and significance. britten’s recorded disdain for and anger at greatorex in his diaries and letters home need to be understood in the wider context of his schooling and his adolescent personality. britten’s formal education began as a pupil at an old-fashioned dame school run by the misses astle in his home town of lowestoft, england followed by a successful five years at a preparatory school called south lodge. unusually for this school, britten was not a boarder but returned to his family home every evening. he was happy at south lodge, did well in his studies and excelled at sport. in his final year (1927-8), he was head boy, captain of the first xi cricket team and victor ludorum (kildea 2013, 37-41). according to kildea, this was the happiest time in britten’s life, and his life and work would be influenced by part of him that was “still thirteen” (kildea 2013, 35); hence, according to bridcut, his fascination with young people, particularly boys (bridcut 2006, 5). in september 1928, britten started at gresham’s school in norfolk, some fifty miles from his home town. gresham’s was, and still is, a public school in the english sense of the term, which is to say it is private, fee-paying and (typically in the 1920s) with all its students boarding (i.e. living at the school). when britten mentioned greatorex in his letters home from gresham’s, it was to complain and criticize. for example, a letter home on september 23,1928 describes one of his first piano tutorials (possibly the very first) with greatorex which clearly upset the boy. for whatever reason, the relationship between teacher and pupil appeared to get off to a very poor start. most of the recorded criticisms of greatorex in the young britten’s diaries and letters are about the teacher’s ability as a pianist and organist, and they continued throughout britten’s time at gresham’s. “it looked as if [mr. greatorex] was a bad sight reader;”(mitchell and reid 2008, 118) “gog [greatorex]... sounded as if... had never seen the music before”; (ibid 2008, 117), “his idea of rhythm, logic, tone, or the music is absolutely lacking in sanity” (ibid, 97). by 1930, britten’s view of greatorex had deteriorated even further: “i really cannot be bothered about him any longer. he ought to have retired 50 years ago or better never have tried to teach music ever” (ibid). 44 current musicology walter greatorex the teacher walter greatorex was born to a middle-class family in mansfield, nottinghamshire in 1877. he spent five years as a chorister at king’s college, cambridge before completing his education at derby school and st. john’s college, cambridge. he graduated in 1898 and later became a fellow of the royal college of organists. the rest of greatorex’ professional life was spent as a music master in boarding schools. he taught at uppingham from 1901-06, then at gresham’s school in norfolk from 1911 until his retirement in 1936 (denman 1950, 249). greatorex won the admiration and affection of the boys he taught. on his retirement, the school magazine (the gresham) published kind words and fond reminiscences, and they are revealing about the sort of music program gresham’s had in the 1920s and 1930s (diggle, date unknown). the poet stephen spender wrote the most eloquent tribute to greatorex’s kindness and compassion, describing him as the first adult with whom he formed a friendship (spender 1951, 333-334). w. h. auden, as well as admiring greatorex as an organist, also praised his qualities as a teacher: “what the ideal schoolmaster should be, ready to be a friend and not a beak [archaic slang for a teacher], to give the adolescent all the comfort and stimulus of a personal relationship, without at the same time making any demands for himself in return” (richards 1988, 251). it seems that many of the boys regarded greatorex in this positive light, viewing him as a very approachable and compassionate teacher. it is important to examine the provenance of greatorex’s reported comments to the young britten about stravinsky. the source of the story (recorded 28 years after the fact) can only have been britten himself. holst was living with britten and pears at the red house in 1966 and working as britten’s secretary and copyist (carpenter 1992, 311). her biography of britten serves its subject in an extremely uncritical way. for example, eric crozier had fallen out of favor with britten and pears by this time and, despite crozier being the librettist of the little sweep (1949) and st. nicolas (1948), he is not mentioned in holst’s biography at all. this not only calls into question holst’s objectivity; it serves to illustrate britten’s implacable lack of forgiveness on occasions. the literature reveals the cliquishness of the aldeburgh “set” (which had britten and pears at its center) and of the “corpses” (i.e. socially and professionally discarded people) that britten and pears left in their wake (carpenter 1992, 321). there is something about the “stravinsky” story (as recounted by holst) that has a mythic quality – the young hero-artist determined to make his way despite the discouragement of the powerful and conservative forces which don’t understand his work. given britten’s stated view on 45 jim coyle romaniticism (britten quoted in carpenter 1992, 445), it is a surprisingly romantic image. however, certain elements lack verisimilitude. britten was an athletic youth approaching his fifteenth birthday when he first came to gresham’s, so describing a “shadow falling over him” suggests a much exaggerated disparity of physical size between him and greatorex. furthermore, any teacher who has good relationships with adolescents (as greatorex very evidently did) would never call one of them a “little boy” to his face. even if britten’s remembrance of a 28-year-old conversation is accurate, his apprehension of its meaning may have been entirely mistaken. kildea suggests that greatorex’ remark about stravinsky was “perhaps kindlymeant” and powers offers the suggestion that britten was not yet “accustomed to the quizzical ways of public-school masters” (kildea 2013, 45; powell 2013, 9). in his first days at gresham’s (which were also his first ever days away from home and family), britten felt vulnerable and unhappy in his new environment. one of his first letters home (september 23, 1928) speaks of nightmares involving the deaths of family members – it is clearly written by a homesick and anxious child (mitchell and reid 2008, 97). it is easy to see how a sensitive boy of fourteen in this situation could have interpreted greatorex’s remarks as hostile. it is also easy to see, given the assessment of britten’s character found in much of the literature (for example carpenter 1992, 375-377), that he could never forgive nor forget this imagined slight. even if greatorex was attempting to be avuncular and welcoming, britten would always remain suspicious of him and always be ready to see the worst and express it in his letters home (mitchell and reid 2008, 94-120). with this background understanding, britten’s criticism of greatorex in his diaries and letters home could easily be dismissed as adolescent pique in the context of a boy who hated school life and felt oppressed by the bullying and the vulgarity of his peers and by his perception that the school authorities failed to act to right these injustices (bridcut 2006, 15-18). at this time, britten was a composition pupil of frank bridge whom he esteemed greatly. his variations on a theme of frank bridge (1937) are evidence of the great affection he felt towards his mentor. he had clearly made a choice about whose advice he would take; advice from others was deeply unwelcome. additionally, from november 1929, britten started traveling to london regularly to have piano lessons with harold samuel, a pianist of international repute (schonberg 1963, 409-410) further reinforcing his belief that he was above criticism from a boarding-school music master. britten’s unhappiness and vulnerability during his first year at gresham’s can hardly be over-stated and would have profoundly colored his relationships with those around him and his later recollection of them. 46 current musicology the fourteen-year-old britten was deeply homesick and missed his mother’s affection deeply; when there was the prospect of her visiting him at school, he wrote “you will come, won’t you darling? ... please, please, do!” (14 february, 1929) (mitchell and reid 2008, 107). in his letters he often addresses her in terms such as “my darling pet” and “my angelic mummy” (mitchell and reid 2008, 107). britten could never function properly when he felt insecure. this was true even as an adult when his inner circle at aldeburgh felt it necessary to shield him from criticism, lest his creativity be upset (kennedy 1993, 50-60). in this context, it seems clear that, whatever greatorex’s qualities were as a man, a musician, and teacher, britten was always destined to despise him. greatorex would be forever in britten’s mind associated with gresham’s and the unhappiness he felt in his early days there. britten had nearly the whole of the lent term of 1929 either in the sanatorium, or at home sick, a stark contrast to the hale athlete at south lodge (mitchell and reid 2008, 94-120). even though his last year at gresham’s was more successful and even (in parts) enjoyable to britten, his relationship with greatorex was never strong (kildea 2013, 58-62). institutional education seems not to have suited britten at all. he never settled at the royal college of music, had an ambiguous relationship with vaughan-williams (kildea 2013, 5862) and detested his composition tutor john ireland (although ireland’s alcoholic misbehavior could largely account for this (matthews 2003, 1825)). nevertheless, he frequently complained that his studies at the royal college were a waste of his time (mitchell and reid 2008, 138314). walter greatorex the musician in the 1920s most english boarding schools had a music program that consisted largely of a chapel choir and instrumental lessons as extras (walker 2007, 157-199). gresham’s music curriculum seems to have been varied in comparison. the program greatorex led included organ recitals which were very popular with the boys, original music for the school’s theatrical productions, a gramophone record library from which the boys were free to borrow, and chamber music concerts which included works by beethoven, brahms and “the moderns” (diggle, date unknown). gresham’s had a reputation for valuing the arts particularly highly (kildea 2013, 47) and greatorex maintained his position as head of music successfully for 25 years, which indicates a superior level of professional competence. greatorex’ predecessor, geoffrey shaw (music master at gresham’s 1902-1910), was a distinguished organist and liturgical musician and edited hymnbooks with his brother martin shaw and with ralph vaughanwilliams (benson, 2002). it was shaw who introduced plainsong to the 47 jim coyle chapel at gresham’s, a tradition maintained by greatorex (mitchell and reid 2008, 93). this was britten’s first exposure to a musical style which would later form such an important part of works such as curlew river (1964) and the prodigal son (1968). what gresham’s music curriculum did not contain were lessons in composition. however, composition was not a formal part of the music curriculum in most english schools until the introduction of the gcse in 1988 (salaman 1988, 3-20). there was a widespread perception in early twentieth century britain that composers were all dead, foreign or both (blake 1997, 26-75). not only did greatorex include “the moderns” in his chamber music concerts, he also programmed an original work by britten in 1930 (mitchell and reid 2008, 119-123). this performance of britten’s bagatelle for violin, viola and piano at gresham’s on march 1st, 1930, with the composer on viola and greatorex on piano was a deeply unusual event. lennox berkeley was a student at gresham’s a few years before britten and none of his works were performed there, although he was “not as prolific a composer as the young britten while at school” (morris and rainbow 2014, 270). schoolboy works by other composers of that generation and class were also unperformed, for example those of tippett at fettes (tippett 1991, 1-20, soden 2019, 4751) and lambert at christ’s hospital (lloyd 2014, 27-31). not only did greatorex program britten’s trio, he also learned the piano part himself and ensured that the concert was a major school event and reviewed in the school magazine. characteristically, britten complained about greatorex’s lack of taste and his playing. he did concede, however, that the two of them with violinist miss chapman were “working quite hard on it” four weeks before the recital (mitchell and reid 2008, 122-123). this is by no means the only encouragement greatorex offered to the young britten. it was he, as music master, who was pivotal to britten being awarded a music scholarship to gresham’s. it was he who encouraged all the boys in his charge to sing, to play, and to listen to great music. the fact that britten was of an exceptional talent made it difficult for him to fit into the program, but it did offer him an insight of what a musician might do with performers of disparate abilities. even though the best-known thing about greatorex is that he was the music master at britten’s boarding school, there is evidence that throws a wider light on his capacities as a man and as a musician. nobody has ever claimed that greatorex was a musician of international stature. he was a music teacher, and practiced within his own community as a composer, conductor, organist, choral specialist, pianist and chamber musician. no recordings of him playing or conducting exist, but the consensus among 48 current musicology his former pupils is that he was a fine musician. the poet w. h. auden remembered him as one of “england’s best organists” and auden’s contemporaries had an even higher opinion of greatorex’s musical prowess (matthews 2003, 11; powell 2013, 31). greatorex was also devoted to bach’s organ music; the preludes and fugues, and the chorale preludes, which show not only technical aptitude but something of an adventurous taste as these works were not part of most school and church organists’ repertoire at this time (spender, date unknown). his organ recitals were popular events with the boys (diggle, date unknown). his background as a boy chorister steeped him in the anglican choral tradition. it was also this tradition that attracted his few forays into composition. the hymn tune woodlands (1919) (named after a house at gresham’s) is greatorex’ only published musical work (although he was something of a dickens scholar and published an article in the dickensian (greatorex 1926, 35). this tune is still used as the school hymn at gresham’s, to the words lift up your hearts. its best-known use is as the tune to bishop dudley-smith’s paraphrase of the magnificat tell out my soul (mayhew 2004). woodlands is a very english piece of music; its striding bass is a device beloved by english composers from handel to elgar (fig.1). that and its three crotchet anacrusis in the melody, make woodlands a tune reminiscent of vaughan-william’s sine nomine (1906) (fig. 2). the rise from dominant to tonic after woodlands’ triple anacrusis is emphatic and pleasing in its symmetry. its short phrases and simple rhythm make it an easy melody for congregational singing, despite some large intervals (including a falling seventh near the end). it is not a masterpiece, but it is kapellmeister music by a composer who knew his craft thoroughly. the fact that it is still very popular (britain’s 51st most-loved hymn, according to the bbc’s songs of praise in 2013) (www.bbc.co.uk) is testament to its strength as a hymn tune. it seems likely that the remainder of greatorex’s output as a composer has been lost. nothing exists in the school archives (larby 2016) and in 2013, britten’s centenary year, the music staff “searched high and low” and found just one page of manuscript (waring 2016). waring’s principal object in his search was greatorex’s bendicite, which occasioned britten to compose his poem of hate “at w.g.” (www.brittenproject.net). what waring did discover was the manuscript of the spacious firmament (fig. 3) the following transcription (fig. 4) has added the words of the first verse of the hymn. their placement took into account the scansion of the poem and the way in which this text is set in its two best-known tunes (creation by haydn and london by sheeles) (www.hymnary.org).1 the immediately striking things about this piece are its long, skillfully 49 jim coyle figure 1. woodlands incipit figure 2. sine nomine incipit managed modulating passage to f# major (mm. 4-7), the emphatic use of parallel harmony leading to the climax (m. 10) and, above all, the opening. there are a number of features in the first phrase which, although fairly predictable melodic and harmonic features in this diatonic language are nevertheless unusual in a congregational hymn in the anglican tradition. these features include the unison anacrusis and the first two chords (v6/3 with a 9-8 suspension followed by iⁿ 2/4/6). this restless invention continues on the following chord (with its suspended ninth and no root – assuming the chord is a subdominant). the harmony conforms to the norms of its style, but has elements in it which show more inventiveness than a typical entry in a hymnal. the modulation to f# major is particularly interesting. greatorex also uses the mediant major to great effect in woodlands, which suggests a certain fondness for this effective harmonic device. an abrupt change to a slightly remote major key is a trope found in composers as far back 50 current musicology figure 3. the spacious firmament as beethoven (for example the change from ab to c major in the second movement of the fifth symphony) and britten was very fond of using a similar device in moments of sudden light. britten’s harmonic language was far more advanced than greatorex’s, nevertheless, the brightness of a of a sudden major mediant chord is something of a britten fingerprint. 51 jim coyle figure 4. the spacious firmament (transcribed) the most famous instances in britten’s output are in the dawn interlude in peter grimes (britten 1945, 28-29) and the resolution to f major that occours three times in the war requium, including at the very end (britten 1962, 238). 52 current musicology to claim that this rhetoric is purely an influence of greatorex the composer would be overstating the case to a huge degree. nevertheless, greatorex’s two surviving compositions contain prominent examples of what was to become one of britten’s favorite harmonic devices. this may have, possibly unconsciously, made a positive impact on his developing musical imagination. the spacious firmament shows two other ways in which a possible influence on britten’s later career may be discerned. the first is that this may well have been britten’s introduction to this text (by addison) which he used so memorably in the finale of noye’s fludde (1958) (using the music of thomas tallis). although the date of greatorex’s composition is uncertain, these hymn words were not widely known in the 1920s and 1930s (www. hymnary.org) and that greatorex’s setting was britten’s first encounter with them is plausible. walter greatorex the role model the final way in which this relationship is misunderstood is because it could be seen to be formative on britten’s development as a composer for children and as a composer who served his society. at south lodge, there was no music at all apart from some singing on the last day of term (britten, 1968). britten had private instrumental tuition at this time and began composition lessons with frank bridge in 1927 (carpenter 1992, 16). however, in greatorex, britten first encountered a musician (composer, conductor, instrumentalist) who was dedicated to serving a community in precisely the way that britten later sought to do (britten 1965, 16-25), although greatorex’s work was on a much smaller scale. the manuscript of the spacious firmament has the subscription “howson’s house copy.” this suggests that a copy was made for each of the houses and all the boys had the opportunity to learn this hymn. this is full participation by a community in new music. to be sure, it is not on a level of sophistication encountered in britten’s works, but this is a difference of degree not of fundamental nature. here is a clear example of greatorex modeling the sort of musician britten would become. greatorex spent his life ensuring that music was an important and valued part of a community, that as many people were included and involved as possible, and that he was useful to that community by providing the music it needed (denman 1950, 249). it was greatorex’s inclusiveness in music-making and his clear vision of himself as a musical servant to his entire community that showed britten a model for what a nationally-famous composer-conductor might mean to his country. “until the 19th century, the composer was the servant of society... [then] 53 jim coyle composers began to blow up their egos... now the artist is the glorified mouthpiece of god... i believe in the reverse of that. i believe in the artist serving society. it is better to be a bad composer writing for society than to be a bad composer writing against it. at least your work can be of some use” (britten quoted in carpenter 1992, 445). these views are central to britten’s philosophy of music and his ideas on what a musician was for. he was the first great composer to create a substantial body of original work for children and young people to perform (kennedy 1993, 201-205). moreover, this body of work is poly-technical in the sense that the pieces have parts for professional musicians and musically untrained children at the same time. these three central points of britten’s artistic make-up − his empathy with children and young people, his inclusive poly-technicality, and his need to be useful to his society − are all ideas whose seed could well have been planted at gresham’s. it was here that, for three years, he saw in greatorex a musician whose core purpose was to be useful to his society (albeit a small and rarified society), to engage with youth and to encourage participation through poly-technicality. even though there was a “mutual suspicion” between them, the older musician’s practice was a prototype for britten’s, but on a much smaller scale (mitchell and reid 2008, 1285). greatorex’s community was a school and his musical practice rarely extended beyond that. there were occasions in britten’s adult life where the musical community he was serving was also a school (friday afternoons (1936) and st. nicolas (1948), for example). for britten, there were concentric layers of community, all of which he sought to serve as an artist. beyond recognizable groups for whom he wrote works like church communities (rejoice in the lamb (1943)) and civic communities (welcome ode (1976)), there was the wider circle of his beloved aldeburgh festival and the english opera group. wider again, there was the national community that britten served as de facto national composer with major pieces such as gloriana (1953) and war requiem (1963). the nearest thing to a manifesto britten ever produced was an address he delivered on receiving the aspen award in 1964. in it, he sets out a vision of a composer as a servant of society whose music must “offer to my fellow-men music which may inspire them or comfort them, which may touch or entertain them” (britten 1965, 12). he stresses the need for the practical in music-making: “music... does not exist until it is performed”, and he dismissed snobbery and academic criticism. he goes on to say, “i want my music to be of use to people, to please them, to enhance their lives. i do not write for posterity” (1965, 13). in the light of britten’s polytechnical works, such as st. nicolas (1948) and noye’s fludde (1958), the 54 current musicology sincerity of these words is quite clear. these remarks could also serve as a mission statement for greatorex’s job at gresham’s. although britten’s public was, in its largest manifestation, a nation and greatorex’s was a school, they shared a philosophy of what music is for and what a musician is for. it may be in modeling this practical and inclusive approach to music that greatorex had his greatest influence on britten. despite britten’s affection for bridge and samuel, and despite the very great deal they taught him, it was greatorex, and no one else, who showed him how to be a musician that serves the needs of his society, and, in this light, his influence on britten’s philosophy and practice of music needs to be re-evaluated. notes 1 http://www.hymnary.org/text/the_spacious_firmament_on_high (accessed 4th october 2017) also tracks the hymn’s popularity over the years by charting the percentage of hymnals in which it was published. woodlands, for example, was published in 100% of the hymnals surveyed in the early 1980s). references blake, andrew. 1997. the land without music: music, culture and society in twentiethcentury britain. manchester: manchester university press. bridcut, john. 2006. britten’s children. london: faber & faber. britten, benjamin. 1991. letters from a life: the selected letters and diaries of benjamin britten. donald mitchell & phillip reed, eds. vol. 1, 1923–1939. london, faber & faber ________.1968. interview with cbc radio. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=41ubcbzsz2u (accessed june 19 2018). ________.1965. on receiving the first aspen award: a speech. london: faber and faber. ________.1962. war requiem. london: boosey and hawkes. ________.1945. peter grimes. london: boosey and hawkes. carpenter, humphrey. 1992. benjamin britten: a biography. new york: c. scribner’s sons. denman, james. 1950. “walter greatorex.” the gresham. 249. diggle, geoffrey. (date unknown). “unpublished reminiscences.” gresham’s school archives. greatorex, walter.1926. “prototypes in pickwick.” dickensian. 22, no. 1: 35. holst, imogen.1966. britten. london: faber and faber. “a poem of hate.” britten thematic catalogue. http://brittenproject.org/works/btc663/ incipits (accessed 19th june 2017) “songs of praise.” bbc one. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3dnjqz7zsf1jrb 3rz8yq86w/the-uks-top-100hymns (accessed 19th june 2018) “the spacious firmanant on high.” hymnary.org. http://www.hymnary.org/text/the_ spacious_firmament_on_high (accessed 19th june 2017) kennedy, michael. 1993. britten. london: jm dent. kildea, paul. 2013. benjamin britten: a life in the twentieth century. london: penguin. larby, liz. 2016. archivist at gresham’s school, personal correspondence. matthews, david. 2013. britten. london: haus publishing. 55 jim coyle mayhew, kevin (ed.). 2004. complete anglican hymns old and new. stowmarket: kevin mayhew. morris, andrew and rainbow, bernarr. 2014. music in independent schools. woodbridge: boydell press. richards, jeffrey. 1988. happiest days: the public schools in english fiction. manchester: manchester university press. salaman, william. 1988. “objectives and the teaching of composition.” british journal of music education. 5, no. 01: 3-20. schonberg, harold c. 1963. great pianists. new york: simon and schuster. spender, michael. (date unknown). “unpublished reminiscences.” gresham’s school archives. spender, stephen. 1951. world within world. berkley: university of california press. tippett, michael. 1991. those twentieth century blues: an autobiography. london: vintage. walker, robert. 2007. music education: cultural values, social change and innovation. london: charles c thomas. waring, nathan. 2016. former head of music gresham’s school, personal correspondence. wetherell, eric. “cooke, arnold.” grove music online. accessed september 7, 2016. http: www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/06392. current musicology 98 (fall 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 151 davies, j.q. 2014. romantic anatomies of performance. berkeley: university of california press. reviewed by j. mackenzie pierce what might a broken clavicle, a urinating frédéric chopin, the execution of parricides, and sigismund thalberg’s “third hand” all have in common? according to james davies, these practices, accidents, and medical woes share nothing less than a concern for defining musical bodies. romantic anatomies of performance offers a richly detailed history of hands, voices, and the music they made circa 1830. travelling between london and paris with the same alacrity as early nineteenth–century musicians, davies marshals an impressive array of primary sources, including testimony by performers, composers, listeners, critics, and scientific researchers. by thickly describing the conflicts among participants in musical culture, davies argues that music was itself as a site on which theories and practices of embodiment took shape. davies’s scholarship contributes to several musicological sub–fields, most notably to the study of music and embodiment. carolyn abbate (2004) and elisabeth le guin (2006) have trenchantly re–asserted the centrality of the body for musical experience. moreover, they have shown how attention to performance’s materialities may generate musical knowledge of a type traditionally outside the purview of musicology. davies is taking the next step in the study of music and body, as he brings a concern for embodiment to bear on nineteenth–century music in a new level of detail. such a study is especially germane, as the musical practices cemented in the commercial centers of nineteenth–century europe were arguably central to the formation of ideologies of modern art music more generally. moreover, davies advances a subtle understanding of embodiment. ever keen to stress the historical nature of embodied experience, davies’s key claim is that music was a central way of educating and forming nineteenth–century bodies. rather than noting the ways in which music is always already a product of bodily regimes, davies assigns music an active role in making the very bodies through which it was played and heard. music was, in other words, “an instrument for the induction, even acquisition of hands and voices” (2). this formulation should have a broad, interdisciplinary appeal, as davies convingly argues that musical performance is important to the history of medicine and science. romantic anatomies of performance will also make for intriguing reading by practicing musi152 current musicology cians and educators, who will find concepts important to contemporary musical training, such as voice, expressivity, or technique cast in new, and often startling, light. the book consists of two sets of three chapters with each group providing three case studies of hands or the voice. a major strength of the book is davies’s ability to connect medical history, performers, pedagogy, and even scores into conceptual networks that illuminate, without over determining, nineteenth–century performance. chapter 2, for example, begins with a passage from a medical dissertation penned by one of frédéric chopin’s close friends. according to jan matuszyński, chopin often had trouble urinating, but the sound of a few chords played on the piano would ease his troubles. as davies shows, matuszyński’s account of the automatic action of music on the body was indebted to beliefs about the nature of human sensation. beginning in the 1830s, the widespread belief that the external world could be accessed through a thin layer of moisture on the hands gave way to a view that saw sensation as produced from within the body itself. given this change, how might have nineteenth–century pianists approached the keyboard and how did the differentiation of touch, and the prioritization of the individuality of the fingers over uniform dexterity, reflect this view of the body? in partial answer, davies provides an original and intriguing interpretation of chopin’s op. 25 no.3 étude. “what kind of body—what kind of moi—might this score commend?” he asks (59). and he finds in chopin’s composition an “instrument for the induction of cultivated feelings” amongst the parisian elite, who would have enjoyed the quasi–automatic, rebounding motions it cultivated in each of their fingers (64). davies’s scholarship cuts across divisions between performers and listeners, professionals and amateurs, by juxtaposing performance and pedagogy. chapter 4 considers sigismund thalberg’s famous “third hand” technique as a site of disagreement among critics and listeners. the “third hand” was nothing more than a tenor voice played by the thumb, which emerged out of arpeggiated textures. audience fascination with the “third hand,” davies points out, would have been impossible without a culture of visual listening, one that marked the difference between seen bodies and heard sounds. davies connects thalberg’s performances with the proliferation of exercise books that sought to correlate theoretical knowledge with the activities of the hand and served to “instrumentalize the hands, to form them as an uncomplicated effusion of the soul” (105). mechanical hand devices, such as the thalberg–apparat, in contrast, pointed to a view of the hand as essentially inexpressive, as a barrier in need of physical reconstitution. a key methodological step of this chapter is to treat hands as a sign. 153 j. mackenzie pierce for robert schumann, thalberg’s hands stood for his repetitiousness and superficiality. for fraçois–joseph fétis, in contrast, thalberg represented the expression of the singular, politically emancipated bourgeois political subject. in this way, davies shows how debates among critics were beholden to both theories of the body, and, perhaps more importantly, to the practices through which their readers would have trained their own hands. the final chapter begins with gérard de nerval’s 1832 “la main de gloire,” in which the protagonist promises a gypsy use of his hand after his death in exchange for the same hand’s power to win a duel. davies skillfully connects the concern with disembodied hands to liszt’s conception of the pianistic hand as separated from the body and soul. in other words, pianism participated in a greater cultural change, a shift in the “somatic regulation of handedness” (161). in this later paradigm, the hands’ sheer materiality could oppose the self, and hence the hands were a force that must be tamed in the service of musical poetics. in arguing that liszt’s version of transcendental musical performance was premised on the disciplining of the body and suppression of manual labor, davies arrives at an important theme of the study. by arguing that the ideology of nineteenth–century music was inextricable from labor and bodies, davies joins both emily dolan (2013) and john tresch (2012) in attempting to uncover the material foundations of romantic aesthetics. the odd–numbered chapters treat the voice, and here, davies more explicitly positions his argument in relation to an, in his view, a–historical and essentialized view put forward most famously by roland barthes. “are bodies just there, awaiting expressive release?” davies asks. indeed, his account stresses how foreign the present–day concept of a singular, individual voice would have been to nineteenth–century musicians. his narrative of vocal difference begins with an assessment of how the castrato became anathema and even a source of nightmares. in chapter 1, davies first considers how mechanistic theories of the voice (is the voice most like a wind, string, or a reed?) were replaced by a concern for hearing age and sex in the “the stamp” of a voice. if voice was a function of sex or race, there could simply be no place for the castrato. additionally, he considers how in concerts a type of powerful and individual voice gained prominence; song in this sense was the “presentation of inscrutable personality” (18). the castrato could not adapt to these new theories of voice since he had earlier been valued for his mirror–like qualities, for his ability to express others’ feelings through the absence of such expressive qualities in himself. davies contrasts these more theoretical narratives with the reception of giovanni battista velluti’s london concerts. for london audiences, creative production would be unimaginable for someone incapable of 154 current musicology sexual reproduction, and velluti’s performances played into worries about effeminacy and dandyism as well. the london audience “extrapolate[d] backward, from sonority heard to the situation of the expressive body that generated it” (31). for modern listeners, the castrato is also encountered through his absence. but davies draws on a score published with annotations that reflect velluti’s vocal style. his reading provides intriguing evidence about how vellutti’s individuality was expressed through selections from a “vocal armory” of grupetti, trilli, and mordenti among ornamental figures. yet is was precisely this combinatorial and seemingly un–individual vocal style that london audiences found incompatible with their theories of the body. chapter 3 considers the first use of the term “diva” to refer to an operatic star. or rather, to two operatic stars, as it was the duet of maria malibran and henriette sontag that first earned the epithet. criticism of their duo stressed the co–constitutive nature of the performance. often critics appealed rather directly to sexual imagery, leading to florid descriptions of the comingled bodies and even pornographic literature on sontag. in this way, the malibran–sontag duo and its reception contributed to the interpretation of voices as markers of sexual difference. davies follows the “undoing” of the operatic diva and her dispersal through myths, commodification, and ultimately identification of the operatic voice with the body itself. malibran was commonly believed to have been killed by her own voice, and the concerts preceding her death were especially popular because they allowed the audience to witness this demise. the concluding chapter on voice (chapter 5) offers an examination of the search for voice, that is, the search for a single voice, located deep inside of the body. earlier, a singer would cultivate a plurality of voices, treating these much like instruments. a failure to achieve multi–voicedness was considered a weakness and evidence of a lack in training. medical and pedagogical attempts to locate the voice pushed it deeper into the body, allowing a change from an “instrumental to relational experience of voice” (139). to conclude, davies brings the discussion of individual voice to reflect on national voice, drawing on the collaboration between adolphe nourrit and joseph mainzer, in which untrained french voices were to be made capable of singing. this new french voice would be the bulwark of french identity. ultimately, for davies, such attempts only go to show the inherently politicized nature of voice, but it is a politics independent of any inherent or natural relation between bodies and vocal production. romantic anatomies of performance is characterized by a creative and productive messiness. while each of davies’s chapters advances compelling theses, each also engages with the historical record in its full complexity, 155 j. mackenzie pierce rarely attempting to force source materials into tidy narratives. his writing imparts a wonderful sense of the contradictions and disagreements that must have characterized music circa 1830. any attempt at thick description, however, must come to terms with a basic tension, for while the author wishes to represent the complexities of the materials themselves, she is also under pressure to convince the readers that these (often unconventional) sources are worthy of attention in the first place. one of the ways davies resolves this tension is by positioning his work as an excavation of present–day beliefs about the hands and the voice. in the concluding section, he summarizes that his “claim is that the commonplace matters of musical understanding that we so triumphantly inherit are in fact crossed by contradiction. many of the most orthodox assumptions about expressive performance . . . have disconcerting beginnings” (181). in the case of pianism, he draws an even more explicit parallel between the 1830s and present–day practice: “the story of liszt’s long–suffering hand would be only mildly amusing, of course, were it not that twenty–first–century keyboard pedagogy and practice tout court is still so in thrall to the fiction, originally promulgated in relation to liszt, that pianists must work beyond their hands” (176). he goes on to suggest that conservatories, music teachers, and musicologists may be responsible for the long life of this practice. intriguingly, davies shows how a period of embodied contradictions gave way to the dominance of a single approach to the pianistic body, one that has lasted for nearly 200 years. this is one of the few cases in which davies mentions continuities instead of changes or disruptions. to be sure, a detailed explanation of why we are still in the thralls of liszt’s pianism would be a book unto itself (see hamilton 2008 for one potential account), but its emergence as a concluding theme suggests a more fundamental methodological concern: while the framing of the book suggests that the discontinuities and complexities of embodiment could adhere in any time period, the text’s methodology—with its attention to the rich world of printed materials generated in paris and london—is perhaps more nearly specific to the “capitals of the nineteenth century,” in which theories of productivity, citizenship, and labor fomented. references abbate, carolyn. 2004. “music—drastic or gnostic?” critical inquiry 30 (3): 505–36. dolan, emily i. 2013. the orchestral revolution: haydn and the technologies of timbre. cambridge: cambridge university press. hamilton, kenneth. 2008. after the golden age: romantic pianism and modern performance. oxford: oxford university press. le guin, elisabeth. 2006. boccherini’s body: an essay in carnal musicology. berkeley: university of california press. tresch, john. 2012. the romantic machine: utopian science and technology after napoleon. chicago: university of chicago press. microsoft word ps hankins typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 hankins. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 153 sarah hankins [content warning: mental illness and references to ableism] i would like to call attention to what can be politely termed “a gap in the discourse” surrounding mental illness in the dominion of professional academia. psychic struggle marks the common ground of much of our labor in the shadow of the ivory tower—a muddy paddock that has been thoroughly criss-crossed by the tracks of countless young idealists, dutiful strivers, weary cynics, and disenfranchised subjects. follow any of one of these tracks from the point where it begins to wherever it stops, or in whichever direction it leads across this welltilled field, and see who you find along the way. likely, you’ll encounter more black and indigenous people of color, immigrants and international students than white americans; more queer, trans, and nonbinary folks than cisgendered heterosexuals; more people with disabilities than those without; more women than men. grad students, adjuncts and contingent faculty know this ground well, as do many of the workers who staff university departments, administrative offices, and facilities. the shifting and variegated topographies of psychic suffering are certainly not bound to the rigid logics of white supremacy, heteropatriarchy and capitalism, but their overlapping contours are clear on the map. mental illness is a profound dimension of lived experience for real people and real communities; it can wear our bodies down to the bone and grind away our collective energies for hope and conviction, planning and action. despite the awkwardness of the term—and the glaring fact that it has been mobilized far too often in the name of policing difference—“mental illness” nudges us toward a dense and roiling center of gravity around which circulate our many discourses and practices of intersectional critique, always reflecting and refracting this core urgency, but rarely addressing it outright. i want us to be open to the possibilities of reclaiming “mental illness,” not only as a term that cuts through respectability politics and gives plain voice to the dark landscapes, the terrible abysses of loneliness that so many of us have had to fight our way through in the name of academia—but also because i believe that mental illness marks a fertile terrain of 154 collectivity, a space for “otherwise possibilities” of thought, art and activism (crawley 2017) that has yet to be fully explored. if you want evidence that mental illness has the potential to organize radical communities and disrupt the implacable forward-march of the academicindustrial complex, look no further than its rhetorical alter ego, “mental health” — the proud star of discourse within the itself. tell the university (personified, maybe, as the affable lout who is your chancellor, or even the well-meaning chair of your tenure committee) that you’re nervous about the possible ramifications of discussing mental illness in a respected academic publication, for an audience of your peers and senior colleagues. far from pooh-poohing a junior faculty member who is in distress, the university will respond with all eagerness, and with reams of documents ready to hand. it will say: we’re so glad you came forward, and we understand your concerns! we here at university are committed to supporting the mental health and well-being of our whole campus community. we are a family. a family whose guiding principles are excellence, innovation, and collaboration. to that end, we’re collaborating with local and state agencies and some fantastic private-sector partners to program a calendar of self-care and wellness events for students, faculty, and staff. this exciting new program builds upon our longstanding campus flourish initiative, which, if you’ll look here, has already exceeded our targets by a robust margin. what’s more, we take this opportunity to remind you of the full menu of support services available through the office of counseling and psychological services, the faculty and staff assistance program, and the optum behavioral health network. to be clear, the object of this essay is not a takedown of mental health infrastructures on college campuses (such as they are), nor of the difficult work that clinicians and counselors try to accomplish with us and for us. what i’m suggesting is that the discourse of mental health in the university—limned by positivist, individualizing rhetorics of “wellness,” “self-care,” “symptom management,” and “adjustment”—gives little actual address to mental illness, which is an experience of psychic and bodily suffering that is always-already structured beyond the individual. on the other hand, i think this whole rhetorical accumulation very neatly effects a kind of neoliberal covering of tracks. the campus-wide initiative; the mental health awareness campaign; the administrative communique – these sturdy proofs of the university’s humanism obscure the grinding, unrelenting precarity of its own systems of labor. they also obscure the dynamics of marginalization and contingency that operate along lines of race, gender, and class; which are everywhere intersected by the implacable logics of productivity and professionalization. i have wondered whether the true telos of mental health in the discourse 155 of the university is not in fact the “healing” or redress of illness at all, but rather its instrumentalization. in my ten years of professional academia—as a grad student, then a wandering adjunct; now as junior faculty on the tenure track— i’ve learned to experience psychic suffering and the sicknesses of my body primarily as evidence that i’m not working hard enough; i’m not putting the hours in, or i’m putting them into the wrong task. my “self-care” looks like switching over to syllabus preparation or grading when i’m tired of editing my article draft. i’ve come to believe, quite sincerely, that my soul’s peace is waiting for me at the end of my book manuscript. this is biopower under the sign of neoliberalism: the administered equivalence of personhood with the production of value. in the closing of this sign, the body and the affects are expelled; they become its residue; its nonsalable material (kristeva 1982; robinson 1983). and i think this remainder— whatever of the self cannot be instrumentalized in service of production—is what we’re really trying to get at, even if we can’t recognize it, when we talk about “mental illness.” we try. except it’s too late now for resignification: this dark material is insensible to discourse. it is mute, seething and abject. it can only huddle into itself, turn on itself—on ourselves—a collapsing, shriveling, festering, fading, which we might as well call anxiety, depression, loneliness, stress, chronic fatigue, migraine, insomnia, addiction, suicidal ideation. yet if we survive this return of the real, if we can bear to gather up these cast-off and “surplus” parts of ourselves—even though they are as heavy as lead, and we are so tired—we might discover that there is a place for us in the university after all, somewhere we can go and present ourselves, and give over our hands full of junk, and put our feet under the table. we thought that we were alone, but others are here already. in fact, they’ve been gathering for quite some time, wherever and whenever can. in an empty classroom, a grad student lounge, a coffee shop, a break-out session. they are studying instead of working, fashioning things out of junk, frittering away perfectly good knowledge, misappropriating university resources — worst of all, they are wasting their own potential. this one is a tenured queer theorist, writing poetry instead of journal articles. that one is an adjunct lecturer in biochemistry, using her library privileges to check out stacks of young adult novels and books on decolonial pedagogy. here is a phd candidate in musicology who convinced her department to fund an affinity group for students of color. here’s a ta who organized a walkout; another ta who had to walk out of class so that his students wouldn’t see him cry. this band of brigands does not claim a departmental affiliation, a job title, 156 a center for brigandry studies; but many who gather have been grateful to accept the name of undercommons, which is a gift that has come down to us through the labors of black studies, queer of color critique, black radicalism and afropessimism. importantly, neither that name nor that tradition give any special call to “mental illness.” certainly, they do not credit any theoretical status to the lexicon of depression, anxiety, dysphoria, etcetera. moreover, the undercommons does not, cannot offer redress, relief, restoration to a state of wholeness, or any “fixing” of the self that might be recognized by the university, or by psychology or medicine. the ontology of the undercommons is dispossession; its knowledge is that of the shipped, and the broken being; its praxis is breaking, undoing and unmaking — not building up, but tearing down (harney and moten 2013). so, if i should turn to the undercommons in pain, with my need as my petition, am i therefore—to paraphrase fred moten— coming under false pretenses, bringing bad documents? it could be so. and yet, in the undercommons’ refusal to answer the “call to order,” its “dumb insolence” in the face of university’s demand, we might hear a response to a different mode of address: the inchoate desperation of the denizens of the “academy of misery” (harney and moten 2013). we make a great hue and cry, but at the core of our thousand legitimate grievances is a single, abyssal utterance: i am unfit. and the undercommons gives nothing so paltry as an answer, but simply replies: we agree. the we is important here. whenever, wherever the undercommons takes place or shape—in a piece of writing, an instance of discourse, in the tone of a conversation, at a gathering of persons—there’s always some presence of we, of us. an energy of plurality, let’s say; a multiplicity that flows, eroding the petrified singularity. of course, we’d best not come looking for warm fuzzies. the undercommons are not concerned to legitimate my grievances, accept my apologies, or affirm the goddess within. as moten puts it: “this coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve already recognized that it’s fucked up for us. i don’t need your help. i just need you to recognize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly, you stupid motherfucker, you know?” (2013, 10). but that’s the thing: a stupid motherfucker is a different animal than a head-case. if she can get unbound from the toxic isolation of her self, give up on that sexy pretty promise—that robust selfhood, that “mental health” which is only the detritus of the subjugating positivism of the university—a stupid motherfucker might find her private depressions, her secret fears and anxieties, her panic transformed into collective practices of disidentification and fugitivity, 157 disruptive collaboration, mutuality, and debt (muñoz 1999; hartman 2002; spillers et. al., 2007; halberstam 2011; harney and moten 2013). approaching mental illness by way of the undercommons—or maybe i’m offering mental illness to the undercommons?—does not mean eliding the particularities of psychic suffering that the academy of misery constructs for every subject, every self, and which it mobilizes as labor in the service of its production. nor does this approach deny how these struggles are viciously reproduced and endlessly recontoured by blackness, brownness, queerness, disability, femininity, economy, geography, language, religion. quite the opposite. that which is reified and pathologized as “mental illness” in the discourse of the university is exposed, by the light of the undercommons, as the marks of structural violence on our bodies and psyches. and if, as moten and harney propose, the ethical project of the undercommons is to remain “unfit for subjection,” unreliable and obstructionist and unproductive in the face of the unremitting demands of the university, then surely we who are ill—stressed and depressed, fatigued, disappointed, and denied—can find a welcome here. references crawley, ashon t. 2017. blackpentecostal breath: the aesthetics of possibility. new york: fordham university press. halberstam, jack. 2011. the queer art of failure. durham, nc: duke university press. hartman, saidiya. 2002. “the time of slavery”. the south atlantic quarterly 101 (4): 757776. harney, stefano and fred moten. 2013. the undercommons: fugitive planning and black study. new york: minor compositions. kristeva, julia. 1982. powers of horror: an essay on abjection. translated by leon s. roudiez. columbia university press. moten, fred. 2017. black and blur: consent not to be a single being. durham, nc: duke university press. muñoz, josé esteban. 1999. disidentifications: queers of color and the performance of politics. university of minnesota press. robinson, cedric. 1983. black marxism: the making of the black radical tradition. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. spillers, hortense j, et al. 2007. “‘whatcha gonna do?": revisiting ‘mama's baby, papa's maybe: an american grammar book’: a conversation with hortense spillers, saidiya hartman, farah jasmine griffin, shelly eversley, & jennifer l. morgan.” women's studies quarterly 35 (1/2): 299-309. current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 chevan. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 crawley, ashon. 2020. the lonely letters. durham: duke university press. reviewed by jesse chevan what does it mean to take “entanglement” as a first principle when writing about black life and black joy? what happens when “entanglement” is conceived as more than just a metaphor for a certain mode of existing and relating, just a means to bridge disciplinary traditions, or just a keyword for an ethics of care? in the lonely letters, religion and black studies scholar ashon crawley seeks to answer these questions. in this genre-resistant text, crawley takes up entanglement persistently and is himself taken up by it – “carried,” to borrow a word that figures prominently in his writing. the lonely letters is an epistolary work in which crawley weaves together meditations on romance and blackpentecostal worship, quantum physics, aesthetic practice, theories of marronage and vocality, minimalist composition, and digressions on innumerable other topics. crawley’s writing has long sought to think together blackqueer studies and blackpentecostal/gospel studies, and it is through the lonely letters’ performance of entangled thought, enabled by crawley’s eclectic archive and writing practice, that this conjunction feels not only unforced but revelatory of something vital and essential. indeed, crawley discovers in the expressive practices of blackpentecostalism the means to imagine a world built on black joy and care. even better, he explores the transposition of the aesthetic principles derived from traditionally blackpentecostal spaces into other domains and models a practice based on these principles in his own writing. though crawley engages with examples from a diversity of expressive modalities, including dance, literature, visual art, and film, music scholars will be especially keen to find robust insights in sound studies as well as a model for writing about musical practices in the key of radical antiracism. the structure of the lonely letters is both idiosyncratic and performative. the book is divided into five main chapters, plus an introduction; each chapter is then divided into as many as fourteen letters. in lieu of individual titles, each letter is labelled with the first initial of the chapter plus the number indicating sequential position (for example, the third letter in the chapter “noise3” is labelled “n-3”). all of the letters except the introduction1 are addressed to an interlocutor named “moth,” variously figured as (ex-)lover, confidant, colleague, antagonist, who crawley describes as a composite of real people he has known. the letters are signed 10 current musicology “a.,” which represents a dramatized or idealized version of crawley. all of the letters in the book follow this format, meaning that we never get to read moth’s response or original provocations, although a. often seems to be directly responding to points moth has made. the absence of moth’s letters compels the reader to fill in the gaps, using clues in a.’s writing to try to reproduce the full conversation. the reader is thereby directly implicated – indeed, entangled – in the meaning-making process of the book. crawley also cross-references and repeats himself constantly, variously returning to ideas, authors, and terminology, announcing early in the introduction, “i am fundamentally a blackpentecostal, i believe in repetition as a means for discovering something that is below and beneath and behind what appear to be flat surfaces”(5). yet, these thematic returns never become tiresome; instead they act as intensifying epistrophes, refrains within which meaning condenses. a major consequence of all these formal devices is that one cannot easily choose to read a few letters at random; the lonely letters is meant to be read in its entirety. the web of entanglements extends beyond the lonely letters: as crawley explains in the book’s opening chapter, “and3,” the lonely letters intricately relates to blackpentecostal breath, crawley’s 2016 monograph investigating blackpentecostal practices through the disciplinary lens of performance studies. the lonely letters and blackpentecostal breath share chapter titles (“breath,” “shouting,” “noise,” “tongues,” and “nothing”)2 and a peculiar theoretical lexicon, including provocative keywords like “centrifugivity,” “choreosonics,” and “atheology” that help to elucidate the inventiveness of blackpentecostal practices.3 above all, both books highlight the categorical irreducibility and moving excess of blackpentecostalism in order to demonstrate the antiracist verve of its expressive forms. yet, while these books are putatively “about” the same things and clearly draw from the same theoretical well, they achieve their textual effects through distinct means. thus, the lonely letters is by no means simply a “sequel” to blackpentecostal breath; instead, it enacts a form of literary companionship, a nonlinear yet generative relationship that emerges from reading both texts. 4 crawley engages with a motley array of sources, which allows him to craft an intricate network of sympathies between vastly disparate expressions of blackpentecostalism. “blackpentecostalism” is crawley’s term for expressive practices, forms of sociality and relation, and affective states emanating from, but not reducible to, african american pentecostal worship. scholars of african american worship will be unsurprised to find shouting, speaking in tongues, hammond b3 organ accompaniment, and the aesthetics of gospel singing among the practices considered. crucially, 11 jesse chevan however, crawley’s use of blackpentecostalism exceeds any conventional or denominational definition of african american pentecostalism: discussing affinities between minimalist composer steve reich’s music for 18 musicians and a youtube video of worship singing at a black baptist church, crawley addresses the capaciousness of his blackpentecostal designation: i’m not trying to make everything blackpentecostal either. i guess i’m just noticing the relations between, the relays, the resonance that blackpentecostal force has with all kinds of ideas and ways of life and performances. and by resonance, i mean the way blackpentecostalism is evoked or suggested in decidedly non-blackpentecostal spaces and places and practices. (44) thus, beyond examples from familiar black worship spaces, crawley discovers blackpentecostal expressions in a variety of media, from the films moonlight (2016) and la petite vendeuse de soleil (1999) to an instagram video of the #bodegastrike, in which many muslim shopkeepers in new york city engage in public worship. additionally, quasi-autobiographical accounts from crawley/a.’s romantic life and aesthetic practices, written from a position of searching loneliness, offer a laboratory for experiments in blackpentecostal technique. in large part, crawley’s investigations and experiments are brought together via the through-line of “black joy” (148). according to crawley, to write about and live “joy” signals a willingness and openness to becoming entangled, to being affected. this openness, he argues, is characteristic of blackpentecostal expression. this notion of “joy” is a critique of the liberal subject, the overrepresented subjective formation which black feminist theorist sylvia wynter has famously called “man.”5 man, the calculating subject, desires to possess happiness, whereas crawley describes being “caught up” in joy, thereby decentering his own agency and distributing responsibility throughout a network of social entanglements.6 joy, throughout the lonely letters, is metonymic for a general “refusal of renunciation,” or an orientation towards social entanglement as the basis for individual being. crawley makes clear the relationship between writing black joy and the project of antiracism: to embrace the vulnerability required to lose oneself in the frenzy of blackpentecostal worship, or the tentativeness of blackqueer life, is to attune oneself to the ways in which oppressed groups have had to base their existence on mutual care and interdependence. to experience, write about, and generate joy is to agitate against the “narratives that are told about the possibility of being human” that underpin “sexism, patriarchy, misogynoir, queer antagonism, empire, colonization, and 12 current musicology antiblack racism” (89, 4). these narratives about the individual subject’s putative independence and autonomy are really narratives about whiteness and power; in the lonely letters, crawley seeks to impart alternative narratives. for crawley, one powerful source of joy is the sound and movement – the “choreosonicity” – of blackpentecostal worship. the movement of blackpentecostal joy is introduced early in the first chapter of the book, “breath3”. in letter “b-3”,7 crawley/a. expresses his frustration with western mystical traditions, exemplified by medieval theologian meister eckhart, that preach a renunciation of the social: “i’ve got no problem with renunciation, retreat, or movement” he explains, “it’s just the direction of such that worries me” (23). in subsequent letters, crawley outlines speculative genealogical connections between mystical renunciation and forms of contemporary aversion: for instance, fat and femme-shaming on the queer hookup app grindr. the broader argument, which aligns with insights from disability studies, is that certain mystical forms of renunciation (of the social, of the body) presume the overrepresentation of normative conceptions of the human as able-bodied and self-sufficient (27). alternatively, blackpentecostal “breath” (also discussed as “spirit” or “pneuma” in pentecostal theology) constitutes a practiced openness to otherness, an otherness which fills the individual with a constitutive, animating force–one is only because of this otherness. to be filled with breath, this otherness, is to be “made instrument,” writes crawley: this concept expands daringly as a way to think black life as an orientation towards being “made instrument.” this discussion of being “made instrument” anticipates the critique of the distinction between “person” and “thing” developed in later chapters and constitutes an important through line in the book. crawley also raises friendship as a key theme in this opening chapter, counterposing friendship to marriage as an “anti-institutional,” queer mode of relating that challenges the “western logics of the right way to be human” (29-30). crawley augments foucault’s foundational thinking on queer friendship, pushing toward an account of black sociality grounded not in the legitimizing force of institutions but in both “susceptibility” and “vulnerability” – terms that crawley considers within the frameworks of both blackpentecostal expression and blackqueer sociality, as well as within the context of deeply personal vignettes throughout the chapter. in the second chapter, “shouting3,” readers are introduced to crawley/ a.’s artistic practice, a sort of action painting inspired by blackpentecostal aesthetics. crawley describes his own mystical/aesthetic practice, an attempt to “see what praise looks like after the flesh––the material force of such creation––left the building, after flesh escaped” (60). in a series of let13 jesse chevan ters, crawley describes listening and moving (clapping, shouting, playing the tambourine) to gospel praise breaks while covered in paint, which leaves kinetic streaks and smudges of paint on large canvasses on the floor. the results of these sound-movement-paint experiments are reprinted in vivid color throughout this chapter and occasionally later in the book. through these aesthetic experiments, we are (re-)introduced to a concept from blackpentecostal breath, the “choreosonicity” of blackpentecostal aesthetics.8 choreosonicity gestures towards the irreducibility of blackpentecostal expression to the exclusive domains of sound or movement, and the necessity of engaging with these expressions across modalities (perhaps even conceiving them as deconstructive of modality). throughout this chapter, we are confronted with another crucial theme: the injurious potential of blackpentecostal spaces, especially to those (like a.) attempting to live blackqueer lives. “how can a place that feels good also be a place that hurts our feelings?” crawley/a. asks pointedly. in this chapter, the threat of homophobic and misogynoir injury is the nagging underbelly of discussions of mysticism and shouting. as potent as their practices are for enacting new forms of sociality, these church spaces can also harbor intolerance and pain, and crawley reflects often on this tension. the chapter’s final letter ultimately culminates in an affectively charged scene in which ecstatic shouting in church leads to a homoerotic encounter between crawley/a. and a character referred to as d; the church, a site of potential homophobic injury, also generates the conditions for rupturing that which gives rise to injury. in the third chapter, noise signifies those phenomena unrecognized or unperceived by dominant western epistemes, for example: marronage as a theory of the social, modes of black resistance in du bois’ account of black reconstruction, forms of patriarchal harm, and memories and experiences of blackqueer being. a. begins by turning to quantum physics to verify the idea that “there are things that happen in the world, in the universe, that are not easily perceptible to human flesh” (87). these phenomena can be “felt” but they are hard to quantify, measure, and prove––they are the “noise” in the systems of western reason, and therefore man concerns himself with the “dispensing of noise” (94). crawley’s recourse to quantum and astrophysics throughout the book, especially regarding the core concept of “entanglement,” might wrongly be interpreted as opportunistic and turn off some readers. these readers are right to be wary of authors who suddenly and conveniently embrace naïve scientific realism in their otherwise anti-essentialist humanities texts when scientific findings confirm the interpretation they are trying to argue. that, however, is not what crawley is doing. he never loses sight of the situatedness of knowledge 14 current musicology within specific practices of knowledge-making. indeed, that is the major lesson of his attention to blackpentecostal expressive practices: that doing something (worshipping, singing) one way as opposed to another yields an entirely different relation to and knowledge about others and the world. throughout the chapter, crawley draws on examples from black art in which that which cannot be accounted for according to racist juridical, legal, scopic, and other epistemological regimes is essential: moonlight’s attention to the sensuousness of blackqueer life, the subtlety of blackqueerness in james baldwin’s novel just above my head, unrecognized forms of renunciation in toni morrison’s beloved and the work of artist adrian piper. the chapter closes with a powerful intervention into black radical thought: contrary to analyses of racism which assume the category of “things” as contrary to the category of personhood (i.e. the “slavery as social death” interpretation), crawley suggests that the logic of categorical distinction between “person” and “thing” is itself a precondition for racial violence. instead, he argues that blackqueer and blackpentecostal orientations to the world acknowledge and celebrate a shared “thingliness,” thereby producing an “otherwise” logic that yields an “alternative to the social ordering” (144).9 in the fourth chapter, “tongues3,” voice is theorized with robust variety; we encounter voice as a sensuous trace of the body, as a synonym for language and meaning, as a materialization of the blackpentecostal sacred, and, most abstractly, as a metaphor for aporia: the fundamental gap in a system of meaning. a chorus of voices echo throughout this chapter: artist samuel levi jones, audre lorde, jazz pianist art tatum, aretha franklin, sister rosetta tharpe, and several female gospel singers a., and surprisingly, george w. bush. voices are constrained by listeners expectations (as in the case of african american vernacular english), they subvert the intentions of words by indicating the otherness of the bodies whose traces they bear, they convey a sense of movement through harmonic modulation, and they scuttle the maintenance of rigid sacred and secular boundaries (as in the case of franklin – or they reveal untimely recalcitrance in the case of tharpe). in the final section, crawley discusses what he calls female gospel singers’ vocal “wetness,” sonic characteristics that evidence their “having been submerged but having, also and most importantly, survived any attempt at drowning” (206). the gospel voice, in other words, demands a total reframing of one’s linguistic expectations in order to resituate the putatively “meta” or “paralinguistic” as central to the story. the final chapter, “nothing3,” takes up its titular theme in at least two key ways. first, crawley is interested in the constitutive “nothing” between things, that is, temporal and extensional space, arrhythmias and musical 15 jesse chevan transitions. second is the accusation from critics of blackpentecostalism (often other worshippers) that ecstatic, noisy worship is not necessary to praise god, that “it doesn’t take all that,” that it is, effectively, nothing (227). if it is possible to worship without the sweat and noise of speaking in tongues, shouting, and other blackpentecostal expressions, if these practices functionally add nothing to more constrained forms of worship, then why engage in them at all? crawley discusses churchgoers “sanctimonious” and often harmful rejection of the blackpentecostal expressions he discusses throughout the book; this sanctimony and rejection from the churches that raised him is the source of his loneliness, he explains. to the dismissal of blackpentecostalism as “nothing,” however, crawley responds unexpectedly by embracing that very designation and by shifting the question out of the register of theology and doctrine. instead of asking whether one or another form of worship is more “correct,” crawley refocuses our attention onto what forms of worship and sacred expression do. he answers that precisely by doing “nothing,” blackpentecostal aesthetics generate an entangled and improvised sociality or, following crawley’s reading of christina sharpe (2016), an orientation towards “care” (237). crawley’s opening example of a “nothing” that generates care and sociality is the “nothing music”10performed on the hammond b-3 organ by dolores, the romantic partner of a.’s aunt. crawley’s vivid depiction of dolores accompanying a.’s aunt’s singing in church illustrates the cooperative enactment and improvisation of a blackqueer relationship in sound and gesture – a relationship without juridical or doctrinal authority that is nonetheless generated through openness and performance. crawley’s “nothing music” can be framed as a compelling alternative to the “work concept” familiar to musicologists; instead of the ontological stability through time and space posited by the work concept, the being of “nothing music” is primarily improvisational potential. crawley writes, “this is nothing. nothing, not the absence but the overwhelming presence of some otherwise possibility, in this moment––this here and now moment” (241). with “nothing music” there may be some minimal musical material or stylistic gestures with which performance begins, but blackpentecostal aesthetics are about the repetitions, improvisations, and imaginings occasioned in performance. dolores’ organ playing, as well as performances by crawley’s former gospel group, the new dawns, enact an absence of center through these quintessentially blackpentecostal movements. this absence of center takes on a certain melancholy by the end of the chapter, as we return to the familiar theme of loneliness. despite the fact that crawley/a has learned the movements and techniques of blackpentecostal performance from the churches of his youth, it rings bittersweet that he 16 current musicology closes the final letter not by returning to these spaces, which now threaten homophobic injury, but by looking for blackpentecostalism elsewhere, in the choreosonic public worship of muslim shopkeepers. crawley’s closing turn towards public forms of blackpentecostal expression outside of traditional church spaces beckons the reader to seek out similar instantiations of blackpentecostalism in this present moment of spontaneous social action. in the wake of highly visible instances of antiblack violence throughout the united states, we are witnessing and, for many of us, participating in the improvisation of new forms of protest and social relations: the capitol hill autonomous zone in seattle and occupy city hall are just two prominent examples of movements intentionally built on the principle of black joy. many scholars have remarked upon the revolutionary impulse in a lot of black music; what crawley models in the lonely letters is the movement from critique and analysis to praxis in the literary mode and beyond. it is difficult to convey precisely what it is like to read this book; crawley’s incantatory repetitions and vertiginous shifts of topic and tone perform the entangled blackpentecostal aesthetics he strives to describe, making it quite unlike other academic texts. in his rendering, blackpentecostal expressive practices – specific approaches to musical performance, poetry, painting, dance, everyday speech, etc. – enable those who become entangled to experience the world in a new way. and in the lonely letters, ashon crawley achieves the remarkable by putting this insight into practice, by enacting as well as describing blackpentecostalism.11 notes 1. the introduction is addressed “dear reader.” 2. the superscript “3” accompanying chapter titles in the lonely letters is meant to “mark performance” (9). 3. “centrifugitivity” names the mutable quality of blackpentecostal aesthetics that always exceeds definition or fixed meaning, while “atheology” describes the harnessing of the intellectual repertoire of religious thought in ways that avoid the categorical fixity of traditional “theology.” “choreosonicity” will be discussed in detail later in this review. 4. this resonance between texts is particularly strong throughout crawley’s published works, including “harriet jacobs gets a hearing,” which appeared in this journal in 2012. in this imaginative essay crawley in much of blackpentecostal breath and the lonely letters with a sound studies analysis of the generative force of confinement, ultimately adumbrating a fascinating theory of “altoness”: the queer, in-between (sonic) positionality from which emerges the character of blackpentecostal vocal expression (46-50). 5. wynter, sylvia. 2003. “unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation--an argument.” cr: the new centennial review 3 (3): 257–337. wynter is cited throughout the lonely letters, especially this essay. 6. the distinction echoes sarah ahmed’s critique in the promise of happiness (2010). 17 jesse chevan 7. letter b-3: perhaps a missed opportunity for instrumental punning? 8. counterintuitively, “shouting” is a term used to describe blackpentecostal praise dancing––its indivisible combination of musical sound, voice, movement, and proximity makes it, for crawley, the paradigmatic example of “choreosonicity” both in blackpentecostal breath and in the lonely letters. 9. these arguments closely resemble terrain famously explored in the first chapter of fred moten’s in the break (2003), wherein he re-examines marx’s “commodity that speaks.” 10. see also: crawley, ashon. 2016. “that there might be black thought: nothing music and the hammond b-3.” cr: the new centennial review 16 (2): 123–50. 11. ashon crawley has created a page on his personal website called “letters to a.” where readers can respond to letters from the book and become further entangled. https://ashoncrawley.com/letters-to-a references ahmed, sara. the promise of happiness. durham: duke university press, 2010. crawley, ashon. blackpentecostal breath: the aesthetics of possibility. new york: fordham university press, c2017. ____________. “harriet jacobs gets a hearing.” current musicology, no. 93 (march 22, 2012).https://doi.org/10.7916/cm.v0i93.5219. ____________.“that there might be black thought: nothing music and the hammond b-3.” cr: the new centennial review 16, no. 2 (2016): 123–50. https://doi. org/10.14321/crnewcentrevi.16.2.0123. moten, fred. in the break: the aesthetics of the black radical tradition. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, c2003. sharpe, christina elizabeth. in the wake: on blackness and being. durham: duke university press, 2016. wynter, sylvia. “unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: towards the human, after man, its overrepresentation--an argument.” cr: the new centennial review 3, no. 3 (2003): 257–337. microsoft word shepherd typeset current musicology 108 (fall 2021) ©2021 shepherd. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 155 reviewed by lauren shepherd the recent calls to diversify the classical western canon have permeated all areas of music scholarship. in answering these calls, many invoke the name of florence b. price (née smith; 1887-1953), an african american composer and pianist whose career spanned the first half of the twentieth century. though some may be familiar with her larger symphonic works (thanks to publicity from alex ross [2018] and other journalists), this monograph marks the first full scholarly biography focused entirely on price. in light of the ongoing work of the black lives matter movement and the greater push to include a more diverse musical repertoire in classrooms and concert halls, the 2020 publication of a biography of the first african american woman to find success as a composer in america seems particularly timely. in the heart of a woman: the life and music of florence b. price, rae linda brown exceeds the expectations of a typical biographer. brown frames florence b. price’s life within the broader context of african american culture to “place the music of florence price in the proper musical and historical perspective” (1). delightfully thorough yet succinct, this biography carefully considers how the interwoven and conflicting issues of gender, race, and class impacted price. by examining not just price’s life but the social and political cultures around it, brown pushes beyond the standard biographical question of “who was florence price?” to investigate the complex racial and gendered prejudices that influenced price’s compositional output. brown takes advantage of all available archival material throughout the monograph: whether using personal interviews from price’s life or interpreting documents and letters contained within the archives, brown carefully and graciously untangles the complex narratives surrounding price’s public success and rather private personal life. published posthumously and edited by brown’s former research assistant and current professor of music at the university of pennsylvania, guthrie p. ramsey, jr., the heart of a woman provides an interdisciplinary perspective on price’s life. not only is this a must-read for anyone wanting to learn more about 156 price herself or the culture surrounding african americans of her generation, but it is also paramount for any scholar of american music, posing many avenues of inquiry for further exploration into price’s life and archive within a larger cultural framework. scholars interested in american nationalism, african american life and culture at the turn of the twentieth century, the harlem renaissance, or the chicago renaissance will benefit from this study of price’s life. as ramsey states in the foreword, “the heart of a woman can be considered a contemporary statement on black feminist thought” (xiv). brown chronologically tells price’s story by separating the monograph into two larger sections: part 1, “southern roots” (chapters 1-6); and part 2, “the ‘dean’ of negro composers of the midwest” (chapters 7-19). this sectioning also separates price’s life geographically between little rock, arkansas and chicago rather than strictly by her compositional output. chapter 1 (“family ties”) and chapter 2 (“little rock: ‘the negro paradise’”) feature little information on florence beatrice herself. instead, these chapters provide a colorful and complete tapestry of family and cultural history against which we can view and understand price’s life. focusing on price’s relationship with her mother, florence irene, chapter 2 unpacks how florence irene’s conflicting attitudes toward both race and class impacted young florence beatrice. for example, florence irene wanted “desperately to emulate whites” and sought to display her upper-class status through elaborate clothing. this occasionally alienated the price household from close friends and family (31). chapter 3 (“pursuit of education: elementary and high school”) explores price’s segregated elementary and high school experiences. this chapter contains a charming depiction of a young girl who gives up aspirations of becoming a doctor—a field dominated by men at the turn of the century—to pursue a career in composition, a field in which only three american women had achieved success in having large-scale works performed. in chapter 4 (“the new england conservatory of music”), brown paints a broader history of life in boston during the period in which price attended the new england conservatory of music (nec), describing a longer thread of black progress occurring in america around this time. price began her studies as a piano and organ major and did not begin composing until later in her tenure at the nec. during her time as a student, price composed music “based on negro folk music,” including a string trio and her first symphony (52). unfortunately, neither of these scores survive today. in chapter 5 (“return to little rock”), brown discusses price’s determination to become independent and find herself after she graduated from the nec and returned to little rock. during this time, her father passed away 157 and her mother subsequently departed from little rock. price then took a position as the director of the music program at clark university, which is described in chapter 6 (“clark university and marriage”). under her leadership, “students developed their talents, and their cultural awareness was extended from the campus into the community” (67). the first musical example— included in chapter 6—details a song titled “to my little son” that price wrote for her first-born son, tommy. through this example, brown demonstrates price’s ability to engage with romantic-style art song composition through text painting and chromatic harmonies while also describing one of the personal hardships price faced while composing: her son died while he was just an infant (70-1). as racial tensions in little rock worsened and the safety of her family came under threat, price fled to chicago with her two young daughters in late 1927 (77). brown concludes part i with the chilling retelling of the reason price and her family fled from little rock: a young white child, allegedly killed by a black man, caused whites in the community to want to kill “a ‘comparable’ black child” from a prominent family (77). price and her daughters became an easy target for the mob. they quickly fled to chicago as racial tensions continued to worsen in little rock. brown discusses price’s early life in chicago in chapters 7 (“veejay and the black metropolis”) and 8 (“my soul’s been anchored in de lord”). in chapter 7, brown describes the appeal of chicago to many african americans in the 1920s, including its thriving jazz and cultural scenes (81-83). brown also details the struggles price faced in publishing her piano music during these early years (89), noting that price began to write tin pan alley-style popular music under the pen name “veejay” (90). despite her foray into popular music, price did not give up on writing in a range of different styles. for example, brown provides analyses of existing spirituals to conclude chapter 7. these analyses create a natural transition to chapter 8, which explores her most popular spiritual, “my soul’s been anchored in de lord.” this chapter also depicts a crumbling household: as the great depression shook america, florence’s husband, thomas price, struggled to maintain employment and became violent towards florence (98-100). desperate for income, price began accompanying silent films on the organ in “the stroll” in chicago (99). the divorce between florence and thomas was finalized in january 1931 (101). after the divorce, further information on thomas price cannot be found, one of the many holes brown describes in this archive. florence quickly married to pusey dell arnett, an insurance worker who provided a great deal of care and financial security for florence and her daughters, wedding him on valentine’s day, 1931 (101). price 158 then began composing her first symphony in e minor, her largest work to date. she submitted the symphony, a tone poem titled ethiopia’s shadow in america, the piano sonata in e minor, and fantasie no. 4 to the rodman wanamaker prize competition (103). the symphony in e minor and the piano sonata in e minor won first prize in their respective categories (104). brown positions this public recognition of price’s talent as a revolutionary moment in her life. in chapter 9 (“black satin clothes at the fair”), brown describes how price adapted to white musical spaces after receiving national attention from her success at the wanamaker awards. examples include price orchestrating music for louis white’s radio broadcasts on wgn radio (110) and the chicago symphony orchestra premiering price’s first symphony in e minor. this dissemination of price’s works notably inspired a younger generation of african american women composers and pianists—namely margaret bonds. brown details young bonds’ musical endeavors throughout this chapter, noting that bonds and price often performed together on various programs and concerts. although price had received national attention by 1933, it was the white press, in fact, that validated price as a serious classical music composer, while many african american reviewers of price’s concerts failed to mention price by name. brown suggests that this hesitance to name price came at the expense of highlighting the cultural and social significance of african americans advancing the race to the elite classical music world (116). in chapter 10 (“spirituals to symphonies”), brown describes the critical reception of price’s works and emphasizes the fact that prices was one of very few african american composers to write large-scale classical music forms, such as symphonies and concertos, during this time. chapters 11 (“the symphony in e minor”), 13 (“the piano concerto in one movement”), and 18 (“the symphony no. 3”) contain historical background to and analyses of price’s large-scale works. brown describes form, harmony, orchestration, compositional inspiration, premieres, and unique personal challenges for price within each of these works. brown’s analysis of the symphony in e minor notes that the work contains mostly standard formal procedures and orchestration, albeit with a slightly expanded percussion section. however, brown draws attention to the use of the minor pentatonic scale in the primary theme of the sonata form opening, which she notes is “the most frequently used scale in afro-american folk songs” (128). a hymn-based second movement features a harmonic and melodic shift from a folk-music idiom to an instrumental four-part chorus accompanied by driving african drums and tympani (130). brown suggests that 159 the first two movements of the symphony strongly emulate dvořák in terms of their orchestration, harmonies, and formal properties. the third movement of the symphony is not a traditional symphonic scherzo but a “juba dance”—the title of this movement—in rondo form, which is an antebellum folk dance with intricate patterns of “foot-tapping, hand-clapping, and thigh-slapping” (131). brown describes the fourth movement (“finale”) as “the most straightforward” (133) and only affords the movement one brief paragraph before describing the symphony’s reception. brown notes that alain locke, a key figure in the harlem renaissance, was quite critical of price and her symphony, lambasting the composer for not including direct racial references such as of quotations of black folk themes or a blues progression (133). brown argues, however, that we should shift away from locke’s quantitative approach to analyzing the symphony to a more qualitative perspective. this qualitative perspective provides a broader understanding of price’s use of black folk idioms, widening the scope of the black music tradition: “an impartial examination of price’s symphony reveals that she does not abandon her african american heritage. rather, the symphony inherently incorporates many aspects of the black music tradition within a euroamerican medium—orchestral music” (137). the piano concerto in one movement established a strong connection between price and the women’s symphony orchestra of chicago, who performed her concerto with margaret bonds as soloist on october 12, 1934 (158). brown parses the concerto into three larger sections that reflect the three movements of a typical concerto, demonstrating, once again, how price masterfully blends the romantic tradition with african american melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic influences (159-160). two forms of the manuscript exist today: one arrangement for solo piano and orchestral reduction; one arranged for two pianos. from these two scores, brown suggests, the original romantic-era orchestration can be extrapolated (160), though brown herself relies on suggested orchestration alongside the piano reduction within her own examples. the first movement varies from traditional concerto form in that both primary themes are introduced by the orchestra in a double exposition (160). brown argues that price waits until the development section to reveal her unique harmonic and rhythmic language (162). since the first section omits a traditional cadenza and recapitulation, the soloist instead demonstrates their virtuosity in the development section. price brings in the juba dance once again for the third section, a further testament to the truly idiosyncratic structure of this onemovement concerto. 160 brown’s analysis of symphony no. 3 highlights the stylistic development from price’s earlier works, noting a new tendency to set melodic material in a number of different ways to create a lusher, more elaborate textures (208-209). the primary theme of the first movement moves markedly away from the pentatonic scales featured in her earlier symphony to a more ambiguous tonal setting, creating ample material for the development section. price embarks on a “41-measure beethovenian coda” (211) in the recapitulation, a sign, according to brown, of price’s newly advanced approach to form. the second and third movements directly echo her symphony in e minor, taking inspiration from a hymn and juba, respectively. in a letter to serge koussevitzky on september 18, 1941, price writes that she “tried to portray a cross section of negro life and psychology as it is today, influenced by urban life north of the mason and dixon line. it is not ‘program’ music” (218). for brown, this letter reveals that price was cognizant of her developments as a composer, deliberately adopting an even more modern approach to using black musical materials. though brown is thorough in her formal, thematic, and tonal analyses of each work, it is not always clear why brown chose certain musical examples to put alongside the prose and not others. there were moments described in the text where seeing a score would have strengthened brown’s analysis— particularly in her analysis of the recapitulation and coda of the first movement of price’s symphony no. 3 (218). brown only includes printed examples of the primary and secondary theme groups for this symphony. given that brown discovered this symphony during her graduate studies at yale, a longer and more thorough description of this piece would have better contextualized it within the book. instead, this analysis is the shortest of the large-scale analyses. perhaps these omissions will encourage future scholars to continue where brown left off, further tracking theme groups and key areas throughout the symphony. there is still room for an even more detailed close reading of this movement in particular, as well as with all of price’s large-scale works. chapters 14 (“performing again”), 15 (“professional recognition: reconciling gender, class, and race”) and 16 (“the wpa years”) detail aspects of price’s later personal life, including her separation from her second husband (169). despite receiving national attention, price experienced significant financial hardship during this time and turned to performing for additional income. while price continued to compose a great deal during the late 1930s, none of her music was copyrighted and, therefore, she did not earn performance royalties. it was not until 1940, six years after her initial inquiry and application, that price became a member of the american society of composers, authors and 161 publishers (ascap) (181). price continued to work in white musical spaces: brown suggests the main reason price was able to do so was because price was “a nonthreatening, genteel black woman,” which were “attractive qualities that white america did not always associate with black americans” (183). this led to price composing under the works progress administration (wpa) composers’ forum laboratory. brown notes that some of the music that price wrote does not survive; however, price’s fantasie negre no. 4 in b minor has recently been found and recorded, and wise music classical even sells a commercial score. in chapter 19 (“final years: the heart of a woman”), brown artfully shifts the tragic narrative of a composer fighting for recognition and struggling to secure repeat performances of her symphonies and concertos outside of chicago and michigan towards a narrative of success in a larger trajectory of american concert music. although price may have been dissatisfied with her own compositional output and disappointed that she was excluded in certain circles, brown argues that, when seen within the broader history of race and gender in the united states, price’s career was incredibly successful and her music contributed greatly to african american musical and social progress during her lifetime. price broke through many barriers, her gracious and tenacious nature allowing for performances of her works by the chicago symphony and even the u.s. marine band (233) before her untimely death from heart failure on june 3, 1953 (235-236). *** this detailed monograph opens several avenues for further exploration. for example, brown suggests that price wrote many art songs in the later years of her life due to the ease of commissioning pieces for smaller ensembles during the great depression. however, brown analyzes just two of the 100 existing songs (“the heart of a woman” and “sympathy”) in great detail (221). to ensure price’s music is not forgotten again, an extensive analysis of all of these songs is called for, one of which might explore their pedagogical application for singers of different ability (since price herself was an educator throughout her career). this pedagogical approach deserves to be applied to all of price’s existing compositional output: in the music theory classroom, her symphonies and piano works could provide new perspectives on late romantic and early twentiethcentury music, and could serve as exemplars when teaching counterpoint; in the music history classroom, price’s works might show how african american folk idioms were integrated into classical music and might fit into larger discussions around the construction of an american nationalist music in the early twentieth century; and, in the piano studio, price’s piano works may yield new pedagogical 162 insights for beginners to professionals alike, from her early piano methods books and smaller compositions all the way to her piano concerto in one movement. in addition to the biographical and musical analyses, the book also contains a list of known recordings of price’s works, information about the price archives and their various housings, the sources used for compiling the biography, and suggestions for further readings. though these lists are brief, they instill the hope that there may be future recordings of price’s music and open numerous avenues for further exploration: these resources make further research into price’s life and work all the more possible. throughout the biography, brown articulates almost everything that is already known about price’s life, but much work remains to be done on the subsequent reception and impact of price’s music. since rae linda brown’s death in 2017, more of price’s works have been found and performed, such as symphony no. 4, a work that was never performed during price’s life (smith 2018). though the heart of a woman provides an abundant foundation of information about price’s life, the symphony no. 4 demonstrates that further work needs to be done and more music is waiting to be discovered. given the strong groundwork found in the heart of a woman, i argue (following baranello [2018] and jones [2019]) that the greatest priority for price scholars now is sociopolitical critique—in particular, an exploration of how and why price’s music was forgotten after her death, and what it means for the classical music world to “rediscover” her music and consider it part of the canon. as musicologist douglas shadle (2019) suggests in a newmusicbox post, “within the complex matrix of composers, publishers, venues, performers, audiences, and critics, we must all play a role in creating a just musical community. or we will keep repeating the same patterns of oppression.” though shadle does not include the role of music scholars in creating this community, music scholars must continue to orient their scholarship towards other living bipoc and marginalized composers to ensure that these great artists do not only achieve success posthumously. for this one brilliant example of (re)discovery, there are dozens of other forgotten african american women composers. we might also reflect on how including price in the western canon changes the narrative surrounding the desire for american nationalist music during the twentieth century. it may not be the case that price neatly fits into the western art music canon, as many scholars and journalists suggest. instead, if we view her life and compositional output in the way brown suggests, price disrupts and challenges the gatekeepers and eurocentric framing of the classical canon altogether. 163 references baranello, micaela. 2018. “welcoming a black female composer into the canon. finally.” new york times, february 9, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/arts/music/florence-price-arkansassymphony-concerto.html. jones, alisha lola. 2019. “lift every voice: marian anderson, florence b. price and the sound of black sisterhood.” npr music, august 30, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/30/748757267/lift-every-voice-marian-andersonflorence-b-price-and-the-sound-of-black-sisterh ross, alex. 2018. “new world: the rediscovery of florence price.” the new yorker, february 5, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/05/therediscovery-of-florence-price. shadle, douglas. 2019. “plus ça change: florence b. price in the #blacklivesmatter era.” newmusicbox, february 2019. https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/plus-ca-changeflorence-b-price-in-the-blacklivesmatter-era/. smith, scott. 2018. “fort smith symphony to debut arkansan florence price’s compositions at concert.” southwest times record, may 3, 2018. https://www.swtimes.com/entertainmentlife/20180503/fort-smith-symphony-todebut-arkansan-florence-prices-composition-at-concert. current musicology 103 (fall 2018) © 2018 millard. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 5 telling tales: a survey of narratological approaches to music russell millard briefly stated, the narratological analysis of music adapts the theoretical tools of literary narrative theory as a means of investigating music that can be conceived as narrative in conception and/or reception. of the various hermeneutic approaches to the study of music developed in the last half century or so, narratological analysis has gone further than many in navigating a path that draws on both cultural and structural contexts. often defined in opposition to structuralism—the focus of which is on formal (or “purely musical”) relationships within works and styles—hermeneutics is concerned with the “meaning” of musical elements. despite the apparent dichotomy, musical narratology and semiotics (the study of musical sign-systems) are frequently concerned with the manner in which meaning can be understood to arise from structural properties, and it is scholars working at the intersection of hermeneutics and structuralism who have produced many of the more striking accounts of music in recent years. although the application of what might be broadly termed “narrative thinking” to the analysis of music can be seen to date as far back as the composer-theorist jérôme-joseph de momigny in the early 1800s (see le huray 1990, 113–122; almén 2008, 16–23), the modern investigation of music and narrative theory stems from scholars of the 1980s and 1990s. this generation is defined by nicholas reyland (2005, 139) as the first of two “waves” of musical-narratological engagement, “soon followed by the work of a second wave of scholars less persuaded of music’s narrative propensities.” to reyland’s two we can add a recent “third wave” of scholars, who have sought to steer narrative approaches in new directions; this includes the consideration of post-tonal music, previously beyond the scope of narrative analysis. in the following review of musical applications of narrative theory, these three waves will be considered in turn, concentrating on the particular coordination of structural and hermeneutic approaches that has long been the focus of narrative analysis, before looking at the broader repertories to which contemporary narratology has turned. first-wave approaches to musical narrative the focus of the first wave of musical narrative theorists was on devel6 current musicology oping the means to adapt the narrative tools of literary theory to music. the impetus behind this arose from the observation that music theorists frequently went beyond purely technical descriptions in analyzing music, applying metaphors of human action and, more broadly, anthropomorphic language in their accounts of structure. discussing this scholarly inclination, fred everett maus (1988, 73) has argued that “[f]or at least some music, a satisfactory account of structure must already be an aesthetically oriented narration of dramatic action.” as maus later put it (1991, 3) “tonal music, as depicted by conventional analysis, resembles narrative, as depicted by formalist and structuralist writings, in that individual texts consist of identifiable kinds of objects arranged in partially predictable patterns.” it is the sense of a correspondence between the sequential arrangement of musical elements and the succession of events in a plot that suggests the possibility of musical narrativity. this correlation led early musical narratologists such as anthony newcomb to borrow the notion of archetypal plots from narrative theory and use it as an analogy with formal expectations in music, demonstrating how deviations from such norms can be understood as equivalent to the discursive elements of narrative. the intention was not, however, to read programmatic narratives into abstract musical structures; as maus argued, a musical narrative does not encode a story about something completely nonmusical, in the manner of program music. rather these goals, actions, and problems of the story are musical ones, and they share only rather general descriptions (for instance, “trying to return to a position of stability”) with everyday actions. (ibid., 14) maus notes the similarity between the syntagmatic dimensions of music and narrative, which is to say the manner in which both music and narrative arrange their elements in sequential groupings. other scholars, such as patrick mccreless, alongside richard littlefield and david neymeyer, found more direct connections between narrative and music theory. for these writers, theories of literary narrative could be more or less precisely correlated to aspects of established music theory. these correspondences were valued for the manner in which they allowed a greater integration of music with theoretical work elsewhere in the humanities, offering links between the structural and expressive domains of human discourse, in place of “a technical discourse that remains aloof from aesthetic issues” (maus 1988, 73). one may broadly conceive of these various narratological approaches to music as existing somewhere on a spectrum from pure structuralism to more expansive cultural hermeneutics. at a wholly structural level, 7 russell millard analyses seek to outline and account for relationships between functional elements in a narrative structure. in musical terms, we might understand this as similar to the study of formal elements within a work, such as the relationship between themes, tonal areas, and formal spaces in sonata form. at the other end of the continuum, broader hermeneutic approaches are more concerned with the cultural meanings that can arise from conceptualizing music as narrative. this usually involves a mapping of something extra-musical onto musical structure, frequently as a “metaphor for human action”—for example, conceiving the “teleological drive” of sonata form as analogous to a quest narrative (hepokoski and darcy 2006, 251).1 an overwhelming majority of structurally focused narrative analyses eventually pivot to the interpretation of musical meaning through narrative structure; it is rare indeed that the extremes of the structuralist/hermeneutic dichotomy are reached. to those music scholars working towards the structuralist end of the continuum, the theories of the russian formalist critic vladimir propp (1895–1970) have been significant. in his classic morphology of the folktale ([1928] 1968), propp outlines thirty-one “functions” (minimal narrative units) of russian fairy stories, from which various archetypal narrative patterns or plots can be derived.2 the basic shape of the tales studied by propp is similar to that of joseph campbell’s “hero’s journey” ([1968] 2008), and can be summarized thus: (1) a hero (protagonist) sets out on a quest; (2) various obstacles are met and overcome; (3) the hero returns from the quest with new knowledge or power. the precise number and selection of the thirty-one functions will differ from story to story, but propp ([1928] 1968, 22) is clear that the sequence of functions remains the same regardless—a hero always sets out before he encounters obstacles, for instance. some functions belong to the opening stages of a narrative and serve as initiating factors in the unfolding of the plot, such as function ii, in which the hero is given an interdiction or order which motivates the ensuing quest (ibid., 27). other functions belong either to the middle stages (e.g. function xv, in which the hero is transferred to the location of a quest object, initiating a new phase of the quest [50]) or closing phase of a narrative (e.g. function xxxi, in which “the hero is married and ascends the throne,” concluding the quest [63–64]). propp’s functions represent invariant elements within narrative trajectories, with sequences of functions representing something akin to a narrative “grammar.” in a series of articles that since have become classics in the field of musical narrative, anthony newcomb (1984; 1987; 1992) adapted propp’s 8 current musicology insights for music by drawing an analogy between functional sequences and plot archetypes in literature, on the one hand, and formal types in music, on the other, explaining that both can be thought of as “a standard series of functional events in a prescribed order” (1987, 165). newcomb notes the similarity between the manner in which narrative functions appear in normative sequences and the syntagmatic structures of classical and romantic music, which govern “the structure .  .  . at every level, from phrase to section to movement to cycle of movements” (ibid., 165). newcomb draws a distinction between formal archetypes—for example, sonata or rondo form—and the surface realization of individual examples of those forms. this distinction is a fundamental one in narrative theory, and is usually described as a dichotomy between story (the basic plot archetype; the ordered events of the narrative) and discourse (the manner in which the basic functional events are presented). to use the example of rondo form, the story level of the narrative would represent the rondo paradigm (abacaba, with stable refrains and dynamic episodes), with the discourse being the particular expression of that paradigm within a specific musical work (c is more tumultuous than b, one of the refrains is longer than the others, etc.).3 newcomb understands schumann’s music to be in a dialectical relationship with that of his predecessors, in that his works’ discourses interrogate the story norms inherited from the classical period. to illustrate this, newcomb discusses the rondo finale of schumann’s string quartet op. 41, no. 3 (example 1). he explains that the movement’s principal theme “presents itself with the rhythmic vigor, the straightforward homophony, and the chunky phrase-structure of a rondo tune,” but does a “pretty poor job” at fulfilling the formal expectation that a rondo’s refrain should be tonally stable (1987, 171). this is especially true of the opening of a movement, which normatively functions to establish the key. although the piece begins (mm. 1–4) with a repeated cadential progression in its tonic, a major, the next phrase (mm. 4–6) suddenly tonicizes the subdominant by flattening the leading-tone; this flat-side tilt is “corrected” in mm. 6–10 with a move into the mediant (f# minor), but this is followed up by a varied repeat of mm. 4–6, closing the rondo theme by twice articulating the opening cadential progression in the subdominant (d major, the key of schumann’s previous movement). moreover, the phrase construction of the rondo theme is extremely unusual, when measured against classical models. the exact repetition in mm. 3–4 of the two-measure basic idea suggests that mm. 1–4 function as the presentation phrase of a sentence structure (see caplin 1998, 35–40). initially, mm. 5–8 might be understood as a continuation phrase, 9 russell millard exam ple 1. schum ann, string q uartet o p. 41, no. 3, iv, opening. 10 current musicology with the cadence in the mediant in m. 8 forming the cadential function of a modulating sentence (ibid., 47); however, this gesture is immediately repeated, suggesting that mm. 7–10 function as a presentation phrase of another sentence in f# minor. to cap off this unusual structure, mm. 11–14 provide yet another presentation, this time in the subdominant, meaning that the whole fourteen-measure theme has no less than three beginnings (mm.1–4, 7–10, and 11–14), one middle (mm. 4–6), but no ending. that is, unless you consider that the harmonic progression underpinning the presentation phrase is actually cadential (i.e. a closing gesture), and therefore the harmonic rhetoric (cadential = ending) is at odds with the melodic structure (presentation = beginning). by contrast with the unstable, open-ended rondo theme, newcomb notes that the episodes “reveal themselves increasingly as the islands of stability between the recurrences of a forward-pushing, unstable, transitional refrain” (newcomb 1987, 173). for example, the lengthy and curiously labeled “quasi trio” episode (mm. 72–112) is a “tonally stable, rounded binary form in eight-measure phrases, both of whose sections are repeated and end in the same key” (173). in contrast to the abstruse phrase structure of the rondo’s refrain, the opening of the trio (example 2) is straightforward: a compound basic idea (mm. 72–76) followed by a consequent that closes with a pac (mm. 76–80) (see caplin 1998, 61–63).4 moreover, the eight-measure phrase outlines a complete cadential progression (i–iv–ii– v–i), in contrast to the rondo theme, which compressed an entire cadential progression into a single presentation phrase. in reversing the roles played by what would traditionally be a stable rondo theme and conventionally dynamic episodes, schumann is “laying bare . . . the conventions of the rondo scheme in order to turn them upside down” (newcomb 1987, 174). newcomb compares this to russian critic victor shklovsky’s account of laurence sterne’s tristram shandy, which laid bare conventional narrative schemes in order to mock them and turn them on their heads. in so doing, sterne not only called attention to the artful, nonrealistic side of narrative, he also “defamiliarized” (to use shklovsky’s word) narrative conventions and thereby gave them back some of their original power. in this curious finale, schumann has done something of the kind with the paradigmatic rondo. (ibid., 174) for newcomb, then, narrative hearing involves separating the music into both “story” (plot/archetype) and “discourse” (realization) levels, in order to perceive and confront any gap between the two. as he later put it, narratives are best understood as “paradigmatic temporal procedures, operations, or transformational sequences,” the comprehension of which 11 russell millard exam ple 2. schum ann, string q uartet o p. 41, no. 3, iv, “q uasi trio”. 12 current musicology “is part of a person’s narrative competence in a given culture” (newcomb 1992, 119). this dual emphasis on (1) the temporal, sequential nature of narrative and (2) the importance of “narrative competence” in perceiving the significance of such sequences is an important component of the arguments of many musical narratologists. it is the sense of a homology between the syntactical aspects of musical discourse and propp’s emphasis on the succession of events that suggests the possibility of musical narrativity. the observation of a similarity between music and literary theory, which “abstracts from individual narratives in somewhat the same way that instrumental music abstracts from everyday human action,” (maus 1991, 15) led theorists to suggest that “one could almost claim that music is more like narrative theory than it is like narrative” (ibid., 15 n. 17). patrick mccreless has explored connections between narrative theory and music through an investigation of the narrative theories of french literary theorist and semiotician roland barthes. mccreless (1988) considers the structuralist aspects of barthes’s narratological approach through the five narrative “codes” barthes developed in his discussion of balzac’s sarrazine ([1970] 1993). of these, perhaps the most significant from a musical perspective is barthes’s hermeneutic code, which is concerned with the formulation, delay, and eventual solution of narrative “enigmas.” by “enigmas,” barthes means the aspects of narrative that create suspense, such as the discovery of a dead body as the story develops; the enigma is prolonged “by delaying, subverting, and complicating its solution” (mccreless 1988, 14). mccreless views this code as comparable to schenker’s description of the “obstacles, reverses, disappointments” of goal-directed motion (schenker [1956] 1979, 5, mccreless 1988, 15).5 mccreless (1991) develops this by focusing on what barthes terms the “hermeneutic sentence,” which employs the notion of a “well-made sentence” as a metaphor for the structure of a narrative: the proposition of truth is a “well-made” sentence; it contains a subject (theme of the enigma), its question mark (proposal of the enigma), various subordinate and interpolated clauses and catalyzers (delays in the answer), all of which precede the ultimate predicate (disclosure). (barthes [1970] 1993, 84) mccreless (1991, 37) sees this as bearing “remarkable similarities” to schenker’s ursatz: like barthes, schenker in effect creates a “sentence” out of an entire discourse; that is, he defines the syntax of a tonal piece in categories appropriate to a single musical-grammatical sentence (a phrase). 13 russell millard thus, mccreless establishes a conceptual link between the generation of surface discourse from fundamental structure in schenker and the production of the discourse level from the underlying construction of story in narrative. while acknowledging that barthes’s hermeneutic code can be observed in a variety of tonal contexts, mccreless (1988, 16) asserts that “the code works best .  .  . in a limited class of tonal pieces: those works of the late eighteenth century to the nineteenth century that employ the technique of expanding a chromatic detail into a structural issue at deeper levels.” in his analytical example, drawn from the first movement of beethoven’s “ghost” trio (example 3), mccreless identifies a chromatic feature introduced in the opening measures—the lowered 3 in m. 5, supported by bvi in m. 66—as an enigma whose resolution is a necessary condition of the narrative’s completion. this enigma also represents a sudden interruption of the lively motion and unison texture of the opening measures. the rupture with the previous music draws attention to the unexpected, disruptive quality of the intrusion, which in turn marks it “for consciousness in such a way that it strongly suggests a reappearance later in the story” (ibid., 24). mccreless notes how this brief interjection of the flattened submediant returns throughout the movement, and how the two resolutions of the fn offered by the exposition—up to f# in m. 7, and down to e in m. 35 (not shown)—also recur in both the development and recapitulation (for example, mm. 87–98, 128–136, 171–195). the fn becomes something akin to a character in the tonal narrative, and it is the development of this character that we follow across the piece: “because of the degree to which it is rhetorically marked, [we] tend to structure our hearing of the rest of the piece dramatically or narratively according to the evolving discourse concerning the fn” (ibid., 25).7 the pitch can also be understood to demonstrate aspects of another of barthes’s codes, the semic code. this code is partly concerned with the way in which a narrative’s characters are built up through features that connote additional meanings. for example, the fact that the fn is first introduced as interrupting the flow of the musical discourse might suggest a character who is disruptive, or antagonistic, and therefore must be overcome. mccreless’s (ibid., 23–24) likens this to “a hollywood cowboy in a black hat riding into a crowded town square and announcing to the sheriff, ‘there ain’t room for the both of us in this here town!’” to be clear, mccreless is not suggesting this as a programmatic interpretation of the movement, but is drawing a comparison between the disruptive plot function of his “cowboy in a black hat” and the troublesome chromatic enigma of beethoven’s trio, whose challenge to diatonic authority is of a similar 14 current musicology ex am pl e 3. b ee th ov en , p ia no t rio o p. 7 0, n o. 1 (“ g ho st” ). 15 russell millard order to that of the outlaw in mccreless’s imaginary movie. like mccreless, richard littlefield and david neumeyer’s (1992) article “rewriting schenker” begins with barthes’s narrative theories, but with the focus on one of the codes that mccreless disregards: the cultural code. this code denotes the expectations a reader brings to a text. in littlefield and neumeyer’s case, the expectations are derived from the aristotelian “beginning-middle-end” paradigm,8 which littlefield and neumeyer (1992, 45) interpret as a “recipe for drama as motion toward a goal.”9 the narratological focus of their article is expanded by creating links between the analytical tools of schenker and the “generative trajectory” of the french-lithuanian semiotician a.j. greimas (1917–1992). greimas’s model proposes basic character types at the story level—e.g., subject (protagonist), object (goal of the subject’s quest), etc.—which he terms actants. these actants are concretized at the level of discourse as actors, or specific manifestations of basic character types. for example, in charlotte bronte’s jane eyre, the subject (actant) = jane eyre (actor). as littlefield and neumeyer (1992, 47) see it: schenker . . . populates his semantic universe with actants. . . . appealing to the first few intervals in the [harmonic] series, he creates the bassbrechung, the scale-step succession i-v-i. appealing to traditional notions of the priority of step in melody, and asserting priority of the passing tone in strict counterpoint, diatony, and descending motion through an interval of the tonic chord down to 1, he creates the urlinie. the counterpoint of the urlinie and the bassbrechung is the ursatz, the sole actantial content of the background. in this formulation, as one works through the levels of a schenkerian reading, one moves from the functional aspects of musical narrative (story) to their surface manifestations (discourse), a concept similar to mccreless’s comparison of barthes’s hermeneutic sentence and schenker’s ursatz. in this model, the ursatz acts as the underlying story, and the process of gradual elaboration towards the musical foreground corresponds to the generation of discourse from the original story structure. this represents a significant enrichment of the simple story-discourse model, allowing for an examination of the interaction between the two levels through middleground structures. the most thorough-going and systematic exploration of the implications of greimas’s generative model for music is that of eero tarasti (1979; 1991; 1994; 2002), who has constructed an entire musico-semiotic praxis based on greimas. tarasti’s analytical method—his version of greimas’s generative trajectory, through which texts are generated from a fundamental syntax—is complex, and somewhat resistant to summary. however, its 16 current musicology four stages do give a flavor of tarasti’s attempt to coordinate the structural levels of musical texts in a meaningful way (adapted from tarasti 1994, 48–49): (1) segmentation of the work into isotopies, equivalent to the “functions” of propp; (2) articulation of isotopies in terms of spatiality (tonality, pitch), temporality (syntagmatic arrangement, rhythm/metre), and actorality (motives, themes, other “anthropomorphic” elements); (3) categorization of isotopies by expressive content (tarasti employs the greimassian term, modalization); (4) examination of the patterns of signification generated by the previous stages, particularly the affective trajectory of the work as a whole. one of the most valuable aspects of tarasti’s approach is that it coordinates structural (stages 1–2) and “humanistic” (stages 3–4) approaches to music. the most obvious way in which tarasti relates structure and expression is through his development of greimas’s “modalities.” these derive from the grammatical concept of modal verbs, which are used to express ability, possibility, permission, and obligation. for example, “can” expresses the ability to do something, whereas “must” expresses obligation. the two sentences “jane can go to school” and “jane must go to school” contain the same outcome (“jane goes to school”), but differ in terms of modal expression, in terms of ability (“jane can”) and obligation (“jane must”). in his analysis of the opening of beethoven’s “waldstein” sonata (1994, 116–127), tarasti identifies different thematic “actors,” to which he ascribes different modal characteristics (example 4). the first of these (actor a) is described as having a strong “will to do,” given that it pushes upwards with a chromatic #4–5 motion. actor c, by contrast, appears to express “will to be,” seeing as it returns to its point of departure;10 however, noting that its return is not to the tonic, and it therefore lacks complete stability, tarasti (ibid., 125) instead suggests the opposite, that c expresses a “will not to be.” although tarasti does not elaborate exactly why this is, the implication appears to be that c’s skip up to a b—the tonic’s leading tone—expresses a desire to return to the tonic that is denied by the return to g; in other words, actor c does not wish to remain on g, but is unable to countermand the will of actor a. in this sense, actor c is in a subordinate relationship with actor a. although during its first appearance actor b shares one of the features that characterized actor c—a stepwise descent to g—its extension and repetition in mm. 9–11 lend it increased significance, and therefore a modal quality of its own. because of the manner in which actor b appears to replace actor a in importance in these bars—and due to its scalic descent 17 russell millard exam ple 4. beethoven, piano sonata o p. 53, i (“w aldstein”). 18 current musicology forming the basis of the movement’s second subject—tarasti (ibid., 125) argues that it is “antithetic to actor a.” this antithesis can also be seen in actor b’s contradictory contour (descending, rather than ascending) and contrasting registral placement (high, rather than low). thus, actor b’s modal expression is opposed to that of actor a, and projects “will not to do.” actor b therefore functions as something like an antagonist to the initial protagonist, actor a: “even though this actor’s kinetic energy at first impresses one as weak, b soon assumes the leading role and rules over the texture in mm. 9–11” (ibid., 126). tarasti’s analysis outlines a brief narrative contained within the first thirteen bars of beethoven’s movement of an antagonistic relationship between two short motifs, which are understood to express contrary modalities. in tarasti’s account, these short musical gestures become charged with the expressive character of independent agents, and therefore demonstrate an enhanced degree of narrative potential. tarasti’s mapping of greimas’s theory of modalities onto musical discourse is an early example of one of one of the most significant contributions made by narratology to the analysis of music, in that it has provided a set of methodologies for coordinating structural and expressive features. even at a basic level, narratology’s examination of relationships between discourse and story can provide sound means for bridging the gap between our blow-by-blow affective experience of musical works and the analytical discourses that seek to explain them. it can be easy to lose sight of the importance of this amidst the debates of the second wave of narratological discourse. it was during this phase that the very possibility of musical narrativity was strenuously interrogated; the arguments that arose from this serve to clarify the developing position of musical narratologists during the 1990s, in which the intersection of structural and hermeneutic approaches came more clearly into focus. these various approaches in the first wave emphasized the connection between music (or music theory) and literary narrative. however, some scholars, both before and after those so far discussed, relied on similar narrative homologies to those used by newcomb et al, but without the explicit link to narrative theory. indeed, before both newcomb and maus, edward t. cone wrote “three ways of reading a detective story—or a brahms intermezzo” ([1977] 1989), which outlined a view of listening that in many ways anticipated a distinction between story and discourse. in a “first reading” (or first listening), our approach to the text is “based on total or partial ignorance of the events narrated, whether one is actually reading a story for the first time, or [not]” (ibid., 79). in a second (or third) reading, by contrast, we transcend the moment-to-moment level of discourse; the “trajectory of thought is zigzag, or even discontinuous” and the listener 19 russell millard is “constantly shifting back and forth between the planes of memory and experience, until at last one is able to achieve a comprehensive bird’s-eye view of the narrative path” (ibid., 80). like newcomb, cone’s focus is on observing a continuous narrative in a work of music through abstracting away from discourse to story level, but he does so without explicit reliance on propp’s work. contemporary with this and other such work, susan mcclary (1986; [1987] 2007; [1993] 2007) was developing her own narrative approach to music, articulating plots that reflect on social norms, society, and the individual. her discussion of the first movement of bach’s brandenburg concerto no. 5 is a good example of her method in practice. focusing on the changing role of the harpsichord in the movement, mcclary outlines a narrative that she describes as the “[r]evenge of the continuo player” ([1987] 2007, 28). in her account, the harpsichord emerges as a character in a dramatic narrative who seeks to “hijack” the piece from the other soloists (ibid., 30), in the process subverting its traditional role as continuo accompanist. mcclary focuses in particular on the harpsichord’s written-out cadenza, noting how the flute and violin (previously this concerto’s solo instruments) are composed “to make it appear that their piece has been violently derailed,” dropping out “exactly in the way an orchestra would if one of its members started making up a new piece in the middle of a performance” (ibid., 30). if this is “their” piece, then the cadenza is played by the “wrong” instrument: the superiority of the flute and violin has been overthrown by the “frenzied continuo” (34). mcclary goes on to note the sheer size of the cadenza (a quarter of the whole movement), as well as the “increasingly deviant strategies” employed by the harpsichord to prolong its moment in the sun, such as the progressive use of chromaticism and faster note values (example 5), resulting in “what sounds like a willful, flamboyant seventeenth-century toccata” (ibid., 34). although the movement closes normatively, with a return of the ripieno and the ritornello, mcclary argues that the subversion has been too extreme to be brushed off so simply (ibid., 42), concluding that the piece enacts “the exhilaration as well as the risks of upward mobility, the simultaneous desire for and resistance of concession to social harmony” (ibid., 43). similar to newcomb, mcclary is interested in reading musical discourse against normative plot structures. however, she takes the extra step of extrapolating social meaning from her analysis, outlining a critical narrative that is about something “in the world,” so to speak, one that “articulates very powerfully precisely the dilemma of an ideology that wants to encourage freedom of expression while preserving social harmony” (ibid., 20 current musicology ex am pl e 5. b ac h, b ra nd en bu rg c on ce rt o n o. 5 , b w v 1 05 0. 21 russell millard 43). in a “conventional” baroque concerto, the harpsichord’s role is that of accompanimental bystander, supporting the soloist protagonist(s). against this normative plot, the harpsichord’s progressive subversion of its role— a denial of its subservient status and an increasing demand for an equal footing with the established soloists—allows it to emerge as the “real” protagonist of the movement’s narrative, eventually silencing the other soloists during its cadenza. mcclary understands the baroque concerto genre as a whole as addressing “the tensions between the dynamic individual and stable society” in its mediation between individual soloist(s) and “a large, collective force” (ibid., 23). however, in this movement, the harpsichord’s increasingly individualistic excesses appear to pose a question of no small social import: “what happens when a genuine deviant . . . declares itself a genius, unconstrained by convention, and takes over?” (ibid., 42). given the cultural significance mcclary sees encoded in the concerto genre, the unusual manner in which its narrative dynamics play out in bach’s movement readily allow for such implications to arise.11 such emergent cultural meanings are the real goal of mcclary’s analyses of instrumental music. as she notes, her work “engages with the role of narrativeoriented musical procedures in the performance of basic cultural work” (mcclary 2007, xiii). for mcclary, narrative allows for the coordination of musical structure and broader cultural concerns, making “explicit the kinds of mediating steps that .  .  . link musical procedures with society” ([1993] 2007, 68). thus, although mcclary discusses ideas derived from narratologists such as propp (see, for example [1993] 2007, 72), there is very little emphasis on their methodologies and a much greater concern for the ideologies that underpin archetypal narrative structures. in short, we might argue that, like cone, mcclary’s analyses are concerned principally with the interpretative end-product of narratology, whereas newcomb and others remain focused on the theoretical links between paradigmatic musical discourse and plot archetypes in literary narratives. the second wave: nattiez, abbate, and the objections to musical narrativity despite the general acceptance of music’s ability to enhance narrative and dramatic elements in multi-media settings (including opera, ballet, song, and film), the argument that one may understand the structure of music in terms of narrative has been contentious. this came to a head during reyland’s “second wave,” when the claims of musical narratology were subject to vigorous and close examination. byron almén (2008, 29–37) has abstracted from these debates a number of arguments that have been levelled against the concept of musical narrativity, including the verbal 22 current musicology cue argument, the referentiality argument, the causality argument and the narrator argument, each of which i discuss below. the verbal cue and referentiality arguments jean-jacques nattiez’s (1990a) article, “can one speak of narrativity in music?”, remains the most high-profile rebuttal aimed at those who claim to divine narrative in non-texted music. and, more recently (2011), nattiez has returned to the arguments of his original paper in the journal cahiers de narratologie.12 nattiez regards narrative as too closely involved with linguistic expression to function convincingly as a model of musical discourse. he argues that while a narrative interpretation may be prompted by a verbal cue, this is essentially an external, rather than an immanent musical feature. nattiez has remained consistent in his acceptance of narrative approaches to programmatic music, so long as the listener is primed to hear it as such: “i obviously do not have a problem in principle with the interest of narratological musicologists in explicitly narrative music” (2011, §37), but “when i hear the opening of l’apprenti sorcier, i need to know that it is a symphonic poem in order to approach the work in a narrative frame of mind” (1990a, 242). nattiez’s objections hinge on the issue of what can be understood to be “in” a piece of music. if we as listeners hear narratives in music, this is according to nattiez only a reflection of our status as “homo fabulator, always ready to integrate into a narrative objects or actions that are available to our senses in a linear succession” (2011, §2). in other words, he maintains that one needs to consider music a narrative art a priori for a narrative mode of listening to be activated, objecting that any sense of referentiality is merely in the ear of the listener, and not “inherent” in the music (nattiez 1990a, 249). as noted above, nattiez does not oppose the narratological investigation of music that can be identified as explicitly narrative (that is, program music), but he is concerned over “the methods used to reconstruct the underlying narrative intention” (2011, §38); essentially, he insists on maintaining a strict distinction between “absolute” and “program” music, and policing the boundary between the two. he knows that some listeners will want to hear a narrative, but his language makes his views of such listeners clear; they demonstrate “the capacity of human beings to invent fictions reflecting a greater or lesser degree of fantasizing” (2011, §48). thus, as he puts it elsewhere (nattiez 1990b, 12; original emphasis), listeners “construct meaning, in the course of an active perceptual process,” rather than doing what they presumably “should” be doing, and concentrating on the meaning inherent to the work. given “moment y in a musical work, we tend to establish a connection with an x that has already been 23 russell millard heard” (ibid., 116; original emphasis); such connections, nattiez (1990a, 244) says, are “situated at the level of the discourse, rather than the level of the story,” since there can be no explicit semantic content in music and therefore the content level of narrative (story) cannot exist in any meaningful sense without recourse to paratexts (e.g., the programmatic narrative of berlioz’s symphonie fantastique, or the titles of works such as central park in the dark). however, as gregory karl (another of propp’s advocates) points out, “the meaning of any particular unit is determined primarily by its relation to other units in a system and not by its intrinsic characteristics” (1997, 17); it is only the diachronic organization of the succession of musical events (story) that gives rise to the level of discourse. this is fundamental to propp’s project to classify the “functions” of narratives, which he describes as “stable, constant elements in a tale, independent of how and by whom they are fulfilled” (propp [1928] 1968, 21). thus, for propp and other classical narratologists, the implication that narrative is principally activated on the level of discourse misses the point, by emphasizing the “variables” of narrative over the “constants” (ibid., 20). the causality argument nattiez circa 1990 claims that temporal sequences do not in themselves constitute narratives, as a narrative requires the demonstration of causal relationships between elements (1990a, 244). for example, despite the marked quality of the f in the opening of beethoven’s “ghost” trio, nattiez’s comment implies there is no way of demonstrating that further appearances of the pitch are related to or “caused” by its placement in the opening measures. because of this, there is therefore no way of establishing the role they play in a larger narrative strategy. nattiez (ibid., 244) argues that it is “not within the semiological possibilities of music to link a subject to a predicate,” and that narrative analyses seem “to retreat into metaphorical illusion.” although nattiez may hesitate to infer causality from temporal structures—fearful perhaps of committing the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc, or a “confusion of consecution and consequence” (barthes [1966] 1977, 94)—our ability to infer causality is, according to barthes, central to the narrative experience: “the mainspring of narrative is precisely the confusion of consecution and consequence, what comes after being read in narrative as what is caused by” (ibid., 94; original emphasis). the musical analyses above evidenced such inference in action, contrasting some of the different methods listeners can use to infer causality from marked musical events. such extrapolations are intrinsic to the narrative experience; the perception of musical causality is very much in the ear of the listener. 24 current musicology the narrator argument carolyn abbate views the narrator argument as the ultimate test of musical narrative. for abbate, the discourse level is also the level of narration. the narrator may take many forms, but should not be confused with the author, whether “real” or “implied.”13 unlike the narrator, as gerald prince (2003, 43) points out, the implied author “does not recount situations and events (but is taken to be accountable for their selection, distribution, and combination).” drawing on the classical dichotomy between diegesis (“retelling”) and mimesis (“depicting”),14 abbate argues that what we call narrative—novels, stories, myths, and the like—is diegetic. . . . it is a tale told later, by one who escaped to the outside of the tale, for which he builds a frame to control its dangerous energy. music’s distinction is fundamental and terrible; it is not chiefly diegetic but mimetic. . . . [ m]imetic genres . . . mime or even dance out the world in present time. they cannot disarm the action, or comfort us, by insisting upon the pastness of what they represent.15 (abbate 1991, 53) this lack of pastness implies a lack of narrator and therefore, for abbate, a lack of narrative. a piece like “the sorcerer’s apprentice,” she argues, “is not a retelling of events, but rather a depiction of events, happening as we listen” (1989, 230; 1991, 57). the listener is trapped “in present experience and the beat of passing time, from which he or she cannot escape” (1991, 53). despite the rhetorical force of her argument, abbate’s stricture that the listener is trapped “in present experience and the beat of passing time” arguably only holds true for an initial hearing of a musical work. she essentially describes one of cone’s ([1977] 1989) “first readings,” where the primary motivation is to follow the unfolding of the plot in time; in a second or third reading, however, the listener escapes from present experience and the beat of passing time in order to synthesize the music into a narrative. but it is not only in the case of later hearings that one may disagree with abbate’s (1991, 53) contention that “music’s existence as a temporal art precludes its speaking ‘in the past tense.’” as cone argues elsewhere, music is filled with commitments to the future—the expectations on whose satisfaction, immediate or delayed, its continuity depends. and although the listener is denied the power of prediction, he is nevertheless granted the pleasure of anticipation and also, if the ears of his memory are long enough, the joy of recognition when a long-postponed fulfilment arrives. (cone [1984] 1989, 201) in other words, a listener’s capacity to anticipate a musical future, and 25 russell millard to link events in a musical present to those in the musical past, forms an important element of musical appreciation, “the pleasure of anticipation and . . . the joy of recognition.” although music might not be able to speak “in the past tense,” it is more than able to encourage listeners’ to hear the connections themselves. rather than being trapped in the present, then, a listener’s memory of what happened in the “before” of a piece of music can profoundly influence how they hear what occurs moment-to-moment as the piece progresses. cone’s description is echoed by nattiez (2011, §9): the “discourse” of music is inscribed in time. it is made of repetitions, recalls, preparations, expectations, resolutions. if one is tempted to speak of musical narrative it is due, not to its intrinsic and immanent content, but because of the effects of syntactic organization of music, the narrative course that orders the music thanks to the games of implications and realizations that [leonard] meyer has described so well. both these comments sit happily with mccreless’s adoption of barthes’s narrative codes, especially the “games of implications and realizations” that match aspects of the hermeneutic and proairetic codes. with regard to abbate’s diegesis/mimesis distinction, karol berger argues that the distinction is not one of genre, but rather of mode, placing both under the banner of narrative, which he opposes to the “lyric,” arguing that narrative and drama are modes of representation of human action, while lyric does not represent actions at all, but rather mental states, thoughts, emotions, situations. the difference, then, between narrative and drama is in the mode of presentation while the difference between both these and lyric is in the presented object. (berger 2000, 191) berger suggests that syntagmatic structure is fundamental to the establishment of something akin to the diegetic mode: even the simplest immediate repetition of a statement (whether in music or literature, no matter) differs fundamentally from the original statement in that, while the latter calls only for the recognition that something is said in the “now” of the present speaker, the former additionally requires that we recognize that this something has already been said before in the “now” of the then-speaker. . . . because the practices of repetition, recapitulation, and elaboration are so widespread in music, musical voices very frequently acquire the narrating character. (ibid., 178–179) berger nuances this point by suggesting that while the fulfilment of formal requirements, such as the recapitulation of thematic material in sonata form, is to be expected (and therefore not explicitly diegetic), thematic 26 current musicology recall that lacks formal or generic motivation may in fact be understood as the activation of the diegetic mode. for abbate, the repetitive nature of musical form works against the potential for narrativity—stories do not conventionally return to the same material at regular points in the plot. but berger argues that unexpected or unmotivated recall enacts at the discourse level something akin to a narrator’s voice, in the sense that it can be understood to reorder the events of the story level in a meaningful way. berger’s argument is not dissimilar to newcomb’s examination of the manner in which schumann’s musical discourse can be understood to reorder and comment on the musical plots of his predecessors. robert hatten makes a similar point when he describes “a compositional play with musical events or their temporal sequence or relationship, inflecting their significance, or proposing a certain attitude toward them.” this, he suggests, “provides a ‘point of view’ or filtered perspective. . . . the narrative agency is cued by shifts in levels of [musical] discourse” (2004, 225-226; original emphasis).16 hatten (1991; 2004) defines such shifts as “any event that disrupts the unmarked flow of a musical discourse” (2004, 135; original emphasis). these marked disruptions are conceived as comments on, or reactions to, the unmarked discourse (ibid., 282). to illustrate this, hatten (1991, 86–88) examines the startling contrast between the generally serious or tragic expression of beethoven’s string quartet, op. 95, and the “completely unexpected buffa passage” that interrupts the prevailing mood at the start of the last movement’s coda (example 6). having maintained a bleakly tragic and at times violent atmosphere throughout, the apparently unmotivated emergence of an affect entirely at odds with the rest of the movement is startling, and casts the foregoing music in a completely different light. the event expresses something akin to a narrating voice, as the intruding passage places the musical discourse in a “new perspective,” exactly the sort of mediated viewpoint one expects from a narrator (88).17 intriguingly, “disruptions” such as these are admitted as containing diegetic potential by abbate. discussing the epilogue of l’apprenti sorcier (example 7) she notes that “the last ten measures pass over to the other world, speaking in the past tense of what has happened, in an orchestral ‘he said’” (1991, 60; original emphasis). thus, although she might question the extent to which music may be heard to activate a narrative “voice,” abbate seems not only open to the possibility of a diegetic mode in music, but is in fact in agreement with hatten concerning the mode of its activation. 27 russell millard exam ple 6. beethoven, string q uartet o p. 95, iv (“serioso”). 28 current musicology ex am pl e 7. d uk as , l ’ap pr en ti so rc ie r.. 29 russell millard the “third wave:” almén and reyland the debates of the second wave of musical narratology arguably formed the stimulus for byron almén’s theory of musical narrative (2008), which sought to synthesize the various approaches of his predecessors in order to provide a generalized theoretical framework for the examination of musical narrativity. discussing the prevalence of narrative structures in temporal media, almén notes the “powerful psychological impact” that narratives can have on their audience, suggesting this as a motivating factor in humanity’s desire to narrativize personal experience as autobiography and biography, as well as the “pervasiveness and significance of narrative organization in cultural artefacts with a temporal orientation” (ibid., 41). almén sees the “core properties of narrative” as existing in the factors of “temporality, hierarchy, conflict, and the observer’s perspective” (ibid., 40). in particular, he understands narrative as a process of transvaluation, a term he borrows from james jakób liszka’s the semiotic of myth (1989): a hierarchy set up within a system of signs is subjected to change over time; this change, filtered through an observer’s design or purpose, is interpreted as being isomorphic to a change applied to a cultural hierarchy (whether social or psychological). (almén 2008, 40; original emphasis) in simple terms, a transvaluation is a reevaluation of value. one might think of the well-worn fairy tale trope, in which an impoverished protagonist is revealed to be the true king over the course of the narrative. one way that this can be understood musically is by reference to mcclary’s analysis of the first movement of bach’s brandenburg concerto no. 5 ([1987] 2007), which almén refers to in his book. the instrumental hierarchy that exists at the start of the movement is normative, with the harpsichord fulfilling its conventional role as accompanist. however, as we saw above, the harpsichord becomes progressively outspoken, to the extent that the rest of the ensemble—including the flute and violin soloists—are silenced by the harpsichord’s extensive cadenza. by bringing the normative instrumental hierarchy into question, mcclary argues that the movement casts a critical light on the social hierarchies contemporary with the work’s composition. or, as almén might explain it, the transvaluation of the instrumental hierarchy in favor of the harpsichord is interpreted by mcclary as being structurally equivalent to a critique of the social hierarchies of bach’s time. crucially, this places the observer at the center of narrative experience; for transvaluation to occur, it demands an observer’s perception of hierarchical change. as almén (2008, 41–43) notes, the notion of transvaluation identifies 30 current musicology musical narrative as part of a semiotic system. although individual sounds may be meaningless in and of themselves, it is the organization of these sounds into larger musical units, and the relations between these units within specific cultural contexts, that allows for the emergence of meaning. for example, the transvaluative significance of the first movement of brandenburg concerto no. 5 lies not in any inherent qualities of the harpsichord, but in its normative cultural role as hierarchically subservient to “real” concertante instruments like the flute and violin. importantly, this network of signification reflects communal consensus, the significance of a sign being arbitrary and culturally determined. almén argues that this lends a “political and rhetorical component to interpretation” (ibid., 42), which is also central to the functioning of narrative. despite the “purer” structuralist approaches to musical narrativity of some previous scholars, such as mccreless, in almén’s model the significance of narrative and semiotic analysis ultimately lies in the hermeneutic. almén’s theory also draws on the narrative archetypes developed by literary scholar northrop frye in his anatomy of criticism (1957). frye’s archetypes are conceived as a cyclical model; thinking in terms of a clock face, we may imagine the archetypes moving from a state of “innocence” at twelve o’ clock, to “experience” at six o’ clock and back again: (1) romance, the narrative of innocence, at the top; (2) tragedy, the narrative of the fall, moving downward from innocence to experience; (3) irony, the narrative of experience, at the bottom; and (4) comedy, the narrative of renewal, moving upward from experience to recovered happiness. (almén 2008, 65) to illustrate almén’s use of frye’s archetypes, one may take his analysis of the first movement of schubert’s piano sonata, d. 960, which he identifies as a tragic narrative (2008, 139–161). almén hears the principal theme of the movement (example 8) as the embodiment of a pastoral topic, one that represents a cultural ideal of simplicity (ibid., 142). given the valorization of the pastoral during schubert’s era, the main theme is identified as of high rank, culturally speaking. the peaceful, almost static character of the theme—primary harmonies, principally stepwise melody, opening tonic pedal point, and a gently rocking inner voice—is according to almén at odds with the essentially dynamic processes of sonata form (142). thus, although embodying aspects of an “ideal” type (the pastoral topic), almén echoes newcomb by interpreting the theme as “flawed and insufficient” in its formal context (145). his analysis then tracks a “wave-like succession of surges and declines” (160) in the fate of the main theme, which is frequently derailed by distant modulations, finding itself in problematic 31 russell millard exam ple 8. schubert, piano sonata d . 960, i. 32 current musicology harmonic and expressive environments. thus, the theme undergoes something akin to the vicissitudes of a narrative protagonist. indeed, the very first statement of the theme implies the sort of fluctuations in status that will develop as the movement progresses, when its peacefulness is disrupted by the gb trill in m. 8. this gb arguably functions something like a barthesian enigma, in that it is a marked event that implies a resolution later in the piece. however, in contrast to mccreless (1988), who employs barthes’s code to make a point about the potential for narrativity (as described by literary theorists) in tonal structures, almén is interested in a tighter theoretical coordination between music and narrative discourse across media; in other words, he is interested in the kinds of properties that all narratives share in common. almén’s generalizing of narrative expression into four basic paradigms makes it easier to understand how musical narratives interact in the expressive domain of narrative “in the world,” so to speak. almén (2008, 160) concludes his discussion of schubert’s movement with the observation that, “although the remainder of the sonata will ultimately serve to redeem this subject . . . the first movement, taken alone, is almost unrelenting in its dismantling of the narrative subject’s idealized status.” the movement is therefore the very quintessence of a tragic archetype, in which the protagonist proves unable to overcome their unfortunate predicament.18 although much of the musicological literature dealing with narrative has tended to focus on the tonal music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the analytical examples in almén’s book include post-tonal works by the likes of schoenberg and britten. nicholas reyland has extended this reach yet further, and has been prominent among a select group of musicologists who have been concentrating on narrative in the context of music of the 20th and 21st centuries. reyland’s focus on narrative was initially a response to his investigation of lutosławski’s concept of ackja, translated as “action” or “plot.” however, although some modernist composers have discussed their music in terms of narrative, reyland (2013, 29) observes that “modernism’s presence is often defined through the assertion of a notable absence: the desire (of composers) or ability (of post-tonal instrumental music) to represent narrative.” yet, as reyland implies, this is to insist on (usually tonal) harmony as the only bearer of musical narrativity, rather than seek the potential for narrative in other musical parameters. for example, parallels can be drawn between the use of montage in narrative cinema and stravinsky’s block-like juxtapositions in a work such as symphonies of wind instruments. such an approach to structure highlights “narrativity’s ability to intensify rather than collapse at moments of rupture” (ibid., 32): just as the use of montage in cinema 33 russell millard provides a mediated perspective on the underlying diachronic unfolding of story events, the continual recombination and re-juxtaposition of material in stravinsky’s forms draws attention to itself as discourse. exploring the different paths that musical narrative has taken in the twentieth century, reyland—building on the literary theories of gerald prince, martin fitzpatrick, and alan soldofsky—offers four categories of “narrative negation:” (1) disnarration; (2) denarration; (3) subjunctive narration; (4) bifurcated narration. disnarrations are elements in narrative in which events that could have happened are emphasized; for example, a climactic accident in which the protagonist could have died, but didn’t. disnarrations therefore offer a glimpse of “the possibility of an alternative fictional reality” (reyland 2013, 37). reyland presents examples from lutosławski to illustrate potential musical applications of disnarration, such as the ending of his third symphony where, similar to hatten’s discussion of beethoven’s op. 95, the music’s apparently tragic trajectory is exchanged for “a celebration of pentatonic fireworks [that] seems set to usher in a joyous new age,” before a “smear of dissonance dumps the music back to where the symphony began” (ibid., 38).19 denarrations, on the other hand, are narratives in which the narrator calls into question events that had previously been taken as fact. reyland’s example is taken from birtwistle’s earth dances, which exchanges a focus on d and f, sustained throughout the larger part of the work, for an emphasis on c and g at the end. this “might lead one to doubt one’s hearing of the structural cardinality of earlier events in the music, . . . in turn unravelling any musical plot one had hitherto been constructing” (39). denarrations rest on listeners’ inclination to interpret certain musical events as cone’s ([1984] 1989, 201) “commitments to the future,” through which they may indulge “the pleasure of anticipation”. however, rather than the enjoyment lying in the moment when the delayed resolution is achieved, denarrations are stories with twists in the tale; we are denied the expected payoff, but are rewarded instead with something novel and unexpected. subjunctive narration is identified by fitzpatrick (2002, 244, 245) as “uncertain narrative,” one “in which significant information is not epistemologically secure.” as a musical example of a subjunctive narration, reyland (2013) offers vaughan williams’s symphony no. 6. in a more conventional narrative structure, the undermining of the tonic e minor in the first movement of the symphony would likely be understood as an example 34 current musicology of a hermeneutic enigma requiring resolution, similar to mccreless’s discussion of the flattened submediant in beethoven’s “ghost” trio. however, reyland (2013, 41) argues that the “musical narrative withholds a satisfying sense of closure by evading the rhetorical or harmonic gestures needed to confirm whether the piece was truly ‘in’ e minor.” this uncertainty over the tonic key of the work—even at its end—leaves the listener grieving the sense of closure that the solution to hermeneutic enigmas provides, and it is significant that reyland chooses a tonal work to exemplify the subjunctive. as fitzpatrick (2002, 45) himself puts it, “in the subjunctive there are things we as readers wish to know and cannot know,” and the withholding of a solution to a tonal enigma serves as a powerful musical analogue to fitzpatrick’s literary concept. narrative ambiguity takes a different form in bifurcated narratives, in which “a second, seemingly tangential narrative intrudes upon the first, generating a range of relationships between them” (soldofsky 2003, 313). reyland understands berio’s rendering as an example of a bifurcated musical narrative. based on sketches left by schubert for a “tenth” symphony, the work flits between the music of schubert and berio, with the latter’s intruding upon the former’s. significantly, the juxtaposition of styles serves to foreground contrasts as much as it forges links, with reyland (2013, 42) noting that “both worlds become more wondrous through the uncanniness of their interwoven presentation.” the examination of non-traditional narrative structures in reyland’s work has opened up new possibilities for the investigation of musical narrative within post-romantic music. most significantly, his work demonstrates the continuing validity of narrative approaches, even in musical works that appear to lack the strongly teleological structures of conventional plots, forging new links between music of the 20th/ 21st centuries and contemporary literary models. most recently, andrew davis’s (2017) work on sonata narratives in romantic repertoire resonates with newcomb’s (and, indeed, hepokoski and darcy’s), in that nineteenth-century sonata forms are understood to be in dialogue with eighteenth-century sonata structures. against the highly directional, teleologically oriented organization of classical-era works, davis hears romantic sonatas as focused on the expression of manifold temporalities, to the extent that he identifies the disruption of directional narrative flow by structural and temporal discontinuities as the defining feature of the romantic aesthetic.20 davis also recalls mcclary’s work, in his demonstrations of the cultural significance of narrative by relating the discontinuities of nineteenth-century sonatas to the broader concerns of romanticism.21 for davis, a sense of fragmented time is a common aesthetic strategy for the romantics, and is employed to create “novelistic 35 russell millard effects” that deflect from the projected narrative trajectory “into an atemporal stream in which we experience the story not mimetically but rather diegetically . . . through a subjective agential presence” (ibid., 91). musical narratives beyond instrumental music in his classic essay “introduction to the structural analysis of narratives,” roland barthes ([1966] 1977, 79) argues that “narrative is first and foremost a prodigious variety of genres.” looking at the repertoire studied by the first two waves might appear suggest the opposite, and that it is only in classical instrumental music that narrative can be seen to operate. however, narrative theory has increasingly been applied to texted music, musical multi-media, and music beyond the classical canon. unsurprisingly, the relationship between music and film has been of particular interest, with reyland being especially prominent in this field. however, although reyland (2012) advances the relationship between musical narratology and film-music studies as a “beautiful friendship,” his recent article on narrative and affect (reyland 2017) ponders whether the focus on narrative representation in film music has become an orthodoxy that deafens us to embodied responses to audiovisual media. highlighting the dichotomy between the repellent visual imagery and zbigniew preisner’s tender, sentimental musical cues in kieślowski’s decalogue 5 (1988), reyland notes the music’s primary function in eliciting sympathetic responses from its audience towards unsympathetic characters. in other words, preisner’s music can be understood to serve an affective, or emotive role rather than explicitly narrative function. however, rather than this leading reyland to disavow narrative approaches to film, he advocates “doubling up one’s critical agenda,” by listening both to musical affect and narrative representation (ibid., 105). another recent article considering narrative outside the classical canon makes a case for considering expressive affect as containing its own narrative potential. ivan mouraviev’s (2017) study of music in the video game journey (2012) makes the case that emotions have an intrinsic narrativity, for they tend to be encountered in sequence and with an element of causality, whereby specific perceptions lead to particular emotional responses. music plays an especially significant role in the game, as there is no dialogue or any other textual information. mouraviev (2017, 71) notes how players’ interactions with the game world can impact the musical backdrop, giving the example of the game’s pink desert section, where the music changes depending on the length of time a player lingers in a certain section of the map, or whether or not the player is accompanied by an online companion. such musical changes can affect the emotive response 36 current musicology of the player, as narratives are often experienced from an expressive perspective, invoking affective trajectories in their audiences as we attend to the ups and downs of characters and situations (ibid., 68–69). this linking of emotive and narrative experiences is particularly acute in audiovisual settings, as the sentiments aroused in the player by the music organize the emotional trajectory of the visual narrative in what mouraviev (ibid., 71) calls “a synchresis of narrative affect.” karen collins and ruth dockwray (2017) make a similar point regarding the use of music in racing games. although racing games have traditionally been based around winning races and progressing through stages, collins and dockwray note that such games have increasingly begun to structure their content around narrative devices, and that, as this has happened, scored music emerges to immerse the player in the game, playing “a more emotionally sophisticated and dramatic role” (ibid., 409).22 over the last ten years or so, scholars have begun to explore popular music from a narrative standpoint. establishing a taxonomy of popularmusic narrative, david nicholls (2007) suggests five levels of possible narrative operation, of which levels three to five are the most relevant to the present discussion: (3) a narrative told through lyrics supported by the musical setting; (4) musical and lyrical narratives that operate at least partially independently of each other; (5) a multi-media narrative discourse of “lyrics, music, prose, and art work” (ibid., 301). as an example of level 3, nicholls offers kate bush’s “wuthering heights” (1978), noting how a shift from the recollection of the protagonist’s past to the present is supported by a sudden modulation from g major to a major, the harmonic structure of the song reinforcing the narrative change in the lyrics. music plays an active part in narrative signification at level 4. nicholls uses the instrumental third verse of “norwegian wood” by the beatles to illustrate this concept (ibid., 308), showing how the lack of verbal expression functions as a narrative suspension, delaying the revelation that the protagonist has spent the night in the bath, rather than in the antagonist’s bed, as had been implied by the lyrics at the end of the second verse. nicholls demonstrates the most interesting potential for the application of narrative theory to popular music at level 5, with a discussion of concept albums by genesis and the who. expanding his consideration of narrative to include all the albums’ media, nicholls finds narrative potential in the interaction between lyrical and musical narratives, but also in plot summaries in prose and pictorial narratives included as part of the album sleeves 37 russell millard (309–312). for example, in the lamb lies down on broadway by genesis, the album’s inner sleeve contains a prose narrative that not only appears to be narrated by someone other than the narrator of the songs’ lyrics, but is actually disjunct with some of the events of the lyrical and musical narratives. the songs of genesis’s album are sung from the perspective of a single protagonist called rael; however, the prose narrative of the album sleeve talks about rael in the third person, suggesting that it is narrated by a “heterodiegetic” narrator—that is, a narrator who does not take part in the plot—as opposed to rael’s “homodiegetic” narration. this disconnection between narratives creates epistemological issues left unresolved by the difficulty in ascribing priority to one telling over another: which version is the “real” story? the concern for narrative temporality that nicholls notes in both bush and the beatles songs has been picked up in a number of other narrative studies of popular music. jocelyn r. neal (2007) focuses on “time-shift narratives” in country music, in which a multigenerational life-cycle forms the basis of the lyrical narrative; keith negus (2012) examines “circular time” in popular songs, suggesting that the recurrent patterns of popular music form a mode of narrative discourse that has been neglected by narrative more concerned with outlining change over time in narratives; fred maus (2013) focuses on aids narratives in songs by the pet shop boys, noting an emphasis on narrative time in songs that describe the “before” and “after” of aids; and méi-ra st-lauren (2016) notes changes in temporality between narrative sequences in the song “mad architect” by the extreme metal band septicflesh (2011), explaining how breaks in the temporal rhythm of the story constitute a narrative of alienation and madness. telling tales following the foregoing survey of approaches to musical narrativity, we may now define some of the constants of the theory of musical narrative: (1) music and narrative are both temporal forms; (2) music and narrative both depend on a deep structure that is elaborated at higher levels; (3) the patterns outlined by these deep structures belong to a limited set of archetypal patterns. to this “structuralist” paradigm, we can also add the possibility of coordinating narrative structure with interpretative discourses via isomorphisms between musical structures and narrative archetypes. from the early work of newcomb and mcclary to more recent scholars like almén, reyland, 38 current musicology and davis, this emerges as one of the most notable features of narrative analysis, allowing interpretative hypotheses to be more or less grounded in an analysis of musical structure. despite the debates of the second wave, one may recently perceive a greater confidence in narratological approaches among scholars, perhaps best summed up by reyland’s assertion that sensuous, extrageneric and congeneric signifiers braid together in a musical discourse, and once one begins to attend to how the ideas they articulate follow and relate to one another—particularly if one is then moved to consider the structure thus emplotted in terms of its potential revelation of an overarching pattern—one may swiftly find oneself tingling all over in response to music that can profitably be investigated as narrative because, put boldly, aspects of that music are narrative. (reyland 2014, 213; original emphasis) that narrative approaches to music have proved tenacious should not surprise us, for so much of the way that music can be experienced corresponds with the manner in which narrative is conceived in a variety of media. crucially, narrative theory allows for a harmonization of “humanistic” and “structural” approaches to music, encouraging close theoretical links between cultural and analytical readings. it is this aspect of musical narratology that offers much to the broader field of musical scholarship, and it is to be hoped that the application of narrative theory in music analysis will continue to stimulate others to find new stories to tell. notes 1. indeed, hepokoski and darcy’s elements of sonata theory (2006), is open to the narrative potential of sonata form, whilst not taking an explicitly narratological approach (see, for example, 251–254, but also passim). 2. although propp’s work was focused on a specific repertory of russian fairy tales, his methodology is applicable to other types of narrative. the basic principle of examining the invariant aspects of narratives is a common gambit in structuralist narratology. 3. as we shall see, the musical examples that tend to attract the attention of musical narratologists are usually those that present a complicated or unusual relationship between story and discourse. this is especially true for those scholars of a more hermeneutic bent, as such pieces offer more in the way of interpretative potential. 4. in the hearing proposed here, the consequent is thematically but not harmonically parallel to the antecedent (the antecedent begins on i, whereas the consequent begins on ii), which is not uncommon in nineteenth-century music. it is possible, however, to hear mm. 72–80 as antecedent, with the thematically and harmonically parallel mm. 80–88 as the 39 russell millard consequent. nonetheless, the identical harmonic progression of both phrases, as well as the pac in m. 80 suggest that the second phrase is better understood as a varied repeat of the first. 5. the other two codes that mccreless considers as significant for musical narrative are the proairetic: the “causal” aspect of narrative, the sequence of events in a narrative, equivalent to the rules of voice-leading and harmony (mccreless 1988, 12), and semic: principally concerning recurring characters in a narrative, but also places and objects: “the most crucial of the three with respect to tonal music, for it exhibits clear parallels to thematic and motivic structure” (11). 6. the chord is missing its third, which just so happens to be the tonic of the movement, enhancing its non-diatonic effect. 7. mccreless (1988, 24) uses the barthesian term “function,” which refers to a more abstract narrative unit, not specifically a character, however, the simper notion of following a character’s trajectory through a story is perhaps a more familiar concept for those unfamiliar with narrative theory. 8. this has also been drawn on by v. kofi agawu (1991, 51–79), who uses aristotle’s paradigm as a framework for examining classical syntax. 9. littlefield and neumeyer (1992, 45) also draw an intriguing link between the ethical concerns of aristotle and schenker, arguing that, “if the telos of aristotle’s beginning-middleend recipe is to create good citizens through catharsis by inuring them to the possibility of tragedy in their own lives, its role for schenker is to create the proper listener, one who appreciates the ‘creative mind’ that ‘can derive content that is ever new.’” 10. it might seem odd to identify two motifs heard sequentially as a and c, with b arriving out of sequence. however, it becomes clear that this is because actor b is to play a more significant, and more independent role as the movement progresses. 11. although musical narratology owes much of its impetus to the more critically focused approaches that followed in mcclary’s wake, her analysis of brandenburg no. 5 makes it clear that mcclary herself is concerned principally with a musical narrative’s contribution to social meaning. because of this, mcclary’s analyses are arguably somewhat outside the mainstream narratological concern with structural resonances between musical and nonmusical narrative. this is no way diminishes the significance of mcclary’s work to later musical narratologists, especially given the sustained focus on musical meaning in contemporary narrative studies, but it does point out the difference in emphasis between mcclary and the more heavily theoretical approaches adopted by other narrative scholars. 12. all translations of nattiez 2011 are my own. 13. the implied author is the authorial persona “as reconstructed from the text” (prince 2003, 42), and is thus ontologically separate from the real author. for chatman, this stricture is “a commonplace of literary theory” (1978, 147) 14. this diegesis/mimesis distinction is introduced by plato (1993, 89) in the republic, where he describes mimesis as “entirely representational” and diegesis as “in the poet’s own voice.” aristotle (2013, 19) draws a similar distinction: “narrative [diegesis] may be borne throughout by a single narrator, or with variation as in homer. in dramatization [mimesis] all the personages play their parts as active agents.” 15. in the interim between its first appearance as an article in 19th-century music and the version quoted here from her book unsung voices, abbate added a qualifier to her argument. in her original, “music is fundamentally different, not diegetic but mimetic” (1989, 40 current musicology 228); in the later version, music is now “not chiefly diegetic but mimetic” (1991; my emphasis). where abbate’s language is unchanged between the two versions of her essay, i provide references for both. 16. in studies of literary narrative, competing points of view are possible, articulated by the concept of focalization, the perspective from which the elements of the story level are perceived. for example, in the sentence “susan was disgusted by pete’s eating habits,” susan is the focalizer and pete the focalized, and both are distinct from the narrator who describes susan’s disgust. as readers, we do not need to agree with susan’s perspective, but we are able to experience her subjectivity through the act of focalization. the topic of focalization is not one that has attracted much musicological speculation—the issue with distinguishing multiple viewpoints in music rather militates against it—although vincent meelberg (2006, 68) has identified the function of focalization in music as fulfilled by the performer, as a musical work “does not receive its final appearance when the musical score is written by the composer, but only during performance.” however, the identification of the performer as focalizer is an unsatisfactory conclusion—should an actor in a drama be included among the list of focalizers in a play?—and arguably seeks to shoehorn the concept of focalization into musical narrative for the sake of finding musical equivalents of the features of other media’s narratology. a more convincing perspective on focalization is offered by michele cabrini (2012, 14), who co-opts cone’s notion of the “composer’s voice” to fulfil a focalizing role, although it is difficult to see how this differs from new criticism’s “implied author.” see rink (2001) for a discussion of the performer as narrator. southard (2011) engages the issue of focalization from the perspective of opera. 17. what hatten observes in his example is a juxtaposition of topics, which he elegantly defines elsewhere as “patches of music that trigger clear associations with styles, genres, and expressive meanings” (2004, 2). hatten is not alone in identifying the narrative potential of topical discourse; in playing with signs, v. kofi agawu (1991, 36) notes that a sequence of topics “suggests a discourse, possibly a narrative.” however, where hatten is fairly free in admitting the possibility of narrative discourse in music, agawu is more cautious, suggesting that there is little evidence that music can narrate “in any but the most trivial sense” (36 n. 30). 18. another way of understanding almén’s archetypes is as an abstraction of the more historically grounded cultural meanings found in the work of scholars like mcclary. for example, rather than view the first movement of bach brandenburg concerto no. 5 as a specific narrative about the power structures of bach’s day, almén instead views it as an example of the more general category of ironic narratives (174–176). 19. another example of a disnarration can be found in ravel’s ballet daphnis et chloé, in which the audience is set up to expect a wedding that never actually arrives (see millard 2018, 348–351). 20. for similar approaches to sonata form as narrative paradigm in post-classical music, see monahan (2015) on mahler and tarrant (2017) on nielsen. 21. if davis’s work carries echoes of earlier narrative scholars, the same is true of other contemporaneous work in the field. for example, loretta terrigno’s (2017) focus on “tonal problems” in brahms demonstrate kinship with mccreless’s use of barthes’s narrative codes, whereas tarasti’s musical adaptation of greimassian narratology is reflected in a variety of recent studies of mixed-media genres such as song, opera, program music, and ballet (see suurpää 2011; 2014; everett 2015; pawłowaska 2018; millard 2018). 22. see gibbons (2011) for a study of the use of popular music as a narrative element in 41 russell millard video games. especially intriguing is his examination of the manner in which the same song can be interpreted as either a straightforward commentary or an ironic gloss on the ludic narrative, depending on the choices made by the player. the interactivity and degree of player choice in video games poses problems for the study of musical narratives, but also opens up new possibilities. references abbate, carolyn. 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commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 121 fink, robert, melinda latour, and zachary wallmark (eds). 2018. the relentless pursuit of tone. new york: oxford university press. reviewed by megan l. lavengood it’s almost a platitude to mention that timbre is the most important musical dimension in popular music; the statement is so often repeated. take one example from mark spicer, writing in 2005: “for the experienced listener and analyst, it is often the particular timbres featured on a pop or rock record that allow us to position that track historically and which, in turn, render the track most meaningful for us.” spicer also wrote in the same article that “unlike pitch and rhythm, timbre remains the one musical parameter that popular music scholars have found almost impossible to convey” (spicer 2005, 14). but now, thirteen years later, dozens of musicologists have risen to meet this challenge. the relentless pursuit of tone: timbre in popular music, edited by robert fink, melinda latour, and zachary wallmark, presents an expertly curated series of essays that analyze the role of timbre in a wealth of different genres, using a great diversity of approaches. this book demonstrates that timbre is a subfield that is positively booming with activity, as it collects fifteen different authors providing many paths that an aspiring timbre analyst might follow. timbre studies have flourished remarkably within the past five years. as evidence of this momentum, consider the programming of timbre talks in national conferences. surveying the programs of the past 10 years of annual meetings, i found only one timbre panel before 2018. and in the 2018 joint meeting of the american musicological society and the society for music theory, three panels were explicitly dedicated to timbre. also in 2018, mcgill university hosted an entirely timbre-themed interdisciplinary conference, titled timbre is a many-splendored thing, and another compendium of approaches to timbre analysis, the oxford handbook of timbre, edited by emily dolan and alexander rehding, is also in the process of being published.1 all of this evidence shows an enormous uptick in musicologists’ interest in timbre. the 2018 release of the relentless pursuit of tone, then, is timely indeed. it distinguishes itself from the oxford handbook by focusing purely on popular musics—a sensible narrowing of scope, considering the sentiment articulated by spicer quoted at the beginning of this essay. each author in this volume addresses timbre as an aspect of sound from a variety of analytical perspectives, often bridging the gap between considerations 122 current musicology of material aspects of timbre (acoustics, equipment used by musicians or “gear,” production) and the social implications and results of these timbral constructions in terms of race, class, gender, and sexuality. throughout my review, i intend to highlight each chapter’s new contributions to our field, as well as the nuances present in each author’s treatment of timbre. my hope is that the seamless integration of timbre-as-acoustics and timbre-associal-phenomenon, as represented in this book, will serve as a primer and a model for all musicologists wishing to turn their attention toward timbre. fifteen chapters from senior and junior scholars of timbre comprise this book. immediately evident is the diversity of the genres considered. while scholarship of pop/rock music can revolve around a few canonical figures (the beatles, the beach boys, and beyoncé might be the pop music version of bach, beethoven, and brahms), this book discusses electronic dance music (edm), country, death metal, reggae, jazz, fusion, and rap in addition to “top 40” pop and rock genres. not every chapter focuses on a particular genre; chapters focused on specific production techniques (e.g., autotune, reverb, and synthesizers) survey artists from various backgrounds. what holds this essay collection together, beyond the topics in the title, is the attention each author pays to social context in addition to concrete aspects like gear and acoustics. the resulting discussions all have sympathetic resonances with one another, as discussions of aesthetics and value continually arise as themes throughout the essays. these coeval issues are exactly why the editors place such emphasis on the word tone in their title and foreword—while ostensibly a synonym for “timbre,” “tone” conveys a sense of personhood and value that “timbre” often sidesteps. each author’s essay makes clear, however, that these issues of tone are often the most interesting component of an essay on timbre, providing the “so what” factor (to paraphrase allan moore [2012, 285–7]). because space restricts me from devoting as many words as i’d like to each chapter, i will group my discussion of several chapters together. in the book itself, the chapters are grouped into four parts: genre, voice, instrument, and production. for this review, however, i prefer to group the chapters according to genre and production, but also according to a theme that permeates the entire volume: the significance of perception and reality in the issue of source bonding. the book opens with a chapter by ethnomusicologist cornelia fales, which was an appropriate acknowledgment by the editors of fales’s crucial and fundamental work in the field of timbre analysis. in her chapter “hearing timbre: perceptual learning among early bay area ravers,” fales presents an ethnography of an edm listserv “sfraves” that evidences edm fans’ ability to obtain special attenuation to timbre as a structurally salient parameter, which subverts the typical tendency to understand timbre in 123 megan l. lavengood music as an emergent property of pitch. she argues edm is particularly fruitful music for this heightened attenuation, because the sounds of edm are often perceived as sourceless sounds, thanks to their electronic genesis. fales’s earlier article, “the paradox of timbre” (2002), set the scene for all timbre research that came after it, thanks to its critique of spectrogram study and other acoustics-based timbre perspectives. in this article, fales described the issue of source bonding, where a listener pairs a timbre with its presumed physical source. the “paradox” of the title is that this process is highly instinctual and yet also quite unreliable in its accuracy; listeners can effectively attribute a sound to its source in a fraction of a second, but listeners can and do mis-identify sound sources and remain unaffected by the mistake unless directly conflicting information is given. fales’s critique of source bonding in analysis of timbre obviously influences the other contributors to this volume, whether explicitly or implicitly. one such chapter is steve waksman’s. his discussion of guitar synthesizers (nb: not keytars), in addition to providing a fascinating history of the development of this technology, also discussed the tension between a clearly guitar-like sound and the exponentially more timbrally diverse sound-world of the synthesizer. waksman posits that the guitar synthesizer was most popular in fusion music because of fusion’s desire to push new sounds into a jazz-like context, but simultaneously points out that the sounds themselves ended up not being particularly new—they “were in many regards most unique not in how they sounded but in how they were created” (271). waksman goes on to suggest that the failure of these timbres to bond to their sources as guitars, combined with the failure of the synthesizers to be able to truly duplicate the mechanics of playing a guitar, led to the guitar synthesizer falling flat in the markets. another chapter that builds on concepts of source bonding, albeit more obliquely, is mark c. samples’s “timbre and legal likeness: the case of tom waits.” this article reviews a legal case in which waits successfully litigated against the use of his voice in a commercial—only the voice was not waits’s, but a mimic’s. samples’s essay argues that this position essentializes waits’s diverse vocal timbres into a singular unified voice, a concept he seems to be critiquing as overly simplistic, as he writes that “it would be more accurate to talk about waits’s voices” (124). however, i see this as another instance of analysis of source bonding. the issue is not really the unity or disunity of the vocal timbre, but rather the issue of the perceived source of the timbre, who is a person with legal rights in the usa. this would also potentially provide one answer to samples’s question about why instrumental timbres are not currently protected in the same way as vocal timbres: while the source of a voice is a particular person, 124 current musicology the source of a trumpet sound is probably perceived to be, generically, a trumpet, rather than a person playing a trumpet. perhaps this is an issue that samples could investigate in future work. simon zagorski-thomas also takes up the issue of source bonding in his chapter, “the spectromorphology of recorded popular music: the shaping of sonic cartoons through record production.” zagorskithomas’s idea of the sonic cartoon in part says that the mere implication of a source bonding is enough to conjure up an image of the source, even when the source is patently unrealistic—like a cartoon can conjure up an image of a real object. more than that, zagorski-thomas shows how it is not only objects, but gestures or actions that are associated in the brain with sounds. he then goes on to a close analysis of both acoustic and electronic tracks and identifies synthesized and electronically-manipulated sounds’ creation of realistic spaces, gestures, and sources. in this way, the fact that humans incorrectly identify sound sources can be exploited by producers. many chapters in the book closely considered aspects of music production as manifestations of cultural values and socially-constructed ideas. production, like timbre, is a domain that can tend to get shortchanged in musicological analysis. paul théberge’s chapter, like zagorski-thomas’s, investigated the creation of implied spaces through the manipulation of sounds, but with a particular focus on reverb. “the sound of nowhere: reverb and the construction of sonic space” is both a history of reverb as a technology as well as an analysis of the aesthetic implications of various approaches to adding reverb. one of théberge’s many perceptive points is that while reverb originated as a physical, acoustic phenomenon—a signature of the space in which sound occurs—music production and engineering practices transformed reverb into a simple sound effect that is not meant to evoke space. the effects of reverb, alongside mic placement and track length, is also central to jan butler’s “clash of the timbres: recording authenticity in the california rock scene.” this chapter focuses on the music of jefferson airplane as a case study for the turn in popular music culture toward valuing the studio album over valuing the live concert as a site of authentic performance. butler focuses on the particular production techniques for a sound that seems to recreate a live experience, versus a sound that seems more studio-engineered. she also traces the difficulties that jefferson airplane, a band most well-known for their live concert experience, experienced in trying to maintain their identity on the recording. this issue of identity and production resonates with catherine provenzano’s chapter, “auto-tune, labor, and the pop-music voice.” provenzano demonstrates that auto-tune redistributes skill, rather than replaces it. auto-tune also challenges common conceptions of the auton125 megan l. lavengood omy of the singer and the role of the producer. she compares the reception of taylor swift, an artist who is recognized as having a relatively weak voice that is reliant on auto-tune, to t-pain, who uses auto-tune to create a deliberately engineered and produced effect. t-pain’s tiny desk concert, which he performed acoustically, resulted in listener surprise at hearing his skilled voice. she contrasts this with taylor swift, who is granted notions of value and skill despite also relying on auto-tune. provenzano chose these two artists explicitly for the purpose of addressing the role of race in the process of determining skill within an auto-tuned production. where precisely provenzano locates race in the process was somewhat unclear to me due to the contrast in the discussion around taylor swift, which focused on emotionality of the singer, versus the discussion around t-pain, which revolved around the binary of humans and machines. the contrast, of course, is ultimately the implied point—i believe provenzano is communicating that t-pain was perceived as an unskilled machine partially because of using auto-tune while black, whereas taylor swift can use auto-tune without being perceived as unskilled thanks to her explicit performance of whiteness. production is also intertwined with cultural value systems in albin j. zak iii’s chapter, “the death rattle of a laughing hyena: the sound of musical democracy,” which blends the discussion of production techniques and gear with the discussion of implicit value systems in music of the 1950s. zak argues that the rise of indie label records of amateur musicians in the 1950s subverted notions of “good” or “bad” records, as lo-fi records of amateur musicians sold as well as more professional productions. he speculates that the reason for its success was the “virtually guaranteed originality” of the sound of amateur music-making. thus, insofar as popularity (i.e., the will of the people) represents what is a good or bad record, it seems that production value does not correlate. a completely different take on production and cultural significance can be found in “santana and the metaphysics of tone: feedback loops, volume knobs, and the quest for transcendence,” by melinda latour. the chapter is in some ways a discussion of santana’s gear setup, including his use of amplifiers and innovations of playing while manipulating the volume knob, the main goal of which was to increase the sustain of the guitar tone. latour mentions that many fans wish to discuss santana’s groundbreaking technique without making reference to his new age religious philosophy, which he often discussed; however, she points out that for santana, the two halves of his self were inseparable. latour convincingly connects santana’s obsession with sustain in his guitar tone with his spiritual goal of achieving transcendence and connection with the world, demonstrating that a full 126 current musicology understanding of santana’s method must include his spirituality. the discussion of indivisible aspects of a person’s identity is a central issue in nina sun eidsheim’s chapter, “‘the triumph of jimmy scott’: a voice beyond category.” jimmy scott was a jazz singer born with a hormonal condition that essentially stopped the process of puberty from occuring. because of his high voice, scott challenged notions of masculinity that demand either a deeper voice or a falsetto timbre, neither of which were present in scott’s singing. eidsheim reveals the power of audience perception in evaluating timbre by proposing that scott’s frequent pigeonholed status as a marker of otherworldliness was the result of audiences’ inability to reconcile his vocal timbre with his identity as a black man. a distinct but related phenomenon is the use of explicitly synthesized timbres as a signifier of protest in funk music, which is discussed in griffin woodworth’s chapter, “synthesizers as social protest in early-1970s funk.” in music by parliament-funkadelic and stevie wonder, woodworth notes the pairings of lyrical depictions of racial inequality with the deployment of synthesizers playing timbres from clearly electronic sources. woodworth briefly surveys the history of the synthesizer and how synthesizers, like other technology, raise anxiety in the public about issues of humans versus machines. woodsworth ultimately argues, then, that wonder and bernie worrell (parliament funkadelic’s keyboardist) are deliberately capitalizing on these anxieties to underscore the racial tension present in their lyrics. identity is also at stake in john howland’s “hearing luxe pop: jay-z, isaac hayes, and the six degrees of symphonic soul.” luxe pop is not quite a genre in the traditional sense, but is howland’s term for pop music performed with an orchestra, and howland investigates the aesthetic implications of this type of collaboration through webs of topical association. while howland acknowledges that “there is important class-based aura transference in … production indulgence and extravagance, as well as access to capital” (199), his essay complicates the notion that a pop artist performing with an orchestra is intended to upgrade a low art form by enlisting a high art form. he achieves this by both using jay-z as an example of an artist who seemed to employ the medium ironically, and also by showing consistent use of symphonic accompaniments in popular black music styles dating back to the 1920s. a similar debunking of popular myth occurs in robert fink’s “below 100 hz: toward a musicology of bass culture,” which addresses jamacain reggae. fink, using jamaican reggae sound systems as a case study, dispels the popular notion that bass, more than other ranges of hearing, affects primarily the body; his analysis of the acoustics and technology of bass frequency projection shows that bass is in many ways like other ranges of 127 megan l. lavengood hearing with respect to felt vs. heard quotients. one exception fink notes is that loud bass is less likely to damage ears than midor high-range sounds, due to the attenuation of human perception to speaking-range frequencies. after thoroughly surveying acoustics, perception, human anatomy, and speaker technology, fink concludes that “the ‘power’ of deep bass appears to be our intuitive perception of how difficult it is to hear these frequencies at all” (112). few genres have as widely-recognized timbral markers as heavy metal and country music, and the chapters by jocelyn neal and zachary wallmark, titled “the twang factor in country music” and “the sound of evil: timbre, body, and sacred violence in death metal” respectively, each take care to define their genre’s identity markers thoroughly by combining cultural study with acoustics. like fink, wallmark documents the use of noise both acoustically and through technology. following the trope of death metal as catharsis, he argues that acoustic noise in death metal serves as an analogue for a sacrificial victim in a ritual: fans pour their negative energy into the noise. this lets wallmark understand noise as a timbre from the perspective of physical sound production and the complexities of human interpretation of that sound. jocelyn neal’s chapter on country gives an extremely thorough overview of possible definitions of twang, all the aspects of which i do not have room to summarize; essentially, like wallmark’s discussion of noise, neal’s analysis of twang defines its object as both a timbral phenomenon and a cultural value. toward the former point, neal summarizes several sources that define twang as essentially marked by changes in acoustic elements, and she further underscores this point by comparing the spectrograms of a twangy banjo with an un-twangy guitar. to the latter point, neal first reveals that “twang” is a word that, shockingly, often goes undiscussed in existing academic literature on country music, which she suggests is reflective of the word’s heavily negative connotations. neal discusses the reduction of twang in country music of the 1960s, when country music was marketed for cross-chart appeal and artists likewise were encouraged to try on country music to rejuvenate their acts, and then contrasts that with the more recent turn back toward an embrace of twang in country music as a symbol of individualism. twang and noise are defined in neal’s and wallmark’s writings as complex phenomenona that cannot be fully explored through acoustics or ethnography alone. recorded sound is very important to timbre studies, as timbre itself cannot be notated with the same accuracy and clarity as pitch or rhythm. the relentless pursuit of tone deals with this issue by having a companion website where complex visual and audio examples are readily available for the reader, but i found myself wishing the publishers had utilized the web128 current musicology site more fully. occasionally i found a musical example that really would have been better displayed online—figure 15.2, an annotated spectrogram, was one such example, as i could not make out the annotations at all. the website could also be more responsive for users browsing on their phones (there is no mobile version) and embed audio rather than having listeners actually download the files to their hard drives. despite these technological shortcomings, the best way to enjoy this book is to read with access to the companion website’s audio examples by your side throughout. i suggest that the publisher consider redoing the website to be responsive and use embedded media, and if the book releases a new edition, the editors and publishers might consider a fully online format, which would more easily accommodate the multimedia experience demanded by a book on timbre studies. the entire book proves to be highly interdisciplinary. musicologists interested in timbre, of course, will appreciate this book, but scholars in popular culture studies, sound studies, music cognition and perception, and music technology will also find these essays insightful and provocative. one issue that plagues all of timbre studies is the individuation necessary in our methodologies of timbre study. even with this book full of exemplary timbre analyses, fledgling timbre analysts may still feel somewhat at a loss for how to embark upon their own analyses—the approaches used by the authors, while united in their emphasis on social and acoustic properties of timbre, are as heterogenous and idiosyncratic as their musical objects of study. i believe it’s safe to say that the field of musicology may never establish a unified, primary methodology for the analysis of timbre. but an enterprising reader of this book could hopefully extract many broadlyapplicable approaches from the essays in this book: like butler, one could survey a band’s studio output and trace the subtle changes in mixing and sound-box visualization to support conclusions about that band’s aesthetic goals; like neal, one could combine spectrogram analysis with a historical overview of a genre to define the genre’s sound from these dual perspectives; like fales, one could conduct an ethnographic study of a body of discussion about timbre and draw conclusions about the role and perception of timbre among a particular group of people; and the list goes on. as i teach seminars in timbre analysis, i will certainly draw from this volume as i show students how they might go about tackling the analysis of what might be the most perceptually salient element of popular music. 129 megan l. lavengood notes 1. the handbook is not yet published in its entirety, but oxford is publishing the chapters online as they are finished. references dolan, emily i., and alexander rehding, eds. 2018. the oxford handbook of timbre. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190637224.001.0001. fales, cornelia. 2002. “the paradox of timbre.” ethnomusicology 46 (1): 56–95. https://doi. org/10.2307/852808. moore, allan f. 2012. song means: analysing and interpreting recorded popular song. burlington, vt: ashgate publishing company. spicer, mark. 2005. “review of walter everett, the beatles as musicians: the quarry men through rubber soul (new york and oxford: oxford university press, 2001).” music theory online 11 (4). http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.05.11.4/mto.05.11.4.spicer_ essay.html. 130 current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 ligrani. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 187 coelho, victor and keith polk. 2016. instrumentalists and renaissance culture, 1420-1600: players of function and fantasy. cambridge: cambridge university press. reviewed by jonathan ligrani instrumental music permeated the soundscape of renaissance europe, resounding from watchtowers and ceremonial processions, echoing from the walls of castles and cathedrals, directing the steps and competing with the din of dancers’ shuffling feet, and occupying the intervals between theatrical acts and the courses of patricians’ daily banquets. despite the ubiquity and significance of these sounds, musicologists have overlooked their presence in the landscape of renaissance scholarship. in instrumentalists and renaissance culture, 1420-1600: players of function and fantasy, victor coelho and keith polk address this deficiency, bringing the work of renaissance instrumentalists out of the historiographical margins, where it generally supports a primary focus on vocal music and notated texts. as the authors rightfully stress, this tendency is rooted in the urtext model of compositional finitude which leaves aside the unwritten traditions of instrumental music, presenting a fixed, anachronistic work concept over the fluidity of transcriptions and arrangements (2-3, 212, 292-4). toward this aim, instrumentalists and renaissance culture joins ongoing discussions concerning extemporaneous and written composition by scholars such as philippe canguilhem, rob wegman, julie e. cumming, and jessie ann owens, among others (canguilhem, 2015; wegman, 1996; cumming, 2013; owens, 1998; nettl, 1974). at the same time, coelho and polk contribute to the broad literature of civic and court histories regarding cities such as mantua, ferrara, venice, florence, and milan longstanding within musicological discourse, enhancing studies of cultural meaning and social function from an instrumental viewpoint (fenlon, 1980; lockwood, 1984; feldman, 1995; cummings, 1992, 2004; kendrick, 2002). the monograph examines instrumental music from 1420 to 1600 multifocally, spanning “an array of disparate and diverse topics—patronage, source studies, performance, pedagogy, translation, instruments, improvisation, historiography, and the music of both brueghel’s villagers and fra angelico’s angels—under the umbrella of ‘instrumental music’” (16). through their thematic breadth, the authors emphasize their work’s extractable functionality: the book is geared toward a broader readership than the music specialist—deemed equally useful 188 current musicology for the performer or renaissance scholar—and designed modularly, each chapter intended to stand alone. further, the chapters intersperse thirteen independent case studies throughout the volume, the prose alternating between a zoomed lens and the broader establishing shots of historical narrative. though this method could present disjointedly, coelho and polk introduce guiding concepts that facilitate consistency, such as the groupings of loud and soft (haut and bus) instruments for different social and cultural environments, or the context-driven requirements of musical material and adaptability of arrangements. the potential drawback of this approach is that material from disparate sections can appear in subsequent ones without significant variation, such as similar information on dance music resurfacing in chapter 5 (206, 100-4, 178-80), or the recurring account of lorenzo the magnificent’s personal involvement in florence’s hiring of wind ensemble members (4, 51, 148). despite these modest tensions, instrumentalists and renaissance culture reveals the function of instrumental music in diverse avenues of renaissance culture, offering valuable resources for bringing this essential aspect of life into history. drawing from the archival evidence of town registers, hiring documents, and payroll lists, chapter 1 explores courtly, aristocratic, civic, and sacred institutions of patronage. it details the ways instrumentalists facilitated necessary functions of daily life and self-fashioning throughout social classes, from monarchs displaying magnificence through the number and prestige of their trumpeters, wind bands, and chamber musicians, to watchmen and signaling groups hired by cities, who gradually took on musical functions for town events. emerging as a primary theme, the authors foreground instrumental music’s institutional tether within the renaissance, with style and genre tied to the demands of activities and spaces rather than to repertoire, and career flourishing bound to the ebb and flow of a city’s prosperity. by considering style as a requirement of space and function, coelho and polk avoid teleologically placing style as the locus of historical change. a striking example is the flourishing of antwerp’s musical culture in the mid-sixteenth century and its subsequent waning due to the religious conflicts within the region and desolation of its economy in the latter part of the century, which had a detrimental effect upon city-employed musicians (55–8). another of the chapter’s significant contributions is the codification of a “three-part framework” (21) of instrumental groups retained by higher nobility—trumpets, wind bands, and chamber musicians—solidifying in the burgundian court around the middle of the fifteenth century and expanding in size and additional categories throughout the time period under consideration. 189 jonathan ligrani chapter 2 provides a different historical vantage point, proceeding outward from a chronological sequence of eighteen source-based studies from manuscripts and prints of various instrumental works and the social contexts in which they were generated. through primary sources, coelho and polk illustrate another theme: that instrumental and vocal music shared a repertory; thus instrumental versions of vocal works were critical in the dissemination of renaissance music generally. the authors acknowledge the disorderly appearance of a case-study approach, but emphasize its value as a more realistic presentation of coexisting features such as older and newer styles, improvisation and written traditions, and the interchangeability of instruments rather than a tidier, yet artificial structuring around genre (63–4). the merits of this method reside in the richness of the individual source studies. noteworthy details surface, like the alignment of balanced, imitative polyphony within petrucci’s odhecaton of 1501 coinciding with the shift from mixed-plectrum to fingerstyle lute playing in order to accommodate the transcription of this contrapuntal style, demonstrated in francesco spinacino’s intabulatura de lauto libro primo and libro secondo of 1507. further, the source history allows the authors to explain historical and stylistic developments through concrete examples. for instance, the casanatense manuscript, believed to encode the repertory of the ferrarese wind band around the end of the sixteenth century, exhibits material likely conceived with instrumental performance in mind. the authors demonstrate this through the music’s forms, the difficulty in textual concordance and the omission of text, and marked differences in musical style from earlier manuscripts toward the high art music of the time (73–4). although providing musical examples would help elucidate these stylistic points—and similar ones throughout the text—the authors have forgone them to accommodate an interdisciplinary audience (16). after locating the manuscript, coelho and polk link its stylistic attributes to the capabilities of the virtuosic instrumentalists employed at duke ercole i d’este’s court (74–5). their source study provides institutional links to musico-stylistic change, similar to the milieu of composers supplying virtuosic material for the ferrarese concerto delle donne a century later (newcomb 1980, 3). though the merits of their method are clear, it places the burden of continuity on the reader, at times straining the connections between discussions and delaying the introduction of useful concepts. for example, the role of the tenorist in lute duos is described in the spinacino source study (ch. 2, 79, 83), though the authors refer to the practice while discussing pietrobono and duke ercole’s chamber ensembles a few pages earlier (ch. 2, 74-5). the next three chapters respectively center on the lived reali190 current musicology ties of amateur and professional instrumentalists; the ceremonial and festive contexts of instrumental music within the civic, courtly, and sacred spheres of renaissance life; and the pedagogical differences between vocal, theoretical education, and the unwritten tradition of the instrumentalist craftsman. through investigation and illustrative case studies, chapter 3 elucidates the economic and social realities of professional instrumentalists possessing institutional contracts, as well as freelancers. profiles on benvenuto cellini and conrad paumann further reveal the training systems and connections providing educational and occupational advantages, as well as specific glimpses of musicians’ working lives. chapter 4 investigates the use of instrumental music at events ranging from public street festivals to chamber music during the private banquets of nobles or accompanying the devotional singing of religious confraternities. the notion of “background music” emerges regarding the varying levels of listener consciousness within the events and spaces discussed. for example, the authors describe the transition of theatrical music in the sixteenth century from intermedi performed between the acts of a play—such as those accompanying the 1589 florentine performance of bargagli’s la pellegrina—to the more equalized partnership between music and drama appearing with monteverdi’s l’orfeo in 1607 (180-3). the authors explicate similar phenomena concerning the gradual incorporation of wind instruments into the mass in the sixteenth century from their prior role as “external decoration” playing in balconies outside of the building (186–7), as well as the migration of dance music from accompanying the ritualized dances of nobles to supplying the primary melodic and harmonic material for printed lute and keyboard collections around the turn of the sixteenth century (178–9). these transitions might be considered alongside similar changes in performance and audience listening within the latter half of the sixteenth century, such as the madrigal’s growing complexity and concomitant reliance upon virtuosic singers for execution in mantua and ferrara, rather than its earlier residence with the amateur singer/listener in scenarios resembling musical conversation (macy 1996, 6–8, 17; carter 1992, 131–2). the penultimate chapter critically discusses the relationship between improvisation and composition, the faulty valuation of the composer with permanent artifacts, and the application of translation theory to the process of instrumental intabulations. coelho and polk contend that instrumental pedagogy existed outside the texted tradition of singing at cathedral schools, utilizing oral transmission and resembling the master-apprentice system of guilds (190–191). for this reason, tablature predominates in early lute prints, as it resembles the oral and tactile pedagogy amateur lute 191 jonathan ligrani players received (191). similarly, the authors relate instrumental performance to a craftsman’s build, selecting appropriate materials, rhythmic and melodic foundations, and weaving decorative patterns around the structure, all in real time (192). they present a further compelling idea in conceiving the processes of intabulating vocal polyphony as an “intrasemiotic translation” between two notational systems (213). drawn from literary translation theories, coelho and polk argue the viewpoint of translation as interpretation, comparing the possible instrumental arrangements of vocal counterpoint and their varying levels of abstraction from the source to the different qualities of meaning a translator might choose to emphasize in rendering a text to their intended audience: as motets and mass movements cross into secular, domestic environments, soloistic figuration, cadential ornaments, occasional parallel intervals, unprepared dissonance, and truncations of the original usually prohibited in the writing of sacred music are permitted, producing a new “vernacular” in translation that is not limited by language or religion (218). their argument infuses several of the book’s overarching themes: that vocal and instrumental music shared a repertory, that instrumental arrangements of vocal works were a primary source of dispersal throughout different levels of society, and that instrumental music was not a lesser copy of notated sources—rather music was centered on adaptive fluidity suiting the requirements of space and context. in weaving together these argumentative threads, coelho and polk add a revitalizing perspective to musicological discourse, one supported by specific and varied evidence. coelho and polk emphasize a final approach in chapter 6, “renaissance instruments: images and realities,” utilizing contemporary images—exclusively drawn from paintings—in a methodical survey of instruments, ensembles, and their usage. the placement of this study at the book’s conclusion allows the reader to generate deeper meaning from the sources and methods explored in previous chapters. however, interweaving images with content in earlier chapters would have clarified references to specific artworks the authors make throughout the book. for example, images would have assisted the discussion of artworks where angelic figures play “soft instruments” in chapter 4 (186), or references to visual evidence confirming the presence of lutenists in the processions of venetian confraternities of the scuole grandi from around 1480 to 1600 in chapter 5 (207). in sum, instrumentalists and renaissance culture generates a more complete picture of the cultural world of renaissance europe. the reader is left with tangible perspectives on the institutions of instrumental music, its 192 current musicology multivalent uses, the education and lives of its performers, and the various instruments on which they performed. at the same time, coelho and polk contribute to the historiographical shift away from the focus on composers of written works, unlocking the ever-present yet ephemeral art of craftsmen musicians. references canguilhem, philippe. 2015. “improvisation as concept and musical practice in the fifteenth century.” in the cambridge history of fifteenth-century music, edited by anna maria busse berger and jesse rodin, 149–163. cambridge: cambridge university press. carter, tim. 1992. music in late renaissance & early baroque italy. london: b.t. batsford limited. cumming, julie e. 2013. “renaissance improvisation and musicology.” music theory online. cummings, anthony m. 1992. the politicized muse: music for medici festivals, 1512–1537. princeton: princeton university press. ———. 2004. the maecenas and the madrigalist: patrons, patronage, and the origins of the italian madrigal. philadelphia: american philosophical society. feldman, martha. 1995. city culture and the madrigal at venice. berkeley and los angeles. fenlon, iain. 1980. music and patronage in sixteenth-century mantua. cambridge: cambridge university press. lockwood, lewis. 1984. music in renaissance ferrara, 1400–1505. cambridge, ma.: harvard university press. macy, laura. 1996. “speaking of sex: metaphor and performance in the italian madrigal.” the journal of musicology 14: 1–34. nettl, bruno. 1974 “thoughts on improvisation: a comparative approach.” the musical quarterly 60 (1): 1–19. newcomb, anthony. 1980. the madrigal at ferrara, 1579–1597. the princeton studies in music. princeton, nj.: princeton university press. owens, jessie ann. 1998. composers at work: the craft of musical composition 1450–1600. new york: oxford university press. wegman, rob c.1996. “from maker to composer: improvisation and musical authorship in the low countries, 1450-1500.” journal of the american musicological society 49 (3).. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 hisama. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 81 power and equity in the academy: change from within ellie m. hisama as an undergraduate music major interested in graduate study in music theory, i asked joseph straus, with whom i was taking an independent study in music theory and feminism, if he knew of any published work in feminist music theory. the only relevant writing he could think of was susan mcclary’s “pitches, expression, ideology,” from the little-known journal enclitic (1983). after reading this article (which i still reference when teaching schubert lieder), i corresponded with mcclary, and we set up a meeting during her visit to new york to speak at the brecht forum/ new york marxist school. we quickly bonded over the fact that we both grew up in the same small town in illinois—carbondale—and that in graduate school we both tried desperately to expunge all traces of our distinctive southern illinois twang. as a first-year music theory graduate student at harvard eager to bring feminist criticism to my newly chosen subfield, i established a study group for those interested in learning more about what then was a brand-new area of research. the group for gender studies in music (ggsm) met once a month to discuss the few publications then available in feminist music studies, analyze music by women composers, produce a concert of music by women composers in honor of women’s history month, and plan a colloquium series. we found a sympathetic adviser in david lewin, the senior music theorist on the faculty, and i secured funding from radcliffe college and several other sources to pay for honoraria and travel for our four invited speakers. lewin generously wrote a check as seed money to support our group when our request for department funding for our activities was turned down. when i met with the department chair about possible support for ggsm, i was asked to supply a list of names of those who attended our meetings, ostensibly to establish the level of student interest in the group. our group was more controversial than i had anticipated and i wondered whether there would be negative consequences for anyone involved. (i did not comply with the request for names.) without support from the department, we could not internally process the donations we received, and had to open an account at a local bank. meetings of the group for gender studies in music were very well 82 current musicology attended by curious graduate students in music theory, musicology, and ethnomusicology. word of our colloquium series, advertised in hard-copy posters i prepared with my dot-matrix printer in the days before facebook, twitter, and e-mail somehow reached professor judith tick at northeastern university and dr. hugh morgan hill, also known as brother blue. dr. hill was a playwright and storyteller based in cambridge who had earned a doctorate in storytelling from union graduate school (grimes 2009). he attended mcclary’s ggsm colloquium on laurie anderson, work she developed into a chapter in feminine endings (1991), and he took mcclary aside to comment on the significance of her speaking about anderson within the staid wood-paneled seminar room in harvard’s historic paine hall.1 while many of my fellow graduate students welcomed the opportunity to engage with this new area of study, most of the faculty did not. apart from lewin, no faculty member ever attended a ggsm meeting and few attended our public colloquia, despite the prominence of the speakers we scheduled, including musicologists mcclary and paula higgins, music theorist joseph straus, and composer and theorist pozzi escot. although i had made it clear in my applications to phd programs that i was determined to bring feminism to music theory, my attempts to initiate thinking at harvard about gender, feminism, sexuality, race, and music got serious pushback. one graduate student relayed that his adviser mentioned to him that i should not be organizing numerous events he didn’t have time for, because when he didn’t attend, everyone would wonder why he wasn’t there. the department, and the field, were not ready in 1990 for such research directions.2 during her visit to ggsm, mcclary pointedly told me, “it doesn’t have to be this way” (i.e., being miserable in graduate school). while taking a leave of absence from harvard, i spent a glorious year at the university of minnesota studying with mcclary in the school of music and with richard leppert and lisette josephides in the interdisciplinary phd program in comparative studies in discourse and society. working with these cutting-edge scholars and superb teachers proved to be an antidote to my disastrous first year of graduate school. at minnesota, mcclary was a magnet for a cohort of smart, curious, imaginative, and fun graduate students who were all interested in possibilities for new scholarship that brought critical theory, including feminist theory, to the study of all sorts of music, from beethoven to madonna, monteverdi to prince. mcclary’s professional home is often assumed to be musicology, but many of us who have phds in music theory consider her to be a theorist. she has always insisted on thinking about how structure 83 ellie m. hisama and processes are an integral part of the critical questions she raises about representation, narrative, tropes, and musical meaning, viewed through various lenses including gender and sexuality. i took two seminars with her—one on monteverdi’s madrigals and another on music and postmodernism. the paper i wrote for the latter seminar turned into probably the most widely read piece i’ve published, my article on representations of east asian women in music by john mellencamp, david bowie, and john zorn (hisama 1993). after bowie’s death in 2016, i received calls from journalists who located that article from 1993 and wanted me to comment on bowie and racism (tam 2016 and tandon 2016). • at the end of my year at minnesota, mcclary told the students who were working with her that she would be leaving to teach at mcgill university. i ended up completing my phd in music theory with straus as my advisor at the graduate center of the city university of new york, writing a dissertation on feminist analysis of music by american women composers (hisama 1996). going on the job market in music theory with a dissertation that engages with music outside of the canon using new methods of analysis can be a very stressful process, and being a person of color and a woman in fields that remain stubbornly male-dominated and very white compounds the already challenging experience of a campus interview.3 a recently launched graduate student-led initiative, project spectrum, aims to address problems of diversity in music studies, to “explore why many people marginalized by their race/ethnicity, gender, and/or sexuality continue to have difficulty in finishing graduate degrees, attaining gainful employment, and receiving tenure within all fields of music studies” and “to develop concrete tools to inspire systematic change within these fields” through conferences and other activities (project spectrum 2018)4. in 2016, music theory and composition secured the distinction of being the field in the humanities that produced the lowest percentage of women phds (patel 2016). music theory’s acute imbalance as regards gender and race in the stemiest of the music subfields is, i think, related to its sustained resistance to considering issues of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and other identifications in scholarship and professional development.5 music theory’s lack of engagement with these issues has led to a number of promising and established women and people of color to leave music theory for the more welcoming shores of musicology or to leave music studies altogether. after a few years on the tenure track teaching theory at a big ten university and one year as a visiting assistant professor at a small liberal 84 current musicology arts college, i was hired as the new director of a well-established research institute, the institute for studies in american music (isam) at brooklyn college of the city university of new york (cuny) with an appointment that was half administration and half teaching.6 my administrative and fundraising experience in the academy at the time consisted of my work as president of the ggsm at harvard and as assistant to the conductor and scholar maurice peress for his project re-creating three historic concerts that he presented at carnegie hall (pareles 1989).7 i had also picked up some grant writing and arts administration experience as an undergraduate student working part-time for the twyla tharp dance foundation, the reading reform foundation, and the women’s research and development fund, a grants office for women faculty members that came into being after cuny lost a $7.5 million class action sex discrimination lawsuit (mcfadden 1983). one of my missions as isam director was to provide a forum for research that presented bold new perspectives, especially from emerging and independent scholars, given the dire state of the job market and the attendant intense competition to publish, conditions i had experienced myself as a graduate student and untenured faculty member. in my first column published in isam’s biannual newsletter, i noted that “in these tough times, it is critical that [younger scholars and independent scholars] receive our support and recognition—especially in the early years of their careers—through publications, performance opportunities, and residencies” (hisama 1999). as a senior college in the cuny system, subject to state budgets and political winds from the state capital, brooklyn college had very little funding for anything; for any projects we dreamed up, we had to secure outside funding, and i applied for grants regularly. early in my directorship, i organized with my colleague and senior research associate ray allen the conference ruth crawford seeger: modernity, tradition, and the making of american music, in honor of the centennial of the avant-garde composer and folk music advocate (allen and hisama 2001). we hosted over thirty speakers, including composers pauline oliveros, christian wolff, and ursula mamlok and historians benjamin filene and michael kammen. two evening concerts featured two of crawford’s children, mike seeger and peggy seeger; her stepson pete seeger; and new music aficionados marilyn nonken, sarah cahill, margaret lancaster, and dora ohrenstein. the conference was, and still is, one of the few scholarly conferences to focus on the work of a woman composer and/or musician.8 a volume of a dozen essays from the conference was published a few years later (allen and hisama, 2007). several authors in the collection have received tenure since the publication of their essays. 85 ellie m. hisama figure 1: conference booklet cover, ruth crawford seeger: tradition and experiment in american music. brooklyn: institute for studies in american music, 2001. designer: yuzuru sadashige. 86 current musicology mike seeger’s and peggy seeger’s agents requested different amounts for their participation, with peggy seeger’s contractual fee a full 25% less than her brother’s. firmly committed to the belief that women and men should receive equal pay for equal work, i would not pay peggy less than mike, and, armed with support from the edward t. cone foundation, i offered to pay her an additional 25%, explaining to peggy and her agent that she should receive the same amount as her brother for doing exactly the same work—speaking on a panel and performing in the evening capstone concert. (it was probably the first time a presenter had offered this agent to pay more than the requested amount.) • after teaching for six years at brooklyn college, where i received tenure in 2003, i was invited to apply for a senior position in music theory at columbia university, and i began teaching in the department of music in 2006. i have been active on the executive committee of columbia’s institute for research on women, gender, and sexuality (irwgs), serving as its director of graduate studies. in 2015, a graduate student who took my feminist pedagogy graduate seminar in irwgs, andrea crow, invited me to a public roundtable organized by the graduate workers of columbia, gwc-uaw local 2110, a union for graduate employees from across the university. the roundtable was part of we are workers: graduate worker day of action, held on october 15. i attended the event to support figure 2: webpage for roundtable sponsored by graduate workers of columbia university, october 2015. 87 ellie m. hisama crow and alyssa green, another student from the seminar, and to learn more about the growing unionization movement on campus. the panels were informative, with remarks from students, union members, and politicians. as a former unionized faculty member in the professional staff congress, local 2334 of the american federation of teachers, i am acutely aware of the many positive contributions a union makes to university life. although i had been mindful of the need to recognize work by graduate students as teaching assistants and stand-alone instructors, it struck me while listening to the gwc roundtable that departments’ regular requests of graduate students to assist with nonteaching activities, such as conference and colloquium administration, is rarely paid. such work by graduate students is sometimes assumed to be part of their education when it is indeed work. in mid-october 2015, i was in the thick of organizing women, music, power: a celebration of the work of suzanne g. cusick—a conference, evening concert, launch of a festschrift issue of the journal women and music guest edited by emily wilbourne, and library exhibit—scheduled for that december (women music power 2015). the dimensions of the organizational work were beginning to engulf me. i had, just a few days prior to the gwc workshop, issued an open call asking graduate students in musicology and music theory if any of them could assist me with the symposium planning and day-of activities. nearly instantly, sixteen students committed to working at the conference, and six additional students in composition assisted with the concert, performed by the extraordinary new music group the international contemporary ensemble (ice).  the presentations at the gwc workshop prompted me to alter my fundraising efforts to include payment to the student workers. i wanted to at least pay a stipend and preferably a reasonable per-hour rate. what they were doing was work, and it should be compensated. this was my strategy. in a number of my fundraising requests, i explained that graduate students in music would be devoting many hours to the event and asked for assistance paying them. i also emphasized that we wanted to offer an honorarium or reimbursement for travel/hotel expenses for the forty participants, all of whom agreed to speak and perform without any guarantee of funding given the importance of the event to them. the trickle of donations that started in october became a steady flow into december. my former employer sandra priest rose from the reading reform foundation, for whom i worked part-time as an undergraduate music student, sent a check with a note that she wanted to honor my professional accomplishments, and i fed that contribution back to the fund for graduate workers. one funder earmarked support for the work of symposium coordinator and then graduate student lucie vágnerová, 88 current musicology who transformed women, music, power into a smoothly running, tightly coordinated series of events. i was able to budget in an honorarium per participant, and eighteen of those people donated their honorarium back to the students, independent scholars, underemployed speakers, and international travelers, giving us a substantial sum to work with. we also were able to pay more per participant if they requested a greater sum. in the end, we paid twenty-one graduate workers and one undergraduate for hundreds of hours of work at a rate well over twice the minimum wage.9  women, music, power turned out to be wildly successful, with standing-room only audiences on both days of the symposium and at the evening concert. we were able to provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner with free registration to the public. many people told me that it was the best conference they’ve ever attended, with a number of remarkable papers, a composition by jenny olivia johnson premiered at the event, a new work by performer and ethnologist tomie hahn, and a mention in new yorker music critic alex ross’s blog (ross 2015). the music critic corinna da fonseca-wollheim published a piece in the sunday new york times’ arts & leisure section (2016) mentioning the symposium and exploring the idea of early music criticism’s obsession with “vocal purity” and whiteness as possibly connected to notions of racial purity, an idea from melanie l. marshall’s paper presented at the symposium and her article in the festschrift (marshall 2015). we also ensured that women, music, power was a child-friendly event, facilitating childcare arrangements for presenters, families, and audience members, and circulating information about events and places for children in the neighborhood. some of the mothers who were participating or assisting shared their babysitters and one even offered the services of her visiting parents, who were willing to help care for children in her apartment. at our request, the university’s work-life office headed by carol hoffman gave conference attendees access to columbia’s lactation rooms. a space located near the music library served as a playspace and lactation room when participants viewed the library exhibit curated by musicology graduate students jane forner and velia ivanova about the twin histories of the feminist theory and music conferences, founded in 1991, and women and music, launched in 1997. • the feminist writer and scholar michele wallace recalls that as an african american woman in a phd program at yale, she “was lost before i started. . . in comparison to the superbly well-educated, articulate whites who shared my classes” (1990, 97) and that for black students in such situations, 89 ellie m. hisama figure 3: symposium poster, women, music power, december 2015. designer: elliott cairns. 90 current musicology their only form of protest is “dropping out” (168). my form of protest as a female graduate student of color in a field dominated by white men, to paraphrase wallace, was to transfer. in reflecting upon the precarity of my own education and early years of my career, i have often recalled wallace’s experiences and words. of the few women and students of color who were my peers in music theory doctoral programs, a significant number left the program. others earned the phd and then disappeared from the field because they never got a job or fellowship, changed career tracks because of spouse and family (flaherty 2017), or experienced difficulty gaining tenure or finding a hospitable working environment. my own career trajectory, starting with my first year of graduate school to my current position as a full-time tenured faculty member, could have turned out quite differently. although i never entertained the thought of dropping out of graduate school and was determined to earn a phd somewhere—and in my chosen field of music theory—there were many times when i wondered if i would ever find full-time employment in a university. the skill set i developed through a series of part-time jobs as an undergraduate and graduate student trying to make ends meet became instrumental in my later work as an administrator and faculty member. i share these experiences in the hope that they might prove encouraging to graduate students who are seeking employment and career satisfaction, and that they serve as possibilities not only for those pondering alt-ac career tracks but for those who hope to change the balance of power and equity in academic life from within. notes this essay developed from presentations made at practicing utopia: feminism and activism in institutional contexts, a conference organized by andrea crow and alyssa greene, institute for research on women, gender, and sexuality, columbia university, february 2016 and the session on mentoring and diversity, committee on diversity, society for music theory annual meeting, arlington, va, november 2017; and an invited response to the inaugural women and gender endowed lecture by susan mcclary, american musicological society annual meeting, rochester, ny, november 2017. i thank suhnne ahn, laura ciolkowski, andrea crow, suzanne cusick, aldona dye, jenna freedman, nalini ghuman, alyssa greene, robert hatten, danny jenkins, marti newland, carmel raz, j. griffith rollefson, joseph straus, victoria tzotzkova, tom wetmore, and the late anne gefell for their helpful remarks. 1. for a history of paine hall, see brinkmann and bannatyne (2010). 2. as of fall 2018, harvard has not offered a seminar in gender studies and music. personal communication with anne shreffler, san antonio, tx, november 2018. 3. i outline some of these experiences as a job candidate in hisama (2016). my dissertation advisor, joseph straus, heard all such interview experiences as they unfolded, lending a sympathetic ear and accepting me as an advisee after i had to transfer twice. 91 ellie m. hisama 4. papers by robin attas and patrick nickleson, anaar desai-stephenson, and michael uy discussed at the ams seminar on the academic pipeline: tenure, pedagogy, and coalition (hisama and santana 2018) explored decolonized music pedagogy, diversity in modes of academic music discourse, and expanded employment possibilities for phds in music. 5. according to the 2018 statistics prepared by jenine brown, the field of music theory is 84 percent white and 63 percent men (these numbers are based on self-identifications). see smt demographics, https://societymusictheory.org/administration/demographics. 6. in 2008, isam was renamed the hitchcock institute for studies in american music after its founding director, h. wiley hitchcock. see http://www.hisam.org. 7. i arranged for peress’s archive from the carnegie hall concerts—including scores, recordings, photographs, and correspondence, as well as other materials from his work with leonard bernstein, duke ellington, josé limón, and other artists and musicians—to be housed at columbia’s rare book and manuscript library, where it is now available to researchers. 8. more recent examples include american women pianists-composers: a celebration of amy beach and teresa carreño, department of music and library special collections, university of new hampshire, october 2017 and sound, gender, and the color line: a symposium and celebration in honor of marian anderson, musician and citizen of the world, kislak center for special collections, rare books and manuscripts, university of pennsylvania libraries, october 2018. 9. in december 2015, the minimum wage in new york state was $8.75 per hour. see history of the general hourly minimum wage in new york state, department of labor, new york state (accessed july 2018), https://labor.ny.gov/stats/minimum_wage.shtm#contentanchor. information on gwc-uaw local 2110 is available at https://columbiagradunion. org. references allen, ray, and ellie m. hisama, eds. 2001. conference booklet for ruth crawford seeger: tradition and experiment in american music. brooklyn, ny: institute for studies in american music. . 2007. ruth crawford seeger’s worlds: innovation and tradition in twentiethcentury american music. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. da fonseca-wollheim, corinna. 2016. “early-music ensembles: praised as pure, but seeking more.” new york times, january 20, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/ arts/music/early-music-ensembles-praised-as-pure-but-seeking-more.html. department of labor, new york state. history of the general hourly minimum wage in new york state. accessed july 18, 2018. https://labor.ny.gov/stats/minimum_wage.shtm. flaherty, colleen. 2017. “due north: professor says she’s giving up tenure track job in the u.s. and taking her family to canada over racism directed at her nicaraguanborn spouse.” inside higher ed, may 5, 2017. https://www.insidehighered.com/ news/2017/05/05/professor-says-shes-giving-tenure-track-job-and-taking-her-familycanada-over-racism. grimes, william. 2009. “hugh morgan hill, the storyteller brother blue, dies at 88.” new york times, november 26, 2009. hisama, ellie m. 1993. “postcolonialism on the make: the music of john mellencamp, david bowie and john zorn.” popular music 12 (2): 91–104. reprinted in middleton 2000. 92 current musicology hisama, ellie m. 1996. “gender, politics, and modernist music: analyses of five compositions by ruth crawford (1901–1953) and marion bauer (1887–1955).” phd diss., city university of new york. . 1999. “isam matters.” newsletter of the institute for studies in american music xxix, no. 1 (fall), 3. . 2016. “race, ethnicity, and the profession.” musicology now, blog of the ams, december 2016. http://musicologynow.ams-net.org/2016/12/colloquy-race-ethnicityand-profession.html. marshall, melanie l. 2015. “voce bianca: purity and whiteness in british early music vocality.” women and music: a journal of gender and culture 19: 36–44. mcclary, susan. 1983. “pitches, expression, ideology: an exercise in mediation.” enclitic 7 (1): 76–86. . (1991) 2002. feminine endings: music, gender, sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. mcfadden, robert d. 1983. “u.s. court rules against city u. in sex-bias suit.” new york times, march 19, 1983. middleton, richard, ed. 2000. reading pop: approaches to textual analysis in popular music. oxford: oxford university press. pareles, jon. 1989. “review/music: recreating a night when history was made.” new york times, july 17, 1989. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/17/arts/review-music-recreating-a-night-when-history-was-made.html. patel, vimal. 2016. “diversifying a discipline.” chronicle of higher education. march 26, 2016. project spectrum. 2016. mission. accessed december 29, 2018. https://projectspectrummusic.com/mission. ross, alex. 2015. the rest is noise blog. november 29, 2015. http://www.therestisnoise. com/2015/11/misc.html. tam, ruth. 2016. “how david bowie’s ‘china girl’ used racism to fight racism.” washington post, january 20, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/20/how-david-bowies-china-girl-used-racism-to-fightracism/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e0509c345ba2. tandon, shaun. 2016. “for david bowie, the thin white duke, inspiration was black.” business insider, january 13, 2016. https://www.businessinsider.com/afp-for-davidbowie-the-thin-white-duke-inspiration-was-black-2016-1. wallace, michele. 1990. invisibility blues: from pop to theory. london: verso. women, music, power. 2015. accessed july 22, 2018. http://www.womenmusicpower.com. current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 131 sumner lott, marie. 2015. the social worlds of nineteenthcentury chamber music. urbana: university of illinois press. reviewed by velia ivanova the serious nature of nineteenth-century domestic social activity, even activity that might appear to be solely leisurely and playful at a first glance, is at the center of marie sumner lott’s recent book, the social worlds of nineteenth-century chamber music. through this notion of serious leisure sumner lott weaves together an absorbing discussion of a multitude of composers, performers, and locales. she bases her work around the central idea that the oft-discussed retreat of the middle class into the domestic sphere in the first half of the century—a retreat mostly owing itself to active government depoliticization of salon culture across the continent—led to a situation in which bourgeois and upper-class men “needed spaces in which they could socialize together without compromising their social standing” (14). no longer able to gather under explicitly political auspices with the same ease as before, many turned to music as a reason to congregate and socialize.1 thus, sumner lott contends, sociable, leisurely activities became serious business. research on the influence of leisure on musical life in the nineteenth century has often centered on the public sphere of large music performance associations and semi-public amateur concerts by invitation. focused on the concept of national unification through the creation of an educated middle class (or bildungsbürgertum), monographs such as ryan minor’s (2012) choral fantasies: music, festivity, and nationhood in 19th-century germany have called attention to the importance of contemporary ideals of communality and the influence of these ideals on musical output. on the other hand, when the truly private, domestic sphere of 1800s europe has been broached, discussion has usually centered on the piano and, quite often, on the women seated behind it. for instance, richard leppert’s work on musical portraiture in eighteenth-century england is wide-ranging in its discussion of instruments and their uses in the home, but as he turns to the nineteenth century, particularly in the latter chapters of the sight of sound: music, representation, and the history of the body (1993), he primarily discusses the enactment of gender around the piano. work on piano duets, particularly reinvigorated in the last two decades by philip brett’s (1997) seminal article on four-hand piano playing and gay male sexuality, has further cemented the importance of the instrument in discussions of 132 current musicology nineteenth-century domesticity and of the nexus between music and social interaction. while sumner lott’s work owes an enormous debt to the scholars mentioned above, her strict focus on chamber music written solely for strings and the community that perpetuated its popularity throughout the nineteenth century makes the social worlds of nineteenth-century chamber music unique and compelling. she argues that chamber string music can reveal just as much about domesticity, about modes of listening, and about gender relations as issues surrounding the piano and its use in the home. unwilling to draw hard lines between private and public spheres, lott draws on benedict anderson’s concept of an “imagined community” to explain the manner in which seemingly private, leisurely string playing influenced public, “serious” compositional output by creating a collective sense of identity expressed through the material objects, print media, and artworks shared among geographically and temporally dispersed groups of people. and although lott does not use this concept to directly discuss the creation of nationhood, it is no coincidence that she borrows a term closely connected to this notion. throughout the book she returns, again and again, to the way in which leisurely musical activities and the imagined communities they generated influenced national styles and, through the formation of such styles, influenced the creation and reception of works that we now consider central to the canon of western music. lott’s communities (both real and imagined) are almost exclusively male, due to the nature of nineteenth-century string playing. as such, this volume is a survey not only of the influence of the private sphere on the public one and of leisure on musical output, but also of the gendered construction of what came to be seen as musical “masterpieces.” in her introduction, lott makes a point of emphasizing that middle-class men across nineteenth-century europe sought to paint their musical activities as cerebral and contemplative and to dissociate from the traditional view of domestic music as female-oriented. in her view, this created a sort of negatively constructed private sphere: one concerned with not being feminine. thus, to write the kind of chamber music discussed in this book—from string quartet arrangements of operas through brilliant-style chamber works, to “serious” works in the footsteps of the classical quartet tradition—was to participate a larger effort to masculinize music. that the western canon of artworks is predominantly masculine in conception and execution is, of course, no surprise. what is interesting and unique about lott’s central claim, however, is the concentration on this private musical sphere and on the way in which masculine sociability, in particular, influenced the construction of canonic musical works. the scope of the book is broad. although lott restricts her focus to 133 velia ivanova chamber music for strings alone—and therefore to this specifically masculine sphere of sociability—she discusses the activity of a large number of composers, both canonic and non-canonical, throughout the century and across the continent. in some ways this breadth makes the overall message of her book more difficult to discern, but, at the same time, it is necessary in demonstrating that this masculine sociability had an influence, both implicitly and explicitly, on a wide range of musical output. this is particularly evident in her first chapter, which is centered on the material print culture necessary for interaction among dispersed musical communities. lott’s focus is on three differently sized german publishing firms—hofmeister, peters, and schlesinger. through a careful investigation of each firm’s catalogs she reveals that what has traditionally been perceived as a sharp decline in string music publishing throughout the century is rather simply a shift in the market. it is not that string music became less popular. rather, interest shifted from the new “brilliant,” domestic quartets popular in the first part of the century to reprints of older works; this shift was due both to the emergence of the notion of canonic compositions and to the relatively exorbitant price of publication for new string works.2 this chapter is an example of exactly what is compelling about sumner lott’s book: the collection of sources that piece-by-piece demonstrate that nineteenthcentury musical communities were more varied and more extensive than previously thought and that they created an ever more porous boundary between private and public spheres. in the rest of the monograph, lott turns to a closer exploration of particular chamber works for strings. her analyses are brief, but careful and often very revelatory. particularly interesting is the discussion of opera arrangements with which she opens her second chapter. although the field of musicology has a deep familiarity with four-hand piano arrangements and the manner in which they, in thomas christensen’s words, “made acoustically accessible a repertory to which most musicians had only occasional access in live performance” (1999, 259), the existence and function of chamber string transcriptions has not been discussed to the same degree. sumner lott contends that there is something of specific interest in string arrangements of operatic works, particularly since these transcriptions would have been intended for performance by an exclusively male audience. the emphasis in these works is on pleasurable, sociable, but serious play, rather than on complete fidelity to the original work; these arrangements frequently center on the most playable portions of the opera (arias and duets) and often omit, shorten, or largely rework choruses, the texture of which would be difficult to render in a small ensemble. there appears to be something more, however, to the act of arranging an operatic work for a 134 current musicology specifically male ensemble than sumner lott suggests. she discusses omissions, in such arrangements, of operatic sections that would not have been appropriate for a domestic audience—the wolf ’s glen scene from weber’s der freischutz, for example, notably absent from c.w. henning’s quartet arrangement. however, here the large number of examples presented act more as a hindrance than an asset to sumner lott’s argument, preventing her from fully delving into the nature of each arrangement and what any alterations (or lack thereof) might imply. for instance, a very brief section is devoted to “va, dit-elle, mon enfant,” alice’s romance from meyerbeer’s robert le diable, and its function in jacques strunz’s string quartet arrangement of the opera. given the association of the genre of the romance with femininity one cannot help but think that the implications of a group of men embodying a female voice in this case are more extensive than sumner lott implies.3 she simply concludes that “because this operatic number already utilizes a style appropriate to the salon or parlor, no significant changes are needed” (57), but much more can be made of this double translation— from the feminine genre of the romance, to grand opera and, finally, back to the salon, this time to a specifically masculine genre. this does little to diminish the overall impact of the book. still, a lengthier discussion of issues of gender in such arrangements would have provided a valuable element of nuance to summer lott’s argument, set out in the introduction, about string chamber music as masculinizing endeavor. in the next two chapters, sumner lott turns to original chamber works for strings. here she not only successfully addresses the sometimes-thorny link between biography and works, but also solidifies an idea central to her book, the notion that the use of musical conventions is a mode of coded social communication. in her third chapter, “music for men of leisure,” she turns to works by composers that she concedes might be called—borrowing philip bohlman’s (1992) term—“unremarkable.” the subsequent chapter deals with “remarkable” composers who are nevertheless often seen as traditionalists and therefore not associated with a musical avant-garde. rather than drawing a harsh line between the two groups of composers, sumner lott points out parallels: not only did each faction participate in the creation of social groups through musical convention, but each also focused particularly on establishing their work as masculine and “serious” and tried to distance it from musical attempts they saw as frivolous. here it becomes difficult not to read a stronger gendered impetus in both of these groups’ desires to divorce their work from the domestic leisurely sphere and thus move their music even further from “the feminine” than before. it appears that in order to gain canonic status, the genre had to undergo what judith fetterley has called “immasculation” (1978, xx), a process of 135 velia ivanova imbuing something with characteristics traditionally seen as masculine.4 sumner lott tells us that “these progressive composers purposely sought to distance themselves from the more conversational and leisurely performer-centered style being developed at the same time” (143), but a more indepth exploration of the impetus behind that distancing would have made her argument even more compelling. closeness among composers is also the topic of the fifth chapter, wherein sumner lott discusses programmatic works by onslow, gade, and smetana. the programmatic content discussed in this chapter has a different function than in more well-known symphonic programmatic works. the programs of these chamber works were often either not publicized, such as in the case of onslow’s “the bullet,” or were revised depending on their audience, as in smetana’s quartet “from my life,” which had a much more personal, private program for its performances among a close circle and a more political, nationalist program for its public performances. in this chapter sumner lott again deftly demonstrates the influence that these small communities of artists, performers, and amateurs exerted both on music made for their own consumption and on public musical life. each of the final two chapters explores the way these small communities influenced the chamber string oeuvre of a specific composer: brahms in the sixth chapter and dvořák in the seventh. sumner lott pays close attention to the associations and communities which these composers frequented. much is made of the care each composer took to fit into an extant tradition and therefore into a community of composers and performers. while brahms’s poverty in early life somewhat distanced him from the societies of the type discussed in the first part of the book, his earlier quartets show an admiration of domestic composers such as spohr and an attempt to fit his work into their mold in order to make a name for himself. according to sumner lott, it was only the inscription within this domestic tradition that then allowed for his later works, such as the op. 51 quartets, to move “from the parlor to posterity” (196). in the subsequent chapter, dvořák is demonstrated to have undergone a similar progression and to have addressed a similar multitude of audiences. his early works place him squarely in the community of the new german avant-garde, while his middle-period quartets show his ability to accommodate his style to the desires of listeners, rapidly shifting from a more specifically slavonic inspired composition in op. 51, to a more germanic work in the viennese tradition in op. 61. his later op. 96 “american,” by contrast, makes use of the style of the “unremarkable” composers of the third chapter. this allows sumner lott to conclude that “at the end of the century, dvořák summed up the dominant trends of the string chamber music of his generation” 136 current musicology (243). this is the final sentence of the book; there is no standalone concluding chapter. it is understandable that sumner lott would feel reluctant to neatly tie up the multitude of topics broached in the book, but at this point, having visited so many locales and traversed the entirety of the nineteenth century in a relatively short monograph, the reader would have been wellserved by the anchoring point of a conclusion. in its examination of the manner in which such male, middleand upper-class domestic leisure and play influenced the output of musical works, both well-known and all-but-forgotten, sumner lott’s book is an enjoyable, engaging, and informative read. the few minor problems of the monograph can be excused by the benefits provided by its breadth. it is a rare find of a book that weaves historical documentation and analysis so expertly into a tale about what society tells us about music, about what music tells us about society, and about the way in which the two can function dialectically. by focusing on the practical side of music production in the nineteenth century, sumner lott demonstrates how, through an adept managing of the material culture of the past, the transient quality of musical performance can become not an impediment, but rather an asset to understanding its past. notes 1. the effect of associations and societies on social and political life has been discussed, as sumner lott points out, with particular skill by historian carol harrison (1999). 2. as sumner lott shows through an examination of the calculationbucher of publication companies, unlike piano works, where the publication might number a few pages, multiple impressions had to be made to produce chamber works for strings, due to the multiplicity of parts and the (usually) increased length of these works. 3. a more extended examination of the gender politics of the romance can be found in cheng (2011). 4. the notion of “immasculation” has been applied to music by jeffrey kallberg (1998). references bohlman, philip. 1992. “on the unremarkable in music.” 19th-century music 16, no. 2 (autumn): 203–16. brett, philip. 1997. “piano four-hands: schubert and the performance of gay male desire.” 19th-century music 2 (2): 149–76. cheng, william. 2011. “hearts for sale: the french romance and the sexual traffic of musical mimicry.” 19th-century music 35 (1): 34–71. christensen, thomas. 1999. “four-hand piano transcription and geographies of nineteenth-century musical reception.” journal of the american musicological society 52 (2): 255–98. fetterley, judith. 1978. the resisting reader: a feminist approach to american fiction. bloomington: indiana university press. 137 velia ivanova harrison, carol e. 1999. the bourgeois citizen in nineteenth-century france: gender, sociability, and the uses of emulation. oxford: oxford university press. kallberg, jeffrey. 1998. chopin at the boundaries: sex, history, and musical genre. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. leppert, richard. 1993. the sight of sound: music, representation, and the history of the body. berkeley: university of california press. minor, ryan. 2012. choral fantasies: music, festivity, and nationhood in 19th-century germany. new york: cambridge university press. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 159 eidsheim, nina sun. 2015. sensing sound: singing and listening as vibrational practice. reviewed by lucie vágnerová one challenge of writing about music has often been summed up with the question “where is the music?” the asker gets at the impossibility of isolating the musical text to be studied. viewed in a more nuanced way, the question complicates the way musical sound functions in time: the way materials vibrate, the way sound emerges, the way it travels, and the way it is it is heard—processes that cannot happen irrespective of sounding bodies, resonant spaces, media of transmission and transduction, listeners’ physiologies, and their cultural biases and training. considering how commonplace the question is in music studies, “where is the music?” seldom rises above a qualifying aside, something we say on the way to opening a score or judging a particular performance. our disciplines would indeed have to look different if we understood the complex answers as a methodological imperative. nina sun eidsheim’s sensing sound: singing and listening as vibrational practice models what it might look like if music scholars were to stop overwriting physical evidence of sounding with cultural idea(l)s of what sound should be. eidsheim’s book is sensitive to bodies, attentive to physics, and mindful of encultured practices of listening and sounding. it is a much-needed meeting point for musicology, sound studies, philosophy of sound, performance studies, vocal pedagogy, and those interested in theorizing difference in music. eidsheim lays out her task in terms of debunking “four naturalized ideas about singing, listening, sound, and music that commonly underlie musical perceptions and discourses:” 1) “the privileging of air” over other mediums sound travels through, 2) the imagination of sounding as linear and visual, 3) “the presumption that sound is stable, knowable, and defined a priori,” and 4) the confinement of music to sound and silence (22). the opening chapter, titled “music’s material dependency,” revolves around the underwater opera projects of juliana snapper. singing in bathtubs and swimming pools, the classically trained, experimentally inclined composer-vocalist forgoes her in-control operatic voice in favor of exploring the loss of control, the taxing effort of singing underwater, and the multisensory acuity of underwater performance. snapper started singing underwater in the wake of hurricane katrina, seeking renewed physical intimacy between voice and medium. the heightened sensorial quality of snapper’s practice propels eidsheim’s argument that the mediation of 160 current musicology sound is never purely, or even primarily auditory: ascending bubbles, visible strain, and the tactile perception of some frequencies and the recession of others underwater make for compelling evidence. the point is that “the non-sonic is [particularly] amplified” in snapper’s performance, but that it is always at play in music. in chapter 2, “the acoustic mediation of voice, self, and others,” eidsheim argues that our evaluation of acoustic systems is borne out of a naive notion that sound is a purely acoustic phenomenon. through discourses and practices surrounding recording, concert culture, and musical pedagogy, we manufacture what eidsheim terms a “figure of sound.” the fos, a central operative term of the book, is part of the cultural and disciplinary baggage of music scholarship, which conventionally approaches sound as a fixed object that deals in aesthetics and that ought to be appraised according to a set analytical basis. building on scholarship on concert hall acoustics, notably the work of emily thompson, michal forsyth, and leo leroy beranek, eidsheim shows that we have trained ourselves to dismiss the role of acoustics in sounding. whenever we fail to think away acoustic difference, she writes, we fault performances as “somehow wrong” (69). eidsheim contrasts two stagings of meredith monk’s songs of ascension, one in a double-helix staircase within a tower by the artist ann hamilton, the other at the vast walt disney concert hall in los angeles. investigating her own experience of the latter as awkward and lacking, eidsheim connects our psychoacoustic conditioning to our politics of difference: “when confronted with these types of anomalous acoustic experiences, will i explore or reject them?” she asks, and continues: “do we explore or reject anomalous encounters with other human beings?” (94). this compelling analysis of listening in terms of normalizing and pathologizing gestures would have been well served by a greater engagement of the field of disability studies in music, even if it came at the expense of the chapter’s second case study, christopher cerrone’s “postacoustic” (91) opera performed through headphones. chapter 3, “music as action: singing happens before sound,” takes on the place of the signifier in theories of the voice, a topic with a colossal history in and out of music studies. eidsheim proffers several technologies of vocal failure—richard serra’s piece boomerang, the voice-garbling gadget called the speechjammer, and the stutter of failed transmission over skype—to argue that next to sound’s transmission and relationship to space, we have naturalized its signifying properties. the core of the chapter belongs to eidsheim’s own body music and the collaborative noisy clothes, which dictate different bodily contortions to vary the pathways of sound production instead of notating sound. a kind of table of corporeal 161 lucie vágnerová preparations for body music illustrates eidheim’s approach to the voice as “internal corporeal choreography” (111), which contemplates the voice beyond vocal chords. the table tabulates “air shapers,” such as “full-body fall (release legs)” that are to be performed with “filters,” such as “short, explosive k-p-t” (113). repositioning the work of scholars, particularly feminist musicologists, who advocate for increased attention to the body in music, eidsheim proposes thinking about music as a mere “aftereffect” of bodily action. eidsheim builds on her previous research and over two decades of teaching voice in chapter 4, “all voice, all ears: from the figure of sound to the practice of music.” the fos is held together by human bodily discipline. “a human body [thus] optimized to deliver the sound concept … corroborates naturalized conceptions of sound, music, and voice,” (133) she writes. to battle this, eidsheim takes a stand against metaphor-based instruction, such as “inhale as through you are smelling a rose” (137), as well as instruction based in imitating an imagined sonic ideal. she offers that asking singers to sing according to notation is akin to asking ice skaters to skate according to a notation of particular skating sounds (139). instead, she asks that music studies acknowledge corporeal action, like art historians once had to when jackson pollock invented action painting (101–103). it is not clear to me what pedagogy based around “inner choreography” (139) might look like outside of experimental music, and particularly how it might work for classical vocal pedagogy. then again, as an intellectual and experimental exercise, it is especially generative for rethinking approaches to some of the most canonical repertory. sensing sound concludes with a theory of music as an action that is materially propagated: a practice of vibration (155) that depends for its life on the very materials that actually vibrate, in all their difference. understanding musicking—christopher small’s term that eidsheim adopts throughout the book—as “a constellation of corporeal activities,” takes the body from the margins to the center of music. this perspective, says eidsheim, enables scholars of music to better answer questions that their disciplines set out to answer in the first place: “how does music do what it does?” (162), and, more specifically, why does it affect different listeners in different ways? paying attention to the materials that vibrate, writes eidsheim, allows us to understand this difference. for all her attunement to materiality, it is important to stress that eidsheim understands music as relational and as a practice that we use to define ourselves. she acknowledges her debt to a rich body of work dealing with the bodily experience of music, such as the work of carolyn abbate, judith o. becker, suzanne g. cusick, hannah bosma, and elisabeth le 162 current musicology guin. with reference to feminist musicology of the body, however, she also cautions that saying that bodies matter is not enough: in eidsheim’s purview, bodies precede and define music. sensing sound also engages the burgeoning discipline of sound studies, particularly the work of jonathan sterne, mara mills, emily thompson, and emily dolan, and voice studies—the work of annette schlichter, steven connor, james q. davies, olivia bloechl, brian kane, and bonnie gordon. eidsheim’s case studies involve repertories that she herself repeatedly describes as “extreme,” but they invite us to reframe questions surrounding musicmaking wholesale. the purpose of the extreme is to de-essentialize what we perceive as normal—here, eidsheim gestures to the work of stuart hall via josé esteban muñoz’s writings on “disidentification” (8) in explicitly racialized drag performances. in the absence of ascending bubbles, however, the critical task is made more difficult. eidsheim’s framing of sounding and listening in terms of bodily and social difference is a generative, albeit faint, thread in the book that could act as a point of connection to repertories beyond the contemporary-extreme. for example, that the book’s case studies largely comprise music by women is, i think, a notable gesture to the genealogy of women artists who have long explored issues of embodiment, and understood sound as more than auditory. i found myself wishing for the late pauline oliveros to have a greater role in eidsheim’s account: oliveros is mentioned briefly as a great influence on snapper’s work, but her important catalogue of communal vocal exercises, which had indeterminate musical results, could have been expanded upon. oliveros’s seminal collaboration with stuart dempster, who joined the composer in the fort worden underground cistern with a forty-five second reverberation time, would have provided a neat reference point in the chapter on acoustics. another source of historical depth could have been the long catalogue of sound art that deals directly with the vibratory practices in eidsheim’s purview: notable in this regard is the work of the sound artist christine sun kim, who was born deaf, and who explores the material qualities of sounding as well as what she terms “sonic etiquette.” among an older generation of sound artists, christina kubisch’s city walks with electromagnetic headphones, maryanne amacher’s psychoacoustic illusions of sound, alvin lucier’s work beyond i am sitting in a room (the latter two are only briefly mentioned in footnotes) kept popping into my head as i was reading. the vocal orientation of eidsheim’s book leaves some question marks around the uses of her theory for nonvocal music, and in sound art, there are ample opportunities to explore vibrational practice beyond the voice. at times, eidsheim’s overwhelming focus on music happening in the 163 lucie vágnerová los angeles area begs for some greater connection to place and time. why here? why now? sensing sound is not a history and not quite ethnography, in spite of being inspired by clifford geertz’s “thick description” method. however, eidsheim’s trust in her empirical experience and expertise as (an la-based) listener, vocalist, composer, and voice teacher pays off. she walks the walk of her theory of sound. when she takes “a group of graduate students to the standard hotel in downtown los angeles” (41) to sing and listen underwater in the rooftop saltwater swimming pool, she stresses tactile feeling as a way of knowing and models experimental pedagogy in the process. when she shares an account of a lengthy debate with her collaborators about plans for a system of corporeal notation for body music, she negates the perception of notation as fixed and impartial. even when identifying the “awkwardness” of her listening experience to monk’s songs, eidsheim demonstrates the value of attunement to feeling for musicology. the twenty-six photographs reproduced in the book beautifully complement the text. they all show sound in eidsheim’s sense of sounding. particularly striking are several shots of snapper singing underwater, in a bathtub, in a small tank, and in an olympic size pool. the footnotes are a treasure trove of references to older performances that the reader might already be familiar with (e.g. the work of marina abramović) and additional insights (e.g. a meditation on vocal ideals in american idol). the book speaks to a number of growing areas of music studies, such as literature on music, sound, and violence, work on the body that takes into account questions of pleasure, disability, embodiment, and technology, and critical histories of vocal pedagogy. it also offers theoretical and practical reorientations and potential exercises for vocalists. those involved with the work of juliana snapper, ron athey, meredith monk, christopher cerrone, elodie blanchard, alba fernanda triana, richard serra, and nancy holt would also find much of interest. finally, eidsheim raises an original critical lens to studies of notation and organology. if the “figure of sound” became a common point of reference for our disciplines, cautioning us not to fall for the magnetism of ossified musical values, our disciplines would be better for it. finally, eidsheim’s theory of music as a practice of vibration posits an answer to our opening question, “where is the music?” eidsheim might have challenged, complicated, and rethought our object of study, but at least she found it. microsoft word duncan typeset current musicology 108 (spring 2021) ©2021 duncan. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 147 reviewed by stewart duncan in singing in the age of anxiety, laura tunbridge shows how performing, discussing, and listening to german lieder in the united states and britain came to carry significant cultural and political meaning during the interwar period. lieder, tunbridge argues, helped to articulate both national and universal ideals of culture (often in conflicting ways), illuminating the tension between cosmopolitanism and nationalism that marked the 1920s and 1930s. examining a variety of formats and venues from throughout the interwar period, tunbridge focuses on the ways in which artists and audiences used lieder performances for self-definition, commercial gain, or political statement. lieder were performed on steamships, in new york hotels, in international films, in exclusive london clubs, and on mass radio broadcasts. singing in the age of anxiety recounts how each of these venues forced musicians and listeners to negotiate a web of possible interpretations of the genre based on medium, location, identity, and class. furthermore, tunbridge argues that these meanings shifted with the political and social winds of the period: the result of these shifts was a dramatic integration of lieder’s interwar cultural capital within the broader concerns of the age, including the possibilities of new recording technologies, the hierarchy of “high-,” “middle-,” and “low-brow” entertainment amid the emergence of “mass culture,” and enduring racial and national prejudices. by revealing how german music was involved in these discourses, tunbridge successfully demonstrates lieder’s importance to anglo-saxon conceptions of western civilization in the early twentieth century. the 1920s and 1930s are often referred to as an “age of anxiety,” an epithet derived from w. h. auden’s 1947 poem of the same name. the poem’s title has stuck in the scholarly and popular imagination as an apt descriptor for the period’s cultural, social, and political tensions. like most writers, tunbridge uses this phrase to refer to the looming atmosphere of crisis in the 1920s and 1930s, when many anticipated a possible collapse of western civilization. historian richard overy, for example, describes the interwar period as a “morbid” age, marked by a “a strong sense of impending disaster” that colored public life and 148 made war seem inevitable (2009, 2). these fears were most visible in the 1930s, but also present in the 1920s, as post-war hopes for reconstruction and international cooperation were dashed by economic crisis and the hollow efforts of the league of nations to maintain peace. these anxieties were compounded by the rapid pace of scientific and technological change, shifts which called attention to the disruptive effects of modernity and seemed to endanger what remained of pre-war culture. to many, western civilization itself was under threat. these were lofty worries, which at first glance might not seem to concern performances of german art song. yet tunbridge shows that lieder were often used as currency in interwar debates in the united states and britain about civilization and its future. singing in the age of anxiety progresses through the various environments in which lieder participated in these discussions. the first chapter begins not in london or new york, but on a ship traveling between them shortly after the end of the first world war. onboard, germanamerican contralto ernestine schumann-heink found fellow musicians among the other travelers and, as was the custom of the day, performed for the ship’s passengers. her choices—“an italian aria and some english songs,” as recorded by her accompanist—were neither her traditional repertoire nor in her native tongue, but rather a reflection of the fraught politics of performing in german to a multi-national audience so soon after the end of the war (16). similar scenes are described throughout this chapter. tunbridge details how musicians such as schumann-heink, irish-american tenor john mccormack, englishman louis graveure, and african-american tenor roland hayes altered their use of lieder to navigate the politics of identity such performances incurred. the choices they faced—whether to sing lieder in german or in translation, whether or not to provide the text to the audience, or where and how to position lieder within a program—were heavily influenced by the optics of presenting artifacts of german culture, as well as by the era’s prejudices for who was “allowed” to sing lieder authentically. schumann-heink, for example, played up her germanness for comedic effect on vaudeville and broadway shows, yet very publicly cast it aside in other venues by renouncing her german citizenship, marrying an american, and adapting concert programs to support war fund-raising (23). graveure, whose real name was wilfrid douthitt, used his false belgian stage identity to tap into the american preference for “exotic” musicians (27). hayes, meanwhile, used his adeptness with the german repertoire and language to overcome audience prejudices against the idea of a black man singing lieder. his success in london, vienna, and 149 eventually berlin shocked audiences who were used to judging authenticity by nationality and race. musicologist kira thurman (2019, 827) confirms tunbridge’s reading, writing that black singers like hayes “sang differently from the way they ‘looked,’ and in so doing severed the links between music and appearance” that many whites assumed were underpinned by race. tunbridge argues that performing lieder towards the end of the war was fraught with political and social consequences. on the one hand, singers faced an audience who made assumptions about authenticity and ability based on race, ethnicity, and nationality—a challenge that made it difficult for africanamerican artists like hayes, for example, to gain acceptance as a “serious” performer of german art song on either side of the atlantic. on the other hand, that these singers were able to perform lieder at all after the war shows the enduring appeal of german music to anglophone audiences. tunbridge emphasizes that wartime animosity only temporarily lessened american reverence for teutonic culture. the changing practices of lieder performance after the war were affected not only by cultural politics, but also by technology and new practices of listening. in chapter 2, tunbridge investigates the ways in which gramophone records, radio broadcasts, and sound film encouraged new attitudes towards art song during the interwar period. the second chapter, therefore, is about the technology itself: how that technology influenced performance practices, modes of listening, and perceptions of repertoire; and how the music appreciation movement underpinned the elements described above. this approach produces one of the most eloquent and informative arguments in tunbridge’s book. new listening technologies, she suggests, shaped the performance of lieder because they made that repertoire accessible to mass audiences at a time when a new class of listeners—the “middlebrow”—became a visible demographic. although it fascinated many cultural commentators during the 1920s, the “middlebrow” label was loosely defined and awkwardly applied: in 1926, the times described “middlebrow” listeners as those “who have heard orchestral and other serious music on the wireless and have begun to find it interesting and entertaining,” an audience from whom “musical converts are to be made” (66). the satirical punch, meanwhile, described them as “hoping that someday they will get used to the stuff they ought to like” (66). the idea of the “middlebrow” listener appeared as access to all kinds of music grew exponentially in the 1920s. tunbridge notes that gramophone records became more reliable and affordable, radio broadcasting grew nationally and internationally, and films introduced sound. here, too, the general anxiety of 150 the period left its mark: countless commentators worried that live performances would be rendered obsolete and that music would become a “passive, rather than participatory, activity” (43). tunbridge argues that the nascent music appreciation movement sought to head off these concerns by articulating the pedagogical value of repertoires like art song. record and broadcast executives responded by ensuring that significant lieder composers, singers, and repertoires were commercially visible and viable. to commentators like the times, lieder could be a suitable bridge between mere entertainment and higher art music listeners “ought to like.” to this end, lieder appeared frequently on the radio and in films—new mediums considered to be more “democratic” than recordings or live performances (65). these formats gave mass audiences an element of control at home that they could never exercise in the concert hall: one could switch radio stations or change gramophone records at any time. tunbridge also describes how film and radio added an international element to the culture of lieder consumption. as radio networks expanded, broadcasts were increasingly shared between countries, removing some of the ability to tell where a singer was from. singers and lieder also regularly appeared in multi-language films – productions distributed across international markets that often relied on the cachet of classical singers. john mccormack earned $500,000 for singing in english, french, german, and italian in the 1929 song o’ my heart; louis graveure performed schubert’s “ständchen” in 1934’s ich sehne mich nach dir; and schumann-heink included lieder on short concert films in 1926 and 1927. tunbridge argues that lieder even provided inspiration for onscreen characters: in the 1934 film blossom time, austrian tenor richard tauber actually appears as schubert himself, stepping in to perform his own songs at a benefit concert when the original singer loses his voice. the result is so moving that schubert’s lover later agrees to marry him (as “ständchen” plays in the background). incredibly, this was not the first film to take the composer as its subject: the 1933 film leise flehen meine lieder was released in german, spanish, french, italian, and english versions. the new mediums of radio, film, and records altered but did not displace traditional venues for lieder performance in the interwar period. chapter 3 shows how lieder concerts catered to the social and intellectual aspirations of various groups in new york and london and how these performances highlighted continuing tensions between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. first, tunbridge transports the reader up and down manhattan, visiting the various societies and halls where lieder was performed. “another story of the city 151 emerges,” tunbridge writes, “when we look a little more closely at spaces associated with classical music” (93). social and musical groups of all types supported lieder performances: some, like the deutscher liederkranz der stadt new york, kept an overt national identity, while others, like the beethoven society, sought a wider membership. lieder recitals and society concerts appeared mainly in semi-public spaces throughout the city, from smaller purpose-built halls like the town hall to the grand hippodrome, which could seat 5,200. as the city’s elite moved uptown, away from commercial life, lieder performances proliferated in more private environments. “musicales”— professional concerts primarily hosted and attended by upper-class protestant white women—presented lieder in hotel ballrooms and concert halls as a luxury commodity. attending these performances “signaled participation in a kind of moderately cosmopolitan civilization,” tunbridge writes, because the artists “were a mixture of native and foreign,” singing a predominantly european repertoire with some american music (103). events like the bagby musical mornings attracted elite audiences (with ticket prices to match) and frequently featured lieder. concerts of this type also facilitated social exposure for women who eased into the public sphere through the new hotel restaurants and ballrooms springing up around new york. these events (and their attendees) represented a new flavor of public luxury that benefited from lieder’s cultural capital. the venues, attendees, and customs described in this chapter enabled live performances of lieder to flourish in the radio age. these occasions, often precariously “poised between public and private worlds” by their social or economic barriers, nevertheless emphasized the value and function of live performances in tandem with recordings. tunbridge argues this combination of live and private consumption helped to change the appreciation of lieder and the status of the genre for the rest of the century (94). but she also asserts that these deluxe performances illuminate lieder’s role in defining upper-class socialization in interwar new york. the “hotel civilization” that emerged in the city during this time, she writes, “confirmed and perpetuated the association between classical music and wealthy high society” in opposition to the spread of mass culture (115). in turn, she links joseph horowitz’s claim of an intensifying interwar cultural elitism to the continued influence of a “genteel tradition” on lieder performance, in which art was considered ornamental and removed from everyday life (94). we can easily locate such a tradition at the turn of the century, tunbridge acknowledges, but it is typically said to have ended with the first 152 world war; instead, she argues it was reconstituted within the ambitions of middlebrow culture in the interwar period. tunbridge also argues in chapter 3 that, in contrast to manhattan concert life, performance societies and entertainment media in london worked hand in hand to broaden audiences for lieder. perhaps the most significant group was the london lieder club (llc), established in february 1933. buoyed by rising interest in the lieder of hugo wolf in the 1920s, the llc combined the hotel luxury of the new york musicales with a strong continental presence. the llc’s unabashed emphasis on german music and musicians in a time of rising international tensions generated significant publicity. its singers, almost exclusively foreign, were scrutinized as part of what the daily mail called a “german invasion” of british culture in the early 1930s (121). yet tunbridge argues the llc ultimately strengthened cultural ties between britain and germany. she points to the work of the anglo-german club, which opened in 1931 and shared many members with the llc, and to the 50,000 germans who visited britain as tourists every year in the early 1930s. in tandem with the hugo wolf society, the llc also grew the number of dedicated lieder recitals and recordings made in london as well as the number of lieder performances on the radio. this proliferation, tunbridge claims, changed the appreciation of lieder in england beyond an immediate circle of privileged audiences. chapter 4 examines american and british attitudes towards german music and musicians from the 1930s until just after the second world war. it explores how lieder were understood by critics and audiences as a german cultural product within the nationalistic context of preand postwar tensions, and how that identity influenced consumption and reception. in this chapter, many earlier themes reappear: changing performance practices, which continued to evolve in the face of new models and standards derived from recording technologies; the constant push and pull between cosmopolitanism and xenophobia; and widening divisions between the “brows,” especially as economic depression limited opportunities for artists to perform across genres or venues. tunbridge contends that these changes (and those described in earlier chapters) offer us an “alternative route” into the history of music making in the 1930s (132). this chapter delivers on her assertion by showing us how musicians, repertoires, and performances were affected by the era’s politics and anxieties. the effects of economic depression in the early 1930s and its associated political turmoil greatly impacted the musical world. tunbridge first recounts how elena gerhardt, elisabeth schumann, and lotte lehmann navigated that 153 flux, as song recitals went out of fashion and many artists feared losing work entirely. grim job prospects also revived long-standing fears about radio and the gramophone supplanting live performances. foreign musicians were increasingly subject to xenophobia and protectionism, even as refugees from central europe arrived in the united states and britain in increasing numbers (135). economic deprivation tested the strength of music’s cosmopolitan networks as these refugee artists arrived: schumann’s biographer gerd puritz, writing in 1993, believed “the small-scale, subtle art form” of the lied, born in the culture of europe, did not fit the “huge, fast-moving new world” of the united states (puritz 1993, 231). yet tunbridge contends that there was a place for lieder in these difficult years, in ways that often intertwined with the political issues that threatened musical culture. marion anderson’s performance of schubert’s “ave maria” on the steps of the lincoln memorial in april 1939 shows how lieder participated in political and racial dialogues while retaining its cultural cachet. anderson was prevented from performing at constitution hall by the daughters of the american revolution, upholding a ban on nonwhite artists. the public outcry caught the attention of first lady eleanor roosevelt, who worked for the singer to appear instead at the memorial (146). in a typically varied program, anderson performed the “ave maria” in between a donizetti aria and four spirituals to a crowd of 75,000 people. “nation’s capital gets lesson in tolerance,” newsreels reported (147). tunbridge sees anderson’s performance of schubert as a mark of lieder’s continuing cultural cachet, meant to assert her validity as a musician in spite of racist oppression. at the same time, anderson’s inclusion of lieder in this pathbreaking concert reveals what many saw as the genre’s “universal” appeal as war approached. the above idea of lieder’s universality—its supranational cultural relevance—defined the genre’s increasingly complex role in interwar culture, and it is towards this tension that tunbridge’s focus is aimed. while the genre could never be unmoored from its association with the german language, in the 1930s it became more strongly linked to the notion that western society was universal. to many, lieder became a symbol of the very civilization threatened by inevitable war with germany. this was a dramatic reversal of attitudes commonly held less than two decades earlier. while german music was suppressed, and even vilified during the first world war, no such prejudice appears during the anxious prewar years or during the second world war itself. lieder were sung regularly, including performances of complete song cycles: myra hess’s daily concerts at the national gallery in wartime london regularly featured lieder; elena gerhardt performed german songs to an enraptured audience of british soldiers 154 at salisbury in september 1944. such cosmopolitan programming was meant to contrast what tunbridge calls the “open-minded pluralism” of the allies against nazi prejudice (155). she quotes the american composer deems taylor, who argued that “our kind of civilization is at stake…let us not think of [music] as the private property of any man or any country” (155). hess felt her concerts had a role to play in “reconstituting our permanent values in the shattered world of today” (156). in all aspects, singing in the age of anxiety is an impressive, highly effective work of scholarship. tunbridge’s focus on places and audiences—rather than composers and works—evinces lieder’s broader social role in interwar england and america, moving beyond the art form’s music-stylistic history. there is plenty here for scholars of middlebrow culture, cosmopolitanism, or american and british history in the early twentieth century. the transatlantic comparison is insightful, though one occasionally wishes for some german perspective as a counterweight. tunbridge does make ample use of reactions to roland hayes’s visits or accounts of german émigré musicians, for example, but an account of lieder’s role in interwar german nationalism might have further strengthened the comparative framework of the book as a whole. yet this clearly fell beyond the scope of tunbridge’s book and its omission does not lessen the efficacy of her argument. tunbridge hopes that her book will encourage readers to reflect on their own values and their own world. she positions her monograph as a window into the ways that western societies thought about the importance of art and culture in the early twentieth century, patterns which are “key to evaluating what might be meant by civilization today” (12). in that sense, learning how interwar musicians and listeners engaged with the threads of their civilization can cause us to think more deeply about our own. the lesson is clear: music can be politicized, co-opted, and weaponized by whole audiences and groups (even towards whole audiences and groups) and not just by governments. yet, as singing in the age of anxiety demonstrates, music can also be a binding, aspirational force, capable of mediating between worries and hopes in uncertain times. references overy, richard. 2009. the morbid age: britain between the wars. london: allen lane. puritz, gerd. 1993. elisabeth schumann: a biography. london: a. deutsch. thurman, kira. 2019. “performing lieder, hearing race: debating blackness, whiteness, and german identity in interwar central europe.” journal of the american musicological society 72, no. 3 (fall): 825-865. current musicology 98 (fall 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 41 beat hierarchy and beat patterns—from aksak to composite meter aleksandra vojčić in his study of steve reich’s phase–shifting music, richard cohn points to a specific analytical challenge that transcends the repertoire at hand: “given the relative poverty of our rhythmic terminology, the challenge for the theorist is to discover a means to characterize this material that is not only descriptively adequate, but also allows for exploration of its properties, its behavior under transformation, and its relations to other potential material” (1992, 149).1 this essay responds to cohn’s call to action, singling out one of the many under–determined modes of rhythmic continuity in post–tonal music—(asymmetrical) composite meters. it rehearses a wide– ranging application of a new conceptual framework that can be used in accounting for the frequency and formal salience of composite meters in twentieth–century repertoire. through analysis of select musical examples, i relate composite asymmetrical meters to compound and aksak meters, showing how certain types of “asymmetrical” meter exemplify non–isochronous duple and triple meters and, further, how composite meters combine two or more different metric units into a recurring whole (e.g., isochronous duple followed by non–isochronous triple meter). along the way, i introduce a number of new concepts (meta–measures, duplication) and a new form of graphic representation (the time signature map). isochronicity refers to the durational equality of temporal units such as beats and beat groups. isochronous beats cohere into symmetrical meters, such as symmetrical duple meter, or 2/4, whereas non–isochronous beats give rise to asymmetrical meters. the examples in this essay are chosen because they outline similar metric patterns, rather than for their exclusivity—a wealth of examples in the twentieth–century repertoire pursue similar metric patterns. an analytical approach to this repertory can take a perceptual or a formal stance but will likely suffer from a lack of a working methodology because approaches to rhythmic and metric analysis are not standardized and are often incompatible with one another. in lieu of following an established analytical methodology for this repertoire or a widely accepted theoretical framework for understanding beat hierarchy in asymmetrical meters, i consider various approaches and develop a performer–sensitive method of analysis. 42 current musicology for example, in their approach to metric structure, lerdahl and jackendoff suggest that “the elements of metrical structure are essentially the same whether at the level of the smallest note value or at a hypermeasure level” (1983, 20) and that “the listener instinctively infers a regular pattern of strong and weak beats to which he relates the actual musical sounds” (1983, 12). the metric structure thus envisioned is distinct from the grouping structure, which reflects the listener’s recursive division of the musical continuum into progressively larger formal units whose boundaries do not necessarily coincide with metrical accents. grouping and metric structures are both hierarchical, but only the grouping structure is exhaustively hierarchical (metric structure ceases above a certain perceptual level). furthermore, these two structures cooperate in determining the time–span segmentation of a piece.2 although the two structures are distinct, lerdahl and jackendoff apply similar formal and perceptual rules to both; these are called “well–formedness rules” and “preference rules,” respectively. at least with respect to tonal music, these authors regard regularity and uniformity as normative for both grouping and metric structures. in contrast to the concepts of hierarchical uniformity advanced by lerdahl and jackendoff, christopher hasty (1997) espouses the notion of qualitative meter and a dynamic, internal, relationship between beats.3 hasty’s approach to rhythmic theory further asserts that meter need not be necessarily contiguous or continuous: any series of three or more events that frames a determinate duration, and hence spawns a process of projection, may be regarded as metric. for hasty, rhythm and meter arise from a unified temporal experience and not as separate temporal phenomena. considering how intensely the experience of temporal phenomena relies on perception and memory, attending to the perceptual categories associated with distinct types of memory patterns is an important element of any metric theory. candace brower (1993) distinguishes among three types of memory—echoic, short–term, and long–term—each involving different types of auditory processing and representing different cognitive phenomena. echoic memory pertains to immediate rhythmic activity, such as beat succession in the foreground, while short–term memory applies to phrase–level events. long–term memory works associatively, relating events that are not part of an immediate sequence and are out of “serial” order (brower 1993, 32). lerdahl and jackendoff ’s assertion that metric and grouping structures operate in comparable ways regardless of the level of metric hierarchy is, therefore, at odds with brower’s cognitive stratification of memory types. in an additional categorization of hierarchies of perception, justin london posits that “[r]hythm may be a quality of musical figures and movement that is apprehended within the span of the 43 aleksandra vojčić perceptual present, whereas form requires an understanding of structural relationships either wholly or partly outside the perceptual present” (2001, 278). london further distinguishes rhythm, which “involves the pattern of durations that is phenomenally present in the music,” from meter, which “involves our perception and anticipation of such patterns” (2001, 278). in this study, sound events will be considered in their formal roles, a stance that relies on retrospective hearing and memory more than on the “perceptual present.” attention will be directed more toward a conceptual, rather than a perceptual, approach to analysis. i presume that a compositional choice of rhythmic notation, such as a time signature, indicates some organizational aspect of a work’s rhythmic structure unless it is overwhelmingly negated by the actual sound events. more importantly, the use of structural levels, as summarized below, allows for an integrated approach to the organizing parameters of rhythmic form regardless of how perceptually obvious (and to whom) the germane rhythmic events may be. i acknowledge that the field of music perception, which includes brower’s and london’s studies, is increasingly important for the study of twentieth–century music—precisely because the customary modes of attending are often inadequate for an immersive interpretation of contemporary scores. however, “customary” modes of attending seem to vary greatly and improve upon repeated exposure to any repertoire; hence my reservation about bringing the perceptual parameters to the forefront of the current inquiry. brower’s cognitive models will thus loosely correlate with the three structural levels of rhythmic hierarchy detailed below, although, for the most part, the structural levels simply correspond to the units of formal segmentation. the discord evident in analytical approaches to tonal works extends to the discussion of meter in post–tonal music, particularly when meter deviates from familiar common–practice models based on equally spaced (isochronous) beats. in twentieth–century scores we often encounter a mixture of duple and triple elements on one beat level generating a lack of uniformity on a higher level of beat. such cases, as well as the purportedly pulse–based meters, are most often analyzed as bottom–up models. for example, a recent textbook on aural skills claims that, in asymmetrical meters, “beats become longer or shorter by adding or subtracting divisions [pulses] between them. thus, asymmetric beat structures can be considered to use additive rhythms” (cleland and dobrea–grindahl 2010, 467).4 these two authors conflate asymmetrical and composite meter. as we shall see, the concept of asymmetrical meter describes those metrical patterns comprising beats in a 2:3 proportion, whereas composite meter exists only in the presence of at least two different types of meter (as with a concatena44 current musicology tion of duple and triple meter, or symmetrical and asymmetrical meter). in contrast to cleland and dobrea–grindahl, kvifte (2007) challenges the notion that an asymmetrical meter (such as 7/8) can be counted in (seven) pulse units in any musically satisfactory way. he disputes the universality of theories based on a “common fast pulse” (e.g., those applying the concept of additive meter), particularly since musicians worldwide not only count non–isochronous triple meter “in three,” rather than “in seven,” but also because empirical studies show that the proportional equality and inequality of beats and beat subdivisions is measurably imprecise in performance and perception (snyder et al. 2006).5 in my experience, and supported by kvifte, snyder et al., and other studies, the sense of counting in three unequal beats develops over time and with greater exposure to non–isochronous meters. the remainder of this essay is organized in three parts. the first section clarifies metric hierarchy and terminology pertinent to asymmetrical and composite meters. the second section illustrates multiple notational variants of a single asymmetrical meter—a four–beat aksak meter. the third and final section extends the discussion of composite meter from part two into a lengthier consideration of ligeti’s capriccio no. 2, a work that features thematically conceived composite metric patterns that cohere into middleground entities, which i term meta–measures. beat hierarchy and beat patterns at the most fundamental level, meter is often viewed as hierarchical when it includes a progression of clearly defined beats that are organized into beat groups comprising two and/or three counting beats. after all, instructions for conducting, counting, and tapping of metric patterns customarily outline either duple or triple meter or some combination of the two. it often follows, however, that in many “pulse–driven” works, i.e., when all seven eighth notes in a 7/8 meter are continuously present and articulated, meters that cannot be evenly subdivided into groups of two or three counting beats are not seen as hierarchical, which then limits the theoretical recognition of their metric periodicity. as an extension of this limitation, asymmetric meters are not described by current rhythmic theories as coalescing into middleground structures akin to hyper–measures.6 this study recognizes three strata of rhythmic structure: (1) the foreground, defined by pulses, tactus beats, and beat groupings; (2) the middleground, consisting of measure groups and other salient groupings whose boundaries are structurally defined (e.g., meta–measures); and (3) the 45 aleksandra vojčić background, which can be delineated by structural markers, such as phrase endings and pulse–stream convergences, which indicate pacing or formal segmentation. these hierarchical levels are broad categories in the domain of rhythmic form —none precisely specifies formal segmentation. hence, it is possible to speak of “relatively background” phenomena depending on the type of temporal organization in an individual work. heinrich schenker similarly considered structural levels as flexible categories whose number would vary from one work to another. in this manner, a work could have one or several “shallow” and “deep” middleground levels (1979, 26).7 since the topic of this essay concerns metric patterns and phrase–level events, i will be focusing on the foreground and middleground, rather than the structural background. the rhythmic hierarchy of the foreground and middleground levels can be delineated via five levels of beat (see figure 1). in figure 1, the primary counting unit is the tactus, adopting an earlier term for the counting beat to clarify the more general and imprecisely used term “beat.” i assume that tactus beats fall within the span of 50–190 beats per minute and need not be isochronous.8 in this paper, all non–isochronous tactus beats are proportionally related, using only the simple and common proportion of 2:3. other proportional relations are possible, but yield more complex metric relations that are not part of the current topic. supra–tactus designates a grouping of tactus beats into a higher–level beat. a supra–tactus may, but does not have to, correspond with a notated measure. in the strictest sense, the supra–tactus level signifies either duple or triple meter. when the supra–tactus level is non–isochronous, indicating different–length measures, a composite meter emerges. just as the possibility for shallow and deep middleground levels exists in schenker’s theory, a post–tonal work could feature more than one supra–tactus level. a shallow supra–tactus level represents a grouping of two, three, or four tactus beats, whereas deeper supra–tactus levels encompass phrase–length patterns comprising more than four tactus beats. pulse denotes a subdivision of the tactus. pulse is not used as a universal name for isochronous “beats” or as a part–time refer5. meta–measure 4. supra–tactus 3. tactus (main counting unit) 2. pulse (chronos protos?) 1. sub–pulse (chronos protos) figure 1: five levels of beat hierarchy in composite metric patterns. 46 current musicology ence to the counting beat. sub–pulse is a subdivision of the pulse. either the sub–pulse or the pulse can represent the chronos protos, defined as the level of beat that is the smallest common denominator between metric units.9 the meta–measure occupies the highest level of the beat hierarchy in figure 1. a meta–measure is not a “beat” per se, but an organizing entity for tactus and supra–tactus beats in the middleground. this level applies to a range of composite metric patterns that may correspond to groups of notated measures or may be discerned from the musical foreground in the absence of any time–signature indications. meta–measures can be defined as recurring grouping phenomena that contain at least two different metric groups. like hyper–measures, meta–measures can be formed by combining (notated) measures or perceived metric units into a larger formal segment. in meta–measures, however, the constituent “measures” or bars are, by definition, not of equal length and their periodicity is not based on alternating strong and weak bars.10 i contend that asymmetrical metric patterns can actually possess greater inherent middleground periodicity than symmetrical patterns. any “strength” or “weakness” attributed to a beat or measure in a symmetrical meter does not intrinsically derive from organization within the rhythmic domain alone: in tonal music, the voice leading is an important, if not a crucial, component of phrase structure, and cadences represent powerful structural markers such that it is difficult to discuss the structural significance of rhythm and meter in tonal music without taking its contrapuntal and harmonic structures into full account. in post–tonal music, the burden of phrase boundary delineation and structural closure often falls on other compositional parameters, most notably the temporal ones. for many twentieth–century composers, rhythm is more central to a work’s functioning than pitch. the primacy of rhythmic design is already evident in the sketches of the early modernist composers (e.g., schoenberg and stravinsky) but becomes even more pronounced after world war ii. when twentieth–century works rely on metric schemas, rather than ametric pulse–stream interaction, asymmetrical and composite meter feature prominently. london (2004) and arom (1991) each wrestle with the issue of metrical accents (or the lack thereof) in asymmetrical meters and conclude that no accent is necessary due to the intrinsic differentiation among beats in beat patterns comprising short and long beats. in essence, both london and arom attribute a dynamic relation and a qualitative approach to beat groups in non–isochronous meters. i will add that, if there is an audible shift between two (or more) types of counting beat and that pattern undergoes repetition, we will also hear this process as cyclical. elsewhere, i 47 aleksandra vojčić have defined the middleground periodicity of composite metric patterns as arising from one of four factors: (1) change of speed at the level of the counting beat (consistent with london and arom); (2) change in the number of beats in a metric unit (duple versus triple meter); (3) metric hiccup; and (4) metric palindrome (see vojčić 2007). in this essay, which explores simple metric patterns, only the first two categories apply. if a series of beats features one or more differing tactus beats, such as a longer beat in combination with shorter beats, and this series repeats, we will hear a distinct and self–defined metrical pattern. in this manner, a beat progression comprising < short, short, short, long > beats would be heard as a group of four beats with the longer beat last. the boundary of the four–beat unit would be delineated by the change of tactus speed and would be easily aurally distinguishable. time signatures currently used to represent underlying metric structures are by no means intuitive. it is a matter of learning that a categorical distinction exists between the time signature for a simple meter like 2/4, which specifies a number of counting units in a measure (two beats, each expressed as a quarter note), and a time signature for a compound duple meter (6/8) that does not explicitly specify the tactus level.11 the beat hierarchy for these two meters is summarized in table 1, highlighting the three levels of beat essential to our understanding of metric hierarchy. like asymmetrical meters, meters of 6/8 and 3/4 are sometimes equated from the bottom–up (additively) since each metric unit contains the same number of pulses, which represents a quantitative approach to beat patterns. however, the two meters are not metrically equivalent top–down, since 3/4 implies triple meter and 6/8 implies duple meter—these two meters are qualitatively different (see table 2).12 distinguishing between quantitative (“additive”) and qualitative approaches to hierarchy is helpful when analyzing counting patterns in asymmetrical meters. rather than “assembling” the musical middleground from numerous fast pulses, a qualitative approach locates the tactus level first. to understand the beat hierarchy in 7/8, for example, we look for a beat level higher than the one specified in the denominator. unlike the pulse units (eighths), the tactus beats in 7/8 are customarily not isochronous because prime numbers cannot be divided evenly by two or three. most often, a measure of 7/8 will contain three non–isochronous tactus beats—two short beats, equivalent to a quarter note, and one long beat, equivalent to a dotted quarter. meters that contain tactus beats of different lengths, comprising two and/or three isochronous pulses, are also known as aksak or bulgarian meters.13 the latter term originated with bulgarian ethnomusicologists and 48 current musicology table 1: beat hierarchy in duple meters 2/4 and 6/8. table 2: beat hierarchy in 3/4 (triple meter) and 6/8 (duple meter). an equal number of pulses does not imply an equal number of beats at the tactus level example 1: three variants of authentic aksak triple meter (7/8). (l = long beat and s = short beat.) 49 aleksandra vojčić was popularized by bela bartók’s research at the beginning of the twentieth century. “when one of our famous musical researchers heard tunes with bulgarian rhythm for the first time,” bartók recalled, “he shouted: are all the bulgarians lame, their songs having these limping lame rhythms?” (quoted in fracile 2003, 198). with reference to bartók’s research on bulgarian meters, the romanian musicologist constantin brăiloiu later coined the term aksak meter.14 i adopt the term aksak meter in this essay and follow simha arom’s (2005) recent classification of aksak meters. arom defines three categories of aksak meter: a) in authentic aksak meters, the number of pulsations is a prime number, as in a three–beat 7/8 meter (7 is a prime number); b) in quasi–aksak meters, the number of pulsations is odd, but not prime, as in a four–beat meter notated with 9/8 (9 is odd but not prime); c) pseudo–aksak meters have an even number of pulsations, as in a three–beat 8/8 meter, as is the case in tresillo (clave) beat patterns.15 aksak meters have non–isochronous tactus beats. they can accommodate multiple distinct types of beat pattern, bestowing the rhythmic foreground with a potential for additional variety. there are three variants of the authentic aksak triple meter (7/8), for example, since the long beat can occur first, last, or in the middle of the three beats (see example 1). in quasi– aksak and pseudo–aksak meters, the sum of pulse units can also indicate three or four isochronous beats (as in 9/8 or 8/8, respectively). in hearing in time, justin london (2004) devotes considerable attention to non–isochronous meters and establishes a theoretical underpinning for various beat cycles, allowing for proportionally related beats (2:3) in the presence of isochronous pulses (what he terms the “n–cycle”). despite all the attention london afforded non–isochronous (aksak) meters in hearing in time, in his 2006 article, “how to talk about musical metre,” london still bemoans a general lack of analytical understanding for non–isochronous meters outside the cultural environments where they are common and popular: “to be sure, by definition the highest level of a repeating pattern is always isochronous, and most other levels of rhythmic structure tend to be isochronous. but western music theory, from the 19th century through lerdahl and jackendoff (1983) has presumed meter to be inherently isochronous. thus rhythms comprised of uneven beats and higher– order prime numbers of pulses (found in musical cultures ranging from eastern europe to southern india) cannot be accommodated in western music theory.” the remainder of this essay aims to provide a means to accommodate these common metrical patterns in western music theory. in 50 current musicology addition to clarifying the beat complement16 and beat hierarchy of asymmetrical meters in the rhythmic foreground, i extend the consideration of asymmetrical and composite meters into the structural middleground by including phrase–level events such as meta–measures.17 as a first step, i compare the beat patterns in a number of works featuring an asymmetrical four–beat meter and show how differing metric notation does not indicate diverse beat complement or beat hierarchy. i also introduce composite metric structures that include asymmetrical and symmetrical beat distribution within a recurring composite meter (e.g., the < 9/8, 8/8 > meta– measure). finally, the analysis of ligeti’s capriccio no. 2 synthesizes the discussion of beat hierarchy in asymmetrical meters with the elements of rhythmic form. the overall form of this work arises through the repetition and variation of a primary thematic unit in the structural middleground (a lengthy composite metric pattern of < 5/8, 5/8, 7/8, 8/8 >) and the core metric pattern of 5/8 in the foreground. four–beat aksak meter while london (2004) draws largely upon the tradition of beat–cycles in west african drumming or indian talas for his examples, he opens his discussion with dave brubeck’s “blue rondo a la turk,” which is in a quasi–aksak four–beat meter (the tactus is subdivided as 2+2+2+3 = 9 pulses). “blue rondo” is not an exception as there are numerous interesting examples of asymmetrical meter in various popular idioms. sting’s i hung my head, for example, seems to relish the ambiguity inherent in nine pulses, alternating and juxtaposing three–beat and four–beat 9/8 meter throughout the song and between the ensemble parts. like i hung my head, many balkan folk dances in quasi– and pseudo–aksak meters juxtapose isochronous and non–isochronous variants of a series of tactus beats. beginning with these folk dances and with sting’s song, in this section, i go on to trace non–isochronous four–beat meters in select examples from works by bartók and crawford. the metric interpretation of non–isochronous tactus beats in compound and aksak meters is a common feature of balkan folk music. a romani čoček dance from serbia juxtaposes isochronous and non–isochronous meters, alternating between duple (asymmetrical four–beat meter) and triple (symmetrical compound meter).18 a simplified transcription of the čoček introduction appears in example 2a.19 the trumpet line is in rhythmic unison with the entire brass section, while the bass drum sounds a locally syncopated beat pattern. the brass tutti is so predominant that 51 aleksandra vojčić the competing bass drum pattern is rather difficult to hear in the first three measures of the four–measure introduction. it is only in retrospect, with changes to the metric pattern later on in the dance, that the bass drum’s four–beat pattern emerges as a competing tactus pattern when it is audibly taken up by the solo instrument(s) (see example 2b). the initial juxtaposition of the symmetrical triple meter in the brass section with the asymmetrical four–beat meter in the drums becomes unbraided over the course of the dance, and the two meters are represented both one at a time (as in example 2b) and in concatenation (see example 2c, in which the presentational order of beats from example 2a is reversed). in the dance proper, the asymmetrical four–beat meter is predominant (see example 2b), but the dance occasionally switches into symmetrical triple example 2a: three– and four–beat 9/8 meter in the introduction of a serbian čoček dance. example 2b: competing four–beat–aksak–meter melody in čoček. example 2c: beat pattern reversal in čoček. example 3a: sting, i hung my head, introduction (four–beat aksak meter). 52 current musicology example 3b: vocals from sting, i hung my head, bb. 1–16 of verse 1. 53 aleksandra vojčić meter (see example 2c). this brass band example exemplifies quasi–aksak meter, a notated 9/8 with one longer beat (here, consistently the last in the group of four). the ensemble indicates in the album’s liner notes that they consider this dance illustrative of asymmetrical 9/8 meter (see zlatne uste balkan brass band 1993). another juxtaposition of three–beat and four–beat meters with nine pulses occurs in sting’s i hung my head (1996). the four–measure introduction, transcribed in example 3a, is emblematic of the setting for guitars and drums throughout the song—they play in an asymmetrical four–beat meter, with a longer second beat.20 a different grouping of pulses emerges with the entrance of the vocal line (see example 3b). the vocal part signals a symmetrical triple meter, with a steady grouping of three syllables on each downbeat prefaced by a ubiquitous upbeat that rhythmically underscores an ascending leap into the first beat of each 9/8 measure. the second beat is habitually marked with a < short, long > rhythmic figure, further unsettling the rhythmic foreground. consistent with the song’s topic (an accidental shooting of a stranger), sting’s original rendition of i hung my head is arguably more unsettling than subsequent covers by johnny cash (2002) and bruce springsteen (2011) where, in both cases, the underlying metric complexity was smoothed over with performances in a symmetrical 4/4 meter. unlike the later versions, sting’s song explores the grouping ambiguity afforded by the nine pulses and oscillates between the triple compound meter and the four–beat quasi–aksak meter. similar examples of asymmetrical four–beat meter are frequent in the music of béla bartók, who often draws on the folk traditions of the extended balkan region. one of the bulgarian dances from microkosmos (no. 152) is very similar to the romani brass band example in its treatment of a four–beat meter with one longer beat (see example 4. boxes mark the consistently longer last beat in each measure). the time signature is expressed as a composite of < 2+2+2+3 > eighth notes, the same as brubeck’s “blue example 3b: continued. 54 current musicology rondo.” this notation differs from the time signature notation of bartók’s later concert works, even though they outline identical asymmetrical patterns (compare with the excerpt from music for strings in example 6). another four–beat pattern with one longer beat, represented with a composite time signature of < 5/8, 4/8 >, can be found in ruth crawford’s prelude no. 6 from 1941 (see example 5). the prelude consists of three distinct textural layers: a) an ostinato in the uppermost part that contains mostly contiguous eighth notes; b) a sustained chordal bass that is always arpeggiated; and c) a mid–range line that gradually assumes a melodic character. the first beat of the composite metric pattern is also the long beat in the overall group of four (boxed in example 5). the longer duration of the downbeat lends it greater metric weight, which is subsequently reinforced by the arpeggio that leads into it. the arpeggios that terminate on the downbeat, rather than just before it, are boxed in the example, and arrows point to the “strong” beats they precede. the composite metric pattern is always followed by a spin–off in < 4/8, 4/8 >, where the middle layer becomes more active than during the < 5/8, 4/8 > pattern. otherwise, the < 5/8, 4/8 > and < 4/8, 4/8 > patterns are comparable, since both represent groups of four beats that follow the arpeggiated bass. note that crawford maintains the composite time signature indication for the contiguous measures of 4/8 (i.e., 4/8–4/8) rather than reverting to 8/8. the metric elongation of the first beat in crawford’s prelude works well with the natural elongation that takes place in the presence of widely spaced broken chords in the bass line. when the chords are spaced parexample 4: a four–beat, quasi–aksak 9/8 meter in bartók’s microkosmos no. 152, bb. 1–7. 55 aleksandra vojčić ticularly broadly in < 4/8, 4/8 > meter, as in measure 9, the ostinato line begins with a rest. while the reason for this may be primarily technical (the pianist’s right hand is occupied by the arpeggio), the effect is also one of elongation and emphasis on the downbeat, now provided by the middle layer. in short, the notation of < 4/8, 4/8 > is clearly meant as a parallel to the < 5/8, 4/8 > notation, even though it is possible to sign the former example 5: 9/8 and 8/8 as four–beat composite meters in crawford’s prelude no. 6, bb.1–9. 56 current musicology with either 8/8 or 4/4. crawford is probably considering < 5/8, 4/8 > as a variant of 4/4 with an elongated first beat. the consistency in her notation emphasizes the kinship between duple meter with isochronous beats and duple meter with non–isochronous beats (that is, between 4/8 and 5/8). a similar metric pattern occurs in the second movement of bartók’s music for strings, percussion, and celesta (see example 6). it is notated as < 2/4, 5/8 > in a kind of a retrograde of crawford’s beat grouping. crawford’s prelude is slower, more meditative, and lyrical than the furious dance music of this second movement of music for strings, percussion, and celesta. in bartók’s work, the long–beat–last pattern appears indicative of a faster tempo.21 unlike the bulgarian dance in microkosmos, the passage from bartók’s music for strings is notated with two duple meters. the longer beat of the metric pattern appears in the second of each pair of measures. unlike crawford’s notation in the prelude, which equates 4/8 and 5/8 meters from the bottom up (from the level of the eighth–note pulse), bartók’s notation casts the composite metric pattern < 2/4, 5/8 > as fundamentally comprising two duple meters. in the absence of a notational equivalent that would allow for consistent notation, accounting for different–length tactus beats qualitatively (from the top down), bartók’s notation appears as a metric hybrid.22 the type of time–signature notation used by bartók in music for strings appears frequently in early to mid–twentieth–century scores, whether applying to entire movements or only sections thereof. revueltas’s sensemayá (1938), for instance, features a composite time signature of < 2/4, 3/8 >; kirschner’s piano concerto (1953) and copland’s short symphony (1933) have a < 3/4, 3/8 > time signature; and tippett’s symphony no.2 (1957) contains a time signature of < 3/8, 2/4 >. in each instance, the maximum number of beats in the entire composite meter is four (3/8 stands for one longer beat equivalent to a dotted quarter). while a recurring metrical scheme comprising two different metric units is a pre–requisite for meta–measures, the most interesting examples are those in which the number of tactus beats exceeds a four–beat aksak example 6: < 2/4, 5/8 > four–beat groups in bartók’s music for strings, percussion, and celesta, ii, bb. 266–70. 57 aleksandra vojčić meter, forming a larger unit of true composite meter. [bolna leži] dilber tuta, a folk song from southern serbia, arranged for the piano by renowned yugoslav composer josip štolcer–slavenski (1896–1955) and reproduced in example 7, is based on a < 9/8, 8/8 > composite metric pattern. this pattern is bracketed above the score and the time signature changes are indicated with boxes. unlike the recurring composite metric patterns previously surveyed, the < 9/8, 8/8 > meter in dilber tuta is much longer and is treated as a flexible cycle: the 8/8 metric unit is frequently duplicated, so that the order of metric units remains, but the number of measures within the meta–measure pattern varies. a single measure of 9/8 marks the onset of each meta–measure and is followed by a variable number of 8/8 measures.23 the notated time signature of 9/8 in dilber tuta does not signify a compound triple meter. the 9/8 measures feature four non–isochronous tactus beats with a longer second beat (marked in example 7 with an asterisk), similar to sting’s i hung my head. furthermore, the pitch structure highlights the progression of non–isochronous beats: the sixteenth notes in measures 7 and 9 decorate the primary melodic tone c5 as a double– neighbor figure, before descending to a4, for instance. štolcer–slavenski’s beaming also appears deliberate: notes are beamed together when they example 7: a four–beat 9/8 meter in the serbian folk song dilber tuta, bb. 7–15. 58 current musicology outline beats in duple subdivision, particularly stepwise descents such as c–bb–a–g in measures 7 and 9 and a–g–f–e in measures 11 and 12. syncopations, as well as the double–neighbor figure that elongates the second beat in the 9/8 measures, are not beamed together and are frequent only in 8/8 (see the second half of measures 11 and 12). the kind of flexible–cycle variation found in dilber tuta occurs more readily in balkan vocal music than in ensemble dances, in part due to a greater degree of improvisation by solo vocalists. a different type of metric variation is common in instrumental works. one of the popular dance–types related to the composite meter used in dilber tuta is the leventikos dance from greece, called pushteno in macedonia. the leventikos may be transcribed or notated with 12 pulses such as a pseudo–aksak 12/16 (3+2+2+3+2), although a longer version with 16 pulses exists as well, often organized as 2+2+2+3+2+2+3. the 12–pulse version would appear to comprise five beats (< l, s, s, l, s >), whereas in the 16–pulse version, there would be seven tactus beats (again, both are prime numbers). in addition, transcribing this dance using either eighths or sixteenths would be common, since it is the tempo rather than its apparent notation that defines the tactus level. the leventikos dance could also carry a composite time signature: 12/16 could be transcribed as < 7/16, 5/16 >, and the expanded 16/16 version could be notated as < 9/16, 7/16 >. understanding the previously cumbersome strings of time signature digits as < aksak triple, aksak duple > (in the case of < 7/16, 5/16 >) would be closer to envisioning the dance steps in a routine that combines short–beat steps and long–beat turns. considering < 7/16, 5/16 > as an < aksak triple, aksak duple > conceptually focuses our attention on composite meters as comprising proportionally related tactus beats, rather than as a collection of fast pulses that add up to non–isochronous tactus beats. in essence, and regardless of how many pulses there are in the overall pattern, we would not view a composite aksak meter as an additive meter but would concentrate on the number of tactus beats and their distribution (i.e., the position of the long beat in relation to the short beats). perceiving the periodic structure of a recurring composite aksak meter such as < 7/16, 5/16 > in terms of its constituent tactus beats would also be helpful in performance because the long series of twelve brief sound articulations would now be grouped into larger, more memorable, “chunks.”24 each of my previous examples is based on an asymmetrical (non–isochronous) four–beat meter. while crawford’s prelude and bartók’s music for strings entail composite metric patterns that are equivalent to the notated 9/8 quasi–aksak meter from the bulgarian dance in mikrokosmos, the serbian folk song dilber tuta contains a four–beat 9/8 meter as part 59 aleksandra vojčić of a composite time signature pattern that exceeds four beats. there are two sets of four beats in the < 9/8, 8/8 > composite metric pattern and the overall sense of periodicity is varied by virtue of a flexible cycle variation, with a different number of recurring 8/8 units. despite this variation, each phrase is characterized by a return to the non–isochronous beat complement in the notated 9/8 at the onset of each meta–measure. composite meter and phrase structure in ligeti’s capriccio no.2 ligeti’s capriccio no.2 (1947) illustrates the types of periodic entities that composite meters, such as the one from dilber tuta, can engender. metric organization in capriccio includes three asymmetrical meters combined into a recurring middleground unit, which correlates with a phrase. the composite metric structure is not static, but corresponds to formal groupings and is summarized in the figure 2 time signature map. from the standpoint of the structural background, the graphic representation of a work’s metric organization via a time signature map illustrates a novel approach to form summary. in short, a time signature map is a visual account of form from the standpoint of the underlying metric structure. the map provides an overview of a work’s temporal shaping in the formal middleground and highlights structurally important or form–generating elements. since the time–signature map summarizes indications notated by a composer, it represents a starting point in the process of formulating an analytical description. a time signature map addresses metric and grouping frameworks only and does not account for foreground rhythmic activity. while the rhythmic foreground and the metric structure may exhibit different degrees of congruence with one another, the time signature map points only to those changes affecting the notated meter. in tonal music, the presence or the persistence of 3/2 in a time signature map would not specify any foreground rhythmic patterns, but it might betray a composer’s fondness for such metric designations or for a particular musical genre (e.g., a courante). however, unlike a potential time signature map of a work in 3/2—a map that could, and probably should, include further elaboration of the hypermetric structure—a time signature map depicting meta–measures illustrates metric paradigms embodied by changing and composite meters in far more detail. the time signature map of capriccio no. 2 summarizes the sequence of measure lengths in all the a sections, omitting the contrasting b section of the rounded binary form.25 in this map, repeated time signatures are indicated successively within the overall metric pattern and are separated 60 current musicology figure 2: a n annotated tim e signature m ap of ligeti’s c apriccio n o. 2. 61 aleksandra vojčić by barlines.26 if the number of repetitions is excessive enough to cause clutter on the graph, the number of repetitions accompanies the time signature in parentheses. the capriccio map shows a repeating < 5/8, 5/8, 7/8, 8/8 > pattern, which exemplifies a formally salient composite metric grouping— a meta–measure. just like the < 9/8, 8/8 > pattern in example 7, this composite metric pattern is also indicated with brackets in the score (see example 8). thematic variation of meta–measure patterns is optional and not a firm pre–requisite; akin to an ostinato, meta–measure patterns can persist unchanged as an ordered succession of metric units over the course of an entire work or a section. if treated as flexible cycles, meta–measures can also outline rotational form.27 example 8: composite meter in the opening meta–measures (bb. 1–17) of ligeti’s capriccio no. 2. 62 current musicology in this instance, the time signature map illustrates how an aksak–like metric pattern can represent a recurring thematic element. the composite metric pattern < 5/8, 5/8, 7/8, 8/8 > correlates with a short phrase, which repeats numerous times, but is also varied, expanded, and truncated. again, this type of compositional variance is emblematic of the thematic meta–measure patterns and distinct from periodic metric schemas where meta–measure patterns recur unaltered. periodic meta–measure patterns can include significant rhythmic disturbances, such as syncopations, that conflict with the beat patterns and beat hierarchy suggested by the time signatures. this time signature map also highlights the preponderance of 5/8 meter in the “spin–off ” sections, as well as in the coda. at the level of the rhythmic foreground, aksak duple (5/8 with one short and one long beat) represents the core metrical pattern, which is expanded to generate the three– and four–beat meters of 7/8 and 8/8 but is also truncated into short and long beats (e.g., a “lone” bar of 3/8). pitches falling on tactus beats help to unify the four bars of this meta–measure into one composite pattern (see example 8). note how the left hand descends starting from the downbeat of each 5/8 bar: the initial melodic dyad b3–a3 is followed by b3–g3 and further expanded to c4–bb3–f3 in the 7/8 bar (all pitches in bars 1–4 are doubled by an octave below). the arrival at the pitch g3/g2 at the end of the first phrase is reminiscent of a fourth–descent in tonal music (from tonic to dominant); furthermore, the last bass note of the second phrase (a sole c4) evokes a connection between the two phrase endings. there are sufficient tactus beats and beat groups in the opening two phrases (bars 1–8) to form five bars of 5/8 in each meta–measure, but the resulting syncopation would greatly obscure the overall descent in pitch space in the left hand and would undermine the metrically strong position of the final notes in each phrase (g and c).28 the underlying emphasis on 5/8 meter here points to another rhythmic process unfolding in capriccio no. 2—duplication. the term duplication refers to a process of pattern–variation in which the repetition of one or more metric units (a tactus or a supra–tactus beat) from a basic group (core pattern) forms the basis for subsequent groups of any type.29 in this instance, duplicated tactus beats have the effect of a rhythmic prefix. the core pattern of the entire meta–measure and all its subsequent variations in capriccio no. 2 is the 5/8 aksak meter. the 7/8 bar of the meta–measure pattern duplicates the first (short) tactus beat from the 5/8 bar, and the 8/8 bar duplicates the second (long) beat of the 5/8 bar. in most instances of duplication, the core pattern appears unadorned and unaltered at some point in the music; in capriccio no. 2, the core pattern appears particularly 63 aleksandra vojčić unadorned and unaltered in the coda and the codetta. example 9 summarizes the beat pattern in the opening meta–measure; duplicated tactus beats are underlined.30 the meta–measure pattern appears twice in capriccio no. 2 before any further development of the core pattern takes place. granted, the second of the two 5/8 bars in the second meta–measure reverses the position of short and long beats from < short, long > to < long, short >; this type of variation in beat placement continues in the various spin–off sections, evoking the change of long–beat placement that marks the distinction between the two thematic meta–measures. example 10 summarizes this difference between the two meta–measure variants (mm1 stands for meta–measure 1; mm2 stands for meta–measure 2). while the main meta–measure pattern clearly repeats at the opening of each a section, that repetition does undergo a slight internal rearrangement. the long beat is no longer the last in each unit; rather, it becomes the first beat in the second 5/8 bar and the middle beat in the 7/8 bar (marked “l” in the example 10 reduction as well as in example 8. the longer beats subject to this rearrangement or shift forward in the sequence of beats are also underlined). this type of internal variation between the two opening meta–measures allows for some flexibility and playfulness within a rather unyielding adherence to the meta–measure pattern in all the a sections. however, regardless of this internal variation, the number of beats in each meta–measure and the sequence of complete metric units remain unchanged. the main meta–measure pattern in capriccio no. 2 closely resembles a dance in aksak meter—tactus beats are underscored by the left hand, while the right hand elaborates the off–beats. the last measure in the pattern example 9: beat duplication in the opening meta-measures of capriccio no. 2 (bb. 1–4). example 10: internal arrangement of the beat pattern in two meta-measures of capriccio no. 2 (bb. 1–4 and 5–8). 64 current musicology (8/8) has only one articulation in the bass, revealing its concluding role as a gesture of rhythmic cadence. the difference between the metric structure in capriccio no. 2 and the aksak meters previously surveyed lies in the length and formal function of the composite metric pattern. in capriccio no. 2, the composite meter comprises three distinct aksak meters: an authentic aksak duple meter (5/8), an authentic aksak triple meter (7/8), and a pseudo–aksak triple meter (8/8). additionally, the meta–measure pattern thus formed correlates with one complete phrase, rather than only a motive or one bar of a phrase.31 the a2 section begins as a restatement of a1, but pitches are repeated only in the first measure. subsequent repetition is rhythmic and not melodic, and it affirms our hearing of the composite metric pattern as the primary vehicle of structural coherence. in support of the thematic character of the meta–measure, the 8/8 cadential measure is omitted in the second phrase of a2 as the process of liquidation and fragmentation intensifies in preparation for further development in the middle section.32 another notable feature of rhythmic design in capriccio no. 2 is the effect generated by following two identical 5/8 measures, forming one half of the phrase, with contiguous eighth notes in 7/8 and 8/8, suggesting increasing continuity. the rhythmic reduction in example 11a accounts for all the articulated pulse units and illustrates this increased continuity in the second half of the phrase. this motivic arrangement, comprising the repeated motive and subsequent continuation, is reminiscent of a classical sentence structure; see the reduction of the first theme of mozart’s string quartet k.465, i, in example 11b, as a means of comparison.33 just like the opening reiteration of the main motive in capriccio no. 2 compares with the motivic and rhythmic repetition in the presentation phase of k.465, the “greater continuity” in the continuation part of the phrase in ligeti’s work recalls the drive towards the cadence in the second part of the phrase in example 11a: rhythmic reduction of meta–measure 1 (capriccio no. 2, bb. 1–4). example 11b: rhythmic reduction of the first phrase of mozart’s string quartet k.465, i (bb. 23–30). 65 aleksandra vojčić mozart’s string quartet movement. similarly, the tempo in capriccio no. 2 remains constant even though the large–scale metric pattern undergoes a tightening and loosening typical of the hypermetric structures of the earlier style. the musical examples in this essay, as a collection and in sequence, demonstrate one possible manner of relating music that is variously notated but is to some degree emblematic of a similar metric (or even rhythmic) profile. aside from capriccio no. 2, these works feature variations of an asymmetrical or aksak–like meter comprising four beats, with one beat longer than the other three. when the tactus beat is defined as the primary counting unit in a reasonable tempo range, many differing time–signature combinations share similar beat patterns. once the number of beats in an asymmetrical meter reaches or exceeds five, the resulting metric patterns are frequently notated and understood as composite meters. when such composite meter becomes recurrent or thematically repeated and varied, meta–measures emerge as the primary grouping force in the structural middleground. following the discussion of beat hierarchy and beat complement in aksak meters, dilber tuta, based on a composite meter < 9/8, 8/8 >, provided a transition into the analysis of beat groups in ligeti’s capriccio no. 2, itself based on a composite metric pattern of < 5/8, 5/8, 7/8, 8/8 >. the analysis of ligeti’s capriccio no. 2 also completed the discussion of beat hierarchy on five levels, as it introduced the concept of meta–measures.34 in addition to the middleground stability provided by meta–measure patterns (comprising four notated measures), rhythmic motives in capriccio no. 2 are generated through a process of beat duplication in the foreground, where the core metric pattern (an aksak duple, 5/8) spawns additional metric groups of 7/8 and 8/8. the combined effect of the two main rhythmic processes taking place in capriccio no. 2 projects a sense of continuity in the domain of rhythm that includes elements of both structuring and variation. various types of composite meter appear in post–tonal music. in many instances, such as the examples included in this essay, rhythmic patterns implied by composite meter are largely realized in the foreground, and the transparency of beat hierarchy poses a modest analytical challenge. however, the concept of meta–measures is far broader than the context in which it was introduced here, and a more complete theoretical discourse concerning meta–measures would include the interaction of meta–measures with significant temporal phenomena such as rhythmic polyphony and tempo modulation. in addition, composite meters cohering into meta–measures could be subject to multiple forms of flexible–cycle varia66 current musicology tion. in more complex temporal environments, meta–measures may have little correspondence with conventionally notated metrical groupings but may still represent a structured approach to rhythmic continuity. with attention specifically focused on asymmetrical and composite meters, this study promotes a more inclusive understanding of meter in post–tonal music. the concepts i introduce and elucidate here can be and should be further explored in terms of their possible transformations as well as their interaction with other temporal phenomena. notes 1. while the “material” cohn singles out in reich’s phasing works represents a repeated pattern of eight or twelve pulses (hence the beat–class set), the material i refer to is more generally derived from the organization of the rhythmic parameter and is not restricted to twelve–pulse cycles. 2. time–span segmentation refers to our processive understanding of event boundaries and the resulting formal delineation of a piece of music. it is largely based on grouping and metrical structures. time–span segmentation divides a musical work into nested time spans. 3. hasty (1997) employs the concepts of quantitative and qualitative meter to distinguish between analytical approaches that emphasize the durational quantity of beats as the agent of periodicity and those models in which metrical accent arises from the sense of motion and internal relations between beats. in this essay, hasty’s terminology is used even more broadly to denote the qualitative distinction between duple and triple meter (symmetrical or asymmetrical), in contrast with the quantitative, bottom–up, approach that reflects a type of accrual of pulse units into longer tactus beats. 4. howard smither qualifies metric organization in twentieth–century music as falling into six distinct types, all possibly identified with single or multiple time signatures and based on regular or irregular grouping of short “counting” units (1974, 818–22). his approach to the types of meter discussed here can also be viewed as “additive.” (the term “additive” meter originates with sachs 1953.) 5. with the caveat that expressive variations in performance represent a related, but not identical, category to that of the notated or culturally established manner in which beat durations are seen to vary, we can extrapolate that asymmetrical meters with beats in a 2:3 ratio represent a category of duple or triple meter that is not entirely dependent upon the constant iteration of the (fast) pulse units, which they theoretically comprise. 6. the issue of hypermeter (or hypermeasures) in asymmetrical meters in not as much one of simple dismissal or disqualification, but more a problem of omission. examples of asymmetrical hypermeasures in published analyses and theoretical discussions are really hard to find. among the few commendable efforts, kirilov 2012 offers a detailed analysis of asymmetrical beat structures in bulgarian wedding music, but identifies a <7/8, 7/8, 11/8> meta–measure simply as a “combined metric group.” 7. the concept of structural levels originates with schenker, for whom they represent hierarchical organization of tonal events and the elaboration of the fundamental structure. in schenker’s theory, the lower levels of the hierarchy are intrinsically connected with the structural background, and each lower level represents further “composing out” or pro67 aleksandra vojčić longing of the background events. my use of the terminology pertains to rhythmic events without the implication of their interconnectedness. furthermore, no component of pitch– structure theory is implied by my use of this terminology. 8. french psychologist paul fraisse (1982) confines the perception of pulse sensations to 50–200 beats per minute, while justin london (2006) prefers a more conservative range of 60–120 beats per minute. in contrast to london, i adopt a more generous window for tactus speeds since certain musical genres, like bebop, habitually rely on faster tactus speeds, such as mm=190. 9. the term chronos protos was first used by aristoxenus in elements of rhythm, 4th cent. b. c., to stand for a unit of time. see pearson 1990. 10. rothstein (1989) defines hypermeter (and consequently hyper–measures) as a concatenation of measures according to a unified metrical scheme, which includes the recurrence of equal–sized measure groups and a definite pattern of alternation between strong and week measures. the term hypermeter originates with cone 1968. 11. the time signature of 6/8 does not usually indicate a six–beat measure; rather it expresses a type of subdivision of the main beat (i.e., two beats are each divided into three pulses, rather than two). 12. one way of understanding beat hierarchy is in relation to the medieval concept of tempus and prolation—a top–down approach. with either tempus or prolation, a higher beat level is divided by duple or triple subdivisions (although not both duple and triple on the same level). the alternative, the bottom–up approach, organizes chronos protos (sub–pulse or pulse) units into duple and triple groupings. 13. aksak is a medieval turkish word for limping, lopsided, or even lame. the earliest discussion of aksak meters is attributed to brăiloiu 1951. 14. nice fracile points to bartók’s sources in hristov 1913 and stoin 1927—neither work has been translated into english. another romanian musicologist, radulescu (1972, 186), identifies aristoxenus as the first person to discuss elements of this beat pattern as choreios alogos (illogical trochee). 15. latin clave patterns are based on two metric groups, sometimes equivalent to two notated measures. one of these metric units is a non–isochronous tresillo pattern, which entails a series of pulses equivalent to a pseudo–aksak pattern of 3+3+2 eighth notes. 16. beat complement simply refers to the number and the duration of tactus beats within recurring metric groups (or supra–tactus units), such as can appear between the barlines when they are notated in musical scores. tactus beats may be isochronous or non–isochronous. 17. beat complement represents all (potentially non–isochronous) beats in a single measure or metric scheme. this is generally not issue in simple meters (e.g., all beats are notated as quarter notes), although can be an issue for uninitiated with respect to compound meters (i.e., there are two rather than six beats in 6/8). in asymmetrical and compound meters, the progression of proportionally related beats can be rather variegated. 18. čoček is an early nineteenth–century dance form popular and widespread in serbia and macedonia. the name derives from “little camel,” a term used as a reference to male courtesans and “dancing boys” of the ottoman occupation. this dance has largely been disseminated and preserved by the romani tribes of the southern balkan region. 19. the transcription approximates durations to the nearest eighth note and is based on a performance by an american “balkan” brass band, zlatne uste. 68 current musicology 20. transcriptions circulating online appear notated as < 4/8, 5/8 >, which disregards the beat patterns in the bass guitar and the drums. 21. the balkan folk music i am familiar with frequently features longer–beat–first when the music is sung, slow, or lyrical and longer–beat–last in faster dance music. in this manner, the longer beat represents a dance turn and the shorter beats correlate with dance steps. with this in mind, a composite meter of < 5/8, 7/8 > can be danced as a < step, turn, step, step, turn > sequence corresponding to the progression of tactus beats < short, long, short, short, long >. 22. while carl orff suggested time signature notation that would simply indicate a written note value in place of a denominator, this notation has not been embraced outside of music education textbooks (although the engraving capability exists through notational software programs). 23. as means of brief summary, i note here that flexible–cycle variation represents a principle of pattern–variation applied to a core pattern and is exemplified by a generalized ordered series of two or more values. a pitch pattern might thus be generalized as < high, low >, whereas a rhythmic pattern might outline < short, long > durations. with respect to metrical patterns, three types of variation emerge: (1) expansion of the core metrical pattern; (2) duplication of metric units; or (3) internal rearrangement of metric units within the core pattern. 24. the definition and the complexity of a perceivable “chunk” can vary based on experience and training. see brower 1993 and kvifte 2007. 25. the b section freely develops 5/8 material from the opening with expanding and contracting groupings that result in time signatures as short as 2/8 and as long as 13/8. in this instance, the time signature summary would not provide further insight into the formal structure of the section. 26. metric units can either be summarized with time signatures or tactus patterns, the primary criterion for this choice being the eventual clarity of the representation. 27. hepokoski and darcy (2006) define the rhetorical property of rotational forms as arising from an ordered presentation of musical elements or ideas. this ordered sequence of musical elements can be subject to reordering in later rotations, and certain ideas might even be omitted. rodgers elaborates that point: “that a piece’s themes do not continuously and rigorously follow a strict rotational pattern does not mean we cannot look at the piece through a rotational lens and thereby learn something important about its logic of repetition and elaboration” (2009, 17). flexible–cycle variation of ordered meta–measure patterns resonates with these definitions of rotational form. 28. tracing the 5/8 meter in this manner, beyond the two opening measures, evokes pieter van den toorn’s (1987) concept of background periodicity, which he had applied to diverging metrical schemes in stravinsky’s music (e.g., the 2/8 “background” meter [background periodicity] in danse sacrale). 29. for more information, see vojčić 2007, 209–42. 30. the reduction in example 9 marks the tactus at the level of quarter and dotted quarter notes, since the tempo marking indicates a very fast eighth–note pulse (mm = 200). 31. this essay does not include examples of meta–measures correlating with a motive (although bars 7–8 of dilber tuta in ex.7 would qualify) or a “measure” (bar). in fact, if the condition for meta–measures having five or more tactus beats is observed, it is difficult to find true meta– measure patterns that can be satisfyingly notated between two barlines. 69 aleksandra vojčić 32. liquidation and fragmentation are used in arnold schoenberg’s (1943, 11) sense of the term. liquidation is a developmental procedure. it entails a gradual reduction of thematic material and its characteristic and essential features. fragmentation simply refers to the process of dividing larger musical ideas into smaller constituent segments. 33. sentence structure has been adopted from arnold schoenberg’s terminology and is extensively covered in caplin 1998. in contrast to an eight–bar period comprising two phrases, a sentence is a single eight–bar phrase. in a sentence, a two–bar motive is repeated or sequenced in the first half of the phrase, followed by a four–bar continuation phase that brings about a cadence and the conclusion of the phrase. 34. the composite metric pattern in dilber tuta (< 9/8, 8/8 >) also represents a meta–measure, although it exemplifies a flexible–cycle type of variation of the core metric pattern. in this connection, see vojčić 2007. for the sake of space and clarity, this type of meta–measure construction is not fully addressed here. references arom, simha. 2005. 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composition. new york: schirmer. smither, howard. 1974. “rhythm.” in dictionary of contemporary music, edited by john vinton, 618–22. new york: e.p dutton & co. snyder, joel, erin hannon, edward large, and morten christiansen. 2006. “synchronization and continuation tapping to complex meters.” music perception 24 (2): 135–46. stoin, vasil. 1927. grundriss der metrik und der rhythmik der bulgarischen volksmusik. sofia, bulgaria. van den toorn, pieter. 1987. stravinsky and the rite of spring: the beginnings of a musical language. berkeley: university of california press. vojčić, aleksandra. 2007. “rhythm as form: rhythmic hierarchy in later twentieth– century piano repertoire.” phd diss., city university of new york. discography cash, johnny. 2002. american iv: the man comes around. american recordings/universal, asin b00006l7xq, compact disc. springsteen, bruce. 2014. “i hung my head,” in honor of sting. the kennedy center honors, live performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwprnfurfy. sting. 1996. mercury falling. a&m, asin b000005ilf, compact disc. zlatne uste balkan brass band. 1993. no strings attached. rounder records, asin b0000003d6, compact disc. current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 moon. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 queer theory, ethno/musicology, and the disorientation of the field steven moon we spend significant time and space in our academic lives positioning ourselves: within the theory of the field, in regard to the institution, within networks of interlocutors, scholars, performers, and so on. we are likewise trained to critique those positions, to identify modes of power in their myriad manifestations, and to work towards more equitable methods and theory. that is, we constantly are subject to attempts of disciplinary orientation, and constantly negotiate forms of re-orientation. sara ahmed reminds us that we might ask not only how we are oriented within our discipline, but also about 1) how the discipline itself is oriented, and 2) how orientation within sexuality shapes how our bodies extend into space (2006). this space—from disciplinary space, to performance space, to the space of fieldwork and the archive—is a boundless environment cut by the trails of the constant reorientation of those before us. but our options are more than the dichotomy between “be oriented” and “re-orient oneself.” in this essay, i examine the development of the ethno/musicologies’ (queer) theoretical borrowings from anthropology, sociology, and literary/cultural studies in order to historicize the contemporary queer moment both fields are experiencing and demonstrate the ways in which it might dis-orient the field. i trace the histories of this queer-ing trend by beginning with early conceptualizations of the ethno/musicological projects, scientism, and quantitative methods. this is in relation to the anthropological method of ethnocartography in order to understand the historical difficulties in creating a queer qualitative field, as opposed to those based in hermeneutics. the first section places the problematics of this enumeration in dialogue with the ethno/musicologies’ tendencies towards nationalizing and globalizing narratives that often run contrary to a queer project. in working at this larger scale of social interaction, it is difficult to understand the intricacies of sexualities and their relation to local normativities—that is, the project of nation-building from the nineteenth through late twentieth centuries makes difficult discussions on genders and sexualities as they exist within ethnic, racial, dis/abled, or religious minority groups subsumed by the nation-state. while both national and global perspectives are useful in understanding mass media and politics, as well as in answering the cui bono question, they often lose sight of individuals and theircomplex negotiations 10 current musicology of identity and place. this section draws on what one might consider the early queer ethnomusicological literature to illuminate this nationalizing tendency. the second section steps back in time to understand how music studies, broadly, entered the queer conversation through early feminist literature in ethnomusicology and historical musicology, as well as literary/cultural studies and anthropology. beginning with historical musicology is critical to a thorough understanding of queer methodological development and its trajectories through the 1990s to eventually enter ethnomusicology in the early 2000s. by examining the disciplinary conditions that gave rise to queer studies within specific fields and not others, the expansion of ethnomusicological theory and method comes into greater relief. this analysis results in ethnomusicology’s broader adoption of queer methods through popular music studies in the third section of the paper. popular music studies is a common meeting point for ethnomusicology and historical musicology as an interdisciplinary sub-field. popular music studies reveal that global circulation and localized analysis might be coalesced, allowing for analysis of the individual’s sexuality—especially within the “cult of the celebrity”—while also capable of making larger trans/national claims about identity, performance, and politics. further, this section considers much of the most recent queer ethnomusicological literature as being directly influenced by the popular music studies trend. this is followed by a discussion of recent work in trans studies in music. noting differences between the orientation of queer and trans theories, this fourth section examines the ways in which trans theory does important work on the local level—that of the performer and audience having a personal interaction— while also creating space for larger discussions on gender, race, vocality, and embodiment. in the final section of this paper, i consider the previously outlined histories and, through select recent works in ethnomusicology, suggest a way forward for a queer/trans-inclusive ethno/musicology. i consider the significant transformations that ethno/musicology has undergone, where it might be headed, and how a queer and trans studies change the discipline at large. i ask whether the delineation of a queer or trans ethno/musicology is not just possible, but necessary at all, and what a queer methodology might look like and function as vis-à-vis contemporary approaches. taking a head count in her 1993 survey of lesbian/gay studies in anthropology, kath weston analyzes the emergence and difficulties of the discipline’s theoretical adaptation, noting that “having identified such glaring lacunae in the anthropo11 steven moon logical record, the prescribed remedy initially consisted of calls for research and a concentrated effort to ‘get some data’” (1993, 340). one method has been ethnological cartography (“ethnocartography”): mapping ethnological data collected by ethnologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists. the goal of these maps, according to branimir bratanic, is the “…ethnological reconstruction of cultural history,” and that “[a] genuine, correctly designed research map ought to present its material in such a way that it will be possible to draw corresponding conclusions from various and characteristic distributions of culture phenomena in space (1979, 101-2, emphasis in original). the practice of ethnocartography in studying gender and sexuality might be likened to finding a critical mass, to the empirical mapping of ‘known’ homosexual behavior in, to use weston’s language, ‘nonindustrial’ societies, most nearly pointing to the global south. the documentation of a critical mass serves as an authenticating or legitimizing process which brings lesbian/gay studies—and with it, lesbian women and gay men—into the house of anthropology, although it is framed by “an old fashioned [sic] empiricist project allied to a hardwon understanding of the sexual politics that continue to target lesbian and gay male relationships in anglo-european societies” (1993, 341). data collection, even in the social science of anthropology, was critical to the demonstration of qualitative value: there are many lesbian women/gay men around the globe, so therefore their lives deserve documentation. in a retrospective on the development of “queer” anthropology and its progress since weston’s work, tom boellstorff notes that ethnocartographic practices are “often linked to forms of identity politics” (2007, 21). boellstorff echoes weston in saying that these ethnocartographic practices, meant to yield empirical data, are often conducted without the use of theory, which boellstorff writes “presumes that concepts name preexisting entities and relations, rather than asking how the social is produced and sustained through acts of representation…in place of ethnocartography, one can see encouraging signs of a ‘critical empiricism’ approach that although not fetishizing “data” nevertheless demands that theorizations be accountable to their subjects of study” (2007, 19). the ethnographic difficulty of locating, “enumerating,” and theorizing on global queer politics have thus been a hindrance to several of the social science disciplines, including ethnomusicology. owing much of its methodological underpinning to cultural anthropology, ethnomusicology might easily be read through these anthropological histories. the disciplinary methods of ethnomusicology have changed considerably since the mid-1900s when such texts by alan merriam and jaap kunst were composed. in merriam’s 1963 the anthropology of music, 12 current musicology the exact quantitative approach discouraged above was the explicit goal imagined for the ethnomusicologist. merriam writes, “[t]he conclusion is almost inescapable that what the ethnomusicologist desires is not that subjective, qualitative, discursive, esthetic, and so forth, but rather the objective, quantitative, and theoretical, wherever this is possible” (1963, 20). this formulation seeks a certain legitimacy within the artistic-scientific binary merriam discusses, arguing that the ethnomusicologist should seek precisely the enumeration that boellstorff condemns. of course, they are writing a half century apart, and merriam’s conceptualization of the field is that of an empirical social science—merriam seeks to “provide a theoretical framework for the study of music as human behavior; and to clarify the kinds of processes which derive from the anthropological, contribute to the musicological, and increase our knowledge of both conceived within the broad rubric of behavioral studies” ( 1963, viii). the lens of behavioral studies is one of the biology and evolution, so merriam’s framework for ethnomusicology is deeply situated in a numerological empiricism. an inclination towards quantitative methods here is unsurprising as jaap kunst, writing prior to merriam, traces ethnomusicological history to, among others, british mathematician alexander john ellis, whose work focused on a history of pitch written through the mathematics and physics of sound (1959). kunst provides a mathematical explication of pitch which contextualizes merriam’s quantifiable (albeit less mathematical) approach to ethnomusicology. for ellis, and others of his time, mathematics helped to understand differentiation in tonal/pitch systems from around the world. of course, this methodology runs the risk of a “european greatness” teleology from pythagorean ratios to lomax’s cantometrics, but nonetheless represented the contemporary ideology regarding the study of musics outside the european art music canon, as well as assumptions about the identity and role of the quintessential ethnomusicologist (see burnim, 1985). mantle hood, writing in the decade after merriam, continues to refer to the ethnomusicologist as “scientist” (1971). while hood notes that ethnomusicology is necessarily interdisciplinary insofar as the study of music and culture can draw on art, folklore, history, and more, hood simultaneously believes in the education and perpetuation of an ethnomusicology based in quantitative methods, detailed diagrams and mathematical precision. however, this is balanced to a greater degree in the ethnomusicologist against the anthropological, which is less present in kunst’s work. the move towards continually more anthropological approaches to the study of music meant an increasing inclusion of theoretical frameworks from other disciplines, as well as following anthropology’s lead in 13 steven moon moving away from the behavioral model towards social constructivist models inclusive of the sex/gender differential. in her 2014 retrospective a feminist ethnomusicology: writings on music and gender, ellen koskoff writes that the early feminist work in ethnomusicology, particularly from the late 1970s and early 1980s, “led the way to deeper understandings of the importance of cultural constructions, not necessarily biological givens, for the study of music and its gender imbalances,” and that the new ethnomusicology “sought to understand music not simply as a product of human behavior, but also as an interpretive site for enacting and performing gender relations” (26-7). moving away from the mid-twentieth century quantitative mindset, away from merriam’s preference for “the objective, quantitative, and theoretical, wherever this is possible,” allows for more nuanced analysis of the cultural constructions at play in musical practice, those which affect the quantitative data collected by early ethnomusicologists but were either ignored or reduced to biology (1963, 20). these quantitative methods—the main reference of the word “scientist” as used by merriam, kunst, and hood—elucidate the complex relationship between ethnomusicology and other social sciences, such as anthropology and sociology. while one can find both qualitative and quantitative methods in both disciplines, anthropology and ethnomusicology both center qualitative methods, primarily ethnography, in the 1980s and 1990s alongside the rise of post-structuralism. while quantitative methods remain useful in the sociological study of society and large-scale systems, this type of analysis requires significant qualitative contextualization and analysis, particular in the study of gender as a cultural construction. alongside race and dis/ability, gender is one of the most significant of these constructions which came to light only due to the work of women that studied gender as social rather than biological. moving from feminist literature to queer theory comes with great difficulty not only in reference to methodologies and theories, but also to career stability and reputation. weston credits new focuses on lesbian/gay studies to “the efforts of a hardy few who risked not only their censure but their careers,” highlighting the precarity of the queer-ing scholar in the academy (1993, 339). these sentiments are echoed decades later by will cheng and gregory barz in the oxford university press blog announcement of their edited volume. cheng and barz theorize ethnomusicology’s late arrival to queer theory as follows: maybe it’s because ethnomusicology was in a sense already queer (a disciplinary outsider relative to music history and music theory), and as such, scholars saw little need for explicit articulations of queerness. maybe ethnomusicologists have harbored anxieties precisely about their 14 current musicology queered status in the academy and have therefore disavowed direct address of queerness in their work for fear of further marginalization. or maybe the varying challenges, affordances, and pressures of scholars’ disparate field sites have impeded harmonious and ethically sound dialogues about queerness (out of concerns about culturally relative currencies of gender and sexuality) (2015, online source). this volume (discussed below) takes queer methodologies, queer musicians, queer field sites, and queer ethnomusicologists as not mutually exclusive subjects and objects of the discipline, but as interconnected and constitutive of ethnomusicology. but cheng and barz use queer above in a more expansive way, referring to ethnomusicology’s “outsider” position. but even here, queer cannot be divorced from gender and sexuality, as the explanation given here echoes several of the sentiments expressed by weston. to do queer work is to be queer in a way, and to be queer is worse yet, especially during these periods of development. for the fringe ethnomusicologist during the rise of queer theory, a lack of institutional security is a serious threat, according to the authors, even while the anthropological turn to lesbian/gay studies occurs much earlier in the discipline’s history. but the anthropologist remains safe within the institution, broadly, following the importance of anthropology to the colonial projects of american and european history. the ethnomusicologist is already peripheral. narratives of the national and global the lone comment on cheng/barz oup blog post, written by jonathan stock (university college of cork), suggests that “part of the answer lies in the habitual focus on groups/societies (as opposed to individuals)” (2015, online source). stock points towards a queer methodology which might be rooted in a more phenomenological approach to the individual as the locus of experience rather than focusing on practices at large. weston’s ethnocartographic analysis does not point to the enumeration of individual queer people in the world. instead, it might be understood as searching for a quantitative search for evidence of entire societies which host queer sexual practices of any kind. by refocusing on the individual rather than the group, stock implicitly encourages an understanding of sexual politics from the individual’s point of view. the queer person living in a society which might deny or prohibit their existence could serve as the center, then, for how queerness interfaces with normative politics, providing information on larger social structures and how the individual navigates heterosexist power. in the study of ethnomusicology: thirty-one issues and concepts, nettl makes a similar observation regarding “women’s music” and feminist eth15 steven moon nomusicology. nettl notes, “it may strike the reader as a curious observation, but i feel that in much of the ethnomusicological work by women there is a focus on an individual musician and (frequently) her story, a tendency providing a needed corrective to the cultural generalizations common in the mainstream of literature” (2005, 418). nettl points towards a perceived urgency to the matter of understanding women’s music “on equal terms, though not necessarily identically, with men’s” in order to provide proper recognition, as well as to develop an understanding of how gender relations vary between cultures (2005, 418). from here, we can zoom out to take a larger view at the nationalizing narratives of ethnomusicological scholarship. deborah wong notes that “we often emphasize nationalism and globalization, manifesting a deeply internalized need to prove our discipline is doing important work (i.e., just as important as anthropology) despite the double feminization of our field” (2015, 178). this double feminization—as a “soft” social science, and as an outsider amongst those—rearticulates cheng and barz’s assertion that the ethnomusicologist was always already “queer,” working on the peripheries of academic institutions. negotiations of queer theory, globalism, and postcolonialism are the topic of much contemporary work, and grappling with transnational queer theory means dealing with culturally relative notions of queerness. due to this tension, national/global frameworks remained dominant and kept “queer” at bay. this is not to say, however, that the two are irreconcilable. tullia magrini’s 2003 volume music and gender: perspectives from the mediterranean, includes a chapter by martin stokes on zeki müren, a queer turkish singer who was beloved during his lifetime, as well as a chapter by svanibor pettan on “sworn virgins,” in kosovo, or “transgendered [sic] individuals who are genetic females [and] become social men, living masculine lives” (dickemann, 1997, quoted in pettan, 293).1 stokes’ chapter is a precursor to his 2010 monograph the republic of love: cultural intimacy in turkish popular music, and asks how queer singer zeki müren, and his relationship to the nation of turkey, might be understood as not peripheral, but rather, hypernormative. stokes provides a nuanced analysis of müren’s homosexuality in relation to broader discussions of sentimentality, michael herzfeld’s notion of cultural intimacy, and the complex performance politics of the gazino in order to argue that müren not be displaced to the theoretical fringe, but rather, understood within a larger and ongoing process of national sentiment-building in turkey. müren dealt expertly with media and cultivated a large female-fan base which assisted in side-stepping controversy. stokes’ chapter, then, demonstrates two points. first, celebrities and other public personae lend themselves well to the analysis of local/global 16 current musicology processes of gender (see section 3. queer beginnings). in being “public,” celebrities’ relationships to the nation are distinctly different than those of non-celebrities, making queer projects possible. second and relatedly, stokes demonstrates what queer analyses might look like, maintaining a localized subject of analysis while placing it in national or global contexts. however, we might ask about how the possibilities of the project might differ if it weren’t focused on a public figure, if it instead focused on queer musicians without fame, as the narrative would change substantially. pettan’s chapter on “sworn virgins,” on the other hand, does not bring a queer analysis together with a national framework, but excludes it. part of this is due to his working in kosovo both before and after the breakup of yugoslavia, as well as working with the roma community at large, both of which resist traditional modes of understanding nationhood. pettan discusses the sworn virgins as “cases,” using a medicalized language which removes them from the broader public narrative. while pettan likens sworn virgins to trans men (see above), and notes that “[t]hey were in most cases referred to as men, and referred to themselves in masculine terms,” they are referred to as “woman,” “she,” and “her,” throughout the chapter (dickemann, 1997, quoted in pettan, 294). the sworn virgin comprises only a small part of the larger chapter’s analysis and sits beyond other analyses of presumably cis-gender musicians. we might read this as a tension once again between local sexual practices and nationalist narratives of identity. that is, while sworn virgins’ identities were accepted in society, according to pettan, this acceptance was only granted insofar as they adhered to dominant values of celibacy. to have a sexual relationship with a man purportedly signaled identity as a woman. (2003, 294, 299). this prescription of gender identity on the basis of nationalist sexual values highlights the tension between the locality of gender identity and its larger social function in the project of nation-building. stokes stands as the sole exception to the case i have outlined here: national and global narratives are prone to exclude queerness from the moment they are invoked, and a methodological/theoretical shift is necessary for a queer ethnomusicology to arise. stokes’ chapter’s exceptionality is due, in part, to factors that will be discussed in the next two sections: a move away from dominant/normative nationalizing narratives, and a move towards popular music and the celebrity. in these sections, stokes’ chapter will gain more context as a movement towards a queer ethnomusicology, to be explicated in the final section. some have cited carol robertson’s “power and gender in the musical experiences of women,” as the first queer ethnomusicological work, which appeared in koskoff ’s 1987 women and music in cross-cultural 17 steven moon perspective, an edited volume which stands also at the beginning of feminist ethnomusicology. robertson draws on fieldwork in ghana, argentina, and washington, d.c. in order to offer a comparative approach to the (new) focus on gender’s relationship to music. robertson’s queer contribution comprises one paragraph of her article, describing female impersonators as a powerful performance method for dramatizing masculinity and male dominance. robertson’s understanding of drag is that “american transvestite performers, known as ‘drag queens’ for example, often portray in costume and demeanor the trickery and ‘bitchiness’ that they attribute to women” (1987, 229). robertson’s chapter might not then represent a “queer” contribution to the literature insofar as it places gender-subversive performance within her own list of marginalized identities: “sodomy, adultery, incest, celibacy, physical abuse, homosexuality, and lack of conformance to closely defined social roles and hierarchies of authority are all targets of public criticism” (1987, 229, emphasis added). where robertson fails to provide nuance regarding sex, sexuality, gender, and orientation, all of which might complicate her analysis of drag queens vis-à-vis women as a supposedly unified category, marcia herndon echoes koskoff in placing great importance on the sex/gender differential. herndon emphasizes gender, or the “culture-specific, inconsistent and variable precept that has more to do with social roles, age and status than with biology,” as being critical to understanding the relationship between biology and nature (1990, 12). this approach, according to herndon, is critical to understanding localized ideas/the development of gender roles specific to one’s research site. further, in separating gender from sex, herndon provides critical development to feminist ethnomusicological methods which largely focused on women as a universalizing category, one which collapses gender and sex into one entity. herndon concludes that “[t]he study of music and gender, then, is not simply a matter of describing male and female domains, styles, and performance types. the focus on gender and sex, biology and culture, adds depth to the analytical understanding of issues and problems” (1990, 26). the gender/sex separation noted by herndon is key to the proliferation of work on music and gender across disciplinary lines, but musicologists were the first to arrive at queer work. in 1989, the american musicological society founded its gay and lesbian study group, and a year later, presented a panel on “composers and sexuality.” the 1993 volume queering the pitch was the direct result of the efforts of these musicologists, especially editors philip brett, elizabeth wood, and gary c. thomas.2 musicological adoption of gay/lesbian studies involved the direct translation of poststructuralist hermeneutics from literature into musical practice, assuming 18 current musicology the composition to be a text which one can read. the volume, then, is comprised of new readings of the western canon, new ways of understanding how sexuality affects the position we take vis-à-vis musical literature. suzanne cusick’s famed chapter “on a lesbian relation with music: a serious effort not to think straight” offers a multivant approach to identity: “the ‘i’ who loves that work seems to me to be the ‘i’ with whom i speak in italian, she who exists a priori of the ‘i’ musician, the ‘i’ woman, the ‘i’ lesbian” (1994, 69). cusick understands her positionality in relation to music as one predicated upon multiple identities, each of which carries its own signifying power. these identities, particularly “lesbian,” are not nouns, nor are they stable categories, but rather “way[s] i prefer to behave, to organize my relationship to the world in a power/pleasure/intimacy triad” (1994, 73). cusick’s triad is a powerful framework for understanding gender broadly, and queerness specifically, one which we might read through deborah wong’s “ethnomusicology without erotics.” wong defines erotics as “the place where the affective and the structural come together and where corporeal control is felt and made visible…erotics are where bodies meet bodies and where subjectivity comes home to roost in a body” (2015, 179). in such a broad definition, wong necessarily notes that erotics are not constrained to sex, to women, to queer people, but rather must include heteronormative values: “[a]ll musics rely on erotics” (2015, 179). read through cusick’s triad, wong’s discussion of the erotics creates space the for the study of music as it relates to any and all gender relations, not specifically the sexual or corporeal. by understanding gender and sexuality explicitly as power, pleasure, and intimacy, we might more clearly see and be able to critique the heterosexist dynamics which have been able to render themselves silent/invisible/ “unmarked” while forcing out queer and demanding its legibility. “in critiquing heteronormativity,” wong writes, “we not only would address one of music’s most powerful siren songs but at the same time could queer ethnomusicology in critically useful ways” (2015, 181). wong’s critique of ethnomusicology sharply contrasts the erotics of musicology in the 1990s. wayne koestenbaum vividly recounts his memory of losing flesh to music, of being entered and consumed by “the opera queen.” referred to by the author as “a scrapbook,” the queen’s throat draws connection between the (presumably white, cis-gendered, upper middle class) gay male and the opera queen of bel canto, who “doesn’t expose her own throat, she exposes the listener’s interiority” (1993, 43). such an unfolding of the listening subject, for koestenbaum, is a queer experience, a new way of engaging with musical performance and text. koestenbaum focuses the 19 steven moon text on the throat as both a material and metaphorical location for the study of operatic performance and listening, as the location of not only the voice, but “as a place where gay men come into their own” (1993, 156). as one of the first gay monograph in the field of musicology, the erotics are made immediately clear—again thinking through cusick’s triad, the power, pleasure, and intimacy of the operatic voice in performance and consumption is an undeniable paradigm shift, changing how musical signs are interpreted by audience members and scholars alike. additionally, this book appears only one year prior to queering the pitch, marking 1993/4 as a significant moment for the direction of musicological research. of course, the musicological development of queer theory was rooted deeply in other humanities disciplines. most notably, judith butler’s gender trouble in 1990 shifted feminist theory and significantly aiding the rise of queer theory. butler explicates the notion of performativity, writing that both “biological” sex (itself a constructed category) and gender are performed through the body, in both gesture and speech act, and gain semiotic stability only through constant reiteration. by understanding gender/sex as performed, these social principles are usefully detached from the body and the medicalized narratives which gave rise to their biologization (for context, the contemporary usage of gender versus sex came into popular use only in the 1960s). performativity has thus had a profound impact in all gender-related research, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. simply in sharing the term “perform” allows butler’s theorization to be easily understood in musical contexts, although butler’s primary example is drag performance. further, referring to “everyday gender,” we might call it, or our mundane daily experiences of ourselves as gendered beings, as performative blurs the line between staged performance and our routine lives, allowing gender to be studied on the stage and on the street in much the same way. it is perfectly sensible then that musicologists, opera scholars in particular, grasped this theoretical shift. the opera volume en travesti (1995), appearing shortly after the queen’s throat and queering the pitch, is comprised of five musicologists and seven literary theorists, which further demonstrates the importance of hermeneutics to early queer work. judith peraino’s chapter, which imagines a lesbian social structure through purcell’s witch utopia, harkens back to work by mcclary and cusick which was instrumental in the rise of a post-structuralist musicological methodology, shedding the skin of heterosexist analysis (which supported heteronormativity by skirting the issue altogether). most significantly, mitchell morris, perhaps for the first time in print, explicitly identifies as a “queer musicologist,” marking the early import of a queer political economy. while queering 20 current musicology the pitch uses “queer” in its title, its theoretical utility is not taken up in the volume—many authors instead revert to the model of gay/lesbian studies. after all this musicological contextualization, it can be difficult to imagine where ethnomusicological endeavors fit in. as noted above, there were several impediments to the social sciences’ adoption of queer theoretical models. the musicologists noted here found their way into queer analyses through the hermeneutic methods of literature, employing a queer musicology that is rooted in erotics, pleasure, and power. however, the transition into ethnomusicology required a common object of inquiry: popular music studies. the next section provides an overview of the transition from queer musicology to queer ethnomusicology, if we might use that term, occurring in the early 2000s, in large part due to the two disciplines’ meeting within popular music studies. popular music studies popular music studies in ethnomusicology has developed over the last several decades, becoming institutionalized within the society for ethnomusicology in 1996. popular music now comprises a large portion of publications in journals and presentations at ethnomusicological conferences. because popular music studies’ methodologies are far-reaching and interdisciplinary, it is unsurprising that ethnography and historiography have brought musicology and ethnomusicology together, sharing an object of inquiry (albeit often from different parts of the world). this meeting point is where queer theory makes its leap from musicology to ethnomusicology; while the disciplinary methods are different, the common object allows for its transference.3 i argue here that popular music studies has been, and remains today, a critical site for the development of a still-unresolved queer ethnomusicology which continues to shape ethnomusicological research trajectories. aside from stokes’ and pettan’s contributions to magrini’s 2003 volume, early developments in queer ethnomusicology appear in the 2006 volume queering the popular pitch. “queer” becomes critical in this volume, unlike its precursor queering the pitch. according to editors sheila whiteley and jennifer rycenga, “[b]y using the word queer—as opposed to lesbian and gay—the authors show how same-sex desire can be foregrounded without designating which sex is desiring/being desired and, as such a certain fluidity is achieved that refuses gender-based constructions. in short, queer becomes the taboo-breaker” (2006, xiv, emphasis in original). in explicitly adopting queer, the contributors of this volume claim a commitment to a gender politic which does not subscribe to male/female, gay/straight binaries, instead opting for a framework which exists beyond them. 21 steven moon the appeal of queerness for popular music is, in part, that many performers’ lives and personae circulate widely, and sexuality is made public. putting aside the ethics of the cult of the celebrity, the availability of an individual life—the life of an artist, a band, a genre—allows a localized analysis, as compared to the nationalized/globalized narratives discussed above, and by wong. when the eroticism of the individual becomes a commodity, a queer analysis is made much simpler. as argued above, the erotic and the national might be understood as standing in opposition to one another, and thus the heterogeneity of popular music lends itself more easily to queer critique. popular music studies in ethnomusicology also allows for a greater focus on audience and consumption, as opposed to the dominant paradigm of studying musicians/performers. in stephen amico’s contribution to queering the popular pitch, interlocutors’ communities revolve around celebrity artists who exist at specific identitarian intersections. amico’s chapter asks how gay latino men constitute place through their movement towards urban centers while bringing with them a taste for latin house music. this interaction, between “what is already there” and “what they bring,” is critical to amico’s analysis of gay male latino sexual practice and music consumption. rather than focusing on the artists themselves, amico focuses on what the artists have come to represent to their listeners, and how artists’ work has been coopted for specific projects of gender expression. amico’s work here is representative of a shift in the larger ethnomusicological object of inquiry, one which is specific to projects on popular music and sound studies. jason lee oakes’ approach is similar in his chapter, “queering the witch: stevie nicks and the forging of femininity at the night of a thousand stevies,” focusing on the fandom of one particular artist taken up as a gay icon. the differentiation between oakes and amico occurs at the usage of queer. while amico’s interlocutors were self-identified gay men, oakes works with a broader range of sexually identifying people who impersonate stevie nicks. oakes notes that at the night of a thousand stevies event, where impersonators of all genders come together for events that honor the artist and recreate her performances, “[t]he stevies themselves range from straight women and men to cross-dressers, transgenders, and others who defy simple categorization. it is often not clear whether a given performer is biologically male or female, performing in drag, is oriented gay or straight, or somewhere in between” (2006, 47, emphasis added). in surveying such a broad range of music consumers under a queer umbrella, oakes uses queer (like the editors of the volume) to resist heteronormative binaries rather than as a synonym for lesbian and gay (2006, 48). while 22 current musicology oakes notes that queer, in its subversive power, is still most often coded as femme, oakes provides a critical framework for using queer beyond lesbian and gay, one which is still largely not taken up. a queer ethnomusicology, based upon oakes chapter, might begin to appear as one which does not take gender as niche or optional, but instead centers it at all times. some of the most current queer work in ethnomusicology has come in the form of drag. work by sarah hankins, moshe morad, and alec macintyre, among others, examines drag performance—perhaps the most ubiquitous performance practice for exploring gender performativity—as the site of a queer politic that alters the ethnographer-interlocutor, voicebody relationship, and gender-culture relationships. each author engages drag performance with popular music in some respect and highlights the importance of embodiment as a queer mode of knowledge and performance for both the audience member and the performer. hankins offers queer hermeneutics based upon experiential fieldwork, writing, “[a queer relationship with music] is embodied, aroused, and situated. arousal dissolves the boundaries between self and music by opening up the somatic apparatus to music’s energies, and arousal enables the individual to locate herself, and to locate music, within social power structures that are undergirded by a sexual order” (2014, 87). “queer” necessarily blurs lines, those which we often assume to exist between the self and the other, between the body and not-body. connecting the popular/mass-circulated to the local, these authors each engage celebrity-status through local effect in a move which offers methodological suggestion. amico picks this up in roll over, tchaikovsky!: russian popular music and post-soviet homosexuality by studying not russian popular music stars themselves, but rather their reception, embodiment, and use by gay men living in russia. amico positions popular music as a tool for use by gay men towards the construction of a sexual self-vis-à-vis dominant attitudes regarding homosexuality in russia. like hankins, morad, and macintyre, amico explores the uses of popular music—a very public performance of sexuality—by those who perform their sexuality as individuals. however, amico steps beyond performance to discuss music consumers who are not performers themselves. while those above discuss drag performance, amico recounts everyday, commonplace usages of popular music consumption in creating a gay russian subjectivity. in doing so, amico moves again in a new direction, suggesting a queer ethnomusicology that explores the role of music and sound in queer mundanity. the visibility and locality of individual performers in many of these popular music case studies allow ethnomusicologists to study the politics 23 steven moon of identity—sex, gender, orientation, identity, performance, presentation—within musical contexts at the scale of both singular artists and mass audiences. while gavin lee notes the importance of destabilizing gender in the study of popular music in his introduction to the new volume rethinking difference in gender, sexuality, and popular music: theory and politics of ambiguity, popular music studies can and must take seriously self-identification as a material condition of existence, regardless of academic theorization (2018). trans theory the academic discipline of trans studies has grown exponentially since the 1990s. one of the first publications to stake out the field and it’s importance was sandy stone’s “the empire strikes back: a posttranssexual manifesto,” which responds to janice raymond’s 1979 the transsexual empire: the making of the she-male. stone recounts auto/biographical narratives of trans women as well as the history of university-run gender dysphoria clinics in order to expose the mischaracterization of trans identities by raymond, to demonstrate “[t]he initial fascination with the exotic, extending to professional investigators; denial of subjectivity and lack of access to the dominant discourse; followed by a species of rehabilitation” (1991, 163). stone argues that the making of history “is partly a struggle to ground an account in some natural inevitability,” and that while these struggles often ignore the materiality of the body, the voice of trans peoples are often ignored in reference to precisely their own bodies: here on the gender borders at the close of the twentieth century, with the faltering of phallocratic hegemony and the bumptious appearance of heteroglossic origin accounts, we find the epistemologies of white male medical practice, the rage of radical feminist theories, and the chaos of lived gendered experience meeting on the battlefield of the transsexual body: a hotly contested site of cultural inscription, a meaning machine for the production of ideal type (1991, 164). arriving concurrently with, if not slightly earlier than, queer theory, trans studies rests upon many similar premises—for example, stone’s epistemology of gender that is disruptive to both sexual dimorphism and society’s blind adherence to it—but key differences in methodology and citational practice have led to the fields’ distinctly different characterizations, as well as unequal representation in other disciplines, including ethno/musicology. queer theory is often employed through the verb “queering,” an ill-defined mode of deconstruction whose uses range from “getting to the queer root of the matter” to “taking something straight and making it queer.” the 24 current musicology former harkens a butlerian understanding of gender’s totalizing performativity, wherein there is no essential gender to be found anywhere with-in or with-out the body or one’s subjectivity. the latter is a tepid mode of critique that grants ontological status to an object’s normativities by implying that it is not-yet-queer. queering also functions as a common entry point for queer theory into a not-yet-queer or otherwise straight discipline. this reveals a motivation to make queer that which is presently not or reveal its true queer nature. in this sense, queer theory often faces outward, mushrooming across fields and forests of academic work and demonstrating a subterranean interconnectedness of gender. trans theory is tangibly different in its methodology and citational practices. while one “does queer theory” through engagement with and citation of a canon of authors—judith butler, michael warner, jack halberstam— “doing trans theory” is less reliant upon an agreed-upon body of work. susan stryker and jay prosser, for example, might be considered some of the most prominent scholars of trans studies, but have not been canonized alongside butler or michel foucault. the creation of a queer disciplinary core is critical to the queering project, providing a foundation legible to outsiders, a place to which queering can point. but trans theorists do not seek “to trans,” do not engage in “transing.” trans theorists are specifically interested in the lives of trans people. while the implications of trans theory reverberate across non-trans identities, especially in regard to the plasticity of the body and the category of sex, this work is about and for trans lives in particular. while the body of trans scholarship in music studies is growing, it is perhaps less visible because it does not engage in a form of changing the field. there is no “transing ethno/musicology.” meanwhile, the queer ethno/musicological cup overflows with queering: queering the pitch, queering the popular pitch and the forthcoming queering the field. each of these volumes queers in its own capacity. much ethno/musicological work on trans musicians occurs within the realm of popular music. shana goldin-perschbacher writes on “transamericana,” or americana music written and performed by trans musicians. goldin-perschbacher argues that because of normative assumptions within the genre of americana, it is an attractive and rich site for trans and queer musicians to play with genre and identity. one of these artists, joe stevens, also appears in scholarship by elias krell and randy drake. with a background in performance studies, krell writes extensively on popular music by trans and genderqueer artists and focuses in particular on transvocality as a method of understanding how musicians’ and audiences’ bodies are affectively moved in performance. drake draws 25 steven moon on ethnographic research with jazz musicians, americana musicians, and trans choruses in order to think through musicking as an embodied method of configuring trans identities. by focusing on particular artists or groups, goldin-perschbacher, krell, and drake can more closely exam identity individuals’ embodied experience as the making of identity. as noted above, popular music renders public individuals’ lives in such a way that ethno/musicological analysis can be rooted in the individual rather than focusing on nationalizing/ globalizing narratives. of course, the popular music subject is understood within broadly-circulating discourses on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, dis/ability, and law. but such artists might also be understood as a crystallization of these intersecting cultural valences of identity. this further highlights the tendency of trans studies to focus on locality. there is no “transing” of the field. rather, these scholars present frameworks for understanding the unique position of trans subjectivities vis-a-vis music studies. this is not to say that trans studies in music is insular or without wider reach. on the contrary, trans studies in music fundamentally rewrites the relationship between gender and sound. while feminist musicologists of the 1980s and 1990s make a distinction between gender and sex in an important way, this has caused many discussions of music and gender to draw our attention away from the flesh, tossing gender about through either theoretical readings absent of the body, or through material studies that ultimately reify rigid sexual dimorphism. gender’s deconstruction, in other words, often occurs in our classrooms and analyses in such a way that relies upon a stable notion of sex: a specific version of the body to come home to. but scholars from trans studies and feminist science studies demonstrate that the body is pliable; that it bends under pressure, it tears and sutures as we please (gill-peterson 2013; hird 2004; mikkola 2016). trans studies in music demonstrates that our analyses of music and gender are never in reference to a static body, but a body in motion, one which continually re-creates sex in the same way that it recreates gender through repeated performative moves (butler 1990, 1993; see also eidsheim, 2012, 2015 on race, gender, and the body in singing and listening). by thinking through the relationship between trans songwriters and audiences with krell, drake, and goldin-perschbacher, we might redefine the musicking body in performance as one engaged in the ongoing creation of the body itself. this is not entirely dissimilar to the work of early feminist ethno/musicology. ruth solie, for example, argues for a total reconceptualization of music as a social force rather than simply a reorientation of the field towards the contributions of women throughout history (1992). 26 current musicology a trans studies approach offers a new angle on the category of “women” here, reducing it to neither a strictly defined gender performance (womanhood) nor to a particular body reduced to pieces under the guise of biology (female). sex is thus a constantly re-iterated, re-created body untied from genetics, anatomy, and social expectation that is performed much in the same way as gender. for some, the loss of sex’s theoretical stability may be disorienting. this dizziness is the moment from which scholarship on music and gender will continue to flourish. reliance upon sex is simply a positivist mode of cis-gender heteropatriarchy. no more than one can willing and consciously change their sexual orientation can disciplines built upon imperialism and cis-heteropatriarchy be easily shifted. it is only through the complete disorientation of both the discipline and its object can fields change. moving forward, or coming closer there is great difficulty in writing a queer history, because queer, by many definitions, exists beyond linear models of time. of the question, “when did jazz go straight?”, sherrie tucker answers, “those would be straight questions; linear when/then, who/them q&a. i am going for queer here, q with a q. as a queer question, ‘when did jazz go straight?’ flies at a bit of an angle, scanning the horizon for queer instances in which jazz appears to ‘go straight,’ when people ‘go straight’ to jazz, or when jazz gets called upon to represent ‘straightness’” (2008, 1). attempting to write a queer history of ethno/musicology is a process confined by straightness. queerness weaves through discourse without regard for disciplinary lines, making appearances only when you are looking for it. following tucker, we might understand the question “when did ethnomusicology go queer?” as one which attempts to straighten a history unnecessarily. as noted by cheng and barz far above, “maybe…ethnomusicology was in a sense already queer (a disciplinary outsider relative to music history and music theory)” (online). pinning down the moment of queering is not a fruitful project, nor is debate regarding whether the discipline is inherently or requires queering. rather, a disorientation of the discipline represents a fuller embrace of the methodological possibilities. instead of queering, or taking something un-queer and making it queer, we should consider de-straightening a field which might have never been straight to begin with. following ahmed, “queer does not have a relation of exteriority to what with which it comes into contact” (2006, 4). that is, queer did not collide with music studies—we are continuing to find what is queer about what we do, and in what we do. this is not to say that queer advocacy is unnecessary; on the contrary, it is more important than 27 steven moon ever. but queer ethno/musicology might begin to appear less like an ethno/ musicology of queer people, less like the use of queer theory, and more like a reframing of ethno/musicological inquiry which foregrounds gender in all instances, which makes central the relationships of our work—ethnographer/interlocutor, historian/archive, critic/performance— as formative, complex, and dynamic. the study of these relationships, of gendered modes of power, is not a theoretical framework to take or leave. that is, the implicit heterosexuality of those who “don’t do gender studies” is a specifically queer issue. as it relates to gender, sexuality, and politics, queerness is often defined or understood as resistance to normativities. the importance of queer work is framed by language of “awareness and advocacy.” but what do these mean if our institutions are still built to keep queerness out, or at least to the side? if they are built to perpetuate particular models of methodological or theoretical training? so long as queer continues to be defined as being an outsider (see barz and cheng above), so long as queerness is relegated to a week of the syllabus, or an elective course outside core curricula, problems of cis-heteronormativity and whiteness will persist in our disciplines.⁴ ⁵ in thinking through the queer hermeneutics offered by hankins above, we might also consider a hermeneutics of vulnerability, which sidra lawrence claims “will perhaps yield new layers of… knowledge not previously revealed. in making ourselves vulnerable and in looking deeply and with thoughtful consideration into those vulnerabilities through an interpretive framework, i hope that we broaden not just what we know but what we consider to be knowledge” (2017, 483). taking “queer” and “vulnerable” together brings us back to cusick’s power/pleasure/intimacy model, leaning particularly on the third prong, which sees the ethnographic encounter, or the musical encounter, or any number of other interactive iterations, as being a point of intersection. we so often call this point “power,” but lack the truly intersectional approach many have advocated here. thinking through vulnerability forces a reconsideration of other intersections of identity, especially race and disability, each of which would be critical to a queer or trans method. kyle decoste’s recent article on the original pinettes brass band takes a queer-intersectional-ethnographic approach, asking how the band musicians’ identities as black/queer/femme shift discourse on the gendering of musical instruments and performance. working through black feminist theory and ethnomusicology, decoste argues that each of these intersections is critical both on its own and in conjunction with the others, meaning the performance cannot just be understood as black, femme, or queer, but as distinctly all three at once, requiring an intersectional framework (2017). 28 current musicology some scholars beyond ethnomusicology have questioned the need for a “queer-” or “trans-” designated discipline. anthropologist ellen lewin, famous for work on lesbian mothers, and editor of the 1996 out in the field: reflections of lesbian and gay anthropologists, has since questioned what queerness has to offer that was not addressed in earlier feminist approaches to anthropological methodology. arguing that queer theory has gone too far in separating itself from monogamy and other homonormative respectability politics, lewin disagrees with relabeling “lesbian and gay studies” as “queer studies” (2016). lewin stands in stark contrast to the sociologists of catherine j nash and kath browne’s volume queer methods and methodologies: intersecting queer theories and social science research. one contributor to the volume, alison rooke, notes that queer ethnographic practices are critical to “addressing the assumed stability and coherence of the ethnographic self and outlining how this self is performed in writing and doing research. to queer ethnography then, is to curve the established orientation of ethnography in its method, ethics, and reflexive philosophical principles” (2010, 25). rooke’s assertion of a queer ethnographic method might be read as similar to a feminist ethnography. however, many such feminist methods lack a queer approach to being femme, one which does not function as resistant to masculinity but rather escapes the masculine-feminine binary altogether. queer methods, in the field or in other arenas of research, might gesture towards a total disregard for the male/female, hetero/homo binaries in favor of nuanced accounts which don’t collapse back onto sexual dimorphism. in ethnomusicology, we have seen early signs of this in some of the work discussed above. however, very little has moved beyond popular music studies. jeff roy explores hijra-s’ becoming third-gender/trans-gender through documentary filmmaking, a method that roy believes can queer fieldwork because “[q]ueer methodologies seek multiplicity in favor of singularity, and ways of perceiving of and representing time and place that subvert hegemonies of perspective” (2015, 113). citing nash and browne’s volume, roy offers one way forward. much the same as other ethno/musicological methods and theories, queer theory and method might come from beyond the disciplinary walls. aside from working on queer performers and people, roy (and others) has offered a method which is not only necessarily reflexive but is hardly definite. queer and trans are rarely places one finds an object to be examined, but rather are ongoing developments without direction or goal. thinking a queer and trans ethnomusicology through the texts examined here, we must consider the binaries and boundaries our projects create, and work towards their disorientation. each moment of (queer) ethnographic present represents not only per29 steven moon formers’ or listeners’ becoming, but our own un-becoming. in eliminating authorial distance, in seeing ourselves alongside/within our object of study, a queer/trans method for ethno/musicology might surface. such a disorientation requires significant work on behalf of all working in our fields, including/especially those who might say they “do not work on gender studies.” gender studies— much like work in critical race theory, ethnic studies, and disability studies—remains an “area of interest” or a “specialty” rather than a core component of ethno/musicological inquiry. gender studies remains on the shelf, taken down by most often by women and queer people (those who “have gender”). jobs in our fields rarely seek out a scholar in gender studies, instead largely hire based upon geographic area and time periods. the result, according to tes slominski: “…whole areas of study are becoming disciplinarily queer and disappearing” (slominski 2019, 228). being queer, doing queer work in ethnomusicology is, for me, about proximity, about being close to and entangled with the work. “distance” appears regularly in discussions of methodology and epistemology and is often noticeably absent of “closeness.” critical distance, for example, is the hallmark of white heterosexist patriarchal critique: taking on the role of the unmarked, unbiased bastion of objectivity. slominski notes that in ethnomusicology, distance is something of a disciplinary litmus test, assigning “market value” to work that takes the (white) ethnomusicologist too far away (brown/black) places (2019, 229). several ethnomusicologists in queering the field discuss distance in both geographic and affective terms, distancing as a process of negotiating varying identities in the field. sarah hankins notes that this distance is particularly prominent in ethnomusicology, compared to historical musicology where “some queer musicologists have written graphically about their bodily, emotional responses to musical sound,” and quite critically, that “i am not certain that ‘positionality’ is the same thing as ‘subjectivity’ or ‘self ’” (2019, 361). following ahmed, the question of where we are and how we are oriented might guide us in more interesting directions (see above). for me, it is in the moments of closeness that borders rupture, in the messiness of sex and intimacy and we can theorize ourselves and others. “queer ethnographers will always face messy, complicated realities of difference in our fieldwork,” writes hankins. “at times, we won’t be able to get our bearings—but those moments might be opportunities for our richest, most nuanced ethnographic work” (2019, 362). approaching our work “from a distance” is a distinctly white, cis-gender, heterosexual, and able-bodied methodology. rather than being free from bias, it requires deep inquiry into power structures embedded in race, 30 current musicology ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability, particularly about ourselves. it necessitates that we understand ourselves not only as ethnographers who are situated along these lines of difference, but also as ethnographers who have sexual lives, who are sexually situated within our field sites, even in the absence of physical sexual/intimate contact (see hankins, 2019). nicol hammond argues that, doing ethnographic fieldwork is like having sex: relational and intimate, capable of being deeply pleasurable, deeply uncomfortable, and deeply damaging—sometimes all at the same time. and like sex, fieldwork is implicated in a complex and slippery web of consent, power, pleasure, norms, intentions, responsibilities, vulnerabilities, and desire that need to be examined if we stand any chance of approaching and ethical practice. (2019, 53, emphasis added) with echoes of cusick’s model of pleasure/power/intimacy, and lawrence’s hermeneutics of vulnerability, hammond reiterates that ethnography is about entanglement and proximity, about sex and power. moving forward, or coming closer, into a queerer field and methodology thus necessitates: 1) that we understand ourselves as always being within webs of identity and power; 2) that we remember, following wong, all music is made possible through erotics, and that both we and our interlocutors have sexual lives that manifest in fieldwork, and 3) that these things mean that we all have work to do on gender (on race, on ethnicity, on disability), that no project is free of these very material conditions of life and music-making. notes 1.the use of “transgendered” rather than “transgender” is offensive to most trans individuals, as it both 1) implies an act upon them rather than an identity, and 2) marks transgender identity as separate from lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer identities (one is not “gay-ed”). for additional information and resources, visit https://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender 2. philip brett is of course widely regarded as the key figure in queer musicology, beginning with his work on benjamin britten in the late 1970s/early 1980s. for a history of music and gender, particularly as it relates to european sexology and the nineteenth century, see wood, brett, and hubbs, 2012. 3. the term “popular music” is highly contested and culturally contingent.referring to popular music as a “common object” does not imply homogeneity, but rather an embrace of the heterogeneous yet interrelated genres, theories, and methodologies rooted beneath the field of popular music studies. see holt, 2007 for more on genre, and cohen, 1993 for the necessity of ethnographic methods in popular music studies. 31 steven moon 4. mason stokes writes that “whiteness works best—in fact…it only works only—when it attaches itself to other abstractions, becoming yet another invisible strand in a larger web of unseen yet powerful cultural forces.” this is to say that when we focus on sexuality, we make visible its entire web of co-constitutive forces, particularly race. discussing one necessitates the other. for more on whiteness and heterosexuality, see whitney, 2017 and yep, 2003. 5. in her book the conjectural body: gender, race, and the philosophy of music, robin james labels the relationship between racialized/gendered bodies and sound as “coincident.” james asserts that previous metaphors for understand the race/gender/sound relationship—the language of “examples,” “traffic,” and “blending”—are inadequate because “[i] dentity categories always exist in combination, because they do not persist independently of the lived experiences of real, existent people” (2010, 21, emphasis in original). while race and gender require delineation and theorization as categories with their own epistemologies, “it is impossible to depict or analyze any identity category in isolation from all the others” (20). references ahmed, sara. 2006. queer phenomenology: orientations, objects, others. durham: duke university press. amico, stephen. 2014. roll over, tchaikovsky! 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(new edition). urbana: university of illinois press. selections. robertson, carol e. 1987. “power and gender in the musical experiences of women.” in women and music in cross-cultural perspective, ed. ellen koskoff. new york: greenwood press, 225-244. roy, jeffery. 2015. “ethnomusicology of the closet: (con)figuring transgender-hijra identity through documentary filmmaking.” phd diss., university of california, los angeles, 2015. proquest. 3737747. slominski, tes. 2019. “fielding the field: belonging, disciplinarily, and queer scholarly lives.” in queering the field: sounding out ethnomusicology, edited by gregory bar and 33 steven moon william cheng. new york: oxford university press. solie, ruth. 1992. “sophie drinker’s history.” in disciplining music: musicology and its canons, edited by katherine bergeron and philip v. bohlman stokes, martin. 2010. the republic of love: cultural intimacy in turkish popular music. chicago: university of chicago press. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 5 editor’s note the acknowledgment—in which this note is, at least in part, an exercise—is a tricky genre: there are always too many people to thank but too few words fit for the task. a game presents itself: to avoid where possible repetitions of the golden word—the t–word—and its few synonyms; in other words, no thanks, no gratitude. keith richards (2010, 549), in his autobiography life, has a tidy solution: a single “my thanks to . . .” and then two sober columns of alphabetically ordered names. similarly, in one of the more moving exemplars, roger parker (2006, xi–xii) follows “thanks to . . .” with a sentence almost two pages long, where he honors each addressee with a personalized vignette held between semicolons. with tongue presumably in cheek, tamara levitz (2012, xvii) interrupts the steady toll of t–words when, rather than thank her proofreaders, she “thinks” them. this note is no place to reinvent the genre, so i will borrow a little from (at least the first two of) these examples by thanking, in one fell swoop, all who have contributed in any way to this issue. surrounding the names mentioned below (not to mention nor forget those that i may have forgotten to mention), please imagine bouquets of grateful expressions. i thank all the participants for their work and dedication, of course, but also for their patience as this issue inched towards completion; i also appreciate their forbearance with my occasionally neurotic editorial interventions—even as i write, some e–mail chains continue to creep into unrepeatable figures. i am grateful to have had the opportunity to work closely with the writers included here; these collaborations have populated the sometimes lonely road of scholarly life. the impetus behind this issue came when cornell graduate students evan cortens and caroline waight wrote to me to suggest we publish proceedings from their conference, music: cognition, technology, society, which took place over the weekend of may 11–13, 2012.1 although i did not take up their offer exactly, a few papers caught my eye; cortens and waight generously shared whatever contact information i requested. three articles—those by murray dineen (former editor of this journal; welcome back!), jonathan de souza, and carmel raz—arrived via this route; however, after a lot of back and forth, only dineen’s retains its original cornell title. 6 current musicology in that article—“the historical soundscape of monophonic hi– fidelity”—dineen examines a key moment in the history of sound recording, one in which the emerging figure of the audiophile finds himself (and it is usually a he) caught between the pleasure and anxiety produced by the pursuit of fidelity and optimal performance where (sonic) reproductive equipment is concerned. warning: double entendres abound. with an impressive range of reference, jonathan de souza, in his “voice and instrument at the origins of music,” engages histories and philosophies of technology, paleoanthropology, and psychology to revisit perennial speculations surrounding the prehistorical precedence of the voice over the instrument. with the concept of musical “technics,” de souza thinks through the complex of interrelationships between technique, technology, and vocality. carmel raz, in “the lost movements of ernst toch’s gesprochene musik,” introduces us to “a forgotten milestone in the history of electronic music,” austrian composer ernst toch’s “geographical fugue” from 1930 (37). raz provides both an in–depth history of the work and its (only) performance as well as a close analysis of its two “lost” movements, “o–a” and “ta–tam.” scores of these movements, edited by christopher caines—who, in addition to his notes, has submitted a delightful preface—are published here for the first time. i am especially excited to have been able to facilitate this publication, and i hope that the triptych of toch items—the scholar’s article; the editor’s preface; the critical edition—will be a useful resource for musicologists and musicians of different stripes. the two remaining articles in this volume are unrelated to the cornell conference. gavin steingo reignites the discussion around lydia goehr’s work–concept thesis in “the musical work reconsidered, in hindsight.” through an illuminating analogy with the history and philosophy of money, steingo sidesteps the common (and hotly disputed) question of when the work concept, once and for all, appeared; instead, he explores “various types of related [work] concepts and practices” and shifts the narrative to the “transition or even inversion of ‘where’ music is located” (82). in “images of time and timelessness: a musical reading of death in venice,” marlies de munck takes thomas mann’s famously musicological novel, along with luchino visconti’s adaptation of the work, as the point of departure for an insightful meditation on her leading question “how to represent time in its fleetingness without halting, appropriating, objectifying, or transcending it?” (113). the book–reviews section, expertly edited by joshua navon, is an exclusively in–house product: all contributors (including the section editor) are graduate students in the music department at columbia. the authors of 7 thomas fogg these incisive and stylish reviews are historical musicologists paula harper, anne levitsky, and ralph whyte, and ethnomusicologist andrés garcía molina. under scrutiny are three significant books on twentieth–century media studies: carol vernallis’s unruly media: youtube, music video, and the new digital cinema (harper); david novak’s japanoise: music at the edge of circulation (molina); and the sounds of capitalism: advertising, music, and the conquest of culture (whyte). levitsky reviews sarah kay’s parrots and nightingales: troubadour quotation and the development of european poetry. the journal’s editorial board has been a great resource during the editing and proofreading of this issue; didier sylvain and thomas smith deserve a special mention in this regard, but i must insist on taking the blame for any undetected errors. i welcome smith as the next editor–in–chief of the journal and look forward to his work as current musicology celebrates its 50th year in 2015. as my time as editor comes to an end, as i return my keys to the office, and as i wind down this note, i realize that i have painted myself into a corner: how can i end this acknowledgment without writing, once more, a thank you? that game is, i suppose, up. thomas fogg notes 1. along with cortens and waight, the conference was organized by taylan cihan and eric nathan. references richards, keith. 2010. life. new york: little brown and company. parker, roger. 2008. remaking the song: operatic visions and revisions from handel to berio. berkeley: university of california press. levitz, tamara. 2012. modernist mysteries: perséphone. new york: oxford university press. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 79 nonsense and unmusic daniel albright first thing. without nonsense there is no sense. without sense there is no nonsense. without sense there is no sense. without nonce there is no once. without out end there is no begin in. without redundancy the waves would surge in one direction only. second thing. i want to play a language game with you, a game that starts with a passage from a story by jorge luis borges, concerning a man with an absolutely perfect memory: me dijo que hacia 1886 había discurrido un sistema original de numeración y que en muy pocos días había rebasado el veinticuatro mil. [ . . . ] en lugar de siete mil trece, decía (por ejemplo) máximo pérez; en lugar de siete mil catorce, el ferrocarril; otros números eran luis melián lafinur, olimar, azufre, los bastos, la ballena, el gas, la caldera, napoléon, agustín de vedía. en lugar de quinientos, decía nueve. [ . . . ] yo traté de explicarle que esa rapsodia de voces inconexas era precisamente lo contrario de un sistema de numeración. le dije que decir 365 era decir tres centenas, seis decenas, cinco unidades: análisis que no existe en los “números” el negro timoteo o manta de carne. funes no me entendió o no quiso entenderme. he told me that in 1886 he had thought up his own original numbering system, and that in a very few days he had gone past the number 24,000. [ . . . ] instead of 7013 he would say, for example, máximo pérez; instead of 7014 he would say the railroad; other numbers were luis melián lafinur, olimar, sulfur, the saddle pads, the whale, the gas, the cooking pots, napoleon, agustín de vedía. instead of 500 he would say nine. [ . . . ] i tried to explain to him that this rhapsody of disconnected words was precisely the opposite of numbering system. i told him that to say 365 was to say three hundreds, six tens, five ones; an analysis that doesn’t exist in the “numbers” the negro timoteo or meat blanket. funes didn’t understand me or didn’t want to understand me. the game is to reverse borges’s premise: to imagine a language that consists entirely of numbers, by taking the oxford english dictionary and assigning numbers to each of its more than 200,000 words. (171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words, in the second edition.) so aardvark would current musicology 80 be word number 10; zymurgy would have a very high number. if a new word were added to the language we could place it with decimal point 1, or 2, and so forth, added to the number of the word preceding it in the alphabet. plurals and verb tense and numbers and moods could be indicated by pronouncing a suffix such as plus or tilde or backslash after the word– number. so speech would consist of a string of numbers. it would take a long time to say a sentence, but if signifiers are perfectly arbitrary, it would be as easy to use as our normal version of the english language, for two people with a lot of time on their hands. and it would have the advantage that you write could poems with indeterminate words, such as 86,x5y, thereby creating a new form of discourse unavailable in standard english. but normal forms of nonsense, in the jabberwocky or finnegans wake manner, would be impossible: you couldn’t create a portmanteau between lithe and slimy, because you can’t elide two numbers in the way that you can elide two words. and there is no reason why the phonetic aspect of the word couldn’t erode away into almost nothing: as numbers became the common medium of speech, you would need no sounds except those needed to pronounce the numbers. eventually the word aardvark wouldn’t exist; there would only be 10, meaning an ant–eating snouted african beast. but ant, and eating, and snouted, and african, and beast, would also exist only as numbers. maybe all connection between the numbers and the concepts they were designed to represent would ultimately become wispy to the verge of non–being, and language would become jacques derrida’s dream system, self–enclosed, hermetically sealed. but of course this number–language is ridiculous. anyone can have a voculabury of 10,000 words or more; but no one except a few memory freaks could memorize a number corresponding to each of 10,000 different words. i suppose that if two memory freaks raised a child together, speaking only in number–language from the child’s birth, the chief effect would be to impoverish the child’s vocabulary utterly, to reduce it to a few hundred number–words at best. i believe that the fairy language i’ve just outlined shows something about the nature of real language. where each word is uniquely and unequivocally specified, each word lacks the play between sense and nonsense, between correctness and error, between pointed articulation and mouth–slush, the play that’s necessary for language to live and be significant. a word can light up with sense only if surrounded by a penumbral region of half–sense, and an outer darkness of nonsense. daniel albright 81 there is an old story about a comedians’ convention where the jokes are so familiar that they are known by numbers, thus sparing the expense of time required to tell them. one comedian calls out 37! and everyone laughs. then another calls out 82! and everyone laughs. then a third calls out 59! and no one laughs. a spectator turns to another and asks why no one laughed; the other spectator says, oh, they’ve all heard that joke before. a language of numbers would in fact not tend to promote much wit, or irony, or pictorial vividness, or melody, or rhythm. it would be a language perfectly intelligible to simple electronic devices, but at the same time, from a human perspective, it would unlanguage itself utterly. a language of numbers lacks many things, but what it most lacks is a sense of the interrelatedness of the each element in the whole tissue of language. the word doubt is based on duo, the latin word for two, and this being–of– two–minds may be only dimly felt in common speech, but duoness extends through a huge range of words, including duple, dual, duet, redouble, and through cognates from greek such as dyad, hendiadys, and so on. through such roots words become deeply affiliated with one another, and form a cloth—we might use a latinate word for cloth, namely text—that extends to the limits of speech. this billow of words may in some sense have drifted off into the upper atmosphere, since there is scarcely one word secularly tethered to the earth of physical objects—if language is as arbitrary as we think it is. but the texture of language–as–a–whole is infinitely self–enfolded and black with interconnections between words, like a star–map in which lines, some thick, some thin, are drawn from each star to every other star. this texture so closely imitates the texture of the world of experience, the physical world, that language as a total system is congruent with nature, even if it nowhere impinges on nature. i’m not saying that nature has a vocabulary or a grammar; i’m only saying that the manner in which every word touches every other word imitates the manner in which every minute particular in the universe touches every other minute particular. words also exert a gravitational force on one another, in a way impossible to a language of numbers. sense itself might be defined as that gravity. next thing. there are two ways in which a word tends to spiral out of the domain of sense. the first is phonetic: the word breath exists in the center of a nest of words that sound like it, including breast, bath, bread, bled, and of course death. the more i surround a word with its congeners, the more nonsensical it becomes. this is the secret behind that underrated form of discourse, the tongue–twister: if i say six slick skinks slink, it’s extremely hard to understand current musicology 82 what i’m saying: the words whirl into a kind of verbal reptile pâté, in which there’s scarcely a finite lizard to be found anywhere. the other way in which a word loses its purchase on meaning is through metaphor. if i equate a word with another, i make a muddle, sometimes a fascinating muddle, of their individual senses. i. a. richards was especially sensitive to the blendedness of the two terms of a metaphor: the vehicle is not normally a mere embellishment of a tenor which is otherwise unchanged by it but that vehicle and tenor in co–operation give a meaning of more varied powers than could be ascribed to either. (i. a. richards, the philosophy of rhetoric, vol. 1 (new york: oxford university press, 1936), p. 100) this commingling can be described as a gain of power in the new bi–terminal entity, but it can also be described as a loss of power in each of the original terms, which are drained in order to energize the metaphor. if i recall zuhair’s famous metaphor, destiny is a blind camel, the camel loses its hump, its splayed feat, its resistance to desert conditions—it is a clumsy ugly thing, and not much else; and destiny loses any positive force, force for promoting happiness, that it might, on certain occasions, possess. these two forms of loss of meaning meet in what we call poetry. through assonance and consonance and rhyme and direct repetition of words, the field of sound keeps shrinking. poetry is about doing the same thing over and over—it doesn’t matter if the thing is a stanza–form, or paired alliterative half–lines, or accentual feet, or quantitative feet—for every restriction of sound–range or rhythm tends to make the sense of the words more elusive. saussure spoke of differentiation of the phonic stream as the source of language—as he put it, “a language is a system of differences with no positive terms”; “considered in itself, the phonic sequence is nothing but a line, a continuous ribbon, in which the ear perceives no clear or precise divisions; in order to segment it, appeal must be made to meanings [significations]. . . . but when we know what sense and what role must be attributed to each part of the chain, then we see the parts detach themselves from each other, and the shapeless ribbon is cut up into pieces.” but poetry reinstates the continuous ribbon insofar as we attend to the phonic sequence and not to the meanings. what language does, poetry undoes. poetry restores liquidity and smoothness to the choppy phonic stream, by narrowing the span, the variedness, of the sounds produced by throat and mouth. it is not poetic to say that a rose is a large, many–petalled flower, typically red, white, or yellow, and often scented, a sentence that requires a great many phonemes; it is extremely poetic to say that rose is a rose is a rose, a sentence that requires only five phonemes. daniel albright 83 poetry’s reliance on metaphor produces a similar effect. yeats wrote a short story about a young king on whose head feathers grew instead of hair. this king was preternally wise, and his wisdom manifested itself, as the story says, in this way: . . . from being curious about all things he became busy with strange and subtle thoughts which came to him in dreams, and with distinctions between things long held the same and with the resemblance of things long held different. when you think about it, the feather–headed king was doing what all of us do, for the whole body of speculative discourse in the humanities can be understood as saying that the similar things are different, and different things are the same. i mention this because metaphorical poetry tends to do only the second of these processes: to make likes out of unlikes. in one sense poetry narrows the semantic field by this squashing–together of disparate things—by dissolving, diffusing, and dissipating all the felt particulars of the universe, as coleridge put it. in another sense poetry opens up new semantic horizons. in kubrick’s film 2001: a space odyssey, the astronaut moves toward jupiter at enormous speed, whizzing between two narrow planes full of nameless colors and writhing shapes. poetry is like that: a narrowing of the domain of meaning and an entry into a vertigo of meaning, both at the same time. poetry is language playing with unlanguage. the essential poetic act is a dispossessing of meaning that doesn’t culminate in complete meaninglessness. third thing. does language have a goal? is there a terminus to language, a conclusion of the labor of making new words? will the dictionary expand indefinitely, or is their a limit? consider for a moment the whole body of nouns. obviously if a new object comes into existence, there will have to be a new noun, or a new definition of an old noun—maybe it’s even true that without that new word or new definition, we couldn’t really say that a new object has come into existence. can a tree fall in the forest in the absence of the word tree? the parsing of existing objects into new classes is also a source of new nouns. if i notice that many worms are round, i can create the word roundworm to describe them. one new word. if i want a fancier term suitable to a worm’s dignity, i can call them nematodes, that is, thread–like beings. another new word, more or less the synonym of the first, on a higher level of diction. if current musicology 84 i notice that nematodes can be grouped among other animals that have a certain sort of odd body cavity, i can refer to nematodes as a member of the class of pseudocoelomates. a really big new word. i can also notice that all nematodes are not alike, and i can divide them into various subclasses. there are five clades (as these subclasses are called) among nematodes: these are the dorylaimia, the enoplia, the spirurina, the tylenchina, and the rhabditina. five juicy and impressive new words. but of course i have scarcely tickled the exoderm of all the words that the study of nematodes can provide. incidentally, i thought that i had just made up the word exoderm, but i just looked it up in the oed and discovered that it is a real word. there is a limit to this process, if not exactly a telos. over one million different species of nematodes are thought to exist, a fact that makes for a goodly number of nouns. and careful scrutiny of each nematode on the planet earth will ultimately be able to find discriminating features that set it apart from every other nematode. then there will be an almost unthinkable number of new nouns, since 90% of the animal life on the ocean floor consists of nematodes. of course, if a different noun is assigned to every member of a class, we usually call it not a noun but a proper name. the nematode jim. in the eighteenth century giambattista vico considered the problem of a language made up entirely of proper nouns—what i have been calling the limit of language. vico noted that homer spoke of a language of the gods that differs from the language of men: for example, the river near troy is called scamander by men, but xanthus by the gods. vico also says: . . . we cannot doubt that the roman varro devoted himself to studying this language of the gods, and diligently collected the names of some 30,000 gods, as axiom 30 states. these names must have furnished a copious divine lexicon, sufficient for expressing all the needs of the people of latium, which in that simple and frugal age must have been limited to the few necessities of life. the greeks too reckoned 30,000 gods, as axiom 30 states: for they saw deities in every rock, spring, brook, plant, and reef, including the nature spirits called dryads, hamadryads, oreads, and napeas. in precisely this way, the american indians regard as gods everything that is beyond their limited grasp. the language of the gods is unthinkably rich, and calls attention to the poverty of normal language; vico points out that in the odyssey there is a certain herb that has no name in human speech, but is called moly in the language of the gods. in the language of the gods, everything, everything has a name, even things that are nameless to us. we live in the tiny congested world of the namable, of the things our limited brains can grasp; the gods’ daniel albright 85 reach is infinite, and so is their vocabulary. if there is a name for every single object on earth, the set of these names is the set of all proper nouns; and since proper nouns, as we know them, often presuppose some animate or precious presence, then there is a spirit or nymph or god behind each rock, spring, brook, plant, or reef. in this way the act of carrying language to its nomenclatural extreme itself creates a fully panpsychist universe. to make up a word is to make up a deity. but of course this sort of fairy language, a language in which there is a different word for each blade of grass, and each aphid on each blade of grass, is no language at all. just as funes’s invention of a separate word for each number disables any possibility of mathematics, so the invention of a separate word for each discernable object disables any possibility of thought. in swift’s lagado, the pedants converse in silence, by carrying around a big pack of various things, and taking out (say) a rock and pointing to it when they want to indicate a rock. but presumably that rock stands for the whole class of all things rocky. if the pedants of lagado were gods speaking the language of the gods, in which each word is unique and divine, they would have to carry the whole cosmos on their backs. a language of the gods is a sad, even a tragic idea, because it eliminates meaning. in the cratylus, socrates toys with the notion of an ideal language, a language of correct, non–arbitrary, immutable names: he decides that such a thing is impossible, because a name cannot be an inviolable aspect of a thing’s reality—if a thing is to be rightly, irrefutably named, there needs to be a fundamental resemblance, indeed a perfect correspondence, between the name and what it refers to. but to socrates the idea that a word can be equivalent to an object is ludicrous: . . . how ridiculous would be the effect of names on things, if they were exactly the same with them! for they would be doubles of them, and no one would be able to determine which were the names and which were the realities. (432d) the language of the gods is a language in which names are exact doubles of things—not doubles of concepts, as saussure would have it (since there aren’t any concepts or categories or classes or generalities or platonic ideas), but doubles of things. or if there is a sense in which the names still refer to concepts, the physical object’s concept is so inextricably one with the physical object itself that the distinction between them is trivial. the object is a reification of its name, and the name is a fluid or phlogiston circulating within the object, just as divinity saturates a fetish or totem with its presence. current musicology 86 but as socrates suggests, in the perfect language either the name or the thing is redundant. one or the other could wither away without any loss. but language is what makes us human; we could dispense with the physical world, but we could never dispense with language. ultimately language would suffice to satisfy our appetite for reality, and we could live purely in the domain of words, so adequate would language have become. in this way we would cover, obscure, and ultimately destroy the world by drawing on top of it an opaque one–to–one map (of course i’m alluding here to another borges parable). this would be sensible, in that its infinite inflections would correspond exactly to the real world, if the real world still existed; but it would also be nonsense, since no word has any relation to any other word, and since the real world no longer exists. i wonder if i feel a slight shiver as i write of the language of the gods because i suspect that our language, so crammed with words, rammed with words, is already something like a language of the gods. maybe even normal speech is so adequate that we already live in a placeless place, where nothing is solid and we can walk through walls, since the word wall is soft and yielding. you and i are literary folk, and our lives may seem most real when we are lost in the world of our talking and reading, a world often quite remote from our actual circumstances—the word actual in quotation marks. but there are no more quotation marks, since the whole universe exists in a continual ache of quotedness. next thing. i’ve been speaking of the nonsense created by carrying language too far toward the imaginary conclusion of its efforts to be a complete elucidation of the universe. but there is also an opposite sort of nonsense, derived from language’s surrender, its giving up all its claims to treat what might be smilingly called reality. is there any condition in which human beings would have no further use for speech? i can only think of one. i will describe this condition soon. in plato’s symposium, diotima says that love is the child of poverty and plenty. language has the same parents—maybe language is like its brother love in many ways. language is the child of plenty because it endlessly exuberates, bears new children by a kind of parthenogenesis—the dictionary grows fatter and fatter every year. but language is also like its mother poverty, because its very condition of being is absence. if there’s a chicken in my front yard, and i want to refer to it, i have only to point to it and the deed daniel albright 87 is done; i need the word chicken only if no local chicken is available to be pointed to. the word chicken is a kind of surrogate for an absent chicken. so—if a chicken accompanied me in all my travels, my need for the word chicken would vanish. i could point to her whenever i wished, and say, she lays lots of eggs. but if i had an egg in my pocket, i could point to the chicken, and point to the egg, and just say lots. this is the model of language that led to swift’s spoof of the pedants in the academy of lagado, lugging around their bags of miscellaneous objects. let me play a language game in which i try to take swift’s model one step further. what if chickens were so abundant that i had no need to refer to them at all? where everyone has plenty of chickens, i’d have no use for a word for chicken, just as a fish doesn’t have any use for a word for water—water is just existence itself, part of the stamina of things. the inuit do not need 57 words for snow: they don’t need a word for snow at all. so in a completely rich world, language might atrophy into something divine, a language of the gods in exactly the opposite sense from homer’s. i’ve tried to express this condition by making up a parable: the names of the gods are common nouns that have lost their referents. an asiatic tribe sets out across the pacific to settle on a tropical island. the word ice, which once signified a matter–of–fact desolation of river and ocean, now attenuates, grows terrifying and monstrous, signifies an unheard–of, nearly inconceivable, absence of heat and liquidity. there exists a place where water turns rigid, and shuddering to the touch, but no one has been there, it is unthinkably distant, the kingdom of the dead; in this manner the word ice becomes a divine attribute or itself a divinity. life is so easy—the fruit so overflows with oozy ripeness that one lies underneath the tree and thick pearls drop into one’s mouth—that vocabulary dwindles, grows flabby and blubbering without the pressure of survival to give point and precision to the articulation of words; why should a tongue so satisfied strain itself against palate or teeth, why should a throat greased with such unction of delight tense itself into vowels? speech is reserved for certain ceremonious occasions only; arctic rituals, the dissection of imaginary whales, are celebrated by rites of discussion; the old formulas for sharpening harpoons are rehearsed, though no one would recognize a harpoon if it washed up on a beach. though their condition is best denoted by the word satisfaction—if there were a gate to the island it would have that word engraved upon it—the word has grown dim, unintelligible, for lack of its opposite; beauty cannot exist where everything pleases the eye. yet the appetite for speech is great even at the limit of current musicology 88 monotony: once a year they gather in temples erected for the sole purpose of pronouncing their words, words of which all but pronunciation is lost; their mouths ache with the strange effort of speech—how are you? i’m fine, how are you? it’s chilly today, i think it might storm—but they believe that they are miming the roles of gods, as if words were themselves pentecostal tongues of flame. words are now entirely divine, set aside for sacred usage, and it is correct to regard them so, for every meaningless word is divine, every meaningful word chained to the hell to which it refers. enough, then, on extrapolations of language into nonsense. part two. there is another way that language can turn into nonsense: by creating antidotes to meaning, procedures that cancel out a previous meaning. oxymoron and aporia are among these procedures: one word or statement is abutted against its opposite, black against white, producing a uniform textual gray. oxymoron is greek for sharp–dull, and the dullness erodes the blade into nothing at all. a tissue of oxymorons becomes a piece of text–cloth consisting entirely of holes, as a passage in the first scene of romeo and juliet will illustrate: misshapen chaos of well–seeming forms! feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health! (1.1.185–86) coleridge, the greatest theorist of the oxymoron, quotes romeo’s lines and observes that here we have an effort of the mind, when it would describe what it cannot satisfy itself with the description of, to reconcile opposites and qualify contradiction, leaving a middle state of mind more strictly appropriate to the imagination than any other, when it is, as it were, hovering between images. as soon as it is fixed on one image, it becomes understanding; but while it is unfixed and wavering between them, attaching itself permanently to none, it is imagination. such is the fine description of death in milton:– the other shape, if shape it might be call’d, that shape had none distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, or substance might be call’d, that shadow seem’d, for each seem’d either: black it stood as night; fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, and shook a dreadful dart: what seem’d his head the likeness of a kingly crown had on. paradise lost, book ii daniel albright 89 the grandest efforts of poetry are where the imagination is called forth, not to produce a distinct form, but a strong working of the mind, still offering what is still repelled, and again creating what is again rejected; the result being what the poet wishes to impress, namely, the substitution of a sublime feeling of the unimaginable for a mere image. in other words, the more abolished a text is, the more sublime: the application of violence necessary to annihilate meaning is the highest form of verbal art. never has nonsense received a higher compliment. not only is the unimaginable substituted for a mere image: also an unword is achieved through two words that cancel each other out. there are other ways of self–canceling in the realm of language. in samuel beckett’s novel watt, there are passages of what is sometimes called anti– language, in which beckett experiments with various ways of saying things backward. the culmination of this backwardness is this passage, in which watt speculates about mr. knott, his mysterious benefactor: dis yb dis, nem owt. yad la, tin fo trap. skin, skin, skin. od su did ned taw? on. taw ot klat tonk? on. tonk ot klat taw? on. taw ta kool tonk? nilb, mun, mud. tin fo trap, yad la. nem owt, dis yb dis. this paragraph was generated by shoving an intelligible sentence through the looking glass, into a mirror–world of language. if you push it through the looking glass once again, you get a fairly sensible text: side by side, two men. all day, part of night. dumb, numb, blind. knott look for watt? no. watt talk to knott? no. knott talk to watt. no. what then did us do? nichts, nichts, nichts. part of night, all day. two men, side by side. what interests me is the way in which the anti–language and the regular language, taken together, cancel each other out. if you take a photograph and superimpose it over its own negative, you get a blank surface—and that is what beckett is doing in this passage. part 2 in an isolated diary entry, franz kafka wrote the enigmatic phrase, the self–canceling–out of art. we’ve just looked at an example from the domain of language. but there are other examples in other artistic media. is it possible to cancel out a bodily gesture? beckett, the greatest of self– cancelers, had a scheme for achieving this. during the berlin rehearsals of waiting for godot, as mcmillan and knowlson note, beckett insisted on current musicology 90 “artificial movements,” and had vladimir flex his muscles as he got up after the strange collapse onto the ground of vladimir, estragon, pozzo, and lucky; beckett explained that “the ballet–like acting style tended to cancel out the action that was being presented.” it is odd to think of an action that manages to call itself into question, let alone one that cancels itself out; but beckett tried to devise a style of movement that kept itself ironically disengaged from the very action that it sketched. not only must words unword themselves, but actions must unenact themselves. fifth thing. i’ve wondered whether self–cancelation is possible in the domain of music. this is difficult to imagine for several reasons: one of them is that music doesn’t seem to make sense in the way that spoken language or gesture makes sense, so it’s hard to see what exactly could be canceled out here. let’s first talk about the ways in which music can make sense, before talking about how that sense can be undone. music, like spoken language, is a tissue of changing sounds, and is articulated into phrases. so it should be possible for the mind to chop this stream into sememes of some sort, just as in spoken language. but in fact this almost never works, because too many axes of variation exist in music. in a single measure, you may well notice superpositions of pitch, and changes of pitch, and changes of note duration, and changes of timbre. too much is going on for the listener to be able to think of any unit in music as a word. even in monophonic music, the kinds of continuity and discontinuity you find don’t lend themselves to apprehension as a collection of sememes. in general the more discontinuities you hear, the higher the potential for language to emerge; but a tissue of discontinuities is often thought of as unmusical. still, conspicuously choppy music does exist. composers like beethoven who twist together extremely short phrases seem to write music with a certain linguistic charge: i can hear the first movement of the fifth symphony both as a peremptory attempt to say something and as an expression of frustration that the medium doesn’t lend itself to clearer speech. when we turn to rhythm, the problem is that musical meters tend to be far too even to promote comprehension as a system of words. it is perfectly possible to transcribe language into a pure phenomenon of rhythm: the simplest example is morse code. but, historically speaking, musical rhythms are monotonous. it isn’t until the final dance of igor stravinsky’s the rite of spring that rhythm starts to get complex enough to hover on the brink of semantics. elliott carter’s 1942 setting of robert frost’s “the line–gang” daniel albright 91 in fact has a morse–code joke built into the piano accompaniment. but here carter doesn’t seem interested in either reinforcing or resisting the particular meanings of the words of the poem by spelling out actual words in morse code, as far as i can tell. music has several strategies for intensifying its semantic intensity: the most common is through kinesthesia, for by imitating the rhythms of the body—heart–beat, breathing, foot–tapping, maybe even blinking—music can become a kind of voodoo–doll, a simulation of physiology. but this is doing what language can do, rather than constituting a language in itself. in general i define music as a teasing of the linguistic areas of the brain that fails to terminate in real language. but music does have procedures for self–canceling. in beethoven’s ninth symphony, the last movement begins with what the germans call a schreckensfanfare, a terror–fanfare, a loudly dissonant phrase, followed by quotations of themes from the first three movements. it is as if beethoven were drawing a huge red diagonal bar through the previous parts of the symphonies, unmusicking his own music. next part. if music’s self–cancelation were taken to its limit, it would require the existence of some sort of unmusic, something that could annihilate music in the way that a positron, colliding with an electron, makes first an explosion and then nothingness. it is possible to conceive various ways in which music can undercut itself. in certain medieval motets, a sacred text and a bawdy text were sung at the same time, producing a sort of canceling–out of affect. in setting of an unromantical text in brecht’s die dreigroschenoper, kurt weill provides a swoony romantical melody, producing a similar canceling–out, but with a certain appetite for destruction probably not present in the thirteenth century. the ultimate goal of unmusic is, of course, silence. silence is a surprisingly tricky concept: john cage in fact argued that it couldn’t possibly exist: in fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. [. . .] i entered [an anechoic chamber] at harvard university several years ago and heard two sounds, one high and one low. when i described them to the engineer in charge, he informed that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation. until i die there will be sounds. and they will continue following my death. one need not fear about the future of music. current musicology 92 it is as if silence were not a familiar absence of sound, but the goal of a zen meditative process. according to iamblichus, among mortal men only pythagoras could hear the music of the spheres. but could there be an anti–pythagoras, capable of hearing the silence beyond all the crystalline spheres of the heavens? i’ve wondered if i might find a way of experiencing actual total silence. in order to do this i must find not only an unmusic but an unsound, something that will remove every acoustic phenomenon, including the sound of my heartbeat and even the sound of my brain (which i’m not aware of ever having heard—you may insert your own joke here). and in fact technology has made considerable advances toward achieving this unsound, through noise cancelation technology. you can buy headphones that will provide a sort of antidote to the noise of an airplane’s engines, by creating a wave–form that exactly matches the wave–form of the plane’s roar, but out of phase, so that each crest of one wave is a trough of the other. then there’s silence. but maybe a clever technician could construct headphones that would cancel out my heartbeat and my nervous system’s little stridulations, so that it would be the acoustic equivalent of the darkness at the bottom of mammoth cave. then i would myself be the anti–pythagoras. i was also curious to learn whether you could construct, say, an anti– mozart’s–fortieth–symphony, which, when played at the same time as the mozart, would yield a perfect nothing to the ear. so i wrote to an acoustic engineer, tom horrall, and asked him this question. he wrote back to me as follows: sound cancellation involves employing a correction signal which is out of phase with the unwanted signal or noise, leaving only the desired signal to be heard.  so the unwanted sound and the correction signal are one and the same but in anti–phase or opposite polarity.  the human ear is very poor at distinguishing two signals that differ only in polarity, so the correction signal and the unwanted signal to be eliminated would sound essentially the same, at least theoretically.   so, there is indeed an anti–mozart’s–fortieth–symphony, but it would sound exactly like mozart’s fortieth that everybody knows. but if the anti–symphony and the symphony were played at exactly the same time, there would be silence, no mozart, no symphony. unsound is just sound, but seen through the looking glass. our whole lives are surrounded by agitations in the air that we can construe either as sound or as sound’s opposite. and our texts are always sense and nonsense at the same time. speaking and sighing: bellini's canto declamato and the poetics of restraint melina esse the critics were confused. "we do not really know whether it should be called sung declamation or declamatory singing;' one reviewer for l'eco, an italian journal devoted to the arts, wrote in 1829. "the goal of this method seems to be to reunite the force of declamation with the gentleness of singing ... "1 vincenzo bellini's two successes of the late 1820s-il pirata in 1827 and la straniera in 1829-had attracted a great deal of attention in the italian press, and what drew the most comment was his novel approach to melody. stripping away ornament to tie melody closely to the rhythms of the spoken word seemed a radical move to audiences who had been taking pleasure in rossini's florid and showy style for the last two decades. at its starkest, bellini's canto declamato, as it came to be known, paired relentlessly syllabic text -setting with a preference for repeated notes. the new style appeared both in passages of free arioso and within the lyrical sections of numbers, as in these two excerpts from la straniera (examples 1a and 1b).2 despite the mixed response from bellini's contemporaries, modern scholars have tended to understand these melodic reforms in wholly positive terms. trimming down musical utterance into something lean and spare, they have argued, shows an admirable concern with the needs of drama over and above those of mere vocal athleticism.3 nineteenth-century critics also tended to understand bellini's canto declamato as a renunciation of excess. detractors and supporters alike labeled the new style "filosofico;' linking it to the burgeoning romantic movement in the literary arts.4 even hard-to-please german critics praised bellini's reforms, and his italian supporters lauded canto declamato as a kind of moral antidote to rossini; music more closely allied to and grounded in the text, they maintained, stimulated thought and spoke to the heart rather than speaking only to the senses. 5 not everyone, however, was convinced of the merit of the new method. l'eco's anonymous reviewer warned, in subtly gendered language, that declamatory "force" could overpower melodic "gentleness" and that "confusing declamation with singing" could result in "monotony, slowness, fragments ... and a lack of motives that attract or remain in the ear."6 in the midst of this flurry of comment prompted by bellini's experi­ ments, however, opera critic carlo ritorni had a different axe to grind. one of bellini's most vocal supporters, ritorni was the author of a well-known current musicology, no. 87 (spring 20(9) © 2009 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 8 current musicology example la: la straniera, act i (arturo's arioso). manifesto on libretto construction and operatic dramaturgy; it was not unusual to read his signed opinion pieces on musical matters in the pages of this very same journaf but this time, ritorni's screed in l'eeo had nothing to do with opera. he was upset about a new trend in women's fashion: the return of the tightly-laced corset. why, he wondered, were women rushing to adopt a look that was in his words, "ugly," "unnatural and dangerous"?8 ritorni's lengthy complaint begins with a clinical-sounding list of symptoms that he argues are attributable to corsets: in the head: headaches, vertigo, tendency to faint, aching eyes, pain and tin­ nitus of the ears, nosebleeds. in the chest: ... dislocation of bones, ... pain­ ful breathing, spitting of blood, consumption, alterations in circulation, heart palpitations ... in the abdomen: loss of appetite, nausea, bleeding, bad digestion ... hardening of the liver ... not to mention hypochondria, hysteria, and a quantity of maladies particular to women, which it would be superfluous to list here.9 it seems odd that an advocate of bellini's new "filosofico" style, and one whose publications focus on matters of versification, declamation, and the history of musical drama, should expend so many words on such minute and messy details of female physiology. from a distance of nearly two centuries, ritorni's gruesome list may seem no more than evidence of a prurient inter­ est in women's underwear and a strange appendix to his public persona of cultural critic and man of letters. but ritorni's puzzling preoccupation with corsets was not merely extracurricular. the year 1829 saw intense journalistic debate about corsets and their effect on the female form, and the rhetoric of these debates, with their concerns about expression, flexibility, and naturalness, echoed ac­ counts of bellini's new melodic style. listening to bellini's shaping of vocal utterance with this larger context in mind helps us to perceive how the articulation of romantic aesthetics overlaps with the articulation of gender. while corsets famously expanded and amplified the repertory of feminine melina esse example lb: la straniera, act i, duet (arturo-alalde). r, f.\ al ~ un ul allflmodto () , ~ : () >~ i s'j 0; di () { ~ ¥ ¥ ¥ i i i : . . . 11 () ~ ci glio ti () { v ••• i i i >>, i r ti-mo ad di 0 ri ve vi, in-fe ii ce; di piu non pos f.\ ••• •• • ¥¥ ¥ ¥¥¥ f.\ pi'staee. sem re i i i i i piu non ti ii ce; ¥ ¥ ¥ • • i i i . . . i i >ve la, pre ga re tu ' .. . '. . . ~~ ~ ~~~ i i quel • i de . . .. .. ~, i pian to mi ce la che il • • • • • • i i i i r i i i,non pian-ger per . ### .. i i ten f.\ <c.> me._ '. i , f.\ f.\ distress, bellini's canto declamato channeled emotion in a new way, helping to redefine operatic expressivity along gendered lines. by considering bellini's famous stylistic change in relation to other "styles," i suggest that strategic moments of restraint created the conditions for the emotional overflow we now associate with romantic expression. to illuminate the connections between physical, emotional, and melodic restraint, i will revisit an opera normally left out of narratives of bellini's progress to romanticism: la sonnambula (1831), whose sentimental plot would have been at home in the eighteenth century. in it, bellini largely abandoned his resolutely sparse melodies of the late 1820s to embrace a more florid rossinian idiom. rather than smoothing over the anomaly of la sonnambula into a coherent story of musical progress, i hope to show that bellini's return to a sentimental plot and ornamented vocal style sheds reflective light on his earlier "speech-based" experiments in la straniera. 9 10 current musicology despite their differences, these two works share a curious preoccupation with the idea of restraint~a preoccupation shared, as ritorni's critique of corsets suggests, by the culture at large. in the course of my discussion, i shall range widely, touching on rousseau's theory oflanguage, anti-sentimental diatribes in the italian press, and debates concerning the most "natural" shape of the female body. i will also explore in detail two small bellinian musical tics~the ubiquitous appoggiatura and a motive made up of four repeated notes-in an attempt to complicate the simple dichotomy scholars have tended to draw between singing and speaking, body and "philosophy." the trouble with tears bellini's decision to abandon an ornamented vocal style in the late 1820s could be understood as part of an ongoing debate about the appropriate expression of emotion. if at the height of sentimental opera's popularity viewers reportedly wept openly at paisiello's nina and jumped out of their seats in a frenzy of sympathy, the 1820s witnessed a fairly widespread reaction against such effusions, and emotional outbursts (or the idea of them) were met with a more cynical coolness in criticism and fiction. perhaps because of the continued success in italy of novels and plays on sentimental themes, antagonism to excessive emotion was still strong long after the "age of sensi­ bility" had waned. 10 journalistic writing from the period exhibits a marked suspicion concerning the efficacy or even the desirability of tears in bringing about empathetic identification with sufferers. while many theater-goers no doubt still wept at moving performances, writers in prominent women's magazines and artistic journals gave vent to a kind of annoyed exhaustion with the pervasive and conventional uses of tears in the most mundane of situations. i i anne vincent -buffault has drawn attention to similar anti­ sentimental opinion in post-revolutionary france; writers there increasingly advocated critical distance from theatrical performances and mocked the overly credulous spectator (usually portrayed as either lower class or female) who wept at the cheapest theatrical trick (1991:227). the italian strain of this debate, however, centered not primarily on the intersection of class and gender, but on the very issue at the heart of sentimental values: the efficacy of mimesis, the ability of shed tears to occasion sympathetic response and thus stimulate the moral sentiments of the listener, reader, or spectator. two contemporary opinion pieces that appeared in il carriere delle dame discuss the role of tears in moving spectators to virtuous feeling, and both call into question the relationship between "real" sentiments and those provoked by art. the first, a rather straightforward moralistic tale, draws a comparison between two men. eugenio, the narrator's friend, is "without melina esse a doubuhe best man i know ... a loving husband, indulgent father, good subject, excellent worker, poor and generous" and "had not in his life shed one tear over any tragedy or drama." the seemingly cold and rational eugenio greets tragic stories with the phrase "what does it matter?" -but in daily life, he is a christ-like paragon of sympathy and goodness, willing to give away "the bread from his own mouth." 12 signor tale, on the other hand, although he sheds copious tears over all the sentimental novels he can get his hands on and "sighs away the whole evening at all the tragedies and sentimental dramas that now clutter up our degraded stage;' "never has pity for anyone, has never given anyone even one scudo, and has never walked a step or said a word for anyone."13 in this account, sentimental literature and plays actually provoke false sentiment, misleading and perhaps even corrupting spectators by educating them not to real-life virtue but to selfish absorption in their own responses to fictional characters. the author ends by arguing that there should be a new name for such behavior: "sensibileria." in tacking on a suffix with derogatory associations, the author effectively mocks and dismisses the behavior of so-called "sensitive" men. 14 the value this moralistic tale places on stoicism in the face of sentimental fiction suggests that restraint is a prerequisite for "true" sentiment and effica­ cious pity. although such criticisms were rarely leveled at opera, the debate about the merits of sensibility does extend to matters of performance-in particular, to declamation. in the early 1820s, there appeared in italy a series of reminiscences by the famous french actor fran<;:ois-joseph talma that laid out his theories of acting and declamation. 15 talma's theories, influenced by diderot, called for the actor to coldly observe the workings of sensibility in others while maintaining distance from the emotional effects he could produce. 16 that such suspicion of tears was prevalent is made clear even in accounts that argue for the continuing importance of sensibility in cultivat­ ing noble feeling. in a second article from il carriere, the writer ugo foscolo, author of a novel known as the "italian werther;' defended the display of sensibility, taking as his theme the role of tears in moving spectators when reading aloud. foscolo, writing under the pseudonym didimo chierico, poignantly describes reading to an audience who can do nothing but laugh at his overly emotive style of recitation: i? every time that i used to read aloud some tragedy or some moving passage of history, poetry, or fiction in the presence of others, my eyes became inundated with tears and my voice trembled. i was hoping to encourage the same effect in my listener; but instead of tears my commotion often excited laughter. i withdrew in shame, not for them, but for myself, and i suspected weakness on my part rather than theirs ... i even doubted the strength of my own intelligence, so much so that i forced myself from then on to jealously guard every word and action. is 11 12 current musicology ridicule thus prompts foscolo to adopt a kind of painful self-censorship. but in the process of educating himself to restraint, he comes across other "like-minded" men who are not afraid to indulge in emotional display; this leads him to attempt reading aloud one more time. again mocked for his ready tears and trembling voice, foscolo angrily concludes that restraint is futile and deadening. when he tries to maintain his composure, he is unable to sympathize with the plight of others: "i realized that exquisite sentiments are ridiculed by the world as ... weakness," he says, and concludes that many "conceal their sensibility ... led astray solely by the example of ... those lower than themselves."19 the regained conviction in the value of his susceptibility to tears, however, is not shared by others, and foscolo retreats into isolation and self-control. what foscolo describes is actually a failure of mimesis: in this case, openly shed tears lead not to empathetic response, but to misunderstanding. although foscolo presents his audience as unfeeling-indeed, as somehow inhuman-there is perhaps another perspective hidden in their laughter: the idea that bodily indulgence in emotion and declamation are somehow at odds. for this audience, unrestrained weeping infects the speaking voice, placing the emotions of the reader on display and working against sympa­ thetic engagement. the notion that a trembling, sighing voice interferes with the clear presentation of words ties foscolo's audience to earlier critiques of rossini, which often portrayed the composer as supremely indifferent to his texts in favor of vocal (or orchestral) excess.20 in other words, both excessive feeling and sheer vocal exuberance run the risk of engaging only the body, not the moral sense. copious tears are depicted as self-indulgent, solipsistic, and possibly even, in the case of signor tale, amoral. iiche cari accenti!1i la straniera and the appoggiatura the stripped-down melodies of la straniera might appear at first glance to constitute another such critique of sentimental excess. but bjr audiences in 1829, bellini's spare, unadorned style recalled that of composers such as piccini and paisiello, whose lyrical simplicity was praised by critics as natural and unaffected-the hallmarks of sentimental style. given this heritage, it is logical that bellini's much-praised "speech-like" style should be so saturated with the musical gesture famous for imitating sobs and sighs: the appoggiatura. this characteristic was more than audible to bellini's listeners-henry chorley, writing in 1835, went so far as to complain that "there is nothing more fatiguing and mawkish, even in spohr's incessant chromatics, than bellini's abuse of appogiatura [sic]" (1926: 67). considered the origin of all other musical ornaments, appoggiaturas were so commelina esse monplace that composers such as mozart and rossini often did not bother to notate them explicitly, especially in the case of what will crutchfield has described as "prosodic" appoggiaturas, which correspond to the stress pattern of words with feminine endings ("amore" or "calmatevi"). 21 bellini, however, tends to specify precisely where the singer should perform appog­ giaturas, perhaps because at times his melodies on the page are bare of any other elaboration. scholars have thus tended to focus on the prevalence of the "pro­ sodic" appoggiatura-called l'accento (the accent) by some contemporary theorists-in bellinian canto declamato and its role in musically represent­ ing the rhythms of spoken language.22 but it is worth remembering that in italian, as in english, accento has more than one meaning: while it can signify stress or emphasis (and in poetic usage sometimes means "word"), accento can also indicate tone of voice. this latter meaning would have been particularly relevant in discussions of language, declamation, and music because it intersects with the definition rousseau proposed in his essai sur l'origine des langues. 23 rousseau famously posited that music originated prior to rational discourse, arguing that the cry of passion lies at the root of all speech (1986:12). for rousseau, "accent" is more than simply rhythmic stress: it is primarily the quality or intonation of the speaking voice. the rise and fall of tones (or pure vowel sounds) is the principal communicator of the passions; as men became more civilized and estranged from their earlier, natural selves, accent in language became less important and was replaced with articulation.24 orthographical accent marks in written script, rousseau claimed, are definitive proof that true accent is dead, along with our ability to express emotion with the directness of natural man. italian theorists, following rousseau, understood the appoggiatura as an imitation not only of the rhythms of contemporary speech, but also the original language of the passions-all those sighs and cries that came before words. 25 certainly in bellini's so-called philosophical operas, the appoggiatura is a slippery gesture, sliding effortlessly between declamatory emphasis and rousseau's primal cry. the boundary between these two in la straniera is especially blurry, making it difficult to decide whether the satura­ tion of melody with appoggiaturas points to body or discourse, whether we should hear such musical utterances as imitating speech or inarticulate cries. during alaide's melancholy opening romanza, for example, she is overheard by arturo, who is so captivated by the sound of her voice that he is moved to exclamatory asides that illustrate bellini's ability to exploit the appoggiatura's dual nature. at the end of alaide's first phrase, arturo-in a happy conjunction of musical gesture and textual meaning-sings "oh cari accenti!" in a brief phrase that terminates, not surprisingly, with an 13 14 current musicology example 2: la straniera, act i, romanza (alaide). [aiaide: unfortunate is the heart that trusts/in the smile of love. / arturo: (oh! beloved tones!) / ala'ide: it flares and dies like the will 0' the wisp / arturo: (it is she) / alaide: ... which causes the traveler to lose his way. / arturo: (oh! beloved tones!) / alaide: unhappy the heart that puts value/on lofty position and youth! / arturo: (her voice is sad.) / alaide: greatness is an illusion/beauty is a flower that fades /arturo: (oh! beloved tones!) 1 andante tj • >~ al. ~. r i r sven-tu ra to il cor ehe fi da nel sor ri so del i'aandante tj ~ ,........., ,........., --{ . q) pp •• "# # ... .......... ¥¥ ......... -~ ~ ~ : . . -.j :;j: 4 tl .~ jj al -~t) r mar: bril la e muor qual lu ce in tjart. . . f ~ oh! ca-ri ac-cen til tl ~ { u .~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . . .. . . " " : . . -.j -.j ~ .., r ---i'------j fi da. es sa. che smar ri see il vi a -. . . .. . . . . " '-.j -.j 8 art alai tj ~~ : i al u if ~ tor. oh! ca-ri ac (en ti. in fe ii ee il tj ,......, "" ..... { . t) '. . . . . l¥¥¥ ¥# ii i i ii ii " : . . r'" . -.j ~ f ~melina esse example 2 continued. 11 (j ~ <--al u cor che_ ap prez za al to sta to, al to (j { . u -j -j -j -j -j -j ~ ~ -ii -ii ~ ~ ~ -ii -ii -ii ~ -ii -ii ~ ~ -ii : . . . . . v <' ~ ~ v ~ ~ 15 art alai (j al u :g' eo r sta to ever de e tao me sta la sua vo ceo eu na (j u ~ ~ ~ ~ -ii -ii -j -j -j -j -j -j -j -j -j -j -j . . v (' ~ ~ v (' 18 . fl. ~ al u lar va la gran dez za, fior ca(j { u -j -j -j .. ., .. -j -j -j -j -j -ii -ii ~ -ii ~ -ii -ii -ii ~ -ii -ii . •. . . .. .. . ~ ~ v ... ~ ~ v ... 22 (j . ..---... ~ ;. .~ ~ .~ al u i du co e __ la __ bel ta, u na (j arturo ~ r oh! ca ri ac centi! { . u .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ., ., -j -j -j :s :s :s :s :s : . . . . . . . ~ ~ v (' ~ ~ ~ ~ 15 16 current musicology appoggiatura. initially, the short rhythms and the conventional placement of the musical accento on the stressed syllable ("accenti") mark arturo's asides as speech-like interventions, in contrast with alaide's simple legato melody. but as the romanza unfolds, arturo's interruptions become more and more lyrical as he succumbs to alaide's song. the final result is much more than speech: arturo's impassioned sighs in response to alaide's melody are less like the sober prosody of recitative than gusts of overwhelming delight at the sound of her voice. even his text ("oh, dear words/dear tones!") points to this double meaning-arturo is transported both by what alaide is saying and how she is saying it (example 2). at times, bellini's canto declamato even shows a certain disregard for the text. although his contemporaries were struck by the composer's conscien­ tious shifts of musical mood to correspond to changes in the words, his melodies just as often demonstrate an unswerving commitment to formal conventions. in the slow movement of the duet between arturo and alaide, bellini firmly abides by the custom of parallel opening statements for the two principals, despite the contrasting sentiments of each of their statements (example 3a) . arturo's words are passionate and persuasive while alaide's are melancholy and quelling; however, they both sing the same opening f-minor melody, a rather weary-sounding pattern of an appoggiatura followed by four reiterated notes. and when the two sing a due in the next section, bellini not surprisingly gives them lush, major-mode music to signal their vocal and erotic union, in spite of the fact that the words themselves have not changed (example 3b). in this duet at least, bellini's canto declamato is manifest not in a scrupulous attention to the semantic meaning of the text, but to the varied rhythms of the settenario tronco meter. stresses normally come on the second, fourth, and sixth syllables in this verse form, but here bellini alters the placement of musical stress to dramatic effect. in the f-minor section (example 3a), the appoggiatura is heard insistently on the second syllable of each poetic line, while in the major-mode section (example 3b), each phrase is end-weighted. the sigh now occurs on the last syllable of each line, which is stretched to accommodate two notes. the poetic meter is recast, this time in search of a different "accent." arturo's declamatory asides that sigh more than they speak, alaide's ecstatic major-mode cries when the text speaks of renunciation-i draw attention to these moments not just to show that bellini's reputation as supremely attentive to poetry does not prevent him from ignoring his text at crucial moments. more importantly, such "lapses" remind us that canto declamato is more than a heightened attention to text. rather, canto declamato is often a meaningful gesture-or topos-in itself, a musical representation of embodied, passionate utterance. the saturation of bellini's melodic style with appoggiaturas is proof not simply of the composer's attention to the melina esse example 3a: la straniera, act i, duet (arturo-ala"ide)-slow movement. [arturo: if you wish to flee/the world and its splendor/i shall follow you/even into a desert./whatever the nature of the path/it would be pleasant with you;!life will seem to mel a dream of pleasure.] piumoderato () art. -1-3~ --ah!_ se tu yuoi fug gir il mon-do, il suo splen-dor, __ io piu moderato () ,........,..... ~ { . t) ... ......... v" .. .. .. pp : . . . 3 tj ~ r r r i r ti sa-prose-guir in un de-ser-to ancor. qua -iun-quesiasen-tier, a() "" r""""i"""'1 { . t) ... ......... ... ......... '# ... ...... .. " : . . . 17 18 current musicology example 3b: la straniera, act i, duet-arturo and alalde together. [alalde: ah! do not deceive yourself!/your wish will be your undoing.!i was born to suffer/and to make others suffer with me/the heavens grow dark because of me/the sun grows sad ... arturo: if you wish to flee/the world and its splendor/i shall follow you/even into a desert.!whatever the nature of the pathiit would be pleasant with you ... 1 ai.. ar. { ai.. ar. { a tempo , i, alai. i~~"i d stentatc a d ~.~p -r fr = ~ f ~ v ah! non ti lu sin gar, __ _ ti per de ii tuo dejl art. 3 a f.) (j ~ a f.) 5 a f.) ---f ~ ii f.) : r ~ ah! se tu vuoi fug gir __ _ mon-do, il suo splen... ... ... ... a tempo a tempo >-~ .sir; ___ io nae qui per >-r dor, __ io ti sa pro , a tempo . >, frir. __ s'o-seu-ra il ciel per . >~ pe r se me, cor. __ qua-iun-que sia sen tier, , ....... .... ....... ....... col canto r r nar, __ per fa re al-trui sof '----/ r guir __ in un de. ser-to an, 1# # # -~ ==p'= per me s'at-tr-sta il sol, __ ~ -------" a me-no fia con te, __ .1"'"'""11 i-. ~ . .. . r melina esse example 4: la straniera, act i, alalde's mad scene. modlo assai (e delirante) i'll! ala. 17\ .. f) r r un gri-do io sen-to suo-nar per i'onda ... eglieunlamodloassai i'll! 17\ ~ { . f) 4~ ~ ~ ~ p pp col canto 17\ . i 4 i'll! ~ al . . f) r r men-to di lui che muor ... cia-scun si taccia ... nes-sun rii'l o · f) · . · · i'll! pa-ven ta il ciel .. o. f) · . · · i'l pa-ven ta il ciel .. c a .. · f) · . · · a pa-ven ta il ciel .. : .. r r r pa-ven ta il ciel .. i'l ~ {" 0 . ~~ ¥ (qr' :: . ... · . r r r span-de. ei mi rin-fac-cia un em-pia amor, un em pia, un empia a mer. { .~.' . #;: " col canto 17\ ~ 17\ . 19 20 current musicology meanings of the words, but also of hils interest in the musicality of the act of speaking. his adoption of canto declamato, then, is not a repudiation of sentimental excess, but a recuperation of rousseauvian notions of impas­ sioned and natural utterance, achieved in a way that might placate critics of "meaningless" or "excessive" tears. like the critiques of sentimentality in l' eco or ii corriere delle dame, which seem concerned with forging a new, more stoic masculinity, bellini's recuperation also participated in redefining notions of gender and expres­ sion. it is well known that bellini's new approach to melody was instrumental in the emergence of a new type of tenor hero, one who would eventually be characterized more by his vocal power than by the refined eloquence of his ornaments. but bellinian canto declamato, combined as it often was with melodramatic plots, also helped shape a new mode of feminine utterance, one marked by emotional constraint rather than unguarded outpouring. the melodramatic preoccupation with prohibitions on female speech-what peter brooks (1995) has called its "text of muteness" -made the female body, with its blushes and pallor, frozen poses and emphatic gestures, the expressive vehicle par excellence.26 la straniera's alalde is kin to these women rendered mute by emotion.27 she cannot speak of either her past (she is actually the queen of france in hiding) or her love for the tenor arturo. by reining in lyrical melody, bellini represents this difficulty in speaking as an inability to sing: alalde's melodic discourse becomes the most speech-like precisely at those moments when she seems the most inarticulate. at the end of act i, witness to the deaths by drowning of both her brother and her lover in the span of one short number, ala"ide, like so many operatic heroines, loses her reason. but instead of responding with flourishes, roulades, and excessive coloratura, her pathetic fragmented utterances communicate a sense of containment and frozen shock (example 4). alayde only manages to choke out brief, halting phrases, and never launches into full-blown delirium. restrained figures in the europe of the early nineteenth century there was, of course, a more literal way women were "restrained": in the contraptions of linen, lace, and whalebone known as corsets. at the same time bellini was lauded for trimming down melodic excess, a new fashion was emerging-or, in fact, reemerging. as recently as thirty years earlier, the aesthetic of naturalness had expressed itself in a taste for the "pastoral nightgown;' a high-waisted dress that resembled classical drapery.. such dresses transformed the female figure into a kind of willowy column topped by two globe-like breasts. by the 1820s, however, the tide had turned. the hourglass figure (and hence the markedly slim waist) once more rose to prominence, and corsets again melina esse figure 1: evening dress from la belle assemblee (london), 1807 (university of washington libraries, special collections, cos006). became a necessary article of female dress: figures i, 2, and 3 show the transformation from column to hourglass. this transformation, however, did not happen without a struggle. critics of corsets were vehement in their disapproval; the year of la straniera's premiere, 1829, saw multiple denunciations of the new trend. carlo ritorni was not alone-many of these tirades focused on the danger tight-lacing represented to women's health, 21 current musicology figure 2: fashion plate from ii carriere delle dame, 1819. 22 melina esse figure 3: evening dresses from la belle assemblee (london), 1828 (university of washington libraries, special collections, cos412). 23 24 current musicology describing in detail the havoc corsets wreaked on the internal organs and citing purported medical evidence and doctors' testimonials to bolster their claims.28 what is striking, and indicative of a shift in thinking about the female body, is that such dangers to feminine health should be represented in such a relentlessly physical or clinical way, with comparatively little mention of moral or social implications. but other critiques went beyond the somatic to engage with the aesthetic. only a few months after the premiere of la straniera, an article attacking both the specific practice of tight-lacing and corsets in general appeared in the journal teatri arti e letteratura. the story, entitled "pazzia punita" (folly punished), begins with the sensationalist tale of a young english girl whose suffocatingly tight corset resulted in her premature death: in bristol, a sweet girl of twenty years was the most recent victim of too­ tight corset lacing. after having suffered a long while from coughing, from violent heart palpitations and from other indispositions, she died suddenly. the dissection of the cadaver revealed that her early death, and all the ills she suffered, were the consequence of lacing herself too tightly. 29 after a brief homage to the medical argument, the author takes up arms against corsetry-and contemporary fashion in general-on aesthetic grounds: the cinched waist unduly limits feminine gesture, deportment, and expression. to this critic's mind, the corseted figure is, in fact, a kind of laughable, unnatural deformation: it is rumored that a great number of girls and also married women in the world, simply for the desire to have a good waist, squeeze themselves to the point of bursting; and no exhortations, facts, discomfort or pain can dissuade them from such torture. if by means of this barbaric practice, women did indeed succeed in appearing to have nicer figures, men could perhaps boast of the fact that there were women who deliberately kill themselves to attract their attention; but since women only transform themselves into deformed trunks, men can do nothing but groan about it and deride them for having little sense. in fact who wouldn't laugh at seeing certain figures who walk upright and stiff with a measured step like marionettes, and who can neither raise nor extend the arms, neither turn around nor bend over, no matter how much they would like to invite you with a gesture or a nod to stop and admire them? who wouldn't laugh on seeing, rising from a vast base, a triangular rib cage, a ramrod made of who knows what, that goes on to end in two squared shoulders, upon which is mounted a head so immobile that it seems like a wig stand, decorated, what is more, like a face from the cemetery? the women who have the weakness to "refine" themselves in this way should know the beautiful figures with which nature may have adorned them are developed and displayed better than with any of these arts, and it is utter madness to torture themselves and kill themselves only to be, far from admired, pitied and derided (emphasis in original).30 melina esse the tropes of naturalness, flexibility, and the critique of artifice in this account uncannily mirror the preoccupations of writers dealing with the problem of expression in a post-sentimental era. but here holding back, reining in, is something to be avoided-at least for women. the article vividly condemns the techniques of feminine restraint, evincing disgust for stiff, unyielding women, unable to bend or gesture but draped with finery. in their inability to make fluid gestures, corseted women are perceived as abstract, geometric figures, lifeless puppets, wig stands, or even death-like masks. such abhorrence for rigid artificiality implicitly upholds the flexible "natural" as a valued opposite. this image of modern women contrasts strik­ ingly with the ideal sentimental heroine, whose supposedly artless manners, deportment, and speech were highly prized. the author implies that it is the renunciation of vitality that is the true crime; even the words chosen here have resonances in the natural world. corsets impinge upon the "beautiful figures with which nature ... adorned" women. those who wear corsets deform their "fusti," a word that, like the english equivalent "trunk", has both anatomical and horticultural associations and can refer to the stem or stalk of a plant as well as to the human torso. such images-which portray the natural stem of the female form constricted and stiffened by artificial means-suggest that for this author, women properly belong in the garden, to bend and sway like the flowers they tend.3 ! the virginal waistline it has always been rather embarrassing to musicologists that after his two romantic experiments bellini should have produced not another hard-hitting work with sparse vocal lines and stormy plots, but instead la sonnambula, a story of a simple serving maid whose virtue is questioned and then re-established when it is revealed she is a sleepwalker. 32 to make matters worse, bellini largely discarded speech-like singing to embrace a more ornamental melodic style for this nostalgic pastoral idyll. eager to refute the potential charge that bellini was backtracking, musicologists have rushed to bundle la sonnambula under the umbrella of romantic experiment, arguing, for example, that although bellini did indulge in florid writing, it always serves a dramatic purpose. further, the phenomenon of sleepwalking, as an expression of unconscious or repressed psychological desires, is often taken a sign of bellini's essentially romantic sensibility.33 in the face of the critique of corsets, it is tempting to suggest that amina's sleepwalking is not so much evidence of romanticism as is it a reflection of the desire to see a young woman in a flowing classically-styled nightdress-a kind of reactionary recuperation of the flower-like image of woman so popular in the era of sentimental opera. and indeed, in contrast 25 26 current musicology to the extravagance seen in fashion plates of the time, the costumes for la sonnambula were quite simple, giving up ruffles, enormous sleeves, and wide skirts. but amina's costumes nonetheless bear traces of the contemporary fashion. the one thing they do not forfeit is the defined waist-a waist that suggests an ideal attained only by rigorous corseting. compare portraits of irene tomeoni as nina (figure 4) and maria malibran as amina (figure 5): nina's flowing high-waisted gown certainly differs from amina's tightly cinched waist, with its obvious bodice lacing.34 the portrait of malibran, from the london performance of 1833, is not unusual; nearly every subse­ quent amina, from jenny lind to maria callas, exhibits a defined waist. even had the costume designers in fact wanted to revisit the earlier fashions of sentimental opera, doing away with the cinched waist-even for amina's nightdress-might have sent the wrong message. by the late 1820s, the corseted waist (except to its detractors, a vocal minority) signified not artificial restraint, but "natural" virginal slimness. corsets were by no means universally understood as contraptions that deformed and immobilized the "stem" of the female figure. in fact, concern over the dangers to women's health posed by the fashion for slim waists led to the first major corset reforms of the century and the concurrent notion that corsets should conform to a woman's "natural" shape. more flexible corsets became common: so-called "elastic" corsets using coiled metal wires and springs as well as corsets made with "vulcanized india rubber" became available.35 not only were corsets discussed in familiar terms of rigorous bodily discipline, as a way of reining in recalcitrant flesh, but also in terms that reflect the growing assumption that corsets should move with the body, and above all, increase the comfort of the wearer. restraint itself began to be configured as "natural." one english corset-maker even invented what she called a "hygienic corset" and cited rr.edical testimony to support her claim that her product acted like a "new layer of muscles, rather than an extraneous article of dress."36 of course, the "natural" shape an these corsets gently attempted to embrace (or enhance) was just as ideological as any artifice: the ideal body sought was one with a virginally slim waist. corset manufacturers and advertisers throughout europe continually stressed the power of the slim waist to convey a woman's unchanging youthfulness and beauty; their products were designed to hold back the creeping tide of flesh that maternity and age bring to women. the later popularity of maternity corsets suggests that enforced svelteness was a means of preserving the il­ lusion of youthful virginity for as long as possible (summers 2001:37-62). amina's firmly belted midsection, even (and especially) in her nightgown, is an important visual signal of her innocence, clearly communicating the fact that she is not a "loose" woman. melina esse figure 4: irene tomeoni as nina, c. 1794. 27 28 current musicology figure 5: maria malibran as amina, 1833. bellini's music for amina shows a similar kind of virginal restraint; despite his much-talked about "rapprochement" with the rossinian style, and despite the gentle lyrical facility of her musical discourse, occasional mo­ ments of constriction stand out. no scene displays this better than amina's famous sleepwalking aria from the last act, "ah! non credea mirarti" (example 5). amina has been rejected by her lover, who believes her unfaithful, and in her distress, she wanders, still sleeping, out of her room, only to be witmelina esse nessed by the entire village. perhaps the most analyzed bellini aria, amina's dreamy lament is one of the "long, long, long" melodies verdi so admired. its idiosyncratic structure (the first stanza is an odd eleven measures in length and does not repeat any large-scale melodic ideas), an effective portrayal of a wandering somnambulist, has also presented an attractive puzzle to formalists. 37 the slow, trance-like opening proceeds as if in a dream: small two-measure phrase breaths build until measure 11 where the voice rests on a high e for longer than expected-two whole beats. this drawn-out appoggiatura has the effect of suspending time, making it seem as if amina is wandering through the landscape of her aria the same way she wanders the stage. this extended sigh, however, is not the mimetic weeping of a lamenting heroine. rather, it seems an effort to halt the progress of the aria for a moment, to delay the inevitable. no coincidence, then, that the text of the first stanza is about transience: "i never thought to see you faded so soon, oh flower; you died as did our love, which lasted only a day." after these words at the end of the first stanza, elvino interjects, framing amina's performance of despair with an outburst of pity (m. 16). in so doing, he resembles all those onstage courtiers and repentant lovers that witness in horror the madness and distress of the prima donna. "who can look upon such a sight and not weep!" they usually cry, to percussive half-cadences, while the lover lambastes himself for his cruelty. elvino, however, takes a slightly different approach. true, he does guiltily declare "i can no longer stand so much griefl", but his expansive outburst seems suspended between a minor and its relative major, c. supported by a steadily descending bass line, elvino does not commit to anyone tonal center, though the open-ended nature of his statement, ending as it does on an e-minor harmony (minor v in the tonic), sounds a bit like a peace-offering, a gentle encouragement to amina to turn away from her minor-key lamentations. amina does not take elvino's cue and closes off his open-ended phrases with resigned cadential figures in the minor tonic (mm. 17-19). elvino tries once more, and once more amina terminates the phrase in a minor, this time changing her dismissal into four forcefully reiterated eighth notes whose rhythm grates against the triplet accompaniment (mm. 21-23).38 this declamatory gesture of renunciation is significant. an interrup­ tion like elvino's might typically lead to that convention of sentimental opera, a decorated second stanza with even more sobbing ornaments and elaborate musical markers of distress. but instead amina retreats into a kind of controlled, calm acceptance for the second stanza (m. 25), which is in the relative major (making good on elvino's hints). it is a bittersweet c major, though: the pastoral pedal tone lends it an almost schubertian flavor of nostalgic distance. the text of the stanza is centered around an image of impotence-the failure of amina's tears to restore her happiness. 29 30 current musicology example 5: la sonnambula, act ii, aria (aminal. lamina: i never thought to see youl faded so soon, oh flower;/you died as did [our ]love/which lasted only a day. elvina: i cannot bear ... amina: you died as did love ... elvina: ... i cannot bear so much grief. amina: ... which lasted only a day.lperhaps my tears/will restore you to life/but my tears i cannot revive love.] andante cantabile () r.\ r.\ u andante cantabile () r.\ ------~ r.\ ,-3--, 3 ~ { . . . u ppr "*"* "* r.\ ~.:::=::. "t:::=::"t ~.:::=::~, r.\ legat~ : . ~ i r 4 amina () ,...;0:... .. u ah! non cre-dea mi rar ti si () ~ { . . u "*~"'f "*~ "*~ "*~ ~ "---"* : . . . 7 () pre sto e-stin to, o fio re; pas .~ .. ~ "*~ ~ '-'-"* i i ~ v v v 9 () ------------~ ---u i 3 i ~ i' sa sti al pur_ d'a mo re, che un gior no () ~ roo-roo-t--{ ""j .~ j ~ j ~ j ~/ : (' r (' : (' r (' melina esse example 5 continued. { { { { 11 il u il u : 14 1\ u il @j : 17 il u 1\ u : 20 ~ ~ :j -;;= ~ so 10, che un gior no 501_ du ro, __ che un gior-no ...., r--roo_roo_roo-. . . ~ ~ ~ ~ a ". ~ (weeping over the flowers) ~ so 10, ah! sol du roo ob~ ..... . . ... ~ ." ",~~j ~ ~ ~ . amina ~ r reg go.) pas sa sti al par d'a-mo ~ . . . ~~~ #:;t~:;t . ... -.~ .~ ~ ,3,,3, elvino~ ~ ~.,... 0> (la_pill non ~;. l3--' 3 ~ ~ elvino .,.. 0) re ... (pill non .,.. ~~ ~ amina 1\ • ~ ~. :.,..;.. r+-± u la--' :j 0) --reg go a_ tan to_ duo 10.) che un gior no, che un giorno sol dui\~~;' ~ .c@j la--' 3 ~ ... --':i #=;f~ ~. ~ ~ : . ~~~ ... 31 32 current musicology example 5 continued. 23 fl ~ ~, f7f-it) roo po tria no-vel_ vi fl >~, f2:~ p /1-' r: .' { !if i '--"'" ~~j ~,---711 -.y pp ~ ~ ~ ~ ll.j,...i ,j....j 26 '= pian-to ii pian-to mio re car ti. .. 29 ray-vi var i'a mo re il pian to mio,_ah,_ no, no, non puol to the dead flower clasped to her breast, amina sings, "perhaps my tears will restore you to life, but my tears cannot revive love." precisely at the moment when these tears are mentioned, the declamatory fragment with which amina closed off elvino's open phrase-those insistently repeated eighth notes-sounds again (m. 27), this figure, too, is set against the grain of the flowing accompaniment, lendling it a speech-like quality, but here it has been transformed from cadential gesture to small-scale "melodic" climax. amina renounces conventional mimetic weeping at precisely the moment she mentions her impotent tears. these four repeated notes call for a kind of emotional expression entirely different from the weeping, sighing appoggiatura-instead they suggest choked sobs forcing their way through a normally controlled speaking voice. melina esse example 6: la sonnambula, act 1, quintet (elvina's tears). e·b~~~~~~~ 2 que sto pian to, que sto pian to del mio co re what are we to make of this brief moment when amina's lyrical facility becomes stifled and constricted? such declamatory repeated notes in bellini's earlier works are almost invariably paired with an appoggiatura. but here amina simply sinks down to a consonant note-hers is speech without the passion. and while canto declamato in la straniera and ii pirata is set almost exclusively in time with its accompaniment, amina's utterance floats free of the beat, as if refusing to engage in the task of song-making. in the context of bellini's supposed "return" to sentimental opera, a genre whose expres­ sive ideals were shaped by rousseau's theories of language, this four-note figure stands out as a peculiarly constrained kind of expression. there is no conventional weeping cry here: inflection, melody, accento are conspicuously absent. if tears cannot help, then perhaps melody must be silent too. although amina's four notes look fairly nondescript and innocuous on the page, i would argue that they call for a very particular effect from the performer-neither speech nor song, but perhaps dry, hiccupping sobs instead. this seems to be the case in the first act quintet, when elvino, faced with the spectacle of amina asleep in the count's room, speaks of his tears as evidence of his betrayed love (example 6). although it serves as a launching pad to a soaring, sighing appoggiatura, elvino's "pianto" is treated much like amina's later ineffectual "pianti" and the word is clearly distinguished as a sort of special effect: not only are his two eighth notes also at odds with the triplet accompaniment, they are made even more emphatic by accent marks. it is difficult to know just what giuditta pasta, the first amina, might have done when faced with her four evenly spaced notes (example 5, m. 27); contemporary reviews praised her acting and singing lavishly but are generally short on specific details. pasta's performance as paisiello's nina, the gentle innocent driven mad for love, was apparently a model for bellini's amina (rosselli 1996:81) and critics were quick to assert that the success of 33 34 current musicology the sleepwalking scene owed as much to pasta's remarkable talents as it did to bellini's music (bellini 1943:268-72). susan rutherford has shown that pasta was well-known for her electrifying stage presence, particularly her strikingly "realistic" and yet disciplined approach to gesture, which seems to have been characterized by intense, measured movements timed to cor­ respond directly with the music (2007: 112-17). furthermore, rutherford suggests that bellini exploited many of the singer's characteristic vocal effects; in the composer's markings in the autograph score for norma-another role created expressly for pasta-directions such as "con voce soffocata (with a suffocated voice)" and "con voce repressa (with a suppressed voice)" create the impression of a singing actress not afraid to stifle her voice for dramatic purposes (2007:128-32). we also have evidence that later singers approached amina's four repeated notes with particular care. jenny lind's published ornaments for "ah! non credea mirarti" single them out for special emphasis, adding an accent mark to each of them (caswell 1989: 13). and will crutchfield's transcription of adelina patti's 1906 recording of the aria captures how patti slows and slightly softens their relentless pulse, taking an audible breath between "mio" and "recarti" (1989:454). in investing this moment with such weight, patti makes it sound as if amina is struggling to jerk out the repeated notes and the effort is dragging her down. the corset and romantic "ex-pression" my emphasis on the constrictive nature of bellinian restraint is not the whole story, however. amina ends the opera with a showy cabaletta celebrating the restoration of her reputation and her impending marriage to elvino (example 7). as is typical, the cabaletta is much more elaborate than the slow movement, as if amina is finally able to indulge in the agile singing she has long avoided. but a closer look at amina's melody makes it clear that this apparent release from constraint is not in itself unproblematic. the opening phrases of the cabaletta each begin with a characteristic gesture: a leap up to a jerky, breathless, repeated d. here bellini abandons his normally clear text-setting, lodging an eighth-note rest between those repeated notes to break apart words: "giun-ge," "pensie-ro." in addition, emanuele senici has pointed to bellini's decision to ignore the conventional vowel elision known as the sinalefe in this passage, arguing that it projects a "kind of effortful breathlessness, as if amina lacked the necessary energy to sing even four or five syllables without an intake ofbreath."39 the effect is indeed striking, and it is not too fanciful to hear it as replicating the shallow, labored breathing of the tightly corseted body.40 melina esse example 7: la sonnambula, act ii, amina's final cabaletta. amina (j >>" .. a. , ~ r r (j ah! nongiun ge u-man pen sie ro~_ al con{ , ,. , , ~ .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. pp leggierissimo , , , , 4 (j >-~. ~ ,... >.. a. iv ~ >r () ten to on d'io son pie na: a' miei sen si io ere-do ap { ~ :j: :j: :j: :j: .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. f., f., f., f., , , , , , , ,. ,. ,. 7 3 (j >~. ,--, p a. ~ r (j pe na;_ tu m'af fi da,_ 0_ mio tesor! ah! mi ab { , , , , iv .. .. .. .. :j: :j: :j: :j: .. .. .. .. f., f., f., f., : , , , ,. ,. ,. ,. 10 () .,..;" ~ >.. a. iv >r () brae cia, e sem-pre in sie me, sem-pre u ni ti in u na , , ~ it it .. .. :j: :j: .. .. ........ ~ ~ , , ,. . . 35 36 current musicology example 7 continued. 13 il ~ > .. .. a. u r spe me, del la ter ra in cui il { u :# ~i=~ ..-5..: . 16 il ~ ,-, "') " a. -i;;;:i u 3 r mia rna un __ cield'a-mor: del la_ { a. { il . u :j :j :j :j f.f.f.~ : . w 19 (j/~ .. .. .. . r via rna ci for ., mia >---21 r~-,oo-~ f!:~f!:~-,oo-.. il . u mor d'a mor, d'a il . . . u ........¥ ¥ ¥ . . .. . > r r vi via mo_ e; for . ..........-,00.. 11 ... , ter ra in cui vi., ., ., ., . mo un ciel d'a~" -c::::i:::::i::: ............ mar, . . -h¥ .... .. .. . . melina esse example 7 continued. 24 piuvivo -(j ~'f a t) i d'a mar. 1) i i t) ~ . vie ni, c o (j i i r t) i i vie ni, o n • : vie ni, piuvivo ii ... {u . :j: col canto ft.· =,. it seems, then, that strategic moments of restraint in la sonnambula actually imply a heightened emotional intensity; the threat of spillage is only sharpened by the creation of expressive "dams" -in this case, those small gasping rests. in a similar manner, if the corset is an attempt to contain or control the female body, it simultaneously places it in the limelight. indeed, historians of the corset have argued that while the devices were certainly understood as a form of physical discipline, corsets also allowed-even made necessary-indulgence in symptoms of bodily distress that marked the female figure as delicate, susceptible, and sexually desirable. not only did corsets provide opportunity and justification for fainting spells, dizzi­ ness, and palpitations in an age where physiological ailments were taking precedence over attacks of "sentiment," they also helped make feminine indisposition more widespread and seem more "natural."41 it was ritorni, after all, who said it best: corsets cause fainting, headaches, consumption, and a host of other maladies "typical to women." femininity-and even feminine desirability-came to be defined through the performance of symptoms made possible by the tightly laced corset. even while rigorously restraining the body, corsets made the body itself, in its ailments and symptoms, all the more legible. 37 38 current musicology this paradox of bodily restraint and bodily indulgence has implica­ tions for our understanding of belhnian canto declamato and operatic romanticism. if the corset squeezes the female waist into a constricted form, it also forces the most "feminine" attributes to spill over its edges, just as sparse, declamatory singing at moments of heightened emotion hints at the possibility of eventual outpouring, highlighting the very physical excess it would seem to renounce. listening to moments of musical restraint with the corset in mind can help us to understand even la straniera's famously sparse vocal writing in a new way: as filled with tension, as passion inhibited but never absent. in other words, canto declamato is not a renunciation-or even successful control-of bodily excess, but a new poetics of restraint which, like the corset, places the body even more emphatically before our ears. i want to end by suggesting that the figure of the corseted woman can serve as a living symbol for a different kind of romantic expression. operatic romanticism is often described in terms of extravagant gestures and emotional overflow, the dissolution of boundaries between recitative and aria, and the creation of strongly teleological dramatic trajectories. what deserves attention, however, is the way that strategic moments of restraint allow for even greater emotional spillage; how carefully placed obstacles hold back expressive energy, allowing it to build up and burst forth in more powerful guises. rather than being written in to melodies from the start, tears now forced their way through closed throats and stiffened bodies, literally "ex -pressed" -pressed out-through restraint. a broader understanding of the forms and meanings of restraint in bellini's operas not only casts new light on the social grounding of his aesthetic, it also reveals just how much italian romanticism owed to the bodies of women it sought to define. notes the author would like to thank the following: laura basini, gregory bloch, marco capra of the centro internazionale di ricerca sui periodici musicali, roger moseley, anna nisnevich, roger parker, susan rutherford, christina schiffner, mary ann smart, holly watkins, and the anonymous readers of this article. 1. "egli ha preso un metodo, che non ben sappiamo se debba dirsi declamazione cantata, 0 canto declamato. lo scopo di questo metodo sembra essere di riunire la forza della decla­ mazione alia gentilezza del canto ... " from a review of la straniera in the february 20,1829 issue of l'eeo, cited in bellini 1943:196. 2. the first definitive discussion of bellini's new approach to melody in la straniera was lippmann (1971). 3. such perspectives owe much to a. b. marx's distinction between rossini's sensuous surface pleasures and beethoven's deep spirituality. carl dahlhaus, while attempting to dismantle the value judgment implicit in this dialectic, ends up maintaining its terms. while he argues that coloratura in rossini's style is no "mere adjunct or paraphrase" of an underlying melody ("the external trappings of rossini's music prove to be its essence, an essence that lies on melina esse the surface rather than being concealed beneath it"), his discussion of bellini's melodic style begins with the assertion that it "was the quintessence of what the nineteenth century, with astounding unanimity, understood by melody in the strong sense of the term" (1989:59-60, 117). philip gossett has taken dahlhaus to task for the implicit bias in his approach to ital­ ian opera, and especially rossini (1989:54-56). friedrich lippmann understands bellinian canto declamato as a forward-looking break with operatic convention, and maintains that the label "filosofico" was used to indicate a totally new, almost psychological, treatment of human emotion (adamo and lipmann 1981 :456-57,473). more recent work on bellini has questioned such approaches. simon maguire (1989) insists that in labeling bellini "filosofico;' italian critics saw the composer as a "throwback" to earlier values of simplicity and balance, and mary ann smart (2000) has argued for a re-examination of bellini's relationship to melodic convention, using bellini's habit of self-borrowing to question the assertion that he consistently strove for greater synchrony between text and music. 4. using the term "philosophical" to describe "serious" music was common throughout france and italy in the 1820s; the term could be used to praise or condemn. henri berton's 1825 pam­ phlet de la musique mecanique et de la musique philosophique castigated the music of rossini as mechanical and warned of the dangers it posed to "philosophical" music. the italian term "filosofico" was largely used to describe bellini's habit of matching the music to the words. one review of la straniera, for example, mentioned "that philosophy, constant in bellini, of following with his music poetic phrases and dramatic situations (quella filosofia, costante in bellini nel seguir sempre con la sua musica ie frasi poetiche e ie situazioni)," and speculated that the enthusiasm audiences showed for the technique was perhaps due more to the way such sudden musical shifts allowed henriette meric-lalande to demonstrate her consummate skill as a singer and actress (l'eco, february j 6,1829; cited in bellini 1943:193). 5. rossini had been consistently criticized for inattention to his texts; simon maguire points out that such complaints were common. in 1824, la rivista teatrale declared that" ... in choruses and ensembles, the words are of no importance to rossini:' those who looked favorably on bellini's "filosofia" spoke of it as somehow resisting the lure of spectacle or of music's sensual pleasures. the journal l'indifferente insisted that bellini "is not seduced by the charms of some musical motif that he has invented ... if he sees that the words change, he will then abandon it, and seek out another one that suits the new sentiment. such is his philosophical approach, that often his phrases remain incomplete, but is this a defect? it is for those people who have become used to cabalettas more like country dances, yawning when they can't hear them, and mechanically clapping at momentary effects; they are quite content just to gratify their ears without any sensation ever being felt by the heart" (quoted in maguire 1989:78-79 and 108-9; i have altered his translation). for gennan reception of bellini, see kiimmel (1973). 6. " .. .il suo pericolo potrebbe essere quello di confondere declamazione e canto, e produrre monotonia, lentezza, spezzatura, e titubanza nella cantilena, e mancanza di motivi che al­ lettino, e rimango nell' orecchio" (bellini 1943: 196). 7. ritorni published widely on the arts, but he is perhaps best known for his study on contem­ porary opera, the ammaestramenti alla composizione d' ogni poema ed' ogni opera appartenente alia musica (milan, 1841), which assessed current operatic trends with an awareness of certain scenic conventions. see fabbri (1996) and balthazar (1989). 8. ritorni complained of "i a predilezione per una moda brutta, non naturale e perniciosa"; the complaint from l'eco was reprinted in his annali del tecuro della citta di reggio (bologna, 1829: 1 74). i thank susan rutherford for allowing me to verify my handwritten transcription 39 40 current musicology of the passage from l' eca against her photocopy of the reprinted article in the annali. see also her discussion of corsetry and singing technique in rutherford (2006:70-71). 9. "nella testa. mali di testa, vertigini, tendenza agli svenimenti, male d'occhi, dolore e tin­ tinnio delle orecchie, ed emorragie del naso. nel torace. oitre al dislocamento delle ossa, l'allacciarsi strettamente produce il respiro affannoso, 10 sputo del sangue, la consunzione, l'alterazione nella circolazione, la palpitazione di cuore e l'idropisia di petto. nell'addome. inappetenza, nausea, sbocco di sangue, cattiva digestione, flatulenza, diarrea, dolori colici, induramenta di fegato, idropisia e allentatura. ne segue pure ipocondria, isterismo ed una quantita di malattie particolari aile donne, malattie che qui e superfluo il numerare" (ritorni 1829:179-80). 10. stefano castelvecchi (2000) has argued that even in its heyday, the cult of sensibility was subject to an equally strong critical or parodistic commentary, a phenomenon he has labeled the "anti-sentimental:' 11. a typical example is a parody skewering a widow who cried more tears for her dead cat than for her husband published in ii carriere delle dame on march 20,1819 (100). 12. "eugenio e, non v'ha dubbia, il miglior uomo che io mi conosco. figlio sommesso, marito amoroso, padre indulgente, buon suddito, buon cittadino, ottimo impiegato; povero e gener­ oso, disposto sempre a levarsi di bocca il pane per darlo ad altri ... quest'uomo ... non sl e mai intenerito alia lettura di nessun romanza ... simile quasi a quel geometra, che stan do a sentire una tragedia, domandava: ou'est ce que cela prouve? egli domanda: che cosa importa? (ii carriere delle dame 1820:264)." 13. "ii signor tale, all'incontro ... sparge di lagrime tutti i romanzi sentimentali che gli vengono aile mani, e singhiozza ie sere intere a tutte ie tragedie, a tutti i drammi sentimentali che pur troppo ingombrano ie degradate nostre scene. e pure questo, signore tale non ha mai avuto pieta di ness uno, a nessuno, ha mai dato uno scudo, per nessuno ha mai fatto un passo ne detto una parola (1820:264)." 14. "ora, amabili leggitrici, ponete al confronto il mio buon eugenio col signor tale, e sap­ piatemi poi dire che cosa e la sensibilita morale, 0 piuttosto chiediamo ai cruscanti il permesso di dare aile lagrime e ai singhiozzi del signor tale il nome di sensibileria (1820:264)." the rhetorical weight bestowed upon the term "sensibileria" (the italics are in the original) here makes it clear that the author does not consider the term neutrally descriptive. historically the suffix -eria (etymologically related to the french -erie and the english -ery) has been used to signal contempt-as with the english words "monkery" or "popery!' 15. published in i tcatri in april 1828. this interest in declamation was explicitly linked to singing in the extended polemic published a month later concerning artificial versus natural declamation and its relation to the singer's practice of improvising ornaments (i teatri, may 3, 1828:64-67). 16. for more on diderot's influence on talma, see roach (1985:169-73). 17. the suicidal hero of foscolo's le ultime let/cre di jacapo ortis (first version written in 1798, with subsequent revisions), with his intense passions and unrequited love, strongly resembles goethe's werther, while the novel's epistolary form echoed the novels of samuel richardson and rousseau's la nouvelle heloisc. the pseudonym didimo chierico seems to have had special significauce as the representation of the sentimental side of his character, as it was under this name that foscolo publlished his translation of sterne's sentimental journey in 1818. for more on foscolo's status as sentimental icon and early romantic, see brand and pertile (1999:412-17). melina esse 18. "ogni volta che io andai leggendo ad alta voce qualche tragedia, od alcun passo com­ movente di storia, poesia, 0 di romanzo, in presenza d'altri, i miei occhi s'innondavano di pianto, e la voce tremava. sperava di scorgere 10 stesso effetto ne' miei uditori; rna in vece di lagrime, colla mia commozione eccitai sovente il riso. mi ritirai vergognando, non di loro, rna di me stesso, ed ebbi sospetto pili della mia che dell'altrui debolezza ... in allora dubitai persino del vigore del mio proprio intelletto, tanto che prescrissi a me stesso dappoi una gelosa precauzione in ogni parola ed azione (ii corriere delle dame 1819:92-93)." 19. " ... conchiusi adunque che i sentimenti squisiti so no messi in ridicolo dal mondo come ... debolezza, e che da cia nasce 10 sconcerto delle menti delicate, ie quali per apparir sagge, celano la loro sensibilita, ed affettano un carattere superiore all'umana natura, del use dal solo esempio di coloro che appunto so no al di sotto della medesima (1819:93)." 20. this is a recurring theme in rossini criticism; see note 5 and steffan (1992). see also my "rossini's noisy bodies," forthcoming in the cambridge opera journal. 21. crutchfield distinguishes prosodic appoggiaturas from those that are "purely musical," sung on a single syllable. see crutchfield (1989) for a definitive discussion of notation and performance practice issues surrounding the appoggiatura. domenico corri, in a treatise from 1810, referred to the appoggiatura as the "origin of all other embellishments" (maguire 1989:175). 22. marcello perino called the appoggiatura the musical "accent" in his osservazioni sui canto from 1810 (maguire 1989: 175). maguire's work on bellini is concerned with discussing the composer's style in terms of poetic aesthetics; hence his focus on the prosodic appoggiatura. in contrast, mary ann smart (2004:69-100) has considered bellini's sighs as a potent way to represent bodies moving through (or beyond) the space ofthe stage and marco beghelli (2001) has explored the denotative and connotative functions of the lamenting appoggiatura. 23. the sections on music in rousseau's essai sur l'origine des langues ou il est parle de la melodie et de l'imitation musicale were written in 1749 for the encylopedie; additional mate­ rial was written in 1755. 24. "to the degree that needs multiply:' rousseau writes, "that affairs become complicated, that light is shed, language changes its character. it becomes more regular and less passion­ ate. it substitutes ideas for feelings. it no longer speaks to the heart but to reason. similarly accent diminishes, articulation increases" (1986:16). 25. for rousseau's influence on antonio eximeno, francesco algarotti, stefano arteaga, and pietro lichtenthal, see maguire (1989:21,39-40,48, 120). a portion of madame de stael's reflections on rousseau was reprinted in ii carriere delle dame in the late 1820s. italian edi­ tions of rousseau's works were widely circulated and numerous critical studies appeared in the 1810s and 1820s (felice 1987:61-63). for more on rousseau's italian reception, see ghibaudi (1961:282-311). 26. following brooks's cue, i am speaking here of general plot tropes common in spoken dramas with prominent musical accompaniment (called melodrama in england or melo­ drame in france), tropes which then spread to other media and genres. italian opera was certainly influenced by these different forms of melodrama (see sala 1995a and 1995b) but it is important to remember that the italian term melodramma was used more generally to refer to "musical drama" ~that is, opera~whether or not the work had what we would today call "melodramatic" elements. 27. the best known of these silent women is the heroine of daniel-fran<,=ois-esprit auber's la muette de portici (the mute girl ofportici) , which opened in paris a year before la strani41 42 current musicology era's premiere in milan. for contrasting discussions of the implications of the operatic link between femininity and silence, see smart (2004:32-6s) and clark (2003). this curiosity concerning mute women extended to the popular press: ii carriere delle dame reprinted an item from la gazetta di sanita about a "very sensitive (assai sensibile) " woman who, believ­ ing her husband to be dead, mourned for two years. when the husband returned, she was so overwhelmed that she became mute-although she was still able to talk in her sleep (11 carriere delle dame ls17:45). 2s. these ailments ranged from so-called "corset liver;' a condition in which the liver was said to be cut in half by the tightness of the waist-cincher (a phenomenon known to be physically impossible today) to "congestion of the blood" and constriction of the lungs and digestive organs (steele 2001:67-s6). 29. "in bristol, un'amabile fan ciulla di venti anni, fu di recente vittima dell'allacciar troppo stretto il busto. dopo aver essa lungamente sofferto di tosse, di violenta palpitazion di cuore e di altri incomodi, morl all'improvviso. fatta la sezione del cadavere, si ebbe la prova evidente che la immatura sua morte, e tutti i mali da essa sofferti, erano la col1seguenza del suo troppo stretto allacciarsi" (teatri arti e letteratura ls29:13). 30. "corre voce esservi del mondo gran numero di fanciulle ed anche di donne maritate, che per la smania di fare il bel vitino, si stringono a segno di schiattare; e che non vagliono ne esortanzioni, ne fatti, ne gl'incomodi ed i dolori che ne provano esse medesime per distorle questa tortura. se da questo barbaro uso ne risultasse loro veramente di comparire pill ben fatte, gli uomini potrebbero forse gloriarsi che vi siano delle donne ie quali studiamente si ammazzino per attirare la loro attenzione; ma siccome egli non fa che transformarle in tanti fusti informi, gli uomini non possono che lagnarsene e deriderle del poco cervello. in fatti, e chi non ride nel vedere quelle certe figure che se ne vanno ritte e dure a passo misurato come marionette, e non possono ne alzare, ne stendere ie braccia, ne girarsi, ne curvarsi, per quanta voglia pur abbiano d'invitarvi con un gesto od un inchino a soffermarvi per ammirarle? chi non ride al vedere spun tare da una vasta base, resa triangolare dalle stecche, un fusellino di non sai che cosa, che va a terminare in due spalloni quadrati, a cui sormonta una testa talmente immobile, che sembra una testiera da parrucca, decorata per 10 pili da un viso da cimitero?-le donne che hanno la debolezza di raffazzonarsi in tal guisa, dovrebbero sap ere che ie belle forme onde la natura puo averle ornate, si sviluppano e si mostrano da per se meglio che con qualunque arte, e che e una vera pazzia quella di torturarsi ed ammazzarsi per essere, invece che ammirate, compassionate e derise" (teatri arti e letteratura ls29:13-14). 31. the immobility of the female figure so derided by this author may have been just as common in the age of empire waist gowns. anne hollander has pointed out that neoclas­ sical torso, shaped like a "long-cylinder," was "clearly imposed and enforced by corseting as insistent as that in any previous period but with a shift of emphasis" from the slim waistline to slim hips and thighs. such corseting is perhaps responsible for the "bolster-like" stiffness of female figures that hollander finds in portraiture of the time (hollander 1993:117-22). the flexibility of the female figure implicitly valued in this article was most likely an illusion, cre­ ated more by a long expanse of clinging, flowing drapery than by a flexible trunk per se. 32. for a clear account of la sonnambula's place within bellini scholarship, see smart (2002:27s-s4). 33. john rosselli suggests that although bellini abandoned work on ernani, a lllore "romantic" subject, for la sonnambula, "sleepwalking nonetheless tapped the romantic interest in the unconscious and the strange. in la sonnambula it hints at a shadow side to the outwardly calm village life ... " (1996:s3). guido paduano's effort (1992:69-s3) to understand the pastoral setting of la sonnambula not as sim.ple nostalgia, but as a realm with spiritual melina esse significance could also be read as a recuperative effort to invest the opera with a weight and seriousness missing from previous accounts. it does seem possible, however, that bellini was drawn toward the sentimental subject of la sonnambula after seeing giuditta pasta give a much-acclaimed performance as nina in 1829. it is known that i puritani, for example, was influenced by paisiello's nina. see petrobelli (1977:35]-64). 34. for more on the costumes for la sonnambula, in particular their relation to notions of landscape and history, see chapter 2 of senici (2005). 35. an article on the new elastic corsets ("corsets elyantones") appeared in the teatri arti e letteratura on june 30, ]829 praising their ability to prevent "sincopi" (blackouts), "vapori" (vapors), "svenimenti" (fainting fits), "languori" (weakness), "attacchi di nervi" (nervous at­ tacks), and "spasimi" (pains) caused by normal corsets. two years later, a brief announcement in the journal touted new "corraze feminili" (feminine breastplates) which were described as a more healthful alternative to corsets (teatri arti e letteratura 1831:165). for further discussion of corset reforms, see steele (2001:43-44). 36. the corset-maker was madame roxey a. caplin, who touted her 1848 invention as a kind of "muscular envelope." her subsequent book, health and beauty; or corsets and cloth­ ing constructed in accordance with the physiological laws of the human body (1856) quotes the approving testimony of a french doctor (steele 2001 :41-42). 37. see carl dahlhaus's analysis (1989:117-20), which focuses on the balance between the aria's "simplicity in detail and grandness in the overall design." in ]935, domenico de paoli described this aria as achieving an "astonishing cohesion, despite the abolitions of repeti­ tions and recapitulations," and ascribed its success to its organic nature: "each note appears to arise from the preceding one like a fruit from a flower, always new, always unforeseen, always logical ... " (quoted in weinstock 1971:340). 38. obsessively repeated notes are perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of bellinian canto dec/amato. in discussing bellini's self-borrowings in the baritone cabaletta "meco tu vieni" from la straniera, mary ann smart (2000: 43) notices a preference for "motivic mo­ notony" in bellini's reworking of earlier material, particularly in his decision to return to the "reiterations of middle c that had dominated the first eight measures of the piece" at a point where the earlier version of the melody moved to a more "expansive" phrase. 39. senici points to both the inserted rests and the failure to elide the vowel endings of "giunge" and "contento" with the beginning of the next word as contributing to this labored effect (2005:72). 40. this effect is amplified by the fact that this cabaletta, as is true of many celebratory moments in opera, suggests a kind of dance, another type of physical exertion that would make a corset-wearer easily winded. the corset's effect on breathing is well documented. in 1868 the medical journal the lancet claimed that "tight-lacing seriously limits, indeed almost annihilates, the respiratory movements of the diaphragm." many nineteenth-century medical studies explored the link between corsets and shortness of breath. more recently, in 1998, colleen gau conducted experiments in which participants wore nineteenth-century corsets laced three inches tighter than their waist measurements; she demonstrated that the movement of the diaphragm is limited even by wearing only a moderately tight corset. corset-wearers thus must rely upon accessory respiratory muscles to compensate for the restricted diaphragm, which results in "shallow, upper-diaphragmatic (or costal) breathing" (steele 2001:69-70). 41. for more on the widespread dissemination of corset horror stories and the notion of femininity they perpetuated, see kunzle (2004:80-97). 43 44 current musicology references adamo, maria rosario and friedrich lippmann. 1981. vincenzo bellini. turin: rai. balthazar, scott. 1989. ritorni's ammaestramenti and the conventions of rossinian melodramma. journal of musicological research 8 (3-4): 281-312. beghelli, marco. 2001. l'emblema melodrammatico dellamento: ii semitono dolente. in verdi 2001, edited by roberta montemorra marvin, marco marica, and fabrizio della seta, 241-80. florence: leo s. olschki. bellini, vincenzo. 1943. epistolario, edited by luisa cambi. verona: a. mondodori. brand, peter and lino pertile. 1999. the cambridge history of italian literature. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. brooks, peter. [1976] 1995. the melodramatic imagination: balzac, henry james, and the mode of excess. new haven, ct, and london: yale university press. castelvecchi, stefano. 2000. sentimental and anti-sentimental in le nozze di figaro. journal of the american musicological society 53 (l): 1-24. caswell, austin b. 1989. embellished opera arias. madison, wi: a-r editions, inc. clark, maribeth. 2003. the body and the voice in la muette de portici. 19th-century music 27 (2): 116-3l. ii corriere delle dame. 1817. donna che perde la favella per eccesso d' allegrezza straordinaria. august 9: 45. ii corriere delle dame. 1819. la sensibilita[:] osservazione inedita di didimo chierico [pseud.]. march 13: 92-93. ii corriere delle dame. 1820. sensibilita morale. august 12: 264. crutchfield, will. 1989. the prosodic appoggiatura in the music of mozart and his contemporaries. journal of the american musicological society 42 (2): 229-74. dahlhaus, carl. 1989. nineteenth-century music, translated by j. bradford robinson. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. fabbri, paolo. 1996. rossini e bellini a paragone. in musica franca: essays in honor of frank a. d'accone, edited by irene aim, allison mclamore, and colleen reardon. stuyvesant, ny: pendragon press. felice, domenico. 1987. jean-jacques rousseau in italia: bibliografia (1816-1986). bologna: clueb. ghibaudi, silvia rota. 1961. la fortuna di rousseau in italia 1750-1815. turin: edizioni giappichelli. gossett, philip. 1989. carl dahlhaus and the "ideal type." 19th-century music 13 0): 49-56. hollander, anne. [1975] 1993. seeing through clothes. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. kiimmel, werner friedrich. 1973. vincenzo beliini nello specchio dell' allgemeine musikalische zeitung di lipsia 1827-1846. nuova rivista musicale italiana 7 (2): 185-205. kunzle, david. [1982] 2004. fashion and fetishism: a social history of the corset, tight-lacing, and other forms of body sculpture. stroud: sutton publishing. lippmann, friedrich. 1971. su "la straniera" di bellini. rivista musicale italiana 5 (4): 565-605. maguire, simon. 1989. vincenzo bellini and theaesthetics of early 19th-century italian opera. new york: garland publishing. paduano, guido. 1992. ii giro di vite: percorsi dell' opera lirica. florence: la nuova italia. petrobelli, pierluigi. 1977. bellini e paisiello. altri documenti sulla nascita dei puritani. in ii melodramma italiano dell'ottocento: studi e ricerche per massimo mila, 351-64. turin: giulio einaudi editore. ritorni. 1829. annali del teatro della citta di reggio. bologna. melina esse roach, joseph. 1985. the player's passion. newark: university of delaware press. rosselli, john. 1996. the life of bellini. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. rousseau,jean-jacques. [1781] 1986. essay oil the origin of languages which treats of melody and musical imitation, translated by john h. moran. in on the origin of language, 5-74. chicago and london: university of chicago press. rutherford, susan. 2006. the prima donna and opera, 1815-1930. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. ---. 2007. 'la cantante delle passioni': giuditta pasta and the idea of operatic performance. cambridge opera journal 19 (2): 107-138. sala, emilio. 199 sa. l' opera senza canto: il melo romantico e l'invenzione della colonna sonora. venice: marsilio. ---. 1995b. verdi and the parisian boulevard theatre, 1847-9. cambridge opera journal 7 (3): 185-205. senici, emanuele. 2005. landscape and gender in italian opera: the alpine virgin from bellini to puccini. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. smart, mary ann. 2000. in praise of convention: formula and experiment in bellini's self­ borrowing. journal of the american musicological society 53 (i): 25-68. ---.2002. bellini's fall from grace. opera 53 (3): 278-84. ---. 2004. mimomania: music and gesture in nineteenth-century opera. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. steele, valerie. 2001. the corset: a cultural history. new haven, ct, and london: yale university press. steffan, carlida, ed. 1992. rossiniana: antologia della critica nella prima meta dell'ottocento. pordenone: edizione studio tesi. summers, leigh. 2001. bound to please: a history of the victorian corset. oxford and new york: berg. i teatri. 1828. alcuni detti memorabili di talma sulla declamazione comica e tragica. april 20: 25-27. teatri arti e letteratura. 1829. pazzia punita. october 15: 13-14. teatri arti e letteratura. 1831. corazze femminili. january 27: 165. vincent-buffault, anne. [1986]1991. the history of tears: sensibility and sentimentality in france, translated by teresa bridgeman. new york: st. martin's press. weinstock, herbert. 1971. vincenzo bellini. new york: knopf. 45 current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 81 the musical work reconsidered, in hindsight gavin steingo 1. introduction and outline of the argument certainly, the concept of the musical work has not always existed. yet deciphering precisely when the work emerged has proved an immensely difficult task for musicologists.1 in particular, the publication of lydia goehr’s the imaginary museum of musical works—in which she famously argued that the work–concept crystallized around 1800—has provoked an endless litany of modifications and outright rebuttals.2 in many cases scholars have retained the gist of goehr’s argument but have sought to push the date backwards, often to the period of their own specialization. several scholars of baroque music have argued that musical works existed in the seventeenth century (although not before) while several scholars of the renaissance have argued that the musical work emerged during that era (although not earlier).3 indeed, there have been attempts—although somewhat muted—to locate the advent of the musical work in the medieval period.4 in particular, the question of whether j. s. bach composed musical works has received a great deal of attention. although he died a full fifty years before 1800, several scholars have argued that bach did compose musical works and have used this argument as a refutation of goehr’s 1800 hypothesis.5 most recent studies have in fact been written as direct confrontations with goehr’s seminal text. goehr (2000, 2007) herself has occasionally been pulled into the fray and has defended her position valiantly and with gusto. indeed, there are many reasons to take her arguments seriously and in some ways the historical archive seems to support the 1800 hypothesis. nonetheless, if we consider the sheer number of scholars who have contested her hypothesis (or at least her dating) there is reason to suspect that perhaps the puzzle has not been adequately solved. in this essay, i revisit this crucial issue by shifting the emphasis from dating (that is, from the question of when the musical work emerged) to historiography. if quibbling about the precise date of the emergence of the musical work has proved largely ineffectual, then perhaps it is time to radically rethink our mode of historical investigation. i suggest that one useful way to proceed is to shift the emphasis from a search for origins to a focus on the very notion of historical change. 82 current musicology every discussion, historicization, or analysis of the musical work must face the dilemma of defining what a musical work is in the first place. few musicologists today would have difficulty accepting the argument that the musical work is historically contingent, that is, that it is not a transcendental category.6 i take it as a given that the musical work is historical and, moreover, contested. one common—and, i would submit, quite reasonable—criticism of goehr is that she too narrowly defines the parameters of the musical work. perhaps the work–concept was not operative in the early eighteenth century in the same way that it was in the early nineteenth, but should this mean that there was no conception of a musical work in any way at all?7 in other words, could we not argue for a pluralization of the very notion of work–ness and subsequently recognize different types of musical works at different historical periods? it seems to me that we do need a flexible definition of the musical work. it is efficacious, in other words, to move away from a single moment at which the musical work emerged and to instead examine various types of related concepts and practices both before and after 1800. at the same time, it is not unreasonable to recognize major musical transformations where they have occurred. and indeed, few (if any) researchers deny that something we may call the musical work (however broadly defined) emerged at some point during the past five hundred years. the question is simply at what point it did so, under what conditions, and to what musical and social ends. despite the many disagreements surrounding the musical work, a relatively stable constellation of terms and ideas is readily discernable in recent scholarship on the topic. in particular, music’s growing reliance upon the score is almost unanimously understood as a major development in the advent of the musical work. in reality, the score is only one part of a much larger story, which must necessarily also include issues such as compositional (or authorial) control, the possibility of repeatability, the notion of permanence, and the emergence of aesthetic autonomy as a core european ideology. i will address and complicate many of these issues in the course of this article. at this stage, and at the risk of being overly reductive, it will be sufficient to tentatively characterize the development of the musical work as a transition or even inversion of “where” music is located. when music notation first emerged in the west, inscription was understood as secondary to musical performance. in other words, music was understood first and foremost as an act of performance and the function of notation was to supplement this act, either as a series of more or less (usually less) specific instructions, or as a form of memorialization after the fact. the advent of the musical work marks the point at which this relationship is inverted: now, performance is secondary and attests to a primary (or more fundamental) 83 gavin steingo “work” manifested most precisely in the form of a score. with this inversion, the basic ontological status of music changes such that individual performances are merely (better or worse) instantiations of a work that exists over and above all of the possible performances that may ever take place. indeed, a work of music may exist that is never performed (as happens all too frequently in the lives of many young composers today). my aim is neither to celebrate this inversion as a major achievement nor to bemoan it as a transformation complicit with the degradation of music qua act. furthermore, i readily acknowledge that a musicologist could easily focus on aspects different to the ones i have emphasized here or even—as i have implied—dismiss the entire project of historicizing the musical work as so much nonsense, since the “history of the musical work” begs the very question that it seeks to answer. nonetheless, refuting the inversion to which i point is actually not the primary target of most scholarly debate. on the contrary, scholars generally agree on this important shift in the ontological status of music and the musical score (although often not in exactly those terms) and disagree mostly on the issue of dating. if we can tentatively assume that the musical work exists in a relatively coherent manner, then when did it emerge? beethoven certainly wrote musical works, but did bach? did monteverdi? did palestrina? what about josquin, or ockeghem? it seems to me that instead of answering these questions directly a more oblique response may prove more valuable. to this end, i draw on the work of the philosopher noam yuran and propose a novel approach to the question of historical change. as a way into the argument, i begin by considering a structural analogy between the history of the musical work and yuran’s analysis of the history of money. i am not arguing for a direct causal relationship between the histories of music and money, nor am i proposing an economic “basis” for music’s history. instead, i use the analogy with money purely as a heuristic device and as a way to introduce yuran’s complex ideas.8 yuran begins by observing that economic historians have long documented the use of precious metals as units of exchange in ancient civilizations. in the case of metals such as silver or gold, value was determined through weight. in adam smith’s classic formulation, the institution of coins was borne of practicality: the inconveniency and difficulty of weighing those metals with exactness gave occasion to the institution of coins, of which the stamp, covering entirely both sides of the piece and sometimes the edges too, was supposed to ascertain not only the fineness, but the weight of the metal. such coins, therefore, were received by tale as at present, without the trouble of weighing. (smith 1904, 28)9 84 current musicology smith’s orthodox explanation is that the symbol (the “stamp”) testifies to the material quantity (weight) of the piece of metal. the symbol tells the user about the material substance and by doing so relieves her of having to weigh the substance each time. this rather banal explanation of the institution of coins receives an interesting twist when viewed from the perspective of modern (or “fiat”) money.10 with modern coins (such as the ones we use today), the symbol (currency value) does not signify the material substance as much as the material substance attests to the legitimacy of the symbol. in other words, directly following the advent of coins with stamps, a suspicion that the stamp (or symbol) was fake led to a suspicion about the material substance to which that stamp attested. if there was something fishy about the stamp on a piece of metal alleging to be gold, then one had every right to suspect that there was something wrong with the piece of metal as well. a dodgy stamp was probably a sign of some kind of counterfeiting, which meant that the metal bit under consideration was either of poor quality or did not correspond to the unit of weight that the (false) stamp alleged. (in the worst case, the metal itself may not be “precious” at all—instead of gold it may just be some kind of slag.) with modern money, however, the reverse is true: any doubt about the legitimacy of the material substance can lead only to a suspicion that the symbol is fake. put simply: if a one–dollar bill does not have a watermark then it is not worth one dollar. this explains why, when a large quantity of counterfeit coins or notes is discovered, the state’s response is to compound and destroy the coins or notes and not simply to scratch off the currency signs. (on the other hand, it would have made more sense in the case of early fake coins to simply scratch off the stamp.) smith’s history of coins presented above is therefore only interesting when we consider its surprising ending. as yuran (2014, 133) observes: “the symbol is instituted to attest to its material substance but by this very attestation, it makes the material substance redundant; it renders materiality secondary in importance in comparison to the symbol. the symbol replaces in its function that which it symbolized.” in other words, the stamp to which smith refers at first attests to the material substance (“ascertain[ing] not only the fineness, but the weight of the metal,” as he puts it), but through this “attestation” something strange happens. precisely by attesting to the material substance, the stamp becomes more important than that substance, which is now relegated to secondary importance. the exact same—or at least parallel—unexpected ending occurs in the case of the musical work. at first, the score serves to assist musicians in forthcoming performances of a particular piece or else memorializes a performance that has already taken place. but at some point an inversion 85 gavin steingo occurs and performances of a piece are understood as an instantiations of that piece—or what we could now call a work. in other words, and to paraphrase yuran: the symbol (score) is instituted in order to attest to a material practice (musical performance), but by this very attestation it makes the material practice of performance redundant, it renders materiality of secondary importance in comparison to the symbol. of course, strictly speaking neither the material substance of modern coins nor the material practice of performance is redundant. the point is simply that these material “bases” attest to, or are secondary to, their “symbols.”11 returning to the history of money, we may ask: at what point did things change? at what point did the symbol stop attesting to the material substance and become primary, only to have the material substance attest to it? here, another surprising result announces itself, namely that it is theoretically impossible to discern when the shift from substance supported by symbol to symbol supported by substance took place. i quote yuran (2014, 133–34) at length: the only possible temporality of this change is of that which has already happened. indeed there can be points in time when people acknowledge the fact that a change has already taken place . . . a posterior recognition in change implies that a real change has already happened beforehand. simply put, if we accept that there is a real difference between the two forms of coin in the story, between a gold coin and fiat coin—a distinction which does not seem at all far fetched—then the real transition between them must have occurred sometime. yet it is theoretically impossible to locate this point in time. (emphasis in the original) the notion of posterior recognition—which, we will soon see, was already obliquely suggested by goehr—has tremendous explanatory power in terms of the musical work as well. in a manner structurally identical to money, it is theoretically impossible to determine when the shift from material practice (performance) supported by symbol (score) shifted to symbol (score) supported by material practice (performance). indeed, i would argue that locating this shift is not only theoretically impossible but also ontologically undecideble. in other words, it is not simply that “we” as humans, because we have insufficient reasoning abilities, are unable to determine the shift. instead, the shift itself is theoretically non–locatable because it did not ever “happen” as such. the best we can say is that the change has already taken place at some prior moment, but we cannot ever locate that moment in time. if my argument holds any water, then perhaps it is possible to at last understand the frustration over determining the emergence of the musical work, because it is theoretically impossible to discern when the musical work emerged. i will return to this theoretical dilemma later and will suggest a way 86 current musicology to move beyond the impasse. but before doing so, it is necessary to more carefully examine the musicological controversies and debates surrounding the musical work. in the following sections i summarize goehr’s position and then proceed to more carefully evaluate several prominent criticisms leveled against it. in my view, the fact that goehr’s argument has remained standing at all in the face of a kind of total onslaught implies its veracity, if only partial. on the other hand, the fact that her argument has never ceased to provoke scandal seems to imply that there is something truly troublesome, or even aporetic, in the thesis she proposed more than twenty years ago. 2. synopsis and critical analysis of the imaginary museum of musical works lydia goehr’s the imaginary museum of musical works is divided into two sections. the first section addresses strictly philosophical considerations by focusing on the work of aesthetically–oriented analytical philosophers. goehr’s main point in this first section is that all ahistorical approaches inevitably run aground because the musical work is a thoroughly historical concept.12 i will not devote any more space to the first section of her book (which in any event acts primarily as a foil to the second part) because i assume that the vast majority of readers of this journal require no convincing. that is to say, few musicologists today don’t believe that the musical work is historically contingent. if there are disagreements, these are only about the “when” of the work and sometimes also on how we should understand this quite complex concept. in the second part of her book, goehr turns to the history of the musical work. her central claim is that the work–concept became regulative around the year 1800.13 what, precisely, does this mean? one handy way to unpack the claim is to recall the title of her book: for goehr, musical works are those that belong in an “imaginary museum.”14 the term “imaginary” immediately disqualifies one common interpretation of her thinking, namely the assertion that for goehr works are equivalent to scores.15 the importance of notation and scores notwithstanding, for goehr musical works are reducible neither to their performances nor their scores (nor, in fact, to anything and everything else). indeed, musical works are “ontological mutants” which: do not exist as concrete physical objects; they do not exist as private ideas existing in the mind of a composer, a performer, or a listener; neither do they exist in the eternally existing world of ideal, uncreated forms. they are not identical, furthermore, to any one of their performances . . . neither are works identical to their scores. (goehr 2007, 2–3)16 87 gavin steingo the “object” that we call the musical work was achievable only “through projection or hypostatization.” because scores and performances are “worldly or at least transitory and concrete items” they can never fully match the status of a musical work, which in the early nineteenth century were understood as the “permanently existing creations of composers”. it is precisely for this reason that the only “museum” capable of housing musical works is an imaginary or metaphysical one (goehr 2007, 174). having said this, the score remains a crucial piece of technology in goehr’s project. scores, she says, translate the “ideal of untouchability into concrete terms” (goehr 2007, 224). in her view, they mediate the relationship between “the abstract (the works) with the concrete (the performances)” (231). furthermore, although goehr does not equate works with notation, she does notice that the emergence of the concept of the musical work was closely tied to an increasing reliance on scores. “[a]s long as the composers provided incomplete or inaccurate scores,” she writes, the idea of performance extempore could not acquire its distinct opposite, namely, the fully compliant performance of a work. such a contrast emerged fully around 1800, just at the point when notation became sufficiently well specified to enable a rigid distinction to be drawn between composing through performance and prior to performance. (188) in other words, although goehr emphasizes that works are not equivalent or reducible to scores, it is the score and not a performance that most authentically mediates the work after 1800.17 the emergence of the musical work was also closely related to a reconfiguration of the category of music itself. for this reason, goehr devotes a substantial portion of her text to the aesthetic theory of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. among the many defining characteristics of aesthetic theory, one thing stands out: the separation of art from the world of ordinary and mundane experience. in other words, a key factor of aesthetic theory is the autonomy of art. music, as is well known, came to be understood in the course of the nineteenth century as the most autonomous and perhaps most “abstract” of all the art forms, primarily by dint of its alleged non–referentiality. nonetheless, music’s autonomy was closely associated with its heteronomy: “the new romantic aesthetic allowed music to mean its purely musical self at the same time that it meant everything else” (goehr 2007, 157).18 what goehr calls the “romantic illusion” presented the possibil88 current musicology ity “of an object, a person, or an experience, to exhibit simultaneously the character of the human and the divine, of the concrete and the transcendent” (158). in the case of music, this meant that the “emancipation” from extra–musical meaning was coupled with a counter–gesture in which music came to represent transcendence and the absolute. before 1800, by contrast, music was tied to—and in large part constituted by—its extra–musical function (goehr 2007, 122). performances were judged less in terms of how well a pre–existing work was executed than “on whether an audience had been efficaciously affected in a manner appropriate to the occasion” (192). the activity of performance, tethered to a particular social or political event, was always emphasized over and above the production of a “physical construction,” namely the score (124). the social utility of performance was prized above all else, and the function of a score was mainly to assist in the execution of a successful performance. “[e]ven if musicians were beginning to see composition as an activity that took place quite independently of actual performance activity,” writes goehr, “they might still have continued to see the former as truly completed only in the latter” (198). this brief summary of goehr’s seminal text is, of course, selective. and indeed, her central claim that the work–concept became regulative around the year 1800 can only be understood comprehensibly after a careful analysis of the terms “concept” and “regulative”—i return to those terms later. on the most basic level, though, her argument about the advent of the musical work turns on the same “inversion” that i referred to above. before 1800, says goehr, performance was prioritized over inscription. after 1800, by contrast, musical performances attest to a “work” that exists over and above all possible performances. although goehr does not equate the work with the score, she does suggest that the score is the material technology that most authentically mediates the metaphysical musical work. as such, although my tentative characterization of the musical work presented in the introduction places more weight on notation than does goehr, it retains the deeply historical resonances of the imaginary museum, along with the notion that the work– concept comes—at some point in history—to dominate performance. in order to more fully elucidate the advantages and limitations of goehr’s position, and as a pathway towards an elaboration of my own main argument, in the following section i examine in some detail the criticisms leveled against the imaginary museum of musical works. one important point of contestation, to reiterate, is when the work–concept emerged. goehr’s answer—“around 1800”—has been the subject of numerous criticisms and it is to those criticisms that i now turn. 89 gavin steingo 3. conceptual criticisms of the imaginary museum of musical works goehr’s central claim that the work–concept crystallized around 1800 has been variously termed the “1800 thesis,” “the watershed thesis” (dyck 2010), and the “‘great divide’ hypothesis” (young 2005, 175). one frequent, and in some ways quite obvious, criticism of the 1800 hypothesis is that history unfolds gradually and that presenting a precise year is thus inherently reductionist. commenting on the “sharp line of distinction between the concept of music composition as a craft—or métier—before 1800, and that of musical practice seen as a transcendental fine art, after 1800,” william erauw asks “whether such sharp distinctions can be made.” for him, offering “drastic lines of division in history, i.e. dividing history into blocks, is always dubious”—so much so, he says, that “we could suspect the whole approach as being an anachronistic construction of the historian” (erauw 1998, 111) . echoing this sentiment, reinhard strohm asserts that expressions such as “for the first time” and “at this point”—which, he observes, are used frequently by goehr—rely on “a demonstration that these things had never happened before.” for strohm, such a demonstration is “manifestly impossible” because all historical change is gradual (strohm 2000, 135). locating (or claiming to locate) an exact cut–off point is thus, for him, quite illogical. goehr is not particularly threatened by this criticism. as she clearly states in the imaginary museum, “finding a ‘rough’ date is satisfactory because conceptual change, like the change in practices, has no sharply defined beginning or end” (goehr 2007, 110). in other words, she agrees with her critics that historical change is gradual. the date 1800 is for her simply a convenient marker of what she takes to be an obviously much more stretched out historical development. philip tagg (2000, 163) thus states that he is in agreement lydia goehr that it was around 1800—and, it should be added, primarily among intellectuals in german–speaking europe—that the concept of “work” (in the sense of musical end product or commodity) started to become more frequently identified with the superior aesthetic values that many keepers of the “classical” seal have attributed to a certain kind of central european instrumental music ever since. (emphasis mine) tagg fully acknowledges that, as he says, “positing a conjuncture of ideas and events . . . cannot be explained in simple terms of linear causality” (162). his marxian approach recognizes “the conflux of a multitude of 90 current musicology lengthy, sometimes contradictory historical processes in dialectical interaction that crystallise into a more easily perceptible whole at a particular historical time and place” (162–63). for tagg, none of this means that we should reject the 1800 hypothesis. on the contrary, the 1800 hypothesis simply means that around that time important changes took place. in response to strohm’s critique, goehr points out that he risks lapsing into a sorites paradox, a type of little–by–little argument. by this she means that if one year cannot be enough for historical change to occur (because change is always “gradual”) then surely two years also cannot. but if two years cannot be enough then three years is also insufficient. from there, we enter an infinite regress in which no amount of time is sufficient for historical change. thus, strohm’s argument that saying “at this point” requires a demonstration of absolute newness would lead—by virtue of the sorites paradox—to the logical conclusion “that the work–concept existed from the first day of musical practice (whenever that was)” (goehr 2000, 242). this conclusion, for anyone who believes that the work–concept is historically contingent, is patently absurd. the more reasonable position, goehr believes, is therefore to propose a “rough” date for a concept’s emergence. still, a certain skepticism lingers. why? reflecting on the imaginary museum fifteen years after its publication, goehr (2007, xxvii) writes: even though i explicitly rejected the idea that the history of the work–concept reflected a necessary, determinist, or essential development in music’s history, my thesis was interpreted not only as prioritizing the 1800 turning point to an excessive degree, but also as essentializing the concept according to this singular historical moment. her words “to an excessive degree” perhaps betray more than they intend and belie a series of equivocations that run through her work. consider, for example, her later reflection that she did not “mean (and i thought this would have been obvious) to equate 1800 with a year, a month, a day, or an hour” (xxviii). the apparent innocence of this recollection is undermined by the sentence that directly follows it: “saying this, however, i had better quickly add that neither did i think that ‘1800’ stood for all time.” in other words, 1800 does not designate a particular year, but it also does not designate “all time.” what, then, does it designate exactly? a decade? two decades? with goehr’s hastily added caveat to her “obvious” point that she did not intend to specify a particular year (or month or day or hour), the historiographical problems become clear and the critics of the “1800 hypothesis” begin to seem more reasonable. this is why, to those critics who have argued for pushing the 1800 hypothesis back in time and to those critics who have argued for pushing it forward, goehr (2007, xxxiii) can only respond: “the challenge is 91 gavin steingo well motivated in both directions.”19 the question again, is just how well motivated and just how far back or forward. the entire discussion begins to seem like a game of cat and mouse. hence, to goehr’s observation that “[o]n the whole, musicologists recommended that i adopt a greater conceptual perspectivism regarding the work–concept, less, however, to undermine my thesis than to amplify it in a constructive way” (xxx), the question becomes: how much “perspectivism” can the central claim about work–concepts include before it becomes entirely meaningless? goehr’s answer, apparently, is not that much. consider, for example, her response to elaine sisman’s quite reasonable request for more historical nuance, a request that might include something like the “opus–concept” alongside the work–concept. goehr protests that honoring this request runs the risk of “unfurl[ing] into infinite speculation.”20 “why not go further,” she asks, “and add the composition–concept, the piece–concept, the oeuvre–concept, the tune–concept, the song–concept, the riff–concept, and even the improvisation–concept?” (goehr 2007, xxxii). to this, i would respond: why not, indeed? surely, this is precisely the kind of work that musicologists should be doing?21 and surely serious studies of the song–concept, for example, would only throw more (and not less) light on the work–concept, if only by clarifying what is particular to the both? one final, related point is brought to light by goehr’s response to strohm’s admittedly brutal criticism of the imaginary museum. we have already recounted strohm’s argument about the gradualness of historical change, an argument that goehr refuted through recourse to the sorites paradox. elsewhere, she writes: it is less importantly the specific date of the concept’s emergence to which my thesis is committed than to the historical fact that the concept emerged, and with this at least strohm has no disagreement. if works existed in 1450 and were named as such, then i am wrong as matter of fact. still such an error would not undermine my claim that the work– concept should not be assumed naturalistically or essentially to exist in all music practices or whatever sort. (goehr 2007, xlviii) this is precisely the kind of claim that is likely to irk historians of music, for goehr tells us that her argument still stands even if it is off by 350 years! from a certain perspective her argument is indeed well taken: she means only that the imaginary museum was primarily targeted against those who believe that the work–concept is ahistorical and that, if strohm agrees that the work–concept is historically contingent, then in some sense there is nothing more to argue about. having said this, however, one may tolerate a difference of 50 or even 100 years—but 350? 92 current musicology surely, the dedicated historian may argue, if a scholar’s argument can be off by 350 years and still be untouched then the argument itself must be rather weak? this raises, once again, what i will call the “specter of nuance.” by this, i mean that although nuance may add to and enrich larger–scale and more general claims (such as the “1800 hypothesis”), it may also have the opposite effect, causing a “central claim” to expand so far that it ultimately collapses. from a certain perspective, the entire “intellectual history” of the work–concept may be summarized by placing scholars along a spectrum of generality (on the one hand) and nuance (on the other). goehr makes general claims that admit only a limited amount of nuance and will therefore inevitably irk those wishing for more specificity. sisman, to take an example representing the other extreme, insists on specificity, nuance, and plurality, and therefore simply cannot entertain “central claims” that are as far–reaching and generalizing as goehr’s. of course, there is no way to decide which approach is better—it’s a matter, in the end, of what kind of scholarship one values, it is a matter of disciplinarity and perhaps even of taste. if this is true, then perhaps the only way to significantly contribute to the debate is to alter its fundamental terms. allow me to emphasize that in my view changing the terms is the only way to contribute to the debate. there are certainly many ways to contribute to the history (or histories) of the musical work—for example, by doing meaningful historical and archival research, by studying the relationship between composers and performers, by looking at issues of copyright and fidelity, etc.. but none of these contributions, it seems to me, will ultimately add anything new to the theoretical debates surrounding the musical work. as a pathway towards those larger theoretical questions, i turn to what has been perhaps the most contentious question in the intellectual history of the musical work: did baroque composers compose musical works? 4. the problematic of musical works during the baroque period several scholars have argued that the work–concept existed during the baroque period, that is, fifty to one hundred and fifty years before 1800. according to james o. young, for example, goehr’s assertion that music before 1800 was constituted by its extra–musical function while music after 1800 has been defined in “aesthetic” (or absolute) terms is untenable. in making this argument, young emphasizes the issue of “attention.” presenting a very selective—and, i dare say, mildly distorted—reading of the imaginary museum, he asserts that goehr’s argument revolves around 93 gavin steingo the assumption that before “the great divide” (young’s term) “music was typically only one of several objects of attention.” other objects of attention were extra–musical and included religion, eating, and dancing. as young observes, goehr argues that after 1800 music became the “exclusive focus of aesthetic attention,” particularly in the newly invented space of the concert hall (young 2005, 175). although the general outline of young’s reading is not inaccurate per se, it is difficult to understand why he limits his discussion to the issue of attention, as though this alone can explain the complexities of goehr’s history of the musical work. in any event, having reduced goehr’s work thusly, young immediately attempts to prove that she was wrong. his argument, in essence, is that it is possible to provide counter–examples. “while evidence can be marshaled for the great divide hypothesis,” he writes, “evidence against it is also available.” he then proceeds to illustrate that even after 1800 some people continued to divide their attention between “music” and other things. furthermore, by drawing on a few examples from documentation about handel, he asserts that before 1800 people did occasionally listen “attentively” (young 2005, 177). young, in brief, offers a common rebuttal by providing counter–examples on either side of the “divide.” i leave it to scholars more qualified than myself to evaluate whether or not one can say with any certainly that handel’s audience listened attentively. (it is easy to verify his other claim: indeed, post–1800 listeners do not always listen attentively.) but i think a more important question is what we gain from a series of counter–examples, even if they are accurate and numerous. what exactly is gained by shifting the “1800 hypothesis” back by fifty years, resulting in the “1750 hypothesis”?22 a similar question could be asked of dyck (2010, 6), who rebuts the 1800 hypothesis by arguing, in part, that goehr’s claim that musical works are created only by “independent masters and creators of their art” is refuted by the “fact” that many baroque composers owned their music. to be fair, this is only one small part of dyck’s massive refutation of goehr’s work, in which he attacks the professor from all angles—philosophical, historical, cultural, etc.. but with regard to the issue of “independent masters” dyck’s only response is that 1800 is too late. to this, i would ask again what the value of such a refutation is. there are, however, other critiques of goehr that consist of more than simply providing baroque examples of things that look like works. harry white’s work stands out in this regard; i will therefore consider it carefully. at first blush, white’s critique does not seem to differ substantially from other baroque scholars, since he too hones in on one aspect of goehr’s 94 current musicology work in order to rebut it: where young focuses on attention and dyck on ownership, white emphasizes “textual integrity.” indeed, he refers to “the concept of textual integrity [that] only becomes paramount in the wake of beethoven’s achievement” as goehr’s “central claim” (white 1997, 96). (we have seen already that goehr’s central claim is much more—and perhaps also much less—than this, and that for her the musical work is not reducible to its score, even though it is closely associated with it. but let this point not detain us.) like young and dyck, white wants to argue that works existed already during the baroque period. he also—like his two peers—does this through counter–examples. but his argument is of a different order. rather than accepting goehr’s definition of the musical work and then showing that it is applicable before 1800, white (1997, 96) presents the unusual argument that goehr has paid insufficient attention to “the music itself.” “no–one can usefully deny that [j.s.] bach’s cantatas were more immediately indentured to social function than the keyboard compositions of beethoven,” he writes, “but this does not mean that wachet auf, ruft uns die stimme is less emancipated in musical terms than the ‘waldstein’ sonata. to suggest otherwise, as goehr does, is to mistake the social function of music for its meaning” (100). at first glance, white’s argument seems fairly reactionary: after all, what is music’s “meaning” outside of its “social function”? to discern musical meaning outside of social function, in other words, seems at first rather conservative and smacks of pre–new musicological ideology. but on closer inspection it is evident that white has something slightly different in mind. substituting the “work–concept” with the “authority– concept,” he refers to the “periodic censure which bach’s art induced.” that bach was the authority of his own music is borne out by the “gulf which lay between his duties as a kapellmeister–composer and the insistent originality and extremism of his music.” white writes: “bach stringently tested the norms of the authority–concept (which in leipzig derived from the canons of orthodox lutheranism) to the point where they were habitually overtaken by the autonomous signatures of his art” (103). seen this way, white’s point is not so much that we ought to understand bach’s music “in itself,” but rather that bach himself actively resisted the social pressures of his day by composing music that was more stylistically extreme than was expected of him. i have spent a substantial amount of time on white (1997, 103) because of the conclusion that he reaches: “[i]t is the work itself,” he says, “and not the presence or absence of explicit verbal recognition—which argues the existence of a transcendent concept of artistic autonomy.” in other words, unlike young and dyck who simply push the work–concept back fifty or 95 gavin steingo one hundred years, white proposes that although baroque composers such as bach wrote musical works, they themselves did not recognize their compositions as such.23 this is a heterodox argument and differs substantially from arguments by other baroque scholars. white’s assertion also raises an issue that lies at the crux of this paper: can one say that bach wrote works if he did not (and was not able) to recognize them as works? 5. on regulative concepts how, then, do we answer the question, “did bach compose musical works?” goehr’s response is actually far more radical than is usually assumed. she writes: “bach did not intend to compose musical works” (goehr 2007, 8). although not emphasized in the imaginary museum, in her new introduction to the second edition goehr foregrounds the word “intend” (xlii).24 but this does not solve any problems, for it still does not answer the following questions: did bach compose musical works? could bach have composed musical works if he did not intend to? what, precisely, does intention mean in this context? in order to understand this wrinkle—a wrinkle, i would argue, that changes everything—it is necessary to consider the notion of the regulative concept. after all, goehr is emphatic that bach’s compositions were not regulated by the work–concept. the question is only whether, if he had no work–concept, he necessarily also had no works. borrowed rather loosely from immanuel kant, goehr uses the term “regulative concept” to denote the “as if ” structure of musical works. when the regulative concept of a musical work is operative, she argues, then works are “treated as if they were givens and not ‘merely’ concepts that have artificially emerged and crystallized within practice” (goehr 2007, 104; emphasis mine). in other words, a regulative concept is a concept that functions as if it is not a concept. strohm takes issue with goehr’s appropriation of this kantian term, arguing that for kant the distinction between constitutive and regulative concepts is not amenable to historical considerations. as such, “kant would reject outright the hypothesis of a historical development from a constitutive to a regulative idea” (strohm 2000, 144). this faithful reading of kant forms the basis of strohm’s third “thesis”: philosophical concepts, and in particular the notion of a “regulative use of transcendental ideas” (kant), are not suited to make up the criteria of historical chronology. the identification itself of the musical work–concept with one of these regulative [uses of] ideas is spurious. (151) 96 current musicology in her response to strohm, goehr recalls that when writing the imaginary museum she did not intend to suggest that regulative concepts followed from constitutive concepts, nor was she particularly invested in a strict application of kant.25 her intentions, it seems, were both more modest and less rigorous: “i wanted merely to capture,” she recalls, “how, around 1800, the musical work–concept became the concept that regulated—dictated or governed— the terms of musical practice” (goehr 2000, 240). before 1800, goehr insists, music was not regulated by the work–concept. since roughly 1800, however, it has been common to speak anachronistically of pre–1800 compositions as works. it has been common, in other words, to “retroactively impose upon this music concepts developed at a later point in the history of music” (goehr 2007, 115). which returns us, finally, to the question of whether bach composed musical works. it seems to me that a latent answer is discernable in the imaginary museum, although goehr herself does not articulate that answer fully. let us follow her argument carefully. according to goehr, only after 1800 could people conceive the music that they produced (or spoke about, or thought about) in terms of works. in other words, only after 1800 did the work–concept become regulative. but this does not mean, she emphasizes, that baroque composers did not produce works. nonetheless, although she insists that it does not mean that baroque composers did not produce works, she has difficulty saying outright that baroque composers did compose works. “maybe bach composed works,” she writes, “even though he explicitly thought about music in different conceptual terms.” she continues: “that may be so, but it is not so in any straightforward sense” (goehr 2007, 115; emphasis mine). goehr then seems to pull back somewhat, asking: “can a concept have, in fact, a form of existence, namely implicit existence, over and above explicit existence?” (emphasis mine). without actually answering the question, she retreats to a much easier point: ignoring the impending logical complexities [of whether a concept can have a form of existence over and above explicit existence], i am interested above all in resisting the inclination to say that the work–concept must always have functioned in some matter. (goehr 2007, 114) certainly, but we already knew that the work–concept has not always functioned, the question now is whether before the work–concept composers were able to compose works—and this is a question that goehr seems to continually avoid. still, she returns to the question of whether baroque composers might have composed works, asking whether they may have had some kind of “implicit” understanding. her answer to this is very interesting. she says that 97 gavin steingo from an epistemological standpoint concepts become explicit first, that is, before their chronologically prior implicitness can be detected: “only with its explicit function realized can we in hindsight see the concept as functioning implicitly” (goehr 2007, 114). hence, only after the full and explicit development of the work–concept after 1800 could anyone ever say that bach implicitly composed works. in fact, she suggests that if the work–concept had never emerged at all (something entirely possible in her view) then no one would ever have been able to say that bach composed musical works in any manner at all, even implicitly. commenting on her 1992 proclamation that “bach did not intend to create musical works,” she writes: contrary to how this line has too often been read, i did not say bach did not compose musical works, only that he had not intended to compose them. i certainly did not say what i have most recently been accused of saying, that “there were no true musical works before 1800” (whatever this sentence actually means). the word “intend” was to serve as a placeholder for the idea that when bach was composing his extraordinarily great music, he was able to think of its production, performance, and reception in terms different from those associated with work–production. (goehr 2007, xlii) notice that goehr forecloses the question of whether bach composed musical works—when it comes to the question of whether there were or were not musical works before 1800 she appends the parenthetical clause “whatever this sentence actually means.” a similar sentence appears, in fact, in the imaginary museum, where she writes: “prior to its explicit emergence, there is no evidence to suggest that persons were really (whatever that means) thinking about something in conceptual terms distinct from those indicated by their expressed thought and behavior” (goehr 2007, 114; emphasis in the original). in brief, the question of whether people were really thinking in terms of musical works (although they were not doing so explicitly) is considered meaningless. in her later reflections, goehr writes that the question of whether or not bach composed works has everything to do with the relationship between concepts and objects. “i now think,” she writes, the problems in shifting between these two ways of talking are probably insurmountable, and therefore irreconcilable. in the imaginary museum, i kept my claims as best i could at the level of concepts, precisely because this left open the decision as to whether with or without the work–concept there either are or aren’t works. (goehr 2007, xliii)26 98 current musicology here, goehr states explicitly that the question of whether bach composed musical works is aporetic. we can speak only of the musical work as a concept, and as a concept the musical work (that is, the “work–concept”) emerged after 1800. as an object, we can say nothing whatsoever about the musical work. 6. recapitulation and elaboration of the main argument in the final analysis, goehr’s writings take us very far but leave us with two fairly substantial “problems.” first, they tell us little about how we might be able to think about works before the work–concept. recall that for goehr only after the full and explicit development of the work–concept after 1800 could anyone ever say that bach implicitly composed works. but what kinds of music are implicitly works? what kinds of music have the “potential” to become works? is bach’s music any more implicitly work–like than anything else? it seems that goehr forecloses any discussion on this topic because, as she says, she does not deal with objects—she deals only with concepts (and bach had no work–concept).27 the second “problem” that needs to be addressed is that goehr presumes a particular form of retroactive—or even “teleological”—historiography in her work. because teleological historiography is completely anathema to the vast majority of historical musicologists, few who have responded to the imaginary museum have said anything about this issue at all.28 it seems to me, however, that goehr’s argument can only be fully understood by radicalizing teleogical history, and not by shying away from it. to do this requires a complete re–thinking of how history has been practiced by music historians in the past thirty or so years and it requires, moreover, resuscitating teleological historiography without falling into the many traps that haunt that mode of understanding history. so, let us leave aside the extant debates surrounding the musical work for a moment and look elsewhere. in what follows, i radicalize and sharpen the notion of retroactive history by turning back to the relationship between the history of the musical work and a certain history of economics, outlined in the introduction to this essay. to recall my earlier argument: i suggested that the advent of the musical work marks the point at which the relationship between performance and score is inverted. but as yuran observes, it is impossible to locate this point. although there may “be points in time when people acknowledge…that a change has already taken place,” this “posterior recognition implies that a real change has already” taken place. in brief, “the only possible temporality of this change is of that which has already happened” (yuran 2014, 133–34; emphasis in the original). 99 gavin steingo how, then, might one theorize this peculiar temporality? one answer to the enigmatic question about when the shift from performance (supported by a score) to score (supported by performance) took place is to say that it had “been so all along”: from the moment of inscription, that inscription had already replaced performance.29 but this argument is false based on historical evidence, since people initially acted as if the score supported a more fundamental performance.30 this leads us to ask when the real shift occurred? yuran offers us an ingenious solution to the riddle. “[t]he real change,” he says, “is nothing but the posterior recognition that the change had already occurred” (emphasis mine). for this paradoxical idea to be meaningful it is necessary to understand recognition as itself eminently historical. as yuran says: “recognition itself is viewed not only as a recognition of a historical fact (that money is not x but y) but is viewed as a historical event” (2014, 134). the consequence of this idea is that recognition actually changes the status of the thing that it recognizes (money, music). in the first instance, “material” money (that is, money wherein the material substance is supported by a symbol) was constituted through misrecognition: “it was thought to be material but it was even then already symbolic. therefore when the posterior recognition complements this missing knowledge, money necessarily changes: it can no longer depend on this specific non–knowledge” (yuran 2009, 145). the same can be said of musical works. even when, initially and at the earliest stages of musical notation, scores supported performances it would have been possible to say—although it was not said—that performances supported scores, or that performances were instantiations of works. the “real” changes takes place, not when performances “actually” begin to support works (because, in a sense, this has always already happened since the moment of inscription) but with the recognition that at some prior time performances had begun supporting works. it therefore seems that a historical investigation of musical works might benefit from reckoning with the notion of posterior recognition, that is to say, of hindsight. historical knowledge is not reducible to a belated perspective on a stable object. rather, historical knowledge—that is to say, that mode of thought defined by hindsight—is actually constitutive of historical objects. this approach goes quite far towards “solving” some of the problems of the history of the musical work. it illustrates, for example, why it is so difficult to determine precisely when the musical work emerged. furthermore, it sheds light on some of the more opaque aspects of goehr’s argument. but advocating a retroactive history based on hindsight also harbors certain dangers. it is therefore necessary to more carefully examine what yuran (2014, 206) terms the “ontological status of the advantage of hindsight.” 100 current musicology 7. hindsight, teleology, and historiography as yuran suggests, hindsight implies the affirmation of a certain form of teleology.31 but surely, the reader may protest, nothing could be worse? in fact, what united so–called new musicologists of many stripes was a total disdain for teleological history, to the extent that the “messy” contingency of history has become something of a truism in music studies for the past two or more decades. certainly, there were many good reasons for launching an assault on teleological historiography, not least of which are its often pernicious, eurocentric, and “phallogocentric” connotations. after all, what else is teleology than the (false) idea of great men who progress steadily in history towards enlightenment and control over other people and over the entire world itself? with the advent of the new musicology, then, teleological historiography was seemingly banished forever. already in the 1980s, joseph kerman (1985, 106) spoke derisively about the “heretofore accepted expectation by the western historical consciousness of stylistic growth, development, progress, and teleology.” and in the years and decades that followed musicologists, music theorists, and ethnomusicologists all had something to say about teleology.32 although these pointed responses reflected a larger intellectual and cultural shift and were not unique to music studies, musicologists often pointed to homology between teleological historiography and one of western music’s sacred cows: tonality. with characteristic insight and virtuosity, susan mcclary famously illustrated in numerous texts that teleology haunts not only historical discourse about music but also the very experience of western music itself. so, for example, in her analysis of the first movement of j.s. bach’s brandenberg concerto no. 5, she begins by drawing our attention to the piece’s “complex harmonic syntax that continually implies what the next cadence in the background ought to be—while deferring the actual arrival until the composer sees fit to produce it.” she then writes that “[t]his process is intensely teleological in that it draws its power from its ability to make the listener desire and finally experience the achievement—usually after much postponed gratification—of predetermined goals” (emphasis mine). this musical logic, she suggests, expresses the “social values” of the middle–class, namely “beliefs in progress, in expansion, in the ability to attain ultimate goals through rational striving, in the ingenuity of the individual strategist operating both within and in defiance of the norm” (mcclary 1987, 22). 101 gavin steingo musicologists have thus critiqued “teleological” processes both within music and in histories and contexts external to it. and of course, if we take teleology (only) to mean beliefs in progress, expansion, rational attainment of goals, and individual strategies, then certainly there is reason for concern. yuran likewise fully acknowledges the problems with (certain kinds of) teleology, observing for example that teleology “is unacceptable today, among other reasons, because of the religious overtones associated with it.”33 furthermore, he says, teleology often “hints at an all–knowing observer of history or at an a–historical entity holding the telos of history” (yuran 2014, 207).34 nonetheless, it is also possible to discern certain advantages to a teleological view of history—at least if one radically transforms how this teleology functions. for one thing, says yuran (2009, 112), “eradicating any effect of retroactivity eliminates the uniqueness of historical knowledge.”35 elsewhere, he continues: limiting oneself to recording events as they were “contemporaneously perceived” amounts to effacing the specific historicity of the past. it renders the “pastness” of the past, its position in time, a coincidental, external fact. it makes the past a sort of a present that only coincidentally is positioned in another time. (yuran 2014, 205)36 yuran then suggests that hindsight, by contrast, is perhaps what constitutes historical knowledge qua historical knowledge, or to put things another way, what makes historical knowledge a unique form of knowledge unlike any other. following this suggestion, he can only lament that “[t]he price for this theoretical achievement is a certain necessary element of teleological form” (yuran 2009, 112). in other words, to think history qua history one must admit a certain strain of teleology. of course, there are other ways to write history that avoid presenting “the past as a sort of a present that only coincidentally is positioned in another time.” gary tomlinson’s foucauldian histories of renaissance music (1993) and of opera over the past few centuries (1999) are exemplary in this regard. tomlinson argues, for example, that between the renaissance era and the “classical” age there was a shift in the conditions of possibility for knowledge that constrained and enabled different forms of expressivity, musical practice, and thought. in this foucauldian view, history is marked by radical ruptures to the extent that we cannot ever fully know, for example, what the relationship between music and magic meant to renaissance authors and composers.37 thus, although i propose a specific form of teleology in this article, i do not mean to suggest that this is the only historiographical model available. 102 current musicology other recent musicological interventions arguably avoid the trap that yuran finds in non–teleological histories, while simultaneously offering other insights. of particular interest are interventions that challenge excessively anthropocentric historiography. it may be worthwhile, here, to clearly articulate how yuran’s historical materialist position differs from an approach such as actor–network theory. a good place to start is benjamin piekut’s (2014, 19) excellent article, “actor–networks in music history: clarifications and critiques,” which follows bruno latour’s call for a “renewed empiricism that does not merely report facts based on evidence, but instead accounts for the multifarious labourers (human and not) that make something true but open to revision.” from the vantage point of a renewed empiricism, privileging the work–concept in histories of classical and romantic music is problematic on both theoretical and political grounds. as piekut suggests, “those who take [the] work concept for granted, simply ignore the many historical, social, and material mediations that occur whenever music is performed” (18–19). piekut (2014, 18) argues that the work–concept “denies music’s material and social forms” and that it does not “constitute an ontology.” the work–concept, he says, is just that—a “concept that emerges historically and that eventually regulates musical practice and discourse” (ibid.; emphasis in the original). thus, one aim of historiography is “adding back” overlooked mediators into historical accounts (19; emphasis mine; see also piekut 2011). in the case of the musical work, this might mean looking beyond works and including discussions of performers, concert spaces, and instruments.38 while piekut’s historiographical model offers an important alternative, it is useful to recall that goehr had already suggested a different way to understand the word “concept.” for goehr, concepts are not “merely” human ideas. when the work–concept became operative around 1800, she argues, musical works were “treated as if they were givens and not ‘merely’ concepts that have artificially emerged and crystallized within practice” (goehr 2007, 104). goehr’s argument once again directly parallels yuran’s analysis of money. for yuran, it is too simple to say that money has value only because people believe that it does. money functions rather as disavowal: even though individuals know that money is just a useless piece of paper, they act as if it has value. but yuran also goes further, drawing out the ontological implications of this “as if ” structure. based on the observation that money functions as money whether you—as an individual—believe in its value or not, he suggests that money is a concept that “confronts 103 gavin steingo the subject in the shape of [an] external object” (yuran 2014, 56; emphasis mine). money is therefore a peculiar or even uncanny type of concept: it is an objective concept, or what sohn–rethel (1978) would call a “real abstraction.” as a historical materialist, then, yuran is not interested in “adding back” overlooked actors into an account of economic history. instead, he focuses his attention on the manner by which social reality assumes the form of an external object.39 to summarize: for the historical materialist, a “historical object” is not an “object from the past.” rather, a historical object is an object penetrated and shaped by history.40 my aim is not to advocate historical materialism over actor–network theory. nor do i believe that yuran’s analysis obviates the need for alternative historiographical models. one might easily point, in fact, to certain limitations of historical materialism—at least as it is theorized by late twentieth–century lacanian marxists such as yuran. there is something troubling, for example, about the conflation of social reality with reality all told. furthermore, it would be difficult to see how a rigidly historical materialist position would adequately deal with certain practices of non–western sound production, such as those of certain amerindian groups who subscribe to a multinaturalist ontology (ochoa gautier 2014). nonetheless, the mode of historical investigation that yuran develops remains useful for a historical analysis of the musical work, in part because this construct is deeply embedded within western modernity. as this paper has shown, debates regarding the history of the musical work have long been stuck in a cul–de–sac. if nothing else, yuran’s work provides us with one possible way out. 8. solving the riddle of the musical work—in hindsight i conclude by returning to lydia goehr’s the imaginary museum of musical works and by considering what is perhaps the most complex (and polemical) passage in that book: now we can make sense of the basic argument lying behind my central claim that prior to 1800 (or thereabouts), musicians did not function under the regulation of the work–concept. to be sure, they functioned with concepts of opera, cantata, sonata, and symphony, but that does not mean they were producing works. it was only later when the production of music began to be conceived along work–based principles that early operas, cantatas, symphonies, and sonatas acquired their status as different kinds of musical work. and this is why we can meaningfully say, nowadays, that bach composed musical works. (goehr 2007, 115) 104 current musicology this statement has usually been understood to mean that nowadays bach’s compositions may be considered works for us. or, stated another way, that today we “conceptualize” bach’s compositions as works—performing them at concerts as works, analyzing them as works, etc.—even though during bach’s time people did not conceive them as such. indeed, this is perhaps what goehr had in mind. but there is also a way to radicalize her statement that “we can meaningfully say, nowadays, that bach composed musical works.” i propose that we understand this statement to mean that even though bach did not compose musical works in his own time, today we can say retroactively that bach did compose musical works. note well: the point is not—or at least, not only—that in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries we can treat bach’s “pieces” as works, for example, by performing them outside of a religious context and standardizing previously improvisatory parts and sections. (after all, it would be possible to do this with any music at all. for example, one could turn bebop recordings into musical works by standardizing them, transcribing them, and canonizing them.) the point is rather that today we can say that bach composed musical works in his own time: although in his own time bach did not compose musical works, today we can say (or after 1800 people have been able to say) that bach did compose musical works in his own time. in this view, history itself has changed—in hindsight, we determine something about a historical moment that did not “exist” at that moment. it is possible to make a similar argument by pointing to goehr’s distinction between emergence and origination. her claim has always been “that the work–concept emerged with its full regulative force around 1800” and she has always “avoid[ed] the assumption that the concept originated then.” her claim allows for the possibility that the origin of the work–concept can be found in “periods long before” 1800, but it also emphasizes that those origins can only be identified after the full development of the concept (goehr 2000, 238). this claim—which is already somewhat heterodox— receives its full force when we acknowledge that the work–concept was not an inevitable development of history and that it may, under different conditions, never have emerged at all.41 if this is so, then the full development of the work–concept does not only allow for the identification of its origins in times prior to 1800; in a sense, the development of the work–concept actually creates its origins. certainly, the mode of historiography i have proposed in this paper does not solve everything. it does not, for example, help us to understand pre–1800 music “on its own (contemporary) terms.” but neither does it foreclose any discussion of pre–1800 music in the way that goehr pre105 gavin steingo scribes. instead, it provides an unequivocal answer to the question of whether bach composed musical works: he did. but bach only composed musical works “because” of a regulative work–concept that fully developed after bach’s own death. bach, of course, also composed cantatas, oratorios, and concerti. today, we can say that bach composed works as well. notes 1. i would like to thank roger grant, david gutkin, and emily zazulia for feedback and conversations about earlier drafts of this article. many thanks also to thomas fogg and to an anonymous reader for helpful comments. 2. goehr’s the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music was first published in 1992 by oxford university press. (in the uk, the book was printed by clarendon, an imprint of oxford university press.) as richard taruskin (2007, v) points out in his forward to the 2007 revised edition, judging by the high price of the first edition “oxford university press was evidently counting on selling out a tiny press run to libraries.” nonetheless, a paperback edition followed in 1994 and in 2007 oxford issued a revised edition including the forward by taruskin just mentioned as well as a lengthy new introductory essay by goehr titled “his master’s choice.” i will hereafter refer to the imaginary museum of musical works simply as the imaginary museum. all references, unless otherwise stated, are to the 2007 edition. in addition to being the subject of numerous book reviews and articles (many of these will be referenced below), the imaginary museum was the theme of an important symposium held at the university of liverpool in 1998. proceedings from the symposium were later published as the musical work: reality or invention?, and edited by michael talbot (2000). this collection contains numerous responses to goehr’s the imaginary museum and includes an important debate between reinhard strohm and lydia goehr. 3. texts that explicitly argue for the emergence of the work–concept during the baroque include white 1997; erauw 1998; and young 2005. german scholars have long located the advent of the work–concept in nicolai listenius’s (1549) musica: ab authore denuo recognita multisque novis regulis et exemplis adaucta. see, for example, wiora 1983 and seidel 1987. (for goehr’s discussion of listenius in the imaginary museum, see 115–19.) probably the most sustained recent text to argue for listenius as the key developer of the work–concept is perkins 2003. 4. here, i am only referring to those who locate the advent of the work–concept at the very beginning of music writing in the west. see, for example, perkins 2003. 5. i return to the debate surrounding bach at great length later in this paper and therefore will refrain from citing the various relevant sources here. 6. that this is the case largely due to the labors of lydia goehr. 7. at this point in the paper (since the main terms of debate have not yet been fully explicated), i use the terms “work” and “work–concept” somewhat loosely. as i show later, however, the conceptualization of the musical work was a key moment in its history. 8. it would be entirely possible, on the other hand, to draw more concrete connections. richard middleton (2000, 84) writes, for example: “it can hardly be accidental that the rise of the ‘work’ parallels and intermeshes with that of the ‘commodity,’ nor that the history of that sort of ‘individuality’ necessary to the former coincides with that of capitalism, whose success was powered, as the work of weber and tawney gives us good reason to believe, 106 current musicology by exactly the same species of property–conscious individualism. fetishism of the work is not too far away from the fetishism of the commodity to which marx drew attention, both in its characteristic psychology and in its social basis in the effacement of collective labour. goehr attributes the success of work thinking to ‘conceptual imperialism,’ but it becomes easier to understand the political power that concepts can undoubtedly possess if we grasp the material forces in which they are rooted and which they help to sustain.” for important examination of the relationship between the musical work and the commodity form, see also adorno 1997. as an aside, note that jacques attali (1986) points to inversions similar to the ones i have mentioned here in his famous book, noise: the political economy of music. see, for example, his observation that although recording was first “produced as a way of preserving its trace, it instead replaced it as the driving force of the economy of music” (85). 9. the quote from smith can be found in yuran 2014, 132. the following argument draws heavily on yuran’s work. 10. fiat money refers to money declared as legitimate by a formal institution, usually a state. 11. i hasten to reiterate that i am not attempting to valorize or celebrate this inversion. furthermore, i am fully aware that many musicians and musicologists alike would balk at the idea that performance is secondary to a score or work. indeed, we are currently witnessing a political, aesthetic, an ontological move away from the work–concept, a move spurred by increased dialogue with popular and non–western musics. having said this, i believe it difficult to deny the hegemonic view, at least within “classical” music, that works are prioritized over performances. 12. i do not mean to suggest that all “philosophical” ruminations of the musical work are useless or without merit. in fact, i believe that we need in a way to revive a more philosophical approach if the discourse is to move forward. furthermore, it would be naïve to think that purely philosophical approaches to musical work are a thing of the past. on the contrary, such approaches are still frequently published in philosophy journals. the divide, then, is disciplinary. and because goehr works closely in both philosophical and musicological communities she is forced to confront critics from both sides of the divide constantly. 13. see especially chapter 4, “the central claim.” 14. goehr borrows this term loosely from andré malraux’s (1978) “museum without walls.” see goehr 2007, 173. 15. perkins (2003, 16) seems to suggest as much: “and although it may be stating the obvious, i would also suggest that the emergence of the work–concept was intimately linked from the outset with the development of a uniquely european historical phenomenon: an increasing reliance on musical notation for the study and performance of music.” perkins seems to equate the existence of the musical work with music’s being “fixed.” in making this argument, he draws on sean gallagher’s (2000) account of music’s becoming a “textually stable object” (as cited in perkins 2003, 27–28). similarly, talbot (2000, 6) seems to agree that for music after 1800 “the work is its score tout court.” by contrast, wegman (1996, 433) states succinctly about the late eighteenth century: “writing, as such, was not a defining criterion in this aesthetic: the latter centered on the composer’s ‘idea,’ without which a counterpoint exercise, despite being written, could not aspire to the cultural status that composition then enjoyed.” 16. goehr borrows the term “ontological mutants” from tormey (1974, 207). 107 gavin steingo 17. the relationship between works, scores, and performances is clearly extremely complex. here, it may be useful to add one additional remark, namely that scores are not merely “hypostasized” works but are in fact necessary for the very existence of works. why is this the case? it is so because even though musical works may be meaningfully understood as the “permanently existing creations of composers” that are irreducible to scores and performances, they nonetheless require a score, or a performance, or some other material supplement in order to continue existing. for example, although beethoven’s fifth symphony (to use goehr’s favorite example) is not reducible to, or identical with, any possible score or performance, it would be difficult to say that this work still exists if every material trace of its existence is demolished. by “every material trace,” i include not only scores and performances but also recordings and even the minds and bodies of those who remember the piece enough to reconstruct it in the event that all scores somehow disappear. my point, in short, is that although a musical work is not reducible to any or all of its material supplements, each work requires the existence of at least one material supplement to continue existing. this means that the “imaginary” museum of musical works—although imaginary—cannot only be imaginary. or, to state things another way, although the works themselves are “imaginary” they require material supplements that are not. 18. this central ambiguity of aesthetic theory has more recently been explored by jacques rancière (e.g. 2004, 2009). see also moreno and steingo 2012. 19. the full text reads: “several critics have argued that something more or less like the work–concept was present not only around 1800 but also around 1700—or is it 1600, 1500, 1400, or 1300? others, looking in the opposite direction, have said that if we take the standardization of the work–concept seriously into account, then instead of focusing on 1800 one ought to focus on 1900 with the onset, say, of ‘high fidelity’ recording. the challenge is well motivated in both directions” (goehr 2007, xxxiii). 20. here, goehr is responding to a public discussion between sisman and george lewis. shortly after the appearance of the revised edition of the imaginary museum of musical works, sisman published a fuller critique of goehr’s work, a critique that presumably resembles her earlier remarks from the conversation with lewis. see sisman 2008, 79–107. for sisman’s critique of goehr, see especially 80–81. “that goehr’s book has had such wide effect,” writes sisman, “is based partly on the clarity of its ‘central claim’ and the memorable date 1800, partly on the fact that the combination of romantic music aesthetics and the works of beethoven did wreak a substantial change of some kind, and partly on the easy critique it allows of the european classical canon (its reification, its hegemony, it eliteness, its composer–centeredness, its claims to autonomy, its museum–like concert halls, its text–based inflexibility, its masterpiece worship)” (81n4). according to sisman, the imaginary museum is “based on a problematic understanding of the eighteenth century and a backdating of the idea of werktreue . . .” sisman argues that goehr’s “misreading of the evidence conflates and obscures publishing practice, composer intention, ontological status, performance traditions, and reception” (81). 21. rob wegman’s (1996) study of a composer–centered musical concept in the renaissance is exemplary in this regard. focusing on the opposition between improvisation and composition, wegman tells us even in the renaissance period “the composer is seen to exercise authorial control over his work—evidently a projection of the humanist ideals of textual integrity, faithfulness to the original, and the related concern to remove nonauthorial ‘corruptions’” (468). around 1500, the definition of the composer becomes more clearly defined, and with it the distinction between the “composition as object” and improvisatory practice (477). in a footnote, wegman seems to suggest that something re108 current musicology sembling the work–concept (as described by goehr) was present in the sixteenth century. about the fifteenth century, he says only that “concept of the musical work is much more problematic” (433n69). 22. note well: i am not saying that there is no value in revising the date of the work–concept. indeed, there may be major musicological implications in doing this. furthermore, precision is inherently valuable to any historian. my concern is only that offering up counter–examples (especially in the region of fifty years) to what may otherwise be a major historical statement is perhaps not very productive. 23. dyck (2010) actually also addresses the issue of recognition. i leave his argument aside in this article, but direct the reader to 62–76 of his essay. 24. i return to the key sentence in question later in this section: “contrary to how this line has too often been read, i did not say bach did not compose musical works, only that he had not intended to compose them” (goehr 2007, xlii). 25. goehr (2000, 240) includes the following parenthetical remark: “(i was influenced, rather, by rawls’ adaptation of kant).” in the imaginary museum, she writes in a footnote: “i have benefited from j. rawls ‘two concepts of rules,’ philosophical review, 64 (1955), 3–32, and tormey’s ‘indeterminacy and identity in art,’ 210” (goehr 2007, 102n22). it is interesting to note that in his philosophical review article, rawls (1955) mentions neither kant nor regulative concepts. in fact, his later work seems far more relevant. for example, he writes in a theory of justice: “now let us say that a society is well–ordered when it is not only designed to advance the good for its members but when it is also effectively regulated by a public conception of justice” (1971, 4–5; emphasis mine). for rawls, the principles of justice “regulate the choice of a political constitution and the main elements of the economic and social system” (7). later in the same book he writes: “in justice as fairness the original position of equality corresponds to the state of nature in the traditional theory of the social contract. this original position is not, of course, thought of as an actual historical state of affairs, much less as a primitive condition of culture. it is understood as a purely hypothetical situation characterized so as to lead to a certain conception of justice” (12). to this passage, he appends a footnote, which reads: “kant is clear that the original agreement is hypothetical” (12n5). 26. the basics of this decision were already outlined in the first edition of the imaginary museum. there, she states that her historical approach “does not obviate the need for ontology.” on the contrary, the importance of ontology remains but is now “reconceived to become inextricably tied to history.” what she sought first and foremost was the compatibility of historical and ontological claims, and she adjusted her “methodological approach” accordingly. in executing this approach, she writes, “[t]he major methodological transition is a move away from asking what kind of object a musical work is, to asking what kind of concept the work–concept is.” see goehr (2007, 89–90). in “on the problems of dating,” she recalled that “my ontology, admittedly, moved from the domain of objects to that of concepts, from the world of objects to conceptual schemes; but this was by no means an unfamiliar or particularly radical move in philosophical method” (goehr 2000, 236). 27. the impossibility of saying anything at all about what might implicitly be a “work” is evident from a statement in the imaginary museum, where goehr writes that a “piece of pottery or pile of bricks” can potentially be “transfigured into a work of art through the importation of relevant concepts.” just as this transfiguration might take place, she says, so too since around 1800 one can speak of early music pieces as works by retroactively imposing the work–concept: “implicit existence has become here essentially a 109 gavin steingo matter of retroactive attribution” (goehr 2007, 115). but if this is so—if a pile of bricks can retroactively become a piece of art—then surely anything can become a piece of art, just as any sequence of sounds can become a work? this, in fact, seems to be goehr’s point precisely. and again, it says nothing at all about bach’s own music during his time: this, to take a foucauldian view, would be to pass beyond the threshold of the knowable. with this logic, anything that falls under the work–concept at any time in history can retroactively be said to have implicitly been a work. thus, for example, if a free jazz performance is later transcribed and performed note–for–note under the logic of the work–concept, then the free jazz performance was implicitly a work. it seems to me that this particular notion is blunt and requires more attention. 28. the only exception that i know of is richard middleton (2000, 86), who has suggested (following richard williams) that by “by rewriting miles davis and bob marley in the light of later musical developments,” the bass player and producer bill laswell “reveal[ed] what they were ‘really’ (that is, latently) about . . .” “by turning the texture inside out,” suggests middleton, “laswell has in one sense certainly discovered elements that were embryonically present and put them in the centre . . .” (68). 29. for a parallel argument about money, see yuran 2014, 38. 30. yuran writes that “[t]he claim that the transition occurs at the very beginning solves” the impossibility of locating the exact moment of transition at some later date. “but,” he says, “it is important to note that it solves a fundamental enigma of the story not in a technical manner, by showing a mechanism that allows the transition from matter to symbol. rather, it solves it by transforming these basic elements of the story, by forcing us to rethink the categories of ‘material’ and ‘symbolic’ that we use in telling the story, and so in this respect constitute it . . . to put it in the simplest terms it is no longer a story of transition from material money to symbolic money. rather, the real transition is from symbolic matter to material symbol: from a matter that obscures its own symbolic function to a symbol that obscures its own materiality” (yuran 2009, 146; emphasis in the original). 31. see especially chapters 3 and 4 in yuran 2014. 32. for an excellent critique from the perspective of music theory, see christensen 1993. 33. goehr also recognizes that retroactive histories harbor a certain danger. referring to the difference between emergence and origin, goehr writes that, “strohm does not acknowledge this separation.” and although goehr herself insists on the distinction, she nonetheless acknowledges that strohm is “[p]erhaps . . . right not to, given the potentially dangerous consequence he sees. the trouble with engaging in retroactive history—looking backward for origins of a fully developed concept—is that is encourages the tendency to read ideological and aesthetic baggage backward as well. what ‘backward’–looking historians tend to do is to read past history as if it is rationally or naturally developing into the state from which they begin their inquiry” (2007, 238). of course, goehr (like yuran) still does advocate a particular kind of retroactive (or what i would call “teleological”) view of history, despite noticing its potential problems. 34. as a student of slavoj žižek, yuran makes use of the notion that history is constituted not by omniscience (all–knowing) but rather by non–knowledge. in his seminal text, the sublime object of ideology (a book that yuran has translated into hebrew), žižek (1989, 21) addresses this question in a discussion of ideology: “ideology is not simply a ‘false consciousness,’ an illusory representation of reality, it is rather this reality itself which is already to be conceived as ‘ideological’—‘ideological’ is a social reality 110 current musicology whose very existence implies the nonknowledge of its participants as to its essence— that is, the social effectivity, the very reproduction of which implies that the individuals ‘do not know what they are doing.’ ‘ideology’ is not the ‘false consciousness’ of a (social) being but this being itself in so far as it is supported by ‘false consciousness’.” see also yuran (2009, 114). 35. yuran’s ideas are based, in part, on gordon graham’s attempt to encourage historians to take the philosophy of history more seriously. graham writes that “historians may, if they choose, restrict themselves to recording how events were contemporaneously perceived, but . . . a preference for doing so does not show that there is anything illegitimate about constructing a narrative which makes use of historical perspective and the benefits of hindsight. however, such a perspective will commonly employ ideas of success and failure, advance and decline, and these are concepts which frequently require philosophical analysis and conceptual imagination.” see graham 1997, as quoted in yuran 2009, 111–12. see also yuran 2014, 204–205, for a reworking of his earlier ideas. 36. “in this case,” he continues, “historical knowledge in itself has no uniqueness in relation with other disciplines of knowledge of man—it is simply a sociology, anthropology, or economics of the past” (yuran 2014, 205). 37. this point notwithstanding, tomlinson’s approach is more flexible than foucault’s. see his critiques of foucauldian archaeology (tomlinson 1993, xi, 35–43, 57–58). 38. as another example, piekut (2014) considers the case of the musical circle that emerged around karl franz brendel in the mid–nineteenth century. a full account, says piekut, may include a reader of the neue zeitschrift für muzik, but also “a cup of coffee, a café, and a text” (6). for piekut, a coffee cup and a café are not essences, nor are they vibrant materialities whose morphogenetic properties act on the world. instead, the various actors in his hypothetical account (reader, cup, café, text) constitute a reality when they enter into a network. reality, from an actor–network theory perspective, is constituted through multiple associations between an ultimately unknown set of actors: “being means ‘being related’ and ‘being in the world’” (10). 39. in a similar vein, as the work–concept took on a regulative function during the course of the nineteenth century, the “concept” of the work took on the form of musical works themselves—beethoven symphonies, wagner operas, and so on. in this way, the work–concept was treated as if it was not a concept at all. 40. for historical materialists like yuran and goehr, social reality is materialized within particular objects. hence, historical materialism does not seek the mysteriousness of history in the places where latour looks for it. here is a typical list of “added back” actors for latour (1988, 198), “the tree that springs up again, the locusts that devour the crops, the cancer that beats others at its own game, the mullahs who dissolve the persian empire, the zionists who loosen the hold of the mullahs, the concrete in the power station that cracks, the acrylic blues that consume other pigments, and the lion that does not follow the predictions of the oracle.” (this “litany” is famously quoted in bogost 2012, 39.) historical materialism, by contrast, seeks the mystery of the social inside the object. as yuran (2014, 64–65) says, a thing “assumes a social role precisely insofar as there is a mystery in it that marks that aspect of the social that is not reducible to the perception of individual subjects. it assumes an irreducibly social and historical role precisely to the extent that it is uncanny, that there is something in it that transcends our knowledge of it.” 41. this implies that “teleological history” means only that historical inquiry can benefit from hindsight and not that history is predetermined. 111 gavin steingo references adorno, theodor w. 1997. aesthetic theory. translated by robert hullot kentor. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music. translated by brian massumi. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. bogost, ian. 2012. alien phenomenology. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. christensen, thomas. 1993. “music theory and its histories.” in music theory and the exploration of the past, edited by christopher hatch and david w. bernstein, 9–39. chicago: university of chicago press. dyck, john. 2010. “did bach compose musical works? an evaluation of goehr’s watershed thesis.” master’s thesis, university of manitoba. erauw, william. 1998. “canon formation: some more reflections on lydia goehr’s imaginary museum of musical works.” acta musicologica 70: 109–15. gallagher, sean. “doublets, multiforms, and the work–concept in fifteenth century song repertories.” paper presented at the american musicological society conference, toronto, 2000. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. oxford: clarendon press. . 2000. “‘on the problems of dating’ or ‘looking backward and forward with strohm’.” in the musical work: reality or invention?, edited by michael talbot, 231– 46. liverpool: liverpool university press. . 2007. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. 2nd ed. oxford: oxford university press. graham, gordon. 1997. the shape of the past: a philosophical approach to history. oxford: oxford university press. kerman, joseph. 1985. contemplating music. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. latour, bruno. 1988. the pasteurization of france. translated by alan sheridan and john law. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. malraux, andré. 1978. “museum without walls.” in the voices of silence. translated by stuart gilbert. princeton, nj: princeton university press. mcclary, susan. 1987. “the blasphemy of talking politics during bach year.” in music and society: the politics of composition, performance, and reception, edited by richard leppert and susan mcclary, 13–62. cambridge: cambridge university press. middleton, richard. 2000. “work–in–(g) practice: configuration of the popular music intertext.” in the musical work: reality or invention?, edited by michael talbot, 59– 87. liverpool: liverpool university press. moreno, jairo, and gavin steingo. 2012. “rancière’s equal music.” contemporary music review 31 (5–6): 487–505. special issue on “music and philosophy,” edited by martin scherzinger. ochoa gautier, ana maría. 2014. aurality: listening and knowledge in nineteenth– century colombia. durham, nc: duke university press. perkins, leeman. 2003. “concerning the ontological status of the notated musical work in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” current musicology 75: 15–49. piekut, benjamin. 2011. experimentalism otherwise: the new york avant–garde and its limits. berkeley: university of california press. . 2014. “actor–networks in music history: clarifications and critiques.” twentieth century music 11 (2): 191–215. rancière, jacques. 2004. the politics of aesthetics: the distribution of the sensible. translated by gabriel rockhill. london: continuum. 112 current musicology . 2009. aesthetics and its discontents. translated by steven corcoran. london: polity press. rawls, john. 1955. “two concepts of rules.” philosophical review 64: 3–32. . 1971. theory of justice. cambridge, ma: belknap press. seidel, wilhelm. 1987. werk und werkbegriff in der musikgeschichte. darmstadt: wissenschaftliche buchgesellschaft. sisman, elaine. 2008. “six of one: the opus concept in the eighteenth century.” in the century of bach and mozart: perspectives on historiography, composition, theory and performance, edited by thomas forest kelly and sean gallagher, 79–107. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. smith, adam. 1904. an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. london: methuen and co. sohn–rethel, alfred. 1978. intellectual and manual labor: a critique of epistemology. translated by martin sohn–rethel. london: macmillan. strohm, reinhard. 2000. “looking back at ourselves: the problem with the musical work concept.” in the musical work: reality or invention?, edited by michael talbot, 128–52. liverpool: liverpool university press. tagg, philip. 2000. “‘the work’: an evaluative charge.” in the musical work: reality or invention?, edited by michael talbot, 153–67. liverpool: liverpool university press. talbot, michael. 2000. introduction to the musical work: reality or invention?, edited by michael talbot, 1–13. liverpool: liverpool university press. taruskin, richard. 2007. “forward.” in the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music, by lydia goehr, v–viii. 2nd ed. oxford: oxford university press. tomlinson, gary. 1993. music and renaissance magic: toward a historiography of others. chicago: university of chicago press. . 1999. metaphysical song: an essay on opera. princeton, nj: princeton university press. tormey, alan. 1974. “indeterminacy and identity in art.” monist 58: 203–15. wegman, rob c. 1996. “from maker to composer: improvisation and musical authorship in the low countries, 1450–1500.” journal of the american musicological society 49 (3): 409–79. white, harry. 1997. “‘if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it’: reflections on lydia goehr’s ‘work concept’ and the historical integrity of musical composition.” acta musicologica 69: 94–104. wiora, walter. 1983. das musikalische kunstwerk. tutzing: hans schneider. young, james o. 2005. “the ‘great divide’ in music.” british journal of aesthetics 45 (2): 175–84. yuran, noam. 2009. “rethinking money through desire: a philosophical historical inquiry into the nature of money.” ph.d. diss. ben–gurion university at negev. . 2014. what does money want? an economy of desire. stanford, ca: stanford university press. žižek, slavoj. 1989. the sublime object of ideology. london: verso. musical meaning for the few: instances of private reception in the music of brahms dillon r. parmer the received view of brahms as a champion of "absolute" music has dominated the scholarly reception of his compositional output for over a century, and with good reason.l except in a few early works, brahms rarely published his instrumental music with any of the suggestive clues that his contemporaries used in their program music, while his preference for the apparently more classical genres, forms, and procedures seems to distance him from the overtly progressive tendencies of romanticism that eschewed reliance on classical conventions. what transpired in purely musical terms also was evident in the written word, both that of brahms and of others. brahms's 1860 manifesto, for instance, seemed to denounce the aesthetic values of that group of composers to whom karl franz brendel referred collectively in 1859 as the "new german school" (i.e., liszt, berlioz, and wagner), while brahms's eventual endorsement of edward hanslick (a critic seemingly notorious for his aversion to program music), and even schumann's prophetic "neue bahnen" of 1853 (heralding brahms as a musical messiah), served to place him squarely in opposition to the ethos of program music.2 in the last two decades, however, a number of scholars have drawn on new evidence to argue that brahms's output lies somewhere "between absolute and program music."3 indeed, many works generally believed to be "absolute" often circulated with textual adjuncts brahms himself made available in one of three ways: through word of mouth or in personal correspondence, through the inscription of textual clues in manu­ script versions of his works, or through the limited distribution of literary works in connection with certain pieces that render the music in question programmatic. but the burden of the received view remains so heavy, the distinction between absolute and program music so firm, that when scholars do uncover a textual adjunct, they either dismiss it as a youthful compositional crutch,4 or use their findings to rescue brahms from tradi­ tion by embracing him wholeheartedly as a composer of program music. 5 in what follows, i steer a middle ground by arguing that brahms's music has a double reception history: within his circle of intimates, brahms often transmitted suggestive, even programmatic, clues but in the public sphere, he refrained from stipulating any such clues whatsoever, thereby distancing the same music from the more openly specified extramusical associations that characterized program music in the latter half of the nineteenth century. current musicology, no. 83 (spring 2007) © 2007 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 109 110 current musicology what emerges in this compromise is a hitherto unacknowledged species of music that exists simultaneously in two contrary ways: as program music for those to whom brahms stipulated suggestive titles, poetic mottoes, or actual literary texts; as "abstract" or "absolute" music for everyone else. public versus private meaning this dual reception history necessarily implies a category of musical meaning that exists only in those select spheres of reception in which brahms allows such clues to circulate-clues that are held back in the wider arenas of pub­ lication and public performance. such a category presumes an awareness of the distinction between the public and private domains, an awareness which, in the case of brahms, is evidenced in both his professional and personal life, specifically in his attempts to keep certain aspects of his private life from becoming public. the desire to conceal his authorship, for instance, manifested itself in his use of pseudonyms for youthful compositions. he adopted the name "karl wurth" for a piano trio (now lost) and a duo for cello and piano (performed in a private hamburg concert in july 1851), as well as the more widely used "g.w. marks" for the "souvenir de la russie" of 1852.6 this tendency later evolved into a will to destroy not only those manuscripts too revealing of his working methods, but also numerous incomplete or unsatisfactory compositions. max kalbeck, brahms's friend and first principal biographer, reports that brahms actually set two trunk loads of such documents aflame in the 1880s, while in the ischl testament of may 1891, brahms instructs his publisher, fritz simrock, to burn any posthumously discovered manuscripts which the composer may have missed (kalbeck [1912-21]1976, 1:132-33 and 4:230). such concern with the legacy he left to posterity is also evidenced in the composer's management of his private affairs. as is well known, brahms rarely disclosed his inner feelings on paper for fear of exposure or misun­ derstanding and was, consequently, as careful with his letters as he was with autographs. in may of 1856, for example, he asked clara schumann to ensure that their correspondence remain confidential: "i would like you to put on my letters a note indicating that they belong only to you and me alone, just as i have always done with yours and will do with mine" (litzmann 1927, 1:187).7 three decades later, having achieved international fame, he went so far as to urge her to destroy their entire correspondence. in a letter of may 14,1886, clara writes, should you decide to send me the letters, it would only be for me to look through them once! i could then discard some and keep others. please dillon r. parmer example 1: johannes brahms to clara schumann, september 12, 1868. adagio also blus das alphorn heut: 'e p: 1 f' 91 e e 1 it" pili hoch aufm berg, tief im tal, grub' ieh dieh viel tau send mal! decide. another thing regarding your letters you must always keep in mind is that they remain in the best and most caring of hands when i die. (litzmann 1927,2:300-1).8 in a letter from may 1887, brahms is more to the point: i would have soon forgotten, however: it is very important that my letters are returned [to mel as should yours be to you! these you can always have-as can your children-i don't care in any case. but my letters have no return address when i leave this place! therefore, i ask you dearly to send them to me as soon as possible, and it's not because i'm in a hurry to bring them to the book binder!" (litzmann 1927,2:315-16)9 eleven years earlier, in 1876, he had admitted that he ought to have used more discretion when writing letters (henschel 1967:29 ). where his work as a composer intersected with his prittate life, brahms was especially cautious. the deletion of all musical allusions to schubert's ''am meer" and beethoven's "an die ferne geliebte" from the 1889 revision of the piano trio, op. 8, for example, may have been motivated not by a desire to improve the opus (as brahms would have us believe), but instead in order to eradicate the blatant ties to the schumanns (especially to clara) that those allusions encoded. lo whether in musical compositions or in personal relationships, brahms's vigilance in protecting his privacy indicates that he experienced considerable anxiety over which information would become public knowledge. one case illustrates how brahms may have used the distinction between public and private to produce divergent responses to a specific moment in the finale of the first symphony in his audience at large (public) and in one particular listener (private). in reconstructing the compositional history of the opus, scholars often draw attention to a curious letter brahms sent to clara on september 12, 1868 (example 1),u the brief missive consists only of a musical salutation, "hoch auf'm berg, tief im tal, grub' ich dich, viel tausendmal;' prefaced by the phrase "also blus das alphorn heut." (thus blows the alphorn today: high on the mountain, deep in the valley, i send you greetings a thousandfold). 12 the tune is, of course, an early version of the horn and flute theme announcing the breakthrough to c major in 111 112 current musicology the finale of the symphony (mm. 30-61). in 1868, clara would certainly not have heard this musical greeting as fodder for a symphony, but instead might have understood it as brahms's peculiar way of sending birthday wishes from afar and, more importantly, of mending a rift that had opened between them earlier that year. 13 when, eight years later (september 25, 1876), brahms played for her the symphony's impassioned first movement (which he had already shown her in june of 1862) and the finished finale (litzmann 1920,3:339), her thoughts would not have turned to questions of musical genesis and development, as do ours, but instead to the circum­ stances in which she first encountered the tune. the melody becomes, in her reception of the moment, an instance of an "in-joke." unfortunately, we have no documentary evidence indicating that she perceived the connection and "got the punch line," but in principal her experience should differ from those who did not know the 1868 letter. it is possible that brahms originally intended a connection, given his propensity for musical reminiscence and allusion, and that, in playing the two movements for clara, he was trying to coax her into recognizing it as well. even if she did not see it, we can still entertain the thought that brahms was inviting clara to situate the horn theme-perhaps even the whole symphony-within the context of their turbulent relationship. indeed, david brodbeck has suggested that the "progress of the music mirrors the progress of brahms's own resolution of the turmoil surrounding his involvement with clara" (1989:412). needless to say, the general public would not have been aware of this letter nor of its biographical implications at the november 4th premiere even though the horn tapas was, and continues to be, widely noticed. the moment, therefore, instances precisely the difference between a public reception of the theme, and a private mode of reception-the meaning of which would (in this case) be retrievable only by clara. riddles as indicators of private meaning there is ample evidence that the young brahms frequently supplied close friends with explicit clues about potentially programmatic sources for his music by word of mouth or a remark in a letter. according to albert dietrich (a long-time friend of brahms and pupil of schumann), brahms reported that he had robert burns's poem "my heart's in the highland" in mind as a program for the a minor melody from the finale of the piano sonata, op. 1 (dietrich 1898:3).as constantin floros (1980:81-82) has pointed out, the first strophe fits neatly under the tune (example 2), a congruence suggesting that brahms may have recycled material from an aborted vocal setting in a manner similar to the circumstances paul mies (1919-20) has proposed for dillon r. parmer example 2: brahms, piano sonata no.!, finale, mm. 107-25. mein herz ist im hoch-land, mein herz ist nieht hier; _ rnein herz _ ist im hoch-land, im wal des re vier; _ dort jagt es den hirsrch und ver fol get das reh; _ mein f f p i f' r i herz ist im hoch land wo hin ich auch geh'! __ the "edward" ballade, op. 10, no. 1.14 whatever the origins of the melody, brahms's admission arguably invited dietrich to hear the passage-perhaps even the entire movement-in relation to a poem he may have known well from schumann's setting (op. 25, no. 13). the same claim can be advanced for the andante from the piano sonata, op. 2, for which brahms tipped dietrich off to a hidden poetic source: count kraft von toggenburg's poem, "mir ist leide" (dietrich 1898:3-4) .15 equally suggestive is brahms's remark about the slow movement of the piano concerto, op. 15, first brought to light by robert haven schauffler ([1933]1972:438), in which brahms "had tried to paint a portrait of clara!' although the published edition transmits no indication of its programmatic status, brahms revealed to clara in cor­ respondence that he conceived of the adagio from the piano concerto as her portrait in music (december 30, 1856): "i have also painted a soft portrait of you which has become the adagio" (litzmann 1927, 1:198).16 after 1860, brahms cultivated what was to become a characteristic reticence on matters pertaining to his own music, but even then the com­ poser found occasion to offer suggestions to his correspondents, now cast in the form of riddles. most of his remarks on the piano quartet, op. 60, for example, seem designed more to puzzle than to illuminate, as when a letter to his close friend, the famous surgeon theodor billroth, explained that "the quartet is rather a strange thing! something of an illustration of the last chapter of the man in the blue shirt and yellow vest" (october 23,1874, gottlieb-billroth 1935:211).17 other instances, though slightly less enigmatic, were nevertheless delivered in a similarly indirect manner. in his correspondence with billroth, the conductor otto dessoff, and the publisher fritz simrock, brahms connected the violin sonata, op. 78, with his settings of klaus groth's "regenlied" and "nachklang" (op. 59, nos. 3 and 4) by making references to rain and plagiarism in order to ensure that 113 114 current musicology his correspondents would not only recognize the vocal models, but also link the song texts to the instrumental work. brahms writes to billroth in june of 1879: "they're worthless and you still need a soft rainy evening to create the right mood" (gottlieb-billroth 1935:283) .18 brahms emphasizes the same connection in a letter to dessoff (september 1879): "you must not complain about rain. it has been set to music very well, something i also have attempted in a violin sonata in spring [op. 78]" (brahms briefwechsel, 16:218).19 a third letter (august 31,1879) makes no mention of rain, but it hints at the origins of the finale in another work by warning simrock about the consequences of plagiarism-a jest, of course, for brahms could not be charged with stealing his own material: "beware however, that you don't get drawn into legal proceedings regarding copyright!" (brahms briefwechsel, 10:128).20 a similar instance obtains in another letter to billroth (august 16, 1886) in which brahms links his settings of groth's "komm bald" ("come soon:' op. 97, no. 5) and hermann lingg's "immer leise wird mein schlummer" ("my slumber's growing softer:' op. 105, no. 2) with his violin sonata, op. 100: recently, i have occupied myself with a song by [klaus] groth which is connected to the a major sonata [op. 100]. so i send it now, tied up with another song by groth-and even one from an old colleague of yours! in any case, you'll be happy about the words, and necessarily apologetic." (gottlieb-billroth 1935:398-99)21 and of the op. 117 intermezzi, brahms alerts rudolf von der leyen to an auto­ biographical component when he refers to the opus as "drei wiegenlieder meiner schmerzen" ("three lullabies of my pain;' leyen 1905:82-83).22 in all these instances, brahms seems to take pains to give his correspondents indications of special meanings not otherwise accessible to the general listener. although we have no direct evidence of brahms's intentions in such cases, the correspondence with the physiologist theodor wilhelm engelmann regarding op. 60 confirms that brahms expected his readers to decipher at least the remark in the text about the man in the blue jacket and yellow vest. brahms wrote, gladly, one cannot call it [the work, presumably] nice and the publisher has only missed placing on the title page a picture of the man in the blue shirt and yellow vest (with a pistol at his head). now it is clear to you how much this scrap of paper concerns me!" (brahms briefwechsel, 13:22)23 engelmann, however, in a letter of november 15, 1875, misinterprets this clue as a reference to faust and his response reflects his puzzlement: dillon r. parmer naturally, we are now very anxious about the new "pistol" quartet for all its worth. unfortunately, you didn't say if it's coming soon? your warn­ ings are of no use! we will know already to look for something delightful within it. why, however, must the man, whom the publisher forgot on the title page, have a blue shirt and yellow vest? there you will surely have to come to our help. (brahms briefwechsel, 13:23)24 brahms then instructs engelmann to read the last chapter of goethe's werther if he wants to understand something of the quartet (december 17, 1875): "your other question, however, told me that you began in the second part of goethe's faust-otherwise you should have thought of werther [necessarily]! now read to your little wife the last chapter to come to an understanding of the quartet!" (brahms briefwechsel, 13:24-5).25 in a letter responding to brahms the next day, engelmann expresses dismay about not having understood the peculiar garments-werther's burial clothes-as a reference to the doomed hero himself: my wife, who at first could not hold back her tears for a few months after first reading the novella, is now so disgraced that you should let her sew a blue shirt and yellow vest for you, fit even for uncle brasig; that would be her apology for not having found the real meaning in your letter. (brahms briefwechsel, 13:27)26 although brahms spoke in riddles to his friends, it seems clear that he intended to drop genuine hints and expected his correspondents to decipher and use those clues to make sense of his music. nowhere is the impact of the received view of brahms more apparent than in op. 60, however, for, to my knowledge, few scholars have taken his remarks seriously enough to consider the quartet as program music. 27 poetic mottoes and other suggestive inscriptions brahms did not restrict himself to these modes of communication (word of mouth or personal correspondence) in his attempts to affect how his music was received and understood. he occasionally had various cues published to facilitate what he called the "understanding and enjoyment" of his music. although the autograph of the piano sonata, op. 5, does not transmit a poetic motto for the a~ major andante, the composer's letter of december 26,1853, instructs his publisher, bartholf senff, to add a motto from c. o. sternau's "junge liebe": "i have already sealed the 'sonata' and do not wish to think about it any longer; so, i ask that you place the following little verse above the first andante in small parentheses. it is perhaps necessary for 115 116 current musicology the 'understanding and enjoyment' of the andante" (brahms briefwechsel, 14:5).28 the motto reads: der abend dammert, das mond­ licht scheint, da sind zwei herzen in liebe vereint und halten sich selig umfangen. twilight is falling, the moonlight is shining, there two hearts united in love keep themselves wrapped in bliss. the same claim might apply to the interpolated fourth movement, an intermezzo in b~ minor, which carries the subtitle "rtickblick" ("retrospective") to clarify its thematic and expressive connection to the earlier movement; indeed, the interpolated movement serves as an express­ ive double to the andante.29 the andante of the piano sonata, op. 1, also transmits not only the suggestive inscription "nach einem altdeutschen minneliede;' ("after an old german minnelied") but also presents the first strophe of the minnelied under the main theme.30 because such inscrip­ tions indicate that literary works underpin musical ones, kalbeck suggests that there may have been actual poems behind the op. 10 ballades; only the first ballade, however, specifies such a source, a gruesome tale of patricide: "nach der schottischen ballade: 'edward' in herders 'stimmen der volker'" (kalbeck [1912-21]1976, 1:190).31 other examples of inscriptions that are not necessarily programmatic abound but brahms either never intended these for publication or he added them as post-publication afterthoughts to editions owned only by his friends and colleagues. several early autographs, for example, carry a signature peculiar to brahms's early works: "johannes kreisler, junior." this signature is, of course, a reference to the hero of e. t. a. hoffmann's kater murr, kapellmeister johannes kreisler, with whom the young brahms identified from 1852 to 1860. the 1852 "rondo after weber;' the three piano sonatas (opp. 1,2, and 5), the first version of the piano trio, op. 8, five of the varia­ tions from the op. 9 variations on a theme of robert schumann (nos. 5, 6, 9, 12, and 13), and the sonatensatz in c minor (woo 2) each carry some variant of this name.32 in addition to insignia for kreisler, the opp. 2 and 5 piano sonatas-as well as five other variations from op. 9 (nos. 4, 7, 8,14, and 16)-also carry brahms's own initial (the letter "b") at the end of each movement in the autograph (but not the published edition): the op. 2 sonata is marked "b.!kreisler junior," while all but the third movement of the op. 5 sonata conclude with brahms's initial written in the manuscript at the end of each movement. these inclusions resemble schumann's well-known dual compositional personae, florestan and eusebius. unlike these alter egos (both of whom schumann identified in writing and, in carnaval, op. 9, with titles), however, brahms never mentions his personae in correspondence dillon r. parmer and invariably withholds their insignia from publication.33 even though we know that his friends joseph joachim (1831-1907) and julius otto grimm (1827-1903) addressed him as "kreisler, junior:'34 only those whom brahms allowed access to the autographs-hermann levi, joachim, and the schumanns would have seen them-could know which personae were attached to each musical work. although these signatures are admittedly non-programmatic in nature in that they do not stipulate a direct literary correspondence, they can nevertheless affect reception in that a listener aware of such insignia would have access to brahms's "voice" -whether his own or kreisler's. as elaine sisman has pointed out, the '''brahms'variations are nearly all slow, like the theme, and tend to have a lyrical melody which is sometimes treated in canon, while the 'kreislers' are given quick tempo designations ... and feature melodic fragments embedded in figuration" (sisman 1990:146). although a systematic study of the musical manifesta­ tions of brahms's compositional personae still needs to be conducted, some scholars have made a promising beginning: the stylistic contrast evidenced in brahms's op. 9 has prompted bozarth to read a conflict between dual compositional voices in the op. 5 sonata.35 another non-programmatic but equally suggestive case involves the enigmatic "benedictus qui venit in nomine domini!" (blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord!) which brahms placed in brackets in the piano staves only in the autograph of the op. 15 adagio.36 although the published edition omits the citation, the inscription has spawned much speculation. taking a cue from "mynheer dominus" (brahms's nickname for schumann), kalbeck asserts that the text signifies brahms's arrival on the musical scene not in the name of the lord, but in the name of robert-an admittedly bold claim for the younger composer, but one that schumann's followers may very well have understood, given the messianic tone of "neue bahnen" (kalbeck [1912-21]1976, 1:166). floros and bozarth conclude that the quotation refers to brahms himself but from the point of view of clara, who saw him as a godsend in her time of need (floros 1980:146; bozarth 1990a:211-29). christopher reynolds also links the verse to clara, but, on the basis of analytical findings, argues that brahms intended it as a reference to clara coming in the name of robert (reynolds 1985:6). pointing instead to a scene from hoffmann's kater murr, siegfried kross takes a completely different approach when he explains the inscription as a further instance of brahms's identification with kreisler, one that "marks brahms's passage from the bizarre style of the kreisler period to the secure knowledge of his own artistry" (kross 1982:200). that so many plausible yet mutually exclusive explanations can be advanced for this citation might suggest that the significance of the inscription is indecipherable-until it is realized that the viability of each interpretation hinges on which of brahms's friends was 117 118 current musicology reading the inscription. indeed, joachim, who owned the manuscript, may very well have interpreted it in the context of schumann's "neue bahnen;' while clara, knowing that the movement was conceived as her portrait, may have seen her own words in the citation. establishing brahms's intended meaning proves to be more difficult. however scholars interpret the inscrip­ tion, it remains a private one, accessible to, and thus decipherable by only those to whom brahms circulated the autograph-and even then, multiple readings are possible. a less frequently discussed case occurs in the op. 9 variations. as is well known, the manuscript of the interpolated tenth variation transmits a cryptic title: "rose und heliotrop haben geduftet" (rose and heliotrope have bloomed). an image of plants tracking the course of the sun is particularly apt for this variation-an inverted canon between soprano and the "schumann" theme, now in the bass. but the significance of this title extends beyond contrapuntal virtuosity to include both the other movements of this opus and the compositions to which it is linked. in 1852, brahms incorporated the "schumann" theme (originally composed in 1841) into bunte blatter (op. 99), the first of the ''albumblatter'' cycle. between may 29 and june 3,1853, clara composed a set of seven variations on the same theme (op. 20) which she dedicated to robert and played for brahms almost a year later, on may 24, 1854. brahms responded in kind with fourteen of his own variations in june, to which he later inserted two new variations, the present tenth and eleventh, on august 12. the completed set, published in november, was dedicated to clara.37 since it was clara who inspired brahms's opus with her own set of variations on the bunte blatter theme, it is tempting to see in brahms's tenth variation a musical image of the larger compositional connections: clara and brahms, with their individual compositional styles, together compose a set of variations on the same theme as homage to the older composer-her husband, his mentor. in this reading, the enigmatic title would refer to the emergence of the two composers in the light of schumann's influence. as with the "benedictus" citation, however, this putative meaning, or others like it, would be accessible only to the schumanns, who certainly knew of the cryptic title and may even have been in a position to decipher it. as with his use of suggestive remarks, there is some evidence that brahms continued the practice of inscribing cues in his editions later in life. the 1877 song, "untiberwindlich;' op. 77, no. 5, specifies the source for borrowed material, in this case music by domenico scarlatti, while the e~ major intermezzo of 1892, op. 117, no. 1, carries a poetic motto: a two­ line refrain from a scottish ballad included in herder's stimmen der volker, a german translation of "lady anne bothwell's lament" from thomas percey's reliques of ancient english poetry: schlaf' sanft, me in kind, schlaf' sanft und schon! mich dauert's sehr, dich weinen zu seh'n. dillon r. parmer sleep softly my child, sleep softly and beautifully! it troubles me so to see you cry.38 just as with the op. 5 andante, brahms could have supplied this motto to facilitate "enjoyment and understanding" of the intermezzo. 39 one instance of a comparable private inscription involves the violin sonata, op. 78. although the autograph contains no poetic motto, we know from kalbeck's account that brahms penciled into heinrich groeber's copy of the first edi­ tion both an excerpt from the "verklarung" of goethe's faust (act v, scene 7), "komm, hebe dich zu hohern spharen! / wenn er dich ahnet, folgt er nach" (come, rise to higher spheres! when he senses you, he will follow) and the incipits from the g major violin sonatas by mozart (k. 379) and beethoven (op. 96) (kalbeck [1912-21]1976, 3:383-84nl).40 the inclusion of these references not only stipulates a musical context in which groeber can experience the sonata (indeed, brahms may have modelled his own sonata after beethoven's), 41 but also points to a literary theme involving the futility of regaining lost youth, the very subject matter of "regen lied" and "nachklang;' the head motifs of which the finale quotes (parmer 1995: 177).42 secret programmatic texts the third and final mode of private reception involves cases in which brahms allowed an actual literary text to circulate with his music. it is well known that the young brahms specified textual sources for many of his early piano works, but it is less widely known that he presented clara with transcriptions of the texts accompanying the andantes of the piano sonatas, opp. 2 and 5. according to bozarth, an inventory of the collection of antonia speyer­ kufferath and edward speyer indicates that two documents containing both sources in brahms's own hand existed at one pointy the location of these documents is presently unknown, but a letter to clara (august 21, 1855) contains anonymous transcriptions of both poems, here linked to their respective movements.44 the evidence not only confirms that brahms had specific poems in mind for the two movements, but also suggests that he shared these texts in the hope, as he wrote to senff of the motto, that they would facilitate clara's "enjoyment and understanding."45 the poem accompanying op. 2 reads as follows: mir ist leide. das der winter beide. walt vn ouch die heide. hat gemachet val. it is painful to me that winter has made fallow both forest and heath; 119 120 current musicology sin betwingen. lat niht blumen entspringen. noch die vogel singen. ir vii sussen schal. alsus verderbet mich ein selig wib. du mich lat. ane rat. den si hat. des zergat. an froiden gar min lip. miner swere. schiere ich ane were. solde ich die seldebere. schowen ane leit. du vii here. hat schone zuht vn ere. der wnsch vn dannoch mere. ist gar an si geleit. rose wengel mvndel rot si hat. val hat lang. kele blank. siten kranc. min gedanc. an ir vii hohe stat. reh wil singen mere vf gvt gedingen. sol mir wol gelingen. das mvs an ir geschehen. si kan machen. truigherze lachen. grosse sorge swachen. des mvs man ir ieheh. wurde mir ir werder trost geseit. seht fur war. offe bar. mmu lar. wolde ich gar. mit froiden sin gemeit. its firm grip allows neither flowers to bloom nor birds to sing their very sweet songs. in like manner, a blessed woman destroys me, has left me without giving the counsel of which she is possessed; because of this my joy, even my life, has perished. from my sufferings i would leave off without hesitation if i could see, without feeling pain, the one who brings happiness. this very noble lady is of high breeding and honor; any wish, and yet still more, is indeed her companion. rosy cheeks and a little red mouth has she, full long hair, a white neck, slender waist: my thought is of her very high station. i want to sing more with good hopes, but if i succeed, that must happen through her. she can make sad hearts laugh, lessen great worry; one must grant her that. if her worthy comfort would be given me, see, verily obviously, the rest of my life, i would indeed consider full of joy.46 unfortunately, we have no way of determining clara's response to the music of op. 2 in light of her reading of this text, but we can still postulate that foreknowledge of the minnelied might encourage her to hear the tonal, registral, and textural expansion across the andante as the musical analogue dillon r. parmer for the poet's futile attempt to transcend the emotional desolation in which his departed beloved has left him. brahms seems to have favored the other modes of private reception late in his life, as cases similar to op. 2 are few in comparison. to date, i have come across only a single instance-one based solely on kalbeck's sometimes questionable authorityy according to the biographer, brahms supposedly received several anonymous poems as commentary on selected numbers from opp. 118 and 119, which he later distributed amongst friends in private performances of those same works. kalbeck wrote, and what joy the anonymous shipment of hand-written poetry (probably from the wife of a prussian colonel stationed in elsab) would give him, a shipment which brought him an imaginative, rhymed commentary on different pieces in opp.118 and 119! he asked me what i thought of them, and if this or that poem left me at ease. he [then] directed dr. fellinger to copy them, and he distributed to close friends the little booklet decorated with a vignette of music making geniuses printed on clean, hand-made paper. (kalbeck [1912-21]1976,4:304)48 unfortunately, only one of these poems seems to have survived, that for the m minor intermezzo, op. 118, no. 6: die trage welle leckt den miiden strand, und unterm meeresnebel gahnt der wind verschlafen hin zum blassen kiistensaum.und regungslos am blassen kiisten­ saum, als hielt' die schildwach' er am eignen grab, ein sterbender des daseins ford'rung loscht. das meer des lebens hat ihn ausgespie'n. ihm raunt der tod ins ohr: "du welker tor, sieh deiner tage stolz getraumten traum zerrinnen in der nacht' gen wellen schaum! er schwindet, nur der irrtum bleibt zuriick." der greis erbebt. die letzte trane rinnt, the idle waves lick the tired shore, and under the sea's mist the wind yawns sleepily towards the windy coast­ line.and motionless on the windy coast­ line, as if he were guarding his own grave, a dying man extinguishes his claim to existence. the sea of life has spit him out. death murmurs into his ear: "you withered fool, see how the proudly dreamt dream of your days vanishes in the foam of nocturnal waves! it dwindles, only error remains." the old man trembles. he weeps a final tear, 121 122 current musicology sein sterbeseufzer wird zum hul­ feschrei: "lab gott, mein gott, nicht wahn die tugend sein! wofur, 0 herr, hatt' ich entsagt? gekampft? das opfer durft' den opfernden verhohnen?" jah stockt das wort im morgen­ rosenglanz, der leuchtend sich der dunklen nacht vermahlt; der himmel £lammt, entzuckt. das meer erbebt. von osten schallt mit schwellender gewalt, hinbrausend ob der wogen orgel­ ton, ein siegesjubelsang. posaunend wirft der sturm sein schmetterndes hal­ lelujah in donnernden akkorden ehern drein: "niemals, 0 mensch, war eine tu­ gendwahn, die zur vollendung korn fur korn gereift, das laster nur hat sich allein gelebt!" der aite lachelt, nickt und zieht hinab an todes hand ins ew' ge land des schweigens. die welle leckt am nachtlichen gestade den muden strand. und unterm nebel zieht der wind verschlafen hin zum kustensaum.and his deathly whisper becomes a cry for help: "oh god, my god, let not virtue be a delusion! wherefore, oh lord, would i have renounced you? wrestled you? must the sacrifice deride the giver?" suddenly, his words falter in morning's red light, which marries the dark night; heaven is ablaze, enraptured. the sea trembles. from the east resounds with swell­ ingpower, roaring above the organ sound of billowing waves, a victory song of jubilation. trum­ peting, the storm throws about its "hal­ lelujah" in a thundering, brazen accord: "never, oh man, was virtue a delu­ sion, which ripened unto the end little by little, only vice alone has lived for itself!" the old man smiles, nods, and moves down, guided by death's hand into the eternal land of silence. the waves lick the tired shore at the nocturnal waterside. and under the mist the wind moves sleepily towards the coastline.49 however much we might cringe at its literary style, this text nevertheless exemplifies a tendency of later nineteenth-century listeners to experience instrumental music through the filter of poetry, and as autobiographical discourse. 50 given this state of affairs, those who received the poem from brahms might be encouraged to hear the intermezzo as an account of an old man who contends with a false sense of his worth and value in the face of death, a plausible reading given brahms's age at this time and his chardillon r. parmer example 3a: dies irae. di-es i-rae, di-es il-ia, sol-vet_ saec lum in fa-vil-la. example 3b: intermezzo, op. 118, no. 6, mm. 1-4. acteristic pessimism. floros further suggests precisely this scenario when he points to the obvious affinity between the main theme, a turning figure on n, and the dies irae of the requiem (see examples 3a and 3b). 51 of course, an analysis of the piece informed by this poem would take quite a different route than those traditionally offered. 52 towards private program music even though the mature brahms tended to dispense with programmatic and other verbal adjuncts after 1860 (perhaps because joachim advised him that such dues had become unfashionable and unnecessary),53 there nevertheless remain a sufficient number of cases from later years to warrant attention. of course, scholars could, in keeping with the received view, dismiss these adjuncts as irrelevant to an understanding of brahms's music and could continue to explain these works without recourse to external sources. but it seems indefensible to insist on categorizing as "absolute" that music for which the composer himself has stipulated extramusical adjuncts, the recent decline of the notion of musical purity notwithstanding. moreover, even if scholars question brahms's sincerity about the usefulness of such adjuncts, it is inconceivable that clara, dietrich, billroth, groeber, and others would have disregarded any clues they received from the composer himself as they tried to understand his music. indeed, the very aura in which such clues immerse the music may invite listeners to dig for some implied secret content rather than to dismiss such clues as mere compositional crutches unnecessary for understanding and enjoyment. although we can isolate the moment when brahms broadcasts his clues and gauge the scope of their impact, nothing survives that points to how his intimates actually received this music. but the very absence of such evidence may indicate that extra­ musical associations figured as normal components even in the instrumental music of brahms, and that their suppression in the twentieth century in order to conform to an ideal of musical purity is what should strike us as 123 124 current musicology exceptional. we should therefore be encouraged to trace the transmission history of pertinent autographs, draw on indirect documentary evidence, and reconstruct interpretations for various types of listeners, whether they were public audiences, musical connoisseurs, the composer's acquaintances, his inner circle of close friends, his loved ones, etc. 54 scholars who bring to light such associations, then, not only free brahms's music from the strictures of a narrow, received view, but also restore what may prove to be an integral part of the nineteenth-century experience of brahms. if we accept brahms's adjuncts as viable hermeneutic aids that need to be taken into consideration, are we then dealing with actual specimens of program music? our answer depends on two issues: first, on how we define this problematic category of "program" music, and second, on how we view the role of scholarship in this aspect of brahms reception. on the first question, the broadest definitions of program music would not only obscure the circumscribed sphere in which these adjuncts circulated, but would also distort the distinctive way brahms's music was heard within his circle of intimates. if the category were defined restrictively, i.e., as any instrumental music in which the composer prescribes some external text for listeners to have in mind while listening, then that music for which brahms provides adjuncts is programmatic only for the privileged few with whom he shared such clues. i find this conclusion more tenable but in adopting it must confront the paradox underlying the second issue. in publicizing the particulars of each case, historians might seem to widen, even annihilate, the narrow sphere in which these textual adjuncts initially circulated. but even as the accumulating evidence (thrust before the public eye by scholars and by others) influences listeners of today to hear a work like op. 60 as program music, we should not forget that this composition, as well as the others under consideration here, belong to an overlooked species of music, what might be called "private program music," and that this genre necessarily implies a double reception history. on the one hand, the general public may still grasp the expressive potential of such music; indeed, those who stand outside of the brahms circle may even go so far as to supply their own literary narratives. on the other hand, only a select few were truly allowed access to the secret content which the composer himself stipulated. in one sense, then, geography and time bar us from membership in this circle; we can only observe the traces of these private exchanges in the dimly lit corners of brahms's musical life. but in another sense, scholarship can illuminate some of those corners and allow us to glimpse-behind the received view of brahms as a composer of absolute music-the shadow of "brahms the programmatic." dillon r. parmer notes 1. for one treatment of brahms's place in late nineteenth-century aesthetics, see nelson (1996). 2. robert schumann's "neue bahnen" is reprinted in schumann (1952:252-54); for dis­ cussion, see floros (1983a). the manifesto, which appeared in the berliner musik-zeitung echo on may 6,1860, is reprinted in kalbeck ([1912-21]1976, 1:404-5); for discussion, see floros (1980:74-75). for discussion of hanslick's reception of brahms, see floros (1988). in contrast to the characterization of brahms as a classicist, carl dahlhaus suggests that brahms's compositional method, that of developing variation, actually distances him from the classical style and aligns him with the proponents of the new german school (dahlhaus 1980:40-45). 3. the quotation derives from wiora (1963). for one example of revisionist scholarship, see floros (1980:71-151). current definitions of "program music" appear in the new harvard dictionary (1986), s.vv. "program music" (by ralph locke); and in the new grove dictionary of music and musicians (2001), s.vv. "program music" (by roger scruton). 4. for instance, with respect to the poetic andantes of the piano sonatas, george s. bozarth writes, "to the degree that these works lack subtlety because of too direct and lasting a reliance upon their poetic models, they must be considered immature ... the 'program' can inspire the creation of music, and even suggest the emotional progress of the whole composition and many of its details, but ultimately the music must be judged on its own merits" (1990b:378). 5. see, for instance, niecks ([1906]1969:446-47). 6. see kalbeck ([1912-21]1976, 1:70), and the preface in hofmann (1971), respectively. for an overview oflost compositions, see bozarth (1989). 7. "ich mochte, sie legten einen zettel auf meine briefe, dab sie nachst ihnen nur und gleich mir gehoren, wie ich es immer mit den ihren mach en wollte und auch werde" (litzmann 1927,1:187). all translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 8. "mir die briefe zu schicken, solltest du dich doch entschlieben, und ware es nur, dab ich sie einmal durchsahe! ich konnte ja dann manche vernichten und andere noch aufbe­ wahren. bitte, entschliebe dich. du mubt doch immer bedenken, dab es eine andere sache mit deinen briefen ist, die, sturbe ich, doch immer in besten, sorgsamsten handen waren" (litzmann 1927,2:300-1). 9. "bald hatte ich aber vergessen: es ist viel wichtiger, dab meine briefe zuruckgehen, als die deinen! diese kannst du immer haben-und auch deine kinder-an welchen fall ich nicht glaube. meine briefe aber haben keine ruckadresse, wenn ich davon gehe! deshalb bitte ich also herzlich, sende sie mir, und wenn ich bitte, sende sie bald, so ist das nicht, weil ich eile habe, sie zum buchbinder zu bringen!" (litzmann 1927,2:315-16). 10. for discussion of this point, see parmer (1995:81-83) and hull (1989:237-38). 11. see, for example, musgrave (1985:131), macdonald (1990:246), and frisch (1996:35). 12. the letter itself appears in litzmann (1927, 1:597). 13. indeed, her response gives him a good trouncing over for the characteristic rudeness that was to alienate so many of his close friends (litzmann 1927, 1:597-601). 14. see also fiske (1968). 15. kalbeck attempts to confirm dietrich's assertion by showing that the words from the first stanza fit underneath the notes of the theme ([1912-21]1976, 1:212). 125 126 current musicology 16. "auch male ich an einem sanften portrat von dir, das dann adagio werden soli" (litzmann 1927,1:198). 17. "das quartett wird blob als kuriosum mitgeteilt! etwa eine illustration zum letzten kapitel vom mann im blauen frack und gelber weste" (october 23, 1874, gottlieb-billroth 1935:211). 18. "mehr ist sie nicht wert und dazu mub noch eine sanfte regenabendstunde die notige stimmung liefern" (gottlieb-billroth 1935:283). 19. "tiber regen mubt du nicht klagen. er labt sich sehr gut in musik setzen, was ich auch den fruhling in einer violin-sonata [op. 78] versucht habe" (brahms briefwechsel, 16:218). 20. "huten sie sich aber, sie kann ihnen einen nachdrucksprozeb zuziehen!" (brahms brief­ wechsel, 10:128). for discussion, see parmer (1995:161-77). 21. ''aber ich genierte mich neulich, ein lied von groth beizulegen, das mit der a-dur-sonate zusammenhangt. da ich es nun doch sende, so drangt sich ein anderes von groth dazu-und da noch eins von einem alten kollegen [hermann lingg] von dir! an den worten wirst du jedenfalls freude haben und notigenfalls entschuldigen" (gottlieb-billroth 1935:398-99). for these and other possible references, see also kalbeck ([1912-21]1976, 4:16-22). 22. brahms frequently channeled personal grief in his compositions. niinie, for example, was written for his friend the painter, anselm feuerbach, who died in 1880, while the piano concerto, op. 83, was dedicated to his teacher, eduard marxsen, who died in 1887. it is pos­ sible that the lullabies could have been composed in response to the deaths in 1892 of his long-time admirer, elizabeth von herzogenberg, and his sister, elise. 23. "lieblich kann man es nicht nennen lund] der verleger hat nur versaumt den mann mit blauem frack lund] gelber weste (mit der pistole vor dem kopf) auf dem titelblatt zeichnen zu lassen. nun wird's ihnen mit dem zettel wie mir inliegendem gehen!" (brahms briefwechsel,13:22). 24. "jetzt sind wir natiirlich auf das neue pistolenquartett aufs auberste gespannt. leider schrieben sie nicht ob es bald kommt? ihre warnungen werden nichts fruchten! wir werden das liebliche darin schon zu finden wissen. warum mub aber der mann, den der verleger auf dem titelblatte vergessen hat, einen blauen frack [und] eine gelbe weste haben? da werden sie uns schon zu hilfe kommen mussen" (brahms briefwechsel, 13:23). 25. "ihre andere frage aber sagt mir dab sie in goethe von faust ii anfangen-sonst hatten sie [notwendig] an werther denken mussen! nun lesen sie ihrer kleinen frau die letzten capitel damit verstandnib fur das [quartett] komme!" (brahms briefwechsel, 13:24-5). 26. "meine frau, die erst vor wenigen monaten beim ersten lesen des romans ihre [tranen] nicht bemeistern konnte, ist nun so schnode ihnen saen zu lassen, blauer frack und gelbe weste pabten ja auch auf onkel brasig, und das ware ihre entschuldigung dab sie den wahren sinn ihrer zeilen nicht gefunden" (brahms briefwechsel, 13:27). 27. kalbeck, however, was sufficiently convinced by the obvious biographical parallels between werther and the young brahms: "ein musikalisches denkrnal hat brahms seiner wertherzeit, als welche man seinen dusseldorfer aufenthalt von 1854-56 bezeichen kann, im allegro des c-moll-quartetts op. 60 gesetzt" (brahms set, in the allegro of his c minor quartet, op. 60, a musical monument to his "werther-period;' which one can call his stay in dusseldorffrom 1854-56, kalbeck ([1912-21]1976, 1:23l.) see also kalbeck ([1912-21] 1976,3:10-11,58). one provisional attemptto view the work in relation to werther appears in mahrt (1992:102-11). for an extended discussion, see smith (2005). dillon r. parmer 28. "ich habe die 'sonate' schon zugesiegelt und mag mich nicht mehr aufhalten; so bitte ich sie folgenden kleinen vers tiber das erste andante in paranthese klein setzen zu lassen. es ist zum verstandnis des andante vielleicht notig oder angenehm" (brahms briefwechsel, 14:5). for discussion of the movement in relation to the motto, see kraus (1986); also in english translation by lillian lim as kraus (1988). 29. this "rtickblick" andante may even have its own hidden textual adjunct, a companion piece by sternau entitled "bitte," found with "junge liebe" in brahms's apartment after his death. see kalbeck ([1912-21]1976,1:121) and bozarth (1983a:llo). 30. for music-text analyses, see bozarth (1990b:348-52) and parmer (1995:177-81). 31. the text can be found in fischer-dieskau (1977: 197-98). brahms probably came to know this poem through his acquaintance with julius allgeyer, a student of copper-plate engraving. although no evidence links allgeyer with op. 10 directly, he is the dedicatee for the op. 75 duets of which the first is a setting of the "edward" ballade. see may (1905, 1:173). for my music-text analysis of this piece, see parmer (1997:379-87). 32. see the appropriate opus numbers in mccorkle (1984). the manuscript of the op. 6 songs also contains a kreisler signature (but in another hand). three further instances of the kreisler signature appear in brahms's copy of the first edition of schumann's genoveva (see 19th-century music 1982:182-83), in brahms's copy of the fantasiestiicke in callots manier (hofmann 1974:item 327), and in the humorous bylaws he drew up for the hamburg women's choir in 1860 (bozarth 1983a:1l5). for discussion of brahms in relation to this character, see floros (1980:84-98) and kross (1982). 33. for one discussion of op. 9, see sisman (1990:145-49). 34. joachim used the name only once, in the letter of april 1854. see brahms briefwechsel, 5:36. grimm used the name more often, in correspondence with brahms (see the letters written between december 21,1853, and october 1854, brahms briefwechsel, 4:1, 2, 4) and with joachim (see the letters of march 9, july, and november lo, 1854, brahms briefwechsel, 5:27,36,48, and 71). 35. see bozarth (1990b:368-77). 36. a facsimile of this page appears in floros (1980:147). 37. the interplay between brahms and clara is also evidenced in the inclusion of a reference to her op. 3 in the published edition of her op. 20 variations-a citation which does not appear in either of the two manuscript versions of the opus. clara must have added it after seeing brahms's reference to her own op. 3 in his tenth variation. see reich (1985:246). 38. according to kalbeck, the third intermezzo, in cn minor, may also be bound up with another text from herder's anthology. this poem, known as "wehgeschrei der liebe" or "herzweh;' follows "schlaf' sanft, mein kind" in brahms's personal collection and can be read as a companion piece. see kalbeck ([1912-21]1976, 4:280) and bozarth (1983a:l11). the texts can be found in herder (1968,25:164-66,202-4). 39. for a music-text analysis of this opus, see parmer (1997:367-79). 40. the inscription is also discussed in fellinger (1983:53). 41. see parmer (1995:177n46). 42. a less widely known example occurs in the e major intermezzo, op. 116, no. 4. the upper left corner of the autograph transmits the inscription "ursprtinglich notturno," an inclusion suggesting that brahms initially conceived this piece as a nocturne before giving it a more generic title for incorporation into a collection of fantasies. but the inscription is in another 127 128 current musicology hand and so it remains to be seen if the inscription actually issued from brahms himself. see mccorkle (1985) under the appropriate opus number and also floros (1983b, 5:50). 43. brahms clearly indicates that a minnelied is to accompany the second sonata, although he does not specify which of its four movements. see bozarth (1983a:111). 44. bozarth speculates that the first document was the one enclosed in the letter to clara, but when separated was replaced by the document in the unknown hand (1990b:353n20). the letter itself makes no reference to these enclosures. see litzmann (1927,1:133-34). 45. brahms may even have had dietrich's response in mind as well, for dietrich could identify the source for the op. 2 andante by name. detailed music-text analyses for both movements can be found in bozarth (1990b). 46. the poem is taken from pfaff (1909:cols. 36-37), as transcribed in bozarth (1990b:355). 47. in regard to kalbeck's authority, see musgrave (1988). 48. "und welche freude bereitete ihm die anonyme sendung von poetenhand (der frau eines preufsischen, im elsafs stationierten obersten), die ihm einen phantasievollen, gereimten kommentar zu verschiedenen stucken aus op. 118 und 119 brachte! er fragte mich, was ich davon hielte, und da auch mir eines und das andere gedicht sehr wohl gefiel, beauftragte er dr. fellinger, sie vervielfaltigen zu lassen, und verteilte das sauber auf buttenpapier ab­ gezogene, mit einer vignette von musizierenden genien geschmuckte heftchen an nahere freunde" (kalbeck [1912-21]1976,4:304). 49. the text is transcribed in kalbeck ([1912-21]1976,4:552). the translation is my own. in a personal communication, david brodbeck suggested that i investigate the possibility of kalbeck's authorship for this poem. i have not as yet come to a firm conclusion on this point. 50. for discussion of this phenomenon as indication of a decline in musical literacy, see botstein (1992:143-45). 51. see floros (l983b:54-55). 52. for a non-programmatic reading, see scott (1995:188-90). 53. in june 1854, brahms was thinking of publishing a two-volume set of piano pieces under the title, "blatter aus dem tagebuch eines musikers. herausgegeben vom jungen kreisler:' the present op. 9 variations may be the second volume of this set. see brahms briefwechsel, 5:48-51. 54. for discussion of the transmission of brahms's extant manuscripts, see bozarth (1983b). references 19th-century music. 1982. comment and chronicle. 6 (2): 181-86. botstein, leon. 1992. listening through reading: musical literacy and the concert audience. 19th-century music 16 (2): 129-45. bozarth, george s. 1983a. brahms's lieder inventory of 1859-60 and other documents of his life and work. fontes artis musicae 30 (3): 98-117. ---. 1983b. the first generation of brahms manuscript collections. notes: quarterly journal of the music library association 40 (2): 239-62. ---. 1989. paths not taken: the "lost" works of johannes brahms. music review 50 (3-4): 185-205. dillon r. parmer ---. 1990a. brahms's first piano concerto, op. 15: genesis and meaning. in beitrage zur geschichte des konzerts: festschrift siegfried kross zum 60. geburtstag, edited by reinmar emans and matthias wendt, 211-47. bonn: gudrun schroder. ---. 1990b. brahms's lieder ohne worte: the "poetic" andantes of the piano sonatas. in brahms studies: analytical and historical perspectives, edited by george s. bozarth, 345-78. oxford: clarendon press. brahms briefwechsel. 1907-22. 16 vols. berlin: deutsche brahms-gesellschaft. brahms, johannes, joseph joachim, julius otto grimm, and bernhard scholz. 1860. [manifesto]. berliner musik-zeitung echo (may 6). brodbeck, david. 1989. review of the music of brahms by michael musgrave. journal of musicology 7 (3): 403-14. dahlhaus, carl. 1980. between romanticism and modernism: four studies in the music of the later nineteenth century, translated by mary whittall. california studies in 19th-century music. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. dietrich, albert. 1898. erinnerungen an johannes brahms in briefen besonders aus seiner jugendzeit. leipzig: otto wigand. fellinger, imogen. 1983 . brahms's view of mozart. in brahms: biographical, documentary, and analytical studies, edited by robert pascali, 41-57. cambridge and new york: cambridge university press. fischer-dieskau, dietrich. 1977. the fischer-dieskau book of lieder: the original texts of over seven hundred and fifty songs chosen and introduced by dietrich fischer-dieskau, with english translations by george bird and richard stokes. new york: knopf. fiske, roger. 1968. brahms and scotland. musical times 109 (1510): 1106-1l. floros, constantin. 1980. brahms and bruckner: studien zur musikalischen exegetik. wiesbaden: breitkopf & hartel. ---. 1983a. brahms-der "messias" und ''apostel'': zur rezeptiongeschichte des artikels "neue bahnen." die musikforschung 36 (1): 24-29. ---. 1983b. studien zu brahms's klaviermusik. in brahms-studien, vol. 5, 25-64. hamburg: karl dieter wagner. ---.1988. das brahms-bild eduard hanslicks. in brahms-kongress wien (1983), edited by suzanne antonicek and otto biba, 155-66. tutzing: hans schneider. frisch, walter. 1996. brahms: the four symphonies. monuments of western music. new york: schirmer. gottlieb-billroth, otto. 1935. billroth und brahms im briefwechsel. berlin and vienna: urban & schwarzenberg. henschel, george. 1967. personal recollections of johannes brahms. boston: gorham press. herder, johann gottlieb von. 1968. samtliche werke. 33 vols. hildesheim: georg olms. hofmann, kurt, ed. 1971. souvenir de la russie: transcriptions en forme de fantasies sur des airs russes et bohemians. hamburg: karl dieter wagner verlag. ---. 1974. die bibliothek von johannes brahms: bucherund musikalienverzeichnis. hamburg: karl dieter wagner. hull, kenneth. 1989. brahms the allusive: extra-compositional reference in the instrumental music of johannes brahms. phd dissertation, princeton university. kalbeck, max. [1912-21]1976. johannes brahms. 4 vols. tutzing: hans schneider. kraus, detlef. 1986. das andante aus der sonate op. 5-versuch einer interpretation. in johannes brahms als klavierkomponist: wege und hinweise zu seiner klaviermusik, 29-34. wilhelmshaven: heinrichshofen-bticher. ---. 1988. the andante from op. 5-a possible interpretation. in johannes brahms, composer for the piano, translated by lillian lim, 29-34. paperbacks in musicology, no. 9. new york: c. f. peters. 129 130 current musicology kross, siegfried. 1982. brahms and e. t. a. hoffmann. 19th-century music 5 (3): 193-200. leyen, rudolf von der. 1905. johannes brahms als mensch und freund: nach personlischen erinnerungen von rudolf von der leyen. dusseldorf: karl robert langewiesche. litzmann, berthold, ed. 1920. clara schumann: ein kunstlerleben nach tagebuchern und briefen. 3 vols. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. ---, ed. 1927. clara schumann, johannes brahms: briefe aus den jahren 1853-1896.2 vols. leipzig: breitkopf & hartel. macdonald, malcolm. 1990. brahms. london: j. m. dent & sons. mahrt, william peter. 1992. brahms and reminiscence: a special use of classic conventions. in convention in eighteenthand nineteenth-century music: essays in honor of leonard g. ratner, edited by wye j. allanbrook, janet m. levy, and william p. mahrt, 75-112. stuyvesant, ny: pendragon press. may, florence. 1905. the life of johannes brahms, 2nd ed. 2 vols. london: william reeves. mccorkle, margit l., ed. 1984. johannes brahms: thematisch-bibliographisches werkverzeichnis. munchen: g. henle. mies, paul. 1919-20. herders edward-ballade bei joh. brahms. zeitschrift fur musikwissenschaft 2: 225-32. musgrave, michael. 1985. the music of brahms. companions to the great composers. london: routledge and kegan paul. ---.1988. brahms und kalbeck: eine mibverstandene beziehung? in brahms-kongress wien (1983), edited by suzanne antonicek and otto biba, 397-404. tutzing: hans schneider. nelson, thomas k. 1996. klinger's brahmsphantasie and the cultural politics of absolute music. art history 19 (1): 26-43. niecks, frederick. [1906] 1969. programme music in the last four centuries: a contribution to the history of musical expression. new york: haskell house. parmer, dillon. 1995. brahms, song quotation, and secret programs. 19th-century music 19 (2): 161-90. ---.1997. brahms and the poetic motto: a hermeneutic aid? journal of musicology 15 (3): 353-89. pfaff, fridrich. 1909. die groj3e heidelberger liederhandschrift. heidelberg: winter. reich, nancy b. 1985. clara schumann: the artist and the woman. ithaca, ny: cornell university press. reynolds, christopher. 1985. a choral symphony by brahms? 19th-century music 9 (1): 3-25. schauffler, robert haven. [1933]1972. the unknown brahms: his life, character, and works, based on new material. westport, ct: greenwood press. schumann, robert. 1853. neue bahnen. neue zeitschrift fur musik 39 (28): 185-86. ---. 1952. on music and musicians, edited by konrad wolff and translated by paul rosenfeld. new york: pantheon. scott, ann besser. 1995. thematic transmutation in the music of brahms: a matter of musical alchemy. journal of musicological research 15 (3): 177-206. sisman, elaine r. 1990. brahms and the variation canon. 19th-century music 14 (2): 132-53. smith, peter howard. 2005. expressive forms in brahms's instrumental music: structure and meaning in his werther quartet. musical meaning and interpretation. bloomington and indianapolis: indiana university press. wiora, walter. 1963. zwischen absoluter und programmusik. in festschrift friedrich blume zum 70. geburtstag, edited by anna amalie abert and wilhelm pfannkuch, 381-88. kassel: barenreiter. current.musicology.83.109-188.pdf cm_111_chakrapani_final current musicology 111 (spring 2023) ©2023 chakrapani. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnon-commercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). i misunderstand you rajnesh chakrapani a sound piece recorded and edited by the author.1 we listen each day as a dying person. sound creates life, curation of self that removes and brings back the familiar, i misunderstand you is a collaboration with mothers not living. i’m interested in the spectacle of how her sound creates an experience and erases the living. if not the answers to my questions, then what’s the power in a voice, timbre, throatiness, rambling, different registers of time. amma never says she’s stressed out––she hardly ever says she’s sad, and never says she’s depressed. i don’t remember her ever expressing in words that she’s angry. when i ask, “how are you?” – her typical response is, “can’t complain.” to complain is a fundamental part of the culture where i live now, in midwest usa; much of my training is how to persuasively complain. i’m afraid if i speak about amma in this way, people might view her lack of verbally expressing her negative feelings as backwards. amma has a habit of happiness that leads her to not speak clearly about things, she invites me into disruptively sarcastic spaces. she never speaks about trauma or abuse. her method of narration avoids 21st century packages of stories, in which we accumulate trauma in the first part of life and spend the second part of life processing, naming, and exposing it. as i insist on circling back to questions of trauma, trying to locate her trauma, i never find it. in literary terms i would describe her boundaries as rhizomatic, a nonlinear structure that connects any point to any other point. clearly stating and sticking with boundaries is an obsession where i live. the conversation about trauma and boundaries doesn’t take into account that in many cases people and entities set up alienating boundaries for amma. she had to cross a boundary when she moved to the usa, and applied for citizenship. she has had to cross numerous boundaries to fight back against traditional culture in both the usa and india. on a summertime trip to india, my wife asked what her wardrobe should be, to which appa suggested she dress more conservatively. i remember amma’s words: “you’re a white european. you can wear sleeveless shirts. they’ll give you a pass.” one of 22 rajnesh chakrapani ____________________________________________ the boundaries i had to cross was speaking up about my mental health – transgressing the taboo in our family – that discussion of feelings and mental health was a clear boundary, and she crossed that boundary with me. sometimes the rhizomatic boundaries backfired: amma found it acceptable to read the journals i wrote as a teenager when she thought i was in mental distress. while i state my boundaries and support people who have boundaries, i’m also suspicious of them. boundaries for whom – for the rich and powerful, for the gate keepers? when people are in positions of power over me and create boundaries to preserve a racist and toxic status quo, amma taught me to cross them. as a poc artist, how many times have i had to cross someone’s boundaries around topics of discomfort just to make my voice heard? even to marry someone outside of an indian community is a boundary to cross. the united states is founded on a blood boundary, the one-drop rule. the one-drop rule asserts that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry is considered black. boundaries cannot be universal because of systemic racism and social inequalities. maybe boundaries have to do with bodily frame. what are the assumptions, understandings, and misunderstandings of the body? i change my mind a lot about things, i misunderstand more than i understand. she used to wake up early in the morning for prayer to the deity, a mother goddess, and offer prayers in the evening. these moments where she would partly close the door, i wouldn’t be allowed to disturb. she was happy when i was in the room, or if i used the table to study in the room she would walk around me, my body did not interrupt her, it was my need to understand or misunderstand that she did not allow. mothers are in interruption except when in prayer. for most of her life amma was a pediatric nurse who worked with terminally ill children. i remember once she wanted to adopt one of the kids. “jackie wants to come home with us.” i recall that jackie was born with gastroschisis or something similar – a baby with her intestines born outside of her body. the doctors had surgically operated, but jackie still had problems and had to constantly return to the hospital. out of hundreds of children amma cared for in the icu, she spoke about jackie the most. she was consumed with the thought of something you were supposed to have born inside of a human body, on the outside of a body. jackie’s illness struck me as the emotional illness of an immigrant family, trying to keep things inside, putting back things that spilled outside back in. in my art practice i keep putting experiences on the outside, sometimes i go too loud and lose my voice. i’m interested in how the sounds of amma relate to past memories. i’m less interested in producing new recordings because memory is already full; i need an opportunity to sift through, curate, arrange, shape, cut away – to do what i do when nobody tells me what to do. to see things, to listen, to taste; a safe place to suspend judgment. 23 current musicology _______________________________________ since amma passed away last summer, i’ve been practicing avoiding grief. sometimes when i share my writing, listening, and videos with people, they say i am giving them access, that the work is intimate. what kind of intimacy? when i listen to my mother’s voice there is intimacy and distance. grief is my mother not saying things clearly – i listen to some of the last recordings of my mother where i ask her questions. my role is to listen not to comprehend but hold space, to create that space, to witness, not what she likes to eat, but the snacks she chooses, brands she asks me to bring her like janaki’s thattai, some undying sound. she would call and chat for long periods of time, where my only response was mmm or hmmm; i almost never get a word in. what was frustrating was the circularity of the conversations, she would start to tell me what she had for breakfast, then jump to the gardener’s visit, then to something appa said, then to a story about a neighbor, then back to food, and then some shopping she wanted to do; the whole effect, postmodern satire. at the very end, she would give me space to talk, but so much time had elapsed that i almost never shared anything. maybe boundaries are more like membranes, during my attempts at a q&a with her i soak in the way she speaks which avoids my attempts to document her, make her story palpable. instead i’m reminded that i passed through her body when i was born, why shouldn’t language be no more than series of beats in consciousness, something she creates which transcends the realities of our life. the unknowability of strawberry ice cream. in the last few months of her life, i interview her, want to take a crack again at making some connections to her childhood, her choices in life, her relationship to the mother goddess which felt ritualized for me. at the end of the interview, i ask her what she likes to have for dinner, a repetitive conversation that’s not about what she likes. when she is dying and the doctor tells our family to feed her ice cream and protein shakes, there is a great discussion about what flavor ice cream and protein shakes to buy. amma says she doesn’t care, or gives conflicting answers, until my cousin sitha, the holder of family stories, arrives on the scene. “i know the answer, amma likes strawberry, she orders strawberry ice cream when there’s a choice.” so we buy crates of strawberry flavored protein shakes, and tubs of strawberry ice cream. after a few days amma says she actually doesn’t like strawberry ice cream. but why do you always order it when we go out? i just used to ask for strawberry ice cream because no one else was eating it. after amma dies crates of strawberry shake remain unconsumed, a laugh at our attempts for capitalist hoarding of pleasure and care. the culture i live in now encourages promoting my own opinion, my own likes and desires; the algorithm knows my preferences and feeds me coupons – the fact that all these years amma consumed an ice cream flavor that she was at best indifferent to strikes me as a resistance to being known. 24 rajnesh chakrapani ____________________________________________ despite her sitting down, and patiently answering all my questions, i ultimately never got to really know her. she showed me the inability to actually know someone. something about this passage about roland barthes made me think how as a translator i interact with amma, my desire to lie down beside her when she’s sick and conduct this interview, my impulse to clarify her responses, my relationship to my inner and outer world and thinking that amma struggled with a conflict between her inner and outer world the way i did. kate briggs writes about translation and the unknowable: ‘it’s not true that the more you love, the better you understand,’ writes barthes in a lover’s discourse, translated by richard howard, under the heading ‘the unknowable.’ ‘[a]ll that the action of love obtains from me is this wisdom.’ then, in the next paragraph: ‘or again, instead of trying to define the other (‘what is he?’), i turn to myself: ‘what do i want, wanting to know you?’ what would happen if i decided to define you as a force and not a person? and i were to situate myself as another force confronting yours?’ (2021, 85). exploiting the technology of cameras and microphones to capture her to the best of my ability satisfied my base anthropological need to archive her, but she slyly turned technology into something that also protects intimacy. the codes and meanings are her artistic curation of self that confounds technological data. now that amma left, how will i gather up her content? it’s more a sense of her not there which will be out there and exclusively her. when i leave this world, i leave behind my digital opinions which are probably not mine to begin with. an artifact from the first quarter of the 21st century, something amma played with surprising regularity, the computer game angry birds. she would goad appa and ask him to play too. “why angry, i’m not angry,” he responds. while generally a good father, he had a temper, so amma plays angry birds and appa pretends he’s not angry. in the larger arena that plays out in the weaponization of children to fight on the sides of adults, she hurls baby birds to knock down oppressive structures. time exists differently when there is only sound. most hindu people say that the universe starts with sound, not light. sound is all mixed up for me; mixed up with yoga class in the usa. amma fights against the demon and is the demon. she relishes insight and delusion, a line of muruku as a constellation, rituals of agonizing repetition. the hindu god, shiva, famously saw no point in having offspring, to which his consort parvati says, “children are needed to receive and give love.” appa is mostly about how to do the yagna at all costs. his attitude sometimes similar to shiva’s: nobody needs food, cooking is an afterthought. in this version of the story amma doesn’t leave, though in the ancient story parvati leaves shiva and sets up a kitchen somewhere else. sometimes i think i should add something to the audio, some explanatory or historical addendums, something that would increase the accessibility of the 25 current musicology _______________________________________ audio. but as a translator i cannot simply add something, within the collaboration of a translator there exists something else a changing, replacing, a different kind of receiving. i’m never simply making something up but i am nevertheless making something (something new in the name of againness). i accept this peculiar writing scenario – i willingly accept it. although i don’t think it would be true to say that i accept or have ever accepted it once and for all. i don’t think i could claim to be capable of accepting this and my acceptance holding once and for all… translation as ‘a practice of acceptance’: an ongoing practice of acceptance, an ongoing rethinking, readjusting and reaccepting the terms of my acceptance (briggs 2021, 134). one sunday when i’m in high school, amma prepares pancakes for me. she waits until i start eating and asks, “who is melanie?” “where did you find that name?” “it’s in your journal.” melanie shares a locker next to mine, we exchange letters and song lyrics, i write about our meetings with fascination. it’s a name like pancakes i don’t think much about anymore. i withhold my anger about the invasion of privacy and try to explain to amma who melanie is. my explanation makes her out to be some educational prodigy, which is not what i intended. she listens patiently – then out of nowhere, “be careful of the girls.” in the present, i scroll through the news and find men and boys who behave inappropriately, shoot guns, commit criminal acts. i don’t have anyone in my life who talks to me this way. be careful of the girls... possessiveness. would i say this to my son? with increasing frequency, i am the only cis straight male in white art spaces. i introduce myself, and also learn from amma how to not exist in these boundaries. she contradicts boom culture, the way a history is put together. wind power is booming, translation is going through a boom, everybody lies to you except your mother, unless it’s your own mother. without her i might lose my capacity to notice many other things are beautiful, many other things are torture, someone who draws me out of my preferred modes of existence. notes 1 this piece includes an excerpts from a recording of a devi kavacham stotram (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxtuvg1tmp8): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l7_wqg92gbxdipyqf4a0kwzfxc9xncxc/preview references briggs, k. 2021. this little art. london, united kingdom: fitzcarraldo editions. 26 current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 wetmore. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 5 editor’s note: sounding the break: music studies and the political the academic study of music and sound is facing an array of political and intellectual challenges, prompting a pointed moment of critical self-reflection, what stuart hall might call a break—a conjuncture in which “old lines of thought are disrupted, older constellations displaced, and elements, old and new, are regrouped around a different set of premises and themes” (1980, 57). chief among contemporary challenges is a chorus of increasingly urgent calls to reveal and contest structures of power and inequality, to theorize potent, sincere, and comprehensive paradigms of diversity and inclusion (or to move beyond diversity and inclusion altogether), and to challenge ideologies that shape what are recognized as acceptable objects, subjects, subjectivities, discourses, and methods in scholarship on music and sound. beyond debates over the contents of western canons, or the inclusion of “non-canonical” musics and musicians to the array of suitable objects of study, these challenges demand an interrogation of the core values, political investments, and material ramifications at the heart of music scholarship. this special issue, sounding the break: music studies and the political, embraces this moment of institutional and intellectual reflexivity, endeavoring to contribute to an interdisciplinary critical examination of formations of the political embedded within musical thinking in the academy. the issue begins with three articles that aim directly at political structures within institutional contexts, followed by two empirical studies that point toward new ways of engaging with sonic materials outside more conventional academic frameworks. the first section features tamara levitz’s “the musicological elite” while the second features william cheng’s “black noise, white ears: resilience, rap, and the killing of jordan davis.” a third section comprises a transdisciplinary collection of writings on voice, gender, and race inspired by readings of licia fiol-matta’s (2017) the great woman singer. a stimulating set of book reviews edited by velia ivanova adjourns the proceedings. tamara levitz’s opening article, emphasizing that “musicologists need to know which actions were undertaken, and on what material basis, in building their elite, white, exclusionary, patriarchal profession before they can undo them” (43), offers an incisive archival examination of the early 6 current musicology institutional history of us musicology. levitz shows how contestations over musicological objects of study and professional norms have been conditioned by geopolitical relations, competition with related subdisciplines, and dependence on wealthy patrons, granting institutions, and personal capital. expressing wariness about a contemporary tendency to “confuse decolonization with liberal critique” (47), levitz gestures toward a more radical restructuring of scholarly inquiry and a more fundamental rethinking of the ontological foundations of the university itself. in her article, “power and equity in the academy: change from within,” music theorist ellie m. hisama focuses on more contemporary concerns. reflecting on the precarity of her early years as a graduate student and junior scholar, hisama outlines how, as a woman and person of color working on gender and music, she required an eclectic skillset to navigate power in the academy, especially in a subfield that has exhibited a “sustained resistance to considering issues of gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and other identifications in scholarship and professional development” (83). outlining both early-career responses to these challenges and more recent projects as a senior scholar, hisama’s article provides guidance to junior scholars “who hope to change the balance of power and equity in academic life from within” (90). lucie vágnerová and andrés garcía molina interrogate the intersections of labor, curricula, pedagogy, and institutional power in the next article, “academic labor and music curricula.” they emphasize the significance of contingent faculty, social movements, and students themselves for moving beyond tokenistic models of “diversity” and “inclusion” toward a decolonizing project that “question[s] the origins of value systems that largely originate in and pertain to white european and north american culture, values, gaze, and listening” (106). such a project must apply across all scholarly disciplines, they argue, not only fields based in the western canon like historical musicology or music theory, but also ethnomusicology, whose inescapable entanglements with colonialism, evolutionary frameworks, and its own exclusionary logics of canonization are often overlooked or minimized. moving outside the academy, william cheng’s “black noise, white ears: resilience, rap, and the killing of jordan davis” presents a chilling account of “white misimaginations of black skin, black ears, and black voices” (119) and the violence they engender. cheng exposes how the unimpeachably valuable discourse of black resilience is troubled by a lamentable corollary: the imaginary capacity of black bodies and communities to endure additional pain. a related “formidability bias” fuels further fantasies of black bodies as unduly threatening, sonically excessive, and 7 tom wetmore aurally deficient, establishing a fine line between the respectable sound of the resilient black voice and the menacing unruliness of disrespectable black noise. in the murder of jordan davis, the perceived noisiness of rap music and the fantasy of black menace in the ears and eyes of gun-wielding software developer michael dunn crystallized into “the self-defense justification of only choice—kill” (116). to engage issues of power, diversity, and inequality, ingrid monson argues for engaging varied social science paradigms and philosophical resources in her article, “in praise of eclecticism: relational thinking and theoretical assemblage.” deploying an insightful articulation of the notion of relationality, monson draws innovative connections between a constellation of theoretical frameworks from the last thirty-five years. monson also shows the value of allowing a project’s historical or ethnographic materials to lead the way toward the most effective assemblage of theoretical ideas, rather than merely applying preformulated concepts to particular materials. for monson, the musical work and culture of malian balafonist neba solo leads to a unique articulation of anthropological assemblage theory of morality and ethics that has profound implications for music, sound, and the political. the next section centers on licia fiol-matta’s (2017) book the great woman singer and includes responses by jack halberstam, fred moten, arnaldo m. cruz-malavé, alexandra t. vazquez, gayatri gopinath, and fiol-matta herself. the book, whose introduction is reprinted here, offers critical biographies of four puerto rican women singers. all of them faced gendered genre expectations, changing music industry practices, and a web of political entanglements ranging from cold war threats of nuclear devastation to contestations over puerto rican cultural nationalism. and all of them, in their own ways, “refused the readily legible” (moten, 229). challenging the gendered tendency to conceive of singers as empty, unthinking vessels—as “placeholders for someone else’s genius” (fiol-matta, 210)—fiol-matta explores the intellectual dimension of these women’s voices, what she calls the “thinking voice.” in doing so, fiol-matta “rewrites the history of genius that has made grand detours around female figures and rendered them as mouthpieces for a male composer” (halberstam, 227). a crucial concept is fiol-matta’s figure of “the nothing,” a “generative nothingness” (fiol-matta, 247) that provided these women with “a queer strategy of fully inhabiting the place of lack, of oblivion, to which one is consigned within a misogynist and homophobic logic” (gopinath, 244–45). moten, noting the incoherence of a “queer mother” (230) within the normative discourse of nationhood, speculates: “what if the first move of decolonization is to accept this monstrosity, this disfiguration?” (231). 8 current musicology current musicology presents these pieces not to suggest specific solutions or political programs but to open up and deepen the pressing questions that face the study of music and sound—questions whose importance and urgency will only grow. we hope that these works contribute to a “break” that may, in stuart hall’s words, “significantly transform the nature of the questions asked, the forms in which they are proposed, and the manner in which they can be adequately answered,” a shift in perspective dependent not only on “internal intellectual labour, but the manner in which real historical developments and transformations are appropriated in thought” (1980, 57; emphasis added). in addition to the wonderful authors whose words fill these pages, this issue would have been impossible without the exemplary work of the entire editorial board and advisory team. special thanks are due to velia ivanova for her work as reviews editor, as well as the team of associate editors that worked particularly hard in bringing this publication to fruition: jesse chevan, laina dawes, kyle decoste, jane forner, julia hamilton, and ian sewell. tom wetmore references fiol-matta, licia. 2017. the great woman singer: gender and voice in puerto rican music. durham, nc: duke university press. hall, stuart. 1980. “cultural studies: two paradigms.” media, culture and society 2 (1): 57–72. microsoft word ford typeset `current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 ford. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercialnoderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 210 reviewed by mike ford i requested to review this book in december 2019, blissfully unaware of the series of crises and aftermaths that the year 2020 would bring. neither the editors nor the contributors of this volume could have imagined how well-timed playing for keeps: improvisation in the aftermath would be in a year roiled by a global pandemic, economic devastation, as well as a tumultuous and long-overdue reckoning with racism and racial inequality. while none of the essays in the collection deal with economic or public health crises, the authors all show how improvisation is a critical tactic for dealing with multiple crises unfolding and lingering at the same time. improvisation in the aftermath clearly demonstrates that improvisation, both as a musical and a nonmusical practice, provides individuals and communities with ways to resist the violence and disruption caused by world-rending crises, as well as to heal the damage left in their aftermaths. claudio ciborra argues that “the power of bricolage, improvisation, and hacking is that these activities are highly situated; they exploit, in full, the local context and resources at hand […]. the smart bricolage or the good hack, cannot be easily replicated outside the cultural bed from which it has emerged” (2002, 50, italics original). the contributors in this volume each provide a snapshot of a particular improvisatory moment in a particular place; however, when these snapshots are placed over each other, shared patterns and strategies begin to emerge, transcending these local contexts. the book is part of the improvisation, community, and social practice (icasp) series, which aims to advance the notion that musical improvisation is “a crucial model for political, cultural, and ethical dialogue in action—for imagining and creating alternative ways of knowing and being in the world” (iii). this broadening beyond a single improvisational form is a vital part of the burgeoning discipline of critical improvisation studies, as can be seen in the multitude of improvisatory domains with which the contributors to the oxford handbook of critical improvisation studies (george lewis and benjamin piekut, eds. 2016) grapple. indeed, the essays in the current volume all use an improvisatory music as a starting point and then proceed to argue that the musical improvisation can, in one regard or another, be seen as a microcosm of 211 the environment in which it is found, by which it is shaped, and which it shapes in turn. the collection is commendable for its insistence on a broad range of musical practices, geographic areas, and, perhaps most significantly, a diversity of literary genres employed. in addition to academic articles, we also find a poem, a series of drawings, and three interviews. while such a variety of genres is certainly a breath of fresh air, it should be noted that the non-standard genres all pertain to united states topics, with the exception of one on palestine; and the non-us musical styles and locales receive traditional scholarly treatment. a subsequent book in the series would benefit from a more intersectional approach to nonstandard literary and musical genres. my review groups together essays based on the type of crisis and/or aftermath in which the musical and non-musical improvisations take place. after outlining the editors’ introduction and commenting on three alternate-genre chapters, i discuss the three essays that deal with the lasting effects of settler-colonialism (in the canary islands, canada, and hawai’i respectively). i then turn to four chapters that focus on improvisation in response to more recent violent outbursts: the vandalism of an arts center in south africa, the egyptian revolution of 2011, the recurring civil war in lebanon, and the ongoing israelpalestine conflict. the remaining two essays deal with the aftermaths that result from lingering inter-denominational strife in israel and northern ireland. the editors daniel fischlin and eric porter lay the foundation for the collection in the volume’s introduction, emphasizing several points rehearsed above, including the transferability of the tenets of musical improvisation to non-musical domains, the situatedness of improvisatory response, and the potential utility of improvisation during and following crises: “in the aftermath of chaos and trauma, improvisatory modes of being provide generative alternatives based on risk taking and nonconformity rooted in cocreative connections” (2). however, they also maintain that improvisation is not merely a contingency method, but can reveal underlying factors that contribute to the advent of crises and extend the tail of their aftermaths. the introduction is a masterful summary of the theoretical basis on which the subsequent chapters rest. in a later chapter, the editors converse with vijay iyer about a recent improvisatory project. iyer’s project is the third in a series on the war on terror and its influence on black and brown communities: the first deals with airport security; the second confronts the 24-hour availability of information about the war, made possible by digital technology; the third focuses on veterans, their 212 experiences, and the ways in which they deal with the traumas that result from serving in the middle east. iyer emphasizes the transformative therapeutic effect that improvising in these performances had on the veterans. however, he also points out the underside of improvisation—“the sort of improvisation associated with evil” (89). this admission is one of the very few places in the book where the author acknowledges that improvisation is not always a force for good, the rose-tinted way icasp often likes to present it. iyer’s project recognizes both the destructive improvisations that lead to and follow the war on terror and the constructive, co-constructive, and reconstructive potential of improvisation for black and brown communities in america. in her poem, “manifesto,” matana roberts improvises on the preamble to the constitution of the united states. through embellishment and reinterpretation, key terms from the preamble (such as “union” and “blessings of liberty”) are recontextualized in terms of an updated understanding of “we the people” as “the ever-growing collective mongrel race,” in which difference is celebrated and intertwined: “we are improvised, yet we should synchronize to bring the best of ourselves to fore” (28). throughout the poem, roberts repeats the refrain: united states of america united states of hysteric-a united states of america. drawing readers’ attention to the fact that, while the united states is now plunged into a particularly deep hysteria, the union has always induced hysteria in some of its people. in the other artistic chapter, randy duburke presents eight drawings that illustrate nina simone’s political critique and her contributions to the civil rights movement, another historical moment met with heightened “hysteric-a.” in the introduction, the editors note that “the stunning visual imagery evokes both direct acts of violence and the ever-present threat of violence, both state and vigilante, that haunted and inspired civil rights activists” (16). duburke depicts this direct violence through dynamic scenes of police clubbing and chokeholds— resonating deeply in the aftermath of a surge in anti-black police brutality in the united states at the time of writing this review. the artist blends context-specific imagery, personas like malcolm x and martin luther king jr., and placard slogans like “evers died for you//join naacp for him!” with broader calls to “stop racism now” and “we demand equal rights now” and lamentably omnipresent specters in kkk garb (124). the series of drawings culminates in a rendition of “mississipi goddam” (1964), simone’s musical 213 response to the horrific bombing of the 16th street baptist church in birmingham, al and the deaths of four black girls in the blast. with the exception of one mournful stance next to photo cut-outs of the four girls, duburke depicts simone in concert—voicing her demands for equal rights and her vehement opposition to state-sanctioned violence against black bodies. in his chapter on afro/canarian jazz, mark lomanno notes the centurieslong state-sanctioned violence perpetuated by colonizers against the autochthonous inhabitants of the canary islands, a spanish territory since the fifteenth century. in addition to physical violence, the spanish quashed—and continue to quash—canarians’ sense of identification with ancestral and cultural roots on the african continent. lomanno maintains that the linguistic impositions of settler-colonialism have stripped afro/canarians of their ability to articulate their complex identities; he positions musical improvisation as a way to cross the critical divide between the expression of identity and using language as the sonic means to do so. while demonstrating that “afro/canarians are filling in the historiographical gaps and breaks, creativity and deconstructively rewriting las islas’s multiple histories, thus re-envisioning their present and future through collaborative sonic performance,” some of lomanno’s musical arguments come across as simplistic elisions of musical plurality and cultural plurality (61). however, his meta-argument on the exclusion of the canary islands and afrocanariedad from transatlantic scholarship due to the hybridity of its many local identities—seen simultaneously as not european enough, not caribbean enough, not african enough—is convincing and points out an area in dire need of redress. just as lomanno illustrates the reclamation of traditional and ancestral cultural expressions through music in a neglected geographical space, kate galloway shows the ways in which inuit throat singer tanya tagaq and her collaborators reclaim perceptions of the first nations and the canadian north. galloway provides thorough discussions of three collaborations, detailing how the artists work together and adapt their disparate musical practices around each other. this is in part to show the importance of partnership and collaboration for the survival of first nations cultures, but also to clarify, by detailing the innovative engagement with novel musical forms and technologies, that these cultures are not static or primitive, as they are frequently portrayed in settlercolonial media and discourse. galloway deftly argues that “throat singers, like tagaq, embrace indigenous modernity, a process of adaptions where traditional indigenous practices are revised for contemporary use and community expression” (98). by combining past and present practices, then, indigenous 214 musicians can counter oppressive stereotypes, voicing their own identities, rather than having identities imposed on them by settler-colonists. kevin fellezs continues much of the argument of galloway and lomanno in his chapter on hawaiian slack key guitar and its complex history with colonialism. he presents three moments: the first is the early development of the musical practice; the second is a resurgence of slack guitar and its aesthetics of softness and sweetness that played into the tourism industry’s essentialization of hawai’i; and the third outlines the native hawaiian response to a non-hawaiian winning a grammy for hawaiian music. fellezs links them to improvisatory musical behavior: each moment involves improvising—not in the sense of performing a completely spontaneous composition or unleashing unrestricted, uninhibited expression but in the sense of adjusting to a momentary finger flub that proves fortuitous (the first moment, with its series of historical happenstance), extemporizing on a melodic line (the second moment, with its active resuscitation of older musical aesthetics), or allowing for another musician’s phrasing to dictate the flow or rhythmic emphasis in a given performance (the third movement, in which hawaiian slack key guitarists become involved with powerful music industry interests). (278) fellezs differs from galloway and lomanno in viewing improvisation simply as a method for the marginalized to resist oppression and as a means of healing individuals and communities after centuries of colonial domination. rather, he echoes iyer, admitting that “on the one hand, musical improvisation can be seen as the acts of agentive subalterns in negotiating, even challenging, hegemonic standards of musical evaluation and aesthetics. […] on the other hand, improvisational skill does not necessarily mitigate the downsides of participation with, in the case of hawai’i, the settler-colonialists’ desire to incorporate subaltern communities into their social order […] improvisation as a methodology and a technology manages to cut both ways” (279, italics original). the three essays on the legacy of colonialism all aptly demonstrate the long aftermaths left behind by centuries of physical violence and nefarious reshapings of indigenous identities, as well as the ways in which music is used in each of these locales as a way for indigenous peoples to incorporate past identities into changing presents in order to (co-)create alternative futures. this broad improvisatory potential holds for more recent violence as well. stephanie vos’s chapter is a tour de force using a film, the exhibition of vandalizim (2010), as the starting point; and through elegant argument, she theorizes improvisation through ritual, community, and politics to arrive at the conclusion that musical improvisation reflects non-musical improvisation and 215 the negation of basic recognition of humanity that often necessitates it. the film by aryan kaganoff follows zim ngqawana and kyle shepherd as they improvise on broken instruments and found objects while they make their way through the zimology institute, freshly vandalized by scrap metal thieves. invoking frederic rzewski’s (1999) notion that improvisation starts with an original “error” to which improvisation responds through “recovery,” which in turn becomes the next “error,” vos generates a teleology, per her case study of the zimology institute near johannesburg, that poverty begat desperation begat theft and vandalism begat musical improvisation, etc. however, she invokes another, contradictory construal: improvisation as a healing ritual, in which “the past is invoked to heal the present” (40) (in rzewski’s exegesis, by contrast, the present is invoked to remedy the past). perhaps it is exactly improvisation’s capacity to do both of these things—using the past to heal the present and using the present to heal the past—that makes it a valuable practice for dealing with the aftermaths in which both present crises and past calamities have to be processed simultaneously. drawing on the practices of ṭarab aesthetics, darci sprengel theorizes what she calls an “affective politics” that promotes solidarity through egalitarian encounters with the other. ṭarab musical culture provides a model for such a politics in that it is driven by “the unique affective interaction between performer and audience in each specific time and place” (163). sprengel provides a technological, political, and economic history of listening practices in egypt, highlighting changes, particularly in composer-performer-listener relations, over the past century in order to demonstrate why the improvisations of the mini mobile concerts collective in the aftermath of the 2011 revolution are so innovative. they had to improvise concert logistics in order to avoid both violent state-sanctioned opposition to the use of public spaces for art-making activity (or any other gathering, for that matter) and intra-community neighborpolicing. the collective’s approach to musicking is based on the improvisatory interaction between musician and audience member(s) “that ideally resulted in affective transformation” (161). sprengel’s conclusion that “it is not the presence of music that ‘reduces wars’ but the presence of certain types of listeners” is particularly inspiring and makes it clear how musical improvisation has a place not only in the aftermaths of violent conflict, but also before, in that it forces each improvising participant to hear the other (181, italics original). the free improvisation scene in beirut showcases such an instance of communal listening patterns, as rana el kadi’s chapter shows. el kadi provides a fascinating history of musical practices in lebanon, showing how they have 216 been influenced by the various political regimes that oversaw (and brutalized) the region from the fifteenth century to the 2010s. the essay focuses on the aftermath of the civil war (1975-1991) and the integration of west and east beirut, characterized by opposing muslim and christian religious and cultural identities, through free improvised music. she argues that lebanese musicians “use free improvisation to engage with cultural and religious differences, negotiate the lingering violence and uncertainty, engage with collective memory of civil war, and communicate critical alternatives for national politics and intersectarian social relations” (130). by using sonic found objects like audio and video samples from civil-war-era television and radio media, musicians aim to bring free improvisation to a broad audience. however, such improvisations also produce personal benefits to the musicians: el kadi describes an improvisation by trumpeter mazen kerbaj, “duetting” with explosions during israeli air raids in 2006, and argues that the performance “allowed kerbaj to psychologically face—and sonically grapple with—some of this childhood demons,” and continues that “this demonstrates the role of improvisation in addressing war trauma on the individual level” (145). the tension between community, ensemble-level, and individual experience, however, remains unresolved; el kadi cautions that, even though free improvisation may involve powerful individual expressions, collective expressions are not always so well-integrated. in his essay preceding two interviews, daniel fischlin reflects on his time in israel/palestine, the need for healing, and how improvisation, as a dialogic practice, is a key factor in that process of healing. he recounts his time spent with al-mada, a music therapy ngo, and the impact of cocreative, improvisatory musicking that al-mada uses to improve the psychological and social conditions of hundreds of destitute palestinians. he constructs a powerful narrative, interspersed with fragments of interviews, passages from un reports, and photos of pictures and messages painted on street and state walls. fischlin’s interviewees, odeh turjman and reem abdul hadi, talk about the challenges they faced in creating and managing the al-mada and outline specific examples —often quite upsetting to read—of palestinians’ trauma, noting how they have been helped by improvisatory music therapy. while fischlin’s understanding of improvisation sometimes comes off as idealistic, he does demonstrate its transformative capabilities: the improvised music i hear in palestine in humble cinder-block buildings has no commodity value, no obvious commercial value—no presence, except for its fleeting appearing in passing encounters. […] such music is fragile and evanescent, but somehow aloft, powerful and resonant in unexpected ways. it expresses a grounded humanity that lies 217 at the core of what it means to be in contingent relation to others, respectful of the cocreative impulses at the heart of improvisatory practices can be in the fact of violent, dysfunctional realities. (210) this chapter presents the most real, harrowing illustration of how musical improvisation is actively deployed as a strategy that truly improves the conditions—mental health, personal identities, and community identity—of those most affected by multiple aftermaths that are constantly reinvigorated by new waves of violent crisis. the other side of the west bank barrier is not without internal strife, albeit far less violent than the trans-wall conflict. moshe morad describes the tension between the musical preferences, particularly in popular music, of the ashkenazi jews (of european descent) and sephardic jews (of arabic descent) in israel. he focuses on the use of silsulim, a technique characterized by improvised microtonal and durational ornamentation, or “curls.” in addition to social and ethnic disparaging of mesulselet (“curled”) music, its improvisatory aspects have been a point of othering by the dominant ashkenazi group; morad maintains that the “different approach toward improvisation in the eastern musical world (as being a continuum of composition) versus the western musical world (as being the opposite of composition), and the traditional high regard for creative improvisation in the east, as opposed to the traditional dismissal of improvisation as ‘primitive,’ ‘untutored,’ and ‘impulsive,’ is mirrored in the mesulselet/mizraḥi (eastern) versus non-mesulselet/ashkenazi (western) aesthetico-political conflict in israeli music” (255). unsurprisingly, this conflict also spills beyond the borders of israel. while mesulselet was popular in palestine between the two intifadas, the music soon came to fall into the liminal space in which is viewed as “the music of the enemy” both by palestinians, for being too israeli, and by the dominant ashkenazi population, for being too arabic. yet morad muses that, perhaps, this music, with its arabic and jewish components, might serve as a bridge that enhances cultural understanding between the warring sides. in a rare gambit for improvisation studies, sara ramshaw & paul stapleton promote the act of strategically not listening in certain contexts, such as postgood-friday northern ireland. they argue that “attentive (non)listening, as an ethical practice that endeavors to both listen and not listen to the voices and sounds of the ‘other,’ may actually be a productive skill to nurture and encourage in a society enduringly beset by division and conflict” (301, italics original). they give a short overview of the improvised music scene in belfast, noting that it is largely incoherent, but that such a lack of congelation provides the opportunity 218 for musicians and audiences to listen for difference—or not to listen for it—in a society that has been divided by difference. while the theorization of attentive (non)listening is an interesting feature, the application of the concept to either musical or nonmusical improvisation seems, at times, a little thinly drawn out. however, this might only be because this chapter is the last in a collection of very thoroughly theorized and well-argued essays. it should be noted that some of the chapters in this book make for heavy emotional reading. extreme examples haunted me for weeks after i put down the book: fischlin’s chapter details the violent traumas of children whose only existence has been in a war zone and sprengel’s notes heinous practices of public sexual violence. an admission of the horrors to come—or better, a trigger warning—in the introduction would better prepare the reader. this nicety aside, improvisation in the aftermath is a beacon of hope in times of crisis and will continue to be a reference point as the aftermaths of current crises persist in the years to come. the authors all outline ways in which improvisatory musics—and, more fundamentally, improvisation itself—can help those who suffer through and navigate crises and, afterward, salve the psychological wounds of the survivors. i heartily recommend this remarkable book not only to those interested in improvisatory musical traditions from around the world, but also to anyone who seeks to imagine an alternate way of approaching and dealing with difference, conflict, and the aftermaths of violence. i certainly look forward to seeing further real-world applications of the concepts of listening, dialoguing, and cocreating discussed in this book. indeed, this volume provides a compelling framework for reshaping violent pasts and volatile presents into better futures through individual and community improvisation. references ciborra, claudio u. 2002. labyrinths of information: challenging the wisdom of systems. oxford: oxford university press. lewis, george e. and benjamin piekut (eds). 2016. the oxford handbook of critical improvisation studies, vols 1 & 2. oxford: oxford university press. rzewski, frederic. 1999. “little bangs: a nihilist theory of improvisation.” current musicology 67/68: 377–386. microsoft word hogg typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 hogg. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 219 reviewed by aldwyn hogg jr. who was paul robeson? several monographs published in the past decade have answered this question with varying degrees of success. gerald horne’s paul robeson: the artist as revolutionary (2016), for example, follows the precedent of older texts like martin duberman’s paul robeson: a biography (1989) and hews from archival sources a detailed biography of the political artist. tony perucci’s paul robeson and the cold war performance complex: race, madness, activism (2012) employs a more critical approach, one that situates robeson’s leftist and internationalist politics within and alongside the theatricality that characterized the domestic front of american cold war politics. but shana redmond’s monograph—distinct in style, content, form, and methodology— asks a different question of robeson: what was he and what has he become? in everything man: the form and function of paul robeson, redmond writes not another history of robeson the man, but of robeson as a “holographic” presence, robeson as engaged in play, robeson as subject of exhibits and inspiration for art installations, and robeson as a part of our physical environment. through the unusual yet compelling (re)configurations of robeson that comprise the book’s four, main, accessibly written chapters, redmond asks questions that more traditional biographical or historiographical approaches rarely explore: namely, why does robeson remain so significant and continually present today? in each of the book’s chapters, redmond demonstrates that the task of tracing robeson’s life demands a capacious approach—one that considers him “as collective rather than singular” (8), and one attuned to the transnational antiphonies that marked his political and musical life. she illuminates the symbolic and practical malleability robeson possessed during his lifetime and continues to possess for liberatory figures and moments following his death in 1976. redmond draws upon a diverse range of materials for her analysis, including, but not limited to, poetry, plays, pictures, paintings, sculptures, trees, stained-glass windows, the hollywood walk of fame, postage-stamps, museum exhibits, and other artifacts of material culture. and because of this diverse range of materials, and the various disciplines she enlists in her analyses, everything man sits provocatively at the interstices of, and is sure to be of interest to, 220 scholars of several disciplines including cultural studies, black studies, american history, and musicology. the interdisciplinary and conceptual challenge this book presents us—to think of robeson as not just a singular historical body in the past, but as multiply present in various forms of vibrant material and immaterial matter—replicates the polyvalence robeson embraced throughout his own life. indeed, as his wife, eslanda goode robeson, once perceptively opined of him: “everything, everybody, asked him to be everywhere” (14). at stake in redmond’s everything man is not only how we understand robeson’s life, nor his afterlife as hologram, play, installation, or environment, but the efficacy of biography in the twenty-first century as a means of understanding black life. redmond begins her first chapter, “hologram,” by revealing the delicate threading of her theory of paul robeson’s “voice.” redmond capitalizes this word throughout the book to distinguish between robeson’s voice—the unique sonic product and profile of his vocal apparatus (lungs, mouth, voice box, etc.)— and her theory of his voice. through his voice, robeson was “multiply present, embodied, and accessible beyond his immediate time and space” (19), a potentiality that beah richard’s poem, “paul robeson speaks for me” (1951), convincingly performs. his voice (particularly from the 1930s onwards) also always-already contains the trace of black internationalism, leftist politics, and resistance to fixed notions of nationality and geography. furthermore, through robeson’s intimate relationship with technologies such as the microphone and transatlantic communication systems, his voice was enmeshed in the currents of what alexander weheliye has theorized as “sonic afro-modernity” (weheliye 2005). finally, and perhaps most vital to redmond’s central argument, robeson’s voice—like the voices nina eidsheim critically listens to in her writings on race, embodiment, and vocality (eidsheim 2015)—is collective. it is generative of communal technologies and also of expressions of solidarity that are attuned to his audiences. this theory of vocal embodiment – which is specific to paul robeson – undergirds redmond’s analysis of each of the four configurations of the singer within the book. the remainder of the chapter traces the conceptual activation of robeson as a “hologram”—his body made virtually present through the sounding of his voice—in three significant historical moments. they include the 1955 bandung conference in indonesia, the 1957 eisteddfod (singing festival competition) of the national union of mineworkers of south wales, and a 1978 event, organized by the un special committee against apartheid on what would have been robeson’s eightieth birthday, celebrating his long-time commitment to anti 221 apartheid struggle. although these first two moments have been examined elsewhere—notably in redmond’s previous book, anthem: social movements and the sound of solidarity in the african diaspora (2014)—her diffraction of them through the idea of a “hologram” is fresh and provocative. for example, thinking of robeson as a hologram in wales forces us to contend with the cold war politics that acted on his corporeal body to prevent him from occupying that space in that moment—politics fuming with the stench of mccarthyism and resistance to (black) internationalism. in the second chapter, “play,” redmond guides us through robeson’s two arenas of play—competitive field sports and dramatic theater. robeson’s early athletic career, undertaken at rutgers university from 1915 to 1919, tends to receive no more than a cursory gloss in critical studies of him as a political artist. but in her analysis of edward t. schmidt’s 1989 play, mr. rickey calls a meeting, redmond illuminates the links, both real and symbolic, between the former athlete robeson and some of the key players behind jackie robinson’s triumph as the first african american to play for a major-league baseball team in 1947. notwithstanding robeson, these players included robinson himself; branch rickey, the general manager of the brooklyn dodgers; joe louis, the world boxing heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949; and bill “bojangles” robinson, one of the pre-eminent tap dancers and entertainers of the first half of the twentieth century. although these men likely never actually met in 1947, a meeting between them is fictionalized in mr. rickey calls a meeting. schmidt’s play, the first that redmond focuses on in this chapter, imagines what might have transpired had these famous men met to play. the game?—successfully conditioning robinson to endure the deluge of racism that would surely assault him for violating the sacrosanct color line. the players’ positions on the field? redmond delineates the men’s roles in schmidt’s “magical realism” (46): rickey is “the corporate visionary desperate for approval” (47); louis is “the hot-tempered heavyweight anxious to hurry the meeting along” (47); bojangles is “affable and appealing” (47); and robinson is anxious but “resolute in his decision to integrate the major league” (47). robeson’s role in the play, that of a righteous contrarian opposed to white conciliation, serves as the point of departure for redmond’s critique of schmidt’s portrayal of robeson, and for her broader analysis of his posthumous presence in stage works more generally. her analysis is clarified and deftly honed in the second part of the chapter, in which she—with more than a hint of palpable frustration—takes to task phillip hayes dean’s 1978 play paul robeson, in which robeson never sings. robeson’s voice—that which “always already account[s] 222 for and attend[s] to the shape and form” of his body (58)—was integral to his politics. so, to render it inaudible, non-present, or otherwise inaccessible, as the works of dean and schmidt accomplish, is to entomb rather than celebrate the vibrancy of robeson’s musical politics. in the book’s third chapter, “installation,” we witness redmond’s alchemy as she transmutes robeson from man to installation—something that is materially and aesthetically built. redmond first takes us to cardiff, wales in 2001 to tour the exhibit at the national museum, let paul robeson sing! (gadewich i paul robeson ganu!). robeson’s leftist politics and voice resounded for a long time amongst welsh labor activists after his initial sojourn there in the late 1920s and his subsequent visits in the 1950s. his voice sounded in consonance with theirs as they sung together a vision of an egalitarian and just future. and it is the echoes of this musical and political harmony on which let paul robeson sing! sought to capitalize. the exhibit, “intertextual and participatory even as it took familiar shape in its display of images and material culture with photographs, sculpture, and costumes,” fixed robeson’s voice and politics in time to reflect his life “through its content and its form.” as redmond reveals, this was but one part of a larger effort by the welsh national assembly to provide and promote powerful role models “for tolerance, multiculturalism and anti-racism throughout wales” (79). the main representational challenge that arose in the plays redmond analyzed in the previous chapter—how to make space for robeson’s voice alongside representations of the man—also reappears in her analysis of let paul robeson sing! however, redmond’s descriptive prose and careful selection of images gives us a sense of how the exhibit surmounted this challenge. for example, she highlights a listening station in the exhibit uniquely shaped in the form of a pyramid. none other than a recording of robeson singing “o isis und osiris,” an aria from mozart’s die zauberflöte, floods the enclosed listening space. through the presence of his voice in the listening station, robeson’s body was made present again in wales. and by linking his voice to his relationship with wales through other textual materials, the exhibit claimed robeson’s legacy for the nation. but redmond rightly illuminates the “sociopolitical cleavage” between robeson’s politics (87) and that of the nation state. robeson’s politics were rarely focused solely on any particular nation but were, in fact, global in scope. indeed, the final point of analysis in redmond’s chapter—a malinese postage-stamp commemorating robeson—redoubles this point of critique. the “socio-political cleavage” which redmond found in let paul robeson sing! is made even more apparent in her subsequent discussion of glenn ligon’s 223 1993 installation to disembark. combining empty shipping crates, recorded media, and lithographs and etchings of slave-era ephemera, to disembark is conceptually and aesthetically rooted in the same transnational routes, flows, and circulations that characterized robeson’s internationalist political and musical career, and that were the conditions, more generally, for the violent movements that have shaped the history of the african diaspora. each shipping crate houses speakers that animates a variety of diasporic musics, including the jamaican bob marley’s “freedom song,” songs by the georgia mcintosh country singers, and paul robeson himself singing the spiritual “didn’t my lord deliver daniel.” all the material, sonic, and spatial elements of to disembark—the empty shipping crates, the sounds therein, and the way they both configure visitors’ experience of the space—act together to suggest the presence and transnational circulation of black bodies, even if these routes of circulation are long gone. in the fourth chapter, “environment,” redmond invites us to commune with robeson in the physical spaces which have been imbued with his presence— a fixture in the earth, a home-turned-museum, a space of student life, and a tall, living tree. by guiding us through these spaces—specifically the hollywood walk of fame, the paul robeson house and museum in philadelphia, the robeson campus center at rutgers university, and the paul robeson memorial tree (also at rutgers)—redmond demonstrates several ways robeson is still materially present in the world, and limns some of the political stakes of this physical presence. for example, she reads the paul robeson house as an intimate space in which robeson is not only documented, but also—in the case of a small, stained-glass icon of the singer therein—literally built into. this house, this icon, and the mural of robeson painted by peter pagast in 1999 (not far from the paul robeson house) all stand as tangible testimonies to robeson’s continued presence with us in the physical environment. redmond argues that edifices like these fight “to hold space for the ideas and performances otherwise erased from books, walls, and other (surface) areas” (111). robeson’s supporters during the 1960s to 1970s actually did fight to imbue a space on the campus of rutgers university with robeson’s presence “as a model for continued living” (115). everything man: the form and function of paul robeson is a challenging text that forces readers to contend with the challenges that arise when thinking about black historical figures like paul robeson – figures whose thoughts and presence sounded across the globe through a variety of media forms. this is also a uniquely personal text. redmond’s prose is tinged with an intimacy that biographers tend to reject or hide. yet everything man is also a provocative text, one that brushes against the limits of biography and implicitly questions its 224 efficacy. for example, it asks: how does one write a history of an individual whose life and politics found expression through so many different materials and media in so many different spaces and times throughout the world? redmond elegantly addresses this concern with her metaphorical description of robeson’s political life as antiphonal, resembling a call-and-response musical texture in which two vocalists (or sets of vocalists) sing together in response to each other. this is a useful metaphor – worthy of emulating – to think about robeson’s internationalist politics and transnational networks like those discussed in the book’s third chapter, not least because his musical networks and political networks were sometimes one in the same. however, here in everything man, i hear one side of this antiphony—paul’s side—as more exclusive and perhaps more geographically fixed than the book at first suggests. for example, the voice of eslanda goode robeson, paul robeson’s wife, is largely silent in everything man (save a few sporadic quotes) despite the unison between her politics and his. paul robeson’s longtime accompanist and musical collaborator, lawrence brown, is also largely silent in these pages, even though he frequently traveled around the world with paul for performances and political engagements. redmond’s scoring of robeson’s antiphonal life in everything man is also almost always routed through the west: between america and wales, between america and bandung, even between states within the united states. although redmond does gloss non-western activations and manifestations of robeson as hologram, play, installation, and environment—notably in the book’s third chapter, which she concludes with an analysis of a malinese commemorative postage-stamp— an entire chapter devoted to robeson’s circulation outside of the west would have been deeply compelling, especially considering her repeated invocation of robeson’s internationalism. one of the most significant challenges everything man poses both to the genre of biography and to us as readers of this genre is the relatively simple, yet profound question: how do we know a person? how do we know paul robeson? from primary sources, and the histories and biographies that they have generated, we know him as the tall, friendly, talented, yet deeply intellectual and perceptive african american political figure that used the music of black america to aid worldwide struggles against oppression. but thanks to redmond, we now have more ways of knowing him. we know him as a holographic entity capable or traversing space and time. we know him as someone who engaged in play and who has reappeared in various guises in dramatic works. we know him through state-sponsored exhibits and art installations. and we know him in and as the world around us. 225 references duberman, martin. 1989. paul robeson: a biography. new york: new press. eidsheim, nina. 2015. sensing sound: singing and listening as vibrational practice. durham: duke university press. horne, gerald. 2016. paul robeson: the artist as revolutionary. london: pluto press. perucci, tony. 2012. paul robeson and the cold war performance complex: race, madness, activism. ann arbor: university of michigan press. redmond, shana. 2014. anthem: social movements and the sound of solidarity in the african diaspora. new york: new york university press. weheliye, alexander. 2005. phonographies: grooves in sonic afro-modernity. durham and london: duke university press. current musicology 109-110 (2022) ©2023nagel-frazel. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). laying down tracks: mapping the camilla urso concert company on the american lyceum circuit, 1873-83 maeve nagel-frazel introduction in 1902, when the chicago tribune (january 22, 1902) called the frenchamerican violinist camilla urso (1840-1902), “the ablest woman violinist the world has ever known,” urso reigned as america’s pre-eminent female violinist.i at her american debut in september 1852, urso was the first professional, female violinist to perform in the united states.ii over the next fifty years urso gave over 1200 concerts in america, becoming a nationally recognizable musical celebrity. key to urso’s fame was her affiliation with professional lyceum bureaus—talent management agencies that represented lecturers and musicians who toured on the nineteenth-century lyceum circuit. after joining the redpath lyceum bureau in 1873, urso gave at least 382 concerts in thirty-four states between 1873-83—a vast increase in quantity and geographic scope compared to urso’s prior concert tours. as a case study this article focuses on six seasons between 1873-83 where urso toured under the management of professional lyceum bureaus including the redpath lyceum bureau during 1873-74, 187475, 1875-76, and 1877-78; the american literary bureau from 1878-79; and the st. ormond lyceum bureau from 1882-83.iii digitally mapping urso’s lyceum circuit career has never been considered prior to this project.iv first the growing importance of musical companies on the lyceum circuit in the 1870s is examined in order to contextualize urso’s participation in the lyceum movement. second, maps of urso’s lyceum tour routes argue the expanding nineteenth-century railroad provided a ready-made network for geographically complex lyceum tours. third, analyzing lyceum advertising ephemera, reveals the lyceum provided a mass-marketing network for urso’s burgeoning celebrity. fourth, this article considers the intersection of classical and popular music on urso’s lyceum programs and investigates the relationship between urso’s performance practice and lyceum reception. fifth, analyzing urso’s concert fees proves touring on the lyceum circuit was financially profitable for urso. foregrounding the role of the american lyceum and its bureaus in urso’s mid-career shifts expected east-coast-centered narratives of american music. previous scholarship on the american lyceum primarily focuses on literary and political figures, neglecting the role of musicians on the circuit and obscuring the transformation from the lyceum as a vehicle for educational lectures to a medium of profitable entertainment. two prominent sources on the current musicology 2 post-civil war lyceum, marjorie harrel eubank’s 1968 dissertation and peter cherches 2017 book, are focused on literary rather than musical figures. cherches focuses on the role of star courses in urban communities but does not discuss lyceum finances or rural infrastructure. meanwhile, eubank (1968, 207) limits her scholarship to the lyceum as a literary institution stating, “it is not the purpose of this study to discuss the musicians or the musical presentations offered by the bureau in an evaluative manner.” existing scholarly work dealing with musicians on the lyceum circuit, such as katherine preston’s opera for the people, focuses on vocal stars and opera singers rather than instrumental performers such as urso. while sarah lampert (2013) touches on urso, lampert considers urso within a larger movement and lacks a close reading of urso’s tours and public reception. thus far, exploring the prominence of non-vocal musical stars on the lyceum circuit through digital maps and data collection has not been addressed in existing scholarship. musical companies and the nineteenth-century lyceum during the early-nineteenth century, individual towns sponsored lyceum courses featuring lectures on politics, religion, history, travel, and moral issues— but not music. angela g. ray and tom f. wright argue the early american lyceum was a vehicle for civic education and a cultural force in the development of american national identity.v by the 1870s the lyceum was shifting; the development of centralized lyceum bureaus after the civil war commercialized the american lyceum and transformed it into a music-focused entertainment network. centralized lyceum bureaus handled the bookings and correspondence of lecturers, instituted standardized fees, and pushed season packages of entertainment to local, independent lyceum committees. among the newly formed lyceum bureaus, the redpath lyceum bureau, founded by james redpath and george fall in 1868, quickly dominated the emerging market (eubank, 1). although first and foremost a talent agency, the redpath lyceum bureau was key in consolidating a fragmented and regional network of independent lyceum courses into a commercialized and profitable enterprise. by 1872, the redpath lyceum bureau represented a diverse and progressive roster of 134 lecturers and musicians, including thirty-seven women and at least three black musicians and lecturers.vi over the course of the 1870s, musical entertainment morphed from a fringe benefit to an integral component of every lyceum course. in 1871, james redpath (1871) advised local lecture committees that “managers should never fail to add music to the regular attractions of the lyceum evening.” peter cherches (2017, 59-60) suggests the growth of lyceum musical departments was an effort to bolster ticket sales and appeal to a wider audience following the panic of 1873. by 1873 the redpath lyceum bureau represented twelve concert companies and eighty-three individual musicians—a dramatic increase from the maeve nagel-frazel 3 sixty-five musicians represented by redpath only one year prior in 1872 (redpath, 1873). camilla urso’s rise on the lyceum circuit closely parallels the growing popularity and commercialization of musical combinations within the lyceum circuit. in 1873, james redpath announced urso’s affiliation with the bureau in the annual season circular: “this classical violinist is now forming a company which will travel during the season, and for which we are authorized to make engagements” (redpath, 1873). the participation of urso and other musical stars in the american lyceum circuit commercialized and popularized the lyceum. urso’s rise to fame: how a girl violinist became a lyceum star urso’s success on the lyceum circuit was predicated on three biographical factors: a pre-existing american concert career as a child prodigy; novelty as the most prominent touring, female violinist in the united states; and vocal endorsements by well-known male musical figures. after graduating from the paris conservatoire in 1852, urso made her new york debut on september 30, 1852, at age twelve. as a girl violinist and child prodigy, urso captivated american audiences in the 1850s with dwight’s journal of music calling urso’s early performances “the most touching experience of our whole musical life” (october 16, 1852). between 1852-56, urso gave over 150 performances in the united states.vii in the 1860s, urso leveraged her previous success as a child prodigy into a professional career. between 1863-73, urso gave over 270 concerts in the united states, including tours under the management of patrick gilmore from 1866-68, and the organization of a massive musical festival in san francisco in february 1870.viii as a result, when urso joined the redpath lyceum bureau in 1873, american audiences had a pre-existing relationship with urso built on her two decades of american concert experience. while urso embarked on numerous multi-state concert tours prior to her appearances on the lyceum circuit, urso’s early tours in the 1850s and 60s were individualized endeavours that lacked the large-scale commercialized tactics of the lyceum circuit and its bureaus. as a female artist, urso was a novelty primed for success on the lyceum circuit. while other female violinists had performed in the united states in the 1850s and 60s, no other female violinist performed as widely as urso during this time. prior to the 1880s, urso had no direct female violin contemporaries in america.ix urso’s femininity was a sharp contrast to the virtuosic bravura of male violin contemporaries such as ole bull (1810-1880) and henri vieuxtemps (1820-1881), serving as an effective foil that set her apart in a crowded concert field. however, despite her singular status as a female violinist, urso was not the only woman on the lyceum circuit. as noted previously, many women toured on the lyceum including the orators anna dickinson, ann eliza young, and mary current musicology 4 livermore, the dramatic reader helen potter, and singer adelaide phillips.x urso circumvented gendered objection through continuous and vocal support from male musical figures of authority. throughout her career urso received endorsements from carl zerrahn, b.j. lang, otto dressel, theodore thomas, patrick gilmore, carl bergman, and theodore damrosch, among many others. the pinnacle of urso’s endorsement was an 1867 signed “testimonial to camilla urso” from fifty-six prominent members of boston musical society. the “testimonial to camilla urso” deemed urso’s performance of the mendelssohn violin concerto as “marvelously fine and near perfection itself,” further commenting that her performance was a “a consummate rendering, which probably few men living could improve upon” (dwight’s journal of music, march 30, 1867). the “testimonial to camilla urso” was widely reprinted in boston newspapers and established her as a worthy competitor to male violinists. male endorsement functioned as an effective panacea legitimizing urso’s career within a male performance sphere. railroad networks and the expanding nineteenth-century lyceum urso’s debut on the lyceum circuit in 1873 coincided with a rapid expansion of the american railroad. digital maps of urso’s lyceum tours reveal the expanding railroad made it both possible to reach rural communities and profitable for urso to do so. on the lyceum circuit, urso visited rural communities in the midwest and west, touring colorado in 1879 and rural communities in wisconsin, minnesota, kansas, and north dakota during every season except for 1873-74. figure 1 maps urso’s lyceum concerts between 1873-83 color coded by season and overlayed onto a map of american railroad networks circa 1870.xi figure 1 reveals locations urso performed closely aligned with established railroad networks. the expanding railroad of the late nineteenth century made possible tours into rural wisconsin, minnesota, north dakota, and colorado. katherine preston (2017, 37) notes “between 1869 and 1873 more than 26,000 miles of track were added to the country's rail system almost doubling the total mileage.…track gauges became consistent, which allowed different rail companies to connect seamlessly with each other and create larger regional and even and national systems.” the geographic extent of urso’s lyceum tours continually expanded in the 1870s and 1880s, leading to performances in a bevy of previously inaccessible rural communities. maeve nagel-frazel 5 close analysis of urso’s 1873-74 season juxtaposed with her 1878-79 season underscores the direct connection between urso’s tour routes and the expanding railroad. figure 2 displays the route of urso’s 1873-74 season under the management of the redpath lyceum bureau; between october 1873 and may 1874 urso gave forty-nine concerts within a loop that extended from boston to chicago with stops in new york, michigan, illinois, pennsylvania, and ohio. figure 3 displays the route of urso’s 1878-79 season under the management of the american literary bureau; between september 1878 and may 1879 urso gave fifty-two concerts making a larger loop that extended from boston into canada, and through wisconsin, colorado, nebraska, iowa, and kansas. while the total amount of concerts in both seasons remained about the same (fortynine verses fifty-two), urso’s 1878-79 season encompassed more than double the geographic area. on august 15, 1878, the wisconsin state journal reported “the camilla urso troupe is said to have given 183 entertainments during the last season and traveled 13,610 miles.” even accounting for journalistic exaggeration, it is likely that urso’s tour routes were denser than my maps suggest. due to the limited scope of digitized newspapers, these maps likely represent only urso’s most prominent and documented performances. figure 1: map of camilla urso’s concerts on the lyceum circuit, 1873-83. current musicology 6 urso’s affiliation with professional lyceum bureaus enabled geographical expansion because it off-loaded the work of managing railroad timetables and arranging tour routes onto professional lyceum bureaus. in 1878, j.s. vale, the proprietor of the american literary bureau, spoke about the business of arranging tour routes during an interview with the cincinnati enquirer (september 27, 1878): “that’s the agent for the camilla urso troupe…he knows the railroad time tables and the distances between every switch better than any man in the united states. he’s got the most beautiful route for mme. urso this winter you ever saw.” arranging a six-to-nine-month tour with over fifty stops in the 1870s was a complex and difficult task.xii rules printed in the annual season circulars of the redpath lyceum bureau demonstrate lyceum bureaus applied systematic business practices to managing geographically disparate tours. in 1872, the redpath lyceum bureau published fifteen rules for local lecture committees in their annual circular. rule number five stated: “to save trouble, and avoid delays in making up routes, please give your address in full: if your town is not on a railroad, give the name of the nearest station; state how far you are situated from it, and precisely what accommodations there are for reaching you” (redpath, 1872). the large-scale commercialized structure of lyceum bureaus allowed them to manage complex tour routes beyond the administrative scope of urso and her troupe alone. the memoir of soprano clara kathleen rogers (1844-1931), who toured figure 2: map of urso’s 1873-74 concert season. maeve nagel-frazel 7 with urso under the stage name clara doria during 1874-75 season, reveals traveling on the nineteenth-century railroad was not seamless. missed trains, delays, and long travel times were an integral part of touring on the lyceum circuit: many were the discomforts, the annoyances and the surprises experienced during our travels in the middle west and beyond…there were delays in trains and missed connections which brought us to our destinations so late as to leave us barely time to get our trunks open, fling ourselves into our evening dress and drive—supperless—to the concert hall (rogers, 439). it was rare for urso and her troupe to perform more than one consecutive night in the same location. in one instance traveling between kansas city, mo to lincoln, ne rogers writes, “we were due the next night at lincoln, ne and the only way in which we could get over the ground on time was by chartering a special car to take us to a point where we could make connection with a regular train in the morning” (rogers, 442). urso’s troupe needed a special car because the atchison and nebraska railroad, which serviced the distance between kansas city, mo and lincoln, ne, only ran one train per day in the 1870s leaving kansas city, mo at 10:15am and arriving in lincoln, ne at 8:35pm—not giving urso and her troupe enough time to make their concert in lincoln, ne (travelers’ official railway guide, 191). not only did the american railroad allow urso to travel to concerts, but it also allowed concertgoers to travel to her. thus, railroad lines facilitated audience expansion and served as an engine of celebrity. newspaper social pages figure 3: map of urso’s 1878-79 concert season. current musicology 8 reveal many concertgoers travelled by train from adjacent towns to attend urso’s concerts. in advance of urso’s may 27, 1882, concert in woodstock, vt, the landmark (may 20, 1882) in white river, vt—a town twenty miles away from the concert—advertised that “a special train will run from this place and return after the concert. send for a seat in advance and it will be carefully attended to.” railroad timetables illustrate this trip took forty-five minutes in 1882.xiii in 1869, the boston & albany railroad published a broadside advertising an extra train to brookline, ma—four miles away from boston—on january 24, 1869 “to accommodate all who may wish to attend the camilla urso concert” (camilla urso collection). the broadside specified “a train will leave brookline at 6:45pm and return at 10:00pm or fifteen minutes after the close of the concert” (ibid). in both these cases, extra trains were added because of consumer demand to hear urso perform. concert ticket bundling also encouraged consumer mobility on the lyceum circuit. on april 10, 1879, the kansas weekly herald printed an advertisement stating, “the excursion to st. joseph [mo] on the 17th to hear the world's greatest violiniste [sic], camilla urso, is, including concert for round trip, $2.95 from hiawatha; $2.60 from robinson; $3.25 from hamlin; morril, $3.40.”xiv in total, this trip encompassed 60 miles from morril, ks to st. joseph, mo and about three hours of travel time.xv key to this advertisement is the customizability. you could attend the urso concert if you lived in hiawatha, or hamlin, or morril, ks, suggesting railroad networks encouraged concert attendance not only from a single neighboring town but from an entire adjacent region. as will mackintosh (2012, 63) argues, expanding railroad networks made travel desirable and ubiquitous for middle class consumers. traveling for entertainment—once a difficult and cumbersome endeavor—was now cheaper and convenient for concert attendees. as a result, the network of people who could hear urso grew dramatically over the 1870s and 80s. even without fare bundling or railroad timetable changes, individual concertgoers frequently used railroad networks to attend urso concerts on their own volition, underscoring both urso’s popularity and the growing mobility of nineteenth-century consumers. a typical notice is the report printed in the cambridge city tribune on may 13, 1876: “miss jennie lackey, mrs. alice mattis, miss phoebe mcclave, dr. rutledge and frank mosbaugh attended the camilla urso concert at richmond on wednesday eve.” the five members of this party traveled fifteen miles to hear urso from cambridge city, in to richmond, in. today this trip takes twenty minutes by car, but in the 1870s this trip took around forty minutes.xvi railroads facilitated concert attendance from smaller communities into larger metropolitan areas—cambridge city, in had only 2162 residents in 1870 while richmond, in had 9445 residents in 1870 (1870 census, 1872, 131). maeve nagel-frazel 9 making special trips was also a practice noted by members of the urso troupe including clara kathleen rogers, who describes when boarding a train to lincoln, ne: quite an unusual number of people in gala attire came crowding into the cars at every station. they all seemed to be in high spirits, talking, laughing, and greeting newcomers with ‘you for the show too?’ it never occurred to us till we arrived at lincoln that we were the ‘show,’ and that these merry people were making an all-day journey to hear our concert! (rogers, 443). rogers is correct that concertgoers “were making an all-day journey,” since traveling from kansas city, mo to lincoln, ne took ten hours in the 1870s.xvii special trips made by consumers position urso’s concerts as trans-regional social and cultural events. from stock company member to musical star: how lyceum publicity and advertising transformed urso into a musical celebrity while railroad networks facilitated geographical expansion, the commercialized publicity and advertising tactics of the lyceum circuit sold urso as a star. urso’s portrayal in the annual season circular of the redpath lyceum bureau from 1873-75 chronicles urso’s transformation from stock musical company member to a leading musical star. every year, the redpath lyceum bureau published a circular advertising their representative talent. the circular functioned as a catalog for the bureau, providing pre-packaged lecture courses, re-printable press clippings, and lithographs. in 1873, urso’s affiliation with the redpath lyceum bureau was announced with a small paragraph and no accompanying images. two years later, in 1875, redpath’s lyceum printed a full-page lithographic poster of urso’s concert company, as shown in figure 4. while the magazine includes lithographic portraits of other stars, urso’s poster is the only lithograph depicting a musical ensemble and the most elaborate lithograph in the circular. urso’s poster appears on the opening spread of the redpath’s lyceum. when readers opened the circular, urso’s poster was the first image they saw, underscoring the popularity of musical companies on the lyceum circuit. newspaper accounts indicate this flashy poster caught the attention of numerous lecture courses, soliciting lecture appearances through visual marketing. in august 1875, the carson daily appeal (august 27, 1875) in carson city, nv remarked, “for an advertising medium we have never seen so elaborate a vehicle as the quarto pamphlet put before the public by the redpath lyceum bureau of boston…camilla urso and her associates of the concert room are there in a cluster of seductive portraiture.” the kansas city times (september 5, 1875) remarked, “we find upon our table ‘redpath's lyceum’ for august, published in boston. it is elegantly gotten up, bound in pearl gray and printed current musicology 10 on tinted paper, with handsome lithographs of camilla urso's troupe.” in both instances, urso’s lithographic poster is the only image remarked upon within the booklet. the other portraits of lecturers and even the popular dramatic reader, helen potter, are not mentioned in comparison to urso’s “seductive portraiture.” lyceum bureaus used lithographs to facilitate connection and commercialized consumption of musical stars. a week prior to urso’s 1884 concert in galena, ks, the weekly galena republican (february 22, 1884) announced, “lithographs, posters, and programmes announcing the appearance of the world-renowned camilla urso concert company on thursday february 28, 1884, are displayed in our city.” lithographs solicited attention and sold concert tickets; as a result, lecture courses, allocated money specifically for lithographs. in 1876, the annual receipts and expenditures report for the oshkosh lecture association reported $3.61 paid for “lithograph pictures of camilla urso” (oshkosh northwestern, may 2, 1876). aside from the elocutionist figure 4: urso's concert company 1875-76. camilla urso uncat*mbd, music and recorded sound division of the new york public library. maeve nagel-frazel 11 mrs. scott siddons and urso, no other act on the oshkosh lecture association season was allotted money for lithographic printing in the local budget. lithographic prints and photographs created familiarity between urso and her audience; in other words, the pieces urso performed on a concert were temporal, but a lithograph could be taken home and cherished, continuing the memory of urso beyond her performance. while lithographs caught the attention of concertgoers, in order to turn urso into a star, lyceum bureaus needed a biographical tale audiences could latch onto. thus, lyceum bureaus fictionalized urso’s biography and dispersed it in pre-concert press notices and supplemental program booklets. urso’s biography, camilla: a tale of the violin by charles barnard, was published in 1874 in boston. barnard’s work is often factually inaccurate, mis-recording urso’s birth year and editing out urso’s marriages and children to promote a quasi-fictional story of a girl violin-wunderkind— fictionalizing urso’s life into a marketable story.xviii barnard (1874, v) portrays urso’s musical studies as a noble pursuit intended for artistic glory, characterizing urso’s life as one “of toil and poverty crowned by a great reward.” sherry lee linkton’s scholarship on the consumer benefits of published biographies of jenny lind, draws parallels to camilla: a tale of the violin. linkton (1998, 103) argues, musical biographies “provided a vicarious experience of being in the audience, thereby extending her audience well beyond the boundaries of the concert hall or her itinerary.” barnard’s work functioned similarly. audience members read about urso outside the concert hall, cultivating a perceived insight into urso’s personal life. thus, urso’s celebrity persona was built on the silent images and written biography of material culture as much as the sonic experience of her performance. barnard’s camilla: a tale of the violin, as well as the shortened pamphlet with the same text camilla urso: a tribute, facilitated para-social relationships with urso. one example is the invocation of camilla urso: a tribute in the serialized short story “the light keeper’s daughter” printed in many local newspapers during the spring and summer of 1880. the story recounts a light house keepers’ infatuation with a young violinist named lizzie mcguire. after mcguire admits being self-conscious about playing violin, the narrator remarks: ‘why child, did you ever hear of camilla urso? well, she is a lady, and she makes the most exquisite music on a fiddle and thousands of people go to hear her.’ ‘tell me about camilla urso,’ she said presently, ‘did you ever hear her play?’ ‘yes, indeed! i have a paper in my trunk containing a little sketch of her life which you may read for yourself, and which will tell you better than i can of her talent’ (vermont standard, woodstock, vt, june 24, 1880). while fictionalized, urso’s presence in this story and reference to her printed biography underscores how the lyceum stage and its associated marketing facilitated celebrity and created para-social relationships between audience members and urso. as daniel cavicchi (2011, 105) argues, musical biographies current musicology 12 “inspired music lovers to understand their listening experiences as part of a continuing and reciprocal relationship.” yet, owning urso’s biography was not a reciprocal relationship. listeners did not know urso personally, but through reading urso’s biography they felt a perceived personal connection. on the lyceum the physical materials of celebrity culture, namely printed biography and lithographic souvenirs, nuanced listening into a celebrity experience focused on the personal life of the performer in addition to a cerebral experience focused on the music itself. listening became a means to learn and engage with the personal life of a celebrity rather than a chance to hear the works of great composers. classical music as popular entertainment: musical programming on the lyceum circuit while railroad networks and commercialized advertising turned urso into a musical star, audiences returned to the lyceum circuit because urso employed a musical model crafted for maximum popular appeal. on the lyceum circuit, urso’s concert company programed a combination of popular songs and light classical works. for example, urso’s february 28, 1883, concert program, as shown in figure 5, lists twelve numbers in total: two piano solos, five vocal and operatic selections, two “humorous recitations,” and, finally, two violin solos performed by urso herself. on this occasion, urso is programmed to perform the “sonata for the violin (introduction, fugue and gigue)” by j.w. rust, and paganini’s witches dance. newspaper records from the 1882-83 season demonstrate that while differing encores were added, this basic repertoire was programed and performed again and again throughout the season. table 1 outlines urso’s concert company members and programmed repertoire by season, note that urso preferred to tour with one soprano, one tenor, and one bass but often altered this formula to include an alto or sometimes a dramatic reader. in regard to her repertoire, urso chose two contrasting selections, usually one of which was a virtuosic showpiece. maeve nagel-frazel 13 urso and others attest to the choice of programming as a means to generate popular appeal in their written remarks. in a september 1874 interview with the boston music journal dexter smith’s, camilla urso commented on her program formulas, saying: it would be rash i am certain, to give programs composed purely of classical music to audiences untutored to it. this would be the surest way, i think, to keep the general public away from concert rooms; but a few choice ‘morceaux’ of the masters should be introduced in every program, and this policy, which i have followed for years will prove a beneficial result to the cause of good music and elevate the taste (dexter smith’s, 72). figure 5: camilla urso program booklet, february 28, 1883. camilla urso uncat *mbd. music & recorded sound division of the new york public library. current musicology 14 extant programs reveal, urso relied on virtuosic tour-de-force works such as, paganini’s witches dance to enthrall audience members, and sprinkled in concert pieces and sonata movements throughout. urso’s comments also have a derogatory undertone, positioning lyceum audiences as simplistic and uncultured. “when you stand up in a concert room filled with an appreciative, cultured audience, when you are playing for hearers with trained musical ears, you expect success,” urso commented in an 1898 interview with the san francisco call (soley, 28). yet, urso’s success in popular venues including the lyceum, and later in vaudeville, testify to urso’s ability to transgress her views of musical genre and class. table 1: urso’s concert company members and repertoire by season. note urso’s stock concert company formula which included one pianist and several singers. the letters after each singer’s name classify them as soprano (s), alto (a), tenor (t), or bass (b). repertoire analysis reveals urso’s seasons under lyceum management in the 1870s employed the greatest variety of musical genres in comparison with urso’s other career periods. data analysis shows urso’s lyceum programs were diverse and varied. figure 6 displays urso repertoire classified by type and career period.xix while urso’s early repertoire in the 1850s and 60s was mostly made up of opera fantasies and virtuosic theme and variation works, by 1873 opera fantasies comprised only 27% of her repertoire compared to 47% in the 1850s. season concert company pianist concert company singers urso’s programed repertoire 1873-74 auguste sauret edith abell (s), tom karl (t), j.r. thomas (b) ernst, rondo papageno, op. 20; paganini, witches dance, op. 8 1874-75 auguste sauret clara [doria] kathleen rogers (s), william h. fessenden (t), j.f. rudolphson (b) mendelssohn, violin concerto in e minor, op. 64; leclair, violin sonata in d major, op.9 no.3 tombeau, 1875-76 auguste sauret louise oliver (s), clara poole (a), j.c. barlett (t), gaston gottschalk (b) spohr, polonaise; ernst, rondo papageno op. 20 1877-78 benno scherek ivy wandesforde (s), w.c. tower (t), j.f. rudolphsen (b) ernst, othello fantasie, op. 11; wieniawski, polonaise brilliante no. 2, op. 21 1878-79 benno scherek jennie sargent (s), w.c. tower (t), j.f. rudolphsen (b) tartini, devil's trill sonata in g minor; mozart, violin sonata no. 9 1882-83 s. liebling emily spader (s), marguerite hall (a), a.p. burbank (dramatic reader) rust, violin sonata no. 1; paganini, witches dance, op. 8 maeve nagel-frazel 15 the diversification of lyceum programs meant urso began performing excerpted violin sonatas, virtuosic showpieces, and excerpted violin concertos on lyceum programs. in the 1850s, urso performed only six genres of violin repertoire of which opera fantasy variation sets and virtuosic theme and variation works made up 83%. whereas in the 1870s, urso performed eight genres of repertoire with no genre receiving more than 27% popularity. urso’s lyceum concert programing choices are indicative of a larger nineteenth-century cultural conversation regarding popular verses classical entertainment. this debate was exemplified by john sullivan dwight who saw urso’s lyceum concerts as cheap popular entertainment despite their consumer popularity. dwight criticized lyceum bureaus in 1879, writing: “the lyceum has fallen into the hands of the showmen, who, under the name of the bureaux, have for some years made it a field of speculation. not only do they offer themselves as lecture brokers taking commission from the lecturer on one hand and the audiences on the other, but they have substituted amusement for instruction” (dwight’s journal of music, october 11, 1879, 159). dwight goes on to complain that the lyceum is “only an array of brilliant galaxies of star performers, virtuosos, famous singers, violinists, or pianists; it is the artists, not the art” (ibid, 160). virtuosity, dwight concluded, was a cheap trick that pleased popular audiences. instead, chamber and orchestral music by european composers was the true measure of artistic merit. dwight’s hierarchical stratification of musical genres does not factor into account economic motives. dwight may have considered urso’s lyceum concerts to be cheap entertainment, but they certainly sold tickets. for urso, a well-planned lyceum course, filled with season subscribers, was a figure 6: camilla urso’s repertoire classified by type and career period. courtesy of the author. current musicology 16 more profitable endeavor than a short series of chamber music concerts, thus underscoring classical music as a profitable part of popular culture in the nineteenth-century. urso was never solely a lyceum musician. yet, the short-lived and sporadic nature of urso’s forays outside of the lyceum circuit suggest nonlyceum concerts could not compete with the profitability and popularity of the lyceum. during her first season with the redpath lyceum bureau, urso gave a series of four chamber music “concerts classiques” in boston during february and march 1874. unlike lyceum programs, the “concerts classiques” featured full-length chamber works. the first concert on february 23, 1874 at boston’s horticultural hall included joachim raff, piano trio in c minor; schubert, string quartet no. 14 “death and the maiden;” and mozart, violin sonata no. 3.xx dwight’s journal of music (march 7, 1874) commended urso’s chamber music playing, stating, “we heretofore do sincerely trust that mme. urso will not allow herself to swerve from the high purpose in these concerts.” however, urso’s “concert classiques” were cut short after urso was severely burned by a kerosene lamp in march 1874 (boston globe, march 11, 1874). a short series of chamber concerts drew rich crowds in boston that could afford a $1 ticket price but was no match to the widespread popularity of the lyceum circuit. profitability of the lyceum circuit: analyzing urso’s concert fees and ticket prices beginning in the 1870s, urso’s concert fees grew sharply under lyceum management underscoring consumer demand for classical music on the lyceum circuit and the economic profitability of urso’s concerts. prior to the 1870s, urso charged around one-hundred dollars for concert appearances. in 1866, the conductor william scharfenberg wrote john sullivan dwight, then president of the harvard musical association, that urso “plays at our 2nd concert december 15th and receives $100—for her services which we gladly pay her, as she easily draws that amount and much more too” (harvard musical association, november 14, 1866). however, by 1873, urso’s husband and business manager, frederic luere wrote john sullivan dwight in response to a booking inquiry that “her terms are two hundred dollars net ($200). she pays her own expenses of r.r. [railroad] and hotels” (harvard musical association, september 16, 1873). between 1866 and 1873, urso doubled her concert fee—a change that coincided with urso’s introduction on the lyceum circuit. urso’s lyceum popularity meant the camilla urso concert company was often the highest grossing and most expensive entertainment on a local lecture season. in 1875 the sterling lecture association of sterling, il reported $225.47 in receipts from urso’s concert, and in the expenditures column urso’s troupe was paid $200 (sterling gazette, april 10, 1875). an 1876 report from the young men’s library association in dubuque, ia recorded $254.50 in ticket sales from maeve nagel-frazel 17 the camilla urso concert troupe of which $235 was paid to the troupe (dubuque daily times, march 14, 1876). in dubuque, urso’s concert fees were the highest of the lecture course.xxi while urso’s troupe charged $235 in dubuque, ia in 1876, in oshkosh, wi urso’s troupe charged the oshkosh lecture association $250 (oshkosh northwestern, may 2, 1876). among the seven other entertainments on the 1875-76 oshkosh lecture association season, urso’s fee of $250 surpassed the other entertainments by over $100. as the popularity of lyceum acts grew, lyceum bureaus began using lecture guarantees, usually a set amount of pre-sold seats before large stars such as urso would agree to perform in a small community, as a way to exert financial pressure and drive-up ticket sales. in 1879, the st. joseph gazette (february 21, 1879) printed the following notice: “at the opera house drug store is exhibited a paper to be signed by those who are willing to pledge themselves to purchase tickets for the camilla urso concert. the madame requires a guarantee before consenting to visit st. joseph.” in 1883, urso’s manager harry st. ormond rationalized concert guarantees in a letter to a local lecture committee in fulton, ny stating: and if reference to the guarantee, the amount notated in your contract covers only the sum we assure madame urso for her services along with considering the other artists salaries, traveling, departures, hotels, printing bills, expenses etc. you will therefore see that we are quite seriously interested in the result over the guarantee for even after the receipts have reached a gross sum sufficient to cover the guarantee and your expenses, we are still short of the actual cost to us (camilla urso collection). the exact number of ticket sales required to fulfill a guarantee depended on the concert location, hall size, and ticket price though some sources suggest a typical guarantee was around 150 tickets. in 1884, the winfield courier (winfield, ks, february 28, 1884) printed a notice stating, “in order to secure camilla urso, one hundred and fifty tickets were subscribed for.” lecture guarantees prevented urso from performing to an empty hall and guaranteed lecture courses could pay urso’s expensive concert fees. ticket price schemes for lyceum courses always incentivized community members to purchase season tickets—in a similar manner to orchestral season subscription packages today. typically, individual tickets cost between 50 to 75 cents, whereas season tickets, often with the perk of a reserved seat, cost between $2 to $4.xxii on october 8, 1873, the south bend tribune printed a full column advertisement for pleiades lecture course with a course of ten entertainments including the camilla urso concert company stating, “it is at great expense that the club have secured this strictly first-class company.” a single season ticket for the course cost $5, whereas two season tickets cost $9—an extravagance given the ongoing fallout of the panic of 1873.xxiii lyceum courses featuring urso were astonishingly popular. tickets for a lyceum course went on sale several weeks in advance, drumming up publicity current musicology 18 and anticipation for the course. on september 13, 1875, a month before the lecture course was slated to begin, the reading times reported “nearly 200 tickets have been subscribed and another one hundred are necessary to assure this series of popular winter evening’s entertainments.” if an average single ticket sold for 50 to 75 cents, a lyceum course needed to sell 250-300 tickets to meet urso’s fee of $200 per engagement, not accounting for the price of piano moving, advertising, printing, and hall rental. newspaper reports corroborate these numbers, reporting, for example, 400 tickets sold in dixon il, 880 people in attendance in dubuque, ia, and 1200 people in attendance in chicago, il (dixon sun, may 10, 1876. dubuque daily times, march 9, 1876. chicago inter ocean, december 21, 1874). lyceum courses commercialized urso’s performances because they provided a diverse set of entertainments for consumers while offloading the financial risk of geographically disparate ruralized tours onto local lecture committees rather than lecture bureaus and their representative talent. the locality of the lyceum allowed each community to tailor a lyceum course to their own interests, but at the same time it put the financial responsibility of the lecture season onto a localized committee rather than a national agency. geographic analysis of urso’s ticket prices between 1873-83 reveals tickets were more expensive in eastern cities, however single ticket prices increased over figure 7: camilla urso’s concerts colored by ticket prices and sized by frequency, 1873-83. maeve nagel-frazel 19 the course of the 1870s. figure 7 maps urso’s concerts scaled by size and color based on highest price for single tickets.xxiv dark blue indicates tickets priced above $1 whereas light blue indicates ticket prices priced at 50 to 75 cents. figure 7 demonstrates, urso’s concert tickets were more expensive in large metropolitan areas such as boston, new york, and chicago. notably, however, many of urso’s concerts in midwestern and western communities including minneapolis, kansas, and colorado also contained single ticket prices of $1 or above. urso’s celebrity status combined with the commercialized lyceum circuit pushed ticket prices ahead of other lyceum entertainments. in some instances, ticket prices were higher for urso’s concerts than other entertainments on local lecture seasons. on october 24, 1873, the jamestown journal of jamestown, ny advertised the price of single tickets as 35 cents except for the urso concert in which the price would be 50 cents. higher ticket prices imply competition for urso tickets underscoring her celebrity. archival business correspondence from urso’s manager harry st. ormond reveals urso’s celebrity allowed her business managers to demand more expensive ticket prices. in an 1883 letter, ormond rebuts a request for lower ticket prices stating, “in reply would say that the price of tickets 50 to 75 cents is the lowest our mr. ___[illegible] is permitted to make” (camilla urso collection). ormond continues, “now in the cities our fees average $1 for reserved seats and often $1.50 where with larger population and halls of 1800 to 2500 capacity large audiences can be accommodated, while in a small town where both the population and hall are small the demand is for cheap prices 50 to 33 cents” (ibid). ormond argues if ticket prices were reduced “you would require ⅓ more people to get the same amount of money and a moment's reflection i think will convince you that after discounting the people who could afford to pay 75 cents each, that instead of realizing more money you actually fall short in influence” (ibid). some evidence exists that not all lecture courses agreed with ormond’s call for higher ticket prices. in 1874, the argus and patriot (january 22, 1874) complained “the prices charged for seats were fifty per cent more than at burlington, middlebury, and plattsburgh.” by 1882, urso commanded expensive ticket prices indicating—even if local lecture committees had qualms about urso’s prices—consumers were willing to pay more to hear urso perform. ultimately, the local lecture course in fulton, ny did not agree to ormond’s terms. no record of an urso concert in fulton, ny during the 188283 season has been located. conclusion in retrospect, it is ironic that urso garnered success on the lyceum circuit right as the united states was reeling from the panic of 1873. one might assume ticket sales and patronage at urso’s concerts would drop during a time of economic current musicology 20 crisis, yet urso’s wide-reaching and financially successful lyceum tours with the redpath lyceum bureau—which began in 1873—prove otherwise. when mishler’s lecture course in reading, pa allowed subscribers to vote for their favorite lyceum talent in 1875, the camilla urso concert troupe came in second place with ninety-four votes, second only to the dramatic reader mrs. scott siddons.xxv urso’s high ranking on the ballot is exemplative of the changing demographics of the lyceum. discussing the results of lecture voting, the dubuque daily times noted that “dramatic and musical themes are the most popular,” and “of the eight chosen [for the lecture course] four are women” (ibid). by the 1880s, the lyceum was popular entertainment. urso was a product of this transformation and an instigator of the change. by the end of the nineteenth century, the chautauqua circuit overtook the lyceum; yet, the popularity of lyceum concert companies established music as an integral part of american variety entertainment, leading to a thriving musical department within the chautauqua movement.xxvi following her tours under lyceum management in the 1870s, urso continued to tour on the same network under the management of her husband frederic luere, albeit on an expanded geographic circuit including tours into the south in 1880 and 1885 and touring along the route of the northern transcontinental railroad in 1900. urso’s later tours demonstrate savvy exploitation of the lyceum business and musical model without the overhead charges of a lyceum bureau. urso’s career is a testament that mass musical celebrity culture predated the twentieth century. the geographic richness of urso’s lyceum performances in the 1870s dispel east-coast centric narratives of american music. the popularity of lyceum courses suggests classical music consumption was both nationalized and ruralized by the mid-nineteenth century. urso’s role as a central star on the lyceum circuit is representative of a larger ecosystem of lyceum musicians who toured in rural communities and transformed the geographic scope of nineteenth-century classical entertainment in the process. notes maeve nagel-frazel 21 i i would like to thank petra meyer-frazier, john j. sheinbaum, louis k. epstein, betsy g. miller, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their assistance and feedback on my work. ii while one or two other female violinists may have appeared in america prior to 1852, urso was the first professional violinist to give multiple concerts in america. candace bailey (2019, 251) suggests aniela niecieska (1827–1889), otherwise known as angélica giraud pinkind, performed on the violin at hibernian hall in charleston, sc in 1850. niecieska was not classified as a professional musician as she only gave one recorded concert in 1850. no other records of professional female violinists performing in america prior to 1850 have been located. iii for the purposes of this paper, i have chosen to focus solely on seasons where urso toured under the management of a professional lyceum bureau. therefore, i have omitted data from the 1876-77 and 1879-82 seasons in which urso did not tour under professional lyceum management. iv data for this project was collected by reading over 10,000 digitized newspaper results chronologically and recording concert data from concert advertisements and reviews. primary data collection came from newspapers.com, chronicling america from the library of congress, readex allsearch, and proquest historical newspapers, additional data came from regional and state digitized newspaper collections. newspaper data was supplemented with information from one-hundred archival concert programs from twenty-five archival institutions in the united states. digital maps were created using arcgis. v see wright (2017), and ray (2005). vi most of the women represented by redpath were vocalists. of the thirty-seven women represented by redpath in 1872, twenty-nine were musicians or dramatic readers. in 1872 redpath represented frederick douglass and anna and emma hyers, two black singers who together composed the hyers sisters concert company. based on redpath lyceum circulars, it seems the hyers sisters only toured with redpath for one season. see buckner (2012). vii between 1856-62, urso lived in nashville, tn with her first husband george m. taylor and stopped performing publicly. see schiller (2006). viii see miller (2001). ix other nineteenth-century female violinists active in america such as maud powell (18671920), teresina tua (1866-1956), and lillian shattuck (1857-1940) all have birthdates after 1850 making them successors rather than colleagues of urso. x see wright (2013), ray (2005), and lampert (2020). xi. an interactive version of this map with detailed concert data and season tour routes is available online: https://arcg.is/1qjwqs2. xii today, american passenger railroad travel is controlled by amtrak, but in the nineteenth century hundreds of competing railroad companies controlled different geographical regions. planning a multi-state tour required using the travelers’ official railway guide—a 950-page guidebook which was published every month beginning in 1870 by the national railway co— to navigate complex railroad timetables. xiii the timetable for the woodstock railroad muncie & cincinnati railroad in the 1882 traveler’ official railway guide, reported that a train left white river, vt at 5:00pm and arrived in woodstock, vt at 5:45pm. (travelers’ official railway guide, 1882, 27). xiv kansas weekly herald, april 10, 1879. $2.60 $3.40 equals about $70 $95 in 2022. (williamson, 2022) current musicology 22 xv the timetable for st. joseph and western division railroad in the 1879 traveler’ official railway guide, reported that a train left morrill, ks at 2:53pm and arrived in st. joseph, mo at 5:40pm. (travelers’ official railway guide, 1879, 230). xvi the timetable for the fort wayne, muncie & cincinnati railroad in the 1879 traveler’ official railway guide, reported that a train left cambridge city, in at 11:46am and arrived at fort wayne, in at 4:25pm. (travelers’ official railway guide, 1874, 190). xvii the timetable for the pittsburg, cincinnati, and st. louis railway reported that a train left cambridge city, in at 5:37 pm and arrived at richmond, in at 6:15 pm. (travelers’ official railway guide, no. 1 1879, 191). xviii in reality, urso married twice and had five children. urso married george m. taylor (circa 1820-?) in nashville, tn on june 24, 1856. the couple had three children: emily georgina taylor (1857-1941), lindley taylor (1859-1875), and caroline taylor (1860-1908). urso and taylor separated around 1862, and urso married frederic luere (1838-1927) around 1862-63. urso and luere had two children together: camille luere (1864-1956), and henri luere (18651865). for more information on urso’s children, see schiller (2006, 23-28). xix a digital version of this dashboard is available online: https://arcg.is/1hmjzb0. xx urso’s supporting musicians for these concerts included mendelssohn quintette club members william schultze, thomas ryan, and rudolph hennig, and b.j. lang played piano. (new york public library). xxi the mendelssohn quintette club still charged $200 (in comparison to urso’s $235) whereas the orator william parsons charged only $75, though his lecture netted only $12.20 in ticket sales. xxii 50 to 75 cents equals roughly $10-$20 in 2022, while season ticket prices of $2-$4 equal about $50-$100 in 2022. (williamson, 2022). xxiii $9 for two season tickets equals roughly $210 in 2022. (williamson, 2022). xxiv an interactive digital version of this map is available online: https://bit.ly/187383ticket_prices. xxv the redpath opera company, which was the next musical company on the ballot, received only fifty-seven votes. dubuque daily times, october 29, 1875. xxvi the redpath lyceum bureau became a chautauqua bureau when the company was purchased by keith vawter in 1901. see eubank (1968) and lush (2013). references primary sources: cambridge city tribune, (cambridge city), in, may 13, 1876, 3. camilla urso collection. university of south carolina irvin department of rare books and special collections. “camilla urso.” galena weekly republican, (galena, ks), february 22, 1884, 1. carson daily appeal, (carson city), nv, august 27, 1875, 2 “chat with camilla urso.” 1874. dexter smith’s. dexter smith, eds. september 1874. courtesy of sara lampert. chicago inter ocean, (chicago, il), december 21, 1874, 8. cincinnati enquirer, (cincinnati, oh), september 27, 1878, 10. dixon sun, (dixon, il), may 10, 1876, 1. dubuque daily times, (dubuque, ia), march 14, 1876, 5. maeve nagel-frazel 23 dwight, john sullivan. letters to mr. dwight. harvard musical association library and special collections, boston, ma. “feb. 23.” dwight’s journal of music, vol. 33 (boston, ma), march 7, 1874, 190. “from my diary. no. iv.” dwight’s journal of music, vol. 2 (boston, ma), october 16, 1852, 13. jamestown journal, (jamestown, ny), october 24, 1873, 8. kansas city times, kansas city, mo, september 5, 1875, 3. landmark, (white river, vt), may 20, 1882, 3. “lecture courses.” dubuque daily times, (dubuque, ia), october 29, 1875, 1. “leiades lecture course.” the south bend tribune, (south bend, in), october 8, 1873, 3. “local news.” dubuque daily times, (dubuque, ia), march 9, 1876, 8. “once famous violinist, who is dead.” chicago tribune, (chicago, il), january 22, 1902, 7. oshkosh northwestern, (oshkosh, wi), may 2, 1876, 4. oshkosh northwestern, (oshkosh, wi), may 2, 1876, 4. redpath boston lyceum.” dwight’s journal of music, (boston, ma), october 11, 1879, vol. 39, 166. rose-soley, a. r. “camilla urso’s idea of her art and the public.” san francisco call, (san francisco, ca), december 11, 1898, 28. “serious accident to camilla urso.” boston globe, (boston, ma), march 11, 1874, 5. st. joseph gazette, (st. joseph, mo), february 21, 1879, 4 sterling gazette, (sterling, il), april 10, 1875, 1. “testimonial to camilla urso.” dwight’s journal of music vol. 27 (boston, ma), march 30, 1867, 7. “the camilla urso concert.” argus and patriot, (montpelier, vt), january 22, 1874, 2. “the light keepers daughter.” vermont standard, (woodstock, vt), june 24, 1880, 1. “town and country miscellany.” kansas weekly herald, (hiawatha, ks), april 10, 1879, 3. urso, uncatalogued *mbd. music & recorded sound archive. the new york public library for the performing arts, dorothy and lewis b. cullman center. “will there be a lecture course?” the reading times, (reading, pa), september 13, 1875, 4. winfield courier, (winfield, ks), february 28, 1884, 3. wisconsin state journal, (madison, wi), august 15, 1878, 1. secondary sources: bailey, candance. 2019. charleston belles abroad: the music collections of harriet lowndes, henrietta aiken, and louisa rebecca mccord. columbia, sc: university of south carolina press. barnard, charles. 1874. camilla, a tale of a violin. boston: loring. block, adrienne fried. 1992. “two virtuoso performers in boston: jenny lind and camilla urso.” in new directions: essays in honor of eileen southern ed. josephine wright, 355-371. warren, mi: harmony park press. buckner, jocelyn l. 2012. “spectacular opacities: the hyers sisters’ performances of respectability and resistance.” african american review, vol. 45, no. 3, 309–323. cavicchi, daniel. 2011. listening and longing: music lovers in the age of barnum. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. cherches, peter. 2017. star course: nineteenth-century lecture tours and the consolidation of modern celebrity. rotterdam netherlands: sense publishers. eubank, marjorie harrell. 1968. “the redpath lyceum bureau from 1868 to 1901.” phd diss., university of michigan. current musicology 24 kagan, susan. 1977. “camilla urso: a 19th century violinist’s view.” signs 2, no. 3 (spring): 727-734. lampert, sara. 2013. “bringing music to the lyceumites: the bureaus and the transformation of lyceum entertainment.” in the cosmopolitan lyceum: lecture culture and the globe in nineteenth century america, edited tom. f. wright. amherst: university of massachusetts press, 67-89. ———. 2020. starring women: celebrity, patriarchy, and the american theater, 1790-1850. university of illinois press. linkton, sherry lee. 1998. “reading lind mania: print culture and the construction of nineteenth-century audiences.” book history 1: 94–106. lush, paige. 2013. music in the chautauqua movement. jefferson, nc: macfarland & company. mackintosh, will. 2012. “ticketed through the commodification of travel in the nineteenth century.” journal of the early republic vol 32, no. 1, 61–89. miller, betsy g. 2000. “a lady gives a monster concert.” bulletin of the society for american music, vol. 26, no. 1 (spring), 2, 6-8. preston, katherine k. 2017. opera for the people: english-language opera and women managers in 19th-century america. oxford university press. ray, angela g. 2005. the lyceum and public culture. michigan state university press. redpath, james. 1871.“the lyceum magazine: edited by the boston lyceum bureau, and containing the third annual list for the season of 1871-72.” boston: redpath lyceum bureau. courtesy of the american antiquarian society. ———. 1872. “the lyceum magazine: edited by the boston lyceum bureau, and containing the fourth annual list for the season of 1872-73” boston: redpath lyceum bureau. courtesy of the american antiquarian society. ———. 1873 “the lyceum magazine: edited by the boston lyceum bureau, and containing the fifth annual list for the season of 1873-74” boston: redpath lyceum bureau. courtesy of the american antiquarian society. reich, nancy b. 1995. “women as musicians: a question of class.” in musicology and difference: gender and sexuality in music scholarship, edited ruth solie:125-146. berkeley: university of california press. rogers, clara kathleen. 1932. memories of a musical career. norwood, ma: plimpton press. schiller, jennifer. 2006. “camilla urso: pioneer violinist.” dma diss., university of kentucky. selleck, johanna. 2004. “camilla urso: a visiting virtuoso brings music to the people.” in music research: new directions for a new century. cambridge scholars press. travelers’ official railway guide. 1882. philadelphia: national railway co. ———. 1879. philadelphia: national railway co. williamson, samuel h. 2022. “seven ways to compute the relative value of a u.s. dollar amount, 1790 to present,” measuringworth.com. wright, tom f. 2017. lecturing the atlantic: speech, print, and an anglo-american commons 1830-1870. oxford university press. 1870 census: volume 1. the statistics of the population of the united states. 1872. washington, dc: government printing office. microsoft word singh typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 singh. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercialnoderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 171 reviewed by davindar singh jim sykes’ the musical gift braids several ambitious projects together— somewhere around seven, depending on how you count it—resulting a book of massive scope for its 250-odd pages. it not only contains histories of the musics of many of sri lanka’s seemingly religiously and culturally bounded communities, but also a localized history of the politics of identity that formed these boundaries. it contains sweeping histories of musical life “between” the communities that are obscured by this politics of identity. it grounds these histories in sykes’s ethnographic study of sinhalese buddhist drummers’ attempts to situate their practice within and beyond discourses of identity. the book also contains ethnographic research on the place of sound, music, and musicians in sri lanka’s recent genocidal conflicts, which sykes sees as the bloody effects of these politics of identity. it contains sykes’s prescribed response to the conflicts: attention to the historical practices of circulating music and sound between entities marked by social difference, and the perception of these sonic circulations as acts of care and ongoing relationality, which sykes calls “musical giving.” in making the case for “musical giving” as politics, sykes's monograph mounts a sweeping critique of aesthetic perception shaped by political liberalism and the commodity-form, which sykes dubs the “music and identity episteme”: a reinscription of artificial social division through the relentless search for the community-indexing authenticity of musical expression. this critique tackles many of the fundamental assumptions of music scholarship past and present, in the process entwining two strains of thought that are usually considered politically opposed (“late structuralist” anthropology (turner 2009) and contemporary political economy). thus, sykes's study makes for valuable reading material—not just for region specialists, nor just for students and nonspecialists in music disciplines, but for scholars across disciplines interested in attempts to reconcile both conflict and conflicting forms of political critique. the book’s massive scope and ambition are not without clear influences, and it is in particularly close dialogue with contemporary music scholarship that turns to questions of human and nonhuman agency. ana maria ochoa gautier’s 2014 tour-de-force aurality looms large, and sykes draws deeply from the same 172 conceptual well. in both aurality and the musical gift, contemporary forms of social distinction are seen as arising from distinctions between nature and culture that took shape in the colonial project, with the production of naturalized ethnic difference in postcoloniality taking shape according to colonial logics. in both books, the subsequent role of the scholar is to untangle the working of these logics and entangle the previously-divided “nature” and “culture” produced by them (sykes 2018, 58-60). this entails recourse to the various contemporary forms of relativizing structuralist anthropology currently dubbed the “ontological turn” (12-13), which is then sutured to a body of thought that ties the problems of ontology to the problems of national politics. in ochoa gautier’s case this body of thought is primarily the examination of political theology, but in sykes’s case it’s a heterodox mixture of critical geography (including a wholly unique conception of music’s commoditization (208) directly based on david harvey’s reading of das kapital) and actor-network theory (also present in aurality, but for different purposes). though ochoa gautier and sykes are among the few ethnomusicologists to take on anthropology’s “ontological turn” (but see brabec de mori and seeger 2013 for precedent, and recent publications such as dirksen 2020 and schuiling 2020, which imply that this is a rising ethnomusicological trend), the invocation of actor-network theory brings sykes and ochoa in conversation with many other ethnomusicologists (gavin steingo, elliot bates, jason stanyek), and a throng of musicologists (georgina born, benjamin piekut, and perhaps tia denora and antoine hennion). sykes draws widely and unexpectedly, but is placeable within his peers’ concerns (see also sykes 2020, which ties contemporary “ontological” anthropology and many of the musical gift’s arguments to the burgeoning conceptual frame of anthropocenic crisis, increasingly common across social-scientific, musical, and popular publications alike). the musical gift contains six chapters bookended by an introduction and conclusion. these are interspersed with ethnographic interludes meant to unsettle the ostensible fixity of sri lanka’s ethnic and communal boundaries. the chapters and interludes are in turn grouped into four sections: “finding musical gifts,” outlining the basic conceptual premises behind sykes’s conception of “musical giving”; “musical giving as protection and destruction,” tracing the respective and related histories of the musics and sonic rituals of sri lanka’s tamil, sinhalese, burgher, and muslim communities; “the discursive erasure of musical giving,” outlining how the interrelation of these histories has been continuously erased in the course of postcolonial genocide; and 173 “rediscovering musical giving,” examining projects of post-genocidal reconciliation and offers sykes’s own reconciliatory prescriptions. the introduction makes the case for liberal political thought, and its construction of an individual self within a naturalized group identity, as both the cause of political division and the cause of faults in musical scholarship that analytically centers identity. sykes dubs the effect of this liberal notion of selfhood on music scholarship – the assumption that music necessarily reflects (or constructs) a naturalized identity demarcated through social boundary formation—the “music and identity episteme (6).” instead of this “episteme,” he proposes that music history turn to non-hierarchical notions of relationality, arguing for attention to non-western ontologies that “flatten” divisions between human, animal, and divinity in order to remove hierarchy from methodology (67). sykes posits theravada buddhist conceptions held by some of his percussionist interlocutors—including the concept of the “notself” in karmic relation to all other beings—as one such ontology. i note that western conceptions of the self that stress its temporal unfolding and immersion in the world, as opposed to a “stable, closed self (8),” are not uncommon in musical scholarship. phenomenology’s influence is widespread across the music disciplines, and there is a less-widespread but highly welcome influence of american pragmatism through the presence of linguistic and semiotic anthropology in ethnomusicology. sykes’s particular ontologically relational methodology might have been augmented with relation to these literatures on selfhood, but, then again, the musical gift is already massive. in the manner of classic critiques of the liberal public-private distinction (pateman 1988, gal 2001, warner 2002), chapter one argues that british colonial politics and postcolonial ethnicized nation-building created artificial divisions between sri lanka’s peoples, between the market and individual expression, and between “nature” and “culture,” all of which were crossed by processes of musical giving. sykes conceives of musical giving as a practical “technology of care” that produces values for others in the hope of conferring enduring relations, with any benefits for the self accrued through these relations. he expressly contrasts this form of giving to commodity consumption (15): he contrasts giving’s pragmatic and technical nature to the mere “symbols” of commodity consumption and the identities produced by it, citing talal asad to draw the distinction between “symbol” and “practice” (16). if we follow this citation, we see that asad actually claims that symbols are bound up in and acquire their potency through practices (asad 1993, 17-18), which renders this particular distinction untenable, but sykes’s pragmatic thrust is a vitally productive part of the book. 174 sykes describes the musical and sonic practice of berava, sinhalese buddhist drummers with whom he studied and performed, as a practice of pragmatic giving and not an expression of communal subjectivity. to sykes, such supposedly communal expressions are the necessary fate of music in conditions of political liberalism, wherein artistic practices are held to express identity and subjectivity, separate from the economic realm’s impersonal relations of exchange mediated by the money-form (17). sykes views the opposition between fluid material circulation and the ostensibly unified self’s subjective expression as “liberal aesthetics,” the critique of which is at the heart of this text. berava sonic practices are conducted for healing purposes, but due to the postcolonial perdurance of colonial-era ideologies of “authenticity” and lowland sri lanka’s extensive history with foreign powers, berava sonic gifts are often devalued by political elites in comparison to “more-traditional” forms of expression from highland kandy, and kandyan practitioners frequently acquire institutional jobs at berava expense (34-5). yet it is precisely berava sonic relations with “outsiders”—including the historical tamil cultural influence they incorporate—that support sykes’s efforts to focus musical scholarship on interrelation between ostensibly bounded communities. chapter two extends this berava sonic relationality from interactions between human communities to interactions with the nonhuman. in the process, sykes offers an extensive historical organology of sinhalese drumming that also addresses different forms of spiritual encounter, and traces both historical changes and changes across the island’s space. especially valuable here is an emic reworking of extant analyses of berava drumming derived from western conceptions of musical “experience” (79-80). sykes’s examination of changes in berava drumming include spatialized and hierarchized changes in contemporary assignations of exchange-value to ritual experts’ sonic encounters with spirits. in parallel to chapter two, chapter three offers a lengthy geographical history of tamil instruments, rituals, art songs, and forms of dramatic performance on the island, which also breach divisions between communities and the spiritual realm. like sinhalese religio-artistic practices, their audiences and practitioners assign them varying degrees of “authenticity” across time and space (113-4). sri lankan tamil ties to south india and comparatively independent cultural practices are discussed in depth, including changing conceptions of caste and their effects on musical production (102-3), and the effects on music caused by migration and other movement due to the civil war (108-110). chapter 4 looks at some of the aftereffects of the war, including postwar governmental emphasis on the classical or medieval character of tamil 175 music in order to obscure the relationality of sinhalese and tamil musics in the present day (157-9). in pursuit of this obscured relationality, sykes provides concise histories of sri lanka’s other major sociological fractions and outlines shared musical histories and practices among them. this includes an ethnicized muslim population, whose musical activities include connections to transnational sufi devotional practices, and equally transnational connections through conflict over the place of music in islam with sri lankan mullahs of “wahhabi” leanings (120-1) (note that in many contexts the use of this term is offensive to the conservative muslims to whom it is applied—it indexes a specific school of islamic jurisprudence tied to saudi arabia's government, which is separate from the practices of many south asian muslims—but perhaps it was not so to sykes’s interlocutors). musics of christian, african-descended, and burgher populations whose arrival stemmed from dutch and portuguese colonization and trade are also discussed. the musical practices of all of the above, as well as sri lankan tamil and sinhalese drumming practices, are shown to unsettle what sykes dubs the “cartography of culture zones”: the reductive spatialization in scholarship of sri lanka’s various populations that served to artificially draw distinctions between peoples and musical practices who were far more interrelated than described in extant histories (136-9, 156-8). chapter 5 describes sri lanka’s civil war, the 2004 tsunami, the effects of both on musicians, and attempts to return to more livable conditions and a less fragmented polity afterwards. musical efforts towards reconciliation have been cautiously initiated but are often stymied by new iterations of conflicts marked by nationalist linguistic ideologies and the specter of violent coercion, including debates over whether the sri lankan national anthem must be sung in sinhala or tamil. sykes ascribes the failure of many of these efforts towards reconciliation —often ngo-led—to the lasting power of the music and identity episteme, which renews the very social boundaries these efforts seek to overcome. the ethnographic anecdotes in this chapter are affecting and impress upon the reader both the high stakes under discussion and the validity of many of sykes’s desired interventions. chapter 6 discusses how colonial discursive production of space shaped sinhalese musical discourse. much of this discourse stems from the kind of environmental determinisms that shaped global colonial administration and that persist to this day in popular rhetoric and histories (211-5, consider jared diamond’s continued popularity). sykes describes sinhalese retroactive constructions of indigeneity as a reaction to these colonial logics, especially those that stress sinhalese musical “degeneration” to emphasize social distance 176 between them and sri lankan tamils (218-220). sri lanka’s much-discussed post-independence broadcasts of indian film songs (as these popular songs were mostly banned from all-india radio at the time) in turn instantiate postcolonial anxieties about sinhala musical “degeneration” due to indian cultural taint (2213). that ethnic isolationism was produced by colonial logics and yet persists after the end of the colony is one of history’s cruel ironies, and sykes productively outlines both the history of this isolationism, its dependence on the “identity episteme” and how such an episteme might be redressed. an argument of such scope and complexity will necessarily contain a lot of moving parts, and that some of these parts are in contradiction with one another does not reflect badly upon the author. it is instead a testament to sykes’s care as a scholar that the book presents a thoroughgoing and coherent intellectual project, despite certain contradictions between some of the many conceptual lineages upon which he draws. these internal contradictions are not faults per se but they are worth looking at, as they contain different implications for his political and theoretical prescriptions. sykes’s recourse to the ontological turn includes a conflation of the stances of viveiros de castro, philippe descola, their many followers (on some significant distinctions between the aforementioned, see turner 2009), and elizabeth povinelli (sykes 2018, 12, 12n. 16). this makes for strange political bedfellows: viveiros de castro is proud of his success in achieving brazilian state recognition for specific indigenous communities, and many anthropologists influenced by him point to the work of making claims on the state through establishing legally legible communities marked by ontological difference. on the other hand, povinelli questions the politics of recognition and liberal notions of community identity entirely, pointing to these conceptions’ destructive and directly extractive effects on australian indigenous people (povinelli 2002). povinelli also critiques the ontological turn’s political implications as an insufficient “multicultural social constructionism” (povinelli 2014). i note that sykes’s oft-repeated call to abjure political liberalism and its historical effects, which is among the book’s primary goals, would perhaps place him firmly in the camp of povinelli. indeed, sykes quotes povinelli at comparative length to describe the subsumption of musical gifts into “cultural” productions legible within liberal legal frameworks (18-19). furthermore, some anthropologists assert that the political projects of the ontological turn have not just played into the liberal politics of contemporary nation-states, but directly facilitated the very forms of genocide based on ascriptive identity that the musical gift is written against (bessire and bond 2014, which sykes cites positively [sykes 2018, 49-50, sykes 2020], bessire 2014). 177 moreover, much of the body of thought sykes draws on for his critique of liberal aesthetics (sykes 2018, 16-7), such as south asian historians ritu birla and andrew sartori, view the ontology of commodified labor as pervasive, internalized, and rendered “vernacular” in the societies where it took root (birla 2009, sartori 2008, 2014). as this includes sri lanka it would have affected berava ontologies as well, which makes sri lankan ontological difference seem perhaps less than politically efficacious. the respective conceptual bases of sykes’s ontological prescription and much of the remainder of his political critique are thus at odds. also of note is that sykes’s conception of gifting, which he describes as modeled on sri lankan practice (6), is sui generis—it differs in several important respects from many of economic anthropology’s various contemporary and historic consensuses on the gift. he instead eclectically draws from popular writers conversant with but on the periphery of economic anthropology, such as genevieve vaughan (53-4) and lewis hyde (47,49). sykes’s ideal typical practice of “musical giving” is a form of caring social interdependence whose spirit is very much unlike forms of agonistic prestation, such as the canonical anthropological depictions of potlatch and moka (15-17). when sykes invokes the potlatch of the pacific northwest’s first nations he idiosyncratically analogizes it as a form of musical hoarding, not gifting, destructive of both the gift and the social bonds within the gift (159-161). mauss claims the opposite, as do most economic anthropologists in the century after him. nor does the social interdependence of sykes’s “musical giving” apply to forms of caring mutuality for some at others’ expense—something fundamental to post-mauss conceptions of the gift’s perdurance in commodity relationships and fundamental to, say, kinship prestations across south asian media industries and boardrooms. sykes’s valuable insistence on the continual semiotic reinscription of the material world – such that musical texts and instruments produce different kinds of meaning in different regimes of value across social boundaries – both emphasizes the pragmatic wielding of (musical) objects and disavows notions of identity derived from the object wielded as “fetishism” (46-7). though sykes’s emphasis on semiotic reinscription provides a much-appreciated corrective to some of the early applications of actor-network theory in musicology and ethnomusicology, this is exactly the opposite of one of the common takeaways from mauss’s essay on the gift: that personhood is intimately bound up in objects in and out of exchange (parry 1986, 456-7). this raises questions of how sykes differentiates the pure intentions of his gifts from the many comparatively 178 “impure” gifting practices in the world, and at what point sykes’s humannonhuman relationality is distinct from material “fetishism.” sykes’s repeated distinction between “gift” as practical and “commodity” as “symbolic” of identity is also sui generis (16-7, 208-9). note that large swathes of the ethnographic literature on contemporary musics and invocations of identity describe the many eminently practical means, however problematic, to which identity has been put. an attendant question, then, is whether it is only liberal individualism that necessarily produces the politics of individual and sectarian identity that sykes so trenchantly critiques (56-9), or whether identity’s rise stems from more specific entities that cannot (only) be found in the persistent colonial influence of seventeenth and eighteenth-century english political and economic theory. there is much documented evidence of this ethnographic specificity. for example, sykes engages in extensive macroscale theorizing about capital (including the very general assertion that “in capitalism, music becomes less alienable” (52-3)). he extrapolates from today’s historically low wages for music in order to posit that capitalist social relations produce “the perception of music’s worthlessness as labor except as an expression of the self (artist/community or consumer)” (ibid.). it is, however, likely that those low wages come from specific projects with specific class actors in specific locations, not (just) the commodity form as a whole, and thus a greater degree of ethnographic specificity may be warranted. yet the historically specific role of liberal individualism, or of the process of commodification, in the production of a commodified sri lankan identity is not discussed here beyond the provocative drawing of conceptual parallels. there is a large literature on the commodification of extant categories of ascriptive identity, much of which posits such commodification as directly indexed to specific political economic conditions, and not (only) to “capitalist logics” or “neoliberalism” writ large. categories of ascriptive identity can be fundamental to capitalist social relations —legally enshrined ethnic inequality, for one obvious instance—without being directly commodified. and conversely, the direct commodification of signs of ethnicity, as opposed to capitalizing in the labor market upon the lowered exchange-value of the labor of those who ostensibly bear ethnicity, is a historically specific project whose contemporary resurgence has been indexed by many scholars to historically specific events. these include the decline of fordism (shoshan 2016), indian national attempts to court investment in the wake of increased global financialization (kaur 2020), state spatial restructuring produced by rollback of nehruvian reforms (kennedy 2013), cuban state 179 attempts to produce national narratives and musical history in light of economic vulnerability (wirtz 2014), and so on. the move from macro-scale generalization to political-economic meso-scale would be a productive site for future scholarship in sri lanka that builds on sykes’s excellent foundation. this is an important publication whose political ambition and conceptual scope make it worthwhile reading for scholars, students, and laypersons across disciplines, but it is especially important for those involved in ethnomusicology. though one may not agree with every one of its specific propositions—as many of the literatures upon which sykes draws are in conflict, some readers may be forced to pick and choose according to their tastes—at the very least its inroads into critical geography tread highly productive ethnomusicological terra nulla. its critical interventions—whether through its critique of liberal aesthetics, its thorough examination of the “music and identity episteme,” or the brief address of several ethnomusicological theoretical trends that have carried water for said episteme—are vital for the discipline. if music scholarship is to maintain a critical backbone, and if it is to have any purchase on genocide and the construction of ethnicity and ascriptive identity in contemporary life, then it must contend with the questions raised by the musical gift, and perhaps repay them in kind. references bessire, lucas. 2014. behold the black caiman: a chronicle of ayoreo life. chicago: the university of chicago press. bessire, lucas, and david bond. 2014. “ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique.” american ethnologist 41, no. 3 (2014): 440–56. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12083. birla, ritu. 2009. stages of capital: law, culture, and market governance in late colonial india. durham, nc: duke university press. dirksen, rebecca. 2019. “haiti’s drums and trees: facing loss of the sacred.” ethnomusicology 63 (1): 43. https://doi.org/10.5406/ethnomusicology.63.1.0043. gal, susan. 2002. “a semiotics of the public/private distinction.” differences: a journal of feminist cultural studies 13 (1): 77–95. kaur, ravinder. 2020. brand new nation: india in the global economy. redwood city: stanford university press. kennedy, lorraine. 2013. the politics of economic restructuring in india: economic governance and state spatial rescaling. new york: routledge. mauss, marcel. 2016. the gift. translated by jane i. guyer. chicago: hau books. mori, bernd brabec de, and anthony seeger. 2013 “introduction: considering music, humans, and non-humans.” ethnomusicology forum 22, no. 3 (december 1): 269– 86. https://doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2013.844527. 180 parry, jonathan. 1986. “the gift, the indian gift and the ‘indian gift.’” man 21, no. 3 (september). https://doi.org/10.2307/2803096. pateman, carole. 1988. the sexual contract. stanford, ca: stanford university press. povinelli, elizabeth a. 2014. “‘geontologies of the otherwise’: theorizing the contemporary.” society for cultural anthropology, january 13, https://culanth.org/fieldsights/geontologies-of-the-otherwise. ____________. 2002. the cunning of recognition: indigenous alterities and the making of australian multiculturalism. durham, nc: duke university press. sartori, andrew. 2008. bengal in global concept history: culturalism in the age of capital. chicago: university of chicago press. ____________. 2014. liberalism in empire: an alternative history. oakland, ca: university of california press. schuiling, floris. 2019. "notation cultures: towards an ethnomusicology of notation." journal of the royal musical association 144 (2): 429-458. doi:10.1080/02690403.2019.1651508. shoshan, nitzan. 2016. the management of hate: nation, affect, and the governance of right-wing extremism in germany. princeton: princeton university press. sykes, jim. 2020. “the anthropocene and music studies.” ethnomusicology review 22 (1): 18. ____________. 2018. the musical gift: sonic generosity in post-war sri lanka. oxford: oxford university press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190912024.001.0001. turner, terry. 2009. “the crisis of late structuralism. perspectivism and animism: rethinking culture, nature, spirit, and bodiliness.” tipití: journal of the society for the anthropology of lowland south america 7, no. 1 (june 1). https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol7/iss1/1. warner, michael. 2002. “publics and counterpublics.” quarterly journal of speech 88 (4): 413–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630209384388. wirtz, kristina. 2014. performing afro-cuba: image, voice, spectacle in the making of race and history. chicago: university of chicago press. current musicology 98 (fall 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 “django’s tiger”: from jazz to jazz manouche benjamin givan not long ago, i saw an online amateur video of the french guitarists adrien moignard (b. 1985) and sébastien giniaux (b. 1981), who are two of the leading players of the genre known as “jazz manouche” (or “gypsy jazz”) (moignard and giniaux 2010). they had been filmed in 2010 at the french village of samois–sur–seine during its annual festival django reinhardt. seated outdoors at sunset, closely encircled by throngs of festival–goers, the two musicians were performing a composition called “django’s tiger” by the festival’s dedicatee, the guitarist django reinhardt (1910–53). midway through a breakneck virtuosic solo, moignard insistently reiterated several high b–naturals, halfway down his guitar’s neck, before launching decisively into a four–bar phrase, high up the fretboard. a more tentative, indistinct arpeggiation followed. and then, for a fleeting instant, he stopped playing, his left hand slack against the instrument. after scrambling through another rapid arpeggiation, his left fingers only grazing the strings, moignard fully reconnected physically with his guitar and confidently concluded the chorus. i laughed. it seemed to me that this was not merely the sort of everyday stumble that adventuresome, risk–taking improvisers inevitably make from time to time. moignard was paraphrasing a melodic passage that reinhardt had improvised on a recording years ago, but it did not work out as deftly as it had for django. its harmonic context was different, for reasons that were far from trivial. in fact, it occurred to me that this near–imperceptible musical disruption encapsulated an epistemological contradiction within an entire musical genre inspired by a single musician. it embodied the disjunction between the real historical figure of django reinhardt and his own posthumous legacy. before proceeding, it’s worth mentioning that, ever since i first heard his recordings during the early 1980s, i have always thought of django reinhardt as a jazz musician. in the last three decades, however, the world has changed, and with the recent emergence of the jazz manouche genre, many musicians and listeners now see him in an altogether new light. moignard and giniaux’s videotaped performance motivated me to gingerly begin to explore this new genre, and to try to understand how, and why, many people today think of reinhardt’s place in music and in history quite differently from the way i do—or, at least, used to. to that end, i set out to take stock of published literature by journalists and music scholars, to analyze recordings, and to observe and interview some professional and ama8 current musicology teur players. the project has brought into sharper focus certain common misapprehensions, originating in a persistent essentialist racial ideology, concerning both reinhardt’s musical identity and jazz manouche’s history and aesthetics. it has also raised interrelated questions about how musical genres take root and evolve, how music history is written, and how, in both instances, past realities can be effaced by present–day artistic, social, and political concerns. these questions are not solely theoretical; from time to time, glimpses of truth burst into plain view, even if only evanescently, hurtling across the frets of a guitar. django reinhardt in the jazz world today widely regarded as the first european to become a major influential jazz musician, django reinhardt was born, not long before world war i, in the belgian village of liberchies to a family of manouche romanies (“gypsies”).1 like most romanies, the manouche trace their roots to northern india; they have lived peripatetically in northwestern europe since at least the late fifteenth century (williams 1998, 7–8). reinhardt, who spent most of his life in france, began his professional musical career during the early– to–mid 1920s as a banjo–guitarist playing musette music in parisian cafés and cabarets (delaunay 1961, 40–42; dregni 2004, 25–33). around 1930, after recovering from a severe hand injury that almost derailed his career, he adopted the acoustic steel–stringed guitar as his main instrument and began playing the popular music, african american in origin, known as jazz. american jazz musicians had begun arriving in france around a decade earlier, some touring briefly while others settled among a vibrant expatriate community. many local musicians quickly adopted the newly imported idiom, though at first they were largely regarded, not without reason, as artistically inferior to americans, to the point that the french musicians’ union, perceiving a threat to its members’ livelihood, began advocating quotas restricting the employment of non–native musicians (jackson 2003, 146–49). by the early 1930s, a small group of young paris–based jazz enthusiasts had formed a society in order to connect fans, circulate information about the music through newsletters and magazines, and stage concerts (legrand 2009, 29–33; conte 2001, 223–36). before long, the organization, which they called the hot club of france, also began promoting french jazz musicians, and in late 1934 it lent its imprimatur to a new ensemble of local players led by reinhardt and the violinist stéphane grappelli (1908– 97): the quintet of the hot club of france. with its swinging improvisa9 benjamin givan tions on american popular songs and jazz tunes, the quintet was soon touring france, england, and the netherlands, and by 1939 reinhardt had also played and recorded with leading visiting american jazz musicians such as coleman hawkins, dicky wells, benny carter, eddie south, and rex stewart (almost two thirds of his recordings from 1934–39 are not with the quintet).2 the hot club’s ensemble, which featured a rhythm section of two additional guitarists and a string bassist supporting its two soloists, has today become probably the best–known all–string group in jazz’s history. while certainly atypical in jazz then as now, its strings–only lineup was not nearly so out–of–the–ordinary in its time. this is a point worth stressing, because, since the 1930s, the violin and acoustic guitar have become rarer in jazz, and the drums more common, such that the quintet’s instrumentation appears less conventionally jazz–like to twenty–first century ears than it would have to audiences of its day. reinhardt and grappelli’s immediate inspiration was the american violin–guitar duo of eddie lang and joe venuti, and the violin had been a prominent lead instrument in new orleans music around the turn of the twentieth century (hobson 2014, 112).3 similar guitar–and–string–bass rhythm sections were used by groups ranging from charles “buddy” bolden’s band around 1900 through the well–known 1940s “big four” of muggsy spanier and sidney bechet. drummerless jazz bands were often recorded during the 1920s, including those of louis armstrong’s hot five, clarence williams’s blue five, and many discs by blues singers such as bessie smith. at any rate, by 1940 the hot club quintet’s membership had evolved to more closely resemble that of its typical american counterparts: grappelli, who spent world war ii in england, had been replaced by a solo clarinetist and one of the rhythm guitarists was supplanted by a drummer. from the late 1940s onward, reinhardt mainly played the electric guitar, an instrument he had first encountered on a u.s. tour with the duke ellington orchestra, and during the remaining few years of his life he preferred a rhythm section of piano, bass, and drums, which had by then become standard in jazz, as it remains today.4 ellington and armstrong were among the american artists who attested to reinhardt’s standing as a major figure in jazz.5 moreover, the guitarist himself appears always to have regarded himself a jazz musician, playing an american idiom (berish 2009, 263);6 during the so–called “swing era” of the late 1930s and early ’40s, he and the quintet were profiled, and their records reviewed, in jazz–focused american periodicals, as well as french and british jazz magazines.7 even so, during the 1940s and ’50s, book– length chronicles of jazz’s history often consigned reinhardt to a marginal 10 current musicology role.8 as the years passed, the guitarist’s posthumous fame grew, and by 1971, when he was elected by music journalists to the u.s. jazz magazine down beat’s “hall of fame,” he was widely regarded as an important figure in the idiom’s history, receiving substantive coverage in most jazz history textbooks of the 1970s through the present (morgenstern 1971, 13; collier 1978, 323–30; sales 1984, 121–22; schuller 1989, 835–39; porter and ullman 1993, 169–72; gioia 1997, 171–72; shipton 2001, 384–92; giddins and deveaux 2009, 255–58). through the second half of the twentieth century, then, reinhardt’s status as a canonic figure in the jazz genre was widely taken for granted and considered a straightforward, unambiguous matter; to this day, certain musicians, such as paul brady, guitarist with the hot club of detroit ensemble, take issue with the “consistent misapplication of the term ‘gypsy jazz’ to reinhardt’s music” and continue to regard reinhardt as “first and always a true jazz guitarist” (2012, 18). for the most part, the musicians with whom reinhardt regularly played were also, until recently, routinely considered jazz musicians—the guitarist’s longtime colleague grappelli, up until his death in 1997, often performed and recorded with major american jazz artists, from duke ellington and earl hines to barney kessel, oscar peterson, and mccoy tyner. today, however, this consensus has begun to fray. jazz manouche: real and imagined histories the term “jazz manouche,” along with its english–language synonyms “gypsy jazz” and “gypsy swing,” seems to have begun to acquire widespread currency around the late 1980s, a few years after players such as giniaux and moignard were born.9 the origins of the musical genre itself have been most succinctly summarized, historicized, and interpreted in a 2000 study by the anthropologist patrick williams. williams writes that, “the creation of a single person . . . [became] the emblem of all” (2000, 416).10 at the time of django reinhardt’s birth in 1910, no clearly defined manouche musical genre existed; musicians of manouche heritage typically played a variety of popular and folk tunes of the era, ranging from operetta excerpts to the sorts of cabaret melodies that were commonly played throughout france (410).11 this repertoire was usually played by small accordion–led ensembles whose music was often called musette, after the bal–musette (literally “bagpipe dance”) dance halls that emerged in urban france during the late nineteenth century.12 the idiom that is now called jazz manouche did not exist before—or even, it could be argued, during—reinhardt’s 11 benjamin givan lifetime; it emerged later, once musicians began imitating the instrumentation, repertoire, swing rhythms, and improvisational virtuosity that the guitarist himself originated with the quintet of the hot club of france in the mid–1930s. “django does not play in the gypsy style,” his friend and fellow guitarist jean “matelot” ferret once explained. “he plays in a style that is his alone. django’s music begins with himself. . . . he created a style” (jalard 1959, 57).13 as such, williams asserts, jazz manouche “is not the patrimony of a community but the invention of an individual or group of individuals” (2000, 411).14 after reinhardt’s death, in 1953, a few of his relatives, including his brother, joseph, and sons, lousson baumgartner (1929–92) and babik reinhardt (1944–2001), pursued careers playing jazz on electric guitars in a style heavily influenced by postwar american jazz. then, around 1970, several german romani musicians, led by violinist schnuckenack reinhardt (unrelated to django), began releasing a series of eleven albums entitled musik deutscher zigeuner [“music of german gypsies”] that recreated the hot club quintet’s music of the 1930s along with a few hungarian csardas melodies and songs in the manouche language (williams 2000, 411–14).15 a small number of other romanies likewise began imitating the music of the pre–world–war–ii quintet, learning by studying reinhardt’s recordings.16 as their music began to be diffused through live performances and audio cassettes, it gradually was taken up by romanies in germany and, even more so, the netherlands, belgium, and france (williams 2000, 416), functioning as an “invented tradition”—a symbolic practice of relatively recent vintage that “establish[es] or symboliz[es] social cohesion” within these communities (hobsbawm 1983, 9). by the late 1980s, with the emergence of the terms “jazz manouche” and “gypsy jazz”/“gypsy swing,” and the increasing involvement of gadjé (i.e. non–romani17) players and listeners, the idiom’s profile began to rise. at the twentieth century’s close, williams identified five principal factors that contributed to the rise of jazz manouche: a worldwide trend among jazz musicians, in the 1980s and ’90s, toward exploring jazz styles of earlier generations; a small coterie of amateur enthusiasts who began recording and distributing the music, as well as publishing related articles and pedagogical books; a concurrent revival of interest in the musette music, and “swing–musette,” of the interwar years; the emergence in europe of “gypsy festivals” (“festivals ‘tziganes’”) that often presented public concerts of music associated with romani communities;18 and finally, a late–twentieth–century fad for “anything with an ethnic character” (williams 2000, 417).19 subsequent research by siv b. lie (2012) has found that, since the turn of the millennium, jazz manouche’s popularity has been further fueled 12 current musicology by french governmental subsidies that have, rather ambivalently, promoted the music as an emblem of, on the one hand, french national patrimony in general and, on the other, manouche culture in particular. the idiom has now become an international phenomenon, coinciding with increased attention to reinhardt and his legacy by the entertainment industry.20 today, a small but vibrant global network of jazz manouche players flourishes, heavily relying—like most of today’s musical cultures—on the internet and other digital media for the exchange of knowledge and information (lysloff 2003; waldron 2009; miller 2012; prouty 2012, 115–50). most of this media—such as moignard and giniaux’s 2010 video—is generated and distributed by fans, free of charge.21 in short, a single musician’s idiolect has evolved into an invented folkloric expression. some of today’s jazz manouche players are fully aware of how this transformation has unfolded, among them the canadian guitarist and pedagogue denis chang. using the common term sinti (more or less synonymous with manouche), chang writes that “django was simply a gypsy who played guitar and who played great music. historically, the whole idea of gypsy jazz came much later, after django’s death; django’s style of playing eventually became a folk music for the sinti” (chang 2014).22 this development, williams observes, has paradoxically led to “the disappearance of the hero: since he is everywhere, he ceases to be a unique creator” (2000, 416).23 reinhardt’s original, formerly distinctive musical innovations are now widespread and normative within an extensive, international community of players.24 the consequences for published biographical and historical literature on reinhardt have been decisive. no longer is the guitarist always straightforwardly situated in the context of the jazz genre, broadly defined, as he was throughout the second half of the twentieth century. within the last decade and a half or so, as andrew berish observes, the literature has grown “schizophrenic”—the former view of reinhardt within “the long continuum of jazz history” now faces a competing notion of the guitarist as “a total original, sui generis, who established his own completely new musical style, ‘gypsy jazz.’” (2009, 240). the latter, more recent perspective is itself predicated on a misconception that jazz manouche (or “gypsy jazz”) has existed, and been identified as such, ever since reinhardt’s time. this anachronistic historical narrative began to germinate discursively several decades ago, but it has only become firmly consolidated quite recently. historiographically, it somewhat mirrors the way that jazz history itself, as scott deveaux has shown, has been retrospectively constructed by journalists and critics so as to imbue the music with “the prestige, the ‘cultural capital’ . . . of an artistic tradition” (1998, 484). the retrospective 13 benjamin givan narrative of jazz manouche differs, however, in that it often (though not always) tends to represent the genre as a comparatively stable, collective folkloric expression rather than as an art form evolving in the hands of individual innovators, as jazz itself has often, if simplistically, been portrayed (498–99). from almost the beginning, some of the most influential writings on jazz manouche have advanced a race–based, essentialist notion of the idiom. in portraying its musical style as a genetic inheritance, they have tended to cite the fact that several rhythm guitarists who played with the quintet of the hot club of france at various times were familial relatives of romani heritage: reinhardt’s brother joseph (“nin nin”); their cousin eugène vées; and the three ferret brothers, sarane, pierre (“baro”), and jean (“matelot”). one of the earliest authors to categorize these players together on account of their romani origins was the composer and writer andré hodeir, in his 1945 book, le jazz: cet inconnu [jazz: this unknown] (hodeir 1945). however, hodeir, who had recorded pseudonymously as a jazz violinist with joseph reinhardt two years before the book’s publication, mentions these musicians’ common heritage in just a single cursory paragraph, without explicitly attributing their mutual stylistic affinities to their ethnicity rather than their social proximity (172).25 in contrast, the first comparatively thorough study of a “gypsy school” of jazz, michel–claude jalard’s 1959 article “django et l’école tsigane du jazz” (“django and the gypsy school of jazz”), unequivocally defines its topic in racial terms (jalard 1959, 54–73). writing within a decade of reinhardt’s death, jalard, who does not use the term “jazz manouche,” asserts categorically that, stylistically, “jazz tsigane does not signify the integration of so–called ‘gypsy’ [‘tsigane’] music with jazz” (55).26 he instead acknowledges that reinhardt “was less an extraordinary ‘gypsy’ guitarist than he was a jazz musician par excellence”27 (64) and that the quintet’s music “is directly based on the jazz of its time” (61).28 what therefore defines “jazz tsigane,” jalard states from the outset, is above all the ethnicity—indeed, the “race”—of its practitioners. “by jazz tsigane,” he writes, “we mean jazz music created by musicians of the gypsy [‘tsigane’] race” (54).29 jalard’s essentialism persists in scholarship as recent as the american author michael dregni’s 2008 book–length chronicle of jazz manouche, though it generally takes a subtler rhetorical form: rather than explicitly invoking race, dregni traces the music’s transmission through kinship lineages, both literal and metaphoric (dregni 2008).30 he highlights the contributions of reinhardt’s guitar–playing sons, lousson and babik, grandson david reinhardt, and great–grandson dallas baumgartner, even though, with the exception of the last mentioned, they have been electric 14 current musicology guitarists favoring a post–bebop idiom rather than the quintet’s acoustic interwar style (2008, 213–22, 278–87).31 dregni’s historical narrative is also replete with rhetorical allusions to essentialized, putatively natural characteristics of romani culture and music, even at times perpetuating longstanding negative stereotypes.32 metaphorically, the notion of jazz manouche as a biological inheritance emerges most unambiguously in his “gypsy jazz family tree.” this schematic listing of musicians, past and present, is divided fourfold into a “founding generation” and three subsequent generations that appear to be loosely defined by literal bloodlines—django is indicated as a founder, his sons as part of the “second generation”—as well as approximate temporal chronology (ix–xi).33 here, and throughout the book, dregni treats the music of reinhardt himself, and that of other romani jazz musicians active before the 1970s and ’80s, as jazz manouche avant la lettre.34 he accordingly characterizes the idiom’s late–twentieth–century onset as a “reviv[al]” (233) or “renaissance” (262) rather than a new phenomenon.35 it is no exaggeration to say that, with the emergence of jazz manouche as a musical genre associated with western european romani communities, a late–twentieth–century essentialist ideology has prevailed over interwar anti–essentialism.36 in the 1930s, reinhardt’s social background was primarily considered noteworthy within the jazz community insofar as he was not american. as a european whose playing had evidently demonstrated that jazz was not simply the inheritance of a particular nation (the united states) or ethnic community (black america), he was thought to exemplify the detachment of music from culture. yet today his manouche identity has been powerfully reasserted and his music reclassified as an authentic expression of his own community.37 once an exception among his people, he is now the rule. learning jazz manouche today at present, among a dedicated cohort of western european romanies, jazz manouche has become an effective medium for preserving the memory of reinhardt himself—the guitarist remains, in the words of manouche musician joseph “ninine” garcia, “the pride of our people.”38 a substantial number of the style’s exponents are nevertheless of non–romani origin (moignard and giniaux are both gadjé), and highly geographically dispersed. digital technology and the internet have, needless to say, proven efficient pedagogical media.39 instructional material abounds online, including demonstration videos, pedagogical manuals, transcriptions using 15 benjamin givan western notation and tablature, and play–along rhythm tracks.40 chang’s website, dc music school, which has monetized and professionalized instrumental instruction, has over 12,000 registered users (not all of them gypsy jazz players).41 an especially sophisticated online technology is soundslice, a software application, co–invented by the chicago–based jazz manouche guitarist adrian holovaty, that enables videos to be synchronized with scrolling guitar tablature that users can manipulate by slowing tempi and looping short excerpts.42 naturally, musical knowledge of jazz manouche is also propagated through face–to–face interaction. in addition to everyday informal interpersonal contact, direct oral/aural transmission also occurs in institutionalized venues such as festivals and instructional courses. of the various worldwide annual festivals dedicated to the idiom, the oldest and largest is the festival django reinhardt held in samois–sur–seine, the village where reinhardt made his home in his final years and in whose cemetery he is buried.43 the samois festival, which originated with sporadic small informal gatherings of musicians in the late 1950s and became a professionally–organized annual event by the 1980s, currently hosts several days of outdoor concerts for large paying audiences each summer; amateur and professional musicians also interact and play together informally at nearby campsites throughout the event.44 (moignard and giniaux’s 2010 rendition of “django’s tiger” was filmed at one such impromptu jam session.) one of the most well–known jazz manouche instructional courses is django camp, held for a week each summer since 2007 in northampton, massachusetts, in conjunction with a concert series entitled “django in june.”45 at the 2014 event, which i attended for several days, approximately two hundred students, each having paid close to $1,000 in tuition and room–and–board, received daily group lessons from professional north american and european musicians (moignard and giniaux have taught there, as have chang and holovaty). most participants were u.s. or canadian residents; several had traveled from europe and east asia. formal group instruction was offered, at four designated skill levels, for instruments including guitar, violin, bass, mandolin, and accordion. the daily schedule also included “facilitated jams”—ad hoc playing sessions with professional supervision—as well as informal talks and recreational activities such as wine tasting.46 as recently as the 1970s and ’80s, musicians of the nascent jazz manouche idiom relied almost exclusively on reinhardt’s recordings as their guiding source of reference, but today’s community is sufficiently large, active, and durable to have yielded numerous diverse, evolving repositories of musical knowledge, disseminated via many social and technologically– 16 current musicology mediated networks.47 jazz manouche has, in effect, reversed the stereotypical chronological narrative of folk musics that begin as aural traditions and later are transformed by contact with sound recording technologies. recordings came first and aural, person–to–person transmission followed. today, my anecdotal impression, from observing the northampton django camp, is that many jazz manouche players do not really see themselves as having any strong social or musical connections with either the current jazz community or jazz of the past. i occasionally encountered attendees who knew of canonical jazz guitarists such as charlie christian (1916–42) and wes montgomery (1923–68), and i met several players in their teens or twenties who had studied jazz performance in college music programs. but most of those with whom i spoke had backgrounds in other genres—such as pop, rock, bluegrass, and western classical music—and had begun playing jazz manouche within the last decade or so, as the genre’s popularity surged. nor did the predominantly north american participants at django camp appear to have dwelt deeply on jazz manouche’s links to contemporary european romani communities, and romani musicians, notwithstanding the presence at the summer course of two romani guitar instructors, christophe lartilleux and samson schmitt. although i did not meet anybody who seemed inclined to rhetorically disassociate the music from romani culture (as has been documented among non–jewish klezmer players [kaminsky 2014]), i heard only a few fleeting, intermittent mentions of present–day romanies and their traditions. there were a few signs of romani culture being somewhat fetishized or romanticized: a replica of a horse drawn romani roulotte (caravan) was parked in a central courtyard for several days; one participant said that he occasionally dreamed of renouncing his american lifestyle and living on the road in a caravan. while such attitudes can be attributed in part to naiveté or insensitivity, they may also reflect the reality that, being a phenomenon of recent decades, jazz manouche does not actually have any longstanding historical connection with current european romani culture. to put it another way, we should not be terribly surprised if gadjé jazz manouche enthusiasts have stereotyped misconceptions about the idiom’s relationship to manouche culture, given that the genre itself is a factitious late–twentieth–century invention, grounded in essentialist ideology from its outset. among the jazz manouche community, essentialist misconceptions are plentiful, and some of them, so to speak, are entirely authentic; they have always pervaded the genre’s discourse. the lines between erroneous negative stereotypes and expressions of ethnic pride, admiration, or communal solidarity can be blurry.48 17 benjamin givan a more immediate factor contributing to these ahistorical views of jazz manouche may be the pedagogically–motivated codification of instrumental practices. with django camp’s workshops focusing on guitar techniques such as “la pompe” (rhythm–guitar accompaniment), melodic phrasing, harmonic substitution, and guitar pick manipulation, the music’s cultural context inevitably becomes subordinated to its formal principles.49 at one instruction session, a north american guitar instructor remarked that, “some of the gypsy players play a lot of wrong chords.” when one of the workshop attendees asked, “but doesn’t it have its own logic?,” the instructor replied, “the logic is that they don’t give a shit!” evidently, from the perspective of north american jazz manouche players, a subset of european romani practitioners can appear insufficiently consistent and, at times, aesthetically deficient.50 gadjé, in at least some cases, privilege standardized musical techniques over what they perceive to be actual romani practices. still, the eponymous figure of django reinhardt himself—that is, his idealized persona—loomed large at django camp.51 the guitarist’s imposing photographic portrait adorned posters advertising the event’s concurrent “django in june” concert series, many participants were very familiar with his recordings and knowledgeable about his basic biographical details, and his name was frequently invoked in casual conversations throughout the event. at almost every performance workshop i attended, either the teacher or students referred at least once or twice to some detail of reinhardt’s personal musical legacy—a certain melodic phrase he favored, a chord he played, a particular fingering he used, and so forth. indeed, in the broader community of jazz manouche players, as documented by lie (2013a), reinhardt has become a symbolic cultural hero among western european romani musicians, and among gadjé enthusiasts worldwide he is at times the object of near–cultish adulation.52 reinhardt’s recordings remain by far the single dominant influence on jazz manouche, musically speaking. not only do the early hot club quintet’s instrumentation, style, and repertoire continue to define the idiom’s core musical features, but the note–for–note replication of reinhardt’s recorded improvisations is a popular practice. what is more, unlike in the jazz or rock idioms, where recreating improvised solos is mainly associated with private pedagogical contexts, jazz manouche players often duplicate reinhardt’s solos in public.53 at “django in june” concerts in 2014, attended by some 800 spectators, i saw schmitt duplicate reinhardt’s 1946 solo on “coquette”54 and lartilleux’s band recreate the quintet of the hot club of france’s complete 1936 recorded arrangement of “nagasaki.”55 18 current musicology lartilleux is one of a number of jazz manouche guitarists who even sometimes go so far as to fret their instrument’s strings with only their index and middle fingers, mimicking the idiosyncratic left–hand technique that reinhardt devised because of his permanently disabling hand injury. some players, including lartilleux, occasionally improvise afresh using two fingers in this way, but the practice is especially common when musicians replicate reinhardt’s own solos.56 it appears in part to be a symptom of the widespread fascination and curiosity among listeners, scholars, and musicians with reinhardt’s awe–inspiring feat in triumphing over physical adversity (antonietto 1984; marty 2005; givan 2010, 7–24; cougoul 2010; winiger and williams 2015). one amateur french player who has posted online several video recordings of himself playing reinhardt solos with two fingers told me that, “i’m interested in getting as close as possible to django’s original sound (intonation, effects) and in trying to understand the logic of the positions on the [guitar] neck.”57 visually, of course, voluntary (i.e. not necessitated by disability) two–fingered performances are an effective crowd–pleasing gimmick that simultaneously encapsulates two of the jazz manouche community’s perennial fixations: reinhardt’s unique biographical history and extravagant instrumental virtuosity. “django’s tiger,” then and now jazz manouche’s overtly virtuosic dimension is amply illustrated by moignard and giniaux’s 2010 rendition of “django’s tiger” at samois.58 a bravura, at times physically theatrical, display of swift technical dexterity and in–the–moment melodic ingenuity, their duo performance epitomizes the contagious exuberance and electrifying intensity that have become the idiom’s trademarks. moreover, the theme itself, a staple of today’s jazz manouche repertoire, exemplifies the common practice of recreating reinhardt’s recorded solos: it originates with an improvisation on chord changes taken from the early jazz classic “tiger rag,” first recorded by the original dixieland jazz band in 1917.59 reinhardt’s sole documented performance of “django’s tiger” dates from a january 31, 1946, london recording session that reunited him with grappelli for the first time since the outbreak of world war ii in 1939.60 the two of them were accompanied by local musicians who had been hired when the expected french sidemen failed to obtain visas, and “django’s tiger” was the only new original title out of eight that they recorded during two days in the studio (delaunay 1961, 130–32; williams 1998, 77–78; dregni 2004, 197–98). the track opens with a two–chorus solo by reinhardt, transcribed in example 1.61 19 benjamin givan django’s tiger. by django reinhardt and stéphane grappelli. copyright © 1963 (renewed) by publications francis day s.a. this arrangement copyright © 2015 by publications francis day s.a. all rights in the u.s.a. and canada controlled by jewel music publishing co., inc. international copyright secured. all rights reserved. used by permission. reprinted by permission of hal leonard corporation. example 1: django reinhardt’s improvisation on “django’s tiger” (1/31/46; mx. oed 26–1). 20 current musicology django’s tiger. by django reinhardt and stéphane grappelli. copyright © 1963 (renewed) by publications francis day s.a. this arrangement copyright © 2015 by publications francis day s.a. all rights in the u.s.a. and canada controlled by jewel music publishing co., inc. international copyright secured. all rights reserved. used by permission. reprinted by permission of hal leonard corporation. example 1: continued. 21 benjamin givan today’s musicians typically treat the first chorus of reinhardt’s 1946 improvisation as a head melody—a fixed theme. a professional jazz manouche musician based in europe told me that he first learned the tune by ear from a 2002 recording by the guitarist jimmy rosenberg who, after a four–bar introduction, begins by closely replicating reinhardt’s recorded solo, paraphrases the original second chorus somewhat more loosely, and thereafter improvises anew.62 contemporary renditions of “django’s tiger” uniformly differ from the original, however, in one subtle musical respect: they always contain a f7 (bvi) harmony in the tune’s eleventh and twelfth django’s tiger. by django reinhardt and stéphane grappelli. copyright © 1963 (renewed) by publications francis day s.a. this arrangement copyright © 2015 by publications francis day s.a. all rights in the u.s.a. and canada controlled by jewel music publishing co., inc. international copyright secured. all rights reserved. used by permission. reprinted by permission of hal leonard corporation. example 1: continued. 22 current musicology bars—figure 1 reproduces a chord chart that appears on a popular website devoted to jazz manouche.63 on the 1946 recording, however, an e7 (v7) harmony appears at the corresponding point in each chorus, just as in the standard “tiger rag” progression. this harmonic discrepancy evidently emerged in conjunction with present–day replications of reinhardt’s 1946 solo. in measures 9–12 of his first chorus, reinhardt first played a rising and falling arpeggiation of the underlying e7 harmony’s third, fifth, seventh, and ninth, and then he immediately transposed this melodic structure a semitone upward, implying the corresponding chord tones of an f7 harmony. at some point in the last few decades, jazz manouche musicians evidently began adding a consonant chord to support reinhardt’s dissonant half–step displacement, and today this alteration has become widely adopted. this reharmonization reflects broader aesthetic tendencies among today’s players. with the emergence of formal instruction in tandem with routinized musical principles, jazz manouche pedagogy has begun to be influenced by theoretical concepts that are well established in jazz performance teaching, such as chord–scale theory (ake 2002, 120–27). at one of the django camp workshops, i saw students being taught the same sorts of principles of melodic–harmonic relationships that often appear in present–day jazz theory textbooks—functional harmonic substitutions, chord–scale relationships, and so forth. these theories tend to promote the notion of consonant melody–chord relationships as normative. reinhardt, whose own figure 1: current jazz manouche chord changes for “django’s tiger.” 23 benjamin givan substantial theoretical knowledge appears to have instead been more tacit and embodied than declarative, was unbeholden to any such consistent chord–scale harmonic orthodoxies.64 my interlocutors suggested further reasons why current jazz manouche players may have incorporated the new f7 harmony in “django’s tiger.” one noted that this is not the only tune from reinhardt’s repertoire that current jazz manouche musicians customarily play with new, more complex reharmonizations. another observed that the “django’s tiger” reharmonization is consistent with reinhardt and grappelli’s own practice, pointing out that their 1938 recording of the popular song “them there eyes” (reinhardt 1938) includes a half–step harmonic displacement (in its third and fourth bars) that does not appear in other swing–era renditions of the same tune, such as billie holiday’s (1939). the same interviewee also proposed that today’s players may have found the added f7 chord appealing because it’s harder. it makes the tune more harmonically juicy. [jazz manouche] has become more of a progressive music than a swing music. jazz guitarists—maybe they just got a little bored and they wanted more to blow through. to make things more intricate, they added that [chord] as a staple in the tune. it’s like john coltrane reharmonizing [george gershwin’s] “but not for me.” i would hate to suggest that that was solely for the reason of making the tune more difficult, but i do think that, to an extent, artists that are constantly trying to further their playing and constantly practicing—they get bored and need to create a new platform for expression. that’s what it is. if you’re playing “django’s tiger” for forty years—i mean, django died before he could play it for forty years, so he probably never got bored of it—but if you’re [manouche guitarist] fapy lafertin and you’ve been playing “django’s tiger” for forty years, you’re going to add the half step because it’s going to make your life better. and nobody else is going to notice!65 jazz manouche is here described as a “progressive” music that, like certain strains of post–bebop jazz, grows increasingly harmonically complex as players seek new technical and intellectual challenges, and expressive possibilities. although this modernist evolutionary characterization seems incongruent with the prevalent notion of jazz manouche as a “folk music,” both views—modernist or folk–rooted—nevertheless treat the genre as collectively evolving in the hands of its living players, a practice that can potentially conflict with musicians’ enduring emulation of reinhardt’s own playing, as documented on recordings.66 to put it another way, today’s musicians cannot treat jazz manouche as a mutable living idiom while also 24 current musicology example 2: excerpt from adrien moignard’s improvisation on “django’s tiger.” django’s tiger. by django reinhardt and stéphane grappelli. copyright © 1963 (renewed) by publications francis day s.a. this arrangement copyright © 2015 by publications francis day s.a. all rights in the u.s.a. and canada controlled by jewel music publishing co., inc. international copyright secured. all rights reserved. used by permission. reprinted by permission of hal leonard corporation. figure 2: schenkerian reduction of mm. 41–45 of reinhardt’s solo on “django’s tiger.” 25 benjamin givan concurrently recreating the music of its founding figure without occasionally reaching impasses. epistemological contradictions are inevitable. stasis and change will sometimes turn out to be incompatible. adrien moignard’s momentary pause, midway through his solo on “django’s tiger,” is an unusually clear, audible manifestation of this tension.67 a minute or so beforehand, moignard had begun the performance by replicating reinhardt’s original opening chorus and then extemporizing a second chorus. his insistently reiterated b–naturals (mm. 1–8 in example 2), which arrive at the top of his third chorus, clearly paraphrase the melodic passage that reinhardt improvised at the start of his own second chorus in 1946 (mm. 32–40 in example 1). reinhardt next played a string of eighth notes that ornaments the underlying e7 harmony’s seventh (d), ninth (f#), and fifth (b); figure 2 displays a schenkerian reduction. but measures 43–44 of reinhardt’s solo, which were straightforwardly compatible with the underlying dominant (e7) chord in 1946, are markedly dissonant with the f7 chord that is in use today, and that giniaux plays as he accompanies moignard. the latter’s brief moment of apparent indecision and hesitation at precisely this moment in his otherwise authoritative performance marks the point where today’s harmonies temporarily conflict with reinhardt’s improvisation. moignard is torn between the past and the present—between imitating reinhardt and playing jazz manouche. the issue raised by moignard’s recreation of the second 1946 chorus over today’s altered chord changes is not simply a problem of melodic– harmonic dissonance. after all, reinhardt himself regularly made use of dissonant harmonic superimpositions, such as the half–step arpeggiated displacement in his original opening chorus, as well as the f–minor arpeggios over an a–major harmony in measures 47–48. the real dilemma that would arise from continuing to replicate this passage from the 1946 solo is that it would problematize some ubiquitous contemporary jazz manouche practices: namely the recreation of reinhardt’s solos and the systematization of melodic–harmonic relationships. the resultant dissonances, far more glaring and harmonically incoherent than reinhardt’s characteristic chromaticism, would cast a shadow of uncertainty over the recreated solo. did reinhardt falter in 1946? is today’s performer at fault? or is the contemporary standardization of melodic–harmonic relationships at odds with reinhardt’s own, less systematic musical language? though the immediate explanation is that today’s jazz manouche community has modified the original chord changes, the altered version is so firmly engrained within present–day collective practice that, when i pointed out the discrepancy to the one of my informants, he said that the quintet of the hot club of france’s 1946 version “sounds wrong, in a way. it sounds like they missed 26 current musicology the chord.”68 paradoxically, in this particular instance even reinhardt himself, jazz manouche’s iconic figurehead, is viewed in the same way as the putative “gypsy players [who] play a lot of wrong chords,” according to a django camp instructor. where current practice is at variance with the real facts of the history it claims for itself, then the objective evidence is called into question. belief trumps truth. occasional conceptual stumbling blocks may not matter much to musicians, even if they cause minor glitches such as moignard’s. they may even yield productive creative tensions. they do bespeak deeper uncertainties, though, about how we understand django reinhardt, jazz, jazz manouche, and the interrelationships between all three. ultimately, these boil down to questions of genre. genres, the literature scholar john frow notes, “create effects of reality and truth, authority and plausibility” (2015, 2). any given genre exhibits—among other things—a set of stylistic conventions that will, with exposure, influence its audience’s normative, default expectations of art works and performances—how they understand them, and what they value in them (holt 2007; fellezs 2011, 15; drott 2013, 9–10). genre classifications also determine how “music is produced, marketed, and programmed,” as christopher washburne has observed (2012, 93). clearly, jazz manouche has evolved from an imitative practice inspired by a single jazz musician into an independent genre with its own distinctive social context and stylistic norms. django reinhardt currently lies at the nexus of two genres. in his time, he played jazz, an african american music with vernacular and popular origins, today widely regarded in the public arena as an art form placing an aesthetic premium on individuality (baraka 1963, 156, 184; ellison 2001, 36; lopes 2002; monson 2007, 304). by contrast, the present–day jazz manouche idiom is more akin to what sociologist jennifer c. lena calls a “scene–based” genre (2012, 33–40), codified by an internet–linked, non– commercially–oriented community. in some respects it also resembles a “traditionalist” genre (2012, 46–52), legitimized by scholarship, supported by festivals and associations, and emphasizing conformist notions of authenticity rather than individual innovation. although both jazz manouche and jazz (each of which are, naturally, far from monolithic) share certain basic idiomatic features, such as improvisation, swing rhythms, and repertoire, their differences remain considerable. we therefore cannot fully make sense of moignard’s 2010 rendition of “django’s tiger” without taking into account its dual generic contexts (cf. drott 2013, 41), as well as jazz manouche’s own inherent internal aesthetic contradictions (contradictions that are, indeed, paralleled by reinhardt’s dual identity as both french and manouche, an issue that lie [2012] has discussed).69 by the same token, a 27 benjamin givan great deal depends on whether we apprehend reinhardt’s music in general, as well as that of his followers, from a historical perspective—as jazz—or a presentist one—as jazz manouche.70 a style that was, for reinhardt himself, a personal musical idiolect within an african american genre, has become a collective idiom, chiefly associated with western europe. many of the improvisations that the guitarist conceived spontaneously are, for today’s jazz manouche players, essentially fixed compositions that can be re–performed. the two–fingered left–hand technique that reinhardt devised because of a physical handicap is now an optional gimmick. more crucially, reinhardt’s jazz–oriented impetus toward individual expression has been subordinated, in jazz manouche, to principles of imitation and adherence to an invented tradition. that is why reinhardt “ceases to be a unique creator,” as williams puts it, when he is viewed from the standpoint of the new idiom’s generic norms. the presentist, jazz–manouche–centered perspective instead re–envisions him as the ultimate conformist to routinized practices.71 certain contemporary musicians, such as brady, thus object to reinhardt’s being classified as a jazz manouche musician because it “misrepresent[s] . . . django’s ability as a jazz improviser. . . . django understood harmony and voice leading in a manner that coincided with his contemporaries in bebop, and was a very skilled, patient jazz improviser who knew how to craft a solo that told a story” (2010). conversely, of course, jazz manouche will also be misrepresented if it is evaluated according to jazz–oriented generic criteria. brady adds that reinhardt’s “kind of climactic improvising . . . is often lacking in ‘gypsy jazz,’” and, more pejoratively, jazz critic ben ratliff has described the new genre as “jazz in overdrive,” and “a bit like watching a bunch of talented actors standing around in fedoras and doing bogey for an hour” (2000). such characterizations simply evaluate negatively jazz manouche’s affirmative stylistic principles—they fault it for not exhibiting individual creativity and melodic coherence, whereas it instead prizes virtuosic speed, conformism, and imitative fidelity. the emergence of jazz manouche has had further ramifications besides assigning reinhardt’s music an additional generic label. just as genres provide a context for understanding music and its performers, individual musicians and their music also affect our conceptions of genres: today’s musicians have, for example, influenced the prevalent, communally constructed conception of jazz manouche (genres, as drott notes, arise from “acts of assemblage . . . performed by specific agents in specific social and institutional settings” [2013, 10]).72 likewise, reinhardt’s music of the past has had a role in shaping received conceptions of jazz. that is, the guitarist has not simply been historically categorized under a pre–existing, abstract 28 current musicology received notion of the jazz genre—he has also played a part in constituting the genre itself, as have all the various other musical performances and individual styles that are widely regarded as belonging to the idiom. the more that musicians and critics identify reinhardt as a jazz manouche musician, the more he begins to be “hived off ” (lena 2012, 52–55) from the jazz genre as widely conceived.73 (we are inclined to conceptualize genres in opposition to one another, which causes us to habitually categorize individual musical works, performances, and musicians according to one single genre—even though such categorizations will, naturally, be observer– and context–dependent and ambiguous cases will always be plentiful.)74 and as the guitarist’s ties to jazz become attenuated, our ever– evolving collective conception of jazz thereby grows narrower. not only reinhardt, but other musicians in his circle who once were unequivocally considered jazz players—such as gadjo violinist grappelli—are now instead beginning to be swept under the new generic category of jazz manouche (kliphuis 2008 and 2013). what remains is inevitably a concept of jazz that is ever so slightly less european and more american. while reinhardt certainly still retains a niche in the jazz world in the view of many musicians, listeners, and writers, that niche is today rather less secure than it once was.75 coincidentally or not, reinhardt’s retrospective redesignation as a practitioner of jazz manouche—a genre distinguished from jazz by virtue of both its independent aesthetic principles and its separate invented history and cultural associations—has been, if anything, reinforced in recent years by an increasingly prominent u.s.–centric narrative of jazz history in mainstream discourse (a discursive trend that, to be sure, has been questioned by a number of academic scholars [e.g. atkins 2003; and mckay 2005, 1–44]). heavily influenced by the writings of ralph ellison, and further cemented by director ken burns’s high–profile 2000 television documentary, jazz, this mainstream historical narrative depicts the idiom as an intrinsically american art form and accordingly downplays the contributions of non–u.s. musicians (lipsitz 2004, 11). the book accompanying burns’s film, for instance, relegates discussion of reinhardt to a paratextual side–bar, entitled “the gypsy,” that exoticizes his biography by calling him “the illegitimate son of a circus clown,” claiming he “insist[ed] that restaurateurs serve him gypsy fare like hedgehog,” erroneously asserting that he was “illiterate” (ward 2000, 299),76 and making no mention of his influence on other jazz musicians, including many prominent americans (givan 2010, 5). the more that reinhardt’s music becomes marginalized by americanist jazz narratives, the more it becomes receptive to new historical interpretations, and jazz manouche has offered it, in effect, a compelling, custom–fitted new generic home. 29 benjamin givan “a poet,” the literary critic harold bloom has written in an oft–quoted passage, “is not so much a man speaking to men as a man rebelling against being spoken to by a dead man . . . outrageously more alive than himself ” (1975, 19).77 moignard’s tiny moment of hesitation while playing “django’s tiger” signifies a similarly fraught historical consciousness that pervades the entire genre of jazz manouche—a conflict between the creative practices and beliefs of a twenty–first–century musical community and those of django reinhardt, an inescapable iconic presence, long dead yet still “outrageously alive.” the living guitarist’s fleeting pause—a flash of doubt— where today’s harmonies grate against a melodic phrase that his forerunner improvised decades ago, signals a minute fissure in the feedback loop that sees the past continually being reimagined by a perpetually changing present. for an instant, current beliefs are shaken. reality intervenes. it is no news that musical genres, by definition, have distinct stylistic profiles and social contexts that may lead to misunderstandings whenever idioms diverge or intersect; nor is it uncommon for different musicians within a single genre to hold disparate views (washburne 2012, 98). what is noteworthy, in this case, is that irreconcilable beliefs about a current idiom’s relationship to its own historic origins are so plainly manifested in real–time performance—in the very act of music–making itself. notes i owe many thanks to patrick caissy, denis chang, julien clément, andrew lawrence, siv lie, and giacomo smith. 1. for a discussion of reinhardt as the first major european jazz artist, see giddins and deveaux 2009, 256. 2. of the three hundred and ninety nine recordings that reinhardt made between 1934–39, a hundred and forty six are with the quintet of the hot club of france. the figure of one hundred and forty six includes discs listed under other ensemble names, such as “stéphane grappelly [sic] and his hot four,” as well as tracks where the quintet is joined by guest artists. it also counts all alternate takes. it does not include discs featuring subsets of the quintet’s personnel, such as violin–guitar duets, guitar solos, and so forth (there may be a few dozen of these, or so). see vernon 2003, 20–148. 3. lawrence gushee observes that, among the generation of early new orleans jazz musicians born around 1880 who were interviewed for the william ransom hogan jazz archives at tulane university, “the oldest interviewees quite frequently first played in or were impressed by three– or four–piece string bands—such as violin, guitar, and string bass, or mandolin, guitar, and bass—with or without one wind instrument. accordingly their first instrument was often mandolin or guitar” (1994, 15). also see gushee 2005, 61–72. on lang and venuti’s influence on reinhardt and grappelli, see delaunay 1961, 47; sudhalter 1999, 534; and givan 2010, 18. 4. on reinhardt’s late music, which was heavily influenced by bebop, see fargeton 2005. 30 current musicology 5. armstrong recalled that “i met django reinhardt during that first time in paris, when i first went over there [in 1934], you know. he knocked me out! oh, boy, that cat sure could play” (recorded interview in the documentary film django reinhardt: three fingered lightning/trois doigts de génie [cascio 2011]). ellington wrote that reinhardt was “a very dear friend of mine, and one whom i regard as among the few great inimitables of our music” (1973, 141). andrew berish argues that, elsewhere in ellington’s memoir, a more ambiguous view of the guitarist’s place in the jazz tradition emerges: the american conjures an imaginary “city of jazz” and omits reinhardt’s name from a list of its residents (2009, 263). 6. some years after reinhardt’s death, his brother joseph (1912–82), a longtime rhythm guitarist with the quintet of the hot club of france, was asked by an interviewer whether he played traditional gypsy (“tsigane”) music or jazz; joseph unambiguously stated that he played jazz. (interviewer: “qu’est–ce que vous jouez comme genre de musique, la musique traditionelle tsigane ou du jazz?” joseph: “le jazz.” [interviewer: “what kind of music do you play, traditional gypsy music or jazz?” joseph: “jazz.”]). the date of this interview is not certain, but it appears to have been filmed around the late 1960s or early 1970s (reinhardt 2014). 7. in a 1938 down beat magazine transcription column featuring reinhardt’s 1935 improvisation on “some of these days,” gwynn ray wrote that “the sensational django reinhardt of the french hot quintette [sic] needs no introduction to american guitarists—his amazing technique and fine ideas are internationally known” (1938, 21); reinhardt 1935. also see macdougald 1938, 12; reprinted in cruickshank 1994, 106. some 1939 reviews of reinhardt’s recordings with the quintet of the hot club of france, published in the periodical jazz information, are listed in vernon 2003, 151, 156. numerous 1940s–era english–language magazine and newspaper articles about reinhardt are reproduced in cherrett 1997, 4–22. 8. in a study of texts published in either french or english, the musicologist laurent cugny has found that some mid–twentieth–century writers—in particular barry ulanov, robert goffin, and rudi blesh—seemed to be scarcely aware of reinhardt’s existence while others, such as bill simon, were dubious about his music’s quality; french critics hugues panassié and andré hodeir were among the earliest to rank the guitarist on a par with the most esteemed american players (cugny 2013, 171–73). though cugny correctly notes that reinhardt is overlooked in ulanov 1952, a year later ulanov published an obituary of the guitarist (1953, 14). 9. an interesting, albeit crude, measure of the usage of the term “jazz manouche” in printed media is google’s automated ngram viewer, which calculates the frequency that words and phrases appear in a large corpus of literature published during the last two centuries. according to ngram viewer, the term “jazz manouche” first appears in print, with extremely low frequency, in the late 1970s, and rises rapidly from the mid–1980s onward. see https://books .google.com/ngrams/graph?content=jazz+manouche&year_start=1800&year_end=2008& corpus=19&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3b%2cjazz%20manouche%3b%). 10. “la création d’un seul . . . devenir l’emblème de tous.” 11. according to reinhardt’s son babik, “before [django], there were other musics, with gypsy, russian, and spanish roots. . . . depending on the origins and places, the music resembled that of the host country, mixed with our stuff ” [“avant, il y avait d’autres musiques, avec des racines tsiganes, russes, espagnoles. . . . suivant les origines, les lieux, la musique ressemblait à celle du pays d’implantation, avec nos trucs à nous”] (lefort 1993, 49). 31 benjamin givan 12. on bals–musette, see dregni 2008, 32–51; and blake 1999, 106–7. examples of musette music can be heard on reinhardt’s earliest recordings, dating from 1928, which feature him as a banjo–guitarist in a solely accompanimental role (discussed in antonietto and billard 2004, 42–46; and givan 2010, 12–13, 21). (the banjo–guitar is constructed like a banjo, with steel strings and a round resonating drum, but is strung and tuned like a six– string guitar.) 13. “django ne joue pas style gitan. il joue un style qui lui est propre. la musique de django commence avec lui–même. il joue certes de la guitare, instrument traditionnel, mais il a fait lui–même son école de guitare. il a créé un style. cette école part de lui.” quoted in antonietto 1987, 51; and in jost 1997, 16. also see williams 2000, 411. 14. “celle–ci n’est pas le patrimoine d’une communauté mais bien l’invention d’un individu ou d’un groupe d’individus.” williams dates the origins of this way of playing to the late 1920s; although reinhardt began playing jazz around the late 1920s or 1930s, i re–date the origins to the early 1930s, when the quintet of the hot club of france debuted, because the quintet’s string instrumentation has become an especially defining influence on today’s jazz manouche. 15. schnuckenack reinhardt had met django reinhardt’s brother, joseph, during the mid– 1960s. the music promoter siegfried maeker played a key role in organizing the musik deutscher zigeuner recordings and in encouraging the participating musicians to recreate the quintet of the hot club of france’s 1930s style. see lefort 1997, 18–25; and litterst 1997, 106–10. 16. among the most high–profile musicians to begin recreating the pre–war quintet’s music during this era was the alsatian romani guitarist biréli lagrène (b. 1966), whose debut album (lagrène 1980) has been credited with having “helped spark an international revival of interest in gypsy jazz” (mccarty 2003, 77). also see giddins 2000, 139–46. 17. gadjé is a romanes term. 18. on jazz manouche performances at european festivals, see lie 2013b. 19. “notre époque a tendance à se prendre d’engouement pour tout ce qui présente un caractère ethnique.” 20. see, for example, nelson 1999 (discussed in hentoff 2004, 213–17); carter 2000 (discussed in bivort 2001, 36–37); gatlif 2002; christopher 2008; and nelson and haggard 2015. paul brady cites the film sweet and lowdown (allen 2000) as a catalyst for the surge in interest in reinhardt’s music around 2000 (2012, 18). 21. a major online repository of videos and information on jazz manouche is patrick caissy’s website patrus53.com. caissy receives more online visitors to his associated youtube channel, which has been in operation since 2010 and contains over 700 filmed performances and interviews (email communication, august 4, 2015). 22. ted panken likewise notes that present–day manouche musicians “regard reinhardt’s style as a vernacular folk form” (2004, 44). 23. “la disparition du héros: comme il est partout, il cesse d’être un créateur unique.” 24. the situation with reinhardt can be thought of as an extreme case of what inevitably happens to influential artists whose innovations are taken up by imitators and absorbed into a communal style—the originators are, in ralph ellison’s famous phrase, “devoured alive by their imitators” (2001, 36). 25. hodeir’s recordings with joseph reinhardt are reinhardt 1943a, 1943b, 1943c, and 1943d. hodeir appeared under the name “claude laurence.” 32 current musicology 26. “jazz tsigane ne signifie pas intégration au jazz de la musique dite ‘tzigane.’” 27. “aussi bien django est–il à ce moment moins l’extraordinaire guitariste ‘gitan’ que le musicien de jazz par excellence.” 28. “le quintette du h.c.f. est bien en prise direct sur le jazz de son temps.” 29. “par jazz tsigane, nous entendrons la musique de jazz créée par des musiciens de race tsigane.” 30. michael simmons cites the prevalence of essentialist views, writing that, “contrary to what many people believe, you do not need gypsy blood to play authentic jazz manouche” (1996, 46). 31. also see williams 1998, 188–223; and tuzet 2010, 38–42. according to reinhardt’s biographer alain antonietto, “babik and david reinhardt, they’ll say, ‘for me, i don’t play jazz manouche. i’m a jazzman, i try to play jazz.’ of course they speak of django reinhardt, but while listening to other guitarists—wes montgomery, kenny burrell, rené thomas, jimmy raney—but it’s not duplication. as david says, ‘one isn’t a parrot’” (2010a). also see lefort 1993, 50; and schaaser 2013, 102. 32. for instance, we read of the “inconsolable romani sadness in [reinhardt’s] heart” (dregni 2008, 14); his music’s “secret soul” (15), and its “vagabond” chords (58, 154). we are also told, with no historical verification, that reinhardt “had to hustle and steal” in his youth (15); that his son babik’s minor criminal record as a youth was “part of django’s legacy in parenting” (111); that the guitarist had “gypsy fortune–tellers” (103); and that, contrary to fact, he “never truly learned to read or write” (71). groups of romani men are described as “a gang” (96) or “gangsters” (160), manouches are said to “love their knives” (139), and we are informed that “gypsies often have little concern for the gadjé’s [i.e., non– romani] laws” (129). 33. dregni’s “family tree” may have been inspired by a similar generational listing of “the gypsy musicians of france, belgium, holland and germany” in cruickshank 1994, 130. for more discussion of the generational model of jazz manouche’s history, see schaaser 2013, 29–32. 34. dregni writes that “this music was not christened ‘gypsy jazz’ until some two decades after django’s death in 1953” (2008, 12). also see ibid., 199. 35. also see dregni, antonietto, and legrand 2006, 185–90. 36. the ideological essentialist linkage of musical style with human culture has a long history (mundy 2014). 37. according to siv lie, who has conducted extensive fieldwork among western european romani communities, some manouche musicians regard jazz as a universal subaltern cultural expression, rather than a specifically african american one (email communication, july 27, 2015). 38. “c’est un peu de la fierté de notre peuple. il n’y avait pas de docteurs, de juges, . . . django, c’est le’image même de notre fierté. parce qu’il était un génie. et nous, à travers à django, on est fier, on porte sa musique . . . parce que c’est quelqu’un qui a marqué son époque” (quoted in schaaser 2013, 100). 39. among the most comprehensive and active websites dedicated to jazz manouche are http://guitarejazzmanouche.com/ and http://www.djangobooks.com/. 33 benjamin givan 40. some pedagogical manuals are listed at http://www.djangobooks.com/category /books; a bibliography of transcriptions appears at http://www.djangomontreal.com/django _montreal/instructions.html; and play–along tracks can be heard at http://www.youtube .com/user/gbquartet. 41. excerpts from chang’s videos can be viewed at http://www.dc–musicschool.com /catalogue/. email communication, august 4, 2015. 42. see, for example, a studio recording of “django’s tiger” by adrien moignard and gonzalo bergara at http://www.soundslice.com/tabs/4811/gonzalo–bergara–adrien–moignard –djangos–tiger–clasico–tab/. 43. for a list of some other jazz manouche festivals, as of 2010, see tuzet 2010, 121–25. 44. reinhardt’s biographer alain antonietto discusses the origins of the samois festival in a videotaped interview (antonietto 2010b). 45. the concert series was first held in 2003. see maguire 2014 and http://www.django injune.com/for_musicians/index.htm. 46. as is typical in the second decade of the twenty–first century, these face–to–face interactions were suffused with electronic reproduction technologies: students made audio and video recordings of the lessons, instructors played illustrative recordings, and so forth. recent studies that address the role of digital technology in the diffusion of “folk” music forms include keegan–phipps 2013 and risk 2013. 47. an informant, active in the european jazz manouche scene, told me that one of the most prominent manouche guitarists currently playing jazz manouche, fapy lafertin (b. 1950), has expressed some mild envy of today’s younger generation of players who are able to learn from a wide variety of sources, whereas lafertin himself, during the 1970s, relied exclusively on reinhardt’s recordings (interview, september 13, 2013). 48. carol silverman (2015) has recently argued that essentialism can, under certain conditions, provide a politically efficacious strategy for combatting discrimination against romani communities (cf. gilroy 1993, 32). 49. an analogous situation has arisen in contemporary jazz pedagogy (prouty 2012; wilf 2014). 50. of course, as the instructor’s student implied, “some of the gypsy players” could just as easily be said to prefer a different, and perhaps less rigidly systematic, approach (as, no doubt, do some gadjé musicians). 51. by “idealized persona,” i mean reinhardt’s legend in the popular imagination rather than reinhardt the actual historical, once living, individual; this essentially corresponds to what seth monahan—paralleling michel foucault’s author–concept—calls a “fictional composer” (2013, 329–32). 52. the pseudo–religious aura enveloping a number of major figures in the jazz world is discussed in leonard 1987, 35–45. 53. on the recreation of improvisations in current jazz pedagogy, see wilf 2014, 115–17 and 130–34. the relatively infrequent cases where jazz or rock musicians replicate others’ recorded improvisations in public performance include rock “cover” or “tribute” bands, vocalese jazz singing, and exceptionally famous recorded solos such as illinois jacquet’s 1942 improvisation on “flying home” with the lionel hampton orchestra. for a recent study of rock cover bands, see meyers 2015. 54. reinhardt 1946b; and schmitt and kliphuis 2014. 34 current musicology 55. reinhardt 1936. 56. see, for example, lartilleux 2008 and lartilleux 2013. 57. “ce qui m’intéresse, c’est de me rapprocher le plus possible du son (intonation, effets) original de django, et d’essayer de comprendre la logique des positions sur le manche” (email communication, july 20, 2014). 58. for critiques of jazz manouche’s emphasis on virtuosity, see, for example, ratliff 2000 and apczynski 2009, 22. 59. for more on the origins and legacy of “tiger rag,” see caporaletti 2011 and schiff 2012, 63–67. 60. reinhardt 1946a. 61. for more extensive remarks on this solo, see givan 2010, 99–109. 62. interview, september 13, 2013. see rosenberg 2002. 63. “django’s tiger: django reinhardt—1946,” http://guitarejazzmanouche.com/print /grilles/134/. one might reasonably ask, as did one of this article’s anonymous reviewers, whether the word “always” is too strong here. literally, of course, it is, since one could never conclusively prove that “django’s tiger” is never played without the f7 chord in question. nevertheless, an arbitrary sample of twenty performances of the piece on youtube yielded no exceptions, and i have yet to encounter any in live performance. 64. on reinhardt’s lack of formal training in music theory, see antonietto and billard 2004, 284; and “c’est django reinhardt, le roi du swing” (1943). on “declarative” (verbally articulated) versus “productive” (implicit) musical knowledge, see temperley 2006, 283. 65. interview, september 13, 2013. 66. schaaser sees present–day jazz manouche players as falling into two basic camps: conservative—heavily focused on recreating reinhardt’s music of the 1930s—and innovative— more influenced by modern jazz and other genres, and having a wider repertoire (2013, 88–90). 67. moignard could not be reached for an interview. 68. interview, september 13, 2013. 69. for more on the interdependent relationship between musical genres and social identity formation, see born 2011, 384. 70. for more on music that can be classified within more than one genre, see brackett 2005, 76; and drott 2013, 40–41. for a broader philosophical perspective, see danto 1981. 71. the posthumous reconceptualization of reinhardt as a stylistic exemplar, rather than as a unique creative individual, is in many ways analogous to the way in which j.s. bach, according to theodor w. adorno, became misunderstood in the twentieth century as a “neutralized cultural monument” exemplifying ubiquitous principles of craftsmanship rather than as a “romantic . . . genius of meditation” (1981, 136, 138). 72. see also piekut 2011, 19. 73. for an extreme case of reinhardt and grappelli’s music being anachronistically reclassified as jazz manouche, see pick 2005. 74. frow writes that “genres are not positive classes, but are defined in relational terms. we can identify a genre because we are at some level aware of other genres that it is not” (2015, 135). in the same vein, deveaux remarks that, in many instances, jazz has often been 35 benjamin givan “define[d] through exclusion. . . . [w]hat jazz is not is far more vivid rhetorically than what it is” (1998, 486; discussed in porter 2012, 17). for additional perspectives, see frith 1996, 75–95; and pond 2005, 51–81. 75. a recent jazz history textbook only mentions reinhardt perfunctorily; although a photo of the guitarist is reprinted in the book’s introduction, he and other non–american musicians receive no substantive coverage (bierman 2016). 76. though reinhardt’s spelling was idiosyncratic, he was able to read and write. see bessières and dregni 2012, 162–63. 77. an early publication quoting this sentence is said 1975, 270. references adorno, theodor w. 1981. “bach defended against his devotees.” in prisms, translated by samuel and shierry weber, 135–46. cambridge, ma: mit press. ake, david. 2002. “jazz traning: john coltrane and the conservatory.” in jazz cultures, 112–45. berkeley: university of california press. antonietto, alain. 1984. “la main de django.” études tsiganes 2: 41–48. . 1987. “discographie du 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42–47. pick, margaret moos. 2005. “jazz strings: a tribute to jazz violinist stéphane grappelli.” http://riverwalkjazz.stanford.edu/program/jazz–strings–tribute–jazz–violinist– stephane–grappelli. piekut, benjamin. 2011. experimentalism otherwise: the new york avant–garde and its limits. berkeley: university of california press. pond, steven f. 2005. head hunters: the making of jazz’s first platinum album. ann arbor: university of michigan press. porter, eric. 2012. “incorporation and distinction in jazz history and jazz historiography.” in jazz/not jazz: the music and its boundaries, edited by david ake, charles hiroshi garrett, and daniel goldmark, 13–30. berkeley: university of california press. porter, lewis, and michael ullman. 1993. jazz: from its origins to the present. englewood cliffs: prentice hall. prouty, ken. 2012. knowing jazz: community, pedagogy, and canon in the information age. jackson: university press of mississippi. ratliff, ben. 2000. “a delirium of gypsy music barrels along in overdrive.” the new york times, december 4, e5. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/04/arts/jazz–review–a– delirium–of–gypsy–music–barrels–along–in–overdrive.html. ray, gwynn. 1938. “django reinhardt’s hot guitar chorus.” down beat (march): 21. risk, laura. 2013. “the chop: the diffusion of an instrumental technique across north atlantic fiddling traditions.” ethnomusicology 57 (3): 428–54. said, edward w. 1975. “the poet as oedipus: a map of misreading.” the new york times, april 13, 270. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/bloom–misreading. html. sales, grover. 1984. jazz: america’s classical music. englewood cliffs: prentice hall. schaaser, marita. 2013. “‘sinti—jazz—manouche’: musik und identität.” ma thesis, university of vienna. schiff, david. 2012. the ellington century. berkeley: university of california press. schuller, gunther. 1989. the swing era: the development of jazz, 1930–1945. new york: oxford university press. shipton, alyn. 2001. a new history of jazz. london: continuum. 39 benjamin givan silverman, carol. 2015. “romani music, activism, and representation: issues and challenges.” unpublished paper presented at the new york university conference beyond gypsy stereotypes: voicing romani pluralities, april 24. simmons, michael. 1996. “jazz manouche: django reinhardt and the vibrant world of gypsy guitar.” acoustic guitar (february): 36–47. sudhalter, richard m. 1999. lost chords: white musicians and their contribution to jazz, 1915–1945. new york: oxford university press. temperley, david. 2006. “review: robert o. gjerdingen, music in the galant style.” journal of music theory 50 (2): 305–28. tuzet, jean–baptiste. 2010. django reinhardt et le jazz manouche: ou les 100 ans du “jazz à la française.” paris: éditions didier carpentier. ulanov, barry. 1952. a history of jazz in america. new york: viking. . 1953. “django reinhardt 1912–1953.” metronome 69 (8): 14. vernon, paul. 2003. jean “django” reinhardt: a contextual bio–discography. aldershot: ashgate. waldron, janice. 2009. “exploring a virtual music ‘community of practice’: informal music learning on the internet.” journal of music, technology, and education 2 (2–3): 97–112. ward, geoffrey c. 2000. jazz: a history of america’s music. new york: knopf. washburne, christopher. 2012. “latin jazz, afro–latin jazz, afro–cuban jazz, cubop, caribbean jazz, jazz latin, or just . . . jazz: the politics of locating an intercultural music.” in jazz/not jazz: the music and its boundaries, edited by david ake, charles hiroshi garrett, and daniel goldmark, 89–107. berkeley: university of california press. wilf, eitan y. 2014. school for cool: the academic jazz program and the paradox of institutionalized creativity. chicago: university of chicago press. williams, patrick. 1998. django. 2nd ed. marseille: éditions parenthèses. . 2000. “un héritage sans transmission: le jazz manouche.” ethnologie française 30 (3): 409–22. reprinted in jean jamin and patrick williams, une anthropologie de jazz, 225–51. paris: cnrs éditions, 2010. winiger, michael, and david j. williams. 2015. “more with less: a comparative kinematical analysis of django reinhardt’s adaptations to hand injury.” prosthetics and orthotics international 39 (3): 238–43. discography carter, james. 2000. chasin’ the gypsy. atlantic 83304–2. christopher, evan. 2008. django à la creole. fremaux et associés 505. holiday, billie. 1939. “them there eyes.” vocalion 502. mx. w 24879. rec. july 5. lagrène, biréli. 1980. routes to django. island records/antilles an–1002. nelson, willie. 1999. night and day. pedernales/free falls 085–29972. nelson, willie, and merle haggard. 2015. django and jimmie. sony legacy 509378. reinhardt, django. 1935. “some of these days.” ultraphone ap 1548. mx. p 77538. rec. september 2. . 1936. “nagasaki.” hmv k–7843. mx. ola 1290–1. rec. october 15. . 1938. “them there eyes.” decca f–6899. mx. 4211–hpp. rec. june 14. . 1946a. “django’s tiger.” swing 229. mx. oef 26–1. rec. january 31. . 1946b. “coquette.” swing 242. mx. oef 25–1. rec. january 31. reinhardt, joseph. 1943a. “douce georgette.” decca 9133. mx. st 972. rec. december. . 1943b. “un peu de rêve.” decca 9133. mx. st 971. rec. december. . 1943c. “j’attends l’amour. decca 9132. mx. st 970. rec. december. . 1943d. “l’oeil noir.” decca 9132. mx. 973. rec. december. 40 current musicology rosenberg, jimmy. 2002. “django’s tiger.” django’s tiger. hot club records hcrcd 146. rec. december. videography allen, woody, dir. 2000. sweet and lowdown. columbia tristar home video. antonietto, alain. 2010a. interview: patrus53.com. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=ejoebendmxi. . 2010b. interview: patrus53.com. http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=rdhs_ n9hi7sbe&v=–zs3rhfdnk8. cascio, christian, dir. 2011. django reinhardt: three fingered lightning/trois doigts de génie. euroarts. gatlif, tony, dir. 2002. swing. éditions montparnasse. gb quartet play–alongs. 2011. http://www.youtube.com/user/gbquartet. lartilleux, christophe. 2008. “i’ll see you in my dreams.” https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=xi7sio7cb94. . 2013. “minor swing 1947.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmoiarzvtwc. moignard, adrien, and sébastien giniaux. 2010. “django’s tiger.” http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=gai7ayt9pgg. reinhardt, joseph. 2014. interview, also featuring babik reinhardt and tchan tchou vidal. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4ke–a0fjjc. schmitt, samson, and tim kliphuis. 2014. “samson schmitt and tim kliphuis at django in june.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbs2wln6t60. microsoft word cm_111_molteni_final.docx current musicology 111 (spring 2023) ©2023 molteni. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). dal bon, bruno. 2020. la gioia sovrana: nietzsche e la musica come filosofia. milano: mimesis edizioni. reviewed by pietro molteni a luxurious hotel resembling a castle, built on a hill in the middle of the swiss alps. a few dozen of meters downslope, a white house bordered by fir trees. every year, devoted scholars visit the house, touch the furniture, enter the modest room that the philosopher friedrich nietzsche used to rent every summer from the early 1880s until his mental breakdown, in 1888. in that cramped room, one of the most disruptive thinkers of the last two millennia prophesied the dawn of a godless world: our own. in the gorgeous central hall of said waldhaus hotel in sils-maria, after speaking at a concert conference about the string quartets by two nietzsche’s friends, bruno dal bon told me about the book he had just finished writing: la gioia sovrana (“the sovereign joy”). he is a gray-haired, handsome man with deep eyes and a great dialectic ability. he combines the activities of orchestra conductor, teacher, and music divulger with an extraordinary ability as a cultural promoter. writing about nietzsche and music is a hard task – the subject is indeed well-known and covered. hundreds of pages were written in the twentieth century on this topic (the research about music and dance in greek culture, the tumultuous relationship with wagner, and so on), but dal bon has been able to shed light on a few aspects never discussed before. his hybrid nature, which drives both his professional music activities and his unrelenting interest in philosophy is the reason for this. two pretexts led dal bon to write such a book. the first one is his temper, shared with nietzsche, to consider music not as an object to contemplate, but as a vital energy flow able to elevate, disrupt, and revolutionize. the second one is his friendship with michel onfray one of the most influential french philosophers, simultaneously acclaimed and loathed as a celebrity by the french cultural and political world due to his extreme and too-honest ideas. in one of his fundamental works, decadence (2017), onfray (who encouraged dal bon to write this book) appointed nietzsche’s “god is dead” statement as the end of the jewish-christian age, a path that started with the birth of christ and is now finished forever, catapulting the west into a crisis of values never seen before. the central point of la gioia sovrana is: nietzsche loved the operetta. this simple statement is as “disorienting as the apparition of the virgin mary in a freethought congress” (9), to use the words of onfray, who contributed the foreword. music plays a fundamental role in nietzsche's philosophy and the specific significance of the operetta cannot be overlooked. dal bon dedicates the book’s last and longest chapter to the operetta. first, he analyzes the importance of music not just in nietzsche’s philosophy, but also in his private life. 114 current musicology _______________________________________ since he was a child, nietzsche devoted himself to practicing piano and composing. the first fragment of one of his compositions dates back to 1854, when he was 10 years old. having to constantly move during his life, renting a piano was an issue he faced continuously. in his letters, nietzsche complained about the rental fees and the short time to practice. the piano was the instrument best suited to compose, to familiarize oneself with the works of great composers, and to improvise. he loved to improvise, and his friends admired him for that, though he defined it as “ridiculous” (35). the piano accompanied him even in moments of madness, such as when his friend franz overbeck found him screaming at the instrument in his turin home. in his final years in jena, he would often request to leave the clinic to play a piano in a nearby restaurant. at the piano, nietzsche composed seventy-four works, which are gathered in the edition by curt paul janz (der musikalische nechlass, bärenreiter, 2005) and include: lieder for voice and piano, compositions for piano solo and piano four-hands, one melologue, some choral pieces, the hymn to life for choir and orchestra, and many unfinished works. with the exception of five, all of these were composed between 1854 and 1865, during his teenage years. nietzsche wanted to find a way to express cosmic pain, often using bold harmonic figures, while at the same time he was inspired by the works of classic composers who were able to “lighten up the soul and drive away gloomy thoughts” (17). his most beloved composer was robert schumann who was considered “a reference equal to schopenhauer” (20). phrases like this demonstrate that, in nietzsche’s thoughts, the line between philosophy and music is extremely thin, and dal bon ably analyzes this by delving into lesser unknown nietzsche’s scores. one piece which offers food for thought on this topic is the enigmatic das fragment an sicht (“fragment in itself”), a touching three-line piano composition, that ends with the words: da capo con malinconia (“da capo with sadness”), without the last bar line. this piece was conceived to be played da capo endlessly and dal bon notes it is an anomaly when compared to typical cyclical musical forms, such as the canon, in which there usually aren’t new expressive indications. dal bon asks: “why just the second time con malinconia? and if this eternal replicate is to be played endlessly, should it always be melancholic except for the first time? and why does he use this specific term among many other possible ones?” (24). no answer, except for a reference to aurora (1881), a text in dialogue form where nietzsche reflects on the sadness that comes over him cyclically like the water in venice where “the waves slosh in the lake of my melancholy” (24). however, the endless fragment also serves as a sonic representation of the concept of eternal return, which is a key focus of his philosophy. considering that nietzsche focused his composition activity in his early twenties, dal bon advances a theory: “from 1865 his artistic inspiration slowed down abruptly and underwent a complex metamorphosis that from music merged into philosophy. nietzsche became a 115 pietro molteni ____________________________________________ philosopher thanks to music, thanks to his progressive detachment from musical action that slowly became philosophical action” (22). this argument is supported by the genesis of nietzsche’s early fundamental work the birth of tragedy (1871) where “even in his philological studies of ancient greece, it is music that remains the primary driving force behind nietzsche's pursuits” (37). since his first year as a professor at basel university, in 1869, nietzsche dedicated his teachings to the function of rhythm in ancient times. in this period, he also worked on unpublished essays “the greek rhythm,” “notes on rhythm and metrics,” “on the theory of quantitative rhythm,” and “rhythmical studies” (38). he conceived of two rhythmical concepts of the greek philosopher aristoxenus: the eurhythmyìa (a ‘well’ rhythm that reflects the right proportion between parts and the whole) and the alogìa (which means the lack of a rational metric rapport). alogìa doesn’t mean chaos, but “the construction of a more complex rhythm, elaborated through the use of even and odd measures that greek people perceived primarily through dance” (44). the profound understanding of this concept led nietzsche to associate the alogìa with dionisysm, the primordial creative force of greek culture, that deeply revolutionized the vision of greek civilization and then the very roots of the west. in the dionysiac force, there is also the comic component that nietzsche took into great consideration, and that ancient greeks conveyed in their comedy. nietzsche’s thus spoke zarathustra (1883) indeed expresses his wisdom in laughter and dance, on the contrary, the philosopher despised seriousness, all that makes life burdensome, and those who refuse the vital energy of art such as philologists, priests, and also plato who “stepped on his deeply artistic nature” (49). when talking about nietzsche and music, it is impossible to not dedicate a chapter to his renowned and tumultuous relationship with wagner. yet dal bon skips some of the best-known biographical events to focus on what the music of wagner meant to nietzsche. the philosopher came into contact with the piano score reduction of tristan und isolde in march 1861, before he was even seventeen-years-old. he played it on the piano for years and was overwhelmed: “in ecce homo, the encounter with tristan is first described as a drug” (62). he literally compared its effect with that of hashish, describing its “narcotic charm” as binding (62). the relationship with wagner started with this opera played on the piano. it was only after seven years, in 1868, that nietzsche had the opportunity to listen to the prelude performed by an orchestra and, after three more years, to attend the performance of the entire work, which he concludes should be listened to without singers, as a “gigantic symphony” (64). dal bon elaborates: “the invitation to the instrumental listening as the only possibility to reach the origin of the furious desire to existence and the desire of a man, himself, able to completely rely upon this music without being protected by the drama, by 116 current musicology _______________________________________ the words, by the rhythmical measure, are elements that demonstrate how nietzsche felt a victim of this score” (64). the complete refusal of wagner’s music and his conception of art was concretized on new year’s eve 1878 when nietzsche decided to part ways with his tristan und isolde score signed by wagner, giving it to his friend henrich köselitz. at the same time, he left germany and, from that moment, spent his summers in sils-maria, switzerland and winters in italy and france. again, a new phase of his personal and philosophical life corresponded to a new musical taste. german music was now considered “ambiguous, arrogant, suffocating” (71) while southern-european music was pure, free, and “unconscious of good and evil” (72). dal bon insists on nietzsche’s invitation to méditerraniser la musique (mediterranean-ize music) so that “he is not limited to expressing a preference, a taste, a sterile contrast between geography or style. nietzsche wants first to indicate a philosophical path. it feels that southern music is the privileged way to say yes to life, nothing more” (72). these are the years of thus spoke zarathustra, his magnum opus, and nietzsche didn’t hesitate to say: “maybe it is possible to consider all my zarathustra as music, and surely one of its prerequisites was the rebirth in the art of listening” (73). in november 1881, he wrote to a friend with great excitement about having discovered something thrilling: the opera carmen, by georges bizet, staged in genoa’s “paganini” theatre. his excitement was such that he wrote: “i didn’t know something like this was possible!” (73). he bought the piano reduction score and filled it up with notes, writing his impressions on the page. some of them are simple critiques related to the score itself, for instance: “here the piano reduction is very insufficient” (75). others are emotions, descriptions and calls for reflection, such as his remarks on the choir of cigarette girls: “this choir is like the breeze that blows in epicurus’s garden: reflect what is idealized in this piece” (77). however, there are also larger critiques, such as his comment on the duet between micaela and don josé: “the duet is at a lower level than my taste – too sentimental, too tannhäuser-like [tannhäuserhaft]. moreover, the mommy culture is french – we feel in a different way” (78). nietzsche attended twenty performances of carmen and, in vain, sought to find the same energy in other bizet operas. despite this, bizet didn’t become a substitute for wagner in nietzsche’s view. dal bon is very clear on this issue: “the truth that nietzsche gleaned from carmen was not intended to establish anything; it simply reflected the will of immediate life, which emphasizes experiencing things for what they are in the present moment. the music of carmen, with its ability to encapsulate destiny in a single gesture, even if that gesture is from an operetta, embodied this truth” (93). it is strange to associate the name of nietzsche who in our collective imagination is a gloomy and apocalyptic character with the operetta, a powerful symbol of an era filled with optimism and confidence in the future. dal bon 117 pietro molteni ____________________________________________ dedicates a long chapter to this topic and begins by describing the importance of the operetta in the late nineteenth century, as a new genre capable of “dissolving the cramp of life” (k. kraus cited in dal bon 2020, 97). he continues: “whereas europe was inspired by the romantic spirit, the operetta became popular in paris. it was a type of show that undermined the principles of a world dominated by poetic idealization and sentimental accents. with the operetta, logic and unreason were lost in each other, giving space to the misunderstanding and the absurd which became rules for a world without rules” (95). nietzsche knew the operetta when he was a university student. even though he was conscious that this genre was despised in the mainstream music world, he was in search of lightness. in a letter to his friend e. rhode, he ended with: “…but now it’s time to finish this letter, drink the whey and listen to bad music” (98). nietzsche conveyed in his private letters his will to mimic life, his hatred for the too-serious philologists, and his disdain for “absurd swiss patriotism, that, like swiss cheese, comes from sheep” (98). this approach to reality accompanied him throughout his life, as dal bon describes: “in nietzsche’s soul, depth and frivolity coexist, the silence of extreme loneliness and the euphoria of the comedian. extreme opposites, in a relentless exercise for survival, find rest, enjoinment, and vital affirmation in light, ironic, cheerful music” (98). nietzsche recognized the importance of the operetta in society more than his contemporaries: “what is the dominant melody in europe, the idée fixe musicale? the melody of an operetta (except for the deaf and wagner)” (103) and talked about offenbach as a “saint”. it is surprising that, in an age where antisemitism was spreading in much of europe, he described jewish culture as the creator of this healthy and liberating art form: “jewish people, in the art, come close to genius, h. heine and offenbach, this brave and hilarious satyr […] constitutes the liberation from the psychic and degenerated german-romantic musicians” (nietzsche cited in dal bon 2020, 107). in short, the philosopher whose views were often used in support of nazi claims, denounced german art to be “degenerated” (107). despite this, his heart continued to beat in time with spanish music, which he had come to know and love through carmen. in 1888, shortly before his final mental breakdown that silenced him forever, he discovered the spanish zarzuela, a kind of spanish operetta rich in irony, dances, and popular music. he was fascinated by la gran via (1886), one of the most famous zarzuelas, a surreal comedy set in madrid. it gave the final push of energy to the philosopher who “after being engrained by tristan und isolde, and carmen, now seems to indulge to the rhythm of this zarzuela and these spanish dances, reaching the extreme point of a radiant feeling, full of playful brightness” (125). the contrast between these two types of music, and two ways of seeing life, is the subject of his last letter to his friend, the composer peter gast, before his breakdown. nietzsche wrote: 118 current musicology _______________________________________ “…this psychological antithesis will be the right way to understand me – la gran via [written in spanish]” (127). then, the darkness. dal bon’s la gioia sovrana provides more than a description of the role of music in nietzsche’s biography. it reveals above all that music is a primary force in the philosophical contributions of one of the key figures of the secularized west. additionally, the book highlights the importance of comedy and lightness in philosophical action. lastly, it demonstrates the importance of music as a way to philosophize, both to dig into the depths and darkness of ourselves with wagner and to face our world with the lightness and foolhardiness of an operetta. references nietzsche, friedrich. 1978 [1881]. aurora. pensieri sui pregiudizi morali. translated by ferruccio masini. milano: adelphi. ________________. 1968 [1883]. così parlò zarathustra. translated by mazzino montinari. milano: adelphi. ________________. 2005. der musikalische nechlass. edited by curt paul janz. kassel: bärenreiter. ________________. 1991 [1908]. ecce homo. translated by roberto calasso. milano: adelphi. ________________. 1977 [1888]. l’anticristo. translated by ferruccio masini. milano: adelphi. ________________. 1977 [1872]. la nascita della tragedia. translated by sossio giametta. milano: adelphi. onfray, michel. 2017. decadence. paris: flammarion. 119 microsoft word ps dell'antonio ovalle typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 dell’antonio and ovalle. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commonsattribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 148 matthew ovalle and andrew dell’antonio [content warning: mental illness and ableism, suicide] note: matthew and i decided to publish our contribution essentially as it was delivered because i wanted to maintain the centering of his voice, experience, and insights that we had established in san antonio. it’s worth mentioning, however, that, in addition to understanding the need for educational accommodation through my disabled children, my own anxiety and adhd (the latter identified recently) have made me aware of my own neurodivergence and my strategies for self-accommodation, to which i have had access because of my privileged identities. this reinforces my commitment to principles of universal design for learning and other collaborative and kindness-informed pedagogies to push against the structural ableism of the neoliberal academy.1 andrew i'd like to start with the thought that we've been having that white supremacy isn't just tiki torches. it's also the foundation on which the entire academy in the us is built. and so it can be painful – no tears here, but painful for those of us who have gained power and authority in what we were indoctrinated to believe was a meritocracy, only to realize that our ostensible merit springs just from privilege. and so it's really, i think, only in conversation with those who weren't born to that kind of privilege – weren't raised in that kind of privilege – that we can rethink the structures that create the barriers to equity. and maybe we should reframe inclusion as partnership, sharing of authority, being willing to question and relinquish assumptions, and moving to gatekeeping practices that are accountable to wider communities. and the main point i want to make here is that – we talk a lot about accommodations. we'll talk today a bit about what kind of accommodations we make for people who, for whatever reason, don't appear to be succeeding within the current academic framework. we need to change the design of what we do. we don't need to benevolently dispense opportunities; we need to share them out. and if we are privileged to be in the system, we have the authority to disrupt it. so, whether or not we can fully change the system, we really do need to create 149 pathways to equity, by dismantling the barriers of habit that make us think that there's a single way to create admission into programs, to create opportunity to study. so, i'm going to pass it for now to matt, so he can bring his experiences to bear. i will chime in, perhaps, but he has a lot more important things to say about this than i do. matthew thank you. i can really only speak to my experience. i did my undergraduate and graduate work at the university of texas. i decided to stay at ut for my phd, even though i had looked at other programs, because i was lucky enough to feel supported by my faculty—support that i felt i maybe wouldn’t have received at another university. the first thing i want to say is that i do not belong in academia. i am a queer, trans, disabled man of color. spanish is my first language. i have seven tattoos, my nose is pierced, and i like to use the word “fuck.” academia was a very alienating place for me. part of it is because i am not from texas. i was born in miami, florida and i am a proud dominican man. as i mentioned, spanish is my first language. when i moved to texas, i definitely had culture shock. i had never been in a space surrounded by so many white people, to be frank, and i had definitely never been in a space where i felt that i couldn't catch up. and i didn't know anything. my very first semester of undergrad, i took a required piano class. around christmas time we started playing more “traditional” christmas music. we played “the first noël,” and i had never heard that song before, ever. a lot of my friends were shocked that i had never heard it, to which i responded “yeah, but you have you heard ‘el burrito sabanero’?” that's what we sing where i come from. the truth of the matter is that, as i mentioned, i am not the kind of person that belongs in academia. the reason that i am in academia is because of the man in conversation with me. because when i was an undergrad, i started to exhibit symptoms of what i know now was bipolar disorder. i had a complete mental breakdown, and had it not been for dr. dell'antonio, and his encouragement for me to receive accommodations, because luckily the university of texas does have a services for students with disabilities office, i would have dropped out of college. i would not have made it—i certainly would not have made it to graduate school or to a phd program. i am very well aware of the fact that these programs and offices do not exist at every university. i am also very well aware of the fact that i have a fear of going into the work-force because i have these 150 accommodations as a student, but there is no guarantee that i will have them as a member of a faculty, at a university in any department. so what do i do? i don't know. one of the things that we often talk about is how we can teach our classes in a way that is accommodating and accessible. i had a conversation with a student just yesterday who, by most traditional standards, is doing poorly in my class, in that her exam grades are very, very low. and one of the things that i said to her was that i hate exams. how am i supposed to take 60 students with 60 different ways of learning, make one exam, and expect them all to pass? it's impossible. not all students are able to take exams in general. it is not a universal method of assessment. i have certain students who come into my office every week. we have very nuanced conversations which indicates that they understand the music and the material perfectly, but when they take the exams, they fail. and it's not their fault, it’s the way that the university is built. i have to give exams and i have to have students write papers, but if i could design a course outside of these bounds, i wouldn’t have my students do either. most semesters (if not every single semester) that i have taught, i have had international students. english is not their first language and they are struggling because they are just now having to learn to both speak the language and write it at the academic level for the first time. how do i get them to write an essay when they don’t have the same resources as their classmates for whom english is their first language? how do i grade that? where do i base my grammar? even in my own work, something that i was talking about recently is that i constantly question my use of grammar in my papers, because i was taught and raised in a spanish-speaking household. i don't remember all of the grammatical rules of english, because, frankly, there are too many of them. and they're ridiculous. i think we can all agree with that. but one of the things that we've talked about is trying to create an alternative pathway to learning. i think that everybody here can agree that when we teach a class, we have a goal in mind. as educators, we have an idea of what we want our students to be able to do at the end of the class. i recently got to a point where i am teaching a class at the university of texas. i am not just a ta anymore. and i decided that my goal was for students who are non-majors to be able to listen to music and take something away from it that they maybe would not have noticed before. a test doesn't necessarily tell me if they can do that or not. how do i create a system that allows a student who has problems taking tests, a student who has problems attending classes, a student who needs extended deadlines, to get to the same 151 end-goal, the same finish line at the same time? that is something i think about a lot; we have 15 weeks, and not everybody can learn that way. the only reason i am sitting here is because dr. dell’antonio created an alternate pathway for me. because when i had a mental breakdown, i was taking his first semester music history class, i went to his office and i sobbed. i didn't mean to. i didn't know it was going to happen, but it was one of the most important moments of my life. dr. dell’antonio looked at me and said: “my daughter is disabled, i understand what this is like, and i’m going to help you.” i had never heard that before. ever. he essentially allowed me to not go to class if i didn't need to, if i could not make it, and to do my work in my own time. so instead, i would make my own notes, i would look through the material myself, and i would meet with my ta, dr. heather buffington-anderson. dr. buffington-anderson was also committed to my success in the course and would review the material with me week by week. and i passed the class because i had an alternative pathway. how do we create that for other students? how do we accommodate all students? what does it look like to even get accommodations? because that is something that is also very difficult. i have had accommodations since 2011. just recently, i realized that i needed new accommodations because i've had new issues arise—or at least they seem to be issues in a university setting. i needed to revise my accommodations. well, guess what? they said i needed to be reevaluated. who has the money to see a therapist? not everybody. who has the ability to self-advocate? who has the understanding of themselves to know that they are dealing with mental illness, to get help, to get to a point where they realize that we do have systems in place that might help them? but students don't always feel comfortable reaching out for help. what do we do? i needed to be reevaluated—and i need to say, because i was very upset about this—i had to pay $50 for my therapist to fill out four pieces of paper, and it was mostly just checking boxes. i then had to make time in my very limited schedule to go and meet with my counselor and discuss my new accommodations. and that is not something that all of my students can do. i had a student who trusted me enough to come out to me. he told me that he was gay and he was having trouble. this is why he wasn't coming to class. he was still in the closet and his family had just found out that his cousin was gay had a very negative reaction. and that obviously affected him. he broke down and cried in my office. and one of the very difficult things that i had to do was to try and refer him to our resources knowing that certain resources on campus just don't work. we have a counseling and mental health center; it is severely understaffed. we 152 have 50,000 students on the university of texas campus, and we only have about 30 therapists. not only that, but like, you can only see one (and that’s if you can even get in to see one). even if you do get in, they can only meet with you once every three weeks—once every three weeks, ok? that is unacceptable. every student should be able—every person should be able to have access to the care that they need. and we know that this is not a possibility. so, the question that we keep coming back to is: how do we help these students? how do we help students who need accommodations, and don't have an official letter from the services for students with disabilities office? do we help? yes. the answer is yes. i have always been more than willing to help because i received help myself and i would not be here without it. and i'm going to be frank and put out a content warning and then sort of wrap up because i know i'm going off on a tangent here. so, as i mentioned, i'm issuing a content warning. right before i met with dr. dell'antonio, i attempted suicide. and i'm thankful every single day that i failed. but i was at that level in my life. i was in that much pain. but i still had to get to a point where i had to send an email, where i had to set up a meeting, and where i had to feel comfortable enough to talk about what was happening with me. and this is not always possible. so when i see a student who is not always coming to class, i don't automatically believe that it's because they won't – it’s because they can't. we have to try and be more compassionate, i think, to all students and not assume that they are just sort of blowing our classes off, even if it's kind of hurting our egos a little bit. you work so hard, and you put so much work into a class. but i really think that alternative pathways are the way to go. and they're not always easy to spot. but the work that we would have to do on the other side to create them is worth it, i think. notes 1 for more theoretical and practical detail see my “cripping the music history classroom: disability, accommodation, universal design for learning,” in norton guide to teaching music history, edited by c. matthew balensuela (new york: w. w. norton, 2019), 247–260; jay dolmage’s “universal design: places to start,” disability studies quarterly 35 (2015), https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/4632/3946; and jay dolmage, academic ableism: disability and higher education (ann arbor, mi: university of michigan press, 2017). current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 as time goes by: car radio and the travel experience in twentieth-century america sarah messbauer in a may 1922 issue of the new york herald, david sarnoff, then director of the radio corporation of america, elicited shocked responses from readers when he predicted the eventual widespread use of commercial radios in a range of seemingly unlikely devices. “it is reasonable,” sarnoff argued, “to expect [radio’s] eventual application to automobiles, trains, and in some cases, to individuals” (1922, 1). it was a bold statement, not only because of the relative newness of commercial car ownership, but also because america had not yet happened upon the golden age of radio. at the time of sarnoff ’s declaration, radio was just beginning to make a place for itself in the homes of the american public, battling poor operating quality and problems with mass production. but in spite of the widespread skepticism levied toward sarnoff ’s ideas, radios were introduced into automobiles by the end of the very same year. the first car radio, an option in the 1922 chevrolet, was the westinghouse radio sedan, a “$200 extravagance” with an antenna that covered the car’s entire roof, huge horn speakers, and batteries that filled the space under the front seat (fisher 2007, 67). describing these first years, broadcaster frank a. seitz vividly highlighted the pitfalls associated with the early models he himself was confronted with in 1931: they were monsters. enormous. reception was spotty and they didn’t have the sensitivity of today’s radios. they were subject to a lot of ignition interference and the antennas were slung under the running gear from the front of the car to the rear shock absorbers. they were cumbersome and unreliable. most of them operated from separate b batteries under the floorboards that had to be replaced quite often. (quoted in fornatale and mills 1980, 19) because of these and other concerns, radios remained rare in cars. musicologist marc fisher notes that to most drivers, the idea of playing music in the car was an unwanted and dangerous distraction from the serious business of motoring (2007, 67). indeed, edward suchman’s 1939 editorial on this issue cited a 1934 poll of motorists in new york city finding that 56 percent of drivers were heartily opposed to the automobile radio on the grounds that it distracted the driver of the car as well as drivers of other cars (149). 8 current musicology despite these threats of danger, this same study also described an analysis of two million general motors corporation questionnaires indicating that “an overwhelming majority of the boys and girls want radios in their cars” (suchman 1939, 149). another study of passenger habits in radio-equipped taxis from the same period found a directly proportional relationship between the length of the ride and the likelihood that the radio would be used (157). of those tuning in, 75 percent listened to music as opposed to news broadcasts or radio dramas. such studies indicated a definite fascination with the concept of radios in the automobile. but lingering doubts over the invention’s safety, combined with a moratorium on automobile production during the scrap metal drives of world war ii, meant that car radios remained relatively rare until well into the start of the postwar period. now, nearly a century after these first models were put up for production, car radios are found in over 95 percent of cars on the road (fisher 2007, 67). yet, as is the case with so many developmental histories of music-related technologies, studies concerning the technical aspects of car radio far outnumber studies concerning cultural aspects of this technology.1 who was the first person to think it would be a good idea to outfit an automobile with a radio? how did it affect the travel experience for car users? and why, in spite of the well-grounded safety concerns outlined above, did it rise to such prominence in american life? the fact that these questions have not been widely addressed isn’t surprising, given the current status of radio in american culture. despite radio’s storied history as the dominant media technology of the 1920s– 1950s, the meteoric rise of television from its own beginnings in the 1940s was sufficient to knock radio down from its top ranking by the very next decade—a shift which in turn led to changes in the fundamental function of the medium. during its golden age radio was used as the primary means for disseminating media material such as news, weather, and artistic productions like concerts and plays. today, however, musicologists like jody berland classify radio as a “secondary medium” in the broadcasting industry, the equivalent of what she terms “sonic wallpaper,” referring to the fact that actively listening to radio is not essential to industry executives so long as listeners don’t turn it off (1990, 179).2 automobiles, by contrast, feature in a larger collection of studies by cultural historians interested in the impact of various technologies on new forms of individual and group consciousness.3 this interest in the effects of the shift to technologically mediated thought is epitomized in the work of historian and cultural theorist wolfgang schivelbush (1977) on the railroad’s manipulation of industrialized space and time in the nineteenth century. influenced by schivelbush and other works, this article posits that changes to the travel experience 9 sarah messbauer brought about by the introduction of the car radio were made possible not only by individual radio and car technologies, but also by earlier technologies such as the train, which initiated the shifts in perception that the car radio would eventually build upon. car radio cocoons within the field of car radio studies, the vast majority of academic work has, since its beginnings, been devoted to the engineering of these devices or to the documentation of their spread across domestic and international markets. removing this rather large corpus of material leaves a more modest collection of scholarly studies focused primarily on how the particular engineering of car radios inspire unique psychological effects on the individuals that use them. in a 2014 edited volume entitled sound and safe, for example, bijsterveld et al. provide a fascinating examination of what they call the “acoustic cocooning” phenomenon created by car radio: namely, the ability of sound to envelop the well-insulated space of the car until the occupants are surrounded only by the sounds they themselves wish to hear. this creates a number of interesting psychological effects, as media sociologist michael bull points out. he places car radios within a larger sphere of music technologies—such as ipods and other personal stereo devices—that were built not just to accommodate movement but to narrate that movement as well (bull 2015). technologies like the car radio thus allow drivers to feel as though they are firmly in charge of their travel experiences, further insulating themselves from the world around them until the sensory input they receive from other sources—whether visual, tactile, or otherwise—is unable to penetrate the acoustic cocoon they have created for themselves. this results in drivers who are left feeling as though the world around them is not only distant, but not quite real. this notion has been echoed by recent work examining other kinds of personal stereo devices, as evidenced by a 2013 study of cyclists’ “sensory strategies” for mediating their environment, which involve a nuanced and constantly shifting negotiation between practices of “listening and not-listening” to the external sonic landscape as well as the internal one controlled by cyclists via technology (jungnickel and aldred 2013). surveying these and other works reveals that within the field of car radio studies there are a few unifying themes of scholarly interest revolving predominantly around the larger field of sound studies. as musicologist marcel cobussen (2014) points out, scholars are generally drawn to two major dynamics of the car radio phenomenon: first, that drivers are heavily invested in technologies and materials that will allow them to maintain the greatest possible degree of control over their vehicle. this includes policing 10 current musicology sounds produced from both the car itself and from technologies inserted within it. second, car radios provide a tool for drivers to fill the insulated, privatized space they inhabit with their own personal sound choices, making it one of the last spaces where a person may exert near-total control over their sound environment. these two phenomena, simultaneously “shielding the car’s interior acoustic space from outside noises” and “filling this space with the sounds of audio equipment and auditory signals,” are what ultimately facilitate an equally simultaneous sense of control and freedom for the driver (cobussen 2014; emphasis in original). it is this focus on the simultaneous desire for freedom and control that leads so well into the larger body of works examining the psychosocial effects of car radio’s technological predecessors. schivelbush’s seminal work, the railway journey (1977), provides an ideal point of departure for this new discussion. he discusses the railroad as a symbol of industrialized modernity that drastically restructured the way people perceived time and space: “motion was no longer dependent on the conditions of natural space,” he argues, “but on a mechanical power that created its own new spatiality” (schivelbush 1977, 10). while hardly novel in today’s world, the idea that humankind had moved away from a dependence on the beasts of the land or the currents of the sea in favor of a locomotive power generated—and thus controlled—by humans themselves led to a radical reshaping of the concept of distance as it was encountered and envisioned in everyday life. an article in the 1839 journal quarterly review deftly illustrates this new mentality in the minds of contemporary thinkers: “the mediterranean, which is now only a week from us, has before our eyes shrunk into a lake; our british and irish channels are scarcely broader than the old firth of forth . . . and the great lakes of the world are rapidly drying into ponds!” (“reports of the commisioners,” 23). the illustrative power of descriptive notions such as these stemmed from the ability of train travel to introduce an element of flexibility into previously rigid structures of spatiotemporal consciousness; what had once been irrevocably far or incomprehensibly large was suddenly traversable, suddenly scalable, through means that might have seemed inconceivable just a few years before. this new flexibility in the perception of distance constituted a major shift in the perceived immutability of nineteenth century understandings of time and space—what geographer david harvey (1989) labels “time-space compression.”4 such a shift would, in turn, inspire a flexibility of thought that would greatly accelerate the rate at which future technologies, such as the car radio, would become widely embraced by a public now acclimated to the idea that time and space were phenomena within the range of human control. 11 sarah messbauer naturalizing unnatural technologies this flexibility would not develop overnight. indeed—as demonstrated by seitz’s description of the “monstrous” quality of early car radios or the quarterly review article’s allusion to the terrifying “annihilation” of previous understandings of time and space5—the integration of new timeand space-bending technologies into the public domain was by no means a smooth process. in order for a flexible conception of space-time to truly take hold in everyday thought, the machinery that facilitated these expansions had to become a fully accepted presence in common social spheres: in essence, the normalized presence of machines like the railroad, the car, the radio, and, ultimately, the car radio had to become the norm rather than the exception (schivelbush 1977, xv). this process would prove especially challenging for the radio, which facilitated a dissociation of the human voice from its natural condition analogous to the effects of the railroad on the motion of people and objects. r. murray schafer labelled this separation of an original sound and its reproduction “schizophonia,” a term further elaborated upon by steven feld in his analysis of sampling and copyright related to ba-benzélé pygmy music (schafer 1969; feld 1996). in this reading, the natural condition of the human voice (the production of human vocal sounds from the human body) is replaced by the unnatural or mechanical condition of the human voice (the production of human vocal sounds from a mechanical object), thus schizophonically separating sound from its original production source. because this separation forced the sounds produced by the human voice into an unnatural condition, the first step in successfully integrating the radio into the home thus involved radio listeners acclimating themselves to sounds and voices that were simultaneously dislocated and disembodied. this involved accepting what margaret fisher describes as “the simultaneity of the radio speaker’s real presence in the radio station and their spirit presence in the home (their virtual presence)” (2002, 42). telephones made this process easier, to be sure, having predated commercial radios by almost three decades.6 but the spread of radio in the 1920s and 30s rapidly outpaced the spread of telephones: john j. karol, in a 1938 study of the rapid commercialization of the medium, noted statistical data showing twice as many homes with radio sets than with telephones. this suggests that radios allowed a far greater number of people to become acquainted with disembodied voices than what telephones had made possible.7 in fact, karol and the many other social scientists studying the phenomenon of radio in the 1930s eventually concluded that radio’s ability to dissolve geographic divides and connect users to places and people outside of their own physical space constituted the medium’s most critical 12 current musicology effect on contemporary notions of distance (lenthall 2007, 67). this specific aspect of radio’s power is felt today in radio’s influence on subsequent media technology. running parallel to the radio, the automobile was a technological innovation that had also rapidly ingrained itself into the daily lives of peoples of all classes from the earliest periods of its development,8 helping to reform the social landscape in much the same way as radio. writing for a 1922 edition of the advertising journal the printer’s ink, marsh k. powers deftly describes the larger social impact of this new technology: bald as the statement may sound, the motor car has stolen into the vantage-point formerly occupied by the home. . . . by 1919–20 the automobile had so usurped the interest of the american family that in thousands of instances a family preferred to squeeze itself into a cramped apartment rather than live more expansively and forego its motor car. (powers 1922, 137) the importance of the automobile as social currency was rivaled by that of the radio, and both were used to help initiate government-sponsored attempts to modernize rural areas and in so doing create a streamlined american cultural terrain. media studies scholar steve craig argues that reformers saw four innovations in particular—the telephone, the automobile, radio, and electricity—as essential to modernizing rural life. “in fact,” he argues, “these technologies were inscribed with a largely unquestioned power to transform an old-fashioned rural society into an agrarian version of middle-class, urban consumer culture” (craig 2006, 2). the success of these efforts at modernization were due in large part not just to the introduction of these technologies, but to the symbiotic relationship they quickly formed. as documentation from the period shows, the weakening of the depression, combined with the rise of farm incomes, meant rural families were increasingly traveling to town to purchase the products touted on radio commercials (craig 2006, 10). this meant that, by the start of the 1940s, the automobile had become an instrumental component in the completion of daily household tasks—just like the radio. broadening the palate successfully employing radio in the home and, later, the car, involved a fascinating confrontation involving the transmission of radio broadcasts into environments with pre-existing palates of sound. as musicologist susan key notes, “divorcing the value of music from its worldly associations or physical environment involved a curious effacement of the relationship between performance, social context, and sound itself ” (key 2002, 107). 13 sarah messbauer while the sounds of rattling pans and boiling pots were not typically part of the acoustic space of a concert hall, such sounds were par for the course for many radio listeners. this forced home listeners to divide their auditory attention between the sounds from the radio and the sounds from the space inhabited by said radio. according to key, the individual sounds of a broadcast composition thus assumed new relationships among themselves as well as with the listener. listeners were forced to renew the criteria by which they perceived and defined both “natural” and “unnatural” sounds, since both typically occurred within hearing range of the listener (2002, 112–13). in this way, the imposition of layered sonic environments—such as the sounds of a dick tracy mystery show superimposed over the sounds of a kitchen during dinner preparations or traffic outside a city home at rush hour—became a normal part of the everyday radio experience. had this transition to a “secondary medium” status not taken place prior to the mass production of car radio, the substantial background noises associated with the running of early car models might have proved an insurmountable challenge to individuals looking to add the sounds of radio to their driving experience. the secondary medium status also reduced concerns over distracted driving by demonstrating that listeners to the radio could, in fact, perform other tasks successfully while using it. the changes in perception brought about by radio did not go unnoticed. the practical application of these changes to broadcasting policies was expressed by paul lazarsfeld in the late 1930s, when he stated that, “for whatever goal radio is used, we shall want to know first to what extent people are prepared to fall in line” (1939, 2). this turn of phrase, “to fall in line,” is particularly telling for the mentality of mass-production and mass-consumerism it engenders. government officials in both europe and the united states, aware of this research and the potentials of such mentalities, conscientiously enhanced the mass-production/mass-consumption relationship during world war ii in the form of industrial music (baade 2012). this genre evolved out of industrial psychology: the common thinking of the time that the space-time constructions of the factory floor—with its heavy regimentation and dehumanizing procedural dictates—could be both tempered and improved by introducing music designed to satisfy workers’ needs for stimulation in an otherwise static atmosphere (63). indeed, sarnoff himself alluded to this application of radio technology in his article for the herald, asserting that radios would have a “fixed position in certain classes of factory operations: more particularly could they be effectively introduced among the sweatshops to lighten the burden of the toilers subjected to the daily monotony there encountered” (1922, 11). as a result, the large-scale introduction of radio music in the workplace 14 current musicology was viewed as a benefit rather than a distraction, expanding the reach of radio beyond the realm of domesticity and increasing the interest in other potentially beneficial applications for the medium. in looking at the content of broadcasts during this period, music production for the radio shifted to conform to many of the same industrial processes used on the factory floor, in the sense that radio owners, programmers, and performers were all saddled with an unprecedented awareness of time. this regimentation of music broadcasting met with not-insignificant degrees of resistance from the musicians and conductors forced to accommodate these new and tightly regulated time blocks. american studies scholar david goodman (2011) highlighted some of these responses when he described how the broadcast of john barbirolli’s popular sunday concerts on cbs had to adhere strictly to a new regimen of pre-set constraints on time. he was required to be off by 4:27 p.m., and no later, in order to clear the air for a commercial program at 4:30. goodman goes on to say that, “in 1940, there was some conflict about barbirolli’s slow entrances for broadcast concerts. a cbs official reported overhearing him asking ‘if this is a factory,’ and offering to take the blame if the broadcast ran over” (2011, 155). through the regimentation of the broadcast schedule, then, the commercialized, industrialized broadcast of “sonic goods” during and after world war ii extracted the maximum benefit from processes originally created for the production of “material goods” (berland 1990, 185). after the war the shifts in perception spurred by the radio and the car during the 1930s and 40s—which, as described above, included the familiarization of disembodied sounds, the imposition of layered sonic environments, and the compression of space and time—were built upon and amplified in the postwar period. this came about just as the end of the war brought renewed production of consumer goods and the advent of suburbanization. while the period from 1950 to 1960 saw a 47 percent increase in suburban populations, compared to just 8 percent in cities, most workers continued to be employed in urban areas, which drastically increased the need for transportation to and from the job. as mcfarland notes, “suburbia’s newly restructured day, with the addition of morning and evening commutes, created a yearning for entertainment in the car” (1972, 7). it was in this spirit of fast-paced, routine travel that car radio became a welcome addition to the driving experience of suburban dwellers. the programming for radio underwent rapid changes during this time as well, all in an effort to accommodate this newly mobile audience. stations increasingly added regular traffic reports aired with news headlines and commercials, aware 15 sarah messbauer that repetition was key to making distracted listeners absorb the content of their broadcasts (fisher 2007, 67–68). ken barnes noted in the 1980s that by that point in the history of car radio programming, broadcast philosophies revolved around the assumption that “virtually anything unfamiliar will elicit a guarded reaction at best, while familiar material has a much better chance of favorable response, even if it’s simply the relief of recognition” (1988, 22). as a result, station owners avoided innovation and diversity in their choice of music, save in the most superficial of ways. this desire for consistent sound was maintained through the “clockhour” formula, in which each type of programming—music, news, weather, and commercials—was appointed to a specific place within an hour-long rotation. this strategy was designed to create a kind of mental familiarity reminiscent of early-twentieth-century radio shows, but without the same need for concentrated, active listening from the audience. it was a shift that forced radio to shed its place as the central pillar of american home entertainment—a move greatly facilitated by the concurrent rise of commercial television—and instead adopt an even more intimate, if less obvious, role: it was “just there, always on in the background, serving not as the main entertainment of the evening, but as the soundtrack of american life” (fisher 2007, 8). such a shift was fully in keeping with radio’s earlier transition to a secondary medium, becoming a sonic presence as ubiquitous and expected as the other sounds of everyday life in twentieth-century america. the clock-hour formula thus capitalized on the earlier industrialization of radio by further integrating standardized practices into the production of music. because of the strict demarcations of time within the hour formula, the amount of time any given song could occupy was strictly delineated in turn. restrictions on time had already been in place since the mid-nineteenth century due to the technological limitations of recording technologies such as wax cylinders all the way through the 78 rpm record. because repetition of the clock-hour formula was important in order to maximize the impact of the structure, and because radio was transitioning into the role of background medium, the music played on this secondary medium also adopted a repetitive, simplified style conducive to background focus. the goal, according to the philosophies of the clock-hour system, was for people to focus on socializing, on driving, on working—to focus their attentions on activities for which radio could regularly contribute to the sound environments encountered most frequently in everyday life. given the confluence of these elements within the same period—the shift to radio as a background medium, its ever-increasing presence in automobiles, and the industrial and technological standardization of the music played from within it—it should come as little surprise that the mid16 current musicology point of the twentieth century also saw a distinct rise in the number of mainstream popular songs referencing cars through sound, text, or both. some genres, such as rock and roll, referenced automobiles more frequently than others. indeed, the song most commonly credited with being the “first” rock and roll song was “rocket 88,” an homage to a car of the same name written by ike turner and performed by the early rock powerhouse group jackie brenston and his delta cats.9 in the song, the focus on the automobile—and in particular, its status as a symbol of freedom and exploration—is foregrounded by brenston’s vocals from the first stanza: a v8 motor baby, it’s modern design black convertible top and the girls don’t mind sportin’ with me riding all around town with joy10 this crossover of musical theme and musical medium resulted in multidirectional flows of influence on related aspects of music dissemination. on one hand, djs and radio executives felt compelled to prominently feature these and other car-referencing genres within the clock-hour formula. on the other hand, the importance of the radio format and car technology meant musicians felt compelled to write music on these subjects, encouraging more attention from djs and executives—thus encouraging these cycles of influence to continue. that’s not to say that early rock and roll held a monopoly on car-themed songs. there are hundreds of possible examples spanning every decade of the midto late-twentieth century, including “route 66” (1946), which references the iconic highway frequented by car enthusiasts. cars and road travel are front and center in country music, with old hits like “on the road again” (1980) receiving just as much airplay as more recent songs like tim mcgraw’s “truck yeah” (2013). even the 2009 miley cyrus poprock anthem “party in the usa” situates its narrative within a los angeles taxi cab. the song details the young singer’s move from tennessee to los angeles to pursue a solo singing career. unable to overcome her anxieties about the move, she jumps into a cab at lax only to discover her favorite songs by her favorite singers playing on the car radio—at which point she forgets her troubles and calls for a “party in the u.s.a.” (for more, see carroll 2009). and, of course, any discussion of the connection between music and cars would be incomplete without reference to rap music, the lyrics and imagery of which demonstrate the continuing presence of cars as status symbols (williams 2014; see also gilroy 2001). although the impact of automobiles on the subject matter of american popular songs has undoubtedly been great, cars have also had a notable effect on the actual design of musical sound. sound artist peter sinclair, for 17 sarah messbauer example, developed the interactive roadmusic project in 2013, whereby “sensor information gathered from the surroundings and from the movements of the car” are used by composers to craft real-time musical responses for passengers and drivers in the car (parkinson and tanaka 2013, 136). and as musicologist justin williams explains, hip-hop artists and producers regularly craft music specifically for the listening space of the car: my case study focuses on one producer, dr. dre, and his creation of a style labeled “g-funk,” which according to him, was created and mixed specifically for listening in car stereo systems. as borrowing is so central to hip-hop’s ethos, dr. dre’s production reflects how musical materials become reused for a new space, updated and customized for the automotive listening experience. (williams 2014, 74) the ability to so carefully control the sound environment of a vehicle—especially with the recent rise of near-silent electric engines, which greatly reduce the level of “noise pollution” in a car interior and thus increase the “acoustic cocooning” effect so desired by contemporary drivers—thus makes composing music intended to be heard in cars an intriguing and challenging experiment for music makers across genres. but coupled with this kind of innovation come moves in opposing directions as well. for instance, the ongoing privatization and careful curation of space, both material and conceptual, inspired some american car manufacturers at a march 2013 radio ink conference to consider releasing models without any am/fm radios at all (rhoads 2013; george 2013). the general sentiment among manufacturers was that in an age of highly customizable media consumption, the mass market structure of am/fm radio had become obsolete. instead of having their sonic environments curated for them, drivers of these new vehicles would have the option of either connecting to their own satellite radio attachments or connecting a personal portable music device. this idea was met with substantial public backlash: just days after that conference, veteran radio media strategist mark ramsey conducted a randomized, nation-wide study of car consumers gauging their responses to the idea, in which 74.5 percent of respondents strongly disagreed with the idea that removing am/fm radios from cars was acceptable, and 58.3 percent strongly agreed that they would still want am/fm radios in their cars even if they could still listen to all their favorite stations on their mobile devices or via the internet (ramsey 2013). two manufacturers—bmw and tesla—did eventually commit to removing am radio from their electric car models in 2014, arguing that electric motors cause interference on am 18 current musicology stations that reduce their broadcast quality (boeriu 2015; see also gordonbloomfield 2014; neal 2016). but the national association of broadcasters officially petitioned bmw to reconsider, with one commenter on a public forum writing, “i plan to drag out my portable am radio and leave it in the car” (smith 2014). these developments, while heralding definite shifts in the mechanical integration of radio into the car, do not indicate that the presence of this century-old medium is likely to disappear from cars altogether. industry studies continuously show that drivers across demographic lines maintain a strong preference for radio over internet-based listening or personal stereo devices such as ipods or mobile phones, with a study of female drivers from february of 2017 showing that 71 percent of women surveyed tune into local am/fm stations, while only 14 percent relied on pure play streaming services—that is to say, services without commercial interruption (burns and rod 2017). but these first attempts to remove the radio—the traditional means of encountering curated sound in the car—nevertheless point to the fact that in doing so manufacturers are removing the possibility, however small, of encountering the sonically unexpected. no longer would the listener have to worry about the insertion of unwelcome or even simply unplanned sounds into their sonic environment, even if those sounds are heavily curated themselves, as is the case with commercials or the clockhour rotation. instead, they would be met with a fully controllable system of musical delivery. regardless of whether the removal of radios from these new electric car models ultimately becomes the norm, then, the realization of this idea even on a small scale speaks in and of itself to the new modalities of industrialization and mass production of space, time, and experience via the technologies employed in everyday life. conclusion as schivelbush notes in his introductory thoughts on the relationship between technology and social structure: “if an essential element of a given socio-cultural space-time continuum undergoes change, this will affect the entire structure; our perception of space-time will also lose its accustomed orientation” (1977, 36). car radio did not set the precedent for the kinds of perceptual changes schivelbush describes; however, it did provide a new manifestation of the technologically mediated spatiotemporal paradigm gripping the west in the first half of the twentieth century. the result confirmed in its own way that human experience—and the larger social processes constituted from such individual experiences—cannot be understood in isolation, but rather must include consideration of how such experiences shape and are shaped by predominant or shifting concepts of 19 sarah messbauer space and time. any kind of disruption or change in social processes must necessarily involve a change in our understanding of space-time, and vice versa. thus, the creation of radio audiences, whether in the home, at the office, or in the car, led to the creation of new concepts of space-time. radio and the automobile both compressed and expanded users’ notions of space by, on the one hand, decreasing the labor involved in moving from one space to another and, on the other hand, increasing the accessibility of previously foreign locales. the temporal effects of these industrial technologies also tended toward compression. like the radio schedule itself, with its strict markers of the hour and timed rotation of current and past hits, the music playlist continuously demarcated the present from the immediate or distant past (straw 1988). combining this demarcation with the closed environment of the car instilled in its listeners a sense of what michel chion labels the “perpetual present,” thus reducing the perceived passage of time between origin and destination (1994, 86). so while it may be true today that car radios have taken a back seat in the minds of the public, this need not be a sign of radio’s failure as a communicative medium. rather, its status today—whether it be labeled a secondary medium, sonic wallpaper, a social soundtrack, or something else—should only serve as a testament to the incredible power of this innovation and others like it to intimately influence the foundations of human consciousness. in the broadest sense, car radio reinforces the listener’s ability to manipulate the interaction of two concepts (space and time) once upheld as immutable laws of the natural universe. but on a more personal level, inserting radio into the car allowed listeners to take the music, voices, and sounds that tied them to their communities, injecting acoustic markers of humanity into technologies that might otherwise seem forebodingly inanimate. through the medium of the car radio, shifts in space and time occurring during the travel experience became a more palatable and familiar concept, allowing travelers to keep within their minds those thin ties of sound and sense that underpin the self, connecting listeners to home and hearth no matter how far into the distant unknown they should choose to go.11 notes the conference paper that led to this article was presented as part of the “medium is the message” panel at the 2012 society for ethnomusicology conference in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. i am grateful for the thoughtful commentary of the audience members as well as my fellow panelists. finally, i credit beth levy and her provocative, evocative, and impeccably curated graduate seminar on radio for inspiring the original thoughts that generated this final work. 20 current musicology 1. cataloging all journals, books, and trade publications listed in jstor, worldcat, and proquest, as well as the archives of the institute of electronics and electrical engineers— believed to be the world’s largest technical professional organization in the world—showed a consistent 2:1 ratio of books, journals, journal articles, or trade publications focusing on technical versus sociocultural aspects of car radio. technical studies included those focusing on component parts, manufacturing processes, broadcasting range and requirements, maintenance and repair, environmental impact, and advances in technology such as analog to digital. sociocultural studies included studies from psychology, sociology, anthropology, music and others on car radio’s effects on cognitive perception; family/social dynamics; music, news, and entertainment production; traffic patterns; urban planning; and political affiliation. excluded from this review were professional or scholarly publications produced in a language other than english, studies focusing primarily on technologies other than car radio, and speculative studies published prior to the actual invention of car radios. 2. several scholars in the late 1970s and early 1980s noted this shift to a secondary medium status as it was happening, documenting the new industry reliance on radio for advertising purposes. see the works of benjamin compaine (1979) and christopher sterling (1979, 1984) for examples. 3. see, for example, bull (2003); hård and knie (2001); gartman (2004); koshar (2001); mcfarland and moore (1960). 4. for more writing on theories related to the social construction of space and time in contemporary life, see lefebvre (1974); soja (1989, 1996); giddens (1981); virilio (1986); massey (1994); and postone (2007). 5. although not cited specifically, the article’s use of the phrase “annihilation of time and space” may be a reference to a similar phrase coined by marx in gundrisse, a collection of unfinished essays from 1857 on a wide range of topics, including the impacts of capitalism’s contradictions on conceptions of space and time. 6. telephones: patent issued to alexander graham bell in 1877. radios: patent issued to guglielmo marconi in 1904. 7. for more on this subject, the field of sound studies has yielded a great deal of relevant scholarship. for examples, see barthes (1977), attali (1985); chion (1994); bijsterveld (2006); hilmes (1997); mowitt (1987); kittler (1999); and sterne (2003). 8. cars: model t patent issued to henry ford in 1908. 9. after a great deal of debate, the song was recognized by the rock and roll hall of fame in 1991 as the first recorded rock and roll song. it is also credited by many as being one of the first songs to feature guitar distortion, a result of turner’s decision to record with an amplifier that had broken—ironically enough—after falling out of a car. 10. ike turner, rocket 88. chicago: chess records, 1951. 11. the idea of travel—a journey, an adventure, a venturing into the distance—is both the subject of this article and an apt metaphor for the processes involved in its creation. i am deeply indebted to many individuals who have offered me support and encouragement as i travelled this path. the editorial staff of current musicology, with the help of two anonymous reviewers, provided wonderfully thoughtful and challenging commentary on this draft, and henry spiller, alex stalarow, and gillian irwin performed critically important revisions of this work in its early stages. 21 sarah messbauer references attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music. translated by brian massumi. athens: ohio university press baade, christina. 2012. victory through harmony: the bbc and popular music in wwii. cambridge: oxford university press. barnes, ken. 1988. “top 40 radio: a fragment of the imagination.” in facing the music, edited by simon frith, 8–50. new york: pantheon books. barthes, roland. 1977. image-music-text. translated by stephen heath. london: fontana press. berland, jody. 1990. “radio space and industrial time: music formats, local narratives and technological mediation.” popular music 9 (2): 179–92. bijsterveld, karin. 2006. “listening to machines: industrial noise, hearing loss, and the cultural meaning of sound.” interdisciplinary science reviews: 31 (4): 323–37. bijsterveld, karin, eefje cleophas, stefan krebs, and 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the reassertion of space in critical social theory. new york: verso books. . 1996. thirdspace: journeys to los angeles and other real-and-imagined places. oxford: basil blackwell. sterling, christopher h. 1979. “television and radio broadcasting.” in who owns the media? concentration of ownership in the mass communications industry, edited by benjamin compaine et al., 35–52. white plains, ny: knowledge industry publications, inc. . 1984. electronic media: a guide to trends in broadcasting and newer technologies, 1920–1983. new york: praeger publishers. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, n.c.: duke university press. straw, will. 1988. “music video in its contexts: popular music and post-modernism in the 1980s.” popular music 7 (3): 247–66. suchman, edward a. 1939. “radio listening and automobiles.” journal of applied psychology 23 (1): 148–57. virilio, paul. 1986. speed and politics. transl. by mark polizotti. new york: semiotext (e). williams, justin a. 2014. “’cars with the boom’: music, automobility, and hip-hop ‘sub’ cultures.” in the oxford handbook of mobile music studies volume 2, edited by sumanth gopinath and jason stanyek. oxford: oxford university press. eileen m. hayes. 2010. songs in black and lavender: race, sexual politics, and women's music. urbana and chicago: university of illinois press. reviewed by jalylah burrell eileen m. hayes's ethnographic study of women's music festivals includes this simple testimony from african-american, festival-circuit stalwart mary watkins: "a triad is a triad" (54). the pianist and composer was interven­ ing on the tendency to tether "musical structure" to "gender identity" in appraisals of the women's music festival circuit: a loose network of festivals that emerged in the mid-seventies (54). the festival circuit was produced by and primarily for lesbian women, many of who evinced strong feminist sensibilities. contemporary women's music festivals are the sites for hayes's escorted road trip in songs and black and lavender: race, sexual politics and women's music. less a confluence of particular triads than a convergence of musicking women who wave the lavender triangle, women's music festivals provide an opportunity for hayes to call attention to the black lesbian women within the predominantly white women's music community. for black lesbian women, the lavender triangle of lesbian identity is always framed by the black background of their african american identity. it is because this intersection has gotten so little traffic in african american studies, women's studies, and music studies, that hayes, a festival veteran and feminist activist, spotlights its contours and suggests further avenues of inquiry. "the persistent and disabling equation of black feminist identity with the physical appearance of 'the revolutionary sweethearts' of the black power movement" is one of many assumptions informing popular and scholarly reception of black women's music that songs in black and lavender disrupts through research in an obscure black women's musical community (7). in a subject riddled with gaps, scholars of black feminist music have often been driven to archival alchemy or been forced to cede black women musicians to mystery's dark vestibule. hayes plugs one of those gaps and contests the overdetermined influence of the heavily treated black female musical figure, the blues woman (27). the university of north texas ethnomusicologist writes against the "persistent inaudibility of women's music" to a variety of constituencies by raising the volume on its lowest frequency (45). black women, hayes claims, battle "subjugation ... in the discourse of women's music" and unfamiliarity in "black expressive culture" (45). black women's involvement in women's current musicology, no. 89 (spring 2010) © 2010 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 109 110 current musicology music festivals is presented as a "contemplation on race and the politics of sexual identity in the women's music festival community" (50) that in its novelty is emblematic of the neglect of black feminist and black lesbian expe­ riences in scholarship. leaning little on historiography and musicology, the "interpretive study" instead privileges a survey of black feminist conscious­ ness within women's music festival communities (6). hayes's "theoretical exploration of issues raised by black women's presence in women's music" works by utilizing first person and informant accounts that help her sketch out a series of suggestive vignettes that stake black women's shared owner­ ship of women's music festivals, aesthetics, and culture from the iconic and well-attended michigan womyn's festival and the national women's music festival to the newer, niche-targeted serafemme and sistahfest (175). hayes diffuses her attention between performers, festival goers, and organizers and relies on the tools of contemporary musical ethnography: interview data and participant observation. she puts her ethnographic work into dialog with a wide variety of black feminist and music scholarship such as that of black feminist theorist patricia hill collins, robin d.g. kelley's work on radical movements, andy bennett and richard peterson's work on music scenes, christopher small's concepts of "musicking" and "ideal relationships" and, more broadly, leisure studies and us voter theory. african -american vocalist linda tillery writes in her two page foreword to songs in black and lavender that it is an "ambitious undertaking" with "something for everyone" in its 200-plus pages (ix-x). tillery's text confers an authority to the ethnography and hayes's insider status as well as providing an indication of its breadth. her nine relatively short chapters leap from black women's early participation in women's music festivals as performers and patrons (chapter 3, ''after the golden age: negotiating perspective"); to the implementation and impact of idealistic platforms and multicultural prac­ tices at women's music festivals (chapter 5, "ideal relationships: women's music audiences"); and to the alternate spaces provided by black women and black lesbian exclusive festivals (chapter 6, "redistricting: gay and black outdoors"). ''after the golden age" considers black women's involvement in women's music festival circuit following its 1969-84 "golden age." hayes attempts to model a way oflooking at black women's involvement "without positioning their participation as supplemental to a narrative in progress, or even tangential" (47). hayes quotes musicians such as mary watkins and nedra johnson reflecting on their making music in black traditions (e.g., the spiritual) in festival spaces where those sounds were associated with patriarchy and their feeling that the women's music aesthetic disallowed their cultural backgrounds. with "ideal relationships," hayes riffs on ethnomusicologist christopher smalls's argument that "ideal relationships" are enacted through music making (78), invoking women's music festivals' jalylah burrell ham-handed attempts to inject their proceedings with multiculturalism from an uncaptioned photograph of the iconic black lesbian activist ruth ellis on the michigan womyn's music festival web site to that festival's programming directive to include an "ethnic act" on every bill (82,84). in contrast to the virtual monochrome of the michigan womyn's festival, "redistricting: gay and black outdoors" finds hayes surveying black women-targeted women's music festivals sistahfest and serafemme through interviews and journal entries interspersed with an extended exchange with a serafemme-featured, lesbian-rapper miss money. where hayes stops short of suggesting that either festival achieves an ideal, she distinguishes them from the predomi­ nantly white festivals in their "engagement of multiple axes of oppression and positionalities" (107). hayes work details common and often uncomfortable scenes in the memory banks of those who frequently attend black women's music festivals (6-7). one example is the failure of sisterfire, the short lived festival founded in 1982 by african american acapella ensemble sweet honey in the rock and frequented by black women artists, after the withdrawal of women's music festival community support for not conforming to the narrower political agenda of its white feminist membership (68). another is black women's underrepresentation at outdoor festivals being attributed to the stereotype of blacks' aversion to camping as opposed to a relationship to the natural world informed by the "memory of racialized terror in wide open spaces" and attendant conflations of black life with fauna in chattel slavery (85). these chapters are contextualized by the final and lengthiest of the book (chapter 9, "guys like us: community membership revisited") on the reception of drag king performances on the festival circuit and the debate over trans women's attendance at women's music festivals. surfacing the challenging tenure of black women in women's music festivals, hayes advances the study and her scholarly stance by detailing the response to screenings of the 2005 drag king documentary the aggressives at women's music festival and the anxieties about trans admittance to women-born women only women's music festivals. the concerns of inclusion, which power songs in black and lavender, are approached from another vantage through that pivot, a pivot that again surfaces subjectivities not just black, feminist, or lesbian, but also trans. yet songs in black and lavender's extended look at drag king culture reads as an extended digression that provides little insight into black women's roles at women's music festivals and affirms linda tillery's "something for everyone" characterization to a fault. the ambitiousness of songs and black and lavender's scope is tempered by hayes's belief that scholars "must remain humble in [their 1 claims" (147) as black women's lives are perpetually painted with broad strokes. but hayes's disjointed reflections lack a cohesive argument and her rendering 111 112 current musicology of the women's music festival scene is self-consciously incomplete. wary of cutting too confining a silhouette for the diverse community of festival artists and attendees, songs in black and lavender does not supply a basic understanding of the women's music festivals, nor does it provide productive portraits of popular black women's music festival artists like watkins or tillery for whom basic biographical information is not easily accessible­ this methodological choice might frustrate and confuse readers not already familiar with the community's participants. similarly, hayes provides a list of key african-american female musicians in the appendix, but given the dearth of circulating information available and hayes's command of the material, it is a curious restraint. given that the subject is so understudied, hayes's attempt to represent a large number of topics is admirable but ultimately causes the book to suffer in terms of organization. hayes well refutes the all-inclusive rhetoric of women's music through self-ethnography and through ethnography of her black female informants, but women's music-festivals' failure at diversity communicates none of what is compelling about this niche community for the black women who continue to perform and patronize these festivals. hayes's wandering prose, which often finds her chapters digressing from their subject and features snippets of disjointed observations from her extensive research, begs discipline even as it works its interstices. what fractures the work is, in part, also a result of women's music festivals' small scene and motley membership. the black musicians of women's music festivals do not adhere to a specific genre, and black festival patrons are as diverse. songs in black and lavender lacks the architecture to house the innovative and interdisciplinary research hayes endeavors. hayes also imposes her own limits. she envisions her audience as under­ graduates and songs in black and lavender as a supplementary text in music and sexuality studies courses that integrate the black lesbian experience and black feminist epistemologies into the curricula (176). by opting to feature expressions of black feminist consciousness women's music festivals, hayes forfeits the opportunity to thoroughly represent black women experiences on the festival circuit, but as a first generation work of scholarship, songs in black and lavender points to a variety of extended research possibilities, from black women in women's music festivals, to sonic analyses, to the dynamics of labor, to the negotiations of race and the outdoors, and advances an intersectional black feminist approach to pursuing them. current musicology 105 (fall 2019) ©2019 holt. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 6 emcee ethnographies: a brief sketch of u.s. hip-hop ethnography kevin c. holt too often in scholarship on hip hop culture, hip hop artists and practitioners are talked about, but very seldom are they themselves talking. it may seem extreme, but this can be seen as both tragedy and tyranny. how have we as scholars reproduced the hierarchies that we are trying to dismantle? how has our methodology silenced and disempowered the very folks we claim to be giving voice to and empowering? h. samy alim, 2016 hip-hop has become a popular subject of academic discourse, serving as a medium through which members of several disciplinary communities can engage issues of race, representation, aesthetic, gender, class, and performance, to list some of the most frequently evoked topics. scholars whose work demonstrates a close engagement with hip-hop quite frequently use the fruits of their research to advocate for marginalized american black youth by humanizing the hip-hop community, thereby disempowering what intersectional feminist discourse refers to as “white supremacist patriarchal ideologies” which frequently renders behaviors, performances, and symbols aligned with black youth in the public imagination as antisocial and/or pathological. from roughly the mid-1990s onward, a generation of hip-hop scholars have risen to points of prominence in their respective fields, forming a canon of interdisciplinary work aimed at addressing the bumpy terrain encompassed by hip-hop. hip-hop is frequently theorized in terms of african-american youth countercultures. as such, hip-hop has been the frame around which arguments are made about the politics of racial authenticity and racial representation within the youth subset. while some scholars are critical of modern hip-hop with accusations of antisocial politics, misogyny, homophobia and/or unfulfilled political potential, many of those who engage in hip-hop scholarship have indicated that the genre is a central means through which black youth articulate their sociopolitcal and aesthetic perspectives. while some hip-hop scholars centralize discussions of performance methodologies and materiality, most engage extensively, if not exclusively, in a broader discussion about the sociopolitical underpinnings of hip-hop; i.e. hip-hop as political intervention rather than hip-hop as music. despite the strong connotations of activism and empowerment in hiphop scholarship, few have centralized ethnography as a primary methodological approach for the analysis of american hip-hop. as h. samy alim 7 kevin c. holt asserts in the epigraph to this article, the omission of diligent ethnography molds the ways in which critical discourse surrounding hip-hop takes shape; in essence, the dominant methodologies reinforce the positionality many hip-hop scholars hold academically, politically, and personally in debates surrounding hip-hop. a discussion of the aims and procedures of contemporary ethnographies in conjunction with those of traditional hip-hop studies highlights the potential a more ethnographically driven branch of hip-hop scholarship would have on the field as a whole. one of the most basic concerns when approaching a sociomusical phenomenon critically is understanding the parameters of the subject one wishes to engage; many hip-hop scholars emphasize the work hip-hop does (or should do) without clearly defining what hip-hop encompasses. that the readers understand and agree with the author’s definition of hiphop is taken for granted, leaving some of the higher theoretical concepts ungrounded or particularly open to misinterpretation, as readers apply them to their own, potentially disparate definitions of the genre. for example, in prophets of the hood: politics and poetics in hip-hop (2004), imani perry includes analyses of folk/blues/neo-soul artist india. arie, soul-pop darling alicia keys, and funk-jazz fusion phenom meshell ndegeocello, among others, in her exploration of hip-hop, drawing these performers under the genre’s umbrella. the music, visual presentations, and audiences to which these artists are marketed are distinct from one another, and each largely contrasts those of artists topping hip-hop popularity charts. for perry, hip-hop seems to encompass all of what nelson george refers to as music of the (implicitly black) post-soul generation, including most of the music produced by people too young to have intimate memories of popular music in the era before the popularization of hip-hop. the parameters of hip-hop set by perry are different from those set forth by tricia rose in black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary america (1994) in which the author conflates rap with hip-hop throughout much of her argument, thereby centralizing the commercial rapper as the impetus of hip-hop. still, some of the artists she includes within her hip-hop parameters might be excluded by other scholars. for example, she identifies haitian-american jean-michel basquiat as a rapper and graffiti artist (35), even though his graffiti fits more of the technical definition of the term (usually unauthorized writing or drawing on a public surface) than the stylistic definition generally affiliated with hip-hop, and his “rap” manifests more as spoken/sung words over avant-garde electro-acoustic jazz. such an inclusion indicates that rose’s construction of early hip-hop focuses more on the dissenting creative acts of black and latino youth than 8 current musicology any particular aesthetic expressive style. rose, who begins her most recent book on hip-hop, the hip hop wars: what we talk about when we talk about hip hop–and why it matters (2008) by plainly stating “hip-hop is in crisis,” has a much narrower view of what is included in hip-hop than perry. she goes on to argue that manifestations of hip-hop that embrace “regressive politics” become detrimental to both the communities that embrace it and hip-hop itself, hence the crisis (ix-2). from this, one can glean that according to rose, hip-hop is meant to do certain progressive work and that any hip-hop, or derivative thereof, that doesn’t meet this standard is relegated to the realm of internal malignancy: a literal, internal, anti-hip-hop force. she grounds this by providing a list of progressive artists containing the likes of outkast, talib kweli, and tori fixx, to be contrasted with examples of regressive artists, like the ying yang twins and d4l (rose 2008; 218, 247). singers, or to borrow john l. jackson’s term “sincere singers,” lie outside of rose’s conception of hip-hop. public intellectual and socio/musical commentator greg tate has stated that true hip-hop is a manifestation of urban folk culture and “new world african ingenuity,” which he asserts has ceased to exist since its conformance to “global hyper-capitalism” (tate 2004). sociologist and proponent of hip-hop pedagogy greg dimitriadis is equally pessimistic about the state and form of modern hip-hop. in his chapter “hip-hop: from live performance to mediated narrative” he argues that, with the onset of the mass commercialization, hip-hop has lost several elements central to its coalescence, specifically the diminishing space offered to dance and graffiti traditions (2004). for both these thinkers, hip-hop is defined by social function and style, but most importantly, by a specific temporal moment. both suggest that hip-hop as it exists today is only a shell of a more authentic former self, and therefore, might exclude most mainstream music in recent years from the realm of hip-hop. these represent only a few of the ways in which scholars apply the term hip-hop. sometimes, even within a single text, hip-hop is evoked as a musical genre, as a cultural movement, as an aesthetic, and more abstractly, as a feeling or vibe. while these parameters are not inherently problematic, they highlight the ways in which different scholars apply the term hip-hop with differing significations. the application of ethnography neutralizes some of the tensions around setting the parameters for hip-hop, both for the reader and for the author. to begin with, the work of coaxing a fruitful interview with interlocutors necessitates a close interrogation of diction and meaning, through which one might discover multiple definitions, contexts, and implications that fans of the genre conjure in discussing hip-hop. it allows the scholar 9 kevin c. holt to bypass the burden of theorizing all manifestations of hip-hop by offering the term (and by extension the analysis) a specific context. this also provides a space for the interrogation of the multiple levels of negotiation that fans and artists engage in when talking about and participating in practices they align with hip-hop. the scholar is freed from relying solely on a singular construction of hip-hop identity by allowing interlocutors to offer their own definitions of hip-hop, how they see that engagement with the genre manifesting communally, and the extent to which such engagements impact their perceptions of self. another parameter to contend with is the question of who is included/ excluded when discussing “hip-hop communities.” most scholars define hip-hop as urban black youth culture, a position that reflects the racial, spatial, and generational demographic of the spaces where hip-hop took shape in the late 1960s and early 1970s; however, in the years since, hiphop has expanded to include people outside of the subset of black youth who, undoubtedly, feel intimately aligned with hip-hop identity. this is not to negate the idea that hip-hop and black youth are symbolically linked. arguably, the two are inextricably bound in the popular imagination. discourses that assume the black youth/hip-hop conflation make vital contributions to discourse of race, generation and representation; however, the focus in such research is on hip-hop as it is imagined rather than hiphop as it exists in the world, and that distinction often goes unarticulated. hip-hop is predominantly theorized as being in opposition to the aesthetics and socio-political positionings of proximal adult demographics. while for many scholars the hip-hop demographic is decidedly a youthful subset, musical references often extend back to the 1980s with no sense of irony or generational self-awareness, even given that many of these artists and their original audiences are parents or even grandparents by the time the research is conducted. there are many ways in which the implications of this trend can be interpreted. one interpretation is that all hip-hoppers, after reaching a certain age and level of maturity, move on from hip-hop and associate with the musics embraced by their parents’ generation. another is that older hip-hoppers have no investment, emotionally or culturally, in newer formats of hip-hop, with the suggestion being that they, in a sense, remain aesthetically and politically frozen in the era of their youth. one further conclusion is that the adult demographic’s only pro-hop-hop engagement is financial; that is, confined mostly to businesspeople in the music industry who reap benefits from the popularity of hip-hop and have little or no aesthetic or affinitive investment in hip-hop. scholars who study hip-hop usually place themselves in a liminal category, which i will return to later. black youth are similarly homogenized in these studies, with little 10 current musicology recognition of the diverse ways in which black youth interact with and through hip-hop. engaging in prolonged ethnographic fieldwork forces scholars, especially those focusing on urban fields, to contend with heterogeneity. the hip-hop community now encompasses multiple generations and spans the gamut of socioeconomic strata in this country. even domestically, hiphop transcends political, racial, and linguistic affiliations. engaging with self-identified hip-hoppers in a specific field allows greater opportunity for understanding the complex negotiations of identity and belonging in conjunction with hip-hop as it manifests in a single location. furthermore, such a study allows for the scholar to interrogate what manifestations of hip-hop arise in a given space, the different ways people in that space relate to hip-hop in a broader sense and to each other, and how those interactions impact their relationships with people outside of the space. one of the primary objectives of the first wave of hip-hop scholars was to assert hip-hop as a valid subject of academic interest and to give scholarly voice to disenfranchised hip-hoppers who lacked adequate cultural capital to self-advocate in popular and academic discourse. tricia rose illustrates this struggle in an anecdote that introduces the third chapter of black noise. she recounts being told by an established music scholar that hip-hop had no musical value after she shared her research interest in the genre (1994, 62-65). the inclusion of this anecdote stresses the notion that the general academy (read adult, white, and socioeconomically privileged) stands in opposition to hip-hop (read black poor/working class youth), which contributes to the disenfranchisement of hip-hop communities. michael eric dyson opens that’s the joint!: the hip-hop studies reader (2004) with a similar anecdote, replacing the condescending academician with an elder african-american activist who, as the story develops, comes to represent the oppositional force that the parent generation poses against the hip-hop generation (xi-xiv). in this way, hip-hop scholars present themselves as activists, using their cultural capital as adults and scholars to articulate the perspective of the hip-hop community. despite numerous scholars offering decades of work introducing academic communities to hip-hop and its increasingly normalized presence in american culture, there is still a need to actively advocate for hip-hop validity. in july of 2018, dr. gerald benjamin, a professor of political science and the leader of the benjamin center of state university of new york (suny) new paltz, publicly declared that he did not consider rap “real music” and that it did not reflect the values of “people like us, people in rural new york” while challenging the legitimacy of congressional candidate and former rapper antonio delgado (simonton 2018). even though his institution quickly 11 kevin c. holt denounced the statement and benjamin later expressed regret in his choice of words (his recantation markedly stopping short of disavowing the sentiment of the statement), this incident highlights the various ways in which hip-hop continues to be constructed as something antithetical to the values of the academy. this tension, omnipresent if not always articulated as explicitly as in dr. benjamin’s proclamation, prompts hip-hop scholars to incorporate arguments that affirm the academic worthiness of hip-hop music and culture. the need to declare a subject of study as worthy of the academy’s attention undoubtedly has an impact on the way it is framed. additionally, many of hip-hop studies’ most active and vocal contributors identify as advocates for other marginalized communities. such overtly political motivations manifest in the arguments and conclusions forged in scholarly works on hip-hop. a close reading of these works reveals multiple points of authority upon which these authors base their claims in order to produce a persuasive argument; however, the absence of critical self-reflexive work allows the line between the objective and the subjective to be severely blurred. this section explores the ways in which applied tactics in hip-hop studies impact the presentation of information. there is irony in the marginality of ethnography in hip-hop scholarship given that advocacy is a central impetus for the growing field; the very scholars working to give voice to hip-hop communities in some ways centralize methodologies that perpetuate their voicelessness. while these scholars are assuredly sympathetic to hip-hop and deeply invested in the music and the affiliated communities – even to the point of including hiphop inflected language into the minutiae of their scholarly arguments – fans of hip-hop, especially those who are not themselves famous hip-hop performers, are rarely called upon to articulate their interpretations of hiphop or their philosophical perspectives, let alone to have their thoughts put in direct discourse with those of scholars, artists, and detractors. instead, the author often speaks for the everyday hip-hopper when such opportunities arise. a prime example would be rose’s hip-hop wars, in which the author deconstructs ten arguments, five for and five against, surrounding hip-hop. she asserts that the ten selected arguments represent the most important and recurrent in hip-hop discourse, but never clarifies the basis upon which that claim is made. as she moves through the arguments, rose deconstructs both sides of “the hip-hop wars,” again never clarifying from whence she extracted these positions. she only references specific persons when citing quotes from celebrity interviews as secondary resources. the silent implication throughout is that rose is more adept in articulating points for the hip-hop community than its members could be; in other words, she uses her authority as an academician to speak for hip-hoppers 12 current musicology more so than having them speak through her work. this approach also allows rose to maintain a neat pro/anti hip-hop dichotomy throughout the book. while the framing is effective and the arguments persuasive in their outlining of hip-hop discussions, the text eschews the task of centering how members of the hip-hop community relate to the subject matter. one reason rose and other hip-hop scholars are able to speak for hiphop communities without explicitly articulating the nature of their engagement with hip-hop or arousing a great deal of skepticism from outsiders is because they often identify as members of the hip-hop community. very few of them came of age before the late 1970s, making them a part of what music and culture critic nelson george refers to as the “post-soul generation”: the generation of hip-hop. many of them grew up listening to hip-hop and were/are, in some capacity, part of the scenes that they study, engaging in informal discourse with their peers and elders about the merit and function of hip-hop. they also built vocabularies of aesthetic criteria by which qualitative assessments of hip-hop songs and artists are forged, made friendships and connections through hip-hop, and likely continue to engage with hip-hop recreationally. they are active members of the hip-hop community, or more accurately, socially and culturally engaged in specific hip-hop networks. these personal experiences are compounded with scholarly experiences, allowing these scholars to simultaneously speak from both the authority of the academy and the authority of the insider. this approach to musical research clashes with the inclusion of ethnography as a central method because, as an extension of the aforementioned logic, any interlocutor’s perspective represents a less informed position than that of the scholar. to engage in extensive ethnography, one must concede that the interlocutors’ perspectives are worthy to be centrally engaged in critical discourse. reverence for (facets of) hip-hop and its (imagined) community does not translate to the inclusion of positions as they are analyzed and articulated by members of that community. that said, since these scholars are members of the hip-hop community, the exclusion of ethnography does not produce a full negation of the hip-hop community, but rather a heavy emphasis on a single hip-hop perspective. another point of note is that, while these scholars are often members of hip-hop communities, they do not fully represent the hip-hop demographic as it exists in the public imagination or how it is most frequently theorized in academia. to begin with, the youngest of these scholars can only marginally be considered members of the youth subset and the privileged positions they hold as scholars with top accreditations complicates the widely held association of hip-hop with the urban working class. this 13 kevin c. holt allows many of these scholars to boast a position just outside of the hip-hop community, or, more appropriately, as a bridge between two worlds. in this way, many hip-hop scholars have been able to claim the ambassadorial role that some early ethnographers held, even without engaging in extensive ethnographic fieldwork. there is a niche for the upwardly mobile, socially aware, politically active individual in hip-hop; the purveyor of what adam krims calls “knowledge rap” (2003, 147). the demographic that most directly represents this archetype is generally either left unexplored in academic discourse, or is produced in juxtaposition to the gangsta rap archetype, which krims refers to as “reality rap.” class is rarely explored as an impetus for differing politics between these two archetypes; rather all hip-hop is cordoned off in terms of progressive and regressive. as krims points out in his article “marxist music analysis without adorno: popular music and urban geography,” the differences between the two subsections of hip-hop krims offers, “reality rap” and “knowledge rap,” manifest on multiple levels, with one end seeking to represent the harsh realities of life in poor urban neighborhoods and the other articulating an aspiration toward middle class values (2003, 142-147). this is extremely pertinent to understanding recurrent arguments in hip-hop analysis. that scholars frequently reference “knowledge rap” as the most aspirational manifestation of hip-hop is tied to the fact that this manifestation of hip-hop, more than any other, reflects the socioeconomic stratum to which they belong. inclusions and exclusions of songs in current analyses are generally made with little explanation of the selection process, suggesting that the themes explored through these selections represent patterns that go beyond the scope of the song itself; that analyses thereof represent a case study that can be applied broadly to the entirety of “hip-hop” however the author wishes to apply the term. again, such an analytical tactic is not inherently flawed, but by not offering the reader insight into why some pieces are chosen as worthy of closer analysis or of status as an archetype, such a strategy forces the reader to yield to the author’s subjectivity, not only as scholar, but as listener. the inclusion of ethnographic work, in short, allows for the exploration of qualitative assessments of hip-hop songs without relying exclusively on the author’s aesthetic biases. ––– thus far, i have explored the absence of critical ethnography from the hip-hop studies canon. there have been, however, diligent ethnographic works that either contribute directly to hip-hop studies or focus on subject matter that coincides with some of the central concerns of hip-hop studies. additionally, ethnographies that focus on unrelated or marginally related 14 current musicology subject matter provide useful models for hip-hop ethnography methodologies. this section explores a few works that contribute to an understanding of hip-hop through ethnography. ann arnett ferguson’s book, bad boys: public schools in the making of black masculinity (2001), focuses on perceptions of raced and gendered difference that become infused with the core of american institutions, ultimately resulting in an overarching association of black males with violence. her field work was conducted from 1990 to 1993 at a school she calls rosa parks elementary school, acting as a participant (teaching) observer in the classroom setting. she interviews students, parents, faculty, administration and staff in order to tease out why black males constituted a disproportional subset of students against whom disciplinary action was taken. ferguson coins the term “the adultification of black youth” to explain her point. innocence, particularly childlike innocence, is subconsciously affiliated with whiteness, so when black children and adolescents exhibit delinquent behaviors, authorities are less likely to receive their actions as the mistakes of children and more likely to receive them as a sinister, intentional step toward realizing a criminal potential (2001, 83). as a result, black youth, particularly males, are often given harsher punishments than their white counterparts for similar offenses, a trend that was replicated during ferguson’s field research. ferguson also found that many of her young black male interlocutors conflated the experience of being punished (and surviving punishment) with assertions of racial authenticity, a trope paralleled in gangsta rap narratives. she asserts the importance of rap music to her young interlocutors and notes parallels between black masculinity as it was constructed and articulated in her field site and recurrent themes in hip-hop. she astutely notes that while she had not had much exposure to rap music before conducting her research and her initial reaction reflected shock and offense at the lyrical content, she “was delighted to find that the lyrics articulated some of the very ironies and contradictions that [she] observed as a researcher” (ferguson 2001, 16). she does not spend much time analyzing hip-hop, but uses some of her interlocutors’ favorite rap songs as framing devices throughout the book, thereby allowing the students’ hip-hop aesthetic to be articulated throughout. while her ethnography focuses primarily on the boys that were most frequently subjected to disciplinary procedures during her field research, she presents the field as a heterogeneous tapestry of social interaction. such an approach would dismantle, or at least complicate, many of the homogenizing and dichotomizing arguments found in hip-hop studies. another text that takes on an explicitly youth-centered ethnography is kyra gaunt’s the games black girls play: learning the ropes from double15 kevin c. holt dutch to hip-hop (2006). in her book, gaunt offers a girl-centered ethnography, wherein she argues for a shift in the accepted genesis narrative of hip-hop culture. whereas hip-hop is often thought of as an outgrowth of male-centered party cultures in the 1970s bronx, gaunt offers double dutch and handclapping games as specifically girl-centered homosocial methods of rhythmic and language play that helped lay the aesthetic foundations for contemporary black music, notably hip-hop. john l. jackson, in real black: adventures in racial sincerity (2005), proposes the notion of racial sincerity as an alternative to racial authenticity; in essence, he holds that the discourse surrounding racial authenticity must expand to include the ways in which racial authenticity are performed and the sincerity with which that performance is carried out. he also asserts that application of the term “authenticity” implies a subject evaluating an object, while “sincerity” entails evaluations made between subjects. sincerity, in that way, reasserts the subjectivity of black people in the negotiation of what blackness signifies (2005, 15). he conducted fieldwork in new york city, focusing primarily on black men in harlem. jackson includes a section where he describes the internal process he undergoes in preparing to engage in fieldwork. he describes himself as shy and awkward, needing to evoke his inner superhero, anthroman, to produce useful engagements with his interlocutors. furthermore, he inserts himself into the discussion of performing racial sincerity, informing the reader of times when his own black authenticity (and sincerity) were challenged. he chooses an uncomfortable encounter with his primary interlocutor to introduce the book, wherein jackson is berated for his decision to be an academic, “sucking wind up under the white man” (2005, 1-9). he responds with frustration. throughout the book, jackson offers insight into his feelings and methods in conducting fieldwork to serve as a pedagogical tool for budding ethnographers. he dedicates a full chapter to hip-hop, which he entitles “real emcees.” this is the only chapter in the book without an extensive ethnographic element; rather he focuses primarily on analyzing hip-hop lyrics. he also focuses specifically on male “knowledge” rappers with special emphasis on mos def. jackson argues for heterogeneity in hip-hop, asserting that (“knowledge”) rappers transform hip-hop performance and, by extension, the ways in which hip-hoppers sincerely perform black masculinity. despite not extending his ethnographic methodology to his study of hip-hop, jackson provides a foundation for ethnography in hiphop studies by virtue of the theoretical arguments he asserts and his methods for ethnographic fieldwork exploring race, identity and performance among working class african-americans in an urban setting. 16 current musicology in roc the mic right: the language of hip hop culture, h. samy alim takes on the multivalent task of theorizing the binds of hip-hop culture through language, islamic faith/philosophy, and global countercultural positionalities. the religious discussion of the text grounds hip-hop’s sociopolitical work in the ethos of islamic faith via alim’s discussion of “verbal mujahidin”, a term that expresses the moral imperative to use the spoken word to affect change (alim 2006, 33-38). alim applies sociolinguistic analysis to support his thesis that the contours of hip-hop language (which he refers to as hip-hop nation language) manifests a distinct deviation from african-american vernacular english (or black language) through which hip-hoppers build a sense of global community/nationhood. with a docket of interlocutors that includes nationally recognized hip-hop artists and poets, alim puts analyses of casual speech in conversation with rap lyrics, which allows for a discussion of the fluidity with which hiphoppers apply dominant and subcultural linguistic convention. in her article “‘keepin’ it real’: white hip-hoppers’ discourses of language, race and authenticity,” cecilia cutler extends alim’s discussion to explicitly address white, affluent hip-hoppers’ evocation of hip-hop nation language in asserting (or performing) a connection to hip-hop and the poor black communities most symbolically aligned with it (2003). while cutler shies away from alim’s contention that the syntactic idiosyncrasies that mark hip-hop represent a distinct language system, she nonetheless maintains that close analyses of hip-hoppers’ methods of articulating (metalinguistic analysis) explicates the nebulous, yet pronounced, contours of the hip-hop community. kiri miller’s playing along: digital games, youtube, and virtual performance (2012) provides a vital ethnographic frame for scholars who wish to engage popular culture. this book, which focuses on the ways in which people come to embody and perform in tandem with various digitally based stimuli, asserts digital space as a legitimate field site. popular culture is increasingly articulated through digital media, such that notions of aesthetic communities are less reliant upon physical presences than ever before. hip-hop studies must account for the ways in which hiphoppers create digital communities and how they impact the exchange between hip-hop creators and hip-hop appreciators. applying miller’s fieldwork methodologies to hip-hop studies would complicate many of the distinctions previous research has been reliant upon. for instance, the internet offers even unsigned underground rappers the potential to build international hip-hop networks, a near impossibility in the time before the internet boom. this means that distinctions like “underground” and “mainstream” must be revisited and re-theorized. miller’s work also ex17 kevin c. holt plores the interaction between physical bodies and imagined bodies, an increasingly important concept for hip-hop scholars because most interactions audiences have with hip-hop artists occurs through recorded music and accompanying videos. dawn norfleet’s dissertation (1997) offers an ethnographic study aimed at discovering the ways in which notions of culture, community, and identity are forged and solidified through “live verbal music performance” – norfleet’s term for live rap performances. this dissertation is one of the first studies of hip-hop to incorporate extensive ethnography; as such, norfleet provides insight into how one might manifest traditional ethnographic concepts, like “the field” and “participant-observation”, in hip-hop. “the field” has to account for the fact that hip-hop networks remain in constant flux and are not defined by place or identity. to counter this issue, norfleet casts a broad net in defining her field, new york city, and allows her interlocutors to define sites of importance where fieldwork might be concentrated. by providing an ethnographic work that explores the very concept of a hip-hop community, a concept that is frequently taken for granted in academic discourse, norfleet provides foundational research for future hip-hop ethnographers. marcyliena morgan offers another ethnography centered on an underground hip-hop scene in her book, the real hiphop: battling for knowledge, power, and respect in the la underground (2009). in this text, morgan provides an ethnographic account of underground hip-hop ciphers connected to project blowed, a hip-hop workshop that focuses on linguistic and performative practices in freestyles that represent ideologies and power dynamics and shore up notions of authenticity. morgan’s focus on performing language brings to light the construction of new centers and margins within the underground hip-hop community that nonetheless are impacted by, and in dialogue with, the greater hegemonic structure; the spontaneous linguistic performance of freestyle, morgan argues, presents this phenomenon. her focus on language, wordplay, and audience interpretations thereof provides a theoretical framework for understanding lyricism in hip-hop as a metadiscursive performance that represents a multivalent articulation of political positionalities. bettina love’s hip hop’s li’l sistas speak: negotiating hip hop identities and politics in the new south (2012) stands out as one of the only booklength ethnographies that focuses on the hip-hop and youth culture in atlanta. love conducts a qualitative ethnography in atlanta in which she seeks to discover how southern girls use hip-hop in the construction of race, gender, generation, region and sexuality. her project focuses on the many nuances required to navigate spaces charged with seemingly 18 current musicology paradoxical ideologies that define southern hip-hop feminist space. love makes sure to contextualize her interlocutors’ lives by looking at the ways that gendered and raced respectability politics impact their values and observations, taking special time to note how and when these stances defied or complicated her expectations. this ethnography contributes to the political work of offering female hip-hoppers a platform from which to voice their subjectivity. she argues against notions of passive consumption of hip-hop culture, arguing not only that the girls of her study interrogate the images they consume, but that they also make space to inject their own subversive (read anti-hegemonic) stances. further, love uses this ethnography to argue for the inclusion of critical media literacy directives in school curricula in order to ensure that youth are offered support in their navigation of media representations of raced/gendered identities. this work explicitly falls in line with a greater movement in the field of pedagogy defined by the inclusion of hip-hop (alim et. al. 2011; hess 2018; petchauer 2011). in love’s case, ethnographic methodology works to allow the scholar to delve into the work that hip-hop does for its audience while not relying primarily on the intention of the artist. ultimately, love is able to effectively imply that much of the crisis rhetoric surrounding hip-hop consumption, especially with regard to (re)producing regressive or violent politics, ignores the complex web of values and representations that black youth navigate as they construct a sense of self and a sense of community. at the very least, love’s research suggests that hip-hop audiences, and possibly southern hip-hop audiences in particular, engage language play and specially marked performances in ways that complicate the question of how meaning is conveyed in/through hip-hop. for the first several years, hip-hop studies were dominated by attempts to assert hip-hop as a valid subject of study and diligent work producing theoretical frames for understanding hip-hop. while these works have contributed greatly to current understandings of hip-hop and have provided the foundations for further research on hip-hop in a litany of fields, the marginalization of ethnography has allowed reductive constructions of the very intricate patterns of interaction and processes of negotiation to persist in the canon. herein is a short list of ethnographic works whose breadth of subject matter and methodologies help clarify what hip-hop ethnography might look like. conducting ethnographic research forces scholars to confront and ponder the nuances of human experience, thereby contributing to a general understanding of sociocultural phenomena; hiphop studies would benefit greatly from a greater ethnographic presence in the canon. there’s one more thing to consider. if, as many hip-hop scholars have asserted, part of hip-hop’s power is in its capacity to serve as a social 19 kevin c. holt and political platform for disenfranchised communities and if hip-hop advocacy is part of the role of the hip-hop scholar, then the inclusion of ethnography allows the scholar to extend the platform into the academy, where, in addition to confronting hip-hop as a subject, scholars will be forced to acknowledge the subjectivity of hip-hoppers. notes 1. definition taken from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/graffiti 2. jackson notes two stages in the (male) rapper engaging in sung vocal performance: the insincere, or the rapper who purposefully evokes “bad” singing for comedic effect, and the sincere, the rapper makes a genuine attempt to produce an aesthetically pleasing vocal performance. 3.https://www.thedailybeast.com/suny-professor-apologizes-for-racial-remark-aboutblack-house-candidate-antonio-delgado 4. krims’ dichotomous take on hip-hop leaves no room for subgenres of hip-hop that focus primarily on the party scene. 5. this book is the public version of ferguson’s dissertation for the completion of her phd in sociology from university of california at berkeley. 6. early in the book, ferguson indicates that the name of the school and the people she interviewed were altered to maintain the confidentiality of her interlocutors. she does share that the school’s racial demographic is roughly 50% black, 33% white, 10% asian, 4% hispanic, and the remainder identified as other. she also notes that the teaching staff is primarily composed of women who identify as white. 7. his use of “sincerity” here is unrelated to his exploration of rappers who sing sincerely. a distinction is made between the sincerity of performing one’s identity, thus creating a sociocultural truth through performance, and the sincerity of singing earnestly. 8. jackson’s term sincerity is an outgrowth of one of his interlocutor’s assertion that “we’re [the interlocutor and his wife] too sincere and it’s killing us.” 9. the artist referred to here as mos def has since changed his stage name to yasiin bey. the decision to use mos def rather than yasiin bey reflects how the name appears in jackson’s book. references alim, h. samy. 2006. roc the mic right: the language of hip hop culture. new york and london: routledge. alim, h. samy, jooyoung lee, and lauren mason carris. 2011. "moving the crowd, 'crowding' the emcee: the coproductlon and contestation of black normativity in freestyle rap battles." discourse & society 22 (4): 422-439. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/42889761. cohen, cathy j. 2004. “deviance as resistance: a new research agenda for the study of black politics.” du bois review 1(1): 27-45. _________________. 2010. democracy remixed: black youth and the future of american politics. new york: oxford university press. cutler, cecilia. 2003. "keepin' it real": white hip-hoppers' discourses of language, race, and authenticity." journal of linguistic anthropology 13 (2): 211233. 20 current musicology dimitriadis, greg. 2004. “hip-hop: from live performance to mediated narrative.” in that's the joint! the hip-hop studies reader. m. forman and m.a. neal, eds. 421-437. new york and london: routledge. dyson, michael eric. 2004. “the culture of hip-hop.” in that’s the joint! the hip-hop studies reader. m. forman and m.a. neal, eds. 61–68. new york & london: routledge. ferguson, ann arnett. 2001. bad boys: public schools in the making of black masculinity. ann arbor: university of michigan press. gaunt, kyra. 1997. “translating double-dutch to hip-hop: the musical vernacular of black girls’ play.” in language, rhythm, sound: black popular cultures into the twentyfirst century. adrienne r. adjaye, joseph k., eds; andrews. 146–163. pittsburgh: university of pittsburgh press. george, nelson. 2004. “sample this” in that's the joint!: the hip-hop studies reader. m. forman and m.a. neal, eds. 437-442. new york: routledge. hess, juliet. 2018. "detroit youth speak back: rewriting deficit perspectives through songwriting." bulletin of the council for research in music education. 216: 7-30. jackson, john l. 2005. real black: adventures in racial sincerity. chicago and london: university of chicago press. krims, adam. 2003. “marxist music analysis without adorno: popular music and urban geography” in analyzing popular music. a.f. moore, ed. cambridge: cambridge university press. love, bettina l. 2012. hip hop’s lil sistas speak: negotiating hip hop identities and politics in the new south. new york: peter lang publishing. miller, kiri. 2012. playing along: digital games, youtube, and virtual performance. oxford and new york: oxford university press. morgan, marcyliena. 2009. the real hiphop: battling for knowledge, power, and respect in the la underground. durham & london: duke university press. norfleet, dawn. 1997. hip-hop culture in new york city: the role of verbal musical performance in defining a community. dissertation: music, columbia university. perry, imani. 2004. prophets of the hood: politics and poetics in hip hop. durham: duke university press. petchauer, emery. 2011. "knowing what's up and learning what you're not supposed to: hip-hop collegians, higher education, and the limits of critical consciousness." journal of black studies 42 (5): 768-790. rose, tricia. 1990. “never trust a big butt and a smile.” camera obscura 23: 109–131. _____________. 1994. black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary america. middletown: wesleyan university press. _____________. 2008. the hip hop wars: what we talk about when we talk about hip hop and why it matters. new york: basic books. simonton, teghan. 2018. “a college administrator told ‘the new york times,’ rap is not ‘real music.’ his president called the comment disappointing.” the chronicle of higher education (web). tate, greg. 2002. “hip hop turns 30: whatcha celebratin' for?” in r&b (rhythm & business): the political economy of black music. n. kelley, ed. new york: akashic books. current musicology 105 (fall 2019) © 2019 evans. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 21 the politics of music: women’s music education in the united states in the late 18th century christa pehl evans a portion of this miniature panorama, dating from around 1810 to 1820, has become an iconic image in the history of american women’s education. the frame featuring two women immersed in their studies—both leaning forward in concentration, one studying a globe and the other a book— graces the cover of mary kelley’s learning to stand and speak (2006). it is included in volume 2 of the history of the book in america (2010), as well as numerous other books, textbooks, and articles, and can even be ordered online as a poster. certainly, the image speaks to our modern understanding of female education. however, one scene in the miniature panorama does not constitute the whole of female education through the eyes of its creator, an unknown american female student. our fixation on this one frame tells us more about our values than it does those of the young woman attending the school. let’s take the panorama as a whole. first, the anonymous work now held in the collection of the st. louis art museum was not created by a girl reading a book or studying a globe but rather by one engaging in what was known as the ornamental arts; in this case, she was drawing and painting with ink and watercolor on silk. the 7 1/16 inch by 96 5/8-inch miniature panorama was part of a popular genre around the turn of the 19th century, meant to be unrolled a little at a time to reveal a narrative or recreate a place, an event, or even a battle. we can imagine we are unrolling this work as we read the bucolic narrative from left to right. our journey to the seminary begins with two men, presumably schoolmasters. one is holding his violin and leafing through a music book, deciding what to play next. the other sits at a table, reading a book, like the woman at the globe. both men appear to be relaxed and enjoying themselves. with a tree dividing the frames, we move into the 22 current musicology schoolhouse itself presumably, where we are faced with the back of a young woman practicing at a square piano, with the portrait of a male overhead. this is the only frame that allows us to escape the pastoral imagery, and upon leaving this frame, the viewer journeys back outdoors, witnessing the two women we have already met, hard at work. in the next panel is a bull or cow in its pen (perhaps made from the wood of the trees for which we see stumps). rustic and practical, the animal was probably a source of food. beyond the next tree is likely the schoolhouse, where the girls lived and learned. perhaps the garden plots that were outside the schoolhouse were used by the girls themselves, like at the boarding school in louisa may alcott’s little men: life at plumfield with jo’s boys (1871). the building in the next frame is surrounded by fowl and livestock. church, school building, or neighboring house, it shows the integration of farming and community within the experience of those that attended these types of institutions. 1 our next scene takes us back to the students. three female students are reading and perhaps being read to by another female, a tutoress given her clothing. despite the academic nature of the image, the presumably small livestock and fowl around the young women probably served to get this frame omitted from modern publications. the next panel is not about the school at all but rather likely serves to demonstrate the skills the artist learned at this institution: she shows her prowess as a painter by detailing an animal likely seen frequently here: a squirrel. as we move forward, we witness the students in their matching dresses at play: seven of the girls are taking turns jumping rope. detailed renditions of a turkey and rooster serve as an interlude for an image of two girls hard at work making butter. were these young women students as well? it is hard to know, given that they do not don the school uniform we see in other panels; however, the girls were likely helping around the school in some capacity, as was common with institutions of this sort. to this student, life at her school was far more varied than simply reading books. she was entertained by her schoolmasters, jumped rope with her friends, and took part in and/or witnessed the production of food. music is also featured prominently in this miniature panorama. we see it in the first two frames, as the artist is entertained by her professor and perhaps created music herself. indeed, playing the keyboard was the only indoor activity featured. while reading and book learning were clearly valued by this student, so too was music and – considering the medium – art, though she chose not to feature that actively in a frame. perhaps the artist was illustrating not only the various parts of her schooling but also fashioning the parts of herself both to herself and to the world around her.2 most of 23 christa pehl evans the girls who attended this seminary and other similar institutions in the united states never set foot on a concert stage. they composed little music, but instead actively participated in a rich and varied american musical culture, as evidenced by their manuscripts and the burgeoning american music printing industry around this time.3 american women were not alone in their awareness of the power and importance of music and their embrace of its pursuit as a meaningful one. scholars are continuing to detail both the substantive role that music played in the lives of female performers and more broadly, the importance of female “amateur” musicians within their societies in the 18th and 19th centuries. as candace bailey has explored in her groundbreaking book music and the southern belle: from accomplished lady to confederate composer (2010), antebellum southern women embraced how performing music within the home was a useful pursuit to family and community alike; at the dawn of the civil war, women recognized a newfound sense of responsibility and thus contributed to the war efforts in music through performance and composition. in late 18th and early 19th-century berlin, sara levy was an influential salonnière defining musical taste, a keyboard performer of the highest caliber, and a champion of the works of the bach family, as has been explored by numerous scholars and performers after the return of the sing-akademie archive to berlin in 2001. while the musical lives of the students at women’s schools are sparsely documented, the discourse about their music education was in fact quite rich. this rhetoric can be best understood when examined as a convergence of ideas about education and educational philosophy, gender, and the power and role of music itself in the nascent republic. this article provides a background for these varying streams of thought and examines their intersection at the debate about what type of music is suitable for women to learn. that women should learn music was not a point of contingency, but how they should learn, what type of music they should study, and what role music would play in their lives were subjects of discussion. the value of the ornamental arts one of the most contentious issues concerns the value accorded to skills such as sewing, tambour, music, and other “ornamental arts,” which some commentators dismiss either because they considered them not practical in the new nation or simply because these activities were associated with females. even at the time, as margaret nash (2005) has illustrated in her history of women’s education in this period, the term “ornamental arts” did not have a standard definition, and furthermore the ornamentals often included the very trades that women could use to generate income 24 current musicology (35-52).4 women could support themselves with needlework and also by teaching all subjects at a small school, or specific subjects like music. while educational reformers and the general public debated the value of ornamentals for american women at the time, our contemporary tendency to undervalue the cultural capital and social values of the ornamentals in the 1790s illuminates our perspective on what skills are valuable in our society.5 succinctly put, we dismiss skills that do not or did not make much money.6 the dismissal of “ornamentals” in the history of female education illustrates an assumption that traditionally female activities were inherently less valuable and also shows a preference for activities that take intelligence rather than learned skill.7 music was in fact highly valuable at this time, as is explored below, and many deemed it worthy of the effort and expense it required to learn. music and the passions continuing from the early modern era, there was a strong association of music with the passions. in a book known to be in the collection of the library company of philadelphia, an essay on the passions (1799), englishman kingsmill davan echoes familiar sentiments on the power of music: “music is the soul of each gentler passion; its sound awakens desire; it possesses a happy power to lessen, and, in a degree, purify the rougher passions. it cools anger, softens the savage edge of resentment; and awhile cheers and supports even the misery of despair” (77). he takes his point even further, writing that the sound of music “possesses an incomprehensible power to rouse and quiet the passions, seemingly in a manner independent of reason” (davan 1799, 77). this type of language about music was found in the writings of american publicist and diplomat robert walsh (1785-1859) as well. the musician speaks the language of all ages and all nations. a universal language of sentiment, and of the passions. its accents, going directly to the heart, without passing, as it were, through the mind, music produces effects unknown to any other; and the very vagueness of character which attends it, and which prevents it from giving to its accents the precision of speech, procures for it an unrivalled influence over the fancy, by the circumstance of its devolving on that faculty the business of interpretation. this influence, music enjoys in common with pantomime or gesticulation, that other universal language. (walsh 1812, 197) walsh asked his reader to “[i]magine a people of enthusiasts, who, with our feelings and passions, were, moreover, gifted with organs much more acute, delicate, flexible, and sensitive; such a people would sing, instead of 25 christa pehl evans speaking” (1812, 196). medical literature from this time illustrates how firmly these types of beliefs still took hold in thinking about the body and the passions. music was routinely prescribed as a way to treat melancholy, a condition we might now label depression. in his essay on the treatment of consumptions, surgeon richard charles (1787) recommends “music, cheerful company, and every thing that inspires mirth” as treatment for melancholy, which he writes often accompanies and aggravates consumptions (27). the 1845 english translation of french psychiatrist jean-étienne dominique esquirol’s (1772-1840) groundbreaking treatise on insanity tells of “cur[ing] diseases of the mind, by songs and harmony,” as has been recorded throughout history: “in order to render it efficacious, we must employ a small number of instruments, and select airs adapted to the condition of the patient” (230). in his practical observations on insanity (1806), english physician joseph mason cox (1763-1818) recommended musical study for patients who had “mental derangement” and “hallucinations” (79). he was “decidedly of opinion that music, as a mean in the treatment of many diseases, is undeservedly despised and neglected” (80). benjamin rush (1746-1814), founding father, progressive physician, educator, and a prominent voice in the educational reform movement at this time, also weighs in on the power of music. because of its power over the human soul, rush believed that music ought to be approached with caution, played by those who could handle its power, and left untouched by the majority who could not (1786). the effects of music upon the moral faculty, have been felt and recorded in every country. hence, we are able to discover the virtues and vices of different nations, by their tunes, as certainly as by their laws. the effects of music, when simply mechanical, upon the passions, are powerful and extensive. but it remains yet to determine the degrees of moral extasy [sic], that may be produced by an attack upon the ear, the reason, and the moral principle, at the same time, by the combined powers of music and eloquence. the eloquence of the pulpit is nearly allied to music in its effects upon the moral faculty. it is true there can be no permanent change in the temper, and moral conduct of a man, that is not derived from the understanding and the will; but we must remember, that these two powers of the mind are most affailable [sic], when they are attacked through the avenue of the passions; and these, we know, when agitated by the powers of eloquence, exert a mechanical action upon every power of the soul (rush 1786, 25). rush’s beliefs in the power of music enhance our understanding of his dis26 current musicology couragement of instrumental musical education for young women, which will be explored next. the morality of women because of music’s association with the passions, it follows that music would play an especially important role in the education of women because of the women’s perceived superiority in matters of the spirit. in this place and time, it was commonly believed that women were closer to god, and morally superior to men, a topic explored by nancy cott (1997) in her monumental work bonds of womanhood: woman’s sphere in new england, 1780-1835.8 in the writings of prominent educational reformers, we find reflections of these sentiments. benjamin rush, for example, emphasized that “the opinions and conduct of men are often regulated by the women” (76). rush was known to receive much advice from his wife, and later in life, wrote to his children that “had i yielded to [your mother’s] advice upon many occasions, i should have known less distress from various causes in my journey thro’ life” (fried, 2018). noah webster (1758-1843), lexicographer and educational reformer of dictionary fame, among other things, expanded further on this idea, writing: there are innumerable instances of men, who have been restrained from a vicious life, and even of very abandoned men, who have been reclaimed, by their attachment to ladies of virtue. a fondness for the company and conversation of ladies of character, may be considered as a young man’s best security against the attractiveness of a dissipated life. a man who is attached to good company, seldom frequents that which is bad. for this reason, society requires that females should be well educated, and extend their influence as far as possible over the other sex (webster 1792, 279). in their position as the gatekeepers of morality and reason, educated women were considered vital to the success of the young republic. john swanwick (1759-1798), philadelphia mercantile and u.s. representative from pennsylvania who also took an active role in the debate on education, wrote that “the influence of the fair sex over our modes of thinking and of acting has been in every age the theme of poets and historians. how fortunate then must it be for us if that influence be secured in favor of our government and laws, as it were in their infancy” (1787, 22). further, there was a more pragmatic need for women to be educated. as we had seen in the revolution, women were managers of a household and as such were 27 christa pehl evans “stewards and guardians of their husbands’ property,” and rush believed that they needed to be educated to fulfill these duties.9 defining american education the educational reformers in the early republic provide a uniquely american perspective, striving to separate the new educational system for a democratic citizenry from the english model of education.10 if the united states was to be more than a fleeting moment in history, a different educational system would have to take root. webster wrote, “we find englishmen practicing upon very erroneous maxims in politics and religion; and possibly we shall find, upon careful examination, that their methods of education are equally erroneous and defective” (webster 1968, 4). the long-term success of the government lay in the hands of the youth. john swanwick emphasized this: “in a republic like this, where every citizen is, on every principle, bound to contribute his proportion to the general mass of information and usefulness,” education: is of peculiar consequence in this, where the foundations of future greatness are probably now to be laid on the exertions which may be used to cultivate the minds of the younger branches of the community, on whose virtue, wisdom, and activity, the labours of the present age must rest for their final success; and on whose conduct, not only their own, but the welfare of multitudes, in successive generations, must probably depend (swanwick 1787, 5-6). while the progressive americans viewed a classical education as a thing of the past, girls’ schools changed their curriculum far more quickly than boys’ schools. while many girls were studying botany, natural history, astronomy, chemistry, and other subjects we associate with a liberal arts education, many boys’ educations had greek and latin at their core.11girls’ education in the united states was designed to be practical, and it was widely believed that american women required a more substantive education than british women. what subjects this entailed and whether american women had room in their busy days to play instruments was the subject of lively debate. how to educate women the circle of people surrounding the young ladies’ academy of philadelphia were convinced that they had created a model of education that would spread throughout the united states; they had cast a mold that other institutions would follow. john poor (1752-1829), the principal of the philadelphia academy, stated that “[h]owever novel or unprecedented 28 current musicology an institution of this kind, and the mode of rewarding female merit may be, i flatter myself, from reason and past experience, that it has, and will obtain the general approbation of the more enlightened part of the present age”(rise and progress 1794, 26). reformers and girls alike knew that they were doing something groundbreaking and important. as john swanwick wrote, the institution of seminaries for the public instruction of young ladies in the various branches of polite literature is for aught i know, one of the singularities which mark this happy country. in other nations, institutions of this kind have been lavished in profusion on the other sex – but when was there seen before a commencement for young ladies? so numerously attended and honored by all that was dignified in the government of the country? this perhaps is a spectacle as yet reserved for you who as equal guardians of the community must protect the growth of knowledge alike in all conditions and in all sexes – if so, may we not congratulate america on this new proof of her civilization and look up with confidence to you for its future support and protections (swanwick 1787, 22) adapting the educational system of women to meet the needs of the new republic was the primary concern of educational activists. “the education of females,” webster wrote, “like that of males, should be adapted to the principles of the government, and correspond with the stage of society. education in paris differs from that in petersburg, and the education of females in london or paris should not be a model for the americans to copy. . . in america, female education should have for its object what is useful” (1792, 282). but americans seemed to have different views as to what was useful, and people are not always willing to throw away what is pleasurable in favor of what is practical. a good example of this can be seen in the treatment of reading in women’s education. we know that novels exploded in popularity at the end of the 18th century, despite the fact that women were discouraged from reading them. generally advocating a more conservative education of women than rush, webster believed that women “cannot be too well acquainted with the writers upon human life and manners” (1792, 282). he recommended reading the spectator (likely joseph addison and richard steele’s popular paper collected into volumes), other periodical papers, and “some of the best histories” (webster 1792, 282). as for the reading of novels, he believed that “some of them are useful, many of them pernicious, and most of them trifling. a hundred volumes of modern novels may be read, without acquiring a new idea. some of them contain entertaining stories, and where the descriptions are drawn from nature, and from characters and events in themselves innocent, the perusal of them may be harmless” 29 christa pehl evans (ibid. 1792, 282). james neal, whose essay “on the education and genius of the female sex” was published with an account of the 1794 commencement at the young-ladies’ academy of philadelphia, discouraged the reading of novels and other trivial publications: it is not in perusing numerous publications, that knowledge is to be obtained; such publications, i mean, as are calculated to mislead and inflame the mind of inexperience. a brilliant display of superficial attainments, collected from romances, is often mistaken for real learning; and the obvious effects resulting from them, are attributed to erroneous and foreign causes: thus perverted and mistaken judgments are formed, and destructively propagated: even admitting partial evils as the result: can we from hence justly condemn a blessing so great, so obvious! (neal 1795, 6) while a few probably gave up novels altogether (like mary in pride and prejudice) and some were carried away in their fancy, many others likely tried to balance the reading of moral and historical texts with novels, or rather work with pleasure, the useful with the ornamental. perhaps paradoxically, neal states that this is the very purpose of female education: “to direct the fair sex in the attainment of useful and ornamental acquirements – to caution against improper, nugatory and trivial pursuits, is an object of the greatest magnitude; and to destroy vulgar prejudices, and errors of every kind, is rendering an essential service to our country” (1795, 6). how to do this was a subject of debate. the educational reforms argued for a rigorous academic curriculum for women. rush advocated a wide range of subjects for females, including english (reading, speaking, spelling and grammar), writing, figures and book-keeping, geography (important for enabling the reading of history, biography, and travels), astronomy and natural philosophy, and the reading of history, travels, poetry and moral essays, all of which would prepare women to educate themselves, as he thought that the time of schooling was short but life was long. rush emphasized a religious education as well, which included reading the bible every day. dr. benjamin say, doctor, apothecary, and u.s. representative for pennsylvania, broke the core education of women into seven branches, which included spelling, reading writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, and composition (rise and progress 1794). debating about music educational reformers seem to agree on the core academic subjects that 30 current musicology should fill a young ladies’ curriculum, but the role of the arts in a women’s education inspired lively discussion. the debate centers around this question: given the rigorous academic education necessary to women for the success of the nation, did they have the time to learn anything less practical? while foreign language, especially french, is mentioned in this debate, music takes center stage. two published speeches given at the philadelphia young ladies’ academy illustrate the heated viewpoints in this debate. rush’s speech on july 28, 1787 was met in opposition by john swanwick, who poignantly voiced his opinion in addressing rush’s views in a speech given at the same institution a few months later, on october 31, 1787. rush and swanwick agree that music was an essential part of a woman’s education, for reasons that will be explained below, but rush encouraged the study of vocal music for most women, while swanwick believed that women should learn instrumental music in addition to vocal music. in his speech, rush fights against the blossoming music industry in the hands of female performers and encourages women to study vocal music rather than instrumental. rush extols the power of vocal music in lives of women. in addition to “preparing her to join in that part of public worship which consists in psalmody, it will enable her to soothe the cares of domestic life. the distress and vexation of a husband – the noise of a nursery, and, even, the sorrows that will sometimes intrude into her own bosom, may all be relieved by a song, where sound and sentiment unite to act upon the mind” (rush 1787, 9). rush wanted women to adapt their musical pursuits to america’s present situation and discouraged women from studying instrumental music because of practical reasons – money and time. the study of instrumental music was “by no means accommodated to the present state of society and manners in america. the price of musical instruments, and the extravagant fees demanded by the teachers of instrumental music, form but a small part of my objections to it” (rush 1787, 9). he believed that there were some cases, when a lady possesses a “musical ear irresistibly dispose[d] to it,” that an instrumental music education might be appropriate, but these circumstances “form an exception to the general conduct that should arise upon this subject” (1787, 17). while instrumental music was appropriate for english women, american women were to have a pragmatic education. “the state of property in america, renders it necessary for the greatest part of our citizens to employ themselves,” according to rush (6). rush was mainly opposed to the amount of time that it took to become proficient at an instrument. from two to four hours in a day, for three or four years, appropriated to music, are an immense deduction from that short period of time which 31 christa pehl evans is allowed by the peculiar circumstances of our country to the acquisition of the useful branches of literature. . . how many useful ideas might be picked up in these hours from history, philosophy, poetry, and the numerous moral essays with which our language abounds, and how much more would the knowledge acquired upon these subjects add to the consequence of a lady with her husband and with society, than the best performed pieces of music upon a harpsichord or a guittar [sic]! (rush 1787, 16) rush also laments that because of the nation’s situation, once women become mistresses of the family, they no longer have the time to devote to music, and practical knowledge will help them in life much more than instrumental music would. for these women, “their harpsichords serve only as side-boards for their parlours, and prove by their silence, that necessity and circumstances, will always prevail over fashion, and false maxims of education” (1787, 16). while john swanwick praises the vocal music education enacted at the seminary, he encourages the study of instrumental music as well. he begins by complimenting the vocal music education that women receive at the school: vocal music has long been ably taught here by a gentleman, who has considerable merit, or the pains he has taken to instruct the youth of this and other cities, in this very agreeable art, of which no body can be more sincerely an admirer than i am; but which, i think, never is seen to so great advantage as when united to instrumental music – a science which, tho’ not usually taught here, i hope none will neglect within whose ability it may chance to fall to acquire it. (swanwick 1787, 9) music ensures that people do not pursue more dangerous pursuits. if dancing may be suffered as an agreeable substitute for the ignoble pleasures of drinking and gaming in our assemblies of grown people – how much more instrumental music, on which this very dancing depends, whose influence and power it shews (sic), and whose whole expression, whether of life or grace, is entirely derived from it. if dancing promotes health and renders the figure and motions of the body easy and agreeable, it is because instrumental music has first enlivened the fancy, and given the ease to the soul which so naturally communicates itself to the body. let the music cease, and the effect is instantaneous – the astonished dancer wonders at the charm that has impelled him, and unable to proceed without it, waits for the return of its animating influence. (ibid, 9-10) addressing rush’s concerns directly, swanwick hopes “that instrumental music will not be excluded the circle of female accomplishments in 32 current musicology america, but that it may regain its place among the politer studies of our well educated fair” (1787, 9-10). boldly, he addresses rush: “the objections that are usually stated to instrumental music are these; the cost of the instruments, the expence [sic] of teachers, the long time and practice it requires, and the few who make any use of this accomplishment after marriage” (ibid, 9-10). swanwick does not disagree that a musical education is expensive, but rather argues that a musical education is worth the cost: as to the expence, i have never known the time when complaints have not been made as to the cost of education, while at the same time, money is found in profusion for exterior decorations, and for dissipations of every kind. surely parents can in nothing lay out their money to more advantage, than on the minds of their children, and yet so it happens, that often they have money for every purpose but this, hence do we see such heavy arrears frequently due to seminaries of learning, on the score of tuition, even in the most indispensable branches of science: of this i am persuaded, that there is no man who has the real happiness of his child at heart, but what will be found active in enabling himself to bear, without a murmur, the charge of its education. economy in other things will go a great way here, the cost of learning to play a few tunes on the guitar will not be much; if the harpsichord or forte-piano be found unattainable, and what additional industry it may require from the father, the harmonious pleasure of a tune from his daughter, will more than repay. (ibid, 11-12) taking his argument a step further, swanwick states that music will stand in for other entertainments that are often had “at the expense of health, sometimes of virtue, and generally, at that of domestic ease” (1787, 12). countering the unerring focus on the practical elements of education in america, swanwick believes that “we cannot always be employed in history, philosophy, poetry, and moral essays. . . part of our time must be allotted to pleasure and entertainment” (ibid). if this is true, instrumental music is a “harmless” pleasure, and will do nothing to destroy “morality and virtue,” and further, swanwick quotes james beattie in saying that “music may inspire devotion, fortitude, compassion, benevolence, tranquility” (ibid, 13). 12 as for the drain on a woman’s time, swanwick kindly illustrates rush’s tendency to focus on the serious. swanwick writes that he “would not have a lady entirely devoted to music, nor give to it the time due to other attainments of consequence; all i could desire is, that it should form a part of the education of our ladies” (swanwick 1787, 13). women should be taught instrumental music so that they may “please, charm, and entertain, at home, among their families and friends,” which will take “less time and less expence than is generally imagined” (1787, 14). swanwick believes 33 christa pehl evans that rush exaggerates how busy women should be with their intellectual pursuits, and women should also spend time practicing music, which will create a happy home for their future families. here i would just observe, that it is impossible a young lady’s time should be so taken up, by the study of the language, and other usual pursuits of that sex, as not to allow an hour in the day for the acquisition of music: this hour, then, is not so employed, might possible be passed in indolence, which stupefies, or in folly, which debases the mind; and when ladies grow up to the age which introduces them into society, there is always in the afternoon or evening a portion of time that may fall heavy on their hands, or perhaps be spent in insipid commonplace observations, unless appropriated to music, which, when introduced, never fails to have the best effects on all present: so that, if duly considered, it will be found time is devoted to this study which could have been more profitably bestowed on any other. (ibid). in swanwick’s experience, women that excel at instrumental music do not lack in other areas. further, swanwick believed that music enlivens a life lived at home: i have not observed those young ladies of my acquaintance who perform on instruments of music, to be at all inferior to any of their companions in other acquirements; but on the contrary, have generally remarked, that this study gave aid and countenance in various departments. . . since some pleasures must be had for the mind, and none are more innocent; since it tends to make ladies fond of their homes, by giving them one more amusement there; since it combines with morality and virtue to make life amiable and happy, let not the american fair conceive of it as unaccommodated to them – it will soften the ruggedness, and gradually polish the rudeness of our deserts – it will smooth the untoward accidents of life, and, at last, assimilate us by its influence to those spirits of an higher order. (ibid, 16) while rush insists that women will quit playing once that are married, swanwick argues that music is a purposeful activity that women can do within their marriage for the betterment of the lives of their family members. swanwick tells a story to illustrate his point: i was lately present at the house of a lady in this city, remarkable for the attention she pays to the education of her family – this lady had early acquired the art of playing on the harpsichord, and when the evening was like to prove tiresome, from its length, she did not disdain, tho’ advanced in years, to reassume the employment of youth. she played on the harpsichord, and the whole happy family danced at the sound. who can read a somewhat similar description in the sentimental journey of sterne, to which this scene recalled my attention, without feeling a fresh admiration 34 current musicology of this very valuable art? – which applies to all the noblest faculties of the mind, and of all the pursuits of this world, is one of the few that appears to be worthy of a better. (ibid, 10) swanwick emphasizes the attention that women pay to her family’s education, and in doing so, instrumental music falls in line with women’s role within the family in the new republic. the manuscript collection of elizabeth henry, a student at the moravian young ladies’ seminary in nearby bethlehem, pa and later wife of philadelphia grocer john jordan (and mother of four children including john jordan, jr., one of the founders of the historical society of pennsylvania, where her collection is housed) suggests that the scenario that swanwick describes was at least sometimes the truth. elizabeth henry’s music consists of six manuscript books varying in length from around 25 to 70 pages, four of which are dated: february 5, 1796, august 4, 1796, and two dated 1800.13 a couple of the books are also dated by “mrs. john jordan” in 1823. henry made sure to fill all pages of her books, using one of the volumes at a later date to copy pieces from the 1830s, and one can assume that she likely had printed music in her library as well.14 later in the text, swanwick addresses rush’s comments more directly. another objection to music is, that ladies lay it aside after marriage, that their harpsichords then serve only as side-boards to grace their parlours, but is this perhaps not too high colouring. a lady, while single, has numerous occasions in which she may display her musical, as well as other acquirements, of which she is deprived, or can not properly avail herself, after marriage, then her chief pleasure will naturally consist in soothing, with her accomplishments, her husband, her children, her family, and from happy hours thus employed, those not immediately connected with the house may be excluded; but we should not do right thence to conclude none such existed. i have the honour to be acquainted with several married ladies of this city, who have frequently given me the greatest pleasure when they have admitted me to their harpsichords, where i never failed to improve, and where, indeed, all must improve, and who know how to set a proper value on female excellence: several of these ladies i have known, after marriage, even to employ tutors to perfect them on the forte-piano. let it be recorded to their honour, for they are not behind hand in the skillful management of any other family concerns, with any ladies of their acquaintance in this large metropolis; however, if married persons are so happy in each other, and in the various engagements which employ them, as not to stand in need of this auxiliary, music will still be found, as good books always are, friends in reserve, to be produced, if wanted, but not intruding, unless called for. "public spectacles, gaudy assemblies, horse-races, &c.’ says a late writer on american affairs, ‘drag both men and women from the country, and inspire them with disgust for it. music, drawing, painting, architecture, 35 christa pehl evans attach all persons to their homes. an harpsichord is a neighbor always at command, who answers all your questions, and never calumniates." (swanwick 1787, 14-15) as for rush stating that a woman should be given a broader musical education if they were “possessed of a musical ear,” swanwick says that this cannot be ascertained without trial. he believes that “there are very few who have not this ear for music,” and music’s popularity was a testament to that (1787, 15-16).15 while rush may have pushed some towards a vocal musical education, it seems he didn’t push many away from instruments, as can be seen by the growing collection of sheet music printed in america. rush was standing against what was popular, and it appears that he did not win his war. while the study of instrumental music was not included in the curriculum at the philadelphia young ladies’ seminary at the time rush and swanwick were speaking, it was made available to the students at many a seminary, including the moravian young ladies’ seminary, another prominent institution that served as a model for women’s education. rather than being a leftover product of english education, music was included within american women’s education because of its power and meaning within society at this time, and perhaps more importantly because people liked it.16 nash (2005) argues that the most overlooked reason that women were educated at this time in america was simply for the pleasure of education. to put it another way, education did not always exist to serve women in the world but rather was rewarding in itself – rather than being a means to an end, it was an end in itself. music falls into this category as well, as can be observed from fiction and from the widespread consumption of musical goods at this time. theory and practice reformers, historians, and parents alike may have argued and continue to assert that academics were valued more than the ornamentals. i believe that this varied greatly, and further, that this probably depended not only on the institution but also on the students themselves, as is illustrated in the case of theodosia burr (1783-1813). u.s. vice president aaron burr (17561836), distrusting the new u.s. academies in a lockean fashion, oversaw the education of his daughter, theodosia burr, himself (nash 2005, 37). in a letter dated october 30, 1791, burr instructed his wife to omit music from their daughter’s education and instead focus on french, writing, and arithmetic, writing that “she has made no progress in the latter, and is even ignorant of the rudiments.”17 aaron burr believed women were the intellectual equals of men and thus insisted on teaching his daughter as such, 36 current musicology but theodosia burr was passionate about music. just as no two people are the same, students responded to and interacted with their educational curriculum in different ways. benjamin rush’s stance as to the opposition to instrumental music education for most women ought to be considered along with the personage of his wife. in sitting for a portrait in 1776, the year of her marriage to benjamin rush, julia stockton rush (1759-1848), was painted playing an english guitar sitting next to a stack of books. recently discovered correspondences between rush and his wife illustrate her role as his political advisor, and she was known to be a learned person as well as a gifted singer (fried 2018). in a 1775 letter to his future wife, rush wrote that “if the business of a married woman’s life consisted simply in receiving & paying visits—in providing food for a family—or in bringing a number of children into the world, i should pity you in entering so early into matrimony. but i know you have higher objects principally in view. you long to share with me in the pleasure and honor of communication health & happiness to individuals & the public” (2018, 138). he gifted her a library upon their engagement and continued to gift her books during their marriage, but their correspondence became increasingly focused on their family, as they brought thirteen children into the world. did julia play her guitar while raising children? perhaps it doesn’t matter, and it simply was a part of who she was. did music play a broader role in her education? these questions are still central in the debates about music education today. music was an accomplishment, but it was simultaneously more than an accomplishment in this place and time. in a society very concerned with the practicality of education for both men and women, the purpose of the arts was questioned. yet even with doubt about the relevance of music education in the early republic, the growth of the music printing industry and the burgeoning collections of printed music and manuscript music in america suggest that musical culture was thriving, and indeed, music had a place within the american home. in fact, its functionality exceeded its frivolity, and women, who were both forced and pleasured to pursue the art, were entertainers, teachers, moral compasses, and eager pursuers of new liberties. notes 1. john cosens ogden, episcopal reverend of st. john’s church in portsmouth, new hampshire, details the interwoven nature of the moravian young ladies’ seminary and the broader moravian settlement in bethlehem, pa in excursion into bethlehem & nazareth in pennsylvania, in the year 1799 (1800). 2. the role of consumerism in the fashioning of self – particularly in the lives of women in this era – has been explored recently by ellen hartigan-o’connor in her book the ties 37 christa pehl evans that buy: women and commerce in revolutionary america (2009) and kathryn r. goetz in her dissertation “‘tell me how you like the shoose’: gender, girlhood, and material selffashioning in america, 1770-1850” (2013). both historians are careful to note that consumerism is not the only way that women fashioned themselves, but did note that material objects played a role in how people develop an identity. in music, we find both material object and practice and skill worthy of hours of devotion. hartigan-o’connor writes that “emotional life in a broader, social sense was lived through objects precisely because of their portability and alienability. just as hoarding spoons would never pay the rent, hoarding handkerchiefs was a recipe for social isolation. the social and emotional value of many objects could be realized only through sharing and circulation” (170). music became more valuable as it was shared with friends and circulated throughout a community. 3. this article concerns northerners, specifically pennsylvanians. a balanced portrayal of the rigor of academics and the ornamentals within an upper-class woman’s education in the antebellum south is well laid out in the work of christie anne farnham (1994). 4 nash documents how subjects taught at both men’s and women’s institutions fell into the category of useful or ornamental, with ornamental subjects sometimes including astronomy and arithmetic, depending on the institution. music, however, as well as various forms of art and needlework seem always to have fallen into the category of ornamental. 5. in an effort to claim that women had an education that was equal to men – that they were not occupied with conventionally female tasks – scholars have tended to discount or ignore the study of music. mary kelley’s groundbreaking book (2006) on women’s schools in america does not even mention music, despite the fact that it was such a large part of the curriculum at numerous schools. while kelley meticulously details women’s academic prowess and opens a door for much further study on women’s education, the omission of music, perhaps in order to demonstrate women’s intellectual equality, skews the importance of music in the female’s education. it appears that in order for women to receive a “real education” in our modern eyes, activities that were not typically a part of the masculine curriculum are dismissed. we see similar feminist agendas in musicologist jewel smith’s work about the moravian young ladies’ seminary (2008) in antebellum america. in an article published in the musical quarterly (2007) that sets out to “demonstrate the moravians’ belief that women were the intellectual equals of men in theory and in practice,” smith glosses over suggestive differences in curriculum that might disprove her hypothesis about educational equality. 6 in her book about modern motherhood what mothers do: especially when it looks like nothing, psychotherapist naomi stadlen (2004) describes mother’s frustration with saying that they don’t do any “real work,” when in fact they are working around the clock at mothering. in our current culture, a job is “real work” and mothering (and all the cleaning and household running that typically is in the mother’s realm) is not (15). throughout her book, stadlen explores how women’s abilities at mothering are dismissed along with the very tasks themselves. we perpetuate this myth of nothingness further when we fail to respect the wholeness of early american women’s lives: all the duties, the tasks, and the many branches of their education. in the late 18th century, american women in schools studied textiles and music in addition to an academic curriculum. these were respected and important skills. 7. for a compelling and thorough study of textile arts in early american history and the women and circumstances that helped create them, see laurel thatcher ulrich, the age of homespun: objects and stories in the creation of an american myth (2001). in addition to breaking down the 19th-century lore around objects created by women, ulrich traces these everyday objects back to the culture and the people who made them, making a strong case 38 current musicology for studying the material possessions that were at the center of daily life for many women. 8. in the introduction to the second edition of her seminal work, cott explores how belief in women’s moral superiority actually took root early than she explored in her book, which paved the way for further research on the topic. cott writes that, “[i]n the british work a father’s legacy to his daughters, which was widely reprinted in new england after 1775, dr. john gregory maintained that women were more “susceptible” to religion because of their ‘superior delicacy,’ ‘modesty,’ ‘natural softness and sensibility of . . . dispositions,’ and ‘natural warmth of . . . imagination.’ (men, he assumed, naturally had harder hearts and stronger passions, and were more dissolute and resistant to religious appeal because of the greater freedom they enjoyed.) by the early nineteenth century new england ministers took for granted that women were the majority among christians. they had assimilated the eighteenth-century argument that ‘women are happily formed for religion’ by means of their ‘natural endowments’ of sensibility, delicacy, imagination, and sympathy. it testified how far new england protestantism had become a matter of ‘the heart’ rather than ‘the head’ between the seventeenth and the nineteenth century – just as it had become a religion chiefly of women rather than men – that such characteristics manifested a ‘religious’ temperament” (128-129). cott (1997) also writes of how “religious identity also allowed women to assert themselves, both in private and in public ways. it enabled them to rely on an authority beyond the world of men and provided a crucial support to those who stepped beyond accepted bounds – reformed, for example. women dissenters from ann hutchinson to sarah grimké displayed the subversive potential of religious belief. religious faith also allowed women a sort of holy selfishness, or self-absorption, the result of the self-examination intrinsic to the calvinist tradition. in contrast to the self-abnegation required of women in their domestic vocation, religious commitment required attention to one’s own thoughts, actions, and prospects” (140). 9. much attention has been paid to benjamin rush’s comments about “republican motherhood,” a term coined by linda kerber in her groundbreaking study “the republican mother: women and the enlightenment, an american perspective” (1976). historians have refined and discussed the concept in depth. it is my opinion that we can come to a greater understanding of the concept by considering rush’s peculiar writing style and putting him in context with other writers at the time, including john swanwick, and further and perhaps most importantly, considering the growing importance of mother in the late 18th century, particularly in reference to rousseau. our modern feminist struggle between the home and the workplace taints our ideas of the past; in seeing women of the past negatively as solely homemakers and mothers, we see generations of women robbed of meaning in their lives. however, in coming to see the past with eyes of respect, i think we come to fully appreciate the strength and courage of these women, as mothers and as educated members of society. respecting fully the roles of women at this point in time (though of course their roles were gendered) is essential to moving into a more peaceful and less gendered future. many women were excited with the doors of education opening in front of them and excited to affect the future of the country through their children (see nash (1997), zagarri (1992), and lucia mcmahon (2012)). 10. the crafting of a new educational ideal for a country raising democratic citizens is discussed in depth in lorraine smith pangle and thomas l. pangle’s book the learning of liberty (1993). 11. kim tolley compares the curriculums of boys’ and girls’ schools in her fascinating article “science for ladies, classics for gentlemen: a comparative analysis of scientific subjects in the curricula of boys’ and girls’ secondary schools in the united states, 179439 christa pehl evans 1850” (1996). 12. swanwick quotes scottish philosopher and poet james beattie, (1776, 155). 13. some of the manuscripts are missing pages, and henry did not paginate the books herself, so it is difficult to know the precise lengths of some of the books. 14. the construction of henry’s books suggest that they were likely imported and purchased already bound. 15. swanwick writes that, “when not found at home, at the theatres, at the concerts, at assemblies, private parties, walks, and in fact, everywhere where it is likely to be found; and this taste is so diffused that it pervades all ranks, the lowest are not too low, the highest not too high for its influence – it reaches alike the monarch on his throne and the prisoner in his dungeon, – it is applied to in prosperity as a crown of joy, as it is for a cordial in the sharpest conflicts of adversity – so good is providence in this respect, even to the slave, that frequently this sweet laethean stream, imparts to him serenity of a king” (1787, 16). 16. lucia mcmahon (2012) gives a broad overview of the various philosophies encompassing the ornamentals within female education, but still sees ornamentals as useful subjects, frivolous to true education, rather than anything one could perhaps fall in love with. she writes that “young woman approached the pursuit of education with enthusiasm, rigor, and determination” at academies throughout the united states (24), but seems to see music through the eyes of some educational reformers, whom she writes “insisted that these pursuits ‘should never be allowed to encroach on the more important cultivation of the intellectual powers’” (26). physical evidence, however, suggests that many women balanced their intellectual and musical pursuits. certainly, women could approach music and/or any of the ornamentals with “enthusiasm, rigor, and determination” as well. prioritizing intellect over the arts is a modern construct, and certainly one many people disagree with even at this time. 17. in another letter to his wife dated february 15, 1793, burr writes the following: “you have heard me speak of a miss woolstonecraft [sic], who has written something on the french revolution; she has also written a book entitled vindication of the rights of woman. i had heard it spoken of with a coldness little calculated to excite attention; but as i read with avidity and prepossession everything written by a lady, i made haste to procure it, and spent the last night, almost the whole of it, in reading it. be assured that your sex has in her an able advocate. it is, in my opinion, a work of genius. she has successfully adopted the style of rousseau’s emilius; and her comment on that work, especially what relates to female education, contains more good sense than all the other criticisms upon him which i have seen put together. i promise myself much pleasure in reading it to you. “is it owing to ignorance or prejudice that i have not yet met a single person who had discovered or would allow the merit of this work?” aaron burr, letter to mrs. burr, february 15, 1973, adams family papers: an electronic archive, massachusetts historical society. 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2013. “‘tell me how you like the shoose’: gender, girlhood, and material self-fashioning in america, 1770-1850.” phd diss., university of minnesota. hartigan-o’connor, ellen. 2009. the ties that buy: women and commerce in revolutionary america. philadelphia: university of pennsylvania press. [henry, elizabeth.] betsy and eliza henry music books 1796-1823. #0279. historical society of pennsylvania, philadelphia, pennsylvania. kelley, mary. 2006. learning to stand & speak: women, education, and public life in america’s republic. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. kerber, linda k. 1976. “the republican mother: women and the enlightenment – an american perspective.” american quarterly 28, no. 2 (summer): 187-205. mcmahon, lucia. 2012. mere equals: the paradox of educated women in the early american republic. ithaca: cornell university press. nash, margaret a. 1997. “rethinking republican motherhood: benjamin rush and the young ladies’ academy of philadelphia.” journal of the early republic 17, no. 2 (summer): 171-191. nash, margaret. 2005. women’s education in the united states, 1780-1840. new york: palgrave macmillan. neal, james. 1795. an essay on the education and genius of the female sex.: to which is added, an account, of the commencement of the young-ladies’ academy of philadelphia, held the 18th of december, 1794, under the directions of mr. john poor. philadelphia: 41 christa pehl evans jacob johnson & co. ogden, john c. 1800. excursion into bethlehem & nazareth in pennsylvania, in the year 1799. philadelphia: charles cist. pangle, lorraine smith and thomas l. pangle. 1993. the learning of liberty: the educational ideas of the american founders. lawrence: university press of kansas. the rise and progress of the young-ladies’ academy of philadelphia. philadelphia: stewart & cochran, 1794. rush, benjamin. 1786. an oration, delivered before the american philosophical society: held in philadelphia on the 27th of february, 1786; containing an enquiry into the influence of physical causes upon the moral faculty. philadelphia: charles cist. rush, benjamin. 1787. thoughts upon female education, accommodated to the present state of society, manners, and government, in the united states of america. : addressed to the visitors of the young ladies’ academy in philadelphia, 28 july, 1787, at the close of the quarterly examination. philadelphia: prichard and hall. smith, jewel a. 2007. “academic and music curricula in nineteenth-century american women’s education: a comparison of the moravian young ladies’ seminary and nazareth hall.” musical quarterly 901, no. 2 (summer): 275-306. smith, jewel a. 2008. music, women, and pianos in antebellum bethlehem, pennsylvania: the moravian young ladies’ seminary. bethlehem: lehigh university press. stadlen, naomi. 2004. what mothers do: especially when it looks like nothing. new york: penguin group. swanwick, john. 1787. thoughts on education, addressed to the visitors of the young ladies’ academy in philadelphia, october 31, 1787. philadelphia: thomas dobson. tolley, kim. 1996. “science for ladies, classics for gentlemen: a comparative analysis of scientific subjects in the curricula of boys’ and girls’ secondary schools in the united states, 1794-1850,” history of education quarterly 36, no. 2: 129-153. ulrich, laurel thatcher. 2001. the age of homespun: objects and stories in the creation of an american myth. new york: random house. [walsh, robert.] 1812. the american review of history and politics, and general repository of literature and state papers, vol. 3. philadelphia: farrand and nicholas. webster, noah. 1968. a grammatical institute, of the english language, comprising, an easy, concise, and systematic method of education, designed for the use of english schools in america. in three parts, pt. 1. hartford, conn.: hudson and goodwin, 1783; facsimile reprint, menston, england: scholar press. webster, noah. 1792. “on the education of youth in america,” reprinted in the american museum or universal magazine for the year 1792, from july to december. philadelphia: m. carey. zagarri, rosemarie. 1992. “morals, manners, and the republican mother.” american quarterly 44, no. 2 (june): 192-215. microsoft word reed typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 reed. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercialnoderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 190 reviewed by jacob reed it might seem strange to claim that a book like brent hayes edwards’s epistrophies: jazz and the literary imagination has been overlooked. a major book by an eminent critic (edwards is professor of english and comparative literature at columbia and leading figure of the “new jazz studies”),1 epistrophies received favorable reviews in the los angeles review of books, the nation, and popmatters, as well as the virgil thomson award from the american society of composers, authors, and publishers. and yet, three years after its publication, the book has received no reviews in any academic journal of literature or music. recognition by the latter may have been impeded by the relatively limited role “the music itself” has to play in edwards’s discussion. on the other side, more literature-oriented reviewers (including christopher spaide in the cambridge quarterly and colin vanderburg in the los angeles review of books) have already complained that edwards close-reads seemingly “nonliterary” texts like mary lou williams’s expense notebooks and duke ellington’s annotations of the bible pamphlet forward day by day. the book seems to have fallen between the cracks. of course, “the cracks” are exactly where a book like epistrophies lives. which is not to say that there are many books like it, especially in transdisciplinary breadth: this is a book about “the infinitely fertile interface between music and literature in african diasporic culture,” where “the key point is that the interface can be crossed in either direction” (18, 22). (if, however, “the cracks” recalls “the break” as explored by fred moten, this is not a coincidence: i will return to this comparison later [moten 2003].) this is not another “jazz reading” of ralph ellison or toni morrison, and it is certainly not just a book “about” the writings of jazz musicians—although such writings (and indeed “musical,” if not necessarily “jazz” readings of poetry) play a central role in the text.2 the polyvalence of the title word itself exemplifies the kind of trans-medial routes edwards’s arguments can take. an epistrophe is a rhetorical figure, the repeated use of a word to end consecutive phrases, e.g. “of the people, by the people, for the people.” this, of course, was the inspiration for the jazz standard (by thelonious monk and kenny clarke), but edwards then goes several steps 191 further, showing how the “epistrophe” concept continued to be transformed, first into dance (by monk during performances of the song), and then back into the realm of text (in poetry by amiri baraka). edwards is too unassuming to point out that his book, each chapter of which passes through an array of authors and media in a similarly winding trajectory, itself carries the chain forward another step. as wide-ranging as this may seem, to focus on the complex back-and-forth between art forms would be to miss the full scope of edwards’s project. as it turns out, the interface between jazz and text is fertile ground for nothing less than one of the most wide-ranging assessments of the relationship between music and language published to date. in particular, epistrophies makes major contributions on both about the role of language (lyrics) in music and the possibilities for language (poetry) as a kind of music itself. the first chapter shows the breadth of edwards’s vision in full force. here, we are treated to suggestive remarks on the semantic possibilities of scat singing, a discussion of the music louis armstrong heard in his own digestive system’s production of “scat” (yes, feces), and an analysis of the oral/musical practices conveyed by armstrong’s idiosyncratic typesetting. but even this path through music, words, nonsense, embodied sound, and sonic materialities of writing only hints at the sweeping insight of his culminating remarks, which deserve to be quoted in full: scat aesthetics distends an expressive medium through the proliferation of index. this is a structural effect, and thus one that can be applied as readily to a linguistic medium as to one like music, which signifies as an expressive potentiality, articulating a syntax where in billie holiday’s phrase the “meaning seems to change.” scat works the “accompaniments of the utterance” in a given medium: in song, the vocal play that liquefies words; in performance, the excessive, oblique physicality of mugging; in writing, the overgrowth of punctuation, self-interruptions, asides, that exceed the purposes of emphasis, intonation, and citation. inarticulacy is telling because the proliferation of index points at—structurally suggests—an expressive syntax that is unavailable but inferred through its “accompaniments.” scat aesthetics thus involves an augmentation of expressive potential, rather than an evacuation or a reduction of signification. words drop away from music so that “the unheard sounds [come] through.” the syntax of scat points at something outside the sayable, something seen where it collapses. (56, italics mine) nonsense words like scat syllables both cause us to seek out meaning and syntax and point to the futility of such a search—meanings words can only hint at, and which require the collaboration of word-like sounds and their musical frame. while evading traditional semantics, scat therefore adds dimensions of meaning 192 impossible in music alone (or even in wordless vocalise). and, although its aesthetic possibilities are not embraced directly by all jazz artists (billie holiday, although cited by edwards above, eschewed it), scat can also serve as an artistic model. thus formulated, edwards's notion of “scat aesthetics” is a valuable tool for anyone seeking to understand the production of meaning by words in and with song—and for the study of black performance in general. if the first chapter shows how language and music can converge at the level of the word or sentence, the second, on james weldon johnson’s prefaces, explores interactions between the two at the level of an entire poem or sermon. edwards frames johnson’s central task in terms of the eternally vexed question of transcription: how to notate the swing of a spiritual, or the sounds of black speech. after noting that johnson uses musical analogies to signal his own literary borrowings from vernacular sources, edwards then shows how these analogies come to center around swing itself: “vernacular musical form is transcribed through a figure of the black body” (74, italics original). but the argument is then carried a step further: the body of the poem itself (i.e. its visual appearance) turns the “blues lyric” into a kind of musical score as well as a transcription of a vernacular form. the very line structure of a blues poem on the page conjures a set of musical conventions and a mode of performance, almost spontaneously transforming into a song even in the absence of explicit notations for pitch or rhythm. here we have a novel and highly valuable framework for thinking about how texts themselves can be heard and seen as kinds of music or musical performance; it may be especially useful for those thinking about times (most of history) and places (most of the world) in which songs have been transmitted in writing, but without “musical” notation. while much work has been done to recover the melodic formulas and text-setting patterns that enable improvised musical performance of poetry, edwards perhaps prompts us to reconsider whether such poems were not, in fact, already a kind of music.3 the next chapter broadens in terms of literary scope from the individual poem to a musical/literary narrative. seeking to at least qualify the cliché that jazz musically “tells the story” of black americans better than any literary text, edwards notes that possibly the most explicit attempts in all of jazz to tell that story, duke ellington’s “narrative” suites, relied heavily on literary models, narrations, written programs, and other forms of textual apparatus. the chapter surveys how spoken texts were integrated into these musical narratives, but it spends more time discussing how ellington created musical “parallels” with literary texts. while these could be as overt as the use of sonnet-like formal 193 structures (14 phrases of 10 notes each) in the shakespearean suite such sweet thunder, more interesting is the suggestion that in fact all of ellington’s suites might have been constructed to parallel texts that he was reading, writing, or imagining. music and language again work in tandem, now in the mind of a composer and performer of instrumental music. this is a familiar enough idea to listeners of program music (or seekers of “hidden programs” in the correspondence and diaries of composers), but its application to ellington is original and in the context of the book provides a useful converse to the “language-into-music” directionality of the first two chapters. chapters 4 and 5 take a step back from this conceptually-oriented analysis of language in music (language as music) to take a pass at the question: what happens when the writings of a musician become a crucial means by which to understand their music? edwards’s discussion of sun ra’s pamphlets and poems brings to the fore another theme from the book’s introduction: jazz and mythology. as the opening anecdote—about buddy bolden's supposed publication of the gossipy tabloid the cricket—illustrates, the history of jazz itself is very often built on oral literature, a kind of mythology or fiction. (here, edwards is building on the insights of ralph ellison in pieces like “the golden age, time past” [ellison 2003].) and the next chapter, with its readings of mary lou williams’s scribblings on her gas station receipts, highlights yet another secondary theme: jazz writing as a kind of archive, with williams’s historical practice of “zoning” (mapping out areas and delimiting boundaries) performing the archivist’s work. (the myth about the cricket portrays bolden as the original jazz archivist, but, as edwards points out, louis armstrong’s massive personal collections and records probably qualify him more securely for that title.) edwards sees “zoning” as a fundamental principle underlying williams’s work, citing recordings that outlined the history of jazz, and performances (like a 1977 concert with cecil taylor) that emphasized the contrasts between jazz styles even as they brought them together. but “zoning” is as much about what leaks through boundaries as the boundaries themselves: the “exclamatory” and “poignant” marginalia of williams’ receipts and expense notebooks—the intrusion of personal tragedies and triumphs into household economics—show the impossibility of full compartmentalization (176, 178). these chapters begin a movement in epistrophies from texts in and around jazz toward text about jazz. thus, the sixth chapter, in taking henry threadgill as the starting point for an exploration of song titles, opens up the question of what it means to write about music more generally: what can we say about what a piece represents? can we trust the programs given to us by the composers? or 194 their casual remarks in an interview long after the fact? perhaps not, as edwards suggests: one might say that the function of threadgill's song titles is to obliterate any pretense that one could ever speak strictly musically (or, conversely, the pretense that one could ever deliver a proposition in words that would not be accompanied, and waylaid, by their music). (196) if it is impossible to speak “strictly musically” about music, then perhaps edwards feels it is more productive or interesting to return to the musicality of seemingly non-musical texts, only this time moving beyond the individual lyrics and narratives of the first few chapters. in this context, edwards draws inspiration especially from louis zukofsky: no fewer than four times, he quotes the dictum from “a statement for poetry” that “poetry may be defined as an order of words that as movement and tone (rhythm and pitch) approaches in varying degrees the wordless art of music as a kind of mathematical limit” (zukofsky 1981, 19). this brings us to the final move of epistrophies, whose closing chapters center on jazz-inspired serial poetry by nathaniel mackey and ed roberson, with relatively little discussion of music. in the chapter on mackey, the most detailed discussion of music comes in some brief remarks on how the graphic forms of the poetry can evoke a musical reprise; in the sections on roberson, it is limited to a refutation of joseph conte’s claim that “serial poetry” is linked to “serial music” (the former being a rashomon-like genre in which a story emerges from the collective reading of several poems, and thus having nothing to do with the particular combinatorial logic of a musical row). only at the end, in an account of steve reich's come out, do we return to music and musicians, albeit not exactly jazz. and notwithstanding this section’s discussion of how the sounds of speech can approach the sound of song through repetition, we have moved far away from the tight links between word and music of the earlier chapters. edwards justifies this trajectory in the afterword, remarking that the book has ended up by reassessing the writing of “jazz criticism itself”: if a major element of what i have been tracking throughout this book is experimentation in pseudomorphosis—new possibilities found by hearing across media—then jazz criticism would have to hear across media, as well, and find itself transformed in the process. (253) it is fair to ask, then, how well edwards has accomplished this goal. certainly, his virtuosic prose, coupled with an ability to provide structure for winding, complex arguments, lends plenty of credence to the reviewers who have 195 compared his work to a sort of jazz performance. on the other hand, it is hard to see how the actual argument of these last chapters supports this comparison. such a collaboration between prose style and argument is better exemplified by fred moten's in the break, which overtly enacts the artistic forms that it analyzes, claiming precisely that all black performance embodies exactly the kind of improvisation it both discusses and manifests. nevertheless, even if edwards’s book may fall short of some of the claims of its afterword, the goals of the introduction—the project the book sets for itself— are more than adequately achieved. epistrophies not only makes a major contribution to the scholarship on the influence of jazz in american literature and culture at large (alongside works like gabbard 1995, o’meally 1998, anderson 2001, and yaffe 2006) and the growing body of work on jazz musicians as writers and thinkers (e.g. porter 2002), but it intricately weaves together these two strands and many others, focusing above all on the back-and-forth between different types of media.4 a rich examination of jazz and literature (and jazz as literature), epistrophies is an essential read for those interested in either or both sides of that “infinitely fertile interface.” notes 1 indeed, edwards co-edited uptown conversation: the new jazz studies (o’meally, edwards, and griffin 2004). 2 this is not to discount the value of these "jazz readings," e.g. grandt 2004. 3 for reconstructions of such improvised music used in poetic performance, the italian renaissance has been an especially fertile area: see especially haar 1981, pirotta 1984, and chapter 4 of feldman 1995. for a tradition more based in linking new words to pre-existing tunes, see the survey of surviving musical sources for chinese ci 詞 lyrics in pian 1967. among performers, see especially the work of benjamin bagby and sequentia, e.g. the recordings boethius: songs of consolation (2018, gcd 9225188) and edda (1999, dhm 05472773812). 4 in this particular aspect of his work, perhaps edwards’s closest precedent is alexander weheliye’s analysis of the dialogic interaction between recorded sound and other black artistic production (weheliye 2005). references anderson, paul allen. deep river: music and memory in harlem renaissance thought. durham: duke university press, 2001. ellison, ralph. collected essays. edited by john f. callahan. new york: vintage, 2003. feldman, martha. city culture and the madrigal at venice. berkeley: university of california press, 1995. 196 gabbard, krin, ed. jazz among the discourses. durham: duke university press, 1995. grandt, jürgen e. kinds of blue: the jazz aesthetic in african american narrative. columbus: ohio state university press, 2004. haar, james. “arie per cantar stanze ariotesche,” in l’ariosto: la musica, i musicisti, ed. maria antonella balsano. florence: leo s, olschki, 1981. moten, fred. in the break: the aesthetics of the black radical tradition. minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2003. o’meally, robert g., brent hayes edwards, and farah jasmine griffin, eds. uptown conversation: the new jazz studies. new york: columbia university press, 2004. o’meally, robert g., ed. the jazz cadence of american culture. new york: columbia university press, 1998. pian, rulan chao. sonq dynasty musical sources and their interpretation. cambridge, ma: harvard university asia center, 1967. pirotta, nino. music and culture in italy form the middle ages to the baroque. cambridge, ma: harvard universit press, 1984. porter, eric. what is this thing called jazz? african american musicians as artists, critics, and activists. berkeley: university of california press, 2002. weheliye, alexander g. phonographies: grooves in sonic afro-modernity. durham: duke university press, 2005. yaffe, david. fascinating rhythm: reading jazz in american writing. princeton: princeton university press, 2006. zukofsky, louis. prepositions: the collected critical essays of louis zukofsky. berkeley: university of california press, 1981. cm_111_chakrapani_final current musicology 111 (spring 2023) ©2023 mirza & zamcheck. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commonsattribution-non-commercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). fake radiolab: audio and ideology adam mirza and akiva zamcheck audio 1: listen to “studio nyc,” from fake radiolab.1 audio and ideological production with what authority do podcasters and radio hosts whose voices reach millions compel their listeners to buy in? the current age of intravenous media consumption warrants study of the role of audio manipulation in reproducing ideology. popular topics of npr-style general-interest podcasts sit at the intersection of cognitive psychology and mass media, which was the thematic starting point for our project, which began in 2019. radiolab blazed a path presenting a virtuosically edited narration of reality, and influenced other shows that distill complex phenomena into soundbites while coddling or infantilizing audiences through audio manipulation. our self-styled anti-podcast began as an effort to parody them, but developed into a deeper study of contemporary audio aesthetics. our starting point has always been a series of questions. how do podcasts and radio shows leverage audio forms to frame pseudoscience as fact? what special role do radio hosts and podcasters play in repackaging ideas churned out through academia and disseminated via mass media? the tools of right-wing shock jocks are relatively clear: what corresponding aesthetic hallmarks speak especially to the liberal segment of the u.s. population? in fake radiolab we try to magnify these audio maneuvers to draw attention to their underlying nihilistic snark, inscrutable postmodernism, and withdrawal into pure aesthetic experience. our research process has entailed experimenting with form in studio sessions, performing in public contexts, and collecting and integrating feedback of all kinds into our work. we believe that our basic question – by what means do radio hosts and podcasters intoxicate their audiences and turn their listeners’ minds into 90 current musicology _______________________________________ mush? – as well as a larger, overarching question around whose interests such programs serve are best explored through demonstration and performance. for this edition of current musicology, we present “studio nyc,” the first track from our upcoming album. to supplement the track, we provide an introduction and historical overview of the project as well a discussion about the form and process. fake radiolab, live and in studio, since 2019 before the pandemic, we presented the first versions of fake radiolab in new york city and miami as a live performance act: a (purported) live radio podcast taking place during an experimental music concert. in fall 2020, we shifted our focus to the recording studio, and in december 2020 (with rimona afana as a guest vocalist) we recorded new material towards an eventual album release. working in the studio amplified already existing de-synchronizations between the live and pre-recorded which had infused all aspects of our project. from the first performance, we live-improvised over pre-recorded material creating an audio mish-mash, a sound collage of our voices alongside other audio fragments. operating remotely in 2020-21 in preparation for a subsequent telematic concert introduced a new layer of audio production to our signal chain, and along with it, the possibility for further interventions, ambiguities, and manipulations. the zoom era created new openings; split by monitor screens and widely tolerated unreliability of latency, software, and individual playback, no one would experience a virtual concert-session in the same way. this was true even for us, two performers performing “together,” separated by 865 miles between atlanta and brooklyn, with a minimum theoretical latency of 4.6 milliseconds accrued by the digital data that traversed this distance at the speed of light. in practical terms, an audio streaming plugin allowed us to broadcast our audio to each other as well as to our host re-streamer, the experimental sound studio (ess) in chicago, at a latency no faster than 100ms, which is about the time it takes to get from the end of one word to the beginning of the next (unless, of course, you think about it too much, in which case it begins to affect your performance by introducing thought-latency, which can induce innumerable other forms of feedback-related issues, difficult to diagnose or treat). with further internal system latency and additional multi-camera video feeds sent through the video streaming software obs into a separate skype session, the only thing we were sure of was that no one would hear or see the same thing. when we finally reunited for in-person performances in 2022 and 2023, some conceptual preoccupations of the pandemic era felt quaint and archaic. nonetheless, we found that our experience with networked audio had expanded our approach to signal flow. we reworked our digital feedback loops by plugging our mixers into one another’s, and re-conceived a latency-oriented tribute to 91 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ alvin lucier’s “i am sitting in a room” focused on spoken word mediated by a feedback system of digital processing. we transposed visual components we developed for virtual concerts as live-projections for in-person concerts. we set up usb webcams that display what’s going on with our hands/instruments, and we mix in overlays of screens from both of our computers, including max patches and our digital audio workstations. in conjunction with these projections, we narrate our signal flow to expose our manipulations and the processes we implement. video 1: “we are sitting in a laptop,” clip from we’ve been canceled!, live-remote telematic performance of fake radiolab, 2020.2 92 current musicology _______________________________________ video 2: “i am sitting in a room,” clip from fake radiolab “episode 9: live from belgrade,” with guest nikola pekovic, may 2023.3 video 3: “on technology, music research, and media,” a video clip from fake radiolab “live from park city,” july 5, 2023 (vu symposium, utah).4 now, in july, 2023, we are sharing this work at an inauspicious time. as war rages in europe, npr shows and related podcasts are capable of reproducing ideology with potentially catastrophic consequences. we are thankful to current 93 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ musicology for sharing our media critique, and call for musicologists, composers, scholars, students, and people from all walks of life to turn off, tune out, and drop in for real discussion, analysis, and critique of ideology disseminated through authoritative voices in mainstream news and media. on form and process5 this project has always involved an effort to research a topic aggressively before meeting. for our first foray, we considered radio plays. we were preparing for a live concert, and there was a necessity to create some sort of score or script, including a structure for whatever combination of live improvisation and interplay with pre-recorded material was going to happen. a key thing that came out of our first performance was the idea of creating backing tracks and improvising with them. backing tracks let us perform live, improvise, have enough texture and most of all, a predetermined structure. we react to audio files throughout most of the piece. these audio files have taken on double dimension because they are embedded into our live speech-performance. sometimes they are triggered by live speech through a max patch. in our shows, the most challenging (and time-consuming) aspect is sound-checking and live mixing. when we get it right, the audience is thrust into a space of general mystery. there was a practical justification for the structure we initially developed, which led us to think about the larger form/format/genre of our piece. there were other fixed media pieces slated for our first show. our aspiration was to map the larger form of the concert onto our new piece (as a “live podcast”). by weaving this new piece deeply into the concert by re-activating it between pieces (and even, to the consternation of some composers, during pieces), we tried to move away from the standard form for the “new music” concert (i.e. piece one, piece two, piece three, etc.), to provide something a little more stimulating for the audience. we realized live podcasts are like concerts of new music, potentially. if we assume the role of radio hosts, we need to have some sort of content to comment on. we decided the thing we’d be “covering” as radio commentators would be a concert which was actually occurring. 94 current musicology _______________________________________ video 4: a clip from fake radiolab “episode 1” at mise-en place, brooklyn, march 2019, in which we experiment with the use of vocal ‘patter’ to signify the close-mic style on npr radio programs.6 how is material prepared? audio files for a performance have functioned as a sort of score for us, as they can be laid out on a timeline with specific duration. the two of us also compose written scores. we each work on very different aspects of the performance, so we’ve tended to construct and rely on different scores representing our individual workflow. 95 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ 96 current musicology _______________________________________ figure 1: adam’s performance score and preconcert notes for live virtual concert “we’ve been canceled!” emory compfest/experimental sound studio, february 2021. 97 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ figure 2: akiva working on his score for a live in-person performance, belgrade, may 2023. for our second performance, at the university of miami, we built an intro track and related scores, specifically designed for this new concert. we became interested in making the project more site-specific. and topical. figure 3: adam and akiva at the “live from the coral gables planning committee” performance at the university of miami, may 2019. 98 current musicology _______________________________________ we felt that, unlike the slow process of composition of abstract academic music which we were pairing fake radiolab with, podcasts are often ‘of the moment.’ we thought we’d try and emulate that in our performance, while also being aware of the performance practice of live podcasts, which become visual forms when they are streamed with video. this became a defining concept that we started playing with. at this point, our premise was fairly clear: we were hosting a live “podcast” recorded and streamed live from the place in which we were having a “new music” show. at the performance in miami, we incorporated some local news and issues that had directly impacted our performance and preparation. this episode was titled: “live from the coral gables planning committee.” audio 2: a clip from fake radiolab “live from coral gables planning committee” in miami, may 2019.7 for our next episode, we were back in new york and focused on studio work, meaning we didn't actually have a “concert” we were working with (or against!). however, we did a livestream on instagram, which was quite successful. there were about 3,000 viewers, or something close to that. in any case, the number three was in there. 99 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ video 5: a clip from fake radiolab “live on instagram,” august 2019.8 what is the set up? the first thing we have always done is assemble “a studio.” this is not inconsequential to our process, the actual setup of the studio. for our album, what we landed on (what we eventually achieved) was basically a sort of dueling setup, like battle stations. this stands in contrast to the common electronic music duo format (which we had mostly done before), with two people at their laptops, side by side. in our battle station format, we have a baffle between us to help with isolation. this allows us to effectively process each other’s live signal and to control feedback. 100 current musicology _______________________________________ figures 3-4: akiva setting up his “battle station” in the atlanta studio, december 2020. the original battle station format facilitated social distancing. we set this up when one of us flew from new york for our recording session in atlanta during the peak of the pandemic. the format made for some interesting conceptual paths. together in a room, separated by the baffle and literally concealed from one another other, the arrangement felt like an iconic studio set-up for the pandemic situation. 101 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ video 5: recording “late nite jamout 2” in atlanta, with guest vocalist rimona afana (out of frame), december 2020.9 this arrangement also propelled our dive into performative punditry. for our discussion segments it triggered some of the antagonism (and class antagonism) inherent in social distance pageantry.10 what problems and disagreements emerged? we’ve tried to craft this thing so as to be topically substantive. not just random collage. and yet, we've also ended up with a lot of improvisation. the long-form studio album, which we are working on, has been slow going because we had to address various questions and disagreements. is this really a studio album? is it a recording of an improvisation? or is it, you know, a deeply crafted song? the level of specificity of subject matter as a “podcast” is another major question. whether we are playing real “characters” as podcast hosts transforms our treatment of the topics that emerge. whether political rants are experienced through “straight discussion” or edited into a kind of warped form; whether they should be based on familiar, “real,” identifiable personages – this has been a point of disagreement. one of us has more hesitation about incorporating recognizable figures if he doesn't feel sufficiently informed. this is also an aesthetic issue. what is the style of the performance piece we are creating? is it a sort of fantastic radio play? are we dabbling with mockumentary? stylistic questions constantly emerge. 102 current musicology _______________________________________ figure 5: adam’s max patch-score for the performance “we’ve been canceled!” february 2021. so far, the result has tended towards a hybrid form. whereas we have real public figures that we actually dramatized in our initial performances, most of these have become more obscure.11 some were even replaced with animals, partially because a collaborator has a knack for voicing animals and inserted them quite effectively into our recent instantiations. having personified squirrels, racoons, and other urban forest creatures “call in” à la discussion segments on npr or bbc served our political satire, especially in our recent piece, “live from the atlanta democratic party headquarters.”12 in previous versions (now we call them episodes) the form was directly a result of the context: a new music concert in a specific place. moving a live performance project into the studio to make an album required thinking of an appropriate topic/genre/form. what began to emerge for our recording project was something about the impact of the pandemic on performance / virtuality and the move to new multimedia studio cultures. in the zoom age, everyone is a multimedia artist. this become more explicit in our emory/electronic sound 103 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ studio performance, “we’ve been canceled!” where we tried to address the sound of cancellation, from a technical perspective (signal cancelation) and a social one. audiences have also influenced our content and the form. “we’ve been canceled!” for example, was geared towards a university audience. we continue to have serious disagreements about the political issues we cover. resolving these disagreements within the timeline of preparation for a given performance has usually proved impossible. an ongoing question regards the form our criticism should take. should we carry out more explicit criticism of political content on npr, new york times podcasts, and other related shows, or is the method of exposing ideology covertly, by mirroring audio aesthetics and manipulative tropes, more effective? in preparation for recent concerts, akiva argued in favor of trying to unambiguously depict the means by which such programs have (deceptively) whipped up support for the u.s war machine. adam argued that we should try and unmask tropes from this wing of the media alongside a broader exploration of audio production as a mode of insidious coercion. our set-up allows us to express disagreements (with each other) in multiple ways. we are plugged into each other’s systems, so we can subvert/coopt each other’s signal by processing it. we can mute each other. and we hash things out in dramatic exchanges voiced by the characters we perform. a direction we’ve tended towards is to expose our project and its limitations. we project our signal flow and our patches, we narrate our process, and we don’t tie up our disagreements or contradictions in a neat little bow. we do have an important point of agreement though. we both recognize emergent media forms that combine discussion and data with audio manipulation to present a manufactured and highly ideological version of reality. what meaningful interventions can we make with this level of unity? we’re trying to figure that out through feedback of all types, especially through collaboration with scholars, musicians, artists, activists, and all others interested in developing creative resistance to reactionary media.13 104 current musicology _______________________________________ figure 6: adam’s setup in atlanta for “we’ve been canceled!” for emory compfest 2021/ experimental sound studio “quarantine concert” series. figure 7: fake radiolab “episode 9,” live from belgrade, may 2023. 105 adam mirza & akiva zamcheck _________________________________________________________ notes 1 fake radiolab, “studio nyc,” july 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpr53iuina 2 fake radiolab, “we’ve been cancelled (live-remote/telematic): ‘we are sitting in a laptop,’” emory compfest/ess 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vkah994zfy 3 fake radiolab, “episode 9: live from belgrade, ‘sitting in a room,’” may 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le75b5ju98e 4 fake radiolab, “on technology, music research, and media,” vu symposium, utah, july 5, 2023, https://youtu.be/kclejpuwop8 5 this section derives from a transcription of a recording of a discussion between adam and akiva made while recording our studio album in stone mountain, georgia. interspersed are photo documentation, scores, and relevant clips from various instantiations of the show. 6 fake radiolab, “episode 1,” mise-en place, brooklyn, march 2019, https://youtu.be/wp_n744v7xg 7 fake radiolab, “live from coral gables planning committee,” miami, may 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko8gz5fcd8a 8 fake radiolab, “live on instagram,” august 2019, https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jhv52yozeb4 9 fake radiolab, “battle stations,” atlanta, december 2020, https://youtu.be/7cgreqpi8qk 10 this became one of the discussion topics in “we’ve been canceled!” 11 in “studio nyc,” remnants of a few of our favorite characters remain, including voiced quotations of dubious assertions about human history by the psychologist steven pinker. 12 “live from the atlanta democratic party headquarters,” was recorded in atlanta in december 2020, a week before a runoff election in which the outcome of simultaneous elections in georgia could determine which political party secured a majority in the u.s. senate. we played fictional pundits at the dnc georgia headquarters, who claimed to stream “live from the current beating heart of the u.s. political landscape.” 13 please contact us at adammirza@gmail.com and zamcheck@gmail.com. 106 current musicology 103 (fall 2018) © 2018 cressy. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 139 yasar, kerim. 2018. electrified voices: how the telephone, phonograph, and radio shaped modern japan, 1868–1945. new york: columbia university press. reviewed by thomas a. cressy kerim yasar’s electrified voices is an innovative study on how sound technologies developed in japan from 1868 to 1945. it includes detailed examples of how sound was central to the creation of a modern subjectivity and used by the japanese nation state for ideological reasons. the volume is a valuable addition to scholarship on the relationships among sound, technology, modernity, and the nation state in japan. after an introductory chapter, the main body of the argument is divided into six separate and chronologically ordered chapters—each dealing with aspects of sound and technology in japan—and a short “coda” to finish. i discuss each chapter in turn below. in the introduction, yasar outlines the major theoretical frameworks on which he bases the book. drawing on jonathan sterne’s the audible past, yasar positions the historical development of sound and its reproductive technologies within a framework of modernity, critiquing a bias of the visual in scholarship. alongside sterne’s work, he also draws on mladen dolar to posit the human voice as a “material support” for meaning that has an “absent presence” in its disembodied appearance in radio. the larger argument of the book is that sounds are part of an economy of modernity that alters beings’ relation to sound and consequently to their wider social life; in developing this, yasar expands walter ong’s concept of “technologized orality” (where pre-modern orality has a residual role as a vector for tradition and reactionary ideologies in modernity) by redefining it as a phenomenon in which different media condition communication in different ways with different types of orality at different moments of conception, rather than orality as a single phenomenon to be technologized. the author argues that “every culture” has its own relationship with sound, and that the case of japan remains to be considered in a plurality of modernities through sound studies (yasar 2018, 5). he presents japan here as an insular island nation—part of a larger sinitic culture that eagerly absorbed western modernism at a staggering pace in the meiji-era through the decisions of its political leaders (6). yasar suggests that the japanese language has specificity in its own limits and possibilities for negotiation with technological media that have yet to be explored in sound studies to move beyond technological determinism; he aims to consider the agency 140 current musicology of multiple human subjects and their specific historical conditions in distinctive social formations and power relations. although one may question what appears to be another case of japanese exceptionalism, placing centuries of supposed traditional language and culture against imported modern/western technology, it is handled here in a more complex manner. technological media are discussed as a means for agents to have the power of symbolic representation over less powerful ones; but the effects of such media have unpredictable results on an imperceptible process of changing subjectivities, brought about by the sound’s affect on people. the first chapter discusses a japanese cultural tradition of the “spiritual power” of language and edō-period dichotomies between written and spoken language. yasar shows how, in the edō period, texts were read out loud in a communal setting as part of a wider and long-standing japanese belief in the kotodama ideology, the “spiritual power of spoken language” (yasar 2018, 23)—a contrast with how written language started to be perceived as an abstract internalized text in the meiji-era modernization. his arguments are largely based on japanese literature of the edō and meiji periods, as well more recent studies on the phenomenon of kotodama. yasar uses examples from kōdan and naniwabushi (forms of verbal storytelling) to show how oral traditions continued through technological changes in mass media; recordings were made of storytelling practices and sold on recorded disks, and the new modern printed newspapers were read out loud in communal gatherings, for example. furthermore, he argues the abstraction of the word, as well as new technologies of sound (the telegraph and telephone) brought with it ideological and repressive uses by the government, as a means to construct both a national identity and community. he thus argues that language and sound are factors in the creation of the imagined japanese national community (going beyond benedict anderson’s [2006] reliance on print’s role in creating a national community) to show what yoshimi shun’ya’s work had suggested, namely that the telephone and other technologies do even more to homogenize nation space than print due to its strength as a medium of mass communication. this chapter also traces a history of both the telegraph and telephone in japan, through the lenses of national ideology and standardization. language, yasar argues, became a commodified and precious resource in telegraph use; each word used carried a price in order to be sent via a technology that materialized the national, spatial, and linguistic connectivity between tokyo and osaka, for instance. this argument is further enriched by examples of the telegraph in literature by natsume soseki, which reveal how this technology may have featured in japanese daily life. yasar represents the telephone as an inefficient and expensive means of communica141 thomas a. cressy tion due to the huge infrastructural issues that the operators faced from demand, used more as a curiosity in a ritual of modernity that afforded sensuous pleasure through the ability to hear someone else’s voice. in the second chapter, yasar draws on a range of secondary literature in order to give us a (self-admittedly) brief overview of the history of sound in japan. he treats rhetoric on japanese sound in the heian and earlier periods as a continuity of literary and oral practices that were interrupted by an encounter with “sonic alterity” (western music) and the importation of machinery and technology; he continues that further subjectivity changes in the modernization process can be seen in the phenomenon of japanese intellectuals’ appreciation of western classical music. this subjectivity change is explored in the context of economic, military, technological, and cultural asymmetries of powers with the “west,” which brought to japan colonial attitudes dismissing japanese music as noise (59–65). this chapter also examines accounts from a select few western elites in japan. for instance, accounts from naitō takashi’s meiji no oto and edward morse’s writings, which yasar relates to european japonisme, colonialism, and orientalism because of their descriptions of japanese music as unpleasant and noisy, and also the japanese inability to appreciate western music. thus, the author creates an image of a japanese soundscape incompatible with the western ear and conceptions of sonic privacy, further reinforced by examples of japanese subjects finding western music cacophonous and discordant. drawing on older japanese narratives found in kōsuke nakamura’s posthumously published kindainihon yōgakushi josetsu, yasar repeats the well-known story based on japanese official documents—the satsuma band played western military music, then western music is disseminated through isawa shūji’s use of western melodies in the national education curriculum to cultivate national pride and a reverence for the emperor (due to western being more “accessible” than japanese court music, a phenomenon which is not fully unpacked by yasar, and seems to contradict his argument of the incompatibility of “western” and “japanese” sound) (72). yasar argues that this process was one of “cultural suicide,” eventually leading to japan developing a western-type auditory culture (82). several literary figures—for example, mori ōgai, ueda bin, and nagai kafū—adopted colonial narratives that idealized western music as universal through its use of harmony. the sounds themselves (their rhetoric, social formations, publication, and listening conditions) are argued to be examples of laird addis’ “isomorphic factors” —which are a phenomenon with ontological and temporal affinity that make possible new and potential future states of consciousness as part of wider political and economic power relations (75–76). 142 current musicology the third chapter changes gears, presenting an interesting survey of japanese secondary literature dealing with the materialization, textualization, consumption, and the archivability of the spoken word through meiji-era recording technologies. japan was keeping up with such modern technological developments, but yasar argues that this process facilitated capitalist consumption; the recording as a commodity is argued to have helped turn the recorded voice and sound into a memoryscape (using koizumi kyōko’s [2013] definition) that created nostalgia and associations with particular times and places as a “timeless suspension” (yasar 2018, 112). in his exploration of the development of copyright laws, and how this interacted with material recordings of “traditional” oral and musical performances, komoemon’s recordings of naniwabushi and kabuki are the main focus for analysis. yasar further explains that sound and music serve as activators for such memoryscapes, both as creators and exploiters of nostalgia for economic profit. chapter four offers an impressive survey of the development of the japanese radio industry. in the context of japan’s consumption economy in 1925, yasar argues that radio’s rapid adoption in urban centers was also related to nationalistic aims, such as unifying the nation with hourly health updates on the ill emperor in 1926. the japanese phenomenon of the rajio taisō (communal ritual of physical exercise to the sound of radio broadcasts) is analyzed by the author as a form of media that brought the body, health, and physical exercise into the sphere of national ideology. he argues that the body, disciplined in space and time through the daily repetition of radio-directed physical exercise, was trained to submit to and obey disembodied voices of authority in such ritually inscribed bodily habits. yasar further uses sports commentary broadcasting of the 1930s as a form of state-monitored oral performance—a concept inspired by neil varma’s term, “theater of the mind” (yasar, 126–127). here, background information on individual broadcasters are brought to the fore, including discussions in sports journals, and examples of broadcast scripts being made into texts to be read, re-read, and also recorded and sold as records. political events fueled the sale of radios and, according to yasar, the olympics served as an opportunity for the nation to be unified as an imagined community while hearing the coverage of the performances of japanese athletes—who in turn felt the pressure of the entire nation listening for the first time. the fact the emperor himself did not speak on radio is framed here as a way to keep a mysterious, and numinous sense of power—a screen for the imagined community to project their fantasies on. the following chapter discusses the language used in japanese radio drama, and includes many examples and analyses of specific works and 143 thomas a. cressy social actors. yasar shows how radio drama is an under-researched phenomenon that served as the impetus for new forms of performance by voice actors. he writes a new historiography of sound effects in japan, from taiko drums in edō-period kabuki to the creation of vocabulary for the sound effects, and the development of such effects in theater, radio drama, and film. there are references to a rich amount of literature and sources to show the key individuals and developments of these sounds, but he concludes in a slightly essentialist manner that, in japan, the aesthetic of sound effects harkens back to their “origins” in kabuki theater, where there was no tension between nature and artifice. the final chapter is an impressive overview of sound in film as a historical phenomenon, from the japanese narrators of silent film to the synchronization of sound with film; also, yasar discusses the representations and use of language in film and the contemporary narratives that surrounded such phenomena. he argues that film created a new form of spoken language to be used on screen, and the representations of regional accents became part of the japanese debates on realism. this “film language” is shown here to have come especially to the fore in the adaptations of literary works for screen, where actors’ regional accents seemed incompatible with the modern japanese language—texts were compromised and adjusted to the speech of the actors. the additional modern phenomenon of jidaigeki (period drama) is also argued to have required a new language that represented past japanese eras through an intelligible modern japanese language (stripped of european loan words) with the addition of some archaisms. yasar also states media created a new modern form of speech specifically for women (jyoseigo). thus, the author’s main argument for this final chapter is that standard, regional, gendered, historical, and film-language vernaculars were created for the imagined national community with speech and aurality at its core in film. overall, it is clear that the first few chapters rely on older japanese secondary material. the inclusion of literary figures and japanese academic work on sound and technology in dialogue with recent theoretical frameworks is a welcome development in this book, but it would be fascinating to further explore the relevant social actors and more accounts from the period in question. yasar mentions that telegraph networks were built by a danish company, so a good avenue for further work would be to explore the sources of the foreign communities in japan—especially as hundreds of accounts regarding these technologies, based in yokohama, kobe, nagasaki, hakodate, and tokyo (in other words, the places where foreign communities settled) appear in the newspapers and journals of these foreign communities. at times, it is slightly unclear whether the 144 current musicology japanese-specific interactions with new technologies are being presented as interruptions of long and unbroken traditions, or as interactions between the japanese language and oral practices in relation to top-down governmental implementations of ideology through technology. the second chapter opts for a narrative in which music and sonic practices represent japanese and western cultures as distinctly incompatible, one replacing the other through japanese decisions that forced “traditional” japanese music to retreat into the “iemoto system” (a set of hierarchical relations between the sensei and a collective of apprentices). my view is that such approaches, which focus on “traditions” against “western modernity” mixed with the top-down marxist-tinged understanding of society taken here, could be in danger of hinting at an understanding of japanese culture as a progression of modern governmental choices that impacted a unique and bounded cultural tradition. this would be incompatible with an anthropological understanding of culture; for example, anthropologists such as brian moeran have argued that the iemoto system is still prevalent in all forms of japanese arts, modern or not, and gidoni-goldstein has debunked japanese myths of “origins” and bounded “western” or “japanese” culture, even in food and wedding practices from the meiji period onward for example. there is also a promising avenue for further work where contextual specificity, individual actors, cultural encounters, and transnational circulation of ideas could be brought to the fore from the hundreds of extant accounts in newspapers, diaries, and journals to give a more comprehensive picture of how the music of the “other” was perceived on the ground. morse himself was discussed here in terms of the soundscape of daily life he experienced in the wider incompatibility of “western” and “japanese” sounds in cultural encounters, but his accounts on singing western music to japanese audiences or taking lessons in singing noh could have been included, for instance. chapter three discusses in detail the beginnings of recording and gramophone in japan within the context of japanese kabuki, yet the key kabuki actor and rakugo storyteller that is thought to have made japan’s first ever record possible, henry james black, is conspicuously absent in the book. there are many such individuals in japan and abroad at this time, and earlier, that complicate narratives of “west” and “japan” as incompatible cultural entities that only gain compatibility through japan’s supposed cultural capitulation to a “western” subjectivity. if we are to move beyond the cultural essentialism implied by the suggestion that the japanese adopted a negotiated “western subjectivity”, through governmentally imposed sound, there is room for the inclusion of musicological work on japanese composers, and debates from the period 145 thomas a. cressy in question on japanese music and harmony (between klaus pringsheim and tanaka shōhei, for instance). one would be eager to learn more about why gagaku is described here as less accessible to japanese audiences than the western music chosen by the nation state (who were the specific actors in this nation state except isawa shūji?) if it was indeed cacophonous and discordant to japanese ears, which seems to contradict yasar’s own argument of an initial rejection and incompatibility of the sound of the “other.” the remaining four chapters of the book, on the other hand, stand out for their impressive application of recent theoretical work to primary sources and secondary literature, providing truly fresh and innovative work that reveals new perspectives not previously available in either japanese or english. overall, in the context of a dearth of anglophone scholarship on japanese sound between 1868–1945, the complete reliance on limited secondary literature in the early chapters should not take anything away from yasar’s achievement of an excellent survey applying recent theoretical frameworks to literature previously inaccessible to non-japanese speakers. he has clearly achieved his goal of laying a foundation for future work in an exploration of approaches from literature, media (including film), and sound studies. this book will be of great interest to anyone working on meiji-to-wartime japan, modernity, sound and technology, literature, and film. yasar states the next task will be to explore sounds in the wider japanese colonial empire in comparison to european modernities. however, shun’ya yoshimi’s 1995 ‘koe’ no shihonshugi was one of “the three works that cast the longest shadows” over electrified voices, and so i would like to paraphrase from a short essay of yoshimi’s i translated based on a talk he gave at tokyo university of the arts in 2017. yoshimi argues that the rapid development of archives and the digital migration of data and sources currently taking place in japan will have a profound impact on the way we revise our understandings of the perspectives of historical actors in japanese social and institutional history (yoshimi 2017, 5). the revision of older historical narratives based solely on the sporadic and incomplete source analyses from the previous decades is a pressing task, especially if we are to build a more convincing historiography and archive to improve the understanding of the social and historical context in the meiji-to-wartime-japan period. yasar’s book provides the current benchmark as a foundation for such a revision to take place, but also a solid foundation for further investigation into sound in japan from 1868–1945. 146 current musicology references anderson, benedict. 2006. imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. london: verso. dolar, mladen. 2012. “the linguistics of the voice.” in the sound studies reader. edited by jonathan sterne. new york: routledge. koizumi, kyōko. 2013. memorisukēpu: ano koro wo yobiokosu ongaku. tokyo: misuzushobō naitō, takashi. 2005. meiji no oto: seiyōjin ga kiita kindai nihon. chūkō shinsho 1791. tokyo: chūō kōran shinsha. nakamura, kōsuke. 2003. kindai nihon yōgakushi josetsu. tokyo: tōkyō shoseki. ochoa gautier, ana maría. 2014. aurality: listening and knowledge in nineteenth-century colombia. durham, nc: duke university press. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, nc: duke university press. yoshimi, shun’ya. 1995. ‘koe’ no shihon shugi: denwa rajio chikuonki no shakaishugi. kōdansha sensho mechie 48. tokyo: kōdansha. ———. 2017. “university archives and digital archives.” in tokyo university of the arts 130th anniversary (special programme) messages from the students who died in military service: the wartime tokyo academy of music and tokyo school of art. translated by thomas a. cressy. tokyo: tokyo university of the arts archive center. http://archive. geidai.ac.jp/media/txt/20170730-messages%20from%20the%20students%20who%20 died%20in%20military%20service-en.pdf. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 monson. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 191 in praise of eclecticism: relational thinking and theoretical assemblage ingrid monson in this essay i trace a path through the intellectual history of the last thirtyfive years by using the idea of relationality to connect widely different theoretical frameworks that have been used in the fields of ethnomusicology and musicology. these perspectives are all part of a generalized move away from the fixity of structuralism and towards more contingent, dynamic, and anti-foundationalist modes of understanding power, identity, embodiment, technology, and the sensory. although philosophical perspectives must be addressed, i am fundamentally more interested in exploring the application of these ideas to empirical work—historical and ethnographic. to this end i sing in praise of theoretical eclecticism: the practice of selecting the most productive ideas from philosophy, social theory, and other fields, according to how well they can illuminate and frame an empirical project. to borrow a concept from a recently fashionable philosopher, i suggest that creating theoretical assemblages with clear points of connection to the principle topic of research might serve us well. deleuze famously advocated for a rhizomatic rather than arborescent understanding of interconnection: “unlike trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states” (deleuze and guattari 1987, 21). or more pithily: “we’re tired of trees. we should stop believing in trees, roots, and radicles. they’ve made us suffer too much” (15). assemblages, for deleuze and guattari, are nonhierarchical consistencies that develop among these connections and they may link different strata. after tracing an outline of the legacy of relational thinking i will show how and why i have applied an anthropological assemblage theory of ethics and morality to my work on malian balafonist neba solo in conjunction with older social and cultural theories. this essay also addresses the limits of deleuze and guattari’s concept of assemblage, and philosophical perspectives more generally, as resources for socially engaged empirical musical studies. the need to engage issues of power, inequality, diversity, and gender inequality, i argue, requires engagement with the social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, and economics. emphasis on these social theoretical resources encapsulates one historical difference between musicology and ethnomusicology in terms of relational thinking. 192 current musicology relationality across the theories since the mid-1980s i have witnessed the proliferation of interpretive theoretical perspectives known variously as the linguistic turn, poststructuralism, the new musicology, postcolonialism, the sensory turn, feminist ontology, phenomenology, sound studies, affect theory, intersectionality, the new neuroscience of the brain and consciousness, actor-network theory, and evolution. a close look reveals that many of these theoretical perspectives at the most basic level are talking about the same thing—the interrelationship of people, politics and sounds, the combination of multiple factors to produce a multilayered, polyphonic understanding of human life, the affective place of music in our lives, and understanding how social variables of many kinds inhibit movement and agency. relational perspectives helped lead a revolt against structuralism in anthropology, ethnomusicology, and musicology by producing work emphasizing process over product, emergence over stasis, multiplicity over binaries, intertextuality, hybridity, contingency, indeterminacy, and inbetweenness. relationality, in other words, has been a central preoccupation of humanistic and social scientific inquiry throughout the over thirty years i have been a part of academia.1 philosophical paradigms emphasizing language and semiotics as models of relational interconnection were deeply influential in the 1980s and 1990s (derrida 1982 silverstein 1976). derrida, taking saussurean semiotics as a point of departure (with its emphasis on signifier and signified), viewed the linguistic sign as becoming meaningful through a network of oppositions, which inscribe every concept “in a chain or in a system within which it refers to the other, to other concepts, by means of the systematic play of differences” (1982, 11). michael silverstein, taking peircean semiotics as a baseline—with its trichotomies of sign, object, and interpretant; icon, index and symbol2—theorized indexicality as a key process in the creation of social relationships through language. in a critique of structural linguistics and its prioritization of semantics, silverstein (1976) noted that “the sign modes of most of what goes on in the majority of speech events are not referential” (15). examining indexicality for both its contextpresupposing and entailing aspects, silverstein showed how people in conversation creatively deploy non-denotational aspects of language to create interactional (relational) flows (silverstein 1993, 36; silverstein 2003).3 while philosophers and anthropological linguists critiqued structural linguistics, edward said’s orientalism (1978) critiqued the larger-scale issues of colonial power and the west’s orientalist representation of the middle east. postcolonial deconstruction of the binary of the occidental and the oriental and its critique of the colonial history of domination, 193 ingrid monson conquest, and racism became central to thinking about the imbalance of power on a global scale. through the idea of the interstitial, homi bhabha, another theorist of the postcolonial, questioned binaries and fixity: “what must be mapped as a new international space of discontinuous historical realities is, in fact, the problem of signifying the interstitial passages and processes of cultural difference that are inscribed in the ‘in-between,’ in the temporal break-up that weaves the ‘global’ text” (1994, 310). foucault (1972) also moved beyond the local semiotic scale to theorize larger discourses as “practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (49), that is, as something with greater force and power than language. foucault’s emphasis on biopower in the history of sexuality v. 1 (1978) and discipline and punish (1975) emphasized the importance of controlling the human body as an aspect of power, in some ways linking his work to the emergence of ontological questions at the turn of the twenty-first century. anthropology in the 1980s developed practice theory, which emphasized the relationship between structure and agency in the unfolding of social life. anthropologists sought to understand how structures and systems shaped social actors, while at the same time attending to the transformations that the practices of human actors created in the system. pierre bourdieu (1977) sought to develop an understanding of structures as emerging from human practices rather than the product of obedience to rules. habitus, in his view, distills the regularities resulting from recurrent human interactions and serves to generate types of human practice without “being the product of the orchestrating action of a conductor” (bourdieu 1977, 72). habitus in his definition is “the durably installed generative principle of regulated improvisations” (78). anthony giddens’s structuration theory, central in anthropology’s development of practice theory, argued for a dynamic and recursive relationship between structure and agency where structural properties of systems “are the medium and outcome of the contingently accomplished activities of situated actors” (giddens 1984, 191). existing social structures both enable and constrain the activities of actors, but actors also create transformations of social structures through the intended and unintended consequences of their actions. anthropologists in the 1980s also stressed the role of power in the constitution of social systems, some viewing power as pervasive and deep in the manner of foucault, and others like anthony giddens and james scott viewing the hegemony of power as partial (ortner 2006, 7–8). practice theory has been central to my own work, especially freedom sounds (monson 2007), in which i deployed the ideas of discourse, practice, and structure to explore how musicians and other participants in the 194 current musicology jazz world interacted with and understood the civil rights movement, black power, and african independence. the specific interconnections and actions of particular musicians served as nodal points linking everyday life in the music world to larger changes in politics and aesthetics (monson 2007, 23–26).4 bourdieu, as a leading figure in french anthropology and sociology, has been the target of much criticism. craig calhoun (1993, 71) noted that bourdieu’s sociology tends to presume that practices are always motivated by interest in the accumulation of economic, social, cultural, or symbolic capital and as such actors and their actions are always strategic and self-interested. others have noted that the concept of habitus is too deterministic despite its claims to the contrary (king 2000). the most withering critique, however, has been offered by bruno latour, who viewed the efforts of marxist materialists, interactionists, and bourdieu as not wrong, but “only primitive ways of packaging the bundle of ties that make up the collective. none of them are sufficient to describe the many entanglements of humans and non-humans” (latour 2005, 84). latour, arguing that the social cannot be conceived as some glue holding things together, asserts that sociology should not be the science of the social, but rather the tracing of associations or connections (relations) among heterogeneous elements (latour 2005, 5), as if practice theorists did not trace such associations. although bourdieu is at least mentioned in reassembling the social (latour’s key work outlining actor-network theory) there is no discussion of practice theory or giddens’s concept of duality of structure, both of which were widely known and deeply concerned with how the social and structural emerge through links between human action and its intended and unintended consequences.5 the networks latour proposes in actor-network theory (ant) and the relational, multiply mediated links employed by practice theorists (often conceived as articulations between actors and larger structures [ortner 2006, 2]) are not so different as it may first appear. where latour is original is in claiming agency for objects (latour 2005, 63–86) and its implications for the relationship between humans and non-humans, as well as his emphasis on ontology. a deficit in latour, in my opinion, is his clear lack of interest in questions of power and history.6 bourdieu’s emphasis on bodily hexis and phenomenology as integral to habitus (bourdieu 1977, 87), like foucault’s emphasis on biopower, seems to contain the seeds of the later theoretical turn to the sensorial (howes 2003), the embodied (hahn 2007), and the ontological (gumbrecht 2004). sound studies, with focus on sound, relational listening, and hearing broadly conceived, has been widely embraced by musicologists and ethnomusicologists (sterne 2003; erlmann 2010; stanyek and piekut 2010; born 195 ingrid monson 2012; ochoa gautier 2014). questions of ontology and sensory experience have gained prominence while those of epistemology, meaning, and politics have receded somewhat.7 in addition, relational thinking was extended not only to the relationship between the body and the world, but to the indeterminacy of the mind and its improvisational capacity to navigate the world (edelman 2004; noe 2009). studies of music cognition and perception have stressed the centrality of embodied cognition (iyer 2002, 2016) and the role of auditory and musical perception in creating expectation and anticipation (huron 2006). i view these theoretical streams as linked and potentially compatible through their common emphasis on emergence, changeability, mediation, process, interrelationship, multiplicity, agency, and the explication of the multiple interconnections of ideas, bodies, sensory experience, collectivities, and the natural world. in my graduate teaching i encourage students to discover the resonances between their historical or ethnographic projects and the wide variety of intriguing interpretive ideas available. it makes no sense to choose a theoretical perspective as a point of departure based on its cultural capital (or theoretical fashionability).8 rather, the choice should arise from how well various perspectives enable the author to illuminate what is intriguing and potentially significant about their project. we all enter the scholarly enterprise at a certain historical point in what foucault would call discursive formations. the frameworks scholars encounter first (usually in graduate school) are likely to serve as a point of departure and home base for critical thinking. for me, practice theory, poststructuralism, and postcolonial deconstruction served as my home base. for many of my younger colleagues the most influential discursive formations seem to be latour and actor-network theory (latour 2005), deleuze and guattari (1987), sound studies, and media theory (stanyek and piekut 2010; sterne 2003; rehding, kreutzer, mcmurray, krämer, and moseley 2017). i’m not convinced that these new theories always provide better views of relationality, but they do provide new points of entry for scholars who, in turn, have done impressive work with them. piekut’s (2014) careful explanation of both the strengths and weaknesses of actornetwork theory articulates a similar set of concerns that i do here, but with ant as a home base. my point is to encourage advocates of newer relational perspectives to realize that many of their concerns share links to a longer history of social theoretical thinking. in my view, all theoretical perspectives are partial and incomplete including the argument in this article, and this incompleteness creates the space for critical dialogue. like the practice theory that shaped my training and early career, i am far more interested in what authors do with the theo196 current musicology retical ideas available to them than in arguing that a particular philosophy, critical theory, or type of theoretical question is adequate or superior. assemblage and the anthropology of ethics and morality in mali i have recently finished a book manuscript called the voice of kenedougou about malian xylophonist neba solo (souleymane traoré). my fieldwork in the early 2000s took place during an optimistic and heady moment for mali. it was widely considered among the most successful democracies on the african continent and its musical scene was a strong, if not dominant, presence on the international world music market. three of the most famous international music stars in the 1990s and 2000s were malians— salif keita, ali farka touré, and oumou sangare. if mali’s neighbors and former parts of the historic malian empire are included (senegal and guinea most centrally), two more world music stars must be included— youssou n’dour and baba maal. neba solo’s virtuosity and innovation on the senufo balafon made him a national star in mali after the release of the album can 2002 (2001). bamako’s recording studios attracted many western musicians (bela fleck, roswell rudd, dee dee bridgewater, hank jones) who were interested in collaborating with malian artists, and international music festivals such as the festival sur le niger and the festival of the desert drew thousands of international tourists. many malians expressed optimism for the development of mali, but it all came crashing down after a coup d’etat in 2012 that deposed president amadou toumani touré, who was accused of corruption and failure to resolve tensions with the independence-seeking tuareg in northern mali. two weeks after the coup, a coalition of tuareg groups and islamist groups took control of the northern two-thirds of mali and held it until january 2013. the headiness of the 2000s has yet to return. to participate in music in mali is to enter a world of songs laden with exhortations to be a good person, to live up to idealized mande values such as hɔrɔnya (nobility), danbe (dignity), tilennenya (integrity), and hinε (compassion). mɔgɔya, the mande conception of personhood, emphasizes the importance of understanding human relationships and caring for family, neighbors, and community. mali, like many other african countries and cultures, has stressed “wealth in people” (guyer 1993; miers and kopytof 1977) over material wealth in its understanding of what it is to be a good person. ryan skinner’s excellent bamako sounds talks about music as “a privileged mode of moral expression in bamako today” which enacts a “situated, value-inflected” set of encounters he calls an “afropolitan ethics” (2015, 1). he follows achille mbembe’s concept as developed in sortir de la grande 197 ingrid monson nuit (2010). skinner describes the lives of urban musicians and their attempts to be both global and local, as well as their navigation of mande and islamic ethics. achille mbembe defines afropolitanism as “the awareness of this imbrication of here and elsewhere, the presence of the elsewhere in the here and vice versa, this relativization of roots and primary belongings and a way of embracing, fully cognizant of origins, the foreign, the strange, and the distant’ ” (quoted in skinner 2015, 1). by comparison, the story i tell about neba solo, a senufo balafonist from sikasso, mali, the capital of mali’s agricultural heartland, might be called “agropolitan,” since it navigates the cultural distance between rural and the urban, as well as mali and the global market. the senufo are first and foremost farmers, whose most esteemed mythical figure is the hero cultivator. they are not considered to be a mande ethnic group, as their language is part of the gur branch of the niger congo languages, while the mande languages are not. more importantly, since the senufo and their near relatives, the minyanka, converted to islam at a much later date than mande groups such as malinke and mandinka, the senufo have been considered to be less muslim and, hence, less respectable than their mande neighbors—with the exception of the bamana, who have also been considered to be less than fully muslim. indeed, historian brian peterson (2011) notes that many people in southeastern mali used the words bamana and senufo interchangeably to refer to people who have not embraced islam— in other words, as a religious rather than ethnic or linguistic marker. throughout my research i had difficulty making sense of the boundaries between mande, senufo, and islam as so many things seemed to overlap. i learned that i was partially battling the colonial categorization of ethnic groups as mutually exclusive and an anthropological presumption that the animist power associations such as kɔmɔ, wara, and korεduga were always ethnically mande (gagliardi 2010). my senufo interlocutors noted that their villages too had these power associations and forms of divination, which coexisted with senufo associations and ritual practice not shared by mande groups. they also described their simultaneous practice of senufo, mande, and islamic cultural practices as parallelism. i struggled with how to think about their navigation of these multiple cultural arenas. words such as hybridity, syncretism, and cosmopolitanism didn’t fully resonate, as the centrality of ethical and moral exhortations in these three cultural categories is absent. about that time i encountered jarrett zigon’s (2014) work advocating an assemblage theory of ethics and morality, and it immediately resonated with what i saw in my ethnographic and historical materials. zigon’s assemblage theory of morality and ethics calls for the relational 198 current musicology la ilaha illallah muhammadura rasulu i-lah (arabic) jabaru masa dale masa (bamana) ko bɛ gundo dɔnbaga ye ala ye ni ye duniya sofa nafolo la don dɔ i be taa ka duniya to ni ye duniya sofa villaw la don dɔ i be taa ka duniya to ni ye duniya sofa musow la don dɔ i be taa ka duniya to . . . . . .  ka n’i wasɔ fangantan lu la k’i ele ye waritigi ye duniya na ala min ye ele ke waritigi ye o ala kelen b’i se k’i kɛ fantan ye i miiri o la e kana yada, yada ka n’i waso denwtan n'u la k’i ele ye dentigi ye duniya na ala min ye i ele kɛ dentigi o o ala kelen be se k’i ke dentanya ye i miiri o la e kana yada yada . . . . . .  sɔrɔ sabu bɛ ala le fɛ ala k’an son sababu ɲuman na kɛnɛya ɲuman sababu ala de fɛ ala k’an son sababu ɲuman na there is only one god mohammed is his messenger king jabar, king of creation the knower of all secrets is ala if you spend our life amassing wealth one day you will leave this world if you spend your life building villas one day you will leave this world if you spend your life chasing women one day you will leave this world do not show off among poor people that you have money and riches in this life god is the one who you made you rich ala can also make you poor think about that do not be arrogant do not boast among those who are childless that you have children in this world god is the one who gave you children god can also make you childless think about that do not be arrogant the cause of providence is god may god give us a good fortune the reason for good health is god may god provide us with good fortune figure 1: sababu, excerpted lyrics. neba solo (2008). construction of ethics and morality through social relationships characterized by attunement and fidelity. zigon, of course, took the idea of assemblage from deleuze and guattari (1988), who argue that assemblages are characterized by relationships of exteriority in which the parts may interact with things outside of the whole. in other words, says zigon quoting manuel delanda (2006, 10), “a component part of an assemblage may be detached from it and plugged into a different assemblage in which its interactions are different.” wholes, in this view are contingent rather than necessary consequences of the parts, and can undergo processes which either stabilize (territorialize) or destabilize (deterritorialize) their internal consistency and power over time (delanda 2006, 12). 199 ingrid monson these ideas immediately brought a song to mind—neba solo’s sababu, which in its instrumental and textual parts layers together aural signs of senufo and mande animist practices, as well as a normative muslim lyric. the bala part incorporates a senufo melo-rhythmic pattern (ncintoigre) called ceefee ŋminike, which is associated with divination and the moment of animal sacrifice in traditional senufo rituals. neba solo’s camouflaged rendition of this sacred melody in the bala parts is likely recognizable only to senufo; the rattle part (sn: cinkaŋkuke) on the first two beats of every four also refers to divination, but to divination as it is practiced throughout mali by many ethnic groups, not only by the senufo. although the aural signs of traditionally african forms of spirituality suffuse the musical texture, the lyrics begin with the shahada (the muslim profession of faith) sung in arabic. “la ilaha illallah, muhammadura rasulu i-lah” (there is only one god. mohammed is his messenger), followed by ethical exhortations consistent with both muslim perspectives and mande and senufo ethical values. the idea of the coexistence of senufo, mande, and muslim sensibilities as an assemblage that need not form a coherent and stable whole seemed to describe what i was observing in sikasso. the fit with the philosophical concept is not complete because the assemblage of perspectives—senufo, mande, and muslim—cannot be completely non-hierarchical in the situated social and cultural world of contemporary mali. in terms of power and cultural prestige, islamic ethics come first, mande ethical principles are second, and the senufo come last. although assemblage describes the fluidity with which individuals navigate the cultural landscape (their social practice pace practice theory) and the equal importance many attach to the contrasting cultural perspectives, its differently empowered components cannot fit the deleuzian desiderata of non-hierarchy, and consequently shows a limit in applying this abstract philosophical principle to an actual situated social and historical example. zigon argues that an assemblage concept of moral and ethical behavior provides a means for understanding moral experience that includes partial connections and disjunctions among seemingly incompatible positions as they are used to construct and maintain affective relationships. in his view “morality and ethics need not necessarily be conceived in terms of judging, evaluating, and enacting the good or the right, but instead to be about the making, remaking, and maintenance of relationships” (zigon 2014, 21). my interest in the concept of assemblage to describe the relational combination of ethical practices i’ve observed in sikasso and its surrounding countryside lies in its ability to think of the parallel practices of islamic and traditional ethics as something other than hypocrisy or ethical compro200 current musicology mise. indeed, in my view the heterogeneity of perspectives in daily practice are generative of the tolerance that so many malians prize in their cultural life, and which has been under attack by the more islamist perspectives that have grown since the coup d’etat. the literature on the anthropology of ethics and morality, however, is not only concerned with interpersonal processes of ethical assessment, but also with everyday ethics as a component of social and political action. michael lambek’s book ordinary ethics (2010) argues that anthropological concern with structure, power, and strategic action has often obscured the centrality of ethical judgement in the living of everyday life. like other theoreticians of anthropological ethics such as james laidlaw (2010), lambek argues against the idea of morals as first principles that must be obeyed, and for a conception of ethics as action resulting from the exercise of situated ethical judgement, that is, for ethics as a kind of situated practice. both lambek and laidlaw are interested, however, in moving beyond bourdieuian practice theory, in which everything done by actors is presumed to be strategic—in service of empowerment, or the accumulation of various kinds of capital—social, economic, or cultural. for lambek, practices have both external and internal dimensions, both interested and disinterested motivations, not captured by practice theory (2010, 22). laidlaw argues that practice theory’s presumption of individual agency is far too limited to describe how agency and the assessment of moral responsibility operate. in his view they are aspects of the “situations in which people may find themselves” (laidlaw 2010, 147), which extend beyond the individual. in so doing, he makes one of the more compelling arguments i’ve seen for latour’s idea that agency extends to things and social configurations that embed the person in a set of relations. as one example, he offers the moral responsibility attributed to a person as the result of property they own. for example, a vase knocked out of a window by a gust of wind that causes injury to a passerby on which it lands. the owner is held responsible, even though nothing in her individual action caused the event (laidlaw 2010, 151). laidlaw notes that practice theory’s attempts to reconcile structure and agency is not dissimilar to the moral philosopher’s attempt to reconcile determinism and free will (154). that reconciliation, in his view, requires a third term, in which ethical responsibility is assessed relationally, as the product of acts that may be the product of a network of agencies of various kinds (including those of things, law, and statistics). he belabors this point to emphasize that the moral and ethical are not simply located inside individuals. laidlaw, in other words, is interested in a kind of distributed agency (laidlaw 2010, 153). practice theory advocates might counter that laidlaw is simply de201 ingrid monson scribing aspects of structure that practice theory analysts have often used to temper a fetishized concept of individual agency. but i find something new in laidlaw’s position that helps me to think about the sense of collective responsibility or guilt, shame, and embarrassment that many of us feel, for example, about the rise of donald trump. we may not be individually responsible for his election, as most of us in universities did not vote for him, but our sense of membership in the group comprised of citizens of the united states, makes many of us feel tainted as well as outraged by the state of affairs. in mali, similar feelings of outrage and shame have arisen in the wake of the coup d’etat in 2012, and the state of perpetual crisis that has predominated ever since. during the first months of the trump administration, as i was feverishly working on my book about neba solo, i often found myself comparing us headlines about trump’s latest ethical outrage to those in mali after the coup d’etat. the common thread in these expressions of moral and ethical discourse is the feeling that something fundamental to the society’s sense of itself has been outrageously violated. in mali, the outrage has been directed at other malians, who have failed to live up to the ethical values of maliba (great mali). in the united states, the hateful expression of racism and prejudice toward african americans, immigrants, muslims, women, make many of us who are white feel a special (distributed) responsibility for reproduction of structural white supremacy in generation after generation. regardless of our individual merits, white americans will certainly be held accountable for their response to this particularly ugly moment of racist backlash. to address the persistence of racially based hierarchies in american history seems to require balancing relational analytical understandings against the tenacity of structural inequality. we must remember that no matter how relationally social structures are created and reproduced, no matter how contingent or fluid is their stability, structures (institutional, policy, law, economics) change much more slowly than practices or discourses.9 sociological statistics on racial disparity in income inequality, wealth, and education in the united states make this manifestly apparent.10 social structure and power are not simply abstract concepts that have carried too much explanatory weight in sociological thinking (pace latour), but rather real forces that have left their imprint on human lives. what social scientists have had to say about them is deeply relevant to socially engaged musical studies. conclusion in the voice of kenedougou i’ve made use of the concept of assemblage to help me describe a flexible theoretical practice, which has enabled me to find many reasonable paths through interdisciplinary interpretive ideas, 202 current musicology whether from philosophy, anthropology, ethnomusicology, or musicology. i’ve shown how i’ve applied an anthropological idea of ethics and morality as assemblage to my own work and made it stronger. i am not, however, embracing the entire philosophical perspective of deleuze and guattari. the idea of assemblage, as georgina born (2012) has argued, has many felicitous possibilities for discussing improvisational music such as jazz, but that does not mean that deleuze and guattari’s discussion of music isn’t often highly problematic. both michael gallope (2010) and martin scherzinger (2010) note deleuze and guattari’s overreliance on european high modernist works and composers (especially boulez) as exemplary of their philosophical desiderata of deterritorialization (gallope 2010, 95). gallope argues that there are two philosophies of music in deleuze and that the far more compelling one is the metaphysical (almost utopian) idea of the refrain, with its bubbling mixtures and life-affirming embrace (2010, 87). i’m intrigued by the critique of the hegelian dialectic—which argues that the thesis-antithesis-sublation in its inner workings is inherently negative (deleuze and guattari 1988, 3, 5; colebrook 2002, 50)—but not satisfied with the solution, at least with respect to my own work. a very abstract idea of becoming emerging from difference takes the dialectic’s oppositional place. it is meant to affirm the constant forward flow of life and has an almost religious quality in striving for continuous becoming (virtuality, potentiality), which takes us beyond the only human (colebrook 2002, 129, 146; deleuze and guattari 1987, 232–309). the eurocentrism in the thinking arrives when the exemplary artworks cited as approaching true becoming are all european high modernist works.11 in this deleuze and guattari are not unlike adorno. both argue for the philosophical loftiness of music; both view the technical qualities of music as being critical to their philosophical significance; both idealize the likely unreachable utopian possibilities of music whose best exemplars are high modernist european music.12 yet one philosopher arrives at his position through an emphatic embrace of dialectics and the other through its critique.13 inconsistent philosophies, in other words, can sometimes arrive at similar points of convergence. my path to theoretical eclecticism has arisen partially from such conceptual ironies. the creation of theoretical assemblages (what eclectics do) selects relevant parts of a wide variety of perspectives and develops them for application to an author’s specific empirical project, which may, in turn, generate new ideas and assemblages. in my extremely interdisciplinary field of ethnomusicology, this is precisely what so many of my colleagues do: become their own eclectic sort of cultural and critical theorist in dialogue with their research interlocutors and the specific cultural and social situa203 ingrid monson tions in which these interlocutors live. here i reveal my field’s and my own bias towards empirical socially grounded work. eclecticism, in philosophy, often leads to the charge of conceptual inconsistency, but it is apparent to anyone reading philosophical literature that pointing out inconsistencies and contradictions is one of the primary activities of philosophical writing! the philosophical project of creating wholly consistent original conceptual frameworks often leads to finely parsing extremely abstract ideas in order for an author to distinguish his or her view from all others. although arguments frequently echo one another, they often do so without citation—to me a striking feature of philosophical writing. rather than stress the connections and overlaps with other ideas in philosophy, attending to the unique trajectory of the whole argument seems preferred. in my more eclectic view, theories, like bakhtin’s discourse in the novel, are often dialogic (relational). an idea enters a dialogically agitated and tension-filled environment of alien words, value judgments and accents, weaves in and out of complex interrelationships, merges with some, recoils from others, intersects with yet a third group: and all this may crucially shape discourse, may leave a trace in all its semantic layers, may complicate its expression and influence its entire stylistic profile. (bakhtin 1981, 276) the process of finding the analytic frameworks appropriate to an author’s empirically based musical research project can be very much like this rough and tumble process. eclecticism works, in my view, because, as bakhtin has also noted, “the word in language is half someone else’s” (bakhtin 1981, 293). notes 1. the following book titles provide some evidence of the high profile of the term “relationality” in academic writing: ganguly (2008), lejano (2017), myhre (2016), berger (2017), and bottero (2009). 2. on peircian trichotomies and music see turino (1999). 3. keith sawyer (1996, 276–279) and i (monson 1996, 185–191) applied this idea to jazz improvisation. 4. i have not mentioned cultural studies in this summary, but the works of stuart hall, paul gilroy and others are certainly relevant. i explain my view that cultural studies was presaged by african american writers such as w. e. b. du bois and amiri baraka in freedom sounds (monson 2007, 20–22). 5. latour does mention both bourdieu and giddens more positively in a footnote where both are praised for their “clever attempts” (latour 2005, 169n218). nevertheless, the omission of giddens, bourdieu, and foucault in latour’s account of the social leaves readers familiar with this literature with the impression that in the interest of proclaiming a new 204 current musicology theory, latour has failed to acknowledge the overlap of his ideas with those of his most prominent predecessors. here the proclamation of a new theory begins to resemble plagiarism. 6. latour argues that deploying words like power, structure, and context are too often deployed as explanatory causes for large numbers of potentially unrelated things, whereas ant requires demonstrating the presence of these forces in each network (latour 2005, 22, 53, 58). 7. hans gumbrecht (2004) famously argued against the questions of meaning that were then dominant in interdisciplinaryliterature. there are clearly works in ethnomusicology with a strong ontological and sensory orientation that engage substantially with political questions (ochoa 2014, meintjes 2017, and weidman 2006), but there are other writers explicitly questioning the prominence of politics and resistance in work on music (steingo 2016). 8. bourdieu’s essay “forms of capital” (1986) developed the concept of cultural and social capital. 9. a longer treatment of structure can be found in monson (2007, 25–26). 10. some examples include soss, fording and schram (2011), bobo (2004), and stiglitz (2012). 11. the musical references can be found primarily in chapters ten and fourteen of deleuze and guattari’s a thousand plateaus (1987). 12. my thinking on adorno is based on paddison (2004). my position on deleuze and guattari on music is based on gallope (2010) and scherzinger (2010). 13. the articulation of an abstract ideal that can be approached asymptotically, but never reached reminds me of paddison’s (2004) discussion of failure in adorno. the irony of 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classical, voicing the modern: the postcolonial politics of music in south india. durham: duke university press, 2006. zigon, jarrett. 2014. “attunement and fidelity: two ontological conditions for morally being-in-the-world.” ethos 42 (1): 16–30. current musicology 105 (fall 2019) © 2019 parr. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 56 wagnerian singing and the limits of vocal pedagogy sean m. parr wagner singing is [a] special kind of way of singing. their voices were adapted in a special way to this wagnerian singing.1 —nicolai gedda, tenor even with exemplary discipline, every singer faces a vocal crisis at some point in her career. most of us have several. i needed to take a few weeks off and realign my voice after my debut as eva in wagner’s die meistersinger at bayreuth.2 — renée fleming, soprano i begin with the words of two of opera’s most musically and technically reliable singers, both of whom highlight the problem of singing wagner. in spite (or perhaps because of) their masterful vocalism, they decided that singing wagner once was enough. nicolai gedda (1925–2017), one of the most versatile and recorded tenors of the twentieth century, sang the title role in wagner’s lohengrin for only one—highly acclaimed—performance. after that january 1966 performance at the stockholm opera, he declined offers to sing wagner, preferring instead to perform lighter and more lyric roles for the remainder of his substantial career. that decision may have ensured his astonishing vocal longevity; gedda performed into his late seventies. renée fleming (b. 1959) took time off from performing to retool her singing with her voice teacher after performing wagner’s eva at the 1996 bayreuth festival. fleming experienced what she thought of as a vocal crisis after those bayreuth performances, despite a thorough preparation grounded in a keen awareness “that there were no ‘wagnerian’ singers when this music was composed” (fleming 2004, 148). fleming concluded that singing eva “was not right. the part is too low for me. projecting all those german words in the middle of my voice over a thick orchestra was difficult. i’m not saying no to other wagner, but i won’t do that role again” (tommasini 1997). in fact, fleming never again performed that repertory, preferring instead to concentrate on full lyric soprano roles, in operas by mozart, strauss, handel, and massenet, among others. gedda and fleming’s “one and done” experiences with wagner speak to several of the issues that wagnerian singing poses to modern vocal 57 sean m. parr pedagogy: expectations of extreme vocal volume and penetrating power; clearly articulated and projected german diction at a mid-range vocal tessitura; lengthy and repeated tests of vocal stamina; the consequences of sustained, heavy singing on vocal health; and the problem of vocal categorization — determining whether certain individual voices can or should sing wagner. can a singer adapt her voice to overcome these challenges or even change her fundamental voice type? and, if so, how can a vocal pedagogue facilitate this? in addressing these questions, this essay explores how singing became “wagnerian” after wagner’s death in 1883. in investigating how operatic vocalism adapted to these challenges, i both demonstrate that the “work” of the operatic singer involves much more than having “a voice,” and i open up a new space for considering wagnerian singing, a topic that karen henson suggests has been “extraordinarily neglected” in scholarly literature (2015, 211). more generally, i also build on recent scholarship that has begun to explore the voice in all its material realities and pedagogy as a crucial site of the construction of sonic ideals. as martha feldman has theorized, “voice is at its most characteristic when it sounds” and is a “material phenomenon” (2015, 658-659). in the teaching of western classical singing, as nina sun eidsheim has observed, vocal pedagogy is mandated to naturalize certain sounds, and therefore to encourage a method of singing in which “vocal labor [is] required to maintain a piece’s identity and status” (2015, 133). for the purposes of this essay, the vocal labor in question is of a herculean nature—to perform one of wagner’s heroic roles, and to sound “wagnerian,” that is, to sound like a held. the singer’s sound and the effort exerted must overcome the adversity of the musical task (with great volume, highly articulated diction, vocal stamina, and penetrating power), thus matching the heroic ideology explicit in wagner’s works. for as barry millington mused, the “wagnerian” label always carries with it the weight of the composer’s heroic aesthetic (and political) ideology.3 schools of singing wagner a truism of singing wagner, succinctly articulated by jens malte fischer, is that the composer’s vocal writing demands large voices, which “without question are necessary” (1992, 525). what it means to have a “large” voice is of course up for debate, but what the adjective implies is a certain ideal sonority for singing wagner, an ideal that is suggestive of eidsheim’s notion of a “figure of sound,” a specific construct that refers to a naturalized listening practice and the aural perception of the listener in that mode.⁴ the wagnerian sound is loud and penetrating, perhaps overwhelmingly so. this sound rings impressively in the opera house, but in a smaller space the 58 current musicology sound can overwhelm. i recall sitting in on one of my father’s voice lessons with a wagnerian tenor, louis roney, and experiencing that compulsion to flee, the room being too small to diffuse the intensity of the vocalism. the shockingly sonorous, outsized quality of wagnerian singing belongs to what has become an international school of singing, in which singers focus on cultivating a thoroughly penetrating, idealized sound. this sonority-based school stands in opposition to the bayreuth school, an approach based on the ideals espoused by cosima wagner when she held sway as director of the bayreuth festival (1886-1906), begun after a period of mourning her husband’s death in 1883. cosima founded this school in 1892 with the choral conductor julius kniese (1848–1905) and jointly they prioritized clarity of text declamation over what ernest newman and fischer have claimed was richard wagner’s original intention: a german bel canto school of singing. cosima feared bel canto singing and rejected it as a “term of abuse” (newman 1976, 453 and fischer 1992, 529–530). unlike his wife, wagner apparently felt more positive, or at least ambivalent, about the italian bel canto school of singing, the school today regarded as the healthiest vocal method for singers. although he thought little of singers who blithely brought their italian bel canto style to german operatic singing, wagner admired the melodic writing of bellini in particular, and idealized the vocal beauty of josef tichatschek, the bel canto-trained tenor who created the title roles in wagner’s rienzi and tannhaüser (fischer 1992, 527-529).5 nevertheless, together, cosima and kniese taught and coached singers at bayreuth to focus on speech over song, what later became known as sprechgesang (“speech-song”). in attempting to satisfy the desire for clarity of diction, many singers developed a penchant for spitting consonants so intensely (konsonanten-spuckerei) that they were condemned for barking instead of singing their vocal lines. the “bayreuth bark” as it became known, was a symptom of vocal deterioration, a voice pushed to its limits in an effort to satisfy cosima’s conviction that text be more spoken than sung (spotts 1994, 99). cosima presumably took this directive from her husband’s preference that some operatic moments be more declaimed than sung, a preference drawn from the theatrical performances of his soprano muse, wilhelmine schröder-devrient, who created wagner’s senta and venus, and who helped shape wagner’s idea of sprechgesang when she occasionally abandoned singing tone for dramatic effect (fischer 1992, 527).6 david breckbill has argued for a more complicated history of singing wagner in cosima’s reign as bayreuth director, stating that the recorded evidence yields a greater variety of approaches to singing style, while also displaying generally “ugly vocalism” (1992, 363).7 still, whether following 59 sean m. parr the bayreuth or the international school of singing at the turn of the century, all wagnerian singers sought loudness. and in doing so, they turned to vocal pedagogues who could help them learn techniques involving not ideas of resonance or phonation, but the disciplining of the breathing body. breathing for singing many of the revolutions in operatic singing over the course of the nineteenth century resulted from demands for increasing loudness on the operatic stage, a concern observed by many including hector berlioz, who saw that singers impressed audiences more often when they sang more loudly and by sheer sonority rather than by sweet, soft tones or embellishments and agility (1994, 69–70). scholarship in the past ten years has begun to explore the nineteenth-century shift toward a vocal technique that emphasized a lower laryngeal position, what manuel garcia ii called voix sombrée and the italians call voce di petto.8 this laryngeal position allowed singers to carry the power of the chest voice or speech-like sound higher and louder. breathing techniques have been less explored, yet they may have had an even greater effect on singers’ volume and stamina than the change in laryngeal position. there is indeed something special about the way opera singers breathe, leading singers today to liken operatic vocalism to olympic athleticism. such an analogy is worth consideration, especially in light of examples such as novak djokovic, who, before becoming the top-ranked tennis player in the world, worked with an opera singer to improve his breathing. to the audience, an opera singer’s breath can appear inscrutable, mysterious, even magical. but breath management in operatic singing is also magical to the performers themselves; singers often feel that breath supersedes phonation, a feeling that soprano renée fleming has explained: “when i’m singing comfortably, i can actually imagine that my torso and my breath are doing all the work, while my throat is completely relaxed” (2004, 41). in order to demystify the magic of operatic breathing, a simple truth might help: blowing more air, harder and/or faster, yields more volume. in other words, the greater the air pressure, the louder the sound. until the mid-nineteenth-century’s demand for ever-increasing volume, singers’ breathing techniques may have had goals of canto spianato phrasing, or sustained long phrases, or silent inhalation, and a flexible torso, but the techniques then were viewed less as muscular or athletic and more as a technique for vocal finesse than today. and, although one might think that there is a kind of generally accepted, specific breathing technique today for operatic singing, a short viewing of a masterclass given by mezzo-soprano joyce didonato will confirm that the mystery of breathing for singing 60 current musicology is still quite persistent.9 in working with a young tenor, didonato paraphrases vocal pedagogue and breathing expert deborah birnbaum, promoting the image of four tent poles connecting the singer’s lower torso to the ground and “corkscrewing” into the ground with a kind of burrowing force, a breath anchor so to speak. these types of metaphorical explanations for singing techniques seem to echo a problem of the sound-based pedagogical approach explored by eidsheim, whose primary example is the idea of “smelling the rose” on inhalation (2015, 137–138). admittedly, these metaphors often seem too vague to be useful, and eidsheim’s list of examples points to their absurdity. but an insider-reading of them can help to explain their utility. by inhaling as if one is smelling a rose, a singer lifts the soft palate, a physical adjustment that benefits the classical singer in a number of ways, not least of which is beautifying the tone, by increasing the resonance space inside the mouth in a manner analogous to sound expanding in a cathedral. didonato’s exhortation to imagine tentpoles instructs the singer to keep a sense of pressure lower in the torso, maintaining the feeling of torso expansion around the entire waist section. the idea of “corkscrewing” the tent poles is an effort to encourage buoyant breath energy that is constantly moving or spinning (perhaps even implying vocal vibrato), rather than a posture that is tense or rigidly held. there seem to be at least two important aspects of breathing technique for us to unpack then: how the breath is taken (inhalation), and how it is used over the course of a vocal phrase (breath management). historically, as james stark has remarked, disagreement among singers and voice teachers has centered on issues of where inhalation should manifest in the torso: whether clavicular (high chest), intercostal (rib), diaphragmatic (abdominal), and/or dorsal (back) (1999, 91–92). of course, when the lungs expand upon inhalation, so do all of these regions. but singers and pedagogues have long sought to isolate certain expansion areas in order to maximize air capacity, vocal strength, and stamina. in so doing, they have also disagreed over how to manage this high intensity over a long period of time, though there is some consensus that a singer should resist the natural urge to collapse the torso as the body expels air. this resistance can manifest as a sense of using attached muscles to keep the ribcage expanded, a sense crucial to strengthening and increasing air pressure and flow over the course of a phrase. the reader can feel this sensation of expansion by leaning forward in a seated position or by watching the stomach while lying on one’s back—taking a breath in this posture will result in the torso expanding, pushing outward. in a way, there is a certain naturalness to this inhalation—this diaphragmatic breath. yet how a singer manages this breath is much less natural. while vocalizing, the singer attempts to keep 61 sean m. parr that feeling of fullness, of ribcage/belly expansion, and maintain it to the very end of the vocal phrase before ending the sound and breathing again. and it is precisely this mysterious system of breath management that late nineteenth-century singers and pedagogues sought to enhance and codify. breathing belts perhaps most striking is the later nineteenth-century idea of developing musculature to enhance breathing technique, to be able to sing louder and longer without fatigue setting in. interestingly, the quest for greater stamina and volume led to several cases of profound vocal transformation. such cases—sometimes aided by emerging technologies—suggest that one might not only have a voice, but be able to change it, adapt its technique, and create it anew. jean de reszke (1850–1925) did precisely that when he transitioned from baritone to tenor under the tutelage of giovanni sbriglia (1829–1916), an italian tenor and pedagogue influenced by garcia, who settled in paris in 1875. jean de reszke, part of a family of successful opera singers, began studying with sbriglia in 1882.10 after his studies, reszke sang a great variety of roles, and was dubbed a true tenore robusto, capable of great dramatic singing, and he became well known for his heroic, wagnerian roles, including lohengrin, walther, siegfried, and tristan. sbriglia transformed reszke’s voice. while some might say he pushed reszke’s voice upwards, others would say sbriglia helped reszke find his true or natural voice.11 regardless, sbriglia accomplished this by means of muscular training, by tailoring his vocal pedagogy to the athletic potential of the human torso. sbriglia seems to have been an eminently practical teacher who put few of his theories into writing. he was a singer with limited piano and musicianship skills, but his pedagogy yielded impressive results. he insisted on two things: that singers avoid hollow, heady, disconnected high singing in favor of always singing “in the chest”; and that singers hold their chests as high as possible, bringing the chin downward. in teaching his students, he often advocated the use of hand weights and regular exercises to strengthen the torso. his emphasis on a firm, strong, high chest position brought the point of breath support to the bottom of the sternum bone, sbriglia’s point d’appui. he was so insistent on the strength and consistency of this chest support that many of his students wore abdominal belts to aid in supporting the chest (aldrich 1917, 122–123).12 sbriglia used the belt in his teaching to help singers achieve a sense of what we today might call a system of breath management that allows for optimum vocal phonation and stamina. the idea was that a singer could use extrinsic intercostal muscles to brace against the belt, thereby steadying the breath support and 62 current musicology sustaining high air pressure intensity for longer periods of time. the belt gives the singer a concrete sense of something material to push against, to heighten a sense of what the italians have called la lotta vocale, the vocal contest between the natural tendency for the body and ribcage to collapse as air is expelled and the resistance mustered by the singer in opposition to this urge to collapse, using extrinsic muscles to maintain the torso’s expansion. interestingly, when interviewed about how her singing had changed after losing over one hundred pounds after gastric bypass surgery, wagnerian soprano deborah voigt observed that before the procedure, her extra weight had made breath support easy—her body automatically offered resistance, layers of fat against which she could lean for support. after the surgery, voigt had to work harder to achieve a sense of support.13 she now employs fitted corsets in many of her costumes, perhaps in order to have something like a sbriglia belt against which to push. one might argue therefore that sbriglia’s belt served as a kind of technological substitute for added body weight and strength. taken a step further in light of annie holt’s exploration of the blurred lines between costume and body, the belt thus becomes more than part of a costume; it serves a bracing function, becoming part of the singer’s musculature and an extension of the voice.1⁴ regardless of whether this insight helps us understand the sinister “fat lady” operatic stereotype, sbriglia’s techniques emboldened singers to new heights—higher, louder pitches, control over dynamic gradations, longer phrases, and extensive vocal stamina. with his “sbriglia belt,” the tenorpedagogue was able to extend the abilities of many singers, including bass pol plançon, coloratura sibyl sanderson, and especially lilian nordica, who he helped transform from a lyric to a dramatic soprano. and indeed, many remarkable singers from the past century have worn belts and custom-made corsets to assist with their breathing, including lauritz melchior (another pushed-up baritone, in a corset of his own design, figures 1 and 2), kirsten flagstad, placido domingo, franco corelli, and even cecilia bartoli, who has commissioned superstar designer vivienne westwood to construct her specially made corsets for concert performances. 63 sean m. parr figure 1. dresser strapping a corset on heldentenor lauritz melchior, 1944. photo by alfred eisenstaedt, getty images. with this idea of athletic vocal heft, one might wonder about the dangers of such dramatic, high intensity singing—something jean de reszke also pondered, especially because his busy operatic schedule from the 1880s to the early 1900s included lighter french roles, such as faust and roméo, in addition to the more heroic, dramatic ones. reszke admitted that he needed time to recover his mezza-voce after singing heavier wagnerian 64 current musicology roles (klein 1925, 407). this perhaps implies that wagner’s vocal writing fatigues voices and makes light, high, soft singing more difficult, and that wagnerian singing demands much more from the body as a whole than other operatic singing. figure 2. melchior in his dressing room at the metropolitan opera, 1944. photo by alfred eisenstaedt, getty images. wagnerian singing such a notion has also been reiterated by wagnerian soprano par excellence, birgit nilsson, who advocated for very strong breath support and thought that the body’s involvement in singing depended very much on the composer: “another thing is what composer you’re singing and how much you need from body sound. say you sing wagner, you need much more body sound, to feel much more open. to sing strauss…a little between verdi and wagner, a bit in the middle. verdi…a slender sound. wagner needs the most of the body. that is a solid sound you cannot use for verdi” 65 sean m. parr (hines 1982, 199). nilsson seems to imply that singing wagner demands a thicker sound beam than other composers and that the body must be more intensely involved in singing wagner than with verdi or strauss. nilsson could also be implying that wagner requires more breath support, more strength, and, with more bodily engagement, a loud, sustained sound that stays consistently full for long stretches of singing. some of the qualities of wagner’s writing for the voice might help us understand nilsson’s comment on the need for “more body sound.” many of the leading roles are indeed quite lengthy, requiring extreme vocal stamina over the course of the opera. in addition, within many of these roles there are lengthy monologues (fifteen to twenty-five minutes long) that in themselves test vocal endurance. examples include brünnhilde’s immolation from götterdämmerung, lohengrin’s narration and farewell, wotan’s farewell in die walküre, and siegfried’s forging scene in siegfried. and, outside of bayreuth—which, with its uniquely resonant acoustic design, (utilizing only one seating section with all wooden seating and floors, and a partially covered orchestra pit) allows singers to carry over the orchestra more easily — singing over a wagnerian orchestra for an entire evening requires a consistent, ringing tone, certainly no small feat. but, even a minute of wagnerian singing can be imposingly difficult, demanding a vocal surety and fire that does indeed involve this idea of the full body’s sound. to illustrate, i will examine the third and last section of walther’s preislied in order to explore what might be required at this small-scale-level (example 1). this section of the prize song lies at a very high tessitura, mostly in the d-g range, a tessitura that ranges from the middle of a tenor’s passaggio to just above it. the passaggio is a treacherous range for any singer, because it encompasses the middle to middle high range in which singers transition across what pedagogues sometimes call two breaks in the voice, unstable regions where phonation must be carefully coordinated in order to unify vocal registers and negotiate the pitches so that the high range remains accessible. the late nineteenth-century technique to accomplish this was a darkening of the sound, by lowering the larynx. (this is the technique supposedly pioneered by gilbertlouis duprez.). many pedagogical treatises of the second half of the nineteenth century emphasized the importance of a low larynx for vocal stamina, registral unity, and as the gateway to louder, sturdier high notes.15 interestingly, for some voice teachers, breathing technique was essential to maintaining that low position, as i will discuss in a moment. for now, it must suffice to say that in this section of the prize song, the passaggio singing in almost every phrase is consistently treacherous. additionally, 66 current musicology example 1. third strophe of walthe’s prize song from wagner’s die meistersinger von nurnberg (1868). 67 sean m. parr the text setting further complicates the tenor’s task. take, for example, the consonants set on high pitches: “hell” on a high a; “herz,” on a high g; chromatic inflections while singing the words “geboren” and “erkoren;” and then the “sonnen” and “gewonnen” ascending up to high gs, right before the climactic leap to high a on “parnass.” ’l’s, ‘m’s, ‘n’s, and ‘r’s are troublesome consonants for singers because pronouncing them brings the soft palate down, creating a sensation of a ceiling effect on pitch and resonance. singers must consciously re-arc or re-lift the palate after each instance of these consonants or risk going flat and worse, find themselves unable to ascend up to the higher pitches. on top of all of this, the entire section is sung without any moment of relaxation or recovery for the tenor. that is, there is nowhere to rest. each breath must be taken with the next phrase in mind. and indeed, it is the mix of short, medium, and long phrases, combined with the tessitura and lack of rest that makes breathing technique the key to accomplishing this important moment in the opera. it is worth invoking a performance of the piece to see the work of the body in singing this difficult wagnerian moment. take a look at ben heppner’s 1999 or 2006 performance of the preislied.16 watch the tenor’s torso, as he varies his breathing according to the phrases, sometimes taking extra breaths to ensure his stamina, and clipping note values in order to steal micro-seconds of extra recovery time. each breath is quite an event, certainly the primary “work” for this singer. note also the way he shores up his body and sound before singing “die dort geboren…” his preparation for these phrases reveals the importance of vocal pacing, and helps us see the precision of the technique involved. impressively, even with all of the evident vocal labor involved, heppner is able to perform with extreme musicality, so much so that the suavity of the phrasing almost disguises the vocal-technical effort. breath damming what makes heppner’s breathing all the more interesting for the purposes of this essay is that his inhalations are strong, quick, and almost inaudible, even while they clearly are large, athletic breaths. heppner’s breathing technique involves storing a large quantity of air for phonation at a high volume and intensity, without allowing any weakening of air pressure over the course of each phrase. singers need this kind of breath support in order to execute wagnerian phrases reliably, performance after performance. one of the techniques that emerged early in the twentieth century to accomplish this was an aggressive method of “breath damming” called “stauprinzip” by its creator, george armin(1871-1963). armin was an 68 current musicology early twentieth-century voice teacher and a central figure in german vocal pedagogy. his 1909 treatise, das stauprinzip, is often mentioned in opposition to paul bruns’s minimalluft theory, which argued for using the least amount of air possible for phonation. armin, who in a sense argued for a maximalist approach to air pressure, studied voice with baritone august iffert and later with the heldentenor laurits christian tørsleff. curiously, after completing his vocal studies, armin focused on teaching rather than performing.17 armin’s controversial approach to teaching voice polarized the pedagogical community. in his work with singers, he strove to erase what he perceived as inherent binaries in the human voice.18 in general, his approach sought to undo his students’ assumptions about singing and rebuild their voices using stauprinzip as the foundational vocal technique, a technique in which stored breath is dammed against the vocal folds. through the use of this approach, the voice could be unified and could achieve its full sonic potential in terms of power and beauty. singers would focus on an exaggeratedly expanded torso, muscularly held in position, with a particular emphasis on the upper rib cage. they would then use the tongue or a beginning consonant to dam the breath against firmly closed vocal folds. the vocal folds were key to the process since they served as a counterbalance to and a kind of cap on the dammed air. in other words, the dammed air was created through extreme muscular tension and expansion of the chest. armin developed his theory by building on the work of past german vocal pedagogues such as friedrich schmitt (1812–1884), who also recommended maximal expansion of the chest and filling of the lungs. stauprinzip relies on a military-like posture in which the almostrigid lower body girds itself as a bottom dam against the air-filled lungs. armin argued that without stauprinzip, freedom in the laryngeal function was impossible. he observed that beginning students would only detect support in the upper rib cage. as the student progressed, a sense of support developed lower in the body, with the student having a sensation of muscular engagement in the lower back and a lowering and flattening of the diaphragm. the stauprinzip technique builds a kind of vocal athletic strength via the increasing use of high sub-glottal pressure, and it pushes the voice to achieve louder sounds, longer phrases, and a darker tone. a scientific study of a tenor who demonstrated different breathing techniques found that stauprinzip did yield more intense, louder tones, especially in the higher range, but noted that the resulting sound might be considered “heavy,” “labored,” and less buoyant than techniques that relied on lower subglottal pressure (schutte, stark, and miller 2003, 499). a contemporary use of stauprinzip, combined with a depressed tongue 69 sean m. parr (a tongue flattened to aid in keeping the subglottal pressure below the vocal cords) is likely found in tenor jonas kaufmann’s technique. kaufmann began his career experimenting with different vocal techniques and found himself most enthusiastic about the possiblities presented by one of his early voice teachers, josef metternich, a german operatic baritone whose vocal pedagogy embraced stauprinzip. although kaufmann later claimed that his body was not ready at the time for metternich’s technical instruction, he did later re-direct his operatic trajectory, moving from lyric to dramatic tenor repertoire.19 a video recording of him singing siegmund’s “winterstürme” from wagner’s die walküre demonstrates incredibly long phrasing, especially at the end of the aria, when he sings in only one breath the last two soaring phrases that are usually performed in two. the intense subglottal pressure kaufmann exhibits allows for this athletic phrasing display also to be accomplished at a consistently high volume. armin’s breathing technique defined a new german school of singing and became a necessity for some wagnerian singers to ensure the breath control and high volume expected in the opera house. his extension of a muscular, antagonistic breathing technique was the culmination of decades of efforts by german pedagogues to cultivate a national style of singing based on power, heroic ring, and clarity of diction. however, the aggressive nature of the stauprinzip has also been criticized for its potentially damaging effects on singers’ voices, a fear that now applies more broadly to all wagnerian singing. wagnerian failure one of the commonplace fears among singers and wagnerian audiences is the vocal decline of singers who have pushed their voices too far, who have sung too heavily, pushed and shouted too loudly, exceeding the bounds of their natural voices. when singers’ vibratos slow and widen to a vocal wobble or their thrusts into the higher range show such strain that they crack or seem stuck beneath a sonic ceiling with flat intonation, critics and other singers are quick to blame two things: wagner’s difficult vocal writing and the struggling singer for performing beyond his means. when voices fail, we react strongly, as emily wilbourne has observed, explaining the humanness of vocal failure and the stakes of staging it in performance, and as carolyn abbate has described, lowering her head in despair when witnessing ben heppner crack several times in performance.20 the vocal stamina challenges of wagner’s vocal writing for certain leading roles seems indubitably difficult for the singer, so much so that there are customary cuts in some cases, such as portions of the love duet in tristan. the role of tristan in particular is a case in point; it is known as one of the most 70 current musicology strenuous tests of vocal endurance for singers, not least because the role’s first performer, tenor ludwig schnorr von carolsfeld (1836-1865), died at age 29 after just four performances of the opera. his death was quickly mythologized as a symbol of the dangers of singing wagner. even with cuts and various puntature—singers’ adjustments to vocal lines to make them easier to sing—wagnerians are notorious for canceling performances because of vocal indisposition. one recent example was the highly anticipated tristan und isolde of the met’s 2007–2008 season with voigt and heppner as the headline stars, who instead of performing together six times, did so only once, with four(!) different tenors taking on the tristan role in the process. in musical circles, then, the singers themselves are often blamed for vocal failures and cancelations. the eminent twentieth-century pedagogue and tenor, richard miller, who has written some of the most important and erudite books on classical singing, also exemplifies the typical warning to singers who don’t truly have a wagnerian voice but try to cultivate one, stating that they are headed straight for “vocal incineration” (miller 2000, 5). thus, the possibility of greater volume promised by the pioneering breathing techniques examined here simultaneously exposed singers to potential vocal liabilities. heroic singing media theorist and literary scholar, friedrich kittler claimed that breathing is one thing that wagner experts often miss when examining phenomena in text and score. although his realm of inquiry is perhaps more allegorical than mine here, his challenge for us to consider the “facts of physiology” is certainly pertinent, and my essay is inspired in particular by kittler’s assertion that “(t)o awaken in wagner always means to sing. the materiality of musico-dramatic data-streams is based upon the intensity of life in the diaphragm, lung, throat, and mouth. that is why singing is the last and most important metamorphosis of breathing” (kittler 1994, 219). if operatic singing has always seemed somewhat mysterious, special, and specialized, then the historical trajectory i have outlined here has only intensified its difference from other types of singing. in demystifying the breathing of operatic singing, i have suggested that the radical revolutions of nineteenth-century operatic vocalism inform our approach to wagnerian performance today. indeed, to sing wagner after wagner, singers had to do something drastic to enhance their voices, to add more body to the sound, to push their voices louder, longer, and harder. the sbriglia belt and armin’s stauprinzip are two of the most important and striking vocal innovations to have made these enhancements a reality. those techniques focused on breath’s potential to change voices and augment a singer’s vocal 71 sean m. parr abilities. we might therefore see these breathing breakthroughs as examples of singers instrumentalizing their bodies. as the status of the singer transitioned from creator to interpreter over the course of the nineteenth century, composers—wagner especially—instrumentalized singers: singing remained idiomatically vocal, but in service to the composer’s “voice,” the singer became both another “instrument” in the operatic sound world, and a body and a voice-type, rather than an idiosyncratic, individual voice. wagnerian singing and late nineteenth-century breathing techniques ultimately committed the singer to a full-throttle vocalism across operatic repertoire, and signaled, to many, the beginning of heroic singing and, perhaps, the end of bel canto. and while there is some truth that the vocal demands of wagner’s heavier works endangered earlier styles of singing, including bel canto, the demands also pointed to greater potentials in the human voice—that singers can adapt their voices to new repertoires with new technique, transforming from lyric to dramatic, from mezzo to soprano, and from baritone to tenor. the mainstreaming of late nineteenth-century breathing techniques added a sense of athletic training in increasing the “labor” of the singer in developing the voice. instead of wondering whether or not they even “had a voice” with operatic potential, late nineteenthand twentieth-century singers gained a variety of vocal-technical tools with which they could reliably transform their voices. in order to sound heroic, singers had to be heroic, taking considerable risks to re-create and adapt their voices in new ways. notes an early version of this essay was presented at the 2017 national meeting of the american musicological society in rochester, ny where it benefited from the comments and questions of several musicologists in the audience. 1. see gedda, disc 11, track 11. 2. see fleming (2004, 144). 3. this is a theme that runs through millington’s 2012 tome on wagner, the sorcerer of bayreuth. for more on conceptions of the heroic in wagner’s works, see williams 2004. more generally, many scholars have demonstrated that richard wagner’s nationalist ideology permeates his works and cemented the construction of a specifically german musical lineage and an idealized artistic totality and universality. recent seminal scholarship that has deepened our understanding of wagnerian aesthetics and politics includes trippett 2013, berger 2016, fry 2017, and kreuzer 2018. important explorations of wagner’s antisemitism in particular include weiner 1997 and grey 2008. 4. for more on the concept of a “figure of sound,” see chapter 4 of eidsheim, sensing sound. 5. in fact, wagner and his primary vocal coach, julius hey (1832–1909), attempted to found a german bel canto school on more than one occasion, proposing it to his patron ludwig ii 72 current musicology (spencer and millington 1987, 667–669). this school would have focused on a more energized approach to consonants and speech accents so characteristic of the german language and so suitable for dramatic performance. but wagner thought that the school should not sacrifice italian bel canto (fischer 1992, 527). in my larger project on wagnerian singing, i am exploring in greater depth what wagner’s bel canto ideal might actually sound like, but for now it is worth observing how we seem to have deviated rather profoundly from his original intentions. 6. see also rutherford 2000. 7. see also breckbill 2009. 8. see for example, henson 2015, davies 2014, bloch 2007, and potter and sorrell 2014. 9. see joyce didonato, masterclass with the national opera studio, royal opera house, london, 2013 (with nicolas darmanin, tenor): https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=cydjmurxxn4, 10:36–13:20 10. for more on reszke and his career, see chapter 4 of henson 2015. 11. henson, for example, calls reszke a “pushed-up baritone” while the music critic and voice pedagogue herman klein labeled him a “true tenor” citing that composer jules massenet also deemed him a genuine tenor. see henson, 2015,142-43 and klein, 1925, 406. 12. see aldrich 1917. aldrich studied with sbriglia, and was his assistant and accompanist too. he later taught as well. 13. see deborah voigt’s interview with ed pilkington in the guardian (15 february 2015): https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/17/deborah-voigt-soprano-book-call-medebbie-addiction 14. holt 2018 employs thing theory in investigating voigt’s “little black dress” incident and opens up a new space for thinking about the relationship between onstage objects and subjects. 15. baritone and pedagogue, julius stockhausen (1826–1906) emphasized and popularized the importance of maintaining a low laryngeal position, especially for singing more loudly, a priority he associates as being essential for singers in the late nineteenth century. see stockhausen 1884. 16. the gala concert in honor of joseph volpe’s retirement from the metropolitan opera is not available for purchase, but a clip of heppner’s performance can be found here: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1or3btlusy&list=pl-0qm7yk-4upcbf3t0jrsl2bgalec_ sqa&index=9&t=0s (2:50–end). the 1999 performance with the berlin philharmonic, james levine conducting, is available on amazon prime or here: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=iqopa9uagou (3:27–end). 17. armin first taught theatre and recitation in leipzig before moving to berlin in 1904 to continue his teaching. in 1925 he founded a vocal pedagogy association, the gesellschaft für stimmkultur (society for voice culture). he later served as a publisher for der stimmwort, a journal dedicated to vocal pedagogy and he moved to denmark in the 1940s. 18. some examples of these “dualisms” include: armin’s view of onsets (glottal vs. breathy), vowels (bright vs. dark), and registers (head vs. chest). 19. kaufmann’s switch from lyric to dramatic repertoire was aided by the teaching of another baritone pedagogue, michael rhodes. for more on kaufmann’s career trajectory, see thomas voigt 2017. 20. see wilbourne, 2015 and abbate 2004. recorded audiences also demonstrate strong 73 sean m. parr reactions: see the many “epic fail” videos on youtube, one of which, “vocal disasters,” presents operatic vocal failures in succession (ironically beginning with one of gedda’s rare vocal stumbles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fuhn_h4vjw references abbate, carolyn. 2004. “music—drastic or gnostic?” critical inquiry 30: 505-36. aldrich, perley dunn. 1917. “what sbriglia taught and how he taught it.” the etude (february): 122–123. armin, george. 1909. das stauprinzip: oder die lehre von dem dualismus der menschlichen stimme. strassburg: carl bongard. berger, karol. 2016. beyond reason: wagner contra nietzsche. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. berlioz, hector. 1994. the art of music and other essays (à travers chants), trans. and ed. elisabeth csicsery rónay, foreword by jacques barzun, bloomington: indiana university press. bloch, gregory w. 2007. “the pathological voice of gilbert-louis duprez.” cambridge opera journal 19: 11–31. breckbill, david. 1992. “wagner in performance: singing.” in the wagner compendium: a guide to wagner’s life and music. london: thames and hudson, 362–368. ____________. 2009. “cosima wagner’s bayreuth.” in richard wagner and his world, ed. thomas s. grey. princeton and oxford: princeton university press, 435–475. davies, james q. 2014. romantic anatomies of performance. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. eidsheim, nina sun. 2015. sensing sound: singing and listening as vibrational practice. durham, nc: duke university press. feldman, martha (convenor). 2015. “why voice now? colloquy.” in journal of the american musicological society 68 (fall): 653–685. fischer, jens malte. 1992. “sprechgesang or bel canto: toward a history of singing wagner.” trans. michael tanner. in wagner handbook, ed. ulrich müller and peter wapnewski, trans. john deathridge. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 524–546. fleming, renée. 2004. the inner voice: the making of a singer. new york: penguin books. fry, katherine. 2017. “nietzsche’s critique of musical decadence: the case of wagner in historical perspective.” in journal of the royal musical association 142: 137–172. gedda, nicolai. 2010. nicolai gedda: lyric poet of the tenor voice. “interview: singing traditions and schools, and massenet’s werther” [emi records, ltd, asin: b0032700to] grey, thomas s., ed. 2008. the cambridge companion to wagner. cambridge: cambridge university press. henson, karen. 2015. opera acts: singers and performance in the late nineteenth century. cambridge: cambridge university press. hines, jerome. 1982. great singers on great singing. garden city, ny: doubleday. holt, annie. 2018. objectify me: thing theory, deborah voigt and the little black dress. studies in costume & performance, 3: 167-77. kittler, friedrich. 1994. “world-breath: on wagner’s media technology.” in opera through other eyes, ed. david j. levin. stanford, ca: stanford university press, 215–35. klein, herman. 1925. “jean de reszke and marie brema: some reminiscences.” the musical times. may: 405–408. 74 current musicology kreuzer, gundula. 2018. curtain, gong, steam: wagnerian technologies of nineteenthcentury opera. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. miller, richard. 1997. national schools of singing: english, french, german, and italian techniques of singing revisited. lanham, md: scarecrow press. ____________. 2000. training soprano voices. oxford and new york: oxford university press. millington, barry. 2012. the sorcerer of bayreuth: richard wagner, his work and his world. oxford and new york: oxford university press. newman, ernest. 1976 (originally published 1947). the life of richard wagner, volume iv: 1866-1883. new york: cambridge university press. potter, john and neil sorrell. 2014. a history of singing. cambridge: cambridge university press. rutherford, susan a. 2000. “wilhelmine schröder-devrient: wagner’s theatrical muse.” in women, theatre and performance: new histories, new historiographies, ed. maggie b. gale and vivien gardner. manchester, uk: manchester university press, 60–80. schutte, harm k., james a. stark, and donald g. miller. 2003. “change in singing voice production, objectively measured.” in journal of voice 17: 495–501. spencer, stewart and barry millington. 1987. selected letters of richard wagner. new york and london: w.w. norton. spotts, frederic. 1994. bayreuth: a history of the wagner festival. new haven and london: yale university press. stark, james. 1999. bel canto: a history of vocal pedagogy. toronto: university of toronto press. stockhausen, julius. 1884. a method of singing. trans. sophie löwe. london: novello. tommasini, anthony. 1997. “for a wary soprano, slow and steady wins the race.” the new york times (14 september). trippett, david. 2013. wagner’s melodies: aesthetics and materialism in german musical identity. cambridge: cambridge university press. voigt, thomas. 2017. in conversation with jonas kaufmann. london: weidenfeld & nicolson. weiner, marc a. 1995. richard wagner and the anti-semitic imagination. lincoln, ne: university of nebraska press. wilbourne, emily. 2015. “demo’s stutter, subjectivity, and the virtuosity of vocal failure. in the colloquy, ‘why voice now?’ in journal of the american musicological society, 68, 659-63. williams, simon. 2004. wagner and the romantic hero. cambridge: cambridge university press. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 37 the lost movements of ernst toch’s gesprochene musik carmel raz gesprochene musik, by ernst toch (1887–1964), is a forgotten milestone in the history of electronic music.1 a three–movement suite consisting of spoken music for choir, it is one of the few paradigmatic representatives of the genre of gramophonmusik, which made use of prerecorded gramophone discs in a concert setting. the work was premiered in 1930 at a berlin festival devoted to new music, in a concert featuring original works for gramophone playback by two rising stars of the german contemporary music scene, toch and paul hindemith. the pieces were performed only once, yet through the intervention of a young john cage, the score of the third movement of gesprochene musik, the “geographical fugue,” appeared in henry cowell’s journal, new music, five years later. although cage published the piece in the context of a collection of music written expressly for gramophone, his version led the “geographical fugue” to receive a new lease of life as a purely acoustic choral showpiece performed live, which would, ironically, become toch’s most famous work.2 given that there was no further trace of the gramophone discs from the original concert, the first two movements of toch’s suite were long considered lost. however, toch’s original sketches were in fact fortunately preserved at the toch archive at ucla. guided by the composer’s grandson, lawrence weschler, christopher caines rediscovered the sketches for “o–a” and “ta–tam” in 2006, and created the first full edition of gesprochene musik as part of a project he choreographed entitled “worklight.” this was the first complete performance of gesprochene musik since the work’s premiere in 1930. the current essay presents an introduction, contextualization, and analysis of the first two movements of gesprochene musik ahead of the publication of caines’s (2014) preface and edition in the current volume of this journal. in recent years, the origins of the “geographical fugue” have begun to receive scholarly attention. weschler (2003) has written extensively about his grandfather’s life and career, and has produced a humorous report on toch’s encounter with john cage in california in 1935. in capturing sound: how technology has changed music, mark katz (2010, 109–23) has written about the relationship between grammophonmusik in the context of early mechanical music and recovered various contemporaneous theories about the potential of the phonograph and gramophone to transform music 38 current musicology composition. in a previous article (raz 2012), i built on katz’s work in a historical and analytical discussion of toch’s “geographical fugue.” my research contextualized toch’s compositional choices within various artistic, political, and scientific discourses of his age, focusing in particular on the relationship between experimental art and technology, postwar constructions of the body, and the influence of contemporary research on phonetics and sound reproduction. caines’s recent discovery and restoration of the lost movements of gesprochene musik open up exciting new avenues for research on grammophonmusik. the relationship between the musical materials of the new movements and those of the “geographical fugue” can now be explored for the first time. toch’s handwritten notes within the original manuscript further reveal tantalizing hints about the compositional process of the pieces. finally, locating toch’s work within the context of the early days of the donaueschingen festival series, and the contemporary music scene in weimar berlin can enrich our understanding of the interaction between the music, technology, and society of the time. toch, experimental radio, and the contemporary music festival scene born in vienna to a jewish family, toch studied medicine, philosophy, and music in vienna, heidelberg, and frankfurt respectively. as a young composer he achieved significant success, receiving the frankfurt–based mozart prize in 1909 and the mendelssohn stipendium from the city of leipzig in 1910 and 1913. he moved to berlin in 1929, where he composed orchestral works, operas, and incidental music for radio plays, garnering substantial critical and popular success. published by schott, toch’s music was often programmed alongside his contemporaries paul hindemith, igor stravinsky, and arnold schoenberg.3 in 1933, toch fled germany and ended up in hollywood, where he wrote music for films in addition to a substantial body of chamber, solo, and orchestral music. in spite of notable distinctions in the us, including the pulitzer prize for his third symphony in 1956 and a grammy four years later, toch’s career never fully recovered its pre–war momentum; towards the end of his life, he described himself as “the world’s most forgotten composer” (weschler 1996). up until his emigration in 1933, toch was active in the gebrauchsmusik circle, which included figures such as paul hindemith, paul dessau, kurt weill, hanns eisler, and berthold brecht. an especially prolific composer, 39 carmel raz he was repeatedly commissioned by the kammermusik–aufführungen zur förderung zeitgenössischer tonkunst—an annual chamber music festival jointly directed by hindemith, heinrich burkhard, and josef haas that would later become known as neue musik donaueschingen. the festival provided a prominent platform for electronic and mechanical music. as early as 1926, it featured works by hindemith, toch, and the young composer gerhard münch for the automatic welte–mignon– klavier. the same festival saw the presentation of jörg mager’s spärophon, an electronic instrument similar to the theremin, which enabled the production of microtones using difference tones (sounds resulting from the difference between two frequencies).4 hindemith also employed a mechanical organ in his score for the triadisches ballet—a collaboration with painter oskar schlemmer that was considered by many to be the highlight of the festival (see häusler 1996, 90). in 1927, the festival moved to baden–baden, where it was renamed deutsche kammermusik baden–baden. over the next three years, music and technology stood at the forefront of programming: all three events gave substantial attention to the interaction between film and music and featured a number of unusual collaborations, which included new scores to existent cartoons and news segments. these included episodes of the american animated series felix the cat, scored by hindemith, toch, and walter gronostay; the german children’s cartoon die kinderfabrik (the children’s factory) scored by toch for six wind instruments; darius milhaud’s original score for a news segment; paul dessau’s score for the puppet movie der verzauberte wald (the magic forest); and an animated short entitled vormittagsspuk bewegter gegenstände (ghosts before breakfast) scored by hindemith for mechanical piano. the festival also foregrounded chamber music for amateurs, children, and community groups—a cause close to hindemith’s heart, and for which he strongly advocated by forging close partnerships with the baden–württemberg ministry of culture, local youth movements, and important figures in music pedagogy such as fritz jöde. the 1929 production of the deutsche kammermusik baden–baden saw a major coup for the organizers in the addition of a new major body to the festival: the südwestdeutsche rundfunk, or frankfurt radio, which at the time was directed by hindemith’s brother–in–law, hans flesch.5 together with conductor and new music advocate hermann scherchen, the südwestdeutsche rundfunk orchestra participated in two programs while the station provided technical assistance. the emphasis on music for radio provided mixed results in the domain of concert music and radio plays (häusler 1996, 104), but there was one stand–out success: der lindberghflugh, a radio play by bertold 40 current musicology brecht with music, composed by kurt weill and hanns eisler, for tenor, baritone, bass, mixed choir, and orchestra. in an attempt to forefront the role of the listener within the radio play, the piece was presented twice: the first time it was played offstage and broadcast into the concert hall, and the next day it was performed live in the hall, with a selection of “listeners” onstage. the resources of the deutsche kammermusik baden–baden were substantially reduced by the 1929 stock market crash; subsequently, the 1930 festival was moved to berlin where hindemith, burkhard, and flesch were newly based. with the appointment of the interim director of the hochschule für musik, georg schünemann, to the artistic direction committee, the festival found a home at the conservatory, which also featured a new rundfunkversuchsstelle, or experimental radio laboratory. now renamed neue musik berlin, the seventh instantiation of the festival took place in 1930 between july 18 and 21. it was smaller in scale than the events of the preceding years and dedicated only to two genres of music: vocal repertoire for amateurs (laienmusik) and music for radio and gramophone (rundfunk and schallplatte). the former was represented by performances of didactic pieces, or lehrstücke, as well as new works for children and lay choirs, while the latter was explored with the premiere of two radio plays scored for chamber ensemble: hindemith’s sabinchen and paul dessau’s orpheus. hindemith and toch also contributed new compositions for the gramophone, and friedrich trautwein presented in a lecture his newly invented electronic synthesizer, the trautonium. the lecture was followed by a performance on three trautoniums of seven trios composed by hindemith; joining hindemith at the trautonium were his student oskar sala and professor of piano rudolph schmitt. describing the atmosphere of the festival, schünemann compared it to “the character of a professional conference, which, like an industrial laboratory, aims to evaluate artistic, technical and sociological ideas in the domain of music according to their potential usefulness in general musical life” (häusler 1996, 112).6 the materials testing laboratory, with its scientific and industrial context, is an unusual metaphor for a music festival. however, it closely aligns with the gebrauchsmusik ideals of previous festivals as well as with the political and financial exigencies of the times. as schünemann’s statement attests, the gebrauchsmusik composers were eager to carve out a utilitarian purpose for their work, particularly through the pioneering incorporation of new technologies. indeed, both hindemith’s and toch’s compositions for gramophone record exemplify this experimental attitude. hindemith contributed two works for the evening, entitled zwei trickaufnahmen: one consisting of overlaid recordings of himself on the viola and a xylophone–like instrument at different speeds; the other, sub41 carmel raz titled gesange über vier oktaven, was described by willi shuh as an “aria . . . in which the human voice extends to a range of approximately 3 ½ octaves” (quoted in katz 2010, 111).7 composing for gramophone record was a challenging affair. the records themselves were made of various fragile plastic substances that tended to easily scratch and break; in addition, of course, familiar audio editing techniques such as splicing and layering were impossible. the rundfunkversuchsstelle used 78–rpm records that had a diameter of 25 cm and held between 3–5 minutes of music, thus limiting the duration of the compositions. katz surmises that hindemith probably used multiple discs for the different instruments, in something approaching the following process: “for the final version he would have had to play multiple discs–and therefore phonographs–simultaneously . . . in doing so he would have had to stop and start all the machines over and again; poor timing or clumsy movements could ruin the work” (katz 2010, 111). unlike hindemith, toch’s suite was scored exclusively for a speaking choir. the decision to use speech as the raw material for his piece resonated both with the festival’s emphasis on amateur choral music as well as with its dedication to works for experimental radio and new technologies. given that toch and hindemith were both spending time in the rundfunkversuchsstelle, it is extremely likely that they were aware of the exciting developments in vowel synthesis resulting from trautwein’s invention.8 in the words of hindemith’s student, sala: trautwein brought a large transformer and a narrowly packed rotating capacitor with 10,000 picofarad and turned both on in an alternating current (kippschwingkreis). i turned the capacitor and played a few tones. then we suddenly heard vowels as if spoken in a low or middle range, at different pitches. when we changed the capacitor speed, we added a glissando to the tones, we heard “wau–wau” and “miaou.” can you imagine how surprised we were? i suspect that trautwein had imagined something along these lines, but the result surely exceeded his expectations. (oskar sala fonds am deutschen museum, 2013) trautwein used carl stumpf ’s formant theory in order to calculate the necessary frequency ranges for each vowel, and sala notes that when stumpf himself visited the rundfunk versuchsstelle, he was visibly shocked at the trautonium’s ability to produce electronic vowel sounds.9 for trautwein, however, the vowels were only a by–product of the trautonium, a step on the way to synthesizing various instrumental timbres. of course, toch was not the first to realize the idea of treating phonemes as raw material for musical compositions. various nineteenth–century poets had explored the result of stripping poetic forms of their semantic content, 42 current musicology including the nonsense poems of edward lear and lewis carroll, which would later inspire the swiss nonsense poet christian morgenstern. toch was interested in the latter’s work, and set his play egon und emilie: kein familiendrama, for soprano, speaker, and seven wind instruments in 1928, only two years prior to the composition of gesprochene musik. along these lines, toch’s lehrkantate, das wasser, a setting of a text by alfred döblin and a work also commissioned and premiered by neue musik berlin, deserves careful consideration. the premise of das wasser is a conversation between two figures walking along the beach about the nature of water in general, and the sea in particular; a choir and a single speaker serve as neutral commentators. to call the work’s text unusual would be an understatement; with vocal lines such as “zwei komma fünf prozent salz,”10 “wasserstoff und sauerstoff, h zwei o,”11 and even “bei null grad gefriert es, bei hundert grad seidet es, bei neunhundertfunfzig fallen die atome auseindander,”12 the lehrkanate forefronts its didactic message relentlessly. undeterred by the highly technical nature of the text, toch takes a neoclassical approach to das wasser, writing in a modal harmonic language and including familiar forms such as an arietta and fugue. his program notes, published in an issue of the music journal melos dedicated to the festival, offer a glimpse into his compositional approach. toch (1930b) first mentions that he did not select the text; it was given to him with the instruction to compose it ad libitum. he further notes that, in order to use a text, it has to “actually, not metaphorically, ‘sound’ . . . when döblin read the ‘wasser’ to me, it ‘sounded’ to me . . . it had to do with the words, which i can best describe as having an ‘atmosphere’ . . . lying in the naïve, inartificial, often banal language, which affected my musical sense” (221–22). in his program notes, toch also reports that while the closed forms of the music came from the words themselves, the division into movements did not necessarily follow the division of the text. in finding the music within a text as determinedly prosaic as döblin’s poem, it appears that toch relied to a large extent upon the sonic properties of the words. writing a fugue with a text as repetitive as “das wasser, das wasser, was ist das wasser”13 necessitates paying attention to the timbres of consonants, vowels, and alliterations. perhaps this procedure primed him for the challenge of grammophonmusik, which, as we will see, features similar kinds of texts with even less semantic content. although they moved in very different circles, toch may have been familiar with kurt schwitters, an avant–garde artist also based in berlin, who had been publically performing a sound art composition he called the ursonate since 1925. schwitters used nonsense words to convey the 43 carmel raz pure form of a sonata: introducing first and second themes, moving through development sections, ending with codas, etc. toch would take a similar (albeit more sophisticated) approach in gesprochene musik by using various syllables and vowels to depict formal sections and episodes of development. toch’s grammophonmusik toch’s approach to grammophonmusik foregrounds human speech, and all three movements of the piece consist exclusively of spoken text. in the “geographical fugue,” a four–part choir speaks a text consisting primarily of the names of various international locations, adhering to a strict fugal structure. all the customary trappings of the form occur: staggered tasb entry, subject and countersubject, stretto, and a climactic pedal (on the rolled syllable “r”) before the final bars. as we will see, toch’s selection of his musical material, and specifically the type and order of the vowels, reflects the constraints of the gramophone’s recording and playback capabilities. toch was intensely interested in the acoustic properties of speech, which, like music, can be understood in terms of rhythm, pitch, volume, and timbre. approached from this angle, the spoken word provides ideal raw material for musical composition. as toch (1930b, 221–22) explained in the program notes he wrote for the piece, the selection of materials was carefully planned: i chose to [explore] the spoken word, and let a four–part mixed chamber choir speak specifically determined rhythms, vowels, consonants, syllables, and words, which by involving the mechanical possibilities of the recording (increasing the tempo, and the resulting pitch level) created a type of instrumental music, which leads the listener to forget that it originated from speaking. in addition, the technological limitations of the machine served as a fruitful impetus for artistic exploration. upon increasing the playback speed, toch (1930b, 221–22) noted: “only in one respect did the machine unfortunately deceive me: it changed the vowels in a way that i had not foreseen. in two short movements and a ‘geographical fugue,’ i tried to address this problem from different angles.” in my previous article (raz 2012), i explored toch’s solution to this problem in the composition of the “geographical fugue.” analyzing the acoustic properties of the locations featured in the work, i discovered a number of ways in which toch’s selection of words was designed to overcome the effect 44 current musicology of the faster gramophone speed, which caused all of the vowels to sound “higher,” a distortion colloquially known as the chipmunk effect. i will briefly review these here before turning to the two newly discovered movements. the “geographical fugue” consists of the following words: ratibor! und der fluss mississippi und die stadt honolulu und der see titicaca; der popocatepetl liegt nicht in kanada, sondern in mexiko, mexiko, mexiko. kanada, malaga, rimini, brindisi, kanada, malaga, rimini, brindisi. ja! athen, athen, athen, athen, nagasaki, yokohama, nagasaki, yokohama. if we try to reconstruct toch’s criteria for selecting these words, we discover that the overwhelming majority of the syllables in the fugue are open (ending with a vowel), rather than closed (ending with a consonant). furthermore, only a subset of eight vowels (out of the seventeen german monophtongs) appears in the fugue: a, o, i, i, ε, e, u, υ. of these, only the five cardinal vowels appear in the geographic locations in the fugue: a, i, o, ε, and u. these relationships are illustrated in table 1, which tabulates the appearances of each vowel in the text. the column to the far right tabulates vowel pairs, i.e., the frequency with which two vowels follow each other within the same word. as the table shows, the vowels and vowel pairs within words are not randomly distributed. we can employ a familiar linguistic heuristic: the vowel triangle illustrated below in example 1, to analyze the acoustic quality of toch’s vowels. the vowel triangle is an abstract representation of the physical location of vowel production within the mouth, mapped horizontally and vertically. the x–axis (front–back) corresponds to the depth of the mouth: imagine it as a line running parallel from the center of the lips to the uvula. the y–axis (closed–open) corresponds to height within the mouth itself: imagine it as a line running from the nose to the chin. this geometrical representation correlates to the strength of the first two formants in different vowel sounds: the first reflects the horizontal position of the tongue within the mouth and the length of the oral cavity (i.e. the mouth’s elongation through changes in the position of the lips), while the second formant reflects the degree to which the mouth is open or closed as well as the vertical position of the tongue within the mouth. an intuitive way to understand the vocal triangle is to pronounce the cardinal vowels to yourself while paying attention to the physical changes of your mouth and tongue. 45 carmel raz geographic names a=33 i=24 o=12 ε=10 u=2 vowel pairs ratibor mississippi honolulu titicaca popocatepetl kanada mexiko (3) kanada malaga rimini brindisi (2) athen (4) nagasaki yokohama (2) ra ca (3) ka (3) na (5) da (3) ma (4) la (2) ga (4) a (4) sa (2) ha (2) mi (2) ssi (2) si ppi ti (3) xi (3) ri ni brin di bor ho no po (2) ko (5) yo (2) te pe tl then (4) me lu (2) a–i (5) i–o (6) o–u (1) i–a (1) o–a (3) a–e (5) e–i (3) table 1: geographic names, vowel occurrence, and vowel pairs (within the same word) in the “geographical fugue.” example 1: toch’s vowels mapped onto vowel triangle. (adapted from raz 2012.) 46 current musicology example 1 maps the information from the rightmost column of table 1 onto the 2–dimensional vowel triangle. the dotted arrows display the directionality of vowel pairings, taking the ordering of the vowels into account. with two exceptions (“honolulu” and “titicaca”), the ordering of the vowels maintains a consistent clockwise direction. this means that vowel pairings tend to follow a certain order: the mid–front /open vowel (a) is followed by vowels that are more closed and front (e and i), while the closed/front vowel (i), is followed by closed / back vowel (o), which in turn is followed by the mid–front / open vowel (a). moreover, one of the two words that disturb this pattern (“titicaca”), is the subject of a tight canon in which the syllables appear to “right” themselves, as shown in example 2. in raz 2012, i argued that toch takes great care in preserving this order because it maximizes the acoustic difference among the vowels while also generating tacit auditory expectation in the audience, both factors which helped preserve sonic intelligibility in light of the distortion caused by the sped–up recording. example 2: canon of titicaca; soprano and bass, m. 23. (reproduced from raz 2012.) unlike the “geographical fugue,” “o–a,” and “ta–tam”—the first and second movements of grammophonmusik—consist exclusively of nonsense syllables. both pieces are quite short: “o–a” is 43 measures long (including repeats), while “ta–tam” is made up of 34 measures. they feature intricate polyphonic textures, imitations, canons, and various other compositional techniques. both movements also share the metronome marking of quarter–note = 144, which, given the sheer impossibility of performing the piece “live” at this speed, likely refers to the target tempo for the gramophone’s faster setting. the subtitle “kann ev. auch mit soloquartet gem. w.” (can also be performed by a solo quartet) appears at the top of “o–a”; however, this marking can apply only to the first movement, since the second calls for solo parts in addition to the choir. formally, “o–a” invokes a scherzo, presenting a large–scale rounded binary form with sections that can be subdivided to give two further embedded rounded binaries (in the first statement of the scherzo and in the trio). this formal scheme is sketched out in table 2, which also includes the text of each section: 47 carmel raz form measures text intro 1–4 o–a scherzo a 5–12 o–a tirilirili klapp b 13–16 täritiri taritiri täritiri toritiri tŭritiri a 17–20 tirilirili klapp trio c 25–32 hiau äau (hiaua äaua) lala (lalala) iau äau (iaua äaua) gogogo gok d 33–36 klapp eae aoa oio iui uou oao eao iao eao uoe oio aoe klapp ŭoŭ ouo eae aia c' 37–39 iai aia karaba wăp iau äau äau oau klapp coda (scherzo) a 40–43 o–a klapp table 2: the text of the piece is built from these words, some of which are repeated extensively. this list does not reflect repetitions within the piece. making explicit reference to various scherzo conventions, the piece opens with the tenor line prolonging an oscillation between the vowels o and a, which gradually increases in speed from quarters to regular sixteenth notes. the oscillation remains steady throughout measures 5–12 and serves as a pedal point over which the resulting texture is built. the alto line presents the first theme, “tirilirili” (a), using an onomatopoeic word associated with birdsong in german. the soprano and bass accompany with staccato “klapp klapp” interjections, evoking the castanets indicated in the performance instructions, or perhaps even the response of supporting lines in a string quartet. this can be seen in example 3, where toch assigns each voice a distinct vowel range. thus, the pedal is on o–a, the “theme” is on i, while the accompaniment is a. 48 current musicology ° ¢ ° ¢ 1. “o-a” qq = 144 (allegro q = 88 – 104) soprano alto tenor bass 5 soprano alto tenor bass 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 / ∑ for satb chorus kann eventuell mit soloquartett gemacht werden / can optionally be performed by vocal quartet 2) ∑ ∑ 1) / ∑ ∑ ∑ / o f a legatissimo oaoaoao dim. aoaoaoaoaoaoao/ ∑ ∑ ∑ / wie kastagnetten / like castanets klapp p klapp klapp [simile] klapp klapp klapp / li ritirili ritiri wie kastagnetten / like castanets li p klapp 3) klapp ti rili klapp [simile] klapp ti rili klapp klapp ti rili ritirili / o–a ... pp wie ein triller / like a trill o–a ... o–a ... / wie kastagnetten / like castanets klapp p klapp klapp [simile] klapp klapp klapp ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó ‰ œ .j œ .j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ .j œ .j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ææœ ææœ ææœ ææœ ææw ææw ó ‰ œ .j œ .j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó example 3: “o–a” first theme; satb, mm. 5–6. first theme in the alto line; pedal in the tenor. (examples 3–11b are all excerpted from christopher caines’s new edition of gesprochene musik.) the contrasting section (b) of the first binary features predominantly i sounds in a playful exchange of the thematic material from the basses up through the sopranos and back again, as shown in example 4. toch pays careful attention to the vowel progression during the descent in measure 15, carefully scoring each downbeat differently, moving from a to ä to o and ü. the accompanying alto and bass peter out with “ta–ri” and “ti–ri” syllables in measure 16, preparing the repeat of the first theme once more in measures 17–24, with the alternating “tari tiri” accompaniment of measure 16 sustained by the bass and soprano throughout. following a full stop on the last beat of measure 24, the trio section of the piece begins with contrasting musical material. two new motives are introduced: a sequence of i–a–u ä–a–u over a half note and triplets in the alto, and an accompanying dotted figure in the tenor, underscoring the syllables “la–la.” the three– measure phrase is capped by a sixteenth–note “go–go–go gok” motif, which starts in the bass and moves up through the alto and tenor to the soprano in measure 28, as shown in example 5. new material appears in the “d” section (measures 34–3). sixteenth–note triplets with various vowel alternations (e–a–e, a–o–a, o–i–o, i–u–i, etc) alternate with unison statements of “klapp klapp.” measures 37–38 reprise the “c” material, with alternating “klapp” syllables in the inner voices and a new accompanying motif in the bass, “ka–ra–ba wăp,” which is shown in example 7. the piece ends with the inner voices reprising the opening o–a oscillation, before the final measure of the work ends with the “klapp klapp” motif spoken in unison. unlike “o–a,” every syllable in “ta–tam” begins with a consonant, and many of the figurations (unsurprisingly) evoke the onomatopoeic associations of percussion sounds, particularly repeated words like “būm,” “tam,” and “ta.”14 the piece is a march, both in character and in form, with an introduction followed by first, second, third, and fourth strains (the term strain is associated with the successive sections of the march form). the strains and their related material are shown in table 3. 49 carmel raz form measures text intro 1–2 ta tam strain 1 3–10 gobūm gobe gobetigabe gedebe bete katebe tŏn bete katebe ta liti pitipi ti kati potupa tam taratipa tom patapam strain 2 11–18 quato p�tope ta pata bogoto liti pitipi ti gita petogū tŭgita petogū tŭ tagita ta te ti ta strain 3 19–26 tata patata rūtūpe rŭtŭpŭtŭtŭ tŭm taredi būm tätä pätätä tubum strain 4 27–24 koteti patiteti bum ten tapita petapi pŭtope tapitepo tŭ kopete patekite po klan plan table 3: the text of the piece is built from these words, some of which are repeated extensively. the introduction begins with two measures patterned text in the solo tenor line (shown in example 8), followed by strain 1, accompanied by the basses in a pianissimo dynamic. strain 1 relies primarily on the consonants g and b. strain 2 is taken up by the altos, who are accompanied by the tenors and sopranos. each group has a different vowel sound, which helps to differentiate between the parts: the melodic line features primarily the vowel a, the sopranos the vowel i, and the tenors the vowel o. unlike the first strain, the second features primarily open syllables, such as “ta,” “pa,” “bo,” “go,” and “to,” as can be seen in example 9. 50 current musicology ° ¢1 3 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s / ∑ f tä * ri ti ri ta ri ti ri ta ri ti ri tip ri / ∑ tä * f ri ti ri ta ri ti ri täm en o f ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri tipp ri / f tä * ri ti ri ta ri ti ri ∑ to rim f ti ri ∑ / tä ** w it h v er y l it tl e ac ce n t ri ti ri ta ri ti ri ∑ tu— m en o m f ri ti ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ó œ> œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ> œ œ œ œ ó ó œ ‰ œ œ œ> œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ œ> œ œ œ ó ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ó œ> œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ> œ œ œ œ œ> œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó ó œ œ> œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ ex am pl e 4 : “ o –a ” c on tra sti ng se ct io n, “b ” m at er ia l; sa tb , m m . 1 3– 16 . th e m ot if as ce nd s f ro m th e b as s t o so pr an o an d ba ck do wn ag ain . ° ¢ ° ¢2 2 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 2 5 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s / li k la p p k la p p ti ri li k la p p k la p p ti ri li ri ti ri li ri ti ri li k la p p k la p p ti ri li k la p p k la p p ti ri li k la p p / ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri ti ri / k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p k la p p / ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri ta ri / ∑ ∑ ∑ g op g o g o / h i ff a u ä a u i a u ä a u i a u ä a u i a u ä a u i 4 ) g op g o g o g o k 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / lap la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la 4 ) g op g o g o g o k / ∑ ∑ ∑ g op g o g o g o k œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ ó œ ≈ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ‰ œ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ‰ œ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ‰ ≈ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ ó 3 ex am pl e 5 : “ o –a ” t rio se ct io n, “c ” m at er ia l; sa tb , m m . 2 5– 28 . th e t he m e i n th e a lto is ac co m pa ni ed b y t en or . 51 carmel raz ° ¢33 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s / g o k k la p p ff ep a e a o a o i o i u i u o u of a o e k la p p ff k la p p 3 3 3 3 3 / ff k la p p of i k la p p ff u—m f o u— o u— o u— ( k la p p ff ) u—m f o u— o u— o 3 3 3 3 / ff k la p p op(( a o e a o i a o e a o ) of e k la p p ff k la p p 3 3 3 3 / ff k la p p ff u— k la p p ff k la p p œj œj ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ ≈ œ œ œ œr ≈ œj œ ‰ œj œ ‰ œj œ ó ó ‰™ œr œ œr ≈ œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œj œj œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œj œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œr ≈ œj œ ‰ œj œ ‰ œj œ ó ó ˙ > œr ≈ œj œ ‰ œj œ ex am pl e 6 : “ o –a ” e xc er pt fr om “d ” m at er ia l; sa tb , m m . 3 3– 35 . ° ¢ qq = 1 4 4 (a ll eg ro q = 8 8 – 1 0 4 ) 2 . “ t a -t am ” s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 / ∑ 2 ) ∑ f o r s a t b c h o ru s w it h o p ti o n al s o lo is ts ; o r v o ca l q u in te t (s a t b b ) f o r s a t b c h o ru s w it h o p ti o n al s o lo is ts ; o r v o ca l q u in te t (s a t b b ) ∑ ∑ 1 ) / [s ] ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ / p t a ta m ta ta m ta ta m ta ta ta m ta ta m ta ta m ta b ef g o b u m∑ g o b e g o 5 ) b u m∑ g o b e / ∑ ∑ pp[c ] g o b u m∑ g o b e g o 4 ) b u m∑ g o b e ‰™ œ. r œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ‰™ œ. r œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ‰™ œ. r œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ex am pl e 8 : “ ta –t am ” i nt ro du ct io n an d fir st tw o m ea su re s o f s tra in 1 ; t en or an d ba ss , m m . 1 –4 . ° ¢ ° ¢3 3 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 3 6 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s / g o k k la p p ff ep a e a o a o i o i u i u o u of a o e k la p p ff 3 3 3 3 3 / ff k la p p of i k la p p ff u—m f o u— -3 / ff k la p p op(( a o e a o i a o e a o ) of e k la p p ff 3 3 3 3 / ff k la p p ff u— k la p p ff / ip a i a i a i a i a i a ip a u ä 3 3 3 3 3 / ∑ pp k la / ∑ / pp k a ra b a w ap— k a ra b a w ap— k app ra b a w ap— k a ra b a w ap— 3 3 3 3 œj œj ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ ≈ œ œ œ œr ≈ œj œ ‰ œj œ ó ó ‰™ œr œ œr ≈ œj œ œ œ ‰ œj œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œr ≈ œj œ ‰ œj œ ó ó ˙ > œr ≈ œj œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ ó ‰ œ ó œ ‰ œ. œ. œ. œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ œ ‰ œ. œ. œ. œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ ex am pl e 7 : “ o –a ” n ew m ot if ac co m pa ny in g “ c” m at er ia l; ba ss , m . 3 7 (th e fi gu re is re pe at ed in m . 3 8) . 52 current musicology ° ¢ ° ¢1 8 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 1 9 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 3 3 3 / ta g i ta ta g i ta ta g i ta ta g i ta 3 3 3 3 / ∑ / te ti ta te ti ta te ti / ∑ / ta taf[s ] ta p a ta ta p a ta ta p a ta ta p a 3 3 3 3 / ru∑f tu∑ p e ru— tu— p u— tu— tu— tu m — ff ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / tap ru∑f [c ] tu∑ p e ru— tu— p u— tu— tu— tu m — ff ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / ∑ [s ] täf tä p ä tä tä p ä tä tä p ä tä tä 3 3 3 3 / ∑ [c ] ff ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i b u m∑ 3 ta re d i 3 3 3 3 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œj œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œ. j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ œ œ 3 ex am pl e 1 0: “t a– ta m ,” str ain 3 ; s at b( b) , m m . 1 9– 20 . n ot e t ha t t he b as s l in e i s d iv id ed in tw o. ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢ qq = 1 4 4 (a ll eg ro q = 8 8 – 1 0 4 ) e rn st t o ch ( 1 9 3 0 ) 2 . “ t a -t am ” s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 6 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 1 0 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 / ∑ 2 ) ∑ f o r s a t b c h o ru s w it h o p ti o n al s o lo is ts ; o r v o ca l q u in te t (s a t b b ) f o r s a t b c h o ru s w it h o p ti o n al s o lo is ts ; o r v o ca l q u in te t (s a t b b ) ∑ ∑ 1 ) ∑ / [s ] ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ / p t a ta m ta ta m ta ta m ta ta ta m ta ta m ta ta m ta b ef g o b u m∑ g o b e g o 5 ) b u m∑ g o b e g o b e ti g a b e g o b e ti g a 3 3 / ∑ ∑ pp[c ] g o b u m∑ g o b e g o 4 ) b u m∑ g o b e g e d e b e g e d e b e / [c ] p b e te k a te b e ta b e te k a te p e ta k a ti p o tu p a ta m ta ra ti p a ta m ta ra ti p a 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / ∑ [c ] pp li ti p i ti p i ti li ti p i ti p i ti p a ta p am p a ta p am 3 3 3 3 / b e pp [c ] g o b u m∑ g o b e g o b u m∑ g o ∑ b e g o b u m∑ g o b e g o b u m∑ g o p a ta p am p a ta p am / b e te k a te b e to n — ∑ ∑ ∑ 3 3 / ta mœj ‰ œ ó ∑ p li ti p i ti p i ti 3 3 / ó p ‰ q u a to p u∑ œ œ to p e ∑ tam f œ œ œ p a ta œ ≈ œ p a ta œ ≈ œ p a ta œ ≈ œ p a ta œ ≈ œ p a ta p a ta q u a p to p u∑ to p e tam f p a ta p a ta p a ta p a 3 3 / ∑ pp ‰ g o to b o œ. œ. g o to b o œ. œ. œ. g o to b o œ. œ. œ. g o to b o œ. œ. œ. g o to b o g o to b o g o to b o g o to b o g o to b o g o to 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 /[c ]5 ) p‰ q u a to p o œ œ to p e ta œ œ œ œj ‰ œ ∑ ∑ ∑ 3 3 ‰™ œ. r œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ‰™ œ. r œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ ‰™ œ. r œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ˙ œ ≈ œ. œ. œ. j ‰ ‰™ œ. œ. œ. j ‰ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ ‰™ œ œ œj ‰ ‰™ œ œ œj ‰ œj ‰ œ ó ‰™ œ. r œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. œ. ≈ œ. ‰™ œ œ œj ‰ ‰™ œ œ œj ‰ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰ œ ó œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ œ ‰ œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. ex am pl e 9 : “ ta –t am ,” str ain 2 ; s at b, m m . 1 0– 13 . 53 carmel raz ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢2 7 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 3 0 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s 3 2 s o p ra n o a lt o t en o r b as s / ta [c ] p p i ta p e ta p i ta p a ta p i ta p e ta p i ta p i ta p i ta p e ta p i ta p a ta p i ta p e ta p i ta / te n p [c ] te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n / b u m p ta [c ] p i ta p e ta p i ta p a ta p i ta p e ta p i ta p i te n te n te n / ∑ p te n [c ] te n te n te n te n te n te n te n / p i [s ] p u— to p e ta p i te p o tu— / te n te n te n te n p u— [s ] to p e ta p i te p o / ta p i ta p e ta p i ta p a ta p i ta p e ta p i ta p i / te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te n / ∑ k opp p e te p a te k i te p o [c ] k la n ff p la n / tutu— ∑ [c ] k la n ff p la n / [s ] p u—( ) to p e ta p i te p o tu— k opp p e te p a te k i te p o [c ] [c ] k la n ff p la n / [s ] p u—( ) to p e ta p i te p o tu— k opp p e te p a te k i te p o k la n ff p la n ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ. j ‰ œ. j ‰ œ. j ‰ ‰ œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ œ ó œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ œ. j ‰ œ. j ‰ œ. j ‰ œ. j ‰ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ‰ œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ‰ œj œj ‰ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ó ‰ œj œj ‰ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ‰ œj œj ‰ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œj œj œj ‰ 6 ex am pl e 1 1b : “ ta –t am ” e nd in g; sa tb , m m . 3 2– 34 . ° ¢27 s op ra no a lt o t en or b as s / ta [c ] p pi ta pe ta pi ta pa ta pi ta pe ta pi ta pi ta p / te n p [c ] te n te n te n te n te n te n te n te / bu m p ta [c ] pi ta pe ta pi ta pa ta pi ta pe ta pi ta pi / ∑ p te n [c ] te n te n te n te n te n te n te n ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ ‰ œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œr ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œr ≈ ‰ ‰ œ. j œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. œ. j ‰ ex am pl e 1 1a : “ ta –t am ,” be gi nn in g o f s tra in 4 ; s at b, m m . 2 7– 28 . 54 current musicology strain 3 features a mix of solo and choral parts: a single speaker sustains material related to strain 2 (first a soprano with “patata” then a bass speaker with “pätätä”), while the choir altos, tenors, and basses repeat the percussive pattern, “taredibūm.” the fourth and last strain, shown in example 11a, starts softly with a duet in which the melodic line’s delicate “tapita” figure is accompanied with staccato pronunciations of the syllable “ten.” this winds down to pp with a series of imitations between various parts in the choir. the march ends with a sudden brash cry of “klan plan,” as illustrated in example 11b. both “o–a” and “ta–tam” differ from the “geographical fugue,” most obviously in using nonsense syllables rather than place names. they also require additional vowels that do not appear in the fugue: “o–a” makes use of ă, ä, and ŭ, while “ta–tam” employs ū, ŭ, and ä. i imagine the following hypothetical scenario as one possible explanation: toch composed these two movements first, but found that his performers had trouble remembering and performing the random sequence of vowels. rehearsals took a long time, and it was difficult to achieve an accurate performance. having cut the record, toch discovered that certain vowel nuances that he worked on with the choir—such as the distinction between a and ä—were completely lost when the piece was played back at a faster speed. the new speed also made it difficult to understand the distinctions between various strains and sections of the works, as it was difficult to make out the words pronounced by each voice. toch subsequently decided to solve this problem by limiting his vowels still further, and using actual words rather than nonsense syllables.15 hence the “geographical fugue,” which would have been not only easier for his choir to perform, but also for his audience to comprehend. toch’s surviving holograph manuscripts for both “o–a” and “ta–tam” shed some light upon the rehearsal process, although they raise many new questions as well. written in pen on four single–lined staves ruled in pencil, the manuscripts contain a wealth of dynamic and articulation markings, as well as various performance instructions (such as “wie kastagnetten,” or “wie ein triller”). as caines notes in his preface to the edition, there are a number of markings that appear to be later additions. for example, in “o–a,” question marks are penciled lightly over the downbeats of measures 28 and 32, coinciding with a missing text underlay at that point. it is not clear whether these queries came up during the proofreading process, or were added by a performer during the rehearsal process. furthermore, the s and c indications in “ta–tam” were added in blue and red pencil, respectively. caines (2014) surmises that during rehearsal, toch may have “experimented with assigning the vocal figures of the piece alternately to soloists in each section and to full chorus.” finally, there is a 55 carmel raz mysterious marking in blue pencil of a square divided into four (a marking that caines terms the “windowpane”) over the downbeats of measures 33 and 35 of “o–a,” and over the downbeats of measures 3 and 5 of “ta–tam.” it is not clear what these markings mean. in “o–a,” they appear alone, whereas in “ta–tam,” they appear over a tied half note, and a bracket appears over the target note. another intriguing point is the discrepancy in the neatness between the copy of “o–a” and “ta–tam.” there is only a single erasure in the former at measure 37, while the latter has numerous copying errors that were corrected on the spot. perhaps toch made these fair copies at different times, and they reflect changes in his degree of concentration. in any case, the nature of the corrections attest to the extent to which toch was sensitive to the different colors and timbres of the work. for example, an erasure in measure 15 of “ta–tam” reflects the care with which toch structured his spoken text to reflect a coherent form and hypermetric flow. here toch scratches out his original “quato pato peta” in the tenor line, and replaces it with “gita patogo tŭ.” changing the words on the downbeat of a new group of regular four–measure phrases helps to sustain the temporal pattern of syllabic variance. the distribution of the text to the voices, moreover, was also carefully planned out, as can be seen in an erasure in measure 33 of the same movement, where toch began mistakenly to write in the alto rather than the tenor line, and then caught himself before adding the text and dynamic indications. he corrected this error by copying out the notes again on the staff below. later in life, toch’s exquisite sensitivity to the sonic dimension of spoken text would become legendary; his grandson recollects that he was unable to participate in most social activities because “he was afflicted with perfect pitch and such sensitive ears that any conversation registered as music. the inevitable racket of intercutting conversations at a restaurant registered as very, very bad music—an actual torture.” whether this was a legitimate musical affliction or simply a reflection of the composer’s mental state does not matter; it is clear that, as weschler (1996) writes, in america the exiled toch “was never to recover that lost sense of cultural resonance and buoyancy.” as a successful young composer in weimar germany, toch was able to harness his musical and intellectual talents to create a work that captured a number of influences at a remarkable moment in the development of early electronic music. in gesprochene musik he incorporated advances in early recording technology, cutting–edge research in contemporary phonetics and vowel synthesis, and the technological leanings of the gebrauchsmusik circle in berlin. by showcasing the depth and sophistication of toch’s artistry 56 current musicology pl at e 1 : “ o –a ” h ol og ra ph ; s at b, m m . 2 7– 32 . n ot e t he b lu e w in do wp an e m ar ki ng s i n m m . 2 9 an d 31 . 57 carmel raz pl at e 2 : “ ta –t am ”; sa tb , m m . 3 6– 41 . n ot e t he er as ur e i n m . 3 7, an d th e b lu e a nd re d in di ca tio ns “s ” a nd “c ” i n m . 4 1, wh ich p ro ba bl y c or re sp on d to “s ol o” an d “c ho ru s.” 58 current musicology ahead of the publication of caines’s new edition in this volume, my hope is that further scholarly attention will be paid not only to gesprochene musik, but also to the many other valuable works in toch’s catalogue. notes 1. special thanks are due to christopher caines for generously sharing his edition of gesprochene musik, and to ren weschler and dina ormenyi of the ernst toch society for all their help. additional thanks are due to tom fogg, thomas patteson, courtney thompson, and nori jacoby for their helpful suggestions, and to dan harrison, evan cortens, and caroline waight for their encouragement. 2. as weschler (2003) writes, toch himself considered the piece a joke. 3. for example, the cologne society for new music’s in program for 1930 included three orchestral concerts with works by hindemith, stravinsky, schoenberg, toch, erdmans, webern, and jamasch, while in berlin that same year, the renowned new music conductor hermann scherchen’s ten concerts include works by hindemith, milhaud, reger, schreker, schoenberg, and toch. 4. for more on mager’s spärophon see patteson 2016, 52–81. 5. radio, in particular, with its promise of real–time communication with a mass audience, was revolutionizing the consumption and creation of contemporary music at the time. germany’s first public radio station was inaugurated in berlin in late 1923; by 1924, eight additional regional stations had been established throughout the country. expanding from the core of approximately 200,000 demobilized military wireless operators, by 1926 there were over a million subscribers to the regional radio channels, a number that would triple by 1930. for a discussion on the origins of public broadcasting in germany see jelavich 2006, 36–61. 6. unless stated otherwise, all translations are my own. 7. while both hindemith and toch’s original records have been lost, hindemith’s work ended up in schünemann’s estate, where they were donated to the staatliche institute für musikforschung in berlin. uninterested, the institute returned the records to schünemann’s son, who subsequently sold them to a junk dealer; however, their contents were fortunately preserved by a tape copy made by the musicologist martin elste (1996, 195–221). 8. for more on trauwein’s trautonium and vowel synthesis see patteson 2016, 114–151. 9. the relationship between toch’s grammophonmusik and concurrent speech synthesis deepens when one considers that stumpf was also the founder of the berlin phonogram archive, housed at the conservatory. 10. two point five percent salt. 11. water and oxygen, h2o. 12. at zero degrees it freezes, at a hundred degrees it boils, at nine–hundred–fifty, the atoms separate. 13. the water, the water, what is the water? 14. a similar example can be found in act 1 scene 3 of alban berg’s wozzeck, which uses the onomatopoeia “tschin bum, tschin bum, bum, bum, bum!.” wozzeck premiered at the berlin state opera in 1925, four years before toch moved to the city. 15. i examine the selection (and exclusion) of specific geographical locations in raz 2012. 59 carmel raz references caines, christoper. 2014. preface to gesprochene musik, by ernst toch. current musicology 97: 61–69. elste, martin. 1996. “hindemiths versuche ‘gramophonplatteneigener stücke’ im kontext einer ideengeschichte der mechanischen musik im 20. jahrhundert.” hindemith jahrbuch 25: 195–221. häusler, josef. 1996. spiegel der neuen musik: donaueschingen: chronik—tendenzen— werkbesprechungen. kassel: bärenreiter. katz, mark. 2010. capturing sound: how technology has changed music. berkeley: university of california press. jelavich, peter. 2006. berlin alexanderplatz: radio, film, and the death of weimar culture. berkeley: university of california press. patteson, thomas. 2016. instruments for new music. berkeley: university of california press. raz, carmel. 2012. “from trinidad to cyberspace: reconsidering ernst toch’s ‘geographical fugue.’” zeitschrift der gesellschaft für musiktheorie 9 (2): 227–244. sala, oskar. oskar sala fonds am deutschen museum, “anfrage.” accessed september 14, 2013. www.oskar–sala.de/oskar–sala–fonds/oskar–sala/interview/anfaenge/. toch, ernst. 1930a. das wasser, kantata nach worten von alfred döblin, op. 53. mainz: b. schott and sohne. . 1930b. “über meine kantate ‘das wasser’ und meine grammophonmusik.” melos 9 (5–6): 221–22. . 2014. gesprochene musik. edited and with an introduction by christopher caines. los angeles: ernst toch society. weschler, lawrence. 1996. “my grandfather’s last tale.” the atlantic monthly 96. accessed september 21, 2013. www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96dec/toch/weschler.html. . 2003. “popocatepetl: a noodling reminiscence.” the threepenny review 93. accessed september 21, 2013. www.threepennyreview.com/samples/weschler_w03. html. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 17 from from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate, volume five nathaniel mackey [from a broken bottle traces of perfume still emanate is an ongoing series of letters written by composer/multi–instrumentalist n., founding member of a band known as the molimo m’atet. volumes one through four are bedouin hornbook, djbot baghostus’s run, atet a.d. and bass cathedral. volume five is not yet titled.] ___________________ 4.x.83 dear angel of dust, i wouldn’t say i’m taking a page out of the balloons’ book, that i’m trying to beat them at their own game. aunt nancy suggested as much but i don’t think that’s it. no, this new thing i’m trying goes back to a story yusef lateef tells about the days when he was in mingus’s band, a story i was deeply struck by when i first heard it, a story i think about from time to time. yusef says there was a composition on which he was to solo and that mingus, rather than writing out chord symbols for him to improvise against, drew a picture of a coffin, that it was this that he was to base his improvisation on. a friend of mine once joked that mingus simply meant that if yusef messed up the solo he’d kill him, but i’ve long been intrigued by and attracted to the idea of getting musical information from a picture and it’s this that led me to a certain experiment with my latest composition. braxton’s diagrammatic, pictogrammic titles and the solo concert of his i caught a couple of years ago, the scores for which looked like pen and ink drawings, nonfigurative but drawings even so, had a role as well. the new composition is called “fossil flow.” i wrote it thinking about oil spills, the increasing number of them and the damage they do. just this year there’ve been two massive ones: in february, the nowruz field platform in iran spilled 80 million gallons of oil into the persian gulf; in august, a spanish tanker, the castillo de bellver, caught fire and spilled 78 million gallons off the coast of cape town, south africa. i was thinking about the distant past (prehistoric apocalypse, collapse or catastrophe) current musicology 18 achieving fluidity, the oxymoronic play between fossil and flow of such dimension as to put the present at risk. it’s as though it were the dinosaurs and the mastodons’ revenge, prehistory’s grudge against what came after, a brief against preservation or containment, fossil solidity, an entropic brief against past and present keeping their places. it’s as though, dredj–like, i saw solidity’s hand and solubility’s hand, gripped though they were by one another, holding history’s hand, leading the way as it broke. or was it, oil and water notoriously not mixing, solidity’s hand and insolubility’s hand? i’m not sure it matters. recalling the rationing and the long lines at gas stations a few years ago, i saw dependency’s hand and depletion’s hand take solidity’s hand and (in)solubility’s hand’s places, presided over by an entropic sun. much of the piece is written out but i’m trying something new, something of a built–in improvisation approach, by leaving gaps at various points in everyone’s parts, gaps of a certain number of measures (which varies) marked by the words “wild card.” the latter refer to a drawing and text with which each musician is provided, a 9” x 12” posterboard “card” on which he or she is to base what he or she plays at that point. i’m enclosing a copy. as you can see, the “card” consists of a drawing, captioned “molimo m’atet’s figurehead consoled on the revival bench,” beneath which is a brief paragraph. i struggled over whether or not to include the latter, fearing it might be spelling things out too much, taking away from the suggestiveness of the drawing. i decided in favor of keeping it, realizing that it adds a suggestiveness of its own, that words, regardless of how much they point or specify, can’t altogether escape indefiniteness or inference, that, indeed, specification has a way of being shadowed by implication. what, for example, is to be musically made of the fact that the figurehead’s ribs show, simply enough, in the drawing but also show, in an augmented, not so simple way, in the words “visible, as were the planks of the ship’s busted hull”? i’m also enclosing a tape. let me know what you think. yours, n. nathaniel mackey 19 molimo m’atet’s figurehead consoled on the revival bench an oil tanker had run aground farther up the coast and broken apart. brothers in black before they knew it, b’loon and djbouche washed ashore with the news of the spill. people gathered on the beach to help clean up and help rescue seabirds, oil and tar stuck to their feathers from alighting on the water or, standing or prancing on the shore, being caught by the tide. bright sun and blue sky notwithstanding, the spill cast a pall over everything and everyone, not least of all djband, who, likening themselves to a ship, the sun boat of egyptian belief, felt as though they too had run aground. epitomizing the “boat-bodied lightness, light-bodied bigness” one of them had once extolled, the female figure gracing the prow of the ship they took themselves to be (the goddess maat, some said) stepped away, walked ashore and sat down on a bench facing the sea, head down, dejected, ribs visible, as were the planks of the ship’s busted hull. impromptu patron saint of shipwreck, ad hoc angel, dredj immediately sat down beside her and put his arm around her, offering comfort, consolation, recondite sun, as if to look to and be lit by eclipse were the only amenity. current musicology 20 ___________________ 26.x.83 dear angel of dust, day before yesterday we drove up to santa cruz to play the kuumbwa jazz center again. it was three years ago we first played there. it was good to venture north again and again we took 101 and then 1 where it branches off from 101 at san luis obispo. the coast was a feast of blue sky and blue water again, radiant sun and reflected sun’s radiant sparkle on water. it was a feast we could hardly take our eyes off. sunlight and sea lay hypnotically to our left all the while we put morro bay, san simeon, carmel and monterey behind us. we got going early in the morning, early enough to get to santa cruz by late afternoon. it was still dark, in fact, when we left l.a., so we pulled into santa cruz well in time for the sound check, the longer route we took notwithstanding. it turned out we got there with time to spare, which time we decided to burn by visiting the lighthouse. we walked around on the pathways and the sidewalk and the grassy field surrounding the lighthouse, watching the surfers, the bicycle riders, the skateboard riders, the frisbie throwers. waves crashed on the rocks. wind wafted salt. the smell of salt addressed us again as we stood outside kuumbwa later that night between sets. the air smelled heavily of the sea, prompting aunt nancy to note “a coastal piquancy” she said demanded we play “fossil flow” during the second set. she couldn’t help, she said, catching a recondite whiff—imaginary, she admitted, but all the more insinuative being so—an oblique hint of oil threaded thru the marine bouquet the night air wafted. “i can’t get those rigs off my mind,” she said, referring to the oil platforms off the santa barbara coast we’d driven past in the morning, the site of a huge oil spill in 1969. it was hard not to see the sense it made. the specter of the derricks had followed us up the coast, shadowing the sea and the sun’s gleam and shimmer, dark prospect under an otherwise bright façade. “fossil flow” couldn’t have been offered an apter setting, salt itself auguring future affliction, imaginary though the smell of oil might’ve been. the piece is one that wants to put pressure on flow, indemnify furtherance, bestow auspice and omen upon the undulacy it works. ominous undulance had already, to an extent, come into play, a suppositious wave and waft aunt nancy picked up on mixing oil and salt. bass player to the bone, she sensed a deep throb, eventual ache, dark unction, a waxing of promise and foreboding that was doubly on the tip of her tongue—oil she could almost taste, calamity she all but announced. it seemed all the more fitting that “fossil flow” begins with her playing a three–note ostinato. nathaniel mackey 21 there was no way not to see it made sense. we decided we’d end the second set with “fossil flow,” a fitting end not only to the set and the gig but to the day, a fittingness lambert would accent by switching from english horn to tenor for this rendition, more deeply resonating with dark unction. flow, the more we thought about it, cut more than one way, not spoilage or spill alone but excursion. we had, after all, driven up the coast. we had, after all, enjoyed it. there was a principle of nonexemption we grew apprised of, automotivity a fluid aspect itself: we were part of the flow, in on the flow. (i remembered the buick dynaflow my uncle had been so proud of back in the fifties. i thought of ray charles mentioning a dynaflow in “it should have been me.”) enjoyment lent undulacy a lilt unction wanted in on. this was the truth we both averred and would keep at bay. we played “tosaut l’ouverture” next to last. when it ended we went right into “fossil flow,” not waiting for the applause to subside, not announcing it. we came on with a slow lope led by aunt nancy’s pensive, three–note ostinato on bass, a descending figure whose rotundity of tone edged over into omen, apprehension, foreboding, robust as it otherwise was notwithstanding. a table of sorts was being set—implicative, dark but brightened by the bit of shimmer drennette’s ride cymbal worked in, the calm, confident way she kept time. djamilaa took up with that bit of shimmer when she came in on piano five bars in, starting out with a subtly happy–hand garnish that had something of glimmer and gleam to it and a prance aspect as well. the horns, when lambert, penguin and i came in, stating the head on tenor, oboe and cornet, respectively, had an unprompted sense of aside, sotto voce not so much as reaching out from it, doing so with annunciative blare. call and cry factored in as well, as also did no small amount of tartness, a ribald arrest of all one thought one knew, knowing the pensive lope it was. it seemed we wanted to say something about moment and simultaneity, moment’s dismay at simultaneity’s largesse, its doling out, moment’s dismay at sequentiality’s parsimony; it even seemed we had already said that something. this was in large part, insofar as we already had or possibly had, the work of djamilaa’s tolling chords and her solemn, sometimes grumpy left hand. chorded ploy contended with chorded plenitude, sequential disbursement pressed and vied with by both. how to both unbraid simultaneity’s bounty and give it its due, unpack to the point or brink of undoing, was the question we were called to confront in our solos. the first to solo, lambert was all business. he restated the head, grudgingly it seemed, put upon by quizzical misgiving, pestered by qualms. calling to mind, in that regard, the solo joe henderson takes on mccoy tyner’s “contemplation” on the real mccoy, he allowed himself a certain hesitancy, opening gaps in the head’s articulation, not so much a stutter as current musicology 22 being repeatedly given pause (albeit stutter, sputter even, was obliquely the case). bellow and beguilement volleyed, haloed by complaint at every point. caught in a related quandary, drennette beat the parade snare as though beating back tears, choking up on the stick and holding it at midpoint, swiping—rare vulnerability, rare admission, rare forthrightness, a clipped, cutting pleat, cropped egress. i stood to lambert’s left, looking over his shoulder. when he got to the “wild card” gap within the head’s elaboration it seemed it was the oil–drop extremities in the drawing that caught his eye, the figures’ oil–drop hands, toes, fingers and feet. working changes on classic teardrop tenor, he built on drennette’s choked–up admission but also brushed it aside. a parodic, moanlike drop to the lower register picked a bone with lachrymosity and, by implication, unctuosity as well. he would have nothing to do with suspect suavity, he declared by way of a more forthright return to the horn’s middle octave, no matter the oil on his and everyone else’s hands. it was a beautiful boast, made all the more so by his maintenance of a sober, unflustered tone worthy of dewey redman, a soothing, unhurried—did one dare say suave?—uptake or attack. (no, one dared not say suave. what might’ve seemed so or one might’ve said seemed so was in fact a heuristic roughness lambert plied and parlayed into scoured sobriety, sensibility abraded, a bumped entitlement or sense of entitlement tending more than one way.) drennette saw that her choked–up address of the parade snare no longer held sway. she returned her hand to the base of the stick, took the rim of the ride cymbal between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand and began to slowly mark time, the stick’s tip hitting the cymbal with a tolling insistence djamilaa quickly joined in on, repeating a single note in unison with it. together the two chimed, djamilaa’s “tallywise” limpidity (one–two, one–two, one–two . . . ) auditing and all the more endorsing the ride cymbal’s understated ring. they too now bore the figures’ oil–drop extremities in mind. it seemed they especially wanted to say something about digits, counting, and what it was they said or wanted to say lambert agreed with, moving to the high end of the horn while remaining sober, keeping calm, as if to give them his blessing, say their tolling rang true. lambert allowed his solo to end there, a light, breathy peal floating above cost, consequence, toll. it floated above but not free of toll, telling, in its unperturbed way, of debts paid and debts yet to be paid, soberly tolling but no less tolling than drennette and djamilaa’s ritualistic audit. it lay there a beat and a half, a thin, breathy peal whose remaining aloft ritual audit implied but quickly drew back from, aunt nancy, whose repetitive pluck had become part of it, announcing a new direction by pulling out the bow nathaniel mackey 23 and proceeding to play arco. she gave the bass a cello’s orphic swell, fraught songfulness and fret, a teetering on the edge of elation she let sweep thru the “wild card” gap she stepped into, treading gingerly as though her toes were dripping oil, her feet soaked in oil. aunt nancy bowed with a wincing resonance, as though the bow were an exposed rib—as though, indeed, it were her exposed rib, as though she were the see–thru masthead whose ribs the “wild card” drawing apprised us of. she bowed as though coaxing the bow across the strings at points, a jittery luxuriance given uncommon reach, uncommon albeit reluctant reach. drennette peppered aunt nancy’s resonance and reach (plumb resonance and reach) with rapidfire outbursts on the orchestra snare, sanctified, spasmodic, pentecostal hammerings à la sunny murray. djamilaa had all but fallen silent, serving up chords every now and then, a more slowly doled out tolling meant to recall what had gone before. this left aunt nancy all the more at the mercy of drennette’s infectious pepper, a fact or effect eventually made evident by the percussive tack she resorted to. she came to a point where she lifted the bow and tapped the strings with it, letting it bounce lightly on them, much as ron carter does on “barb’s song to the wizard” on tony williams’s lifetime album, a piece, a passage and a technique aunt nancy had excitedly turned us on to ages ago. here she took it farther, sustained and stayed with it to an extent barely broached by carter’s jagged innuendo. rickety buildup grew possessed of growl and grumble, an aroused rattle and would–be rafter shake amassing senses of emergence or at least emergency, rummaging for voice, viability, ground. the bow was a mallet, the strings a throaty dulcimer, aunt nancy’s fingers, thumb and wrist exquisitely schooled. though she made it seem the bow simply bounced, no aspect of touch or attack went without thought, throaty dulcimer by turns a croaking cimbalom, by turns a raspy santur. it became clear, though, that the strings were neither dulcimer, cimbalom nor santur, that the masthead’s exposed ribs were the focus of aunt nancy’s solo, that the strings were indeed those ribs, vertically though they lay, the fact that the bow was itself a rib notwithstanding. indeed, aunt nancy’s rib–on–rib address accented intimacy and consolation, exactly the embrace the drawing shows the masthead held in, dredj’s embrace—rib–on–rib contact, rib–on–rib caress, rib–on–rib assumption of dredj’s counsel. here, however, rib crossed rib and was let percuss upon rib, a fact that not only accorded with but in part conveyed the disconsolate tone of aunt nancy’s solo, the worked arousal refusing to be put to rest it so starkly was. eventually djamilaa fell completely silent and drennette soon followed suit. aunt nancy’s solo was now exactly that, djamilaa and drennette having bowed out as if to suggest the bass’s taut strings had to do with tautology, current musicology 24 the solo’s disconsolate temper with self–induced or self–digested ordeal, self–conducted ordeal—a suggestion to which, given the way aunt nancy’s bass revved its own ennui, the way she ransacked it for sound, there was more than a grain of truth. aunt nancy played alone and was all alone, played along with being alone, left alone, “all alone in the world.” she allowed a hint of self–pity in, part parodic host, part woebegone orphan, not unrelated to lambert’s recasting of teardrop tenor. more specifically recalling carter, she put the emphasis even more on rev, letting the bow ride and bounce on the strings with new and old verve, new and old volatility, mimicking or mining automotivity’s old and new dream. a model t on a bumpy road the bow might’ve been, so loudly did brake and sputter vie with flow. aunt nancy played for all the world to know she stood alone, for all the world to know we all, no matter rev’s would–be amelioration, stood alone, as though flow itself stumbled, stuck. sputter never spoke more eloquently but even so she would not be done with fluidity, full–bodied arco, letting the bow glide between bouts or outbursts of coughlike exhaust, carteresque bow–bounce. such answering fluidity was nothing if not outright elegy, forthright lament, aunt nancy allowing the bass its low–throated moan. she spoke from nowhere if not from the heart (ribcage apse, alcove, atrium), no way if not on two fronts, both fronts, deep throb and bow–bounce both. point made, she put the bow away and went back to playing pizzicato, plucking the strings with chill serenity, ritual aplomb. she stood with her back straight, addressing the strings with a churchical assurance, churchical rectitude, as patient a fingerwalk as there ever was. she closed her eyes, exuding meditative calm, each ascending run seeming to say, “alas,” each descending run whispering, “amen.” abidance was the overall note she struck, if there could be said to be an overall note she struck. djamilaa had left the piano to pick up one of her guitars. as the audience applauded aunt nancy’s solo she began to play, pointedly chiming in on strings. she started off in what initially struck one as a spanish vein but as she went further along one recognized a malian or guinean provenance, a guitare sèche excursion (it was an acoustic guitar she picked up) whose ambulatory rhythm feasted on recurrence. it sought to make its home in a reverberant ping a shade beyond the upbeat, a treble chime not so much home as haunt but beckoning as though haunt could make heaven home. indeed, treble chime verged on going out of bounds, off scale or off record, verged on heaven itself, rang heaven’s bell. aunt nancy picked up on djamilaa’s mande invitation and replied, playing the bass like a big guitar (rhythm guitar to djamilaa’s lead, bass to djamilaa’s treble), whereupon djamilaa, gratified to hear her call responded nathaniel mackey 25 to, shot her an appreciative glance and began to sing. together they plied a malinke roll built on repetition, the chords fraught with a certain drama or an inference of drama (false drama perhaps), an inkling, inference or sense djamilaa took pains to fend off, paradoxically furthering, in so doing, the very inkling, inference or sense it was her one wish in life (or so it seemed) to hold at bay. a buoyant bout with quicksand, were such possible, her voice took solace in its ability to declaim while being taken out, courting hoarseness to extol its testificatory prowess. rescue was only what witness one could manage, were there rescue at all, and witness, were there, would suffice, it seemed she said or sang more than said or made singing say. witness or no witness, her singing summoned words like aria, recitative and recital only to say that they fell short, failed when what was really real was afoot, that exactly that, the really real, was afoot. strident, abrasive, bent on scouring the air itself if need be, her voice built with a certain insistence toward something none of us, her included, could name, imprecatory at points, complaint piled on complaint, coax plied with complaint. drennette joined in with a repeating figure that marked the strong beat on the high hat, setting it up with a tap on the bass drum, the barest percussive presence one could want. the three of them effected an ictic, riverine amble, djamilaa’s treble chime, as time went on, arriving a lengthening shade late, a hitch or a gimp or an eddy in the flow. it brought to mind, for me at least, the “wild card” drawing’s abstract bench. it sat one down and it gave one pause, giving one to reflect on water’s indifferent flow, time’s indifferent flow. one sat on a bench on a bank overlooking the niger. lengthening shade suggested the drawing’s black sun had caught djamilaa’s eye, the river’s consolation an intricate mix of solace and complaint. the river’s destination was there by inference, the salt air that had nipped our noses complicating time’s occult remit. lambert, penguin and i picked up on this and instinctively bowed our heads, letting djamilaa, drennette and aunt nancy’s amble have its way with us as waves or rapids might. shade–late arrival’s beneficiary, djamilaa’s treble chime gathered extrapolative reach. eking out a summons or a receipt that would be the chime’s equivalent, her voice every now and again leapt, its timbral bound and embrace as raw–ribbed as aunt nancy’s bow–bounce had been, a miraculous mix of stridency and grace. lambert, penguin and i now lifted our heads. carried in or carried out, we stood athwart all emollience, amenity’s reset, lengthening shade’s limp a new boon nonetheless. listening to djamilaa, drennette and aunt nancy, one heard again and saw again, as though for the first and final time, that sound was the inner skin of things, the other side coming over, inside turning out. a fool’s errand it might’ve been to see it so but one saw it so. it current musicology 26 was ground we’d been over before, ground we’d go over again, ground that somehow never got old. as djamilaa’s voice began to trail off, letting us know she’d had her say, the audience began to applaud and lambert and penguin glanced at me and nodded to say the floor, so to speak, was mine. i put the trumpet to my lips and began with a run meant to recall aunt nancy’s model t on a bumpy road, eventually stating the head with a hesitancy aimed at recalling lambert’s grudging address as well. i stood with my back straight but churchical rectitude wasn’t what i was after, at least not to begin with. gaps and crackle made their way out of the horn, more “ahem” than “amen.” indeed, sputter might’ve been my middle name for all anyone knew, so hard–won was any articulacy (or seemed so at least). i say “seemed so” because sputter was more than sputter. it was an archarticulacy, fraught with meaning, “meaning” meaning “wanting to say.” it wanted to bear on exhaustion, eventual eclipse, fossil fluency’s abject eloquence, black sun. it wanted to find fulsomeness in hemorrhage, bumpiness, unable not to know it fed on exhaust, extinction, fumes. sputter was double–jointed. wanting was to say. i stood with my back straight, parsing, repeating, teasing out the slowgoing unfolding of black sun. my not aiming for churchicality notwithstanding, there must have been something of it to the way i made my way. lambert, that is, bowed his head and lightly put his left hand on my right shoulder, a deaconly hand (mock–deaconly perhaps), as if to say, “take your time, son. take your time.” i took my time. it took all the calm i could muster not to be caught up in fossil fluency’s depth and dilation, not to be carried away. i offered myself every caution not to resort to barrage, the gatling–gun spray of notes i’d have bugled had bump’s double joint had its way. i picked my way as though i walked in a minefield. a novice at a typewriter hunting and pecking, i pecked at sound and the possibility of sound. aunt nancy, djamilaa and drennette picked up on my cautious tread and lent themselves to it, letting their riverine amble subside. we no longer sat or stood on the bank of the niger. time dissolved into an aroused momentariness peppered by random event or invention—bass interjection, drum interjection, guitar interjection—isolate, asymmetric, intermittent, each a law to itself it seemed. it wasn’t that time stood still but that time twitched, a volley of quivers that went for how long no one could say, trumpet, guitar, bass and drums each other’s ricochet, no less random even so. after however long it was, djamilaa put the guitar down and went back to piano. she played a series of chords at the low end of the keyboard, a slow tolling that was a call to order, ominous and wistful at the same time—one– nathaniel mackey 27 two, one–two, one–two again, a two–beat rest between each pair of chords, a space aunt nancy noticed and filled with a two–note descending ostinato. drennette heard the call and went from sticks to brushes, applying a tight, circular stroke to the parade snare, stirring the pot. the three of them laid down a midnight creep that brought “mood” on miles’s e.s.p. to mind. i took my mute out of my coat pocket and put in into the bell of the horn. i blew a needle of sound that rayed out as it went thru the air, a tremulous ribbon whose advancing edge was a vibrating blade. it wasn’t that sputter had been seeking this, that obstructed speech ironically or fittingly found its voice in the mute. sputter, i’ve been saying, spoke. djamilaa’s call to order, moreover, calling randomness to a halt, was itself random. there was no reason for it to flow out of what preceded it and equally no reason for sputter to be said to have evolved into mute fluency. what happened happened. it was as simple as that. sputter had spoken no less than mute fluency now spoke. no less had sputter called flow obsolete (fossil flow indeed) than the mute bestowed fluidity and focus (mute fluency). i not only blew, as the old saw has it, from my diaphragm but set my collarbones abuzz with a sense of yet more remote origins, a faintly remembered myth involving clavicular spillage i’d read about ages ago in some dogon lore. i vaguely recollected a creational aspect to it, something to do with amma’s collarbone marrow spilling out. my sound thus had an occasional raspiness at its edges, escaping or expiring breath a constitutive leakage. my collarbones hummed and from time to time knocked, shook like radiator pipes in winter. part leak, part letting off steam, it was a sound i let the valves tease out, expelled or expired breath conducing to a theme of extinct heat. more immediate, though, was the impact of what had now caught my attention in the “wild card” drawing, the wishbone above the masthead’s ribs. it was this that my collarbones vibrated in affinity with, humming like sympathetic strings on a sitar. no matter how whimsical or wistful, i couldn’t help noticing, it was a wishbone as black as the sun, as though to acknowledge wish’s role were a dark admission, which in fact it was. the fact that it was was a fact i couldn’t get over, though i made my peace with it by way of a dixonian recourse to flub effects, extenuating breath into what gave sound to my exasperation. nothing could’ve been more slick than our midnight creep but bl’under blew with me now and again. mishaps would occur, i said or let bl’under say, wish otherwise though we might. dinosaurs and birds popped into my head, the thought of them having wishbones in common. the wishbone struck me now as an emblem not necessarily of extinction, a harbinger of ostensible extinction evolved into flight. a furcula technically speaking (latin for “little fork”), it was eponymously the fork in the road leading toward one or the other. where there’s a fork there’s a chance i told myself, admittedly wishful but not, i hoped, overly so. current musicology 28 it was a quick train of thought, feather and scale. almost before i knew it, the horn emitted a bowie–esque ratchet of sound, a careening squib that had a dixonian contour as well, shades of november 1981. feather outran scale, run reigning supreme, skid’s indigeneity to squib newly audible, flight’s tangential drift. drennette went back to sticks to keep flight in line, upping the tempo after an onslaught of rolls that announced a new–day disposition tending toward all–out sprint (scale train, feather train). scale to drennette’s feather, i lagged ever so slightly, a syncopic microbeat behind the beat, an ever so exactingly maintained messianic stagger, the gap, looking forward, saving grace turned out to be. aunt nancy jumped on the new tempo right away. the fingers of her right hand scurried back and forth across the strings, those of her left scurried up and down. it was an avian pulse if there ever was one. she bore down, biting her bottom lip as she played, as though the pulse, the proverbial bird in hand, would fly away were she not to or did indeed, from moment to moment, fly away, notwithstanding she did. the flying, flown altercation she laid under it all gave the music wheels if not wings, legs and feet if not wheels. djamilaa prodded us with pianistic chirp. hearing the buildup and sensing we’d soon crescendo, lambert and penguin took up their horns, lambert his tenor still, penguin soprano now rather than oboe. they saw me my wishbone wager and raised me a ribcage crown, blurting out the head with cairologic urgency again and again, four times in all. we played more loudly with each iteration and peaked on number four, whereupon i took the horn from my mouth and stepped back from the mike as lambert did likewise, djamilaa, aunt nancy and drennette pulled back on the tempo and took the volume down to a whisper and penguin, as the audience applauded my solo, embarked on his. it was clear why penguin had switched from oboe to soprano. he made a point, it seemed, of putting the oboe’s pinched, eked–out sound aside, its inturned embouchure aside, opting for a soprano sound as open as a duck’s cry, open as all outdoors. it was an openthroated sound à la steve lacy, with no tightness or constriction to it, resounding of nothing if not laryngeal openness, nothing if not esophogeal openness, nothing if not, in a word, flow. he seemed intent on saying something about acceptance, something about flow bearing on depletion, departure, fluidity’s eventual arrest. it was a duck’s cry but without its frayed perimeter, the firm inside part of a strand of spaghetti cooked al dente. djamilaa, aunt nancy and drennette continued at whisper level as penguin started off. it was an unrushed, riverine amble they found their way into, djamilaa now reprising on piano the malinke way of knowing she’d earlier offered on guitar. penguin’s accent on flow they backed up nathaniel mackey 29 and embroidered with a subtle, sotto voce roll extolling furtherance, a felt, otherwise fugitive equation of brightness and time. for all its accent on furtherance and flow, there was an elegiac strain woven into what penguin played. the horn was somehow buoyed by sadness, a deep, thoroughgoing sorrow so abstruse it could only turn sanguine, moan though it otherwise did. the river, in other words, was back and along with it the lachrymosity lambert and drennette had earlier touched on or choked up on. silly as it seemed, one couldn’t help thinking of julie london singing “cry me a river,” especially if one had, as i had, seen the movie the girl can’t help it as a kid in the fifties. that she sings it as a specter haunting tom ewell especially came back to me now, conducing or contributing to a theme of payback and retribution i’d have sworn i heard coming out of penguin’s horn. penguin repeatedly had recourse to an e–flat pedal in such a way as to suggest conscience and also to say (or at least to imply) that he too, as i had in writing the piece, wondered if prehistory’s grudge against the present were at work. the horn cried a river of regret, disbursing mixed–emotional strains of remorse and recrimination, as though evolutionary succession exacted dues, which evidently it does. not since body first met soul had confession so wed complaint. it was a cry surmising gnostic entrapment, thug gnosis, the most accusatory mea culpa one would ever hear. retributive spill was our fault but no less retributive it seemed he said, fossil fluidity’s ominous underside. that it was our fault was not our fault it seemed he said. i took my cornet up again, put it to my mouth and offered punctuation, endorsing penguin’s theme of demiurgic sting with a braid of mordents around e–flat. it was no more than punctuation, no more than a quick, ratifying run, but i too admitted fault while claiming fault to be a setup, i too took sublime umbrage. penguin shot me a glance, an appreciative gleam in his eye, going on as though newly fired up, made all the more adamant by my corroborative run. newly adamant or renewing its adamance, his tone blended accepting with incensed, a tendency toward trill making its way in or having made its way in, a descending trill bottoming out into drone recalling jo maka, the guinean soprano saxophonist. there was no way this would’ve been accidental. the river was back, decidedly so, running with quaint strain, uncustomary hustle. hearing her mande insinuation expanded on, djamilaa took to singing again or, to be more exact, semisinging, humming a song from upper guinea, “toubaka.” a few words from the song’s lyrics emerged from her humming now and again, but mostly what she did was hum, a one–woman chorus commenting on penguin’s solo. she sang or semisang from a position current musicology 30 of elderly repose, wise, as the expression goes, beyond her years. all weight, all ministry, all measure endowed her voice, an endlessly calibrated “alas,” an extended sigh. penguin now shot her an appreciative glance. her voice was drenched in time. the river had come around again. malinke ambit had come around again. penguin blew beyond the horn, the river’s quaint strain and uncustomary hustle prompting him to heave an arc of implied intonation not unlike a fisherman casting a line. this arc was dredj’s arm around the figurehead’s shoulder, the feature of the “wild card” drawing that had most caught penguin’s eye, an extrapolative embrace whose coo and consolation he now beautifully brought to bear on the horn. his new recourse to diaphragmatic oomph aired a light–bodied bigness or a big–bodied lightness, his eye also caught by the figurehead’s thoracic largesse. it seemed all we could do to contain ourselves. we stood poised on a precipitous edge it seemed. with the merest abrupt move we’d erode or evaporate, the figurehead’s thoracic transparency suddenly at large. all we could do, it occurred to lambert, aunt nancy, drennette and me at exactly the same time, was hum. all we could do was catch, as it were, djamilaa’s choral contagion and hum “toubaka,” which is what we did, the four of us easing into it, joining her, an antiphonal consort of sorts, a chorus beyond her chorus or, all of us having heard the version of “toubaka” done by les ambassadeurs internationaux, chorus to her salif keita. it was an immediately soothing hum, a sonic lozenge at the roof of the mouth apportioning balm. humming drew us back from the edge. we stood stout again, lodged resolutely where we stood, readymade remit, the fossils we’d eventually be. hum’s vibratory dispatch came into collaborative play with solidity’s transit. it was nothing if not flow’s disclosure once and for all, an aggrieved emollient. thus it was that aggrievement and approbation ran as one. so it was we sang, if it could be said we sang, or, if not, semisang with our teeth clenched. peal and ping rang from the keys under djamilaa’s right hand as we hummed, as poignant as a guinean guitar. penguin worked and worried the arc dredj’s arm inspired, a breaking wave, he’d have had it, as it broke, less a wave than a trace, audible to an imagined ear alone. the river and what it went out to were back. penguin leaned back a bit, mentally and physically both. he let himself be caught by the cushion of sound our humming had become, so relaxed he became all breath, all respiration, resorting to circular breathing as the music peaked. circularity said it all it seemed he said, “what goes around comes around,” “where there’s a wheel there’s a turn” and so forth, malinke furtherance a dream of empathic escort come true. breath was a ball rollnathaniel mackey 31 ing atop our malinke hum, a wheel buoyed by and rolling on water, wind roughening water. the ball or the wheel gathered momentum and the music sped up, aunt nancy’s bass advancing a jump–up rumble as drennette’s high hat hissed, hum nearly brimming over, a collective croon. there was more and more swell to it, more and more lift as well. we rode a low–spoken undulance, borne or abetted by penguin’s extrapolative surmise. just as it had as i ended my solo, the music crescendoed as penguin ended his. djamilaa, aunt nancy and drennette again took the volume down to whisper level as the audience applauded. all the while we continued humming—quietly so, at whisper level as well. once the clapping subsided an insinuative quiet obtained, an almost ominous calm. penguin now joined our humming, the six of us ever so low–key yet stalwart, savoring the impromptu vibration humming had brought, the low–key visitation humming had become. it was a soothing song our humming amounted to. a lullaby it might’ve been except its unremittingness roused us. we hummed possessed of alarm and assurance, an agitant mix whose intensification varied inversely with the tempo at which we hummed. we gradually, that is, hummed more slowly, curiously building intensity while winding the piece down, agreeing, without having to say so, not to return to the head. we instinctively and collectively knew that this was the way it should end—not so much end as fade. aunt nancy, djamilaa and drennette eventually let their instruments go silent and we all continued humming a cappella. here and there a few people in the audience picked up the tune and joined in, humming along with us, but it would be a stretch to say we set the entire crowd humming. still, an infectious vibration seemed to affect everyone. when our humming finally subsided the audience sat silent for a while as though entranced, as though unaware the piece had ended or taken by surprise that it had, lost in thought. we felt we knew what they felt. applause was beside the point. yet when they snapped out of whatever it was they were in they rose from their seats and gave us a standing ovation. we too were affected by the reading we gave the piece. i’m not sure i can say exactly how but even now it stays with us. how long i’ve gone on about it is a measure of that no doubt but i’m not sure i can more precisely pin it down. i will, though, mention something we’ve been wondering about. we couldn’t help noticing and now can’t help reflecting on the fact that, fossil fluency’s extremity notwithstanding, no balloons emerged during the performance. could it be that the “wild card” drawing was preemptive? could it be that the drawing, conceding to caption as it does, inoculated us? could it be that “molimo m’atet’s figurehead consoled on the revival current musicology 32 bench” kept the balloons at bay by rendering them redundant? elated over the performance though we were, we began to wonder not long afterward and we still wonder. as ever, n. a loose affiliation of alleluias: tracing genealogies of technique and power in creative practice   celeste oram and keir gogwilt   this essay outlines a method for engaging in composition and performance as a practice of excavating the material histories guiding our musical knowledge and technique. to demonstrate, we discuss our own creative work: celeste’s violin concerto, a loose affiliation of alleluias, premiered in december 2019 by the la jolla symphony with steven schick conducting, keir performing the mostly improvised solo violin part, and barbara byers, lauren jones, and celeste as three offstage vocalists. the concerto strategically brings together certain historical materials and techniques: it is a collage, which aims to make visible the pastiched, overlapping traditions constituting our individual musical voices. in reflecting upon the process of composing and performing this concerto, we show the ways in which every present moment of creative practice is thick with the sedimentation of historical moments, movements, and affiliations. this account illustrates several material histories embedded within our concerto: ornamentation as an index of a performer or composer’s individuality (the measure of which changes historically); taste as a circumscribing marker of elite patronage; church polyphony as a prop for religious power; the romantic violin concerto as a trope of militarism. what we aim to draw out through these historical fault lines is the multitude of overlapping hermeneutic codes and traditions, which overdetermine every instance of creative decision-making, including our most reflexive, improvisatory actions. throughout the paper, we excavate these determining, ideological frameworks, with the help of related theoretical apparatuses: ben spatz’s (2015) explanation of personal “technique” as the reproduction of historical knowledge; and edward said’s (1983) notion of “affiliations” as the networks which build up cultural relationships and cultural authority. we follow these authors in critically attending to the corporeal, social, and aesthetic networks which historically exercise power. in doing so, we call into question some of the critical gestures of musical modernism, which conspicuously arrest and negate historical musical grammars and logics while occupying the same frameworks and institutions. it has been pointed out to us that it is not immediately apparent why an audience of music scholars should care about our creative work. after all, there are indeed more prominent examples of contemporary music which variously take their shape from historical techniques and materials. it has been noted that we might make a better case by presenting ourselves as part of a broader group of composers, or that we could explain the critical apparatus with which we examine relationships between historical and contemporary music, rather than connecting it concretely to our own creative work. these criticisms carry with them the following assumption: that the only music worthy of musicological analysis is that which makes a claim to canonic importance. for us, the question of historical import (however that is measured) is less pressing than the task of examining how legacies of cultural violence and exclusion continue to determine the frames of our most personal musical utterances. like any professionalized musician, we are products of systemic pedagogies, beholden to cultural norms and the expectations of institutional patronage. as such, the scholarly value of this paper does not rest on the exceptionality of our creative work, nor on us legitimizing it within a historical frame; it rather rests on our ability to unearth the cultural histories conditioning our creative practice. in our concluding statements, we gesture towards some of the pedagogical implications of this work. like many students, our experience of music-making came first through performing and composing. we suggest that the corporeal and creative stakes of these practices—felt on the level of a body’s engagement with sound, with frames of knowledge and reference, and with other musical bodies—provide concrete experiences through which to engage students in broader questions of cultural inheritance. a loose affiliation of alleluias is both the result of our creative labor, and a critical accounting of the ideological frameworks guiding our creativity — the former being necessary to arrive at the latter. we extend this particular example to advocate the scholarly potential of creative work: attuning students’ critical attention to the inherited material histories surfacing in their embodied, kinesthetic practice.   technique, affiliation, and the genealogy of compositional choices   celeste   in this section i reflect on the process of composing a loose affiliation of alleluias, and i take the “compositional process” to mean a sequence of innumerable decisions: some whose impact are almost infinitesimal (which note comes next in the second oboe part), and some which determine the most defining features of a piece (that the solo violin part in a loose affiliation would be mostly improvised, for example). understanding composition as an exercise in choice-making then invites inquiry into the knowledge informing those choices. rather than a mode of analysis which plots out a composition’s supposedly self-contained formal and material properties, i am more interested in excavating the historical templates shaping those forms and materials. this approach understands composing as a practice which reproduces ways of hearing, thinking about, rationalizing, and employing musical sound. to account for the ways in which historical knowledge is reproduced in composition, i draw on performance theorist ben spatz’s (2015) definition of “technique,” which extends early twentieth-century anthropological studies of the term (namely, by marcel mauss) into dialogue with recent humanities scholarship examining “technique” as a key vector of both agency and cultural transmission. spatz defines technique as “sedimented” or “embodied” knowledge which structures “the way we think, move and understand ourselves” (47). “technique” can be a fraught word for musicians, often used as shorthand for the carefully-coded signals of affiliation with elite musical practices: conservatory training in performers, for instance, or access to expensive technologies for computer-assisted composition. but spatz’s definition of “technique” usefully recuperates the term; by his definition, everyone has technique. the embodied, sedimented knowledge of technique is what guides one’s actions in any particular “moment of practice,” “by offering a range of relatively reliable pathways through any given situation” (26). for spatz, “technique” is thus present in a broad gamut of human activity: “from ballet to soccer, from martial arts to meditation, from tango to prayer, from fighting to lovemaking” (43). kramer & bredekamp (2013, 24) similarly assert the value of technique as a model for cultural knowledge that is not “congealed in works, documents, or monuments, but liquefies into our everyday practices with objects, symbols, instruments, and machines.” second, spatz argues that technique is “not ahistorical but transhistorical” (41). although a given “moment of practice” is unrepeatable, the technique structuring moments of practice can be repeated from person to person, and over time (41). distinguishing between technique and its moments of practice allows one to trace connections between individual practitioners across history and geography, and also to attend to “highly specific and localized” aspects of practice (41). there are components of my vocal technique as a choral singer in new zealand, for instance, that i share with choral singers in england, the united states, and mexico, which can be heard as symptoms of the church’s allegiances with colonial invasion and culture-building in settler nations. at the same time, attending to the infinite variations between those local practices enriches analyses of cultural formation, transmission, and practice. third, spatz asserts that formations of technique are “interwoven with power,” because technical knowledge is so often distributed along—and thereby reinforces—social hierarchies (34). this can be fairly obvious in the domain of western classical music, for instance if a singer’s technique signals their training within an institutionally-sanctioned tradition, such as bel canto opera or church music. at the same time, spatz is careful to note that “technical knowledge cannot be reduced to power relations,” nor can any given technique be “exclusively classified as either oppressive or liberatory” (35). drawing from foucault, spatz suggests that “the same technique can be deployed under different circumstances to radically different effect” (34). for example, even if aspects of my singing technique have been formed in relation to historical repertoires of sacred music, spatz leaves open the possibility that i do not necessarily reinforce the cultural dominance of the church every time i sing. spatz thus advocates that a studied awareness of one’s own technique might allow for “ethical practices of the self rather than simple reinscriptions of power” (34). carrie noland (2009, 2) similarly echoes the promise of individual agency to revise and inflect acquired routines; indeed, she argues that learned techniques of the body are precisely “the means by which cultural conditioning is simultaneously embodied and put to the test.” in emphasizing the need for awareness of one’s tacit, embodied knowledge, spatz calls to mind edward said’s (1983) contrasting notions of filiation versus affiliation, which, for said, stake out the political urgency of drawing attention to latent formations and reinscriptions of cultural authority. filiation, said defines, belongs to the realm of nature: it describes the simple and unavoidable fact of being born into a certain community, be it a family unit or a nation-state. affiliation, on the other hand, belongs to the realm of culture and society: it describes the cultural relationships one consciously builds for oneself, as well as the manner in which cultural authority is constructed and reproduced. the need to articulate affiliative networks is important, said (2001, 336) argues, because “we tend to forget” them; as moustafa bayoumi (2004, 58) elaborates, modern authority “often rationalizes and naturalizes its own affiliations away” by disguising its orthodoxies with “a seemingly filiative relationship, or one that appears entirely natural or self-evident.” illustrating affiliative networks and how they are formed therefore serves to “make explicit all kinds of connections […] that have to be made explicit and even dramatic in order for political change to take place” (said 2001, 336). kramer and bredekamp arrive at a similar analysis in arguing that a text-centric conception of culture “‘forgets’ its genesis” first as “lived-in” technique (21). in composing and analyzing a loose affiliation of alleluias, i engage in what spatz and said propose: excavating the affiliative networks shaping my technique and my compositional decisions. much of what i understand to be my formative musical technique has come from studying at universities, and singing in choirs whose practices descend from western european sacred polyphony. my musical experience also includes popular and folk music, songwriting, musical theatre, and playing in bands. the vast global archive of recorded music available to me as a twenty-first-century listener certainly shapes my musical imagination too, even while i remain distant from the knowledge of how much of what i listen to is created or culturally situated. charting my technical knowledge might therefore begin from the histories of western art music which are most familiar to me, but it would be a mistake to over-emphasize their presence in my musical constitution. at the same time, my affiliative awareness needs to include an awareness of the limits of my knowledge, and of the vectors of culture and capital which proximate (and occlude) various musics to me in the first place. coming from the position that composition is as much a reproductive activity as an original one, in a loose affiliation, i wanted to complicate how the piece’s authorship, or “originality,” would be understood. one strategy in this respect was for the solo violin part to be improvised, so the piece would foreground not only my creative choices but also keir’s (which keir discusses in the next section), thereby drawing attention to a performer’s routine negotiation of transhistorical embodied knowledge, whether or not improvisation is involved. another strategy was to select a small handful of existing musical pieces which i worked with as starting material for the concerto. in a sense, with these historical excerpts i deliberately gesture towards the cultural genealogy that i understand to shape my musical thought and imagination. i do not suggest that adapting demonstrably historical music is the only (nor necessarily the best) way to underscore historical presences in one’s own current practice. it is simply the approach that i took in this case, in an effort to make the presence of my own “compositional hand” more conspicuous by sliding it in and out of view. we return to an evaluation of this approach later in this essay. a loose affiliation of alleluias recognizably includes musical material from: ·        a hymn to st. james, “ad superni regis,” two-part counterpoint from the twelfth-century liber sancti jacobi as recorded in the codex callixtinus. ·        three musical fragments from giovanni gabrieli’s 16-voice sacred symphony exaudi me domine, from the early seventeenth century—those that set the text [a] “quando caeli”, [b] “movendi sunt,” and [c] “et terra.” ·        lyrical fragments from the 1986 song “the boy in the bubble” by paul simon and forere motloheloa, from the album graceland: “don’t cry, baby, don’t cry,” and the “loose affiliation” of the concerto’s title. in one sense, any connection between these hand-picked materials is truly “loose”; all this music is very familiar to me, and has afforded me considerable musical enjoyment at various points in my life. the collection’s eclecticism and anachronism is deliberate, as is its brevity: it is by no means a comprehensive anthology, and so a large part of my creative task is to serve as an interlocutor between these disparate musical fragments. what these materials have in common is their entanglement with formations and consolidations of imperial power. the twelfth-century hymn is a paean to a saint whose cult boomed with iberian crusading and warfare against islam (purkis 2008). gabrieli’s professional musical life in the employ of st. mark’s basilica was devoted to amplifying the splendor of the papal empire at a time when it was desperately clamoring for power in post-reformation europe (arnold 1979). and paul simon’s iconic and controversial graceland album signals to the extensive histories of white musical artists’ and markets’ reliance on non-white—and especially black—cultural resources for their creative enrichment and economic monopoly. graceland’s huge and sudden commercial success, neil lazarus (1999, 204) argues, was “imperial in its effects” in the way it disrupted and reconfigured south african popular music via “top-down determination, more or less wholly indifferent to the response of local [black] musicians and listeners.” given the notoriety of graceland, the concerto’s allusion to it marks the contemporary stakes of imperial affiliations in musical-cultural transmission: namely, the constructions of race and capital which produce and popularize so much of the music in my field of knowledge and reference. a loose affiliation of alleluias roughly takes the form of a pop song—which i adopted as a nod to “the boy in the bubble”—but on a massively drawn-out scale (the premiere performance was around 18 minutes). the piece comprises sections that i consider analogous to an intro, verses, choruses, a bridge, and an outro to fade. the table below indicates where and how each of the historical musical materials appears in the concerto (though there are additional things going on; this table does not always account for musical activity not derived from the materials above). intro  solo violin and three offstage voices extemporize on a repeating harmonic progression verse 1 three different wind quartets antiphonally play four-voice adaptations of [1], [2a] and [2b]; solo violin extemporizes on a repeating harmonic progression chorus three offstage voices sing lyrics of [3] to newly-composed music; solo violin tacet verse 2 three different wind quartets antiphonally play four-voice adaptations of [1], [2a] and [2b]; solo violin extemporizes on a repeating harmonic progression chorus three offstage voices sing lyrics of [3] to newly-composed music; solo violin tacet bridge begins with a freely-improvised quasi-cadenza for solo violin; then winds antiphonally play eight-voice adaptations of [1] and [2a] while solo violin extemporizes on a repeating harmonic progression chorus / et terra tutti orchestral parts play an extended 20-voice adaptation of [2c]; solo violin tacet outro / fade orchestral parts play downwardly-transposing cycles of the harmonic progression that the solo violin has previously played; angels sing newly-composed music; solo violin improvises freely   there were two main ways in which i worked with the gabrieli and codex callixtinus material compositionally: 1.      composing additional counterpoints to existing lines: not in an attempt to pass them off as stylistically consistent with the source material, but rather to explore and adapt the material to satisfy my own musical senses; 2.      ‘learning’ characteristic techniques of voice-leading from the original repertoire (for example, gabrieli’s use of chains of suspensions to plot a pathway through different harmonic regions, or points of imitation to arrive at a cadence), and adopting these templates to my own ends. to illustrate, i offer an example adapting the twelfth-century hymn to st. james, “ad superni regis,” a piece of two-voice counterpoint. the original hymn itself is an interesting case study in how embodied technique shapes musical creation; polyphony such as this was likely devised between two singers, improvising different combinations of discant until the most pleasing version was written down (holzer, taruskin, and gibbs 2012). circumscribing that improvisation is the singers’ entrained pitch-pathways around their guidonian hands; the acoustic responsiveness of the buildings in which they were singing; and their cosmo-mathematically-derived understandings of consonance and dissonance and their divine invocations which, for instance, goad the singers into unison—the most “perfect” consonance—at the end of every phrase. in a nod to the hymn’s original composition, improvisation played a significant role in how i devised additional contrapuntal lines; i would sing or play along on my flute with the original hymn until arriving at what felt like a “keeper.” in a post-hoc analysis sketched out in the video below, i aim to spell out the musical results my improvisation drew me to, and connect them to what i sense to be the technique informing it. for instance, i was attracted to a kind of nimbleness of affect, and the apparatus with which i explore this has historical roots in musica ficta, as well as baroque ornamentation. i flip frequently back and forth between sharps and naturals, either to inflect a melodic line with shifting modal implications (in the upper discant), or to temper the momentum to and from quasi-cadential points via various combinations of raised/lowered sixth and seventh degrees (in the lower discant). figure 1: annotated score video of woodwind material in the verse sections based on “ad superni regis.” see: https://vimeo.com/576933093. to fully account for the sum total of historical knowledge operative in one’s creative practice would be a never-ending task. i only scratch the surface here, providing a few examples of how i connect my compositional process with my historically-determined knowledge in a way that begins to trace my affiliations. said (1983, 15) argues that this accounting of affiliation transforms the individual subject from being “naturally and easily a mere child of the culture” to consciously conceiving a role as a “historical and social actor in it.” positioning one’s critical consciousness as an agent within a culture—rather than attempting to set oneself apart from it— one finds oneself better positioned to follow through on spatz’s hypothesis: that prevailing technique and knowledge can be employed to different ends than those it historically served. i return to the example of “ad superni regis” to consider the affiliations between its musical means and the exercising of religious power. anthologized in the codex callixtinus—more specifically, the liber sancti jacobi (the book of st. james)—the hymn is part of a liturgy venerating st. james as a righteous martyr. historian william purkis argues that the liber’s explicit purpose was to promote the cult of st. james, and the compostela pilgrimage associated with him. the pilgrimage to compostela in turn advanced the idea that the iberian peninsula was another frontier of crusading warfare, in the interests of expelling muslims and expanding papal influence in the region. the book’s power comes from its claim to authenticity and authority. an introductory letter, spuriously attributed to pope callixtinus, states the liturgy “may be sung and read in churches at matins and masses, according to ordinance, for it is authentic and described with great authority” (in purkis 2008, 143). another sermon states the liber sancti jacobi’s purpose is to anthologize a wealth of materials “so that no one may dare to write anything about [st. james] except the authentic things that this codex […] contains.” it is difficult to conjecture how this hymn might have consolidated, in musical terms, its liturgy’s authority and authenticity for its twelfth-century listeners. i hazard only what dylan robison (2014, 282-3) describes as music’s “agglutinating” properties: its capacity to make “meaning ‘stick’.” the practice of sacred polyphony, engineered over generations to signal and invoke divinity, contributes to the aura of st. james’s saintliness. the hymn’s crystalline consonance naturalizes his divine authority to inspire crusading, thus “forgetting” the affiliations between spiritual and imperial devotion. singing to st. james elicits what walter benjamin (1968 [1942], 256) terms “empathy with the victor,” whose “spoils are carried along in the procession. they are called cultural treasures,” and their origin the historical materialist “cannot contemplate without horror.”        this 900-year-old hymn shapes and energizes my musical thinking in the twenty-first century precisely because it has been carried along in the procession. first disseminated broadly by imperial interests, it has more recently been preserved and anthologized to chart a grand narrative of european high art. i first came across this hymn in a college survey course on the history of western art music: a narrative which often presents complex affiliative networks as a series of natural filiations. robert walser (1992, 265) calls western art music an “imagined tradition,” one whose continuity and cohesion is fabricated by present interests in order to “establish or legitimize present institutions or social relations.” such strategies for establishing european cultural supremacy go hand-in-hand with strategies for disrupting the continuity of non-european cultural traditions. rob thorne (2013), a practitioner of taonga pūoro—a revival of pre-colonial māori musical practices—describes taonga pūoro as a practice “broken” and “discontinued” by colonial warfare, genocide, and criminalization of indigenous practices; its current practitioners hence cannot refer to a “consistent, fixed body of instrumental musical learning”. moreover, as taonga pūoro musician and scholar ruby solly (2020) has described, the fiction of western classical music’s immemorial continuity is often wielded to delegitimize the cultural authority and authenticity of these disrupted traditions’ current practitioners. staking out the genealogy of one’s technical entrainments is therefore a profoundly political project, for the assertions one makes have the potential to both reinscribe imaginary filations, as well as to trouble them. i bring this section to a close with reference to another of said’s contentions: that illuminating webs of affiliation can also illuminate the “social densities” which have been “stripped” from cultural artefacts. drawing from raymond williams’s the country and the city, said suggests that, for the modern reader, literary depictions of (for example) the rural mansion should not “entail only what is to be admired by way of harmony, repose, and beauty; they should also entail […] what in fact has been excluded […] the labor that created the mansions, the social processes of which they are the culmination, the dispossessions and theft they actually signified” (23). in a similar manner, there is an imperative for a modern listener to try to hear in historical music what has been discursively concealed and excluded—what the music itself has been leveraged to filiate and naturalize. in doing so, we might hear a denser overlapping of relationships between individuals, cultures, and histories.   the violinist’s historical body   keir   in this section i reflect upon certain topoi, forms, and techniques which appear throughout my solo violin part in a loose affiliation of alleluias. in doing so, i aim to identify some of the sedimented historical knowledge which structures both engineered musical effects and the most innate, bodily, intuitive elements of my playing. this continues the overall method of our paper: to excavate various historical-material strands of practice undergirding our creation of this concerto. celeste, borrowing from said and spatz, points to the cultural artifacts and social contexts inhering in her compositional materials and tendencies. in my own reflections on the process of interpreting and improvising within her composed musical structures, i attend to a host of overlapping practices guiding both my improvisations on celeste’s schematic materials, and my interpretation of the concerto’s larger-scale structural narrative. i argue that an agentic awareness of these interpretive and improvisatory codes allows me to subtly transform this transhistorical corpus through my own performing body. the genre of the violin concerto itself carries with it a history of structural and signifying characteristics. musicologist maiko kawabata (2004) identifies several military topoi in nineteenth-century violin concerti: tropes which were exaggerated during and after the napoleonic era. as she writes, “military-heroic themes and ideas permeated virtually every aspect of violin composition, performance, and reception, from the notes themselves to the symbolic meanings of performers and instruments” (92). if the orchestra throughout the eighteenth century became a highly visible metaphor for an army, the virtuoso violinist came to be described as “a general in the midst of his soldiers” (101). many aspects of a loose affiliation of alleluias subvert the most audible and visible signals of virtuosic heroism: the solo violinist continually returns to a slow-moving, three-part refrain; there are no fast-moving passages or militant march rhythms; nothing in my general comportment or playing suggests much of a desire to go to war. nevertheless, certain aspects of the concerto replay what kawabata describes as the “remarkable individual holding his own against the amassed orchestra” (96). in the climactic section following the bridge (directly preceding the outro) i play a four-note chord together with the offstage singers — a kind of victorious exclamation point on a long orchestral build. to an extent this climax is already embedded in the source material: gabrieli’s “et terra” also builds rousingly to a splendiferous major chord, which celeste orchestrates with timpani and cymbals. as soon as the chord arrives, it begins to disintegrate, swallowed up by swelling strings and bass drum, recapitulating the romantic cliché of the heroic individual overcome by the sublime. figure 2: extract from the section following the bridge and preceding the outro. an audio clip can be found at: https://vimeo.com/576938385. this musical moment characterizes a more general dissonance in our use of historical materials: that, even given a skeptical, critical distance from these tropes, they still condition our musical activity. what is expressively possible is determined by what remains materially present: the solo violinist still conjures the specter of the hero; the flanks of tutti violins still function with regimental force; the heavy artillery of the bass drum and timpani still bring up the rear. by experimentally working within and around these templates, we explore alternative renderings of these inescapable historical presences. for instance, my improvisations involve a degree of reflexive uncertainty, peppering the concerto’s outsized heroic space with silences and broken-off phrases. my playing references earlier instrumental practices as well. in the bridge section of a loose affiliation, i take a notated harmonic refrain—a cyclic progression between roots a fourth apart, ambiguating the tonic—and re-combine the voices across different strings of the violin. this is a staple improvisatory technique, which can be traced back to eighteenth-century descriptions of what certain italian theorists referred to as diminuzione. the eighteenth-century violinist and theorist, francesco galeazzi (1791/1819, 357), describes the diminuzione as a combinatorial art of imaginative improvisation: it is impossible to give rules for the diminuzione since they depend so much upon the talent and style of the performer [...]. this enormous progression gives one clearly to understand what an immense multiplicity of cantilene may emerge from a very few pitches, and what a vast field is here offered to the young performer to display his talents in the selection of the most fitting ornaments so as to enhance an expressive cantilena, a largo, etc. as galeazzi points out, ornamentation allowed the performer to “display his talents.” other treatises on ornamentation from the eighteenth century—including those by violinists francesco geminiani and giuseppe tartini—similarly point to ornamentation as a means of expressive individualization. before the solo violinist performed in front of a symphony orchestra in an opera house, ornamentation gave violinists a more intimate means of performing their virtuosity, judgment, and good taste. ornamentation in the eighteenth century was often closely associated—sometimes even synonymous—with the cultivation of taste. by ornamenting a musical line, the performer might express both their individual musical voice, and their robust musical learning. taste, as the mediation between imagination and understanding, or between individual fantasy and common convention, affiliated a musician’s practice with the aristocratic sensibilities they served. put another way, ornamentation, as a marker of taste, served as a “reinscription of power” (spatz 2015, 34) by signaling a performer’s proximity to elite spaces, and reinforcing social hierarchy via musical means. this cultivated, embodied, and ideological framework of eighteenth-century taste continues to guide twenty-first-century violinists’ reflexive musical utterances and personal practices. my own embodied knowledge of ornamentation, for example, comes from a few decades practicing works by mozart, bach, corelli, and the like. as a student interested in historically-informed practice, i was encouraged to read treatises, and to ornament historical works in personally vivid ways. in more mainstream pedagogical settings, ornaments were explained to me as codified gestures with codified methods of execution. in both cases, as a student of the tradition, i measured myself against historical frames and figures, hoping to fit my playing within conventional codes of interpretive performance, or even to distinguish my singular voice through these codes, much as eighteenth-century violinists used ornamentation as a means of manifesting their individuality. in a short essay on beethoven, theodor adorno similarly describes the ways in which musical conventions shed and acquired meaning, gesturing towards a material history of taste and ornamentation. adorno (2002 [1937], 565) compares beethoven’s late style against the composer’s middle period, in which his “‘subjectivist’ methodology” aimed to free musical material “from convention on the strength of their own uniqueness.” this middle period manifested a highly individualized style by beginning to bend and warp conventions of taste, challenging the hold that the aristocracy seemed to assert over earlier composers’ music. in adorno’s reading, beethoven transforms this arch-romantic individualism in his late style, returning to convention in order to de-familiarize it: the last five piano sonatas “are full of decorative trill sequences, cadences, and fiorituras” (565). these conventional ornaments appear “in a form that is bald, undisguised, untransformed” (565): the authorial subject speaks not through mastery over convention, but through “the irascible gesture with which it takes leave of the works themselves [...] and communicates itself, like a cipher, only through the blank spaces from which it has disengaged itself” (566). for adorno, this return to the discarded husks of historical conventions (like ornaments) expresses the alienation of subjective and objective components of music. he interprets beethoven’s late works as characteristic of a fractured subjectivity, which sees conventional musical codes (i.e., objects) as alien and anachronistic. these late works move beyond the discourse of taste and pleasure: “devoid of sweetness, bitter and spiny, they do not surrender themselves to mere delectation [...] they show more traces of history than of growth” (564). as harbingers of modernity, beethoven’s late style comes not only late in the day for him: they signal the lateness of a musical art tradition whose focal point lies in the distant past. adorno’s historical materialist reading of ornamentation articulates something like what i refer to earlier: the dissonance between the materials we are left with and what they historically signified or meant. adorno pinpoints this dissonance in beethoven’s late work: beethoven draws attention to the bald conventionality of “decorative” tropes, drawing an expressive gesture out of their mute objectivity. my own performative choices are pulled between two polarities: to work towards insufflating historical materials in an effort to make them appear spontaneous, imaginative, subjective utterances – or to let them sit there as ambivalent historical objects. there is also latitude in between these two positions, and navigating this latitude energizes and shapes my musical decisions. by way of illustration, the cadenza-like hiatus at the beginning of the bridge in a loose affiliation is the most substantial opportunity i have to imaginatively ornament the aforementioned harmonic refrain, first introduced by the offstage singers in the piece’s opening: figure 3: harmonic template undergirding keir's improvisation in the verse & bridge sections. as the bridge section develops, i move beyond combinatorial play around the harmonic progression (somewhat like galeazzi’s diminuzione), responding to celeste’s woodwind counterpoint around materials from the codex callixtinus and gabrieli's motet. these improvisatory responses draw upon a saturated chromaticism, perhaps reminiscent of alban berg’s violin concerto and his post-tonal romantic language. in his treatise, galeazzi (1791/1819, 358) points to the “new and astonishing” effects of chromatic diminution, suggesting that this strategy was also employed in eighteenth-century performance to leverage harmonic ambiguity to dramatic effect. my improvisations in this section represent an intuitive working out of the various historical frameworks guiding my hands and ears. figure 4: annotated performance video of keir's improvisation in the bridge section. see: https://vimeo.com/576934141. while this bridge section presents a moment to work out some of the schematic materials in the violin and orchestral parts, these improvisations also take into account the larger picture of the violin’s position within the whole piece: its halting interactions with the voices in the intro, its plainer embellishments of the singing refrain in verses one and two, its triumphant arrival following the bridge, and its keening ascension over the course of the outro. on both micro and macro scales, these improvisatory responses reflect the superimposition of anachronistic methods and techniques: chromatic diminution, tonal elements of romantic espressivo, eighteenth-century embellishment, and the nineteenth-century interpretive practice of parsing large-scale structural narratives. in tracing some of these cultural histories, i draw attention to the ways in which my own bodily practice is shaped by a transhistorical corpus, and vice versa, the ways in which this observation in some small way alters this inherited culture. that is, if classical music pedagogy is premised on the encoding of historical subjectivities, animistic reflexes, and sonic presences into the movements of performers and the materials of composition, then observing their enculturation is a first step in “altering the routine, the body that performs the routine, and eventually perhaps, culture itself” (noland 2009, 2). this account has drawn attention to the corporeal, historical frameworks determining my present practice as a violinist. in doing so, i have posited a complex account of my own musical agency, one which, as spatz (2015, 54) writes (referencing saba mahmood) “does not assume that traditional technique is always coercive, or that transgressive technique is necessarily empowering or freeing, but instead pays closer attention to the specific and contextual relationship between practitioner and practice.” while aspects of our musical inheritances—ornamentation, the orchestral apparatus, aristocratic codes of taste—carry material signs and traces of cultural chauvinism and imperialism, the contexts in which these fragments are reproduced are complex and multivalent. denying their presence in our minds and bodies does not do any work towards erasing their historical and present power. instead, we have here endeavored to surface some of the material genealogies guiding our corporeal, aesthetic, and ideological affiliations.   revisiting the critical promises of (post)modernity   keir   what, actually, does this critical accounting of one’s genealogy provide in the end? we here contextualize some of the contemporary frames for our composition and performance, in order to explain how particular social and intellectual contexts shaped our decisions in making a loose affiliation of alleluias. we do not suggest that the piece provides anything more, or anything less, than a researched response to the conditions of its creation. a loose affiliation was commissioned and premiered by the la jolla symphony, a community orchestra closely connected with the university of california san diego: it is directed by steven schick (a professor in the music department at ucsd); ucsd faculty and students are often featured artists; many of its tutti players have ucsd connections as alumni, employees, or extended family; and the orchestra receives technical support from staff employed by the department of music. ucsd is an r1 research institution, whose music department was founded in the 1960s. as is stated on the department’s website: as uc san diego began constructing its new music program, [john] stewart [provost of muir college] consulted modernist composer ernst krenek to help shape the department's mission. the emphasis was to be on composing and performing new and experimental music, as well as on developing innovative musical research and theory. in 1965, krenek, then a former professor at hamline university in minneapolis, recommended his former student will ogdon as the department's founding chairman. two more of krenek's onetime students, composer robert erickson and conductor tom nee, soon joined ogdon as uc san diego's founding music faculty. (ucsd department of music, n.d.) ernst krenek, like so many composers staffing post-war united states universities, was a german émigré, whose music was steeped in the language of european modernism and postmodernism. he variously experimented with methods of serialism (à la schoenberg) and neo-classicism (à la stravinsky), also incorporating elements of jazz and neo-romanticism in his music. notably, three of his students were founding members of the ucsd music department, and one of them, thomas nee, was the first conductor of the la jolla symphony. a loose affiliation was funded by the annually-awarded thomas nee commission. we wrote and performed a loose affiliation as phd students at the ucsd department of music, which draws much of its cultural cachet from, as its website advertises, its “identity as a world leader in new and experimental music.” the la jolla symphony audience and patrons (many of whom are also professionally affiliated with ucsd) have been familiar, since the 1960s, with academic considerations of contemporary art music. as such, the context of this commission set several frames—in terms of institutional resources, audience, and aesthetic expectations. this context sits comfortably within the analytical category that benjamin piekut (2019, 388) terms “elite avant-gardism”: where “elite” is used “not as a judgement of value or skill but rather as a registration of the real social and economic differences in the production and reception of the music.” in attending to our position within this category, a loose affiliation constitutes a response to these conditions of its creation, if not a solution to our own compromised positions within these networks. what also aligns our work with “elite avant-gardism” is a concern with re-assessing what authority the historical musical materials of the european bourgeoisie have to steer cultural futurity. this brings our work into dialogue (if not always consonance) with european modernism’s prevailing attitudes around the role of cultural critique in art. adorno—another german émigré (like krenek)—articulated in his philosophy of new music (2006 [1949]) an aesthetic position which remains hugely influential for the network of post-war composers staffing american university departments. on the question of how european art music responds to fascism, adorno argues that arnold schoenberg’s audible negation of tonal grammar (first through his expressionist works) represents perhaps the only authentic expression of a society that has reached the point of genocidal violence. for adorno, serialism truthfully reflects the endgame of western art music and society, whose faith in enlightenment rationalism has overreached into hyper-determinism and unfreedom. stravinsky, on the other hand, adorno labels as regressive—his representations of barbarism in the rite of spring, and his mechanistic pastiches of earlier european music in petrushka, represent an inauthentic retreat into an imagined past. adorno disparages stravinsky’s neo-classicist work as “music about music,” which nullifies music’s capacity to represent psychology and intentionality (2006, 150). adorno reads stravinsky’s neo-classicism, his incorporation of elements of jazz, and his mechanistic meters and tempi as pastiche, collapsing historical intention and meaning. this reading is premised on a teleological vision of european art music—one which motivates some of adorno’s most infamous and racist remarks about jazz as “primitive” (171). we disagree with adorno’s fundamentally negative, impossibly narrow, and chauvinistic prescriptions for authentic musical expressions. nonetheless, we see value in his long view of the historical tendencies of musical materials. maintaining this critical attention to the determining presence of history is necessary for parsing one’s own musical identity and inheritances. especially for musicians affiliated with a language of institutional power, these inheritances include what tamara levitz (2020) calls “epistemologies of coloniality”: ways of knowing that resurface in the reflexive elements of our practice, reinscribing colonizing patterns of thought. one such pattern surfaces in what georgina born (1995, 62) characterizes as modernism’s and postmodernism’s “tendency of negation,” which claims cultural authority for its own labors by condemning other music for being too commercial, too loose, too anachronistic, too simple, too sexy. these negating proclamations of the european avant-garde continue to operate as a means for excluding and dominating non-white musics in institutional spaces—a pattern that levitz and piekut (2020) address in their recent essay expanding the concept of avant-gardism, and which george lewis (2007) repeatedly critiques throughout his history of the association for the advancement of creative music. we suggest that directly linking our present creativity to historical materials and contexts is one way to break from modern and postmodern tendencies of ideological negation. by staying with the histories comprising and compromising our own creative utterances, we put ourselves in a better position to avoid imposing our inherited cultural limitations upon possible musical futures. the observation of these historical parameters in a loose affiliation shifts the means and ends of our creative practice, away from the unconscious reproduction of historical attitudes, and towards a conscientious reckoning with the cultural values undergirding our social, corporeal, and epistemological foundations.   conclusion   we have sought to explain the ways in which the stewardship of creative practice necessitates a critical re-appraisal of the histories shaping our practices of composition, improvisation, and performance. we understand creative practice as part of a single, continuous gesture with musicological analysis and hermeneutics. by creative practice, we mean something more than the instrumentalization of creative labor for the performance of mastery over tradition. this gesture, as we see it, plugs oneself into the so-called objectivity of music history without troubling the filiations which reify traditional narratives. by contrast, we see creativity as the agency to exploratively shape how those histories determine one’s own musical voice. the excavating potential of creative practice provides a means of reckoning with the affordances and limitations of historical and present pedagogies. the teaching of composition, improvisation and performance—practices that are immediately experienced at a corporeal level—viscerally convey the stakes of expressive autonomy, and of cultural inheritance. that is, even before critical reappraisals of culture are discursively articulated, they can be felt in the disciplining of the body, in the hierarchical structures of classical institutions, or in the relationship with one’s own instrument and sound, however fraught that might be. these modes of corporeal and epistemological entrainment often create a cognitive dissonance between cultural critique and creative (re)production. we have sought to surface such dissonances in our own practices, as well as in the ideological negations of musical modernisms and postmodernisms bounded by “elite avant-gardism” (piekut, 388). we suggest that our analysis of a loose affiliation might also be adapted as a pedagogical approach which stays with this unresolved dissonance between critique and creation—a dissonance which is registered both through historical research and the sensorial re-attunement of musical bodies. namely, we suggest that something of the philosophy and politics of citation might be transferred into the pedagogy of creative practice — especially where that practice is supported and presented by the auspices of an institution of the “elite avant-garde,” such as a university. our compositional process and post-hoc reflection for a loose affiliation is one example of a citational approach — though other approaches might not necessarily adapt historical musical sources (as in a loose affiliation) and might necessitate methods other than the text-centric terms of a scholarly bibliography. rather, a creative citational practice would articulate what frames of knowledge and reference have informed one’s own creative decisions, and what historical materials enable their efficacy. in our experience, such an acknowledgement of the thick historical presences underpinning our creative work and decisions has not brought with it the sense of being a mere cog in the machine — nor the resignation that “there’s nothing new in hollywood,” that our creative utterances are doomed to recapitulate the conditioning we have inherited. on the contrary, we have found it to be a motivating force: for it is precisely by positioning ourselves within a culture that we assert our role as an agent in it, and thus assert our capacity to resist, transform, or shift that culture.   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virtuosity.” popular music 11 (2): 263-308.   current musicology 109-110 (2022) ©2023bergman. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-non-commercialnoderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). emotional storms, passion and melancholy when symphonic music is legitimated as an emotional resource åsa bergman the 2020 netflix series “unorthodox” depicts how the young esther shapiro flees from an unhappy marriage and a strictly regulated life in an orthodox jewish community in williamsburg (brooklyn, new york). dealing with challenges during her escape to berlin, esther draws strength from the emotional power of classical music. in one scene she is moved to tears while listening to a rehearsal of antonio dvorak’s “serenade for strings”. the scene takes place at the music conservatory, which also is the most important place for the development of her new identity. in the end of the series esther is applying herself to the school as a scholarship holder by performing franz schubert’s “an die musik” for the jury. in the first episode, the viewer has already seen esther’s grandmother crying as she listens to the piece because it brings back memories of close relatives who died in the holocaust. by performing “and die musik” ester's personal liberation process is emphasized, but also her effort to deal with a historical legacy. but to convince the jury, she is also required to perform a traditional jewish song. and this performance even more convincingly articulates the relationship between a longing for freedom, authenticity, and identity, and music’s potential to serve as an emotional force. the relationship between classical music and strong expressions of emotion, as depicted in “unorthodox,” differs from the usual characterization of conventional audience behavior at classical music performance as well-disciplined and emotionally restrained. christopher small (1998, 26), for example, calls attention to the norms surrounding listening practices in modern concert halls whereby “the audience is fixed in the seats” and encouraged “to keep still and quiet.” the fact that musicologists have long focused on formal and structural details, thereby idealizing a moderate and introspective attitude toward listening, has also been cited as a reason why even in the early twenty-first century research on music and emotions remains a relatively unexplored area (juslin and sloboda 2001). the idea that listening ideals are stable over time has also been problematized, with critics pointing out how norms of aesthetic value have been relaxed as a consequence of cultural changes during the latter half of the twentieth century (fornäs 1995; ziehe 2004). however, even the idea of a destabilization of normative values has recently been challenged. for example, it has been shown that ideas and conceptions about music and emotion that were first articulated in ancient times are still being reproduced today (cook and dibben 2012; kramarz 2019). it has also been suggested that “a concert-goer in the early twentyfirst century might share some of the ideals of a concert-goer in, say 1870,” and that “those ideals may—or may not—differ sharply from those of the fellow mp3 listener in the subway” (thorau and ziemer 2018, 16). previous research also shows that åsa bergman 26 value hierarchies associated with classical music are challenged when it is used as material for creative and playful meme-making on social media (hyltén-cavallius 2021). a shift in the meaning of classical music is also identified in a study of contemporary cinema, but at the same time this does not necessarily cause critics and audiences to “reject the notion of the musical work or devalue the high-art status and emancipatory potential traditionally ascribed to classical music” (pontara 2021, 4). against the backdrop of how the meaning and value of classical music is simultaneously described as stable and mutable, this article aims to investigate what conceptions and ideals about emotional qualities are articulated in the marketing of symphony orchestras’ concert productions. the purpose of the article is to apply a discourse-analytic approach to investigating how symphonic music is constructed and legitimated as an emotional resource, and how concert hall audiences are positioned in relation to ideas about the emotional qualities of music. this is done by investigating how emotions are emphasized in presentations of concerts included in the concert offerings of two leading orchestras, the london symphony orchestra (lso) and the gothenburg symphony orchestra (gso). the material analyzed is taken from the orchestras’ websites and consists primarily of texts downloaded from the 2018-2019 season. in addition, a number of images have been included because they illustrate feelings or emotional responses in relation to one of the texts selected for analysis. the discourse-analytic approach adopted by the study involves a focus on linguistic utterances or, in other words, on how feelings and emotional reactions are characterized in texts and images, as well as on the narratives that these utterances create. the patterns that emerge from the analysis are then situated in relation to historically and collectively created discourses, for the purpose of identifying both shifts and stability in conceptions of the emotional qualities of classical music (foucault 1970/1981). another characteristic of this theoretical perspective is that it regards discourse and power as intimately conjoined, based on a view of power as something productive, that is, as something that is exercised and operates through actions, rather than being something that can be allocated or rescinded (foucault 2004). such an approach to power also makes it possible to focus on how different conceptions and ideas about classical music and emotions are in competition with each other, as well as what potential tensions and conflicts of interest this leads to. this interest in discursive conflict is further grounded in a view of power as relational, which means being able to highlight the subject positions that are constructed in relation to prescribed listener ideals and emotional responses (foucault 1982). the micro-level effects and consequences of power are, in foucault’s way of thinking, intertwined with societal conditions, and to highlight the relation between microand macro-perspectives in the analysis of concert descriptions, the concept of “biopower” will be included in the theoretical framework (foucault 2004). according to jeffery t. nealon (2008, 46), the term “biopower” refers to “a very efficient mode of power that infuses each individual at a nearly ubiquitous number current musicology 27 of actual and virtual sites, rather than working primarily on specific bodies at particular sites of training.” “biopower” can accordingly be understood as a form of discipline; however, rather than focusing on the regulation of bodies and embodiment, or on “man-as-a-body,” it is interested in lifestyle patterns, or “manas-living-being” (foucault 2004, 242). biopower can further be understood as a central instrument of governance in a neo-liberal economic system, where “lifestyle purchasing is the primary economic driver” (nealon 2018, 11f). and since lifestyle adapted offers according to nealon have become the dominant principle for cultural production, attention will also be given to the emotional qualities that are used as selling points and what subject positions the listener are offered by that. it must also, however, be kept in mind that this can take different forms depending on the character of the informational material. and the investigation is therefore also directed at identifying linguistic variations in the texts selected for analysis, as well as how the different types of presentational material address the audience in different ways. already during the stage of collecting material it became clear that feelings were especially frequently mentioned as an indicator of quality in the concert presentation, and thus the article’s focus is to a large degree empirically generated. in addition to audience address and linguistic style, the analysis has focused on identifying the linguistic elements out of which the concert presentations are composed, in terms of how they appear in both the texts and the selected images. in the close reading of the texts, special attention has been given to identifying frequently occurring words and phrases, as well as what narratives are established in connection to descriptions of the music as an emotional resource. the images that were selected have in turn been analyzed based on the semiotic resources that are present and how these are organized (machin and mayr 2012). this means that the analysis starts from an understanding of cultural meaning as constructed by both linguistic and symbolic representations, as well as how these are combined (hall 2013). the investigation and analysis of how symphonic concerts are legitimized on the basis of their emotional qualities is also related to how classical music is depicted in other types of textual materials and how the audience is positioned in relation to it. in this context, program notes are considered to be an especially relevant text genre, not least when considering the role that this phenomenon played in the growth of public concert culture. the introduction of program notes in mid-nineteenthcentury britain is said to have reflected an ambition to explain “how instrumental music ‘worked’ (in simple formalist terms) and what audiences should listen for,” that is, in order to educate and foster audiences in line with a formalist aesthetic and attentive listening ideal (bashford 2018, 187f). it has also been shown that in the latter half of the nineteenth century the concept of program notes spread to other parts of europe and north america, thereby contributing to the canonization of symphonic music (lanzendörfer 2018; bashford 2018). another text genre that has influenced conceptions of classical music is music criticism, which like program notes was established in parallel with the development of public music culture during the åsa bergman 28 nineteenth century (reese willén 2016). from a comparative historical perspective, the way in which norms of aesthetic value are articulated in review texts has also been shown to vary over time (widestedt 2001). studies of program notes and music criticism from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries have also highlighted how the formalist aesthetic ideal that contributed to the symphony format being accorded the status of “the most prestigious of all instrumental genres” was also eventually challenged (bonds 2006, 1). for instance, it has been shown how program notes during the latter half of the nineteenth century took the form of a “guided perception for the conception of music listening”; that is, they were comparable to the travel guidebooks that targeted middle-class readers and which were increasingly prevalent in great britain from the middle of the nineteenth century. this type of program notes was characterized by a focus on directing the listener attention to affective aspects of the music (thorau 2018, 208). an important figure in this process was musicologist and conductor hermann kretzschmar, who is said to have described music by attributing characteristics to it, thereby contributing an “impetus for a deeper engagement with extramusical associations and with the conceptual subjects of a composition” (fuchs 2019, 5). apart from influencing how music was described in program notes, kretzschmar’s ideas also affected the orientation of music criticism in the early twentieth century (edström 1993). moreover, it has been shown that kretzschmar’s thinking served as a foundation for the work of cataloguing music for silent-cinema and using music to reinforce the narrative events in the films (fuchs 2019). according to kristina widestedt (2001), who has investigated how music was constructed as an object of knowledge by music critics between 1795 and the late 1990s, a gradual privatization of musical experience has occurred, beginning in 1885. during the late 1990s it also became increasingly common for music to be constructed as a commercial object, and the audience was positioned as participating in “challenging the traditional aesthetic discourse” (widestedt 2001, 88). musical experience as on the one hand a private concern, and on the other hand a commercial phenomenon, is also stressed in the material for the present article. alongside that, however, historically shaped conceptions of classical music are also given a large amount of space. how this is done, and in what ways they are combined with each other, are treated in the following section. constructing music as an emotional resource a common rhetorical device in the presentations of lso’s and gso’s concert programs is to emphasize the range of feelings in the music and the extremes of feeling that a piece harbors. this occurs, for example, in the presentation of hector berlioz’s symphony op. 16, “harold in italy,” which was part of lso’s offerings for the 2018-2019 concert season: current musicology 29 the concert closes with berlioz’s dreamlike harold in italy. melancholy and pensive, the symphony brings the viola to the forefront to convey restlessness, wanderlust and the artist’s ceaseless search for inspiration. as the example shows, the symphony is described as at once dreamlike, melancholy and thoughtful, at the same time as—with reference to the viola solo that is central to the piece—it is said to “convey restlessness” and “wanderlust.” in other words, the piece is characterized as containing both introspective moods and what could be called exploratory investigation connected to emotional frustration. by stressing the symphony’s ability to “convey” specific character traits, the description makes reference to a conception of music’s representational nature that is in line with a mimetic tradition of thought, specifically the idea that meaning and significance are transmitted through “imitation or transformation of an external reality” (cook and dibben 2012, 2). more frequently, however, the emotional qualities stressed in the concert descriptions relate to aesthetic ideals developed from the late eighteenth century and which rather were based on an explicit assumption that the music’s meaning was “dissociated from ‘extra musical’ functions and programs” (dahlhaus 1989a, 5). like in the above example this is often done by emphasizing emotional features of a piece by attributing characteristics to it such as “melancholy” and “pensive” in a way that is recognizable from aesthetic terminology. according to frank sibley (1995, 313), such terminology often has a representational character, in that “many words have come to be aesthetic terms by some kind of metaphorical transference.” the characterization of a piece’s emotional qualities with the help of aesthetic terms occurs frequently in the material and is also identified in lso’s presentation of bruckner’s sixth symphony: its contrasting moods, and overarching theme moving from darkness to light, can be haunting one moment and ecstatic the next, culminating in one of the most enigmatic symphonic conclusions of the 19th century. as we can see, in this presentation contrasting moods are emphasized by relating aesthetic representations such as “haunting,” “ecstatic,” and “enigmatic” to audibly discernable characteristics by stressing “its contrasting moods, and overarching theme moving from darkness to light.” sibley (1995, 313) also points out that this is a common narrative device, as “aesthetic terms always ultimately apply because of, and aesthetic qualities always ultimately depend upon, the presence of features which are visible, audible.” a similar characterization of music’s emotional features occurs in the presentation of french composer betsy jolas’s piece “a little summer suite,” in which audibly identifiable features such as “contrasting rhythms and melodic lines” are placed in relation to metaphorical attributions such as “a jaunty pallet of sounds” and aesthetic characteristics such as a “breezy, playful feel”: alongside pieces by rameau and poulenc, this concert sees the lso’s first performance of betsy jolas’ a little summer suite, a commission by sir simon rattle. the piece plays contrasting rhythms and melodic lines åsa bergman 30 against each other, using a jaunty pallet of sounds to create a breezy, playful feel. a true burst of summer to warm this late-winter concert. in this example, a different terminology stands in the foreground, namely that of compositional technique or music theory and that can be associated with a formalist aesthetic ideal (cook and dibben 2012). with that in mind, the description of music as an emotional resource in this particular example can of course connect to the conception of music as an independent aesthetic object, an idea that “evolved gradually along with the development of a repertoire of tonal instrumental music in europe, mainly from the early eighteenth century onwards” (grey 2014, 55). and moreover, on a “belief that instrumental music could be a fine and respectable art in service to nothing but itself” (goehr 1992, 147). drawing on a formalist ideal does not, however, mean that music’s emotional power was denied, but rather that the independent aesthetic value of a piece of music was viewed as more important than its significance as a generator of strong feelings in relation to a listener. according to mark evan bonds (1997, 392), this meant that the focus “shifted from music’s effect to music’s essence, or more specifically, to the ideal realm reflected in that music.” in the words of music critic eduard hanslick, “beauty is and remains beauty even if no feelings are aroused and even if it be neither perceived nor thought” (hanslick 1986, 3). the difference between beauty and feelings that follows from hanslick’s reasoning has the effect of creating a distinction between good feelings, in the sense of spiritual perceptions of music, and bad feelings, in the sense of sensual or physical musical feelings (widestedt 2001). working with both structural and aesthetic musical concepts, as in the description of betsy jolas’s piece, or for that matter in the above description of bruckner’s sixth symphony, can be understood as an attempt to overcome the distinction between the spiritual and the physical, and between music as an aesthetic object and as a generator of emotion. a similar balancing act appears to take place in the presentation of gso’s concert program virtuost med sara ott [virtuosic with sara ott], which consists of franz liszt’s piano concerto no. 2 and dmitri shostakovich’s symphony no. 15: the bold and uncompromising pianist alice sara ott meets the symphony in liszt’s emotional piano concerto [...] in the second piano concerto he parodied prussian military music (ludicrously pompous marches), titillated the bourgeoisie with undisguisedly sentimental and emotional melodies (as genuine as they are eager to please) and treated the circus audience to a piano part so virtuosic that all the keys together weren’t up to the task. [...] tellingly enough, some of liszt’s aesthetic spirit can also be found in shostakovich’s music, especially in the fifteenth symphony which, with its quotations from rossini and bartók, pokes fun at itself in all seriousness. but it also contains profoundly emotional sections in muted shades from individual string instruments to powerful brass. considering how the piece is described as originally having “titillated the bourgeoisie with undisguisedly sentimental and emotional melodies,” one could understand the characterization of feelings in the description of liszt’s piano concerto as downplaying the value of the piece precisely because it generated feelings in a specific current musicology 31 group of listeners. furthermore, the fact that sentimentality is not presented solely as a positive trait can be understood in relation to the emphasis on virtuosity. this is because even if virtuosity can be understood as the enactment of technical brilliance, and thus as signifying high-quality instrumental technique, the connection between emotionality and virtuosity naturally also challenges conceptions of the independent value of music. as the compositional ideal of virtuosity grew stronger during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it was increasingly perceived as a phenomenon of popular culture. this led in turn to “a general shift from a position that tended to regard virtuosity as a component of genius to one that vilified it as superficial and self-serving” (deaville 2014, 279). the description of shostakovitch’s fifteenth symphony admittedly uses a different rhetorical strategy to legitimize the emotional qualities of music, but here too it involves maintaining a balance between music’s function as a resource for strong feelings and its independent artistic qualities. like in the description of “a little summer suite” above, this is done by combining aesthetic terms with references to audibly identifiable parameters such as instrumentation and frequency ranges (sibley 1995). what sticks out somewhat in the description of shostakovich’s symphony no. 15 is the phrase “muted shades,” which is not an entirely obvious vocabulary in a contemporary musical context, but reinforces the idea that music is constructed as “an aesthetically refined and sophisticated object” (pontara 2007, 156). such an extraordinary use of language in combination with an emphasis on structural parameters such as melody, rhythm, timbre, and orchestration also occurs in gso’s description of bruckner’s eighth symphony. but, anchored within a romantic conception on music this presentation also highlights the spiritual dimensions of music with attributions such as “hypnotic rhythms,” “otherworldly passages,” “reverent melodies” and “serene states of mind”: if you want to experience a great romantic symphony, there is no better choice than bruckner’s eighth symphony – a tremendous orchestral work that spreads out in time and space with hypnotic rhythms and mighty sounds. many view the eighth symphony as one of bruckner’s finest. in this gigantic orchestral construction, he pushes the limits of the orchestra, suggestively allowing crescendo after crescendo to build up with enormous power. there is also an ardent sincerity here that reflects his deep catholic faith, echoing for instance in otherworldly passages for harp and reverent melodies that create serene states of mind. once you have been drawn into bruckner’s unique world, you’ll never want to leave it. there, time stands still. like in the earlier presentation of bruckner’s sixth symphony, there is a lack here of explicit references to feelings or expected emotional responses in the listener. instead, the work’s emotional potential is highlighted by stressing the evocative structure of the music and its “ardent sincerity.” considering the poetic rhetoric that is used, and drawing on dahlhaus (1989b, 34), the description can be understood in terms of the idea of music as an autonomous work of art, and of how “ ‘poetic’ instrumental music that abandons clearly defined subjects, characters, and åsa bergman 32 emotions” strives “to become a language capable of portending the ‘infinite’.” however, rather than invoking the music’s independent qualities in relation to a formalist aesthetic ideal, the description of bruckner’s symphony no. 6 stresses the metaphysical qualities of the piece, and thus it can be traced back to a romantic musical ideal instead (dahlhaus 1989b; goehr 1992; bonds 1997). and just like in the descriptions that draw on a formalist ideal, this is largely done through the use of aesthetic terminology (sibley 1995). based on the examples analyzed so far, it is apparent that the emotional qualities of the music are linked to a mimetic idea tradition, a formalist aesthetic ideal, and a romantic conception of music. it has also been pointed out how aesthetic terminology occurs as a rhetorical device in all three cases. apart from underpinning various historically formed ideals, the aesthetic terminology also appears to help create a bridge between them, thereby creating a surface from which an individualized understanding of music can take shape (wiedestedt 2001; nealon 2018). passion as an emotional quality an emotional quality that appears especially frequently in the presentations in gso’s and lso’s concert programs is passion. one example of this is when tchaikovsky’s symphony no. 6, also known as the “pathétique,” which is part of gso’s program, is described as “the very essence of passion and sentiment, with feelings as bare as a naked soul.” another example is when schumann’s violin concerto, the main piece at gso’s concert schumann’s fateful works, is described as “one of the great concertos” with reference to its “intensity and passion, at the same time as a brooding sense of sorrow and disquiet underlies even the calm sections and the seemingly playful passages.” the presentation of shostakovich’s first concerto for piano, trumpet and string orchestra, performed by piano soloist daniil trifonov together with lso, also highlights passion as a musical characteristic: burning passion and cool introspection meet head-on in this concert, bringing daniil trifonov’s artist portrait series to a close. when, in this example, “burning passion” is contrasted with “cool introspection,” it is done with the help of a metaphorical aesthetic terminology, and with what in earlier sections has been described as an extraordinary use of language (sibley 1995; pontara 2007). the same metaphorical terminology can also be found in the description of schumann’s violin concerto, even if this is done by emphasizing “a brooding sense of sorrow and disquiet,” that is, by making reference to a conception of musical representativity connected with the idea of mimesis (cook and dibben 2012). however, the fact that passion is held up as a musical characteristic in several of the presentations can also be related to how erotic allusions become increasingly frequent in musical contexts around 1885 (widestedt 2001). another aesthetic characteristic that is closely related to passion occurs in several program descriptions current musicology 33 where the music is described as moving toward an emotional peak, often expressed in terms of a climax. this occurs, for example, in another description of shostakovich’s first concerto for piano, trumpet and string orchestra: with his concerto no 1, shostakovich upends the traditions of the concerto form, creating a piece that bites with wit and humour. lurching from the pithy sarcasm of the solo trumpet to the opulence of a waltz-like theme, the piece charges through disparate moods with wicked abandon, building towards a manic, carnivalesque climax. a similar rhetorical strategy is found in lso’s description of nielsen’s symphony no. 4, which emphasizes the strong emotions and violent energy connected with the music in the following way: nielsen’s turbulent symphony no 4 echoes the violence and ferocity of world war i. opening with a furious blast of energy, chaos and a sense of instability reign for much of the piece, brought to a menacing climax by two warring percussion. but hopeful and atmospheric moments reoccur throughout the piece, embodying what nielsen called “the elemental will to live,” or “the inextinguishable.” in this example, the emotional peaks are highlighted in a way that alludes to music’s eternal values and ability to evoke transcendental experiences in the listener, and the statement can therefore be traced back to a romantic aesthetic ideal (dahlhaus 1989a; goehr 1992; bonds 1997; 2006). however, by emphasizing how the music rushes toward “a manic, carnivalesque climax” or “a menacing climax,” as in the two previous examples, the statement can of course be pointing out that a peak experience of a more physical sort is meant. this statement can moreover be understood as making an erotic allusion in line with expressions used by critics in the end of the nineteenth century. according to widestedt (2001), such allusions are to be understood in relation to how music experiences at that point of time was made to an increasingly private matter. an individualistic view of emotions is also articulated in the concert description, which emphasizes passionate love connected with the romantic love affair. the presentation of the event date night at the philharmonic, arranged by gso on valentine’s day 2019 in connection with the concert sibelius’s singing swans, at which sibelius’s symphony no. 5 and aho sieidi’s “concerto for percussion” were performed, stresses the relation between music and audience, as well as between individuals in the audience: in the spirit of love we offer tender surprises and antics on february 14–15. come as you are, meet a new sweetheart or bring along family and friends. together we can make the world a more loving place for a while. ❤ [sic] on friday, february 15, we string cupid’s bow a bit tauter than usual. we invite you to take part in speed-dating before the concert, in collaboration with single in sweden. it is playful and inclusive, and just as much about making new acquaintances as finding love. åsa bergman 34 given that the event presented here is scheduled for valentine’s day and how tenderness and the possibility of finding a new romance are emphasized, the music is made into an emotional resource, something that can nurture a romantic relationship. characteristic for the description of the event date night at the philharmonic, is also the prose. unlike in many other descriptions loaded with extraordinary use of language, this one has a rather colloquial character. and by alluding to modern digital text messaging, the heart emoji in the text furthermore reinforce the casual and relaxed appearance of the message. what also characterizes this description is that the audience is addressed in a more direct way than in the previously cited examples. instead of only hinting at a listener, or referring to him or her collectively or in terms of the pronoun “one,” here the listener is addressed directly in the second person. like with most of the concert descriptions, the text is accompanied by a picture. in gso’s program presentations these pictures usually depict a soloist or conductor associated with the concert. however, the picture for the event date night at the philharmonic depicts a woman kissing a contrabassoon with her eyes closed: figure 1: picture for the concert event: date night at the philharmonic. illustration: anna hult; published on permission of gothenburg symphony orchestra considering the central position of the contrabassoon in the picture and how the woman giving her undivided attention to the instrument is depicted against a pink background, the picture can undoubtedly be understood as illustrating a musician’s love for an instrument and/or for music. however, seeing as how the woman is holding the instrument against her body and is kissing it with her eyes closed, it is also possible to read the image as enacting an erotically charged romantic interaction between human beings. this can be compared with how subtle sexual references are said to be a common advertising strategy in mainstream media (reichert 2003). even if the bassoon is an instrument that lacks distinct gender coding (scharff 2018), this interpretation is justified by how the woman, with her restrained appearance in terms of hairstyle, makeup and clothing, is depicted in accordance with a respectable middle-class ideal (skeggs 1997), a positioning that is also central to being recognized as a musician within classical music culture (scharff 2018; bull 2019). the framing of the concert as a romantic event and the fact that the presentation includes a current musicology 35 positioning of the musician as a feminine heterosexual subject also generate an image of the occasion as a commercial product in which listeners can reflect themselves and other lifestyle choices (nealon 2008; 2018) . restrained versus exuberant listener responses addressing the audience directly, as occurs in the presentation of date night at the philharmonic, and descriptions of the strong reactions that the music’s emotional qualities generate in listeners, are relatively scarce in the concert descriptions. listeners’ reactions connected with feelings that the music generates are more often characterized in implicit terms, such as when “reverent melodies” are said to generate “serene states of mind,” in the presentation of bruckner’s symphony no. 8 above. however, it also happens that the audience is more explicitly positioned in relation to the conception of music as an emotional force, as in gso’s presentation of carl nielsen’s second symphony: carl nielsen presents a spectrum of the entire human psyche in his second symphony, “the four temperaments,” with vivid depictions of the choleric, the phlegmatic, the melancholic, and the sanguine. a musical journey through the hidden chambers of the soul, undertaken at your own risk. in this statement, the act of listening is compared to “a musical journey through the hidden chambers of the soul, undertaken at your own risk,” with reference to how the work represents irritability and melancholy. however, what the purported risk consists of or what may be at stake for the listener is not specified. one possible interpretation is that it stresses the importance of restraint in relation to emotional experiences, and that the mentioned risk concerns the danger that accompanies a failure to exhibit the sort of restrained and contemplative listening behavior that was the ideal in the nineteenth century (johnsson 1995; gay 1996; thorau and ziemer 2018). the concert’s title “emotional storms” could then be understood as construing music as an emotional force capable of throwing the listener off balance. risk-taking from the listener’s perspective is also stressed in gso’s presentation of fauré’s “requiem,” which emphasizes the work’s ability to profoundly move the listener: this is a uniquely genuine and honest work that with its delicate and respectful touch has moved many listeners deeply. “my requiem is dominated from beginning to end by a deeply human feeling of faith in eternal rest.” with his impeccable sense of melodic perfection and refined sounds he created a work into which one can sink without resistance, safe and secure under the leadership of conductor joana carneiro. the way in which the work’s emotional qualities are highlighted in this text indicates, however, that the music’s potential lies in conveying a spiritual or sublime experience, rather than evoking a powerful emotional response in the listener. given how the composer is said to have created “a work into which one can sink without åsa bergman 36 resistance,” referring to its authenticity and fauré’s “impeccable sense of melodic perfection,” one can argue that music is here made into an independent aesthetic object and a resource for inner contemplation (hanslick 1986; goehr 1992; dahlhaus 1989a). describing the act of listening in relation to formalist aesthetic qualities also emphasizes the music’s capacity to reflect a higher ideal, which at the same time requires the listener to “take an active role in the mental construction of that work.” (bonds 1997, 393). this ideal, which developed during the nineteenth century, never fully took hold among the bourgeois audience, however. as dahlhaus (1989b) points out, this was because the romantic philosophy of music, with its ideas about the autonomy of music and the goal of putting the listener into a transcendent state of mind, was in direct opposition to the musical aesthetic grounded in the enlightenment. in bourgeois circles in the late seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, “music that did not reach the heart, that was not intelligible as a reflection of inner emotion, was considered meaningless noise: however astonishing the virtuosity of the performance, it left the emotions untouched” (dahlhaus 1989b, 89). be that as it may, a spiritual dimension of emotional experience brought about by listening to music is also highlighted in gso’s description of szymanowski’s first violin concerto, though in this case it involves transporting listeners to “new” and “enchanted worlds”: the first piece is szymanowski’s first violin concerto from 1916, in which the composer, like debussy, seeks out colors, sounds and rhythms that transport the listener to new enchanted worlds. music with passion and sensitivity—to be performed that way as well, which janine jansen is truly capable of doing! given how transporting the listener to new enchanted worlds is associated here with passion and sensitivity as musical qualities, it can be argued that ideals of music aesthetics connected to the idea that music can put listeners into transcendental states are in agreement with a romantic musical ideal (dahlhaus 1989b; bonds 1997). this also appears in the presentation of daniel nelson’s work “steampunk blizzard,” which is part of the same concert as szymanowski’s first violin concerto and tchaikovsky’s symphony no. 6. here, however, the anticipated emotional reaction in the listener is described in a slightly different way than with the other two works: daniel nelson delivers alternating contrasts in steampunk blizzard, which with its machine-like rhythms and industrial feel takes us on a musical roller-coaster ride. perfect for principle conductor santtu-matias rouvali. the description of this piece builds, as we can see, on a somewhat different vocabulary than the previous examples. rather than drawing on metaphorical aesthetic terminology, it characterizes the music through references to a more modernistic use of language, such as when its “machine-like rhythms and industrial feel” are said to characterize the music. the musical “roller-coaster” that is invoked to describe the concert program and that positions the listener as a musical fellow traveler also stands in contrast to many of the descriptions discussed previously. like in an earlier study where the listening experience is depicted as exhilarating through current musicology 37 pictures of concert seats that have been lifted out of the concert hall and placed in dramatic natural settings, here the roller-coaster metaphor suggests a listening experience that is felt in the pit of the stomach (bergman 2021). the feelings or moods associated with these experiential swings are never specified in this statement, which can be understood as stressing that it is up to the listeners themselves to define the significance and meaning of nelson’s piece. in this way the text also refers to the idea that the meaning and significance of music is open to interpretation, and that its significance is related to the needs or wishes in a given situation or context and thus is related to a logic typical of a contemporary neo-liberal consumer society (nealon 2018). a similar connection is made between the qualities ascribed to music and the imagined reactions of listeners in the presentation of gso’s program series wednesday medium—fill up on music in the middle of the week. in contrast to the restrained emotional reactions that are expected in the earlier program presentations, here the audience is encouraged to live it up and indulge in the feelings that the concert experience generates: let your emotions spill over while listening to music such as grieg’s piano concerto with the phenomenal alice sara ott, shostakovich conducted by santtu-matias rouvali, plenty of mozart and the magical violinist janine jansen. in the concert package wednesday medium you get eight classical concerts together with introductions an hour before the start of each concert. the image accompanying the text, a photograph of a tissue packet with gso’s logo on it lying next to a crumpled tissue, also articulates the idea of music as generating powerful emotional reactions in the audience. figure 2: picture for the program series wednesday medium. illustration: daniel grizelj; published on permission of gothenburg symphony orchestra it is possible to read the text and image, as well as the physical tissue packet that is available in material form in gso’s ticket office, as construing classical music as generating powerful emotional reactions in line with how musical experiences are highlighted and sometimes also idealized by musicologists in the early twenty-first century (juslin and sloboda 2001; sloboda 2012). this research tradition examines, among other things, people’s descriptions of strong experiences or overwhelming åsa bergman 38 emotions in relation to music listening (gabrielsson 2012). this is furthermore often based on an idea that “questions about music and emotion are at the heart of why we listen to it” and this is “central to how music affects us” (juslin 2019, 5). when musical experiences are described as special events characterized by powerful emotions, for instance when representing the concert experience as inducing such strong emotions that it is necessary to have a packet of tissues to hand, an idea is articulated of music’s potential effect on people that can be recognized in the ancient concept of catharsis (karmarz 2019). discussion the investigation on which this article is based has revealed how the legitimization of symphonic music as an emotional resource connects to various aesthetic ideas and conceptions of musical meaning. on the one hand, it has been pointed out that the link between music and emotions is articulated in line with a formalist aesthetic ideal through an emphasis on the independent aesthetic value of music (dahlhaus 1989a; goehr 1992). it has also been noted that symphonic concert presentations in which emotions are highlighted are linked to a romantic ideal through an emphasis on music’s metaphysical qualities (dahlhaus 1989a; goehr 1992; bonds 1997). in addition, it has been argued that music is construed as an emotional resource in a representational sense, that is, as a carrier of emotional content in line with the idea of mimesis (cook and dibben 2012). the study has further aimed to make visible how audiences are positioned in relation to conceptions of music as an emotional resource. one of the listening ideals that is highly valued in the material is that of introspective listening, which was derived both from a formalist aesthetic ideal and from a romantic conception of music (dahlhaus 1989a; goehr 1992; bonds 1997; grey 2014). another listening ideal that is idealized, in diametric opposition to the former, is for the audience to allow themselves to be shaped by the emotions that the music generates, and furthermore to manifest strong emotional experiences related to the music. this ideal is derived from the idea of catharsis (kramarz 2019), as well as from the enlightenment values that dominated the bourgeoisie in the early nineteenth century (dahlhaus 1989b). thus, while program notes have historically been described as having the aim of either educating the audience to listen in line with a formalist aesthetic listening ideal (bashford 2018) or guiding listeners to perceive specific emotional moods in the music (thorau 2018; fuchs 2019), concert descriptions in the late 2010s appear instead to convey a set of meanings and alternative meanings that listeners can choose from and adapt according to their preferences or needs. inviting the listeners themselves to define and negotiate the meaning and significance of music as an emotional resource can be argued to be in line with the postmodernist idea of destabilized norms of cultural value (fornäs 1995; ziehe 2004). however, given how historically formed aesthetic ideals are simultaneously emphasized and reproduced current musicology 39 as possible meanings in concert presentations, the idea that earlier norms of aesthetic value are obsolete should also be challenged and problematized. in a contemporary context, the variety of listener ideals, as well as the different conceptual starting points for legitimizing music as an emotional resource, can be understood as providing the listener with a wide range of interpretive possibilities. indeed, the emotional roller-coaster ride that is explicitly or implicitly invoked in the concert presentations can be seen both as valorizing a playful exploration of the inner life of one’s soul in line with the idea of music’s individualized meaning, and as highlighting the possibility to switch between several different aesthetic ideals during one and the same concert. the same holds when striking a balance between viewing music as an aesthetic object capable of generating sublime emotional experiences in the listener and as a generator of powerful emotional experiences. the variety of listening ideals has further been found to be in line with the contemporary idea of an individualistic listener who is willing and able to navigate among alternative meanings and interpretive options and thereby to shape a private music experience (widestedt 2001; nealon 2018; thorau & ziemer 2018). the variety does in this respect agree with the individualized understanding of musical meaning that is typical of neo-liberal consumer culture (nealon 2018). however, considering how the emotional qualities of music are consistently constructed in relation to historically shaped aesthetic ideals, with music as an autonomous art object being the most prevalent view, this also implies that the freedom of choice regarding alternative meanings and listening positions is both limited and regulated. moreover, since the meaning alternatives emphasized in the concert descriptions disciplines a listener embodying historically constructed ideals, the freedom of choice can also be understood as a form of bio-power that regulates the audience's listening preferences in a direction that maintains important value for the symphony orchestras (foucault 2004; nealon 2008; 2018). the conclusion could be drawn by this, is that the ideal variation characterizing the construction of symphonic music as an emotional recourse, as well as the manifold subject positions offered in relation to that, can be understood as governed by the symphony orchestras as a strategy for maintaining the power position as a concert institution. and that individualized meaning alternatives are emphasized in concert descriptions can furthermore be considered as a prerequisite for being able reproducing the discourse of symphonic music as an autonomous aesthetic object, a discourse necessary when striving for preserve legitimacy as a cultural institution today and in the future. acknowledgment this article is based on research that has been carried out thanks to grants from the swedish research council. åsa bergman 40 references bashford, christina. 2018. “listening the british way?: program notes and victorian culture.” in: the oxford handbook of music listening in the 19th and 20th centuries, edited by christian thorau and hansjakob ziemer, doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190466961.013.8 bergman, åsa. 2021. “’wherever you are whenever you want’ captivating and encouraging music experiences when symphony orchestra performances are provided online.” open library of humanities. 1 (1): 1-23. https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.4679 bonds, mark evan. 1997. “idealism and the aesthetics of instrumental music at the turn of the nineteenth century.” journal of the american musicological society. 50 (2/3): 387-420. __________. 2006. music as thought. listening to the symphony in the age of beethoven. princeton and oxford: princeton university press. bull, anna. 2019. class control and classical music. oxford scholarship online. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190844356.001.0001 cook, nicholas and nicola dibben. 2012. “emotion in culture and history. perspectives from musicology.” in music and emotion, theory, research, applications, edited by patrik n. juslin oxford scholarship online. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230143.003.0003 dahlhaus, carl. 1989a. the idea of absolute music. chicago: the university of chicago press. __________. 1989b. nineteenth-century music. los angeles/london: university of california press. deaville, james. 2014. “virtuosity and the virtuoso” in aesthetics of music – musicological perspectives, edited by stephen downes, 276-296 london: routledge. edström, olle. 1993. ”förutsättningar för förståelse. läsning av musikkritik under mellankrigstiden i göteborg.” [prerequisites for understanding. reading music criticism during the interwar period in gothenburg] stm, svensk tidskrift för musikforskning/swedish journal of music research. 1993 (1): 2862. fornäs, johan. 1995. cultural theory and late modernity. london: sage. foucault, michel. 1970 [1971]. ”the order of the discourse. inaugural lecture at the collège de france, given 2 december 1970.” in social science information/information sur les sciences sociales, 1971-04-01. translated by rupert swyer 10 (2). 7-30. london: sage publications. __________. 1982. “the subject and power.” critical inquiry. 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[islands of intensity in a sea of routine: new texts on youth, school and culture.] københavn: politisk revy. microsoft word mah typeset current musicology 108 (spring 2021) ©2021 mah. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-non-commercialnoderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 81 eileen mah the idea of “alternative facts” gained attention in national politics after the 2016 presidential election, and continued with perhaps unprecedented pervasiveness and gravity at the end of that presidential term, but it is unfortunately not a new phenomenon. an alternative fact is a special kind of lie, one that is deliberately and maybe even obviously false, but presented as truth, and that also incorporates purposeful distraction from the issue, for example, by creating the perception of adversarial relationship or even victimization by adversaries, and/or by insulting and discrediting those people. perhaps more important is when an alternative fact becomes a widely accepted truth. the mechanisms for this include sustained repetition of the alternative facts from people with the highest levels of visibility and power, backed up through the fallacy of confirmation bias: making a claim (which could be an alternative fact) and then setting out to gather evidence, fabricate evidence, or interpret evidence in a biased way to “prove” the claim. this could certainly involve use of half-truths, or cherry-picking of convenient portions of truth. also related is the psychologically explained phenomenon of belief persistence— maintaining stubborn belief in the truth of something even (long) after it has been thoroughly debated, debunked, or rebuked (or maintaining stubborn disbelief of obvious facts). alternative facts, half-truths, confirmation bias, and belief persistence are well studied in fields such as psychology, sociology, and political science, but they have not necessarily been applied to academia itself, or other particular fields, including musicology. these phenomena, though, can all manifest themselves in teaching as well as in the research of both students and professionals, with motivations ranging from political propaganda to personal agenda, nefarious or not. without risking more fallacies by speculating about intentions, the nevertheless observable consequences deserve a moment of attention and analysis, particularly in the current historical moment when the consequences in the political and societal realm feel quite dire, regardless of whether the phenomenon or its severity are really unprecedented. alternative facts or claims based on confirmation bias can end up as accepted truths, or unquestioned and 82 commonly perpetuated myths, often in published works or in widely disseminated media. from the hermeneutical perspective in musicology, when rational discussion of polarized truths turns into abusive argument, or when the truth seems to reside in an inaccessibly gray area between the poles, the real consequence is cynical apathy, and therefrom, a lack of analysis or interpretation, and a shifting of attention to the offensiveness and defensiveness of the analyzers, rather than on the music. another consequence can be equivocation for lack of “concrete” or literal proof (such as a note from the composer explaining exact intentions or motivations), even if in retrospect these sorts of hesitancies might seem absurd. two notorious examples are the musicological “wars” concerning tchaikovsky’s symphony no. 6 and shostakovich’s symphony no. 5. both these pieces have been hashed over countless times, and they are both regularly found in music history and music appreciation classes, as well as in orchestra programming and recording, and on streaming and broadcast media. very often these pieces are accompanied by some version of their popular but debated interpretations—tchaikovsky’s symphony as evidence of his suicide and its relation to his gayness, and shostakovich’s symphony as evidence of his dissidence (or covert dissidence) against stalin. the persistent interpretation/description (in orchestra program notes, radio blurbs, music appreciation/history classrooms, etc.) of shostakovich’s fifth usually points out the “grotesque” march of the first movement, the “satiric” dance of the second movement, the “lament” of the third movement, and the “forced happy ending” of the finale. all authors writing on shostakovich’s fifth for the general public seem to reference the general circumstances of stalinist soviet union; most authors mention something about ambiguity of meaning and even hint at the presence of irony, but avoid vocabulary such as “protest” or “dissident,” and prefer unspecific language to describe the music. phillip huscher, for instance, writing program notes for the chicago symphony in 2017, writes of the third movement that “every phrase carries meaning, and we hang on each note,” but he does not really say what the meanings are. he acknowledges controversy over what they are (“separating fact from fiction is no mere pastime in discussing soviet music”), and concludes that “in the end, the music must speak for itself.” in the end, however, huscher does not really let the music speak for itself. he fully describes, but only vaguely interprets, the music—for example, that the third movement is “troubled,” and crucially, about the “happy ending” of the finale, though he does venture to say that “it is somehow forced,” he ascribes this not to 83 musical evidence, but only to “our hindsight—our knowledge of the undeniable sorrow and despair of shostakovich’s last works” (29-31). pauline fairclough, in the latest biography of shostakovich from 2019, more or less declares her intent not to participate in the “shostakovich wars,” but she still details various persistently popular shostakovich myths and images as they exist in the united kingdom (7-12). likewise, the articles by richard taruskin and others mentioned in this paper are not exactly current any more, but nevertheless, the polarized assertions of the war are still very much in circulation. as i am perusing youtube comment sections under videos of shostakovich’s music, the “war” is absolutely still happening, in 2021.1 the important thing to point out about this is that it is not, for instance, richard taruskin, laurel fay, solomon volkov, or dmitry feofanov making snarky comments on youtube; the snarky war is very much in the common, public sphere, with all the tactics, language, and alternative facts of the “original” war in the academic sphere. the debate in the academic and popular spheres alike includes many valid and convincing points, and also no shortage of abusive and adversarial behavior on both (or all) sides, ironically, even as the writers expose precisely the practice of manipulative rhetoric, within the context of the debate as well as in the historical context of these works. taruskin’s basic argument (1997 and 2009) is against overly specific or overly simplistic “definitive” readings; he repeatedly explains the fallacy of confirmation-bias, the fallacy that meaning received proves meaning intended, and the fallacy of biographical interpretation. taruskin also makes refutations to the various alternative facts—his term is “public lies” (1997, 511 ff.)—and pigeon-holing portrayals of shostakovich made by everyone from soviet officials in shostakovich’s time to current musicologists, revealing belief persistence, or what he calls cultish and even jihad-ish behavior (2009, 16-17). he goes so far as to liken the methods of other musicologists to the very methods of stalin (1997, 542). sidestepping the endless details of the argument (and of the abuse, and of the self-vindications regarding accusations of abuse), there are several places where the argument seems to have gotten in the way of fully analyzing the music. one problem in interpreting shostakovich is how much to read into his works, and what biographical conclusions, if any, to draw from them; this problem must be grappled with, since shostakovich is unique in long being claimed by both official soviet culture and dissident culture. in both cases, the readings tend to be single-planed. david fanning, editor of the volume (1995) in which taruskin’s chapter “public lies and unspeakable truths” first appeared, 84 acknowledges the many challenges of interpreting shostakovich’s text, subtext, tone, and historical/biographical context. however, he also strongly cautions that “to duck the question of interpretation altogether is not the answer [emphasis mine] [...] if there is evidence for a specific representationalist interpretation, better that it should be presented [...] and argued over, as i trust it will be” (2001, 139). a number of authors in the 2000s have offered analyses that strike a balance between (or among) the various prominent—and polarized—sides of shostakovich interpretation. in an example of how all this has been filtered out by more emerging scholars, a 2011 thesis by anna megan davis summarizes many previous summaries of the shostakovich war (or “question”), clearly echoing some of taruskin’s thoughts on the essential roles of ambiguity, ambivalence, and multiplicity of interpretations in shostakovich’s music, “understanding it as at least in part intentional [...] and a defining characteristic” (15). what i would like to add and stress, is that ambiguity and ambivalence can involve particularities, and multiplicity of interpretation does not preclude specificity of interpretation. purposely making something ambiguous is also arguably a quite specific choice on the part of the composer, and thus also merits specificity of interpretation. the particular case of shostakovich’s symphony no. 5 serves to illustrate perfectly the simultaneous presence in his music of both introversive and extroversive meaning in the same musical gestures, including simultaneous specificity and abstraction of meaning. the possibility for these to function at the same time in the same piece is crucial for understanding the many levels of shostakovich’s symphony, and perhaps an essential part of interpreting even his most scrutinized works. i also am not interested in antagonizing anyone or participating in any wars; i just want to build on one of taruskin’s typically insightful observations about shostakovich’s possible source materials to show how the composer, in fusing a neoclassical symphonic paradigm of abstract musical structures with specifically meaningful references, shostakovich may have manipulated his musical materials into his own species of alternative fact: he made his music beyond suspicion of containing dissident meaning and beyond suspicion of not containing dissident meaning, and either one could be proved or disproved. a truly total view may be impossible, but this does not mean, however, that the listener is excused from considering what it means to prove something in musical interpretation, or which proof has the stronger case, or, proofs aside, why the composer structured his piece in an ambiguous way— which might reveal a truth in itself. 85 another academic war—a related one, and one that has possibly been simmering for centuries—also includes the issue of the descriptive vs. the interpretive, or as hans gumbrecht calls it, presence vs. meaning (2004). authors such as the late susan sontag (1966), or more currently, carolyn abbate (2004 and 2017, for example)—with particular emphasis on the ephemeral nature of musical experience—have taken positions firmly against interpretation. gumbrecht mostly takes great pains to convey a reconciliatory tone and present nuanced perspectives and a long historical view on the sometimes highly polarized and antagonistic argument. again, one contention is about who (if anyone) has the greater claim to truth, reality, importance, and necessity. included in the polemic are complaints that the other side is making exclusive claims to these things, and in vocabulary that again suggests victimization (attack, intimidation, usurp, resistance, liberation, prevail), and with potentially insulting accusations (of various things, from triviality to arrogance). gumbrecht, though, while making his plea for greater attention to “presence,” notably acknowledges that “presence and meaning always appear together […] and are always in tension” (2004, 105). the broader context as well as the smaller details of this issue and how i would tie them to semiotics, literate traditions, and oral traditions in western music have to be the subject of a separate paper, but for the present discussion, a few aspects need inclusion. specifically in the field of music, authors such as karol berger (2005) and julian horton (2020) have, like gumbrecht, argued for the inseparability of surface and content, and the impossibility of pure, unmediated experience, completely free of interpretation—though unlike gumbrecht, for the purpose of championing interpretation. music is sonic and happens through real time, and thus is ephemeral in nature, but this does not mean that it therefore lacks content and cannot be interpreted. jonathan bellman further explains how the inclination to mystify music as belonging “in some magical meta-realm lying beyond meaningful discussion” is particularly unhelpful in the vast body of western music that is filled with referential material—material whose meaning is very knowable (2017, 41-43 ff.). that referential material often comes in the form of what have come to be known as musical “topics”—musical gestures that carry broadly recognizable associative meanings—as well as quotations from other music. musical topics are among the most “present” of musical materials, as they are at the surface of music and rely on instant, aural recognition in their ephemeral presentation, so they seem more like things to be experienced rather than analyzed or interpreted. however, as referential material, they are thus a prime locus for the enmeshing 86 of experience and analysis. the caveat is that topical associations and quotational allusions can be culturally specific in both time and place, so they sometimes have to be learned and studied in order to simulate the original experience, thereby providing much opportunity for error, even if the cause is simply unwitting ignorance, and musical alternative facts can be created even if we think our approach is purely descriptive. without diverging too much into this much larger discussion, suffice it here to say that these difficulties should not stop us from trying to understand, or embracing the connection, rather than the separation, of presence and meaning. furthermore, in regard to musical topics, their formation, their reception/interpretation, and their evolving constellations of associations are all largely in the realm of oral transmission, rather than in the vaunted literate tradition so tied to hermeneutics. orally transmitted knowledge, though, is no less real, and no less important, and no less interpretable. berger has laid out categories for thinking about what could constitute “musical facts,” as well as distinctions between establishing facts and interpreting facts (2005, 490-93). the meaning of an isolated, individual fact, or in music, an isolated, individual musical gesture—is vastly different from the meaning of a collection of facts or gestures. this is actually one of the core ideas of topic theory in music—that the meaningful semiotic codes in music (musical topics) are almost always a collection of musical gestures, and they have commonly shared cultural associations, rather than unique, individual associations. individual composers, however, use musical topics in unique ways, and this is where interpretation really enters. musical gestures themselves are by definition an organization of various musical elements, and they are arguably facts in that they are there (whether in performance or in notation); they are present, and their presence is not coincidental or random. describing musical gestures establishes them as such facts, but merely describing or acknowledging their presence is no substitute for analyzing why they are there. the act of description can itself, of course, contain interpretation, and interpreters can also run the risk of what taruskin disparages as tautological, verificationist “proofs” that are internally consistent but otherwise absurd (1997, 539). before fully delving into shostakovich, a few observations on the main point of contention about tchaikovsky’s symphony will further explicate the perils of under-analysis, or describing but not interpreting, perhaps because of polarized argument. the symphony has been read autobiographically, and in particular, as intended by tchaikovsky to be about his gayness and/or as his “suicide note,” since he died within days of its premiere. the suicide theory was put forth in 1980 (1981 in english) by aleksandra orlova, and was included in 87 the 1980 edition of the grove dictionary of music, and is still mentioned (though now called “rank speculation”) by roland john wiley in the current grove music online, and also in many a non-scholarly article such as wikipedia, program notes, newspaper concert reviews, etc. (keller 2019 or may 2018, for example). a lengthy audio blog on classic fm (classical music radio station in the united kingdom), essentially fully concludes that the suicide theory is true, though carefully adding in the last moments that “the frustrating truth is that we’ll probably never know” (lihoreau 2018). the most scholarly location for the homosexual reading of the symphony is by timothy jackson in the cambridge music handbooks series from 1999 (39 ff.), so it has a wide and still current circulation. the point of mentioning all this is that both the homosexual and suicide readings, however much debated or rebuked, are nevertheless persistent and widespread. furthermore, in the process of trying to separate fact from fiction, babies get thrown out with the bathwater. for example, taruskin, in his thorough and vigorous discrediting of the symphony as a “homosexual tragedy,” says that “the exuberant and exhilarating third movement is usually the main obstacle to the construction of a consistent metanarrative of the kind that jackson is so determined to ‘reveal’,” and also that this movement “has to be sedulously ignored by those who want to read the symphony as a suicide note” (2009, 133-35). aside from the questionability of including the word “usually” (in “the third movement is usually the main obstacle”), taruskin does not say why this happy movement cannot fit in a tragic metanarrative; on the contrary, it would seem to increase the tragedy and the drama of the tragedy, because it comes out of order, being the third movement rather than the finale, and the actual slow, despairing finale is objectively unconventional. taruskin acknowledges the finale as well as its undisputed character, but he does not interpret the abnormal ordering of movements. he says of tchaikovsky’s “ebullient” style that it “had its origins in a patriotic fervor” and was a reflection of “the stature lent him from on high” as “the uncrowned tsar of russian music” (2009, 133). this may well be true of the ebullient third movement in the sixth symphony, but it does not explain why tchaikovsky chose to include it in this symphony. again, it does not disqualify it from being part of a tragic narrative, and we still need to interpret its position in the structure of the whole work. whether the symphony was a suicide note or not, its ending is crushingly and unusually tragic. as for the famous quintuple “waltz” of the second movement, taruskin claims that it “also fits the commonplace conception of the symphony as record 88 of the composer’s sufferings very badly: despite its 5/4 meter, it comes off as yet another waltz, another vicarious offering to the imperial stage,” similar to the many waltzes in the fifth symphony, sleeping beauty, and nutcracker (2009, 133). once more, why cannot something that sounds like a happy, graceful waltz be part—a disquieting part—of a tragic narrative? and should we not interpret the choice of quintuple meter? should we not interpret the middle movements in the context of the whole symphony? in a different book (defining russia), taruskin speaks of the meter in this movement simply as a distinctively russian rhythmic feature (1997, 31). it may well be, but still, the question remains of why he would use it here, and why in combination with otherwise clearly waltzy music. similarly, taruskin acknowledges the reference in the first movement to the russian orthodox requiem and cautions against interpreting it as suicide note, but again does not venture to explain why else tchaikovsky included a reference to death and memorial if he did not in fact intend to make a reference to death and memorial (2009, 133). this symphony may not have been explicitly programmatic (the subtitle “pathétique” having been added after the premiere), but this in no way means that it is devoid of meaning or program. taruskin’s main concern here seems to be the problem of interpreting an autobiographical metanarrative, but his reasoning based on musical evidence is not convincing, and somehow, at least in these published writings, it sounds like he does not think the symphony is tragic at all. the current grove article by wiley on tchaikovsky rejects autobiographical interpretation while still acknowledging the sad, funereal quality, but also completely omits the issue of the last movement and the ordering of the movements. as with tchaikovsky’s sixth, polarizing argument over various readings of shostakovich’s fifth sometimes ends in having no interpretation at all. concerning ian mcdonald’s reading of a section from the first movement, taruskin spends much energy mocking mcdonald’s imposed narrative as “trivializing”—and maybe rightfully, as mcdonald fancifully describes a detailed cinematic scene with specific instruments and musical themes assigned to specific characters and actions, and even imagined dialogue. he spends more energy insulting mcdonald for using non-transposed pitches to describe the horn part, implying that mcdonald is incompetent or ignorant because of this (1997, 539 and also 2009, 20). what is missing is taruskin’s interpretation of the passage, though he has certainly interpreted many other passages, and the symphony as a whole, in considerable detail. at times, taruskin casts doubt on the possibility of interpreting shostakovich at all. he goes so far as to say about him that “the impulse to 89 communicate urgently in an atmosphere of threat did lead, at times, to an overreliance on extroversive reference as a bearer of essential meaning, and a correspondingly debased level of musical discourse” (1995, 55). though taruskin did edit this part out of the revised version of the article (in defining russia musically, 1997), in his discussion from 2009 of the fifth symphony, he notes its saturation with musical topics, but ignores the range of allusive specificity topics can have, downplaying their significance altogether because of what he calls their transferability—in other words, that anyone can interpret topics in any way, and therefore, rather than making content more explicit, they limit it to any number of overly specific readings. taruskin also comments in this same passage that “in actual practice they [topics] easily lead to a bakhtinian ‘carnivalism,’ especially when they are as brusquely contrasted, or violently exaggerated, as they often are in shostakovich” (2009, 306). the bakhtinian carnivalesque has to do with alteration and even upending of social norms within the ritualistic masked carnival; indeed, the contrasts are brusque and the masked identities are exaggerated. what i would like to add about the carnivalesque (and therefore about topics) is that these masks and the otherwise impermissible actions or social interactions resulting therefrom absolutely rely on specific and recognizable types (be they archetypes or stereotypes)—exactly in the same way that musical topics and their interaction with each other operate. given shostakovich’s general circumstances of negotiating survival in soviet russia, the carnivalesque act of otherwise impermissible truth-telling could at any moment be present under a mask—and one that most likely has multiple, even contradictory, identities or functions. that multiplicity does not diminish the specific importance of any one of those identities, and is an important, specific trait in itself. at other times, taruskin seems conflicted about how to interpret shostakovich. he continually rails against definitive or biographical readings of shostakovich, and above all, against calling him a dissident. he says that this “locks the music in the past” and that it is better to “let it remain supple, adaptable, ready to serve the future’s needs.” taruskin quickly adds, though, that “anyone […] alive to the issues his [shostakovich’s] work so dramatically embodies will listen to it (pace virgil thomson) without mind-wandering, unless musical perceptions are wholly divorced from moral perceptions” (497). he also argues for the necessity of interpreting the fifth, the inseparability of the introversive and the extroversive, and how the symphony “self-evidently belongs to the tradition established in the wake of beethoven’s ninth, whereby the music unfolds a series of symbols, gestures, or events that are immediately recognizable 90 as signs or symbols,” and as clearly “a richly coded utterance, but one whose meaning can never be wholly encompassed or definitively paraphrased”—which is what saved shostakovich (519-21). taruskin’s main concern seems to center on his insistence that the designation of “dissident” for shostakovich is an inaccurate, anachronistic, and romanticized stereotype—an alternative fact, we could say—but the other terms he uses to describe shostakovich place him very much on the dissident side of tendencies at least: shostakovich’s quartet no. 8 as a “note in a bottle”; shostakovich’s “heroic risk taking,” and shostakovich as a “civic artist” who “managed to bear witness against the state on behalf of the citizenry [...] composer and audience acted in collusion against authority” (1997, 493, 496). no one work, including the fifth symphony, should be taken to represent the entirety of the composer’s output or singly used to argue for any biographical assertions. the fifth symphony, however, due to the circumstances of its composition—shostakovich under threat of (more) condemnation by the regime—is a central piece in the dissidence argument. despite his warnings about interpreting allusive references in general, taruskin, in discussing the fifth symphony, identifies a “near citation” in the third movement of a specific hymn from the orthodox requiem, and therefrom draws specific interpretations about the agony and grief it represents, specific to the time and place of the composition. his evidence is music in the third movement about which he says: “the imitation is so literal that you can almost hear the string instruments intone the vechnaya pamyat’.” given the scoring, texture, and melodic contours of this movement, it is not a stretch to call this passage (which first appears at the very beginning of the movement and in various forms throughout the movement) as reminiscent of this hymn, or at least of orthodox chant in general, and there is little disagreement about that; taruskin also provides the larger context of placing shostakovich within a russian composition tradition in which quotation from the orthodox requiem was a defining attribute (1997, 530).2 vechnaya pamyat’ (“memory eternal”) specifically is the final part of the russian orthodox requiem service, or panikhida. however, regardless of whether taruskin meant “near citation” or “literal imitation,” the passage (shown in example 1) really is neither, so why or how he likened the passage specifically to vechnaya pamyat’ (shown in example 2) is uncertain. their general aura of slow, intoned chanting matches, but not their particular rhythms, or pitches (or pitch relationship, regardless of key or mode), or the length of the passage. 91 example 1: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. 3, rehearsal 86. example 2: vechnaya pamyat’, transcribed with clef changes for easier reading from obikhod notnogo tserkovnogo peniya, ed. n. bakhmetev, 1869.3 taruskin is a prolific and widely-read author, whose words, on the one hand, will likely be immediately rejected by his detractors, or on the other hand, immediately accepted and then used repeatedly in subsequent research, such as the doctoral thesis by davis (2011, 105-6). in that example, davis presents the two musical examples side by side, just as taruskin did, and taruskin’s original comparison—and thus the “presence” of vechnaya pamyat’ in the symphony— more or less becomes an alternative fact, whether through anyone’s specific intention or not. however, taruskin’s identification of the specific hymn vechnaya pamyat’ might be more important than dwelling on why it is a misidentification. concerning the length of the fragment, it actually is important that shostakovich does not quote the hymn in its entirety—likely dangerously unacceptable in the 92 atheistic era of stalin. the exact melody and rhythms of vechnaya pamyat’, though, may possibly be truly quoted in motivic fragments, and not just present, but very present, throughout the entire symphony. as taruskin points out, “every member of the symphony’s early audiences had lost friends and family members during the black year 1937, loved ones whose deaths they had to endure in numb horror,” so vechnaya pamyat’ would be a fitting and poignant reference indeed (1997, 530). note that the motifs of the hymn-identifying incipit shown in example 3 also make up almost the entire melody: a. the first part of the incipit is three ascending steps in equal, long note values; whole step-half step. this also closes the melody, in descending form. b. three repeated notes in equal, long note values. c. three steps, in both ascending and descending form; half step-whole step. example 3: vechnaya pamyat’, soprano (melody) part. as an orchestral horn player, i noticed all these motifs through my analytical experience (or experiential analysis) of performing this symphony multiple times—before i even knew what russian orthodox music was, much less sounded like—and i first found them not in the third movement, but in the fourth, as shown in example 4. this passage occurs late in the movement, in the lead-up to the ending section, with low strings and horns taking turns iterating a three-note, stepwise ascent underneath a violin ostinato. i include the history of my personal process here as example of how my experience was also simultaneously analytical; i became acutely aware of this pattern of three ascending notes here because they were set apart and repeated, and then i realized this was not the first time. i connected these three notes with the forceful and oft-repeated three-note stepwise ascent of the principal theme of the movement, shown in example 5, and its inversion, shown in example 6. 93 example 4: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, 1 measure before rehearsal 117. example 5: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, 2 measures after rehearsal 97. principal theme of the movement (mm. 3-7). example 6: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, 2 measures before rehearsal 106. example 7 shows how the principal theme begins to be distilled down to the motif of the three ascending steps, in this very highlighted, grotesquely loud passage leading to a moment of crisis, i.e., an urgent and terrible climax, and one in which what will follow is not clear, either in technical harmonic terms or in the implied drama. after what is shown below, the tension builds for yet another two measures, culminating on a fully diminished chord, followed by silence; i cannot help but correlate this moment, and this type of moment, to the fully diminished crisis of m. 150 in the also extremely funereal second movement of beethoven’s third symphony. for me, that is a watershed moment in the transformation of the climaxes of eighteenth-century form into not just 94 climaxes, but the crises, of nineteenth-century form. the way shostakovich does follow this moment of crisis is also reminiscent of beethoven—to be discussed later, with examples of the repeated-note motif from vechnaya pamyat’. in the larger issue of analyzing layers and sources of referential material in shostakovich’s symphony, but without veering too much into shostakovichbeethoven analysis, suffice it to say that i am here adding to an already established endeavor. this includes the likening of the d minor/d major key scheme and the opening rhythmic motifs of shostakovich’s fifth and beethoven’s ninth (tilson thomas 2009, for example). example 7: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, 1 measure after rehearsal 111. furthermore, and significantly, as the movement progresses to its end, the motif is again made prominent, first by the rhythmic augmentation and low, soft voicing (bassoons) of the principal theme in its recapitulation (five measures after reh. 121)—so that the three-note motif very much resembles the passage of example 4 (reh. 117), in slow, long note values. this section sets up the gradual “triumphant” arrival of d major, as aptly described by michael tilson thomas: “with a great deal of extra shoving and hauling [reh. 129-131], we make it to d major, but the process is painful and difficult” (2009). by the end of the movement, the three-note, ascending motif is all that remains of the theme, shown in example 8: 95 example 8: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, 3 measures after rehearsal 131. notably, of course, all these presentations of the motif vary as to the intervals between the three pitches—the whole step-half step, minor mode version; the half step-whole step version; and the whole step-whole step, major mode version, in blazing presentation by trumpets and trombones at the end of the symphony. i always wondered why the final melodic gesture (played by the same instruments) turned this ascending, d major arrival almost immediately to the version with the flatted middle note, and descending (shown in example 9)— d minor melody notes in a d major harmonic context. example 9: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, 5 measures after rehearsal 133. at the time, i did not analyze beyond these observations, but i did know that ever since i first played a band transcription of the fourth movement of this symphony in high school (i.e., before i knew anything about anything), and then even more so when later (still knowing very little about very few things) i played the full, orchestral original, shostakovich’s fifth symphony was the first piece of music that ever terrified me. taruskin very nicely highlights the “suppression of the brass instruments” in the third movement, i.e., they are absent altogether, and he takes this as ironic, given what he has observed as the “obligatory lugubrious brass quintet” at secular soviet funerals. whether or not this was true in the 1930s as well, taruskin goes on to analyze multiple ways that the entire movement evokes mourning and funeral, and specifically, the russian orthodox panikhida (1997, 530). also, and notably, the three-note ascending and descending motifs from vechnaya pamyat’, though not identifiable in the passage taruskin uses, do appear in 96 multiple other locations, throughout the movement. in examples 10-14, the motifs are underneath, as accompaniment or counterpoint, to the material that taruskin likened to vechnaya pamyat’ (this happens many times, including at the beginning of the movement, shown in example 10). again, his calling this material “near citation” or “literal imitation” does not seem accurate, but in other instances where it (or one of its variations) occurs, the exact motifs, rhythms, and intoning timbre of vechnaya pamyat’ are right below them. the variations (see example 11, highest voice, for example, and also examples 32 and 33, discussed later) are also significant, in that they contain the repeated-note motif from the hymn. perhaps this helps explain why this movement so strongly evoked the specific hymn vechnaya pamyat’ for taruskin. example 10: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, mm. 1-3. example 11: shostakovich, symphony no. 5., mvt. iii, rehearsal 78, all strings. 97 example 12: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, rehearsal 81. example 13: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt iii, measure 3 of rehearsal 85, flutes and clarinets (strings omitted and including fully chromatic version of the motif). example 14: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, rehearsal 87, clarinets and bassoons. these instances of the three-note stepwise motif are quite audible and also noticeable by their repeated appearances. with a few exceptions, they are the whole step-half step, minor version as in the hymn—most especially at the beginnings of passages, such as in the examples above. the chromatically 98 altered versions of whole step-whole step (major), half step-half step (fully chromatic), and half step-whole step seem to occur in melodic sequences, with the alterations dictated by overall harmonic context—in other words, motivic development and transformation, explainable in “technical” terms, but also expressively interpretable. the motif (and its hypothesized reference to the funereal hymn) are prominent and recognizable, with brief turns to a brighter major-mode sound (perhaps for remembrance or consolation), and also to a tight, fully chromatic sound (perhaps for anguish or urgency). the half stepwhole step version, with its “phrygian” affect, of course stands out particularly, and will be discussed below. the tense quality of the fully chromatic variant—having previously appeared, as in examples 12 and 13—is later highlighted by rhythmic elongation, register, volume, and orchestration (see example 15), and then, appears again in quiet, but very clear counterpoint with the minor and major versions of the motif (see example 16). example 15: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, 4 measures before rehearsal 90 (fully chromatic version). the entire passage of example 16, including its brief turn to the majormode version of the motif and a sinewy, slowly rising violin line, is eerily similar to the passage of example 4—from the fourth movement. taruskin makes the connection that the violin line there was a self-reference by shostakovich to an accompaniment line from his own setting of pushkin’s poem vozrozhdeniye (“rebirth”), and he corrects what he says is a common mistranslation of the poem—the “rebirth” is not a promise of a bright future, but rather, an escape into the past. taruskin furthermore cites gerard mcburney’s observation that the first four notes of the melody of this song match (exactly in pitch and very nearly in rhythm) with those of the fourth movement of the fifth symphony, including the anacrusis (1997, 532). see example 17 for opening of the song; the referenced accompaniment line comes at the end of the song, not shown here. 99 example 16: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, rehearsal 93, first violins and cellos/basses (inner voices omitted and including fully chromatic version of the motif). example 17: shostakovich, vozrozhdeniye, mm. 1-9. 100 at this point, it would be valid to question how far these comparisons will go, and if they are just coincidences of commonly occurring notes and patterns (scale degrees 1, 2, and 3), or just associations made by listeners, but with no provable authorial intentions. on the other hand, how does postulating about more meaningful, and even deliberate, correspondences fit into the discussion about truth, alternative facts, and the need for interpretation? not to overquote taruskin—especially since he does sometimes seem to contradict himself, and those contradictions are part of this current critique—but he does also ask and answer this question of “what in principle can validate or refute an interpretation of music […]. that theory is better which better organizes the available information, or organizes more information […] [and] should account for the introversive semiotic along with the extroversive” (1997, 539-40). lack of “concrete” or “absolute” proof of authorial intention should never mean concluding that there was none, or that it is useless to investigate and analyze, or that it would be impossible to interpret commonly understood meanings from the sensual and ephemeral experience of individuals. those are the alternative facts whose dissemination is most regrettable. plausible connections between vozrozhdeniye and the fifth symphony can go farther, and can also include vechnaya pamyat’ and the half step-whole step “phrygian” variation of the three-note ascending motif. shostakovich composed vozrozhdeniye immediately prior to the symphony, and the passage from the fourth movement (example 4) is truly quotational of the song, lending more validity to comparing the melodic motifs. the ending of the song, very much like the ending of the symphony, also introduces f-sharp to change the d minor opening to a d major conclusion, and also not without multiple reversions to flat notes along the way. the scale in the piano (right hand) (example 17, m. 5) is extremely similar to a theme from the symphony, first introduced one measure after reh. 5 in the first movement. typically for shostakovich, he also incorporates various striking chromatic alterations into both melody and harmony. for example, after transposing the opening motif d-e-f to f-g-a flat, shostakovich alters the transposition so that the melody then lands on e-natural (with b-natural in the harmony), in measure 9 of the song (see example 17). for me, knowing the symphony before the song, when i first heard this in the song, i immediately likened it to a melody from the end of the first movement of the symphony; upon examining the score, i found the exact same pitch collection in the first two measures of the melody, and then again in the third and fourth measures, transposed up (see example 18). 101 example 18: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. i, 1 measure after rehearsal 44. in the transposition of the melody (to b-c-d-e flat-f), the final note is lowered (f instead of f sharp). this is now where i also make a connection to vechnaya pamyat’, which has these exact pitches (see example 19). i was always struck by the b-natural in this melody, in the twice emphasized b natural-c-d on the final syllable of pamyat’ (before settling on c at the end of the melody)— the half step-whole step phrygian ascent is just as significant a motif as the whole step-half step ascent on vech-; it has a heightened expression because of its marked difference from either major or minor mode. in the vechnaya melody, calling it phrygian—i.e., that the half step is between scale degrees 1 and 2 of the local motif, rather than between scale degrees 7 and 1 of the overall scale—is further justified by its marked presence in the elision of phrase ending and phrase beginning between iterations of the text. example 19: vechnaya pamyat’, soprano (melody) part. the melody at reh. 44 (in example 18) is a sort of inversion of one of the main themes of the first movement (shown in example 20), which is also varied in a different way later in the third movement (see example 21). both of these examples, then, do also contain the three-note stepwise motifs, though they are perhaps not audible in the same way as the ones in the earlier examples, since they are parts of longer melodies rather than isolated. they are still marked, however, by their lengthened rhythms and by their positions at both the beginnings and endings of phrases, just as in vechnaya pamyat’. from here, it is easy to notice multiple other strikingly similar occurrences, throughout the first and second movements of the symphony, shown in examples 22-25. 102 example 20: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. i, rehearsal 1, first violins. example 21: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, rehearsal 79. example 22: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. i, mm. 1-4. half step-whole version of the motif. this is the beginning of the symphony and one of the main themes of the exposition. example 23: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. ii, rehearsal 48, low strings. 103 example 24: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. ii, rehearsal 49 (transposed to concert pitch). example 25: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. ii, 3 measures before rehearsal 54. now, in conjunction with these three-note ascending and descending motifs, and just as pervasive throughout the entire symphony, is the threerepeated-notes motif “b” (see example 3), which assumes various rhythms, but, as with the stepwise motifs, eventually gets distilled and highlighted in its barest, long-note-value rhythm. motif “b” first appears in the rhythm of short-short-long, as in example 26, and many subsequent times. this first instance is also example of what tilson thomas calls the “dead end” usage of the repeated-note motif—in just the fourth measure of the entire piece, all the bold, driving vigor of the opening gesture (mm. 1-2) suddenly dissipates with the “retraction” of m. 3, and then comes to a “dead end” with the repeated notes in m. 4 (2009). example 26: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. i, mm. 1-4. the first rhythmic variation presents motif “b” in the rhythm of longshort-short, and as a pulsing accompaniment, as in example 27 and many 104 subsequent times, including the persistent ostinato in fast tempo of eighthsixteenth-sixteenth as at reh. 25. example 27: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. i, rehearsal 9. after the climactic full-orchestra unison between reh. 36 and 38, the repeated three notes return in another “dead end” or crisis moment, this time unavoidably low, slow, loud, accented, and repeated—“con tutta forza,” so that the motif becomes something forceful and dominating, rather than accompanimental (see example 28). because of the number of repetitions, it becomes ambiguous as to whether the rhythm is short-short-long or long-shortshort, and this same material (only on the pitch f, but again at fff volume) is also precisely what comes after the similar climax/crisis in the fourth movement, discussed above for example 7 (see example 29, which duplicates example 7 and also shows the repeated-note motif that follows it). just as the build-up to that crisis reminded me of beethoven’s third, hearing this incessant pattern as longshort-short in both places reminds me of the second movement—also arguably funereal—of beethoven’s seventh. example 28: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. i, rehearsal 38. 105 example 29: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, 1 measure after rehearsal 111. example 30 (and many subsequent repetitions) shows how this “b” motif is transformed into the melody of theme group 2 in the first movement, through combination of the short-short-long rhythm with a rearrangement of none other than the whole step-half step motif (motif “a”). example 30: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. i, rehearsal 12. motif “b” in its short-short-long arrangement also shows up as a persistent cell in the melody of the “trio” section of the second movement, shown in example 31. example 31: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. ii, rehearsal 57. just as happened to motif “a” through the course of the symphony, motif “b” also gradually becomes increasingly highlighted and increasingly distilled to its rhythm of long, equal note values, as in the hymn. in the third movement, the motif serves as essential cell in the chant-like melodies—the very ones that reminded taruskin of vechnaya pamyat’ (see examples 32 and 33). 106 example 32: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, rehearsal 78. example 33: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, rehearsal 83. example 34 shows another instance of the repeated note motif, combined with the chromatically ascending three-note motif, in another “crisis” or “dead end” moment. example 34: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iii, rehearsal 92. finally, at the conclusion of the fourth movement, in the laborious build to d major from the slow, soft recapitulation of the main theme (recall the discussion preceding example 8), motif “b” again appears, three times and in increasingly long note values (see example 35) and then as the final gesture of the entire symphony in even longer values (see example 36). example 35: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, rehearsal 126. 107 example 36: shostakovich, symphony no. 5, mvt. iv, rehearsal 134. to be clear, this current analysis in no way claims vechnaya pamyat’ to be a singular source or singular core of shostakovich’s fifth. it is not even definitively “there” as a complete, quoted melody, and the symphony is replete with multiple other themes that are unique, memorable, and significant in their own rights. analyzing all of them is beyond the scope and not the focus of this article. however, these many examples show the centrality of the motifs throughout the symphony, and their correlation to the other postulated source materials. in almost all cases, the motifs are clearly audible, if not unavoidably highlighted, unobstructed by other voices, and/or set apart by register (low or high), instrumental timbre, soli orchestration, articulation, or repetition. is this enough, though, to experience or interpret vechnaya pamyat’ as being present, other than the contextual reasons that would make this logical? the notes of the motifs are a common enough arrangement of common notes— they do also happen to be three simply repeated notes and scale degrees 1-2-3 or 7-1-2. one could also argue that liturgical chant melodies are often very similar to each other and generally are of limited range and melodic dna, i.e., that a three-note scalar ascent or three repeated notes could be reminiscent of any number of chants. however, the melodies of those chants are not random, and furthermore, they are distinct, and distinguishable, and certain chants, such as vechnaya, are more commonly performed and commonly recognizable, especially by their opening notes. audibility and common recognition are at the heart of the functionality of musical topics and allusion in general; a large number of listeners will have immediate meaningful associations with the musical gesture, which includes any number of musical elements, not just pitch. the exact matching of the motifs in the symphony to those of the hymn supports interpreting the collective (albeit fragmented) presence of the motifs as a recognizable quotation from the hymn. further persuasion comes from their rhythmic presentation, the range and the timbre, the presence and combination of both the stepwise motifs and the repeated-note motif, the context of the third 108 movement as a whole in the many ways that it evokes grief and the ritual of the russian orthodox requiem, and finally, precisely the simplicity of the motifs, which, along with their prominence and pervasiveness, marks them for interpretation. having the simplicity of the motifs be explainable as beethovenian, or as fanning put it, working “reciprocally with the complex longterm structural processes” (2001, 139), would be a perfect safety net for being able to deny the presence of specifically identifiable referential material problematic to the regime, since shostakovich does seem to be referring to the orthodox service in, at very least, a general way.4 meanwhile, motifs from the recognizable vechnaya pamyat’ pervade the entire symphony, and much more directly than taruskin analyzed, with incredible relevance and poignance in the hymn never being fully uttered—the fragmented and therefore intensified pain of suppressed loss and grief. vechnaya pamyat’—“memory eternal”—has a double irony: first, being forced to forget (because of the silencing of grief, or even the alternative fact that no one died and nothing happened), but at the same time, despite being forced to forget, the impossibility of actually forgetting. this resonates with taruskin’s spot-on observation about the ironic silencing of the brass section in the third movement (1997, 530). in taruskin’s disavowal of the term “dissident” (1997, 535 ff.), he insists that shostakovich’s overall message in the fifth is one of irony rather than mockery (1997, 540). however, while shostakovich may not technically have been a dissident as understood in later contexts, taruskin has interpreted the fifth symphony as a very real portrayal of suffering in the specific context of stalinist russia, and the ironies of still managing to remain alive and even a favored composer at various times. vechnaya pamyat’ was a well-known memorial for the dead, and if everyone knew the reason for their deaths, then this memorial itself was not even ironic. the irony is perhaps in expressing this grief in a banned form, inside a symphony that would officially rehabilitate shostakovich. in so far as dissidence could be expressed in stalinist russia, this is it. taruskin calls it shostakovich’s “doubleness” (2009, 304)—and that is a fine term. if, through doubleness, shostakovich was able to reflect life as it really was despite the condition of living in a world of alternative facts, this would be an act of resistance in itself. as with the requiem reference in tchaikovsky’s sixth, the pervasive presence of the requiem hymn in shostakovich’s symphony would beg the question of who or what is being mourned. in this case, the idea of requiem is of course logical in conjunction with the literal deaths and other losses at the hands of stalin’s regime, but also with the other suggested allusions and quotations 109 from vozrozhdeniye—in the context of destruction, terror, and fear, a longing for rebirth by returning to a remembered past. additionally, elizabeth wilson surveys at least two authors’ theories on allusions to bizet’s carmen, along with a suggested program of shostakovich’s own love life and rejection by elena konstantinovskaya, who later went to spain and married one roman karmen. without diverging into discussion of those “carmen” motifs and that program, we can note that lost love is also compatible with the idea of requiem, and i cannot help but notice that in one author’s description of the love program, he uses the word “hymn” to describe the entire fifth symphony (wilson 2006, 15354). the russian violinist zoya leybin of the san francisco symphony also uses the word hymn in the concluding, summarizing moments of michael tilson thomas’s film (2009); in both cases, these commentators were not speaking of a specific hymn reference, or even of the hymnic third movement, but notably, they both had a feeling of hymn pervading the entire work. the motifs identified in this paper can also be multivalent without canceling each other. the repeated-note motif could be a quotation from vechnaya pamyat’, or it could be a feeling of dead-end and being beaten into submission (tilson thomas 2009), or it could be a reference to beethoven’s funereal music, or it could be a simple accompanimental rhythm, or it could be all of these things. the stepwise motifs could be quotations from vechnaya pamyat’, or from vozrozhdeniye, or they could be notes chosen from scalar patterns, or they could be all of those things. forming a picture of the whole is complicated, especially when it may be made from fragments, or when, as david fanning puts it, the surface of the music is “overlaid with mirrors...[and] we can never be precisely sure where and at what angle they are placed” (2004, 6). taruskin expresses this idea similarly: “it is never just shostakovich. it is always shostakovich and us” (1997, 476-77). complicating though this may be, the presence of complication or contradiction does not mean we should just throw our hands in the air; any hope of sorting it out requires seeking and identifying and naming exactly what those complicating or contradictory elements are, and making the effort to identify true from false. regardless of which program(s) shostakovich may have had in mind or which program(s) anyone chooses to assign, the pervasive sorrow of the requiem hymn—all the way to the very last notes of the symphony—would be a specific piece of evidence (among many others)5 in the total estimation, at the end of the symphony, that, as tilson thomas put very well, “the happy harmonies of the ending are utterly false”—or, if you will, an alternative fact 110 (2009). this could be an alternative fact that shostakovich is portraying, or one that he himself is manipulating, or both. returning to the ideas of interpretational hesitancy both inside and outside academia: many analyses aimed at the general public or students do well with play-by-play recounting of the “purely musical” processes. the conventions of programs notes—among them to lend themselves to quick reading for audience members experiencing a piece of music for the first time, in real time— might explain (though not necessarily excuse) philip huscher’s already mentioned program notes for the chicago symphony. another example, then, of analysis aimed at a similar audience, but one listening to and studying the music in a more asynchronous vein, is gerard schwarz’s four-part video analysis (with the seattle symphony) posted on the much-used education site khan academy. though lengthier and more detailed than any typical program note, schwarz’s analysis still offers mostly play-by-play recounting, with only vaguely interpretive descriptors such as poignant, powerful, climactic, and aggressive (2012). by contrast, tilson thomas (2009), while clearly aware of the “shostakovich wars,” and perhaps also aware of taruskin’s contemporaneous digs at “baton wavers” (2009, 23), offers vastly more specific and thorough descriptors, and importantly, quite specific interpretations. does this debase the musical discourse? no—again, multiplicity of interpretation does not preclude specificity of interpretation. does a specific interpretation lock the music in the past? no—a claim such as that subscribes to the idea that history is only about the past; more than this, history is about the relationship of the past to the present and the future. in his writings on shostakovich, taruskin consistently casts doubt on viewing musical meaning as “vested in it by the creator” (2009, 310), but— perhaps in self-contradiction—he also consistently argues that shostakovich “insisted on keeping the latent content latent, and keeping it labile [...] as long as music is left to ‘speak for itself,’ it can speak only truth” (1997, 483). taruskin acknowledges the contradictions and ambiguities in shostakovich’s music, but also repeatedly argues that it is “better to let the contradictions stand” (2009, 318), rather than trying to “resolve” or “eliminate” them, as this will result in falsehoods/lies (1997, 483), and in “reduction not only of meaning but in interest and value” (1997, 476). even if overly literal or overly biographical readings are to be avoided, this does not mean we should stop analyzing, reasoning that “we can never really know anything for sure.” on the contrary, if there are contradictions and ambiguities, it is vitally important to say exactly what they are, and grapple with interpreting them, in specific ways. if there are multiple 111 interpretations, rather than despair over the futility of “endless interpretations,” it is rather the job of the interpreter to ask and answer why it meant one thing to these people but another thing to those people. furthermore, alternative facts are part and parcel of totalitarian regimes, and usually not based on any logical evidence or reasoning whatsoever, as the ulterior motive is more the point. the significance of stalinist officials’ interpretations of shostakovich’s fifth, then, is less about why they interpreted it that way and more about the fact that they had the power to interpret it in any way they chose; they could condemn or embrace shostakovich, regardless of how they claimed to understand his music—and many stalinist officials may well have had their own private understandings, which they would, of course, never make public. the alternative fact can be understood as a set of contradictions and ambiguities, and a piece of music may contain alternative facts, vested in it by composer, listener, listeners influencing each other over time, and/or arguing musicologists. the nature of truth or meaning in works of art is not necessarily the same as in other spheres—say, politics, science, or sociology. however, musical “data” (such as the motifs identified in this paper) may not be that different from any other data, in that different people can analyze it in different ways, use it in different ways, twist it in different ways, contextualize it in different ways, or isolate it from its context. in music, just as in other fields, the social and political connections are very real and do have high stakes—including the very definitions of music, types of music, music making, and musical meaning. moreover, our cultural habits are important. how we operate within academia is both influential on and influenced by the larger cultural context, and musicology cannot claim itself immune to alternative facts and logical fallacies, or exempt from interpretation, especially when these ideas are present in scholarship at the highest levels. as in politics, musicological alternative facts subsequently have a powerful potential in their dissemination to all types of media and all levels of listeners, from serious researchers to audiences who may not question alternative facts or who may continue to spread them—students, the internetor newspaper-reading public, casual concert goers perusing program notes, consumers of musical recordings reading liner notes, or teachers looking for prepackaged “expert opinions” to form attractive course materials. finally, there are the listeners from the time and place of any piece of music. in the case of shostakovich’s fifth, these are listeners who perhaps lived the truths reflected in his music, but who could not question alternative facts, even if they 112 knew them to be false. we should at least try to be empathetic listeners, and we may discover some truths about our own time and place. copyright acknowledgement all score samples are provided courtesy of g. schirmer, inc. symphony no. 5 in d minor, op. 47 by dmitri shostakovich copyright © 1939 by g. schirmer, inc. (ascap) international copyright secured. all rights reserved. used by permission. notes 1 one example: “keeping score: keeping score | dmitri shostakovich: symphony no. 5 (full documentary and concert),” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3rbwsfhlp4. more discussion of this particular video toward the end of this paper. 2 for more on implicit but pervasive imprints of russian orthodox liturgy in shostakovich’s music, see alexander ivashkin, “shostakovich, old believers and new minimalists,” in contemplating shostakovich: life, music and film, eds. alexander ivashkin and andrew kirkman (surrey: ashgate, 2012), 42-43. 3 this 1869 edition by bakhmetev was adopted as standard and for the most part retained even after balakirev and rimsky-korsakov made subsequent harmonizations in the 1880s; in any case, regardless of which edition shostakovich might have known, the chant melody is what pertains to this discussion. for more on these editions of the obikhod, see carolyn c. dunlop, russian court chapel choir: 1796-1917 (new york, ny: routledge, 2013), 76-79, or suzel ana reily and jonathan m. dueck, eds., the oxford handbook of music and world christianities (oxford: oxford university press, 2016), 367-74. 4 esti sheinberg also discusses at length shostakovich’s “multi-layered musical discourse,” including his juxtaposition of “exaggerated musical simplicity” with its “normal” surrounding material in order to express irony or satire. see esti sheinberg, irony, satire, parody and the grotesque in the music of shostakovich: a theory of musical incongruities (aldershot: ashgate, 200), 46 ff and 62 ff, among others. 5 these include: the too-slow tempo, the dissonance and struggle leading up to the ending, the absurd repetition of the high a in the violins, the modal mixture of b-flat and c-natural into the d major key, the bare d (without any other chord tones) on the very final sonority. references abbate, carolyn. 2004. “music—drastic or gnostic?” critical inquiry 30: 505-36. ____________. 2017. “overlooking the ephemeral.” new literary history 48: 75-102. bellman, jonathan d. 2017. “after silence, that which comes nearest.” in ineffability: an exercise in comparative philosophy of religion, comparative philosophy of religion i, 113 edited by t.d. knepper and l.e. kalmanson, 41-58. cham, switzerland: springer international publishing. berger, karol. 2005. “musicology according to don giovanni, or: should we get drastic?” the journal of musicology 22/3: 490-501. davis, anna megan. 2011. a russian eschatology: theological reflections on the music of dmitri shostakovich. ph.d. thesis, university of exeter. fairclough, pauline. 2019. dmitry shostakovich. london: reaktion books. ____________. 2001. “mahler reconstructed: sollertinsky and the soviet symphony.” musical quarterly 85/2: 367-90. fanning, david. 2001. “shostakovich: ‘present-day master of the c major key’.” acta musicologica 73/2: 101-40. ____________. 2004. shostakovich: string quartet no. 8. aldershot: ashgate. gumbrecht, hans ulrich. 2004. production of presence: what meaning cannot convey. stanford: stanford university press. horton, julian. 2020. “on the musicological necessity of musical analysis.” the musical quarterly 103/1-2: 62-104. huscher, phillip. 2017. programs notes, chicago symphony orchestra, 21-23 december 2017. jackson, timothy l. 1999. tchaikovsky: symphony no. 6 (pathétique). cambridge: cambridge university press. keller, james m. 2019. program notes, new york philharmonic, 6-9 march 2019. https://nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/program-notes/1819/tchaikovsky-symphony-no-6.pdf. lihoreau, tim. 2018. case notes: episode 5: the mystery of tchaikovsky’s death. classicfm blog talk radio. https://www.blogtalkradio.com/dax-global-classicfmcasenotes/2018/05/03/episode-5-the-mystery-of-tchaikovskys-death may, thomas. “symphony no. 6, ‘pathétique’.” program notes, los angeles philharmonic, 30 november-2 december 2018. https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/4036/symphony-no-6-pathetique. orlova, aleksandra. 1980. “tayna smerti chaykovskogo” [the secret of tchaikovsky’s death]. novïy amerikanets, 40: 22-3. ____________. 1981. “tchaikovsky: the last chapter.” music & letters, 62: 125-45. schwarz, gerard. 2012. dmitri shostakovich: symphony no. 5. analysis by gerard schwarz. video made with the all-star orchestra in partnership with khan academy (filmed in 2012, originally aired 2014), available at https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/music/musicmasterpieces-oldnew#shostakovich5thagain. sontag, susan. 1966. against interpretation and other essays. new york: farrar, straus & giroux. taruskin, richard. 1995. “public lies and unspeakable truth: interpreting shostakovich’s fifth symphony.” in shostakovich studies, edited by david fanning, 17-56. cambridge: cambridge university press. ____________. 1997. defining russia musically: historical and hermeneutical essays. princeton: princeton university press. ____________. 2009. on russian music. berkeley: university of california press. 114 tilson thomas, michael. 2009. keeping score: shostakovich: symphony no. 5. dvd created by michael tilson thomas with the san francisco symphony; also available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3rbwsfhlp. wiley, roland john. “tchaikovsky, pyotr il’yich.” in grove music online, oxford music online. oxford university press, accessed 30 july 2020. wilson, elizabeth. 2006. shostakovich: a life remembered, second edition. london: faber and faber. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 johnson. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 263 david brackett. 2016. categorizing sound: genre and twentieth-century popular music. berkeley: university of california press. reviewed by thomas johnson in categorizing sound, david brackett presents a broad and richly detailed “history of the practice of categorizing” popular music in the twentieth century (331), asking when, how, and why stylistic labels and classification schemes become legible across communities of musicians, fans, journalists, and music industry personnel. this is no simple task, as brackett can attest, having jousted with the “chimera of genre” for over twenty years (xiii). to grapple with as slippery and cumbersome a topic as popular music categories, the book deftly moves from sharply focused comparative analyses of songs to grand narratives of popular music history in the united states, investigating the ways musical groupings intertwine with their technological, social, and cultural contexts. brackett’s book is a nuanced and far-reaching addition to recent musicological publications on genre—including works about genre and gender in popular music (burns 2000), social mediation of genres and identities (born 2011), genre in twentieth-century art musics (drott 2013), metal (smialek 2015), twenty-first century “new music” scenes (robin 2016), and recent popular music (james 2017a, 2017b). brackett accomplishes two main goals through a genealogical approach: he traces a few continuous diachronic threads through categorical changes while simultaneously presenting semi-independent synchronic slices of classificatory assemblages. through seven in-depth case studies in three chronological periods (the 1920s, 1940s, and 1960s–80s), brackett navigates the turbulence of popular music’s ever-shifting categorizational wake. each case study engages an incisive exploration of a large-scale popular music genre or two at a particular historical moment by comparing music industry machinations with journalistic discourses and musical analysis. these explorations tend to problematize traditional narrative histories of genres (especially jazz, blues, and country) by diving into the swirling milieus of their origins and the various temporal sites of their contestations, resulting in a complex and rewarding act of historical revision. the introduction to categorizing sound provides a surplus of theoretical underpinnings for the case studies that follow by way of an extensive meditation on genre qua concept. this chapter will be useful to anyone interested in musical categorization in general, and it should be required reading in any course on popular music. the depths to which brackett 264 current musicology plumbs the many concepts covered in this first chapter perhaps overprepares the reader for the rest of the book since he covers a wide range of theories of categorization that find tangential relevance later on. most relevant for his case studies is the distinction between critic-fan genres and music-industry categories, which rely on separate strategies for musical grouping (11). brackett also adopts born’s (2000) typology of mappings between communities of people and of music, from homological to fantasized relations, which structures much of his later discussions (20). derridean notions of genre as citation and iteration (12–13) permeate the book as well, and a casual engagement with assemblage theories (10) springs up occasionally. much of what follows this introduction requires only a loose understanding of the theories and ideas brackett explores, so the reader need not follow all the connections to film studies, literature, and poststructuralist philosophy to contend with the subsequent case studies. with this background in place, chapters 2 through 4 survey popular music at the outset of the century, exploring how newfound modes of musical (re)production emerged alongside “changes in immigration laws, demographic shifts, the redrawing of high-low cultural-aesthetic boundaries, and the reorganization of institutions involved with the circulation of music, among other factors” (43). as a way into this tenuous world, brackett lucidly argues in chapter 2 (“foreign music and the emergence of phonography”) that the contemporaneous catch-all category of musical otherness, foreign music, laid important groundwork for understanding later industry distinctions between musics by marginalized groups of people. undergoing significant change from the turn of the century to the 1920s, foreign music was a site of contention for listeners and musicians as recent immigrants latched on to various musics to ground their identities, and industry powers fought to identify the most viable audiences, musicians, and labels for the plethora of musics subsumed under this title. brackett shows how subcategories of foreign music expressed both homologous and exoticist/imaginary relationships with musical communities and thus exemplifies a common theme of his book: when industry and public discourses link categories of music with categories of people, they tend to conflate stereotypes with actual listening communities. the hebrew-yiddish musical category, for instance, was homologous “in that it referred to a preexisting demographic group, which the music industry assumed was its main audience” (57). brackett explains, however, that it also “spoke to the exotic fantasies of consumers who did not identify with that preexisting demographic” (57), reinforcing stereotypes of jewishness. similar tensions and struggles over musical-identity isographies—concerning representation, identity, community, and the sounding of race— 265 thomas johnson became ever more audible and directly embodied in recordings. one positive result of this process was that musical elements like timbre, vocal inflection, groove, and microtimings, which brackett suggests are “associated with marginal elements of the population” (154), gained aesthetic import. along with technological advancements (especially with the rise of jukeboxes), the capital imbued into these musical elements helped generate a “sonic aesthetic” in which recordings were recognized as primary texts and as a viable format for measuring popularity. such a recording ontology opposed an inherited song-as-text work concept that the sheet music and publishing industry pushed well into the 1940s. brackett argues that the sonic aesthetic, unique to and characteristic of the recording era, stems from foreign music, a structuring pillar of the popular music field for the first 40 years of the twentieth century. chapters 3 (“forward to the past: race music in the 1920s”) and 4 (“the newness of old-time music”) combat presentist accounts of early blues and country, respectively. a traditional account of early blues, for instance, treats it in relative isolation, attempting to excavate the causal kernels for its assumed later telos in which the virile, male, non-commercial musician is taken as the blues archetype (71). instead, brackett enters the historical network of the blues (and subsequently of race music) in situ, reveling in the melee that surrounded the style and its nominal descriptor. as in his other chapters, brackett’s discussion clarifies how a genre’s legibility “could only be attained via the gradual assembling together of musical sounds, the social connotations of performers and audience, and a shared sense of affect and physical movement that cut across demographic divisions, along with a term or concept that could function as a label” (77). what results is a complex view of race, gender, and identity that canonical trajectories of blues and jazz frequently gloss over. the following chapter similarly challenges orthodox histories of country, hillbilly, or old-time musics, and brackett illuminates “the struggle over the naming of this category” (114). “hillbilly,” for instance, was neither a ubiquitous nor a well-defined term, used mostly as a “quasi-sociological” explanation of the music as “a pathological phenomenon” (125). brackett’s close analysis of sources shows how the loose constellation of generic labels surrounding “hillbilly” could be understood as simultaneously “activating both homologous and imaginary identifications” of its audiences (143), further complicating notions of southern, rural, and/or white identity at the time. for both early blues and country, brackett’s chapters reopen a rich and varied musical landscape. the next section of the book (chapters 5 and 6) is devoted to the 1940s, again with two case studies that focus on black and white popular musical categories respectively. chapter 5 (“from jazz to pop: swing in the 1940s”) 266 current musicology interrogates the relationships between three of the 1940s’ most important genres: swing, jazz, and popular music. the decade opened with the height of swing’s popularity, a genre which spread “forms of improvisation and groove associated with african americans among heterogeneous audiences” (185). but by the end of the decade, “within the realm of mainstream popular music, african american-ness appeared as a stereotype grouped with stereotypes of assorted others” (185). in other words, black popular music lost mainstream viability as the decade progressed, and in order to gain popularity with mainstream audiences, race music recordings were required “to cite the conventions of the novelty genre” (184). in chapter 6 (“the corny-ness of the folk”), brackett describes how the same uptick in novelty allowed country music to follow a nearly opposite narrative, from a place of ill-defined exteriority in the first half of the decade to the nominalized dual entity of “country and western” in the latter half. the chiastic trajectories of race music and country music, and the way that these large-scale categories interacted with notions of racial identity and the mainstream, closely mirrored larger trends in musical and cultural affairs. brackett explains how “african american-ness” got drained out of the mainstream, requiring its own othered “apparatus for the valuation of economic capital” (183), reinforcing a stereotypical black identity by the late 1940s. on the other hand, country’s newfound mainstream success “disturbed notions of homological” relation between the music and a rural, white, southern identity, creating an awareness of the label’s “insufficiency” (228). these divergent paths occurred during the gradual synchronization and consolidation of the music industry, which solidified around the end of the second world war, as marketing, advertising, and demographic research reached new levels of sophistication and made possible the first quantifiable era of “mainstream” popular music. out of these distinctions—between the unmarked mainstream and its marked others—brackett develops a central concept in his book: crossover. though anachronistically applied and only defined in chapter 8, for brackett crossover is only possible when industry categories and stable rankings of popularity or success (especially charts) become widespread and relatively consistent. only then can genres be defined by their independence from the mainstream, and only then can certain ambassadors cross from one chart to another. in the second half of his book, covering the 50-year span from the 1940s to about 1990, brackett emphasizes the “circular logic” of crossover, or how some tracks or artists in non-mainstream genres (r&b, jazz, country, etc.) find mainstream success while others remain relegated to their marked groupings. brackett’s chapter on r&b and soul in the 1960s (“the dictionary of 267 thomas johnson soul”) is in many ways exemplary of the entire project. the aim, he explains, “is to analyze the stakes involved for the musicians, fans, journalists, and music industry personnel” who associate generic labels “in a more or less consistent way with certain musical processes and gestures” (236). so, when a disjunction occurs within these more or less consistent applications of generic labels, brackett seizes the opportunity to interrogate the generic conditions at stake. from 1963 to 1965, billboard suddenly stopped printing their “r&b” popularity chart, a unique gap in an otherwise uninterrupted strand of industry-sanctioned african-american popular music categories that began with the stabilization of “race records” in the 1920s, and which lives on in billboard’s current “hip-hop and r&b” moniker. surely r&b music still existed, and people still bought, sold, made, listened to, and thought about music that participated in or represented the genre, so why did billboard stop their chart? for brackett, the blip that this interregnum registers on the popular-music–genre seismometer functions as much more than a curious historical footnote of one (important) part of the popular music machine; it presents a chance to explore the confluences and contradictions of musical and social worlds, of understanding how “the struggle over racial classification itself ” that structured much of the 1960s might (not) relate to concomitant musical classifications (236). by analyzing shifting usages of the word “soul,” along with the effects that folk-rock and the british invasion had on the mainstream, brackett documents competing notions of racial identity and musical expression during an especially tumultuous moment in us popular culture. originating as an adjectival descriptor and growing into a nominalized genre, “soul” captures some of the tensions inherent in the civil rights movement between an integrationist discourse (reflected by r&b’s billboard gap) and one of black cultural independence that required a new, unique african american genre label. brackett’s project reaches its apotheosis in chapter 8 (“crossover dreams: from urban cowboy to the king of pop”), a discussion of crossover and its effects in the 1980s, a time when marketing categories, radio formats, new influential genres (like punk, disco, new wave, adult contemporary), social identities, and the introduction of a new medium (mtv) produced a unique “field of tensions” in popular music (301). by again comparing the fates of black popular genres and mainstreamadjacent white popular musics, brackett outlines the economic and social forces that policed musical borders, along with their consequent material results. both country and r&b, for lack of better terms, bifurcated in the early 1980s between mainstream and marginal subtypes, but country more easily crossed over at the beginning of the decade (and found more finan268 current musicology cial success) since—among other reasons—its synecdochal style elements could blend directly into unmarked pop (293). seen as more serious and wholesome than funk, disco, or r&b, crossover country exploded in popularity by adapting conventional country instrumentation into adult contemporary musics. black popular music genres, on the other hand, were understood to be rather more “transgressive” as a general conservatism swept the nation, and they fared much worse in their ability to garner majoritarian interest. because of this, the mega-success of michael jackson’s thriller (1983)—made possible by citation of his previous success, his inclusion of crossover stylistic elements and general stylistic eclecticism, and his collaboration with mainstream artists like paul mccartney and van halen—was doubly extraordinary for an artist classified as r&b who carried with him connotations of disco. thriller created a “sudden surge of interest in black crossover material” in its wake, upending the mainstream (314). the resulting categorizational turbulence, along with those new media and marketing categories mentioned above, problematized the very notion of mainstream in the 1980s. brackett suggests “the whole idea of the mainstream underwent changes that led to a new way of conceptualizing the hierarchy of genres that might participate in it” (314) as previously marginal genres would occasionally ascend to popularity. but by the 1990s, the popular music field would again settle into a relatively stable constellation of musical categories, as music videos, brackett suggests, provided new means of “compactly materializing associations” between sound, artists, and audiences (324). throughout these case studies, a few long-range strands of historical narrative emerge—e.g., how technological innovations of reproduction galvanized a novel “sonic aesthetic,” how unstable industry terms for african american popular music categories stem from different sets of discourses and agencies than those of non-mainstream white music, or how the strength of “crossover effect” mutates over time. but these occasionally get lost in the microscopic specificity of brackett’s meticulous musicological research, requiring the reader to consciously track larger-range ideas as they bubble to the surface. and though these emergent continuities may not be brackett’s central aim, the fact that they arise so naturally might leave the reader in want of a synopsis of these broad themes. nevertheless, there’s plenty of theory, history, and analysis to digest, and brackett bookends each case-study with an exemplary introductory anecdote and a few welcome pages of summary, helping the reader absorb the deluge of information in each chapter. though the book is comprehensive and coherent throughout, a few weaknesses pepper some sections, resulting from editorial challenges 269 thomas johnson inevitable for a project that combines so much previous work; much of chapters 1, 2, 7, and 8, at least, find precedence in brackett’s earlier publications. this upcycling is not problematic in itself, but it does result in the occasional stutter, shifting between materials from different stages of a long gestation. prior published subtitles for the book—“genre and identity in twentieth-century popular music” and “a generic history of popular music”—reveal two overriding goals brackett has melded into this work, which sporadically compete for attention and space.1 the book reads either as a broadly focused history of the relation between the mainstream and its largest tributaries or as a focused study of race and identity in popular music at particular historical moments. this means that, for example, some chapters and concepts get reutilized. chapter 5, for instance, re-introduces its upcoming trajectory multiple times to cover distinct goals, and some concepts get repackaged in separate chapters—e.g., hagstrom miller’s (2007) folkloristic mode of authenticity (74, 123) or sterne’s (2003) “audile technique” (37, 57). additionally, some bibliographical entries seem culled from prior versions with no mention in the book, and there are some inevitable omissions. for instance, a couple of especially conspicuous and relevant sources include tamara roberts’s (2011) work on michael jackson, race, and the mainstream, which covers much the same ground as brackett’s final case study, and hubbs’s (2014) study of country music and identity, which would certainly have provided useful contextualization for many of brackett’s claims about country and its predecessors. overall, however, this is a diligently researched book, and necessarily so, with a bibliography that spans many interand subdisciplines. a few of these could be fruitfully augmented with recent literatures, opening potential avenues for scholars more directly interested in bringing feminist, critical race, or post-colonial theories to bear on popular music categories.2 besides its careful research and novel historiography, categorizing sound might be most valuable for those aspects of popular music’s genrecartography it leaves unexplored. little is said about hip hop and funk and the 1950s and 1970s serve merely as contextual fodder. chronologically, one might extend brackett’s ideas in either direction, for example, placing them in dialogue with stoever’s (2016) recent work on race, the listening ear, and the sonic color line beginning in the nineteenth century. moving in the other direction, researchers of our current musical era will find many uncanny similarities in the historical realms brackett probes. the move that streaming services have made towards psychographic marketing (james 2017b) resembles paradigm shifts of categorization in the 1920s and the 1980s, and the intensification of identity and of fine-grained musical classification (e.g., as studied by greenberg et al. 2016) finds precedence 270 current musicology in the minute differentiations between subcategories of foreign music— distinguishing between, for example, “neapolitan and italian” or “jewish and hebrew” (57). diachronic studies just outside musicology’s usual orbit (e.g., lena’s [2012] discussion of individual genres’ trajectories through predictable stages or mauch et al.’s [2015] scientific analysis of popular music’s stylistic evolution) could also be usefully developed by incorporating brackett’s nuanced historical research. sociologies of omnivorousness might also benefit from brackett’s deeper history of taste and audiences. there’s an inherent difficulty in applying a single methodology or theoretical apparatus to any selection of musical categories and historical contexts, and brackett admits he has codified no single way “to do genre analysis” (331). instead, categorizing sound presents a broad selection of tools and attitudes that might guide future investigations of the changing configurations of genre, identity, and popular music. like any study of genre, categorizing sound ramifies across discourses, and its many valuable musicological contributions will hopefully proliferate throughout and beyond the discipline. notes 1. these prior subtitles can be found in the ams book publication subvention awards listing (http://www.ams-net.org/pubs/publication-subventions-2015-fall.php) and brackett (2015, 205), respectively. 2. brackett briefly mentions judith butler, paul gilroy, and homi bhabha when discussing genre’s and identity’s performativities, for instance (38n50), but i believe a theory of genre that more directly incorporates their (and similar writers’) works might be a beneficial pursuit. references born, georgina. 2000. “music and the representation/articulation of sociocultural identities.” in western music and its others: difference, representation, and appropriation in music, edited by georgina born and david hesmondhalgh, 31–47. berkeley: university of california press. . 2011. “music and the materialization of identities.” journal of material culture 16 (4): 376–88. brackett, david. 2015. “popular music genres: aesthetics, commerce and identity.” in the sage handbook of popular music, edited by andy bennett and steve waksman, 189– 206. los angeles: sage publications. burns, lori. 2000. “genre, gender, and convention revisited: k. d. lang’s cover of cole porter’s ‘so in love.’ ” repercussions 7–8: 299–325. drott, eric. 2013. “the end(s) of genre.” journal of music theory 57 (1): 1–45. greenberg, david m., michal kosinski, david j. stillwell, brian l. monteiro, daniel j. levitin, and peter j. rentfrow. 2016. “the song is you: preferences for musical attribute dimensions reflect personality.” social psychological and personality science 7 (6): 1–9. hagstrom miller, karl. 2010. segregating sound: inventing folk and pop music in the age of jim crow. durham, nc: duke university press. 271 thomas johnson hubbs, nadine. 2014. rednecks, queers, and country music. berkeley: university of california press. james, robin. 2017a. “is the postin post-identity the postin post-genre?” popular music 36 (1): 21–32. . 2017b. “songs of myself.” real life, may. http://reallifemag.com/songs-of-myself. lena, jennifer c. 2012. banding together: how communities create genres in popular music. princeton, nj: princeton university press. mauch, matthias, robert m. maccallum, mark levy, and armand m. leroi. 2015. “the evolution of popular music: usa 1960–2010.” royal society open science 2: 1–10. roberts, tamara. 2011. “michael jackson’s kingdom: music, race, and the sound of the mainstream.” journal of popular music studies 23 (1): 19–39. robin, william. 2016. “a scene without a name: indie classical and american new music in the twenty-first century.” phd diss., university of north carolina at chapel hill. smialek, eric. 2015. “genre and expression in extreme metal music, ca. 1990–2015.” phd diss., mcgill university. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham, nc: duke university press. stoever, jennifer lynn. 2016. the sonic color line: race and the cultural politics of listening. new york: nyu press. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 141 kajikawa, loren. 2015. sounding race in rap songs. oakland: university of california press. reviewed by tracy mcmullen in 1991, scott deveaux warned that an “official history of jazz had taken hold,” aided and abetted by the work of academics. from a “chaotic diversity of style and expression” came a “coherent whole, . . . a skillfully contrived and easily comprehended narrative” (525). deveaux attributed this primarily to textbooks, which reinforced the narrative of neat stylistic decades (1920s new orleans jazz, 1930s swing, 1940s bebop, etc.) and the institutionalization of jazz studies within colleges and universities. because jazz was a relatively recent art form, deveaux could watch the official history develop and cohere before his eyes. now it may be hip-hop’s turn. like jazz, hip-hop is a new art form minted in the united states through the expressive practices of african americans. the rise of hip-hop has been concurrent with the rise of ethnic studies departments and, more recently, the inclusion of popular music as a serious field of study in the academy. thus, while jazz studies took decades to be accepted as a legitimate field within music departments, hip-hop studies is better positioned to find its way into a multitude of academic disciplines. it is important, therefore, to take lessons from the development of jazz studies as the field of hip-hop studies takes shape. is it possible for hip-hop studies to resist the model of “official history” with monograph-style counters from the margins (“women in hip-hop,” “latinx in hip-hop”)? what would the field look like if scholars could collectively eschew the tendency to create a dominant narrative with its immutable “key elements,” masterpieces, and great innovators? rather than center and margin, perhaps hip-hop as a field could choose flow as a model—an early example of which might be the foundational and helpfully plural text, the hip-hop studies reader (forman and neal 2012). an important essay in the hip-hop studies reader questions how “social scientists” find their knowledge about the inner city. robin d.g. kelley writes that for many social scientists researching povferty “the ‘real negroes’ were the young jobless men hanging out on the corner passing the bottle, the brothers with the nastiest verbal repertoire, the pimps and hustlers, and the single mothers who raised streetwise kids who began cursing before they could walk,” and not the men and women who went to work every day in countless occupations (138). and the trusted interlocutor in regard to “authentic black urban culture” was the black man (139). social scientists aren’t the only ones taking certain young black men as 142 current musicology their central informants. the volume also includes reporter robert ford’s two late-1970s articles for billboard magazine describing this new art form, with its focus on “rapping djs.” ford names many men: kool herc, eddie cheeba, dj hollywood, dj starski, kurtis blow, dj easy gee, and cool dj aj. and then we hear this: “[cheeba] travels with an entire show, which includes seven female dancers and another dj, easy gee, who does most of the actual spinning” (42). who were these seven women? what kind of dancing were they doing? how did they see their role within the “entire show”? how did it occur that their dancing was not considered an “element” of hip-hop? how was it that they were (needed) there but not there? as the story of hip-hop began to be narrated by ford and other men, the ubiquitous activities of women were conveyed as general backdrop, not “key elements.” kelley’s cogent intervention would trouble ford’s presumptive authority, yet it is ford’s journalism that has become an urtext of hip-hop history, being cited regularly (including in loren kajikawa’s sounding race in rap songs), not kelley’s. ford’s original article and its frequent citation demonstrate how men’s activities and narratives inform the growing official history. this cohering narrative is as follows: with a pre-history comprised of caribbean mobile dj units; artists like the last poets, gil scott heron, and iceberg slim; and blaxploitation film, hip-hop begins in the south bronx and has four elements: mcing, b-boying, graffiti, and djing. its founding fathers are kool dj herc, afrika bambaataa, and grandmaster flash. stylistically, it has moved from party to message to gangsta to the “beyond” that we have today, including its proliferation around the world. this skeleton is fleshed out in various ways, but this is the general story as it is coalescing in encyclopedias and textbooks.1 some hip-hop scholars have questioned this narrative—for example, the “four elements.” pertinent to the seven mystery women above, melissa campbell wonders why “booty dancing” isn’t one of the elements of hip-hop (2004, 499). or double-dutch, as kyra gaunt asks in her powerful volume on black girls’ expressive culture and its influence on hip-hop (2006, 113). gaunt’s book, the games black girls play, makes a convincing case for the ways in which black girls’ activities inform black expressive practice, including, significantly, hip-hop. but these voices are relegated to the margins if, as a field, we produce books that unquestioningly accept the “official story” as the foundation. unfortunately, sounding race in rap songs does assume the official story as its foundation and in so doing falls prey to what paul gilroy, kyra gaunt, and many others have criticized: that despite its diasporic richness and complexity, “contemporary black cultures from harlem to london . . . 143 tracy mcmullen are reduced to black masculinity as the primary, if not sole, signifier of race in mass popular culture” (gaunt 2006, 114, italics in original). examining four touchstone rap songs from 1979 to 1999—“rapper’s delight” by the sugarhill gang, “rebel without a pause” by public enemy, dr. dre’s “let me ride,” and eminem’s “my name is”—sounding race in rap songs argues for the ways that rap “sounds race.” kajikawa’s focus on sound—including music production, sampling, rapping, and musical form—offers a necessary rejoinder to the often verbal and visual focus in hip-hop analysis. in this way, sounding race adds complexity to a growing official history. the author’s decision not to employ a more intersectional analysis of how race is sounded, however, significantly weakens his intervention. sounding race illuminates the shift from hip-hop as an activity to hiphop as a form: the rap song. kajikawa acknowledges both the negatives of this—commodification, systematization, predictability—but also the positives, such as setting the stage for the virtuosity of rap and for message rap. while scholars like greg dimitriadis (2012) and tricia rose (2008) have previously discussed how hip-hop was removed from its context as an activity and turned into a commodity that singled out the mc, kajikawa’s formal analysis of how the music changed from a more responsive, lesspredictable form to a very systematized song form is useful. in a clear visual format that non-music students can understand, kajikawa shows the flexible, responsive, and asymmetrical form of grandmaster flash’s djing recorded live at the audubon ballroom in 1978. there is significant improvisation in how flash interacts with the rappers, melle mel and kid creole, and with his own musical decisions. as kajikawa puts it, “because flash did not always loop breakbeats the same way, the musical surface constantly shifted, and mcs had to adjust their flows to match it” (31). the author follows this analysis by graphing the very symmetrical musical form of “rapper’s delight.” he also offers graphs to demonstrate how longer phrases helped to give the later west coast g-funk style its signature, somewhat lilting, laid-back sound (104). and while most scholars know “rapper’s delight” was performed by a live band, it is less known that dr. dre used live musicians to perform certain phrases from albums which were then easier for him to manipulate (94). these detailed examinations of hip-hop production in its earlier years expands our understanding of the genre as a musical phenomenon and the visual supplements greatly aid teaching classes of students with little musical training. such attention to the changes in hip-hop’s early sounding—from asymmetry to symmetry, improvised flow to rap song—is interesting and important work. although the book takes sound as its focus, kajikawa also gives compelling analyses of two videos. he compares dr. dre’s song and video “let 144 current musicology me ride” to nwa’s “straight outa compton” in terms of mobility, or lack thereof, in los angeles. we see that in nwa’s video the group is always on foot, confined to the neighborhood of compton bound on all sides by freeways. such quarantine is highlighted in the video, which shows a map of compton fenced in by freeways dissolving into an image of nwa walking the streets. only the police are in automobiles, free to move in and out of the neighborhood. in contrast, dr. dre, in “let me ride” focuses on the freedom the automobile provides him in los angeles. kajikawa makes use of pertinent stills from the videos, for example, walking feet and the outlined map of compton that police are surveying from “straight outa compton” compared to “spinning chrome wheels,” dre’s chevy impala, and the expanse of freeways as freedom in “let me ride.” kajikawa contextualizes his analysis within a tradition of the “transcendence of travel” in african american stories described by robert farris thompson, including the sound of the train whistle to, in more modern times, the “revolving shiny hubcaps” and the “turning of a rubber tire” (111). kajikawa argues that “by reconceiving the gangsta’s relationship to urban space, dr. dre rearticulated blackness not as conflict and rebellion but as transcendence and mobility” (86). this mobility is connected to dr. dre’s significance in rap’s neo-liberal turn toward individual consumerism as the heroic model. as kajikawa notes, “g-funk rejected previous forms of black politics centered on collective action. promising ‘no medallions, dreadlocks, or black fists.’ . . . these symbols of black freedom find themselves supplanted by the gangsta, whose ruthless entrepreneurial activity through rap leads to financial success . . . coded here as the true form of liberation” (114). kajikawa does not discuss how dr. dre’s freedom is also represented in the video by his ability to cycle through a series of women, who trade places in his car throughout the video. the video begins with him leaving a house where a woman is questioning him and, we understand, trying to pin him down. thus, “black freedom” is, in fact, black male freedom, in this case, from the domesticating black woman.2 while kajikawa offers this video analysis, sounding race’s central aim is to demonstrate how rap has sounded race in various rap songs. kajikawa writes, “unlike rock and roll, rap never became ‘white’” (5). rap music has remained an overt signifier of blackness, not just lyrically and visually, but sonically. he goes on: “rap has cultivated a mainstream audience and become a multi-million-dollar industry by promoting highly visible (and often controversial) representations of black masculine identity. . . . unlike the worlds of djing and b-boying, where hip-hop’s ethnic diversity is reflected at the highest level of competition, rap moguls have consistently put their money on black [artists]” with eminem as the exception (5). (as i 145 tracy mcmullen will discuss further, the slippage between “black” and “black masculinity” is never adequately theorized.) a focus on sound is necessary, especially in light of the recent critique by gustavus stadler (2015) on the whiteness of sound studies. for example, in his chapter on public enemy, kajikawa emphasizes the concept of noise within the construction of blackness. the “harsh timbres and clashing rhythms,” also known as the “organized noise,” of pe’s bomb squad, articulated a sound for many of a “black fist in the air,” a “power to symbolize black resistance” (50), and “the sound of insistence” (76). kajikawa argues that these sounds were a gramscian rearticulation of race (as evidenced by music critics’ interpretations), redeploying the sounds and concepts of earlier hip-hop to offer a new “sonic portrayal of black identity” (79). the concept of noise has been central to the aesthetics and politics of hiphop, as evidenced in just a short list: public enemy’s 1987 song “bring the noise”; organized noize, the atlanta based hip-hop production company in existence since 1992 (and subject of a recent documentary by quincy jones); and books black noise (rose 1994), global noise (2002) and home girls make some noise (2007). further, given that “sounding” was a common early synonym for “rapping” and that much of this long-standing verbal expressive practice has focused on phonetic play (often more than semantic play, according to henry louis gates), rapping itself has a significant place in sound studies (see gates 2014, 57, 73, 75). by engaging sound, sounding race extends the study of hip-hop beyond its more usual focus on “words and imagery” toward “a more holistic approach sensitive to the way producers and fans experience rap music as music” (149). hoping to describe how ideas are attached to sounds (10), kajikawa seeks “to explain how the choices rap producers make—selecting one sound and not another one—amplify and in some cases transform the information that listeners receive from a song’s lyrics or music video” (12). according to kajikawa, this offers insights that a focus on lyrics alone could miss. for example, dr. dre’s use of the funky and celebratory sounds of parliament funkadelic “cast life in the ‘hood as less about violent struggle and more about the celebration of a certain kind of freedom and mobility. . . . [a]nalyzing lyrics alone might lead one to miss these changes within the genre” (101). kajikawa further argues for the ways in which public enemy sound black power through their noisy layering of samples and how producer dr. dre cannily chose sounds that signified whiteness for eminem (133). kajikawa asks important questions: how is it that rap music “sounds” race? “how did rap music gain the ability to make race audible in these ways?” (3). while i may have found these questions insufficiently answered in the book, i found the direction of the inquiry important. 146 current musicology in his musical and video analysis and through his privileging of sound, kajikawa contributes valuable new insights and vantage points for the understanding of hip-hop. for these reasons, i am disappointed that he uncritically accepts so much of the “official history,” in particular the “masculinist focus of . . . hip-hop [history]” (gaunt 2006, 51). this made using the book in the classroom fraught. i had to continually undo and unpack the assumptions and even (in my view) sexism that undergirded his analyses of the sound of race for my students. focusing on how race sounds is crucial—but the fact that this sounding race is, in fact, sounding masculinity is never adequately acknowledged in the book, let alone analyzed as to how race (in particular, blackness) becomes associated with masculinity. this seriously undercuts kajikawa’s analysis of how race is sounded. in many instances, the lack of gender analysis made describing how race was being constructed almost impossible, in my view. for example, in describing hip-hop’s early commercial years kajikawa never mentions that as rap was first developing as a commercial genre many of the first groups had women in them. in fact, rap’s move out of its context as activity toward an increasingly commodified form is a key period when the dialogic between men and women drops out, something kajikawa doesn’t mention. h. rap brown said that “some of the best dozens players were girls” (quoted in gates 2014, 49, 79). female groups, rappers, and clubs, such as the mercedes ladies, were part of the early hiphop scene. funky 4 plus one more, with rapper sha rock, was the first rap group to perform on national tv (in 1981) and their 1985 “that’s the joint” had “formed its own community: thirty or forty raps were recorded in response[,] . . . from the point of view of sally, sally’s mother, and other characters in the song. when these raps were played back to back on the radio, they created a litany of neighborhood gossip” (wheeler 1991, 207). the all female rap group j. j. fad signed to ruthless records and released their hit “supersonic” in 1987 one year before straight outta compton, something we don’t see in the official history of the hollywood film of the same name (and vociferously challenged in many hip-hop blogs). as women’s voices dropped out, the one-sided sexual play and challenge could become unmitigated misogyny with little real chance for women to speak back with anything close to the same cultural decibel level. henry louis gates discussed this around the same time, noting that scholars of african american verbal expressive culture didn’t record women, therefore what is represented in the recordings “[has] a phallocentric bias” (2014, 60). as kajikawa rightly says, producers became attracted to black male rappers (46), but this happened over the course of years and for specific reasons that have to do with the topic of his book: constructing the sound of black147 tracy mcmullen ness. kajikawa never gives an explanation for why the producers became attracted to male rappers, leading a classroom of students to believe this preference is natural. another example involves kajikawa’s discussion of def jam records’ move to incorporate rock elements into rap. kajikawa acknowledges the sad irony that rock is considered “white,” despite the fact that it had “its roots in black rhythm-and-blues” (69) (a citation of maureen mahon’s excellent 2004 work on black rock would have been useful). kajikawa leaves gaping chasms in his discussion of def jam’s construction of rap authenticity via rock, however, when he doesn’t discuss how constructions of gender play into it. producer rick rubin put forward the heavy rock idea in order to appeal to young white men and boys.3 rubin was a classic disco-basher who wanted to distance rap from the form. he loved bands like aerosmith and to combine them with a rap group like run dmc sounded like the golden ticket. rick rubin was also instrumental in eliminating kate schellenbach from the beastie boys in order to turn them away from the type of punk band that would countenance a female drummer, into the rock-boy rap he wanted (see schellenbach interviewed in barshad 2011). rubin’s actions provide a clear example of how women are on the scene but pushed off the stage in order to construct the masculine image and sound that a producer wants. but according to kajikawa, gender apparently plays no part in these decisions. he writes, “like rock and roll pioneers before them, rap musicians were bringing an authentic, raw (read as black) form of expression into mainstream u.s. culture” (70). kajikawa then cites robert palmer: “the rock hits of the 50s had a rawer, more abrasive sound than the period’s mainstream pop; think of jerry lee lewis’s ‘great balls of fire’ compared to patti page’s ‘how much is that doggie in the window’” (70). the obviously gendered nature of this description of authenticity goes uncommented upon by kajikawa, who uses it only to demonstrate rock’s rawness as also linked to race (blackness). i had to unpack this with my students so that women are not offered as the natural embodiment of inauthenticity without a discussion of how this gender construction is deployed to shore up the construction of male authenticity.4 by offering such statements and examples without an analysis of the ways in which women are constructed as inauthentic in order to construct what is authentic, the book serves to perpetuate and instantiate this myth of women as inauthentic. in a final example concerning the producer sylvia robinson, kajikawa seems to accept and reinforce the stereotype of female inauthenticity. google “godmother of hip hop” and sylvia robinson’s bio and picture will appear at the top of your page. starting as a musician and songwriter, robinson founded sugarhill records and effectively brought 148 current musicology into being and produced rap’s first commercial single, “rapper’s delight.” shortly thereafter she produced grandmaster flash and the furious five’s highly influential “the message.” to be introduced to robinson through kajikawa’s book, however, one could easily see her as the inauthentic female bent on commercializing an authentic black male art form. the narrative kajikawa constructs is of artistic, authentic male artists being manipulated by her commercializing agenda: “robinson translated flash’s quick mix theory into a studio setting—only with a rigidity and evenness that was rarely, if ever, a goal in flash’s live performances” (37); “‘the queen’ . . . had overthrown the kings at the party” (40); the musicians are “confused” and “frightened” by the demands of robinson (36). further, regarding “the message,” “robinson hounded the group for almost a year until she convinced mc melle mel to begin recording the track without flash’s consent” (57). flash and the furious five were not interested in recording the song. they thought it was too dark and edgy, nothing like the party rap that effectively defined the style at the time. kid creole said, “we was afraid of the song because we didn’t think that it would work” (quoted in 58). it is impossible for me not to imagine how a male producer would be described if he had stuck to his guns, resisted the pressure of musicians sure his ideas would be a failure, and then went on to produce possibly the most influential rap song of all time (“the message”). yet, kajikawa sets up a good versus evil narrative with the original sin suspiciously pointing toward a powerful woman (“rapper’s delight” is suggested as the “original sin” of hip-hop [39]). kajikawa shares: as mark mccord writes about the armory concert for wax poetics magazine, “at least for that one night, it didn’t matter if there was a record selling in stores all over the country, because it was the guys on the stage that night who were the real stars.” even as “rapper’s delight” climbed the charts and attracted waves of outsiders who had never heard or cared about live djs and mcs, flash’s armory performance exemplifies a dynamism and sense of musical spontaneity absent from sugar hill’s interpolation of the “good times” break. (39) the inauthentic, commercial recording is getting all the attention when the real story is with the misunderstood male artists. i worry that robinson as the inauthentic, untrustworthy woman who doesn’t understand the real artists becomes “the message” students get about robinson, underplaying her pivotal and principal role in the birth of hip-hop. kajikawa continues this male privileging in his decision to always write b-boying, rather than b-boying/b-girling as felicia miyakawa does in her entry for hip hop in the grove dictionary of american music, 2nd edition (grove music online 2012). we don’t hear of cindy campbell’s role in “founding” hip-hop 149 tracy mcmullen through her activities throwing parties at 1520 sedgwick avenue in the bronx. women we know of and don’t know of all played a significant role in sounding race; however, we will not find out about that in kajikawa’s book. kajikawa’s two references to gender analysis come into play when discussing whiteness and asianness and are both one sentence allusions to the same source: page 416 of ingrid monson’s 1995 journal article, “the problem with white hipness: race, gender, and cultural conceptions in jazz historical discourse.” the first instance occurs in the chapter on eminem, where kajikawa writes, “[eminem’s] violent, misogynistic humor and self-characterization as ‘white trash’ confirm ingrid monson’s observation that gender and class continue to mediate racial authenticity across u.s. popular music’s color line” (136). in his second reference to gender analysis, nine pages later, kajikawa writes that chinese-american rapper jin’s efforts to prove his “hardness” despite being asian by using sexually explicit lyrics “[illustrate] once again how gender and sexuality mediate racial authenticity across the color line” (145) and cites monson, page 416. unfortunately, kajikawa does not perform this intersectional analysis, but only cites the same quote two times to tell us it is important (when dealing with a white rapper and an asian rapper). while kajikawa will write, “eminem’s violent, cartoonish, and misogynistic humor consciously distances him from conventional representations of whiteness, positioning him as a social rebel on par with, but clearly not the same as, his african american counterparts” (128), he does not offer further analysis or ramifications for this white male use of sexism to prove masculinity in a black musical form. while deploying very similar tactics to eminem regarding his non-black rapper status, jin did not generate the massive appeal of his white counterpart. kajikawa acknowledges that while some might connect eminem’s rise to a “world where the content of one’s microphone skills truly does matter more than the color of one’s skin” (141), the case of jin puts the lie to this fantasy. and when we see that one’s microphone skills truly don’t matter more than the color of one’s skin we can also entertain the possibility that women mcs also fell by the wayside because of the identity constructions of the genre made by producers, performers, consumers, and critics. the lack of a real discussion of how gender and sexuality mediate race significantly weakens kajikawa’s analysis and makes an instructor have to constantly undo naturalized assumptions. in addition to the problem of under-theorizing black masculinity, the six uses of the word “women” in the volume also demonstrate why a gender analysis is important when telling this story. they are: “gordon sits between two women: a young 150 current musicology blonde . . . and an elderly, grey-haired woman” (20); “includes marijuana, classic cars, and compliant women” (102); “gangsta lifestyle filled with endless sunshine, objectified women” (116); “the frequent targets of his lyrical outbursts were women and homosexuals” (136) and again “the frequent targets of eminem’s rhymes were women and homosexuals” (139); and finally a reference to don imus and the rutgers women’s basketball team in which richard goldstein of the village voice argued, “eminem and imus draw from the same well of resentment that has nourished the angry white male” (140). these attitudes about women are not unpacked, but merely stated. their connection to how race is sounded is not pursued. there might be two nods to intersectionality, but sounding race does not adequately account for how sexism, homophobia and gender stereotypes often form the very definitions of racial difference. in my view, kajikawa’s analysis teaches the class that race is one thing and it pertains to men. it is troubling that we are still producing academic analyses of race (or gender or class, etc.) that are not intersectional. indeed, kimberlee crenshaw’s 1991 essay on intersectionality goes as far back as public enemy’s “fear of a black planet.” if kajikawa indeed believes that gender, sexuality and class mediate race, then this methodology needs to be employed throughout the book, not simply cited by another scholar in the last chapters. to imagine that one simply cannot account for gender when talking about race—that it is just too much to cover, that “i can’t talk about gender, too”—is to misunderstand how race is constructed. racial distinctions are constructed via reference to other identity markers like sexuality, class and gender. these markers need to be analyzed as definitive parts of race as a construct. as the dominant hip-hop narrative is unfolding in popular culture (via wikipedia, documentaries, blogs) and in the academy (textbooks, readers, history books), i would advocate that as scholars we embrace asymmetry, flow, and responsiveness and reject symmetry, stasis, and truisms. like skilled rap artists, scholars can perpetually flip the script. it’s not a problem that loren kajikawa’s sounding race in rap songs is a book about a certain set of well-known rap songs and their influence. the problem is the symmetry provided by unquestioned assumptions that support his analysis. let’s follow grandmaster flash in recalling: “if there was no hip hop in society / then there would be fewer alternative views. / see we not about to lose” (2009). and remember that in hip-hop, as scholar elizabeth wheeler has put it: “nobody gets the last word for more than thirty seconds at a time” (136). 151 tracy mcmullen notes 1. in her encyclopedia entry, “hip hop,” in the grove dictionary of american music, felicia miyakawa mentions b-girling as part of the “original four elements.” she also acknowledges the need to broaden the history to include women’s and “latino/a contributions.” fernando orejuela’s recent textbook, rap and st culture, includes a variety of lenses through which to read rap and hip-hop culture. i don’t want to malign encyclopedias or textbooks, but to call for vigilance in watching for official histories. 2. tammy kernodle’s cogent analysis of the black musical avant-garde in the 1960s unfortunately holds true for much hip-hop of the 1990s: “the search for creative liberation was centered in the need to liberate oneself and the art from [the] clutches of women—who have been traditionally viewed as the enforcers of the cultural rules of monogamy, the steady job, and the nuclear family” (kernodle 2010, 85). 3. i write “young white men and boys” for specificity, rather than use the term “youth,” as kajikawa does. the term youth gives a false sense of inclusivity. while young women and girls are also “youth,” they are rarely the ones spoken of via this term. as jacqueline warwick puts it, “so-called youth culture is actually boy culture” (warwick 2007, 134). 4. i was surprised that kajikawa did not argue that dr. dre’s privileging of funk music countered rick rubin’s “whitening” of rap through rock music with a return to a sound of blackness (that would also include copious disco samples in the west coast g-funk style). references barshad, amos. 2011. “rude boys: the birth of the beastie boys—an oral history on the 25th anniversary of licensed to ill.” new york entertainment, april 2, 2011. campbell, melissa. 2004. “‘go white girl!’: hip hop booty dancing and the white female body.” continuum: journal of media & cultural studies 18 (4): 497–508. crenshaw, kimberlé. 1991. “mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color.” stanford law review 43 (6): 1241–1299. deveaux, scott. 1991. “constructing the jazz tradition: jazz historiography.” black american literature forum 25 (3): 525–60. dimitriadis, greg. 2012. “hip-hop: from live performance to mediated narrative.” in that’s the joint: the hip-hop studies reader, edited by murray forman and mark anthony neal. new york: routledge. forman, murray, and mark anthony neal, eds. 2012. that’s the joint: the hip-hop studies reader, 2nd. ed. new york: routledge. gates, henry louis. 2014. the signifying monkey: a theory of african-american literary criticism. new york and oxford: oxford university press. gaunt, kyra d. 2006. the games black girls play: learning the ropes from double-dutch to hip-hop. new york: new york university press. kernodle, tammy l. 2010. “freedom is a constant struggle: alice coltrane and the redefining of the jazz avant-garde.” in john coltrane and black america’s quest for freedom, edited by leonard brown, 73–98. new york: oxford university press. mitchell, tony, ed. 2002. global noise: rap and hip hop outside the usa. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. miyakawa, felicia. 2012. “hip hop.” in the grove dictionary of american music, 2nd ed., edited by charles hiroshi garret. oxford: oxford university press. https://doi. org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.a2224578. orejuela, fernando. 2015. rap and hip hop culture. new york and oxford: oxford 152 current musicology university press. pough, gwendolyn, elaine richardson, aisha durham, and rachel raimist, eds. 2007. home girls make some noise: hip hop feminism anthology. mira loma, ca: parker publishing. rose, tricia. 1994. black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary america. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. . 2008. the hip hop wars: what we talk about when we talk about hip hop—and why it matters. new york: basic books. stadler, gustavus. 2015. “on whiteness and sound studies.” sounding out, july 6, 2015. https://soundstudiesblog.com/2015/07/06/on-whiteness-and-sound-studies. warwick, jacqueline. 2007. girl groups, girl culture: popular music and identity in the 1960s. new york & london: routledge. wheeler, elizabeth. 1991. “”most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps”: the dialogics of rap music.” black music research journal 11 (2): 193–216. current musicology, no. 93 (spring 2012) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 115 julian henriques. 2011. sonic bodies: reggae sound systems, performance techniques, and ways of knowing. new york: continuum. reviewed by seth mulliken the evolution of sound studies over the past decade has been rapid. it would be wrong to say that sound studies is ‘arriving’: it has arrived. but this arrival has not brought with it even a tacit agreement about its place in the academy, and more specifically, within cultural studies. more than likely, this has to do with a lack of agreement about what precisely is being studied. while a comparison to visual studies for sound studies is specious at best, the field of visual studies has long ago ossified into cells of academic interest. sound studies seems under no such threat of atrophy. as such, books that challenge the boundaries of sound studies continue to appear and examine the diverse roles sound plays in social life. the most cursory glance through the introduction of julian henriques’ sonic bodies: reggae sound systems, performance techniques, and ways of knowing reveals a list of scholarly names familiar to any reader of sound studies: douglas kahn, jonathan sterne, les bull, michael bull, mark katz. despite the familiarity of these names, sonic bodies describes sound studies as a field that offers much variation and dispersion across many areas sites and methods of analysis. but what is sound, exactly? is sound what happens in the ears, in the brain, or at the surface of the door slamming shut? sound is buried under a simultaneous denial and responsibility, and it carries information that is crucial to the social and political life of the subject in modernity. some scholars, such as jonathan sterne in the audible past, (2003) are unconcerned with what precisely sound is (or, more accurately, where sound happens) than with the ways that sound interacts with political history of technological development. in contrast, veit erlman, in reason and resonance (2010) is concerned with the history of the ear. like sterne, erlman goes to great lengths to question, and in some cases reverse, the image of the passive ear. however, he still depends an essential morphological functioning to the ear, distinct from dynamic processes of sound interpretation. these two examples represent a relatively small continuum of sound studies, but they do illustrate what flows beneath the field: a radical multiplicity as to what constitutes sound. henriques’ book is, in part, an expansion of an article published in bull and back’s the auditory culture reader (2003). in “sonic dominance and current musicology 116 the reggae sound system,” henriques explores events where he feels sound supplants vision as the dominant sensory modality; he cites the large–scale sporting event and the reggae sound system as examples. the earlier article is concerned primarily with the experience of sonic dominance, and how it can bring about a shared politics, in opposition to the visual dominance, which is often used to articulate a hierarchal politics. in sonic bodies, henriques deepens his analysis, using the experience of being present at a live dj event to create a theory of thinking through sound. while his site of analysis is the reggae sound system, he is concerned with establishing a theoretical basis for thinking through sound. as a process, thinking through sound is distinct from thinking about sound. henriques says that there is something distinct and unique about a sounding way of thinking, something that is dynamic in opposition to the static nature of the visual and the image. sounding has a unique relationship to embodiment; sound is a full–bodied sensory experience, one that engulfs and envelopes. in his introduction, henriques goes to great lengths to avoid the snare of sound as related to instinct and emotion, and proposes that the envelopment by sound is a different way of thinking. sonic bodies reads like three different books weaving through, into, and out of one another. rather than a precise threading process, the book can sometimes feel like the weaving of satin thread, linguini, and a garden hose into a fascinatingly odd scarf. the introduction positions the book firmly in a cultural studies tradition; homi k. bhabha and stuart hall, amongst others, are cited as sources for thinking about culture and identity. he says that the book is the result of four years of participation and observation of the stone love movement—a group of djs, mcs, and performers. the discussion of his observations creates one of the threads. while sonic bodies is not strictly an ethnography in the way that louise meintjes’ sound of africa! is, it does incorporate interviews and thick descriptions about the sound system at work. a reference to geertz and a delicate empiricism in the middle of the text supports the ethnographic techniques at work. the ethnographic portion addresses what he refers to as the sociocultural and corporeal aspects of sound thinking; they form a triangle with the material aspect that will be crucial to the conclusion. the second book at work inside sonic bodies is one that might be called a textual/historical analysis. this is what henriques refers to as the material aspect of the sound thinking. henriques provides fascinating descriptions of the construction of speakers and cabinets to best project the sound of the system into the street, into the public space. throughout this section, his focus is on the skillfulness of the sound system creators, displaying the specific and sophisticated levels of creation at work in the sound system. seth mulliken 117 while race is not his focus, sonic bodies does contribute to the field of critical race theory. one of the more unsettling strains that runs through discourses of ethnographic musicology is the way in which non–western, non–white, non–european musical creations are characterized as the result of “instinct” and “natural” ability. while this might reflect some of the complex ways non–western music might relate to culture outside of the capitalist context, it also frames those musics as lacking in skill or intellect, as the product of a kind of savagery. this feeds and strengthens racism towards the non–white, non–western world, a racism that has ceased to be erased over the past century. henriques’ discussion of technological skill and knowing creation makes excellent strides against that too–common subtext. in highlighting the technological skill of the sound system selectors and mcs, henriques challenges the notion that music made by people of color, particularly music that involves a crucial interaction with machines, such as hip–hop or modern r & b, is neither skilled or innovative. he describes the process of building the sound system from the construction of the wooden speaker cabinets to the choosing of a public space to perform. framing the sound system as the result of skilled and precise creation processes allows henriques to make a larger point, that is, that the sound system is a political act of creating a sound space within which a community might interact. for henriques, the sonic dominant space, a space like that which the sound system creates, offers a chance to engage in the sharing of space, rather than controlling space. so, for the communities he is concerned with, the jamaican designers and selectors of the sound system, as well as the audiences of young and older folks who attend the sound system, they become agents, and engagement with the sound system is an expression of identity. and this is a clear challenge to ethnomusicology that sees the “other,” here, the reggae musician and reggae music fans, as only unconscious vehicles of tradition. it is in this point that the book makes his clearest contribution to ethnomusicology. this is how he can make the claim that “(t)he sound system itself should be ranked as one of popular culture’s major achievements, anywhere in the world (2011; 3).” henriques willingly engages a perspective that troubles some inquiries in sound studies: the idea of sound as “radical” or subversive in itself. scholars such as erlmann are skeptical of such a claim, worried that it is a short journey away from replacing one dominant discourse, that of the visual, with another, the auditory, without questioning the politics of oppressive power at work. for henriques, however, sound itself contains the possibility of a radical politics, a politics that can move beyond “habitual patterns of visual thought (2011; xx).” this is what makes henriques’ theories most compelling; the idea that a politics based on sounding does still possess a power to “strike at the heart of western metaphysics (2011; xxix).” current musicology 118 the final two chapters of the book, chapters 8 and 9, are the most curious; they create the third book contained in sonic bodies. although mentions of classical rhetoric theory weave spectrally through the introduction, they don’t necessarily figure in the body of the text. similar to bass’s resonance in the sound system, this final chapter strikes the reader by altering the theoretical landscape of the text. the ethnographic and explanatory examples almost completely disappear, replaced by explications of rhetorical theory. he differentiates the shannon–weaver model of communication from rhetorical theory; he says that it is only classical rhetorical theory that can account for the affective persuasion that occurs in the sensory impact of the mc’s voice. (207) it should be noted here that henriques ignores the growing body of literature in cultural studies on affect by scholars such as brian massumi (2003), eve kosofky segdwick (2004), sara ahmed (2004), lauren berlant (2011), as well as ethnographic work that deals with the sensory, such as sarah pink (2009). rhetoric, at least, the classical rhetoric that henriques’ is interested in, doesn’t figure in the work of massumi, pink, or other scholars of communication, affect, and the sensible. equally, these scholars attempt to employ models of communication and interaction far different from the shannon–weaver model. classical rhetoric offers henriques a theoretical bounding that doesn’t threaten the exclusivity of the individual—the subject. henriques’ sonic body rests on the idea of a stable, autonomous subject, one capable of agency. for massumi and scholars of a similar thought, the move toward a fragmented body, suggested by gilles deleuze and felix guattari in their text a thousand plateaus, is a crucial step away from shannon and weaver. in the afterword, henriques states that one of the criticisms of thinking through sound, as he defines it, “is that it makes vibrations inescapable (277).” this is allows a move, he says, from a discursive question, that is, how does the sound system work, to what it produces. he says that sonic bodies has been more focused on the former, but that he hopes further research moves more toward the latter (277). where the preceding chapters dealing with classical rhetoric might seem almost “creaky,” in the afterword he opens up the applicable possibilities for his theory. he is saying, to summarize, that his text has offered a foundation in a discursive method that sets the stage for a move beyond it. rather than showing how bodies express waves, this next turn can explore how waves produce bodies (277). henriques’ text is not easily summarized. it sits uncomfortably on the knife–edges of various contested disciplinary boundaries: rhetoric and cultural studies, ethnography and textual analysis, sound studies and musicology. it is a cultural studies text that concludes with an attempt to seth mulliken 119 link to classical rhetorical theory. it uses ethnographic techniques but never addresses questions of method. it is concerned with music, but doesn’t address musicology. henriques’ book is, quite frankly, strange. but it is in this strangeness that it questions the usefulness of the various disciplines it scratches. sonic bodies might even be thought of as a quintessential sound studies text: it never quite touches down and ossifies its theoretical questions. on the last page, it is left rather ambiguous what a sonic body is exactly, or how it is constituted. maybe it is in texts like these, those that implicitly invite further questions and analysis, where a quasi–field like sound studies can flourish. the incompleteness of henriques’ book is what, in the end, makes it compelling, leaving scholars of sound, music, and the culture of technology to explore where the analysis might go from where henriques leaves off. references ahmed, sara. 2004. affective economies. social text. 79: vol. 22, no. 2 (summer 2004): 117–39. berlant, lauren. 2011. cruel optimism. durham: duke university press. bull, michael and les back. 2004. the auditory culture reader. new york: berg books. erlmann, veit. 2010. reason and resonance: a history of modern aurality. cambridge and new york: zone books. henriques, julian. 2004. sonic dominance and the reggae sound system. in the auditory culture reader. michael bull and less back, eds. new york: berg books. henriques, julian. 2011. sonic bodies: reggae sound systems, performance techniques, and ways of knowing. new york: continuum. kahn, douglas. 2001. noise, water, meat: a history of sound in the arts. cambridge: mit press. massumi, brian. 2002. parables for the virtual: movement, affect, sensation. durham: duke university press. meintjes, louise. 2003. sound of africa: making music zulu in a south african studio. durham: duke university press. pink, sarah. 2009. doing sensory ethnography. new york: sage publications. sedgwick, eve kosofsky. 2003. touching feeling: affect, pedagogy, performativity. durham: duke university press. sterne, jonathan. 2003. the audible past: cultural origins of sound reproduction. durham: duke university press. current musicology 103 (fall 2018) © 2018 hudde. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 97 ricardo lorenz: a post-colonial/modern latin(o) american composer hermann hudde this article examines venezuelan composer ricardo lorenz (b. 1961), whose music and writing both focus around the concept of transculturation. first used by fernando ortiz ([1947] 1995) to describe the cultural evolution of cuba in the mid-twentieth century, transculturation is understood by lorenz as the phenomenon of two mutually influential musical cultures; it “entails the circulation of ideas in both directions, resulting in an interdependent network of mutual influences” (lorenz 2000a, 93). this article explores the role of transculturation in lorenz’s work, putting it in the context of his relocation from venezuela to the united states in the 1980s, as well as his own writings on the subject. even though ricardo lorenz has an outstanding career as a contemporary composer, his works and artistic persona still remain under-explored in musicology. this article seeks to establish groundwork for further scholarly study of ricardo lorenz’s music; at the same time, it aims to demonstrate the contributions of latin american/latino composers to western art music, which they have accomplished by bringing forth a subtle universe of sounds shaped by its cultural history. 1 venezuela, latin american art music, and the united states the venezuelan cultural mestizaje (inter-ethnicity/ethnic integration)—a more complex and extended phenomenon than the basic race mixture among indigenous, europeans and west africans because it also includes asia and the middle east—has created distinct layers of subtle cultural webs in the country (hu-dehart and lópez 2008). this socio-cultural feature has molded the music-making process in venezuela by incorporating complex subcultural layers of communities, identities, beliefs, genres, and styles. with respect to its art music, venezuela, like other latin american countries, has been working for centuries to build a tradition that cohabits with the country’s folk and popular music styles, generated as cultural products from a venezuelan context. juan bautista plaza, early-twentiethcentury venezuelan composer, describes this cultural framework: venezuela has always been strongly partial to the cultivation of musical art. in the field of popular as well as art music, it has given abundantly, 98 current musicology and its fruits should be better known and appreciated. the study of venezuelan music and its history is of special interest. a careful survey of its characteristics and numerous forms will reveal, among other things, the profound influence of geographic and social environment upon the original creations of the most representative venezuelan composers. (plaza and rexach 1943, 198) thus, continuing the lineage of distinguished venezuelan composers such as ambrosio carreño (1721–1811?), juan manuel olivares (1760–97), teresa carreño (1853–1917), ramón delgado palacios (1863–1902), antonio estévez (1916–1988), alfredo del mónaco (1938–2015), and others,2 lorenz’s generation was surrounded and impacted by a broad palette of musical genres beyond art music, such as salsa, pop, rock, jazz and folk. this generation included composers such as alonso toro (1963), paul desenne (1959), manuel sosa (1967) and alvaro cordero saldivia (1954).3 and alongside its public conservatories, private music schools and el sistema, venezuela’s musical tradition emphasizes participation in music-making and sharing it as a cultural experience.4 in lorenz’s words, “you are raised with music being a part of the family” (kott 2008).5 in the united states, latin american composers’ presence dates from the time of the viceroyalty of new spain (1521–1821) and mexico (1821–1848). as a result of the treaty of guadalupe hidalgo (1848), the borders changed, but the previous culture persisted (saldaña-portillo 2016; moraga 2007). during the nineteenth century, composer-pianists teresa carreño (venezuela, 1853–1917), ignacio cervantes (cuba, 1847–1905) and alejandro monestel (costa rica, 1860–1950) developed important chapters of their careers in the united states (brown 1982; mann 1991; stevenson 2004; mikowsky 1973). since the first quarter of the twentieth century, latin american music and its composers have begun to rise in prominence. orchestras, ensembles, and performers in the united states began to perform the work of latin american composers more frequently; prominent concerts include those at the headquarters of the pan-american union in washington, dc (1924–1939), the pan-american association of composers (1928–1934) and the berkshire music center at tanglewood (1940–present). institutions offered composers scholarships and commissions, and universities hired them to teach as professors of musical composition. carlos chávez (mexico, 1899–1978), alberto ginastera (argentina, 1917–1983), julián orbón (cuba/spain, 1925–1991), mario davidovsky (argentina, b. 1934), aurelio de la vega (cuba, b. 1925), roque cordero (panama, 1917–2008) and juan orrego-salas (chile, b. 1919) were among this generation of composers during the twentieth century in the united states. 99 hermann hudde all across the american continent, this time period witnessed an important institutionalization of its art music. during the seventh international conference of american states in lima/peru in 1938, the music section of the pan-american union was founded.6 the organization appointed charles seeger (us, 1886–1979) as its chief, and guillermo espinosa (colombia, 1905–1990) became his successor in 1953. with espinosa the organization published works like musical directory of the americas (1954) and composers of the americas (1955). in 1956 the institution was renamed as the inter-american music center which published the inter-american music bulletin (1957) and in 1958, the chief of the inter-american music center, guillermo espinosa, established the interamerican music festival in washington d.c. (1958–1972); the reception of the music varied, and, during the period of the cold war, the composers had to renegotiate their modern aesthetics and techniques (salas 1943; fern 1943; haskins 1957; fern de la vega 1980; salas orrego 1966; pereira salas 1943; campbell 2010; root 1972). in general, the ideal of americanism, pan-americanism and inter-americanism in art music was dependent on the institutional funding based around the international milieu of world war ii and the cold war.7 consequently, this ideal began losing its energy and platform with the disappearance of the institutions and the promoters who supported it.8 after his early musical studies, as well as a brief period as a student of philosophy and fine arts at the central university of venezuela, ricardo lorenz emigrated to the united states amidst this backdrop in 1982, where he attended the jacobs school of music at indiana university until 1987.9 at this school, among many music instructors and colleagues whose work has contributed to shaping lorenz’s musical voice, the composer himself emphasizes the impact of his mentor in composition, the eminent chilean composer/musicologist juan orrego-salas (b. 1919) who was the director of the latin american music center at indiana university from its founding in 1961 to 1987 (orrego 1963; 1966).10 lorenz explains: at that time, spring 1981, i was fortunate to have been assigned to the tenor section of the university chorus, which together with the university symphony happened to be rehearsing for the performance of missa in tempore discordiae. through the rehearsal and the performance of this work, i was introduced to the music of juan orrego-salas and, as a result, my then hesitant intentions to study composition became the first priority of my music education. hence, when i now listen to this live recording, i am reminded of the first close encounter with the composer who was to become my mentor and longtime friend. (lorenz 2000b, 10) orrego-salas, likewise, responded to lorenz’s music making: 100 current musicology i’ve had american students—united states students—but i’ve also had venezuelan students, and i’ve had argentinian students during my teaching here. i don’t know if there is a difference unless they decide to do it. i’ve had a composer who for me is among my very best: a venezuelan, who now is teaching in michigan—ricardo lorenz. ricardo lorenz is a venezuelan composer who for me doesn’t sound venezuelan, or chilean, or american. he sounds lorenz. (oteri 2014) together, both composers converted the space of the latin american music center library from an intractable deposit for cultural texts and historical memory into a vibrant location with latin american music: performances, conferences, and an up-to-date collection that benefited the community of researchers, composers and performers from the continent due to the difficulty (especially in the pre-internet era) of accessing such documents. with this work, the people who participated in these performances and conferences transformed the space from “archive” into “repertoire of embodied practice/knowledge” (taylor 2003, 19). later, lorenz would continue orrego-salas’ work as interim director of the latin american music center from 1987 to 1992, and in 1995 he published his book, scores and recordings at the indiana university latin american center. after his experience at indiana university, lorenz continued his artistic path in chicago, where he taught courses in composition and music history. in this city “he learned to think about music .  . . as opposed to doing it—the anthropology and culture of it” (kott 2008). continuing to build his artistic persona as a composer as well as a cultural agent, lorenz worked as a composer-in-residence from 1998 to 2002 for the armonía musicians residency program, sponsored by the chicago symphony orchestra. in this role as a cultural community liaison, lorenz decided to work with the local band sones de méxico instead of bringing european art music to the local community (latin american, latinos and chicanos), and performed in non-traditional venues such as libraries and schools with a diverse population of immigrants, where “context matters” in terms of identity and race (pucci and faulstich orellana 2002, 2).11 all of these previous experiences nurtured and shaped lorenz’ artistic identity for his future endeavors. in 2005, lorenz was appointed as an associate professor of composition at michigan state university in east lansing.12 with this appointment, lorenz became part of the group of latin american composers in the united states who have occupied composition professorships, representing a growing challenge to the academic-music scene in the us which is generally dominated by us-born and european-émigré composers.13 most of the scholarship about art music in the united states has developed a nar101 hermann hudde rative based around european or euro-american composers, and tends to leave any group different from the anglo-saxons on the outside. race, gender and religion play a role in defining this canon. adelaida reyes (2005, 13–40), for example, has demonstrated how the migration of diverse racial and religious groups (forced or voluntary) shapes and continues to shape the musical landscape of the united states, starting with the groups of native americans and africans that she defines as “diversity from within.” regarding composers of art music, she notes that alongside a “niche market” of latin american popular music, “composers with latin american roots are making their presence increasingly felt in the art music field” (reyes 2005, 26–31). part of this increasing presence came from lorenz, who engaged the college of music at michigan state university to revive the festival latin is america launched by his colleague, the venezuelan conductor rafael jiménez (b. 1967); the festival “focuses on musical, artistic and scholarly events that celebrate the blending of latin american and u.s. cultures,”14 and so cultural interdisciplinarity and diversity play a central component. msu reported that “[i]n a span of 10 years, the latin american music series represented 12 countries through 127 works by 63 composers . . . and the community was exposed to a rich variety of latin american music in classical, popular, and experimental forms [in addition to] film, theater, the visual arts, and scholarly discussions.”15 ricardo lorenz’s philosophy of transculturalism a member of the latin american art music composers’ diaspora, lorenz’s ph.d. thesis was a critical text titled voices in limbo: identity, representation and realities of latin american composers.16. in this text, lorenz gives an insider’s perspective on the obstacles that latin american art music composers face in the construction of their own identity, as well as their “ghettoized” situation within the western art music canon. his objective centers on “deconstructing the intellectual framework that fuels current characterizations of latin america’s art music” (lorenz 2000a, 10). lorenz examined the context (exogenous and endogenous) surrounding the difficulties latin american art music faced in reaching the music centers of the world and trying to “be incorporated into the western musical canon.” he claims that the unique voices of latin american composers remain either in a “subservient” role or in a permanent state of “limbo,” as a result of mechanisms such as the global commodofication of folk and popular music genres from latin america, the eurocentric narratives in historiography perpetuating myths or spreading “self-inflicted pseudo-exoticism,” a tendency to regard latin amerian music as antithetical to the modernist position, the fact of “presumably exclusive western privilege of self-representation” or, at a 102 current musicology more basic level, the “lack of musicological interest” (lorenz 2000a, 4–5). thus, latin american music becomes the other in western spaces, and as yara el-ghadban argues: the other is treated as an object of western musical representation but rarely is he or she treated as a subject and, thus, an active participant in and contributor to western art music. in fact, the postcolonial other ceases to be an object and suddenly comes to life only when the repertory studied or genres examined move from art music to popular and hybrid musics. (el-ghadban 2009, 142) resonating with el-ghadban, it is important to remember that colonialism is far more than a physical superimposition to dominate people and resources. it includes language and ideas as tools to generate dependency and hegemony between the center and the periphery. hence, there is a constructed narrative between those who represent as the self, which endorses practices like ethnography, and those who represent the exotic and erotic other. in other words, theorizing ethnicity is a common strategy to build not just the conceptualization of difference, but also claiming the other; the colonized occupy an asymmetrical position as a result of being contrary to the western logos (fusco 1994). accordingly, decolonization is possible when epistemologists deconstruct western-logos, ethnocentrism, and christianity from a “third world” perspective (mignolo 2000, 70–71). a similar discourse of dissent can be found in the post-colonial narrative, developed by “third world” intellectuals and artists who look forward to displacing eurocentrism by revising it and proposing a different methodology (hall [1992] 1996). culturally speaking, mestizaje in latin america has generated highly diverse products whose styles contain not only indigenous, european and west-african traces, but also cultural elements from the middle-east and asia. at the same time, the legacy of colonial structures and values has generated an identity crisis presuming the “discovery” of latin american and latino history. postcolonial scholars have refuted this “discovery” imposition and have demonstrated how this event is better thought of as an “encounter,” although unequal, which also shaped europe (coronil 1996; dussel 1991,1993; león-portilla 1992; mignolo 1979; uslar pietri 1979). in addition, the word “discovery” enforces the process and term of acculturation; instead, the postcolonial scholars support their analysis of the encounter with the process and term of transculturation.17 it is a cultural limitation to not acknowledge that this event was an encounter, not a “discovery,” which generated the multilateral process of transculturation that has been transforming the world since 1492. lorenz wrote that 103 hermann hudde self-proclaimed “nations are presented as the creative source of art music, providing the text, while the other nations produce by-products, mere commentaries on the original text, whether to conform to or subvert it” (lorenz 2000a, 5). the construction of modernity/coloniality has included remapping territories and its peoples, in particular during the conquest and colonization by european powers, within the context of imposing hegemonic political, religious, economic and racial imaginaries. thus, the project of imagining nation-states has the dialectical connotation of exclusion/inclusion (mignolo 2000). the composer observes that, despite more than 500 years of art music creation in latin america, a hegemonic relationship of power remains, and he concludes that “the fault lies with the language and terminology used to categorize and characterize these works” (lorenz 2000a, 7–10). lorenz expresses that, for latin american art music composers, identity is a dilemma for both insiders and outsiders; he believes that throughout the permanent perpetual action of “aesthetics of museum traditions,” art music identity is still a european domain, leaving “invisible” the art music by latin american composers (lorenz 2000a, 13). from this point of view, it is the tradition represented in words such as “genius,” “classics” or “masterworks” whose cultural production seeks to perpetuate values and a paradigm related to western civilization. this quickly gives rise to a situation in which the canon in art, music, literature or other disciplines in the humanities becomes a rigid secular-scholastic body, honoring only those within it. surrounded by this context the canon becomes like a religion, with its sacred icons and (musical) texts. since the late nineteenth century, symphony orchestras and opera houses have been founded to become locations (temples) to collect, classify, display and immortalize canonized objects and the narratives surrounding them—according, of course, to the values and narratives of those doing the canonizing (bergeron 1992; bohlman 1992; bolstein 1996; nettl 2010, berger 2014). in doing so, symphony orchestras and opera houses regularly practice a taxonomic approach to art music culture, which does not escape the politics of inclusion/exclusion. these institutions objectify works of art and group them according to chronology, geographical setting, or aesthetic/racial group. this phenomenon creates binary dichotomies: center vs. periphery, north vs. south, superstructure vs. base, innovators vs. imitators, high vs. low, among others. henceforth, the privileged, eurocentric canon emphasizes only one story within a world in which unlimited stories and narratives exist. in other words, the allocation by the “civilized countries” which have embraced and, in general, appropriated the monopoly of self-representation under the reductionist premise that the region is underdeveloped 104 current musicology (economics discourse) fail to understand that the problem resides, not in what they called latin america and its culture, but in themselves: a lack of awareness regarding the complex concept of culture. for lorenz (2000a, 15) musical identity is a “multidimensional” construct that can draw on both “inside” and “outside” influences, which has complemented the process of identification in time and space. thus, lorenz (2000a, 20) maintains that identity should not be determined by musicologists in time by narratives, which include histories (what) and discourses (why) that encompass “problems of representation and power.” this includes something already mentioned above: that the “authentic” (read “eurocentric”) musical canon establishes a dynamic that excludes the others in the form of exoticism (lorenz 2000a, 21). as a result of the non-christian ancestry of spain and native americans, during the second enlightenment age, anglo-saxon historiography positioned them as stationary, anti-progress, and impure cultures, ready to receive discipline and civilization; in addition, catholicism, together with the adoption of mercantilism and not capitalism, relocated spain and hispanic america onto the periphery of progress (mignolo 2000; etzion 1998). regarding the construction of identity (including both exogenous/ public and endogenous/private) lorenz argues that those who can coin the name or concept exercise control and power to create stereotypes. this is ones of the reasons bolivian scholar silvia rivera cusicanqui (2012, 105– 106) points towards “language with which we name the world” as one of the ways to decolonize; this, she says, will establish an equality “with other centers of thought.” in this case, the composer references the “eurocentric toponomy” of the french creation of “latin america” or the hispanic “spanish-america” (lorenz 2000a, 24; robertson, 1993).18 the origin of the term latin america was not conceived in the continent, but in france, as a means to differentiate it from anglo-america during the napoleonic period. prior to this, the terms hispanic-america or ibero-america were also related to the asymmetrical relationship concerning colonizers and the colonized. by imposing such a categorization, the balance of power is altered and plays against the continent, its people and culture. the emphasis was placed on latin american popular music; meanwhile, latin american composers of art music are for this reason all too often reduced to the “exotic” category (lorenz 2000a, 30–34). the issue is not simply a matter of accessing recordings and performances of latin american and latino art music, but also the way those recordings and performances are marketed. for instance, the inclusion of works by latin american composers in concert programs is infrequent, unless the orchestras want to present a concert with “exotic” music to their 105 hermann hudde audiences. titles of recordings or concerts thus become part of a subtle game of representation and perception which denies the fact that latin american composers produce their musical texts with the same seriousness as their colleagues from the us. a titular “voyage,” “fiesta,” “latin lover,” “discovery,” or “latin night” is common; and as recently as 2015, deutsche grammophon released “el sistema 40 – a celebration,” which was described on its back cover as “a selection of classical masterpieces and latin american lollipops.” this inclusion of “classical masterpieces” (in this case, beethoven, tchaikovsky, dvořák, and bernstein) is common, too. in 1998, daniel barenboim (1942) conducted the program “waldbühne berlin: a latin american night” with the berliner philharmoniker and australian classical guitarist john williams; the performance started with bolero (ravel), followed by carmen suite (bizet/guiraud) and concierto de aranjuez (rodrigo), and then continued with the estancia suite (ginastera), which is the only latin american piece on the program; this was followed by arrangements of latin american popular music. more recently, in 2012, the houston symphony orchestra performed a concert entitled “latin american classical;” the program contained music by manuel de falla (1876–1946) and joaquín rodrigo (1901–1999)—both from spain—with sensema yá by silvestre revueltas (1899–1940) being the only work by a latin american. in addition, when we do address latin american composers, we often do so from within the frame of western art music. labeling composers such as ernesto nazareth (1863–1934) or camargo guarnieri (1907–1993) as the “brazilian chopin” or the “brazilian mozart” (respectively), for example, already superimposes a comparative cultural and hegemonic musical model, one that mediates between the composer’s music and the audiences, which promotes a different reception and inflects a listener’s approach to the individuality and magnitude of their musical contributions.19 this kind of mediation also projects the audience’s perception of music by latin american composers as a byproduct; by already attaching a label onto a parallel composer, it generates the perception that the latin american composer in rooted in or subservient to an exogenous model who is better positioned or even canonized. regarding academic publications, language and diversity play a key role in the circulation of information. even though, nowadays, there is an important publication corpus in spanish and portuguese from latin america, this knowledge rarely makes its way to other musicological centers in the world. this becomes problematic when we realize that musicindustry markets (including publishers) are not only places for commercial production and exchange, but also spaces to negotiate identities, canon, 106 current musicology politics, power, and innovation. as lorenz (2000a, 36) argues, this generates difficulties for those trying to “de-exoticize” their public identity, creating even more distance with their colleagues “from the continuum of so-called western music.” to circumvent this, lorenz says, the debate should be refocused to musical style, rather than (musical) language: the compositions by composers from latin america are written using the same musical language of their european counterparts, that is, the lingua franca of western music. what varies greatly among them is the different idiosyncratic modes of assimilation and transculturation undergone by these western musical traits when set in a new geography. the result is a wide range of new and original “semantical” approaches to the same overruling western music syntax. (lorenz 2000a, 40) in other words, lorenz claims that latin american composers of art music create musical works by using the same order and system of fundamental musical elements (musical syntax) as their colleagues in western art music. nonetheless, and as a result of their history and culture, their compositions’ meanings (musical semantics, as opposed to syntax) are different. this is an outcome of the implied dialectics in western art music between periphery and hegemonic center in which latin american art music composers are positioned outside of the western art music tradition; because of the external status of “non-western” composers, latin american composers must negotiate their musical identity within a western-dominated culture—they have had to construct themselves as the self inside the domain of the other. lorenz compares publications about the topic by three twentieth-century scholars—nicolas slonimsky (1894–1995), gilbert chase (1906–1992) and gerard béhague (1937–2005)—to demonstrate the “myth of otherness” (loren 2000a, 44) and its impact on the representation of latin american art music and composers: slonimsky’s text avoids, in most cases, associating twentieth-century latin american composers with musical styles attributed to their european counterparts as well as with eurocentric concepts such as nationalism. .  .  .  [slonimsky] does not resort to works by european composers as stylistic models by which to illustrate and compare the works of their latin american counterparts. (lorenz 2000a, 57–58) chase and béhague represent the “music in this region from a decidedly eurocentric perspective,” within a context of “nationalist dogma”; lorenz points out the “danger that comes along with considering the supposed universality of nationalism as a theory,” because nationalism is an ideology and territorializes the music to a fetishized area, instead of appreciating the value of the works “for its historical and cultural significance” (lorenz 107 hermann hudde 2000a, 63; 75). this manipulation of time and space, together with the lack of theoretical frameworks to understand and explain this category, only generates more distance and distortion (lorenz 2000a, 85). philosopher charles w. mills (2014, 30) referencing the book the theft of history by jack godoy (2006, 22–23, 25) adds that the “‘theft of history’ is not only one of time and space, but of the monopolization of historical periods.” consequently, lorenz (2000a, 91) maintains that latin american composers of the twentieth century are as modernist as their european or american contemporaries. he says that latin american composers “breathed and lived” modernism by featuring it in their works and their “festivals and concerts” of modern music organized on the continent since 1920. therefore, lorenz (2000a, 85–95) demands a “de-territorialization of latin america’s art music and advocates its full incorporation into the realm of western art music” and understands that it is not about “national emancipation” but, more likely, “social and racial equivalence,” as well as a new intellectual framework that can interpret it differently. hence, lorenz’s scholarship is part of his multidimensional contributions toward opening up the western art music canon, in which self-representation is still incomplete by not adding the “others” (lorenz 2000a; mills 2008).20 transculturation in ricardo lorenz’s music like his artistic philosophy, lorenz’s music integrates a postcolonial “deterritorialization” of both latin american and western art music. this theory and debate have become central in disciplines such as literature, social sciences and cultural studies, and recently in the last three decades, it has become a growing concern in scholarship on western art music. postcolonial/modern composers like lorenz are attentive to the fact of displaying agency as well as placing culture in the center, and not the periphery, of their compositional work. accordingly, lorenz often explicitly connects his compositions to issues of politics: migration, technology, diaspora, globalization, gender, class, and race. hence, one of the real sources for his musical counter-discourse to the traditional european narrative comes from cultural anthropology (lorenz 1995a).21 complementing this idea, composers/musicologists coriún aharonián and graciela paraskevaídis (2000, 3) explain that despite living in a world cultural structure of a colonial nature, . . . the only way of being oneself in a society depending on those metropolitan models is to try to live the creative act in such a way that it can generate cultural countermodels (and specifically, in our case, creating countermodels in the field of new art music). 108 current musicology example 1. lorenz, mambozart. example 2. mozart, le nozze di figaro, overture. 109 hermann hudde lorenz embodies such cross-cultural “countermodels” in his music. consider mambozart (1995), a “study for solo piano on the overture to the marriage of figaro” (example 1). in this work, lorenz positions himself as serving not only the creator’s role, but also as a negotiator who challenges modern notions of imagination and reality by playing with their symbolic order. rhythmically, the opening of mambozart (mm. 1–3) is almost identical to figaro’s overture’s (example 2). both pieces’ first measures begin with four eighth notes, spaced closely together in terms of pitch, punctuated with a quarter note (beat 3) and then by a quarter rest (beat 4). the following two measures repeat the opening four-note rhythmic figure to gradually climb in pitch, concluding on the last note of m. 3 (lorenz holds this note, while mozart’s original uses another quarter note followed by a rest). after a link in m. 4, lorenz’s opening gesture returns in m. 5 in a higher octave; like figaro, mambozart’s last four measures (5–8) again repeat this rhythmic figure, driving to a cadence in the final measure. the “mambo” of the title enters later, when lorenz introduces a montuno into the piece (example 3). the montuno is an important section within other musical genres like the son, guaracha and rumba, and in cuba it came to be the basis for the mambo. the origin of the term comes from the rural areas in cuba’s eastern region, and refers to a section in which a soloist’s syncopated vocal improvisation (pregones) alternates in a call and response with the refrain (estribillo) from the chorus; this can include improvised solo sections by some of the ensemble instruments such as trumpets, maracas, piano, bongos, tumbadoras (congas), claves, guiro, tres or laúd cubano (giro 2009, 124; rodríguez 1998, 830; miller 2014, 786). the melody in this part of mambozart is based on such a pregnones, supported by a tumbao bassline. this syncopated, afro-cuban bassline was popularized as part of the mambo by dámaso pérez prado, who transformed the dance from its cuban origins by incorporating outside influences, especially north-american jazz. in terms of pitch, however, lorenz’s example 3. lorenz, mambozart. 110 current musicology bass in mm. 79–81 outlines the quintessential cadential pattern of classical music, supporting a i–ii6–v7–i progression in d major (the key of figaro’s overture). in this piece, then, lorenz draws on mozart, who signifies the intellectual dominance of western (european) art music, alongside prado, who signifies the assertion of a latin american culture within the dominant western (european) culture. both are part of a discourse in which latin american and latino composers, like lorenz, design and construct a challenge from a “third world” art music perspective to the dominant culture of the (european) western world. therefore, inside this aesthetic-political context, latin american and latino art music composers strive to generate new, differentiated and emancipated meanings, webs of connections and functions, and at the same time, overcome the reality of past centuries of cultural colonialism. by exercising this kind of hybrid textual intervention between himself, mozart and prado, lorenz must tread carefully to avoid any sort of auto-exoticism. he expresses his piece’s philosophy with the following statement: mambozart seeks to dissipate or even annul, through a saturation of contradictions and differences, the opposite poles that apparently inhabit this work. it is true that the listener can feel seduced by the need to guess, whether the work is an intoxicated mambo with a viennese air from the beginning of the century, or whether it is instead an overture of w. a. mozart that has been irreversibly infected by the caribbean syncopation’s poison. however, the best way to understand the score is somehow a tribute to the relativity of what exotic is. it means that, regarding the work’s sound argument, the gestures clearly derived from le nozze di figaro are so foreign or, on the contrary, as familiar as the distorted montunos derived from the music of dámaso pérez prado. . . . in other words, there is a subliminal criticism in the work that tries to bring out, in a subtle way, it is a topic of the marginalization of artistic expressions, based on its culture of origin. mambozart is a plea to strip the musical genius of historical and stylistic hierarchies, so that it’s appreciated impartially for its intrinsic qualities. although we must recognize this statement ingenuity as an ideology, at least we have to accept that mambozart is my imaginary response to the reality that nowadays affect many composers, who like me, come and reside in culturally marginalized countries (lorenz, 1995a, 113–114) hence, lorenz seeks to blend the opposites in order to neutralize them, and through this, generate a musical text. for lorenz, regarding the activity of composing: the musical composition transcends its quality of “work” and transforms it into a real “text” allowing in this way the receptor to “read” messages 111 hermann hudde from the musical work which could contain an allegory, critique or perhaps even irreverence. this extraordinary process, through art, gets into a highly discursive field, hyperbolizing its semantic potential, is the essence of what has been defined as postmodernism. (lorenz 1995a, 111) a similar discourse of dissent can be found in the post-colonial (de-colonization) narrative, which has been developed by “third world” composers who look forward to displacing eurocentrism by revising it and proposing a different option. it is about redefining the position of the “periphery, fringe or marginality” towards a productive and participative role in the discourse, in terms of celebrating the difference—also a characteristic of post-modernity. with this political statement, lorenz positions himself in egalitarian terms inside the score with the european composer, with the aim exercising his own musical agency and generate a counter discourse. this work is not simply a paraphrase or pastiche of mozart (or prado), but a political declaration in which lorenz seeks to deconstruct hegemonic binary hierarchies like center/periphery or highbrow/lowbrow. the fact that he chose mozart is significant; the austrian composer and his music represent perhaps the most quintessential model of genius in the superstructure of the european art music canon, which has also been commodified and circulated as “universal.” in pataruco: concerto for maracas and orchestra (1999), we get a similar lorenzian take on another classical structure. lorenz places a “marginal” and “exotic” native american instrument, the maracas, in the center of the narrative and the stage.22 by being cast as a solo instrument, the indigenous maracas (percussion) take the place of what is traditionally a pitched instrument (capable of sounding western tonality).23 in the western art music tradition, enhancement of the harmonic system signifies progress or evolution, while rhythm is relegated to a secondary or supportive role; lorenz inverts this relation of power between development signified by the modern and under-development signified by the other. in other words, he positions the subaltern in the forefront, signifying a displacement of tradition within the concerto genre. the score becomes a hybrid text that encodes a challenge to hegemonic canonical discourses. while the work has the traditional concerto form, improvised cadenzas by the maracas connect the movements. with this approach, lorenz is not only reconnecting with the tradition of improvising the cadenzas in the classical period concerto, but also preserving the maracas in the work invokes a traditional folk music environment. in addition, there is also a symbolic moment in which the woodwinds, brass and percussion sections start playing maracas (tremolo) before the coda. lorenz elevates the maracas not just to a solo position, but to a vir112 current musicology tuoso one. listening and watching the performance of this musical work engages the audience not only with a masterful display of shaping musical phrases and dynamics coming from the maracas. the first and second movements allude to the music of the venezuelan llanos (plains) and its traditional genres. in the second movement the opening motive in the violins suggest tonadas, monodic songs associated with the cattle ranchers’ and farmers’ various daily production labors (specifically, lorenz recalls sabana [savannah] by simón díaz [1928–2014]).24 this folk genre includes onomatopoeic sounds related to the specific work activity and the natural environment that inspires and surrounds them, which lorenz weaves into his orchestration. another concerto, rumba sinfónica (2007) for latin band and symphony orchestra, extends this instrumental hybridity further. styled as a concerto grosso, lorenz uses the salsa group as the concertino and the orchestra as the ripieno.25 lorenz views this as a meeting of two “universals”: before there was castro, and way before there was chávez, cuba and venezuela were joined together by the fantastic music of orquesta aragón, son matancera, ignacio piñeiro, miguel matamoros, etc. like my parents, i grew up in my native venezuela listening to cuban music. that is to say that in my neck of the woods cuban music is universal music, as universal as the music by beethoven, mozart, tchaikovsky and so many other composers i studied at the conservatory. no surprise that since my days as a composition student i imagined bringing these two seemingly distant traditions together in an original work that would have the narrative quality and wide emotional range of classical music and at the same time possess the rhythmic intricacy and streetwise soulfulness of cuban popular music. rumba sinfónica is such a work.26 such transcultural hybrids, which defamiliarize their sources by re-contextualizing them, work to disintegrate divisions like those between low and high art, the use of parody and pastiche, and the integration of the marginal and otherness. and in this way, they create a space for both. lorenz’s political activism not only eliminates the borders between art music and popular music, but also represents a political position with music. lorenz engages with the notion of artistic and political citizenship, freedom, and circulation within the modern nation-state and culture. communities, in particular the culturally “imaginary,” can construct the “us” and “them” in different ways.27 as he himself discusses in his program notes for el muro (“the wall”): at a conceptual level, el muro is my response to how i feel about walls, whether these walls exist in reality or in our minds. i should mention that i was raised in a south american city where most homes are sur113 hermann hudde rounded by walls topped with barbed wire. to put it simply, i was raised in a land of makeshift fortresses. this is how i learned early on that walls not only exist to delineate space but also to keep people away. in my own imaginary way, el muro humanizes those people that walls keep away by connecting them to their longstanding cultural traditions. as an adult i learned that these traditions breed soulful, exciting and sometimes even influential music capable of making even the most sturdy-looking wall tumble down (lorenz 2012)28 thus, the construction of citizenship is mapped and spatially positioned inside and outside of the borders—in this case, nation-state borders—for all of those who have an image of a shared history, values, and traditions. the idealism and reality of a liberal nation-state, ultimately, remained more on the paper of the constitution than in the daily life of the new “citizens.” the social contract has never necessarily been a racial contract. the secular conceptualization of the consolidated imaginary construction of the modern nation-state, whose aesthetical, ideological, racial and physical borders included “us” and excluded “them”. in this sense, the nation-state project, as mentioned, continueopian and exclusion patterns. with the creation of nation-states and its spatial reorganization of the territory, communities which circulated transnationally across these geographical spaces were separated. as a consequence, these migrant communities had to negotiate and reinvent identities. conclusion ricardo lorenz is a multidimensional musical and artistic personality whose music has been performed from tito puentes (us, 1923–2000) and sones de méxico to major international art music soloists and symphony orchestras. since his migration from venezuela to the united states, lorenz has been contributing to music with diverse roles as a composer, music-educator, art administrator, scholar and cultural community agent. his artistic persona has nurtured and been shaped from all these experiences, but has also impacted its spaces, communities and his colleagues. simultaneously, lorenz’s musical language and aesthetic reflect his political philosophy, fluent in cultural diversity, which enrich his sonic world, and he accomplishes this by incorporating both insider and outsider elements from the western art music tradition and his home, venezuela. lorenz’s music reminds us what the process of transculturation stands for, opening new postcolonial or postmodern paths for creation and self-representation. but this context also challenges the composer to make aesthetical negotiations and decisions to contest canonical and exoticism constructions. lorenz is aware of his belonging to a global world and its fluctuations, and 114 current musicology notes 1. i would like to express my deep gratitude to the grammy latino cultural foundation (2016) for supporting the research project on the life and work of a group of latin american and latino composers in the united states as well as to the journal reviewers. see a more extended composer’s biography at http://ricardolorenz.com/ or http://music.msu. edu/faculty/profile/ricardo [accessed on 15 may 2018]). 2. venezuelan—and, in general, latin american—music research was initiated with the nineteenth-century publication by de la plaza ([1883] 1977). since then, venezuelan music historians have documented it with the intention to analyze, understand and reconstruct venezuela’s art music heritage. more music research is available in the musicological journals: musicaenclave (http://www.musicaenclave.com/ [accessed 1 may 2018]) from the sociedad venezolana de musicología and revista musical de venezuela (http://revistamusicaldevenezuela.com.ve/ [accessed 1 may 2018]). in addition, more research can be found in the thesis publications from the graduate school in latin american musicology at the school of fine arts at the central university of venezuela. 3. alonso toro (1963) has made a career as a film and documentary music composer (http://www.alonsotoro.com/home.html [accessed 8 may 2018]), paul desenne (1959) has developed an international career and his works are performed by new juilliard ensemble, la phil, i musici de montréal, and pianist gabriela montero (http://www. pauldesenne.com/ [accessed 8 may 2018]), manuel sosa lives in new york city and is faculty at the juilliard school of music (https://www.juilliard.edu/faculty/manuel-sosa [accessed 8 may 2018]) and alvaro cordero saldivia (1954) launched an impressive career in the united states and then returned back to venezuela, where he writes film music. for larger biographical entries about venezuelan composers see peñín and guido (1998). 4. despite the fact of having the peripheral colonial status of general captaincy, this context did not halt the conception, from the colonial times to modernity, of a venezuelan art music tradition. see, for example, some of the historiography production about art music in venezuela: calcaño (1958), calzavara (1987), plaza (1990), milanca guzmán (1994) and coifman michailos (2010), which show a dynamic music making and production. 5. the maternal side of ricardo lorenz’s family includes internationally-recognized artists, such as the harpsichordist and pianist abraham abreu (1939), whose wife diana abreu is a poet, writer, music pedagogue and music-in-education author. see abreu (1995). their son is the recorder performer aldo abreu, who has been on faculty at the new england and boston conservatories as well as boston university. 6. the “good neighbor policy” (1933–1945) instituted by franklin delano roosevelt (us, 1882–1945) was the response against the seduction of fascism on the american continent; accordingly, music became part of the cultural diplomacy of the united states during world war ii. the us government created the division of cultural relations (1938), then substituted by the music committee of the office of inter-american (1940). though he has no aims of being labeled or mapped exclusively as latino or latin american, lorenz’s identity and works reflect a strong connection with this culture without losing the great picture of the diverse musical traditions to which he belongs. 115 hermann hudde 7. simón bolívar (venezuela 1783–1830) invited a group of young, weak novel and weak south american republics to the amphictyonic congress in panama (1826). the goal was to coordinate and unify policies, not only contrary to any new conquest attempt by any european foreign power, but to content any intervention of the united states on the american continent, following the principles of the monroe doctrine (1823). in the field of music, for example, francisco curt lange’s (1903–1997) main ideal was expressed in the term americanismo musical, which examined the development of the inter-american musicological movement to research, study and promote the music from the american continent with the founding of instituto interamericano de música in uruguay and the sixvolume publication of boletín latino americano de música (1935–1946). 8. there were composers whose agendas were engaged in different degrees with this ideal as well: for instance, alberto ginastera (argentina, 1916–1983), henry cowell (us, 1897–1965), aaron copland (us, 1900–1990), juan orrego-salas (chile, b. 1919) and carlos chávez (mexico, 1899–1978). 9. from 1987 to 1992, lorenz worked as interim director for the latin american music center at indiana university. 10. orrego-salas is emeritus professor at indiana university and a leading composer from latin america. 11. the authors explain that large-scale immigration from mexico did not start until the late 1920s, and puerto ricans began settling in large numbers in the 1940s. other “latino” groups present in the area include central americans, cubans, as well as several smaller communities of ecuadorians, colombians, peruvians, venezuelans and argentines. 12. lorenz taught at the university of chicago as lecturer (1995 and 1997) and the city colleges of chicago (1999–2005) as associated professor. 13. this is a list of some of the current latin american composers professors in music composition in north america: alcides lanza (argentina, 1929) teaches at mcgill, tania león (cuba, 1948) teaches at brooklyn college (cuny), oswaldo golijov (argentina, 1960) teaches at college of the holy cross, and max lifchitz (mexico, 1948) teaches at university at albany-suny. 14. conductor rafael jiménez is currently faculty at oberlin college and conservatory. see his profile: https://www.oberlin.edu/raphael-jimenez [accessed 23 september 2018]. see also the section “background and history” at https://www.music.msu.edu/latin-isamerica/background-and-history [accessed 23 september 2018]. 15. see the section “background and history” cited in fn. 14. 16. his ph.d. research paper at the university of chicago. see the complete text at http:// ricardolorenz.com/research/realities-inside-the-limbo/ [accessed 17 january 2018]. 17. nonetheless the encounter was asymmetrical, because the spaniards and their agenda of conquest and colonization already had them in the position of the self and the indigenous in the other’s position. to find the right term for this historical event has been a permanent debate among scholars in latin america. 18. in contrast, lorenz points out that the interpretation borrowed from alejandro planchart of “the soul of a nation” in his chapter “music in the christian courts of spain” is less controversial. 19. in fact, ernesto nazareth is an excellent example about how transculturation flows and has impacted european art music composers. french composer darius milhaud (1892– 116 current musicology 1974) studied nazareth’s music during his residency in brazil (1917–1918), and since then has incorporated this influence into his music works. see appleby (1983, 83). 20. mills connects the fact that the western political philosophy canon leaves outside nonwhites; thus, their debates about race and gender, for example, become theoretically ghettoized. he examines how constructing the western political philosophy canon, which only includes male and white philosophers, not only builds the other (ethnicities and gender), but simply misrepresents the west. he also explains how under the “premise of progress, order, and modernity,” whites have created the “theory” to justify colonialism, slavery, and jim crow, among other domination projects. mills reasons that by establishing race as an entitlement of dominion and colonization, exploitation and other similar projects have been practiced by the group that traditionally exercises power. he also pronounces that the west, by having the monopoly of building and decision making in time, manipulates binary categories such as exclusion/inclusion, development/underdevelopment, and modern/premodern. 21. lorenz wrote about “one of the most successful answers inspired by the difficult question, what is culture? claude lévi-strauss has certainly formulated it. according to the celebrated anthropologist, the concept of ‘culture’ can be explained as a system of codes and myths used by the human being to find imaginary solutions to real problems and contradictions.” see lorenz (1995a, 111). 22. venezuelan intellectual rómulo gallegos (1884–1969) wrote a short story called pataruco (1919) which is about joropo music, mestizaje, venezuelan national identity and anti-eurocentrism. pataruco was premiered in march 1999 by the chicago sinfonietta and percussionist ed harrison, to whom the work was dedicated. a recording of pataruco with the czech national symphony and ed harrison was released in 2002 by albany records. see http://ricardolorenz.com/?s=pataruco [accessed 20 may 2018]. watch and listen to the performance of this work interpreted by the sinfónica simón bolívar, conducted by christian vázquez, with the soloist manuel alejandro rangel: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=xearrtlwpzg [accessed 3 june 2018]. 23. lorenz wrote for the cd booklet: “i admit, the idea sounds preposterous at first. a concerto for maracas and orchestra? you have to be kidding! i guess that’s why i titled this work pataruco, in order to cater to the skeptic. in venezuelan slang, pataruco is the nickname given to someone or something provocative and cocky to the point of appearing ill-mannered or in bad taste. however, when one considers the unusual circumstances surrounding the gestation of this concerto for maracas, the idea seems only natural, almost inevitable. those silly-looking, avocado-shaped gourds seen in vintage lp covers of pseudo-tropical music—and most often heard clumsily shaken by carmen miranda wannabees—do not even begin to compare to the beauty and sonic depth of the instrument. in venezuela, the joke goes, maracas are such a cultural fixture that the name of the national’s capital had to be changed to caracas in order not to make this fixation so obvious. this onomastic relation is pure coincidence, of course, but the truth is that playing the maracas in venezuela has developed into a highly virtuosic art form which is considered by connoisseurs as one of the world’s most sophisticated vernacular percussion techniques.” see the booklet (lorenz 2002). 24. to listen to tonadas by simón díaz, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_ m7mofsafi [accessed 15 march 2019]. 25. lorenz collaborated with cuban pianist jorge gómez and his band tiempo libre as well as the music manager elizabeth sobol. lorenz relates that, “during the months that followed i worked with jorge shaping my ideas so as to fit them to tiempo libre’s particular 117 hermann hudde style of cuban music (known as timba) while elizabeth worked the classical music circles looking for partners opened minded enough to bet on an adventurous project, eventually bringing on board major league co-commissioners such as the minnesota orchestra, detroit symphony, festival of the arts boca and the ravinia festival. with jorge’s collaboration, the theme in rumba style i had composed was transformed into a 26-minute symphonic drama.” see the complete program notes text “rumba sinfónica cuban music ensemble meets the symphony orchestra,” http://ricardolorenz.com/rumba-sinfonica/ [accessed 15 june 2018]. 26. “rumba sinfónica cuban music ensemble meets the symphony orchestra,” http://ricardolorenz.com/rumba-sinfonica/ [accessed 15 june 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yearbook for interamerican music research, 8: 49–70. saffle, michael and yang, hon-lun, eds. 2017. china and the west: music, representation, and reception. ann arbor: university of michigan press. saldaña-portillo, maría josefina. 2016. indian given. durham: duke university press. taylor, diana. 2003. the archive and the repertoire: performing cultural memory in the americas. durham: duke university press. uslar pietri, arturo. 1979. “tiempo de indias.” cahiers du monde hispanique et lusobrésilien, no. 32, numéro consacré en partie au venezuela: 187-194. current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 ennis. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 139 brahms, autodidacticism, and the curious case of the gavotte martin ennis in memoriam robert pascall1 on 23 february 1896, after an excursion into the countryside outside vienna, richard heuberger found brahms in uncharacteristically expansive mood. brahms spoke at length about the relative merits of mozart and beethoven, making it clear his sympathies lay with the former, before turning to haydn’s “extraordinary greatness.”2 he entered his stride, however, when the conversation turned to musical education: neither schumann, nor wagner, nor i learned anything proper. .  .  . schumann went one way, wagner another, and i a third. but not one of us learned anything decent. not one of us went through a proper school. yes; we learned after the event.3 several years earlier, in 1888, gustav jenner heard a slightly different version of the same tale when, as a twenty-two-year-old, he went to vienna to study with brahms: just think how schumann suffered by coming so late to music. it was the same story with me; i came even later to music. what might i have been, if only i’d learned in my youth what i had to catch up on as a man!4 both stories are presented without commentary; the two interlocutors apparently accepted them without demur. in later years, brahms was keen to stress the disadvantages of his musical education when compared with mendelssohn’s: mendelssohn had a great advantage over us: his outstanding training. what endless pains it has cost me making up for that as a man.5 the most thorough-going account of brahms’s musical training dates from 1912 when gustav jenner argued, on the basis of conversations with the composer, that brahms’s education was seriously deficient (jenner 1912). a more nuanced account is, however, required. for a start, the idea that brahms had a weaker training than schumann, that he “came even 140 current musicology later to music,” simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. in his youth, brahms enjoyed the teaching of two notable hamburg musicians, otto cossel (1813–1865) and, when brahms had outgrown him, cossel’s own teacher, eduard marxsen (1806–1887), arguably the most celebrated teacher in north germany at the time.6 it is not known whether cossel’s lessons were confined to performance—one surviving anecdote suggests he was keen for his pupil to concentrate on the piano7—but there is evidence brahms regarded these lessons as exemplary (heuberger 1976, 108).8 marxsen’s brief, by contrast, was to educate the whole musician, and he was particularly well qualified to do so.9 both composer and pianist, marxsen had a remarkable pedagogical lineage. he studied theory in vienna with ignaz von seyfried (1776–1841), a pupil of both mozart and beethoven’s teacher johann georg albrechtsberger (1736–1809). though it is rarely mentioned in the brahms literature, marxsen also took lessons in vienna with simon sechter (1788–1867), probably the greatest nineteenth-century teacher of music theory. jenner fails to mention sechter in his account of brahms’s education,10 choosing to portray vienna at the time marxsen studied there as a city in thrall to hidebound tradition, on the one hand, and modish virtuosity, on the other. students, he claimed, were offered “stones instead of bread.”11 this will hardly have been true of sechter’s pupils. when marxsen encountered him in 1830, sechter was in his prime, and it seems unlikely marxsen would have gained nothing from his famously rigorous training.12 and although we have no detailed record of what was covered in marxsen’s own teaching, he would surely have passed on at least some of sechter’s precepts to such a talented and wissensbedürftig pupil as brahms. after all, marxsen recognized the full measure of brahms’s genius exceptionally early: he announced in 1847, on the death of mendelssohn—when his pupil was only fourteen—that “one artistic master has passed away; a greater one flourishes in brahms.”13 so much for coming late to music! most of the surviving evidence about eduard marxsen’s teaching relates directly to brahms. he taught only one other established composer, ferdinand thieriot (1838–1919); unfortunately, however, thieriot appears to have left no account of his studies. perhaps the most revealing evidence of the quality of marxsen’s pedagogy is found not in the reminiscences of others but in two contrasting letters, one written by robert schumann, the other by marxsen himself; both concern joseph joachim’s hamlet overture, op. 4. the first letter, sent by schumann on 8 june 1853 (his 43rd birthday), offers an unusually detailed response to an early draft of joachim’s overture. in it, schumann praises the form, the handling of orchestral effects, the sophistication of the motivic work and the effec141 martin ennis tive manner in which joachim reworks material on its reprise. schumann instructs joachim to change nothing until he has heard the overture several times in concert, and concludes by offering a performance in düsseldorf (jansen 1886, 318–319). the second letter, dated september 1853, is from marxsen to brahms (brahms 1912a, 10–11). though only part of the correspondence has survived, it is clear that joachim wrote to marxsen on the recommendation of brahms to ask for advice about the hamlet overture. in other words, brahms actively promoted his teacher as a source of sound compositional insight, even after the work had received the imprimatur of no less a figure than schumann.14 marxsen’s letter contains a sober and meticulous account of various facets of the music that, in his estimation, require attention; these include harmony, motivic work, pacing and orchestration—some of the very same features praised by schumann. as for brahms, he suggests in a covering letter to joachim that marxsen’s judgment is to be trusted (brahms 1912a, 9). of the two figures, marxsen was clearly the more demanding and, arguably, the more helpful advisor. what’s more, the compositional aesthetic revealed in marxsen’s letter is remarkably similar to brahms’s own. marxsen claims at the outset that the hamlet overture lacks “essential inner logic,”15 a term frequently echoed in brahms’s advice to young composers. when instructing prince heinrich xxiv reuß, for example, brahms insisted that a composition should contain nothing “approximate,” and he expressed himself in similar terms to gustav jenner: “everything must be essential and must stand at the right point, every chance effect must be studiously avoided.”16 indeed, the very first substantive comment brahms made on a composition by jenner sprang from the same concern; as jenner recalled: “brahms pointed out to me with devastating acuity the lack of logic in the [work’s] structure.”17 the similarity of outlook is hardly surprising: brahms, like marxsen, was deeply rooted in tradition and, like marxsen, he regarded bach as his musical idol.18 according to jenner it was, nonetheless, marxsen that brahms had in mind when bemoaning his musical education. jenner, presumably prompted by brahms, is singularly damning about marxsen’s abilities as a pedagogue, maintaining that nothing positive is known about his teaching (jenner 1912, 77). and, according to gustav wendt, a school-director and author of various tracts on education, brahms himself was even more explicit on one occasion: “i learned absolutely nothing [from marxsen].”19 this phrase recalls brahms’s judgment on robert schumann, the only other figure generally regarded as a mentor to brahms: towards the end of his life, brahms is supposed to have said that he “learned nothing from schumann other than how to play chess.”20 142 current musicology these quotations suggest in toto a carefully crafted narrative that, true or not, is clearly designed to feed perceptions of independence of mind, self-reliance and, above all, determination. in creating it, brahms plays on the stereotypical divide between industrious north german protestants and the easy-going catholics of vienna. there is no evidence that his viennese contemporaries ever challenged this version of history. while we may entertain suspicions about brahms’s narrative, in the absence of the kind of hard evidence we possess in the case of mendelssohn, it is difficult to form a conclusive verdict. the historical record would suggest that marxsen was a devoted pedagogue whose central aims, as recounted by sometime brahms pupil florence may, one of the most reliable of early biographers (avins 2015, 185), were “to guide his pupils to a mastery of the principles illustrated in the works of the great composers, and to encourage each student to develop his own creative individuality on the firm basis thus afforded” (may 1905, i, 65). these tenets are, once again, remarkably similar to those revealed by jenner’s reminiscences of brahms’s own teaching.21 * * * whatever his debt to marxsen, there are no grounds for doubting the diligence with which brahms, after leaving home in 1853, set about supplementing his hamburg education. though he had been proclaimed the savior of german music in robert schumann’s “neue bahnen” of october 1853 (schumann 1853, 185–86), brahms clearly felt his training had been inadequate, and he launched himself on an extended autodidactic project. this project, which was informed by close study of eighteenth-century theoretical works as well as the music of bach and his predecessors, ran in several phases. initially, brahms taught himself canonic techniques, making such good progress that he was able to announce to clara schumann on 3 february 1855 that he could “now create canons in all possible artistic forms.”22 around the same time, he also began to study dances in baroque style. approximately one year later, in march 1856, brahms embarked on an exchange of exercises, a notenkorrespondenz, with joseph joachim; the remit of their studies was defined as “double counterpoint, canons, fugues, preludes, whatever.”23 brahms was clearly the driving force behind this initiative and, within months, joachim’s lack of commitment led to a pause in their shared efforts. over the following years, brahms made repeated attempts to revive the correspondence course, but it is clear that his work on styles and procedures associated with early music was essentially autodidactic in nature.24 all in all, the project occupied brahms for 143 martin ennis more than half a decade, seemingly restricting both time and appetite for free composition. brahms’s autodidactic endeavors during the late 1850s and early 1860s are well documented, largely because so much of the relevant material is preserved in the correspondence with joachim (brahms 1912a and brahms 1912b) and in joachim’s nachlaß (now held in the staatsund universitätsbibliothek carl von ossietzky, hamburg). over the years, this material has been examined in detail by a number of scholars, of whom david brodbeck (brodbeck 1994) is perhaps most illuminating. brodbeck interweaves passages from the brahms–joachim correspondence with analysis of both study exercises and published compositions. however, like most of his peers, he focuses on counterpoint and neglects, among other things, brahms’s interest in meter—despite the fact that, during this period of reflection and self-examination, descriptions of metrical patterns in baroque treatises were clearly a source of great fascination to the young composer. how to make good this omission? contemporary reminiscence will take us only so far: as we have seen, brahms’s statements are often at odds with the facts, insofar as they can be established. this paper argues that close engagement with scores offers a better lens on brahms’s autodidacticism. curiously, a particularly sharp perspective on the relationship between pedagogical theory and practice can be gleaned from the study of meter in works by brahms that reference the gavotte genre, one of the baroque dances explored during the study period. this topic has received no serious attention to date, yet it reveals clearly how brahms responded to theoretical stimuli and how, ultimately, he rose above limiting pedagogical concerns. what’s more, brahms’s gavotte-related compositions, though relatively few in number as the following summary makes clear, cover a large part of his career, from his early twenties through to high maturity: • two gavottes, woo. 3, in a minor and a major (1854–55) • brahms’s arrangement of a gavotte from gluck’s iphigénie en aulide, woo. anh. ia no. 2 (1871 or 1872) • “unüberwindlich,” op. 72 no. 5 (1877) • intermezzo in a minor, op. 76 no. 7 (1878) • string quintet in f major, op. 88 (1882) • “immer leiser wird mein schlummer,” op. 105 no. 2 (1888).25 by examining these works with an eye to metrical practice, we can trace the development of brahms’s compositional aesthetic and chart, in particular, the way in which he handles the process of learning. for 144 current musicology gavotte-like passages reveal brahms in a number of different positions: grappling with metrical theories as passed down the generations; studying iconic works and using them as models for his own compositions; rewriting music that started life as a style-copy; and, on occasion, converting music that wasn’t conceived as a gavotte into a transfigured version of the dance. this essentially tripartite process—theoretical study, engagement with time-honored repertoire and, finally, the transcending of models—closely matches the career path that brahms sketched out for aspirant composers such as jenner and heuberger.26 as will become apparent, brahms’s approach to the gavotte, and to meter in general, is much more complex than his often dogmatic statements would suggest—an outcome that forces us to reassess, in turn, the composer’s professed stance on pedagogy and learning. in the process, strikingly novel conclusions emerge about education as a political instrument. * * * brahms is a remarkably late example of a composer who made conscious use of eighteenth-century metrical signs. by his mid twenties he was well informed: his library, which he built up from 1853 onwards, contained several important theoretical works from the baroque period in which concepts of takt are expounded.27 here, brahms read descriptions of the metrical systems in common use, and he explored, in particular, the idea that each measure contains a combination of strong and weak beats presented in a pre-ordained hierarchy. in, for example, friedrich wilhelm marpurg’s anleitung zum clavierspielen, a volume that brahms acquired in 1855 (hancock 1983, 75), the author draws a clear distinction between “good and bad [i.e. strong and weak] beats”, claiming that they are “inwardly long” and “inwardly short” respectively.28 marpurg doesn’t develop the theme of inner length, but the manner in which he distinguishes between different beats within a measure leaves no room for confusion; strong beats, he implies, cannot be converted into weak beats with impunity. brahms appears to have espoused eighteenth-century concepts of meter whole-heartedly, even employing the distinction between good and bad beats in his correspondence (brahms 1912a, 272). the two versions of the op. 8 piano trio offer a simple but instructive example of the baroqueinformed approach to meter he adopted. in the 1854 version, written before brahms had started intensive studies of earlier musical styles, and before he had examined many eighteenth-century treatises, he marks the movement “c — allegro con moto h = 72.” when he revised the work for a new edition in 1891, the heading was changed to “c — allegro con brio [without 145 martin ennis a metronome mark].” by using c as an indicator of half-note rather than quarter-note pulse, brahms was able to dispense with the now-redundant “con moto” marking, replacing it with the more informative “con brio.” in the three decades between the two versions of the op. 8 trio, brahms had clearly acquired a lively awareness of the significance of metrical markings. johann mattheson’s magisterial der vollkommene capellmeister (1739) may have been the work that first brought such niceties to his attention. in a letter dated christmas eve 1854, brahms specifically directed joachim to mattheson’s “very important” treatment of the matter.29 it is the description of the gavotte that is particularly relevant here: the gavotte [—] its affect is one of truly exultant joy. its meter is binary, but not 44 time; rather, it consists of two half-notes, regardless of whether it is subdivided in quarter or indeed eighth notes. i would wish this distinction noted rather better than is the case.30 many years later, in the 1870s, brahms was still taking joachim to task for confusing c and c meters—once in an arrangement of schubert’s grand duo, d. 812, and again in an edition of the mendelssohn string quartets (brahms 1912b, 71 and 113). there is no evidence that this was mere editorial rectitude; rather, a well-ordered metrical framework, one that enjoys the authority of baroque theorists, appears to be brahms’s prerequisite for a convincing musical discourse. it is in this light that we must interpret metrical markings in brahms’s own works and his advice to friends and pupils about meter. when richard heuberger first brought scores for inspection in 1878, brahms’s initial comments were not on form, melody or harmony, as might have been expected of a composition teacher, but on the music’s metrical structure. brahms took particular offense at what he called a “very crooked rhythmic-metric arrangement,” remarking: one can of course use such irregular patterns, but they must be justified by the situation and sound convincing.31 a decade or so earlier, georg henschel had received similar instructions after turning to brahms for pedagogical advice: my dear friend, let me counsel you: no heavy dissonances on the unaccented parts of the bar, please! that is weak. i am very fond of dissonances, you’ll agree, but on the heavy, accentuated parts of the bar, and then let them be resolved easily and gently.32 this simple binary—the distinction between accented and unaccented 146 current musicology beats as determined by the meter—lies at the heart of much of the material examined here. it is particularly germane to any consideration of the gavotte, whose metrical framework, as we’ve seen, is easily confused. however, before we turn to brahms’s music, it’s helpful to set his interest in the gavotte within a broader historical context. though brahms’s autodi dactic project was probably without parallel in nineteenth-century germany, his interest in the gavotte was shared by numerous contemporaries. * * * one curious manifestation of historicism in later nineteenth-century germany was a relatively sudden upsurge of interest in baroque dances, and in the gavotte in particular. in the popular imagination, the revival of baroque dances has usually been associated with twentieth-century neoclassicism. however, as scott messing and jann pasler have demonstrated, the desire to assert national identity in france in the years after the francoprussian war (1870) led to increased awareness of indigenous dances such as the pavane.33 according to matthew werley, a similar phenomenon can be traced in germany. in research based on detailed statistical analysis, werley has plotted a meteoric rise of interest in the gavotte. throughout europe, only five gavottes were published between 1800 and 1850. the number rose to 18 during the 1860s. however, during the 1870s and 1880s more than 1,000 examples of the genre were published, mainly by german composers. according to werley, the first significant spike in gavotte production took place in the second half of the 1870s, in the wake of german unification.34 quite why german nationalists were seized by enthusiasm for what was originally a french peasant dance remains opaque. was there an element of triumphalist appropriation? or did they consider the gavotte a feature of the german baroque, stylized and “naturalized” by bach and his contemporaries? a similar phenomenon can be observed some decades earlier in the reception of the minuet. joseph fort has noted that in german-language dance treatises, especially those published in the 1790s (that is to say, during another period of franco-german tension), authors are at pains to reject the dance’s french heritage, typically observing that, given its qualities, the minuet can only be german in origin.35 whatever the reasons for the surge of interest in the gavotte, its popularity continued to rise until about 1890, with a slow decline thereafter. composers who produced gavottes include richard strauss, ferruccio busoni, carl reinecke, ferdinand hiller and heinrich von herzogenberg, all figures with personal connections to brahms. 147 martin ennis brahms too contributed to the vogue for the gavotte, though in a rather different way from his contemporaries. his first published contribution dates from the early years of the gavotte craze. in early 1872, bartholf senff of leipzig issued brahms’s arrangement of a gavotte from act 2 scene 3 of gluck’s iphigénie en aulide, wq. 40.36 though brahms’s title, “gavotte von gluck,” is in the singular, in reality the work consists of two gavottes, in a major and a minor, presented in an aba’ ternary form. brahms’s arrangement was scored for solo piano, the medium of choice for most of the gavottes charted by werley.37 iphigénie en aulide was quite widely known in nineteenth-century europe, partly because of the version wagner prepared for performance in dresden in 1847. this version was performed several times in vienna during the period when brahms was occupied with his gluck arrangement. performances of iphigénie took place in 1867, 1868, 1869 and 1874— one on the same day as the premiere of the first three movements of brahms’s ein deutsches requiem (1 december 1867). given brahms’s long-standing interest in gluck, it is likely he attended at least one performance.38 in fact, the a major gavotte was one of the movements wagner omitted from his arrangement.39  ironically, however, his cuts found particular favor with eduard hanslick, who detected in wagner’s version “the hand of a master, both in what is done and what is not done.” hanslick also praised wagner’s approach to pre-existing musical material: “a fine awareness for preserving characteristic elements from the past and a very clear vision of the present day’s requirements go hand in hand here.”40 brahms appears to have thought differently; at least, it’s hard not to suspect a desire, in the face of wagner’s indifference, to immortalize the gluck gavotte. it was long thought that brahms first encountered the gavotte from iphigénie en aulide in the early 1840s, while studying under otto cossel. an arrangement of this dance by an unidentified composer is preserved in a small collection of works that cossel used for teaching; however, it is impossible to determine whether this arrangement featured in brahms’s lessons. brahms’s own version is first mentioned in connection with a concert in bremen on 7 november 1868.41 whether the arrangement was notated at this point is unclear; brahms may have written out his version only at the time of publication.42 he played the arrangement about a dozen times in public concerts between 1868 and 1881; venues ranged from den haag and bremen in the north-west to temesvar (timisoara) and hermannstadt (sibiu) in the south-east—effectively the entire geographical range of brahms’s activities as performer (hofmann and hofmann 2006). the published score was dedicated to clara schumann, and she too performed it frequently, often enjoying great success with the public.43 148 current musicology when she played the gavotte in london in february 1872, for example, the audience was reportedly “beyond itself with delight.”44 in short, this modest gluck arrangement proved to be one of the most frequently performed of all brahms’s compositions during this stage of his career.45 apart from this one work, there is little obvious evidence that the vogue for the gavotte had a significant impact on brahms’s oeuvre. no other publication features the word “gavotte” in its title, and many of his closest friends were probably unaware that the genre played any role in his compositional development. however, as the list of gavotte-related passages above makes clear, brahms had engaged with the dance from at least the mid 1850s. as part of his autodidactic project, brahms devoted himself between the middle of 1854 and the end of 1855 to intensive study of suite movements by bach. the fruits of his research can be found in a series of dances in baroque style, of which six survive: • two gavottes, woo. 3, one in a minor and one in a major • two gigues, woo. 4, one in a minor and one in b minor • two sarabandes, woo. 5, one in a major/minor and one in b minor.46 the exact nature of brahms’s enterprise is unclear. were the dances merely part of the project to educate himself in past styles and genres? or did he intend to combine movements with a view to publication? the music itself provides an answer to the first question. all six pieces reveal deep debts to j. s. bach’s keyboard suites. in some cases—notably, the gigues—brahms seems content to remain largely within the orbit of bach’s expressive world; other movements, however, transcend their models, moving some way beyond academic exercises in style-copy (ennis 1992, especially 61–63). the first of the woo. 5 sarabandes, for example, toggles between the tonalities of a major and a minor in a manner that bach would never have contemplated; indeed, the two surviving sources for this dance, one notated in a major and one in a minor, provide an indication of the harmonically fluid language employed here by brahms.47 by opening up clear disparities between baroque and nineteenth-century sensibilities, such movements fall comfortably within martha m. hyde’s category of “metamorphic anachronism” (hyde 2003, especially 100–102). perhaps unsurprisingly, this is the category within which the music discussed below is also located. a partial answer to the second question, about larger groupings, is found in an entry in clara schumann’s diary dated 12 september 1855: johannes surprised me with a prelude and aria for his a minor suite, which is now complete.48 149 martin ennis we know nothing further about the prelude and aria, and brahms’s interest in the a minor suite, at least as a coherent work, appears to have fizzled out not long after the september diary entry. that said, both he and clara schumann continued to perform individual movements for some months to come. all brahms’s dance movements remained unpublished during his lifetime. the two sarabandes first appeared in 1917, and the two gigues were first published in the gesamtausgabe in 1927. as for the two gavottes, they entered the public arena only in 1976, thanks to robert pascall who uncovered them in a viennese archive (pascall 1976).49 however, it would be wrong to assume that these miniatures had lain dormant since the 1850s. in the mid 1860s, material from the a minor gavotte (example 1) resurfaced in the scherzo of the g major string sextet, op. 36. in reworking the dance, brahms made far-reaching adjustments: the meter is changed to 24 , and the music takes a radically different course after the opening fourmeasure phrase. in short, the sextet movement shows only limited traces of the model on which it is based.50 some thirty years after its completion, brahms revealed a continuing interest in his a major gavotte (example 2). we now know that the second movement of the f major string quintet, op. 88, a work first performed in december 1882, is a recomposition of two of brahms’s baroque dances from the 1850s. brahms himself never fully acknowledged the borrowing, though he made an oblique reference on one occasion to some “sheets of music from my youth.”51 the quintet’s middle movement helps explain the comment. this is constructed in an aba’b’a’’ form, whereby the a sections are based on the sarabande in a major/minor, woo. 5 no. 1, and the b sections draw on the a major gavotte, woo. 3 no. 2.52 the b’ section (example 3) is very closely related to the 1850s gavotte, while the b section uses similar material, albeit in the guise of another baroque genre, the siciliano. in repurposing his a major gavotte, brahms used c meter but dispensed with the dance’s traditional metrical arrangement of two quarterexample 1: johannes brahms, gavotte in a minor, woo. 3 no. 1; pascall 1976, 409. 150 current musicology note upbeats.53 thus, the music of the 1850s gavotte is presented in the op. 88 string quintet per arsin et thesin; that is to say, by starting on the downbeat rather than in the middle of the measure brahms reverses strong and weak beats in contravention of precepts passed down by baroque theorists. nevertheless, traces of the dance’s history remain embedded. initially, the downbeats in violin 2 and viola 1 are void, and each pair of notes is presented in an upbeat-downbeat arrangement that leads to what is now the middle rather than the beginning of the measure. the two lowest voices arguably give further weight to the same beats, as they contain the lowest notes in each measure. for all that, anyone presented “blind” with this music might consider it barred correctly. after all, the harmony moves initially in metrical units of a measure, and the melody seems to sit comfortably within a downbeat-oriented arrangement, at least until the fourth measure of the section, where a tonicized e major chord is reached, somewhat unexpectedly, in the middle of the measure. brahms gradually sets the metrical apple-cart to rights: a root-position chord of e (major or minor) sounds on the downbeat of five of the following six measures, thereby helping to normalize the metrical layout. in the process, the opening passage of the 1850s gavotte is extended from eight to ten measures. it’s not clear why the metrical layout of the a major gavotte was changed for the quintet. perhaps brahms wanted to include the extension mentioned above and, at the same time, needed to end on a downbeat. perhaps he was keen to lose the explicit historical reference to the genre of gavotte in what was, after all, intended as a modern concert work.54 whatever the reason, each version of the dance contains musical elements that support its metrical arrangement and elements that contradict it. the choice of 24 meter for the op. 36 scherzo renders redundant any example 2: johannes brahms, gavotte in a major, woo. 3 no. 2; pascall 1976, 410. 151 martin ennis exam ple 3: johannes brahm s, string q uintet in f m ajor, o p. 88, ii, m m . 117–128, edited by h ans g ál (leipzig: breitkopf und h ärtel, 1926–27). 152 current musicology questions about good and bad beats, at least as far as the half-note level is concerned: because of the short measures, each half-note of the original a minor gavotte now falls on a downbeat.55 however, brahms’s decision to reverse the metrical pattern of the a major gavotte, when reusing it in the f major string quintet, sits uncomfortably with the pedagogical strictures he imposed on henschel and others. it also stands in opposition to brahms’s views on the rebarring of well-known works advocated by hugo riemann. it is to this topic that we must now turn in order to set the metrical arrangements used in brahms’s gavotte-related compositions in the richest possible context. as we shall see, the relationship between brahms’s views on riemann’s metrical theories and his own practice is far from straightforward; there is wide divergence, too, in their outlooks on didacticism. * * * hugo riemann (1849–1919) is remembered today primarily as a lexicographer and harmonic theorist. however, from early in his career he was also fascinated by meter and phrasing, focusing in particular on the status of strong and weak beats. a full explanation of his theory of auftaktigkeit (or “upbeatness”) lies outside the scope of this paper;56 in essence, however, riemann argued for the supremacy of the upbeat, suggesting that the natural order of phrasing leads from upbeat to downbeat. this represents a conscious rejection of the baroque theories espoused by brahms, which saw the downbeat as the dominant element in any measure, with the other beats following in positions of subservience. in accordance with his principles, riemann revised the phrasing of classical works, typically adding slurs across barlines to indicate what he perceived as logical groupings.57 rephrasings of the classics sometimes went hand-in-hand with rebarrings, the aspect of his work that is of greatest relevance here. in short, riemann believed in placing barlines according to the location of the stressed beats within individual phrases. to this end, he produced versions of well-known pieces in which measures were shortened or lengthened according to the music’s “natural” rhythm.58 riemann’s primary concern was to educate the public. however, his methods found no favor with brahms. in a letter to his friend and publisher fritz simrock dated 7 september 1883, brahms takes issue with riemann’s practices, focusing on the latter’s so-called “instructional” editions. (explicitly didactic in mission, such editions served to explain to the burgeoning bildungsbürgertum the background to canonical works as well as the music itself.)59 brahms begins his letter to simrock by raging 153 martin ennis about matters of principle. he argues that “damned instructional editions of the classics rarely have anything at all to do with art. they are all about the wallet of those that produce them.”60 having swept aside riemann’s pedagogical mission, or lack of it, brahms turns to meter and phrasing. his stance is best summarized in a further extract from the same letter to simrock: we still phrase and annotate [scores] just like our classical forebears. it’s not just a matter of making do; rather, their methods leave nothing to be desired, however ingeniously we, like herr r., may ponder issues of phrasing etc. what’s more, we have no reason to abolish the barline— herr r., were he to be consistent, should have the courage to do so.61 brahms’s position in this letter could hardly have been clearer: the metrical arrangements passed down from baroque theorists are, he argues, still valid. yet only one week later, in his next letter to simrock,62 he drew attention to the use of “sheets of music” from his youth in the f major string quintet (see endnote 51). here, brahms may not have “abolished” the barline; nevertheless, by reversing the stress-pattern of the a major gavotte, he rode roughshod over the natural metrical order of pre-existing music in a manner not unlike that employed by riemann, thereby flouting the metrical arrangements prescribed by mattheson and others. most examples of riemann’s practice of rebarring are found in wellknown works for piano. he seems to have been wary of brahms’s music, which is often marked by a polymetric approach resistant to such attentions. however, in 1912 riemann plucked up courage and published an article based on analysis of brahms lieder. at first glance, the thirty-year gap between brahms’s letter to simrock and riemann’s article might encourage skepticism about methodology. however, the practices riemann employed in 1912 are very similar to those he had developed decades earlier; they are, to all intents and purposes, the very practices brahms abjured so vehemently in 1883. riemann, it should be noted, was an enthusiast for brahms’s music, and the primary concern of the article, “metrical liberties in brahms’s songs” (riemann 1912–13), was to lay to rest the long-standing criticism that brahms’s vocal music displays little sensitivity to the declamation of texts. riemann suggests that brahms was “misunderstood even during his lifetime by a very considerable proportion of musicians”; as he tartly added, claims of faulty declamation can be laid at the door of “listeners, readers or singers who lack insight”—which we might interpret in this context as musical education.63 the largest part of riemann’s essay is devoted to one of brahms’s 154 current musicology mature masterpieces, “immer leiser wird mein schlummer,” op. 105 no. 2 (example 4) which, as have seen, is one of the small number of pieces in brahms’s oeuvre laid out in the metrical space of a gavotte. the song is notated, as one might expect, in c , with phrases typically starting in the middle of the measure. the material that fills this space, persistent dotted rhythms in a trochaic formulation, is not at all typical of gavottes; this, however, has no bearing on the metrical issues considered here. riemann prefaces his comments by apologizing for having to offer any sort of analysis of what he describes as a “radiantly clear” song. he adds that, despite earlier comments, it is not one of the songs usually described as exhibiting poor declamation (riemann 1912–13, 12). having delivered this disclaimer, riemann examines the metrical groupings in some detail. he starts by observing that the opening of the poem contains regular eightsyllable lines, but that brahms opts for three-measure phrases. “anyone who relies totally on brahms’s barlines,” riemann remarks, “will feel a slight sense of unease caused by the drawing-out of the rhyming syllables [“schlummer” and “kummer”] and by the long pause [between phrases].”64 he then offers an alternative reading of the opening (example 5).65 in some respects, riemann’s is perhaps a more “correct” reading of the barlines than that found in brahms’s score: he converts the opening three-measure units into more orthodox two-measure groupings, thereby ensuring that the first sentence of hermann lingg’s text is set to music within a passage that lasts eight measures. however, riemann’s version example 4: johannes brahms, “immer leiser wird mein schlummer,” op. 105 no. 2, edited by eusebius mandyczewski (leipzig: breitkopf und härtel, 1926–27). 155 martin ennis fails to tell the whole story. brahms’s stresses on “leiser” and “schleier,” for example, appear to have been neglected—though it is possible riemann hoped to account for them by adding hemiola-like dynamic markings in the first four measures of his reduction. riemann also struggles to cope with the ambiguity of the song’s harmonic rhythm. for example, measures 2 and 3 of brahms’s original maintain the same harmonic pattern (v–i), while in riemann’s reading they fight against the barline. clearly, the metrical arrangement of “immer leiser” is not as black and white as riemann suggests.66 how brahms might have reacted to riemann’s article can only be guessed at—he died some fifteen years before it was published. however, given the intensity with which he rejected the rebarrings in riemann’s “instructional” editions, we can be confident that he would have resisted riemann’s conclusions about “immer leiser.” yet, as we have seen, and as we shall shortly see in more detail, brahms sometimes adopted techniques example 5: hugo riemann: “die taktfreiheiten in brahms’ liedern,” die musik 12 (1912–13), 10–21 (13). 156 current musicology very similar to those of riemann. his gusty rejection of riemann’s instructional methods therefore raises intriguing questions about his approach to meter and, in particular, about his use of information gathered from baroque theorists—information that, as we have seen, brahms viewed as fundamental to any rigorous musical training. in fact, from his early twenties onwards, brahms had complemented the study of eighteenth-century treatises with an exploration of unusual metrical arrangements in scores. carl von winterfeld’s pioneering johannes gabrieli und sein zeitalter (winterfeld 1834) provides crucial evidence. brahms first acquired a copy of this historically significant study in 1858,67 and it’s clear from his markings that he devoted particular attention to winterfeld’s comments on rhythm and meter. for instance, he placed a mark next to giovanni gabrieli’s setting of psalm 8, domine dominus noster, a piece cited by winterfeld to illustrate the point that true rhythm comes not from editorial barlines but from word accents: the length and shortness of notes corresponds to the speech-determined accent of each separate syllable of the holy words when sung; the different individually organized rhythmic divisions of the music are shaped in a natural fashion according to these.68 we can’t be sure that by marking this passage brahms was expressing approval of the idea of rebarring music, as winterfeld invites us to do. however, other markings in scores and theoretical volumes owned by brahms suggest that he had no qualms adopting such practices.69 brahms took particular interest in the meter of isaac’s celebrated setting of “innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen,” copying out the music from another pioneering volume by winterfeld, der evangelische kirchengesang (winterfeld 1845). brahms initially made his copy in the regular 42 meter that winterfeld himself had employed. later, however, he added pencil marks to the soprano part in order to show the “true” meter which, as virginia hancock has demonstrated (example 6), fluctuates between 62 and 42 .70 or, to express it more pointedly, brahms’s version of “innsbruck” converts a passage notated in duple meter into one that starts in triple time before moving to duple time. this gives pause for thought, for what has been described here is precisely the procedure employed by riemann in his rebarring of brahms’s “immer leiser.” why, then, did brahms respond so waspishly to riemann’s theories about rebarring? is he guilty of hypocrisy? or had riemann simply failed to understand what he was trying to achieve? in the case of “immer leiser,” it is easy to see why brahms might have been unwilling to countenance any rebarring. riemann’s version of “immer leiser” is based on the assumption 157 martin ennis that only one meter can be present at any point and that what we encounter in a piece such as this is, in effect, a sequence of fluctuating meters.71 it is a schoolmasterish stance: subtleties are ignored in the interests of hammering home a pedagogical point. the original score, on the other hand, suggests that the framework of a gavotte, such as we find in “immer leiser,” allows for metrical flexibility within uniformity. to revisit brahms’s words to richard heuberger, one can use irregular patterns, “but they must be justified by the situation and sound convincing” (see endnote 31). the true pedagogical message to be gleaned from the study of renaissance and baroque masters, brahms appears to argue, is that meter, like many other musical parameters, is far from one-dimensional; it can and should be treated contrapuntally. an even more intriguing example of metrical play within a gavottelike structure can be found in the song “unüberwindlich,” op. 72 no. 5 (example 7). according to brahms’s taschenkalendar, “unüberwindlich” was composed in may 1876, at the height of gavotte mania; it was first published in the summer of the following year.72 this goethe setting is unusual in several respects. first, it is a drinking song, a genre encountered nowhere else in brahms (loges 2017, 142). more relevant to the present discussion, the song is based on a two-measure fragment from domenico scarlatti’s sonata, k. 223/l. 214, that, as presented by brahms, seems to reference the gavotte.73 like many high-baroque examples of the genre, the song is notated in c , and an upbeat figure consisting of two quarter-notes (or dotted equivalents), another marker of the dance, is found in most phrases.74 what’s more, brahms appears to have taken to heart mattheson’s teaching about the gavotte’s affekt: the music expresses “truly exultant joy.”75 closer inspection, however, reveals more metrical subterfuge, more rejection of long-standing pedagogical precepts. the scarlatti sonata is indeed notated in c , but the music starts on a downbeat rather than in the middle of the measure (example 8). as in his reworking of the 1855 gavotte, brahms has reordered the meter by reversing strong and weak beats. one could go so far as to say that in this song brahms created a example 6: hancock 1983, 162. 158 current musicology example 7: johannes brahms, “unüberwindlich,” op. 72 no. 5, edited by eusebius mandyczewski (leipzig: breitkopf und härtel, 1926–27). example 8: domenico scarlatti, sonata in d major, k. 223 / l. 214, edited by kenneth gilbert (paris: heugel, 1974). 159 martin ennis gavotte out of material that, in scarlatti’s hands, has no obvious connection with the genre. rebarring the entire scarlatti sonata in line with brahms’s metrical scheme would, in fact, rapidly lead to confusion, as most of the main points of arrival would fall not on downbeats, as one might expect, but in the middle of the measure. brahms made one other significant change to the scarlatti excerpt: he transposed it from d major to a major. the decision to change key may well have sprung from considerations of vocal range. however, it’s striking to note that all the material in brahms’s oeuvre that, in terms of meter and character, most obviously references the gavotte—the two piano gavottes from the 1850s, the gluck arrangement, the a major gavotte’s reworking in the f major string quintet and “unüberwindlich” itself—shares the same tonic.76 these works are formed, as it were, aus einem guß. the same is true of the final gavotte-like piece to be considered here, the intermezzo in a minor, op. 76 no. 7 (example 9). like the gluck arrangement, “unüberwindlich,” and the f major string quintet, this intermezzo was first published during the height of the gavotte craze. indeed, the publication dates of “unüberwindlich” and the intermezzo (1877 and 1878) suggest that they may well have lain on brahms’s desk at the same time. though it appears not to have been noted before, the opening of the a minor intermezzo displays all the markers of a high baroque gavotte. the intermezzo is cast in c , and the music starts with a half-measure anacrusis consisting of two quarter-notes. moreover, it uses the periodic phrasing typical of baroque dances. that said, brahms slurs many of the phrases against the beat, creating cross-rhythms reminiscent of riemann’s theory of auftaktigkeit. in some respects, brahms’s notation is a curiosity. a rebarred version that starts not with quarter-note upbeats but on a downbeat (example 10) appears at least initially to be more “comfortable.” in this version— generated, we might note, by applying the methodology brahms himself employed when refashioning his a major gavotte for use in the f major string quintet—a root-position tonic chord on the first downbeat passes through an applied dominant to a local tonic (iii) on the next downbeat. essentially the same material is then presented two more times, each iteration separated by a brief interlude not unlike those found in “immer leiser.” in this revised barring, each interlude fits snugly within one measure, rather than straddling barlines, as happens in the published score. what’s more, in the distorted version the pitch-class e falls on the first beat of every measure of the melody up to and including m. 6, where it is decorated by an extended suspension. thereafter, the tolling es are transferred to the bass, where they continue to sound on the downbeat. in short, each 160 current musicology example 9: johannes brahms, intermezzo in a minor, op. 76 no. 7, edited by eusebius mandyczewski (leipzig: breitkopf und härtel, 1926–27). example 10: johannes brahms, intermezzo in a minor, op. 76 no. 7 (in a metrically realigned arrangement prepared by the author). 161 martin ennis downbeat of this eight-measure extract starts with a triad containing the pitch-class e.77 for all these reasons, one might argue that the distorted version is metrically more persuasive than brahms’s own version.78 of course, the situation here, as in the f major quintet and “immer leiser,” is not entirely straightforward. there are arguments against this rebarring, not least the weight given by the dotted rhythm on the first downbeat of brahms’s score; indeed, it could be argued that it is the applied dominant chords, rather than the more predictable local tonics, that merit downbeat stress. however, many listeners, when confronted with the evidence, seem to view the distorted version as more natural.79 in summary, brahms appears to have created a gavotte-like passage from music that sits more comfortably in a downbeat-oriented meter. is this another manifestation of the phenomenon encountered in the almost contemporaneous scarlatti-based song? there, as will be recalled, the composer produced a confected gavotte from material that had limited connections, if any, with the genre. as with much of brahms’s output, information about the origins of the op. 76 collection is sketchy. without supporting evidence, max kalbeck maintained that the a minor intermezzo was inspired by brahms’s editorial work on the schumann and chopin complete editions. he goes so far as to suggest that chopin’s nocturne in f minor, op. 55 no. 1 (example 11), provided a specific model (kalbeck 1904–14, iii, 194–95). it’s true that the two pieces have similar openings. in both works, the mediant is tonicized straight away; after an initial ascent from dominant to tonic, both main themes worry repeatedly around 5, employing striking dotted rhythms; and in both cases there are three statements of an initial two-measure cell, the third of which is extended. however, it’s intriguing to note that the example 11: friedrich chopin, nocturne in f minor, op. 55 no. 1 [edited by woldemar bargiel] (leipzig: breitkopf und härtel: n.d. [1878]). 162 current musicology barring in the chopin nocturne is essentially the same as in the distorted version of the a minor intermezzo—that is to say, the tonic chords fall on the downbeats, and there is no pair of upbeat quarter-notes. the only significant divergence in the opening, other than the initial syncopation, is the dotted rhythm in the first complete measure. this, as suggested above, justifies brahms’s metrical arrangement by placing extra weight on the third note of the melody. brahms was characteristically vague about the intermezzo’s origins. in october 1878 he asked fritz simrock to suggest a title for his new collection of miniatures, the pieces that would become op. 76. running through various possibilities, brahms claimed that “aus aller herren länder” (perhaps best translated as “from all four corners of the earth”) would capture the nature of the collection most accurately.80 however, cultural appropriation is not the point here; brahms is surely drawing attention to the diverse stylistic backgrounds of the various pieces.81 in the case of the a minor intermezzo, we seem to be dealing, within a single number, with a fusion of baroque and romantic styles—a marriage across the centuries between bach and chopin. or, to express it less poetically, the rude pedagogical precepts of baroque theorists collide in this miniature with the fine sensibilities of a romantic. * * * why so much disparity between practice and theory—or, at least, between brahms’s various responses to the gavotte and the opinions on metrical rectitude he expressed so trenchantly to joachim and others? it is tempting to conclude that the principle of “quod licet iovi, non licet bovi” must be at play: brahms, as a composer with godlike gifts, allows himself liberties that mere mortals may not contemplate.82 curiously, this quasi-proverbial phrase was almost certainly familiar to brahms: it first appears in joseph von eichendorff ’s novella aus dem leben eines taugenichts (1826),83 a volume brahms referenced in anecdotes. indeed, brahms himself used a derivative of the phrase, “quod licet bacho non licet francisco,” when discussing liberties taken by robert franz in his bach arrangements.84 we have no way of knowing whether brahms contemplated his own actions in the light of eichendorff ’s maxim. however, pedagogical nostrums conceived for abecedarians arguably do not apply to composers of several decades’ experience. for all his insistence on the value of a thorough education, brahms’s career suggests that the strict training he repeatedly lauded was but one step on the road to compositional mastery. though he wrote many passages using rigorous fugal and canonic techniques in his 163 martin ennis youth, from the time of ein deutsches requiem (1868–69) onwards brahms largely abandoned archaic forms and practices, eschewing the use of (arguably) anachronistic terms such as “fugue” in his titles. study of his stylistic progression suggests he became increasingly wary, against a backdrop of hostility from the new german school, of overtly historicist affiliations.85 it remains a challenge to reconcile brahms’s metrical practice with the statement he made to jenner about the benefits of early exposure to good teaching. clearly, the teenage brahms was not conversant with theoretical descriptions such as those found in mattheson. however, would earlier awareness of metrical niceties, as revealed by mattheson and other theorists, have affected the music brahms wrote as a mature composer? from relatively early on, he apparently rejected any attempt to apply metrical knowledge systematically. why then did brahms feel his lack of musical education so sorely? as has often been observed, nineteenth-century music was defined by greatly increased access to musical materials, one of the pre-conditions, of course, for a historicist approach to composition. and with greater access came anxiety. virtually every major nineteenth-century composer, at least in the german-speaking world, felt the need to confront their musical heritage and, in particular, the so-called learned arts. in the last weeks of his very short life, schubert sought out simon sechter, the teacher of brahms’s teacher, marxsen, for counterpoint lessons (mann 1982). schumann, similarly, argued for immersion in earlier styles, encouraging aspirant composers to study early italian polyphony “in order to reach into the spirit of song.”86 brahms’s great antagonist of his viennese years, anton bruckner, also devoted many years to intense study of earlier musical styles and procedures, once again under the tutelage of sechter. in fact, despite a significant difference in their ages, both brahms and bruckner withdrew from the public eye at roughly the same time—essentially, the second half of the 1850s—to immerse themselves in study.87 it is striking that, apart from private comments to joseph joachim and clara schumann, almost all of brahms’s recorded utterances about self-improvement spring from his later decades, from the period when he was comfortably settled in vienna. he seems to have used the concept of autodidacticism as a political instrument in ongoing disputes with the new germans, with the need for study equated, more or less, with a compositional method that is reliant on elaboration rather than inspiration.88 brahms’s most frequently cited statement on the topic is found in the reminiscences of georg henschel: there is no real creating without hard work. that which you would call invention, that is to say, a thought, an idea, is simply an inspiration from 164 current musicology above, for which i am not responsible, which is no merit of mine. yea, it is a present, a gift, which i ought even to despise until i have made it my own by right of hard work. and there need be no hurry about that either. it is as with the seed-corn: it germinates unconsciously and in spite of ourselves.89 however, this artistic stellungnahme has a deeper history than is usually acknowledged, for brahms’s words appear to be a reworking of a passage from otto jahn’s monumental mozart biography: if a genius’s powers of invention are a gift of gracious nature, art is a possession that can be acquired only through effort and labor; the ability to work tirelessly, and with unusual efforts, and to make one’s work fruitful is similarly the prerogative of a genius. one does mozart an injustice if his reputation for the most constant and conscientious hard work is diminished just to increase the amazement of those not in the know; the perfect beauty of the completed art-work does not prove that it cost no effort to reach this state, it proves only that it was successful.90 brahms first encountered jahn in the mid 1850s—they were both principal mourners at robert schumann’s funeral in 1856—and though the mozart biography appeared some years later, brahms seems to have incorporated jahn’s politicized interpretation of “effort and labor” into his own aesthetic. jahn’s mission was to challenge the idea of mozart’s genius as innate and, consequently, as unworthy of adulation. brahms’s version of the text has been subtly reconfigured to suit the particular circumstances of musical politics in the 1870s. he defends his reliance on elaborative compositional methods by stressing the role of tradition and, by implication, of learning in the shaping of his musicianship. while brahms never fails to articulate the need for effort in his advice to young composers, his compositional career allows no easy reconciliation between theory and practice. on the one hand, he argues vigorously that, for composers to reach their full potential, they require proper guidance in their formative years. he suggests to jenner that such guidance is best acquired from village organists and choirmasters, keepers of the ancient flame.91 yet brahms also appears to revel in his status as self-made man. what’s more, when discussing his own youth, he comes close on several occasions to admitting that he was not the ideal pupil—indeed, that he might not have been receptive to the education he claims to have craved. in 1855, looking back on the period when he was still studying under marxsen, brahms described himself as lacking discipline: “it was a time in which i was still chaotically dreamy.”92 some three decades later, in a more specific context, brahms praised the way pupils were taught in 165 martin ennis his hamburg school, while acknowledging that he was far from ready for knowledge at this point in his life: we learned the bible by heart, without understanding a thing about it. if something lights up later in life, all the material is there already and it suddenly comes alive. as a boy i was always dreamy and dozy. thank goodness, not one of my teachers was bothered about this. .  .  . a child can’t understand everything he has to learn.93 it is of course possible that brahms’s comments on his deficient education were ironic. however, there’s a certain doggedness to his pronouncements that encourages us to resist this conclusion. at the very least, brahms seems keen to establish a distinctive narrative of disadvantage. given this, it’s tempting to compare brahms’s comments on education with other tales from his youth—in particular, widely debunked stories about having to earn money playing the piano in hamburg brothels.94 thanks to the testimony of robert meisner and the researches of kurt hofmann and styra avins among others, we now know that brahms grew up in a middle-class family. though money was often tight, his parents prioritized education. meisner claims that brahms’s classmates at the school he attended from the age of eleven were for the most part the “sons of doctors, highly placed civil servants, merchants and owners of [hamburg’s] larger stores.”95 few appear to have tried to locate the source of stories about brahms’s indigent background, and about hamburg dives in particular, though meisner, who knew several of the figures involved, castigates kalbeck for his misrepresentations, claiming that almost everything found about brahms’s schooldays in kalbeck’s biography is “invalid.”96 nonetheless, we must surely conclude that at least some of the material originated, directly or indirectly, with brahms himself. who else will have passed on the relevant information? once again, it seems brahms deliberately cultivated the image of a composer striving to overcome adversity. * * * marxsen may have had little knowledge of baroque treatises; indeed, it’s very likely he failed to provide the training in contrapuntal techniques that brahms later sought. however, it’s surely time to scotch the notion that marxsen taught brahms nothing and that brahms would have been a greater composer, had he been better taught at an earlier age. as detailed examination of his response to meter in the gavotte has revealed, brahms used theoretical knowledge just as he used the compositions of others. he took whatever he needed wherever he found it and, as he acknowledged 166 current musicology with reference to the bible, full awareness of the value of learning could on occasion take years. in his discussions with henschel, brahms likened the process of composition to that of a seed-corn germinating. perhaps he should have added a reference to the text from the epistle of st james that was used in the second movement of ein deutsches requiem: siehe, ein ackermann wartet auf die köstliche frucht der erde und ist geduldig darüber, bis er empfahe den morgenregen und abendregen.97 no farmer could hasten the rains. no composer—schooled, unschooled or self-taught—can hasten maturity. notes 1. robert pascall, the doyen of uk-based brahms scholars, died on 9 june 2018. this study, a tribute born of admiration, gratitude and affection, explores brahms and pedagogy through the medium of baroque dances, a topic of enduring fascination to both of us. pascall launched his extensive series of brahms publications with an article on “unknown gavottes by brahms” (pascall 1976), and his last monograph, brahms beyond mastery: his sarabande and gavotte, and its recompositions (pascall 2013), is effectively a history of the composer told through eighteenth-century dance forms. in the intervening years, i used one chapter of my phd dissertation (ennis 1992) to reveal for the first time that the slow movement of the clarinet quintet, op. 115, is based on the sarabande featured in the title of brahms beyond mastery. he, in turn, expanded on this material in pascall 2001. the focus here is on meter, a topic that rarely surfaced in our deliberations; as a result, this paper consists almost entirely of fresh perspectives—as robert would doubtless have wished. 2. “ungeheurer größe” (heuberger 1976, 94). all translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated. 3. “weder schumann, noch wagner, noch ich haben was ordentliches gelernt. .  .  . schumann ging den einen, wagner den andern, ich den dritten weg. aber gelernt hat keiner was rechtes. keiner hat eine ordentliche schule durchgemacht. ja, nachgelernt haben wir” (heuberger 1976, 94). 4. “denken sie doch daran, wie schumann darunter gelitten hat, daß er so spät zur musik kam, und mir ist es nicht anders ergangen; ich bin ja noch später dazu gekommen. was wäre aus mir geworden, wenn ich in der jugend gelernt hätte, was ich später als mann habe nachholen müssen!” (jenner 1912, 79–80). for more details about brahms and jenner see sholes 2018. 5. “einen großen vorzug hatte mendelssohn vor uns voraus: die vortreffliche schule. was hat es mich für eine unendliche mühe gekostet, das als mann nachzuholen” (kalbeck 1904– 14, i, 33). mendelssohn’s training under carl friedrich zelter is particularly well documented; see todd 1983. 6. see musgrave 2000, 63. brahms received his earliest musical training from his father (avins 1997, 1). according to florence may, brahms’s father was ambitious for his son, 167 martin ennis keeping “hannes closely to his studies” (may 1905, i, 69). 7. according to gustav jenner, cossel expressed himself bluntly: “if only johannes would pack in his composing!” [“wenn der johannes doch das komponieren lassen wollte!”] (jenner 1912, 77). 8. brahms described otto cossel in a letter to his eldest daughter, marie janssen, as “your dear, unforgettable father, whose memory is one of [the] holiest and most precious of my life” (avins 1997, 740–41). 9. marxsen started by training brahms as a virtuoso pianist, only to realise his extraordinary “creative abilities” [“schöpferische fähigkeiten”] (kalbeck 1904–14, i, 31). 10. peter clive similarly fails to mention sechter in the marxsen entry of his biographical dictionary (clive 2006). marxsen’s studies with sechter are attested in various nineteenth and early twentieth-century sources; for a more recent citation, see saslaw 2001. 11. “steine statt brot” (jenner 1912, 80). 12. see zeleny 1979 for further details. 13. “ein meister der kunst ist heimgegangen, ein größerer erblüht in brahms” (kalbeck 1904–14, i, 32). the earliest documentary evidence linking brahms and sechter dates from 1856, when clara schumann gave brahms a copy of friedrich wilhelm marpurg’s abhandlung von der fuge in sechter’s revised edition of 1843. brahms first met sechter in vienna in february 1863, receiving from him a canon that survives in the gesellschaft der musikfreunde archives. sechter numbered several members of brahms’s circle among his pupils; these include anton door, robert fuchs, j. p. gotthard (original name: bohumil pazdírek), franz lachner, gustav nottebohm and carl ferdinand pohl (clive 2006, 414; kalbeck 1904–14, ii, 24). 14. by this stage, liszt had also given the hamlet overture his blessing. he praised the work effusively, claiming that, even after hearing it live, he would be unlikely to change anything more than “minor details” [“menu détail”] (joachim 1911–13, i, 49). 15. “auch fehlt die notwendige innere konsequenz, die zum allgemeinen verständnis unerläßlich” (brahms 1912a, 11). 16. “ungefähr”; “alles muß notwendig sein und an der rechten stelle stehen, jeder zufällige effekt sorgfältig vermieden werden” (kalbeck 1904–14, ii, 180). 17. “mit vernichtender schärfe wies brahms mir das unlogische des aufbaues nach” (jenner 1905, 6). 18. florence may refers to marxsen’s “ardent worship” of “the mighty sebastian bach” (may 1905, i, 65). 19. “ich bin getreulich hingegangen; gelernt aber habe ich gar nichts” (kalbeck 1904–14, i, 34; undated comment). 20. “von schumann habe ich nichts gelernt als schachspielen” (kalbeck 1904–14, i, 125). this comment is often taken as a joke, as a typical example of the composer saying the opposite of what he really meant. kalbeck himself claims brahms was “exaggerating” [“übertreibend”]. others are more inventive in their reasoning: john daverio, for example, maintained that, as chess encourages the same “strategic thinking that musical composition demands,” the comment might contain some sense (daverio 2002, 157). it is possible, of course, that brahms was telling the truth. he first met schumann shortly before the latter’s mental collapse. by this stage in his life, schumann spent most of his time in a trance-like state, and the idea of him giving brahms detailed compositional advice is implausible. 168 current musicology 21. on the occasion of marxsen’s golden jubilee in 1883, brahms arranged for one of marxsen’s piano works, 100 veränderungen über ein volkslied, to be published without his knowledge. a letter from marxsen to emil krause (kalbeck 1904–14, i, 34) reveals that the former saw this work as a “short contribution to the inexhaustibility of thematic work” [“kurzen beitrag zu der unerschöpflichkeit der thematischen arbeit”], words that could be used to characterize many of brahms’s own compositions. for a survey of brahms’s activities as a teacher, principally of the piano, see behr 2009. for further information on brahms and marxsen, see jaffe 2010a and jaffe 2010b. in the first of these two articles, jaffe examines, and challenges, the widespread idea that “there was a turnabout in the teacher– pupil relationship” when brahms was at the peak of his career, with brahms now correcting marxsen’s music (1). 22. “kanons kann ich jetzt in allen möglichen künstlichen formen machen” (litzmann 1927, i, 73). 23. “doppelter kontrapunkt, kanons, fugen, präludien, was es ist” (brahms 1912a, 127). a letter from brahms to clara schumann dated 21 march 1855 indicates that she had been his first choice as collaborator; however, little seems to have come of this plan (litzmann 1927, i, 100–01). 24. in january 1857 brahms proposed the resumption of contrapuntal studies, a suggestion accepted by joachim shortly afterwards; this phase continued fitfully until december 1857 (see brahms 1912a, especially 168, 173 and 193). in the spring of 1860 brahms and joachim exchanged chorale harmonizations for a short period (brahms 1912a, 269–72), and as late as september 1861 brahms once again suggested the regular exchange of contrapuntal exercises, as well as waltzes, variations and other material (“kontrapunktisches, walzer, variationen und sonst zeug”; brahms 1912a, 305). 25. with the exception of the two gavottes, which were first made available long after brahms’s death, the dates given here relate to first publication. 26. see especially jenner 1905 and heuberger 1976. 27. it is known that brahms studied treatises by j. j. fux, j. mattheson, j. g. walther, c. p. e. bach and f. w. marpurg during the 1850s. for details of the works he owned, see hofmann 1974 and hancock 1983 (especially 69–101). 28. “gute und schlimme tacttheile”; “innerlich langer”; “innerlich kurzer” (marpurg 1755, 18). 29. “sehr wichtiges habe ich schon entdeckt. ein gute beschreibung nämlich und erklärung der alten tänze” (brahms 1912a, 121). 30. “die gavotta [—] ihr affect ist wircklich eine rechte jauchzende freude. ihre zeitmaasse ist zwar gerader art; aber kein vierviertel-takt; sondern ein solcher, der aus zween halben schlägen bestehet; ob er sich gleich in viertel, ja gar in achtel theilen läßt. ich wollte wünschen, daß dieser unterschied ein wenig besser in acht genommen würde” (mattheson 1739, 225). a similar point is made in marpurg’s anleitung zum clavierspielen: “an error often arises with respect to the [metrical] sign, with the simple large c confused with cut c; in this case, one is obliged to study the nature of the piece, examining the fastest notes found in it as well as structural divisions, to ascertain whether it belongs to the meter with two or with four beats” [“in ansehung der bezeichnung entstehet öfters eine irrung, indem man das schlechte große c mit dem durchstrichenen c vermischt, in welchem falle man die natur des stückes, nach den darinnen vorkommenden geschwindesten noten und nach den einschnitten beurtheilen muß, um zu wissen, ob es zu dem tact mit zwey oder 169 martin ennis mit vier theilen gehöret”] (marpurg 1755, 20). 31. “takt-metrisch sehr schiefe fügung”; “solche unregelmäßigkeiten kann man ja machen, aber sie müssen doch in der sache begründet sein und sicher dastehen” (heuberger 1976, 14). brahms’s comments on ernst rudorff ’s fantasie, op. 14, contain similar reflections: he suggests rudorff rewrite the music, bringing it “into a somewhat more regular metrical arrangement” [“in etwas regelmäßigere taktzahl”] (brahms 1907c, 153). for more recent discussions of unusual metrical arrangements in brahms, see in particular malin 2006, mcclelland 2006 and murphy 2007. 32. henschel 1918, 112. as george s. bozarth points out (bozarth 2008, 266–67), henschel was an obedient pupil. see jenner 1905, 37, and brahms 1912a, 272, for further advice from brahms on the use of 6/4 chords on weak beats. for more about brahms’s views on strong and weak beats, see may 1905, i, 17 and schumann 1925, 232. 33. see messing 1988 and pasler 2009 (especially 501–07 and 629–42). i should like to thank katharine ellis for drawing this to my attention and for other advice. 34. i am very grateful to matthew werley for sharing details of his research on gavottes in nineteenth-century germany. werley’s research is summarized in the graphics found on the following website: http://media.virbcdn.com/files/3b/7af5b62048cdf3cc-gavotten_graphsimple.pdf 35. gerhard ulrich anton vieth, a german educational reformer and advocate of gymnastics, was one who queried the french origin of the minuet (vieth 1795, 427). i am indebted to joseph fort for this information, passed on in personal communications. 36. the exact date of publication is unclear; see goertzen 2017 and goertzen 2018. 37. iphigénie en aulide, premiered in april 1774, was the first opera gluck wrote for paris; it was also the first opera he composed using a french-language text. the movement in question appeared in gluck’s printed score as “gavotte gratioso” [sic]. set for two oboes, two bassoons and strings, it formed part of a sequence of dances and choruses. brahms’s arrangement was almost certainly based on a copy of an eighteenth-century french edition given to him by clara schumann in 1856, perhaps on the occasion of his 23rd birthday. brahms’s copy of the opera, which reveals traces of intensive study, is preserved in his nachlaß, now held in the gesellschaft der musikfreunde in vienna. 38. we know that brahms attended a performance of the overture to iphigénie en aulide, with wagner’s concert ending, on 2 november 1862, shortly after arriving in vienna (kalbeck 1904–14, ii, 22). 39. gluck himself cut this movement when reworking iphigénie en aulide for a 1775 revival (goertzen 2017, xxi). 40. “eine meisterhand, sowohl in ihrem positiven thun als in ihrem unterlassen”; “eine feine conservative empfindung für das charakteristische der vergangenheit und der klarste blick für das bedürfniß der gegenwart haben hier hand in hand zusammengewirkt” (hanslick 1900, 7). 41. see goertzen 2017, xxii–xxiii, for further details. here, goertzen gives a helpful summary of brahms’s engagement with gluck’s music and details of the gluck scores he owned. 42. the gluck arrangement is first mentioned in brahms’s correspondence in a letter to clara schumann dated 4 november 1871 (litzmann 1927, i, 645); see also mccorkle 1984, 620. brahms’s manuscript has not survived. 170 current musicology 43. valerie goertzen, drawing on the “sammlung der konzertprogramme clara schumanns” in the robert-schumann-haus in zwickau, reports that clara schumann played the piece in at least thirty-seven concerts in twenty-four cities. goertzen makes the intriguing observation that brahms usually grouped the a major gavotte with other “historic” pieces, whereas clara schumann liked to perform it alongside romantic character pieces (goertzen 2017, xxvii). matthew werley argues in an unpublished paper that brahms may have intended the gluck arrangement as a peace-offering to clara after a period of disharmony. 44. “die leute waren außer sich vor entzücken darüber” (litzmann 1927, ii, 6). the work/ concert was reviewed in the musical times 15 (1872), 416. 45. see draheim 2009, 105. in the wake of brahms’s arrangement, numerous other versions were produced, including arrangements for violin and piano and for cello and piano. so many of these appeared that brahms had to warn his publisher, bartholf senff, of the risks posed by pirated editions (brahms 1920, 207). 46. further details about the dance movements, including their publication history, can be found in mccorkle 1984, horne 1989 and horne 2002, as well as the pascall studies mentioned earlier. 47. a parallel to this can be found in the intermezzo, op. 116 no. 2, where a version of the a minor opening is reprised in a major; see horne 1989, especially 269–80. 48. “johannes überraschte mich mit einem präludium und arie zu seiner a-moll-suite, die nun vollständig” (litzmann 1902–09, ii, 387). the two movements were presumably intended to mark clara schumann’s wedding anniversary and birthday, which fell on 12 and 13 september respectively (pascall 2013, 8). 49. the two gavottes, together with woo. 5 no. 1, were first made available to performers in 1979 as kleine stücke für klavier (edited by robert pascall; vienna: doblinger). 50. for a more extended discussion of the reworking, see pascall 2013, 19–35. 51. “notenblätter aus meiner jugendzeit” (brahms 1919, 28). 52. unusually for brahms, this movement is an example of directional tonality, with the music moving from an initial tonic of c# to a closing tonic of a. 53. in fact, as can be seen in example 2, the 1850s version of the a major gavotte was notated in c; however, the metrical layout vis-à-vis the barlines is the traditional one (see pascall 1976, 410; also, pascall 2013, 37–51). 54. in the 1850s gavotte (example 2), brahms’s opening phrase, at least as defined by the slur, lasts for three and a half measures, one possible further reason for metrical realignment. 55. the reworking of the a minor gavotte in the op. 36 scherzo does, however, reveal metrical reversal at the quarter-note level. in the three lowest voices of op. 36, as in two of the middle voices of op. 88 (see example 3), brahms uses silence on the downbeat followed by pizzicato notes in an arrangement that serves to highlight the weaker second beat; in op. 36, the latter also contains the lowest note of the measure on its own weaker half. what’s more, the second beats in the violin i part of op. 36 usurp the mordent reserved for the downbeat in the original gavotte (example 1). i am indebted to ian sewell for pointing this out and for many other helpful suggestions. 56. for further information about the intellectual background to riemann’s theories, see rehding 2003, especially 72–77 and 162–65. 57. see, for example, riemann 1895–1901, i, 132. it is perhaps difficult nowadays to 171 martin ennis appreciate just how influential riemann’s approach was; an upbeat-dominated approach was the prevalent style of phrasing throughout much of the twentieth century, at least until the “authentic” performance movement started re-examining issues of articulation. most performers and scholars saw little reason to challenge riemann’s approach. one notable exception was heinrich schenker, whose essay “weg mit dem phrasierungsbogen” was an early plea for urtext editions (schenker 1925). on this subject, see also cook 2013; here nicholas cook points out that riemann was “the principal target of schenker’s attacks on editors who substitute their own phrasing for composers’, and so reduce performance to mechanical execution” (210–11). 58. for a useful summary of riemann’s approach to phrasing, with a focus on beethoven, see krones 2001. 59. according to riemann, an instructional edition “prevents a defective or faulty [interpretation] and indicates instead proper expression, doing away with the need for reflection. the author offers the beginner an indispensable relief in working out phrasing” (riemann 1885, 4; quoted in cook 2013, 218). donald francis tovey once talked of groaning at the sight of riemann’s instructional editions (tovey 1957, 137); however, the bach editions he prepared for the associated board of the royal schools of music are not entirely dissimilar in goal and method. 60. “. . . die verfl. instruktiven klassiker-ausgaben überhaupt gar selten was mit der kunst zu tun haben. sie gehen den geldbeutel der veranstalter an” (brahms 1919, 26–27). brahms was similarly dismissive of riemann’s counterpoint treatise—“a useless volume” [“ein unnützes buch”], as he described it in 1889 (heuberger 1976, 41). we know from the briefverzeichnis at the lübeck brahms-institut that brahms received at least two letters from riemann. the first, which dates from november 1883, concerns riemann’s “phrasierungsausgabe” of mozart’s piano sonatas; the other, dated april 1889, suggests that brahms’s antipathy to riemann’s ideas did not stand in the way of cordial relations. see http://www. brahms-institut.de/db_bbv/ for further details. 61. “wir phrasieren und bezeichnen noch immer wie unsere klassiker. wir kommen nicht bloß damit aus, sondern haben gar nichts zu wünschen, trotzdem wir doch wohl so gescheit wie herr r. über phrasen usw. denken. auch den taktstrich abzuschaffen, haben wir einstweilen keine ursache—dazu sollte aber herr r. den mut haben, wenn er konsequent sein wollte” (brahms 1919, 27). 62. the letters date from 7 and 15 september 1883. 63. “[johannes brahms ist] gleich bei lebzeiten von einem recht erheblichen teile der musiktreibenden mißverstanden worden”; “[er ist] seitens minder einsichtiger hörer, leser oder sänger deren absprechendem verdikt nicht entgangen, daß er öfter deklamationsfehler mache” (riemann 1912–13, 11). this perception has in fact persisted well beyond brahms’s death. robert haven schauffler offers an extreme example: in his centenary tribute, schauffler claimed that brahms used to “torture the word-music of the poems he set, with even more brutality than the average song composer” (schauffler 1933, 321). 64. “wer sich vollständig auf brahms’ taktstriche verläßt, wird ein leises unbehagen spüren, das die dehnung der reimsilben und die lange pause bewirken” (riemann 1912–13, 12). 65. note the appalling proof-reading in this example. no fewer than four of the words are erroneous in one respect or another; in addition, one accidental (in the melody of m. 3) is missing. the altered accidentals in the harmonic reduction of m. 4 are presumably an intentional respelling on riemann’s part, perhaps to highlight the lower neighbor-note figure (b#–aü–b#) that was hidden by brahms’s enharmonic spelling (c–b–b#); i am indebted 172 current musicology to ian sewell for pointing this out. 66. curiously, the same song was also examined by arnold schoenberg (schoenberg 1975b, 421–22). here, schoenberg, like riemann before him, attempts to normalize brahms’s phrasing. schoenberg makes no reference to riemann in his text, though we know that he was familiar with the latter’s work: he wrote notes on riemann’s metrics in 1923, and he referred to riemann in several essays, including “phrasing” (1931), where he described riemann’s theories as “nonsense” (schoenberg 1975a, 347). for further details, see stuckenschmidt 1977, 291–92. despite the lack of an explicit reference to riemann’s theories, schoenberg’s reading of “immer leiser” seems to be in dialogue with “die taktfreiheiten”: riemann’s main points—three-measure phrases, the drawing-out of rhyming syllables, and the pause between phrases—are all specifically addressed in schoenberg’s rebarring. however, schoenberg comes to quite different conclusions. his rebarring is intended to demonstrate the inadequacy of a regular pattern. of course, as so often, schoenberg has an axe to grind. here he is arguing, against the grain of his age, that brahms was not a traditionalist, but an innovator; brahms’s “non-quadratic” phrasing is, in schoenberg’s eyes, a reflection of his modernity. 67. he almost certainly had access to a copy several years earlier, most likely in the schumanns’ library. 68. “länge und kürze der tonzeichen entspricht der redegemäßen betonung jeder einzelnen sylbe der gesungenen heiligen worte; hienach gestalten sich ungezwungen verschiedene, eigenthümlich gegliederte rhythmische abtheilungen des gesanges” (winterfeld 1834, i, 172). 69. for further information about brahms’s annotations, see hancock 1983, passim. 70. hancock 1983, 162. as hancock notes, brahms did not, however, change the barring in the performing parts; see ibid., 51–52, for details of brahms’s transcription. 71. note, however, the added dynamics mentioned above; these suggest that riemann was reluctant to abandon altogether brahms’s barring. 72. the song appears to have enjoyed great success in the concert-hall; in a letter dated 7 april 1879, georg henschel reports that he had to sing “unüberwindlich” twice in a recent london concert, “and the audience would have preferred to hear it a third time straight away” [“und die leute hätten es am liebsten gleich noch ein drittes mal gehört”]. the song was still in henschel’s repertoire in 1885: in january of that year he performed it in krefeld with brahms himself at the piano (bozarth 2008, 188 and 165). 73. see henschel 1918, 102, for details of how brahms chose to acknowledge his debt to scarlatti. brahms was frequently drawn to scarlatti sonatas; according to kurt hofmann (hofmann 1974, 163), he owned an “original-ausgabe” consisting of 30 scarlatti sonatas, czerny’s edition of 200 sonatas in two volumes (haslinger), nottebohm’s edition of 60 sonatas (breitkopf und härtel), plus various individual copies. for further information on brahms and scarlatti, see brahms 1907b, 59–60; sams 1972; goebels 1986; and mckay 1989. for a more recent treatment of the subject, with details of a newly discovered copy of scarlatti sonatas commissioned by brahms for clara schumann, see synofzik 2014. 74. the most obvious exception occurs in the reprise of the words “hab ich tausendmal geschworen” (m. 41); however, this is simply a distorted augmentation of the scarlatti phrase, presented in a loose canon for humorous effect. 75. george s. bozarth goes so far as to claim the song “is the closest [brahms] came to writing a comic opera” (bozarth 2008, 256). 173 martin ennis 76. brodbeck 1994 highlights the role that cyphers may have played in “personal works” by brahms in a minor (69–70). 77. compare the earlier discussion of the phrase extension in the f major string quintet; here, too, the pitch-class e sounds recurrently on downbeats. in the intermezzo, the pitch-circling round e continues when the relative major in tonicized; see the treble of mm. 15–16. note also the highlighted tenor voice in mm. 35–36 (first-time bracket) which, in the context of c major, nevertheless features a chromatic approach to e. 78. here, as elsewhere, the discussion of metrical rearrangements is based on perspectives informed by the baroque treatises studied by brahms; in these sources, as we have seen, a binary division between “good” and “bad” beats is fundamental to the analysis of meter, and a reversal of pattern is usually to be interpreted as a transgression against the established order. 79. this statement is based on the responses of those who attended colloquia in cambridge, hong kong, auckland and wellington in which earlier versions of this paper were presented. in this context we might recall brahms’s advice to henschel and others about placing dissonances on strong beats. while brahms appears to have been alluding in such cases to suspensions, one could argue that the same principle applies to a chord that is “dissonant” within a prolongation. 80. brahms 1917, 91–92; see also kalbeck 1904–14, iii, 195–96. 81. at least one of the op. 76 pieces appears to reference directly music by schumann: the capriccio, op. 76 no. 2, shares key, meter and bass-line with schumann’s davidsbündlertanz, op. 6 no. 12. see brahms 1907a, 79–81, for details of elisabet von herzogenberg’s unusual response to the a minor intermezzo. 82. literally, “what is permitted to jove is not permitted to the ox.” one is reminded here of bruckner’s admonition to his pupils: “look, gentlemen, that’s the rule; of course, i don’t compose that way.” [“segn’s, mein’ herrn, dass ist die regl, i schreib’ natirli not a so.”]; german text quoted in schenker 1954, 177. see dubiel 1990 for a spirited exploration, focusing on beethoven, of the tensions between theory and free composition. 83. it is not entirely clear that eichendorff invented the epithet. however, in the absence of earlier citations, we may reasonably assume that the phrase was coined for use in aus dem leben eines taugenichts. the context in which the phrase occurs will surely have been of particular interest to brahms: it appears in the middle of a discussion about a “waldhornist” (brahms was a waldhorn enthusiast). 84. kalbeck 1904–14, i, 281. in a story about his 1853 concert tour with eduard remenyi, brahms described a situation reminiscent of episodes in aus dem leben eines taugenichts as “pure eichendorff!” [“der reine eichendorff!”] (heuberger 1976, 53). i am grateful to reuben phillips for directing me to this. further information about brahms and aus dem leben can be found in lütteken 2009, 31–33. for more on brahms’s library and his literary interests, see phillips 2019; here, phillips makes a persuasive case for brahms as an autodidact in matters literary. 85. exceptions can be found in the fugue in a flat minor for organ, woo. 8, and the chorale prelude and fugue on “o traurigkeit, o herzeleid,” woo. 7; these were published in 1864 and 1882 but date back to the 1850s. 86. “damit man hinter den gesangsgeist komme” (quoted in kross 1958, 52). 87. brahms appears to have regarded bruckner’s studies as an abject failure. comparing him with the long-forgotten composer felix draeseke, brahms remarked: “the two gentle174 current musicology men have in common that they both studied very little” [“gemeinsam ist den zwei herren, daß beide wenig gelernt haben”] (heuberger 1976, 136). and when bruckner was awarded an honorary doctorate, brahms’s scorn knew no bounds: “that a totally uneducated man is made a doctor—that’s pretty strong” [“daß man einen total ungebildeten menschen zum doktor macht, das ist eigentlich ziemlich stark”] (heuberger 1976, 49). 88. for a useful survey of some of the binaries encountered in this field, see floros 1980. 89. henschel 1907, 22–23; the conversation took place in 1876. 90. “wenn geniale erfindungskraft ein geschenk der gütigen natur ist, so ist die kunst nur ein mit mühe und arbeit errungener besitz; die kraft mit ungewöhnlicher anstrengung zu arbeiten ohne zu ermüden, und die arbeit fruchtbar zu machen, ist ebenfalls ein vorrecht des genies. man thut mozart unrecht, wenn man ihm den ruhm des treuesten und gewissenhaften fleißes schmälert, um das staunen der unverständigen zu erhöhen; die vollkommene schönheit des vollendeten kunstwerks ist kein beweis dafür, daß es keine arbeit gekostet habe, dasselbe zu stande zu bringen, sondern nur dafür, daß sie gelungen sei.” quoted from jahn 1856–59 in sandberger 2009, 146. wolfgang sandberger appears to have been the first to draw a connection between the henschel and jahn texts; see sandberger 2006, 9–10. 91. “the best teachers are to be found among old village cantors” [“die besten lehrer findet man unter den alten kantoren auf den dörfern”] (jenner 1912, 83). in jenner’s 1905 account of studying with brahms, he focused explicitly on counterpoint: “first look out a teacher who can instruct you in strict counterpoint; the best are found among old village cantors. .  .  . it’s absolutely necessary to view the world for a decent period through these glasses” [“zunächst suchen sie sich einen lehrer, der sie im strengen contrapunkt unterrichtet; die besten findet man unter den alten kantoren auf den dörfern. . . . es ist unbedingt nötig, dass man die welt eine gute zeit lang durch diese brille sieht”] (jenner 1905, 13). 92. “es war eine zeit, in der ich noch recht chaotisch schwärmte” (brahms 1912a, 92). 93. “wir haben die bibel auswendig gelernt, ohne etwas davon zu verstehen. geht einem dann später ein licht auf, so hat man bereits das ganze material, das dann plötzlich lebendig wird. ich war als bub auch stets schwärmerisch und duselig. gott sei dank hat sich aber keiner meiner lehrer darum geschert. . . . das kind kann nicht alles verstehen, was es lernen muß” (heuberger 1976, 34); the account dates from 1887. 94. for differing interpretations of brahms’s early life, see avins 2001, swafford 2001, desai 2003, avins 2015 and mcmanus 2019. 95. “vorwiegend söhne von ärzten, höheren beamten, kaufleuten, besitzern größerer läden” (meisner 1977, 90). according to helmut wirth’s preface to this volume of brahmsstudien, meisner’s article first appeared in august 1915 in the mitteilungen des vereins für hamburgische geschichte, vol. 12. 96. “so ist fast alles, was kalbeck über brahms schulzeit konstruiert und zu erzählen weiß, hinfällig” (meisner 1977, 94). styra avins suggests that brahms’s reluctance to engage with biographers was a major factor in the perpetuating of misrepresentations. however, her focus is more on what she terms a “poverty myth” than on brahms’s education; furthermore, she is inclined to blame kalbeck rather than brahms himself for the development of a “classic story by which genius overcomes adversity” (avins 2015, 197). more recently, laurie mcmanus has argued that cultural-intellectual contexts in late nineteenth-century vienna may have influenced brahms’s attempts to shape his own biography (mcmanus 2019). 175 martin ennis 97. “be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the lord. behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” epistle to st james, chapter 5, verse 7 (king james version). references avins, styra. 1997. johannes brahms: life and letters, selected and annotated by styra avins, translations by josef eisinger and styra avins. oxford and new york: oxford university press. ———. 2001. “the young brahms: biographical data re-examined.” 19th-century music 24 (3): 276–89. ———. 2015. “myth in brahms biography, or, what i learned from quantum mechanics.” fontes artis musicae 62 (3): 183–202. behr, johannes. 2009. “brahms als lehrer und gutachter.” in brahms handbuch, edited by wolfgang sandberger, 87–92. stuttgart and weimar: j. b. metzler. bozarth, george s. 2008. johannes brahms & george henschel: an enduring friendship; including a new edition of henschel’s personal recollections of johannes brahms. detroit monographs in musicology / studies in music 52. sterling heights, mi: harmonie park press. brahms, johannes. 1907a. johannes brahms im briefwechsel mit 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heutigen tonkunst in diesem und dem folgenden jahrhunderte, zumal in der venedischen tonschule, 3 vols. berlin: schlesinger’sche buchund musikhandlung. ———. 1845. der evangelische kirchengesang und sein verhältnis zur kunst des tonsatzes. leipzig: breitkopf und härtel. zeleny, walter. 1979. die historischen grundlagen des theoriesystems von simon sechter. wiener veröffentlichungen zur musikwissenschaft 10. tutzing: hans schneider. current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 churchill. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 knapp. raymond. 2018. making light: haydn, musical camp, and the long shadow of german idealism. durham: duke university press. reviewed by jon churchill a rich and timely study, raymond knapp’s making light: haydn, musical camp, and the long shadow of german idealism bridges the work of haydn and new world vernacular musics against the backdrop of german idealism’s durable influence. knapp engages musical scores and abstract theoretical frameworks alike, and their dynamic cooperation illuminates overlooked features of, and similarities between, popular genres and the art music canon. this monograph offers a rich complement to the edited volume music & camp (moore and purvis 2018), though making light’s unique aims and investigative depth require appreciation on their own terms. the volume first establishes the genesis of german idealism and the scope of its influence, which it accomplishes with lucid concision. in knapp’s formulation, music’s divorce from its social groundings in the late eighteenth century yielded an environment ripe for the emergence of idealist thought. beginning with the kantian paradigm adopted by the weimar-jena intelligentsia, the author traces the rise of german idealism and its conception of music as a sort of categorical imperative. in its examination of 18th and 19th-century german musico-intellectual history, making light occupies a similar investigative space as berthold hoeckner’s programming the absolute (2002), melanie lowe’s pleasure and meaning in the classical symphony (2007), and mark evan bonds’ music as thought and absolute music (2015) (knapp 2018, 295). however, knapp does not dwell in german traditions. he seeks to understand the consequences of german idealism, especially as expressed outside the german-speaking world (296). having outlined music’s emergence as the art form par excellence, making light relates the shifting conceptions of music to contemporary nationalist currents. engaging most heavily with fredrich schiller and johan gottfried herder’s theorizations, knapp states that music—with its newfound status as a means of idealist expression—could place an individual in dialogue with larger entities, including the state and national consciousness (25). public genres, which included the symphony, oratorio, 10 current musicology concerto, and opera, were especially adept at effecting such a communion. with this expansion into nationalism, german idealism continued its musico-cultural entrenchment. while this abstract discussion could have been transacted in broad theoretical terms, more tangible issues anchor knapp’s consideration of german idealism’s sedimentation in wider cultural and intellectual currents. overlooked issues such as the rise of public concerts and even audiences’ location within concert halls provide a refreshing foil to the density of intellectual histories. furthermore, they inspire a reconsideration of listeners’ roles in solidifying the influence of german idealism. against this intertwined background of idealism and nationalism, haydn emerges as an aristotelian entertainer who engages his audiences through the musical surface. this decidedly social approach challenges the core of the german idealist project, collapsing the distance between the subject and the infinite through inward contemplation (78). rather than concerning himself with the infinite, haydn connects with audiences through formal and syntactical manipulation. knapp perceptively encapsulates this interpersonal dynamic as an “interactive dimension that involves not only...interplay with the other performers but also a heightened difference in perspective between the performers and any listeners who might be present” (53). he concludes that haydn’s works, and especially his chamber music, “‘entertains’ more according to the word’s historical derivation (‘to hold mutually’) than according to modern usage (‘to engage’)” (53). turning to haydn’s symphonies, chapter two introduces the composer’s “dynamic of accommodation,” which combines with tone to challenge german idealism’s expressive norms. this dynamic concerns musical elements at odds with features of musical order. despite localized differences, listeners still assume that these composed irregularities will eventually align with the argument of the larger work (53-54). tone, meanwhile, refers to the interplay of “dramatic” and “musical” narrative modes, where dramatic narrativity consists of the arrangement of performed musical events. musical narrativity concerns the work’s engagements with musical convention (55). such methodological passages demand careful readings, but they provide invigorating lenses with which to appreciate established repertoires. knapp then applies this bipartite framework to symphony no. 100 (“military”), considering the interaction of dramatic and musical narrativity and their relation to the symphony’s janissary topic. semiotic analyses of haydn appear throughout the scholarly literature, but knapp’s narrative contributions yield an especially dynamic appreciation of the symphony. 11 jon churchill the author notes that comic exaggeration causes a disjunction between narrative and tone, or the steady intrusion of the janissary topic versus its lighthearted presentation. despite this opposition, knapp concludes that any friction between tone and narrative must eventually favor tone. to that end, the final resurgences of janissary music index a coexistence between turk and european (76). chapter three turns to the composer’s later string quartets, specifically intricacies of their “social dynamic...and the subtle alteration of [that] dynamic that began to appear...soon after” (103). the chapter’s opening frames the social dynamic of haydn’s quartets in terms of an inside/outside binary, with special attention to the musical interaction of the four quartet players. knapp does not suggest a simple scenario in which the performers present material for listeners’ appreciation, however. instead, he proposes that the musicians establish distance between themselves and the audience. they also react separately to the music, which allows the audience to discover musical intricacies for themselves (110). haydn turned this distance to his advantage and manipulated musical convention in a way that allowed the players to “entice and manipulate” their audience (120). the op. 64 quartets receive especially close analyses in terms of this inside/outside dynamic. throughout the discussion of these works, knapp engages specific musical features, like the belated entrance of the ‘lark’ melody in op. 64, no. 5, to articulate his theoretical framework. in this wide-ranging and often challenging project, knapp again affirms a laudable balance between the music as written, listener experience, and the contexts in which the works emerged. more generally, the third chapter interacts especially thoughtfully with theorizations of audience/performer/composer interactions in string quartet performance. though engaging a variety of previous scholarship on the matter, knapp dwells longest on the work of gretchen wheelock (1992) and joseph kerman (1994). in the end, making light strikes a balance between framing the quartet as a genre centered on performers and one reflecting the genre’s broader social condition. its framework allows the separate, but related, audience and ensemble to retain their respective agencies. having investigated the social aspects of haydn’s compositions, knapp then explores the means by which sociability was surmounted by a dynamic that “imitated and fostered the demanding intensity of german idealism’s inwardness” (xiv). while beethoven initially mimicked haydn’s musical openness, he later amplified the quartet’s tendency for interiority. brahms and bartók would later build upon beethoven’s advancements through rhythmic complication and localized disjunctions, respectively (120). 12 current musicology in beethoven’s op. 18 no. 6, knapp explains, the scherzo is impossible for the audience to comprehend from their “outside” position, due to a severe rhythmic disjunction between the cello and upper voices. these complications also require significant attention to perform, turning the individual performers inward and further distancing them from each other and the audience (120). making light’s exploration of quartet inwardness here adds a new—and more localized—appreciation of beethoven’s interiority, which is often inextricably linked with his “late period” despite the underlying problematics of the three-period model. the following explorations of brahms’ and bartok’s quartets deserve a special note, however, as they link aesthetic yields to technical features and thoroughly account for the features of a work within its cultural context. while post-haydn quartets embraced and amplified the tendency toward idealist interiority, new world genres such as minstrelsy and theatrical camp often challenged such inwardness. in chapter four, knapp asserts that camp tastes in these idioms emerged from their challenges to german idealism’s paradigms, though such defiance cooled as popular styles courted authenticity. while the author makes a substantial contribution to the already robust haydn literature, these final chapters are especially thought-provoking. beyond investigating the overlooked camp sensibilities of popular genres, knapp suggests an intriguing link between art music and popular music, long viewed as discrete entities. in this way, his project extends steven baur’s (2001) explorations of the popular/art music divide in 19th-century america. he begins by detailing minstrelsy’s rebellion against german idealism, which, like haydn’s music, is rooted in its social tendencies and emphasis on surface phenomena. its accessible façade requires no interpretation by the audience, and digestibility replaces the idealist paradigm’s focus on listener contemplation as a gateway to greater truths. onstage, minstrelsy’s resistance emerges from the performers’ arrangement: the emcee figure (“mr. interlocutor”) stands at the center of a long, curved “lineup” bookended by two percussionists. whereas the interlocutor represents authority, the so-called “end men” constantly undermine him as the ensemble presents spoofs of canonic works (144-145). while minstrelsy is commonly, and rightfully, decried as racially insensitive by modern standards, knapp does not dwell on well-rehearsed critiques. he provides a fresh appraisal of a fraught but culturally significant genre as theorized and practiced. camp’s resistance is less overt, as it often lacks the performative strictures of minstrelsy. like minstrelsy, however, it emphasizes surface elements and frames interpretation as something inauthentic and “put on” (142-143). knapp identifies two main camp traditions: one rooted in the 13 jon churchill “persona and aesthetic predilections of oscar wilde” and the other based in depictions of pirates, especially those in operetta (165). several subtypes exist (high, unintentional, intentional, etc.), however, and the author’s discussion of their intricacies greatly enriches the conceptual vocabulary for future research. at some point in this chapter, a concise primer on camp would have benefited those unfamiliar with the concept. readers will be able to follow the text’s arguments regardless, but some may find themselves overwhelmed as the monograph quickly delves into camp’s minutiae. a study of pirate camp concludes the chapter, with a special focus on gilbert and sullivan’s the pirates of penzance (1879) and vincente minelli’s the pirate (1942). knapp’s examination continues to use the earlier inside/ outside dichotomy, and casts pirate camp as an amplification of the blatantly artificial (“outside”) that diverts from the work’s essential features (“inside”). this superficiality arises from a “flamboyant...version of masculinity through makeup, dressing up, acting up, and otherwise indulging the theatrical,” (210). in the end, however, pirate camp draws attention to the work’s significant core. the pirates in penzance, for example, are eventually unmasked as “noblemen who have gone wrong”—they are simply “playing at pirates” (211). with this fact exposed, the camp element of piracy is revealed to be woven into the story. true to the author’s framework, it becomes content and surface alike. taking pirate camp as a starting point, the author concludes that operetta and musicals are essentially camp, as their underlying dramatic content chooses theatricality over existing reality (216). knapp’s appreciation of camp elements in operetta contribute a valuable new perspective to gilbert and sullivan studies, even those works without pirates at their center. his project complements the more concrete aspects of other examinations, including robert fink’s (1990) influential “rhythm and text setting in ‘‘the mikado.’” theatrical music provided a basis for american 20th-century popular genres, and it used its camp elements to challenge german idealism’s focus on interiority. more specifically, it “celebrat[ed] the human through humor and shared predilections and prejudices” (218). while such sociability brought popular music into the lives of everyday people, popularity came at the expense of respectability. chapter five explores the attempts to rehabilitate such popular music as “authentic,” a process that involved a distancing of vernacular genres from their social roots. knapp notes that musical authenticity typically involves connections to larger conditions and self-expressivity (251) but is buoyed by sincerity and serious intention. throughout the chapter, then, the author illustrates how authentic, sincere, and serious popular music 14 current musicology emphasizes its creator’s inner vitality and therefore aligns more closely with german idealist paradigms (223). in addition, knapp claims that such elevated idioms make for better study in the academy. advocates for genres without such overt aspirations—perhaps punk and hip-hop—may take exception to this last point, though it still encapsulates a broad scholarly tendency in new terms. in service of the fifth chapter’s larger aims, making light investigates two sub-areas of popular music’s striving for authenticity. he first traces the roots of authenticity itself, citing marshall berman’s claim in the politics of authenticity (1970) that authenticity’s political goals originated in the enlightenment-era foregrounding of individual freedoms. such thought naturally led to an emphasis on individuality, a feature more in line with art music’s romanticism, german idealism, and substantial popular genres. knapp recognizes that the politically charged popular music of the 1960s gained authenticity through the same means (224) and acknowledges the mutual utility of frameworks for understanding the two musical idioms. the second investigation concerns the performance of “covers,” which according to 19th-century sensibilities constituted a merger of subjectivities between the composer and player. this fusion was emphasized by the performer’s stoicism, a sort of anti-theatrical pose that was actually theatrical in itself (226). when faced with such a description, readers cannot help but understand this performance practice as campy, given the text’s earlier descriptions of camp’s “put on” and theatrical elements. while focused on 19th-century repertoire, knapp’s discussion of covers will surely inspire a reconsideration of their role in popular music and performance conventions more broadly. with these three investigative foci—the rehabilitation of popular music, the intellectual history of authenticity, and the performance of covers—the fifth chapter stands as the densest and farthest-reaching portion of the text. in it, knapp also examines authenticity relative to large ideas of sincerity and serious intent, categories of kultur and zivilisation, and the relationship of the individual to society. knapp’s discussion of authenticity in jazz and the several “fault lines” around it (genre, gender, class) stands out as especially provocative and sure to inspire further interest. for these diverse examinations and their depth, readers will likely count this chapter’s explorations of intersecting cultural currents among the monograph’s most challenging portions. the sixth and final chapter examines the ethical implications of german idealism’s “formidable incursion into musical esthetics...” (253), but also serves as an exceptionally lucid recapitulation. a review of high camp’s tenets begins the chapter and highlights its potential manifestation 15 jon churchill as aesthetic failure. such failure may appear as discrepancies in tone or sensibility, as when a work makes light of serious subject matter or vice versa. such is the case of “springtime for hitler” in mel brooks’ the producers (1967), the subject of the volume’s culminating analysis. knapp applies the concepts accrued throughout the book to a thorough assessment of “springtime for hitler,” which perceptively includes the audience and resultant social dynamic in its appreciation of the song’s high camp. knapp concludes that, while haydn’s symphonies and quartets do not fit directly into histories of high camp, his music shares many of its aesthetic features (263). its inside/outside dynamic prefigures camp’s tiers of receptive environments and haydn’s privileging of surface detail is also common in camp expressions. additionally, both haydn and camp “insist... on a perspective broad enough to encompass both laughter and seriousness...as appropriate responses to music” (265). haydn disappears from the monograph for stretches of time, somewhat surprisingly re-emerging in these final pages, and his music could ostensibly be used to illustrate camp concepts more regularly. still, knapp’s final syntheses bring the monograph to a satisfying conclusion, and the titular composer’s occasional disappearance is more a byproduct of the text’s breadth. incorporating passages of tremendous critical theoretical depth and analyses of musical features, making light considers instrumental music, musical theatre, and film from various and often provocative perspectives. its smaller sub-studies require considerable intellectual engagement, but greatly enrich the monograph’s grand narrative, itself notable for its perceptive exploration of a once-liminal space between musical traditions. in sum, readers interested in fresh approaches to haydn’s catalogue or camp in american musical culture will find making light an intriguing study of marginalized musical features across canonic boundaries. references baur, steven. 2001. “’let me make the ballads of a nation and i care not who makes its laws’: music, culture, and social politics in the united states, c. 1860-1890.” ph.d. diss., university of california, los angeles. berman, marshall. 1970. the politics of authenticity: radical individualism and the emergence of modern society. new york: atheneum. bonds, mark evan. 2014. absolute music: the history of an idea. oxford: oxford university press. _________. 2006. music as thought: listening to the symphony in the age of beethoven. princeton: princeton university press. fink, robert. “rhythm and text setting in ‘the mikado.” 19th-century music 14, no. 1 (summer 1990): 31-47. hoeckner, berthold. 2002. programming the absolute: nineteenth-century german music and the hermeneutics of the moment. princeton: princeton university press. 16 current musicology kerman, joseph. 1994. “beethoven quartet audiences: actual, potential, ideal.” in the beethoven quartet companion, edited by robert winter and robert martin, 6-27. berkeley: university of california press. knapp, raymond. 2005. the american musical and the foundation of national identity. princeton: princeton university press. lowe, melanie. 2007. pleasure and meaning in the classical symphony. bloomington: indiana university press. moore, christopher, and philip purvis, eds. 2018. music & camp. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. wheelock, gretchen. 1992. haydn’s ingenious jesting with art: contexts of musical wit and humor. new york: schirmer books. current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 lee. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 69 dialectics of debate: reflections on three pedagogical scenes in chinese music history gavin lee scene 1: high school politics the first impression i had of high school education in china was one of pleasant surprise. chinese students apparently learn about “dialectics”; but i quickly discovered that there is a slippery slope connecting dialectics, marxist theory, and “politics”—a high school subject, and communist party dogma. it is within this context that what we might call the western liberal notion of pedagogy, as embodied in abraham maslow’s concept of self-actualization (more below), is revealed to be impossible. there is a cap placed on chinese students’ ability to reach their full potential, including the development of an individual point of view, as indoctrination forms a core part of their education; this is the case especially in the specific moments when educators are required to transmit the unshakable dogma that the communist party of china is always right. in the chinese classroom, emphasis is placed on students adopting the “correct” line of thought as established by the party, closing off space for legitimate critique of the government. a different, didactic definition of pedagogy applies in this context. for postcolonial theorist homi k. bhabha, “pedagogy” is the means by which majoritarian ideological forces seek to perpetuate a homogenous definition of the nation. minoritarian forces, on the other hand, disrupt such pedagogy with performative acts: “the discourses of minorities, the heterogeneous histories of contending peoples, antagonistic authorities and the locations of cultural difference” (bhabha 1994, 212). pedagogy represents a hegemonic force which ensures discursive discipline by fixing the referent of “nation” as a homogeneous entity, while the performative acts of diverse peoples diffuse the singular nation into its constituent differences. although china officially promotes (its own definition of) “democracy” as one of the twelve core socialist values crafted in 2012, the government censors political and social discourse to enforce the party line, exerting a homogenizing effect. against this totalized backdrop, how do performative acts of the people give rise to diversity and heterogeneity? although bhabha is writing from outside of educational philosophy 70 current musicology and his deployment of “pedagogy” is primarily metaphoric and rhetorical, the bhabha-ian conception of pedagogy (as instrumentalized by the state) is precisely what is applied in classroom indoctrination, which is widely known among chinese students as xinao, or “brainwashing.” much current thinking in education opposes bhabha’s rhetorical conception of “pedagogy,” but this notion of the ideological entrainment of the mind and body encapsulates everyday educational practice in china. bhabhaian pedagogy thus serves the function of providing a target for critics who wish to explore alternative routes than homogenization. put differently, in relation to the narrow sense of the party’s supremacy, the only way in which the word “pedagogy” has any meaning is in bhabha’s sense: pedagogy as propagation of the notion of a homogenous nation loyal to and helmed by the single party that legitimizes its rule precisely by purporting to maintain that homogeneity at all expenses—uyghur, tibetan, or otherwise. in the ensuing two scenes, i will take us through the manifestations of bhabha-ian pedagogy in a video excerpt from a period chinese drama serial set in the mythologized zhou dynasty (1046–221 bc), as well as in an extract from the ancient confucian text on music, yueji. both the video excerpt and textual extract are materials i have used in my own classroom in a music conservatory in china. i will demonstrate how the homogenizing “pedagogy” inherent in these materials can be countered in performative acts of defiance that produce “discursive ambivalence that emerges in the contest of narrative authority” (bhabha 1994, 212). performativity allows students to self-actualize, enacting a different kind of pedagogy which embraces abraham maslow’s hierarchy of needs (maslow 1943). with the lower physical and emotional tiers of maslow’s hierarchy fulfilled (food, shelter, and safety; love and esteem), the educational aim is to create an environment for students to reach the highest plane of psychological development—self-actualization, wherein they embody the desire to pursue the development of skills, goals, and worldviews. scene 2: from the chinese drama serial, ze tian ji bhabha-ian pedagogy is manifest in multiple period chinese drama serials, or guzhuang xi, in which the primacy of the state is articulated in either its survival in the face of external enemies, or the incremental process of unifying a multitude of independent chinese kingdoms into a nation (accomplished by 221 bc). these period dramas often feature music as a vehicle of “magic,” which is congruent with the ancient chinese philosophy of music, in which music is a means of both communicating with ancestors and bringing about cosmic harmony between outer and “inner” nature—man as himself a part of nature. (“magic” is broadly defined here 71 gavin lee as referring to music’s purported spirit-realm or cosmological function.) music is often deployed in fantastical ways in the period dramas, and this notion of music as transcending material limits to reach the spirit and cosmic realms has ancient philosophical roots. in the drama serial ze tian ji (“fighter of the destiny” or “revolting against heaven”)—set in the context of the chinese zhou dynasty (1046–221 bc) but translated to the mythical setting of a celestial court—the viewpoint of one of the central characters, in my first-person summary below, elucidates how music can reveal what is hidden from sight by magic: my name is longevity, but i was born with a health condition which means that i will die young. having decided to revolt against my fate, i left the secluded spot where i grew up with my master-teacher and another disciple older than me, my disciple-brother. my search for a way to extend my life led me to seek out a key or yaoshi together with my beloved, xu yourong, the phoenix spirit. the key is supposed to open the gate to the national institute which trains warriors of heaven. i find the spot where the key is supposed to be hidden but it is nowhere to be seen. in order to reveal the position of the key, i play my guqin zither. when it appears, the key turns out to be a flower, which is when i realize that the so-called yaoshi is actually yao (which means “medicine”) in the form of the flower. yaoshi turns out to be a play on words. the above is but one of the multiple scenarios in which music plays a critical role in ze tian ji; at other points in the plot, music served as a code (the tones of the melody corresponded to the correct height which books in a sequence must be arranged in, in order to unlock a hidden compartment), and to illuminate a mystical, philosophical principle. the story unfolds with longevity as a young adult with a hidden past. in a flashback, it is revealed to us that longevity’s parents are the emperor and empress of the celestial zhou court. told that their child would bring about the downfall of the current emperor, the royal couple had sent their son away to a remote village. by the time longevity went searching for a way to change his fate, the emperor had passed away and the empress was the ruler, who eventually became intoxicated by the cosmological constellation of stars which powers the defense system protecting the celestial court. though she progressively came under the control of the star constellation and was increasingly ruthless, the empress, having learnt of longevity’s identity, gave up all of her power to prolong the life of the person who she thought was her son. but in a further twist, we find out that the empress’s long-lost son is actually longevity’s disciple-brother. upon the empress’s death, the disciple-brother became the ruler of the celestial court. although one of the main threads of the storyline is the romantic 72 current musicology relationship between longevity and phoenix, the underlying plot can be understood as the continuity of the hereditary rulers of the mythologized zhou dynasty, from the empress to her real son, who is absent from almost all of the fifty-six episodes, appearing only at the beginning and end of the long arch of the story. the real son is thus clearly a placeholder for the authority of the throne and an embodiment of the primacy of the state, whereas longevity is the central protagonist who undergoes the trials and tribulations involved in revolting against the fate conferred upon him by heaven. while the continuation of the mythical zhou dynasty reflects bhabha-ian pedagogy, the character of longevity, who escapes the celestial order which he was supposed to helm as the (wrongly) presumed son of the empress, introduces some ambivalence. longevity self-actualizes his namesake by successfully defeating a destiny and finding his own path with phoenix, circumventing both of his fates as the short-lived invalid and as eventual emperor. music was a critical vehicle of magic in one of the many obstacles in the path leading to this self-actualization, when longevity used his zither to discover the hidden key. the topic of music’s magical powers (in relation to, for example, communication with ancestors and cosmic harmony) in ancient chinese music philosophy is rather dry for the undergraduate conservatory students i teach, all of whom major in performance on western instruments. while there is the difficulty inherent in teaching chinese music to students who prefer western music, the problem is exacerbated by the highly conceptual, abstract nature of chinese philosophy of music, comprising several schools of thought. for example, in relation to state ritual or sacrificial music (paying respect to ancestors who protect the living), students encounter the notion of “music” as a form of contact between physically remote objects which share similar characteristics, manifest as, for example, sympathetic resonance (strings which are physically non-contiguous nevertheless exert force on one another). this abstraction is further compounded by the lack of actual music preserved from the later part of the zhou dynasty, when the various philosophies were formulated. video clips demonstrating the magical power of music—even if these clips embody contemporary film scriptwriters’s and composers’s imagination of ancient music (as in ze tian ji)—thus have an important function of illuminating philosophical concepts in audiovisual form, which is far more appealing to the students in my class than abstract discussion; longevity’s use of music to unveil the key in ze tian ji demonstrates music’s magical power in an immediately comprehendible way. what i particularly like about the video excerpt discussed above is that music in that scene is a magical vehicle for longevity’s meandering path 73 gavin lee towards individual self-actualization, whereas magic as a whole within the celestial court is what guarantees the symbolic continuation of the mythologized zhou dynasty and the imagined chinese nation. in other words, music accommodates the unfolding of a life story which counters the overarching narrative: longevity’s self-actualization leads to a path away from the throne as a guarantor of the celestial order, even though that order ultimately prevails. recapitulating bhabha, “the agency of a people .  .  . is split in the discursive ambivalence that emerges in the contest of narrative authority between the pedagogical [propagation of the mythologized zhou dynasty] and the performative [longevity’s self-actualization]” (bhabha 1994, 212). scene 3: yueji, ancient treatise on chinese music philosophy the most important ancient treatise on music philosophy, yueji (c. 33 bc), was written by liu de in the han dynasty and serves as a record of confucian thinking on music, or yue, in the centuries following the philosopher’s lifetime (c. 500 bc). yueji expresses the confucian notion that social order is to be maintained via a humane ruler who is responsible to his subjects (as opposed to a dictator drunk on power). this social order is maintained in part through li, or “ritual,” broadly defined as the judicious cultivation and exercise of forms of propriety (e.g., ways of bowing) in accordance with one’s social position, such that social intercourse may be conducted without causing offence and conflict; yueji is the nineteenth chapter of a longer text on li, titled liji. the confucian conception of music accords with this vision in that music is deemed to have the power to bring about the harmonious sounding of the difference between social classes that is articulated in li. in other words, whereas ritual divides, music unites. “if the deportment of ritual is established, then the noble and the plebeian are separated into classes. when the patterns of music are uniform, then those in high position and those in low position get along in harmony” (cook 1995, 42). the ancient conception of music and li in yueji was intended to ensure the continuation of the sociopolitical status quo. at the time of the writing of yueji, china had existed as a unified nation for a period of slightly less than two centuries. in this context, music in yueji was meant to maintain stability in a society of strictly divided classes, at a time when there was next to no social mobility, and the emperor exercised absolute power (which confucius attempted to constrain through the notion, mentioned above, that an honorable ruler must be responsible to his subjects). yueji, then, is a small part of a sprawling cultural apparatus—a social pedagogy in the bhabha-ian sense—designed to maintain both the homogeneity of 74 current musicology the reach of power throughout the social classes, as well as the homogeneity of the relatively newly founded chinese nation. homogeneity, in this particular context, refers both to the homogenizing exercise of power, as well as to the homogeneous outcome of the exercise of power. as a form of bhabha-ian pedagogy, music “homogenizes” the heterogeneity of social classes into the harmony of the nation.1 pondering the dialectics of homogeneity and heterogeneity—music and li, division and unification—i realized that i had to find an accessible way for students to engage with this material. unlike the topic of music’s magical powers (which i elucidated with video excerpts from period chinese drama serials), the conceptual apparatus of music-li could not be easily represented in moving images. thus, i came up with the idea for students to debate the motion, “ancient music philosophy remains relevant today.” from my experience, debates are a great way for students to engage with conceptual material because the separation into the pro and against teams ensures that there are at a very minimum two points of view on the subject of the day. students sometimes get heated in their debates because of the opportunity to rebut each other, which means that they continue to think about music philosophy outside the classroom. a general summary of the debate on the above motion (the contemporary relevance of ancient music philosophy) will suffice to give an indication of the impact of the classroom discussion in relation to bhabha-ian/ maslowian pedagogy. on the one hand, students on the pro team pointed out the centrality of the concept of “harmony” (brought about by music), which has persisted in confucian philosophy throughout the ages and is part of the vernacular vocabulary of contemporary chinese society. on the other hand, students on the against team, without any prompting from me, or explanation of the power dynamics inherent in yueji, argued that the philosophy of ancient china was formulated as an instrument of rulers of the day who used philosophy and culture to consolidate their dominance— a take away from high school lessons in chinese history. from this latter point of view, the ancient, instrumental notion of music as harmonious is remote from the contemporary vernacular understanding of music as a largely non-political avenue for leisure and means for relaxing (a notion to be decidedly problematized in a different lesson). and yet—returning to the pro team—the notion of music as a tool of social cohesion is reflected today in, for example, the chinese national anthem, which shows that traces of ancient thinking (on music as social symbol) may resonate today in a delimited way. in the debate, various lines of argument expressed bhabha-ian pedagogy—music as a means for achieving social harmony and cohesion. in 75 gavin lee addition, arguments that highlight the congruence of ancient and contemporary thinking reinforce the oft repeated factoid of “5000 years” of chinese civilization (there are no records of the mythical first xia dynasty [c. 22nd to 18th centuries bc] from that time period), which resonates with the propagation of the mythical zhou dynasty in ze tian ji. on the other hand, the debate—through the temporal leap from the zhou dynasty to the present—creates a space for performative acts through which students can articulate and self-actualize their contemporary musicality without being trapped in historical context and in the homogeneity inherent in ancient philosophy. students appropriated some of the lessons learnt in high school chinese history, revealing the tangents which efforts at indoctrination inevitably lead to. while party loyalty is primary in high school politics and history, the party stance of being the successor to the chinese dynasties of the past means that party discourse includes language critical of ancient power structures. this critical apparatus enabled students to quickly see through the ideological aspects of ancient music philosophy and sets the stage for the performance and actualization of a heterogeneity that cracks open the ideological uniformity of party discourse. i encourage students to articulate this heterogeneity by drawing on their own understanding and musical experience as students and listeners. using points brought up by students in the debate, i conclude the lesson by weaving their arguments into the dialectical relationship of past and present, ancient and contemporary. this relation is characterized not by absolute difference or similarity, but a form of difference in which key similarities may be discerned—or a form of similarity in which key differences may be discerned: music may serve as a symbol of a united society in two different times, but the social structures (monarchial vs. communist rule) have radically changed. extending from my belief that there are at least two sides to an argument, my pedagogy is not fixated on either homogeneity or heterogeneity, or similarities or differences, but on the relation not just between these two sets of terms, but any set of opposed concepts. i like to think that debating, a crude form of dialectics, might encourage students to dust off their memories of high school lessons, shedding some light onto the philosophical force exemplified in marx’s own dialectical writings. notes 1. i do not mean to imply that heterogeneity cannot become an instrument of power—this can be seen observed in legislation on multicultural representation in media, which does not address socioeconomic inequalities but helps multiculturally-oriented politicians to garner support from progressive voters. the deployment of heterogeneity to counter ho76 current musicology mogeneity should be regarded as a tactic specific to the particular context which my essay addresses. see melamed 2011. references bhabha, homi k. 1994. the location of culture. new york: routledge. cook, scott. 1995. “yue ji—record of music: introduction, translation, notes, and commentary.” asian music 26 (2): 1–96. maslow, abraham. 1943. “a theory of human motivation.” psychological review 50 (4): 370–96. melamed, jodi. 2011. represent and destroy: rationalizing violence in the new racial capitalism. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. microsoft word windleburn typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 windleburn. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 197 reviewed by maurice windleburn pianist, composer, and author, paulo de assis’s recent monograph logic of experimentation is the theoretical component of a five-year artistic research program undertaken at the orpheus institute in ghent with his ensemble musicexperiment21. a crucial contribution to artistic research in music – a field predominantly found in europe, the u.k. and australia (sometimes called composition-as-research, practice-based research, or practice-lead research) where the artistic process of composers, performers and sound artists is considered a form of academic enquiry1 – assis’s book argues for a western art music performance-practice that occupies a “space of problematisation, not of representation,” a realm of experimentation that moves beyond mere interpretation (19). logic of experimentation consists of eight chapters, each intended as a sort of prolegomenon for a future book. these chapters deal with a variety of topics and they are heavily indebted to philosophical and transdisciplinary thought. the first part of logic of experimentation provides a new ontology of the musical work, which is perhaps the most salient contribution to the field of music studies found in this book. assis’s unique understanding of the so-called “work concept” was developed while working on an unorthodox performance project raschx: a series of performances built around robert schumann’s krieleriana in which numerous alterations or additions were made to schumann’s work (including recitations of roland barthes’s essays on schumann, the slowing down and rearranging of schumann’s score, electronic accompaniment, musical recordings or film, and the insertion of other historically related piano pieces into the performance). assis criticises previous ontologies of the musical work found in analytical philosophy – particularly those with a platonic or aristotelian grounding – before constructing his own (which is largely based on the ideas of philosopher gilles deleuze and other post-deleuzian thinkers). assis argues that a work is not a single, static entity, but rather an assemblage. these assemblages are made up of “actual things,” which fall into different strata. assis provides a taxonomy of these strata which include (as select examples) substrata – 198 “materials that already existed in the world before the first traits of instantiation of a new piece” – and epistrata – “the first materials that defined the piece and evolve from them in ever-growing circles” (65). the “actual things” that make up these strata conjoin in different ways according to “virtual structures”: diagrams of a work’s possibilities, that outline what it does and what it might become (67). when a musical work is comprehended by an individual or group – as an assemblage arranged in accordance with a certain diagram of possibilities – a particular “image” of the work results. these images are potentially infinite, each making up only one way in which the work can be understood, prioritizing certain strata over others. since this goes against regular orthodoxies of the work concept, assis replaces the term work with work – the latter intended as a verb rather than as a noun. for assis, the work is always a multiplicity, a becoming, or an event, and is in constant flux – it is never a unity, essence, or being. in his second chapter, assis examines how a work can be studied “through concrete performative operations that (re)construct [works] anew every single time one is confronted with them” (72); in other words, through the artistic research of performers. this chapter follows the first in focusing primarily on ideas deleuze developed with philosopher felix guattari, as well as the ideas of their influences and followers. assis explains that strata are heavily coded and territorialized – containing things that are already materially formed and with established traditions of thought through with they are understood – while diagrams are relatively decoded and deterritorialized, for they map the potentials of change in an assemblage and allow ever-new images of a work to emerge. if the book’s first part provides an ontology, its second aims towards an epistemology. assis draws from the ideas of science historian hans-jörg rheinberger, particularly his claim that scientific research should implement “experimental systems.” in rheinberger’s view, scientific research does not merely prove or disprove a hypothesis, but actively creates knowledge through experimentation. the idea of the experimental system allows assis to justify his own approach to artistic research, where the strata of musical works are rearranged into novel orders, leading to the construction of new “things” (such as recordings, performances, essays). these things then become new strata for the work in question, which can be used for future rearrangements and the production of even more “things” (and so on ad infinitum). in this way, assis is concerned with a musical work’s epistemic complexity (a term borrowed from the work of biologist ladislav kováč and philosopher subrata dasgupta) – that is, how strata might enable the future becoming of new things. epistemic 199 complexity stands in contrast to systemic complexity – which involves enquiry into the truth or nature of strata and things (128). in other words, assis wants to know – in typically deleuzian fashion – what a work can do, rather than what it is. part three of assis’s book turns towards the performing body and the act of performance itself. assis adopts philosopher gilbert simondon’s term transduction, which assis defines as the process of “changing one type of energy into another, critically leading to the formation of new and unexpected individuations, which contain emergent properties that were not predetermined in advance” (63). assis uses simondon’s theories to account for how “everything a musician knows and feels about a given musical work” becomes actualized during performance (138). assis follows this with an exploration of roland barthes’s writing on piano playing and his concept of the somatheme: a distinctly musical mode of signification that expresses corporeal desire at a level below (or above) that of directly communicative language (in his description of different somathemes barthes uses gesturally evocative terms like stretching, erect, or beating to categorize musical phrases). assis explicitly links barthes’s idea to its intellectual lineage in the work of julia kristeva (a student of barthes, whose own thought would greatly influence her teacher) and jacques lacan. he organizes concepts developed by these three thinkers into a polarity that effectively has propositional meaning on one side, and what negates or comes before such meaning on the other (symbolic against semiotic, representation against affect, signifier against jouissance). the pre-linguistic meaning of barthes’s somatheme in turn traverses these two realms. assis’s thinking on the somatheme was developed while he was working on raschx, showing how assis’s theoretical considerations are intertwined with his musical practice.2 (assis came across the concept in barthes’s essay on schumann, exploring it further in a book chapter – this research then fed back into his performance project). framed as an ethics, the final part concentrates on the institutional repression and control of western classical musicians. according to assis, classical musicians still tend to be forced into a slave-like position of interpretation – against which assis calls for their emancipation as critical and creative agents. the final chapter provides an understanding of the term “contemporary music,” using friedrich nietzsche’s notion of the “untimely” along with other related concepts from continental philosophy. according to nietzsche, the untimely “act[s] counter to our time and thereby act[s] on our time and, let us hope, for the benefit of a time to come” (204). assis uses this idea 200 to argue for a contemporary music that not only exists in the present but can also offer us a critical evaluation of our own time, looking towards the future. logic of experimentation also includes two interesting appendixes – earlier publications that are included to show the development of assis’s ideas. the first is an argument for moving beyond the idea of the “urtext” edition, in favor of seeing scores as dynamic and ever-changing objects. the second compares the philosophy of deleuze with the compositional aesthetics of helmut lachenmann, noting similarities in their approaches towards the specificity (or “haecceity”) of materials. assis’s book is pivotal for the field of artistic research in music, containing an in-depth transdisciplinary exploration of numerous complex concepts, avoiding the auto-ethnographic solipsism that artistic research studies risk falling into (given that the artist can be both the subject and object of their own research). it is also a well-informed and productive use of deleuze’s ideas and those of other thinkers, some of whom are (to my knowledge) introduced to music studies here for the first time. my sole critique of logic of experimentation is a peripheral one, but it applies to a thread that is woven throughout assis’s book. my main issue lies with the dichotomy assis sets up between artistic research and the disciplines of “music history, music analysis, music theory, historical organology, music philology, and biographical studies,” or in short, musicology (132). assis positions musicology against his brand of artistic research, placing them in a convenient binary opposition, so as to privilege the latter as a more progressive option (a maneuver commonly employed by ethnomusicologists, though recently and thoroughly criticized by stephen amico [2020]). for assis, musicology is conservative, “interpretative,” an ivory tower discipline, interested only in representation and truth; meanwhile, artistic research is progressive, experimental, and absorbed in creating the new (14, 100, 115, 132, 139, 168, 184). assis goes so far as to turn this dichotomy into a master-slave relationship, insinuating that the fixation on interpretation (rather than creation) in musical institutions is the result of certain work “images” being forced onto performers by music critics and historians (190). this is an odd assertion: musicologists often break assumptions about how musical works are supposed to be performed, while pedagogical lineages of performers uphold them.3 assis’s false depiction of musicology may be objectionable on a number of grounds, but more importantly it undermines many of his own key arguments. i will work through these contradictions, deconstructing assis’s text to show that his dismissal of musicology leads him into crucial disagreements with himself. 201 assis’s foremost self-contradiction arises through his use of assemblage theory – which implies a flat ontology where (quoting assis himself) “the actual world is the world of actual things, and all these things have the same ontological status—thus, no hierarchies” (56). despite this assertion (given early on in the book), assis proceeds to regularly privilege performers over musicologists – or, for that matter, over any other actor who might contribute to a work assemblage. although assis may be trying to rectify an imbalance he perceives between musicologists and performers, no real support for the idea that musicologists are currently privileged over performers is given, and at any rate, the rectification of one imbalance by creating another seems counterintuitive.4 indeed, a reverse hierarchy played itself out very clearly in the recent development of a new conservatorium building at a prestigious “research” university in melbourne. partly funded by private sponsors (despite the university’s status as “publicly funded”), and using (rare) funds from a deceased donor’s trust initially intended for musicological research, the new seven story building contains performance spaces, yet no lecture halls; spacious offices for performance and composition staff while musicology professors occupy converted practice rooms in an old, poorly sound-proofed two story building across campus (in a corridor still primarily filled with practice rooms, and the resultant noise). in yet another prestigious “research” university in melbourne, the musicology department has very recently been eradicated altogether. in environments like this, musicology becomes something of a handmaiden to performance (that is, when it manages to survive at all): musicologists are only considered valuable for the expertise they can impart to performers in performance-dominated conservatoriums, and pedagogical methods are often developed with this in mind. assis holds performers up as those who can “emancipate” themselves from their interpretive shackles to become the creative heroes of artistic research. musicologists, meanwhile, are implicitly considered undevelopable – doomed to non-creative lives where they merely “interpret” and “represent.” yet, as assis well knows, deleuzian assemblages contain two axes, each with two poles (81– 84). the horizontal axis has content and expression poles – or, the “machinic assemblage of bodies, of actions and passions, an intermingling of bodies reacting to one another” and the “collective assemblage of enunciation, of acts and statements, of incorporeal transformations attributed to bodies” (deleuze and guattari 1987, 88). meanwhile, the vertical axis contains (re)territorialization and deterritorialization poles: the former of stasis, 202 interpretation, representation and capture, and the latter of movement, experimentation, creativity, and openness (see example 1). there is a good argument that musicologists occupy a space closer to the pole of expression than to that of content in comparison to performers, given that musicologists work primarily with ideas and language while performers use their bodies to create material sounds, but their position on one axis does not determine their position on the other. assis allows performers to be either territorializing agents of interpretation or deterritorializing agents of experimentation (that is, they can move about on the axes). or, put more practically, they can either “faithfully” reiterate a score in a conservative manner, or experiment in the way assis encourages, engendering the new – but he does not appear to allow the same versatility for musicologists. there is no clear reason, however, for assis’s tout court dismissal of a musicologist’s potentially deterritorializing force. there is no clear explanation as to why essays, articles or books could not form new images of a work, as experimental performances do. it would seem to me that musicology has every potential to play a “diagrammatic” function: mapping the flow of changes in a musical assemblage, predicting – or even instantiating – its future states.5 in his insistence on distinguishing artistic researchers from musicologists, assis goes so far as to blatantly contradict his own ontology. when applying rheinberger’s “experimental systems” to music and art, assis stresses that: example 1: the tetravalence of the assemblage after deleuze and guattari, adapted from assis (82). 203 those operating the [experimental] system must be music practitioners, that is to say, not music historians, music sociologists, or music theoreticians. such musicologists can analyze a posteriori what the practitioners did, but the doing itself, the making of artistic research, remains in the first instance in the hands of those doing music not in those observing music from outside. (113) assis argues that experimental systems cannot be practiced by musicologists because they are only “outside observers” of music; in doing so, he implies an ontology that totally contradicts his own assemblage theory. if a musical work is made up of dispersed strata that include musicological discourses (as assis claims), how can musicologists be “outside” the very assemblage they contribute to? in the above quote, assis unintentionally implies an ontology where musical works are primarily the product of a performer: a series of physical sounds that leave a trace that is only “observable” by others (in other words, assis here implies a “work” not a work; that is, something that is pre-determined, static and concrete, rather than something which is flexible and open to change). but, if musical works are dispersed assemblages that contain many actual things (as assis otherwise maintains), then musicologists, by contributing to these assemblages (by writing about them in various ways) are “doing” music and not just observing it. neither physical sound nor subjective experience should have ontological priority in an assemblage theory of music. music generally entails a listener, and in being heard it becomes something other than what it was prior to its hearing (see bonnet 2016). a listener’s “observance” of a musical work consists of, to borrow simondon’s phrase, a transduction of physical sounds into phenomenological data, affects, associations, concepts, etc. – and this transduction may be highly creative. with this said, the listener’s transduction of sound is also often explicitly or implicitly informed by learnt modes of comprehension, and these modes are often sourced (knowingly or not) from musicologists. once the experience of a listener is taken into consideration, it becomes apparent that musicologists contribute to works, just like performers, and that the act of “observation” is itself a type of contribution to the musical assemblage. furthermore, if the listener in question is a musicologist themselves, then the act of listening might transduce itself through yet another creative act – that of writing. this writing might then impact the transductions of other listeners, and so on à la rheinberger’s experimental systems or deleuze and guattari’s desiring machines (processes that are occupied not with the production of some single predetermined thing, but rather “with the production of production itself” [80]). 204 the contradictions described above highlight a certain performercentricity in assis’s thought – one that down-plays the creative potentialities of other actors involved with musical assemblages, like musicologists or listeners. when using philosopher jacques rancière’s idea of the “emancipated spectator” (see rancière 2011), for instance, assis claims that an emancipated spectator “obviously first requires an emancipated performer” (197). but, if the listener can only engage with music in an emancipated manner when it is performed by an emancipated performer, does that not make the listener enchained to the performer’s nature and so not actually emancipated? why does the listener need to worry about the performer’s methods in order to creatively engage with what they are hearing? despite assis’s sophisticated use of assemblage theory, he still at times holds onto the tired notion that music is first and foremost physical sound produced by a performer, failing to give equal priority to the further developments that a work undergoes in a listener’s mind or through a musicologist’s pen. in doing so, assis sustains the very dichotomy between research and artistic practice that he is otherwise trying to dissolve. assis claims to seek: an approach that does not oppose ‘scholarly research’ (of the type presented in the present essay) to ‘artistic work’ (which leads to concrete performances). in place of a dualistic opposition, i see ‘research’ and ‘artistry’ as two parameters, which can have different settings in different moments of the research procedure. (183) assis tries to break down the dichotomy between research and artistic practice, but he inadvertently creates a new dichotomy: between artistic researchers (who are first-and-foremost performers, able to dissolve the distinction between research and art) and musicologists (who are apparently unable to dissolve this distinction). there is an assumption here that writing equals research and that performance equals art, but a true disbanding of the oppositions that assis problematizes would show that the four terms can be configured any-which-way. assis synthesizes a binary structure while privileging one of its parts: research is to be incorporated into artistic practice, but the practitioner must hold their artistry in the form of a musical instrument. while guattari did indeed note that “we make our interpretations with words, whereas we do our experimenting with signs, machinic functions, and engagements of things and people,” he went on to qualify that it is “vital to prevent [words and machinic functions] crystallizing into completely separate strata” (guattari 1984, 87). assis takes heed of this insofar as he incorporates musicological research into artistic research, but he 205 makes his discipline the domain of the performer and not the musicologist. assis fairly bemoans that “performers risk being marginalized and degraded to the role of simple reproducers, losing any creative or intellectual power altogether,” but he does the same thing to musicologists in pigeon-holing them as conservative, uncreative, authoritative seekers of “truth” (192). this is all particularly strange given that assis’s borrows many theoretical concepts from disciplines where the chief mode of expression is writing. this is the case with deleuze who, as assis rightly claims, moved away from “interpretation” towards “experimentation” in his 1969 book logic of sense (15). but deleuze did so while remaining within the confines of philosophy and its traditional medium, the written book or essay. similarly, rheinberger developed his “experimental systems” for scientific research and its written mode of expression. to quote rheinberger (as assis himself does): “writing is an experimental system in its own right” (113). given that neither deleuze nor rheinberger were required to take up musical instruments or some other artistic tool (besides, of course, the pen) for their experimental research, it is unclear why assis does not afford the same potential to musicologists. however, i should clarify that my gripe with assis is that he does not look past musicology as the “actual thing” it currently is (or at least, tends to be), to see its “virtual” potentialities. i would like to now reverse my allegiance, and point out that assis’s view of musicology as overly rigid, even conservative, is in many ways warranted, and his wish to distance himself from musicology – given his prioritization of experimentation and creativity – is justifiable. assis’s project importantly disavows “truth,” something that still reigns, explicitly or implicitly, over musicology (24): our discipline poses questions about music, seeking answers, but when these answers are given, they risk imposing themselves onto the music, restraining what it might otherwise do or become. assis no doubt wishes to distinguish his artistic research from musicology due to this restrictive tendency. additionally – despite assis’s exaggeration regarding the lack of impact musicology has had on actual “sonic events” – musicologists do have the propensity to reterritorialize their own deterritorializing actions, quickly turning critical notions developed by, or introduced to their discipline into regulative orthodoxies (richard taruskin [1995] made this point regarding historically informed performance and the concept of authenticity).6 part of the reason for this “reterritorialization” is the musicologist’s tendency to want to know what music is or has been, rather than what might be done with it or what it might become. assis notes that musical works, as assemblages, are divided in two: one 206 half considers their past, the other their future, and musicology is indeed infatuated with the former rather than the latter (129). this is apparent in the common conflation of musicology with historical musicology in the united states: history happens and the historian tries to recover what happened (or, to interpret what remains), and this approach has infiltrated music studies even when history is not the prime focus. as such, music becomes something that needs to be recovered or uncovered, illuminated or interpreted. there is an assumption that musicology explains what music is, or how it came to be, or what is has done, but rarely does it take music as a catalyst for a free, creative exploration in words. my point is not that certain musicological subdisciplines or methodologies need to be abandoned – historical methods and others besides have their own purposes and values that are not to the point of creativity and experimentation – but, ideally, they would be used as tools for extending musical assemblages, and not as prisons that try (but ultimately fail) to capture them. assis’s criticisms should hence be heeded by musicologists: where assis argues for “practice as research” (118, italics in original), we might also consider how musicology can become research as an artistic practice, with musicology itself emerging as a creative field. if performers can become artistic researchers, then musicologists can (and perhaps should) do likewise. and since we presumably already have the research part covered, it remains for us to develop our artistic side, perhaps by applying greater creativity and experimentation to the ways we write and think about music. examples of this ideal do exist: the writings of the “occulture” group (2017); of those who emerged from the cybernetic culture research unit (kodwo [1998], fisher [2014], goodman, heys and ikoniadou [2019]); the recent “prose poems” of david grubbs (2018); the plays and dialogues of andreas dorschel (2018); and the kinds of absolutism found in avant-garde and modernist manifestos, as well as early “gonzo” style rock journalism. we may also go back to roland barthes, who as assis mentions, “did not trust the search for structural codes (analysis), nor all those interminable accounts and commentaries so characteristic of musicological studies” (160). in writings like these, there is a sense of novelty and experimentation; reflection but not the search for “truth”; and often an admirable attempt at ekphrasis – the conversion or extension of music or the act of listening into a piece of (artistic) literature. all this entails a move away from the alter of truth towards one of creativity, where music has always sat enthroned. assis’s categorization of musicologists as conservative, interpretative truth-seekers who do nothing but interpret music – although exaggerated in and of itself – forces us to confront the fact that our 207 discipline “can be much more interesting if it does not focus on ‘how things really were’ or ‘how things really are’ but, rather, on ‘what things can become’” (184). notes 1 for more on artistic research see danny butt’s artistic research in the future academy (2017). 2 for more on assis’s project and how barthes’s ideas influenced it see assis (2014). 3 musicologists like lydia goehr, nicholas cook, richard taruskin and carolyn abbate have made important critiques of regulative performance practices; assis does acknowledge these writers (13), though he differentiates his project from theirs by emphasising the fact that he creates new “sonic events.” the idea that musicology does not have direct sonic consequences, however, is something i go on to dispute. 4 at least in australia (the place from which i am writing) the opposite is the case, and this is largely due to the inclusion of musicology as a department in conservatoriums, rather than in schools of the arts or humanities (russia is another place where the situation is allegedly similar: see marina frolova-walker [2017]), as well as a turn towards private donorship due to cuts in state sponsorship. while the performing arts doubtless suffer in comparison to many other “industries” here, the entertainment value they provide still attracts some level of private support: to put it rather cynically, the rich get something for the money they invest in orchestras or conservatoriums (free tickets, special seating, perhaps even an aristocratic delusion that they own part of an orchestra or are personally responsible for an up-andcoming virtuoso), while there is no tangible return to be had from investing in musicological research (beyond perhaps your name in a book’s acknowledgments or on a library door). this means that when financial support is given to music, it predominantly favours practice over theory, creating a hierarchy that is the inverse to that which assis claims. the idea that someone might enter a university wishing to specifically study musicology is barely even considered, and those who become musicologists normally do so through a performance degree (one only has to look at art history or literary theory to see the strangeness of this situation: rarely are scholars from these disciplines expected to have been painters or novelists at any point in their life). i am aware of the particularity of the examples used here, but it makes assis’s claim that musicologists are hierarchically privileged seem rather unfounded (at least when read outside the european context from which he writes). 5 it is tempting to give as examples musicologists involved with historically informed performance-practice (hip), given the obvious impact they have had on stylistic developments in performance over the last few decades (phillip gossett’s close interaction with opera singers, conductors and stage directors is a notable example). however, assis fairly distinguishes his experimental interests from those of hip, claiming the latter condemns performers “to historicism, to the cultivation of relics and fetishes from other epochs” (66). as i go on to argue, even though musicologists can act “diagrammatically,” they rarely do. the advent of “new musicology” could be considered an exception, given the flood of new perspectives it brought into the study of music (though many of these were then “reterritorialized” – see the next footnote), though the ideas of philosophers come more readily to mind: like jacques attali (whose book noise [1985] is sometimes considered to 208 prophesise the noise music movement of the 1990s), the late bernard stiegler (who was actively involved with ircam as its general director between 2002-2005), or the frankfurt school (who assis himself notes influenced helmut lachenmann’s compositional approach, and have impacted numerous other musicians since then). 6 any argument made for a certain performance practice runs this risk: simply arguing for the “correctness” of one way brings into doubt the validity of others. the “reterritorialization” of musicological concepts has repercussions not only for music performance but also for musicology itself. many ideas in the discipline, while initially breaking preconceived notions and opening new pathways, become stumbling blocks for certain trajectories of study. for instance, lydia goehr’s claim that the work concept has “imperialistic” tendencies – although showing that there are many other ways to comprehend music – sometimes creates a blockade for studies where the work concept is in fact applicable to the composition under consideration. similarly, the postmodern taboo against “progress” or “teleology” – while encouraging a healthy pluralism, where more than a single line of musical development is considered worthy of study – can get in the way of scholars who want to actively support avant-garde trends (this is not the case in music criticism, and i believe this is partly why a more original and experimental writing style is often found there: since the writer is subjectively arguing for, and in a way through, the music they write about). i have even heard of an article that focused on the human perception of sound being rejected because it did not engage with recent arguments made against anthropocentrism. in these cases, concepts act like marcel duchamp’s porte: the door opens up on one room, but as a result closes on another. references amico, stephen. 2020.“‘we are all musicologists now’; or, the end of ethnomusicology”. journal of musicology 37 (1): 1–32. assis, paulo de. 2014. “rasch11: loving barthes.” research catalogue, https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/99320/99321, accessed january 10, 2021. attali, jacques. 1985. noise: the political economy of music. translated by brian massumi. manchester: manchester university press. bonnet, françois j. 2016. the order of sounds: a sonorous archipelago. falmouth: urbanomic. butt, danny. 2017. artistic research in the future academy. chicago: chicago university press. deleuze, gilles and félix guattari. 1987. a thousand plateaus. translated by brian massumi. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. dorschel, andreas. 2018. “music as play: a dialogue”. in virtual works – actual things: essays in music ontology. edited by paulo de assis. leuven: leuven university press. fisher, david. 2014. ghosts of my life: writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures. winchester: zero books. frolova-walker, marina. 2017. “soviet music in post-soviet musicology: the first twenty years and beyond”. in russian music since 1917: reappraisal and rediscovery. edited by patrick zuk and marina frolova-waler. oxford: oxford university press. 209 guattari, félix. 1984. molecular revolution: psychiatry and politics. translated by rosemary sheed. new york: penguin. grubbs, david. 2018. now that the audience is assembled. durham: duke university press. goodman, steve, toby heys and eleni ikoniadou (eds.). 2019. unsound: undead. falmouth: urbanomic. kodwo, eshun. 1998. more brilliant than the sun: adventure in sonic fiction. london: quartet books. the occulture. 2017. lucid dreaming: how to listen away from contemporary technoculture. london: bloomsbury. rancière, jacques. 2011. the emancipated spectator. translated by gregory elliott. london: verso. taruskin, richard. 1995. text and act: essays on musical performance. oxford: oxford university press. microsoft word ritchey typeset 2 current musicology 108 (spring 2021) ©2021 ritchey. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 26 marianna ritchey in 1835, théophile gautier published his sensational novel mademoiselle de maupin, the story of a cross-dressing, swashbuckling lady knight who falls in love with both a man and a woman before riding a horse into the sunset while both of her lovers weep.1 among his many other exploits, the publication of maupin helped turn gautier into one of french romanticism’s most-caricatured bohemian artists; however, the book’s most lasting impact had less to do with its wild plot or its author’s scandalous reputation than with its preface, a 14,000 word manifesto about the purpose of art. much of the manifesto takes the form of a hilarious screed against the art critics who constantly belittled gautier and his friends.2 gautier calls these critics “moralists” and “utilitarians,” and parodies the way they write about art: what purpose does this book serve? […] what! not a word of the needs of society, nothing about civilization and progress? how can a man, instead of making the great synthesis of humanity, and pursuing the regenerating and providential idea through the events of history, how can he write novels and poems which lead to nothing, and do not advance our generation on the path of the future? calling such critics “goitrous cretins,” gautier insists that art is not like a railway or a plumbing system or any of the other innovations that “advance humanity on its path of progress.” he refuses to value art according to its usefulness— what’s so great about usefulness anyway? “to begin with,” he writes, “it is not very useful that we are on the earth and alive.” from this basic existential observation, he pushes the logic of utilitarianism to its most absurd conclusion, noting that “some soup and a piece of meat twice a day,” and “a hollow cube measuring seven or eight feet every way, with a hole to breathe through,” are all we strictly require to maintain our material existence, which seems to be all the utilitarian critics care about. his preface attempts to dismantle the notion that art should be useful, emphasizing that arts very purposelessness is what makes it great, and the fact that we spend so much time involved in such purposeless production is what gives life meaning. “to prevent one’s self from dying is not living,” he notes, “and i do not see in what respect a town organized after the 27 utilitarian fashion would be more agreeable to dwell in than the cemetery of père-la-chaise” (gautier, 16). though he was often ridiculed in the mainstream press, gautier’s manifesto played a role in spreading the romantic value of l’art pour l’art, or “art for art’s sake.” this ideal can be seen in the ideas of artistic autonomy and “absolute” music that music theorists like e.t.a. hoffmann (1813) and, later, eduard hanslick (1854) developed in their efforts to distinguish certain kinds of music from music made for the marketplace or for conventional social purposes like dancing or telling stories. for such theorists, what is most interesting and powerful about music is found in its formal structure, and thus the more a piece of music turns inward and explores only its own internal structural logic, the better it is. this “autonomous ideal” became one of the foundational values of european and american musicology; and indeed, in many respects, these nineteenth-century ideas became what “art,” including “art music,” is. not only does musical autonomy undergird musicology’s disciplinary tools and assumptions, but, more importantly, the critique and rejection of autonomy was also the basis of some of the past few decades’ most influential musicological interventions. in fact, today, as i will show, art for art’s sake is dismissed by almost everyone: both leftists and liberals tend to scorn it; both activists and academics reject it; even artists themselves sometimes lambast the idea. in this article, however, i try to reappraise the autonomous ideal. in doing so, i draw on work from a wide variety of fields. i engage contemporary musicologists who in various ways are challenging our fundamental assumptions and orientations, not only about music but also about what it means to be a person and how people relate to one another in collectives. i also bring into the dialogue voices from political theory and political economy, as well as anthropology, sociology, feminist theory and black studies. in addition to drawing together myriad streams of academic thought, i engage with the ideas of radical activists whose practices and philosophies develop outside of any institutional framework. my exploration is thus philosophical and wide-ranging, as well as highly citational. this is by design. in keeping with the political orientation espoused throughout the article, it is important to me that i make visible the network of people whose ideas i am thinking through and with. the thread that unifies this diverse undertaking is my desire to develop a different political framework for conceiving music, society, and ourselves than the one that currently dominates our discourses, both in musicology and in mainstream social and political life in general. in short, i am interested in the political imaginary we inhabit, a term i use to indicate the means by which we create our 28 ways of being together as well as of representing that togetherness. my understanding of the political imaginary also foregrounds ideology, or the myriad assumptions and commonsense notions a given community deploys in constructing their understandings of themselves, their relations with one another, and, most importantly, their understandings of and orientations toward power. i am interested in the ways music—making it, listening to it, and thinking about it—might aid our collective ability to both clearly see the world as it is and imagine together ways it could be radically different. i will first briefly gloss the ways contemporary ideas about art and music from many different points on the political spectrum adhere to the utilitarian ethos that gautier hated, and then explore some facets of our current political imaginary, which i envision as a liberal democratic one in which democratic ideals are increasingly secondary to liberal—which is also to say capitalist— prerogatives; then i will explore some ideas about individualism and difference, and how these can be envisioned differently within different political imaginaries. finally, i will examine some of the perhaps contradictory ways in which certain kinds of uselessness might be considered politically useful, in freeing us to imagine a radically different world than the one we currently inhabit. the mainstream case for the arts just as gautier’s hated critics did, contemporary advocates for art and music in the u.s. often assess value in terms of utility, whether they are arguing that the government should financially support the arts, or whether they are applying for grants from philanthropic foundations, or whether they are excitedly promoting the kind of entrepreneurship that can supposedly liberate art from both these funding models. for example, in a 27-page policy brief outlining talking points for explaining why the government should fund the arts, the national assembly of state art (2017) presents copious data demonstrating that the arts are “a good public sector investment” because they create jobs, produce tax revenue, and generate unique products; they help revitalize impoverished urban areas (a common euphemism for gentrification); and they teach children to be productive workers. given the government’s concern with “strengthen[ing] america’s global position,” the brief concludes by noting that “incorporating the arts improves the impact of other state policies,” and it illustrates this fact with a quote from president eisenhower, whose 1955 state of the union address is sometimes cited as inaugurating the idea that the government should directly 29 support the arts because they are among the “activities which will make our civilization endure and flourish.” without overly lingering on what is (or should be) an obvious point, it’s worth noting that america’s global projects tend to be sinister at best. in fact, just seven months before making his stirring speech about art, eisenhower authorized the cia to help overthrow the democratically elected government of guatemala because it was threatening the profits of an american fruit corporation. this intervention led to decades of social upheaval, civil war, and a genocide of the mayan people. it also inaugurated a wildly profitable new era of american foreign policy in which such brutal interventions became standard procedure for both democratic and republican administrations. the huge success of his guatemala gamble was surely one of the national projects eisenhower had in mind, when he spoke a few months later about how the arts play an important role in helping “our civilization endure and flourish.” i mention this to bring specificity to what is often an incredibly vague discursive strategy in arts advocacy, and to suggest that the easy linking of the arts to the health of america’s global imperialist project is something we should critically reflect on. and yet, perhaps it doesn’t matter much, because such government support began dying almost as soon as it was born. while some presidents have continued to tout the great potential for the arts to burnish america’s global profile (and indeed state-supported art and artists played an important role as “soft power” during the cold war), since the 1970s the condition of federal arts funding has been a precarious and hotly politicized one. certain kinds of cultural production continue to receive major governmental support—for example, the department of defense funnels millions of dollars into the production of promilitary movies and video games—but “high arts” like classical music are not particularly effective for military recruitment. thus today, government support for these kinds of art manifests primarily in the u.s. tax code, which makes donations to “non-profit” arts organizations like opera houses and art museums tax-deductible, and thus incentivizes billionaire and corporate philanthropy. in this case, the continuing usefulness of art is clear; it remains very useful to billionaires and corporations as a tool for shoring up their public images and shielding them from paying taxes (incite! 2007). the value of utility also manifests, albeit in somewhat different terms, in the entrepreneurial discourses that have recently been transforming classical music practice in the u.s. the old state and philanthropic funding models for art music are no longer viable, these entrepreneurs say, and furthermore they are 30 socially irrelevant and elitist anyway. to counteract this moribund condition, art music needs to “enter the real world,” by becoming more adaptable to market conditions in order to widen audiences and increase revenues. within this framework, music that doesn’t appeal widely across multiple fan bases—music like that of high modernism, which many entrepreneurial artists in the new music realm subject to particular scorn—is effectively useless (ritchey 2019). the liberal political imaginary these quick glosses demonstrate the liberal political imaginary out of which most mainstream art discourse—both within and outside the academy— emerges. contemporary liberal democracy represents an uneasy combination of two quite different political traditions: democracy, which is ancient, and which foregrounds ideals of popular sovereignty and equality; and liberalism, which is much younger, and which emphasizes individual liberty and human rights. within western liberal democracies these concepts are often lumped together, but there are major semantical and political differences between popular sovereignty and individual liberty, or between equality and the extension of “rights” granted by the state and protected by laws. political theorist chantal mouffe (2005) has explored the liberal-democratic political imaginary in detail.3 she demonstrates that within the contemporary formulation of this imaginary, democracy has been firmly rendered secondary to liberalism (this is why i use the term “liberal political imaginary” instead of “liberal-democratic political imaginary” throughout). quoting friedrich von hayek, she argues that contemporary liberals see democracy as a “utilitarian device,” a tool that can be useful for safeguarding liberal institutions, but that should be discarded whenever it threatens these institutions. for example, popular democratic movements aimed at abolishing the police must be stamped out by any means necessary, not because police contribute to the public good but because policing protects private property rights, which are the foundational institution of liberal democracy (davis 2003; gilmore 2007; williams 2015; vitale 2018). within this episteme, social problems are assessed and addressed via “rational,” datadriven/means-tested approaches, and human nature is seen as fundamentally self-serving and competitive, which is why free-market capitalism is the “natural” framework upon which a top-down representational government should organize society (this view of human nature also conveniently justifies the police and the carceral system). mouffe also argues that within liberalism, democracy is seen as something bestowed from above, by the state, and that the 31 liberal political imagination is unable to conceive of “society” outside of this hierarchical relationship. finally—and this hearkens back to gautier’s critique— liberalism figures “value” primarily in economic terms. it is this “rationalist,” and essentially amoral, approach to calculating the value of things, people, policies, etc. that i am most interested in examining here. in mainstream arts advocacy, this abstracted, amoral perspective is often on display. as i’ve demonstrated, within arts discourse art is described as “useful” to society for the way it creates jobs, trains workers, produces tax revenue, or helps make america look good as it pursues its various global projects. in other words, art is “useful” because and insofar as it generates money or helps firms or the state gain economic advantage. even within the newer stream of u.s. classical music that rhetorically foregrounds the need to “democratize” this music and to break free of stifling state and corporate sponsorship, the abstraction of capitalist value relations is apparent: here, “democratizing” music means making it attractive to more and more consumers, and music that doesn’t have many consumers (or, worst of all, that doesn’t want to accumulate many consumers) is by definition useless (and in being useless is self-evidently bad). before moving on, i would like to touch on a final aspect of the way these discourses function, which is their abstraction of the concept of “art” itself. when people assert that “art is good for society,” which art do they mean, exactly? scrolling through the copious articles demonstrating how and why art is good for us uncovers a huge trove of specific data on profitability and economic impact (examples of which i cited above), but remarkably few specifics about art works themselves. a beethoven symphony, one of yoko ono’s instruction pieces, a noname album, a fascist mural, michelangelo’s david, a neolithic cave painting, andres serrano’s “piss christ,” are these all equivalently “good for society,” and good in the same ways? the answer can only be yes within the abstract notion of exchange value that undergirds liberalism generally. this same notion manifests, for example, in the liberal insistence that fascism and antifascism, or racism and anti-racism, are not irreconcilable contradictions but rather sets of opinions that are formally equal and that can (should) be resolved through rational debate in which “both sides” present their case and the best argument wins (lalami 2019). this kind of equivalence ignores systemic and structural inequalities; it also speaks to the way “difference” is treated within liberal-dominant democracy, a point to which i will return. théophile gautier was proclaiming the value of uselessness during the period in which modern liberal capitalism had begun to dominate the world 32 stage (he was just seven years older than karl marx; they may even have met during marx’s brief, heady sojourn in paris). he was acutely aware of the ways this coalescing political imaginary was radically transforming how production worked, how society was organized, and how people and things were valued within that new society. his countrymen mocked him for valuing paintings more than railways, and it’s also true that he speaks from a place of privilege—only someone who had never gone barefoot in a parisian winter could possibly proclaim, as he did, that he would rather have a poem than a pair of shoes. still, i see his ode to uselessness as a concerted effort to imagine differently than the dominant thinking of his time permitted. he was trying to resist what he saw as the capitalist progressive project’s dehumanizing effects, effects that have become ever more glaring and drastic in the two intervening centuries since he wrote his manifesto. other imaginaries if, as i’ve suggested, contemporary mainstream art discourse is entwined with the utilitarian/bourgeois logic of state and capital, then what do self-identified anticapitalists and anti-statists think about art, in terms of its use value? there are myriad people and communities that aren’t remotely interested in any of the concerns just charted, because they operate via very different political imaginaries, for example many strands of radical leftism, the traditional consensus decision making that many indigenous communities practice, or horizontal communities that operate via doctrines of mutual aid. music in such oppositional or revolutionary spaces serves many functions, including keeping morale up, building a sense of shared political goals, and circulating political messages; it can also be used as a weapon, as in the stonewall riots, or the antigentrification protests in la’s boyle heights, which often deploy mariachi bands. and yet when self-identified radical anticapitalists take part in serious debates about art and music, they tend to value these activities in utilitarian terms more or less similar to those of the liberals they otherwise despise. in such circles, art and music that doesn’t explicitly serve the revolution or the people in some concrete way is often seen as suspiciously frivolous, perhaps even complicit with capitalism and imperialism. one thinks here of the marxist-leninist doctrine of socialist realism, within which art must be representational and immediately accessible, and made with the explicit intention of encouraging the viewer to identify with the goals of revolutionary socialism. today variations on this 33 attitude persist across the leftist spectrum, which is interesting, given these ideologies’ otherwise ferocious rejection of the logic of capital. however, the spirit of l’art pour l’art does live on, albeit in a surprising place: anarchism, the political ideology that is perhaps most diametrically opposed to liberalism. anarchism agitates relentlessly against both capitalism and the state, and is concerned not only with class struggle but also with struggling inside our own heads to constantly root out modes of thinking, seeing, and relating to others that manifest the kind of hierarchy and domination that make capitalism possible. errico malatesta (1891) asserted that anarchism is not an administered system but rather a “method” individuals can apply to all facets of experience; similarly, emma goldman (1911, 41) wrote that anarchism is not a new political system but rather “a living force in the affairs of our life, constantly creating new conditions.” as literary theorist david weir (1997) notes, anarchism is thus a fundamentally imaginative, experimental political ethos. the thought experiments its central tenets pose will and should be solved differently by different communities depending on context, conditions, and collective goals—and for this reason it is uniquely well suited to aesthetic experimentation. furthermore, its rigorous refusal of all capitalist logics, and its embrace of the idea that people need both “bread and roses,” aligns anarchism with some of gautier’s ideas about art within the capitalist progressive project. examining the small amount of aesthetic theory that has been generated by self-identified anarchists reveals many statements that align with gautier’s. in a recent collection of essays on anarchist aesthetics (mcphee and reuland, 2007), for example, the anarchist printmaker bec young asks “who decides what is utilitarian and what is not?” and angrily continues, “are artists to turn into productive automatons, churning out works that function with so much utility? i might as well do graphic design for ford” (110). and yet surprisingly, with few exceptions (for example the work of john zerzan, which i address in my conclusion) usefulness is still invoked as the primary mode for valuing art. the collection opens with a battle cry against gautier’s ethos: anarchist artists, the editors write, do want to resist “the idea that art can be boiled down to simple utility,” yet they are also staunchly opposed to the ideal of “art for art’s sake,” which they characterize as “pure aesthetics, unmoored from a societal context.” the editors go on to note that anarchism is the political ideology that seems the most open to artistic freedom, and assert that art can itself become “a utopian instance, prefiguring a world we want to live in.” and yet the end result of such art is still figured in terms of usefulness. as one editor notes in a later essay, “creating myths, complicating situations, getting the critical thinking process 34 started. these are all potentially useful things” (p. 110). in an interview with revered anarchist illustrator clifford harper, he takes an explicit stance regarding the usefulness of anarchist art, stating that art only has social value when it comes in the form of propaganda: artists have to “creatively explain to people exactly what anarchism is and exactly what we need to do to get there,” he says, emphasizing that for him this means representational art that communicates “the urgent necessity of an anarchist revolution” (p. 46). particularly contentious in this discourse is art that is abstract, that lacks a participatory ethos, that fetishizes perfection, technique, and training, or that is otherwise seen as inaccessible to the masses. such art becomes effectively useless when seen through the radically social orientation of an ideology like anarchism. it is thus no surprise that anarchists tend not to be interested in the kind of “art music” that musicology is often focused on. stances like harper’s are fierce and brave, and i am sympathetic to the kind of totalizing anger he articulates when he says: the whole art thing—artists, art works, art theorists, art critics, art galleries, art schools, art money, the whole dismal show, is so compromised, so hopelessly fucking with the state—fame, greed, wealth, prestige—that it’s best left to its own degradation […] for working people like me, it’s just another part of the show that has to end. (quoted in mcphee and reuland, 45) at the same time, i feel strongly that the capitalist depravity of the art world does not necessarily mean that art must be obvious, didactic, and simple in order to be comprehensible to the mass of the working class. in the first place, a lot of what’s produced by the “high” art world is facile and obvious; more importantly, though, the belief that poor people can’t understand complex or abstract ideas is also a belief held by the ruling class, and is thus a problematic stance for radicals to espouse. similarly, when musicologists criticize scholars or composers who value musical complexity, they often say this value is “elitist.” but such an assertion takes as a given that people without institutional educations can’t understand and don’t enjoy complexity, an implication that is itself elitist. to get out of this trap, we have to stop believing that interest in simplicity vs. complexity correlates to class. additionally, i would argue that what’s “elitist” about “high art” isn’t necessarily its content, as so many people (including radicals like clifford harper) conventionally assume (this is also the assumption that allows so many young composers to brand their music as revolutionary or democratic simply because it is tonal or has a steady rhythm). a lot of the music in the western art tradition does deploy varying degrees of abstraction and formal complexity that 35 may or may not render it “difficult” for some listeners, but it has also always been an emanation from the wealthy strata of society, which has surely played a role in alienating “the masses.” for radicals, this cultural history renders art like classical music not merely silly or alienating but even actively dangerous. as c. wright mills put it in a critique of thorsten veblen: prestige products like classical music don’t merely reveal the absurdity of the rich, as veblen suggested, rather, “prestige buttresses power, turning it into authority, and protecting it from social challenge” (veblen 1899, xvi). i would argue that the long and ongoing ideological history of certain artistic expressions being cultivated and circulated by and for elite prestige culture has more to do with the perception that such art is not “for” poor people than anything inherent to its content. it will be difficult to change this perception (as many of us claim to want) without more honestly reckoning with this ideological history. musicology and absolute music i return now to the issue of musical autonomy. for several decades, many musicologists, wanting to contribute to the social good as well as to explain the relevance of our work to the public, have argued passionately against the “autonomous ideal” that music theorists from the nineteenth century to the modern era have deployed as a means of insisting that certain kinds of music transcend the tawdry social plane. in refusing this old-fashioned value, musicologists have insisted that music’s meaning is always socially constructed, that music can and should be thought of as political in various ways, and that, most importantly of all, musicology itself is and should be a field of inquiry that is self-consciously engaged in political work. james currie (2008) pushes back against what he sees as the smugness of musicology’s impression of itself as political. he notes that for thirty years we have all simply been nodding our heads together in agreement that various shibboleths of the field—including perhaps most prominently the old notion of absolute music—are politically bad. yet this self-satisfied group nodding is not actually critique, because it’s not actually a thoughtful grappling with ideas and contradictions. rather it’s just an excuse to enjoy nodding and being seen to nod (or what today we might call “virtue signaling”). currie’s argument is similar to the one i made above about arts advocacy—that musicology’s political frame is imbricated with that of liberal capitalism, which means that our discipline’s political lens is too impoverished and reactionary to do anything but violence on music when it tries to analyze it in politically-engaged ways. thus, he suggests 36 that in order to preserve both music and musicology we should actually stop thinking of our work as political, and should revisit the idea that music, in addition to obviously having social meanings, might also actually be autonomous. by this he means that music isn’t just a code to crack (miles 1995) in order to see all the things it’s showing us about material reality; it is also a thing itself, something that exceeds our ability to explain or fully know, and furthermore there is a powerful negating function inherent in this inscrutability, this capacity of music to “say no” to us (currie 2012).4 i think we should pay attention to currie’s critique of disciplinary groupthink, and i think his injunction that we need to critically engage with ourselves—our assumptions, our frames, the things we accept and reject out of hand—is vitally important to heed, not just as scholars but as people. as he puts it, if the discipline, and by extension, the whole world, is ever to change for the better, we must come to see “the image we present of ourselves to ourselves as wrong” (currie 2008, 80). i also love his commitment to the belief that music— in its ephemerality, its invisibility, the way it acts upon us without our being able to fully explain why or how it does—evades us somehow, and that if we recognize, even embrace that we have been thwarted in this way, music can show us something (or at least prove to us that there is or could be something) radically different from what we think we already know. after all, “if we cannot see something other than ourselves, then we die” (currie 2011, 552). rather than suggesting we self-consciously retreat from politics, though, i believe we need to actively grapple, together, with what it means to be “political” in the first place, and that if we do so, we might one day be able to lay the foundation for a new musicological politics, one that might be to some degree productively opposed to capitalism in a way our field currently is not, and that thus might help us become oriented toward the envisioning and creation of a truly different world, rather than simply the upholding of the world as it already is. this is a contradictory and vexing thing to suggest, and the fact that it is rooted in a reappraisal of musical autonomy is more problematic still. after all, isn’t there something suspicious in the way the autonomous ideal seems to reject the social, the collective, in favor of a radically isolated individual freedom? this seems like what adorno (1937, 1970) is saying, for example, when he talks about autonomous art as the safeguard of individualism. for adorno, capitalist modernity militates so powerfully against the expression of any really individual thought or act that the authentic artist has no choice but to compose in a radically self-contained and increasingly illegible way, almost like the artist must actively 37 ward off any threat of connecting or communicating with others. if this is what autonomy is all about—as many musicologists and contemporary composers have seemed to believe—then indeed it doesn’t seem productively political, certainly not in the anarchist sense of the term. difference in addressing these difficulties, i will take up one of the central preoccupations of contemporary musicology, indeed of contemporary liberal political discourse generally, which is difference. the dynamic between individuals and society raises ceaseless questions about difference. to what degree should individuals be allowed to be different, and how should their various differences be negotiated within a society? the answer to this question comprises a major aspect of any political imaginary. within contemporary liberalism, difference is rhetorically celebrated, but is in reality a problem to be resolved—even eradicated—ideally through rational negotiation and compromise, but if necessary through the enforcement of laws. within this frame, racial, cultural, and gendered differences are regulated by managerial “diversity and inclusion” practices within which, in angela davis’s words, “the purpose of acknowledging difference is to guarantee that the enterprise functions as efficiently as it would if there were no cultural differences at all” (davis 1996, 45). within the liberal framework, davis notes, “although you are permitted to be an ‘other,’ you must work ‘as if’ you were not a member of a marginalized group.” similarly, chantal mouffe describes the way liberalism takes “differences” as objective, perhaps even regrettable, facts of life, and then deals with them via procedures that are actually intended “to make those differences irrelevant and to relegate pluralism to the sphere of the private” (2005, 19). in private we can practice any religion or belief system we want, teach our children whatever we want, treat our bodies however we want, use whatever language we want, hold whatever opinions we want; in public we must all restrict our expressions of difference to only those deemed “reasonable” within liberal norms of decorum and productivity. this dichotomy generates unresolvable contradictions and impossibilities. the state requires our children to attend school in order for every child to receive a standardized education; what if we don’t want our children to be schooled to this standard, or schooled at all? similarly, what if i teach my children that there is no such thing as private property? they will come into serious conflict with others and with the state, and will likely be arrested and incarcerated, because i have not taught them the proper submission to property and authority that within liberalism is deemed 38 “reasonable.” these types of contradictions in how liberal democracy negotiates difference constitute the “paradox” mouffe diagnoses; this paradox is what must be addressed if democracy is ever to rise above its secondary position within the currently dominant political framework. radical perspectives like davis’s and mouffe’s actually resonate with what adorno thinks about difference in/and society, despite his longstanding reputation as an antisocial elitist. when we read him as antisocial, we are assuming that there is only one meaning of the word “society,” when obviously that isn’t true. when adorno juxtaposes individual freedom against the oppression of society, he’s talking about this society, specifically, meaning western liberal-democratic society, a society totally shot through by and infected with commodification and capitalist ideology, a society doomed to continually reproduce fascism.5 this society is bad for individuals, not “society” in general. adorno is not antisocial, he is anticapitalist, and the fact that so many smart people have read him incorrectly on this point for so long is a marker of how invisible the particularities of capitalism have become in contemporary liberal understandings of what society is. in reality, as fumi okiji points out in a book-length dialogue with him, adorno believed that individual freedom was absolutely contingent on social life and sociality. precisely nailing down what adorno means when he uses the word “individualism” reveals something far beyond “mere tolerance of difference” or “virtuous embrace of the best examples of multiculturalism” (2008, 8-9). rather, for adorno (as for okiji), “true individualism…involves an awareness of the individual’s dependence on what it is not.” individualism entails the radical recognition of real, even (sometimes perhaps especially) incommensurable differences between all individuals, and more importantly, the recognition that this difference is the grounds for collective development and change. in other words, “an individual cannot reach truth alone.” okiji brilliantly explores the way this radically heterogenous collective individualism manifests in group improvisation, pursuing her arguments via a dialectical wrestling with adorno’s critical thoughts on jazz. but if in reality individual freedom—including the individual’s ability to know and be themselves— is derived somehow from the community, what does that mean? in american political and ideological life, the collective and the individual are starkly opposed to one another. here, the phrase “communal individualism” can appear only as an oxymoron, the absurd combination of two opposites, indeed two enemies. we envision an individual as someone who by nature wants to do whatever they selfishly want, and who is constrained from 39 doing so by the needs of society, within which the individual’s freedom must be restricted for the good of the whole. sigmund freud (1930) wrote an entire book about this supposed dynamic, in which he argued that society—civilization—has been obviously necessary for humanity’s survival yet it is also a prison so repressive that living inside of it forces us into mental illness and drug addiction.6 within modern liberal capitalist societies, in particular, the individual is a problem for the collective, and vice versa. many people both inside and outside the academy—some of whom i address below—have called for us to start answering the question of difference differently. they insist that the constant acknowledgement and negotiation of radical difference should be the point, the source of our collective strength, rather than something to be managed or erased; we should not be working toward a future world in which all real differences have been smoothed over and all antagonisms have been resolved via good management practices. in fact, such a goal is fascist. on the other hand, since difference is also not reducible to discrete, fixed identity categories, it can’t adequately be “celebrated” or “promoted” simply by raising individuals from marginalized identities into positions of power or prominence within existing systems. as bell hooks put it decades ago, as long as a group “defines liberation as gaining social equality with ruling class white men, they have a vested interest in the continued exploitation and oppression of others” (1984, 15). becoming “equal” to a ruler means ruling over others, and this can never be part of any radical liberation politics, because it does nothing to alter the system of domination itself. despite propaganda painting anarchism as a doctrine of selfishness and chaos, one of its core tenets entails recognizing and engaging radical difference as the source of all collective power. anarchism insists that the individual and the collective are inextricably identified with and by one another, existing in a constant dialectic together that continually shapes and re-shapes communal visions of the world as it is and as it could be. malatesta wrote that “solidarity” means “the freedom of each not being limited by, but complemented—indeed finding the necessary raison d’étre in—the freedom of others” (1891, 27). cindy milstein puts it in more detail: “no one is free unless everyone is free, and everyone can only be free if each person can individuate or actualize themselves in the most expansive of senses” (2010, 15). milstein notes that this creates a “tension” between individuals trying to live together in collectivity, but rather than seeing this tension as dangerous or as something to be resolved via rationalist argument and/or legal enforcement, anarchists see it as the positive, perhaps even joyful, site from where genuinely new creative ideas and social 40 forms grow. there will always be an uneasiness between individual and collective freedom, but “this struggle is exactly where anarchism takes place.” mouffe (2005, 18-19) similarly argues for a new version of democratic politics rooted in the collective embrace of real difference that includes the embrace of tensions and antagonisms, meaning a difference that isn’t just the aspiration to formal sameness presented to us by liberal diversity fantasies. she calls this reimagined form of democracy “agonistic pluralism.”7 within this new commitment to pluralism, we would stop seeing difference as a difficult fact of life we have to grudgingly accept and figure out how to deal with (by reducing it or smoothing it over or insisting it can be placed in fixed identity boxes and managed that way), rather, the constant play of differences should be the entire point of democratic life, the source of all its joys and the foundation of its freedoms. constantly working to acknowledge, understand, transform, or incorporate difference would become the engine driving social evolution; we would never stop learning about one another, which would mean we would never stop learning about ourselves, and becoming new ourselves in that process. these sorts of radical reenvisionings of democracy present a version of collectivity that insists on remaining heterogenous in more than a merely rhetorical or representational way, and that, in doing so, continually refuses to make itself legible to status quo systems of power and domination. in my own efforts to construct a different political imaginary along these lines, i have drawn on musicological work like okiji’s, as well as on rachel mundy’s suggestion that we construct a version of humanistic inquiry that is able to take the experiences and subjectivities of other animals into account. okiji demonstrates that within the liberal philosophical tradition, understandings of freedom and individualism, and of what “human” means, developed out of the growing need to manage racial difference, or, in other words, to morally justify african chattel slavery and colonialism. recognizing this moral (or rather immoral) foundation for many of the philosophical categories we take for granted means challenging those categories, and coming up with genuinely new ways of conceptualizing ideas like individualism, humanity, freedom. meanwhile rachel mundy reveals the way the ethical framework of humanistic differencing—for example, the distinguishing of “nature” from “culture,” and “the human” from “the animal”—has constituted an “unsustainable divide” that can’t be resolved without “simultaneously addressing the question of how difference has been historically constructed in the twentieth century” (mundy 2018, 9). these are lessons i take with me in my own attempts to understand, 41 and turn towards, real difference, both in my academic work and in my life outside the academy. refusal as i have shown throughout this article, many thinkers—both within and outside of musicology—offer us pathways toward transforming our understandings of individualism and collectivity. as has perhaps now become clear, what all of this work has in common is a shared commitment to refusal of some sort. okiji (55) for example joins adorno in calling for us to “refuse participation in the upkeep of a fabricated world,” while mundy’s work refuses some of the bedrock assumptions and dichotomies of humanistic scholarship. james currie prioritizes music’s ability to “say no” to us as its most potentially radical quality. in their book the undercommons (2013), fred moten and stefano harney call for academics to refuse the university while paradoxically staying inside of it, thus becoming “subversive intellectuals.” in the introduction to the book, jack halberstam notes that the path toward decolonization is “paved with refusal.” the first step, for halberstam, is that we must learn how to desire a different version of freedom than the one the power structure tells us we want. finally, i turn to the art theorist jenny odell’s (2019) notion of “refusalin-place,” which will bring me back to the reconfigured version of collective autonomy i’m trying to construct, as well as to the anticapitalist value of uselessness. odell’s book is a wide-ranging exploration of many of the different forms refusal can take, specifically refusals of demands on our attention that emanate from the corporate power structure. music figures into many of her discussions, for example in her examination of how spotify’s algorithm works to limit the realm of what we are able to think possible. she acknowledges that spotify has correctly honed in on the type of music she most enjoys. however, she also notes that because her car doesn’t have an auxiliary input, she often listens to the radio when she drives, and often hears very different kinds of music that she also enjoys. odell figures these moments—musical moments that exist outside her personalized algorithm—as offering some revelatory potential: “to acknowledge that there’s something i didn’t know i liked is to be surprised not only by the song but by myself.” echoing james currie’s assertion that “if we cannot see something other than ourselves, then we die,” odell goes on to say: if i think i know everything that i want and like, and i also think i know where and how i’ll find it—imagining all of this stretching endlessly into the future without any 42 threats to my identity or the bounds of what i call my self—i would argue that i no longer have a reason to keep living. (137) the algorithms that increasingly guide our experiences make the encountering of real difference difficult, and they also make it harder and harder for us to see that we ourselves could become different, that we contain unplumbed depths that don’t fall into neat marketing demographic categories. but odell rejects the idea of refusing the evils of corporatized society by fleeing from that society. she insists on refusing “in place” not only because abandoning the collective is politically indefensible, but also because increasingly there is nowhere left to run. the diseased political imaginary that not only makes domination and inequality possible but also assures us constantly that they are natural and good is everywhere: we are it. for this reason, she is most interested in “a form of political refusal that retreats not in space, but in the mind” (38). in exploring this idea, she suggests that the impulse to stand apart from what we experience as oppressive, in society, could actually “represent the moment in which the desperate desire to leave (forever!) matures into a commitment to live in permanent refusal, where one already is, and to meet others in the common space of that refusal” (62). odell gives many powerful examples of refusal in place, many of which explore the way contemporary capitalism’s “ruthless logic of use” threatens to strip away all the mysteries and depths that make us who we are and that fill life with real meaning, in the form of connections with others and with ourselves. my favorite of her examples is old survivor, a 500-year-old redwood tree who lives in the oakland hills. old survivor is oakland’s only remaining old-growth redwood, a holdover from a long-gone era during which all of the ancient trees were logged following the gold rush. old survivor survived thanks to its difficult location on a steep slope; its twisted, awkward shape; and its shortness relative to the rest of the bygone redwoods in the area. “in other words,” odell writes, “old survivor survived largely by appearing useless to loggers as a timber tree” (xv). this uselessness has enabled it to live, but not in the kind of hermetic isolation adorno describes, and not in the hollow utilitarian cube of gautier’s satire, and not even in the heroic self-sufficiency of the classical liberals’ crusoe fantasies; rather, old survivor’s individual survival has powerfully social ramifications: birds build their nests in it, myriad insect colonies inhabit it; its massive root system performs maintenance care by inhibiting erosion and runoff; hikers rest in the shade it provides; a local biology class learns about bacteria by studying its bark. thus, old survivor serves as a living metaphor of refusing-in-place, and of the way that such resistance is explicitly figured as 43 collective, a common property to which we all have access. both the tree and the life forms that interact with it are participating together, but in what odell calls “the wrong way” when looked at through the lens of capitalist productivity. this resonates with adorno’s observations about how inscrutability resists commodification. again, as with statements about “art” and “society,” it is important to be specific: to whom should things be inscrutable? adorno would say, to everybody, because there are no longer individuals in the true sense of the word; there is no one left to communicate with. by contrast, old survivor’s inscrutability is profuse and wildly social. the birds, insects, hikers, biology students, and bacteria that engage with it do not find the tree—or one another— “inscrutable” at all. only timber companies do. whenever we do things together that lie outside the dominating logic of capital, whenever we find one another scrutable despite behaving in “the wrong way” in this regard, whenever we work, think, see, or act across supposedly unbreachable lines of difference in order to recognize that we are experiencing something together, we create the conditions of possibility for a different kind of world than the dying one bequeathed by western capitalism.8 bringing these thoughts closer to home, moten and harney (2020) explored a similar idea in a recent talk about untangling the concept of “work” from the concept of “job.” discussing academic jobs in particular, they noted that “sadly, our feel for work, for practice, is slightened, obsessed as we all are and must be with the mechanics, economics, and metaphysics of the job.” if the university today is, in their words, “a dirty business and a state apparatus,” “a credential-granting front for finance capitalism and a machine for stratification,” then what does—or could—it mean to nonetheless find good work to do within the job of working here? after all, there are no “good” jobs out there, and anyway you can’t “not do your job” if you quit your job, so what could it mean, within the university, to do the work without doing the job, in other words to refuse in place, to participate in the wrong way? moten and harney are generally allergic to giving concrete examples—as with anarchism, the point is not to establish rules that everybody can equally follow but rather for each person to exploratorily answer this question for themselves, based on their own context and capability. not doing your job when you have tenure is different from not doing your job when you are pre-tenure, or an adjunct, or a grad student. we all have different jobs to not-do. separating our work from our jobs means asking unfamiliar questions. meaning, unfamiliar types of questions, ones that don’t take the usual starting points as givens. rachel mundy (2018, 9) gives a good example when she asks 44 “what is an anti-speciesist history of music?” for most of us, the idea that music is a “human” practice is so obvious as to have become invisible. that simply is what music is: it’s something humans do. but what if other animals do it too? what if birdsong is music, rather than a type of sonic utterance totally different from music, as many (although not all!) nineteenth-century naturalists took great pains to insist? what would it mean, for us, if other animals experienced, and participated in constructing and evaluating, an aesthetic realm? it would mean that some fundamental unexamined truths about the ontological category of “the human” might be false, or incomplete. it might cause us to question who gets to be considered a “person,” and why, and why we feel so strongly about that distinction. after all, as jenny odell (2019) notes, it’s easy to miss the fact that when you look at a bird, the bird is also looking back at you. what new knowledge might arise, in probing into that encounter, the encounter between human constructed sound and the constructed sounds of birds, and the mutual—rather than one-sided—act of listening, thinking, and knowing that this encounter entails? what might seem new about our politics, our activities, our work, our understanding of what togetherness is, of what people are, of what music is or could be and how it could be known about, if we let such questions guide us, rather than submitting to the pleasurable lassitude of continuing to nod together at the same old truisms about music and humanity? hope without optimism the easiest possible form refusal can take is available to everyone, and it is simply the commitment to try to tell the truth, even if only inside our own minds. we tell so many lies, to ourselves and to others, about the nature of reality, the essential rightness of power and hierarchy, the basic goodness of the way things are. to untangle all this requires a willingness to let ourselves see real truths that can be extremely painful. fumi okiji (2018, 50) for example argues that learning the truth requires “a state of keen interrogation,” in which we turn everything inside-out “in search of ulteriorities,” even to such an extent that “we no longer feel comfortable in our own homes.” dismantling all the truisms and bad faith arguments that justify so many things about being academics living in the relative comfort of the imperial core will make us uncomfortable. yet this act of discomfiting ourselves is also the first step toward the healing and recovery that bell hooks (1994) describes, when she says that the purpose of critical theory is to “expose wounds” so that healing can finally take place. the social scientist lesley head (2016) pursues this line of 45 thought in a devastating book about climate change. she argues that actually addressing climate change in any meaningful way will first require us to confront and authentically experience grief about it, and to accept the fact that this grief “will be our companion” for the rest of our lives. we—and here she takes care to clarify that by “we” she means the post-enlightenment subjects of western bourgeois humanism who still cling to the idea of history as a progress narrative (this is also the “we” i address, and it is always important to remember that this “we” doesn’t actually include all people on earth)—we are reluctant to really engage with grief in this way, head argues, because grief seems like pessimism, and in contemporary liberal democracy—particularly in the u.s., as barbara ehrenreich (2009) has argued—we all know that we have to “think positive” no matter what. in this sense, head suggests that our avoidance of grief manifests as denial, and that this basic denialism is a major feature of climate change discourse even amongst progressives who believe they care urgently about the climate. but the ideas for addressing climate change that are deemed “reasonable” according to liberal norms are just variations on business as usual— “green” capitalism instead of the other kind; carbon taxes; incentivizing public transit; etc.—and head says we fixate on these limp non-solutions because they would be fairly easy to implement without our lifestyles having to change and without the global balance of power having to shift, and this allows us to feel optimistic. in this sense, head bluntly states that “we are all climate change deniers” (26). head quotes the ecologist jessica weir, who emphasizes this point: “there is something we must do before we can begin to do anything about river destruction. we have to look directly at ‘ecocide’ and acknowledge that it has happened” (quoted in head, 32). in order to begin this process of grieving—of truth-telling—head asks us to work to detach “hope” from “optimism.” optimism is a feeling, and we actually don’t require it in order to commit ourselves to actions. by contrast, head figures hope as a “practice,” meaning things we can do while grieving, whether or not we believe they will have a positive outcome. we do them regardless, simply because they are the right things to do, the only things worth doing. we do them because they represent a move toward truth rather than away from it, and truth is always better than lies. among the lies we believe about politics, voting, institutions, police, ourselves, and each other, are the lies about music and art with which i began this article. we also tell ourselves optimistic lies about our field and the work we do as musicologists. for example, those of us who specialize in western classical music may pretend we can address the white supremacist patriarchal 46 foundations of this music and the way it has been explained and celebrated for hundreds of years and the ways it has served to glorify and justify elite power and prestige by simply inserting some women and people of color into our syllabi and by engaging students in discussions of race and gender, perhaps even of class. these maneuvers are well intentioned, and i engage in them too, or i try to; given our various situations and contexts, they may be the best we can do. but as loren kajikawa (2019, 164) has recently argued, classical music itself constitutes an “ideology” manifesting a “possessive investment” in whiteness and white supremacy (i would also add patriarchy and elite-dominated class hierarchy), and that to “own” classical music—to master it, to teach it, to study it—“is to display a form of cultural capital that reinforces white belonging and privilege,” regardless of which composers are actually being taught, studied, or played. barbara tomlinson (2019, 175) similarly critiques the liberal commitment to “colorblindness,” pointing out that “if one is blind to color, one is also blind to power.” meaning, if we continue to foreground (for example) sonata form, the development of tonality, and the four-movement symphony in our music history survey courses, but we try to do so in a “colorblind” and “genderblind” way—by teaching symphonies by women and people of color instead of only by white men—we leave the hegemonic sounds, styles, structures, theories, histories, and values of western culture largely intact.9 such inclusionary gestures do nothing to challenge or even to clearly identify western culture itself, they merely emphasize (even celebrate) the fact that marginalized “others” have also sometimes participated in producing that culture. this has the (unintended?) effect of reiterating the supposed universality of western culture and reasserting the values of bourgeois liberal humanism as the only epistemological frame for understanding “music.”10 becoming useless together although he argued that all music—all art—is to varying extents commodified and shaped by the market, adorno (1932) nonetheless drew a firm line between “art music” and “popular music,” because of their different relations to market ideology. european art music is music that began as social function (in the church or at aristocratic parties, for example) but then moved away from serving such functions, ultimately becoming “art for art’s sake.” part of what he finds meaningful about this music is the way it reveals something problematic about the autonomous ideal that it came to emblemize. contemporary scholars have also problematized autonomy along similar lines. anna bull (2019) notes that 47 this ideal can serve as “camouflage” hiding the barriers that class and privilege put around classical music, for example. furthermore, following adorno, okiji (2018, 34) argues that within capitalist rationality, “art has a crucial role to play as a sanctioned, cordoned-off site where people are able to fulfill those impulses that have been all but expelled from other areas of life.” in this formulation, autonomous art music is like the “free speech zones” police implemented during the post-9/11 protests against the bush administration: literally fenced off areas, far from the action, where people were required to politely stand if they wanted to protest. free speech zones serve to make the u.s. state seem tolerant and permissive, while doing nothing to challenge the evils it perpetrates. the reappraised ideal of autonomy i am trying to construct is an anarchist one that actively refuses to enter this cordoned-off space, by refusing to continue agreeing with what the elite power structure says it is and is for. there is power in this kind of refusal, or there could be. the anarchist anthropologist david graeber (mcphee and reuland 2007) argues that despite its many obvious bourgeois trappings, the old notion of art for art’s sake simply represents the yearning for unalienated labor, labor undertaken at our own behest and for our own reasons. this is the aspect of musical autonomy i continue to feel committed to, and it is an aspect that is potentially available in any music—perhaps even including canonical music from the past that was initially created to serve power; it all depends on what we do with it. we have to be specific. what makes music interesting to me is precisely how foolish and impractical so much of it is via the metrics of the rationalist capitalist project, and yet how hard people work and how much they sacrifice to create it anyway. in fact, marx pursues this idea in his vision of what work will look like after the destruction of the wage relation and the division of labor. in the grundrisse (1993), he notes that liberal political economists conceive work as a “curse,” and believe that humans are only free when they are not working at all. marx dismisses this perspective as being already steeped in the bourgeois expectation that all labor is “forced”: when adam smith argues that work is a curse, he “has only the slaves of capital in mind.” at the same time, marx also takes issue with the utopian socialists who believed that in a free society work will become “mere fun, mere amusement.” dismissing this notion as an expression of “naïveté,” marx insists that the main thing characterizing work in a truly free society will be that it is work freely chosen, rather than imposed by law or necessity. in this formulation, work can and should be an expression of individual self-realization, even when—perhaps especially when—it is difficult. although in his entire oeuvre marx barely mentions music, in this section of the grundrisse he uses 48 musical composition as the paradigmatic example of “really free working” that is “at the same time precisely the most damned seriousness, the most intense exertion” (611). music in general, in so many of its formulations, represents a collective act people work hard to do together regardless of its potential for material gain. music’s (sometime) resonance with the yearning for unalienated labor also resonates with moten and harney’s observations about finding “the work” within “the job,” and trying to do the one without doing the other. this is necessarily a social, a collective, act of refusal. breaking out of the deeply-worn grooves in our disciplinary approach to (and public advocacy of) music would lead to radical changes in which music we value, which music we teach, and which aspects of music’s forms, aesthetics, practices, and histories we center in our thinking and teaching. this might be one reason to rethink the kind of abstract art that so many leftists scorn; the anarchist john zerzan (1994; 2002), for example, puts a different spin on the representational art that many of his political peers insist is the only kind of art that can serve class struggle. for zerzan, by contrast, it is representational art that is authoritarian, because it tells us what it is and what it means—in short, it tells us what and how to think. indeed, clifford harper’s insistence that art serve as propaganda upholds this reading. in its content, such art may resist power—for example a strophic song might urge citizens to revolt— but in its form, zerzan argues, such art reiterates the symbolic order and conventional ways of knowing and naming, and thus prevents our imaginations from developing fully. abstract art, according to zerzan, rejects even this hierarchy—the hierarchy of symbolic meaning. it poses unfamiliar questions, renders the familiar strange, and perhaps in doing so, surprises us into suddenly understanding that our epistemological framework for seeing and knowing is actually just one among many potential frameworks. this notion might make more interesting the kind of abstract art music that today seems to pose the biggest problem for music advocates because of its inaccessibility and lack of wide consumer appeal. in embracing the particular version of uselessness i’ve tried to elucidate here, i suggest we try to once again embrace the potential autonomy of music, but in a way that recontextualizes it within the contemporary political landscape. for it to be meaningful, our embrace of autonomy must be explicitly anticapitalist, as adorno’s was, and yet unlike adorno’s it must not be circumscribed by the framework of european bourgeois humanism; it must be an ideal that is able to encompass a vast array of difference in terms of how to 49 make, hear, and know about music. also, unlike adorno’s formulation, a truly radical embrace of autonomy must provide a space not merely of negating but also of offering. all the diverse perspectives i have brought together in this essay have helped me chart my own course through these complexities, and i offer them here in the spirit of building something new together. i believe we can do this by reaching into and celebrating our vast collective potential for useless creative activity. music by its ephemeral nature is not fully commodifiable, not fully available to capitalism’s totalizing project. thus, in addition to grief, there is also joy here, in our potential for insurrection and reimagining. for starters, clearly identifying, celebrating, and actively pursuing useless collective activities (like musicking and like musicology) explicitly because of their uselessness might reaffirm something capitalism has never been able to account for, which is our desire to not just exist but to love existing, and our belief that everyone else deserves to love existing too, regardless of their relative usefulness to this or that progressive project. acts of collective uselessness can be grand gestures that actively threaten capital, for example a general strike; they can also be comparatively small and brief, perhaps no more than a thought experiment, an internal temporary autonomous zone (bey 1991) where we play with refusals of various kinds. we can start our hopeful practice by consciously rooting ourselves in music not despite the difficulty of making it seem useful to capitalism, but because of that difficulty, and because of the radical new imaginative possibilities embracing that difficulty could open up for us. notes 1 théophile gautier, mademoiselle de maupin, 15. there is no recent or particularly definitive english translation of maupin. the book, including two of its early english translations, is in the public domain and can be read in full on google books. page numbers given here refer to a digireads reprint of the 1899 translation (by j.s. chartres) published by gibbings and company, in london. 2 for a wonderful study of french bohemian culture, including insights into how these artists responded to their own caricaturing in the mainstream press, see mary gluck, popular bohemia: modernism and urban culture in nineteenth-century paris (cambridge: harvard university press, 2005). 3 mouffe does not use the term “political imaginary” in her exploration; i use it here to emphasize the way that a given political system can shape not only the material realities of its subjects but also their inner lives and ways of seeing and knowing. 4 see also gallope 2017; and thompson and biddle 2013. 50 5 adorno and other members of the frankfurt school argued that fascism is not external to liberalism but rather will always be an aspect of it so long as it fails to deliver on its promises. see adorno, aspects of the new right-wing extremism (1967) and the authoritarian personality (1950). 6 freud, too, fails to differentiate significantly between types of civilizations, although his emphasis is on judeo-christianity. 7 see also lewis (2016) on a “politics of everybody” that “doesn’t refuse antagonisms.” 8 for longer readings that seek to work across multiple lines of difference, in order to depict life on earth as a vast shared network of diverse life forms, see kimmerer 2020; and tsing 2015. 9 see also ewell 2020. 10 see also taylor 2007. references adorno, theodor w. (1932) 2002. “late style in beethoven,” in essays on music, edited by richard leppert, translated by susan h. gillespie. 564-568. berkeley: university of california press. ____________. (1932) 2002. “on the social situation of music.” in essays on music, edited by richard leppert, translated by susan h. gillespie. 391-436. berkeley: university of california press. ____________. (1970) 1997. aesthetic theory. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. ____________. (1967) 2020. aspects of the new right-wing extremism, translated by wieland hoban. new york: polity press. ____________. (1950) 2020. the authoritarian personality. london: verso. bey, hakim. 1991. t.a.z.: the temporary autonomous zone, ontological anarchy, poetic terrorism. brooklyn: autonomedia. bull, anna. 2019. class, control, and classical music. new york: oxford university press. currie, james. 2009. “music after all.” journal of the american musicological society 62/1: 145-203. ____________. 2008. “garden disputes: postmodern beauty and the sublime neighbor: a response to judy lochhead’s ‘the sublime, the ineffable, and other dangerous aesthetics.” women and music 12: 75-86. ____________. 2011. “music and politics. in the routledge companion to philosophy and music, edited by theodore gracyk and andrew kanie. new york: routledge. ____________. 2012. music and the politics of negation. bloomington: indiana university press. davis, angela. 2003. are prisons obsolete? new york: seven stories press. ____________. 1996. “gender, class, and multiculturalism: rethinking ‘race’ politics.” in mapping multiculturalism, edited by avery f. gordon and christopher newfield. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. ehrenreich, barbara. 2009. bright-sided: how the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined america. new york: metropolitan books. ewell, philip a. 2020. “music theory and the white racial frame.” music theory online 26/2. 51 freud, sigmund. (1930) 1989. civilization and its discontents. new york: norton. gallope, michael. 2017. deep refrains: music, philosophy, and the ineffable. chicago: university of chicago press, 2017. gilmore, ruth wilson. 2007. golden gulag: prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing california. berkeley: university of california press. goldman, emma. (1911) 2014. anarchism: and other essays. london: active distribution. head, lesley. 2016. hope and grief in the anthropocene: re-conceptualising humannature relations. new york: routledge. harney, stefano, and fred moten. 2013. the undercommons: fugitive planning and black study. wivenhoe: minor compositions. ____________. 2020. “the university: last words.” talk given at the university of california, irvine’s graduate student symposium, fuc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqwmejd_xu8. hooks, bell. 1984. feminist theory: from margin to center. boston: south end press. ____________. 1994.“theory as liberatory practice.” reprinted in teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. new york: routledge. incite!, eds. 2007. the revolution will not be funded: beyond the non-profit industrial complex. cambridge: south end press. kajikawa, loren. 2019. “the possessive investment in classical music: confronting legacies of white supremacy in u.s. schools,” in seeing race again: countering colorblindness across the disciplines, edited by kimberlé williams crenshaw, luke charles harris, daniel martinez hosang, and george lipsitz. 155-74. berkeley: university of california press. kimmerer, robin wall. 2020. braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants. minneapolis: milkweed editions. lalami, laila. 2019. “‘bothsidesism’ is poisoning american.” the nation. lewis, holly. 2016. the politics of everybody: feminism, queer theory, and marxism at the intersection. london: zed books. malatesta, errico. 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(1939) 1993. grundrisse: foundations of the critique of political economy (rough draft). translated by martin nicolaus. london: penguin books. mcphee, josh, and erik reuland, eds. 2007. realizing the impossible: art against authority. oakland: ak press. miles, stephen. 1995. “critics of disenchantment.” notes 52/1: 11-38. millstein, cindy. 2010. anarchism and its aspirations. oakland: ak press. mouffe, chantal. 2005. the democratic paradox. london: verso. mundy, rachel. 2018. animal musicalities: birds, beasts, and evolutionary listening. middletown, ct: wesleyan university press. national assembly of state arts agencies. 2017. “state policy brief: tools for arts decision making” https://nasaa-arts.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/whygovsupport.pdf. odell, jenny. 2019. how to do nothing: resisting the attention economy. brooklyn: melville house. 52 okiji, fumi. 2018. jazz as critique: adorno and black expression revisited. stanford: stanford university press. ritchey, marianna. 2019. composing capital: classical music in the neoliberal era. chicago: university of chicago press. taylor, timothy d. 2007. beyond exoticism: western music and the world. durham: duke university press. thompson, marie, and ian biddle, eds. 2013. sound, music, affect: theorizing sonic experience. new york: bloomsbury. tomlinson, barbara. 2019. “powerblind intersectionality: feminism and inclusion as a oneway street.” in seeing race again: countering colorblindness across the disciplines, edited by kimberlé williams crenshaw, luke charles harris, daniel martinez hosang, and george lipsitz. 175-99. berkeley: university of california press. tsing, anna lowenhaupt. 2015. the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins (princeton: princeton university press, 2015). veblen, thorsten. (1899) 1953. the theory of the leisure class. new york: new american library. vitale, alex. 2018. the end of policing. london: verso. weir, david. 1997. anarchy and culture: the aesthetic politics of modernism. amherst: university of massachusetts press. williams, kristian. 2015. our enemies in blue: police and power in america. oakland: ak press. zerzan, john. 1994. future primitive, and other essays. new york: autonomedia. ____________. 2002. running on emptiness: the pathology of civilisation. port townshend, wa: feral house. current musicology 98 (fall 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 95 erik satie’s socrate (1918), myths of marsyas, and un style dépouillé samuel n. dorf it is almost easier to say what erik satie’s socrate is not rather than what it is. it has proved enigmatic since its première, when the audience giggled at its conclusion, confused by the strange sincerity of the work, especially since it was written by a composer known for his humorous piano pieces (harding 1975, 183). scholars have defined socrate’s clear, unadorned musical lines as modernist, abstract, and even quasi–socialist and minimalist (see danuser 2004, 261–62; shattuck 1968, 168; fulcher 2005, 146–51; and wilson 2007, 215–16). the work also defies traditional categorizations of genre: satie designated socrate not as an oratorio, a symphony, or an opera, but as a drame symphonique, scored for chamber orchestra and four soprani. satie envisioned the work as incidental music for the reading of plato. the soprani sing selections in french from plato’s dialogues on the life of socrates in a detached style, as if reading. socrate eschews the grand theatricality of the opera stage in favor of the intimacy of the salon. socrate resists spectacle. like stravinsky and cocteau’s neoclassical opera–oratorio oedipus rex (1927), socrate presents an idealized apollonian greek antiquity favoring restraint, simplicity, and detachment through despectacularization and the neoclassical style dépouillé (the “stripped–down style”). socrate does not present plato’s text, or the life of socrates, for that matter, as it was; the text is offered as a white and pure idealized past. but satie’s restrained classicism in socrate is not just another ode to the noble founders of western civilization, their democratic ideals, and their dedication to philosophy, as this essay will show. despite its staid affect, light female voices, despectacularization, and spare accompaniment, socrate hints at a violence lurking under the surface of socrates’s peaceful martyrdom. satie’s setting not only celebrates the martyred philosopher, but offers an alternative reading of socrates’s life and death that emphasizes the violent and painful sacrifices underlying musical neoclassicism. the gruesome myth of apollo and marsyas, evoked throughout the work, endows the stripped–down aesthetic with menace. satie strips away (silences) voices, philosophical arguments, characters, and accompaniments to produce a work that ends in a raw, unsettled finale. satie’s process of dépouillement takes an unexpected turn at the end of the work, when, after the death of socrates, we find that 96 current musicology we are no longer listening to a work stripped of artifice but a work stripped to the bone. in its treatment of violence and stripping of ornament, socrate helps reveal the darker side of apollonian neoclassicism. in arguing that underneath the placid, “stripped–down” style of socrate there lurks a hidden violence, this study does not focus on satie’s compositional process, documented in his notebooks; instead, the article examines socrate’s performance history and the creation of the work’s libretto, which the composer completed before sketching his musical ideas.1 satie’s novel selection and setting of the text is critical to my reading. i examine how satie reinterprets the violent myth of marsyas and apollo in the first movement, and how he ruminates on socrates’s dying words in the last movement. understanding the ideas and events that led to the creation of satie’s enigmatic masterpiece allows us to view socrate’s portrayal of plato’s dialogues as part of a project of dépouillement, a neoclassical aesthetic that sought to strip down musical material in favor of an ascetic aesthetic uniting musical and moral hellenism. my reading of socrate allows us to reexamine the early twentieth–century style dépouillé and to place socrate at the center of debates on socrates, hellenism, and morality. “white and pure as antiquity”: socrate and french hellenism in the frail social body: pornography, homosexuality, and other fantasies in interwar france, a study of french society after the humiliating defeat in the franco–prussian war, carolyn dean paints a vivid picture of a society in crisis. as dean explains, to buoy citizens’ moral character, the conservative french government of the day sought to crack down on vice and urged the promotion of “classical” art and morals (dean 2000, 34). the government heralded french classicism (ancien régime, and revolutionary) as heir to the greco–roman tradition and invoked hellenism in its myriad guises to symbolically reunite a defeated and injured france with its great past.2 the moral crisis deepened through the decades leading up to the great war and throughout the period the government routinely urged a return to gallic and greco–latinate values to heal the humiliation and moral vice of society. as glenn watkins (2003, 96) explains, “during the war [world war i] the modernist republican notion of classicism was premised largely upon the idea that greece had bequeathed to france a legacy of individual liberty and that from rome had come a veneration for the rule of law and republicanism. combined, they had provided the foundation for the rational social order that stood at the very heart of the french revolution, epitomized by the principles of liberté, égalité, and fraternité.” 97 samuel n. dorf neoroyalists hoped to return to the hellenic and latinate virtues of clarity and simplicity rather than the corrupting cosmopolitan, modern, and germanic traditions (fulcher 1999, 200). clarion calls for clarity and purity in french music sounded continually from the 1870s through the post–world war i period. as scott messing has argued, scholars and musicians, including lalo, coquard, bruneau, mithouard, mauclair, and cocteau, touted latinate, hellenic, and gallic values of classicism, grace, naturalness, and simplicity in opposition to german excess (messing 1991, 483–84). that these musical qualities could lead to such divergent works as satie’s socrate and stravinsky’s octet or oedipus rex demonstrates that the early composers contributing to neoclassicism had aesthetic and philosophical motivations beyond the rhetoric of simplicity and a return to nature. from the very beginning, satie wanted to ensure socrate exhibited hellenistic qualities of classical simplicity. satie and his patron, the american expatriate princesse winnaretta singer–polignac (1865–1943), first met to discuss the possibility of a commission in the late summer of 1916 (kahan 2003, 203).3 work continued on the project through 1918 and resulted in a three–movement drame symphonique constructed out of texts from plato’s dialogues that chronicle the life and death of socrates. the first of socrate’s three movements draws from plato’s symposium and paints a portrait of socrates, comparing him to the satyr marsyas. the second movement, taken from the phaedrus, depicts a scene between the philosopher and his student walking along the banks of the ilissus river in athens. the final and longest movement consists of a long narration from the phaedo retelling the last moments of socrates in prison as he drinks his cup of hemlock, says a final prayer, and dies. satie’s first mention of socrate appears in a letter to valentine gross from 1917 where he expresses his aesthetic aims for the piece: “i am afraid to ‘muck up’ this work, which i want to be white & pure as antiquity” (satie 2003, 273–74).4 satie continually stressed the simplicity of the work throughout his letters and public writings. in 1918 he wrote to a friend, “it is a return to classical simplicity with a modern sensibility” (satie 2003, 325).5 before a performance of the work, satie gave a short speech that he jotted down on the cover of the manuscript where he declared, “the aesthetic of the work, i pledge to clarity; simplicity accompanies it, directs it, that’s all” (see volta 1979, 64).6 for satie, “white and pure as antiquity” seems to have meant setting plato’s words simply: the text setting is syllabic in neatly arching vocal lines underpinned by repetitive yet unassuming accompanying figures. each movement unfolds slowly and fluidly, without any chromatic flourishes or 98 current musicology ornament. example 1, taken from the first movement of socrate, is typical of satie’s setting. the vocal line mostly moves stepwise, with occasional leaps (mostly octaves, fifths, and fourths). the accompaniment is cellular, comprised of simple repeating figures. satie renders this bare accompaniment and these unadorned vocal lines more “pure” and “white” by having female voices sing en lisant for male characters, which further abstracts the work, nullifying the mimetic potential of plato’s text. the women sing the text as if they were reading from plato’s text, not as if they were the actual characters in plato’s drama; the listener cannot identify the female vocal lines with a male character. according to alan gillmor, “there can be no denying that the cool ‘white’ sound of the soprano voice more readily enhances the remote ‘antique’ flavor of socrate” (gillmor 1988, 220). by characterizing the soprano voice using satie’s own adjectives (“white” and “antique”), gillmor ascribes a certain purity to the female voice, which he believes satie saw as crucial. in the work’s early performance history, both satie and polignac preferred female voices (preferably four), minimal staging, and venues associated with belles–lettres rather than opera or drama. first readings of the work took place at private homes (the princesse de polignac’s and jane bathori’s) and always sung by women (see orledge 1990, 317; potter 2013, example 1: satie, socrate, movement i, le banquet, mm. 67–74 (from vocal score [vs], p. 6). 99 samuel n. dorf 303–305; and bathori 1964, 238–39. see the appendix for a timeline of the composition and earliest performances of socrate).7 in giving the singing roles to women, satie was no doubt inspired by the princesse’s original idea of three women reading plato’s dialogues in ancient greek, accompanied by satie’s music. here i emphasize not how socrate’s female voices appealed to the princesse de polignac’s interests in hellenism, but that these voices work to abstract and purge socrate of dramatic representation in line with his “white and pure as antiquity” aesthetic. i have offered a queer reading of socrate as a product of polignac’s salon elsewhere (see dorf 2007). sung in homes, and at adrienne monnier’s left–bank bookshop, la maison des amis des livres, the first performances emphasized the “white and pure as antiquity” aesthetic, expressed as emotional detachment stripped of mimetic possibility and on plato’s text, free of operatic embellishments, of spectacle and drama. choosing a translation satie’s libretto similarly encodes both the proto–neoclassical disengagement with emotion and his aesthetics of whiteness and purity through the choice of translation and his manipulation of plato’s writings. two weeks after receiving the commission for socrate, satie wrote that he was “swimming in happiness” upon having settled on a translation of plato’s text among the many french versions available in paris. the composer took passages directly from victor cousin’s early nineteenth–century translation and artfully strung them together to create one flowing narrative.8 from cousin’s thirteen volumes, satie created three movements. he took material from three of plato’s dialogues—the symposium, phaedrus, and phaedo—and maintained the original narrative sequence of the passages he selected. the critic alexis roland–manuel related how satie settled on victor cousin’s translation: déjà les dialogues de platon le sollicitaient. a la version de mario meunier, que je lui recommandais, il préféra le texte de victor cousin, plus lourd, assez plat, disait–il, et par là–même mieux à son gré. aux grands jours où les ballets russes nous éblouissaient de leur faste, il commençait à prêcher les moyens pauvres, ultime ressource de l’art dans un monde sans amour. car ce faune saturnine nous proposait une ascèse. (roland–manuel 1952, 11) already, plato’s dialogues had called out to him. i recommended mario meunier’s version, but he preferred victor cousin’s text, which was, he said, heavier, and rather flat, and for those reasons better suited to his 100 current musicology taste. in the great days when the ballets russes were dazzling us with their spectacle, he began to preach poverty of material, art’s ultimate resource in a world without love. for this saturnine faun proposed to us an asceticism. roland–manuel’s telling of the story seems to imply that satie’s choice of cousin’s translation is part of the same poetics of despectacularization we saw in the choice of female voices. a “flat” and “ascetic” plato is positioned against the erotic “dazzling spectacle” of the ballets russes. one can imagine the vibrant orientalist costumes and acrobatic movement of ballets russes repertoire favorites that evoked exotic and/or ancient eastern locales, such as l’après–midi d’un faune, schéhérazade, thamar, cléopâtre, le dieu bleu, and narcisse. roland–manuel went even further, noting how this new aesthetic of poverty was needed in a “world without love,” which most likely refers to the great war (roland–manuel 1952, 11).9 if we compare cousin’s translation with meunier’s 1914 translation, we can better understand why cousin’s fits more closely with satie’s stripped– down aesthetic. in general, cousin uses simpler language and sentence structures. his translation reads more easily and is more straightforward. moreover, satie may have preferred the ancient flavor of cousin’s almost seventy–five–year–old translation to meunier’s sumptuous prose. socrates’s famous final speech is one of the most revealing passages, where the two translators diverge in matters of style and even in terms of philosophical interpretation: [cousin:] criton, nous devons un coq à esculape; n’oubliez pas d’acquitter cette dette. (crito, we owe a cock to asclepius; do not forget to settle this debt.) (plato 1822, 1:322) [meunier:] criton, fit–il, nous sommes redevables d’un coq à asclépios. payez ma dette, et ne l’oubliez pas. (crito, [he said], we are indebted of a cock to asclepius. pay my debt, and do not forget.) (plato 1952, 273) cousin remains faithful to the original greek first–person plural voice; moreover, cousin’s text displays a greater economy of words as compared with the verbose meunier.10 not only does meunier personalize the debt (“payez ma dette”), but he also draws out socrates’s last words. the difference between settling “this debt” (cousin) and “my debt” (meunier) carries philosophical implications and invites distinct interpretations. the translations identify different beneficiaries of the sacrifice to asclepius. for meunier, it is socrates who is about to die. for cousin, socrates’s last words remain thoroughly ambiguous—the language implies that all people present at his death, or even the whole populace, could be in need of the sacrificial cock. 101 samuel n. dorf the implications of cousin’s translation of socrates’s final words permit a reading that extends the plight of socrates to all characters in the drama, and even further, to all listeners of socrate. in a note, cousin explained that this debt is owed in “recognition of his [socrates’s] recovery from the disease of life” (“en reconnaissance de sa guérison de la maladie de la vie actuelle.” plato 1822, 1:322). this interpretation suggests that sharing the debt among those present at a performance of socrate serves as a momento mori: we are all suffering the disease of life, and death is ever near. nietzsche also read this last line as a prayer of thanks for the poison that would kill him, an admission that life is a disease in need of a cure: “‘o crito, i owe asclepius a rooster.’ this ridiculous and terrible ‘last word’ means for those who have ears: ‘o crito, life is a disease’” (nietzsche 1974, 272; also see madison 2002, 421–36, and wilson 2007).11 in this reading, the healing from life is the conclusion of socrates’s earlier arguments laid out in phaedo that examine the fear of death and the immortality of the soul. however, the text in phaedo concerning these broader philosophical discussions does not appear in socrate. in satie’s work we are left with a single female singer advising the audience that we all owe a sacrifice to the god of healing—the responsibility of socrates’s death falls on all of our shoulders. why do we need healing? satie lays clues throughout the work, not only in his stripped–down setting of the text, but within the libretto itself. alcibiades and marsyas: violence in socrate’s libretto the whiteness and purity of socrate result from a drastic stripping away of text. when satie cut up plato’s dialogues, however, he tended to keep sections related to violence. as a result, satie’s libretto invokes themes of suffering and pain throughout. in the second movement, for example, as socrates and phaedrus walk barefoot along the illisus river, they discuss the rape of orithyia: when the violent god of the north wind, boreas, whisked orithyia away, he inadvertently dragged her body over sharp rocks and killed the young nymph. the nymph’s death anticipates socrates’s own death in the last movement, but this bucolic scene from phaedrus avoids any hint of the violence lurking beneath the surface. satie’s chosen text here represents a short lesson: it begins with socrates in a playful mood as he converses with phaedrus while strolling along the river ilissus. barefoot, they enjoy their walk and the beauty of their surroundings. while walking, phaedrus asks socrates whether or not he believes the myth of boreas and orithyia. socrates describes to his eager young student how the myth can be explained rationally. while he is talking, they arrive at the place 102 current musicology where they decided to stop and sit. socrates poetically describes the sights, sounds, and smells of this beautiful spot where they have decided to rest. the movement ends. while the violent act is never described in satie’s libretto, listeners familiar with plato’s phaedrus and ovid’s metamorphoses, like the princesse de poliganc and her friends, might have noted its conspicuous absence.12 violence lurks under the surface in the first movement of socrate as well. le banquet [the symposium] is set in the home of agathon the playwright. in plato’s narrative, the guests, all male, recline on couches, drink wine, and discuss the nature of erôs (ερως).13 in the first movement of socrate, satie does not use the opening of the dialogue or the long philosophical eulogies of erôs. in fact, this movement omits all philosophical discussions and begins after diotima’s famous speech on the nature of erôs as told by socrates, when suddenly the evening’s festivities are interrupted by the arrival of the drunken alcibiades, accompanied by revelers. alcibiades begins to eulogize socrates, and in doing so, he criticizes the famed philosopher for rejecting his previous sexual advances. socrates remains impervious to the young politician’s charms and continues to reject him.14 satie begins the first movement of socrate after this rejection towards the conclusion of the symposium as alcibiades finishes his narration with a description of socrates. by selecting this specific eulogy of socrates delivered by one of the youths the philosopher supposedly corrupted, satie paints a sympathetic portrait of socrates while simultaneously alluding to, and foreshadowing, his trial and thus his execution (portrayed in the third movement of the work). satie’s treatment of the eulogy removes all possible allusions to alcibiades’s frustrated sexual desire for socrates, which prefaced the speech,15 and provides instead a physical description of socrates by comparing the philosopher with the mythological satyr marsyas: je prétends ensuite qu’il ressemble au satyre marsyas. . . . et n’es–tu pas aussi joueur de flûte? oui sans doute, et bien plus étonnant que marsyas. celui–ci charmait les hommes par les belles choses que sa bouche tirait de ses instruments, et autant en fait aujourd’hui quiconque répète ses airs; en effet, ceux que jouait olympos, je les attribue à marsyas son maître. . . . la seule différence socrate qu’il y ait ici entre marsyas et toi, c’est que sans instruments, avec de simples discours, tu fais la même chose . . . pour moi, mes amis, n’était la crainte de vous paraître totalement ivre, je vous attesterais avec serment l’effet extraordinaire que ses discours m’ont fait et me font encore. en l’écoutant, je sens palpiter mon cœur plus fortement que si j’étais agité de la manie dansante des corybantes, ses paroles font couler mes larmes, et j’en vois un grand nombre d’autres ressentir les mêmes émotions. . . . tels sont les prestiges qu’exerce, et sur moi et sur bien d’autres, la flûte de ce satyre (satie 1919, 5–13) 103 samuel n. dorf and i further suggest that he resembles the satyr marsyas. . . . are you not a piper? why, yes, and a far more marvelous one than the satyr. his lips indeed had power to entrance mankind by means of instruments; a thing still possible today for anyone who can pipe his tunes: for the music of olympus’s flute belonged, i may tell you, to marsyas his teacher. . . . you differ from him in one point only—that you produce the same effect with simple prose unaided by instruments. . . . as for myself, gentlemen, were it not that i might appear to be absolutely tipsy, i would have affirmed on oath all the strange effects i personally have felt from his words, and still feel even now. for when i hear him i am worse than any wild fanatic; i find my heart leaping and my tears gushing forth at the sound of his speech, and i see great numbers of other people having the same experience. .  .  . such then is the effect that our satyr can work upon me and many another with his piping (plato 1946, iii: 219–23) within socrate, alcibiades’s comparison of socrates and marsyas foreshadows socrates’s ultimate fate as well, albeit, without the agony and violence. according to plato’s phaedo, socrates dies peacefully. in the myth, however, marsyas is killed for daring to challenge apollo to a musical contest. after marsyas defeated apollo on the reed–flutes, the god flayed the satyr alive. in the metamorphoses, ovid describes how the god is unmoved by marsyas’s pleas: “help! . . . why are you stripping me from myself? never again, i promise! playing a pipe is not worth this!” but in spite of his cries the skin was torn off the whole surface of his body: it was all one raw wound. blood flowed everywhere, his nerves were exposed, unprotected, his veins pulsed with no skin to cover them. it was possible to count his throbbing organs, and the chambers of the lungs, clearly visible within his breast. (ovid, metamorphoses, 6:383–400, and ovid 1955, 145) contemporary statuettes of marsyas frequently portrayed the satyr bound to a stake sticking out of the ground, flayed alive, his head hanging low (see bundrick 2005, 131–39, and waddington 2004, 144–55). like marsyas’s body stripped of its skin, socrate pulsates like one raw wound. though socrates dies peacefully, the excised portions of satie’s work reveal a violence in the “stripped down,” white, and pure aesthetic hailed by many proponents of neoclassicism. dépouillement satie came to the “stripped–down aesthetic” of classical simplicity in socrate through a congruence of the concerns of his patron and others in his artistic circle (see satie to henry prunières, 3 april 1918, in satie 2003, 104 current musicology 325). the composer often described his music at this time in terms of what rollo myers called dépouillement, a term that could be translated as “stripping,” “skinning,” and also “abstracting,” echoing some of the ideals of a nascent neoclassical aesthetic (myers 1948, 55).16 in boris schloezer’s oft– cited review of stravinsky’s symphonies d’instruments à vent, which first coined the term “néoclassicisme,” he also foresaw a movement “toward a simplification of musical language, a style nude and stripped–down” (“vers une simplification du langage musical, vers un style nu, dépouillé.” de schloezer 1923, 247).17 gurminder bhogal has recently reassessed the origins of the style dépouillé in the works of twentieth–century french composers. according to bhoghal, reynaldo hahn and jean cocteau employed the term in the 1910s—hahn in reference to ravel’s ma mère l’oye (1908–10), and cocteau regarding satie’s rhythm (bhogal 2013, 299). cocteau wrote, “satie teaches the most audacious thing of our époque: to be simple. has he not proved that he could refine better than anyone? for he clears, simplifies, strips rhythm” (cocteau 1918, 30–31).18 in his writings, cocteau positioned satie against the supposedly foreign influences of debussy and ravel, and “stripping down” in his hands became a useful metaphor to advocate for the purging of “impressionism” from a gallic art (see verzosa 2008, 122–24 and 135). by the 1920s, as scott messing has noted, the style dépouillé drew associations with néoclassicisme and the post–world war i works of stravinsky (messing 1996, 129, and bhogal 2013, 302–304). bhogal, however, views the characteristics of the aesthetic—“uncluttered textures, lean counterpoint, rhythmic simplicity, and small–scale forms by chamber ensembles” (bhogal 2013, 303)—as markers of the neoclassical style, and perhaps nothing more. “since it is unlikely that any composer’s output from this time was a product of dépouillement taken at face value,” she suggests, “we might consider this term as a metaphor for a set of musical techniques” (bhogal 2013, 305). satie’s socrate seems to have taken the style dépouillé at face value. as i will explain, satie’s uncluttered textures, lean counterpoint, and absence of ornament in socrate demonstrate the most severe form of the style dépouillé. in socrate, simplification and nudity evoke painful vulnerability; the satyr is stripped of his skin and flesh and left naked (denuded). it is not just a collection of musical attributes, but this radical version of the style dépouillé is seen in the libretto and performance history of the work as well. socrate ends with excerpts from plato’s description of socrates’s death as told in the phaedo, and here satie takes the style dépouillé to the extreme. in this long dialogue with echecrates, phaedo recounts the philosopher’s final moments in prison before his death. satie strips the long dialogue to 105 samuel n. dorf its structural pillars: he eliminates the introductory lines, where phaedo and echecrates meet, and begins with phaedo’s narrative describing how they arrived early at the prison to see their teacher. here, most of the philosophical arguments are removed in order to elucidate the details concerning socrates’s death. satie cuts phaedo’s and xanthippe’s emotional descriptions at the beginning in order to make the effusion of sentiment at the end more poignant. by comparing satie’s text with the complete passage from cousin’s translation (see table 1 below), we can see that satie removes the emotional outbursts in the early words of phaedo’s narrative (plato, phaedo, 59d–60b, in plato 2003, 118–19). source text (cousin) satie’s libretto je puis te raconter tout de point en point; car depuis la condamnation de socrate, nous ne manquions pas un seul jour d’aller le voir. comme la place publique où le jugement avait été rendu, était tout près de la prison, nous nous y rassemblions le matin, et là nous attendions, en nous entretenant ensemble, que la prison fût ouverte et elle ne l’était jamais de bonne heure. depuis la condamnation de socrate, nous ne manquions pas un seul jour d’aller le voir. comme la place publique où le jugement avait été rendu, était tout près de la prison, nous nous y rassemblions le matin, et là nous attendions, en nous entretenant ensemble, que la prison fût ouverte et elle ne l’était jamais de bonne heure. aussitôt qu’elle s’ouvrait, nous nous rendions auprès de socrate, et nous passions ordinairement tout le jour avec lui. mais ce jour–là nous nous réunîmes de grand matin que de coutume. nous avions appris la veille, en sortant le soir de la prison, que le vaisseau était revenu de délos. nous nous recommandâmes donc les uns lieu accoutumé, le plus matin qu’il se pourrait, et nous n’y manquâmes pas. le geôlier qui nous introduisait ordinairement, vint au–devant de nous, et nous dit d’attendre et de ne pas entrer avant qu’il nous appelât lui–même; le geôlier qui nous introduisait ordinairement, vint au–devant de nous, et nous dit d’attendre et de ne pas entrer avant qu’il nous appelât lui–même. table 1: comparison of satie's libretto and cousin's translation (socrates's death).19 106 current musicology source text (cousin) satie’s libretto car les onze, dit–il, font en ce moment ôter les fers à socrate, et donnent des ordres pour qu’il meure aujourd’hui. quelques moments après, il revint et nous ouvrit. en entrant, nous trouvâmes socrate qu’on venait de délivrer de ses fers, et xantippe, tu la connais auprès de lui, et tenant un de ses enfants dans ses bras. quelques moments après, il revint et nous ouvrit. en entrant, nous trouvâmes socrate qu’on venait de délivrer de ses fers, et xantippe, tu la connais auprès de lui, et tenant un de ses enfants dans ses bras. a peine nous eut–elle aperçus, qu’elle commença à se répandre en lamentations et à dire tout ce que les femmes ont coutume de dire en pareilles circonstances. socrate, s'écria–t–elle, c'est donc aujourd'hui le dernier jour où tes amis te parleront, et où tu leur parleras! mais lui, tournant les yeux du côté de criton: qu'on la reconduise chez elle, dit–il: aussitôt quelques esclaves de criton l'emmenèrent poussant des cris et se meurtrissant le visage. alors socrate, se mettant sur son séant, plia la jambe qu'on venait de dégager, la frotta avec sa main, et nous dit [en la frottant;] l'étrange chose, mes amis, que ce que les hommes appellent plaisir, et comme il a de merveilleux rapports avec la douleur que l'on prétend contraire! alors socrate, se mettant sur son séant, plia la jambe qu'on venait de dégager, la frotta avec sa main, et nous dit [en la frottant;] l'étrange chose, mes amis, que ce que les hommes appellent plaisir, et comme il a de merveilleux rapports avec la douleur que l'on prétend contraire! car si le plaisir et la douleur ne se rencontrent jamais en même temps, quand on prend l'un, il faut accepter l'autre, comme si un lien naturel les rendait inséparables. satie removes not only superfluous information, such as the details pertaining to the boat’s arrival from delos, but also portions of the text that foreshadow socrates’s death and express an abundance of sentiment. 107 samuel n. dorf satie delegates the emotional content of the deleted prose to musical form. he depicts the sorrow and the imminence of death through a leitmotivic opening musical gesture rather than through his libretto, and he saves the emotionally poignant moments for the dramatic climaxes, such as socrates’s explanation that swans sing their best right before they die (phaedo, 84e–85a), the taking of the poison (117c), and the uttering of his last words and death (118a). the ascending repeating triad leitmotiv that opens the movement (mm. 1–4; see example 2) reoccurs in varied forms at key dramatic sections. after socrates mentions the dying swan, satie includes a brief line of reflection by phaedo, “although many times i have admired socrates, i never did as much as then” (“bien que j’aie plusieurs fois admire socrate, je ne le fis jamais autant que dans cette circonstance”). here, satie masks the ascending motive with added eighth notes but strips away the harmony (mm. 81–83; see example 3). the motive repeats again as ascending quarter–note triads a few measures later as socrates puts his hand on phaedo’s shoulder and says that tomorrow he will cut his hair. as socrates’s death draws closer the leitmotiv returns more frequently, climaxing with socrates’s final words regarding the cock owed to asclepius (mm. 271–73; see example 4). after this line, satie drastically pulls back. the last two pages of the vocal score are stripped bare, accompanied by hollow repeating quarter notes (mm. 276–94; see example 5). socrate silenced the stripping bare of musical and dramatic excess in socrate connotes violence. daniel albright reminds us that the myth of apollo and marsyas, alluded to throughout socrate, is, after all, about the brutal punishment of a sensualist satyr: “the flaying of marsyas can be read as a literalization of the sense–immediacy of expressive music—music that cuts to the quick of the player and the listener” (albright 2000, 19). in socrate the text, the score, and satie’s intended performance conditions receive the apollonian treatment of dépouillement, though the work embodies aspects of both apollo and marsyas: it is detached, apollonian, lofty, cerebral, and disengaged, but it also has brief moments of emotional, mimetic, and perhaps even sensual drama. satie’s apollonianism is not the detached, cool “sounding numbers” of the god of harmony and order—his apollo is responsible for flaying marsyas. as albright explains, “one of the shocking aspects of this myth [of apollo and marsyas] is that apollo seems to act out of character: ever since nietzsche’s the birth of tragedy (1872), we are used to thinking of apollo as a lucid, clarifying, beautiful god, the opponent of dionysus 108 current musicology example 2: satie, socrate, movement iii, la mort de socrate, mm. 1–7 (vs, p. 35). example 3: satie, socrate, movement iii, la mort de socrate, mm. 79–83 (vs, p. 45). 109 samuel n. dorf and every sort of ecstasy and riot. if even apollo can be maddened by a music contest, it suggests how dangerous is the goal of expression in the arts: the expresser may find himself most horribly exhibited, ex–pressed, pressed out” (albright 2000, 18). if apollonian music can invoke the barbarity of the god who skinned marsyas, how do we reread “stripped–down” neoclassical narratives to account for such shifting meaning? the violent apollo, introduced in the libretto of the first movement, is most apparent in the final movement when the white and pure aesthetic makes an abrupt turn in the final two bars of the work toward painfully exposed, undulating tritones. throughout la mort de socrate (the third example 4: satie, socrate, movement iii, la mort de socrate, mm. 271–79 (vs, pp. 69–70). 110 current musicology and final movement of the work), phaedo remains the anonymous narrator speaking in the past tense; the libretto effaces the dialogic aspects of the original text, and phaedo’s dialogue is turned into a narrative. but in the final lines, satie abruptly shifts back into a mimetic mode: socrate dit: “criton, nous devons un coq à esculape; n’oublie pas d’acquitter cette dette . . . ” . . . un peu de temps après il fit un mouvement convulsive; alors l’homme le découvrit tout à fait: ses regards étaient fixes. criton s’en étant aperçu, lui ferma la bouche et les yeux . . . voilà echécrates, quelle fut la fin de notre ami . . . du plus sage et du plus juste de tous les hommes (satie 1919, 69–71). example 5: satie, socrate, movement iii, la mort de socrate, mm. 286–94 (vs, p. 71). 111 samuel n. dorf socrates said, “criton, we owe a cock to asclepius, do not forget to pay this debt .  .  . ” .  .  . a short time after that, he had convulsions, and the attendants uncovered him: his eyes were fixed. crito closed his mouth and eyes . . . there it is echecrates, such was the end of our friend . . . the wisest and most just of all men. satie mirrors this shift in the relationship between the narrator and the audience with a shift from the sweetly arching vocal lines to a much more sharply stripped–down aesthetic of reciting tones and bare harmonies. once socrates utters his final words, the voice and its accompaniment make a dramatic change. as phaedo describes socrates’s passing and crito closing his eyes, satie’s musical accompaniment repeats a stark open fifth on a beginning in measure 276 (see example 4). to mark the transition from phaedo’s narrative to his final address to echecrates, satie moves the slowly pulsating open fifth up a whole step to b (m. 287 in example 5). the sudden step upwards signals a metaphorical “stepping out” of the narrative and into a conversation outside the frame of phaedo’s story. over open fifths in the accompaniment, the soprano’s a4 rises to b4 in measure 288, and once more up to e5 in measure 291, accentuating the final line of text (“. . . du plus sage et du plus juste de tous les hommes” [“the most wise and just of all men”]). the line ends with a monophonic cadence on a4 in measure 292 for the final word of text (see example 5). the last two measures oscillate between octaves on the tritone e–sharp/b and its resolution to f–sharp/b, perhaps a musical metaphor for the enduring agony that will befall the followers of socrates, a reminder of the debt left unpaid. in its cold resolution, clean and white in its simplicity, stands a violent dépouillement. satie’s harmonies expose a grotesque skeleton deprived of ornament. the bare parallel motion of the last two bars presents a musical metaphor for the death of socrates—not peaceful, but slow, prolonged, and uncomfortable. while the philosopher slips away peacefully, those left alive in a world that could kill socrates must truly suffer. satie, apollonian in his cruelty, skins the final moments of the work, leaving the concluding unsettling tritone painfully exposed. concerning dépouillement in ravel’s work, bhogal writes, “if we were to take the impossible task of removing ornament from those works in which decoration is especially prominent, it is unlikely that we would uncover anything of substance, let alone attain a glimpse of underlying aesthetic truth” (bhogal 2013, 305). bhogal also cites roger nichols’ similar observation about the style dépouillé: “the problem for many french composers in the 1920s was that they had been brought up in the decorative tradition of impressionism, so that when their style was stripped down there was noth112 current musicology ing left worth listening to” (nichols 2002, 216). richard taruskin draws similar conclusions to bhogal in the oxford history of western music when he writes that “the music [of socrate] ostentatiously displays not only its rejection of ostentatious emotional display, but also its eschewal of technical finesse” (taruskin 2005, iv: 573). removing ornament in french music of this period to its bare essentials poses the risk of revealing that underneath the arabesque lies nothing at all: without ornament we are left with silence. peter dayan sees the words of socrates in socrate “slipping away”—a silencing of the philosopher—resulting in a “strange alliance between music and silence,” a “fade–out” (dayan 2008, 415–17). what he reads as silence, i identify as part of the aesthetic of dépouillement. discussing satie’s treatment of plato’s text in the first movement, dayan writes: “already we see the words of socrates being emptied of their properly verbal or philosophical content, and assimilated, in their true effect, to music” (dayan 2008, 415–16). dayan’s reading is persuasive, but his interpretation of this “emptying,” when understood in the context of neoclassicism, illustrates a specific aesthetic of abstraction. if, as dayan suggests, satie used music to silence, refuse, and ignore verbal and philosophical content, in socrate, perhaps, these same strategies of silencing function as redaction. in la musique et les heures, vladimir jankélévitch praises socrate for its immobility, clarity, and timelessness. in the final pages of the score, he recognizes a “fade–out” similar to dayan’s reading. concerning the death of socrates in socrate, jankélévitch writes, “death here does not explode like the roar of thunder nor gloriously expire in a culminating apotheosis, but happens slowly and on tiptoe, or, like the spirit of god, carried by a light breeze” (jankélévitch 1988, 35).20 for jankélévitch, satie and the “hellenism” of socrate are “part of the detoxifying cure, this frugal diet, austere and purifying that french music should impose at the end of these drunken nights” (jankélévitch 1988, 37).21 satie, as well, thought about socrate in terms of what it is not, writing in 1918, “it isn’t russian, of course, it isn’t persian either, nor asian. it is a return to classical simplicity with a modern sensibility” (satie 2003, 325).22 the whiteness and purity of socrate exists by virtue of the silencing of what it is not. a similar politics of exclusion lies at the heart of a recent reappraisal of vladimir jankélévitch and his criticism lauding french neoclassical works like socrate (see gallope et al. 2012, 215–56). in dayan’s and jankélévitch’s readings of socrate, socrates dies peacefully, and thus, so ends the work. satie said that in writing socrate, he wrote a simple work “without conflict.”23 but the lack of conflict is not due to a lack of argument or a lack of moral clarity. there is no conflict because satie attempts to silence all alternative viewpoints. socrates does not exit 113 samuel n. dorf life screaming in fear; he does not end in the ecstatic horror of marsyas. socrates drifts away, and socrate dissipates, sung by the “white and pure” female voices. vanishing without a whimper, or a scream, it just ends— unceremoniously, yet unambiguously. socrates enters into death without fear. it is those left behind who are left to suffer the unsettling final tritones; we, as cousin’s translation reminds us, are the ones in need of the healing sacrifice. socrates and socrate may slip away, but they leave traces of the violent stripping that created their “purity”—the grotesque final bars of socrate. inexpression is the path to expression, or as jankélévitch writes in music and the ineffable, “the mask, the inexpressive face that music assumes voluntarily these days, conceals a purpose: to express infinitely that which cannot be explained” (jankélévitch 2003, 71). the erasure of impressionism’s ornament, that last gasp of subjective romantic expression, is one way toward the ineffable. “reticence, generalized expression, and retrospective suggestion,” jankélévitch continues, “are, as we saw, paradoxically the most effective means of expression” (jankélévitch 2003, 73). satie’s libretto for socrate—reticent, retrospectively suggestive, and expressionless—is silenced by the disruptive harmonies in the last two bars, and through that silence we find expression. commenting on fauré’s requiem, jankélévitch states: “once the sacral arpeggios of the requiem have dissolved into air—in paradisum deducant te angeli—each listener has understood that there is no necessity for further commentary; everything has been said, and we exchange glances in silence” (jankélévitch 2003, 84).24 once socrates closes his eyes for the last time, the listener also understands that there is no necessity for further commentary. this silencing of socrates, and thus also of music may invite us to view violence as an important element of musical neoclassicism—as the necessary generator of its dépouillement. satie’s return to antiquity is not merely a celebration of ancient ideals, socrates’s death does not harken back to a golden age, and the last few bars of the work remind us that the ideals of apollo carry with them the violence inflicted upon marsyas. nestled between the pregnant silences of its libretto and its performances, the work’s immobility—its skeletal and stripped–down music—reveals a despectacularized fragility. socrate not only enlarges our definitions of neoclassicism, but ultimately tests the limits of performing antiquity. notes 1. satie’s first composition notebook for socrate at the bibliothèque nationale de france (bn 9623 [1]) clearly shows the libretto written lightly in pencil on the inside cover and first page. 114 current musicology 2. hellenism looked back to antiquity in search of the lost virtues and purity of the ancient greeks. for more on the various flavors of french hellenism see peyre 1941, 48, and langlois 1971. 3. ornella volta proposes the later date of october 1916 (satie 2003, 226). for more on the princesse and the commission of socrate, see dorf 2007. 4. all translations from the french are by the author unless otherwise noted. “je m’occupe de la vie de socrate./ j’ai une frousse de 'rater' cette œuvre que je voudrais blanche & pure comme l’antique.” erik satie to valentine gross, january 6, 1917. 5. “c’est un retour vers la simplicité classique, avec sensibilité modern.” erik satie to henry prunières, april 3, 1917. 6. “. . . en écrivant cette œuvre, . . . je n’ai nullement voulu ajouter à la beauté des dialogues de platon: . . . ce n’est, ici, qu’un acte de piété, qu’une rêverie d’artiste, . . . qu’un humble hommage . . . / . . . l’esthétique de cet ouvrage je voue à la clarté; . . . la simplicité l’accompagne, la dirige . . . c’est tout: . . . je n’ai pas désire autre chose” the handwritten note is reproduced in volta 1979, 64. ellipses are in satie's original. 7. the appendix is adapted from orledge 1990, 316–17, and potter 2013, 303–305. jean cocteau, who was overseeing the publication of socrate’s score, tried to exert control over the work’s staging, imagining a children’s choir singing the roles, as well as a staged version of socrate in a bar with soldiers dressed in blue, which never materialized (bathori 1958, 2). 8. the original notebook in which the libretto was worked out appears to have been lost, possibly in a fire that destroyed the collection of conrad satie. pietro dosenna has informed me of a possible candidate for the missing notebook. bnf 9677(1) is the cover of a notebook, the same size and kind as the socrate notebooks bnf 9623(1) and (3): 15cm x 19.5cm. while the cover clearly reads “socrate–brouillon,” all of the internal pages of the notebook are missing. pietro dossena, personal e–mail message to the author, 13 august 2009. (also see dossena 2008, 3, and dayan 2008, 409–23.) 9. for more on socrate and the great war, see orledge 1990, 81. 10. “ὠ κρίτων, ἔφη, τῳ ασκληπιῳ ὀφείλομεν ἀλεκτρυόνα: ἀλλὰ ἀπόδοτε καὶ μὴ ἀμελήσητε” (118a). 11. for more on the philosophical differences resulting from variations in the translation, see clark 1952, 146; most 1993, 96–111; and wells 2008, 137–48. 12. ovid retells the tale of boreas and orithyia in metamorphoses, 6:675–721. 13. the greek word erôs (έρως) can be translated as “love,” “sex,” or “desire.” both cousin and meunier use the french word amour. 14. alcibiades’s eulogy is an odd conclusion to plato’s philosophic dialogue on the nature of love. plato probably used this last section of the symposium to illustrate that socrates could do little to help the corruption and hedonism of alcibiades: socrates refuses the young politician’s sexual advances, and alcibiades chooses to ignore his mentor’s teachings. plato might have decided to introduce the historical character of alcibiades due to his notoriety—socrates’s fallen pupil, the politician who aided both sides during the peloponnesian wars, and whose actions were guided not by reason (as socrates taught him) but rather by purely selfish motivations. during socrates’s trial, the case of alcibiades was brought against him as part of the charge that he had corrupted the youth of athens. 15. on homosexuality in classical athens, see halperin 1990. 16. barbara kelly has defined dépouillement as “economy of means” (see kelly 2007, 173). 115 samuel n. dorf 17. the section has been translated and cited in messing 1986, 1. in the dissertation and later publication, messing had inadvertently mis–cited the page as 257. this was corrected in messing 1991, 490. every scholar who has since cited schloezer’s article has depended on messing’s translation. i am thankful for prof. messing for sharing a photocopy of the difficult–to–locate original french with me. 18. “satie enseigne la plus grande audace à notre époque: être simple. n’a–t–il pas donné la preuve qu’il pourrait raffiner plus que personne? or, il déblaie, il dégage, il dépouille le rythme.” 19. plato, phaedo, 59d–60b, (plato 1822, 1:189–91). in the english translation, i’ve indicated sections in the original source material excised by satie by brackets: “[i will try to tell you all about it from the very beginning.] we had all made it our regular practice, even in the period before, to visit socrates every day; we used to meet at daybreak by the court–house where the trial was held, because it was close to the prison. we always spent some time in conversation while we waited for the door to open, which was never very early; [and when it did open, we used to go in to see socrates, and spend the best part of the day with him. on this particular day we met earlier than usual, because when we left prison on the evening before, we heard that the boat had just arrived back from delos; so we urged one another to meet at the usual place as early as possible. when we arrived,] the porter, instead of letting us in as usual, told us to wait and not come in until he gave us the word. [‘the eleven are taking off socrates’ chains’, he said, ‘and warning him that he is to die today’.] after a short interval he came back and told us to go in. when we went inside we found socrates just released from his chains, and xanthippe—you know her!—sitting by him with the little boy on her knee. [as soon as xanthippe saw us she burst into the kind of thing women generally say: ‘oh, socrates, this is the last time that you and your friends will be able to talk together!’ socrates looked at crito. ‘crito’, he said, ‘someone had better take her home.' some of crito’s servants led her away crying hysterically.] socrates sat up on the bed and drew up his leg and massaged it, saying as he did so, ‘what a queer thing it is, my friends, this sensation which is popularly called pleasure! it is remarkable how closely it is connected with its apparent opposite pain. [they will never come to a man both at once, but if you pursue one of them and catch it, you are virtually compelled always to have the other as well] (plato, phaedo, 59d–60b, in plato 2003, 118–19). 20. “la mort ici n’éclate pas comme le fracas de la foudre ni n’expire glorieusement comme le point d’orgue des apothéoses, mais arrive doucement et sur la pointe des pieds, ou, ainsi que l’esprit de dieu, portée par une brise légère.” 21. “pour satie  . .  . , l’hellénisme fit partie de cette cure de désintoxication, de ce régime frugal, austère et dépuratif que la musique française devait s’imposer au sortir des ivresses nocturnes.” 22. “ce n’est pas non russe, bien entendu; ce n’est pas non plus persan, ni asiatique. c’est un retour vers la simplicité classique, avec sensibilité modern.” erik satie to henry prunières, april 3, 1918. 23. “en écrivant socrate, je croyais composer une œuvre simple, sans la moindre idée de combat; car je ne suis qu’un humble admirateur de socrate & de platon—deux messieurs semblant sympathiques.” [“in writing socrate, i believed i was composing a simple work, without the least bit of conflict; for i am only a humble admirer of socrates & plato—two seemingly amiable gentlemen.”] (erik satie to paul collaer, 16 may 1920, in satie 2003, 406). 24. however, silence can carry violent connotations within jankélévitch’s writings. james hepokoski has noted that the effects of the philosopher’s “suppression of hermeneutic inquiry (despite his best intentions) carry a potential for intimidation that is difficult to ig116 current musicology nore” (hepokoski 2012, 225). james currie agrees that jankélévitch’s idea of silencing is “also fueled by [its] nondialectical reinscription, creating the effect of a kind of unconscious return of the repressed” (currie 2012, 247–48). references albright, daniel. 2000. untwisting the serpent: modernism in music, literature, and other arts. chicago: university of chicago press. bathori, jane. 1958. french radio broadcast (transcribed in bibliothèque nationale rés. vm. 334(4), p. 2). reprinted in orledge 1995, 175–76. . 1964. “les musiciens que j’ai connus.” translated by felix aprahamian. journal of the british institute of recorded sound 15: 238–39. reprinted in orledge 1995, 175. bhogal, gurminder kaur. 2013. details of consequence: ornament, music, and art in paris. oxford: oxford university press. bundrick, sheramy d. 2005. music and image in classical athens. cambridge: cambridge university press. clark, pamela m. 1952. “a cock to asclepius.” the classical review 2 (3/4): 146. cocteau, jean. 1918. le coq et l’arlequin: notes autour de la musique. paris: éditions de la sirène. currie, james. 2012. “where jankélévitch cannot speak.” in “vladimir jankélévitch’s philosophy of music.” journal of the american musicological society 65 (1): 215–56. danuser, hermann. 2004. “rewriting the past: classicisms of the inter–war period.” in the cambridge history of twentieth–century music, edited by nicholas cook and anthony pople, 260–85. cambridge: cambridge university press. dayan, peter. 2008. “erik satie’s poetry.” modern language review 103 (2): 409–23. de schloezer, boris. 1923. “la musique.” la revue contemporaine (february): 245–48. dean, carolyn j. 2000. the frail social body: pornography, homosexuality, and other fantasies in interwar france. berkeley: university of california press. dorf, samuel n. 2007. “étrange n’est–ce pas? the princesse edmond de polignac, erik satie’s socrate, and a lesbian aesthetic of music?” french literature series 34: 87–99. dossena, pietro. 2008. “à la recherche du vrai socrate.” journal of the royal musical association 133 (1): 1–31. fulcher, jane f. 1999. “the composer as intellectual: ideological inscriptions in french interwar neoclassicism,” the journal of musicology 17 (2): 197–230. . 2005. the composer as intellectual: music and ideology in france 1914–1940. oxford: oxford university press. gallope, michael, brian kane, steven rings, james hepokoski, judy lochhead, michael j. puri and james r. currie. 2012. “vladimir jankélévitch’s philosophy of music.” journal of the american musicological society 65 (1): 215–56. gillmor, alan m. 1988. erik satie. boston: twayne publishers. halperin, david m. 1990. “sex before sexuality: pederasty, politics, and power in classical athens.” in hidden from history: reclaiming the gay and lesbian past, edited by martin duberman, martha vicinus, and george chauncey, jr., 37–53. new york: meridian. hepokoski, james. 2012. “ineffable immersion: contextualizing the call for silence.” in “vladimir jankélévitch’s philosophy of music.” journal of the american musicological society 65 (1): 215–56. jankélévitch, vladimir. 1988. la musique et les heures. paris: seuil. . (1961) 2003. music and the ineffable [la musique et l’ineffable]. translated by carolyn abbate. princeton: princeton university press. 117 samuel n. dorf kahan, sylvia. 2003. music’s modern muse: a life of winnaretta singer, princesse de polignac. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. kelly, barbara l. 2007. “ravel after debussy: inheritance, influences and style.” in berlioz and debussy: sources, contexts and legacies: essays in honour of françois lesure, edited by barbara l. kelly and kerry murphy, 167–80. aldershot: ashgate. langlois, walter g., ed., 1971. the persistent voice: essays on hellenism in french literature since the eighteenth century in honor of professor henri m. peyre. new york: new york university press. madison, laurel a. 2002. “have we been careless with socrates’ last words?: a rereading of the phaedo.” journal of the history of philosophy 40 (4): 421–36. messing, scott. 1986. “neoclassicism in music: from the genesis of the concept through the schoenberg/stravinsky polemic.” phd diss., university of michigan. . 1991. “polemic as history: the case of neoclassicism.” the journal of musicology 9 (4): 481–97. . 1996. neoclassicism in music: from the genesis if the concept to the schoenberg/ stravinsky polemic. rochester, ny: university of rochester press. most, glenn w. 1993. “‘a cock for asclepius.’” the classical quarterly (new series) 43 (1): 96–111. myers, rollo. (1948) 1968. erik satie. london: dennis dobson. reprint, new york: dover. nichols, roger. 2002. the harlequin years: music in paris 1917–1929. berkeley: university of california press. nietzsche, friedrich. 1974. the gay science. translated by walter kaufmann. new york: vintage books. orledge, robert. 1979. gabriel fauré. london: eulenburg books. . 1990. satie the composer. cambridge: cambridge university press. . 1995. satie remembered. french translations by roger nichols. portland, or: amadeus press. ovid. 1955. the metamorphoses of ovid. translated by mary m. innes. london: penguin books. peyre, henri m. 1941. l’influence des littératures antiques sur la littérature française. new haven: yale university press. plato. 1822–40. oeuvres de platon. translated by victor cousin. 13 vols. paris: bossange frères. . (1925) 1946. plato: with an english translation. translated by harold n. fowler. 12 vols. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. . 1952. phédon ou de l’immortalité de l’ame. translated by mario meunier. paris: éditions albin michel. . 2003. the last days of socrates. translated by hugh tredennick and harold tarrant. introduction and notes by harold tarrant. london and new york: penguin classics. potter, caroline, ed. 2013. erik satie: music, art and literature. burlington, vt: ashgate. roland–manuel, alexis. 1952. “satie tel que je l’ai vu.” la revue musicale 214: 9–11. satie, erik. 1919. socrate: drame symphonique. paris: éditions de la sirène. . 1996. a mammal’s notebook: collected writings of erik satie. edited by ornella volta. translated by anthony melville. london: atlas press. . 2003. correspondance presque complète. edited by ornella volta. second edition. paris: fayard, éditions de l’imec. shattuck, roger. 1968. the banquet years: the origins of the avant–garde in france, 1885 to world war i. revised edition. new york: vintage books. 118 current musicology taruskin, richard. 2005. the oxford history of western music. 6 vols. oxford: oxford university press. verzosa, noel. 2008. “the absolute limits: debussy, satie, and the culture of french modernism, ca. 1860–1920.” phd diss., university of california, berkeley. volta, ornella. 1979. l’ymagier d’erik satie. paris: editions francis van de velde. waddington, raymond b. 2004. aretino’s satyr: sexuality, satire, and self–projection in sixteenth–century literature and art. toronto: university of toronto press. watkins, glenn. 2003. proof through the night: music and the great war. berkeley: university of california press. wells, colin. 2008. “the mystery of socrates’ last words.” arion 16 (2): 137–48. wilson, emily. 2007. the death of socrates. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. 119 samuel n. dorf appendix: chronology of the inception and early performances of erik satie’s socrate late summer of 1916 satie and the princesse de polignac first meet to discuss the possibility of a commission. january 6, 1917 satie begins work on vie de socrate. april 3, 1918 private performance of excerpts: jane bathori (sop.) and erik satie (pf.), chez polignac. june 24, 1918 private performance of la mort de socrate (third movement): jane bathori and satie, chez bathori. august 1918 satie completes socrate vocal piano score. october 10, 1918 satie completes revising orchestral score. december 7, 1918 private performance of excerpts: pierre bertin (tenor) with marcelle meyer (pf.), chez comte étienne de beaumont, after aggressive pleading for permission from the princesse and satie. early january 1919 private performance of excerpts: jane bathori and satie, chez bathori. february 7, 1919 cancelled private complete performance: to have been sung by members of a children’s choir, chez polignac. february 16, 1919 private complete performance: first complete performance, bathori and satie, chez polignac. march 21, 1919 semi–public performance of excerpts: suzanne balguerie (sop.) and satie, at adrienne monnier’s bookshop, la maison des amis des livres. may 25, 1919 possible complete performance: balguerie and satie, chez mme berchut, 3 rue edward fournier, paris 16. february 14, 1920 first public performance: jane bathori and suzanne balguerie (sops.) with andré salomon (pf.), sponsored by the société nationale de musique at the salle de l’ancien conservatoire. satie remarks after the performance: “étrange n’est–ce pas?” june 7, 1920 first public performance with orchestra: marya freund (sop.), orchestra conducted by félix delgrange, at festival erik satie, salle erard, 13 rue de mail. microsoft word stewart typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 stewart. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 181 reviewed by zachary lee nazar stewart renegotiating french identity represents the most recent stage of jane f. fulcher’s monographic march through french history, and comes in the midst of a marked expansion in music-historical research on france during the second world war. fulcher begins by surveying the political and institutional circumstances of occupied france, before examining how individual musicians interacted with wartime authorities and participated in the contestation of french identity. her subjects include pierre schaeffer, arthur honegger, francis poulenc, and olivier messiaen, not to mention a host of secondary figures, whose wartime activities have been described unevenly in the existing literature. in each chapter, fulcher’s examination of individual musicians clarifies the affordances and difficulties of the environments in which they worked, and she tacks between illuminating individuals through contextualization and understanding contexts through individuals. although fulcher offers new insights into each figure, the book aspires to present a group portrait rather than a set of individual studies. it details the modes of being a musician available under occupation, and the musical and political choices made by musicians in an era that, like ours, demands to an unusual extent that choices be made. fulcher’s monograph constitutes a substantial addition to a small but growing body of english-language scholarship on the era, joining exemplary recent studies such as leslie sprout’s the musical legacy of wartime france (sprout 2013) and sara iglesias’ musicologie et occupation (iglesias 2014; see also chimènes and simon 2013; simon 2009; and the classic chimènes 2001). no doubt some of the reasons for this recent expansion in research on music in wartime france stem from long-standing and growing disciplinary preoccupations: music beyond the mid-century avant-garde; situations in which music and politics have interacted in an especially acute manner; and an awareness of the constructed nature of identity. other reasons are more immediate, as music historians have begun to explore the intertwining of music and war in a variety of contexts (for instance, fauser 2013), and to explicitly discuss the ethical dimensions of music-making. some of the more prominent 182 characteristics of wartime france, moreover, have proved eerily and increasingly familiar: authoritarian deployment of state power; massive propaganda and disinformation; and xenophobic, nationalist, and conservative political movements. fulcher’s monograph has thus been published in an era that increasingly resembles that which she studies. its themes and concerns are our own, transposed onto a setting that may be novel to many readers but which is beginning to attract wider disciplinary attention. renegotiating french identity primarily offers a chronological rather than methodological extension of fulcher’s three previous monographs. her materials, and the ways she approaches her materials, have in general remained consistent. she has always sought to explore the confluence of music and political thought, described variously in the titles of her monographs as “politics” (fulcher 1987), “cultural politics” (fulcher 1999), “ideology” (fulcher 2005), and now “identity” (fulcher 2018). the terminological progression is striking: fulcher’s titles seem to serve as a barometer of critical discourse among culturally-oriented music historians. the theoretical discussions of the present monograph, notably those based on the work of pierre bourdieu, move within the boundaries of her introduction to the oxford handbook of the new cultural history of music (fulcher 2011), but fulcher focuses on historical materials rather than theory. between its defeat in 1940 and liberation in 1944, france was governed partly by german occupiers based in paris, and partly by a french administration based in vichy and led by marshal philippe pétain. most french people were initially supportive of the vichy administration, but over the course of 1941 and especially 1942 the willingness of vichy to make concessions to, and even anticipate the demands of, the germans grew evident. public opinion shifted accordingly, and it became clear that one could not simultaneously support vichy and oppose the germans. the dichotomy between german occupiers in paris and french administrators in vichy consequently belies the complexity and dynamism of the situation. conditions remained unstable as the occupation deepened: the nature of pétain’s regime shifted, its façade of independence collapsed, and german dictates became increasingly brazen. fulcher devotes her entire opening chapter to the “essential political and institutional background” of french wartime music-making, as well as to methodological considerations. it includes detailed discussions of shifting vichy politics and ideologies, vichy cultural institutions, the german administration in paris, and the possibility of musical resistance, as well as fulcher’s conception of “french identity,” discussed below. the necessity of studying institutions in 183 order to make sense of music-making in wartime france should, after fulcher’s study, be beyond question. a lengthy institutional exposition independent of the case studies, however, is hardly necessary given that subsequent chapters include sufficient context to be understood on their own. nonetheless, the chapter does signal fulcher’s aspiration to provide a systematic foundation for future research, and may prove to be a valuable collection of information for students of vichy cultural institutions. not content with providing contextual information, fulcher also puts forward methodological prescriptions in her opening chapter, often as direct injunctions to the reader. she notes, for instance, that “it is imperative to follow the developing awareness and strategies of figures like roger désormière and pierre schaeffer as the regime ineluctably progressed in its program of collaboration” (13). fulcher thus provides an historical, conceptual, and methodological framework to be deployed both in the remainder of her monograph as well as by other researchers, a system within which to think about occupation music-making. as a result, she broadens her potential readership to include those interested in music during the occupation but unfamiliar with the trajectory of the period. unfortunately, however, the opening chapter lacks a comparative dimension. fulcher’s discussions of censorship, individual agency, resistance, and the lack of stylistic dictates would have benefited from a sustained engagement with the literature on nazi germany. the comparison appears natural given the german occupation, and may have been especially illuminating given that each regime encountered difficulties in prescribing or regulating musical style, resulting in occasional aesthetic incoherence and disconnects between policies and styles. fulcher is especially concerned with the ways in which the musical materials of the era were mediated and presented to their original audiences, that is to say, with paratextual as well as contextual considerations. writing generally about paratexts and contexts, she emphasizes “the role that varying instantiations or inscriptions of works—through methods of performance, textual framing, recording, and means of staging or presentation—may play in inflecting their message or their specific enunciation” (8). paratexts and contexts prove central to the volume’s most compelling example of the renegotiation of french identity, the discussion of pelléas et mélisande in the second chapter. there fulcher examines how vichy officials, german occupiers, and french resisters offered competing conceptions of the cultural significance of debussy’s symbolist opera. like berlioz’s equally polyvalent la damnation de faust, also performed during the occupation, pelléas et mélisande could be construed to 184 emphasize either franco-german cultural collaboration or french classicism, which fulcher identifies as central to resistance aesthetics. the liner notes accompanying a 1942 recording of the opera, promoted by occupation authorities, emphasized a franco-german interpretation. to fulcher’s ears, however, conductor roger désormière offered an opposing, classically french performance by emphasizing textural clarity and downplaying the opera’s leitmotifs and, thus, its wagnerism. as the case of pelléas et mélisande suggests, fulcher’s insistence on contextual specificity allows her to connect broad political phenomena to her interpretations and analyses of individuals’ compositions and artistic and political decisions. understanding wartime france requires contextual knowledge on a granular level, given the distinct geographical zones of vichy governance and german occupation, the manifold and plastic cultural institutions, and the shifting public awareness of and reaction to policies. at the core of her study, then, are the relationships between individuals and institutions, and the fluid symbolic matrices through which musical, cultural, and political assertions become meaningful. the celebrated french sociologist pierre bourdieu provides the theoretical foundation for her approach. in the introduction to her oxford handbook of the new cultural history of music fulcher describes bourdieu as “reembedding cultural analysis within the social” and as having “allowed us to identify political power in systems of representation” (fulcher 2011, 6). from this perspective, particular symbols or aesthetic characteristics function as analogues to political positions, albeit not in a simplistically codified or mechanical fashion. as a result, processes of cultural contestation may be understood as helping to legitimize and delegitimize the german occupiers, the vichy government, and their ideologies. in music, fulcher argues, “contestation can occur through traditional genres, forms, and styles, the logic of which can be challenged by strategies that open up or disrupt the language” (fulcher 2011, 7). the methods and theoretical insights of the “new cultural history of music” are now so sufficiently well-established as to negate the modifier “new,” but they remain capable of supporting sophisticated analysis. subsequent chapters on the wartime actions of pierre schaeffer (chapter three) and arthur honegger (chapter four) explore how individual musicians worked within vichy and occupation institutions to wildly divergent ends. working for radio-vichy, schaeffer had been assigned to broadcast youthoriented material that he came to understand as cultural propaganda. as he gradually realized that the “new france” that vichy intended to construct would not align with his values and sense of french identity, schaeffer surrounded 185 himself with a group of like-minded musician-technicians and began to undermine his own programs. he sought to effect internal institutional resistance through his choice of texts and materials, their contexts, and their means of transmission, thus propagating a divergent sense of what french culture meant and could be. fulcher points, for instance, to his collaborative portique pour une jeune fille de france, for a 1941 celebration of jeanne d’arc, as subversive in its purposeful heterogeneity of content and presentation. portique alternately employs contemporary and historical styles, and at different times the spectacle frames itself as occurring in the present and in the past. like the vichy officials who reacted negatively to portique, fulcher understands the broadcast as intentionally resisting the creation of a single youth community united behind vichy’s cultural objectives. in her interpretation, then, the heterogeneity of portique worked towards anti-hegemonic, rather than specifically anti-vichy, ends. however, the composition did include more directly oppositional elements, such as allusions to the music of the french revolution, which epitomized the liberal, secular thought to which vichy was opposed. schaeffer’s subsequent acoustic experiments, many conducted in his studio d’essai, included recording people in diverse “sonorous architectures,” the regulation of reverberation, assemblages of de-contextualized noises (“simulacres”), and study of the inevitable distortions involved in vocal reproduction (under the rubric of “haute fidélite”). even if schaeffer did not deploy all of these techniques for resistant purposes, fulcher argues that they were developed in response to his recognition that the mediation of radio necessarily inflected the meaning of texts broadcast on it. she thus posits that these sonic and acoustic tools, developed by schaeffer as he sought means of resistance, led directly to his influential postwar innovations. schaeffer’s wartime experiments offer an intriguing acoustic parallel, albeit one unexplored by fulcher, to fredrich kittler’s discussion of the slippage between military, civilian, and artistic applications of novel optical techniques and technologies during the second world war (kittler 2010). like schaeffer, arthur honegger worked within the collaborationist sphere but, unlike schaeffer, honegger never effectively resisted its demands. with german and swiss parents, but having established his professional life in france, honegger offered in his own person a symbol of franco-german affinity and of hitler’s “new europe,” a continent to be led by germans and dominated by german culture. he was accordingly fêted and his compositions honored by the occupation authorities. honegger allowed himself to be appropriated as a propaganda symbol, fulcher argues, and consequently faced expulsion from the 186 resistant front national des musiciens and censorship after the end of the occupation. in the concluding chapters on poulenc (chapter five) and messiaen (chapter six), fulcher places greater emphasis on music analysis, studying how these musicians effected or failed to effect resistance on a compositional level. poulenc, unlike honegger, consciously sought a resistant style and intentionally assumed a marginal wartime position in order not to be appropriated. fulcher describes how poulenc’s well-received ballet les animaux modèles (1942) failed as a resistant composition because it fit too readily within vichy’s vision of a traditionalist and predominantly rural france. yet by drawing on models of literary resistance discussed in the underground press, fulcher argues, poulenc was subsequently able to project a competing and unambiguously anti-vichy symbology and style, as in his sonata for violin and piano (1943) and the cantata figure humaine (1943). unlike schaeffer or honegger, messiaen was not implicated in vichy. he famously wrote his quatour pour la fin du temps while interred in a prisonerof-war camp in 1940 and 1941 following the surrender of the french army, and claimed to have never supported pétain. messiaen therefore had no record of collaboration to defend. he was, however, a devout catholic, and sought to musically distance himself from the church, an institution initially supportive of vichy. messiaen’s background in catholic nonconformism, which emphasized the subjectivity of spiritual authority, provided him with the conceptual structure necessary to separate his beliefs from the dictates of the church. he thus strove to define a catholic musical resistance and, fulcher argues, to develop the means to reflect new subjective experiences. for example, she interprets the parataxis of the suite for two pianos visions de l’amen (1943) as a refusal of the possibility of a single spiritual authority. instead, fulcher suggests that messiaen’s suite instantiates the existence of multiple valid perspectives, offering a musical analogue to his nonconformist belief that the acquiescence of the catholic church need not invalidate the spiritual basis of his own resistance. in a study that concerns itself with connecting personal decisions and broad cultural formations, defining different shades of french identity calls for a degree of finesse. throughout the volume, fulcher takes care not to reduce the amorphous and sprawling processes of identity construction to mere political functions, and eschews a misleadingly binary understanding of “identity” as either resistance or collaboration. for fulcher, rather, identity construction occurs within local cultural structures: désomière’s interpretation of pelléas et mélisande refers musically to the same cultural heritage drawn on by the literary 187 resistance; messiaen’s paratactic progression in visions de l’amen counters the catholic church’s claimed authority and its legitimization of collaboration; poulenc’s refusal to adhere to a single style in his sonata for violin and piano negates the possibility of a single perspective and invites anti-authoritarian thought. in the broadest sense these aesthetic statements function to affirm distinctly french identities and discredit the ideologies behind collaboration, yet they also respond to local conditions. these same narratives of identity construction, however, to some degree contradict the concept of “renegotiation” that fulcher emphasizes in her title. “renegotiation” suggests the possibility of compromise or resolution: one may negotiate a treaty or a stream crossing, for instance. yet fulcher describes the irreconcilable, not to say internally fragmented, cultural objectives of occupiers, resisters, and vichy officials. these processes resemble war more than diplomacy, contestation more than negotiation. negotiation does describe the processes by which individual musicians responded to their changing perceptions of vichy, although fulcher does not appear to be referring to this type of negotiation in her title. she recounts how poulenc and schaeffer followed this trajectory, only gradually arriving at opposition to vichy and slowly developing effective means of musically articulated resistance. the wartime activities of french musicians have been chronically understudied, to the benefit of some musicians and the detriment of others. fulcher rightly argues that the difficulty of poulenc’s ethical realizations and compositional development do not diminish but rather enhance his stature. her clear-eyed expositions of less complex cases likewise deserve credit: désormière, for instance, actualized an unambiguous means of musical resistance as early as 1940, while florent schmitt, whose wartime activities have been too often obfuscated, collaborated at the highest levels. one of the unexpected pleasures of renegotiating french identity is its minor figures, not all of them musicians, whose recurrences perform much of the work of transforming the monograph into a portrait of the french musical milieu under the occupation. one thinks of claude delvincourt, paul éluard, claude roy, gaston gallimard, and so on, whose misadventures and ideological metamorphoses are detailed here and there in the main text and in the endnotes. fulcher has little interest in praising or sanctioning individuals, recognizing instead that the realities of working in environments like wartime france render efforts to assign guilt unenlightening. extrajudicial musichistorical inquiries are endemic but hardly restricted to wartime france and nazi germany: “scholars still embroiled in the controversy over whether 188 shostakovich was acquiescent or a dissident may reconsider such dichotomies after examining contexts such as vichy,” fulcher writes (240). tortured attempts to adjudicate degrees of guilt often prove significantly less illuminating than efforts to elucidate the conditions that render guilt so difficult to determine. she brings similar care to the question of whether musical resistance is possible, which is necessarily linked to the question of its effectiveness. unlike the armed resistance of the maquis, literary and musical modes of resistance were necessarily subtle and thus risked ineffectiveness. fulcher sometimes restricts herself to defining such questions and exploring their complexities: “was the use of polyvalent meanings or symbols a true resistance act? was destabilizing vichy’s symbols in itself resistance, even if not all could grasp this?” (68). at other times, she argues for particular positions: “there was a general agreement that art could awaken new political perceptions, in addition to inserting itself into the current ethical void” (258). she also opines on the priority of audience understanding over compositional intent: “we must draw a distinction between the author’s apparent aspirations and the critical reception of a work in this period” (252). fulcher thus engages sparingly but forcefully with ethical questions. at the end of her discussion of honegger, for instance, she explicitly contemplates the obligations of artists to society and the relative importance of artistic and ethical imperatives, confronting the idea that art operates autonomously from politics. “opportunism or political naiveté in the service of great art is not insignificant” (237), she avows. renegotiating french identity offers a long overdue and impressively comprehensive account of french musical life under the vichy administration and german occupation. the volume’s analyses are invariably thoughtful and thought-provoking, particularly in the chapters on poulenc and messiaen. as appears to be fulcher’s intention, her ambitious monograph further opens up possibilities for music-historical research in a chronically under-explored field that raises archival, interpretive, and ethical questions that are as challenging as they are rewarding. references chimènes, myriam, ed. 2001. la vie musicale sous vichy. brussels: éditions complexe. chimènes, myriam, and yannick simon, eds. 2013. la musique à paris sous l’occupation. paris: cité de la musique/librarie arthème fayard. fauser, annegret. 2013. sounds of war: music in the united states during world war ii. oxford: oxford university press. fulcher, jane f. 1987. the nation’s image: french grand opera as politics and politicized art. cambridge: cambridge university press. 189 ____________. 1999. french cultural politics and music: from the dreyfus affair to the first world war. oxford: oxford university press. ____________. 2005. the composer as intellectual: music and ideology in france, 1914– 1940. oxford: oxford university press. ____________. 2011. introduction to the oxford handbook of the new cultural history of music. oxford: oxford university press. ____________. 2018. renegotiating french identity: musical culture and creativity in france during vichy and the german occupation. oxford: oxford university press. iglesias, sara. 2014. musicologie et occupation: science, musique et politique dans la france des “années noires.” paris: éditions de la maison des sciences de l'homme. kittler, friedrich a. 2010. optical media: berlin lectures 1999. translated by anthony enns. cambridge, ma: polity press. simon, yannick. 2009. composer sous vichy. lyon: symétrie. sprout, leslie. 2013. the musical legacy of wartime france. berkeley: university of california press. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 cruz-malavé. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 235 awakening the sensorium in puerto rico’s colonial modernity arnaldo m. cruz-malavé in the summer of 1974 i visited puerto rico. i had migrated to the us in 1969 and completed high school here and was now returning to my island, to my homeland, as an adult, as an out gay young man with an insurrectional afro and platform shoes seeking to connect, or better yet to reconnect, with my puerto rican cohorts and the thrilling, irreverent culture they were forging. it was then i rediscovered lucecita. i remembered her from my childhood in go-go boots as i watched alfred d. herger’s club del clan on puerto rican tv and later at the festival de la canción latina and the ed sullivan show on american spanish and english-language tv sporting a beautifully coiffed afro, a tuxedo, and a smile. i was now at the silvia rexach theater in santurce to see her perform. the theater was packed with a diverse and motley crew, many of them gay, and next to me sat a handsome young man, apparently gay, who seemed to greet me with a smile. but everything blurred the moment that lucecita grabbed the mic, nodded to the conductor, and thrust us into a kind of search, an infinite search, “un camino abandonado” (an abandoned path), as she sang. every phrase turned then both familiar and unexpected, resonant with previously heard echoes yet uncanny and unhomely, and modulated in such a way that each phrase opened up to further questions, further search. i was thus suspended in this both joyful and painfully deferred becoming in which i could still hear, vividly and uncomfortably, as a buzz, an insistent running commentary coming from my handsome, presumably gay, neighbor seated next to me that filled in the gaps in lucecita’s phrasing, displaying a minute and thorough knowledge of her biography and most recent deeds, a knowledge that claimed at every turn that she was one of us, ours, gay. suspended between this knowing voice and lucecita’s commanding yet open-ended sonic search i felt like i was about to burst, and when i could finally take it no more, i turned to my friendly and handsome gay comrade in arms and told him to please . . . shut up! the reading of this beautifully crafted, exhaustively documented, and ethically inspired book by licia fiol-matta, the great woman singer: gender and voice in puerto rican music, takes me back to this scene of my early youth. for the great woman singer is a book about the call to openended aural suspension and search, about the incitement to listen to what 236 current musicology fiol-matta defines as the skillfully complicated, contradictorily rich, selfreflexive, brilliant “thinking voice” that four of puerto rico’s greatest female pop singers, myrta silva, ruth fernández, ernestina reyes (la calandria), and lucecita benítez, manifested in their singing during the period encompassed by the island’s process of colonial modernity and its aftermath. in tense dialogue with the social forces that would turn their powerfully odd, singular voices into mere representative “nada” or nothingness, fiolmatta offers in her book alternative stories of puerto rico’s complex and often cruel colonial modernity as told from the most intimate and ephemeral of spaces: from the grain of the singing voice that thinks as it sonically wrestles with its gendered, racialized, and class-coded conditions, the technologies of modernity in the music industries, the sonic ideologies of progress and development of the puerto rican estado libre asociado or commonwealth state, and forced migration and its marginalization in the urban metropolitan setting of new york. the great woman singer is thus simultaneously a tentative and thoughtful reconstruction of the performances of this singing “thinking voice,” based on a painstakingly varied acopio or collection of ephemera (interviews, reviews, programs, records, cassettes, cds, mp3s, publicity photos, album covers, posters, newspaper clippings, wardrobe, videos, films, fan recollections, and memories), and a critical pedagogy on how to listen to these voices if we are to recover not the intent of the originally sung performances but the polysemous possibilities of interpretation that these four masterfully enduring voices inscribed in them. structured as much theoretically as poetically around the figure of nada, nothing or nothingness, the great woman singer movingly tracks its overriding metaphor from myrta silva’s sassy and witty rendition of rafael hernández’s “nada,” recorded in new york city in 1942, to benítez’s electrifying, gut-wrenching, award-winning, apocalyptic call to begin after the atomic conflagration of the world, this time with the fire of love in guillermo venegas lloveras’s song “génesis,” at the 1969 first festival de la canción latina in mexico city. deploying the figure of nada, fiol-matta seeks to register first the shocking effacement from the official archives and records of the sonic achievements of these extraordinary and influential puerto rican women singers and the attempted appropriations and domestications of their image and sound by the modern colonial puerto rican state and the music industries, as well as the no-less-distorting pressures on them by supportive left-leaning cultural nationalist intellectuals. but her book is most memorable as a performance or instantiation of the fullness of nada, of the multiple possible meanings, sonic reflections, interrogations, and affects that these artists lodged in their voice through the skillful manipulation of sound and image in an intense rhizomatic dialogue with their times, the music industries, and themselves. 237 arnaldo m. cruz-malavé conceiving voice not as we usually do, that is, as presence, fulfillment, and plenitude, but as lacanians, such as mladen dolar, would have it, as petit object autre or part object that both promises fulfillment and defers it, the great woman singer pursues the dialogic fullness of nothingness in the gap that opens up between the promised fulfillment and its deferral, which is where fiol-matta, following the example of the extraordinary women artists she studies, would like to locate us as readers and listeners. staging a deliberate, artful negation of plenitude, she foregrounds, like these artists, the complexity, irony, ingenuity, and wit that an overriding hegemonic affect or emotion—whether this emotion is untranslatably called sentimiento, male-inflected melancholy, or sabor—would foreclose, gloss over, or suture. for the thinking of the singing voice in these artists is not the opposite of emotion or affect; it is instead what grows in the interstices and cracks of such an all-encompassing and pacifying affect when its limits are exposed and its joyful plenitude deferred. in this sense, one could say that one of the great achievements of the great woman singer is to awaken in us the sensory multiplicity that underlies any attempt at imposing an all-encompassing, ideologically inflected hegemonic affect, restoring for us and for the appreciation of these great singers the dialogic dynamism of puerto rico’s sensorium during its period of colonial modernization that the cultural initiative of the modern colonial puerto rican state, tellingly named operación serenidad or operation serenity, would foreclose. to awaken the senses to the polysonic and polysemous art of reflection, to not rush to judgment and submit instead to the sonic search, to not settle for the comfortably available emotion or the easily accessible label—these are some of the many joys and deferred pleasures of reading the great woman singer and fiol-matta’s always ethically demanding work. microsoft word cm_111_frias_final.docx current musicology 111 (spring 2023) ©2023 frías. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). deciphering guarapachangueo: formulas and formulaic variation in contemporary rumba percussion johnny frías this paper serves to provide a musical analysis and to track the evolution of guarapachangueo, a major influence in the contemporary style of cuban rumba. drawing on studies of musical improvisation such as those of turino (2009), monson (1996), and berliner (1994), i provide a short history of the influence of guarapachangueo in the contemporary rumba scene and analyze several of the rhythmic formulas and variations used by drummers. to better understand the musical decisions made by these musicians, i emphasize a performer’s point of view and approach rumba as an ever-evolving musical language—one that is internalized by performers and which shapes their musical habitus. my goal is to invigorate the scholarly discourse and musical analysis regarding rumba and other music traditions in which formulaic performance is a central feature. guarapachangueo, an innovative stylistic approach to rumba percussion originating as a set of rhythmic formulas created by the chinitos family1 in the early 1970s on the outskirts of havana, has directly and profoundly influenced that city’s rumba scene2. accordingly, i will concentrate primarily on rumberos from havana and their musical legacy in cuba and abroad, including the many recordings since the 1990s that feature the style. bodenheimer (2015) describes several characteristics of contemporary rumba and guarapachangeuo. she notes the latter term’s polysemic nature, evidenced by the many contrasting and overlapping definitions of the style by rumberos in cuba. while such descriptions are useful in understanding the discourse of rumberos, some need reframing, particularly the common and yet nebulous idea that the style entails increased improvisation in the lower register of the percussion. as an active performer and proponent of the style who specializes in the lower register percussion (i.e. cajón and tumbador), i will draw upon my experiences and those of fellow musicians, as well as commercial and online recordings to highlight the structural formulas and variations used in rumba’s contemporary rhythmic vocabulary. further, i provide a selected discography and contextualize these musical features within the history of guarapachangueo, tracing their spread among professional groups and recognizing their application in the cajón al muerto, a common musical event in the afro-cuban religious scene held in honor of one’s accompanying spirits. following turino’s (2009) lead in distinguishing between improvisation and formulaic performance, i argue that guarapachangueo comprises an aesthetic approach to playing rumba in which unique, innovative formulas are employed, representing a break with the standardized formulas of traditional rumba from 49 current musicology _______________________________________ the second half of the 20th century. the new rhythmic formulas produce a heightened sense of tension and release, emphasize conversation (the interactive exchange of percussive phrases) between drummers, and in some cases are marked by increased space between notes and phrases. these new formulas comprise an updated musical vocabulary popular among rumberos in cuba and abroad since the 1990s, although with perhaps less influence in matanzas, where many musicians and groups tend to exhibit a distinct regional style which continues to evolve in its own right. as with other afro-cuban music traditions, in rumba the drummers learn and internalize formulas and variations they have been exposed to by fellow rumberos and recordings, and some come to comprise part of their musical habitus. the formulas are then drawn upon—often unconsciously—by the musicians in the form of musical decisions that “say something” in the flow of a rumba performance. some background on rumba rumba is a secular music and dance tradition that originated among afro-cubans in havana and matanzas in the mid-late 19th century.3 musically, rumba comprises singing and percussion accompaniment, a format common in other afro-cuban traditions and easily replicated in rumba’s original historical contexts, namely impromptu jam sessions. rumberos are known for using whatever is at hand (e.g. a crate, a wall, spoons) to accompany singing. meanwhile, singers take turns with songs and people can move their feet and bodies to the music or take turns dancing solo or in pairs. this is the spirit of rumba in its original, informal contexts, which lives on in gatherings of rumberos in homes, patios, and courtyards. the song form of rumba in these “intimate spaces” differs from that of amateur and professional ensembles that perform rumba for audiences, as well as their commercial recordings (frías 2019).4 in part due to these ensembles and recordings, particularly from the 1950s onward, rumba became increasingly standardized in terms of instruments, rhythms, ensemble roles, dance, and song form. two primary regional styles of rumba—havana and matanzas—emerged, represented in popular recordings by the 1950s and 1960s.5 presently, there are three surviving variants of rumba: yambú, guaguancó, and columbia. in this paper i will focus on guaguancó—by far the most popular variant—and the one in which the guarapachangueo style is usually applied. as moore (2006, 193) has noted, afro-cuban traditional music, including rumba, has experienced a renaissance since the 1990s in terms of public performances and recordings due to various factors, such as economic policies, foreign interest, and self-promotion, the latter now usually through social media. my references in this study to contemporary rumba coincide with this renaissance 50 johnny frías ____________________________________________ since the 1990s, which is when the influence of guarapachangueo in havana becomes obvious. standard percussion instruments include the clave (two wooden dowels struck together), catá (sticks played on bamboo or a woodblock), cajones (wooden boxes), and tumbadoras (often known outside cuba as congas). the clave and catá have fixed roles; the terms also refer to their rhythms, comprised of short ostinatos that serve as timelines. the clave—reinforced by the catá rhythm—is the reference point for all the other roles in rumba. the percussion and singing line up with the clave according to largely unspoken, mutually understood rules, in a manner that reflects the rhythmic tension and release inherent in the clave itself. for instance, the third note is generally felt as suspended, while the fifth note is a point of resolution (gerstin 2017, mauleon 1993, peñalosa 2009, spiro 2006). in what rumberos term traditional guaguancó (i.e. standardized in the second half of the 20th century) there are typically three drum roles, usually played on tumbadoras: tumbador (low register), tres-dos (middle register), and quinto (high register). the tumbador and the tres-dos feature stable rhythmic formulas in the form of ostinatos; drummers then add variations in response to the singer(s) and other drummers.6 the quinto embellishes in response to the singer, other drummers, or dancers, drawing on a vocabulary of formulas and variations (friedman 1978, hines 2015). example 1: rhythmic formulas of the tres-dos and tumbador in traditional guaguancó. this example and those that follow have all been transcribed by the author without the inclusion of the unaccented inner beats used for timekeeping. while these inner beats are important for drummers to learn and know, i will focus on the notes that are most audible and relevant to each formula: bass tones, open and muff tones, and in some cases slaps. downward-facing stems in the drum parts refer to bass tones; upward-facing stems indicate open tones. distinguishing the meanings of guarapachangueo bodenheimer (2015) has been one of the few scholars to discuss guarapachangueo and other trends in contemporary rumba performance. however, a thorough musical analysis of the style has yet to be undertaken. adrian coburg’s 51 current musicology _______________________________________ encyclopedic percusión afrocubana: volume 1 (2007) contains a few notated examples of guarapachangueo rhythms by percussionists fredy martínez and julio davalos, although these differ from the chinitos’ formulas and seem to be personal interpretations. otherwise, instructional books and scholarly literature have focused on rumba from the second half of the 20th century (averill 1999, crook 1982, friedman 1978). of course, most contemporary rumberos— particularly younger generations—no longer rely solely on the rhythmic vocabulary of past generations. while drummers, particularly older generations, often speak of upholding tradition, roles and rhythmic vocabularies are constantly updated and evolving. this is where the influence of guarapachangueo enters: it has been a fundamental part of contemporary stylistic approaches to drummers’ roles and rhythmic formulas—which drummers refer to as patrones or bases—in havana. first created by a particular family of rumberos (the chinitos), their style slowly gained acceptance and inspired the other rumberos with whom they interacted to engender their own innovations.7 in short, the style has been a key influence—directly and indirectly—on recent generations of havana-based rumberos, particularly from the 1980s and 1990s, when elements were first adopted and adapted by some of the city’s most popular rumba groups and their recordings. indeed, the contemporary style of rumba percussion in havana, miami, and new york, is often associated with the name guarapachangueo, although the two are not synonymous. after all, rumba has always absorbed influences from numerous sources, including popular music and the music of afro-cuban religious traditions. the term guarapachangueo has become a subject of debate for both rumberos and scholars, with various definitions attached to it. it is not a variant such as yambú or guaguancó, with more-or-less standardized, agreedupon distinguishing features. based on the discourse i have heard from rumberos, there are two dominant understandings of guarapachangueo performance. on the one hand, there is the original or chinitos-style guarapachangueo, a set of related rhythmic formulas favored by the various members of the chinitos family and their associated group of musicians. although not widely recognized in the international community prior to the 2000s, they are now associated with creating the style. as documented by bodenheimer (2015), they first created guarapachangueo in the 1970s as a new style of playing rumba which utilized two drummers—instead of the normal three—who engaged in a highly interactional rhythmic exchange quite different from the standard rumba drum rhythms of the time. the chinitos’ approach combines the role of the tres-dos and the tumbador and features a unique rhythmic vocabulary. the style continues to be performed and evolved by the chinitos and others, perhaps mostly notably by one of the younger chinitos family members, manley “piri” lópez. 52 johnny frías ____________________________________________ a second, broader understanding of guarapachangueo encompasses the style as it has been adopted and performed by havana-based rumba groups and the larger contemporary rumba community. these manifestations of guarapachangueo are the result of adapting elements of the of the chinitos’ style to a larger ensemble, usually with three drummers armed with both cajones and tumbadoras. for instance, pancho quinto (francisco hernández mora), who like many of the most well-known rumberos of havana, frequented the chinitos’ rumbas since the 1970s, creatively adapted guarapachangueo formulas for his group, yoruba andabo. due to the prominence of his name and his group’s recordings, he was often thought of as the creator of guarapachangueo prior to the 2000s, which is when the contributions of los chinitos were documented by some of their european students (bodenheimer 2015, 185). incidentally, pancho quinto mentored the chinitos’ in becoming tamboleros (consecrated batá drummers) in the 1980s, and the chinitos, especially irián lópez rodríguez, in turn innovated the tambor8 scene through the abbilona project9. in the 1990s, the guarapachangueo influence became evident—to a varying degree—in the performances and recordings of many havana-based groups. it is pertinent to acknowledge that guarapachangueo as an aesthetic is associated with a general impetus towards innovation and evolution in the drummers’ rhythms and roles. what distinguishes the style from rumba more broadly is the use of a set of related structural rhythmic formulas—most clearly defined in the low-register drum role(s)—many of which can be traced back to these two early contexts of the style, namely the chinitos, pancho quinto, and havana rumba groups from the 1990s. personal experiences with guarapachangueo alain fernández, a singer with whom i work as a tambolero10 in miami, has often told me stories about how he frequented the rumbas at the chinitos’ house when he was a kid in the 1980s. he lived a few doors down from them, and according to him, every january 1 and mother’s day, “all the rumberos from havana” (e.g. juan de dios ramos, el negro, chan, el chori, fariñas, pancho quinto, maximino duquesne, mario “aspirina” jáuregui) would attend. notably, many of the percussionists of yoruba andabo and rumberos de cuba—two of the large ensembles which adapted the guarapachangueo style and popularized it through their performances and recordings in the 1990s and 2000s—frequented the chinitos’ rumbas. even now in the 2020s, they continue to host rumbas, many of which are filmed and posted on youtube by foreign students that come to see and study with them, particularly with one of the chinitos brothers, irián lópez. i had the privilege of participating in one of the chinitos’ rumbas at their home in 2019. while visiting the island, fellow rumbero charley rivas and i were invited by manley “piri” lópez (one of the younger members of the chinitos) to help organize it. we knew piri from when he lived in miami in the early 2010s, but he 53 current musicology _______________________________________ has since resided in mexico city. charley and i bought a case of rum, some ingredients for a caldosa (creole stew), and piri put the word out to local rumberos. during the rumba, after charley and i had taken a turn on the cajón and quinto, respectively, piri and adonis panter calderón (ex-member of yoruba andabo and founder of osain del monte, one of the city’s most popular rumba groups) sat down. it was inspiring to see them play together, as both are recognized as being among the most talented drummers of their generation in the afro-cuban traditional music scene internationally. at the time, i had been studying the chinitos’ guarapachangueo rhythms since the mid-2000s via youtube videos and interviews uploaded by some of their european students. however, my initial interest in rumba began in the late 1990s as i was studying latin jazz in my high school jazz band. thereafter, i began making trips to havana to study rumba percussion, dancing, and singing, facilitated by my ability to stay with family there. later, during my time living in new york in the early 2010s, i formed part of the group la nueva timba de cajón, which performed weekly at a local spot in the bronx. the group, under the leadership of muñequitos de matanzas singer andro mella (who resided in the bronx for about a year before returning to cuba permanently), featured a guarapachangueo stylistic approach and a minimalist two-drummer format, with me on the cajón and abi holliday on quinto cajón. being from the same young generation (in our late twenties), and having played with various rumba groups, abi and i were avid proponents of guarapachangueo in both its chinitos and large ensemble manifestations. abi had emphasized to me how rapsodía rumbera—an early guarapachangueo-inflected album that featured many of the percussionists of what would later become rumberos de cuba—had heavily influenced him and fellow new york-based rumberos of his generation in the late1990s. in the mid-2000s, i had put together a four-person chinitos-style rumba group in puerto rico as a side project with some of the members of the larger rumba group i directed, but it was short-lived, as the chinitos’ style of guarapachangueo has not resonated as much in puerto rico’s rumba scene.11 indeed, the primary influence of guarapachangueo in the larger rumba scene, including amateur and professional groups in puerto rico and the cuban provinces outside havana has come via the guarapachangueo-influenced large rumba ensembles like yoruba andabo and rumberos de cuba. for example, in the case of san juan-based yubá iré, the director (héctor calderón) and some of the other founding members had gone to cuba in the late 1990s to take classes with members of yoruba andabo and irosso obbá, instilling an influence that remains clear in their performance style (frías 2019). 54 johnny frías ____________________________________________ locating guarapachangueo in group performance as bodenheimer (2015, 195) notes, many contemporary rumba groups in the cuban provinces outside havana reflect the influence of the havana-based groups’ ensemble roles, instrumentation, and rhythmic formulas. examples include rumbatá in camagüey (whose members were mentored by clave y guaguancó), kokoyé in santiago, columbia del puerto in matanzas, and santa clara-based awó aché. newer havana groups like timbalaye, osain del monte, and ronald y su explosión rumbera also reflect the instrumentation and ensemble format that emerged from the 1990s havana guarapachangueo groups, including having three drummers (tumbador, tres-dos, quinto), each armed with cajones and tumbadoras (one or more per person). this instrumentation has emerged as a prominent characteristic of contemporary rumba for full ensembles, along with the use of arrangements with breaks and rhythm changes, not to mention the influence of and fusion with other genres like reggaeton, timba, tambor, makuta, and conga, the latter referring to the music of cuba’s carnival traditions. for example, yoruba andabo’s recording of the song “la cafetera,”12 with its catchy, conga-like choruses and medium-tempo guarapachangueo grooves is probably one of the most successful rumba hits, with over four million views on youtube since it was uploaded in 2018. the song’s chorus has become a popular anthem on the island and abroad, including among cubans who might not otherwise listen to rumba recordings. as a reminder that rumba has always incorporated popular music influences of each generation (e.g. songs from the trova and bolero repertoire of the earlyand mid-20th century), trends in contemporary rumba, such as reggaeton-inflected choruses and breaks reminiscent of timba bands, are ways of connecting with and reflecting current generations of performers and fans. another area in which guarapachangueo is featured is in the performance of cajones al muerto, sometimes known in a stricter sense as a cajones espirituales. these religious events are held in honor of one’s spiritual companions, featuring songs from cuban spiritism and, to varying degrees, bantu-cuban repertoires. the songs are accompanied by what is essentially a small rumba ensemble featuring cajón, quinto cajón, catá, and sometimes tumbadoras (balbuena 2020, warden 2006). cajones—as the events are casually known13—are more of a western and central cuban phenomenon; the spiritist practices and songs from oriente in eastern cuba were transformed in the western part of the island, where musicians accompanied them with rumba percussion and rhythms, often adding some of the congo (i.e. bantu-cuban) repertoires of palo and makuta. cajones as events are quite common in havana, to the degree that there are groups of cajoneros that specialize in performing them. cajones are also common events in miami and new york in communities of those who follow afro-cuban religious 55 current musicology _______________________________________ traditions. perhaps more so than in havana, where many groups specialize in one area (e.g. tambor, güiro14 or cajón), in miami and new york most groups of tamboleros also offer their services in performing güiros and cajones. cajones are an oft-overlooked area of rumba percussion performance, and although the song formats and themes differ from those performed in a rumba event per se, contemporary rumba approaches, including guarapachangueo influences, are employed by cajoneros, whom are generally rumberos as well. the chinitos work as cajón musicians as well, and videos of both their cajón performances15 and of the rumbas they host16 are perhaps the best way to hear and see their particular style, as they have rarely been featured as a group in commercial recordings of rumba. the chinitos use a two-drummer ensemble format in cajones, as do the majority of cajoneros, in part because less players means a better cut of the derecho (money paid to the musicians). the twodrummer format (i.e. quinto and cajón, each optionally paired with tumbadoras), along with the catá and sometimes clave, is also the most common in miami and new york, and provides an opportunity to foreground the chinitos’ particular style, tailored as it is for two-drummer formats. of course, the stylistic approach— whether more traditional or guarapachangeuo-inflected, for example—is the choice of the drummers, particularly the person in the lower register (i.e. cajón or cajón/tumbador role), who establishes the approach through the use of certain patrones (archetypal or structural rhythmic formulas). as someone who is usually in this role in both cajones al muerto and rumbas, i have drawn a lot of my personal stylistic approach from the chinitos, specifically their cajón player mario lorenzo aragón cruz, who himself draws on many of pedro lópez’s original formulas, as well as the individual approaches of pedro, irián, and piri. i have also learned a great deal from my godfather daniel gonzález gil, ex-clave y guaguancó drummer, who is from juanelos in san miguel del padrón (i.e. near the chinitos’ neighborhood), an area heavily associated with rumberos. his style of playing the cajón/tumbador incorporates clear chinitos influences, with their heavy dose of groove and funkiness; he also has his own innovative, melodic style, in part stemming from his past experiences working with clave y guaguancó and el greco’s jazz band in havana, not to mention his experience as a tambolero. he is a great example of the multiple musical influences that converge in each rumbero to create individual styles. before i continue discussing his and other musicians’ approaches to guarapachangueo, i would like to present a brief review of the evolution of the style since the 1990s as represented in recordings. i compiled a selected discography, listed at the end of this article, of what i consider to be the most important and influential guarapachangueo audio and visual recordings. organized chronologically and spanning the 1990s to the present, the list represents the evolution of guarapachangueo and the various paths it took in the hands of performers. of course, the chinitos had been creating 56 johnny frías ____________________________________________ and utilizing the style in the 1970s and 1980s, including as part of juan de dios ramos’s folkloric group raíces profundas in the 1980s (bodenheimer 2015). in the 1990s and early 2000s, the style exploded in popularity in cuba and abroad, and began surfacing in diaspora communities like new york (jottar 2009). key figures, groups, and projects during the 1990s included pancho quinto (as director of yoruba andabo and in his solo projects) and rapsodía rumbera. clave y guaguancó, whose director amado dedeu fused rumba with other cuban genres, also exhibits some influences of guarapachangueo. the group coincided with yoruba andabo in expanding the percussion battery, combining cajones with tumbadoras. in the 2000s, rumberos de cuba continued the approach of rapsodia rumbera, yoruba andabo and clave y guaguancó incorporated some younger talent and continued their evolutions, pedro martínez and román díaz (ex-members of yoruba andabo) recorded a guarapachangueo album in new york, and the chinitos gained recognition via youtube documentaries and instructional videos uploaded by foreign students. while yoruba andabo continues to be an important force, some of the main innovations in guarapachangueo-inflected rumba since the 2010s have arguably been spearheaded by two of the most virtuosic drummers in the afrocuban traditional music scene: manley “piri” lópez of the chinitos (son of pedro lópez, a creator of the initial guarapachangueo formulas), who has resided in mexico city since the 2010s; and adonis panter calderón, who directs the popular havana-based rumba group osain del monte and is featured in several youtube videos performing a contemporary rumba style heavily influenced by guarapachangueo.17 both piri and adonis, as they are commonly known in the scene, foreground experimentation and virtuosity in their approach. they are looked up to by younger players and influence the scene at a transnational level, especially via recordings and social media, where they are at the forefront of the evolution of rumba, tambor, and afro-cuban jazz. while adonis’s recordings generally show an adherence to the threeor two-drummer format of guarapachangueo, piri has gone even further in evolving the style, creating an ensemble format in which as little as one drummer (himself) is used. for instance, he combines the normal two or three drum roles into one in the form of the batería batá (batá drumset), a creation of his comprising three batá strapped together in front of him, a cajón (and sometimes snare drum) on the side, a hihat, foot cowbell, and cymbals, the latter played with his hands. despite the wide variety of paths that guarapachangueo has taken in the hands of its many performers, i argue that there is a common, underlying rhythmic vocabulary which stems from the use of core structural formulas that correspond with several of the original chinitos formulas and those of pancho quinto. 57 current musicology _______________________________________ theoretical framing several scholars in recent decades have provided insightful theoretical concepts that can be applied to analyses of african and afro-diasporic musics. of course, as gerstin (2017) recognizes, we must use caution in assuming that a single approach or theory from one area or set of traditions (e.g. afro-cuban music or ewe drumming) will apply to others, or to all west african or afro-diasporic musics. nonetheless, several theoretical concepts pertain well to rumba and many afro-cuban traditions, including anku’s (2000) observations on the cyclic nature of time in african music and burns’s (2010) recognition of “rhythmic archetypes” (e.g. clave, tumbao, one-drop) that constitute part of a “deep structural grammar” common to many afro-diasporic musics. indeed, the frequent references made by rumberos to “conversing” or “saying something” are why i believe rumba can be fruitfully analyzed through the metaphors of language and conversation. as with many of the traditions and generational or regional styles of afro-cuban music, including traditional rumba (friedman 1978), guarapachangueo can only be performed properly if the drummers are fully competent in conversing within the style. both monson (1996) and berliner (1994) use language metaphors to analyze jazz, and such analysis lends itself well to rumba, because like jazz, the performance of a rumba “piece” is only a guideline based on a set of formulas pertaining to elements such as rhythm, melody, and structure. the same rumba songs and accompaniment will vary each time, based on the musicians’ collective interpretations, group interaction, and quick individual musical decisions. these decisions—which may vary in spontaneity—are often described as improvisation because they seem to be invented in the moment and are not preconceived or written down. however, a more critical analysis will bring us closer to understanding what is happening inside the mind of a performer. i find the ideas in turino’s (2009) chapter “formulas and improvisation in participatory music” highly suitable for analyzing guarapachangueo percussion. following judith becker (1972), turino distinguishes between improvisation and formulaic performance. in music based on formulaic performance, musical pieces are treated “as loose models with associated collections of formulas rather than as set, closely reproducible items” (turino 2009, 104). improvisation, on the other hand, is explained as “instances in performance where i surprise myself with purposeful alterations, extensions, or flights away from the model and habitual formulas” (turino 2009, 105). at once a more critical and intimate definition of improvisation, turino reminds us that it is often only the performer—and maybe those who know their playing intimately—that can distinguish when such “surprise” moments happen. indeed, such decisions are often formulaic variations, defined by turino (2009, 104) as “melodic, rhythmic, or harmonic 58 johnny frías ____________________________________________ paradigmatic substitutions… made before in relation to the basic model.” both anku (2000) and david locke (2011) make similar observations regarding improvisation among lead drummers in west african traditions, asserting that rather than being characterized by utter free choice, drummers work within internalized frameworks of rules and formulas that they draw on and vary. rumba and other afro-cuban music traditions are based on formulaic performance, and much of the musical content that has often been described as improvisation is actually formulaic variation. i am not arguing that improvisation—in the sense of surprises that depart from habitual formulas—does not occur. indeed, such instances are a key factor in the continual evolution of many music traditions. however, distinguishing improvisation from formulaic variation is crucial in understanding guarapachangueo and afro-cuban drumming traditions more broadly. bodenheimer (2015) pinpoints some recurring elements in rumberos’ varying definitions of guarapachangueo, some of which include the presence of a rhythmic pattern described onomatopoeically as tukutukum, greater improvisation in the cajón or tumbador (with no set rhythm), and increased conversation between the quinto and the cajón or tumbador. in my opinion, the last two elements—which deal with the characteristic increase in improvisation in the percussion—are at the heart of the style, musically. guarapachangueo is undoubtedly marked by an increase in freedom of choice in the percussive dialogue. however, there are many common rhythmic formulas—including the tukutukum—that provide structure to the percussion and shape the choices for formulaic variation. many contemporary rumberos—influenced by the tendencies of individuals, groups, generations, and regions—continue to habitually adhere to many of these formulas. among cuban rumberos, no one says “let’s play guarapachangueo,” rather, it tends to be synonymous with the contemporary generational approach to rumba and emerges as part of the context and the performer’s preferences. on the other hand, a juxtaposition exists between the contemporary style of rumba and so-called traditional rumba, that is, the older, standardized formulas of past generations. in the case of traditional guaguancó, the rhythmic formulas of the tres-dos and tumbador are comparatively fixed; drummers play embellishments but generally return quickly to the basic formula (example 2) (crook 1982, friedman 1978).18 these rhythmic formulas were standardized in the mid-late 20th century in part due to the reach and influence of commercial recordings.19 59 current musicology _______________________________________ example 2. an example of a common embellishment used in traditional guaguancó in the tumbador, which tends to embellish more than the tres-dos. in this case, instead of an open tone on beat four of the second measure, the drummer embellishes with muff tones (indicated by a dot under the note) for emphasis, but then returns to the basic formula. this is but one example, but embellishments like these can be repeated a few times or combined with others, especially in the montuno (call and response section of a rumba) or in the space following the end of a sung phrase in the verse. compared with the steady, evenly-spaced rhythmic formulas in traditional guaguancó, guarapachangueo—particularly the chinitos’ style—features an aesthetic of heightened tension and release20 in the formulas used by drummers, marked by greater space between rhythmic phrases and less adherence to a single formula in the lower register. while the cajón or tumbador (low register) role is generally more variable, the degree of variability (i.e. switching between different formulas and variations) and choice of formulas is up to the drummer(s), or in the case of a performance group, can be a director or arranger’s decision. this greater variability also highlights the lower levels of rhythmic standardization in guarapachangueo as compared to traditional guaguancó. indeed, the guarapachangueo influence in contemporary rumba is represented in part by new formulas and greater freedom to switch between them. nonetheless, drummers tend to rely primarily on a few formulas and variations in a given performance. while improvisation does occur in rumba to a degree, the majority of what a drummer plays in the lower register role is based on internalized structural formulas, and much of what may seem like free play or improvisation to an onlooker is instead comprised of formulaic variations surfacing as habitual, unconscious decisions. in rumba, each drummer builds up a personal musical vocabulary consisting in large part of formulas and variations, learned consciously and unconsciously from various live or recorded contexts. as a drummer gains experience through practice and performance, they internalize established rules and conventions to know when, where, and how to use their musical vocabulary. in other words, their vocabulary must become part of their musical habitus. like 60 johnny frías ____________________________________________ a fluent speaker, they will then be able to participate in a conversation without needing to think before each utterance. the formulas and variations that form the core of musical vocabularies can be recombined and varied according to the interaction between the musicians. from this point of view, guarapachangueo features a related set of formulas and an updated generational (i.e. post-1990s) rhythmic vocabulary, as well as increased latitude for both formulaic variation and improvisation in the lower register. of course, percentages of improvisation and formulaic variation will differ between individuals and contexts21. in the following section, i will examine some of the most frequently used structural rhythmic formulas in guarapachangueo, including their contexts and common modes of formulaic variation. formula analysis the first formula i will point out is the original guarapachangueo rhythm as described by pedro lópez rodríguez (example 3). according to him, he and his cousin luís ramón “wicho” zuleta lópez came up with it while drumming on a wooden wall of the house. in a 2011 documentary by antoine miniconi,22 pedro demonstrates the rhythm on the cajón,23 where it is primarily employed, as opposed to the tumbadora. perhaps the most common variation for this formula is the tukutukum pattern (example 4). as a rhythmic element (three eighth notes leading up to the first beat of a measure), the tukutukum can be used as a formulaic variation within formulas or function as a recurring part of a formula. example 3: the original guarapachangueo formula. an “x” refers to an accented slap, in this case near the top corner of the cajón. example 4: the tukutukum rhythm. 61 current musicology _______________________________________ notice that the first formula (example 3) mimics the tres-dos part of traditional guaguancó (played as cajón slaps) and is anchored by an emphasis on the first beat of the clave. if this formula is adapted to a three-drummer format instead of the two-drummer format used by the chinitos, the tres-dos will often play in the manner of traditional guaguancó, and the cajón/tumbador (often combined) will emphasize the first or second beat of the clave, both of which serve as important references, or anchor notes, in the timeline. the resulting structural formula (example 5) is commonly used by the drummers of yoruba andabo and rumberos de cuba, and was popularized in the international scene via 1990s recordings such as el callejón de los rumberos and rapsodia rumbera. common variations with this formula include switching between emphasizing the first or second beat of the clave in the cajón, adding in the tukutukum, or adding an open tone on the tumbador (the latter two variations shown in parentheses in example 5). example 5: a common formula with variations used in three-drummer formats. parentheses indicate common variations for embellishment. note the amount of space opened up in the tumbador as compared with the formula for traditional guaguancó. this extra space, very characteristic of guarapachangueo, offers the quinto room to converse and results in a feeling of less stability in the low register. the extra space also allows the cajón/tumbador greater freedom to manipulate the building of energy in the form of tension and release. while not played every time, the cajón/tumbador will emphasize the bombo (the second note of the clave) frequently with a bass tone. as with the first beat of the clave, the cajón or tumbador can mark the bombo as a sort of anchor. the bombo and the first beat of the clave can even stand alone as structural formulas, and frequently serve as reference points—like anchor notes—or to close a phrase, as a period gives closure to a sentence. these anchor notes serve to provide release from accumulated tension and are built into a contemporary rumbero’s vocabulary. 62 johnny frías ____________________________________________ in some cases, the downbeat of the back side of the clave can serve as an anchor note in the cajón and be used as a formula, especially in two-drummer formats. it may have emerged out of the original guarapachangueo formula, which can be flipped in terms of its relationship with the clave. piri demonstrates the formula in this manner (as a flipped version of example 3) in his video demonstration of the structural formulas of guarapachangueo established by his family.24 in practice however, many drummers replace the accented slap tones with unaccented inner beats for timekeeping and just emphasize the bass tone. as with the original formula, a common variation for embellishment here is the tukutukum pattern leading up to the primary bass tone (example 6). example 6: another common formula played on the low cajón or tumbador, particularly in two-drummer formats. the tukutukum is shown in parentheses. the formula in example 6 is commonly used by the chinitos and twodrummer formats in general; in a way it can be seen as a minimalist approach to the traditional formula of the tres-dos, as the bass tone coincides with the first open tone of the latter. when i began rehearsing with la nueva timba de cajón in the bronx, both andro mella and abi holliday enjoyed and encouraged my use of this formula in the cajón. in miami, i have seen daniel gonzález gil, alain fernández, and other drummers use this formula in cajones and rumbas, perhaps employing it for a while (with variations) before switching to another formula. example 7 comprises another popular formula derived from the chinitos’ twodrummer format. example 7: formula for the tumbador/cajón in twoor three-drummer formats. popular ways to vary this formula include playing the first muff as an open, replacing the second muff tone with a bass on the cajón, or replacing the final open tone with a double stroke (i.e. two open tone eight notes on beat four). 63 current musicology _______________________________________ mario lorenzo aragón, who often plays cajón/tumbador with the chinitos, uses this formula often; the bombo serves as an anchor note while the back side of the clave plays on the melody of the tres-dos and tumbador in traditional guaguancó. these characteristics make it a good formula to play during a long verse or song, as the recurring bombo provides steadiness. the drummer may then switch to other, more pronounced or tense formulas and variations when the music calls for it, for example at the end of a phrase in a verse or following the introduction of a catchy song chorus. this formula can also be played in a three-drummer format in the cajón/tumbador part, evident in the recordings of yoruba andabo, rumberos de cuba, and osain del monte, among others. pancho quinto may have been responsible for bringing this formula to yoruba andabo, and he returns to it often—along with variations using the bombo as an anchor—in “a esos señores” on his solo project rumba sin fronteras from 2003. in the same recording, pancho quinto uses a similar formula (example 8) still used by yoruba andabo and many contemporary rumberos. the rhythm, which still uses the bombo as an anchor, is in turn related to one of the chinitos’ structural formulas (example 9) which—as piri explains— because of its more balanced, recurring rhythm can be used to stabilize the energy of the rumba percussion. in other words, it provides a sense of grounding that can be used to contrast with other formulas in which the extra space between the phrases of the cajón or tumbador creates a greater sense of tension in the low register. commonly used in two-drummer formats, the formula can also be heard in clave y guaguancó’s recording of “cantaremos y bailaremos” on songs and dances (1994). example 8: formula used by pancho quinto, yoruba andabo, and many other drummers. a simple variation here would be to replace the muff tone with an open tone. 64 johnny frías ____________________________________________ example 9: another of the chinitos’ structural formulas. to draw on an example from my experience in cajones (performing songs from the spiritist repertoire), the drummer in the cajón/tumbador role may employ the formula in example 9 to build and maintain a consistent, danceable energy to accompany a given song. then, when the singer changes to un canto picante (i.e. a catchy, often short and well-known song chorus that elevates the energy and compels people to join the singing and dancing), the drummer can drop out abruptly and switch to a contrasting formula that heightens the tension with increased space and heavy accents. for example, another one of the chinitos’ formulas commonly used by drummers, including the late pancho quinto, creates tension by dropping the bombo and opening up space in the low register—which can create a sense of the low end dropping out (example 10). further, the formula flirts with the anchor note of the first beat of the clave, sometimes accenting it but often displacing it, increasing the tension by offsetting it by an eighth note (i.e. accenting the “and” of one as opposed to the downbeat). example 10: sample phrasing and variations using another one of pedro lópez’s formulas (first two measures). this formula can be used on a single cajón or tumbador, or both—as shown here—and can be varied with the use of open or muff tones, or replaced with all bass tones on the cajón. 65 current musicology _______________________________________ tactics such as offsetting the downbeat or other expected note are common ways to vary a formula; they create tension by temporarily thwarting collective musical expectations, which are then provided with release when the drummer returns to an anchor note or more stable formula. indeed, an important aspect of both drummers’ and singers’ roles in a rumba, cajón, tambor, or any other afrocuban music event is the manipulation of bodily, psychic, and in many cases spiritual energy. a good singer must know how to build energy through a succession of songs, for example cycling between longer song choruses and those that are short and catchy. part of being a good drummer is supporting the singer’s progression rhythmically. for example, in a rumba group’s performance, the building and progression of energy is part of entertaining your audience, but in a cajón, tambor, or other afro-cuban religious event, part of the job of the musicians is often to create the conditions necessary—through music and energy—to bring down an orisha (deity of regla de ocha) or a muerto (guardian spirit) into the head and body of a person. another mode of variation for drummers is to combine different formulas or repeat one several times to create a longer phrase, then close the phrase by marking a strong anchor note. this kind of creative process occurs repeatedly in rumba and other afro-cuban music traditions. finally, aside from being competent in the vocabulary of guarapachangueo or any one of the afro-cuban traditions or specific styles, musicians will often cite the importance of manana or bomba, words referring to one’s individual sense of soul that helps create the overall timba, the desirable groove of the music (bodenheimer 2015). concluding thoughts i have by no means provided a comprehensive list of all the formulas and variations used in guarapachangueo, much less in the broader area of contemporary rumba. aside from guarapachangueo, there are many other influences in contemporary rumba which have surfaced since the 1990s in havana-style groups. for example, the influence of tambor is evident in pancho quinto’s incorporation of batá drums and rhythms into the low register drum role, and clave y guaguancó’s has similarly adapted rhythms from tambor, abakuá, and other cuban music traditions to the rumba ensemble. contemporary popular music remains an important influence on rumberos as well, for example the use of rapped vocals or percussion breakdown sections rhythmically similar to the bomba and pedal gears25 used by timba bands and reggaeton artists (example 11). finally, conga (carnival music), and other afrocuban traditions like makuta and iyesá continue to serve as sources of rhythmic vocabularies and inspirations for songs, as many rumberos are exposed to or involved in their performance. 66 johnny frías ____________________________________________ example 11: a common structural formula for a breakdown section used when the singer switches song choruses during the montuno (call and response section of a rumba) and the normal drum parts drop out. variations on this formula can be heard on the recordings of irosso obbá, osain del monte, and yoruba andabo, among others. i believe that analyzing rumba as a musical language with continually evolving conventions, vocabularies, and formulas, brings us much closer to what is happening inside the mind of a rumbero. we can distinguish the presence of a personal, inner library that shapes the musical habitus of a performer. distinguishing between improvisation and formulaic variation makes it easier to understand how and why rumberos make the musical decisions they do, as opposed to attributing huge swaths of the musical process to free choice. while i do not claim to have provided an ultimate definition of guarapachangueo, i do believe such an analysis of guarapachangueo will prove fruitful for documenting and identifying its presence more clearly in contemporary rumba. notes 1although their surnames are lópez rodríguez, they are known as the chinitos (“chinese”) because some of their ancestry is chinese. 2 rumba groups and musicians from matanzas, another regional hub of rumba performance, exhibit less pronounced rhythmic influence from guarapachangueo and thus will not be a focus of my discussion. 3 for a more detailed history of rumba, see frías (2014). other literature on rumba history includes crook (1992), martínez rodríguez (1998), mestas alfonso (2020), moliner castañeda and gutiérrez rodríguez (1987), and sublette (2004). 4 in informal rumbas, various singers often interchange many song verses before going into the montuno (call-and-response section), which in turn can be extended indefinitely. my godfather alain fernández, rumbero and akpón (singer of the orisha repertory), who grew up two doors down from the chinitos, has told me how he would watch the rumberos there go back and forth exchanging verses from popular boleros (i.e. sung over the rumba rhythms). conversely, rumba on recordings and stage presentations tends to feature a succinct verse-chorus (i.e. cantomontuno) structure. 5 see chapter one of frías (2019) for a history of commercial recordings of rumba. 6 see crook (1982) for an overview of the standardized parts for traditional rumba. 7 see bodenheimer (2015) for a history of guarapachangueo as recounted by los chinitos. two documentaries featuring interviews with los chinitos regarding the history and musical features of the style have also been produced by italian students of theirs: “los chinitos: mi 67 current musicology _______________________________________ rumba de corazón,” filmed by marco fadda and marika pellegrini in 2003, and “rumba guarapachangueo concept and history, los chinitos,” filmed by antoine miniconi in 2011. 8 among performers of afro-cuban traditional music, tambor (short for tambor de fundamento) refers to the several things: the consecrated batá drums, the event in which they perform, and their musical repertoire, including the drum rhythms and the sets of ordered songs (tratados) that the drumming accompanies. the term is thus more comprehensive than a reference to “batá drumming,” and reflects the vocabulary of tamboleros (i.e. batá drummers). 9 abbilona refers to the name of a project featuring some of the chinitos family and their cohort of tamboleros; they recorded a set of commercial recordings of tambor beginning in the 1990s which continue to be highly influential among tamboleros, particularly in havana and in tambor scenes outside cuba (frías 2019). 10 tambolero meaning as a professional batá drummer. alain is a well-respected akpón (singer of the orisha repertoire) in the afro-cuban religious music scene and the owner of the tambor de fundamento (set of consecrated batá drums) that i am sworn to. 11 recently, charley rivas and i, both based in miami and proponents of the chinitos’ guarapachangueo style, collaborated with puerto rico-based beto torrens and members of his liga rumbera. charley and i recorded the drum parts in the chinitos’ style, accompanying singers totin agosto and ernesto gatell “el gato,” the latter a well-respected cuban rumbero who now resides in florida. some of those tracks are still being mixed, but some of the chinitosinspired tracks are available online in the album orgánico y medicinal (2019). 12 fiebre latina tv, “la cafeteria – yoruba andabo – tu calienta pero no cuela – rumba,” february 18, 2018, https://youtu.be/1yypfvnshhc. 13 for clarity, i will italicize the word cajón (or plural, cajones) when referring to the event. alternatively, i will not italicize the word when referring to the instrument called the cajón. 14 in this context, a güiro refers to a musical ceremony in santería in which songs are accompanied by two or three shekeres (hollow gourds covered in beads), a guataca (hoe blade) struck with a metal beater, and a tumbadora. 15 see “los chinito cajon en la corea,” november 13, 2013, https://youtu.be/pha5y5vsgs4. 16 see “guarapachangueo los chinitos de san miguel del padrón,” https://youtu.be/yv3twz40eea and videos on manley lópez’s youtube channel. 17 examples include “el duo peligroso de la habana de hoy – parte 1,” https://youtu.be/sqkg7fasvqg, and “si somos de la caliente – timba encendida,” https://youtu.be/hwycgu6uobe, which also feature michael herrera perez and barbarito crespo richa. 18 ideals of maintaining tradition (i.e adherence to long-established formulas) are often expressed by rumberos and tamboleros in phrases such as “don’t wander too far from the base [rhythmic formula]” or “embellish, but return [to the base].” 19 see frías 2019 for a detailed discussion of the history and influence of rumba recordings. 20 see keil (1994) for a discussion of resistance, tension, and gratification as it pertains to rhythm and meter. 68 johnny frías ____________________________________________ 21 for example, certain individuals will be more inclined to improvise due to their personal preferences or to their level of experience. some contexts with lower stakes or with the purpose of experimentation, such as informal spaces or percussion jam sessions, may be more favorable to higher amounts of improvisation than contexts with higher stakes, as in a studio recording or a religious event like a cajón, but it still often comes down to individual choice. 22 antoine miniconi, “rumba guarapachangueo, concept and history, los chinitos,” february 2011, https://youtu.be/k8n3grb1ks0. 23 the chinitos’ characteristic pyramid-shaped cajón with protruding “ears” (orejas) on the side, the latter used for slaps or inner-beats played with fingers. 24 manley lópez, “rumba guarapachangueo, clase con manley lopez (piri), los chinitos,” march 15, 2011, https://youtu.be/nc1nverm9-i. 25 see kevin moore’s explanation of gears in timba at https://www.timba.com/artist_pages/gears-what-where-and-how. selected guarapachangueo discography yoruba andabo. 1993. el callejón de los rumberos. pm records 2039, 1 compact disc. clave y guaguancó. 1994. songs and dances. green linnet 4023, 1 compact disc. various artists. 1995. rapsodia rumbera. egrem 0121, 1 compact disc. clave y guaguancó. 1996. déjala en la puntica. egrem 0211, 1 compact disc. quinto, pancho. 1997. en el solar de la cueva del humo. round world music 9704, 1 compact disc. clave y guaguancó. 1999. noche de la rumba. tumi 085, 1 compact disc. hernández, gregorio. 2001. “guarapachangueo.” la rumba es cubana: su historia. los chinitos. producciones abdala 6004, 1 compact disc. los chinitos. 2003. guarapachangueo: rumba de mi barrio. independently produced by marco fadda and marika pellegrini, 1 compact disc. quinto, pancho. 2003. rumba sin fronteras. world music network 1031, 1 compact disc. rumberos de cuba. 2003. rumbón tropical. boogalu productions, dvd. irosso obbá. 2003. extrema casualidad. en vivo: callejón de hamel. yo mambo music, 1 compact disc. _____. 2004. ¿dónde andabas tú, acerekó? egrem 0600, 1 compact disc. _____. 2006. habana de mi corazón. egrem 0858, 1 compact disc. clave y guaguancó. 2006. la rumba que no termina. cuba chévere 15-0506, 1 compact disc. díaz, roman, and pedro martínez. 2008. the routes of rumba. round whirled records 844185096942, 1 compact disc. puntilla y el conjunto todo rumbero. 2008. a tribute to gonzalo asencio, “tío tom.” smithsonian folkways 40543, 1 compact disc. rumberos de cuba. 2011. mano a mano. bis music 848, 1 compact disc. yoruba andabo. 2012. el espíritu de la rumba. bis music 897, 1 compact disc. team cuba de la rumba. 2014. la rumba no es como ayer. bis music 2559, 2 compact discs and dvd. osain del monte. 2015. pa’l monte. egrem 1312, 1 compact disc. _____. 2021. sin comentarios. egrem 1709, 1 compact disc. 69 current musicology _______________________________________ references anku, willy. 2000. “circles and time: a theory of structural organization of rhythm in african music,” music theory online 6(1). averill, gage. 1999. “caribbean musics: haiti and trinidad and tobago.” in music in latin american culture: regional traditions. edited by john schecter, 126–191. new york: schirmer. balbuena gutiérrez, bárbara. 2020. “el cajón al muerto en matanzas: configuración ritual festiva del complejo religioso ocha-ifá,” comparative cultural studies: european and latin american perspectives 9: 87-102. becker, judith. 1972. "western influence in gamelan music," asian music: 3-9. berliner, paul. 1994. thinking in jazz. chicago and london: university of chicago press. bodenheimer, rebecca. 2015. geographies of cubanidad: place, race, and musical performance in contemporary cuba. jackson, ms: university of mississippi press. burns, james. 2010. “rhythmic archetypes in instrumental music from africa and the diaspora,” music theory online 16(4). coburg, adrian. 2007. percusion afrocubana. vol 1: música folklórica, percusión mayor y menor. twelfth edition. crook, larry. 1982. “a musical analysis of the cuban rumba,” latin american music review 3(1): 92-123. _____. 1992. “the form and formation of the rumba in cuba.” in salsiology: afro-cuban music and the evolution of salsa in new york city. edited by vernon w. boggs, 31–42. westport, ct: greenwood. frías, johnny. 2014. “rumba.” in the bloomsbury encyclopedia of popular music of the world. vol. 9, genres: caribbean and latin america. edited by david horn, heidi feldman, monalynn courteau, pamela narbona jerez, and hettie malcomson, 715–726. london: bloomsbury. _____. 2019. “afro-cuba transnational: recordings and the mediation of afro-cuban traditional music.” phd diss., city university of new york. friedman, robert. 1978, “‘if you don’t play good they take the drum away’: performance, communication and acts in guaguancó.” in discourse in ethnomusicology: essays in honor of george list. edited by caroline card, john hasse, roberta l. singer, and ruth m. stone, 209–224. bloomington: indiana university ethnomusicology publications group. gerstin, julian. 2017. “comparisons of african and diasporic rhythm: the ewe, cuba, and martinique,” analytical approaches to world music, 5(2): 1-90. hines, eric christopher. 2015. “recipe for a guaguancó sabroso: understanding quinto drum improvisation in cuban rumba.” phd diss., university of arizona. jottar, berta. 2009. "the acoustic body: rumba guarapachanguera and abakuá sociality in central park," latin american music review 30(1): 1-24. keil, charles. 1994. “motion and feeling through music.” in music grooves, by charles keil and steven feld, 53-76. chicago: university of chicago press. mareq67. 2007 [2003]. “los chinitos – mi rumba de corazón.” january 26. http://youtu.be/tk4c4wv0fyo 70 johnny frías ____________________________________________ martínez rodríguez, raul. 1998. “la rumba en la provincia de matanzas.” in panorama de la musica popular cubana. edited by radamés giro, 125–136. havana: editorial letras cubanas. mauleón, rebeca. 1993. salsa guidebook for piano and ensemble. petaluma, ca: sher music. mestas alfonso, maría del carmen. 2020. “historia de la rumba” comparative cultural studies: european and latin american perspectives 9: 143-150. moliner castañeda, israel, and gladys gutierrez rodríguez. 1987. “la rumba,” del caribe 9: 40–47. monson, ingrid. 1996. saying something: jazz improvisation and interaction. chicago and london: university of chicago press. moore, robin. 2006. music and revolution: cultural change in socialist cuba. berkeley and los angeles: university of california press. peñalosa, david. 2009. the clave matrix: afro-cuban rhythm; its principles and african origins. redway, ca: bembe books. rumbaforever. 2011. “rumba guarapachangueo concept and history, los chinitos.” june 17. https://youtu.be/d8zchxdwthu spiro, michael. 2006. the conga drummer’s guidebook. petaluma, ca: sher music. sublette, ned. 2004. cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo. chicago: chicago review press. turino, thomas. 2009. “formulas and improvisation in participatory music.” in musical improvisation: art, education, and society, edited by gabriel solis and bruno nettl, 103 116. urbana, il and chicago: university of illinois press. warden, nolan. 2006. “cajón pa' los muertos: transculturation and emergent tradition in afro-cuban ritual drumming and song.” master’s thesis, tufts university. 71 current musicology 98 (fall 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 121 morgan, robert p. 2014. becoming heinrich schenker: music theory and ideology. new york: cambridge university press. reviewed by bryan j. parkhurst in my view, there is a real need for the kind of book that robert morgan’s heinrich schenker: music theory and ideology aspires to be: a succinct, lucid, and sympathetic summary of the most important works of the most important music theorist, one that shows how those works comprise an integrated theoretical program, a “complete, self–enclosed system” (14)— in a word, a wissenschaft. needless to say, this is in many circles no longer seen as a fashionable, or even remotely credible, way of doing intellectual history. a backward glance at the last few decades of developments in music studies leaves one with the impression that the project of rational reconstruction died a mostly unmourned death when dahlhaus died a premature death in 1989.1 but “schenkerism,” as narmour dubbed it, has always been a flagrantly, joyfully, and (in large part) self–consciously unfashionable “ism,” even (or especially) back when schenker was figuring out how to be a schenkerian. and, in the case of a temporally and culturally remote, sometimes willfully opaque, unfailingly cantankerous thinker like schenker, reconstruction—which blends the exegete’s task of making a text as comprehensible as possible with the advocate’s task of making it as convincing and relevant as possible—is arguably a necessary precondition for anything resembling deconstruction, however important and edifying that hermeneutic occupation may be. thus i side with morgan on a fundamental level, in that i think his book aims at a target worth aiming at. many in the field will disagree. so be it; i’m happy to submit the opinion as a minority report. on this point, however, i anticipate consensus: morgan fails to hit his target’s bull’s–eye. while there is plenty to be learned from becoming heinrich schenker, and while everyone who likes to think about schenker should read it (faute de mieux), i have reservations about how successfully it prosecutes the goals it sets for itself. in what follows, i will use the three components of the book’s title—“becoming heinrich schenker,” “music theory,” and “ideology”—to orient my criticisms and substantiate this verdict. “becoming heinrich schenker” curiously, becoming heinrich schenker has little to do with how heinrich schenker became heinrich schenker. aside from a thumbnail sketch in the 122 current musicology first chapter, the book contains little biographical material. a more appropriate title for becoming heinrich schenker would have been becoming free composition, the better to reflect two facts: 1) that the text is essentially a chronological book report on schenker’s best–known writings (“the spirit of musical technique,” harmony, counterpoint vols. 1 and 2, schenker’s monographs and explanatory editions, the will of the tones, the masterwork in music, and free composition); and 2) that the overarching thesis of this literaturübersicht is a teleological one, to the effect that everything prior to free composition “can be beneficially viewed as evolving toward the final theory” (xiv), since “schenker’s evolution can be understood as basically consistent and unidirectional” as it “moves toward the final theory” (xviii).2 in a refinement of this thesis, we are told that schenker’s early ideas and his final theory are non–equivalent but genealogically connected: “i do not myself feel that a direct line can be drawn between all the ideas expressed in schenker’s early works and those in the later ones, nor that they are in any way equivalent. but i do feel that some concepts expressed in the early works anticipate later ones in a way that seems both powerful and inevitable. it is not, then, that the earlier works completely predict the subsequent ones, but that some ideas introduced there can be viewed as both related to later ones and providing them a sort of prior foundation” (xviii). the book’s objectives, accordingly, are to 1) provide some historical background and a resume of “schenker’s final theory” (chapters 1–2); 2) selectively interpret passages of schenker’s pre–free composition publications by viewing them through the lens of the final theory (chapters 3–7); and 3) evaluate the merits of schenker’s final theory (chapters 8–10). let me reiterate that i have no grievance to bring against morgan’s self– avowedly teleological approach per se. in the face of the prevailing post– structuralist historiographical orthodoxy, which legislates that progressivist historical narratives are uncreditable, and that even conceptualization itself is to be held in some degree of suspicion,3 i have grown nostalgic for a bygone hegelian age, one in which we were given to believe that the past has intelligibility for us only as a repository of potentialities that find their complete realization in the present, potentialities that progressively actualize themselves in a way that is, in the broadest possible sense, rational (a process hegel discusses under the heading of “the march of reason through history”). thus there is something bold and refreshing, for unrepentant hegelians at least, in morgan’s candor about his desire to tell a whiggish, retrospective tale about the cumulative revelation of an “entire mature system” (103 and 224) across schenker’s oeuvre. unfortunately, there is at times something stale in the telling. many of morgan’s ceremoniously unveiled interpretive theses strike the reader as 123 bryan j. parkhurst either self–evident or tritely familiar. we are told that harmony’s theorization of stufen and counterpoint’s theorization of the strict/free composition dichotomy are, later on in free composition, united in a “concrete method that would show how the idealized content of stufen in free composition could be derived from the actual content of musical progressions, and a concrete method that would show how the idealized content of species counterpoint could also be derived from those same progressions” (97); that schenker’s earlier essays and books contain analyses that exhibit inchoate anticipations of methods that schenker brings to bear in his later analyses; that geist deals with some themes that remain preoccupations of schenker’s for the rest of his life but also expresses some views schenker later came to repudiate. and, compounding platitude with redundancy, becoming heinrich schenker displays throughout an almost incantatory repetition of these and other stereotypical chestnuts. i lost track of the number of times it was reaffirmed that schenker’s focus was on a smallish group of mostly german masterpieces, that schenker was fixated on the topic of genius, that his analytical technique is distinguished by its synoptic and totalizing pretensions, and so on.4 none of this is wrong, but none of it is newsworthy. that being said, an instructor might find it useful to assign morgan’s thematic summaries to students in order to provide them with an interpretive skeleton to be fleshed out later by treatments of schenker’s conceptual development (e.g. in the work of pastille, blasius, korsyn, snarrenberg, karnes, and others) that are rather more nuanced and penetrating, but ipso facto less comprehensive than what morgan provides. however, those who have little familiarity with schenker will find morgan’s overview of schenker’s musikanschauung (chapter 2) to be forbiddingly abstract, for morgan does not situate schenker’s interpretive categories within the matrix of musical details that gave birth to those categories. nobody who doesn’t already know what reaching over is will be able to make heads or tails of the sole thing morgan says about it, which is that it “combines an incomplete descending neighbor motion and superimposed inner voices in a regular pattern that often results in a rising linear progression” (22). giving a rundown of schenker’s analytical concepts without referring them back copiously to the passages of real music they are meant to explicate leads necessarily to a certain kind of fetishism, in that it tends to reify those concepts and treat them as though they held some intrinsic interest all on their own. what interests us, though, isn’t the platonic form of übergreifung, glimpsed in the purifying light of total abstraction, but instead the real music that yields up something of the secret of its beauty when brought under this concept. 124 current musicology yet i don’t think morgan can be faulted too severely on this score. in the first place, the person guiltiest of fetishizing schenkerian analytical concepts is heinrich schenker; morgan is a minor offender by comparison. in the second place, the error is forgivable in proportion to its unavoidability. inasmuch as schenker studies has established itself as an academic discipline, it has placed itself under an obligation to produce the trappings thereof, such as book chapters that encapsulate schenker’s musical horizon of reference. but the nature of the material prevents this obligation from being satisfactorily fulfilled. the schenkerian conception of music cannot be distilled down to a list of discrete propositions. instead, schenkerian analysis is an activity that flows from an irreducibly intricate musical form of life (to borrow an expression from one of morgan’s favorite philosophers, wittgenstein, to whom we will return), one which must be lived out if its indigenous concepts are to be grasped. and this isn’t just a problem for becoming heinrich schenker; it is a problem for free composition. how does one summarize what is refractory to verbal summarization? how does one substitute saying for doing without remainder? it is no coincidence that the most expedient means of transmitting and inculcating schenkerian modes of knowing, the kind of proficiency the analyst bodies forth when she gives a schenkerian reading of a piece, is not, and never has been, the textbook summary, nor indeed the written word in any of its manifestations. “schenkerizing,” like piano playing, must be learned at the knee of an expert whose actions can be emulated—a fact which dooms from the start the genre of the schenkerian conspectus. this does not entirely exculpate morgan. i imagine that novitiates will not find his digest of free composition to be appreciably easier to digest than free composition itself. and i would think that any reader with enough expertise to comprehendingly follow morgan’s summary of schenker’s analytical technique probably has too much expertise to feel very engaged by it, as it contains nothing groundbreaking or novel. however, i could be wrong. maybe i am underestimating the appeal of hearing a familiar story told with different words. semper idem, sed non eodem modo, as schenker says.5 “theory” one problem with becoming heinrich schenker’s teleological argument is that its conception of the pertinent telos—its stance on what counts as part of a putative final theory—is overly inclusive. in chapter 2 we get an itemized list of “the theory’s basic assumptions” (19). most of these are the canonical schenkerian interpretive categories: composing out, trans125 bryan j. parkhurst formation, the ursatz and urlinie, foreground/middleground/background, interruption, compound melody, substitution, and so on. but another entry on the list is the “assumption that tones have egos whose spiritual tendencies must be obeyed” (30), also described as “the idealistic belief that tones have ‘wills’ or ‘egos’: a spiritual dimension that requires them to behave in a certain way and no other” (17). one of these assumptions is not like the others. that is problematic: running together schenker’s formalist categories with his penchant for anthropomorphizing sound is a bit like running together newton’s laws of motion with newton’s claim that space is the sensorium dei (“god’s sense organ”), in that it tends to erode the distinction between modes of discourse whose differences should be acknowledged. is the “assumption” that music can and should be parsed according to certain structuralist/organicist paradigms analogous to the “assumption” that “tones have a biological nature which gives them their own egos”? couldn’t schenker’s talk of wills and egos be impressionistic and metaphorical in a way that his talk of a five–line isn’t (even if the latter way of talking still bears an irremovable residue of metaphor)? these questions are only partly rhetorical, for it seems to me that the very purport (not to mention the truth–value) of the claim that tones have a “biological nature” is far from obvious. simply saying that schenker believed such a thing is roughly as informative as saying that hegel believed that the true is the whole (das wahre ist das ganze) and leaving it at that. most of us will have little notion of how to believe this, much less whether to believe it. in other words, in the absence of serious and sustained philological work, much of what schenker wrote confronts us as a cipher. but instead of philology, what we often get in becoming heinrich schenker is the uncritical adoption of idiomatic schenkerian forms of expression6 in passages that are supposed to clarify what schenker believed. in his own voice and without irony, morgan offhandedly refers to music’s “spiritual nature,” the “spiritual meaning of strict counterpoint,” music’s “harmony–based spirituality,” “spiritually anchored tones,” the “spiritual unity of a second–species third progression,” “spiritual verticalities,” and the “spirituality of counterpoint in general.” my soul! as a rule, one should try to avoid talking like schenker when talking about schenker—it makes the reader search for missing quotation marks. there is a basic question lurking in the background of all this: what kind of a theory is schenker’s theory? is it a predictive empirical stylistics? a theory of auditory ethics? a kantian theory of unity? these questions have set a river of ink flowing. to my surprise, becoming heinrich schenker hardly dips its toes in the current. the absence of engagement with the secondary meta–theoretical literature on the epistemological underpinnings 126 current musicology of schenker’s system goes hand in hand with the author’s assumption that schenker’s “final theory” is something like the sum total of all the pronouncements that schenker issued about music after some sufficiently advanced date (say, the publication of the masterwork in music): if you aren’t worried about what kind of theory schenker’s theory is, you don’t need to worry about which of his statements are properly theoretical statements. but both of these seem like worries worth having. certainly they are in the case of newton, where we would like to acknowledge an important difference between “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” and “space is the sensorium dei” by saying that the former statement does, and the latter statement does not, belong to newtonian physics properly so–called. the danger of being insufficiently concerned with these meta–theoretical issues comes to the fore when we read that schenker’s graph of bach’s prelude no. 1 in c major “contains not only theoretical information about the pitches but non–theoretical information about the rhythmic and phrase relationships supporting them” (schenker’s hypermetric indications aren’t underwritten by some sort of tacit theory?), or when we try to reconcile the claim that “schenker believed—and consistently stressed— that his final theory provided music with ultimate truth” (8) with the claim that one of “schenker’s fundamental beliefs” was that “only a small canon of compositions with a great deal in common and susceptible to detailed analytical explanation can provide the complete musical truth demanded by his theory” (29). i don’t know what it means to say that the theory provides the music with truth, nor what means to say that the music provides the theory with truth, but i do know that it is circular to say both, and i doubt that schenker is the one thinking in circles here. “ideology” for many, “ideology” rings either marxist or post–marxist bells. either the word picks out a form of mystification, conducive to the economic interests of the ruling classes, that it is possible to transcend or unmask as false (as in the classical marxist model); or the gist of it is that our forms of consciousness are conditioned by the dominant economic formation and resultant superstructural phenomena fully and absolutely, making ideology an inexpugnable force that shapes our very appreciation of the distinction between what is real and what is unreal, essential and inessential, a force whose influence cannot be escaped so long as we remain within the confines of what nietzsche calls “the prison house of language” (as in a 127 bryan j. parkhurst lacanian or althusserian model of ideology). becoming heinrich schenker begins with an attempt to unring those bells: since ideology, as a conceptual framework through which experience is filtered as part of a more orderly overall picture, is often viewed with suspicion, some explanation of its stress here seems appropriate. distrust of ideology stems mainly from the negative meaning it acquired through association with marxism, within which it has consistently been understood as a source of ‘false consciousness’ that distorted normal conceptions of material reality by turning them upside down, rather like a camera obscura. yet ideologies can also be consensual and pervasive, and they can exist in forms that reflect general social and intellectual positions rather than specifically political ones. in addition, they are held with various degrees of emphasis, professed or unacknowledged, conscious or unconscious, rigid or flexible. in this more general sense, ideology exists behind all forms of thought, including schenker’s. (4)7 morgan is frank about wishing to extinguish the political charge of the term “ideology.” and perhaps the magic mountain’s settembrini is wrong to insist that “the apolitical does not exist—everything is politics.” still, the political overtones of “ideology” are hard not to hear, especially when the ideologist in question is an arch–reactionary nationalist, and one feels therefore that the word is wildly overused in morgan’s book, whose title belies the fact that it is mostly an exposition of a set of beliefs schenker publicly attested to holding. explicating and tracing the literary provenance of schenker’s overt aesthetic platform is very different from diagnosing the etiology of the all–embracing, materially– and socially–determined, class– based normative take on things of which that platform is symptomatic. to be sure, morgan can use “ideology” however he sees fit to use it.8 but i can’t help but think that it is misleading for the cover of becoming heinrich schenker to cash in on the academic vogue enjoyed by the word “ideology” while the pages of the book remain at a cautious distance from anything most critics of ideology would wish to call “ideology critique.” what is inscribed upon the doxastic edifice equivocally labelled “schenker’s ideology?” first and foremost we find an incompatible blend of the new and the old, or of the old and the older: “there are some distinct peculiarities to the theory, one of the most telling being that it contains an ideological paradox consisting of two apparently independent and opposed philosophical strains: a nineteenth–century idealist one and a twentieth– century modernist one. although both influenced the theory’s formation in a critical way, the idealist one should be considered the dominant one, for it supplied the theory with its basic core—the spirituality of tone” (xiv). however, having been assured of the central importance of an “ideologi128 current musicology cal paradox” and of the “conflicted nature of schenker’s theory” (xiv), we then encounter, bafflingly, the assessments that schenker’s theory grows up around an “internally consistent ideological framework” (4), that it can be understood as “basically consistent” (xviii), and that (according to the book’s conclusion) “much of schenker’s [idealist] theoretical development was consistent with his scientific orientation.” which is it? is schenker’s theory riddled with paradox, or has schenker succeeded in constructing a “complete, self–enclosed system” that hangs together consistently and coherently? contrary to what one might expect, no answer to this question is ventured in chapter 9, entitled “critical assessment: ideology,” which is meant to “[take] into account both the advantages and the disadvantages of the theory.” instead the chapter leaves to one side theory–internal questions about consistency and coherence and turns its attention to allegedly powerful external objections to schenker’s theory. one of these is a wittgensteinian refutation of schenker’s whole agenda. “a . . . wittgensteinian point is that any human activity, such as music, must take place within a ‘public’ arena where it participates in what wittgenstein calls a communally sanctioned ‘language game,’ which is itself embedded in shared ‘forms of life’ . . . it may be that schenker’s manner of theorizing, even measured against the standards of music theory, is obsessively cult–like and that, by relying upon what wittgenstein calls a ‘private language,’ it takes part in what for him is a logical impossibility. human communication always requires the presence of public conventions” (185). wittgenstein’s private language argument is a tough nut to crack, and there is no consensus among wittgenstein’s commentators about how the argument is supposed to go or about whether it succeeds. minimally, though, all parties to the debate agree that the private language argument is intended to demonstrate that the very concept of a language spoken by one person (a language comprehensible in principle to one and only one person) is incoherent or unintelligible or self–abnegating—like the concept of a square circle or of an equitable capitalist society. i won’t offer my own or anyone else’s interpretation of wittgenstein’s tortuous argument here; i’ll merely mention a few points that are wholly obvious and uncontroversial. the private language argument has nothing at all to do with criticizing the use of jargon or esoteric speech, nor does it have anything to do with dialects or idiolects (the characteristic ways in which groups or individuals speak a public language), nor does it have anything to do with the mutual intelligibility of linguistic subcultures. it is nonsensical to raise the worry that schenker is guilty of “relying on what wittgenstein calls a ‘private language,’” given that wittgenstein’s whole point is that there can’t be any such 129 bryan j. parkhurst thing and that we can’t coherently conceive of such a thing. it is equally nonsensical to wonder whether schenker’s theory “takes part in what for [wittgenstein] is a logical impossibility.” it is not likely that wittgenstein thinks that the impossibility of a private language is distinctively logical (i.e. formally contradictory, in violation of the law of non–contradiction), but, in any event, logically impossible states of affairs cannot obtain (at any possible world!) so nothing can “take part” in them. private languages aren’t naughty things; they aren’t things. this total mishandling of wittgenstein unintentionally corroborates morgan’s earlier claim that “attempts to clarify [schenker’s ideas] often result in further distortion” (160). just as there is confusion in becoming heinrich schenker about the consistency of schenker’s “theory” and its “ideological framework,” there is confusion about the nature of the twin components of this ideological economy, schenker’s so–called “idealism” (a.k.a. schenker’s “speculative” side) and its counterpart, which morgan variously designates as “modernism,” “materialism,” “empiricism,” and “scientific orientation.” time and again we are reminded that schenker is an idealist who believes in the “ideal nature” and “spirituality” of tones, a belief that allegedly is in tension with schenker’s investigatory/explanatory/scientific impulses. but, to re–pose a question from above, what is schenker committing himself to when he calls music geistig? and how is this commitment manifested in, or traceable to, the system propounded by any particular idealist philosopher? if one wishes to document schenker’s allegiance to (some form of) idealism, it is not enough to superficially note that there is something rather “subjective,” and thus empirically suspect, and thus “idealist” or “speculative,” about particular schenkerian turns of phrase. yet that is the altitude at which becoming heinrich schenker mostly hovers: “although schenker may have couched his subjective elements—such as the will of tones, mental retention, prolongation, and long–range hearing—in terms that suggested that they were somehow scientifically sanctioned (as he himself seems to have believed), they cannot be empirically justified, as they are linked to the ephemerality of human hearing. the theory, characterized by a mixture of speculative (personal) and empirical (impersonal) elements, is thus seen by schenker himself as the work ‘of an artist’” (12). the reason that topics such as human hearing and the mental retention of tones are supposed to lie outside the purview of empirical investigation is just as unclear to me as is the reason for positing a close kinship between the subjective or personal and an imagined philosophical monolith called “idealism” or “speculative philosophy.” it is important to bear in mind that the idealists were a diverse bunch who spent most of their time arguing with one another rather than with non–idealists and that there is no single 130 current musicology creed called “german idealism.” fichte perhaps gave some latitude to subjectivity and personality (a much greater concern of the romantics than of the idealists) when he claimed that “[w]hat sort of philosophy one chooses depends on what sort of man one is; for a philosophical system is not a dead piece of furniture that we can accept or reject as we wish; it is animated by the soul of the person who holds it” (1982, 16). but hegel, famously, purges such individualism from his account of the attainment of “absolute knowledge,” humankind’s objective (yet self–directed) knowledge of its own socially–enacted spiritual and philosophical bildung (cultural maturation). hegel also would not have regarded himself as being at all implicated in the glib insistence that it must be “understood that schenker, following the idealists, believed that truly imaginative, constructive knowledge exists only when it is unaware of itself ” (202). schelling rhapsodizes about the unconscious now and then (although he never characterizes it as the only source of knowledge) but, in purposeful opposition to schelling, hegel maintains that the only conversation worth having about knowledge is a conversation about how the world is ineluctably coming to know itself (indeed, to know itself knowing itself) by means of the relentless attainment of self–consciousness and self–reflexivity by what he calls “geist” (the normative human world of value structures, institutions, culture, and language). for hegel, knowledge just is collective self–awareness, the emergence from unselfconsciousness. this demonstrates that it is perilous to talk about the german idealists as though there were some philosophical catechism to which they were all pledged. idealism, like schenkerism, is more of a philosophical posture or denkungsart, a way of addressing oneself to the materials of thought, than a creed that can be decomposed into a set of discreet teachings or orthodoxies. it is also perilous, though in a different way, to use “idealist” as a kind of catch–all pejorative for any commitment of whose empirical credentials one is suspicious: “in fact, the idealist origins of some of the theory’s most fundamental assumptions—its basis in nature, appeal to genius, nationalistic bias, etc.—indicates that these have no objective empirical grounding. their features, as well as others such as musical logic and necessity, provide from an empirical perspective at best an efficient means for grounding the work theoretically” (205). often, in becoming heinrich schenker, “idealism” simply stands for whatever is opposed to “the empirical assumption that musical understanding is derived from close musical observation” (xiv), as in morgan’s claim that “despite the emphasis that has been correctly placed on his idealist roots, [schenker] was also strongly influenced by scientific attitudes, especially in his later stress on musical hierarchy, theoretical notation, and the empirical observation of actual music” (43). this use of 131 bryan j. parkhurst “idealist” will perplex anyone who has studied the german idealists’ writings on nature. for one thing you can say about all these philosophers is that, whatever internecine disagreement may have divided them, they were united by zest for establishing the notional foundations of the natural sciences (even if they sometimes levelled peculiar criticisms against practicing scientists, as hegel and goethe did against newton). of great concern for kant and his philosophical heirs was the need to demonstrate that both we and nature are constituted in such a way that empirical observation can be a source of genuine knowledge for us. there is no sense in which schenker’s idealism (whatever congeries of positions and affiliations “schenker’s idealism” might turn out to signify), insofar as it is bequethed to him by the luminaries of classical german philosophy, is even prima facie opposed to his penchant for the “close musical observation.” it seems to me, therefore, that the fundamental dichotomy upon which becoming heinrich schenker’s axial interpretive claim hinges is a false one. a nice feature of becoming heinrich schenker is the amount of primary source material it contains. roughly an eighth of the book is made up of block quotations, some of them previously untranslated, many of them improvements upon the existing translations. additionally, all of the original german (about 50 pages) is given in an appendix, a feature that should be standard in all publications about schenker. morgan’s own translations are by and large both readable and impeccably accurate, and he plainly has an enviable command of the german language as well as compendious knowledge of schenker’s published writings.9 this makes one wish that becoming heinrich schenker were in its entirety what it occasionally verges on being: a topically organized schenkerian “reader” that allows schenker to “speak of his own work in his own voice” (xx). it would be useful to have a single volume that collates, translates, and annotates schenker’s wide–ranging commentary on german nationalism, organicism, freedom, god, and other topics dear to his heart, since this commentary is dispersed across many publications and is often a byplay to a music–analytical argument that takes center stage. schenker scholars have a big job ahead of them figuring out how schenker became the thinker he became, probing the question of what kind of a theory schenker’s theory is, and delivering an analysis and critique of schenker’s ideology. robert morgan is to be commended for making some headway on this front even if, as i have tried to indicate, his book exhibits less philosophical acumen than his topic demands. i hope that all those who are fascinated by the philosophical/ideological side of schenker will read becoming heinrich schenker and feel motivated to build and improve upon it. 132 current musicology notes 1. in music theory, and schenker studies in particular, one finds countercurrents to this trend, notably in the work of matthew brown and mark debellis. 2. everything, that is, with the exception of everything that schenker wrote prior to “the spirit of musical technique,” which allegedly “contain[s] little . . . that relates directly to the later work” (41) and is thus in no way “vital to schenker’s overall development” (xx). this is a flatly unbelievable claim for which no substantiation is offered. 3. see taruskin 2010, 380–82. 4. “this emphasis on masterpieces and genius indicates that schenker does not have all music in mind, but only a limited canon of what are in his view great works” (101); “schenker’s theory thus views the composition’s overall tonal structure as an unfolding of the tonic triad, its first level [like all others] covering the entire piece, and consisting of the unfolding’s simplest form: a stepwise descent in the top voice [the most proximate type of melodic motion] down to the tonic, accompanied by a three–part triadic arpeggiation in the bass [the most fundamental type of harmonic motion]” (227); “one of the theory’s most important features thus became its hierarchical structure, which allowed this theoretical framework to be presented as a set of interrelated layers, each included in the following one” (227). 5. my own pleasure in hearing becoming heinrich schenker’s version of the story of schenker’s conceptual odyssey was diminished by numerous banalities and infelicities of style: “this last point provides schenker with a wedge showing that minor—even if vicariously— also partakes of nature, though the rescue is conflicted” (65). “the theory, then, serves a useful purpose; but like all things in life, it is imperfect. its ideological foundations cannot be dismissed, whether they are related to schenker’s historical evolution or to the theoretical result. but our own conception of the theory is the only one available to us, and this depends finally on how we feel about it” (228). “indeed, schenker was surprisingly encompassing, rigid, and open in stating the ideology behind his work, to whose underlying assumptions he was unequivocally inclined” (4). “schenker will thus always remain a puzzle, even if he is by no means uniquely so” (228). what is a puzzle, even if it is by no means uniquely so, is how some of these sentences got past an editor at cambridge university press. 6. morgan notes that, as schenker uses it, “geist” and its derivatives “are associated with mental states that go beyond purely material matters by referring to musical situations that transcend the unprocessed musical stimulus itself ” (96), a statement which is both too vague to be informative and too deflationary to do justice to the richness of schenker’s conception of geist. 7. curiously, a book that begins by repudiating marx ends by warmly embracing him: “since we have argued that schenker’s position in western music derives at least partly from his ideology, and that ideology is inseparably tied to theory, it seems appropriate to close this book with a quotation by one of the foundation thinkers of nineteenth–century social and economic history, karl marx. with reference to his contemporary, the philosopher ludwig feuerbach, and his mistaken views on eternal verities, marx wrote: he does not see how the sensuous world around him is not a thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the product of industry and of the state of society; and, indeed, in the sense that it is an historical product, the result of the activity of a whole succession of generations, each standing on the shoulders of the preceding one . . . [t]he cherry tree, like almost all fruit–trees, 133 bryan j. parkhurst was, as is well known, only a few centuries ago transplanted by commerce into our zone, and therefore only by this action of a definite society in a definite age it has become ‘sensuous certainty.’” as far as i can tell, this quote does not epitomize anything about morgan’s reading of schenker. indeed, morgan’s hermetic “history of ideas” approach to discussing schenker’s “self– enclosed system” is fundamentally inimical to marxist analysis in general and to the sensibility marx conveys in the quoted passage in particular. 8. see, for example, the seventeen “interconnected theses” whereby morgan provides a “conceptual ‘snapshot’” of schenker’s “ideology” (171–72). the first three hold that “(1) great music is based on purely musical principles; (2) these are derived from nature; (3) from them music acquires organic coherences.” such beliefs are of course indicative of an ideology. but the (admittedly important) activity of enumerating schenker’s professed beliefs, explicating them, and identifying their textual provenance, is not an activity best described as ideological analysis. at the least, we would like an ideological thesis to tell us something about how a given power structure (economic, political, or otherwise) engenders, and gets reproduced by, a form of subjectivity. 9. morgan denies being a “dyed–in–the–wool” schenkerian or one of schenker’s “true disciples” on the grounds that he “does not think [that schenker’s] analytical approach is the only valid one, or that the compositions in his canon are the only ones worthy of theoretical attention” (xix). but if those are the criteria for counting as a “dyed–in–the–wool” schenkerian, i doubt there are any left, if there ever were any besides schenker himself. (as nietzsche quipped, the last christian died on the cross.) although morgan promises that his account of schenker’s theory will not be “an account from within” (xix), he later acknowledges that “in part ii of this book a primarily schenkerian perspective was taken in treating the theory’s development, as it seemed appropriate to examine it from a basically neutral position” (183). i fail to understand how a schenkerian perspective on schenker could count as neutral, or could fail to count as “an account from within.” references fichte, johann gottlieb. 1982. science of knowledge: with the first and second introductions. edited and translated by peter heath and john lachs. cambridge: cambridge university press. taruskin, richard. 2010. music from the earliest notations to the sixteenth century. vol. 1 of the oxford history of western music. new york: oxford university press. current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 spitz. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 7 from idea to institution: the development and dissemination of the orff-schulwerk from germany to the united states emily spitz the discourse around elementary (k–5) music education in the united states is dominated by the intellectual legacies of three european men: émile jaques-dalcroze (1865–1950), zoltán kodály (1882–1967), and carl orff (1895–1982). i was first introduced to the dalcroze, kodály, and orff approaches as an undergraduate studying music education at new york university. but, as in many institutions, our coursework included little historical context for these practices—only practical training and the implicit expectation we implement the approaches effectively in the classroom. thus, we teachers-in-training understood the three choices in a severely reductive manner: dalcroze practice was based in movement, kodály practice was based in singing, and orff practice was based in instrumental music. even before i had graduated with state teaching license in hand, i was encouraged by my professors and teacher mentors to pursue additional certifications in dalcroze, kodály, or orff; one certification made you desirable to employers, and all three would make you irresistible. though these three names loomed over primary school education almost like leading brands, we had little understanding of who these men had been and what ideologies had led them to develop their methods. embarrassingly enough, it was years later, as a graduate student at the university of cambridge, that i learned that these “methods” were not quite so name-brand recognizable outside of the american educational establishment. it was largely after the pedagogical ideas of dalcroze, kodály, and orff migrated to the united states from europe beginning in the late 1960s that they were actively institutionalized for the practice of teaching elementary school music (landis and carder 1972, 2). thus, i set out to understand how these ideas, which “were not presented as fully sufficient and independent methods, even by their creators” (ibid., 2), became not only deeply revered in the united states, but also institutionalized and, to an extent, commodified.1 i chose to research the orff-schulwerk (translated literally as “orff-schoolwork”) for a number of reasons. in 2012, i had an early encounter with the orff approach when i observed music courses at the united nations international school in new york. among the various music classes offered at the k–8 school, music educator sharon tan of8 current musicology fered an “orffestra” course: an intermediate-level percussion ensemble for students in grades 3 and 4.2 seeing this approach in action—a joyful, lively way of introducing students to instrumental playing—had a great impact on me and my own philosophy of (student-directed) music education. in addition, given that i play an orchestral instrument (flute), i chose the approach that seemed most pertinent to my own professional teaching path. i will begin by contextualizing the successful composer carl orff ’s turn toward pedagogy with a brief summary of the state of music education and the relevancy of the amateur in the weimar republic. i will then divide the history of the orff-schulwerk and its journey to the united states into three distinct phases: first, its origins in 1920s munich at the güntherschule; second, a return in the late 1940s via the bavarian state radio and its subsequent publication as music for children; and third, its current iteration as an institutionalized practice in the united states. broadly stated, the purpose of this literature review is to synthesize primary and secondary sources in such a way that one can become familiar with the gains and losses the orff-schulwerk experienced during each phase of its life, as well as gain an understanding of key issues surrounding its guiding philosophy, practice, and how these have shifted over time. it must be noted that my research toes the line between the disciplines of musicology and music education; while i strongly believe that pedagogical topics are underrepresented in the field of musicology, i also feel that research in music education would greatly benefit from more critical historical study. therefore, i make a conscious effort in this review to focus on the available english-language documentation, since the modern music educator who wishes to discover the contexts of the schulwerk for herself is quite a different audience than the professional music historian. this focus is also a reflection of gaps and issues that uniquely arise during the translation and international dissemination of a culturally specific method like the schulwerk. “music for use” and music education it is not often that a noteworthy composer turns from making music for the concert hall to music for the classroom. however, the rise of amateur music-making in the german educational establishment during the weimar republic (1918–1933) helps explain orff ’s interest in music pedagogy.3 originally coined in 1921, the term “gebrauchsmusik,” or “music for use,” was used during the weimar republic to label works created for the amateur by composers such as hindemith and orff.4 music critic hanns gutman described this transition from music created for aesthetic value to a new, modern concept of music written for a specific purpose, defending existing 9 emily spitz music composed for specific reasons (for example, community-building or, more broadly, national pride) from attacks by prominent german musicians (adorno, schoenberg) less prepared to accept the changing role of art in society (gutman [1929] 1994, 580).5 he was in the minority during his time in believing that the composition of gebrauchsmusik was not only a positive musical movement, but also a natural shift as the politically unstable society of the weimar republic attempted to mend itself.6 in his essay “thoughts about music with children and nonprofessionals,” orff begins by acknowledging the rise of gebrauchsmusik, stating that “the problems of how the non-professional should be trained are everywhere under consideration at present, a proof of how much they are a focus of interest” (orff 1932b, 66). his “schulwerk did not develop from any pre-considered plan,” but from a recognized need (orff 1963, 134). though this need was humanistic rather than aesthetical, the result was gebrauchsmusik nonetheless. the drive to make music education more humanistic was not new, of course; orff was heavily influenced by dalcroze, whose approach to the development of musicianship synthesized training in solfège, improvisation, and eurhythmics—a pedagogy focused on rhythmic movement (landis and carder, 8). like dalcroze, orff was not interested in training musical amateurs to become geniuses, nor was he interested in adhering to aesthetic ideals established by a given society.7 he believed that non-professional musicians required music that arose “from their own circumstances” (orff 1932a, 66). those circumstances would normally exclude “special knowledge that only inhibits the drive to make music” (connor 1932, 197). thus, orff considered hindemith’s efforts for amateurs to have neither character nor pedagogical value (kater 2000, 32). while one of hindemith’s goals in creating pedagogical works was to help the general public acclimate to his characteristically modern style, orff desired a return to a more “organic” form of music-making that was less limited by notation and instead reliant on inherent human creativity. though musicologist stephen hinton argues that “gebrauchsmusik as practiced by weimar composers did not bring about changes of either radical or lasting consequence,” his claim ignores the amateur movement’s impact on the trajectory of music education, both in germany and eventually abroad (hinton 1989, 40). according to historian arthur hearnden, the three most significant changes in the weimar movement to reform schools were the “revival of art as a school subject,” the “emphasis on the educative value of practical activity,” and “the preoccupation with the creation of a school community that would simulate the social situation of the adult world” (hearnden 1974, 22–23). this spirit of educational reform and the aforementioned belief that the arts had the power to unify 10 current musicology meant that the weimar republic saw a number of significant reforms in music education—reforms which have managed to survive to this day in many countries that followed germany’s example—thanks primarily to the work of leo kestenberg (1882–1962), a concert pianist and active social democrat who began working for the prussian ministry of education as an official advisor for music in in the pivotal year 1918 (gruhn 2004). it is true that music produced by weimar composers concerned with amateur performance had little lasting effect in the concert hall; why would it be otherwise? but the ideal of gebrauchsmusik precipitated the reimagining of music education in germany, both in the influence it had on composers like orff and the concrete changes that occurred in german school music curricula. the güntherschule the first iteration of the orff-schulwerk came into being at the güntherschule (1924–1944), named for orff ’s primary philosophical collaborator and the director of the school, dorothee günther (1896–1975). orff met günther in 1923 in munich, where she had recently decided to settle after having spent several years teaching a new form of physical education, mensendieck gymnastics, in several major cities throughout germany (orff [1976] 1978, 10; toepfer 1997, 39–41). günther became preoccupied with the idea of developing a new pedagogy focused on organic movement while taking art classes in dessau and hamburg, where she noted dissatisfaction with the limited movement capability of the naked bodies she was reproducing on paper (toepfer 1997, 130). the güntherschule was a perfect junction between the shift toward the production of gebrauchsmusik and the new weimar preoccupation with body culture which produced the new dance movement, among several other new approaches to gymnastics and/or dance. orff ’s awareness of the rising popularity of the new dance movement, which was marked by “an attitude toward the body unprecedented in its modernity, intensity, and complexity” (ibid., 6), goes back to the first decades of the twentieth century (orff [1976] 1978, 7); however, he felt that the music used in combination with these experimental works remained “tied to the style of one particular period of the past” (ibid., 12). in his autobiography, orff describes the work of dancer and choreographer mary wigman (1886–1973), who was trained by dalcroze and rudolf von laban (1879–1958). orff admired wigman’s emphasis on the group rather than the individual, and noted the “unprecedented musicality” of her choreography, despite some dances being set to a simple percussion ostinato (ibid., 8–9). while wigman’s work came close to what he was seeking, he recalls that there was space to expand 11 emily spitz musically. instead of favoring musical material over choreography or the reverse, orff wished to develop a more balanced approach. he hoped for a “regeneration of music through movement,” for he believed that rhythm was the great unifier of language, music, and movement (ibid., 17). thus, günther and orff brainstormed a school in which music and movement training would go hand in hand, and they presented a “holiday course with practical work, lectures and discussions” in august 1923 (orff [1976] 1978, 14). they opened in munich, at 21 luisenstraße, a year later: we opened the school in september 1924, starting with seventeen female students between the ages of 18 and 22. the training was designed to last from two to three years. apart from this there were evening courses for over one hundred non-professional students. (orff [1976] 1978, 15) the three tracks students could pursue were therapy gymnastics, rhythmicgymnastic training, and dance training (kugler 2013b, 37). all movement, music, and theoretical subjects were taught in the group setting, except for private lessons on the recorder, piano, and timpani (ibid., 38). it is important to note that this iteration of the schulwerk existed specifically for the young adult female amateur. given that both orff and günther were heavily influenced by the new german interest in body culture, the establishment of the school could be viewed as an important and progressive feminist achievement in its own right (frazee 2013a, 36–38). unfortunately, the gender politics of the school and its original female focus seem to be absent from the literature on the schulwerk. it is the concept of “elemental music,” the improvisatory style orff established during this time to go along with the music and movement activities of the school, that guides all future iterations of the schulwerk, and provides us with the clearest link from past to present. orff begins his own history of the school in biblical style: “in the beginning was the drum” (orff [1976] 1978, 17). this focus on rhythm provided the foundation for his definition of elemental music: elemental music is never music alone but forms a unity with movement, dance and speech. it is music that one makes oneself, in which one takes part not as a listener but as a participant. it is unsophisticated, employs no big forms and no big architectural structures, and it uses small sequence forms, ostinato and rondo. elemental music is near the earth, natural, physical, within the range of everyone to learn it and to experience it, and suitable for the child. (orff 1963, 144) at its core, elemental music was an attempt to harness music-making as a form of active humanistic education, rather than as a path to technical 12 current musicology proficiency (or cultural indoctrination). he was adamant that “elemental music practice encompasses the wide field of primitive music” (orff 1932/33, 158, italics original). as a modern reader, one might justifiably cringe at the implications of this term, especially given the direct influence of indonesian gamelan music on his choice of instruments and the elemental style itself (orff [1976] 1978, 92). orff did acknowledge that his consistent use of the term led to many “unbelievable misunderstandings,” and clarified his definition as music “that recognizes the unbroken unity of music and movement expression as a foundation” rather than music from non-european nations (orff 1932/33, 158–159). while contemporaries were quick to point out the obvious influence of dalcroze on the orff approach, they acknowledged with excitement the newness of the “instrumental group character of orff ’s rhythmic education” (connor 1932, 198). this is a reference to the instruments chosen for the purpose of creating elemental music. even today, we commonly refer to the xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiels used in the elementary classsroom as “orff instruments.” in 1926, a pair of swedish sisters introduced to orff by his friend oskar lang mailed him “a large african xylophone, a marimba” (orff 1930/31, 87–89). orff credits this instrument with having initiated a new stage in his educational work (ibid., 94). following the successful introduction of the marimba, orff consulted with the director of the state collection of musical instruments, curt sachs, and ordered a full set of recorders for the school (ibid., 97). the last significant melodic instrument sent to orff was the xylophone; his friend and instrument restorer karl maendler reproduced it in alto and soprano versions before creating a chromatic one capable of producing 25 tones (ibid., 103–108). orff chose these instruments in accordance with the elemental music ideal, to move away from “the exclusively harmonic to the rhythmic” (orff 1963, 136). in another nod to organicism, orff called for his instruments to be made by hand from “organically grown material.” (velásquez 1990, 97). the students of the school began their training with body percussion in the form of “hand-clapping, finger-clapping and stamping” before moving onto pitched instruments (orff [1976] 1978, 17). in the ensemble setting, orff insisted that the instruments be “grouped according to their tone color and, equally important, they should be set up so that the different ways of striking the instruments are taken into account” (orff 1930/31, 148). not only did orff want the students to experiment with playing techniques, but also with range of motion while playing. the instruments were always to be understood as an extension of the body (orff 1932b, 100). as there are no recordings of schulwerk exercises from the 13 emily spitz güntherschule period, the accounts of students prove the most valuable source for learning about the schulwerk as it was originally imagined and subsequently practiced. one of the first güntherschule students, gunild keetman (1904–1990), was a classically trained musician who admitted that the elemental style was strange to those with ears “used as they were to baroque or classical [sic] music” (keetman 1978, 50). according to keetman, the music that orff improvised in music classes was often a vigorous, attractive music in fifths and fourths, seconds were also prevalent, in which there were no cadences, seldom simple triads, but long free lines of melody that mostly eluded all the rules of symmetry and proportion, creating their own new, wide spaces. (ibid., 50) it was through their own improvisations, keetman noted, that the students’ ears became used to the elemental style (ibid., 52). they became comfortable with improvisation by beginning with simple ostinati and limiting themselves to the use of the pentatonic scale when it came to devising new melodies. as all music at the school was born of improvisation, notation was always the last step and reserved for activities that had achieved a particular level of success (orff 1932b, 74). between 1930 and 1934, orff worked to publish the first notated schulwerk exercises in a collection called orff-schulwerk – elementare musikübung, or “elemental music exercises” (orff [1976] 1978, 115).8 the first published volume, rhythmisch-melodische übung (translated as “rhythmic-melodic exercises”) contained over 250 exercises (orff 1933). in the “forward to the music educator,” orff ’s friend and music educator fritz reusch noted a few basic characteristics of the “elemental form,” including melodies that feature one or two central tones and move by interval in such a way that they recall the overtone series, and the creation of “sound complexes which are not to be understood in the sense of a functional harmony” through the layering of multiple supporting voices (orff 1933, 4).9 he noted the common use of the “bordun” in elemental music-making—a term heavily associated with the schulwerk that refers to an ostinato in which the tonic and dominant are played together or one after the other. in particular, reusch encouraged “‘schweifende’ bordune,” which are drones in which the droning bordun moves the fifth to the upper and lower neighboring tones, and that the student eventually expands from ostinati into “freer forms of accompaniment.” in terms of movement, he acknowledged that certain common folk music characteristics, such as circle group formations and call-and-response singing, were suitable for the schulwerk. rhythmisch-melodische übung is divided into two parts. the first, 14 current musicology consisting of rhythmic exercises, is split up into six sections that become increasingly more complex. they are meant to be performed via body percussion (clapping hands, stamping feet, speech syllables, or on unpitched percussion instruments). the very first example features simple half-note, quarter-note, and whole-note rhythms in common time, meant to be clapped (example 1); the third section introduces two lines of clapping (orff 1933, 10); the sixth introduces two lines, one clapped and one stamped (ibid., 16). according to orff, these preliminary exercises were meant to be “carried out in a relaxed manner and involve the whole body” (orff 1933, 51). the second part of the volume consists of melodic exercises meant to be hummed or sung on different consonants (ibid., 52). the first few begin with simple lines consisting of only two pitches. however, perhaps surprisingly, the meter is varied; for instance, the first exercise begins with a section in quadruple meter and then switches to triple meter (example 2). the melodic exercises then get increasingly more complex, eventually utilizing three disparate lines of melodic-harmonic material that span the full range of a diatonic scale. in his forward, reusch states that “it will be the task of the music educator to be productive beyond notation and instruction in order to awaken the imagination and the creativity of the student” (orff 1933, 3). unfortunately, however, orff noted with dismay that the exercises in his text were “widely misunderstood, since it is possible to practice and perform each piece as it stands” (orff [1976] 1978, 131). he considered his exercises as models, and disliked that they were being performed as written, as if they were concert repertoire to be learned. this result is perhaps unsurprising, though, given that orff only included a few pages of (somewhat vague) directions in rhythmisch-melodische übung. moreover, he does not comment at all on best practices for teaching improvisation, choosing instead to make the assumption that those encountering this text are familiar and comfortable with leading this type of activity before diving into the models he has provided. this is perhaps where it becomes most clear that the schulwerk was intended to be taught to instructors via active example 1. the first exercise in part 1 of rhythmisch-melodische übung (orff 1933, 5). it is meant to be clapped. 15 emily spitz participation in activities, rather than by reading. the asset of this volume as well as the later publications of schulwerk exercises—all intended as examples in the literal sense—is that they clearly show us the basic characteristics of the elemental style. the rhythms are repetitive and thus easy to remember, which makes sense given that students also had to memorize and perform choreography. the melodies orff wrote, as complex as they become rhythmically, usually move in small, easy-to-sing intervals, and are extremely repetitive. these models provide a stimulus for musical invention, whether that invention is entirely new music or something grown from the motivic seeds of the rhythmisch-melodische übung. in example 3, for instance, i have taken the above rhythmic and melodic exercises and used them as the basis for an original passage, featuring two additional lines of body percussion and a melodic part (here, scored for recorder). with direction, this is the sort of elemental music that can emerge from a classroom improvisation. modern students of this early material in the rhythmischmelodische übung—assuming children, rather than the young adults of the güntherschule—would likely need several class sessions for this built-up passage. as practiced at the güntherschule, elemental music involved movement and the body, beginning with the rhythmic element. (this type of exercise would of course need to be incredibly student-directed, so what i describe below is purely hypothetical—a model.) i would begin the first lesson by having all students move in a circle to a steady, quarter-note beat in common time (“stamping” in example 3). this is so that they can feel the beat in their body, and it serves as a precursor to any additional choreography/movement elements. next, we clap and intone the half-note clapping line as we march; when this is steady and comfortable, students take turns improvising one-measure ostinati (such as that shown in example 3). once students give ideas, i would have them agree on one, perhaps example 2. the first exercise in part 2 of rhythmisch-melodische übung, featuring a simple quarterand half-note rhythm outlining a minor third (orff 1933, 21). 16 current musicology example 3. orff-inspired passage based on examples 1 and 2 and adding: a clapped ostinato, a simple quarter-note line to be stamped, and a melodic line for the recorder (orff 1933, 5, 21). 17 emily spitz incorporating rhythmic elements from several students. then half would march and clap the new ostinato while the other half kept up the half-note pulse. (having them switch back and forth a few times is useful here.) in the next class, such a texture can be built up faster, and melodic elements can be added—for example, teaching a few students the two-pitch melody from the rhythmisch-melodische übung (the xylophone line in example 3). of course, these exercises are not exclusively for children, as the women of the güntherschule attest. having students revisit such an early exercise after they have “graduated” to later material can produce more fruitful results, especially melodically. example 3’s recorder line is based on the pentatonic scale, in keeping with the simpler improvisations at the güntherschule (keetman 1978, 52), and adds a counterpoint to orff ’s melody. it also meets the criteria keetman outlines in her guide to the schulwerk: as always, clear forms are necessary: easily remembered melodies that repeat exactly or nearly exactly, clear melodic cadences, frequent changes of pitch register (the lower register of the recorder should not be used too often) and always a lively delivery. (keetman [1970] 1974, 168) students who are strong recorder players can take turns improvising different melodies, and elements of several of them can be incorporated into a “final” one. the one i have included in example 3 is rather complex; most likely, this would be something improvised by older students, perhaps in sixth grade. younger students tend to stick to less complex rhythmic “building blocks” as they improvise a melody, such as quarter notes and half notes. in fact, the true beauty of this exercise is that it can and should be adapted for different age groups, revisited and made more complex for a group of students as they develop their skills, or even can be used in a group of students with diverse levels of musicianship. recent views of orff-schulwerk—including the above-outlined lesson—tend to emphasize its musical aspects while downplaying its incorporation of dance. this loss of the movement aspects of the approach started early and worsened over time. looking at the available literature, we can make a few assumptions about how it happened. first, there are no notated publications of the movement aspects from that time to supplement the published musical materials, and none of the literature suggests that günther or her students utilized labanotation (rudolf laban’s system for notating human movement). no in-depth directions are included in the rhythmisch-melodische übung beyond basic differentiation between types of body percussion (orff 1933, 51–52). next, there was no sound film to capture the students of the school in action (keetman 1978, 60). 18 current musicology and finally, the personal notes and reflections of the movement experts at the school were not given as much attention as those of the musicians (orff and keetman); most of them remain unpublished in their original german (pruett 2003, 194). according to barbara haselbach, a musicologist and orff-schulwerk expert, very few of günther’s personal records have survived, and most scholarship detailing her contributions to the schulwerk relies entirely on secondary sources (haselbach 2013, 42). the few writings we do have from günther are valuable in helping us understand how the elemental was defined in regard to movement. günther describes tribal dances as encompassing the ideal range of movements represented by the elemental style: the dances of primitive peoples—and we may still include those of peasant peoples living close to the soil—are basically games of movement arranged rhythmically and dynamically into intervals, and consisting of a series of diverse steps taken walking or running, of chain or round dance forms requiring leaning, bending, and turning of the trunk, and where the dancers are free or joined together. (günther 1962, 112) günther hypothesizes that the “child of civilization” can reach this ideal through “play with the movement, variation and improvisation of all the elements of motion that are suited to its particular age” (ibid., 114). another significant purveyor of elemental dance was güntherschule student (and later, teacher) maja lex, who founded the munich chamber dance theatre (later renamed the günther dance group) in 1930 (keetman 1978, 56). that same year, she performed a five-part cycle titled barbaric suite at the third german dance congress in munich, which greatly enhanced the reputation of the güntherschule, both in germany and abroad (padilla 2013, 71–73). unfortunately, her work remains little explored, which is most likely a product of the repression of movement in subsequent iterations of the schulwerk. an experiment ended the weimar period provided orff and his collaborators with the perfect grounds for experimentation in the arts, but the rising political turmoil that eventually led to world war ii also brought about the downfall of the güntherschule—though it did outlive other prominent progressive educational institutions such as the bauhaus. excavating orff ’s and günther’s political associations is a necessary preface to evaluating their school’s relative longevity during the interwar period, and casts their legacy in a considerably more complex light. as an intensely private man, orff allowed few biographers to write about him; given his desire to keep his personal 19 emily spitz politics to himself, this was most likely intentional. in his autobiography, the only time he mentions anything mildly political is when writing of his hesitation to provide music for the 1936 olympic games in berlin, as he did not want to be perceived as having any sort of political bias (orff [1976] 1978, 205). however, it is not clear that this elision of the political was due to a dissatisfaction with the political environment of the weimar republic. it was, perhaps, because both he and the school benefitted from being in favor with the national socialists. the style of composition orff was known for was accepted and celebrated by the nazis—a fact that kept him safe from persecution during the third reich (kater 1997, 192). this may seem contradictory, given that orff was heavily influenced by music from non-aryan countries; however, as richard taruskin has noted, his music was also praised for being disciplined and full of strength, an obvious product of its driving rhythms and repetitive structures (taruskin 2001). orff would go on to lie in 1946 about being a member of the white rose, a non-violent resistance group, in order to burnish his image in the postwar environment (pruett 2003, 191). he was never a member of the group and, as the wife of his close friend kurt huber further noted, “he was not known as an enemy of hitler” (palmer 1995, 59:51). günther joined the nazi party in the 1930s, yet there is an ambivalence about the extent to which she actually believed in nazi ideology. american music educator jane frazee states that “günther’s support of the national socialists,” coupled with orff ’s acclaim as a composer, provided the school with safety “from nazi interference until a year before the war’s end” (frazee 2013a, 32). accounts from students of the school are mixed as to whether this support was tacit or not. one student, annalisa martens, who came to the school in 1942, wrote that frau günther, who steered the school through these difficult times with discretion and skill, had sometimes to make unavoidable compromises. so she demanded that we should consistently make use of the hitlergreeting, and used it herself of course. we tried in vain to get out of it. (martens 2013, 245) another student, ruth opitz, was “convinced that national socialism had had no influence on the workings of the günther school,” and stated that günther told the students that she “had joined the party and had qualified her decision with the sentence: for you, so that i can continue to run the school” (widmer 2013, 108, italics original). as scholars look at the changes in the school prospectus between the 1930 and 1936 versions alone, however, it becomes clear that the school at least ostensibly adhered to nazi 20 current musicology beliefs and practices (kugler 2013a, 213–232). to cite one case, the 1936 prospectus includes the addition of an examination in “führungskunde: as a study of heredity and race” and a statement that students in the german gymnastics department “belong as a ‘student body’ to the national socialist student body and enjoy their rights and duties” (ibid., 228–229).10 in 1944, the güntherschule was forcibly closed so that the space could be repurposed for military needs, and on january 7, 1945, was reduced to ruins in an allied bombing raid (pruett 2003, 184; orff [1976] 1978, 212). although orff had stepped away from the school by 1933, its loss marked the end of an era for his pedagogical work (ibid., 209). but, it was not long before the orff-schulwerk returned in a new form: as an approach to teaching young children. musik für kinder / music for children in 1948, orff received a call from annemarie schambeck, who was the head of broadcasts aimed at schoolchildren at the bavarian radio (orff [1976] 1978, 212). though he had turned away from educational pursuits in the years following the destruction of the güntherschule to focus on composing, orff was excited by the prospect of a new beginning for the schulwerk in the form of “a music exclusively for children that could be played, sung and danced by them but that could also in a similar way be invented by them—a world of their own” (ibid., 212). with this reimagining of the schulwerk came a transformation of the repertoire from its early days at the private güntherschule: wide publication, and eventually international dissemination into state educational curricula. for an in-depth focus on differences between the many translations of music for children, one can rely on the wide-ranging philological work of hermann regner, who took on the herculean task of exploring some of the international editions of the schulwerk (regner 1984). according to regner, the foreign language editions can be seen as belonging to two generations: those published between 1956 and 1968, and those published thereafter. he implies that most editions published after 1968 use orff ’s philosophy of elemental music more as vague inspiration than clear guidance. as the endpoint of our journey is the united states, we’ll focus here on english-language versions and their major disseminators. codifying the schulwerk despite the fact that the schulwerk to this day is branded with orff ’s name, it was keetman who actually solidified its popularity in the 1940s. in 1949, keetman established the first orff-schulwerk classes for children 21 emily spitz aged eight to ten at the mozarteum in salzburg (orff [1976] 1978, 226). from these classes came the first publications of material specifically for children. these publications were aptly entitled musik für kinder (in the english-language versions, they share the title: music for children). the five volumes of musik für kinder were published between 1950 and 1954, and form what we might call the canonical orff-schulwerk repertoire. the publication of musik für kinder represented a huge turning point in the history of the schulwerk. first of all, orff seems to have made peace with his fear that the repertoire could be misinterpreted without the presence of a teacher who understood deeply the concept of “elemental music” and how to implement the exercises in a classroom, and was now willing for the schulwerk to be widely disseminated in written form (orff [1976] 1978, 131). secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the codification of these exercises meant that orff and keetman had to make significant hierarchical decisions about their musical content. while the 1933 rhythmischmelodische übung had reflected a gradual increase in rhythmic and melodic complexity over the course of the volume, these schulwerk volumes were divided expressly by tonal elements. the subtitles of the volumes summarize their curriculum: i. pentatonic ii. major: drone bass and triads iii. major: dominant and subdominant iv. minor: drone bass and triads v. minor: dominant and subdominant (orff [1976] 1978, 233). in the original german, the names of the volumes are sometimes more descriptive. for instance, the second volume is called dur: bordun und stufen. the term “bordun” is quite a bit more specific than “drone bass.” orff began with pentatonic material because of the prevalence of the “two-note call” in childhood: playground taunts and nursery rhymes all depend on the falling minor third sol-mi (orff and keetman 1956–1961a). in an introduction to keetman’s guide to teaching the schulwerk, werner thomas reemphasizes the importance of beginning with pentatonic material, which keeps the early exercises free from the difficulties posed by tonality (keetman [1970] 1974, 12). since the pentatonic scale is akin to the major or natural minor scales minus the tritones, there are no minorsecond dissonances and no leading tones to navigate, allowing students to acclimate to the act of improvisation in a simple tonal environment that builds their creative confidence. major and minor scales, with their attendant qualities, arrive in the next four volumes, at which point students have a grasp of rhythmic fundamentals and have gained some confidence 22 current musicology in improvising using the largely identical tonal material of the pentatonic scale. arguably, the sequence of introducing musical concepts as it exists in music für kinder is deeply rooted in western music theory and its diatonic structures; orff introduced major tonalities first, and built upon the bordun and triad to introduce the dominant and subdominant—a “natural” progression of common-practice harmonic structures. while he stated that he wished to develop “the primitive creative urge in children” before being subjected to the rigorous physical training required to perform classical music at an aesthetically acceptable level, orff ’s prerogative as a composer in the western tradition clearly influenced the structure of the first publications of the schulwerk for children (orff 1932/33, 161). notably, the most thorough-going engagement with the orffschulwerk in print comes not from orff himself, but from keetman. her example 4. one of the movement examples provided by keetman ([1970] 1974, 116). the open circles represent starting points for different groups. example 5. keetman’s dictionary for movement notation (keetman [1970] 1974, 116). arrows can be drawn directly beneath music notation to indicate direction (forwards or backwards). 23 emily spitz elementaria: first acquaintance with orff-schulwerk ([1970] 1974) is a substantial guide that aims to help teachers understand how to creatively develop exercises out of the material presented in the five volumes of musik für kinder. keetman presents ideas on how to introduce the elemental building blocks of melody and rhythm, and she includes a rare commodity in schulwerk literature: a relatively fleshed-out section on movement training. admittedly, this section on movement is more difficult to follow than the sections on musical elements for the same notational reasons that the movement elements of the schulwerk developed at the güntherschule were lost. (it does not feature labanotation, which leads me to suspect it was indeed not used at the güntherschule.) keetman does not shy away from detail, however, using her own system of circles and lines to show overall form of movement exercises (keetman [1970] 1974, 113–116). example 4 shows a single movement meant to be performed by six groups of students simultaneously (ibid., 116). the circles represent starting points (and therefore a single group of students). the three groups on the left move along the path described by the dotted arrow, and the three groups on the right move along the solid arrow. to indicate the difference between left and right on each student’s body in the score, keetman utilizes different stem directions. as shown in example 5, upward stems are right foot and downward stems are left foot (ibid., 116). back in example 3, therefore, the “stamping” line indicates that students should begin on their right foot. arrows could be added below the music to indicate movement (forwards or backwards). thus, combining example 3 with my example 6 (based on keetman’s system of movement notation), we get example 6. a suggested movement to perform during example 3. 24 current musicology a single marching band of students (there is only one circle in example 6), beginning on their right foot and stamping in quarter notes, that traces an hourglass shape. as opposed to the more general recommendations we encountered above from reusch, keetman’s notational system allows for more specific and complex movement patterns to be communicated. the first english-language editions the migration of musik für kinder to north america was incredibly quick. the first english-language editions were published in canada between 1956 and 1961 (orff and keetman 1956–1961), adapted by arnold walter (1902–1973) and doreen hall (b. 1921). walter was a czech musicologist who had observed orff ’s work at the güntherschule in the 1930s (hughes 1993, 74). he asked hall, a graduate of the royal conservatory of music, to go abroad to study the orff-schulwerk with keetman and to adapt the existing musik für kinder for use in english (ibid., 77). this version sparked international interest when it was presented at the 1956 music educators national conference.11 walter notes in the introduction to the first volume of music for children that “a work of this kind could not be just translated; it seemed necessary to find analogues for the german songs and singing games used by orff, which in turn made it necessary, to re-fashion the melodic material” (orff and keetman 1956–1961a). music educator patricia hughes, in her examination of the differences between the original german volumes and the canadian edition of music for children, notes this, pointing out how minor differences with orff ’s original versions started to arise as a direct effect of international dissemination (hughes 1993, 78–82). these differences are predominantly reflected in the overall organization and quantity of content, however, rather than the content itself. this is because “there was disagreement whether the canadian edition would follow the same five-volume format as the original or whether it would appear in three volumes as walter preferred” (ibid., 78); one reason the publisher decided against walter’s preferred format was that they wanted the editions to come out before the schulwerk session at menc in 1956. hughes notes the divergences began with the second volume, as the canadian version did not follow the two-part format of the german one, in which melody was presented in the first half and accompaniments in the second (ibid., 79). of particular note is that the third volume of the canadian version (orff and keetman 1956–1961c) is significantly reduced in relation to the third volume of the german original (orff and keetman 1950–1954c); the canadian version includes just twelve pieces, while the german includes thirty-six. this is because walter had “envisioned the combination of materials and sequences found in the 25 emily spitz original second and third volumes into one new second volume entitled the road to major,” but the publisher did not agree with walter’s decision (hughes 1993, 80). accompanying the canadian editions, schott published a guide by hall summarizing basic orff procedures (hall 1960). this was absolutely the product of a key belief shared by orff, his collaborators, and subsequent adaptors of the schulwerk: that the exercises should not be approached without understanding the way a teacher can creatively guide the learning process with the improvisation-driven philosophy of elemental music in mind. unsurprisingly, the chapter on “the body as an instrument” is only one page long and, though hall comments that “physical response to music is inherent in all people and we must learn to use this to full advantage in our work with children,” her text serves only to define the body percussion directions (“clapping,” “patschen,”12 “stamping,” and “finger snapping”) given in the original schulwerk texts (ibid., 12). nevertheless, hall’s guide (much like keetman’s) is a useful companion to these first english-language editions, and though she presents examples from the exercises in her five volumes, she also reiterates that “the teacher must use her own creative thoughts and those of the children in working out similar ideas” (ibid., 17, italics original). margaret murray (1921–2015) independently developed a british version of music for children (orff and keetman 1958–1966), and her adaptation became “the fundamental teaching resource for workshops and courses throughout the united states” (frazee 2013b, 54). this is perhaps unsurprising because while there are a few significant differences between the german and canadian editions, the british version stays extremely true to the source material and is, in most cases, a direct translation, barring a few differences in the inclusion of culturally-relevant folk songs. perhaps due to this congruence with the original version, there is more material on murray’s contributions to the development of the schulwerk than there is for walter and hall. she translated orff ’s autobiography, as well as keetman’s teaching guide for the schulwerk (haselbach 2013, 21), and organized the first summer course in 1963 for british teachers learning the orff approach (ayling 2013, 66). it is curious that murray’s editions are more readily used by american educators than any other print version of the schulwerk, given that walter and hall had already presented the approach—at an american conference, no less—prior to publication.13 but keetman declined to lead the demonstration of the schulwerk at the 1956 menc conference in st. louis, and the instructor who took up the task in her place had limited english skills and not much schulwerk training (hughes 1993, 78). this may have biased americans toward murray’s 26 current musicology materials. while both the canadian and british versions of music for children have their strengths, murray’s adaptation, as i said, strives to be the truer translation of the original musik für kinder. several of her volumes also feature more content than what is available in the corresponding volumes of hall and walter, arguably preferable if, following orff, the goal is for teachers to familiarize themselves with the elemental style and eventually develop their own exercises in the spirit of the ones provided in the five volumes. example 7 shows how murray began by providing a variety of rhythmic accompaniments to “tinker, tailor,” using the same two oscillating pitches as orff ’s example 1 above (orff and keetman 1958–1966a, 3). immediately after these examples, she provides an orchestration for orff instruments, which is reflective of the 1933 rhythmisch-melodische übung by featuring rhythmic models before introducing more complex melodicharmonic elements. the “americanization” of the orff-schulwerk an american edition of music for children was published in the late 1970s (orff and keetman 1977). according to publisher schott, most of the material was “contributed by leading educators using material developed in american classrooms, that reflects the vast panorama of the cultural heritage of the united states” (schott 2019). this edition of the schulwerk represents a considerable departure from previous english-language ediexample 7. the third example of the first volume of margaret murray’s british music for children (orff and keetman 1958–1966a, 3). 27 emily spitz tions. firstly, as arnold walter had wanted for the canadian version, this edition is in three volumes, diverging from previous english-language adaptations which followed the five-volume format. further, in her guide to the schulwerk, keetman had claimed that “a classification of material according to age or grade, subject matter and curricula, as is so frequently attempted, is . . . as impossible as it is absurd,” but the american edition is divided in just this way into preschool (pre-k to k), primary (grades 1–3), and upper elementary (grades 4–6) volumes (keetman [1970] 1974, 11). this decision is explained away by editor hermann regner with the note that “many other aspects were considered, one being the age of the children” (orff and keetman 1977a, i). given that the models are intended to be reused and made more complex as students grow more comfortable with the act of improvising, this decision is perhaps a disappointing one, at least insofar as it undercuts the way orff wanted print schulwerk exercises to be utilized by the music educator. it also takes the onus off the teacher to adapt material to the diverse range of skillsets they may have present in one class of many students. in many respects, and especially by comparison with the others mentioned above, the later american edition is not so much an adaptation of musik für kinder so much as the strongest evidence of the significant influence of dalcroze, kodály, and orff on american primary school music pedagogy. these volumes include folk music repertoire with short descriptions of how to structure a lesson around them. the accompanying activities are categorized as either a “sample lesson,” “game,” “listening activity,” or as a lesson that builds “notation skills” (ibid., v). a few of the musical examples overlap between adaptations, but the american edition provides much more detail on how to structure the activity in the classroom. for instance, “cuckoo” is the second piece of repertoire introduced in the first (preschool) volume of the american orff-schulwerk; it is also the first introduced in both the murray and walter/hall volumes. unlike these earlier versions, however, the american volume includes a sample lesson and accompanying game (orff and keetman 1977a, 2). the class sits in a circle while two students remain in the center: one blindfolded and one with a finger cymbal (“cuckoo”). students sing the song thrice while the blindfolded child turns in a circle in place. the cuckoo is meant to ring the cymbal as she moves to different points of the room. after the song is finished, the blindfolded student guesses where in the room the cuckoo is. though this lesson utilizes the same musical exercise present in the canadian and english music for children volumes, it is incredibly teacherdirected and includes no opportunities for the students to improvise. in other iterations, including the original, the orff-schulwerk 28 current musicology promoted what might be called “incidental” learning, rather than a disciplined knowledge of music theory or the ability to give a performance in the western art music tradition (walter 1977, 23). modern materials, however, seem to favor the latter. there is at least one obvious explanation for why the american edition diverges so greatly from past english-language versions: it was published at the onset of the national standards movement. in the words of music educator catherine schmidt, the “nation at risk” rhetoric of the 1980s led to a movement toward national standards that possessed “the potential to set parameters and limit discourse for music education reforms” (schmidt 1996, 71). orff was reticent about committing the schulwerk to print because the approach was intended to foster creative expression through music-making above more concrete learning objectives. due to the fact that “music education has struggled for legitimacy as an integral part of the curriculum since it was first introduced into the boston public schools in 1837 by lowell mason,” it is not surprising that music educators and national organizations for music education have embraced the standards as a sign of their validity while also losing sight of the humanistic value of the arts as a complement to more academic subject areas (ibid., 79). as the schulwerk becomes more structured in an attempt to conform to national standards, it becomes nearly indistinguishable from the other european pedagogies that shape primary school music education— namely, the above-mentioned dalcroze and kodály approaches. take the heavy inclusion of games in the american edition of music for children, for example. while kodály expert lois choksy states that kodály instruction should include “songs for game playing,” this is not a feature of any schulwerk material prepared by orff or keetman (choksy [1974] 1999, 20). this is most likely because the games that feature in kodály instruction have set accompanying music and movements, limiting students’ ability to improvise. the only game keetman mentions in elementaria is “rhythmic echo-play,” which involves the teacher clapping bars of rhythm and having children clap the same rhythm back with the intention of helping them develop “accurate listening, quick reaction, memory and feeling for form” (keetman [1970] 1974, 27). this call-and-response “game” is a feature of many child-oriented pedagogies, notably in the work of ella jenkins and her call-and-response rhythmic group singing (see wald 2019 in this volume). it is not tied to melodic repertoire, and keetman consistently notes how, as the game gets more complex, students should be given more opportunity to suggest new complexities and variations to feel more involved. games as used in the kodály approach are intended to build confidence in the sung repertoire; to use them in the same way as part of the orff 29 emily spitz approach is also to deny students opportunities to improvise beyond the constraints of the repertoire, which is the goal of the schulwerk material presented in the original musik für kinder and the subsequent canadian and english editions. institutionalizing orff: the iosfs and aosa orff once analogized his schulwerk to a “wildflower,” a romantic, even self-indulgent image with clear organicist overtones (orff 1963, 134). but if the schulwerk was like a wildflower in 1963, today’s equivalent might be considered more of a walled garden. orff and eberhard preußner founded the first orff-schulwerk institution, the international orff-schulwerk forum salzburg (iosfs), in 1961 (ibid., 150). the iosfs currently recognizes orff-schulwerk associations in thirty-eight countries (iosfs 2019).14 in the united states, this institutionalization of the orff-schulwerk as a main track in american elementary school music education can be traced to the establishment of the iosfs-approved american orff-schulwerk association (aosa) in 1968. the aosa began with ten founding members, all music educators who had heard about the orff-schulwerk either by engaging directly with it abroad or by participating in a workshop in the united states (aosa 2019). currently, there are ninety-six local chapters and around four thousand active national aosa members.15 their mission statement reads as follows: to demonstrate the value of orff schulwerk and promote its widespread use; to support the professional development of our members; and, to inspire and advocate for the creative potential of all learners. (aosa 2018a) as of may 7, 2019, forty-eight u.s. institutions offer accredited certification programs. according to the handbook for orff schulwerk teacher education courses: there are three levels to the aosa teacher education curriculum. each aosa approved level course must follow the outline established in the aosa teacher education curriculum. to receive the aosa certificate of completion, participants must complete all three levels. (aosa 2018b) on their “what is orff schulwerk?” page, the aosa describes the schulwerk as follows: “releasing creativity that extends far beyond the music classroom, carl orff and gunild keetman conceived an approach to building musicianship in every learner through the integration of music, movement, speech, and drama” (aosa 2019a). a digital brochure of the 30 current musicology same name—with an unshakably corporate feel—plugs the schulwerk as a “teaching model for optimal learning” without providing any data or evidence (aosa 2019b).16 nowhere on their website do they define what they mean by “musicianship,” or acknowledge the schulwerk as a pedagogy that has clear connections to the national core arts standards, the most recent iteration of which was published in 2014 (ncas 2014). these are the standards that k–12 music teachers are held to when designing and implementing their curricula.17 on the one hand, this vague explanation of what, exactly, the schulwerk is could be seen as an attempt not to contradict orff by setting an explicit standards-based curriculum. yet in this respect it is noticeable that the aosa’s website shows a number of rehearsed performances as a demonstration of the schulwerk. one video boasts a “recorder improvisation” in which “students create their own melodies as part of a performance of ‘stitches’ by shawn mendes” (park 2016); however, the students are playing from sheet music and the solo portions are just students playing the melody of the pop song. other videos feature circle games similar to those detailed in the american edition of music for children. for instance, one such game called “la oca loca” is described as “one of many hand-clapping games from mexican culture,” and the game is intended to reinforce “keeping a steady beat individually and as a group” (aosa 2016). while these games typically feature movement, their music is not improvised. since such videos show end products, it is of course hard to critique them without seeing the process. nonetheless, while those mentioned above might seem to diverge from strictly orff-schulwerk practices and philosophies, others are more familiar in this regard. “i can see the moon” shows a rehearsed musical and movement performance based off of a rhythm from orff and keetman’s music for children and a book by christopher carroll entitled the boy and the moon (southard 2017). the classroom is split into two groups: there are students playing on barred orff instruments and those partaking in movement activities, including the use of body percussion. the use of a dramatic text (the book) also speaks to orff ’s desire to use rhythm as a unifier of speech, movement, and music. the bass instruments, too, begin with a characteristic, repetitive bordunbased rhythm before the pentatonic melodies and harmonies join in. the level of engagement of the students in the movement activities is extremely high; they all look enthusiastic about what they are doing (admittedly difficult to achieve in a large classroom of young students). while there is no way of knowing from the video that the teacher had them improvise the movements before deciding on the final choreography, the important thing to note is that one can easily imagine that process, the movement 31 emily spitz equivalent of that which i outlined in connection with example 3, is what led to this end product—especially since the instrumental players are not reading from notation, potentially a product of the students having worked out material on their own before settling on a final product. more-detailed pages like the “classroom resources” section—which includes lesson ideas, a “tech spot,” and more—are largely behind a paywall. this includes an orff-schulwerk-based journal, the orff echo, which includes articles that run the gamut from advocacy and instrument care to research and historical perspectives.18 as of july 1, 2012, regular membership in the aosa costs $85, and it is not uncommon for international orff associations to require paid membership to access materials and events; for instance, orff uk offers standard membership for £30 (orff uk 2019). although i expected some content on the curricula of the certification courses from the “best practices” section of the handbook, it focuses entirely on logistics and administration and does not make mention of the program’s learning outcomes for orff instructors. this is perhaps unsurprising given its puzzling opening statement, which oddly echoes the famous first rule of chuck palahniuk’s fight club (1996): “the american orff-schulwerk association strongly encourages members to be positive and discreet when discussing our organization, specific courses and/or teachers and the orff movement” (aosa 2018b). the free “classroom resources” section includes one sample lesson idea and a few children’s book recommendations. the lesson is provided by david birrow, a percussionist and music educator, and presents new ways of approaching keetman’s 1970 rhythmische übung using bucket drums (birrow 2015). birrow breaks down the use of the exercises, by number, and gives an example of ways in which students can vary the use of the drums with body percussion. he also includes video clips, and though i missed an example of the exercise played straight from the book followed by a more complex variation, the use of bucket drums is a recognizable variant of the original exercise as published. he ends with a confirmation that “ultimately it is the students who will revel in the opportunity to find ways to play these classic gems” (ibid.). while other lessons may not demonstrate such an explicit engagement with primary sources, the influence is often clear. in one such lesson plan, “aosa teacher educator” karen medley provides a pentatonic melody in d (most vocal repertoire for children uses d because it is a comfortable singing range) along with a simple accompaniment featuring borduns (medley 2018). she gives an example from her classroom, encouraging improvisation and the development of new material based on this flexible framework, similar to the material i introduced in example 3 (though arguably far more detailed, including predetermined questions 32 current musicology to ask students throughout the lesson that guide their improvisation, such as “what directions can your melody move?”). although medley clearly believes in the creative authority of the student, this schulwerk-inspired lesson lacks movement elements completely. it also spends considerable time on nonmusical elements, focusing on language acquisition through the text. however, it is noteable that the subsequent musical portion of the lesson does include several opportunities for improvisation, and for students to make decisions about the form of the emerging piece. other aosa-supported lesson plans, however, seem to diverge significantly from the recognizable tenets of the schulwerk. “living things” by jill devilbiss begins with a listing of the music and science standards it addresses (devilbiss 2017). the “instructional procedures” make no mention of improvisation or creative engagement with the musical material; instead, they focus on this act of playing a set melody and practicing for technical accuracy. the lesson only invites students “to make suggestions on tempo, dynamics, articulation, etc.” another plan, entitled “using movement to introduce a masterwork” (meek 2017) bypasses elemental and improvisatory music-making in favor of marrying hearings of canonical western “masterpieces” with some music-directed movements. interestingly, meek’s lesson is one of few to feature movement elements, and she moves the aspect of student-directed choice into this domain. that said, meek’s lesson is less focused on the act of improvising than it is on having students suggest choreography with the ultimate goal of creating a rehearsed, set performance. ultimately, this is a decidedly teacher-directed lesson. beginning with a quotation of dalcroze, making the influence explicit, meek quickly moves on a more alarming red flag when she says that “it is important to select music that has artistic, intellectual, cultural, or historical value” (op. cit.). the repertoire chosen, of course, is the western canon. in these respects, the lesson does not quite align neatly with the orff primary sources, a stance perhaps made clear by the opening dalcroze quotation. in his 1986 article, “the americanization of heinrich schenker,” william rothstein writes that “it is one of the glories of american culture that it so readily absorbs foreign influences—at least, some foreign influences. but those foreign elements that it adopts, it adapts in the process, often changing them in essential ways. this is the country, after all, of the ham-and-cheese croissant and the pizza bagel” (rothstein 1986, 6). the aosa’s paywall-blocked lesson plans, provided by member teachers, exemplify this “melting pot effect.” having never been taught the intricacies of the differences between the three approaches, i relied on generalizing about them; to this day, i struggle with explaining the differences between 33 emily spitz them to non-teachers. this is certainly a product of the ahistorical approach in many institutions, noted at the beginning of this review; but it is also reflective of how interchangeable the three approaches i mentioned have become in america. being certified in all three is not just a way to show evidence of expertise in multiple, disparate pedagogies; the implication seems to be that you are a teacher with the ability to intermix them effectively in your classroom. whatever your opinion on pizza bagels, however, the “americanization” to which rothstein refers is unfortunately a negative one: “schenker had become so fashionable that he was being paid the ultimate american compliment: he was being vulgarized[;] . . . he had become a ‘flavor,’ a whiff of which would help to sell undergraduate textbooks” (ibid., 6). the focus, as rothstein puts it elsewhere, “purely on the rationalist side of schenker’s thought while jettisoning all ambiguities, all internal inconsistencies, all that arises from analysis rather than from theory, and all that is not narrowly technical” is all too similar to the shift away from the improvisatory roots of the schulwerk (rothstein 1990, 295). as arnold walter, who developed the canadian music for children, writes: over the years, i found, to my chagrin, that some people had no clear conception what to do with the schulwerk once they got it. they reached out for it—only to change it, to twist it, to mix it, to mechanize it, to treat it as a “method” in the cursed sense of the word. last year, at an international music conference (i won’t tell you where it was), i attended an orff demonstration where the children performed beautifully, drilled like prussian soldiers in the time of frederick the great—and this in the name of improvisation, of fantasy and freedom! (walter 1977, 14) this was, it seems, the very fear felt by orff when he wrote of “development in the wrong direction” (orff 1963, 134). more recently, similar concerns about the way the schulwerk has strayed from its spontaneous roots have been echoed by german music educator rudolf nykrin, who argues that the schulwerk “has largely become an ‘unknown classic’ despite it being often mentioned by name” (nykrin 2000/2010, 274). in this context, i am reminded of mary shamrock’s distinction between two kinds of orffschulwerk: the original repertoire/source material written by orff and his collaborators, on the one hand, and the pedagogy itself as developed by later followers, on the other (shamrock 1986, 54). (this, incidentally, is also mirrored in schenker’s “americanization” in the difference between schenker’s own work and the neo-schenkerians who came after him.) perhaps shamrock puts it best when she recalls the above-mentioned wildflower image (orff 1963, 134): “we need to differentiate between wild flowers [sic] and weeds” (shamrock 1986, 41). there are, these commentators 34 current musicology seem to imply, nonnegotiable aspects of the schulwerk, with perhaps one of the most (if not the most) important being the improvisational elements that form its foundation. the (new) american canon like the ham-and-cheese croissant, however, rothstein’s “americanization” sometimes results in a triumph! in play, sing, & dance, doug goodkin offers his own experiences as a guide to developing an understanding of the orff-schulwerk, including the concept of elemental music and improvisation (goodkin [2002] 2004, 9). part 1 of goodkin’s guide includes chapters that break down each facet of orff media: body percussion, the orff instruments, the recorder, etc. part 2, eschewing an over-arching framework, includes chapters that aim to give readers conceptual understanding of the broad musical principles introduced in music for children (rhythmic vocalization, the pentatonic scale, the drone, etc.). goodkin notes that “authentic education requires the teacher to notice and attend to the unique needs and gifts of every student” (ibid., 127). rather than presenting full lesson plans, then, he offers examples and ideas that attempt to guide rather than dictate. in a chapter titled “the drone—a basic foundation,” goodkin provides definitions and examples of ten different drone variations as a way of straightforwardly aiding teachers in building a repertoire of smaller rhythmic-harmonic building blocks that can be utilized in exercises they will implement with their students (ibid., 148–150). at the end of the chapter, he provides general guidelines for how to use them, urging the teacher to “keep it simple,” and remarking that “nine times out of ten, a simple drone on a xylophone or a chordal one on a metallophone to a steady beat will suffice” (ibid., 152). his candid advice, rather than a prescribed curriculum or a sample lesson, empowers teachers to build a vocabulary that will aid them in gently guiding the classroom while still allowing the students to control the creative direction of the class. this framework, partially the product of orff certification teacher training courses, is loose enough to allow space for an instructor to develop a personal style. further, unlike many other guides, goodkin shows a concern for orff ’s primary material, pointing out that his book’s use of solfège is a modern addition, for example (ibid., 135). his approach explicitly takes orff as a starting point and adapts his work for contemporary pedagogy (ibid., 139). alongside goodkin’s work, jane frazee has published articles, exercise books, and teaching guides in the spirit of orff since the 1980s. her most extensive teaching guide is discovering orff: a curriculum for music teachers (frazee and kreuter 1987). part 1 of the book features histori35 emily spitz cal and theoretical elements of the schulwerk, with direct reference to the material in musik für kinder. one of its major strengths is a detailed explanation of what she considers to be the “four-stage learning process” involved with orff pedagogy: “imitation, exploration, literacy and improvisation” (ibid., 26–32). it also features one of the most comprehensive breakdowns of the structure of the five volumes of musik für kinder seen in the english-language literature; in addition, a helpful chart clearly explains which types of melodies and accompaniment are the focus of each volume (ibid., 44). part 2 provides a sequential curriculum, organized by grade. given keetman’s above reservations regarding grade-based curricula, this portion of the teaching guide is somewhat less true to the original. in a review of the book, patricia shehan campbell notes that frazee recognizes that teachers of music for children often seek a framework that addresses the questions of which music should be worked on, when, and by what means. to a person who has not had adequate training in and experience with orff ’s pedagogy, the schulwerk might appear to be a maze of unassociated activities. to prevent teachers from having to proceed helter-skelter through this maze, the authors of discovering orff lay a course for developing both performance competencies and musical understanding. (campbell 1990, 59) this description greatly contrasts frazee’s text with goodkin’s, the latter of whom seems to warn against such approaches when he says that “without care, orff ’s active investigation of children’s musicality might congeal into an explainable method” (goodkin [2002] 2004, vii). while both frazee and goodkin provide similar building blocks when it comes to understanding orff pedagogy, the latter’s more personal take on how he has utilized the schulwerk saves his guide from becoming a mandate. depending on one’s perspective or, as campbell suggests above, training, this difference can either be a boon or a drawback. whereas frazee provides a framework for those who have not had a great deal of training, she might be charged with goodkin’s and walter’s complaints of “method”; goodkin’s guide, by contrast, requires the modern teacher to build a curriculum from scratch, albeit in a more organic way based on what they know their students are capable of and interested by. conclusion: from institution back to idea(s) the most significant direction i was given as a teacher in training was to be self-reflective about my work. through my studies in musicology, i have also learned to reflect historically on the pedigrees of the pedagogies 36 current musicology i model. the profound transformations the orff-schulwerk has undergone over the last century were inevitable, of course: society and culture do not remain static. the first iteration of the schulwerk at the güntherschule existed at a time of unprecedented progressivism—one which invariably affected the arts. orff described feeling it as poignantly “as if a spring storm were sweeping through the city of munich . . . [taking] with it, helter-skelter, enthusiastic young poets, writers, painters and musicians” (orff [1976] 1978, 7). the war that followed shattered this moment in german history. when the schulwerk returned, and was promptly disseminated to north america and other parts of europe, it was adapted to the needs of its new contexts. the dissemination of print schulwerk materials and its institutionalization have helped it become accessible; the advances we have made in technology in just the past fifteen years have made it easier than ever to stumble upon schulwerk content. however, being caught behind paywalls while simply trying to assess the current state of the approach may leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth when juxtaposed with orff ’s assurance that “everyone can learn elemental music” (orff 1963, 154). yet, the way orff ’s legacy is currently positioned in america is understandably reflective of current national policies and values that govern the realm of education. the late co-founder and president of the aosa, arnold e. burkart, perhaps put it best when he commented on the controversy surrounding “the relative importance of content and process in education” (burkart 1977, 37). improvisation, at its core, is a process that is not intended to be deeply controlled. when music educators must adhere to content-driven standards, allowing sufficient time and space to “lead the students to a spontaneous, personal, musical expression” can prove difficult (orff 1963, 140). isabel carley, another co-founder of the aosa, commented in 1977 that “unless we music teachers muster our courage to tell our administrators time after time how vital to mental health and how basic to a new educational synthesis music is, they will never change their ways or their convictions that the arts are expendable” (carley 1977, 82). since it is unlikely america will undergo an anti-standards movement in the near future, i offer this review as a means to invite reflection: on what the schulwerk was, what it is now, and what it can become if we release it from the structures which have been forcibly imposed upon it. 37 emily spitz notes 1. i go into more detail on the american orff-schulwerk association later. however, also worth mentioning are the organization of american kodály educators (abbreviated as oake, founded in 1975) and the dalcroze society of america (abbreviated as dsa, founded in 1969). at the time this article was written (may 2019), membership in oake cost $85; regular membership in the dsa cost $60. this information can be found on their respective websites (oake: https://www.oake.org/; dsa: https://dalcrozeusa.org/). 2. here, i am referencing my personal notes, taken while observing sharon tan’s courses in 2012. unfortunately, tan passed away in february 2016, while i was abroad completing my master’s at the university of cambridge. i credit much of my interest in the orff-schulwerk to watching her teach. 3. the preoccupation with creating an ideal society that fueled the production of gebrauchsmusik was not born along with the weimar republic; the roots of the amateur movements that flourished during the weimar republic existed long before world war i. see kertz-welzel (2004) for more on pre-existing amateur groups like the jugendbewegung, or “youth movement,” which aimed to use the arts as a means of rejuvenating society (19). 4. though many identify paul hindemith (1895–1963) as the first to coin the term gebrauchsmusik, stephen hinton has traced the original notion of “music for use” to a 1921 article by bohemian musicologist paul nettl (hinton 1989, 4). the term was first used in the context of the weimar republic by noted german musicologist heinrich besseler, who published an essay in 1925 entitled “grundfragen des musikalischen hörens,” or “fundamental issues of musical listening” (besseler [1925] 2011). 5. adorno ([1931] 2002) believed that gebrauchsmusik held the potential to become a tool for ideological manipulation based on his belief that it was not directly linked to consumption, or what the people desire. likewise, schoenberg ([1937] 1975) considered gebrauchsmusik little more than a single fleeting trend among many others that existed during the weimar republic and caught on due to what he believed was a corrupted view of art during this time. 6. see potter (1998). potter states “by the 1920s, amateur orchestras, chamber music, and especially choral singing had become immensely popular pastimes, crossing all political and class barriers. at a time when germany seemed ever more politicized and disjointed, communal music-making promised to promote solidarity. participation, it was hoped, would not only instill community spirit and goodwill but would also restore music’s power to unify, which had been lost in the bourgeois era” (4–5). 7. although orff ’s insistence upon a certain style in the education of the musical amateur was indeed a reaction to western classical music, he did not hate the european canon, nor did he wish to “cut classical music out of the non-professional’s world of experience” (orff 1932/33, 161). instead, he recognized a need to reconnect with the human’s natural propensity to be creative. music historian and educator michael kugler offers a further clarification of why the orff-schulwerk was so readily accepted abroad, arguing that elemental music “does not restrict itself to its culture of origin, but opens up an intercultural dimension” (kugler 2013c, 15). 8. disappointingly, orff ’s autobiographical documentation of the schulwerk makes only minor mention of his collaborators, though their impact on these first publications was immense (orff [1976] 1978, 131). orff relied on the school’s accompanist, hans bergese (1910–2000), and gunild keetman, to help him develop more than a dozen of the first elementare musikübung; keetman even wrote eight of these volumes on her own (pruett 38 current musicology 2003, 183). orff also relied on keetman, who started at the school as a student in 1926, for tasks such as testing out new instruments or trying out his ideas in practice (keetman 1978, 44–54). since she came to the school with a strong classical music background, her documentation of the musical aspects of the schulwerk and reactions to orff ’s improvisations are extremely valuable in understanding the elemental style (ibid., 50). keetman returns later in the history of the schulwerk as a major contributor to the development of schulwerk exercises for children. by 1933, orff had begun to focus less on the school and more on composing for the concert setting; keetman effectively stepped into his role and directed many of the school’s musical activities (howe 2013, 248). the question of why orff ’s and not keetman’s name is on the many publications of schulwerk exercises from the 1930s naturally arises in contemporary scholarship; researchers note that she was a shy and humble person, though the unfortunate specter of sexism—especially in such an overtly reactionary time—looms clearly over her legacy (pruett 2003, 193–194). 9. see tuchowski (2016). reusch was “a professor of music education, who ostentatiously condemned all intellectual speculation on art and advocated a turn to the music whose racial purity and relation with the mythical volksgemeinschaft was unquestionable: prussian military marches and german folk music” (235). he was a member of the nazi party (216). 10. perhaps as a result of the ambiguity of günther’s loyalty to the nazi party, her contributions to the schulwerk are rarely acknowledged today. for instance, the american orffschulwerk association focuses instead on orff and keetman; in a section on their website entitled “carl orff & gunild keetman,” günther is only named as a collaborator, and there is no language tying her to the development of the movement aspects of the schulwerk. while keetman did teach some movement courses at the güntherschule, it was günther who trained her in movement. and unfortunately, it is clear from the percentage of time keetman’s pedagogy devotes to the musical versus the movement aspects of the schulwerk that she did not have günther’s interest or deep understanding of the latter. keetman herself took little credit for work on expanding her knowledge of elementral dance beyond what was taught, instead choosing to acknowledge the primacy of maja lex, a choreographer and günther’s protégé, in developing the movement aspects of the schulwerk (keetman 1978, 56). 11. music educators national conference (menc) was rebranded as the national association for music education (nafme) in 2011. see their website (https://nafme.org/) for more information. 12. keetman defines “patschen” as “knee-slapping” (1970, 20). she describes it as “a flathanded slap with rebound on the thigh near to the knee” that “requires a relaxed posture and can be executed when standing with feet slightly apart, or when sitting.” 13. a former classmate of mine from nyu who is an active elementary school music teacher in brooklyn, new york confirmed to me that murray’s editions are the only pieces of canonical orff repertoire she has used in her level i and ii certification courses. 14. see international orff-schulwerk forum salzburg (2012) for more information on how orff associations gain international accreditation. 15. “re: american orff-schulwerk association contact: how many members?” email to the author. may 9, 2019. 16. i feel the need to bring up the comparison between the establishment of the orffschulwerk as a methodology in the united states and the more recent rise in popularity and brand-name recognition of el sistema (translated literally as “the system”). recent critical research into el sistema has come from musicologists geoffrey baker and robert 39 emily spitz fink. the schulwerk arguably went through the same american mythologization that el sistema has gone through in the past decade (fink 2016). baker notes that there is not enough unbiased evaluation of the effectiveness of el sistema; the same can be said for the american schulwerk, especially given the monopoly the aosa has on the approach (baker, bull, and taylor 2018). 17. see also national association for music education (2014) for standards aimed specifically at music teachers. 18. see aosa (2018c). the aosa has listed all of the articles published in the orff echo from 1968–2006 by subject. references adorno, theodor w. [1931] 2002. “why is the new art so hard to understand?” in essays on music, edited by richard leppert and translated by susan gillepsie, 127–133. berkeley: university of california press. american orff-schulwerk association. 2016. “1029150830a1.” filmed february 2016. youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d98fvvhntyu. ———. 2018a. “aosa core values.” https://aosa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ aosacorevalues_march-2018.pdf. ———. 2018b. “handbook for orff schulwerk teacher education courses.” https:// member.aosa.org/storage/files/1/aosa%20handbook%20for%20orff%20 schulwerk%20teacher%20education%20courses%20-%20google%20docs.pdf. ———. 2018c. “the orff echo index.” https://aosa.org/publications/the-orff-echo/theorff-echo-index/. ———. 2019a. “what is orff schulwerk?” https://aosa.org/about/what-is-orff-schulwerk/. ———. 2019b. what is orff schulwerk? https://aosa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/ what-is-orff-brch_r1.pdf. ayling, marjorie. 2013. “orff-schulwerk in the uk over the past 50 years.” in reflections on orff-schulwerk: essays in celebration of margaret murray, edited by sarah hennessay, 64–71. london: schott music ltd. baker, geoffrey, anna bull, and mark taylor. 2018. “who watches the watchmen? evaluating evaluations of el sistema.” british journal of music education 35 (3): 255– 269. besseler, heinrich. [1925] 2011. “appendix: fundamental issues of music listening (1925),” edited and translated by matthew pritchard and irene auerbach. twentiethcentury music 8 (1): 49–70. birrow, david. 2015. “body percussion to bucket drumming...exploring rhythmische ubung.” https://aosa.memberclicks.net/lesson-idea-fall-2015. burkart, arnold e. 1977. “process as content in orff-schulwerk.” in orff re-echoes, edited by isabel mcneill carley, 37–42. north carolina: american orff-schulwerk association. campbell, patricia shehan. 1990. “review: discovering orff: a curriculum for music teachers by jane frazee and kent kreuter.” music educators journal 77 (1): 59–61. carley, isabel. 1977. “orff is the answer.” in orff re-echoes, edited by isabel carley. north carolina: american orff-schulwerk association. choksy, lois. 1974 [1999]. the kodály method i: comprehensive music education. 3rd ed. new jersey: prentice-hall, inc. connor, herbert. 1932. “rhythmische gemeinschaftsmusik.” in elemental dance elemental music: the munich günther school 1924–1944, edited by michael kugler and 40 current musicology translated by margaret murray, 197–199. new york: schott music corporation. devilbiss, jill. 2017. “living things.” https://aosa.memberclicks.net/assets/reverberations/ archive/lessonideas/living%20things.pdf. fink, robert. 2016. “resurrection symphony: el sistema as ideology in venezuela and los angeles.” action, criticism & theory for music education 15 (1): 33–55. frazee, jane. 2013a. “from the old world to the new: cultivating orff ’s wildflower from europe to the usa.” in orff schulwerk: reflections and directions, edited by cecilia wang, 29–58. chicago: gia publications, inc, ———. 2013b. “orff-schulwerk in the united states: cultivating the wildflower.” in reflections on orff-schulwerk: essays in celebration of margaret murray, edited by sarah hennessy, 48–55. london: schott music ltd. ——— and kent kreuter. 1987. discovering orff: a curriculum for music teachers. new york: schott music corporation. goodkin, doug. 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article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). there goes the berimbau: an africa-brazil-germany musician-body trajectory simone grundner translation by brena o’dwyer after the second half of the 1980s, capoeira began to occupy theater stages, cultural centers, streets, and gyms, consolidating itself in countless countries around the world. mestre china affirms that germany was, in fact, one of the most receptive environments for the consolidation of this afro-diasporic tradition. having accompanied part of the international capoeira movement as both a participant and researcher, i experienced firsthand the impactful role of music in this process and pursued studies in musicology to verify the relevance of music in the internationalization of capoeira. without the active participation of listeners with applause and responses to the chorus, going to the rodas1 held in the streets, the involvement of those interested would not be as enthusiastic as their participation would be passive. however, to the sound of the percussive instruments and especially the berimbau (see figure 1), the relationship between body movement and the characteristic sound transmits a contagious vitality, attracting people to the roda, to the game, and to the ginga (capoeira’s basic movement) way of life, gathering in a circle which proposes its own transforming language. to trace the role of music in the internationalization of capoeira, i examine documents produced in german by students, practitioners, and observers of capoeira associated with the capoeira hannover center (chc) and the escola de capoeira angola nzinga2 in hamburg (with locations also in hanover and kiel). on the widely used platform yumpu, where users can self-publish articles, magazines, and various other texts, i found writings prepared by these capoeira groups. some of these published documents are revealing of how german capoeiristas3 understand, learn, and transmit the knowledge of capoeira. originally taught through orality and body practices, the afro-german capoeira teacher tobias gross from the city of hanover, began to use bulletins and informative texts to help children and adult students understand capoeira by learning songs which were translated into german. even though the songs are still sung in portuguese in the roda, their translations reveal more about the culture and daily life of capoeira and its history to its german-speaking practitioners. examining details of how the lyrics are translated, i note that the author maintains the meter and rhythm of the verses which, together with the explanations found in the texts, demonstrate a link between music and body movement which is crucial for understanding and learning capoeira. 72 current musicology _______________________________________ in addition, the internationalization of capoeira as an afrodiasporic movement potentially addresses democracy more broadly by bringing questions related to social and racial differences into its daily practice. in one example from a bulletin on yumpu, the lyrics of a popular song translated into german reads: “oh my god, how can i live in this world? if i'm dirty, i'm filthy, if i'm clean, i'm a bum…”4 in their exposure to the lyrics of these songs and by observing societal behaviors towards immigrants and people of color in germany, capoeira practitioners become increasingly aware of differences in access to resources and social privileges. in her 2003 article “performances da oralitura: corpo, lugar da memória,” leda martins theorizes that a performance expresses, in addition to what is communicated to the public, ancestral memories transmitted through the language of singing, gesture, and movement. “oralitura,” as she calls it, expresses not only the words and sayings of the performance itself, but a whole legacy and repertoire originating in african roots. through this lens, i understand that a full performance of capoeira conveys these origins through its associated sounds, movements, and rituals. i examined the material about capoeira on yumpu, as published by these german schools in hanover and hamburg, and took note of what may be expressed beyond the roda. such language, which becomes part of the gestures and movements of capoeira practitioners, provides a sensorial link between their bodies and the culture originating in the congo region, where angola is located today, and directly or indirectly acts in transformations for freedom. there are several freedoms to be understood in this process. i would start with the freedom to let the body move to the sound of the drum. this gesture in itself can be seen as a form of confrontation to morality, the rules of the christian religions, and other forces which seek to premeditate and control the movement of others. the drum “shakes” (or, in portuguese, rebola) this off when it offers the unexpected, intuitive, and seductive connection with oneself and infinite other non-static possibilities. freedom offered through the practice of capoeira permeates one’s views of and relationship to the world. the german practitioner develops a new way of relating to their body and, through witnessing a more sociable and less individualist lifestyle, becomes familiar with the communities around capoeira in brazil and with a lifestyle centered around music and capoeira movements. another freedom offered through capoeira – though certainly not the last – is an openness to the practice of critiquing democracies of the so-called “first world.” based on paul gilroy’s (2012) assertion that afro-diasporic movements contribute new critical looks at democracy, i find that capoeira – like many practices which involve music and movement – alert society to the idea that democratic values such as freedom and equality do not reach racialized people to 73 simone grundner ____________________________________________ the same degree. in understanding racialized people as those whose difficulties and suffering are a result of slavery and racism, it is necessary to have a critical and empathetic look at the experiences described. throughout germany and europe, actions promoting equal rights, anti-racism, and the visibility of the cultures of peripheral and racialized societies, are often spearheaded by civil society organizations. capoeira in the german socio-cultural context capoeira arrived in germany to a receptive environment. young and curious citizens from other non-european cultures, aware of the difficulties immigrants face, often supported traveling artists who wanted to remain in europe. when i attended a capoeira workshop in hamburg, i remember how capoeira students helped in the dissemination of the art, mainly in the production of flyers and texts, as teachers and mestres rarely mastered the german language. i had the opportunity to see the curiosity that locals had when seeing capoeira movements, the brazilian culture, the language, and the music. i witnessed social relationships develop over time, forming families and new generations of brazilians born in germany. music made me stay in germany for many years, participating in bands, orchestras, and musicals as a singer and backup singer. i believe that it is from the effect of music and movement offer to the self that a group of mestres and capoeiristas found their safe haven and were able to spread the art of capoeira and other forms of brazilian music, while simultaneously making a living and be considered mestres de capoeira.5 the social spaces frequented by brazilians were common to various cultural agents. capoeiristas often played percussion and sang accompanying other bands, expanding their social and musical area of activity. when researching how music enabled the consolidation of capoeira in germany, i began by looking for examples which demonstrated the ways in which german practitioners understood the art. mestre paulo siqueira of the escola de capoeira angola nzinga in hamburg informed me of the chc, which was the most active on social media. from the 1980s to the present, tobias gross, a professor of physical education and student of mestre paulo siqueira, remains the mestre of the chc. when i first arrived in germany in the 1980s, i attended capoeira meetings, as well as performances by african, jamaican, brazilian, and american bands and dance groups, sometimes as an audience member, but also as the lead singer of my reggae or mpb6 band. around that time, the public representation of international cultures outside of europe and north america were less prevalent 74 current musicology _______________________________________ in brazil. on the other hand, in germany of the 1980s, music and other festivals often promoted local and international bands. as spring and summer arrive, when people are finally able to spend more time outdoors, fairs and events take place across germany. the spas and parks are crowded with people in varying degrees of nudity, thirsty to enjoy days that dawn at five in the morning and only lose sunlight around ten. at the englischer garten, located by the river iza in munich – also where one of the most world-renowned german breweries is located – multicultural performances often take place. i remember feeling immensely happy and curious one afternoon in this park when, in the distance, i suddenly heard the sound of the berimbau and spotted a crowd coming together to see and hear a roda. figure 1: the berimbau is an instrument made up of a biribá tree wood pole, a single steel wire, and a gourd. it is played with a stick, stone, and caxixi.7 the yumpu website is a publishing platform which hosts magazines, catalogs, flyers, presentations, and articles. there, i found texts about capoeira written by german practitioners. there are nine texts posted by christian hess, a member of the hanover group led by professor tobias gross. gross and sometimes other members of the school – who attended any combination of classes or summer meetings at chc – contributed texts on a range of themes and central questions, such as “what is capoeira?” and on the philosophy of capoeira. 75 simone grundner ____________________________________________ importantly, they would translate verses from songs following the original meter of the chants, revealing the collective’s concern with transmitting the significance and deeper social and historical meaning of capoeira to adult students and children in germany. these translations function to simultaneously convey the meaning behind the lyrics in portuguese and to maintain the corporeality of capoeira. martins’ notion of african ancestral roots being maintained through music and movement, transmitting a corporeality that remains alive beyond what happens in the performance, is noticeable here. from the materials available on the yumpu platform produced in collaboration between the chc and the escola de capoeira angola nzinga, i selected those that are most relevant to this work and translated the main passages from german into portuguese and now into english. often, explaining the meaning of what is written requires the use of words that do not exactly correspond to those used by the author. the translation of a word from a sentence in german into portuguese can generate an entirely different meaning. i understand that, in certain circumstances, for a better understanding of the text, providing a non-literal translation can make the meaning of what was written clearer. in other words, conveying the meaning of the texts analyzed is given more importance more than necessarily reaching the optimal translation. it is in this way that i was able to reach an understanding of the dynamics of teachinglearning capoeira in germany and the role of music in this process. i examine explanatory texts produced in german, including lyrics translated from capoeira songs and details on capoeira culture, which are of paramount importance for a broader understanding of the internationalization of capoeira. these are geared towards capoeira practitioners and potential future teachers and reveal how instruction has been adapted in a new context. the section below includes translated portions of a german bulletin titled “fazination capoeira” (2004), which was produced by tobias gross, published by christian hess, and features contributions from capoeira practitioners on the anthropological, philosophical, historical, and musical aspects of capoeira. questions they approach include, but are not limited to: how to explain the style of movement (ginga or gingado) to a german practitioner, the meaning of the songs in the roda, the leadership and command of the berimbau in the game, what is capoeira and its philosophy, the meaning of the lyrics sung, the timing of the singing, and many others. though the study of such documents alone is not a comprehensive way of learning capoeira, they appear to be of paramount importance for its two-way understanding in the german context. one of these documents is a bulletin entitled “what is capoeira?” (“was ist capoeira?”) (gross 2004). this eighteen-page text written by gross is of fundamental importance for this study’s analysis on how german practitioners understand capoeira. a brief introduction in the bulletin defines capoeira as “a 76 current musicology _______________________________________ brazilian fight-dance-sport that expresses a lifestyle and unites opposing concepts,” (2004, 3) such as combat, poetry, creativity, and spontaneity. gross adds that if one were to ask five mestres what capoeira is, each one would have a different explanation of its meaning and what it represents. he mentions mestre pastinha's statement: “capoeira is all the mouth eats” and mestre bimba, who describes capoeira as the “science of malice” (2004, 3). gross also acknowledges that for black people in brazil, capoeira is not just a sport, but a philosophy of life that manifests itself through movement, music, and rhythm. he concludes this introduction with mestre joão pequeno’s phrase: “capoeira is everything” (2004, 3). gross also contributes a poem of his own authorship to the bulletin (2004, 4). in favela, he conveys his understanding that the favela (“shantytown”) is part of the culture of a people who do not have blue eyes, have curly hair, and find part of their historical roots in slavery. tobias gross is afro-german and thus, compared to other german practitioners, has a greater identification with issues related to the origins of capoeira and the status of black people in social contexts. gross translates a capoeira song that mourns the death of mestre bimba. the portuguese version does not appear in this text, but other documents show the original lyrics. a concern with the metric and rhythm of capoeira is evident in these translations, as they follow the ginga of the original in portuguese and transmit the cadence of capoeira. following an introduction on the origin of capoeira and brief biographies of mestres bimba and pastinha, gross moves on to introduce the berimbau, its central african origin, how to play it (stressing the degree of difficulty), and comments that it is an instrument which nowadays is considered typically brazilian. in fact, the monochord instrument of central african origin is called urucungo8 and was brought to brazil through the memories of the enslaved. with the internationalization of capoeira, it eventually established itself in germany and most other countries as a traditional brazilian instrument. in his book o urucungo de cassange: um ensaio sobre o marco musical no espaço atlântico (2019), author josivaldo pires de oliveira follows the path of the musical instrument through the story of a cowboy in piauí, brazil, who gained prominence in the recife newspapers in 1878. ataliba, the cowboy, had as an ally in his herding work, the preto velho9 cassange who was always accompanied by his instrument, the urucungo. it was named as such because it originated from that region of angola, from the lunda empire and the imbangala people whose main activity was herding cows, an activity in which this musical bow was used. in capoeira angola rodas,10 such as those of mestre angolinha in rio de janeiro, three berimbaus are used: the gunga or berra-boi (with the lowest timbre), the médio (“medium”), and the viola (the highest timbre and often a soloist). in rodas i observed abroad, sometimes only one berimbau was used (mestre bimba also 77 simone grundner ____________________________________________ used just one). this depends on the number of mestres and players available at the time of the roda. mestres who established capoeira in distant countries relied on the urucungo, one of the instruments that is most characteristic of a roda, to lend its tones and rhythms to capoeira, which can no longer live without it. in a german understanding of capoeira, the berimbau maintains its centrality. yet in gross’s bulletin, the instrument’s history was understood from a german point of view, which is a cultural position that did not experience a colonial process and does not have african representation in its ethnic-cultural formation, as is the case for brazil. gross claims that the berimbau is a kind of ‘password’ with which surprising musicality can be unlocked. in his analysis, the fact that the instrument has a monochord construction and no strict tuning, simultaneously lends musical simplicity and ample creative possibility for each roda. indeed, there is no single, pre-established technique to play the berimbau. there are multiple ways to manipulate the instrument’s sound, such as how one holds the coin or stone against this string or uses the caxixi (see fig. 2), allowing each player to find their own path. it is also fundamental to mention the importance of orality to the practice of capoeira. a dynamic flow is established among musicians in the roda and additional opportunities for creation are possible throughout a performance. in the congo region, where the country of angola is located today, african musicians created multiple ways of extracting, from a single string, an infinity of sounds with instruments like the berimbau. according to author tobias gross, each player develops their art of playing according to their understanding and expectation of sounds, finding in elements of their own culture the solutions for making music. figure 2: the caxixi is a percussion instrument filled with seeds, sounded by shaking, and played alongside the berimbau. 78 current musicology _______________________________________ according to tobias gross, the fact that the berimbau has multiple ways of being played and presents such diversity creates difficulties in learning. for example, the berimbau played in bahia, brazil, has a variety of sounds and nuances that differ for each player. that is why the sound possibilities of the instrument have so many effects in the field of popular music. the “belly” berimbau that we play in capoeira is hit with a stick, the way the stick is held, the stone, and the proximity of the gourd to the belly of the instrument are some of the factors not established in learning that affect the sonority. i could also add that the size of the gourd, the way the string is stretched, the type of binding, the paint that often colors the instrument, and the coin, doubloon, or stone are elements that equally influence the sound. and even with all these possibilities, they generate together the unmistakable sound that characterizes capoeira today. the work of the capoeira teacher is to structure the transmission of knowledge, using their oral ability and manual and didactic dexterity to elaborate a way of teaching. based on gross’s comments in his published bulletin, we can reflect on what the magic of teaching capoeira, its music, and instrument playing must have been like without mastering the language, just like other mestres who left for different countries taking capoeira with them. composed of a biribá wood stick, a gourd, and a wire and played with a stick, stone, and caxixi, the berimbau, the ancient urucungo, today inhabits the list of typical sounds of brazilian popular music. gross goes onto explain that, for the capoeirista, the berimbau is a sacred instrument, which begins with its ritualized construction. the wood of a biribá tree, which is native to tropical south america, must be taken on the night of a full moon. the pole of approximately one and a half meters is given the necessary stability and flexibility because of the unique quality of biribá wood. a steel wire is then tied to each end of the pole and is adjustable, as it is replaced and stretched each time the instrument is played. the gourd of the berimbau, which acts as a resonator for the sound of the wire being struck, also does not remain attached. it is tied onto the biribá pole with a stretched wire that goes through two previously made holes and is positioned with its cavity facing the belly of the player. by varying the distance of the gourd to the player’s belly, a variation in sonority is obtained, reverberating and amplifying the instrument's sound. the rhythmic quality of the sound comes from the impact of a stick of approximately thirty centimeters against the stretched wire. the musician creates a wide range of sounds as they can simultaneously vary the amount of pressure applied against the wire with a coin or stone,11 adjust the position of the gourd, and apply different striking patterns to the wire. in this section, gross invokes the ancestral tradition of capoeira’s rituals to his students, though these are not necessarily reproduced or put into practice during his lessons. in the same section focusing on the berimbau, gross includes a german 79 simone grundner ____________________________________________ translation of the chant called “vamos tocar berimbau” (“let’s play berimbau” or lass uns berimbau spielen), which emphasizes the importance of the berimbau’s sound to awaken the will and enthusiasm to play. from the body that plays capoeira to the toque of the berimbau, that sound exerts a specific command on those who play and even on those who aren’t playing, because it is from this sound that onlookers, observers, and practitioners approach and eventually become involved with the art of capoeira. the text comments that such simplicity does not minimize the value of what it produces with its sonority and its transforming power. regarding the role of the berimbau in capoeira, gross states that it defines time, commands the game, establishes the beginning and end of the roda, unites and separates players, and characterizes capoeira as such that, without the berimbau, there is no capoeira. every good capoeirista develops a relationship with the instrument that lends it its character, making them a capoeira. the one who carries it, who sets it up and makes music from it, has it as part of their selves. such facts, together with the instrument's making ritual, suggest the importance of the berimbau for capoeira. in its simple structure, the berimbau offers a variety of rhythms that can be played in different ways and developed in the way of the player. the basic rhythm forms the character of the sounds that present variations that are developed by the soloist. the quality of the solo is linked to the degree of intimacy that the instrumentalist created. the author mentions lourival santos araújo, according to him, one of the best berimbau players in bahia. on the toques de berimbau (the berimbau’s rhythms or patterns), gross mentions that each has a specific meaning and determines the timing of encounters between capoeiristas in the roda. the definitions for the toques originated in the 1990s and evolved over time. today, the n’zinga school of capoeira in hanover has adopted the angola style of capoeira, which is fundamentally different from the regional style and uses other nomenclatures for toques and movements different from those previously adopted. the definitions below, translated from german to english for this study, are found in a bulletin prepared in the 1990s by gross, which was made available online in 2004: angola is the rhythm and way of playing that is very similar to the movement of a cat, the game is mischievous and low, demanding from the participants a greater elaboration of the movements. in benguela, however, the movements are more spontaneous and faster, the ginga is looser and the game more surprising. at são bento grande de regional, the game is higher, demanding more agility and strategy. acrobatics are present, such a style of play was initiated in mestre bimba's academy. são bento grande de angola has a slower style than that of the regional, this rhythm can be played in such a way that is more focused on dance and choreography, a game that values the beauty of the movements and playfulness, transmitting an environment of peace and showing with even more expression the effects of the corporeality of capoeira. iúna is a sound that only advanced players can play and show off to the fullest, be it body expressions or acrobatics. a style that exposes its commitment to capoeira, which permeates fight, 80 current musicology _______________________________________ ritual, and elegance where its players show everything they know. the cavalry sound, reminiscent of horses running, was used as a warning sign that the police would be arriving, players performed acrobatics to disguise the bellicose character of the roda (gross 2004, 10,11). the sounds are very distinct and show the diversity of ways to play capoeira. the author also mentions the caxixi, the ways of playing it, and its marriage to the sound of the berimbau. he explains what it is made of and its sound importance. the rattle with a handle, which contains stones or shells inside, is attached to the drumstick and adds to the sound of the bow. i observed in the texts of this bulletin, a number of sounds – the ones listed and characterized here that are probably present in the roda of that school or experienced in summer meetings where a larger number of mestres exhibit their aptitudes. other sounds can be developed and found in other gyms and other schools. in a mainland country like brazil, we will find numerous sounds that are probably not listed in this bulletin of capoeira n‘zinga de hannover. furthermore, i perceive that the editor was and is familiar with and committed to capoeira and has his knowledge grounded in classes with his mestre and in research about the art. what i read in this bulletin leads me to think that the understanding of what capoeira is for the writer is not very far from what i saw happening in capoeira circles in hamburg. what he captured about capoeira culture is a foundation that allows him to transmit and translate knowledge to his students. next, gross claims that music is the central nerve of capoeira, it is what allows the relationship between body and rhythm and portrays real events of everyday life. without it, capoeira does not move. be it praise or sports singing, poetic or imperative, music is the soul of capoeira. it takes it upon itself to lead the art to fight or dance, evoking spirituality in the body that plays, awakening their abilities, and ordering the roda. when capoeiristas play together, they inspire each other with rhythmically sung choir games and body communication, maintaining a unique excitement that leads bodies to the roda. with repetitive elements in variations that progress, a magical event takes place that inspires the art of capoeira. gross presents the other capoeira instruments without going into detail as he did with the berimbau, which leads me to think that the other percussive instruments present in the art, such as the pandeiro (see fig. 3), the reco-reco (see fig. 4), the agogô (see fig. 5), and the atabaque (see fig. 6), do not have the same meaning as the berimbau in terms of the importance of capoeira's musical identity. 81 simone grundner ____________________________________________ figure 3: the pandeiro. figure 4: the reco-reco. 82 current musicology _______________________________________ figure 5: the agogô. figure 6: the atabaque. 83 simone grundner ____________________________________________ finally, gross addresses the significance of lyrics to the art of capoeira, which are rich in metaphors referencing the oppression of a people and remind practitioners and observers of the historical roots of the art. the poetics of capoeira songs convey stories not only of the discrimination and humiliation that the enslaved faced, but of their motivation and persistence in the struggle for freedom. the poetics of capoeira songs convey stories not only of the discrimination and humiliation that the enslaved faced, but of their motivation and persistence in the struggle for freedom. in the final section of this paper, i analyze gross’s translation (2004, 13) of a ladainha (“litany”) by mestre pastinha named “i am already sick from living here on earth” (“eu estou já tão doente, de viver aqui na terra” or ich bin schon ganz krank in german). gross, when translating the verses into german, follows the meter of the litany in portuguese so that, if it were to be sung in german, one could follow the rhythm of the berimbau, pandeiro, and atabaque. the slurred speech of the capoeira singer in the original song, following the slowed rhythm of the berimbau, is also preserved in the german translation. gross was also careful to select words in german which still conveyed the humble speech of a capoeirista. this well-known ladainha goes: “i no longer want to live on this earth/ oh mother, i’m going to the moon/ i spoke to my wife/ and she answered me/ “we’ll go, if god wills it”/… tomorrow at seven o’clock/ we’ll have coffee.” these verses express the reality of the capoeirista as a black man who feels he is unable to live with dignity and so intends to leave for the moon. to better illustrate the rhythmic correlation between the portuguese original and german translation, i provide a scansion12 of some of the verses of the litany mentioned above with a focus on the meter, as it relates to the rhythm of capoeira. i use numbers to indicate the vowel sounds, which are positioned over the stressed syllables in both languages. the scansion of the verses in figure 7 below illustrate an intentional similarity between the placement of the tonics, indicated by asterisks (*), and highlight gross’s understanding of capoeira’s corporeality: 84 current musicology _______________________________________ figure 7: a scansion of the litany “eu estou já tão doente, de viver aqui na terra” by mestre pastinha. figure 8: the original lyrics of the above litany in portuguese (center), along with the german (left) and english13 translations (right). with the purpose of relating the sonority of the german language to the verses in portuguese, i include the phonetic spelling of the translation (figure 9): ich bin schon ganz krank von leben auf dieser erde oh mama, ich flieg auf den mond ich sprach mit einer frau und sie antwortet mir wir fliegen wenn gott will. eu já tô doente de viver aqui na terra minha mãe eu vou pra lua eu falei com minha mulher ela então me respondeu nós vamos se deus quiser. i am already sick of living here on this earth oh mother, i will go to the moon i spoke to my wife and she told me we will fly when it is god’s will. * * * ich bin schon ganz krank 1 2 3 4 5 * * * von leben auf dieser erde 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 * * * oh mama, ich flieg auf den mond 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 * * * ich sprach mit meiner frau 1 2 3 4 5 6 * * * und sie antwortet mir 1 2 3 4 5 6 * * * wir fliegen wenn gott will. 1 2 3 4 5 6 * * * eu já tô doente 1 2 3 4 5 * * * de viver aqui na terra 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 * * * minha mãe eu vou pra lua 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 * * * falei com minha mulher 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 * * * ela então me respondeu 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 * * * nós vamos se deus quiser. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 85 simone grundner ____________________________________________ figure 9: the phonetic spelling of the german translation of mestre pastinha’s ladainha. in this bulletin, gross understands the importance of ritual and ancestry in capoeira and makes note of this in his remarks on the practice of praising predecessors. he identifies homages paid to mestres bimba and pastinha, forebearers of the practice in brazil, in the ladainhas sung at the beginning of the rodas and connects parts of the verses sung with afro-brazilian religiosity. in the introduction to the portuguese version of his book the black atlantic (1993), paul gilroy emphasizes the importance of afro-diasporic movements for democratic advancements in western societies. themes inherent to the practice of capoeira and its religiosity – such as the historical hardships and current social differences caused by slavery, and capoeira as a form of resistance which gives life to the legacy of equality, freedom, and a fairer society – remain latent in each roda and class and intrinsic to capoeira’s cultural body and afrodiasporic claims. within the german context, questions related to these themes are thus reflected upon by local practitioners, offering opportunities for a greater understanding of the social differences which originate from slavery and extend to the present day through racism. students may then reflect on the political system in which they live, eurocentrism, social differences imposed by skin color, as well as democracy more broadly. gilroy noted the importance of such afrodiasporic movements in pointing out and denouncing social differences. stories and anecdotes which relate the mistreatment of people of color are shared in the lyrics of ladainhas and circulate within communities formed around the practice of capoeira, giving greater visibility to the oppression of racialized individuals. in calling out the fragile and idealized democracies in europe and beyond, capoeira is an afro-diasporic movement which strengthens democratic and social claims in a sustainable way. capoeira is a transnational movement that maintains elements of culture in different contexts and countries. as an “oralitura” (martins 2003) – which transmits ancestral knowledge through the language of music, body, and ritual – it maintains a unity around its african origin. martins deepens the idea of ich bin schon ganz krank ɪç bɪn ʃo:n gants kʁaŋk von leben aud dieser erde fɔn le:bən aʊ̯t di:zɐ e:ɐ̯də oh mama ich flieg auf dem mond ich sprach mit o: mama ɪç fli:k aʊ̯f de:m mo:nt ɪç ʃpʁa:x mɪt einer frau und sie antwortet mir wir fliegen wenn gott will aɪ̯nɐ fʁaʊ̯ ʊnt zi: antvɔɐ̯tət mi:ɐ̯ vi:ɐ̯ fli:gən vɛn gɔt vɪl 86 current musicology _______________________________________ “oralitura,” explaining: in the context of afro-brazilian rituals, the poetic word, sung and vocalized, resonates from the pulsating and mimetic language of the body, implicating the emitting subject, who carries it, and the receiver, whom it also circumscribes, in a circuit of expression, potency and power. like the exhale, breath, diction, and performance, the uttered and sung word is engraved on the body, a portal of wisdom (67, 2003). capoeira is performed accompanied by the berimbau – an instrument that originated in the congo region, where most enslaved people originated from – and words sung during a performance speak to concerns with social difference. affirmations of supposed equity and democracy in the european context ring hollow in the presence of black racialized bodies and, in capoeira circles in germany, questions arise around the validity and extent of european democracy. the practice of capoeira, transmitted orally and through corporeality, opens paths for cultures which operate on the periphery and in resistance to colonialism. with the consolidation of capoeira in germany and the local population’s exposure to afro-diasporic issues, tobias gross felt the need to develop additional tools for teaching the art in this context. the materials investigated in this paper were foundational, though methods of teaching capoeira continue to evolve. in fact, with the success of these capoeira schools and their programming, demands were made of the state to support the holding of lessons in appropriate spaces. the texts of capoeira practitioners and a whole series of didactic tools designed for the purpose of teaching and disseminating the art are still being published. mestre paulo siqueira, based in hamburg, affirmed that there is a locally published encyclopedia of these teachings, though contact between him and the author was interrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic. the impacts of an afro-diasporic practice such as capoeira in germany and other countries of the so-called “first world” – beyond introducing cultural elements which in themselves promote changes in body awareness and daily living – simultaneously inspire transformations in teaching practices and encourage a striving towards a more egalitarian society. final considerations in this article, i examined documents written by german capoeira practitioners, primarily authored by hanover-based teacher tobias gross. some of gross’s teachings include: “music is the vital nerve of capoeira,” “the berimbau is the cultural element that determines the rhythm of the roda,” “the songs of capoeira say more than its verses,” and finally, illustrating the central importance of music: 87 simone grundner ____________________________________________ “it is with the rhythm that one manages to incorporate the movement [of capoeira]” (gross 2004). furthermore, in the rhythmic comparison of the portuguese and german languages and in the scansion of the verses of the translated ladainhas, i highlight not only the relationship between verse, rhythm, and body, but also the fundamental role of music in teaching capoeira abroad. the culture and practice of capoeira is consolidated in european bodies through rhythmic understanding, aided by translations that follow the meter and rhythm of the original brazilian songs. without compromising the rhythm of the original, capoeira’s corporeality is reproduced in german verses. practitioners thus relate movement to the lyrics and rhythm in order to develop a practice. even outside of the space of a capoeira lesson, on the streets of hamburg, i witnessed how music is truly where it all begins, as it lures people to engage in the roda and let loose, to gingar. in understanding the connection between corporeality, music, and bodily and diasporic movements, i expand my reflection to bodily communication, social relations, and anxieties for freedom as tools for change. with the contribution of martins’s concept of “oralitura,” i conceive of capoeira as an ancestral expression sprawling with its own poetics, which embed africanidades (“africanities”) in german society. practitioners renew the way they view and relate to the world around them through corporeality yet, as a diasporic movement, capoeira also has the potential to inspire transformative views on democracy, as stated by gilroy (2012), openings doors to liberation. details examined in the aforementioned bulletins and the scansions of the ladainha verses provided fundamental understanding on the internationalization of the art of capoeira in germany. the assimilation of capoeira’s practice and music by local practitioners, including its cultural significance, is facilitated by and consolidated in such teaching materials. without music, capoeira would not exist in the way we know it today. notes 1 capoeira is an afro-brazilian cultural expression that mixes art, dance, music, sport, and martial arts. capoeira is played or danced in a circle, in portuguese “roda.” 2 the official websites for each of these are: https://capoeuropa.org/ and https://www.capoeirahannover.info/willkommen.html 3 capoeirista is the practitioner of capoeira. 4 the original in portuguese reads: “oh, meus deus o que é que eu faço, pra viver nesse mundo? se tô sujo sou imundo, se tô limpo, vagabundo.” 88 current musicology _______________________________________ 5 a literal translation of “mestres de capoeira” would be capoeira masters. i decide against translating this word into english due to its association with the word “master” and the idea of slavery. capoeira was a form of resistance to slavery and is a cultural expression of black people in brazil. though the word “master” is not necessarily linked to slavery in portuguese, i preserve the words mestre and mestres (plural) in portuguese to avoid this issue. 6 mpb stands for the genre of brazilian music named música popular brasileira (“brazilian popular music”). 7 all photographs of instruments in this article were taken by the author (figs. 1-6). 8 other than urucungo, the berimbau has gone by many names, including violam and rucumbo. 9 pretos velhos, literally translated to “old black men,” are spirits in the afro-brazilian religion who represent knowledge and give advice as african ancestors. 10 capoeira angola is a style which emphasizes the form of capoeira as a game and its importance to ancestral memory. mestre pastinha was one of the most active proponents of this style. 11 though nowadays a flat stone is often used to play the berimbau, a coin called a dobrão (a portuguese transliteration of the word “doubloon” and a remnant from the colonial era) was previously used to provide tension against the string of the instrument. 12 a scansion is the method of counting and representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse. 13 the english translation does not follow the meter of the original in portuguese (unlike the german version) and functions only as a translation of the meaning of the text. references capoeira n’zinga de hannover, hochschulsport ak/mk, capoeira hannover center (chc). 2006. “alle rechte vorbehalten capoeira lehrskript, musik teil 1.” accessed november 19, 2022. https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/read/7716625/capoeiranzinga-de-hannover-capoeira-angola. gilroy, paul. 1993. the black atlantic: modernity and double consciousness. cambridge: harvard university. gross, tobias. 2004. “faszination capoeira.” accessed june 15, 2021. https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/read/3806666/was-ist-capoeira. martins, leda. 2003. “performances da oralitura: corpo, lugar da memória,” letras (santa maria), vol. 25: 55-71. oliveira, josivaldo pires de. 2019. o urucungo de cassange: um ensaio sobre o marco musical no espaço atlântico. itabuna: mondrongo instituto do patrimônio histórico e artístico nacional (iphan). 2017. “salvaguarda da roda da capoeira e do ofício dos mestres de capoeira.” accessed may 31, 2023. http://portal.iphan.gov.br/uploads/ckfinder/arquivos/cartilha_salvaguarda_capoeira.p df 89 current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 129 “organic and beautiful and imperfect”: an interview with queer pop musician be steadwell seth mulliken be steadwell is a musician from washington, dc. she has self-produced six albums, the most recent of which is entitled jaded. dark love songs. she has toured the us and europe, and was recently selected to a 2016 strathmore artist in residence. as a touring musician, she plays shows of her music, and also offers songwriting workshops. “songwriting doesn’t need to be inaccessible,” she says. in addition to her musical work, she is also a filmmaker. her recently completed short, vow of silence, has played in festivals both nationally and internationally. be makes music in a few different modes: she sings with a band and backing vocalists, she collaborates in small groups, and she makes solo music. in each of these modes, be uses a technique she calls “vocal layering.” this is most striking in her solo music. using her voice, she’ll create harmonies, counterpoint lines, drones, riffs, and beatbox sounds, and finally adds her own lead vocal. this is a technique that is a product of necessity: “my voice is the instrument i know best,” she says. but it is also by design. “humans connect to voice,” she offers. in her home studio, she uses logic pro software to multi-track herself, sometimes adding instruments, both live and synthetic sounds from the computer. when she performs live, she uses a loop pedal, a device that allows her to sing and record a short section of music, loop it, and record another over it. when i first heard be’s music, i was struck by the sound of it. she uses her voice in multiple ways, to deliver lyrics, to create harmony and counterpoint, and to add texture. her use of musical sound creates an ambience, a “mood” as she calls it, that seeks to deliver the listener to a new space. given the prominent place of modern music production technologies, the loop pedal and computer-based editing, it was tempting for me to frame be’s music as “highly technologized.” by this, i mean the ways music is primarily heard and discussed through the discourse of its machines and technological processes. however, be’s relationship to the music production technologies doesn’t prioritize the machines and technological processes over other processes. her music is not framed solely or primarily by its technologized aspects; rather, the technology she uses is part of her larger project that seeks to unite the producer, the audience, the “human,” and the technology in the music-making process. 130 current musicology “i’m not excited about tech stuff,” be says. which is not to say she doesn’t have a sophisticated and rigorous understanding of the technology she uses. on her youtube channel, the video “worthy by be steadwell” shows her music production process in action. she sings into her microphone then hits the switch on a book-sized red box. with each press of the button, she records another piece to the song, building up the song. by the one-minute mark, she’s built a chorus of sounds, voices, and beatboxing. be’s stated lack of excitement about music technology implies a much more complicated idea: the idea that highly technologized music doesn’t need to follow a single narrative line of its creation. as a queer black woman making music, be enacts her art within a complex web of intersecting pressures of race and gender. drawing on the work of tara rodgers and alexander weheliye, we can hear be’s use of musical technologies as a negotiation with a very specific set of gendered and racialized ideas about technologies of sound production. in her book pink noises, tara rodgers says, “the terms technology and music are often marked as male domains, and the trenchancy of associated gendered stereotypes seems to gain force when these fields converge in electronic music” (rodgers 2010, 2). this is marked by the erasure of women’s contributions to the history of innovation in electronic music. in her interview with the members of the band le tigre, the idea of what constitutes “innovation” with music technology is highly gendered. “when women do it… it’s not considered an artistic innovation or statement” says johanna fateman of le tigre (7). one of the themes in rodgers’s book is the idea that electronic music, and highly technologized music in general, must follow a particular narrative line to be considered sophisticated and innovative. this narrative centralizes the use of the technology as precise and crucial to the hearing of the music, celebrates the technology as emblematic of the modern, and often reduces the role of the composer, having the result of negating the importance of identity (rodgers 2010, 10). be’s use of technology in her music seeks to include what is left out of this narrative. she engages with her audiences, brings her personal stories into the performance, and invites her audience to engage in the process of music-making with her. in her words, this is bringing the new and old together. in alexander weheliye’s book phonographies: grooves in sonic afromodernity, he emphasizes the contrast between white and black uses of technologies. citing samuel r. delany’s distinction between the “white boxes of computer technology” and the “black boxes of street technology,” weheliye notes how “the former . . . are deemed crucial to the techno vanguard of a continually progressing machine, while the latter – sound 131 seth mulliken technologies for instance—are not regarded are technological at all” (2005, 2). weheliye says that popular music is a realm “which black subjects have engaged in these techniformational flows” (3). pop is crucial in be’s music, as part of her own negotiation with the history of black creative work in popular music. the importance of technique in be’s work reflects her desire to recognize the importance of black creativity in popular music, and also to push against the genre limits of black music production. this interview with be was conducted over skype. as a personal suggestion, i’d highly recommend visiting be’s bandcamp page and listening to her album jaded. dark love songs. while you read. beginnings seth mulliken: how did you get started making music? be steadwell: i grew up loving music and loving to sing, but it was definitely a private thing to me. i was kind of shy so it wasn’t like i was a little broadway kid singing everywhere. in high school i started singing in the jazz band and then in college i was singing in the acapella groups. i had been writing music in high school but i really didn’t start writing consistently until after college. i was depressed, and it was one thing that always made me happy. on my days off i would write songs and make goofy music videos. i would work really hard on them. it wasn’t as if i was trying to be a musician, it was just therapeutic and fun. it just felt crafty, like a hobby. you know, i never said, “i’m going to be a musician,” because [it’s] like the most cliché foolish thing that people say. i still think it’s crazy. sm: even now that you’re doing it. bs: right, right. it really is insane. i mean, it doesn’t make any sense. sm: you were writing songs in high school, what does that mean? what were you using to do that? bs: my folks, my parents, signed me up for this writing camp. i applied for poetry and they put me in songwriting. i don’t know why they just assumed it was going to work out. they threw me in there. and it was great. i played a little guitar, but i didn’t play any instrument well. at the camp, you wrote songs and the songwriting instructors would facilitate you recording tracks. that was like my first experience recording. it wasn’t like a recording studio. it was a computer and a nice mic. i just wrote a few songs at this camp. i liked them, they were cute. but just, you know, a blip. 132 current musicology sm: after college, you kept making music? bs: i was writing music after college with a high school friend of mine and we were doing this hip-hop duo thing as the lost bois. i don’t know what we expected. i think we just wanted to meet girls. but that sort of got me more in the zone of “there is an audience and there are people who are listening to this. and enjoying it. maybe i could actually keep doing this and play shows and it could be something other than just for me.” we started getting gigs and getting paid a little bit for it. because we were kind of goofy and silly and different, college kids started liking it and it felt like this tiny burst of audience, popularity, whatever. sm: you mention you’re getting gigs because you were goofy and silly. was there also something about women being a rap duo? bs: yeah, maybe. if you think about the typical woman in rap, the femme-c, there are a lot of stereotypes and patterns that show up. there are women who are really hardcore, there are women who are really sexy and doing their sexy thing, and then there’s queer women who are essentially reproducing the same heteronormative narrative in their music: being assholes to women and being disrespectful. our work felt special because we were denying the assumption that to be a rapper you have to be like this unreal, cocky persona. when we went on stage we were awkward people. “i’m a little insecure sometimes and i’m on stage and i’m rapping.” that’s what felt different for me. it wasn’t a persona; it was pretty much just us being us. we tried to be cool. sometimes it worked, but sometimes it didn’t. but then my friend got a real job and had less time. the group was my outlet. i said to myself, “okay, you actually have to do this on your own. you can’t wait for other people.” sm: how do you name, genre-wise, the work you do now? bs: i’ve been calling it “queer pop.” it’s important for me to own the word “pop” because i feel like everybody deserves pop that they can relate to and that makes them feel good. because being queer, a song where a woman is talking to a woman is exciting. i don’t have that many of those songs in my life, and it’s exciting and i identify with it. and pop is what kind of music i write. its earnest, simple, and for the most part i say exactly what i mean. i definitely think about michael jackson, i think about prince, and i think about sade. because they all use elements of many genres, but don’t really align myself with any particular artist. i just know that i love them. and i love that they are people of color making music that folks internationally appreciated and 133 seth mulliken loved and will continue to love. even though what they did was different in their own way it’s still just very pop. and people feel like it’s such a dirty word, “pop” like it’s so gross. but thinking about michael jackson. what are you going to say about that, right? brilliant music, brilliant performance, entertaining: that’s pop. i’m getting some guidance from musicians, from older musicians who tell me that “queer” is limiting and some people get turned off by the word, which makes sense. so now i’m starting to sometimes call my work “pop & soul.” i guess it depends on who’s asking. i wouldn’t say “queer pop” to somebody who didn’t seem to know what “queer” might mean. because then that’s a whole conversation about “what is queer?” and sometimes you don’t really go into that with someone. the greatest privilege that white folks have as musicians is the freedom to do anything, genre-wise. “this is a white guy who sings r&b.” “this is a white chick who sings country.” in the pop realm, in the wider, mainstream realm, for white folks, it’s all open, it’s all ready to go. and it’s even fun and exotic when a white woman starts singing gospel music, but the “music ghettos” for black people are r&b and rap and some gospel so weird. i find the worst part of it is that you can see folks, and i’ve done this myself, limiting themselves based on what they know is expected of them. when i started singing, nobody was like, “oh, you have a great voice.” i think, as a black woman, that’s expected. but they’d ask, “can you do runs? can you belt? are you doing this diva black woman shit that black women are supposed to be able to do?” “no, i can’t do that. or i don’t.” these expectations that limit us and we limit ourselves. that hurts me. that frustrates me. and it takes time, even if you know it’s silly, to get it out of your own mind. just do what makes sense to you. don’t do what people are looking for somebody like you to do. i’ve been learning more about marketing, being a working musician. i don’t know how to approach venues. i have no idea what to tell them about what i do. “what genre is it? what do you do?” it just feels like nobody gets it. i’m just now getting a tiny bit of bookings with actual music venues. just the limitation of genre and the limitations of what’s expected is violence. techniques and technology sm: your current music is made entirely by you? bs: yeah. i really like it. i’m pretty particular and i can be a control freak when it comes to artistic projects and there’s something that i really like about music being like a journal. it’s your voice, everything is your voice, it’s from your story and your perspective. having the option and the space 134 current musicology to work by yourself is so nice. it’s just like you’re not waiting on anyone, you’re not paying anyone, and you, in theory, know exactly what you want. so you can just sit and figure it out. but it does get very frustrating. it does get lonely. sm: what is frustrating about it? bs: well, you’re your only advocate. only you know what’s wrong with something and what needs to be fixed and how much it took to do this thing. sometimes my voice is annoying and i can’t sing the melody the way that i want to sing it, and nobody’s going to step in and help fix it. so i think it’s a double edged sword. there’s a lot of great things about it but it can be very lonely and frustrating that way. sm: what is your songwriting process? bs: i think the best songs that i’ve written start with the melody and the feeling. the feeling happens, and the melody is just there. and sometimes a bassline and sometimes a chorus, usually words come last. i’ll find the words that make sense with the feeling and the melody. i’ll write around it. but sometimes i write words first. see something, and i’m like that… that should be a song. then i’ll write words and then the melody. but for me it’s always a better song if the melody comes first. because it’s an energy, a mood, as opposed to this narrative that you’re working around. that feels a little bit more constructed and less natural. the best is when you have a melody that you remember. you go to sleep and you remember it the next day. that’s a good melody because you didn’t forget it, it was memorable. sm: one thing i find striking about your music is the way you use musical sounds and textures. how do you compose those sounds? bs: that’s newer for me. what i started writing was voice, layering my voice, and having a bassline on piano. just very simple production. i’ve been really enjoying the very spacey, ambient feeling of indie r&b music right now. it’s something that i’m learning: creating mood. the last project i did [jaded. dark love songs.] was the first project that was a concept album, so it was all of one mood. you’re going through the computer sounds and find a sound and it’s fun. or sometimes you never find the instrument that really sounds right, but you make it work. i’m working with a lot of synthetic instruments. i’ll go into the eq, and with a lot of the synths, i just turn the treble way down, because its very like, “eeee.” its very nasal to me. i find if i mute the highs, it’s just a little less obnoxious. but generally, i use lots of voices. voices can be light, they can be creepy, angelic. 135 seth mulliken sm: on the new album, jaded, there’s a voice at the beginning of the song “haunted.” is that you, pitch-shifted down? bs: yeah. sm: you use your voice in so many different ways. you have clarity in the lead vocal, but you also use your voice as an instrument, as a texture. bs: its partly out of necessity, because that’s the instrument i know best. i connect most to voice, and i think that people in general are like that. i mean, it’s literally human, and it also feels primal, it feels spiritual, relatable. i feel like the best way to connect to people’s hearts and spirits. sm: do you record your music on computer? what do you use? bs: i started on garageband. i didn’t really discover it, and computer recording technology, until college. and when i did i was like, “ooo…” i just went crazy and i was doing a capella tracks. i was using the instruments. it took me a long time. i started when i was 19, just playing with it. i was recording on the mic in the computer, which is terrible. slowly building up and learning more things. i wasn’t sharing the music with anyone, but it was really therapeutic. i had a great time sitting by myself at the computer making harmonies with the computer mic. it was so much fun. i started using logic pro on the song a day 2015 album. it’s basically the same thing as garageband, just more complex and more sounds. i was on garageband for so long because i felt scared to upgrade. “i’m just going to stick with this.” but mostly, after a point, i was like, “just play with it, just figure it out.” you know, i want to learn everything and i want to be at least mediocre at everything. sm: what is your space like that you record in? do you have a home studio? bs: kind of. its basically just a room. it used to be a garage, and its just a room with a bed and books and my desk and my monitors and my computer. i actually love the way the room sounds. its got a thick rug, so its muted, not too wet. it’s a great balance. i would really love to, in future work with folks with more skills than i have. you know, musicians especially. but being able to work with a producer that that can help create a really nice dance beat. i want to make people dance. that’s a skill. i haven’t learned it. sm: why is gaining these production skills so important to you? bs: there’s a lot of maleness in all parts of music. it’s sad and frustrating. 136 current musicology the few experiences i’ve had in studios, it’s a room with a bunch of dudes in it. and you’re in a vocal booth and they’re telling you what to do. they could be really nice and really smart, but it’s just a profoundly uncomfortable atmosphere. when i listen to stuff i did in the studios it didn’t sound like me at all. it sounded like i was trying to be a certain way and it didn’t make sense. i’ve found that the male musical voice in hop-hop and electronic music is very much the same. there are no subtleties. i found myself attracted to female producers because there was just something different in the way they put their stuff together. but since getting more knowledge about logic i really want to learn everything i can about production and be a producer because i don’t want someone controlling my music, even if i’m working with someone i want to be able to say, “nah, actually, let’s do something else.” i don’t know music theory that well: the words that go with the things. i don’t read music. there are some things i don’t know and in a space with dudes and male privilege it can get very snobby. they’ll say, “you just have to do to the diminished fifth” and it’s like, “alright, alright…” you know? its traumatic. i’ll get a temper at that because it feels like such a deeper thing, like such a bigger thing that they don’t necessarily think about or even understand. even now there are more women producing their own stuff and like, you can tell. you can tell that their voice is coming through on all levels and that’s when i started looking up, the credits, “did she produce this?” it’s very exciting. performing live sm: what is your live performance of your music like? how do you accomplish it? bs: i perform live i use a loop pedal for some of my songs. i’d seen folks use loop pedals in college and i really liked it. after college we started using one for a song with the lost bois. we did one song with the lost bois; it’s a lot to set it up for one song. there’s feedback, there’s a lot of difficulties working with a loop pedal live. i didn’t think i was going to perform with a loop pedal. i was just going to play with it. but when i started performing on my own that was all i could really do and feel comfortable. i mean, i could play a little guitar but not that well and you know, working with voices and harmonies it was like the only instrument that i could really do what i wanted to do on. then i just started writing songs for especially for the loop pedal. sm: what specific loop pedal do you use? bs: i started with a boss rc-20, with one loop track. the pedal is so hearty; 137 seth mulliken it’s like a tank. you could drop them, you could run them over. they’re going to last forever. then i went to the same basic model, but with two tracks. with the second loop track you can take away or add. it could be two layers, it could be three harmonies, it could be beatbox. with two tracks, each has an undo/redo function and that allows for more complexity it terms of building it up, breaking it down, taking things away, fading things out. i got a tc-helicon voicelive touch and it has a lot of really awesome effects. but the gain is weird, and there’s feedback issues when you use it live. it’s very hard to control. it has touchscreen buttons. if you don’t have an actual button, when does the machine register you pushing it? when you have a pedal, you push it. i pushed it down, it’s there. but if it’s a touchscreen, its computer. it’s a little computer, and it scares me. sm: how does the pedal help you organize your live show? bs: the theatrics of building the loop is part of the performance. when i do a cover its fun to arrange it so you don’t know what it is until the end of the building of the loop or until i start singing. and it can’t be too long, but if it’s too short, it’s kind of boring. it feels sometimes like a magic trick, a parlor trick. loop pedals can be limiting in terms of song structure and chord structure. you know, you can’t change the chord structure in the middle of a loop song. it limits what songs you do. in theory, you do could a song with changes. i was trying to arrange “river” by joni mitchell as a holiday thing. it has an a and a b section, about sixteen bars altogether. you could do the whole song. i could build the loop and have the harmonies. but it would just take so long, i’d be sitting there, “here’s one more harmony.” i’ve tried probably all of my songs on the loop pedal, at least briefly, and there are some songs you can’t do because there’s a bridge that’s totally different or its layered in a way that i can’t really do with just voice. so, there are specific songs. if i have a show on my own, and somebody says, “oh, play this.” sometimes i just have to say, “oh, i can’t. i’m sorry. i can’t do that live.” sm: why use the loop pedal instead of pre-recorded backing tracks? bs: tracks are really impersonal. as a performer it feels lazy and it feels like you’re barely present. technically, a loop pedal is a track, but you’re making a track right there, with the audience. sometimes backing tracks can be great for the beat songs with dancing. but now when i see people perform with tracks. there’s something that’s hard to get into about it. it feels taboo now, to me. sm: in general, what are your feelings about these various technologies? 138 current musicology bs: i’m not excited about tech stuff. and it’s a weird dynamic because i feel like i’m using a new and seemingly complicated technology to do something really old: something really new and something really old. a lot of the stuff i do live, the slower stuff, is kind of like a chant. we were talking about using melody earlier, the primal need to just sing, to hear voice, to hear harmonies. it just feels like a ritual. it feels like prayer. like prayer, or like a chant. sm: how do you want your audience to respond? bs: with some of the faster songs, it’s more fun, it’s more silly, and people can bop their heads and sing along. some of the slower stuff is more meditative: “please, you can close your eyes, go somewhere else, just be… in it.” that’s what i like to do when i see music, just be with the song and for a moment be outside of my body. when i have solo shows at the end i’ll get everyone in a circle, even really big groups, even really big venues, get everyone in a circle and we’ll be shoulder-to-shoulder and we’ll close our eyes. basically, we become a loop pedal. someone offers a bassline or a beat or a repeating phrase and someone else adds on and somebody else adds on until everybody is singing or speaking or percussing. people appreciate being able to do that and share it and hear what other folks have to say. sm: you live show is sometimes more than a musical performance, right? bs: yeah, i facilitate songwriting workshops that are mini versions of the songwriting camp i went to when i was 13. everybody knows how to write a song. everybody knows what a song usually does. i think most people feel like they can’t write songs unless they play an instrument or they’ve been trained in certain way. which is fucked up and not true. people feel it’s less accessible to people just because its music. i want to make it accessible, make it okay. i mean, humans, that what we do. it’s the oldest art form. i performed at the museum of contemporary art in cleveland in november of 2015 and i did a songwriting workshop with young girls, ages 9-16. we did the song circle together. it was small group so they were a little timid and giggly. after the workshop i did a screening of my short film and sang some songs, and we did the song circle again with everyone, the young girls and the adults that came for the screening. the girls were together in one group on one side and we started the song circle. it was really beautiful, a slow song. and then these girls, they had this one melody and they were like harmonizing with each other and singing. as soon as people realized what was going on, the adults started to fade out and the girls ended the song with their melody. it was so cool, like they were show139 seth mulliken ing us that they were tentative, but they had done it before. “we know how to do this, we write songs.” sm: if you could make music that way, as opposed to using these other technologies, would you do that? bs: i would do both. the loop pedal, there’s just something special about it. and doing something alone is special. i value that. but, you know, i dream of having more resources and bigger venues and one day having a choir, a lot of people singing. and creating songs with voices and composing for many voices. have you ever seen eric whitacre, the “global choir” thing? i was so moved by that. those pieces and that process: they mixed one million voices together. sm: what are you looking to do in the future with your music? bs: with music i’m really thinking about the live show. i want to do more storytelling, instead of, “hey, how you doin’, i’m be. this song is about this,” sing the song. “this song is about that,” sing the song. i like having more of a dramatic thread, a connective thread throughout. i play with a band live now. if i have a solo show i’ll do a set with loop pedal and a set with the band. i would like a mixture, in both realms. i’d like to work with folks who can manipulate synthesized sounds live, i love that. i’d like to go deeper into both sides, real instruments and synthesized instruments, is the goal. i love and respect electronic instruments and sounds, but somebody playing a bassline on an upright bass is fantastic. it’s just organic and beautiful and imperfect, and that where i want to lean more toward. references rodgers, tara. 2010. pink noises: women on electronic music and sound. durham, nc: duke university press. steadwell, be. “worthy by be steadwell.” youtube.com. jan. 2015. https://www.youtube. com/user/queerbgirl/videos. weheliye, alexander. 2005. phonographies: grooves in sonic afro-modernity. durham, nc: duke university press. 70 current musicology ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢ 1 . “ o a ” qq = 1 4 4 ( a l l e g r o q = 8 8 – 1 0 4 ) e r n s t t o c h ( 1 9 3 0 ) s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 5 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 8 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 / ∑ f o r s a t b c h o r u s k a n n e v e n t u e l l m i t s o l o q u a r t e t t g e m a c h t w e r d e n / c a n o p t i o n a l l y b e p e r f o r m e d b y v o c a l q u a r t e t 2 ) ∑ ∑ ∑ 1 ) / ∑ ∑ ∑ p p t i r i / o f a l e g a t i s s i m o o a o a o a o d i m . a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o p p a / ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ / w i e k a s t a g n e t t e n / l i k e c a s t a n e t s k l a p p p k l a p p k l a p p [ s i m i l e ] k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p / l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i w i e k a s t a g n e t t e n / l i k e c a s t a n e t s l i p k l a p p 3 ) k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p [ s i m i l e ] k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i / o – a . . . p p w i e e i n t r i l l e r / l i k e a t r i l l o – a . . . o – a . . . / w i e k a s t a g n e t t e n / l i k e c a s t a n e t s k l a p p p k l a p p k l a p p [ s i m i l e ] k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p / k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p / l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i / o – a . . . o – a . . . o – a . . . o – a . . . / k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p ó œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó ‰ œ . j œ . j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ . j œ . j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ æ æ œ æ æ œ æ æ œ æ æ œ æ æ w æ æ w ó ‰ œ . j œ . j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ œ œ œ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ æ æ w æ æ w æ æ w æ æ w ‰ œ j œ œ œ œ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 71 ernst toch ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢ s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s / k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p ∑ f t r i t i r i t a r i t i r i t a r i t i r i / l i r i t i r i l i r i ∑ t f r i t i r i t a r i t i r i t m e n o f r i t i r i / o – a . . . o – a f t r i t i r i t a r i t i r i ∑ t o r i f t i r i / k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p f t i r i t i t h e r l i t t l e a c c e n t r i t i r i t a r i t i r i ∑ t u m e n o f r i t i r i / t i p r i l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i / t i r i t i r i t i r i t i p p r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i / ∑ k l a p p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p / t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a p p r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i / l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p t i r i l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i / t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i / k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p / t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i ‰ œ j œ œ œ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ ó æ æ œ œ ‰ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ j œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó ó œ œ œ œ œ ó œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ j œ j ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ 72 current musicology ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢ s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 5 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s / l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i r i t i r i l i r i t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p k l a p p t i r i l i k l a p p / t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i t i r i / k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p k l a p p / t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i t a r i / ∑ ∑ ∑ g o p g o g o / i f f a u a u i a u a u i a u a u i a u a u i 4 ) g o p g o g o g o k / l a p l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a 4 ) g o p g o g o g o k / ∑ ∑ ∑ g o p g o g o g o k / g o k ∑ ∑ g o g o g o / h i f f a u a a u a i a u a a u a i a u a a u a i a u a a u a i 4 ) 4 ) g o g o g o g o k / l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a l a g o g o g o g o k / ∑ ∑ ∑ g o g o g o g o k œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ j œ œ œ j œ j œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ‰ œ j œ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ œ ‰ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ ‰ œ œ j œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ j œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ j œ œ j œ œ j œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ ó œ ‰ œ ó ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ ó 3 73 ernst toch ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢ s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 8 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s / g o k k l a p p f f e p a e a o a o i o i u i u o u o f a o e k l a p p f f k l a p p / f f k l a p p o f i k l a p p f f u f o u o u o u ( k l a p p f f ) u f o u o u o / f f k l a p p o p a o e a o i a o e a o ) o f e k l a p p f f k l a p p / f f k l a p p f f u k l a p p f f k l a p p / i p a i a i a i a i a i a i p a u a u a u o a u / ∑ p p k l a p p k l a p p / u f o u o e o e a e a i a ii p p k l a p p / ∑ k a p p r a a a p k a r a a a p / i a u a u a u o a u i a u a u o a u a u i a u a u o a u a u p o c o / k l a p p k l a p p ∑ / k l a p p ∑ / k a r a a a p k a r a a a p ∑ p o c o œ j œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ ‰ œ j œ ‰ œ j œ ó ó ‰ œ œ œ œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ j œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ ‰ œ j œ ‰ œ j œ ó ó œ œ j œ ‰ œ j œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó ‰ œ j ‰ œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ ó œ œ j ‰ ‰ œ . œ . œ . œ . j œ . œ . œ . œ . j ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ó ‰ œ j ‰ œ j ó œ œ j ‰ ‰ œ . œ . œ . œ . j œ . œ . œ . œ . j ‰ œ 4 74 current musicology ° ¢ s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s / ∑ ∑ ∑ k l a p p f f k l a p p / a f f ( l e g a t i s s i m o ) o a o a o a o a o a o q u a s i t r i l l e r / l i k e a t r i l l a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o k l a p p f f k l a p p / a f f ( l e g a t i s s i m o ) o a o a o a o a o a oq u a s i t r i l l e r / l i k e a t r i l l a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o a o k l a p p f f k l a p p / ∑ ∑ ∑ k l a p p f f k l a p p ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó 75 ernst toch ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢ qq = 1 4 4 ( a l l e g r o q = 8 8 – 1 0 4 ) e r n s t t o c h ( 1 9 3 0 ) 2 . “ t a t a m ” s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 6 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 1 0 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 / ∑ 2 ) ∑ f o r s a t b c h o r u s w i t h o p t i o n a l s o l o i s t s ; o r v o c a l q u i n t e t ( s a t b b ) f o r s a t b c h o r u s w i t h o p t i o n a l s o l o i s t s ; o r v o c a l q u i n t e t ( s a t b b ) ∑ ∑ 1 ) ∑ / [ s ] ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ / p t a t a m t a t a m t a t a m t a t a t a m t a t a m t a t a m t a b e f g o b u m ∑ g o b e g o 5 ) b u m ∑ g o b e g o b e t i g a b e g o b e t i g a 3 3 / ∑ ∑ p p [ c ] g o b u m ∑ g o b e g o 4 ) b u m ∑ g o b e g e d e b e g e d e b e / [ c ] p b e t e k a t e b e t a b e t e k a t e p e t a k a t i p o t u p a t a m t a r a t i p a t a m t a r a t i p a 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / ∑ [ c ] p p l i t i p i t i p i t i l i t i p i t i p i t i p a t a p a m p a t a p a m 3 3 3 3 / b e p p [ c ] g o b u m ∑ g o b e g o b u m ∑ g o ∑ b e g o b u m ∑ g o b e g o b u m ∑ g o p a t a p a m p a t a p a m / b e t e k a t e b e t o n — ∑ ∑ ∑ 3 3 / t a m œ j ‰ œ ó ∑ p l i t i p i t i p i t i 3 3 / ó p ‰ q u a t o p u ∑ œ œ t o p e ∑ t a m f œ œ œ p a t a œ ≈ œ p a t a œ ≈ œ p a t a œ ≈ œ p a t a œ ≈ œ p a t a p a t a q u a p t o p u ∑ t o p e t a m f p a t a p a t a p a t a p a 3 3 / ∑ p p ‰ g o t o b o œ . œ . g o t o b o œ . œ . œ . g o t o b o œ . œ . œ . g o t o b o œ . œ . œ . g o t o b o g o t o b o g o t o b o g o t o b o g o t o b o g o t o 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 /[ c ] 5 ) p ‰ q u a t o p o œ œ t o p e t a œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ∑ ∑ ∑ 3 3 ‰ ™ œ . r œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . ‰ ™ œ . r œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . ˙ œ ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . ˙ œ ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ ‰ ™ œ . r œ . ≈ œ . ˙ œ ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . ˙ œ ≈ œ . œ . œ . j ‰ ‰ ™ œ . œ . œ . j ‰ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ ™ œ œ œ j ‰ ‰ ™ œ œ œ j ‰ œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ ™ œ . r œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . œ . ≈ œ . ‰ ™ œ œ œ j ‰ ‰ ™ œ œ œ j ‰ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . j ‰ œ ‰ œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 76 current musicology ° ¢ ° ¢ 1 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 1 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 3 3 3 / q u a ( p ) t o p u∑ t o p e t a m f g i t a p e t o g u∑ t u — f g i p t a t a g i t a t a g i t a t a g i t a 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / t a p a t a p a t a q u a p t o p u∑ t o p e t a g i t a p e t o g u∑ t u — f 3 3 3 3 / b o g o t o b o g o t o b o b o p g i t a p e t o g o t u — g i t a p e t o g u∑ t u — f [ s ] t a t e t i t a t e t i t a 3 3 3 3 3 3 / ∑ ∑ p g i t a p e t o g u∑ t u — g i t a p e t o g u∑ t u — f 3 3 3 3 / t a g i t a t a g i t a t a g i t a t a g i t a t a t a f [ s ] t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / ∑ r u ∑ f t u ∑ p e r u — t u — p u — t u — t u — t u m — f f t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / t e t i t a t e t i t a t e t i t a p r u ∑ f [ c ] t u ∑ p e r u — t u — p u — t u — t u — t u m — f f t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / ∑ ∑ [ s ] t f t p t t p t t p t t 3 3 3 3 / ∑ ∑ [ c ] f f t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i 3 3 3 3 ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ ≈ œ œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . j ‰ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . j œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ 2 77 ernst toch ° ¢ ° ¢ 1 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s / t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a m f t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / b u m ∑ r u ∑ f [ s ] t u ∑ p e r u — t u — p u — t u — t u — t u m — [ c ] f f t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 m f t u b u m t u b u m 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / b u m ∑ r u ∑ [ s ] f t u ∑ p e r u — t u — p u — t u — t u — t u m — [ c ] f f t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 m f t u b u m t u 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / p t t p t t p t t p t t p 3 3 3 3 / b u m ∑ f f t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 t a r e d i b u m ∑ 3 3 3 3 3 / p a t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a p t a [ s ] t a 5 ) p a t a t a p a t a t a p a t a t a p a 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 / t u b u m t u b u m [ s ] p t u b u m t u b u m k o t e t i p a t i t e t i b u m / b u m t u b u m t u b u m p [ s ] t u b u m t u b u m k o t e t i p a t i t e t i / ∑ ∑ ∑ ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ≈ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó œ j ‰ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j ‰ œ ó ‰ ™ œ r œ ≈ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ‰ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ‰ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ œ j ‰ œ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ≈ œ r œ j ‰ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ‰ ‰ ™ œ r œ j ‰ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ 3 78 current musicology ° ¢ ° ¢ ° ¢ s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s 0 s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s s o p r a n o a l t o t e n o r b a s s / t a [ c ] p p i t a p e t a p i t a p a t a p i t a p e t a p i t a p i t a p i t a p e t a p i t a p a t a p i t a p e t a p i t a / t e n p [ c ] t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n / b u m p t a [ c ] p i t a p e t a p i t a p a t a p i t a p e t a p i t a p i t e n t e n t e n / ∑ p t e n [ c ] t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n / p i [ s ] p u — t o p e t a p i t e p o t u — / t e n t e n t e n t e n p u — [ s ] t o p e t a p i t e p o / t a p i t a p e t a p i t a p a t a p i t a p e t a p i t a p i / t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n t e n / ∑ k o p p p e t e p a t e k i t e p o [ c ] k l a n f f p l a n / t u t u — ∑ [ c ] k l a n f f p l a n / [ s ] p u — ( ) t o p e t a p i t e p o t u — k o p p p e t e p a t e k i t e p o [ c ] [ c ] k l a n f f p l a n / [ s ] p u — ( ) t o p e t a p i t e p o t u — k o p p p e t e p a t e k i t e p o k l a n f f p l a n ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ‰ œ . j œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . j ‰ œ ó ‰ œ . j œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ . j ‰ œ . j ‰ œ . j ‰ ‰ œ . j œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . j ‰ œ ó œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ œ . j ‰ œ . j ‰ œ . j ‰ œ . j ‰ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ‰ œ . j œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . œ . j ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ó ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ‰ œ j œ j ‰ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ r ≈ ‰ œ ó ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j œ j œ j ‰ 4 79 ernst toch editor’s note to gesprochene musik, 1. “o–a” and 2. “ta–tam” christopher caines 1. use strict german pronunciation of all vowel and consonant sounds throughout, making special note of the umlauted vowels. (it is important to remember that german vowels are pure, like italian vowels, not diphthongized, as in most english dialects.) the breves and macrons (˘ and ¯; short and long marks, respectively) are not to be interpreted as indications of light and heavy stress, as these symbols are used in prosody. rather, they indicate german vowel quantity. for example, tŭ–ri–ti–ri and ŭ–o–ŭ should be pronounced with the u sound in the word foot; and the last syllable of ka–ra–ba–wăp sounds like “vup,” rhyming with the english word up. i leave it to each conductor or group or singers to decide how to pronounce vowels that have no length mark, and suggest that they should probably in general be pronounced short, except for i, which i think should always be long. 2. the composer’s manuscript metronome marking of quarter = 144 is clearly an artifact of the premiere, where the music was “performed” by a speeded–up recording. this would seem to be vocally impossible and should perhaps be interpreted to mean as fast as possible without sacrificing clarity of articulation. 3. toch’s intention in bracketing this figure in the alto part in mm. 5–10 is not entirely clear. i believe the composer means that, since the alto part has the leading line here, for the sake of clarity the alto(s) should not sing the klapp klapp figure unless necessary for reinforcement. in performances by a chorus, the altos could also sing mm. 4–12 divisi. 4. toch forgot to include the text underlay for these notes. it is clear that the tenor should sing –la on the downbeat of m. 28 (cf. m. 32). i think that it is most idiomatic and musical for the alto to sing –i on the downbeats of m. 28 and m. 32; however, toch might have intended the alto to prolong the previous syllable across the barline in both cases, singing –u into m. 28 and –a into m. 32. 5. the [c] in m. 10 and the [s] in m. 25 appear to be courtesy markings. it is however possible that toch forgot to add an [s] marking in m. 6 in the bass and/or a [c] marking in m. 21 or m. 23 in the soprano. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 99 from coups that silence ezan-s to ezan-s that silence coups!: sonic resistance to the 2016 turkish military coup erol koymen at around 1 a.m. turkish time on july 16, 2016, president recep tayyıp erdoğan joined a live cnntürk broadcast via the anchor’s smartphone, facetiming in from an unknown location. during the preceding hours, a military faction calling itself the “peace at home council” had initiated a coup, taking control of strategic sites in istanbul, sonically blasting cities with low-flying jets, and issuing an announcement over the state media outlet trt (abc haber 2016). from the smartphone screen, erdoğan denounced the coup, insisting that the coup plotters would “pay dearly” (çok ağır ödeyecekler) and issuing a call to viewers to resist the coup: “i am making a call to my nation: i invite our entire turkish nation to our city squares and airports, and as a nation let’s gather at the squares and airports” (just watch 2016). some 6000 miles away, in texas, i heard erdoğan’s call in real time. switching anxiously between turkish and international media outlets, i watched the forced abandonment of the cnntürk news desk, heard bombs hit the turkish parliament during an interview given from inside the building, and listened to turkish officials try to reassure the public that the government was still in control. over the course of his five-minute facetime call, president erdoğan had forcefully repeated several times his vow to punish the coup plotters and his call for turkish citizens to take to the streets, but from my vantage point—and as most turks would likely agree—he appeared a leader rapidly losing his grip on power. within three hours, however, president erdoğan had landed at istanbul’s atatürk international airport and addressed the world in a televised speech, effectively signaling that the coup attempt had failed (arango and yeginsu 2016). how was such a dramatic shift possible? following ethnomusicologists denis gill (2016) and evrim hikmet öğüt (2016), i contend that sound profoundly shaped the course of the coup attempt. after president erdoğan issued his call via facetime for the turkish nation to take to the squares, imams and muezzins in mosques all over turkey powerfully echoed his words with islamic calls to prayer—specifically the ezan and sela calls—and spoken directions urging turkish citizens to take to the squares and “defend democracy.” these calls prompted turkish citizens to 100 current musicology pour out of their homes and resist the coup attempt, with 290 people killed and more than 1,400 injured over the course of the ultimately successful resistance to the coup during the early hours of july 16 (mckenzie and sanchez 2016). i argue that during the early hours of july 16 islamic calls to prayer sonically forged turkish citizens into a collectivized body politic that asserted its opposition to the coup by taking control of urban streets and squares. my first goal in this article is to draw on ethnomusicological theories of collectivized music making to examine the process by which islamic calls to prayer helped forge that body politic. i turn to youtube videos and journalistic accounts in order to hone in on the coup resistance as it unfolded in real time. in so doing, i consider the ways in which online platforms themselves become sites for ongoing resistance and political subject formation. at the same time, these platforms open up a space for voices of skepticism amidst overwhelming public denunciation of the coup and support for president erdoğan, and thus offer a glimpse of alternative reactions to the coup and its resistance. the occupation of urban streets and squares inspired by calls to prayer continued over the weeks following the coup attempt through nightly “democracy vigils” (demokrasi nöbetleri) held in urban squares leading up to a massive august 7 “democracy and martyrs meeting” (demokrasi ve şehitler mitingi) in istanbul. my second goal is to demonstrate that these nightly gatherings harnessed and extended the sonically forged collective effervescence of the immediate coup aftermath (durkheim 1995), embedding the sounds and collective experience of a new, transformed turkey into the stone and concrete of urban streets and squares. as these urban streets and squares were laden with new sounds, new associations, and new experiences, they were transformed from spaces that had birthed the secularist turkish republic to spaces where a new, neo-ottoman turkey emerged, transforming the turkish public sphere in the process. the urban soundscape in turkey has long been the site of ideological conflict, but control has more often come from above than below. as this article’s title indicates, the sonic resistance to the july 15 coup marks an unprecedented turning of the sonic tables relative to the 1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997 coups in turkey orchestrated by the turkish military, which for much of the twentieth century considered itself the guardian of secularist kemalism (ahmad 1993; zürcher 2004). for example, as part of a project of national identity formation, during the 1930s kemalist elites attempted careful manipulation of the urban soundscape—especially in the new republican showcase ankara—which was to be marked sonically more by the sounds of military parades and symphonic concerts than turkish art music and islamic calls to prayer (bartsch 2011; değirmenci 2006; 101 erol koymen o’connell 2000; azak 2010). upon state directive, moreover, the call to prayer was given in turkish during the period from 1932 to 1950 so that, where it was clearly audible, it marked a particular brand of turkish islam distinct from perceived ottoman and arab backwardness (azak 2010). according to martin stokes’s (1992) account, this urban showcase was shattered from the 1960s on by the sounds of the popular arabesk genre, which met with swift denunciation from kemalist elites for its perceived associations with arab fatalism and mushrooming urban shantytowns populated by rural migrants. during the same period, violent street clashes between leftist and rightist youth groups paved the road to the 1980 military coup. during the 2013 gezi park protests triggered by president erdoğan’s plan to replace a central istanbul park with a neo-ottoman barracks turned shopping mall, resistance to the allegedly heavy-handed tactics of erdoğan’s government was given sonic support by the “gezi park philharmonic,” touring pianist davide martello (brumfield 2013), and local residents’ banging on pots and pans (seeman 2015). in short, where prior coups brought a military-imposed silence, where urban kemalist elites previously asserted control over urban soundscapes, and where the gezi events pitted civilians against the civilian government, in the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt a broad range of civilians brought together by islamic calls to prayer defended the civilian government against a military coup. this unprecedented convergence of sonic, social, and political forces parallels and at the same time shapes an epochal shift in turkish republican politics in which segments of society formerly left out of the national dialogue raise their voices together with the country’s imams and muezzins. the use of imams, muezzins, and islamic calls to prayer to foment resistance was not unprecedented, however, in the territory that constitutes modern-day turkey. nor was this the first case in which social media facilitated large-scale protest. as denise gill (2016) has noted, sela and ezan were used to call ottoman muslims to arms during the world war i allied siege of gallipoli and during the greek siege of izmir during the turkish war of independence. these events—which loom large in the turkish republican founding narrative that still resonates with many kemalist turks (navaro-yashin 2002; özyürek 2006; white 2014)—now form a historical parallel with the resistance to the 2016 coup attempt for erdoğan’s supporters. elsewhere in the middle east during the twenty-first century, moreover, social media was crucial to the arab spring protests (brown, guskin, and mitchell 2012). thus, though the nationwide coordination of islamic calls to prayer through facetime and text messaging on the night of the coup attempt was unprecedented, there was a precedent for the use 102 current musicology of calls to prayer to foment resistance in turkey’s ottoman past and for using social media to organize resistance in the contemporary middle east. erdoğan and his followers have drawn strategically on these precedents to imagine a new turkey rooted in the distant ottoman past rather than the immediate republican past, much as the previous “new turkey” founded in 1923 by mustafa kemal atatürk rejected its immediate ottoman past in favor of an ancient turkic one (lewis 1999). methodological hybridity the fact that i was able to follow the coup attempt in real time while perched anxiously on the edge of my sofa 6,000 miles away exemplifies a truly unprecedented aspect of resistance to the 2016 coup attempt: the hybrid virtual-physical sphere in which it played out. as in past coups, the military faction leading the 2016 coup dutifully took control over the state media outlet trt, but they neglected to account for the numerous other outlets in turkey’s burgeoning twenty-first century media market. thus, though separated by an ocean, i followed developments in real time alongside turkish citizens, even facetiming family in ankara who were similarly monitoring the situation from home. echoing this virtual-physical hybridity methodologically, in this article i extend my virtual view from the couch in texas into physical urban spaces in turkey occupied by sonically collectivized resistance through analysis of online media and videos. thus, one of my primary methodological goals in this article is to illustrate a case of ethnomusicological research conducted in real time using online media. moreover, these online platforms themselves become sites at which turkish citizens revisit coup resistance and continue to construct their individual and collective political subjectivities, a process to which online comments sections give access (cooley, meizel, and syed 2008). it must be noted, however, that this method of data collection can only provide a limited view into the role of sound in the coup attempt. online media and youtube videos are subject to change, deletion, and censorship—particularly in erdoğan’s post-coup turkey. the range of video of the coup and its aftermath uploaded to youtube is necessarily constrained by the segment of the turkish population filming and uploading video to this platform. and not to be forgotten is the fact that search algorithms on the internet platforms that i employ present me with material filtered along the previous paths that i have trodden across the internet. but these caveats arguably constitute merely the reappearance in a novel setting of the inherently limited subject position from which any ethnographic inquiry is necessarily conducted (clifford and marcus 1986). as a texasborn ethnomusicology student whose father hails from ankara, i bring a 103 erol koymen particularly positioned perspective to this inquiry whether i am seated on the couch in texas or standing in the square in turkey. thus, i propose, as in any ethnographic study, that the data-collection methods employed in this article—detailed further below—are intended to give a limited opening rather than a conclusive ending to inquiry. examining islamic and urban soundscapes a number of scholars have engaged with the sonic dimensions of social life in the islamicate world, often focusing on contested sonic negotiation of urban public space. most significant for this article, anthropologist charles hirschkind examines resistance to state-promulgated secularism in cairo by islamic bodies formed through what he calls ethical “sedimentation”— the shaping of a pious self through the “affective, kinesthetic, and gestural” practice of listening to cassette sermons (2006, 28). other publications have focused explicitly on islamic calls to prayer in urban spaces. for example, john eade (1996) and regula qureshi (1996) have considered sonic negotiations of islamic spaces in the uk and canada. tong soon lee (2003) has argued that giving the call to prayer over the radio and text message unites muslims in the pluralistic singaporean public sphere, leading to reflections on the role of technology in maintaining identity in a pluralistic society. chapters from philip bohlman (2013) and andrew eisenberg (2013) have examined the contested use and reception of the call to prayer in urban spaces in western europe and kenya. most recently, art historian niall atkinson’s (2016) pathbreaking work has examined the structuring and contestation of the urban public sphere in renaissance florence through bell ringing. in this article, i build on these studies through examination of ezan and sela during a moment of highly concentrated political upheaval and its ongoing aftermath. i contribute to a small but growing corpus of writing on the summer 2016 coup attempt, including work on sound and calls to prayer (gill 2016; öğüt 2016), the circulation of political slogans and symbols (chovanec 2016), and feminist perspectives on the coup and its aftermath (gökariksel 2017). theorizing bodies and sound in space a concern for the role of sonic practices in defining and producing public spaces in turkey and political subjectivity within those spaces underlies this article. in recent years, geographers such as doreen massey (2005) and nigel thrift (2009) have articulated a conception of space as continually recreated historical production. rejecting a kantian conception, thrift has claimed that “rather than space being viewed as a container within which 104 current musicology the world proceeds, space is seen as a co-product of those proceedings” (95), while massey has argued that, “what is needed is to uproot ‘space’ from that constellation of concepts in which it has so unquestioningly . . . been embedded (stasis, closure, representation) and to settle it among another set of ideas (heterogeneity, relationality, coevalness)” (13). these authors thus open the door toward a conception of space continually shaped and reshaped by a multitude of forces, including sounds and the publics they constitute. ethnomusicologist thomas turino’s theorizing of music’s affective power and its role in social formation provides a framework for examining the process by which islamic calls to prayer fomented resistance. over the course of several publications, turino (1999, 2009, 2014) applies peircean phenomenological semiotics to analysis of music, sound, experience, and affect. i contend with turino that “by focusing attention on experience, [peircean semiotics] brings us back to concrete individuals who are the loci of actual musical experiences and social life” (2014, 187), and thus i find this framework useful for conducting careful analysis of the role of sound in the aftermath of the coup—allowing me to probe beneath the surface of such broad and much bandied-about concepts as “embodiment,” “affect,” and “identity.” the specific nature of the sign is crucial in peirce’s system. signs operate on three different levels: firstness, an “entity without relation”; secondness, a “direct relationship between two entities without the mediation of a third;” and thirdness, which “involves the mediation of a first and a second by a third so as to generate something new” (turino 2014, 190). adapting these levels to music and sound, we might say that beethoven’s eroica symphony is a first; the eroica symphony causing a listener to close her eyes and hum along is a second; and a musicologist teaching the student that the eroica symphony narrates beethoven’s struggle with fate is a third. peirce likewise identifies three varieties of sign. the first is the icon, which links a sign and its object through “some perceived resemblance between the two” (turino 2014, 192). the second is the index, which turino calls “the most direct, actual, reality-saturated sign type” (195). indexical signs form through “the connecting of a sign and object by a perceiver through co-occurrence; i.e. the perceiver has experienced the sign and object together, often repeatedly, and so their connection is simply true or a fact” (195). indices often sit at the intersections of the body, habit, and individual and collective identity, and thus are significant for my analysis here. turino writes that “indexical connections become fundamental to the very composition of the self ” comprised of “a body, plus the individual’s total collection of habits of thought and practice” (195). finally, the third type of 105 erol koymen sign is the symbol, which for the purposes of this article is understood as a linguistic sign operating at a higher level of abstraction using agreed-upon definition within a given context. i expand my analysis from the individual body to the sonically collectivized body politic through turino’s discussion of participatory music making and rhythmic and social synchronicity in music as social life (2008). the rhythmic affordances of music—its ability to organize sounds and bodies into regular, repeated patterns—are crucial to the musically forged social synchronicity that turino discusses: repetition of the rhythmic groove and predictable musical forms are essential to getting and staying in sync with others. social synchrony is a crucial underpinning of feelings of social comfort, belonging, and identity. in participatory performances, these aspects of being human come to the fore. when things are going well they are experienced directly in a heightened way, and the performance as a whole becomes [an] . . . index—a direct effect of social unity and belonging. this is one reason that group music making and dance so often form the center of rituals, ceremonies, and activities intended to strengthen and articulate social bonds. . . . it is in the doing that the feelings and direct experience of being in sync with others is most pronounced, and this is one reason that participatory music is so valuable in societies throughout the world. it is also why politicians, fascists, and nationalists use this same potential (44). rhythm—or its lack—thus comes to the fore in my analysis of sela and ezan in the aftermath of the coup listening to coup resistance i now turn to the coup resistance. in this section, i present the results of internet-based ethnographic analysis of sonically forged resistance during the 2016 coup attempt and its aftermath. i conduct this analysis in two parts. first, i examine video of sonic resistance to the coup. second, i examine discourse in the turkish media about the role of sound in the 2016 coup attempt. but first, a bit more background on the sounds that i consider in this section: the sela and the ezan, or call to prayer. of these two, the ezan—recited five times daily in arabic and considered to be a form of recitation rather than a type of music—is far more common (çağrıcı 1995). despite the outsized role it played during the hours after the coup attempt, the sela—comprised of an islamic text recited in arabic—is less common. considered a form of religious music, sela settings can be composed but are more often improvised according to the rules of the turkish modal system makam (özcan 2009). turkish interlocutors have not claimed a 106 current musicology figure 1: screenshot taken from youtube video titled “the sela is being given in the aftermath of the turkish coup” showing the mosque around which crowds gathered (müzik player 2016). great deal of familiarity with the sela, consistently indicating only that it is usually recited in conjunction with funerals. as noted above, in this article i use the term “islamic calls to prayer” to refer to both the sela and ezan unless further disambiguation is necessary. listening to coup resistance: youtube videos i analyzed video derived from a youtube search of the term “türkiye 2016 darbe sela” (turkey 2016 coup sela). this search yielded around 500 videos, of which i examined the first ten. for purposes of analysis, i organize these ten videos into three groups. the first group of videos is distinguished by its focus on large crowds in urban settings accompanied by sela/ezan. the second group of videos is distinguished by its focus on the sela/ezan in the absence of crowds. the third group is composed of three “outliers”: a set of still photographs set to a sela recording (yeni türkiye 2016), a video showing an imam as he recites the sela, and a video showing a group of young men reciting the sela in nusaybin on the syrian border (i̇pekyolu gazetesi 2016). i do not analyze all of these videos, but rather focus on those i deem most relevant to my argument, devoting particular attention to those in the first group due to their focus on large crowds. the two videos in the first category are both characterized by a relatively large viewership and high numbers of comments, with a viewership at the time of writing in fall 2016 of around 53,000 (müzik player 2016) 107 erol koymen and 22,000 (ctv 2016). at the beginning of both videos, a large crowd, mostly male, is seen moving slowly to the accompaniment of sela along an urban street—likely in istanbul in the first video, the eastern city of elazığ in the second. in both cases, the focus of the camera person and the crowd is on the mosque from which the sela emanates. both crowds remain fairly quiet through the end of the sela. in both videos, however, once the calls to prayer have been completed, the crowd erupts into a non-sung, rhythmically organized chant “ya allah bismilla allahü ekber” (“o god, in the name of god, god is the greatest”) lasting for several minutes. after the crowd finishes chanting, the pitched, nonrhythmic calls to prayer resume. in one of the videos, this is followed by spoken instructions for resisting the coup figure 2: screenshots of crowd assembling in front of the mosque (müzik player 2016). 108 current musicology attempt emanating from the mosque. these instructions provoke applause from the crowd, which then begins a sung chant of “allahü ekber, illallah.” islamic calls to prayer have long existed as a sonic force widely experienced in turkish urban settings, where stone and concrete resonate with calls to prayer often coming from several different directions at once. the penetration of this sonic force has increased in recent years due to the increasing use of powerful loudspeakers and a surge in mosque construction that have ensured that no turkish citizen remains uncalled (abc gazetesi 2016). indeed, there could arguably be no more indexical set of sonic signs in turkey than islamic calls to prayer repeated multiple times each day. as turino describes, the type of repeated indexical signification constitutes subjects through “particularly direct . . . un-reflected upon . . . effects at a variety of levels of focal awareness” (2014, 196). for many, though not all, turkish citizens, moreover, calls to prayer index the practices of islam and are affectively and somatically linked to the bodily routines of daily prayer. the result is what hirschkind calls an ethical “sedimentation,” a “somatic learning” that brings about a collectivity through a “shared moral orientation . . . that finds embodiment in a coordination of gestures, bodies, and hearts fashioned as a mode of pious sociability and public engagement” (2006, 122). in other words, the sound of the call to prayer is linked indexically to the physical rituals of daily prayer in a positive feedback loop in which sound, bodily movement, spirituality, and group identity grow ever more enmeshed. during the early hours of july 16, however, for many turkish citizens calls to prayer registered not only as an index of daily life and islamic practice, but also as a symbol at the level of thirdness. after erdoğan issued his call for citizens to take to the streets and defend democracy via facetime, sela and ezan became symbols signifying affiliation with erdoğan and resistance to the coup. thus, during the hours after the coup attempt, the set of signs emanating from turkish mosques constituted an affectively embodied index of daily life and islamic practices at the level of secondness and a symbolic signification of resistance at the level of thirdness—a powerful, semiotically dense force for unifying turkish citizens in body and mind against the coup attempt. nevertheless, as a would-be collectivizing sonic force, islamic calls to prayer lack a framework of rhythmic repetition that would support possibilities for corporeal synchronization. in the aftermath of the coup, however, the spoken chant “ya allah bismilla allahü ekber” that erupted in response to the sela filled this role. the chant’s rhythmically repetitive structure provided a path to feelings of embodied social unity through sonic and corporeal synchronicity, and thus transformed the group of 109 erol koymen individuals into a synchronized, collectivized body politic capable of commanding urban streets and squares in resistance. online comments on these videos indicate that individuals used the platform to prolong the collectivized emotional state that emerged in the aftermath of the coup, whether or not they experienced that state by taking to the streets and squares or by accessing them virtually via youtube. these commenters address the role of the sela and ezan explicitly in highly emotional terms such as “my god, don’t silence these crystal clear selas until doomsday,” “my god, don’t leave my fatherland deprived of these ezan-s,” and the pithy “from coups that silence the ezan to ezan-s that silence the coups!” one commenter used the platform to point out that resistance to the coup had brought turkish citizens from different backgrounds together: “i am also a kurd and i also went to the airport [to resist the coup and greet erdoğan], we are one community of the faithful, we are one nation in muhammed, and we resisted as one iron hand.” for others, the videos become vehicles for deep religious sentiment. one commenter, using the online name “the last ottoman,” wrote “my hairs were standing on end, thousands of angels descended to the earth at that moment. with god’s consent, this people poured into the streets for god, for nation, for martyrdom. god is the greatest.” another, whose online profile shows an image of the kaaba in mecca, wrote, “may it be accepted by the people reading this. my hairs were standing on end. may god be contented; we the turkish nation are god’s soldiers on the earth. i have watched this video 50 times.” despite the varying degrees of religious fervor they exhibit, these comments indicate the perceived significance of islamic calls to prayer for coup resistance and the platform that youtube videos provide for reflection upon and deepening of an emergent, affectively embodied collectivity. not all turkish citizens see a place for themselves in that collectivity, however. there are a small number of dissenting voices to be found among the youtube comments, such as this one expressing belief in us complicity in the coup attempt: the department of religious affairs [that coordinated islamic recitation] already knew of the coup the day before; the goal of this coup was not to take the country—if that had been the case it would have been in every city. with 300 soldiers what kind of a coup is this my friend? also, a real coup happens at 3 while everyone is sleeping, not at 10 in the evening. because of tayip [erdoğan] the usa has turkey under its finger and unfortunately our people has been very badly tricked. where this commenter claimed that erdoğan and the us government were operating together, another commenter appeared to question the sincerity 110 current musicology of erdoğan’s democratic values, writing “i have another question for you all. how is it that sharia erdoğan also defends democracy???????? he has defended nothing, he just uses that word to play with your minds. you are a believer in sharia and you defend the word democracy??????????” thus, though the majority of youtube commenters use the platform to reflect upon calls to prayer and deepen their feelings of solidarity with coup resistance, at least a few—perhaps capitalizing on the anonymity the online platform provides—use it to voice their resistance to the officially promulgated and widely accepted narrative of the coup attempt and its resistance. whereas the two videos in the first group focus on large crowds in the streets and yield insight into the effects of islamic calls to prayer on crowds, videos in the second group are characterized by their focus on calls to prayer in the absence of crowds. these videos, each of which received around 10,000 views and drew few comments, deepen several insights gained above. by homing in on calls to prayer in the absence of large crowds, these videos bring the sounds that forged coup resistance to the fore. whereas in the two videos discussed above viewers might recall or imagine an experience taking to the streets and squares, these videos encourage a more intimate interaction with calls to prayer and coup resistance perhaps only possible through private access to youtube. one video in group two stands out for its juxtaposition of the nonkoranic, turkish-language words recited from the mosque with a description of the sela and its role in resisting the coup (serhat güzel 2016). in figure 3: screenshot taken from youtube video titled “announcement from the mosque in the aftermath of the turkish coup” showing the minaret from which announcements were made (serhat güzel 2016). 111 erol koymen this video, the camera is focused on a nondescript urban mosque, allowing the spoken words emanating from the minaret to dominate the frame of perception: don’t leave us without life, my god! . . . don’t leave us without muslim piety, my god! . . . don’t leave us without mosques and ezan, my god! don’t leave us without a shepherd, my god! don’t leave us without love for you, without water, without air . . . my god! this statement conflates the possibility of a failed coup resistance with the prospect of abandonment by god. the muezzin’s voice as he recites is affectively charged, taking advantage of the upward inflection of turkish on the syllable before the negating postposition in the repeated word for “don’t leave us”—“bırakma”—for dramatic effect. interestingly, the video’s description makes no mention of the spoken text, focusing only on sela: in istanbul as the people were flowing in the streets the sounds of sela began to be heard. when one went silent the other began the sela. quickly, all the sounds of sela being spread from the mosques had caused istanbul to rise up. everyone is flowing to the streets and city centers. what is the sela’s meaning? in the time before television and the internet, the sela was a way to give news. selas are being read with the purpose of both giving a reaction to and giving news about the coup attempt. while this written description of the video seems to be somewhat at odds with its content, it can perhaps alert us to a mixing of semiotic levels. this unremarked-upon juxtaposition of heard speech and description of sela might prompt us to question turino’s relatively sharp distinction between the immediacy of affectively charged musical sound at the level of secondness and speech at the level of thirdness. this distinction appears blurred by a case in which musical sound carrying a highly formalized text (the arabic religious text of the sela) not easily comprehensible to most turks begins to take on meaning as a symbol of resistance while the semantic content of language spoken in turkish seems to appeal for its affective, “musical” qualities. nevertheless, though this blurring of semiotic levels may have played a role on the night of the coup, the preloading of spoken instruction with calls to prayer—the preparation of the mind through the body—does seem to have been consistently applied on the night of the coup attempt. and this preloading is illustrated nowhere more clearly than in the group 112 current musicology three video that stands out dramatically for its level of viewership—around 361,000 at the time of collection in fall 2016 (şuayip 13091928 2016). in the video, which was picked up in the news media and featured in an article in the yeni akit newspaper titled “the muezzin who cried during the sela on the night of july 15” (15 temmuz gecesi sala’da ağlayan muezzin) (2016), the camera is focused on a muezzin in the aegean region city of manisa as he recites the sela into a microphone, the sounds of blaring car horns in the background. upon completing the sela, we see the muezzin reach down and pick up a piece of paper from which he reads the following announcement: we invite our honorable people and nation to be in a state of unity and togetherness alongside our government. we invite our honorable people and nation to be in a state of unity and togetherness alongside our government and homeland. as in the videos in group one, instructional text at the level of thirdness is read only after islamic calls to prayer at the level of secondness have affectively tuned listeners’ bodies. like the video analyzed in group two, however, this video too seems to allow for a more intimate interaction. and this point reinforces a key emphasis of this article: the multiple virtual and physical sites at which coup resistance was carried out. even as the calls of erdoğan and the muezzins to take to the streets and squares brought about a collectivized occupation of physical urban spaces crucial for successful resistance to the coup attempt, this occupation becomes accessible in real figure 4: screenshot of the muezzin reading out instructions after reciting the sela (şuayip 13091928 2016) 113 erol koymen time long after the fact to me and to turkish citizens both individually and collectively in the virtual spaces of youtube. even as calls also sounded at more intimate registers and in more intimate spaces both virtual and physical—traveling from erdoğan’s zoomed-in face on his smartphone to turkish citizens sitting in their homes, from the voice of a crying muezzin to the ear of a solitary citizen—they are circulated nationwide and internationally in the media. but, as seen above in the analysis of comments, even as these spaces collapse into each other to accommodate one and all in the aftermath of the coup, they leave only a limited space for dissenting voices. these voices become only slightly more audible in the analysis of print media that follows. listening to coup resistance: news media for the analysis of discourse on sound and the coup in the turkish news media, i entered “türkiye 2016 darbe sela” (turkey 2016 coup sela) into the google search bar, limiting results to “news” and the time span to the period between july 15, 2016 and august 15, 2016. this search yielded many articles addressing the role of islamic calls to prayer in the 2016 coup attempt. excluding articles from non-turkish sources, i collected and read the eight articles on the first page of results, separating them into two groups. while articles in the first group address the sela and the process by which it called citizens to the streets, the second group documents incidents of citizen attacks on imams reading the sela. though the articles frame these attackers negatively, i read between the lines, listening to voices of opposition to coup opposition. as zeynep kurtuluş korkman (2017) has noted with regard to secularist women’s precarious positions in the coup resistance movement, these voices of opposition have been increasingly difficult to access in the midst of post-coup masculinist militarization. by listening for these hidden perspectives, i point to the potentially negative indexical associations of islamic calls to prayer for secularist turks. of the five articles addressing the logistics of calls to prayer on the night of the coup attempt, one is especially notable for its detailed account of the sela and the process by which it came to be recited in response to the coup. titled “sela read after the coup attempt” (darbe girişimi sonrası sela okundu), this article was published in the bureaucrat news (memur haber) during the coup in the early hours of july 16. the article provides information on the sela: “in the time before television and the internet, the sela was a way to give news. sela-s are being read with the purpose of both giving a reaction to and giving news about the coup attempt.” the article then gives a detailed account of the process by which the sela reading was coordinated: 114 current musicology the head of the ministry of religion, mehmet görmez, invited the citizens to oppose this uprising without resorting to violence. according to the information taken from the ministry of religion by an anadolu ajans reporter, görmez’s message against the uprising was sent to all imams in a short message. beginning his message by using the expression “my religious volunteer,” görmez made this call: “today the greatest duty to fall upon us to do is to protect the law of our nation. the trampling of our country’s and nation’s unity, peace, and prosperity, the crushing by force and violence of national self-determination, can never be accepted. as our nation’s spiritual guides, we are together with our nation in opposition to all extra-legal undertakings. i invite all of you from our minarets, which are symbols of our freedom, to make our people oppose this great treachery without resorting to violence. tonight, the minarets’ lights will be lit, and by giving the sela our nation will be invited to lay claim to our nation’s law.” in addition to providing a view into the logistics of the unified sonic resistance provided by islamic calls to prayer, the statement from görmez is significant for its call to “oppose our people to this great treachery without resorting to violence” (halkımıza bu büyük ihanete şiddete başvurmadan karşı [koymak]). this language indicates a premeditated awareness that islamic calls to prayer would forge a collective resistance that could “lay claim” to the nation’s streets and squares. articles in the second group focus on attacks committed against those reciting calls to prayer and thus give a view into the alternative indexical significations of islamic calls to prayer in the response to the july 15 coup. two of the three articles document attacks in turkey’s third largest city, izmir, located on the aegean coast. this is not likely a coincidence, as izmir is the largest city in turkey that consistently contributes a plurality of its votes to the republican people’s party (cumhuriyet halk partisi), which was founded by mustafa kemal atatürk and constitutes the main opposition to erdoğan’s justice and development party (adalet ve kalkınma partisi) (seçim.haberler.com 2015). indeed, there are reports that the order to recite sela was not followed as assiduously in izmir as in other large cities (gill, pers. comm.). citizens of izmir, in other words, were likely less inclined to accept calls to prayer as a call for coup resistance. whereas for pious muslim turks islamic calls to prayer index islamic practices, for secular and non-religious turks, strongly represented in izmir, islamic calls to prayer index a sense of unease or even hostility toward perceived islamic backwardness, provoking some citizens to resist the imams and muezzins reciting sela and ezan on the night of the coup attempt. an article published in the habertürk newspaper details an attack on the recitation of sela and gives a fascinating view into the situating of sela 115 erol koymen and the coup attempt vis-à-vis the turkish war of independence. the article, titled “they attacked a muezzin who was reciting sela” (sela okuyan müezzine saldırdılar), notes that “it has come to light that, on the evening of july 15, after the coup attempt by a group within the turkish armed forces, a muezzin in izmir’s narlıdere district reciting the sela according to the ministry of religion’s instructions was attacked.” in a video accompanying the article, the mosque’s imam gives the following spoken account: the use of sela is one of the most important actions in our glorious history. when izmir was suffering under the greek occupation, when the greek army began to occupy, the selas from the minarets awoke the nation and made the call for unity and cooperation. also at that time . . . the sela voices that are part of our nature awoke the nation and played an important role in the war of independence. the turkish war of independence occupies an outsized place in the turkish collective consciousness as the nation’s founding struggle. the imam’s comparison to the use of sela around the time of the war of independence can perhaps be interpreted as an astute attempt to appeal to turkish republican patriotism. the message seems to be that izmir residents—would-be coup sympathizers among them—should not fear the sela, but rather see it as the herald of a turning point rooted in the past but looking toward a new turkish future. i include a final article—not the product of a targeted search—as a conclusion to this section’s examination of calls to prayer and the process by which they forged unified resistance in the immediate aftermath of the coup. titled “who had the night of july 15 sela and ezan idea, what kind of effects did it have?” (15 temmuz gecesi sela ve ezan fikri kimindi, ne tür etkileri oldu?), and published on november 13 in the eastern anatolian van politics (van siyaseti) newspaper, the article foregrounds the importance of sela and ezan to coup resistance: if the night of july 15 evolved from a dark night to a bright morning, there are several contributing factors. the most effective of those was our president’s saying “i call my nation to the streets and airports” and his leaving and meeting with the nation. the second biggest factor however in my opinion was the delivering to the ear of sela and ezan from the minarets by our nation’s holy children. . . . i want to give two examples of what kind of effect the reading of sela and ezan created. one: on the night of july 15 among the first places in istanbul attacked by coup plotters was the police building on vatan avenue. immediately behind that building there are two historic and highly spiritually valuable mosques: hırka-ı şerif and mesih ali paşa. 116 current musicology after the ezan and selas read from the minarets of those two mosques (following our own calls) the citizens [of the neighborhood] fatih flowed to the vatan police building. it was such that it turned into a flood of people from the akşemsettin, keçeciler, sarıgüzel, kocasinan, balipaşa, and fevzipaşa avenues. two: two days after the coup had been resisted, one of my friends who had been on the july 15 martyrs bridge said this while we were talking: “we met right in the vicinity of the hazreti ali mosque by the entrance to the quite crowded bridge. we asked ourselves ‘what are we going to do?’ we hesitated at the point of whether we should walk on to the bridge or not. we waited for a reason, something to make us start moving. suddenly we heard the sela from the minaret of the hazreti ali mosque. after that the ezan started to be read. a spirit came to all of us [hepimize bir can geldi]. we all started with tekbir [saying “allahuekber”]. as if emptying a trough, we all started to walk toward the bridge.” these two accounts illustrate the combined indexical and symbolic signification of islamic calls to prayer and their collectivizing function in the immediate aftermath of the coup attempt. particularly in the second example, the indexical effect of islamic calls to prayer comes to the fore (“a spirit came to all of us”). this “spirit” was the affectively embodied sediment of countless past encounters with islamic calls to prayer. this indexicality of calls to prayer was also loaded with symbolic meaning, however—erdoğan’s facetime call to the nation had made it clear that sela and ezan were recited in opposition to the coup attempt and in support of the civilian government. the subsequent group chanting (“we all started with tekbir”), provided a rhythmic framework for vocal and bodily synchronization and thus for sonic collectivization. once sonically collectivized by this complex layering of indices and symbols, the group was prepared to enter the bridge and oppose the coup attempt as a unified body politic. sounding neo-ottomania thus far in this article, i have aimed to give a close reading of the manner in which calls to prayer addressed the affectively attuned bodies of many—though not all—turkish citizens, collectivizing them into a unified body politic opposed to the coup attempt. this body politic was able to assert control over urban streets and squares on the night of the coup attempt, but maintaining this control in order to orient turkey toward a new, neo-ottoman direction required embedding the materiality of sound and sonically disciplined bodies into the stone and concrete of urban spaces, thus transforming them and turkey’s public sphere. writing during the immediate aftermath of the coup attempt, feyza akınerdem argued that: 117 erol koymen postcoup democracy vigils [altered] the conventions of public appearances and voices of the street. in istanbul, the street used to be predominately a space of representation for the republican ideals of the kemalist regime. . . . the justice and development party (akp) has challenged the exclusionary regime of kemalism during its thirteen years of governance. it assembled the lower class, nationalist, and islamist populations under the rubric of majority and granted them “authentic citizenship.” . . . taksim square was once iconic for its association with may 1 marches, gezi resistance, and many other dissident protests and was highly symbolic for kemalist turkey. following the gezi uprising, due to heavy policing, no mass demonstrations could take place in taksim square. that changed on july 15, 2016. the masses that the akp government hails as “the majority who represent the national will” claim taksim today (akınerdem 2017, 189–90). as akınerdem alludes, during the weeks following the coup attempt, city squares became sites where post-coup collective effervescence was perpetuated as citizens gathered in nightly “democracy vigils” (demokrasi nöbetleri) held throughout the country on erdoğan’s invitation. starting the day after the coup attempt, these vigils were held nightly for weeks on end and often drew thousands of participants. banu gökarıksel states: crowds came out to occupy public squares in celebration of new heroes and democracy. the government encouraged these “democracy vigils” and ensured access to them by suspending all fees for public transportation. heroic moments of that night played over and over again on public screens set up at the squares where people gathered. (akınerdem 2017, 173) in addition to images of heroism, these vigils were consistently accompanied by music played over loudspeakers. often featuring songs such as the wildly popular folk-influenced patriotic 1993 song “i will die for my turkey” (türkiyem ölürüm), these “democracy vigils” were also the setting for music with explicitly neo-ottoman historicist and/or religious overtones, such as ottoman janissary music and islamic dhikr. the collectivization that took place at these rallies is expressed through recurring phrases in the news media such as “today we are one heart and one nation” (bugün tek yürek, tek  milletiz) (milliyet 2016; sabah 2016a). these nightly watches culminated in a massive, five-hour “democracy and martyrs meeting” on august 7 that drew around five million people to a square in istanbul’s yenikapı neighborhood. the turkish government had created this square—called the yenikapı meeting area (yenikapı miting alanı)—by filling in a portion of the marmara sea in 2014 (milliyet 2013). already alleged on the morning of july 16, influential pennsylvania118 current musicology based islamic cleric fetullah gülen’s masterminding of the coup was by now taken for granted and turkey was once again united with “one heart,” with leaders from all major political parties (excluding the kurdish hdp) speaking. president erdoğan was clearly the star, however, for his speech was the culmination of the meeting, and a large image of him was notable for being adjacent to and of the same size as the requisite image of mustafa kemal atatürk. in this new square, music and sound were once more central to articulating the new national consensus called decisively into being in squares throughout the country on the night of the coup attempt. the meeting featured a variety of recorded music projected over the sea of people and red turkish flags, including several songs that have become a kind of “coup resistance soundtrack.” these include “hurry to unity, my great turkey” (haydi birliğe büyük türkiyem), featuring the line “everyone hand in hand in the squares” (meydanlarda herkes el ele) in its chorus, and the “july 15 democracy march” (15 temmuz demokrasi marşı), featuring the line “the commander in chief gave the order: to the square!” (başkomutan emir verdi: inin meydana!) in its chorus. the fact that these new songs, rather than early republican-era patriotic songs still popular in kemalist circles such as the “izmir march” (i̇zmir marşı) or “ten year march” (onuncu yıl marşı) and its popular 1990s remix (özyürek 2006), provide the musical framework demonstrates the shift initiated in the aftermath of the coup attempt away from a kemalist brand of public patriotism. the direction of this shift was indicated clearly by the two live performances given at the meeting: a forty-five-minute concert of ottoman janissary music and a fifteen-minute koranic recitation. as at the “democracy vigils,” these performances sounded the neo-ottoman historicist and islamist orientations of president erdoğan’s new turkey at its largest meeting yet. as a symbol of ottoman military might that predates even nineteenth-century ottoman westernizing reforms, the janissary band was in keeping with erdoğan’s at times irredentist ottoman nostalgia—a nostalgia also to be seen in the transformations of turkish urban landscapes wrought by such projects as the massive neo-ottoman çamlıca mosque that now visually and sonically marks the entire istanbul cityscape from its hilltop position (danforth 2016). in short, the “democracy and martyrs meeting”—what salih can açıksöz has called “the founding event of the postcoup national consensus” (2017, 180)—represented the culmination of a spatio-sonic transformation of the turkish public sphere. islamic calls to prayer had addressed individual citizens, forging them into a unified body politic that claimed the squares on the night of the coup attempt, and this body was sustained in the squares at the “democracy vigils” over the ensuing weeks by the 119 erol koymen new sounds—never mind that some of them were not new at all—of a new turkey. after the vigils, the individuals making up this body could return home to their computers, where they could relive, reflect upon, and discuss their heroic resistance during the early hours of july 16. they could hear their president’s call and the calls to prayer, they could feel the same feelings over and over again, and they could see themselves in videos posted to youtube of the vigils in which they had only just participated, in which they were still participating even as they sat in front of their computer screens. and at the “democracy and martyrs meeting,” they could meet this neo-ottoman new turkey—see and hear it assembled by the millions in a new square. conclusion: concretizing sound, reinscribing public space in summer 2017, i ventured from the couch to the square, finding myself in a space at once familiar and transformed. during the intervening period, under an ongoing official state of emergency, the government had purged more than 150,000 civil servants with alleged ties to gülen and jailed more than 50,000, while intensifying an ongoing crackdown on the media (nordland and timur 2016). in april 2017, a national referendum on replacing turkey’s parliamentary government with a strong presidential system had passed by a slim margin, granting erdoğan greatly increased powers. in combination with commemoration of the one-year anniversary of coup resistance in squares throughout the country, this event had accelerated the pace of transformation in the new turkey. to take one example, an ongoing controversy in the turkish media during summer 2017 centered around changes to public school curricula that would deemphasize kemalism and curb the teaching of evolution while introducing the concept of jihad. looking to the long term, i had the clear sense during summer 2017 that the coup attempt and its resistance were being framed as a historical counterpart to the turkish war of independence—a founding struggle for a new turkey—even as some remained uneasy with or opposed to this direction. indeed, measures such as manipulation of school curricula parallel in many ways those taken in the aftermath of the turkish war of independence. in light of the larger argument of this article, this brief consideration of the long-term implications of the coup attempt and its resistance should illuminate the full measure of the impact that sound and the resistance it forged during the hours and weeks after the coup have had and will continue to have on the course of turkish political and social affairs. but what of the squares? are they really transformed? before concluding, i spend a bit of time in ankara’s red crescent (kızılay) square—long a 120 current musicology center of middle-class life in ankara and a central point around which my own, life-long relationship to ankara has pivoted. during summer 2017, to be sure, the square was transformed visually: it featured a sign in large, three-dimensional red letters reading “15 temmuz destanı” (the july 15 epic) alongside a collection of images of nine men marked “destan burada yazıldı” (the epic was written here), indicating that the men had died in the square while resisting the coup attempt. competing for attention with this sign was a large billboard advertisement—a telling reminder that neoliberal consumerism is also a pillar of erdoğan’s new turkey. the square had been transformed in other ways, as well. during the period in which collective control of city squares and streets was being reasserted on a nightly basis, red crescent square was renamed the “july 15 red crescent national will square” (15 temmuz kızılay milli i̇rade meydanı) by the ankara municipal government, which is controlled by erdoğan’s party (sabah 2016b). among the few other spaces thus renamed was the bosporus bridge in istanbul on which some of the most direct resistance to the coup attempt had been mounted and many of the coup’s casualties were recorded. renamed the “july 15 martyrs bridge” (15 temmuz şehitler köprüsü), this bridge now memorializes those who died upon it while resisting the coup (bbc türkçe 2016). why was red crescent square—now july 15 red crescent national will square—renamed? to me, it seemed an unexpected choice in comparison with a space like the bridge. indeed, my sense was that “kızılay” (red crescent) rather than “15 temmuz kızılay milli i̇rade meydanı” is still figure 5: ankara’s july 15 red crescent national will square, previously red crescent square, august 2017. photo by erol koymen. 121 erol koymen used in daily parlance, though i did note that municipal public transportation routes have been altered to indicate “15 temmuz kızılay milli i̇rade meydanı” (july 15 red crescent national will square). then again, this is not just any turkish square. july 15 red crescent national will square is situated at the intersection of atatürk boulevard and gazi mustafa kemal boulevard in the center of the “new ankara” laid out by german urban planner hermann jansen during the 1920s for a then-new turkish republic (kezer 2015). abutting the square and forming the tip of ankara’s wedge-shaped government district is trust park (güven park), whose most prominent feature—a massive stone memorial to the turkish military—faces the square (batuman 2005). in short, july 15 red crescent national will square has historically represented the core of kemalist secularist nationalism and its long-term association with the turkish military. kenneth foote proposes that “human modifications of the environment are often related to the way societies wish to sustain and efface memories” and that “landscape might be seen . . . as a sort of communicational resource, a system of signs and symbols, capable of extending the temporal and spatial range of communication” (1997, 32–33). islamic calls to prayer and music—systems of sonic signs and symbols—enabled control of urban spaces in the immediate aftermath of the july 15 coup attempt and contributed to maintaining that control for weeks thereafter. the reinscription of red crescent square as a memorial to coup resistance converts those sonic signs heard throughout the city into a concrete symbol at its secular center that sustains the memory of the coup resistance and contributes to the shift toward a new turkey. just as sound claimed the square on the night of the coup, the square was shaped by that sound and has now claimed the collective effervescence it produced, freezing it to shape the neo-ottoman new turkey. there are those who dissent, who refuse to say “july 15 red crescent national will square,” but even they can’t deny that they are in a new square in a new turkey. the coups used to silence the ezans, but now it’s the other way around. notes 1. all translations by the author. 2. in other words, as far as i have been able to determine, 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hope” is the emergent theoretical framework that inspires and informs the chapters in this collection. the epistemology of critical hope is to see “making and consuming popular music as activities that encourage individuals to imagine and work toward a better, more just world”; in doing so, it is possible to unveil “the diverse ways popular music can contribute to the collective political projects of queerness and feminism” (i). this framework offers a wide range of approaches, including afrofuturism, afro-asian collaboration, queer diasporas, gender and racial politics, genre conventions, decolonization, and age. this collection will appeal to scholars and students in popular music studies, gender/feminist studies, queer studies, critical media studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, and interdisciplinary studies. none of the methodologies in this book incorporate traditional musical analysis as a main approach and only a few authors adopt it as a supportive methodology. the collection illustrates various ways that minoritarian musicians challenge dominant understandings of subjectivity and foster solidarity beyond cultural and political boundaries. informed by pioneering research that reconceptualizes musical performance and consumption for and around marginalized pleasure and empowerment, this collection nicely aligns with and it contributes to a strand of queer and feminist musical scholarship also found in the works of sheila whiteley and jennifer rycenga’s queering the popular pitch (2006), jodie taylor’s playing it queer: popular music, identity and queer world-making (2012), stan hawkins’ queerness in pop music: aesthetics, gender norms, and temporality (2016), curran nault’s queercore: queer punk media subculture (2017), among others. moreover, this book intentionally and exclusively focuses on “minoritarian cultures and offering reparative readings of artists, works, and genres of music often dismissed” (11), thus providing comparative insights about the forgotten among the often-forgotten while addressing less popular topics. the book has five parts, each with an introduction written by a re10 current musicology nowned scholar in the field. part one, “displacing whiteness,” comprises three chapters aiming to decenter white patriarchy and heteronormativity through decoding the performances by musicians of color on their own terms. in this part’s introduction, daphne a. brooks connects adele’s acceptance speech at the 2017 grammy ceremony, which blatantly expresses her admiration and gratitude towards beyoncé knowles, to the racial inequality experienced by black women blues musicians since the early twentieth century. specifically, brooks highlights beyoncé’s performances in “displacing whiteness” and calls for the serious acknowledgment of black women artists. in chapter one, “visions of wondaland: on janelle monáe’s afrofuturist vision,” marquita smith examines monáe’s musical vision of “wondaland” where “black life thrives” (34). this afrofuturist soundscape calls on many important black figures, such as octavia butler, alexis pauline gumbs, and harriet tubman. critically fusing the frameworks of african american afrofuturism and black feminism, this chapter explores the sonic and visual mythology of wondaland constructed and led by monáe since the founding of the wondaland arts society in 2001. it also studies monáe’s musical messages in relation to the black lives matter movement. smith unveils how monáe uses musical and aesthetic skills to create black futurities that transgress the temporal and spatial boundaries and, in doing so, displace the white supremacist historiography of activism. craig jennex, in chapter two, “listening to difference: recognition and refusal in queer music diasporas,” looks at the politics of queer of color diasporic identity in canada through the musical collage curated by kanwar anit singh saini (a.k.a. sikh knowledge). this musical collage brings together differing indie musical genres (edm and dancehall) and queer subcultures, along with issues of race and religion. specifically, jennex articulates saini’s performance in “more than aware,” which is loaded with religious visual cues from his ep turban sex (2013), with the controversy around the policies that restrict people from covering their faces or wearing religious symbols. moreover, jennex employs “listening” as a critical methodology to find alternative voices. this methodology displaces the “normative logic of visuality” grounded in the “white, western, judeao-christian-informed culture of canadian society” that dominates the logics of belonging, queer representation, and the policing of minority bodies (50-51). thematically, chapter two exemplifies “the hopeful politics of pop” (8) for the religious, racialized, and sexualized others in canada. chapter three, titled “who’s your daddy?: beyoncé, the dixie chicks, and the art of outlaw protest,” looks at the controversial collaborative performance of “daddy lessons” by beyoncé and the dixie chicks during the 11 runchao liu 2016 country music association awards (cmas). francesca t. royster contextualizes this performance in relation to both the musical tension charged by the racialized and gendered politics of country and r&b as well as the narrative of beyoncé’s album lemonade (2016). through examining the unconventional arrangements of genre-specific sounds, lyrics, on-stage interactions among musicians, and beyoncé’s maneuvering of the figure of outlaw in the album, royster argues that this collaboration displaces whiteness by protesting against “an industry invested in protecting and patrolling whiteness” and by presenting a hopeful image of solidarity and resistance across communities. the three chapters in part two, “rethinking difference,” share an interest in musical personae and autobiographical discourses with a focus on their potential of steering discourses around disability and being an outsider. as annie janeiro randall notes in the introduction to this part, there is a shift in the construct and marketing of popular musical personae in terms of the visibility of artist disabilities. the disclosure of artist disabilities, which used to be taboo and avoided as a marketing mistake, is now at times proudly emphasized as a promoting tool of their personal life and musical works. together, the authors in this part rethink what being different means and does for musicians, the music industry, the audience, and, of course, for disability studies as well. laurie stras, pioneering scholar writing at the intersection of popular music and disability studies, contributes chapter four, “‘brave new ideas begin’: disability, gender, and life writing in twenty-first-century pop.” this chapter links the politics of hope with the performances of disabled musicians. stras first reviews the controversy around lady gaga’ fibromyalgia condition, which is not necessarily always visible to give a context for denoting what disability means for contemporary women artists, calling gaga’s story an “overcoming narrative” (88). then, the chapter offers comparative case studies of women musicians whose disabled bodies challenge gender and musical norms. mandy harvey, who suffers from ehlersdanlos syndrome and deafness, defies the self-objectification discourses often associated with the overcoming narrative by inserting agency in her music and autobiography. viktoria modesta, whose leg was amputated as a teen, uses her disability to deliver political messages and initiates projects to improve music-making conditions for disabled artists. lastly, the sisters of invention, a five-women group with different physical impairments, demonstrate a hopeful politics of disability by recasting their disabilities as meaningful sources of lived experiences, as opposed to sources of problems. overall, stras contributes unique insights into alternative disabled subjectivities while facing the plight of self-objectification and monetiza12 current musicology tion of disabled bodies. chapter five, titled “‘round my hometown’: listening to london in the racial politics of post-millennial british soul,” shifts from studying artist disabilities to being an outsider. it gives a close reading of two white british female musicians – adele and amy winehouse. while daphne a. brooks in part one’s introduction links adele’s music to white appropriation, the colonization of historically black culture, and the racialized discrimination of women musicians; freya jarman and emily baker in this chapter approach cases like adele on a brighter note. being different, for adele and winehouse, is not just about being women artists; their vocal performances, instead, are the prime locale of difference. while critics and scholars are usually interested in the black roots of adele and winehouse’s music, jarman and baker are wise to also attend to other cultural influences in such hybrid sounds in the modern u.k. particularly, they argue that we need to consider both the sonic colonization and a multicultural london-ness to better understand contemporary “retro soul” music (106). “born to run and reckless: my life as a pretender: rewriting the political imaginary of rock music memoir,” the last chapter in this part, features two rock icons known for their leftist activism – bruce springsteen and chrissie hynde. author pamela fox considers autobiographic life writing as an alternative form of counter-discourses, a type of text that often registers as a profitable avenue and has been neglected by scholars. through analyzing how springsteen’s memoir born to run (2016) and hynde’s memoir reckless: my life as a pretender (2015) alternate between the working-class genre and the disability narrative while recounting the artists’ life through a “counter-story” lens (138), fox argues that autobiographic writing is a site in which political praxis happens, such as community building and self-reparation. part three, “decolonizing sound,” is introduced by ellie hisama, one of the first scholars to write about cultural appropriation in popular music from an intersectional viewpoint of race, gender, and postcolonialism (1993, 2000). ethnomusicologist deborah wong (2004) poignantly observes that “the primary place of asians and asian americans in the music industry has been as representations, not as agents” (256). the same logic applies to many social groups in creative industries. the chapters in this part, therefore, are important for upending this logic and instead foregrounding the social groups that are often silenced in the landscape of western popular music, namely, indigenous peoples and immigrants. the authors show us how these musicians mobilize their creative energy to undo sonic colonialism and imperialism as well as to build pan-ethnic solidarity through intersectional sonic critiques. 13 runchao liu in chapter seven, “sounding the halluci nation: decolonizing race, masculinity, and global solidarities with a tribe called red,” alexa woloshyn examines how ottawa based music group a tribe called red (atcr) contributes to decolonization. focusing on their album we are the halluci nation (2016), woloshyn comparatively considers the conceptual influence of halluci nation, indigenous feminism and queer/two-spirit critiques, and settler colonialism’s influence on indigenous masculinity. meanwhile, woloshyn does not shy away from discussing the complicated and sometimes counterproductive efforts by the allies of the halluci nation. finally, woloshyn argues that the album is “both a musical and social collaboration” that projects “a hopeful politics of intersectional indigenous feminism,” which fosters decolonized solidarity surpassing geographical and ethnic boundaries (152). elliott h. powell also takes an interest in inter-musical and cross-community solidarity, specifically afro-south asian solidarity, in chapter eight, titled “addict(ive) sex: toward an intersectional approach to truth hurts’ ‘addictive’ and afro-south asian hip hop and r&b.” as powell notes, african american singer truth hurts’ hit song “addictive” (2002) reflects a growing trend of featuring middle eastern and south asian sounds in rap and r&b in the early twenty-first century. “addictive” features sampled south asian music that was popularized by the bollywood movie song “thoda resham lagta hai” (1982), which has stimulated controversies around copyright, religion, and cultural imperialism. nevertheless, powell proposes a re-examination of the song from a gender/sexuality perspective and brings forth questions and possibilities of afro-asian solidarity and counter-orientalism performances. thematically speaking to the previous two chapters, chapter nine, “hip hop dialogues: sampling women’s hand drum songs and the canadian popular mainstream,” looks at musical sampling of hip hop in tandem with canadian indigenous music. specifically, liz przybylski examines the show taken (2017), a collaboration between chamber choir camerata nova, rapper eekwol, artistic director of cree descent andrew balfour, and composer mel braun. the show mirrors a controversial indigenoussettler collaboration during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the canadian confederation. przybylski argues that through sampling both mainstream pop songs and women’s hand drum songs, the show offers a model of cultural reconciling that shows cultural resilience and connectivity, which gestures towards possibilities of indigenous-settler relationships. part four, “refusing conventions,” contemplates on how musicians refuse political and aesthetic conventions as well as how scholars refuse research conventions when it comes to feminist and queer popular music 14 current musicology studies. studying “refusing conventions” in the context of popular music is to study how musicians refuse both “the western high art convention of ‘art for art’s sake’ and the pop recording industry’s convention of art for the sake of money” while bringing explicit political discourse into music (211). these chapters also discuss the political importance of refusing the hopeless, negative, and good-or-bad binary convention sometimes dominating the critical listening of popular music. in the introduction chapter, using the case of african american singer billie holiday and her performance of “strange fruit” at a racially mixed venue in new york city in 1939, mahon reminds us of the stakes and significance for popular musicians to inject political messages into their music on top of rejecting restrictive and oppressive conventions. chapter ten, “electro-pop as trojan horse: hearing the call to arms in anohni’s hopelessness,” refuses the hedonistic interpretation of electro-pop. instead, maria murphy examines electro-pop as an important medium of intersectional social critiques and explores its political significance behind a veneer of hedonism. maria murphy examines the lyrical and musical maneuvering in trans musician-activist anohni’s album hopelessness (2016). the album is critically acclaimed for its open critiques about, among others, capitalism, imperialism, gender politics, and environmentalism. murphy examines the techniques of irony, confessional genre, and survivalism used to raise political topics through the sounds of electric-pop, and, in doing so, proves the importance of finding hope in hopelessness in a “post-hope moment” (216). chapter eleven presents a conversation between susan mcclary and jacqueline warwick, both of whom have written extensively on the gender politics of popular music. many interesting insights and “behindthe-scene” stories about popular music and about the scholars who study popular music are revealed. warwick stresses the significance of girls in popular music history and reviews the long way that girls in music have come, reviewing artists from the ronettes and alanis morissette to brittany spears and kesha. mcclary also talks about ageism but through the cases of older women musicians, such as madonna, whom mcclary (1990, 1991) has famously studied. interestingly, like brooks in part two’s introduction and jarman and baker in chapter five, mcclary also comments on adele’s acceptance speech and beyoncé’s performance at the 2017 grammy ceremony, although with a focus on age, citing this as “an amazing moment of solidarity among women” aging towards motherhood (236). the conversation also discusses gendered labeling and discrimination of women composers. jack halberstam has shown a consistent interest in the intersections 15 runchao liu of popular music and queer theory (2003, 2007, 2012). in chapter twelve, “power in the darkness and ‘angry atthis’: anthems, genres and the queer voice,” he examines and compares two queer anthems – “amazon” (1979) by maxine feldman, the anthem of the michigan womyn’s music festival, and “glad to be gay” (1978) by tom robinson, written for the london gay pride parade. through two seemingly unrelated genres (punk and women’s music) and two seemingly unrelated musicians (one lesbian musician in the u.s. and one gay musician in the u.k.), halberstam connects the dots and shows how they funnel the politicized sounds of anger, rage, and pride into their music, arguing that “they occupy their own genre of queer music that is sonically closer to ‘women’s music’ of the 1970’s than gay disco or punk” (249). murray forman introduces part five, “voicing resilience,” by reflecting on the varied relations between the politics of time, music, and women musicians. the running theme in the three chapters of this part is that they tackle different “human conceptions of time and its passing, taking into account the manner in which time works on and through the bodies and psyches of women in particular” (261). forman asks us to think of time as a gendered social construct, a commodity, as well as a medium of agency. “voicing resilience,” therefore, is the hopeful politics of voicing and finding ways to voice empowerment and liberation through working with/ against the restrictive temporal notions forced on women, such as aging and being incarcerated. in chapter thirteen, titled “resisting the politics of aging: madonna and the value of female labor in popular music,” tiffany naiman looks at madonna and her reception as a pop icon over her long career. through examining the misogynistic, sexist, and ageist criticisms revolved around the aging body performed by madonna, naiman shows the ways that female aging unfolds as an intersectional battle of contested notions of artistic values, labor, and being a pop star. instead of arguing that madonna transcends the evolution of time or pop norms, this chapter uncovers the power of persistent performance of commodified sexuality in an aging female body and how this persistence itself challenges pop and social norms. also focusing on the intersections of gender and aging, chapter fourteen, “vera lynn 100: retirement, aging, and legacy for a “national treasure,” examines dame vera lynn, who turned 100 years old in 2017 yet is largely hailed as the forces sweetheart and “national treasure” by the u.k. media. christina baade considers both mariana torgovnick’s (2005) concept of the “war complex” and elizabeth freeman’s (2010) concept of chrononormativity while exploring the impacts of lynn’s music career. through examining the controversies around lynn’s claimed retirement 16 current musicology from 1946 to the present, baade reveals the gendered expectations of chrononormativity and how discourses of labor, marriage, reproduction, retirement, legacy, cultural memory, and national belonging are all woven together. finally, this chapter presents a hopeful interpretation of lynn’s trajectory of retirement as “an agential challenge to normative distinctions between work, domesticity, and retirement” (285). chapter fifteen, under the title “sounding lockdown: singing in administrative segregation at the louisiana correctional institute for women,” shifts to examining the incarcerated voice, where music, as the authors argue, functions as a form of human testimony that negotiates the surveillance and anxiety in an extreme situation like being in a prison. combining an autoethnogra1phic approach and a critical approach, this chapter is a collaboration between a returned citizen from the louisiana correctional institute for women, consuela gaines, and a music scholar, benjamin j. harbert. the authors argue that music and singing are critical for “restoring distorted senses of time, space, and social relations” by interrupting a cycle of mental illness in the context of prison (300). this chapter presents a rarely explored example of voicing resilience by reordering sonic and social conduits, which fundamentally destabilizes the architected temporality under physical isolation. popular music is too often dismissed as an unimportant field for scholarly interrogation. although mass culture has been a subject of critical inquiries for decades, they are often criticized as standardized commodities to manipulate the audience rather than being seen as a liberatory territory. it is arguable that it was not until the birmingham school of cultural studies established in the 1960s that we started seeing a good number of scholars taking a serious interest in the positive political and social significance of everyday life and popular culture for marginalized communities. under this trajectory, the chapters are clever in adopting an approach of “critical hope” that is derived from a dissatisfaction with the “everything is getting worse” narrative commonplace in certain contemporary critical scholarship (2). however, although the title of the book is “queer and feminist interventions,” only a few chapters actually revolve around lgbt artists. it is true that queer interventions should not be limited by identity politics. yet, as a collection aiming at foregrounding minoritarian sounds and desires, as opposed to developing queer theory per se, i deem crucial a stronger focus on queer artists than what we are offered. that said, as a reader, i acknowledge the collection’s commitment to the sounds of marginalized communities. 17 runchao liu references freeman, elizabeth. 2010. time binds: queer temporalities, queer histories. perverse modernities. durham: duke university press. halberstam, judith. 2003. “what’s that smell?: queer temporalities and subcultural lives.” international journal of cultural studies 6 (3): 313–33. ________________. 2007. “keeping time with lesbians on ecstasy.” women and music: a journal of gender and culture 11 (1): 51–58. ________________. 2012. gaga feminism: sex, gender, and the end of normal. vol. 7. beacon press. hawkins, stan. 2016. queerness in pop music: aesthetics, gender norms, and temporality. routledge studies in popular music 10. new york ; london: routledge, taylor & francis group. hisama, ellie m. 1993. “postcolonialism on the make: the music of john mellencamp, david bowie and john zorn.” popular music 12 (02): 91. ______________. 2000. “from l’étranger to ‘killing an arab’: representing the other in a cure song.” in expression in pop-rock music: a collection of critical and analytical essays, edited by walter everett. studies in contemporary music and culture, v. 2. new york: garland. mcclary, susan. 1990. “living to tell: madonna’s resurrection of the fleshly.” genders, no. 7: 1–21. _____________. 2002. feminine endings: music, gender, and sexuality. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. nault, curran. 2017. queercore: queer punk media subculture. routledge research in gender, sexuality, and media. new york: routledge. taylor, jodie. 2012. playing it queer: popular music, identity and queer world-making. bern; new york: peter lang. torgovnick, marianna. 2008. the war complex: world war ii in our time. chicago, ill.; bristol: university of chicago press ; university presses marketing distributor. whiteley, sheila, and jennifer rycenga, eds. 2006. queering the popular pitch. new york: routledge. wong, deborah anne. 2004. speak it louder: asian americans making music. new york: routledge. current musicology 97 (spring 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 61 preface to gesprochene musik, 1. “o–a” and 2. “ta–tam” christopher caines think of the great composers of german and austrian music in the last century, and certain names spring to mind: arnold schoenberg, anton webern, alban berg, paul hindemith, kurt weill. among those names should be ernst toch. that for many musicians and music lovers this is not yet so is due not to the character of toch’s music but to the curtailment of his meteoric early career by the nazi regime, which drove the composer into exile in 1933. in the united states, where toch eventually settled, his major achievements in orchestral, chamber, and operatic music remain less familiar than those of his american and european peers. toch has long been best known for the geographical fugue, which is such a repertory staple that today it seems hardly a choral singer in the united states passes through high school and college without performing the piece at least once. the work is equally popular among avocational choruses of all kinds, and professional choirs of course also sing it. given the fugue’s renown, it is strange that the oddly stoic little note toch (1950, 12) appended to the published score has apparently excited little curiosity over the years: “this piece is the last movement of a suite gesprochene musik (spoken music), which, from different angles, tries to produce musical effects from speech. the suite was performed and recorded at the berlin festival of contemporary music [sic] in 1930. the record got lost or was destroyed, likewise the music, except the manuscript.” ernst toch you might think conductors would have been tumbling over one another trying to get hold of the other movements of this suite: the existence of the manuscript for more music related to the fugue has been no secret for decades. the full story is stranger still. toch’s note would lead the reader to imagine a live public performance and a commercially released live or studio recording. yet there was no such show, nor any such album. it may come as a shock to its fans that, far from being designed as the reliable choral showpiece it has since become, the fugue was not originally intended for performance by live singers at all. as toch indicates, the fugue premiered with its original german text as der fuge aus der geographie during the neue musik berlin festival in july 1930 as part of a three–movement suite, whose first two movements 62 current musicology are published here for the first time. as mark katz (2001, 176; 2004, 99– 113) recounts, the suite was one of the works debuted on the program of grammophonmusik (gramophone music) as originalwerke fur schallplatten (original works for record albums) shared by toch and hindemith, both then rising young stars of german new music, during which the composers used phonographs in various ways to play prerecorded sounds onstage. this explains why there was only ever one “record” of spoken music, not records. toch’s suite in performance was not played back at the speed at which it had been recorded—78 rpm—but much faster: that was the whole point. the score was conceived for the purpose of providing material for a pioneering experiment in the mechanical manipulation of sound: specifically, an investigation into the acoustical properties of speech as raw material for music that focused on how vocal sounds change when speeded up—to such an extent that, as toch perhaps to his surprise discovered, they may be distorted beyond recognition. as the composer explained in the program notes he wrote for the concert, he sought to explore the spoken word, and let a four–part mixed chamber choir speak specifically determined rhythms, vowels, consonants, syllables, and words, which by involving the mechanical possibilities of the recording (increasing the tempo, and the resulting pitch level) created a type of instrumental music, which leads the listener to forget that it originated from speaking. (toch 1930, 221–22)1 it must have been a weird sight: berlin’s hippest aficionados of avant– garde composition (as i picture them) assembled before a phonograph onstage out of whose great horn–shaped speaker piped the sounds of, well, alvin and the chipmunks on amphetamines chanting “ratibor! und der fluss mississippi und die stadt honolulu . . .” if we cannot help but conceive the results as sounding comical, or quaint, or banal to our ears today, we must try to imagine the shock of hearing human speech recorded and speeded up when that phenomenon had hardly ever been publicly heard before, and perhaps never in a musical context. by an odd turn of fate, the audience in 1930 did include at least one person fully capable of realizing the concert’s implications regarding the role that technology would play in music in decades to come: none other than the eighteen–year–old john cage. the fugue owes its american career to cage’s advocacy, while the oblivion to which toch consigned the first two movements of gesprochene musik is perhaps due in part to cage’s apparent lack of interest in them. the fledgling american composer sought out toch at his first american 63 christopher caines home in pacific palisades, california, in 1935, and obtained his permission to have the fugue’s score published in henry cowell’s seminal magazine new music in that same year, with the by now iconic english– language text that cage and/or cowell probably created or commissioned (“trinidad! and the big mississippi and the town honolulu . . .”). although cowell published the score as part of a selection of music composed for gramophone, cage promoted the work with zest, considering the fugue a seminal work of genius, while toch in later years tended to dismiss it as a youthful jeu d’esprit. perhaps in some sense they were both right. seriousness and whimsicality need not be strangers. with gesprochene musik, toch singlehandedly invented the genre of music for speaking choir, which the composer’s grandson, the writer lawrence weschler (1996, 2003), has described only half–jokingly as “weimar rap.” as toch of course well knew, the use of spoken instead of or in addition to sung text has deep roots in german music, especially music for the theater. toch, who throughout his life considered himself “but a link in the chain” of composers, was always conscious of balancing progressiveness, even prescience, in his work with an unshakeable reverence for tradition. to innovate by digging in soil tilled deeply by his predecessors was ever his method. ! “the record got lost or was destroyed, likewise the music, except the manuscript,” which was among the papers that toch and his wife, lilly, succeeded in taking with them when they fled germany with their little daughter (weschler 2015). so far as the staff at the ernst toch society in santa monica is able to ascertain, the suite’s first two movements had never been heard since that single 1930 concert until 2006, when they were sung to accompany a ballet i choreographed for my ensemble, christopher caines dance, set to toch’s complete works for speaking choir—which, in addition to spoken music, includes only one other work, the valse, toch’s bemused parody of cocktail party chatter, composed in 1960 (published by belwin mills in 1962 but now unfortunately out of print). the dance was one section of a program–length work entitled worklight (castelnuovo–tedesco 2006). in order to make our performances possible, i prepared an edition of “o–a” and “ta–tam” from a photocopy of the composer’s holograph graciously provided to me by the toch society from the composer’s archive at ucla. the manuscript scores are written in ink on hand– penciled rhythm staves. they are complete drafts but by no means fair 64 current musicology copies prepared for an engraver. although both pieces are in one sense simple (since there is no pitch notation) and brief (each lasts only a minute or two in performance), deciphering the manuscripts posed several challenges. in editing the music, i have been guided by the principle of making the fewest possible changes necessary to render the pieces performable. (some details of the music that conductors and singers may want to consider in preparation for rehearsal are discussed in the notes to the scores.) i have written out the manuscripts’ repeats, eliminating the use of repeat signs in the interest of ease of reading; corrected a few missing and miscalculated rests and erroneous or confusing beams and ties; and added a few obviously missing dynamic markings (such editorial additions are printed in parentheses). i have spelled out abbreviations in toch’s german expression markings and annotations and added english translations of them. the greatest difficulty in editing this music is posed by the text. while the fugue’s text comprises phrases incorporating the names of cities and other geographical features from around the world, “o–a” and “ta–tam” set expressive nonsense syllables of the composer’s own devising. in effect, “o–a” concentrates on experimenting with vowel sounds, “ta–tam” with consonants, and the fugue puts both together, playing with the rhythmical possibilities of words as if discovering them anew—almost as if words themselves had only just been invented.2 i have added hyphens to connect toch’s syllables into “words” that match the notes’ rhythmic groupings; without these hyphens, the text would be all but impossible to read at anything close to the rapid tempo toch indicates (a tempo impossible for live singers that is explained by the use of the phonograph in 1930). i have also supplied three syllables missing in the text underlay, and i have made diacritics in a few repeated phrases congruent where toch appears to have been somewhat careless with them. determining toch’s intentions regarding these diacritics, which crucially affect the pronunciation of his invented language, poses a particular problem. the composer’s addition of breves and macrons (˘ and ¯; short and long marks, respectively) to indicate the precise german vowel sounds he intends makes it clear that vowel quantity is important in the performance of this music. however, toch’s use of the marks is often inconsistent and occasionally even contradictory. he tends to include the diacritics when introducing a new phrase for the first time but does not bother with them after that, seeming to take for granted that his copyist or engraver would understand his intentions, 65 christopher caines or more likely intending to supervise the copying or engraving himself. moreover, in toch’s rather hasty handwriting, it is sometimes hard to tell the two marks apart. i have followed toch’s predominant rendering of each phrase in question, which leaves certain choices—the vowels toch writes without diacritics—to the performers’ discretion. had toch, whose published scores testify to his meticulous scrutiny, seen these pieces into publication, he would without question have resolved every ambiguity himself. i can only hope to have managed largely to fulfill his intentions. toch’s insistence on precision of enunciation in this music is revealed in the text’s refined details. certain phrases, for example, are introduced only to be slightly varied right away: in “ta–tam,” the soprano answers the bass’s “be–te ka–te–be tŏn” with “be–te ka–te–be ta,” which she soon changes to “be–te ka–te–pe ta.” later, “gi–ta pe– to–go tŭ” is developed into “gi–ta pe–to–gū tŭ,” in order to connect via “tŭ–gi–ta” to “ta–gi–ta.” such subtleties enhance the illusion that the singers are speaking a real language while at the same time reinforcing specific textural effects. carmel raz’s (2014) illuminating dissection of toch’s phonemic palette in “o–a” and “ta–tam” underscores the intensity of toch’s preoccupation with sound in composing this music, and with the expressive fusion of vocal timbre and rhythm. raz’s formal analysis of the pieces as miniaturized versions of, respectively, a classical scherzo and a traditional march is also persuasive. in this regard, it may be worthwhile to recall the etymological meaning of scherzo (a jest), and to note that the vowel–dominant phonemic palette of “o–a” suggest strings and woodwinds, while the consonant–dominant array in “ta–tam” suggests a marching band’s percussion and brass. whatever interpretive choices are made, the key is to understand that, nonsense though it may be, this is in essence a german–language score, and all the syllables should be pronounced as they sound in richtigem hochdeutsch (in correct high german). that said, i think that when the music is performed by singers whose first language is not german, and preceding the english version of the “fugue,” any inevitable local coloring of the sounds will not be out of keeping in a score that concludes with a celebratory ode to the joys of global geography. i wish to note three other mysteries that only toch himself could resolve with absolute certainty. first, in “o–a” there are lightly penciled question marks (in a hand other than toch’s, i think) over the downbeats of measures 28 and 32; i feel sure that these marks simply note the lack of text underlay for some of the voices in these two places, which i 66 current musicology have supplied. (unless toch himself had a what was i thinking? moment, the question marks suggest that someone other than toch was involved in preparing a fair copy or engraved setting of the score in 1930.) second, “ta–tam” has, in thick, soft colored pencils, letter s’s in small circles and squares and circled letter c’s at several points. i conjecture that, though he nowhere says so, toch must have experimented at some point with assigning the vocal figures of the piece alternately to soloists in each choral section and to full chorus (designated s and c for solo and chor). i have included these markings, since the musical result of performing “ta–tam” in this way would certainly be of interest; adopting a similar approach to “o–a” would also yield valid musical results. toch’s indication in “ta–tam” to the effect that the piece could also be performed by vocal quartet (even though he used a small chorus in 1930 and even though the score’s passage with divisi bass would in fact require a quintet) suggests i think that conductors should feel free to experiment with the forces at their disposal (and also suggests that toch must have considered a possible life for the music in live performance after the phonograph concert). finally, in “o–a” there are also square marks, in the same or a similar soft–penciled hand, divided in four like windowpanes, in all four voices over the “klapp” on the downbeat of measures 33 and 35; identical windowpane marks also appear over the downbeats of measures 3 and 4 in the tenor in “ta–tam.” since i cannot guess what these puzzling marks might mean (and since standard music notation software does not offer such a symbol), i have not included them in the printed scores. ! despite his distinguished career as a professor of composition and composer for film, a pulitzer prize (in 1956, for his symphony no. 3) and a grammy in 1960, and an extraordinarily rich output of major scores in his last years, toch never regained in the united states the great reputation nor, more importantly, the feeling of belonging, of social embeddedness in musical society, that had anchored him in germany in his early career. it is heartbreaking to read that in his later years toch sometimes referred to himself ruefully as “the world’s most forgotten composer” (weschler 1977, xv). with a steady flow of new recordings and increasingly lively interest among musicians, especially in germany, toch’s music is gradually coming to enjoy the appreciation that it has long deserved. i do not doubt that one day his symphonies and string quartets in particular will be acknowledged among the masterworks of the twentieth century. 67 christopher caines compared to them, the two pieces offered here are admittedly of much smaller scale, yet they are no less momentous for that. first, “o–a” and “ta–tam” are challenging and fun to perform—worth singing and hearing in their own right. they cast light on a much–loved staple of the choral repertoire: heard as toch originally intended it as the climax of gesprochene musik, the fugue feels and sounds different from how it does in isolation. the suite deserves to take its rightful place in the history of the radically experimental tradition in modernist music. in its original cultural context, a particular moment in the growth of the weimar avant–garde, the suite was specifically an experiment in the areas of speech as music, the mechanical manipulation of recorded sound, and playback as performance—fields then closely allied to the earliest forays in electronic music and the exploration of radio as an artistic medium. from the vantage point of nearly a century later, gesprochene musik is revealed as anticipating or converging with many later developments: a whole wing of vocal music devoted to playing with language beyond words, whose most salient american exponent has long been meredith monk (scores by cage and stockhausen also come to mind); popular forms that emphasize rhythmical speech over singing, such as word jazz, jamaican dancehall, and rap/ hip–hop; sampling, looping, morphing, and other technological manipulations of music that are particularly applied to the recorded voice; as well as a distinctive strain of modernist humor (think p. d. q. bach). even within only the field of acoustic choral music, these two tiny pieces point toward musical territory that remains uncharted. ! i thank lawrence weschler, who has done so much to advance the cause of his grandfather’s music, and dina ormenyi, at the ernst toch society, for all their support and assistance. i thank conductor kristina boerger, who brought toch’s music to life con brio in the 2006 performances for my company. i also thank the singers in those performances: jeanmarie lally and laura christian (sopranos), silvie jensen and alison taylor cheeseman (altos), christopher ryan and michael lockley (tenors), joshua parillo and staffan liljas (basses); and the dancers: ivanova aguilar, katrina cydylo, lauren engleman, jamy hsu, edgar peterson, gisela quinteros, michelle vargo, indre vengris, and christopher woodrell. many thanks to pianist– conductor christopher bruckman, without whose sharp eye and ear and expertise in the computer typesetting of music this edition would not have been possible. i must also thank kristina and chris for many insights that helped me to decipher the music and for encouraging me to strive for the strictest possible fidelity to the composer’s manuscript, elusive though 68 current musicology toch’s intentions sometimes seemed to be. finally, i thank carmel raz for introducing me to recent scholarship, including her own, that illuminates this score, and for her assistance in the final proofreading and correction of this edition. if making available the complete score of gesprochene musik plays a small part in redressing the unjust neglect that so much of toch’s music has had to endure for so long, it would gladden my heart. notes 1. quotation translated by carmel raz (2014). 2. for the purposes of my dance, i inserted the valse between “o–a” and “ta–tam,” ending with the “fugue.” i would commend this sequence to vocal ensembles interested in performing toch’s complete music for speaking choir as a set in concert. the problem is that if the valse precedes gesprochene musik, it seems to preempt the suite’s developmental structure—the “discovery” of words—while the fugue upstages the valse if the later–composed work is performed immediately following the suite. programming some other piece between the suite and the valse or allowing for applause or even an intermission between them might also be a good solution. references castelnuovo–tedesco, diana. 2006. “toch’s spoken music rediscovered.” vocal area network june 3. accessed march 20, 2016. www.van.org/articles/ cainesboergerinterview20060603.htm. katz, mark. 2001. “hindemith, toch, and grammophonmusik.” journal of musicological research 20 (2): 161–80. . 2004. capturing sound: how technology has changed music. berkeley: university of california press. raz, carmel. 2014. “the lost movements of ernst toch’s gesprochene musik.” current musicology 97: 37–60. toch, ernst. 1930. “über meine kantate ‘das wasser’ und meine grammophonmusik.” melos 9 (5–6): 221–22. . 1950. composer’s note appended to [the] geographical fugue. melville, ny: belwin mills. weschler, lawrence. 1977. introduction to the shaping forces in music: an inquiry into the nature of harmony, melody, counterpoint and form, by ernst toch, iii–xv new york: dover. . 1996. “my grandfather’s last tale.” the atlantic monthly 96. accessed march 20, 2016. www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96dec/toch/weschler.html. . 2003. “popocatepetl: a noodling reminiscence.” the threepenny review 92. accessed march 20, 2016. www.threepennyreview.com/samples/weschler_w03.html. . 2015. “ernst toch—my grandfather the forgotten composer who fled the nazis.” the guardian, june 18. accessed march 20, 2016. www.theguardian.com/music/2015/ jun/18/ernst–toch––weimar–germany–forgotten–composer–lawrence–weschler. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 381 nigun poems jake marmer preface this set of poems grew out of my experiences of listening and finding myself inside nigunim (pl; singular nigun or nign), chassidic chants—mystical, usually wordless songs used as accompaniment for rituals—weddings, prayers, candle–lightings—collective beckoning of transcendence. the nigun experience is fraught with what amiri baraka called, referring to blues, the “re/feeling”—proximity and shape of personal history of encounters with unfathomable. because most of the nigunim did not have lyrics they were comprised of scat—but a somber sort of a scat: “oi–oi”, “di–dai”, “bah–bom”, etc. musical instruments were not used to accompany them, either, since most of the singing happened on the sabbath, when instruments were put away. rid of accompaniment, rid of lyrics, these stripped down chants were visceral and prayer–like but washed out of content, and filled, instead, with implication—with attempts. at the climax of one of his talks, balancing at the edge of the cognitive void, rabbi nachman of breslov reportedly said: “and even to this, too, there’s an answer. but that answer is necessarily a song.” these poems attempt to reimagine the sensation of locating oneself inside a nigun. current musicology 382 induction into nigun1 people turn into rocks song like water beats between them 1. this poem was originally published in the new vilna review in march 2012 jake marmer 383 blanket nigun what this blanket weighs for days, yr muscles will remember feet land on the floor so cold you begin to feel a tonic sled, under another you, under another blanket, heavier, bigger, what it weighs you may never know— the cold— is inside the vision as blankness, your voice nesting, missing feathers lifting off you begin to feel current musicology 384 painters’ nigun on hearing frank london’s h.w.n. this is a song of people painting walls walls of a shul that doesn’t exist paint rolls upwards pulled by other gravities you could celebrate a bris a yontef air thickening with paint— inanimate painted with breath breathes as it is said: “living words” painting walls on the scaffolding of a drum solo of fists banging a table which is a real table it’s really here but the scaffolding is full of paint the scaffolding is a face of the shul that doesn’t exist the sound rises like an animal and walks moving its burden to the pit in the shul a pit built for the chazzan as it is said “from the depth . . .” this yontef commemorates what has never happened but the paint the paint rolls like walls stands like sea walls standing mercurially jake marmer 385 nigun au rebours this song is not an act but erasure the way other songs reach into you this one retreats, taking with it stuff that seemed nailed to the floor this song is cinematic in its reel you may find yourself humming its residue you may wonder who you’re feeding— through the song’s straw that ascends to the pouting mouth of the vanishing point current musicology 386 root–note nigun this nigun is about a stick figure and the wind over canvas that bared it— it’s about a two–bone abstraction, a solitary root note, resounding its stripped chorus no aesthetics beyond instinct— this nigun is about a scratch, a typo, doodle of person—dropped into an impressionist painting amidst the ball of flesh and color and it knows there must be a mistake and mumbles all it ever knows to mumble —“i exist”—“i exist”—“i exist”— a note bent in and out of the question this nigun is about a stick figure imagining it could change its fate by lifting its stick–figure hands heavenward jake marmer 387 cecil’s scarecrow nigun for anthony coleman this nigun is a scarecrow in your old clothes it looks a little bit like you— a no–thanks–prophecy— the fence: scarecrow’s stage and metalepsis melody lint, limp sleeves and run–on paint everybody here forgets what they came for— newly unknotted, turn into congregants dissipating in their coats the nigun shuckles, rocks alone victorious creaking guardian in the field of pure color current musicology 388 amphibian nigun needle threads nothingness hunks of it transparent slices of ice  a dress good for running up and down the stairs of the ancestral dream ice quickly goes new york ice always does melting ripples around your face it’s the puddle–waltz— for a minute you remember there’s a world at the bottom of your stomach peopled with memories sad eyes, winking— and when you raise your head and ask for a drink someone shows you to the ocean and says welcome to your new life under the water current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 farrow. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 feeling pain/making kin in the brooklyn noise music scene david farrow i wish i was beautiful and become something you live for but i see this monster in their eyes i wish i was beautiful and become something you live for goodbye y’all rest in peace diy1 hanging up the phone on their father, snug tells me, “he shouldn’t be worried. i’ve been going to parties and shows since i was 15, but he treats me like a child.” to snug, i am a stranger who happened to sit next to them after a show at the queens venue trans-pecos. covered in bracelets and adorned with a foxtail, snug’s frustration with their father’s call is palpable, but why did they confide in me? fifteen minutes prior, snug and i moshed to the electronic punk act deli girls with no knowledge of each other’s existence. the bruises from my collisions with other bodies still fresh on my skin, i am thrust into an intimate conversation concerning family with a stranger. in this article, i theorize the animating role pain in mosh pits plays in community formation in the brooklyn do-it-yourself (diy) noise music scene. pain initiates social connections that extend beyond performance to emotional and financial support. while pain unites noise music communities, the pain experienced by long-term hispanic and black communities when losing homes and communities in the same neighborhoods in which performances occur fails to breach venues’ walls. the complicity of arts communities in gentrification means diy scenes and venues contribute to the gentrification of these neighborhoods despite their inclusive, political commitments. at the same time, diy communities differ from subcultures through building queer kinships that can be mobilized to support queer life and to resist artist-led gentrification. to conclude, i consider how queer kinship within the noise music scene circulates grief and support following the sudden death of digital punk band love spread’s multi-instrumentalist ryota machida. while there are aesthetic differences between all artists discussed, the overarching terms “mutant” and “noise” have emerged within the scene as signifiers of a “break from normative social contexts,” serving as an “antisubject of culture” that deploys the negative connotations of noise as a sense of communal identity (novak 2015, 130,133). interestingly, this 10 current musicology characterization of noise resonates with the destabilizing potential ascribed to queerness. queerness, whether related to gender, sexuality, or non-normative socialities, exposes the “unity” ascribed to identity (male/ female, heterosexuality, ‘traditional’ family structure) as regulatory fictions which are naturalized in order to maintain heterosexual, patriarchal, binary gendered, settler colonial, racial, and classed hierarchies (butler 1990, 43). although many noise artists discussed identify as queer, non-binary, and/or trans, i do not seek to define a genre of “diy queer noise music,” but instead, following ana maría ochoa gautier, to examine diy, queerness, and noise “as distributive and multiple, as emphasizing relations of exteriority and change rather than unity” (ochoa gautier 2014, 66). within the brooklyn noise scene, queerness expresses itself through sexuality, nonbinary gender identity, non-normative lifestyles, and aesthetics in always changing ways. queerness, noise, and diy are constituted through breaks from normativity such that persons can experience different ways of being and relating to one another. at the same time, as relations defined by “exteriority and change,” diy exists in tension with long-term working class and racial communities. the artistic community it encapsulates has been thoroughly weaponized within gentrification, leading to the loss of family homes within hispanic and black neighborhoods. while artists themselves live precarious lives due to low incomes, marginalized racial and gender identities and sexualities, the “immanent dependencies” in which artists come to rely on one another must not contribute to the pain of oppressed urban communities (povinelli 2006, 25). the proliferation of real estate capital and pro-gentrification urban planning in new york city means not every precarious life is valued the same. as relations of necessity, ways in which communities respond to their own marginalization, queer kinship’s radical potential resides in rethinking community itself within brooklyn diy, severing its relation to gentrification, and politicizing the relationships made in the mosh pit and on the dance floor. what ‘diy’ is (and isn’t) i am at the glove, a do-it-yourself venue on the border between the bedford-stuyvesant and bushwick neighborhoods in brooklyn, to see harsh noise artist channel 63. channel 63’s performance, an imposing wall of computer-generated noise accompanied by drowned out shouts, fades into love spread. i watch love spread whip the 20-30 bodies ambling around the glove into a furious torrent with their japanese pop and digital-punk hybrid. they are mutants of the highest degree. as member 11 david farrow ryota machida dives into the crowd, the spaces between us disappear. both the venue the glove and the artists performing that night are committed to diy as an ethical disposition and practice of community organizing. american diy emerged in the 1980s independent rock and punk scene as an “ideology and practice” of cultural production that strived for a sense of social autonomy from oppressive hierarchical structures and aesthetic autonomy from the music industry (pearson 2018, 47). diy situates self-sufficiency and autonomy as central aspects of creative life. glove co-founder lily chambers emphasizes these characteristics in a formal interview when asked why she preferred ‘diy’ to ‘artist-run’ when referring to the glove: like ‘artist run’—to me, that’s lovely. i also think ‘do it yourself ’ is a bit more aggressive and i think people should be thinking that way. after doing it myself for so long, then it’s just like, “now it’s your turn, buddy.” and it’s also like someone can say like, “artist run spaces are over.” but, you can’t really say diy is over. as long as you can do stuff, you can still do stuff. lily’s celebration of the aggressive character of diy syncs with the political commitments of diy spaces. the zine building: a diy guide to creating space, hosting events and fostering radical community similarly defines diy as an ethics concerned with “taking direct action to live independently from capitalist society” as to foster “control over our own lives” (campau, 2002). as an organizational practice within underground music and art communities, diy reflects a conscious commitment to building spaces where “everyone feels supported” (2002). diy venues often exist outside of the formal club and bar scene, lacking liquor licenses, building code compliances, and approval by city agencies. the absence of public addresses insulates venues from police and health and safety monitoring. at the same time, the necessity of asking someone for the address is an intentional or unintentional screening process. organizers filter potential artists and attendees to create “autonomous and safe(r) spaces” for people of marginalized identities while simultaneously making “assessments about who to program at their shows and accept into their spaces” (verbuč 2017, 297). safer space policies attempt to fix for the privileging of white, male counterculture within the diy scene; however, this vetting process can render diy shows and venues “unintentionally exclusive” by limiting access to people already aware of the diy scene (2017, 296). in this section, i trace the tension between the inclusive political commitments of diy spaces and exclusionary implications of their existence 12 current musicology in low-income, racialized neighborhoods. focusing on two venues, the silent barn and trans-pecos, which both transitioned from informal and illegal spaces to code-compliant venues, i examine how racially motivated neighborhood divestment and the socioeconomic valuation of artists over marginalized racial groups serve as the material conditions for diy venues’ emergence in brooklyn and queens. these material conditions cannot be separated from deli girl’s performance at trans-pecos detailed in the next section; in turn, the performance cannot exist without the structural conditions guaranteeing the venue’s existence. throughout the twentieth century, brooklyn was a patchwork of different racial and ethnic communities. in the wake of post-industrialism, brooklyn saw an influx of black southerners and mexican and puerto rican immigrants throughout the 1960s. paired with white flight from new york city as a whole, brooklyn neighborhoods were increasingly identified by racial composition: ethnic white and puerto rican communities in williamsburg, hispanic communities in bushwick, and black communities in bedford-stuyvesant (valli 2015, 1197; zukin 2009, 42). this prompted racially motivated disinvestment by the city government and capital, ongoing discrimination in loan accessibility as the result of red-lining, and neglect if not outright sabotage of properties by landlords resulted in deteriorating living conditions for residents and falling property values throughout the city during the 1960s and 70s (calvente 2017, 127-128). in manhattan’s lower east side, widescale disinvestment translated to low cost living, working, and performing spaces for artists, musicians, and bohemians throughout the 60s and 70s. artists’ growing presence in the lower east side was coextensive with increasing speculative investments as landlords “anticipated consumption of apartments by ‘upscale urbanities’” thanks to middle-class development of surrounding neighborhoods, increased availability of capital for speculation as the result of the stock market boom, and “the symbolic representation of the east village as an alluring arts district” (mele 2000, 223). while the population of the lower east side decreased by thirty percent between 1970-1980, rents increased between 128 percent and 172 percent (smith 1996, 196). real estate developers, landlords, and city planners successfully transformed the cultural capital of artists into an engine for the gentrification of the lower east side throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. by the 1990s, artists found themselves priced out of manhattan, initiating a mass migration into williamsburg. urban development had not yet begun in earnest in williamsburg as the neighborhood was perceived as “nonwhite, low-income, and underutilized” (mahmoud 2014, 103). 13 david farrow the low-cost, post-industrial spaces along the waterfront greeted artists with spacious lofts and warehouses in which they could live relatively low-cost artistic lives while organizing noisy concerts and expansive art installations (zukin and braslow 2011, 398). viewing williamsburg (and soon bushwick) as “frontiers,” the artists of the 1990s and early 2000s imagined these neighborhoods as “a peripheral urban area with “new” and cheap space, “ripe” for artistic imagination, occupation, and enterprise” (mahmoud 2014, 100). often ignoring the nonwhite and poor populations already living and making community in these neighborhoods, artists channeled their creativity into building new communities to uplift their surroundings. among those attracted to the area was todd patrick. in 2001, patrick settled in brooklyn after moving from portland, oregon. he soon began booking diy shows in non-traditional spaces such as “parking lots, storefronts, church basements, and construction sites” in addition to friends’ lofts and warehouses (leckert 2015, 209). patrick founded his own shortlived diy venue llano estacado in 2004 before establishing the more successful monster island basement along the williamsburg waterfront (lewis 2016). throughout the early 2000s, patrick, other diy venue operators, and adjacent art scenes transformed williamsburg and brooklyn more generally into an alluring destination for creatives and real estate developers (goodman 2017, 307-310; zukin 2009). running on shoestring budgets and haunted by the possibility of crackdowns on code compliance, diy venues have short lifespans. this temporariness renders diy venues “an intermediary, second-best option for vacant urban space in the absence of other development options, or as a prelude to more profitable ventures to be launched by the initial users themselves or by external investors” (columb 2012, 141). as temporary occupations of space, diy venues generate value through expanding the cultural capital of a neighborhood, widening “the value gap between the income they generate as rental properties and their potential sale price” (stein 2019, 50). as the perceived value of a property increases, the financial incentive for landlords to remove less profitable tenants grows. patrick notes his awareness of this phenomenon, telling deli magazine in 2005 that the building housing llano estacado was previously another art and performance space before “our landlord bought it, and then some other buildings, i think with the goal of turning them into high-rises” once the area was rezoned for residential properties (yuan 2005). following the 2005 rezoning of 170 blocks in williamsburg, many of the industrial spaces previously utilized by artists transformed into profitable real estate investments 14 current musicology for landlords (zukin 2009, 58-59; mahmoud 2014, 108-109). as a result, between 2005 and 2015, rent increases, evictions, and changes to the socioeconomic makeup of williamsburg decreased the hispanic population by 22% (stabrowski 2015, 1121). tenant organizers further found “an increase in illegal evictions, landlord harassment, rent overcharge cases and landlords withdrawing their apartments from rent stabilization” (1121). these events coalesce in gentrification, a racial capitalist structure that rationalizes the violent displacement of racial minorities and working-class people through redevelopment and profit seeking (smith 1996, 22). city government and landlords consciously outsourced the labor of urban development to diy venues and other artist communities. through remaking the perception of williamsburg, artists attracted restaurants, bars, and business who then catered to a professional class willing to pay higher rents (zukin and braslow 2011, 133-135). soon enough, rezoning, reinvestment by landlords, and a rising cost of living priced artists and venues out of williamsburg during the late 2000s and early 2010s, with todd patrick’s monster island basement closing in 2011 and his next williamsburg venue, 285 kent, only lasting between 2010 and 2014 (leckert 2015, 209). the decampment of diy from williamsburg pushed the urban frontier deeper into brooklyn and queens. in 2004, the diy venue the silent barn traced the outer limits of artistic expansion into ridgewood, a queens neighborhood bordering brooklyn’s bushwick neighborhood. patrick joined the silent barn collective in 2007, helping run the space while continuing to host diy parties throughout brooklyn. the silent barn operated between 2004-2011 before being shut down by the department of buildings. after raising $40,000 from kickstarter, members of the original silent barn founded a second, code compliant silent barn in bushwick in 2012. during this same period, patrick and musician sam hillmer founded trans-pecos as a code compliant venue in the original silent barn’s space in ridgewood, opening the venue in december 2013. the silent barn and trans pecos emerged along the bleeding edge of gentrification in bushwick and ridgewood. at the same time, they represent different continuations of diy ethos. the silent barn consciously oriented itself within intersectional feminist and anarchistic traditions through “a nonhierarchical, collective structure inspired by occupy wall street” whereas trans-pecos pursues financial stability through operating as an avant-garde venue in the tradition of tonic and the knitting factory (pelly 2018). while artists and diy spaces strive to be inclusive and socially conscious, their presence is painfully felt by long-term residents as the devalu15 david farrow ing of existing communities. rosa, a 26-year-old social worker and college student born in bushwick to dominican parents, expresses frustration surrounding this reality in an interview with geographer chiara valli: i’m losing my home because i don’t make enough to live here. because there are people who looked different than me, who have more money, and supposedly put more value just by who they are. what i am is not valuable enough. i don’t mean shit. that’s what makes people so angry (2015, 1204). rosa’s “sense of anger and frustration” reflects the structural valuation of artists and cultural producers by capital and city government over the lives of long-term residents (1204). by remaking the perception of a neighborhood, diy spaces unwittingly serve as “place[s] for cool cultural consumption […] which then sparks a commercial revival, a residential influx of people with money, and, finally, the building of new luxury apartments with extravagant rents” (zukin 2009, 37). in this way, the discursive commitment to inclusiveness and openness at diy venues rings as false to long-term residents. patrick stresses that trans-pecos functions as a community space through hosting non-profit groups, schools, the local precinct, and disability services (koslow 2015). the silent barn similarly emphasized its partnership with educated little monsters, a youth-centered music education group operated by and catering to longtime bushwick residents and their children (silent barn 2018). while these efforts are valuable, valli’s ethnographic research in bushwick notes “long-time residents tend to feel uncomfortable in new businesses not only because of the kind of services offered and their prices, but also because they feel ‘other’ from the people who frequent those establishment” (1201). the venues do not feel like part of their community. as an embodied process, gentrification reworks visual landscapes and soundscapes for long-term residents, reorganizing the senses to make home feel different. sensory experience entails that “experiencing and knowing place—the idea of place as sensed, place as sensation—can proceed through a complex interplay of the auditory and the visual, as well as through other intersensory perceptual processes” (feld 1996, 98). sensory experience and place are co-constitutive, as place structures sensory experience and sensory experience contours place. diy venues condition the emergence of community through distinct visual, sonic, and haptic experiences that were not found within the neighborhood. silent barn collective member and journalist jenn pelly speaks to this, noting, “spaces like silent barn, with their radical openness, facilitate the process of locating a sense of purpose around music, in small groups of 16 current musicology outsiders, in real time” (2018). diy community within brooklyn emerges from the network of diy venues frequented by artists and art patrons bound together by, as pelly puts it, “the process of locating a sense of purpose around music.” the problem emerges when people step outside the venue into a very different landscape and soundscape. the aesthetic autonomy found within a diy venue separates the venues from their neighborhoods not because of a lack of commitment to inclusivity, but because of the structural valuation of artist’s autonomy over long-term residents’ community. as pelly notes, the silent barn’s residents were, by 2018, primarily “queer, trans, nonbinary, and young,” the programming handled “by a team of women and nonbinary bookers,” and the venue consistently raised money for social justice efforts. such efforts are essential to diversifying diy, but they fail to solve for the ongoing instrumentalization of arts communities for gentrification. as the silent barn asks in the statement concerning its shutdown in 2018, “how can we responsibly serve a neighborhood while contributing to its rapid gentrification?” the closure of the silent barn reflects how the temporary nature of a diy venue is a source of frustration for long-term residents. carlos, a 36-year-old father of three of mexican background, emphasizes the lifestyle differences between newcomers and the long-term hispanic community: we hispanic are religious people, family people. the hipsters are not family people. one thing i’ve noticed where i have lived is that hipsters don’t stay. they come here two–three months and then they go. they are like nomads, they wander around. and they have no families. they like to party and drink all night ... it’s not that we don’t like the hipsters, but what is happening is affecting people who have been living here all their lives (valli 1202-1203). carlos views the autonomy achieved by arts communities as a disconnection from family and long-term community. his frustration is paired with the material suffering experienced by communities evicted and displaced by landlords and developers seeking to profit from the newfound desirability of his neighborhood. for him, the temporariness of a diy venue would not reflect the fragile intimacy of community, but the same community’s weaponization within gentrification. the difficulty is that even if, as longtime silent barn member g lucas crane tells pelly, “the present and future of diy is brown, queer and trans,” these same communities continue to be valued as artists over long-term black, brown, and queer communities because they attract higher income residents to their neighborhoods (2018). as the silent barn lingers in memory, trans-pecos’s stability as a business entrenches its role in the gentrification of ridgewood. ridgewood 17 david farrow tenant advocates, protesters, and activists draw a direct line from arts and culture to gentrification, noting landlords utilize “ridgewood’s renewed status […] to displace longtime residents out of their homes in order to renovate the units and charge higher rents,” with ridgwood’s eviction rate twice that of the rest of queens in 2018 (bultman 2016; kromkei 2019). artists are positioned to disrupt gentrification, but they must first acknowledge their complicity. in the next section, i examine pain as sensation to show how queer people form community through different sensory experiences within mosh pits at diy venues. the deli girls’ performance at trans-pecos discussed and those like the scene described by pelly are extremely important for queer people to find community in shared pain. the ability to have these experiences within diy venues is double-edged, both enabling community formation and rendering diy communities complicit in gentrification. do the walls of trans-pecos render the pain experienced by uprooted latinx and black populations inadmissible in performance? the final section approaches this problematic through theorizing queer community in diy as queer kinship to politicize communal ties in service of anti-gentrification projects. pain as community crammed into trans-pecos, the crowd surrounds an intricate patchwork of drum machines and samplers. two figures in track suits lord over the assembled instruments. they reject the stage, instead occupying the area in-front of the crowd. as the first sampled kick drum careens out of the speakers, the audience collides into one another as if becoming both the absent drum pedal and drum skin. trans-pecos’s concrete walls, adorned with art and complemented by wooden benches, contain and amplify the thunderous electronics emanating from deli girls’ rig. intense volume and noise music are frequent bedfellows as “noise’s affective power requires this visceral embodiment of its extreme volume” (novak 2013, 46). vocalist danny orlowski’s lyrics overtake the throbbing din of samples generated by multi-instrumentalist tommi kelly as orlowski’s vocal cords strain to transform words into impassioned shouts: “you’d kill me/ but i’d kill you first/ i see no irony/ real scum hides/ i don’t believe in irony/ you say rights/ but you don’t mean rights/ you would kill me/ i see no irony/ i see no irony.” orlowski’s repetition of “i see no irony” sends the crowd into an uncontainable flurry. varyingly called the mosh, circle pit, or pogo dancing depending on one’s subcultural allegiances, bodies spasm with reckless abandonment. dick hebdige, in considering pogo dancing in english punk subculture, situates the dance in relation to “changes in the tempo 18 current musicology of the music” arguing the frantic jumping up and down of the dance “forbade” interpersonal sociality serving as “a reductio ad absurdum of all the solo dance styles associated with rock music” (hebdige 1979, 108-109). against this mechanic and solipsistic analysis of pogoing, cultural theorist rosemary overell stresses the mosh pit is “primarily experienced by audience members as affective” (overell, 2014, 24). the divergent accounts illustrate the particular function affect plays in determining the relationship between the individual and the collective within dances associated with extreme music performances. affect is a force that organizes bodies through “a non-conscious experience of intensity; it is a moment of unformed and unstructured potential” (shouse 2005). for crowds of extreme music performances like noise, the intensity experienced during the show determines how individuals experience themselves as a crowd. at trans-pecos, the crowd’s affect is particularly violent. as the intensity of the mosh grows, i feel something akin to what ethnomusicologist david verbuč describes as “an affective state of existential desolateness” in that the abandonment of my own body into the chaotic mass of the crowd produces a “‘togetherness’ comprising separate individuals” (verbuč 2018, 99). i am hurt—my shoe has slipped off and my feet are being pounded by stray boot heels—but this is a collective hurt. all around me, individuals fall, hoping to be caught by someone else in the crowd, a reflection of the implicit “pit etiquette” of looking out for one another that is taught through the feeling of the mosh pit (riches 2011, 326). orlowski’s vocals tear through the crowd, beckoning crests in the violent mass. orlowski’s lyrics, in their own words, explore their experience of sexual violence and the“socially glorified men [that] told me that there was no evidence that it happened” (mashurov 2018). reflecting on audience reactions to such personal lyrics, orlowski notes, “it’s probably the best fucking feeling ever that people are into our record […] i’m sure none of them are even aware of what it means to me. but it’s so cool to see people mosh and get angry [with this as] the soundtrack” (2018). as with many deli girls’ performances, the people getting angry are a diverse collection of queers, femmes, non-binary people, clubbers, and punks of large and small body types. baggy vintage shirts, black leather, neon hair, the sway of too many cheap beers, black boots overtop crushed cans, exposed skin bearing stick-and-poke tattoos—the audience hails from more aggressive corners of the rave and club scenes where punk’s jagged edges reemerge in distorted kick drums and shrill crashes. the scene embraces androgyny, gender play, and non-binary identity as comfortable aspects of diy life in brooklyn, with at least half of the performers on the bill at trans-pecos identifying as genderqueer and/or trans. 19 david farrow as this crowd assembles in the mosh, orlowski deploys vocal repetition to invoke the immateriality of the collective experience of pain. in examining repetition within prayers, anthropologist maria josé de abreu argues repetition unites body and voice “toward increasing immateriality and purification of one’s self ” as individuals tune their bodies to the patterns of a sermon to experience sacred community (de abreu 2008, 65). attention to breathing in addition to the significance of words unite body and mind in the performance of prayer to produce an enraptured affect (2008, 66). orlowski’s repetition of the phrase “i see no irony”—referencing the irony of naming an album focused on recounting experiences of sexual violence evidence after the same accounts were denied as evidence by the aforementioned socially glorified men and the ironic redeployment of violence against sexual abusers throughout the song “real scum hides” —maintains a controlled breathing pattern to ensure appropriately screamed accents. orlowski breathes the lyrics into the crowd’s body, ‘purifying’ each member through uniting them in the collective mosh. as the affective intensity structuring the potential of these bodies, pain moves without intent from one body to another, ebbing and flowing with orlowski’s repeating vocal lines and the rhythmic patterns of kelly’s drum machines. bringing individuals into the mass of the mosh pit, pain disorganizes the body of each participant by subjecting it to the collective affect conducted by orlowski’s vocals (musser 2012, 79). similar to how goosebumps emerge as “pre-conscious affectual bodily response” generating a religious feeling, tensed and released muscles pre-consciously mediate the experience of collective belonging within the mosh pit, serving as a conduit for the pain experienced in bodily collision (de abreu 2008, 61). the religiosity of the mosh lies in the communal experience of pain that disorganizes individuality, producing a collective sense of belonging. hebdige’s notion of the pogo as “reductio ad absurdum of all the solo dance styles” is replaced by the collective mosh pit as jointly desiring to inflict and to share in pain. the moments where bodies come into contact transcend “private ‘personal space’” as individuals lose their capacity to be separate from others and become part of a collective that “subverts and transcends the social boundedness of the body” (verbuč, 2017, 294-295). orlowski’s sense that the audience fails to understand the personal meaning of their music expresses the potential for moshing to transcend “the personal and representational aspects itself of show” through inviting the audience to feel part of “a momentary and intimate affective collective” (verbuč, 2018, 92). the mosh eschews the necessity of identifying with orlowski’s lyrical 20 current musicology content, instead dwelling in the collective affect of shared pain. in her research on moshing in extreme music, heavy metal scholar gabrielle riches stresses this relationship between pain and collectivity as a way of gaining knowledge through “the experience of acknowledging human suffering, limitation, pain, vanity and morality in a collective manner” as to blur the dichotomy between “individuality/collectivity” (riches, 2011, 320, 326). the community found in the mosh pit mobilizes shared pain into anger against sexual violence. as members of the crowd scream “you’d kill me/ but i’ll kill you first,” collective pain from different experiences of violence illuminates agency. feeling pain together is a source of strength, endurance, and power. at the same time, the blurring of individuality and collectivity reflects the limits of the embodied knowledge gained through the collective pain experienced in the mosh. moshing represents a different knowledge concerning the affect of community as opposed to the communication of individual experience. the movement from the solo pogo dancing to the collective mosh occurs as touch reorients “various senses of the world and attunement toward seeing and feeling in common” such that the touch is not “predicated on mastery and control” but “engaged participation” (muñoz 2013, 106). this “engaged participation” exists outside of specific knowledge of orlowski’s trauma in that it rejects an “identification of ‘oneself with ‘another’” through dissolving the difference between separate individuals within the mosh (klima 2002, 229). orlowski’s moshing with the audience as they vocalize their pain stresses solidarity and collectivity over knowledge and recognition. pain isn’t communicated but felt. this distinction between the pain expressed by orlowski in their lyrics and the pain experienced in the mosh demonstrates that diy social belonging emerges through audience’s limited capacity to comprehend the performer’s pain. shared perception allows collective experience in listening and movement through performance’s “social and co-constitutive process that shapes and is shaped by knower and known, perceiver and perceived” (thompson, 2017, 273). shared perception therefore implies that what music does in performance cannot be separated from how performance comes to exist. as a shared element of noise music performances involving mosh pits, pain is an element of the performance, but the pain experienced in the performance and the pain expressed in performance are distinct, co-constitutive elements. pain experienced in performance constitutes an affect of the mosh that operates through a metacommunicative frame that “gives the receiver instructions or aids in [their] attempt to understand the messages included within the frame” (bateson 1972, 188). the frame establishes a 21 david farrow distinction between a pure sense of inflicting pain for the sake of harm and a sense of pain as “play” that does not communicate an anti-social desire to harm. the frame is actualized through specific organizations of senses within diy venues that allow participants to know “this is play” (bateson 1972, 189-190). pain in moshing is a felt epistemology of social belonging in the noise community, binding participants together through sharing pain within a community. this framing of pain as play within performance is a momentary relation of care issuing forth from the mosh pit. the violence represented in orlowski’s lyrics, in the moments in “you want it you got it” in which they scream “this is my body and i’ll fucking kill you/ and he held me down/ and he held me down” until their vocal cords strain, mobilizes pain to form community in the mosh. this collective moment of community is defined by the boundary between orlowski’s experience of “the best fucking feeling” when seeing people “mosh and get angry” to their music and orlowski’s knowledge that the same people are probably not “even aware of what it means to me.” (overell, 2014, 173; mashurov 2018). orlowski points to the invigorating aspect of this exclusion, showing that the affective disjuncture between registers of pain binds the performer to the performance and the performance space not because of feeling the same as the audience but through feeling different. performance allows artists to explore their own emotional depths while learning through others’ experience of the same but different feeling. in this way, orlowski’s performance overcomes the difficulties of discussing sexual violence through creating a collective space of community and shared pain within the mosh pit. for audience members, the mosh pit becomes a place to support and care for one another through shouldering the ongoing pain of past traumas together. as a part of the shared experience within diy spaces, the intensity of performances and communal experiences binds artists and audiences to spaces. the affect imbued within the space elicits a particular sense of belonging and collectivity found within diy. lily identifies this affective charge of performance as a key political dimension of diy, telling me that: i think diy in general is a very political thing right now. it is the ability to have no means and be an artist and be able to create something. it is also a way to have no means and have an audience, and be able to have no means and see art. seeing art is exceptionally important to make it. it is a huge, key piece. being able to see that and give people the opportunity to experience that is key. seeing art excites one’s capacity to create art. following performance theo22 current musicology rist josé esteban-muñoz, performance transforms this potential to create into intense affects that “generate a modality of knowing and recognition among audiences and groups that facilitates modes of belonging, especially minoritarian belonging” (muñoz 2009, 99). for many queer brooklynites, nonbinary people, and survivors of sexual assault, the deli girls’ mosh pit at a diy venue is where they find a sense of belonging. if what music does in performance cannot be separated from how performance comes to exist, the sense of belonging fostered cannot be separated from trans-pecos’s complicity in gentrification. performance imbues a venue with meaning, but this meaning escapes the venue, becoming embedded within a neighborhood and utilized to facilitate gentrification. if artists are, as anti-gentrification activist group decolonize this place puts it, “lynchpins in the process of displacement” through occupying “the nexus of art and real estate market,” artists must become “weapons of creative resistance in solidarity with the communities where [they] live and work.” gentrification is violence, resulting in pain, loss of community, and the destruction of homes for black, latinx, and other marginalized populations throughout new york city. this pain does not penetrate the walls of a diy venue. instead, it circulates in the community spaces and homes gentrification erodes. at the same time, the belonging and community formed through performance is a potential resource for anti-gentrification organizing, but only if it moves beyond the confines of a diy venue. it must reject the instrumentalization of diy community building within gentrification by making venues meaningfully accountable to their neighborhoods. maybe more importantly, a possible queer kinship developed in performance must find ways to care for and grieve with those affected by gentrification while turning this pain into a source of strength and resistance. queer kinship in life and death on november 10th 2018, ryota machida suddenly passed away. i think about that night at the glove. channel 63 writes on instagram (november 13, 2018), “thank you for everything […] your music was so painfully important to me and it’s even more so now. i can hardly even believe that this happened, i’m incredibly happy i had the opportunity to call you a friend.” digital punk act machine girl similarly eulogizes machida on instagram (november 12, 2018), recalling, “the halloween gig with us, love spread and [dreamcrusher] in 2015 is maybe still my favorite show we’ve played and the love spread set that night was life changing. just a room full of friends hurling globs of fake blood and spider webs at each 23 david farrow other in a mosh pit barely five feet from a glass case full of exotic bugs and tarantulas.” at the edge of the mosh pit, figures dance to love spread, throwing themselves into the music, but holding themselves back to protect the encased insects. a push and pull between abandonment and concern defines moshing. a push and pull between abandonment and concern defines any relation of care. when moshing, i must determine how much to let myself go into the chaotic flurry and how much i must look out for those around me. in relations of care, one must determine how much to let go, to love, to be consumed by concern for others, and how much to hold back, to preserve oneself. love’s difficulty follows from being “an eros without teleology,” an intensity without direction that reshapes the relationship between individuality and collectivity (nelson 2015, 44). traditional euroamerican kinship organizes love within the hetero-patriarchal family, positioning love as a scarce resource to be shared between blood relatives and monogamous couples (tallbear 2018). against this conservatism, indigenous, feminist, and queer life and scholarship has deconstructed kinship predicated on blood to explore expansive relations of love, care, and support. following judith butler, i understand kinship “as a set of practices that institutes relationships of various kinds which negotiate the reproduction of life and the demands of death” and kinship practices as “those that emerge to address fundamental forms of human dependency, which may include birth, child-rearing, relations of emotional dependency and support, generational ties, illness, dying, and death (to name a few)” (butler 2002, 14-15). in order to care for those neglected by society, queer kinship attempts to resignify “the terms which effect our exclusion and abjection that such a resignification creates the discursive and social space for community” through developing systems of material and emotional support (butler 1993, 131). queer kinship is forged in struggled, representing precarious relations of care that must be continuously nurtured to survive. these struggles are “the difficult labor of forging a future” from drawing from dominant organizations of social life and remixing them into means of survival for marginalized populations (butler 1993, 241). queer kinship’s precariousness is a source of expansiveness. in this final section, i turn to the relations forged in performance to understand how queer kinship within brooklyn’s diy noise scene circulates material and affective support beyond performance. in particular, i consider how queer kinship sustains queer life and mourns death. as a precarious connection, queer kinship is maintained in the scene through repeated practices of care and support found inside and outside of diy venues. to conclude, i reflect 24 current musicology on what an expansive queer kinship would mean for anti-gentrification organizing in new york city. queer kinship within the diy community circulates resources (ticket revenue, drink sales, volunteer labor, drugs, friendship, aesthetic inspiration) as embodied support. obligations of care organize relations of material interdependence. these obligations are forged in performance and extended through the care and support shown to people and spaces entangled in diy’s queer kinship. when interviewing lily, we discuss how the diy venue the glove was a product of people volunteering to help with various tasks: they just say, “do you need help? i can do these kinds of things.” people will offer. people want to be involved in things. and, i think that’s pretty political in itself. people will absolutely offer free labor for things that they care about, or things that they want to be involved with. people want community. community as queer kinship reorganizes the social character of labor. as community in action, the glove “begins to enact the social order it seeks to bring about by establishing its own modes of sociability” with volunteer labor tracing an alternative economy (butler 2015, 84). the social character of volunteer labor is to further the circulation of value and affect for others. in this sense, diy labor practices resonate with anthropologist annette weiner’s understanding of the reproduction of value within relationships of reciprocity in which “value and wealth are embedded in ‘others’ as the primary mode of self-expansion” (weiner 1980, 82). a willingness to volunteer to clean, to work the door, or to do handiwork circulates value as expressions of “the social relationships and reputations of which they are part” (tsing 2015, 122). to this end, glove curator and musician charlie dore-young links community, space, and creative labor as the defining characteristics of the glove, writing on facebook (september 2, 2019): what made the glove so special and important was two things: a vibrant, multifaceted greater arts community that was able to progress and expand with the benefit of a place to congregate – and a group of openminded curators (all artists themselves *hint*) sharing/giving each other [sic] space to make their dreams possible. the artist-run nature and creative labor, in dore-young’s account, are coconstitutive to the success of the glove. as value existing in circulation with others, the social character of labor requires communal reciprocity in order to reproduce itself. asking others to perform, help build the space, promote the show, and attend the 25 david farrow performance creates social entanglements of value and expectations of reciprocity. these activities, which in other spaces are treated as economic practices, exist in diy spaces as social obligations of queer kinship, constituting community itself. as weiner notes, “one’s self, one’s position, and one’s potential as a reproductive agent depend upon relations with ‘others,’ because the reproductive process depends upon the circulation of possessions from ‘others.’ (weiner 1980, 82).” the ten dollars in your pocket is an artist’s lunch; the beer from the glove’s bar is the rent; the volunteer time is the conditions for community and intimacy. the space exists only insofar as someone exists in service of someone else affectively through relations of intimacy and materially through reciprocal circulations of value. intimacy organizes affect and material support, allowing diy spaces to attend to needs (communal and biological) dominant social, economic, and political processes could not. diy in brooklyn is a network of venues, houses, bars, and community spaces circulating resources and support. performers’ willingness to host shows for each other and to organize concert bills highlights how queer kinship expands across space and time (verbuč, 2017, 288; campau 2012). the necessity of multiple acts to produce a bill means that bands are reliant upon one another to circulate a sense of community that sustains the scene. as an element of queer kinship, this mutual support is part of “the social and discursive building of community, a community that binds, cares, and teaches; that shelters and enables” that extends beyond any individual venue (butler 1993, 93). figure 2 traces this mutual support over the course of my fieldwork, demonstrating how mutual bookings across time and venues serve as a financial and affective network of queer kinship in the scene. 26 current musicology figure 1: concert flyers between 2018-2019 at trans-pecos, the glove, and market hotel for butler, queer kinship reworks the sociopolitical exclusion of queer ness into an inclusive community of those who have been excluded (butler 1993, 94). this model of kinship resonates with brooklyn noise as the aesthetic exclusion of noise, the social exclusion of living within queer musical communities, and financial exclusion of making non-commercial music becomes a source of strength, organizing, and community. the preference for kinship over subculture in analyzing diy noise follows from the usefulness of tracking circulations of resources and support that more meaningfully constitute community than the stylistic boundedness of subculture. in this sense, kinship shifts attention to “the circulation of possessions from ‘others’” that sustain life within the scene through norms of reciprocity (weiner 1980, 73, 82). norms of reciprocity govern circulations of material and emotional support as artists book one another, participate affectively in performances, donate money to one another, live together, and love one another. expanding the circulation of money and skills beyond queer kinship and diy venues into local economies contains the potential to combat gentrification. instead of patronizing new businesses geared to higher income residents, artists and diy patrons must support “longstanding locally-owned businesses in order to help sustain vulnerable local economies” (decolonize this place). moreover, the skills amassed through building diy venues must be put towards repairing existing public housing, community centers, and longstanding art spaces through partnerships with local organizers. venues must work with other building tenants and neighbors to ensure “tenant ownership in the form of cooperative, mutual housing associations, or community land trusts” takes their place once a venue closes (decolonize this place). engagement in tenant organizing can prevent landlords from evicting tenants, and flipping properties for profit. moreover, queer kinship and diy venues must expand their affective communities through consulting with long-term residents to determine how to support them. programming, concert billings, art initiatives, and activism must be developed in conjunction with long-term community leaders, artists, and activist. diy venues and scenes too often assume knowledge of a social problem and the type of art and music worth promoting without meaningfully consulting their neighborhoods. to develop relations of care, venue operators and scene participants must join existing community organizations to determine how the resources within a diy venue and queer kinship network can be mobilized to support ongoing 27 david farrow anti-gentrification struggles. queer kinship attends to needs unmet by the unequitable organization of society. to be enmeshed and supported by queer kinship is not to transcend the exclusion and abjection of racial capitalism, hetero-patriarchy, and settler colonialism. instead, it is a way of navigating and supporting queer life exactly because such a non-normative life is left to die. an expansive queer kinship endeavors to support marginalized lives both within the scene and within the neighborhood as a whole. in the absence of these efforts, queer kinship reifies the exclusions it seeks to overcome. queer kinship is the possibility of connection and the risk of relations fracturing. the public grief expressed in channel 63 and machine girl’s eulogies of ryota machida embodies this risk. to live through a network of material support, emotional care, and artistic community is to live precariously. machida’s death reverberated through the scene, felt through the queer kinship of mutant life. the july 7th 2019 benefit show honoring machida’s memory materializes grief. through the show, artists who were materially and emotionally connected to machida and love spread mobilize grief and pain found within loss to build community through performance. as a political act, the show makes machida’s death grievable in public, refusing to forget his life (butler 2015, 119). grief flows through the crowd as a felt sense. it is part of the larger embodied experience of community that binds the diy noise scene together in queer kinship. grieving, like many of the affects discussed, blurs the distinction between subculture and kinship. diy scenes must overcome their associations with subcultures to end their complicity gentrification. central to this task is finding ways to grieve for the lives and homes already lost to gentrification and police violence. the pain experienced by hispanic and black communities must find a place within diy venues so that we can grieve together. in turn, just as deli girls transforms pain into agency, the community formed in pain and mourning can organize against the real estate developers, landlords, and government officials destroying black and hispanic communities in brooklyn and queens. a more expansive queer kinship will link the material and affective networks of diy with organizing and activism within marginalized communities. for diy venues to become “weapons of creative resistance in solidarity with” communities affected by gentrification, they must abandon a narrow focus on music and arts for their own sake (decolonize this place). as ‘queer nihilist revolt musik’ composer dreamcrusher observes: the appeal of [diy venues] is i can go here and not think about what i look like when i enjoy these things and […] it makes me think about 28 current musicology the surroundings when i’m not here. it makes me rethink my daily commute; it makes me think about how i interact with other people, how i am perceiving music, how other people are perceiving music when i’m with them (2018). dreamcrusher highlights how participation in diy venues builds community and challenges the organization of cities. music and arts within diy spaces must channel the sounds, sights, and feelings to reshape participants’ complicity in gentrification. in the same panel discussion, dreamcrusher alluded to a performance by noise artist trnsgndr/vhs at the glove. in it, trnsgndr/vhs asked the audience a question, “because our scenes thrive on cultural individualism, and individualism is essential to free market capitalism, how are our scenes, subcultures beneficial to the communities that facilitate them under capitalism, through austerity, class-ism, racism, gentrification?” before adding, “if anyone in this room could answer me that question, without the use of any pronouns, meaning the words i, me, we, us cause this is about y’all. i will leave here the mic” (outten 2017). the room was silent for minutes before a woman of color in the audience accepted trnsgndr/vhs’s invitation, followed by other performers and audience members. simultaneously, some audience members, including a sizeable contingent of white men, left as the performance carried on. finally, only the night’s performers, others who had taken the mic, and members of the glove collective remained. at this point, trnsgndr/ vhs asked, “anyone from the staff at the glove like to come answer the question? because i know that this venue was created by a group of white kids from, if not upper higher-class, middle-class backgrounds” (outten 2017). there is no record of what was said, but i imagine the discomfort of the night outlasted the performance. life within diy scenes is messy. diy noise music in brooklyn is defined by the contradictions of striving for autonomy in a city governed by real estate and finance. it is both ensnared within gentrification and an attempt at illuminating alternatives to capitalist urban development. it is a site of pain, struggle, grief, and loss and a site of joy, perseverance, intimacy, and community. if, as judith butler puts it, “we are moved by something that affects us from the outside, from elsewhere, from the lives of others,” diy communities must allow themselves to be moved by the pain of gentrification (2015, 102). the moment demands intimacy in the exploration of an other’s depth. maybe diy communities will find more depth in themselves. 29 david farrow notes 1. love spread, “r.i.p.d.i.y. (run in pain, depressed, innocent youth)” from host in the hell. 2018, self-released. 2. outside of references to particular musical acts and members of the collective behind the diy venue the glove, some names used are pseudonyms. throughout this article, i use the singular pronoun “they” in accordance with the preferred pronouns of my interlocuters. the usage of “they” as a preferred pronoun is common practice within the scene to signal non-binary gender identity, promote gender inclusive language, and/or subvert the masculine/feminine gender binary. 3. throughout this article, i examine communities that explicitly use the discourse of diy to refer to themselves. many other scenes practice ‘doing-it-yourself ’ ethics, but do not explicitly refer to the discourse such as the progenitors of hip-hop in the bronx or the contemporary soundcloud rap scene. references bateson, gregory. 1972. steps to an ecology of mind. chicago: university of chicago press. butler, judith. 1990. gender trouble. new york: routledge. ___________. 1993. bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of ‘sex’. london: routledge. ___________. 2015. notes toward a performative theory of assembly. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. ___________. 2002. “is kinship always already heterosexual?” differences: a journal of feminist cultural studies 13(1): 14-44. bultman, matthew. 2016 “ridgewood is not for sale: residents.” queens chronicle, november 23rd.https://www.qchron.com/editions/queenswide/ridgewood-is-not-forsale-residents/article_6af93cbb-63e7-5cb7-9916-ad013a7ef703.html campau, neil. 2012. building: a diy guide to creating spaces, hosting events and fostering radical communities. 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japan. new york city: palgrave macmillan. pearson, david. 2018. “punk’s popularity anxieties and diy institutions as ideological (anti-) state apparatuses.” punk & post-punk 7(1): 37-55. pelly, jenn. 2011. “todd p celebrates a decade.” village voice, october 19, 2011. https://www.villagevoice.com/2011/10/19/todd-p-celebrates-a-decade/ _________.2018. “lessons from the closing of nyc’s silent barn, a diy institution.” pitchfork, may 24, 2018. https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/lessons-from-the-closing-ofnycs-silent-barn-a-diy-institution/ povinelli, elizabeth a. 2006. the empire of love: toward a theory of intimacy, genealogy, and carnality. durham: duke university press. riches, gabrielle. 2011. “embracing the chaos: mosh pits, extreme metal music and 31 david farrow liminality.” journal for cultural research 15 (3): 315-332. shouse, eric. 2005. “feeling, emotion, affect.” m/c journal 8 (6). silent barn. 2018. “a message from the silent barn collective.” accessed may 31st, 2020. http://silentbarn.org/ stabrowski, filip. 2015. “inclusionary zoning and exclusionary development: the politics of ‘affordable housing’ in north brooklyn.” international journal of urban and regional research 39(6): 1120-1136. stein, samuel. 2019. capital city: gentrification and the real estate state. new york: verso. smith, neil. 1996. the new urban frontier. new york: routledge. tallbear, kim. 2018. “making love and relations beyond settler sex and family.” in makingkin not population ed. adele e. clarke and donna haraway. chicago: prickly paradigm press. “todd p talks about the future of trans pecos (shows so far have been a preview.” brooklyn vegan, december 10, 2013. https://www.brooklynvegan.com/todd-p-talks-ab/ tsing, anna l. 2015. the mushroom at the end of the world: on the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. princeton: princeton university press. valli, chiara. 2015. “a sense of displacement: long-time residents’ feelings of displacement in gentrifying bushwick, new 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unplanned cultural zones.” city, culture and society 2: 131-140. microsoft word cm_111_harris_final.docx current musicology 111 (spring 2023) ©2023 harris. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnon-commercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 1 dub writing in marcia douglas’ the marvellous equations of the dread: a novel in bass riddim treviene a. harris “originally, what they called ‘dub’ was called a version…” michael veal (2007, 54) “books leave certain sounds, a certain pacing; mostly they leave the elusive, which is all the story. they leave much more than the words.” dionne brand, a map to the door of no return (2001) sound arguments the caribbean literary tradition is bound up with what edward baugh (2012) has termed the region’s “quarrel with history.” part of the region’s broader preoccupation with history, this quarrel is rooted in tensions between marginal histories and dominant historical narratives. as such, our literary tradition favors a poetics that reflect folk epistemologies as modes of historiography. sonic interventions upon and disturbances of traditional approaches to writing are turns toward indigenous vernacular cultural traditions of knowledge production animated by what vic reid refers to as “an echo in the bone or a noise in the blood.”1 engaging the “quarrel with history,” this article explores the ways writers of caribbean fiction reference sonic markers in ways that unsettle dominant knowledge and incite critical interrogations of western2 history and historiography. in such caribbean fiction, written representation of sound is a strategy authors use to counter the hegemony of written language and its attendant claims to epistemic superiority. referencing west indian women writers, evelyn o’callaghan claims that their literary strategies emerge to address “the difficulty of expressing their experience in the language of the oppressor” (1993, 6). west indian women writers, o’callaghan argues, invent forms that draw on “rich resources of the oral traditions” and privilege “linguistic variation” (1993, 6). it is in this same tradition, that writers who deal with caribbean history enact formal experimentation that inscribes the discursive power of their indigenous language practices in the written word. thus, i claim that writers of caribbean fiction engage with structures of sound that influence on their formal choices. such sonic formal experimentation as critical intervention share resonances with what omise’eke natasha tinsley, quoting barbara christian, refers to as “the tradition current musicology _______________________________________ 2 of black women whose ‘language, and the grace and pleasure with which they played with it’ sounded all the ways that ‘sensuality is intelligence, sensual language is language that makes sense’” (2018, 2).3 writing sensual language—a conundrum—language that appeals to the senses, for the purposes of this argument, draws on sound knowledge derived from oral/sonic/vernacular cultural performances. the distinctive “caribbeanness” of this intervention occurs where sound and orality move beyond mere critiques of writing. it emerges when sound and writing together produce an altogether new “language” that can make sense of the particularities of caribbean “nonhistory.”4 more than being an act of subversion or resistance, to write caribbean “nonhistory” is to affirm that discontinuity is its own valid and generative state of being. analogous to “nonhistory,” baugh posits “historylessness” to denote a point of departure from which the writer’s senses of imagination and invention are activated (2012, 64). the range of caribbean artistic responses to the question of history as seen through the prisms of fragmentation and loss, underscore the reparative potential of experimental writing to reckon absences or silences in “traditional” archives. which is to say, such writing can re-sound what michel-rolph trouillot might refer to as silenced pasts. sounding herstory the first thing to note about marcia douglas’s novel, the marvellous equations of the dread: a novel in bass riddim, is its subtitle. the term “riddim” is a stylization of the word “rhythm” in jamaican vernacular. its usage in the subtitle indicates the novel’s formal complexity; that it is, to use another vernacular phrase, “a trip,” meaning an exciting or unusual experience, as with psychedelic induced hallucination, but also in the black vernacular sense of behaving in a crazy or irrational way. as such, marvellous is a novel that carries you through time and space on a journey into sound.5 the text has been defined in various generic terms pointing out its similarities to magical realism, speculative fiction, and historical fiction.6 sound shows up in marvellous to help us imagine alternative, nontraditional ways to configure history or historying. historiography in this context gestures towards open-ended-ness that moves us in turn towards a concept of feminist time in which past, present, and future overlap and are indistinguishable from each other; and this i name herstoriography.7 herstoriography undermines the linearity and perceived coherence of western historiography by re/moving said boundedness. using sound as the basis of its critique of historiography, marvellous displaces the scribal/graphic as a privileged form of knowledge retention and circulation. therefore, to enact herstoriography, the novel’s form treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 3 invokes sound as part of this critical intervention. it does so by drawing on various sonic metaphors such as re-mix, bass, version, and dub. this article focuses primarily on the novel’s use of dub aesthetics, both metaphorically and materially. effectively, by writing dub, marvellous shows up the insufficiency of writing and language to bear, fully encompass, and express caribbean histories, therefore, staging its own quarrel with history. re-mixing history douglas’s marvellous charts a quest that follows an undead bob marley as he reenters babylon to try and recover his prized judah ring, the thing he needs to enter zion, the afterlife. along the way, even before we encounter marley, we are carried through moments in jamaica’s fractured and dis/connected histories constituted by stories from alive and un-dead characters related in some way to marley. the novel’s first section, titled “the re-mix,” situates it methodological approach to historiography. adapting and using parts from an originary text, re-mix as a sonic process/practice manipulates old texts to create new ones.8 embedded in the new text is a simultaneous gesturing towards both what has preceded it and that which is now re/created. re-mixing adapted to a writing practice enables the possibility of ongoing and open-ended discourse that keeps a text open to interpretation and, more important, to expansion. assuming marvellous to be historical fiction, it leverages re-mix as a historiographical method that is less concerned with making its fiction elements feel “believable” 9 as an altogether new text, and in doing so, calls into question the history that it fictionalizes or the history that is the basis of its fiction. the novel’s rendition of “new world” “discovery” is told from the vantage point of an indigenous taino woman whose observations and thoughts are reported by a third person omniscient narrator. the woman is placed in 1494 “xaymaca,” the indigenous name for the island of jamaica, which is both a setting (time and place) and an organizing concept (philosophy) of the novel. the assertion of the island’s indigenous name situates us in a time before time, in which the latter time refers to a beginning calculated by on the terms of western conquest.10 recalling derek walcott’s poem “the sea is history” (2007), this remix foregrounds the taino woman and her tribal memory that have been denied a place in history, as there have been no monuments to commemorate her existence or significance. thus, the presence of a taino woman narrator upends prevailing representations of arrival to the island and the region that have been routinely circulated (and believed) from the vantage point of europeans on ships. the omniscient narrator offers an objectivity long absent from dominant eurocentric accounts of exploration and discovery. this re-mix approach, therefore, works to reorient the reader in multiple ways. foremost, it does so by current musicology _______________________________________ 4 subverting vantage points, literally, with the placement and female gendering of the observer who witnesses this consequential arrival from ‘an-other’ side, or from the view of the other. as a metaphor, “re-mix” throws into question sight as the only basis of witnessing. the taino woman observer at the beginning of the novel urges readers by saying: “listen, children,” an imperative for us to activate ‘an-other’ sense as we try to put the past to use in a way that guides our navigation of the uncertain future that she foresees (douglas 2016, 9). the imperative “listen,” not “watch” or “look,” decenters our visual orientation to witnessing. seeing and listening, or sight and sound are put in tension where hearing modifies or enhances seeing. katherine mckittrick’s (2016) work on black feminist geographies and her articulation of place and social relations helps us understand how mapping the arrival from the perspective of the island’s indigenous people shifts the mapping of the world that created a western (ideologically) dominated world. drawing on mckittrick, i consider how sound—and by extension listening—reorients us by locating the body as a primary site of storying, where time and place (history and geography) collide.11 our positionalities have been reinforced by the ways history is constructed and predicated on geographies of domination. mckittrick theorizes that the very ideas of the west and western history must be in relation to other places and other structures of time. additionally, the ways sight/vision lock (in) place and space (site) and knowledge (cite) are displaced by the imperative to listen: a different way of inhabiting space and being in relation with each other. dub sound michael veal’s ethnographic study on dub, “show[s] the extent to which this music […] is in fact a potent metaphor for the society and times within which it emerged” (2007, 2). veal focuses on the creation of the dub sound and music to advance a social critique. by reflecting on the creative process behind dub, i posit ways that dub form influences, or as alexander g. weheliye puts it, “fruitfully [contaminates]” written form (2005, 8). i ask, how might the sound structure of dub influence writing as a practice towards its own creative and critical ends? dub, derived from reggae, is an articulation and an expression of the bass (riddim). whereas the bass, sonically, is the utterance, it also makes space for different styles or articulations of that utterance, or “a new [musical] language” (veal 2007, 36). this article’s first epigraph clarifies the relationship between dub and version as a matter of naming; dub is versioning as dub is used to create versions. the ways in which veal dissects the deconstructed structure of dub music vis-àvis the process of production helps map how stylistic elements of dub can guide us through a fragmented text such as marvellous.12 dub influences the novel’s treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 5 engagement with history and specifically the ways douglas enacts a writing of history that also writes the body (story making that is somatic). thus, the novel adapts the musical form of dub into writing and that enables a critique of historiography in its features of disruption, repetition, incantation, and broken words. dub as a sound concept disrupts and remakes rhythm, and is an expression of a dialect in an articulation of time (consider the sound of a clock marking time’s passing – tick, tock). specifically, dub as a dialect counters time – time that is marked by the bass (instrument and sound), upon the base (the foundation of the music). one of the key features of dub, or the primary way it recomposes time, is through its fragmented structure that is sounded by echo and the expansion via reduplication of the original sound object. to explain how this process of fracturing and re/constituting is a signature of the dub sound, veal writes: “…[t]he dub mix is a version of a preexisting song that allows fragments of its prior incarnations to remain audible as an obvious part of the final product” (2007, 21). in other words, as part of the process of re/composition enabled at the bass/base, dub expands time like the anatomy of an echo, or how that sound travels. the sound wave starts from a here, goes to a there, and from there returns dispersed to here. speaking temporally, it travels from present to future, and back to present that is now past. such a confounding of time in the novel destabilizes tenets of historiography towards a feminist orientation, or herstoriography. feminist here refers both to a decentering of the so-called ‘rationale’ that is organized by the western, patriarchal order, and woman-centered perspective. literary versioning13 “version,” synonym for dub, is the remapping of a record, or the reinscribing of something new onto a preexisting musical foundation. rachel moseley-wood defines “version” as “basically the modification of a popular song, and hundreds of different versions may follow the release of a single record, each slightly different from the original” (2015, 30, 31). evelyn o’callaghan argues dub/version undermines the notion of an origin/al and privileges the possibility of “a plethora of meanings” in which no version rises in significance above others (quoted in moseley-wood 2015, 31). thus, in marvellous, “version” operates at the levels of organization, discourse, and form in the novel and its feminist orientation is announced with an observer who is narrated: a taino woman witnessing the arrival of european settlers. this shift in the perspective of what was previously circulated as the beginning of caribbean history is a re-mix, as the section is titled, of the historical narrative of the island and the region, which is typically told from the perspective of white, male colonizers, “the white man on deck” (douglas 2016, 9). in addition, current musicology _______________________________________ 6 the taino woman’s presence foregrounds an indigenous knowledge specific to different perceptions/interpretations of time and space. despite the narrative of conquest and overdetermination that already decided the future of the island, the region, and all its non-white inhabitants, the taino women foretells that “the island […] will not be moved” (douglas 2016, 9). this foretelling is informed by her visions of the future in which she witnessed the arrival of these ships. the emphasis on the response—resistance—of the island as opposed to the people who inhabit it, suggests that it is the land or connection to the land that bestows on the people a similar will to resist. in this framing, a connection to land and nature will be significant and necessary for future acts of resistance. effectively, the people draw their strength from the land—the land serves as a base or bass. we can read being ‘grounded’ in this sense relates to both steadfastness—a position, a perspective—and standing in position, on guard. thus, disconnection from the land would signify a separation from the knowledge power of the land. being no longer grounded, in these terms, would be to fall(down) or become fallen. the third person omniscient narrator transitions to the first first-person narrator, leenah, a deafmute rasta woman whose narration recurs most throughout the remainder of the novel. beginning the novel’s second section, “version,” leenah announces her steering of one narrative. we might be tempted to look to leenah as a guide through the novel. we can also think of the sonic resemblance between her name leenah and “linear”—to progress sequentially. leenah is also referred to as “zion dawta,” a daughter of zion. she is tasked with guiding bob marley on his quest to enlightenment, to find zion, because of her ability to navigate between various interstices. as a deafmute, leenah feels sound in and with her body. she feels vibrations, a connection with earth, nature, and the elements, and she is also able to feel speech. she has a synesthetic knowledge wherein she experiences seeing as tasting and feeling as hearing. communicating with bob, she describes “reading [his] lips is like eating wild guava,” and feels “his voice in [her] palm” (douglas 2016, 17). when she “speaks” with her body through sign-language, her “hands make reggae” and “moved like music” (2016, 51, 30). she recalls her grandfather hector’s voice as sounding like “woodsmoke and job’s tears,” alluding to both smell and touch (2016, 68). she fashions her own language, a sign language, that she names “deafooman.” leenah’s means of communication rely on varied sensory intersections and crossovers. however, rather than valorizing deafness as a superhuman ability, the novel situates leenah’s deafness to suggest that when one possibility of sensory experience is foreclosed or taken from us, we might realize alternatives ways of embodied knowledge. in which, quiet and stillness can position us for different ways of knowing. treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 7 leenah, who hears only in her dreams, parallels the taino woman who gets visions of the future in her dreams and who also hears from the future beyond the horizon of the sea. the dream world or other world, then, signifies a place of a higher consciousness where hearing is the sense which grants access to knowledge. leenah’s identity as a rastafari and her connection to the past is evidenced in the visual marker of rasta—one’s dreads—which are taken as “transmitters to the ancestors,” anchoring and affirming connections/connectors to the past (douglas 2016, 17). not unlike the roots of the much-mythologized ceiba-silk cotton trees on the island which “converse underground” and “[hold] communion with the ancestors” (2016, 116, 140). leenah’s dreads are an embodied symbol of that same rootedness to the past through the land. given the violent circumstances of leenah’s hearing-loss,14 it is more accurate to say her sense of hearing was taken, not lost. the threat of being overheard, to leenah’s attackers, suggests that at least to them hearing is as significant a form of witnessing as seeing in that it can validate or corroborate events/things that happen. as leenah says, “stories are that way. in the little districts of jamaica, they travel and reverb for generations” (2016, 44). storytelling and orality, for some cultures, is how history gets circulated and reproduced. hearing enables us to repeat a story that, because of our connectedness, can travel through time and space; not being able to hear, in turn, can (re)produce a type of silencing. however, rather than being a deficit, leenah’s lack of hearing reduces noise—interference and distraction—and gives her keener perceptive abilities. thus, because she can no longer hear, she is forced to listen, in the barthesian sense. leenah states, “deaf-life had made me a standing tree”— perhaps a ceiba silk-cotton tree (douglas 2016, 30). leenah may not be able to hear at the frequency at which hearing humans can detect sound, but her allusion to being a standing tree, recalls the roots of the cotton trees that are conduits to the past that vibrates up through the root and “the bass-line that pulsates along the faults of [the] island” which leenah names at the beginning of her version (2016, 13). thus, leenah embodies the bassline/baseline knowledge of a female/feminine perspective. the trope of a tree, upright and rooted, recurs in the novel as a symbol of a subterranean connection to home, the past, and to history. leenah’s heightened sensory perceptiveness extends beyond the confines of the natural world and into a way of being in the world that relies on a higher consciousness rooted in bodily knowledge and presence. leenah embodies a confounding of the senses, or how we understand the senses to apprehend the world. her self-comparison to a tree and nature is also a call back to the vision of the taino woman who understands a connection to nature and its elements as sources of knowingness. in other words, in the absence of one ability (or two, since as a result of her deafness she current musicology _______________________________________ 8 no longer speaks) leenah is guided towards other ways of finding balance. leenah’s deafness allows us to ponder: what might we gain or learn (how to do) if we could tune out the noise and other disturbances around us? leenah, because of her deafness can “listen […] with her heart” and feel pure sound as vibrations transmitted from the land to/through her body (2016, 52). significantly, leenah can trace her lineage to africa as she is named for her great-grandmother, murlina, the “guinea woman,” who stowed away from cuba to jamaica in 1892, which is also the year of emperor haile selassie’s birth (hereafter referred to as him) (2016, 63). the timing of murlina’s arrival is another example of how histories (that we might consider great and small) intertwine and coincide within the novel. when murlina is rescued ashore with her partner and son, hector, she identifies themselves, breaking english, as “i and i” (2016, 63).15 “i and i” within rastafarian discourse signifies an expression of oneness, unity, and being-in-common-with; effectively, a restructuring of the plural subject and object pronouns “we” and “us.” however, it also replaces the singular object pronoun, “me,” as a way of asserting one’s own subjectivity expressly against oppressive structures that would render one an object, denying personhood and humanity. for murlina, affirming “i and i,” is a repudiation of systems of colonialism and enslavement, and in this particular moment a gender equalizing statement; we, man and woman, are both “i.” that she does so in another and new language, in what might be read as a failure of translation, is also to rename herself and her partner according to her own will in this moment of change or transition. leenah learns her history and inheritance through stories that circulate within her family, from the women of her family. this tradition of voicing and recalling the past is projected in leenah’s name, a derivative of murlina recognizable more in a sonic register than a scribal; leenah is now an “i” connected to murlina. their connection is a genetic sonic trait, too, as leenah’s voice, it is noted, before she stopped speaking, resembled her mother’s “only a little bit softer,” and her grandmother’s, “only higher” (2016, 62). voice in the relationships between the three women serves as inherited sound, a propensity to willfulness, feminist agency, and autonomy. bass riddim “bass riddim,” noted in the novel’s subtitle, attunes us to the sonic between the present and past, and more specifically, between our own connections to the ancestral. the novel refers to the “bass-line that pulsates along the faults of the island” and the “[b]ass riddim [that] moves underground and the sea [that] lurches, dragging flotsam, broken shells, and ground hipbones” (douglas 2016, 13). the pulsating bass-line signifies an energy or force that lives within the land treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 9 from the presence and remains of ancestors that are still there. the “flotsam, broken shells, and ground hipbones,” carry and hold traces of bodies thrown from slave ships and of the surviving enslaved who would later die (2016, 13). the rhythm of the waves and the roots of the cotton tree that vibrate, “converse underground” and “[hold] communion with the ancestors” all constitute the bass riddim (douglas 2016, 116, 140). bass is central to reggae music. in the composition of reggae, the bass’s rhythm is situated as a sonic disruptor and, more importantly, one that makes room for the emergence of counter rhythms, counter narratives, or versions. similarly, this novel utilizes “bass riddim” to make room for a “precise, syncopated” representation of histories; one in which, again, the past is not past, but very much alongside and structuring of the present and towards futurity (bradley 2000, 158). the notion of time’s inter-existential nature— with past, present, and future being indistinguishable from each other—according to the novel, is made apprehensible by our attentiveness to other sonic markers, like vibrations. writing dub the materiality of sound and sound’s capacity to counteract the accepted order of things is the bass riddim that forms the basis of the novel’s argument. this is exemplified in the section titled, “the exchange,” in which marley and negus, the falldown (a fallen angel), exchange bodies. this takes place at the base of the half way tree clock tower (see figure 1) (douglas 2016, 84). in the space of the bass riddim, where the bass functions as a “precise and flexible instrument,” time flattens and the living and the (un)dead commune (bradley 2000, 309).16 i claim that these images— rather than reifying the written word as the best mode of transmission—show how the novel uses form to complicate that very presumption. furthermore, our attempts to elicit sound from these images (that is, not the sound of the words) replicates the phenomenon of experiencing one sense through another. there are a few things worth noting in (the image of) the text in figure 1 (see below) this exchange takes place on october 26, 1981, several months after marley’s death on may 11 of that same year. marley “rides” an “underground bass […] riddim” back to zion to recover the judah ring (douglas 2016, 14). the exchange occurs on a frequency of 20hz, the lowest frequency detectable by the human ear—a sound that enters the ear as low as a hum, a vibration, in bass. it is therefore a sound one must listen for, with a particular consciousness, to detect. passive engagement is insufficient. the typeset of the text signifies a bass tone in contrast to an assumed reading voice of conventional typesetting. contrary to the current musicology _______________________________________ 10 way we interpret bold lettering—as loudness—in this instance, since we are given the frequency of the event, bold lettering signifies force. figure 1. an image of the section titled “the exchange” in douglas’s marvellous (2016, 84). note the all-caps typeset. in other words, the typesetting signifies energy, not volume. written in all-caps, evenly sized, the words project a monotone and forceful hum and vibration, that we feel and listen for. the exchange occurs at the clock tower, one of many such relics on the island that rarely tells (the correct) time. yet, the event is registered at the time stamp of 3:55 a.m., which is nearing the end of the witching hour, between three and four in the morning. supernatural time, in other words, is the one that haunts the clock built over a silk cotton tree cut down in 1912, and “before the clock tower, there was a tree […] they cut it down in 1912 for an english king” (douglas 2016, 208). the mystic beliefs surrounding cotton trees on the island are connected to the ways silk cotton tree roots transverse time and space. literally, the deeper the roots run the more likely it is that they are underneath the whole island. that is one aspect of the significance of the exchange taking place in the clock tower. another aspect is the vibrations that carry from and are carried by treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 11 the tree’s roots which were alluded to earlier in this chapter. those vibrations signify an ancestral presence (energy) that is another type of haunting, specifically as the silk cotton tree that once stood at the half way tree mark was where a slave boy was hung in x.17 as place of perpetual haunting, the clock tower is also a place of “anti-[clock] time” (2016, 195). the content of the text, too, informs us that the clock tower is a portal to the other side, studio d, or the dub-side. the place of exchange therefore is a direct channel between babylon (here) where negus waits and the dub side (there) where marley waits. the location of other similar clock towers is also mentioned: “may pen, mandeville, port antonio, old harbor […]” identifies locations all over the island and the networks of connections through the monuments of imperialism intended to surmount a preexisting natural order (douglas 2016, 84). the reappropriation of the clock towers, through the activation of the silk cotton tree roots, symbolizes an uprising that usurps colonial and imperial powers and systems that have that underwrite time-keeping and history-making. indeed, most of the “grand clocks […] are the marks of the english, and no one seems to want to remember the english” (2016, 84). so, on the outside the clock towers resemble relics, like “neglected old men”, and symbolize archaic philosophies of western thought (2016, 84). however, on the inside, the bass riddim from the cotton tree roots posits advantages of sensing as a broad, inclusive, dynamic concept. one must listen to apprehend the low bass of 20hz, and thus, listening and feeling displace seeing as the dominant sense. the clocks as objects in the center of town squares that project time emphasize a preoccupation with sight and seeing. the auditory tenets of bass inscribed in the form of the text push against this tendency. in other words, where a clock tower, a large and imposing object incline us to see time, at its base (“the base of mother-ticking babylon”) there is much to be gained from listening and feeling (douglas 2016, 134). this recalls the significance of the body in knowledge making, in the way the taino woman instructs us to listen, and the way leenah herself listens. thus, in this section we are directed to the feminist orientation of versioning an event that displaces time even while it is logged by date and time. we are directed to consider how instead of a when. the dub-side: studio d focusing on the first and last “dub-side chanting” tracks, i explore how, through dub’s influence on writing, the form modifies historical content by what it expresses about the construction of time. if a western construct of time is how we understand and organize history, what happens when time as such is stopped, suspended, or interrupted? or, to ask invoking the symbol of the clock tower (a current musicology _______________________________________ 12 portal from the dub-side to babylon), what happens when an instrument or tool used to tell time no longer has (a) time to tell? the concept of time and its relationship to space is taken up in “dub-side chanting” tracks in the novel that take place in “studio d,” the dub-side. effectively, the dub-side is where there is “simultaneously a midair suspension and firm grounding” that represents a space of infinite possibility because of the sensory disruptions that occur there (douglas 2016, 32). the emphasis on chanting as continuous repetition will be examined later in this section. taking as examples the novel’s first and last dub-side scenes, these disruptions destabilize the notion of linearity that undergirds western time-keeping and historyrecording. in addition, these representations of/on the dub-side integrate “pseudo” scientific lenses, which offer us multiple ways to make meaning of or read into what occurs there. in music production, the dub side is also known as the b-side, the underside of the a-side, the record’s intended main text. it is on the dub-side plain of existence that the undead him, bob marley, and negus interact. as mentioned before, the dub-side is a place of suspended time that resembles both elysium and purgatory which lies in-between babylon (kingston) and zion. it is the portal connected to the half way tree clock through which marley and negus travel back and forth between babylon and zion. that the dub-side is connected to the clock tower, where in the land of the living time has faltered, also adds to its air of mystery and enchantment. on the dub-side, marley is bald and him is toothless, two realities that are unimaginable in the realm of the living, the a-side, where the legends of these men persist untarnished (douglas 2016, 20). the novel activates the dub-side as not an imagined, imaginary, or unimaginable space that is in opposition to (the a-side). it is another version of a reality that is credible insofar as one can expand the mind, the consciousness away from conventional ways of thinking, and discard preconceptions in order to partake of the experiences there. there are eight “dub-side chanting” tracks in the novel, which occur out of numerical sequence. in which, the first track is track 12.0, the second is 13.0, the third is 16.0, the fourth is 11.0, and so on. the tracks begin to appear in the section titled “version” and they mostly document encounters between marley and him—from marley’s initial arrival to various times he returns to give him an update on his quest to find the judah ring. it is worth emphasizing here that although the tracks appear out of sequence, interspersed between other chapters with no discernible pattern, we are still following these non-linear accounts. which is to say, even in the (out of) order the tracks occur, we read across the gaps and against linearity because the fragmented storytelling cohere to tell a story. this is instructive in that it reminds us that historying is narrativization according to a motive. the pages of the dub-side tracks have treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 13 wider than usual margins and thus the words appear funneled. the tracks seem contained, held in, encased, as though there is more discipline and focus required to read into the dub-side.18 on the dub-side, the other side of the “natural” world, the supernatural shapes the order of things. when marley arrives to the dub-side (track 12.0), it looks familiar to him as a place he has been to before, “in a half silence while smoking a spliff, at the bottom of a river dream,” and possibly when he was in a hallucinatory, altered mind state (douglas 2016, 19). thus, hallucinations are authenticated in this space, not as being out of mind, but as a means by which to see—and know—beyond the confines of the physical world or the a-side. veal notes a feature of dub music is that it conveys the “contemplative dreaminess of pop psychedelia” (2007, 8). expanding on this idea, veal quotes eriche goode on the centrality of marijuana to artistic production when he describes dub music as “a glorification of the irrational and seemingly nonsensical, an abandonment of traditional and ‘linear’ reasoning sequences and the substitution of ‘mosaic’ and fragmentary lines of attack, and bursts of insights rather than chains of thought” (quoted in veal 2007, 80). indeed, as marley takes stock of the scene upon his arrival all his senses are activated and heightened. it is described as follows: he lands on his feet, blinks in the star apple light, sees a house with a kerosene lamp in the window, an old man outside peeling sugar cane [...] a nutmeg tree; a dog barks from behind the house [...] marley reaches for the cup, the taste at first, as ordinary as st. ann rain [...] the quench opens his rastafareye (douglas 2016, 20-21). here, marley not only sees where he is, he hears, and tastes it, too. in this instance, there is a comingling of the senses that is, yet again, a precondition for accessing higher consciousness and greater knowledge. the dub-side, then, is a site of the magical or “marvellous,” an overwhelming of the senses, and a state of altered perception where—third eye open— one becomes primed to receive insight and wisdom. thus, it is where marley is transported to meet with him and be given the instructions (or knowledge) he needs to find zion. however, while he imagines zion as a place of eternal refuge and the antithesis of babylon, when he returns to search for the judah ring, he discovers like hector that zion is not where he expected. instead, he finds, “zion is a place inside,” or a state of mind (douglas 2016, 192). on the final dub-side chanting track, “on the far side of i & i,” marley having been successful in his search for the judah ring tells him he gifted the ring to “a dawta reading a book” to which him replies: “it will be safe there. books have a way of preserving things” (douglas 2016, 273), suggesting women as protectors of knowledge (the book) and divine wisdom (the ring). the characters of the reading “dawta,” the taino woman and leenah are sistrens—a sisterhood—who serve as guardians of history, herstoriographers, keepers of current musicology _______________________________________ 14 “woman time” (2016, 196). him’s affirmation that books can also be trusted sites of preservation seems to suggest that the indigenous and traditional can co-exist— with the judah ring as a source of magic and point of access to another world being protected by women who read books, sources of “traditional” knowledge. indeed, in articulating the transformative qualities of dub music, veal writes, “at their most radical, the textural and syntactic qualities of the music counteracted the dominance of westernized musical thinking; ultimately, they helped transform the culture of popular music within the west itself” (2007, 16, 17). that marley has gifted the enchanted judah ring to a woman reading a book makes it possible that her reading and understanding of these traditional texts is now inflected by whatever higher consciousness has been bestowed upon her as the new holder of the ring and the keeper of a divine type of knowledge. it is not simply that these two knowledge systems coexist, but that one has necessarily been altered by encountering the other. such an understanding of how dub music influences the themes of writing illuminates, at least on a symbolic level, the disruptive aims of this novel. the way in which douglas imagines and represents a relationship to time and space suggests that it is linearity that does not make sense, and therefore writing history in ways that privilege a specific type of order and orientation is restrictive. material sound in the novel further underscores the ways that not just writing, but words themselves are insufficient to contain (on the page) histories untold. on the pages that come before and after the final dub-side chanting entry are chants, repetitions of the yoruba invocation “ashe”19 (douglas 2016, 274). the “ashe” chant exemplifies what alexis pauline gumbs refers to as “rhythm and riddim, the impact of repetition and the incantatory power of the spoken broken word” (2020, xiii). the riddim of repetition materializes only when the word is voiced and, in its voicing, produces a hypnotic feeling in the speaker that would seem to replicate the hallucinogenic nutmeg smell on the dub-side. regarding the page, even at a glance, it is apparent that it is the same word recurring (collins 2016, 185). it may be tempting to gloss over what is written because a visual scan dulls any anticipation of discovery of new information. the visual representation of repetition on the page is an illusion of disciplining, tidiness, and order. but the illusion is undone in the utterance. that is, to give sound to or recite “ashe,” literally undoes “the silence of the written surface” and removes the material boundedness of the text (quoted in van maas 2018, 343). recitation pulls us into the text in a way that differs from silent reading. in that instance, through the act of utterance, we become part of a text that was previously understood to be complete. to read aloud upends the notion that “the manuscript and the print book have been associated with fantasies of ipseity, of the book itself as an enveloping of totalities […] of finite or infinite gathering […] of unity, closure, intactness, sacredness, and so on” (van maas 2018, 338, 339). treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 15 using our voices to read aloud, we become engaged in authoring part of the text and thus expanding it. with our voices, we become part of the text, become implicated by and in it as narrators of the story. figure 2. another image of the novel’s typesetting, this time showing repetition (2016, 274). there is a sense of being overwhelmed in the repetition of “ashe,” but the back slashes that separate the words invite a break, a breath.20 these breaks also ensure that with each breath the next iteration of the word will be sounded differently—the same, but different, effectively a revision (re/version) of what has preceded it. written on the page, although the repeated words seem (appear) monotonous, an incessant looping, in sound with every utterance there is an opportunity to sound oneself out of that loop. “ashe” is an affirmation of the power to make things happen (“let it be so”), thus its incantatory effect “surpass[es] the one-dimensionality of the original […] allowing more openended opportunities of […] interpretation” in which “the original,” in this case, refers to the written words on the page (veal 2007, 66). the voicing of written sound that these two pages elicit displaces the static nature of writing. further, if current musicology _______________________________________ 16 what we understand as dominant history has been circulated mostly through written texts then, as method, herstory destabilizes that authority by subordinating the written word, in this case to sound. the murmur, hum, or vibration brings the body back to the text. also alluded is a pleasure derived from the sensation of reading in the way one feels word’s sounds emerge from inside the body, from one’s lungs to the tongue, past the teeth and lips to the outside. therefore, reading or sounding words is something that is done by the body and to the body.21 this kind of writing for the body is one that invites us to feel, to sense, in ways that disrupt how we traditionally inhabit language particularly in (silent) reading. experiencing sound coursing through the body is part of the lure of dub music for its audience. here, the writing replicates that feeling or sensation of hypnotic pleasure and highlights the importance of orality as a form of improvisation, amendment, and adornment as with every new encounter with this text, it gets re-formed. there are other instances in the novel that elicit speech to produce other sensations that are found in dub music. images of words that represent echo and reverb, for example, although they do not resemble broken words, exploit the nature of words to be fixed signs. in figure 3, marley and garvey are having a conversation in the clock tower. garvey encourages marley to sing as a means of calling the people back to a level of social consciousness that will help guide themselves out of the disaffection of life in babylon; perhaps to help them, too, in finding zion. garvey’s last words are caught in a reverb that echoes back to the spirit(ual) home to which he claims marley’s voice provides a portal. these last two figures are exemplary of what barthes terms “writing aloud […] an erotic mixture of timbre and language” from which one derives textual pleasure from reading writing which invites one to read aloud (1976, 66). his is explicitly an embodied experience, which is to say it brings one’s body into the writing. to try and replicate the sound of dub, as i claim, is to replicate an entry point into this capacity to feel that counters western notions of knowledge making that is, again, fixed in language. returning to veal, he writes that, dub “has proved particularly useful when its conceptual processes assume the foreground and the music suggests other parameters of thought and experience. the reality is that dub grounds the abstract, experimental impulse in the sensual experience of the body” (2007, 253). we can substitute music for words or writing in that quote to understand how the novel's form achieves similar ends. treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 17 figure 3. in this final example, the image shows the typesetting is adapted to represent the sound of an echo on the page (2016, 176). conclusion in this article, i have demonstrated ways that sound in caribbean makes use of the sensory possibilities of sound. tensions between sound and writing, as exemplifying expressions of low-culture and high-culture, respectively, have tended to be worked through dialectically. however, rather than framing the problem as a debate between good object/bad object, or good object/less good object, here, i was interested in showing how, in caribbean fiction, these two forms of expression (sonic and the written/the phonic and the graphic) interact with each other. when writing alone does not capture the expressive complexities of caribbean and black historical and cultural experiences, i suggest authors of caribbean fiction employ sonic interventions that alter the texture of writing, more so than the content.22 in caribbean fiction, written representation of sound is a strategy authors use to counter the hegemony of written language and its attendant claims to epistemic superiority without, as peter mcmurray asserts, “celebrat[ing] writing nor valoriz[ing]orality, its perpetual other, but rather draws current musicology _______________________________________ 18 attention to all the sonic traces that exceed and leak out from the inscriptive capacity of writing” (2017, 262).23 i have suggested that dub as formal experimentation can be the basis of critique of traditional methods of historiography or history-making and name the new method “herstoriography.” in response to questions of caribbean history and the history of our origins, formal experiment articulates the region’s own peculiar understanding of its place within a time/space continuum as outside of conventional structures of knowledge. the adaptation of form across creative, artistic genres draws on sound in ways that disturb the belief that writing is a singularly privileged form in which knowledge circulates. i considered how the structural features of the sound such as fragmentation, reverb, and echo play out on the pages and in the story of douglas’s novel. i argue that her work enacts what i term “dub writing,” drawing on the structure of dub music to suggest how we can imagine new ways to interpret and re/present histories. these creative interventions effectively yield versions of history in much the same way that dub music results from the versioning of an originary text or record. versions aspire towards destabilizing the rigid nature of linearity that sustain our conception of time and how it structures history. sound in writing allows caribbean authors recursively to engage with history, to reframe and remix historical narratives and attempt to fill silent voids in the region’s elusive histories. in the novel’s final section, “nyabinghi,” three background singers chant, urging us to “follow the curve of this song, and listen/for where it dubs over…” (douglas 2016, 279). “nyabinghi” is significant here for two reasons. first, it harnesses the power of sound or sound power in the force of the chant in communal gathering that is at once devotional, meditational, incantatory, and spiritual. arguably, these are all precursors to a type of arrival resembling marley’s quest to zion, a place inside. second, nyabinghi refers and pays homage to queen nyabinghi, thereby acknowledging the novel’s orientation towards feminine presence, power, and sensibility. the three background singers, too, perform the task of counter-rhythm and melody that calls our attention to outgrowth from a rhythm of history that has been decidedly masculine and western. the instructions here are a direct call back to the charge given by the taino mother, which puts us back at the novel’s beginning. our only expectation, after we have navigated our way through the text, is to be sent back to listen again—dubwise24— for where versions might have merged from prior versions to make new ones. notes 1 carolyn cooper mentions this excerpt in the interview, “an insight into jamaican music: an interview with carolyn cooper” in sx salon. 2 “western” is used throughout as a metonymy for dominant and hegemonic discourses. treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 19 3 the idea of play is a recurring and layered one in analyses of sound and writing. play as enjoyment and manipulation is implied in tinsley’s usage here. we can also think of playing music, records, songs; play and replay; play as recreation in not taking books and words too seriously; play as performance; and, playing part in (a discourse, for example). 4 “nonhistory,” from édouard glissant’s poetics of relation (1990), speaks to the dislocation of caribbean people from the idea of a historical origin. to compensate, caribbean people rely on collective memory, a different mode of history, that is less about establishing origin that it is about marking self-defined experiences. 5 this references a popular sampled voice snippet used on hip hop tracks, by deejays and sound systems. 6 in a review of the book for believer, matt alston (2019) asks: “can you remix the historical novel and make it new again?” 7 my nod to douglas’s spoken word performance piece “natural herstory” that is based on excerpts from the novel. 8 this in comparison to a cover, in which an entire text gets taken up and remade, not remixed. a remix uses fragments and parts of an old text to create something new that will bear a resemblance to the original, whereas a cover inflects the entirety of an existing text. 9 believable here is used to denote a type of realism. 10 time mapped according to the julian calendar that gives way to western timekeeping and consequent historicizing. 11 according to mckittrick, “geography’s discursive attachment to stasis and physicality, the idea that space ‘just is,’ and that space and place are merely containers for human complexities and social relations, is terribly seductive: that which ‘just is’ not only anchors our selfhood and feet to the ground, but it also seemingly calibrates and normalizes where, and therefore who, we are” (2006, xi). 12 veal focuses on the mechanics of the process of creating dub creation with an emphasis on the machinery, turntables, and sound systems. 13 preceding veal and weheliye, o’callaghan posits “version” as a concept metaphor to illustrate how west indian women writers deploy formal strategies to accommodate the particularities of their gendered experiences. conceptually, her book, “woman version” is indebted to the sonic/musical practice to define the parameters of its critical use, to examine “a new form [that] has grown out of the process of altering, supplementing, breaking, echoing, mocking, and playing with that original” (11) 14 leenah overheard a murder plot and upon being found out was attacked. her assailants damaged her ears drums presumably so she could never bear witness to hearing “a wickedness” ever again (douglas 2016, 137). 15 i make a distinction here between “broken english” to show more deliberation and autonomy on murlina’s part. 16 tracing the genealogy of dub music, michael veal writes “[i]f the resounding bass drum of the kumina traditional healing ceremony was considered sonic “heart strings” that connected the worlds of the living and the dead, the thunderous patterns of the reggae electric bass would similarly serve to reawaken postcolonial jamaicans to their “dead” past as people of african descent (2007, 35). 17 conversations between marley, garvey, and other un/dead people happen in the clock tower. 18 leroy sibbles’s recollection of lee scratch perry’s process in making dub music is akin to close reading, which i suggest is what this tightly contained track is trying to get us to do, to broaden the scope and look in deeply for what we can extract (bradley 2000). current musicology _______________________________________ 20 19 “let it be so,” invoking the power to make things happen. “chant” here also recalls marley’s song “chant down babylon” (1999) in which he sings: “with reggae music make we go chant down babylon […] music you’re the key […] bring the voice of the rastaman/communicating to everyone…” 20 the slashes may denote: a set exclusive conjunction “or,” never be repeated the same way twice, but also a break. (consider rephrasing this i’m not sure it makes sense!) 21 christopher collins writes, “even when a text is not recited aloud its silent or murmured reading would necessitate a more consciously subvocalizing during which one would be aware of one’s breathing, the flexions of one’s tongue, and the movements of one’s lips. doing so one would also be aware of the rhythms and phonemic values of the words. that is, one would “hear” oneself even as one silently “uttered” the text. (2016, 187) where does this citation end? 22 alexander g. weheliye makes this distinction between content and texture in phonographies (2005), where the former denotes addition and the latter, transformation. 23 see mcmurray’s review (2017) of ana maría ochoa gautier’s aurality: listening and knowledge in nineteenth-century colombia (2014). 23 dubwise is a jamaicanism. “wise,” a suffix, meaning with respect to or concerning. the word is used as an adjective or adverb to denote a relation to the process of making or the product of dub. references alston, matt. 2019. “a review of: the marvellous equations of the dread by marcia douglas.” believer magazine, www.thebeliever.net/logger/a-review-of-the-marvellous-equationsof-the-dread-by-marcia-douglas/ barthes, roland. 1976. pleasure of the text. new york: hill and wang. baugh, edward. 2012. “the west indian writer and his quarrel with history.” small axe, volume 16, number 2 (no. 38): 60-74. bradley, lloyd. 2000. bass culture: when reggae was king. london: penguin press. collins, christopher. 2016. neopoetics: the evolution of the literate imagination. new york: columbia university press. douglas, marcia. 2016. marvellous equations of the dread: a novel in bass riddim. leeds: peepal tree press. glissant, édouard. 1997. poetics of relation. ann arbor: university of michigan press. gumbs, alexis pauline. 2020. dub: finding ceremony. durham: duke university press. mckittrick, katherine. 2006. black women and the cartographies of struggle. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. mcmurray, peter. 2017. “review: aurality: listening and knowledge in nineteenth-century colombia, by ana maría ochoa gautier.” journal of the american musicological society, 70 (1): 262–266 moseley-wood, rachel. 2016. “the other jamaica: music and the city in jamaican film.” caribbean quarterly 61, no. 2-3 (2015): 24–41. o'callaghan, evelyn. 1993. woman version: theoretical approaches to west indian fiction by women. london: macmillan caribbean. reid, v. s. 1949. new day. new york: alfred a. knopf. sharpe, christina. 2016. in the wake: on blackness and being. durham: duke university press. tinsley, omise’eke natasha. 2018. ezili’s mirrors: black atlantic genders and the work of the imagination. durham: duke university press. treviene a. harris ____________________________________________ 21 trouillot, michel-rolph. 2015. silencing the past: power and the production of history. boston: beacon press. van maas, sander. 2018. “opening the audiobook.” comparative literature, 70(3): 337–356. veal, michael. 2007. dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in jamaican reggae. middletown: wesleyan university press. weheliye, alexander g. 2005. phonographies: grooves in sonic afro-modernity. durham: duke university press. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 349 benjamin boretz “words for music, perhaps”? texts, 1975-2013 350 current musicology 8 on hearing forum82* at symphony space, new york november 13, 1982, from 3 to 6 p.m. things are coming down as pieces that shouldn't be pieces. they shouldn't be coming down as pieces. what should they be? there shouldn't be pieces. what should there be 11/82 *part of an all-day "festival of music from around the world" sponsored by composers' forum current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 420 form(a music) articulate is incarnate form fingertips articulate voices incarnate articulate incarnations articulate incarnate articulations incarnate voice forms fingertip fingertips form voices b.a.b. march 1975 marjorie tichenor, for whom this text was composed, composed a remarkable vocal composition out of her recorded reading of it. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 420 form(a music) articulate is incarnate form fingertips articulate voices incarnate articulate incarnations articulate incarnate articulations incarnate voice forms fingertip fingertips form voices b.a.b. march 1975 marjorie tichenor, for whom this text was composed, composed a remarkable vocal composition out of her recorded reading of it. benjamin boretz 9 stockhausen: donnerstag aus licht royal opera house, covent garden, london, 18 september 1985 by benjamin boretz my idea of a useful composer is someone who leads you to your own music ð makes a composer of you. not all personal acts are private. but all personal acts are not public. masterpiece composition is obso lete, as a usable social medium. formal acts which assert the obsolescence of masterpiece compo sition are on identical grounds obsolete. reputation is the public space. what's left over that's needed is the personal space. badly needed but not adequately or authentically being attended to by anyone with ego or talent enough to not compose an opera. (donnerstag aus licht: something i, personally, needed to know to know why, personally, it wasn't, isn't, something i needed done for me.) (news of music, march 1986) 351 current musicology 8 on hearing forum82* at symphony space, new york november 13, 1982, from 3 to 6 p.m. things are coming down as pieces that shouldn't be pieces. they shouldn't be coming down as pieces. what should they be? there shouldn't be pieces. what should there be 11/82 *part of an all-day "festival of music from around the world" sponsored by composers' forum current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 420 form(a music) articulate is incarnate form fingertips articulate voices incarnate articulate incarnations articulate incarnate articulations incarnate voice forms fingertip fingertips form voices b.a.b. march 1975 marjorie tichenor, for whom this text was composed, composed a remarkable vocal composition out of her recorded reading of it. current musicology, no. 95 (spring 2013) © 2012 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 7 420 form(a music) articulate is incarnate form fingertips articulate voices incarnate articulate incarnations articulate incarnate articulations incarnate voice forms fingertip fingertips form voices b.a.b. march 1975 marjorie tichenor, for whom this text was composed, composed a remarkable vocal composition out of her recorded reading of it. benjamin boretz 9 stockhausen: donnerstag aus licht royal opera house, covent garden, london, 18 september 1985 by benjamin boretz my idea of a useful composer is someone who leads you to your own music ð makes a composer of you. not all personal acts are private. but all personal acts are not public. masterpiece composition is obso lete, as a usable social medium. formal acts which assert the obsolescence of masterpiece compo sition are on identical grounds obsolete. reputation is the public space. what's left over that's needed is the personal space. badly needed but not adequately or authentically being attended to by anyone with ego or talent enough to not compose an opera. (donnerstag aus licht: something i, personally, needed to know to know why, personally, it wasn't, isn't, something i needed done for me.) (news of music, march 1986) 352 current musicology 10 -136prologue to (“whose time, what space”): [a seminar talk at eastman*] benjamin boretz olivia mattis was giving a historical seminar at the eastman school of music on composers who were also critics; bob morris suggested she invite two such living people who —not quite coincidentally — live next door to each other in the surroundings of bard college in upstate new york — kyle gann was the other — to talk to the seminar about their accumulated insights from within that role — kyle for the last fifteen or so years writing for the village voice and elsewhere, i having been music critic for the nation during the 1960s. kyle talked first, recreating expansively, in the terms of his personal history, the celebratory story his book tells of the rise of “his” new generation of american music (later on he did remark that he had once tried to live in [my] world, but it was too suffocating — he needed more oxygen, he said.) our listeners were graduate students and professors — i saw among them my old friend bob morris and my new friend martin scherzinger; martin in particular leapt into the post-lecture discussion, with familiar laser-energetic sharpness, indicting and convicting my texts of an interesting if possibly illicit fusion of naive romantic mysticism and manipulative disingenuous duplicity, perhaps accounting for their strange transformation of the sound of the music we listened to at the end. the talk after that went on so long that olivia had to disappear to get her bus home to buffalo well before we all finally subsided to the coffee shop next door. [my offering, slightly modified by afterthoughts, follows.] composing music, playing music, listening to music, thinking and writing about music: each and all plausible as a person’s possible self-gratifying, selffulfilling occupation. writing public music criticism or professional discourse, like teaching, create a radically different existential condition: a projection of benjamin boretz 9 stockhausen: donnerstag aus licht royal opera house, covent garden, london, 18 september 1985 by benjamin boretz my idea of a useful composer is someone who leads you to your own music ð makes a composer of you. not all personal acts are private. but all personal acts are not public. masterpiece composition is obso lete, as a usable social medium. formal acts which assert the obsolescence of masterpiece compo sition are on identical grounds obsolete. reputation is the public space. what's left over that's needed is the personal space. badly needed but not adequately or authentically being attended to by anyone with ego or talent enough to not compose an opera. (donnerstag aus licht: something i, personally, needed to know to know why, personally, it wasn't, isn't, something i needed done for me.) (news of music, march 1986) current musicology 10 -136prologue to (“whose time, what space”): [a seminar talk at eastman*] benjamin boretz olivia mattis was giving a historical seminar at the eastman school of music on composers who were also critics; bob morris suggested she invite two such living people who —not quite coincidentally — live next door to each other in the surroundings of bard college in upstate new york — kyle gann was the other — to talk to the seminar about their accumulated insights from within that role — kyle for the last fifteen or so years writing for the village voice and elsewhere, i having been music critic for the nation during the 1960s. kyle talked first, recreating expansively, in the terms of his personal history, the celebratory story his book tells of the rise of “his” new generation of american music (later on he did remark that he had once tried to live in [my] world, but it was too suffocating — he needed more oxygen, he said.) our listeners were graduate students and professors — i saw among them my old friend bob morris and my new friend martin scherzinger; martin in particular leapt into the post-lecture discussion, with familiar laser-energetic sharpness, indicting and convicting my texts of an interesting if possibly illicit fusion of naive romantic mysticism and manipulative disingenuous duplicity, perhaps accounting for their strange transformation of the sound of the music we listened to at the end. the talk after that went on so long that olivia had to disappear to get her bus home to buffalo well before we all finally subsided to the coffee shop next door. [my offering, slightly modified by afterthoughts, follows.] composing music, playing music, listening to music, thinking and writing about music: each and all plausible as a person’s possible self-gratifying, selffulfilling occupation. writing public music criticism or professional discourse, like teaching, create a radically different existential condition: a projection of benjamin boretz 9 stockhausen: donnerstag aus licht royal opera house, covent garden, london, 18 september 1985 by benjamin boretz my idea of a useful composer is someone who leads you to your own music ð makes a composer of you. not all personal acts are private. but all personal acts are not public. masterpiece composition is obso lete, as a usable social medium. formal acts which assert the obsolescence of masterpiece compo sition are on identical grounds obsolete. reputation is the public space. what's left over that's needed is the personal space. badly needed but not adequately or authentically being attended to by anyone with ego or talent enough to not compose an opera. (donnerstag aus licht: something i, personally, needed to know to know why, personally, it wasn't, isn't, something i needed done for me.) (news of music, march 1986) 353 current musicology 10 -136prologue to (“whose time, what space”): [a seminar talk at eastman*] benjamin boretz olivia mattis was giving a historical seminar at the eastman school of music on composers who were also critics; bob morris suggested she invite two such living people who —not quite coincidentally — live next door to each other in the surroundings of bard college in upstate new york — kyle gann was the other — to talk to the seminar about their accumulated insights from within that role — kyle for the last fifteen or so years writing for the village voice and elsewhere, i having been music critic for the nation during the 1960s. kyle talked first, recreating expansively, in the terms of his personal history, the celebratory story his book tells of the rise of “his” new generation of american music (later on he did remark that he had once tried to live in [my] world, but it was too suffocating — he needed more oxygen, he said.) our listeners were graduate students and professors — i saw among them my old friend bob morris and my new friend martin scherzinger; martin in particular leapt into the post-lecture discussion, with familiar laser-energetic sharpness, indicting and convicting my texts of an interesting if possibly illicit fusion of naive romantic mysticism and manipulative disingenuous duplicity, perhaps accounting for their strange transformation of the sound of the music we listened to at the end. the talk after that went on so long that olivia had to disappear to get her bus home to buffalo well before we all finally subsided to the coffee shop next door. [my offering, slightly modified by afterthoughts, follows.] composing music, playing music, listening to music, thinking and writing about music: each and all plausible as a person’s possible self-gratifying, selffulfilling occupation. writing public music criticism or professional discourse, like teaching, create a radically different existential condition: a projection of benjamin boretz 9 stockhausen: donnerstag aus licht royal opera house, covent garden, london, 18 september 1985 by benjamin boretz my idea of a useful composer is someone who leads you to your own music ð makes a composer of you. not all personal acts are private. but all personal acts are not public. masterpiece composition is obso lete, as a usable social medium. formal acts which assert the obsolescence of masterpiece compo sition are on identical grounds obsolete. reputation is the public space. what's left over that's needed is the personal space. badly needed but not adequately or authentically being attended to by anyone with ego or talent enough to not compose an opera. (donnerstag aus licht: something i, personally, needed to know to know why, personally, it wasn't, isn't, something i needed done for me.) (news of music, march 1986) current musicology 10 -136prologue to (“whose time, what space”): [a seminar talk at eastman*] benjamin boretz olivia mattis was giving a historical seminar at the eastman school of music on composers who were also critics; bob morris suggested she invite two such living people who —not quite coincidentally — live next door to each other in the surroundings of bard college in upstate new york — kyle gann was the other — to talk to the seminar about their accumulated insights from within that role — kyle for the last fifteen or so years writing for the village voice and elsewhere, i having been music critic for the nation during the 1960s. kyle talked first, recreating expansively, in the terms of his personal history, the celebratory story his book tells of the rise of “his” new generation of american music (later on he did remark that he had once tried to live in [my] world, but it was too suffocating — he needed more oxygen, he said.) our listeners were graduate students and professors — i saw among them my old friend bob morris and my new friend martin scherzinger; martin in particular leapt into the post-lecture discussion, with familiar laser-energetic sharpness, indicting and convicting my texts of an interesting if possibly illicit fusion of naive romantic mysticism and manipulative disingenuous duplicity, perhaps accounting for their strange transformation of the sound of the music we listened to at the end. the talk after that went on so long that olivia had to disappear to get her bus home to buffalo well before we all finally subsided to the coffee shop next door. [my offering, slightly modified by afterthoughts, follows.] composing music, playing music, listening to music, thinking and writing about music: each and all plausible as a person’s possible self-gratifying, selffulfilling occupation. writing public music criticism or professional discourse, like teaching, create a radically different existential condition: a projection of benjamin boretz 9 stockhausen: donnerstag aus licht royal opera house, covent garden, london, 18 september 1985 by benjamin boretz my idea of a useful composer is someone who leads you to your own music ð makes a composer of you. not all personal acts are private. but all personal acts are not public. masterpiece composition is obso lete, as a usable social medium. formal acts which assert the obsolescence of masterpiece compo sition are on identical grounds obsolete. reputation is the public space. what's left over that's needed is the personal space. badly needed but not adequately or authentically being attended to by anyone with ego or talent enough to not compose an opera. (donnerstag aus licht: something i, personally, needed to know to know why, personally, it wasn't, isn't, something i needed done for me.) (news of music, march 1986) 354 current musicology 12 -138benjamin boretz certain kind. but those predicates are not necessarily connected to the experienced facts of any person’s life. 2. take history: it is a determinate reification of the antecedence of our sentient existence, a demonstrated perspective on who we are, on where we are. its truths are inescapable, and pervasively account for major aspects of the world that directly and significantly affect everyone’s life. nevertheless, persons do not perforce experience their conscious living as history, as historical events, or qualify their experience in the vocabulary of historical predicates. you could say that history proceeds, in a self-defined, selfcontained way, on the outside of most people’s lived lives, accumulating and accessible at any time by observations which can be perceived by anyone as true, without being, except in that sense, the actual content of anyone’s experienced life-events. you could say that historical facts about your own time are public-global facts, and that there are what you might call personlocalized facts which more likely constitute the experienced contents of being alive. so there are things which are unquestionably true of your lifetime as public facts about it, which are likely inter-opaque with your (person-local) experience of your own life. 3. so too there are truths about music as a historical phenomenon, as a publicin-the-world phenomenon: demonstrable historical facts, like aesthetic evolutions and contingencies, concretized meta-phenomena like “high baroque”, “mannerist”, or “modernist”, creating perceptions and associations; there are generalized categorical technical facts, as “tonal”, “serial”, “microtonal” creating wholescale substitutions in perception of named identities for raw sonic blips; particular theoretical facts like “6/4 chord”, “sonata form”, “hexachordal combinatoriality”, “cadence”, organizing perceptions into negotiable familiar packages; there are aesthetic-critical facts, like “postwebern serial”, “heavy metal”, “world music”, “indeterminate”, “complex”, “bubblegum”, “post-modern”, “minimalist”, “gospel”; and cultural facts, like national identities, ethnic traits, sociological facts, like “glam ”, “academic”., “ downtown”; political facts, like “hegemonic”, “socialist realist“ or “decadent”; ideological facts, like “feminist” or “formalist”; value-judgment facts, like “immortal”, “masterpiece”, or their contraries — all of which help you to locate benjamin boretz 11 -137prologue to (“whose time, what space”) self-presence — the public enactment of a consciously constructed, selfoverlayed persona rather than the localized being of a person — into the consciousness of others, where the effect at the receiving end is the main output of consequence. that’s a vastly more complex and ambiguous social, ethical, intellectual, expressive situation. and pretty dubious and unpromising ground for self-realization, too. looking back (it’s been a long time) i wonder if there isn’t just a terminal paradox in the idea of synchronously constructing a public-persuasive exterior persona alongside of an interior compositional-creative focus on the precise (it-)projection of such specific singular modes of being as: musical compositions. on the other hand inhabiting such a paradoxical duality does induce a singular intensity of selfreflection , a state of uneasy awareness that opens a perspective from which to view the entire host of paradoxes, confusions, denials by which the machinery of ‘normal’ public metamusical behavior is enabled. some such consciousness was at least implicit in some of my later — more radically “political” — pieces in the nation during the late 1960s; and much of my work since then seems to have been written and composed in its shadow: so, in 1978, in language ,as a music, i had my earnestly self-conscious professorcharacter say, in his letter to his old mentor: “we may not speak as we perceive, but we will soon enough be perceiving as we have spoken.” which, as i think about it now in the context of our subject, is less a sophisticated program for social action or epistemic self-analysis than a symptomatic expression of the radical insufficiency in the distinctions being made in that professor’s world among wildly disparate phenomena which all go under the same names, under the pretext or delusion of having common denotations. so ‘music’ can be fully encompassed by any number of mutually exclusive rubrics, each of which not only encompasses it totally, but is totally opaque to — and incompatible with — any of the phenomena or properties denoted by any of the others. such as: 1. history. politics. theory. ideology. they do, unquestionably, exist, and they each have their fact-telling vocabularies, each of which creates facts of a current musicology 12 -138benjamin boretz certain kind. but those predicates are not necessarily connected to the experienced facts of any person’s life. 2. take history: it is a determinate reification of the antecedence of our sentient existence, a demonstrated perspective on who we are, on where we are. its truths are inescapable, and pervasively account for major aspects of the world that directly and significantly affect everyone’s life. nevertheless, persons do not perforce experience their conscious living as history, as historical events, or qualify their experience in the vocabulary of historical predicates. you could say that history proceeds, in a self-defined, selfcontained way, on the outside of most people’s lived lives, accumulating and accessible at any time by observations which can be perceived by anyone as true, without being, except in that sense, the actual content of anyone’s experienced life-events. you could say that historical facts about your own time are public-global facts, and that there are what you might call personlocalized facts which more likely constitute the experienced contents of being alive. so there are things which are unquestionably true of your lifetime as public facts about it, which are likely inter-opaque with your (person-local) experience of your own life. 3. so too there are truths about music as a historical phenomenon, as a publicin-the-world phenomenon: demonstrable historical facts, like aesthetic evolutions and contingencies, concretized meta-phenomena like “high baroque”, “mannerist”, or “modernist”, creating perceptions and associations; there are generalized categorical technical facts, as “tonal”, “serial”, “microtonal” creating wholescale substitutions in perception of named identities for raw sonic blips; particular theoretical facts like “6/4 chord”, “sonata form”, “hexachordal combinatoriality”, “cadence”, organizing perceptions into negotiable familiar packages; there are aesthetic-critical facts, like “postwebern serial”, “heavy metal”, “world music”, “indeterminate”, “complex”, “bubblegum”, “post-modern”, “minimalist”, “gospel”; and cultural facts, like national identities, ethnic traits, sociological facts, like “glam ”, “academic”., “ downtown”; political facts, like “hegemonic”, “socialist realist“ or “decadent”; ideological facts, like “feminist” or “formalist”; value-judgment facts, like “immortal”, “masterpiece”, or their contraries — all of which help you to locate benjamin boretz 11 -137prologue to (“whose time, what space”) self-presence — the public enactment of a consciously constructed, selfoverlayed persona rather than the localized being of a person — into the consciousness of others, where the effect at the receiving end is the main output of consequence. that’s a vastly more complex and ambiguous social, ethical, intellectual, expressive situation. and pretty dubious and unpromising ground for self-realization, too. looking back (it’s been a long time) i wonder if there isn’t just a terminal paradox in the idea of synchronously constructing a public-persuasive exterior persona alongside of an interior compositional-creative focus on the precise (it-)projection of such specific singular modes of being as: musical compositions. on the other hand inhabiting such a paradoxical duality does induce a singular intensity of selfreflection , a state of uneasy awareness that opens a perspective from which to view the entire host of paradoxes, confusions, denials by which the machinery of ‘normal’ public metamusical behavior is enabled. some such consciousness was at least implicit in some of my later — more radically “political” — pieces in the nation during the late 1960s; and much of my work since then seems to have been written and composed in its shadow: so, in 1978, in language ,as a music, i had my earnestly self-conscious professorcharacter say, in his letter to his old mentor: “we may not speak as we perceive, but we will soon enough be perceiving as we have spoken.” which, as i think about it now in the context of our subject, is less a sophisticated program for social action or epistemic self-analysis than a symptomatic expression of the radical insufficiency in the distinctions being made in that professor’s world among wildly disparate phenomena which all go under the same names, under the pretext or delusion of having common denotations. so ‘music’ can be fully encompassed by any number of mutually exclusive rubrics, each of which not only encompasses it totally, but is totally opaque to — and incompatible with — any of the phenomena or properties denoted by any of the others. such as: 1. history. politics. theory. ideology. they do, unquestionably, exist, and they each have their fact-telling vocabularies, each of which creates facts of a 355 current musicology 12 -138benjamin boretz certain kind. but those predicates are not necessarily connected to the experienced facts of any person’s life. 2. take history: it is a determinate reification of the antecedence of our sentient existence, a demonstrated perspective on who we are, on where we are. its truths are inescapable, and pervasively account for major aspects of the world that directly and significantly affect everyone’s life. nevertheless, persons do not perforce experience their conscious living as history, as historical events, or qualify their experience in the vocabulary of historical predicates. you could say that history proceeds, in a self-defined, selfcontained way, on the outside of most people’s lived lives, accumulating and accessible at any time by observations which can be perceived by anyone as true, without being, except in that sense, the actual content of anyone’s experienced life-events. you could say that historical facts about your own time are public-global facts, and that there are what you might call personlocalized facts which more likely constitute the experienced contents of being alive. so there are things which are unquestionably true of your lifetime as public facts about it, which are likely inter-opaque with your (person-local) experience of your own life. 3. so too there are truths about music as a historical phenomenon, as a publicin-the-world phenomenon: demonstrable historical facts, like aesthetic evolutions and contingencies, concretized meta-phenomena like “high baroque”, “mannerist”, or “modernist”, creating perceptions and associations; there are generalized categorical technical facts, as “tonal”, “serial”, “microtonal” creating wholescale substitutions in perception of named identities for raw sonic blips; particular theoretical facts like “6/4 chord”, “sonata form”, “hexachordal combinatoriality”, “cadence”, organizing perceptions into negotiable familiar packages; there are aesthetic-critical facts, like “postwebern serial”, “heavy metal”, “world music”, “indeterminate”, “complex”, “bubblegum”, “post-modern”, “minimalist”, “gospel”; and cultural facts, like national identities, ethnic traits, sociological facts, like “glam ”, “academic”., “ downtown”; political facts, like “hegemonic”, “socialist realist“ or “decadent”; ideological facts, like “feminist” or “formalist”; value-judgment facts, like “immortal”, “masterpiece”, or their contraries — all of which help you to locate benjamin boretz 11 -137prologue to (“whose time, what space”) self-presence — the public enactment of a consciously constructed, selfoverlayed persona rather than the localized being of a person — into the consciousness of others, where the effect at the receiving end is the main output of consequence. that’s a vastly more complex and ambiguous social, ethical, intellectual, expressive situation. and pretty dubious and unpromising ground for self-realization, too. looking back (it’s been a long time) i wonder if there isn’t just a terminal paradox in the idea of synchronously constructing a public-persuasive exterior persona alongside of an interior compositional-creative focus on the precise (it-)projection of such specific singular modes of being as: musical compositions. on the other hand inhabiting such a paradoxical duality does induce a singular intensity of selfreflection , a state of uneasy awareness that opens a perspective from which to view the entire host of paradoxes, confusions, denials by which the machinery of ‘normal’ public metamusical behavior is enabled. some such consciousness was at least implicit in some of my later — more radically “political” — pieces in the nation during the late 1960s; and much of my work since then seems to have been written and composed in its shadow: so, in 1978, in language ,as a music, i had my earnestly self-conscious professorcharacter say, in his letter to his old mentor: “we may not speak as we perceive, but we will soon enough be perceiving as we have spoken.” which, as i think about it now in the context of our subject, is less a sophisticated program for social action or epistemic self-analysis than a symptomatic expression of the radical insufficiency in the distinctions being made in that professor’s world among wildly disparate phenomena which all go under the same names, under the pretext or delusion of having common denotations. so ‘music’ can be fully encompassed by any number of mutually exclusive rubrics, each of which not only encompasses it totally, but is totally opaque to — and incompatible with — any of the phenomena or properties denoted by any of the others. such as: 1. history. politics. theory. ideology. they do, unquestionably, exist, and they each have their fact-telling vocabularies, each of which creates facts of a current musicology 12 -138benjamin boretz certain kind. but those predicates are not necessarily connected to the experienced facts of any person’s life. 2. take history: it is a determinate reification of the antecedence of our sentient existence, a demonstrated perspective on who we are, on where we are. its truths are inescapable, and pervasively account for major aspects of the world that directly and significantly affect everyone’s life. nevertheless, persons do not perforce experience their conscious living as history, as historical events, or qualify their experience in the vocabulary of historical predicates. you could say that history proceeds, in a self-defined, selfcontained way, on the outside of most people’s lived lives, accumulating and accessible at any time by observations which can be perceived by anyone as true, without being, except in that sense, the actual content of anyone’s experienced life-events. you could say that historical facts about your own time are public-global facts, and that there are what you might call personlocalized facts which more likely constitute the experienced contents of being alive. so there are things which are unquestionably true of your lifetime as public facts about it, which are likely inter-opaque with your (person-local) experience of your own life. 3. so too there are truths about music as a historical phenomenon, as a publicin-the-world phenomenon: demonstrable historical facts, like aesthetic evolutions and contingencies, concretized meta-phenomena like “high baroque”, “mannerist”, or “modernist”, creating perceptions and associations; there are generalized categorical technical facts, as “tonal”, “serial”, “microtonal” creating wholescale substitutions in perception of named identities for raw sonic blips; particular theoretical facts like “6/4 chord”, “sonata form”, “hexachordal combinatoriality”, “cadence”, organizing perceptions into negotiable familiar packages; there are aesthetic-critical facts, like “postwebern serial”, “heavy metal”, “world music”, “indeterminate”, “complex”, “bubblegum”, “post-modern”, “minimalist”, “gospel”; and cultural facts, like national identities, ethnic traits, sociological facts, like “glam ”, “academic”., “ downtown”; political facts, like “hegemonic”, “socialist realist“ or “decadent”; ideological facts, like “feminist” or “formalist”; value-judgment facts, like “immortal”, “masterpiece”, or their contraries — all of which help you to locate benjamin boretz 11 -137prologue to (“whose time, what space”) self-presence — the public enactment of a consciously constructed, selfoverlayed persona rather than the localized being of a person — into the consciousness of others, where the effect at the receiving end is the main output of consequence. that’s a vastly more complex and ambiguous social, ethical, intellectual, expressive situation. and pretty dubious and unpromising ground for self-realization, too. looking back (it’s been a long time) i wonder if there isn’t just a terminal paradox in the idea of synchronously constructing a public-persuasive exterior persona alongside of an interior compositional-creative focus on the precise (it-)projection of such specific singular modes of being as: musical compositions. on the other hand inhabiting such a paradoxical duality does induce a singular intensity of selfreflection , a state of uneasy awareness that opens a perspective from which to view the entire host of paradoxes, confusions, denials by which the machinery of ‘normal’ public metamusical behavior is enabled. some such consciousness was at least implicit in some of my later — more radically “political” — pieces in the nation during the late 1960s; and much of my work since then seems to have been written and composed in its shadow: so, in 1978, in language ,as a music, i had my earnestly self-conscious professorcharacter say, in his letter to his old mentor: “we may not speak as we perceive, but we will soon enough be perceiving as we have spoken.” which, as i think about it now in the context of our subject, is less a sophisticated program for social action or epistemic self-analysis than a symptomatic expression of the radical insufficiency in the distinctions being made in that professor’s world among wildly disparate phenomena which all go under the same names, under the pretext or delusion of having common denotations. so ‘music’ can be fully encompassed by any number of mutually exclusive rubrics, each of which not only encompasses it totally, but is totally opaque to — and incompatible with — any of the phenomena or properties denoted by any of the others. such as: 1. history. politics. theory. ideology. they do, unquestionably, exist, and they each have their fact-telling vocabularies, each of which creates facts of a 356 current musicology 14 -140benjamin boretz over and above those categoricals — perhaps, in some people, as a superior performance within their terms. but in any case, as something personally meaningful outside of the cultural-historical-political-technical-theoreticalideological-sociological meaning it may have. 5. so a composer, in writing publicly about music, might particularly — paradoxically — want to project the uniqueness and mutability, rather than the generality and certainty, of any musical experience, against the grain of the supposed public “need” for music — in favor of possible person-local music-needs (say, for deverbalized expression) of any possible persons within that public; might transplant into the institutional world the language of the personal-experiential-ambiguous, rather than the external-world-certain, sense of some music. and so the music criticisms and descriptions composed by such people might reach for other vocabularies and grammars than those of the generalizing categories, to seek for a verbal territory commensurate, or trying to commensurate, with the sensed sense of music from within an essentially incompatible space. which, naturally, tends in practice to produce confusions and incoherence — social, if not cognitive — not so different from those produced by the contradictions implicit in the institutionalized public exhibitions of the works of expression themselves. 6. living, along with lots of other people, within this confusion-energized fragmented space, i’ve produced words, music, and committed persistent attempted pedagogy; the tensions and contradictions i’ve been talking about have been stimulating rather than inhibiting, like mind-sets that elicit particular intuitions whose ideological origins are not necessarily evident. an idea, that is, is not ever an illustration of points made elsewhere. but there’s a piece called “(whose time, what space)”, which i first composed, performed, and recorded (for a school occasion) in 1986, and which i’ve recomposed for this event, which you may feel free to consider a continuation of this text by other means: benjamin boretz 13 -139prologue to (“whose time, what space”) yourself and some music in terms of appropriate personal distances and socreated typicalities — and whatever else. but how any of these predications, and which of them in particular, are going to determine or affect the experience of some music transaction at some person-time moment — or whether they will at all — is not given merely in that they are assertible and, given the pliability of music for any use words decide to put it to, demonstrable and — therefore — true. in other words, that something is true in its context doesn’t mean it’s relevant or palpable in every context; and in fact, all the different actual and possible contexts taken together — well, there’s no way anyone can possibly take them all together at a time, even if there are no actual contradictions among them. in fact, there are — must be, at least in some initiatory phase of someone’s life, purely private-seeming experiences of music which have apparent properties entirely unrelated to the whole array of public facts and images. whether or not these private properties are discernible within the environment of unremitting publicmusic imagery, and however powerfully their experiencing is affected and inflected by the public discourse, it is still in their terms that anyone’s actual experience actually takes place. that in fact underlies any intensity of engagement with which the experience of music is invested, any way that music is not simply received as a verbal-type utterance, just articulated by other means, in music sound the public-music imagery can create music experiences completely in its image: that is entirely evident and internalized within everyone in a common-cultural space, but in our common-cultural space at least, it’s not what music, as music, as expressive art, ultimately does with, for, or to you. 4. now every composer, in the act of composing, is composing in a historical time, in some historical way, some cultural way, some technical way, some theoretical way, some ideological way, some sociological way — but a composer, in the act of composing, is not likely to be consciously enacting these — at least, not all of these — ontologies within her composingconsciousness. it’s unusual for a composer to think of her work as first and foremost an example of some category, a manifestation of some tendency — at least for the composer, there’s something in the music outside, or at least 357 current musicology 14 -140benjamin boretz over and above those categoricals — perhaps, in some people, as a superior performance within their terms. but in any case, as something personally meaningful outside of the cultural-historical-political-technical-theoreticalideological-sociological meaning it may have. 5. so a composer, in writing publicly about music, might particularly — paradoxically — want to project the uniqueness and mutability, rather than the generality and certainty, of any musical experience, against the grain of the supposed public “need” for music — in favor of possible person-local music-needs (say, for deverbalized expression) of any possible persons within that public; might transplant into the institutional world the language of the personal-experiential-ambiguous, rather than the external-world-certain, sense of some music. and so the music criticisms and descriptions composed by such people might reach for other vocabularies and grammars than those of the generalizing categories, to seek for a verbal territory commensurate, or trying to commensurate, with the sensed sense of music from within an essentially incompatible space. which, naturally, tends in practice to produce confusions and incoherence — social, if not cognitive — not so different from those produced by the contradictions implicit in the institutionalized public exhibitions of the works of expression themselves. 6. living, along with lots of other people, within this confusion-energized fragmented space, i’ve produced words, music, and committed persistent attempted pedagogy; the tensions and contradictions i’ve been talking about have been stimulating rather than inhibiting, like mind-sets that elicit particular intuitions whose ideological origins are not necessarily evident. an idea, that is, is not ever an illustration of points made elsewhere. but there’s a piece called “(whose time, what space)”, which i first composed, performed, and recorded (for a school occasion) in 1986, and which i’ve recomposed for this event, which you may feel free to consider a continuation of this text by other means: benjamin boretz 13 -139prologue to (“whose time, what space”) yourself and some music in terms of appropriate personal distances and socreated typicalities — and whatever else. but how any of these predications, and which of them in particular, are going to determine or affect the experience of some music transaction at some person-time moment — or whether they will at all — is not given merely in that they are assertible and, given the pliability of music for any use words decide to put it to, demonstrable and — therefore — true. in other words, that something is true in its context doesn’t mean it’s relevant or palpable in every context; and in fact, all the different actual and possible contexts taken together — well, there’s no way anyone can possibly take them all together at a time, even if there are no actual contradictions among them. in fact, there are — must be, at least in some initiatory phase of someone’s life, purely private-seeming experiences of music which have apparent properties entirely unrelated to the whole array of public facts and images. whether or not these private properties are discernible within the environment of unremitting publicmusic imagery, and however powerfully their experiencing is affected and inflected by the public discourse, it is still in their terms that anyone’s actual experience actually takes place. that in fact underlies any intensity of engagement with which the experience of music is invested, any way that music is not simply received as a verbal-type utterance, just articulated by other means, in music sound the public-music imagery can create music experiences completely in its image: that is entirely evident and internalized within everyone in a common-cultural space, but in our common-cultural space at least, it’s not what music, as music, as expressive art, ultimately does with, for, or to you. 4. now every composer, in the act of composing, is composing in a historical time, in some historical way, some cultural way, some technical way, some theoretical way, some ideological way, some sociological way — but a composer, in the act of composing, is not likely to be consciously enacting these — at least, not all of these — ontologies within her composingconsciousness. it’s unusual for a composer to think of her work as first and foremost an example of some category, a manifestation of some tendency — at least for the composer, there’s something in the music outside, or at least current musicology 14 -140benjamin boretz over and above those categoricals — perhaps, in some people, as a superior performance within their terms. but in any case, as something personally meaningful outside of the cultural-historical-political-technical-theoreticalideological-sociological meaning it may have. 5. so a composer, in writing publicly about music, might particularly — paradoxically — want to project the uniqueness and mutability, rather than the generality and certainty, of any musical experience, against the grain of the supposed public “need” for music — in favor of possible person-local music-needs (say, for deverbalized expression) of any possible persons within that public; might transplant into the institutional world the language of the personal-experiential-ambiguous, rather than the external-world-certain, sense of some music. and so the music criticisms and descriptions composed by such people might reach for other vocabularies and grammars than those of the generalizing categories, to seek for a verbal territory commensurate, or trying to commensurate, with the sensed sense of music from within an essentially incompatible space. which, naturally, tends in practice to produce confusions and incoherence — social, if not cognitive — not so different from those produced by the contradictions implicit in the institutionalized public exhibitions of the works of expression themselves. 6. living, along with lots of other people, within this confusion-energized fragmented space, i’ve produced words, music, and committed persistent attempted pedagogy; the tensions and contradictions i’ve been talking about have been stimulating rather than inhibiting, like mind-sets that elicit particular intuitions whose ideological origins are not necessarily evident. an idea, that is, is not ever an illustration of points made elsewhere. but there’s a piece called “(whose time, what space)”, which i first composed, performed, and recorded (for a school occasion) in 1986, and which i’ve recomposed for this event, which you may feel free to consider a continuation of this text by other means: benjamin boretz 13 -139prologue to (“whose time, what space”) yourself and some music in terms of appropriate personal distances and socreated typicalities — and whatever else. but how any of these predications, and which of them in particular, are going to determine or affect the experience of some music transaction at some person-time moment — or whether they will at all — is not given merely in that they are assertible and, given the pliability of music for any use words decide to put it to, demonstrable and — therefore — true. in other words, that something is true in its context doesn’t mean it’s relevant or palpable in every context; and in fact, all the different actual and possible contexts taken together — well, there’s no way anyone can possibly take them all together at a time, even if there are no actual contradictions among them. in fact, there are — must be, at least in some initiatory phase of someone’s life, purely private-seeming experiences of music which have apparent properties entirely unrelated to the whole array of public facts and images. whether or not these private properties are discernible within the environment of unremitting publicmusic imagery, and however powerfully their experiencing is affected and inflected by the public discourse, it is still in their terms that anyone’s actual experience actually takes place. that in fact underlies any intensity of engagement with which the experience of music is invested, any way that music is not simply received as a verbal-type utterance, just articulated by other means, in music sound the public-music imagery can create music experiences completely in its image: that is entirely evident and internalized within everyone in a common-cultural space, but in our common-cultural space at least, it’s not what music, as music, as expressive art, ultimately does with, for, or to you. 4. now every composer, in the act of composing, is composing in a historical time, in some historical way, some cultural way, some technical way, some theoretical way, some ideological way, some sociological way — but a composer, in the act of composing, is not likely to be consciously enacting these — at least, not all of these — ontologies within her composingconsciousness. it’s unusual for a composer to think of her work as first and foremost an example of some category, a manifestation of some tendency — at least for the composer, there’s something in the music outside, or at least 358 benjamin boretz 15 -141prologue to (“whose time, what space”) [whose time, what space is, at first, a text which i performed by setting myself up as an overloaded one-person ensemble, hanging as many soundmakers of various types on my body as it could possibly hold, then adding a couple more. that physical situation was a significant score for this performance, as you can imagine. four music-descriptive texts follow, interacting in various ways with the musics they engage.] [the cd: “whose time, what space”, version of 4/2002] april/september 2002 359 current musicology 16 -142(whose time, what space) experiencing music is bringing into being a singular time-space identity, received from a singular perspective of location. a peculiarity of any music experiencing is that no physical time-space-location-occasion (observable and quantifiable in referential, intersubjective terms) can be designated as being the time or space or occasion identity of a music experiencing. the real time and space and occasion of music experiencing are psychic time and space and occasion. and the psychic time and space and occasion of a music experiencing are fully contingent upon the specific coincident physical times and physical spaces and real-world occasions within which that music experiencing occurs. benjamin boretz 15 -141prologue to (“whose time, what space”) [whose time, what space is, at first, a text which i performed by setting myself up as an overloaded one-person ensemble, hanging as many soundmakers of various types on my body as it could possibly hold, then adding a couple more. that physical situation was a significant score for this performance, as you can imagine. four music-descriptive texts follow, interacting in various ways with the musics they engage.] [the cd: “whose time, what space”, version of 4/2002] april/september 2002 benjamin boretz 15 -141prologue to (“whose time, what space”) [whose time, what space is, at first, a text which i performed by setting myself up as an overloaded one-person ensemble, hanging as many soundmakers of various types on my body as it could possibly hold, then adding a couple more. that physical situation was a significant score for this performance, as you can imagine. four music-descriptive texts follow, interacting in various ways with the musics they engage.] [the cd: “whose time, what space”, version of 4/2002] april/september 2002 360 current musicology 18 -144(soundtrack 1) (a korean court music) a f i v e m i l e l o n g d r a g o n m o v e s t h r o u g h a w i n d i n g c o u r s e , a l l i t s p a r t s , o r g a n i c a l l y c o n n e c t e d , f o l l o w i n g i t s h e a d a r o u n d e a c h c o r n e r a t i n c o n c e i v a b l y r e m o t e d i s t a n c e s , b u t a l w a y s , u n i m a g i n a b l y , i n e x o r a b l y , p e r f o r m i n g t h e p r e c i s e m a n e u v e r p r e d e s t i n e d o v e r a h u m a n l y u n e n c o m p a s s a b l e s p a c e , f r o m h e a d t o i n c o n c e i v a b l y d i s t a n t t a i l . benjamin boretz 17 -143all the psychic and physical time, space and occasion identities are undetachably interdependent: are, in fact, indivisible and mutually create each other; a music experiencing is thus a comprehensive totality which comprises a particular convergence of identified psychic and physical times, spaces, and occasions. 361 current musicology 18 -144(soundtrack 1) (a korean court music) a f i v e m i l e l o n g d r a g o n m o v e s t h r o u g h a w i n d i n g c o u r s e , a l l i t s p a r t s , o r g a n i c a l l y c o n n e c t e d , f o l l o w i n g i t s h e a d a r o u n d e a c h c o r n e r a t i n c o n c e i v a b l y r e m o t e d i s t a n c e s , b u t a l w a y s , u n i m a g i n a b l y , i n e x o r a b l y , p e r f o r m i n g t h e p r e c i s e m a n e u v e r p r e d e s t i n e d o v e r a h u m a n l y u n e n c o m p a s s a b l e s p a c e , f r o m h e a d t o i n c o n c e i v a b l y d i s t a n t t a i l . current musicology 18 -144(soundtrack 1) (a korean court music) a f i v e m i l e l o n g d r a g o n m o v e s t h r o u g h a w i n d i n g c o u r s e , a l l i t s p a r t s , o r g a n i c a l l y c o n n e c t e d , f o l l o w i n g i t s h e a d a r o u n d e a c h c o r n e r a t i n c o n c e i v a b l y r e m o t e d i s t a n c e s , b u t a l w a y s , u n i m a g i n a b l y , i n e x o r a b l y , p e r f o r m i n g t h e p r e c i s e m a n e u v e r p r e d e s t i n e d o v e r a h u m a n l y u n e n c o m p a s s a b l e s p a c e , f r o m h e a d t o i n c o n c e i v a b l y d i s t a n t t a i l . benjamin boretz 17 -143all the psychic and physical time, space and occasion identities are undetachably interdependent: are, in fact, indivisible and mutually create each other; a music experiencing is thus a comprehensive totality which comprises a particular convergence of identified psychic and physical times, spaces, and occasions. 362 current musicology 20 -146(soundtrack 2) (a mozart symphony slow movement) the universe is emptied of all but a droplet of matter, which as we enter it progressively metastasizes into a hermetically sealed unpeopled metauniverse composing itself in accumulating energies of complexly balancing dynamisms, growing again to the size of the whole universe again but now within our own transcendently reinitialized mental space. time is invisibly undone, insidiously reconstituted under the force of the invisible inexorable intangible ferocity within the universe contained within this droplet of matter in which we are immersed, which is within our mind. benjamin boretz 19 -145t i m e s t r e t c h e s t r a n s c e n d e n t l y , b e y o n d a n y m e a s u r a b l e f l o w , b y t h e o v e r w h e l m i n g m a g n i t u d e o f e a c h d r a g o n m o v e e v e n t . 363 current musicology 20 -146(soundtrack 2) (a mozart symphony slow movement) the universe is emptied of all but a droplet of matter, which as we enter it progressively metastasizes into a hermetically sealed unpeopled metauniverse composing itself in accumulating energies of complexly balancing dynamisms, growing again to the size of the whole universe again but now within our own transcendently reinitialized mental space. time is invisibly undone, insidiously reconstituted under the force of the invisible inexorable intangible ferocity within the universe contained within this droplet of matter in which we are immersed, which is within our mind. current musicology 20 -146(soundtrack 2) (a mozart symphony slow movement) the universe is emptied of all but a droplet of matter, which as we enter it progressively metastasizes into a hermetically sealed unpeopled metauniverse composing itself in accumulating energies of complexly balancing dynamisms, growing again to the size of the whole universe again but now within our own transcendently reinitialized mental space. time is invisibly undone, insidiously reconstituted under the force of the invisible inexorable intangible ferocity within the universe contained within this droplet of matter in which we are immersed, which is within our mind. benjamin boretz 19 -145t i m e s t r e t c h e s t r a n s c e n d e n t l y , b e y o n d a n y m e a s u r a b l e f l o w , b y t h e o v e r w h e l m i n g m a g n i t u d e o f e a c h d r a g o n m o v e e v e n t . 364 current musicology 22 (soundtrack 4) (the stretch of stravinsky’s rite of spring from the opening bassoon solo to its semitone-depressed recollection) beginning with the very first singlenote sound... ...a keening primordial whine, a trembling hover, suddenly sending seismic chills down its own spine, sprouting eerie excrescences that merge with it, twisting it into a ghoulish glide through that soundandtimespace environment that woodwinds simultaneously create and slither through, arrested electrically by stinging stringtrills traumatically freezing action, woodwinds as traumatically unfreezing it, splintering into myriad simultaneities of tiny frenzies interweaving but blankly oblivious of one another, the desolate whine now reemerging in ever so emptier a space, oddly discolored, dislocated now, its spasms now feeble in the aftermath of whatever it was that happened. . . benjamin boretz 21 -147soundtrack 3: (milton babbitt’s first piano concerto) you could call it unfiltered megaschoenberg in jazztime continuity (not poptime or modernmusictime, either) but what i most love about milton’s concerto is its gritted integrity being defiant unregenerate militant positivist music, sternly askance anent the softheaded stylewaffling of the gegenwärtliche jugend, a relentlessly uningratiatingly polyfrantically multilayered senseassertive discourse here being socially publically sonically displayed and exposed to be sure but unmistakably demanding for adequate reception ultimately that it be studied minutely and intently in printform uncompromisingly exhaustively inexhaustibly 365 current musicology 22 (soundtrack 4) (the stretch of stravinsky’s rite of spring from the opening bassoon solo to its semitone-depressed recollection) beginning with the very first singlenote sound... ...a keening primordial whine, a trembling hover, suddenly sending seismic chills down its own spine, sprouting eerie excrescences that merge with it, twisting it into a ghoulish glide through that soundandtimespace environment that woodwinds simultaneously create and slither through, arrested electrically by stinging stringtrills traumatically freezing action, woodwinds as traumatically unfreezing it, splintering into myriad simultaneities of tiny frenzies interweaving but blankly oblivious of one another, the desolate whine now reemerging in ever so emptier a space, oddly discolored, dislocated now, its spasms now feeble in the aftermath of whatever it was that happened. . . benjamin boretz 21 -147soundtrack 3: (milton babbitt’s first piano concerto) you could call it unfiltered megaschoenberg in jazztime continuity (not poptime or modernmusictime, either) but what i most love about milton’s concerto is its gritted integrity being defiant unregenerate militant positivist music, sternly askance anent the softheaded stylewaffling of the gegenwärtliche jugend, a relentlessly uningratiatingly polyfrantically multilayered senseassertive discourse here being socially publically sonically displayed and exposed to be sure but unmistakably demanding for adequate reception ultimately that it be studied minutely and intently in printform uncompromisingly exhaustively inexhaustibly current musicology 22 (soundtrack 4) (the stretch of stravinsky’s rite of spring from the opening bassoon solo to its semitone-depressed recollection) beginning with the very first singlenote sound... ...a keening primordial whine, a trembling hover, suddenly sending seismic chills down its own spine, sprouting eerie excrescences that merge with it, twisting it into a ghoulish glide through that soundandtimespace environment that woodwinds simultaneously create and slither through, arrested electrically by stinging stringtrills traumatically freezing action, woodwinds as traumatically unfreezing it, splintering into myriad simultaneities of tiny frenzies interweaving but blankly oblivious of one another, the desolate whine now reemerging in ever so emptier a space, oddly discolored, dislocated now, its spasms now feeble in the aftermath of whatever it was that happened. . . benjamin boretz 21 -147soundtrack 3: (milton babbitt’s first piano concerto) you could call it unfiltered megaschoenberg in jazztime continuity (not poptime or modernmusictime, either) but what i most love about milton’s concerto is its gritted integrity being defiant unregenerate militant positivist music, sternly askance anent the softheaded stylewaffling of the gegenwärtliche jugend, a relentlessly uningratiatingly polyfrantically multilayered senseassertive discourse here being socially publically sonically displayed and exposed to be sure but unmistakably demanding for adequate reception ultimately that it be studied minutely and intently in printform uncompromisingly exhaustively inexhaustibly 366 benjamin boretz 25 505 —february/may 2001 written first as a solo reading for a symposium on “music and politics” conceived and led by judy klein at the march 2001 conference of seamus (society for electroacoustic music in the u.s.) in baton rouge whose other participants were jon appleton and anna rubin; rewritten for two voices and performed with karen eisenbrey at a meeting of the washington composers’ forum in seattle, may 2001. benjamin boretz i / i / i / i / i / ooooo benjamin boretz 23 -148(soundtrack 5) (a panpipes orchestra in the chilean andes) we walk together from church to ritual square, we breathe together as people breathing together breathe. time is the natural sense of our flowing forward together, naturally infolding as movement and sense of movement together, unfolding as the unitary shape and space of our timeless, dimensionless being, together. —may 1986/may 2002 [bab] 367 benjamin boretz 25 505 —february/may 2001 written first as a solo reading for a symposium on “music and politics” conceived and led by judy klein at the march 2001 conference of seamus (society for electroacoustic music in the u.s.) in baton rouge whose other participants were jon appleton and anna rubin; rewritten for two voices and performed with karen eisenbrey at a meeting of the washington composers’ forum in seattle, may 2001. benjamin boretz i / i / i / i / i / ooooo benjamin boretz 23 -148(soundtrack 5) (a panpipes orchestra in the chilean andes) we walk together from church to ritual square, we breathe together as people breathing together breathe. time is the natural sense of our flowing forward together, naturally infolding as movement and sense of movement together, unfolding as the unitary shape and space of our timeless, dimensionless being, together. —may 1986/may 2002 [bab] benjamin boretz 25 505 —february/may 2001 written first as a solo reading for a symposium on “music and politics” conceived and led by judy klein at the march 2001 conference of seamus (society for electroacoustic music in the u.s.) in baton rouge whose other participants were jon appleton and anna rubin; rewritten for two voices and performed with karen eisenbrey at a meeting of the washington composers’ forum in seattle, may 2001. benjamin boretz i / i / i / i / i / ooooo benjamin boretz 23 -148(soundtrack 5) (a panpipes orchestra in the chilean andes) we walk together from church to ritual square, we breathe together as people breathing together breathe. time is the natural sense of our flowing forward together, naturally infolding as movement and sense of movement together, unfolding as the unitary shape and space of our timeless, dimensionless being, together. —may 1986/may 2002 [bab] 368 current musicology 26 506 speaker ispeaker ispeaker ispeaker ispeaker i poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ? . . . politics?. . . politics?. . . politics?. . . politics?. . . politics? modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . . . . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior? is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . . . . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation? :politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . . : . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . . . . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing? are they even anythingare they even anythingare they even anythingare they even anythingare they even anything discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful? — about expression? . . .— about expression? . . .— about expression? . . .— about expression? . . .— about expression? . . . . . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’? speaker ii “a year from monday”? lament for the victims of hiroshima? ancient voices of children? gesang der jünglinge? scratch music? maledetto? “feminine endings”? the people united will never be defeated? tibetan monks dancing on san giorgio in venice? the shaggs? tabuh-tabuhan? the goleta anarchist music ensemble? bulgarian village women chorusing on nonesuch cds? 369 benjamin boretz 27 507 shostakovich? the futurist manifesto? “twelve-tone rhythmic structure and the electronic medium”? “on musical performance of gender and sex”? or really perhaps only about discourse?or really perhaps only about discourse?or really perhaps only about discourse?or really perhaps only about discourse?or really perhaps only about discourse? (: in which the politicizing of the aesthetic . . .(: in which the politicizing of the aesthetic . . .(: in which the politicizing of the aesthetic . . .(: in which the politicizing of the aesthetic . . .(: in which the politicizing of the aesthetic . . . signifies the subsumption of the expressive textsignifies the subsumption of the expressive textsignifies the subsumption of the expressive textsignifies the subsumption of the expressive textsignifies the subsumption of the expressive text within the discourse,within the discourse,within the discourse,within the discourse,within the discourse, as its instrument, its property?)as its instrument, its property?)as its instrument, its property?)as its instrument, its property?)as its instrument, its property?) . . . or in which the aestheticizing of the political. . . or in which the aestheticizing of the political. . . or in which the aestheticizing of the political. . . or in which the aestheticizing of the political. . . or in which the aestheticizing of the political signifies the adoption by the expressive textsignifies the adoption by the expressive textsignifies the adoption by the expressive textsignifies the adoption by the expressive textsignifies the adoption by the expressive text of the condition, the identity, of discourse?of the condition, the identity, of discourse?of the condition, the identity, of discourse?of the condition, the identity, of discourse?of the condition, the identity, of discourse? 4’33”? apollon musagètes? ein heldenleben? i am sitting in a room? pli selon pli? . . . ?) . . . at the edges, doesn’t. . . at the edges, doesn’t. . . at the edges, doesn’t. . . at the edges, doesn’t. . . at the edges, doesn’t politicizing sloganize politicspoliticizing sloganize politicspoliticizing sloganize politicspoliticizing sloganize politicspoliticizing sloganize politics into ideological weaponry;into ideological weaponry;into ideological weaponry;into ideological weaponry;into ideological weaponry; doesn’t aestheticizing dysfunctionalize politicsdoesn’t aestheticizing dysfunctionalize politicsdoesn’t aestheticizing dysfunctionalize politicsdoesn’t aestheticizing dysfunctionalize politicsdoesn’t aestheticizing dysfunctionalize politics into iconic imagery,into iconic imagery,into iconic imagery,into iconic imagery,into iconic imagery, like a shot of stimulus energylike a shot of stimulus energylike a shot of stimulus energylike a shot of stimulus energylike a shot of stimulus energy spiking a kicky entertainment . . . ?spiking a kicky entertainment . . . ?spiking a kicky entertainment . . . ?spiking a kicky entertainment . . . ?spiking a kicky entertainment . . . ? the chairman dances? l’s g.a.? la? bye bye butterfly? ode to napoleon? different trains? for a lasting peace, for a people’s democracy? current musicology 26 506 speaker ispeaker ispeaker ispeaker ispeaker i poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ?poetics . . . ? . . . politics?. . . politics?. . . politics?. . . politics?. . . politics? modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . .modalities of expressive behavior . . . . . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior?. . . modalities of interpersonal behavior? is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . .is there a difference? . . . . . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation?. . . is there a relation? :politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . .:politicizing the aesthetic . . . : . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . .: . . . aestheticizing the political . . . . . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing?. . . are they the same thing? are they even anythingare they even anythingare they even anythingare they even anythingare they even anything discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful?discriminable? . . . or meaningful? — about expression? . . .— about expression? . . .— about expression? . . .— about expression? . . .— about expression? . . . . . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’?. . . or perhaps only about :‘art’? speaker ii “a year from monday”? lament for the victims of hiroshima? ancient voices of children? gesang der jünglinge? scratch music? maledetto? “feminine endings”? the people united will never be defeated? tibetan monks dancing on san giorgio in venice? the shaggs? tabuh-tabuhan? the goleta anarchist music ensemble? bulgarian village women chorusing on nonesuch cds? 370 current musicology 28 508 still, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poetics — in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’ — and music as politics —— and music as politics —— and music as politics —— and music as politics —— and music as politics — in its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theory — share an originary need,— share an originary need,— share an originary need,— share an originary need,— share an originary need, even an originary strategyeven an originary strategyeven an originary strategyeven an originary strategyeven an originary strategy directed toward that need?directed toward that need?directed toward that need?directed toward that need?directed toward that need? do they not arise withindo they not arise withindo they not arise withindo they not arise withindo they not arise within the same human predicament,the same human predicament,the same human predicament,the same human predicament,the same human predicament, as the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responses to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma? is not their common issueis not their common issueis not their common issueis not their common issueis not their common issue the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish, the fearful alienationthe fearful alienationthe fearful alienationthe fearful alienationthe fearful alienation of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation, the terrifying sensethe terrifying sensethe terrifying sensethe terrifying sensethe terrifying sense of helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonment within the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobody with no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibility of credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connection to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being, growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands? the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic, is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot), to create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitable as the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being with fulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to the visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being. as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer, where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is. das lied von der erde? turangalila? soundings? momente? smalltalk? gap6? fire music? europera? 371 benjamin boretz 29 509 intimacy (a polemic)? t-wmukl-d? visage? “on the way to becoming”? sauh? wang wei at the piano? forgetting and remembering? earthlight? steam? philomel? “against plausibility”? “schoenberg is dead”? “boola boola”? “the agony of modern music”? “der freie satz”? “caliban reborn”? “queering the pitch”? fluxus? soviet iron foundry? lament for sarah? the tack of ‘politics’, precisely inverse,the tack of ‘politics’, precisely inverse,the tack of ‘politics’, precisely inverse,the tack of ‘politics’, precisely inverse,the tack of ‘politics’, precisely inverse, is creative exteriorization,is creative exteriorization,is creative exteriorization,is creative exteriorization,is creative exteriorization, reifies the exterior world as a multiplicative reproduction,reifies the exterior world as a multiplicative reproduction,reifies the exterior world as a multiplicative reproduction,reifies the exterior world as a multiplicative reproduction,reifies the exterior world as a multiplicative reproduction, a symbolic objectification, of the self, producing a tangible,a symbolic objectification, of the self, producing a tangible,a symbolic objectification, of the self, producing a tangible,a symbolic objectification, of the self, producing a tangible,a symbolic objectification, of the self, producing a tangible, if self-induced, interpersonal support system.if self-induced, interpersonal support system.if self-induced, interpersonal support system.if self-induced, interpersonal support system.if self-induced, interpersonal support system. appropriating representation appropriates authority,appropriating representation appropriates authority,appropriating representation appropriates authority,appropriating representation appropriates authority,appropriating representation appropriates authority, ultimately appropriates the identity of the collective to the self.ultimately appropriates the identity of the collective to the self.ultimately appropriates the identity of the collective to the self.ultimately appropriates the identity of the collective to the self.ultimately appropriates the identity of the collective to the self. the oracle effect, says pierre bourdieu, a ... form of performativity,the oracle effect, says pierre bourdieu, a ... form of performativity,the oracle effect, says pierre bourdieu, a ... form of performativity,the oracle effect, says pierre bourdieu, a ... form of performativity,the oracle effect, says pierre bourdieu, a ... form of performativity, ... enables the authorized spokesperson to take his authority from... enables the authorized spokesperson to take his authority from... enables the authorized spokesperson to take his authority from... enables the authorized spokesperson to take his authority from... enables the authorized spokesperson to take his authority from the group ... i am an incarnation of the collective, and by virtue ofthe group ... i am an incarnation of the collective, and by virtue ofthe group ... i am an incarnation of the collective, and by virtue ofthe group ... i am an incarnation of the collective, and by virtue ofthe group ... i am an incarnation of the collective, and by virtue of that fact, i am the one who manipulates the group in the very namethat fact, i am the one who manipulates the group in the very namethat fact, i am the one who manipulates the group in the very namethat fact, i am the one who manipulates the group in the very namethat fact, i am the one who manipulates the group in the very name of the group ... the violence that is part and parcel of the oracleof the group ... the violence that is part and parcel of the oracleof the group ... the violence that is part and parcel of the oracleof the group ... the violence that is part and parcel of the oracleof the group ... the violence that is part and parcel of the oracle effect can never be felt more strongly than in effect can never be felt more strongly than in effect can never be felt more strongly than in effect can never be felt more strongly than in effect can never be felt more strongly than in assembly situationsassembly situationsassembly situationsassembly situationsassembly situations [ — elias canetti would single out the symphony concert — ][ — elias canetti would single out the symphony concert — ][ — elias canetti would single out the symphony concert — ][ — elias canetti would single out the symphony concert — ][ — elias canetti would single out the symphony concert — ] in which ... the professional spokespersons who are authorizedin which ... the professional spokespersons who are authorizedin which ... the professional spokespersons who are authorizedin which ... the professional spokespersons who are authorizedin which ... the professional spokespersons who are authorized can speak in the name of the entire group assembled ...can speak in the name of the entire group assembled ...can speak in the name of the entire group assembled ...can speak in the name of the entire group assembled ...can speak in the name of the entire group assembled ... but: consider: who — what but: consider: who — what but: consider: who — what but: consider: who — what but: consider: who — what real real real real real person — am i talking about?person — am i talking about?person — am i talking about?person — am i talking about?person — am i talking about? who is the pure expressor, who is the pure politicizer?who is the pure expressor, who is the pure politicizer?who is the pure expressor, who is the pure politicizer?who is the pure expressor, who is the pure politicizer?who is the pure expressor, who is the pure politicizer? what there is is, in fact, only all of uswhat there is is, in fact, only all of uswhat there is is, in fact, only all of uswhat there is is, in fact, only all of uswhat there is is, in fact, only all of us current musicology 28 508 still, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poeticsstill, don’t both music as poetics — in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’— in its corporealization as ‘art’ — and music as politics —— and music as politics —— and music as politics —— and music as politics —— and music as politics — in its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theoryin its mode of activity rather than theory — share an originary need,— share an originary need,— share an originary need,— share an originary need,— share an originary need, even an originary strategyeven an originary strategyeven an originary strategyeven an originary strategyeven an originary strategy directed toward that need?directed toward that need?directed toward that need?directed toward that need?directed toward that need? do they not arise withindo they not arise withindo they not arise withindo they not arise withindo they not arise within the same human predicament,the same human predicament,the same human predicament,the same human predicament,the same human predicament, as the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responsesas the usual diametrically opposing responses to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma?to a common dilemma? is not their common issueis not their common issueis not their common issueis not their common issueis not their common issue the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish,the vulnerability, the anguish, the fearful alienationthe fearful alienationthe fearful alienationthe fearful alienationthe fearful alienation of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation,of ontological isolation, the terrifying sensethe terrifying sensethe terrifying sensethe terrifying sensethe terrifying sense of helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonmentof helpless imprisonment within the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobodywithin the vulnerable psychobody with no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibilitywith no perceivable possibility of credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connectionof credible interpersonal connection to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being,to mediate the enveloping alienation of being, growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands?growing, metastasizing as being itself expands? the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic,the reflexive tack of ‘art’, the interiorizing creative tactic, is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot),is to reify solitude itself (to borrow an image of maurice blanchot), to create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitableto create an interior world as palpable and inhabitable as the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being withas the external one, to populate the loneness of being with fulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to thefulness of substance and texture approximating to the visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being.visionary fantasy of unalienated being. as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer,as maurice blanchot says of the creative writer, where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is.where he is, only being is. das lied von der erde? turangalila? soundings? momente? smalltalk? gap6? fire music? europera? 372 current musicology 30 510 — with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities, all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues; self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably. and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians, who can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalities of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity, to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics, if only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal being by circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourse — pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse between the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenon and its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiver to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us, personified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselves — just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed to nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppression of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves, so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in. and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians, who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic, who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances, who appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomena the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns, including at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extreme the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze, symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues, their — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors of significance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togetherness enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war, the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena” which we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreude credit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rational — we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers, appropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive work the exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political things even if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expression so as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulate within the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itself which we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggled to bring into being.to bring into being.to bring into being.to bring into being.to bring into being. 373 benjamin boretz 31 511 and so we become strangers too.and so we become strangers too.and so we become strangers too.and so we become strangers too.and so we become strangers too. in the expressive space we have created.in the expressive space we have created.in the expressive space we have created.in the expressive space we have created.in the expressive space we have created. yet it cannot be questioned that in every musicallyyet it cannot be questioned that in every musicallyyet it cannot be questioned that in every musicallyyet it cannot be questioned that in every musicallyyet it cannot be questioned that in every musically expressive act there is also an innate, indigenous politicsexpressive act there is also an innate, indigenous politicsexpressive act there is also an innate, indigenous politicsexpressive act there is also an innate, indigenous politicsexpressive act there is also an innate, indigenous politics — but a politics which by its nature as music is not— but a politics which by its nature as music is not— but a politics which by its nature as music is not— but a politics which by its nature as music is not— but a politics which by its nature as music is not susceptible to being restated with discourse, andsusceptible to being restated with discourse, andsusceptible to being restated with discourse, andsusceptible to being restated with discourse, andsusceptible to being restated with discourse, and whose messages are therefore subvertedwhose messages are therefore subvertedwhose messages are therefore subvertedwhose messages are therefore subvertedwhose messages are therefore subverted by the gratuitous public-verbal politicsby the gratuitous public-verbal politicsby the gratuitous public-verbal politicsby the gratuitous public-verbal politicsby the gratuitous public-verbal politics to which they are assimilated.to which they are assimilated.to which they are assimilated.to which they are assimilated.to which they are assimilated. i said already that our complicity ini said already that our complicity ini said already that our complicity ini said already that our complicity ini said already that our complicity in undermining ourselves is an outcomeundermining ourselves is an outcomeundermining ourselves is an outcomeundermining ourselves is an outcomeundermining ourselves is an outcome of a particular complexity of expressive artists,of a particular complexity of expressive artists,of a particular complexity of expressive artists,of a particular complexity of expressive artists,of a particular complexity of expressive artists, of creative musicians: that we could not surviveof creative musicians: that we could not surviveof creative musicians: that we could not surviveof creative musicians: that we could not surviveof creative musicians: that we could not survive permanently affixed to the interior worlds we create.permanently affixed to the interior worlds we create.permanently affixed to the interior worlds we create.permanently affixed to the interior worlds we create.permanently affixed to the interior worlds we create. the very socialization of our sound, its capacity to bethe very socialization of our sound, its capacity to bethe very socialization of our sound, its capacity to bethe very socialization of our sound, its capacity to bethe very socialization of our sound, its capacity to be meaningful to others,meaningful to others,meaningful to others,meaningful to others,meaningful to others, is a painful reconfrontationis a painful reconfrontationis a painful reconfrontationis a painful reconfrontationis a painful reconfrontation with the essential alienationwith the essential alienationwith the essential alienationwith the essential alienationwith the essential alienation and isolationand isolationand isolationand isolationand isolation the expressive act is needed to ameliorate.the expressive act is needed to ameliorate.the expressive act is needed to ameliorate.the expressive act is needed to ameliorate.the expressive act is needed to ameliorate. so the musician-artist rages to join her own lost world,so the musician-artist rages to join her own lost world,so the musician-artist rages to join her own lost world,so the musician-artist rages to join her own lost world,so the musician-artist rages to join her own lost world, the very one that she by releasing her workthe very one that she by releasing her workthe very one that she by releasing her workthe very one that she by releasing her workthe very one that she by releasing her work has created for them, rages not only to be ablehas created for them, rages not only to be ablehas created for them, rages not only to be ablehas created for them, rages not only to be ablehas created for them, rages not only to be able to inhabit it with them like them,to inhabit it with them like them,to inhabit it with them like them,to inhabit it with them like them,to inhabit it with them like them, but to inhabit it in her own name,but to inhabit it in her own name,but to inhabit it in her own name,but to inhabit it in her own name,but to inhabit it in her own name, on her own account, noton her own account, noton her own account, noton her own account, noton her own account, not — not like them —— not like them —— not like them —— not like them —— not like them — as an anonymityas an anonymityas an anonymityas an anonymityas an anonymity in the public audience space.in the public audience space.in the public audience space.in the public audience space.in the public audience space. for her, anonymityfor her, anonymityfor her, anonymityfor her, anonymityfor her, anonymity is a cruel dissonant punis a cruel dissonant punis a cruel dissonant punis a cruel dissonant punis a cruel dissonant pun on the originary expressiveon the originary expressiveon the originary expressiveon the originary expressiveon the originary expressive erasure of identity.erasure of identity.erasure of identity.erasure of identity.erasure of identity. isolation recycled,isolation recycled,isolation recycled,isolation recycled,isolation recycled, futility? klinghoffer? for the uncommon woman? intolleranza? a war requiem? kiva? golem? form for piano? time’s encomium? rothko chapel? unit structures? big road blues? vingt régards sur l’enfant jésus? echoi? om? evocations? twisted tutu? custer’s ghost? blue in green? available forms? the purposes and politics of engaging strangers? white writing? “compose yourself”? the cave? sticks/stones? sonic meditations? koyaanisqatsi? rainforest? musica elettronica viva? “rules of one’s own”? the roachville project? “meta + hodos”? “speaking and singing”? “noise”? “the beauty of irrelevant music”? urban bushmen? once? mutatis mutandis? current musicology 30 510 — with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities,— with different colorations and intensities, all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues;all of us both expressors and demagogues; self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably.self-explorers and self-asserters inextricably. and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians,and so it is us, the creative musicians, who can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalitieswho can be observed, in varying modalities of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity,of coloration and intensity, to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics,to politicize our own poetics, if only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal beingif only by betraying its non-negotiably non-verbal being by circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourseby circumscribing it with articulate discourse — pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse— pre-empting the unmediated, unguaranteeable, uncontrollable intercourse between the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenonbetween the created expressive phenomenon and its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiverand its recomposing receiver to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us,to reframe the interface so as to include us, personified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselvespersonified, corporealized, as ourselves — just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed— just at the site where we had, precisely, managed to nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppressionto nullify just that oppression, the oppression of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves,of being too much with our selves to be within ourselves, so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in.so as to have a world to be in. and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians,and it is us, ourselves, the creative musicians, who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic,who aestheticize the politic, who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances,who ferociously reach out to engage strangers with our performances, who appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomenawho appropriate to our anonymous anomalous expressive phenomena the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns,the rubrics of their anxious concerns, including at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extremeincluding at the desperate extreme the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze,the reductive abstractions which catalyze, symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues,symbolize in the public space the primal issues, their — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors oftheir — and our — simultaneous needs for and terrors of significance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togethernesssignificance made bearable in the simulacrum of togetherness enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war,enabled by the imagery of public outrages, causes, occasions for war, the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena”the whole media-cultural array of “issues” and “phenomena” which we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreudewhich we all addicted to the mass-hysterical euphoria-schadenfreude credit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rationalcredit as real, and their analyses or descriptions as rational — we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers,— we, needing strenuously to engage strangers, appropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive workappropriate to the expressive work the exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political thingsthe exogenous energy latent in these symbolic political things even if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expressioneven if they inflate the scale of our own expression so as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulateso as to obliterate those poignancies uniquely articulate within the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itselfwithin the expressive language itself which we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggledwhich we have so seriously struggled to bring into being.to bring into being.to bring into being.to bring into being.to bring into being. 374 current musicology 32 512 key? private parts? on being invisible? ...the serpent-snapping eye? apo do? ideas of order? prometeo? mobile for shakespeare? mudgett? from the seven days? explosante-fixe? by the very meansby the very meansby the very meansby the very meansby the very means of its remedy.of its remedy.of its remedy.of its remedy.of its remedy. this treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it is equally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, the alienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorization are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real, or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way. in that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticism of pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social space undelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely to catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it. our appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expression may be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of that expressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal space untethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social manners threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous: music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari; every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation. is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”? if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression, pure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its release unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos, as surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personal and interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct route to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny. and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression, thereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberated 375 benjamin boretz 33 513 “it’s all yours”? symphony of a thousand? one? make possible that uneasy self-contradictory fragile network withinmake possible that uneasy self-contradictory fragile network withinmake possible that uneasy self-contradictory fragile network withinmake possible that uneasy self-contradictory fragile network withinmake possible that uneasy self-contradictory fragile network within which we, along with all our fellow-strangers, can realistically sustainwhich we, along with all our fellow-strangers, can realistically sustainwhich we, along with all our fellow-strangers, can realistically sustainwhich we, along with all our fellow-strangers, can realistically sustainwhich we, along with all our fellow-strangers, can realistically sustain a life pursuing significant expression, and without which, in somea life pursuing significant expression, and without which, in somea life pursuing significant expression, and without which, in somea life pursuing significant expression, and without which, in somea life pursuing significant expression, and without which, in some idealized world of extreme programmed politics or unleashed inchoateidealized world of extreme programmed politics or unleashed inchoateidealized world of extreme programmed politics or unleashed inchoateidealized world of extreme programmed politics or unleashed inchoateidealized world of extreme programmed politics or unleashed inchoate poetics, we could not.poetics, we could not.poetics, we could not.poetics, we could not.poetics, we could not. expression, empathy, self-awareness, reflection mediate, constrain,expression, empathy, self-awareness, reflection mediate, constrain,expression, empathy, self-awareness, reflection mediate, constrain,expression, empathy, self-awareness, reflection mediate, constrain,expression, empathy, self-awareness, reflection mediate, constrain, loosen the politically constructed power-assertive spaces.loosen the politically constructed power-assertive spaces.loosen the politically constructed power-assertive spaces.loosen the politically constructed power-assertive spaces.loosen the politically constructed power-assertive spaces. current musicology 32 512 key? private parts? on being invisible? ...the serpent-snapping eye? apo do? ideas of order? prometeo? mobile for shakespeare? mudgett? from the seven days? explosante-fixe? by the very meansby the very meansby the very meansby the very meansby the very means of its remedy.of its remedy.of its remedy.of its remedy.of its remedy. this treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it isthis treachery we practice upon our own expression cannot be evaded; it is equally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, theequally essential to our survival as the expression it betrays; the betrayal, the alienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorizationalienation of expression, intrinsic to discourse and structure and exteriorization are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real,are the symptoms of the recognition that the interpersonal space may be real, or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way.or rather that the interpersonal space is real in its own specific way. in that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticismin that perspective, that political perspective, the molten mysticism of pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social spaceof pure expression unmediated, released into the social space undelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely toundelimited by these socializing dampers, is as likely to catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it.catalyze violence as to exorcise it. our appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expressionour appropriation to our persons of the power of our expression may be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of thatmay be deceitful and subversive, but the release of that expressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal spaceexpressive power in an undefined interpersonal space untethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social mannersuntethered by names and faces and sets of social manners threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous:threatens the release of energies far more ominous: music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari;music has a thirst for destruction, say deleuze and guattari; every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation.every kind of destruction, extinction, breakage, dislocation. is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”?is that not its potential “fascism”? if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression,if music is ontologized in this atavistic way as pure expression, pure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its releasepure mysticism, as molten volcanic energy, then its release unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos,unmediated into the social space is a direct route to violence and chaos, as surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personalas surely as political energy running unconstrained into the personal and interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct routeand interpersonal spaces is a direct route to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny.to absolute tyranny. and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression,and just as discourse and structure alienate and mediate pure expression, thereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberatedthereby making it survivable in the social space, so do liberated 376 current musicology 34 21 (one more little review) shouldn’t we talk? (jkr) the subjects are obvious. (just listen.) lots of opinions too. (you may not agree.) (don’t have to.) it’s pure temporality, in 4 mvts.. (but not any temporal evolution ever anywhere anytime.) (the indensity takes a big lot of getting used to.) (if you listen.) (so listen.) -b.a.b. feb. 2003 377 vignettes of old masters vi: lukas foss (1922-2010) lukas a gratification of listening to lukas’s music any of lukas’s music is that you are never far from music wherever his music takes you music is behind the wall down the corner below the horizon across the universe under the eaves at the end of the tunnel at the tip of your ear you can taste it just yonder just beyond experience just rolls off your fingertips beams just over the moon is right beside you just barely untouching your semblable knows what you like likes you maybe more dances ingeniously just behind your ear that almost licks almost mahlers you out with brahms by gould smoothing ruffled lennys edges rounding igors corners not il miglior fabbro but the grooviest musicperfect pianoplayer you ever heard bach or four temperaments always the music a more than ample payback for the long indenture or safeconduct cover for the smiling inyourface pushoff fathermaster teachermaster symbolic hindemithicide pantomusikanting out to enact to exorcise to performatize to spielify all the crushing load of master-student composer-performer lennylukas previnlukas glennlukas igorlukas aaronlukas johncagelukas germanamericanlukas all the never biodegrading relationships by rigorously nonjazzing the rules but instead declassicizing them to escape at last but still there have to be rules even if like countercrafts of non not anti never anti composition the un not ever anti hindemithaaronreinervengerova not breaking not flouting but remaking always tethered to music always the careful chords the tasty lukaslicks the classic infallible dufallo clarinet riffs the dignified but decorously avantgarde delancey bass around the straightish bluecollar colf cello they groped their way away almost went for broke they were never far from music but ever further away along the rules they made as they went we were never in it together but close enough to relate. close to music, lukas’s music performs, stages, enacts, personifies, affects. to do it right you get prepackaged bigstars: you get jennie tourel. you get adele addison. you get lenny bernstein. you get andre previn. you get the improvisation chamber ensemble.and you stage them brillliantly, just so, just for them in particular; they will never have it better: phorion: lenny down the chute as mad bachcrazed maniac (no place here for the self-congratulating hero-knight of the shapero symphony or the devouring ogre of brahms by gould). time cycle: adele a jumping bean on a tightrope, a warbling acrobat bird, groovy earthmother. song of songs: jennie as daniel deronda’s mirah, malke the wise, the exalted bride of judea. echoi: lukas & co. in a fractal lukaslick tsunamifest. you compose avant-lenny; avant-jennie; avant-adele; avant-andre; avant-lukas. invent scintillating, titillating, coruscating, startling, channeling the future, imaging the beyond, the easily familiar terra incognita we can all know, in a glossolalic newspeak that we all understand. soundmusic monstrances richly repaying every moment of experience you lend to them; and it always sounds fantastic. like nothing else floating through the modern musical world, like a wraith of future past, like a vision of things that were to come, but never did. current musicology 34 21 (one more little review) shouldn’t we talk? (jkr) the subjects are obvious. (just listen.) lots of opinions too. (you may not agree.) (don’t have to.) it’s pure temporality, in 4 mvts.. (but not any temporal evolution ever anywhere anytime.) (the indensity takes a big lot of getting used to.) (if you listen.) (so listen.) -b.a.b. feb. 2003 current musicology 34 21 (one more little review) shouldn’t we talk? (jkr) the subjects are obvious. (just listen.) lots of opinions too. (you may not agree.) (don’t have to.) it’s pure temporality, in 4 mvts.. (but not any temporal evolution ever anywhere anytime.) (the indensity takes a big lot of getting used to.) (if you listen.) (so listen.) -b.a.b. feb. 2003 current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 gopinath. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 243 seeing and hearing the thinking voice gayatri gopinath given that my own work is focused on questions of diaspora, visuality, and queerness, i am very grateful for the fact that fiol-matta models for us a mode of both listening and looking with deep care. this critical listening and critical looking make apparent an entirely different understanding of puerto rican music culture, through an examination of how women singers have negotiated the impossible demands placed on their star bodies. fiol-matta theorizes for us the intimate relation between the visual and the aural. as such, her work in fact powerfully resonates with that of visual studies scholars such as tina campt, christopher pinney, and krista thompson. for instance, writing of the afro–puerto rican icon ruth fernández, fiol-matta writes, “the photo as material object relies on the visual, while recordings obviously stress the aural. yet both visual and aural belong to the sensorium of racism. these archival objects are interdependent; sound and gaze, visuality and aurality, work together in the perceiving subject’s sensorium. fernandez’s first photos, today, compel us to the gaze, but we can’t obliterate the sound they were associated with” (75). here fiolmatta’s reading of fernandez’s photograph, in tandem with her recordings, practices the method that tina campt (2017) names “listening to images”: tuning in to their typically inaudible frequencies so as to open us up to their occluded meanings and interpretive possibilities. fiol-matta also writes of fernández: “under constant scrutiny, visually and vocally, she constructed a persona, literally a glittering surface to match the wonder her voice provoked” (72). we can understand this glittering, reflective surface of the female star body, as fiol-matta describes it, as an enactment of what christopher pinney (2003) names “surfacism,” or what krista thomson (2015) refers to as “shine”: strategies through which subaltern subjects embrace a kind of representational flatness, a refusal of depth, or a blinding hypervisibility, so as to deflect a dominant gaze that seeks mastery over a knowable, intelligible racial and gendered subject. • these are just two instances of the way that fiol-matta’s book schools us in a mode of both critical listening and critical looking, and as such is very much in conversation with visual studies scholars. i think there’s just as much to be gleaned from this book about the visual text of the star body as there is about its aurality. 244 current musicology secondly, i want to highlight the question of methodology and fiolmatta’s engagement with the archive. as was the case with fiol-matta’s first book, a queer mother for the nation (2002), this book is a deeply archival project. here, as in her earlier work, fiol-matta perfects the art of the critical biography. she expertly weaves the archival excavation of the lives and artistic output of each of the four figures in the book with a critical theorization of voice and gender, but she does this so seamlessly that we may fail initially to apprehend just how difficult this archival labor must have been. the work of critical biography is about grappling with what fiol-matta elsewhere calls the “permanent open-endedness of the archive” (2014, 49), as well as with its violent erasures and blanknesses. in restoring these artists to audibility by foregrounding their “thinking voice”—their subterfuge, sonic strategies—fiol-matta’s book is a resounding blow against what she terms the “shocking oblivion” (18) that characterizes the non-presence of these artists in the historical record not only as serious singers, but also as composers, producers, bandleaders, and the myriad other roles they played. fiol-matta demands that we remember these artists differently, outside the typically misogynist and homophobic interpretive frames through which they emerge in the historical record. in a particularly striking turn of phrase, fiol-matta writes of myrta silva: “instead of remembering silva as a bombshell who lost her sex appeal, we should remember her sonic licentiousness, the way she was the first latino star to transform the culturally inflicted passive position of the woman into a putative bottom power” (28). fiol-matta’s reading of silva as a quintessential power bottom recalls hoang nguyen’s explication of bottomhood not simply as a sexual position but also as an ethical model of relationality, a social alliance that extends to all those who inhabit various forms of racial, gender, and sexual abjection: the loca, the butch, the working-class woman, the jibara, the racial other. fiol-matta’s book maps out the ways in which all these abjected positions are in fact inhabited and transformed by these women into sites of bottom power, a place from which to critique the normative class, gender, racial, and sexual ideologies that bear down on them in the multiple national spaces they traverse (from pr and the us mainland, to cuba, to argentina, among other sites). this gets me to the final point i want to highlight in fiol-matta’s book: her central and suggestive theorization of nada, the nothingness. throughout the book, fiol-matta variously refers to the nothing, along with the gap, the pause, the suspension, the nonplace, and the state of oblivion. as i understand it, fiol-matta reads the claim “to be nothing” on the part of an artist such as lucecita benítez as a queer strategy of fully inhabiting the place of lack, of oblivion, to which one is consigned within 245 gayatri gopinath a misogynist and homophobic logic, as a way of refusing legibility within those terms. it is about demanding a pause, a silence, a moment of stillness, a suspension, of the dominant terms through which she is seen and heard. we can read the nothing not as a space of simple erasure or eradication, but rather, as fiol-matta puts it, as one of “productive density” (134), a “clearing to reconstruct the event of voice in multiple displacements” (171). thus we can understand the nothing, as fiol-matta theorizes it, as a particularly queer mode of refusal that enables the thinking voice to come to the fore. while this is obviously a book about voice and gendered embodiment, and restoring to the historical record a way of truly hearing the thinking voice of these four artists, what i think emerges most strongly in these pages is fiol-matta’s own thinking voice: resonant, rigorous, lyrical, demanding, and always uncompromisingly queer. references campt, tina. 2017. listening to images. durham, nc: duke university press. fiol-matta, licia. 2002. queer mother for the nation: the state and gabriela mistral. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. . 2014. “a queer mother for the nation redux: gabriela mistral in the twentyfirst century.” radical history review 120 (fall): 35–51. nguyen, tan hoang. 2014. a view from the bottom: asian american masculinity and sexual representation. durham, nc: duke university press. pinney, christopher. 2003. “notes from the surface of the image.” in photography’s other histories, edited by christopher pinney, 202–20. durham, nc: duke university press. thompson, krista. 2015. shine: the visual economy of light in african diasporic practice. durham, nc: duke university press. current musicology 109-110 (2022) ©2023hudson. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-non-commercialnoderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). reverse extensions and multi-layered experiences of harmony in drake’s harmonic loops stephen s. hudson introduction the top single of 2018, “god’s plan” by the canadian r&b/hip-hop artist aubrey graham (better known by his stage name, drake) is strikingly conflicted, and like many drake songs, this conflict comes not just from its lyrics, but from certain kinds of ambiguity in its harmonies. in a music-analytic survey of the year’s top 5 singles, the guitarist and blogger dean olivet exclaims, “man, the chords in this loop were hard to identify.” he continues, […] they start out as ninth chords whose upper halves are louder and more timbre-distinct than their lower, arpeggio-happy halves. it’s almost like it’s better explained not as “9chords,” but as “an em stacked on top of an am,” and then “a d chord stacked on a g chord.” this “separation” thinking is enhanced by the low-muffled organ patch playing the am and g, and the more trebly organ patch playing the em and d. (olivet 2019) olivet’s wording “it’s almost like” highlights something counterintuitive: he still hears these stacked triads as one single harmony (rather than a truly “polytonal” combination of unrelated chords). these multilayered harmonies are part of how “god’s plan” creates an atmosphere that is, in the words of the music critic chris molanphy (2018), “shimmering,” “hypnotic[,] and seductive”; and they seem especially meaningful in conjunction with drake’s famously conflicted lyrics, which are full of fake friends, unfaithful lovers, and an uneasy layering of braggadocio with self-doubt and regret. the “separation thinking” which olivet describes sounds a lot like what trevor de clercq (2019) calls a “harmonic-bass divorce.” allan moore (1993, 31–32; 2012, 20– 21) has previously described rock music as having four distinct functional layers: the “explicit beat layer” (the drum kit and other percussion), the “functional bass layer,” the “harmonic filler layer” (played by “harmony instruments” like piano or rhythm guitar), and the “melodic layer” (usually the lead singer or a solo instrument). in this scope, “harmony” has two common meanings: (1) the chord played in a song’s harmonic layer at a certain point in time, or (2) the combined sonority of all layers (de clercq 2019, 272). a “harmonic-bass divorce” refers to moments in rock music in which the bass and harmonic layers seem to move independently, similar to the stephen s. hudson 75 “melodic-harmonic divorce” discussed earlier by drew nobile (2015) and david temperley (2007). but some harmonies in drake’s music seem to invite both integrated hearings and hearings of harmonic-bass divorce, and the conflicted, multilayered experiences they evoke seem like more than just a terminological or analytical ambiguity. as de clercq (2019, 272) admits, “while it is true that divorced partners are no longer directly related, they are often indirectly related or related through just a single degree of removal.” in this article i define “reverse extension”—a new term for adding thirds below the root of a chord, and for thinking about third-related chords—as a way to quantify the “relatedness” in some harmonic-bass divorces, and to theorize the multilayered experiences they can create. as i’ll explore later, reverse extensions are similar to drew nobile’s (2020) “double-tonic complexes” in rock music, affording similar properties of plural chord identity and harmonic indeterminacy; but while nobile presents these as properties of a unique double-tonic sonority (a hybrid between a i and vi chord), i show how these properties can occur anywhere in the scale. reverse extensions are especially relevant within recent multi-layered, multiauthor, loop-based digital music production. while a harmonic loop may be fixed and unchanging, the chords within that loop remain open to revision when a new bass line is added to create a reverse extension, potentially creating multilayered, plural experiences of harmony. another goal of my article is to move away from the objective language used in previous discussions of harmonic divorce, and instead build from jazz theory to develop an alternative model of “divorcedness” or “integratedness” as subjective effects which are enacted by listeners (and when i say “listeners,” i mean to include performers, producers, and songwriters). temperley (2007), nobile (2015), and de clercq (2019) each attempt to authoritatively distinguish between musical moments which are divorces, and those which are not; but i argue that reverse extensions can often afford both divorced and integrated hearings. following christopher doll (2017, 15 and 218), i understand a chord’s identity and functions to be subjective “effects” rather than objective analytical truths. from this perspective, independence between harmony and bass is another subjective effect. in developing a more subjective ontology, i hope to get closer to the experience of listening and making music, by describing (1) the open-ended possibilities for adding new layers to a chord by changing the bass line, and (2) the multi-layered, plural experiences of harmony these moments seem to invite. one last goal is to help fill a void in scholarship on hip-hop and r&b genres. drake pioneered a hybridized rapping and singing style, arguably transforming or reinventing both rap (caramanica 2019) and r&b (leight 2018). countless metrics testify to drake’s superlative streaming and sales, but perhaps the bluntest is that he current musicology 76 “generated more u.s. on-demand streams in 2021 [8.6 billion] than all pre-1980 records combined” (caldwell 2022), an astounding feat for an artist whose musical career began only twelve years earlier, in 2009. drake is one of the most widely heard musicians in human history, and yet, his music hardly appears in the field of music theory. additionally, there is hardly any scholarship on harmony in hip-hop and r&b, (other than richard desinord’s 2021 video lecture about neo-soul and r&b harmony; see also his 2022 dissertation about harmony in gospel music), part of the broader underrepresentation of black music and scholars within what philip ewell (2020) calls “music theory’s white racial frame.” my hope is that by studying one of today’s most popular black artists i can contribute, albeit in a small way, to uncovering and undoing the field’s biases and blind spots. defining reverse extensions a “reverse extension” can be either a literal chord-to-chord motion, or a more abstract relationship between chords. an example sung by the “queen of hip-hop soul” mary j. blige illustrates the motivation and applications of this term. there’s an old bassplayer joke that goes, “it’s not a c chord until i play a c.” the opposite occurs in example 1, the opening to blige’s song “be without you” (2005): the bass line starts on the root of a dm chord, then creates a new harmony by moving down a third to b♭. while the bass moves, the notes in the melody and harmony layers repeat without any alterations. one can hear the dm chord continuing through the whole measure, creating a bass-harmonic divorce; but a more integrated hearing is also possible, with the new bass note making a new chord, b♭maj7. this b♭maj7 chord can be described as a “reverse extension” of dm.1 as i will explain below, this harmonic relationship has already been observed in jazz theory, especially in research on postbop jazz by keith waters (2016) which builds on an article by steven strunk (1979); but harmony in drake’s contemporary hip-hop/r&b is quite different from either the classical harmonic functions of tonal jazz, or the expansive chromatic idiom of postbop. by theorizing this relationship as a “reverse extension,” i am grounding it in a diatonic context, and also highlighting the ambiguous chord identity that leads to such multilayered effects in drake’s loop-based songs. a reverse extension is thus both a harmonic-bass divorce and an integrated chord, which potentially can afford multiple different heard roots and chord identities. one advantage of this theoretical plurality is that it reflects the layered and decentralized compositional practice common in today’s popular music. musical analysis traditionally assumes that each song is conceived by an individual composer, but today songs are often composed in bits and pieces within digital audio workstations by loose networks of collaborators who may be continents apart. drake often credits stephen s. hudson 77 several writers and producers for each track, and in a very literal sense, drake himself is probably not responsible for the harmonies i analyze below. noah “40” shebib is an especially important collaborator who has had a lot of influence on the songwriting and production of every drake album. however, in my analyses i will often refer to drake rather than his songwriters or producers, even when it is possible to uncover the creative contributions of each individual, because in popular music the lead artist is often the “persona” through whom songs’ meanings are imagined.2 in other words, each compositional choice is often heard as the lead performer’s expression, not the producers’ or songwriters’. example 1: piano and background vocal parts from the opening of mary j. blige’s “be without you.” 2006. (transcribed by the author.) in this distributed creative environment, harmonies are never fixed or final, but remain open to additions like reverse extensions, which can give new identities and functions to the harmonies in existing layers. songs may begin with a sample from a decades-old recording, which might be filtered to isolate the melody or percussion and set with new harmony parts; a new bass line might be added later, perhaps even in a different session or by a different collaborator. chord charts and lead sheets, when they exist at all, are often post-hoc transcriptions. jazz theory provides a framework which easily accommodates this open-ended creative practice and the ambiguities of chord identity that result. unlike classical music theory, which often focuses on analyzing a fixed score, jazz theory focuses on defining different options for how a musician can add to the music (stover 2018, 235). in jazz theory a chord progression is always open to addition and revision through techniques of melodic improvisation and harmonic extension and substitution. jazz theory is also the tradition of music theory which contemporary hip-hop and r&b musicians are most likely to be familiar with, primarily through the berklee school of music, which for decades has had a position of unrivalled dominance within popular music pedagogy in the united states. i’ll refer readers to two introductory jazz theory textbooks, the berklee book of jazz harmony by joe mulholland and tom hojnacki current musicology 78 (2013) and the jazz harmony book by david berkman (2013), and also chris stover’s 2018 chapter on “jazz theory’s pragmatics.” but while jazz theory gives us ways of thinking about extended harmonies and chord substitutions that are known to many contemporary popular musicians and will be useful for analyzing drake’s harmonies, drake’s music is not jazz. many of the rules and idioms from these textbooks, especially phrase structure created through ii–v–i cadences and rules about voicing and harmonic function, do not apply to drake’s chord progressions. figure 1: am/d can sound more like am or dm9, depending on the context. jazz theory’s epistemology of extended chords provides the mechanisms for understanding the plural identity of reverse extensions. seventh chords are the basic building blocks of harmony in jazz theory. unlike classical music, the seventh of a chord is not considered a dissonance; in jazz, sevenths are stable chord tones which need no special preparation or resolution. another basic principle of jazz theory is to extend chords beyond the 7th, continuing to add thirds upwards to create 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths.3 the berklee method calls these extensions “tensions,” implying that they do not really change the chord, they just add extra energy (mulholland and hojnacki 2013, ix). extended chords are sometimes analyzed as “slash chords,” identifying the upper extensions as a separate triad; for example, as shown in figure 1, a dm9 chord (containing the notes d f a c e) is in many contexts equivalent to am/d (a minor with d in the bass, or d a c e). looking at the chord symbol am/d, one might call a the root of the chord, not the d that’s in the bass; but one could also hear d as the root because of this sonority’s similarity to dm9. mulholland and hojnacki (2013, 215 and 218) describe this as a “polychord” or a “hybrid voicing,” depending on how closely-related the tones appear to be.4 jazz theory’s embrace of plural chord identities resonates with christopher doll’s understanding that in rock music, chords’ identities and functions are experiential “effects” or “qualities” rather than objective “structure”—terminology which “is intended to keep the focus at all times on the listening experience itself, as well as to facilitate engagement with multiple, and even contradictory, interpretations of presumably fixed aural stimuli” (doll 2017, 9). specifically, doll (ibid., 70) describes chord identity as a “root effect,” and he cites polychords and added sixth chords as examples of how the same sonority can afford multiple different roots. “fixed aural stimuli” is a sensible focus for doll, whose book focuses on “hearing harmony” in stephen s. hudson 79 recorded rock music. but since i am describing reverse extensions as a creative possibility, not just a listening experience, i have grounded my discussion in jazz theory rather than doll’s terms. with this grounding in jazz theory, i am ready to define a few new terms. the first is a “reverse extension,” in analogy to normal extensions: instead of adding additional notes a third higher than the existing chord tones, a reverse extension adds a note a third lower, drawing from the song’s established key or scale. an extension of a triad does not change the identity or roles of the original notes; when a dm chord becomes a dm9, d remains the root of the chord, and f remains the 3rd, and a remains the 5th. but a reverse extension can change the perceived identity of the chord and recontextualize its notes. in figure 2, b♭maj7 is a reverse extension of dm, and the new added b♭ becomes the root, while the d that was the root in the first chord becomes a 3rd, and so on. figure 2: dm chord becomes a b♭maj7 by reverse extension. as i mentioned earlier, this invites a kind of “double-function hearing”: one can hear dm continuing through the measure, with b♭ as a divorced, independent bass note; or, one can hear a new b♭ chord, with the root of dm becoming a 3rd. this double-function hearing resembles drew nobile’s “double-tonic complex,” a hybrid of a major key and its relative minor (for example, c major and a minor) which unites the two tonic triads of those keys into a single tonic seventh chord (am7). to paraphrase nobile (2020, 207), a reverse extension exhibits neither one single chord identity nor competition among multiple chord identities. the biggest difference is that for nobile (ibid., 207), the combined tonic chord am7 is the center of a polytonal system which is neither the key of a minor, nor the key of c major, but a “more abstract tonality encompassing them both.” a reverse extension can happen in any tonality, and it need not be a tonic chord. this harmonic relationship has been observed previously by steven strunk (1979) and elaborated by keith waters (2016), but by defining it as a “reverse extension” i am simplifying their concepts and highlighting the phenomenon of double-function hearing. following strunk, waters describes the relative major/minor relationship as an “inclusion relation”; in mathematical terms, when a minor seventh chord such as c#m7 is considered as a set of notes (c# e g# b), it “includes” its relative major triad, current musicology 80 e (e g# b). he then describes how c#m can often be substituted for e, and vice versa, since these two triads are so similar (waters 2016, 41). my conception of reverse extensions identifies the same similarities and substitutions, but i go further by describing how this inclusion relation can lead to a double function hearing in which the c#m7 chord might sometimes be heard as an e chord with c# added beneath. example 2 shows a longer excerpt of “be without you” that includes a “double reverse extension” in the third measure. here the song repeats the chords from the first two bars, but the bass changes to g instead of b♭. the resulting gm9 chord is a double reverse extension of dm. like a (single) reverse extension, the double reverse extension has some ambiguity of root and identity; the gm9 seems to retain the dm chord, but the new bass note can be heard to recontextualize the notes of dm as upper extensions of gm. dm/b♭ has all the same notes as b♭maj7, so i have written ( = b♭maj7) below the dm/b♭ chord symbol; but dm/g is missing the b♭ that is in gm9, so i have used the approximate-equality symbol ( ≅ gm9) to show that these chords are not exactly identical. subsequent examples also use these two symbols. one could even describe a “triple reverse extension,” such as the c/d chord ( ≅ dm11) in example 6 below. some readers may be skeptical of hearing c/d as a single integrated harmony; but except for the minor 7th scale degree implied by the surrounding mode, this is nearly equivalent to what mark spicer calls the “rock dominant” (2008, 39) or the “soul dominant” (2017, 3), a iv chord with sol in the bass, which spicer and other scholars have observed is often labelled as v11 (for example, temperley 2011, 3.10). the idea of hearing a triple reverse extension as a single integrated harmony seems to be uncontroversial in the case of iv/sol, but other chords (or even more remote reverse extensions) may need to be justified with further emic support. reverse extensions in “be without you” appear as motions between adjacent chords, but a reverse extension can also be an abstract relationship between two nonadjacent chords. we can say that b♭maj7 is a reverse extension of dm, and gm9 is a reverse extension of b♭maj7 and a double reverse extension of dm, even if these chords occur separately, especially if these chords occupy the same spot in a repeating chord progression. stephen s. hudson 81 example 2: a longer excerpt from “be without you” (see example 1). current musicology 82 figure 3: extension-related family of chords in the key of c major. figure 4: example 11 from waters (2016) showing related chords on a chromatic cycle of alternating major/minor thirds. reproduced with the permission of the author. stephen s. hudson 83 figure 5: example 3 from baker (2019), which shows several adjacent chords and their extensions, built on a chromatic cycle of alternating major/minor thirds. reproduced with the permission of the author. considered as chord relationships, extension and reverse extension appear to be near opposites.5 these two relationships can generate an “extension-related family of chords,” which are all related to each other by extensions or reverse extensions. figure 3 shows the extension-related family in the key of c major. some of these chords share many notes, and in some contexts they can substitute for each other, or be used in sequence to create some special effects, but these chords are not all equally interchangeable. while extension-related chords often share a lot of notes, the whole family includes chords that are more remote and usually dissimilar in function, such as cmaj7 and bm7♭5. waters (2016) also describes how third-relations can generate a family of chords, but waters’s framework is designed for a chromatic context in postbop jazz, while the drake songs i analyze are grounded in a single diatonic scale. waters describes a “ladder of thirds” generated by strict alternation between major and minor thirds, shown in figure 4 which is reproduced from his article. using terminology from richard cohn’s 2012 study of chromatic harmony in nineteenth-century classical music, waters (2016, 38, footnote 7) describes this chain of thirds as “dual interval cycle” consisting of “ic3 and ic4” or “ic3/4” (see cohn 2012, 186–189). figure 4 shows how chromatic this cycle is, traversing dm, d#m, d♭m, and dm chords. this terminology is useful for “an environment that does not support an unequivocal global or local tonic” (waters 2016, 54), such as the chromatic compositions of chick corea which waters analyzes. however, many contemporary r&b and hip-hop songs current musicology 84 stay mostly within a single diatonic scale, so for simplicity’s sake i have defined reverse extensions and extension-related families in diatonic rather than chromatic terms. more chromatic methods are not irrelevant to contemporary r&b, but have been used to analyze neo-soul, especially by ben baker in an article about the jazz/neo-soul pianist robert glasper. baker describes a 4-bar loop consisting of third-related chords, showing how these triads and their extensions all overlap on the same ic3/4 cycle (reproduced here as figure 5). baker tackles this chromaticism by adding neoriemannian terminology and notation to waters’s methods. richard desinord (2021, 53:30) confirms that motion in thirds is common in neo-soul more broadly, and observes that highly chromatic chord extensions are characteristic of that style: “[…] you don’t want to always sound like everything is diatonic […] in a lot of neo-soul you start to hear these chords with those upper extensions being used that stray far outside the key.” but drake’s music, like i said, is often strictly diatonic. i can thus use simpler notation and terms, focusing my discussion on the phenomenon of plural chord identity or multilayeredness, rather than chromatic syntax. reverse extensions as chord substitutions in loop-based songs extension-related chords usually share several notes, and they can thus often be easily substituted for one another within a progression, as suggested by strunk (1979) and waters (2016). an analogous idiom from classical music theory is the deceptive cadence, which could be thought of as a tonic chord being replaced by its reverse extension, the submediant vi chord. the effect of a reverse-extension chord substitution can be created in songs that have a fixed chord loop, although technically no actual “substitution” occurs if the original loop’s notes all remain present. an added bass part can recontextualize chords in the loop, creating the effect of a chord substitution even though the original loop remains unchanged. de clercq (2019, 279) calls this situation a “loop divorce” because while the original loop remains unchanged, the bass (which usually contrasts with the loop’s timbre and register) moves in a new way, which seems to encourage listeners to hear the bass as moving independently from the loop. but if the bass chooses notes which are reverse extensions of the loop’s original harmonies, the resulting sonority can often also be heard as a single integrated chord. the reverse extension relationship between the harmony layer and the bass thus serves as a way to quantify the “relatedness” which de clercq suggests remains within a bass-harmonic divorce, but this relatedness also complicates the concept of divorce. in reverse extensions, the ease with which a bass and harmony can be heard as an integrated chord quantifies a sense of relatedness (in an integrated hearing, the bass has conventional intra-chord relationships with the notes in the harmony layer). but stephen s. hudson 85 arguably, when a reverse extension can be heard as an integrated harmony, this provides grounds for hearing this harmony as no divorce at all. example 3: opening loop (0:00–0:12) from drake’s “god's plan.” 2018. (transcribed by the author.) example 4: verse 1 (0:24–0:37) from “god's plan,” bass line added to original loop. current musicology 86 for example, drake’s song “god’s plan” (2018) begins with a two-measure loop composed by drake’s collaborator ronald “cardo” latour, shown in example 3, which continues throughout the song. i have labelled the second chord as ii in the key of a minor, and i hear the loop as an oscillation between the i and ii harmonies. several people have told me they hear this loop (and the whole song) in g major; and i can see how the main vocal phrase’s descent to g in example 4 might seem to encourage this hearing, since traditionally, melodies often end on a note from the tonic triad. but melodies in contemporary pop music do not have to end on a tonic, and some commentators (huang 2020, hisato 2021) have singled out scale degree 2 emphasis as a trend in recent pop music, which seems to match this phrase’s emphasis on b when heard in the key of a minor. i find the g major hearing ultimately becomes untenable (to my ears, at least) when the bass line features a clear e à a motion at the end of example 4, which i struggle to hear as anything but a sol à do or v à i motion. however, this bass line’s influence is only as strong as the bass response of your speakers, a factor influencing the availability of plural listening experiences which i will return to later. the identity of the second chord in example 3 is ambiguous, because the lowest note briefly changes from b to g, making it momentarily more like bm7/g or gmaj9. one reader told me that they hear this chord as gmaj9 immediately, before the g note even sounds. a gmaj9 chord would be a ♭vii in the key of a minor, but since this hearing is indicated by only a single g on beat 3, i have marked it with parentheses (♭vii) to indicate how tentatively i hear it. at 0:24, after the loop repeats a few times by itself, verse 1 begins with an added bass which sometimes reinforces the original loop’s harmonies, but sometimes recontextualizes them, as shown in example 4. in measure 2, the bass’s b supersedes the motion to g in the original loop, strengthening the bm7 hearing and (to my ears, at least) dispelling the gmaj9 hearing. but then in measure 4, this clarified chord function is recontextualized with a new g in the bass, creating a clear gmaj9 that is a reverse extension of bm7. then at the end of the measure, the bass moves to an e, creating a double-reverse extension (em11) and providing stronger motion back to the tonic than the original loop. to summarize, an artist who is working with a fixed loop can either maintain the harmonies in the loop or add new bass notes to create the effect of changing to other extension-related chords. since the original loop does not change, it is possible to continue hearing the original chords as a continuing layer separate from the new bass. because of this, in measure 4 of example 4 i have put the original chord function in square brackets. stephen s. hudson 87 example 5: harmony loop without bass line (3:06–3:28) from drake’s “fancy.” 2010. (transcribed by the author.) example 6: harmony loop with bass line (3:28–3:50) from “fancy.” one criticism i received at a conference presentation of this work was that perhaps drake was more focused on the words, drums, and timbres, and was not thinking of anything like the reverse extension relationships; perhaps drake just added a familiar bass line figure without thinking of how it matched the chords in the original loop. it’s certainly possible that nobody working on the song was thinking of the added bass as anything like a reverse extension of the existing harmonies, but as a bass moving independently of the harmonic layer. however, even if none of the artists involved were thinking in comparable terms, reverse extensions still explain why this bass line sounds compatible with the original loop, even though some of the bass line’s notes are not part of the loop’s chords. reverse extensions provide criteria for a sense of relatedness, a way of hearing these notes as part of the same harmony. additionally, the concept of a reverse extension shows how we could write similar harmonic current musicology 88 progressions ourselves which create the same ambiguous or plural effects, regardless of how drake or his collaborators may have thought of them. drake’s song “fancy” (2010) shows similar harmonic phenomena with a greater transformation of the original loop. the loop shown in example 5 runs through the whole song; it starts with either i, ♭iii, or vio, depending on how you hear the root, which is then followed by iv and a return to i. but at many places in the song, there is a bass line added to this fixed loop, forming an 8-measure phrase shown in example 6. this new bass line recontextualizes the c chord in measure 2 with an added d in the bass creating a c/d that is aurally similar to a dm11 (in other words, a dominant chord instead of a subdominant). the same bass note is used under the last chord, creating a gm7/d that resembles dm13. this new phrase-ending dominant chord creates more momentum for the phrase to repeat than the original loop’s tonic. as i mentioned earlier, reverse extensions are especially useful for understanding how harmony can work in a modern creative environment. in today’s music studios, individual parts are often synthesized or recorded by different people in different sessions far apart in space and time, and there may not be a single artist masterminding the whole composition and production process. many contemporary r&b and hip-hop songs include samples from older recordings, creating fixed layers that songwriters cannot directly change. extensions and reverse extensions identify options for how a songwriter can use newly composed layers (especially bass lines) to alter those existing harmonies and create additional motion. these two songs also highlight another departure from how third-related chord substitutions have previously been theorized. strunk describes “substitution sets” in tonal jazz, which like my extension-related families describe groups of interchangeable third-related chords. however, strunk’s (1979, 15) substitution sets are constrained by classical categories of harmonic function. for example, iv and ii7 are both traditionally considered subdominant harmonies, so they may be substituted for one another; but viiø7, which “includes” ii, cannot be substituted for ii since viiø7 is traditionally considered a dominant harmony. in “god’s plan” (example 4), however, reverse extensions of ii create the effect of substituting with ♭vii and v. “fancy” (example 6) transgresses classical harmonic function categories even further: the iv in the upper voices of measure 2 can be heard to take on the function of v with the bass added in that measure, while in the final measure the gm7add6 which originally had a clear tonic identity is given a new bass that affords a hearing of v. in summary, reverse-extension substitutions in drake’s music do not always remain within traditional chord function categories. (some scholars maintain traditional chord function categories in pop music; see biamonte 2010, lilja 2009. but this has been challenged by others; see nobile 2016, doll 2017.) stephen s. hudson 89 example 7: opening harmonic loop (0:00–0:35) in drake’s “passionfruit.” 2017. (transcribed by the author.) motion between extension-related chords when extension-related chords are used in direct succession, they often create feelings of simultaneous motion and stasis, because while the root of the chord changes, many notes stay the same. this was true in my very first example, the opening to mary j. blige’s “be without you.” after the song began with a dm chord, the reverse extension to b♭maj7 evoked a feeling of stasis since the upper voices remained the same, but also evoked a feeling of motion since the bass moved down to a b♭. drake’s song “passionfruit” (2017) exploits extension-related motion to more extreme ends. in the loop that runs throughout the song, shown in example 7, virtually the entire progression is made up of reverse extensions and double reverse extensions. the opening chord emaj7 is followed by a reverse extension to c#m9. the third chord of d#m7 is followed by f#/g#, which approximates g#m11 (a double reverse extension of d#m7). this g#m11 is then followed by another reverse extension to an e chord. the only place where i hear unambiguous harmonic progression is between the c#m9 and the d#m7, marked with a red double-verticalline in example 7. all these reverse extensions create a paradoxical feeling of constant descending bass motion combined with harmonic stasis. another feature of this chord loop which further undermines any sense of motion or progression is that after establishing a two-measure harmonic rhythm, at the end of the loop the e harmony arrives “early” after only a single measure of g#m11. normally there would be some feeling of arrival each time the loop begins again, but here, the early arrival of the loop’s initial harmony sublimates even this marker of progression. additionally, some of the chords have upper extensions that jazz theory would label as “tensions”—but because of the reverse extensions, these tensions do not seem to really go anywhere, they just persist, waxing and waning without ever resolving. this song’s lyrics reflect the chords’ ambiguity and unresolved tension, as drake struggles to deal with continued passion in a relationship that is ending. the chords’ paradox of simultaneous motion and stasis reflects drake’s new emotional brand of current musicology 90 tough masculinity. jasmine e. johnson (2018) writes that “drake has become synonymous with being in feelings. his music consistently and unambiguously speaks to the fact that he cares, feels, and emotes,” and ismail muhammad (2021) writes that “drake reflected back to my generation the scattershot and confused nature of our romantic pursuits in the era of dating apps and social media.” the frequent use of mostly minor chords, vacillating root motion, unresolved tensions, and stasis caused by reverse extensions underlines even drake’s most aggressive and confident lyrics with notes of unease, self-doubt, and regret. but, as spencer kornhaber argues in a review of drake's 2021 album certified lover boy, drake never leaves behind his pickup artist persona. he expresses a desire to be caring in his relationships, but also sings lines that are plainly uncaring and hurtful to women. drake himself describes certified lover boy on apple play as “a combination of toxic masculinity and acceptance of truth which is inevitably heartbreaking,” which could sound like an admission of guilt or even an apology, except that he expresses no apparent intention to change. gail bederman (1995, 7) theorizes masculinity as a “historical, ideological process,” and it could be argued that drake presents a twenty-first-century twist on earlier constructions of misogynistic masculinity, incorporating moments of emotional vulnerability and posing in selfcritique without actually swearing off toxic behavior. multilayered harmonies and intraand inter-textual memory drake’s song “teenage fever” (2017) shows how intratextual memory and intertextual references can add to the multi-layered, plural hearings of reverse extension chords discussed above. one loop runs throughout the whole song: a series of four rolled chords on a highly processed electric piano synth, shown in example 8. i hear three of these chords as minor tonics, and the last one as a ♭vii. (a reader pointed out to me that a faint bass frequency with a different timbre can be heard underneath the first chord, and i will discuss this soon.) throughout the song, one’s memory of this simple harmonic motion is then layered, first with an added bass and then with a lyric sampled from jennifer lopez’s 1999 hit, “if you had my love.” example 8: opening loop (0:00–0:19) from drake's “teenage fever.” 2017. (transcribed by the author.) stephen s. hudson 91 example 9: chorus (0:20–0:39) from jennifer lopez’s “if you had my love.” 1999. (transcribed by the author.) current musicology 92 example 10: chorus (0:59–1:37) from “teenage fever.” (transcribed by the author.) lopez’s song depicts a character who is cautiously inviting another person to commit to a mutually caring romantic relationship. lopez’s chorus, shown in example 9, features a i–i–iv–v four-measure harmonic loop. lopez’s questions in this chorus, such as “and if you somehow knew / that your love would be untrue / would you lie to me?,” sound cautiously hopeful, as if the singer expects a reassuring answer confirming that the love is mutual. these chorus lyrics take on a completely different meaning in drake’s song, in which the protagonist weighs his faltering current relationship against the possibility stephen s. hudson 93 of entangling with a woman he becomes infatuated with at a party. in this context, jennifer lopez’s questions no longer read as earnest and hopeful, but distrustful and disillusioned; drake’s verse lyrics, which swing between current frustrations and imagined infidelities, imply that the answer to “would you lie to me?” is probably “yes.” it’s no coincidence that the only part of lopez’s chorus that drake leaves out is the incorruptibly earnest line, “and [would you] call me baby?” drake’s chorus harmonies recontexualize lopez’s melody to reinforce the alienation implied by his lyrics. drake pitches the sample down to the key of g# minor and removes the original instrumentals, adding in his own harmonies and bass. in the third measure of each 4-bar phrase, the melody taken from lopez’s original song still outlines the iv chord, but drake never uses a iv harmony, instead using i or ♭vi so that the final melodic note c# is left hanging, as an unanchored, unresolved nonchord tone. as a result, this melody made for another harmonic context fits well at first, but on the final note of each phrase it suddenly feels disconnected and out of place. in addition to this intertextual dissonance, an intratextual memory of drake’s opening chord loop adds to this sensation of dissociation. the only motion of the original chord loop is to briefly depart from the tonic and return to it; but in drake’s chorus, this return is thwarted by the bass every time, recontextualizing the expected tonic as a reverse extension to ♭vi or iv, pulling the rug out from under this memory of the tonic return so that it becomes a new (or continued) departure instead. this sense of dissociation is amplified by the feelings of simultaneous stasis and motion created by reverse extensions. the bass vacillates between g#, e, and c#, implying motion between extension-related chords that is in a sense also not-motion, since the chords of the original loop remain exactly the same. this creates a feeling of dissociation between the chord loop and the bass, drawing on the double-function effect of reverse extension chords that i described above; the chords with e in the bass are in one sense emaj7 chords, but in another sense they can be heard as g#m chords with a disconnected bass, and similar double(or even triple-) hearings occur when the bass moves to c#. this dissociation is made even stronger when the bass stays static during the fourth measure in each line, as the looped chord progression temporarily moves to f#. “out of body,” drake sings in verse 2, “this shit feels like a teenage fever.” another layer of plurality is created by the listening situation. hearing this song through a wall, or standing outside someone else’s car, one might hear only the bass. listening on laptop speakers, cheap headphones, or a shower radio, one might hear only the melody and midrange chords. in other words, different listening conditions can highlight some pitch strata and mask others. encountering a song in a new situation can cause one to literally revise one’s hearing, incorporating a previously current musicology 94 inaudible bass line or synth pad that had escaped earlier notice. i especially felt this in “god’s plan,” whose bass line is nearly inaudible on some laptop speakers but blooms on a larger stereo. none of these different hearings are “wrong,” and in fact they may be intended, as many record companies go to great lengths to make sure their releases sound attractive across a range of playback conditions; a double-function analysis of a reverse extension accommodates them all by enumerating the multiple chord identities afforded by these sonorities. these differences in hearing caused by material conditions are neither tangential nor merely incidental, but point to fundamental truths about the open-ended and plural nature of hearing that reverse extensions foreground, as i discuss in this article’s conclusion. the original loop of “teenage fever” has a faint bass frequency which complicates this picture even further. underneath the original g#m tonic chord, a faint e can be heard in a different timbre. this e is so faint, i never noticed it until a reader pointed it out during my revision process. this frequency’s faintness and timbral difference from the harmonic layer suggest it may be a distortion artifact: this e would be the difference tone between the g# and b in the electronic piano part, and distortion has been known to make difference tones audible as “distortion fundamentals” in other situations, such as guitar power chords in metal music (lilja 2009, 134). but this frequency may also be a palimpsest of an earlier bass line in some earlier incarnation of this loop, which has been mixed down but remains barely audible when the loop is presented by itself. now that the e has been brought to my attention, i find it is audible, and i can choose to hear it as a chord tone; but i can also choose to focus on my original hearing of this chord as a g#m tonic, and hear the low e frequency as inharmonic noise. (and, of course, on laptop speakers i still find the low e to be completely inaudible.) plurality, indeterminacy, and enactive music theory the biggest difference between analyzing these passages in drake’s music as “bassharmonic divorces” and “reverse extensions” is that a reverse extension is a harmony which, by definition, affords plural hearings. i’d like to explore the stakes and consequences of this difference by aligning reverse extensions with a cognitive perspective called “enactivism.” enactivism is a school of cognitive science (grounded in the phenomenological theories of maurice merleau-ponty) which views cognition as the enaction of familiar patterns. a sounding chord is not “a tonic c major chord” until an individual listener enacts their understanding of the categories “c major” and “tonic” while listening. mariusz kozak’s recent book enacting musical time (2020) synthesizes a broad and multifaceted enactivist theory of musical time (which is also a theory of musical experience, cognition, and knowledge). in a forthcoming review stephen s. hudson 95 of kozak’s book (hudson 2023), i identify a growing trend of “enactive music theory” which, although it does not always explicitly participate in enactivism, resonates with enactivist perspectives by framing musical structure as something created by subjective individuals, rather than something objective “in the music itself.” chris doll’s book hearing harmony (2017) provides an account of harmony that could be described as “enactive,” in which chord functions (and schemas, identities, roots, and more) are described as subjective effects rather than objective properties. as doll (2017, 218) recognizes, this makes a chord’s identity and root inherently plural, since different listeners (or the same listener in different moments) might hear the same chord to have different roots or identities. to understand the consequences of this enactive approach, consider de clercq’s analysis of bruce hornsby’s song “every little kiss.” de clercq (2019, 277) argues that a particular chord represents a harmonic divorce, with a tonic i chord in the harmonic layer and fa in the bass; and, “[…] had we not been presented with an authorized transcription, we may have missed the harmonic-bass divorce entirely, simply presuming that the chord prior to the half cadence was just a ivm9 sonority.” this passage frames the songwriter’s written chord symbol as the “correct” analysis— that is, de clercq frames his original hearing as a mis-hearing. but from an enactive perspective, both hearings are valid, and in fact, the possibility of plural hearings helps describe perceptual effects of double function or multi-layered-ness which are hard to accommodate in a theory which reduces this plurality to a single authoritative chord symbol. nobile (2020, 207) describes a more plural sense of chord identity when he defines the double-tonic complex as “neither one single key nor competition among multiple keys,” which resonates with the perceptual plurality of reverse extensions. nobile explains further that the double nature of the double-tonic complex is not mere “ambiguity.” tonal ambiguity means conflict, competition, or confusion. […] here, doll's description of tonal ambiguity as “facing two different directions at once” or “flickering” between two incompatible interpretations is apt. what i have proposed in this article is the possibility of a tonal situation more akin to linguistic indeterminacy [...] as i hope to have shown, two relative keys in the rock idiom can be so intertwined so as to blend together, their differences reduced to small details that fade from our mental focus. (nobile 2020, 222– 223) the harmonic effect of an extension-related substitution created by reverse extension is in between ambiguity and indeterminacy, but closer to indeterminacy. when the bass hits c# in figure 10, we can hear two or three clear possible interpretations: the tonic identity of the g#m chord which persists in the original harmonic loop, or the iv identity of a c#m9 chord implied by the bass, or even a current musicology 96 palimpsest or memory of the emaj7 identity implied elsewhere in the chorus (after all, c#m9 is a reverse extension of emaj7). the differences between these hearings are not merely (to use nobile’s words) “small details that fade from our mental focus,” but on the other hand, these different hearings are compatible, they do not conflict or cancel each other out. but without an enactive perspective, such as doll’s theory that chord identity is a subjective effect, descriptions of a chord having a plural identity often read like purple paradoxes or esoteric mysticisms. for example, consider nobile’s analysis of daryl hall and john oates’s song “private eyes.” the sections’ similarities suggest two things: (1) c–e–g in the piano’s right hand represents a c-major triad, not the third, fifth, and seventh of an am7 chord, even when the bass is on a; and (2) the verses’ c-major triads are incomplete versions of a four-note tonic sonority, the full version of which is stated in [the chorus]. (nobile 2020, 212) if read as an objective description, this seems awfully baroque and contrary: c major with a in the bass is not am7, but c major by itself is an incomplete version of am7. but if triad identity is not an objective quality but a subjective “root effect” and “identity effect” as doll says, the difficulty and self-contradiction of this description vanishes. listeners can hear c major with a in the bass as still a c major chord—or they can also hear it as am7—there’s nothing essentially “not-am7” about it; and listeners can still hear a memory of am7 invoked or referenced by just the c major triad on its own, or they can hear it as “just” a c major triad, too. nobile (2020, 213) says further, “i must admit that i find a monotonal reading in a minor to be perfectly valid, and i cannot entirely disagree with it.” while someone listening to a double-tonic complex—and a reverse extension—can have conflicted, indeterminate, or multi-layered experiences, they do not have to; these harmonies afford simple hearings, too. doll’s description of a “hearing” quite vividly evokes the plural and multi-layered experiences that can be described within an enactive approach, a reality which seem harder to account for within a theory in which a particular chord progression either is, or is not, a bass-harmonic divorce. hearings are highly complex; residue of earlier ones seems to stick to newer ones, creating multilayered, subtly colored patchworks that might contain outright contradictions […]. when we try to verbalize a “hearing,” we are probably describing a kind of frankensteinlike composite of pieces of distinct experiences from different moments in our lives. (doll 2017, 82) the different ways of hearing reverse extensions are not orthogonal interpretations that contradict each other, but parallel layers that accumulate in our understanding and experience. in “god’s plan,” our hearing of the chorus harmonies at any one stephen s. hudson 97 moment is a composite of experiences: the sounds that we hear in the present are layered with our memories of the original version of the loop, of added or shifting bass notes, of the same sounds from previous listening sessions, of different experiences of those sounds in different listening situations, and possibly even memories of the original harmonies from jennifer lopez’s song. this enactive perspective also helps explain a kind of listener’s agency that i have implied throughout this article. in enactive music theories, since cognition is the enacting of familiar patterns, a listener simultaneously both actively construes a particular musical structure and also experiences the music according to that structure. if a chord’s identity is a subjective effect, a familiar pattern enacted by me as a listener, then when a chord affords multiple identities i have some agency to enact different harmonic experiences. this agency in listening to a reverse extension is, in a way, the dual or twin of the producer’s agency to create a reverse extension in the first place (by adding a new bass line below an existing harmonic loop). jazz theory— which understands even the most basic chord identities less as analyses of fixed objects, than as possibilities for addition and improvisation—provides a framework in which the plurality of reverse extensions, and the agency that reverse extension relationships afford producers and their listeners, fit right in as natural properties of harmony. reverse extensions and the multi-layered experiences they seem to invite are perhaps not so exotic, but (like double-tonic complexes) reveal mechanisms of plurality and indeterminacy that are inherent to popular music harmony. notes thanks to richard desinord, richard cohn, jeremy tatar, david farrow, and anonymous reviewers at both current musicology and music theory online, whose suggestions at various stages of this project have been invaluable. 1 reverse extensions superficially resemble historical theories which explore adding a third below the root, especially jean-phillipe rameau’s theory of “supposition” (see kassler 2001) and hugo riemann’s dualist conception of “generation downwards” (see cohn 2012, 139–144). these theories, however, carry with them many assumptions and rules (especially about consonance, dissonance, and voice-leading) that do not apply to contemporary popular music. 2 for more on personas, see moore (2012, chapter 7), hatten (2018), and palfy (2021). 3 in this article, i use “third” and “seventh” to refer to intervals or chord-types, and “3rd” or “7th” to refer to specific notes that make up a chord. 4 berkman does not use terms like “polychord” or “hybrid voicing,” but he does discuss this type of slash chord at length (2013, 128–135). current musicology 98 5 extensions and reverse extensions are not exact inverses: an extension of c to cmaj7, followed by a reverse extension of cmaj7 to am9, does not produce the original chord, c. the inverse of a reverse extension is a transformation which removes the original root. references baker, ben. 2019. “a cyclic approach to harmony in robert glasper’s music.” theory and practice 44: 39–82. bederman, gail. 1995. manliness & civilization: a cultural history of gender and race in the united states, 1880–1917. chicago, il: university of chicago press. berkman, david. 2013. the jazz harmony book: a course in adding chords to melodies. petaluma, ca: sher music company. biamonte, nicole. 2010. “triadic modal and pentatonic patterns in rock music.” music theory spectrum 32 (2): 95–110. caldwell, brandon. 2022. “drake reportedly had more streams in 2021 than all songs released before 1980.” hiphopdx 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developing a musicology of rock. buckingham: open university press. ____________. 2012. song means: analysing and interpreting recorded popular song. farnham, uk: ashgate. muhammad, ismail. 2021. “do drake’s melodramas still matter?” the new york times magazine, march 10, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/03/10/magazine/drake.html. mulholland, joe, and tom hojnacki. 2013. the berklee book of jazz harmony. boston: berklee press. nobile, drew. 2015. “counterpoint in rock music: unpacking the ‘melodic-harmonic divorce.’” music theory spectrum 37 (2): 189–203. ____________. 2020. “double-tonic complexes in rock music.” music theory spectrum 42 (2): 207–26. ____________. 2016. “harmonic function in rock music: a syntactical approach.” journal of music theory 60(2): 149–180. olivet, dean. 2019. “we analyzed every dang song that cracked the billboard top 5 in 2018.” flypaper: soundfly’s online music magazine. january 21, 2019. https://flypaper.soundfly.com/produce/we-analyzed-every-dang-song-that-cracked-thebillboard-top-5-in-2018/. palfy, cora s. 2021. musical agency and the social listener. new york: routledge. spicer, mark. 2017. “fragile, emergent, and absent tonics in pop and rock songs.” music theory online 23 (2). ____________. 2008. “large-scale strategy and compositional design in the early music of genesis.” in expression in pop-rock music: critical and analytical essays, edited by walter everett, 2nd edition, 313–44. new york: routledge. stover, chris. 2018. “jazz theory’s pragmatics.” in norton guide to teaching music theory, edited by rachel lumsden and jeffrey swinkin, 234-51. new york: w. w. norton & company. strunk, steven. 1979. “the harmony of early bop: a layered approach.” journal of jazz studies 6: 4–53. temperley, david. 2011. “the cadential iv in rock.” music theory online 17 (1). ____________. 2007. “the melodic-harmonic ‘divorce’ in rock.” popular music 26 (2): 323–42. waters, keith. 2016. “chick corea and postbop harmony.” music theory spectrum 38 (1): 37–57. current musicology 109-110 (2022) ©2023johnson-williams. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). valuing whiteness: the presumed innocence of musical truth erin johnson-williams at times, it’s as if people care more about music—and in particular about their own beloved music and musical ideals— than about fellow human beings (cheng 2019, 4). the start of the 2020s as a decade marks an unprecedented moment for musicology. in 2020 alone, the devastating effects of the covid-19 pandemic, the rise of black lives matter protests, and the increased spread of fake news leading up to presidential battle between donald trump and joe biden seemed like a call to action for the discipline. the week of the november 2020 usa presidential election coincided with the first virtual meeting of the american musicological society and the society of music theory (ams/smt). it felt like a newly positive moment for musicology: there were more panels discussing music and race than ever before, and an excitement about the incorporation of new decolonial buzzwords was palpable. certain lingering questions remained, however: how can the international discipline of musicology sensitively and critically re-negotiate our understandings of what (and who) has traditionally been “valued” in musicology and music education? how can progress about systemic racism in music be achieved when the corporate structures that have upheld a white-dominated discipline for so long remain largely unchanged?1 in the sections that follow i provide a musicological response to critical race and indigenous studies scholars eve tuck and k. wayne yang’s influential article “decolonization is not a metaphor” (2012). while a decade has now passed since the publication of this landmark essay, which launched the journal decolonization: indigeneity, education & society, their work has not (yet) been taken up by music scholars in a sustained way. one of the reasons why this may be the case is because tuck and yang fundamentally define decolonization as a radical process that is about land and power, rather than institutions or performed artforms (which can all-too-easily collapse into the kind of metaphors that they attempt to avoid). for this reason, i suggest that the idea of “decolonization is not a metaphor” is particularly challenging for music studies, but that this challenge is precisely what makes tuck and yang’s work immanently useful as call to action: music scholars, in particular, are (or should be) attuned to the pitfalls—but also the lived necessity of— metaphors as a creative, critical, illuminating, if frustrating process that can in equal 44 parts uphold systems of racism while also creating possibilities for decolonial resistance.2 i therefore take tuck and yang’s lead by proposing three “moves to innocence” that the discipline of musicology risks perpetuating (although i am by no means suggesting these “moves” to be in any sense totalizing or essentialist, as they occur in different modes, to different degrees, and by different mechanisms across academic musicology and music education as a whole). i contend that by recognizing our discipline’s particular susceptibility to such defensive moves, we might broaden our ideas about de/colonial systems of musical value. but to do this is to suggest only the beginning of a decolonizing process: as tuck and yang conclude, the act of decolonization is an “unsettling one”; it is not an “and”; “[i]t is an elsewhere” (2012, 36). i therefore take the further “unsettling” step to go beyond tuck and yang’s “moves to innocence” to propose a broader, “elsewhere,” “move towards/alongside disruption.” i offer these “moves” as a starting point for a greater call to action for our discipline, in order to place pressure on why musicology and music education have been relatively slow to engage with antiracist and decolonial debates.3 perhaps one way to frame musicology’s historical silences about race and decolonization—and this may also partly explain musicology’s comparative belatedness to join other interdisciplinary conversations such as feminist studies, sexuality and gender, trauma studies, poststructuralism, and postcolonialism, to name but a few—is to consider that music is an artform that is particularly vulnerable to presumptions of and pretentions to innocence, precisely because of its transient properties, its subjective possibilities for beauty in the face of ugliness, and the myriad subtle uses (and abuses) of music that can all-too-easily be brought to aid utopian fantasies.4 in making this claim i do not in any way intend to downplay the innovative and creative developments that were initiated by the “new” musicology movement of the 1990s; rather, i seek to question why musicology is— at it was three decades ago—so often “catching up” to new debates circulating in other academic disciplines. part of the reason seems to be the historical proclivity for hiding behind ideas of aesthetic autonomy in the “music itself” (“music” that just-so-happens to be largely created by white composers and upheld by largelywhite performers and academics). i propose, therefore, that one reason for this might be that musical “presumptions of innocence” are partially so easy to fall into because a score, concert or recording is more porous than, for example, a statue of a confederate soldier or slave trader.5 for this reason, too, music has the potential to be a transformative yet also particularly insidious artform—indeed, anti-utopian arguments about music have been well established by scholars such as richard taruskin (2009). in the sections below i would thus like to also take up william fourie’s recent challenge that musicology has been slow to embrace critical 45 decolonial analysis (2020), by outlining how fantasies about musical “truth” and “innocence” have been perpetuated in the global north.6 decolonization and metaphorization: sounding tuck and yang tuck and yang’s decolonial critique has been instrumental in shaping the course of interdisciplinary academic literature on decolonization since its publication a decade ago, although it has had a slower uptake in musicology. tuck and yang take the bold track of arguing that decolonization—drawing on frantz fanon’s definition of the word as a chaotic, disruptive, untidy break from the colonial condition (1963)—is not, strictly speaking, possible in academia because the actual act of decolonization is about the repatriation of indigenous land, and it is counterproductive to metaphorize and conflate the idea of decolonization with other social justice projects. as tuck and yang contend: “[d]ecolonization brings about the repatriation of indigenous land and life; it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools” (2012, 1). their starting point is settler colonialism, which was “built upon an entangled triad structure of settler-native-slave, the decolonial desires of white, non-white, immigrant, postcolonial, and oppressed people,” and which lives on in projects of “resettlement, reoccupation, and reinhabitation that actually further settler colonialism” (2013, 3). tuck and yang’s argument has been particularly helpful in challenging scholars who might otherwise view decolonization as a box-ticking exercise, and has been highly influential in disentangling definitions of decolonization from other diversity, equity and inclusion buzzwords. as they argue, “[w]hen metaphor invades decolonization, it kills the very possibility of decolonization; it recenters whiteness, it resettles theory, it extends innocence to the settler, it entertains a settler future” (2012, 3). this innovative critique of the racially and culturally dangerous pitfalls of metaphorization is particularly useful for musicologists, who arguably deal with metaphorizations whenever we speak of or write about music.7 while tuck and yang’s definition of decolonization as land repatriation is self-consciously narrow, it does, and should, give academics pause about whether we can ever call our discipline “decolonized,” or (more productively) actively “decolonizing,” without the kinds of seismic disruptions and public recognitions of the effects of transgenerational trauma that are a necessary part of the repatriation of imperial and settler colonial theft.8 as they remind us, “[c]learly, we are advocates for the analysis of settler colonialism within education and education research and we position the work of indigenous thinkers as central in unlocking the confounding aspects of public schooling” (2012, 3). central to this process of “unlocking” educational systems, however, is that conversations about decolonization and 46 incorporations of indigenous knowledge “cannot be too easy, too open, too settled” (2012, 3). indeed, the interdisciplinary response to tuck and yang has itself tried to resist becoming “too settled” (andreotti et al. 2014, 36–37). tapji garba and saramaria sorentino’s 2020 article “slavery is a metaphor,” for example, argues that tuck and yang’s settler-native-slave triad reduces the definition of slavery to forced labor, and proposes a deeper analysis of the metaphorization of slavery and settler colonialism from the standpoint of black studies. manu samriti chander (2020) has likewise provided a reply to tuck and yang from the perspective of english and linguistic theory, arguing that metaphorization has been endemic to literary romanticism, and that literary scholars, in building their work alongside decolonial movements, could benefit from aligning their discipline with conversations about indigenous sovereignty. tuck and yang’s ultimate task for academics is the challenge to recognize and admit to their own “moves to innocence,” a term which they define, building on janet lee mawhinney’s 1998 thesis, as consisting of tropes that “problematically attempt to reconcile settler guilt and complicity, and rescue settler futurity” (tuck and yang 2012, 3). the six settler colonial “moves to innocence” that they outline are: i. settler nativism ii. fantasizing adoption iii. colonial equivocation iv. conscientization v. at risk-ing / asterisk-ing indigenous peoples vi. re-occupation and urban homesteading (2012, 4). such “moves” have been perpetuated by a “long and bumbled history of nonindigenous peoples making moves to alleviate the impacts of colonization” (2012, 3). i propose that intentionally naming a discipline’s “moves to innocence” can be a powerfully decolonial (and entirely indispensable) action. to recognize, and to sound, musicology’s “moves to innocence” may therefore be a crucial step towards exploring not only how decolonization risks being metaphorized into a liberal-elite catchphrase that still perpetuates racism, but also that musical decolonization might constitute a more reflexive and intersectional means of considering how the history of metaphorization within discussions of western art music has been fundamentally tied up within systemic acts of privileging whiteness that limit the possibilities of critical global knowledge. such a radical and self-reflexive process is, i suggest, often particularly challenging for music studies because of the quasi-spiritual, neo-romantic connections that many musicologists and educators feel to the repertoires they 47 engage with: something that william cheng touched on when he proposed that one can love music so much that it becomes anthropomorphized (2019, 2). while cheng does not focus on decolonization, the danger of metaphorization is still central to his argument. as he suggests, we often defensively safeguard the music that we study and play as if there could not possibly be anything wrong with it: “[w]e feel called to love and protect music, as parents would defend their young, or as lovers would guard each other” (2012, 2). yet, as cheng provocatively asks: “[i]s it possible for our love and protection of music to go too far? can such devotion ever do more harm than good? can our intense allegiances to music distract, release, or hinder us from attending to matters of social justice?” (2012, 2). innocent blindness, justified by aesthetic love. one of the reasons for the lack of a larger musicological response to tuck and yang might, indeed, stem from the fact that decolonization as land repatriation might seem especially paralysing for music academia. as noted in a recent discussion of decolonization by carina venter, william fourie, juliana m. pistorius, and neo muyanga, tuck and yang’s argument about the necessity of land repatriation, or “giving back to the dispossessed” risks alienating our discipline: “[a]s musicologists, this reminder may feel, on a number of levels paralysing. after all, what have we to give back? (not much land, for sure)” (2017, 144; see also froneman and muller 2020). in his article on musicology in the age of brexit, fourie awards a footnote to tuck and yang to contend that he disagrees with the definition of decolonization as land repatriation because “decolonization, especially in the context of the african continent, has always been bound up with the psychic condition of coloniality and thus must to a certain extent always be metaphorical in its double reality in the human experience and in place” (2020, 201, footnote 5). relatedly, glen coulthard has used fanon to explore the transgenerational psychological impacts of settler colonialism in north america, where systematic racism and white ownership of land (and, by extension, cultural property) become engrained. helpfully, coulthard’s reading of fanon focuses not only stolen land but also privileges a “subjective sphere—namely, the rehabilitation of the colonized subject based on a revaluation of black history and culture” as having “transformative potential in the structural sphere” (2014, 141). many of these decolonial explorations, as does my own article here, on the one hand risk canonizing tuck and yang. on the other hand, their admittedly narrow definition of decolonization has sparked important debates about where the term “decolonization” ends and other social justice projects begin. garba and sorentino (2020) have reminded us that the slippage between discussions of race and decolonization cannot be as easily separated from one another as tuck and yang first implied. and for the discipline of musicology, it is incumbent on us to ask what sort of aesthetic discourses revert to ideas about decolonization-as 48 metaphorization, especially since we deal with a constantly metaphorized artform. helpful here is david lloyd’s work on the “racial regime of aesthetics.” in a similar vein to the idea of moving to “innocence” through metaphorization, lloyd reminds us that the “alibis of the west’s racial ordering of the world may have been reconfigured, but the fundamental discriminations that divide those who can claim respect, rights, and personhood from those reduced to mere disposable existence remain in place” (2019, 2). i suggest that a structural “move to innocence” within music studies, which has historically constituted diving straight into the analysis of specific musical works or genres without first framing why a process of western canonization happened in the first place (or why the story of music history has often been told chronologically, starting in europe), can benefit from a decolonial and repatriative process. to recognize such a move to innocence—one that privileges the canon above a history of colonial violence—is not necessarily to shy away from the almost unavoidable importance of metaphors in music history. the more pressing question is who has created the metaphors, who has benefited from the process of metaphorization, and whose metaphors are privileged institutionally. katherine mckittrick notes, for example, that radical, subversive forms of decolonial metaphorization have been central to academic discussions of black life, black bodies, and black musical traditions. the totality of black texts, narratives and aesthetic traditions, therefore, requires a fundamental dismantling of the white aesthetic systems that have always metaphorized race, and instead necessitates “reading practices that reckon with black life as scientifically creative … a way of being where black is not just signifying blackness but is living and resisting—psychically, physiologically, narratively—the brutal fictions of race (we do not just signify). reading black this way demands a different analytical frame” (mckittrick 2021, 51). in embracing mckittrick’s idea of pursuing a “different analytical frame,” i would like to go beyond fourie to propose that tuck and yang’s article is actually an especially useful challenge for musicology because music, like the process of decolonization, is also systemically over-metaphorized: the question, now, becomes one of who gets to “sound out” and negotiate the power of musical metaphors so that constructions of whiteness in historical musicology are less privileged. and while on a surface level musicology does not have much physical “land” to repatriate, it is worth bearing in mind that universities themselves often sit on stolen land (chatterjee and maira 2010), or are funded by financial donors who have links to neo/colonial forms of exploitation: the same can be said for many of the institutions that hold musical archives, both oral and textual. the theorization of settler colonialism by la paperson (an avatar of k. wayne yang) provides a helpful framework for approaching the complexity of settler colonialism within such educational institutions and academic systems. the settler, argues la paperson, “is 49 not an identity; it is the idealized juridical space of exceptional rights granted to normative settler citizens and the idealized exceptionalism by which the settler state exerts its sovereignty” (2017, 10). dismantling the institutional systems that have literally and figuratively re-centered whiteness is therefore vital in order for our discipline to embrace more productive forms of critical thinking that do not silence voices outside of a traditional white racial (and aesthetic) frame. on the one hand, hegelian teleological concepts of the art of music as culminating in “the absolute” have become a sinister metaphor for western music’s non-culpability for (innocently) replicating anything other than itself.9 on the other hand, applications of decolonization to musicology also run the risk of decolonization becoming a tokenistic metaphor for other diversity projects simply because it is the latest buzzword, a trending term that alleviates the guilt of predominantly white institutions such as ams, smt and the rma.10 where can a post-2020s decolonial musicology go next? if, as tuck and yang propose, the act of settler colonial metaphorization “recenters whiteness” (2012, 3), then it is imperative for musicology to consider how its own proclivity for metaphorization has long accompanied and perhaps reinforced the (predominantly white) racial makeup of our discipline. as juliett hess points out, received musical standards are set according to “specific western constructs for expressing meter, dynamics, and articulations,” so that even when so-called “diverse” examples are added to repertoire lists, “western music in music education [still] acts as a colonizer” (2015, 337). in this way, academic music studies actively behaves as a white settler-colonizer through the preservation of aesthetic and philosophical systems that perpetuate a veneer of objective innocence in the name of critical thinking. as steve garner argues in his study of whiteness, one of the reasons why the systemic legacies of whiteness are often so difficult to see is that whiteness, as an epistemic default, is a “kind of absence” and is powerful because it is largely invisible, while at the same time being extremely visible through its exercises of power (2007, 34). garner’s work is applicable to the place of western classical music in academic musicology: “nineteenth-century music” tends to be metaphorized as an invisible (innocent) product of whiteness, whereas “black slave music” is metaphorized as racially marked (and by implication, is constructed as being less innocent). at the same time, following garner’s definition, the presence of whiteness in studies of music arguably becomes so heavily marked that even many of those attempting to embrace musicological decolonization have tended to “colonize” decolonial discussions from within largely white, elite institutions.11 such violent instances of musical and musicological metaphorization, of course, limit room for nuance between the binaries of white vs. indigenous or black musical agents. helpful here are indigenous studies scholars such as jodi byrd, who explores how the settler is not exclusively a white subject, and that studying the 50 shifting power dynamics within settler colonial constructions of race is important for recognizing an active historical world of “relational movements and countermovements” (2011, xvi–xvii). within music studies, dylan robinson’s decolonial work on the idea of “hungry listening” as a reflection on “sonic encounters between particular perceptible logics” (2020, 2) is highly applicable here. drawing on such relational reflexivity, the process of exploring metaphorical “moves to innocence” thus becomes a powerful way to navigate the past, present and future of music studies. move to innocence i: musical truth equals aesthetic good in a post-truth world, it makes sense to cling to ideas about what truth is. but the start of the 2020s also presents an opportunity to interrogate how ideas of truth have been constructed, and how they might be decolonized. thus, retreating to the “truth” of great works by great (white) men as a beacon of stability resists doing some timely antiracist work12 one of the most fundamental moves to innocence made by musicologists, music teachers, and performers of western art music alike is to fall into the nineteenth-century european romantic trap of framing the western canon as aesthetically “good” and “valuable” because of a loosely-defined nostalgia for a complex artform that reveals aesthetic “truths” in its very materials. the stakeholders in this idea—upholding neo-romantic concepts about instrumental music as the carrier of the “absolute”—include music educators who have based their vocational existence on the notion that there is something “valuable” to be decoded in the musical material itself. one of the issues with this idea is that it has historically turned the focus of academic music inward, to an introspective search for the seeds of a “valuable” aesthetic within a musical score. but what, exactly, is being valued—and who is profiting? insular analysis distracts and excuses us from engaging with many of the white supremacist origins of western academia, as has been astutely outlined by levitz (2018) and ewell (2020). musical value, confused with aesthetic good, thus becomes, like tuck and yang’s discussion of decolonization itself, metaphorized. western art music then becomes a metaphor for truth, and also for (valuable) moral good. and, as many students of western art music are taught, if you are doing something fundamentally “good” by playing “classical music,” then why expend your energy on “real world” social justice projects, when what you do—your great “service” to the world—is by its nature inherently valuable? by that logic, stereotypes about classical musicians as stuffy, white, racist, elitist and snobby can be ignored or rationalized away, because anyone saying that simply doesn’t understand the “value” of the music.13 51 indeed, part of the allure of musical truth equalling aesthetic good is that it excuses the bulk of classical music’s participants (performers, teachers, academics) from naming either their white privilege, or, in more global contexts, the aspects of classical music education that replicate a white, middle-class, victorian, form of respectability (bull 2019).14 in east asian contexts, too, roe-min kok (2006) has written about how the fetishization of the exported british standardized music testing systems in postcolonial malaysia requires viewing the western canon as a performance of white britishness. in terms of the migration of asians and asian americans in classical music, moreover, mari yoshihara identifies some of the systemic binaries of us/them, east/west, that continue to block asian classical musicians from inhabiting their own identities, poignantly pointing out the paradox that while on the one hand western culture puts forward the idea of a “purely aesthetic position” that implies that “great art transcends social structures,” there is also the ongoing implication that “musical understanding indeed has cultural specificity and a connection to [a western] social context” (2007, 13). yoshihara notes that asian classical musicians are often therefore constructed as emotionally repressed subjects in need of a western “master who frees the chinese musicians’ emotions and expressions that had been suppressed by political and cultural norms and then teaches the students about the true meaning behind the music” (2007, 14). a further implication here is a deeply engrained transgenerational and often coercive privileging of western modes of hearing across the post/colonial globe, to which i would like to invoke robinson’s immanent call in hungry listening to explore a “listening positionality” where the subject is aware of their “listening privilege, listening biases, and listening ability.” these biases and listening proclivities are not wholly positive or negative: rather, robinson suggests, such critical positioning will help us to be “better able to listen otherwise” (2020, 10–11). without such reflexive positionalities, and under the pretentions that classical music is a universal language, many music students in practice are still subject to and caught up within salvationist discourses about how, in reality, this “universal” language still really belongs to a dominant culture that can only “truly” be accessed through western (white) expertise, and, by default, through a white body. william mpofu and melissa steyn’s recent book further exposes the appearance of western “humanity” to assume the shape of a human body that looks (and by extension, sounds) a certain way: as mpofu and steyn argue, the european enlightenment construction of “man, as a performative idea, created inequalities and hierarchies usable for the exclusion and oppression of the other,” and, moreover, the “status of the human was self-attributed to dominant people powerful enough to name themselves and define others” (2021, 1). the material legacies of such dehumanizing processes are shown in the imposed teaching of “civilized / civilizing” western music as a means of stripping indigenous children in many 52 settler colonial contexts—including, for example, the residential school systems in canada, the united states and australia—of their own languages and musical traditions (johnson-williams 2022; young 2017; diamond 2015). the realities of such violent histories are, of course, extremely uncomfortable. yet a sustained discussion of these issues, particularly as exemplified in sociological work on music and class (bull 2019; scharff 2017), suggests that the educational structures upholding western classical music today still haven’t come very far from many nineteenth-century romantic ideologies about the transcendental qualities of music as existing beyond race, which, as appealing as they may be, are still rooted within the racist and imperialist cultures of nineteenth-century europe. indeed, if the flip side of romanticism is an escapism from the rapidly changing world of industry and commerce, then the orientalizing of indigenous peoples also reinforces nostalgic fantasies of static cultural “authenticity” (collier 2009). what is less discussed, particularly where the classical musical canon is concerned, is an escapism in romantic aesthetics from the realities of an ethnically-diversifying europe and a context of global imperial expansion. critical race theorist marlon b. ross has noted, with reference to nineteenth-century literature, that studies of romantic aesthetics more broadly need to take into account the extent to which romanticism “cannot comprehensively or comprehendingly be read outside the context of contemporaneous controversies concerning the nature, condition, and elevation of ‘the african’ as a distinct, if problematic, subject of human classification” (2016, 26; see also thomas 2000). as ross notes, however, this broader context of slavery and imperial capitalism was not systematically applied to romantic aesthetics at the time; rather, the insidious racism that grew out of imperial and settler colonial cultures was inherently “sloppy,” which made it more effective because it was “fungible, pliable, [and] seductive in a way that shields it from both the niceties and the outrages of moral, polemical, and artistic discourses even as such discourses are mounted as heavy weapons of partisan attack stemming from the harms of racism” (2016, 27). in this way, ross holds that european romanticism, through the incoherence of overlapping ideologies about “biology, religion, genealogy, warfare, nationalism, and geography” has “authored” modern racial discourse, which worked “powerfully through and within its own incoherence” (2016, 28–29). romantic incoherence-as-esoteric-value arguably plays out in music history at the level of contextualizing the incoherent emergence of the idea of “absolute music,” which gained traction precisely at the time when, through “progressive” genres such as the tone poem, newer genres of instrumental music worked to reflect, and even to challenge, narratives about the past and present.15 that the rise of “absolute music” was concurrent with the height of slavery in the transatlantic world, and with the silencing of indigenous musical traditions 53 through teaching western hymns at indigenous residential schools (johnsonwilliams 2022), is a fact of music history, is therefore an issue that ascriptions to the “absolute” will not solve. of course, as marianna ritchey has recently argued, critiquing the idea of absolute music is not new (nor do i pretend to be the first to have these concerns). musicologists, she argues, wanting to contribute to the social good as well as to explain the relevance of our work to the public, have argued passionately against the ‘autonomous ideal’ that music theorists from the nineteenth century to the modern era have deployed as a means of insisting that certain kinds of music transcend the tawdry social plane (2021, 35). ritchey’s defense of a new kind of anarchist autonomy that privileges the value of “uselessness” as an antidote to capitalism offers an interesting opportunity to critique the tokenism inherent in many decolonial projects (2021, 46). ultimately, ritchey posits a kind of creative collective uselessness through musical autonomy as a powerful gesture that can “actively threaten capital” (2021, 49). this compelling argument offers a welcome and timely reminder that ascriptions to, and critiques of, musical autonomy are indeed not new—and that there are ways in which musical autonomy itself can be a form of resistance to the status quo. my lingering question then becomes whether there can be a future where the material violences done to indigenous peoples can still be “heard” through so-called “useless” musics—and whether issues of access, privilege and violence can be exposed and critically discussed, when much nineteenth-century music history is still taught within an older framework that actively silences enslaved and displaced peoples. in applying such interdisciplinary decolonial questions to what could arguably be called the “violent” autonomy of nineteenth-century western music, we might conclude that race as a critical category was allowed to slip through the cracks of musical discourses because romantic music could metaphorize and/or autonomize itself whenever it needed to. in one of the largest studies of the romantic idea of “musical truth,” mark evan bonds identifies that the nineteenth century’s “new paradigm of listening” created the need for “a new kind of didactic discourse about music, aimed at those members of the public eager to elevate their knowledge and tastes” (2006, 44). it is worth noting that race does not explicitly appear in bonds’ book, aside from one brief footnote, despite the centrality of race to the rise of german nationalism, an ideology that also fuelled nineteenth-century musical aesthetics (2006, 86).16 that said, nineteenth-century idealism, as bonds identifies, gives “priority to spirit over matter,” positing a “higher form of reality in a spiritual realm” (2006, 12). effectively, in moving away from the importance of physical matter, nineteenth-century idealism performed a “move to innocence” that was bound up a larger culture of silencing the violences of racism, classism, and global capital. 54 historically, not only did ascriptions to the “spiritual realm” of nineteenthcentury instrumental music, exemplified in works like beethoven’s fifth symphony,17 excuse romantic music aestheticians from talking about race, these ideals also elevated those who understood western art music as having primary access to the “infinite”—which, in terms of access, doesn’t work out in practice to be so universal after all. this is also the paradox of german romantic ideas about musical truth: if, as hegel argues, truth can only be glimpsed through the process of unfolding, and if, as many romantics determined, this kind of unfolding was best exemplified in an abstract musical works like symphonies (2006, 55), then the socalled democratic “abstraction” of the symphony as a vehicle of universal aesthetic truth was still only constructed according to western musical and philosophical principles.18 the idea of absolute music has been developed in academia by scholars such as daniel chua, who, following dahlhaus, argues that “absolute music can only have a history when it is no longer absolute music,” which reinforces the longstanding anti-historicization of the concept (1999, 3).19 bonds is critical of this kind of antihistoricization, claiming that, “conflating an idea and an object … commits the fallacy of reification,” and that, chua, like dahlhaus, “tends to treat absolute music as a monolithic concept, minimizing the profound differences between the aesthetics of 1800 and 1850” (2006, 13; 15). arved ashby, moreover, has produced an innovative study of the ongoing commodification and commercial reproduction of the idea of absolute music in the twentieth century, where he notes that the modern recording industry has capitalized on the allure of absolute “truth” for paying listeners. just like other nostalgic social concepts like the “nuclear family” and “the sanctity of marriage” (or, following garner, whiteness itself) ashby argues that “absolute music has gained rhetorical force by virtue of its empirical absence” (2010, 7). without the commodification of the idea of absolutism, absolute music as a concept would not have been so pervasive—and one wonders whether the idea that western music possesses aesthetic values that are above and beyond contextualization (racial, financial or otherwise) would have become so prevalent. as ritchey has argued in her larger study of music and neoliberalism, the nineteenth century is to blame for ongoing assumptions about how western music can still somehow imply that it exists above and beyond the political and financial world that sustains it. throughout the nineteenth century, ritchey states, “when the rising financial power of the bourgeoisie was opening concert audience attendance to anyone who could afford to purchase a ticket, some music lovers tried to argue that certain types of music resisted commodification” (2019, 8). the lasting impact of romantic thought on music has therefore lived on in the implication that it provides a so-called universal access to an aesthetic “truth” 55 that is of value (this is then conflated with a moral presumption to being “good”), but this form of value is only accessible to those who understand it, not least because they are “free.”20 a helpful framework here is the impulse michel foucault has described in his “discourse on language” as the “will to truth”: “[t]rue discourse, liberated by the nature of its form from desire and power, is incapable of reconciling the will to truth which pervades it; and the will to truth, having imposed itself on us for so long, is such that the truth it seeks to reveal cannot fail to mask it” (1972, 219). to decolonize foucault, we might add to this that the “will to truth” in western music history has also been a disciplinary move to, and presumption about, innocence, and that the concept of absolute music, liberated as it usually is from desire and power, has never been reconciled with that which it has sought to escape culpability from.21 in the context of critical race theory, dwight a. mcbride has argued that in the nineteenth century the “will to truth” masked the overdeterminacy of romantic abolitionist discourses, and that, “in using the very terms of the institution of slavery to talk about these human beings as ‘slaves,’ ‘africans,’ and later ‘negroes,’ one supports and buttresses the idea that the slave, if not subhuman, is certainly not of the same class of people as free europeans” (2001, 7). this overdeterminacy, in turn, masks the ability of black subjects to be able to access and tell truth, which profoundly complicates slave testimonies, and, as is implied in the title of mcbride’s book, renders black subjects “impossible witnesses,” because it was still the white abolitionists, white reporters and white lawmakers who got to define what “truth” meant, or didn’t mean, at the time (2001, 7). as irish romantic poet william butler yeats wrote in his “ode on a grecian urn,” “’beauty is truth, truth beauty.’ that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” (quoted in ferris 1998, 122). and yet, as critical race theorists have shown, yeats’s statement was written within a context where the kind of truth he wrote of was also inscribed with silencing narratives about slavery and other social brutalities. “truth” about the nineteenth century, indeed, involves admitting to violences that were certainly not beautiful, and were undeniably pervasive: such omnipresent colonialism is remembered as an “un-beautiful” reality by many indigenous writers as, in the words of linda tuhiwai smith, “part of our story, our version of modernity” (2012, 20). nostalgic appeals to beauty-as-truth and truthas-value do not fully distance us from the degree to which nineteenth-century western idealism continues to pervade academic disciplines.22 the racial violence of the idea of absolute music is that it subsumes all other definitions of musical truth under its wing, which does not leave room for indigenous truths that, as aman sium and eric ritskes remind us, rest instead on the “empowerment of indigenous land and sovereignty, not needing any legitimization from colonial states or modernity” (2013, ii). i argue that this constitutes a move to innocence that has long been hidden 56 behind justifications that art music equals aesthetic and social good: a line of thought that silences indigenous voices while sounding the self-righteous tone of great music. as juliet hess concludes in her article on decolonizing music education, “i envision a curriculum fraught with tension and critique and rich with dialogue and learning possibilities … thinking relationally allows us to offer our students so much more” (2015, 346). the more complex, and indeed, revealing, “decolonial truths” that might be revealed through a large-scale decolonization of aesthetic value systems will surely be more useful to the creative study of artistic canons than the more limiting systems that are currently in place. move to innocence ii: musical truth is above decolonization having established that nostalgic and escapist appeals to musical truth constitute a primal move to innocence that privileges whiteness by hiding it in plain sight, the second move to innocence—where musical truth is defended as being above decolonization—is an unfortunately logical step. paradoxically, tuck and yang’s argument that decolonization is really about land repatriation might even be used in service of this argument, as it would be all-too-easy for a musicologist to claim that studying classical sonata form has nothing to do with the actual slave trade or the stealing of indigenous land. the argument might even be made that you can’t see imperialism inscribed within the voice leading parts of a bach chorale, so how could an undergraduate counterpoint and harmony class be decolonized?23 but to argue this would be to use one of the techniques of distraction discussed in the first move to innocence: that perhaps you can simply get out of discussing the uncomfortable aspects of decolonization and race by changing the subject, reminding everyone just how complex the musical material is, and reassuring yourself that it really has nothing to do with a history of racism because, aesthetically, it is above that. many of these themes resonate with the 2020 controversy of the special issue of schenkerian studies that was put forward as a response to philip ewell’s keynote lecture, “music theory’s white racial frame.”24 the viral outrage that followed the schenkerian studies issue, and the complaints that eventually resulted in its redaction from the journal’s website, are a credit to the work of the black lives matter movement in helping a new generation of music scholars recognize that the act of not only ignoring but wilfully excusing the western art music canon from decolonial and antiracist conversations simply because of its aesthetic qualities is an inexcusable move to innocence. this backlash has led to broader conversations about curricular reform across a range of online conferences and research conversations.25 57 there is, however, a long road ahead for music academia at large to engage with decolonial theory on a structural level of value. while many were quick to criticize the racist elements of the attack on ewell, it remains to be seen whether all of those who came out to support ewell online have been able—despite the best of intentions—to initiate decolonial conversations within their respective universities and areas of research. institutional change is difficult, particularly for educational traditions that have long hid behind aesthetic autonomy. as lisa c. delorenzo has noted with regard to school education, universalist claims about “music for all” make it particularly challenging to actually help students from diverse backgrounds to feel included (2015, 5). delorenzo identifies a crucial link between the utopian ideas of “music for all” and the lived experiences of racial and sociality inequality: learning a musical instrument requires an investment of time, parental support, and money (even in finding quiet places to practice in a home that has enough rooms), not to mention the social issue of parents feeling that their children might be bringing home alien, oppressive repertoires that silence their own musical traditions. a more democratic form of music education might include indigenous perspectives, but when the educators making the decisions about how to define “music for all” are primarily still basing their definitions on western neo-romantic aspirations to aesthetic truth, this form of diversification struggles to really be inclusive, and will remain unequal until it is more actively disrupted. similar questions have been raised by political theorists about decolonizing the notion of democracy. just as our understanding of who can own property, vote and be elected to leadership has changed since western democracy came into being, so is it time for claims about “musical democracy” to be re-evaluated. geoff baker has made a similar point when studying the venezuelan music education program el sistema, which exploits western european presumptions about musical democracy to claim that classical music will elevate children from poverty. baker encourages us to question whether this “serves as an effective model for social development in the present day, and to ask whether it may actually be counter-productive in the fight against poverty” (2016, 19). rachel beckles willson has also considered how daniel barenboim and edward w. said’s westeastern divan orchestra has promoted orchestral music as a “model of social harmony” (2009, 319). beckles willson warns that “proposals about coexistence that draw primarily on aesthetic theory leave the practicalities of music in conflict unaddressed” (2009, 320). through interviews with the orchestra members, she concludes that the experience of playing in the divan orchestra at times enabled transcendent escapism, but this did not translate to social democracy or to the realization of music as political salvation that the orchestra promised. drawing on suzanne cusick’s work on music as violence and torture (2006 and 2008), beckles 58 willson concludes that playing western classical music as democracy produces “an emotional violence, rather than a life-threatening one, but it is extremely powerful and potentially manipulative” (2009, 347). barenboim took the young musicians “out of their war, to be sure,” but then “enveloped them in something else, namely the commercialized world of aesthetic experience” where they “practiced and propagated the types of coercion, domination and submission that are endemic in the musical museum” while “audiences celebrated the ‘harmony’ they appeared to offer to the middle east” (2009, 347). as a “move to innocence” in the context of decolonization, moreover, such pretensions to harmony end up limiting music’s potential to expose and work through social problems because the metaphorization of music as a form of utopian peace-making is conspicuously one-sided: it activates social uplift only if its students uncritically perform a version of western elite discipline at the authoritarian mercy of their conductor (bull 2019). not only are indigenous musical traditions sidelined, but the agency of the classical music student is erased too, creating successive generations of victims from a larger move to innocence. move to innocence iii: musical “authority” is justifiable in the context of settler colonialism because white settlers were victims of imperialism too any music student who has lived in britain or the commonwealth knows that to be taken seriously as a classical musician, you have to take standardized graded music exams. emblems of social authority—and, indeed, “musical truth”—the commercial fetishization of the british graded examination certificate gives access to not only a very narrow musical repertoire, but also to an in-club of elite prestige that enables the performance of upper-class (aka white) respectability (bull 2019). what is less acknowledged about this system of “imperial musical authority” is that the british musical examination system was a direct product of late-victorian imperial capitalism, and that the companies that set up the testing boards in nineteenthcentury london could rely on settler colonial societies to fuel their financial success (kok 2006 and johnson-williams 2020). moreover, the musical cultures in britain that still uphold these same exam boards have largely shied away from decolonizing conversations because of a “presumption of innocence” that, really, all they are doing is benevolently providing access to a great repertoire. in this third “move to innocence,” i propose that settler colonial moves to innocence-throughvictimhood, particularly through the establishment of institutions for colonial music education, have systemically silenced indigenous musical repertoires, even as they have attempted to undermine imperial authority. in turn, entrenched systems 59 of value-as-educational-standards reinforce allegiances to imperial systems of knowledge in settler colonial contexts (vaugeois 2013). as broader studies of standardized testing have shown, “high-stakes testing cannot dismantle racial inequality because it fundamentally and materially advances the project of increasing racialized injustice” (au 2015, 41). the inevitability of the modern neocolonial “standardizing” of music education, therefore, should not be taken for granted, particularly given that the very idea of standardized music testing—as in creating a universal musical standard that is “valued” by those (men)26 “who know”—is an intrinsically victorian one, and only took off in other countries in relation to british imperial models.27 bull has referred to british exam boards as the “standardizers” of the idea of the western canon “due to their role in prescribing and credentializing musical standards of ability” (2019, 30), who together created a “commercial infrastructure [that] grew up to credentialize … aspirations towards gentility” (2019, 40). there emerges, then, a systemic and insidious link between the victorian context that first reified the idea of a musical standard, and the empire that provided the latitude for the exportation of these standards as a commercial, “valued” product. above all, it was not just proficiency in western music that was being examined in this process, but also a performance of a white-victorian version of the human that erased the possibility of indigenous agency. the leading nineteenth-century british music exam boards (all based in london), such as the associated board of the royal schools of music (abrsm; founded in 1889) and trinity college london (tcl; founded in 1877) that enacted imperial accreditation across britain and the colonies were not immune to misgivings about the legitimacy of british musical “standards” in their own day (wright 2005 and 2013). tcl had already established around 200 examination centres across britain in 1879, and by 1891 overseas centres were opening in south africa, india, ceylon and australia (banfield 2007, 74; and rutland 1972, 15), while the abrsm, after having instituted exams in south africa in 1894, was already developing exam centres in malta, tasmania, new zealand, british columbia and gibraltar by 1896 (johnson-williams 2020, 327). the abrsm’s website now boasts that over “650,000 candidates now sit abrsm exams each year in more than 90 countries around the globe” (abrsm 2020), and tcl, which now offers a more diverse array of qualifications in music, drama and dance, offers “over 850,000 candidates a year in more than 60 countries worldwide” (tcl 2020). these numbers beg the question of who, exactly, is making institutional decisions about musical value, and who is awarded the authority to bestow degrees: in the case of both examining boards just mentioned, the institutional structures have not greatly changed from the nineteenth century, and the examiners are still flown out from the uk to oversee performance exams, in much the same way as they travelled to the colonies by ship in the 1890s.28 60 in researching whether there were any colonial disruptions or protests against imperial music testing boards during the nineteenth century, i came across a controversial public “protest” issued against the abrsm by a group of music educators in toronto in 1899 who complained that “… under the associated board’s regime in canada, the canadian musician is clearly outlined and well defined as a musical ‘colonist,’ and as such as expected to humbly submit to the imperious dictate of the board” (canadian protesting committee 1899, 4). the grounds for protest against the abrsm by canadian music teachers, and the backlash of the british press against these objections, discloses broader anxieties about the legitimacy of examinations and the establishment of musical capital in a settler colonial context. copies of the protest were forwarded to the prince of wales and a long list of british aristocrats, as well as to the most prominent musical authorities and leading newspapers of england and canada.29 shortly thereafter, a response entitled the case of the associated board was published by abrsm honorary secretary samuel aitken, rebuking the toronto musicians as unfair (aitken 1899). the entire examining scandal, as well as the body of academic literature that has discussed it (wright 2013; jones 1989), ignores the fact that the canadian music teachers were themselves from a white, settler colonial culture, and that their examining systems still perpetuated (and assessed) a performance of “valuing” white culture while violences against indigenous peoples were being propagated across canada. it seems no coincidence that the only large-scale complaint against the abrsm during the nineteenth century came from within canada, which had one of the largest white settler populations of the british colonies, rather than from the any of the colonies in africa or east asia (johnson-williams 2020). thus, the white canadian settlers assembled their protest by playing the role of the colonial victim, while all the time disregarding the fact that their imported european-based musical traditions were silencing indigenous cultures. the canadian protest, therefore, amounted to a settler colonial “move to innocence” where, beneath the surface, the toronto musicians still had examining authority because they were white. using the work of la paperson (2017) as a framework for interpreting the toronto protest is helpful in understanding the colonial examination board to be a “technology” that reinstates and maintains settler supremacy, while all the while claiming colonial victimhood. as la paperson implies, this is not to say that these settler moves were entirely intentional or conscious, but he notes that “[e]ven if it isn’t always to their advantage, individual settlers tend to uphold settler supremacy because of its relative advantage (over immigrants yet-to-become settlers) and its promise of unending advantage over black people, indigenous people” (2017, 10, footnote 12). thus, i propose viewing the toronto protest to be a both a move to colonial innocence, justified by a 61 portrayal of colonial victimhood, as well as the upholding of what la paperson calls settler “technologies of indigenous erasure” (2017, 11). today, canada’s leading music exam board, the royal conservatory examinations, still runs music exams based on the nineteenth-century british model. they have a statement on antiracism on their website, although less is clear about how this statement will help to facilitate curricular or institutional change (royal conservatory 2020). this brings us back to the question of who musical truth and musical value is constructed for. today, the graded musical exam continues to be upheld and marketed as a seemingly utopian goal, as if the music examined and the privilege of affording the fee really existed outside of a broader capitalist, neocolonial reality.30 by clothing their debates in terms of colonial victimhood, the aura of democratization that was pushed by the canadian protesting committee against the abrsm in 1899 thus strategically disguised the structural whiteness that upheld their own colonial music exam boards. moving away from innocence music, despite all of the moves to innocence discussed above, is inherently disruptive. and i’m not just talking about stravinsky’s rite of spring (chua 2007). musical sound disrupts silence, and as such can be used for torture and social protest, as well as, more positively, a means of experiencing beauty, and a way to process complex emotions; a reason to dance, flirt, laugh, worship, cry and wonder. music can be a deceptive form of escapism, as well as a call to action. but whenever music is played, it also disrupts anything that was already being sounded—silencing that which was there before it. in this way, music can be uncompromisingly imperial, yet also productively, if not unsettlingly, decolonial. thinking about music’s disruptive potentiality in terms of race and decolonization, it is imperative to remember that the arrival of western music in settler colonial societies actively blocked out indigenous and other minority ethnic traditions. by offering a final “move towards/alongside disruption,” i suggest that musicology restructures itself along the lines of “truth-telling” critical enquiry. moving towards/alongside disruption in the introduction to the 2020 ims newsletter, chua reflects on the unprecedented challenges of the year, noting that “[i]n the past, seeking the common good was simpler. but this was only because knowledge was simpler—it was less inclusive” (2020, 4). in a divided world, chua reminds us, “[d]ivision makes thinking simpler—in fact, you hardly need to think” (2020, 3). as chua 62 maintains, we need to be extra careful now of wishing to return to the “normality” of a time where knowledge was simpler, because musicology pre-2020 was also less inclusive. musicology is thus at a turning point. if we recognize and accept the privilege of our disciplinary moves to innocence, building decolonial trust may yet be possible. the first step, however, is to disrupt and re-contextualize ideas of musical truth and value that are all-too-easy for people in positions of privilege to take for granted; the second is to intentionally and dynamically incorporate marginalized, minority and indigenous perspectives. on the latter point, i fully admit that this article falls conspicuously short, revealing the limitations of the institutions in the global north that i have been affiliated with. yet there are inspiring emerging models of how this change might happen; robinson’s (2020) powerful publication hungry listening, for example, is the first book to consider listening from both indigenous and settler colonial canadian perspectives. robinson’s approach paves the way for the kind of reflective, dialogic potential of indigeneity when studying the longevity of western art music in postcolonial contexts. decolonizing music education and musicology is also not possible without disrupting the issue of institutional valuing (both aesthetically and commercially), as outlined above in reference to standardized testing and music pedagogy. in reference to the imperial exam boards discussed above, british music educator, writer and public speaker nate holder has commented on his blog that: given the longstanding history and reluctance to change, perhaps it’s time to think of alternatives. while myself and other black and brown people have benefitted from taking abrsm exams and teaching others to pass them, perhaps it’s time to see where improvements can be made to existing models of music examinations. perhaps in 2020, in the wake of the black lives matter movement and the fear of another global economic crash, it’s time to move forward with alternatives, instead of waiting for systemic changes which may never happen (holder 2020).31 one of holder’s recent proposals has been to create a new kind of exam board, a decolonized institution that centralizes repertoires and perspectives that are nonwestern in origin (holder 2020b). yet a potential issue with this idea is the continued postcolonial fetishization of the exam board itself, which is a white structure that reifies the commodification of musical ability: to create a “new” exam board is to also reinforce the idea that a corporate institution necessarily bestows musical authority. to disrupt the primacy of standardized exam boards even more fully, perhaps it would be useful to question whether standardized performance exams can ever be decolonized because as long as they exist in the capitalist marketplace they will always (to return to tuck and yang) “metaphorize” musical performance as a form of (western, white) capitalist value. and market capitalism 63 will not welcome decolonial disruption. as ritchey points out, “capitalism allows the expression of difference so long as that difference is never formulated in terms of opposition to the system itself. this kind of non-oppositional difference can then be scooped up by the system and used to continue propagating the fiction that capitalism generates equality and justice” (2019, 15). this includes “diversity initiatives” which communicate messages of difference without having to actually undo the systemic structures already in place. these issues also extend to the context of the academic university. a prevalent concern is how to decolonize an institutional structure that provides employment and education, and has the research and outreach potential to do quite a lot of good for students and communities, both local and global. my proposal for disrupting ideas about musical truth is that as a discipline we actively work to become more aware of when, why, and by whom ideas about truth and value are created, and to be mindful of when we have taken such ideas for granted in our own teaching and research. as tuhiwai smith has written in the foreword to the second edition of decolonizing methodologies, a lot of academic decolonizing work “is concerned not so much with the actual technique of selecting a [decolonizing] method but more with the context in which research problems are conceptualized and designed, and with the implications of research for its participants and their communities,” as well as the “institution of research, its claims, its values and practices, and its relationships to power” (2012, ix). as one of the most powerful writers on decolonization within university contexts, la paperson proposes that academia might work towards a “third university” where indigeneity, land repatriation (or rematriation), and antiutopianism are actively engaged with to work against the dominant imperial narratives that have informed the academic-industrial complex of the first university and the pedagogical utopia of the second (2017, xv). the third university, coming out of the first two, is a decolonizing, rather than a decolonized, university. effectively, la paperson encourages us to distrust the pedagogical myths that uphold the reputation of the first and second universities, as, in reality, “[u]niversities are land-grabbing, land-transmogrifying, land-capitalizing machines” (2017, 32). a prominent engagement with la paperson in musicology has been the work oftamara levitz, who asserts that most musicologists have been trapped in the first and second university: we confuse decolonization with liberal critique, embrace utopian notions of inclusion that support the first university’s project of expansion and debt, create new curricula based on nostalgic notions of self realization, and remain intransigent about changing the material circumstances of our professional privilege and committing to radical action (2018, 47). 64 what would a “decolonizing university” look like for musicology? in light of the above moves to innocence, one place to start might be admitting to the potential of music to inhabit spaces of colonization. by metaphorizing and autonomizing music, we might be fooled into arguing that systems of imperial musical power—such as the colonial music exam, or the creation of settler colonial universities—don’t actually inhabit indigenous land because music is an ephemeral art that does not take up physical space. but we, as people, do take up land, particularly through the institutions that support us. finally, i would strongly advocate that in seeking out new modes of truth that stem from the processes of decoloniality, music academics have the opportunity to embrace a positive, yet critical, approach to locating a new “decolonial value” in music that does not presume innocence. this process—i.e., the search for unsettling decolonial truths—has been seen in the kinds of work done by the truth and reconciliation commissions in countries such as south africa and canada, to name two of the most well-known examples. 32 through these systems, controversial though they may have been in some instances,33 new structures were put in place where previously unheard voices were given space to be heard, thereby changing the narratives, the archives, and the written histories of the countries in question. as annelies verdoolaege has explained, “[t]hrough the south african truth and reconciliation commission, perpetrators and victims of apartheid started to listen to each other and, to a certain extent, they also tried to understand each other” (2008, 2). verdoolaege, further, devotes a section of her book to the idea, in reference to foucault, of “constructing truth through discourse,” through which the process of the trc constructed a “reconciliation-oriented truth” that could be “projected onto the future” (2008, 143). rosemary nagy (2020) has, furthermore, shown the benefits of “settler witnessing” to rounding out a more contextual history of canada. what would a process of decolonial repatriating and listening look and sound like? of course, as political scientist onur bakiner has pointed out, one of the controversies and reasons for the lack of success of various trc initiatives is that “truth commissions are political, that is to say, they are sites of contestation over material and symbolic resources.” (2016, 3). given that music has always existed in political, ideological contexts (even revealing what taruskin [1995] has described as “unspeakable truth[s]”), the social and institutional contexts of musical “moves to innocence” can themselves be a starting point for where we might create new disruptive spaces for listening. afterword 65 the decade of the 2020s is a crucial time to reflect on the challenges that lie ahead for decolonizing and disrupting musicology. the study of music, to be sure, contains incredible potential for reframing, reconciling, and repatriating. yet, as i have proposed, a “presumption of innocence” about music’s neutrality (and its aesthetic “truth” and “value”) carries the serious risk of reverting to an “aesthetic innocence” to cover up the culpability of institutions that uphold the “greatness” of a tradition as a justification for racist practices. music’s presumed innocence, then, is a compelling retreat from the realities of the “real world” of a particularly difficult start to this decade, fraught with lockdowns, police violence, the war in ukraine, ongoing public health emergencies, and wide digital misinformation—but only for those who have been privileged enough to access or even conceive of music as a retreat in the first place. the question now is: what do we do now with the rest of the decade—retreat, or engage? going back to a term used by tuck and yang (2012, 36), what would a decolonial “elsewhere” look and sound like? reflecting on the rising calls for decolonization across academic music studies in the uk, shzr ee tan contents that decolonisation is messy and always situational. … [it] is not a simple matter of returning to primitivism or a simplistic overthrowing of powers in the binary—whether of ‘the west’ by ‘the east’ or of ‘the north’ by ‘the south’—but about how a search for equal playing fields across the world necessitates the recognition of colonial trauma unevenly passed down (and sometimes unwittingly reified) through the experiences of multiple generations (2021, 8). where i find hopefulness in tan’s statement is in the possibility that future musical moves to innocence will resist reifying binaries of east and west, north and south, and self and other that were themselves constructed by western imperialism. there may even be room, indeed, for a future where moves to innocence—which will continue to emerge in new forms—can be understood in a relational framework of self-awareness. this article, i hope, contributes to such a framework. while it is entirely logical that the first two years of the 2020s have caused many to see the understandable advantage of retreating, fantasies about music’s neutrality as a space of escapism will only increase if retreating is what we do as a discipline. the rest of the decade holds an opportunity to do something difficult and different, and to engage with a new kind of reflexive decolonial “truth” about what, and who, is really valued by musicology’s past, current and future moves to innocence. notes 66 1 boaventura de sousa santos has reminded us that while “the university is one of the institutions that has most resisted the erosion of time,” a long history of the university as a structure over the last several hundred years has shown that it has a great capacity to adapt to changing forms of knowledge. the challenges that now lie ahead for the twenty-first century are that the university needs to likewise adapt to the new forms of knowledge that will be brought about through the processes of decolonization: “under the new conditions it is experiencing, the university may now be more aware of [the outside world] than in the past, and open itself up to the different kinds of knowledge circulating in society, particularly among oppressed social groups fighting against social domination, be it capitalist, colonialist or patriarchal” (2017, ix; xvii). 2 for example, the recent online conference “naming, understanding, and playing with metaphors in music: a virtual symposium,” held april 29–30 2022, organized by nina sun eidsheim and daniel walden and hosted by the ucla herb alpert school of music was a highly compelling showcase of current critical approaches to metaphors and music from a variety of academics and creative artists. 3 indeed, many publications on decolonization (tuhiwai smith 2012; land 2015; gurminder 2018; arday and mirza, 2018; de sousa santos 2017; and jansen 2001), were published before the buzzword “decolonization” began regularly showing up in musicological publications and conferences c.2020. 4 susan mcclary made a similar point at the opening of feminine endings when writing that: “[t]o be sure, music’s beauty is often overwhelming, its formal order magisterial. but the structures graphed by theorists and the beauty celebrated by aestheticians are often stained with such things are violence, misogyny, and racism. and perhaps more disturbing still to those who would present music as autonomous and invulnerable, it also frequently betrays fear” (2002, 4). 5 it is notable, that, in light of the toppling of statues in 2020 and debates around #rhodesmustfall, there has been no straightforward way to “topple” musical works, or practices of musical white supremacy. music’s ephemerality, and its ability to be reframed, remetaphorized and recontextualized, should not suggest, however, that we don’t actively consider how musicology can interact with ongoing debates in education, museum and critical race studies about the removal of racially offensive monuments. see, for further reading: enslin 2020; chigudu 2020, and rodrigues 2020. 6 i am aware of the limitations implicit in focussing mostly on the contexts of north american and british musicology in this article, particularly given some of the groundbreaking work on decolonization that is happening across africa, south america, east asia, and australasia. my focus on the global north here reflects my own experience (and biases) of studying and working in musicology within north america and the uk. while i am aware of the privileges that these experiences have given me, i am also mindful of the limitations that my work has in terms of reaching out to other postcolonial contexts, and i hope that future studies on music and decolonization will embrace more global dialogues. i am also aware that discussions around decolonization in the usa and the uk tend to run along markedly different lines, where american universities are often faced with acknowledging the fact that they take up literal spaces of indigenous land, whereas in the uk the legacies of coloniality in education are more reflected in the exportation of knowledge values to the former colonies, and in the fact/fantasy that britain is still an educational magnet for the commonwealth. for critical work on diversifying north american music appreciation and introduction to music history courses, see recharte 2019; stimeling and tokar 2020; walker 2020; silverman 2015; and bradley 2012. 67 7 discussing the role of music and metaphor in the context of nineteenth-century britain, bennett zon has demonstrated that while the word “metaphor” “connotes a spectrum of meanings,” but one stable trend is that the metaphorization of music is prevalent throughout nineteenth-century scientific discourses (2016, 3). the centrality of metaphorization to music studies has also been discussed by lawrence m. zbikowski, who proposes that while metaphors have been useful for, if not central to, understanding and writing about music, “[m]usic, as an expressive medium distinct from that of language, can also offer interesting possibilities for thinking about metaphorical processes” (2008, 520). 8 a model study here is schwab 2010. 9 as marc evan bonds summarizes, despite the fact that hegel saw instrumental music as empty and meaningless, and scarcely an art at all, by virtue of the fact that he treated instrumental music “as an art different in kind—nonrepresentational and nonconceptual—hegel left the door open for it to do things that other arts could not” (2014, 88). 10 levitz’s work on decolonizing the society for american music could be a useful model for how to proceed, in terms of examining our institutions (2017). 11 a refreshing exception to this is a refreshing, personal, and discursive roundtable on music and decolonization that has just been published in ethnomusicology forum (tan 2021). 12 at the time of writing this article, there has yet to be an explicit sustained musicological engagement with theories of antiracism as opposed to decolonization, and this is an area that is certainly in need of attention. there are, however, growing antiracist initiatives within many academic institutions, particularly in north america. for an overview of theories of antiracism, and the revival of the term in 2020 in the canadian educational context, see ladhani and sitter 2020. 13 anna bull (2019, 27–49) has conducted extensive fieldwork research into the idea that, while british classical music education appears to promise lower-class students access to a bourgeois, utopian community, the structures that support classical music still create substantial barriers to those from the “outside.” 14 bull (2016, 126) has referred to the perpetuation of nineteenth-century performative ideals in classical music education for children today as the performance of “victorians in the present.” see also baker 2014. 15 indeed, when richard wagner first used the term “absolute music” in 1846 in relation to how beethoven’s ninth symphony was doing something different, he did so pejoratively, in describing instrumental music that lacked meaning. according to sanna pederson (2009, 241), the development and use of the term over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has seen many transformations and was by no means uniform. 16 relevant here, in terms of the centrality of race to ideas about german nationalism in the nineteenth century, is the work of gelbart 2007 and fauser 2005. 17 bonds, indeed, has characterized the aesthetic history of beethoven’s fifth symphony as “listening to truth” (2006, 44–62). 18 the insidious ties that were drawn between musical truth-as-democracy and white supremacy were reinforced in the writings of richard wagner, and later upheld by the nazi party during the second world war. 19 as a formative backdrop for chua, see dahlhaus 1989. 20 a problematic implication here is that because the victims of slavery and other colonized and marginalized peoples did not have equal access to forms of western education, they did not possess their own systems of knowledge. on this topic see williams 2005. 68 21 on recent moves to decolonize foucault, see renault 2015. 22 on the performative implications of nineteenth-century european racism see waters 2007. 23 michael marissen (2016), notably, has provided an in-depth analysis of anti-semitic elements in j. s. bach’s religious music, which illustrates the potential for further discursive work on negotiations of race within the canon. 24 for more on this topic see ewell 2020. the debates around the kind of questions that ewell has raised have even been picked up on outside of academia, for example, see ross 2021. 25 notable here was the weekly series of virtual events, leading up to ams 2020, organized by project spectrum music, a community of graduate students working to diversify music academia (project spectrum music 2020). 26 there were no female employees of the music examination boards until after the first world war (wright 2013, 89). 27 canada and australia are the only commonwealth countries to have developed their own graded music examination systems. 28 most of these face-to-face exportations of examining authority were put on hold in 2020 due to covid lockdowns (abrsm 2021 and tcl 2021). 29 these included many of the staff of the leading 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hill. yoshihara, mari. 2007. musicians from a difference shore: asians and asian americans in classical music. philadelphia: temple university press. zbikowski, lawrence m. 2008. “metaphor and music.” in the cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, edited by raymond w. gibbs. cambridge: cambridge university press, 502–524. zon, bennett. 2016. music and metaphor in nineteenth-century british musicology. new york: routledge. current musicology no.105 (fall 2019) © 2019 herbst. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 75 empirical explorations of guitar players attitudes towards their equipment and the role of distortion in rock music jan-peter herbst introduction the sound of the distorted electric guitar is widely considered a sonic trademark of most rock and metal music genres. as robert walser once claimed, the “most important aural sign of heavy metal is the sound of an extremely distorted electric guitar. anytime this sound is musically dominant, the song is arguably either metal or hard rock; any performance that lacks it cannot be included in the genre” (1993, 41). historically, the guitar and rock genre have been closely intertwined. from the early 1950s on, the solid-body electric guitar had been produced commercially and was already being played in blues, jazz, and hawaiian music. yet, it was the explosive emergence and international spreading of rock music that made the electric guitar popular throughout the western world (uimonen 2016, 2-3). in the history of popular music, the electric guitar’s diverse sounds created by numerous instrument models, amplifiers, overdrive and effects pedals became distinguishing features not only between rock and other genres (gracyk 1996), but also between rock’s various subgenres and the multifaceted styles of metal (berger and fales 2005, 185; cope 2010; wallach, berger, and greene 2011). musical instruments are closely connected with genres and subgenres (théberge 1997, 198), and some equipment is better suited for a particular genre than other gear (jones 1992, 83). therefore, musicians have modified instruments to their needs, as for example edward van halen who famously altered his marshall amplifier for higher distortion levels (walser 1993, 43-44) and who built his ‘frankenstrat’ in an attempt to combine the sounds and playing feels of two seminal guitar models, gibson’s les paul and fender’s stratocaster (obrecht 1978). hence instruments and their individual sounds are of central importance for studying musical, cultural, and sociological aspects of rock music (waksman 2003a). théberge argued that “[m]usical instruments are often the centre of controversy in pop and rock because their use is so intimately tied with the musicians’ notions of personal expression” (2001, 13). closer inspection shows that despite popular music studies research having stressed 76 current musicology the general relevance of music technology, music production, and mediatized dissemination for rock music (clarke 1983; frith 1990; jones 1992; théberge 1997), scholars have payed less attention to the instruments involved (waksman 2003a, 252). similarly, the focus shifted from musicians to producers (zak 2001; moorefield 2010). besides technological and production-related issues, popular music research has studied the electric guitar with regards to cultural identity and ethnicity (waksman 1999), communication (gracyk 1996), gender (frith and mcrobbie 1990; walser 1993; waksman 1999; bourdage 2010), and fetishism (uimonen 2016). despite this wealth of literature, there is still a profound lack of academic writing on what equipment rock guitar players choose to use and what goes into these choices. clearly, many publications exist on famous rock guitarists from the 1960s and ’70s: jimi hendrix (whiteley 1990; waksman 1999), eric clapton (brunning 2002), jimmy page (tolinski 2012), tony iommi (cope 2010), and eddie van halen (walser 1993; waksman 2003b), plus a plethora of (auto-)biographies. all this work honors achievements and reminds us of the classic times in rock history (grossberg 1992; gracyk 1996). furthermore, numerous texts exist about innovators like lester william ‘les paul’ polsfuss (waksman 1999) and influential instrument or amplification manufacturers such as jim marshall (maloof 2004). in contrast, little attention has been paid to the large number and variety of amateur, semi-professional, and professional guitar players that constitute the majority of today’s rock musicians. all these musicians continue to sustain genre traditions and develop rock music’s diverse subgenres, even if only in local, regional, or national scenes (wallach, berger, and greene 2011). this article has its source in a larger empirical research project on the distorted guitar in rock music, which focuses on distortion’s effect on playability and expressiveness (herbst 2016, 2017b, 2019c), its influences on chord perception, song-writing, and production (herbst 2017a, 2017c, 2018, 2019b; herbst, czedik-eysenberg, and reuter 2018), and on issues around genre aesthetics (herbst 2017, 2019a, 2020). while most work on rock music and guitar culture has studied recorded music or star personalities, this study follows an empirical mixed-methods design (creswell 2003, 208-227) by combining a quantitative survey (n = 413) of amateur and semi-professional musicians with ten qualitative interviews with professional guitarists of various prominence. it explores guitar players’ attitudes towards equipment, based on the theoretically grounded assumption that the musicians’ use of equipment is strongly connected with genre conventions (hicks 1990; jones 1992; walser 1993; gracyk 1996; théberge 1997; berger and fales 2005; cope 2010). the following questions arise from the 77 jan-peter herbst overarching research project and other rock and guitar literature: what are players’ attitudes toward sound quality, and how do they approach crafting a personal sound? to what extent are players concerned with pursuing traditional guitar sounds? with an empirical design, the study contributes multifaceted data on the rock guitar to popular music studies largely missing so far. method the study followed a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design (creswell 2003, 208-227) using qualitative findings to complement quantitative results. different approaches were combined to compensate for the weakness of each method and to come to a deeper understanding (flick 2009, 23-34; 444). procedure and sample an online survey (included in the appendix) generated the quantitative data. it was promoted on german-speaking online message boards.1 forums in countries other than germany, austria, and switzerland were not addressed since the survey was in german. the response rate was high; 413 out of 569 questionnaires (73%) were fully answered within three weeks of data collection between 24 august and 13 september 2015. 97% of the sample were male. the age spectrum was between 15 and 64 years. the two largest age groups were those from 25 to 29 (16%) and 20 to 24 (15%) years. each of the five-year-groups between 30 and 54 had approximately 12%. least represented were the youngest (15 to 19 years, 3%) and oldest (55 to 59 years, 6%; 60 to 64 years, 3%) participants. regarding the preferred genres played on the electric guitar (figure 1), each respondent chose an average of 3.56 (sd = 1.82) out of 12 by multiple choice. styles like blues, classic rock, and hard rock were generally favored; metal genres were less popular. the category ‘no rock and metal styles’ included styles commonly played without or with little distortion such as jazz, soul, funk, or reggae. a respondent’s selected genres were generally stylistically close, for instance blues, classic rock, and hard rock; alternative rock, grunge, and punk; or all metal styles. the ‘other rock/metal styles’ were not clearly defined. however, since they were selected by participants who also favored extreme metal, metalcore, and nu metal, the ‘other rock/metal genres’ likely represented other ‘extreme’ styles of metal. 78 current musicology figure 1. participants’ preferred genres played on the electric guitar (n = 1,487); numbers in brackets represent absolute numbers as would be expected from the age structure of the sample, most participants played the guitar for many years. most (58%) had 15 or more years of experience. a small number played less than a year (0.3%) or between one and three years (3%). the other groups were similar in size (4 to 6 years, 9%; 7 to 10 years, 14%; 11 to 15 years, 15%). regarding expertise, only 12 persons (3%) considered themselves amateurs, 216 (54%) intermediates, 134 (34%) semi-professionals, and 38 (10%) professionals. most participants were self-taught (43%). 35% had instrumental lessons, 5% had studied for a research-focused music degree, and 3% did a higher education course in music performance. further 13% had private lessons or mentors in bands. the decisive criterion for differentiating expertise groups was level of formal education, which correlated significantly albeit with a weak effect (rs = .15; p < .01). all genres except for hard rock and grunge showed clear correlations with age (table 1). playing experience correlated positively with blues and the ‘no rock/metal’ styles, and negatively with alternative rock, punk, and all metal styles except for heavy metal. expertise and genre only correlated negatively for punk (rs = −.11; p = .02) and positively for ‘no rock/metal styles’ (rs = .18; p < .001). by tendency, professionals were less fond of playing metal genres. interviewing internationally renowned artists can be difficult because contact details are not publicly available, or requests do not get past their management. for this study, it was not possible to recruit enough professional guitarists from germany with an international reputation. 79 jan-peter herbst genres no rock/ metal blues classic rock alternative rock punk heavy metal extreme metal metalcore nu metal other rock/ metal r .18*** .24*** .26*** −.15** −.16** −.15** −.31*** −.30*** −.17** −.16** notes. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001 hence renowned players from other countries were also contacted. the final sample comprised ten internationally active professional guitar players, five from germany and five from abroad. the players provided written answers to six questions (interview questions are included in the appendix) about the overall importance of having a good and individual guitar sound, the relevance of distortion, their control over their guitar sound onstage and in the studio, and the effect of distortion on their playing. gregor hilden, a german solo artist, represented guitar styles played with less distortion such as blues, jazz, and soul. us-american dave hill, leader of the dave hill group and instructor at musician’s institute, and german alex conti of the bands atlantis and lake, stood for the less distorted genres too. swedish guitarist john huldt, a session musician from los angeles, also participated. german players thomas blug (thomas blug band, rockanarchie) and marcus deml (errorhead, blue poets) represented guitarists of instrumental bands. the remaining participants were recognized metal players: germany-based victor smolski (rage, mind odyssey), american james byrd (james byrd solo, fifth angel), angelo perlepes (angelo perlepes’ mystery) from greece, and swedish guitarist christopher amott (arch enemy, armageddon). instrument the survey included three parts addressing owned gear and preferred equipment, attitudes towards guitar sounds, and person-related data.2 questions on equipment and personal data had nominal and ordinal answer choices plus optional open comments fields. the attitudes were measured with 5-point interval scales with labels on the anchors, signing (1) as ‘complete disagreement’ and (5) as ‘complete agreement’. six scales (table 2) with satisfactory internal consistencies were constructed. the scale ‘importance of guitar sound’ comprised items addressing the relevance of being able to precisely control one’s sound, a general statement on the importance of a high-quality sound, and about having a clear vision of one’s personal sound. adjusting sounds’ captured the willingness table 1. spearman correlations between genre and age 80 current musicology table 2. psychometric scale properties scale cronbach’s α explained variance m min max variance items importance of guitar sound .76 53% 4.40 4.27 4.69 .06 3 adjusting sounds .68 47% 3.52 3.05 3.80 .17 3 experimentation .74 39% 3.21 2.88 3.60 .08 5 attitude toward distortion .76 47% 2.99 2.38 3.43 .18 6 evaluation of playing techniques .72 42% 3.81 3.42 4.62 .19 9 playing difficulties .77 42% 3.09 2.98 3.31 .02 5 to using different tones in a song, adding effects pedals, and adjusting one’s sound to the characteristics of each song. the scale ‘experimentation’ gathered attitudes towards experimenting with various guitars, amplifiers, cabinets, loudspeakers, pedals, and pickups. the scale ‘attitude towards distortion’ included items on playing feel, expressiveness, the relevance of distorted sounds when choosing or buying equipment, and the willingness to compromise clean sounds for higher-quality distortion sounds. since distortion alters the acoustic characteristics of the instrument, the last two scales evaluated how such physical features affected the playing (herbst 2017b, 2019c). in the ‘evaluation’ scale, the participants rated on the challenges distortion caused for several playing techniques. the last scale ‘playing difficulties with distortion’ assessed what impact distortion had on controlling noise such as feedback and overlapping notes. data analysis expertise was evaluated with ordinal spearman correlation (rs). testing genres was only possible indirectly by comparing ‘selected’ with ‘not selected’ genres as they were saved in dichotomous variables. genre differences regarding attitudes were evaluated by multiple regression analyses. the coefficient of determination (r2) informed about the explained variance, and the standardized coefficient beta indicated strength and direction of the predicators. nominal data such as choice of equipment was analyzed with chi-squared distribution and cramer’s v. 81 jan-peter herbst results attitudes towards guitar sound guitar sound was very important for most players (m = 4.40; sd = 0.66). with this shared attitude, the genres did not differ significantly. a highquality guitar sound was important to most players but more so for advanced players (rs = .22; p < .001). despite highly valuing sound quality, the participants hesitated to agree to be adjusting their sounds regularly to the features of individual songs (m = 3.52; sd = 1.00). the genres varied to medium effect (r2 = .10; f(12, 399) = 3.67; p < .001). genres that tended more to vary or adjust sounds were alternative rock (β = .20; p < .001), classic rock (β = .15; p = .01), and ‘other rock and metal styles’ (β = .11; p = .03). punk guitarists (β = −.14; p < .01) were less likely to change their sounds. expertise did not have a significant effect on the tonal variety. the sample population had a slightly positive attitude towards experimentation (m = 3.21; sd = 0.96). they experimented with different guitars, pedals, and amplifiers rather than with pickups, cabinets, and loudspeakers. on a single item level, creating an individual sound (m = 3.80; sd = 1.04) ranked far before an innovative sound (m = 2.71; sd = 1.22). the regression model explained medium variance on genres (r2 = .09; f(12, 401) = 3.24; p < .001). hard rock (β = .16; p < .01), classic rock (β = .13; p = .02), alternative rock (β = .12; p = .03), and ’no rock/metal styles’ (β = .11; p = .04) players were more likely to experiment. expertise had a small effect, yet the openness for experimentation increased with advanced abilities (rs = .14; p = .01). for all interviewed professional guitarists, the quality of their guitar sound was very important. hill stated, “a good sound helps me to play my best. i have to be inspired by my guitar tone, or i find it hard to play in my style.” similarly, conti described that adjusting his sound to the specific requirements of each song by carefully setting the gain level would enhance his playing. for him, the musical style was the most important criterion informing the setup of his sound. blug and deml compared their sound to the voice. without the right sound, their playing would be constrained and meaningless. creating the perfect sound, smolski declared, required great effort. since sounds were made up of many components, a good amplifier by itself was not enough. rather, the right balance between pickups, guitar, cables, effects, amplifiers, and cabinets was decisive. it would take years of experience to find such a balance. smolski further explained that his sound greatly influenced his playing and songwriting. despite the importance of gear, several players regarded the human factor as equally relevant. amott 82 current musicology described, “the sound […] is created mostly by my hands and how i play the guitar, and that goes for everybody. for example: i believe if eddie van halen plugged in to my setup, he would still sound like eddie van halen.” the right sound could support the artistic intention but only when it reacted to nuances. huldt declared, “i go after sounds that makes my playing come through in an as honest as possible way.” all players insisted on taking control over their guitar sound onstage and in the studio. the majority aimed to get their final sounds by deliberately setting amplifiers and positioning microphones to prevent recording or mixing engineers from altering it unnecessarily. a few guitarists as for instance deml even started producing their own albums because they had been dissatisfied with the sound that external engineers and producers created. although most professionals did not produce themselves, they still made a point of taking part in the engineering process. especially in metal, shaping the guitar sound jointly with the producer was common. amott described: in the studio for the rhythm guitars […] i always use 4 rhythm tracks to get that big ’wall of sound.’ i will, together with the producer, mix and match different tones from different amplifiers and experiment with different settings and effects. this means sometimes recording with an ’uncomfortable’ sound (for example with a lot of mid-range, or very ’fuzzy’). the point is then that the mixing and overdubbing of these sounds will blend together and create a bigger sound. this strategy was not universal for rock and metal players. perlepes, for instance, took care to produce his guitar sound with as little manipulation of the original sound as possible. distortion although distortion is a defining feature of the electric guitar, the sample population regarded it of medium importance (m = 2.96; sd = 0.96). single scale items confirmed that the distorted sound was a relevant factor when choosing or buying gear (m = 3.42; sd = 1.24), yet most players did not like to compromise their clean sound for high-quality distortion (m = 2.52; sd = 1.32), which can be necessary because most guitar models and amplifiers have strengths in only a few sounds. the genres differed considerably (r2 = .38; f (12, 403) = 19.58; p < .001). as would be expected, most positive about distortion were players of heavy metal (β = .21; p < .001), hard rock (β = .21; p < .001), extreme metal (β = .19; p < .001), punk (β = .11; p = .01), and metalcore (β = .10; p = .04). for musicians not playing rock or metal, distortion was rather irrelevant (β = −.37; p < .001). compared to 83 jan-peter herbst genre, the differences between the expertise groups were small. distortion became less important with growing expertise (rs = −.14; p < .01). the professional guitar players also commented on the relevance of distortion. four of them did not see the need to make compromises between clean and distorted sounds. huldt regarded the problem as solved with a two-channel amplifier. deml played a custom-made amplifier to avoid this common dilemma. the blues and classic rock players had a more affordable solution as they created their distorted sound with overdrive pedals. hill explained: i prefer gear (amps) that provide a very good clean guitar tone… i use only tube amps for their warmth. i don’t generally like solid state amps for guitar… i can always add overdrive and distortion with my pedals, so i don’t have to compromise. on most of my gigs, i have to have a good clean sound, but my lead sound is easily added with pedals. this approach also granted access to different sounds, as hill further elucidated, “i also like to blend two distortions together to create a hybrid sound. i might have one pedal, like my zen drive set for a chunky rock rhythm sound, then i add my xoctic audio rc2 for a more singing lead sound for a solo. this can create a smoother set up between the rhythm and the lead”. blues and rock guitarists like blug described a slightly different approach, “since i set my main sound so that it distorts with the volume control of the guitar up, and that it is clean with less volume, the compromise depends on the gain level. if i need more gain, i use an extra distortion pedal to get the desired distortion irrespective of the amplifier. a real clean sound is of minor importance.” the basic sound blug described is a medium distorted one that can be ‘cleaned up’ with the guitar’s volume control. this strategy was shared by others, especially by players of ‘softer’ genres. conti and perlepes even speculated on the electric guitar not having a clean sound at all. perlepes reasoned, “for me there is no sacrifice because there is no “clean” sound. all the vintage amps that i’m using have a certain clip no matter what. on the other hand, some players think that the ’clean’ sound is like plugging the guitar straight into a mixing board. that sound doesn’t exist for me.” concurring with perlepes, most metal players cared little about clean sounds. smolski declared, “since 90% of my songs are built on the distorted guitar sound, it is far more important when choosing equipment. moreover, a good distorted sound is much harder to find than a clean sound. therefore, i do not make any sacrifices when it comes to distortion.” the statements further show that the players used tube amplifiers even if this dilemma could be solved with modern modelling, simulation, or profiling technology. only amott did not use 84 current musicology traditional tube technology: within seconds of trying an amp or a guitar i know if it will work for me. how it responds to muting and chugging is an important factor, that the bass frequencies don’t get too muddy and that it still has bite even if your(sic) playing with a lot of distortion on a down-tuned guitar. i play a digital amp now, a kemper profiler. it is great for portability and practicality, but i really do prefer the real thing, 100w tube amp heads of the brands engl, marshall and evh. amott’s statement demonstrated that comparing the profiling device to ‘real’ tube amplifiers was still common, and digital technology was not chosen for its sound but its practicability. playing with distortion distortion changes the physical properties of the guitar sound, which potentially affects the playing. the scale ‘evaluation of playing techniques’ measured if distortion made playing more difficult (1) or easier (5). the mean value of 3.82 (sd = 0.49) showed that distortion was overall perceived as simplifying. especially feedback (m = 4.61; sd = 0.76), artificial harmonics (m = 4.33; sd = 0.88), and legato techniques (m = 4.13; sd = 0.89) profited from distortion. single items further indicated that distortion helped to mask sloppiness (m = 3.47; sd = 1.20), yet, it did not suffice for facilitating faster playing (m = 2.57; sd = 1.19). regarding playing difficulties, the scale’s mean value of 3.10 (sd = 0.83) showed some challenges. preventing noise with the fretting hand (m = 3.32; sd = 1.18) and the picking hand (m = 3.14; sd = 1.20) were considered the greatest difficulties. the regression analysis did not reveal significant differences between the genres for both scales. the expertise groups did not differ in their evaluation of playing techniques but did so regarding playing difficulties. amateurs tended to have problems playing with distorted sounds. these difficulties decreased with greater expertise (rs = −.16; p = .001). the interviewed professionals were clearly divided over the effects of distortion. according to byrd, the player’s skills were decisive: “the better one’s technique, the less difference it makes. good technique adjusts itself for equipment differences. if your playing is not articulate and fluid, you may fool some with a lot of gain, but you won’t fool a player.” blues guitarists tended to be affected by distortion less. conti stated that distortion neither significantly affected expressiveness nor caused difficulty. he warned, however, that too much distortion would hamper individual sound characteristics of guitar models. deml highlighted reduced dynamic range while huldt and hill saw reduced sound clarity as a negative effect of distortion. 85 jan-peter herbst that is why even metal guitarists like amott referred to the necessity of setting the gain level with care: “i think i play with less distortion than a lot of other metal players, at least on my lead sound. i have this obsession with playing clean and i don’t like the notes to get too muddy or blend together. also, when you have an overly distorted tone, little nuances in your playing get lost.” yet, other metal guitarists such as smolski emphasized distortion’s potential to increase the guitar’s presence in a band arrangement: “little distortion makes the sound fuller and the playing more articulate, clean and present. too much distortion compresses the sound and increases the middle range, makes the sound more aggressive and often supports the playing.” with regards to previous deliberations, the professionals gave advice on playing with a distorted sound. byrd and huldt suggested practicing with little or no distortion to avoid hiding behind its masking effect. others emphasized the challenge to control noise and highlighted the importance of finding a sound that supports one’s expression. to acquire these playing skills, blug recommended old tube amplifiers without preamplifier gain to work on phrasing and noise control. deml and hilden supported this advice, arguing against preamplifier distortion and modelling technology because of its limited dynamics and indirect connection between picking and resulting tone. distortion produced with a tube power amplifier, in contrast, helped to retain dynamics and create an individual sound that was shaped by the fingers. amott suggested experimenting with different sounds to find an individual tone: learn to control it and use it to its full extent. the distortion is almost an instrument in itself, i feel. there are many beautiful tones and effects you can get from it, as all the little details of your playing, like pick scrapes and overtones come through stronger than if you were to play with a clean sound. also of course, the sustain of the notes will be longer. these benefits were closely related to the challenges of sound control, as amott further explained: i’ve always felt it to be important to be able to control the string noise that can come with playing with distortion. thus, in my opinion technique is not just how many notes you can squeeze into a solo, but also the ability to execute correct bends and to be able play clean. it is extremely beneficial to work on these things; it will make your playing stand out more and make it come alive. smolski shared this view, further stressing the importance to test guitar sounds in a band context. 86 current musicology equipment the participants of the quantitative study provided information on their preferred equipment, which allows insights into genre aesthetics and attitudes. for example, the associations and tonal characteristics of certain guitar models and shapes correlate with time of their emergence – the music being played on the respective instrument at the time – and they further are important for retro trends and styles. semi-hollow body guitars already emerged in the 1930s. the first solid-body guitars being widely sold were fender’s single-coil-equipped telecaster (1950) and stratocaster (1954), and gibson’s les paul (1952), flying v (1958), and explorer (1958), all fitted with humbucker pickups. ‘superstrats’, having stratocaster shapes with humbucker pickups instead of single coils, were on the rise in the 1970s and became very popular in the ‘80s (burrluck, and seabury 1996), especially due to their suitability for distorted rock riffs and high gain solos as a consequence of noise reduction and high-level output (herbst 2020). since the 1980s, more extravagant shapes have been introduced by manufacturers including bc rich. to this day, these shapes are associated with times, genres, and sound aesthetics, partly due to famous guitarists such as les paul player jimmy page and stratocaster player jimi hendrix (kitts, and tolinski 2002; herbst 2020).3 there were no significant differences in gear choice between the expertise groups; therefore, only general descriptive statistics and genre differences are reported. the sample population possessed an average of four (m = 4.25; sd = 1.92) electric guitars. the most popular shape was the les paul (28%), followed by the stratocaster with humbucker pickups (‘superstrat’, 20%). further 14% preferred unspecified shapes with humbuckers. less popular were more traditional guitar shapes with single coils (stratocaster with single coils 10%, telecaster 7%) and least semi-hollow body models (5%), the flying v and explorer (both 1.5%). 14% of the participants could not decide. guitar choice was hugely different between the genres (table 3). participants who did not play rock and metal diverged greatly from the others. they chose their guitar for their suitability for individual songs, hardly played extravagant shapes, and played less ‘superstrats’ than players of other genres. instead, they significantly preferred the traditional singlecoil-equipped stratocaster and telecaster. although the preference for the les paul was small compared to rock and metal genres, it still was the preferred guitar shape. blues players had a similar profile, also resembling that of classic rock guitarists. hard rock players were similarly traditionconscious and favored the les paul more than players in any other genre. despite this tradition-consciousness, they were not fond of the stratocaster 87 jan-peter herbst with single coils. the genres alternative rock, punk, and grunge all had uncharacteristic profiles and hence differed little from each other. the ‘superstrat’ was the table 3. preferred guitar shapes (only significant genres) no rock/ metal styles blues hard rock heavy metal extreme metal metal core other rock/ metal styles chi-square χ2=48.14*** v=.34 χ2=33.43*** v=.29 χ2=28.10*** v=.26 χ2=42.68*** v=.32 χ2=34.81*** v=.29 χ2=23.19** v=.24 χ2=21.07** v=.23 stratocaster with sc 16% (6%) 14% (5%) 5% (15%) 3% (13%) 2% (12%) 0% (11%) 7% (11%) stratocaster with hb (‘superstrat’) 16% (25%) 15% (30%) 26% (17%) 36% (15%) 47% (17%) 46% (18%) 29% (19%) telecaster 9% (6%) 8% (7%) 4% (11%) 3% (9%) 2% (8%) 5% (8%) 4% (9%) les paul 19% (32%) 27% (24%) 30% (22%) 26% (26%) 18% (28%) 12% (28%) 19% (29%) semi-hollow body 9% (3%) 7% (3%) 4% 7%) 2% (7%) 2% (6%) 7% (5%) 2% (7%) flying v / explorer 0% (4%) 2% (3%) 4% (1%) 6% (1%) 5% (2%) 2% (3%) 2% (3%) another shape with hb 11% (16%) 10% (20%) 13% (15%) 15% (14%) 14% (14%) 17% (14%) 18% (13%) depending on song 20% (8%) 17% (8%) 14% (13%) 10% (15%) 11% (14%) 10% (14%) 21% (11%) notes. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001; df = 7; n = 406; the values in brackets indicate the values of all other genres primary guitar shape in metal genres, with a dominance in the hardessubgenres, extreme metal and metalcore. the average player owned 2.7 (sd = 1.52) amplifiers. 72% preferred the traditional tube design, 13% newer modelling technology, 5% hybrid, and 3% transistor amplifiers.4 a further 6% could not decide, and 2% did not know the technology of their amplifier. different genre preferences only existed at a probability level of .1; hard rock players favored tube amplifiers the most, whereas metalcore and nu metal guitarists were open towards modelling technology above average. concerning amplifier construction, 53% preferred the stack (separate head and cabinet), 40% combos, and 7% racks. genres differed considerably in their preference for certain construction types (table 4). 88 current musicology table 4. preferred amplifier construction types (only significant genres) chi-square stack combo rack no rock/metal styles χ2 = 24.17***, v = .25 41% (64%) 51% (28%) 8% (8%) blues χ2 = 11.07**, v = .17 52% (57%) 43% (31%) 5% (12%) hard rock χ2 = 20.03***, v = .25 66% (42%) 29% (48%) 5% (11%) heavy metal χ2 = 34.56***, v = .30 76% (45%) 17% (47%) 7% (8%) extreme metal χ2 = 25.76***, v = .26 75% (50%) 9% (43%) 16% (7%) metalcore χ2 = 19.90***, v = .22 70% (52%) 10% (42%) 20% (6%) nu metal χ2 = 8.42*, v = .15 73% (52%) 16% (41%) 11% (8%) other rock/metal styles χ2 = 27.02***, v = .26 67% (50%) 18% (45%) 15% (5%) notes. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001; df = 2; n = 397 the amplifier stack was the standard in hard rock and most metal genres. combos were more common in less distorted styles even though the stack was still used more widely. only among the ‘no rock/metal’ players was the combo the favorite choice. racks were the exception, yet they were significantly more common in ‘harder’ metal styles. the preferences for amplifier output were balanced. favored by 33% were the least powerful devices with up to 30 watts, followed by the models with 50 to 99 watts (28%). the most powerful amplifiers with 100 and more watts were used by a quarter (25%). least popular were devices with 31 to 49 watts (15%). regarding the genres players of metal styles preferred more powerful amplifiers than guitarists of other genres (table 5). in contrast, the devices with low output were most popular in ‘no rock/metal styles’ and blues. table 5. preferred amplifier power (only significant genres) chi-square up to 30 w 31 – 49 w 50 – 99 w 100+ w no rock/metal styles χ2=12.79**, v=.18 41% (27%) 13% (17%) 28% (26%) 18% (30%) blues χ2=26.33***, v=.26 39% (24%) 19% (10%) 25% (29%) 17% (36%) heavy metal χ2=23.57***, v=.24 23% (37%) 8% (19%) 32% (25%) 38% (19%) extreme metal χ2=27.22***, v=.26 18% (36%) 7% (17%) 23% (27%) 52% (20%) metalcore χ2=25.99***, v=.26 15% (35%) 0% (17%) 31% (26%) 54% (22%) nu metal χ2=9.83*, v=.16 19% (34%) 8% (16%) 28% (27%) 44% (23%) other rock/metal styles χ2=16.34***, v=.20 23% (36%) 9% (18%) 31% (25%) 37% (21%) notes. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001; df = 3; n = 397 89 jan-peter herbst the determining factor for choosing amplifiers was their convincing sound quality (72%). great flexibility (33%) and pragmatic reasons such as easy handling or good transportability (32%) were less important. only 17% saw the price as decisive. sound quality was significantly more important for players of all rock genres, including punk and grunge, with values between 82 and 94 percent. flexibility was significantly more relevant for hard rock and classic rock guitarists. handling and transportability were important only in ‘no rock/metal styles’, which might be due to the higher average age of this group. approximately half of the players regularly added distortion pedals (53%) to their sound, one-quarter sometimes (25%), and a fifth did not use them at all (22%). clear genre differences existed. whereas players of ‘no rock/metal styles’ and blues usually played with pedals, metal guitarists refrained from using them the most. in general, 47% intended to create additional timbres, 33% wished for more distortion, and a further 33% boosted the power amplifier for the specific distortion aesthetic this technique creates. more definition and transparency were of minor relevance (22%). the open answers indicated that most players used pedals either as a solo boost or to create different kinds of distortion. the reasons for using pedals varied considerably between the genres (table 6). additional timbres were the primary reason for players of ‘no rock/metal styles’, blues, and all rock genres, followed by greater distortion levels and power amplifier distortion. in contrast, the main purpose of distortion pedals for extreme metal and metalcore guitarists was to increase definition and transparency, a purpose not equally shared by heavy metal players. table 6. reasons for using distortion pedals more distortion definition and transparency additional timbre power amplifier distortion no rock/metal styles 37%* (28%) 21% (24%) 56%** (42%) 37%* (26%) blues 38%** (24%) 22% (23%) 54%** (41%) 36%** (23%) classic rock 37%* (27%) 23% (23%) 54%** (41%) 33% (27%) hard rock 37%* (28%) 27% (19%) 54%** (42%) 34%* (27%) alternative rock 38%* (28%) 27% (21%) 60%*** (41%) 36%* (27%) punk 36% (31%) 31% (21%) 50% (48%) 32% (30%) grunge 54%*** (29%) 29% (22%) 60%* (47%) 42%* (29%) heavy metal 28% (33%) 28% (21%) 44% (50%) 27% (32%) extreme metal 30% (32%) 45%*** (19%) 42% (49%) 23% (32%) 90 current musicology metalcore 20%* (33%) 49%*** (20%) 37% (49%) 22% (31%) nu metal 26% (32%) 26% (22%) 47% (48%) 21% (31%) other rock/metal styles 31% (32%) 35%*** (19%) 54% (46%) 33% (30%) notes. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001; df = 1; n = 418 discussion importance of guitar sound in both the qualitative and quantitative parts of the study, the participants emphasized the huge importance of a high-quality guitar sound. besides general agreement to the respective scale, the collected data on equipment allows drawing further conclusions. the findings show that the participants owned four guitars on average; 20% had five and more, 15% more than ten. in addition, they possessed approximately three amplifiers. the sound quality, main reason for choosing amplifiers, raises the question as to why guitarists need more than one device. since flexibility was less important, players are likely to use specialized amplifiers for achieving sounds that fit with genre aesthetics. this assumption is supported by the result of most genres having specific conventions regarding guitar shapes, pedals, and amplification. the scales on adjusting the sound to the requirements of the music and on experimentation found less agreement. whether this attitude can be ascribed to willingness or the instruments’ tonal diversity cannot be answered with certainty. it might be that players do not care about access to a larger number of sounds as long as a few tones suit their personal style and favored genre aesthetics. players tried to optimize their sound with different strategies. while beginners experimented with various guitar shapes and pedals, more experienced players extended experimentation to carefully selecting amplifiers, cabinets, and loudspeakers. hence the focus shifted from instrument to amplification. beginners might develop a preference for a distinct sound and feel of an instrument through direct contact, possibly not realizing or minding the nuances of the amplification chain as much as more experienced players do. overall, the wish for an individual as well as innovative sound increased with more expertise. whether this wish for an individual sound stays within genre conventions or extends its boundaries remains unclear. the analysis revealed that expertise correlated with the intention of having an individual sound. the players acquired an awareness of sonic 91 jan-peter herbst details and learned to utilize these for developing their own style. in the interviews, the professional guitarists confirmed this. all of them created unique sounds by combining amplifiers and pedals or by using custommade equipment. the findings confirm the close connection between sound choice and individual playing style, which is claimed in literature (walser 1993; gracyk 1996; théberge 1997; waksman 1999, 2003b). however, the results of both parts of the study were not congruent regarding a flexible guitar sound. the professionals chose their sounds more carefully, which accords with interview statements common in guitar magazines (herbst 2016, 68-106; herbst 2020). professional musicians seem to value a flexible sound or merely have better means of shaping it. for example, him guitarist viljami lindström in a guitar magazine interview described his practice of sending the signal to two amplifiers to blend a defined sound with clear attack of the pure amplifier with a thicker yet less defined sound, created by the fuzz pedal enriched amplifier (becker 2010). even blues musicians like stevie ray vaughan are known for having played at least four amplifiers on stage in the 1980s (frank 2008), and contemporary blues players such as joe bonamassa rely on a combination of various amplifier models by different manufacturers (roser 2009). tradition-consciousness grossberg (1992), gracyk (1996), and moore (2001) have claimed that rock music and its culture are tradition-conscious. if that were true, not only the compositions and performances but also the musicians’ preferences and attitudes towards equipment would have to match this hypothesis. journalistic literature such as a column by hunter (2014a, 2014b, 2014c) on vintage guitars, pickups, and pedals, as well as magazines like vintage guitar, contribute evidence to this claim. such specialist vintage magazines and more general ones like guitar and guitar player pass on historical guitar knowledge to beginners, potentially influencing the choice of equipment and sound aesthetics of future generations. a general tendency towards traditional equipment was confirmed, yet more so for blues, rock, and heavy metal than for newer metal genres. les paul and stratocaster were generally the most popular shapes except for the various extreme metal styles; in addition, most amplifiers still had a traditional tube design. newer technology such as transistor, hybrid, or simulation was the exception. this rejection of newer technology likely stems more from biased attitudes than from the actual sound quality, which accords with recent research (herbst 2019; herbst, czedik-eysenberg, and reuter 2019) confirming the high quality of modern guitar amplification technology. the increasing popularity of low-output amplifiers (see also 92 current musicology herbst 2016, 99-106; herbst 2020) further indicates that tube distortion remains the aesthetic ideal. among the genres, clear differences existed in sound aesthetics and reasons for choosing gear. this finding is insightful because it indicates that specific genre sounds do not solely stem from structural and performative differences plus production conventions, but also from specific guitar gear to some extent. vice versa, specific equipment supports guitarists in playing different structures and genre-specific playing techniques (herbst 2017a, 2017b, 2019a, 2019c). heavy metal guitarists were most fond of ‘superstrats’, loud amplifiers, and stacks, still seeming to prefer gear that early 1970s hard rock and heavy metal bands used (brunning 2002; cope 2010). in contrast, players of nu metal, extreme metal, and metalcore highly favored equipment capable of producing powerful sounds by down-tuned or seven-string guitars combined with high-output amplifiers (herbst 2017a). today’s hard rock players appear to prefer traditional sounds, especially those by the les paul in the tradition of early eric clapton and jimmy page (brunning 2002; tolinski 2012). classic rock players tend to stick to les pauls and stratocasters with single coils, which were common in the 1960s. the deliberate use of pedals demonstrates the traditionalism of several genres too. players of rock, blues, and ‘no rock/metal’ preferred additional timbres and overdrive pedals to boost tube amplifier distortion very much in the spirit of the 1960s and ‘70s. similarly, the blues and rock guitarists preferred amplifiers up to 30 watts. these choices all contribute evidence to the popularity of the traditional tube distortion aesthetic (herbst 2016, 2020). the results overall confirm the tradition-consciousness described in rock music literature (grossberg 1992; gracyk 1996; moore 2001). most players hold on to genre conventions; norms are mostly disregarded by modern metal guitarists playing nu metal, metalcore, and extreme metal only. with its greater emphasis on tradition in rock than in modern metal, the guitar seems to be on a fine line between traditionalism and innovation (herbst 2016, 2020). relevance of distortion based on research in popular music studies (hicks 1990; baugh 1993; walser 1993; gracyk 1996; berger and fales 2005; cope 2010), acoustic analyses (herbst 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2018, 2019a, 2019b, 2019c; herbst, czedik-eysenberg, and reuter 2018), biographies of rock guitar players (bockris 1993; clapton 2007; iommi 2012; townshend 2012; hasted 2013; power 2014), and other journalistic literature (palmer 1995; guppy 2015; mead 2015), the distorted sound aesthetic was expected to be highly important for rock and metal players. the quantitative results, 93 jan-peter herbst however, did not fully confirm this assumption. while there were items showing that for most players distortion was a relevant criterion when choosing an amplifier, many hesitated to agree that distortion was the only important tone. genre affinity was the decisive distinguishing factor in this regard. as would be expected, distorted sounds were particularly valued by metal and hard rock players, and least relevant in blues and styles other than rock and metal. for various reasons, most players did not like to limit their instrument to the distorted sound. for some, the expressive potential was hampered (herbst 2017b, 2019c) and for others, distortion led to an undesired sound aesthetic (berger and fales 2005; herbst 2017a). too much distortion could increase dissonance (herbst 2017c, 2018, 2019b) or diminish a transparent band sound (mynett 2017), as was highlighted in the open comments. the interviews showed that professional musicians avoid making compromises if possible. they stated that they use custom-made equipment or combine several effects pedals to achieve different distorted timbres and a unique sound, closely linked with their musical expressiveness. this accords with studies on the acoustic effects of distortion (herbst 2017b, 2019c). the quality of their distorted sound was most relevant for hard rock and metal players, and only they emphasized a positive connection between playing and expressiveness. blues guitarists, in contrast, considered excessive distortion to hamper expressive playing. despite research indicating otherwise (herbst 2019; herbst, czedik-eysenberg, and reuter 2019), all interviewees agreed that tube amplifiers were the only adequate technology for distorted sounds. even in the rare case that profiling technology was used for pragmatic reasons, the sound was meant to simulate tube amplifiers, which accords with analyses of online message boards (herbst, czedik-eysenberg, and reuter 2019). overall, most of the professional players made huge efforts to create distorted sounds that supported their playing and artistic vision best. playing with distortion previous studies have argued that distortion increases the guitars’ potential for virtuoso solo playing in rock and metal (walser 1993; waksman 2003b). the present results support herbst’s (2017b, 2019c) acoustic studies from a musician’s perspective. most of the participants agreed that distortion facilitates playing. masking of sloppiness was rated the main simplifying factor, which improved the playing feel rather than allowing faster playing. issues concerning playing technique were considered less important; rather the use of distortion appeared to be motivated by its expressive potential (herbst 2019c). advanced players likely have learned 94 current musicology to cope with distortion’s negative effects; they use its benefits (sustain, legato sound, rough timbre, easier artificial harmonics, and feedback) and seem to be less challenged by noise control, limited phrasing, and tonal assimilation (herbst 2017b, 2019c). that may be why many experts did not remember what difficulties beginners face with this sound. unexpectedly, both scales on playing with distortion did not differ between the genres; two other outcomes had been expected. firstly, metal guitarists might have emphasized the challenges of playing with a much-distorted sound because handling distortion is regarded one of the major difficulties in literature (govan 2003; herbst 2017b). secondly, they might have rated distortion as simplifying since it is fundamental to metal guitar playing, e.g. excessive palm muting, artificial harmonics, and fast picking (herbst 2017b). overall, expertise seems to be more important than genre affinity. in contrast to the mainly homogenous ratings of the quantitative study, the interviewed professionals were divided over distortion’s effect on playing. some experts saw its impact decreasing with advanced playing technique, which is in line with the quantitative results. especially for players of less distorted styles like blues, distortion level was determined more by expressive intentions than technical considerations because too much distortion may decrease dynamic range and tonal control (herbst 2019c). the metal guitarists, aware of this, advised using as little distortion as possible to obtain the playing benefits and characteristic sounds expected in metal genres while retaining some dynamic range. overall, rock and metal guitarists stressed the simplified playing feel with distortion and explained it in greater detail than players of ‘softer’ genres did. the quantitative and qualitative results are consistent but do not completely coincide with the literature. despite the simplifying effect, no general agreement was found for distortion to facilitate faster playing, which contradicts research on the ‘shred guitar’ (walser 1993; waksman 2003b; herbst 2017b). this discrepancy could have been caused by the considerable playing experience most participants of this study had. many open comments indicated that players cared about a proper playing technique. even though challenges of playing with distortion found little agreement, the quantitative results and some open comments confirmed difficulties such as noise control and altered expressiveness due to decreased dynamic range (govan 2003; herbst 2017b). limitations the findings are subject to certain limitations. the quantitative sample was gathered on online forums for guitar players. since members of such communities are expected to have an interest in their instrument above 95 jan-peter herbst average, this sample may not be representative of all guitar players. besides, only german-speaking musicians were captured; therefore results may differ in other countries. even though underrepresented in most rock and metal genres (bourdage 2010), the number of female guitarists (9 out of 413) was disproportionately low, which unfortunately made it impossible to investigate gender differences. each participant selected four genres on average, which posed the methodological problem that genres had to be compared artificially, explaining the relatively small effect sizes. in addition, the genres’ varying sample sizes must be considered. conclusion musical instruments are inextricably linked with music genres, their players’ attitudes, and practices. the choice and use of equipment affects the sound of genres and influences the performer’s expressiveness. this applies to the electric guitar with its characteristic distorted sound and its central importance for rock and metal genres in particular. so far, little research has concentrated on ‘regular’ rock guitarists, and theoretical work still overweighs empirical study. this article took a first step towards filling these gaps. it supports the works of hicks (1990), walser (1993), gracyk (1996), waksman (1999, 2003b), and berger and fales (2005), and it contributes to the slowly growing body of empirical work in popular music studies. the results confirm that guitarists acknowledge the relevance of instrument choice and sound, and demonstrate reflective practices of using gear. equipment choices and attitudes differed between genres but matched, as expected, genre conventions almost perfectly, which gives rise to various issues for future research. it remains open as to why the participants strictly followed genre conventions. the findings suggest that the players strongly orientate themselves towards renowned role models, at least in blues, rock genres, and heavy metal; players of all genres orientate themselves with a long tradition. whether or not this also applies to more modern metal styles is not clear. not all modern metal styles have a fixed set of established conventions as early rock music does, shaped by a smaller number of celebrity players. it also remains unclear whether role models are equally relevant in all genres, and how genres and subgenres are developing. are famous bands and musicians setting trends in top-down processes or do innovations emerge independently in small regional scenes as well? although the findings cannot answer these questions, innovative sounds are likely connected more closely with professional players, indicating innovation resulting from top-down processes. this suggests that most amateur players reproduce genre traditions instead of exploring new sounds. 96 current musicology since this work has been concerned with the german-speaking scene, future work may compare musicians in other countries and cultures. although a similar outcome can be assumed in other western countries, music scenes in other parts of the world may be different. another question not quite answered is how equipment choice and use are influenced by pragmatic decisions. yet, the results allow us to conclude that rock players refrain from comfortable and flexible modern equipment whereas metal guitarists are inclined to use new technology. detailed interviews with guitarists at different stages of their amateur or professional career would be valuable for gaining knowledge about this underrepresented group. comparing guitar players with other instrumentalists would also reveal how instruments shape genre sounds and compositions. finally, future research may consider the interrelation of instruments, amplifier and effects settings, recording techniques, production conventions, and intended genre aesthetics. such work could provide deeper understanding of further factors shaping the specific sounds of rock and metal music genres. notes 1. www.musiker-board.de/forum/e-gitarren-forum.75, www.gitarren-forum.de/forum. php, www.gitarrenboard.de, www.gitarre-spielen-lernen.de/forum, www.guitarworld.de/ forum/index.html 2. besides genres, expertise level, and experience on the guitar, experience in bands, age and formal education were gathered. since the relevance of this data was not significantly relevant except for understanding the sample, it was not considered in the results section. 3. the survey asked for common shapes instead of models to avoid exclusion merely due to brands. for example, les paul is strongly associated with manufacturer gibson, and stratocaster and telecaster are associated with fender. consequently, les paul copies by manufacturer esp, for example, would be included under the “les paul” label. 4. for an overview of guitar amplification technology see herbst, czedik-eysenberg, and reuter (2019). 5. in the online version of the survey, the labels on the anchors were marked as ’complete disagreement’ (1) and ‘complete agreement’ (5) instead of individual symbols for the five intervals. 97 jan-peter herbst references baugh, bruce. 1993. “prolegomena to any aesthetics of rock music.” the journal of aesthetics and art criticism 51(1): 23-29. becker, alex. 2010. “interview: him.” guitar 6 (10): 28-30. berger, harris m., and cornelia fales. 2005. “‘heaviness’ in the perception of heavy metal guitar timbres. the match of perceptual and acoustic features over time.” in wired for sound. engineering and 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the original language of the survey is german. 1. let’s start with your favorite equipment for distorted guitar playing. what guitar shape do you prefer for distorted sounds? ☐ stratocaster with single coils ☐ stratocaster with humbucker (incl. superstrats like ibanez, esp) ☐ telecaster ☐ les paul ☐ flying v / explorer ☐ semi-hollow guitar ☐ other guitar with humbucker ☐ depends on the song / cannot decide 2. how many electric guitars do you own? (selection box) 3. what amplification technology do you prefer for distorted sounds? ☐ tube ☐ hybrid (combination of tube and transistor) ☐ transistor ☐ modelling / simulation ☐ depends on the song / cannot decide ☐ i do not know 4. what design does this amplifier have? ☐ head and separate combo (stack) ☐ combo ☐ rack 5. how much power does the amplifier have? ☐ up to 30 watts ☐ 31 to 49 watts 101 jan-peter herbst ☐ 50 to 99 watts ☐ 100 or more watts 6. why do you prefer this amplifier? (multiple choice) ☐ convincing sound quality ☐ great flexibility ☐ easy to use and to transport ☐ cheap acquisition ☐ other reason: (open comments field) 7. how many electric guitar amplifiers do you own? (selection box) 8. do you also use overdrive, distortion, or fuzz pedals? ☐ yes ☐ no ☐ sometimes 9. what do you use these pedals for? (multiple choice) ☐ more distortion ☐ more definition and intelligibility ☐ additional tones ☐ other reason: (open comments field) 10. in the next section we will focus on your personal attitudes on your individual guitar sound. please rate. --5 o + ++ my guitar sound is important to me i have a clear notion of a good guitar sound it is important to me that i can set my guitar sound exactly as i want to i like to test instruments, amplifiers, and effects pedals in music stores i inform myself about guitar equipment on message boards or by guitar magazines i have invested into equipment this year already i am willing to pay for quality 102 current musicology i can match a guitar sound to a style (musician, music genre) the distorted sound is particularly important when i choose or buy gear i am willing to compromise the clean sound for a good distorted sound 11. this section concerns your attitude towards experimentation. having an individual sound is important to me -o + ++ i experiment with different amplifiers i experiment with different cabinets and speakers i experiment with different pedals i experiment with different pickups i aim for an innovative sound 12. the next section is about your sound ideals. -o + ++ i orientate myself towards role models i orientate myself to sound ideals of the 1960s and ‘70s i prefer traditional electric guitars (stratocaster, telecaster, les paul) tube amplifier sound is important to me i prefer power amplifier distortion i principally only play tube amplifiers i can distinguish a tube amplifier from a transistor or modeling amplifier by its sound 13. this section is about adjusting guitar sounds to repertoire. -o + ++ i consider how my sound will affect my playing the choice and amount of distortion are influencing my playing 103 jan-peter herbst i adjust my sound to the characteristics of a song / each song if necessary, i use multiple sounds in a song i use the option to switch between different distortion sounds by foot (i.e. several amplifier channels or overdrive pedals) i use the guitar’s volume knob in my playing to control distortion 14. please rate whether the following playing techniques are more difficult or easier with distortion. more difficult easier clean fretting without noise fast alternate picking sweeping legato (hammer-on, pull-off, slide, tapping) string bending artificial overtones / harmonics feedback palm muting overall, playing with distortion is... 15. next, we will concentrate on the positive features of distortion. with distortion i... -o + ++ can play faster can mask sloppy playing feel more comfortable can express myself better further effect 1: (open comments field) further effect 2: (open comments field) 16. now we focus on aspects that are more challenging when playing with distortion. distortion makes it difficult to... -o + ++ control noise with the fretting hand 104 current musicology control noise with the picking hand control feedback play dynamically and to play musical accents avoid overlapping or smearing notes further effect 1: (open comments field) further effect 2: (open comments field) do you have an explanation as to why distortion makes playing guitar easier or more difficult? (open comments field) 17. how do you regard the electric guitar compared to the acoustic guitar? -o + ++ the electric guitar is a different instrument than an acoustic guitar the electric guitar inspires me to play or compose different music when i change my electric guitar sound, my playing varies when i play loud and distorted, my body movements change (i.e. stamping, head banging, jumping) without distortion i would not play guitar at all playing with distortion is more fun 18. this final section captures personal information. what is your gender? ☐ female ☐ male ☐ other / prefer not to answer 19. how old are you? (selection box) 20. what styles do you predominantly play on the guitar? (multiple choice) ☐ blues ☐ classic rock ☐ hard rock ☐ alternative rock ☐ punk 105 jan-peter herbst ☐ grunge ☐ heavy metal ☐ extreme metal (i.e. thrash, black, death) ☐ metalcore ☐ nu metal ☐ other rock / metal styles ☐ no rock / metal styles (i.e. jazz, funk, reggae) 21. how long have you been playing guitar (acoustic and/or electric)? ☐ less than 1 year ☐ 1 to 3 years ☐ 4 to 6 years ☐ 7 to 10 years ☐ 11 to 15 years ☐ over 15 years 22. how long have you been playing in bands? ☐ less than 1 year ☐ 1 to 3 years ☐ 4 to 6 years ☐ 7 to 10 years ☐ 11 to 15 years ☐ over 15 years 23. what is your highest formal musical education? ☐ no education / self-taught ☐ musical society ☐ school of music ☐ research-focused higher education ☐ performance-focused higher education ☐ other: (open comments field) 24. how would you assess your playing abilities? ☐ beginner ☐ intermediate ☐ semi-professional ☐ professional 106 current musicology 25. do you have any further comments relevant to electric guitar playing? appendix 2: interview questions 1. what is the overall relevance of your guitar sound for your playing? 2. when choosing your gear, do you make compromises between clean and distorted sounds? what sacrifices would you make for a good distorted sound? 3. how does the level and tone of your distortion affect your playing (e. g. for expressiveness or playing difficulty)? 4. to what extent do you exert influence in engineering the sound of your guitar in the studio and/or live? 5. what is your advice for beginners and advanced guitarists concerning the use of distortion? 6. any other important aspects concerning the role of distortion for electric guitar playing? current musicology 101 (fall 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 145 denora, tia. 2013. music asylums: wellbeing through music in everyday life. farnham, uk: ashgate. reviewed by jonathan still the idea that music has mystical powers—to heal, to soothe, to cause depravity, to promote political unrest or intelligence—has a long history that persists to the present day. yet even scientific research into music and health often focuses on effects rather than causes, leaving vital questions unanswered. by contrast, music asylums, part of ashgate’s music and change: ecological perspectives series, sets out to explore “how, where and when music makes a difference.” it is the first volume in a triptych devised by tia denora and gary andsell, based on their six-year study of community music therapy in a center for mental health in england. the focal point of the three-part work is the recently published co-authored volume musical pathways for recovery (ansdell and denora 2016), with denora’s music asylums and andsell’s (2014) how music helps envisaged as side panels that support and reflect on the topic from the authors’ respective specializations of music sociology and music therapy. denora’s contribution can be seen as a logical continuation of her longstanding interest in how music “gets into” society, through microsociological studies of “music in everyday life,” the title of one of her most well-known books (denora 2000). she defines herself as a music sociologist who aspires, as she explained in after adorno, to draw “musicology and sociology more closely together into a new type of interdisciplinary project that transcends the traditional boundaries of both” (denora 2003, 154). this is motivated on the one hand by a dissatisfaction with the kind of sociology that, when it deals with music, leaves out what is specifically musical about it, and on the other with the kind of musicology that represents the social as a static backdrop against which music is created and performed, or as something that is “reflected” in music. what is missing in such accounts, she has argued, is the understanding that music might be involved in co-producing the society which it is simultaneously supposed to reflect. yet it is not enough to make such a claim in only general terms, she says: what is needed is an empirical music sociology that operates at the “right level of generality,” where assertions about music’s power or influence are supported by documentation of how such effects are realized, “the actual mechanisms through which music plays a mediating role in social life” (denora 2003, 40). 146 current musicology to address such questions in relation to music and health demands a complex, multifaceted approach. music asylums is roughly divided into two halves, the first providing a general ecological account of “how illness, health, the body, mind, culture and agency are intertwined” (6), the second developing and illustrating these ideas with reference to specific contexts where music is a significant factor in producing and maintaining wellbeing. the first three chapters examine the concepts of health and illness from a sociological perspective, with a particular focus on mental health, drawing on thomas szasz’s (1961) the myth of mental illness and erving goffman’s (1961) famous study of “total institutions,” asylums. chapter 6 is an excursus on music and consciousness, while the seventh chapter discusses the implications of the preceding arguments for questions of musical ethics and aesthetics. the theoretical heart of the book lies in the fourth and fifth chapters, where denora constructs a conceptual model in which the ambiguous meanings of asylum intersect on multiple planes. in one sense, asylum can mean a retreat, physical or virtual, that offers safety, respite, protection, and opportunities for repair and play, a place where it is possible to flourish. in another, it may refer to the literal, bricks-and-mortar “total institution” that goffman (1961) described in asylums, characterized by almost complete isolation from the outside world, and where all the inmates’ activities take place under one roof, determined by a single authority. the irony of such places is that within them, it is almost impossible to find any “asylums from the asylum” (denora 2013, 49). indeed, asylums may produce the very symptoms that they were designed to treat, precisely because they lack opportunities for the other, first type of asylum. denora exploits this irony to illustrate both how social conditions may contribute to well-being or illness, and how music as a form of asylum can provide opportunities for play, for respite, for escape, or for changing the environment. play is vital to well-being, denora argues, because it promises the possibility of transformation, and can be seen as “a medium of world-making, the creative making of self, other and situation, now, again and later” (42). a focus on the importance of this creative and playful use of culture is, in denora’s view, what distinguishes goffman’s thinking in asylums from his earlier work, the presentation of everyday life (1959). in the earlier book, goffman suggested similarities between everyday life and the theatre, for example, in the way that people use “backstage” areas to prepare for, or repair from, public life. however, as denora points out, there are limits to the comparison: real life permits or forces people to digress from a plan or script to a greater degree than staged performances. culture is not a fixed resource like a script and a set of props that can only be used off-the-shelf, 147 jonathan still as it were, but is subject to creative and subversive adaptations in everyday life. yet the degree to which this is possible is constrained by access to the necessary space and resources, and the effects of being deprived of such access is goffman’s concern in asylums. since such privations may not be confined to life in institutions, the difference between everyday life and asylums as described by goffman is only a matter of degree. at the core of denora’s theory is a nuancing of the concept of “removal activities,” the term goffman used to describe pastimes that provided inmates with a temporary escape from the oppressive tedium of their day-today existence. some of these were officially sanctioned participatory events such as games, dances, choral singing, and classes; others were individual—though still dependent on materials provided by the institution—such as watching tv or reading. some forms of solitary activity were less favorably viewed—excessive daydreaming, or collecting objects not usually regarded as collectable, for example. goffman grouped all these activities together under the single term “removal,” but denora makes a distinction between two types of behavior, which she terms removal and refurnishing. these behaviors provide space from something or space for something, respectively. in her terms, removal refers to activities which involve getting away from the situation at hand, either physically or mentally, using whatever resources are available to transcend or block out the unwanted environment—listening to music, playing a game, watching tv, writing a diary, eating, drinking, taking drugs, and so on. the key characteristic of removal is that it is solitary, and involves a disengagement from others and the environment, and does not involve making any perceptible change to surroundings for others. refurnishing, on the other hand, is a form of asylum-seeking that, by definition, involves making changes, steps toward the creation of a place that is more conducive to well-being and flourishing. this might involve painting a room, putting on music that others can hear, or modifying one’s own appearance. there are crossovers and ambiguities, such as putting on headphones to listen to music as a form of removal, which can also serve as a signal to others that one wishes to be left alone. such ambiguities also attend the concept of what constitutes private or public space, and what is intimate or what is impersonal. nonetheless, a basic distinction between the creation of room through removal or refurnishing is crucial for understanding how differently music can be conceived, or seen to act, in the world. as removal, in the form of, say, using an ipod to make a journey to work tolerable in what michael bull (2005) calls “accompanied solitude” (343), it offers asylum, but in a way that involves withdrawal from social interaction. although time out and time away are important, there is a risk 148 current musicology that one may just return to the world even less able to face it than before, and without having done anything to change it for the better. this is quite different from musical participation of the refurnishing kind, which affords engagement with others, and possibilities for transformation. such activities form the focus of the final three chapters, where we are introduced to bright (borough centre for rehabilitation, interaction, group activity, hospitality and training), the focus of the six-year longitudinal community music therapy study that began in 2005, further described in andsell and denora (2012). detailed descriptions of interactions between people, music, and musical material enable us to see how musical performance with or in front of others becomes an opportunity to try out alternative ways of being in the world. for example, one visitor to bright sings songs from a repertoire that is not common to other participants, and as result tends be rather isolated from them. as he begins to take part in music of the hitherto unfamiliar repertoire that the others sing, he finds a way of connecting with them. playing and performing in the musical sense provide ways to practice performing in other settings, or to gain confidence doing so. sometimes, dividing lines between one kind of performance and another are blurred or nonexistent. for example, gary andsell, in a dual role as accompanist and music therapist, provides on occasion what denora calls a “sheltered musical interaction” (92), a cross between musical and social support, accompaniment and caring that must conceal its own art as part of the task. in vignettes like the one chronicling andsell, one can see some of the interrelated themes of the book in sharp focus: what music is, what it does, and what it means to care. denora frequently warns against a view of music and music therapy as a kind of pharmaceutical intervention, delivered through headphones, and measured in terms of before-and-after effects, where the human being is reduced to a brain that processes sound, and against blanket notions of the “power of music,” as if the power inheres in music alone, independent of the contexts, objects, and people with which it is intertwined in everyday experience. paradoxically, this overly simplistic model often underlies both idealist and scientific notions of what music is, to the detriment of those practitioners of music therapy who have to try to explain what it is that they do and how it works, in order to make a case for it. the temporalities of illness, well-being, and musical experience are complex. one may be ill, but experience pockets of feeling well. experiences of music may be immediate and temporary, or have effects that are only experienced later, and may not even be construed as being directly related to music at all. for this reason, in her concluding remarks, denora suggests using the grammatical concept of the future perfect tense (e.g. “i will have done”) as a metaphor 149 jonathan still for this phenomenon, since it “highlights some of the ways in which musical acts and their consequences for wellbeing are fluid objects, located and specified in terms of their meaning, value and efficacy only in retrospect and only in relation to (how they are coupled) with other things” (142). the metaphor also captures very well the experience of reading music asylums. at just under 150 pages, it is a relatively compact volume that at first sight seems straightforward. denora’s style is clear and accessible, her arguments are convincing, and she offers frequent practical examples or colloquial phrases to illustrate theoretical points. after having read it, however, a more complex, demanding work emerges, both in the sense of what the author has written, and what the reader must do to understand it. having followed the topics and arguments in linear fashion, one is faced with the task of making sense of denora’s vision in its non-linear totality. in this process, ideas that in isolation seemed simple now appear more complex, as they have to be assimilated into a wider framework. this, though, is perhaps the point of the book: music and health are slippery concepts with complex temporalities and interdependencies. music’s dynamic form makes it simultaneously a powerful medium in social life, and a problematic subject for analysis. as a result, denora covers a dizzying range of topics and perspectives, including the sociology of medicine, health and music, music and consciousness, music therapy, notions of public and private, and an extended appraisal of goffman and his critics. the potential readership of this book is probably as heterogeneous as its subject matter. music therapists reading the later chapters will undoubtedly rejoice in denora’s scholarly, sensitive advocacy of their work, while researchers and practitioners in related fields may find her investigative framework useful to apply in other empirical settings. yet despite the detailed focus on a particular community music therapy context, music asylums is more than a specialist textbook on what is sometimes called “applied music,” a term that incidentally seems to imply the existence of conditions where music is able to float free of its connections with people and things in the world. on the contrary, denora’s point is that by “examining what it is that music does . . . it is also possible to understand what music is, or more specifically, what kind of an object it is, namely, an emergent, flexible medium that, like health/illness, takes shape in relation to other things” (136). in this sense, music asylums is equally an important contribution to continuing debates about the ontology of music and to the discipline of musicology itself. references andsell, gary, and tia denora. 2016. musical pathways in recovery: community music therapy and mental wellbeing. london: routledge. 150 current musicology _____. 2012. “musical flourishing: community music therapy, controversy, and the cultivation of wellbeing.” in music, health and wellbeing, edited by raymond macdonald and gunter kreutz, 97–112. oxford: oxford university press. bull, michael. 2005. “no dead air! the ipod and the culture of mobile listening.” leisure studies 24 (4): 343–55. clarke, david, and eric clarke. 2011. music and consciousness: philosophical, psychological, and cultural perspectives. oxford: oxford university press. denora, tia. 2000. music in everyday life. cambridge: cambridge university press. _____. 2003. after adorno: rethinking music sociology. cambridge: cambridge university press. goffman, erving. 1959. the presentation of self in everyday life. london: penguin. _____. 1961. asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. new york: penguin. szaszs, thomas. 1961. the myth of mental illness: foundations of a theory of personal conduct. new york: hoeber-harper. microsoft word davila typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 davila. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 226 reviewed by richard cruz davila the compact disc—a digital medium for musical listening that supposedly offered superior sound by expanding the dynamic range of recordings and eliminating the cracks and pops of vinyl records—was introduced onto the market in 1982 (morris 2015). with this new medium, record labels saw a chance to cash in by reselling to consumers music they already owned on another medium. the increase in available storage space on a cd meant that labels could tack on a handful of “bonus tracks” to further sway record buyers. later, albums rereleased on cd might come in an expanded edition with a second disc titled something like “b-sides and rarities.” these special editions appealed especially to the completists—those who need to collect everything that their favorite artists have recorded. to the rest of the record buying public, however, b-sides were the leftovers of an artist’s career. as will stockton and d. gilson, editors of the 33 1/3 b-sides, write, “the conventional notion of the b-side [is] an obscurity, something forgotten or appended” (vii). stockton and gilson use this understanding of b-sides as a starting point for their edited volume, gathering together 55 essays on lesser-known, underrated, or forgotten albums that metaphorically qualify as “b-sides.” stockton expands on this notion in his introduction to the collection—in which he considers prince’s 1996 album, emancipation. he writes, “since the invention of the vinyl record in 1948, the term ‘b-side’ has referred, most literally, to the second side of the disc” (8). while “b-side” has most often referred to the second side of a 45-rpm single, stockton also considers the second side of an lp to be a b-side, noting that this was sometimes a place for filler material prior to the emergence of “the album” as a cohesive unit. for singles, he says, “the a-side featured the song the label wanted promoted to radio and consumers. the b-side housed something else, something presumably worth hearing but also something generally considered lesser, and thus accorded secondary status” (8).1 from the idea of the b-side as something secondary but worth hearing, stockton argues, “b-sides help to flesh out our understanding of an album, an artist, a group, a genre, or a moment in time by asking us to focus on what gets relegated 227 to the margins” (9). this definition allows the authors considerable leeway in making the case as to why their albums of choice qualify as b-sides (albeit with varying degrees of success, as discussed later in this review). as implied in the subtitle, contributors to the book are all authors of previous books in bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series, a series of short books—typically between 100 and 200 pages—in which an author writes on a single album. authors in the series include music journalists, pop music scholars, and a small number of musicologists and music theorists. stockton and gilson set these authors the task of considering “an album they might have written about, but which didn’t make the cut” (viii). thus, their collection “brings together members of the 33 1/3 family, who, like us, wanted to riff on albums they believe deserve a place in the series, albums that deserve a second glance” (viii). the book is divided into three sections: “juvenilia,” albums that were in some way formative for the authors in the section; “marginalia,” albums on the margins of a genre or an artist’s catalog; and “memorabilia,” albums tangential to an artist’s catalog, such as live albums or film soundtracks (viii). in gilson’s introduction to the book—which explores the cultural history of christina aguilera’s 2000 spanish-language album, mi reflejo—he expands on these categories. he writes that albums in the “juvenilia” section address “the enduring, shaping power of the music we encountered as teenagers: good music and bad, popular and unpopular; the music that introduced us to what music is and could be” (19). the “marginalia” section collects pieces on albums that were “relatively diminished,” “cobbled together,” or “minimally distributed” and “recenter[s] them as important to an artist’s trajectory” (gilson 2020, 20). finally, the “memorabilia” section contains essays on albums that are “always tied to something else,” “an accompaniment or memento” (21). the best essays in the “juvenilia” section capture youthful moments of musical discovery in which listeners hear something that resonates with them in a way that nothing else has before—a feeling that many readers will recognize even if they are unfamiliar with the chapter’s subject matter. will fulton shares such a moment in his essay on rites of spring’s 1985 eponymous album, stating, “in 1985, rites of spring was like nothing i’d ever heard before, and yet so incredibly familiar” (42). regarding the song, “for want of,” he writes that “[it] is somehow both intimate and public, intensely personal to the singer and yet still resonant with the listener as if reflecting their own experience” (42). by exploring the context in which the album was written and recorded, fulton also manages to capture a coming-of-age moment in the washington, d.c. punk scene at a time of cultural and stylistic shifts. 228 in his essay on the durutti column’s 1980 the return of the durutti column, philip shaw identifies a moment that expanded his understanding of what music—specifically punk music—could be. in the midst of grieving the death of joy division singer ian curtis, shaw picked up the durutti column album based on the cover’s stylistic similarity to joy division’s unknown pleasures. compared to the darkness of joy division and the hardness of punk more generally, this album revealed to shaw what “punk, out of a need to present itself as hard, unflinching, and confrontational, had been forced to repress: beauty, transience, innocence, melancholy, and yearning” (37). in juxtaposing the “dark, industrial menace” of joy division with the “unabashed beauty” of the durutti column, shaw makes a compelling case for understanding the return of the durutti column as a b-side to the more widely recognized and more conventionally punk unknown pleasures (36). also noteworthy in this section are two essays that capture formative moments of discovery through the lens of blackness during the golden age of hip hop. shawn taylor opens his essay on de la soul’s 1991 de la soul is dead by stating that “lived blackness can be exhausting” when faced with questions such as “are you the right kind of black for your fellow black folks? are you safe enough so other poc (and white folks) accept you without fear?” (58). de la soul’s 1989 3 feet high and rising, with its eclectic, whimsical production style and bright packaging, helped him to negotiate these questions by providing a glimpse into “a new black world” that could encompass many different ways of being black (59). he contends that de la soul is dead “is the ultimate b-side to 3 feet” because it “was an invitation to live in that [new black] world” (59). specifically, taylor argues that the album is “a reification of their ethos of ‘black whimsy’,” which he defines as playfulness, curiosity, and a sense of wonder— “the opposite of a deficit model” (59). in his chapter on digable planets’ 1993 reachin’ (a new refutation of time and space), walter biggins offers a similar story of negotiating his identity as a black teenager. in his junior year of high school, biggins formed a dj team with his blonde-haired, blue-eyed, handsome and confident friend aaron. biggins calls aaron the “a-side” of the duo, while describing himself as the bside, “black, nerdy, awkward in gesture and statement” (61). although hip hop was “the genre supposedly telling the story of my life better than any other at the time,” he did not feel himself reflected in “a-side” artists of the time, like n.w.a, the notorious b.i.g., run dmc, or tupac (62). against those artists, he writes, “digable planets […] seemed like the b-side avatars of my dreams” (62). in reachin’, biggins continues, “i heard a story of blackness that i could fit inside, 229 that allowed for ‘black and ______’ rather than ‘black or ______’” (62). in their essays, biggins and taylor offer compelling insights into the intersections of youth, racial identity, and popular culture, setting them apart not just from other chapters in the “juvenilia” section, but from the book as a whole. the best essays in the “marginalia” section provide rich historical context for their albums of choice, implicitly making a case for the inclusion of these albums in the collection. this historical explication stands in stark contrast to a tendency elsewhere in the book to offer justifications for an album’s b-side status that disrupt the flow of the essay or feel unconvincing when considered against stockton and gilson’s definition of a b-side. in his chapter on the dells’ 1968 there is, joe bucciero explores the cultural shifts that led the dells—who initially achieved success in the 1950s performing in the doo-wop style—to record a forward-looking soul album. notably, this album drew influence from black musical traditions of improvisation that were, at the time, being claimed by euro-american avant-garde composers such as john cage. marked by unpredictability—what cage would call indeterminacy—and featuring sounds reminiscent of prepared piano, bucciero contends that, although arranger charles stepney was certainly aware of cage and the avant-garde, “stepney and the dells came to their sound not through cage, but [through] chicago’s jazz and r&b scenes” (99). bucciero’s contextualization makes it clear why this album—which charted at the time of its release but is now seldom remarked upon—is worthy of reconsideration. patrick rivers makes a similarly convincing argument for the reconsideration of guy’s 1988 album guy. rivers situates the album within the perceived divide between r&b and hip hop which emerged in the 1980s. at the time, r&b performers and djs were often dismissive of the new genre, while hiphop artists regarded r&b as too soft. formed in 1987 by teddy riley and former kids at work bandmate timmy gatling—with the later addition of gatling’s coworker aaron hall—guy collapsed the boundaries between the two genres, placing hip-hop productions behind r&b vocals. now overshadowed by riley’s production work for other artists along with his 1990s group blackstreet, rivers calls guy “the first album-length manifestation from the progenitor of new jack swing, an inevitable stylistic merging that remains a foundation of the production and sound of high-profile black music and the amorphous genre of pop music” (147). kembrew mcleod’s essay on negativland’s 1987 escape from noise, and emily mackay’s essay on kenickie’s 1997 album, at the club, treat their respective albums as “b-sides” to the better-known musical trends of their 230 individual moments. in an apt comparison, mcleod (2020) identifies escape from noise as a “b-side” to hip hop based on the influence of both negativland’s and hip-hop producers’ sampling practices to what lawrence lessig would later describe as “remix culture” (lessig 2008). mcleod states that “while hip hop’s boisterous assault on intellectual property law went multiplatinum, crashing the culture industry’s party, negativland’s oeuvre provided an arty aural b-side that also set the stage for remix culture’s eventual takeover” (131). mackay’s essay implicitly positions the 1990s uk diy underground as a “b-side” to the commercial success of the britpop bands of the same era. her description of kenickie’s transition from the staunchly diy label, slampt, to emi subsidiary, emidisc, functions as a broader examination of the tensions—which occupied many diy artists in the 1990s—between sticking to diy principles and reaching a wider audience. while the founders of slampt condemned the move as selling out, mackay writes, “there was another strand of 1990s thought that recast selling out as a positive, even a moral imperative, against the exclusive elitism of the indie underground. if you want to get your message out, reasoned britpop’s big beasts […] don’t you want as many people to hear it as possible?” (144). in both essays, then, the albums in question act as jumping off points for wider discussions on the implications of cultural shifts happening in their respective historical moments. comparatively, “memorabilia” is the weakest section of the book. several chapters cover less popular albums from a particular artist’s body of work, fitting in with the broad theme of the book, but out of place within the narrower theme of the section—i do not intend this as an indictment of the chapters themselves, but of the structure of the book as a whole. others that do fit the theme will likely only be of interest to diehard fans of the artist at hand—a completist impulse to possess everything by an artist extending into an impulse to read everything written about them. there are bright moments, though, particularly rebecca wallwork’s chapter on the village people’s 1980 can’t stop the music: the original motion picture soundtrack. wallwork makes the case that listening to can’t stop the music—a marginal album within the oeuvre of a group known by most only for the song “y.m.c.a”—can act as a salve in our present moment of political strife. though written prior to the impeachment of donald trump, a global pandemic, and mass uprisings against police brutality, the essay still resonates in a moment that feels even more uncertain than the early years of the trump administration. wallwork writes, “i’ll take any chance i can right now to not be cynical, to not feel jaded and beaten down by the news cycle. yes, can’t stop the music is goofy but it’s happy, goddamn it, and it believes in the power of 231 music and friendship. i’m not embarrassed to stand, and dance, for that” (188). readers desperate for moments of joy in what at times feels like a new dark age may find themselves dancing alongside her. despite the strength of the essays discussed here—along with many others not discussed—the collection as a whole suffers from stockton and gilson’s broad conceptualization of “b-sides.” fans of the series will likely be excited to read previous 33 1/3 authors writing about albums that they might have chosen for the series if given a second chance. however, the limitations of stockton and gilson’s framing quickly become apparent. most notably, this framework leads many of the authors to attempt to justify their subjects as “b-sides” in ways that often read as clumsy or forced. even in some of the better chapters, unconvincing attempts at justification often disrupt the momentum of the writing. tara murtha acknowledges this in her chapter on sinéad o’connor’s 1990 album, i do not want what i haven’t got, writing, “it is difficult to think of o’connor’s album as a b-side, especially given the momentous success of its hit single” (55). yet, she goes on to argue that the album “qualifies as a b-side because the firestorm surrounding its release ultimately produced [o’connor’s] commercial downfall” (55). this makes sense in a certain way—the album itself was overshadowed by the controversy caused by o’connor's saturday night live appearance, in which the singer called out child abuse in the catholic church and shredded a photo of the pope—but it still feels like a stretch given the success of the album, hindering what is otherwise a compelling essay. the reader may also wonder if authors would have chosen different subjects without the imposition of the b-side metaphor. rather than a collection of b-sides, stockton and gilson could have more convincingly framed the book as a mixtape or compilation album. kevin courrier’s description of the soundtrack album to the 1995 film, casino, hints at what such a framing could achieve: “the disc itself seemed so beautifully programed, so daringly eclectic, and full of surprises. there was a fascinating selection of mixed-genre music you would normally never hear occupying the same cd” (200). parts of this description are fitting for the book. the essays contained within it place a remarkably broad range of popular music from the english-speaking world side-by-side. readers will likely be surprised to find themselves fascinated to read about albums they may have never heard of or given a second thought (see again rebecca wallwork’s chapter on the village people). had stockton and gilson adopted this frame, though, the collection would still not fully live up to the promise in courrier’s description of the ideal 232 compilation. in a way that will be familiar to many receivers of mixtapes or sampler albums, the reader may prefer to skip around rather than engage start to finish, going first to the artists they know and like, avoiding those they do not like, before eventually taking a chance on the unfamiliar. to carry on the mixtape metaphor, the book at times feels poorly sequenced. courrier’s own chapter, for instance, immediately follows evie nagy’s chapter on the pulp fiction soundtrack—both are strong reads on their own, but the two albums in question, both eclectic soundtrack albums to mid-1990s underworld movies, are arguably too similar to place side-by-side. just as those who hold up mixtapes as a form of art would scoff at back-to-back songs that sound too much alike, the reader may be put off by two contiguous essays highlighting the eclecticism of albums from the same cultural milieu, especially given that stockton and gilson do not in most cases group together such similar albums. my critique of the editors’ sequencing is subjective, but two further examples of the back-to-back placement of sonically similar albums reveal larger shortcomings in the book. grouping together shawn taylor’s chapter on de la soul with walter biggins’s chapter on digable planets, two chapters that foreground the blackness of both author and artist, draws attention to the fact that the collection, as a whole, skews toward white men writing about other white men. the framing of the book as a reevaluation of forgotten or underrated albums suggests in a way a revision of or possible alternative to the western pop canon, but the overwhelming whiteness of the authors and their subjects reveals its failure to live up to that potential. this is reiterated with the grouping together of bryan waterman’s chapter on haruomi hosono’s 1982 album, philharmony, and andrew schartmann’s chapter on hirokazu tanaka’s 1986 video game soundtrack album, metroid. the consecutive appearance of two of only four chapters on non-western artists—all four of whom are japanese—highlights the collection’s western bias. framing aside, there is still much to appreciate in the collection. the stylistic range of the essays lend the book pedagogical value for educators in the areas of popular music and pop criticism. it could be usefully paired with another collection from the 33 1/3 series, how to write about music, edited by marc woodworth and ally-jane grossan. many of the essays in the 33 1/3 b-sides would easily serve as productive examples of the types of writing discussed in how to write about music, such as album reviews, artist profiles, analytical essays, personal essays, and cultural criticism. educators and readers looking for musicological analysis, however, may have less to latch onto. some analysis can be found in musicologist susan fast’s chapter on the cars’ 1979 candy-o and 233 music theorist andrew schartmann’s chapter on hirokazu tanaka, but the bulk of the chapters are dedicated more to history and cultural criticism. finally, for fans of the 33 1/3 series, and anyone else who enjoys pop music criticism, the overall quality of the essays collected make it a worthwhile read, even if the reader may prefer to skip a few tracks. notes 1 george plasketes offers a more nuanced historicization of b-sides in his book, b-sides, undercurrents, and overtones: peripheries to popular in music, 1960 to the present (plasketes 2009, 1). references lessig, lawrence. 2008. remix: making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. new york: bloomsbury. morris, jeremy wade. 2015. selling digital music, formatting culture. oakland: university of california press. plasketes, george. 2009. b-sides, undercurrents, and overtones: peripheries to popular in music, 1960 to the present. burlington: ashgate. woodworth, marc and ally-jane grossan (eds.). 2015. how to write about music: excerpts from the 33 1/3 series, books and blogs with advice from industry-leading writers. new york: bloomsbury. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2019 sewell. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 5 editor’s note this special issue of current musicology brings together a number of scholars at various stages of their careers to reflect on issues of music pedagogy. the result encompasses a broad array of topics addressing different kinds of student. at the same time, this volume is the second to exhibit current musicology’s new format, where the lead article is a scholarly literature review on a musical topic. the new format, in time, is planned to replace the annual special issue, and each editor will work closely with the author of the lead article to offer a critical perspective on some relevant and ongoing issue or area of musicological interest—in short, on current musicology. the present issue’s lead article, “from idea to institution: the development and dissemination of the orff-schulwerk from germany to the united states,” by emily spitz, ties in with the theme. spitz’s review covers the canonical milestones of the orff-schulwerk literature, from its inception at the güntherschule in munich (1924–1944) to its present day practice in the united states as part of elementary music education. her focus is thus largely on the k–5 level, and her demonstrations of how to animate the literature she discusses in these classrooms (spitz 2019, 14–17 and 21–24) offer an important bridge between the schulwerk materials as developed by orff and his collaborators, on the one hand, and present-day practitioners, on the other. since the students spitz has in mind are children, the following articles are ordered by ascending graduations: pre-school is followed by high school, college, and beyond. almost all the articles are paired, a junior scholar with a senior scholar, to create these groupings; the heavier research articles at the beginning and end of the volume are balanced with lighter “reflections” in the middle. spitz’s lead article is thus followed by gayle wald, writing on the pedagogical work of ella jenkins; jenkins’ work forms what wald calls “an important archive of multiculturalism’s radical pre-history” (wald 2019, 46–47), especially in jenkins’ use of a technique that gave its name to her dubut record with folkways, call-andresponse rhythmic group singing (1957). gavin lee—the only author not paired—provides “reflections on three pedagogical scenes in chinese music history.” he writes about high-school aged students in china in the context of two quite different constructions of pedagogy: the “western 6 current musicology liberal notion of pedagogy, as embodied in abraham maslow’s concept of self-actualization,” and homi k. bhabha’s metaphor employment of “pedagogy” as a means of state control, manifested in classrooms through what is “widely known among chinese students as xinao, or ‘brainwashing’” (lee 2019, 70). asher tobin chodos and walter frisch both address the college level. chodos’s “reflections on teaching music 17: hip hop” offers a personal and critical window into teaching music outside of the canon of western art music, while frisch’s “on teaching the history of nineteenthcentury music” (adapted from his chapter in the norton guide to teaching music history) relfects on the challenges of teaching this repertoire, and in doing so seeks to remind us of its merits. finally, callum blackmore’s and martin ennis’s students are mature composers. blackmore writes about the role of the subdominant in the pedagogy of henri-montan berton, and examines how the special role played by this harmony in nineteenth-century french treatises is reflected in berton’s compositional practice. ennis’s piece is dedicated to the late robert pascall; he tackles the myth of brahms’s autodidacticism, setting the historical record straight with a subtle balance of primary sources, representing conflicting accounts of brahms’s musical past, and musical analysis, focused on the role of the gavotte in brahms’s music. ian sewell microsoft word gale typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) © 2020 gale. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercialnoderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 163 reviewed by michael gale the six choirbooks compiled for st peter’s church, leiden during the midsixteenth century (now erfgoed leiden en omstreken, mss. 1438-1443) stand as witnesses to a turbulent period in that city’s history. initially copied between 1549 and the mid-1560s, the choirbooks were present during the beeldenstorm of august 1566, when reformist zealots caused widespread damage to the interior of st peter’s and, having fallen from use following the establishment of protestantism in leiden in 1572, they survived the sieges by spanish troops endured by the city in 1573-74. the enthusiastic destruction of churchand civic-owned property (including music books) during these upheavals has profoundly impoverished the modern-day historian; as eric jas points out in his introduction to this important study, these six manuscripts are “unique and extremely valuable evidence of a rich musical tradition in sixteenth-century holland ... [and] very little of that tradition has been preserved in dutch archives and libraries” (2). although they were described in print by j. p. n. land as long ago as 1881 (land 1874-1881), these substantial manuscripts remained relatively underexplored in the musicological literature until jas’s own doctoral dissertation (1997) over a century later. however, the last decade has seen a considerable resurgence of interest in these sources. the dutch vocal ensemble the egidius kwartet (2015) recorded a double-cd volume devoted to each of the six choirbooks, initially released annually between 2010 and 2015, and these fine recordings have been complemented by the publication of open-access digital images of all six manuscripts (erfgoed leiden en omstreken, n.d.). jas’s book, a long-awaited and very welcome english-language revision of his earlier dissertation, is thus most rewarding when treated as a companion volume to these other media. this book will undoubtedly invite some comparison with reinhard strohm’s landmark study music in late medieval bruges (1985). besides the relatively close proximity of their geographical focus, both studies also a share a 164 common aim: to place a substantial source of polyphony in its civic context, exploring the institutional and social organizations that supported this musical activity. by his own admission, strohm initially conceived his study intending to focus squarely on the so-called “lucca choirbook”, copied c.1470 in bruges at the behest of a wealthy flemish merchant who subsequently gifted it to lucca cathedral (1985, rev. 1990, vi). however, the resulting monograph was much broader in scope, offering a vivid picture of the musical provision and devotional practices funded by the urban elite across late fifteenth-century bruges, much of it concentrated around the collegiate church of st. donatian. similarly, eric jas aims here to illuminate the six extant leiden choirbooks through a study of the zeven-getijdencollege (‘college of the seven canonical hours’) at st. peter’s, whose primary purpose was to oversee the daily celebration of the divine office, besides providing sung memorials for the souls of departed benefactors. but although both studies have at their heart a central musical source, their contextualizing strategies differ significantly. strohm’s rich narrative probed the breadth of musical experience across the various churches, religious houses, and civic institutions of his chosen city – but, by focusing on bruges in isolation, he left himself open to the charge of creating an artificial distinction between that city and other nearby (and contextually useful) urban centers such as ghent and antwerp (fallows 1986, 279). conversely, jas takes a much narrower view of musical life in leiden, focusing almost entirely on st peter’s, but casts his net further afield in order to place this church in context. his opening chapter offers a useful survey of comparable getijdencolleges in other nearby dutch towns from their establishment during the 1430s up to the cessation of roman catholic worship across this region by c.1570. in doing so, jas shows how the getijdencollege at st peter’s represented one node in a much broader network of similar institutions across the urban centers of the northern netherlands. jas then focuses specifically on the getijdencollege at st peter’s in his second chapter, from its first documentary traces in 1440 up to its dissolution in mid-1572. besides offering a rich contextual backdrop for the leiden choirbooks, these first two chapters also provide a wealth of information about the working practices of the singers within these institutions and the zangmeesters (choirmasters) who ran them. jas draws upon a rich array of archival material (much of which he transcribes and translates in appendix 1) to shed light upon the contractual obligations of these musicians, as well as the disciplinary measures they faced if they transgressed. the peripatetic nature of professional singers – who tended to move frequently between local urban centers in search 165 of better working conditions and remuneration – is a problem familiar to anyone working on the provision of polyphonic music during this period. evidently, the challenge of retaining singers (and especially zangmeesters) was so acute that a number of towns across the northern netherlands (including leiden) reached formal reciprocal arrangements, agreeing not to hire any singer who had left his previous post within an allied institution during the past two years (20). jas’s discussion of the surviving contract of jacob tick is also of particular interest (68-70). tick served as zangmeester at st. peter’s from 1453 to around 1458 before moving on to subsequent posts in brielle and bruges. besides the day-to-day running of the choir, tick’s duties at st. peter’s included teaching singing and discant to poor children from the local community, alongside those whose parents could afford to pay a weekly fee for this provision. in these cases, the town magistrate would determine what level of payment (if any) tick would receive. as jas points out, this remarkable document is “probably one of the earliest, if not the earliest, record[s] of income-related subsidized music education by a town government” (69). whilst chapters 1 and 2 sketched out the organizational framework behind the musical provision at st. peter’s, it is only in the latter half of this study that we encounter a detailed discussion of the choirbooks themselves. chapter 3 and appendix 2 provide a thorough physical description and codicological analysis of the six manuscripts, whilst chapter 4 outlines the repertory that they preserve. the musical importance of these sources is beyond doubt: they provide an unparalleled snapshot of the working repertory of the getijdencollege at st peter’s during the middle third of the sixteenth century, containing some 350odd pieces (around 330 individual works, but with some duplication and fragmentary material). they contain a wide range of musical materials: the choir’s core repertory consisted predominantly of masses, magnificat settings and motets by clemens non papa and thomas crecquillon, alongside copies of some of the most widely disseminated motets of the early sixteenth century (e.g. josquin’s benedicta es, caelorum regina and stabat mater, clemens non papa’s maria magdalena, etc.). but there is also a good deal of music here by lesserknown local figures, most notably the 60 or so works by johannes flamingus (mostly dated c.1565-67). in many ways, chapter 3 is an exemplary codicological study: jas skillfully analyzes the scribal habits of the various contributors and reveals a good deal about the identities of the two main scribes. most important of these is anthonius de blauwe (d.1573), a local professional scribe who is named on the colophons to ms. 1438 (dated 1549) and mss. 1439-40 (both dated 1559). 166 however, jas also presents a persuasive argument for attributing some contributions in the other three manuscripts to de blauwe, although he tempers this discussion with a laudable (but probably unnecessary) dose of scholarly caution. of the other contributing scribes, the most significant is johannes flamingus, zangmeester at st peter’s during the mid-1560s and the composer of numerous pieces in mss. 1441–43. jas argues that, far from being a homogenous group of sources, this set of manuscripts reveals the range of different products that a professional scribe such as de blauwe might have offered his clients: from lavish high-quality items like mss. 1438–40, through to more functional (and presumably cheaper) documents like ms. 1441, and so-called ‘fascicle manuscripts’ (e.g. mss. 1442-43), apparently collections of individual gatherings which were bound together later (perhaps for safekeeping). there is a great deal of information in this study which is tied very closely to the specific milieu under examination, but, for those readers with a more generalized interest in the transmission of sixteenth-century polyphony, it is jas’s work on anthonius de blauwe that may well stand out as one of the most revelatory aspects of this book. certainly, jas is impressively insightful when analyzing scribal hands and cogently describing his sources, but this chapter goes well beyond merely being a traditional “source study”. rather than reverting to description for description’s sake, jas uses this work as the basis for a case study which provides valuable insights into the working practices of a mid-sixteenthcentury professional scribe and his place within the mercantile urban economy. anthonius de blauwe first appears in the leiden records in 1546 and, by the mid-1550s, he was running a private handwriting school close to st peter’s where his son jan served as a choirboy in the getijdencollege (86-98). in 1567, de blauwe was appointed to a schoolmaster position at the nearby heilige-geesthuis, an institution providing education and lodgings for local orphans. alongside his teaching activities, de blauwe was active as a professional music scribe, receiving commissions from churches in nearby gouda and delft (1547-49) and later producing several items for st. peter’s, his own local parish church. again, jas guides us skillfully through the archival documents, quoting several within this chapter and in appendix 1 (205-212). these reveal fascinating information about both the production of the choirbooks (e.g. the costs associated with the labor and materials) and the ways in which de blauwe procured musical materials for inclusion in them. they also offer glimpses of de blauwe’s broader working practices – for instance, how he kept back copies of motets he had already included in earlier projects (96). one particularly illuminating document records de blauwe asking the authorities at st peter’s to return a choirbook 167 already completed for them so he could sell it quickly to a newly identified client in england (95-6). thankfully, they agreed (although de blauwe was obliged to replace it later with a newly copied text) – a precious trace of a hitherto unrecorded anglo-netherlandish musical exchange. (sadly, the english client remains unnamed in the correspondence.) together, these sources yield new insights into the commercial backdrop to the scribal profession, something often overlooked as we concentrate our scholarly efforts on the surviving products of their labor. furthermore, this engaging chapter reminds us how traditional source studies – which have had a bad rap in some musicological circles over the past few decades – can still offer us fresh perspectives on the place of musicmaking in early modern society, if placed within a suitably meaningful contextual frame. finally, chapter 4 discusses the repertory preserved in the choirbooks and, as jas himself points out, there is still plenty more work to be done here beyond the scope of this book, e.g. comparing the leiden readings of well-known works with those transmitted in other sources (3). however, jas’s claim that this study does not consider individual pieces from “an analytic or stylistic point of view” is only partially true. in fact, he shows us convincingly (on stylistic grounds) that the 22 or so unascribed pieces in the hand of johannes flamingus (all unica in ms 1442) are also very likely to be his own compositions (157-63). there is, however, one significant lapse in logic during jas’s discussion of flamingus. i found it difficult to accept the suggestion that, as a skilled composer, zangmeester and scribe, flamingus had twice erroneously written the date “1576” alongside different pieces in ms. 1442 when he had actually meant “1567” (119, n.82; 284, n.2). nor was it clear why jas suggests that ms. 1442, a collection of previously separate fascicles, “cannot have been compiled and bound before 1567, the year flamingus copied his final works for the getijdenzangers in leiden” (140; cf. also 284). not much is known about the later career of johannes flamingus. he is listed as zangmeester at st. peter’s in documents from march 1566 and november 1567, before moving on to a post at schwerin (1571-73). his last known position was as a cantor in zwickau later in 1573 (kongsted 2001) but, after that, the trail goes cold. but is there any good reason to suppose that he did not return to leiden at some point in the mid-1570s, if we are to take the two “1576” inscriptions in ms. 1442 at face value? of course, the getijdencollege at st peter’s had been dissolved since july 1572, but the fate of these choirbooks during those next few years remains unclear – and it is not actually certain whether ms. 1442 168 even was a “choirbook” at this stage (rather than simply a bundle of loose gatherings). this question brings us to the final decades of the sixteenth century, a tantalizing gap in these manuscripts’ history and a frustrating (though understandable) omission from jas’s study. during the years immediately after the suppression of catholicism in leiden, the whereabouts of these choirbooks and their usage (if any) remains unknown. but, in late 1578, a group of prominent leiden citizens – describing themselves as “the brotherhood and common assembly of those who are united in music here in leiden” – petitioned the city’s magistrate, asking for the books (then a group of eight, rather than the six now extant) to be placed in their care (126). under the agreed terms of this arrangement, they dutifully compiled a detailed written description of the manuscripts (which, incidentally, is the earliest evidence of ms. 1442 existing as a single bound volume) and retained them until 1597, when the keeper wrote again, asking to return them to the city’s care. all three documents are usefully transcribed and translated by jas in appendix 1 (212-217). clearly, the choirbooks were still valued and were (probably) being used in some circles, even if they no longer played a role in public worship at the newly protestant st. peter’s. but the identity of these circles is a vexing question: jas states that “we do not know who actually performed from them, but the group likely included some former singers of st peter’s” (126), but without clarifying whether there is no known extant evidence – or if that question has simply not yet been pursued. it is here that a much broader survey of the musical culture of leiden might just bear fruit. just as reinhard strohm explored the wider urban soundscape of fifteenth-century bruges – the various religious houses and the confraternities, the court and civic events, and so on – so a wider exploration of music-making across leiden (looking beyond the confines of st peter’s and its getijdencollege) might hold some answers. late sixteenth-century leiden was a musically vibrant city: the foundation of its university in 1575 certainly contributed to that, and there is a good deal more to learn about both recreational music-making and private devotional practices amongst the mercantile elite and the academic community, as well within lower-status groups. jas’s hunch that some of the former singers from st. peter’s retained an interest in these manuscripts is surely a secure one: since the dissolution of their getijdencollege, those musicians must have gone somewhere, either seeking work as professional singers elsewhere or pursuing other types of employment within leiden. if jas’s impressively detailed reconstruction of de blauwe’s life and business activities from local archival sources is anything to go 169 by, there is no reason to suppose that these singers cannot also be traced and, with a little luck, some further light can be cast upon the post-1572 afterlife of these manuscripts. of course, this suggestion is not intended as criticism of this impressive study; after all, any scholarly investigation on this scale needs to be limited in scope in order to maintain its coherence and clarity. but i very much hope that jas’s fine work in this book will also serve as a catalyst for further research on post-reformation music-making in this important urban center. in summary, jas has admirably achieved his stated aims in this volume, enhancing our understanding of these important sources through a detailed codicological study and his thorough examination of their historical context within the getijdencollege at st. peter’s. but this rather undersells the importance of this book, for it is also an illuminating contribution to what tim carter (and others) have termed “urban musicology” (carter 2002) in which jas has combined his deep understanding of these manuscripts and his expertise as an archival historian to powerful effect. in doing so, jas has also achieved here much of what fiona kisby demanded back in 2001 when setting out her agenda for a music-orientated urban history: he has “show[n] how music shaped space and time within the urban environment and how the various institutions, organisations, associations and social structures which developed in towns and cities in response to the process of urbanisation had an impact on musical activity of various kinds” (kisby 2001, 6). it goes without saying that this book will be of enormous interest to those working on musical provision or devotional practices across the low countries during the age of the reformation. but this engaging study also reveals a good deal more about aspects of the early modern music profession – the careers (and migrations) of singers and choirmasters, the economic considerations and commercial strategies behind professional manuscript production – as well as about the compilation of the choirbooks themselves. as such, it should also hold a broader appeal to anyone with a wider interest in the musical culture of the sixteenth century. references carter, tim. 2002. “the sound of silence: models for an urban musicology”. urban history 29 (1): 8-18. egidius kwartet & college. 2015. de leidse koorboeken/the leiden choirbooks. etcetera cd ktc 1416. also published as six individual cd volumes as ktc 1410–1415 (2010– 15). 170 erfgoed leiden en omstreken. n.d. “koorboeken pieterskerk.” digital images online at: https://www.erfgoedleiden.nl/schatkamer/koorboeken-pieterskerk (accessed 3 august 2020). fallows, david. 1986. “[review of] music in renaissance ferrara 1400-1505: the creation of a musical centre in the fifteenth century by lewis lockwood; music in late medieval bruges by reinhard strohm.” early music history 6: 279-303. jas, eric. 1997. “de koorboeken van de pieterskerk te leiden: het zestiende-eeuwse muzikale erfgoed van een hollands getijdencollege.” ph.d. diss., utrecht university. kisby, fiona. 2001. “urban history, musicology and cities and towns in renaissance europe.” in music and musicians in renaissance cities and towns, ed. fiona kisby. cambridge: cambridge university press: 1-13. kongsted, ole. 2001. “flamingus, johannes.” grove music online. https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630 .001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051998 (accessed 4 august 2020). land, j. p. n. 1874-81. “de koorboeken van de st. pieterskerk te leiden.” in bouwsteenen: derde jaarboek der vereeniging voor noord-nederlands muziekgeschiedenis: 37-48. strohm, reinhard. 1985, rev. 1990. music in late medieval bruges. oxford: clarendon press. microsoft word duinker typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 duinker. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 93 ben duinker introduction ahmir “questlove” thompson—record producer, drummer for the roots, and bandleader for the tonight show—remembers exactly where he was the day “rapper’s delight” (sugarhill gang, 1979) first received radio play.1 in his memoir mo’ meta blues (2013), thompson recalls wondering whether he should remain in front of the radio to listen, or race for a cassette tape to record as much of the song as he could. he opted to grab the cassette, recalling that “[the song] sounded like it might go on for another five or six minutes” (23). thompson’s gamble paid off: the song did go on for a while longer, and he was able to record some of it. the original 12” single of “rapper’s delight” runs for an astounding 14 minutes and 36 seconds, making it one of the longest songs to ever chart on the billboard hot 100. while few have been anywhere close to as long as “rapper’s delight,” charting hip-hop songs have used a variety of formal sequences, some of which substantially differ from the verse-chorus paradigm that has pervaded various popular music genres since the 1960s. salt-n-pepa’s 1987 hit “push it” peaked at number 19 on the billboard hot 100. this song features lengthy ad-lib vocal sections and instrumentals while squeezing in two verses almost as an afterthought. more recently, kanye west and jay-z’s collaboration on “otis” (2011) earned them a grammy award and substantial chart success; this song is strophic (it lacks chorus sections), a formal paradigm that has all but disappeared from popular music.2 “rapper’s delight” was released in hip-hop music’s nascency—no formal “norms” existed yet, at least not in the recorded medium. “push it” emerged during the genre’s so-called golden age, when experimentation was generating a flourishing stylistic diversity in hip hop. and “otis” came out when hip-hop music was on its way to becoming synonymous with mainstream popular music: inter-generic permeability was becoming—and remains today—the norm.3 over time, the formal structure of hip-hop music has become consolidated in the verse-chorus image of mainstream popular music. but how did hip hop’s formal conventions evolve—from “rapper’s delight” to 94 the present day—and what can this evolution tell us about the mainstreaming of this genre? this paper explores the evolution of song form in north american recorded hip-hop music, tracing the genre’s origins as a live musical practice, through its commercial ascent in the 1980s and 1990s, to its ubiquity in—and dominance of—mainstream popular music in the twenty-first century. i conduct an analytical study of form across 160 hip-hop songs (see the appendix) released since 1979 to support the three main contributions of this paper. first, i offer a taxonomy of song section types, investigating how texture, timbre, lyrics, and singing function as the main agents of formal sectionality in hip hop. i codify two principal section types, verse and hook (similar, but not identical to a chorus section), and two looser-defined section types, instrumental, and loose-vocal, using song examples to illustrate each section type and to discuss these sections’ musical function and/or origins in live performance practice. second, i present three formal paradigms that are built up from these four section types, proposing that the form of many, if not most, hip-hop songs can be described using one of these paradigms. i classify these as verse-hook, strophic, and long verse. i evaluate how the paradigms reflect live hip-hop performance practice (including battling, hyping, and the cypher) and its antecedents: the live hip-hop performances of 1970s new york (which gave rise to hip-hop music) and the african american oral tradition of toasting (long, recited poems). in doing so, i propose a viewpoint that considers hip-hop form through the cultural underpinnings of this genre, rather than in the image of song forms used in other popular music genres. finally, i investigate how a gradual shift in focus toward verse-hook songs can be understood in relation to hip-hop music’s ongoing mainstreaming. i propose three metrics to gauge this shift in focus: the emergence of hooks as a distinct section type, the rise in popularity of sung hook sections (including by guest artists), and the specific characteristics of hook sections: their quantity, their point of first arrival in a song, and their proportion of the song’s total duration. viewing hip-hop music’s development through the lens of song form thus represents both its roots in african american vernacular culture and assimilation into mainstream popular culture; following blues, r&b, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, and other genres in traversing this path. hip hop’s crossover has been discussed from a variety of perspectives. nelson george (1988) and mark anthony neal (2005) have written about the schism that occurred in the 1980s whereby some black artists became massively successful through their new appeal to white mainstream audiences (such as 95 michael jackson or lionel richie) while alienating their earlier—mostly black— fanbase. amy coddington (2018) has explored the role of radio producers as tastemakers in cultivating a divide between the pop-rap of mc hammer and vanilla ice and the underground music of a tribe called quest and other golden-age artists. murray forman (2002), roni sarig (2007), and i (2019) have each investigated the vanishing idea of space and place in hip-hop music as it has become increasingly mainstreamed. and numerous others, among them jeff chang (2005) and loren kajikawa (2015), have noted the increasing consumption of hip-hop music by white audiences.4 my aim is to build on this discussion of hip-hop’s mainstreaming by focusing on song form; more specifically, the ever-expanding role of the hook section in hip-hop music. the hook’s increasing prevalence, its earlier placement in song forms, and its incorporation of singing all evince hip hop’s subsumption by mainstream pop music. song sections and their functions hip hop is like most other popular music in that its formal sections are ordered in a song to imbue it with variety, contrast, and some degree of trajectory. i characterize song sections in hip hop by whether they participate in the core sequence of a song, or function as framing areas to this core. the core sequence of a song normally involves verses and hooks, but may also include instrumental or bridge-like sections. framing areas normally involve sections with looser organized vocals (such as ad-hoc “hype” vocals) or instrumental sections. the main difference between the core sequence and its framing areas concerns the tightness of sectional organization: core sequences are normally the more tightly organized of the two.5 research on form in popular music has grown substantially since 2000, but almost none of it explicitly deals with hip-hop music.6 corpus studies by jay summach (2012) and jeffrey ensign (2015) study song form in a broader array of popular music—using billboard charts as corpus sources—but such charts have traditionally excluded hip-hop music.7 scholarship on form in popular music has expanded to include specific formal paradigms (spicer 2004, osborn 2013), artist-specific research (covach 2006, stephan-robinson 2009), song sections (attas 2015, summach 2011), and genres such as edm (electronic dance music) (iler 2011, osborn 2019, and barna 2020). research on form in edm sets important precedents for the present study. first, edm songs are composed to create and moderate the flow of energy on the dance floor; the formal design of 96 this music does not always lend itself well to the context of radio play.8 edm’s practical function as a dance-oriented music resonates strongly with early hiphop music, whose main context of dissemination was at dance-infused gatherings. second, edm song forms rely more on musical parameters such as texture and timbre, and less on melody and harmony. this again suggests parallels with hip-hop music, which has traditionally foregrounded aspects of texture, rhythm, and timbre.9 the above scholarship provides a blueprint for how a bottom-up (rather than top-down) study of form in hip hop might look: a taxonomy and description of song section types according to their internal characteristics, an examination into how these sections function in a complete song, and whether any formal paradigms arise. nearly all hip-hop songs feature some combination of verses, hooks, and instrumental sections, and share similarities with formal paradigms used in other popular music. although i define these section types according to their internal musical and lyrical characteristics, their functionality or “effect” they express to the listener (after doll 2017, 8–9) in songs can vary.10 in general, verse and hook sections conform to specific musical and lyrical criteria and express consistent functionality within a song, while instrumental and loose-vocal sections are less standardized in their content and functionality.11 verse verses have been a constant fixture in recorded hip-hop music since its inception; they facilitate the song’s main narrative arc (if one exists) or provide commentary on the song’s thematic topics. as in popular music, hip-hop verses are usually “lyrically variant but musically invariant” (ensign 2015, 27), meaning that each successive verse utilizes new lyrics and flow rhythms over the same beat. michael berry (2018) writes that the 16-measure verse has become the standard length in hip-hop music.12 the ubiquity of even-numbered verse lengths is unsurprising: since rhymes normally punctuate the ends of measures and rhymes are often patterned in couplets, it follows that the mensural length of most verses will be a multiple of two.13 although even-numbered verse lengths may be common, my data suggests that they also vary widely in length. berry also notes that the beat layer (what he calls “the music”) typically remains unchanged across a verse, often repeating a looped sequence that may be one, two, or four measures in length (and occasionally longer).14 exceptionally, the beat layer’s texture can also gradually change or intensify 97 through the course of a verse. it may also contrast the musical texture of the hook section, drawing another similarity to other genres of popular music. example 1 demonstrates some of these characteristics in the beat for “hard piano” (pusha t, 2018), where textural elements are periodically introduced and removed. the piano/drum sample from “high as apple pie – slice ii” (charles wright and the watts 103rd street rhythm band, 1970) is supplemented first by a drum machine, and then by a synthesizer-generated chord progression. example 1: “hard piano” (pusha t, 2018). the excerpts above detail the different textural layers that are introduced during the introduction and first verse of the song. hip-hop verses are forums for mcs to orate, narrate, display musical and lyrical dexterity, and connect with listeners. their varied length, quantity, and rhythmic and lyrical content may reflect a number of a priori factors: how they were composed and recorded in-studio, how a live-based performance practice influenced their construction, or what demands (often commercially driven) were imposed by record labels or other industry actors. consider, for example, “roxanne’s revenge” (roxanne shanté, 1984) and “ny state of mind” (nas, 1994). both songs feature exceptionally long verses, which may signal looser organization than in songs with consistent 16-measure verses. but these long, irregular verses make more sense when considered in the context of how they were recorded. shanté allegedly recorded “roxanne’s revenge” completely 98 freestyle (unrehearsed and uncomposed) and in a single take; a herculean feat for any mc, much less a 13 (!) year old with no prior recording experience.15 “ny state of mind” features two long verses of different lengths; but these were also recorded in a single take.16 the spontaneity that permeated the recording of these verses arguably influenced their length: in shanté’s case, the long duration, and in nas’s case, the variance in duration between verses. hook hook sections in hip-hop music are somewhat analogous to choruses in other popular music genres: their lyrics usually remain fixed over the course of the song, quote or hint at the song’s title, and often contrast the function of the verse lyrics. hook sections normally comprise a single, self-contained section, but twopart hooks are occasionally used, such as in “money ain’t a thang” (jermaine dupri ft. jay-z, 1997), where the first part of the hook begins on the lyrics “in the ferrari” and the second part on “y’all wanna floss with us.”17 if the verse involves narrative, the hook might comment on that narrative. in protest-based songs, the verse may describe an issue while the hook incites a call to action.18 hook lyrics can be rapped or sung, and, until recently, the hook was normally the sole location for singing in hip-hop songs.19 i prefer to call these sections hooks (instead of choruses) because, while their functional role may parallel choruses in popular music, they fulfill this role in different ways.20 i agree with paul edwards’s statement that hip-hop hooks are “designed to ‘hook’ the listeners” (2009, 187) and propose that they do so through a level of lyrical repetition and fragmentation not normally seen in popular music—an extreme example would be “gucci gang” (lil’ pump, 2017), where the title lyric is rapped no fewer than 20 times in each hook. furthermore, hip-hop hooks do not rely on many of temperley’s features of chorus sections (2018, 160), especially those concerning melodic and harmonic parameters as well as formal ordering. instead, hip-hop hooks—when defined against characteristics of verses—are built on subtle textural shifts, the presence of singing, sampled or instrumental riffs in the beat layer, and the aforementioned fragmentation. while some songs feature sung hooks that sound remarkably similar to a standard pop chorus—such as “juicy” (the notorious b.i.g., 1994)— others feature incessant repetition of title lyrics, such as “93 til’ infinity” (souls of mischief, 1993). still others have hardly any lyrics at all, and an instrumental motif assumes central importance, such as in “grindin’” (clipse, 2002). 99 in my taxonomy i call on several criteria for defining hook sections. first, a hook section contains intelligible vocals—either sampled, rapped, or sung. second, these vocals usually reference the title of the song or are repeated and fragmented.21 third, the hook section remains musically and lyrically invariant throughout the song, usually (but by no means always) alternating with verses. another criterion of hook sections involves their textural distinction (i stop short of conflating this with intensification or thickening) from the verses.22 while many of these stylistic features are also ubiquitous in pop choruses, the near-total lack of melodic and harmonic differentiation between verses and hooks in hip-hop music, combined with the greater emphasis on fewer, more repeated lyrics, warrants a separate definition of the hip-hop hook that distinguishes it from the pop chorus.23 instrumental beyond verses and hooks, other song sections in hip-hop music are less consistent in their content and functionality. while it might seem straightforward to define instrumental sections by virtue of them lacking liveperformed vocals, their texture and musical content occasionally position them well to function as hook sections. in this sense then, category and function diverge for instrumental sections. these sections involve only the beat layer; no live-performed vocals are present. the beat layer comprises a combination of instruments, computer-produced sounds, scratching or other turntablegenerated sounds, and samples. samples may involve vocals, and paradoxically, instrumental sections may actually contain vocals by virtue of their participation in the beat layer. but these vocals are unintelligible: they may be short fragments, scat singing, or other brief utterances. if the vocal samples involve intelligible lyrics, it is more likely they are imbuing the section with a hook-like quality, and could thus be interpreted as hook sections. amanda sewell writes that “lyric [vocal] samples have many different uses and applications in sample-based music: layered against newly-rapped lyrics in an adjunct function, scratched into a track’s introduction or an interlude between verses, or substituted into a rapped lyric” (2013, 54).24 vocal samples in an “interlude between verses” quite often contribute appreciably to the song’s lyrics, either by referencing the song’s title or commenting on the song’s narrative or theme in some way. vocal samples may thus participate in establishing the hook-like quality in a song section, especially when the vocal samples reference the song title, such as in “watch me now” (ultramagnetic 100 mcs, 1988) or “hold it, now hit it” (beastie boys, 1986). by contrast, unintelligible vocal samples carry less potential to imbue such hook-like qualities. in “it ain’t hard to tell” (nas, 1994), verses alternate with sections that feature a denser beat-layer texture, a sampled saxophone riff, and sampled female scat vocals. these sections are almost hook-like, but for their lack of intelligible vocals i classify them as instrumental. these three songs expose an inconsistency with how instrumental sections function: when they are positioned between verses, their internal content—especially vocal samples—may cause them to express hook-like qualities of varying strength and salience. the opening thirty seconds of “watch me now” illustrate this blurry boundary by juxtaposing different types of vocal samples. the first 18 seconds contain numerous whoops and cries originally performed by james brown; some of his signature vocal gestures.25 but these vocal samples are unintelligible as lyrics, and thus help define this introduction as an instrumental section (0:00– 0:18). immediately following this section, the “watch me now” sample (from “it’s just begun” by the jimmy castor bunch [1972]), imbuing the section with hook-like qualities, helping define 0:19–0:27 as a hook (indeed, it is the “watch me now” section that returns after each verse). by attending to the varied intelligibility and narrative function that vocal samples may exhibit, i thus interpret them as alternately contributing to instrumental or hook sections. the looser-knit nature of instrumental sections and their variegated placement within song forms suggests a wider array of functional purposes for them, including dancing, repose from the vocals of the verses and hooks, and a space to showcase the musical contributions of djs and beat producers. indeed, hip hop’s earliest musical manifestations showcased beats, along with their creators; rapping came later. looser-organized vocal sections live-recorded vocals in hip-hop music are not restricted to verses and hooks: looser-organized sections may contain ad-hoc, ametric vocals, skits, or may simply involve rapping or singing in a section that does not function like a verse or hook. many songs feature ad-hoc vocals that characterize sections in their framing areas, but less often within the core sequence. these ad-hoc vocals occasionally function as “hype” vocals: ametric vocals that usually serve the rhetorical purpose of enhancing anticipation of the song’s main lyrical content. a prominent example of hype vocals in hip-hop music can be found in the music of public enemy, where group member flava flav effectively functions as a “hype 101 man.”26 other ad-hoc vocals might be less hype-based and more about connecting directly with listeners or other artists. these may include “shout out” sections (normally at the end of songs) or more introspective lyrics performed in an ametric fashion, such as when anderson .paak discusses his personal finances (0:50) in “cut em in” (2020). ad-hoc vocals are noticeably more common in hip-hop music than they are in other popular genres. they are so common, in fact, that this type of vocal also appears within and throughout verses and hooks (a notable example being producer sean combs’s frequent vocal injections in the rapped performances of notorious b.i.g.). this prevalence likely has much to do with hip hop’s origins as a live musical genre centered around the dj (who is now commonly referred to as the producer). the outdoor hip-hop parties of 1970s and early 1980s bronx and queens featured the dj as performer; any vocalizing was usually done by the dj, or in deference to them.27 this vocalizing was not the main focus and was ad-hoc or spontaneous in nature. as hip hop established a tradition of recorded musical output, the hype/ad-hoc vocals remained a central part of some artists’ personal styles.28 as can be seen from the aforementioned types of looser vocal practices in hip-hop music, loose vocal sections are highly variegated and serve a variety of different musical functions. i have established flexible descriptions of four main types of song section in hip-hop music. this framework allows for a systematic encoding of song forms across a large corpus of repertoire. these encodings in turn reveal several prevailing formal paradigms in hip-hop music. the next section explores these paradigms, proposing some possible locations and trajectories for their development. formal paradigms to better understand how sections combine to create whole songs in hip hop, i draw on a recent corpus study where i analyzed 160 songs released between 1979 and 2017 (duinker 2020). this corpus was generated from two source lists: rolling stone’s “100 greatest hip-hop songs,” and the grammy award category for best rap song. while my main analytical goal was to investigate aspects of rhythm and meter, i also annotated each song’s form by section type and duration. example 2 displays my annotation method for the song “hate it or love it” (the game ft. 50 cent, 2005). “hate it or love it” begins with a ninesecond ad-lib vocal section followed by a series of verses and hooks performed by the song’s two mcs, the game and 50 cent. from 2:53 until the song’s conclusion, the beat layer continues with no vocals from either mc—there is, 102 however, a female vocal sample embedded in the beat layer that does not contribute appreciably to the song’s lyrics. i have thus encoded this final section “instrumental.” the annotation of “hate it or love it” reveals a commonality in hip-hop form: hook sections are typically the same durational length across an entire song, while verses are more likely to vary in length. formal region section type elapsed time duration (s) notes framing area voc 0:00 9 50 cent (hype vocals) core sequence vs1 0:09 28 50 cent hk 0:37 21 vs2 0:58 37 the game hk 1:35 20 vs3 1:55 38 50 cent and the game hk 2:33 20 framing area inst 2:53 33 includes fadeout example 2: formal annotation for “hate it or love it” (the game ft. 50 cent, 2005). sectiontype abbreviations are used as follows throughout this paper: voc = loose vocal section, hk = hook, vs = verse, and inst = instrumental. all sectional durations documented here should be interpreted +/one second: durations were calculated from real-time elapsed time measurements, meaning slight inaccuracies in the order of one second were common. the song’s form is straightforward: “hate it or love it” features discrete framing areas and a tangible core sequence of verses and hooks. but many other songs exhibit more irregular forms. consider the original 12” release of “push it” (salt-n-pepa, 1987), whose form is annotated in example 3. the song’s first verse appears at 1:31—this is quite late for a first verse—and besides a few other verses and hooks, the remainder of the song is loosely organized: the entire duration leading up to the first verse, for example, is an amalgam of instrumental passages, hype vocals, and chanting. no clear sectionality emerges here, yet no one section type (of my four) is clearly established. i have therefore chosen to denote this a hybrid of instrumental and looser vocal section types (hence “inst/voc” in the annotation). such hybrid sections appear to be common in framing areas, but their outsized presence as in “push it” (the framing areas make up 60% of the song’s duration) is rare. as a party-oriented song, “push it” features these extended loose sections primarily to aid the song’s danceability.29 “push it” thus reveals the importance of considering performance context and function of songs when evaluating the sectionality of their forms. 103 formal region section type elapsed time duration (s) notes framing area inst / voc 0:00 91 features hype vocals core sequence vs1 1:31 16 hk 1:47 13 inst / voc 2:00 27 vs2 2:47 12 hk 2:59 16 framing area inst / voc 3:15 77 includes fadeout example 3: formal annotation for “push it” (salt-n-pepa, 1987). the “inst/voc” sections are so named for their hybridity—they integrate aspects of instrumental and loose vocal section types—and are notable in their comparatively long duration. the remainder of this section is organized around three prevailing formal paradigms: strophic form, verse-hook form, and long-verse form. strophic form strophic-form songs generally feature a core sequence comprising multiple verses that either proceed in immediate succession or are interspersed by instrumental interludes. such interludes typically lack hook-like qualities. example 4 provides a general schema for strophic forms in hip hop. notable in strophic-form songs is the near-total absence of hook sections; in this way, example 4: general schema for strophic-form songs. these songs typically include a core sequence that is bounded by framing areas. the core sequence may include a succession of verses (upper diagram), or a succession of verses interspersed by instrumental sections (lower diagram). core sequenceframing area framing area verseintro outroverseverse core sequenceframing area framing area verseintro outroverseverseinstrumental instrumental 104 strophic form is quite similar to covach’s “simple verse form” (2004, 73).30 the long single version of “rapper’s delight” (sugarhill gang, 1979) constitutes a textbook example of strophic form. an instrumental section begins and concludes the song, framing the core sequence of four verses rapped in immediate succession.31 “king of rock” (run-dmc, 1985) follows a slightly different trajectory. with no introductory framing area, the first verse begins immediately at the song’s outset. the eight verses of this song are always followed by instrumental sections of varying lengths, laden with rock guitar soloing; the alternation of these sections makes “king of rock” a strophic-form song. while parallels can be drawn between the strophic-form hip-hop songs and the “simple verse” and “aaa” forms used to describe other popular music, i hesitate to use such parallels as a defining characteristic of strophic hip-hop songs. i prefer instead to contextualize strophic form in the tradition of live hiphop performance. an important aspect of hip hop’s performance tradition is the cypher: an informal group-performance context where various mcs take turns freestyling either atop a dj-produced or beatboxed beat, or a cappella.32 michael newman describes cyphers as involving “improvised round-robin rapping” (2005, 401), while h. samy alim qualifies them as “highly competitive lyrical circles of rappers” (2006, 6). james braxton peterson (2014) and roderick pullum (2019) have suggested that the term “cypher” emerged into common hiphop parlance through the influence of the five-percent nation.33 though cyphers typically have no set requirements regarding the number of mcs participating or the length of their verses, the general form they follow involves the introduction of a beat followed by a succession of freestyle verses, rapped by different mcs. the musical and lyrical foci of cyphers are intertextual references, unifying chains of rhymes, and communication between mcs in the cypher (such as calling one another by name to spit the next verse, or through put downs). hooks generally play no important role in cyphers. while the cypher is a less formal, live performance practice, its analogy in recorded hip-hop music can be seen through the “posse cut,” which is a song that features different rappers (usually associated with one another, occasionally through a common record label) on each verse. several well-known posse cuts appear in the corpus, “scenario,” “the symphony” (marley marl et al., 1989), “flava in ya ear (remix)” (craig mack et al., 1995), and “fuckin’ problems” (a$ap rocky et al., 2013) among them.34 “the symphony” represents perhaps the truest resemblance to a cypher of these posse cuts: a brief intro featuring marley marl is followed by successive verses rapped by masta ace, craig g., kool g rap, and 105 big daddy kane, respectively, each mc concluding his verse by naming the next mc who is due up to rap. by drawing parallels between cyphers, posse cuts, and strophic form, i aim to show that, in live hip-hop performance practice, the lyrical, structural, and musical focus of the song is often centered around the verse. verses are what cyphers and rap battles (another chief format for freestyling) are made of. verses figure prominently in strophic hip-hop songs. and verses are the platform across which a collection of mcs come together to contribute to posse cuts. the verse— however it is structured—is the main conduit of communication and exchange in hip-hop performance, and its centrality to the cypher, posse cut, and strophicform song traces a through-line between these practices. verse-hook form verse-hook form chiefly involves what its name suggests: verses and hooks. the general schema of verse-hook form is detailed in example 5. like the versechorus paradigm referenced by covach (2004), temperley (2018), ensign (2015), and others, verse-hook songs in hip hop feature a core sequence of alternating verse and hook sections. this sequence occasionally includes instrumental or loose-vocal sections, but my corpus data suggests that such interventions are uncommon. rarer still are verse-hook songs where multiple verses or multiple hooks (these could perhaps also be characterized as two-part hooks) occur in immediate succession. example 5: general schema for verse-hook songs. the chief variable in these songs involves the ordering of verses and hooks, as shown between the two formal trajectories above. core sequenceframing area framing area verseintro outroversehook core sequenceframing area framing area versehook hook versehookintro outro 106 three songs encapsulate these various affordances of verse-hook form. in example 6a, the formal sequence of “99 problems” (jay-z, 2003) constitutes a textbook example of a verse-hook form. a brief a cappella rapped introduction previews the hook lyrics, before the core formal sequence runs through three verses, each followed by a hook.35 the song concludes with an instrumental section—repeated iterations of the basic beat loop—complemented by various hype vocals. by contrast, “lose control” (missy elliott, 2005), shown in example 6b, features loose-vocal framing sections (mainly featuring hype vocals by fatman scoop) and a core sequence that contains two pairs of verses and hooks. loose vocal sections occur after the first hook and again after the second verse. the first of these features guest artist ciara in a rapped/sung performance: more metric than hype vocals normally are, but less tightly organized than elliott’s verses and hooks. the second loose vocal section features a repeated chant-like performance by elliott and fatman scoop.36 finally, the radio edit of “ladies first” (queen latifah ft. monie love, 1989) as detailed in example 6c involves a verse-hook core form (with no framing sections) that features a changing number of verses between each hook. the four hook sections in this song appear at the opening, after verse 2, verse 4, and verse 7, respectively. this means the song’s eight verses appear in groups of two, two, and three. while “ladies first” and “lose control” depart from the schema shown in example 5, the general alternation of verses and hooks in their core sequences identify these songs as verse-hook forms. formal region section type elapsed time duration (s) notes framing area hk 0:00 6 features hook lyrics core sequence vs1 0:06 40 hk 0:46 11 shorter than other hook sections in the song vs2 0:57 62 hk 1:59 20 vs3 2:19 52 hk 3:11 21 framing area inst / voc 3:32 23 hype vocals example 6a: formal annotation for “99 problems” (jay-z, 2003). this song features discrete framing areas and a balanced core sequence of three verses and three hook sections. within the core sequence, the first hook section is notably shorter than the following two. 107 formal region section type elapsed time duration (s) notes framing area voc 0:00 18 hype vocals core sequence vs1 0:18 32 hk 0:50 14 voc 1:04 17 rapped / sung vs2 1:21 30 voc 1:51 16 chanting hk 2:07 13 framing area voc 2:20 87 chanting example 6b: formal annotation for “lose control” (missy elliot ft. fatman scoop and ciara, 2005). a number of different loose-vocal sections feature in both the framing areas and core sequence. formal region section type elapsed time duration (s) notes core sequence hk 0:00 22 short instrumental tag at end vs1 0:22 14 vs2 0:36 18 hk 0:54 4 vs3 0:58 18 vs4 1:16 18 hk 1:34 16 vs5 1:51 18 vs6 2:09 35 vs7 2:44 18 hk 3:02 20 vs8 3:22 20 (framing area) inst 3:42 8 quick fade out example 6c: formal annotation for the radio edit of “ladies first” (queen latifah ft. monie love, 1989). this version of song, while verse-hook in composition, avoids an introductory framing section and features differing numbers of verses between each hook. its core sequence also begins with a hook and concludes with a verse, a formal ordering not common in rock/pop music (temperley 2018) but quite prevalent in hip-hop music. example 5 also indicates that the core sequence of verse-hook songs may begin with either a verse or a hook. this flexibility departs from the formal conventions of rock-pop music, where a song’s first verse is likelier to occur before its first chorus.37 temperley (2018) has classified the ordered pairing of verses and choruses as “verse-chorus units,” or vcus, generating a more efficient way to encode the form of many pop songs. while it is tempting to apply 108 the vcu concept to hip-hop music, perhaps with the alternate acronym vhu (verse-hook unit), the directionality embedded in the vcu concept implies that the verse normally comes first.38 this assumes that the verse points toward the hook/chorus, which can be achieved through harmonic, textural, melodic, lyrical, or other means. such explicit directionality between verses and hooks (in that order) is by no means paradigmatic in hip-hop music.39 “hypnotize” (the notorious b.i.g., 1997) exemplifies the non-teleological relationship between verse and hook, the form of which is detailed in example 7. while the song’s core sequence is indeed ordered verse-hook (and not the other way around), a number of lyrical and textural features mask any sense of buildup or directionality from each verse into its following hook. first, the beat’s texture does not change between these two section types. the basic beat loop is quite sparse, consisting only of a two-measure loop performed by bass and drums. a momentary guitar flourish marks each eight-measure hypermetric unit, providing some structural waypoints amid the decidedly complex metric patterning of the notorious b.i.g.’s (henceforth biggie) flow. the first verse is 18 measures long, meaning the hypermetric guitar flourish occurs for a third time, in m.17. instead of marking the beginning of a new, unfolding, eight-measure hypermetric unit, this flourish punctuates the last two measures of the verse, after which the hook arrives with no hypermetric example 7: basic beat loop and formal annotation for “hypnotize” (the notorious b.i.g., 1997). the first and second verses each run for 18 measures. as shown for the first verse, this mensural length creates a misalignment with the hypermetric structure jointly generated by iterations of the 2-measure beat loop (small x) and guitar flourishes (capital x), which repeat after 8 measures. measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 guitar flourish x x x beat loop x x x x x x x x x song section verse 1 measure 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 guitar flourish x beat loop x x x x song section hook 109 markers. biggie’s flow performance also contributes to the anticlimactic conclusion of the verse. in the first verse in particular, his flow patterns and choice of lyrics create a dense, complex web of possible groupings, depending on whether rhythm, meter, lyrical syntax, or subject matter is considered.40 this lyrical complexity makes it difficult to anticipate closure at the end of the verse. as a consequence, when biggie raps “packin, askin’ ‘who want it?’ / you got it, nigga, flaunt it, that brooklyn bullshit, we on it” at the beginning of m.17, not only has the guitar flourish made this passage sound like an initiating gesture in a new eight-measure unit, but the flow gives no solid indication of conclusion. it simply ends; a string of rhyme chains, backward and forward lyrical references, and segues in subject matter, all quietly and unmarkedly yield to the hook section. long-verse and other forms strophic and verse-hook songs constitute the vast majority of the corpus. of the 160 songs represented, 123 (77%) are verse-hook while a further 24 (15%) are strophic. the remaining 13 (8%) either feature a single long verse (long-verse form) or follow a formal path distinct from the paradigms discussed here. “roxanne’s revenge” (roxanne shante, 1984), “paid in full” (eric b. & rakim, 1987), “children’s story” (slick rick, 1988), and “brooklyn zoo” (ol’ dirty bastard, 1995) are all examples of long-verse forms. each begins with an introductory framing area, contains a core sequence of one long verse, and concludes with either a hook-like section, ad-hoc vocals, or instrumental section. the long-verse form draws to mind an earlier type of black american vernacular oral tradition: the toast. toasts were long poems that were delivered in an informal style.41 these long poems usually featured some sort of trickster figure (i.e. shine or the signifyin[g] monkey) surmounting odds that are stacked against them; hustling their way through the narrative.42 classic examples of toasting set to music include gil-scott heron’s “the revolution will not be televised” (pieces of a man, 1970), and rudy ray moore’s “the signifyin’ monkey” (this pussy belongs to me, 1971); indeed, both these performers have been cited as stylistic precursors to hip-hop music.43 philadelphia-based schooly d’s version of the toast the signifyin’ monkey (“the signifyin’ rapper,” 1988) is perhaps the truest example of a toast being performed in a hip-hop setting in that it literally adapts a toast (but does not exclusively feature metric rapping), and “children’s story” (slick rick, 1988) is an example of how the toast concept has been fully adapted into a rapped performance. “children’s story” flips the toast convention 110 on its head, instead purveying a cautionary tale where the hustling protagonist does not come out on top; indeed, he ends up dead. long-verse songs follow a number of narrative arcs that relate back to toasts: the verses in “roxanne’s revenge” and “brooklyn zoo” are both diss-laden and self-aggrandizing.44 while tropes of put-down and self-aggrandization are certainly ubiquitous to hip-hop lyrics in general, when they pervade a long-verse song’s lyrics, two key elements of toasting are reflected in a hip-hop performance. section type elapsed time duration (s) notes voc 0:00 10 hype vocals inst 0:10 8 introduction of beat layer hk? 0:18 12 unclear section type inst 0:30 17 vs1? 0:47 39 unclear section type inst 1:28 17 voc 1:43 17 inst 2:00 17 hk 2:17 12 inst 2:29 17 voc 2:46 17 inst 3:03 34 hk 3:37 13 inst 3:50 90 voc 5:20 17 vs2 5:37 38 inst 6:15 90 example 8: formal annotation for “the breaks” (kurtis blow, 1980). the varied sectional ordering of this song, as well as its divergent section lengths (notably the two 90-second instrumental sections toward the end) render it difficult to classify as “verse-hook” or “strophic.” identification of framing areas and the core sequence is complicated by the sectional ordering. one might interpret the core sequence as beginning at 0:18, but quantity of instrumental and loose-vocal sections weakens its ability to function as such, with standard alternations between verses and hooks or instrumentals. in the corpus, songs with formal sequences classified as “other” were very few, although they warrant mention on the grounds of their functional purpose. two notable “other” songs include “the breaks” (kurtis blow, 1980) and “push it” (salt-n-pepa, 1986); these both fall into the adam krims’s genre of “party rap,” which he describes as being “designed for moving a crowd, making them dance, or perhaps creating or continuing a ‘groove’ and a mood” (2000, 55). listening to either of these songs with this description in mind 111 makes the “party rap” designation seem obvious for both of these songs, and also suggests why such songs rely less on a tightly organized structure of verses and hooks. as shown in example 8, the formal patterning of “the breaks” looks something like verse-hook, but includes a number of instrumental breaks, two of which are each 90 seconds long. these extended looser sections reveal the primary function of the song: a medium for dancing. rather than suggest that dance-functioning music cannot contain verses and choruses, i use these examples to illustrate that instrumental sections can (and often do) figure just as prominently as verses or hooks in party-, or dance-oriented hip-hop songs. form and the mainstreaming of hip hop the mainstreaming of hip-hop music has been discussed in context of the radio’s role as tastemaker (coddington 2018), the influence of billboard chart categorizations (harrison and arthur 2011), and the appropriation of black musical traditions and culture (neal 2005 and george 1988). coddington argues that top-40 radio station producers, in order to reach their targeted demographics, preferred to play hip-hop records that mainstream audiences could understand and tolerate. the stripped down, aggressive style of artists like run-dmc, public enemy, and ll cool j did not fulfill this role, as did the comparative musical tameness of artists like mc hammer, vanilla ice, and milli vanilli. coddington aptly observes the growing rift between pop rap and underground, politically charged rap music that emerged in the late 1980s. she also notes, however, that the sound world of pop rap eventually permeated hiphop music, such that an artist like the notorious b.i.g. could juxtapose lyrics about his hard-edged, drug-selling upbringing with a slickly produced beat that bore closer resemblance to m.c. hammer than public enemy. this mainstreaming of hip-hop music in the 1980s and 1990s thus appears to have been a multi-step phenomenon. firstly, a less controversial, softer brand of hip-hop music was marketed to a wide demographic. such marketing bypassed the more confrontational and political arm of hip-hop music, whose artists such as public enemy and n.w.a. were experiencing their own, smaller commercial breakthrough. secondly, more accessible musical styles were combined with confrontational, profanity-laden, and uncompromising lyrics, creating an uneasy balance between radio-ready musical accessibility and provocative lyrical subject matter less well-suited for mass-market radio play— this combination can be seen in the artists on the death row (dr. dre, snoop 112 dogg, and tupac shakur), and the bad boy (the notorious b.i.g. and lil’ kim) labels. this two-phase process eventuated a number of successfully charting singles by artists such as shakur and the notorious b.i.g.—a marker of mainstream success for this new hybrid of pop-rap beats and hardcore lyrics.45 how does this process of mainstreaming relate to evolving trends in song form? to conclude this paper, i present a number of statistic-driven observations regarding song forms and their evolving usage in hip hop. each involves the hook section in some way: a gradual increase in prevalence of verse-hook songs, an increase in sung hooks, hooks appearing sooner in songs’ formal sequence, and the proportion of a song’s total length taken up by hooks. in contrast to the verse, the hook evolved from an infrequently used formal section to a central feature of nearly every hip-hop song today. the emergence of the (sung) hook when “rapper’s delight” was released in 1979, it had an immediate and longlasting impact.46 the idea that rapping—as opposed to singing—could be featured in a radio-worthy song was novel, and this song would play an outsized role carving out a space in the recording industry for hip-hop music. musically speaking, “rapper’s delight” was not particularly groundbreaking.47 the song’s beat was a recorded interpolation of the song “good times” (1979), released earlier that year by the r&b/disco band chic.48 but while “good times” contains an identifiable chorus section, “rapper’s delight” does not. instead, “rapper’s delight” features a string of rapped verses in its core sequence, with instrumental sections serving its framing areas.49 while some of the song’s lyrics have hooklike qualities (such as the opening lyrics by wonder mike, “i said-a hip hop, hippie to the hippie ...,” and big bank hank’s “hotel, motel …” line), these lyrics do not form autonomous song sections—they appear within longer verses performed by those mcs. “rapper’s delight” thus qualifies as a strophic song. indeed, many other old-school hip-hop songs (those released in the late 1970s and early 1980s) are strophic.50 as documented in the appendix, 15 of the 40 corpus songs released between 1979–1989 are strophic, while another 15 are verse-hook (the remaining 10 are either long-verse form or do not easily fit any one of the three paradigms). the contrast between this balance of types and the rest of the corpus is stark: after 1989, across the remaining 120 corpus songs, only 13 are not verse-hook, and perhaps most striking is that 10 of these 13 appear before 1996. as far as this corpus is able to explain general trends in hip-hop form, then, verse-hook form 113 had firmly, and indeed almost exclusively, become the standard paradigm used in hip-hop music by the mid 1990s. popular songs that are expected to do well on the charts are often released in two versions: a single version (sometimes called the “radio edit”), and an album version. “rapper’s delight” was released in five versions, each with a different duration, none of which featured a hook section.51 by contrast, the two versions of queen latifah’s afrocentric feminist anthem “ladies first” (1989) follow markedly differing formal sequences. the album version of this song features no hook sections, but the radio edit of the song does (the forms are compared in example 9); the famous music video for “ladies first” corresponds to the radio edit version. album version radio edit section type (elapsed time) duration(s) section type (elapsed time) duration(s) inst (0:00) 18 hk (0:00) 22 vs1 (0:18) 13 vs1 (0:22) 14 vs2 (0:31) 18 vs2 (0:36) 18 inst (0:49) 5 hk (0:54) 4 vs3 (0:54) 18 vs3 (0:58) 18 vs4 (1:12) 18 vs4 (1:16) 18 inst (1:30) 36 hk (1:34) 16 vs5 (2:06) 18 vs5 (1:51) 18 vs6 (2:24) 36 vs6 (2:09) 35 vs7 (3:00) 17 vs7 (2:44) 18 inst (3:17) 42 hk (3:02) 20 vs8 (3:22) 20 inst (3:42) 8 example 9: comparison of formal sequences in the album version and radio edit of “ladies first” (queen latifah ft. monie love, 1989). accounting for the one-second discrepancies, corresponding verses are the same length in each version. an eighth verse and four hook sections are added in the radio edit, and all instrumental sections (save for a short fadeout) are removed. as tricia rose (1994) and robin roberts (1994) attest in their analyses of this video, the hook section figures prominently in the song’s advocation of community among women mcs, and in a more general sense, of solidarity in the black feminist movement.52 the challenging lyrics of the verses, aggressively rapped (by latifah and guest mc monie love) over a hard-sounding beat, contrast the gentler-sounding hook, which involves singing and a shift to the major mode.53 the addition of the hook section in this radio edit dramatically 114 alters the course, message, and ethos of “ladies first,” while making it more musically palatable for radio and television play. the sung hook the mere presence of a hook does not fully explain its role as mainstreaming agent; its musical content is equally important to consider. hook sections in all 23 verse-hook song in the corpus released before 1993 either feature rapping, sampled vocals (either sung or rapped), or, more rarely, vocals sung by the mc(s) themselves. examples of these scenarios include, respectively, melle mel rapping all the hooks in “the message” (grandmaster flash and the furious five, 1982), sampled vocals in the hook sections of “slow down” (brand nubian, 1990), and the earnest singing by biz markie in the hooks of his song “just a friend” (1989).54 beginning in the mid-1990s, hip-hop songs started consistently featuring hooks sung by guest artists: david ruffin jr. on “gin and juice” (snoop dogg, 1993), members of the girl group total on “juicy” and “hypnotize” (the notorious b.i.g. 1994 and 1997), roger troutman on “california love” (tupac shakur and dr. dre, 1995), and reggie green and sweet franklin on “dear mama” (tupac shakur, 1995). the juxtaposition of hardcore rap lyrics centered around crime, drugs, and material wealth with smooth, r&b-style vocals has been identified by coddington as central to the commercial success enjoyed by puff daddy and the notorious b.i.g., and by krims as a defining feature of don rap, his term that describes the merging of reality rap (gangsta rap) and mack rap, which krims situates as central to the “mack” or “pimp” personas adopted by certain mcs and groups (2000, 62–63). this occasionally tension-laden juxtaposition was immensely successful from a commercial standpoint.55 “hypnotize” and “california love” both reached number one on the billboard hot 100, “dear mama” and “gin and juice” broke the top 10 on the same chart, and these four songs as well as “juicy” each reached number one on the billboard hot rap songs chart. sung hooks—whether recorded by guest artists or the song’s mc(s)— have remained a fixture in verse-hook songs since the 1990s. but while sung hooks usually form one of the most memorable parts of a hip-hop song, the identity of their singers has not always driven this memorability or contributed to the song’s commercial appeal. think of the well-known “biggie biggie biggie, can’t you see?” hook from “hypnotize” (the notorious b.i.g., 1997)—itself an interpolation of “la di da di” (slick rick and doug e. fresh, 1985). even though nearly everyone who listened to top-40 radio or watched mtv in the 1990s will 115 know how this hook goes, very few will likely know who sung it (pamela long from the group total). these optics have changed dramatically in songs released in the past two decades. faith evans was already a well-known artist when she sung the hook on “missing you” (puff daddy and faith evans, 1997), a song dedicated to her late ex-husband christopher wallace (the notorious b.i.g.), but her involvement with sean combs and bad boy records arguably raised her profile more than she did theirs.56 guest hooks sung by artists such as justin timberlake, alicia keys, and rihanna—all of whom have garnered wide, mainstream appeal in their careers—were undoubtedly a commercial boon for the hip-hop songs on which they appeared.57 this combination of rapping and singing in the hip-hop industry has led to a specific grammy award for “best rap/sung collaboration” (now called “best melodic rap performance”). by referencing the guest hook paradigm in hip-hop music, i do not mean to imply that the aforementioned songs would have failed commercially without their guest features, but rather that the presence of guest pop artists opened up an avenue toward massive mainstream appeal which would have otherwise been difficult to attain. while jay-z, for example, was already a successful artist and entrepreneur by the early 2000s (culminating with his critically praised 2003 “retirement album” the black album), 11 of his 14 top-five appearances on the billboard hot 100 chart—including all four of his number ones—and 13 of his 22 grammy awards have been earned through rap/sung collaborations.58 the collaboration-driven fusion of pop and hip hop has been furthered still by hybrid artists who both rap and sing, such as drake, mac miller, travis scott, young thug, and nicki minaj. though justin bieber is not generally considered a hiphop artist, his 2020 album changes is replete with soft-sounding trap beats atop which his breathy vocals recall the sound world of drake and his longtime collaborator noah “40” shebib. formal ordering and balance the final section of this paper investigates sectional ordering and balance in hiphop songs. of the 123 corpus songs that were classified as verse-hook, 47% featured a verse first, while 53% featured a hook first. this balance between hook-first and verse-first songs becomes skewed when considered over time. example 10 plots all the verse-hook songs in the corpus in six time periods, each selected for their relatively even distribution of songs (17 < n < 24 for each time period).59 while the 19 verse-hook songs released between 1982–1990 show a relatively even balance of verse-initiating and hook-initiating forms, more recent 116 songs appear to favor a hook-first form. in fact, just one of the 19 verse-hook songs released after 2011 had a verse appear before a hook. example 10: leading section type in verse-hook songs. the time periods were selected to suit two criteria. first, that all songs in a particular year would be included in the same period. second, that the periods be populated as evenly as possible, given the first criterion. what do these observations tell us about the mainstreaming of hip-hop? they suggest—again—that hip-hop song forms are evolving to gradually foreground the hook at the expense of the verse. the significance of formal ordering can be examined through music consumption patterns and habits. hubert léveillé gauvin’s 2018 study on musical form and the theory of attention economy tested several hypotheses on a corpus of popular songs released between 1986 and 2015. for each song, he determined how much time passed before the first vocal entry, and before the first mention of the title lyrics. his hypothesis was that, due to the way music is consumed via streaming services with seemingly infinite choice at listeners’ fingertips, recent songs have been written in order to better immediately capture listeners’ attention.60 the working assumption here is that because of an abundance of choice, listeners are less likely to listen to an entire song, instead switching songs after a limited amount of time.61 léveillé gauvin’s research showed that the average elapsed time before first vocal entry and title lyric decreased by year, meaning these features are 1982–1990 1991–1997 1998–2003 2004–2007 2008–2011 2012–2017 verse first 58% 89% 52% 28% 26% 5% hook first 42% 11% 48% 72% 74% 95% n = 19 19 21 18 23 19 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% leading section type in verse-hook songs verse first hook first 117 heard, on average, sooner, in more recent charting pop music. assuming that hip-hop hooks normally feature title lyrics, we can apply léveillé gauvin’s hypothesis to a determination of how soon hook sections appear in hip-hop songs.62 example 11 plots this statistic over time, and the results here echo léveillé gauvin’s findings: hook sections generally appear sooner in recent songs than they do in older songs. example 11: elapsed time until the arrival of the first hook section in 122 songs identified as verse-hook in the corpus. we can also observe the hook’s rising importance by measuring how much of a song’s total duration they occupy. example 12a plots total song duration in seconds for all songs in the corpus. as can be seen, apart from several long-duration outliers in the years prior to 1990, most songs tend to fall in a bandwidth of 3:00 (180 s) to 5:30 (330 s) for duration; this has not changed substantially over time. this observation is important to consider in light of example 12b, which plots the proportion of total song duration taken up by hooks. the trendline here shows that the durational percentage of hooks is steadily rising. the charts featured in examples 10–12 demonstrate that hooks are both arriving sooner and occupying an increasingly large share of the song’s duration. 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 19 82 19 88 19 90 19 90 19 92 19 94 19 95 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 02 20 02 20 03 20 05 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11 20 11 20 12 20 14 20 15 20 16 el ap se d ti m e (s ) song release year time until first hook 118 example 12a: song duration in seconds for all 160 songs in the corpus. example 12b: proportion of song duration filled by hooks for all 160 songs in the corpus. 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 so ng d ur at io n (s ) release year song duration 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 release year proportion of total song duration as hooks 119 conclusion song form is a musical parameter from which much can be learned about genre and style, performance practice, and in a broader sense, genre crossover. since formal terminology is often used without being contextually defined, it becomes easy to forget how this terminology has been shaped by style, performance practice, and commerciality, and how it shapes our own reifying discourse of genre. in the first section of this paper, i identified four section types in recorded hip hop, partly to invite further research on this topic, but also to foreground the subtle characteristics that distinguish hip hop’s formal sections from those in other genres of popular music. i believe this foregrounding to be important because it calls attention to the pitfalls of defining formal features in hip hop using a terminology that has already been heavily theorized for rock/pop music. by using the term “chorus” to define hooks in hip hop, for example, we risk casting these sections in the image of popular music, which, at least initially, bore little influence over the formal construction of hip-hop music. a more appropriate argument—albeit one i have not taken here—would be that what once constituted a hook section in early hip hop has evolved into a pop-worthy chorus section in more recent rap-sung collaborations.63 with these discussions of section types established, i then investigated how section types form complete songs. while verse-hook songs appear to be the most common formal paradigm in hip-hop music, they were not common in hip hop’s earliest years, when long-verse and strophic songs were more prevalent. i stressed that long-verse and strophic forms appear closely related to oral traditions of african american culture commonly cited as predecessors to hip-hop music in general and rapping in particular. toasts—long, epic poems common in twentieth-century black american culture—were often performed in a manner similar to rapping (albeit more rhythmically free), complete with rhyming couplets and phrases of similar length. the lyrical organization of toasts foreshadowed the hip-hop verse: their performances essentially involved protorapping, and their forms gave rise to the long-verse form in recorded hip hop. in a similar vein, strophic songs and posse cuts can be understood as a reflection of the cypher, a perennial locus of energy in collaborative and combative rapping. finally, i have argued that the mainstreaming of hip-hop music can be seen (among other ways) through a gradual shift in formal focus from the verse to the hook. hooks first became more prevalent through the emergence of the verse-hook paradigm and their profile was further raised through guest sung 120 vocals by established pop stars. their leading position in songs’ formal sequences has also increased their importance, with more and more songs presenting the hook section earlier in the song (and occasionally right at the beginning). by focusing on hook sections, i risk overstating their role in the mainstreaming process and assuming a defined generic boundary exists between hip-hop and pop music where one simply does not exist. indeed, merely invoking the term “crossover” implies that there is some border that a song, album, artist, or musical community traverses.64 in reality, the threshold between hip hop and pop is porous and incompletely defined, perhaps more so today than ever before. but this permeable boundary between hip hop and pop is precisely what makes the hook—a section type that pervades nearly all pop music in some way or another—so appealing as an agent of mainstreaming in hip hop. just like temperley’s observation that choruses slowly became standard in 1960s rock/pop music, hooks have slowly but surely infiltrated hip-hop music—a genre that once had very few of them, and now hardly exists without them. a sense of irony can be gleaned, then, from the lyrics at the end of each verse of “morris” (2014) by the raleigh-based mc/producer mez. mez finishes each verse with the refrain lyrics: “not too many know morris [x2] / those that do know here be him and say that he needs a grave and a florist, chorus.” the lyric “chorus” appears almost as an afterthought; the rhyme couplet “morris / florist” has already been realized, and “chorus” arrives on the final off-beat of the measure. following this utterance, a sparse instrumental section emerges— certainly not a hook (or chorus for that matter). in fact, the texture in this instrumental is sparser than the verse texture.65 in this light, mez’s signaling of a chorus, however passing, invokes the expectation that one might occur—an expectation conditioned through the increasing prevalence of hook sections in hip hop—and also questions the very definition of “chorus” in hip-hop music. mez thus reminds us that section types are fluid, constantly evolving, and unique in each musical genre in which they participate. section types function as a venue in which we can view the tension between the musical mainstream and genres— like hip hop—that have historically been peripheral to this mainstream, yet are now quite thoroughly a part of it. 121 notes 1 thompson writes “all the black kids in philadelphia who were listening to the radio that day have the same story. it [the song] stopped us in our tracks” (2013, 23). 2 temperley (2018) suggests that since the 1960s, the verse-chorus paradigm has supplanted strophic form (similar to his simple verse and aaba forms) as the standard song form preferred in rock music. 3 jenkins (2017) provides numerous examples of the inter-generic bleed between mainstream pop, hip hop, country, edm, and other genres. 4 kajikawa: “like professional sports, rap is a cultural arena in which the most prominent actors are black even though the majority of its spectators are not” (2015, 9). chang: “the black thing you once couldn’t understand became the ‘g’ thang you could buy into” (2005, 420–21). 5 by using tight as the operative criterion, i follow caplin’s notion of tight-knit and loose-knit ideas (1998, 17). 6 writings by stephenson (2002), covach (2004), everett (2008), and de clercq (2012) enumerate types of song sections, their possible orderings, and formal paradigms that arise from these orderings, but the repertoire these scholars focus upon is primarily what is broadly classified as the poorly-defined genre of pop/rock (biamonte 2017 makes special effort to define pop/rock as “the constellation of genres and styles that has arisen around anglophone pop and rock music in the latter half of the twentieth century, including rhythm and blues and heavy metal as well as genres with ‘pop’ or ‘rock’ in their names, but not country, hip-hop, industrial, or electronic dance music” (89)). quite often, corpus-driven studies that are dedicated to analyzing song form—such as summach (2012), de clercq (2012), and ensign (2015)—use music that appeared on the billboard hot 100 or a similarly general-scope chart. especially before the mid 1990s, but also to some degree more recently, hip-hop music has been underrepresented on these general-scope charts, and as such has not garnered close attention in corpus studies on form. for his part, summach acknowledges this gap, writing that “walser 1995, krims 2000, manabe 2006, and butler 2006, for example, all describe formal procedures in rap and electronic dance music that differ substantially from those that prevail in pre-1990s top-20 music. further study would clarify the extent to which the absorption of rap and dance into the mainstream after 1992 was eased by, or led to, hybridized formal conventions” (2012, 14). 7 summach’s corpus study involved billboard-charting songs released up until 1989, meaning he almost certainly would not have encountered hip-hop music. while ensign’s study focused on charting songs after 1989, he encountered more hip-hop music, yet still only comprising a small portion of his total corpus (he does not specify how much). 8 barna (2020) highlights this fact in her discussion of the “dance chorus”; a section type developed in edm, though now frequently incorporated in mainstream pop music. 122 9 peres’s dissertation (2016) focuses on how recording production techniques contribute to the proliferation of rhythmic, timbral, and textural elements as drivers of song form in recent pop music. 10 doll’s theoretical framework is predicated on the listening experience, so he chooses to describe harmony in terms of the effects it creates to the ear, rather than conceiving of harmony in terms of “harmonic objects” (2017, 9). 11 while this point may appear to undermine the utility of using these four section types to classify song forms, as i do here, instrumental and loose-vocal sections are rarely the chief determinant of a song’s formal type. there are only a handful of songs in my corpus where instrumental sections might be interpreted to express hook-like qualities and thus change the definition of the song’s formal type. of the 24 songs identified as strophic in the corpus, no more than five or so—to my ear—present instrumental sections that are staunchly hook-like; “mind playing tricks on me” (geto boys, 1991) represents one possible candidate, where the instrumental sections between each verse feature a guitar riff that expresses a hook-like aesthetic. 12 i define measures in hip-hop music by the near-ubiquitous underlying backbeat pattern of the drums in the song’s beat layer. that is to say, one measure equals one iteration of a 4/4 backbeat pattern. by contrast, de clercq (2016) defends the practice of determining measure length, and by extension song tempo, using absolute time as a determinant, citing perceptual studies that have shown a two-second timespan to be the ideal duration for experiential measures in subjects listening to popular songs. while de clercq’s findings are compelling, two factors led me to part from them in my approach. first, his chosen repertoire is pop and rock music. in general, these styles contain much more variance in phrase length of vocal lines, harmonic rhythm of accompaniment, and rhythmic variation of drum patterns than is found in hip-hop music. second, the perceptual studies de clercq cites mainly focus on tapping experiments. i posit that a more reliable indicator of tempo and measure perception would include a more embodied response to the aural stimuli, such as dancing. while i know of no studies that do this with respect to hip-hop music, i hypothesize that the results would show a more faithful correspondence to backbeat patterns as determinants of tempo and measure. 13 duinker (2021) unpacks rhyme structure in hip-hop flow in detail, relating it to phrase length and ultimately metric structure in hip-hop music. central to this discussion is the assumption that rhymes typically occur at the end of measures and function as phrase-ending devices. 14 see berry 2018, 3. duinker (2021) describes the variance in loop length in hip-hop beats, providing examples of 2-, 4-, and 8-measure beat loops. 15 i use the term “allegedly” here because i can locate no concrete support for this claim beyond what has been written on online blogs and genius.com, a user-annotated lyrics site. it is clear, however, from listening to shanté’s original recording of “roxanne’s revenge,” that an element of spontaneity obtains, notably through her abnormal and often unpredictable breathing patterns. this observation lends support to the claim that “roxanne’s revenge” was recorded in a single take, with no prior planning on breathing points. 16 in an interview with the website complex (cho 2011), dj premier, the producer of “ny state of mind,” describes how nas wrote his lyrics for the song in-studio and recorded them in a 123 single take, without having worked out his flow rhythms aloud prior to recording. premier notes especially nas’s utterance at the beginning of the track “i don’t know how to start this shit” as evidence of the spontaneity in this recording session. 17 i interpret this song as containing two hooks by virtue of the length of repeated lyrics comprising the double-hook section (longer than is typical in hip-hop music), and the textural shift that occurs partway through these lyrics (which to my ear denotes a sectional break). 18 many of public enemy’s hook lyrics fit this description, notably “bring the noise” (it takes a nation of millions to hold us back, 1988), and “fight the power” (fear of a black planet, 1990). 19 current and recently active mcs such as drake, young thug, mac miller, and chance the rapper have extensively used singing (usually autotuned) in verses. 20 berry (2018) and edwards (2009) use the terms hook and chorus interchangeably, while most other authors use one term or the other with no explanation. 21 these repeated lyrics are quite often repeated iterations of a refrain that concluded the previous verse. in contrast to temperley’s approach for rock music (2018, 153–154), i allow for refrain lyrics to be part of the verse or hook, depending on context. 22 examples abound in hip-hop music where the sections interspersing verses (be they hook or instrumental sections) are less texturally dense than the verses. several recent examples include “norf norf” (vince staples, 2015), “morris” (king mez, 2014), “talk about it” (dr. dre ft. king mez, 2015), and “panda” (desiigner, 2016). 23 by “melodic and harmonic differentiation,” i mean the following. first, the harmonic content of a hip-hop beat changes between verse and hook very rarely. second, since hip-hop verses do not normally contain singing, there is scant potential for the melodic profiles of verses and hooks to be compared; the only observation that can be made in this regard is often the presence or absence of singing. it should be noted, however, that very recent hip-hop music is bucking both of these trends: the harmonic language of beats is becoming more sophisticated and more verses involve singing. 24 though not referring explicitly to instrumental sections as defined here, sewell’s use of the terms “introduction” and “interlude” raise a different question regarding instrumental sections; where in the song’s chronology they typically occur. instrumental sections as i have defined them here are free of any chronological information. i do not classify hip-hop song sections with regards to their ordering, mainly because the notion of a cohesive, autonomous song, with a distinct and predictable teleology, is antithetical to the geneses of hip-hop music, and only plays a marginal role even in recent, commercial hip-hop music. as a consequence, i define instrumental sections through their lack of performed vocals (by mcs appearing on the track) and/or vocal samples that appreciably contribute to the song’s lyrical or narrative structure. 25 the main sample in this instrumental section comes from “get up offa that thing” (james brown, 1976). 124 26 “hype” vocals refer to the vocals that appear in a song’s intro or outro sections, which are usually more ad-lib sounding, ametric, and usually set up the content of the song or introduce (occasionally self-introduce) the mc or mcs who will rap the verses and/or hooks. this practice of hyping can be traced back to the kidd creole, member of grandmaster flash and the furious five (see jay quan, 2002). 27 patrin (2020, 33) notes that by the early 1980s, the focus in live hip-hop performance had squarely shifted to the mc. 28 rapped/sung song sections that evade description as verses or hooks are comparatively rare, but have become more common of late. many of these sections function somewhat similar to bridges in popular music, in that they provide contrast to the verses and hooks. ensign (2015, 29–30) provides a summary of prevailing definitions of bridge sections, all of which invoke a sense of contrast from verses and choruses. 29 though krims (2000) does not mention “push it” in his discussion on party rap (one of his four rap genres), the musical and lyrical attributes of this song place it squarely in that genre. indeed, the video released for “push it” confirms its function as a party-oriented song. 30 ensign (2015) uses the term “aaa strophic form.” i prefer “strophic form” over both this and “simple verse form” because the latter implies, to me, a static conception of verse, and the former implies a specific quantity of verses present (hardly a consistent statistic in hip-hop music). 31 i interpret all the rapping in this song as verse-like, and not hook-like, though the lyric annotate website genius.com provides a formal annotation of the song that includes hook sections (which the site calls choruses). in general, the formal annotations (and indeed also the lyric annotations) on genius.com should be scrutinized, as it is an open-source website with user-generated data. that said, it is an invaluable starting point for any analytical study of hiphop music. 32 pullum (2019) writes that “in the early days of hip-hop, it was used when a group of rappers, typically standing in a circle, would take turns exchanging verses for competition, practice or sheer entertainment.” 33 see peterson (2014, 83–85). 34 “flava in ya ear” and “fuckin’ problems” are not strophic songs, however. 35 although this initial hook section is short, the memorability of these lyrics causes imbue it with more hook-like than framing/introductory qualities. 36 despite the repeated, rhythmicized lyrics, this section does not function as a hook; it is not only less memorable than the hook sections in this song, it also occurs over the stripped-down beat texture common to the song’s verses. it thus functions as a bridge between the second verse and the final hook. 37 i know of no empirical data that supports this claim, and examples of chorus-initiating songs certainly exist (especially in recent mainstream pop music), but covach’s “verse-chorus pair” (2004) and temperley’s “verse-chorus unit” (2018) implicitly suggest a verse-chorus ordering, 125 rather than the inverse. temperley’s chart documenting sectional chorus features (2018, 160) suggests that they typically follow verses. 38 i recognize the irony in my using the term “verse-hook form” for this paradigm while simultaneously jettisoning the term “verse-hook unit” because of the ordered relationship it implies. any alternatives i could think of were just as problematic. “hook-verse form” would imply directionality as well. similarly, “hook form” misses the mark because some strophic and long-verse songs contain hooks as well, but not in the paired relationship with verses as found in verse-hook songs. bungert (2019) notes the ambivalence of formal ordering that can occur in hip-hop music in his analysis of kendrick lamar’s “king kunta” (2015). 39 naturally, there are exceptions to my position here. eminem’s “lose yourself” (2002) provides a good example of how energy can be built and accumulated through the course of a verse, reaching a local climax and dissipating in the hook section. in the case of “lose yourself,” that energy is inherent in the song’s lyrics; the narrative arc traced by these lyrics arguably requires the type of energy build that both eminem’s vocal performance and dr. dre’s beat production give to the song. 40 see duinker (2021) for a detailed analysis of the complexity of biggie’s flow performance in “hypnotize.” 41 these toasts are distinct from the jamaican sound-system cultural tradition of toasting, which involved deejays chanting over tracks played on large portable “sound systems”—large speaker arrays set up outdoors, usually on the back of a vehicle. while african american toasts draw parallels with long-verse hip-hop songs, jamaican toasting has a more direct influence on the very practice of rapping itself. 42 in the toast “shine and the sinking of the titanic,” the protagonist uses his position below deck to learn quickly of the titanic’s impending sinking and thus enables himself to escape. in the “signifyin’ monkey,” the monkey-trickster figure is able to dupe both the lion and the elephant, tricking them into fighting each other rather than going after him (in some versions of this toast, the monkey’s trickery catches up with it). 43 both men have been described as “the godfather of rap”: see o’hagan (2012) and baker (2002). 44 alim’s discussion of narrative sequencing (2006, 93–101) draws parallels between slick rick’s highly narrative rapping style and toasting. rickford and rickford (2000) and smitherman (1977) also connect the toast to vocal delivery in hip-hop music. 45 in complex's summary of every rap single to top the billboard hot 100, the authors (turner et al., 2018) suggest a shift occurred in what type of rap songs were charting following the success of coolio’s “gangsta’s paradise” (1995). after this point, singles by the notorious b.i.g., bone thugs-n-harmony, puff daddy, tupac shakur, and dr. dre began topping the charts. 46 thompson’s own reflection on first hearing “rapper’s delight” cogently sums up the song’s impact: “within a week [following its release] everyone had heard ‘rapper’s delight,’ and the world was different forever” (2013, 24). 126 47 by featuring rapping over an interpolated r&b/disco song, “rapper’s delight” participated in the ongoing trend of repurposing breakbeats and other musical elements from the r&b, disco, and funk genres. 48 bernard edwards and nile rodgers, the main songwriters in chic, were eventually credited as songwriters on “rapper’s delight” (patrin, 2020). “rapper’s delight” preserves the highly repetitive beat from “good times,” recorded by session musicians hired by producer sylvia robinson. 49 this formal summary holds true for all released versions of “rapper’s delight”: the single, the album version, the long single version, and the two 12” versions (short and long). while the quantity and length of verse and instrumental sections changes across these releases, no hook sections appear in any version. 50 i understand the term “old-school” to account for all hip-hop music released before 1986. bradley and dubois (2010) define the old-school period as 1978–1984, while perry (2004, 58) points out that the term “old school” as referencing this period of time was already in use in rap lyrics as early as 1988. 51 “rapper’s delight” was released as a single in two different lengths, as a 12” in two different lengths, and on the sugarhill gang’s self-titled debut album in 1980. 52 rose writes that “taken together, the video and lyrics for ‘ladies first’ are a statement for black female unity, independence, and power” (1994, 164–165). roberts (1994) cites “ladies first” as evidence supporting rose’s claims that “women rappers are vocal and respected members of the hip-hop community” (1991, 109). 53 in the music video, the imagery also contrasts sharply between verses and hooks. 54 the singing in the hook sections of “slow down” is mostly sampled from the song “what i am” (edie brickell and new bohemians, 1988). 55 krims reflects on the tension between hardcore lyrical subjects, which evoke affiliations of tough, urban masculinity and authenticity, with the perceived softness of r&b influences in 1990s don rap, giving the example of the parodically used female-sung hook in ice cube’s “giving up the nappy dugout” (1991). see krims 2000, 85–86. 56 evans had already released her self-titled debut album in 1995, but her subsequent three albums (keep the faith, 1998; faithfully, 2001; and the first lady, 2005) all surpassed her original album in chart performance, and “missing you” remains by far her most successful single. 57 see for example “dead and gone” (t.i. ft. justin timberlake, 2008), “empire state of mind” (jay-z ft. alicia keys, 2009), “love the way you lie” (eminem ft. rihanna, 2010), and “all of the lights” (kanye west ft. rihanna et al., 2010). the reverse setup, where mcs provide a guest verse on a pop song also prevails in recent years: notable examples include “crazy in love” (beyonce ft. jay-z, 2003) “american boy” (estelle ft. kanye west, 2008), “baby” (justin bieber ft. ludacris, 2010), and “bon appetit” (katy perry ft. migos, 2017). 58 rihanna and jay-z have a particularly interesting relationship in that jay-z was instrumental in launching rihanna’s career (well documented by seabrook 2015) while rihanna was pivotal in developing jay-z’s commercial and critical accolades. rihanna is not the only pop artist who 127 rose to fame with the help of the hip-hop genre: the then relatively unknown bruno mars gained widespread exposure early in his career for his hook performance on “nothing on you” (bob, 2010). 59 in developing a corpus from pre-formed song lists, i encountered an imbalance of songs per year. this factor should be taken into account when interpreting example 10. 60 léveillé gauvin predicted that, over time: song titles would become short, song tempi would increase, the time before first vocal entry in songs would become shorter, and the title lyrics would be referenced sooner. 61 léveillé gauvin cites lamere’s study (2014) that reveals the extent to which listeners use the skip button in spotify: only 51% percent of listens involved songs played in their entirety. 62 this assumption is 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100 history.” complex. accessed sep 8, 2020. https://www.complex.com/music/2018/07/every-no-1-rap-song-in-hot100-history/ice-ice-baby walser, robert. 1995. “rhythm, rhyme, and rhetoric in the music of public enemy.” ethnomusicology 39 (2): 193–217. appendix year artist title formal paradigm 1979 sugarhill gang “rapper’s delight” s (strophic) 1980 funky 4 + 1 “that’s the joint” s 1980 kurtis blow “the breaks” other 1981 grandmaster flash and the furious five “the adventures of grandmaster flash on the wheels of steel” other 1982 afrika bambaataa and the soulsonic force “planet rock” other 1982 grandmaster flash and the furious five “the message” vh (verse-hook) 1983 grandmaster and melle mel “white lines (don’t do it)” other 1983 rammellzee and k-rob “beat bop” s 131 (year) (artist) (title) (paradigm) 1983 run-dmc “sucker mcs” s 1984 roxanne shanté “roxanne’s revenge” lv (long verse) 1984 u.t.f.o. “roxanne, roxanne” vh 1985 doug e. fresh and slick rick “la-di-da-di” lv 1985 doug e. fresh and the get fresh crew “the show” s 1985 ll cool j “rock the bells” s 1985 run-dmc “king of rock” s 1985 schoolly d “p.s.k. what does it mean?” vh 1986 beastie boys “hold it, now hit it” vh 1986 beastie boys “paul revere” s 1986 mc shan “the bridge” vh 1986 run-dmc “peter piper” s 1987 boogie down productions “south bronx” vh 1987 eric b. & rakim “i know you got soul” s 1987 eric b. & rakim “paid in full” lv 1987 ice-t “6 ’n the mornin’” s 1987 salt-n-pepa “push it” other 1987 too $hort “freaky tales” vh 1988 audio two “top billin’” vh 1988 big daddy kane “ain't no half-steppin’” vh 1988 epmd “strictly business” s 1988 l’trimm “cars with the boom” vh 1988 marley marl et al. “the symphony” s 1988 n.w.a. “fuck tha police” vh 1988 n.w.a. “straight outta compton” s 1988 public enemy “bring the noise” vh 1988 public enemy “rebel without a pause” other 1988 rob base and dj e-z rock “it takes two” vh 1988 slick rick “children’s story” lv 1988 ultramagnetic mcs “ego trippin’” s 1989 biz markie “just a friend” vh 1989 de la soul “me myself and i” vh 1990 a tribe called quest “can i kick it?” vh 1990 brand nubian “slow down” vh 1990 digital underground “the humpty dance” vh 1990 ll cool j “mama said knock you out” vh 1990 public enemy “fight the power” vh 132 (year) (artist) (title) (paradigm) 1991 a tribe called quest ft. leaders of the new school “scenario” s 1991 black sheep “the choice is yours (revisited)” vh 1991 cypress hill “how i could just kill a man” vh 1991 geto boys “mind playing tricks on me” s 1991 naughty by nature “o.p.p.” vh 1992 dr. dre ft. snoop dogg “deep cover” vh 1992 dr. dre ft. snoop dogg “nuthin’ but a ‘g’ thang” vh 1992 ice cube “it was a good day” s 1992 pete rock and c.l. smooth “they reminisce over you (t.r.o.y.)” s 1992 sir mix-a-lot “baby got back” s 1992 the pharcyde “passin’ me by” vh 1993 snoop dogg “gin and juice” vh 1993 souls of mischief “93 ‘til infinity” vh 1993 wu-tang clan “protect ya neck” s 1993 wu-tang clan “c.r.e.a.m.” vh 1994 craig mack et al. “flava in ya ear (remix)” vh 1994 gang starr “mass appeal” s 1994 nas “it ain’t hard to tell” s 1994 nas “n.y. state of mind” s 1994 the notorious b.i.g. “big poppa” vh 1994 the notorious b.i.g. “juicy” vh 1995 mobb deep “shook ones (part ii)” vh 1995 ol' dirty bastard “brooklyn zoo” lv 1995 raekwon ft. ghostface killah, method man, and cappadonna “ice cream” vh 1995 tupac shakur “dear mama” vh 1995 tupac shakur ft. dr. dre and roger troutman “california love” vh 1996 bone thugs-n-harmony “tha crossroads” vh 1997 missy elliott “the rain (supa dupa fly)” vh 1997 the notorious b.i.g. “hypnotize” vh 1998 jermaine dupri ft. jay-z “money ain’t a thang” vh 1998 lauryn hill “lost ones” vh 1998 outkast “rosa parks” vh 1999 b.g. ft. big tymers and hot boys “bling bling” vh 1999 eminem “my name is” vh 133 (year) (artist) (title) (paradigm) 1999 jay-z ft. ugk “big pimpin’” vh 2000 dead prez “hip-hop” vh 2000 eminem ft. dido “stan” vh 2000 m.o.p. “ante up (robbing-hoodz theory)” vh 2000 outkast “ms. jackson” vh 2000 outkast “b.o.b.” vh 2001 missy elliott “get ur freak on” vh 2002 clipse “grindin’” vh 2002 eminem “lose yourself” vh 2002 jay-z ft. pharrell “excuse me miss” vh 2002 lil’ jon and the east side boyz “get low” vh 2002 missy elliott “work it” vh 2002 snoop dogg ft. pharrell williams “beautiful” vh 2003 50 cent “in da club” vh 2003 black eyed peas “hey mama” vh 2003 black eyed peas “let’s get it started” vh 2003 jay-z “99 problems” vh 2004 kanye west “jesus walks” vh 2004 snoop dogg ft. pharrell williams “drop it like it’s hot” vh 2005 50 cent “candy shop” vh 2005 black eyed peas “don't phunk with my heart” vh 2005 chamillionaire ft. krayzie bone “ridin’” vh 2005 kanye west ft. jay-z “diamonds from sierra leone” vh 2005 missy elliott ft. ciara and fatman scoop “lose control” vh 2005 the game ft. 50 cent “hate it or love it” vh 2006 ludacris ft. pharrell williams “money maker” vh 2006 lupe fiasco “kick, push” vh 2006 t.i. “what you know” vh 2006 yung joc “it’s goin’ down” vh 2007 50 cent “ayo technology” vh 2007 kanye west “can' tell me nothing” vh 2007 kanye west ft. t-pain “good life” vh 2007 lupe fiasco “superstar” vh 2007 souljia boy “crank that” vh 2007 t.i. “big things poppin’” vh 2008 flo rida “low” vh 2008 lil' wayne “lollipop” vh 134 (year) (artist) (title) (paradigm) 2008 snoop dogg “sexual eruption” vh 2008 t.i. ft. justin timberlake “dead and gone” vh 2008 t.i., jay-z, lil’ wayne, and kanye west “swagga like us” vh 2009 drake “best i ever had” vh 2009 jay-z ft. rihanna and kanye west “run this town” vh 2009 jay-z “d.o.a. (death of autotune)” vh 2009 jay-z “on to the next one” vh 2009 jay-z ft. alicia keys “empire state of mind” vh 2009 kid cudi “day ‘n’ nite” vh 2010 b.o.b. ft. bruno mars “nothin’ on you” vh 2010 eminem “not afraid” vh 2010 eminem ft. rihanna “love the way you lie” vh 2010 kanye west, rihanna, kid cudi and fergie “all of the lights” vh 2011 chris brown ft. busta rhymes and lil’ wayne “look at me now” vh 2011 dr dre ft. eminem and skylar grey “i need a doctor” vh 2011 drake “the motto” vh 2011 jay-z and kanye west “otis” s 2011 jay-z and kanye west “niggas in paris” vh 2011 lupe fiasco “the show goes on” vh 2011 snoop dogg and wiz khalifa “young wild and free” vh 2011 wale “lotus flower bomb” vh 2011 wiz khalifa “black and yellow” vh 2012 kanye west ft. big sean, pusha t, and 2 chainz “mercy” vh 2012 macklemore and ryan lewis “thrift shop” vh 2012 nas “daughters” vh 2013 a$ap rocky ft. 2 chainz, drake, and kendrick lamar “fuckin’ problems” vh 2013 drake “started from the bottom” vh 2013 jay-z “holy grail” vh 2013 kanye west “new slaves” other 2013 kanye west “bound 2” vh 2014 common and john legend “glory” vh 2014 drake “0 to 100” lv 2014 nicki minaj “anaconda” vh 2014 wiz khalifa “we dem boyz” vh 2015 drake “energy” vh 135 (year) (artist) (title) (paradigm) 2015 fetty wap “trap queen” vh 2015 kanye west “all day” vh 2015 kendrick lamar “i (album version)” vh 2015 kendrick lamar “alright” vh 2016 chance the rapper ft. lil’ wayne and 2 chainz “no problem” vh 2016 drake “hotline bling” vh 2016 kanye west “ultralight beam” vh 2016 kanye west ft. rihanna “famous” vh 2017 fat joe and remi ma “all the way up” vh current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 forner. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 273 mary i. ingraham, joseph k. so, and roy moodley, eds. 2016. opera in a multicultural world: coloniality, culture, performance. new york: routledge. reviewed by jane forner opera scholars have had something of a bounty in recent years. opera in a multicultural world: coloniality, culture, performance follows in a line of collected volumes that have sought to diversify the field through critical focuses on race, identity, colonialism, and gender, including opera indigene: re/presenting first nations and indigenous cultures (2011, edited by pamela karantonis and dylan robinson), blackness in opera (2012, edited by naomi andré, karen bryan, and eric saylor), and masculinity in opera (2013, edited by philip purvis). such works are foundational to the present volume through their emphatic efforts not only to bring these issues to the forefront and consolidate academic work scattered across (and separated by) disciplinary and historical boundaries, but also for their expansion of operatic methodologies. chapters written by performers and composers sit alongside traditional analyses, bringing into dialogue a welcome diversity of perspectives and conceptual approaches. uniting seemingly disparate objects of study around common themes, opera in a multicultural world promises much: multiculturalism, coloniality, culture, genre, and performance are all touched upon, though condensed to the space of only a few hundred pages. while, like the aforementioned volumes, the book suffers slightly from this topical magnitude, such collections have brought to attention both the enormous potential scope for further work and the clear benefits of multi-disciplinary approaches. indeed, given the three editors’ contrasting disciplinary backgrounds—musicology, anthropology, and psychology—it is clear that amalgamating and juxtaposing historical, analytical, and sociological research approaches has been a positive influence in shaping the present volume. synthesizing and building on the existing diverse strands of writing on opera that foreground issues of race and cultural identity remains a pressing need that such volumes have begun to address. whereas significant texts emerging from feminist scholarship of the 1960s and 1970s, such as catherine clément’s seminal opera, or the undoing of women (1979), paved the way for many subsequent studies on gender in opera, a critical mass of academic writing on race in opera has until recently lacked consistency. collections like those mentioned above, and more work appearing 274 current musicology since the publication of opera in a multicultural world, bring together wide-ranging approaches to a tremendously varied repertoire into a generally cohesive space. weaving together these disparate strands requires a lot from both authors and readers—examining opera’s position in articulating social realities and identities within several problematic frameworks is a significant undertaking. it can be a struggle to present analyses of specific works that successfully unite around multiple larger theoretical constructs while simultaneously maintaining a focus on topics of social exclusion, access, and privilege in opera as commerce alongside the legacy of colonialism in music and scholarship. andré’s recently published book black opera (2018), for instance, successfully expands on topics raised in blackness in opera with an in-depth study of race and operatic history, demonstrating the value of specialized as well as broader volumes. there is not space within this review to adequately discuss each of the twelve chapters and the introduction in detail; rather, i will draw out some of the ways in which the book’s central themes emerge in different analytical contexts, focusing in greater detail on a selection of essays. as in any edited collection, some are stronger than others, but all present interesting and worthwhile research. the fundamental premise of the volume is enmeshed with the fraught position of multiculturalism in today’s global political landscape: there is a great deal at stake in a concept that fundamentally deals with competing notions of how to co-exist within increasingly diverse societies. philosophical, historical, and sociological understandings of approaches to society which are often rooted in colonial history are hotly contested in the public media and political spheres as much as within academic walls. as a concept, policy, and practice, multiculturalism is both vitally relevant to contemporary society and epistemologically fragile. with this in mind, a reader expects that the editors, if not every author, will present a theoretical framework of the multicultural as it might apply to opera. the introduction does touch on the significantly shifting approaches to the concept in the last two decades, for which fred constant’s le multiculturalisme (2000) was a catalyst. a brief passage on constant notes a trend familiar to recent generations of musicologists and music theorists: the rejection of binary oppositions in critical thought, in this case between “diversity” and “unity”: constant suggests that multiple cultures coexist within communities or nations and individuals frequently—and concurrently—may experience both “pluralism” and “assimilation.” audience experiences of operatic productions across time and space similarly engender varied interpretations. (5) 275 jane forner it is evident from the considerable focus on productions and audiences that the multiplicity of ways of experiencing opera and fluidity of meaning is a crucial part of the guiding vision of the collection. one feels somewhat ill-equipped, however, to contemplate the ensuing essays with the limited space devoted in the introduction to elucidating the concept of multiculturalism and how it might apply in an operatic context. the book is divided into three parts, titled “opera as tradition,” “critical case studies,” and “opera in the real world.” the first two deal more concretely with methodologies, individual operatic works, specific performances or productions, and historical events; the third part expands the purview to librettists, performers, and audiences. part one features some of the most successful essays in relation to the apparent intentions of the volume as a whole. linda and michael hutcheon’s chapter “jazz, opera, and the ideologies of race” synthesizes some strands of their prior work on opera, race, postcolonialism, and identity in canada (hutcheon, 1991; hutcheon and hutcheon, 1998). the essay examines the complex intersections between contemporary canadian multiculturalism and colonial and postcolonial memory, as well as issues of genre and performance, in three recent operas: beatrice chancy (1998), with music by james rolfe, and québécité (2003) and trudeau: long march/shining path (2010), both with music by d.d. jackson. the libretti for beatrice chancy and québécité were penned by the celebrated africadian—to use his own term—poet and author george elliott clarke, who also features as a contributor to the volume (chapter 12). reading these two chapters together offers a dialogue between artists and academics that is still rare even in scholarship on contemporary operas, where interviews often figure prominently. the hutcheons examine these operas as “a specifically canadian version of the multicultural” (32), describing beatrice chancy as a “postcolonial opera as well as a response to continuing coloniality” (25). clarke himself has written extensively elsewhere about the capacity of the opera to resonate far beyond its appearance as a quasi-historical drama, intended to reflect and explore canadian society across temporal and ethnic bounds (clarke, 1997; domínguez and clarke, 2001; clarke, 2002). this is evident especially in the longer printed version of the libretto, in which images from historical and modern archives are interpolated amid the text (clarke, 1999). conceiving of these operas as representing a mode of articulating difference on stage that is temporally and geographically specific, the authors examine the works in tandem with issues of production and performance. tantalizing phrases abound, but are often left uninterrogated, such as “the postcolonial here became the multicultural” (31), referring to the blend of jazz idioms with south asian and punjabi musical styles in québécité, 276 current musicology whose dramatis personae feature two mixed-race couples in québec city. each opera’s distinctive musical palate emerges clearly—the mix of blues, scottish fiddle music, bel canto, and ring shouts in beatrice chancy, for instance—but a more thorough musical analysis, one that might present sound and signification in relation to the central questions of (post)coloniality and multiculturalism, is lacking. aspects such as “racial casting issues” (31) and the question of who sings, who can access an operatic career, and the kinds of audiences these works are reaching are foregrounded. this is vital work, but the format of the volume as a whole precludes analysis that can deeply grapple with the magnitude and complexity of the issues under discussion. nonetheless, clarke’s chapter offers a chance to expand on the issues raised by the hutcheons, namely the perennial “problem” of jazz-opera. under the subtitle “québécité: multiculturalism or miscegenation?,” clarke examines wide-ranging critiques of the opera: from the perception that a “jazz opera” is oxymoronic, to charges of generic instability (“chaotic mixing of style and form” [198]), he takes the opportunity to defend his work. the notion of jazz idioms as a contested element in opera is by no means an issue unique to québécité, but is central to the discourse around a great deal of opera in north america of recent years that continues to push against—even dissolve—genre boundaries. clarke’s answer to critics that struggled with the rich variety of linguistic, dramatic, and musical styles in québécité confronts precisely the contested space of opera, a genre that continues to exhibit inherently exclusionary practices, reflecting wider concerns with integration, assimilation, and identity that are fundamental to his academic and literary writing and to discourses of contemporary opera generally. mary ingraham’s essay “the other within: negotiating musical citizenship in canadian opera” is, like the hutcheons’ and clarke’s chapters, one of the more successful contributions in that it concretely engages the book’s central themes. in examples ranging from the early 1900s to the twenty-first century, ingraham explores shifting approaches to the presence of first nation narratives and musics in canadian opera, considering issues such as the “ownership of cultural materials” (72). she charts significant changes, from the presence of indigenous peoples in pre-world war i operas as “exotic” curiosities, to the greater availability of source material post-world war ii. associations between her lines of inquiry and constant’s work in the above-mentioned passage from the introduction readily emerge. by evaluating the different strategies of representing and articulating indigenous narratives on stage as juxtaposition versus integration (and everything in between), ingraham directly engages with constant’s 277 jane forner overriding of the diversity/unity binary. perhaps because canada’s national multicultural framework is acutely primed for investigations of this kind, ingraham’s contribution is apt and thoroughly consistent with the apparent intentions of the book. characterizing three historical periods of canadian opera as roughly assimilation, integration, and individuation, she posits these as parallel to evolving sociopolitical concerns and ideologies, thereby establishing a direct link between operatic culture and understandings of multiculturalism and coloniality in lived experience. similar questions of musical and non-musical racial identity and hybridity are central to nancy rao’s essay “from chinatown opera to the first emperor: racial imagination, the trope of ‘chinese opera’ and new hybridity” and josh stenberg’s account in chapter 9 of the infamous 1998 staging of puccini’s turandot in mainland china. rao’s analysis both builds on familiar notions of orientalism and moves beyond discussing the now-familiar exoticist representations and processes of othering in opera. of particular note is her focus on male gendered racial otherness, which offers a fascinating counterpart to the many excellent studies on female “oriental” others in madama butterfly, turandot, lakmé, and more. at first tracing the understudied history of exoticist spectacle of chinatown operas from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, rao explores manifestations of a specifically male chinese other through to tan dun’s 2006 opera the first emperor. focusing on the opera’s critical reception, she also examines tan dun’s positionality and personal investment in the work, especially in its relationship with its puccinian forebear. a more thorough evaluation of the reception of the first emperor might have been expected, as discussions have often criticized the composer (rightly or wrongly) for the representation of chinese identity and music, taking the guise of a “selling out” narrative by centering on ways the work plays into the exoticist fantasies of a venerable institution. while rao’s essay offers an interesting expanded historical framework within which contemporary works in this vein might be assessed, it would benefit from greater attention to the diversity of perspectives surrounding contemporary reception issues. the final essay in part one, nicholas vazsonyi’s chapter “playing the race card,” offers a succinct, historically grounded analysis of wagner’s “particular brand of anti-semitism” (84), using analogies from contemporary advertising practices to revise commonly held conceptions about the composer’s writings. beyond the obvious, it is difficult to see how the essay, albeit well-written and nuanced in its analysis, successfully responds to the leading ideas of the volume. offering a new perspective on well-worn wagnerian ground may be valuable, but it strikes one as not a pressing concern in this context. indeed, the volume is noticeably heavy 278 current musicology with wagner, with two further chapters following in part two, the largest section. the case studies in part two cover considerable historical ground (haydn, wagner, puccini, and strauss), although their outcome is largely a broadening and enriching of scholarship on thoroughly canonical composers, incorporating innovative sociological and historical perspectives on familiar repertoire. the analysis of how opera’s multiculturality might manifest focuses, in this conceptual model, on the coexistence of multiple productions: those which emphasize conflicts of power and identity, and those which challenge or subvert them. chapters 8 and 10 tackle this in part by considering several different performance contexts of wagner’s works. essays by david dennis and frances henry evaluate the use of wagner’s music for the “popular” (i.e. non-expert) audiences for nazi propaganda and the problematic 2003 production of parsifal directed by christoph schlingensief at bayreuth, respectively. caryl clark examines anti-semitism in haydn’s 1768 opera lo speziale (the apothecary), noting that it “indulged the prince’s [nicolaus esterházy] predilection for comedy redolent of jewish caricature” (99). sander gilman offers a fascinating insight into strauss’ salomé from within the context of science and “scientific” racism in the early twentieth century, focusing on the assertion that the opera’s “contemporary reception was shaped by that representation of difference labeled ‘perversion’ ” (125). as beneficial as these case studies are for the history of anti-semitism on the stage and in operatic and cultural discourse, they occupy such a significant proportion of the volume that the reader is left with a narrower sense of the guiding ideas of the book than might be desired. reading familiar and less-familiar works against the grain is indisputably a valuable counterpoint to traditional narratives on some of opera’s unassailable heavyweights. as the editors’ introduction states, the collection “strives to explore the intricate interplay of cultural values and beliefs in western opera through a critical examination of its origins, subsequent transformations, and the discourse generated from past and present performance practices” (8-9). submitting the canon at large to a similar process of rereading, to enact the creating of alternative histories, is a valuable enterprise. yet with so much of the volume dedicated to the reliable cornerstones of the genre, to what extent is the cultural lens—western, eurocentric—through which the book assesses experiences and representations of the multicultural simply reinforced further? i do not discredit the intellectually stimulating work presented here, and i am not implying that the authors stick to worn-out formulae. developing novel analytical approaches to canonic repertoire is an absolute necessity in modern academia and the collection demonstrates several useful strategies to do so. 279 jane forner but what of the objects of study? where might we look beyond the “interplay of cultural values and beliefs in western opera”? the “multicultural world” of the book emerges as more restrictive than one might imagine, lacking a thorough interrogation of multiculturalism as a concept and how it might be variously applied to opera scholarship. this criticism should not detract from the many excellent contributions made here. it strikes me as a practical issue as well as a methodological one: opera scholarship needs a far greater critical mass of studies that offer such “alternative histories,” alongside theoretical and critical work on key concepts such as the multicultural or the colonial, and alongside ethnographic studies and performance studies. this collection clearly demonstrates that current opera scholarship has expanded in fascinating ways, giving greater consideration to the processes of listening, performance, and social agency, and to sociological topics such as diversity, access, and demographics. theory can obscure as much as it illuminates, but when conceptually potent terms are the baseline of books such as this one, we need clearer approaches to positing these within the limited framework of a collected volume. the final chapter, titled “constructing operatic racism in postmodern cultural studies,” does tackle the question of the “colonialist legacy of racism in opera,” (244) but, like the introduction, offers very broad strokes of copious conceptual, ethical, methodological, and historical questions in only a few short pages. the opening remit of opera in a multicultural world is expansive and difficult to satisfy, with the first part succeeding far more in responding with clarity and proximity to the central concepts. the struggle in reading a volume like this one is paradoxical: it offers an enormously rich span of essays that somehow ends up seeming restricted, despite topics covering four centuries, multiple continents, and several different methodologies and disciplinary foci. it puts empirical sociological study alongside historical research and critiques from a librettist, an interdisciplinarity and methodological intersectionality that is to be lauded when it works. here, these fascinating studies more often feel juxtaposed rather than conversant—which, we might ask, could well be a structural rather than an intellectual flaw. perhaps new formats are needed for opera scholarship that explicitly seeks to place diverse voices in dialogue. it may seem persnickety to criticize what may seem an issue of mere practicality, but this paradoxical experience of reading the book as at once innovative and frustratingly canonic speaks to deeper methodological tensions in a field that is swelling in rapidly multiplying but not always coherent directions. the collection of essays presented here amply demonstrates the extent to which the field of opera scholarship will benefit 280 current musicology from expanded horizons, in both subject, methodology and perspective. at the very least, it offers a clearly flexible model for similar collaborative work in the future that can only serve to embolden musical scholarship of all types. it is representative of vital progress made towards fostering new approaches to a genre which is interdisciplinary by nature, inviting a growing diversity of perspectives and methodologies to forge a genuine and considered dialogue. references andré, naomi. 2018. black opera: history, power, engagement. urbana: university of illinois press. andré, naomi, karen m. bryan, and eric saylor, eds. 2012. blackness in opera. chicago: university of illinois press. clarke, george elliott. 1997. “white like canada.” transition 73: 98–109. . 1999. beatrice chancy. victoria, b.c.: polestar book publishers. . 2002. odysseys home: mapping african-canadian literature. toronto: university of toronto press. clément, catherine. 1988. opera, or the undoing of women. translated by betsy wing. minneapolis: university of minnesota press. constant, fred. 2000. le multiculturalisme. paris: flammarion. domínguez, pilar cuder, and george elliott clarke. 2001. “on black canadian writing: in conversation with george elliott clarke.” atlantis 23 (2): 187–200. hutcheon, linda. 1991. splitting images: contemporary canadian ironies. toronto: oxford university press. hutcheon, linda, and michael hutcheon. 1998. “opera and national identity: new canadian opera.” canadian theatre review 96: 5–8. karantonis, pamela, and dylan robinson, eds. 2011. opera indigene: re/presenting first nations and indigenous culture. new york: routledge. purvis, philip, ed. 2013. masculinity in opera: gender, history, and new musicology. new york: routledge. current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 wald. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 45 “it’s awfully important to listen”: ella jenkins and musical multiculturalism gayle wald in 1995, smithsonian folkways recordings released multicultural children’s songs, a collection of twenty-three tracks by the prolific composer, performer, and educator ella jenkins. although it appeared as a new recording, the cd drew from jenkins’ extensive back catalog with folkways, the storied independent label acquired by the smithsonian institution in 1987. the songs “tahboo” and “greeting in arabic (eh-he-lan we-se-he-len)” drew from jenkins’ 1957 debut, call-and-response rhythmic group singing, the album that established her as an important new voice in children’s music.1 “may-ree mack,” a version of the african american handclapping song, was sampled from her 1966 bestseller you’ll sing a song and i’ll sing a song, while “we are native american tribes” drew from her bicentennial album we are america’s children (1976) and “mexican handclapping song” originated in the 1961 album this is rhythm. a sprawling collection, multicultural children’s songs gathered material both original and traditional, sung or chanted in a variety of languages, and ranging broadly over continents and styles. some of this content was exceedingly simple, appealing to the youngest audiences. “thank you in many languages” was a multilingual civility primer in fifty-one seconds. other tracks, like “dance tunes from many lands,” were more complex, incorporating a rich variety of distinct rhythms and timbres. it was tony seeger, the eminent ethnomusicologist then helming smithsonian-folkways, who came up with the idea of reissuing selections of jenkins’ newly digitized catalog under the multicultural moniker. although the term “multicultural” in the united states originated with 1960s grassroots movements in raceand class-conscious early education, by the 1990s, as jodi melamed has documented, multiculturalism had become a watchword of the liberal state’s promotion of tolerance and diversity in various spheres of public life, including public education.2 in effect, seeger recognized in the 1990s vogue for multiculturalism an opportunity to bring jenkins’ eclectic, folk-inspired repertoire—already beloved by generations of children, educators, and librarians—to new and broader audiences. jenkins had not previously used the term to label or categorize her work, but she acceded to seeger’s idea, selecting material for and contributing liner notes to the 1995 compilation. 46 current musicology multicultural children’s songs went on to achieve landmark status in the history of american children’s music, cumulatively outselling recordings by woody guthrie, pete seeger, and lead belly, the men more typically imagined to be folkways’ gold-standard artists. it cemented the reputation of jenkins, then in her early seventies, as the most prolific and influential american children’s musician of the late twentieth century, and spurred the release of a follow-up, more multicultural children’s songs from ella jenkins, in 2014. to date, multicultural children’s songs is the second-bestselling smithsonian-folkways release in the label’s history, second only to jenkins’ you’ll sing a song and i’ll sing a song, the title track of which was entered into the library of congress’s prestigious national recording registry in 2007. more than a quarter-century since its release, multicultural children’s songs remains a staple of early education classrooms and curriculums. parents seeking out non-commercial children’s fare can today find jenkins’ cd in the children’s section of independent bookstores, where it sits next to titles such as world playground, the 1999 album that launched the putumayo kids imprint. the collection of her recordings under the rubric of multiculturalism in the 1990s made it possible for jenkins’ labors to be framed and appropriated, capitalized upon and appreciated in new ways. yet this framing also threatens to erase jenkins’ radicalism as a musician and educator, obscuring the roots of her distinct approach to children’s music in various strands of post-world war ii progressivism, including civil rights and anti-fascism. as melamed argues that the concept and practice of multiculturalism have been “detached from the history of racial conflict and antiracist struggle” through late-twentiethand early-twenty-first-century hegemonic appropriations (melamed 2006, 19), so the term “multicultural” does not adequately or accurately capture jenkins’ musical practice, in which sound and song are important vehicles of historical consciousness, subjugated knowledge, and democratic values. while 1990s discourses on multiculturalism were driven both by demographic trends and by the increasing incorporation of ethnic and racial difference into capitalist logics, jenkins’ work originated in a context of emerging efforts to decolonize music curricula and reimagine musical pedagogies, projects which had begun in the 1930s but gathered steam in the 1950s. in what follows, i mine the material collected in multicultural children’s songs to explore the evolution of jenkins’ practice, situating her at the forefront of post-world war ii transformations in children’s music, and positioning her work alongside developments in both progressive early education and the burgeoning chicago folk music scene. my aim is to establish jenkins’ rich catalog of music and writing as an important archive 47 gayle wald of multiculturalism’s radical pre-history, and in so doing to locate jenkins within the annals of late-twentieth-century progressive, anti-racist and anti-nationalist cultural activism. in the process, i elaborate on jenkins’ own theorization of “listening” to think about her work as a model of black feminist democratic practice in early childhood music education. while it is not my intention here to enter into debates about the “multicultural” turn of the 1990s and beyond, i seek to think about jenkins’ practice along the lines of what chandra mohanty has dubbed “radical multiculturalism,” differentiating it from a multiculturalism that abets the expansion of state power and of capitalism via a logic of difference as “benign variation” (mohanty 2003, 193). it follows that i focus on issues of production, or the choices and strategies that inform jenkins’ practice, rather than consumption, or the ways that educators and other adults have taken up compilations such as multicultural children’s songs. my investment in critically engaging with jenkins’ work and career is not simply a matter of “remembering” her or setting the historical record straight—both of which i regard as important (if not uncomplicated) pursuits—but has deeper stakes that relate to the obscured cultural labors of women, especially black women, in american music culture. as much as the category of “multicultural children’s music” created a means for jenkins (and the men and women who both preceded and followed her) to gain cultural recognition, so it has also served as a naturalizing frame that threatens to obscure the significance of her political and aesthetic choices, including her decision to work almost exclusively with children. what concerns me here is the danger of a de-historicized view of jenkins, one that reduces her work to platitudes or conflates her identity as a black woman with an intellectual and cultural project that “values diversity,” as the language of liberal corporate bureaucracies would have it. it is in this spirit that i am interested in pushing back gently against the monikers—of “national treasure,” “first lady of children’s music,” and “magical pied piper” (dimicelli 1978)—that recur almost ritualistically in the journalism about jenkins from the 1960s to the present. while they serve a practical purpose in giving a name to her extraordinary achievements, such appellations are also simplifications that obscure the more nuanced cultural histories that most interest me, and which i see as central to an understanding of jenkins’ place within twentieth-century cultural history. this claim can be illustrated with an anecdote. at a talk he gave around the time of the release of multicultural children’s music, tony seeger challenged his audience to guess the identity of smithsonian-folkways’ bestselling artist (“before barney” 1995).3 the question was rhetorical bait, intended to elicit the names of guthrie and pete seeger (tony seeger’s 48 current musicology uncle); but the “surprise” answer was ella jenkins. not only had sales of children’s recordings constituted a significant portion of folkways’ revenue before smithsonian’s acquisition of the label’s catalog—more than 50 percent, according to a 1978 estimate of folkways founder moses “moe” asch—but also sales of jenkins’ many albums had helped keep folkways afloat in lean times, affording asch the ability to pursue pet projects of little or no commercial appeal (bluestein 1994, 120; see also carlin 2008, 142; and olmstead 2003, 73). it was jenkins, moreover, who almost singlehandedly put folkways at the forefront of the emerging educational market for children’s music in the late 1950s, thereby assuring the label’s association with “quality” children’s fare and helping to keep children’s albums by lead belly, guthrie, and seeger in circulation. a pioneering entrepreneur, jenkins built the educational market for her recordings, and for folkways’ children’s catalog more generally, by crisscrossing the country for performances and workshops, often accompanied by her white manager bernadelle richter. as atlantic records in the 1950s became known as the “house that ruth built”—a reference to the sustaining sales provided by rhythm-and-blues hit-maker ruth brown in the label’s early years—so folkways is, in these respects, the house that ella built. at 95 (as of august 6, 2019), she builds and sustains it still. seeger’s anecdote illustrates a central contradiction of jenkins’ career, in which she is both popular and obscure, central and marginal, known and unknown, the “first lady of children’s music” and—as this “first lady” title implicitly conveys—seen as secondary to musicians whose labors are not primarily directed toward children. she is publicly renowned and yet, as daphne brooks writes of black female musicians, “at once and nonetheless fascinatingly, defiantly, and unpredictably subcultural and counterpublic” (brooks [n.d.], 30). despite serious institutional plaudits—including a 1999 lifetime achievement award from the american society of composers, authors, and publishers (the first awarded to a woman or to a children’s music performer), a 2004 grammy lifetime achievement award, and a 2017 national heritage fellowship from the national endowment of the arts—there are no critical studies of jenkins’ vast oeuvre.4 i attribute this in part to the neglect of non-commercial children’s music by scholars of american culture, but also to the social alignment of the children’s musician with the devalued labors of early-childhood educators, even as those who work with children have often been at forefront of social justice movements, whether the early-twentieth-century move toward progressive education or twenty-first-century resistance to neoliberal privatization and austerity.5 the invisibility of such (feminized) labor as a force for social and 49 gayle wald cultural change renders it all the more noteworthy that jenkins has assiduously documented her own career, taking care to represent her work in a manner that resists erasure and misrepresentation. given a degree of artistic agency that was rare at commercial labels, jenkins has not only produced (or co-produced) all of her recordings, but exercised creative control over such visual elements as album illustration and design. through ellbern, the publishing company she formed with richter, she retains ownership of her original compositions and receives royalties for their use. the liner notes for her recordings—many containing lengthy statements about her philosophy of children’s musicality and the sources of her creativity—constitute, in themselves, a significant literary archive, one in which, to use brooks’ formulation, jenkins is able to “expand on, complement, complicate and/or subvert [her] accompanying sonic text” (brooks [n.d.], 79). the absence of jenkins within humanities scholarship is a significant omission, moreover, insofar as non-commercial children’s music in the united states is a cultural project of the popular front era that continues, via the agency of children of the old left, into the cold war era (denning 1998, 360). as i document below, jenkins’ catalog of children’s songs from “different places” reflects the internationalism of the 1950s american left broadly speaking, as well as a certain progressive orientation toward the child as a subject of education and enculturation. (this is the same orientation that gave rise to progressive summer camps, which provided a crucial source of livelihood for blacklisted musicians during mccarthyism’s darkest days.6) jenkins created children’s music that translated and elaborated the era’s progressive internationalism, as well as its commitments to decolonization and anti-racism. she did so while drawing on her own formative experiences as a working-class african american girl growing up amid the modern civil rights movement. before moving on to consider jenkins’ recordings, i turn briefly to her biography, highlighting aspects of her life that provide particular insight into what i am calling her black feminist democratic practice, in order to differentiate it from de-politicized conceptions of multiculturalism as the superficial celebration of “difference.”7 what i am after here is not just a sense of her social, cultural, and intellectual formation, but a means of understanding how her project as a musician-educator took root in her experiences of racism and sexism, and how post-war social justice movements, preeminent among them civil rights, came to shape her practice and repertoire. 50 current musicology born in st. louis, missouri in 1924, jenkins grew up on chicago’s south side under the watchful eye of her mother, a christian scientist who worked mainly as a domestic and taught her children to value education and respect their elders. the family owned a radio but, because of her mother’s faith, music—including the new blues-influenced gospel music then emerging in the city—was not an important part of jenkins’ home life. on the other hand, an aunt and uncle with whom she frequently stayed had their own jukebox, which introduced her to popular singers and chicago-based blues and jazz musicians including bessie smith, bing crosby, billie holliday, big bill broonzy, and little brother montgomery. rhythm was an early preoccupation of jenkins, pursued through an interest in the theatrics of entertainers danny kaye and cab calloway, the latter of whom she saw perform at chicago’s regal theater, and a passion for table tennis (she beat out a white competitor to win the 1948 women’s chicagoland championship; see “ella jenkins. . .” 1948). after graduating from dusable high school, known for a music program that had produced such notable alumni as dorothy donegan and nat “king” cole, jenkins attended woodrow wilson junior college (alma mater of gwendolyn brooks) and roosevelt college, receiving her sociology degree in 1951 from san francisco state university, a school that would later be at the forefront of introducing black studies in higher education. returning to chicago after graduation, she worked as teenage program director for the south side ywca, then understood as a progressive alternative to the ymca. although she had been composing and arranging her own music since the late 1940s, it was around this time that jenkins began seriously contemplating a career as a children’s musician and educator. jenkins’ first big professional break came in 1956, when she was offered a recurring spot on the totem club, a local chicago children’s television program. that same year, at the urging of folklorist and record producer kenneth goldstein, she traveled to new york in the hopes of convincing moe asch to sign her to a recording contract. (on the way to the folkways office, she bumped into her good friend odetta, who advised her not to forget to ask for royalties.) asch saw potential in the acetate demo she played for him and sent her back to chicago with instructions to keep working on her music. call-and-response rhythmic group singing, the 1957 album that launched her career, was the fruit of these labors. while jenkins is sometimes referred to, and has often referred to herself as, an “untrained” musician (terkel 1993), she has also critiqued the assumptions conveyed by the concept of training, insofar as it implied formal musical instruction in a certain european canon. in her liner notes for a long time to freedom (1970), an album dedicated to the work of 51 gayle wald martin luther king, jr. and featuring gospel, spirituals, work songs, blues, and “songs of freedom,” she portrayed the various chicago neighborhoods of her childhood (the family moved frequently) as a site of vital musical education. “growing up in a black community on the south side of chicago,” she recalled, “one automatically seeped in some semblance of ‘musical background’ because music encircled the area—at least where poor people lived. where i lived there were numerous basements of ordinary apartment buildings that had regular ‘policy’ operations. . . . almost always one could catch an ear of ‘down home’ music flowing from the basement.” and “if you lived in the ‘black belt,’” she continued, you couldn’t help hearing a variety of church music—organ and piano playing, rhythmic foot-stomping, intricate hand-clapping, versatile tambourine beating and tambourine-shaking, some singing, some shouting—on a sunday morning or afternoon because many churches . . . used to amplify their services to the outside so that anyone passing by could “catch a little goodness.” . . . [i]f you didn’t have a record player at home or a juke box, you could always stand out side [sic] the small, local record shop that blasted the latest discs through the loudspeakers. there were lots of spots and many corners where one could turn to get some “musical training”—to get some “cultural background.” (ibid., 2) jenkins’ 1970 account represents her childhood as musically saturated with the sounds of gospel, blues, and popular/commercial song. (in this text, at least, there is no mention of musical education at school.) and while her narrative is laced with nostalgia, the sweetness of her reminiscence is tempered by its trenchant subtext. especially in her use of scare quotes around key phrases—“musical background,” “black belt,” “musical training” (with a capital t), and “cultural background”—jenkins distances herself both from the racially objectifying constructions of urban neighborhoods and from the willful ignorance of outsiders who equate economic hardship with cultural impoverishment. in the environment that jenkins describes, moreover, vernacular music and popular, commercial sounds co-exist, in a sonic mash-up that resists classification. her placement of this story in the liner notes of an album in which she collaborates with both brother john sellers, the mississippi-born musician with roots in the sanctified church, and joseph brewer, a highly trained tenor who studied voice at chicago’s roosevelt college, underscores her critique, emphasizing at once the complexity of black music and the black collective. the liner notes for a long time to freedom elaborated on ideas jenkins had begun to develop in junior college, where she encountered classmates of puerto rican, cuban, and mexican heritage. her efforts to learn about the rhythms, instrumentation, and musical styles associated with the cul52 current musicology tures of these students prompted jenkins to begin to think more systematically about the musical culture of her girlhood. “it was also during this time,” she writes, again in the 1970 liner notes, “that i became conscious of the fact that many of the songs and game rhythms that i sang and played as a child—learning from other children and sometimes from adults—were in essence—true folk idiom.” in narrating the intellectual journey that led to this realization, jenkins explicitly connects the dots between her own notion of “folk idiom” and the discourses of the folk revival, whose proponents were often more drawn to the songs of nineteenth-century english working-class laborers than to the sonic musical rituals of black girls. moreover, in linking her exposure to the musical worlds of her junior college classmates to her own growing realization that she, too, possessed “folk” knowledge, jenkins offered a submerged critique of the figure of the white male folklorist, who ventures into the “field” to gain access to “true folk idiom.” similar to zora neale hurston in her 1930s fieldwork for the federal music project, jenkins fashioned herself as a folk music collector who gathers “material” by learning it from others, in a process that depends on social relationships rather recording technologies. unlike so many of the collectors whose published work influenced the folk revival, but akin to such modernist artists such as hurston and langston hughes, jenkins self-consciously aligned herself with the “folk” and worked to dignify folk music as a sonic conduit of collective knowledge and community values. jenkins’ inquiry into the nature and range of folk idioms led her to investigate the african roots of african american music well before the black power-era valorization of “roots.” melville j. herkovitz, author of the influential study the myth of the negro past (1941) had only recently established northwestern university’s african studies program, the nation’s first, when jenkins began researching african rhythms and experimenting with bringing african percussive instruments into classrooms. in an era when many african americans regarded africa as a source of shame or embarrassment, following u.s. cultural representations that pictured the continent in terms of its lack of “civilization,” jenkins insisted on the beauty and importance of african rhythms, both on their own terms and as vital elements of the diasporic music of the americas. here, standard journalistic descriptions of jenkins, in identifying her as a “rhythm specialist”—a term of art she has also used over the years to describe herself—obscure the significance of these choices as an expression of an anti-colonial orientation toward african peoples and cultures. before 1960s musical groups like the last poets began performing raps over the beats of conga drums, jenkins was proselytizing about the value of african rhythm instruments in the 53 gayle wald development of american children’s musicality. when her black teenage charges at the chicago ywca voiced resistance to learning about africa, she started a “latin american” club, smuggling knowledge of africa into the classroom by means of “cuban” (i.e., afro-cuban) rhythms (house 1992). on totem club, a television program that was not immune from the sorts of cultural appropriations familiar within cold war-era children’s culture—in one episode, the white male host appears in full “native” headdress—jenkins went a step further, playing african drums with children and introducing young viewers to such self-consciously black musicians as odetta and broonzy. jenkins’ insistence on the african foundations of pan-american musical traditions aligns her pedagogical interests in the 1950s with a burgeoning civil rights project that increasingly sought to link african american political struggles to liberation movements on the african continent. at the same time, her emphasis on the cultural knowledge of children, particularly urban black children, affiliates her with the integrationist and ant-racist agenda of progressive educators, many of whom were women. when jenkins began a career at folkways, she became affiliated with a cohort of such progressive female educator-musicians—including beatrice landreck, ruth crawford seeger, and charity bailey—working to transform musical instruction in the united states. the political stakes of such pedagogical projects was neatly summarized by odetta, who once told an interviewer: my education on several levels started with my getting into folk music. . . . i started learning history that we were not being taught in school. the “heroes” that we learned about in school were the ones who garnered money for themselves and had their boots on our necks. (jacobson 2019, 22–23). odetta’s characterization of folk music as a source of counter-knowledge that contests the misinformation purveyed by the cold war-era state is of particular importance to jenkins’ own project in the 1950s. it suggests folk music as a source of ideological critique and points to the pedagogical value of forms of cultural expression often understood as entertainment or play. it also suggests that subjugated knowledges can be made available even to very young children, and that children flourish when they are encouraged to see themselves—to refer back to jenkins’ 1970 liner notes—as possessors of “cultural background” and “musical training.” and it underscores the centrality of intergenerational knowledge-transmission to the institutions of the folk revival, including folk clubs, college-campus hootenannies, touring folk reviews, summer camps, instructional literature, and commu54 current musicology nity schools such as chicago’s own old town school of folk music. it is within this context that we can see jenkins’ 1957 release of calland-response group singing on folkways as her entrée into the small but influential milieu of progressive children’s music. as david bonner explains in his invaluable study revolutionizing children’s music, while victor and columbia produced children’s recordings in the 1920s, most of what was marketed to children (via the agency of the adults who could purchase these recordings) took an “eat your vegetables” approach, feeding young listeners “high” musical culture in simplified, ostensibly kid-friendly forms. seizing on excitement about the new phonographic technology as an instructional tool, victor put out a series of operatic recordings designed for elementary students, while columbia, through its newly established educational department, released mother goose fare presented in operatic style (bonner 2008, 11–12). yet as these examples suggest, the ideological orientation of these recordings was of cultural uplift. the end game of this sort of children’s music, which used recording technology to bring the concert hall into the classroom, was “appreciation,” such that children would not only recognize an established canon but internalize a sense of the superior value of certain musical forms and traditions. less high-toned early approaches to music for children developed in the 1930s and 1940s, but these, too, followed from culturally orthodox notions of culture and of children alike. frank luther, a hillbilly artist on the decca label, became a popular children’s recording star in the 1930s by channeling a culturally conservative repertoire through an appealing, folksy demeanor (bonner 2008, 12). and the early twentieth century saw the phenomenal rise of walt disney, whose silly symphony series of animated shorts, launched in 1929, introduced children of the depression to western orchestral music, providing the template for full-length features such as fantasia (1940), which was set to a classical score performed by the philadelphia orchestra. the success of disney’s anthropomorphized instruments spawned copycats, including “tubby the tuba,” a character launched through a 1945 recording that bonner calls “the first bona fide hit in the children’s record business” (ibid., 31). variety dubbed the new children’s recordings “kidisks,” and along with billboard projected a burgeoning market for such products in an era of post-war prosperity. yet if commercial record labels had for decades been targeting children as consumers of musical entertainment, “children’s music” as a genre that addressed the development of the child herself was a distinct enterprise of independent entrepreneurs. at its forefront were two small labels, young people’s records (ypr), formed in 1946 with a mission to serve the needs of “thoughtful parents of creative children,” and folkways, the label that suc55 gayle wald ceeded moe asch’s earlier imprint, asch records (bonner 2008, 19). both labels developed children’s music catalogs influenced by trends in progressive education, which emphasized the cultivation of children’s “natural” creativity and their capacity to learn through movement and play. and both emphasized the power of recorded music in inculcating democratic and egalitarian ideals in children. when asch declared to izzy young, a fixture of the greenwich village folk scene, “my children’s records are not kiddie music,” he was thus drawing a bright line between the folkways catalog and the “kidisks” associated with walt disney or with stars such as roy rogers and gene autry. “i won’t do just any children’s record,” he said, it has to fit my concept of what a children’s record is. first of all, we treat children as people, and the content has to be something that a child would communicate with: would tell him something, would teach, or would motivate for dance or rhythm or writing or seeing things. . . . [t]hey have to treat the child as a child. like, i would not issue an animal album in which the animals speak, because i can’t conceive of a child thinking that an animal is a human being. (carlin 2008, 135) while asch may have been off-base in some of his remarks—in fact, many children seemed to enjoy the whimsicality of talking animals—his approach to children’s records reflected new ideas of “child-centered” teaching, which recharacterized children’s resistance to sitting still while music played as an opportunity for learning rather than discipline. this approach, influenced by asch’s association with the progressive independent school the little red school house, which his son michael attended, had yielded his business impressive results in the years leading up to jenkins’ debut.8 lead belly’s play parties in song and dance, released in 1941 on asch records, exposed a little-seen side of the versatile musician, then still being pictured in the popular press as an ex-convict from angola state prison (light 2015).9 the woody guthrie albums nursery days (1951) and songs to grow on for mother and child (1956), inspired by guthrie’s experience as a father and by his marriage to acclaimed modern dancer marjorie mazia guthrie, included notes urging adults to listen and move with their children rather than treat the phonograph as an “electronic babysitter.” pete seeger, who was able to skirt the professional limitations imposed on blacklisted musicians by performing for children in the 1950s, released several folkways albums of “musical americana” for listeners as young as five (carlin 2008, 140; mitgang 1956). in addition to publishing these works by established artists, asch’s label had supported more experimental endeavors, such as rhythms of the world (1955), an album that paired narration by langston hughes with documentary sounds from the folkways archive, and 1, 2, 3, and a zing zing zing (1953), which collected 56 current musicology the documentary recordings of children in west manhattan playing street games and playing songs made by sound archivist tony schwartz. these were notable precursors to jenkins, but it was charity bailey, director of the little red school house music program between 1946 and 1955, who set the most immediate precedent for her at folkways. unlike the male performers on asch’s label, but like jenkins, bailey, an african american woman hailing from providence, rhode island, saw herself primarily as a music educator and secondarily as an entertainer. this is reflected in the title of her first folkways lp, music time: a teaching record with charity bailey (1952), a brief collection of instructional songs that found bailey drawing on her background as a julliard-trained vocalist and the first african american to receive certification in the dalcroze method, which emphasized children’s kinesthetic learning. in her liner notes, bailey cheerfully advised classroom teachers to play music time in a room with “nothing breakable around so you won’t jiggle it loose when you start dancing” (bailey 1952; kline 1993, 44). like other progressive music educators, including the german composer carl orff whose signature books appeared in english translation in the 1950s as orff schulwerk: music for children (see spitz 2019 in this issue), bailey reconceptualized children’s playful, embodied response to sound as an essential component of their musical cognition, which could be nurtured through simple exercises such as clapping or moving along to a beat. anticipating jenkins, bailey understood rhythm as a key both to expanding the repertoire of children’s music and to exploring new pedagogical practices that ventured beyond the paradigms of appreciation or the acquisition of note-reading skills. bailey also blazed a professional path for jenkins, pursuing education as one of the few professional fields available to african american female college graduates at mid-century (axtell [n.d.]). notwithstanding the relative accessibility of teaching, as a young woman bailey fought the providence school board over racial discrimination in hiring within the city’s public schools (as told by the evening tribune: “colored girl gets a hearing before the school committee” 1928). jenkins, too, would experience racism as a personal and professional obstacle as she traveled the country peddling her recordings while conducting teacher workshops and performing. in a letter to asch dated october 8, 1962 and postmarked greencastle, indiana, she described the toll this travel took on her well-being: at present i am on tour of indiana schools presenting school assemblies and learning very fast that mississippi, alabama, louisiana, etc. are not the only states who are afraid and suspicious of the negro. without spiritual guidance i could not continue this tour. i shall keep seeking that “basic good in every man.” 57 gayle wald jenkins’ letter is striking for describing difficulties familiar to the era’s most commercially popular black musicians, from ray charles to etta james. “children don’t think too much about race, weight, years,” jenkins told an interviewer in 2014. “if you’re kind to them and you know some songs and respect them as people, that’s all they care about” (schmich 2014). yet the adults who facilitated children’s access to her music were often no different from those in the entertainment industry. jenkins’ music countered the pervasive racism she encountered, sometimes through the “messages” in her songs and chants, but more often through her approach to repertoire and arrangements. as jenkins had attempted to impart curiosity about and pride in african heritage to her ywca students, so she not only personally integrated classrooms throughout the united states, but also used her access to instruct children and educators in a method that centered around rhythm as an embodied conduit to new knowledge. call-and-response rhythmic group singing delineated many of the hallmarks of jenkins’ practice. the lp’s cover photograph (figure 1) showed jenkins singing and playing a conga drum, her chin tilted slightly upward and eyes closed in pleasurable contemplation. she is framed by two girls from the group of upper-school students from howalton day school, an african american private school on chicago’s south side, with whom she collaborated on the recording. (beginning with this album, jenkins would always credit children for their participation.) one plays the claves as she smiles up at jenkins; another shakes maracas. the image is cropped to focus on this trio, although loosely enough that the viewer sees at its bottom edges the back of a boy’s head and other hands playing tambourines and maracas, suggesting a group that lies beyond the photograph’s frame. in many ways, the image recalls images from earlier folkways children’s lps, which replaced the violins and singing saxophones of disney products with images of lead belly and bailey playing string instruments for child audiences. yet while the cover of call-and-response rhythmic group singing similarly represents jenkins working with children, in the image these staple instruments of the folk revival are replaced by the sort of percussion instruments that jenkins might have brought to her latin american club. at the same time, nothing about this image exoticizes these instruments or positions them within a folkloristic visual frame. all three figures appear as neatly dressed and “modern” american subjects, with jenkins wearing delicate drop earrings and a neatly pressed hairdo. the words superimposed over the image name what is happening in the scene as “call-and-response rhythmic group singing,” a phrase that notably omits the word children. to get at what jenkins meant by this title phrase, it is worth making a brief detour through tony schwartz’s more 58 current musicology playfully-titled lp 1, 2, 3, and a zing zing zing. in his liner notes for this documentary recording of children in west manhattan playing street games and singing songs, schwartz recounts how he came to record one of the children, a 12-year-old girl who can be heard on one track performing material she learned at a fresh air fund summer camp. perhaps out of shyness, schwartz notes, the girl would not perform for him or his tape recorder unless she could get the other children to sing with her. this she accomplished in a single sentence to her peers: “you have to say what i say” (schwartz 1952). what jenkins called “call-and-response” singing—often shortened in discussions of her work to “call and response”—was a version of the 12-year-old’s “you have to say what i say,” and it grounded her pedagogy in a game of collective listening. call and response took advantage of children’s hard-wired predisposition to mimic, a fundamental aspect of human language-learning, to reframe singing as repetition, or in the case of schwartz’s 12-year-old performer, doing as you’re told. because it took figure 1: cover photo of ella jenkins, call-and-response rhythmic group singing. courtesy of smithsonian folkways recordings. photo by jo banks. 59 gayle wald vocalizing outside of the realm of formal presentation and rendered it part of a group activity in which everyone had an equal stake, call and response was enormously important to jenkins’ ability to enlist supposedly non-musical children (and adults) to sing in public. call and response also supported her wish to demystify music as the cultural domain of professionals, an orientation that she would critique in the 1970 liner notes, and re-signified it as a form of reiterative “play” at which children, even those with physical and intellectual disabilities, were already adept. perhaps most importantly, although it was vertically organized around a leader, call and response, like the group singing promulgated by pete seeger and other folk revivalists, was also radically egalitarian, having as its end goal a kind of horizontality, in which the follower becomes adept enough to become the leader of a future song. indeed, it named the process by which jenkins acquired her repertoire: by asking others to teach her a song and then mimicking them. thus, despite its vaguely ethnographic ring, call-and-response rhythmic group singing offered itself as archival tool in opposition to concepts of ethnographic fidelity or folkloristic purity. this is illustrated by “tahboo,” one of the only tracks from the 1957 album selected by jenkins for inclusion in multicultural children’s songs. as she explained in the liner notes written for the 1995 compilation, “tahboo” is “not an actual african song” although “it features call-and-response singing to a single drum as do many african songs.” that is, “tahboo” is not authentic, a distinction that involves the policing of boundaries; rather, it is representative, typical or illustrative in a way that does not depend on a singular definition. for jenkins, distinguishing between authenticity and representativeness served a practical end in mitigating the anxiety children and adults feel about making new sounds, particularly if they know these sounds connote a “foreign” language. this explains tracks such as “toom-bah-ee-lero,” another song on call-and-response rhythmic group singing, which is never identified as a spanish-language song, although the title word clearly approximates the spanish word timbalero, or player of timbales. in rejecting the ideal of fidelity to a standard, or notions of correct pronunciation, she could overcome children’s anxiety around singing or chanting in the “right” way. in a related manner, it is significant that in the liner notes written for call-and-response group singing, jenkins takes great pains to avoid associating call and response exclusively with africa and african diasporic music. instead, she explains in her liner notes that the “‘call-and response’ pattern of singing” is “dominant in the songs and chants of west africa, in the cult music of cuba, and found in songs of india, greece, north 60 current musicology africa, and the middle east.” chanting in the “‘call-and-response’ manner, so common in churches and synagogues,” she continues, “has a way of creating and maintaining a warm group feeling. the song or chant’s very pattern causes the group to be attentive, to wonder what is to come next, and be willing to cooperate with the leader” (jenkins 1957). in this, jenkins gestures toward an ideal of embodied listening as a cultural practice of community. at the same time, her resistance to naming call and response as soley or especially african serves to de-fetishize an often fetishized aspect of african american culture. the practice of call and response is illustrated in “tahboo,” the lp’s opening track, a song jenkins composed (so the liner notes inform readers) at a summer camp in palatine, illinois, “where she had her first musical experience with children—leading them in community songs” (jenkins 1957). the track begins with a spoken introduction in which jenkins explains, in a serene voice, the “rules” of the game to her audience. as in the children’s game follow the leader, she says, the rules of her “game in song and sound” are simple: i simply sing or speak a line to you and you sing it back to me, unless i instruct you to do something different. if i make a funny sound, you make one also. sometimes i sing softly, sometimes loudly, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. whatever i do, you must follow. remember, now, it’s awfully important to listen. (jenkins 1957) after asking the children to follow her in saying “tahboo,” jenkins begins the song by tapping out a brief rhythmic pattern on a conga drum, then layering vocals over the beat. jenkins provides a transcription of these vocal sounds in her liner notes: leader: tahboo – oo – oo group: tahboo – oo – oo leader: ee pah – ah – ah group: ee pah – ah – ah leader: ee wahtah wahtah wahtah yeagah (yea rhymes with say) group: ee wahtah wahtah wahtah yeagah (jenkins 1957) the performance is divided into three sections: a first which is sung, a second that omits some of the drumming and incorporates spoken versions of some of the same sounds, and a third that reprises elements of the first, albeit with subtle modulations in tempo and intensity, eventually fading out at the end. 61 gayle wald although “tahboo” is brief—about 75 seconds, not including jenkins’ spoken introduction—the experience it engenders is immersive. because the sounds are unfamiliar, the children (and the audience listening to the lp) have to pay careful attention to them, and because jenkins does not present them as words but rather as “made-up sounds,” they (we) must approach them as “pure” auditory material. even minor variations in jenkins’ vocal delivery thus stand out as differences that must be vocalized back to her. if she vocalizes the made-up sound “ee pah” in a staccato fashion, the children have to make a staccato sound as well; if she whispers, they whisper back. yet even as these sounds are presented to the children as fanciful, jenkins’ careful transcription of them—including her parenthetical observation that the yea sound of “yeagah” rhymes with the english word “say”—suggests that the sonic text is neither random nor nonsensical, but meaningful, albeit not in a strictly semantic sense. indeed, although jenkins never identifies the musical inspiration for “tahboo” in the 1957 liner notes (as she would in 1995), in her choice of instrumentation, rhythmic accompaniment, and the quality of the sounds (understood as phonemic approximations of words) an astute listener can deduce that she is drawing on african source material—an impression supported by her description of her method of composing based on “interpretations” of learned material. in other words, “tahboo” models african musicking even as jenkins does not identify the song as “african,” translate or explicate the lyric, or specify its provenance in a particular region, country, ethnic group, or language. the transmission of musical knowledge in the song thus does not rest on the children’s mastery of its meaning—understood as content conveyed by its lyrics, or even as basic recognition of the lyrics as words from a foreign tongue—but flows from their embodied performance of different musical practices and aesthetics. like jenkins’ signature composition, “you’ll sing a song and i’ll sing a song” (1966), “tahboo” is about human communication, affirming the production of community through song. rooted in jenkins’ political investments in racial and gender equality, it affirms the social value of listening, not as a form of obedience and deference—as in, “stop talking and listen”—but as a sonic affirmation of connectivity and regard for the other. yet jenkins does not present “tahboo” as a political song, at least not in the sense of movement anthems such as “this little light of mine,” a childfriendly spiritual that had been taken up by civil rights activists by 1957. the subtlety of her approach is such that “tahboo” might be heard and reproduced in classrooms without regard for its “multicultural” subtext, as a simple “game in song” with “made-up sounds.” other listeners, more 62 current musicology attuned to such subtexts, might value it precisely for its modeling of an aesthetic that crossed the atlantic ocean with enslaved west african peoples, becoming the basis for much american popular song. other tracks on call-and-response rhythmic group singing evidence jenkins’ political and aesthetic commitments differently. of these, the most noteworthy is “an american chain gang chant,” her title for a version of “another man done gone,” an african american folk song that was popular during the folk revival. in narrating the story of a chain-gang escapee from the viewpoint of someone who still toils in servitude, “an american chain gang chant” would at first seem like a strange selection for a children’s album. yet similar to “moon don’t go,” the other english-language track on call-and-response rhythmic group singing, “an american chain gang chant” supports multiple readings. jenkins may well have known odetta’s spare arrangement of “another man done gone,” which appeared in a live version on her 1954 the tin angel lp (released with the singer larry mohr) and was featured again in a studio version on odetta sings ballads and blues (1957). odetta’s source for the song was an acappella version performed by alabama native vera hall, an “untrained” (in jenkins’ sense) african american singer who sung it in 1940 for folklorist alan lomax, after initially objecting that as a blues the song belonged in her husband’s repertoire.10 as stephen wade recounts in the beautiful music all around us, hall may well have learned the song from her husband, who spent time in and out of alabama penitentiaries. yet her version is nevertheless imbued with the weariness and fortitude of a woman who is intimately familiar with enchainment and servitude (wade 2012, 170). it consists of six stanzas, each repeating a single phrase (with subtle variations) four times: another man done gone (x4) i didn’t know his name (x4) he had a long chain on (x4) he killed another man (x4) i don’t know where he’s gone (x4) i’m gonna walk your log (x4) (adapted from wade 1997, 169) on jenkins’ album, “an american chain gang chant” combines elements of both of these earlier recordings of “another man done gone” by black women, and it likewise conjures escapes both real and hoped-for, of the past and of the future. chanted and sung in unison with the children, it uses hand claps and sleigh bells (the latter conjuring the metallic clank 63 gayle wald of heavy chains) as rhythmic accompaniment. the violent lyrical content of the song is downplayed in jenkins’ liner notes, which omit the lyrics and define “chain gang” in simple, racially and culturally non-specific terms, as “a group of prisoners who eat, work, and sleep chained together.”11 her version also adds a new stanza that gives the song a sense of hopefulness (“they’ll never catch him”) and, by changing the line “he killed another man” from earlier recorded versions to “they shot (killed) another man,” conveys a moral clarity that children can appreciate. (the runaway is not a “bad guy” who killed someone.) yet a sense of the chain gang’s brutality is retained in the indeterminacy of the plural pronoun “they” in the rewritten lyric, suggesting a figure of authority, whether individual or collective, that is all the more ominous and powerful for not being specifically named. “the song is full of shadows and hidden meanings,” observed lomax, referring to hall’s “another man done gone,” in notes written for the library of congress’s archive of american folk song. lomax was perhaps thinking of the enigmatic last line of hall’s version (“i’m gonna walk your log,” said to be a metaphor for a woman’s fidelity); or he may have been commenting on its uncanny power in conjuring escape and fugitivity as themes of african american experience.12 but it is unlikely that lomax, in his avid pursuit of the “rich” veins of folklore that existed in rural southern communities, had ever contemplated “another man done gone” as a children’s song. ironically, when alan lomax and his father, john lomax, first began hawking the talents of their “discovery” lead belly (then huddie ledbetter), they were not averse to publicity that referred to him as the “singing convict.” upon the release of play parties in song and dance, asch is said to have quipped: “who heard of a murderer singing play party songs?” (carlin 2008, 136). of course, lead belly—as a black man who actually had escaped from a chain gang—could not have recorded a chain gang song or a murder ballad for children. but jenkins could and did, conjuring both the fugitivity of the chain gang escapee and the fugitivity of cultural memory of african american history and experience, which must be actively transmitted from generation to generation. even in its “child-friendly” form, that is to say, her choice of “another man done gone” suggests a desire to call attention to the sorts of cultural memories and “alternative histories” (mohanty 2003, 196) that even progressive schooling can elide. in her liner notes to the 1995 multicultural children’s music compilation, jenkins discussed diversity in children’s music without ever using the word “multicultural.” “it is never too early to teach children about different ways of speaking, different rhythms, and different ways of moving their bodies,” she observes. “in this collection of songs children will learn new words and hear new sounds and rhythms from different places. they 64 current musicology will discover that although some things are different, many things are the same.” this might seem like a tepid platitude of diversity—of the sort associated with late twentieth-century corporate or bureaucratic multiculturalism—but read with an awareness of jenkins’ longstanding educational and archival project, it can be seen as connecting the dots between diversity in repertoire and the critique of racializing nationalist projects of identity. difference can be part of a normalizing project that ultimately reinscribes hierarchies, in effect reproducing the logic of difference that “difference” would seem to disavow (mohanty 2003; puar 2017; hall 2000). my goal in characterizing jenkins’ project as a black feminist democratic practice has thus not been to resuscitate the term “multicultural” for jenkins’ music, but to call attention to the ways her work—in its critique of hierarchical discourses of cultural “knowledge,” anti-essentialist methodologies of cultural representation, and surfacing of subjugated memories and histories through song—is more expansive and incisive than the label has come to imply. as those in the 1950s folk revival expressed their own “searching for international harmony and understanding” (cohen 2002, 110) through an embrace of the internationalism of folksong, so jenkins, in her children’s music, imagined a means of instilling a democratic ethos in children that would nurture them throughout their adult lives. in the beautiful world her music conjures, we respond to each other’s calls. or as jenkins herself said: “whatever i do, you must follow. remember, now, it’s awfully important to listen.” notes thanks to audiences who heard early versions of this essay at new york university, yale university, the 2019 iaspm-u.s. conference, and the 2019 northeast modern language association meeting. i want to offer special thanks to ella jenkins and bernadelle richter, for their gracious assistance. thanks also to daphne brooks, tim ferrin, allison schein holmes (studs terkel radio archive), colby maddox (old town school archives,) lesley martin (chicago history museum), jeff place (smithsonian-folkways records), sonnet retman, david sax, gus stadler, sherrie tucker, and stephen wade. jennifer nash and loren kajikawa generously read a late-stage draft of this essay and offered invaluable feedback. 1. whereas it originally appeared on jenkins’ 1957 lp call-and-response rhythmic group singing as “tah-boo,” on multicultural children’s songs, the same song is spelled “tahboo.” i will use the more recent spelling of “tahboo” throughout this essay. 2. writing about her 1979 folkways release “travellin’ with ella jenkins: a bi-lingual journey,” a reviewer for sing out!, the folk music magazine, noted: “thirty years ago [1949], terms like ‘bi-lingual’ and ‘multi-cultural’ were seldom used. but many school children have been ‘culturally deprived,’ forbidden to speak their native languages in school. the kind of cross-cultural approach ella jenkins employs not only helps children achieve a good self-image, but encourages them to appreciate the customs and languages of their 65 gayle wald friends.” see vincent 1979: 41. 3. i draw here, too, on a phone interview with tony seeger, february 19, 2018. 4. chicago-based filmmaker tim ferrin is currently completing a documentary about jenkins, ella jenkins: we’ll sing a song together. see http://www.singasongtogether.com. 5. i am thinking here, for example, of the 2011 “wisconsin uprising,” in which public employees, including teachers, fought back against gov. scott walker’s plan to roll back collective bargaining and cut pensions. see stein and marley 2013. 6. david blake has recently documented how college campuses also served as “crucial sites for demonstrating the democratic potential of folk music.” see blake 2018. 7. this account draws on various public sources as well as from an author interview with ella jenkins and bernadelle richter, december 17, 2018. 8. the little red school house was founded by progressive educator elisabeth irwin in 1921 as an alternative public elementary school. beginning in 1941, it became an independent (i.e., privately funded) school. 9. in 1937, life published an article that stands out for its racist characterization of the artist. see “lead belly: bad nigger makes good minstrel,” life (april 19, 1937), 38-40. 10. hall’s version, which played on lomax’s ballad hunter radio show and released on the album afro-american blues and games songs (aafs l4), subsequently became the basis for versions by carl sandburg (published in new american songbag [1950]), johnny cash 1963), harry belafonte (swing dat hammer, 1960), and odetta (1954). 11. given the age of the school children and the population that howalton served, it stands to reason that jenkins taught the performers more about the history of the song and the specific penal subjugation it represents. 12. wade likewise finds that hall’s plaintive blues “conveys a message akin to a civil rights anthem” (2012, 172). references axtell, dan. http://www.danaxtell.com/charitybailey/ bailey, charity. 1952. music time: a teaching record with charity bailey. folkways records. “before barney.” april, 1995. the torch: a monthly newsletter for the smithsonian institution 95 (4). blake, david. 2018. “‘everybody makes up foksongs’: pete seeger’s 1950 college concerts and the democratic potential of folk music.” journal of the society of american music 12 (4): 383–424. bluestein, gene. 1994. poplore: folk and pop in american culture. amherst: university of massachusetts press. bonner, david. 2008. revolutionizing children’s records: the young people’s records and children’s record guild series, 1946–1977. lanham, md: scarecrow press. brooks, daphne a. [unpublished ms]. “liner notes for the revolution: the archive, the critic, and black women’s sound cultures.” carlin, richard, 2008. worlds of sound: the story of smithsonian folkways. washington, dc: smithsonian institution press. cohen, ronald d. 2002. rainbow quest: the folk music revival and american society, 1940–1970. amherst, ma: university of massachusetts. 66 current musicology “colored girl gets a hearing before the school committee.” april 24, 1928. evening tribune. providence, ri. denning, michael. 1998. the cultural front: the laboring of american culture in the twentieth century. new york: verso. dimiceli, louise. 1978. “ella jenkins: chicago’s magical pied piper.” come for to sing 4 (2): 5–8. “ella jenkins is chicagoland’s table tennis champ.” march 20, 1948. chicago defender. flerage, raeburn and iola. unpublished ms of article for sing out, december 1961. courtesy the chicago history museum. goldsmith, peter. 1998. making people’s music: moe asch and folkways records. washington, dc: smithsonian institution press. guthrie, woody. 1956. songs to grow on for mother and child. folkways records. hall, stuart. 2000. “the multicultural question.” in un/settled multiculturalisms: diasporas, entanglements, transruptions, edited by barnor hesse, 209–241 london: zed books. house, phil. n.d., probably 1992. “i’m there to serve the children: an interview with ella jenkins.” unknown source from smithsonian folkways archive. jacobson, matthew frye. 2019. odetta’s one grain of sand. new york: bloomsbury publishing. jenkins, ella. august 14, 1962. unpublished letter to moses “mo” asch. moses and frances asch collection, center for folk life and cultural heritage, washington, dc. ———. 1957. call-and-response rhythmic group singing. folkways records. ———. 1976. we are america’s children. folkways records. ———. 1966. you’ll sing a song and i’ll sing a song. folkways records. ———. 1995. multicultural children’s songs. smithsonian-folkways records. kline, stephen. 1993. out of the garden: toys and children’s culture in the age of tv marketing. new york: verso. “lead belly: bad nigger makes good minstrel.” april 19,1937. life. 38-40. light, alan. february 20, 2015. “lead belly, folk-music giant, has a smithsonian moment.” new york times. melamed, jodi. 2006. “the spirit of neoliberalism: from racial liberalism to neoliberal multiculturalism,” social text 24 (4): 1–24. mitgang, herbert. may 6, 1956. “no ‘talking down’: folkways records for young people are authentic and entertaining work songs.” new york times. mohanty, chandra talpade. 2003. feminism without borders: decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. durham, nc: duke university press. olmstead, tony. 2003. folkways records: moses asch and his encyclopedia of sound. new york: routledge. puar, jasbir k. 2007. terrorist assemblages: homonationalism in queer times. durham, nc: duke university press. schmich, mary. august 31, 2014. “children’s music never grows old to ella jenkins.” chicago tribune. schwartz, tony. 1952. 1, 2, 3, and a zing zing zing. folkways records. spitz, emily. 2019. “from idea to institution: the development and dissemination of the orff-schulwerk from germany to the united states.” current musicology 104: 7–44. stein, jason and patrick marley. 2013. more than they bargained for: scott walker, unions, and the fight for wisconsin. madison, wi: university of wisconsin press. stewart, susan. may 10, 1991. “the most happy ella,” entertainment weekly. terkel, studs. july 17, 1993. “ella jenkins in conversation with studs terkel.” https:// studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ella-jenkins-conversation-studs-terkel 67 gayle wald vincent, jenny. 1979. “travellin’ with ella jenkins: a bi-lingual journey.” sing out! wade, stephen (ed.). 1997. a treasury of library of congress field recordings. selected, annotated, and produced by stephen wade. rounder records. ———. 2012. the beautiful music all around us: field recordings and the american experience. champaign, il: university of illinois press. 68 current musicology current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 clark. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 253 steingo, gavin. 2016. kwaito’s promise: music and the aesthetics of freedom in south africa. chicago: university of chicago press. reviewed by emily hansell clark gavin steingo’s kwaito’s promise is an ethnographic monograph that “thinks with” kwaito, a black urban south african electronic popular music with roots in a short-lived period of euphoria surrounding the end of apartheid in the mid-1990s. as the hopefulness of that historical moment was quickly dispelled by the realities of a post-apartheid existence, kwaito persisted as feel-good dance music with lyrics that evoke context-free fun, such as “let’s celebrate/it’s time to celebrate!” from the trompies’ “celebrate” (4). critics of the genre have pointed to a dissonance between the aesthetic and lyrical tone of the music and the circumstances of its listeners’ and performers’ precarious lives in segregated and impoverished south african townships to characterize kwaito as “immature, apolitical, disconnected from social issues, and lacking any meaning or purpose” (vii). steingo deconstructs these descriptors, unpacking longstanding assumptions about what it means for music to be political, to interact with social conditions, and to “have” meaning. ultimately, he argues that kwaito’s musicians and audiences may well choose to ignore their social conditions through their engagements with the genre, but in doing so they “deliberately . . . invent another way of perceiving the world,” making kwaito “less a form of escapism than an aesthetic practice of multiplying sensory reality and thus generating new possibilities in the midst of neoliberalism’s foreclosure of the future” (vii–viii). in this review, i forego the standard format of chapter summaries and instead aim to situate kwaito’s promise more broadly in an intellectual lineage and a present scholarly moment that together point to possible, and, i argue, necessary directions for ethnomusicology’s own disciplinary future. in a sense, kwaito’s promise is a typical work of ethnomusicology, drawing from fieldwork in soweto (a township of steingo’s native city, johannesburg) to attend ethnographically to a musical object, namely the practices and products that comprise the genre of kwaito, a genre historically tied to a specific population in a specific place. but steingo does not merely describe and analyze kwaito as a musical genre or a product of social relations and history. rather, he frames an encounter between a particular musical object and a particular body of theory (namely the political philosophy of jacques rancière) that produces reflections on both 254 current musicology music and methodology and, ultimately, becomes a reflexive critique of knowledge production in the discipline with implications for humanistic scholarship more broadly. in doing so, steingo joins a number of other ethnomusicologists since the 1980s who, rather than merely borrowing theory from other disciplines to apply to musical objects, bring humanistic theory and musical ethnography together in ways that contribute uniquely sonic perspectives to interdisciplinary conversations. such scholarship does not just produce knowledge about music, but, moreover, results in scrutiny of the production of knowledge itself and the effects of scholarship in shaping and reinforcing already-held views of music, the social, and the human. in this review, i argue that such reflexively critical scholarship in ethnomusicology is not one current trend equal among many, but rather reflects a necessary sea change in humanistic scholarship. kwaito’s promise exemplifies the ways in which ethnomusicology cannot just follow the tides, but rather must actively contribute meaningful and unique perspectives to critical conversations across disciplines. theoretically, steingo draws primarily from the thought of jacques rancière on the politics of aesthetics and the “distribution of the sensible” (see also moreno and steingo 2012), both to understand kwaito and to reflect on how such scholarly understanding might be produced. steingo argues that prior to its construction as a musical genre, kwaito is “an arrangement of sensory perception”—a sonic experience equal to any other in the sensory substance of its occurrence—that becomes a musical genre through production practices and social relations that are steeped in the economic and racial inequalities of post-apartheid south africa. through this interplay of equal sonic material and unequal social conditions, kwaito, steingo claims, is able to “suspend normative modalities of hearing and knowing,” allowing its producers and listeners to double reality with another sonic reality that refuses to relinquish the hope for a future worth celebrating—a future that the end of apartheid once promised. the idea of an alternative reality and possible future that steingo draws from rancière resonates in the words of kwaito musicians and audiences, such as the “king of kwaito” arthur mafokate, who describes the birth of present-day kwaito as a doubling of sonic material that already existed, with the possibility of alternative meaning: “we can’t call house music kwaito. let’s create something out of what we call kwaito and call it kwaito” (56). steingo’s analysis leads to an argument against a more meta form of inequality, namely ethnomusicology’s claims that no musician or listener can evade his or her “actual” social conditions, that purporting to do so is a form of ideological mystification, and that ethnomusicologists have access to the “truth” of what is “actually” going on behind the mystified words and actions of our interlocutors. still thinking with rancière, steingo argues 255 emily hansell clark against the assumption of this privileged position for academics and academia, and instead argues that so-called “illusion” might be seen, instead of as a denial of “truth,” as a mode of generating a new sensory reality that is just as true, or, rather, that obviates truth as the goal of scholarship. steingo argues that ethnomusicology of the last couple decades, largely concerned with demonstrating how music is a product of social relations and social conditions, has inadvertently become a generator of rancière’s “knowledge which represses” by assigning “correct” ways of hearing and knowing to different groups and genres based on expertise. kwaito’s promise aims to exemplify another way. the acoustic assemblage a significant contribution of kwaito’s promise that exemplifies the book’s merits for audiences beyond africanists and popular music scholars is steingo’s furthering, in chapter 5 (“acoustic assemblages and forms of life”), of the conceptual tool of the “acoustic assemblage,” previously formulated by ana maría ochoa gautier as “the mutually constitutive and transformative relation . . . generated between entities that hear, notions of the sonorous producing entities, and notions of the type of relationship between them” (ochoa gautier 2014, 23, emphasis in original). this formulation of a sonic act places emphasis on hearing as the starting point for a network of relations that involves not just a sound but rather a “notion” of what a “sonorous producing entity” might be, and a “notion” of a possible relationship between the source of a sound (the other) and the listener (the self). acts, or even imaginaries, of sound thus always draw from and produce (or potentially challenge) the listening subject’s conceptions of the self, the other, and the relation between them in ways that “link sound to history, ecology, and cosmology” (steingo 2016, 23) and are thus entangled with “the very definition of life” (ochoa 2014, 5). such a network of relations is generated around any subject who hears, and all entities can participate in multiple networks at the same time, producing a “radical openness” (steingo 2016, 125) of relations that translates across domains of life and challenges the categories that are superimposed on lived experience (for example by the market or the state). instead, within this openness is the potential to “hear the traces of a fundamentally different acoustic relation” (126) and thus an alternative understanding of the perceiving self, the perceptible other, and the relationship between them—in other words, of life itself. steingo’s ethnographic material centers around musicians in soweto who, in contrast to ethnomusicology and media studies’ frequent focus on the increasing mobility and circulation of music and musicians (e.g. 256 current musicology sterne 2012), are immobilized by various forms of precarity. bound to the township by poverty and segregation, one of steingo’s main interlocutors is further restricted to the space of his own home because leaving his music equipment (desktop computer, speakers, and bass guitar) unguarded almost guarantees its theft. music made in soweto is typically transmitted through the physical exchange of old hard drives, which are likely to corrupt files, fail completely, or disappear. thus the “sonorous producing entities” of kwaito include not just musicians and instruments, but the heavily reused and repaired hard drive, the absence of stolen equipment, the failure of sound files to perfectly reproduce, and even the dogs used to guard homes from theft. steingo uses the idea of the “acoustic assemblage” to situate kwaito, its producers, and its listeners in relationship with various “outsides”: temporal (the past and the future), spatial (places outside of the often very limited circulations of daily life), and cosmological (the domains of dreams and the occult, for example). the idea of the “spatial outside” provides an alternative to established ethnomusicological ways of thinking about place, such as “the local” and “the global.” steingo argues that the implication of these terms that place operates in a scalar way—conceivable as concentric circles growing from the local to the national to the regional to the international with each level “larger” than and encompassing the former—does not make sense in attempts to understand his townshipand home-bound soweto friends’ experiences of space, mobility, and connection. through the various acoustic assemblages that constitute kwaito, producers and listeners alike engage with other places, imagined and actual, bypassing notions of national or regional identity, and the immobilizing forces of segregation, poverty, and crime in the construction of an emplaced, cosmopolitan, intersubjective acoustic self. how to “take music seriously” in the last decade, the overused phrase “taking [one’s object of study] seriously” has become a shorthand that argues opaquely for the scholar’s superior mode of thinking about the object in question compared to the existing literature, which has somehow failed to be sufficiently serious. but have all scholars of music not considered themselves to be “taking the question of music seriously”? steingo uses the phrase to argue for a view of music not as a given category but “rather as a historically situated modality of experience” with “consequences [that] remain underdetermined but also, and precisely for this reason, compelling to think with” (xi). i take this to mean that for steingo, “taking music seriously” must entail creating ethnomusicology as not just the discipline that studies the complex 257 emily hansell clark phenomenon of music, but rather as the grounds for interdisciplinary engagement around sonic objects and experiences, where contributions from aural perspectives can be made to the continued scrutiny of the production of knowledge about human practice and life. through the interaction of political philosophical theory, ethnographic interviews, observations, and historicization around the object of kwaito, kwaito’s promise exemplifies an ethnomusicology that constructs itself as the grounds for humanistic theory at large to interact with and, moreover, to be acted upon by ethnographic explorations of sonic objects. i link steingo’s work to that of other scholars who have succeeded in not just applying anthropological, philosophical, and other forms of humanistic theory to musical objects, but rather in exemplifying and arguing for ethnomusicology’s potential as a field where novel insights about humanity can be made. marcia herndon (1971), steven feld (1982), and anthony seeger (1987) proposed reconfigurations of alan merriam’s (1964) “anthropology of music” paradigm—i.e. the study of music in culture, entailing “the application of anthropological methods and concerns to music”—arguing instead for modes of examining music and sound as culture, as cultural systems that can reveal “an understanding of the ethos and quality of life in [a] society” (feld 1982, 3), providing aural-oriented insight into the intertwining of ecology, cosmology, and aesthetics in the experience of life. in more recent years, while many ethnographic monographs have made worthy contributions to the accumulation of ethnomusicological knowledge, certain works have seen the meeting of humanistic theory and musical/acoustic ethnographic objects in ways that continue to argue for ethnomusicology’s potential as a crucible for transdisciplinary ideas that crystallize in unique ways around objects and instances of music and sound. for example, amanda weidman’s singing the classical, voicing the modern (2006), ana maría ochoa gautier’s aurality (2014), and essays in audible empire edited by ronald radano and tejumola olaniyan (2016) interrogate the role of the aural in colonial knowledge production and point to sonic modes of postcolonial historiography. david novak’s japanoise (2013) brings an ethnographic study of noise to bear on media and circulation studies, rather than bringing media and circulation studies to bear on the concept of noise. most recently, licia fiol-matta’s the great woman singer (2017) interrogates the role of voice in constructions of the human in twentieth-century latin america from the perspective of gender and sexuality. (notably, these scholars all work at the boundaries of ethnomusicology and sound studies, since questioning the production of musical knowledge almost necessarily entails the deconstruction of “music” as an object.) 258 current musicology steingo, likewise, creates space at the intersection of political philosophy and aural aesthetic forms, resulting in both an understanding of kwaito situated in contemporary south african politics and a critique of knowledge from the perspective of the listening subject as a creative entity, a generator of one’s own reality even from within the constricted lives of black south africans after apartheid. of course, using rancière to understand kwaito is one possible route among many for theorizing what this particular genre does in the world and in the lives of its participants. but, i argue, what kwaito’s promise and the aforementioned works exemplify—taking music and ethnomusicology “seriously” as underdetermined grounds for the meeting of humanistic theory and aesthetic objects embedded in aural histories, with the potential to transform both interdisciplinary conversations as well as conceptions of the ethnomusicological project and of music itself—is not one possible route among many. rather, steingo and others who look critically at the way musical and aural knowledge have been produced—both in academia and in historical and present discourses of “common sense” (radano and olaniyan 2016)—are guiding the discipline on a necessary trajectory towards participation in the broader decolonization of knowledge. tautological examinations of already-established concepts of music and culture might add to the canon of sufficiently described musical genres, but such studies fail to scrutinize the broader ways in which the musical and the aural (and ethnomusicology itself) have been complicit in the construction and perpetuation of ethnocentric and colonial forms of knowledge that have led to ongoing crises of governance, racial conflict, and climate change paralysis. for ethnomusicology to maintain relevance as a discipline, it must recognize its potential as a unique ground from which to interrogate the production of knowledge in broader conversations: to question the organization of sensory experience; to scrutinize concepts of music, creativity, and circulation in relation to profoundly unequal lives; to dismantle dichotomous understandings of “nature” and “culture” that the discipline has historically helped to construct as knowledge and as reality. the continued production of humanistic knowledge must also necessarily be a critique of the production of knowledge, and this can best be accomplished by understanding disciplinary distinctions not as modes of applying established or borrowed theory to various kinds of objects, but as participants in an interdisciplinary effort, in which different scholarly orientations can create space for new conversations, new intersections, new encounters, and new critiques. 259 emily hansell clark kwaito and the future of ethnomusicology while kwaito’s promise exemplifies the above, it is not a perfect work. steingo fails to fully extract himself from the cyclical paradox of the scholar deconstructing academia by proclaiming that his work is “different from the kind of mastery that trades on demystification and the search for truth behind illusion” (19). producing a scholarly monograph that employs the language and ideas of philosophy from a white male tradition in order to look at black popular music is, it could be argued, its own form of mystification. rancière is both critical of, and firmly situated in, a canon that does not offer its ideas up for easy, equal access—and rancière himself is caught up in the conundrum of offering some of the best arguments for sourcing understandings of life from empirical experience rather than from reading rancière. at times, the theoretical voices in kwaito’s promise drown out ethnographic informants’ own experiences and understandings, preventing these perspectives from speaking for themselves as steingo (and rancière) argue they should. while kwaito’s promise successfully exemplifies its own argument for music to be taken “as a historically situated modality of experience [that is] compelling to think with” in understanding diverse experiences of life, i see the potential for its theoretical engagements to expand more broadly. for example, “kwaito’s promise” refers to the promise of an alternative future through its celebratory aesthetic, a very different future from the one that south africa’s current political and social conditions promise. steingo uses rancière to explore the idea of alternative futurities, with brief reference to kofi agawu’s call for a “future-oriented appraisal” of african music. but there is a vast literature on futurity left unexplored, not only by africanists (such as charles piot’s nostalgia for the future) but also by feminist and queer scholars, who have been contending with the question of temporality at least since julia kristeva’s “women’s time” in 1981 (see mcbean 2016 for a thorough review of this literature). while feminist and queer studies that deals with temporality has primarily taken literature and film as its objects of analysis, the temporal argument that steingo constructs around kwaito could provide the empirical material for a conversation that brings together feminist/queer theory’s rich histories of questioning hegemonic temporalities and a sonic aesthetic object that brings in new voices and perspectives. such a meeting of theory and object would exemplify a dismantling of the ghettos of academic thought. it would demonstrate, in other words, that feminist and queer theory are not relegated to discussing only objects that fall clearly under the purview of women’s and queer issues, but rather have much to offer to efforts to dismantle categories and hegemonic ways of thinking at large. further, it would show that the ethnomusicological 260 current musicology theoretical canon has no particular claims to having figured out the “correct” way to look at musical objects but could instead provide the grounds for interdisciplinary critical thought to encounter sonic objects and aural histories, with underdetermined results that could lead to important new insights. this is not to say that kwaito’s promise lacks a theoretical engagement that is necessary—indeed, every scholar must choose the literature that frames their theoretical engagement with an object from the limitless array, and steingo’s concern and expertise lie in a canon of political philosophy that crystallizes in rancière. i merely offer a suggestion for future possibilities that aims to take up kwaito’s promise’s promise: that music is “compelling to think with” beyond the established theoretical canon and apparatuses of ethnomusicology, instead offering a space for various disciplinary bodies of theory to interact around an aesthetic object or around the object of aesthetics itself, i.e. the various histories of how the sensible has been distributed. kwaito’s promise does vastly more than add kwaito to the list of genres that ethnomusicology has sufficiently described and analyzed. steingo does not merely apply political philosophy to a musical object but allows musical ethnography to dialogue with philosophical ideas, offering an aural perspective on rancière and hinting at ways that such meetings of humanistic theory and musical/sonic material might occur further. steingo’s refusal to adopt standard ethnomusicological concepts of music, the social, and culture in his analysis of kwaito seems to heed roy wagner’s warning that when scholars in the euro-american anthropological tradition create “culture” for others through inherited, tautologically self-justifying modes of understanding human practice, “we make others part of a ‘reality’ that we alone invent, denying their creativity by usurping the right to create” (1975, 17). when we take the historical concept of “culture” as a given, we create culture and reality for individuals, precluding the possibility of those individuals creating their own understandings of self, life, and future. steingo instead creates an underdetermined space of encounter between theory, ethnography, and musical object, where the words of interlocutors do not require demystification but rather speak to alternative ways of understanding musical creativity and the relations that comprise different experiences of life. i posit that steingo and other ethnomusicologists who similarly critique the historical production of scholarly knowledge and exemplify new ways of allowing theory, ethnography, and sounding objects to interact are, following the sentiment of the “king of kwaito” arthur mafokate, taking what we have called ethnomusicology, creating something new out of it, and calling it ethnomusicology. 261 emily hansell clark references feld, steven. 1982. sound and sentiment: birds, weeping, poetics and song in kaluli expression. durham, nc: duke university press. fiol-matta, licia. 2017. the great woman singer: gender and voice in puerto rican music. durham, nc: duke university press. herndon, marcia. 1971. “the cherokee ballgame cycle: an ethnomusicologist’s view.” ethnomusicology 15 (3): 339–52. mcbean, sam. 2016. feminism’s queer temporalities. new york: routledge. moreno, jairo and gavin steingo. 2012. “rancière’s equal music.” contemporary music review 31 (5 –6): 487–505. novak, david. 2013. japanoise: music at the edge of circulation. durham, nc: duke university press. ochoa gautier, ana maria. 2014. aurality: listening and knowledge in nineteenth-century colombia. durham, nc: duke university press. piot, charles. 2010. nostalgia for the future: west africa after the cold war. chicago: university of chicago press. radano, ronald and tejumola olaniyan. 2016. audible empire: music, global politics, critique. durham, nc: duke university press. seeger, anthony. 1987. why suyá sing: a musical anthropology of an amazonian people. urbana: university of illinois press. sterne, jonathan. 2012. mp3: the meaning of a format. durham, nc: duke university press. wagner, roy. 1975. the invention of culture. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice-hall. weidman, amanda. 2006. singing the classical, voicing the modern: the postcolonial politics of music in south india. durham, nc: duke university press. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 cheng. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 115 black noise, white ears: resilience, rap, and the killing of jordan davis william cheng i speak out of direct and particular anger at an academic conference, and a white woman comes up and says, “tell me how you feel but don’t say it too harshly or i cannot hear you.” but is it my manner that keeps her from hearing, or the threat of a message that her life may change? – audre lorde (2007, 125), on being tone-policed by a colleague i am a black woman over six feet tall. my laugh sounds like an exploding mouse. i squeak loudly and speak quickly when i get excited. i like knock in my trunk and bass in my music. . . . i am especially attuned to how my sonic footprint plays into how i live and if i should die. as a black woman, the bulk of my threat is associated with my loudness. – regina bradley (2015), on the “sonic disrespectability” of sandra bland 1 cops and demons around noon on august 9, 2014 in ferguson, missouri, a white police officer named darren wilson fatally shot michael brown, an unarmed black teenager. later, when facing a grand jury, wilson testified to brown’s formidable, animalistic attributes: and when i grabbed him [brown], the only way i can describe it is i felt like a 5-year-old holding onto hulk hogan. . . . the only way i can describe it—it looks like a demon. . . . as he is coming towards me, i tell [him], keep telling him to get on the ground, [but] he doesn’t. i shoot a series of shots. . . . at this point, it looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that i’m shooting at him. and the face that he had was looking straight through me, like i wasn’t even there, [like] i wasn’t even anything in his way. well, he keeps coming at me after that again. during the pause i tell him to get on the ground, get on the ground; he still keeps coming at me, gets about 8 to 10 feet away. at this point i’m backing up pretty rapidly. i’m backpedaling pretty good because i know if he reaches me, he’ll kill me. . . . i saw the last one [bullet] go into him. and then when it went into him, the demeanor on his face went blank; the aggression was gone. it was gone—i mean, i knew he stopped. the threat was stopped (state of missouri v. darren wilson, grand jury volume v 2014, 212, 225, 227–28, 228–229).1 116 current musicology “demon” wasn’t the “only way” darren wilson could have described eighteen-year-old michael brown. but the criminalizing epithet helped this officer dodge indictment. for how else should wilson have reacted when staring down a resilient beast that can charge through bullets? in the courtroom, the locutionary gambit of only way—demon (no alternative words) slid into the self-defense justification of only choice—kill (no alternative actions).2 aside from allegedly slinging “fuck,” “pussy,” and other curse words around, this teenager had, according to wilson, simply uttered “grunting, like, aggravated sound[s]” (227).3 to the ears and eyes of this cop, brown was nonverbal (made inchoate noises), nonaural (didn’t listen to orders), nonvisual (looked straight through wilson).4 nonhuman. wilson’s testimony painted brown as a thug with impenetrable skin and impenetrable ears. impenetrable—meaning organs resistant to supersonic bullets and clarion instructions alike. dehumanizing and deadly consequences spawn from these myths of black bruteness. multiple recent studies have shown the tendencies of white research subjects to overestimate the size, speed, and age of black people. such “formidability bias,” scientists argue, can expectedly “[promote] participants’ justifications of hypothetical use of force against black suspects of crime” (wilson, rule, and hugenberg 2017, 59). take the tragedy of twelve-year-old tamir rice, who, while playing with an airsoft toy gun in a cleveland park on november 22, 2014, was shot and killed by police officer timothy loehmann.5 in his signed statement to investigators, loehmann declared that rice “appeared to be over 18 years old and about 185 pounds” (loehmann 2015).6 later, in defending loehmann’s use of lethal force, cleveland police patrolmen’s association president steve loomis likewise urged the public not to trust their own eyes when it came to photos and videos of this pre-teen: “he’s menacing. he’s 5-feet-7, 191 pounds. he wasn’t that little kid . . . you’re seeing in pictures. he’s a twelve-year-old in an adult body” (stahl 2016).7 or was he just a twelve-year-old in a black body? racist demonstrations of formidability bias similarly broke out in the aftermath of civilian george zimmerman’s 2012 shooting of the unarmed seventeen-year-old trayvon martin in sanford, florida (figure 1). zimmerman’s supporters complained about the news’ circulation of a photo showing a beaming and “much younger” martin (capehart 2013). one defiant reader sent a washington post journalist a more “honest” picture that was making the rounds on the internet, a picture of an “up-to-date” martin with face tattoos and a sizeable frame (capehart 2013). except, it turns out, this wasn’t trayvon martin (b. 1995) at all; it was a photo of the rapper jayceon terrell taylor (a.k.a. the game, b. 1979) (sanders 2012). such blatant examples of fake news are usually easy to debunk. subtler 117 william cheng cases of pictorial deceit, however, can prove more elusive yet no less toxic. in april 2012, for instance, people accused fox news of darkening trayvon martin’s skin with photoshop, a facile manipulation that, as one critic put it, approximated “journalistic lynching” via colorist stigma (marc nc 2012; summers 2012). (several readers likened this case of colorism to the doctored image of o.j. simpson on a 1994 cover of time magazine.)8 darker, blacker, meaner, stronger. formidability myths go beyond overestimations of how resilient black bodies look (exteriorities). these myths concurrently enable underestimations of black bodies’ capacity to feel (interiorities). in a 2014 study, researchers found that white children, beginning as early as age seven, believe their black peers to possess reduced susceptibility to physical pain.9 much injustice has historically sprung from white denials of black nociception. “pain bias,” sometimes called the “racial empathy gap,” is complicit in the societal normalization of black trauma (wade 2013; silverstein 2013; forgiarini, gallucci, and maravita 2011).10 physicians today prescribe lower and fewer doses of pain medication to black patients, including black children (hoberman 2012; hoffman, trawalter, axt, and oliver 2016; graham 2014). police use more severe physical force on darkskinned bodies (buehler 2017). therapists, through buy-in of the strong black woman trope, disproportionately trivialize black women’s requests for mental healthcare (west, donovan, and daniel 2016). or we could look back to the era of us chattel slavery, during which white doctors forced black women to undergo childbirth without anesthetic chloroform, even when infants had to be delivered “with the aid of the blunt hook” (schwartz 2006, 167).11 slaveholders’ assumptions that black women were generally “strong enough to endure any pain” further warranted their subjection to every other abuse, including rape (wyatt 2008, 60; see also staples 1970). figure 1: [left] trayvon martin (5’11’’, b. 1995, at age 16) and [right] rapper the game (6’4’’, b. 1979). 118 current musicology past and present, these racist fantasies of black painlessness have resonated with what alexander weheliye terms the “pernicious logics of racialization,” referring to a “conglomerate of sociopolitical relations that discipline humanity into full humans, not-quite-humans, and nonhumans” (2014, 3).12 to weheliye’s taxonomy, we should add the fantastical category of black superhumans—resilient bodies ironically relegated to dehumanized status. certainly, being bulletproof, like marvel superhero luke cage, could be the devout wish of black people who face police and precarity. being perceived as bulletproof is the mortal fear.13 overestimations of physical and emotional resilience can be curses in disguise.14 “stop calling me resilient,” insisted tracie washington in her iconic 2005 flyers, which she nailed to telephone poles throughout new orleans in response to the us media’s coverage of hurricane katrina. “because every time you say, ‘oh, they’re resilient,’ that means you can do something else to me” (slater 2014, figure 2). don’t explain to me what you think i can survive, proclaimed washington; ask me what my sunken city needs.15 washington’s message should remind us that to mythologize black bodies as indomitable is to reify systems of racist domination. put differently, professing to know what someone is capable of can risk sliding into neoliberal presumptions of what the person can be subjected to—pain, labor, tribulation, trauma. obviously, black people are resilient. it’s just that, historically speaking, bad things happen when white people overeagerly celebrate, fetishize, or exploit the obviousness of this notion. sure, if you’re white, go ahead and admire strong black women, so figure 2: a flyer by tracie l. washington, louisiana justice institute. 119 william cheng long as you remember that their strength isn’t for you to test, in the same way their hair isn’t yours to touch. formidability bias and pain bias together entail an overestimation of black people’s strength, size, age, and resilience—characteristics of physical excess. as a music scholar, i’ve lately wondered how biases about physical excess might intersect and compound with analogous prejudices about black sonic excess. black people face accusations of protesting too forcefully (black lives matter, “uppity-ism,” the angry black woman), laughing too boisterously (the 2015 napa valley wine train skirmish), playing music too loudly (“jeep beats” and racial epithets), and shouting in the movie theater (robinson 2016, 134–58; cheng 2017, 528–49; duff 2016; radano 2000, 459–80).16 for resentful listeners, black noise is like dirt; it is, to paraphrase the anthropologist mary douglas, sonic “matter out of place” (1966, 44).17 and dirt is an apt simile because, beginning in the nineteenth century, scientific discourses of american hygiene have churned out stigmas of nonwhite bodies as “dirty” and “impure”—which, as the historian carl zimring points out, are viciously hypocritical given how environmental racism (the inequitable allocation of waste and toxins) overwhelmingly harms communities of color (2015, 3–5; see also godsil 1991; pulido 2000; boer, pastor jr., sadd, and snyder 1997; casey et al. 2017). indictments of black sonic impurities ultimately hinge on the following twin assumptions: black bodies make noise; and black ears can take—embrace, withstand, shrug off—noise. diagnoses of black ears and policings of black noise have often accompanied insidious policies, from the antebellum south’s pseudo-medical treatises about the auditory “nerves of the negro” to the present-day fiascos that generate memes of #laughingwhileblack, #singingwhileblack, and #talkingwhileblack (nott [1844] 1981, 223).18 some of these hashtags are meant to be humorous. far from mere funny business, though, prejudices about black noise can pose grave consequences. stereotypes about “the ‘deep’ black voice, the ‘noisy’ neighborhood, [and] the ‘loud’ music,” notes the race theorist jennifer lynn stoever, expose “incidents of racist listening [that] cannot be dismissed, laughed off, or chalked up to white ignorance and/or innocence” (2016, 277). altogether, stereotypes of black physical excess and black sonic excess implicate the threatening physicalities of black sound and, in turn, the threatening sounds of black physicality. in this article, i bear witness to how white misimaginations of black skin, black ears, and black voices in the united states have subtly yet severely abetted racist ideologies that dehumanize, discredit, or outright destroy black life. in the article’s first half, i tug at knotty cultural stereotypes of black resilience and sonic excess. why are certain expressions of black empowerment deemed respectable, whereas other expressive modes 120 current musicology face denunciation and censorship? and how can black-coded musical genres—say, rap, a lynchpin in culture wars—construct and deconstruct myths about the formidability of black bodies? i arrange these primers on resilience, respectability, and rap to triangulate a case study in the article’s latter half, the 2014 criminal trial people of the state of florida v. michael david dunn. nicknamed the “loud music trial,” this case involved a white civilian named michael dunn who, one evening at a florida gas station, noticed rap music coming from a parked suv. dunn approached the suv and asked the black youths inside the vehicle to turn their music down. when they refused, dunn launched into a heated argument with one of the boys, a high school student named jordan russell davis. the confrontation ended with dunn pulling out a handgun, unloading ten rounds, and shooting davis through the heart. as a high-profile case, people v. dunn received abundant news coverage in 2014 and served as the subject of a 2015 documentary called 3½ minutes, 10 bullets. i have drawn insights from these sources as well as from my own multiple viewings of the complete trial footage.19 but i’m supplementing this research with materials that eluded mainstream press: dunn’s jailhouse letters and phone calls (largely omitted from the trial’s formal proceedings); stenographers’ transcriptions of courtroom sidebars (inaudible to gallery members and not picked up by the av team’s microphones); discovery documents, evidence technicians’ reports, and 9-1-1 records (now publicly available); and my recent conversations with jordan’s parents, ron davis and lucy mcbath. jordan davis was 17 years old, 145 pounds, 5’11’’, and unarmed. michael dunn was 47 years old, 250 pounds, 6’4’’, and armed. yet according to dunn’s testimony, davis had “threatened my life like a man” and became “louder and louder and more violent and more violent” with every word (testimony by defendant 2014, 2956).20 or as dunn told the police: “i didn’t know he was seventeen. i thought he was a full-grown man. i thought they all were. and in my mind they were all going to get out of this truck and shoot me or beat me or kill me” (“michael dunn trial. day 5. part 6. police interrogation tape played,” ~4:35:00). like michael brown, trayvon martin, and tamir rice (forever 18, 17, and 12), jordan davis was seen and heard as formidable beyond his years. perceptions of loud blackness metamorphosed into fictions of criminal threat. physical and sonic excess made flesh. flesh unmade by bullets. “i had no choice but to defend myself,” said dunn. “it was life or death” (testimony by defendant 2014, 2958). only choice—kill. more on people v. dunn shortly. first, one of the case’s essential themes; or, how resilience has become the new black. 121 william cheng 2 what doesn’t kill you . . . when a sweet grandmotherly sort has to tell you how black people once were chained in iron masks in the canebrake, to keep them from eating the cane while they harvested it, and that these masks were like little ovens that cooked the skin off their faces—when you hear that grandmotherly voice and realize she once was a girl who might have been your girl, and someone caused this pain on her lips and nobody did anything about it but keep living—this gives you a tendency to shout. – ralph wiley, why black people tend to shout (1991, 1) in his 1855 autobiography my bondage and my freedom, frederick douglass dreamt of music breaking chains. “i have sometimes thought,” he wrote, “that the mere hearing of those [slave] songs would do more to impress truly spiritual-minded men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of its mere physical cruelties” (1855, 98). with one wistful sentence, douglass fantasized—while admitting his fantasy’s naivety—that slaves’ sorrowful, beautiful melodies might somehow move slaveowners to show mercy, grant freedom, and recognize black humanity. but the music of slaves did not inspire white epiphanies. some masters assumed slaves sang out of joy (the myth of the happy slave), proving their amenability to captivity and manual labor (douglass 1848; king 1995, 84–85; white and white 2005, 55–57).21 others saw chattel value and resilience in this singing, such that talented slaves often fetched higher auction prices.22 and signs of resilience meant, to borrow the language of tracie washington’s post-katrina flyers, that something else could be done to slaves—more demands for labor, more disciplinary lashes, more subjection to rape, more cruel tests of how much these black bodies could take before they broke their backs, or burned out, or could sing no more. as a triumphalist ideal, resilience is resilient.23 its virtues are, on the surface, unimpeachable. as krishnadev calamur (2017) asked regarding state responses to terrorism: “would [anyone] oppose the idea of resilience so a city or a community bounces back stronger from the terror inflicted upon it?” likewise, would anyone tell a resilient disabled contestant on america’s got talent to get off the stage and to cease complicity in the patronage of supercrip-overcoming narratives (cheng 2017, james 2015)? would anyone rush to instruct the doctors, social workers, and activists of flint, michigan to abstain from celebrating the city’s “exemplary kids” who have resiliently survived lead toxins and even channeled hardship into chromatic art (figure 3)? probably not. but these questions—premised on 122 current musicology reductio ad absurdum killjoy caricatures—are red herrings.24 because as with the institutional lip services paid to diversity, inclusivity, and equality, the self-evident merits of resilience can lull us into uncritical cheer, threatening to derail deeper investigations into the social norms, injustices, and precarities that require some populations to be extra-resilient in the first place.25 consider the fraught intersections of race, disability, gender, and class in the example of us military veterans who seek medical and financial benefits. troops nowadays undergo regimented comprehensive soldier fitness (csf) programs and comparable forms of “resilience training.”26 again, it would be hard to oppose csf’s stated goal of “equipping and training our soldiers, family members, and army civilians to maximize their potential and face the physical and psychological challenges of sustained operations.”27 studies have shown, however, that the perceived success of such training comes partly from how it discourages troops from reporting trauma—that is, how resilience programs dissuade their participants from grousing, from showing weakness, and from demanding their share of veterans’ resources from the government. low-ranking officials who figure 3: [left] time magazine cover with headline: “the storms keep getting stronger. and so do we” (25 september 2017). [right] water bottle chandelier (photo by doug pike) created by children of flint, michigan, and gifted to the city’s hurley medical center. regarding the chandelier, dr. mona hanna-attisha wrote: “our flint kids are more than resilient: they are exemplary. . . . like our exemplary kids, we are turning a tragedy into something beautiful” (2017, 652). 123 william cheng ask for healthcare or otherwise display vulnerability are, notes the scholar brianne gallagher, “repeatedly called ‘ptsd sissies’ by higher ranking officials” and subsequently shamed into silence (2016, 4).28 black troops— especially black women, who enlist at far higher rates than black men and white women alike—stand to face even more obstacles, as they must crawl through thickets of stereotypes on the path to aid: the gangsta/er, the strongman, the strong black woman, the welfare queen, the angry loud minority, and other racist molds that presume soldiers of color as either feeling no need to complain at all, or having no right to complain as much as they do (melin 2016; dow 2015).29 kneejerk appeals to resilience are problematic not only in terms of acute trauma—a battle injury, a natural disaster, a terrorist attack—but also when it comes to people dealing with slow-burning injustices, degenerative conditions, and inhumane circumstances weathered over time. toxicity can hide in plain sight, as with cases of environmental racism in warren county or flint or standing rock. ecological and financial adversities further animate what lauren berlant terms “slow death,” the “physical wearing out of a population” through debilitative labor and a never-ending carousel of daily crises (2011, 95). how can we tell if hard conditions are stimulating someone’s growth or simply depleting that person’s finite reserves of will and fight? how do we know if a reliably punctual but chronically exhausted worker will soon be set for life or has been marked for early death? phoenix rising or stagnant ash? dewy visions of resilience confuse bare life with humane living (agamben 1998). critical theorist judith butler frames it this way: “it seems that we survive precisely in order to live, and life, as much as it requires survival, must be more than survival in order to be livable” (2012, 165).30 teaching people how to be resilient is good. but the pedagogy itself turns sour if, as urban ecologist maria kaika declares, the preaching of resilience is twisted into a form of “immunology [that] vaccinate[s] people and environments alike so that they are able to take larger doses of inequality and environmental degradation in the future” (2017, 98).31 in medicine, after all, a round of vaccination neither guarantees a patient’s invulnerability nor automatically concludes the healthcare provider’s terms of responsibility.32 same goes for individual resilience, which neither promises a good life nor obviates the need for statewide reforms. embedded in celebrations of resilience are assumptions about what resilience should sound like. respectable resilience is senator elizabeth warren and her nevertheless-she-persisted recitation of a letter by coretta scott king on c-span—a recitation that was confident in tone yet moderate in volume (wang 2017). unrespectable resilience is, per this article’s 124 current musicology epigraph, audre lorde speaking “harshly” at a conference and getting scolded by a white woman (2007, 125).33 respectable resilience is the strong black woman who shoulders mountains with nary a complaint. unrespectable resilience is the angry black woman who’s “overbearing, attitudinal, bitter, mean, and hell raising” (ashley 2014, 28). respectable resilience is oprah winfrey, rising from poverty and becoming a talk show mogul whose iconic shout, loud though it may have been, was music to people’s ears because it carried promises of cars to white folk.34 unrespectable resilience was sandra bland, whose shouts carried only promises of insubordination (scheinman 2015). respectable resilience was the nina simone who pushed through discrimination and received a scholarship to juilliard. unrespectable resilience was the nina simone who went on to sing “mississippi goddam” to burn racism to the ground. respectable resilience can be black. unrespectable resilience, too black.35 on august 8, 2015, a pair of unrespectable black voices sounded off against white ears at a rally in seattle for us presidential candidate bernie sanders. two women named marissa janae johnson and mara jacqueline willaford jumped the barricade, rushed onto the stage, and seized the microphone. ignoring the audience’s cries of surprise and dismay, johnson began by stating some unsavory facts about the city’s colonialist roots. she called out white supremacy, police misconduct, and the disproportionate rate of black students’ suspension in seattle’s schools. she also called for four-and-a-half minutes of silence for michael brown, who had been killed almost exactly one year prior. (four-and-a-half minutes—because brown’s bleeding facedown body, half-covered by a sheet and roped off by yellow tape, had been left to lie for four-and-a-half hours on ferguson’s sunbaked street as the horrified residents of the neighborhood gathered and helplessly looked on.) at first, marissa johnson received a smattering of applause for palatable declarations such as “bernie sanders, welcome to seattle!” and “black lives matter!” but once she brought up michael brown and began naming white racism in earnest, the audience turned audibly hostile. johnson and willaford were met with boos, “shame!”, calls for arrest, and racial slurs lobbed by sanders’s fans (green and trimarco 2015). “i think it is unfortunate because, among other things, i wanted to talk about the issues of black lives,” said sanders after the rally came to a premature end. “they [johnson and willaford] didn’t want to hear anything” (hart 2015, emphasis added). true, sanders might have been, as copious pundits explained to johnson and willaford over the next several days, black americans’ “best option” given that he had even “marched with martin luther king” (storycorps 2016). in a subsequent press release, sanders himself proclaimed that when it came to “the need to fight racism, there is no other candidate for president who will fight harder than me” (boren 125 william cheng 2015). in blunter terms, hamilton nolan at gawker condescendingly told johnson and willaford: “don’t piss on your best friend” (2015). all the more perplexing, however, that black people’s best friend—a man who had marched with king—stood silently next to these two young women as they faced hisses and “n-word carpet-bombing” by his seattle audience (green and trimarco 2015; see also jayapal 2015; oluo 2015). in the media coverage, johnson and willaford weren’t hailed as resilient, brave, or heroic. for weeks, they received death threats and rape threats, were called “thugs” and “hood rats,” endured tone-policing lessons, and received invitations onto news programs only to answer questions mired in antinomies and false dichotomies: . . . why interrupt the most progressive candidate? . . . if you don’t support bernie sanders, then which nominee do you support? . . . shouldn’t you at least listen to what bernie has to say? (hidalgo and tesema 2015).37 it didn’t seem to occur either to sanders or to reporters that perhaps blm protestors disrupted the rally not despite but because he was discernible as one of the strongest hopes for federal anti-racist reform. nor did most critics entertain the possibility that this interruption of sanders’s stump speech communicated more than stock talking points, already neatly summarized anyway on the candidate’s campaign website, ever could.38 and for that matter, what happened to sanders’s website the day after johnson’s and willaford’s disruption? the website discreetly added a hyperlinked item to its list of issues: racial justice (figure 4). given the angry reactions of the white liberal seattle crowd, a gesture of black interpellation by johnson and willaford was apparently too radical, too loud. it wasn’t only an issue of decibels. for even as johnson and willaford fell mute to observe four-and-a-half minutes of silence in memory of michael brown, the audience hollered: figure 4: bernie sanders’s website on [left] 8 august 2015 and [right] 9 august 2015.36 126 current musicology we don’t care! assholes! all lives matter! all lives matter! how dare she call me a racist! you are out of line! get off the stage! you had your say! call security! and one attendee, in direct response to johnson’s insistence on a moment of silence for brown, shot back: we’ve already done it!39 we’ve already done it. done what? mourned appropriately? shed enough tears? moved on from ferguson? bounced back?40 johnson and willaford forced a captive audience to stew in a crucible of cognitive dissonance. surely one can’t vote down-ballot democrat and be called a racist. surely one can’t be nominally pro-blm and yet have screamed for security to remove two black women from the stage.41 surely michael brown was commemorated sufficiently throughout 2014; 2015 is supposed to be about looking forward to the 2016 election and the new presidency of 2017. during the sanders rally, such ideological discord was made audible when the rally organizers twice started up music over the loudspeakers, as if attempting either to drown out johnson and willaford or, in awards show fashion, to play them off the stage. in both instances, the music of choice was “glory,” a song by john legend and common. the first blast of “glory” came when the women initially climbed onto the stage; the second blast hit at the exact moment johnson accused sanders of failing to put forward a comprehensive platform for criminal justice reform. but the organizers’ clumsy cooptation of “glory” was ironic at best, baneful at worst. as the theme song for the 2014 film selma, it had been performed to notoriously tear-jerking effect (actor chris pine’s #whitetears) at the 2015 academy awards (weber and mcquade 2015). “glory” goes like this: [sung by legend] one day when the glory comes, it will be ours, it will be ours. oh, one day when the war is won, we will be sure, we will be sure. . . . [rapped by common] that’s why rosa sat on the bus. that’s why we walk through ferguson with our hands up. when it go down we woman and man up they say, “stay down,” and we stand up. 127 william cheng given how readily “glory” came on the loudspeakers, it’s safe to assume that organizers had purposefully cued up the song for the sanders rally, presumably with an intention to drive home the popular point, once again, that sanders had marched with dr. king and is therefore black people’s shining hope. yet to see johnson and willaford attempt to make their own voices heard over a blaring playback of a song about civil rights, about strong black women, and about ferguson and michael brown—to see these two women perform a resilient immovability against a furious chorus trying to shout them into silence—was, if anything, to witness the very necessity of an unrespectable movement for black lives.43 in an interview with real change a couple of months after the protest, marissa johnson wore a black hoodie that sported the words, “not your respectable negro” (hidalgo and tesema 2015). a riff on james baldwin.44 as for mara willaford’s attire on the day of the protest? a t-shirt with “bulletproof” emblazoned in gold letters (figure 5).45 a riff on a powerful, perilous fantasy. figure 5: johnson [left] and willaford [right]. photo by alex garland.42 128 current musicology 3 bulletproof rap black people are a minority in the country they built. the legacy of that building has remanded them to the basement of america. there are only two conscious ways to escape the basement: (1) appeal to the magnanimity of white people. (2) become super-human. – ta-nehisi coates (2014c) harlem after dark. a black man in a hoodie, with heart of gold and skin of steel, peers out from behind a tree.46 he’s preparing to break into a stash house to reclaim some stolen money. as he leaves his hiding spot, he puts on a pair of headphones and kicks up “bring da ruckus” at full volume. bring da motherfuckin’ ruckus. he rips off the door of a nearby car to use it as a shield, then busts through the front doors of the stash house. i come rough, tough like an elephant tusk. men with semiautomatics charge at him and open fire. but the shots bounce off the man’s skin, their idle ricochets sounding like metal meeting metal. i watch my back like i’m locked down. hardcore-hittin’ sound, watch me act bugged and tear it down. more goons strike him with fists, pipes, and machetes, all to no avail. check it, my method on the microphone’s bangin’, wu-tang slang, i’ll leave your headpiece hangin’. the hoodied man takes the cash he came for, leaving unconscious bodies in his wake. thus concludes a breathless scene from an early episode of the netflix series luke cage, with the wu-tang clan’s rapid-fire rhymes accompanying the show’s fantasy of bulletproof blackness.47 although cage’s invincibility is the stuff of marvel fiction, this hero’s choice of music reverberates with several virtues and vices familiarly attributed to rap: hypermasculinity, belligerence, resilience, and even invulnerability. like cage, a listener might feel tough when jamming to a loud, brash, percussive rap song (noda 2013). surely, though, rap—or any music—can’t physically toughen your skin. or can it? decades of studies in music therapy, cognition, and psychology have affirmed music’s ability to alter moods, emotions, hormonal balance, and brain chemistry.48 more recently, scholars have further shown how auditory stimuli can skew our perceptions of our own bodily exteriors. authors of a 2014 plos one article, “the marble-hand illusion,” set out to investigate “whether the brain can update its knowledge about the material properties of the body by inducing an illusory perception of the material of the hand. we gently hit participants’ right hand with a small hammer, and manipulated the auditory feedback so that each time the hammer hit the hand, participants 129 william cheng heard the sound of a hammer against a stone” (senna, maravita, bolognini, and parise 2014). in sum, the authors demonstrated how the human brain can be tricked, via audiotactile synchrony, into updating its “knowledge” about what one’s skin is made of and hence what it’s capable of withstanding. subjects reported “feeling stiffer, heavier, harder, less sensitive, unnatural,” and involuntarily “showed enhanced galvanic skin response (gsr) to threatening stimuli.” along with complementary studies of gsr, bass frequencies, loud noises, and auditory perception, the “marble-hand illusion” posits that the sounds we hear can actually modulate our dermal resilience (hsu et al. 2015).49 all this is to say: whereas no sonic stimuli can make you a literally bulletproof luke cage, certain sounds can do more than merely make you feel like luke cage.50 especially when its volume and bass are cranked up, rap is a reliable signifier of formidability. fight scenes, chase scenes, and action set-pieces in television and film commonly play out to rap.51 many athletes say they include rap in their pre-game “get-hyped” playlists, as with lebron james’s practice of blasting wu-tang clan’s “bring the pain” and jay-z’s “reservoir dogs” in the locker room, “pump[ing] up the volume loud enough to send vibrations through a nearby dry-erase board” (wallace 2012; see also mcleod 2011, 38–58, 155–57). rap music makes me feel invincible is a motto splashed across apparel (newcomer 2011). lyrics of rap songs typically spin out fantasies of empowerment, antiauthoritarianism, and even omnipotence (roberson 2013). and myths of rap-imbued resilience are sustained by tantalizing stories of unbreakable rappers. atlanta’s yung mazi, who had proudly reported being struck by bullets ten times earlier in life, tweeted “god made me bulletproof ” after another failed attempt on his life in december 2016 (associated press 2017). (on august 7, 2017, he was shot yet again—and, this time, killed. for a while, however, news of his death elicited doubt, as if someone’s luck in surviving a bullet on a prior occasion could be a realistic indicator of that person’s intrinsic ability to survive another. “is it true? atlanta rapper yung mazi dead?” asked one journalist. “it was hard to believe at first because mazi had been shot in the past numerous times, including in the head, and lived to tell about it” [mcbride 2017].) more famously, tupac shakur was hailed as “invincible” when he survived five shots in 1994; his legendary reputation only intensified when he was shot four more times and killed in 1995, at which point some fans still refused to believe he could be deceased (prestholdt 2009; kamberelis and greg dimitriadis 2005, 152–53).52 other rappers known to have survived gunshot wounds include 50 cent, ol’ dirty bastard, and the game (shown in figure 1 vis-à-vis trayvon martin).53 sounds of rap are bound to images of resilience. but resilience, as i’ve 130 current musicology underscored here, is a double-edged sword. if people discern formidability in your rap-blaring, trunk-thumping ways, then they might see you as a threat. and if these nearby people happen to be police or armed civilians, then the threat level of your sonic footprint can suddenly become a threat unto yourself—especially if you’re black. for in spite of the racial heterogeneity of contemporary rap’s artists and consumers, music scholar loren kajikawa reminds us that most of today’s american “listeners still perceive rap as a ‘black’ genre” (2014, 120). one problem therefore lies in the privilege of “white fans [to] claim hip-hop as ‘their’ style” without “liv[ing] with the consequences of being stereotyped as ‘thugs’ or ‘hos.’ they can partake in the music or fashion of the hip-hop industry without worrying that they will be targeted and killed” (2014, 119; see also yousman 2003 and tate 2003). ethnomusicologist ingrid monson, writing about jazz, has similarly protested how “it often seems that the only aspects of african american culture that non-african americans really want access to are the fun parts: music, dancing, sex, and sports” (2009, 32). but fun parts are only half of the story, because equally tempting are the sad parts of black culture, the tragedies that bleed beauty out of blackness: stirring documentaries about slavery, songs of strange fruit, afro-pessimist poetry, and other testaments to black resilience—myriad art and artifacts that white people can consume without making concurrent moves to dismantle the injustices that necessitate the resilience of black bodies to begin with (neal 1999, 85–99). it’s no surprise, then, that narratives of “black music” generally unfold as narratives of black resilience.54 from spirituals to blues to rock to funk to gospel to hip-hop (along with crip hop, homo hop, and countercultures within countercultural genres), writers tend to chronicle black musicianship through themes of empowerment, resistance, and creative impulses borne out of adversity.55 “through all the sorrow of the sorrow songs there breathes a hope—a faith in the ultimate justice of things,” wrote w. e. b. du bois about the music of slaves. “the minor cadences of despair change often to triumph and calm confidence” (1903, 175). musicologist eileen southern, who named du bois as a role model, published histories and anthologies highlighting the persistence of black musical traditions and repertoire—worksongs, spirituals, ragtime, blues—in the face of systematic oppression (southern 1997; southern and wright 2000). or take bebop, which poet amiri baraka exalted for its “willfully harsh, anti-assimilationist sound” (2002, 181, emphasis in original) and which jazz scholar scott deveaux characterized as “a rebellion by black musicians against a white-controlled capitalist hegemony” (1997, 4).56 when framed within narratives of overcoming, black music is seemingly never allowed just to be, but must always formidably, laboriously be against. 131 william cheng even when the repertoire in question isn’t as openly incendiary as, say, “fuck tha police,” black music’s reputation of againstness can pigeonhole black members of society as automatic activists, mavericks, or otherwise threats to the status quo. some black people have therefore found sonic life hacks that project respectability and innocuousness. in his book whistling vivaldi, social psychologist claude steele shared the anecdote of a male graduate student who would “[whistle] popular tunes from the beatles and vivaldi’s four seasons” while walking down the street in order to appear educated and “knowledge[able] of white culture, even ‘high white culture’ ” (2010, 6). with steele in mind, ethnomusicologist alisha lola jones has taken her own informal surveys of black men in her chicago community and found that respondents had varying strategies for appearing nonthreatening. some men “hum,” some “sing softly” or walk with “soft” mannerisms, and some indeed “rap loudly,” albeit with the important purpose of sending “subtle alarms to let people know we are approaching” (2015, 4). such musical virtue-signaling would sound comical if it weren’t so necessary in light of societal prejudices against dark-skinned bodies. retta, a comedian and actress, has tried to find humor in musical-racial stereotypes nonetheless. she has a joke that happens to feature vivaldi. “i love classical music,” she begins.57 “don’t get me wrong. i’m still black. i still kick the bass and pump up the volume.” as her audience chortles, retta continues: it’s just that when i’m in my car and the windows are closed, you wouldn’t know [that i love classical music]. so i’m driving down the street. i stop at a light. an older couple pulls up next to me. now keep in mind, all they can hear is the bass, and they see me. [vocally percusses into the microphone] puh-puh, puh, puh. puh-puh, puh, puh, puh-puh puh. [winks at audience] now the woman on the passenger side, she looks across at me and she’s like, “ugh, it’s that rap music again.” that’s when i let down my power windows. [sings vivaldi’s “gloria,” rv 589] laudamus te. laudamus te. benedicimus te. adoramus te. glorificamus te. bitch! in the sixty seconds that it takes for retta to tell this story of classical music clapback, multiple morals emerge. don’t judge music by its thumping bassline, because classical music thumps, too. don’t judge a black woman by her muffled music, because she might surprise you by revealing that she’s listening to a baroque choral favorite. better yet, don’t judge her by her playlist at all; she shouldn’t have to out herself as a classical music buff to appear respectable and to avoid dirty looks. beyond the occasional side-eye from someone in the next car over, condemnations of rap abound in academic writing and everyday conversations. ethnomusicologist cheryl keyes recalls a colleague who “concluded 132 current musicology that rap music could not be considered music because its text did not consist of a sequence of tempered pitches, [but] rather spoken or speech-like text” (2009, 14). in a 2003 city journal article, the linguist john mcwhorter declared that rap, far from having any “political engagement” or “revolutionary potential,” reinforces a “thuggish” stereotype that “retards black success” (2003). in their controversial manifesto for black respectability, come on, people, bill cosby and alvin poussaint excoriated “young black males spewing angry, profane, and women-hating rap music that plays on the worst stereotypes of black people” (2007, 119).58 in the philadelphia inquirer, law professors amy wax and larry alexander penned an op-ed castigating the american decline of “bourgeois culture,” citing, as one culprit, “the anti-‘acting white’ rap culture of inner-city blacks” (2017). and in 2018, jazz giant wynton marsalis told a washington post editor that rap and hip-hop are “more damaging” to society “than a statue of robert e. lee” (capehart 2018). i have no problem with people who knowledgeably criticize misogynist, homophobic, and bellicose strains within various examples and subgenres of rap.59 my beef is with people who criticize rap primarily in the context of—and as a means of derailing—conversations about anti-black racism. rap has long been an easy target in games of “whataboutism” (kurtzleben 2017). got a problem with white privilege? well, what about rap and its supposed corruption of black youths? accusing cops of shooting unarmed black people? yeah, but what about gangsta rap’s glorification of “black-onblack” violence? (stuckey 2017). here’s a clear example. in october 2016, when access hollywood leaked the infamous hot-mic recording of donald trump saying “grab ’em by the pussy” to billy bush on a bus, a trump campaign adviser named betsy mccaughey appeared on cnn to dish out her opposition research. “i abhor lewd and bawdy language. i don’t listen to rap music,” she explained. rather than addressing trump’s “pussy” remark (or “p-word,” as she put it), however, mccaughey began reading from her notes. “hillary clinton expresses that she finds language on that [access hollywood] bus horrific, but in fact she likes language like this. quote, ‘i came to slay, bitch; when he f me good, i take his ass to red lobster.’ ” as the rest of the cnn panel erupted in puzzled laughter—“did [clinton] say that?”—mccaughey triumphantly explained: “that happens to be a line from beyoncé, her favorite performer, whom she says she idolizes and would like to imitate. so you know what i’m saying to you? there’s a lot of hypocrisy” (ryan 2016). aside from mccaughey’s misclassification of beyoncé’s “formation” as rap, the derailment illuminated how the perceived unrespectability of some black music can be whittled into oblique excuses for any white offense. for as long as rap has served as a symbol of 133 william cheng black resilience, white people have found durable ways to weaponize rap against black people and black culture.60 indeed, part of society’s moral panic about rap has hinged on the fallacy that a rap-lover necessarily, proactively, and literally wishes to commit the violence or improprieties described in certain rap lyrics. note, however, that people do not fallaciously assume that anyone who sings along to wolfgang amadeus mozart’s opera don giovanni in his car is a sexual predator.61 it’s a double standard of selective literalism, which in turn oils the social machinery of racialized hypocrisy. because no less so than opera or other mediums of stylized art, rap is, as henry louis gates jr. puts it, “a contemporary form of signifying” that “complicates or even rejects literal interpretation.” with its “virtuosic sense of wordplay,” rap amounts to a “postmodern version of an african american vernacular tradition that stretches back to chants, toasts, and trickster tales” (2010, xxiv, xxv). none of this implies that if you’re not a fan of rap, then you must loathe black people. but this question of causation and correlation tends to pop up whenever rap-related discriminatory incidents make the news. in 2006, slate author john cook published an article that asked point-blank: “if you don’t like rap, are you a racist?” cook went to great lengths to justify his predictable answer of “no” (2006). as in, no, you’re not a racist if, as cook glibly stated, “the number of black artists in your ipod falls too far below 12.5 percent of the total.” but the rhetorical question itself—“if you don’t like rap, are you a racist?”—is already a distraction, baiting the reader away from the circumstantial peculiarities of how someone might find themselves in a situation where they are being accused of racism in the first place.62 specifically, cook’s article tried to defend singer stephin merritt, who has long faced charges of racism. merritt has lamented how it’s “shocking that we’re not allowed to play coon songs anymore,” advocated for the use of derogatory metrics like “quadroon and octoroon,” voiced sweeping contempt for hip hop, and defended “zip-a-dee doodah”—from the brashly racist 1946 disney film song of the south—as a “great song.” altogether, do these views make merritt a racist? depends how low we set the bar. or maybe the bar for racism is the wrong apparatus entirely. maybe the focus should be on the bar for anti-racism, such that the operative question changes from can this person pass for a non-racist? into what anti-racist actions has that person ever taken? in societies beset by racial injustices and race-motivated violence, affirmative anti-racism is what counts. on its own, loving rap doesn’t anoint you as a champion of antiracism. and you’re not a de facto racist if rap isn’t your cup of tea. but say that, one night, a man hears a rap song coming from the car of four black 134 current musicology youths. he mutters to his fiancée, “i hate that thug music,” and she replies, “yes, i know.” later, while sitting in jail awaiting trial for murdering one of these unarmed youths, the man writes letters in which he rages against the “gangster-rap, ghetto talking thug ‘culture’ that certain segments of society flock to,” and letters saying “if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they’re threat[en]ing you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior” (testimony by rhonda rouer 2014, 2306; dunn 2013d; dunn 2013b).63 this man’s extreme dislike of rap would have only been one warning sign. add it to a growing pile of supporting evidence, however, and a frightening picture of prejudice begins to emerge. in this case, it wouldn’t be too soon to cry racist. it would already have been too late. 4 people v. dunn (i): the trial it was not about the music. it was really about the inability of michael dunn to see those boys as human beings—to see them as somebody worthy of existing. – lucia (lucy) mcbath, mother of jordan davis (2016) people of the state of florida v. michael david dunn february 6–15, 2014 honorable russell l. healey attorneys appearing on behalf of the state of florida: angela corey, john guy, erin wolfson attorney appearing on behalf of the defendant: cory strolla notable witnesses: tevin thompson, tommie stornes, leland brunson, steven smith, rhonda rouer people started calling it the “loud music trial,” and the name stuck (figure 6a, 6b, 6c). because it was about loud music. except it wasn’t, said lucy mcbath, along with others who called the murder an outright “21st-century lynching.”64 it was about self-defense, claimed michael dunn’s attorney, cory strolla. except the black youths were unarmed and posed no threat, rebutted the state. so it was about the racist ramifications of stand your ground, said liberal pundits and the victim’s parents. except “stand your ground played zero role,” retorted nra benefactor david kopel (2014). it should be about evidence, not emotion, strolla instructed the jury. except 135 william cheng you could see all of the worst possible emotions draped shawl-like over the face of mcbath as she sat mutely in the second row during the trial and you could hear breathless fear and fury vibrating in the quiet voices of the boy’s father and three friends who took the stand and testified in the name of the law even as the laws of this country had failed to forestall the calamity of yet another young black life buried. in people of the state of florida v. michael david dunn, overstated figure 6a: [left] michael dunn (defendant); [right] jordan davis (victim).65 figure 6b: [left to right] judge healey, john guy (state), erin wolfson (state), cory strolla (defense). screen captures from 3½ minutes, 10 bullets (except wolfson’s photo via bet).66 figure 6c: [left to right] key witnesses tevin thompson, tommie stornes, leland brunson, steven smith, rhonda rouer. screen captures from 3½ minutes, 10 bullets. 136 current musicology syntax of all-or-nothing—it was all about this, it wasn’t about this at all— reflected people’s inability to comprehend the horrific incident.67 people v. dunn was about aboutlessness, that is, the senselessness belied by the otherwise sensibly organized veneer of a legal docket.68 every concept introduced so far in this article—formidability bias, sonic excess, resilience, respectability, and rap’s racial stigmas—played a vital role in people v. dunn’s juridical minutiae. over the course of my investigations, i began to recognize a pernicious pattern in the rhetorical strategies of dunn’s lawyer, cory strolla, both in and outside the courtroom. strolla, i argue, mounted a cunning defense of michael dunn by emphasizing the purported signs of jordan davis’s sonic excess: the loud voice of davis, in his heated argument with dunn, signaled an unrespectable black body against which the defendant stood his ground; davis’s loud music gave strolla the means to set off a sonic smokebomb in the courtroom, sending up clouds of doubt over davis’s three surviving friends and their testimonies about what they could have heard (to wit, feasibly heard over the high-decibel rap playing at the time of the verbal confrontation and subsequent murder). strolla effectively took the rap that these boys loved and sharpened it into a veritable weapon of litigation. in doing so, he implicitly placed formidable black bodies and black music on trial, perversely summoning blackness itself to answer for a crime of anti-black racism. and that’s only the half of it. because as much as strolla criminalized blackness, he tried to censor it as well—by disavowing the case as a “black and white issue,” by calling for the jury’s colorblind dispassion, by touting that dunn has “never been accused of racism,” and by incessantly accusing the prosecution of playing the “race card.”69 at first blush, the simultaneous criminalization and censorship of blackness might seem like a procedural paradox: the former gambit highlights; the latter erases. what people v. dunn ends up affirming, however, is that this two-pronged attack qua legal defense is not an exception in the broader plight and plunder of black america. it has been the norm. facts of the case around 7:30 p.m. on november 23, 2012 in jacksonville, florida, four black youths—jordan davis, tommie stornes, leland brunson, and tevin thompson—pulled up to a gate gas station (8251 southside boulevard) in a red dodge durango suv. stornes, the driver, headed into the store to buy some gum and cigarettes. it was black friday, the day after thanksgiving. meanwhile, software developer michael dunn and his fiancée rhonda rouer had come to town to attend the wedding of dunn’s son. at the wedding reception, dunn and rouer each consumed a couple of drinks, then 137 william cheng decided to leave early so they could get back to their hotel and walk their puppy. on the drive back to the sheraton, dunn and rouer stopped their black volkswagen jetta at this same gate gas station to purchase wine and chips. both of them noticed loud music coming from the dodge durango, which had its rear windows rolled down. the music playing was lil reese’s rap song “beef ” (eastman 2014; nazaryan 2015; thompson 2016). dunn parked in the spot immediately to the right of the durango, even though several other spaces were available nearby. rouer took twenty dollars, exited the jetta, and entered the store. dunn, who remained in the jetta, noticed the durango had tinted windows. he rolled down his own window and asked the youths in the suv to turn down their music. tevin thompson, in the front passenger seat, obliged and turned it off. but jordan davis, sitting in the backseat with his best friend leland brunson, told thompson not to listen to this stranger. so thompson turned the music back on. dunn and davis started to swap heated words. before long, stornes returned to the durango, unaware of how and why an argument was taking place; he prepared to drive away. before stornes could do so, dunn retrieved a loaded handgun from his glove compartment and, without warning, fired three rounds into the durango. stornes, panicking, backed up his car and peeled away. yet dunn kept firing. seven more bullets, making it ten in total, nine of which hit the car. jordan davis was struck in the legs, lungs, and aorta. stornes kept driving until he reached a crowded plaza adjacent to the gas station. rhonda rouer had heard the gunshots while standing at the checkout counter inside the store. when she came out to the parking lot, dunn told her to get in the car. they returned to their hotel, where they ordered pizza, walked their dog, had some drinks, watched television, and eventually went to sleep. in the morning, dunn and rouer headed home to satellite beach, florida, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from jacksonville. at 10:30 a.m., the police showed up at dunn’s house. they had been tipped off by a young witness who had spotted and memorized dunn’s license plate at the scene of the crime. dunn was arrested for the murder of jordan davis.70 defendant testimony (dunn’s version of the events) when dunn rolled down his window, he told the boys in the durango to “turn that down, please” (testimony by defendant 2014, 2855). one of them turned the music completely off. dunn said, “thank you,” then rolled his window back up (2856). but he started hearing the boys say, “f him and f that” in a “mean-spirited” tone (2858). and then the music came back on, “probably a little bit less loud than it was [before]” (2859). at this point, “it got ugly,” and “every time this young man [jordan 138 current musicology davis] is speaking, it’s louder and louder, and more violent and more violent” (2860, 2959). davis was “amping up,” yelling forcefully enough to be audible over “that thumping noise” of the rap music (2968, 2861). soon, davis was saying repeatedly, “i should fucking kill that motherfucker” (2862). dunn felt “flabbergasted” and thought to himself, “i—i—i must not be hearing this right” (2861, 2862). he subsequently heard, “in an even more elevated voice: ‘i should fucking kill that motherfucker’—and now [davis is] screaming” (2862). so dunn lowered his window again. out of the “corner of [his] eye,” he saw “a young man [tommie stornes] walk by” and return to the durango (2863). dunn could also now see into the durango’s rear passenger seat, where there sat “two young men with menacing expressions” (2863). granted, the “guy [davis] in the rear passenger was the one doing the threatening. the other guy [brunson] was just looking mean” (2955). davis appeared “enraged,” and even though dunn couldn’t be sure what the boys’ intentions were, he “quite frankly” didn’t “want to find out” (2968, 2973). having seen the way they were behaving, dunn “thought everybody in the car was a thug or a gangster” (2985). davis did not “speak to [dunn] like a child” or “act like a child” or “threaten [dunn’s] life like a child” (3020). he threatened dunn’s life “like a man” (3020). dunn said to the youths, “are you talking about me?” (2864) at this point, davis “reached forward and picked something up and slammed it against the [durango] door” (2866). dunn saw “sticking above, like, the windowsill, about four inches of a barrel” (2867). he could hear “metal hit the door” and the sound of “a thump” (2867). to dunn, the dark object looked like a “12-gauge [shotgun], maybe 20” (2867). davis said to dunn, “i’m going to fucking kill you,” which led dunn to “fear for [his] life” (2869, 2870). dunn saw davis begin to open the durango’s rear door. he even heard that “door unhinge” (2872). after the door was cracked open, davis told dunn, “you’re dead, bitch,” and as davis’s head “clear[ed] the window frame,” the young man said to dunn, “this shit’s going down now” (2872, 2875). so dunn retrieved a gun from his own glove compartment and retorted, “you’re not going to kill me, you son of a bitch,” then fired three shots (2876). as the durango started backing up, dunn unleashed another three shots because he had “tunnel vision” and was “still fighting for [his] life” (2884, 2887). even once the durango was driving away, dunn fired yet more shots into the back of the suv (figure 7). he “was worried about a blind firing situation where [the youths] would, you know, shoot over their heads or whatever and hit [him or rouer]” (2890). when rouer returned to the car, dunn told her what had happened. rouer got “very upset” (2926). en route to their hotel, dunn “tried to get 139 william cheng out the fact that [the youths] were threatening [him],” and “tried to get out the fact that they were advancing on [him],” and “tried to get out the fact that they were armed” (2895). but rouer was “hysterical,” “hysterical,” “hysterical” (2894, 2907, 2926).72 she couldn’t “understand self-defense” (2926). she was in no “condition that night to take care of herself ” (3015). once inside their room at the hotel, dunn continued to be fearful: “we were staying at the—at a hotel that has, like, a club room at the top floor, and we were there looking out the windows, like a waking nightmare. every car was a red suv, i mean, to us” (2897). despite his paranoia about retaliation, dunn had left his gun in the jetta’s glove box—in hindsight, an “irrational” decision (2990). despite his fear of threats around every corner, dunn took their puppy outside to “go potty” (2899). despite reeling from the incident, dunn ordered pizza because rouer wanted it, as “she was upset and her stomach was in knots” (2901). early next morning, dunn and rouer drove home. rouer alternately suffered “fits of silence” and “fits of sobbing” (2910). during the drive, dunn called his neighbor ken lescallett, a federal law enforcement official. dunn was hoping that he and lescallett could go to their hometown sheriff and “tell them what happened” in jacksonville “and, you know, hopefully they would listen to my side” (2909). figure 7: durango with nine ballistic markers.71 markers [4][5][6] indicate the first three shots, which dunn fired into jordan davis’s passenger-side rear door. as stornes, the driver, backed up the durango, dunn fired shots [7][8][9]. shots [1][2][3] hit the rear of the durango as it was speeding away. one of dunn’s ten shots missed the durango. 140 current musicology shortly after arriving home, dunn found the police at his door. he did not resist arrest. he did not raise his voice. and had he ever raised his voice to jordan davis? “when i said, ‘you’re not going to kill me, you son of a bitch,’ i may have had a little inflection in that,” dunn admitted. “but other than that? no” (2904). at his police intake interview, and later in court, dunn swore he had seen the youths with a weapon. in his own speculative words, it was “some kind of industrial object, a pipe, something that would look very much like a barrel” (2956). when asked at the police station whether this alleged weapon in the durango could “have been [his imagination],” however, dunn replied: “it cert— [slight pause] well, no. [slight pause] i mean, anything’s possible, i guess” (“michael david dunn—police interview uncut—part 1”). witness testimonies tevin thompson (front passenger seat of durango) before going out on black friday, the four friends went to tevin thompson’s house to change their clothes. they were “dressing up” in order “to go pick up some girls” (testimony by tevin thompson 2014, 1629). later in the evening, they stopped at the gate gas station on southside boulevard because they wanted gum “so [their] breath would smell good” (1632). after stornes went into the store, michael dunn pulled into the station and parked “immediately next to” the durango, so close to its passenger side that thompson couldn’t have “exited the durango through [his] door” even if he had tried (1635, 1636). dunn told them, “i can’t hear myself think,” appearing “upset, a little angry” (1637–38). thompson turned down the music. davis told him to turn it back up. thompson did. davis said “f you” to dunn but did not “threaten [dunn] in any way” (1640). davis was not “screaming” or “yelling loudly” or “enraged” or “mad,” nor was he “so upset [that] he began cursing and screaming at michael dunn” (1677, 1681). moments later, dunn pulled out a gun and said “angrily” to davis, “are you talking to me?”—and then fired at him (1683). as davis lay dying, he could be heard “gasping for air” (1690). tommie stornes (driver of durango) after buying cigarettes and gum in the store, stornes came out and “danced a little bit to the song that was playing” (testimony by tommie stornes 2014, 1796). he had barely reentered his car when dunn raised his gun and started shooting. so stornes “threw [his] car in reverse,” backing up 141 william cheng just “enough for [him] to drive away without hitting anything” (1800). although he was “in a panic,” he tried to “check on the status of everybody else in the car” by “call[ing] everyone’s name” (1801, 1803). thompson and brunson responded, but davis did not. stornes looked to the backseat and could see davis slumped against leland brunson. leland brunson (rear passenger seat of durango) before dunn’s car pulled up next to the durango, brunson was “happy,” thompson was “happy,” stornes was “happy,” and davis was “happy” (testimony by leland brunson 2014, 1717). fast-forward to the moment dunn asked the boys to turn down their music. davis said “f you” to dunn (1719–20). he was “pointing at [dunn]” with his right hand, and had his other arm propped behind brunson’s seat (1722) (figure 8). davis did “put his hand on the car door handle” during the argument, but he never opened the door (1721).73 after stornes returned to the car, thompson turned down the music again. it’s at this point that brunson heard dunn say to davis, “are you talking to me?” (1725). davis replied, “yeah, i’m talking to you” (1725). immediately, dunn reached into the jetta’s glove compartment, pulled out a gun, “cocked it back,” “aimed it out of the window” toward davis, and “started firing” (1726, 1727). brunson ducked down and “tried to pull [davis] down” as well, but as he did so, “[davis] just fell into [his] lap” (1727). brunson “patted [davis] down in the upper body,” and when he “reached and touched [davis], blood appeared” (1729). brunson couldn’t retrieve his phone from his pants pocket to call 9-1-1 because davis was slumped over his legs. figure 8: brunson was the only witness who had clearly seen davis’s bodily position and gestures during the confrontation. he mimed davis’s movements in court (right arm, left arm). screen captures by author.74 142 current musicology steven smith (eyewitness) smith, a general contractor who lives in bryceville, florida (west of jacksonville), pulled into the gate gas station around 7:30 p.m. and entered the store to buy a fountain drink. he had noticed a red dodge durango and its music. once inside the store, he joked to the clerk, “i wish they’d turn [the music] up. it’s my favorite song” (testimony by steven smith 2014, 1336). smith was “being a smart aleck,” and the clerk “kind of laughed” (1336). upon exiting the store, smith “was about to make a turn and walk towards [his own] truck door” when he heard someone yell: “no, you’re not going to talk to me that way!” (1339)75 it was a male voice coming from a parked jetta. smith turned his head in time to see a man inside the jetta fire a gun at the durango. smith didn’t see “anyone in the red dodge durango brandish any sort of weapon” (1341). rhonda rouer (dunn’s fiancée) rouer noticed music coming from the durango as she and dunn pulled into the gas station. she could hear the bass, but it wasn’t so loud that anything “in the [jetta was] rattling from the bass” (testimony by rhonda rouer 2014, 2306). dunn said to rouer, “i hate that thug music” (2306). rouer replied, “yes, i know” (2306). she then gave dunn a kiss, took twenty dollars, and went into the store. moments later, rouer “heard pop, pop, pop” (2308). and then “another pop, pop, pop” (2309). she heard the cashier say, “there was a guy and he has a gun!” (2309). rouer exited the store and entered the jetta. on the way to their hotel, dunn never mentioned a “weapon of any kind in that suv” (testimony by rhonda rouer [rebuttal] 2014, 3063). no mention of a “stick,” “shotgun,” “barrel,” or “lead pipe” (3063). once back in their room, they ordered pizza. that night, dunn didn’t say anything about “the boys [having] a weapon” (3063). and during the next morning’s trip home, dunn didn’t mention “a weapon of any kind” in the suv (3064). dunn, while driving, received a call from his neighbor ken lescallett, who was checking to see if he and rouer wanted to join him later “for an evening out” (3060, 3062). (dunn and lescallett chatted on speaker phone.) dunn told lescallett that rouer was “not feeling well” and that they were coming home early (3061). in this phone conversation, dunn never “mention[ed] that he had been involved in a shooting in jacksonville” (testimony by rhonda rouer 2014, 3061). verdict and aftermath on february 15, 2014, the jury reached a guilty verdict on three counts of attempted second-degree murder—of thompson, brunson, and stornes 143 william cheng respectively—and one count of shooting deadly missiles. but this jury could not reach an agreement on the most serious count: the first-degree murder of jordan davis. so judge russell healey declared a mistrial on this particular charge. in september 2014, dunn was retried for murder in the first degree. he did not have enough money to rehire cory strolla; this time, he was represented by a public defender named waffa hanania. at the conclusion of this retrial, dunn was found guilty. after receiving a life sentence from judge healey, a cuffed and orange-clad dunn walked to the front of the courtroom to read a prepared statement: i want the davis family to know that i truly regret what happened. i’m sorry for their loss. and if i could roll back time and do things differently, i would. i was in fear for my life and i did what i thought i had to do. still, i am mortified that i took a life, whether it was justified or not. (“jordan davis—michael dunn sentencing, part 2 [michael dunn speaks]”) despite news articles declaring that dunn “apologized during his sentencing hearing” (neale 2014), it was more of a non-apology—a self-serving sorry-not-sorry that kept dunn at the center (i, i, i’m, i, i, i, i, i, i, i, i), neglected to mention jordan davis (reduced to a life), and hedged without shame (i did what i thought i had to do . . . whether it was justified or not). on november 17, 2016, a three-judge panel denied dunn’s appeal to florida’s first district court. as i write this, dunn is serving a life sentence in prison without eligibility for parole. one source reports that dunn is trying to appeal once again (matter 2017). 5 people v. dunn (ii): discoloration; or, “she is trying to put race to have emotion into the jury” the difference from the rock and roll beat is that rap sounds aggressive—almost angry—even when it is not profane. – bill cosby and alvin poussaint, come on, people: on the path from victims to victors (2007, 145) i’m the victim. i’m the victor, but i was the victim too. . . . it made me think of the old tv shows and movies where, like, how the police used to think, when a chick got raped, “oh, it’s her fault, because of the way she was dressed.” so it’s my fault because i asked them to turn their music down. – michael dunn (2013a), in a jailhouse phone call to his then fiancée, rhonda rouer76 144 current musicology “they defied my orders,” dunn said to the cops when they came knocking on his door the day after the incident. “what was i supposed to do if they wouldn’t listen?” (solotaroff 2013). nothing about davis wielding a shotgun. just grumblings about disobedience. chillingly casual words capped by a rhetorical question: what is a white man supposed to do when black boys defy his orders? it wasn’t until his police intake interview—nearly twenty-four hours after the shooting—that dunn began to claim he had seen the youths with any kind of weapon. but in court, dunn’s defense attorney, cory strolla, did everything he could to put threatening words in jordan davis’s mouth and to plant a posthumous gun in davis’s hands. strolla relied on a broad matrix of exculpatory strategies. first, he argued that jordan davis was “enraged,” foulmouthed, armed, and responsible for escalation (closing arguments 2014, 3416). second, he discredited key witnesses, including the prosecution’s forensics experts, the crime scene investigators, davis’s three friends, onlooker steven smith, and even rhonda rouer. (once rouer voiced the damning revelation that dunn had never told her about any weapon in the durango, strolla turned on her, condescendingly dubbing her a “hysterical” woman “on prescription medication” [closing arguments 2014, 3371; testimony by rhonda rouer (rebuttal), 3065]). third, strolla solicited character witnesses—family members, friends—who painted dunn as a “gentle man” (testimony by randy berry 2014, 2570), a “very nice guy” (testimony by frank thompson 2014, 2588), and someone with a “very calm demeanor” (testimony by beverly berry 2014, 2578). fourth, strolla attempted to strip color from juridical consideration, arguing that dunn was so non-racist and colorblind that he would have lacked prejudicial motive to act with deadly force had he not reasonably perceived an imminent threat. and fifth, strolla hypothesized a scenario in which the youths did possess a gun, ditched this gun from the durango after davis was shot, and returned to retrieve the firearm before police could sweep the area. strolla’s fourth and fifth strategies emphasized respectively dunn’s colorblind virtue and davis’s weapon-toting vice—namely, that while dunn did not see davis’s blackness at all, he could clearly see davis as armed and dangerous. with florida’s tensions still boiling from the acquittal of george zimmerman (the killer of trayvon martin) six months earlier, strolla understandably wanted to nudge his jury’s attention as far away from race as possible. one of the defense’s ploys involved dunn’s denial of ever saying, contrary to rouer’s testimony, “i hate that thug music.” so heavy-handed was this denial, however, that one might wonder whether dunn had been coached by strolla to disavow the word “thug” altogether. here are some of dunn’s statements (testimony by defendant 2014). 145 william cheng john guy (assistant state attorney): you don’t recall saying, “i hate that thug music”? dunn: no. if i ever said anything, i would have called it “rap crap.” “thug music” isn’t a term i would use (2941). [several minutes later] guy: and what did you say to [rouer]? you didn’t say, “i hate that thug music.” what did you say? dunn: i didn’t say this, but if i had said anything i would have characterized it as “rap crap,” not “thug music.” that’s not a term i’m familiar with (2945). [toward end of cross-examination] guy: and you said that you don’t use the phrase “thug music,” do you? dunn: it doesn’t seem to be a familiar term. if i was going to refer to it, i’d call it “rap crap” (2997). stated ad nauseam, “rap crap” was the defense’s pg-rated euphemism of choice. note also the verbatim repetition of the words “familiar [term],” which, when articulated in tandem with the referent (thug), undercut the very claim of nonfamiliarity.77 compared to “thug music,” the phrase “rap crap” may sound tame and color-neutral—derogatory enough to come off believably disapproving, but not so epithetic as to reek of inexcusable bigotry.78 dunn’s alleged ignorance of the word “thug” could have passed muster had it not been demonstrably false. as the state pointed out during closing statements, dunn had said “thug” during his police intake interview and even used the word several times in his letters from jail (prosecution closing arguments [rebuttal] 2014, 3421). ironically, then, the defense’s “rap crap” gambit fell flat, for all it did was point up dunn’s dishonesty. what strolla didn’t seem to grasp was that the more he tried to deny the shooting as a “black and white issue,” the more blackness and whiteness— spoken into existence by paradoxical allegations of irrelevance—necessarily muscled their way to the fore.79 if race isn’t a factor, then why take such great pains to pretend your client has never even heard of the word “thug”? one of strolla’s most puzzling and desperate attempts at deracination came out in an objection during the prosecution’s closing statement, delivered by assistant state attorney erin wolfson. (as far as courtroom norms go, closing statements are an unusual time for an interruption from opposing counsel.) erin wolfson: [dunn] heard loud thumping music when they pulled in. he heard two young—he saw two young men with menacing expressions, jordan davis and leland brunson, but yet he told detectives, “i don’t know how many kids were in that car.” he used the word “kids” the 146 current musicology day after he shot into that suv. it was only six months later, i think, when [dunn] wrote his statement, that he writes, “i glanced back and saw the rear windows were down and the back seat was occupied by two very menacing-looking black men.” strolla: your honor, if we can object and just approach? the court (judge healey): yes, sir. judge healey, strolla, and wolfson began a sidebar conversation that was inaudible to the gallery and beyond the range of the microphones and cameras in the courtroom. but a court stenographer was present to transcribe the exchange. the court: yes? strolla: again, i just think, at this point, the state—i know [wolfson] is reading from the letter in evidence, but i would say, at this point, she is trying to put race to have emotion into the jury, so i would object for that and move for a mistrial, your honor. the court: i don’t know how to respond to that. she is reading from a document that is a document in evidence—i think [entered] without an objection—that was authored by your client [dunn]. there is nothing wrong with reading it and she has not, in my observations, evoked any emotion about race. she is just stating a fact. the fact of the matter is there were two black fellows in the back seat . . . so your objection is overruled for the same reasons. the motion for mistrial is denied. (prosecution closing arguments [rebuttal] 2014, 3328–29, emphasis added)80 two crucial points came up in this hushed sidebar. first, police records show that dunn initially described the youths as “kids” before inflating them, in his written account, into “menacing-looking black men” (read: formidable and resilient adults). second, strolla’s phrase “she is trying to put race to have emotion into the jury” is a word salad, a semantic jumble that conflates the mere mention of blackness with inappropriate appeals to emotion. notice how strolla’s bizarre articulation was contagious, in that it likewise left judge healey grasping for adequate words (i don’t know how to respond to that)—for how does one respond to an objection with no legal basis? as robin diangelo succinctly remarks in her work on white fragility and colorblind illusions: “incoherent talk is a function of talking about race in a world that insists race does not matter” (2011, 65; see also diangelo 2018). the flustered interruption by strolla, replete with odd verbs and prepositions, was a crystalline and litigious manifestation of such incoherence. strolla’s efforts to downplay race reached beyond the courtroom walls. after attorneys’ closing statements, and as the jury began deliberations, 147 william cheng strolla held a press conference and took questions from reporters, who inquired about race, racism, and people v. dunn’s comparability with the trayvon martin case. strolla offered “multiple matters of fact.” i want to be very clear. nobody from my office, or mr. dunn, has brought race into this, period. matter of fact, i filed a pre-trial motion to keep it out, because we don’t want to taint that jury; we want to keep it clean. and, matter of fact, i never identified a single witness by either the color of their skin or their gender. . . . matter of fact, mr. dunn . . . does believe there’s a subculture. mr. dunn does believe that there are kids and youth out there that listen to this, what we call, gangster rap or violent lyrics, and they see violent things on tv and then try to imitate it because they think that’s fun, or they think that’s cool, or they think that’s the way you’re supposed to act. . . . as a matter of fact, again, i can’t tell you how many times [dunn’s] said this isn’t a black and white issue. it’s what he would call a “subculture thug” issue, and again, that doesn’t go to race. . . . he’s never been racist. he’s never been accused of racism. as a matter of fact, the guys in the car even testified on cross-examination that that night [dunn] never said anything racial, he never said anything of violence or disrespect, or even raised his voice. (“michael dunn trial—cory strolla—press conference,” ~11:00, emphasis added)81 let’s “keep it clean,” people—meaning, let’s keep the taint of blackness at bay.82 because it’s a “subculture thug issue” that “doesn’t go to race”—meaning, anyone (black or white) can be a thug, and it’s the thug behavior (not the color of thugs) that irked michael dunn. and true, no one heard dunn shout “anything racial” that night—meaning, the night he unloaded ten bullets on four unarmed black youths. not saying the “n-word,” however, hardly proves absence of racial animus.83 during the same press conference, a reporter pointed out that dunn’s own jailhouse letters, some of which had come to public attention, contained “what we [would] interpret as racial animus” (“michael dunn trial—cory strolla—press conference,” ~12:37). replied strolla: “don’t forget, they [the prosecutors] introduced one letter. they had all of his letters. and again, they had thousands of hours of phone calls. and you didn’t hear one. so they piecemealed what they wanted” (“michael dunn trial— cory strolla—press conference,” ~12:50). strolla’s comment here was at best disingenuous, and at worst deceitful, on three fronts—but no one at the press conference, and no one since, has called him out on this mendacity. first, court documents show an estimated total of 180 hours, not “thousands of hours,” of jailhouse phone calls (“order denying defendant’s motion” 2014, 4 [item 5]). second, strolla made the situation sound as if the prosecution lucked out on a uniquely flagrant jailhouse letter amid a heap of otherwise disappointingly benign and inconsequential correspon148 current musicology dences. in actuality, a pre-trial document from january 24, 2014, “order denying defendant’s motion,” reveals a far more mundane reason for the state’s underreliance on dunn’s letters and calls: the “lack of resources and staff available to listen to” the massive volume of oral communications, and a concomitant lack of wherewithal for the timely transcriptions and necessary redactions of the handwritten letters. and third, strolla himself filed a pre-trial motion to disallow references to jailhouse calls and letters in court proceedings; this preemptive move all but confirmed strolla’s own recognition that the correspondences’ disclosure could potentially damage dunn.84 consequently, the state attorneys hadn’t been cherry-picking the worst of what dunn wrote. these prosecutors, working under the practical constraints of time and personnel, had presented the scant materials that they could reasonably review and responsibly accommodate.85 now that we’re free from the time crunch of the court proceedings, let’s take up strolla’s implicit dare. let’s comb through dunn’s jailhouse letters, which were released to the public by the january 24, 2014 court order, and see the racial and racist comments therein. letter from dunn to his grandmother (february 20, 2013) i’m really not prejudiced against race, but i have no use for certain cultures. this gangster-rap, ghetto talking thug “culture” that certain segments of society flock to is intolerable. they espouse violence and disrespect towards women. (dunn 2013d) another letter from dunn to his grandmother (may 7, 2013) i don’t know if i should feel like i’m a victim of reverse-discrimination or a political prisoner. either way, the state of florida is screwing me over! ☺ . . . the blacks seem to be calling the shots in the media and the courts. . . . i don’t know if i mentioned my latest “neighbor” to you. this one talks through the air vent to the juveniles (15–17 yr old murderers + thieves) and says: “whas up my niggah?” it’s hard to understand him as it sounds like he has marbles in his mouth. (dunn 2013e) letter from dunn to michelle (may 20, 2013) i’m still here in thugville. . . . i’ve never been exposed to thugs like they have here. the jail is chock-full of blacks and they all appear to be thugs, along the lines of 90% of the inmates. . . . i’m sitting here, stewing in my own juices—waiting for my day in court and plotting my revenge against the system for all the civil rights violations. ☹ (dunn 2013f)86 149 william cheng letter from dunn to rhonda rouer (june 23, 2013) i got a new neighbor yesterday. . . . i overheard the mental health people talking to him and he claims to be suicidal. . . . i haven’t spoken to him yet, but i was thinking to suggest an easy way to die would be to ask a car load of thugs to turn their stereo down! ☺ (dunn 2013h) letter from dunn to his daughter (july 12, 2013) it is spooky how racist everyone is up here, and how biased towards blacks the courts are. the jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs. . . . this may sound a bit radical, but if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they’re threating [sic] you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior. as it is, going to jail is like a badge of honor for them. (dunn 2013b) dunn’s letters comprised more than racist rants. quotidian musings, smiley faces, frowny faces, and terms of endearment punctuated the scrawl. letters were addressed to “sweetheart,” “baby,” and “darling,” and signed off with “love you all!” and “love, dad” (dunn 2013g, 2013j, 2013c, 2013k, 2013b) (figure 9). one missive included a risotto recipe that dunn had hand-copied from a stone barrington book (dunn 2013i). beneath the veneer of good humor in his letters and calls, however, dunn’s racism bubbled to the surface in fits and starts—pervasive yet casual, blatant yet banal. dunn’s self-identification as a victim was rather virtuosic and perturbingly intersectional for its sheer variety of attempted metaphors. he likened himself to a victim of civil rights violations, a target of reverse racism, figure 9: collage of dunn’s terms of endearment (compiled by author). 150 current musicology a political prisoner, and even a survivor of sexual assault, per his phone call (epigraphed earlier) in which he compared himself to a “chick [who] got raped.” such preposterous analogies demonstrated his nominal familiarity with multifaceted systems of oppression, violence, and victim blaming. yet he rhetorically coopted these systems, stitching them into the white mantle of a martyr. tellingly, dunn didn’t see himself as a racist. he saw racism only in others. “no wonder people are afraid to tell [black people] to pick up their pants,” said dunn in another jailhouse call to rouer. “i’m not a racist. they’re racist. what is with this subculture that feels entitled to exert their will? the only thing i can think of is the culture. i mean, this mtv culture—the gangster rap. and where are their dads?” (3½ minutes, 10 bullets, 55:56, emphasis added). i don’t know where dunn’s disdain for “mtv culture” came from. but dunn must have learned and internalized his vehement anti-black racism from somewhere, someone. maybe it was his upbringing in general, given the explicit and unapologetic racism in his letters to family members.87 or maybe he was channeling the likes of bill cosby, who, during his infamous “pound cake” speech at the 2004 naacp awards ceremony, inveighed: “i’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. where were you when he was two? . . . and where is his father?”88 maybe dunn had once picked up a copy of cosby’s and poussaint’s aforequoted book, come on, people, seeing as how its subtitle—on the path from victims to victors—bears similarities with dunn’s choice of words: “i’m the victor, but i was the victim too.”89 i’ve even personally wondered whether dunn had ever seen the 1991 film boyz n the hood, given the coincidence between its climactic scene and dunn’s eerily analogous claim that he had seen a menacing black person with a shotgun in a red car with heavily tinted windows (figure 10). had i been the prosecutor, i might have liked to ask michael dunn if he had indeed seen boyz n the hood (say, on cable television one night), and if perhaps he was the one who had watched one too many movies about so-called thug “subcultures” and thus had trouble differentiating between reality and fiction. altogether, dunn’s letters, phone calls, and court testimonies divulged a fearful loathing of black people. during his initial interview at the police station, dunn noted he had hastily fled the scene of the shooting because he was feeling “afraid”—not merely afraid of the youths coming back for revenge, but also afraid “there were more” (“michael dunn trial. day 5. part 6. police interrogation tape played”). dunn went on to describe how, even once he and rouer had returned to their hotel room that night, he continued “shitting bricks waiting for another carload of thugs to come.” during his retrial, he clarified: “i know it’s not rational, but every car that went by was a red suv, full of people out to kill me” (“michael dunn 151 william cheng retrial—day 5—part 1 [dunn testifies]”). dunn imagined black people as legion—a resilient, formidable, vengeful, violent, monolithic unit perpetually on the hunt. (if ever the united states has suffered “car loads of people” terrorizing civilians after dark, we would have to look no further than to the notorious night rides of the ku klux klan, whitecappers, and bald knobbers.) given dunn’s embattled ego, it makes sense that he went about everyday life armed to face the worst. based on the search warrants filed into the trial’s discovery documents, detectives retrieved from dunn’s jetta a handgun (legally owned with a concealed carry license), a magazine with eighteen live 9 mm rounds, a .22lr suppressor, three stoney point rifle pads, a gun tote, and a pair of nunchucks (dunn discovery documents 2014, 83) (figure 11). in the end, despite the overwhelming evidence of dunn’s racism, strolla’s defense strategies worked . . . at least temporarily. a mistrial, after all, was called on the first-degree murder count in february 2014. perhaps this is why, during dunn’s retrial later that year, the new public defense counsel waffa hanania saw fit to keep up the charade of denying race’s relevance. the maneuver succeeded once before; maybe it could succeed again. so in her closing arguments, hanania declared: the other guys [brunson, stornes, thompson] in the car don’t say mr. dunn ever cursed—that it was mr. davis who was the first one to throw around a racial term. . . . and let me just say right now, ladies and gentlemen, this is not about race. . . . would anyone be saying that it was about race if someone had said, “hey, i hate that country music,” or “that redneck music,” even? no. this isn’t even about the loud music. . . . mr. davis is the one that got angrier and angrier. . . . jordan davis tells tevin thompson, “f that [quietly] n-word. turn the music back up.” and again, obviously, real words were used, not euphemisms, like we’re using here in court, because we’re in a courtroom, and it’s not polite. (“michael dunn retrial—day 5—part 5 [defense closing arguments]”) figure 10: boyz n the hood (1991, dir. john singleton). lloyd avery ii (1969–2005) portrayed the shotgun-wielding member of ferris’s gang. screen captures by author. 152 current musicology “polite” is another word for “respectable.” or, given that “respectable” has increasingly taken on racialized connotations, “polite” is the polite word for “respectable.” and if we listen to the polite word “n-word” whispered by hanania, the ventriloquistic accusation—“davis tells tevin thompson, ‘f that n-word’ ”—backfired. her conspicuous moderation of tone and volume imbued the word “n-word” with paradoxical resonance. hanania’s need to remind the jury that “obviously, real words were used” further controverted the claim of obviousness. equally specious was hanania’s rhetorical question, a feint posing as axiom: “would anyone be saying that it was about race if someone had said, ‘hey, i hate that country music,’ or ‘that redneck music,’ even?” by doubling down on her example of country music with a substitutive epithet (redneck), hanania laid out her cards unambiguously: no one, she was ready to bet, would even think about race had this case involved a dispute over a stereotypically white musical genre.90 but her very presumption relied on the conflation of whiteness with racelessness—a logic that, in itself, stirs in figure 11: search warrants in people v. dunn. 153 william cheng the ethos of white supremacy.91 for if one finds it hard to imagine a fatal encounter resulting from the salvo, “i hate that country music,” maybe it’s because we don’t hear black people voicing righteous fury toward country music at nearly the same rate with which white people have disparaged rap (dowling 2017). let’s call the bluff on hanania, then, by seeing her hypothetical scenario to its conclusion, inverting all variables on the table. a 145-pound, 17-year-old unarmed white kid, sitting in a car with three unarmed white friends, is playing loud country music and minding his own business. a 47-year-old, 250-pound black man pulls up in a car that contains multiple weapons and weapon accessories—guns, ammo, nunchucks, you name it. he tells his fiancée, “i hate that redneck music.” when his fiancée heads into the store, the man initiates a harsh dialogue with the boys, and within minutes, unloads ten bullets and kills the 17-year-old. at the police station, this black man cries self-defense. he had feared for his life, feared that truckloads of retaliatory white teens would show up at his hotel. awaiting trial, he writes letters from jail about how he wishes more people would arm themselves and kill rednecks. (not that it’s about black versus white; it’s a “subculture redneck issue,” he insists.) in trial, though, this defendant denies familiarity with the phrase “redneck music” or even the word “redneck.” if he had said anything to his fiancée, he would have said “country crap.” come to think of it, hanania’s right. no prosecutor, in this scenario, would feel compelled to make the case explicitly about race . . . because explicit statements about race wouldn’t be necessary to launch a successful case against this defendant. systems of social, legal, and carceral anti-black racism would do all of the requisite incrimination. stated another way: given the past trends of biased news reportage and juridical outcomes for interracial crimes, prosecutors would not need to identify the color of this defendant’s skin to obtain a litigious advantage; the plain and visible fact of the man’s blackness would suffice. first, he would be branded as a deranged killer (with an inexplicable revulsion toward country music, no less). second, in light of the arsenal recovered from his car, he would be labeled a terrorist, even someone who wished to start a race war.92 finally, considering florida’s record of capital punishment for black-on-white crimes, he would receive not a life sentence—as dunn did—but, in all likelihood, a death sentence.93 154 current musicology 6 people v. dunn (iii): smokescreen and silence [there are] youtube videos of these guys [the youths in the durango], and they’re all gangster rappers. . . . you know, ’cause when the police said that these guys didn’t have a record, i was like, you know, i wonder if they’re just flying under the radar. ’cause they were bad. – michael dunn (2013a), jailhouse call to rouer94 jordan davis loved rap music, and he loved playing it loudly. yet at the southside boulevard gas station, he and his friends did not have the right to play music as loudly as they wanted. by all accounts, they were violating the municipal noise ordinances of jacksonville.95 urban noise pollution, after all, is a real problem, one that touches on accessible spaces, sensory accommodation, and neurodiversity.96 with people v. dunn, however, the defense attorneys’ moves to criminalize davis’s loud voice and loud music amounted to games of whataboutism. yes, let’s have conversations about noise pollution and civic policy. but just as urgently, let’s rectify the systemic problems of gun proliferation, stand your ground, and racist formidability biases so that societies may keep black children alive long enough to participate in these conversations. the way things turned out, we are left to pursue a dialogue standing over the body of jordan davis rather than with any chance to include his voice in the mix. davis’s loud music was unquestionably a catalyst for the fatal encounter, as it drew dunn’s attention to the durango to begin with. disruptive and abrasive though it may have sounded to dunn, however, the rap music itself was not a weapon.97 actually, that’s not true. in people v. dunn, davis’s music did serve as a figurative weapon. it just so happens that defense attorney cory strolla was the one who ended up wielding it. strolla, through the first trial, harped on the loudness of the youths’ music to build a case for reasonable doubt. with the burden of proof on the state, strolla aimed to persuade the jury that—with loud music saturating the entire gate gas station soundscape—tommie stornes, leland brunson, tevin thompson, and bystander steven smith could neither have heard dunn’s alleged threats to davis nor have known for certain that davis didn’t threaten dunn in return. in cross-examination, strolla asked the three youths to admit what they could not “hear,” could not “[lip] read,” and could not perceive or accurately recall owing to factors of musical interference, distance, lighting, and agitated states of mind (testimony by leland brunson 2014, 1720; testimony by tevin thompson 2014, 1672). “isn’t it true that the music was so loud that the windows and mirrors were vibrating in that suv?” strolla asked thompson. “isn’t it true the music was so loud you could 155 william cheng not hear everything jordan davis said?” (testimony by tevin thompson 2014, 1669, 1670). with these questions, strolla turned the music against the youths and chipped away at their sensory credibility. he depicted these young black bodies as quasi-disabled: perceptually deficient, mnemonically lapsed, and informationally dubious. by contrast, michael dunn sought sympathy in court by disclosing putative disabilities of his own, namely hearing loss and ear pain. “growing up in the [florida] keys, scuba diving is a big part of life, and i actually have damage to my right ear,” dunn testified. “i don’t know what the percentage is, but i do have a loss of hearing in my right ear and consequently my left ear kind of compensates for it” (testimony by defendant 2014, 2860). on the stand, dunn was asked by strolla to clarify whether the youths’ “loud thumping [music]” had caused him “any discomfort.” he responded: “it did in my left ear, my sensitive ear” (2860). dunn’s disability shored up his status as victim; the youths’ beloved music physically hurt him, and was so loud that, in his words, his “eardrum was vibrating” at the gas station (2957). none of this explains why dunn chose to park so close to the durango or why he rolled down his jetta’s windows (thus exposing his ears to the music at full blast), especially given his understanding that rouer would be in the store for only a couple of minutes to fetch a bottle of wine.98 in court, strolla went after more than just the acuity of davis’s friends. he outright assailed their characters with repeated snipes at their musical and vocal propensities. during cross-examination, for example, strolla asked tommie stornes about his aspirations as a musician and music producer. “isn’t it true about a week after the shooting, you created a song about jordan davis?” asked strolla. stornes said “yes,” and confirmed the song was titled “jordan davis” (testimony by tommie stornes 2014, 1830). strolla swooped in with baited praise: “and you’re smart enough to know marketing [that] when people were looking up jordan davis’s name, your song could pop up? . . . and isn’t it true you posted [the song] so that you could try to make money from jordan davis?” (1831). stornes denied these insulting charges. “no, sir,” he quietly replied. but strolla pressed on: “even though you titled the song jordan davis?” (1831). no doubt, strolla was trying to peg stornes as a money-hungry opportunist who would coldly exploit the death of a friend.99 in closing statements, strolla likewise attempted to delineate tevin thompson as a cold, unfeeling person: “listen to the 9-1-1 calls. they’re in evidence. . . . ‘can you send the ambulance? my friend’s shot.’ and you will hear zero panic in [thompson’s] voice, almost zero distress” (closing arguments 2014, 3358). here is a transcript of the call to which strolla was referring. audio is available online. 156 current musicology thompson: may i please have the ambulance, please? 9-1-1 operator: someone’s sick or hurt? thompson: somebody’s been shot. 9-1-1 operator: where at? thompson: the gate gas station on baymeadows road, south side. 9-1-1 operator: who shot him? thompson: we have no idea. please, can you just bring help, please, now. 9-1-1 operator: do you know what they look like? thompson: no, ma’am, i do not. the police are here. but please, can you just bring help. 9-1-1 operator: okay, there’s an ambulance on the way. you don’t know who shot him? thompson: no, ma’am (“jordan davis 911 calls,” 7:30). to strolla’s ears, thompson’s voice conveyed “zero distress.” or was it a voice barely held together, with shock and terror bursting at the seams? how do you want a black kid to sound when calling 9-1-1, maybe for the first time in his life? scream more loudly? cry more convincingly? can we think of tragic precedents that would disincentivize a black teen from calling the authorities to report any violent crime?100 to suspicious white ears, thompson might have sounded too respectable on the phone, with a surplus of “may i” and “please” and “ma’am.” of course, neither thompson’s vocal mannerisms nor stornes’s musical entrepreneurship had any evidentiary bearing on dunn’s murder of davis.101 but what strolla did was to place davis’s friends on trial by proxy, to paint these black youths as emotionless, heartless thugs (without, naturally, uttering the t-word out loud). for if they were thugs, then maybe jordan davis was a thug, too. and if jordan was a thug, then, for all we know, this thug had a shotgun.102 besides denouncing the youths’ black voices and demolishing the credibility of their black ears, strolla sang the praises of dunn’s white ears, the “damage to [his] right ear” notwithstanding. friendly character witnesses took the stand to describe the demeanor of dunn at the wedding that he and rouer had attended on the afternoon of black friday. at the wedding reception, according to strolla’s leading questions, dunn didn’t “push over the dj table or tell that guy to turn it down” or “storm out of there when he played music that the kids listen to,” such as “any type of hip-hop or any kind of music like that” (closing arguments 2014, 3352; testimony by alexandria molinaro 2014, 2683). despite the fact that not pushing over a dj table at a wedding sets an absurdly low bar for decorum and basic 157 william cheng human decency, strolla sought to establish michael dunn as a general patron of music and an ally to musicians. dunn’s ears could tolerate, even celebrate, loud music—including the loud hip-hop “that the kids listen to.” strolla elevated dunn’s image through the musicophilic equivalent of some of his best friends are black (some of his favorite music is black). during cross-examination, john guy did not press dunn on the details of his aural impairments or disability, nor did he ask dunn how or whether he, with his sensitive ears, could have tolerated loud music at his son’s wedding or at similar events. instead, guy tried to rope the loud music back to the state’s advantage, interrogating dunn about how he could have heard davis’s alleged threats over the durango’s booming stereo (testimony by defendant 2014, 2958). dunn, however, slyly worked these questions to his favor by inverting their premise. as he had already testified, the fact (or falsity) that he could distinctly hear davis over the high-volume rap went to prove just how loudly this teenager had been screaming threats. dunn further launched into an explanation of how he could “certainly” hear davis “because the bass isn’t, there’s no mid-range, there’s no—there’s no instruments or voices, it’s just low bass, and i, he is so excited and angry, i hear him over that, with my window up” (2958). guy and his co-counsels neglected to put pressure on dunn’s convoluted account, which would have fallen apart with even a brief listening exercise. contrary to dunn’s description of the music in question (all bass, no vocals), the rap song playing at the time, lil reese’s “beef,” consists of nonstop vocals. was dunn lying? did he misremember? did some of lil reese’s lines—such as “run up on ya with that fuckin’ pipe”—lead dunn to imagine a pipe in davis’s hands? (“lil reese ft lil durk and fredo santana”). (recall that dunn testified to seeing davis with a vague weapon; in his own speculative words, it was “some kind of industrial object, a pipe, something that would look very much like a barrel” [testimony by defendant 2014, 2956].) for that matter, did dunn hear other lyrics from the rap song—“fuck nigga, you don’t want no beef / you shoot one, i’m shootin’ ten / 300, we take yo’ life / savage shit, bitch say that twice”—as words coming out of davis’s mouth? during his intake interview, after all, dunn casually said to the police: “i don’t know if they’re singing or what. but they’re saying, ‘kill him.’ so i put my window down again, and i said, ‘excuse me, are you talking about me?’ ” (2964). by his own admission, dunn had perceived the youths as just potentially singing along to the car stereo. he had no reason to believe they were singing about him. but in dunn’s perspective, davis, by talking the talk (the lil reese lyrics), was rap personified—a black teen embodying and ventriloquizing “thug subculture” itself. even as cory strolla exploited the details of the youths’ loud rap music, this defense strategy paled next to a complementary ploy that he 158 current musicology undertook toward the end of the initial trial: the weaponization of silence. in his closing arguments, strolla first reminded the jury that the youths, when dunn started shooting, had sped away from the gate parking lot and circled around a nearby shopping plaza before returning to the gas station for help. based on in-store surveillance time stamps and phone records of 9-1-1 calls, calculated strolla, “that truck was gone for three minutes” (closing arguments 2014, 3356). upon stating this estimate, strolla fell silent and directed his gaze at a clock on the courtroom wall. and waited. . . “one minute,” said strolla, after exactly one minute had passed. he was pacing back and forth in front of the court clerk’s table. people in the gallery sporadically coughed and cleared their throats. . . “two minutes,” said strolla, after another minute went by. he walked up to his lectern, licked a finger, and flipped through his notes. . . “there were no weapons found in that truck in the three minutes,” said strolla after the minutes were up. “where was the truck? it left the scene” (closing arguments 2014, 3356).103 strolla’s forced silence felt painfully long by virtue of the awkward and anomalous speechlessness. that was his intention. he was trying to simulate the “ample time” in which the boys could have ditched a “firearm or pipe” (or whatever weapon dunn claimed to have seen) from the durango, “because they’re a hundred yards away [from the gate gas station] in a dark parking lot,” where there would have been plenty of opportunities to toss weapons into “the dumpsters,” “the roofs,” or “the bushes” (pretrial proceedings 2014, 1300, 1301). for one hundred and eighty seconds, strolla wanted the jury to fidget, to second-guess their instincts, to imagine how the black youths could have plausibly disposed of a shotgun. yet the moment of compulsory silence in the courtroom was perverse if we stop to think about one of the only things that had been incontrovertibly transpiring during those three minutes: jordan davis was dying. all we know for sure—something no one in the courtroom could dispute—is that those were three of the last minutes of jordan’s life. far from serving as a moment of silence for davis, strolla’s wordlessness was poisoned by insinuations of black criminality. think back to the 2015 bernie sanders rally in seattle. protesters marissa johnson’s and mara willaford’s demands for four-and-a-half min159 william cheng utes of silence in memory of michael brown were met with noisy refusals and racial epithets. it failed as far as literal silence was concerned. but their attempt to impel silence succeeded as an irruption of respectability politics. in people v. dunn, cory strolla’s demand for three minutes of silence succeeded. but it was a moral failure, too, insofar as it herded imaginations toward racist stereotypes of armed and devious black people. and it’s hard to fault the state for not objecting to strolla’s gambit. how does one verbally object to silence—that is, something that sounds like nothing? any request for a sidebar with the judge in the middle of strolla’s silence would simply have prolonged the moment of mandatory quietude in the courtroom, thereby affording the jury even more time to imagine what shady actions the youths could have committed in those few minutes. people v. dunn was a trial saturated with sonic footprints and innuendos: loud music, a “hysterical” fiancée, the (un)voicing of “thug,” the armchair diagnosis of a teen’s “zero distress” speech in a 9-1-1 call, the smokescreen of rap, the silence, and, above all, the formidable, threatening voice of the now-deceased black teenager who, if you believe michael dunn, started it all. lucy mcbath, jordan’s mother, has wondered: “in my mind i keep saying, ‘had [jordan] not spoke back, spoke up, would he still be here?’ ” (coates 2014a). in other words, if jordan hadn’t played music so loudly, hadn’t raised his voice to a white man, hadn’t been disrespectful, had been more sonically respectable . . . would he have lived to see another thanksgiving? most likely. but if staying silent versus speaking out comprised the razor-thin line between staying alive and being murdered, then davis’s encounter with dunn would have been a near-death experience regardless—still far too close for comfort. say rhonda rouer had found the right bottle of wine a bit faster that night and had come out of the store thirty seconds sooner, and that she and dunn decided to drive away before things turned violent. jordan davis would have lived. yet it wouldn’t have foreclosed the eventuality of davis crossing paths with another dunn on another evening at another gas station, or dunn hearing another black kid play a different rap song someplace else, some other day. because many michael dunns walk the earth. and many jordan davises lie beneath it. 160 current musicology coda and he is survived by miracles the first words out of the doctor’s mouth was, “i’m sorry, mr. davis, i was not able to revive.” . . . and something just came out of me that apparently was so—i think you have a sound inside of you that, when it comes out, when people hear it, they know something is wrong. and the policeman, who’s 6’5’’, 250 pounds, started crying; the chaplain, she started crying. so the sound must have been something else. – ron davis (“jordan davis—jordan’s family”) i just started screaming. . . . i couldn’t think, i couldn’t breathe. all of those fears just came crashing down on me at one time. – lucy mcbath (effron 2014) jordan davis is survived by family. he is also survived by the ones who survived: tevin thompson, tommie stornes, and leland brunson, whose testimonies helped put michael dunn behind bars. but that the flesh of these young men came out unbroken doesn’t mean their spirits emerged unscathed. thompson described his aftershocks to a writer for rolling stone magazine: “can’t get my work done, laying awake all night, never coming out of my room. it plays in my head a lot” (solotaroff 2013). stornes likewise stated: “i wake up still in the situation. anywhere i go, i’m nervous, feeling like someone’s gonna do something to me.” and tanya booth-brunson spoke on behalf of her son, leland brunson: “[on his 18th birthday, leland] went over to jordan’s house and just sat on his bed and cried. they were supposed to have a huge party together. now, he doesn’t even hardly leave the house. the light’s gone out of his eyes.” thompson, stornes, and brunson survived against enormous odds. just look at the projectile trajectories through the durango, including one showing a bullet that clipped the overhead visor and could only have missed the skull of stornes, in the driver’s seat, by inches (figure 12). it is a miracle that no one else in the car died. and no less miraculous is that jordan davis, the only child of lucy mcbath and ron davis, was ever born: mcbath was riddled with uterine fibroids that made bringing a fetus to term almost impossible. she’d miscarried twice and delivered a stillborn son by the age of 34; then she got pregnant with jordan. her surgeon put her on ironclad bed rest for eight months till her due date, staged a radical procedure to partition the fetus from the huge tumor trying to squash it—and still she almost died in labor. for a week after his birth, she lay at death’s door with a rabid case of septicemia, half-conscious, bloated on antibiotics and bearing the kind of pain they couldn’t numb. “she was moaning all the time, couldn’t hardly speak—they sent for the chaplain a couple times,” says ron [davis]. when she somehow came through it, though, there was jordan: the happy, healthy boy she’d suffered to meet. 161 william cheng again, talk about resilience. or don’t. instead, talk about how long it took to bear a life, and how fast white rage snuffed it out. lucy mcbath and ron davis screamed when they learned their son had died. a little over a year later, these parents would sit silently in the same room as the man who had killed their son. prior to the opening statements for michael dunn’s first trial, judge russell healey called mcbath and davis into the courtroom to receive private instructions (recorded in the pre-trial transcripts) about comportment. “we have you, i think, seated [in] the second row just so there’s—in case there was some sort of an emotional response,” healey told them. “if a tear comes to your eye, i understand. hopefully you’ll have a tissue or something and just wipe your eye. if it gets to a point where you’re somewhat overcome, you will probably need to leave the courtroom” (pre-trial proceedings and opening statements 2014, 1257–58). healey acknowledged that his demands would be easier said than done (figure 13). with tears discreetly welling and evaporating, mcbath and davis stayed glued to that second row as the trial unfolded.104 they listened to dunn denigrate jordan as a rageful, foulmouthed, violence-prone, figure 12: projectile trajectory markers. figure 13: ron davis and lucia mcbath (second row, left and right of frame). 162 current musicology shotgun-wielding delinquent. they listened to dunn’s family and friends describe the defendant as a peace-loving, music-loving fellow. they heard not one, not two, but five eyewitnesses (smith, stornes, thompson, brunson, and dunn) deliver graphic accounts of their son’s final moments. they listened to cory strolla criminalize jordan’s friends and damn them as loud, unruly, unfeeling. amid these thorough denunciations of black noise, the black silence in that courtroom went unheard. how did ron davis, when unexpectedly called by opposing counsel to testify, not holler hate as strolla tried to muddy the waters?105 how did lucy mcbath not wail as she listened to repeated narrations of her son’s death? how is it that someone can bemoan black sonic excess but neglect to recognize a pair of bereaved black parents who compressed all the grief in the world into impossibly respectable exteriors?106 it’s the aural equivalent of survivorship bias, whereby every audible scream is rigorously shushed, yet every scream unscreamed is taken for granted. at michael dunn’s sentencing on october 17, 2014, lucy mcbath stood up to give her victim impact statement. between sobs and gasps, she shared loving memories of her son. toward the end of her statement, mcbath fixed her gaze on dunn, then addressed him directly for the first time. “i choose to forgive you, mr. dunn, for taking my son’s life,” she said, breathless from weeping. “i pray to god to have mercy on your soul” (warren 2014).107 as a woman of faith, mcbath later explained that god had spoken to her and moved her to extend mercy even to her greatest enemy, perhaps in hopes that rehabilitation and transformation may one day visit upon dunn through others’ gestures of grace. for all of her anger toward her son’s killer in particular, however, mcbath has since called out the broader faults of institutional racism, lax gun laws, and what she calls the “legal lynching” enabled by stand your ground (“parents of black shooting victim” 2015). she has channeled private mourning of a lost child into public critiques of systemic ails. in doing so, mcbath was extending a legacy of radical black compassion, honoring the examples set by shirley sherrod’s forgiveness of the naacp (and even of breitbart news), by bell hooks’s meditations on love as salvation, by cornel west’s “love ethic,” by martin luther king jr.’s famous sermon on “loving your enemies,” and by frederick douglass, who went so far as to imagine how a cruel slaveowner—had he “been brought up in a free state, surrounded by the just restraints of free society”—might have turned out “as humane and respectable as are members of society generally” (nunnally 2012, 3–5; hooks 2001, 15; west 1993, 19; king jr. 2010; douglass 1855, 79, 80). a capacious benefit of the doubt, a faith that people can be more than the worst of what they’ve done. mcbath’s decision to forgive dunn was profound precisely because 163 william cheng such forgiveness may seem virtually inconceivable, pulsing forth, as it did, from a heart crushed by sorrow (figure 14). her practice embodied the ethos of “just mercy” advocated by the lawyer bryan stevenson, who reasons that “it’s when mercy is least expected that it’s most potent,” and that therefore “the most meaningful recipients of our compassion” may be the people “who haven’t even sought it” (2014, 294, 314, emphasis added). but mcbath has admitted the exhaustion of clutching fury in one hand while conferring forgiveness in the other. “forgiving michael dunn doesn’t negate what i’m feeling and my anger,” she told ta-nehisi coates. “and i am allowed to feel that way” (coates 2014a). yes, mcbath is allowed to be an angry black woman without being an angry black woman. she can choose to remain, when the spotlight glows too hot, a bereaved black mother rather than step forward as the inexhaustible face of bereaved black motherhood. she should be able to display resilience—whether by remaining silent in the courtroom, or by orating with a megaphone—without people seizing on her signs of resilience as an unlimited license to ask something more of her, or to do something else to her. she can show clemency; she can withdraw in devastation. because she is more than one thing.109 she is the complexity and the complexion that the michael dunns of the world do not see. she radiates a spectrum of humanity that a prejudicial society needs to embrace, but might not yet deserve. • over the course of researching people v. dunn, i had the privilege of becoming friends with lucy mcbath and ron davis, who work today as fierce activists for social and racial justice. even between their busy schedfigure 14: [left] lucia mcbath speaking at rally against gun violence (photo by gemma purkiss).108 [right] ron davis holding a photo of jordan davis (jet). 164 current musicology ules (with lucy running for congress in 2018, and ron traveling the world with humanitarian programs), they insisted on making time to read drafts of this article, to collaborate on public lectures, and to raise funds for their respective youth scholarship foundations in jordan’s name.110 some of the most powerful things i ascertained from lucy and ron came from simple anecdotes, little details casually shared over meals or over the phone. from lucy, i learned that she and jordan used to play music together while driving around; that jordan was afraid of guns; that jordan saw his own likeness in trayvon martin; and that, even with the pain that comes with remembrance, she appreciates opportunities today to reminisce about her son (mcbath 2018). from ron, i learned that he and lucy check in with each other once every couple of weeks; that jordan’s favorite song was the brothers johnson’s 1977 cover of “strawberry letter 23” (written by shuggie otis, 1971), because ron used to play it for him in the car; that jordan also liked the temptations, sly and the family stone, chief keef, and rick ross; and that ron is thankful he had the chance to take jordan on a vacation to las vegas in 2011, a year before the murder (davis 2018c). during a 2018 visit to dartmouth, where i teach, ron told me something that left me speechless.111 he said he believed that michael dunn, who is serving a life sentence, could—rather, will—one day change. dunn, insisted ron, will reckon with his racism and emerge a better man, whether it’s in five years, or ten, or twenty (davis 2018a). when that day comes, ron will want to visit dunn in prison. not a day sooner.112 to my ears, such faith in goodness sounded nothing short of miraculous, seeing as how dunn has never, to my knowledge, offered any public indication of repentance. on the day dunn received his sentence, lucy walked out onto the steps of the courthouse to explain, in front of an array of cameras, why she chose forgiveness. “i believe that michael dunn had not been raised the way we were raised, the way we were raising jordan,” she declared, squinting into the early afternoon sun (warren 2014). a reporter asked her what she had seen in michael dunn’s face when she had addressed him in court. lucy took a few seconds to think it over. then, with a slight shrug, she said: “nothing.”113 ron, standing next to her, nodded in agreement. lucy mcbath and ron davis gave jordan life. dunn stole that life. meaning he stole everything from these parents. but maybe plunderers cannot wholly take what they cannot see, and cannot silence the voices that they hear only as noise. meaning dunn couldn’t take away a mother’s mercy, a father’s grace, or all of the values these two parents shared with their child from his cradle to his grave. 165 william cheng notes abridged versions of this article were presented at mcgill university, national taiwan university, hanyang university, harvard university, university of chicago, dartmouth college, howard university, yale university, and university of illinois urbana-champaign. i would like to thank naomi andré, regina bradley, dale chapman, howard cheng, may cheng, ron davis, wade dean, phil ford, brianne gallagher, charles hiroshi garrett, michael heller, jessica holmes, francesca inglese, loren kajikawa, mark katz, lucy mcbath, brandi neal, pamela pilch, marcus pyle, yana stainova, tom wetmore, and the editors and reviewers of current musicology for their thoughtful feedback on this project. development of this article also benefited from conversations with michael austin, jen-yen chen, rachel edens, berthold hoeckner, kyounghwa kim, krystal klingenberg, gundula kreuzer, laurie lee, steve rings, chris schepici, gabriel solis, steve swayne, and darrell tong. 1. see also halpern (2015) and travis jr. (2016, 102–4). 2. dorian johnson, who had been walking with michael brown, witnessed the altercation. he recalled that brown, after being struck by wilson’s first bullet, announced: “i don’t have a gun” (state of missouri v. darren wilson, grand jury volume iv 2014, 123). 3. wilson testified that brown had said: “fuck what you have to say,” “what the fuck are you going to do about it” (state of missouri v. darren wilson, volume v 2014, 209), and “you are too much of a pussy to shoot me” (214). 4. wilson claimed he had “[told brown] to get on the ground, get on the ground,” and that “less than one minute” passed between “[seeing brown] walking down the street until michael brown is dead in the street” (state of missouri v. darren wilson, grand jury volume v 2014, 272). 5. loehmann claimed he had “ordered tamir [rice] three times to show his hands before opening fire,” though several witnesses later came forward to say they had heard no warnings at all (blackwell 2015). 6. timothy loehmann, statement to investigators (signed and dated 30 november 2015). 7. the move to criminalize rice didn’t simply come from police officers. in an article for cnn, legal analyst philip holloway recommended that people “turn to the specific facts,” which include the following: “tamir rice, while being a mere 12 years old, appeared much older” (holloway 2015). for holloway to classify rice’s “older” appearance as “fact” is all the more problematic given the author’s legal credentials. 8. see carmody (1994). 9. authors summarized their findings as follows: “five-, 7-, and 10-year-olds first rated the amount of pain they themselves would feel in 10 situations such as biting their tongue or hitting their head. they then rated the amount of pain they believed two other children—a black child and a white child, matched to the child’s gender—would feel in response to the same events. we found that by age 7, children show a weak racial bias and that by age 10, they show a strong and reliable racial bias” (dore, hoffman, lillard, and trawalter 2014). see also trawalter, hoffman, and waytz (2012). 10. instructive though it may be, “racial empathy gap” can nevertheless sound too neutral, absolvent, clinical, and bilateral, as if people of different races simply happen to lack empathy across color lines, and as if dark-skinned bodies aren’t the ones who overwhelmingly pay for such a lack—paying, at times, with their lives. perhaps a more honest term would be racist empathy gap. 11. in contrast to their poor treatment of black women, the same physicians in the era of us 166 current musicology chattel slavery usually “expressed ‘a good deal of solicitude’ for the white woman . . . [and] acted to relieve whatever discomfort she was experiencing” (schwartz 2006, 166). see also bourke (2014) and dudley (2012). 12. in other words, says weheliye, blackness is a “changing system of unequal power structures that apportion and delimit which humans can lay claim to full human status and which humans cannot” (2014, 3). 13. empirical studies of “formidability bias” and “pain bias” are complemented by research on the “superhumanization bias” and the “magic negro myth.” white research subjects have, in some cases, gone so far as to express beliefs in black people’s ability not only to withstand pain, but also to “suppress hunger or thirst” (waytz, hoffman, and trawalter, 2015, 356). 14. for a similar example, ana maría ochoa gautier has noted alexander von humboldt’s nineteenth-century documentations of the physical resilience and indecency of the colombian bogas, the magdalena river’s boat rowers. as ochoa gautier points out, humboldt’s “positive impression of their tremendous physiques and ‘demonstration of human force’ . . . was muted by the sounds they made,” evidenced by this prussian explorer’s “repeated use of negative adjectives of excess” such as “barbarous, lustful, angry” (2014, 31–32). 15. in washington’s plea of “stop calling me resilient,” then, “calling” is as much of a keyword as “resilient.” to call someone something is to exert implicit control over description, designation, and diagnosis. 16. on the racial politics of “jeep beats” and vehicular (black) noise, see dery (2004, 407– 20), jasen (2016, 6–7), kelley (1996, 134–35), rose (1994, 61–62), and blake (2012, 87– 109). for historical perspectives on automobile sound systems, see morris (2014). 17. in her groundbreaking book on the metaphors and materialities of hygiene (and its opposites), anthropologist mary douglas defined dirt as “matter out of place,” or anything that “offends against order” (1966, 44, 2); see also kapchan (2017, 283). on dirt and blackness, see fanon (2008, 82–86, 146–47); cf. read (1996). 18. see also smith (2006, 33–34), kennaway (2016, 117–19), chang (2016, 69–70), markus (2015), and ctvnews.ca staff (2017). 19. all cameras in the courtroom belonged to the documentary f ilmmakers for 3½ minutes, 10 bullets. full recordings of the trial and the retrial are available online and are cited in this article accordingly. i am grateful to ron davis, who has worked closely with the 3½ minutes, 10 bullets team, for helping obtain access and permissions to original footage. 20. references to people of the state of florida v. dunn michael david are hereafter abbreviated as people v. dunn. 21. on the mishearing or nonhearing of slaves’ music, see also gordon (2015, 108–32) and hartman (1997, 35). 22. ronald radano strikes a balance between purely defeatist and purely celebratory accounts of slave music. although the musical talents of a slave gave slaveowners “yet another way to make money . . . by hiring him or her out for local dances and balls,” this talent nonetheless “partially exceeded the realms of markets and exchange” insofar as the musicality resided within—and originated solely from—the slave body (2010, 366). 23. in technical terms, resilience (latin, resiliens) describes the capacity of a thing to rebound to its original state following the application of deformational force. urban researchers have begun using the phrase “resilience machine” to describe environmentalists’ surging preoccupation with discourses and models of resilience. “resilience is replacing sustain167 william cheng ability in everyday discourses,” observes simin davoudi, “in much the same way as the environment has been subsumed in the hegemonic imperatives of climate change” (2012, 299). even though resilience can be a worthwhile metric and goal, some writers argue that the concept implicitly drops the onus of survival on endangered locations and their inhabitants, all the while failing to address the systemic ills that enable this endangerment in the first place. 24. writing about the neoliberal complex of music, sexism, and racism, robin james describes resilience as follows: “instead of expending resources to avoid damage, resilience discourse recycles damage into more resources. resilience discourse thus follows a very specific logic: first, damage is incited and made manifest; second, that damage is spectacularly overcome, and that overcoming is broadcast and/or shared, so that: third, the person who has overcome is rewarded with increased human capital, status, and other forms of recognition and recompense, because: finally, and most importantly, this individual’s own resilience boosts society’s resilience. the work this individual does to overcome their own damage generates surplus value for hegemonic institutions” (2015, 7, emphasis in original). 25. on the neoliberal appropriation of “diversity,” see ahmed (2012, 51–82) and chang (2016, 9–32). unsurprisingly, one of the first fields to examine human resilience was child psychology, as researchers in the mid-20th century sought to analyze how youths could or could not thrive under adverse circumstances. see schoon (2006, xiii–xv), de bruijne, boin, and van eeten (2010, 13–32), and masten and powell (2003). 26. in 2010, us veteran-turned-antiwar-activist ethan mccord spoke about how “the military refused to grant him a medical discharge and instead discharged him with a pre-existing personality disorder, a distinction that precludes him from receiving disability benefits from the military” (lazare and harvey 2010). a staff sergeant, upon hearing this request for mental healthcare, called mccord a “pussy” and told him to “to get the sand out of [his] vagina.” 27. “comprehensive soldier fitness” (n.d). 28. as gallagher notes, the military ultimately “attempts to become more ‘cost effective’ within neoliberal regimes of value by creating new diagnoses that evade the temporal logic of ‘post’ traumatic stress from combat experience” (2016, 3). 29. in studying the biased criminalization of poor black women, ann cammett outlines the complicated case of veteran shanesha taylor, who, as a homeless, unemployed, single mother of three, had to present herself at her 2014 legal proceedings “as someone who did not resemble the image that many have of poor black mothers—the omnipresent welfare queen—an irresponsible, lazy mother who is somehow scamming the system” (2016, 385). stereotypes of the “underserving welfare queen,” points out brianne gallagher, also haunt the medical-military bureaucracies of the veteran’s administration and its mismanagement of financial and medical provisions (2016, 2). 30. see also scheper-hughes (2008, 25–56). 31. kaika draws on the work of roberto esposito, who has argued that “the idea of immunity, which is needed for protecting our life, if carried past a certain threshold, winds up negating life” (2013, 61). 32. recent studies have shown the deleterious effects of racial microaggressions on physical and mental health. although people who weather racist encounters could be deemed resilient, their repeated tolerance of such stressors may lead to measurable negative effects on the body (williams and mohammed 2013; sue et al. 2007). 33. respectable resilience is also exemplified by black people who are told that they’re “so 168 current musicology articulate and well-spoken,” or that they can pass as white on the telephone (danielle s. 2015; see also kennedy 2008, 144–85). 34. on the majority-white audience of the oprah winfrey show, and on oprah’s giveaways of cars and other goods, see mcdonald (2007, 169). 35. resilience is a semantic cousin of “grit” (the word itself connoting a clenching of teeth), which speaks to the ability of strong and silent types who can weather pain, who can grin and bear it, who can keep calm and carry on. see duckworth (2016), tough (2012), and thaler and koval (2015). on the internet age’s problematic (and neoliberally nostalgic) repurposing of the world war ii british poster “keep calm and carry on,” see hatherley (2016). with thanks to dale chapman for introducing me to hatherley’s book. 36. see brownstone (2015). 37. see also “bernie sanders ‘black lives matter’ protester [interview]” (2015). 38. see bernie sanders, “on the issues” (n.d.; last accessed february 16, 2018). 39. see “black lives matters demonstration at bernie sanders westlake event seattle (unedited).” 40. as jennifer lynn stoever points out, silence “offers black people no guaranteed refuge from state and police violence,” as shown by the october 2015 incident at spring valley high school in south carolina involving a young black girl who was “accused by her teacher of refusing to leave class after using her cell phone; she quietly stared forward at her desk until her school’s ‘resource officer’ grabbed and violently pulled her to the ground, desk and all” (2016, 3). 41. some attendees, after the event, tried to reconcile this cognitive dissonance by spreading unsubstantiated rumors that these women were hired by sarah palin (johnson 2016). 42. photo from oluo (2015). 43. about a month after the sanders rally in seattle, cnn’s don lemon criticized blm protesters who, like johnson and willaford, were intent on being loud. he asked how social justice for black people could come about “without [them] being involved in the political or the legislative process.” added lemon: “it doesn’t just happen from yelling” (“don lemon to black lives matter: why are you yelling?”). lemon’s statement was factual, of course. social change doesn’t just come from yelling. but it’s a misleading accusation, because no one can accurately say that anything ever just comes from any one thing. 44. james baldwin, i am not your negro (2017), based on the 2016 documentary i am not your negro (dir. raoul peck), based in turn on baldwin’s unfinished manuscript, remember this house. 45. in 2016, walmart made the controversial decision to stop selling “bulletproof: black lives matter” t-shirts after this retail corporation received a written complaint from the us fraternal order of police. see papenfuss (2016). 46. cage’s skin, which possesses powers of cellular regeneration, is not actually made of steel; skin of steel is just a metaphor. 47. luke cage, season 1, episode 3. 48. see fukui and toyoshima (2013). 49. anthropologists, psychologists, and music cognition specialists would be among the first people to warn that we’re far from fully unraveling humans’ complex mind-body connections. nevertheless, significant empirical and ethnographic data have begun to demonstrate that sounds, especially loud and percussive sounds, can induce biochemical states that measurably increase the human body’s psychological and dermal resilience. 169 william cheng 50. outside the controlled settings of laboratories, ethnographers have observed similar phenomena of sound-induced resilience, notably in forms of religious-musical trancing and drumming. as judith becker remarks, trances—from the “sun dance ritual of the lakotas to the self-flagellation of shi’a muslims to the self-stabbing of the balinese bebuten trances”—feature people who “perform feats of physical endurance that are unthinkable in ordinary body-mind states of consciousness” (2007, 166). balinese trancers, for example, “not only do not feel pain when stabbing themselves but also rarely display any resultant physical trauma such as open, bleeding wounds” (becker 2004, 148). 51. rap—like any music—is not a monolith, but the apparent recognizability of its generic characteristics might impel perceptions and discourses that generalize it as such. adam krims’s seminal work on rap divided it into multiple subgenres, including party rap, gangsta rap, mack rap, and reality rap (2000, 54). on defining and redefining rap, see also kajikawa (2015, 4–6). 52. curiously, it is conceivable tupac might not have been killed that night had his car not been stopped by the las vegas police for loud music (sonic disturbance); this police stop occurred only fifteen minutes before the shooting. 53. see “26 rappers who have been shot” (n.d.). 54. on the definitions and (in)definability of “black music,” see mcginty (1993). concerning “musical blackness,” see gaunt (2006, 37–55). for a dive into voice’s “acousmatic blackness,” see eidsheim (2011). and on the historical initiatives of “black music inquiry” and “ostensibly . . . ‘black’ projects,” see ramsey (2001, 1, 2). 55. on “b/black music” implicitly or explicitly narrated through black resilience, see, for example, mcclendon (1976), cleveland and mcclain (1983), jones (2002, 17–121), floyd jr. (1995), ramsey (2003), mahon (2004, 33–58), kun (2005, 88–94), garrett (2008, 10–11), reeves (2009), redmond (2013, 261–88), kernodle (2013, 181–204), and bonnette (2015). for additional reflections on essentialist trappings of music and blackness, see katz (2012, 9–11), miller (2010), perry (2004, 10–18), keyes (2002, 6–13), and crawford (1986). mark anthony neal warns that rap’s signs of resistance may, as with any artform, buckle under the weight of market interests, a peril he describes as a “tumultuous marriage between black cultural production and mass consumerism” (1999, 17). see also kun (1994) and martinez (1997). 56. on the politics of ambivalent claims about bebop’s (non)politicality, see porter (2002, 54–100). with thanks to michael heller for this reference. 57. video available at “retta—classical music.” 58. on rap, religion, and the naivety of neat divisions between (morally) “good” rap and “bad” rap, see pinn (2003). 59. see keyes (2002, 104–21, 186–209), jeffries (2011, 77–111), and rose (2008, 75–94). tanehisi coates harpoons the massive hypocrisy of causational arguments when it comes to rap and societal virtues: “ronald ferguson, a harvard social scientist, has highlighted that an increase in hip-hop’s popularity during the early 1990s corresponded with a declining amount of time spent reading among black kids. but gangsta rap can be correlated with other phenomena, too—many of them positive. during the 1990s, as gangsta rap exploded, teen pregnancy and the murder rate among black men declined. should we give the blue ribbon in citizenship to dr. dre?” (2017, 27). on the educational and therapeutic potential of rap, see hadley and yancy (2012). 60. for a comparable study, see also teitelbaum (2017, 61–88). 61. see will (2018), curtis (2000), and gordon (2016). 170 current musicology 62. see judge (2018), faust (2018), and sugrue (2010). 63. unless otherwise stated, all jailhouse letters cited hereafter have been obtained from the law offices of john m. phillips, available at http://floridajustice.com/michael-dunnsletters-from-jail. 64. according to reporter dave schneider, the media made the case “about loud music. ‘loud music trial begins.’ ‘loud music trial continues.’ this wasn’t a ‘loud music trial.’ this was a 21st-century lynching” (quoted in 3½ minutes, 10 bullets, ~1:00:15). see also swayne (2014). 65. cover of jet (january 14, 2013). 66. see whaley (2014). 67. on the epistemology and stakes of saying what things are or aren’t “about,” see yablo (2014). 68. i use the term “youth” in accordance with the united nations’ definition of any person between 15 and 24 years of age. the un and unesco make this designation for “statistical consistency across regions,” for clarifying scholarship eligibilities, and without prejudice against alternate definitions of youth by member states (united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization, n.d.). 69. “michael dunn trial—cory strolla—press conference,” ~12:37. on the history and uses of the “race card,” see mendelberg (2001) and dei (2004). 70. the witness who memorized dunn’s license plate was named shawn atkins. see testimony by shawn atkins (2014, 1419–20). 71. evidence photograph reproduced in cnn wire (2014). 72. to be clear, dunn acknowledged rouer as “hysterical” on three separate occasions during his testimony. he also said she was a “wreck” and was “hyperventilating” (testimony by defendant 2014, 2897, 2899). 73. according to the youths’ testimonies, dunn had parked his jetta so close to the durango that, if davis had tried opening the durango’s door, it would almost certainly have dinged the jetta’s rear door. no scratches or marks, however, were found on the jetta during subsequent inspection. 74. screen captures from “michael dunn retrial—day 2, part 2.” i have included stills from the retrial instead of the original trial because brunson’s gestures were slightly clearer the second time around. 75. direct examination: “can you use your voice to try to convey to the jury the volume of that person’s voice?” smith, more loudly: “you’re not going to talk to me that way!” (testimony by steven smith 2014, 1339) 76. available as “dunn call 7” and “dunn call 8” at http://www.jacksonville.com/ news/2014-02-17/story/listen-state-attorneys-office-releases-michael-dunn-jailhousephone-calls. see also johnson (2014). 77. verbatim repetition in testimonies tends to sound suspicious. common and generalizable examples include “i plead the fifth,” “i don’t recall,” “not to my recollection,” and other evasive maneuvers. dunn’s strict repetition of key terms (thug, familiarity) may indicate memorization by way of witness preparation. some writers have called witness preparation a necessarily “dark” and “dirty” dimension of the united states adversary system, and its ethics remain murky and underdefined (gershman 2002; mcerlean, stolle, and smith 2010). 78. phonemically, of course, the phrase “rap crap” doesn’t sound anything like the phrase 171 william cheng “thug music.” (interestingly, the state did not raise this point—either despite or because of its obviousness.) indeed, as far as clever rhymes go, “rap crap” is quite memorable. how likely is it that rouer misheard or misremembered “rap crap” as “thug music,” especially given that she acknowledged his remark and responded with, “yes, i know” (testimony by rhonda rouer 2014, 2306)? 79. “michael dunn trial—cory strolla—press conference.” 80. for video, see “michael dunn trial—day 6—part 2 (prosecution closing arguments),” ~1:11:47. 81. ron davis, jordan’s father, disagreed. “with [dunn] saying ‘thug music,’ how can you as a juror not think that this was about race?” said davis in a cnn interview. “because before you even met jordan, before you even looked at jordan, looked at his clothes, or anything else, you heard rap music, and so you assumed it was all african americans in the car, and you said, ‘i hate that thug music.’ so it is about race” (“black juror from michael dunn trial states it wasn’t about race and he was a nice guy,” ~6:35). 82. in 2007, joe biden famously landed in hot water when he described barack obama as “clean” (zimring 2015, 220–21; coates 2017, 122). 83. perhaps the vehement certainty with which strolla asserted dunn’s unracistness is precisely what merits suspicion. we’ve heard such superlative disavowals before from the likes of donald trump, who has repeatedly called himself the “least racist person” (scott 2018). 84. judge healey justified his decision on the motion as follows: “on january 16, 2014, defendant filed the instant ‘motion to determine confidentiality of court records and motion for protective order sealing certain court records and limiting the disclosure of discovery materials.’ in this motion, defendant seeks to protect ‘any and all “jailhouse” conversations of the defendant, including but not limited to any and all discussions, phone calls, and/or visitations.’ in support of his motion, defendant argues that such closure is required to prevent a serious and imminent threat to the fair, impartial, and orderly administration of justice, to protect a compelling governmental interest, and to comply with established state and federal constitutional law and cases” (“order denying defendant’s motion” 2014, 5–6 [item 10]); healey denied the motion on the basis that the “defendant failed to present any evidence showing that the disclosure of the jail calls ‘would jeopardize the safety’ of any of the victims or witnesses” (10 [item 23]). see also eastman (2014). 85. here is one jailhouse letter that was entered into evidence. from dunn to rouer: “i had a visit from a mr. lockett—he’s mitch stone’s partner, and friends with corey [sic] strolla. he mentioned in passing that i had made no mention of a gun to you, based on your testimony to the prosecutors. he asked what i had told you, and i then realized that we hadn’t really discussed what happened, as we were more concerned with whether or not anyone was hurt. let me assure you, just as i told the detectives who first interviewed me in melbourne, [redacted] and later mitch stone—there was a weapon. i cannot say for sure what it was, as i only saw the top portion of the barell [sic]—to me it looked like a shotgun” (dunn 2012). wolfson brought up the contents of this letter in closing statements: “the first time [dunn] mentioned [the gun] to [rouer] is in a letter [from] december 5th, 2012, and this letter is in evidence and he says, ‘he mentioned in passing that i made no mention of a gun to you, based on your testimony with the prosecutors’ ” (prosecution closing arguments [rebuttal] 2014, 3315). 86. i spoke with ron davis (jordan’s father) about this letter, but we were unable to confirm the identity of michelle or her relationship to dunn. based on dunn’s repeated use of the word “mom” (as opposed to “my mom”) in the letter, however, it is very likely that michelle 172 current musicology is dunn’s sibling. moreover, this michelle should not be confused with michelle reeves, the name of a witness who had been working at a dry cleaners in the southside plaza. 87. one of michael dunn’s neighbors also spoke with the davis family’s lawyer and offered disturbing details about dunn. see “michael dunn’s neighbor speaks to davis lawyer john phillips (highlights).” 88. full transcript of the “pound cake” speech can be accessed at “dr. bill cosby speaks” (n.d.). 89. see also johnson (2014). 90. delineating country music in monolithic terms is, of course, no more appropriate than painting rap with a broad brush. for intersectional studies of class, race, sexuality, and subgenres in country music, see, for example, hubbs (2014) and stimeling (2011). 91. jennifer lynn stoever notes how the putative invisibility and “inaudibility of whiteness does not mean it has no sonic markers, but rather that . . . dominant listening practices discipline us to process white male ways of sounding as default, natural, normal, and desirable” (2016, 12). see also sue (2006, 15–30), delgado and stefancic (1997), doane and bonillasilva (2003), and chandler (2009). 92. see corbin (2017). 93. on racial biases in death penalty sentencings (in florida specifically and in the united states more generally), see zeisel (1981) and price (2015). 94. available as “dunn call 4” at http://www.jacksonville.com/news/2014-02-17/story/ listen-state-attorneys-office-releases-michael-dunn-jailhouse-phone-calls. 95. see “jacksonville, florida—code of ordinances.” the council’s general provisions state: “the making, creating and maintenance of excessive, unnecessary, unnatural or unusually loud noises which are prolonged, unusual and unnatural in their time, place and use affect and are a detriment to the public health, comfort, convenience, safety, welfare and prosperity of the residents of the city.” 96. on noise pollution, see bijsterveld (2008, 53–158); on sonic-sensory accommodation, see cheng (2016, 89–92). 97. over the past decade, music scholars have become particularly attuned to the social, political, and moral ramifications of sound’s weaponization. in this discourse, one recurring theme involves the insidiousness of such weaponization—that is, the relative ease with which people can deny sound’s weaponized status (owing to the alleged immateriality, invisibility, ephemerality, and intangibility of sonic stimuli when compared to visible weapons). in the case of people v. dunn, however, it becomes important to entertain the inverse: cases in which music is falsely or inaccurately accused of being offensive, incendiary, or weaponized. see, for example, goodman (2010), volcler (2013), zuazu (2015), prochnik (2010), and cusick (2008). 98. rouer ended up buying wine and chips, but by dunn’s own admission: “i knew she was getting wine. the chips were a surprise” (testimony by defendant 2014, 2853). 99. during redirect, state attorney john guy gave stornes the chance to explain, asking: “why did you write the song?” to which stornes replied: “i wrote the song as a memorial to jordan. like if you—if you met jordan and know jordan, he had a big heart like this, and hopefully, you know, you can get a vibe of what type of person he was” (testimony by tommie stornes 2014, 1853; see also “michael dunn trial—day 2—part 5,” ~57:50). 100. there have been multiple reports of police mistaking black men and women for crimi173 william cheng nals, even when these individuals were the ones who called for help in the first place. highprofile examples include henry louis gates jr. getting arrested when his neighbor called the police to investigate him (as he had been seen trying to “break” into his own house) and charleena lyles calling the police about a burglary, then getting shot seven times by the police when they arrived. see staples (2011), ogletree (2010), dunn (2010), and goff and buchanan (2016). one recent study has shown that high-profile cases of police violence in a community significantly lowers subsequent rates of police-related 9-1-1 calls; that is, when reports of police brutality break, people (especially black people) are, for the year thereafter, less likely to report crime (desmond, papachristos, and kirk 2016). on how “forensic listening” of the audio evidence surrounding michael brown’s shooting may illuminate bystander sensitization, civilian distrust of police, and the racial biases of surveillance technology (shotspottertm microphones), see hamdan (2016, 2014). with thanks to josh kun for pointing me to hamdan’s work. 101. it’s not clear to me why the state did not object to strolla’s line of questioning (on grounds of irrelevance or beyond the scope) with regard to stornes’s songwriting. 102. for a comparable example—rachel jeantel saying “yes, sir” twenty-three times when testifying as a key witness in the trial of george zimmerman—see bradley (2013). 103. for full video, see “michael dunn trial—day 6—part 3 (defense closing arguments),” ~19:45. 104. on the multi-camera setup within the courtroom, see the production notes for 3½ minutes, 10 bullets, available online at http://festival-droits-de-lhomme.org/doc/2016/3_12_minutes_production_notes_final.pdf. 105. strolla called ronald davis as a witness “for purposes of impeachment against tommie [stornes] and tevin [thompson]” (testimony by ronald davis 2014, 2628). stornes and thompson had both testified that, following jordan’s death, they had not discussed details of november 23, 2012 with ron davis. strolla believed he could contradict the youths’ claims with statements made by ron davis in a prior deposition. 106. see also paquette (2016). 107. remarkably, mcbath had already chosen to forgive dunn after the first trial, when the hung jury failed to convict him on the first-degree murder charge; in other words, mcbath had been willing to forgive dunn long before she could receive assurance that he would face justice for killing her son. see coates (2014a, 2014b). 108. photo obtained from brown (2015). 109. on the potential inextinguishability of black life even in the wake of black lives’ systemic and violent negations, see sharpe (2016, 10–17), hartman (1997, 28–32), and “the black outdoors: fred moten & saidiya hartman at duke university” (2016). 110. mcbath’s foundation is called champion in the making; ron davis’s foundation is called walk with jordan. both offer college scholarships for youths and in particular youths of color. 111. ron davis came to dartmouth college to participate in a lecture and roundtable discussion about people v. dunn. the event was called “his music was not a weapon: black noise, breakable skin, and the plundered voice of jordan russell davis” (april 23, 2018, loew auditorium in the black family visual arts center, hanover nh). 112. as i worked on this article, i frequently contemplated visiting michael dunn in prison. but ron davis convinced me that this would be a futile effort because a reporter had 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zeisel, hans. 1981. “race bias in the administration of the death penalty: the florida experience.” harvard law review 95 (2): 456–68. zimring, carl a. 2015. clean and white: a history of environmental racism in the united states. new york: new york university press. zuazu, maría edurne. 2015. “loud but non-lethal: acoustic stagings and state-sponsored violence.” women & music 19: 151–59. microsoft word ps gatdula typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 gatdula. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 137 anna b. gatdula colloquy editor, co-chair and co-founder of project spectrum writing on behalf of the graduate student members of project spectrum, i am excited to present our first colloquy, a shortened representation of the conference proceedings of our first symposium held in autumn 2018.1 organized as a pre-conference symposium prior to the joint national business meetings of the american musicological society and the society for music theory, we titled the event “diversifying music academia: strengthening the pipeline.” the symposium was well attended—a testament to the commitment to progress in our field of music studies, in the various disciplines we call home, and in the classrooms in which we teach. project spectrum started with an intent to mobilize the energies of the individuals speaking up at various panels and roundtables at the national conferences—individuals who were sharing their grievances about the lack of diversity and inclusivity in their academic experiences. hearing similar stories repeated over and over again, happening to separate individuals, we felt inspired to come together, with a belief that collective effort is more effective than individual action. it’s all in the name: project spectrum is an initiative, an ongoing enterprise, to substantively broaden and bolster the spectrum of people who are able to succeed in our fields. one part of our mission is to shift the large-scale culture of north american music academia toward equity by confronting racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, settler-colonialism, and other forms of discrimination and injustice. the other is to bolster community, share resources, and hold space for those academics who are marginalized and historically excluded by the academy. these missions are fundamentally intertwined, and taken together, they serve to diversify and strengthen music academia. our highest goal is that the project becomes moot—to create a world in which those -isms and -phobias would no longer structure higher education and music academia. the overall success of that autumn 2018 symposium was due in large part to the organizing work that began in the summer of 2017. clifton boyd had reached out to me and a few other graduate students in his network with an idea for a conference or working group for minoritized scholars to share tangible 138 takeaways and pragmatic solutions for the “diversity work” in our home institutions. from these beginnings, we solidified faculty support, using the fall 2017 ams and smt conferences as networking opportunities, subtly dropping the project spectrum name into the intellectual milieu.2 for over a year, we had built up a community in support of our nascent work. we worked to receive grants from the ams, smt, sem, and we worked especially hard to receive the sphinx organization’s mpower grant. i remember the group of us graduate student organizers sitting in the utsa institute of texan cultures before the event officially started. we had registered over a hundred participants, although we anticipated less turnout given the nature of pre-conference commitments. much to our relief, excitement, and surprise, we filled the lecture room. i remember giving the opening remarks, which included a parochial meet and greet, and the thrill of commotion as people stood up to meet one another in the space we had worked so hard to make real. for our first conference, we wanted to address the issue of the “pipeline.” social scientists of higher education refer to an individual’s academic progress— from college matriculation to graduation and beyond—as their trajectory through the “educational pipeline.” studying the pipeline centers a systemic, structural analysis of a student’s potential advancement through academia. this colloquy attempts to map out existing discussions around inclusion and equity in music academia, with a specific focus on identifying and analyzing the structures in academia that work against minoritized and historically excluded scholars. first off, it is often difficult for underrepresented minoritized folks to enter the pipeline. for me, my entry point to the pipeline started early. i was lucky enough to have access to orchestras and choirs in elementary school; my parents valued my music education and supported me with external music lessons. moving on to high school, i was privileged to go to a well-funded musical arts program at a public school. my parents assisted me as i pursued music performance in college; then, i went on to benefit from financial support in graduate school. i had (and still have) a really lucky go within this pipeline, and i remain aware of the privilege i have in comparison to the people who were not so lucky. it is difficult for people without points of entry to take up graduate studies in music. scholars and administrators have been dismissive of this point of entry, often espousing language such as “they aren’t interested in classical music because they simply don’t commit themselves.” this stance is obviously not self-reflexive and obfuscates the decisions that directly discourage a more diverse pool of applicants. 139 having gained access to the pipeline, many individuals then face several obstacles and blockages that deter progress through the pipeline. we who identify as underrepresented within the hegemonic social circles of academia experience a sort of fragmentation as we ascend the pipeline. reaching higher levels of academia, we see fewer and fewer people who look like us, have life experiences like us. for example, ableism inhibits success in academia as it propagates achievement through exceptional individuality. we have each benefited from a pipeline of sorts that has brought each of us to the proverbial “here”; but there are financial, social, and cultural barriers to this pipeline. then we arrive at the lucky few who make it through the pipeline to achieve the coveted honorifics of academia’s success (a doctorate degree, a tenured position, etc.). we pivot to thinking about gaining power and control over the pipeline. now, we want to strengthen the pipeline for those who are not here. how can we privileged few alleviate the bottleneck effect of the pipeline? this could mean: making the classroom more inclusive; checking our implicit biases; developing leaders, in our departments and in our discipline, who identify as underrepresented, minoritized, and historically excluded; publishing innovative research that opens doors to similarly-minded new scholars; and building each other up through the trials and tribulations of our precarious job markets. strengthening the pipeline means each of those things and more. our contributors offer some initial gestures toward this end. we have attempted to structure the colloquy in a way that reflects the progressive stages of the pipeline. first, margaret thomas takes us into the undergraduate music theory classroom in “making the case for equity pedagogy.” addressing one of the entry points into the music academia pipeline, thomas proposes two educational theories to make our classrooms more inclusive: universal design for learning (udl) and equity pedagogy. more importantly, she calls for music pedagogues to be proactive and to address the structural inequities that shape a student’s engagement in and out of the classroom. thomas’s call to music scholars reminds me of bell hooks’s call that “part of the luxury and privilege of the role of teacher/professor today is the absence of any requirement that we be self-actualized” (1994, 17). thomas’s contribution to the colloquy exemplifies a professor’s commitment to self-actualization: she recognizes her own privilege, she foregrounds her students’ experiences, and calls for her peers to join her in this honest self-reflection. then, matthew ovalle and andrew dell’antonio contribute their joint-paper “mentoring, institutional barriers, structures of justice: a dialogue across positions of privilege and power.” i remember them in front of that lecture hall: 140 they spoke with vulnerability and care from their positions as mentor and mentee, outlining the alternative pathways that give people the chance to make their own way through the pipeline. but most importantly, i remember them sitting together, side-by-side, dismantling the hierarchy of mentorship with their presence in that lecture space. dell’antonio writes, “and if we are privileged to be in the system, we have the authority to disrupt it.” i would add, shoulder-toshoulder, side-by-side, we will disrupt it. ovalle writes that he “can really only speak to my experience,” but his courageous testimony challenges us from the get-go: “the first thing i want to say is that i do not belong in academia.” many of us do not belong in academia – the pipelines have made it so – and yet so many of us are here. ovalle’s experience reminds us of the allies and friends that allow us to stay here. he shares a story of his own student in need who was skipping class and notes: “i don’t always assume that it’s because they won’t [attend class], but that it’s because they can’t.” let us remember that for many of us, it’s not that we won’t get through the pipeline, it’s because we can’t. sarah hankins follows with thoughts on mental illness, arguing that it is a gap in our discourse, a gap that is initially discussed in ovalle’s testimony. hankins asks us to bear witness to experiences of those who boldly declare that they are “unfit” for the pipeline—“unfit” to survive the pipeline, to have access to the pipeline, and for the so-called promises at the end of the pipeline. following the work of black studies, queer of color critique, black radicalism, afropessimism, and especially the writings of stefano harney and fred moten, hankins invites us to the “undercommons,” a collective of those who declare: i am unfit. to which the response is simply: we agree. the undercommons asks us to attend to the blockages in the pipeline—and then to stay there, to refuse subjection into the normative flow of the pipeline, to demand attention to our aches and pain, and to do it all as a collective. hankins’s intervention in this colloquy demands pause in academia’s system of perpetual motion. finally, tekla babyak asks us to re-imagine what is on the other side of the pipeline. in her colloquy contribution, she shares her advocacy experience in fighting for both independent scholars’ and disabled scholars’ seat at the proverbial table. she imagines an academic discipline that would readily accept, acknowledge, and uplift independent scholars—instead of considering them halfor failed scholars for their lack of institutional affiliation. and she imagines an academic discipline that would readily include disabled scholars, not for their exceptionality in achieving scholarship, but for their ability to contribute to a more diverse and inclusive intellectual milieu. she critiques the ableism endemic to the academic pipeline, an ableism that veils the physical and—if i might add— 141 emotional, mental, and spiritual obstructions in our discipline’s path to so-called success. all in all, our contributors ask us not only how we can strengthen the pipeline but also what to look for on the other side of that pipeline. they begin to provide glimpses of the world we want to build – an academic world committed to equity, to care, to a sense that the world is in fact ours and ours to share with our students, our colleagues, and our (fully actualized) selves. as bell hooks writes: to commit ourselves to the work of transforming the academy so that it will be a place where cultural diversity informs every aspect of our learning, we must embrace struggle and sacrifice. we cannot be easily discouraged. we cannot despair when there is conflict. our solidarity must be affirmed by shared belief in a spirit of intellectual openness that celebrates diversity, welcomes dissent, and rejoices in collective dedication to truth. (1994, 33) as the tides change, our pipelines have to withstand the new currents. and although it’s sink or swim, it’s up to us to strengthen these pipelines. notes 1 thank you to my fellow graduate student organizers for the 2018 symposium: clifton boyd, catrina kim, laurie lee, lissa reed, m. leslie santana. special shoutout to the new graduate student organizers who have joined us: carlota aguilar, hyeonjin park, and toru momii. to follow project spectrum's ongoing work, please see our website: https://projectspectrummusic.com 2 thank you to our original faculty affiliate members: eduardo herrera, ellie m. hisama, tammy l. kernodle, matthew d. morrison, and joseph straus. references hooks, bell. 1994. teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. new york: routledge. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 fiol-matta. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 247 archival nothing licia fiol-matta as opposed to other realms of art, like literature or painting, a plethora of “great women singers” has existed in the caribbean and latin america since the recording industry began. these were marquee artists with legions of adoring fans. yet, the critical paucity regarding their careers has been severe. it seems obvious, but bears repeating, that, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, most music writing on latin america did not engage in a hermeneutic with regards to gender. as i compiled buried, fragmentary, or discarded archival objects, i came to think of my subjects as not having come into critical view yet, as not yet being “interpretable.” i found in the nothing a highly suggestive concept that allowed me to work productively with absences and omissions, but also to analyze singers as able sculptors of a generative nothingness. related to both the nothing as empty and, in contradistinction, as empty-set, a paradoxical “full emptiness,” i had to consider the common-sense concept of diva, often employed to account for every instance of female stardom and success (rendering it empty). for this book, i decided to keep my critical stance at a remove from the “diva” while not discounting the term’s everyday and scholarly use, the moments when it indexes the generative nothing (which might be one of its definitions). in the great woman singer, i opted for a deferral of diva in favor of a foregrounding of musician. were i to categorize my four subjects in diva terms, i would say that, in my study, the most ironic diva is myrta silva, surely one of the most brilliant entertainers in caribbean music history and one who, because of her work, any critic would be hard pressed to put into the service of an exemplary feminine performativity. her correlate, in terms of a conceptual understanding of artistic distance and crafting of persona, is the preternaturally gifted lucecita benítez, who left many listeners “waiting” for her to achieve her seemingly boundless potential and who was, apparently, herself left arrested in waiting, suffering the consequences of over-signification and the pressure to represent too many things to too many listeners. both are queer divas. in lacanian terms, the first was extraordinarily attuned to the symbolic functions of music, its relationship to desire and the law; the second was perilously close to the real of music, its takeover by desire and law when the various bars of social life have weakened or broken down. i also write on a black diva and a folk diva. these should be nonsensical formulations, as a diva should not have any markers next to 248 current musicology her name qualifying the reason for her hallowed position. the performing, female bodies of ruth fernández and ernestina reyes were admitted into the local pop pantheon in conditional, highly problematic terms, as what foucault would call, in a memorable essay, docile bodies. regardless of whether the individuals were docile, their star bodies sedimented into a local musical typology of racial and class otherness, common across the latin american musical world in the short twentieth century. as opposed to silva and benítez—my gritty lead and volcanic coda—fernández and reyes are more closely aligned with an imaginary of racial classifications forged in the heyday of the commonwealth of puerto rico, corresponding to the apotheosis of developmentalism. this does not mean that our listening to them has to be of the order of docility, however, or that we need not acquire tools to listen to silva and benítez in tune with their particular artistic calls to their listeners. i start with the mercurially negative myrta silva and end with the recalcitrant “national voice,” lucecita benítez, to explore the multiple aspects of vocal performance, positing two racially defined, mandated figures of plenitude, the pedagogue ruth fernández and free spirit ernestina reyes, as similarly essential to my gender analysis of voice. the search for documentation regarding silva (chapter 1) and fernández (chapter 2), two famous pop stars in the 1940s and through careers that spanned decades, was painstaking. still, it was possible to locate their recordings, read about them in print, and, working imaginatively, find photographs of early performances as well as footage from the 1960s and 1970s. i located associates who deeply respected silva. collectors were very fond of her, possibly because she was so connected to cuban music in the 1940s. in truth, silva was brilliant, a performer who would not go unnoticed, as i discuss, so a lot of credit must go to her. fernández, in the meantime, accrued international praise for her 1940s recordings of semi-classical, afrocubanist music which, as i detail in the chapter, caught the attention of the metropolitan opera house. she was also on the collector’s radar, even if not as listened to, perhaps, as silva. after the 1950s, fernández became a highly influential politician and symbol of the hegemonic political party, the popular democratic party (partido popular democrático, ppd). therefore, she was, like silva, “findable,” albeit with a lot of effort since neither artist had been written about beyond some brief, biographical articles. patience and persistence paid off, eventually. in a few years, i had enough of an archive to theorize voice in both singers. if reconstructing their career was difficult, it was nothing compared to reconstructing the career of la calandria (chapter 3), a star of the puerto rican working classes and the puerto rican diaspora. i was lucky to meet two ideal collaborators in arturo butler (a diehard calandria fan from 249 licia fiol-matta the bronx, new york) and grego marcano (son of an important musician and music promoter, piquito marcano). had i remained in the confined circles of the library, and only spoken to recognized, traditional collectors with the ritualistic, gendered, reverential codes they expected, i would not have encountered either one. it was only the long, methodical pursuit of contacts in all manner of places and with all kinds of people, recorded in a set of scribbled notebooks with dozens of names, phone numbers, emails, annotated places, events, and facts, that led me to visit their homes. while i obtained a comprehensive archive of recordings by pooling materials from butler and marcano, and splendid visuals from marcano, in this chapter, most of all, i experienced the archival nothing. most jíbaro musicians and associates i talked to were interested in my book and generous with their time. still, when i queried sources about calandria’s music career, her musical temperament, or any aspect that had to do with music, folks did not have very much to say about her music making. how did she select her repertoire? how did she record? (in one sitting, one presumes, given the financial precarity of the music.) did she improvise, as in the mythology surrounding the décima, or work with lyrics? did she collaborate for any of the songwriting? and so forth. neither recordings, interviews, nor print research answered these questions. recordings have a silent aspect, as jonathan sterne has theorized. the musicians who still lived were quite old, so their memory was not necessarily up to par. i found very little of jíbaro music reported on in any print venue, of record or gossip. jíbaro musicians—the entire group—were not seen as professional musicians in their day, simply because of class prejudice. in archival terms, they have a scant presence in record collections, were rarely filmed or photographed, and were never subjects of newspaper and magazine stories. regarding gender specifically, people in the jíbaro music world had not given the question much of a thought and they were used to talking about women only in terms of their physical appearance or perceived temperament. lucecita benítez, a recipient of the 2017 latin grammy for lifetime achievement award, is the subject of chapter 4 and the only living artist i studied. lucecita began her career in the 1960s with the explosion of consumer culture in puerto rico, signifying illusory wealth, and experienced her peak in the 1970s, coinciding with the beginning of developmentalism’s demise. hundreds of fans acquired records without having to pay too much; saved their copies of bohemia or tv guía; clipped the newspapers; held on to flyers or concert programs; and snapped photos of their beloved star. contact with 1970s and 1980s fans helped me think through the change in music and subjectivity that the primacy of reception inaugurated, as john mowitt (1987) illustrated in a landmark essay, “the sound 250 current musicology of music in the era of its electronic reproducibility.” yet, even lucecita (a relatively easy object of study compared to the rest, with an abundance of archival material, much of it existing outside of formal, private collections) had not received the critical analysis that was her due, one that unpacked her astonishing voice, commanding stage presence, visual reproducibility, multiple personas, and unwavering fidelity to her music career. despite her fame, i had to reconstruct the entire arc of her career from scratch. i had to carefully think this particular variation on the nothing, which brought so many items to analysis but was, in its richness, resistant to interpretation. beyond my individual delight in working with recordings, interviewing people, and compiling a visual archive, i was able to witness up close and personal the secondary or nonexistent role women musicians, almost always singers, were assigned. thinking about voice was often hard to come by in the case of women artists. my own position as a woman professor researching women singers for a scholarly book on gender and music was hard to communicate, difficult to recognize, indeed part of the nothing i had set out to study. my intention was to provide an analysis of women artists as having a concept, as not merely happening—just as with the perception of the voice as “merely happening,” to then be described, classified, measured, judged as success or failure, considered primarily in a social context, and so forth. i sought to theorize the voice in performance as having something to say, but not necessarily in a clear “message” way. rather, the “nothing is something” manifests through voice’s fierce battle with freedom and subjugation. the object-voice is never only about one or the other, or about polarities of individual and social, private and public, selfexpression and self-mystification, and so forth. i conceived of the thinking voice as an event, sometimes called forth consciously by a certain type of singer and sometimes appearing in a not so conscious or premeditated way; and i conceived of the women singers i study as harbingers of the nothing i responded to, which, however, does not imply a fixed, unchanging reality. enter the five amazing scholars who graced the book with the comments reproduced in this issue, who surprised even me with elements they noticed, riffed on, and at times clarified: arnaldo cruz-malavé, gayatri gopinath, jack halberstam, fred moten, and alexandra vazquez. these pieces were read at three new york city book events for the great woman singer: book culture/columbia university center for ethnomusicology, april 13th, 2017; new york university center for the humanities, october 17th, 2017; and the center for puerto rican studies, hunter college, cuny, december 12th, 2017. heartfelt thanks to all in the venues for hosting us 251 licia fiol-matta and to the audiences for tuning in to our feminist and critical listening. i would also like to thank tom wetmore and current musicology for their interest in this dossier. i am delighted these pieces are available to all interested readers, particularly scholars and students interested in questions of voice, gender, thought, and music. references mowitt, john. 1987. “the sound of music in the era of its reproducibility.” in music and society: the politics of composition, performance, and reception, edited by richard leppert and susan mcclary, 184–97. new york: cambridge university press microsoft word cm_111_rubin_final.docx current musicology 111 (spring 2023) ©2023 rubin. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). simon, andrew. 2022. media of the masses: cassette culture in modern egypt. stanford, ca: stanford university press. reviewed by jessie rubin through a multisensory—and multidisciplinary—analysis of what he terms egypt’s “vulgar soundscape,” andrew simon’s 2022 debut book media of the masses: cassette culture in modern egypt provides readers with a robust complement to charles hirschkind’s paradigm-defining work on the shaping role of islamic cassette sermons in crafting egypt’s “ethical soundscape” (hirschkind 2006). what is arguably most impressive about simon’s book is his vast archive of textual material (newspapers, magazines, photographs) and audio recordings, which he weaves together seamlessly with a compelling narrative voice (18). with this, simon is convincing in claiming the intellectual potential of a “shadow archive” 1 composed of primary source material from both “‘official’ and ‘informal’ settings, ranging from street markets and public libraries to private holdings and commercial enterprises” (13). (ethno)musicologists will benefit from simon’s treatment of an object as a primary point of departure—in the case of his book, the circulation of cassette players and cassettes themselves, and the state’s subsequent efforts to gatekeep cultural production via cassettes. analyses of sonic elements themselves (i.e. vocal timbre, evolving instrumentation in the creation of new genres) take a back seat to broader discourses surrounding the democratization of sound and the subversion of state-controlled media, and the construction of taste-values in relation to class dynamics (11). music scholars might initially ask, “where is the sonic in media of the masses?,” but it quickly becomes clear that there is much to be gained from simon’s approach. put succinctly, simon’s book is more so a “history of technology-in-use” by the working-class, than a history of workingclass sound per se (quoted in simon 2022, 5). simon is thus more interested in the political and cultural implications of a strategically constructed “vulgar soundscape”2 of the egyptian masses, than in what exactly made sha‘bi (popular, of the people) music sha‘bi, and as such, what separated it sonically from egypt’s state-sanctioned musical production. rather than a chronological unfolding of egypt’s recent history, simon’s book takes the structure of a “mix tape,” with each chapter (or “track”) organized around a critical theme (18). as such, i will briefly summarize simon’s chapterto-chapter trajectory, but more importantly, this review points to particular moments that best capture simon’s research goals and contributions to the existing literature while also pointing to some of the work that he leaves undone. 107 current musicology _______________________________________ simon’s methodological contribution is made especially clear in chapter 1, which is organized around a low-resolution photograph of men posing with a cassette radio—with this, simon effectively reminds us that “historians of the middle east” have paid “insufficient attention to vernacular photo albums” with “shots of daily life produced by ordinary people” (44). launching his investigation around cassette players (rather than cassettes themselves), simon uses the photograph to contextualize egypt’s changing economic landscape and growing consumer culture under anwar sadat’s infitah (egypt’s economic opening, or ‘open door policy’). he argues that two intertwined shifts contributed to the cassette player making its way into working class egyptians’ homes—first, the ever-rising number of migrant workers, or egyptians living in “economic exile” resulted in the “frequent flow of cassette players across egypt’s borders” (28, 31). second, simon notes how the forging of a so-called “modern” home was generated by both companies and individual celebrities around particular commodities (48). chapter 2 is likewise organized around the circulation of cassette players rather than tapes—more specifically, the theft and smuggling of cassette radios across the border. the archival material utilized here is a large pool of weekly magazine and newspaper articles who published popular crime reports primarily aimed at publicizing the success of egypt’s security sector; simon powerfully provides a counter-reading of such narratives, this revealing the “presence of a thriving black market for cassette technology” (62). while chapter 2 is interested in government efforts to limit the illegal market of cassette players, chapter 3 turns to state efforts to limit and control cultural production via cassette tape. simon notes that the advent of cassette technology meant that for the first time, anyone could become a cultural producer (108), and furthermore, working class egyptians were able to listen to songs that had been banned by the state-controlled radio (102). simon again deftly makes use of newspaper articles, interviews, and op-eds to trace the heated debate surrounding the rise of “vulgar” cassettes; the crux of the conflict was not just surrounding “aesthetic sensibilities,” but was crucially a struggle over “what constituted egyptian culture and who had the right to create it” (81). one particular strength in this chapter is simon’s spotlight on songs of the renowned sh‘abi singer ahmad ‘adawiya, whose lyrical content is indicative of the larger conflict: he points to a song, for example that is simultaneously about “flirtation,” but also “class disparities” in which a male lover expresses “frustrations with the beauty above him”—a class divide that many listeners “identified with the infitah” (100). in short, the sha’bi music of ‘adawiya and others brought working class egyptians music in a “vernacular” that they understood (102). in chapter 4, simon focuses on the reproduction of sound via cassettes with a particular focus on piracy and the “unauthorized reproduction, circulation and sale” of music on a personal, state, and international level (115-116, 123). 108 jessie rubin _______________________________________ i found myself most drawn to chapter 5, possibly because it operates more within a musicological paradigm than its preceding chapters. in it, simon examines the egyptian government’s narrative in the state-controlled press about president nixon’s infamous visit, arguing that shaykh imam’s song “nixon baba” (father nixon) overtly challenged the government’s official story. with a detailed biography of shaykh imam’s complexly political career, and a careful lyric analysis, simon effectively shows his readers how listeners “recorded, distributed, and duplicated” the song outside of the “reach of egyptian gatekeepers” (142). finally, chapter 6 is simon’s most ethnographic section. in the chapter, simon draws on interviews he conducted with a library director, an electronics dealer, and a religious scholar to “offer a microhistory of audiotape technology in egypt” (149). here, simon compellingly compares a few different homes to cassette collections, including the music library at the egyptian opera house and a record store. simon concludes by putting media of the masses in conversation with the british museum in london’s modern egypt project, which undertakes a similar project of re-envisioning the “traditional representations of egypt with which onlookers are already familiar” (188). each chapter utilizes an impressive pool of primary source material, and each could powerfully stand alone as an isolated essay, but stitched together they constitute a rhizomatic history of how the “most ordinary things may yield the most surprising insights” (22). simon’s greatest strength lies in his ability to craft nuanced vignettes surrounding individual primary sources (from photographs and cartoons to newspaper op-eds), which, like his chapters, are expertly bridged together to craft a larger narrative. one such example of this comes early on in chapter 1, with a photograph by faruq ibrahim of anwar sadat for the popular newspaper akhbar al-yawm. in the photograph, sadat is posed in his undergarments, smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper as “‘tranquil music’ resonates” from a nearby cassette player” (38). simon’s careful analysis of this iconic photograph reveals how the president strategically “shed his power and prestige to appear as ‘one of the people,’” and as such, enjoying cassettes was portrayed as an activity “as ordinary as grooming or a routine as relaxing with one’s family” (39). at the same time, however, sadat was of course “no ordinary citizen,” so his picture next to the radio also worked to “magnify the already-hearty allure surrounding audiotape technology in the popular press” (39). simon’s analysis of ibrahim’s depiction of sadat is just one brushstroke in the larger story that he paints in chapter 1: a story of the creation of a modern home defined by objects rather than its occupants (40). just pages later simon builds on his analysis of the sadat photo with a reading of a photograph found at a paper market in cairo of family members enjoying their cassette radio at a beach vacation, shedding light on the “interactions of ordinary egyptians with audiotapes and the object’s relationship to leisure” (44). juxtaposed with each other, these distinct objects come to form a conversation of 109 current musicology _______________________________________ sorts in simon's book, a compelling one about the material culture of modern egypt. similarly impressive is simon’s sophisticated song analysis, which he uses to point to larger socio-cultural dynamics during sadat, and later, mubarak’s rule. this is perhaps most evident in his chapter on shaykh imam’s “nixon baba,” in which he uses the song to cultivate a counterhistory to the state’s official narrative of nixon’s visit. simon notes that after the song’s opening of “welcome father nixon, o you of watergate,” the lyrics “cleverly allude to the leader’s national woes on multiple occasions,” pointing, for example, to nixon’s “then ‘frail’ state” and the “possibility of him being ‘no longer around’” (140). one verse even compares nixon’s arrival to egypt to a “zar,” a ceremony for “excising spirits,” where the “parade’s officials appear as spiders alongside convulsing whores” (140). another verse takes the form of a zaffa (wedding procession) in which nixon is depicted as a pathetic groom who “married as a last resort” (140). these two scenes are both part of a “never-ending mulid,”3 the kind of event that imam performed at prior to the recording, and which was “immediately intelligible” to the egyptian masses (140). with this rich description, simon reveals how cultural actors in egypt were actively involved in reframing state-controlled media coverage of particular events.4 simon’s expansive use of written and audio source material pays off richly. that being said, given simon’s convincing and politically pertinent construction of a “shadow archive” outside of the egyptian national archives, which he describes as made up of a “constellation of visual, textual, and audio materials,” i was left wondering what we might learn from a more overt consideration of the institutionalized archives that simon did make use of in his research (13). for example, simon mentions a few times throughout the book his gratitude for the moshe dayan center’s arabic press archives located at tel aviv university. given that simon locates the immense circulation of cassette tapes and players in the context of sadat’s infitah (open door policy) following israel’s victory in the 1973 october war, it seems worth considering the larger implications (and ethical concern) of formative egyptian cultural-political texts being housed at an israeli institution. in his introduction, simon draws inspiration from ann laura stoler’s influential work on the “archival turn,” which marks a “theoretical shift from treating archives as ‘sources’ for producing scholarship to positioning archives as ‘subjects’ of scholarship” (quoted in simon 2022, 12). while simon usefully situates his own archive as the ‘subject’ matter of his book, his analysis would be strengthened from treating the more formal archives he made use of as subjects in the same vein. on a similar note, i would argue that simon’s book might have gained from a bit of reflexivity regarding his ethnographic work. while most of simon’s analysis is centered around primary source material, as mentioned, chapter 6 is 110 jessie rubin _______________________________________ crucially organized around the author’s recent fieldwork. it seems as though simon only interviewed a handful of people (or at least, only a few voices made their way into his book) and his choice of interlocutors comes across as somewhat circumstantial. for example, simon mentions that a number of egyptians with whom he spoke instructed him to “focus on ‘prestigious’ companies” rather than the more “amateur” enterprises under study (159). this raised a number of questions that simon left unanswered—most having to do with these subjects’ class position. were any of them the “ordinary” (or working-class) egyptians who listen to sha‘bi? if so, can we contend with a scholarly project critiqued by one’s interlocutors? this concern is underscored by simon’s recounting of a conversation that he had with a “prominent professor of media studies” at cairo university who, upon hearing his interest in sha‘bi music, told him to instead “follow in the footsteps of other researchers, who began with sayyid darwish, a pioneer of ‘modern’ egyptian music, before moving onto umm kulthum and muhammad ʿabd al-wahhab” (159). i agree with simon whole-heartedly that there is insufficient scholarly interest in egypt’s sha‘bi music and more broadly, the cultural production of “ordinary” egyptians, and commend how his book fills this lacuna, but the book could use a bit more consideration of its own ethnographic challenges, and without any further contextualization of the primary social class or religious identification of those who critiqued his scholarly approach, their inclusion adds little. in general, aside from electronics store owner mansur ‘abd al-’al interviewed in chapter 6, contemporary listeners and appreciators of sha’bi are absent from the narrative, and i think simon’s compelling claims about the democratization of sound via cassette culture would have been strengthened with concrete interview material from the “working class, such as bus drivers and microbus drivers” who are described as enjoying the music (160). simon somewhat humorously notes that a security guard he talked with was “initially determined to uncover” his “‘ulterior motives’” which does raise the question of how often he negotiated an ethnographic environment marked by some distrust and resistance (159). finally, i found myself somewhat unconvinced of simon’s early declaration that his work is “unencumbered by the burden of big ideologies, like secularism and sectarianism, neoliberalism and nationalism, islamism and authoritarianism,” but instead strives to “transcend the confines of conventional concepts to undertake a more expansive explorations of one nation’s recent past and the lives of those who occupied it” (18). at times, i actually think his analysis would have been strengthened with some more concrete theorization (or even intentional encumberment!) of such “big” and at times, messy, ideologies. for example, throughout the book simon rather sweepingly refers to the “ordinary egyptians”5 who engaged in cassette culture and the fact that the music they listened to was considered “vulgar”—two qualifiers that come with a slew of 111 current musicology _______________________________________ epistemic baggage, and would have benefited by being theorized within the above ideological frames. while his first chapter does effectively contextualize the rise of cassette culture in the refashioning the modern home for a massive number of working egyptians—thus hinting at complex relationship between neoliberalism, the working class, and a nation-building project—it never comes clear who counts as “ordinary” for simon. in other words, where does the “ordinary” egyptian who listens to vulgar” music fit into existing scholarly discourses of secularism? islamism? how might sectarian and class conflicts fragment this ordinary population? how is the “ordinary” egyptian gendered? while the answers to these questions are somewhat implicit throughout (and simon clearly covers a lot of ground), a nod to the work of others—including works such as talal asad’s writing on secularism and the construction of the modern nation in egypt—could have addressed some of these issues. these moments left undone are far and few between. simon’s book is most certainly a triumph across a number of fields including, but not limited to, media studies, ethnomusicology, history, middle eastern studies, and anthropology. simon impressively mobilizes hundreds of texts—aural, visual, written—to show his readers the deeply rooted political and social significance of a seemingly mundane object. in doing so, simon rightly points out that contemporary scholarly insights tend to “lend the impression that only the most recent media matter in middle east studies,” particularly the arab spring (5). simon's book deftly sets the stage for the existing scholarship focused on more recently emergent media, contextualizing for his readers the fashioning of an egyptian modernity and a working class politic via the circulation of sound on new technologies. indeed, shaykh imam’s “nixon baba” crucially resurfaced during the arab spring: imam’s legacy of pioneering audio technology as a weapon against “ruling regimes” thus lived on, but through new technological mediations of sound, most importantly, the internet (132). state censuring of sha‘bi which circulated illegally on cassettes set the groundwork for the outlawing of public performances of mahraganat6 in 2020 by the musicians syndicate (79). sha‘bi remains an objects of grassroots interest and state censure, and simon’s book helps us to understand the continuing battles about and around it. notes 1 inspired by jean allman’s construction of ghana’s shadow archive. 2 it is unclear where simon gets this definition (and he does not provide his reader an arabic term [habit] until page 80), but he makes it clear that this is an emic point of view: certain audiocassettes were “deemed to be ‘vulgar’ by egyptian critics” and cultural gatekeepers (14). 112 jessie rubin _______________________________________ 3 a celebration held in honor of prophet muhammad’s birthday/ the nativity of other religious figures 4 for more on vernacular protest poetry, see: abdel-malek, kamal. 1990. a study of the vernacular poetry of ahmad fuʼād nigm. 5 while he does draw on the work of ziad fahmy a few times throughout his book, simon does not explicitly say that his understanding of who constitutes the “ordinary” egyptian draws on fahmy’s field-shaping book ordinary egyptians: creating the modern nation through popular culture, which introduces the idea of “media-capitalism” in an examination egyptian national identity from the 1870s to the 1919 revolution, and highlights “previously neglected colloquial egyptian sources” (fahmy 2011, 1). 6 a diy genre which emerged during the arab spring and is a fusion of edm, hip-hop, and sha‘bi. references abdel-malek, kamal. 1990. a study of the vernacular poetry of ahmad fuʼād nigm. new york: e.j. brill. asad, talal. 2003. formations of the secular: christianity, islam, modernity. stanford: stanford university press. edgerton, david. 2007. the shock of the old: technology and global history since 1900. new york: oxford university press. fahmy, ziad. 2011. ordinary egyptians: creating the modern nation through popular culture. stanford: stanford university press. hirschkind, charles. 2006. the ethical soundscape: cassette sermons and islamic counterpublics. new york: columbia university. 113 current musicology, no. 96 (fall 2013) © 2013 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 137 heather wiebe. 2012. britten’s unquiet pasts: sound and memory in postwar reconstruction. cambridge: cambridge university press. reviewed by nina penner britten as a public figure. britten as a composer of music for children, amateurs, and the church. these are sides of britten’s legacy that have attracted little scholarly attention prior to heather wiebe’s recent monograph britten’s unquiet pasts: sound and memory in postwar reconstruction. more familiar is britten as a composer of opera and art song, and as a man “at odds with . . . society” (pears 1983: 152).1 although anticipating the britten centenary by one year, britten’s unquiet pasts is much in keeping with the spirit of other britten publications to be released this year, not least paul kildea’s (2013) biography. what emerges from these new perspectives is a more complex view of britten, both as an artist whose breadth of work defies easy classification, and as a man with changing and often conflicting impulses towards his envisaged role in society. wiebe’s study also differentiates itself from much britten scholarship in its wider historical outlook. as she states at its outset, it is less a study of britten and his music than of the roles music played in the project of british postwar reconstruction. britten is not even mentioned until partway through the second paragraph of the introduction, when his works appear as part of an impressive list of source materials, which include, but are by no means limited to, “planning and arts administration documents, journalism, social surveys, public ceremonial, television and radio broadcasting, film, theatre, and literature” (1). each chapter begins with a rich contextualization of the topic under consideration, through which wiebe demonstrates britten’s enmeshment in endeavors to rediscover, rebuild, and redefine british society after the war, particularly through invocations of the past. while the ambivalent messages of works like gloriana and the war requiem appear to set them apart from the project of postwar reconstruction, wiebe demonstrates how they give voice to more widespread doubts about the ability of the past to revivify the present, or for it to be recovered at all. from a historical point of view, wiebe focuses on the following events: the festival of britain in 1951, the stated goal of which “was to demonstrate to the world the recovery of the united kingdom from the effect of the war in moral, cultural, spiritual and material fields” (quoted on 4); the coronation of queen elizabeth ii in 1953; and the rebuilding of coventry cathedral, plans for which began shortly after its destruction in 1940 but were only current musicology 138 realized in 1962. for readers primarily interested in the life and works of britten, wiebe begins with a ceremony of carols (1942) and ends with the war requiem (1962), which was commissioned for the festival celebrating the consecration of coventry cathedral. wiebe’s bookends are well chosen. the year 1942 not only marked britten’s momentous decision to return to england from america but also saw a fundamental change in the composer’s attitude towards the artist’s role in society. early in 1941, britten published what wiebe, without exaggeration, describes as “a diatribe not only against the use of folksong as a foundation of english music, but against the idea of a national english music itself ” (17). britten’s skepticism about the very idea of community is such that he encased the word in scare quotes. how contrasting this is from the britten who would later speak of the artist’s duty to serve his community (e.g., britten 1951 and 1962). a year later, the seeds of peter grimes—the most likely candidate for england’s national opera—had been sown. the composer had come to believe that he would only achieve his full potential as an artist if he returned to his native suffolk. and, most shockingly, on the long sea voyage back to england, he began composing a ceremony of carols, a gesture towards the english musical past not appreciably different from those he had previously denounced. while philip brett (2006: 213–20) has interpreted britten’s about–face in oedipal terms as an attempt to claim the domain of the previous generation of english composers, wiebe connects it to broader trends in postwar british art and culture towards a reengagement with the past and the local as opposed to the exclusively modern, urban, and cosmopolitan. concluding with the war requiem is fitting, as the work constitutes the composer’s last grand public statement, after which his activities became more insularly focused around his community in aldeburgh. as others have noted, the work’s very success, particularly its astonishing lp sales (kildea 2002: 226–28), was one of the chief motivators for britten’s retreat from public life. not only was the war requiem the end of a chapter of britten’s life but it constituted the end of “a certain vision of cultural renewal that began during the second world war, one in which ritual and music were given the task of mediating between an imagined pre–modern englishness and an all–too–real postwar world, thus resisting the forces of modernization, globalization, and commodification” (wiebe: 14–5). the first chapter introduces readers to the postwar rhetoric of cultural renewal. journalism from the early to mid–1940s testifies to a widespread belief in the importance of the arts at a time of war. remarkably, the council for the encouragement of music and the arts (cema, which became the arts council in 1946) was founded in 1940. the importance of music, in nina penner 139 particular, was singled out in films like humphrey jennings’s listen to britain (1942) and powell and pressburger’s a canterbury tale (1944), as well as in novels like iris murdoch’s the bell (1958). wiebe goes on to discuss the conflicting agendas of those stewarding cema and the later arts council, and how they changed over time. the aims of democratization and accessibility were at the forefront in its early years, giving way to an increasing focus on london’s professional institutions after the war. simultaneously modern and traditional, britten’s music was a locus of hopes for a new, more egalitarian musical culture, geared more towards active participation than passive consumption. yet britten’s values were an uneasy fit with those of the arts council, considering his disdain for london, his focus on improving the cultural life of smaller communities through the touring of the english opera group, and the many occasional works he composed for local churches and schools. critics called for britten to take up a more “public” voice, presumably in the form of additional contributions to the grand opera canon. however, following a cue from imogen holst, wiebe argues that it was through these “semi–private” pieces commemorating local institutions that britten’s “idea of a public musical culture was most fully realized” (35). in chapter 2, wiebe contextualizes a ceremony of carols within the movement that michael saler (1999) has termed “medieval modernism.” important earlier manifestations of the modern carol revival include the oxford book of carols (1928) and king’s college, cambridge’s festival of nine lessons and carols (begun in 1918). britten borrowed the ritualized structure of the king’s carol service—namely, its framing procession and recession—but rendered his work simultaneously more modern and more medieval (52). instead of a processional hymn from the nineteenth century, britten chose a medieval chant and, in contrast to the eclecticism of the king’s service, confined his carol selection to medieval sources. the performing forces were also radically stripped down from men, boys, and organ to boys and harp. the carol was ideal for the postwar renewal project, wiebe explains, not only because of its theme of rebirth, but also because it was able to “bridge the gaps between high and low, sacred and secular, past and present” (48). a chief means by which this feat was accomplished was through the thematization of the incarnation, the divine on earth—a sharp contrast to romantic idealism, which posits a strict separation of these two realms (56–7). wiebe demonstrates how the incarnation is manifest in the texts of the carols britten chose and how he brought out this theme in his musical settings through word painting and by foregrounding singing as an embodied act. an example is britten’s setting of christ’s descent to earth in “in freezing winter night” to an arpeggio spanning the entire range of the soloist’s voice and reaching current musicology 140 down to a “near–impossible low g” (63). wiebe also observes how the singing style britten cultivated in his boy performers further enhanced the embodied character of the songs. britten deliberately avoided boys’ choirs in the mold of the king’s college chapel, with their pure, disembodied voices, and instead favored ensembles like the morriston boys’ choir (who performed the premiere) and the wandsworth school boys’ choir, whose sound had “a conspicuously earthy quality” to it, wiebe comments, due to the use of chest voice, vibrato, and a “rough” approach to articulation (60). sadly, most recent recordings do not accord with britten’s desired aesthetic. however, listening to a more conventional anglican cathedral approach usefully illustrates the ways in which britten’s music forces the boys, willing or not, into their chest voice in songs like “in freezing winter night” and “that yongë child.” for this reader, wiebe’s careful attention to britten’s foregrounding of the unique qualities of boys’ voices and the consequences of the composer’s preferences regarding performance practice were some of the highlights of the study. the postwar purcell revival is the subject of chapter 3, where wiebe examines britten’s realizations of as well as purcell’s influence on the holy sonnets of john donne and canticle iii: still falls the rain. the side of purcell that most attracted britten was not the purcell of spectacular pageants like the fairy queen (revived at covent garden in 1946) but rather the esoteric and personal purcell, who can be heard in his devotional songs. britten’s approach to realizing purcell was distinctly “quirky,” in wiebe’s words, even by the standards of britten’s other arranging activities (e.g., his folksong arrangements and the beggar’s opera), themselves classified by the bbc as “experimental,” in contrast to more “normal” arrangements by other composers (73–4). to illustrate this, wiebe examines britten’s arrangement of guilty night (also known as saul and the witch at endor). other strands of wiebe’s argument in this chapter are less successfully woven together. at the chapter’s beginning and end, she makes reference to the situation for homosexuals in postwar britain who were finally recognized as part of the community yet were required to keep expressions of their homosexuality out of public view. wiebe then suggests that “britten’s purcell arrangements were a tool in the project of finding a public voice, that is, a tool of self–legitimation, and of cultural citizenship” (76). she returns to this point only at the end, at which time it becomes evident that this claim relates to the emotional excessiveness of purcell, and the private, personal quality of both purcell’s and britten’s works, which nevertheless gain public expression in performance (106). if the queer dimensions to britten’s relationship with purcell’s music were more successfully integrated throughout the chapter, particularly in the discussions of the music itself, this point could have been demonstrated more clearly. nina penner 141 more effective argumentation concerning purcell’s influence on britten would also have improved the chapter’s cogency. wiebe makes the intriguing claim that purcell “exerted a strong influence on britten’s style, informing some of the most experimental aspects of his language” (74), and she provides an impressive list of works in which purcell’s influence can be observed (77). unfortunately, the nature of that influence remains unspecified until much later, first emerging in a quotation of britten himself describing purcell’s “unfettered rhythms, boldly discordant harmonies, his long soaring melodies without automatic repetitions of ‘memorable’ phrases, and especially his love of the virtuoso, the operatic, and conscious exploitation of brilliant sounds” (quoted on 87–8). other purcellian features wiebe later identifies include his penchant for mimetic music and long melismas. unquestionably, the works of britten she examines in this chapter contain the aforementioned features. it is less clear that they are a direct response to britten’s engagement with purcell in the 1940s, since these features may be seen in his earlier compositions like our hunting fathers (1936). the beginning of “rats away!” contains some of the more extravagant melismas in britten’s oeuvre; the mimetic and excessive qualities may be seen in the “rats!” exclamations and also the repeated “fie! fie!” in “messalina” and the “whurrrrret!”’s of “dance of death.”2 the fact that such features appear in britten’s works before the 1940s does not disprove that they were a result of his engagement with purcell, but it does raise the question of when that engagement began. elizabeth ii’s coronation and gloriana, britten’s opera for the occasion, are the subjects of chapter 4. the ascendency of another elizabeth to the throne caused many britons to reflect on the prosperous reign of her predecessor and to reimagine england’s future in its image. wiebe demonstrates how gloriana invoked the rhetoric of “new elizabethanism” but failed to uphold its more fundamental tenets. in explanations for the poor reception of gloriana, previous commentators have focused on its hybrid character (part coronation pageant and part serious opera) and inaptly chosen plot in light of its occasion. wiebe argues that the problem was not merely a conflict between generic conventions and political expectations. the manners in which the work invoked the past and represented english identity were both at odds with the values surrounding the coronation. britten’s gestures to the past, most saliently in essex’s lute song, are not a source of renewal, but are distinctly nostalgic, suggesting that the past is fundamentally unrecoverable. with regard to the work’s representation of english identity, wiebe points to the first scene, in which the queen defuses tensions between her courtiers through distinctly non–confrontational means: current musicology 142 in its persistent privileging of pastoral over martial imagery and its emphasis on harmony and consensus rather than individualism and competition, gloriana introduced the alternative notion of a quiet and ordinary mode of national belonging into the heart of the coronation proceedings, a notion compatible with the new family–like constructions of the commonwealth, but not with the more masculine and imperial ideal of englishness encapsulated in new elizabethanism. (137) chapter 5 returns to modern medievalism and focuses on the revival of mystery plays. britten’s contribution to the revival was noye’s fludde, which was based on the chester mystery. mystery revival hit its zenith in the 1950s. the york mystery plays, instituted as part of the festival of britain in 1951, were the most influential model. in keeping with other iterations of mystery revival, britten intended noye’s fludde for amateur performers—the vast majority being children—and encouraged active participation by the audience. it was a mixture of newly composed music with borrowings from medieval chant and popular hymns from later eras. unlike the york mystery plays, however, “the central strategy of noye’s fludde was not to transport the listener to an intact medieval world, but, rather, to endow remnants of the past with a new vitality in the present” (172). specifically, it was music that served to accomplish this feat of reenchantment. although church attendance was dwindling in the 1950s, most adults at this time had been regular attendees of sunday school and sent their children there, even if they did not attend church themselves. thus, the communal singing of familiar hymns jogged powerful memories of childhood in audiences. yet wiebe observes undertones of defamiliarization in britten’s idiosyncratic settings of the hymns as well as in the musical exoticism marking moments like the final stanza of “the spacious firmament on high,” during which britten borrows characteristic textures and timbres from balinese gamelan music. here wiebe points to yet another meaning of britten’s gamelan topic: in contrast to its association with otherworldly threats and deviant sexualities in his operas, the gamelan in noye’s fludde imparts a “magical quality” to the familiar hymn (182). she also draws interesting connections between britten’s efforts to exoticize the english past and a postwar impulse—the impulse, observed by jed esty, to anthropologize local customs in the face of the empire’s decline and find “the kind of cultural integrity it had formerly located in colonized societies” (8). readers familiar with the content of chapters 4 and 5 from earlier publications by wiebe will be pleased to hear that they have been subtly improved for inclusion in this volume and fit with newly expanded conclusions. this is particularly true of chapter 5, in which wiebe extends her contrast of noye’s fludde with noah greenberg’s 1948 production of the play of daniel and nina penner 143 stravinsky’s the flood (1962). she also includes an epilogue about britten’s first church parable, curlew river (1964), which represents a defamiliarized, austere, and abstract approach to modern medievalism. these remarks lend additional support to wiebe’s argument that the war requiem, the subject of the final chapter, marked the end of an era for britten. adding to the extant body of literature about the war requiem, wiebe offers fresh insights regarding the relationship between the work and coventry cathedral, highlighting the fact that they were both constructed to function as war memorials. she interprets the oft–remarked conflicts between the war requiem’s heterogeneous performance forces, religious and secular components, and intimate and monumental dimensions in terms of the tensions inherent in the act of commemoration itself, specifically, between public and private expressions of mourning. for instance, the chorus’s performance of “requiem aeternam” is called into question by the entrance of the tenor soloist singing wilfred owen’s “anthem for doomed youth,” whose subject is the very “inadequacy of such rituals—the choirs, bells, and prayers the listener has just heard—to assimilate war’s reality” (207). another problem with the genre of the monument, in particular, is its tendency to blend into the landscape and thus fail in its primary purpose, which is to preserve memories of the past. the architect of coventry’s cathedral attempted to avoid this effect by preserving the wreckage of the old cathedral in the plans for the new one. britten’s music is also overtly concerned with preservation. as wiebe illustrates, it dramatizes the very process of private, individual experience being transformed into public gestures of memorial in the “lacrimosa” when the “soldier’s expression of mourning is transfigured in the soprano’s weeping gesture—and not in an unambiguously positive way . . . something is preserved . . . but the ephemeral immediacy—the particular content—of the soldier’s experience is lost” (216). the war requiem provides an interesting contrast to works examined earlier in the study like noye’s fludde and a ceremony of carols, in which music serves to forge connections between present and past, divine and earthly realms, high art and popular culture, unproblematically and without conflict. it also testifies to a notable shift in emphasis from the initially optimistic endeavors of renewal to later anxiety–ridden curatorial efforts. the one topic of chapter 6 that could have used additional clarification is the subject of monumentality in the wake of the second world war. wiebe states that coventry cathedral “epitomized the architectural movement of ‘new monumentality,’ which gained favor in the us and then in britain in the early 1940s as a substitute for the style of monumentality associated with the third reich” (193). for readers unfamiliar with aesthetic trends in architecture, it would have been helpful if wiebe had elucidated how current musicology 144 new monumentality and coventry cathedral, in particular, distinguished themselves from “old monumentality.” although wiebe is generally successful at bringing music and architecture into dialogue in this chapter, the question of how the war requiem’s sonic monumentality relates with these differing conceptions of architectural monumentality was one strand left hanging at the end of her discussion. britten’s unquiet pasts is a valuable contribution not only to britten studies but also to postwar british history. especially commendable is how effectively wiebe integrates the musical and historical aspects of her work. her discussion of broader cultural issues is consistently grounded in concrete musical illustration through eminently readable and engaging musical–analytical exegeses. within britten studies, it is exciting to have substantive scholarly inquiry directed towards neglected areas of britten’s output; namely, his music for children and amateurs as well as his occasional and educational compositions. it is especially welcome in light of the important place works like a ceremony of carols occupy in the repertoire of english–speaking choirs and community groups. wiebe alludes to one of the reasons for this blind spot when she remarks that the transparency of noye’s fludde has left critics “strangely disarmed” when set with the task of approaching it as a scholar (152). this does not appear to be a problem for wiebe, for not only does she explore these works with the same confidence and rigor that she does gloriana and the war requiem, but her efforts have also succeeded in deepening our understanding of these pieces, as seemingly simple as they are. likewise, wiebe provides valuable insights into britten as an arranger, another aspect of the composer’s legacy that deserves further study. finally, wiebe’s work on gloriana has done much not only to advance our understanding of the reasons behind its poor reception, but also to revivify interest in britten’s undeservedly “slighted child.” notes 1. admittedly, pears’s remark was directed at the fictional character peter grimes, but the slippage between grimes’s and britten’s alterity was encouraged by both pears and britten and has been taken up by commentators and scholars. tony palmer’s documentary about britten’s life, a time there was (1979), begins with leonard bernstein describing the composer as “a man at odds with the world.” see also philip brett, “britten and grimes,” reprinted in brett 2006. 2. there is a difference in terms of the intended effect of the extravagant vocalizations in our hunting fathers and those in works like britten’s settings of donne. those in “rats away!” for instance are clearly intended to be parodic, in contrast to the sincere expressions of grief and terror one finds in the holy sonnets of john donne. nina penner 145 references brett, philip. 2006. music and sexuality in britten: selected essays. edited by george e. haggerty. berkeley: university of california press. britten, benjamin. 1951. “freeman of lowestoft.” tempo 21: 3–5. _______. 1962 [2003]. “freedom of borough of aldeburgh.” in britten on music, edited by paul kildea, 217–18. oxford: oxford university press. esty, jed. 2004. a shrinking island: modernism and national culture in england. princeton: princeton university press. kildea, paul. 2002. selling britten: music and the marketplace. oxford: oxford university press. _______. 2013. benjamin britten: a life in the twentieth century. london: allen lane. pears, peter. 1983. “neither a hero nor a villain.” in benjamin britten: peter grimes, edited by philip brett, 150–152. cambridge: cambridge university press. saler, michael t. 1999. the avant–garde in interwar britain medieval modernism and the london underground. oxford: oxford university press. current musicology 98 (fall 2014) © 2014 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 135 daniel albright. 2014. panaesthetics: on the unity and diversity of the arts. new haven and london: yale university press. reviewed by matthew ricketts a ticklish question runs through daniel albright’s panaesthetics: what, or which, or whose pan? the greek god pan is promiscuous, seductively musical, all–encompassing and self–fissioning; the camera pan shifts our gaze to refocus on new visual fields or subjects; pan– prefixes relatedly imply some fusion or bringing–together of various elements (pan–american— pansexual—pandemonium). to which albright might answer: all of them, and none of them too. this maddening brand of dialectical thinking is a hallmark of panaesthetics, which begins with grandiose statements about what art is but often gets sidestepped with some eccentric examples drawn from the fringes of the canon, tripped up trying to make use of its own clunky vocabulary and ends seemingly confused about its own status as art theory or art appreciation. much of daniel albright’s work has been in the field of “comparative arts”—a broader, significantly newer off–branch from comparative literature, the department many aspiring students of letters come to after realizing they can no longer “just study english” at most advanced learning institutions. following this, perhaps comparative arts may too replace close study of the individual arts entirely; a welcome development for albright, who has consistently and often quite compellingly shown the interpretive advantage of unbinding artworks from their original mediums. his earlier untwisting the serpent: modernism in music, literature, and other arts (albright 2000) and more recent music speaks (albright 2009) cover similar inter–arts territory, which is here significantly extended towards a broader history of the “unity and diversity” of the arts, from the crudely beautiful lascaux paintings through to the crude beauty of modernism and onwards. along the way albright’s theory of comparative arts inevitably becomes one of comparative aesthetics too, panning across the work of adorno, heidegger and greenberg back to plato, the west’s first aesthetic theorist. a latent question binds this broad excursus across theory and praxis (that is, from cavemen to de man): are the arts many, or are they one? albright approaches an answer with the compelling suggestion that art’s transmedial impulses are born of our own transmedial biases. since any description of art must be mediated through the art of language, for 136 current musicology instance, it is possible through language (description, theory, ekphrasis) to join unlike arts across their various mediums. the synaesthetic feel of a given artwork is both a property of art and a property of perception. albright’s prose style consistently embodies this point: that all art (including its criticism) is bound to dream it were other arts, and thereby confuse mediums and sense modalities alike. “every medium is the wrong medium,” writes albright (2014, 277), but the dizzying, slippery realm of synaesthetic analyses can be baffling: when he discusses the ontology of painting under such self–evidently inexplicable headings as the speech of light and the speech of touch, it is clear we are dealing with intricate metaphorical constructions at a rather profound level. panaesthetics opens with four theses: that artworks become meaningful through their perceived “constructedness”; that artworks exert emotional forces on our bodies by drawing us into a sympathetic, symbiotic space; that all art is already meta–art; and that art is a language. these theses are instantly negated (e.g. artworks needn’t mean anything; art is a non–language), setting the stage for subsequent slips and slides across art’s histories and medias. albright navigates these dialectics with the childlike wonder of a barthes, the original amateur of the arts, to whose style of gently inquisitive pondering and polymathic dilettantism albright is indebted. indeed it is that very lack of overt commitment to any one art form, thesis, or theory that gives albright his mercurial gliding power. of the four theses, the one concerning the role of [perceived] intentionality in an artwork is especially refreshing: albright baldly states that “anything is an artwork to the extent that it looks made” (2014, 4). this logic is generously extended to the realm of natural phenomena (mountains, trees) since even the most agnostic viewer still perceives some act of having been created, inscribed on or within these various “art–objects” like a maker’s stamp. since all that is has been created, anything can be viewed as art so long as there exists some discernible force of intention, be it faint, fanciful, or overt. this neatly circumnavigates the untrendy issue of authorial intent by repositioning the question of intentionality to the viewer’s gaze. albright readily argues that art must oblige its viewers’ demands to mean what they demand it means; thus art appreciation and art theory are fused in a dizzying, interpretive dance of rhetoric. and indeed it is the realm of rhetoric (not biography, nor theory, nor history, nor technic, though he will readily draw on these) that the strength and persuasiveness of albright’s arguments dwell. when he writes “an artwork has little power of resistance to description or interpretation” (2014, 215) he might have considered that we too in reading panaesthetics are powerless to resist these same beguiling descriptions and interpretations. the contrary dictum “we are also free, by 137 matthew ricketts a focal adjustment of the mind’s eye, to abandon the quest for meaning” (2014, 5), however, offers the chance to contrarily disregard his conclusions at every turn. this capriciousness lends the book a playful edge. the bulk of panaesthetics splits into two parts. “part one: individual media” presents a nobly futile (though hardly fruitless) effort to examine the arts of literature, painting, and music in isolation, at least for the sake of establishing some basic defining features of these respective medias before things get truly messy in “part two: art rampant.” this structure extends and embodies the introduction’s dialectical tone: part one largely asserts the diversity of the individual arts only to be torn asunder in part two’s exploration of transmedialization, “pseudomorphoses” (after adorno), and the like. yet even in isolation, albright cannot help but discuss the tendency for each individual art media to aspire to the conditions of other medias. ekphrasis, musical “word–painting” and allegorical painting are classic, if typical examples. albright has more than just these in mind, but the breadth of this project combined with a thirst for (over–) classification often causes part one to lose focus. within individual media we find the chapter “what is painting?” within that chapter we find the section “ekphrasis.” under “ekphrasis” albright describes two “modes” at the extremes of objectivity and subjectivity, namely: 1) poet as transcriber (most objective); and 2) poet as participant (most subjective), which further split into several sub–modes, for example: “the poet’s sensibility might be transformed as the image effects a kind of seizure.” finally, within each of these sub–sub–classifications albright gives a number of contrasting examples. this not atypical splintering of definitions/modes into so many innumerable sub–species begins to feel like the catalogue is overtaking the totality, the map so detailed it swallows the very territory it describes. albright’s chapters in general tend to spin away from the topic at hand, including a bizarre, scrawny digression into cinema three–quarters through the painting discussion. doesn’t cinema warrant its own chapter? what ultimately sustains the line of thought is albright’s great charm and persuasion as a writer, though even these cannot carry the reader across some of the more wandering chasms. a larger problem, however, is the lack of balance between parts one and two. the second half is strangely dwarfed by the first, even though the realm of “rampant art” should be where albright shines and could thus benefit from more extensive treatment. the placement of the chapter “nine definitions” some 200 pages into the book is unaccountable. this chapter’s propositions read like an introductory crash–course in the vocabulary albright could have fruitfully employed in the first half of panaesthetics. one of the sorry ill–effects of this ordering is that, coming so late in the 138 current musicology book, these definitions (concinnity—eidolon—pseudomorph) are hardly put to productive use and remain in the reader’s mind like foreign concepts without adequate demonstration—and terms such as concinnity and abrasion do not readily advertise their own usefulness, being conceptually indistinct from consonance and dissonance. the realm of music, and music’s relations with the other arts, is albright’s home medium. not incidentally, music also proves most prone to panaesthetic fancies since the uncertainty of music’s language (and indeed its questionable status as a language at all), its utter invisibility and maddening ineffability, coalesce in music’s uncanny ability to mean everything, embody anything, oblige any interpretation or ultimately mean nothing, often seemingly at once. the slippery art par excellence, a selection of passages on music examined in greater detail will prove exemplary of albright’s various tactics and conclusions. extending the argument “language understands everything as language” (8), albright spends a great deal of time pondering music’s quasi–linguistic character (the same topic has indeed been explored at length, from adorno to deryck cooke to lerdahl and jackendoff). albright welcomes the music–as–language conceptualization but pays keen attention to the paradoxes which inevitably emerge: “one axiom of musical semantics is that as semantic conventions grow rigid they become, paradoxically, less meaningful: when music grows too easy to interpret, the ear hears the interpretation and not the music” (160). in other words, since clichés in language tend to either ossify meaning or distract from the process of signification, semantic codes in music rely on a certain extant currency within a musical community, but as currency they also risk inflation whereby more music is needed to mean as much as was signified earlier. familiarity, at a point, breeds indifference; clichés become hollowed–out and need periodic renewal, and art responds to this call for renewal with its cycles of forward–looking avant–gardes and historicist neo– movements. albright also appears to be deeply skeptical about the music–as–language model, even while entertaining its basic tenets. he raises the issue of rhetoric, for instance, not being an intrinsic feature of music, but rather a break at music’s limit, a sort of malfunctioning of music’s parameters to allow for quasi–linguistic intrusions foreign to its lack of clear referents, its inability to speak in a “past tense”: the more closely we examine the hypothesis that music is a language, whether in theory of practice, the less tenable it appears. after exhaustive study of mattheson’s tables of tropes and of many other old treatises, the musicologist george j. buelow . . . concludes, “many of the musical figures . . . originated in attempts to explain or justify irregular, if not 139 matthew ricketts incorrect, contrapuntal writing.” in other words, the rhetorical aspects of music seem to be concentrated in various areas of deviance from accepted musical practice; so we are left with the uncomfortable dilemma that music is a kind of rhetoric, even while music is more rhetorical when it breaks down than when it obeys the rules. (171, emphasis added) later, albright considers ways that music might aspire to the conditions of language even without being one—riffing on a borges tale in which a noun–less language uses only verbs to signify without referents (“the moon rose over the river” translates into “upward, behind the onstreaming it mooned”), albright proposes that music might also be thought of as a language in this capacity, with only verbs, as it can seemingly describe action (whether through established codes or degrees of acoustic verisimilitude like storms, birds, or rain) even without clear referents or nouns. in analyzing music’s non–linguistic character, however, albright finds that music paradoxically becomes more language–like. arguments for music’s abstract, non–linguistic nature still tend to evoke language–like qualities even in defense against music’s powerlessness to express anything. these arguments tend to rely on the visual arts or the visual medium (a position most typically characterized by eduard hanslick or stravinsky) to explain how music means, that is, not as language but as “visual art realized in sound.” and yet music by this account still retains traces of the linguistic, detectable in such language as dramatic/narrative structures, rhetorical modes, gestural movements, etc. or observe the work of french post–structuralists derrida, saussure or de man: how language itself can as easily be thought of as fractured and incoherent, with its endlessly deferred signifiers never leading out of language to any reality. if music is a defective language, then certainly language per se can also be seen as defective by those same arguments. albright has effectively underscored one of music’s most pervasive contradictions: “the more we try to understand music as language, the more strongly it resists that understanding; and the more we try to understand music as the opposite of language, the more sweetly, strongly, plainly it speaks to the ear” (177). when discussing music’s tackling of so–called origin mythologies, albright misses a major opportunity to extend his discussion of “music’s mythologies”—that is, music which explicitly tackles musico–narration of creation myths, or “points towards its own origins.” he consistently reiterates that all artworks point toward their own origins (“the artwork contains within itself the history of its medium” [177]), even overturning heidegger’s analysis of van gogh’s shoes to assert that the real subject is not the harsh peasant life but rather the history of visual arts itself, the mud on the bottom of the shoe being imaginatively re–written as mud transplanted from the 140 current musicology cave walls at lascaux. yet moving to music, albright seems curiously stuck in either greek (orphic) or judeo–christian (creation) myths when discussing music’s “pointing towards its own origins”—focusing on the rather obvious (though no less spectacular) case of haydn’s creation or rebel’s les elémens, the kind of example which doesn’t so much require illumination as mere mention, and later, more curiously, schoenberg’s obscure genesis suite. albright might have moved beyond these rather isolated examples of religious/mythological origin narratives toward more “agnostic” creation narratives in music; for instance, how the initiatory move from unpitched to pitched music in berg’s drei orchesterstücke or carter’s double concerto compellingly suggests a narrative of creation ex nihilo. albright does indeed suggest a musical narrative derived from a “scientific account of creation” but only mentions xenakis’ pithoprakta as an example for modeling chaos. this discussion still feels rather thin without a true accounting for non–theistic origin myths in music. spending so much time describing what is arguably stravinsky’s weakest piece, the flood, makes the omission all the more frustrating. ultimately what this section lacks is not an exhaustive compendium of possible creation narratives in music but rather an account of the ease with which any music can be made to embody an origin narrative; moreover, that the ur–narrative implied by and underlying such diverse but flexibly applicable narratives is the medium of music itself. music’s time–bound quality and amorphous ambiguities mean that every piece must unfold (indeed, must create itself) before its listeners each performance. while individual compositions may capitalize on this particular quirk of music at the service of a specific narrative program, in reality each piece of music already tells a creation myth each time it sounds for us—its own creation myth, yes, but also music’s. albright goes to great lengths to salvage the narrative dimension of music. he considers narrativity an indispensable feature of all music, not just programmatic music. put another way, music is particularly flexible when asked to carry the semiotic weight of narration: all music “deals in various nameless–nesses, and yet half–namable apparitions keep eerily coming into being” (201). toward a definition of music: “nameless yet half–namable apparitions”—ever absorbent, ever ready to entertain our fanciful readings hurled at it. yet this hyper absorption is also maddening in the interpretive promiscuities it allows. like sartre’s beautiful aphorism (music: the belle muette, with eyes full of meaning), she smiles at us and answers yes too willingly to all our inquiries, convinces us our riddle solvings are the right ones; we step aside, satisfied, only to watch the next suitor step forward to propose the opposite solution—yes music answers again, smiling still enigmatically. 141 matthew ricketts later albright most productively takes the adorno argument (“music is a narrative that narrates nothing”) to task, by way of a loving critique of jean–jacques nattiez’s music and discourse. nattiez, to summarize, extends adorno’s argument but focusing on the that narrates nothing aspect, grounding it in a linguistic critique which finds music (unlike real language) unable to extend its referents beyond the level of its “sonorous discourse.” because of this, “music cannot lie. the responsibility for joining character–phantoms with action–shadows lies with me, the listener, since it does not lie within music’s semiological capacities to join subject and predicate” (nattiez, quoted in albright 2014, 202). very well, but albright shows that the wealth of interpretive narratives which a given piece of music seems to welcome, that same promiscuous yes, is not a sign of its semiological deficiencies but rather points toward music operating “at the narrative core of things” (204). the same conclusion which might have made the section on music and origin mythologies stronger (that is, that music’s very medium constitutes its creation myth) is inevitably reached here: for the narratives music deals in, welcomes, emulates, are also all ur–narratives. that we tend to get squeamish when such narratives are too clearly articulated does not discount music’s narrative capacity: it only points to a distaste for music whose meaning terminates, freezes, in a hyper–specific individual narrative. but music’s capacity, indeed its tendency, to entertain narrative reading suggests more basic narrative structures either set into motion by composers or read into the work by narrative–minded listeners. albright suggests that even literary narratives, with precisely those subject/predicate relationships denied to music, still function as ur–narratives: “it could be said that a written narrative is nothing but an incitement [for us] to make a narrative, since written stories…become significant to us only insofar as we fill in their blanks, as we remap them onto private grids of thought and feeling” (206). the strange brevity of part two (80 pages compared to the previous 200) remains baffling. while the book does set out to account for both the unity and diversity of the arts, “art rampant” is the most proper place for albright to develop everything he has diligently set up in part one and put his comparative arts theory to productive work. the discussion of “pseudomorphoses” should constitute the meat of albright’s argument, as they are the most characteristic byproducts of panaesthetic pedigree, yet his examples often feel thinly sketched or oddly chosen. six whole pages are eaten up quoting leonardo da vinci in the section on pseudomorphs (“from painting to music”), yet da vinci doesn’t even describe anything related to music but rather ruminates on the superiority of painting as a medium, which grates against the framework of albright’s discussion of 142 current musicology music born of painting. but the topic of the visual medium’s influence on, and entry into, the realm of music is far too interesting to be left at that. albright limits himself to depictions of battle scenes in music and, beyond a work by gloria coates after van gogh, nothing more. the omission of pictures at an exhibition is curious. albright’s privileging of non–canonic examples over more normative fare proves rather typical of panaesthetics. “art rampant: pseudomorphs” opens with a sweeping dismissal in this vein: “the commonest pseudomorphic translations are from literature to picture…and from picture to literature…[but] here i will treat four of the less common cross–medial thrusts among three important media” (234). does albright wish to examine exemplary works in the sense of typical or in the sense of extraordinary, uncommon? that is, is his theory best served by cherry–picking a rather limited number of works which adequately demonstrate his concepts, or is a larger theory of art being offered but one from which albright chooses to underscore his points with less–than– typical examples? albright clearly has a taste for the unusual, and there is a freshness to fringe art fare. albright’s enthusiasm for these is consistently compelling, but omitting such a major work as mussorgsky’s in apparent avoidance of the better–known leaves his treatment of the topic of musical ekphrasis rather unconvincing. moreover, an important ancillary point might have been made when albright brings up xenakis’ use of technology to transform visual sketches into music, considering this a brand of musical ekphrasis. yet the process of transferring the orientation of the visual plane onto the time and pitch domain of music is in fact what music notation in the western tradition already accomplishes. and by this logic isn’t all music (notation) a form of ekphrasis? the development of these notational codes is so intertwined with the visual field and how time and space are mapped within these codes that a compelling argument could be made that composers have actually learned to think music visually, at least in some major ways throughout the process of structuring, even conceiving of music. all scores are graphic scores, types of “sound pictures,” so all music within notated traditions is in this sense “ekphrastic.” it is an unfortunate oversight for a book grappling with cross–talk between the arts, and inter–medial blurring, to not even touch upon this point. a more pressing issue here and throughout albright’s oeuvre is the liberal reusing of sentences, paragraphs, or entire sub–chapters from his own earlier publications. the sections on music and/–as–language, for instance, appear verbatim in the opening chapter of music speaks (when one encounters so seemingly rare a sentence as “the persimmons are mottled but unripe” in two separate publications the effect of such rhetorical flour143 matthew ricketts ish is sadly dampened). a frequent and sought–after lecturer, it is understandable that albright would draw from his own body of notes, slides and asides when publishing new work; knowing that the material from both music speaks and panaesthetics began as lectures partially illuminates these works’ wandering, sometimes digressive structures.1 but the lack of new perspectives on older material is frustrating, and the covert, or at least unacknowledged way these chapters are reused across different works betrays a somewhat lax attitude toward originality. the ease with which almost the entirety of the opening chapter of music speaks was inserted into panaesthetics is itself problematic: are these arguments so imprecise, so beguilingly obscurant at times, to smoothly migrate between books with totally different trajectories and wildly divergent structures without really altering those trajectories? or was it the ultimate ambition of albright’s thinking to erode the divisions between not only artworks, but between the works about art? in the final pages of panaesthetics, albright pans back to the dialectical nature of the opening introduction having drawn two contradictory conclusions: the aforementioned aphorism every medium of an artwork is the wrong medium, and its opposite: every artistic medium is the right medium. that we feel so endlessly obliged to rip every artwork from its origin medium into the verbal realm of description more supports the latter conclusion, or at least points toward the necessity of aesthetics (both hermeneutics and theory) as a vital extension of what constitutes the closed art object, if such a thing ever did exist. criticism makes porous art more porous still—it can breathe more even as it bleeds, its hermetic essence now draining away, now restored again. panaesthetics, and panaesthetics, is above all a life–giving force in and of art, as mediums steal and skip and slip across mediums to renew themselves, freely colonizing other arts. albright channels this boundless appetite. indeed the final slippery go– between, the ultimate panaesthetic ambiguity here, involves the blurred lines between those very worlds of praxis and theory, between art and its aesthetics. as both literature and theory panaesthetics proves a hugely enjoyable and insightful feat of imaginative, sometimes fanciful thinking about—and through—the arts. postscript: daniel albright passed away unexpectedly on january 3, 2015, not long after this review had been completed. he was only 69 years old. panaesthetics is thus the last work published during albright’s own lifetime. the book at hand may ultimately prove to be the summit of albright’s project: “at the time of his death he had recently published the 144 current musicology book he referred to as the most philosophical of his life, and in many ways the culmination of his life’s work: panaesthetics: on the unity and diversity of the arts.”2 notes 1. from the preface to music speaks: “the volume you have in your hand is a sort of rehearsal–piano reduction of a number of multimedia lectures i’ve given in the past few years” (albright 2009, xiii). from the preface to panaesthetics: “[t]his book grows out of the anthony hecht lectures i gave [at bard college] in 2012” (albright 2014, xi). 2. “panaesthetics,” daniel albright, http://panaesthetics.org. references adorno, theodor. 1998. quasi una fantasia. translated by rodney livingstone. london: verso. albright, daniel. 2000. untwisting the serpent. chicago: university of chicago press. . 2009. music speaks. rochester: university of rochester press. borges, jorge luis. 1964. “the analytical language of john wilkins.” in other inquisitions, 1937–1951. translated by ruth l.c. simms. austin: university of texas press. lakoff, george, and mark johnson. 1980. metaphors we live by. chicago: university of chicago press. current musicology 106 (spring 2020) © 2020 jean-francois. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 julius eastman: the sonority of blackness otherwise isaac alexandre jean-francois the composer and singer julius dunbar eastman (1940-1990) was a dynamic polymath whose skill seemed to ebb and flow through antagonism, exception, and isolation. in pushing boundaries and taking risks, eastman encountered difficulty and rejection in part due to his provocative genius. he was born in new york city, but soon after, his mother frances felt that the city was unsafe and relocated julius and his brother gerry to ithaca, new york.1 this early moment of movement in eastman’s life is significant because of the ways in which flight operated as a constitutive feature in his own experience. movement to a “safer” place, especially to a predominantly white area of new york, made it more difficult for eastman to exist—to breathe. the movement from a more diverse city space to a safer home environment made it easier for eastman to take private lessons in classical piano but made it more complicated for him to find embodied identification with other black or queer people. 2 movement, and attention to the sonic remnants of gesture and flight, are part of an expansive history of black people and journey. it remains difficult for a black person to occupy the static position of composer (as opposed to vocalist or performer) in the discipline of classical music.3 in this vein, eastman was often recognized and accepted in performance spaces as a vocalist or pianist, but not a composer.4 george walker, the pulitzerprize winning composer and performer, shares a poignant reflection on the troubled status of race and classical music reception: in 1987 he stated, “i’ve benefited from being a black composer in the sense that when there are symposiums given of music by black composers, i would get performances by orchestras that otherwise would not have done the works. the other aspect, of course, is that if i were not black, i would have had a far wider dispersion of my music and more performances.”5 walker articulates a double bind experienced by the black composer in that the black composer is at once tethered to and exceptionalized by race and dynamically excluded from the expanse of listenership afforded to white composers. eastman’s exceptionality is that although he was not white, not straight, and did not come to learn about music without hardship, he emerged as a virtuoso outside of dominant terms. i move through different time periods 10 current musicology of eastman’s life at the opening of my essay to demonstrate that history, especially in the experience of black queer life, is sticky and defies linearity; the trauma and joy experienced in the past informs alternative presents. in thinking through and against the uneasy archive of eastman’s life and work, i have found that sound, as historicized material, streams through the putatively silent fascia of eastman’s archive. more specifically, i am interested in the sonic elements that allow this archive to breathe anew, as contemporary researchers unearth abject materials from the archive and re-member6 those that cannot be captured by normative recording practices. this essay draws upon contemporary musicology alongside black queer studies to engage with eastman on his terms of exceptional experience: a black queer becoming within a white dominated music scene. i depart from musicologist ryan dohoney’s examination of eastman’s “aesthetic of abjection”7 to engage with black queer theorist darieck scott’s notion of abjection that “produces a ‘break’ in gender and sexuality—a break that looks to all concerned like broken gender and sexuality—and how it therefore provides an opportunity for different configurations of gender and sexuality.”8 recent examples of work related to reinterpreting eastman, like the otolith group’s 2017 the third part of the third measure or dustin hurt and tionna nekkia mcclodden’s 2017 curated show julius eastman: that which is fundamental in philadelphia, attempt to figure eastman at the impasse of abjection and excess that dynamically oscillates throughout black queer life. proceeding from the intersection between musicology, substantiated by music theorist ellie m. hisama’s groundbreaking scholarship on eastman, and rooted in black queer studies, indebted to black queer critical theorists like ashon t. crawley, my argument attends to the nuanced ways in which eastman breathes alternative articulations of life through duress. to explore this, i build on crawley’s hermeneutics of the sound of blackness and black feminist theorist christina sharpe’s notion of “wake work.”9 i engage both of these perspectives on black sonority and aurality to consider eastman’s life and work alongside the ways in which black and brown folx live, barely breathing, in an anti-black united states. as crawley writes, “alternatives exist—already—against the normative modes under which we endure.”10 indeed, the idea of endurance is not foreign to encounters with the work of julius eastman. i inhabit a vexted proximity to eastman’s work. my own position as a queer man of color has affected my research on julius eastman in that the musical dynamics crisscross features of embodiment. i often listen to the work of julius eastman and am left breathless. the fraught embodied position eastman held, along with the black queer people that have continued before and after him, bursts open an alternative 11 isaac jean-francois mode of black becoming. an attendance to the sonic production in that break gestures to how life in the way of things manifests; in town, though very much out of place. 11 this essay explores the question of black breath as a site for tracing the managed movement, survival, and persistence of black and brown bodies in the wake of chattel slavery. the breath is embedded in conceptualizations of black life and dynamically refused—“that deadly occlusion that is continually reanimated” in the unfinished suffocating project of the united states.12 i open with an analysis of sound in relation to the historicized management of black breath as an analytic for encountering eastman, whose struggle helped constitute his aesthetic production in the space of revalued occlusion—he composed in and through the wake. i depart from the biographical and musicological to ask: if we can attend to the life and work of eastman by way of the sounds that have, and continue to, aspirate around him, then what do we learn from those breathy breathless vocal encounters? throughout his life as a composer, performer, educator, and listener, julius eastman found himself in largely white-dominated neighborhood, institutions, and concert spaces. he would not necessarily have been welcomed with open arms by his black intellectual counterparts, either, as the community too often insisted upon stark positions against a classical music tradition that was already deemed white. i will demonstrate this later in reference to eastman’s 1980 northwestern concert, which was met by protest from black student organizers.13 under the conditions of archivally indicated absence in both white and black dominated spaces, how did he manifest, and under what terms? my hermeneutical analysis of breath that engages history, performance, and compositional intent, starts by way of an interdiction of black breath that is entwined with a sonic aspirating insistence on life. i hear an uncomfortable resemblance in eastman’s groans and moans in peter maxwell davies’s eight songs for a mad king (1973) for voice and instrumental ensemble and the horrific sounds of bodies under duress that former-slave olaudah equiano can barely stomach in a section of his 1789 book, interesting narrative of the life of olaudah equiano, or gustavus vassa, the african: written by himself, describing the hold of slave ship: “the shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable.”14 thinking outside of equiano’s account, black studies historian and theorist saidiya hartman queries, “how does one listen for the groans and cries, the undecipherable songs, the crackle of fire in the cane fields, the laments for the dead, and the shouts of victory, and then assign words to all of it?”—the “inconceivable” 12 current musicology conceived in a gesture to sound. 15 yet, this sonic similarity does not only operate as a happenstance connection. the relationship between sounds of suffering and joy, or as saidiya hartman notes, terror and enjoyment, offer historicized sites of meaning-making. the duress particular to eastman’s experience is evidenced in his performance and composition, his “nigger series” and 1980 northwestern concert unveiled his exceptional blackness, both within and outside of his control. his work exceptionalized the larger context of the civil rights movement and the juridical management of blackness in the united states at the time. crawley “want[s] to pressure the assumption about the narrativity of historical events to think through other lineages” where the sound of blackness emerges not from a single moment or place but from a collective history of journeys, specifically in the context of longing and waiting. 16 these journeys took (and continue to take) place in a variety of contexts, such as the march or a bus ride—the sound of blackness resounds from within the interstices of history, movement, and flesh. as a staten islander from the north shore, my proximity to the place where eric garner was murdered on july 17th, 2014, has left me out of place and speechless to this day. the phrase that stays with me is: “i can’t breathe.” as a high schooler, it was the first moment when i realized that the state had a particular control over the aspirations as iterations of desire and breath of black and brown folx. this can be extended to inspiration, as eastman’s work has touched so many artists, filmmakers, and contemporary aesthetes. if black breath is indeterminate, what did that make of me and the members of my community who continue to live in intimate proximity to violence and survival? eastman’s performance of maxwell davies’s eight songs and garner’s murder conjure similar sounds, albeit under completely different circumstances. how might garner’s life and memory persist? what remains of black and brown bodies that live and wait in the wake of his horrific murder? garner’s barely audible voice, his mouth, stifled breath, and strangled voice all persist through the scene of state-sanctioned violence against black and brown people. the white supremacist police state stole black lives, like those of george floyd, breonna taylor, and ahmaud arbery, weeks before this essay is meant to be published. the management of black life constricts a violent account whereby even the act of writing or listening to sonic insistences of black life become opaque. i do not attempt to repurpose or rearticulate this scene of horror, but to attend to the ways in which it questions efforts to recover life in spite of violently managed black breathing.17 yet, i teeter on the edge of an ethical dilemma, with sonic remnants of his gasping voice seared into my consciousness. i invoke crawley’s notion of otherwise to provide an impor13 isaac jean-francois tant perspective in which black sound-making under duress constitutes part of a larger genealogy of dispossession that offers alternative modes of becoming.18 if we can affirm with crawley that, “[h]ow to detect, how to produce and inhabit otherwise epistemological fields, is the question of black study,” then the i of “i can’t breathe,” and the person who screams, sounds otherwise, produces “a break with the known, the normative, the violent world of western thought and material condition.”19 relating the utterance of an i that is both alive and dying back to eastman, i suggest that his nuanced performance of eight songs becomes one with an articulation of black subjectivity sounding under duress. in the introductory materials for the score of eight songs, maxwell davies writes, “the sounds made by human beings under extreme duress, physical and mental, will be at least in part familiar.”20 spaces “wherein black flesh cannot easily breathe” pervade our histories and lives: the anti-black united states, the atlantic ocean (as a complicit entity in the management of black movement), the hold of a vessel transporting slaves, and claims to normative and essentializing epistemes.21 the breath is a space of knowing un/livable life. we must listen to the flesh that, in its negotiation with life, encounters life becoming stolen.22 attending to the historicity of this embodied and racialized relation to stolen and parodied life, musicologist matthew d. morrison’s notion of blacksound helps clarify a distinction i am attempting to articulate. though morrison’s argument is rooted in an explication of blackface minstrel performances, his dense critique extends into my concern: the hermeneutics of racialized sound. morrison explains: blacksound is an integration of historical, material, and hermeneutic analysis of performance, publications (sheet music, minstrel manuals, pop music charts, reviews, and so on), recordings, and other ephemeral technologies vis-à-vis the aesthetic construction of race and racism within popular entertainment.23 in my listening of eight songs i am not simply interpreting blackness under duress, legible through interdicted breath, but also moving along the kinds of invocations of black life “to the fullest,” in eastman’s own words and perspective.24 eastman’s performance was captured on a grammy-nominated recording of peter maxwell davies’s, “crazy theater piece…one of the most difficult and demanding vocal works of the avant-garde.” 25 his performance placed him within the ranks of recognized virtuosic performers. hisama writes, “eastman’s dazzling performance of this work, which spans some five octaves and requires extraordinarily challenging avant-garde vocal 14 current musicology techniques, is all the more remarkable in light of his lack of formal training in voice.”26 the spectacular performance is at once both exceptional and the exception which figures, like an objet trouvé, into the larger narrative of eastman’s life and career. the vocal timbral range is strenuously full of breath in davies’s piece.27 eastman groans, yells, and whines through the octaves, making sounds reminiscent of choking, guttural sounds finding themselves at the intersection of history and aesthetics. eight songs affords an opportunity to attend to alternative methods of interpreting and understanding, in that eastman makes sounds that, constitute part of a larger history of black and brown sound making under duress beyond the scope of davies’s composition. an earlier piece from 1971, macle, is an exciting example of eastman’s own compositional interest in garbled breath, shouting, laughter, and extra-linguistic sounds: “black broad sounds.”28 some of his directives include: “yell as loud as possible”29 and “erotic sounds erotic sounds.”30 macle is a black compositional act that comes decades before contemporary composers and performers including matana roberts, elaine mitchener, and figure 1 excerpts from julius eastman’s 1971 score for macle.31 nicole mitchell, who engage different breathy bodily evacuations and desires (consonant with the yell, moan, or gasp) in an effort to articulate the various histories and futures of black life that have traversed environments of subjection. these are demanding vocal techniques and sounds similar to the ones that eastman engages in his interpretation of maxwell davies’s work. macle is expansive in its use of performance, interpretation, improvisation, and graphic visualizations of written material. scribbles, doodles, and extensions of lines of flight all “drop the syntax,” to engage with a phrase from critical theorist michelle koerner who analyzes george 15 isaac jean-francois jackson’s soledad brother: the prison letters of george jackson, originally published one year before macle in 1970. the score, in appearing opaque or difficult to read, offers alternative ways for the listener and researcher to engage with a black queer critique of composition. the “drop” suggests that eastman grasped the language of composition and did away with it, an act we see happening over and over in eastman’s career as he resisted becoming pigeonholed in one practice. blackness, as a chromatic and racialized distinction (e.g. musical timbre or skin color), and sound coalesce in the intersection between the social and the historical. sonority and breath function as an analytic for considering blackness inand out-side of capture. blackness breathes, sonically and otherwise, amidst chromatics and flesh, precariously manifest, framing a particular state(lessness) of being. although the history of chattel slavery the united states frames the space and time of blackness, black sociality exists between scenes of disaster and joy. black becoming resounds through normative forms of capture as single moments in time that blast through the hold.32 in spite of the horror of blackness under duress, sound pours out and insists upon becoming otherwise. sound insists upon a subject status that shifts between notions of personhood, flesh, thing, and object. an insistence on sonic subject formation, as sound introduces the subject outside of external management, considers embodiment otherwise. alexander weheliye writes, black people make sound “drenched…in the ancestral vocal perspiration.” 33 i extend this affective weight beyond the artistry of black musicians and performers to include the sonic remnants of violence inflicted upon black bodies. how can an enslaved body and bodies in the wake of slavery, denied a normative subjectivity, sound a claim to life between power, sound, and race? resisting recovery: encountering eastman what becomes of the black body when the sound it produces obliterates both itself and the scene around it before the performance has even occurred? in approaching an “utterance” that resists capture, we “nourish the latent text of the fugitive.”34 the latent text is uncovered with attention to sound and soundings that are not contingent upon apprehension but are intimately engaged with absence and silence. that is, our contemporary excitement and relief around the recovery efforts of eastman’s work as this essay is being written should not suggest that his sound and practice were not already rumbling on the lower frequencies of our consciousness. perhaps it is the fiction of black queer absence that signals the ultimate project, and constitutive limits, of the archive. in an effort to problematize 16 current musicology the language of empowerment that can seep into this scene, i am interested in the nuanced ways in which eastman’s black queer sonority has persisted loudly through the silence of the archive. eastman crafts fugitive sounds and bodies that escape right before the blast in the archive. in approaching the archival wreckage, i find the streaks of what eastman calls a “gay guerilla” in his northwestern pre-concert remarks. the phrase is used both as a title for one of eastman’s pieces, and a signifier for a type of person who eastman describes as “someone who in any case is sacrificing his life for a point of view.”35 this positions eastman’s title as a marker of an embodied characteristic by which eastman himself strived to live: “that is the reason that i use ‘gay guerrilla’ in hopes that i might be one, if called upon to be one.”36 ready to sacrifice his life for his gay and black identity, eastman conjures an insurgent. eastman’s artistic oeuvre crossed the boundaries of choreography, singing, composition, and acting, and is a poignant example of black sonority “errantry.”37 for eastman, errant becoming while black gay meant generative sound making that critiqued, exposed, and engaged his abject position. eastman wandered through living spaces and job positions and did not remain rooted for sustained periods of time. loitering, which has been discussed by black queer theorist la marr jurelle bruce, can be a generative articulation of black queer experience that does not necessarily resist capture, but simply cannot be traced.38 errantry—as part of mobility, rather than a prescriptive, frozen blackness—comes into play, as he not only continued to create outside of the context of stable living and working conditions, but also across genres.39 i depart from morrison’s earlier referenced notion of blacksound to think about the active tense of black queer sonority: always disturbing, acquiescing, moaning, and desiring past linear notions of archival time. i thus argue that eastman’s dance through the downtown scene was disidentificatory: he was deeply interested in pre-tonal music and bach and could perform those pieces with as much vigor as works by avant-garde composers like meredith monk. musicologist george e. lewis also offers an interpretation of the term relating to the “disidentification with standard tropes of what it meant to be black in [the downtown new york] scene. we’re sort of both allowed by that scene but also looked at as rather quizzical. julius [was] an extreme case of that…”40 here, errantry functions as an analytic that assists an engagement with eastman where he seems to undo himself; partying and creating alongside perspectives that seem to be against his embodied practice.41 eastman’s ability to exquisitely perform and embody compositions that span temporally distant eras also means that he performed in 17 isaac jean-francois multifarious spaces, although often for predominantly white audiences largely not accustomed to black gay male performers interacting with and producing such sounds. returning to lewis’s notion of “afrological” and “eurological” sound, i suggest that eastman not only spans racialized logics of music production but also normative logics of performance, domestic and academic spaces. the sound of blackness, in eastman’s case, becomes as a kind of sonic inflection on the genres and spaces that (cannot) hold his performance. i arrive at the sound of blackness as the sound between joy and dispossession—a kind of excellent irregularity. eastman’s vocality opens possibilities for alternative ways of being and sounding. the 1980 northwestern university concert on january 16, 1980, eastman completed a yearlong residency at northwestern university with a performance of three of his works, the titles of which he introduced from the stage: evil nigger, gay guerilla, and crazy nigger.42 he referred to the first and last pieces as part of his “nigger series” of which eastman claims there are fifty-two. in the days leading up to the performance, eastman’s concert was greeted with significant protest, especially from black students and faculty of the university. these protests altered the perception of eastman’s works even before the performance itself. peter gena, eastman’s friend and an assistant professor of music at northwestern university at the time, recalls a conversation eastman had with black students and faculty: [eastman] spoke so eloquently, but [the northwestern black faculty and fraternity] just didn’t get it… “you know,” he said, “when i was your age, i was either a nigger or a negro. there was none of this black or africanamerican stuff.” [eastman] told them what a badge of honor it was, but they did not get it, so we didn’t print the titles which caused a bigger ruckus, because then it hit the school newspapers.43 in his foreword to gay guerrilla: julius eastman and his music, lewis contextualizes the students’ response by noting that the black members of the northwestern community “were beset with their own issues of campus racism and thus were not quite ready to fully support eastman’s invocation and exegesis of the word.”44 lewis continues by stating: “the evil nigger and the crazy nigger are more similar than different. whether by choice or necessity, both become desperadoes, outlaws, to who it is prudent not to get too close—you might get burned.”45 the qualifier “crazy,” which becomes a title of one of his pieces performed at northwestern university—crazy nigger emerges out of a white supremacist act of jettisoning black music, 18 current musicology and black embodiment more generally, outside of the neurotypical due to lack of more expansive kinds of descriptors.46 the revaluation of the qualifier “crazy” in black sonic production is about expanding on the ways in which normative descriptors of musical production lack. crazy was a term used in the decades before eastman to describe black sonic production; becoming crazy had already been a generative analytic for understanding black life, particularly as it becomes legible through sound and music, otherwise.47 eastman’s recollection of finding himself as “either a nigger or a negro”48 was not about maintaining one position or the other but about exposing the need to understand that “black or african-american stuff ” has a particular history—a crazy history.49 eastman engages a history of naming, and the lack thereof, that operates between material and marker— sound and slur. even before we get to eastman, and the northwestern performance scene, we are confronted by a “seizure of the words ‘nigger’ and ‘faggot’ in the titles for his compositions.”50 what does it mean for the sound of blackness to seize the very slurs that plan for the destruction of blackness before we have arrived to hear its sound? eastman’s discussion with protesters and his preconcert talk hearkens back to what he was called and understood himself to be, a gesture to his own becoming in relation to a particular retelling and marking of black embodiment. the titles, which somehow skirt away from “this black or african-american stuff,” outwardly misfire: eastman’s measured voice did not convince black members of the northwestern community, who did not identify with the slur and found it offensive. the flow of information about this performance proceeded as follows: concert advertisements, press, protest and eastman’s failed attempt to discuss his black experience with the black community of northwestern, preconcert remarks, and the performance. the preconcert vocality of eastman’s effort to engage with the northwestern intelligentsia leaves out, as matthew d. morrison has noted, the question of the particular politics of eastman’s dissenters who largely found his remarks to be offensive and counterproductive to student-activist efforts against racism on campus.51 “the largely white audience at northwestern” uncomfortably witnessed eastman’s initial remarks.52 anticipating further backlash and understanding that the titles of his pieces had been removed from the concert programs, eastman delivered a nearly seven-minute spoken introduction to his concert. the recording of his remarks reveals that his remarks were met with complete silence, yet that silence was filled with meaning.53 a sonic blackness, through voice, argument, and protest, flows through different discursive spaces, but eastman’s ability to speak “eloquently” did not matter in either the time 19 isaac jean-francois preceding the performance or the preconcert remarks, especially around “fellow” black people. the fraught dynamic of the reception of the piece, before eastman had even performed a single note of music, became part of eastman’s legacy as a trickster and provocateur. i now turn to the scene of the preconcert remarks where eastman’s composition, performance, and theoretical endeavors collide. race and space intersect in affecting eastman’s embodied experience of adversity laced with critical acclaim. eastman and his black sound were invested, says rene levine packer in her chapter on eastman, in “detoxification through insistent confrontation” with the slur.54 however, his engagement with the pejorative did not insist upon its “slur value.” rather, naming black aesthetic production hollows the slur of its meaning while retaining its sociohistorical impact as a hollowed signifier that still burns. the slur and the referenced subject are opaquely maintained. around the same time that eastman was composing and performing, richard pryor, miles davis, and malcolm x were all—well before eastman—insisting upon the term “nigger” in relation to its fraught becoming in the united states context.55 by placing eastman in relation to this broader context of black aural aesthetic and political production, i draw attention to ways that the sound of blackness is historically produced in disjunct community. though not everyone is making music, politically driven, or acting in coalition, the civil rights era is filled with people expanding on the ontological motility of blackness in positions of abject denial (e.g. the “nigger”) and embodied affirmation (e.g. “black to the fullest”). in the northwestern speech, eastman opens his remarks by introducing two important concepts: his notion of “organic music,” and his identification of “that which is fundamental.” at first blush he appears to define the former in terms of self-referential organicist musical structure: “these particular pieces—formally—are an attempt to, what i call, make ‘organic’ music.’ that is to say, the third part of any part (of the third measure or the third section, the third part) has to contain all of the information of the first two parts and then go on from there.”56 this framing of organicism is identified against “romantic music or classical music where you have actually different sections and you have these sections which for instance are in great contrast to the first section or to some other section in the piece, these pieces, they’re not—they’re not exactly perfect yet.”57 while eastman insists upon the embodied features of music, he is also referencing a germanic tradition of organicism in both musical composition and the philosophical tradition.58 however, although evil nigger is self-contained and referential, as eastman notes, his analytic of the organic, including the multiple frames in which the organic is rendered in eastman’s practice 20 current musicology of composition, exceed the musicological limits of organicism, overflowing into the analytic of organic matter: matter of the body, field, earthen ground. the organic also relates to the biological and material—black flesh. “what i mean by niggers,” eastman then tells his audience, “is that thing which is fundamental, that person or thing that attains to a basicness, a fundamentalness, and eschews that thing which is superficial or, or, what could we say—elegant.”59 it is peculiar that eastman is as interested in offering a critique of the fundamental—which, along the lines of germanic organicism, would seem to be functional and un-or a-qualified—as he is eager to evince a fundamental that cannot be anything but black—blackness and the note cannot be separated. he notes, “without field niggers you wouldn’t really have such a great and grand economy that we have. so that is what i call the first and great nigger, field niggers.”60 thus, for eastman, both the fundamental and the organic arise out of the figure of the “nigger.” he conflates the organic with the economic around the appropriation of the slur on multiple registers. the slur not only marks an abject status, as with eastman’s rendering of the black field hand, but also names an ur-becoming outside of a neat western ontology. first, eastman names the abject subject (field hand); second, he calls them by a name used to reject their ontological status as “that thing which is fundamental,”61 and third, because of the slur’s presence in the archive (e.g. as quote or as voice recording) the sound and the effects of its mark on the black experience wafts into our collective present. i linger on the third in an effort to critically engage with an analysis of this moment in eastman scholarship. yes, authorial intent calls for us to engage with eastman on his terms, yet we must peel back the fraught relationship between this intent, which articulates a real and true modality of abject life, and the actual repurposing of violence that this slur manages. eastman’s example sonically insists on the poetic construction of blackness (a kind of fashioning blackness through sound) as well as offering an alternative site of black becoming. the sound of blackness, as it manifests in eastman’s appropriation of the slur and his intense reference to the black labor that has sustained the united states, “opens up the possibility for a counter-speech, a kind of talking back that would be foreclosed by the tightening of that link.”62 this spatial opening, and the talking back that dynamically manages the aperture, effects subject relations as much as it effects the space that holds (or cannot hold) it’s becoming. the provocatively titled pieces, when read aloud, emphasized the slur both audibly and semantically. the question of the sound of blackness, in relationship to black becoming, operates around a scene of ownership where the mechanism of 21 isaac jean-francois production casts away the black subject. r. a. t. judy writes, “of particular importance in this regard is the belonging-togetherness of the categories nigger and work, an association articulated in the american english expression ‘to work like a nigger.’”63 similar archival and affective encounters of black gay aesthetic production extends to the intimately provocative 1980s journal entries of gary fisher, a black gay graduate student at university of california, berkeley. the journal entries were posthumously published by eve kosofsky sedgwick in a time unsure why a black gay man would have such an intimate connection with the slur, especially as it marked a landscape of his sexual desires or encounters. i am reminded of robert reidpharr’s extraordinary explication of fischer’s work and the literary and academic discomfort that surrounded the publication of fisher’s journals: i have been struck by how difficult the text seems to have been for those people—white, black, and otherwise—who have encountered it…. what i have been concerned with, however, is the difficulty that fisher creates for those of us he left behind. fisher neither establishes the fairy tale black, white, red, yellow, brown beloved community so feebly articulated by innumerable rainbow flags; nor does he signal a separate, resistant black (gay) identity. what fisher tells us is much more difficult, more shocking than any of this. fisher goes beyond demonstrating that black/ white intimacy is necessary and inevitable. instead, he insists that if we are to maintain the clear distinction between the black and the white, this intimacy will never move beyond the ugly display of the master’s dominance over the slave and the ugly scene of the slave’s yielding to the same. there is no way to say “black” without hearing “nigger” as its echo. fisher allows none of us to remain innocent. that is his challenge and his promise.64 reid-pharr’s description of fisher, for me, is like listening to eastman’s preconcert remarks. fisher writes and eastman sounds the tunes of a black queer orientation towards the “nigger”; they both have left us too soon with a “necessary and inevitable” proximity to eradication and desire. to bring gary fisher to play with julius eastman, two black gay men of the late-20th century in this space of debasement and incredible exposition—of body, self, frustration, and desire––is to attend to a black queer sociality in its “echo.” a reader and listener alike holds their breath in anticipation of whether either figure is present after their written/spoken words. both persist, however, after their remarks. it is up to the listener to manage “the fiction of white dominance put on display” and to attend to the ways in which this performance, too, taps into that fiction.65 eastman publicly casts his relationship with sound and embodiment in the face of exceptional positionality—he doesn’t call himself a “nigger,” but offers its tune. he com22 current musicology poses a piece that grasps at an ur-quality of the figure of the “nigger;” he plays a trick on us, and the piece manifests in what i call the sonic trickster figure.66 the “nigger,” in all its basicness and fundamentalness, “eschews that thing which is superficial.” what could be more powerful, yet so superficial, than a title? the “nigger,” which operates as “that person or thing that attains,” or agentive in its being able to attain, can only emerge through this figure of the slur and abject combined in eastman’s framework. evil nigger and signification otherwise running nearly twenty-two minutes long, evil nigger is a prime example of the racialized distance between composer, composition, and the figure of the trickster who dances between those lines.67 the piece “explores the concept of the ‘bad nigger’ as set out in autobiographies such as the autobiography of malcolm x and iceberg slim’s pimp: the story of my life.”68 black queerness, articulated across race and sexuality in eastman’s context, escapes the hold of normative capture in this particular feature of the “good nigger” as well, one that sounds the limitations of the current minimalist aesthetic disinterested in the less attractive questions that undergird understandings of race, gender, and sexuality. the sonic trickster figure, along with eastman’s play with prevocal sound and silence, are essential elements of his northwestern concert series. evil nigger opens with a rapid, stepwise-descending, three-note gesture. eastman, who could be provocative and disruptive yet maintain excellence otherwise, seems to be playing with an old adage african american slaves used: “got one mind for white folks to see, ‘nother for what i know is me; he don’t know, he don’t know my mind.”69 eastman articulates black sonic potentiality in the position of maestro and trickster alike; he occupies multiple creative positions at once and, in doing so, demands that listeners and researchers hear the depth of his positionality. the tension between black performance and racialized space has a history rooted in narrative and literature, and in spite of all the odds, or perhaps hand-in-hand with the odds, eastman managed to compose pieces and perform in spaces that normally thrived on a particular kind of white aesthetic production. were he white, perhaps, his virtuosic potential and craft would have been easier for many to see.70 23 isaac jean-francois figure 2 excerpt from julius eastman’s 1978 score for evil nigger.71 eastman notes that the northwestern concert series “are pieces that can be played by any number of instruments,” but i argue that choice to perform evil nigger on the piano presents particular limitations.72 the piano presents a material limitation to the musician and is not forgiving, as the key has to rise again in order for the next triplet to be executed. the double escapement mechanism of the piano, which allows “the hammers to rebound in such a way that notes [can] be repeated very rapidly,” makes the rapid succession of triplets complex.73 the performer is constantly working with and against this mechanism of the piano, an insistent reminder of the instrument’s materiality as every note is articulated. the composition requires not only temporal accuracy (e.g. remaining in time with fast movement) but also developed, instrument-specific skill in order to articulate each repeated note. composition and execution, here, bend at the place of escapement which can be tight and expansive at the same time. doubly immediate was the need for instrumentalists who could play the difficult compositions. whereas other composers, like steve reich, 24 current musicology were able to form their own ensembles, eastman did not. an open score meant more flexibility in terms of instrumentation, and in turn, more performance options. i argue that the open score, along with other examples of eastman’s use of the visual score, opens alternative possibilities where black queerness can exist in and outside of capture. the racial tension played with, here, rests in the pieces’ flexibility: being “black to the fullest” exceeds the fungibility of blackness and performance. the third note of each triplet is sustained and then the triplet is repeated. i hear this opening triplet and lingering last note as the sonic articulation of the trickster. the triplet sounds like jumping on a hot surface and the nature of the surface extends through multiple extratextual registers in the scene of the sonic jump—the sound of blackness in-and out-side of capture. mirroring eastman’s antagonistic relationship with truly comfortable housing or social environments, this triplet jumps around between the foreground and background of the piece. eastman died without a home and was known to give away money and possessions; the sonic trickster, too, has no sustained place in the piece. the hot surface can also be extended to the northwestern sociopolitical environment during eastman’s concert: his performance, though highly contested, brought up the hotbutton issues of race and sexuality. the triplets, too, play with the intraand extra-textual tension; when they are played on top of each other an uneasiness akin to affective dissonance emerges. at 1:40-1:50 on the recording on the unjust malaise album are exemplary moments where the dissonance is held in time as each triplet is repeated without missing a beat.74 i want to think through the term dissonance musicologically and affectively to ask: what makes a listener register the abject status of the composer? or, perhaps more perversely, how might we, as listeners in community, be at odds with the composer (as a kind of dissonance between bodies) in that we unjustly produce his malaise? eastman was a revered member of the downtown scene but was never fully accepted because of his black gay embodiment. the poetic work of the dissonance articulates the larger social critique that the rest of the series leverages—this music cannot be anything other than black and gay. eastman, as a provocateur and thinker at the limits of the politically acceptable, positions the performer and critic in a dissonant bind. though eastman plays with alternative phrasings of the main note articulated multiple times (e.g. 12:15), the sonic trickster reemerges constantly (e.g. 12:24-12:28). the opening triplet, repeated throughout, flows between the foreground and the background of the piece. the ubiquity of the triplet across layers of sound congeals the sonic trickster figure’s hold on the piece; it is everywhere, a part of the piece, and, at times, merely a garnish. 25 isaac jean-francois as the piece shifts into a new section, the recording captures eastman’s voice screaming “one, two, three, four!” a sound of becoming organic that incorporates the once-abject performer and composer, his voice creates a wall of sound whose sonic immensity does not disturb the precise articulation of the triplet that lurks underneath. eastman’s voice is not meant to be in the piece (as it is not formally in the composition), though its deep baritone timbre resounds as maestro of the sonic scene. 9:27 represents an exemplary moment when the tickling repetition is interrupted by the triplet, though the sonic trickster does not emerge in the foreground of the piece. here, a distinction emerges between the repeated notes and the triplets. towards the end, between 17:44-18:07, multiple notes are repeated outside of triplet form. these repetitions create intense dissonance and set up an ominous prelude to spaces of silence. again, silence offers an analytic for considering blackness in-and out-side of capture. from 18:25 in the recording until the end of the piece at 21:29, eastman orchestrates fascinating patches of over-and under-tones. one note is hit, and the listener is faced with a gorgeous dissipating sound—a sharply attacked note expands into silence. each note in this section generates two conclusions. first, the sound can dissipate over a longer period of time because of the initial attack. second, the silence that immediately envelopes the sharply hit note smoothly takes over the performance space, suggesting contrast between the sound of the note and the sound of silence. the piece dissonantly ends in a patch of silence as one note echoes into a close that is never quite closed in earnest. the silence resounds loudly as the trickster figure returns. in the african tradition, “by definition, tricksters are ambiguous figures, and as we speculated earlier concerning the potency of silence, such silent creatures are extremely ambiguous.”75 eastman plays with silence in the end of his piece in that the earlier sections were dense with sound in the foreground and background; the piece closes with individual notes and a play with dynamics. aside from the trickster figure, though, silence is another form of escape (harkening back to the escapement mechanism). silence is sound where there is no thing, yet eastman is present loud and clear. the triplet ever so quietly returns between 20:03-20:11, followed by a loud bang on the piano in the low register. the sound that does emerge through the silence in the last part of eastman’s piece is startling, but the fullness of its influence resounds. the silence “comes to create an image of subjectivity that is available to us precisely because it is fractured, uneasy, always in a process of reformulation, precisely because it mirrors the obscene nature of all subjectivity.”76 in the space of repetition and silence listeners reflect on what was immediately heard but are not given the opportunity to get 26 current musicology too comfortable. evil nigger closes as the last note dissipates at 21:00; the echo casts its mirror onto our jagged encounter with a timed piece always already out of time. eastman’s piece stirs me, in part due to its use of both precariously fast and uncomfortably slow articulations. eastman composes music that is black and gay to the fullest and “tricks” audiences and concert spaces that presume music to be apolitical and uninterested in a history of black sound making. eastman refuses a political economy of sound production in which the distinction between composer, piece, and audience is fraught with (dis)embodied concerns. he is clear that his music is “black to the fullest,” and the audience finds itself in a tense relationship with his subjectivity in the appraisal of his work. the critical distance maintained in the assumption that a composer is separate from their composition collapses. evil nigger threatens a sonic sociality between composer, performer, audience and space: we are made uncomfortable yet dynamically overwhelmed by the effulgence of eastman’s composition. we are asked: “does black life, in its irreducible and impossible sociality, and precisely in what might be understood as its refusal of the status of social life that is refused it, constitute a fundamental danger—an excluded but immanent disruption—to social life?”77 the music is irreducible, not only to one phrase or key, but also to the putatively neat distinction between composer, performer, and listener—another “immanent disruption” that breathes life into a eastman’s disavowed black sonic movement. in resisting normative sound making practices, black sonority does not guarantee escape. the potential to be emancipated exists in the indeterminacy of life and death in-and out-side of the hold. listening and sounding otherwise articulates refusals of state violence and insists on alternative possibilities of sounding in the world. conclusion or, perhaps a call to stay on it i close with a reflection in the spirit of the dissipated and worried note: one that will continue to echo into the search and sound of julius eastman, his creations, and philosophical ruminations. to call this a conclusion would be to limit the scope of eastman’s composition of and through the otherwise, as he is always already behind-and-ahead of what we expect to hear and find from him. i have yet to explore eastman’s firm interest in nonwestern cosmologies or his punk rock creativity, but it is that multiplicity of identification that makes this scholarly direction so urgent and exciting for me. i departed from the biographical to learn about specific aspects of eastman’s life in relation to the sound that he produced and communities 27 isaac jean-francois with which he, perhaps obliquely, shared collective spaces, practices, and performances. i offered a musical analysis outside of the purely theoretical, musicological, or historical rendering of sonic critique in an effort to expand upon the breadth of scholarship that has inspired so much of my thinking around the life and work of julius eastman. the capacity to conceptualize black queer life through and against the wake, sometimes with, takes the wind out of me. at times it calls for pause. eastman demonstrates that the position of the abject can be an exciting, exhausting, and generative space to become—and even then, the analytic of the abject does not seem capacious enough. the repetition of words, musical phrases, crashes, and silences in eastman’s 1973 stay on it suggests that holding eastman in ecstatic tension between abjection and exceptionality is ongoing. this iterative quality of eastman’s work is the price of a ticket to his always ongoing show. the show is sticky and sometimes self-effacing, but the shock cascades listeners into new practices of listening. we, his dissenters and lovers, approach eastman renewed in the key demanded by a multilayered and motile black queer performance, performer, and composer who existed at the center and margins of thought. acknowledgements generous support for my participation in the winter festival and conference ithaca 2020 was provided by the institute for research on women, gender and sexuality studies, and undergraduate research fellowships at columbia university. i would like to express my unending thanks and appreciation for their guidance, detailed review, and relentless support of my work to professors lila abu-lughod, saidiya v. hartman, marc e. hannaford, ellie m. hisama, george e. lewis, and robert goodingwilliams—i am forever grateful. i would like to thank the editors of current musicology for their generative comments and suggestions. none of my thinking about aesthetics and sound would be possible without the overflowing joy and laughter of my late-grandfather, dr. oscar fred rothchild, who loved the 1963 album john coltrane and johnny hartman; this essay, as is everything else, can only be dedicated to you. 28 current musicology notes 1. ellie m. hisama, “‘diving into the earth’: the musical worlds of julius eastman,” in rethinking difference in music scholarship, ed. olivia bloechl, melanie lowe, and jeffrey kallberg (cambridge: cambridge university press, 2015). much of the biographical material and musical analysis throughout this text is indebted to hisama’s scholarship. 2. although eastman identified as “gay,” my use of the term queer in the space of identity is first to ensure that other people’s experiences, especially those of persons not present in the archive, are not overlooked or collapsed by the way eastman identified. second, i rely on jose esteban muñoz’s notion of queerness as an unfinished project. i argue that our position of un/recovering, particularly in the emerging scholarship about the work of julius eastman, is an unfinished queer act in that who and what we find requires us to think outside the boundaries of historiography. see, josé esteban muñoz, cruising utopia: the then and there of queer futurity, (new york: new york university press, 2009). 3. as musicologist george e. lewis noted in a conversation on april 16, 2020, alienation of black composers from the title of composer is strung throughout the archive of western classical music. this is especially evident, lewis shared, in the case of pulitzer prize-winning composer george walker (1922-2018). 4. ellie m. hisama has noted that eastman pursued compositional study only after being accepted as a piano student, receiving a degree in composition in 1963 from the curtis institute. hisama, “‘diving into the earth,’” 266–7. 5. “george walker, educator and a ggiant of the music industry, dies at 96.” journal of blacks in higher education (online). september 24, 2018. available at: https://www.jbhe. com/2018/09/george-walker-educator-and-a-giant-of-the-music-industry-dies-at-age-96/. 6. i am continually inspired by karen barad’s discussion of re-membering. see karen barad, “troubling time/s and ecologies of nothingness: re-turning, re-membering, and facing the incalculable,” new formations 92 (2017): 56–86. 7. ryan dohoney, “a flexible musical identity: julius eastman in new york city, 1976–90,” in gay guerilla: julius eastman and his music, ed. renée levine packer and mary jane leach (rochester: university of rochester press, 2015), 123. 8. darieck scott, extravagant abjection: blackness, power, and sexuality in the african american literary imagination (new york: new york university press, 2010), 129. 9. christina sharpe, in the wake: on blackness and being (durham: duke university press, 2016), 109. 10. crawley, blackpentecostal breath, 20. 11. i am continually inspired by amiri bakara and rob brown. “something in the way of things (in town)”. youtube video, febuary 21, 2009. available at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=baro35pbn6q. 12. sharpe, in the wake, 109. 13. i am reminded of amiri baraka’s words: “american classical music is at base afroamerican classical music” in digging: the afro-american soul of american classical music (berkeley: university of california press), 2009), 203. baraka does not mean european classical music, but a classical music tradition in american sustained by black people; there is no american music without black artists and composers. this quote precedes my later discussion of eastman’s notion of the fundamental character of the black experience in the production of a kind of american capitalist system. i share this now, at the opening, to trou29 isaac jean-francois ble the distinction between music forms precisely on the grounds that racialized expropriative logics have always already been at play in the creation of an american sonic aesthetic. 14. olaudah equiano, the interesting narrative of the life of olaudah equiano, or gustavus vassa, the african written by himself, (new york: penguin, 2003), 58. 15. saidiya hartman, “venus in two acts,” small axe 12, no. 2 (2008): 3. 16. crawley, blackpentecostal breath, 5. 17. i arrive at this ethical polemic by ways of fred moten and saidiya hartman and their discussion on aunt hester’s scream. see fred moten, in the break: the aesthetics of the black radical tradition (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 2003); saidiya v. hartman, scenes of subjection: terror, slavery, and self-making in nineteenth-century america (new york: oxford university press, 1997). 18. crawley, 2. he writes, “otherwise, as word—otherwise possibilities, as phrase—announces the fact of infinite alternatives to what is. and what is is about being, about existence, about ontology. but if infinite alternatives exist, if otherwise possibility is a resource that is never exhausted, what is, what exists, is but one of many. otherwise possibilities exist alongside that which we can detect with our finite sensual capacities.” 19. ibid., 5. though my text does not focus on blackpentacostalism, i am interested in the “break with the known” offered by crawley’s formulation of the “otherwise.” 20. sir peter maxwell davies, eight songs for a mad king (boosey and hawkes, 1971, music score), 3. 21. crawley, blackpentecostal breath, 3. 22. m. nourbese philip, zong! (middletown: wesleyan university press, 2008), 189. also see fred moten, stolen life (duke university press, 2018); hortense j. spillers, “mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: an american grammar book,” diacritics 17, no. 2 (1987): 65-81. i am building off of a phrase with which norbese philip opens her section titled “notanda” in zong! philip writes, “there is no telling this story; it must be told:” there is no way to truly tell the story of garner’s murder, black life stolen again. and the again makes it so difficult to tell, as it is a part of a larger history of black life stolen by the white supremacist state. 23. matthew d. morrison, “race, blacksound, and the (re)making of musicological discourse,” journal of the american musicological society 72, no. 3 (2019): 789. 24. quoted in zachary woolfe, “minimalist composer julius eastman, dead for 26 years, crashes the canon,” new york times, october 28, 2016, https://www.nytimes. com/2016/10/30/arts/music/minimalist-composer-julius-eastman-dead-for-26-yearscrashes-the-canon.html. 25. kyle gann, “damned outrageous”: the music of julius eastman,” liner notes for julius eastman, unjust malaise (new york: new world records 80638, 2005, 3 compact discs). 26. hisama, “‘diving into the earth,’” 262. 27. for more on racialized timbre and virtuosity, specifically as it concerns black performers engaging with a western repertoire, see nina sun eidsheim, “phantom genealogy: sonic blackness and the american operatic timbre,” in the race of sound: listening, timbre, and vocality in african american music (durham: duke university press, 2019). many thanks to marc hannaford for sharing this reference with me. 28. part of the eastman’s score for macle. julius eastman, macle, 5, score available at https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/57991/macle--julius-eastman/. recorded performance available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri9krqntwey. accessed april 30 current musicology 20, 2020. 29. ibid., 7. 30. ibid., 6. 31.julius eastman, “macle,” score available at https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/ work/57991/macle--julius-eastman/, accessed april 20, 2020. 32. for more on the relationship between sound and the hold, see stefano harney and fred moten’s chapter “fantasy in the hold” in their text the undercommons: fugitive planning & black study (brooklyn: minor compositions, 2013). 33. alexander g. weheliye, “black life,” in errans (berlin: ici berlin, 2016), conference paper. available at https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/alexander-g-weheliye/, accessed april 20, 2020. 34. saidiya hartman, “the belly of the world: a note on black women’s labors,” souls 18, no.1 (2016): 171. 35. julius eastman, quoted in matthew d. morrison, “julius eastman: gay guerrilla” (oxford music online, oxford university press, 2015). 36. julius eastman, “julius eastman’s spoken introduction to the northwestern university concert,” disc 3, track 2 on julius eastman, unjust malaise (new york: new world records 80638, 2005, 3 compact discs). 37. édouard glissant, poetics of relation, trans. betsy wing (ann arbor: university of michigan press, 2010), xvi. 38. la marr jurelle bruce. “shore, unsure: loitering as a way of life,” glq: a journal of lesbian and gay studies 25, no. 2, (2019): 352–361. 39. many thanks to george lewis for assisting me in bridging glissant’s notion of errantry to eastman’s escape from capture. 40. see, george e. lewis, lecture, e-flux, recording may 29, 2018, https/ www.e-flux ,com/ video/214784/the-otolith-group-part-one-of-nbsp-the-third-part-of-the-third-measure/. for a queer theoretical perspective on the term “disidentificatory,” see, josé esteban muñoz, disidentifications: queers of color and the performance of politics (minneapolis: university of minnesota press, 1999). 41. a deeper look into eastman’s relationship with punk, alternative, and new-wave aesthetics is outside the scope of this paper. for more on this and eastman’s collaborative engagements with arthur russell i recommend tim lawrence, hold on to your dreams: arthur russell and the downtown music scene, 1973-1992 (durham: duke university press, 2009), specifically chapter 4, “intensities.” 42. andrew hanson-dvoracek, “julius eastman’s 1980 residency at northwestern university” (master’s thesis, the university of iowa, 2011), vi. 43. renée levine packer, “julius eastman, a biography,” in gay guerilla: julius eastman and his music, ed. renée levine packer and mary jane leach (rochester: university of rochester press, 2015), 54. 44. george e. lewis, “foreword,” in gay guerrilla: julius eastman and his music, ed. renée levine packer and mary jane leach (rochester: university of rochester press, 2016), xiv. 45. ibid., xiii. 46. for more literature on the relationship between studies in music and disability see 31 isaac jean-francois stephanie jensen-moulton, “finding autism in the compositions of a 19th-century prodigy: reconsidering ‘blind tom’ wiggins,” in sounding off: theorizing disability in music, ed. neil lerner and joseph n. straus (new york: routledge, 2006), 199–216; daphne a. brooks, “‘puzzling the intervals’: blind tom and the poetics of the sonic slave narrative,” in the oxford handbook of the african american slave narrative, ed. john ernest (new york: oxford university press, 2014): 392–414. many thanks to marc hannaford for sharing these resources with me. 47. see, for example, charlie parker, “crazeology,” track 7 on jazz masters (london: emi gold b008ourdfi, 1999, compact disc). many thanks to george lewis for this helpful sonic reference. 48. packer, “julius eastman, a biography,” 54. 49. lewis, “improvised music after 1950: afrological and eurological perspectives”: 95. lewis notes that in the jazz tradition listeners would often call performers “crazy.” 50. packer, “julius eastman, a biography,” 50. 51. matthew d. morrison, personal communication, october 10, 2019. see, sarah willielebreton, acting black: college, identity, and the performance of race, (new york: routledge, 2003), 47, specifically “the ivory tower: life at northwestern.” willie-lebreton’s work in this chapter engages with the perspectives of northwestern alumni from the 1970s and 1980s. willie-lebreton writes, “college campuses, however, are unique spaces, in that the authority for declaring authenticity and measuring racial identity within the black student community is in the hands of black students. unlike their fellow white students—or the larger white-dominated society outside the college walls—black students often measure race loyalty (regularly abbreviated as race) by behavior or association and less by color or ancestry.” eastman’s “nigger” pieces seemed to work against his attempts to form associations with black student organizers. many thanks to george lewis for this reference. 52. hisama, “‘diving into the earth’,” 274. 53. eastman, “julius eastman’s spoken introduction to the northwestern university concert,” on julius eastman: unjust malaise, disc 3, track 2. 54. packer, “julius eastman: a biography,” 50. 55. george e. lewis, “foreword,” in gay guerrilla: julius eastman and his music, ed. renée levine packer and mary jane leach (rochester: university of rochester press, 2016), xii. 56. eastman, “julius eastman’s spoken introduction to the northwestern university concert.” 57. ibid. 58. for an influential critique of organicism, see joseph kerman, “how we got into analysis, and how to get out,” critical inquiry 7, no. 2 (winter, 1980): 311-31. 59. eastman, quoted in hisama, “‘diving into the earth,’” 273. 60. hisama, “‘diving into the earth,’” 273. 61. eastman, quoted in, ibid. 62. judith butler, excitable speech (new york: routledge, 1997), 15. 63. george eliot, quoted in r. a. t. judy, “on the question of nigga authenticity,” boundary 2 21, no. 3 (1994): 223. 64. robert reid-pharr, black gay man: essays, (new york: new york university press), 149. 32 current musicology the reference to gary fisher is doubly synchronic because eve kosofsky sedgwick faced some of the worst criticism of her career from the posthumous compilation and publication of fisher’s work—not unlike the scathing criticism that mary jane leach received after she recited the titles of eastman’s work at the obey convention in june 2019 in halifax, nova scotia. see mary jane leach, “how to talk about history? a spurned speaker wonders how to handle incendiary titles by composer julius eastman,” artnews, september 13, 2019, https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/julius-eastman-incendiary-titles-13168/. also see calum slingerland, “obey convention issues apology following julius eastman event,” exclaim, june 5, 2019, http://exclaim.ca/music/article/halifaxs_obey_convention_ issues_apology_following_julius_eastman_event. 65. ibid., 141. 66. though my reference to the trickster figure emerges out of african-diasporic interpretation of the trickster figure, eastman has been described as a trickster by other friends and colleagues as well. mary jane leach writes, “here is eastman the trickster at work, creating a problem for which there is no good solution.” leach, “how to talk about history?” 67. julius eastman, “evil nigger,” on julius eastman: unjust malaise, disc 2, track 3. 68. hanson-dvoracek, “julius eastman’s 1980 residency at northwestern university,” 80. 69. gretchen martin, dancing on the color line: african american tricksters in nineteenthcentury american literature (jackson: university press of mississippi, 2015), 13. 70. see, again, “george walker, educator and a giant of the music industry, dies at age 96,” journal of blacks in higher education (september 24, 2018), https://www.jbhe.com/2018/09/ george-walker-educator-and-a-giant-of-the-music-industry-dies-at-age-96/. 71. image from matthew d. morrison, “julius eastman: gay guerrilla” (oxford music online, oxford university press, 2015). 72. eastman, preconcert remarks on disc 3, track 1, unjust malaise (00:33-00:41). a tension arises in the putatively indeterminate orchestration and the structural limitations that arise when performing the pieces in the series. 73. see, “double escapement,” in the oxford companion to music, edited by alison latham, (oxford music online: oxford university press, 2011). i am interested in how the trickster figure plays with the question of escape, and how black sound, in its errant behavior, traverses confinement and freedom. many thanks to marc hannaford for explaining this feature of the piano to me. 74. all timings refer to the performance of “evil nigger” on disc 3, track 1 of julius eastman, unjust malaise (new york: new world records 80638, 2005, 3 compact discs). 75. philip peek, “the sounds of silence: cross-world communication and the auditory arts in african societies,” american ethnologist 21, no. 3 (1994): 488. 76. reid-pharr, black gay man, 145. 77. fred moten, “the case of blackness,” criticism 50, no. 2 (spring 2008): 188. discography 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2008. zong! middletown: wesleyan university press. palmer, tyrone s. 2017. “what feels more than feeling: theorizing the unthinkability of black affect.” critical ethnic studies 3, 2 : 31-56. packer, renée levine. 2015. “julius eastman, a biography.” in gay guerilla: julius eastman and his music, edited by renée levine packer and mary jane leach, 9–74. roches ter: university of rochester press. parler, samuel. 2020. “deford bailey in country music’s multiracial canon.” journal of the american musicological society 73, 1: 53–94. peek, philip. 1994. “the sounds of silence: cross-world communication and the auditory arts in african societies.” american ethnologist 21, 3: 474–494. reid-pharr, robert. 2001. black gay man: essays. new york: new york university press. rose, tricia. 1994. black noise: rap music and black culture in contemporary america. middletown: wesleyan university press. 35 isaac jean-francois snead, james a. 1984. “repetition as a figure of black culture” in black literature and literary theory, ed. edited by henry louis gates jr. new york: methuen. 59-80. sharpe, christina. 2016. in the wake: on blackness and being. durham: duke university press. spillers, hortense j. 1987. “mama’s baby, papa’s maybe: an american grammar book.” diacritics 17, 2: 65-81. wallmark, zachary thomas. 2014. “appraising timbre: embodiment and affect at the threshold of music and noise.” phd diss., university of california, los angeles. willie-lebreton, sarah. 2003. acting black: college, identity, and the performance of race. new york: routledge. current musicology 99–100 (spring 2017) © 2017 by the trustees of columbia university in the city of new york 153 pierrepont, alexandre. 2015. la nuée. l’aacm: un jeu de société musicale. marseille: éditions parenthèses. reviewed by yves citton the association for the advancement of creative musicians (aacm), which recently celebrated its 50th birthday, is certainly one of the most important musical movements of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. this much we know. this thick and dense book, written by french anthropologist and musical theorist alexandre pierrepont over a period of almost twenty years, demonstrates that, on top of inventing new ways to make music, the members of the aacm also invented better ways to make a society. subtitled a game-play of musical society, it offers a profound and joyous analysis of the many strata simultaneously developed in chicago beginning in 1965 by african american musicians who had no alternative but to invent new social relations in order to survive economically and thrive artistically as creators, in a country doubly biased against african americans and against artistic experimentations and lifestyles. the author originally conducted this research as a dissertation in anthropology, spending years searching for documents, collecting data, recording and transcribing long interviews with the main as well as with the less famous characters of this epic play. a dozen years and a few thousand pages later, alexandre pierrepont had gathered a unique wealth of information on the aacm, more than enough to fill this book—but this was not the most important dimension of his work. pierrepont is an activist, an organizer, a poet, and a creator himself, but first and foremost he is a thinker and a writer: somebody who carefully researches data, somebody who mobilizes anthropological and political theory to shed light on this data but, more importantly, somebody who thinks through historical facts and aesthetic theories in order to pave new ways to understand the unique human realities that are at stake in creative improvised music. his book has all the depth of scholarly knowledge expected from a heavy book of french philosophy, but it is written—and deserves to be read—as an adventure in thought, as an exploratory travel through amazing and unsuspected intellectual landscapes. the book’s prologue situates its approach within the brand of postcolonial theory and cultural studies that has become quite familiar to the anglo-american audience, but which remains somewhat exotic to a majority of french readers. “25 propositions about the insisting presence of african-americans in us society” opens chapter 1, which is devoted to 154 current musicology “the aacm in history.” pierrepont reconfigures the history of “jazz” by locating the genre-formerly-known-as-jazz within what his previous book theorized as “the jazzistic field” (pierrepont 2002). instead of imprisoning drummers, pianists and sax players into a fortified definition of “the essence of jazz” (rhythm section? swing? improvisation? lyricism?), he (un) frames “jazz” as a dynamic field of interplay between ever-changing influences and reinventions of itself. against all those who attempt to fence in jazz territory within the boundaries of their (generally backward-looking) definition of the proper way to play or compose, pierrepont defines the jazzistic field as a concrete utopia of diversity-and-freedom-at-work, endlessly exceeding any static definition that can be given of itself. re-inscribing the aacm within history, the goal of chapter 1, therefore leads him to consider chicago, during the past century, as a source of ever renewed mythologies and sonic materials, as a place of emergence for new ways to orient oneself in the social world, and as a site of multiplication of inherited identities. when chapter 2 turns to the history of the aacm itself, it does start with a very accessible and didactic survey of the various phases (seven in total) that the association went through from 1961 to the present, but the chapter soon moves on to revisit history in terms of inclusions and associations, rather than mere succession. chapter 3 analyzes in greater depth the implications of the aacm being “an association,” a term intimately linked with that of “society.” the aacm is studied first as a cooperative, with its rights and duties, its founding charts, its governance, its modes of financing and, most importantly, its informal but strongly structured practices of solidarity. here we explore the micropolitics of an institution that managed to support creative african american musicians, not only in the face of personal rivalries and human jealousies, but against deliberate measures and powerful attempts by the us government and local authorities to undermine self-determination among african americans. a second section focuses on the “respectful anarchy” which relied more on the sense of responsibility and on elective affinities than on formal regulations, fostering self-realization and selfdetermination. the third section addresses issues of african american identity, secrecy and openness, inventing original forms of collective subjectivation. the fourth section is devoted to what was probably the backbone of the aacm longevity: the unique care and intelligence with which it conceived of and organized the transmission of its values and knowledge (musical, artistic, ethical, social and otherwise) to younger generations of chicagoans, from music schools to universities. the fourth and last chapter extends the previous analyses by integrating them into the musical originality of the concerts and recordings pro155 yves citton duced by the various members and collectives of the aacm. these fifty years of music coming out of chicago illustrate one very particular and unique instantiation of the jazzistic field—which unfolded in very different shapes in san francisco, st. louis, or amsterdam—and they constitute a paradigmatic example of its most fundamental dynamics: combinatory, transformational, multi-determined, multi-directional, and multi-dimensional—constantly reinventing the relations between the near and the far, the present and the past, the traditional and the exploratory. the book’s title (la nuée) is a fairly rare word referring etymologically to a big cloud, which can peacefully fly above our heads, but which can also result from the awesome eruption of a mighty volcano. metaphorically, it is used to describe a dense and powerful multitude—of birds flying in the sky, but also of humans anarchically moving towards a common goal. it may not be an overinterpretation to read this title as a (not-so-cryptic) reference to the political theory of michael hardt and antonio negri, whose trilogy (2000, 2004, 2009) provides an elegant conceptual framework to account for the emancipatory collaboration of singularities equally eager to foster their free creativity and to care for the commons that support their cooperation. while the history and the fate of the largest number of political organizations from “the left,” over the past 50 years, look pretty grim and discouraging—with neoliberal capitalism, nationalist agendas, reactionary anti-social policies and openly xenophobic discourses seeming more triumphant every day—highand low-browed intellectuals may be wellinspired to study what allowed a few dozen of under-privileged musicians and artists from chicago to survive institutional racism, cointelpro repression, the lures of corporate labels, the defunding of cultural institutions, and still manage to support, promote and invigorate uncompromising forms of self-organization and artistic creation. examples of such longevity and such successes worldwide can unfortunately be counted on the fingers of just a few hands. the aacm is an international treasure, not only because of the beautiful and unforgettable music it continues to produce, but also because of the sociopolitical hope carried on by its very existence. la nuée is an extremely precious book insofar as it helps us understand how and why the aacm succeeded in doing what it did. it covers the many different layers that were needed to make it as solid and exemplary as it is, from the ingenuity of its material and financial organization to the spiritual values that have made it so unbeatable, because it is so genuine. alexandre pierrepont’s book is a perfect companion to the other impressive study on the same topic recently published by george e. lewis, a 156 current musicology power stronger than itself: the aacm and american experimental music (2008). while lewis was a direct participant in the musical adventure of the aacm, narrating and analyzing it from the inside, pierrepont benefits from his anthropological gaze, considering the aacm at a distance. however, since lewis’s account takes all the reflective distance expected from the most serious scholarly account, and since pierrepont’s deep sympathy and familiarity with the musicians he admires and loves make him a very participant observer, the two books unexpectedly complement (and often compliment) each other by adding pierrepont’s poetic lyricism to lewis’s theoretical rigor. one of the many originalities of la nuée is its quasi-shamanic dimension. pierrepont does not speak in tongues, since his analyses are always very clear and convincing, but he often speaks in voices: a good portion of his book includes long quotes translated from the musicians themselves— not simply members of the aacm he interviewed during countless stays in chicago, but also friends of pierrepont who are also celebrated musicians, like william parker or david s. ware, who shed light on the music from outside of chicago. the book thus enacts the type of cooperation described among the creative musicians: the author listens to the musicians as much as he writes about them. he never pretends to “explain,” much less “interpret,” their actions, beliefs, or history from above (the ethereal heavens of the anthropological science) nor from afar (the french university). we learn a lot when we read his book because he himself went to chicago to learn from the creative-class-heroes he enormously respects and admires. they speak through him, the gloriously living and the too-early-departed, often quoted verbatim, often understood by a most friendly ear and a most intelligent pen. the book is alive because it manages to smoothly flow from the anthropological and philosophical concepts of roger caillois, michel de certeau, patrick chamoiseau, stuart hall, and clifford geerz to the powerful reflections and brilliant thoughts of henry threadgill, wadada leo smith, anthony braxton, roscoe mitchell, mike reed, and hamid drake—all equally intelligent and inspiring. probably under the influence of anthony braxton, the notion of a continuum plays a prominent role in the story pierrepont tells us about the aacm, and it also structures the very texture of his book. there is a continuum between the inspirations and the struggles of african american musicians from the early 1960s until today: a continuous affirmation, against all forms of oppression, that black lives matter—and create a continuum between musical genres usually thought of as segregated, since it appears that some aacm members in chicago’s poorest neighborhood were much more aware of avant-garde contemporary music of the 1950s than most european intellectuals. a continuum between musical collaboration and 157 yves citton political organization, since the aacm provides an example of politics with a clear and concrete purpose (making it possible for artists to provide for the material and spiritual needs of creation), as opposed to so many political organizations trapped in the logic of their own self-perpetuation. in fact, this continuum extends far beyond the book itself. after having worked for several years in organizing concerts and educational events for the banlieues bleues and sons d’hiver festivals in paris, as well as for the museum of the quai branly, alexandre pierrepont, along with a few friends and partners, has launched his own association for the advancement of creative musicians, entitled the bridge. with one leg in chicago and one leg in france. it agitates, organizes, and collects funds to allow for french musicians and chicagoans to team up in intermittent transatlantic bands. these musicians rehearse, learn from each other, share experiences, skills, and sensitivity, tour for a few weeks on each side of the ocean, record a few pieces, and continue building up the ever-changing continuum of the jazzistic field. a dozen bands have thus formed, performed, toured, recorded, and reformed after a few months, weaving a very dense fabric of musical complicity, personal friendship and social solidarity. for pierrepont, the anthropologist does not allow the human experience to stop once the musicians get off the stage: their french and chicago trips are a matter of full immersion, living in the neighborhoods and communities that fuel the music, rich of the cultural wealth only minorities can nurture. la nuée is only one aspect of alexandre pierrepont’s work with, for, and among the most exciting creative musicians of our age. through his tireless educational workshops in schools, his concert promotion, his numerous publications, and now through the intense collaborations made possible by the bridge, he has become one of the central players of the “game-play of musical society” studied in his book. rarely can one find a publication whose author lives and acts in such harmonious concordance with what he preaches. this probably is the true source of the book’s lyricism, and its inspiring and contagious strength. across the decades, the languages, and the ocean, the spirit of the aacm is alive in la nuée and in its author— wonderfully and powerfully so. references hardt, michael, and antonio negri. 2000. empire. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. . 2004. multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire. london: penguin books. . 2009. commonwealth. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. lewis, george e. 2008. a power stronger than itself: the aacm and american experimental music. chicago: university of chicago press. pierrepont, alexandre. 2002. le champ jazzistique. marseille: editions parenthèses. current musicology 104 (spring 2019) © 2019 blackmore. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attributionnoncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 99 berton’s ludic pedagogy and the subdominant otherwise: tension and compromise in the early paris conservatoire curriculum callum blackmore paris’s conservatoire de musique was founded by special decree of the convention nationale on the august 3rd 1795, a product of the final months of the chaotic thermidorian regime. the convention’s politicians saw the conservatoire as serving both an educational and a civic role within the fledgling french republic: not only would the new institution provide musical instruction for future generations of french musicians, it would also be responsible for the celebration of national festivals, overseeing the musical activities of the garde nationale (convention nationale 1795a). the conservatoire would be staffed with 115 of the country’s most preeminent musicians and would offer instruction in a range of instruments, along with training in singing, speech, harmony, and composition (ibid.). the administration of the new conservatoire was hierarchical and bureaucratic from its inception, designed for the regimented execution of a highly prescriptive curriculum (rubinoff 2017). the running of the conservatoire would be overseen by a committee of five inspectors, chosen from among the composition faculty by the l’institute nationale des sciences et arts, who would be charged with executing the decrees of the convention’s legislative body (convention nationale 1795a). indeed, the committee was to answer directly to the minster for the interior, ensuring that the institution was kept under tight governmental control, functioning as an instrument of state power. this paper seeks to reexamine the music-theoretical tenets that emerged in the founding of the paris conservatoire, comparing the institution’s highly prescriptive harmony curriculum with the varied musical and pedagogical practices of its teachers. this paper will focus on the life and work of henri-montan berton, one of the members of the conservatoire’s harmony committee, exploring how his theoretical writings and compositions related to the conservatoire’s tightly controlled harmony curriculum. this paper will present an archeology of the subdominant chord, probing the different ways in which this particular sonority was conceived amongst the harmony professors at the conservatoire. contrasting berton’s own pedagogical writings with the first official harmony textbook of the conservatoire, charles-simon catel’s traité d’harmonie, this 100 current musicology paper will examine the ways in which berton’s unique understanding of the subdominant chord clashed with the music-theoretical doctrine of the conservatoire’s prescribed curriculum. although largely unknown today, berton was one of the most prolific opera composers of the revolution, and a professor at the conservatoire from its founding in 1795 until his death in 1842; he is, therefore, the ideal candidate for a study of the complex and oftentimes contradictory relationship between the conservatoire’s strict curriculum and the pedagogical and creative work of its professors. this paper attempts to forge a connection between classroom and opera house, examining the ways in which berton’s compositions for the opéra-comique and the théâtre feydeau seem to embody his pedagogical dictums, particularly with regards to the functional role of the subdominant chord within a diatonic tonal space. despite musicology’s growing interdisciplinarity, the history of music pedagogy and the history of operatic musical aesthetics can often seem siloed; yet, in the study of berton’s pedagogical and creative practices, the music-theoretical tensions at the paris conservatoire can seen to be played out on the city’s operatic stages.1 the specter of rameau: tension and compromise in the standardization of the conservatoire curriculum barely a month after the founding of the conservatoire in 1795, the convention ratified the constitution de l’an iii, establishing the directoire, a five-member committee elected by the upper house of the legislature, as france’s executive body. the priorities of the new constitution reveal that, just six years after the revolution, education and public order were at the forefront of the political consciousness, fueled by the desire for a republican democracy governed by those of intellectual and moral superiority. drafted amidst the tumult of the thermidorian regime, the new constitution was something of a compromise, designed to provide clear authority and structure within a democratic framework. a much more conservative document than the abandoned 1793 constitution, it eschewed direct democracy in favor of a bicameral model, designed to slow the progress of legislation and prevent the concentration of political power around any individual politician (convention nationale 1795b). furthermore, this new governing body would have powers to curb freedom of press and freedom of association in order to protect the interests of the republic from popular uprising. the constitution’s conservative bent was tempered by a stronger focus on education: the new document reaffirmed the right to public schooling and the right to form private education societies, and lent constitutional validity to the l’institute nationale des sciences et arts. the 101 callum blackmore new constitution framed this pedagogical turn in terms of public betterment and social good, while the constitution’s authors sold these reforms as promoting meritocracy, envisaging a republic where only the most moral, educated, and civically minded citizens would flourish under the law (ibid..; d’anglas 1795).2 in many ways, the founding of the conservatoire mirrored the structures and goals of the constitution de l’an iii, the conservatoire providing a public framework for the education of the republic’s musicians in the spirit of the constitution’s educational reforms. the constitution’s educational reforms were instigated, in part, to end the catholic church’s stranglehold over the education system, and, in part, to indoctrinate the youth in the political dogma of the republic (hunt 2004). similarly, the conservatoire would be a means of standardizing and controlling french musical pedagogy, bringing it in line with and, in service of, republican ideals. indeed, prior to the revolution, music education in france had been somewhat ad hoc, primarily provided either through the catholic church or through private lessons (rubinoff 2017; wason 2008). thus, the conservatoire was founded in order to consolidate and systematize french music education, replacing the eclectic practices of the ancien-régime with a single, centralized institution providing high-quality training in all standard musical disciplines to students from all départements of france. in this spirit of centralization, two existing music schools, the école royale de chant and the institut nationale de musique, which trained musicians for the opéra and the garde nationale respectively, were merged into the conservatoire, thereby tethering the institution to public musical life in the city (grandville 2014). in centralizing, democratizing, systematizing and regulating french musical pedagogy, the conservatoire attempted to emulate, in the musical sphere, the kind of meritocracy envisaged by the authors of the constitution de l’an iii. the conservatoire would allow promising young musicians to receive formal, carefully structured musical training, regardless of background, thus ensuring that only the best musicians, with the most rigorous education, would serve the musical institutions of the new republic. the conservatoire’s curriculum would set the standard for a decidedly french, decidedly republican music pedagogy, and, in the spirit of enlightenment rationality, would set a clear touchstone for musical excellence within the republic (toplis 2005). where musical quality was once tied to the taste and judgement of the king or the clergy, the conservatoire sought to place the regulation of musical quality under the purview of experts, who would train future generations of musicians in best musical practice. the bureaucratic structure of the conservatoire, designed for the tight 102 current musicology regulation of the curriculum, mirrored the multi-level legislative structure outlined in the constitution, the conservatoire’s five-member inspectorate analogous to the five-member directoire. the committee of inspectors, in their “internal policing” of the institution, would not only decide on a fixed curriculum, but oversee its proper implementation and examination, the conservatoire’s strict chain of command functioning as a kind of qualitycontrol mechanism (convention nationale 1795). in order to safeguard the uniformity and rigorousness of its teaching, the conservatoire imposed a fixed curriculum throughout its formative, revolutionary years (mongrédien 1996, 22). this was in part achieved through the publication of a series of musical treatises, which outlined the theoretical principles of the conservatoire’s pedagogy. between 1799 and 1814 the conservatoire published some twelve individual treatises, including technical manuals for a variety of instruments, and instructional treatises in solfège and harmony (rubinoff 2017). many of these treatises were co-authored by multiple professors at the conservatoire, and even those that had a single author had to be approved and signed-off by a committee of faculty members, a fact that was proudly published in the frontmatter of the treatises themselves. this very public process of peer review sent a clear message to readers: that the professors of the conservatoire were unified in their pedagogical approach, sharing the same fundamental musical beliefs. each treatise was presented as the product of a collective decision-making, each one unanimously sanctioned by the nation’s most accomplished musicians. the conservatoire’s official harmony treatise was charles-simon catel’s traité d’harmonie (1803), which was approved by a committee of fourteen composers, many of whom were among the most preeminent musicians of the day (rubinoff 2017, 1).3 the united front presented by these composers in their approval of the traité obscures the relative heterogeneity of the group: the composers at the conservatoire varied widely in age, nationality, and musical style, a symptom of the musical cosmopolitanism of paris at the time.4 although the committee unanimously adopted catel’s traité as the basis for the conservatoire’s curriculum, it seems that given the diversity of the faculty members, reaching a consensus was a long, drawn-out process.5 it cannot have helped that the stakes of the committee’s decision were exceedingly high: the chosen treatise would become the flagship music theory textbook of the new republic, defining a distinctly french musical style for generations of composers to come. the central point of contention in the committee’s deliberations concerned the place of rameau’s harmonic theories in the future of french musical thought. étienne méhul, quoted in the foreword to catel’s traité, noted that: 103 callum blackmore the commission . . . has heard the exposition of three new systems. . . . the first two, entirely opposed in their theoretical principles, have given rise to lively and useful arguments, but . . . did not meet the committee’s objectives. rameau’s system was successively attacked and defended . . . through this struggle of contrary opinions, spurred by the partisans or antagonists of the fundamental bass system, the commission, unable to distinguish the complete truth, suspended its judgement, when the work submitted for your sanction brought an end to all discussion, offering a complete system, simple in in its principles and clear in its development. (méhul in catel 1803, 1–2) méhul reveals that catel’s treatise emerged as a compromise, intended to bring about consensus between the defenders and detractors of rameau amongst the conservatoire’s professors. indeed, from méhul’s hyperbolic description of the treatise, it would seem that this middle-ground, far from being an uneasy compromise, had produced a theoretical tour de force, remarkable in its clarity and exhaustiveness. méhul’s testimony shows that rameau’s fundamental bass system cast a long shadow over french music pedagogy, haunting the development of the curriculum at the conservatoire and polarizing those who sought to standardize french music theory in the wake of the revolution. catel declared in the traité’s introduction that, in spite of their outstanding differences, his music-theoretical predecessors were nevertheless united in their goal of discovering the truth of musical harmony (catel 1803, 3). catel claimed that his traité approaches this shared objective through the simplest, most practical means, reducing harmony to its most fundamental elements. catel’s treatise sought to allow the composition student to grasp harmonic principles relatively quickly, without having to worry about their theoretical impedimenta. catel claimed that he had included just enough theoretical information to allow students to extrapolate more complex contrapuntal principles from his textbook as they grew more advanced. at the heart of catel’s traité was ramaeu’s theory of stacked thirds, undoubtedly chosen to appease the conservatoire’s pro-rameau camp. however, catel drastically simplified rameau’s theory, isolating it from the larger body of his work.6 this theoretically-streamlined approach must have departed far enough from rameau’s ideology to appease rameau’s detractors, striking a balance between the conservatoire’s warring camps.7 if méhul’s account is to be believed, the simplicity and clarity of catel’s method eventually won over the committee, despite its selective incorporation of rameau’s ideas. catel’s traité would prove a particularly uneasy comprise between the pro-rameau and anti-rameau factions on the conservatoire’s faculty, frequently criticized by both camps well into the early nineteenth century 104 current musicology (wason 2008).8 however, catel’s treatise remained the foremost harmony textbook at the conservatoire until the bourbon restoration, shaping conceptions of harmony in the first republic and the napoleonic empire in spite of its detractors.9 kailan rubinoff (2017) has described these early conservatoire treatises as instruments for disciplining the bodies and minds of musicians in service of the political and aesthetic interests of the state. indeed, although catel’s traité was published after the consitution de l’an x, it was very much a product of the directoire era, reflecting a politics of public order and managerial republicanism. historian howard brown (2007) argues that the directoire, in order to deal with the political aftermath of the terror, imposed a “security state” on the republic, controlling its citizens through a mix of policing and surveillance. catel’s traité, adopted by administrative decree of a directoire-style committee, came to impose order on the conservatoire’s pedagogy, controlling what was taught in its classrooms. situating the subdominant: from berton’s game to catel’s treatise in 1818, henri-montan berton published a musical game. the jeu des préludes harmoniques was intended to act as a beginner’s introduction to harmony, designed to help very young students understand basic harmonic functions across a range of keys. the game itself consisted of a sheet of paper with a number of holes cut out of it (the compas, figure 1), which was to be placed over another sheet of paper (the boussole, figure 2) on which every chord, major and minor, was printed in ascending chromatic order. below the boussole’s catalog of chords was printed another array of major and minor chords, also in ascending order, along with a two-octave chromatic scale. when the top hole of the compas was placed over an individual chord in the top array of the boussole, the remaining holes would reveal its seven scale degrees, along with its dominant and subdominant sonorities (see figure 3). in the published edition there were two versions of the boussole, one for sharp keys and one for flat keys, and two versions of the compas, one major and one minor. the pedagogical premise of this game was remarkably simple: the teacher could ask the student to name, say, the seventh scale degree of g minor, and the student would adjust the compas and the boussole to reveal the g minor scale and its corresponding chords (castil-blaze 1825, 163; berton 1842, 1).10 as a pedagogical tool, the jeu des préludes harmoniques functioned on two levels: interactivity and tactility. the game presented tonality as a site of exploration; it allowed the student to move freely between harmonic possibilities, every shift of the paper bringing forth a new harmonic 105 callum blackmore figure 1. c om pas (berton 1842). 106 current musicology fi gu re 2 . b ou ss ol e (b er to n 18 42 ). 107 callum blackmore figure 3. figure 1 (the com pas) superim posed over figure 2 (the boussole) to reveal the scale degrees, dom inant, and subdom inant of the e b m ajor scale. 108 current musicology landscape. this sense of play, however, was undergirded by a sense of challenge, of quest: the student is tasked with moving the paper in order to answer specific questions about different keys. thus, in the jeu des préludes harmoniques, experimentation and utility went hand in hand: the game acted as an interface whereby the student could seek out discrete information within a fixed harmonic system by toying with various possibilities, encouraging discovery through trial and error. in its spirit of harmonic exploration, berton’s game mirrors, at a very basic level, the act of composition, the movement of the compas from key to key, a physical embodiment of the process of modulation. the game presents harmony as inherently creative, mutable, and transient, marked by myriad combinations and permutations of harmonic movements. the jeu des préludes harmoniques, then, reveals the inherent ludomusicality of the act of composition, showing that even the rigid harmonic doctrine of early-nineteenth-century pedagogy could be a site of experimentation. berton’s game construes the fixed harmonic relationships of the tonal system as affordances for personal creative practice, while also rendering these harmonic relationships tactile, allowing the student to physicalize abstract musical structures through the embodied act of moving the compas. the game could be understood as a kind of “digital analogy”—to use roger moseley’s term (2016, 3)—marked by a discrete set of interchangeable data indexed onto the physical interaction between body and object. brian massumi (2002) distinguishes between the digital and the virtual, arguing that while the former constitutes a distinct set of codified possibilities (such as the fixed harmonic system of the jeu des préludes harmoniques), the latter comprises the analog potentiality of the body. for massumi, inventiveness and play are situated within this analog virtual, innately linked to physical movement and sensation. thus, the tactile nature of berton’s game is the key to its pedagogical effect, allowing the student to learn and embody harmonic structure through creativity, embodiment, and play. but what kind of harmonic structures are codified in the jeu des préludes harmoniques? in berton’s game, the tonic, dominant, and subdominant are represented on a semi-circular arc, with the dominant and the subdominant positioned at each end, and the tonic dividing the arc at its peak (see figure 1). in the game’s accompanying text, berton (1842, 3) explains that the subdominant, the tonic, and the dominant are the “three cardinal points of all forms of the scale,” dividing it into two equal tetrachords: the plagal tetrachord, which connects the tonic and the subdominant, and the authentic tetrachord, which connects the tonic and the dominant (figure 3). the two halves of the game’s arc correspond to these two tetrachords, modelling this division of the scale. berton (ibid., 3) goes 109 callum blackmore on to explain that these tetrachords are the “regulators of all harmonic succession” and the “root of music’s two cadences,” the cadence plagale and the cadence parfaite or authentique.11 for berton, these two cadences alone can be used to harmonize all seven degrees of the scale, and can thus provide accompaniment to any melody; berton provides an example of one such harmonization, accompanying a simple, stepwise melody with alternating plagal and authentic cadences (figure 4). it becomes clear from berton’s writings, and from the sample harmonizations he provided, that, in berton’s conception of harmony, the dominant and subdominant sonorities are considered as occupying the same level of hierarchy, insofar as they play an equally vital role in circumscribing a balanced, symmetrical harmonic space around the tonic. in other words, the dominant and subdominant are considered “equal” because, aside from the tonic, they are considered the most fundamental components of harmonic space; where schenkerians might see all harmony as reducible to a tension between tonic and dominant, berton sees harmony as reducible to two tensions, one between the tonic and the dominant, the other between the tonic and the subdominant, each as powerful in its pull as the other. likewise, the plagal and authentic cadences are considered “equal” insofar as they constitute the fundamental components of all harmonic movement, accounting for the harmonization of all seven degrees of the scale. berton wrote at length on this triumvirate conception of harmonic space in his own three-volume traité d’harmonie, which was published just three years before the jeu des préludes harmoniques and shortly after catel’s treatise began falling out of use. although berton had been on the committee that approved catel’s treatise, the fall of the napoleonic empire and the restoration of the bourbon monarchy brought with it new musical and pedagogical priorities for the conservatoire, prompting a slew of new harmony treatises (anton reicha’s treatises being, perhaps, the most well-known). by this time, berton was already a chevalier de la légion d’honneur and a ten-year fixture at the conservatoire, allowing his new figure 4. melody harmonization (berton 1842). 110 current musicology treatise to gain some traction amid this upheaval. in his treatise, berton (1815, 83) also addresses various other cadences, including half-cadences, evaded cadences, and deceptive cadences, which he describes as “derivatives” of either the plagal or authentic cadence.12 he also details various suspensions, dissonances, and figurations which can be incorporated into these fundamental cadential motions, demonstrating further how complex melodies can arise just from these two cadential motions. in this way, the traité d’harmonie explains how berton’s two fundamental cadences, presented in elemental form in the jeu des préludes harmoniques, can be spun out into larger, richer, more complex musical structures.13 berton therefore provides proof of his assertion that these two cadences form the basis for all harmony by accounting for all other harmonic practices through processes of derivation, imitation, and ornamentation. the traité d’harmonie thereby provides a link between the simplified, playful pedagogical space of the jeu des préludes harmoniques and the formal process of composition, showing how the harmonic landscapes conjured up through playing the game might be expanded out into a full-scale piece of music. berton’s theories of harmony would not have been considered particularly radical in france at the turn of the nineteenth century; indeed, berton’s notion of a tripartite harmonic space was drawn, primarily, from the later writings of rameau.14 in the génération harmonique (1737), rameau posits that the organization of harmonic space is essentially symmetrical, the tonic flanked by the dominant a fifth above, and the subdominant a fifth below. for rameau (1737, 106), this symmetry is inherent to the harmonic series itself: ut is the third harmonic of fa, while sol, in turn, is the third harmonic of ut, and thus, the ratio between subdominant, tonic, and dominant is 1:3:9. for rameau, this “triple proportion” forms the “natural” basis of all harmony, the diatonic scale emerging out of this proportionality, formed from the tetrachords which link the dominant and the subdominant to the tonic.15 rameau goes on to argue that the dominant and the subdominant both have a strong pull towards the tonic, a pull that thomas christensen (1993, 186) likens to a gravitational field, pointing to rameau’s proclivity for the scientific theories of isaac newton.16 rameau thus proposes two types of cadence, the cadence parfaite, the resolution of the dominant to the tonic, and the cadence irréguliere, the resolution of the subdominant to the tonic, both of which involve the movement of the fundamental bass by a fifth. in rameau’s harmonic syntax, the subdominant and the dominant are the only two sonorities which may move to the tonic; all other sonorities may only reach the tonic via a circle of fifths motion through these two poles (verba 2016). furthermore, rameau claims that the tonic chord is the only chord which may be consonant, all 111 callum blackmore remaining chords containing some essential dissonance that prompts their resolution to the tonic (verba 2016; moreno 2004). in his harmonic syntax, these dissonances are implied even when they are not acoustically present, facilitating the gravitational pull of the harmonic space. in the case of the dominant, this dissonance is the seventh, which resolves down a step to the third of the tonic chord. in the case of the subdominant, rameau proposes a dissonance of a sixth, which resolves up a step to the third of the tonic chord (damschroder 2008). rameau’s justification for this dissonant sixth is grounded in his belief in the symmetry of the diatonic system: just as the dominant’s dissonant seventh extends a minor third above the triad, so the subdominant’s dissonant sixth extends (in inversion) a minor third below the triad (lester 2008).17 berton’s jeu des préludes harmoniques essentially takes rameau’s conception of symmetrical harmonic space ex facie, that is to say, that the student is asked to accept rameau’s tripartite division of harmonic space as true without explanation. berton eschews the complex set of mathematical and acoustic “proofs” which mark rameau’s music-theoretical writings in order to present rameau’s ideas tout court. where rameau is preoccupied with the causal and generative links between acoustical phenomena (i.e. between harmony and melody), berton is primarily concerned with the practical implications of rameau’s system, exhibiting the relationships between musical phenomena as static, two-dimensional, and straightforward.18 what rameau presents as a deductive, speculative theory of the “natural” order of harmony, berton (in presenting it in the form of a game) takes as a given, more concerned with its potential as a foundation for a playful, creative practice. however, for all that berton’s gloss on rameau stripped back and flattened out the latter’s conception of harmony, it did capture, to some extent, the symmetry, gravity, contingency, and transience of rameau’s system. joel lester (1993, 136), discussing rameau’s concept of the double emploi, argues that rameau’s excogitation of harmonic syntax is marked by a sense of “floating tonic,” whereby the deployment of dissonances and the movement of the fundamental bass can destabilize the tonic sonority at any moment. the dissonances which rameau saw as integral to the dominant and subdominant harmonies could be used to turn any chord into a pivot chord, thus prompting the subdominant-tonicdominant to “float” to a new key: a tonic when played may add a sixth and become a subdominant, then rising a fifth. or a tonic may add a seventh and become a simple dominant, then falling a fifth. the jeu des préludes harmoniques could be seen as a physical demonstra112 current musicology tion of rameau’s “floating tonic”: just as the subdominant-tonic-dominant axis floats from key to key as music modulates, so the compas literally floats across the boussole to unfold new sets of subdominant-tonic-dominant relations, unfolding a harmonic system comprised of ever-shifting, deeply contextualized chordal junctures.19 furthermore, the fixed relationship between subdominant, tonic, and dominant on the tetrachordal arc of berton’s compas seems to simulate the gravitational field of rameau’s harmonic syntax: even as the compas moves across the various chords on the boussole, the magnetic link between these three chords never changes, their polar relationship remaining fixed. in his traité d’harmonie, berton only diverges from rameau on a few key points, the most notable being in his conceptualization of the subdominant sonority. berton rejects the notion that the subdominant carries an implied sixth dissonance, arguing that it contradicts what he saw as the “natural” laws of harmonic resonance: it must appear, no doubt, somewhat reckless to attack the celebrated rameau in his musical opinions; but despite the respect we pay to this celebrated composer, we believe that we have robust enough arguments to combat his error regarding .  .  . his chord with added sixth. .  .  . this innovation seems to us to have no purpose or utility, in that it is contrary to the system taken in nature, . . . which says that the form of all chords is given by the resonance of the harmonic corps sonore; that the approximation of these intervals gives a third and a fifth; . . . that the added sounds are called dissonances; that these dissonances are always, in relation to their fundamental sonority, intervals of a fourth, of a seventh, or of a ninth which . . . can never change their nature. (berton 1815, 76)20 for berton, a sixth dissonance cannot furnish the subdominant triad (nor, indeed any other triad), as such a dissonance contravenes the harmonic laws which berton understood as governing the vertical construction of chords. in berton’s harmonic taxonomy, the chord ré-fa-la-ut would, in c major, be considered a supertonic seventh chord, with ré as the fundamental bass (rameau, as mentioned, would have taken fa as the fundamental bass). therefore, the subdominant, in berton’s harmonic system, appears as a simpler, more consonant sonority than in rameau’s system, for unlike rameau’s subdominant, berton’s subdominant does not require an implied dissonance to prompt its move to the tonic.21 berton’s jeu des préludes harmoniques, of course, completely circumvents the issue of “naturalness” by omitting any mention of the harmonic series, thus bucking the trend of much harmony pedagogy of the time: in playing the game, the student learns that the subdominant and dominant triads both have a pull toward the tonic, not through any scientific explanation, but through the embod113 callum blackmore ied experience of playing a game predicated on this relationship. not only does berton’s subdominant differ from rameau’s in terms of vertical sonority, but also in terms of the way its horizontal movement is classified. while berton agrees with rameau that there exist only two cardinal types of cadence from which all other cadential motions are derived, berton replaces rameau’s cadence irréguliere with the cadence plagale. on the surface, this seems like a nominal distinction—after all, both cadences consist of the ascending-fifth movement of the fundamental bass from subdominant to tonic. however, rameau’s cadence irréguliere is a considerably broader category of harmonic motion than berton’s cadence plagale, partly owing to the fact that rameau frequently changed the definition of the cadence over the course of his writings. at times, rameau specifically defines the cadence irréguliere as constituting the shift from the subdominant (with an added sixth) to the tonic; at other times, he broadens this definition to include any movement of the fundamental bass up a fourth, including the half cadence (mutch 2015, 77; christensen 1993, 118). berton cuts through this murkiness by distinguishing between the cadence plagale, constituting a move from subdominant to tonic, and the cadence plagale imparfait, constituting any other move of the fundamental bass up a fifth or down a fourth.22 berton’s conception of the plagal cadence, borne of a revisionist take on rameau’s tripartite division of harmonic space, stands in stark contrast to catel’s characterization of the plagal cadence in his conservatoireendorsed traité d’harmonie. catel (1803, 7) shuns rameau’s symmetrical subdominant-tonic-dominant axis, merely stating that the only relationship the tonic, dominant, and subdominant share is that they are the only three major chords within a major-key diatonic scale (a relationship which he sees as analogous to the relationship between i, v, and vi in a harmonic minor scale). this departure from rameau’s thought was a pragmatic move on catel’s part: as moreno (2004) notes, rameau’s harmonic system, with its implied sevenths and apocryphal magnetic forces, requires a large degree of imagination on the theorist’s part, imagination that would confound many a beginner pupil. catel thus goes a step further than berton, sparing the conservatoire’s students the mental gymnastics of hearing and comprehending rameau’s speculative music theory where berton, in simplifying the subdominant sonority, removing its hidden dissonance, still asks the student to hear the subdominant triad as having an abstract, implied pull toward the tonic tout court. in addition to downplaying the role of the dominant and subdominant in carving out musical space, catel (1803, 34) is also careful to distinguish cadences from mere harmonic progression, whereas berton and rameau 114 current musicology make no such distinction. catel argues, contra berton and rameau, that cadences have a specific closing function, occurring only at the end of phrases as a point of repose.23 he defines two principal types: the cadence to the tonic and the cadence to the dominant (the authentic and the half cadences, in modern parlance). the main form of cadence to the tonic is the cadence parfaite, which includes not only v(7)–i but also the viiø7–i and viio7–i resolutions (although catel notes that the latter are employed much more rarely). catel also states that the cadence to the tonic can also occur via the subdominant, which, like berton, he calls the cadence plagale. catel’s cadence plagale, in stark contrast to berton’s, can proceed either from a root-position iv chord, or from a ii6 chord in first inversion. however, catel is quick to note that the cadence plagale is inferior to the perfect cadence, bringing much weaker structural closure (although he states that it is often used at the end of religious music). catel’s cadential categories are clearly pragmatically motivated; that is to say that catel privileges the perfect cadence and the half cadence because these were the cadences most commonly employed by composers toward the turn of the nineteenth century to delineate structural close, mentioning the plagal cadence only for its occasional use in church music. 24 berton, invested in rameau’s symmetrical harmonic axes and a much broader definition of cadence, places both plagal and perfect cadences on the same tier and instead demotes the half cadence, despite the relatively smaller role the plagal cadence plays in constructing musical form. not only does catel diminish the role of the subdominant in cadential closure, he also discourages the use of the subdominant as a modulating key area. catel describes two principal forms of modulation: modulation by descending fifth (flatwards) and modulation by ascending fifth (sharpwards). for catel, the descending-fifth modulation is the simpler, more “natural” of the two, as it requires no pivot chord to move into the new key, only the addition of a flattened seventh onto the tonic (turning it into v7/iv).25 however, catel declares that this easier modulation is always secondary to the ascending fifth modulation: in any piece of music, he claims, the first modulation away from the tonic key should be an ascending fifth; descending-fifth modulations, if they occur at all, should follow afterward, subsidiary to the more powerful ascending-fifth modulations. conversely, berton (1815, 148) defines three types of modulation, all of which share equal status in his writings: modulation to the dominant, to the subdominant, and to the relative minor/major.26 while catel’s approach to modulation reflects the overwhelming prevalence of dominant modulations in compositional practice, berton’s approach is more taxonomical, less concerned with outlining a hierarchy of modulating keys than it is with 115 callum blackmore simply cataloging them. as a result, the subdominant modulation is given more prominence in berton’s treatise than in catel’s, berton awarding it equal status to the dominant modulation. although berton was on the committee that unanimously approved catel’s treatise as the official textbook of the conservatoire, it is clear that berton’s own views on harmony differed dramatically from catel’s. berton appears to be more concerned with simplifying, clarifying, and updating rameau’s theories (which berton was inculcated in from a young age) for use in the nineteenth-century harmony classroom, making rameau’s conception of harmonic space palpable for the student through ludic pedagogical methods. catel, by contrast, aligns his treatise with compositional practice at the turn of the nineteenth century, picking and choosing from various theoretical traditions in order to reflect musical customs and norms. this pragmatic approach is most evident in catel’s treatment of the plagal cadence and the subdominant modulation, both of which he presents as weaker, subsidiary harmonic functions based on their scarcer use in music of the time. catel draws selectively from rameau’s theories in order to appease the pro-rameau faction on the conservatoire’s committee, but only insofar as they reinforce the practice-oriented goals of the textbook.27 conversely, berton adopts rameau’s system as his default, carefully signposting for his readers where his theories diverge from rameau’s (as in the case of the subdominant’s added sixth dissonance). put simply, berton’s harmonic system is identical, mutatis mutandis, to the symmetrical tonal system in rameau’s later work, whereas catel’s system is a theoretical hybrid—not so much a cohesive theory, but closer to the modern-day music theory textbook in presenting a series of harmonic concepts most practical and useful in the broader musical life of the student. the subdominant is a particularly fruitful lens through which to refract these various theoretical approaches, a chord that is elevated in berton’s neo-rameauian theory, but performs a much more limited function in both catel’s traité and in contemporaneous compositional practice. these different classifications of the subdominant reveal something of the anatomy of the catel compromise, showing the extent to which catel’s traité dared to break away from the entrenched theoretical traditions of the conservatoire’s pro-rameau cabal. the deep-seated differences between the pedagogical approaches of berton and catel demonstrate that there was so much more at stake in the catel compromise than mere nomenclature. in the founding of the conservatoire, the very organization and functionality of the tonal system was put up for debate, and the widely varying positions within this debate show just how uneasily catel’s traité reconciled the diverse pedagogical practices of the conservatoire’s faculty. 116 current musicology composing plagally: berton’s subdominant from theory to practice in berton’s theoretical writings, the subdominant is presented as being equal to the dominant within a diatonic musical syntax, serving a nearequivalent function. while the theoretical reasoning behind this equivalence is clear, a question remains: what might a commensurate treatment of the dominant and subdominant look like in compositional practice? berton composed a number of arias that emphasized the subdominant at both background and foreground levels, arias in which a sense of plagality defines both the formal structure and the phenomenological experience of the music.28 these plagally-accented forms were clustered in the period immediately following the revolution, an incredibly fruitful time in berton’s compositional career. during this period, the composer saw considerable commercial and critical success at the théâtre feydeau and the opéracomique, catapulting him into public consciousness and clinching his appointment to the conservatoire in 1795. it was in this style-defining period of berton’s oeuvre that the composer seemed to most palpably reflect rameau’s tripartite division of tonal space in his compositions, bringing rameau’s decidedly ancien-régime theories to life on the revolutionary operatic stage. thus, while catel’s traité sought to reflect compositional practice, berton’s compositional practice became a reflection of rameau’s theory, a testing ground for the harmonic concepts foundational to his teaching. the fourth number from berton’s one-act comedy les deux souslieutenants—which premiered at the opéra-comique in 1792—serves as a prototypical example of berton’s pronounced use of the subdominant.29 the aria, “adieu donc, toute notre élégance,” is in simple ternary form, a spritely galant allegro with hints of march topos to match the opera’s military setting. after the orchestral introduction, the a section begins with a series of prolongational gestures which clearly establish the f major tonic. the tonic chord alternates twice with a dominant seventh in first inversion, and then twice with a subdominant sonority in second inversion (see example 1).30 as john rice (2014) notes, this alteration of tonic and subdominant harmonies over a tonic pedal was a relatively common schema in galant music (he calls this particular schema the “heartz”), and was often used in eighteenth-century opera in moments of great emotional poignancy. although the subdominant and dominant chords here are presented in inversion, minimizing the movement of the bass, berton would probably have understood an implied fundamental bass moving in fifths or fourths throughout the passage (as shown in figure 5).31 moreover, these fundamental-bass motions would have been viewed as cadences under 117 callum blackmore example 1. “adieu donc, toute notre élégance,” henri-montan berton, mm. 8–17. figure 5. fundamental bass for the opening of “adieu donc.” 118 current musicology berton’s broad definition, the “heartz” schema understood as encompassing a plagal cadence despite the stationary bass line. it is no coincidence, perhaps, that the cadential motions outlined in this passage correspond exactly to the two principal cadences featured in berton’s jeu des préludes harmoniques, berton’s authentic and plagal tetrachords successively outlined through tonic’s alternation with the dominant and subdominant harmonies respectively. it follows that this passage not only prolongs the tonic harmony, but firmly establishes a tripartite tonal space, placing the tonic sonority at the center of two tetrachordal axes, clearly spelled out in the movement of the fundamental bass. the subdominant here, despite its weak inversion, takes a near equal position to the dominant within the harmonic syntax, the result of which is a consequent phrase comprising entirely of plagal motion, balancing out the dominantoriented antecedent. berton places additional emphasis on the subdominant chord by expanding it over two bars each time it appears, breaking out of the four-bar hypermeter and stretching the plagally-oriented consequent phrase over six bars. during these subdominant expansions (which come after the dominant, in the same way that berton sees, at a larger level, dominant modulation as always preceding subdominant modulation), the lower orchestra breaks out of its accompanying patterns, underpinning the hypermetrical dissonance with emphatic quarter-note rhythms, offset by a detached, syncopated arpeggio in the first violins (mm. 14 and 18). meanwhile, the vocal line reaches down into its lower extremes, ushering in the subdominant chord with a low d (mm. 14 and 17), held for an entire bar. the low d on the subdominant chord constitutes a break from the patter phrases which accompanied the dominant chord in the consequent phrase, throwing more vocal weight onto the subdominant sonority. richard kramer (2016) notes that enlightenment music tended increasingly toward the “moment” as a site of heightened meaning and expression, noting various “chromatic moments” in late eighteenth-century music which fleetingly threw into question diatonic hierarchies. perhaps one could theorize a kind of “plagal moment” in the music and pedagogy of berton, in which a tripartite division of diatonic space is made palpable by a sudden textural and temporal emphasis on the subdominant chord. the “plagal moment,” in bringing the subdominant to near equal status to the dominant, throws into question the primacy of the tonic-dominant relationship in tonal music, a relationship that, as daniel harrison (1994) notes, has been the prevailing harmonic paradigm in the history of western music theory and composition. the “plagal moment” in the opening passage of “adieu donc” constitutes the rubicon between the dominantcentric harmonic space of the antecedent phrase and the symmetrical, 119 callum blackmore axial harmonic space espoused in berton’s theoretical writings. the plagal moment thus represents the phenomenological experience of breaching from a dominant-tonic harmonic space into a tripartite harmonic space via the addition of a pronounced subdominant chord, thus positioning the tonic as the gravitational center of a symmetrical harmonic axis. the composing-out of a tripartite harmonic space in the opening passage of the a section of “adieu donc” is, in many ways, a microcosm of the wider tonal organization of the aria, which seems to emphasize, at a background level, berton’s subdominant-tonic-dominant axis. the a section, which remains squarely in the tonic key, culminates in a clear cadence followed by a flurry of post-cadential activity and thematic liquidation (example 2). at the tail end of this post-cadential activity, berton introduces a flattened seventh (m. 36) which sets in motion a tonicization to the subdominant, the aria’s secondary key area, and the key in which the b section begins. remarkably, berton establishes this new key area in much the same way he established the tonic key area at the beginning of the a section, alternating the new tonic first with its dominant, and then twice with its subdominant (mm. 37–44). once again, berton carefully sets out a tripartite division of harmonic space, this time by following the modulating perfect cadence with a “plagal moment” in the new key.32 having established a tripartite harmonic space in the subdominant key, berton destabilizes the new key with a sudden lurch to the mediant, the bb sonority refunctioned as a neapolitan chord in a brief tonicization of a minor (mm. 45–48). this a minor chord acts to wrench the music back into f major, the en and c from the a minor chord eventually form part of a second-inversion c dominant-seventh chord, which leads the music back to the f major tonic. this progression, in which the tonicized mediant is retroactively heard as a projection of the tonic harmony, was particularly common in this era (aldwell, cadwallader, and schachter 2011, 270) and is used here to transition from subdominant to tonic without the tonic sounding like the dominant of the subdominant. having returned to the tonic key (m. 50), berton immediately lands on the dividing dominant which brings about an end to the b section (mm. 51–59); the brief tonicization of this chord produces a “standing-on-the-dominant” effect (caplin 1998, 13), drumming up anticipation for the reprise of the a section. the tonal plan of “adieu donc,” partially graphed in figure 6, outlines, at a macro-level, berton’s tripartite division of musical space.33 the tonicization of the subdominant at the start of the b section represents a largescale “plagal moment,” plunging the listener back into the subdominant axis after the string of cadential v–i motions which end the a section. the subdominant, as the aria’s secondary key area, seems especially emphasized 120 current musicology example 2. “adieu donc, toute notre élégance,” henri-montan berton, mm. 32–59. 121 callum blackmore at a formal level, as if to offset the ineluctable pull of the dominant. the b section itself, at the middleground, consists of a tonic chord bookended, on the one hand, by a large-scale subdominant tonicization, and, on the other hand, by a tonicized dividing dominant, forming a three-part harmonic structure that resembles the tetrachordal arc on the compas of the jeu des préludes harmoniques.34 thus, the b section traverses berton’s symmetrical harmonic space, moving from the subdominant to the dominant via the tonic, the tonic emerging as the gravitational center of a subdominanttonic axis. while large-scale movements to the subdominant were not uncommon during this period, what sets berton’s aria apart is the way it seems to outline a tripartite division of musical space at both foreground and background levels: not only does berton open both the a and the b sections by unveiling a subdominant-tonic-dominant axis in their respective keys, he also organizes the aria’s large-scale tonal trajectory around this axis.35 it is not so much that berton’s use of the subdominant in “adieu donc” represents a radical or undocumented harmonic phenomenon, but rather, that the way berton organizes tonal space in this aria, at all levels of composition, corresponds so closely with his own theoretical beliefs and pedagogical methods.36 indeed, when the suggested melody harmonization from the jeu des préludes harmoniques is compared with the voice-leading at the start of the a section, the voice-leading at the start of the b section, and the overall tonal plan of the aria (figure 7), it becomes clear that berton’s belief that every note can be harmonized along a subdominant-tonic-dominant axis is reflected across many levels of his compositional practice. the aria “il est sous ta fenêtre” from berton’s les deux sentinelles (1791) shares a strikingly similar harmonic structure to “adieu donc,” but stretched out over a five-part rondo form. in “il est sous ta fenêtre,” berton modulates to the dominant in the b section and the subdominant in the c figure 6. graph of “adieu donc,” from the beginning of the a section to the end of the b section. 122 current musicology fi gu re 7 . c om pa ris on b et w ee n “a di eu d on c” a nd th e je u de s p ré lu de s h ar m on iq ue s. 123 callum blackmore section, interpolated by an a section that remains firmly in the tonic key. the harmonic structure of the c section of “il est sous ta fenêtre” (example 3) is almost identical to the b section of “adieu donc”: a flattened seventh at the end of the tonic-key refrain sets in motion a tonicization of the subdominant; berton then returns to the tonic via a tonicized submediant, before landing on a prolonged dominant (here preceded by a german sixth chord). the refrain of “il est sous ta fenêtre,” much like the a section of “adieu donc,” strongly features the subdominant (example 4), which, as in example 3. “il est sous ta fenêtre,” henri-montan berton, mm. 72–101. 124 current musicology “adieu donc,” comes after the tonic has alternated twice with the dominant. berton only includes this plagal passage in the two recapitulations of the refrain, cutting off the opening refrain after the tonic-dominant alternations and beginning the dominant modulation into the b section “early.” due to the truncation of the opening refrain, the first subdominant chord is not heard until the first recapitulation of the refrain, making the plagal moment all the more unexpected. the result of this is a rondo form which remains very dominant-heavy through the first refrain and the first episode, but becomes increasingly plagally-oriented through the refrain’s recapitulations and the subdominant-modulating second episode; it is as if berton introduces the dominant axis prior to introducing the subdominant axis, slowly unfolding his tripartite division of harmonic space over the course of a five-part form. the first aria from berton’s revolutionary-themed opera agricol viala (1794), “courage, courage, bon courage,” is in ternary form with a b section modulating to the subdominant and ending on a prolonged dominant, much like “adieu donc” (see figure 8).37 however, in “courage, courage,” the path from subdominant to dominant is much more convoluted: berton follows the subdominant modulation with a prolonged bb sonority (marked with an *), which functions as a back-relating dominant to the subdominant; he then tonicizes the mediant before landing on the dominant via the dominant of the dominant. the tonicization of the example 4. “il est sous ta fenêtre,” henri-montan berton, mm. 52–65. 125 callum blackmore figure 8. graph of “courage, courage,” from the beginning of the a section to the end of the b section. mediant helps to retroactively construe the prolonged bb chord as a tonic sonority, analogous to the tonicized mediant of “adieu donc” and “il est sous ta fenêtre”; it also allows for a smoother transition to the dominant prolongation due to the shared pitches between the chords. in “courage, courage,” berton charts a different route through his axial harmonic space, one that emphasizes the ambiguity and mutability of these fifth relationships: the prolonged bb chord, which functions initially as a back-relating dominant to the subdominant, is retroactively understood as a return to the tonic, highlighting the bb chord’s pivotal relationship within the symmetrical tonal space. a similar sense of ambiguity emerges in the entr’acte to act iii of berton’s aline, reine de golconde (1803), which also plays on the double identity of the three cardinal poles of the tripartite harmonic space (figure 9). the g major sonority which opens the entr’acte is revealed, through the addition of a flattened seventh, to be the dominant of c major, setting in motion a so-called “auxiliary cadence” into the entr’acte’s tonic (burstein 1988; burstein 2005). once landed in c major, berton firmly establishes the key—in his typical, axial manner--by alternating the tonic sonority with a subdominant and a dominant chord. this c major sonority, with the addition of a flattened seventh, then becomes the dominant seventh of the subdominant. berton seals this modulation to f major, again, by alternating the new tonic chord with the new dominant and the new subdominant. finally, through a series of chromatic voice-leading procedures culminating in a second-inversion dominant-seventh chord, berton returns to the tonic, in which he cadences. in the entr’acte, as berton moves along the tetrachordal axis from 126 current musicology dominant to tonic to subdominant, he toys with the multiple identities these chords take on within the symmetrical harmonic space, each new tonic becoming the dominant of the next, an illustration of lester’s “floating tonic” principle in practice.38 as with many of the other examples, berton appears to outline his trilateral harmonic space at both a largescale structural level and also locally within each key area. however, this entr’acte goes one step further by foregrounding the tetrachordal divisions of the scale berton’s axial tonal space entails: not only do various “diatonic quiescenzas” (gjerdingen 2007, 228) spell out the pitches of the tétrachord authentique, the bass line moving from the subdominant tonicization to the tonic return (via the second-inversion dominant seventh) spells out a tétrachord plagale.39 in light of ongoing debates around so-called “intentional fallacy” in music analysis, some might say that it would be spurious to suggest that berton deliberately set out to organize these numbers around a decidedly rameauian conception of harmonic space.40 berton wrote a great many arias that do not use the subdominant at all, either as modulating key aria or as an individual chord. indeed, these plagally-oriented forms are a significant minority in berton’s corpus, clustered toward the beginning of his career. however, this paper offers four observations which gesture toward a self-conscious link between berton’s work in the classroom and in the opera house: first, that berton wrote a number of pieces that prominently feature the subdominant at both foreground and structural levels; second, that in these plagally-oriented pieces the subdominant works, phenomenologically, to wrench the music away from the prevailing dominant-tonic axis, creating a “plagal moment”; third, that the result of these “plagal moments” is a harmonic landscape that bears uncanny similarity to the tripartite division of tonal space in berton’s rameau-inspired jeu des préludes harmoniques and traité d’harmonie; and finally, that these similarities can be elucidated through musical analysis, hinting at the possibility of figure 9. graph of the entr’acte to act iii of aline, reine de golconde, henri-montan berton. 127 callum blackmore intentionality or causality. the analyses here, like all musical analyses, are anachronistic, and any theories they bring forth about berton’s compositional method are highly speculative.41 yet, these analyses place berton’s compositional practice in dialogue with his pedagogical and theoretical work, revealing striking correspondences between berton’s use of the subdominant on the operatic stage and the privileged position the sonority held in berton’s pedagogical materials. they suggest the possibility that berton’s theoretical engagement with the later writings of rameau came to influence the harmonic organization of his works, thereby proposing just one possible point of correlation between theory and practice, classroom and opera house. conclusion: pedagogy, practice, and play the founding of the paris conservatoire in 1795 was intended to bring standardization and meritocracy to french musical pedagogy. as a result, major compromises were reached in the setting of the conservatoire’s curriculum and textbooks, designed to synthesize the diverse pedagogical approaches of its professors and appease partisan groups among the staff. catel’s traité d’harmonie, approved unanimously by the conservatoire’s harmony committee, was one such compromise, written to bring an end to ongoing disagreements between the pro-rameau and anti-rameau factions on the conservatoire’s faculty. yet, an examination of berton’s theoretical works reveals just how far catel’s treatise was removed from the actual pedagogical beliefs and practices of the conservatoire’s diverse faculty. berton’s plagally-oriented forms, and the plagal moments that comprise them, suggest that berton’s compositional practice flew in the face of catel’s theoretical principles, and that the points of disagreement between berton and catel were acoustically reflected in the way berton grapples with harmonic space in his own compositions. the paris conservatoire was founded at a particularly fraught moment in france’s political history, when compromise, bureaucracy, and control had converged, uneasily, in french public life, the product of a short-lived, and ultimately ineffectual constitution. this paper suggest that, for all the rigidity of the conservatoire’s initial curriculum and the lengthy process of negotiation through which it was derived, there was much give and take in the creative and pedagogical work of the conservatoire’s professors. it suggests that the standardization of the french musical curriculum did not fully erase the fundamental aesthetic and intellectual differences which were supposedly quashed in the catel compromise. ultimately, although berton was but one of many harmony professors at the conservatoire at the time, an examination of his work adds depth and texture to the history of 128 current musicology the conservatory movement, demonstrating how the push to enforce and regulate a national musical curriculum through official educational institutions was undercut by the striking artistic individuality of those tasked with delivering these new “unified” curricula, and the divergent theoretical traditions which fed into their compositional and pedagogical practice. that the specter of rameau came to haunt the standardization of the conservatoire’s curriculum is a testament to the rich and often contradictory intellectual lineages that catel’s traité attempted to consolidate, while berton’s own revisions to rameau’s theories demonstrate that rameau’s musical thought continued to be negotiated, repurposed, and re-enlivened well into the nineteenth century. the querelles of eighteenth-century music, all the pamphlet wars and salon debates, were not laid to rest in the nationalization of french music education, but rather were institutionalized, emerging as underlying tensions within the conservatoire. indeed, berton’s life and work continually indexed the notorious querelle des bouffons well into the nineteenth century. his theoretical work was derived from the harmonic principles set out in rameau’s pamphlet observations sur notre instinct pour la musique (1754), while his compositional activity was centered around the genre of partially-spoken opéra-comiques that emerged as a result of the querelle.42 it follows that the plagally-oriented forms employed in berton’s early operas suggest an intersection of rameau-inspired music theory and italian-derived musico-dramatic form on the stages of the opéra-comique and the théâtre feydeau in the wake of the revolution. when set against his ludic pedagogy and the jeu des préludes harmoniques, berton’s plagally-oriented forms seem to function on a similar level to his pedagogical game; both appear to render rameau’s harmonic principles palpable to the senses. just as the jeu des préludes harmoniques allows the student to touch and embody rameau’s subdominant-tonicdominant axis, so berton’s plagal forms seem to offer the listener an acoustic realization of the same theoretical principles. berton’s game and berton’s plagal forms could thus be seen as two sides of the same coin, the same otherwise-gnostic theoretical system made either tactile or audible. in many ways, berton’s game provides a link between the disciplined, methodical process of learning harmony and the creative, individualized process of composition. in allowing the student to interactively engage with rameau’s harmonic principles, the jeu des préludes harmoniques reveals the level of creativity and play required to transform theoretical knowledge into a musical work. in doing so, it also evinces a degree of creativity latent in musical pedagogy, demonstrating that music education, so closely oriented toward the creative act of music making, is always-already playful. at a time when the conservatoire was attempting to standardize and 129 callum blackmore regulate its musical curriculum, berton’s stubborn adherence to, and continued reimagining of, rameau’s theoretical principles in his pedagogical writings and compositional work demonstrates a degree of leeway, and, indeed, of creative play, that surrounded this period of regulation and control, both in the opera house and in the classroom.43 the subdominant chord can be understood as a key site of play in berton’s life and work: before the publication of catel’s treatise, berton experimented, in his operas, with musical forms that emphasized the subdominant, and, after the publication of catel’s treatise, berton continued to toy with rameau’s conception of the subdominant in his theoretical writings, and encouraged his students to do so too through the jeu des préludes harmoniques. this spirit of music-theoretical play proved inextinguishable, even in the face of a rigid, constrained harmony curriculum. thus, berton’s ludomusicality opens the door to an institutional history of the conservatory movement that takes into account the creative pedagogical and compositional practices of its teachers. notes the author wishes to thank loretta terrigno for posing the question which led to this study, and ian sewell and the editorial board of current musicology for their insightful comments and suggestions. 1. joel lester (2016) has discussed the difficulties of studying music theory pedagogy historically, noting that it is near impossible to know exactly what went on in the eighteenthcentury harmony classroom. irrespective of these difficulties, there has been a growing interest in the relationship between music pedagogy and music theory in the eighteenth century, particularly in relation to the partimento tradition. see, for example, gjerdingen (2007) and sanguinetti (2012). 2. the constitution’s focus on public betterment was exemplified in article 356, which asserted that the french judiciary should protect, above all, “the professions which affect the public morals, the security, and the health of the citizens” (convention nationale, 1795b). furthermore, public primary schools, for example, would train their students in “reading, writing, computation, and morality,” while a program of national festivals would “maintain fraternity among the citizens and attach them to the constitution, the fatherland, and the law” (ibid.). one of the constitution’s authors, boissy d’anglas (1795) told the convention that “we should be governed by the best of us, you must make the french people . . . take the rank that their nature assigns them. . . . we should be governed by the best among us: the best are the most learned and the most interested in maintaining the law.” 3. the committee included such prominent figures as étienne méhul, luigi cherubini, jean-joseph rudolphe,jean-françois le sueur, jean-paul-égide martini, françois-joseph gossec, honoré langlé, jean-baptiste rey,nicolas-étienne framery, and henri-montan berton (catel 1803). jean-paul-égide martini may be known tomodern listeners for his song “plaisir d’amor,” the tune to which was later used in elvis presley’s “can’t helpfalling in love with you”. also on the committee was the renowned naturist bernard germain de lacépède,who had become well regarded for his theories of musical aesthetics. 4. the committee comprised many composers of different nationalities who were at very different stages of their musical careers. the twenty-eight-year-old catel was the young130 current musicology est member of the committee, a position he was most probably awarded through his close working relationship with gossec and his revolutionary compositions for the garde nationale. berton, the second-youngest composer on the committee, was also in his twenties when appointed to the conservatoire, having enjoyed a string of successful premieres at the opéra-comique. the oldest composer on the committee, gossec, was in his sixties when he joined the conservatoire’s faculty, and had made his name at both in opéra-comiques and in concert music under the ancien régime. gossec hailed from the austrian netherlands (modern-day belgium); martini from bavaria; rodolphe had spent much of his career in italy and germany; and cherubini was born in italy but had worked in london before naturalizing in france. many members of the committee had already written harmony treatises prior to the publication of the traité: framery had already written a number of practical and theoretical compositional tracts prior to the revolution, while langlé’s 1795 traité d’harmonie et de modulation was already a pedagogical staple by the time the committee adopted catel’s treatise (darlow 2003; langlé 1795). 5. in their foreword to the traité, the committee declared that “after several sessions examining different systems of harmony, the committee adopted, at its meeting on the 10th of ventose, the basis of the system conceived by citizen catel”, hinting at the drawn-out process of group decision-making which culminated in the adoption of catel’s treatise (catel 1803, 1). that many members of the committee already had their own long-established theories of harmony undoubtedly contributed to the arduousness of the decision-making. 6. catel argued that the dissonant ninth chord (four thirds stacked on top of each other) formed the basis for all harmony, all other chords emerging from suspensions within this fundamental sonority. he drew this concept from rameau (wason 2008). for more on this theory, see martin (2012). 7. such battles and compromises were common across all areas of the conservatoire as the administration sought to fix and standardize its curriculum; indeed, rebecca dowd geoffroy-schwinden (2015) has shown that similar debates erupted around the conservatoire’s piano treatise, ideological tensions among the faculty bubbling over into outright conflict. 8. in the late 1810s, such tensions would spill over in the very public dispute between the austrian-trained anton reicha and françois-joseph fétis, who saw the former’s cours de composition musicale as a regression from catel’s textbook (wason 2008; groth 1983; reicha 1818). yet even fétis was dissatisfied with catel’s traité, going on to write his own treatise in 1844, the traité complet de la théorie et de la pratique de l’harmonie, which simultaneously built on and criticized the work of rameau and catel to form a broader theory of tonalité for the nineteenth century (fétis 1844; topis 2005). fétis, in his preface to his later treatise, even critiques the consensus-building exercise that lead to the adoption of catel’s textbook, scoffing that the committee could chose such a “purely empirical method” in order to please its partisans (fétis 1844, 5). 9. the bourbon restoration saw the further upheaval of the institution’s curriculum; this is when catel’s textbook, allegedly, was dropped as the official harmony textbook for the conservatoire (wason 2008). 10. there are two editions of the jeu des préludes harmoniques, the first of which has not survived. however, the first edition of berton’s game had made a significant impression on the music critic castil-blaze, who encountered the game while researching for his dictionnaire de musique modern, and asked the composer’s permission to publish a second edition in 1842. in his dictionnaire, castil-blaze proclaimed that “mr berton has found a very ingenious means of teaching young pupils an introduction to the principal chords of all of the tones,” and in his introduction to game’s second edition, castil-blaze declared that 131 callum blackmore berton’s pedagogical method should be “agreeable to all musical amateurs and useful to all young students” (castil-blaze 1825, 163; berton 1842, 1). as far as this author can tell, only the second edition survives, and, thus, it is the 1842 castil-blaze edition that is quoted from in this paper. 11. note that berton uses the terms parfaite and authentique interchangeably. 12. one of these “derivative” cadences, the cadence imparfaite, berton considers an “imitation” of one of the two fundamental cadences. the cadence imparfaite shares the same intervallic motion as one of the two fundamental cadences; however, it does not constitute a motion to the tonic. for example, in the cadence plagale imparfaite, the bass either ascends by a fifth or falls by a fourth, but does not outline a subdominant-to-tonic motion (outlining instead, say, a motion from supertonic to submediant). berton demonstrates how consecutively repeated cadences imparfaites form a circle-of-fifths sequence, and can thus be used as the impetus for harmonic transition. 13. note that berton’s definition of a cadence is much broader than modern definitions. william caplin (2004) makes a distinction between cadential function and cadential content, that is to say, cadence as delineating formal closure and cadence as a set of voiceleading practices. caplin notes that rameau, along with a number of other eighteenthand nineteenth-century theorists, tended to think only in terms of cadential content, defining the cadences by their voice-leading motion and not necessarily by their formal function. similarly, berton views the cadence merely as any movement from one chord to another, not as a distinct point of structural arrival. thus, in berton’s harmonic system, cadential motion is inseparable from harmonic motion, all chord progressions made up entirely of strings of cadences. indeed, berton’s traité d’harmonie includes over 6000 such harmonic successions, painstakingly categorized (damschroder 2008). 14. indeed, it can be surmised from berton’s life-long advocacy for rameau’s later harmonic theories that the composer sat in the pro-rameau camp of the conservatoire’s harmony committee. it is unclear how berton became such an acolyte of rameau’s theories, nor, even, where berton became so proficient in the ins and outs of rameau’s system. berton may have acquired his knowledge of rameau from his father, pierre-montan berton, a composer, singer, and conductor at the opéra. pierre-montan berton was heavily involved in the revival of rameau’s works at the opéra in the 1760s and 1770s, revising and reorchestrating these older works to bring them in line with modern tastes (sadler 1981, 68; charlton 2000, 347). although pierre-montan berton was undoubtedly very familiar with rameau’s theoretical work, it is unclear whether he passed this knowledge on to his son: henri-montan berton was largely self-educated due to his father’s belief that music was a “natural” art that could not be taught (van boer 2012, 80). it is most likely that berton learnt of rameau’s theories from jean-baptiste rey, an ardent follower of rameau’s theories who also sat on the conservatoire’s harmony committee, and who had given the young berton intermittent musical instruction (fétis 1868, 234; grove et al. 1900, 237). it is clear that berton became increasingly invested in distinctly eighteenth-century, distinctly french musical traditions as he grew older, seeing these antiquated national styles as an antidote to the modern, italianate music of rossini, a composer he despised (berton 1826; giroud 2010). although rameau is rarely credited, berton’s theoretical writings are packed with rameau-isms, which are frequently presented as axiomatic, conventional wisdom that can be understood sapienti sat. berton reveals his debt to rameau in the last section of the accompanying text to the jeu des préludes harmoniques, in which he evinces the basic tenets of the fundamental bass. berton (1842, 7) explains that the intervals of the tonic, dominant, and subdominant harmonies can be reconfigured to produce various inversions. for ber132 current musicology ton, these inversions all share the same, unchanging fundamental bass, which is implicit in their sonority regardless of inversion. 15. for more on rameau and nature, see cohen (2001). 16. this was a significant shift from the conception of harmonic motion in rameau’s earlier traité de l’harmonie (1722), in which the dominant-tonic relationship was emphasized. in this earlier treatise, cadential movement was understood as a relatively mechanical traversal along the circle of fifths. 17. note that this is not a supertonic seventh chord, as in modern harmonic parlance; the fundamental bass remains rooted in the subdominant. 18. for example, where rameau is interested in how harmony gives rise to melody, berton merely presents the two phenomena as linked through a fixed musical grammar. 19. jairo moreno (2004, 91) also hints at this phenomenon, arguing that, in rameau’s theories, chords derive harmonic meaning by dint of their relationship to other chords. rameau thus understands harmonic meaning as an aggregate of vertical sonority and fundamental bass movement. the jeu des préludes harmoniques hinges on this notion of context-dependent harmonic meaning: the chords on the boussole, laid out in chromatic array, only acquire diatonic harmonic meaning when the compas places them in dialogue with each other. the student, when moving the compas across the boussole, is able to uncover a range of harmonic meanings by revealing different perfect-fifth relationships between chords. 20. to provide background to this quote, berton’s critique of rameau appears in the context of a towering dictionary of chords, including various suspensions and inversions, all in relation to a ninth sonority, which berton views as the primordial root of all harmony. 21. in berton’s system, there is still an elementary pull from subdominant to tonic; however, this pull is not motivated by dissonance, but rather by the movement of the fundamental bass from scale-degree four to scale-degree one within a given key. thus, berton’s subdominant constitutes a shift away from rameau’s dissonance-consonance dialectic, seeing the plagal cadence as the gravitational movement from one consonant sonority to another. 22. according to caleb mutch (2015), the very notion of a “plagal cadence” only crystallized around the mid-eighteenth century, emerging in the work of theorists such as blainville and tartini as a subdominant-based alternative to the perfect cadence in certain modes. berton synthesized this newer terminology into rameau’s older system, clarifying points of contradiction within rameau’s work. 23. in this sense, catel’s definition of cadence is much closer to caplin’s (2004) definition, which also views the cadence as performing an explicitly closing function, occurring only at an important point of structural repose. 24. in many ways, catel’s cadential taxonomy is much more closely aligned with schenkerian definitions of the cadence than it is with rameau’s system, prefiguring schenker’s notion that the completion of the ursatze, along with the interruption of the ursatz around a “dividing dominant”, determines musical form (cadwallader and gagné 2007; burstein 2014; schenker 1935). catel, like schenker, views the subdominant as serving a much more subordinate function than rameau does, construing the plagal cadence as a much weaker form of structural resolution (aldwell, cadwallader and schachter 2011; stein 1983; notley 2005; caplin 2004); although catel never goes as far as schenker and his acolytes in doing away with the concept of a plagal cadence altogether. 25. the ascending-fifth modulation, in contrast to the descending-fifth modulation, requires the interpolation of a dominant seventh in the new key as a pivot chord, which must 133 callum blackmore be carefully prepared by the composer (i.e. v7 of v is required in order to modulate to the dominant from i). 26. berton’s three principle modulations all involve the addition of only one accidental. berton (1815, 149) calls modulations to more distant keys “transitions”, stating that these distant-key modulations result from “double or triple modulations”. 27. for example, catel quietly adopts many of rameau’s ideas on dissonance treatment and suspension, yet his wholesale rejection of rameau’s conception of musical space suggests that these ideas were adopted in the name of diplomacy and convenience. 28. i have taken the term “plagality” from caleb mutch (2015) as a useful way of describing music that emphasizes subdominant to tonic motion. 29. note that this paper will only be dealing with major-key subdominants. minor-key subdominants are well beyond the purview of this short study. 30. note that many modern-day analysts would not classify the six-four chord here as a subdominant harmony, viewing it, instead, as two non-chord tones decorating the tonic harmony (the so-called neighboring, or auxiliary, six-four). for example, aldwell, cadwallader, and schachter (2003, 348) state that “accented six-fours—including cadential ones— depend on their chords of resolution; they do not function as inversions of a root-position triad.” similarly, laitz (2016, 316) cautions the student to “remember that the pedal six-four chord contains the same pitches as the subdominant, yet we refrained from labelling it a iv harmony because of its neighboring motion in the upper voices.” open music theory (shaffer et al. 2014), however, notes that the neighboring six-four can be classified either as part of the tonic harmony, or as a separate subdominant harmony. both rice (2014) and heartz (1995) refer to this type of neighboring six-four chord as a subdominant sonority. it is important to note that there has been much music-theoretical debate around the status of the six-four chord more generally, particularly as to whether or not the cadential six-four can support the third scale degree of schenker’s ursatz (beach 1967; beach 1990a; beach 1990b; cadwallader 1992; lester 1992; montagnier 2003; mirka 2015; temperley 2017). therefore, the classification of a given six-four chord is very much context dependent. given berton’s belief in a fundamental bass system, and that the six-four chords are clearly part of rice’s “heartz” schema, i have opted to label the six-four chords here as subdominant harmonies. 31. it is important to note that, while the dominant appears with a seventh here, the subdominant has no added dissonances, in accordance with berton’s rejection of rameau’s essential sixth dissonance; it is also important to note that the subdominant here does not function as a predominant; berton prefers ii as a predominant harmony, saving iv for plagal alternations with the tonic. 32. in the b section’s plagal moment, the subdominant is temporally emphasized by an acceleration of the harmonic rhythm: while the movement from the new tonic to the new dominant takes place in two-bar hypermeasures, the new tonic alternates with the new subdominant at one-bar intervals, matched by bursts of patter-like singing in the vocal line. 33. i have used schenkerian analysis here as a kind of music-theoretical lingua franca, a relatively straight-forward means of conveying large-scale tonal forms to the modern reader. 34. note that i am considering the tonicized a minor as a projection of the f major chord (as per aldwell, cadwallader, and schachter (2011, 270)), and not a particularly important structural harmony in and of itself. 35. it was also not particularly uncommon for a b section in a simple ternary form to modulate to the subdominant, and to then end with a standing on the dominant (see, for 134 current musicology example mozart, 1781, violin sonata, no.33, k.377, iii). composers of this time frequently modulated to the subdominant in the trio section of a minuet and it was frequently employed as a secondary key area in marches. for other subdominant modulations see: mozart, 1791, piano sonata, no.16, k.545, i; mozart, 1779, acht menuette, k.315, i, iii, iv, v, vi, viii; wanhal, sonate militaire, ijv.23, allegro; jadin, 1795, string quartet, op.1, no.2, ii; pleyel, 1796, minuet in c, b.817; schubert, 1818, drei militärmärsche, op.51, d.733, i; beethoven, 1813, drei märsche, op.45, ii. 36. patrick taïeb (1992) notes that berton was, indeed, employing some particularly radical harmonic processes, modulating in ways that pushed the boundaries of diatonic tonality and even prefigured the romantic musical language of berton’s arch-nemesis, gioachino rossini (for more on berton’s animosity toward rossini, see walton 2007, 54–56. berton’s subdominant modulations, by comparison, are relatively conventional for the time. this is not to say that they are not worth studying, however: as susan mcclary (2000) has shown, musical conventions can be highly expressive in their own right, reflecting something of the identity and ideology of the composers who used them. 37. also, much like the subdominant modulation of “adieu donc,” the subdominant modulation of “courage, courage” is reinforced by the alternation of the new tonic with the new dominant seventh (in first inversion) and the new subdominant (in second inversion), berton setting up a symmetrical, tetrachordal tonal space in the new key. 38. there is the sense that these ascending-fourth modulations could continue around the circle of fifths ad infinitum; however, berton confines the entr’acte to the three key areas of his symmetrical harmonic space, undertaking a labyrinthine chromatic maneuver in order to return to the tonic after his subdominant modulation. in the traité d’harmonie, berton does, indeed, provide multiple examples of chord progressions which pass through the entire circle of fifths, including one progression which involves a string of dominant-seventh chords in a chain of descending fifths—remarkably similar to the tonal plan of the beginning of the entr’acte (berton 1815, 133; damschroder 2008, 68). 39. the “diatonic quiescenzas” berton uses here are not strictly diatonic, as berton uses a viio7 in order to harmonize scale-degree seven. 40. for an example of one such debate, see: taruskin 1979; forte 1985; taruskin 1986; forte 1986; haimo 1996a; latham 1997; haimo 1997; headlam 1997; agawu 2011. 41. brian hyer (1996, 93) has argued that studying historical music theories can, indeed, draw awareness to the anachronism of our modern-day analytical frameworks, “sorting what seems to be banal and familiar into strange patterns and odd configurations”. indeed, one of the goals of these analyses is to allow the subdominant chord in berton’s music to be heard through fresh ears, to allow this otherwise-innocuous chord to take on a greater significance to the contemporary listener. when berton’s music is analyzed through the lens of his theoretical writings, it becomes possible to hear, in these plagal forms, the rich intellectual context in which berton’s music was situated, the academic tensions which dogged the early years of the conservatoire rendered audible. patrick mccreless (2000), too, has talked about the importance of placing our own modern-day structural hearings into our historically-informed analyses of arcane music, noting that our own analytic techniques can ground our historical speculations in our own aural experience of the music. 42. for more on the querelle des bouffons, and especially rameau’s role in this debate see: charlton 2012; verba 2016; arnold 2017; higgins 2012; thomas 2006. for more on operatic debate in eighteenth-century france and also the later querelle des gluckistes et des piccinnistes, see: darlow 2013. 135 callum blackmore 43. this paper, of course, is not attempting to paint berton as some kind of music-theoretical rebel: berton published his pedagogical writings after catel’s traité was dropped as official textbook. this is merely to say that berton remained ideologically committed to rameau’s thought despite it being regulated out of the conservatoire’s early curriculum. some members of the conservatoire’s faculty did actively rebel against the institution’s strict management, namely jean-franςois le sueur, who published a scathing critique of the conservatoire’s vocal and composition instruction in 1801, a publication which would see him fired from his post (le sueur, 1801). references agawu, kofi. 2011. “taruskin’s problem(s).” music theory spectrum 33 (2): 186–190. aldwell, 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intersecting quests: advocacy for disabled scholars and advocacy for independent scholars. i was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2011, on the cusp of finishing my dissertation at cornell university and entering the job market. i successfully completed my phd, but the job market remains inaccessible to me. in light of the ableism that prevails in academia, i do not trust any institution to give me the accommodations that i would need in order to handle the stress of academic employment. my condition, however, is sufficiently under control to enable me to present at conferences, engage in service to the american musicological society, and publish my work on nineteenth-century german and french musical hermeneutics. one of my central goals is to fight against the barriers that make academia an inhospitable climate for disabled and independent scholars, two groups whose potential is often unrecognized. recognition, as judith butler (2005, 30) has observed, is often structured by questions that rely on rigid assumptions, norms, and expectations. at conference networking events, the question that shapes and troubles my own scenes of recognition is “where do you teach?” when this question is addressed to me, i am forced to introduce myself through negation: “i'm an independent scholar with a phd in musicology from cornell.” upon learning that i do not have an academic position, my would-be conversation partners sometimes hurriedly excuse themselves to “get a drink” (in other words, to network with someone who is perceived as having higher status). my contributions frequently earn me the respect of my peers when they hear my conference papers or read my publications. however, in the eyes of those who are not yet familiar with my work, my lack of an academic position fosters an initial impression of me as a failed scholar. on one occasion, at the beginning of a roundtable discussion, the chairperson publicly described me as being “in limbo” after i had introduced myself as an independent scholar. these microaggressions make me feel the need to justify and defend my lack of an affiliation. it has thus become standard practice for me to supplement my introductory statement by adding, “i have a disabling chronic illness, multiple sclerosis, that prevents me from holding down an academic job.” (in fact, i’ve also 158 taken to including this statement in my bio for conferences and publications.) i have found that this disclosure of my (mostly) invisible disabilities generally leads academics to treat me more respectfully, or at least compassionately, than would be the case if i allowed myself to pass as able-bodied. what is happening here? how could one marginalized identity--that of a disabled person--mitigate the stigma of another marginalized identity, that of an independent scholar? theorists of intersectionality often contend that the intersection of two stigmatized identities is a doubly marginalizing force. yet my experience of intersectionality is that academics are less likely to respond rudely to my lack of an affiliation when i inform them that i have multiple sclerosis. this increase in kindness helps me feel safer and more accepted. yet this kindness is perhaps not entirely something to be celebrated. it is likely inflected by ableist attitudes involving pity, along with a patronizing sense of admiration for the fact that a disabled person can even be a scholar at all. i have also noticed that many academics are more willing to “forgive” my lack of an academic affiliation when they discover that it is the result of a disabling condition and thus not “my fault.” it is as though my disabilities grant me absolution from the shame of academic unemployment. this way of thinking, all too prevalent in academic circles, is analogous to the disturbing way in which homophobes and transphobes are only willing to “tolerate” lgbt people if the orientation is viewed as something unchangeable and innate. integrating the independent scholar one of my activist goals is to fight for the fuller participation of independent scholars in academic activities. as a member of the ams council and the committee on the annual meeting, i continually advocate for policies to ensure more equitable treatment for disabled and independent scholars. moreover, i often contact editors and conference organizers to advocate for the inclusion of independent scholars in activities such as serving on editorial boards, writing book reviews, contributing to edited collections, giving keynotes, and chairing panels. the current selection process for many of these activities tends to operate on the basis of invitations and commissions rather than open calls for applicants. such invitation-only systems are liable to perpetuate bias (against scholars with disabilities, independent scholars, scholars of color, etc.) in terms of whose names are put forward as candidates for invitation. although many of my peers have expressed admiration for my work, i am not invited to contribute to edited 159 collections or to give departmental talks to an extent commensurate with my qualifications.1 a central aspect of my battle against this discrimination involves my quest for independent musicologists to be more profoundly integrated into the social and intellectual lives of their nearby music departments. to this end, i am working toward the formation of radically de-institutionalized departmental cultures, in which independent scholars would be invited to give guest lectures, attend faculty gatherings, and even serve as external members on dissertation committees. the modes of interaction that i am envisioning are indebted to the notion of queer kinship. queer theorists such as elizabeth freeman have observed that lgbt individuals often forge quasi-familial bonds of closeness that exist outside the heterosexual structures of kinship. similarly, i am calling for universities to build alliances with independent scholars in ways that transcend the neoliberal capitalist logic of employment and affiliation. firm handshakes and straight backs: ableist guidelines in academia if you look up terms such as “job interview” or “public speaking” on the internet, you will find yourself bombarded with rules about how to stand, move, and behave. stand up straight. don’t slouch. don’t fidget. maintain eye contact. shake the interviewer’s hand firmly and vigorously (in the pre-covid times when handshakes were a central ritual in social interactions, and the strength of the grip was used to judge a candidate’s suitability for the job). these guidelines are rife with ableist assumptions. they assume (and hence privilege) an able-bodied speaker whose body is able to perform the set of moves that are coded in mainstream society as signs of confidence and competence. bodies whose patterns of behavior fall outside this repertoire of norms are deemed unemployable. to be sure, many of these guidelines are found on corporate and businessoriented websites. one might hope that the academic world, with all its talk about diversity and inclusion, would take a less prescriptive approach to body language. regrettably, though, iterations of the same ableist norms frequently crop up in academia. in 2018, the american musicological society guidelines for presenters featured a link to an article by linda kerber (2008), “conference rules: how to present a scholarly paper.” kerber’s article teems with ableist advice that marginalizes the conference presenters who do not (or cannot) orchestrate their bodily movements in accordance with her rules. 160 for instance, she asserts that standing is vastly preferable to sitting when delivering a paper: “when you are reading a paper aloud from a sitting position, it is almost impossible to have eye contact with the audience unless you interrupt the flow of what you are saying. you cannot take as deep a breath, or project your voice as powerfully, as when you are standing.” her implication is that a person who uses a wheelchair, or has difficulty standing for the length of a conference paper, is a less effective communicator. kerber’s idealization of the upright posture has a long pedigree. centuries before all the hype around the so-called power pose, the first-century roman poet ovid asserted that the upright stance allows humans to experience divine intimations of transcendence: “in likeness of the gods that govern the world--and while the other creatures on all four look downwards, man was made to hold his head erect in majesty and see the sky, and raise his eyes to the bright stars above.” (1998, 3). ovid’s disparaging reference to animality suggests that the ableist injunction to stand up straight is rooted in an anxious desire to distinguish humans from animals. speech is another faculty that has often been idealized as the privileged domain of human beings. in the eighteenth century, jean-jacques rousseau proclaimed that “speech distinguishes man among the animals” (1966, 5). as such, speech, like posture, is subject to ableist forms of policing. kerber’s article emphasizes the importance of practicing a paper out loud until a fluent delivery has been achieved (“no tripping over pronunciations, no wrong intonation” as she puts it). by touting a flawless linguistic performance as the ultimate goal of conference preparation and presentation, kerber’s article discriminates against the scholars who might stutter or experience other hesitations in spite of repeated practice. i first became aware of kerber’s article in august 2018, while perusing the ams website in preparation for my presentation at the annual meeting. disturbed by this set of rules to which my disabled body could not consistently conform, i sent an email to the ams explaining that kerber’s ableist language did not align with the equitable principles that our society espouses. my activism proved successful: the ams president and board moved swiftly to remove the article from the website. ableist guidelines, however, continue to be promoted on many academic websites, including the convention interview guidelines set forth by the modern language association (2020). this document, which instructs candidates to make eye contact, thus implicitly urges interviewers to evaluate this aspect of the candidate’s behavior. assessment along these lines relies on an ableist metric that 161 does not take disabled bodies into account. many people on the autism spectrum find eye contact difficult and even painful. moreover, people with certain neurological conditions cannot always maintain a fixed gaze—and candidates who are visually impaired might not even be able to see the interviewer's eyes at all. psychological disabilities are another target of discrimination in this mla document, which instructs candidates to “be aware of nervousness.” the implication is that the candidate should aim to put on a performance of anxietyfree confidence. this imposes an unfair burden on all job candidates, especially in light of the precarious and anxiety-inducing state of today’s job market. but it is especially unfair, to the point of being discriminatory, for candidates with disabling forms of anxiety disorders. instead of depicting nervousness as something shameful that needs to be hidden, it would be better to encourage interviewers not to penalize candidates for showing signs of anxiety. in july 2020, i emailed the contact people listed for this document to explain my concerns about its ableist rhetoric. however, as of november 2020, i have not heard back from them, and the document remains unchanged. the mla’s refusal to address the issue of this problematic document is deplorable. the abolition of these ableist guidelines would constitute an important step toward the fuller inclusion of disabled people in faculty positions. in “the neglected demographic: faculty members with disabilities,” joseph grigely (2017) notes that only 1.5 percent of faculty members at uc berkeley are disabled, a figure which he rightly describes as “discouraging, given that 22 percent of the general population has disabilities.” contributing to the extreme underrepresentation of disabled faculty members is the fact that, as grigely observes, “[f]ew colleges have an accommodations officer who is trained to serve faculty members.” if we lived in a world in which accommodation needs were honored, and candidates would not be judged on the basis of non-normative body language, then i would likely be empowered to pursue academic employment. until such a world comes into being, i will continue to add my voice to the coalition of activists who strive toward the formation of that world. notes 1 there are, however, some welcome exceptions to this pattern of exclusion. see my cv at https://hcommons.org/members/tekla/ for a list of the edited collections and themed journal issues in which i actually have been invited to participate. 162 references butler, judith. 2005. giving an account of oneself. new york: fordham university press. grigely, joseph. 2017. “the neglected demographic: faculty members with disabilities,” in the chronicle of higher education, 27 june 2017. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-neglected-demographic-faculty-memberswith-disabilities/, accessed december 23, 2020. kerber, linda. 2008. “conference rules: how to present a scholarly paper,” in the chronicle of higher education. 21 march 2008. https://www.chronicle.com/article/conferencerules-how-to-present-a-scholarly-paper/, accessed december 23, 2020. modern languages association. 2020. “recommended guidelines for interviews for academic positions.” https://www.mla.org/resources/career/career-resources/dosand-don-ts-for-mla-convention-interviews, accessed december 23, 2020. ovid. 1998. metamorphoses, book 1. translated by a.d. melville. oxford: oxford university press. rousseau, jean-jacques. 1966 [1781]. essay on the origin of languages. translated by john h. moran and alexander gode. chicago and london: university of chicago press. microsoft word fitz gibbon typeset current musicology 107 (fall 2020) ©2020 fitz gibbon. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 29 elaine fitz gibbon »beethoven und goethe blieben die embleme des kunstliebenden deutschlands, für jede politische richtung unantastbar und ebenso als chiffren manipulierbar« (klüppelholz 2001, 25-26). “beethoven and goethe remained the emblems of art-loving germany: untouchable for every political persuasion, and likewise, as ciphers, just as easily manipulated.”1 the year 2020 brought with it much more than collective attempts to process what we thought were the uniquely tumultuous 2010s. in addition to causing the deaths of over two million people worldwide, the covid-19 pandemic has further exposed the extraordinary inequities of u.s.-american society, forcing a longoverdue reckoning with the entrenched racism that suffuses every aspect of american life. within the realm of classical music, institutions have begun conversations about the ways in which bipoc, and in particular black americans, have been systematically excluded as performers, audience members, administrators and composers: a stark contrast with the manner in which 2020 was anticipated by those same institutions before the pandemic began. prior to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, they looked to 2020 with eager anticipation, provoking a flurry of activity around a singular individual: ludwig van beethoven. for on december 16th of that year, beethoven turned 250. the banners went up early. in 2019 on instagram, beethoven accounts like @bthvn_2020, the “official account of the beethoven anniversary year,” sprang up. the twitter hashtags #beethoven2020 and #beethoven250 were (more or less) trending. prior to the spread of the virus, passengers flying in and out of chicago’s o’hare airport found themselves confronted with a huge banner that featured an iconic image of beethoven’s brooding face, an advertisement for the chicago symphony orchestra’s upcoming complete cycle 30 of beethoven symphonies. in early january 2020, after discovering this fact, members of the group citizens for beethoven [bürger für beethoven] in bonn, germany began advocating for a similarly prominent banner announcing the celebratory year at the konrad adenauer cologne/bonn airport, arguing in a petition to the airport that “it certainly seems strange that beethoven is more visible in chicago’s airport—where he never was—than it is in that of his birth city. we hope that this will soon be rectified.”2 furthermore, the significance of beethoven’s birthday was of course reflected in the programming of classical music institutions around the world, where beethoven cycles were being marketed with greater prominence than usual, despite this repertoire’s dominance on the concert stage during the ostensibly “non-beethoven” years. in reaction to this onslaught of beethoven celebrations, there were provocative counter-calls for anti-memorializations. in december 2019 musicologist andrea moore, in an article for the chicago tribune, provocatively proposed the institution of a year-long beethoven silence, arguing for a “cooperative, worldwide, yearlong moratorium on live performances of [beethoven’s] music” (2019). and when the dubious theory of beethoven’s “moorish” roots regained support on twitter, germanist and musicologist kira thurman (2020) asked the twitterverse to consider why fixation upon the racial identity of such a canonical figure remains so strong, while efforts to expand the canon to include black musicians and composers working throughout europe (such as george polgreen bridgetower, the virtuoso violinist and composer to whom beethoven initially dedicated his kreuzer sonata) are ignored.3 what these radical poles of overand under-saturation make clear is that beethoven is not a neutral topic. in many ways, he never was. beethoven has long possessed a kind of symbolic function for the world of classical music. as lydia goehr (1992) famously demonstrated, beethoven’s death coincided with the advent of the work concept, and since then, the composer has been endowed with the extraordinarily ambivalent honor of representing the entire canon of western classical music. but beethoven has occupied this position for over two centuries, and we in 2020 are not the first to be confronted with the frustrations attendant upon oversaturation and fetishization. considering how radically our lives have changed in recent months, comparisons with previous celebratory years might currently seem like a laughable proposition. and yet an examination of past beethoven anniversaries—specifically, the 1970 bicentenary and mauricio kagel’s film ludwig van, a sardonic meditation on such memorializations—will, 31 i argue, shed light on our own strange predicament. the controversy surrounding kagel’s film and the 1970 bicentenary serves as a reminder that, as creatures of habit, we readily cling to that which is familiar in the face of global travesties, often to the detriment of already marginalized groups and individuals. uses, misuses and memorials in 1970, beethoven celebrated his 200th birthday. and just as 2019 featured many an anticipatory, beethoven-freighted program, 1969 also saw amped-up beethoven marketing campaigns. in postwar europe, various german-speaking countries, including austria, switzerland and west germany, competed to produce the best and most bombastic beethoven celebrations. additionally, east germany proclaimed itself to be the singular german nation to have inherited the true spirit of beethoven. already in 1952, at the 125th anniversary of the composer’s death, the presidium of the gdr’s national assembly had gone so far as to declare the west german relationship with beethoven to be one of cultural perfidy: the american cultural barbarians and their lackeys defile beethoven’s memory in their misusage of bonn, his birthplace, for the most pernicious debasement of the nation. these cosmopolitan attempts to subvert the great german cultural values are undertaken in bonn in order to destroy the national consciousness of the german people.4 (stahl 2009, 55) it would seem that universal brotherhood of beethoven’s celebrated “ode to joy” can be cast away in the face of the potential “misuse” of beethoven, all resonances of the illogic of cultural patrimony and superiority aside.5 the uncanny resemblance of this “blood and soil” language to the rhetoric of the nazi era was not a singular occurrence that year. nor was the indignant east german statement regarding the west and beethoven an anomaly. indeed, the 1952 beethoven anniversary provoked, if anything, even more vitriolic mudslinging between east and west than the arguably more momentous 1970 bicentennial. this, however, was likely due to the timing of the 1952 memorial: it occurred only three years after the 1949 split of germany into the two nations. the 1952 anniversary year, being one of the first major celebrations of a canonical figure of germany’s artistic culture to be celebrated by two different german states, served as an opportunity for both countries to assert the benefits of their respective ideological orientations and methods of government on an international stage. 32 panic over the misuse of beethoven, be it his music or image, also surfaced during the lead-up to the 1970 bicentennial. so pervasive were the anxieties that in 1969 the composer and experimental filmmaker mauricio raúl kagel (commissioned by the west german state) dramatized the absurdity inherent in such accusations in his film, ludwig van: a report, for which he acted as author, musical arranger, actor and director.6 click to play video [please note: playback may not work in some pdf readers] figure 1: the opening scene of ludwig van (kagel 2006, 0:00–0:54). the film opens with a brief shot of a man shaving and mumbling pejorative nonsense words about the beethoven bicentenary:7 diese beethovenjahrerei, diese beethoven, bumm, bumm, bumm, jahrerei, dieses bumm bumm, diese beethovenbummelei, bumms, bummerei, diese bummserei, diese beethovenbummelei, bummserei, diese beethovenbummselei. alle zweithausend jahre wieder. diese bummserei, diese beethovenbummelei. rasulei, beethovenrasulei, schnumm, schnumm, bumm, bumm, bumm, bumm. this beethoven-year-foolery, this beethoven-boom-boom-boom-year-nonsense, this boom-boom, this beethoven-dawdling, booms, boom-nonsense, this thumping around, this beethoven-laziness, thumping nonsense, this beethoven-thumping, every two-thousand years8 over and over again. this booming around, this beethovendawdling. shaving-frenzy,9 beethoven-shaving-frenzy, schnoomm, schnoomm, boom boom boom boom.10 (kagel 2006, 0:00–0:54) the suffix “-erei” in german often denotes a negative situation or activity, such as: die barberei (barbarism), die heuchelei (hypocrisy), or die schweinerei (mess, but more often: swinishness). however, it can also be used as an intensifier, transforming words to denote an activity taken to extremes. in this 33 case, the man shaving uses the verbs “bumsen,” a vernacular term for the verb “to thump” (including connotations of sex), which is here used in reference to the fifth symphony, with its five opening “booms.”11 additionally, the man uses the verb “bummeln,” a similarly colloquial term for moseying, dilly-dallying, or generally moving slowly and aimlessly. in other words, this unidentified individual with soap and razor has strong feelings—very strong indeed—about the upcoming celebrations. but then there’s a revelation: this grumbler is in fact beethoven himself, who, costumed in eighteenth-century dress, is then seen riding on a train into bonn’s main station. quite an opening— the film’s subsequent ninety-minute-long reflection on beethoven’s cultural legacy was not the bromide the west german officials had doubtless hoped for. ludwig van can be parsed into two main sections, each approximately forty-minutes long, divided by an eleven-minute interlude that occurs at the precise center of the film. the first half of ludwig van is shot almost entirely from the perspective of “beethoven” as the composer wanders throughout bonn, a city significantly transformed in the 200 years since his birth. in contrast, the second half of the film is devoted to various academic, scientific, physiological, and zoological studies of the composer and his reception. in part one, we see beethoven return to bonn, where onlookers steal baffled glances at the weirdly dressed outsider, who seems progressively more alienated as he strolls past stores filled to the brim with recordings of his music and iconic representations of his person. eventually beethoven even takes a tour of his own birth house, now a historical monument, led by a museum guide who bears an uncomfortable resemblance to hitler. the older docent wears the same mustache and also has the same haircut as hitler, which becomes evident when he briefly takes off his cap. the headgear prominently bears the title, “fremdenführer” (figure 2), rather than the term “museumsführer” (“museum guide”) and this is no accident. 34 figure 2: the “fremdenführer.” the word “fremdenführer*in” is commonly used in german to refer to a tour guide, for they are “leading” those who are new or unfamiliar (fremd) to the museum or location. but kagel uses the actor’s strong resemblance to hitler here as a double entendre. the term “fremdenführer” is also a play on hitler’s biography—for he was a native austrian, not german—as well as on his status as a “führer” of a collection of non-german states that the third reich conquered and annexed. such an interpretation implies a rejection of responsibility for the holocaust, using the non-german origins of the third reich’s leader to intimate that a german-born individual could not have committed the same atrocities. this line of thinking is in keeping with that of early west german attempts to grapple with the recent german past, which tended to focus upon high-ranking members of the nazi government tried at the nuremburg trials, describing these individuals as pathologically evil rather than, as adorno and horkheimer famously argue in their dialectic of enlightenment (1947), products of a rational organization of society founded upon the instrumentalizing logic of enlightenment values. as the west german president konrad adenauer put it in 1951: “the german people, in its overwhelming majority, abhorred the crimes perpetrated against the jews and did not participate in these crimes” (lewy 2017, 2). indeed, the new west german constitution (the basic law, or grundgesetz) was written in 1949 from the 35 perspective that the new country must protect itself legally from the ability of political groups to seize power, thus identifying the “causes” of the holocaust as rooted in the political might of a small group of radicalized individuals (olick and levy 1997, 926). in this way, in the years following the conclusion of the second world war, as lewy argues, “germany tried to escape its own history. it saw itself as a nation of victims, helpless in the face of totalitarian terror and therefore incapable of opposing nazi policies” (lewy 2017, 2).12 the clever wordplay of kagel’s fremdenführer, with its almost laughably absurd attempt to deny culpability through the logic of hitler’s national origin, thus references the desperate desire of postwar german society to mitigate any direct confrontation of responsibility for the atrocities committed over the course of the nazi era.13 in placing hitler in the position of a low-level functionary, kagel also points to the widely known, but little discussed presence of many former nazis in the west german government itself (olick and levy 1997, 925-926). when an aging hitler leads beethoven around a west german museum dedicated to his life and birth, it becomes clear that the ideological appropriation of beethoven and his music by the nazis was not just a strand in the lineage of contemporary bourgeois institutionalization and fetishization of beethoven, but that these acts of curatorship are still presided over in 1969 by actual, aging nazis.14 in the first half of ludwig van, all of these increasingly surreal experiences are filmed with the shaky hand of the composer himself. and we are further inserted into beethoven’s consciousness through the soundscape of the film, which replicates a kind of deafness by exploring in certain passages what beethoven’s interior aural experience might have been. instead of experiencing the diegetic noises of the street or tour guide, we hear a near-constant stream of beethoven’s music, but played imperfectly and out of tune, and often arranged for unusual combinations of instruments. the music is uncannily familiar, yet palpably different, much like the experience beethoven seems to be having in twentieth-century bonn. “with a slight accent”: der internationale frühschoppen kagel is best known for his absurdist aesthetic; his collaborations with fluxus artists like joseph beuys, dieter roth and robert filliou (as is the case of ludwig van); and for the development of a kind of avant-garde musical theater he 36 referred to as “instrumental theater.” born in argentina to russianand german-jewish parents in 1931 and living in cologne since 1957, kagel can be seen as a member of what brigid cohen has referred to as “the avant-garde diaspora.” one can recognize migration “as formative rather than incidental to [kagel’s] community bonds, ethical aspirations, and creative projects” (as cohen has argued in regard to modernism writ large [2012, 143]). after emigrating to cologne in 1957 on a fellowship from the german academic exchange service (daad), kagel made the city his home, returning to argentina only two times for professional reasons before his death in 2008 (heile 2006, 12).15 kagel was deeply enmeshed in west germany’s vibrant new music scene, and after only a couple years he spoke fluent german and taught, wrote, and published in the language as well. despite this, kagel was endlessly forced to inhabit the status of a cultural outsider, made explicit in the central scene of ludwig van when kagel performs as himself, or rather, a version of himself, in a parody of a famous west german talk show. in this scene, a group of six men sit around a table, seen below in figure 3, with kagel second from the left. they are equipped with cigarettes and wine glasses, as well as name tags that specify nation of origin. figure 3: two stills from the internationaler frühschoppen discussion. the camera pans around the room, and we see a staged episode of the wdr’s (west german broadcasting company) der internationale frühschoppen (the international morning drinks show), west germany’s first televised political talk show, which ran from 1952 until 1987 under the direction of werner höfer (1913–1997). boasting a colorful crowd of “exotic,” “international” perspectives broadcast live at 11:30am sunday mornings, höfer’s show was known for taking its titular job seriously.16 white wine was served to guests—almost exclusively male—to fuel the mingling of international perspectives, a mingling that on 37 more than a few occasions swiftly turned into raucous shouting and the utterance of prejudiced or paternalist opinions.17 moderated by the gregarious and charismatic höfer (himself a known former nazi), the international morning drinks show received its international character from the series of guests invited each week.18 indeed, this fact is boasted of in the show’s famous introductory announcement, which was always intoned in the same manner by egon hoegen, who is also featured in this role at the conclusion of ludwig van’s frühschoppen scene. hoegen would welcome audiences to the news program with the following greeting: “good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. here again is the international morning drinks show, with six journalists from five countries.”19 click to play video figure 4: hoegen’s introduction for the internationaler frühschoppen.20 to german audiences in the late 1960s or 70s, this show would have been immediately recognizable: in 1970 der internationale frühschoppen had a viewership of about ten million, or one quarter of the then-adult population of west germany.21 but regardless of an audience member’s viewing habits, the show would also have been easily recognized due to the fact that kagel was able to engage höfer himself, as well as all of the guests seated at the table around him, to play themselves in kagel’s parody.22 this singularly male roster included the film and music producer victor staub (who also acted as producer for the film itself); the music critic otto tomek (who at the time was employed by the wdr); the well-known musicologist heinz-klaus metzger; the film-maker and future director of the wdr music-television department josé montes-baquer; and kagel himself.23 one might remark, however, that the “international” quality 38 of the show is highly questionable. the five countries labeled on each nameplate are: switzerland, austria, germany, spain, and argentina. but by the time of filming, kagel had been living in cologne for twelve years, while the representative from spain, the film director montes-baquer, had emigrated to west germany in 1959. only just barely qualifying as international, each guest is scripted to perform an exaggerated foreignness by speaking in highly stereotyped accents, while discussing the universality of beethoven and debating whether the composer is “misused in the world.” this staged conversation parodying the internationaler frühschoppen is prefaced by a three-minute “behind-the-scenes” preview, in which the six participants debate what they might do in the upcoming minutes of filming. at the opening of the sketch, we witness höfer’s condescending and outright insulting treatment of kagel and his film, and even attempts by the other panelists to stick up for him in response, as we are brought into the pre-show discussion in media(s) res. the film cuts immediately to the morning drinks scene from a 45-second-long interlude that features an older gentleman in a suit who looks directly in the camera as he strokes his face, neck, and ears with increasing intensity, accompanied by a brass and percussion ensemble that, present in the preceding scene, continues their performance of a transcription of beethoven’s piano sonata no. 12 in a-flat major, op. 26. this dynamic cut is all the more startling because of the presence of spoken language in the pre-show discussion, the first instance of speech in the film since an early part of beethoven’s tour of the beethoven house, a full twenty-two minutes earlier. the sudden presence of speaking individuals on screen, with audioand image-tracks aligned, thus makes for an emphatic transition that is further disorienting due to the immediately perceptible fact that we have been patched in mid-conversation. suddenly privy to a discussion that appears to be preparatory and thus not meant for public consumption, the viewer is prompted to trust the documentary work of the camera capturing these seemingly organic moments of conversation. the scene opens with höfer’s suggestion that they simply leave things be as they are: “we’re leaving all that, and the evening after the broadcast we’ll have a real discussion. we!” to which kagel inquires, “and what about my film?” (kagel 2006, 45:38–45:51).24 höfer’s opening declarative statement and kagel’s response suggest that höfer, true to character, is taking advantage of his authoritative position as director of the talk show, using this position of power to disregard kagel’s intentions for his project, the film for which höfer was engaged. later in the exchange, höfer refers to kagel in the third person, preferring to direct his protests against kagel’s artistic desires towards the other 39 members of the panel rather than address kagel himself. höfer complains of kagel, “under no circumstances is he… i can see it, he’s an amateur, but he’s chock-full of ideas… but you can’t reduce him to three sentences” (2006, 45:59– 46:11).25 this brash attitude is in keeping with höfer’s public personality, for he was known for speaking his mind without regard to civility, and for his aggressive dominance of the conversation. in fact, the show was even popularly referred to as the “werner-höfer show” (reufsteck and niggemeier 2005, 593). confirming the viewer’s expectations of höfer’s behavior, these opening minutes invite the viewer to understand this interaction as having truly taken place, increasing the level of trust in the documentary role of the camera. in what follows, however, this trust is eroded, leading to a nagging suspicion that these real-life individuals are in fact playing themselves in a dramatized version of reality. during this pre-show discussion, the six men eventually agree to film their roundtable conversation after the manner of the international morning drinks show, taking its concept “ad absurdum,” as kagel suggests to the group. however, kagel’s suggestion to stage the show as such is expressed already after we have seen the men sitting in the typical setting for the show itself, and kagel even utters the idea as a woman moves around the table to pour white wine in each participant’s glass. the entirety of this seemingly spontaneous, preparatory scene is thereby exposed as artificial and pre-scripted, putting the viewer on their guard for the exaggerated performances to come. and indeed, this suspicion is confirmed in the staged morning drinks show scene, as we view precisely what was agreed upon by the six men in the brief preview-scene: a beethovensaturated, at times emotionally excited discussion. throughout the panel, höfer asks each guest for their “international” perspective on his opening series of questions: so, does beethoven really belong to the world? if so, then might a german beethovenfan actually ask the world: what has the world beethoven to thank for? what does it owe him? or: what bad things has the world done to beethoven? (kagel 2006, 47:41– 47:57)26 40 click to play video figure 5: höfer’s opening questions (kagel 2006, 47:41–47:57). turning first to heinz-klaus metzger, höfer asks, “mr. metzger, is there such a thing as beethoven abuse [einen mißbrauchten beethoven]?”27 to this, metzger responds in caricatured fashion with an excessively adornian and academic response, reading from a paper that he has prepared in advance. as he reads, the others look around the room at each other, clearly baffled by the content of metzger’s monologue and also slightly bemused by his intense focus and obtuse refusal to be stirred from his own serene obliviousness. soon, höfer requests kagel’s international perspective. in this exchange, kagel is spoken to by höfer with even greater exaggerated condescension than the others, as höfer asks exoticizing and purportedly ethnographic questions about musical culture in argentina: höfer: mauricio kagel: if we weren’t sitting now in cologne or bonn or somewhere in beethoven territory, but in buenos aires… that’s your capital?28 kagel: yes. höfer: …and went out into the streets. of ten people, would more of them know beethoven, or more of them kagel? (kagel 2006, 51:40–51:59)29 41 click to play video figure 6: höfer questions kagel (kagel 2006, 51:40–51:59). demonstrating the difficulty of responding politely to such facetious questions, kagel affirms that of course it is beethoven’s name that residents of buenos aires would know, not kagel’s. here, this biographically revised kagel also performs with an exaggerated accent and makes a number of grammatical mistakes that are corrected by an interrupting voiceover.30 the voice speaks in a castigating tone, yet is strangely familiar: in fact, it represents the inner-voice of kagel himself, staging for the viewer the self-lacerating inner-monologue of a nonnative german speaker, thus further accentuating this performance of kagel’s foreignness. no other guests are subject to this corrective voiceover despite the exaggeration of each individual’s accent. after affirming that he is less famous than beethoven in buenos aires, kagel goes on to discuss the political nature of musical performance in the context of postwar migration, and it is here that the self-correcting voiceover appears. naja, selbstverständlich beethoven. nicht wahr, beethoven hat immer ein schild getragen an der linke westentasche [self-correcting voice over (svo): an der linken] und da stand drauf: made in germany. und das ist ein ganz wichtigen punkt [svo: wichtiger punkt]. ich habe es eigentlich als südamerikaner sehr gut beobachten können, daß die liebe zu deutschland oder die unglückliche mißliebe zu deutschland sich immer in der liebe zu deutscher musik umgeschlagen hat [svo: niedergeschlagen hat]. das bedeutet, wie oft deutsche musik während des krieges gespielt worden ist, hängte damit [svo: zusammen] mit der politischen situation. und es ist nicht zu vergessen, daß fritz busch, erich kleiber, die deutschen emigranten, in argentinien sehr tätig waren. und man machte deutsche musik eben als politische demonstration. 42 look, obviously beethoven. you know, beethoven always had a sign fastened to his left vest pocket… [svo: adjective declension]31 …and it said: made in germany. and that’s a really important point [svo: adjective declension]. as a south american i was actually well able to observe that love of germany or an unfortunate dislike of germany always turned into love of german music [svo: correcting separable-prefix verb]. that means that how often german music was played during the war depended [svo: missing separable prefix] on the political situation. and one mustn’t forget that fritz busch and erich kleiber, german émigrés, were very active in argentina. and one did german music as a sort of political demonstration (2006, 51:59–53:00). click to play video figure 7: kagel and the self-correcting voiceover (kagel 2006, 51:59–53:00). identifying himself as south american, kagel points to his outsider status as a productive position from which to view the reception of beethoven as historically contingent and politically inflected. but in this talk show so dedicated to international perspectives, any more complicated identity shaped by the complexities of migration or diaspora is erased by the national identifier placed on each nameplate. the performed exaggerations of cultural difference demonstrate the sharpened tensions produced by the premise of the international morning drinks show, which simultaneously invites interest in the perspective of the international guest and fetishizes the difference that they represent. in turn, these performances of national identity reify the difference that the show, with its titular gesture towards pluralism, purported to mediate.32 within this nationally bounded context, kagel inhabits a version of himself that he had already relinquished, performing an exoticized figure that had been (and continued to be) constructed of him in the western european and u.s.american press (spiel 1970; henken 1988; “kagel trompe la mort” 1991).33 often 43 identified in press coverage as an “argentinian composer living in cologne,” in the film, kagel satirizes that essentialization by delivering precisely the image that many native-born germans desired to see of him: an argentinian, conversant in german, providing for the listening german public a digestible soundbite on his home country. here, kagel plays to liberal fantasies of immigrants observing their newly adopted societies and making critical interjections that ultimately, through the plurality of voices and perspectives, leads to the betterment of those societies. demonstrating the painful experience of making linguistic errors in a foreign tongue, kagel performs an outsider perspective that, while superficially appreciated, is, as höfer demonstrates, easily discarded as unknowing, particularly when that perspective happens to be expressed with a few grammatical errors. in this scene, the idealized cycle of feedback and societal transformation through a society invested in pluralism is demonstrated to possess a broken circuit— linguistic difference proving too high a hurdle for the locals in “beethoven territory” to jump in the name of peaceful, postwar democratic pluralism. through this performance, kagel unmasks the superficial nature of such liberal ideology, demonstrating the underlying fetishization of foreignness upon which the international morning drinks show is based. skull shape and skin tone: beethoven’s last living relative the central frühschoppen sketch serves as a pivotal moment in ludwig van, as the film shifts its focus from documenting beethoven’s twentieth-century return to bonn to a more distanced and fragmented series of scenes that showcase and parody specific examples of beethoven reception history. the frühschoppen conversation delivers a potent discussion on how origins can be used to delineate lines of ownership and belonging, stemming from a fanatic obsession with genealogy. and these ideas continue to resonate in the short sketch that begins immediately following the conclusion of the internationaler frühschoppen discussion, whose ending is signaled by the calm outro (“that, dear ladies and gentlemen, was our ‘frühschoppen’ [‘morning drinks show’] with guests from five countries”) provided by egon hoegen (which audiences would have recognized from the real show, again in large part because hoegen was engaged to play this part as well).34 in the three-minute scene that follows upon the frühschoppen’s heels (kagel 2006, 55:50–59:06), kagel brings together two seemingly unrelated news reports from early 1969—one relating to the bourgeoning the idea that beethoven was black, and the other documenting a 44 potential living relative of beethoven’s—entwining their ideas and events to create a fictionalized scene that ultimately demonstrates their shared ideological commitment to genealogical fetishization and ultimately, xenophobia. after the conclusion of the staged international morning drinks show, the film suddenly cuts to an empty field, where a man stands before a horse and plow and speaks in an animated fashion to three men who, equipped with cameras and microphones, appear to be newspeople (figure 8). in the background, the large cylindrical constructions of an oil refinery loom over the comparatively small human figures and affirm that the scene is set in north rhine-westphalia’s industrial ruhr valley, the home of bonn. click to play video figure 8: mr. poll, beethoven’s “last living descendent” (kagel 2006, 55:50–57:05). as we approach the man—named mr. poll (possessing the maiden name of beethoven’s grandmother)—the topic of his monologue becomes clear, for he proclaims, “i am the last and only living descendant of ludwig van beethoven, and on his mother’s side.” holding court before the camera crew, mr. poll delivers a rambling history of the beethoven family, during which he asserts their “ancient flemish lineage” and ascribes to beethoven’s grandfather an “iron resolve and great energy,” thanks to which “he finally achieved the exceptional position of kapellmeister” of the bonn hofkapelle (2006, 55:50–56:37).35 soon, however, this recounting of purportedly familial anecdotes transforms into a defensive assertion of his legitimate status as a beethoven ancestor: i greatly admire ludwig van beethoven, i like listening to his records and we have got many documents and papers from his ancestors that prove that i really am the last descendant; all those others who claim to be his descendants are wrong. and i always 45 carry a bust of ludwig van beethoven with me. you can see the similarity, when i put our heads close together. but proof of a much deeper similarity is given by the rather dark color of this bust. this dark shading comes from the fact that there was also rather dark blood flowing in beethoven, via some mulattoes from the west indies (2006, 57:05–58:00).36 click to play video figure 9: phrenology rears its ugly head (kagel 2006, 57:05–59:06). swerving swiftly from a professed aesthetic enjoyment of beethoven’s music to an argument for ancestral relation based on phrenology, kagel illuminates with a single gesture the ideological underpinnings of poll’s idée fixe, the necessary truth of his familial relation to beethoven. at this point the camera suddenly begins to sway back and forth, and mr. poll recedes slowly in the distance: the person filming has joined the three newsmen as they retreat in what appears to be disgust. this retreat is not, however, particularly successful, for mr. poll’s voice continues to be heard, even after the film has cut to a new scene, as his anxious claims for legitimacy interrupt the public television moderator who is featured next. just over a half-century ago, interest in the theory that beethoven was black blossomed in the united states. as michael broyles documented in his study of the complicated reception of beethoven in the united states, the black british composer samuel coleridge-taylor is thought to have been the first to publicly voice the idea in an interview published in 1907 (broyles 2011, 269).37 according to his biographer berwick sayers, coleridge-taylor based the theory on beethoven’s friendship with george bridgetower and on representations of beethoven’s person, in which coleridge-taylor saw traits he recognized to be 46 phenotypically black.38 in the 1960s, with the progress of the civil rights movement and the fight against nearly a century of jim crow laws, the theory gained popularity. in may of 1963, in an interview for playboy magazine, malcolm x grouped beethoven with the likes of jesus christ and columbus, as he discussed what he referred to as a “history-whitening process” and powerfully demonstrated the ways in which black history and culture and the contributions of black individuals have been written out of western history (broyles 2011, 267268).39 after the publication of this interview, the phrase “beethoven was black” spread rapidly throughout the united states and could be found on posters and heard on the radio.40 eventually, west germany caught word, and on 17 february 1969, brigitte zander-spahn, a foreign correspondent for the süddeutsche zeitung working in san francisco, published a dismissive and racist summary of the phenomenon under the title, “was beethoven a mestee? ‘black america’ harnesses the great composer for their own purposes” (zanderspahn 1969).41 in the beethoven frenzy of 1969, as bonn was waiting in anticipation of the beethoven house’s completed renovations in time for the composer’s bicentennial, the inhabitants of this new seat of the west german government were invested in a different origin theory. just ten days prior to the süddeutsche’s report from america, marion schreiber of die zeit published an article on a newly discovered, potential living relative of beethoven’s, peter köwerich: “bonn, the capital of the federal republic and beethoven city, in addition to having a beethoven high school, a beethoven hall, a beethoven house and a beethoven pharmacy, can now also boast of having a beethoven relative” (schreiber 1969).42 as schreiber goes on to describe in her report, some researchers had long thought köwerich to be a potential relative of beethoven through his great-grandfather, who was related to the brother of beethoven’s mother, thus leading the director of bonn’s city archive to present mr. köwerich on the television news program bonner rundschau as the “only living relative of the great master in germany” (schreiber 1969).43 as proof, this local news show provided the “persuasive” evidence that köwerich, a vintner, displayed a portrait and a bust of beethoven in his wine bar. while working on his film, kagel saved contemporary news reports about beethoven and his upcoming bicentennial.44 braiding the content of two of them together to form the material that makes up the “beethoven-heir” scene, kagel subtly thematizes these articles’ shared fixation upon claims of ownership based in genealogy, despite the geographical and presumed cultural distance between the united states and west germany in 1969. in staging the desperate 47 pleas for attention by a demonstrably mad man (who uses any “evidence” he can grasp to gain notoriety), kagel utters a powerful critique of prevailing obsessions with beethoven’s origin, demonstrating the fundamentally xenophobic roots of these preoccupations. in ludwig van, the cultural figure of beethoven, two hundred years after his birth, has gained enough power to even drive a man mad. this madness derives from a fixation upon lineage, not the aesthetic power of beethoven’s musical works, with the material remnants of popular celebrity, like the busts or mass-produced portraits that mr. poll carries with him as “proof,” used to assert genealogical relation. the fetishized othering of beethoven—his purported “dark blood,” to use poll’s language—is yet another trait that mr. poll proudly instrumentalizes to attest to his own beethovenian blood, while contemporary newspaper articles like zander-spahn’s embraced racist and paternalist language to refer to african americans, indignant at the suggestion that beethoven might have had non-white, non-european ancestors, and resorting to a racially-based “logic” made far too familiar by the nazis. in fact, mr. poll’s monologue bears great similarity to the opening paragraphs of a popular nazi-era beethoven biography by the german art historian-turned-musicologist walter riezler (1878–1965). the biography, monolithically titled beethoven, went through a number of publications, even seeing six new editions over an eight-year period, a period that also coincided with nearly the entire duration of the second world war. this massively popular biography was first published in 1936 by the swiss publishing house atlantis and by 1944 was in its sixth edition. this printing even featured a brief preface by wilhelm furtwängler, in which the internationally recognized conductor—who represented the pride of german symphonic might during the nazi era—extolls the biography’s merits by speaking of the pride that beethoven brings to the german people (riezler 1944).45 indeed, riezler’s beethoven was apparently so popular that a new, “partially revised and significantly expanded” edition was published in 1951 (most likely in anticipation of the 1952 beethoven anniversary). in the following years, further new editions were released, including two more during the decade of the 1960s.46 in the opening paragraphs of beethoven, riezler narrates in only slightly more elaborated detail mr. poll’s story, quoted above. additionally, after recounting the history of beethoven’s family up until ludwig van beethoven’s birth, riezler includes a short parenthetical: “(according to his blood, he [beethoven] is one sixteenth walloon—one of his great-great grandmothers had a maiden name of gouffau—three sixteenths germanic fleming, and twelve 48 sixteenths german)” (1944, 19).47 it must be noted, however, that riezler’s text cannot be classified as a stereotypical nazi biography (like those by ludwig schiedermair and werner korte), as lewis lockwood recently outlined in his study of the history of beethoven biographical writings (lockwood 2020).48 in 1933, not long after the nazis took power, riezler himself was forced into retirement from his position as director of the städtisches museum stettin (today the national museum in szczecin, poland) due to “non-conformity with the ethnic (völkisch) understanding of art” [“nichtübereinstimmung mit der völkischen kunstauffassung”], and unsuccessfully attempted to emigrate from the country (wendland 1999, 551). it was during this period—the duration of the third reich—that riezler turned to the study of music history and published beethoven, whose first edition was printed by atlantis in both berlin and zurich. with its focus upon beethoven’s family history, beethoven might in fact be seen as an attempt to push back against nazi ideological control, while capitulating to the censors through the inclusion of a parenthetical note in accordance with early twentieth-century illogic of ethnic nationalism. regardless, however, of riezler’s intentions, the biography remained indubitably marked by the historical conditions of its writing and its fetishism of beethoven’s genealogy cannot, as kagel demonstrates through mr. poll’s monologue, be dismissed as harmless. leaning upon a biography that, a product of the year 1936, reports the percentages of nationally defined blood coursing through beethoven’s veins in order to claim his familial heritage—even if it be through beethoven’s alcoholic grandmother johanna maria poll, as mr. poll notes in his genealogical sketch of the composer—it comes as no surprise that mr. poll’s monologue eventually ends in comparisons of skull shape.49 the defensive use of beethoven’s national origins to delineate an exclusive “beethoven territory” was demonstrated and critiqued in the frühschoppen conversation. and in the scene that follows upon its heels—as mr. poll unites orientalist, phrenologist, and fetishizing tendencies (themselves borrowed from the nazis) to prove his genealogical claim of ownership to this fecund symbol of german culture—echoes of höfer’s question, “is beethoven misused in the world?” can still be clearly heard. responding to the explicit racism of west german journalistic reaction to calls to recognize beethoven as black in the united sates, kagel demonstrates the tensions that arise when claims for cultural or national ownership of an historical figure are made based on arguments of race. this is not to deny the great liberatory potential that the claim of beethoven’s black heritage has possessed for the black community, and continues to possess—as was witnessed on twitter 49 (and other social media platforms) in the summer of 2020—in the face of relentless systemic racism in the united states and elsewhere. however, as scholars such as kira thurman (2020) and josephine wright (1980) have demonstrated in reference to george bridgetower, the continued fixation on the genealogy of canonical individuals like beethoven replicates a history of erasure of those black individuals who, over the course of the writing of western european history, have been purposefully forgotten due to their racial identity.50 in this scene, which features a man driven to mad desperation by an ideal of genealogical relation to beethoven, kagel illuminates what the film ludwig van demonstrates to be an ultimately destructive tendency: the obsessive fascination with and mythologization of a singular individual, to the point of the complete saturation of a cultural landscape. as the film progresses, the viewer is confronted with further examples of beethoven reception history, taken to absurd extremes in the form of brief sketches, all of which explore and question the definition and ramifications of “beethoven misuse” and the often-accompanying obsession with the composer’s origins. the film concludes with one of the longest scenes in the second part of ludwig van, lasting more than eight minutes, which features video footage of a variety of zoo animals, including an elephant defecating. these images are paired with the sounds of the wdr men’s chorus rehearsing passages from the “ode to joy” from beethoven’s ninth symphony and the “freedom chorus” from beethoven’s opera, fidelio. it was predictable perhaps that this scene provoked audience members at the film’s world premiere at the wiener festwochen on 28 may 1970 to shout epithets including “filth!” and “mindless crap!” (brunner 1970, 368).51 this seemingly disjunct beethoven-animal pairing—and the outrage it provoked—point effectively to the great chasm that formed over the course of the nineteenth century between beethoven—the complicated, messy man who experienced the common realities of daily life—and the mythological deity who authored works that, throughout the past two centuries, have been found to express the transcendental, utopian hopes and desires of humanity. as abigail fine argues regarding the discourse around late style in beethoven, it is vital that we “approach this discourse with fresh eyes only after it has been disentangled form the relics, legends, and curios that enchanted beethoven’s fans,” for as she demonstrates, “the foundational discourse on lateness crystallized in part around celebrity culture” (fine 2020, 146). kagel’s ludwig van is an exercise in precisely such an attempt at disentanglement. 50 (mis)using beethoven in the twenty-first century to whom does beethoven belong? to the world or to those in “beethoven territory,” that “beethovenraum” to which höfer casually refers? what is “beethoven territory,” and how far does it geographically extend? is beethoven “missbraucht” (misused), and if so, how and by whom? ludwig van raises these questions and many more in querying the fetishistic celebration of beethoven’s 200-year reign. in so doing, kagel makes clear that the stakes of this ritual revolve around precisely such nationalist, patrimonial questions. “misuse,” even if figured within a critique of conservative, capitalist institutional structures, always presupposes an originary, exclusionary, and often defensive “use,” as the east german presidium took pains to demonstrate to the “lackeys” and “cultural barbarians” of the west in 1952. as ludwig van progresses, it becomes clear that the missing “beethoven” in the film’s title is no accident: the “van,” or “from,” points to the collective obsession with beethoven’s origin and cultural belonging, and how these concerns emanate from the figurehead of the canon to all of those active in the world of classical music. the question of origins is not secondary here. in fact, it makes up the title of the film, and it presages the vigorous “debate” over the “misuse” of beethoven that kagel stages at the center of ludwig van. fifty years later, even in a world ravaged by a global pandemic, not much seems to have changed. and with members of the u.s. government (and many others around the globe) spouting increasingly xenophobic rhetoric, we have witnessed an increase in blunt expressions of the same cultural patrimony. judging by the beethoven-mania that has in turn sparked calls for a year-long beethoven ban, and the recently revived interest in the composer’s genealogy, beethoven fanaticism appears not to have diminished one bit in the past halfcentury. in fact, it may have even increased, making one wonder just what kind of shock beethoven would experience were he to return to bonn again this year. ludwig van is simultaneously a kind of love letter to a celebrated composer and a devastating critique of the institutions that have facilitated the continued exploitation of his music and image. perhaps it is a misuse of beethoven, as kagel suggests in ludwig van, to love beethoven to the point of blanketing out one’s entire soundscape.52 as we participate, or abstain from participating, in this celebratory year, we might ask ourselves what relation these acts of memorialization have with the oft-bemoaned “death” of classical music in the united states. scott burnham (1995), for example, has argued that the instinctual rush to defend canonical figures such as beethoven from the perceived taint of association with non-canonical composers, or even more contemporary music, 51 is ultimately destructive to the health of the musical world. the perennial fear would seem to be that those whom beethoven continues to influence—the living composers amongst us—might somehow affect the beethoven we know and love through the acoustic intimacy of concert programming. the irony that such defenses belie a presumption of great fragility on the part of these canonical figures would seem to be lost on their steadfast defenders. however, we owe it, as burnham writes, “to the well-being of our musical ecology” to recognize “the cost of such defense mechanisms,” for in so doing, “we may even find that beethoven no longer needs to be defended” (1995, xix).53 the public conversations regarding racism in the u.s.-american classical music industry that have occurred in the wake of george floyd’s murder in june 2020 have brought hope to some that works by historical and contemporary black composers will finally enjoy more than tokenized presence in (virtual) concert halls. let us hope that this progress is not fleeting, as composer jessie montgomery warned in a recent new york times article (barone 2020). for as kagel makes clear in his now 52-year-old film, what we, and beethoven, require is not yet another year of singularly beethoven-based programming, but instead, a year of beethoven dialogue: a kind of meta-beethoven celebration to engage with the messy, productive history of his ideological (mis)use. rather than covering our ears with beethoven wallpaper, let us open them to the 250 years of beethoven reception history: a resonant conversation that might prove to be more aurally and even politically productive than listening to the familiar strains of the “ode to joy” one more time. acknowledgements i would like to express my great thanks to the editor of current musicology, callum blackmore, for the opportunity to present my work in this journal and for his and the anonymous readers’ generous and productive feedback. heartfelt thanks are also due to winter & winter and ifage filmproduktion for their generosity in allowing me to reproduce images and clips from ludwig van in this article. earlier versions of the material that makes up this article were presented at the winter chapter meeting of the new england chapter of the ams, as well as at the 2020 annual meeting of the ams and i am grateful not only to have had these opportunities to present my work in these fora, but also for the lively, encouraging, and generative feedback i received. i am also grateful for the support of professors anne c. shreffler, carol j. oja, carolyn abbate, and kate van orden, who have seen the idea for this article move through various stages and who helped shape it into what it is today. additionally, i am indebted to the members of carol oja’s dissertation group and the inimitably supportive friends and members of my department—including samantha jones, sarah koval, cana mcghee, and uri schreter—as well as to lucy fitz gibbon and ryan macevoy mccullough, whose love of the anamorphic absurd and willingness to indulge me in all things kagel have 52 been particularly meaningful this past year. finally, i would like to express my enormous gratitude to scott burnham for the generosity of his spirit, humor, and mentorship, and for whose encouragement over these past years i cannot thank him enough. notes 1 all translations are my own, unless otherwise stated. 2 “es wirkt schon merkwürdig, dass von beethoven am flughafen in chicago mehr zu sehen ist als bei unserem flughafen für seine geburtsstadt. wir hoffen, dass sich das bald ändert.” so wrote the president of the group, stephan eisel, in a letter to the executive board of the cologne/bonn airport: https://www.buergerfuerbeethoven.de/start/2020/intro/news/am-internationalenflughafern-in-chicago-wird-prominent__8475.html?xz=0&cc=1&sd=1&ci=8475 (accessed 25 january 2020). 3 see thurman (2020), as well as thurman’s conversation with violist and co-founder of castle of our skins, ashleigh gordon, on jonathan van ness’s podcast “getting curious,” from 7 july 2020, “are we hearing a crescendo of anti-racism in classical music?” (https://www.earwolf.com/episode/are-we-hearing-a-crescendo-of-anti-racism-in-classicalmusic-with-dr-kira-thurman-and-ashleigh-gordon/). for an account of the history of this theory in the united states in the twentieth century, see broyles (2011) and de lerma (1990). and for an excellent and detailed account of bridgetower’s life and years in london, see wright (1980). 4 “die amerikanischen kulturbarbaren und ihre lakaien schänden das andenken beethovens, indem sie bonn, seine geburtsstadt, für die verderblichste nationale entwürdigung mißbrauchen. von bonn aus werden die kosmopolitischen zersetzungsversuche der großen deutschen kulturwerte unternommen, um das nationalbewußtsein des deutschen volkes zu zerstören.” originally published by the zentralkomitee der sozialistischen einheitspartei deutschlands under the title “zum 125. todestag ludwig van beethovens am 26. märz 1952” in the gdr music journal musik und gesellschaft. that the gdr refuses to even name west germany—choosing rather to refer to them as the “lackeys” of the united states—is in keeping with the gdr’s general rhetoric at that time. the east german government often accused the west of being, while nominally independent, in truth a colony of the u.s., and spread rumors that the u.s. was using west germany in order to prepare for a third world war. see stahl (2009) and denning (1996). finally, see rehding (2009) for discussion of beethoven’s music as “monumental” and politically symbolic, and in particular rehding’s epilogue on the performances of beethoven’s ninth symphony in celebration of the fall of the berlin wall (rehding 2009). 5 for a detailed, though particularly dated in regard to the analysis of cold war politics, history of beethoven’s presence and use in german politics, see denning (1996). additionally, for an art historical perspective on the long history of fascination for beethoven in the visual realm, see comini (1987), as well as fine (2020) for a more focused study of beethoven’s life and death masks. 6 ludwig van is publicly available at the following site: https://ubu.com/film/kagel_ludwig.html. 53 the timings referenced throughout this article refer to the video found on this website, as they also coincide with those of the dvd, which is available for purchase from the winter & winter verlag. 7 this man is played by stefan wewerka (1928-2013), a german architect, designer and artist who was active in the cologne avant-garde arts scene during this period. 8 that “two-thousand years” is stated here is never explained over the course of the film. 9 “rasulei” is a nonsense word; however, it bears resemblance to two words pertinent to this character’s speech: the noun, “raserei” and the verb, “rasieren.” the noun “die raserei” means frenzy, fury or furor, indicating the character’s (who soon will be revealed to “be” beethoven) disdain for the obsessive furor around celebrations of the upcoming beethoven year in west germany. this neologism also possesses association with the verb “rasieren,” meaning to shave, which activity the character is performing during the entirety of this scene. 10 the german transcription is taken from the subtitles provided in the film. the english subtitled version does not provide subtitles for this scene, as the text consists in large part of portmanteaus and nonsense words. the translation is my own and i thus take responsibility for any and all inaccuracies that might be present. all other transcriptions of passages from ludwig van, in both german and english, are transcribed from the film's subtitles unless otherwise noted. 11 see scott burnham’s remarks regarding the ubiquity of “the amputated opening motive” of the fifth symphony in popular culture “as both sound-bite and talisman” (burnham 2000, 289). 12 see also olick and levy’s (1997) insightful analysis of german constructions of victimhood as a product of both “instrumental rationality,” as well as an “inability to understand their own implication in what had happened” (olick and levy 1997, 928). the authors go on to note, “there is widespread evidence that many german people—often obsessed with their own victimhood—could not even imagine why anyone should think that collective guilt was appropriate” (1997, 928). in discussing the west german government’s response to the idea of collective guilt during the adenauer regime, olick and levy argue, “one reason for denying collective guilt is that it was strategically a disadvantage; another is that it was an unacceptable proposition for an expertly equivocating and evasive population” (1997, 928). 13 as lewy notes, it was not only west germans who felt such a desire: the west german portrayal of their citizenry as passive victims of nazi totalitarianism bears a keen resemblance to gdr rhetoric regarding who was to blame for the nazi rise to power. he notes, “[the west german perspective] showed an interesting similarity to the official position of the east german communist regime, which regarded german fascism as a special form of monopoly capitalism that had subjugated the german people” (lewy 2017, 2). additionally, see dennis’s analysis of beethoven in east and west german politics (dennis 1996, 175-203), as well as the previously discussed rhetoric of the east during the 1952 commemoration of the 125th anniversary of beethoven’s death, for which stahl also provides excellent analysis in her second chapter, “beethoven in beiden deutschen staaten” (stahl 2009, 52-105). 54 14 for discussion of the tensions of the classical music establishment after the so-called “zero hour” in west germany, specifically in the realm of opera, emblematic as that institution is of bourgeois culture and values, see richmond pollock (2019). 15 heile’s language is unclear. while the text indicates without hesitation that kagel returned to argentina twice, his endnote first cites personal correspondence with kagel from 2002, while going on to note that kagel traveled to buenos aires in 2006 for a celebration of his life and works. heile does not clarify whether that 2006 trip is included in the number he notes in the text, but it is my assumption that it does (heile 2006, 12n8). 16 when the streaming time of the internationaler frühschoppen was moved to 12pm in 1970, protests broke out, predominantly from women, who were no longer able to view the show due to the necessity of performing domestic duties at noontime in preparation for the mid-day meal (reufsteck and niggemeier 2005, 594). the name of the show is translated more or less literally: the adjective “früh” means “early” in german and “der schoppen” is a noun meaning a glass containing a quarter or a half-liter of wine or beer. “frühschoppen” can be translated as “morning pint” and can also be used in the sense of a social meeting, often connoting a sunday morning get-together for a drink, and in traditionally catholic areas such as bavaria or austria in particular, after church. 17 the fernsehlexikon takes care to note that this wine was a riesling spätlese named “meikämmerer heiligenberg,” which was also served in the wdr cantina (reufsteck and niggemeier 2005). 18 in 1969 höfer was not only celebrating his twenty-fifth year as director of the internationaler frühschoppen, he had also just been named head of the wdr’s recently created drittes fernsehprogramm (in 1964), the educational channel of the wdr’s public programming. in 1972 he would go on to become the television director of the wdr itself. fifteen years later, however, höfer resigned from his post a week after der spiegel published a detailed account of höfer’s active nazi past (which general fact was known already) on 14 december 1987. the article focused in particular on höfer’s publication of a text for the nazi publication, the 12uhr-blatt, that celebrated the murder of a young, virtuoso pianist, karlrobert kreiten (19161943), who was executed by the nazis for state-critical utterances (“feindbegünstigung und wehrkraftzersetzung”), despite pleas for clemency from as powerful individuals as wilhelm furtwängler (wieser 1987). this fact was actually made public by a gdr official (albert norden, leader of the sed’s committee for agitation and propaganda) fifteen years earlier in 1962 and that year höfer’s explanation that his text had been dramatically edited by nazi officials and that it was not written with direct reference to kreiten (for he is not named explicitly in the article) was stomached relatively easily by the west german public. however, in 1987 attitudes had changed and höfer’s actions and attempt to distance himself from responsibility for the article could no longer be ignored. see olick and levy’s discussion of changing attitudes towards the nazi past in west germany over the course of the 1960s and 70s (olick and levy 1997, 928). 19 “guten tag meine sehr verehrten damen und herren. hier ist wieder der internationale frühschoppen mit sechs journalisten aus fünf ländern.” 20 see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgjgksi8rz4 for a (german-language) compilation of paradigmatic scenes from the show’s history (accessed 19 october 2020). 55 21 see a report on the program published in the new york times in 1970: “his [höfer’s] program, ‘internationaler frühschoppen,’ is west germany’s longest-lived television program. it enjoys a solid audience of about 10 million or, one quarter of the adult population of germany” (binder 1970). binder does not specify whether this population is specific to west germany or both east and west germany, but the number is in accordance with west germany’s population. 22 these five invited guests were not regular guests of the actual frühschoppen show; however, they were all active members of the west german classical music scene, and in the case of heinz-klaus metzger in particular, very prominent individuals within that community. all were active in west german public media, including press, radio and television. 23 montes-baquer acted as the executive producer of ludwig van as well. like kagel, montesbaquer traveled to germany on a fellowship from the daad, where he studied musicology in munich. montes-baquer went on to work at the bbc, the bayerischer rundfunk, cbs, and beginning in 1967, the wdr. there is an odd discrepancy in the spelling of montes-baquer’s name in the program book for the 2006 digitally remastered version of ludwig van; here, his name is spelled: “montes-bacquer.” in the film, montes-baquer is referred to only as “josé montes.” 24 “höfer: wir lassen das ganze und am abend nach der sendung machen wir wirklich eine diskussion. wir! kagel: und was ist mit meinem film?” 25 “höfer: er ist unter keinen umständen… das merk’ ich, er ist doch amateur und ist bis zur halskrause akkumuliert mit ideen… er ist doch nicht auf drei sätze zu bringen.” one might note that these are words that themselves might be turned against höfer, given his loquacious and domineering tendencies. 26 “höfer: ja, beethoven gehört der eigentlich der welt? wenn ja, dann dürfte ein deutscher beethoven-fan eigentlich die welt doch fragen: was hat die welt beethoven zu danken? was ist sie ihm schuldig geblieben? oder: was hat die welt an beethoven schlimmes getan? herr metzger, gibt es so etwas wie einen mißbrauchten beethoven?” 27 “höfer: herr metzger, gibt es so etwas wie einen mißbrauchten beethoven?” 28 again, these transcriptions have been taken from the film’s subtitles, though here with a small emendation: i hear höfer use the third person possessive pronoun when confirming that buenos aires is the capital of argentina, which would also be more in accordance with höfer’s condescending tone, for in referring to buenos aires as “kagel’s” capital city, höfer further accentuates kagel’s foreignness. 29 “höfer: mauricio kagel: wenn wir jetzt nicht in köln oder bonn oder wo auch immer im beethoven-raume säßen, sondern in buenos aires… das ist ihre hauptstadt? kagel: ja. höfer: …und wir gingen auf die straße. kennen von zehn leuten mehr leute beethoven oder mehr leute kagel?” 30 while kagel did speak with a slight accent, he exaggerates it here for this performance, using grammatical errors to draw particular attention to this othering. evidence of kagel’s manner of speaking at the time can be observed in documentary footage of film production for other works produced during that period and even that year. seen in august 2018 at the paul sacher foundation, collection mauricio kagel. 56 31 the grammatical mistakes made by kagel are difficult to translate into english, for they consist of incorrect adjective declensions or a missing prefix in a separable-prefix verb. i have marked the presence of the voice over (not indicated in the film’s english subtitles) to communicate its presence. 32 in fact, as verheyen (2010) demonstrates, the international morning drinks show was a part of an attempt to support west germany’s nascent democracy in the years following the “zero hour” through the encouragement of both formal and informal discussion, based on an american model of democratic public discourse. in the years following the end of the second world war, “discussion” developed into a genre of communication, which was modeled in didactic fashion by television programs like höfer’s international morning drinks show (verheyen 2010, 151-153). 33 see press coverage of kagel and his work in german, french, as well as u.s.-american journalism throughout his career. for instance, in hilde spiel’s review of ludwig van for the frankfurter allgemeine zeitung, she writes, “mauricio kagel, 1931 in buenos aires geboren, seit 1957 in europa” (spiel 1970), and in an article published in an article regarding protests in response to kagel being awarded the 1998 erasmus prize in the same paper, kagel is referred to as “[der] in köln lebende argentinier” (dpa 1997). similar language is used in the faz press release announcing that kagel was awarded the eleventh prix maurice ravel in 1999: “der aus argentinien stammende komponist mauricio kagel erhält den 11. prix maurice ravel” (dpa 1999). for u.s.-american examples see anthony tommasini’s reference to kagel as “the argentine composer long resident in germany” in a review of kagel’s entführung im konzertsaal (1998-99) for the new york times (tommasini 2000) or john henken’s description of kagel in a review for the los angeles times: “the 56-year-old argentine has built an unclassifiable career as composer, performer, dramatist, film maker and teacher—in the last capacity significantly as professor new new music theater at the cologne musikhochschule since 1974” (henken 1988). similar descriptions are also found in the french press. see, for instance, an article published in le monde that discusses kagel’s activities as part of a festival in caen, whose full title reads: “kagel trompe la mort: argentin fixé en allemagne, champion du théâtre musical, mauricio kagel est toujours déconcertant” (“kagel trompe la mort” 1991). 34 “hoegen: das, meine sehr verehrten damen und herren, war der ‘internationale frühschoppen’ mit gästen aus fünf ländern. heute zum thema: wird beethoven mißbraucht? teilnehmer waren der argentinier mauricio kagel, der österreicher otto tomek, der schweizer victor staub, der spanier josé montes, der deutsche heinz-klaus metzger und werner höfer als gastgeber.” 35 “herr poll: ich bin der einzig und letzte lebende nachfahre ludwig van beethovens und zwar mütterlicherseits. die beethovens entstammen einem alten flämischen geschlecht, die in den dörfern in der umgebung der alten universitätsstadt löwen beheimatet waren. louis van beethoven, der großvater ludwig van beethovens, war der erste, der ins rheinland ausgewandert ist und zwar nach bonn. in seiner jugend hat er chormusik studiert. als er nach bonn kam, wurde er mit 21 jahren als bassist bei der kurfürstlichen kapelle angestellt. durch eisernen fleiß und große energie brachte er es bis zu der ausgezeichneten stellung eines kapellmeisters. er war verheiratet mit johanna maria poll. nebenbei betrieb er einen kleinen weinhandel. das war wohl auch der grund, daß sich seine frau dem trunke ergab, wohl aus 57 gram über die kinder, die vor johann van beethoven, dem einzigen sohn, der übrig geblieben war, gestorben waren. in ihren letzten lebensjahren wurde sie in köln in einem kloster unter aufsicht gestellt.” 36 “herr poll: ich bewundere ludwig van beethoven sehr, ich höre gerne seine schallplatten und von seinen ahnen haben wir viele dokumente und papiere bekommen, mit denen ich nachweisen kann, daß ich wirklich der letzte nachkomme ludwig van beethovens sind [sic]; alle anderen, die sich als seien nachkommen ausgeben, sind falsch. ich trage auch stets eine büste ludwig van beethovens bei mir. sie sehen die ähnlichkeit, wenn ich unsere köpfe ein bißchen zusammenhalte. aber einen beweis einer noch viel größeren ähnlichkeit soll ihnen diese etwas dunkel getönte büste liefern. diese dunkle tönung liegt daher, daß auch in dem blut ludwig van beethovens etwas dunkles blut geflossen ist und zwar durch einige mulatten aus westindien. hier sehen sie auch noch eine helle büste, die den beweis erbringen soll, daß ich wirklich ludwig van beethovens nachkomme bin. und hier sehen sie auch noch eine alte schalmei, die ist aus der besitz ludwig van beethovens als ein weiterer beweis, daß ich wirklich sein nachkomme bin. ich verstehe gar nicht, warum die leute alle zweifeln, daß ich nicht der nachkomme ludwig van beethovens bin. ich kann das doch hier durch dokumente und viele bilder beweisen. hier, da sehen sie, diese alben voll familienfotos. eine ganze ahnengalerie! hier bitte, überzeugen sie sich doch selbst. und auch hier, hier sehen sie noch mehr fotos, noch mehr andenken an die familie beethovens. und hier, da sehen sie, alles voll… und ich versteh’ das gar nicht, dass man mir nicht zumutet, dass ich der nachkomme ludwig van beethovens mütterlicherseits bin. ich versteh gar nicht, dass man mir immer bezweifelt, dass ich wirklich der einzige und letzte nachkomme mütterlicherseits…” 37 chapter 10 is devoted to this subject: “‘beethoven was black?’: why does it matter?” (broyles 2011, 167-291). see as well de lerma (1990). 38 sayers reports, “he [coleridge-taylor] returned to the theory that beethoven had coloured blood in his veins. the supposition, he thought, was supported by the great composer’s type of features and many little points in his character, as well as by his friendship for bridgewater, the mulatto violinist” (sayers 1915, 203). 39 “he [malcolm x] gave a controversial interview that appeared in the may 1963 issue of playboy. in it he asserted that western history as written by western historians reflected a ‘history-whitening process,’ in which black accomplishments were either left out or blacks who succeeded ‘had gotten whitened’ in the historical record. he cited a long list of western historical figures who were black, including jesus christ, columbus, and beethoven” (broyles 2011, 267-268). 40 “sometime in 1968 or 1969, doug cass, a disc jockey at kdia, the top-rated soul station in san francisco, began to recite ‘beethoven was black’ constantly between recordings, almost as a mantra. in reaction, mail poured in from all over the country, from clergy, from supportive blacks, from outraged whites, and from scholars” (broyles 2011, 273). 41 the german title reads, “war beethoven mischling? das ‘schwarze amerika’ spannt den großen komponisten für seine zwecke ein.” in the title, as well as the brief report, zanderspahn uses mocking language that communicates great disdain for the phenomenon, and for black americans, generally. 58 42 “bonn, die bundeshauptund beethovenstadt, kann neben einem beethoven-gymnasium, einer beethoven-halle, einem beethoven-haus und einer beethoven-drogerie neuerdings auch einen beethoven-nachfahren aufweisen.” 43 “sie präsentierte herrn köwerich aus köwerich als ‘einzigen in deutschland noch lebenden verwandten des großen meisters’.” 44 see holtsträter’s argument regarding the effect of collecting on kagel’s compositional practices and specifically holtsträter’s discussion of the preparatory work for ludwig van (2010, 133). 45 in fact, riezler was a doctoral student of wilhelm furtwängler’s father, adolf furtwängler, at the university of munich and served as wilhelm furtwängler’s private pupil for both music and classical languages at the turn of the twentieth century (wendland 1999, 550-551). see roger allen’s recent monograph on furtwängler for a detailed account of furtwängler’s complicated relationship to and history with the nazi party and state, as well as his brief discussion of riezler and furtwängler’s preface to the book in which he emphasizes the “germanness” of beethoven (allen 2018, 145). furtwängler writes, “in beethoven there is a spiritual force unique in german music, and by no other composer has the power and greatness of german feeling and character been more directly expressed” (quoted in: allen 2018, 145). 46 this biography was also well received in english translation (riezler 1938) and has been cited throughout english-language beethoven scholarship, including, to name only a few, in publications by lewis lockwood (1992, 2013), maynard solomon (1977), and scott burnham (1995). 47 riezler’s german reads as follows: “(dem blute nach ist er zu 1 sechzehntel wallone—eine seiner ururgroßmütter war eine geborene gouffau—zu 3 sechzehntel germanischer flame, zu 12 sechzehntel deutscher)” (riezler 1944, 19). 48 lockwood focuses upon biographies that adhered to nazi ideology and discusses the nazi tendency to suppress any biographical detail of beethoven’s life that did not fit nicely into party doctrines (lockwood 2020,103). this perhaps accounts for the absence of riezler from lockwood’s study, despite the biography’s great popularity in both englishand german speaking contexts over the course of the twentieth century. the reception history of riezler’s beethoven and the book’s fascinating entanglements in beethoven reception history, both popular and scholarly, in german-speaking lands, the u.k., and the united states, is deserving of its own dedicated study. 49 while it has not yet been confirmed whether or not kagel was in possession of a copy of this biography, due to its extraordinary popularity and widespread presence—particularly in the years between the founding of west germany and the making of ludwig van, during which time the biography went through three further editions (nos. 7–9)—it stands to reason that kagel was aware of the text and might have made use of it in this scene. regardless, mr. poll’s allusions to phrenology and fascination with beethoven’s blood are themselves strong enough to call to mind the strange and insidious world of nazi ideologies of race and genetics. 50 see works of black german studies scholarship such as mazón and steingröver (2005); honeck, klimke, and kuhlmann (2013); and lennox (2016), in addition to the scholarship of kira thurman, including thurman (2019). 59 51 “ein aufschrei des entsetzens begleitete die uraufführung seines films ‘ludwig van’ im wiener künstlerhaus. mehrere tausend jahre abendländischer geistesgeschichte seien in diesen hundert minuten verächtliche gemacht, heilige traditionen beschmutzt, ewig gültige werte besudelt worden: ‘schweinerei’ und ‘hirnlose scheiße’ tönte es kagel aus vielen kehlen entgegen. wo es um beethoven geht, findet eben auch die wiener gemütlichkeit einmal ein ende” (brunner 1970, 368). brunner’s review is singular in its positive, and quite insightful, reading of kagel’s film. contemporaneous reviews by prominent music and cultural critics published in the frankfurter allgemeine zeitung and the süddeutsche zeitung by hilde spiel and joachim kaiser, respectively, were in contrast quite frank in their condemnation of the film as blasphemous. 52 perhaps ludwig van’s most well-known scene is the so-called “music room,” which is featured in the first half of the film as part of beethoven’s tour of his own birth house. in this scene (kagel 2006, 25:34–34:25) the viewer finds herself in a room plastered from floor to ceiling with a collage of beethoven scores. not only are the walls, floor, and ceiling covered with scores, so are all of the furniture and domestic objects, such as a mirror, framed picture, music stand, votive candle, and even the white keys of an upright piano. as the camera moves around the room, focusing on certain objects, the soundtrack is entrained to the visual image: we hear what we see, resulting in a marvelously chaotic acoustic experience. the room was designed by kagel’s wife, the visual artist ursula burghardt (1928–2008) and also formed the basis of kagel’s chamber music work, ludwig van: hommage von beethoven (kagel 1969), whose score consists of reproductions of images from the film’s beethoven house music room. 53 “i want to believe that the tradition that has accumulated in the wake of beethoven’s music is not simply the unwitting dupe of ideological prejudice; i want to believe that the values of the heroic style are truly of value. and yet, the time has come—not to disown these values, surely—but to discern the way in which we have become invested in defending them, to discover the cost of such defense mechanisms to the well-being of our musical ecology. we may even find that beethoven no longer needs to be defended” (burnham 1995, xix). references allen, roger. 2018. wilhelm furtwängler: art and the politics of the unpolitical. woodbridge: the boydell press. barone, joshua. 2020. “orchestras are rushing to add black composers. will it last?” the new york times (print), 2 october. binder, david. 1970. “weekly tv discussion of news drawing 10 million in germany.” the new york times (print), 4 november. broyles, michael. 2011. beethoven in america. bloomington: indiana university press. brunner, gerhard. 1970. “mauricio kagel—ein wiener störenfried.” melos 37, no. 9: 367368. burnham, scott. 1995. beethoven hero. princeton: princeton university press. ____________. 2000. “the four ages of beethoven: critical reception and the canonic composer.” ed. glenn stanley. the cambridge companion to beethoven. cambridge: cambridge university press: 272-291. 60 cohen, brigid. 2012. “diasporic dialogues in mid-century new york: stefan wolpe, george russell, hannah arendt, and the historiography of displacement.” journal of the society for american music 6, no. 2: 143-173. comini, alessandra. 1987. the changing image of beethoven: a study in mythmaking. new york: rizzoli international publications. de lerma, dominique-rené. 1990. “beethoven as a black composer.” black music research journal 10, no. 1: 118-122. dpa (deutsche presse-agentur). 1997. “gegen mauricio kagel: streit um erausmuspreis.” frankfurter allgemeine zeitung (print), 1 august. ____________. 1999. “mauricio kagel erhält 11. prix maurice ravel.” frankfurter allgemeine zeitung (print), 3 november. dennis, david b. 1996. beethoven in german politics: 1870-1989. new haven: yale university press. fine, abigail. 2020. “beethoven’s mask and the physiognomy of late style.” 19th century music 43, no. 3: 143-169. goehr, lydia. 1992. the imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music. oxford: clarendon press, rev. 2002. heile, björn. 2006. the music of mauricio kagel. burlington, vt: ashgate 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press. lewy, guenter. 2017. perpetrators: the world of the holocaust killers. new york: oxford university press. lockwood, lewis. 2003. beethoven: the music and the life. new york: norton. ____________. 2013. beethoven: studies in the creative processes. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. ____________. 2020. beethoven’s lives: the biographical tradition. melton: boydell & brewer. mazón, patricia and reinhild steingröver, eds. 2005. not so plain as black and white: afrogerman culture and history, 1890-2000. rochester: university of rochester press. moore, andrea. 2019. “commentary: beethoven was born 250 years ago. to celebrate, how about we ban his music for a year?” the chicago tribune, 30 december. 61 https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-ban-beethovenanniversary-20191230-ukklfgb25baaxcjjiddm3ud76y-story.html. olick, jeffrey k. and deniel levy. 1997. “collective memory and cultural constraint: holocaust myth and rationality in german politics.” american 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sauer. wieser, harald. 1987. “tod eines pianisten.” der spiegel (print), 14 december. wright, josephine r. b. 1980. “george polgreen bridgetower: an african prodigy in england 1789-99.” the musical quarterly 66, no. 1: 65-82. zander-spahn, brigitte. 1969. “war beethoven mischling?” süddeutsche zeitung (print), 17 february. current musicology 102 (spring 2018) © 2018 levitz. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons-attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives license (cc by-nc-nd). 9 the musicological elite tamara levitz musicologists have been gripped by the desire to democratize, diversify, decolonize, and popularize their discipline. driven by a growing moral demand to challenge the eurocentric, heteronormative, exclusionary, colonial, settler colonial, non-diverse, and white supremacist legacies of a discipline plagued by its rootedness in european classical musical traditions, they have recently accelerated their efforts to expand the traditional canon, reform curriculum, and explore new mediums for the dissemination of ideas (for example, “popular” internet blogs over expensive academic monographs). in spring 2017, the department of music at harvard university symbolically led the charge in this effort by announcing they would no longer require music theory and other courses, but rather ask students to pick “no more than two” of each type of course in their program, design their study plan with the director of undergraduate studies, and include a rationale that outlines their path through the major. the only requirements left are the “concentration tutorials” that include courses on “thinking about music” and “critical listening.”1 harvard professors stressed that this change would create more “flexible pathways” through their program, eliminate the class-based implicit requirements to enter it, and, most importantly, allow for a greater diversity of students and student interests.2 reactions to these plans on social media have been vehement and fiercely divided.3 that the standard curriculum in musicology programs has become an open wound or festering reminder of the labor injustice, class division, exclusions, structures of white supremacy, and inequality in the discipline became apparent again in october 2017, when an acrimonious debate, this time about eliminating the language requirements in musicology programs, erupted on the listserv of the american musicological society. a small, selective group of vocal subscribers posted a range of reasons to keep the language requirements. they argued that learning languages (primarily german and french) was crucial to being able to read primary and secondary musicological sources, useful on the job market, generally worthwhile, and necessary to being able to translate. they thought language exams should remain required because they always had been. opponents stressed that it no longer made sense to learn primarily german or french and that there were problems of access to language courses. the language requirements raised labor issues, they wrote. some argued that the exams 10 current musicology themselves failed to assure competency and fluency anyway. we are living in an age critical of the neoliberal individual’s need to master all tools of the trade, one contributor wrote, and today we can ask colleagues to help us. finally, some felt more flexibility was needed to meet students with diverse needs. for days the ams musicological community was held hostage to an excruciating chat marked by bouts of cynicism, obstinacy, the numbness of unacknowledged privilege, self-righteousness, heartfelt confession, careful analysis, and cogent critique, as well as momentary celebrations of self-experience, a lack of appreciation for each other’s views, and a practice of talking past each other that created a cocktail so explosive it precipitated the closure of that listserv.4 related discussions about changing the traditional music history survey in departments around the country have been characterized by similar ideological disagreement and intransigence. in contrast to the tension that marks discussions of curriculum and language debates online, a much more optimistic attitude and sense of accomplishment has tended to accompany recent efforts to democratize musicology by utilizing alternative media, circumstances, and writing modes to reach out to new and more diverse publics. “public musicology” appears a less disputed solution than curriculum change to the problem of musicology’s exclusionary elitism, the move outward seemingly smoother than any attempt at internal change. this may be because public musicology has taken on the allure of a social justice project. more departments across the country are now offering courses in public musicology, the american musicological society maintains a lively, dedicated blog, and conference presentations on the subject abound.5 westminster choir college has also become the first school in north america to offer a master of music program in “american and public musicology.” yet recent efforts to expand the canon, reform curriculum, and make musicology public fall short in the project of decolonizing the discipline, in spite of their many obvious merits. one reason is that such actions address only one of the three core elements of the “coloniality of power” as theorized by aníbal quijano, ramón grosfoguel, and others.6 whereas musicologists have gradually begun working toward decentering what grosfoguel (2002) calls the “hegemonic eurocentric epistemologies in the modern/ colonial world-system” (205), they have tended to neglect systemic racialized power relations and the capitalist distribution of labor. their impulse to bracket out material circumstances stems in part from their tendency to envision their discipline within the context of the “history of ideas,” or as dedicated to investigating the formal properties of music alone, rather than in terms of its institutional history as an academic profession. this situation is exacerbated by the fact that there is still very little research 11 tamara levitz on the us history of musicology—a blind spot that weakens attempts to decolonize the discipline in that country. in this article, i seek to rectify this situation by describing in detail how a small group of music scholars initiated the professionalization of musicology in the united states in the 1930s (or, more specifically, from 1929–1939). i choose to begin my story in the year in which the american council of learned societies first took an interest in establishing musicology as a profession in the united states, and to end it in the year in which the ams organized its first international conference—an event i consider something of a turning point. i have developed my historiographic approach in this article in response to jo guldi’s and david armitage’s the history manifesto (2014), which rejects microhistory (to which i have been partial in my work) in favor of a return to the annales school’s notion of the longue durée. guldi and armitage suggest making long-term arguments— or telling stories of longer duration—by building upon microhistorical studies “of particular turning-points and watersheds in history, moments of revolution that destabilized institutions, climates, and societies” (2014, 36).7 enticed by this possibility, i am currently envisioning a history of the ams based on microhistories of turning points, which will include the birth of the society (that i address in this article), the first international conference in 1939, the founding of jams in 1947, the annual meeting in 1961, the student revolutions in 1968, and the new musicology. i have structured this article to reflect how professions are formed, basing my approach on classic sociological texts. in 1964, harold l. wilensky argued that the job of the professional was based on 1) “systematic knowledge or doctrine acquired only through long prescribed training” (what he called its “technical” aspect, with its emphasis on the aura of mystery around knowledge); and 2) a set of “professional norms,” which include service ideals and codes of ethics (138). professionalization occurred, wilensky claimed, when people started doing full-time something that needed doing, leading to the establishment of training and professional associations. those developments were generally accompanied by a “campaign to separate the competent from the incompetent” that included the self-conscious definition of tasks, the “contest between home guard” and “newcomers,” competition with neighboring occupations, political agitation to gain the support of the law, and so on (144–45). in her presidential address to the north central sociological association in 1975, marie r. haug juxtaposed wilensky’s view with that of philip elliot (1972), who argued from a historic perspective that status had preceded other professional attributes in great britain, leading to what he called the “status professional.” if status and autonomy came before the acquisition of esoteric 12 current musicology knowledge, haug concluded, then “exclusive knowledge and humanitarian claims can be conceptualized as rationalizations developed to preserve antecedent privileges and powers” (1975, 199). by clarifying the foundations of us musicology as a profession, i will expose how the contemporary musicological elite wields its power to dominate and exclude. i will consider in this article how and in what geopolitical context early us musicologists determined their object of study and professional norms, established the rules that distinguished them from the public as an intellectual elite, carved out their territory in competition with other subdisciplines, negotiated with the patrons and institutions that financially supported their labor, and promoted their status and prestige.8 i trace how musicologists consolidated this elite position through their daily actions, documented meticulously in minutes of meetings. this exploration of the unspectacular will provide, i hope, insight into the often-overlooked but crucial difference between bureaucratic decision making (motions!) and conceptual thinking (historiographic or aesthetic choice) in the formation of scholarly disciplines. my analysis will show that musicology as a profession developed in a particular way in the united states that is different from how it developed in countries like germany and austria. in spite of a persistent myth to the contrary, its origins were not austro-german but rather “international.” i will not provide in this article a comprehensive history of the profession of musicology in the united states, and i warn against drawing sweeping conclusions for the present from the early history i present. instead, at the end of this article, i will return to the current debates about curriculum change, language exams, and public musicology, and reexamine them there through the lens of the history i have told. in this way i hope to show how minute archival analysis, even of a small moment in the history of the discipline, can reorient perceptions and conceptual frames and provide the firm material ground needed for decolonization. exclusive internationalists: the founding of the committee on musicology of the american council of learned societies and the rebirth of the internationale gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft (igmw)9 the birth of musicology as a profession in the united states was inauspicious. one can argue that it began on july 11, 1929, when the committee on musicology of the american council of learned societies (acls) first met under the chairmanship of carl engel.10 waldo gifford leland—the indefatigable secretary (1927–39) and later director of the acls (1939– 46)—appears to have had the idea to form this committee, which at first in13 tamara levitz cluded the music critic richard aldrich, the committee’s secretary donald goodchild, otto ortmann (director of the peabody conservatory and a scholar of piano technique), and leland himself.11 the committee’s perspective on musicology was not german but rather “international.” leland was an internationalist who had played a key role in founding the acls to represent the united states in the union académique internationale (international union of academies), and in 1926 had created the international committee on historical sciences.12 he also represented the carnegie institute in europe, worked with the international committee on intellectual cooperation of the league of nations, and regularly negotiated with european colleagues about international disciplinary standards. he had enormous experience organizing archival practices in the united states in the early twentieth century. upon returning from europe to the united states to become secretary of the acls in 1927, leland stepped up his actions to centralize and standardize professions in the humanities and distinguish them in their methods and goals from the social sciences. he received major support for his project from the rockefeller foundation, which granted the acls $30,000/year for three years for operations in 1935 (leland 1935c). at this time, leland developed an interest in musicology. carl engel shared leland’s internationalist perspective. engel’s prominence in the early history of us musicology stemmed in part from his role in the internationale gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft (igmw) and as chief of the music division of the library of congress, columnist and editor at the musical quarterly, and president of g. schirmer inc. engel’s publishing activities may have influenced his selection as chair of the committee on musicology of the acls: in germany (with breitkopf & härtel) and in the united states (with the musical quarterly and g. schirmer, inc.), publishers played a key role in establishing a public sphere for musicology as a profession. further, carl engel was the only us citizen who collaborated in the reinvention of the igmw in 1927, and who was invited to be a member of its executive board for its first meeting in basel, switzerland in 1928.13 although he did not attend the board’s annual meetings in 1928 and 1929, his contact with its members surely shaped his approach to musicological research as chair of the acls committee. in appealing to international models, he was also following a venerated us tradition: music teachers had participated actively in the internationale musikgesellschaft (img) until it dissolved at the outbreak of world war i.14 oscar sonneck fondly remembered, for example, the gatherings of the us section of the img at the annual conferences of the music teachers national association (mtna) before the war, and especially after 1907 (see sonneck 1929). 14 current musicology the small group of european friends who resuscitated the img— which had lain dormant for over a decade—during the congress on music history in vienna in 1927 pursued a very specific, nationally oriented model of internationalism.15 as the elder of musicological study in europe, guido adler’s vision of internationalism dominated in these deliberations.16 in the notes he scribbled on the back of flyers for the congress, adler appealed to french models, describing the new organization as a “confederation” (“confédération”) or “union of existing societies” devoted to the study of music. he was thinking transnationally, describing the new society as “internationally oriented yet with a full clarification of the national characteristics of all participants.” in julien tiersot’s and curt sachs’s words (as jotted down by adler in french in his notes), this was an “international grouping of professional musicologists with an office of information that would facilitate works and research in all countries” (adler 1927a).17 prunières and adler subsequently parted ways with tiersot over their definition of internationalism (and specifically over the question of whether individuals could join the new society), with tiersot taking the hardline stance that it could mean only a “federation of existing musicological societies.”18 adler and his colleagues indirectly addressed how they might move beyond a confederate model of internationalism as they prepared “propaganda” to recruit members for the igmw in its first year. financial concerns motivated their geopolitical strategies. in a long letter to wilhelm merian about a planned flyer from february 1928, adler wrote about the “very dire” financial state of the society and about its lack of patrons—a situation he feared would keep the most “qualified and capable” musicologists from joining (adler 1928a). he suggested they could attract members by combining austria and germany into one german-speaking territory on the flyer without “implying anything political.” he also thought it would be “important and advantageous” to appeal explicitly to musicologists in germany, england, france, and italy, because the latter three nations could include their colonies and that “would be an asset” in recruiting members. “then, after all,” he wrote, “the individual colonies of these nations will hardly be able to build their own separate departments.” finally, adler suggested reserving a place for north and south america on the board “for economic reasons,” as a way of assuring greater financial support for the igmw.19 they tried to entice individuals, associations, institutes, libraries, and musicology departments to join the igmw by opening their flyer with an idealist statement about how “art and science are not bound to any national barriers but rather need to have mobility across a country’s frontiers to have their full impact,” although they knew that they themselves could 15 tamara levitz not travel freely in europe, not even to their own igmw conferences, because of passport and visa regulations.20 they established the swiss franc as their currency, requesting 5 chf for regular membership and 50 chf/ year (or a one-time payment of 500 chf) to become a patron—sums that would have prevented a vast number of people worldwide from applying.21 by the time of their first official board meeting, adler and his friends seem to have settled into thinking of the igmw largely as a confederation of european nations. on september 4, 1928 the executive of the igmw met at the home (alternatively called “antiquariat” or “musikbibliothek”) of steel industrialist and music aficionado paul hirsch at neue mainzer strasse 57 in frankfurt.22 the magnificently wealthy hirsch was an important first patron of international musicology. the executive at that first meeting included president peter wagner (fribourg, switzerland), vice presidents johannes wolf (berlin), andré pirro (paris), and edward dent (erroneously described as living in london), secretary wilhelm merian (switzerland), and substitute secretary gaetano cesari (milan). the honorary presidents were guido adler (vienna) and henry prunières (paris). members of the board or “direktorium” at this first meeting included, arranged on official lists according to nationality: rudolf von ficker (austria), charles van den borren (belgium), knud jeppesen (denmark), higinio anglés (spain) (consistently misspelled higino anglès), albert smijers (netherlands), zdenek nejedly (czechoslovakia), and carl engel (“amerika”).23 pirro, cesari, prunières, van den borren, and engel did not attend the meeting. this roster, and the general membership, was hardly international, but rather had a provincial flavor; the igmw had simply formalized existing personal relationships between a network of privileged, mostly european intellectuals and friends.24 the ostentatiously national make up of this board was also no accident. according to item §12 of the igmw’s statutes, planned and solidified that day, members of the board had to come from different nations—although the swiss nationality of the secretary and treasurer “didn’t count.” the “four countries that lead the way in musicological research”—germany, france, england, and italy—had to be represented in the board, and three of them in the office of the society as well.25 adler seems to have pushed hardest to implement this form of national representation.26 in his copies of the statutes, adler consistently corrected “four countries,” or what his colleagues sometimes described as “four states,” to “four nations.”27 yet board members did not welcome every nation into their midst, and may have discriminated in particular against musicological scholarship in slavic countries. at the first meeting of the executive of the society on september 4, 1928, johannes wolf informed the members that lucjan 16 current musicology kamieński was annoyed poland was not represented. wolf pointed to zdenek nejedly (for reasons that are unclear to me, but perhaps hinting that there was already a representative of a slavic nation) and emphasized that “not all states can be represented on the board.” dent then advised that, “we should have only personalities, representatives of science [the branches of musical science] not nations.”28 the board then contradicted itself and displayed something of its potential prejudice by suggesting tobias norlind become a member because “sweden is a country of cultural high standing” (da schweden kulturell hochstehendes land). at their second meeting, in paris on october 1–2, 1929, the board was noncommittal when semyon lvovich ginzburg’s asked to have the state institute of the history of the arts represent the igmw in the soviet union. members agreed in principle as long as there was “no independent russian section.” they wanted to arrange the details only with mikhail ivanov-boretzky, but then dragged their feet about pursuing any plans at all.29 members of the board consciously sought out models of internationalism to emulate. their choices reflect the general influence at that time of the league of nations—an institution established in 1920, yet which germany joined in 1926, the soviet union in 1934, and which the united states never joined. internationalism in the context of the league of nations reflected less a notion of universal musical values or global cooperation than what susan pederson (2015) analyzes as a form of diplomacy that maintained europe’s imperial control over labor and capital internationally.30 board members seemed to imitate this form of european diplomacy when they established as the mission of their society the pursuit of “musicological research and [the] easing [of] musicological relationships between countries” (“internationale gesellschaft statuten” 1928, §1). their belief that national boundaries limited scholarship led them to open an information office in basel where employees would answer questions “that could best be answered on an international basis.” they saw it as the job of this office to facilitate contact between music scholars in different countries, share scientific material, make local research known, and create a central catalogue.31 they used as their models the union musicologique, the institute of international education in new york city, and the league of nations’ international committee on intellectual cooperation.32 they also made sure the igmw was listed in its handbook of international organizations published in 1929. board members hoped to gain recognition for their society by appealing for financial and public support to the national governments in europe they represented.33 this transnational model of financial organization was one of the igmw’s most innovative institutional strategies, but it was 17 tamara levitz an upward climb, and created power imbalances.34 like in the european union today, members from countries with the best economies (in this case, for musicology) wielded the most power on the board. although not acknowledged as a nation, switzerland—more specifically the local government in basel—played the largest role in funding the society. the igmw board discussed the society’s finances in detail at their first meeting on september 4, 1928, joined by the society’s treasurer, the swiss banker theodor speiser-riggenbach. he was a partner in the private bank, speiser, gutzwiller u. co., which founded the first investment fund management company in europe a few years later.35 deliberations that day give strong evidence of board members’ unequal circumstances. president peter wagner remarked that the municipal government in basel had donated 3000 chf and expected others to do the same; the german government, thanks to his efforts, had donated 1000 chf. merian asked members to emulate wagner in requesting funds from their national governments and attracting members in their respective countries. andré pirro apologized that there were so few french members and suggested holding their next meeting in paris, and gaetano cesari said “propaganda” in la rassegna musicale had not been successful. edward dent reported that “there are very few friends of musicology in england, the journals are not read,” but that he hoped when he became president of the royal music association in november things would improve. rudolph von ficker thought the austrian government might give something, but was still recovering financially. knud jeppesen hoped the danish government would be interested, albert smijers said the dutch government didn’t know what musicology was, higinio anglés thought only catalonia might show interest (but received praise for recruiting many spanish members), and zdenek nejedly offered 20 reichsmark from the czech republic (see “i. vorstandssitzung” 1928). a year later, wagner announced at the annual meeting in paris that the city of basel, the german and french governments, and the elizabeth sprague coolidge foundation had all funded the society and the belgian government was also thinking of offering support (“ii.  vorstandssitzung” 1929). this became something of a familiar pattern: at the third meeting of the igmw board in liège on august 30, 1930, speiser-riggenbach reported that germany, france, belgium, and austria had given small one-time subventions, and that the city of basel planned to give 3000 chf/year and the elizabeth sprague coolidge foundation $200/ year (“iii. vorstandssitzung” 1930).36 the national jostling for power inherent in the igmw’s form of internationalism played out most dramatically in its publications. adler was eager from the start to create a collective bibliography of all writings on 18 current musicology music, reviving the img’s pre-war planned project of a corpus scriptorum de musica.37 he hoped the journal he envisioned would be available to all igmw members who paid dues. in other words, it would be limited to a paying elite, constituting an initial form of exclusive academic publication. members of the board determined that the society’s business should be conducted and its journals published in five languages: german, english, french, italian, and latin.38 they thought their bulletin should appear in german and french, however, to make it “linguistically neutral” (“i.  vorstandssitzung”  1928).39 although the question of languages was quickly resolved, debates about the journal—which eventually became acta musicologica—remained fraught. board members worried about how the new international journal might negatively affect subscriptions for, and content of, the national journals (see wolf 1929). problems also occurred when the igmw tried to break its contract with breitkopf & härtel in 1934.40 with the establishment of the committee on musicology of the acls, waldo leland, carl engel, and a small coterie of their trusted friends brought the spirit of the igmw to the united states, laying the foundation for an internationally recognized, us-based discipline of musicology. they and others applied what they had learned from the model of internationalism established by the igmw to centralize and nationalize musicological research in the united states—a strategy that had lasting consequences for how the profession of musicology developed there. carving out scholarly territory: the foundation of the american musicological society the activities of the igmw and committee on musicology of the acls seem to have stirred musicological interest more broadly among a group of friends living mostly on the east coast of the united states. on january 29, 1930, about six months after the acls committee’s first meeting, henry cowell, otto kinkeldey, john redfield, lazare saminsky, joseph schillinger, charles seeger, and joseph yasser met to plan the new york musicological society (nyms), with may de forest serving as their secretary. thomas washington talley—potentially the first african american in the society—and an unidentified individual named “frace” attended as guests.41 the men who met that day envisioned this society from the start as the “nucleus” for a national society they temporarily postponed. their perspective, like that of members on the acls committee, was internationalist: they saw the nyms as a continuation of the disbanded american section of the original img. seeger reported in the society’s first bulletin that waldo selden pratt and o. g. sonneck had attempted in vain to revive 19 tamara levitz that society after world war i, but interest had lagged, with sonneck becoming before his death “pessimistic in regard to the outlook in america” (nyms 1931). now, they were ready to try again. the nyms, like the igmw upon which it was partly modeled, relied for its existence on the generosity of wealthy patrons, in this case blanche wetherill walton, whose husband worked for edward de coppet. a patron of the arts and founder of the flonzaley quartet, de coppet owned a company, de coppet and doremus, that managed trading on the new york stock exchange. stock market trading, even in the depression, made the professionalization of musicology possible by enabling leisure time and a venue for musicological pursuits. members of the nyms and ams later tended to obscure these material foundations and the financial capital that enabled the development of musicological expertise by historically ignoring these patrons. although blanche walton “aided housed, fed, + even nursed (one or all things) very many struggling, poor, starving, sick musicians + composers who might never have arrived without her help,” as well as supported the ams, provided her home at 25 washington square north in new york city as a venue for its first meetings, and funded publications until her fortune failed in the 1930s, she has been neglected and left unacknowledged in the organization to the present day.42 at first, members of the nyms envisioned musicology as a broad discipline free of power struggles or hierarchies; they appeared determined to cast a wide net. although seeger reported in the first bulletin that members preferred systematic over historical musicology, “stressing speculative and experimental methods in close liaison with the vanguard of the living art of music,” he also noted that they saw their group as the “nucleus for a national society” that would be broad enough “to allow the organization of local groups upon a variety of subjects as sections of the parent society, without dominance by anyone” (nyms 1931). seeger loosely encouraged five chief sections to coexist: “(1) science, (2) criticism, (3) history, (4) bibliography, [and] (5) comparative musicology.” the fourth was already underway with the “american music librarians association,” seeger noted, and the fifth promised “a fast and healthy development owing to the tardy but sure awakening of a widespread interest in exotic or non-european musics.” a year later, members tried to ensconce this plurality in their constitution by specifying that the object of the society was “the encouragement of original research of a musicological nature” (nyms 1932). they planned to focus on meetings, the advancement of research, education, and publications. yet the nyms’s lecture series gives a different impression of its members’ scholarly magnanimity (see appendix i). there, members’ personal preferences and connections, as well as financial, educational, racial, gen20 current musicology dered, and social privilege came strongly to the fore. papers given in the first and second seasons, 1930 and 1931, focused on what today would be considered a global perspective on music theory, or systematic musicology, with evidence of members’ connections to the new school for social research. members found some approaches more suitable to musicology. seeger noted, for example, that when mr. and mrs. sarat lahiri came to demonstrate “rhythmic features of the music of modern india” on march 20, 1931 the event “was of musical, but not of musicological interest” (nyms 1932).43 he likewise considered adolph weiss’s presentation on “a comprehensive view of the schönbergian technic” on april 27, 1931 to be “adequate, but exception was taken to the use of the word ‘systematic’ in connection with the subject.” in designing their speaker series, members of the nyms seemed to rely on the circumstantial coincidence of who happened to be in new york city at the time, or who might enjoy a personal connection with them—the main criterion for selection being that the guest had to be a music scholar of some sort. in its first year, for example, the nyms worked closely with the “russian group of musicologists of new york city,” which included russian and russian-jewish émigré composers, teachers, and scholars who met regularly to explore the science of harmony, as well as russian, ukrainian, and jewish music (see appendix i).44 but by the second season (1931–32), the connection with the russian émigrés—and with jewish music— appears to have waned. at that time members considered inviting guests ranging from percival robson kirby—a scottish-born professor of music at the university of witwatersrand in johannesburg who developed a colonial form of the study of the music of south africa—and mr. gerald f. warburg—a professional cellist who studied schenkerian analysis and was the son of the philanthropist felix m. warburg.45 warburg, seeger noted in the bulletin, had “established a studio for experiment in the development of new art forms” in new york city, and “specific instruments have been constructed for the promotion of theoretical as well as of creative work” (nyms 1932). joseph schillinger—a close friend of the society—was running the activities with warburg and mary ellen bute.46 bute also served as secretary of the nyms; she was the fourth woman after may de forest, helen heffron roberts, and blanche walton to be welcome there, albeit in a limited capacity. the nyms’s speaker series also gives evidence of a disjuncture between systematic and comparative approaches. this incongruence was evident as well in the publication series, “the american library of musicology,” funded by blanche walton and incorporated in spring 1932. designed to include “all the important musicological classics with original text and 21 tamara levitz english translation side by side” and “original works by americans,” the series launched with joseph yasser’s (1932) a theory of evolving tonality, and continued in 1933 with helen heffron roberts’s (1933) form in primitive music: an analytical and comparative study of the melodic form of some ancient california indian songs.47 schillinger’s “science of musical composition” was postponed, however, because of the general economic crisis, and the series soon collapsed into a morass of legal disputes and distributional nightmares.48 in the fourth and final season of the nyms speaker series, historical musicology suddenly became more dominant with the arrival of harold spivacke and carleton sprague smith (joining kinkeldey, who had been there from the start). seemingly trying to insert historical musicology into the society’s narrative about itself, spivacke gave a talk on april 29, 1934 about “the relationship between systematic and historical musicology,” during which he “expressed the hope that the two branches may be brought closer together.” spivacke had been elected secretary of the society and “charged with the special task of formulating a basis upon which a national musicological society could be founded.”49 this was the first indication that the historical musicologists were about to take over (nyms, 1933–34). in the same years that the nyms was establishing itself, a small group of comparativists decided to form their own society. seeger had mentioned in the first nyms bulletin in 1931 that plans were in the works to form a “society for research in non-european musics” to work with the gesellschaft zur erforschung der musik des orients in berlin. he felt the preservation of phonographs would be its first important task and that a phonogrammic archive needed to be established in the us comparable to those in berlin, vienna, hamburg, paris, moscow, and leningrad. in 1933, dorothy lawton, helen heffron roberts, charles seeger, henry cowell, harold spivacke, and george herzog established the american society for comparative musicology (ascm) in close association with erich von hornbostel, robert lachman, and the berlin institutes.50 blanche walton opened up her home to the comparativists, too, but they were so scattered geographically they found few opportunities to meet.51 three patrons supported the society as “corresponding members” with donations of more than $10: roberts, walton, and mary c. wheelwright. the list of members compiled by spivacke in 1933–34 included the names of 49 scholars, 21 of them women, who traditionally had more access to careers as folk song collectors than as university professors. it also included members from bulgaria, china, and hawaii (see appendix ii). like their colleagues in berlin, these comparativists had little support within the academy and few financial or administrative resources for establishing an international society (see christensen 1991). 22 current musicology the ascm dedicated itself to aiding the gesellschaft für vergleichende musikwissenschaft in berlin, which was under extreme duress with the rise of the nazis. in the constitution finalized in 1933, members stated that the object of the society was “to advance musicology by the encouragement of research into the music of all peoples, primitive and civilized, oriental and occidental, for the purpose of preserving it and making it accessible to all for comparative study.”52 they aimed to collect phonographs, manuscripts, instruments, books, and recordings, and to establish phonogram archives in the us. they also hoped to release records, publish a bulletin, and finance expeditions. the bifurcation of us musicology into historical and comparative halves at this moment in its history left a lasting mark on the nation’s musicological psyche: recordings and recording technology, preservation, phonograph collections, and non-academic institutes became associated with comparativists or folklorists, while university curricula and institutional power in higher education became associated with historical musicology. tensions between the subdisciplines represented in the nyms may have led its members to call the meeting at blanche walton’s home on june 3, 1934 to dissolve their local society and form a new one—the american musicological association (ama), later to become the american musicological society (ams). those attending included carl engel, george dickinson, gustave reese, joseph schillinger, charles seeger, harold spivacke, w. oliver strunk, and joseph yasser, with helen heffron roberts as a non-voting guest (“minutes” 1934a).53 seeger, as chair of the nyms’s executive committee, read a prepared statement about why he and his colleagues thought their society should be dissolved and replaced; they wanted to reorganize on a national scale. all those present unanimously agreed to motions to nominate and elect seven of their eight members (everybody except schillinger) to serve on the organizing committee of the new society with dickinson as chair. they also nominated and elected reese as their secretary and kinkeldey as their president. kinkeldey belonged to their elite, was a member of multiple exclusive clubs, including the andiron club, and actively traded with his brothers on the stock market. since 1930, he had also held the first professorship in musicology in the united states, as well as a job as head librarian at cornell university. and he brought with him an international perspective: like engel, he became a member of the igmw board (in 1933), knew edward dent, and regularly attended european meetings (see, e.g., dent 1938). helen heffron roberts attended this first meeting as secretary and representative of the ascm, with the goal of brokering some kind of association between the two societies. two weeks later, at a second meeting, mem23 tamara levitz bers of the ama/ams organizing committee formally requested roberts discuss such a merger with the ascm, but when she got back to them later that summer, they hedged (“minutes” 1934b). at their second meeting on september 15, 1934, they deferred any motion on the issue “until after the taking of definite action on the report of the publication committee.”54 at the same meeting, they instructed the constitution committee to change the name of the organization to the “american musicological society” and to incorporate an article specifying that: “the object of the society shall be the advancement of research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning” (“minutes” 1934c). although this remains the core of the mission statement of the ams to the present day, at the time it may have constituted an attempt on the part of a small group of historical musicologists to take over and exclude others. or, at least, roberts seems to have read it this way. when she heard of the organizing committee’s plans, she expressed concern to reese about how the group was becoming a society rather than an association, because of how this would affect comparative musicology. she worried that if the ascm dissolved, robert lachmann in berlin would lose crucial support for the zeitschrift für vergleichende musikwissenschaft (roberts 1934a). she also complained bitterly to lachman in berlin about how the historical musicologists had acted. it is worth quoting her letter to lachman at length because it gives striking and rare insight into the financial need that drove competition between the emerging subdisciplines of music scholarship in the united states in the 1930s, and into how acrimonious the split between comparative and historical musicology had been: now for the long promised news about the new society [the ams]. an organizing meeting was held in new york last spring by about nine individuals and the sense then was to make it the american musicological association. most of the members present at the meetings were dyedin-the-wool historical musicologists and dr. kinkeldey (who is one of them, but not present) was elected president. it was understood at that time by some of us, at least, that this association would include in a larger membership, the memberships of various societies like the comparative and the society of acousticians. [added in pen here: “and like before this would materially increase subscriptions to the zeitschr (zeitschrift für vergleichende musikwissenschaft)]. . . . i am sorry to say that some of these historical musicologists never responded in any way to our invitation [in pen: “two years ago”] to join the comparative society. . . . i have wondered if they refrained from joining because they belonged to the n.y. musicological society and resented our organizing on a national basis before they did, and if they were determined to stand back as a bloc. at any rate, last spring they disbanded the old society and formed the new one, of national scope, and after the initial [sic] meeting, they completely 24 current musicology changed the sense of the society they organized at the spring meeting making it a society instead of an association, stiffening up on membership requirements, and in many ways springing a complete surprise on us who had not been present at the intervening committee meetings. evidently the historical and not the comparative aspect of musicology is still to be very much in evidence, though i believe they will some day have to admit that the latter is the most important and all-embracing and give way. those of us who had the comparative musicology at heart, however, did not make a scene at the meeting. after all, they have a right to organize what they choose, though really they had no right to change what was so clearly set forth last spring without a vote. however, it was so far done, and nothing much to be gained by holding out against them, that those of us who disagreed silently accepted the situation, or almost so. there is a profession of cordiality to comparative musicology, and a not too clear indication that it will not be completely crowded out. aside from this being a powerful group, they have arranged, through mr. engel and mr. reese, to have the musical quarterly as the official medium for short papers by giving over to the society 100 pages a year, and hope to finance later, still larger separate publications. so they have a set-up which is much stronger than ours. and the close similarity of names is going to be unfortunate. of course, as far as the american soc. for comp. mus. [ascm] is concerned, we never had the membership of those i have mentioned, but what is a real menace to our society’s life is the fact that a lot of our people have also been asked to join this one, and have. naturally, there is more prestige for them at present. most of these people are poor, too poor to belong to both, or they may think they are. membership in each is $3.00 a year, some very fine quarterlies are issued, or even monthly magazines, gorgeously printed and illustrated. of course it could never be done without large subscription lists and strong backing, but people often do not consider that. (roberts 1934c) board members of the ams tried to maintain cordial relations with the ascm after this historic break by stipulating in their bylaws that vice presidents had to be chosen from different branches of musicology, and by nominating roberts and others as members-at-large or for officer positions (which they did not obtain).55 but the damage had been done.56 by failing to establish a solid professional association with an independent society for comparative musicology, the ams lost the membership and contributions of many women studying folk music, as well as input of scholars studying the music of the southwest and mexico, and also working outside the us and europe. roberts valiantly attempted to keep the ascm afloat after this rupture, but received little help (see frisbie 1991). the situation became dire in 1936, when the german society collapsed and seeger attempted to transfer its activities to the united states—an action that failed to gain traction.57 roberts tried to help in reorganizing the society and having elma loines elected to the council “as a safeguard against 25 tamara levitz high-handedness on the part of one or two members.” unfortunately, she wrote to loines, otto ortmann and joseph yasser were elected instead at the annual meeting.58 roberts’s many efforts to integrate women, broaden the society’s base, establish comparative musicology in the university and internationally, and help her endangered and persecuted germanjewish colleges were in vain, and by 1937 the ascm had for all intents and purposes ceased to exist, with its members—when they did continue their association with professional musical life—sometimes finding their place in the ams. this led to a situation in which, i speculate, comparative musicologists and other music experts may have started to feel an amorphous sense of how they belonged to the ruling discipline of “musicology.” in spring 1936 yale cut off roberts’s funding and she left academia. she moved to north carolina to take care of her father and devote herself to horticulture.59 until the society for ethnomusicology (sem) was founded in 1955— in other words for twenty-one years—historical musicologists defined themselves within a framework that included comparative musicology, acoustics, music theory, composition, systematic musicology, and other subdisciplines. the historical musicologists allowed scholars working in these subdisciplines to assert varying degrees of importance in their society, while working toward strengthening their own professional privilege and power. the dynamic they established in these years relied on the lack of general recognition in the united states for music theory, comparative musicology, and other subdisciplines as independent scholarly professions. during this period and for an extremely long time (well into the 1960s, when intense professionalization across the humanities in the us narrowed the playing field), the ams was not a society dedicated solely to the study of western classical music, although an aggressively stubborn myth persists in us musicology that it was. in the early years, musicologists studied non-western music, popular music, and jazz. the first organizing committee of the ams wanted to distinguish its society not only from the ascm and comparative musicology, but also from the music teachers’ national association (mtna)—a large, established organization with a sturdy membership, strong institutional affiliations, and an illustrious tradition of supporting the scholarly study of music. in the early years, ams members seemed to view the mtna in general as their more recognized and organized but intellectually impoverished cousin, although several were members of both organizations. at their first meeting on june 21, 1934, members of the organizing committee planned to discuss whether they should affiliate with the mtna, gesellschaft für vergleichende musikwissenschaft, and/or igmw, and whether they should 26 current musicology publish in the musical quarterly, mtna proceedings, or a new journal. they decided they would affiliate only with the igmw and publish only through the musical quarterly (“minutes” 1934b).60 although they then instructed the constitution committee to make sure there would be no association with the mtna, they held onto the possibility of holding their annual meetings jointly with that association as a way of attracting participants and building their membership. the decision to share conference space with the mtna forced the musicologists to distinguish themselves professionally from music educators and to specify the unique object of their study. as a consequence, many of the most vital debates on the object and future of musicology occurred at the mtna annual meetings in these years.61 in 1936, kinkeldey responded positively to an invitation from the president of the mtna, earl v. moore, to plan a joint meeting in chicago because he liked how working with the much bigger mtna had brought out members “who came from long distances” in the past (quoted in reese 1936a).62 at the same time, kinkeldey thought the additional ams session would have to “be more technical papers, without interference between interests of the mtna and ams” (quoted in dickinson 1936).63 at the conference, president moore praised the collaboration between the two societies in his opening remarks. at the general session jointly with the ams, spivacke, ortmann, donald m. ferguson, roberts and others explored the relationships between musicology and other subdisciplines and presented historical work (“official program” 1936). a year later, when preparing another joint meeting, moore wrote engel that he wanted to work out the relationship between the two associations “in the most amicable manner,” and that maybe their presidents, secretaries, and treasurers should meet to discuss the issues. the ams’s involvement caused him as president to want to distinguish the pedagogical aspect of the mtna more than previously. given the fine selection of ams papers, moore wrote engel, “we have given more attention in the m.t.n.a. meetings to demonstrations and discussions of problems connected with teaching rather than research.” he also noted that mtna members had submitted papers in musicology “but i have declined to accept them in view of the fine series which you have prepared” (moore 1937). during the conference, members of the mtna, nasm, ams, and phi mu alpha visited the white house to meet with eleanor roosevelt—the prestige of the mtna having rubbed off on the ambitious but fledgling new profession of musicology (“official program” 1937). this pattern of association and joint annual conferences with the mtna continued for many years, until the ams was able to establish 27 tamara levitz itself after world war ii. the demise of the relationship at that time had a harrowing impact on the profession. as the ams gradually severed its ties to the mtna, it lost the potential membership and collaboration of a wide range of music teachers—many of them women—across the country.64 they also lost the intrinsic connection between their enterprise and music pedagogy, as well as access to established institutional mechanisms for insuring curricular norms and change. i do not mean to overemphasize this shift away from pedagogy, given many musicologists remained active in the mtna for years, and that other organizations, mechanisms, and strategies emerged to keep musicologists engaged in teaching. but i think the early musicologists’ desire to distinguish themselves from music teachers gave the discipline its characteristic idealist positionality and approach to curricular change. the ams’s separation from the mtna weakened its material and practical foundation. musicology became a profession concerned with relatively esoteric knowledge about music, somewhat untethered from mandatory requirements, assessment, or accreditation, and with an elusive relation as a discipline to labor relations and material history. musicologists in the ams could focus on the music itself because of their society’s financial independence, which they gradually secured by appealing to the benevolence of rich benefactors, establishing an increasingly refined system of membership dues, achieving nonprofit status, and applying for grants from private institutions such as the rockefeller foundation and carnegie corporation. in spite of their disciplinary feelings of superiority, however, worries about being compared to colleagues in the mtna persisted, causing ams members to exaggerate their distinction. in 1969, paul henry lang could still write william s. newman, for example, that he felt grateful that “we no longer give the appearance of being a poor relation of the mtna” (lang 1969). the acls committee on musicology as a laboratory for inventing the profession of musicology in the united states during these years, as the ams gradually separated from the ascm and the mtna, a small group of scholars worked assiduously in privileged circumstances within the context of the committee on musicology of the acls to develop the us profession of musicology. that committee’s attempts to create a profession out of what had been until then a diffuse and inchoate plurality of programs and resources related to music study in the united states distinguished how musicology developed as a discipline there from how it had developed in different countries in europe since the nineteenth century. although the acls committee on musicology and 28 current musicology the ams sometimes shared board members, they differed in their goals, and the existence of the former did not assure the recognition of the latter. minutes of the acls committee on musicology’s annual meetings from 1935 to 1939 (with the exception of 1936, when no meeting took place), memos, peer evaluations, and correspondence give evidence of the many hours of largely unpaid labor its members devoted to inventing a discipline “in principle” and allegedly from scratch. they depended for their work on the benevolence of private organizations such as the carnegie and rockefeller foundations, and they received no governmental support. this gave them considerable freedom: as experts, they were not really accountable to anybody. otto kinkeldey’s vision for musicology dominated in the acls after 1935, when he became chair of the committee on musicology, which then became more active again after a five-year period of minimal activity.65 his team included jean beck, glen haydon, george herzog, otto ortmann, and oliver stunk. the constellation of careers these men represented— historical musicologist, librarian, scientist, comparativist, french-born medievalist—says a great deal about how members of the acls understood musicology, namely as a discipline led by a broad range of scholars who “knew” the field and emulated “international” models of knowledge production. it also demonstrates that even as the ams narrowed its scholarly scope, the committee on musicology of the acls sustained a broader vision. the acls committee on musicology continued to embrace an internationalist stance after kinkeldey became chair. waldo leland had attended the seventeenth plenary session of the international committee on intellectual cooperation of the league of nations in geneva on august 8, 1935, and the influence of that international body on the committee on musicology’s activities remained palpable (see international committee 1935). but rather than, like the ams, aiming to represent the united states in an international organization that established contact between national societies devoted to musicology (the igmw), the committee on musicology hoped to gather information on us musical practices, archives, recordings, and scholarly literature to contribute to the league of nations’s commission internationale des arts populaires.66 since its founding in 1929, the committee on musicology’s primary goal had been to establish the discipline of musicology in the us. in its first year of operations, the acls had commissioned oliver strunk to conduct an inquiry into the “state and resources of musicology in the united states for the information and guidance of the committee in planning its future activities” (strunk 1932, 5). with the help of peter w. dykema, 29 tamara levitz otto kinkeldey, george s. dickinson, and the national bureau for the advancement of music, strunk had completed his report on library resources by december 1929, and on musicology by november 1931. he had discovered only three graduate course offerings in musicology in the fifty schools he studied: kinkeldey’s “seminar in musicology” for graduate students at cornell, jean beck’s “seminar in medieval musicology” at the university of pennsylvania, and graduate courses in paleography and musicology (as part of a music theory sequence called “homophonic forms and musicology”) at the eastman school of music. he had also noted up-and-coming developments at vassar, new york university, and the university of michigan. the schools singled out in this report (and others) gained a prestige in the musicological community that they have retained to the present day. but in spite of these hopeful developments, strunk emphasized that musicology was not recognized in the united states; harvard, for example, had not considered it on equal footing with theory and composition (strunk 1932, 7–10). in his report, strunk made the first step toward professionalizing the discipline by separating musicology from music appreciation courses— confirming a distinction carl engel had made in an article on the discipline in the musical quarterly (engel 1925, which strunk cited). engel had urged educators to think of musicology as defined by guido adler as a science and to reject music appreciation. “imagine a university,” he wrote, “devising courses in law for non-practicing, non-professional students of law!” (engel 1925, 620). engel had also recommended a precise list of courses he had taken in musicology, music psychology, and comparative musicology in berlin and vienna as models for the new us discipline. he had listed “international” (igmw and not german) musicologists he admired. building on strunk’s work, members of the committee on musicology cobbled together a discipline one bureaucratic step at a time by following protocol, writing memos, and generating reports.67 they focused on specific strategies: defining the scope of the discipline and documenting its activities and progress, preserving primary sources and research materials, designing curriculum, and building up a trustworthy personnel. in preparation for the first meeting with kinkeldey as chair in 1935, secretary donald goodchild (1935a) sent committee members an agenda with items he hoped would convince the council to “seek support for a general program in musicology” even though it could not currently fund any projects. he wanted the committee to decide whether it would concern itself “with all phases of musicological studies—historical, comparative, psychological, aesthetics, acoustic, etc.,” or rather concentrate on the “needs and facilities” of specific areas. he hoped the committee would address material ques30 current musicology tions (specifically, the location, preservation, and collection of recordings of “primitive” and folk music), instruction (following on strunk’s survey), personnel (who would practice musicology), and publications, especially for subdisciplines that lacked a forum for written work. he proposed a tentative list of members of the field (appendix iii), but then asked how “inclusive” it should be. he also proposed an annual or biannual report, duplicating european sources and making them available in the united states for the study of medieval music, locating us sources for studying music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, making a list of instruments in us collections, finding sources for the study of us music, and extending facilities for re-recording phonograph cylinder collections (goodchild 1935b).68 at the meeting itself on june 15, 1935, committee members decided to include as part of their mandate all fields of study related to musicology, taking into account that some (like acoustics) already had well-established journals (“american council” 1935). they thought of organizing a musicology conference to explore their object of study. they also considered how they would begin surveying and cataloguing all musicological source material available in collections in the united states. they proposed an annual or biannual bulletin on “the progress of musicological studies in the united states,” modeled on the bulletin published by james f. willard for the medieval academy of america.69 yet even at this first meeting, members of the committee on musicology found it difficult to reconcile their all-encompassing view of what musicology should be with plans for a viable university curriculum. although they had little power to implement such a curriculum anyway, this did not stop them from trying. glen haydon thought the committee should be advising university administrators on how to form musicology departments, and suggested sending those administrators kinkeldey’s articles on “american higher music education compared to that in europe” (1934a) and “musicology in american colleges and universities” (1934b) to that end.70 the committee listened to his suggestions and asked him to prepare a model curriculum for their next meeting. at that meeting, on june 24, 1937, haydon presented the curriculum at the university of north carolina at chapel hill, which was based on the model of a bachelor of arts rather than bachelor of music (“american council” 1937). at the same meeting, strunk gave a preliminary report from the committee on graduate study in music of the national association of music and the mtna on requirements for admission into a graduate program in musicology, which stipulated that students had to complete a four-year degree. recommendations included the “usual” study of english literature and composition, reading 31 tamara levitz a foreign language, “skills and capabilities” in western theory and music history, enough pianistic ability to sight-read haydn string quarters and bach chorales in the original clefs, and focused “historical, philosophical, or scientific” preparation for graduate work. these requirements built on long-standing traditions of music education in the united states, and did not take into account the committee on musicology’s potential new perspectives. i think this lack of coordination between curriculum plans and conceptual understandings of the discipline—exacerbated by the lack of organized institutional coordination between the acls and institutions of higher education in the united states—became characteristic of us musicology. members of the committee on musicology also hoped to establish musicology in the united states by creating opportunities for, and funding, musicological research. at the 1935 meeting, kinkeldey had expressed concerns about students having to study in europe because of lack of research possibilities at home. he had suggested establishing a program at the library of congress to train students in the study of “american music,” and scholarships to assist doctoral students in doing research at us libraries (“american council” 1935). when the committee on musicology received $1500 to implement such a grant program in 1936, its members decided to distribute summer fellowships of approximately $300 each to graduate students for two months of archival research at libraries in the united states, primarily the library of congress (goodchild 1936a, 1936b).71 this model of research funding became foundational for the economy of us musicology as a profession. having initiated their program of summer fellowships, members of the committee on musicology realized they would need to establish criteria for evaluating applications. the assessment practice they established was based on determining expertise based on a person’s stature in the field—a model that embedded knowledge production in a harrowing power hierarchy and shaped how principles of free speech developed in the profession. they decided students would not be able to apply on their own, but rather would have to be nominated by one of the few scholars in the country who were training musicologists. the playing field was astonishingly small, and, at first, committee members seemed to think it might consist only of themselves. goodchild wasn’t so sure. he wrote kinkeldey that whereas he was confident the members “covered the field pretty well,” he thought they should still consider asking scholars at institutions not represented on their committee to nominate candidates as well (goodchild 1936a).72 they ultimately asked paul henry lang at columbia, hugo leichtentritt at harvard, and charles fox at eastman to suggest candidates for summer 32 current musicology fellowships (goodchild 1936b). on june 3, 1936, goodchild sent committee members the four nominations (in the form of brief evaluations of projects and rudimentary biographies with information about whether candidates were married or not) to vote upon. two years later, members again struggled to find competent musicologists to nominate candidates (goodchild 1936c). when harold spivacke recommended they consult earl v. moore, goodchild questioned this and asked kinkeldey for advice. “like you,” kinkeldey responded, “i was not aware that the university of michigan had anyone of real academic caliber for musicological studies” (goodchild 1938d; kinkeldey 1938b).73 the committee on musicology stepped up its efforts to found a profession of musicology in the united states after february 1, 1938, when the carnegie foundation awarded it $10,000 over three years, with annual grants of $4000, $3000, and $3000 for expenses and “grants-in-aid” (goodchild 1938a, 1938b, 1938c). leland told committee members at their annual meeting on april 16, 1938 that the council had tended to look on “musicology as a relatively underworked field in need of systematic development,” but that he was eager to see that change. he advised them to work on gathering information, cataloguing materials, funding research, and making scholarship available to the public. the committee responded by creating two subcommittees: the first, chaired by strunk, to deal with cataloguing and the second, chaired by haydon, devoted to “ways and means for the improvement of the academic quality of curricula and degrees in musicology” (“committee” 1938; leland 1938; kinkeldey 1938a, 1938c). once the new funding arrived, the committee on musicology set to work updating a report it had in progress on publication and research in musicology and “allied fields” from 1932–38 (daugherty 1938).74 this was to be the first of what members hoped would be an annual bulletin, and it included names of journals, individuals, departments of instruction, libraries, papers read, grants, and publications in musicology. in his introduction to the freely-distributed, mimeographed document from 1938, d. h. daugherty (1938) noted that the committee had assembled the information by sending a questionnaire to “persons assumed to be interested in musicological scholarship” (1), based on a list he had created of institutions where at least one person taught who was worthy of inclusion (see appendix iv).75 this approach created a hierarchy of institutions of musicological higher learning that would later be hard to dismantle. he reached out to 250 people, including “teachers in colleges, universities, and schools of music; music librarians; [and] independent scholars,” but excluding those who taught music education or theory, which he and the committee considered “vocational rather than scientific” (2). herzog and 33 tamara levitz other advisors assured that the list included many south american articles, but unfortunately cited several of them as appearing in the boletín latinoamericano de música when they did not. committee members also did not read all the materials they received or discovered, and acknowledged that their bibliography was thus probably uneven in quality (daugherty 1938, 1–3).76 two years later, the committee published its first official bulletin, covering the period from october 1, 1938 to september 30, 1939 (daugherty 1940). this time, they listed the scholars they had consulted, among them frances densmore, eleanor hague, and lota m. spell—the latter two of whom worked on spanish-american and southwest music. the arbitrary bibliographic method, sloppiness, and fluctuating rules of inclusion in this and other bulletins caused the content of the new field of musicology to become somewhat flexible and random, depending principally on the coincidence of scholarship at hand, and who was compiling the list. the committee on musicology used some of the money it received from the carnegie corporation after 1938 to fund the ams, which started applying regularly for grants. ams board members knew that recognition from the acls was crucial to their success. they also knew that in order for their society to become a member of the acls, they needed to prove not the scholarly worth of musicology as a discipline, but only that they could conduct their business efficiently and remain financially solvent. things started well in 1938, when the acls committee on musicology awarded the ams a first grant of $300 to publish the proceedings of the society’s last annual conference (reese 1938). but when engel asked if the ams was eligible for membership in the acls at the committee on musicology’s meeting in april of that year, leland had responded that such an application would be legitimate but that they should wait one or two years because the acls was not currently expanding its membership (“committee” 1938; leland 1938; kinkeldey 1938a, 1938b). a year later, in 1939, the committee on musicology hesitated to award the ams $450 to publish its conference proceedings (as engel had convinced them to do), because it worried that the 1938 bulletin of abstracts had not appeared (reese 1939a, 1939b). a few years later, in 1942, the ams treasurer reported that the chances of becoming a member of the acls had diminished yet again because the society was in debt as a result of its international conference and behind in its publications. at that time, members voted to empower the incoming president to take any steps necessary to insure their society’s eligibility. the ams executive responded by asking each member for a $1 “voluntary contribution” to resolve the society’s debt (“minutes” 1942). the journey toward disciplinary recognition was long, and the ams became a constituent member of the acls only in 1951. 34 current musicology prestige through exclusivity: membership rules in the american musicological society as a status profession members of the acls committee on musicology created a public sphere for musicology by funding research, compiling bibliographies, and suggesting ideas for a standard curriculum. separated from the daily working lives of music scholars and teachers in their committee work (but not in their lives), the tiny, elite group of seven chosen men focused on constructing a discipline in its own image. the ams, in contrast, required members for its survival. its executive board knew that it needed to attract music scholars from across the country, and that the best way to do this was to convince them that the profession of musicology was prestigious, and that belonging to a society representing it would give them a certain status. board members lent their society prestige by implementing exclusionary rules of membership that implied a seniority of expertise. they gradually transformed musicology into a status profession in which the very act of belonging became a sign of one’s ability. in establishing membership rules, members of the ama/ams executive at first took their cue from the work already completed by the nyms—to which many of them had belonged. they tended to maintain the distinction, established in the nyms, between active experts and more passive guests or listeners. at the first meeting of the nyms on january 29, 1930—which i discussed earlier in this article— organizers had spoken, for example, about keeping the membership “small, comprising only men of active musicological interest as shown either in publication, achievement, or in the reading of a paper by invitation.” they had resolved to invite carl engel, john redfield, and leon theremin as members, and joseph achron, leslie leet, paul boepple, adolph weiss, sarat lahiri, jacob weinberg, lazare saminsky, abraham wolf binder, andre illiashenko, wallingford riegger, thomas washington talley, frace edward j. stringham, nicholas slonimsky, and “miss crawford” (ruth crawford seeger) as guests. although seeger had reported in the bulletin that, “no particular distinction was made between the members and the guests,” their decision to distinguish them in the first place counters this claim (see nyms 1931). it is notable that their first bengali, african american, and female speakers were among these guests, but not invited to become members. within a year of its founding, a subcommittee consisting of cowell, seeger, and yasser had enshrined such hierarchies in the constitution and bylaws for the nyms by proposing two types of membership, based on a hierarchy of expertise: active members (resident or nonresident) who demonstrated “original work” and associate members who showed “interest in such work.” both had to know at least one of the existing members 35 tamara levitz of the society and to have a general level of awareness of the topics being discussed—a stipulation that severely narrowed the range of the pool. active members could bring guests, but they had to be able to “contribute to the discussion.” further, item three in the bylaws stated that “candidates for membership must be personally known to a member of the executive committee, who may propose his name, at any meeting of that committee to be voted upon. more than one dissenting vote shall exclude him.” members paid $3, nonresidents $1, and associate members a whopping $5 per year (see nyms 1932). members of the nyms had revised their thoughts on membership when they met to dissolve their society in favor of the ama/ams on june 3, 1934. charles seeger had reported in the bulletin at that time that the nyms’s members had wanted that day to create more formal membership requirements as they expanded into being a national society. they had envisioned two new classes of membership, based on the idea of establishing an even more exclusive expert elite: “(1) fellows, who will be drawn from the leaders in the field,” and “(2) members, who will be elected by a membership committee upon a basis of scholarship, interest or activity, to be determined later” (“minutes” 1934a). seeger’s remark that specific membership rules would “be determined later” proved prescient: for the next few decades, the changing boards of the ams would struggle to determine the rules for membership in their society, while remaining convinced that such rules were foundational to their purpose (see “the founding” 1936). discussions about membership rules had begun in earnest in the ama/ams when members of the organizing committee had met two weeks later, on june 21, 1934. that day the organizing committee had created a constitution committee made up of seeger, yasser, and reese, and a membership committee made up of engel, strunk, and spivacke, with kinkeldey ex officio on both. in the spirit of the nyms, the organizing committee had instructed the constitution committee to draft a constitution that established a hierarchy of members distinguished by their power to vote. it had requested that the constitution committee: 1) provide for full members and associate members; 2) provide that only full members had the right to vote; 3) define qualifications of members and associate members; 4) not preclude the possibility of creating “fellows”; and 5) figure out if corresponding members should pay dues by examining the constitutions of other societies. members of the organizing committee of the new ama/ams seemed most concerned about attracting a respected community of music experts to their project and obtaining their support. to that end they instructed the membership committee to prepare “a list of prospective members” to 36 current musicology submit to them. (“minutes” 1934b). the list compiled in response included familiar names from the nyms and had eight names in common with the ascm membership list, corroborating helen heffron roberts’s view that the ams may have been poaching the ascm’s members (see appendix v). this time the list included 59 names, but, notably, only 3 women—a drastic reduction from the ascm list. it is interesting to compare this list also with that compiled by donald goodchild for the acls about a year later (see appendix iii). goodchild includes a wider range of music critics, composers, musicologists, comparative musicologists, systematic musicologists, acousticians, and music theorists from across the country (and including nicholas george julius ballanta from sierra leone), with areas of research briefly noted. goodchild lists 114 people, among them 13 women. these two lists give evidence of the arbitrary criteria implemented to establish the first us musicological elite: in both cases individuals assigned to create membership lists simply looked for any experts on music they could find among the people they knew or had heard about. this means that being invited to become a member of the ams depended on one’s personal relationship to the few chosen men who had founded the organization, or on one’s general “reputation” among them. the constitution seeger, yasser, and reese drafted for the ams in fall 1934 included categories of membership designed to increase the society’s prestige and encourage philanthropic support. it divided members based on their financial contributions, place of residency, and voting rights. three categories of members were permitted under article iii: 1) regular voting members, or “persons, organizations, or institutions” who had a “serious interest in furthering the stated object of the society”; 2) sustaining members who “contributed $100 or more and did not pay dues”: and 3) non-voting corresponding members, who did not reside in the united states. this latter category also included “organizations or institutions of other countries that have made notable contributions to the furthering of the stated object of the society” (“american musicological society constitution” 1934). at the general meeting of the ams at the clubhouse of the beethoven association in new york on december 1, 1934, the assembly established a two-third favorable vote of the executive board to elect members of all classes. dayton c. miller successfully proposed a motion by which membership requirements would be made stricter (“minutes” 1934d). the ams established its exclusivity not only with stringent membership rules, but also by adopting an “invitation only” policy for reading papers at annual meetings. a small program committee consisting of spivacke and dickinson invited colleagues to read papers, for example, at the general 37 tamara levitz meeting of the ams on december 29, 1935 in philadelphia. conferences remained insular and focused on the work of executive members and their friends for some time. from the start, the ams executive board was torn between maintaining the ams as an exclusive club of experts on the one hand, and expanding its enterprise by creating state chapters for local musicologists (a priority established in article viii of their first constitution) on the other. as the society grew, some members saw a contradiction between these two approaches, and began to worry about the quality of scholarship in the society. at the meeting of the executive board at the annual conference in chicago in 1936, dickenson lamented that the standards for membership had not been sufficiently strict. leichentritt thought this lack of severity would do “no harm as long as the controlling positions were kept in the proper hands, and that the support of as many people as possible was desirable in order to enable the society to widen the scope of its activities.” this dialogue prompted kinkeldey to appoint dickinson and reese as a subcommittee to advise on creating a policy on “open or restricted membership” (“minutes” 1936).77 the lack of degree programs in musicology in the united states, and thus of standard certification, also made it difficult to assess expertise when determining membership eligibility.78 at the business meeting on december 29, 1937 in pittsburgh, ams board members sought to resolve this problem by instigating peer review by experts. they tightened the application procedure by discussing an amendment to article iii.1 of the bylaws to require potential members to provide sponsorship recommendations from two society members, as well as a comprehensive statement. they also gave themselves increased control as gatekeepers by requiring under iii.3 a positive vote from seven executive board members, rather than a two-thirds majority (“american musicological society bylaws” 1937). at first kinkeldey opposed these amendments and asked “to raise the number of negative votes that would blackball a nominee or applicant to 5.” harold gleason, otto ortmann, leonard ellinwood, dayton c. miller, and glen haydon discussed this point, expressing their concern about keeping “a high level of membership.” some members suggested admitting “graduate students and other interested but not highly qualified persons.” engel noted that the ams wanted to become a member of the acls and should adopt its criteria of membership. miller reminded everybody that the acls required a phd and three publications, and that those without such qualifications were admitted as associate members with limited privileges. ruth hanna and paul henry lang remarked that a phd in musicology could not be required because it was awarded too infrequently 38 current musicology in the united states and that an equivalent for it had to be found. the issue remained unresolved (“minutes” 1937). kinkeldey and members of the executive board of the ams exacerbated the problem of musicological inbreeding by refusing from the start to relinquish their power. for quite a while, the list of officers of the ams hardly seemed to change. during the pittsburgh meeting in 1937, benjamin f. swalin requested that there be “more democratic election of officers,” noting that, according to the bylaws of fall 1934, officers were nominated by the nominating committee elected by the executive board and elected by an “absolute majority” of voting members at the annual meeting.79 after considerable discussion between ellinwood, spivacke, engel, and kinkeldey, the consensus was that swalin’s suggestion was “irrelevant,” given “the election of officers is being handled by a committee whose duty it is to proceed in a democratic fashion” (“minutes” 1937). from this point forward, and to the present day, the ams has remained an undemocratic institution, guided by the principle of an executive board electing committees that nominate candidates for office.80 as the ams tightened the reins on its membership and became more exclusive, music educators and administrators moved in the opposite direction, reaching out to broader constituencies by establishing or continuing music appreciation courses in their revamped music departments or humanities divisions. music appreciation sometimes functioned in this context as social uplift. albert sydney raubenheimer, who became dean of the college of letters, arts, and sciences at the university of southern california in 1937, saw it that way. a boer from south africa, raubenheimer spent his first years at usc giving lectures on the “white man’s future in africa” and championing the politics of white dominance that emerged from the celebration of the “great trek” of the boers in 1938.81 his presence at usc reflected the importance in higher education at that time of a larger network of south african and us educators and researchers involved in studying education transnationally through the efforts of the carnegie foundation.82 raubenheimer had studied with lewis terman at stanford during the years when terman was developing theories of intelligence tests for gifted children based on biased and prejudiced criteria of racial character.83 terman was a member of the human betterment foundation, a pasadena-based eugenics group founded by e. s. gosney in 1929, and he was active in sterilization programs in california (brigham 1923; gosney et al. 1929; seiden 1999). it is in this context that albert raubenheimer decided as dean to integrate two years of music appreciation into the core curriculum of the college of letters, arts, and sciences, at usc in 1938 (alderman, n.d.).84 39 tamara levitz the very year raubenheimer implemented these changes at usc, concerns about lax criteria for admitting members to the ams led to a revolt among its constituency—the paradox of reaching out to a broader constituency while closing ranks as a profession becoming characteristic of us musicology. in may 1938, carleton sprague smith circulated a petition to dissolve the ams. davidson told kinkeldey that he would not sign it because he was the head of the new england chapter, but that he agreed with it, and that he wanted the society to be reorganized and to “command the respect other societies in the country do.” davidson thought they should dissolve the membership and reinstitute the original members as the core of a new organization. “i would make membership in the society entirely dependent on the quality of publication,” he wrote kinkeldey. “unless that line is drawn there is a great danger that many who are not really eligible but who have the reputation of being scholars will become members.” though this would mean “a relatively small membership,” he continued, “such a society could properly lay claim to recognition by the council of learned societies [acls] and it would command the respect which it ought to have.” he suggested there be a separate group of friends of musicology who were not connected at all with society but consisted “of musicians and others who had an interest in musical scholarship and a desire to see it furthered in this country, and whose function would be to support the official publication of the society” (davidson 1938). national chauvinism also played a role in determining membership eligibility for some board members. on may 9, 1939, howard hanson at the eastman school of music, speaking also for his colleague charles warren fox, expressed to reese his concern that six of the eight applications for membership they had received were from foreigners. given how difficult it was, in his view, for “americans” to be admitted into the society, he thought they should discuss the matter. “both dr. fox and i believe,” hanson wrote, “that one of the aims of the american musicological society should be to encourage american musicologists and give them opportunity for growth and development. we do not see how this end can be accomplished by admitting a majority of foreigners and apparently relegating the applications of americans to the pigeonholes of the membership committee.” hanson and fox said they felt emboldened to speak because they knew that a lot of members shared their opinion on this (hanson 1939). appearing not on the same wavelength as his eastman colleagues, reese sent hanson’s letter to george s. dickinson, chair of the membership committee. reese noted that article ii.b.3 of the bylaws did not specify nationality (reese 1939c). dickinson (1939a) responded that they needed a “clearer official definition of terms of membership.” he thought this 40 current musicology problem had to be resolved because the “reputation of the society, and, incidentally, of the membership committee is rather bad as far as prompt action is concerned.” the same day, reese responded to hanson (copied to dickinson) that it was a coincidence that the batch of applicants they saw included so many foreigners, given no applications had been passed on in a year and they had piled up. “i believe you will see that i am correct in stating that the ratio of foreigners to americans, in the whole lot, is not at all fairly indicated by that ratio in the first batch” (reese 1939d, 1939e). ams members criticized the executive board not only for welcoming foreigners, but also for accepting members who were unqualified but needed to establish chapters in states with few musicological traditions. at the very moment when reese was arguing with hansen about foreigners, warren d. allen at stanford wrote reese to discuss how to create an ams chapter in southern california, given the lack of musicologists there. he wanted to nominate albert elkus at the university of california, berkeley for membership to the ams, although he was not eligible because he had no publications. “i am afraid that we would have a hard time getting a branch established out here without his cooperation because of his influential position,” allen wrote. he suggested asking elkus’s “close friend” engel to second the nomination, so they could get the ball rolling (allen 1939a). reese passed this letter onto engel, who felt irked enough to write allen a response. he said he would second elkus’s nomination, but not because he was allegedly his friend. rather he admired elkus “as a man of broad culture and as an excellent musician.” “i admit that it may be difficult to draw an exact line of division between those who are real ‘musicologists’ and those to whom the term applies loosely,” engel wrote allen. “but the society will, sooner or later, have to draw such a line, and stick to it, unless two classes of members can be established: the one for ‘musicologists’ in the narrower sense (entitled to vote) and other class comprising the members admitted ‘by courtesy’ (excluded from voting). only by some method of this kind will the society avoid the dangers which are bound to spring from an indiscriminate extension of its membership” (engel 1939). allen responded that there weren’t many men or women “in this particular neighborhood” (california) who could qualify for membership according to engel’s standards, but there were “an increasing number of young people interested in musicology,” and forming a chapter could “stimulate that interest.” allen added that he himself had nominated elkus in the hope of making berkeley a “center for musicological research” (allen 1939b). a few days later, on june 21, 1939, james coopersmith, motivated by his concerns about membership quality, wrote dickinson, proposing a plan to dissolve the ams that was almost identical to the one carleton 41 tamara levitz sprague smith had suggested a year earlier. coopersmith thought they should amend the constitution to include fellows who met the requirements, and associates who did not, and thus could not vote or be elected to any office, or appointed to any committee. the latter group could include “laymen, students, instrumentalists, etc.,” he explained. he thought fellows should have all or any of either “1. a graduate degree (ph.d. or mus.doc.) from an institution recognized for its musicological activity” (but that this requirement could be waived if they had attended an equivalent number of hours of formal courses with established musicologists); “2. publications either of books, music in scholarly editions, or periodical articles in journals of recognized merit—of “important research”; or “3. unpublished research which can leave no doubt (after oral or written discussion with the candidate) that the candidate is a proficient musicologist.” he thought the committee’s selection had to be “autocratic.” coopersmith realized that current members would not fulfill these criteria, and thus suggested either dissolving the society or adapting the “amended” requirements to the current group (coopersmith 1939). in september 1939, dickinson, exasperated, asked in response to these debates to be relieved of his duties as chair of the membership committee. “i am sure that there is considerable diversity of opinion on the question of appropriate membership qualifications,” he wrote reese, “and i am afraid that i have little to contribute to the resulting conclusion. in any case there will be obviously marked difficulties in the operations of a membership committee for some time to come under the present terms” (dickinson 1939b). by the end of the 1930s, the executive board’s personalized procedures for selecting members had led to a majority white, male membership. some women were active in the society in these years, but giving papers rather than serving on the board or as officers.85 on occasion, the issue of women’s role in the society did arise. during the 1939 meeting, jacob coopersmith, who was on the nomination committee, nominated himself for vice president. the president of the society that year, carleton sprague smith, admonished him for doing so and suggested a female candidate: “mr. engel made the suggestion that a woman nominee would be diplomatic at this time, and i entirely agree with him. after all, a vice president is a little like a fifth wheel on a carriage or a third person in a love duet. it means very little. as president of the society i am keeping in pretty close touch with the general psychology of the organization and i should like to suggest the name of helen roberts for your consideration. i doubt whether she will be elected against harold spivacke, but i feel sure that many of our members, particularly the comparative musicologists, will approve of this 42 current musicology choice” (smith 1939). helen heffron roberts was nominated, but did not win the election.86 it would take sixteen more years until louise e. cuyler became the first women to be elected as an officer of the ams, when she became secretary in 1955. janet knapp became the first female president in 1975, and eileen southern the first african american member-at-large the same year (but only for one year). the prestige the ams gained through exclusive membership rules led to a situation in which the public began to respect, fear, and exaggerate its expertise. a gradual shift in public perceptions occurred as professional musicologists replaced critics and intellectuals as spokespeople for music. how professionalization affected intellectual life is evident in theodore wiesengrund adorno’s application for membership to the ams from around 1941. alfred einstein and walter rubsamen had nominated adorno—the latter as part of his larger efforts to strengthen the ams chapter in southern california. in contrast to the case of albert elkus, described above, adorno appeared almost overqualified in terms of the kind of information the ams required. in his application, he provided a daunting list of achievements—his pedigree seemingly exceeding the limits of the ams’s mundane form. although asked for statements, he provided lists, reducing his experience of exile into a one-line entry in the chronology of his training (“1933: expelled by the nazis”) (see appendix vi). as was characteristic at the time, walter rubsamen, adolph weiss, and arnold schoenberg focused in their recommendations on adorno’s character and on generalities rather than the content of his scholarship. “although one may not always agree with dr. adorno,” rubsamen writes, “his contributions to a musicological discussion are always original and penetrating. he would make a valuable member of the society.” this form gives evidence of the bureaucratization of knowledge within professional musicology as represented by the ams: to be an expert, adorno’s general worth and character needed to be verified by other experts, his output quantified, his life reduced to a timeline (adorno, n.d.). independent music scholars working across the country began submitting to this regime when the ams nationalized the profession by creating chapters. they made compromises in multiple directions to fit into the rubric as musicological expertise became standardized. the story of albert einstein’s involvement in the ams leads me to similar conclusions about how professionalization affected intellectual life. when invited to speak on a joint ams-mtna panel at the annual meeting in cleveland in 1940 on “the musical scientist” with musicologist alfred einstein responding with a talk on “the scientific musician,” albert einstein responded that “i see myself, cause of incompetence, unable to accept this friendly invitation.”87 if albert einstein felt incompetent, ams 43 tamara levitz members were clearly doing a good job of promoting musicology as a status profession. i have dwelt here on archival details about the struggle to establish membership rules in the ams in its early years because i believe such minutia reveal the most about how status came to precede knowledge production in the society. the cronyism and nepotism that resulted from such rules, and that characterized the ams well into the 1970s and beyond, lead me to conclude that the quest for professional status compromised scholarship in the ams and prevented it from becoming a meritocracy. the decolonizing profession it is a long road from the exclusive early years of the ams to debates about the future of the discipline of musicology today. if i have taken that path, it is because i think the exercise of uncovering the mundane bureaucratic decisions and material circumstances that determined how musicology became a profession in the united states may be the best way to reorient current discussions about decolonization. my premise is that musicologists need to know which actions were undertaken, and on what material basis, in building their elite, white, exclusionary, patriarchal profession before they can undo them. i have learned several things from undertaking this exercise. first, i have understood more clearly the geopolitical position of us musicology, which is grounded in and continues to support the form of international intellectual cooperation championed by the league of nations in the interwar years. although us musicologists have extensively critiqued the eurocentrism of their field, they have not fully acknowledged, or perhaps even known a lot about, their profession’s internationalist basis. they do not know that it is their choice to continue to perpetuate interwar western models of internationalism that subjugate or objectify peoples of the global south, and that it is their choice to bracket out intercolonial collaborations, as well as pan-african, pan-asian and other global networks as a basis for their work.88 rather than research the historical specifics of international relations, musicologists have tended to romanticize and even naturalize internationalism as an idea. a general lack of dialogue with scholars of international relations, and failure of imagination about geopolitical possibilities within the discipline, has prevented musicologists from developing a grounded strategy for promoting equality in musicological research. it has also led some us musicologists to believe the language exams they require—in french, german, and italian (sometimes spanish)—reflect values they have, rather than their country’s geopolitical priorities. language exams in us musicology are neither innately positive nor representative of 44 current musicology a superior pedagogical tradition. any language can be required in musicology, and that choice is always arbitrary and geopolitically determined. i have also learned that the ams executive has consistently bluffed about the society’s object of study and that this has been a power play, a way to receive advantages and acquire cultural capital. to this day, the ams has retained, with slight modifications, the mission statement crafted by kinkeldey, dickinson, seeger, strunk, yasser, and reese at their organizational meeting on september 15, 1934: “the object of the society shall be the advancement of research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning” (see “minutes” 1934c).89 that this statement has endured so long is remarkable, especially given it is generic and untrue: the ams has never advanced research in “various fields” of music, but rather has always, in spite of efforts in its early decades, prioritized—and even considered its sole domain of expertise—historical musicology. as i documented above, the first ams executive used this statement to assert power, annex disciplinary territory, and exclude others (especially the comparativists). the illusion of doing something grander than it does has served the ams well since that time, in that it has allowed it to dominate among scholarly societies devoted to music scholarship in the united states. fewer people would find the ams so central to academic music studies if it admitted to its limited research methods and repertoire. my investigation has also helped me to develop a more cogent critique of curricular changes at harvard, because it has shown me that establishing musicology as a profession had little to do with deciding upon a standard curriculum or canon of musical works and everything to do with securing financial support, gaining access to powerful institutions, creating an exclusive public sphere and rules of entry, and asserting white male privilege. it is helpful to remember this when considering the harvard music department’s decision to change their music theory requirements—a case that exposes in a dramatic way the social inequality built into higher education in the united states. although colleagues in the department of music at harvard will surely make their program more flexible by eliminating music theory and other requirements, this will not affect the entrance requirements to the university, which focus heavily on determining a student’s character, interests, and potential (harvard college, n.d.).90 in his study of yale university, where similar curricular changes are now taking place (turner 2018), joseph a. soares (2007) investigated how such character assessments came to be used in determining admission to elite schools and how they have contributed to perpetuating class privilege. in contrast to scholars of higher education who assume old protestant institutions like yale and harvard became meritocratic after the introduction of 45 tamara levitz sat tests and launching of the american college testing in 1959, when “universalistic academic criteria” for judging applicants replaced social pedigree, soares argues that sat scores correlate with class (soares 2007, 8–9).91 he describes how yale and other schools circumvented even such allegedly objective criteria by focusing in their selection processes from the 1960s onward on character assessments that helped in determining leadership qualities, at first because they needed a mechanism that would allow them to exclude jews and other minorities (16, 39–41). such criteria for admission—which can be instrumentalized to include or exclude depending on admissions committees and underlying administrative goals—still dominate, if harvard’s process is any indication. recent studies on harvard corroborate soares’s view that financial aid—which was consolidated in the “ivy group” in the early 1960s and intended to ensure that student bodies in elite colleges not remain exclusively upper class—has not altered the class makeup at the elite colleges as expected it would (66–70).92 learning about the economic elitism of harvard’s student body altered my view on the faculty’s decision to relax the music theory requirements in the department of music. from an economic perspective, curricular change appears to reinforce class distinctions by offering exceptionally wealthy students a more omnivorous education (see drott 2012; peterson and kern 1996). such an approach appears premised on the false assumption that the consciousness of an enlightened elite will ultimately trickle down and create an enlightened general population. it fails to address the material conditions of the adjuncts and teaching assistants who may ultimately end up teaching students in these new classes, and who may have little say in curricular change.93 here, i share ghassan hage’s concern about whether the struggle to decolonize the curriculum is a way of “creating decolonized bubbles in an otherwise colonized social space,” or of “creating a generation of cultural fighters who extend the struggle for decolonization from the university to its outside.” have we thought enough about what hage calls the “respect for the elders”—decolonial and anti-capitalist ways of consuming academic texts (hage 2018, 110)? yasmin nair (2018) speaks in a related context of how “radical” academic discourse eclipses genuine labor concerns.94 in other words curricular reform allows tenuretrack professors to maintain the illusion that they are doing something to promote equality when in fact they may not be. in a worst-case scenario, curricular change may merely stand in symbolically for equal access and economic justice. i also have doubts about the specific nature of current curricular change, which is often based on wedding musicological content to a student’s identity. minorities, the argument goes, should be able to study the 46 current musicology music that represents their cultures. although i emphatically agree with creating an equitable and just classroom, i wonder whether students’ racial, ethnic, gendered, sexual, and class identities can be correlated so easily with specific repertoire or traditions, and whether such assumptions about cultural background and taste are anachronistic in the current streaming/ global listening age. i worry about administrators and faculty extracting identities from their social, intersectional context and mapping them onto music for the purpose of imbuing their teaching with moral purpose, and reinvigorating the humanities as a social justice project. although i think a rigidly canonical, exclusionary curriculum causes epistemological and personal harm, i might at first agree with jacques rancière that it is not course content that matters but rather how it is taught, the critical positionalities of all involved, and the degree to which students achieve emancipation.95 that said, i doubt myself on this point, because i know that the majority of professors are still white, and arguments of this kind can be seen to justify racial exclusion. i also wonder about the soundness of a curriculum designed to promote “diversity” in the neoliberal university, and of the hollowing out of epistemological and conceptual grounding that occurs when the survival of the disciplines is at stake. all in all, i remain concerned that the current focus on curriculum may be, in part, a diversion that allows academic musicologists to evade the job market crisis, class and racial inequality in higher education, the erosion of their profession, and labor injustices. i can best clarify my position on curriculum in reference to the critical work of la paperson (an avatar created by k. wayne yang). in a third university is possible, la paperson draws on marcos’s méxico profundo and third cinema to theorize the university as an “amalgam of first, second, and third world formations.” the first university is an academic-industrial complex committed to capitalist and brand expansion, accumulation of debt, patent, publication, and prestige, procuring state resources to govern, and technologies of power associated with institutions of “policing, bordering, incarceration, illegalization, and militarization.” “the ability to turn anyone into a debtor is what fuels the first university toward inclusion,” he argues. the second university hopes to transform the first, and society, through critique. it is made up of thoughtful academics who teach literary and social critical theory, for example of the frankfurt school, but mistake “personalized pedagogy of self-actualization for decolonial transformation.” the music scholar who aims to decolonize through curricular change, or the pedagogy of jacques rancière that i evoked above, fall into this category. teachers in the second university assume people will “naturally” produce freedom, and that “freedom’s doppelgänger is critical 47 tamara levitz consciousness.” the second world university is a pedagogical utopia that depends materially on the fees, debt, and land accumulated by the first university (la paperson 2017). in my view, most musicologists, including myself, have been trapped in the first and second university. we confuse decolonization with liberal critique, embrace utopian notions of inclusion that support the first university’s project of expansion and debt, create new curricula based on nostalgic notions of self realization, and remain intransigent about changing the material circumstances of our professional privilege and committing to radical action. in order to decolonize we would have to enter what la paperson calls the third university, which exists within the first, and which he compares to black radical film as “assembling,” “strategic,” “timely,” “vocational,” “unromantic,” “problematic,” and “anti-utopian.” in the third university, teachers talk about rematriating land, disciplining scholarwarriors rather than “liberating” students, acting upon financial systems rather than just critiquing them, helping to accumulate third world power rather than simply disavowing first world power, supporting a school-tocommunity pipeline rather than a community-to-school pipeline, and so on. the third university is made up of “scyborgs,” la paperson explains in his last chapter, who have the technological condition of being embedded in the “assemblage” of the university, and from there “assemble decolonial machines.” they develop “far-reaching transformative radical projects” from within existing structures, creating a decolonizing rather than decolonized university. the final lesson i have learned from undertaking this investigation is how indebted us musicology still is today to the model of academic professionalism established by the acls in the mid-twentieth century, and to the work of professionalizing the discipline undertaken specifically at that time by the acls committee on musicology. that committee funded research with grants and fellowships from private sources—committing to a model of humanistic scholarship built on the capitalist ventures of industrialists of the gilded age (the carnegies and rockefellers). it also tried (but only minimally and unsuccessfully) to suggest a standard curriculum in universities across the country, establishing the boundaries of the knowable within the settler colonial/land grant university. it created an exclusive musicological public sphere by gathering bibliographies, supporting publications, contributing to the development of a system of peer review, aiding in the expansion of library collections and archives, and assuring the accessibility of primary sources. with these concrete strategies, the committee established a blueprint for how to build musicology into a successful “first and second” profession (to use la paperson’s terms). 48 current musicology but today, there are cracks in the mirror of this elite profession—which has become parasitic of the first university yet survives morally by promoting social justice on the basis of the second. the crisis in higher education has damaged its foundations, and now many of its strategies are failing and in need of rethinking: the number of people applying for funds far exceeds available resources; major bibliographies and library collections are no longer necessary for a pluralistic discipline to thrive in the internet age; academic articles and monographs are not being read; and peer review is under harsh scrutiny. the “decline in authority and autonomy” of the professions that marie haug spoke about in the 1970s has progressed to a point where the boundary between public and professional knowledge about music has all but disappeared, causing the profession to lose its raison d’être. as the professional foundations of musicology have collapsed, graduate programs in musicology around the country have accelerated the professionalization of their students—a dynamic that speaks to me of the current desperation to keep up appearances. graduate programs in musicology offer students professional status and prestige divorced from financial security and the possibility of obtaining a job, entrance into an elite without the standard of living that once went with belonging to one, the skills required to act like a professional without the defined knowledge to be one, professional boundaries without a territory to bound, and a dissipated multiplicity of public spheres no longer supported by major publishers. many recent graduates face a landscape that has become almost impossible to negotiate, except as unpaid volunteers. this situation leads me to ask whether it is time to undertake serious reconsideration of what it means to be a professional musicologist in the twenty-first century and whether us musicologists should not rebuild their profession on a more sustainable and equitable basis, or abandon professionalism altogether. what would be the blueprint for building musicology as a decolonizing, rather than decolonized, profession today? it is in this context that i question the current trend toward public musicology—the “ams” or professional form of which i distinguish from university outreach programs and the work of public intellectuals. i admire the public musicologists within the ams, but i want to ask them some questions. i wonder how they feel about the fact that musicology as an expert profession has had a long, conflicted, sometimes paradoxical relationship with music appreciation and public outreach, and that they may be repeating history. i wonder if they are aware of how their predecessors created a musicological elite through rigid membership rules and exclusionary practices, and whether they think such a finely tuned and longstanding social formation can be broken down with rhetoric—a shift away 49 tamara levitz from expert speech—alone. does public musicology not evade the crisis of professionalism by embracing a faux populism? does it not ignore the fact that knowledge about music history was public in the united states before musicology professionalized in the mid-twentieth century and that attempts at “outreach” of multiple kinds have occurred regularly since then and may in fact constitute one of the musicological elite’s most well-worn mechanisms for distinguishing itself? where do public musicologists stand on strengthening the school-to-community-pipeline, scyborgs who assemble decolonial machines, and the third university as described by la paperson? do they not reify the profession of musicology within the first and second university, rather than transform it? i like to think of public musicology in terms of antonio de lauri’s (2014) argument about the “bourgeois academic” who dominates in the university and who perpetuates the status quo by producing “a specific bourgeois knowledge particularly in relation to social inequality.” i recognize standard musicological practice in de lauri’s description of the bourgeois academic as somebody who transforms “the highly factual and brutal dimension of social suffering and marginality” into issues of representation in their scholarship, and who champions resistance yet functions increasingly as a bureaucrat whose relationship to the institution is marked by “moral ambiguity, corporativism, and formal obedience.” as the university becomes the preparatory institution of neoliberal efficiency and pragmatism, de lauri writes, academics who still largely identify as bourgeois have supported the political forces that “impede the non-bourgeois knowledge that could destabilize the social order.” no amount of public musicology will erase the guilt of belonging to an exclusionary, elite profession forged and maintained by white patriarchal privilege. having gained insight into the mechanisms of us musicology as a profession by exploring the archive of its early history, i am convinced the main goal now should be to reinvent it. 50 current musicology appendix i: speaker series of the new york musicological society, 1930–1934.96 1930 february 19: round-table discussion of joseph yasser’s the future of tonality march 13: otto kinkeldey, “some japanese polyphony” april 1: leon theremin, demonstration in his laboratory of certain electrical instruments, and exposition of some theories in connection with them. april 22: round-table discussion of consonance and dissonance with otto kinkeldey, henry cowell, and charles seeger may 14: charles seeger, “dissonant counterpoint” 1931 january 14: e.g. stringham “music reviewing” february 16: joseph schillinger “classification of scales within the equal temperament” march 5: henry cowell “some aspects of a rhythmic harmonic series” march 20: mr. and mrs. sarat lahiri, “a special meeting for a demonstration of some of the rhythmic features of the music of modern india.” april 6: round-table discussion of the classification of tonal chords within the equal temperament (following on the event on february 16) april 27: adolph weiss, “a comprehensive view of the schönbergian technic” may 18: joseph yasser, “the past of tonality” november 9: joseph schillinger, “a system of tonal harmony” november 30: charles seeger, “a modern neume theory” december 28: nicholas slonimsky “consonant counterpoint in mutually exclusive tonal systems” 1932 january 10: henry cowell, “some aspects of comparative musicology” (during which cowell also told of his studies in javanese music with raden mas jodjana). january 31: leon theremin, “light and sound” february 21: round-table discussion of the relation of the composer and performer march 31: john redfield, “is a just chromatic scale possible?” [lecture cancelled] april 10: helen heffron roberts, “some ancient california indian songs” november 29: joseph yasser “a new method of harmonization for some biblical cantillations, medieval chants, negro spirituals, and russian folk songs” 1933 january 9: henry cowell, “evidence against some axioms of musical theory” january 23: informal discussion of george herzog’s paper, “the connection of language and music in west africa” february 5: otto kinkeldey, “scale: mode and tonality” february 26: john redfield, “is a just chromatic scale possible” march 19: joseph schillinger, “rhythm in art continuum” april 3: edward j. stringham, “a modern space-time nervegrouping theory of hearing and its application to standardized pitch discrimination tests” april [typo]: charles seeger, “musical logic and the linguistic logic of music” 1934 january 17: george herzog, “speech as a factor in primitive music” february 25: charles seeger, “the method of criticism” march 18: helen h. roberts, “some primitive musical instruments and their culture connections” april 8: symposium on “objective and subjective factors of musical taste” april 29: harold spivacke, “the relationship between systematic and historical musicology” may 15: carleton sprague smith, “the performance of old music” the russian group of musicologists, meetings 1930–193297 1. february 10, 1930: joseph yasser, “the theory of the supradiatonic scale” 2. march 23, 1930: alexandre gretchaninoff, “on the influence of secular russian music upon church music” 3. april 16, 1930: nicholas slonimsky, “consonant systems of harmony” 4. spring 1931: joseph schillinger, “the process of the formation of harmonic tissue” 5. october 18, 1931: solomon rosowsky, “new analytical theory of biblical cantilation” 6. winter 1931: alexandre koshetz, “ukranian folk songs, past and present” 7. february 4, 1932: joseph schillinger, “the varieties of musical experience” appendix ii: “members [of the american society of comparative musicology] during 1933 and 1934.”98 honorary member: hornbostel, e.m. von c/o the new school 66 west 12th street new york city contributing members: walton, mrs. b.f. 25 washington square, north new york city wheelwright, miss mary c. c/o c.c. wheelwright 344 atlantic avenue boston, mass roberts, miss helen h. room 245, i.h.r. 333 cedar street new haven conn. regular members: achron, joseph 2631 beachwood drive hollywood calif barry, phillips 5 craigie circle cambridge, mass boulton, mrs. laura c c/o division of birds field museum natural history chicago, ill. burrows, edwin g. c/o b.p. bishop museum honolulu, h.i. chamberlain, miss gladys e. 437 east 58th street new york city chao, yuen ren 1 chi ming szu road nat. research institute of social science nanking china 51 tamara levitz appendix ii (continued) coomaraswamy, ananda k. museum of fine arts boston, mass. cowell, henry menlo park, california flower, mrs. elisa m.c. 168 east 63rd street new york city gibbs, dr. becket 99 claremont avenue new york city grainger, percy c/o antonia morse 9 cromwell place white plains, ny hague, miss eleanor 640 hillside terrace pasadena california hammel , s.g. 209 west 14th street new york city harrington, j.p. bureau american ethnology smithsonian institution washington d.c. haydon, prof. glenn department of music univ. of north carolina chapel hill, n.c. herskovits, melville j. department of sociology northwestern university evanston, ill. herzog, dr. george room 249, i.h.r. 333 cedar street new haven, conn. hinman, mrs. mary wood 353 west 57th street 353 west 57th street katz, miss adele t. 277 west end avenue new york city kazarova, mme raina vel tarnoviz sofía, bulgara lathrop, francis c. 50 orange street brooklyn, n.y. lawton, miss dorothy 121 east 58th street new york city lehmer, derrick n. 2736 regent street berkeley, calif. lewisohn, miss irene 133 west 11th street new york city loines, miss elma 3 pierrepont place brooklyn, n.y. marks, robert w. 500 riverside drive new york city mayer, clara w. 66 west 12th street new york city ortmann, dr. otto peabody conservatory of music baltimore, m.d parsons, dr. elsie clews harrison new york potter, mark 414 west 118th street new york city quackenbush, mrs. dorothy killam’s point branford, conn. russell, william 182 claremont avenue new york city samaroff, madame olga 1170 fifth avenue new york city seashore, dean carl graduate school university of iowa iowa city, iowa seeger, charles l. jr. c/o the new school 66 west 12th street new york city serly, tibor c/o george herzog, room 249, i.h.r., 333 cedar street new haven, conn. spivacke, harold library of congress, music division washington, d.c. street, mrs. w. d. 4 ridgeview avenue white plains, n.y. swadesh, mrs. mary haas room 250, i.h.r.,333 cedar street new haven conn. tozzer, prof. a.m. 7 bryant street cambridge, mass. vasser college library poughkeepsie new york vrionides, christos villa byzantium, p.o. box 871, babylon, l.i., n.y. winne, miss jane 2065 lanihuli drive honalulu, h.i. yale university, library of the school of music yale university new haven, conn. yasser, joseph 7 west 83rd street new york city appendix iii: “committee on musicology. list of persons interested in musicology, january, 1935. (note. this list does not include all persons addressed, but only those who have given information concerning fields of interest, publications, etc.)”99 ethel g. aginsky 2685 university ave., apt. 51e new york city linguistics-musicology (ethnology) richard aldrich 317 w. 74th street new york city musical history nicholas george julius ballanta, freetown, sierra leone, africa west africa edward ballantine, department of music, harvard cambridge, mass. composition, pianoforte players. analysis of works of mozart, brahms j. murray barbour 416 w, seneca street ithaca, n.y. musicology phillips barry, 5 craigle circle cambridge, mass. folk-song and folk-music 52 current musicology appendix iii (continued) charles r. baskervill, university of chicago, chicago, ill. elizabethan literature; popular drama marion bauer 40 west 77th street new york city musical composition, lecturing on music, writing—critical critical and analytical arthur v. berger 31 conant hall, harvard u. cambridge, mass. music and opera in 16th century english theatre martin berstein, nyc, washington square east new york city 17th and 18th century orchestral music wagner lowell p. beveridge, columbia university new york city choral music before bach william p. bigelow, 2 orchard street amherst, mass. producer of choral and orchestral works. conductor paul boepple 9 e. 59th street new york city musical rhythm laura c. boulton, 5750 island avenue chicago, ill. african music; s.w. american indian music charles n. boyd, 131 bellefield avenue pittsburgh, pa. harmony and history carl bricken, 5727 university avenue chicago, ill. music mrs. elizabeth stuart brown, university of california berkeley, calif. history of music j.m. coopersmith, 3720 81st street jackson heights, new york music of the 18th century georg friedrich handel henry cowell 66 w. 12th street new york city comparative musicology and contemporary creative music edmund a. cykler 13625 califa st. van nuys, california music history arthur kyle davis, jr. box. 1151, university of virginia ballad and folk song archibald t. davison 22 francis avenue cambridge, mass. general miss frances densmore red wing minnesota the music of the american indians clarence dickinson, nyc, 99 claremont avenue new york city sacred music; medieval music and art george sherman dickinson 155 college avenue poughkeepsie, n.y. various subjects in the border-line field between music history and theory ralph william downes, 9. aiken avenue princeton, n.j. gregorian chant and medieval music henry purmont eames claremont, california musicology will earhart 215 lothrop street music education folkmusic, pittsburgh primitive music albert i. elkus 3323 clay street san francisco music generally. i am an active musician with a strong interest in various aspects of musicology. herbert elwell 2502 mayfield road cleveland heights, ohio criticism, biography, analysis, etc. john lawrence erb connecticut college for women new london, conn. music history and music appreciation karl henry eschman form in modern music; new methods granville, ohio paul randolph farnsworth 715 salvatierra stanford university, calif. experimental aesthetics and social psychology ross lee finney, jr. 79 west street northhampton, mass. composition. 17th century instrumental style william arms fisher, 359 boylston street boston, mass. history of music in america charles warren fox 64 cambridge street rochester, n.y. psychological acoustics; bibliography karl william gerhkens oberlin, ohio music education and musicology john l geiger, meridian apartments indianapolis, ind. teacher, voice, opera, appreciation becket gibbs 92 claremont avenue new york city sacred music harold gleason rochester, new york medieval music percy goetschius 120 claremont avenue new york city mus. theory julius gold 1101 green street san francisco, calif. history of music theory wallace hoodrich new england conservatory of music, boston, mass. musical education howard hanson eastman school of music rochester, n.y. composition glen haydon university of north carolina chapel hill, n.c. musicology-theory george herzog 333 cedar street new haven, conn. comparative musicology, folk new music, anthropology erich m. von hornbostel 66 w. 12th street new york city musicology, anthropology, psychology, physiology of the senses charles william hughes 28 ralph avenue white plains, n.y. early instrumental music, chamber music royal d. hughes ohio state university columbus, ohio music (before bach) 53 tamara levitz appendix iii (continued) a. z. idelsohn hebrew union college cincinnati, ohio jewish music and folk poetry george pullen jackson vanderbilt university nashville, tenn. folk-song melville jacobs university of washington seattle, wash. american indian languages; ethnology of american indians (oregon, washington) guy b. johnson chapel hill, n.c. primitive peoples, american negro; racial differences vern o. knudsen university of california at los angeles los angeles, calif. acoustics a. walter kramer 113 west 57th street new york city music and music journalism ernst c. krohn 3806 junista street st. louis, mo. history of american music, history of music in america missouri st. louis max t. krone indianapolis, ind. choral music jacob kwalwasser syracuse, n.y. music pedagogy, psychology samuel l. laciar public ledger philadelphia, pa. chamber music paul henry láng, 601 journalism building columbia university, new york roberta campbell lawson 1008 sunset drive tulsa, oklahoma folk music also collecting hugo leichtentritt 198 st. paul st. brookline, mass. composition, musicology leland avery coon madison, wisconsin music of the clavecin period modern french music leo rich lewis 20 professors row tufts college, mass. foundation of musical style parity of music and math ematics arthur w. locke 96 round hill northhampton, mass. 1) bach and his predecessors; 2) music and the romantic; 3) modern music john a. lomax university of texas station austin, texas american folk-songs (omitting indian songs) clifford t. mcavoy 124 e. 81 street, new york city opera libretto glenn douglas mcgeoch ann arbor, michigan english music of seventeenth century (italian influences) henry lowell mason 134 beacon street boston, mass. biography arthur mendel 3 east 43rd st., new york city a. tillman merritt j-11 eliot house, cambridge mass. criticism frank j. metcalf 901 ingraham street washington, d.c. sacred music, hymnology milton franklin metdessel university of southern california los angeles, calif. human voice, folk music, bird music charles h. mills 2119 jefferson st. madison, wis. the development of the fugue in the 17th and 18th centuries earl v. moore ann arbor, michigan stephen morrisett 111 jefferson road princeton, n.j. musicology m.d. herter norton 1 lexington avenue new york city chamber music, especially the string quartet otto ortmann peabody conservatory baltimore, md. music education and research mrs. oliver h payne (may de forest) west neck rd., cold spring harbor, l.i. musical research and bach abe pepkinsky 2349 bourne avenue st. paul, minn. physical basis of music carl f. pfattsicher 173 maine street andover, mass. church music isabel pope 5 concord avenue cambridge, mass. medieval spanish, philology and music louisa pound 1632 l street lincoln nebraska general subject of musicology miss margaret c. prall 1420 la loma avenue berkeley, calif. history of music 17th century and early 18th century waldo s. pratt 86 gillett strett hartford, conn. church music james t. quarles university of missouri columbia, mo. history and theory of music: organ john redfield 45 redfield road fairfield, conn. musical acoustics gustave reese 3 east 43rd st., new york medieval and renaissance music albert riemanschneider 10001 edgewater drive cleveland, ohio the life and works of j.s. bach christian a. ruckmick c206, east hall iowa city, iowa psychology of music; psychology of emotion lazare saminsky 1 east 65 new york modern music, folksong of the near east robert haven schauffler c/o dodd, mead and co. 443 4th ave., new york city music, poetry, biography, essays c.e. seashore iowa city, iowa psychology of music 54 current musicology appendix iii (continued) charles seeger 66 west 12th st. new york city musicology and comparative musicology but more particularly the methodology and the systematic orientation george sherburn university of chicago the eighteenth century berrian r. shute hamilton college, clinton, n.y. a. mackay smith farnley, white post virginia chamber music before 1800 cecil michener smith 5757 university avenue history of choral music history of dramatic music leslie spier new haven, conn. ethnology, indians of w. north america hazel martha stanton 522 fifith avenue, new york psychology, aesthetics music edwin s. stringham 500 west 121st st. new york city history acoustics (musical) oliver strunk 110 maryland avenue n.e. 15th century polyphony music of joseph haydn thomas whitney surette 21 lexington road concord, mass. music alfred j. swan 1 college lane, haverford, pa. archer taylor university of chicago folk music; music of folk songs miss jean thomas 3201 cogan st., ashland, ky. research in folklore randall thompson 30 east 42nd st., new york music wm. treat upton 221 forest st., oberlin, ohio american music george a. wedge 120-130 claremont ave., new york theory of music r.d. welch 101 prospect st., northhampton history of music james woodside 822 steinway hall 113 west 57th st. new york city research in the historical evolution of song g. wallace woodworth music building cambridge, mass. j.s. bach joseph yasser 7 west 83 street scales, modes, tonality frederick yeiser 2950 world avenue cincinnati, ohio byzantine music karl young 195 everit street new haven, conn. medieval music appendix iv: “institutions of which one or more members of the faculty have been invited to contribute to the report on musicology, (feb. 26, 1938) (*indicates some answer has been received. notes in brackets refer to answers received not to letters sent.)”100 *amherst arizona arthur jordan cons. baldwin wallace cons. bennington *boston univ. *brown *bryn mwar buffalo *california *calif. at l.a. [physics only] *carnegie tech. [psychology only] case [physics only] *catholic univ. *chicago *chicago musical col. claremont *c.c.n.y. univ. of colorado *columbia *cornell [one grad. stud. only] *denison *eastman sch. of mus. field mus. of nat. hist. fisk *grosvenor library hamilton *harvard *haverford huntington library illinois indiana *iowa state *univ. iowa [psychology only] kansas kentucky library of congress louisana state mailamm (library) miami, ohio *michigan state univ. michigan mills minnesota *missouri mt. holyoke mus. library, 58st, ny nebraska new england cons. new york pub. lib. *new york univ. *north carolina *n. caro. woman’s col. *northwestern [anthropol. only] *oberlin *ohio state ohio univ. *oklahoma univ. oregon *peabody cons. [one teacher only] *pearl river pennsylvania state *rutgers san diego *smith *south carolina [folksong only] so. california *stanford *syracuse texas *tufts *tulane utah *vanderbilt [german and psychology only] vassar, virginia [english only] *univ. washington, wellesey, *wella, western reserve. *westminster chior [sic] sch. west va. *wisconsin, *yale 55 tamara levitz appendix v: “american musicological association, proposed list of active members.”101 aldrich richard 317 west 74th street new york beck, prof. jean b. dept. of music, univ. of penn. philadelphia, penna. boyd, charles n. 131 bellefield avenue pittsburgh, penna. coopersmith, jacob maurice 3720—81st street jackson heights, n,y. cowell, henry new school for social research 66 west 12th street new york davison, archibald t. 22 francis avenue cambridge, mass. densmore, miss frances red wing, minn. dickinson, clarence 99 claremont avenue new york engel, carl 3 east 43rd street, c/o g. schirmer new york city fletcher, harvey 342 madison avenue new york haydon, glen 2136 eunice street berkeley, california hornbostel, erich von new school for social research 66 west 12th street new york howard, john tasker, jr. 47 lincoln street glen ridge, n.j. hughes, royal d. ohio state university columbus, ohio idelsohn, a.z. hebrew union college cincinnati, ohio kinkeldey, otto 29 east avenue ithaca, new york krohn, ernest c., jr. 3806 juniata street st. louis, missouri kwalwasser, jacob 860 livingston avenue syracuse, new york leichtentritt, hugo 118 st. paul street brookline, mass. mattfeld, julius national broadcasting company astoria, l.i., new york metcalf, frank j. 901 ingraham street washington, d.c. metfessel, milton franklin university park los angeles, california mills, charles h. university of wisconsin madison, wisconsin miller, dayton c. case school of applied science cleveland, ohio ortmann, otto peabody conservatory of music baltimore, maryland pfatteicher, carl f. 173 main street andover, mass. pratt, waldo s. 86 gillett street hartford, conn. reese, gustave c/o g. schirmer 3 east 43rd street new york roberts, helen h. institute of human relations yale university 333 cedar street new haven, conn. seashore, carl e. state university of iowa seeger, charles louis jr. 66 west 12th street new york city smith, carleton sprague new york public library new york city strunk, w. oliver 110 maryland ave., n.e. washington, d.c. thompson, randall 30 east 42nd street new york upton, william t. 221 forest street oberlin, ohio woodworth, wallace music building cambridge, mass. yasser, joseph 7 west 83rd street new york yeiser, frederick 2950 wold avenue cincinnati, ohio barbour, dr. j. murray 416 west seneca street ithaca, n.y. fox, dr. charles w. eastman school of music rochester, n.y. herzog, dr. george institute of human relations yale university new haven, conn. jackson, prof. george pullen vanderbilt university nashville, tenn. lang, prof. paul henry department of music columbia university new york city morrisett, dr. stephen westminister choir school pope, miss isabel c/o mediaeval [sic] academy of america cambridge, mass. riemenschneider, professor baldwin-wallace college berea, ohio schillinger, mr. joseph 315 east 68th street new york city spivacke, dr. harold library of congress washington, d.c. swalin, dr. benjamin 706 locust street greencastle, ind. pepinsky, prof. a university of minnesota minneapolis, minn. boas, dr. franz columbia university new york city waters, edward n. library of congress washington, d.c. lomax, john avery university of texas station austin, texas additions. fansworth, paul r. dept. of psychology leland stanford university palo alto, california locke, arthur w. 96 round hill northampton, mass. redfield, mr. john redfield road, fairfield, conn. stringham, prof. edwin j. 509 west 121st st., apt. 407 new york city donovan, richard yale school of music new haven, conn. gold, julius 1101 green street san franciso, california iowa city, iowa 56 current musicology appendix vi: theodore wiesengrund adorno’s application to become a member of the american musicological society, no date, c. 1941.102 57 tamara levitz appendix vi (continued) 58 current musicology appendix vi (continued) please supply date as full information as possible american musicological society candidacy for membership statement of sponsor 1. name of candidate t.w. adorno 2. statement concerning the quantity and type of the candidate’s research, and concerning the quality of his scholarship: (a) from direct personal knowledge dr. adorno is a well-known scholar in the fields of musical aesthetics and the sociology of music. he has contributed to many journals, and was co-editor of der anbruch from 1928-31. some of his publications are: in the zeitschrift für sozialforschung, the articles “zur gesellschaftlichen lage der musik,”(1932); jazz (1936); “über den fetischcharacter in der musik,” (1938), “fragments über wagner,” (1939); in die musik, (1928) an article on schubert; the chapter entitled “the radio symphony,” in radio research 1941¨, n.y. 1941; etc. he has also a co-author of willi reich’s book on alban berg. (b) from indirect sources (give names) (over) 3. statement concerning the candidate’s training, interests, and activities dr. adorno was privat-dozent for aesthetics at the university of frankfurt before hitler, and is now a prominent member of the institute for social research of columbia university. 4. other remarks although one may not always agree with dr. adorno, his contributions to a musicological discussion are always original and penetrating. he would make a valuable member of the society. 5. i sponsor this candidate as a person in my judgment properly qualified for membership in the american musicological society signed walter w rubsamen address dept. of music, university of california los angeles, california please return this form to: gustave reese secretary of the american musicological society 3 east 43rd street new york, new york 59 tamara levitz appendix vi (continued) please supply date as full information as possible american musicological society candidacy for membership statement of sponsor 1. name of candidate t.w. adorno 2. statement concerning the quantity and type of the candidate’s research, and concerning the quality of his scholarship: (a) from direct personal knowledge i know that mr. adorno (wiesengrund) has contributed several articles to “der anbruch”, a famous german music periodical; also to willie [sic] reich’s “23” a viennese brochure for musical polemics, where he used the pseudonym kurt weiler. (b) from indirect sources (give names) mr. arnold schoenberg gave me the following information: “mr. wiesengrund adorno studied with alban berg for several years. mr. berg thought highly of him as a composer and musicologist. i know of several articles he has written in a very thorough and scientific manner on the analysis of some of my works, which i found extraordinarily interesting. he obtained his ph.d. in a german university and i heartily endorse his application for membership in the america musicological society. arnold schoenberg (over) 3. statement concerning the candidate’s training, interests, and activities 4. other remarks 5. i sponsor this candidate as a person in my judgment properly qualified for membership in the american musicological society signed adolph weiss address 1803 ½ n. bronson ave hollywood, cal. please return this form to: gustave reese secretary of the american musicological society 3 east 43rd street new york, new york 60 current musicology notes i would like to thank erin brooks, jamie currie, kyle kaplan, ben piekut, alejandro garcía sudo, pradeep kannan, schuyler whelden, and tom wetmore for making crucial intellectual interventions that greatly helped me to strengthen the critical argument in this article. i am indebted to all of them for the time and care they spent with this piece, and especially to tom for his exceptional editing. i also feel immensely grateful for the feedback i received from so many thoughtful students and colleagues, especially martha feldman and carol oja, and for the intense conversations about this topic in response to related lectures i gave at cornell university, princeton university, new york university, northwestern university, the society for american music, the university of california riverside, and the university of arizona, as well as at the "essence and context" conference in vilnius, lithuania. finally, i am grateful to alex rehding for his insightful responses to my queries about harvard, and to benjamin court and kyle kaplan for their help as research assistants in photographing archival materials. 1. see the harvard music department’s web pages: http://music.fas.harvard.edu/news.shtml and https://music.fas.harvard.edu/currentugrad.shtml. see also valia p. leiper (2018). harvard was not the first university to make such changes, but their actions received the most public attention. i am grateful to alex rehding for his clarification of this curriculum in an email to me dated april 23, 2018. 2. see, for example, professors alexander rehding, suzannah clark, and anne shreffler, quoted in robin (2017). 3. see, for a small sampling, the discussions on: http://slippedisc.com/2017/04/you-donthave-to-read-music-to-study-it-at-harvard; https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/60094harvard-drops-music-theory-requirement.html; and https://phys.org/news/2017-05-insidious-class-music.html (ian pace). composer john adams caught the most attention, and polarized the discussion, by rejecting the new requirements on twitter. 4. although the ams-list was scheduled to shut down in fall 2017, it is still operating. one can become a member at: http://www.ams-net.org/ams-l. as far as i know, the ams-list debate about language requirements was not archived publically. 5. william robin gives an excellent bibliography of recent online discussions and significant secondary literature on public musicology in a syllabus for a course he taught in the school of music at the university of maryland in spring 2017: https://willrobin251824868. files.wordpress.com/2018/08/musc-699p-syllabus.pdf. 6. i discuss the coloniality of power in “decolonizing the society for american music” (levitz 2017). see also the bibliography included in that article. 7. i am grateful to brigid cohen for introducing me to this work. 8. my understanding of the musicological elite’s expertise is shaped by my conversations and collaborations with benjamin court, whose work on amateurism inspired me in thinking about this topic, and taught me so much. see court (2017). 9. the proper abbreviations for this society are: internationale musikgesellschaft (img), (1899–1914); internationale gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft (igmw) or société internationale de musicologie (sim) (1927–), and international musicological society (img) (1949–). see kirnbauer (2017, 11n1). 10. engel understood this moment as the birth of us musicology. in his presidential address to the ams in 1937, he described how leland approached him at the library of congress to create a committee on musicology at the acls after reading his tribute to oscar sonneck. see engel (1929, 1937). 61 tamara levitz 11. leland wrote engel on february 9, 1929 to inform him that the acls, “believing that the history and science of music constitutes an important branch of learning” had voted to ask the executive committee to appoint a standing committee on musicology and “to take such other measures as may be calculated to promote research and education in that field” (leland 1929a). he asked engel to help him select the other members, five in all. on the same day, leland asked kinkeldey to become a member. he was very disappointed when kinkeldey said no, because he viewed kinkeldey’s “cooperation as indispensable in our efforts to promote musicology as a field of learning” (see leland 1929a; kinkeldey 1929a; leland 1929c; kinkeldey 1929b; armstrong 1929). leland also requested kinkeldey’s approval of the candidates engel had suggested: otto ortmann, frances anne wister, and olin downes. he thought jean beck would make a good member, but beck had applied for funding and was thus disqualified (leland 1929b). 12. see j.p. chamberlain (1920). on waldo gifford leland, see wosh (2001). leland’s papers are kept at the library of congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/mm78029900. 13. see the list of members of the direktorium (board) included in “einladung” (1928). in a letter to merian from february 1928, adler had suggested carl engel, oscar sonneck, waldo pratt, and albert stanley as possible us members of the board (adler 1928a). 14. the reports of these gatherings in the annual proceedings of the mtna from 1899 to 1914 give evidence of the img’s influence on musicological practice in united states before ww i. see, for example, stanley (1910). programs for the img’s conferences are available in the zeitschrift der internationalen musikgesellschaft, available online at https://archive. org/details/zeitschriftderinternationalenmusikgesellschaft011899-1900/page/n133. see, for example, schering (1906). 15. the congress on music history was held as part of the beethoven centennial celebrations in vienna from march 20–27, 1927. there has recently been much interest in exploring the history of the igmw. see, for example, baumann and fabris (2017) and the conference “a ‘musical league of nations’?: music institutions and the politics of internationalism,” institute of musical research, senate house, london, june 29–30, 2018, https:// www.music.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/musical-league-of-nations. i also found yves balmer and hervé lacombe (2017) immensely useful. on the founding of the igmw, see also “centenaire de beethoven” (1927). this unsigned article (written by julien tiersot) reports that the new “international federation” was announced at the closing ceremonies of this congress in vienna in 1927, and that guido adler, julien tiersot, hermann abert, andré pirro, henry prunières, johannes wolf, karl nef, henryk opienski, and carl engel were on the commission to organize it. see also “die gründung der internationalen gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft” (1928) and häusler (1977). materials related to the organizers’ deliberations during the first 18 months, before their first official board meeting in september 1928, are kept in folder 23:16, adler papers. 16. edward dent also played a large role in defining the internationalism of the igmw as its president from 1931 to 1949. dent (1936) told adler in a letter from march 17, 1936, in the context of preparing the first international congress for music education in prague, that he felt “like an ‘unfortunate atlas’ of the international music world” (ich fühle mich wie ein ‘unglückseliger atlas’ der internationalen musikwelt.) 17. “groupement intern [sic] de musicologues professionnelles avec un bureau de renseignements pensant faciliter les travaux et les recherches en tous pays.” adler’s vision corresponds to what patricia clavin and jens-wilhelm wessels (2005) describe as a standard view on international organizations as an “an instrument through which nation-states seek to wield power in international relations” (466). 62 current musicology 18. “beethoven-zentenarfeier” (1928). julien tiersot wrote this unsigned review. in a letter to adler from march 21, 1928, prunières apologized for tiersot’s “malicious attitude” (l’attitude malveillante) in the revue (prunières 1928). tiersot had been an “enemy” of their project of an international society from the start, he complained, but would no longer obstruct their plans because prunières had made sure he would not be reelected as president of the french society. 19. “unsere ökonomischen verhältnisse sind wie sie wissen sehr drückend so dass ich bedenken habe ob sich eine grosse zahl von teilnehmern finden wird und gerade die berufensten und vielleicht auch die tüchtigsten werden sich aus dem genannten grunde fern halten müssen. es fehlt auch bei uns an gönnern. indessen wollen wir die hoffnung nicht aufgeben, aber geduld und wieder geduld. momentan bin ich mit verschiedenen dringlichen arbeiten ungemein in anspruch genommen, allein ich behalte die sache im auge. es wäre vielleicht am besten wenn deutschland und oesterreich vereinigt würden, also deutsches sprachgebiet, ohne jede politische tendenz. es wäre ferner gut wenn es in dem aufrufe an die freunde der musikwissenschaft hiesse: deutsch, engländer, franzosen und italiener. dies wäre auch aus dem grunde wichtig und vorteilhaft weil dann bei den letztgenannten die kolonien hinzukommen könnten und das wäre eine bereicherung, denn schließlich werden die einzelnen kolonien dieser nationen doch keine separatabteilungen bilden können. auch würde ich meinen dass mit rücksicht auf die ökonomischen verhältnisse zu erwägen wäre ob nicht für amerika sowohl für nord—als auch für südamerika, eine stellung eingeräumt werden könnte, so wie sie für die 4 nationen geschaffen wurde. wollen sie dies mit prof. wagner eingehend beraten” (adler 1928a). 20. secretary wilhelm merian promised board members from germany and austria visas for the first igmw conference in liège, belgium in 1930. at the same time, the organizing committee eased passport regulations for all conference attendees. see merian (1930); “ii. vorstandssitzung” (1929). 21. “kunst und wissenschaft sind an keine nationalen schranken gebunden, bedürfen vielmehr zu ihrer vollen auswirkung der bewegungsfreiheit über die landesgrenzen hinaus.” see “an die freunde” (n.d.). for an example of how board members referred to their advertising as “propaganda,” see merian (1928). the igmw’s treasurer, theodor speiser-riggenbach suggested lowering a patron’s lifetime contribution to 200 chf at the second meeting of the executive in paris in october 1929. see “ii. vorstandssitzung” (1929). 22. see “internationale der musikwissenschaft” (1928); neue preußische kreuzzeitung (n.d.). 23. see “einladung” (1928). 24. the society included members from more countries than were represented on the board. at the meeting on september 4, 1928, peter wagner announced that the society had acquired 182 members in its first year, with “members also in america, africa, and asia.” see “i. vorstandssitzung” (1928). the members are listed in “erstes verzeichnis” (1928). this list includes michel bourla, living in jaffa, palestine as the one “asian” member. charles ribeyre (engineer at the compagnie du canal du suez, egypt) and jules rouanet, living in alger, were the two “africans.” “american” members included albert stanley, charles seeger, o.g. sonneck, robert j. talbot (from québec), ernst krohn, julius gold, mrs. janet rowan hale, john patterson, erich weiler, and carl engel. there were only two members from “middle and south america”: luiz lavanère from jaraguà-algõas, brazil, and emirto de lima from barranquilla, colombia. the lists of members included in the mitteilungen from 1928 to 1930 shows that the number of european members—whether individuals, institutions, musicological societies, or libraries—increased, but the international members did not, with the exception of a few new members from the united states. there were notably 63 tamara levitz large contingents from germany, switzerland, and the czech republic. new members from the united states in 1930 included abraham idelsohn, alexander mackay-smith, dayton c. miller, walter williams, the new york public library, and the library of the school of music at yale university. the only new member from central and south america during these years was andré sas (peru). the membership of the igmw remained this insular well into the 1950s and beyond. see häusler (1977). 25. see “internationale gesellschaft statuten” (1928), item §12. in his letter to merian from february 1928, adler wrote that “even though the office is located in basel and the secretary and treasurer of the society have to be swiss, the state concept of being swiss is not decisive in this, but rather —along with the still fluctuating idea of being neutral—the convenient location of switzerland and specifically basel, which, by the way, is quite far for us austrians” (adler 1928a). (noch möchte ich bemerken dass die nennung der 4 nationen auch für die schweiz vorteilhaft wäre, denn wenngleich der sitz in basel ist und sekretär und schatzmeister daselbst sein müssen so ist dabei der staatsbegriff des schwiezers [sic] nicht ausschlaggebend [sic] sondern neben der noch immer fluktuierenden vorstellung des neutralen, die günstige lage der schweiz rekte [sic] basels. -allerdings für uns oesterreicher ziemlich weit.) 26. on guido adler’s role in the development of musicology as a profession, see stumpf, posch, and rathkolb (2017). 27. a second copy of the statutes in the guido adler papers has the word “länder” changed to “nationen.” adler probably made this change. in the french version of the statutes the word is “nation” from the start. the “beitrittserklärung” (n.d.) uses the word “staaten,” but adler again changed it in the margins to “nationen.” adler wrote merian in february 1928 that he wanted the term “staaten” changed to “nationen,” especially for germany and austria (adler 1928a). these materials are all kept in folder 23:16, adler papers. 28. “wolf teilt mit, dass kamienski etwas pikiert sei, dass polen nicht im vorstand vertreten sei. prof. wolf hat auf nejedly hingewiesen und betont, dass nicht alle staaten im vorstand vertreten sein können. das telegramm von kamienski an die gründungsversammlung war ungeschickt abgefasst; er gibt es zu. kamienski ist wieder versöhnt, hat prof. wolf beauftragt, uns mitzuteilen, dass er eine polnische gesellschaft gegründet habe.” dent responded, “es ist ausgeschlossen, dass die vertreter aller nationen in unseren vorstand gewählt werden. nur persönlichkeiten in unseren vorstand, keine repräsentanten der nationen, sondern der wissenschaft.” see “i. vorstandssitzung” (1928). during the congress in vienna in march 1927, adler had jotted down a list of possible members for an envisioned international society that included “jachim” from poland, by which i assume he meant zdzislaw jachimecki (adler 1927b). in 1928, adolf chybinski was the only polish member of the igmw. alicja simon joined in june 1929. they remained the only two polish members in 1930, which means that kamienski did not join after his correspondence with the board. see the list of members and supplementary lists in the mitteilungen der igmw from october 1928, september 1929, june 1929, and july 1930. 29. my view on the igmw’s relationship to russian musicologists differs dramatically from that of häusler (1977). see “ii. vorstandssitzung” (1929); merian (1930a). adler had suggested boris asafyev and oskar von riesemann as potential russian members in the list of personnel he wrote up in march 1927 (see adler 1927b). but mikhail vladimirovich ivanov-boretzky had remained the only russian member of the igmw until 1929, when boris asafyev, anna chochlowkina, semjon ginsberg, alexander nicolsky, and zenaide ssawelowa joined. see the lists of members and supplementary lists in the mitteilungen der igmw from october 1928, september 1929, june 1929, and july 1930. 64 current musicology 30. on the role the league of nation’s internationalism played in reconfiguring academic disciplines, see ken osborn (2016). 31. “auskunftsstelle für alle fragen gedacht ist, die nur oder am besten auf internationaler basis gelöst werden können. dieses bureau steht allen mitgliedern für auskünfte, anregungen, und nachforschung zur verfügung. seine hauptziele sind vorerst vornehmlich die folgenden: herstellung der verbindungen zwischen den musikforschern der verschiedenen länder; vermittlung von anfragen und auskünften; beschaffung oder vermittlung von wissenschaftlichen hilfsmitteln wie handschriften, kopien, photographien; nachweis über themen, die in den verschieden ländern in bearbeitung sind; errichtung einer bibliographischen zentralstelle.” see “beitrittserklärung” (n.d.). the society’s secretary was assigned to run the bureau, but most likely miss j. schaefer did. (see “iii. vorstandsitzung” 1930.) miss schaefer also took the minutes for the board’s meetings in the early years. 32. at the first meeting of the igmw executive, dent told his colleagues that he thought the international committee on intellectual cooperation of the league of nations could help them in determining the legal status of their society. that organization was planning to create a law to prevent such societies from being dissolved in war time. dent noted that whereas the img had been dissolved in world war i, the english one (the royal music society) had not been, and that this was important. see “i. vorstandssitzung” (1928). 33. in his notes from march 1927, adler had commented that “governments will be approached and asked for funding for the confederation” (adler 1927a). 34. the igmw struggled financially throughout the 1930s. in 1936, for example, edward dent wrote adler about the suggestion they approach robert mayer as a potential patron to “save” the igmw (dent 1936). 35. for a brief history of this bank, see https://www.gutzwiller.ch/assets/content/ gutzwiller(all-gb).pdf 36. guido adler (1928c) had requested funds from the bundesministerium für unterricht in vienna in a letter dated december 11, 1928. they gave the igmw 200 schillings in august 1930 (merian 1930). 37. adler announced these plans as early as 1927 in the flyer “commemoration of the 100th anniversary of beethoven: a congress of music history” (adler 1927c). see also guido adler’s different french version of this announcement in the same folder. he explained the new journal in detail in his “promemoria” to wilhelm merian (adler 1928b). 38. see the statutes, §18. in his initial notes on the igmw from march 1927, adler had remarked that the journal’s languages could be “freely chosen by the authors” (adler 1927b). but in his promemoria from october 1928, he wrote merian that he wanted the journal to be in the five languages listed here (although he suggested latin as tentative) (adler 1928b). a year later, johannes wolf suggested adding spanish, bringing the list of languages for the journal up to six (wolf 1929). it is indicative of european linguistic hierarchies that the board did not at this time include spanish or czech among the igmw’s official languages, even though a significant contingent of spanish and czech members joined the society after 1930. latin was removed and spanish added as an official language of the ims only decades later. on the current language politics of the journal, see celestini and bohlman (2011). 39. minutes of meetings were also in german, and i assume the meetings were conducted in that language. 40. dent (1934). this letter and other materials relating to acta musicologica are kept in folder 23:19, guido adler papers. 65 tamara levitz 41. nancy yunhwa rao (1997, 376n10) provides this information based on a surviving memorandum of the meeting in the joseph schillinger collection, nypl. she notes that the name of the society was still up for grabs at the first meeting. in the bulletin from 1931, seeger listed only himself, cowell, kinkeldey, schillinger, and yasser as present at the meeting (nyms 1931). 42. roberts expressed her dismay about how walton had been treated in a letter to gustave reese, september 26, 1946 (roberts 1946a). she requested walton be given a lifetime membership. in a second letter to reese from november 28, 1946, roberts regretted that reese had passed on her request to charles seeger, who rejected it, as she expected he would. “it happens that mr. seeger is one of the worse offenders in the way i mentioned. however, the damage is done” (roberts 1946b).the online descriptions of materials in the collection in which they are found do not always match labels on individual items in the archive. for this reason, in the references section i have indicated simply the box in which materials can be found and the label on the box if it is clear. 43. sarat lahiri taught henry cowell hindustani classical music and performed in his new school series. see also, from these years, lahiri and sargeant (1931). 44. members included: joseph achron, yuri bilstein, mikhail bukinik, vladimir drozdoff, eugene fuerst, alexander gretchaninov, alexander koshetz, nina koshetz, vassily kibaltchitch, nikolai medtner, leonard mestechkin, eugene plotnikoff, benjamin levine, nicholas slonimsky, lazare saminsky, joseph schillinger, konstantin shvedov, alexander siloti, nicholas stember, léon theremin, sergei tarnowsky, sergei touchnoff, jacob weinberg, joseph yasser, and moïse zlatin. seeger noted in the first bulletin that joseph yasser, alexander gretchaninov, nicholas slonimsky, joseph schillinger, and solomon rosowsky had already given papers in joint encounters with the nyms (nyms 1931). materials on the “russian group of musicologists of new york city” are kept in folder 31, box 6, yasser collection. 45. on gerald f. warburg, see “gerald f. warburg” (n.d.). see also kirby (1934). 46. see nyms (1931). mary ellen bute may have served as secretary for the new york society for a time. a note at the end of the second bulletin indicates that copies of bulletins nos. 1 and 2 could be obtained from “miss. m.e. bute, 2 west 67th street, apartment 10f, new york city (telephone e.ndicott 2-2395).” 47. this was announced in nyms (1932). 48. see, for example, the materials in folder 15, box 4, yasser collection. 49. william j. mitchell (1965) later joked about spivacke’s role, highlighting, perhaps, how unusual it was: “who was this dr. harold spivacke? observe that in 1934 he was appointed assistant chief of the music division of the library of congress. was he charged by his superiors in washington with the execution of a secret, callous operation? was it his assignment to wrest from new york city its own society and federalize it? was this bureaucracy on the move? who was his superior?” 50. i explore this history in much more detail in an article in preparation, “the white supremacist foundations of the american musicological society.” 51. i have been able to find the minutes of only one meeting of the ascm, on april 4, 1936. copies of these minutes are kept in the archives of joseph yasser, helen heffron roberts, and harold spivacke. helen heffron roberts presided over this meeting. the following members attended: helen heffron roberts, harold spivacke, joseph yasser, irma g. labastille, marion bauer, f.c. lathrop, christo vironides, and m.h. haas. 66 current musicology 52. see “american society” (n.d.). the society issued at least one recording of “navaho indian music” as a way of recruiting members. it was sent to all members who paid their dues (see roberts 1934b). 53. the box in which these minutes are found is now kept in the archive as a single microfilm, labeled, on its first page: “minutes of the american musicological society.” 54. roberts had sent a memo to reese, which he had included in the agenda he sent members before this meeting. see gustave reese’s (1934a). 55. see “american musicological society: by-laws to the constitution” (n.d.), with a typed note “adopted december 1, 1934,” and yearly ballots kept in box 27, amsr. in the second draft of the ams constitution from summer/fall 1934, one member commented that, “the remarks that vice-presidents shall be chosen from different branches is well made but it is, as it stand [sic], very dangerous. the next generation of musicologists will probably be more like curt sachs than like [arnold] schering or [john william strutt] rayleigh. however, this can easily be remedied by leaving some kind of a loophole to the nominating committee—something about the availability of suitable men, perhaps.” see “american musicological society: constitution (2nd draft),” no date but c. summer/fall 1934, folder 16, box 5, spivacke collection. 56. charles seeger later confirmed his inadvertent role in enabling the historical musicologists to take over the ams. in a letter to oliver strunk from january 23, 1960, seeger recalled: i “made a plea for formal statement of dual interest [historical and comparative musicology] and tried unsuccessfully to incorporate it in the constitution [of the ams], of whose drafting committee i was secretary. i reminded the other members, kinkeldey and spivacke, of my fears in the drafting of the first, historical orientations would swamp both the comparative musicological and systematic interests. but i had to agree with them that constitutional concern with the matter would be inept. the old society for comparative musicology had to die because there were not enough serious students interested in its aims” (seeger 1960a). in the same letter, seeger reveals how he later drafted a constitution for the society for ethnomusicology (in 1955) and “patterned it as closely as the small membership allowed, upon that of the ams, with eventual merging of the two societies not only hoped for but expected.” seeger repeats the story of how he drafted the constitution of the sem to match that of the ams in a letter to dragan plamenac, march 30, 1960 (seeger 1960b). i wonder about how seeger’s constant maneuvering behind the scenes affected the discipline at large, given the enormous role he played in the ams, ascm, committee on musicology of the acls, and pan american society. 57. see roberts (1937). this letter is followed in the archive by two official, undated letters to all members of the society about the plans to transfer the activities of the german section to the united states and create an international society. at this time charles seeger was president, henry cowell and harold spivacke vice-presidents, f.c. lathrop corresponding secretary, and george herzog secretary. the council consisted of laura boulton, edwin g. burrows, arnold bake, eleanor hague, philips barry, ananda coomaraswamy, and derrick n. lehmer. roberts’ correspondence with lachmann gives detailed information about how all these developments unfolded. these letters are kept in group no. 1410, series no. 1, box no. 3, folder 89, roberts papers. 58. roberts wrote elma loines on april 9, 1936: “for the past three years, the society has been run largely by two or three individuals because most of the membership is so scattered and so few people were willing to take responsibility. i felt, however, that the interest would be much keener if a number of people had an active part in it. moreover, i have been saddled with most of the work and it has gotten to a place where i simply cannot carry it all, so i have 67 tamara levitz insisted on a full slate of officers being elected and a council who could, if necessary, hold to account one or two of our officers, who, while able, are most dilatory and even irresponsible in business matters” (roberts 1936). see also roberts (1934b), in which she describes how she has taken on secretarial duties for the ascm even though she was not elected secretary. 59. roberts lost her job at yale when funding was cut at the end of the winter semester 1936. see roberts to elma loines, april 9, 1936. in a letter to seeger from february 5, 1937, she writes about the rather desperate state of the ascm (roberts 1937). 60. see also the agenda for this meeting (reese 1934b), created by reese and dated june 16, 1934. 61. a collection of yearly proceedings is online at: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/record/000046672. in order to get a sense of how musicologists distinguished themselves in the mtna in these years, it is helpful to read the annual presidential addresses. see, for example, smith (1938). 62. reese (1936b) wrote dickinson on august 20, 1936 that 2/3 of the board had sanctioned the plan for a joint meeting. 63. ams members received a photostat program that included only the musicology sessions at the mtna conference. this program is included in folder 2280, box 78, amsr. 64. i explore the racial and gendered consequences of these ruptures in greater depth in my article in preparation, “the white supremacist foundations of the american musicological society.” 65. in february 1935, leland asked kinkeldey if he would replace the music critic richard aldrich on the committee, and then succeed carl engel as chair. leland had been corresponding with and visiting kinkeldey since 1929, when he had first asked him to join the committee on musicology; kinkeldey had also served in these years as an evaluator for fellowship and grant applications. although kinkeldey had been hesitant, this time he said yes. in a way he and engel traded places: in 1937, engel became president of the ams, a year after kinkeldey took his place as chair of the committee on musicology. see engel (1932); kinkeldey (1934); leland (1934); leland (1935a); kinkeldey (1935a); leland (1935b). 66. on the work of the international committee on intellectual cooperation and the commission internationale des arts populaires, see bjarne rogan (2006). 67. for a brief overview of the committee on musicology’s activities in this period see daugherty (1938, 5–7). 68. goodchild noted that oliver strunk had helped him compile section c of this list, on “concrete” suggestions. 69. the committee was referring here to progress of medieval (and renaissance) studies in the united states and canada, published from 1922–1960. 70. goodchild and kinkeldey subsequently corresponded about whether to send out these two articles to university administrators. goodchild noted that he liked the mtna one, but he felt sending such articles to university administrators was a delicate undertaking. kinkeldey did not want to push the issue, and it is unclear whether the articles were ultimately sent. see kinkeldey (1935b); goodchild (1935c); kinkeldey (1935c). 71. kinkeldey (1936b) talked about these summer fellowships for graduate students as the primary achievement of the committee on musicology in his first year as chair in a letter to leland, november 21, 1936. extensive materials relating to students’ applications and nominations for these summer fellowships are kept in folder 6-26, box 6, kinkeldey papers. for a list of recipients of grants, etc., see daugherty (1938, 5–7). 68 current musicology 72. goodchild wrote in the same letter that the “big job” was to get scholars to “consider themselves collaborators with us rather than advocates of their students.” 73. goodchild and kinkeldey seemed to get along very well. 74. materials pertaining to this survey, including sample questionnaires, responses, and bios, are included in folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. goodchild stressed how important this work was to the “developmental program” of the committee on musicology. see goodchild (1940). 75. see daugherty (1938b). in his letter, daugherty mentions that he has sent the questionnaire to almost all members of the ams, some teachers, and individuals recommended by the committee. 76. on this publication and the questionnaire, see goodchild (1938b); daugherty (1938a, 1938c, 1938d, 1938e, 1938f). 77. george s. dickinson, glen haydon, otto kinkeldey, hugo leichtentritt, oliver strunk, and gustave reese were present (“minutes” 1936). 78. carl seashore (1937), an emeritus professor at the university of iowa, lamented to gustave reese in a letter from october 9, 1937 that musicology had still not had the time to define its “field.” he was of two minds about how this should happen. “it must be a natural evolution and the survival of the fittest,” he wrote on the one hand. “perhaps, on the other hand,” he added, reconsidering, “the great diversity of interests may lend a charm to the undertaking.” 79. see article iv of “american musicological society: by-laws to the constitution” (n.d.). 80. see “proposed amendments” (2017). 81. see, for example, “dean to speak” (1939). 82. see golden (2004); willoughby-herard (2015); carnegie commission (1932); magubane (2008). i explore these connections in more depth in my article in preparation, “the white supremacist foundations of the american musicological society.” 83. albert sydney raubenheimer’s dissertation was published as raubenheimer (1925). 84. alderman (n.d.) writes that raubenheimer regularly attended concerts of the los angeles philharmonic and strongly supported the music department during his time as dean. 85. dorothy lawton was one of the first women to become a member in 1935. isabel pope and olga samaroff stokowsky were other early members. marion brauer, mary martha briney, anabel morris buchanan, barbara duncan, ruth hanna, miriam johnson, hertha schweiger, and edith woodruff gave papers in the society before 1939. i explore this topic in greater depth in my article in preparation, “the white supremacist foundations of the american musicological society.” see american musicological society (1984); grassl and szabó-knotik (1999). 86. see ballot (1939). that year, ruth hannas was nominated to be a member-at-large. roberts had been nominated for vice president in 1936, running against carleton sprague smith, and also as a member-at-large in 1937. see the ballots dated december 16, 1936 and october 27, 1937, box 27, amsr. 87. “ich sehe mich wegen inkompetenz leider nicht in der lage, die freundliche einladung zu acceptieren.” albert einstein, quoted in german in alfred einstein’s (1940) letter to reese, august 7, 1940. warren t. allen (1940) had suggested inviting einstein in a letter from july 17, 1940. see also reese’s (1940) response to allen, july 31, 1940. 88. see, for example, pham and shilliam (2016); raza, roy, and zacharia (2015); and shilliam (2015). 69 tamara levitz 89. this became article ii of the first constitution of the ams from 1934. in the first draft of this constitution from june 26, 1934, however, the mission statement, listed as “ii. objects,” had read: “the objects of the association shall be to promote intercourse among those who are cultivating musicology in different parts of america, to co-operate with other learned and artists societies and institutions, to give a stronger and more general impulse and more systematic direction to critical and scientific research, and to procure for the labors of musicological scholars increased facilities and a wider usefulness.” see “american musicological association: constitution (draft),” included in reese (1934c). a second draft of this constitution, completed at a second meeting, provides the original on the left-hand, and alternate suggestions from the constitution committee on the right-hand side of the page. here, the members suggested that the object of the association could be: “1. to promote in the u.s.a. the cultivation and appreciation of musicology as a branch of learning; 2. to facilitate and stimulate the relations between individuals interested in musicology; 3. to further the cooperation of the association with other learned bodies in america and abroad; x. the objects of the association are the study of the history of music, musical aesthetics, and musical theory.; x. a clause modelled [sic] after: ‘the object of the association shall be the advancement of research in modern languages and their literatures.’ (from the constitution of the modern language association).” see “american musicological society: constitution (2nd draft),” no date but c. summer/fall 1934, kept in folder 16, box 5, spivacke collection. article ii of the current bylaws reads: “the object of the society shall be the advancement of scholarship in the various fields of music through research, learning, and teaching. the society shall be operated as a nonprofit corporation exclusively for this object.” see the ams “by-laws” (ams 2017). 90. see also fitzsimmons (2009). harvard is currently involved in a law suit concerning alleged discrimination against asian american candidates for admission. for an update with links, see franklin and zwickel (2018). 91. soares cites several authors who represent this view, but directs his critique at nicholas lemann’s (1999) the big test. see soares’s bibliography in footnote 22, page 204. 92. today, 67% of harvard’s students come from the top 20%; 4.5% from the bottom 20%. see “economic diversity” (2017). see also bolotnikova (2017). these studies indicate, however, that there has been long-term progress, and that the situation has improved from what it was decades ago. 93. harvard hires less adjuncts than other universities in the united states. see college factual (n.d.); aspellund and bernhard (2015). labor conditions at harvard are reflected in the bitter debate over the unionization of teaching and research assistants (see hgsu-uaw, n.d.; office of the provost, n.d.; avi-yonah and mccafferty 2018). 94. nair quotes steven salaita as arguing that “the preservation of academic freedom as a rights-based structure, in other words, shouldn’t be the focus of our work. we should focus on the development and maintenance of just labor conditions and the disengagement of our institutions from the exercise of state violence.” nair’s larger argument is that radicalism is “not a matter of gesture, of experimental tweeting or ad hominem editorializing.” and it is not about defending free speech. rather, it “requires speaking from and recognizing context,” i.e., the material conditions of the university as revealed in acute problems of access and economic inequality. 95. see jacques rancière (1987). on critical positionalities, see dylan robinson (forthcoming). 96. nyms (1931, 1932, 1933-34). 97. “minutes” (1930–1932). 70 current musicology published references ams (american musicological society). 1984. “the american musicological society: 1934–1984.” philadelphia: the american musicological society. http://www.ams-net. org/resources/anniversary_essay.pdf. ams (american musicological society). 2017. “by-laws.” american musicological society website. http://www.ams-net.org/bylaws.php. aspellund, karl m., and meg p. bernhard. 2015. “in flux: non-ladder life at harvard,” the harvard crimson, may 28, 2015. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/5/28/ in-flux. avi-yonah, hera s., and molly c. mccafferty. 2018. “harvard will bargain with grad union” the harvard crimson, may 2, 2018. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/5/2/univ-will-bargain. balmer, yves, and hervé lacombe, eds. 2017. “un siècle de musicologie en france: histoire intellectuelle de la revue de musicologie, vol. 1.” special issue, revue de musicologie 103 (2). baumann, dorothea, and dinko fabris, eds. 2017. the history of the ims (1927–2017). basel: bärenreiter. “beethoven-zentenarfeier, festbericht [sic] vorgelegt vom executiv-komitee [sic] der feier.—id. internationaler musikhistorischer kongress, vienne, 1927, universaledition.” 1928. revue de musicologie 9, no. 25 (february): 44. bolotnikova, marina n. 2017. “harvard’s economic diversity problem.” harvard magazine, january 19, 2017. https://harvardmagazine.com/2017/01/low-income-studentsharvard brigham, carl. 1923. a study of american intelligence. princeton: 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daugherty included this typed, mimeographed document in daugherty (1938c). 101. this list is kept in folder 16, box 5, spivacke collection. 102. on these documents, regular text indicates the original typed application form, italics indicates typed recommendations from sponsors, and text in bold indicates the sponsors’ signatures in pen. a high-resolution scan of adorno’s full application is available in the online supplement to this article at http://bit.ly/2cib4ej. this application is kept in box 35, amsr. i am grateful to robert judd, executive director of the ams, for permission to reproduce it. 71 tamara levitz of comparative musicology.” in comparative musicology and the anthropology of music, edited by bruno nettl and philip bohlman, 201–9. chicago: university of chicago press. clavin, patricia, and jens-wilhelm wessels. 2005. “transnationalism and the league of nations: understanding the work of its economic and financial organisation.” contemporary european history 14 (4): 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origins of the american archival profession. chicago: society of american archivists. yasser, joseph. 1932. a theory of evolving tonality. new york: american library of musicology. 75 tamara levitz archival references “i. vorstandssitzung der internationalen gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft, 4 september 1928, vormittags 10 uhr, in der musikbibliothek paul hirsch, frankfurt a. main, neue mainzerstrasse 57.” 1928. folder 23:17, adler papers. “ii. vorstandssitzung der internationalen gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft, dienstag und mittwoch, 1. und 2. oktober 1929, im sitzungszimmer der revue musicale, paris, boulevard montparnasse 132–36.” 1929. folder 23:17, adler papers. “iii. vorstandsitzung der internationalen gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft, samstag, den 30. august 1930, nachmittags 3 ¼ uhr, im saal 1 des konservatoriums in lüttich.” 1930. folder 23:18, adler papers. adler, guido. 1927a. scribbled notes on the back of a flyer for the “congress for [the] history of music, vienna, march 26th–31th [sic] 1927,” folder 23:17, adler papers. . 1927b. “personalien.” folder 23:16, adler papers. . 1927c.“commemoration of the 100th anniversary of beethoven: a congress of music history.” flyer. folder 23:16, adler papers. . 1928a. guido adler to wilhelm merian, february 1928. folder 23:17, adler papers. . 1928b. “promemoria” to wilhelm merian, october 1928. folder 23:17, adler papers. . 1928c. letter to the bundesministerium für unterricht in vienna, december 11, 1928. folder 23:16, adler papers. adorno, theodore wiesengrund. n.d. application to become a member of the american musicological society. box 35, amsr. alderman, pauline. n.d. “chapter 12: a year of change 1937–38,” from “we built a school of music,” manuscript monograph, box 39, folder 13, alderman papers. allen, warren d. 1939a. letter to gustave reese, may 16, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. . 1939b. letter to carl engel, 29 july 1939. folder “board correspondence may– june 1939,” box 15, amsr. . 1940. letter to gustave reese, july 17, 1940. folder “annual meeting 1940, cleveland,” box 79, amsr. “american council of learned societies, committee on musicology, minutes of the meeting of june 15, 1935.” 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. donald goodchild took the minutes at this meeting. “american council of learned societies, committee on musicology, minutes of the meeting of june 24, 1937.” 1937. folder 6-27, box 6, kinkeldey papers. “american musicological society: constitution.” 1934. box 27, amsr. somebody has typed at the top of this document “adopted december 1, 1934.” “american musicological society: by-laws to the constitution.” n.d. box 27, amsr. with a typed note “adopted december 1, 1934.” “american musicological society: by-laws to the constitution [“as amended on december 27, 1937”].” 1937. box 27, amsr. “american society for comparative musicology: constitution and by-laws” n.d. box 6, folder 31, “musicological societies; minutes of the russian group of musicologists, message of romain rolland, 1930–1949,” joseph yasser collection. “an die freunde der musikwissenschaft: beitrittserklärung.” n.d. folder 23:16, adler papers. armstrong, edward c. 1929. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 26, 1929. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. ballot. 1939. “ballot dated august 29, 1939 to be voted upon at the annual meeting in the 76 current musicology beethoven association club rooms, 30 west 54th street, new york, ny, 11 september.” box 27, amsr. “beitrittserklärung ‘an die freunde der musikwissenschaft’.” n.d. folder 23:16, adler papers. “committee on musicology: minutes of the meeting of april 16, 1938.” 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. coopersmith, james m. 1939. handwritten letter to dickinson, june 21, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. daugherty, d. h. 1938a. letter to kinkeldey, february 14, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938b. “institutions of which one or more members of the faculty have been invited to contribute to the report on musicology. (feb.26, 1938). [* indicates some answer has been received notes in brackets refer to answers received not to letters sent].” included in his letter to members of the committee on musicology, february 28, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers . 1938c. letter to members of the committee on musicology, february 28, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938d. letter to otto kinkeldey, june 27, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938e. letter to the members of the committee on musicology, july 16, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938f. letter to otto kinkeldey, august 18, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1940. memo “to the members of the committee on musicology,” december 7, 1940. folder 6-32, box 6, kinkeldey papers. davidson, archibald t. letter to otto kinkeldey, may 11, 1938. folder 1-12, kinkeldey papers. dent, edward. 1934. letter to guido adler, january 23, 1934. folder 23:19, adler papers. . 1936. letter to guido adler, march 17, 1936. folder 23:19, adler papers. dickinson, george s. 1936. letter to gustave reese, august 13, 1936. folder 2280, amsr. . 1939a. letter to reese, june 1, 1939, folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr . 1939b. letter to gustave reese, september 29, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15. amsr. “einladung zu einer sitzung des direktoriums der internationalen gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft auf dienstag, den 4. und mittwoch, den 5. september 1928 in frankfurt im antiquariat paul hirsch, neue mainzerstrasse 57.” 1928. june 12, 1928. folder 23:16, adler papers. einstein, alfred. 1940. letter to gustave reese, august 7, 1940. folder “annual meeting 1940, cleveland,” box 79, amsr. engel, carl. 1932. letter to otto kinkeldey, january 12, 1932. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1939. letter to warren d. allen, 16 june 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. goodchild, donald. 1935a. letter to the members of the committee on musicology, june 12, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1935b. “american council of learned societies, committee on musicology, june 15, 1935, suggested topics for discussion.” included in his letter to the members of the committee on musicology, june 12, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. 77 tamara levitz goodchild, donald. 1935c. letter to otto kinkeldey, august 21, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1936a. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 19, 1936. folder 6-26, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1936b. letter to the committee on musicology, april 29, 1936. folder 6-26, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1936c. letter to the otto kinkeldey, june 3, 1936. folder 6-26, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938a. letter to otto kinkeldey, january 24, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938b. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 2, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938c. statement “to the members of the committee on musicology” included in the letter to otto kinkeldey from february 2, 1938 and with the note in pencil, “[encl. 2.2.38.].” folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938d. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 3, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. hanson, howard. 1939. letter to gustave reese, may 8, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. international committee on intellectual co-operation. 1935. “report of the committeee on the work of its seventeenth plenary session.” august 8, 1935. https://biblio-archive. unog.ch/dateien/councilmsd/c-290-m-154-1935-xii_en.pdf. “internationale der musikwissenschaft: frankfurt erster tagungsort.” 1928. stadt-blatt der frankfurter zeitung, september 5, 1928. folder 23:16, adler papers. “internationale gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft, statuten.” 1928. original copy kept in folder 23:17, guido adler papers. also published in german and french in the mitteilungen der internationalen gesellschaft für musikwissenschaft/bulletin de la société internationale de musicologie 1, no. 1 (october 1928): 2–4; 7–9. kinkeldey, otto. 1929a. letter to waldo g. leland, february 14, 1929. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1929b. letter to waldo g. leland, february 16, 1929. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1934. letter to waldo g. leland, december 7, 1934. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1935a. letter to waldo g. leland, february 12, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1935b. letter to donald goodchild, august 3, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1935c. letter to donald goodchild, august 25, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1936. letter to waldo g. leland, november 21, 1936. folder 6-26, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938a. letter to dr. harry m. lydenberg, april 19, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938b. letter to donald goodchild, february 3, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938c. letter to waldo g. leland, april 25, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. lang, paul h. 1969. letter to william s. newman, may 11, 1969. box 5, amsr. leland, waldo g. 1929a. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 9, 1929. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. 78 current musicology leland, waldo g. 1929b. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 14, 1929. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1929c. letter to kinkeldey, february 15, 1929. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1934. letter to otto kinkeldey, december 10, 1934. folder 6-24, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1935a. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 9, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1935b. letter to otto kinkeldey, february 15, 1935. folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1935c. “memorandum to the members of the council and advisory board, the secretaries of constituent societies, and the chairmen of committees,” december 17, 1935, folder 6-25, box 6, kinkeldey papers. . 1938. letter to otto kinkeldey, april 19, 1938. folder 6-28, box 6, kinkeldey papers. merian, wilhelm. 1928. letter to guido adler, january 21, 1928. folder 23:16, adler papers . 1930. letter to guido adler, august 20, 1930. folder 23:17, adler papers. “minutes of the meetings held by the russian group of musicologists in new york city, 1930-1932.” 1930-1932. in folder 31, box 6, yasser collection. “minutes of the organization meeting of the american musicological association held sunday, june 3, 1934 at 25 washington square north, new york, ny, preceded by a meeting of the new york musicological society held for the dissolving of the latter.” 1934a. minutes taken by gustave reese, secretary. box 27 (microfilm), amsr. “minutes of the meeting of the organizing committee of the american musicological association held on thursday, june 21, 1934, at 3 east 43rd street, new york, ny.” 1934b. minutes taken by gustave reese, secretary. box 27, amsr. “minutes of the meeting of the organizing committee of the american musicological society, held saturday, september 15, 1934, at 3 east 43rd street, new york, n.y.” 1934c. minutes taken by gustave reese, secretary. box 27, amsr. “minutes of the general meeting of the american musicological society held saturday, december 1, 1934, at the club-house of the beethoven association, 30 west 56th street, new york, n.y.” 1934d. box 27, amsr. “minutes of the meeting of the executive board of the american musicological society, held tuesday, december 29, 1936, at the palmer house, chicago, illinois.” 1936. box 27, amsr. “minutes of the annual meeting of the american musicological society, held wednesday, december 29, 1937, at the william penn hotel, pittsburgh, pennsylvania, the third session having been held jointly with the music teachers national association.” 1937. minutes by paul henry lang. amsr. “minutes of the annual meeting (being a business meeting) of the american musicological society, held tuesday, december 29, 1942, at schirmer hall, 3 east 43rd street, new york, n.y.” 1942. box 27, amsr. mitchell, william j. 1965. “introduction: a hitherto unknown—or—a recently discovered. . . (remarks delivered on december 10, 1965, at the harvard club on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the greater new york chapter of the american musicological society.).” 1965. folder 47, box 8, yasser collection. moore, earl v. 1937. letter to carl engel, november 1, 1937. folder 2281, box 78, amsr. neue preußische kreuzzeitung. n.d. untitled notice. folder 23:16, adler papers. “official program of the meetings of the music teacher national association, national 79 tamara levitz association of schools of music, american musicological society, and phi mu alpha (sinfonia) fraternity, palmer house, chicago, illinois.” 1936. folder 2280, box 78, amsr. “official program of the meetings of the music teacher national association, national association of music schools, and american musicological society, william penn hotel, pittsburgh, pennsylvania, december 27, 28, 29, 30 and 31, 1937.” 1937. folder 2281, box 78, amsr. prunières, henry. 1928. letter to guido adler, march 21, 1928. folder 23:17, adler papers. reese, gustave. 1934a. memo to the organizing committee of the american musicological society, september 8, 1934. box 27, amsr. . 1934b. meeting agenda, organization committee of the ams, june 21, 1934. folder 16, box 5, spivacke collection. . 1934c. letter to harold spivacke, july 3, 1934. folder 16, box 5, spivacke collection. . 1936a. letter from the “secretary of ams” [gustave reese] to otto ortmann, july 27, 1936. folder 2280, box 78, amsr. . 1936b. letter to george s. dickinson. folder 2280, box 78, amsr. . 1938. “report of the secretary (december 30, 1938).” box 27, amsr. . 1939a. letter to dayton c. miller, june 16, 1939. in “board correspondence may– june 1939,” box 15, amsr. . 1939b. “report of the secretary (september 11, 1939).” box 27, amsr. . 1939c. letter to george s. dickinson, may 15, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. . 1939d. letter to howard hanson, june 8, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. . 1939e. letter to george s. dickinson, june 8, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. . 1940. letter to william t. allen, july 31, 1940. folder “annual meeting 1940, cleveland,” box 79, amsr. roberts, helen h. 1934a. letter to gustave reese, november 1, 1934. box 7, amsr. . 1934b. letter to robert lachmann, march 24, 1934. group no. 1410, series 1, box 3, folder 89, roberts papers. . 1934c. letter to robert lachmann, december 5, 1934. group 1410, series 1, box 3, folder 89, roberts papers. . 1936. letter to elma loines, april 9, 1936. group 1410, series 1, box 1, folder 3, roberts papers. . 1937. letter to charles seeger, february 5, 1937. group 1410, series 1, box 1, folder 11, roberts papers. . 1946a. letter to gustave reese. september 26, 1946. box 7, amsr. . 1946b. letter to gustave reese. november 28, 1946. box 7, amsr. seashore, carl. 1937. letter to gustave reese, october 9, 1937. box 8, amsr. seeger, charles. 1960a. letter to oliver strunk, january 23, 1960. box 8, amsr. . 1960b. letter to dragan plamenac, march 30, 1960. box 8, amsr. smith, carleton sprague. 1939. letter to james m. coopersmith, august 22, 1939. folder “board correspondence may–june 1939,” box 15, amsr. wolf, johannes. 1929. untitled, typed notes on the journal of the igmw. november 24, 1929. folder 23:17, adler papers. 80 current musicology archives referenced guido adler papers, hargrett rare book & manuscript library, university of georgia, athens, georgia (cited as adler papers). pauline alderman papers 1930s–1980s, undated, usc thornton school of music records, usc libraries special collections, doheny memorial library, university of southern california, los angeles (cited as alderman papers). american musicological society records, ms. coll. 221, rare book & manuscript library, university of pennsylvania (cited as amsr). otto kinkeldey papers, #14-20-1000, division of rare and manuscript collections, cornell university library, https://rare.library.cornell.edu/services/reproductions (cited as kinkeldey papers). helen heffron roberts papers, yale university (cited as roberts papers). harold spivacke collection, music division, library of congress, washington, dc, http:// hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu011011 (cited as spivacke collection). joseph yasser collection, jewish theological seminary, new york city (cited as yasser collection).